All videos - NOTE TO THE READER.SOME OF THE MATTER IN THIS BOOK HAS ALREADY BEEN PRINTED IN PERMANENT FORM, BUT SCATTERED THROUGH VARIOUS VOLUMES; SOME HAS APPEARED IN DIFFERENT PERIODICALS, WHILE A CONSIDERABLE PORTION HAS NEVER BEEN PRESENTED TO THE PUBLIC BEFORE. It is the nicest work ever assumed by men and women to deal with youthful minds. The greatest care should be taken in the education of youth to vary the manner of instruction so as to call forth the high and noble powers of the mind. Parents and teachers of schools are certainly disqualified to educate children properly, if they have not first learned the lessons of self-control, patience, forbearance, gentleness, and love. What an important position for parents, guardians, and teachers! There are very few who realize the most essential wants of the mind, and how to direct the developing intellect, the growing thoughts and feelings of youth. {CE 5.1} There is a period for training children, and a time for educating youth. And it is essential that both of these be combined in a great degree in the schools. Children may be trained for the service of sin or for the service of righteousness. The early education of youth shapes their character in this life, and in their religious life. Solomon says: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." [PROV. 22:6.] This language is positive. The training which Solomon enjoins is to direct, educate, and develop. In order for parents and teachers to do this work, they must themselves understand the way the child should go. This embraces more than merely having a knowledge of books. It takes in everything that is good, virtuous,
ellen white database, ellen g white estates, ellen white estates, In households and in schools the education of children should not be like the training of dumb animals; for children have an intelligent will, which should be directed to control all their powers. The dumb animals need to be trained; for they have not reason and intellect. The human mind must be taught self-control. It must be educated to rule the human being, while the animal is controlled by the master. The beast is trained to be submissive to his master. The master is mind, judgment, and will for his beast. A child may be so trained as to have, like the beast, no will of his own. His individuality may even be submerged in the one who superintends his training, and the will is, to all intents and purposes, subject to the will of the teacher. {CE 6.1} Children who are thus educated will ever be deficient in moral energy and individual responsibility. They have not been taught to move from reason and principle. Their will was controlled by another, and the mind was not called out, that it might expand and strengthen by exercise. They were not directed and disciplined with respect to their peculiar constitution and capabilities of mind, to put forth their strongest powers when required. Teachers should not stop here, but give special attention to the cultivation of the weaker faculties, that all the powers may be brought into exercise, and carried forward from one degree of strength to another, that the mind may attain to due proportions. {CE 6.2} ellen white database, ellen g white estates, ellen white estates, Children should be taught to respect experienced judgment, and be guided by their parents and teachers. They should be so educated that their minds God never designed that one human mind should be under the complete control of another human mind. And those who make efforts to have the individuality of their pupils submerged in themselves, and they be mind, will, and conscience for their pupils, assume fearful responsibilities. These scholars may, upon certain occasions, appear like well-drilled soldiers. But when the restraint is removed, there will be seen a want of independent action from firm principle, existing in them. But those who make it their object so to educate their pupils that they may see and feel that the power lies in themselves to make men and women of firm principle, qualified for any position in life, are the most useful and permanently successful teachers. Their work may not show to the very best advantage to careless observers, and their labors may not be valued as highly as the teacher who holds the will and mind of his scholars by absolute authority, but the future lives of the pupils will show the fruits of the better plan of education. {CE 7.1} There is danger of both parents and teachers commanding and dictating too much, while they fail to come sufficiently into social relation with their children, or their scholars. They often hold themselves too much reserved, and exercise their authority in a cold, unsympathizing manner, which cannot win the hearts of their children and pupils. If they would gather the children close to them, and show that they love them, and manifest an interest in all their efforts, and even in their sports, and sometimes be even a child among them, they would make the children The principles and habits of the teacher should be considered of greater importance than even his literary qualifications. If the teacher is a sincere Christian, he will feel the necessity of having an equal interest in the physical, mental, moral, and spiritual education of his scholars. In order to exert the right influence, he should have perfect control over himself, and his own heart should be richly imbued with love for his pupils, which will be seen in his looks, words, and