Agricultural Education by H. A. Washburn

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Apr 14, 1904

Agricultural Education

By H. A. Washburn

Support of People Leaving the Cities

“And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads; and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” This serious state of things is before God’s people in this generation. The time is coming when all business relations will be interrupted, when even the necessities of life can not be purchased. God’s people will have to provide for themselves, and it is readily seen that this can not be done in the cities. Our people must eventually leave the cities, and live in the country. “The time is not far distant when, like the early disciples, we shall be forced to seek a refuge in desolate and solitary places. As the siege of Jerusalem by the Roman armies was the signal for flight to the Judean Christians, so the assumption of power on the part of our nation, in the decree enforcing the papal Sabbath, will be a warning to us. It will then be time to leave the large cities, preparatory to leaving the smaller ones for retired homes in secluded places among the mountains.” Even now the Lord is sending us solemn warnings. “Out of the cities is my message.” “Get out of the cities as soon as possible.”

Serious Times Coming

“Serious times are before us, and there is great need for families to get out of the cities into the country.” “The time is not far distant when the laws against Sunday labor will be more stringent, and an effort should be made to secure grounds away from the cities, where fruit and vegetables can be raised. Agriculture will open resources for self-support.” It is quite evident from what has been revealed to us regarding the future, that the subject of agriculture, and agricultural education, should interest all our people. We must be planning to make this the means of our support. “The people should learn as far as possible to depend upon the products that they can obtain from the soil.” Agricultural education is needed by those who are older as well as by the children and youth. They need it also as a fitting for missionary labor. “In every phase of this kind of labor they can be educating the mind to work for the saving of souls for whom Christ has died.”

Aside from the difficulties arising because of our not reverencing the Sunday Sabbath, we have other similar reasons for making our homes outside the cities without further delay. The great combinations in the industrial world are making it impossible to maintain an independent living, free from serious hindrance, in the cities. Already in places, the people of God, who refrain from entering into the “confederacies,” have found it necessary to turn to other occupations and localities. Seldom can they do better, in supporting their families, than to go into the country, and till the soil. “In these days of mammoth trusts and business competition, there are few who enjoy so real an independence and so great certainty of fair return for their labor as does the tiller of the soil.”

Homes in the Country

The Lord “wants us to live where we can have elbow room. His people are not to crowd into the cities. He wants them to take their families out of the cities, that they may better prepare for eternal life. . . . Get out of the cities as soon as possible, and purchase a little piece of land, where you can have a garden, where your children can watch the flowers growing, and learn from them lessons of simplicity and purity.” “Fathers and mothers who possess a piece of land and a comfortable home are kings and queens.” These homes are to be on small pieces of land, which are to be cultivated in the best manner, and made to produce as shown in our last article. “God can bless twenty acres of land, and make them as productive as one hundred.” He can also make five acres produce as much as twenty-five. God’s people, in their little homes, are to show what proper cultivation of the soil will produce.

Our Schools to Prepare the People

To turn our people from the cities into the country, a sentiment must be created, and a love of the country developed, with demonstration of the pleasures and possibilities of country life. This work our schools can do. They can “set on foot influences that would go far in turning the tide of migration which now sets so strongly toward the great cities.” Many of those in the cities, ignorant of practical work in tilling the soil, must be taught how to make a living in this manner. Their children oftentimes know next to nothing regarding those things with which they need to be familiar. These children should receive this important training in our schools. If they are getting this knowledge now, they will be of great assistance to their parents in the near future, when all must leave the cities. It is in this connection that we are thus instructed: “Let the teachers in our schools take their students with them into the gardens and fields, and teach them how to work the soil in the very best manner.” This requires quite a change in our school work, necessitating among other things the maintenance of school work during the agricultural season, and the attendance of students at that time of year,—changes that the serious character of the times demands shall be made soon.

H. A. WASHBURN.