Healdsburg College by William E. Howell

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 28, 1906

Healdsburg College

By William E. Howell

The past year of Healdsburg College, just closed, will be a memorable one to all those whose privilege it was to be connected with it as teachers or students. It can not be said that the year's work was done under normal conditions; in fact the same thing is true of the previous year. During the year 1904-05, no fewer than four general councils of California laborers and laymen were held to consider the interests of the college. In these councils there was much talk of reducing the faculty, eliminating classes, lowering the school to the intermediate rank, and of closing the school—all on account of financial depression and lack of confidence. Before school closed that term and during the following summer, persistent reports went through the conference that the college would not be operated the next year.

As a natural consequence of these conditions, the year 1905-06 opened with a small attendance, although everything possible was done to restore confidence by way of securing a strong faculty, putting our buildings in good repair, and thoroughly advertising our plans for the school work. The students were generally of good class, however, and we set to work with courage.

At the time of the annual conference in January, the question of reducing faculty and school work or of closing the school, was again pressed to the front, as the college was running behind considerably in expenses, with its annual interest of sixteen hundred dollars and its taxes and insurance of about eight hundred dollars to pay. The conference recommended the Board to retrench expenses by reducing the faculty, readjusting and eliminating class work, etc., for the rest of the current school year, then close the doors of Healdsburg College, sell the property, and establish an advanced school in new quarters more favorable to success.

This plan was carried out to the extent that the retrenchments were made—involving a change of teachers for about half the classes in school—and plans were laid for the new school, including the electing of the faculty and the decision to conduct the school in temporary quarters the first year. Great difficulties were encountered in carrying out these plans, as many of the people were unwilling to promote a new enterprise until the obligations of the old were all discharged, as our best students were reluctant to base their plans on what seemed to them uncertainties, and as the carrying on of the school in rented quarters involved the elimination of industrial work and of well-organized home work. It was accordingly decided on the day before the earthquake, by the California Conference Committee, who had in charge the work of establishing the new school, to abandon the enterprise for next year, release the faculty elected, and devote their energies the coming year to the building up of intermediate school interests.

About two weeks later, however, one of the released members of the faculty proposed to the conference committee to conduct a school for them, chiefly on his own financial responsibility, and he has been authorized to proceed. Two of our former faculty have engaged to connect with Fernando, two with Loma Linda, and two have not made their final choice at the present writing.

To add to the complications of the year, we were visited by earthquake on the morning of April 18, just six weeks before the close of the term. An account of how the routine work of a college, especially of a students' home, is affected by a seismic disturbance of the severity of this one, has already appeared in another issue of this paper. It may be of interest to add that the latest of a series of fifty or more minor quakes was felt about June 6, just before we left Healdsburg, and was sufficiently strong to cause the home building to creak over our heads as we sat at dinner in the basement.

This bit of school history is briefly rehearsed in this article to indicate the abnormal conditions under which the work of Healdsburg College has been conducted the past two years, and to say to the glory of God, by way of contrast, that despite these difficulties excellent results have been obtained. By “excellent results” is meant the development of sterling qualities of character, the formation of correct and useful habits, the defining of a purpose in life, the conversion of souls, and the sending of a large number of workers into the field. Under the conditions pointed out above, and under the thorough training and the wholesome discipline incident to the maintaining of a well-regulated Christian home for students, the young people have had abundant opportunity to reveal their weak points in character and have them strengthened, to disclose their faults of disposition and deficient training and have them corrected, and to develop the ability to keep calm and stable under conditions that tend to confuse and divert. Thorough class work was done by those who were in school with a purpose and an ambition to pursue it. A spirit of co-operation existed for the most part between students and teachers, and from their Christian association each learned lasting lessons from the other.

A line of special course work was conducted during the year for Bible workers, medical missionaries, ministers, and canvassers. The course for the latter

covered the last nine weeks of the year. Such interest and enthusiasm prevailed that it was difficult to keep this work from absorbing the whole time and efforts of a large majority of the students. During this course over eighty copies of “Great Controversy” and “Heralds of the Morning” were sold by students in the much-worked territory in and about Healdsburg, as also three thousand copies of the Earthquake Signs. At the close of school twenty-six students were assigned territory for the summer, and have gone forth with courage to carry the message in the printed page. Last year every student who went out earned a scholarship (by selling two hundred and fifty dollars' worth of books), and some two or more, and it is earnestly hoped and believed that equally great success will follow this summer's effort. The very thorough instruction given by Brother W. H. Covell, not only in the technique of book selling, but especially in inculcating cardinal principles of character and deportment, and in giving a strong, living spiritual mold to the training, promises an abundant harvest.

The last Sabbath of the year, every member of the home family who had not already done so (except one Italian recently from Italy) took a decided stand for Christ and was baptized and united with the church. To God we give all the praise for these very encouraging results of efforts put forth in weakness but with the firm conviction that seed faithfully sown and the standard of right diligently and perseveringly upheld, would produce in God's own time the outcome that he promises.

The writer and his wife now go to Loma Linda to organize and conduct an advanced training-school for workers in connection with the sanitarium there. They wish the fervent prayers of God's people that this untried enterprise may prosper in the thing wherein he has directed that it should be established.

W. E. HOWELL.