The Papal system of education is typified by the word centralization; it exalts man, his ideas and his ways. In other words it is a study of the humanities, of the artificial rather than the natural. Such a scheme of education can best be worked out in connection with city life. Therefore, Papal schools and those schools patterned after the Papal model are usually located in towns and cities. On the contrary, Christian education means decentralization; it exalts God and His works; it is a return to God's way of doing. This system can best be developed in the country, on a farm where is to be gained an experience necessary to the carrying of the last message.

"God bids us establish schools away from the cities, where, without let or hindrance, we can carry on the work of education upon plans that are in harmony with the solemn message that is committed to us for the world. Such an education as this can best be worked out where there is land to cultivate... This usefulness learned on the school farm is the very education that is most essential for those who go out as missionaries to many foreign fields." (Madison School, pp. 28-29). "Some do not appreciate the value of agricultural work. These should not plan for our schools; for they will hold everything from advancing in right lines. In the past their influence has been a hindrance." (T., Vol. 6, p. 178).

CONCERNING THE SCHOOL GROUNDS it is said, "This land is not to be occupied with buildings, except to provide the facilities essential for the teachers and students of the school. This land about the school is to be reserved as the school farm. It is to become a living parable to the students. The students are not to regard the school land as a common thing... They are to plant it with ornamental and fruit trees and to cultivate garden produce... The school farm is to be regarded as a lesson book in nature... Bring all your energies into the development of the Lord's farm... The reasons which have led us in a few places to turn away from the cities, and locate our schools in the country, hold good with the schools in other places... Had the money which our larger schools have used in expensive buildings been invested in procuring land where students could receive a proper education, so large a number of students would not now be struggling under the weight of increasing debt, and the work of these institutions would be in a more prosperous condition... The students would have secured an all-round education which would have prepared them, not only for practical work in various trades, but for a place on the Lord's farm in the earth made new." (T. Vol. 6, pp. 177, 181).

We have seen that God was endeavoring to arouse the popular churches to accept Christian education. This meant a reform in the location of their schools. A few years prior to 1844, many educational reformers were influenced to establish schools away from the city and on the farm.

THE METHODISTS as early as 1735 under the direction of the Wesleys and Whitefield attempted to carry out God's idea of education in Georgia. They established a school ten miles from Savannah. The historian states, "Mr. Habbersham had located the five hundred acre grant." Wesley stated that this school should be "a seat and nursery of sound learning and religious education."

THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA ON A FARM:--When Thomas Jefferson was making plans for the University of Virginia in a report made "to the Speaker of the House of Delegates, it is stated that they purchased 'at a distance of a mile from Charlottesville... two hundred acres of land, on which was an eligible site for the college, high, dry, open, furnished with good water, and nothing in its vicinity which could threaten the health of the students.'" (Jefferson, p. 69).

OBERLIN ON A FARM:--Mr. Shipherd, the founder of Oberlin College, writes thus of his early plans, "We are to establish schools of the first order, from the infant school up to an academic school, which shall afford a thorough education in English and useful languages, and if Providence favor it, at length instruction in theology--I mean practical theology. We are to connect work shops and the farm with the institution." A tract of land was purchased in the unbroken forests of Ohio, and 640 acres of this were kept for school purposes. The soil was clay and wet, and the tract "had been passed by for years as undesirable for occupation." For this very reason the purchase was severely criticized. It was made because the faith of the founders enabled them to see some things that even land experts overlooked. Let Seventh-day Adventists read the similar experience of the founders of the Avondale school, Cooranbong, Australia. The founders of Oberlin "were guided by a wisdom higher than human, since a location, almost forbidding in its physical aspects, and for years quite difficult of access, was a condition indispensable to the formation of the character and the performance of the work to which Oberlin was clearly called." (Oberlin, p. 82).

RICHMOND COLLEGE (Virginia) was founded by the Baptists in 1832. They "bought Spring Farm, a small tract some four miles northwest of the city, and there on the Fourth of July, opened a manual labor school, called the Virginia Baptist Seminary." (Jefferson, p. 271).

EMORY AND HENRY COLLEGE, a Methodist institution, was established in Virginia in 1835. It was to be "what was called, a manual labor college, an institution of learning in which the pupils were to be trained to labor as well as to think. This manual labor feature was a very prominent one in the enterprise, as it was first brought before the public... A farm containing six hundred acres of highly productive land was purchased and paid for out of the first funds raised. It was at first intended that this farm should be cultivated by student labor, for which a compensation was to be allowed which would assist in paying the student's expenses." (Jefferson, pp. 253-254).

