A Close Look at Ellen White's Participation

Ellen White's diary for the month of July reveals that she was deeply engrossed in the work of the school, its triumphs and its problems. As the pioneer school for the Australasian field, it needed to succeed, to form a pattern that would have wide influence. On Monday, July 5, she reported:4BIO 308.2

I had a long interview with Brother Martin in regard to many important matters in reference to the school orchard, and my own orchard, and in reference to the best methods so to manage the land that it shall produce sufficient for the consumption of the school and thereby no expenditure of money for fruit and vegetables. We expect good crops this year, and we shall have, we expect, all that the school will demand on their own land and all that our own family will require on our little farm....4BIO 308.3

Tuesday morning, July 6:

I brought before the students the most important matters in regard to an all-round education. May the Lord bless the effort made to bring before the school the necessity of physical culture combined with the mental taxation. The Lord has pointed out the deficiencies in our ideas, and the true education that is essential in our school here in Cooranbong....4BIO 308.4

Thursday, July 8:4BIO 308.5

I arose at two o'clock a.m. and commenced my writing. My prayer is, O Lord, teach and lead and guide me. Help me to feel my responsibilities in regard to my committed trust.... Quarter before 9:00 a.m. I again visited the school and read to them important matter in regard to the relation of diet and health and morals—words that had been written years ago for the book Christian Temperance. It is just what is needed now for the students in our school. I occupied about fifty-five minutes.4BIO 308.6

Sabbath, July 10:

I spoke to the people.... I felt the deep movings of the Spirit of God upon me. Brother Lacey, a young man, stood up before the people to pray. That act so pained my heart I said, “Brother Lacey, get down upon your knees,” which he did. I knew if any human being knew whom he was addressing—the great and holy God, who dwelleth in light inapproachable, before whom angels veil their faces and cry, “Holy, holy, holy”—he would not stand erect before his students and present his petitions to God.—Manuscript 174, 1897. [See Selected Messages 2:311-316, for counsel given in connection with this experience.]4BIO 309.1

She did not speak at the school every day, but frequently she wrote instruction regarding school matters and often went over to address the faculty and students. There stood out clearly in her mind the contrast between God's ideal in the education of Adventist youth and the training being given in some of the older colleges of the church in America. After the experience in requesting one of the faculty members to kneel while addressing God in the formal Sabbath-morning worship prayer, she wrote:4BIO 309.2

I feel very sad when I consider that young men come from Battle Creek with a deficient education in spiritual godliness. After devoting years of study in the school at Battle Creek, some have stated they had an education that was of little use to them. I see more and more the folly of five years in succession devoted to the education of any student. Let them learn common hard work, in exercising the muscles and their hands, and let them learn from books that have not one grain of infidelity sprinkled in through their brilliant productions. It is like the sugarcoated pills that are used—a drug to destroy rather than to restore.—Ibid.4BIO 309.3