Home Life in Our Training-Schools
By Helen C. Conard
If we stop to consider that three fourths of the time of some of our young people, for a period of years, is spent in our school homes, the question assumes an importance which we might not otherwise attach to it. We can no more afford to let these homes represent mere boarding halls than we can be content to allow our private homes to degenerate into temporary stopping places. In these school homes—if there is to be no sad break in the life—character-building must go on, and the conditions should be such as to favor this development. We are not left in darkness in regard to the purpose for which school homes have been established, neither are we in entire ignorance of details in the plan; but the “process,”—the working out of detail, the putting of these heavenly principles into actual, every-day practise,—that is where trouble may come in. Now if troubles have arisen in this phase of our work, and if any part of them has been due to failure in applying principles, then, manifestly, a study of principles is the thing indicated. In observation of men and methods—I speak now in a general way, and not specifically of the subject in hand—I have sometimes been impressed that we are prone to look upon a principle as a cold, shadowy thing,—a something apart from the living and acting in ourselves,—a something which, if we try to take hold of it, seems to elude our grasp and slip away, leaving us to flounder on in the almost hopeless hope that sometime, somewhere, it will again float our way; and we shall be able somehow to “square up” our work by its standard. This is chimerical, but it may serve to emphasize the thought that a principle from God is not only a vital, but a vitalizing force. Our part is to open the heart to the reception of the life-germ, and let it work. But what will it do for us—this vivifying force? It will do for us all that we will permit it to do. Its power is circumscribed only by our willingness to allow that power to be manifested in our behalf. It will leaven with sanctifying truth the individual life, and control our every effort for others. It will solve our problems just to the degree that we yield their solution to the wisdom it represents. In yielding to its influence, we shall be made to understand that “all God’s biddings are enabling.” Results will fall into the hands of him who cares22for them, and our daily tasks will become so glorified in the sunlight of divine service that we shall go about them in thankful wonderment that our human hands are permitted to touch a work so sacred. This does not mean that we shall be carried along on “flowery beds of ease.” We must not forget that while we are working for others, and watching and directing their development, God is working for us. The chiseling process must go on in our own lives if we are to have the best fitting for the Master’s choice service. The soldier may parade and drill and fight his mock battles, but the test of his soldiership comes when he faces the enemy’s guns. The skill of the sailor is gained, not in the calm, when sails flap idly in passing zephyrs, but in the tempest, when every power is stretched to its utmost tension to outwit the elements. And so experiences come to us to develop all-round workers for God,—men and women who are brave to act when action is necessary; who are quick to discern the “fighting chance” in the boy or girl, and lay hold of it to the consternation of Satan and his hosts. Having determined that our perplexities are but blessings in disguise, we may be ready to discuss with a degree of calmness some of the problems that confront us in this many-sided question with which we have to deal.