How Shall I Spend Vacation? by V. O. COLE

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 30, 1914

How Shall I Spend Vacation?

By V. O. COLE

V. O. COLE

No doubt this is a question that many of our students are seriously thinking of just now. Their minds have been very active throughout the school year imbibing many of the great principles of life that make up a Christian education. They have spent their means, their time, and their strength in the search for knowledge found in books. Late hours at night and early hours in the morning have no doubt found many of them digging for the hidden treasure, as a miner digs for precious metals in the earth.

The time has almost come for a new order of things. The question now is, How can I make the best use of the knowledge already gained, and, at the same time, add more to my storehouse? In the business world, the successful financier will tell us that it is the money in circulation which brings returns, and not that which lies in the vaults. While it is a good thing to have a reserve fund, it is not a successful policy to reserve all the funds.

He is not a successful financier who knows only how to accumulate or to reserve funds, but he who has also learned the art of making the best use of them. The same principle will apply to knowledge. It is not enough simply to accumulate this treasure, but the important thing is to make the best use of it. The servant of the Lord has a splendid suggestion for us on this point. It is this:—

“Let those who have been in school go out into the field, and put to a practical use the knowledge they have gained. If canvassers will do this, using the ability that God has given them, seeking counsel from him, and combining the work of selling books with personal labor for the people, their talents

will increase by exercise, and they will learn many practical lessons which they could not possibly learn in school. The education obtained in this practical way may properly be termed higher education. There is no higher work than evangelistic canvassing, for it involves the performance of the highest moral duties.”—“Manual for Canvassers,” pages 68, 69.

It has been truly said, “Practical men, and practical truth, and practical measures for applying and diffusing the truth, are the paramount wants of a practical age.” The question is asked, “How then shall such men be trained?—Not by study alone, not by action alone. . . . Let him take his bundle of books, and, with his eyes and ears open, go on foot to all classes of people. Let him go where all the conventional restraints are removed; where poverty is pressing; where enterprise is struggling; where iniquity, and sensuality, and infidelity, and a backsliding Christianity are hiding themselves; where various religious interests and denominations are conflicting, and he will get more insight to the true feelings of the people, their wants, their prejudices, their strange misapprehensions, and the best way of approaching them, than he could by hearing lectures, or preaching as a settled pastor all his days. Let him do this three months a year for three years, and his training will be all that could be desired. . . .

“Book knowledge without field work makes a student top-heavy. It gives him too much sail in proportion to his ballast. He becomes heavy, abstract, and impractical in his work. The book knowledge needs to be worked into the real sinews of life by personal service for his fellow men, or it will be of little value. Colportage provides the best possible opportunity for such preparatory training.”—“The Printing Press and the Gospel,” pages 150-152.

May each student seek the Lord earnestly for counsel in planning his summer's work. He has invested his means, time, and strength for nine months in school; now may that investment that he has made, with its accumulated wealth of knowledge, be reinvested in the salvation of precious souls out in the field; and, for a time at least, may he throw himself into the furrow of the world's need, and thereby not only have his own perceptions of life's duty sharpened, but bring blessings to others by his faithful service.