BATTLE CREEK AND WALLA WALLA

Prescott takes over  

Enter Sutherland and Magan  

The Blueprint at Walla Walla  

DeGraw arrives  

Sutherland and Magan at Battle Creek  

More changes at the college  

The need to leave Battle Creek  

Ellen White endorses the move  

College moved to Berrien Springs 

EMMANUEL MISSIONARY COLLEGE

Berrien Springs school begins  

Opposition grows at Berrien Springs  

More information about the school  

The opposition intensifies  

Preparing to start again  

In 1883, the college at Battle Creek was reopened under the direction of Elder W.H. Littlejohn, a blind minister with no degrees. He served well for two years; but, in 1885, the board decided to find someone who had a degree.

The position was offered to W.W. Prescott, a graduate of Dartmouth College and an experienced workman who had a print shop and published a magazine.

Prescott headed the school for ten years (1885-1895); and, during those years he himself was more thoroughly converted (although he tended to slip away from the Spirit of Prophecy after the turn of the century).

By 1889, with the virtual demise of the work-study program at Battle Creek College, lively students sought other ways for expending their energies. Baseball, footfall, soccer, and tennis became popular. Soon teams formed and competitive matches were arranged. One football game between American and British students produced unusual excitement. A local press report of the game came to Ellen Whites attention in far-off Australia. She was aghast and soon directed a sharp rebuke to President Prescott. A Seventh-day Adventist school was not to be a place for students to perfect themselves in sports, Ellen White wrote. This would be to follow the worldly plan of recreation and amusement, and would result in loss every time. Prescott and his faculty saw the danger; matched games were prohibited.--R.W. Schwarz, Light Bearers to the Remnant, p. 199.

During those ten years, four more schools were established: Union College at College View, Nebraska in 1891; Walla Walla College in Washington State in 1892 (with E.A. Sutherland as principal); Graysville Academy (later Southern Missionary College) in Tennessee in 1893; and Keene Academy (later Southwestern) in Texas in 1894.

At the 1893 General Conference Session, W.W. Prescott made this jewel of a statement:

The basis on which students should be encouraged to earnest work in securing an education is an important matter. You know to what extent it is coming to be a practice in educational institutions in almost every line. The marking [credit/grading] system very generally encourages a feeling of rivalry.  The basis of the work is thus made to be personal ambition. It is not so much to personal excellence, nor to reach any certain ideal, but to be above a neighbor. Of two students, with different capacities, one may by much less hard work take the higher rank, and yet his fellow student may do better work and be a better student.

The true basis seems to me to be this: Every one is endowed with certain capacities and faculties. God has for him a certain ideal which he can reach by the proper use of time and opportunities. He is not to be satisfied with the fact that he outstrips his neighbor. His effort should be to get what God would have him, and success is to meet the ideal the Lord has for him in view of his capacity and opportunity. His neighbor, who may have only half the capacity will reach the same degree of success and will be worthy of the same commendation if he reaches the ideal that God has for him in view of his capacity and his opportunity.

The true basis of credit is not by comparing one with another to see if one secures better standing or more prizes than his neighbor, but to compare the actual standing of every student with the ideal which God intends he should gain in view of the capacities with which he was endowed and the opportunities Gods providence has given him.

This is a very different basis than simply the idea of personal ambition to excel another. It is very much easier for a teacher to impel one to earnest work by appealing to personal ambition, because it is a trait of human nature easily cultivated. So many teachers, as being the easiest method to get work (as they say) out of students, appeal to them on the basis of their standing as compared with another; but that trait of human nature needs no cultivation. It is the same old self. When the mind of Christ is brought into our plans of education, the purpose will not be to draw out and strengthen elements of self; but it will be, as in all other parts of the work, to empty ones self, to take a humble position, and yet by that very means to attain to an exaltation impossible in any other way.--W.W. Prescott, 1893 General Conference Bulletin, pp. 357-358.

In that same decade of the 1890s, as noted earlier, a training school was established in South Africa (Solusi in Rhodesia, modern Zimbabwe, in 1894); and Ellen White started another one in Australia (Avondale, in Cooranbong in 1897). During those years, she wrote extensively on the blueprint for our schools. One person who studied her writings very carefully was E.A. Sutherland, head of Walla Walla College, who instituted several important reforms. He would later figure prominently in the effort to salvage our educational blueprint.

