Meeting Legal Standards

The words of prophetic guidance for our schools protest strongly against adopting worldly policies of education, but they also caution us not to be content with an inferior, slipshod standard of teaching. Indeed, they make plain that in matters of real training our schools ought to be better than the best around us, so that our students can pass all needed legal tests and our instructors secure the certificates called for. On this subject of accreditation we quote a message in the Review:FSG 332.7

“The youth and those more advanced in years who feel it their duty to fit themselves for work requiring the passing of certain legal tests should be able to secure at our union conference training schools all that is essential....FSG 333.1

“In our training schools, the Bible is to be made the basis of all education....FSG 333.2

“From the light that the Lord has given me, I know that our training schools in various parts of the field should be placed in the most favorable position possible for qualifying our youth to meet the tests specified by State laws regarding medical students....FSG 333.3

“Let me repeat: It is not necessary for so many of our youth to study medicine. But for those who should take medical studies our union conference training schools should make ample provision in facilities for preparatory education. Thus the youth of each union conference can be trained nearer home.”—The Review and Herald, October 15, 1903, page 8.FSG 333.4

It was with considerable hesitation that we adopted a program of having our schools accredited; but we have found that when this is applied in harmony with the principles stated above, it has proved most helpful in improving the facilities of our schools and the education of our youth.FSG 333.5

It is helpful to observe the fruitage of all this instruction on the training of children and youth, for it has profoundly influenced our church and work in all lands. Our homes have been better and our members have been benefited in many ways. It has cost us a great deal of money. No church pays as much per capita for education as the Adventist Church; but this outlay is our best investment, as all agree when they observe our schools and note how they help our youth.FSG 333.6

The Adventist educational plan for our youth has hitherto had no kindergarten schools. The ideal given us is that mothers should be the teachers of their little ones and that children ought not to attend school until they are eight years old. But from that on we have a complete system: The daily church school up to the eighth grade; the secondary schools or academics, corresponding to the high school, to the twelfth grade; and then fully accredited colleges with good libraries, laboratories, and other facilities for the regular college degree. For those who wish to go further and study medicine, we have our medical school, and for such as wish to prepare for ministerial or missionary callings there is the well equipped Theological Seminary at Washington, D.C. In the study outline of every year in all these schools there are regular Bible courses. Back of that plan is the instruction from the Lord that education is not to be separated from religion.FSG 333.7

Practically all the instructors in our schools are Seventh day Adventists, and all the instruction is in harmony with Adventist doctrine—indeed, no other teaching is allowed. We ask and accept no financial assistance from the state. All our schools are open to both sexes. Our teachers carry proper, recognized certificates both from our own system of examinations and from the state. This complete system of schools, which is such an untold blessing to our church, is the fruitage of that instruction given us by the Spirit of prophecy.FSG 334.1

Times without number we have found that students from our schools have no trouble in passing the examinations given by the state. In fact, it has often been said that our’ children, though we wish they were much better, are ahead of the children in the public schools in both studies and conduct. This is not said to boast but to encourage others to establish schools founded on the Word of God. Our goal and ideal as a church taught of the Lord is that every Adventist child should have a training in which morals and religion go hand in hand with common branches of secular education. Though we know that the public schools should not teach religion, we gladly pay our taxes to support them, but we also exercise the right to educate our own children not only to become useful loyal citizens of our country but to prepare them for the kingdom of God.FSG 334.2

It would have but little purpose to give figures of the hundreds of training centers and tens of thousands of students which we now have in all parts of the earth. There is scarcely a country without an Adventist school, but the reports of today would be too small and out of date in a few months.FSG 335.1

The largest educational enterprise and one of the most fruitful of Adventist schools is the College of Medical Evangelists. We never would have dared to begin that school but for the earnest and persistent appeals and instruction of Mrs. White. To a majority of our leaders the undertaking was way beyond our ability and resources, but God has provided both men and means for its rapid and wise development. At the annual constituency meeting of the medical college in September, 1946, Dr. McPherson, the president of the school, in his report says:FSG 335.2

“According to recent statistics the church is presently operating some 72 medical institutions in various parts of the world. Fifteen of these are in the United States, and 57 are distributed through a score or more of other countries. In addition to the operation of these sanitariums and hospitals, it also operates approximately 84 dispensaries and treatment rooms, most of which are in foreign countries. There are a large number of privately owned institutions and medical clinics located in all parts of the world which operate in accord with fundamental principles as do the denominational institutions, and which are operated on a self-supporting basis by doctors and nurses of this denomination....FSG 335.3

“It is worth while that the members of this constituency have at least a general idea as to the relative accomplishments of the College of Medical Evangelists up to date as such accomplishments relate themselves to the general purposes and work of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Including the graduates from the Loma Linda School of Nursing between 1905 and 1909, the year in which the College of Medical Evangelists was officially born, the college has graduated a total of 3,526 doctors, nurses, dietitians, and technicians. Of this number 1,941 received their medical degree, 1,299 have graduated from the two schools of nursing, 168 have received their degree from the School of Dietetics, and 118 have finished their respective courses in the three technical schools—34 from the School of Physical Therapy, 62 from the School of Clinical Laboratory Technology, and 22 from the School of X-ray Technology.”—The Medical Evangelist, November 1, 1946, pages 1, 2.FSG 335.4

