Selected Messages, Volume 3 - Ellen G. White

Excerpts from the timely address she gave open
this section.
The Sanitarium church accepted Ellen White’s
proposal, but when the school opened in the fall no
provision was made for small children, because it
was reasoned that those under eight or ten years of
age should be taught at home in harmony with
Ellen White’s instruction given earlier.
Not all parents were prepared to meet the ideal
she set forth in her earlier writings, and this left
not a few children to drift without discipline or
proper training during their childhood years. The
one deterrent to the church’s making provision for
the younger children was the oft-quoted E. G.
White statement written in 1872 that “Parents
should be the only teachers of their children until
they have reached eight or ten years of age.”—
Testimonies for the Church 3:137.
There seemed to be a marked division of
thinking on the part of church officers and
members on this important question.
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