Spalding and Magan Collection

Behavior of Students

“Sunnyside,” Cooranbong, N. S. W.,

July 7, 1897.

I have a burden that I must communicate to the teachers and students in our school. The Lord has presented your case before me..... The principal and teachers of our school have withheld reproof. They have felt very anxious that every student should feel his own responsibility to God, and overcome the sin of foolish talking and foolish acting.... SpM 75.3

In their rooms, students are apt to speak words that are frivolous. A great deal of this is done. Foolish talking, jesting, and joking are indulged in. Cheap remarks are made, which create a spirit of careless disregard for order. This cheap nonsense shows that the heart contains no treasure that is good. Thus minds are turned from the important subjects that have been presented before them. This cheap stuff, wood, hay, stubble, some choose to put into their character building. The Lord Jesus gave his life to save these precious souls, and he has given them ability to learn, and power to obey his requirements. Students are not given the privilege of making wise improvement of their time. The truth is able to make them wise unto salvation. SpM 75.4

While special pains may be taken to make the school what it should be, two or three students, who act like larrikins, may make it very hard for those who are trying to maintain order. The students who want to do right, who want to think soberly, are greatly hindered by the association of those who are doing cheap miserable work. “In the multitude of word there wanteth not sin.” A few may be able to separate from such company, and retire to some place where they can ask the Lord Jesus to guard them from all defilement by keeping their minds stayed upon him. But the trial to which they are subjected by their associates is not at all necessary. SpM 76.1

Nothing is to be tolerated in the school that will counterwork the very object for which the school was established. In believing and receiving the truth, we may be doers of the words of Christ. Thus day by day we receive grace sufficient for the duties and trials of the day. But no students should be allowed to remain connected with the school who allow their own mischievous, cheap, common practices to control their whole minds. They themselves receive no good, and others are hindered from receiving good. Satan takes possession of them, and works through them to bring not only their own souls into captivity, but the souls of other youth who have not moral power sufficient to say, We have had enough of this malarious atmosphere which poisons our thought. By their words, students can confess or deny Christ. SpM 76.2

The older students must remember that they have the power of educating the younger ones in their habits and practices. Do not watch to find something at which to grumble, but make the best of the situation. Improve your opportunities for grasping all you can, and then fasten it in your memory. Listen to nothing it is not right for you to know. SpM 76.3

Those who have been in the habit of telling everything they see and hear need to be converted on this point. If those connected with the home see any change made, they are not required to think that the Lord has made them daily bulletins. Do not think it your duty to carry everything you see and hear to others. They will take it to their homes, and comment upon it, and then pass the dish to someone else. If, after consultation with the other teachers, the matron makes some changes in the home plans, these changes are told by those who feel it no harm to pour forth everything that they think they know. Children that are educated to relate everything they see, which takes place at the table and in the classes, will forfeit the confidence of their teachers, by communicating to others their parcel of nonsense. SpM 76.4

In these matters silence is eloquence. You are at the school to keep your observations to yourself, unless they are of such a character that they should be immortalized by being communicated. Let fathers and mothers realize that this class of education should not be perpetuated. Let them decide that they have had enough of this:—“Report....and we will report it.” Let students and teachers keep their own counsel. Already I meet here and there little incidents and transactions that have taken place at the school. SpM 77.1

Students, understand that you have not been appointed by the Lord to be an informer. Your work is to study your Bible and the other branches of education, as for your life. Do not make it your business to be a talebearer. As matters are reported, each one makes the report a little more pronounced or varied, and thus painful discrepancies cause many to form wrong conclusions. Therefore guard well your words; put a bridle on your tongue. If you allow yourself to become a talebearer, you will not be welcome in any family, because of your propensity to report every transaction that may occur. I have decided that it is unsafe for me to visit, not because I am guilty of any known wrong, but because something will be said or inferred that will be misrepresented; and therefore I prefer to remain at home. SpM 77.2

Mrs. E. G. White