Among Our Schools by Frederick Griggs

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

Among Our Schools

By Frederick Griggs

At the suggestion of the General Conference Committee, I have recently made a visit to the majority of our schools east of the Rocky Mountains, visiting the following schools in their order:— Mt. Vernon College, Mt. Vernon, Ohio; Adelphian Academy, Holly, Mich.; Cedar Lake Academy, Cedar Lake, Mich.; Emmanuel Missionary College, Berrien Springs, Mich.; The Battle Creek Industrial School, Battle Creek, Mich.; Fox River Academy, Sheridan, Ill.; Beechwood Academy, Boggstown, Ind.; Bethel Academy, Bethel, Wis.; Stuart Industrial Academy, Stuart, Iowa; Union College, College View, Neb.; Keene Academy, Keene, Tex.; Oakwood Manual Training-school, Huntsville, Ala.; The Nashville Agricultural and Normal Institute, Madison, Tenn.; and the Southern Training-school, Graysville, Tenn.

There is a spirit of progress in all these schools. I was particularly gratified to find such thorough work being done in the intermediate schools. The industrial phase of their work is a very important feature. Nearly all the schools which I visited have agricultural departments. In these departments a good work is being done. A number of them are paying attention to the raising of nursery stock. In the raising of poultry, cattle, and horses there is a strong movement toward the best-blooded stock. Quite a little is being done in one or two of the schools in the way of growing seeds. These features of the industrial work are very encouraging, as they offer most excellent educational advantages to the students engaged in these departments of work, and in every way lift the standard of this important feature of the work of those schools.

The class work in these schools, generally speaking, is very strong. Our intermediate schools have been a subject of much study and discussion during the past six or eight years, and the majority of them which I visited have been established during these years. It is gratifying to find them doing such thorough work, and having in them such a sturdy, strong class of boys and girls. There is a strong religious influence in these schools, and the missionary spirit seems to permeate all the departments of the work in each.

In our training-schools there is also an onward movement. While there is a strong effort to maintain a high standard of spiritual life, there is also a tendency to carry on the intellectual phase of our educational work in a thorough and systematic manner. I was particularly pleased to notice the improvements in the laboratories—physical and chemical—at Union College. We are to study God and his purposes

concerning us through his works as well as in his Word, and we need to have in our schools thorough provisions for the study of the sciences.

There is an earnest effort being made to strengthen the Emmanuel Missionary College at Berrien Springs, Mich., so that the young people of the Lake Union Conference may find in this school and Mt. Vernon College that thorough training which is necessary to prepare them for efficient service in the cause. There is also a movement in our training-schools to carry on thorough work in short courses for an older class of students, whose age and experience is such as to make it seem unwise for them to spend a long time in study.

In every school which I visited, the strong, good features of work greatly predominated over any apparent weakness. However, the faculties of these schools are aware of the fact that there are weaknesses in their work, and they are bending every effort to make these weak points strong; so that altogether the outlook for this next year in these schools is most encouraging.

FREDERICK GRIGGS.