During this time, new academies were starting, and many of our people were studying the educational blueprint. However, some schools, including Union College, held solidly to the old line of liberal arts and degrees.

Edward Alexander Sutherland (1865-1955) was of Scotch ancestry and had a sterling character. In 1885, he went to Battle Creek College; three years later, he was deeply impressed with the message of righteousness by faith, taught by Jones and Waggoner at Minneapolis. In the fall of 1888, when Sutherland returned to the college for his third year, he gained a new friend, P.T. Magan.

Percy Tilson Magan (1867-1947) was born in Ireland, emigrated to the United States in 1886, and joined the church that year. The following year, he worked in Nebraska as a licensed minister. In 1888, he entered Battle Creek College.

A strong friendship sprang up between Sutherland and Magan. That fall, Ellen White invited young Magan to come live in her home. Sutherland visited there frequently; and, as the coming years revealed, both young men learned an immense amount.

Although two years younger than Edward, Percy had a deeper walk with the Lord and he led his friend into a similar experience. Percy also taught Edward about work. While Sutherland liked baseball, Percy preferred to help out wherever he was needed. He worked in the kitchen and learned to cook. In the machine shop, he became proficient with tools. Gradually, Edward recognized that Percy was right when he said that the only useful activity was that which helped people.

Edward graduated in 1890; and, with his wife Sally, left to head an academy in Minnesota. Meanwhile Percy did something that, within the coming months, would make him famous throughout the denomination. In 1889, he went with S.N. Haskell, secretary of the Foreign Mission Board, on a journey around the world to check on the possibility of opening new mission stations. Throughout the journey, Magan wrote 49 extremely interesting articles on their travels; these were printed in installments in the Youths Instructor (January 1890 to July 1891).

By 1890, Magan had been appointed associate secretary of the Foreign Mission Board; and, the next year, he was head of the Bible and History Departments at Battle Creek College (1891-1901).

Meanwhile, in 1892, Sutherland became head of Walla Walla College. Soon after, he managed to make it the first Adventist institution to serve only vegetarian food in the cafeteria. More on that soon.

Unfortunately, the men in charge had been so pressed by finances that, although the school originally had 120 acres, parcel after parcel was sold off--until only a small portion of the original acreage remained. This had occurred before the Sutherlands arrived in the West to take over the college. Ed Sutherland recognized that the old mistakes of Battle Creek were being reenacted here at Walla Walla. When Ellen White, in Australia, heard that most of the land at Walla Walla had been sold off, she wept again. You will find, in this book, that she wept many times.

Sutherland set to work to educate the new faculty into Spirit of Prophecy principles; and--for the first time--an entire faculty heartily took hold of them. When farmers who had purchased some of those parcels found they could not pay for them, Sutherland purchased them back. Before long, he bought back 80 acres; and Mr. Huddleston, the farm manager, could begin developing the gardens, orchards, and fields.

Soon the teachers were working part time with the students in industrial labor or on the school farm. They taught practical and vocational instruction as part of the curriculum.

Sutherland would get up at 5 a.m. each morning to handle his end of the crosscut saw, with a student as his partner. A great deal of wood had to be cut to supply the needs of the institution, and Sutherland did his full share of the work. He demonstrated one of his firm principles--that all teachers and all students should spend some time every day working together at productive manual labor.

He said that Ellen White had earlier told him that, if the youth can have but a one-sided education, a knowledge of the sciences or a knowledge of labor for practical life, let it be the latter.

While still at Walla Walla, he got the school to stop serving meat in the cafeteria.

Classes at Walla Walla College began in December 1892. While Prescott added the presidency of the new school to those he already carried at Battle Creek and Union, direction was really in the hands of E.A. Sutherland, principal. A man of strong convictions, Sutherland convened his faculty for a week or more prior to opening day in order that its members might jointly study Ellen Whites counsels on education. From the start, Walla Walla College demonstrated its commitment to health reform by serving only a lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet; it was the first Seventh-day Advent school to take this step.--R.W. Schwarz, Light Bearers to the Remnant, p. 201.

