Home, the Center of Education

"The system of education established in Eden centered in the family." Ed 33.

"It was God's plan for the members of the family to be associated in work and study, in worship and recreation, the father as priest of his household, and both father and mother as teachers and companions of their children." Ed 250, 251.

"The system of education instituted at the beginning of the world was to be a model for man throughout all aftertime." Ed 20.

"It was His purpose that, as the human family increased in numbers, they should establish other homes and schools like the one He had given." Ed 22.

"In the divine plan of education as adapted to man's condition after the Fall . . . the family was the school, and the parents were the teachers." Ed 33.

"Every father was required to see that his sons learned some useful trade." CT 276.

"The father to the children shall make known thy truth." Isaiah 38:19.

"Children should virtually be trained in a home school from the cradle to maturity." CG 26.

"Neither the church school nor the college affords the opportunities for establishing a child's character building upon the right foundation that are afforded in the home." CG 170.

"The dangers of the young are greatly increased as they are thrown into the society of a large number of their own age, of varied character and habits of life." AH 468.

"Send the children to schools located in the city, where every phase of temptation is waiting to attract and demoralize them, and the work of character building is tenfold harder for both parents and children." FE 326.

"John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, received his early training from his parents." AH 133.

"The greater portion of his life was spent in the wilderness. . . . Here his surroundings were favorable to habits of simplicity and self-denial. Uninterrupted by the clamor of the world, he could here study the lessons of nature, of revelation, and of providence." AH 133.

"So with the great majority of the best and noblest men of all ages. Read the history of Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph; of Moses, David, and Elisha. Study the lives of men of later times who have most worthily filled positions of trust and responsibility. How many of these were reared in country homes. They knew little of luxury. They did not spend their youth in amusement. Many were forced to struggle with poverty and hardship. They early learned to work, and their active life in the open air gave vigor and elasticity to all their faculties. . . . They learned the lessons of self-reliance and self-control. Sheltered in a great degree from evil associations, they were satisfied with natural pleasures and wholesome companionships. They were simple in their tastes and temperate in their habits. They were governed by principle, and they grew up pure and strong and true." AH 134.

"The education centering in the family was that which prevailed in the days of the patriarchs. For the schools thus established, God provided the conditions most favorable for the development of character. The people who were under His direction still pursued the plan of life that He had appointed in the beginning." Ed 33.

"God commanded the Hebrews to teach their children His requirements, and to make them acquainted with all His dealings with their people. The home and the school were one. In the place of stranger lips, the loving hearts of father and mother were to give instruction to their children. Thoughts of God were associated with all the events of daily life in the home dwelling." RH Oct. 30, 1900.

"Wherever in Israel God's plan of education was carried into effect, its results testified of its Author. But in very many households the training appointed by Heaven, and the characters thus developed, were alike rare. God's plan was but partially and imperfectly fulfilled. . . . Fathers and mothers in Israel became indifferent to their obligation to God, indifferent to their obligation to their children. Through unfaithfulness in the home, and idolatrous influences without, many of the Hebrew youth received an education differing widely from that which God had planned for them. They learned the ways of the heathen." Ed 45, 46.

"To meet this growing evil, God provided other agencies as an aid to parents in the work of education. . . . Samuel by the Lord's direction, established the schools of the prophets." Ed 46.

"The pupils in these schools sustained themselves by their own labor in tilling the soil or in some mechanical employment." Ed 47.

"The discipline and training that God appointed for Israel would cause them, in all their ways of life, to differ from the people of other nations. This peculiarity, which should have been regarded as a special privilege and blessing, was to them unwelcome. . . . To be 'like all the nations' (1 Samuel 8:5) was their ambition. God's plan of education was set aside, His authority disowned." Ed 49, 50.

"In the rejection of the ways of God for the ways of men, the downfall of Israel began. Thus also it continued, until the Jewish people became a prey to the very nations whose practices they had chosen to follow." Ed 50.

"The experiences of Israel were recorded for our instruction. 'All these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.' 1 Corinthians 10:11. With us, as with Israel of old, success in education depends on fidelity in carrying out the Creator's plan. Adherence to the principles of God's word will bring as great blessings to us as it would have brought to the Hebrew people." Ed 50.

"Many parents overrate the stability and good qualities of their children. They do not seem to consider that they will be exposed to the deceptive influences of vicious youth. Parents have their fears as they send them some distance away to school, but flatter themselves that, as they have had good examples and religious instruction, they will be true to principle in their high-school life. Many parents have but a faint idea to what extent licentiousness exists in these institutions of learning. In many cases the parents have labored hard and suffered many privations for the cherished object of having their children obtain a finished education. And after all their efforts, many have the bitter experience of receiving their children from their course of studies with dissolute habits and ruined constitutions. And frequently they are disrespectful to their parents, unthankful, and unholy. These abused parents, who are thus rewarded by ungrateful children, lament that they sent their children from them to be exposed to temptations and come back to them physical, mental, and moral wrecks. With disappointed hopes and almost broken hearts they see their children, of whom they had high hopes, follow in a course of vice and drag out a miserable existence." 3T 149.

"Keep your children at their home; and if people say to you, 'Your children will not know how to conduct themselves in the world,' tell your friends that you are not so concerned about that matter, but that you do want to take them to the Master for His blessing, even as the mothers of old took their children to Jesus. Say to your advisers, 'Children are the heritage of the Lord, and I want to prove faithful to my trust. . . . My Children must be brought up in such a way that they shall not be swayed by the influences of the world, but where, when tempted to sin, they may be able to say a square, hearty no.' . . . Tell your friends and neighbors that you want to see your family inside the gates of the beautiful city." AH 470, 471.