252
Child Guidance
our customs and practices, are not to have the preference. God’s Word
is our standard
Resident Students—It seems that some teachers think that none
of the children and young people whose parents live in the vicinity
of a school should have school privileges unless they live with their
teachers in the school home. This is to me a new and strange idea.
There are young people whose home influences have been such
that it would be greatly to their advantage to live for a time in a well-
regulated school home. And for those who live where they must of
necessity leave their own homes in order to enjoy school privileges,
the school homes are a great blessing. But the parental home where
[331]
God is feared and obeyed is, and ever should be, the best place for
young children, where under the proper training of their parents they
may enjoy the care and discipline of a religious family, administered
by their own parents....
Regarding the youth that are of suitable age to attend a board-
ing school, let us avoid making unnecessary and arbitrary rules that
would separate from their parents those who live in the vicinity of our
schools....
Unless the parents are convinced that it would be for the best inter-
ests of their children to place them under the school home discipline,
they should be permitted to keep them under their own control as far
as possible. In some places parents living near the school may see
that their children would be benefited by living at the school home,
where they can receive certain lines of instruction that they could not
receive so well in their own homes. But let it not be urged that children
must in all cases be separated from their parents in order to get the
advantages of any one of our schools....
Parents are the natural guardians of their children, and they have a
solemn responsibility to oversee their education and training.
Can we not understand that the parents, who have watched for
years the development of their children, should know best the kind
of training and management they should have in order to bring out
and cultivate the best traits of character in them? I should advise that
children from homes within two or three miles of a school should
be allowed to attend the school while living at home and having the
6
Testimonies For The Church 5:506
.