Within two months after the school opened that first year, the enrollment had increased to 165. The rooms were occupied as fast as the carpenters finished them. However, there were only 1,551 Adventists in the Northwest at that time. Nearby Whitman College had been in operation for 25 years, yet only had about 100 students.

When the faculty sent a letter to the General Conference, pleading for funds to solve the problem of the girls and boys dormitories each having only one shower and bathroom, a letter came back in the mail. When they opened it, they found inside specific and detailed information on how to take a bath in a wash basin. So they purchased a pitcher and a basin for each dormitory room.

At the end of that school year (1893), Sutherland was ordained to the gospel ministry. Because of its later importance, another event which occurred that year should be noted. A young lady, M. Bessie DeGraw (1871-1965), who had just finished a year at Battle Creek College, arrived on campus. She should have remained to finish her studies at Battle Creek, but Prescott asked her to journey to Walla Walla to help at the new college. DeGraw was a woman with a powerful mind and rugged determination. Rather quickly, Sutherland won her over to the educational blueprint. For the next 60 years, she worked with the Sutherlands, to fulfill it.

During the second school year, courses were offered in cooking, printing, gardening, and dairying. Students could help earn their tuition by cutting timber in the nearby mountains, which the school hauled to town and sold.

Sutherland, officially promoted to the presidency in the schools second year of operation, was not a believer in traditional curricula or degrees. Instead he launched a short one-year course designed especially to prepare mature students as effective church employees.--R.W. Schwarz, Light Bearers to the Remnant, p. 201.

During the third year, short courses were offered for those who wished to make a speedy preparation to enter the Lords work.

Sutherland attributed the financial, educational, and spiritual progress to a faculty devoted to the light given through Ellen White. They diligently studied articles on education coming from Australia, especially during 1895-1896. For this purpose, they often studied together in groups. They read with deep interest about what was happening at Avondale School in Australia, where Ellen White was living, which was operating on blueprint principles. They recognized that finding and knowing the truth, without prompt and willing obedience could be a snare instead of a blessing--and they pledged to follow the light, wherever it might lead them.

In February 1897, the General Conference Session, assembled at College View, Nebraska, listened in rapt attention to Sutherlands description of what had been done at Walla Walla during the four years he had been there (1893-1897), and of the faculty's continued dedication to the work.

Before the Session was over, the delegates voted to call the Sutherlands and Bessie DeGraw to Battle Creek College. Many of those in Battle Creek wanted him to institute the changes marked out in the Testimonies.

Percy Magan had been on the Battle Creek faculty for several years, and the two men were together again. But now they had a third team member: Bessie DeGraw. The three of them labored earnestly to fulfill the Spirit of Prophecy blueprint for the college at Battle Creek. Under their influence, the school became vegetarian. Encouraging them in their reforms were A.T. Jones and Dr. J.H. Kellogg.

On July 27, 1897, Magan was ordained to the ministry in the Tabernacle. His friend, Sutherland (who had been ordained in 1895), preached the sermon.

Under their leadership, the college altered its course of study. The curriculum became more flexible, enabling the students to choose the subjects they desired. On November 1, 1897, the Review carried an announcement from President Sutherland, offering short courses for mature students, missionary workers, teachers, bookkeepers, and canvassers. These short courses were only 12 weeks in length.

In 1898-1899, the college, operating under a new charter, discontinued the granting of academic degrees. The August issue of the school journal, the Advocate, included a quotation from a Roman Catholic pamphlet: The conferring of degrees was originated by a pope. The announcement was made: The College, under its new organization, ceases, with this year to grant degrees. Preparation for usefulness in the cause of Christ will be the subject constantly held before students, replacing the courses and diplomas of the past.

Beginning with its second year, the little journal was renamed The Training School Advocate, and was sent to believers in a wide area. Sutherland edited the paper, DeGraw assisted, and Magan published it.

But instead of a new faculty which they could educate into the blueprint, Sutherland and Magan had a faculty on their hands which were quite satisfied with the classical methods of earlier years at Battle Creek. Go to class, teach some Latin, and go home again that afternoon, without getting ones hands dirty in the garden. It was hard for some to recognize that the Testimonies were a revelation from God.

