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June 26th - Enter Goodloe Harper Bell

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Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Prov. 22:6.

A flash of concern for Adventist education occurred during the 1850s. James White wrote that you couldn't just take children from school and "let them run at large with the chidlren in the streets. 'An empty brain is the devil's workshop.'"

Attempts at Adventist schooling sprang up in such places as Buck's Bridge, New York, and Battle Creek, Michigan. But all failed. Thoroughly discouraged on the topic of schooling, James wrote in 1861 that "we have had a thorough trial of a school at Battle Creek, under most favorable circumstances, and have given up."

For another seven years it looked as if schooling was a dead issue in Adventism. Then came Goodloe Harper Bell.

Bell first went to Battle Creek in the winter of 1866-1867 at the age of 34, when he accompanied a friend to the recently establshed Health Reform Institute. It must have impressed him because the next year when Bell needed treatment himself he returned.

That was good enough, but Bell got stuck in a room with an Adventist by the name of Osborne. Night after night he heard Osborne, who thought Bell had gone to sleep, praying out loud for him. The man's utter sincerity so affected Bell that the educator joined the church.

Part of his treatment was physical work in the fresh air. Accordingly, Willie White tells us, someone gave Bell a handsaw and put him to the task of sawing wood for the nearby Adventist publishing house.

It was there that Edson White, Jame's oldest living son, met him. Finding out he was a teacher, Edson mentioned how much he hated grammer. To that Bell replied that properly taught, grammar was one of the most interesting studies.

That chance contact led in the next few months to Bell being employed by the Battle Creek church. In 1872 the General Conference took over the school. Thus it was that his little institution became the first one of a worldwide system that in 2006 counted 5,362 elementary schools, 1,462 secondary schools, and 106 colleges and universities.

God even uses starnge Adventists like Brother Osborne to do special things for His work. If He can use Osborne, he can use you and me if we let Him guide our heart and minds.

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There is life in the seed, there is power in the soil; but unless an infinite power is exercised day and night, the seed will yield no returns. The showers of rain must be sent to give moisture to the thirsty fields, the sun must impart heat, electricity must be conveyed to the buried seed. The life which the Creator has implanted, He alone can call forth. Every seed grows, every plant develops, by the power of God(COL 63).
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