College Items by Sidney Brownsberger

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 20, 1883

College Items.

By Sidney Brownsberger

THE spring term of Healdsburg College opens on Wednesday, Jan. 2, and this will be a favorable time for those to come who have never attended before. There is room in our classes for one hundred more, and at the College boarding-hall we can accommodate thirty more.

Why should they not come? It is certainly not because there is not that number in this State who need just what the College can do for them, and who can come just as well as not. We have heard from several that expect to attend next term for the first time, and we have good reasons for expecting a largely increased attendance.

Now if all those persons, both in youth and middle age, that are impressed that they should come, would make as commendable an effort to do so as they do often make to secure other advantages which possess not half the importance, I am sure we could not well accommodate them without increased facilities.

No doubt they will all be here sometime, but why wait for better opportunities? Now is the time. You will probably never have a deeper impression of your duty to come. Perhaps no time is more favorable for leaving home than the first two or three months of the year. We may never offer any better inducements in the way of special instruction than is now promised for the coming term.

A conflict is impending, the noise of preparation is heard in the enemy's lines, and it behooves us to prepare for battle. Our weapon is Bible truth. The design of the special instruction next term is to prepare the student to defend nobly those truths against which the opposition will make the most desperate attacks. Read article in last week's issue entitled "The Coming Conflict."

The Captain of the Lord's host is our leader. He calls for brave men and women. Who will answer, "Here am I"?

The influence in college boarding-houses, upon the students associated in them, is frequently very pernicious, and many people not without reason, have refused to patronize them on account of it. Some of the friends of Healdsburg College, while they have entered heartily into the spirit of our school work, have yet held a mental reserve in regard to our boarding system, and have not reposed sufficient confidence in its workings to cheerfully resign their own children to its care. But how completely is this impression changed when they visit the institution and see the effects of its management with their own eyes. Their distrust and opposition is then converted into a hearty approval, and an eagerness to place their children under such discipline.

No friend of true education can be but delighted with a system founded on principles so well adapted to strengthen character, improve health, and refine the tastes.

There are associated at the boarding-house, one student from Iceland, one from Portugal, one from England, four from Oregon, three from Nevada, and twenty-eight from California.

S. BROWNSBERGER.