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Selections from the Testimonies Concerning the Subject of Education

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Selections from the Testimonies Concerning the Subject of Education

Ellen G. White

College Printing Department · Battle Creek, Mich. · 1886

REMARKS.

THIS little volume containing extracts from the Testimonies, concerning the subject of education, has been prepared in this convenient form for the purpose of placing before the teachers and students of Battle Creek College the light that God has seen fit to give concerning this important subject.
In arranging these extracts, it has been the aim to select those that are of a general, practical character, thus leaving out personal testimony. For lack of space much that would be of interest has of necessity been omitted.
The following is a list of the subjects, and time of their publication:—
1. “Proper Education,” published in 1873, Testimony, No. 22.
2. “Appeal to the Young,” published in 1875, Testimony, No. 24.
3. “Our College,” published in 1880, Testimony, No. 29.
4. “Pure Education,” published in 1881, Testimony, No. 30.
5. “Our College,” published in 1882, Testimony, No. 31.
6. “Workers in our College,” published in 1882, Testimony, No. 31.

SELECTIONS

FROM

THE TESTIMONIES

CONCERNING THE SUBJECT OF EDUCATION.

Proper Education.

It is the nicest work ever assumed by men and women to deal with youthful minds. The greatest care should be taken in the education of youth to vary the manner of instruction so as to call forth the high and noble powers of the mind. Parents and teachers of schools are certainly disqualified to educate children properly, if they have not first learned the lessons of self-control, patience, forbearance, gentleness, and love. What an important position for parents, guardians, and teachers! There are very few who realize the most essential wants of the mind, and how to direct the developing intellect, the growing thoughts and feelings of youth. (3)
There is a period for training children, and a time for educating youth. And it is essential that both of these be combined in a great degree in the schools. Children may be trained for the service of sin, or for the service of righteousness. The early education of youth shapes their character in this life, and in their religious life. Solomon says: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” This language is positive. The training which Solomon enjoins is to direct, educate, and develop. In order for parents and teachers to do this work, they must themselves understand the way the child should go. This embraces more than merely having a knowledge of books. It takes in everything that is good, virtuous, righteous, and holy. It comprehends the practice of temperance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love to God, and to each other. In order to attain to this object, the physical, mental, moral, and religious education of children must have attention.
In households, and in schools, the education of children should not be like the training of dumb animals; for children have an intelligent will, which should be directed to control all their powers. The dumb animals need to be trained; for they have not reason and intellect.The human mind must be taught self-control. It must be educated to rule the human being, while the animal is controlled by the master. The beast is trained to be submissive to his master. The master is mind, judgment, and will for his beast. A child may be so trained as to have, like the beast, no will of his own. His individuality may even be submerged in the one who superintends his training, and the will is, to all intents and purposes, subject to the will of the teacher.
Children who are thus educated will ever be deficient in moral energy and individual responsibility. They have not been taught to move from reason and principle. Their will was controlled by another, and the mind was not called out, that it might expand and strengthen by exercise. They were not directed and disciplined with respect to their peculiar constitution and capabilities of mind, to put forth their strongest powers when required. Teachers should not stop here, but give special attention to the cultivation of the weaker faculties, that all the powers may be brought into exercise, and carried forward from one degree of strength to another, that the mind may attain to due proportions.
Children should be taught to respect experiencedjudgment, and be guided by their parents and teachers. They should be so educated that their minds will be united with the minds of their parents and teachers, and so instructed that they can see the propriety of heeding their counsel. Then when they shall go forth from the guiding hand of their parents and teachers, their characters will not be like the reed trembling in the wind.
God never designed that one human mind should be under the complete control of another human mind. And those who make efforts to have the individuality of their pupils submerged in themselves, and they be mind, will, and conscience for their pupils, assume fearful responsibilities. These scholars may, upon certain occasions, appear like well-drilled soldiers. But when the restraint is removed, there will be seen a want of independent action from firm principle, existing in them. But those who make it their object so to educate their pupils that they may see and feel that the power lies in themselves to make men and women of firm principle, qualified for any position in life, are the most useful and permanently successful teachers. Their work may not show to the very best advantage to careless observers, and their labors may not be valued as highly as theteacher who holds the will and mind of his scholars by absolute authority, but the future lives of the pupils will show the fruits of the better plan of education.
