MAKING A START

How the work at Madison began  

Humble beginnings  

Getting down to basics  

1905: Gardens and orchards begin  

Work, not sports  

Stating the purpose  

Dr. Lillian  

More descriptions of the early days  

Preparing for the sanitarium  

Progress in 1907  

Leaders visit Madison  

1908: Discussions with leadership  

The 1909 General Conference Session  

1911-1915: Diary entries  

Sanitarium work enlarges  

TRANSITIONS

Both men begin medical training  

Percy and Lillian go to Loma Linda  

Statement by a government leader  

Sutherland considers accreditation  

Lida Scott joins Madison  

Later descriptions of Madison  

Additional descriptions of Madison  

The plan upon which our brethren propose to work is to select some of the best and most influential young men and women from Berrien Springs and other places in the North, who believe that God has called them to the work in the south, and give them a brief training as teachers. Thorough instruction will be given in Bible study, physiology, and the history of our message; and special instruction in agriculture will be given. It is hoped that many of these students will eventually connect with schools in various places in the South. In connection with these schools there will be land that will be cultivated by teachers and students, and the proceeds from this work will be used to support these schools.--EGW, Review, August 18, 1904.

They set to work at once to build and operate a school. Students began arriving; and, by that fall, 14 were enrolled. Like their teachers, they came without thought of money or worldly advantages. What money they could make was used for living expenses--and their living depended on their making something.

Percy Magan, dean of the school, gathered up the reins of the mule team and supervised the farm. Miss M. Bessie DeGraw, secretary of the organization, drove to town once a week in a one-mule cart. Her objective: to market the butter, which President Sutherland churned and prepared in the lean-to creamery. The treasurer, Mother Druillard, laid her hand to the skillet and the broom, and supervised the domestic duties of the institute. Percy Magan frequently drove to Nashville in the cart with a load of fresh produce and eggs, which he peddled from door to door (Magan diary entry, December 9, 1907). Class discussions during the first year centered around making a farm pay, how to bring livestock through the winter, and ways to improve soil cultivation and crop growth.

Mother D was the respected head of the big house. Each morning she would swat flies, still stiff from the chilly night. In spite of her background of comfortable affluence, she resolutely provided courage, trust, and economy. No one on the place ever complained. All were happy to have a part in the work.

The president helped Elmer Brink, who had charge of the farm duties, while the dean worked in the timber with the boys. Dean Magan wrote to a friend:

I have no stenographer now, and do my own typing . . When a man gets up at four-thirty in the morning and works in the field with a team of mules till one o'clock and then goes at it again till six-thirty p.m., and then conducts a study for an hour or an hour and a half, takes the responsibility of planning the work for the boys, he is doing a pretty good days work.

And when it is taken into account that this has had to be done on old and rather worn-out land, with a goodly sprinkle of rocks and thornbushes, and by one who has not followed the farming business since he was eighteen years of age, I, at least, find that it has taxed my determination of purpose and capacity to meet and overcome hard problems even more than heading a Relief of Schools campaign . .

But the whole has been a good experience, and I feel more genuine iron determination and grim strenuosity in my bones today to take hold of things which need to be done and to do them than I have ever felt in my life before. The hard life and absence of office work has built up my health, and physically, I trust I am a better man than I have been for years.--Magan to W.C. White, September 7, 1905.

The farms main building, the old plantation house, had been built of cedar logs over a hundred years earlier, and later covered with siding and plastered inside. Fronted by a wide veranda, in the style of southern mansions, it served as the first schoolroom and meeting place by day and provided sleeping quarters at night, until other buildings could be erected.

Sutherlands work-study program consisted of half the day devoted to study and the other half to labor. Money had to be raised for the buildings, machinery, livestock, and improvements. Some of this came from their well-managed dairy which provided cash income.

Sutherland and Magan knew that the students, coming as they did from poor homes, could not have an education if they had to pay tuition, so no tuition was charged. They had to work their way through school, and their instructors helped them in every way they could.

This resulted in an extremely close friendship between the students and the faculty. They all worked together to solve the problems which arose.

Each day began with morning worship, as the entire family gathered to sing, pray, and study Gods Word. In studying it, they were studying an important part of Gods plan of education for them.

In those early days, the food was all cooked in one large cast-iron pot, probably similar to the great pot one of the schools of the prophets used many years before (2 Kings 4:38-44).

