p. 21 | Industrial Education by M. Bessie DeGraw

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Mar 8, 1906

Industrial Education

By M. Bessie DeGraw

There is a statement in “Education” which impressed me forcibly when it was read in our hearing a short time ago at the beginning of an evening study. It is this:—

“In early ages, with the people who were under God’s direction, life was simple. They lived close to the heart of nature. Their children shared in the labor of parents, and studied the beauties and mysteries of nature’s treasure-house. And in the quiet of field and wood they pondered those mighty truths handed down as a sacred trust from generation to generation. Such training produced strong men.”

Those sentences started a train of thought in regard to the work before Seventh-day Adventists and the means God would use to accomplish the evangelization of the world.

There was the simple life. Then it was life in the country. And it was industrial education for the children. “Such training produced strong men,” and those were the men whom God chose to carry his gospel to the whole world.

The need of industrial training is emphasized again and again by the spirit of prophecy as well as in the Scriptures, and God has workers scattered all over this land who are giving the same message.

I listened to Miss Bennett, president of the Woman’s Home Mission Board in the Methodist Church, as she told of her work among the mountaineers, and pleaded for industrial schools as the best means of elevating these people, schools which will teach the children how to work, and will reach the parents through the children. I listened and felt my determination strengthen to work in behalf of our young people whom God would have carry the third angel’s message to these mountaineers.

I resolved, if possible, to throw more energy into the development of our own school at Madison, where young people are to be trained for such places.

Through the ages God’s word has been telling us that education and work are one. The daily press is to-day voicing that part of the gospel. In capital letters a recent issue of one of Chicago’s dailies used those very words: “Education and work are one.” The article adds, “The public schools should in every way possible make up for the disadvantages of the children that live in the big cities.” Is it true that the State schools will yet outrun us who are Christians in this crusade against city life?

The introduction of manual training and instruction in gardening are bringing city parents to see the benefits of country life. Are we as keenly alive to this matter as we should be? Every Christian teacher should be a messenger of God on this subject. It is through industrial education that some of the most flagrant public evils are to be met by Christians. Industrial education is one of the means God would use to prepare a people to endure the trials of the last days. Read what is said in “Education,” pages 217-222:—

“Manual training is deserving of far more attention than it has received. Schools should be established that, in addition to the highest mental and moral culture, shall provide the best possible facilities for physical development and industrial training. . . . The work should have a definite aim, and should be thorough. . . . Every youth, on leaving school, should have acquired a knowledge of some trade or occupation by which, if need be, he may earn a livelihood. The objection most often urged against industrial training in the schools is the large outlay involved. But the object to be gained is worthy of its cost.”

“Multitudes of our boys would thus be kept from the street corner and the groggery; the expenditure for gardens, workshops, and baths would be more than met by the saving on hospitals and reformatories. . . . Thus also our schools could aid effectively in the disposition of the unemployed masses.”

I can scarcely forbear quoting more,

so convincing are these statements concerning the need of industrial training, and especially that chiefest of all industries—agriculture.

There is another element worth noticing in connection with these schools that places the industries on an equal footing with arithmetic, algebra, or language. These schools prepare men to support themselves, if need be, by the work of their hands while giving the gospel to others.

This is a great problem which God has laid on the hearts of the workers in the Nashville Agricultural and Normal Institute. We are beginning at the very foundation—on the soil. We are building as we go, and the students receive one of the most practical trainings it is possible to get; for they study and do, and they do those things that are useful to the institution.

In the language of the mechanical leader in a noted industrial training institution,—a school in the highest sense, although the word “school” is not in its name,—“When we need a thing, we make it, whether it is a table or a building. Our object has been to see how simple we can have a thing, and yet have it answer our purpose. We are simply doing the best we can, and when people do that, they are bound to do some things that are good. When a man makes a thing with his own hands, there is going to be something in it besides the mere material. It is going to contain something of the maker.”

We are not yet able to make all we need, but we are aiming in that direction. And I believe that if the work of our hands bears the mark of the maker, when we follow the Lord’s instruction and become able to do self-supporting missionary work, that work will bear the mark of our Maker.

We would appreciate the privilege of corresponding with men and women who are interested in such a school.

M. BESSIE DEGRAW.

Madison, Tenn.