Ellen White’s book Education takes the topic of pedagogy out of the realm of the mundane and transfers it to a crucial issue in the great controversy.
Ellen White’s book Education takes the topic of pedagogy out of the realm of the mundane and transfers it to a crucial issue in the great controversy.
On its second page, it provides Adventist education with its ultimate purpose. “In order to understand what is comprehended in the work of education,” we read, “we need to consider both (1) the nature of man and (2) the purpose of God in creating him. We need to consider also (3) the change in man’s condition through the coming in of a knowledge of evil, and (4) God’s plan for still fulfilling His glorious purpose in the education of the human race” (Ed. 14, 15).
At that point, the book begins to treat these four points, indicating that (1) God created human beings in His image to be like Him, and (2) that they had infinite potential.
Next, it gets very specific and quite pertinent to the human situation. “But (3) by disobedience this was forfeited. Through sin the divine likeness was marred, and well-nigh obliterated. Man’s physical powers were weakened, his mental capacity was lessened, his spiritual vision dimmed. He had become subject to death. (4) Yet the race was not left without hope. By infinite love and mercy the plan of salvation had been devised, and a life of probation was granted. To restore in man the image of his Maker, to bring him back to the perfection in which he was created, to promote the development of body, mind, and soul, that the divine purpose in his creation might be realized—this was to be the work of redemption. This is the object of life” (ibid., 15, 16).
Later in the book, Ellen White puts it even more bluntly when she notes that individuals “can find help in but one power. That power is Christ. Cooperation with that power is man’s greatest need. In all educational effort should not this cooperation be the highest aim? . . . In the highest sense, the work of education and the work of redemption are one.” The “teacher’s first effort and his constant aim” is to introduce students to Jesus and His principles (ibid., 29, 30).
George R. Knight is a retired professor of Church History at the Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University. This article is from his book, Lest We Forget, a daily devotional, published by the Review and Herald Publishing Association, page 312. Reprinted with permission.
