p. 6 | The Educational Movement and the Washington Training College

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 9, 1906

The Educational Movement and the Washington Training College

By Arthur Grosvenor Daniells

THE missionary program adopted at the educational convention recently held at College View, calls upon our schools and our people everywhere to think, to plan, and to work as we never have in behalf of the world-wide missionary undertaking of this cause. A better understanding must be obtained, a greater burden felt, and a greater zeal manifested regarding this great missionary enterprise. The preaching of this gospel of the kingdom in all the world for a witness unto all nations is the work of supreme importance to all men to-day. This transcends all other considerations. God has ordered it, and it must be done. This will weigh this generation in God's balances, and determine the destiny of every soul. O, what a solemn responsibility is laid upon those who know the message and work of God for this day!

This new missionary program is already beginning to awaken our people. It is beginning to cause their hearts to burn. Already new inquiries are being made regarding the purpose, character, and advantages of our schools. Such a deep conviction of duty to prepare for efficient service should come upon the young men and young women of this denomination as to fill all our schools to overflowing during the coming year. And such a profound sense of the great responsibilities resting upon our schools should be felt by all in charge of them as to cause them to make these institutions all that they should be.

The condition we face at the present time, and the stage of the message at which we have arrived, demand that our schools shall be live missionary institutions. The faculties must possess more than mere intelligence regarding mission statistics and the needs of the great field to be worked. They must be filled with a burning zeal in behalf of this message and the work this denomination is doing throughout the world. They must impart that zeal to the students. They must fill the schools with such a warm, invigorating missionary atmosphere that those who breathe it day after day will be stimulated to put forth their best efforts to prepare for service.

The whole influence of our schools must fire the hearts of the students with zeal to push into mission fields as soon as a thorough preparation can be made. Such was the atmosphere that filled the University of Wittenberg, when Luther and Melanchthon were the leading instructors. It was this that fired the hearts of those German students, and sent them forth to set Germany and all Europe ablaze. That missionary zeal was needed then to accomplish the work that was due the world at that time. The work to be done to-day certainly calls for a zeal equal to that possessed by the Reformers of the sixteenth century. Nothing less will answer. And if possessed by our teachers now, it will make our schools similar to Wittenberg then.

Our schools should now define their purpose, and then see that that purpose is carried out. As a member of the board of trustees of the Washington Training College I am authorized to say that the great purpose of this school is to do strong, effective work in educating and sending forth men and women to render valuable service in the cause of God.

This College possesses advantages that should aid it very greatly in doing the work to which it is called. It is in direct touch with the office of Home and Foreign Missions of the denomination. It can draw upon the officers for information, instruction, and co-operation in all that pertains to missions.

In addition to the regular work of the school a series of lessons will be given on some of the most practical and important features of field work. The special themes that will be taken up will be such as the following: Gospel Organization as applied to the church and the conference and all their departments of work; Missions and Mission Work, first, as related to the field, its needs and opportunities and methods of work, and second, the individual preparation necessary to enter the field; The Third Angel's Message in the Scriptures and the World, giving both a doctrinal and a historical view of this message; Principles of Religious Liberty as applied to individual rights and to the sphere of civil government; The Sabbath-school and Young People's Work, covering the various phases of this work as they are met by every worker.

This instruction will be given by those who are devoting their entire time to these branches of work at the General Conference headquarters. Fuller statements will be given by others from time to time.

In a Testimony regarding this school, bearing date of March 30, 1905, the following statement is made:—

The training-school must be fully equipped, that those who come may receive a thorough training as evangelists, medical missionaries, and teachers.

It is to this end that those connected with the Washington Training College will devote their best energies.

A. G. DANIELLS.