Chapter 24—Counsel Regarding Age of School Entrance
Report of Interview
Report of a meeting of the Sanitarium [Cal.] Church School Board, held at “Elmshaven,” Sanitarium, Cal., Thursday Morning, January 14, 1904.
(3SM 214.1)
Sister White spoke for a time, as follows:
(3SM 214.2)
For years, much instruction has been given me in regard to the importance of maintaining firm discipline in the home. I have tried to write out this instruction, and to give it to others. In one of the forthcoming volumes of my writings [Education] will be published considerable additional matter on the training of children.
(3SM 214.3)
Those who assume the responsibilities of parenthood should first consider whether they will be able to surround their children with proper influences. The home is both a family church and a family school. The atmosphere of the home should be so spiritual that all the members of the family, parents and children, will be blessed and strengthened by their association with one another. Heavenly influences are educational. Those who are surrounded by such influences are being prepared for entrance into the school above.
(3SM 214.4)
Mothers should be able to instruct their little ones wisely during the earlier years of childhood. If every mother were capable of doing this, and would take time to teach her children the lessons they should learn in early life, then all children could be kept in the home school until they are eight, or nine, or ten years old.
(3SM 214.5)
But many who enter the marriage relation fail of realizing all the sacred responsibilities that motherhood brings. Many are sadly lacking in disciplinary power. In many homes there is but little discipline, and the children are allowed to do as they please. Such children drift hither and thither; there is nobody in the home capable of guiding them aright, nobody who with wise tact can teach them how to help father and mother, nobody who can properly lay the foundation that should underlie their future education. Children who are surrounded by these unfortunate conditions are indeed to be pitied. If not afforded an opportunity for proper training outside the home, they are debarred from many privileges that, by right, every child should enjoy. This is the light that has been presented to me.
(3SM 215.1)
Those who are unable to train their children aright, should never have assumed the responsibilities of parents. But because of their mistaken judgment, shall we make no effort to help their little ones to form right characters? God desires us to deal with these problems sensibly.
(3SM 215.2)
Church Schools to Be Connected With Sanitariums—In all our sanitariums the standard is to be kept high. With these institutions should be connected, as physicians, managers, and helpers, only those who keep their households in order. The conduct of the children has an influence that tells upon all who come to these sanitariums. God desires that this influence shall be reformatory. And this can be; but care is required. The father and the mother must give special attention to the training of each child. But you know how the families are up on this hillside. The patients understand how it is. The way it is presented to me is that it is a shame that there is not the influence over the young children that there should be. Every one of them should be employed in doing something that is useful. They have been told what to do. If the father cannot be with them, the mother should be instructed how to teach them.
(3SM 215.3)
But since I have been here, the light has been given me that the very best thing that can be done is to have a school. I had no thought that the very little ones would be embraced in the school—not the very little ones. But it would be best to have this school for those who can be instructed and have the restraining influence upon them which a schoolteacher should exert. We have a school here because the Word of God could not be taught in the other [public] school. Our brother [Anthony] that teaches that school is fully capable of carrying a school with teaching the Word. He is fully capable of doing that. He has his position, they have hired him, and as long as they let him stay undisturbed, he had better stay there.
(3SM 216.1)
School Privileges for Younger Children—But here is a work that must be done for the families, and for the children that are as old as seven years and eight years and nine years. We should have a lower department, that is a second department, where these children could be instructed. They will learn in school that which they frequently do not learn out of school, except by association....
(3SM 216.2)
Now, it seems that the question is about these children going to school. I want to know from the parents, every one of them, who it is that feels perfectly satisfied with their children, as they are, without sending them to the school—to a school that has Bible lessons, has order, has discipline, and is trying to find something for them to do to occupy their time. I do not think there is anyone, if they come to understand it, who will have objections.
(3SM 216.3)
The Setting of the Early Counsel—But when I heard what the objections were, that the children could not go to school till they were ten years old, I wanted to tell you that there was not a Sabbathkeeping school when the light was given to me that the children should not attend school until they were old enough to be instructed. They should be taught at home to know what proper manners were when they went to school, and not be led astray. The wickedness carried on in the common schools is almost beyond conception.
(3SM 216.4)
That is how it is, and my mind has been greatly stirred in regard to the idea, “Why, Sister White has said so and so, and Sister White has said so and so; and therefore we are going right up to it.”
(3SM 217.1)
God wants us all to have common sense, and he wants us to reason from common sense. Circumstances alter conditions. Circumstances change the relation of things.