Another big problem was the fact that the campus of Battle Creek College only covered seven acres and could not expand. It was right in town. Both men recognized that much would be lost if they could not unite physical effort with mental labor. Ellen White had warned against allowing students to occupy their leisure hours with frivolous pleasures which weaken the moral powers.

So, one Sunday morning, Ed Sutherland held the plow and Magan drove the team while 225-lb. J.G. Lamson sat on the beam--and the three of them plowed up the tennis court and turned it into a vegetable garden.

Then friends came forward and donated money with which to purchase an 80-acre farm. Although it lay at some distance from the campus, fruit trees, shrubs, and vines were set out on 30 acres; and the remainder was planted with vegetables, legumes, and root crops that would supply the college with fresh produce. Another advantage was that the new farm provided employment for students.

In January 1899, great emphasis was placed on regular missionary work. A mission was established in Jackson, 40 miles to the east. Eight students would work there for two to four weeks, treating the sick, ministering to the needy, and holding meetings in the evening. Homer Salisbury, one of the faculty members, directed this project. Other students carried on similar work in Battle Creek.

It was at about this time that Sutherland came across a poem which he treasured for years:

Then be content, poor heart. Gods plans, like lilies pure and white, unfold. We must not tear the closed shut leaves apart--time will reveal the chalices of gold.

In October 1900, the Advocate announced a new book by Sutherland, a 400-page volume published by the Review, entitled Living Fountains or Broken Cisterns. This well-researched book traced true and false education from the Garden of Eden down through history, showing the effects of paganism and Catholicism which, among other things, brought competition into the classroom. Although her name did not appear, much of the research and preparation of the book was done by DeGraw. (Later, she helped S.N. Haskell on two of his books, The Story of Daniel the Prophet and The Story of the Seer of Patmos.) Magan also wrote a book (The Perils of the Republic) and many articles for the Advocate. All three of them--Sutherland, DeGraw, and Magan--were researchers, writers, hard workers, and loyal to the Spirit of Prophecy. An excellent combination!

In spite of the opposition in the community and among some of the faculty and students, other students were thrilled at the changes. When Sutherland came to Battle Creek College, it was $100,000 in debt; but he set to work, and much of it was eliminated. The students alone raised $6,000. Another source of income came from the sale of Christ's Object Lessons.

In 1901, Volume 6 of the Testimonies came off the press and included this passage:

Though in many respects our institutions of learning have swung into worldly conformity, though step by step they have advanced toward the world, they are prisoners of hope. Fate has not so woven its meshes about their workings that they need to remain helpless and in uncertainty. If they will listen to His voice and follow in His ways, God will correct and enlighten them, and bring them back to their upright position of distinction from the world.

When the advantage of working upon Christian principles is discerned, when self is hid in Christ, much greater progress will be made; for each worker will feel his own human weakness; he will supplicate for the wisdom and grace of God, and will receive the divine help that is pledged for every emergency.

Opposing circumstances should create a firm determination to overcome them. One barrier broken down will give greater ability and courage to go forward. Press in the right direction, and make a change, solidly, intelligently. Then circumstances will be your helpers and not your hindrances. Make a beginning. The oak is in the acorn.6 Testimonies, p. 145.

The cramped and urban campus at Battle Creek was not well-suited to the educational concepts of Sutherland and Magan, who wanted a spacious rural setting like that of the recently founded Avondale College in Australia. Ellen White had said that agriculture was the ABCs of Christian education.

At the Michigan campground in the summer of 1898, Sutherland met Dr. David Paulson, medical director of Hinsdale Sanitarium, another loyal supporter of the Spirit of Prophecy counsels. The two men worked together interviewing the scores of students who wanted to attend Battle Creek College. Paulson told Sutherland it was a shame that so many could not attend because the college lacked a farm so they could work their way through school. Then Paulson said, You should move the college to a large farm and establish industries where students can earn their school expense. Sutherland replied that this was the message they had been getting from Ellen White for years. Cadwallader describes the incident:

The two had experienced some depression one day when they met a large number of youth who wanted a college education, but could not finance it. The two men discussed the problem, and Dr. Paulson made the suggestion that, if he were in Sutherlands place, he would establish a school which would turn away no student who was willing to work. He suggested that the school ought to own a large tract of land and provide work for students.--E.M. Cadwallader, A History of Adventist Education.

