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Mind, Character, and Personality Volume 1
to form characters that will fit them to unite with saints and angels
in the higher school. In the place of crowding youthful minds with a
mass of things that are distasteful and that in many cases will never
be of any use to them, a practical education should be given. Time
and money are spent in gaining useless knowledge. The mind should
be carefully and wisely taught to dwell upon Bible truth. The main
object of education should be to gain a knowledge of how we can
glorify God, whose we are by creation and by redemption. The result
of education should be to enable us to understand the voice of God....
Like the branches of the True Vine, the Word of God presents
unity in diversity. There is in it a perfect, superhuman, mysterious
unity. It contains divine wisdom, and that is the foundation of all true
education; but this Book has been treated indifferently.
Now, as never before, we need to understand the true science of
education. If we fail to understand this, we shall never have a place in
the kingdom of God. “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee
the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent” (
John 17:3
).
If this is the price of heaven, shall not our education be conducted on
these lines?—
The Christian Educator, August 1, 1897, par.4
.
Making Iron Rule for Others Dishonors God—God will not
vindicate any device whereby man shall in the slightest degree rule
or oppress his fellowman. As soon as a man begins to make an iron
rule for other men, he dishonors God and imperils his own soul and
the souls of his brethren.—
Testimonies for the Church 7:181
(1902).
Balance of Differing Minds Necessary—Here we are brought
together—of different minds, different education, and different
training—and we do not expect that every mind will run right in the
same channel; but the question is, Are we, the several branches, grafted
[54]
into the parent Vine? That is what we want to inquire, and we want to
ask teachers as well as students. We want to understand whether we
are really grafted into the parent Vine. If we are, we may have different
manners, different tones, and different voices. You may view things
from one standpoint, and we have ideas different from one another in
regard to the Scriptures, not in opposition to the Scriptures, but our
ideas may vary. My mind may run in the lines most familiar to it, and
another may be thinking and taking a view according to his traits of
character, and see a very deep interest in one side of it that others do
not see.—
Manuscript 14, 1894.