Educational Department by W. E. Howell

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 17, 1913

Educational Department

By W. E. Howell

J. L. SHAW - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - W. E. HOWELL - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - N. Am. Div. Asst. Secretary

Informal Talks on Education

THE fact that four out of five Seventh-day Adventist children and youth of school age are being educated in secular schools, ought to set us to thinking in earnest. There are two serious aspects to this situation. One of these is the exposure of our youth to the subtle errors that are creeping, slyly creeping, into every school-book, school lecture, school song, and into the stories told in every schoolroom. I may point out some of these in detail a little later, but wish to give here what a religious writer not of our denomination says on this matter:—

"Christian people are becoming more and more awake to the fact that a great tidal wave of unbelief is sweeping over Christendom,—not the blasphemous atheism voiced by Thomas Paine and Robert Ingersoll, but the cultured kind represented in the scholarship of our day, which makes the danger all the more insidious.

"Not only are the great colleges and seminaries undermining the faith of the better educated, but the common-school books, and especially those used in the high schools, are similarly inculcating a distrust in the Bible, a contradiction of its teachings. For a college graduate of today to declare his faith in the inspiration of the Scriptures would bring upon him the scorn of his companions,—a scorn which few would court, or could endure."

These are the sentiments of some who do not have the special instruction given to us as a people. Such a condition strikes directly at the foundation of our system of Christian education—the Bible. In the Review of April 28, 1896, Sister White wrote: "If we do not have schools for our youth, they will attend other seminaries and colleges, and will be exposed to infidel sentiments, to cavilings and questionings concerning the inspiration of the Bible." In "Counsels to Teachers," page 205, are these words:—

"In planning for the education of their children outside the home, parents should realize that it is no longer safe to send them to the public school, and should endeavor to send them to schools where they will obtain an education based on a Scriptural foundation. Upon every Christian parent there rests the solemn obligation of giving to his children an education that will lead them to gain a knowledge of the Lord, and to become partakers of the divine nature through obedience to God's will and way."

In view of this instruction, and an abundance more like it, and in view of what we can see with our own eyes and hear with our own ears, is it not time for us to adopt as our working policy—

Adventist Schools for Adventists?

The more headway we can make on this plan, the more it will relieve the other serious aspect of continuing to send four out of five of our youth to secular schools; namely, the shortage it makes in qualified missionaries to fill the numerous and urgent calls to gospel service. If it is good to be Adventists at all, if it is good to conduct any schools at all for Adventist children, it is good to include them all in those schools. We may not yet have schools enough for all, especially church-schools, but we have some schools that are not full, and we do not want to see a single empty seat anywhere when the schools open next fall. Nor do we want to see a single boy or girl left out who wishes to attend an Adventist school. To help in accomplishing this result, there is—

A Campaign Now On

This is really a campaign for souls,—the souls of our own children and youth. We have had book campaigns, temperance campaigns, religious liberty campaigns, and campaigns for mission funds, but this summer we are having a campaign for boys and girls, and are hoping and praying for a precious, golden harvest.

In this campaign, we need the help of every one in the ranks—first of all, the parents. How many a strong preacher in the pulpit, or devoted teacher at his desk, or toiling missionary among the heathen today, owes his efficiency to father's selling a favorite horse, or mother's wearing the old hat and cloak another winter, or brother's carrying the farm alone, in order to give John the needed education in a Christian school. How many a promising boy or girl is lost in skepticism and worldliness because the free secular school was thought good enough in these last, perilous days.

This campaign needs the help also of every husband and wife who have no children of their own. So much the more may they esteem the privilege of educating some one else's needy boy or girl. This is contributing as substantially to the cause of truth as the paying of money into the mission fund to teach some little Hindu or Hottentot. Investing in our boys and girls brings far larger returns than in United States bonds or British consols.

Single men and women of competence should be active in such a campaign. The work of saving our youth and of recruiting the field service is sufficiently imperative and compensative to demand the best effort of every man and woman who is looking for the soon coming of Jesus.

Ways to Help

School representatives will be on every camp-ground. Seek to bring into touch with them boys and girls who ought to be in school.

Order and circulate copies of the Summer Campaign number of our journal Christian Education. This number was prepared especially to aid in the student campaign.

Send for the calendars of our colleges and academies to inform yourself and to put them into the hands of those who ought to read them.

Send in names of suitable boys and girls to the schools in your union conference, with information about them.

School men may visit your church. Give them a welcome and your hearty cooperation.

Pray, and pray earnestly, that the Spirit of the Lord may arouse the entire church-membership to a deep sense of what it means to leave four out of every five of our lambs without the fold of Christian education.