Arriving back at Battle Creek, Sutherland told this to Magan, who replied, Lets do it, Ed. Lets move the college out of Battle Creek!

Writing 25 years later, Magan tells us there was also another reason for moving the college out of Battle Creek:

Another reason for taking the Battle Creek College out of Battle Creek was to get away from the worldly influences which it was very clear to some of us that J.H. Kellogg was bringing in. At the time we moved the school, approximately one-half of our students were working for their expenses in the Battle Creek Sanitarium, and the doctor held a sword of Damocles over us that made it impossible to remain in Battle Creek and carry out the simple lines of education which we were anxious to inculcate. This was an important reason for getting out of Battle Creek.

We said little about it at the time because we were anxious to have Dr. Kellogg buy the property, and we were in no position to antagonize him; but felt sure that he was determined in time to have the Battle Creek College a more or less worldly concern, granting degrees, and catering to worldly ideas, customs, and practices. The end result is that our fears have all been justified  . .

Sutherland and I saw this coming. We knew we were in no position to stop it, but we were determined to make a break in such a way that the doctor could not get at us, and that the denomination would have its school in the Lake District separate and distinct from his plans and machinations. In this we succeeded.--P.T. Magan, letter to Warren Howell, January 13, 1926.

Fortunately, the tightly knit group of four leaders were ready for the crisis.

What were those like who had fought for the move? Sutherland[s] . . friends found him patient and stubborn. He loved children and wanted them all to be saved . .

Magan, a homely Irishman, delighted all with his brogue and humor . . Understanding the students and sympathetic with their problems, he often invited them to seek him for counsel after the Friday evening meetings. He had the talent of associating agreeably with people in all levels of society.

M. Bessie DeGraw was always on duty. Tall, bright-eyed, and healthy in a time of poor physical health, she dressed fastidiously. Acquaintances considered her brilliant, fluent, sincere, and somewhat mystical . .

Another strong personality was Mrs. Nellie Rankin Druillard . . Everyone banked on her business deals because of her ability to make uncanny financial investments.--Emmett K. Vande Vere, The Wisdom Seekers, pp. 104-105.

More about Nellie Druillard later.

The biennial Session of the General Conference convened in Battle Creek in 1901; and Ellen White, who had returned the previous year to the States from Australia, was in attendance.

During the Session, one morning at five, Magan was awakened and told to go at once to Ellen Whites room.

She asked him if he remembered when he and Professor Sutherland had through correspondence discussed the moving of the college out of Battle Creek. I told you at the time, she said, not to do it. Now I am ready to tell you to do it. What we will do with the old plant I do not know.

I think possibly we may be able to sell it to the sanitarium. I do not think even then that we will be able to realize enough to pay off anything on the principal. Perhaps we will get enough to pay its debts. We will have to go out single-handed--empty-handed. It is time to get out now, for great things will soon be happening in Battle Creek. Merlin Neff, For God and CME, p. 70.

God wants the school to be taken out of Battle Creek. Let us take away the excuse which has been made for families to come into Battle Creek . .

Some may be stirred about the transfer of the school from Battle Creek. But they need not be. This move is in accordance with Gods design for the school before the institution was established.--EGW, General Conference Daily Bulletin, 1901, p. 216.

She had been forewarned that a great crisis was headed toward Battle Creek. As you know, the years 1902 through 1908 would be difficult ones. First, the pantheism crisis; then the Ballenger crisis; and then the final split between Kellogg and leadership, when large numbers in town chose one side or the other. Many workers were deeply shaken by the ongoing controversies.

In one of the meetings at the 1901 Session, Ellen White told the delegates that a good start had been made at Battle Creek College, but they should now move the school out onto a farm and complete the blueprint. At the close of her talk, the delegates met and voted to do just that! They authorized the College Board to move the college to a place which Sutherland should locate.

The Battle Creek property was sold to the Sanitarium and Dr. Kellogg later used it as part of his American Medical Missionary College (which was lost to the denomination in 1907 and permanently closed in 1910).

