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Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
One of the greatest difficulties with which teachers have had to
contend is the failure on the part of parents to cooperate in administer-
ing the discipline of the college. If the parents would stand pledged to
sustain the authority of the teacher, much insubordination, vice, and
profligacy would be prevented. Parents should require their children to
respect and obey rightful authority. They should labor with unremitting
care and diligence to instruct, guide, and restrain their children until
right habits are firmly established. With such training the youth would
be in subjection to the institutions of society and the general restraints
of moral obligation.
Both by precept and example the young should be taught simplicity
of dress and manners, industry, sobriety, and economy. Many students
are extravagant in expending the means furnished them by their parents.
They try to show themselves superior to their associates by a lavish
use of money for display and self-indulgence. In some institutions of
learning this matter has been regarded of so great consequence that
the dress of the student is prescribed and his use of money limited by
law. But indulgent parents and indulged students will find some way
to evade the law. We would resort to no such means. We ask Christian
parents to take all these matters under careful, prayerful consideration,
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to seek counsel from the word of God, and then to endeavor to act in
accordance with its teachings.
If facilities for manual labor were provided in connection with our
school, and students were required to devote a portion of their time
to some active employment, it would prove a safeguard against many
of the evil influences that prevail in institutions of learning. Manly,
useful occupations, substituted for frivolous and corrupting diversions,
would give legitimate scope for the exuberance of youthful life and
would promote sobriety and stability of character. All possible effort
should be made to encourage a desire for moral and physical as well as
mental improvement. If girls were taught how to cook, especially how
to bake good bread, their education would be of far greater value. A
knowledge of useful labor would prevent, to a great extent, that sickly
sentimentalism which has been and is still ruining thousands. The
exercise of the muscles as well as the brain will encourage taste for
the homely duties of practical life.
The present age is one of show and surface work in education.
Brother-----possesses naturally a love for system and thoroughness,