Manuscript Releases, vol. 7 [Nos. 419-525]

Younger Children Can be Taught Simple Home Duties

The truth, in all its important bearings, needs to have a much deeper hold upon all who have to do with the training of our youth. Parents are to work skillfully for their own children, helping them while they are still in the home to gain a fitness to work as missionaries for Christ when they leave the home. The children are to be taught to be faithful in labor. They are to learn to relieve the weary mother, sharing her burdens. The elder children may greatly assist her by helping to care for the little ones. And the younger ones may learn to perform many of the simple duties of the home. 7MR 17.1

Young men and young women should regard a training in home duties as a most important part of their education. The family firm is a sacred, social society, in which each member is to act a part, each helping the other. The work of the household is to move smoothly, like the different parts of well-regulated machinery. The mother should be relieved of the burdens that the sons and daughters can take upon themselves. 7MR 17.2

How important that fathers and mothers should give their children, from their very babyhood, the right instruction. They are to teach them to obey the command, “Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” And the children, as they grow in years, are to appreciate the care that their parents have given them. They are to find their greatest pleasure in helping father and mother. 7MR 17.3

Fathers and mothers should do all in their power to carry forward the work of the home in right lines. The law of God, with its holy principles and solemn injunctions, is ever to bear rule. The principles of the Bible are to be taught and practiced. The parents are to teach their children lessons from this Holy Book, making these lessons so simple, yet interesting, that they will readily be understood. 7MR 18.1

The more closely the members of the family are united in their work in the home, the more uplifting and helpful will be the influence that father and mother and sons and daughters will exert outside the home. 7MR 18.2

It is a serious matter to send children away from home, thus depriving them of the care of their parents. It is of the greatest importance that church schools shall be established, to which the children can be sent, and still be under the watchcare of their mothers, and have opportunity to practice the lessons of helpfulness that it is God's design they shall learn in the home. 7MR 18.3

In our larger schools provision should also be made for the education of younger children. This work is to be managed wisely, in connection with the training of more advanced students. The older students should be encouraged to take part in teaching these lower classes. 7MR 18.4

Much more can be done to save and educate the children of those who at present cannot get away from the cities. This is a matter worthy of our best efforts. Church schools are to be established for the children in the cities, and in connection with these schools provision is to be made for the teaching of higher studies, where these are called for. These schools can be managed in such a way, part joining to part, that they will be a complete whole. 7MR 18.5

Let us study the way of the Lord diligently, that we may discern His methods and plans. His wisdom is far-reaching.—Manuscript 129, 1903, 6, 7. (“How Shall Our Youth be Trained?” October 28, 1903.) 7MR 19.1