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

Children in Their Earliest Years Can Mold Figures of Clay

I was much pleased with my visit to the Orphan's Home. I feel so thankful that the homeless can have so pleasant a home. I have never before seen gathered together so large a number of children, and all bright and cheerful. Their faces are healthy, their eyes clear, their nerves strong. To see them and hear them does me more good than a dose of medicine. The superintendent seems to be well adapted to his position of trust, which he occupies with his wife. 7MR 12.3

This home is an educating school for both boys and girls. If I had children whom I would be compelled to leave motherless, I would feel it a great privilege to leave them in such a home. 7MR 12.4

I was glad to be able to visit the kindergarten department, and see the little ones working in Bible lines, molding figures of clay to illustrate Bible subjects, thus becoming familiar with heavenly truth. Wherever their lot may be cast in the future, they will remember this instruction. The seed being sown will bear a precious harvest. 7MR 12.5

This is the instruction every child should receive in his earliest years. This is the work the parents should do in the home. The family in the Haskell Home is an object lesson for all parents. If children who had parents and a home had one half the patient instruction given to the orphans in the home, there would be a very different condition of things. If mothers would devote less time to cooking and sewing and more time to teaching their children in the love and fear of God, how greatly pleased the Lord would be. But many parents seem to be only grown up children, who have not left behind their childish ways and inclinations. Let parents remember that Satan is playing the game of life for every soul, and that practical sympathy, forbearance, and love is the test of purity and unselfishness.—Letter 70, 1901, pp. 2, 3. (To Dr. and Mrs. J. H. Kellogg, May 1, 1901.) 7MR 13.1