acts. He should have firmness of character; then he can mould the minds of his pupils, as well as instruct them in the sciences. {CE 8.1} The early education of youth generally shapes their character for life. Those who deal with the young should be very careful to call out the qualities of the mind, that they may better know how to direct their powers, and that they may be exercised to the very best account. {CE 8.2} Many children have been ruined for life by urging the intellect, and neglecting to strengthen the physical powers. Many have died in childhood because of the course pursued by injudicious parents and school-teachers in forcing their young intellects, by flattery or fear, when they were too young to see the inside of a school-room. Their minds have been taxed with lessons, when they should not have been called out, but kept back until the physical constitution was strong enough to endure mental effort. Small children should be left as free as lambs to run out-of-doors, to be free and happy, and should be allowed the most favorable opportunities to lay the foundation for sound constitutions. {CE 8.3} Parents should be the only teachers of their children until they have reached eight or ten years of In order for children and youth to have health, happiness, vivacity, and well-developed muscle and brain, they should be much in the open air, and have well-regulated employment and amusement. Children and youth who are kept at school, and confined to books, cannot have sound physical constitutions. The exercise of the brain in study, without corresponding physical exercise, has a tendency to attract the blood to the brain, and the circulation of the blood through the system becomes unbalanced. The brain has too much blood, and the extremities too little. There should be rules regulating their studies to certain hours, and then a portion of their time should be spent in physical labor. And if their habits of eating, dressing, and sleeping were in accordance with physical law, they could The patriarchs from Adam to Noah, with but few exceptions, lived nearly a thousand years. Since the days of Noah, the length of life has been tapering. Those suffering with disease were brought to Christ for him to heal, from every town, city, and village; for they were afflicted with all manner of diseases. And disease has been steadily on the increase through successive generations since that period. Because of the continued violation of the laws of life, mortality has increased to a fearful extent. {CE 10.1} Disease has been transmitted from parents to children from generation to generation. Infants in their cradle are miserably afflicted because of the sins of their parents, which have lessened their vital force. Their wrong habits of eating and dressing, and their general dissipation, are transmitted as an inheritance to their children. Many are born insane, deformed, blind, deaf, and a very large class deficient in intellect. The strange absence of principle which characterizes this generation, in disregarding the laws of life and health, is astonishing. Ignorance prevails upon this subject, while light is shining all around them. With the majority, their principal anxiety is, What shall I eat? what shall I drink? and wherewithal shall I be clothed? Notwithstanding all that is said and written in regard to how we should treat our bodies, appetite is the great law which governs men and women generally. {CE 10.2} The moral powers are beclouded, because men and women will not live in obedience to the laws of health, and make this great subject a personal duty. Parents bequeath to their offspring their own perverted habits; and loathsome diseases corrupt the blood, and enervate the brain. The majority of men and women remain in ignorance of the laws of Had the system of education generations back been conducted upon altogether a different plan, the youth of this generation would not now be so depraved and worthless. The managers and teachers of schools should have been those who understood physiology, and who had an interest, not only to educate youth in the sciences, but to teach them The students' employment and amusements should have been regulated with reference to physical law, and adapted to preserve to them the healthy tone of all the powers of the body and mind. Then their education in practical business could have been obtained, while their literary progress was being secured. Students at school should have had their moral sensibilities aroused to see and feel that society had claims upon them, and that they should so live in obedience to natural law that they could, by their existence and influence, by precept and example, be an advantage and blessing to society. It should be impressed upon youth that all have an influence that is constantly telling upon society, to improve and elevate, or to lower and debase it. The first study of youth should be to know themselves, and how to keep their bodies in health. {CE 12.1} Many parents have kept their children at school nearly the year round. These children have gone through the routine of study mechanically, and they have not retained that which they learned. Many of these constant students seem almost destitute of intellectual life. The monotony of continual study wearies the mind, and they have but little interest in their lessons, and to many, the application to books becomes painful. They had not an inward love of thought, and ambition to acquire knowledge. They