There is danger of both parents and teachers commanding and dictating too much, while they fail to come sufficiently into social relation with their children, or their scholars. They often hold themselves too much reserved, and exercise their authority in a cold, unsympathizing manner, which cannot win the hearts of their children and pupils. If they would gather the children close to them, and show that they love them, and manifest an interest in all their efforts, and even in their sports, and sometimes be even a child among them, they would make the children very happy, would gain their love, and win their confidence. And the children would sooner respect and love the authority of their parents and teachers.
The principles and habits of the teacher should be considered of greater importance than even his literary qualifications. If the teacher is a sincere Christian, he will feel the necessity of having an equal interest in the physical, mental, moral, and spiritual education of his scholars. In order to exert the right influence, he should have perfect control over himself, and his own heart should be richly imbued with love for hispupils, which will be seen in his looks, words, and acts. He should have firmness of character; then, he can mold the minds of his pupils, as well as instruct them in the sciences.
The early education of youth generally shapes their character for life. Those who deal with the young should be very careful to call out the qualities of the mind, that they may better know how to direct their powers, and that they may be exercised to the very best account.
In order for children and youth to have health, happiness, vivacity, and well developed muscle and brain, they should be much in the open air, and have well regulated employment and amusement. Children and youth who are kept at school, and confined to books, cannot have sound physical constitutions. The exercise of the brain in study, without corresponding physical exercise, has a tendency to attract the blood to the brain, and the circulation of the blood through the system becomes unbalanced. The brain has too much blood, and the extremities too little. There should be rules regulating their studies to certain hours, and then a portion of their time should be spent in physical labor. And if their habits of eating, dressing, and sleeping were in accordance with physical law,they could obtain an education without sacrificing physical and mental health.
The patriarchs from Adam to Noah, with but few exceptions, lived nearly a thousand years. Since the days of Noah, the length of life has been tapering. Those suffering with disease were brought to Christ for him to heal, from every town, city, and village; for they were afflicted with all manner of diseases. And disease has been steadily on the increase through successive generations since that period. Because of the continued violation of the laws of life, mortality has increased to a fearful extent.
Disease has been transmitted from parents to children from generation to generation. Infants in their cradle are miserably afflicted because of the sins of their parents, which have lessened their vital force. Their wrong habits of eating and dressing, and their general dissipation, are transmitted, as an inheritance to their children. Many are born insane, deformed, blind, deaf, and a very large class deficient in intellect. The strange absence of principle which characterizes this generation, in disregarding the laws of life and health, is astonishing. Ignorance prevails upon this subject, while light is shining all around them. With the majority, their principal anxiety is,What shall I eat? what shall I drink? and wherewithal shall I be clothed? Notwithstanding all that is said and written in regard to how we should treat our bodies, appetite is the great law which governs men and women generally.
The moral powers are beclouded, because men and women will not live in obedience to the laws of health, and make this great subject a personal duty. Parents bequeath to their offspring their own perverted habits; and loathsome diseases corrupt the blood, and enervate the brain. The majority of men and women remain in ignorance of the laws of their being, and indulge appetite and passion at the expense of intellect and morals, and seem willing to remain in ignorance of the result of their violation of nature’s laws. They indulge the depraved appetite in the use of slow poisons, which corrupt the blood, and undermine the nervous forces, and in consequence bring upon themselves sickness and death. Their friends call the result of their own course the dispensation of Providence. In this they insult Heaven. They rebelled against the laws of nature, and suffered the punishment of her abused laws. Suffering and mortality now prevail everywhere, especially among the children. How great is the contrast between this generation, and thosewho lived during the first two thousand years! I inquired if this tide of woe could not be prevented, and something done to save the youth of this generation from the ruin which threatens them. I was shown that one cause of the existing deplorable state of things is, that parents do not feel under obligation to bring up their children to conform to physical law. Mothers love their children with an idolatrous love, and they indulge their appetite when they know that it will injure the health of the children, and thereby bring upon them disease and unhappiness. This cruel kindness is carried out to a great extent in the present generation. The desires of children are gratified at the expense of health and happy tempers, because it is easier for the mother, for the time being, to gratify than to withhold that which her children clamor for.
