The Advocate of Christian Education

By Milton Hook

Milton Hook, Ed.D. (Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan, the United States). Hook retired in 1997 as a minister in the Greater Sydney Conference, Australia. An Australian by birth Hook has served the Church as a teacher at the elementary, academy and college levels, a missionary in Papua New Guinea, and as a local church pastor. In retirement he is a conjoint senior lecturer at Avondale College of Higher Education. He has authored Flames Over Battle Creek, Avondale: Experiment on the Dora, Desmond Ford: Reformist Theologian, Gospel Revivalist, the Seventh-day Adventist Heritage Series, and many magazine articles. He is married to Noeleen and has two sons and three grandchildren.

The Advocate of Christian Education was the mouthpiece of the senior Seventh-day Adventist educational institutions at the turn of the twentieth century, initially Battle Creek College and later Emmanuel Missionary College, both in Michigan.

Antecedents

The first issue of the monthly periodical appeared in December 1898 under the title The Training School Advocate. Prior to that date the administrators of Battle Creek College were in the habit of issuing news sheets titled Home Visitor, designed for bulletin boards in the local neighborhood. From this small beginning Battle Creek College authorities expanded their communications in the form of the monthly periodical, The Training School Advocate. It varied in size from twelve or more pages. Its annual subscription rate was twenty-five cents. The cost doubled as the number of pages increased over time. Justus Grant Lamson was the first editor with associates Edward Sutherland and Homer Salisbury.¹ Later, Sutherland adopted the leading role in its publication, together with Percy Magan and Bessie DeGraw.²

The periodical was used to keep the topic of Christian education in the minds of the church constituency.³ Important ideological elements were featured, such as the ongoing quest to train homeland and overseas missionaries.⁴ Stories of active missionaries like Edson White in the Southern States were highlighted as models of dedicated service.⁵ Calls were made for church members to train at the college as book sellers.⁶ Columns also carried reports of feeder institutions such as Cedar Lake Academy.⁷ A listing of church school teachers in America fostered a spirit of collegiality among the Battle Creek College alumni.⁸ Regular advertisements in the end pages recommended brooms and brushes manufactured in the College Industrial Department, men’s suits from the Tailoring Department⁹ and “artistic garments” with the “famous liberty waist” from the Dress Department.¹⁰

Major Changes

The issues of the periodical during 1901 testified of significant changes in the denomination’s education field. Its columns reported that an Education Department had been established at the General Conference level.¹¹ Under the aegis of the General Conference a major educational convention was held at Berrien Springs, Michigan, July 10-20, 1901. A synopsis of these proceedings was published in the periodical.¹² The convention’s location indicated that senior training was moving from Battle Creek to a new institution named Emmanuel Missionary College at Berrien Springs. At approximately the same time the periodical was issued from the new site and published under the new title The Advocate of Christian Education, beginning in April 1901.¹³

A regular column titled “With Mothers and Children” was introduced¹⁴ and a similar column titled “Children’s Page” made an appearance.¹⁵ Another, titled “With the Teachers,” completed a trio to attract specific groups of readers.¹⁶ Beginning with the January 1902 issue the Sabbath School Lessons for the intermediate, primary and kindergarten levels were included together with suggestions for teaching aids.¹⁷ In order to boost the subscription numbers the publishers offered book prizes for those who gained multiple subscriptions. People who obtained thirty-five subscriptions were given a copy of Webster’s Dictionary for their local school library. Forty subscriptions guaranteed a copy of Dr. Kellogg’s Home Hand-Book.¹⁸

The issue of August 1904 heralded plans for a similar training institution in the South. Sutherland and Magan had located suitable farmland north of Nashville, Tennessee, on which a school would be established using the same model on which Emmanuel Missionary College was founded, that is, the industrial model rather than the classical model. There would be a balance of literary and manual instruction for prospective teachers, evangelists, canvassers, Bible workers, tradesmen and farmers willing to train as self-supporting missionaries.¹⁹ This model defined the ideological foundation consistently championed in The Advocate of Christian Education.

The new academic year of 1904 at Emmanuel Missionary College witnessed a changeover of principals. Sutherland transferred to pioneer the Nashville training school and Nelson Kauble arrived from Sheridan Industrial School, Illinois.²⁰ In the November 1904 issue Kauble is listed as an associate editor of The Advocate for Christian Education.²¹ He was the leading editor for the January 1905 issue²² but he did not continue to issue the periodical.

The constituency was not left without the promotion of Christian education and reports of Emmanuel Missionary College specifically. The columns of the West Michigan Herald were used for these purposes and in 1908, when the Lake Union Herald began, its pages followed with regular promotions of Christian education at Emmanuel Missionary College. In addition, the General Conference Education Department initiated Christian Education in 1909, a general periodical much wider in scope than the institutions covered in The Advocate of Christian Education.

Sources

Various issues of The Advocate of Christian Education. General Conference Office of Archives, Statistics, and Research, Silver Spring, Maryland. Accessed October 1, 2021. https://www.documents.adventistarchives.org/Periodicals/Forms/AllItems.aspx?.

Notes

“Editorial,” The Training School Advocate, December 1898, 8-10.↩
E.g., “Editorial,” The Advocate of Christian Education, January 1902, 10.↩
E[dward] A. Sutherland, “Christian Education,” Training School Advocate, January 1899, 20-21.↩
E[dward] E. Sutherland, “Self-supporting Missionaries,” Training School Advocate, January 1899, 11-13.↩
J. E[dson] White, “The Southern Work,” Training School Advocate, November 1899, 561-563.↩
“Special Announcement,” Training School Advocate, January 1901, 38.↩
J[ustus] G. Lamson, “Cedar Lake Academy,” Training School Advocate, January 1899, 34-35.↩
“Outgrowth of the Summer School,” Training School Advocate, October 1899, 542-544.↩
Advertisements, Training School Advocate, January 1899, 50-51.↩
Advertisement, Training School Advocate, November 1899, 50.↩
“Onward,” The Advocate of Christian Education, August/September 1901, 281.↩
[Edward A. Sutherland], “The Educational Conference,” The Advocate of Christian Education, August/September 1901, 212.↩
“The Advocate,” The Advocate for Christian Education, August/September 1901, 239.↩
“Mothers With Children,” The Advocate of Christian Education, April 1901, 132.↩
“Children’s Page,” The Advocate of Christian Education, April 1901, 133.↩
“With the Teachers,” The Advocate of Christian Education, April 1901, 134-135.↩
“The Lesson,” The Advocate of Christian Education, January 1902, 19-22.↩
“Start a School Library,” The Advocate of Christian Education, Supplement, January 1904, 3.↩
[Edward A. Sutherland], “The New Training School in the South,” The Advocate of Christian Education, August 1904, 113-115.↩
“Emmanuel Missionary College opened…” The Advocate of Christian Education, November 1904, 176.↩
Masthead, The Advocate of Christian Education, November 1904, 161.↩
Masthead, The Advocate of Christian Education, January 1905, 1.↩