Sutherland in the Southlands

Sutherland in the Southlands

(Found in the Layman Foundation files)

Following the Civil War the South lay in ruins. High schools were confined to the cities. The state universities catered to a small group who could pay for higher classical education but did not serve the needs of the common people.

At the turn of the century Madison College was established on a 400-acre farm by Dr. E.A. Sutherland and a group of teachers who had been putting into practice at Walla Walla College, Battle Creek College and Emmanuel Missionary College some educational theories advocating a balanced program in education that takes into account the physical and spiritual as well as the mental development of the student. The Bible, agriculture, health, industries, self-government and self-support were basic in the all-round training program of Madison students. Five hours of manual labor should support the student and at the same time add to his intellectual vigor and lead to better physical and mental development. Oberlin College’s slogan, “That field which is most needy is my field of labor,” and a willingness to go with but an ear of corn in the pocket was often quoted at the morning chapel period.

Of the demonstration made by Dr. Sutherland and his faculty we quote from a recent series appearing in The Journal of Adventist Education by Zella Johnson, director of College Relations, Cumberland Union College:

“Ten miles from the heart of Nashvillde, Tennessee, on an 800-acre farm was situated a self-supporting polytechnical college that received no aid from public funds or endowments, and asked none; a school where young men and women without money enrolled, finished standard courses of study under qualified professors, gained practical experience for life and for making a living, and graduated free of debt. For nearly half a century this school, under the management and administration of Dr. E.A. Sutherland, succeeded in dignifying manual labor and making it profitable both educational and financially.

“The educational work of this school extends to other areas. Former students have opened more than 40 ‘hill schools’ or Units, as Dr. Sutherland chose to call them, in the hill country near Nashville and in the mountains of Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, Alabama, the Carolinas and in three different foreign lands. Frequently small sanitariums are connected with these schools to serve the health needs of the community. The spirit and methods of these Units are the same.”