Had the system of education generations back been conducted upon altogether a different plan, the youth of this generation would not now be so depraved and worthless. The managers and teachers of schools should have been those who understood physiology, and who had an interest, not only to educate youth in the sciences, but to teach them how to preserve health, in order to use their knowledge to the best account after they had obtained it. Thereshould have been in connection with the schools establishments for various branches of labor, that the students might have employment, and necessary exercise out of school hours.
The students’ employment and amusements should have been regulated with reference to physical law, and adapted to preserve to them the healthy tone of all the powers of the body and mind. Then their education in practical business could have been obtained, while their literary progress was being secured. Students at school should have had their moral sensibilities aroused to see and feel that society had claims upon them, and that they should so live in obedience to natural law that they could, by their existence and influence, by precept and example, be an advantage and blessing to society. It should be impressed upon youth that all have an influence that is constantly telling upon society, to improve and elevate, or to lower and debase it. The first study of youth should be to know themselves, and how to keep their bodies in health.
Many parents have kept their children at school nearly the year round. These children have gone through the routine of study mechanically, and they have not retained that which they learned. Many of these constant students seem almost destitute of intellectuallife. The monotony of continual study wearies the mind, and they have but little interest in their lessons, and to many, the application to books becomes painful. They had not an inward love of thought, and ambition to acquire knowledge. They did not encourage in themselves reflection, and investigation of objects and things.
Children are in great need of proper education, in order that their lives should be of use in the world. But any effort that exalts intellectual culture above moral training is misdirected. Instructing, cultivating, polishing, and refining youth and children should be the main burden with both parents and teachers. Close reasoners and logical thinkers are few; for the reason that false influences have checked the development of the intellect. The supposition of parents and teachers that continual study would strengthen the intellect has proved erroneous; for it has had in many cases the opposite effect.
In the early education of children, many parents and teachers fail to understand that the greatest attention needs to be given to the physical constitution, that a healthy condition of body and brain may be secured. It has been the custom to encourage children to attend school when they are mere babies, needing amother’s care. Children of a delicate age are frequently crowded into ill-ventilated school-rooms, to sit upon poorly constructed benches; and the young and tender frames have, through sitting in wrong positions, become deformed.
The disposition and habits of youth will be very likely to be manifested in the matured man. You may bend a young tree to almost any form that you may choose, and let it remain and grow as you have bent it, and it will be a deformed tree, and will ever tell of the injury and abuse received at your hand. You may, after years of growth, try to straighten the tree, but all your efforts will prove unavailing. It will ever be a crooked tree. This is the case with the minds of youth. They should be carefully and tenderly trained in childhood. They may be trained in the right direction or the wrong, and they will in their future life pursue the course in which they were directed in youth. The habits formed in youth will grow with their growth and strengthen with their strength; and they will generally be the same in after life, only continuing to grow stronger.
We are living in an age when almost everything is superficial. There is but little stability and firmness of character, because the training and education of children from their cradleis superficial. Their characters are built upon sliding sand. Self-denial and self-control have not been molded into their characters. They have been petted and indulged until they are spoiled for practical life. The love of pleasure controls minds, and children are flattered and indulged to their ruin. Children should be trained and educated so that they may calculate to meet with difficulties, and expect temptations and dangers. They should be taught to have control over themselves, and to nobly overcome difficulties; and if they do not willfully rush into danger, and needlessly place themselves in the way of temptation; if they shun evil influences and vicious society, and then are unavoidably compelled to be in dangerous company, they will have strength of character to stand for the right and preserve principle, and will come forth in the strength of God with their morals untainted. The moral powers of youth who have been properly educated, if they make God their trust, will be equal to stand the most powerful test.
