AN ARGUMENT FOR CHURCH SCHOOLS.
By L. A. S.
A GREAT deal has been said of late to Seventh-day Adventists concerning the necessity of church schools. Here is an argument on the subject which possibly has not been presented. It is sent to us in the form of the following press dispatch:— “MARION, IND., OCTOBER 29.—Rev. George W. Osborne, a Seventh-day Adventist minister, was arrested to-day by Truant Officer James, on the charge of disobeying the truancy law and keeping his ten-year-old son out of school. Osborne pleaded not guilty, and his bond was fixed at fifty dollars, which he did not attempt to give, but went to jail. He gave as his reason for not sending his son to school that he did not wish him to learn certain things taught in the public schools.” Whatever danger there was in the teaching to which objection was raised in this case, there is unquestionably very great danger in the associations which a child can hardly avoid making where children of every stamp and tendency are brought together, as they are in the public schools, and parents are justified in preferring that the intellects of their children should not be cultivated at the sacrifice of virtue and morality. This is a danger which is to some extent at least obviated in our church schools.737 The State requires its citizens to receive a certain degree of education. This is done on the theory that education tends strongly to prevent the formation of criminal character, and is thus a safeguard to the State and to the welfare of society. Against this view we have no objection to make. We are not arguing that such a law is wrong. But a church school would have met the requirements of the law, and would have avoided the trouble which has come to Brother Osborne in this case. Without church schools to which they can send their children, conscientious parents who would guard their children against the antichristian teaching and associations which have become marked features of the worldly systems of education, are more than likely to get into trouble with the civil authorities. This is the first case of the kind to which our attention has been called; but many others may certainly be looked for in the near future.