The same principles which, if followed,
will bring success and blessing to our training schools and colleges,
should govern our plans and work for the church
schools. Let all share the expense. Let the church see that those
who ought to receive its benefits are attending the school. Poor
families should be assisted. We cannot call ourselves true missionaries
if we neglect those at our very doors who are at the most critical
age and who need our aid to secure knowledge and experience that
will fit them for the service of God.
The Lord would have painstaking efforts
made in the education of our children. True missionary work done
by teachers who are daily taught of God would bring many souls
to a knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, and children thus
educated will impart to others the light and knowledge received.
Shall the members of the church give means to advance the cause
of Christ among others and leave their own children to carry
on the work and service of Satan?
As church schools are established, the
people of God will find it a valuable education for themselves
to learn how to conduct the school on a basis of financial success.
If this cannot be done, close the school until, with the help
of God, plans can be devised to carry it on without the blot
of debt upon it. Men of financial ability should look over the
accounts once, twice, or thrice a year, to ascertain the true
standing of the school and see that enormous expenses, which
will result in the accumulation of indebtedness, do not exist.
We should shun debt as we should shun the leprosy.
Many of our youth who desire to obtain
an education feel too unconcerned in regard to becoming involved
in debt. They look upon a study of books as the principal means
of an education. They do not realize the value of a practical
business education and are content to be carried through years of study on the means of others
rather than to work their own way. They do not look critically
at the outcome of this. They do not study from cause to effect.
Often the result of such a course is a
disproportionate development of the faculties. The student does
not understand the weak points of his character; he does not
realize his own deficiencies. By depending on others he loses
an experience of practical life that it will be difficult for
him to recover. He does not learn self-reliance. He does not
learn how to exercise faith. True faith will enable the soul
to rise out of an imperfect, undeveloped state and understand
what true wisdom is. If students will develop brain, bone, and
muscle harmoniously, they will be better able to study and better
qualified to cope with the realities of life. But if they follow
their own erroneous ideas as to what constitutes education, they
will not become self-made, all-round men and women.