Studies in Christian Education

It has given me a thrill and much satisfaction knowing that others in a different part of the world and a very different era in time, may find challenge, instruction, and good Christian camaraderie, from the following book, written by my grandfather, Edward Alexander Sutherland.

I grew up always standing a little bit taller, feeling in the wake of God's stanch people, happy to be a granddaughter of E. A. Sutherland. Early on I knew he had gone back to school to take medicine "at forty years old," while continuing to direct the school at Madison. Also, that he and Percy Magan had done this together, commuting on motorcycles!

His life was in Madison, Tennessee, whereas, I lived in Pasadena, California. At our house he was referred to as E. A. by all but my Mother, Yolanda Sutherland Brunie, who would refer to him as "my Father." We did not travel much during the war (World War II). But there were some calls back and forth by telephone, and E. A. and the Madison school were always part of our reality. My earliest recollections of actually being with him was when he and my grandmother, Sally Brailier Sutherland, visited us out here after the war. Later, my Mother and I drove to spend a week there in Tennessee with her family, staying at her brother's farm, my Uncle Joe's place near Madison. By then, my grandfather, Dr. E. A., also lived there with Joe and his family.

By that time, July 1952, I was half way through college at La Sierra (now La Sierra University), and was much more interested to sit for extended discussions with E. A. on Bible passages, on his attitudes toward multiple areas, and definitely on how it was that Ellen White had been important in deciding on the property there at Madison to build a school. E. A. "marked me" with his passion for pursuing goodness, his energy for investing in living in the present moment, and his strong, friendly, warm presence.

I am very grateful for the persons living since that time who have kept many of our founding leaders present to us through their historic writing.

Blessing to those using this book.

Barbara Brunie Jones

May, 2015

Original Foreword
The Students' Volunteer Band, studying fields of missionary activity in the Nashville Agricultural and Normal Institute, had the privilege of attending a series of studies given by Dr. E. A. Sutherland, president of the institution, revealing the fact that the great Protestant denominations failed to give the first angel's message in its fullness because they did not free themselves from the papal system of education. Clinging to this system in the end brought them into confusion.

The Seventh-day Adventist denomination came into existence because of this failure, and it must succeed where the others failed. Their birthright as a denomination is a great reform movement, the greatest the world has ever known. The Lord has been telling our people that, as individuals, we are in a positive danger of suffering the same defeat as they suffered, because we still cling to worldly methods of education. They failed to give the midnight cry because of their wrong system of education. We are soon to enter the period of the latter rain. We trust the following pages may be earnestly and prayerfully read.