Chapter 67—The Essential in Education
The most essential education for our youth today to gain, and that
which will fit them for the higher grades of the school above, is an
education that will teach them how to reveal the will of God to the
world. To neglect this phase of their training, and to bring into our
schools a worldly method, is to bring loss to both teachers and students.
Just before Elijah was taken to heaven, he visited the schools of
the prophets, and instructed the students on the most important points
of their education. The lessons he had given them on former visits, he
now repeated, impressing upon the minds of the youth the importance
of letting simplicity mark every feature of their education. Only in this
way could they receive the mold of heaven, and go forth to work in
the ways of the Lord. If conducted as God designs they should be, our
schools in these closing days of the message will do a work similar to
that done by the schools of the prophets.
Those who go forth from our schools to engage in mission work
will have need of an experience in the cultivation of the soil and in
other lines of manual labor. They should receive a training that will
fit them to take hold of any line of work in the fields to which they
shall be called. No work will be more effectual than that done by those
who, having obtained an education in practical life, go forth prepared
to instruct as they have been instructed.
In His teachings the Saviour represented the world as a vineyard.
We would do well to study the parables in which this figure is used. If
in our schools the land were more faithfully cultivated, the buildings
more disinterestedly cared for by the students, the love of sports and
amusements, which causes so much perplexity in our school work,
would pass away.
When the Lord placed our first parents in the garden of Eden, it
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was with the injunction that they “dress it” and “keep it.” God had
finished His work of creation, and had pronounced all things very good.
Everything was adapted to the end for which it was made. While Adam
and Eve obeyed God, their labors in the garden were a pleasure; the
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