Discovering Madison College

Finding A School In The Country

By S. Bayard Goodge

A newcomer writes a classic description of Madison education

in the June 12, 1929, Madison Survey

I HAVE been a business man all my life with a mind filled with the cares that naturally come with the support of a family. I had opportunity to know of the teachings of Seventh-day Adventists and was an admirer of their zeal and devotion to their convictions. The time came when the education of the children became a vital problem in the family, and I was led to visit and consider pretty carefully various institutions. Finally, through the suggestion of a friend, I spent a few days at Madison. Here I found something different than I had been in the habit of picturing when the word school was mentioned to me.

In the first place, the location appealed to me. The institution is decidedly rural, yet within easy reach of one of the educational centers of the South, a city of about 150,000. Off the highway about two miles, but approached by a paved road, I found a school on a farm of several hundred acres. In the middle of that farm on a campus of possibly fifty acres were grouped the school buildings and the cottages that house teachers and students.

HERE I found 'activities coordinated with classroom work in such a manner that health of body and keenness of intellect were to be expected. And too, there was here every inducement for the young people to hold to their convictions as Christians. I have known fathers who strained themselves to the limit to meet the expenses of educating their sons. Here I found the young men and young women fitting into a program of work and study and earning their own expenses to a large degree.

I had opportunity to see how they live. Luxuries are not in evidence, but a wholesome atmosphere surrounds this body of students and teachers. They live in cottages, which gives a touch of home life that is not usual in crowded dormitories. They eat at a central dining-room where wholesome food is served. There is no going to the market for vegetables, for the gardener brings in the greens and other products of the soil, dripping with the dew. Apples, peaches, pears, plums, berries—all come from the orchards and gardens. Students have their part in raising these things as well as in the preparation of the food for the tables. I never saw finer head lettuce, for instance, than Gardener Jones brought from his acres east of the campus. Peas are produced by the bushel. I know, for I helped shell them for dinner. And this direct route from garden to table pleased me.

WHEN we came on the place, the group of buildings in the sanitarium area took my first attention. Green lawns, a mass of trees and shrubbery, and attractive buildings with groups of invalids and convalescents enjoying the out-of-doors, was a pleasing sight. Then the snug little cottages of the school family peeking out from the trees on an extensive campus in the very midst of an 800-acre farm could not help appealing to me, a man trying to bring up a family of six children on a 35-foot lot in a city of 100,000.

I cannot get away from the thought of the diet. The whole-wheat breads are my dietetic delight. There is a baker who knows his business, and who thinks more of preparing a product that will give health than he does of nick nacks and sweetmeats. His wagon is loaded every day— that is, five days out of the week—for delivery in the city. And I found a young man, a student, getting his training in business principles and ethics, as driver and marketer of these food products.

It is a pleasure to visit the poultry department. It is not overgrown, but it seems to be having a healthy development under the able manager, L. H. Starr. The cows in the dairy, or rather out on these acres of splendid pasture, look good to a city man. And that flock of sheep on the hill-side is as pretty as any picture I ever saw.

My son came down ahead of me, and when I arrived, I found him painting under the direction of the head of the construction department, Mr Standish, a New Englander, a descendant of Miles Standish, quiet, plainly a master of his art, and a capable teacher of boys.

YOUNG folks have a lot of opportunities here. The shops for the machine-loving youth, the gardens, the cafeteria, the laundry, bakery, kitchens, offices, sanitarium, all afford remunerative work for the students. It is a cooperative concern in which everybody has a part. I do not know what would become of a person who did not want to do his share. I presume he would drop out of the community from sheer lonesomeness, for this is a busy place, and happiness depends on finding one's place and filling it.

One of the attractive features of the institution is the chapel service, the morning and evening gathering of the family of students and workers for worship and instruction in spiritual things. It is a new thing to me, but an inspiration. I see how it contributes to the morale of the school as well as to the intellectual growth of the students.

There are students here from nearly every state in the Union. How do those living at a distance know of this institution? I have wondered, but I find also representatives from a number of foreign countries, showing that the institution is still more widely known.

I am surprised at the extent of the institution and its activities. The word "school" has always had a different meaning to me. Here it is LIFE. This place seems to touch all sides of a man's nature. It is encouraging all sorts of activities that are needed in the world and that will contribute to the uplift of man. One needs to see the place to understand and interpret the spirit and the possibilities. The community of interests, the cooperation of youth and older people in the accomplishment of things worth while, the work-and study program, is an interesting demonstration of up-to-date, methods of education.