It would be interesting to study this reform further for many other schools followed this light and secured locations away from towns and cities. When manual training is studied this phase of educational reform will be brought again to your attention.

9. SIMPLICITY IN BUILDINGS

REFORM IN EDUCATION INCLUDES THE BUILDINGS in which an educational institution is housed. The spirit of centralization is a necessary feature of the Papacy, and associated with the Papal educational system of mediaeval Europe there is usually found a certain characteristic form of buildings-- buildings of the monastic order, dark, dingy cloisters, with which are associated long prayers, counting of beads, chained Bibles, cowls, gowns, mortar boards, night vigils, long examinations, degrees, parchment rolls; memory work instead of reason; sight not faith; thought not action. Boone says, "Monkish education seeks by means of complete silence to place the soul in a state of immobility, which, through the want of all interchange of thought, at last sinks into entire apathy and antipathy toward all intellectual culture." Think of attempting to give this kind of education in the open, free country, or in buildings with open windows through which streams the bright sunshine of heaven, surrounded by singing birds, working teams, milk cows, growing grain, and the sound of hammer and saw. Such surroundings kill this system of education as surely as light kills germs.

"The mistakes that have been made in the erection of buildings in the past should be salutary admonitions to us in the future... Our ideas of building and furnishing our institutions are to be molded and fashioned by a true practical knowledge of what it means to walk humbly with God. Never should it be thought necessary to give an appearance of wealth. It is not large, expensive buildings; it is not rich furniture ... that will give our work influence and success." (T. Vol. 7, pp. 92, 93).

THOMAS JEFFERSON in his scheme for giving a democratic education discarded the mediaeval dormitory system of Papal schools. "Instead of constructing a single and large edifice which might have exhausted their funds, and left nothing or too little for other essential expenses, they thought it better to erect a small and separate building for each professor with an apartment for his lectures, and others for their own accommodations, connecting these cottages, by a range of dormitories capable each of lodging two students only--a provision equally friendly to study as to morals and order." Of the students' cottages it is said, "They consisted of one story dormitories exhibiting a not unpleasant effect," and these buildings had their "garden grounds."

This certainly called for self-government. It placed teachers and students on the same level; it encouraged simplicity of life; it was economical, and appeals strongly to those who are limited in the amount of money they can spend in school buildings and equipments. But still other reasons are given for this cottage plan. Jefferson said, "The plan offered the further advantages of greater security against fire and infection, of extending the buildings in equal pace with the funds, and of adding to them indefinitely hereafter... Instead of one immense building, I favor having a small one for every professorship, arranged around a square to admit of extension, connected by a piazza so that they can go dry from one school to another. This plan is preferable to a single great building for many reasons, particularly on account of fire, health, economy, peace, and quiet." "Such a plan had been approved in the case of Albemarle College." "Cabal also was thoroughly convinced of the soundness of the building policy of the university. Even the enemies of the institution acknowledged that Jefferson's course was wise.

An influential visitor "had been won over to the university by a mere visit of inspection which impressed him with the extent and splendor of the establishment... There was absolutely nothing in the neighborhood of Charlottesville to attract either professors or students. Jefferson was compelled, by the necessities of the situation, to create something visible and impressive which compelled admiration." Before the opening of the university, Jefferson wrote of ten distinct houses for the professors, "each with a garden," and "an hundred-and-nine dormitories sufficient each for two students."

Jefferson saw the effect of architecture on the plastic minds of students, and said, "My partiality for that division is not founded in views of education solely, but infinitely more as the means of a better administration of our government, and the eternal preservation of republican principles." (Jefferson, pp. 69-101).

OBERLIN'S FOUNDERS came into line with the truth in the matter of simple buildings. "To increase our means of service ... we will observe plainness and durability in the construction of our houses, furniture, carriages, and all that appertains to us." (Oberlin, p. 86). "There is a plain, neat, simple style of building which commends itself to every man's enlightened good sense, and still will not be highly esteemed by the world, neither is it an abomination in the sight of the Lord." (Fairchild, p. 359).

