Educational Department by W. E. Howell

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park, Washington, D. C. · Aug 21, 1913

Educational Department

By W. E. Howell

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

Talks on Education

THERE is another side of the educational question that deserves notice. More than twenty years ago it was written that there is more than an average of ability among us as a people. This is so because of what the truth does for us. The person, man or woman, who steps out of the world or out of a popular church and takes his stand on all points of present truth must and does do some thinking and some studying. How often the presentation of the stirring message for this time moves a man in the common walks of life to get out his Bible and buy books written by studious, praying men and women, and set to work digging out an understanding of these great themes for himself. A taste of good things gives him an appetite for more. He begins to accumulate a library, to study his Sabbath-school lessons, and to read history and current events with a deepening interest to know the meaning of these things better and to observe the fulfilment of prophecy. In order to defend his faith and practise among his neighbors and to interest others in the truth now grown precious to him, he must know well the reasons for his faith, and he becomes a thinking, studious man. The abstemious habits he has acquired with a knowledge of Bible truth help him in this. Regard for the right of his neighbor, and a sense of unpopularity, and of the fact that he is a special object of Satan's buffeting, develop in him patience and endurance of hardness as a good soldier of Christ. In comparison with what he was before the truth reached him, and with what he would still be without the stimulus of the truth to make something more of himself, it may truthfully be said that he measures up to more than the average of ability among his fellows of the same social class.

A Dearth Among Us

Not far from the same time when it was said that there is more than an average of ability among us as a people, these solemn words were written: “There is a dearth of educated ability among us, and we have not men who are sufficiently trained to do justice to the work.” What does a dearth of educated ability mean?

It means a dearth of effective labor in the rapidly spreading work of this message.

It means that we have not duly magnified the office of the schools as a means of recruiting our force of laborers, and that we must give them increased moral and financial support in the carrying of this very responsible work.

It means that the schools themselves may not have placed an adequate estimate on the task laid upon them.

It means that in bringing people into the truth we have failed to follow up the work as we ought in educating them for service.

Let us put the two expressions together and consider them a little:— “More than an average of ability.” “A dearth of educated ability.”

With a high average of ability resulting from the truth’s appealing to the serious, substantial element among the people, and from the stimulus to be and do something for Jesus that the truth itself imparts, how great is our duty to develop and train that ability for service! “Speedy preparation for the work” is a necessary admonition, one for us to take seriously to heart; yet it is one that must not be misapplied. In the recent volume “Counsels to Teachers, Parents, and Students,” page 219, are these words:—

“The instruction which the Lord has sent us, warning students and teachers against spending years of study in school, does not apply to young boys and girls. These need to go through the proper period of thorough discipline and study of the common branches and the Bible, until they have reached an age of more mature and reliable judgment.”

This sets before us a patient, constructive labor for our youth that we cannot afford to ignore or neglect. Those who come into the truth after maturity are to be given as effective preparation as possible in a reasonably short time, then be sent forth as fishers of men. This was the Master’s method with his grown-up followers. But in the ordinary course of things our youth need the discipline, the Christian culture, and the sound judgment—that firm establishing of character fortified by essential knowledge which requires the element of time under God-fearing instructors to produce. On one special occasion the Master turned water into wine in a moment of time, but he did not instruct us to make this the basis of grape culture; he rather bids us to sow with tears, dig about the growing plant in hope, then wait with patience for the harvest, that we may reap in joy. In our schools there will be some, especially among those who have been born again after natural maturity, whom the wonderful touch of the Master will transform in a short time into successful laborers for others; but for the most part our work must be patient continuance in cultivating the growing plants in the Lord’s vineyard, in harmony with the laws of growth established by an all-wise Creator, until they are brought to maturity and can truthfully be said to have “educated ability.”

The Outlook Hopeful

In what I have said here, I do not want even to seem to ignore the very substantial progress our schools are making, both elementary and advanced. The past June, Union College graduated twenty students from the college course (the largest number in its history), and lost nothing in attendance. Emmanuel Missionary College had six college graduates, and gained fifty-five in attendance; Mount Vernon College also had a larger class than usual; while all these schools, together with South Lancaster and Keene Academies, Walla Walla and Pacific Union Colleges, sent forth a larger number from the fourteenth grade,—all of whom, if they find their way into the denominational work, will help fill needy places.

On the other hand, we cannot but reflect upon the small total of 243 enrolled in the college grades in all our schools the past year, then reflect further upon the fact that four out of five of our children and youth of school age are yet in the secular schools, some of the latter of the best natural ability among us. We are obliged to think, too, of the heavy draft upon our best laborers for the foreign fields. We would not have this otherwise, for nothing has done more to engender a missionary spirit in the student body and in church-members generally. But the dearth of laborers, especially of ministers and teachers, both at home and abroad, presses itself upon us continually. Shall we not arouse to the situation, throw our energies more fully into raising the efficiency of our schools by every possible means, and not rest till every seat and every room in our schools is filled, and every boy and girl bearing the name of Seventh-day Adventist is brought under Christian instruction?