Worldly education compels students, regardless of their needs or future work, to follow a prescribed course of instruction. It deals with students en masse. Christian education recognizes individual needs, and works to perfect individual character. It permits students, in counsel with teachers, to select subjects according to their future needs. The Papacy cannot thrive unless it puts students through a prescribed course, "the grind," to destroy independence and individuality. Protestantism is the reverse. This long drawn out process, adding and adding more time, more branches, is one of Satan's snares to keep laborers back... If we had a thousand years before us, such a depth of knowledge would be uncalled for, although it might be much more appropriate; but now our time is limited." (T. E., p. 106).

ELECTIVE COURSES:--Thomas Jefferson in his declaration of Principles for the University of Virginia in 1823, said, relative to the stereotype curriculum: "I am not fully informed of the practices at Harvard, but there is one from which we shall certainly vary, although it has been copied, I believe, by nearly every college and academy in the United States. That is the holding of students all to one prescribed course of reading, and disallowing exclusive application to those branches only which are to qualify them for the particular vocations to which they are destined.

We shall, on the contrary, allow them uncontrolled choice in the lectures they shall choose to attend, and shall require elementary qualifications only, and sufficient age." Boone further says, "This policy has been in operation ever since... There is no curriculum of studies as in most institutions of like grade... This is 'the freedom of teaching;' and is the correlative of that equally fundamental freedom of learning which in this country has come to be known as 'the open system, or elective system.'" (Boone, pp. 190-191).

JEFFERSON'S PLAN for an elective course was a blow at one of the fundamental principles of the Papal system which gives the student no choice, and, of course, was opposed by those controlled by the Papal system. Boone says, "In 1814, after numerous defeats and constant opposition from William and Mary College, from Protestant churches, and from most of the political leaders of the time, Mr. Jefferson and his friends sought to provide a university" which recognized the great principle of liberty in education.

RANDOLPH-MACON COLLEGE, a Methodist institution, founded about 1828, grasped the light of Christian education and made an effort to break away from the mediaeval system which exalted the classics. Randolph-Macon took this action concerning the old mediaeval courses: The "elective system was adopted... It is claimed that more thorough work can be done under this system than under the old curriculum system, but students are not allowed to choose for themselves without consultation with the faculty. Practically every student has a curriculum chosen for him, according to the course he wishes to pursue." Randolph-Macon had a hard time, and failed to carry out the reform. "It was a new movement, and it encountered prejudice or cold indifference on the part of the preachers and the people." Jefferson, p. 243).

HARVARD, that school which imbibed the Papal system of John Sturm from the English Cambridge, and which led all other American schools in the Papal plan of education, was among the first of the older schools to attempt to come into line with true education on this reform. It began about 1824. "The experience of Harvard, during the long transition from a uniform required curriculum to a regulated freedom in choice of studies, might be helpful to other institutions... There was adopted a course described as by far the broadest plan enacted up to that time." The students were given large latitude in their choice of studies. They were permitted "to elect from the following subjects... It was a large concession and had a permanent influence upon the course." (Boone, p. 196).

YALE, which so closely imitated Harvard in its early history, was materially effected by the reform in courses made by Harvard, and allowed students greater freedom in the choice of studies. "Even Yale, which has been generally and very properly regarded as the conservator of the principle of authority in college instruction, has granted large liberty in a quarter of a century... So numerous were the concessions that nearly one-half of the work of the last two years was left to be determined by each student himself. The juniors elected about 60 per cent. of their work and the seniors about 80 per cent... From the standpoint of the ancients or even of a scholar of the Revolutionary period, the change would seem to be ruinous; but no one longer denies either the necessity or the wisdom of the elective principle. To permit choice is dangerous; but not to permit it is more dangerous."

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, years ago, loosened up, and "students were allowed to pursue special courses, and secure at their departure, certificates of proficiency."

CORNELL UNIVERSITY also grasped the principle of Christian education on the subject of elective courses. "Liberty in the choice of studies is regarded as fundamental." In many wide awake schools this question is being asked, "Shall a B.