THE COTTAGE PLAN for housing students was followed by other schools also. Of Oglethorpe University, one of the leading Presbyterian institutions in the early history of Georgia, it is said, "There was a row of dormitories of one-story for the habitation of students... These were placed twelve feet apart and each one was divided into two rooms eighteen feet square." (Ga., P. 83). This was in 1837 when Presbyterians were wrestling with the "true science of education," and were settling the question whether they would help proclaim the last message to the world. The object of the Christian school is to train young people to "endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ." Worldly governments, when training soldiers, avoided those conveniences and luxuries that tend to make the soldiers unwilling to endure the hardships of the battlefield. They are not quartered in up-to-date hotels. But often the buildings of a school are constructed and equipped for the convenience of those who teach, house and board the students, rather than for the training necessary to fit these young people to become soldiers to endure hardness. The uniform, the manners, and the polishing in general, of the young student soldier receive more attention than actual drill from many of the officers who have had more experience in dress parade than in lying in the trenches. Need we wonder why such a large per cent of the students, after long training, prefer to take up work in an institution with up-to-date conveniences where good food, clothes, and a salary are insured, rather than to pioneer an enterprise where they are thrown largely on their own resources? To what extent are large, well-equipped schools responsible for this? In these last days schools that teach students to be content with simple food and clothing, and encourage the spirit of sacrifice, and give the ability to say, "From henceforth that land is my country which most needs my help," will be in greatest demand by those students who expect to triumph in the loud cry.

It was on this principle that Thomas Jefferson constructed simple school buildings in which to train a class of men to promote the principles of democracy in the United States. And practically every government in the world has been effected by these principles.

The average teacher, when thinking of a training school, conceives of large buildings, equipped with modern facilities and conveniences, calling for a large outlay of means. You students have had no such plant before you here. Your school would scarcely be recognized as an educational institution by one having the ordinary conception of a training school. This chapel, the small recitation rooms, the dining room, the shops, cottages, and other buildings grouped about the farm, provide the school facilities. Our facilities are, as a rule, more simple than many of you have in your own homes. What is the result? Scores of students from this plant have caught a vision, and have recognized the possibility of building up a school with limited means. As a result, over thirty little centers are providing education to hundreds of children outside the church, while if these same students had received their training in a school well equipped and expensive, no doubt the number of schools started would be considerably less.

Again, the average person when thinking of a sanitarium has before his mind one of our large institutions with every modern convenience. You have had before you a small sanitarium consisting of three frame, one-story cottages connected by covered porches, equipped so simply that they can be duplicated in almost any mission. You have seen this sanitarium filled with patients and a list of persons waiting admittance. Many have had their ideas revolutionized by this small sanitarium, and several health homes are coming into existence to be conducted on similar plans.

These two illustrations are cited to show that the effects of surrounding buildings and equipments on the minds of students are beyond calculation. The light was given to the Protestants before 1844 to guide them in the erection of buildings, equipment and furnishings; in diet, dress and surroundings, so that a great army might be able, in a simple manner to sweep the earth with that mighty message, the midnight cry.

10. MANUAL TRAINING AND THE PRACTICAL IN EDUCATION

The times demand an education which will produce men and women capable of doing things. The Papal system divorces learning from doing and disqualifies men and women for giving the final warning to the world. God stirred every denomination, prior to 1844, to put practical Christian education within the reach of the young people.

"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... 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... If schools had been established upon the plan we have mentioned, there would not now be so many unbalanced minds. 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 molding society. The youth who would graduate at such institutions would many of them come forth with stability of character. They would have perseverance, fortitude, and courage to surmount obstacles, and principles that would not be swerved by wrong influence, however popular. There should have been experienced teachers to give lessons to young ladies in the cooking department. Young girls should have been instructed to manufacture wearing apparel, to cut, to make, to mend garments, and thus become educated for the practical duties of life." (C. E., pp. 11, 18, 19).

JEFFERSON, as we might expect, caught a glimpse of this important phase of education, and made an attempt to put it into operation in the University of Virginia. "He proposed what he called a 'School of Technical Philosophy'... To such a school will come the mariner, carpenter, shipwright, pumpmaker, clockmaker, mechanist, optician, founder, cutler, ... soapmaker, tanner, saltmaker, glassmaker, to learn as much as shall be necessary to pursue their art understandingly... In this school of technicology, Jefferson proposed to group the students in convenient classes for elementary and practical instruction by lectures, to be given in the evening, so as to afford an opportunity for labor in the daytime." (Jefferson, p. 84). Jefferson is quoted as saying, "No nation will long survive the decay of its agriculture." (Pagan vs. Christian Education, p. 43).

"THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING MANUAL LABOR IN LITERARY INSTITUTIONS was formed in New York in 1831 with nearly a score of eminent names among its officers... A tremendous impulse was given to the movement by the publication in 1833 of Theodore D. Welds' famous pamphlet upon manual labor, under the auspices of the society. It contained the testimony of hundreds of noted men, all to the effect that this panacea without question was mighty to heal... His report, when published, produced one of the sensations of the time." (Oberlin, p. 230).

MANUAL LABOR IN OBERLIN-Oberlin was among the schools of this period that placed themselves in the hands of God to be used in giving a practical education to hundreds and thousands of youth who would later be called to do strenuous service for the Master. The historian of Oberlin states that about the time that school started, there was "a wide- spread intellectual quickening, including radical reforms in educational methods." Mr. Shipherd, one of the founders of Oberlin, desired to be in harmony with the divine plan of education, and said, "Hundreds of promising youth will doubtless be educated for God's service, or not educated, as we shall or shall not provide for them the means of complete education by their own industry and economy." In the first annual report of Oberlin published in 1834, we read, "The manual labor department is considered indispensable to a complete education." The historian states, "Honest toil would be honored, the richest and poorest would meet daily on a common level, the health of all would be secured, a magic stimulus would be imparted to both minds and morals; but the best of all, and most certain of all, whoever of either sex would gain an education could easily pay his way with the labor of his own hands." Oberlin's industrial department, the historian says, "is furnished with a steam engine which propels a saw mill, grist mill, shingle and lath saw, and turning lathe, to which other machinery will be added. One workshop is now erected and supplied with tools, and others are to be added." "Manual labor was among the most indispensable elements of the Oberlin idea. Nothing did more for Oberlin's establishment and enlargement. For half a generation multitudes of students were brought in from the whole land over, who otherwise would never have entered its halls; and much more, in all probability, would never have gained an education." One of Oberlin's founders in 1833 wrote "that a female department would be established on the manual labor plan, including housekeeping, manufacture of wool, culture of silk, appropriate parts of gardening, particularly the raising of seeds for market, making clothes, etc."

In fact, the object of Oberlin, as published in its first catalog, "is said to be to give the most useful education at the least expense of health, time and money; to extend the benefit of such education to both sexes and to all classes of the community; ... the thorough qualification of Christian teachers both for the pulpit and for schools; ... the diffusion of useful science, sound morality, and pure religion among the growing multitudes of the Mississippi Valley, and to the destitute millions which overspread the world, through ministers and pious preachers."

Manual labor met with intense opposition, but in 1833, Mr. Shipherd wrote jubilantly, "The scholars study and work well. Five minutes after the manual labor bell strikes, the hammers and saws of the mechanical students wake all around us." After naming the advantages of manual training, he adds, "In a word, it meets the wants of man as a compound being, and prevents the common and amazing waste of money, time, health and life." (Oberlin, pp. 98, 100, 223, 225).

NUMEROUS MANUAL LABOR INSTITUTIONS:--"In all this Oberlin was not in the least original, but merely copied, with slight modifications, what was to be found in numerous institutions throughout the eastern, middle and western states. In 1830, ten could be named having manual labor attachments, while during the next decade several scores were added to the number. Maine Wesleyan was famous in its day and was among the earliest, while Bowdoin, Waterville, and Bangor Seminary possessed these advantages. In Dexter, Maine, not only all students, but teachers also were required to labor at least four hours each day. Massachusetts had at least half a dozen... New York was favored with several, Oneida Institute being prominent; and the Rochester Institute of Practical Education, in which students of ordinary mechanical skill while learning a trade can nearly pay their board, and it is calculated, when certain intended facilities are furnished, they will pay all their expenses. Pennsylvania, too, was well supplied. At Lafayette College, Easton, President Jenkins and the students performed the labor of erecting a two-story building... In the west where people were poorer and land was cheaper, manual labor was most popular. Hudson (Ohio) had shops and a farm, Marietta and Lane Seminary the same, with at least as many more. Michigan moved in the great matter while yet a territory, nor were Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, or Tennessee, in the least degree backward in ministering to the muscle of the student class." (Oberlin, pp. 229-230).

