Opening of the Foreign Mission Seminary
By Frederick Griggs
THE fourth annual opening of the Washington Training College, now known as the Washington Foreign Mission Seminary, was held in the dining hall at the College, Wednesday, September 25, at nine o'clock. The Seminary opens with an attendance of from sixty to seventy-five students, and more are expected in a short time. Representatives of the different branches of our work and resident friends interested in the work of the institution were present. In view of the fact that the exercises were of a nature which clearly revealed the purpose of the school, and also that our people everywhere are deeply interested in the new line of work to which it has been dedicated, we thought they might be interested in a brief report of the opening exercises. After a few remarks by the president, H. R. Salisbury, in which he spoke of his courage in the work and his pleasure in having present so many representative brethren, Elder A. G. Daniells addressed the students and visitors, in part as follows:— “There are some movements that we enter upon which we feel quite sure about by our reasoning from cause to effect. There are other enterprises that we know positively and absolutely are right, and there is no question or uncertainty about them. This Foreign Mission Seminary is such an enterprise. The suggestion to establish this school did not come from man, but the messages from the spirit of prophecy clearly indicate beyond all doubt or uncertainty that such a school as this is to be conducted here at the headquarters of our work. The call for fifty missionaries at the meeting of the General Conference Committee in Gland, Switzerland, brought great perplexity upon the brethren. While discussing this matter, light came into the council, and a suggestion was made that the Washington Training College be turned into an institution for the special training of volunteers for the mission field. Since then, we have worked to this end, and we are here this morning to open this Seminary. This plan has met with the most hearty approval of our people everywhere. Some have shown their approval by their willingness to support some students who may be unable to pay their way through the school. It should never be forgotten that the one great purpose of this school is to train workers for the foreign fields. In the beginning of our foreign mission work our missionaries went to lands with whose languages they were already familiar, but now these fields are self-supporting and self-directing, and are raising up workers for the different demands that are made upon them; and we are obliged to send representatives to the fields where difficult languages have to be learned, and where our missionaries have to adapt themselves to the hard, unusual customs and environments. We thank God that our cause has so progressed and developed that it has reached this point, and also that we have this school as a place of special preparation for this line of work.” Professor Salisbury next called upon Elder W. A. Spicer, who spoke in part as follows: “Not only are our people in this land deeply interested in the work of this school, but we are beginning to receive word from the foreign fields; from India, from the Levant, from Japan, and from a dozen lands in which the workers, a little band, are waiting for reinforcements. From these lands comes the word that they thank God for the establishment of the Foreign Mission Seminary to do a distinctive work in passing on workers to these lands. It is not so much the technical things that will be learned in the Seminary as the spirit that shall take possession of the hearts of those who are here. It must be settled once for all that we are in this work to see the finish of it. Out in the needy fields our comrades and workers are waiting, holding the forts until help comes. In this Seminary we see the signal that is to be given to the ends of the earth29that help is coming. I like the words of Cohen, the apostle to the Hawaiian Islands. In his prayer he said: ‘Lord, send me where thou wilt, only go with me; lay upon me what thou wilt, only sustain me; cut any cord but the one that binds me to thy cause and to thy heart.’ That is a good motto for us in this school.” PROF. F. GRIGGS: “This is one of the most inspiring moments of my connection with our educational work. God has in all times given great importance to the cause of education in carrying forward his work in the earth. Among the very first instructions given to this people through the spirit of prophecy were those concerning the education of the children. Up to the time of the General Conference held at Minneapolis in 1888, we had established three schools. At that time the Spirit of God was poured out upon his people in large measure. This is clearly stated by the spirit of prophecy. With the outpouring of this Spirit there came very great activity all over this country and in other countries in the establishment of schools. This was followed by the strong church-school movement, and now we seem to have entered upon another definite line of advancement in our work; namely, the preparation here in the home land for workers in the most distant and remote portions of the world. In education comes the strong movement of our young people as witnessed by the young people’s convention recently held at Mount Vernon, and by our overfilled schools. We can see in all this the leading of God, and we can see the finishing of the work given to this people.” ELDER I. H. EVANS: “At the ecumenical council held in New York City eight years ago, there were reported eighty-nine schools in Europe and America whose object was the preparation of missionaries for the foreign mission work. Twenty million dollars a year is contributed by the people of other denominations for the support of missionaries. There are forty thousand persons engaged in teaching the life that will save from ruin and sin. In the twenty-four thousand schools established out in heathen countries are 1,350,000 children in attendance week by week. In these schools they are taught to read the Bible and learn the way of God. So we can see that we are only a little speck, as it were, in the great mission movement, but God is using all these other agencies as a means of preparing all peoples for the reception of this message.” From the remarks of Elder G. A. Irwin we take the following: “Nothing has occurred in this denomination since I have been connected with it that has given me more pleasure and encouragement than the action taken at Gland to revamp this school and put it on its present basis. The founders of this great advent movement did not realize the great work that is to be done in carrying it forward. This school has a place in this movement different from that occupied by any other school in the denomination, not but that every other school has its own great and specific work, but here a special preparation is to be given for the darkest lands in the world. The graves of our faithful workers in the fields appeal to us to take up the work which they have laid down and to carry it forward. All the members of the faculty of this school are men who have been out in these different lands, and whose hearts burn with the needs of perishing humanity.” Elder E. W. Farnsworth said that the Lord had set before us an open door in many of the foreign countries, and that we should take advantage of this opportunity. In remarks made by Elder Thompson he stated that the finishing of this work will depend upon the consecrated service of those who go to the field. Other speakers were Drs. H. W. Miller and D. H. Kress, Prof. C. H. Hayton, J. L. Prescott, and J. R. Scott. At the conclusion of the remarks, Elder W. A. Spicer offered prayer, and the exercises were closed. We feel that this school is one of the crowning features of our educational system, and we bespeak for it the hearty co-operation not only of our school workers, but of our people everywhere.