A. degree be given where the classics have been omitted? JOHNS HOPKINS says, Yes." (Boone, pp. 197-198). A prominent educator thus summarizes the virtues of the elective system: It encourages the early choice of one's life work; it develops individuality; it gives a chance for individual choice and guidance; it gives opportunity to teach what the student most needs; it best holds the interest of the student; it will early reveal the capacity of the student.

The old established courses were arbitrary, and were necessary to build up an educational trust suited to the needs of the Papacy. Without such courses it was difficult to adumbrate students, making them efficient tools in the hands of the leaders. No one should be allowed, according to their ideas of training, to exercise the right of choice, for fear he could not be directed as an obedient servant by the system when engaged in his life work. Individuality and personality, all independence and originality could be pretty well crushed by putting the students through the regular prescribed course of study. No man was allowed to teach, preach or do anything of importance without first finishing a course and receiving a degree.

So the Lord, in order to prepare workers for the midnight cry, inspired the reformers to attack the hard and fast course of study that had been inherited, practically without change from past centuries-a course that held the students' minds on the dim and musty past; that blinded them to the interesting and practical things of life and unfitted them to enter life capable of putting into practice the things learned in school. Such a training was absolutely useless to one preparing to give the midnight cry.

DEGREES:--Christians must hold before the world "That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness." The Papacy opposes these truths, and has found its most effective tools in overcoming these unalienable rights to be her educational system with its courses and degrees. On the one hand these destroy freedom, independence, and originality of thought, while on the other hand they develop class distinction, aristocracy and imperialism.

The apostate apostolic church in order to keep her members submissive to her will in teaching, found it necessary to develop an educational trust. This educational monopoly became effective and complete when she adopted the pagan scheme of rigid courses leading to degrees. She gave the form to Christianity, and for the Spirit of God she substituted the pagan spirit. The combination of Christian form and pagan life produced the Papacy. Hartman, writing concerning the educational system of the apostate church, says, "The conferring of degrees was originated by a pope." (Religion or No Religion in Education, p. 43). "Many who professed conversion still clung to the tenets of their pagan philosophy, and not only continued its study themselves, but urged it upon others as a means of extending their influence among the heathen." (G. C. p. 508). "As long as we sail with the current of the world, we need neither can- vas nor oar. It is when we turn squarely about to stern the current that our labors begin, and Satan will bring every kind of theory to pervert the truth. The work will go hard." (T. Vol. 6, p. 129). "There is need of heart conversion among the teachers. A genuine change of thought and method of teaching is required to place them where they will have a living connection with a personal Saviour." (T. E. P. 29).

THOMAS JEFFERSON, the man who wrote that grand old document, The Declaration of Independence, which announced to the world our separation from the Papal form of government, and which enunciates the divine principle that all men are created free and equal, endeavored to develop an educational system in harmony with the reform position which the government had assumed. He saw the necessity of discarding rigid courses and degrees, and introduced the "elective system" as we have seen. "At first he attempted to drop the long established academic titles, save that of M. D. and to adopt the simple title of Graduate U. V., the name of the school or schools in which the student 'had been declared eminent,' being expressed in his 'certificate,' which was to be 'attested' by the particular professor." (Jefferson,

p. 153). Professor Tappan, first president of the University of Michigan, followed Jefferson's plan. "Students were allowed to pursue special courses, and receive at their departure certificates of proficiency." (Boone, p .191).

That "first attempts to change old customs brought severe trials," (Mrs. E. G. White) was well illustrated in the experience of the founders in the University of Virginia, for "in a few years the Board and Faculty were forced to give up the reform."

We have seen that the popular demand for the old established course and degrees was too strong for Jefferson to withstand. Later the spirit of God stirred the churches by setting up an agitation in the Oberlin school, giving them an opportunity to get away from that system so effective in maintaining the Papacy, and to prepare the people of God for the midnight cry. Of Oberlin College it is said, "The democratic feeling, the spirit of equality, the absence of classes and castes, based upon mere artificial distinctness is almost as marked in the institution as in the village." (Oberlin, p. 398). "There has been no positive action by trustees or faculty in opposition to such degrees, only traditional repugnance. Even the common degrees, in course, have been sometimes held in disrepute among the students. Half of the class of 1838, which numbered twenty, declined to receive the degree and the President announced at the commencement that those who desired the degree could receive their diplomas at the college office." (Fairchild, P. 267).