did not encourage in themselves reflection, and investigation of objects and things. {CE 12.2} Children are in great need of proper education, in order that their lives should be of use in the world. But any effort that exalts intellectual culture above In the early education of children, many parents and teachers fail to understand that the greatest attention needs to be given to the physical constitution, that a healthy condition of body and brain may be secured. It has been the custom to encourage children to attend school when they are mere babies, needing a mother's care. Children of a delicate age are frequently crowded into ill-ventilated school-rooms, to sit upon poorly-constructed benches; and the young and tender frames have, through sitting in wrong positions, become deformed. {CE 13.1} The disposition and habits of youth will be very likely to be manifested in the matured man. You may bend a young tree to almost any form that you may choose, and if you let it remain and grow as you have bent it, it will be a deformed tree, and will ever tell of the injury and abuse received at your hand. You may, after years of growth, try to straighten the tree, but all your efforts will prove unavailing. It will ever be a crooked tree. This is the case with the minds of youth. They should be carefully and tenderly trained in childhood. They may be trained in the right direction or the wrong, and they will in their future life pursue the course in which they were directed in youth. The habits formed in youth will grow with their growth and strengthen with their strength; and they will generally be the same in after life, only continuing to grow stronger. We are living in an age when almost everything is superficial. There is but little stability and firmness of character, because the training and education of children from their cradle is superficial. Their characters are built upon sliding sand. Self-denial and self-control have not been moulded into their characters. They have been petted and indulged until they are spoiled for practical life. The love of pleasure controls minds, and children are flattered and indulged to their ruin. Children should be trained and educated so that they may expect to meet with difficulties, as well as with temptations and dangers. They should be taught to have control over themselves, and to overcome difficulties nobly; and if they do not willfully rush into danger, and needlessly place themselves in the way of temptation; if they shun evil influences and vicious society, and then are unavoidably compelled to be in dangerous company, they will have strength of character to stand for the right and preserve principle, and will come forth in the strength of God with their morals untainted. The moral powers of youth who have been properly educated, if they make God their trust, will be equal to stand the most powerful test. {CE 14.1} If parents would feel it a solemn duty that God enjoins upon them to educate their children for usefulness in this life, if they would adorn the inner temple of the souls of their sons and daughters for the immortal life, we should see a great change in society for the better. And then there would not be manifest so great indifference to practical godliness, and it would not be as difficult to arouse the moral sensibilities of children to understand the claims that God has upon them. But parents become more and more careless in the education of their children in the useful branches. Many parents allow their children to form wrong habits, and to follow their inclination Children frequently engage in a piece of work, and become perplexed or weary of it, and wish to change and take hold of something new, although they entered upon the work with enthusiasm. Thus they may take hold of several things, meet with a little discouragement, and give them up; and thus pass from one thing to another, perfecting nothing. Parents should not be so much engaged with other things that they have not time patiently to discipline those developing minds. They should not allow the love of change to control their children. A few words of encouragement or a little help at the right time may carry them over their trouble and discouragement, and the satisfaction they will have in seeing completed the task they undertook will stimulate them to greater exertion. {CE 15.1} Many children, for want of words of encouragement, and a little assistance in their efforts in childhood and youth, become disheartened, and change from one thing to another. And they carry this sad defect with them in mature life. They cannot make a success of anything they engage in; for they have not been taught to persevere under discouraging circumstances. Thus the entire lifetime of many proves a failure because they did not have correct discipline. The education in childhood and youth not only affects their entire business career in mature life, but the religious experience bears a corresponding stamp. {CE 15.2} Young ladies frequently give themselves up to study, and to the neglect of other branches of education even more essential for practical life than the study of books. After they have obtained their education, they are frequently invalids for life. They neglected their health by remaining too much These young ladies might have come from their schools in health, if they had combined with their studies household labor and exercise in the open air. {CE 16.1} Health is a great treasure. It is the richest