Home and Church School Manual

The condition of many homes

“There has been with many parents a fearful neglect of duty. Like Eli, they fail to exercise proper restraint, and then they send their undisciplined children to college to receive the training which the parents should have given them at home..... If the youth choose the society of the evil-disposed, and go on from bad to worse, then the teachers are censured and the school denounced. In many cases censure justly belongs to the parents. They had the first and most favorable opportunity to control and train their children, when the spirit was teachable and the mind and heart easily impressed. But through the slothfulness of the parents the children are permitted to follow their own will until they become hardened in an evil course.”—Testimonies for the Church 5:29. PH140 20.2

“They (children) have felt no compunctions of conscience in going about the streets on the Sabbath for their own amusement. Many go where they please, and do what they please, and their parents are so fearful of displeasing them that, imitating the management of Eli, they lay no commands upon them. These youth finally lose all respect for the Sabbath, and have no relish for religious meetings or for sacred and eternal things.... Most of the backsliding from God in that place has come in consequence of parents neglecting to train their children to a conscientious religious life. The condition of these children is lamentable. They profess to be Christians, but their parents have not taken upon themselves the burden of teaching them how to be Christians.”—Testimonies for the Church 5:36. PH140 21.1