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July 1 - In Search of Proper Education-6

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A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you. Eze. 36:26.

It's not only individuals that need new hearts. Sometimes it's institutions also. So it was with Adventist education during the 1870s and 1880s as it searched for its proper role in the church.

Yesterday we ended with Ellen White's powerful call for reform in the tottering Battle Creek of December 1881. She feared that it was being "turned away from its original design. . .For one or two years past there has been an effor to mold our school after toehr colleges. . .The moral and religious influences should not be put in the background"(5T 21).

"If a wordly influence is to bear sway inour school, then sell it out to wordlings and le tem take the entire control; and those who have invested their means in that institution will establish another school, to be conducted, not upon the plan of popular schools, nor according to the desires of principal and teachers, but upon the plan which God has specified. . .

"God has declared His purpose to have one college in the land where the Bible shall have it proper place in the education of the yough"(ibid., 25, 26).

In her hard-hitting presentation Ellen White especially emphasized the role of the Bible and the need to get back on track with the goals of the founders.

"Too little attention," she proclaimed, "has been given to the education of young men for the ministry. This was the primary object to be secured in the establishment of the college"(ibid., 22).

She was not against the arts and sciences. To the contrary, she advocated the study of the broader field of knowledge, but "at the same time to learn the requirements of His word"(ibid., 21). It was the "mere" study of books that she objected to. Such an "education can be obtained at any college in the land"(ibid., 22). Ellen White encouraged a more comprehensive learning, one that saw everything from the biblical perspective. "As an educating power the Bible is without a rival," as it challenges students "to grapple with difficult problems" and stretch the comprehension of their minds(ibids., 24). Hers was a call to put Adventist education back on track.

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Thank You, Father, for the prophetic voice in our past history. Help us to hear that same voice as we move through this day.
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