The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

IV. Scholars Laud Special Writings of E. G. White

1. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR PRAISES “EDUCATION” PRINCIPLES

An example of the esteem in which certain of Mrs. White’s specialized treatises are held may be seen in the appraisal of the book Education (1903) made by Dr. Florence Stratemeyer, professor of education of Teachers College, Columbia University. The statements were first made orally before a group of educators in a study conference at Potomac University, in January, 1959. She stated the same in a periodical article a little later in the same year: CFF2 712.3

“Written at the turn of the century, this volume [Education] was more than fifty years ahead of its time.... CFF2 713.1

“The breadth and depth of its philosophy amazed me. Its concept of balanced education, harmonious development, and of thinking and acting on principle are advanced educational concepts. CFF2 713.2

“The objective of restoring in man the image of God, the teaching of parental responsibility, and the emphasis on self-control in the child are ideals the world desperately needs.” ²⁰ CFF2 713.3

And on the other side of the globe Prof. Tsunekichi Mizuno, of Tamagawa University, and former director of social education for the Ministry of Education of Japan, likewise strongly commended the book to the educators of Japan. The brother of the emperor wrote the foreword to the Japanese translation of Education (Kyoiku). CFF2 713.4

2. NUTRITIONAL COUNSELS VERIFIED BY SCIENTIFIC ADVANCES

About the same time, a well-known authority in the field of nutritional research, Dr. Clive M. McCay, for the past twenty-three years professor of nutrition, Cornell University, originally gave an address on April 9, 1958, before the Men’s Club of the Ithaca (New York) Unitarian Church, titled, “An Unusual Nineteenth-Century Woman, Mrs. E. G. White.” It was then put into the form of three periodical articles published in February, 1959. The closing sentence of Dr. McCay’s significant summary in his closing article reads: CFF2 713.5

“In spite of the fact that the works of Mrs. White were written long before the advent of modern scientific nutrition, no better over-all guide is available today.” ²¹ CFF2 713.6

3. BETTER HEALTH WOULD RESULT FROM TEACHINGS

Tracing the history of foods and nutrition from Athenaeus (2nd cent.) through Petrus Hespanus (thirteenth cent.) and Liugi Cornaro (d. 1556), Dr. McCay shows how all these early works were “a curious mixture of truth and error.” Then, tracing the modern processes of destroying the value of natural foods, and the resultant diseases that are but the reflection of deteriorated foods, Dr. McCay says: CFF2 713.7

“When one reads such works by Mrs. White as Ministry of Healing [1905] or Counsels on Diet and Foods he is impressed by the correctness of her teachings in the light of modern nutritional science. One can only speculate how much better health the average American might enjoy, even though he knew almost nothing of modern science, if he but followed the teachings of Mrs. White.” ²² CFF2 714.1

4. UTTERED IN ADVANCE OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES

After depicting the food situation during the nineteenth century, and Mrs. White’s singular knowledge of sound health principles uttered in advance of scientific discovery and experiment, Dr. McCay states, “Mrs. White was a remarkable woman, particularly in terms of her health views.” ²³ He refers to her early counsels against animal fats, devitalized white bread, overeating, excessive use of salt, the evils of smoking, the loss of food values when converted into meat, and writes of how “her basic concepts about the relation between diet and health have been verified to an unusual degree by scientific advances of the past decades.” ²⁴ CFF2 714.2