The pressure of the church controlling Oberlin was so strong that the reformers were unable to break away from the old educational system. Who can tell how much weight this failure had in reducing the Protestant churches to the condition called "Babylon?"

6. EMULATION, HONORS AND PRIZES

The granting of degrees, prizes, honors, etc., is borrowed from the Papal system of education.

"In our institutions of learning there was to be exerted an influence that would counteract the influence of the world, and give no encouragement to indulgence in appetite, in selfish gratification of the senses, in pride, ambition, love of dress and display, love of praise and flattery, and strife for high rewards and honors as a recompense for good scholarship. All this was to be discouraged in our schools. It would be impossible to avoid these things and yet send them to the public school." (Mrs. E. G. White, R. & H., Jan. 9, 1894).

Before 1844 God was endeavoring to do for an Protestant denominations what he is now endeavoring to do for Seventh-day Adventists. The educational reform prior to the midnight cry proved a failure. But he who shares in the loud cry must succeed in the educational reform. "Oberlin is somewhat peculiar in the matter of marks, prizes, honors and the like. During the thirties when Mr. Shipherd and his associates were laying the foundations, there was much earnest discussion abroad concerning the value and legitimacy of emulation... in student life. Many of the foremost educators held most strenuously that they are not needed to secure the best results, while in general tendencies it was on the whole positively harmful and vicious. In every way it was far better to appeal to pupils of all grades as well as to all others by addressing only their higher nature. Influenced largely by such convictions, it has always been that, though recitations and examinations are marked and a record is kept, this is not to establish a basis for grading or for distribution of honors, but only for private consultation by the teacher, a student, or other persons concerned. No announcement of standing is ever made." (Oberlin, p. 408).

UNIVERSITY OF NASHVILLE:--While Oberlin was struggling over the question of prizes, rewards, classics, etc., other institutions were battling with the same problem. Doctor Lindsley, founder of the University of Nashville, the predecessor of the well-known Peabody Institute, established in this period, said, "The giving of prizes as rewards for scholarship was discarded," and the founder testifies. that "a much greater peace, harmony, contentment, order, industry, and moral decorum prevailed." (Tenn. P. 33).

HORACE MANN, the eminent teacher and writer, and the father of the public school system in the United States, heartily disapproved of the classic system of emulation. Mr. Mann says, "I hold and always have held it too unchristian to place two children in such relation to each other that if one wins the other must lose. So placed, what scholars gain in intellect, yes, and a thousand times more, they lose in virtue... You know my view of emulation. It may make bright scholars, but it makes rascally politicians and knavish merchants." (Mann, Vol. 1, p. 515). Mr. Mann was opposing the Jesuit Papal practice, so necessary to the success of their system of education, which, says, "Nothing will be held more honorable than to outstrip a fellow student and nothing more dishonorable than to be outstripped. Prizes will be distributed to the best pupils with the greatest possible solemnity." (Painter, p. 171).

7. REFORMS IN DIET

"The true science of education" gives the student a knowledge of the laws governing his body, and a love for those laws. Every Christian school should give its students a knowledge of the proper diet, proper clothing, and should acquaint him with those phases of life that make a successful missionary. A wave of reform in the matters of diet, clothing, and other important health principles swept over the country, and many educational reformers endeavored to introduce these practical subjects into their schools. The spirit of God was preparing them for the crucial test in 1844.

"Among the studies selected for childhood, physiology should occupy the first place.--it should be regarded as the basis of all educational effort." (Mrs. E. G. White in Health Reformer). "While the schools we have established have taken up the study of physiology, they have not taken hold with the decided energy they should. They have not practiced intelligently that which they have received in knowledge." (U. T., May 19, 1897). "The health should be as sacredly guarded as the character." (C. E., P. 184).