If parents would feel it a solemn duty that God enjoins upon them to educate their children for usefulness in this life, if they would adorn the inner temple of the souls of theirsons and daughters for the immortal life, we should see a great change in society for the better. And then there would not be manifest so great indifference to practical godliness, and it would not be as difficult to arouse the moral sensibilities of children to understand the claims that God has upon them. But parents become more and more careless in the education of their children in the useful branches. Many parents allow their children to form wrong habits, and to follow their inclination rather than to impress upon their minds the danger of their doing this, and the necessity of their being controlled by principle.
Children frequently engage in a piece of work, and become perplexed or weary of it, and wish to change and take hold of something new, although they entered upon the work with enthusiasm. Thus they may take hold of several things, meet with a little discouragement, and give them up; and thus pass from one thing to another, perfecting nothing. Parents should not be so much engaged with other things that they have not time to patiently discipline those developing minds. They should not allow the love of change to control their children. A few words of encouragement, or a little help at the right time may carry them over their trouble and discouragement, andthe satisfaction they will have in seeing completed the task they undertook will stimulate them to greater exertion.
Many children, for want of words of encouragement, and a little assistance in their efforts in childhood and youth, become disheartened, and change from one thing to another. And they carry this sad defect with them in mature life. They cannot make a success of anything they engage in; for they have not been taught to persevere under discouraging circumstances. Thus the entire lifetime of many proves a failure because they did not have correct discipline. The education in childhood and youth, not only effect their entire business career in mature life, but the religious experience bears a corresponding stamp.
Young ladies frequently give themselves up to study, and to the neglect of other branches of education even more essential for practical life than the study of books. After they have obtained their education, they are frequently invalids for life. They neglected their health by remaining too much in-doors, deprived of the pure air of heaven, and the God-given sunlight.
These ladies might have come from their schools in health, if they had combined withtheir studies household labor and exercise in the open air.
Health is a great treasure. It is the richest possession mortal can have. Wealth, honor, or learning, is dearly purchased, if it be at the loss of the vigor of health. None of these attainments can secure happiness if health is wanting. It is a terrible sin to abuse the health God has given us. Every abuse of health enfeebles for life, and makes us losers, even if we gain any amount of education.
Poverty, in many cases, is a blessing; for it prevents youth and children from being ruined by inaction. The physical as well as the mental should be cultivated and properly developed. The first and constant care of parents should be that their children may have firm constitutions, that they may be sound men and women. It is impossible to attain this object without physical exercise. Children, for their own physical health and moral good, should be taught to work, even if there is no necessity as far as want is concerned. If they would have virtuous characters, they must have the discipline of well-regulated labor, which will bring into exercise all the muscles. The satisfaction children will have in being useful, of denying themselves to help others, will be the mosthealthful pleasure they ever enjoyed. Why should the wealthy rob themselves and their dear children of this great blessing?
Parents, inaction is the greatest curse that ever came upon youth. Your daughters should not be allowed to lie late in bed in the morning, sleeping away the precious hours lent them of God to be used for the best purpose, and for which they will have to give an account to God. The mother is doing her daughters great injury in bearing the burdens the daughters should share with her for their own present good and future benefit. The course many parents pursued in allowing their children to be indolent and to gratify a desire for reading romance, is unfitting them for real life. Novel and story-book reading are the greatest evils that youth can indulge in. Novel and love-story readers always fail to make good, practical mothers. They live in an unreal world. They are air-castle builders, living in an imaginary world. They become sentimental, and have sick fancies. Their artificial life spoils them for anything useful. They are dwarfed in intellect, although they flatter themselves that they are superior in mind and manners. Exercise in household labor will be of the greatest advantage to young girls.
Physical labor will not prevent the cultivationof the intellect. Far from this. The advantages gained by physical labor will balance them, that the mind shall not be overworked. The toil will then come upon the muscles, and relieve the wearied brain. There are many listless, useless girls who consider it unlady-like to engage in active labor. But their characters are too transparent to deceive sensible persons in regard to their real worthlessness. They will simper and giggle, and are all affectation. They appear as though they could not speak fairly and squarely, but torture all they say with lisping and simpering. Are these ladies? They are not born fools, but were educated such. It does not require a frail, helpless, overdressed, simpering thing to make a lady. A sound body is required for a sound intellect. Physical soundness, and a practical knowledge in all the necessary household duties, is never a hinderance to a well developed intellect, but highly important for a lady.
