A Place Called Oakwood

10—Make the School a Success

Context: Sharing a sort of journal of her travels, Mrs. White kept Elder and Mrs. E.R. Palmer abreast of her touring. This letter carries a very important message for Oakwood, however, and its counsel would affect the school for years to come.

July 8, 1904

Last Wednesday, July 6, W. C. White, Sara, Maggie, and I left Nashville for Washington. Just before we left, a meeting of the Southern Union Conference Committee was held in Nashville for the purpose of devising some means of helping the Huntsville School. Those who have had charge of the school have not felt the importance of putting brain, bone, and muscle to the tax in an effort to make the school a success. The students who attend this school are to be given an education that will fit them to work for the Master. They are to be given more than book knowledge. Should they be given book knowledge merely, their education would be imperfect. PCO 23.2

There should be a special school for the younger ones. Fathers and mothers are to be placed on the land, and parents as well as children are to be given an education. Promising families are to be brought in and settled upon a piece of ground as large as shall be deemed best. In connection with the school there should be an experienced carpenter who can teach the fathers and their boys how to build their homes, which are to be neat, convenient, inexpensive buildings. The mothers should be taught how to prepare food hygienically, and how to care for the sick. PCO 24.1

While I was in the South, I visited Huntsville. The Southern Union Conference Committee held a meeting while we were there, and I had much to read to the brethren assembled. A heavy burden rested upon me while I was at this place. I knew that there must be a change in the faculty—that more thorough men must take up the work. When a man has occupied the same position for years, and yet the school, in its inside and outside working, is still far from what it ought to be, a change must be made. A man must be put in charge who knows how to govern himself and others, and how to make the school show constant improvement. PCO 24.2

Teachers and students are to cooperate in doing their best. The constant effort of the teachers should be to make the students see the importance of constantly rising higher and still higher. Careful attention is to be given to the little things. Nothing in the house or about the premises is to be allowed to present a slack, dilapidated appearance. The horses are to be carefully stabled, and everything about the barn and stable is to be kept neat and clean. PCO 24.3

The leading, controlling influence in the school must be faithfulness in that which is least. Thus the students will be prepared to be faithful in greater things. This is all that I can write now on this matter. But you know how hard it is for one who had not been trained to be faithful in little things, to be faithful in larger trusts. And when one standing at the head of a school allows things to go at loose ends, his example has an influence on all around him. He should not be allowed to continue to sow the seeds of neglect and carelessness. PCO 24.4

Abridged

Sources: Letter 233, 1904; Manuscript Releases 14:215