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Testimonies for the Church Volume 6
expenses, but to be able to furnish the students during the school term
with some things essential for their work.
Debts must not be allowed to accumulate term after term. The very
highest kind of education that could be given is to shun the incurring of
debt as you would shun disease. When one year after another passes,
and there is no sign of diminishing the debt, but it is rather increased,
a halt should be called. Let the managers say: “We refuse to run
the school any longer unless some sure system is devised.” It would
be better, far better, to close the school until the managers learn the
science of conducting it on a paying basis. For Christ’s sake, as the
chosen people of God, call yourselves to task and inaugurate a sound
financial system in our schools.
Whenever it becomes necessary to raise the prices at any school,
let the matter first be laid before the patrons of the institution, showing
them that the fees have been placed at too low a figure and that, as
a result, debts are accumulating upon the school, thus crippling and
hindering its work. Properly increasing the tuitions may cause a
decrease in the attendance, but a large attendance should not be so
much a matter of rejoicing as freedom from debt.
One of the results of low tuition at Battle Creek has been the
gathering together in one place of a larger number of students and a
larger number of families than was wise. If two thirds of the people
in Battle Creek were plants of the Lord in other localities, they would
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have room to grow. Greater results would have appeared if a portion
of the time and energy bestowed on the large school in Battle Creek
to keep it in a healthy condition had been used for schools in other
localities where there is room for agricultural pursuits to be carried
on as a part of the education. Had there been a willingness to follow
the Lord’s ways and His plans, many plants would now be growing
in other places. Over and over again the word of the Lord has come
to us that plants both of churches and of schools should be made
in other localities, that there were too many weighty responsibilities
in one place. Get the people out of the large centers and establish
interests in other places, is the instruction given. Had this instruction
been heeded, had there been a distribution of means and facilities, the
money expended on the extra college buildings at Battle Creek would
have abundantly provided for two new plants in other localities, and