School Inspectors Speak

In visiting an academy in a rural location in one of the Australian states, I was told this incident by a former head of the school:SPIAM 80.1

“The public inspector of schools came to visit and survey our school in the regular way of his official duties. He was impressed with the industrial departments, and especially with the uniform spirit of cooperation in the student body. ‘How do you get such results?’ he asked me. I answered, ‘We have four books on educational methods that are a help to us.’ ‘I would like to look through them,’ he said. I gave him the four books by Mrs. White. He took them home with him. When next he came to inspect, he returned the books, saying: ‘I see it now. No wonder you get the results. That book “Education” is a masterpiece. With us, if a young man keeps getting out of line, we say, “Straighten up, or out you go!” But you follow the counsels of these books that tell your teachers how to get close and pray and work to win.’”SPIAM 80.2

Educational work of a distinctive character was developed under these counsels. Men of the world who have come in contact with it have recognized something different. The manager of an Adventist senior college in America related the impression expressed by a member of a commission from the State university, surveying the college. After a view of the student industries, he said to his associate inspectors: “Well, here is one college that is doing the thing that all of us say should be done, but which we do not do.”SPIAM 80.3

It is in the writings of the gift given to the advent movement that one finds the urge and inspiration that have helped the school men to struggle toward the ideals of Christian education.SPIAM 81.1