Central Union Conference Summer Normal
By B. E. Huffman
The Central Union Conference Summer Normal was held at Atchison, Kan., June 21 to August 16. Fifty-four teachers were enrolled. Large dwelling-houses, suitable for homes for the students, were rented, and very convenient accommodations secured. The plan of work was different from that usually followed in summer schools. Each teacher was assigned one or more blocks in the city for missionary work, each one spending from two to six hours each week in this work. Numbers of The Family Bible Teacher, books, and tracts were carried to the homes of the people for distribution and sale. In this way the truth was carried into the homes of the most wealthy families in the city. A series of tent-meetings was held at the same time only a short distance from the school and students’ homes. In these meetings, five or six adults declared their intention to keep the commandments of God, and praised him for the new truths they were learning. The literature distributed awakened an interest in Bible readings. This gave opportunity to enter the homes and teach the truth to many who did not attend the tent-meetings. Many of the teachers who were inexperienced in meeting strangers and talking the truth to them, hesitated a great deal before engaging in the house-to-house work, but after a few weeks these timid ones were among the most faithful, and often related with tears of joy their experience in studying the truth with the people. Several of the teachers voluntarily remained two or three weeks after the school closed, to follow up the Bible work. Class work was conducted in the following subjects: Bible, English grammar, arithmetic, nature study, geography, physiology, hydrotherapy, United States history, didactics, reading (drill), punctuation (drill). The teachers did faithful work, which was carefully noted by the people of the city. One man, formerly county treasurer of Atchison County, Kan., said, in my hearing, “I used to be full of prejudice against the Adventists, but it is all gone now. The way these teachers have deported themselves has taken that all out of me.” A few days ago I met a stranger in Kansas City. He approached me to shake hands, saying, “You may not remember me, but I do you. I saw you in Atchison. You passed my house a hundred times.” He then told me his name, and where he lived, which is in one of the largest brick houses in Atchison. In the conversation that followed, he said, “You had a nice lot of young people together there; they were so quiet and orderly.” I felt to praise God that we had such an army of young people. As fast as he can with safety, God is turning the eyes of the world upon us. O if we could only realize the weight of our influence! “With such an army of workers as our youth, rightly trained, might furnish, how soon the message of a crucified, risen, and soon-coming Saviour might be carried to the whole world! How soon might the end come,—the end of suffering and sorrow and sin!”—“Education,” page 271. The judgment will reveal greater results of our summer normal than we are now able to see; but God has shown us enough to make our hearts rejoice. Our teachers know something of the joy which comes from working in a definite way to save some one. May God increase this joy as they labor for the children in their schools this winter.