Ellen G. White: The Australian Years: 1891-1900 (vol. 4)

How the Beginnings Were Made

After spending the month of June at her Granville home, assisting in the work with the new companies of believers being raised up, planning for the evangelistic thrust in Sydney, and writing energetically, Ellen White felt much worn and was eager for a change that could come by being at Cooranbong. So Monday morning, July 1, with W. C. White and his family, she took the train for Cooranbong, and stayed for three weeks, at first in the home of Herbert Lacey, newly come from America. They found twenty-six boys and young men living in the rented hotel building, and some sleeping in tents. They were clearing the land and building roads and bridges, making a beginning for the school. On February 25, Professor Rousseau had sent a letter to the churches announcing plans and inviting young men to come to the school and engage in a program of work and study. Each student would work six hours a day, which would pay for board, lodging, and tuition in two classes. 4BIO 216.7

On March 5 the manual training department opened, but it was without much support at first. In his efforts to get things moving at the school, W. C. White had been talking of such a plan for several months, and he wrote: 4BIO 217.1

You would be surprised to learn of the criticism, the opposition, and the apathy against which the proposition had to be pressed. The board said it would not pay, the teachers feared that it would be for them much labor with small results, and in many cases, the friends of those for whom the department was planned criticized severely, saying that young men would not feel like study after six hours of hard work.—8 WCW, p. 32. 4BIO 217.2