Our medical college plays such a leading part in our world-wide humanitarian and missionary educational endeavor that it seems fitting to give some further information concerning it, especially as this institution was founded as a result of most explicit instruction from the servant of God. We should never have had it if it had not been for the Spirit of prophecy, and we would not be able to keep it as a source of real blessing if we departed from that light. It is most cheering to observe how this “college of medical missionaries” has developed in its many lines of training for God.FSG 336.1

“The White Memorial Hospital, with its varied interests.... comprises the clinical division of the School of Medicine of the College of Medical Evangelists. Also centered here as units of the College of Medical Evangelists are the Graduate School of Medicine, the School of Nursing, the School of Laboratory Technology, the School of X-ray Technology, and the School of Physical Therapy, as well as the White Memorial Clinic. Each of these schools is approved by its respective accrediting body....FSG 336.2

“As a further means of providing more adequate facilities for the formal training of graduate physicians and providing for specialization in various lines of medical practice, the Board of Trustees of the College of Medical Evangelists authorized the establishment of the Graduate School of Medicine in the summer of 1946. The Graduate School is an integral unit of the College of Medical Evangelists and seeks to foster and assist in achieving the over-all purposes and objectives of the college, namely to properly qualify men and women to become Christian physicians of the highest order. At present there are thirty-eight full-time students enrolled in the Graduate School, and more than sixty additional physicians are taking part-time or postgraduate courses, made available by the Graduate School of Medicine.FSG 336.3

“More and more the place and importance of religion as a distinct therapeutic factor in the treatment of sickness is being recognized. Faith and trust in God as an all-wise, loving Father does much to renew health. At the White Memorial Hospital, spiritual ministry is not neglected.”—Pacific Union Recorder, March 5, 1947, pages 10, 16.FSG 337.1

Our other colleges, too, have been as fruitful in their line as has the medical school. There is one kind of training among Adventists which has been an untold blessing to our church, to our women, and to all mankind. We refer to the many, many nurses’ training classes in our sanitariums. It is perhaps not saying too much to state that none of our schools have been more fruitful than have these. What have they not meant to our homes, and our overseas missions? At these schools some four thousand have been prepared for service. The messages from the Spirit of prophecy urgently stressed the need and value of nurses’ training as one of the best preparations a woman can receive.FSG 337.2

We should mention some other characteristics of these Spirit of prophecy messages on the training of youth in school and home. Mrs. White does not make the concept of education synonymous with class work or scholarship. We are not led to measure a man’s standing or position or rank by the number of years he has spent in higher institutions of learning or by the recognition he has of any such achievements. The purpose of education is said to be the development of our God-given talents, and the true measure of education is not what a person knows or thinks he knows, but what a person can do. It is not degrees but useful fruitage that counts. To an alarming extent modern education is commercialized—it is paid for in dollars and it is expected to earn dollars, more and many of them. The Adventist ideal of education is utterly different. The divine instruction given us sets forth that the supreme and ever-present goal of education is unselfish service in useful lines, not for worldly profit, but to the glory of our Creator. Pride of knowledge is a sure sign of a shallow soul, for true education always dwells in the house of humility.FSG 337.3

Still another boon, possibly the greatest of all boons which these messages on education brought to the remnant church, was their intriguing appeal to our youth. It was a spiritual appeal, calling our boys and girls to give their hearts to God. It was a mission appeal, recruiting young men and women and enlisting them for gospel service at home and abroad. On the angel wings of a mighty urge to the call of a world-wide task these appeals lifted our youth above the humdrum of everyday life of common things into the higher levels of heroic service for God and man. In place of motives of mere business objectives their thoughts became inspired by noble ideals and ambitions to strive upward from the things of the flesh to the things of the spirit. Thousands of our members will testify to the truthfulness of these statements. They felt themselves called from factory or farm and sent as messengers of God to the ends of the earth. These messages, too, were a call and an appeal to the parents as well as the youth.FSG 338.1

To make better missionaries of many and better members of all is the divine goal given to every school.FSG 338.2

The purpose of education should not be to divide society into caste or class, like some airtight compartment, each for himself. Education is life, and it is for all as members of one human family. It is more than to learn a trade or acquire a profession or complete a curriculum. It often happens that the so-called “uneducated” are better trained and more thoroughly prepared for life than those who think of themselves as having superior training. Schools do well to train doctors, teachers, and ministers, but students must not feel that they have completed their education when they get their diploma.FSG 338.3

“True education means more than taking a certain course of study. It is broad. Its aim is not selfish.” “The true object of education is to fit men and women for service by developing and bringing into active exercise all their faculties.”—Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students, 64, 493.FSG 339.1

The future prosperity of our schools, one and all, and that means the future growth and welfare of the advent movement, depends on our faithfulness under God in following the blueprint of the Lord for true education.FSG 339.2