THE FOUNDERS OF OBERLIN, moved by the spirit of reform said, "That we may have time and health for the Lord's service, we will eat only plain and wholesome food, renouncing all bad habits, and especially the smoking and chewing of tobacco, unless it is necessary as a medicine, and deny ourselves all the strong and unnecessary drinks, even tea and coffee, as far as practicable, and everything expensive that is simply calculated to gratify appetite." (Oberlin, p. 86).

In 1832, Mr. Sylvester Graham, the inventor of graham flour, "began to call men to repent of the sins of the table. According to this classical authority, vegetables and fruit should constitute the substance of every meal, and should be eaten as nearly as may be in their natural state. Bread should be made of unbolted wheat flour (that being the natural condition), though rye and Indian are allowable if unbolted, likewise rice and sago, if plainly cooked. Good cream may be used instead of butter, though milk and honey are somewhat better. Flesh meat and fish in all forms had better be banished from the table. No fat or gravies are to be tasted, nor any liquid foods like soup and broth. Pastry is an abomination, and cakes in which any fat or butter has been used. Bread should be at least twelve hours from the oven, and twenty-four hours are better. And as for condiments, pepper, mustard, oil, vinegar, etc., and stimulants like tea and coffee, they are to be by all means eschewed as deadly foes to health." (Oberlin, pp. 218-219).

Professors Shipherd and Finney of Oberlin both confessed to being restored to health through the Graham diet reform. "The Oberlin pulpit became aggressively Grahamite. The boarding department of the school was placed in charge of a disciple of Graham. "Tea and coffee were not introduced into the college boarding hall until 1842-possibly a little later... Many of the families discarded tea and coffee, and a few adopted the vegetarian diet." Concerning the vegetarian diet, we read, "For two or three years longer the students were furnished at the hall with 'Graham fare.' They were not restricted to this. A table was still set for those who preferred a different diet." (Fairchild, p. 83).

DIET REFORM IN OTHER SCHOOLS:--Oberlin was not along in these reforms. "In Williams College an association was formed in 1831 comprising the majority of the students with board based upon the principles of abstinence from tea and coffee, and the use only of food, the simplest in every respect" "The same reform was recorded in the history of Hudson College." In Lane Seminary "it was the wish of the students to dispense with tea, coffee, and all luxuries, and to live on the principles of Christian simplicity and economy." "In Danville, Ky., and Maryville College, Tennessee, it was the same, because we wish our ministers free from dyspepsia and liver complaint." Oberlin's historian writes that "the company was large that used neither flesh nor fish, neither butter nor milk, neither tea nor coffee." (Oberlin, pp. 222-223).

HORACE MANN said, "We must pay far more attention to the health of the students, not only by teaching the physiological laws of health, but by training students to an habitual obedience to them. Solomon does not say teach a child in the way he should go, but he says train him, which means that the child should be required to do the thing himself, and to repeat it again and again, and ten times again until it becomes a habit." Mr. Mann says further, "As physical exercise enters so largely into the means of securing health, it is certain that no college can ever maintain a general condition of high health among its students unless they spend some hours every day in muscular effort. Hence the Faculty of Antioch College requires exercise of its students every day... We encourage manual labor in every practicable way, and if a liberal public or a liberal individual would give us land for agricultural or even for horticultural purposes, we promise them that the old injunction to till the ground and dress it shall not be forgotten." One will look far for a writer with a clearer grasp of the health principles as taught by the Word of God. After describing the increase of disease in the world because of the departure of man from God's original plan, Mr. Mann says, "It comes solely because man will break heaven's laws; because for the sake of money or for pride, disease will marry disease; because when God commanded man to work- -that is, to take some form of exercise--in the garden-- that is, in the open air--men will not exercise, and will live in dwellings which add artificial poisons to natural ones, and then breathe the virulent compound." (Mann, Vol. 5, pp. 342, 415).

If health reform must be taught by Seventh-day Adventist ministers and teachers, and understood and practiced by all who will triumph in the loud cry, we are forced to conclude that the Lord was giving the Protestant churches, through their schools, this health reform light because it was as necessary for them to understand and practice it before the midnight cry as for us before the loud cry. We are forced also to conclude that their failure to live up to the light on health reform unfitted them to appreciate and accept other light. So it is extremely dangerous for students now to carelessly relate themselves to this reform.