"THE EDUCATIONAL SOCIETIES OF ALL THE LEADING DENOMINATIONS were active participants, whether Baptist, Congregational, Episcopal, Methodist, or Presbyterian, and most of the leading educators were full of enthusiasm and zeal... The Episcopalian secretary could exclaim: 'We almost envy our successors in the academic course when something of the vigor of the fathers shall be found in the intellectual laborers of the day, and the sallow tinge of dyspepsia shall cease to be the uniform testimonial of a life of study.'" (Idem). Dr. Lindsley, founder of the University of Nashville, now Peabody Institute, was an advocate of manual labor. He "would have attached to schools of all grades, farms and workshops. These farms and workshops would serve a three-fold purpose. They would furnish the needed exercise, they would be useful in teaching trades, and they would give poor boys an opportunity of making a living."

EMORY AND HENRY COLLEGE, in 1835, was "a manual labor college, an institute of learning in which the pupils were to be trained to labor as well as think. This manual labor feature was a very prominent one in the enterprise... This feature was made prominent in these incipient movements, for the institution was built up by a people engaged almost wholly in agriculture and the mechanic arts, a people among many of whom a prejudice existed against a learned and lazy race." (Jefferson, p. 253).

MANUAL TRAINING IN BAPTIST SCHOOLS:--"In 1830, a few devoted men met in the Second Baptist Church at five O'clock a. m. to devise and propose some plan for the improvement of young men who, in the judgment of the churches, were called to the work of the ministry... They organized the Virginia Baptist Educational Society, and for two years aided approved young men by placing them in private schools ... In 1832, the Society bought Spring Farm... opened a manual labor school, called the Virginia Baptist Seminary... The number of students ran up to twenty-six, about thirds of them preparing for the ministry... To this purchase of nine acres, six more were added in 1836... The design in adding more was to give more scope for the manual labor feature of the school. This was strenuously insisted on by the authorities as giving to the needy opportunity for self-help and to all opportunity for exercise. But it proved unpopular with the students... And finally as we read in the report of 1841, this feature ... has been virtually abandoned." (Jefferson, p. 271).

THE GEORGIA BAPTISTS in 1833 founded Mercer University, a school "which would unite agricultural labor with study, and be open for those only preparing for the ministry. The idea of founding a manual labor school where theory and practice should be taught, a scheme much in favor with Georgia Baptists, seems to have originated with Doctor Sherwood, who was the first to demonstrate its feasibility in the academy established by him near Etonton in Putnam County." (Ga. p. 61).

We might multiply historical data concerning manual training schools during this remarkable educational reform preceding 1844. The examples given are typical of the experiences of more than sixty manual training schools of this period. To Seventh-day Adventist educational reformers, these experiences are thrilling. What would have been the results had the men responsible for these earlier reforms the pressure brought to bear upon them by the leading brethren of their respective denominations? This opposition was hard to meet, but the failure of the cause was really due to lack of courage and devotion to these principles, for where there is intense courage and love for God's work, opposition only strengthens the reformers. Adventists know that angels were busy everywhere encouraging these reforms. It is a startling fact that these schools relinquished their hold on the manual training reform just about the time that the midnight cry was due. Had they remained true, history would have made a different story. The history of Seventh-day Adventist educational work also would have been different.

Had Oberlin, for instance, remained true to her manual training idea, her missionary workers, going as they did to the mountaineers of the South and to the freedmen of the South, would have changed the whole complexion of Southern history. It would have placed the Southern states forty years ahead of the present. Booker T. Washington's work for negroes would have been established a quarter of a century before his time. But "because men could not comprehend the purpose of God in the plans laid before us for the education of workers, methods have been followed in some of our schools which have retarded rather than advanced the work of God. Years have passed into eternity with small results that might have shown the accomplishment of a great work." (Madison School, p. 29).

ADVANTAGES OF MANUAL LABOR:--"The students were divided into small companies of eight or ten each, and each company placed under the supervision of one of the older students... It broke the monotony of ordinary student life; it promoted health and buoyancy of spirit; in the hours of field and forest labor, there was found. not only relief from study but such a variety of incident, that the students of those days found more means of solid enjoyment than others have since... All the students except day students boarded in a common hall, where by practicing economy and with the help of the farm, a variable surplus was realized each year which was applied in making improvements." (Jefferson, pp. 253-255).