All the powers of the mind should be called into use, and developed, in order for men and women to have well balanced minds. The world is full of one-sided men and women, because one set of the faculties are cultivated, while others are dwarfed from inaction. The education of most youth is a failure. They overstudy, while they neglect that which pertains to practicalbusiness life. Men and women become parents without considering their responsibilities, and their offspring sink lower in the scale of human deficiency than they themselves. Thus we are fast degenerating. The constant application to study, as the schools are now conducted, is unfitting youth for practical life. The human mind will have action. If it is not active in the right direction, it will be active in the wrong. And in order to preserve the balance of the mind, labor and study should be united in schools.
There should have been in past generations provisions made for education upon a larger scale. In connection with the schools should have been agricultural and manufacturing establishments. There should have been teachers also of household labor. There should have been a portion of the time each day devoted to labor, that the physical and mental might be equally exercised. If schools had been established upon the plan we have mentioned, there would not now be as many unbalanced minds.
I have been led to inquire, Must all that is valuable in our youth be sacrificed in order that they may obtain an education at the schools? If there had been agricultural and manufacturing establishments in connection with ourschools, and competent teachers had been employed to educate the youth in the different branches of study and labor, devoting a portion of each day to mental improvement, and a portion of the day to physical labor, there would now be a more elevated class of youth to come upon the stage of action, to have influence in molding society. The youth who would graduate at such institutions would many of them come forth with stability of character. They would have perseverance, fortitude, and courage to surmount obstacles, and principles that they would not be swerved by wrong influence, however popular. There should have been experienced teachers to give lessons to young ladies in the cooking department. Young girls should have been instructed to manufacture wearing apparel, to cut, make, and mend garments, and thus become educated for the practical duties of life.
For young men there should be establishments where they could learn different trades, which would bring into exercise their muscles as well as their mental powers. If the youth can have but a one-sided education, which is of the greatest consequence, the study of the sciences with all the disadvantages to health and life, or the knowledge of labor for practical life, we unhesitatingly say, The latter. Ifone must be neglected, let it be the study of books. There are very many girls who have married and have families who have but little practical knowledge of the duties devolving upon a wife and mother. They cannot cook, but they can read, and play upon an instrument of music. They cannot make good bread, which is very essential to the health of the family. They cannot cut and make garments, for they did not learn how to do these things. They did not consider these things essential, and they are in their married life dependent, as their own little children, upon some one to do these things for them. It is this inexcusable ignorance in regard to the most needful duties of life which makes very many unhappy families.
The impression that work is degrading to fashionable life has laid thousands in the grave who might have lived. Those who perform only manual labor frequently work to excess, without giving themselves periods of rest, while the intellectual class overwork the brain, and suffer for want of the healthful vigor physical labor gives. If the intellectual would share the burden of the laboring class to a degree, that the muscles might be strengthened, the laboring class might do less, and devote a portion of their time to mental and moral culture. Those of sedentary and literary habits shouldexercise the physical, even if they have no need to labor so far as means is concerned. Health should be a sufficient inducement to lead them to unite physical with their mental labor.
Intellectual, physical, and moral culture should be combined in order to have well developed and well balanced men and women. Some are qualified to exercise greater intellectual strength than others, while others are inclined to love and enjoy physical labor. Both of these should seek to improve where they are deficient, that they may present to God their entire being, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to him, which is their reasonable service. The habits and customs of fashionable society should not gauge their course of action. The inspired apostle adds, “And be ye not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.”