(3SM 217.2)
A Church School Versus Poor Home Management—Here is a Sanitarium, and that sanitarium must carry the highest possible influence inside and out. Then, if they see children who come there—sharp-eyed, lynx-eyed, wandering about, with nothing to do, getting into mischief, and all these things—it is painful to the senses of those that want to keep the reputation of the school. Therefore, I, from the light that God has given me, [declare that] if there is a family that has not the capabilities of educating, nor discipline and government over their children, requiring obedience, the very best thing is to put them in some place where they will obey. Put them in some place where they will be required to obey, because obedience is better than sacrifice. Good behavior is to be carried out in every family.
(3SM 217.3)
We are educating God’s little ones in our homes. Now what kind of an education are we giving them? Our words, are they loose and careless and slack? Is there an overbearing disposition? Is there a scolding and fretting because parents have not the powers to manage? The Lord wants us to take all things into consideration. Every parent has on his hands a sum to prove: How are my children? Where are they? Are they coming up for God or for the devil? All these things are to be considered.
(3SM 217.4)
The book that is coming out will have much to say in regard to the great principles that are to be carried out in training the children, from the very baby in arms. The enemy will work right through those children, unless they are disciplined. Someone disciplines them. If the mother or the father does not do it, the devil does. That is how it is. He has the control....
(3SM 217.5)
I shall not say so much now, because I want to understand just what I should speak on. I want the objections brought forth, why children should not have an education.
(3SM 218.1)
The Kindergarten at Battle Creek
We could do the same as they have in Battle Creek. They took me from place to place in the orphan asylum [Haskell Home] in Battle Creek. There were their little tables, there were their little children from five years old and upward. They were being educated on the kindergarten plan: how to work and how to manage. They had a great pile of sand of a proper quality, and they were teaching the children how to work together, how to make Noah’s ark, and how to make the animals that enter into the Noah’s ark. They were all doing this kind of work. It takes something....
(3SM 218.2)
Now, I have perfect confidence in Sister Peck’s teaching, but if she carries on what she has carried on—and I am satisfied it is just the thing that ought to be done—there would have to be an extra teacher; don’t you think so?
(3SM 218.3)
Sister Peck:[One of Ellen G. White’s literary assistants serving as the church school teacher.] I think if we did the work in a satisfactory manner, and if we have any more children, we ought to have some extra help.
(3SM 218.4)
Light Given on “These Things”
Sister White: My ideas have come out in a crude way, just a jot here and a jot there. I have it written out, but not all. I have more to write. I want you to take care of what I have said. First, understand this. This is the light that has been given me in regard to these things.
(3SM 218.5)
Here are children that are quick. There are children five years old that can be educated as well as many children ten years old, as far as capabilities are concerned, to take in the mother’s matters and subjects.
(3SM 219.1)
Now I want that just as long as Willie’s children [Ages: Henry and Herbert, twins, 7 years; Grace, 3 years. In time, all attended this school.] are here, and they live here, I want they should have the discipline of a school. If it can be connected with this school by putting on an addition to the building, one room say, for such students, every one of us ought to feel a responsibility to provide that room. Those mothers that want to keep their children at home, and are fully competent and would prefer to discipline them herself, why, no one has any objection to that. They can do that. But provision is to be made so that the children of all who have any connection with this food factory and sanitarium and these things that are being carried on here, should be educated. We must have it stand to reach the highest standards.
(3SM 219.2)
Elder C. L. Taylor: Sister White, there is one question that I should like to raise, regarding the responsibility of parents and the relation of that responsibility to the church school. Now, suppose I have a little boy—I have one—seven years old. We are perfectly capable of training him, we have fitted ourselves to do that work. Now suppose we choose not to take that responsibility, to neglect the boy, let him drift around. Then does it become the responsibility of the church to do what I could do if I would do? That is the question. If I don’t take care of my boy when I can, when I am able to do it, would I ask the church to do it in my place?
(3SM 219.3)
Sister White: You can take care of them, but do you?
(3SM 219.4)
Elder W. C. White: She refuses to take your isolated experience.
(3SM 219.5)
Sister White: The church here on this hill is a responsible church. It is connected with outside influences. These influences are constantly brought in to testify of us. The question is, Shall it be united, and shall it, if it is necessary, prepare a room—which won’t cost everlastingly too much—a room that these children should come to and have discipline, and have a teacher, and get brought up where they are prepared for the higher school? Now that is the question.
(3SM 219.6)
The Kind of Education the Children Need
I say, these little children that are small ought to have education, just what they would get in school. They ought to have the school discipline under a person who understands how to deal with children in accordance with their different temperaments. They should try to have these children understand their responsibilities to one another, and their responsibility to God. They should have fastened in their minds the very principles that are going to fit them for the higher grade and the higher school.
