The Home in Education by W. A. Alway

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 4, 1907

The Home in Education

By W. A. Alway

AFTER years of thoughtful consideration of the educational element of this message, weighing carefully the many serious obstacles to be encountered, together with the numerous mistakes that we have to acknowledge both in method and in management during the inceptive struggle of this movement, I am fully convinced that there is no wider field of service and no higher calling to which the youth of this people can respond than that awaiting the consecrated Christian teacher.

Much has been said by way of emphasizing the necessity of an independent system of Christian education, of the skeptical tendencies in our public schools and higher institutions, and, while I do not believe that too much can be said along this line, yet I wish to call attention to other defects which I feel are equally serious.

The thoughtful observer can not have failed to note the growing tendency in the modern educational system to invade more and more the traditional rights of the home, narrowing its sphere of influence and dictating its social standards and economic sentiments.

From the chart grade of the public school to the highest institutions of learning in our land, the social life of the child and youth is all provided for independent of home influence or sentiments. These social provisions include the whole round of popular entertainments, balls, card-parties, etc., and not only does the social committee decide the character of these entertainments, but also demands the means to meet the large expense incurred, and in some instances, dictates the style of attire that is considered essential to the successful competition of one class with another in these social contests. To rebel against these unjust demands, either from principle or from lack of money, means social ostracism, petty persecution, with perhaps diminished honors at the end of the course.

Considering these powerful opposing influences, it is not surprising that we are compelled to bemoan the passing of the old-time home with its endearing sentiments and its loyal, self-sacrificing hearts and its independent sovereign power in society. Nor is it strange that the sacred individuality of a man thus educated should be easily swallowed up in the social order, and the home be supplanted by the club-house.

Then, too, this collective method of social training in youth makes easy the pathway to social slavery, and is responsible in great measure for the present complex and extravagant modes of life which are driving many to dishonesty and suicide under the relentless lash of these artificial demands.

The call of the hour is for a return to more simple and rational standards of life. But such a reformation, if it is to succeed at all, must begin at the foundation. It must comprehend a system of Christian education taking in the early years of the child,—a system that will prove a supplement to the home, and will respect the sacred rights of that heaven-established institution. It must provide soul and heart culture rather than mere external polish. It must aim at the production of men instead of clubs and federations; it must cultivate simple appetites, love of simple truth, and loyalty to simple duty.

For the championing of this great reform the third angel's message seems especially adapted. It was born in simplicity; its early pioneers were men of simple, honest motives. In its magnificent platform of principles and social standards there are no artificial sentiments. The people who have become the exponents of its principles have cultivated a moral hardihood, under pressure of popular censure and criticism, which ought to provide the godly courage equal to the task. O, that the youth of this denomination would now rise to the opportunities of the present hour, and laying their all upon the altar of simple service to the Master, carry on to glorious triumph the work so nobly begun by those sturdy pioneers, who, holding aloft the torch of truth, blazed the way before us through the gloomy wilderness of man-made tradition and error to the dawn of that perfect day revealed in the simple Bible truth for this generation. W. A. ALWAY.