Thinking men’s minds labor too hard. They frequently use their mental powers prodigally, while there is another class whose highest aim in life is physical labor. The latter class do not exercise the mind. Their muscles are exercised, while their brain is robbed of intellectual strength, as the brain workers, who neglect exercising the muscles, and rob theirbodies of strength and vigor. Those who are content to devote their lives to physical labor, and leave others to do the thinking for them, while they simply carry out what other brains have planned, will have strength of muscle, but feeble intellects. Their influence for good is small in comparison to what it might be if they would use their brains as well as their muscles. This class fall more readily if attacked with disease, because the system is not vitalized by the electrical force of the brain to resist disease.
Men who have good physical powers should educate themselves to think as well as to act, and not depend upon others to be brains for them. It is a popular error with a large class to regard work as degrading. Therefore young men are very anxious to educate themselves to become teachers, clerks, merchants, lawyers, and to occupy almost any position that does not require physical labor. Young women regard housework as demeaning. And although the physical exercise required to perform household labor, if not too severe, is calculated to promote health, yet they will seek for education that will fit them to become teachers, clerks, or learn some trade which confines them indoors to sedentary employment. The bloom of health fades from their cheeks, and disease fastens upon them, because they are robbed ofphysical exercise; and their habits are perverted generally, because it is fashionable. They enjoy delicate life, which is feebleness and decay.
True, there is some excuse for young women not choosing housework for employment, because those who hire their kitchen girls generally treat them as servants. Frequently their employers do not respect them, and treat them as though they were unworthy to be members of their families. They do not give them privileges as they do the seamstress, the copyist, and the teacher of music. But there can be no employment more important than that of housework. To cook well, and present healthful food upon the table in an inviting manner, requires intelligence and experience. The one who prepares food that is to be placed in our stomachs, to be converted into blood to nourish the system, occupies a most important and elevated position. The position of copyist, dress-maker, or music teacher, cannot equal in importance that of the cook.
The foregoing is a statement of what might have been done by a proper system of education. But time is too short now to accomplish that which might have been done in past generations. But we can do much, even in these last days, to correct the existing evils in theeducation of youth. And because time is short we should be in earnest, and work zealously to give the young that education which is consistent with our faith. We are reformers. We desire that our children should study to the best advantage. In order to do this, employment should be given them which would call into exercise the muscles. Daily, systematic labor should constitute a part of the education of youth even at this late period. Much can now be gained in connecting labor with schools. The students will realize in following this plan elasticity of spirit, and vigor of thought, and can accomplish more mental labor, in a given time, than they could by study alone. And they can leave their schools with their constitutions unimpaired, with strength and courage to persevere in any position in which the providence of God may place them.
There are many young men whose services God would accept if they would consecrate themselves to him unreservedly. If they would exercise the powers of their mind in the service of God, which they use in serving themselves, and in acquiring property, they would make earnest, persevering, successful laborers in the vineyard of the Lord. Many of our young men should turn their attention to thestudy of the Scriptures, that God may use them in his cause. But they do not become intelligent in spiritual knowledge as in temporal things, therefore they fail to do the work of God which they could do with acceptance. There are but few to warn sinners and win souls to Christ when there should be many. Our young men generally are wise in worldly matters, but not intelligent in regard to the things of the kingdom of God. They might turn their minds in the heavenly and divine channel, walking in the light, and going on from one degree of light and strength to another, until they could turn sinners to Christ, and point the unbelieving and desponding to a bright track heavenward. And when the warfare is ended they might be welcomed to the joy of the Lord.
Young men should not enter upon the work of explaining the Scriptures, and lecturing upon the prophecies, when they do not have a knowledge of the important Bible truths they try to explain to others. They may be deficient in the common branches of education, and fail to do the amount of good they otherwise could do, if they had the advantages of a good school. Ignorance will not increase the humility or spirituality of any professed follower of Christ. The truths of the divine wordcan be best appreciated by an intellectual Christian. Christ can be better glorified by those who serve him intelligently. The great object of education is to enable us to bring into use the powers which God has given us in such a manner as will best represent the religion of the Bible and promote the glory of God. For all the talents which God has intrusted to us, we are indebted to him who gave us existence.
Continue reading: APPEAL TO THE YOUNG.