MANUAL LABOR, as a part of the curriculum in those schools training ministers and missionary workers, is a part of that "science of true education" which God made known to some men and women prior to the year 1844. It was one of God's ways of training practical missionaries for mission fields of the world. In spite of the fact that practically every Protestant denomination had some experience in conducting manual training schools, these denominations as a whole opposed the idea, and their persistent opposition finally forced the schools that had led out in the reform to close their manual labor departments. The closing of the manual labor departments is a signal for a return to the educational system of mediaeval Europe. They began to train worldlings instead of Christians. Herein lay one of the greatest mistakes of the Protestant denominations prior to the year 1844. Here is one of the reasons why they were unprepared for the midnight cry and the first angel's message. Manual labor in connection with education was called by men in these manual training schools "a panacea mighty to heal." The training school for Christian workers which lost that "panacea" became spiritually sick, and ceased to advocate Christian educational reforms. It is called "a missionary impulse," which through manual labor, "made it possible for the very poorest boy or girl to secure an education and thus enlarge his fitness to perform the duties of life." OBERLIN'S FRUIT:--God rewarded this school richly for its adherence to truth and for the product of its labors, in spite of the fact that it was finally compelled to yield. Of Oberlin it is said, "Though the very name was so feared and hated, yet there were friends sufficient to desire and solicit more teachers than were to be had. The quality of their work was found to be so excellent that it was wisdom to swallow much prejudice in order to secure the benefit of their instruction." "One year ... no less than 530 teachers went out for the vocation... Who can measure the benefit bestowed by these great companies of earnesthearted men and women who, for more than a generation, expended their energy upon the children and youth by the tens of thousands... Oberlin is the fruitful mother of colleges. Olivet College, Tabor College, Benzonia College, Berea College, Fisk University, Talladega College, Atlanta University, Straight University, Emerson Institute, Howard University, and other schools and enterprises absorbed for many years the missionary activity of Oberlin men and women." Their students entered such "foreign fields as Turkey in Europe and in Asia, India, Siam, South America, Haiti, and Burma." (Oberlin, P. 321, Fairchild, p. 341). Students can readily gather from this brief sketch how extended might have been the influence of Oberlin had she remained true to her reform. The words addressed to Seventh-day Adventist educational reformers apply with equal force to the founders of Oberlin. "Reformers have been handicapped and some have ceased to urge reform. They seem unable to stem the current of doubt and criticism." (T. Vol. 6, p. 142).

OPPOSITION:--Students will be interested in a few statements showing the decline of these same institutions under the blighting atmosphere of suspicion, criticism, and opposition of the leaders. Oberlin withstood the opposition longer and more successfully than most other schools. The following extract gives the reader a picture of the doubt and criticism brought against Oberlin reforms by the leaders in the Presbyterian and Congregational churches. "Manual labor, for example, had many friends and admirers, but a large number looked askance at the idea. The student did not need, and could not afford, four hours per day for toil upon the farm or in the shop. Nor was the financial result likely to be of any considerable value, either to him or the institution to which he belonged.,, So said the critics. "Thus heads in New England and elsewhere began to shake." Again, "I have some doubts about a project lately started in this region and which makes no small demands on our regard as an enterprise of benevolence. I refer to Oberlin for which large funds have been received and are collecting. What need is there of another university or college in the woods of Ohio, surrounded by other institutions but a short distance off, still struggling for an existence?... It is said to have manual labor, but so has Hudson. Why should students be importuned to leave the institution where they are to go to Oberlin?" (Oberlin, pp. 243-247).

YIELDING TO OPPOSITION:--After the beginning of the forties, we hear little of manual labor. With the general increase of wealth there was less need of whatever pecuniary value it possessed. The consciences of the good were less scrupulous about seeking exercise outside of useful labor, and the modern gymnasium and athletics soon began to make all-sufficient provision for the physical well-being of the world." (Oberlin, p. 231). Note the year when this decline occurred.

Mercer University, referred to above, had this experience: "In 1844, the manual labor system which had been on trial since the foundation of the Institute in 1833, was abandoned, having proved inefficacious. Several other attempts had been made during the same decade to establish manual labor schools in different places which with one exception had likewise failed." (Ga., p. 65).

Do Seventh-day Adventists grasp the significance of this date? God cannot forever bear with unbelief, half-hearted efforts, and cold, indifferent trifling with divine principles. "If all who had labored unitedly in the work in 1844 had received the third angel's message and proclaimed it in the power of the Holy Spirit, the Lord would have wrought mightily with their efforts. A flood of light would have been shed upon the world. Years ago the inhabitants of the earth would have been warned, the closing work completed, and Christ would have come for the redemption of his people. It was not the will of God that Israel should wander forty years in the wilderness. He desired to lead them directly to the land of Canaan... In like manner it was not the will of God that the coming Christ should be so long delayed." (G. C., P. 458).