Special Testimonies on Church Schools

Teachers

Qualifications—Students should be encouraged to combine mental and physical labor. The physical powers should be developed in proportion to the mental faculties. This is essential for an all-round education, and they will then be at home in any place. They should be able to teach others how to build, how to cultivate the soil. A man may have a brilliant mind, quick to catch ideas; but this is of little value to him if he has no knowledge of practical work, if he does not know how to put his ideas into execution. Such a one is only half educated. The teacher who has an intelligent knowledge of the best methods, and who can not only teach the theory, but can show by example how things should be done, will never be a drug in the market.—Test., “Our School Work.” PH081 29.4

God wants the teachers in our schools to be efficient. Let none feel that having an earnestness in religious matters is all that is essential in order to become educators. While they need no less of piety, they also need a thorough knowledge of the sciences. This will make them not only good, practical Christians, but will enable them to educate the youth, and, at the same time, they will have heavenly wisdom to lead them to the fountain of living water.—Christian Education, 51. PH081 30.1

Many teachers are leading their students over the same track that they themselves have trod. They think this is the only right way. They give students food which would not sustain spiritual life, but which will cause those who partake of it to die. They are fascinated by that which God does not require them to know.—Test., “The Bible in Our Schools.” PH081 30.2

Selection of Teachers—Those whom the Lord has presented to me as not being properly trained in the home life, who have not thought it necessary to use the powers of their mind and their physical strength and ingenuity as members of the home firm, will always look upon order and discipline as needless restraint and severity. Again and again the Lord has presented this matter before me in clear lines. The teachers must be carefully picked. No haphazard work must be done in the appointment of teachers. Those who have devoted years to study and yet have not gained the education essential to fit them to teach others, in the lines the Lord has marked out, should not be connected with our schools as educators. They need to be taught the first principles of true, all-round education. PH081 30.3

Blind Teachers.—We are living in solemn times, and the reason why there are so many failures in our schools is because teachers neglect to keep the way of the Lord. Some teachers feel the burden and carry the load of responsibility. Others do surface work. They fail to see that the woeful influence of this deficiency is seen in the words and deportment of their students. This influence counterworks the influence that God-fearing teachers, who aim to meet the high standard of Christian education, seek. PH081 31.1

Converted Teachers—I would that the teachers in our schools could be of God's selection and appointment. Souls will be lost because of the careless work of professedly Christian teachers, who need to be taught of God day by day, else they are unfit for the position of trust. Teachers are needed who will strive to weed out their inherited and cultivated tendencies to wrong, who will come into line, wearing themselves the yoke of obedience, and thus giving an example to the students. The sense of duty to their God and to their fellow beings, with whom they associate, will lead such teachers to become doers of the word, and to heed counsel as to how they should conduct themselves.—September 17, 1887. PH081 31.2

It is not safe for us to employ as instructors in our institutions those who are not believers in the present truth; they advance ideas and theories that take hold of the mind with a bewitching power, that absorb the thoughts, making the world of an atom and an atom of the world.—P. C., p. 121, April 15, 1892. PH081 31.3

Teachers themselves should be what they wish the students to become. They should possess well-balanced, symmetrical characters. They should be refined in manner, neat in dress, careful in all their habits, and should have that true Christian courtesy that wins confidence and respect.—Special Testimonies on Education, 48. PH081 32.1

Every teacher should be under the full control of the Holy Spirit. If the teachers will open their own hearts to receive the Spirit, they will be prepared to co-operate with it in working for their students. Every teacher should know and welcome this Heavenly Guest.—Special Testimonies on Education, 50, 51. PH081 32.2

None who deal with the youth should be iron-hearted, but affectionate, tender, pitiful, courteous, winning, and compassionate; yet they should know that reproof should be given, and that even rebuke must be spoken to cut off some evil doing.—P. C., p. 549, June 21, 1897. PH081 32.3

Those teachers who have not a progressive religious experience, who are not learning daily lessons in the school of Christ, that they may be examples to the flock, but who accept their wages as the main thing, are not fit for the solemn, awfully solemn, position they occupy.—Special Testimonies on Education, 184. PH081 32.4