The Essential Knowledge

Higher education is an experimental knowledge of the plan of salvation, and this knowledge is
secured by earnest and diligent study of the Scriptures. Such an education will renew the mind
and transform the character, restoring the image of God in the soul It will fortify the mind against the deceptive whisperings of the adversary, and enable us to understand the voice of God.

It will teach the learner to become a co-worker with Jesus Christ, to dispel the moral darkness
about him, and bring light and knowledge to men. It is the simplicity of true godliness-- our
passport from the preparatory school of earth to the higher school above.

There is no education to be gained higher than that given to the early disciples, and which is
revealed to us through the word of God. To gain the higher education means to follow this word
implicitly; it means to walk in the footsteps of Christ, to practice His virtues. It means to give up
selfishness and to devote the life to the service of God. Higher education calls for something
greater, something more divine, than the knowledge to be obtained merely from books. It means
a personal,

experimental knowledge of Christ; it means emancipation from ideas, from habits and practices,
that have been gained in the school of the prince of darkness, and which are opposed to loyalty to
God. It means to overcome stubbornness, pride, selfishness, worldly ambition, and unbelief. It is
the message of deliverance from sin.

Ellen.G.White Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students (1913), page 12