(3SM 220.1)
There is a higher school that we are all going to, and unless these children are brought up with the right habits and the right thoughts, and the right discipline, I wonder how they will ever enter that school above? Where is their reverence? Where are their choice ideas that they should cultivate? And all these things. It must be an everyday experience.
(3SM 220.2)
The mother, as she goes around, is not to fret and to scold, and to say, “You are in my way, and I wish you would get away, I wish you would go outdoors,” or any such thing. She is to treat her children just as God should treat His older children. He calls us children in His family. He wants us educated and trained according to the principles of the Word of God. He wants this education to commence with the little ones. If the mother has not the tact, the ingenuity, if she does not know how to treat human minds, she must put them under somebody that will discipline them and mold and fashion their minds.
(3SM 220.3)
Now, have I presented it so that it can be understood? Is there any point, Willie, that I have in the book that I have not touched here?
(3SM 221.1)
W. C. White: I don’t know. I find, Mother, that our people throughout the States and throughout the world, I must say, sometimes make very far-reaching rulings based on an isolated statement.
(3SM 221.2)
Now, in my study of the Bible and in my study of your writings, I have come to believe that there is a principle underlying every precept, and that we cannot understand properly the precept without grasping the principle.
(3SM 221.3)
I have believed that in some of the statements which have created a good deal of controversy—like your counsels concerning the use of butter, and your statement that the only teacher that a child should have until it was eight or ten years old—it was our privilege to grasp the principle. I have believed that in the study of those statements that we should recognize that every precept of God is given in mercy, and in consideration of the circumstances.
(3SM 221.4)
God said, “What God hath joined together let no man put asunder”; and yet Christ explains the law of divorce as given because of the hardness of their hearts. Because of the degeneracy of the people a divorce law which was not in God’s original plan was permitted. I believe that the principle should be understood in regard to such isolated statements as your protest against the use of butter, and the statement that the child should have no other teacher than the mother until it was eight or ten years old.
(3SM 221.5)
Now, when that view was given you about butter, there was presented to you the condition of things—people using butter full of germs. They were frying and cooking in it, and its use was deleterious. But later on, when our people studied into the principle of things, they found that while butter is not best, it may not be so bad as some other evils; and so in some cases they are using it.
(3SM 221.6)
I have supposed that this school question was the same. The ideal plan is that the mother should be the teacher—an intelligent teacher such an one as you have described this morning. But I have felt that it was a great misfortune to our cause from Maine to California, and from Manitoba to Florida, that our people should take that statement that the child should have no teacher but the parent until it is eight or ten years old, as a definite forbidding of those children to have school privileges. If I understand it, that is really the question before us this morning.
(3SM 222.1)
When the brethren study this matter from the standpoint of the good of the child, from the standpoint of fairness to the parents, as far as I can see, they all acknowledge that there are conditions in which it would be better for the child to have some school privilege than to be ruled out. But there is the precept, a child shall have no teacher but the parents until it is eight or ten years old; that settles it....
(3SM 222.2)
Sister White: Well, if parents have not got it in them you might just as well stop where you are. Therefore, we have got to make provision, because there are a good many parents that have not taken it upon themselves to discipline themselves....
(3SM 222.3)
I believe that the people about here that have advantages can each do a little something to support a school for the others. I am willing to do it. I do not think that should be a consideration that should come in at all. [We talk of] “the expense,”“the expense,”“the expense”—it is nothing at all to have the weight of a thimbleful of expense.
(3SM 222.4)
Setting a Pattern
W. C. White: As my children have been mentioned, I should like to say a word about this. My interest in the outcome of this interview is not now at all with reference to my own children. My interest in the outcome of this interview is with reference to its influence upon our work throughout the world. My interest for this school from the beginning until now has not been principally with reference to my children....
(3SM 222.5)
It is known by everybody that Sister Peck has had a broad experience in teaching, and that she has had four years’ experience with mother, dealing with her writings, helping to prepare the book Education. My greatest interest for the school has not been my own family, neither has it been simply the St. Helena church.
(3SM 223.1)
My interest in this school lies in the fact that it is our privilege to set a pattern. The successes and failures and the rulings of this school will affect our church school work throughout California and much farther, because of Sister Peck’s long experience as a teacher, and her work with you, Mother, in helping to prepare the book on education. All these things have put this school where it is a city set on a hill.
(3SM 223.2)
Now, my distress at the ruling with reference to the younger children has been not principally because my children were ruled out, but to build up a ruling which I consider is very cruel. It is being used in a way to do our younger children a great deal of harm.
