Manuscript Releases, vol. 8 [Nos. 526-663]

MR No. 559—Overemphasis on English Grammar

Brother _____ could have done much better work for those that were to be ministers than he has done. God is not pleased that he has carried out his own plans, and led them after his own ideas. He has not always been patient, and encouraged men who have left their fields of labor at a sacrifice of time and expense to learn what they could in a short time. He has not adapted himself to the situation. He has mingled self in his work to a large extent. He might have done his part in sending forth these men with much greater knowledge, if he had not made grammar his idol, and kept the minds under his charge drilling upon grammar, when they should have been receiving a general education upon many subjects. 8MR 101.1

Brother _____ has not taken in the situation. Men come to mature years, even the meridian of life, having families of their own, and have become embarrassed unnecessarily. They have sometimes been placed in the most embarrassing positions. Brother _____ has been exceedingly sensitive himself, if his dignity was not respected, if he imagined that he was in thought or look or word ridiculed. He has not reasoned that there were minds just as sensitive as his own to sarcasm or ridicule and censure. In this he has wounded his brethren and displeased God. Brother _____ is naturally severe, critical, and exacting, and he will have to be guarded on this point constantly, with the elder as well as the younger. 8MR 101.2

He has kept drilling certain students upon grammar, making that the one all-important study, not giving them sufficient encouragement to have an equal opportunity for other studies and some have left the College with only half an education. He has wronged the students here. In this particular he has kept the minds confined to such a thoroughness as would not be essential in one case out of twenty. Time is short; the work to be accomplished is too great for any such definiteness. He carries this matter to great extremes and has injured his usefulness in so doing, and has created great dissatisfaction. These things must be corrected, for they are decidedly wrong.—Manuscript 2, 1881, 1, 2. (“Our College,” 1881.) 8MR 101.3

Released August 10, 1977.