Adventist Heritage Stories continue

In 1872 Ellen White wrote a small paper “Proper Education” advocating a balance between intellectual effort and manual labor, yet she never got a chance to develop such an ideal in America.  When Battle Creek college was organized not on a sufficient acreage for agricultural work and training she was in tears.  It was not until her founding the Avondale School in Australia, hacking the campus out of the wilderness in Cooranbong, New South Wales, that she experienced the very best school.

When she returned to the United States in 1900 she learned that Adventist school were so poorly managed that the combined debt was about $350,000.  She donated the profits from the sale of Christ’s Object Lessons to diminish the debt, and call for changing the management principles of the school system.

She also found a misuse of her earlier writings regarding the education.  In 1872 she wrote that “small children should be left as free as lambs to run out-of-doors” and that “parents should be the only teachers of their children until they have reached eight or ten years of age.”  As a result of these statements parents were not enrolling their children in church schools and keeping them home until they were ten.

In the Adventist Community surrounding St.Helena sanitarium in Napa Valley, California, the Board of the newly established elementary school was also divided on the matter of the minimum age for school entry.  In 1904 they visited with Ellen White and her home to discuss the subject.  She simply explained that conditions in schools have changed since 1872.  Whereas before the children were tied to their desks and instruction required long time sitting in-doors, the new kindergarten movement had teachers plan a curriculum with plenty of activities.  She simply told that the problem of immobilizing children at their desks had been resolved, and in such circumstances even five-year-old youngsters were educable.  Back in 1888 Ellen White already suggested to an Adventist community in Oakland, California to start a kindergarten.

There is a caution to us too, a “wooden literalism” may pass by the principles and the context of why things were said.  The principle of education that was brought forth by pioneers was parental and community responsibility for spiritual education of young children, as well as health aspect of physical activity to be involved in proper education.  At times when secular education was focused on rote memorization and arresting mobility, the messenger of the Lord was instructed the importance of kinesthetic and visual learning in addition to audible instruction alone, and free-thinking instead of memorization

How are your children educated?  Do you heed the Counsel?