Education | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Aug 7, 1879

Education.

EDUCATION does not commence with the alphabet; it begins with a mother's look; with a Father's nod and approbation, or sign of reproof; with a sister's gentle pressure of the hand, or a brother's noble act of forbearance; with pleasant walks or shady lanes; and then come the bloom and buoyancy and dazzling hopes of youth: the throbbings of the heart; when first it wakes to love, and dreams of happiness too great for earth; when woman with her grace and gentleness, and fullness of feeling, and depth of affection, and blushes of purity, and the tones and looks which only a mother's love can inspire—and these are only a small part of our education.

Our education will be finished with our lives; day by day we learn by sad experience some new phase of humanity; learn that the friend in whom we placed implicit confidence is unworthy of it—learn that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Our education teaches us that man was made to mourn; that disappointment is the lot of man and woman. It teaches us how to fight the battle of life, but alas! it does not always teach us to fight it successfully. The knowledge that is gained from books we would not undervalue; but it is worthless unless we combine it with actual experience of life. Pythagoras said if he did not, when night came, feel that he had learned something through the day, he felt that he had lost a day. Reader, every day of your existence should be to you so much gain; and as we grow old and decrease in physical strength, we should increase our mental resources.

We have acquaintances to-day who have learned nothing by experience; whose education is no more advanced than it was twenty years ago, and we can but think that they lived a fruitless life. Education begins with our birth and ends with our death.—Ex.