Before anyone could change their minds, Sutherland and Magan arranged with the railroad for 16 freight cars to haul everything 90 miles south to a location they had found on 272 acres, which had been purchased for about $18,000 near Berrien Springs, Michigan. It was named Emmanuel Missionary College. (For details on the finding of the location, see History of the Great Second Advent Movement, Lesson 18, pp. 7-8.)

They recognized that the educational blueprint called for a country location, plenty of fertile land, teachers and students working together--as the students learned how to support themselves so they can leave to do successful missionary work.

Among other subjects, they also knew that the Word of God had to be studied in the classroom, so the students would become grounded and gain a deep experience in the things of God.

During the summer of 1901, a denomination-wide summer school for about 150 active and prospective church schoolteachers was held in tents beside the river on the new school site.

The selection of a site for an institution is always important. The original plan was to locate the main buildings on Whites Point, overlooking the river. Acreage around it was initially cleared for this purpose. But plans suddenly changed.

Two unforeseen problems suddenly altered the early plans--the shortage of safe water and the scarcity of money. They could not obtain good, usable water for a reasonable cost at Whites Point, with the result that they finally placed the principal building back from the bluff on the flatlands by the Garland house. The change in plans placed the institution on a site that would allow later expansion.--E.K. Vande Vere, The Wisdom Seekers, p. 105.

During the regular 1901-1902 term, while the new campus was being developed, the school was held in the former county courthouse, the sheriffs home and jail, an office building, and a summer hotel. Enrollment reached 100.

Part of the plan was that, when enrollment reached 250, a new college would be started somewhere else. A late spring issue of their paper, the Advocate, said this:

By 1902 a true concept of a correct college plant had evolved in Sutherlands mind. We want our building, he wrote, to be simple and small . . for that is the kind of buildings our students will find in the mission fields. There must be no large and handsome main building, nor must the buildings be erected on the quadrangular plan, but on a meandering line in order to get plenty of fresh air and sunshine. Furthermore, such an arrangement will discourage the growth of pride and institutional spirit. Advocate, May 1902.

With the help of student labor, four frame buildings were erected. Sutherland purposely kept them plain in appearance. A.S. Baird, an experienced builder had arrived from Nebraska and taught the students how to build homes.

In such a place as Berrien Springs the school can be made an object lesson, and I hope that no one will interpose to prevent the carrying forward of the work.--EGW to managers of the Review office, July 12, 1901.

Ownership of the college was transferred from the General Conference to the newly established Lake Union Conference. Magan continued to supervise the rapid development of the school while Sutherland made many fund-raising trips. One of his goals was to make the new school self-supporting.

To encourage self-government and a good group spirit, faculty and students assembled weekly for frank discussion of college problems of all kinds. Spirituality and evangelistic fervor pervaded the campus. Since many students worked all day long, much of the instruction was given in the evening.

One unusual feature started by Sutherland was having each student work on only one subject each of the three terms in the nine-month school year. (It should be mentioned that, many years later, a similar program was started at the University of Chicago in the mid-twentieth century with outstanding success. Recent secular educational research has disclosed that students learn far more by studying only one or two subjects at a time than by taking five or six per term, attending 50-minute classes in each of these, and then rushing to a different class for another subject.) Later, Sutherland changed this to three classes at a time.

With this plan, they reasoned, a student at the end of nine months (three terms) could receive certificates or credits from three or four courses as before, but if he had attended only one term, he would have gotten a complete course rather than merely a third of one.--E.K. Vande Vere, The Wisdom Seekers, p. 110.

When the General Conference formed the Department of Education in 1902, Ed Sutherland was one of the three men placed in charge of it. In addition, he led out in a central training school for church schoolteachers; and, with DeGraw, provided the first elementary textbooks.

In some respects, one of the most radical reforms was the textbooks. Instead of pagan sentiments and quotations, worthwhile books were produced, among which the Bible occupied first place.

Every subject will be presented from the standpoint of the Bible and with a view to preparing the student for actual [missionary] field work in the shortest time, promised the Calendar.--E.K. Vande Vere, The Wisdom Seekers, p. 110.

Enemies soon circulated the rumor that the Bible was the only textbook. But that was not true. Other books were also used; yet all of them were in agreement with the Bible. During the 1900 summer school at Battle Creek, a book committee was appointed to prepare suitable textbooks.

