Studies should generally be few and well chosen, and those who attend our colleges are to have a different training from that of the common schools of the day. They have been generally taught upon Christian principles, if they have wise and God-fearing parents. The word of God has been respected in their homes, and its teachings made the law of the home. They have been brought up in the nurture and admonition of the gospel, and when they come to the schools, this same education and training is to go on. The world’s maxims, the world’s customs and practices, are not the teaching they need; but they are to see that the teachers in the schools care for their souls, that they will take a decided interest in their spiritual welfare, and religion is to be the great principle inculcated; for the love and fear of God are the beginning of wisdom. Youth removed from the domestic atmosphere, from the home rule and guardianship of parents, if left to themselves to pick and choose their companions, meet with a crisis in their history not generally favorable to piety or principle. (FE 115.1) MC VC

Then, wherever a school is established, there should be warm hearts to take a lively interest in our youth. Fathers and mothers are needed with warm sympathy, and with kindly admonitions, and all the pleasantness possible should be brought into the religious exercises. If there are those who prolong religious exercises to weariness, they are leaving impressions upon the mind of the youth, that would associate religion with all that is dry, unsocial, and uninteresting. And these youth make their own standard not the highest, but weak principles and a low standard spoil those who if properly taught, would be not only qualified to be a blessing to the cause, but to the church and to the world. Ardent, active piety in the teacher is essential. Morning and evening service in the chapel, and the Sabbath meetings, may be, without constant care and unless vitalized by the Spirit of God, the most formal, dry, and bitter mixture, and, to the youth, the most burdensome and the least pleasant and attractive of all the school exercises. The social meetings should be managed with plans and devices to make them not only seasons of pleasantness, but positively attractive. (FE 115.2) MC VC