Note: This is an excerpt from the article, "Visit to Healdsburg." Only the relevant part is included here.
There is a lack of appreciation of the importance of the Sabbath-school work as supporting discipline of mind and a thorough education, in the things of God. There is a lack of thoroughness in Bible study.
The Sabbath-school has been regarded as different from the day-school, and that it was not expected that the lesson should be learned perfectly. There has been such an apparent fear of formalism, and a desire to be able to generalize and state things in our own language, that we have neglected that accurate knowledge of the Bible which alone can enable us to generalize.
The particular is before the general. Before we venture to state a Bible event or truth in our own words, we must be familiar with the words of the sacred text; then, if necessary we can paraphrase. But the instances where it is necessary or proper to change the expression in the least, in order to convey its exact meaning, are more rare than is commonly supposed.
This thoroughness of work depends on the individual members of the schools. The officers and teachers cannot demand a perfect recitation, as they would in ordinary schools, however much they may desire the result; but if each member of the school will realize the importance of being able to think and talk in the language of the Bible, especially in these last days, our schools will be improved a thousand-fold.--Signs of the Times, May 10, 1883.
E.J. Waggoner