Instead of overeducating a few, enlarge the sphere of your charities. Resolve that the means which you use in educating workers for the cause shall not be expended simply upon one, enabling him to get more than he really needs, while others are left without anything at all. Give students a start, but do not feel that it is your duty to carry them year after year. It is their duty to get out into the field to work, and it is your place to extend your charities to others who are in need of assistance....
(CT 405.1)
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Too great devotion to study, even of true science, creates an abnormal appetite, which increases as it is fed. This creates a desire to secure more knowledge than is essential to do the work of the Lord. The pursuit of knowledge merely for its own sake diverts the mind from devotion to God, and checks advance along the path of practical holiness.... The Lord Jesus imparted only such a measure of instruction as could be utilized.... The minds of the disciples were often excited by curiosity; but instead of gratifying their desire to know things which were not necessary for the proper conduct of their work, He opened new channels of thought to their minds. He gave them much needed instruction upon practical godliness....
(CT 405.2)
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Intemperance in study is a species of intoxication, and those who indulge in it, like the drunkard, wander from safe paths and stumble and fall in the darkness. The Lord would have every student bear in mind that the eye must be kept single to the glory of God. He is not to exhaust and waste his physical and mental powers in seeking to acquire all possible knowledge of the sciences, but is to preserve the freshness and vigor of all his powers to engage in the work which the Lord has appointed him in helping souls to find the path of righteousness.... The command of heaven is to do, to work,—to do something that will reflect glory to God by being a benefit to our fellow men....
(CT 405.3)
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