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Fundamentals of Christian Education
The students, every one, need a most thorough education in prac-
tical duties. The time employed in physical exercise, which, step by
step, leads on to excess, to intensity in the games and the exercise of
the faculties, ought to be used in Christ’s lines, and the blessing of
God would rest upon them in so doing. All should go forth from the
schools with educated efficiency, so that when thrown upon their own
resources, they would have a knowledge they could use which is essen-
tial to practical life. The seeking out of many inventions to employ the
God-given faculties most earnestly in doing nothing good, nothing you
can take with you in future life, no record of good deeds, of merciful
actions, stands registered in the book of heaven,—“Weighed in the
balances and found wanting.”
Diligent study is essential, and diligent hard work. Play is not
essential. The influence has been growing among students in their
devotion to amusements, to a fascinating, bewitching power, to the
counteracting of the influence of the truth upon the human mind and
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character. A well-balanced mind is not usually obtained in the devotion
of the physical powers to amusements. Physical labor that is combined
with mental taxation for usefulness, is a discipline in practical life,
sweetened always by the reflection that it is qualifying and educating
the mind and body better to perform the work God designs men shall do
in various lines. The more perfectly youth understand how to perform
the duties of practical life, the more keen and the more healthful will
be their enjoyment day by day in being of use to others.
The mind thus educated to enjoy physical taxation in practical life
becomes enlarged, and through culture and training, well disciplined
and richly furnished for usefulness, and acquires a knowledge essential
to be a help and blessing to themselves and to others. Let every student
consider, and be able to say, I study, I work, for eternity. They can
learn to be patiently industrious and persevering in their combined
efforts of physical and mental labor. What force of powers is put into
your games of football and your other inventions after the way of the
Gentiles—exercises which bless no one! Just put the same powers
into exercise in doing useful labor, and would not your record be more
pleasing to meet in the great day of God?
Whatever is done under the sanctified stimulus of Christian obliga-
tion, because you are stewards in trust of talents to use to be a blessing
to yourself and to others, gives you substantial satisfaction; for all is