Counsels for the Church - Ellen G. White

Chapter 37
Christian Education
We are rapidly nearing the final crisis in this world's history, and it is
important that we understand that the educational advantages offered by our
schools are to be different from those offered by the schools of the world.
Our ideas of education take too narrow and too low a range. There is
need of a broader scope, a higher aim. True education means more than the
perusal of a certain course of study. It means more than a preparation for the
life that now is. It has to do with the whole being, and with the whole period
of existence possible to man. It is the harmonious development of the
physical, the mental, and the spiritual powers. It prepares the student for the
joy of service in this world and for the higher joy of wider service in the
world to come.
In the highest sense the work of education and the work of redemption
are one, for in education, as in redemption, "other foundation can no man lay
than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 3:11.
To bring man back into harmony with God, so to elevate and ennoble his
moral nature that he may again reflect the image of the Creator, is the great
purpose of all the education and discipline of life. So important was this
work that the Saviour left the courts of heaven and came in person to this
earth, that He might teach men how to obtain a fitness for the higher life.
It is so easy to drift into worldly plans, methods, and customs and have
no more thought of the time in which we live, or of the great work to be
accomplished, than had the people in Noah's day. There is constant danger
that our educators will travel over the same ground as did the Jews,
253