Between 1900 and 1904, Sutherland and DeGraw authored a set of readers, The Bible Readers, and the book, Mental Arithmetic.

Mental Arithmetic was unlike any math book anywhere at the time. It was immensely practical and contained problems about the bones of the body, the difference in cost between beans and beefsteak, distances in the Holy Land, Old Testament chronology, building a schoolhouse, making a canvassers report, and figuring up ones tithe.

According to one of our official history textbooks, the first normal (teacher-training) school in our denomination was at Berrien Springs in 1902 (Lessons in Denominational History, p. 184).

By 1904, a low-level earthquake was in progress in Battle Creek, as the controversy between Dr. Kellogg and the General Conference deepened. But another one was rumbling in Berrien Springs. Sutherland and Magan had a divided faculty on their hands. Many missed the comforts of Battle Creek and disliked all the strange innovations at the new school. Lastly, they did not like the emphasis on the Word of God as the central authority in all lines of study. It bothered some people to have the Inspired Writings considered more important than the words of men. It still does.

When it was recommended by the college board that Prescott replace Sutherland, because he was young and inexperienced, Magan and Ellen White came to his defense.

Sutherland remained in charge, and the teachers and students more fully united their efforts to farm and to build. Teaching was done for half the day, and the other half was spent in working with the students.

Emmanuel Missionary College shattered the bands that bound the denominational schools to popular education.

You might inquire, What was the purpose of these blueprint schools? They were instituted to quickly train workers to go out and share the three angels message of Revelation 14:6-12, the message of obedience to the laws of God, by the enabling grace of Jesus Christ--which is the message given to the remnant (Revelation 12:17). Teachers and students believed that the end of the world was near, and people must be warned. Do we believe this today?

Although some may say, He delayeth His coming, the faithful are to believe and work; work and believe.

When the school opened in the fall of 1893, there were about 300 persons living on the campus. Three large homes, each with 7 to 9 rooms, had been completed. The Manual Arts building had been erected the year before, and its basement used for the kitchen and dining room. The second story housed the college store and carpenter shop. The Domestic Arts building, just finished, housed the college girls in the attic. The college boys were located here and there in various attics and corners of other buildings.

Sutherland and Magan had determined that they would build no faster than they had the funds in hand. They would not repeat the Battle Creek College debt (which they had not been responsible for). Yet they must have textbooks; so Sutherland, Magan, and DeGraw each personally borrowed $600 and used it to print the textbooks.

In 1903, both the General Conference and Review moved to Washington, D.C.; and Percy Magans wife, Ida, became ill that spring. The continual opposition heaped on Sutherland and her husband, Percy, grieved and crushed her. On May 19, Ida Magan passed to her rest.

A few days after Idas death, Ellen White spoke in the college church, praised Idas faithfulness, and said she died because of the cruel criticism directed at Magan and Sutherland. It has cost the life of a wife and a mother.

Another death also occurred that year. Alvan and Aunt Nell Druillard had just returned from missionary work in Africa. He died on December 29. We mention this because Nellie Druillard (1844-1938) would later figure as a key worker.

By this time, a number of church leaders were determined to get rid of Sutherland and Magan. Meanwhile, the two men had been discussing the situation for several months; and, learning that the Lake Union spring session would be held on the campus of EMC, they decided to resign at that time.

When, at the session, it was seen that the implacable spirit had not diminished, they turned in their resignations. They had no anger and knew they had done right in upholding Spirit of Prophecy standards.

For years, both men had been interested in the Southern States, still handicapped by the crushing defeat in the War between the States. Now Mother White suggested that they go south.

It had been revealed to Ellen White that the blueprint could be fulfilled by independent ministries which, although fully faithful to our historic beliefs, were not controlled by the denomination.

In Part Two of this book, we will continue this story as Sutherland and Magan journeyed south. After that, in Part Two, we will look at one final attempt by Ellen White to fulfill another phase of the blueprint in a denominational institution.

With Ellen Whites encouragement, Sutherland and Magan were determined to perfect a blueprint educational missionary school in the South. Meanwhile, out on the West Coast, an effort would be made by Ellen White to start a blueprint medical missionary school.