(3SM 223.3)
The Question of Kindergarten
The world is doing a great work for the children through kindergartens. In places where we have institutions, and both parents are employed, they would gladly send children to a kindergarten. I have been convinced that in many of our churches a kindergarten properly conducted for a few hours a day, would be a great blessing. I have not found anything in your teachings or rulings, Mother, or advice to our people that would be contrary to it. But the rulings of our school superintendents have killed, completely killed, in most parts of the country any effort toward providing kindergarten work for our children.
(3SM 223.4)
There are a few instances where they stand to carry it forward. Dr. Kellogg does it in his orphans’ school that you have seen and praised, and in a few other places they are doing it. At Berrien Springs they ventured last summer to bring in a kindergarten teacher and to permit that part of the work to have a little consideration; but generally, in about nine tenths of the field, this ruling of our school superintendents kills that part of the work completely.
(3SM 223.5)
Sister White: Well, there has got to be a reformation in that line.
(3SM 224.1)
W. C. White: And the ruling in this school here, and the reasons that have always been given me for this ruling have been based on your statement that a child’s mother is to be its only teacher until it is eight or ten years old. I have believed that for the best interests of our school work throughout the world, that it is our privilege to have such an interview as we have had this morning, and also to study into the principle which underlies such things.
(3SM 224.2)
Sister White: Yes, it is right that it should stand before the people right. Now you will never find a better opportunity to have Sister Peck have the supervision over even the younger children. There has got to be a blending in some way.
(3SM 224.3)
As for a room, and there should be room, I question which is best, whether it should be connected right with the building, or whether it should be separate. It seemed to me that it might be a building by itself. I do not know which would be best. That must be considered—the advantages and disadvantages. I think Sister Peck, as well or better than any of the rest of us, could tell how that should be....
(3SM 224.4)
Could the School Constitute a Disservice?
C. L. Taylor: We have talked this: that the church school will not be a blessing to a community, when it comes to take a responsibility that the parents themselves can carry. And when we go ahead and put our money into a building, it does not make any difference whether it is a building or a room. But when we take the responsibility that could be carried by the parents, then the church school becomes a curse or a hindrance, rather than a blessing. Now that is all I have ever heard when we have come to the point....
(3SM 224.5)
Sister Peck: It has been a question in my mind on that point, Sister White, what our duty as teachers is—whether it was to try to help the parents to see and to take up their responsibility, or to take it away from them by taking their children into the school.
(3SM 225.1)
Sister White: If they have not felt their responsibility from all the books and writings and sermons, you might roll it onto them from now till the Lord comes, and they would not have any burden. It is no use talking about responsibility, when they have never felt it.
(3SM 225.2)
A School That Makes a Favorable Impression
We want to have a school in connection with the Sanitarium. It is presented to me that wherever there is a sanitarium, there must be a school, and that school must be carried on in such a way that it makes an impression on all who shall visit the Sanitarium. People will come into that school. They will see how that school is managed. It should not be far from the Sanitarium, so that they can understand.
(3SM 225.3)
In the management of the school there is to be the very best kind of discipline. In learning, the students cannot have their own way. They have got to give up their own way to discipline. This is a lesson that is yet to be learned by a good many families. But we hear, “Oh, let them do this. They are nothing but children. They will learn when they get older.”
(3SM 225.4)
Well, just as soon as a child in my care would begin to show passion, and throw himself on the floor, he never did it but once, I want to tell you. I would not let the devil work right through that child and take possession of it.
(3SM 225.5)
The Lord wants us to understand things. He says, Abraham commanded his children and his household after him, and we want to understand what it means to command, and we want to understand that we have got to take hold of the work if we resist the devil.
(3SM 225.6)
Well, I do not know whether we are any farther along than when we began.
(3SM 226.1)
C. L. Taylor: Yes, I think we are.
(3SM 226.2)
Sister White: But some things have been said.
(3SM 226.3)
L. M. Bowen: I think we know what we will have to do.
(3SM 226.4)
Sister Gotzian: Enough has been said to set us thinking, and to do something.
(3SM 226.5)
Sister White: The Lord is in earnest with us. Yes; we have got to be an example. And now you see there are so many sanitariums, and so many schools, that must be connected with them. We have got to come to our senses and recognize that we have to carry an influence—that is an influence in regard to the children....
(3SM 226.6)
Your school is to be a sample school. It is not to be a sample after the schools of the day. It is not to be any such thing. Your school is to be according to a plan that is far ahead of these other schools. It is to be a practical thing. The lessons are to be put into practice, and not merely a recitation of [theory].
(3SM 226.7)
C. L. Taylor: I am satisfied that when we begin to move in that direction, we will see real light come in.—Manuscript 7, 1904
(3SM 226.8)