Address by the Chairman of the Educational Department
I WILL first give the general statistics of our schools, and then say a few words with reference to the organization of our schools in general. We have a total of 567 schools. Of these twelve are colleges, twenty-three academies, twenty intermediate schools, and five hundred and twelve are church-schools. The colleges have assets to the value of $624,738.18. There are fifty-eight buildings occupied by these twelve colleges, and they have 1,772 acres of land. They have a capacity of 2,046 students, and their enrolment last year (1906) was 1,631. They employ 163 teachers. The twenty-three academies have $255,472.88 assets; there are sixty buildings. They have land to the amount of 2,968 acres. The capacity of these twenty-three academies is 1,604 students. They had an enrolment last year of 1,595. They employ 142 teachers. There are twenty intermediate schools, with assets of $38,278.87, and thirty-nine buildings. They possess 1,257 acres. Their capacity is 687 pupils. The enrolment this last year was 471 pupils. They employ fifty-three teachers. There are 512 church-schools, but I do not have any statistics of their assets, buildings, acreage, or capacity, but they had an enrolment of 8,079. They employ 512 teachers. The assets of all our schools throughout the world, exclusive of church-schools, is $918,489.93. Adding to that a conservative estimate of our church-school property, we have total assets of probably $1,200,000. We have 166 buildings, exclusive of church-schools. We have from fifty to seventy-five church-school buildings, so that the number of buildings would amount to 200 or over. The church-schools have scarcely any land. The total acreage of land is 5,997, or approximately 6,000 acres. The total capacity of colleges, academies, and intermediate schools is 4,337; the total enrolment of all our schools was 11,776. The number of teachers employed was 879. This is a low estimate of the teachers; for in making this up there were some of the teaching force, such as matrons, and others that hold positions on the faculty, who were not reckoned in. Our school work is of course, as we all recognize, much better developed and organized in the United States than in any other portion of the world, the same as many other features of our work are much better developed there. We carry on four grades of schools: what we call our church-schools, our intermediate schools, our academies, and our colleges. The church-schools do approximately the work that is done by the primary and grammar schools of the United States. Now I may say, to make it plain to our people in Europe, that our church-schools go nearly as far as the common schools of Europe. The schools of Europe, as nearly as I can learn from the study which I have been able to give them here, have one distinct step that brings the children up to confirmation by the church, which is about the fourteenth year. The realschule in Germany takes the children to about the fourteenth year. The common schools take them about that far, if I have been correctly informed. And our church-schools take them to about that same place. Some of our church-schools carry pupils as far as the tenth grade; others do not take them above the sixth grade, or the sixth year. This system of schools in Germany—and it prevails to a greater or less extent all over Europe, if I understand it correctly—takes them up to confirmation, about the fourteenth year, or through about eight years of school work. This period to about the fourteenth year constitutes one very large division with us in America. After that comes our high school, carrying the pupils through to about the twelfth grade; after the high school comes the college, carrying them four years further. Our own intermediate schools, coming in between the church-schools and our academies, take the children from about the eighth year to the tenth and eleventh year of work. Our academies differ very much in the grading, one or two carrying the pupils as high as the fourteenth and fifteenth year of work. Our whole scheme of education gives sixteen years of work. There is actually four years of work done by our colleges; but all our colleges do preparatory work also, which gives them six or eight years. During the past year one college has been opened, which is located at Loma Linda, Cal., and it is called the College of Evangelists. The purpose of this school is to prepare workers for general gospel work, and at the same time give them a good education in medical lines. A number of other schools have been organized during the year, one of which is an academy, and another is designed to be an academy. The latter is the West Indian Training-school, located in Jamaica. It is proposed to make this school the educational center for the West Indian Union Conference. Two intermediate schools have been opened in South America, one called the Filadelfia school, for the Mkupua Indians, in Chile; the other the Pua school. The last named is our training-school for Chile, situated at Pua. It gives instruction in Spanish and German. In the United States there have been opened the Strode Industrial School at Oswego, Kan., and the Tunesassa Intermediate School, at Tunesassa, N. Y. I have not visited the Oswego school, and so can not speak of it definitely. The Tunesassa school I have visited. They have about two hundred acres of land situated in the woods, away from any town. There is excellent prospect that a good school will be built up at this place. During the past year eight intermediate schools have lifted their course to that of an academy. They have lengthened their courses of instruction, and have styled themselves academies. The Mount Vernon Academy, situated at Mt. Vernon, Ohio, two years ago lifted its course from that of an academic course to that of a college. The Keene Academy, situated at Keene, Tex., has during this year voted to strengthen its courses, so that it will be enabled to do college work. I suppose most of our people are aware of the fact that the Scandinavian Union Conference has voted to establish a union training-school, and they have in a general way outlined their work, which I think compares very favorably with that which is done at Friedensau, and in the London training-school. During the past year we have seen a strengthening of our educational work in many ways. This is evidenced by the fact that so large a number of schools have been established, and so many of the schools are lifting their courses to do stronger work. There is also another feature that has particularly impressed some of us who have been watching this work rather closely, and that is the very full schools which have been held during this year. You understand that the report which I have given here is for the school year of 1905-06. The report for 1906-07 should show a very much larger attendance in our schools. In the United States some of our schools had their attendance almost doubled. There were many that added from a quarter to a third in their attendance. We attribute this good attendance in part to the results of the educational convention.28 There was set on foot at that convention a very earnest move to prepare our young people more quickly and more fully for our mission fields. We called it the forward missionary movement. It seemed to us as if the influence of that meeting was felt by our schools throughout the world. And we believe that this is one reason why they are as full as they are. More and more we are coming to realize what the purpose of our schools is. The sole purpose, the sole reason for maintaining our schools, is that we may prepare workers for the spread and the finishing of this work. That idea is more and more filling the minds of teachers and students, and those directly connected with the management of the schools. But I believe that it is also more and more filling the minds of our people. I believe that the rank and file of our people are beginning to realize, in a way which they have not in the past, the vast importance of our schools as a means of preparing workers, and that our young people are feeling the importance of gaining an education, to an extent which they have not in the past. So we look forward to a more thorough organization of our work, and to its extension into every part of the world, that there may be in every field, in every union conference, and in every mission field, thoroughly equipped training-schools for the education of the young men and women for every department of our work.