possession mortals can have. Wealth, honor, or learning is dearly purchased, if it be at the loss of the vigor of health. None of these attainments can secure happiness if health is wanting. It is a terrible sin to abuse the health God has given us. Every abuse of health enfeebles for life, and makes us losers, even if we gain any amount of education. {CE 16.2} Poverty, in many cases, is a blessing; for it prevents youth and children from being ruined by inaction. The physical as well as the mental should be cultivated and properly developed. The first and constant care of parents should be that their children may have firm constitutions, that they may be sound men and women. It is impossible to attain this object without physical exercise. Children, for their own physical health and moral good, should be taught to work, even if there is no necessity as far as want is concerned. If they would have virtuous characters, they must have the discipline of well-regulated labor, which will bring into exercise all the muscles. The satisfaction children will have in being useful, in denying themselves to help others, will be the most healthful pleasure they ever enjoyed. Why should the wealthy rob themselves and their dear children of this great blessing? {CE 16.3} Parents, inaction is the greatest curse that ever came upon youth. Your daughters should not be allowed to lie late in bed in the morning, sleeping away the precious hours lent them of God to be used for the best purpose, and for which they will have to give an account to God. The mother is doing her daughters great injury in bearing the burdens the Physical labor will not prevent the cultivation of the intellect. Far from this. The advantages gained by physical labor will so balance the mind that it shall not be overworked. The toil will then come upon the muscles, and relieve the wearied brain. There are many listless, useless girls who consider it unlady-like to engage in active labor. But their characters are too transparent to deceive sensible persons in regard to their real worthlessness. They will simper and giggle, and are all affectation. They appear as though they could not speak fairly and squarely, but torture all they say with lisping and simpering. Are these ladies? They are not born fools, but were educated such. It does not require a frail, helpless, over-dressed, simpering thing to make a lady. A sound body is required for a sound intellect. Physical soundness, and a practical knowledge in all the necessary household duties, is never a hindrance to a well-developed intellect, but is highly important for a lady. {CE 17.1} All the powers of the mind should be called into use, and developed, in order for men and women to There should have been in past generations provisions made for education upon a larger scale. In connection with the schools should have been agricultural and manufacturing establishments. There should have been teachers also of household labor. There should have been a portion of the time each day devoted to labor, that the physical and mental might be equally exercised. If schools had been established upon the plan we have mentioned, there would not now be so many unbalanced minds. {CE 18.1} I have been led to inquire, Must all that is valuable in our youth be sacrificed in order that they may obtain an education at the schools? If there had been agricultural and manufacturing establishments in connection with our schools, and competent teachers had been employed to educate the youth in the different branches of study and labor, devoting a portion of each day to mental improvement, and a portion of the day to physical labor, there would now be a more elevated class of youth to come upon the stage of action, to have influence in moulding society. The youth who would graduate For young men there should be establishments where they could learn different trades, which would bring into exercise their muscles as well as their mental powers. If the youth can have but a one-sided education, and it is asked, Which is of the greater consequence, the study of the sciences with all the disadvantages to health and life, or the knowledge of labor for practical life, we unhesitatingly say, The latter. If one must be neglected, let it be the study of books. There are very many girls who have married and have families who have but little practical knowledge of the duties devolving upon a wife and mother. They cannot cook, but they can read, and play upon an instrument of music. They cannot make good bread, which is very essential to the health of the family. They cannot cut and make garments, for they did not learn how to do these things. They did not consider these things essential, and they are in their married life dependent, as their own little children, upon some one to do these things for them. It is this inexcusable ignorance in regard to the most needful duties of life which makes very many unhappy families. {CE 19.1} The impression that work is degrading to fashionable life, has laid thousands in the grave who might have lived. Those who perform only manual labor frequently work to excess, without giving themselves Intellectual, physical, and moral culture should be combined in order to have well-developed and well-balanced men and women. Some are qualified to exercise greater intellectual strength than others, while others are inclined to love and enjoy physical labor. Both of these should seek to improve where they are deficient, that