p. 22 | The Conference and the School by F. G.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 1, 1906

The Conference and the School

By F. G.

Not long ago I overheard one of our workers, home from a foreign field, say to another worker, who had been in foreign lands, “Our conferences do not risk much, after all, in employing young men and women who have been in attendance at our schools.” This remark came in the midst of a discussion as to why a large per cent of our young men and women who have attended our schools, do not engage in actual denominational work, and was made in response to the remark that our conferences are afraid to risk taking young men and women on their pay-roll.

Recently, one of our oldest educational workers in one of our largest training-schools, said he thought that not over twenty-five per cent of those who attended our training-schools throughout the United States actually enter upon gospel work after leaving the school. If this estimate be a fact, it is certainly one to be greatly lamented by all who are interested in the finishing of the work of God in the earth, and only a little thought is necessary to produce the evidence that leads us to fear that the estimate is not far from right.

This being so, we are certainly correct in saying that something is radically wrong. Either the schools are not doing the work which they are designed of God to do, or the home conferences of these young men and women do not look after them while in school and after they leave school. It is possible that the difficulty may arise from both causes. On the part of the schools it can be said, with a good degree of truth, that there was never a more earnest effort put forth by our educational workers to bring our schools into direct conformity to the needs of the message than there is at the present time. This is evidenced by the strong missionary tone which was given to the educational convention recently held at College View.

There must be the closest sympathy from now on, between the conferences and the schools in an earnest endeavor to have a large per cent of all the young men and women who attend the school enter upon gospel work when they leave the school.

There are some lessons to be learned, perhaps, in this matter from one of our training-schools outside the United States. The board of management of this school is the union conference committee, and the members of this committee are, of course, chosen to their position, with a view, at least partially, to the duties of the management of the school. Before the close of the year this conference committee, together with other prominent laborers in the union, meet with the members of the faculty, and consider the case of each student in the school, to determine his fitness for some branch of the work. These students are then taken under the direction, and in many instances the direct employ, of these conferences in the union, and their work, whether during the vacation, or regularly if they have completed their school work, is closely watched and fostered by these conferences.

It must be apparent at once that such a mode of procedure will give an opportunity for every worthy and proficient young person to find his place in our denominational work. While this may not be the best mode of proceeding in all our training-schools to get their young people into the work, it is certainly a very suggestive one.

Our conferences, indeed, do not risk much in employing the young men and women from our schools. They have shown a desire for advancement, and many of them have put forth great effort in the gaining of knowledge. These very things mark the right spirit to be seen in our workers, and give confidence that fruit will result from their labors.

We earnestly bespeak a closer relation between all our schools and the conferences tributary to them, this coming forth year, for this close relation will be one of the greatest means of forwarding and making effective this great missionary movement, which we believe was started by our educational convention at College View. F. G.