Industrial Education the Need of the South by M. Bessie DeGraw

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 19, 1914

Industrial Education the Need of the South

By M. Bessie DeGraw

IN Rabun County, in the northeastern corner of the State of Georgia, in the very heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, hedged about by mountain barriers on its southern and western borders, in one of the most isolated and inaccessible spots of all the mountain region, there is an industrial school founded and conducted by Prof. Andrew J. Ritchie. Professor Ritchie was born in this county, but was more fortunate than his neighbors, because he had the advantages of an education outside of the county. He is a college graduate and a college professor.

Several years ago Professor Ritchie, on visiting his home county, found that there was not a single advanced school in the county, that the public schools were open only from sixty to ninety days during the year, that the children were taught in most wretched schoolhouses and by teachers with little more training than those schools offered. The average child attended school about forty days in the year. This condition appealed so strongly to Professor Ritchie that he forsook his employment in the world, and he and his wife dedicated their lives to the betterment of the people in Rabun County. He visited every home, riding from place to place on horseback. He talked school work, he wrote about school work, and finally with his own means and the little help he could get from his neighbors, he began to build a school.

His school is an industrial school, for he says: "The old education fails to reach the mountain problem. The goal it sets before the mountain boy or girl

is too often an escape from the work and environment of the mountain community and a change to the life of the town or city. The kind of education needed is education that shall have a larger bearing upon the life which the people are leading." He says there must be established a practical connection between education and work. "The students must study the industries of their environment. The mountain boy needs to be trained in agriculture, forestry, dairying and animal husbandry, and in handicrafts in woodwork and other industries for which the materials lie at hand unused."

He says further that the girls in the mountains need the training to become orderly housekeepers, successful home makers, which, combined with the pure mountain air and water, will give these people the physical health they need.

Professor Ritchie says that the mountain school must be an evangelizing, spiritual force in the community. It can do a work in these mountain districts that the church and the evangelistic preacher cannot do. "It must set in motion influences which will soften the mountain temper and displace the spirit of feud. It must banish the evil of whisky and the attendant social degradation."

These mountain children must earn their own living with the labor of their hands. Their wealth must come from the soil, and the products they can make with their hands. They must be their own carpenters, their own blacksmiths, and to a large extent their own weavers. Since these are the lessons the mountain boys and girls must learn, there should be schools offering these same subjects to train teachers for these mountain districts.

Hon. W. J. Northern, an ex-governor of the State of Georgia, says: "The work undertaken by Professor Ritchie is, in my judgment, one of the greatest educational needs of the State."

In the description of Professor Ritchie's work, in the quotations from him concerning the needs of the mountain districts, in Mr. Northern's tribute to Mr. Ritchie, we have the world's invitation to establish in the South industrial schools in many isolated districts.

The spirit of prophecy has for years invited Seventh-day Adventists to do this very work. It has outlined for them an educational system which will meet these needs. True, this calls for a reform in education, but we read: "I have been shown that in our educational work we are not to follow the methods that have been adopted in our older-established schools. There is among us too much clinging to the old customs, and because of this we are far behind where we should be in the development of the third angel's message. . . . Years have passed into eternity with small results, that might have shown the accomplishment of a great work."

Our attention is called to the work of the Australasian Missionary College, at Avondale, Australia, as an example of what should be done in many places in the South. We are told that men and women who receive an all-round, practical education will find standing room all through the South and in foreign fields. We are told further that in carrying out the Lord's will concerning industrial training, many men and women from the common walks of life will have a part.

Sister White, writing for the Review and Herald, under date of June 27, 1912, says: "Under the ministration of angels, common men will be moved upon by the Spirit of God and led to warn people in the highways and byways. These workers are to be strengthened and encouraged, and as fast as possible prepared for labor, that success may crown their efforts. . . . There are lay members who are fitted to bear responsibilities, and who would do so if there were some one with patience, kindness, and forbearance, who would teach them how to work." This same article from the pen of Sister White tells us that we have lost much in our missionary efforts because we have not recognized the part that the layman is yet to play in the spread of the third angel's message. We have lost much because we have not encouraged our lay members to attend schools offering a source of study that will prepare them to do a simple work in needy fields which God says with his blessing they can and will yet do.

The world, especially our Southern States, is extending to us an earnest invitation to spread the truth of the third angel's message through industrial schools. The spirit of prophecy is instructing us to do this same thing. The Nashville Agricultural and Normal Institute was established to train workers to do this very work, and as the course of study for this school is compared with the needs outlined by men of intelligence who are facing the mountain problem, we are led to exclaim, Surely the hand of God is in this!