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A Good Government

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Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Nov 27, 1879

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 5, No. 45.

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A Good Government.

By Editor

IN Madagascar, the government adopted a system of compulsory education, requiring the attendance at school of every native child above the age of seven years. The following Proclamation by the Queen has since been received. It cannot fail to be read with interest, coming from an island that only a few years since was in a state of barbarism:—
I, Queen Ranavalona, by the grace of God and the will of the people Queen of Madagascar, and defender of the laws of my country, etc., thus I say to you of Iboina: I am glad because the gospel of Jesus Christ has come to my country and my kingdom, to make wise my people in the knowledge of the true God. But it is not those here in Imerina only who receive it, for it has reached yourselves in Iboina also, and on that account I thank God especially. And now I send you the numbers of the scholars in each of your towns. I have had them printed that they may all be seen by you, lest you should imagine that I do not see or hear; for I do see and hear, because my subjects are every one eyes and ears to me. And when I examine the numbers of these your children at school, I observed that they are only as yet very few, and not in proportion to the largeness of your Iboina population. Therefore send your children to get knowledge, for the good of it will be a good to you and themselves—a means of keeping account of your cattle and your money and all your property, and also a means of advancement; for I am a Sovereign who rewards the deserving with good. And you fathers and mothers also be diligent, for it makes glad to see my subjects wise. It is a thing which will benefit you that I command to be done, for if it were something that would injure you I would not do so; but I know that it will cause you to prosper, and for that reason I insist upon all of you learning. And so be all of you diligent, for although you do not now know the sweetness of knowledge and wisdom, you will discover it when they become yours,
Saith Queen Ranavalona, Queen of Madagascar.