they may present to God their entire being, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to him, which is their reasonable service. The habits and customs of fashionable society should not shape their course of action. The inspired apostle adds, "And be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God." [ROM. 12:2.] {CE 20.1} Thinking men's minds labor too hard. They frequently use their mental powers prodigally; while there is another class whose highest aim in life is physical labor. The latter class do not exercise the mind. Their muscles are exercised, while their brain is robbed of intellectual strength; and the brain-workers neglect exercising the muscles, and rob their bodies of strength and vigor. Those who are content to devote their lives to physical labor, and leave others to do the thinking for them, while they Men who have good physical powers should educate themselves to think as well as to act, and not depend upon others to be brains for them. It is a popular error with a large class, to regard work as degrading. Therefore young men are very anxious to educate themselves to become teachers, clerks, merchants, lawyers, and to occupy almost any position that does not require physical labor. Young women regard housework as demeaning. And although the physical exercise required to perform household labor, if not too severe, is calculated to promote health, they will seek for education that will fit them to become teachers, clerks, or learn some trade which confines them in-doors to sedentary employment. The bloom of health fades from their cheeks, and disease fastens upon them, because they are robbed of physical exercise; and their habits are perverted generally, because it is fashionable. They enjoy delicate life, which is feebleness and decay. {CE 21.1} True, there is some excuse for young women's not choosing housework for employment, because those who hire their kitchen girls generally treat them as servants. Frequently their employers do not respect them, and treat them as though they were unworthy to be members of their families. They do not give them privileges as they do the seamstress, the copyist, and the teacher of music. But there can be no employment more important than that of housework. To cook well and to present healthful food upon the table in an inviting manner, require intelligence and The foregoing is a statement of what might have been done by a proper system of education. But time is too short now to accomplish that which might have been done in past generations. But we can do much, even in these last days, to correct the existing evils in the education of youth. And because time is short, we should be in earnest, and work zealously to give the young that education which is consistent with our faith. We are reformers. We desire that our children should study to the best advantage. In order to do this, employment should be given them which would call into exercise the muscles. Daily, systematic labor should constitute a part of the education of youth even at this late period. Much can now be gained in connecting labor with schools. The students will acquire, in following this plan, elasticity of spirit and vigor of thought, and can accomplish more mental labor, in a given time, than they could by study alone. And they can leave their schools with their constitutions unimpaired, with strength and courage to persevere in any position in which the providence of God may place them. {CE 22.1} There are many young men whose services God would accept if they would consecrate themselves to him unreservedly. If they would exercise the powers of their mind in the service of God, which they use in serving themselves, and in acquiring property, they would make earnest, persevering, successful laborers in the vineyard of the Lord. Many of our young men should turn their attention to the study of the Scriptures, that God may use them in his cause. But they do not become intelligent in spiritual knowledge Young men should not enter upon the work of explaining the Scriptures and lecturing upon the prophecies, when they do not have a knowledge of the important Bible truths they try to explain to others. They may be deficient in the common branches of education, and fail to do the amount of good they otherwise could do, if they had had the advantages of a good school. Ignorance will not increase the humility or spirituality of any professed follower of Christ. The truths of the divine word can be best appreciated by an intellectual Christian. Christ can be better glorified by those who serve him intelligently. The great object of education is to enable us to bring into use the powers which God has given us, in such a manner as will best represent the religion of the Bible and promote the glory of God. For all the talents which God has intrusted to us, we are indebted to him who gave us existence.--"Testimony," No. 22, first published in 1873. {CE 23.1} ellen white database, ellen g white estates, ellen white estates, ellen white database, ellen g white estates, ellen white estates, ellen white database, ellen g white estates, ellen white estates, ellen white database, ellen g white estates, ellen white estates, ellen white database, ellen g white estates, ellen white estates, ellen white database, ellen g white estates, ellen white estates, ellen white database, ellen g white estates, ellen white estates, ellen white database, ellen g white estates, ellen white estates, |