As for the meal that first winter, it often consisted of little more than cornmeal mush or grits and skim milk. Hopefully, someone brought in some fresh greens. Otherwise, all that the meal that first winter primarily consisted of was milk protein and carbohydrates. Fortunately, by the next summer the situation had radically changed.

In the evening, after all the days studies and work had been completed, students and teachers would gather in front of the warmth from the fireplace in the northwest room of the mansion. Sutherland, looking into their faces, would lead out in instruction and conversations on many thingssuch as knitting, how to poultice chapped hands, and much more.

Because they did not have an opportunity to gather in and store much vegetables and fruit that first summer, the first winter was especially difficult.  (The author suggests that Hubbard squash is one of the best crops which can be planted in the summer. Lay it out one level high on newspapers in a dry attic room, and you will have an abundance of squash for cooking or baking till late March the following year.)

You will notice that no mention is here made of team sports, or any sports for that matter. There were none. The students came to Madison to learn how to live, not how to play. They wanted to know how to support themselves while carrying on missionary work at home and overseas. And this is what they were taught.

Madison had no athletic field, no baseball diamond, and no football field. There were no competitive sports, because everyone was too busy cooperating in useful work. Think not that this made the situation dull. They all had a great time, and if you think otherwise, you need to try it yourself. Spend a summer working in the garden, cutting and hauling trees in the forest, and helping to build a house or two. Not only will the satisfaction of accomplishing something worthwhile bring you deep happiness, but you will learn skills that will help you all your life. In fact, physically you will feel better than you have in years.

One of Sutherlands sayings was this: Our school must not only give the student preparation for life; it must allow them to experience life. And Madison did all that and more; it prepared them to be practical, self-supporting missionaries.

Sister White said that in comparing the profit and loss of the Manual Training Department, we should not estimate it upon a mere money basis, but in the light of the Judgment. Then this enterprise will appear on the side of gain, not of loss.--Thirteenth Annual Session of the SDA Educational Society, Oakland, November 17, 1887.

The first letterhead of the NANI had several interesting statements printed on it.

It is the object in establishing this school to correlate the intellectual, the physical, and the spiritual in education . . A strong intellectual course will be offered, including Bible, history, philosophy, and the sciences, the motto being learn by doing . . Students are given an opportunity to support themselves while gaining an education, with a view to making themselves self-supporting Christian laborers when out of school.--NANI, first letterhead.

That first year, Sutherland and Magan co-authored a brief statement which they published and distributed to would-be donors. It also helped explain the goal of the school:

It is the purpose of this new school to demonstrate to young men and women desirous of doing their Masters service that they can begin a work for Him without the aid of any special equipment, and with only the common buildings to be found on most any farm. It is our prayer that this school may be a factor in developing self-reliant, self-supporting missionary work. Those who are founding it do so without the promise or assurance of specific support or a definite salary from any source.--Sutherland and Magan, statement dated 1904.

A.W. Spalding describes what those early years at Madison were like:

The Madison School was born under conditions that approximated those of pioneer days. Their tables were of plank, their dressers of dry-goods boxes. Their food was largely restricted to what they had found in their fields and the products of their dairy. This condition of enforced economy, if not exactly their choice, was at least within the plans of the founders.

They knew that to train themselves and their students for service to the poor, there was nothing more effective than privation and sacrifice. Not only in the first days of hardship but throughout its history their school must be a school of simplicity. The body must be accustomed to hard work and simple diet. The reins of the mind must be girded by self-control and zealous purpose.

The closer the living conditions at the school approached those to be met when students should have become teachers, the more adaptable and efficient would those teachers be. No steam-heated, electrically lighted buildings, no intricate and expensive machinery, no wealth of imported food stuffs, were appropriated for the men and women in training for service to the mountains.--A.W. Spalding, Men of the Mountains, p. 153.

R.W. Schwarz provides a one-paragraph summary of the objectives:

The vast majority of students coming to Madison expected to be teachers or health workers in rural communities. They studied Bible, history, science, or grammar during the regular nine-week terms. Short three-week sessions devoted to practical skills like carpentry, cobbling, or blacksmithing were offered between regular terms. The first year Mrs. Druillard offered a one-year course in practical nursing and hydrotherapy. Later, when a sanitarium was added to the school in 1907, this course was lengthened to two years. In all subjects the emphasis was on teaching the student to be proficient enough to teach the same subject matter when he went out on his own.--R.W. Schwarz, Light Bearers to the Remnant, p. 247.

Here is another nice summary of the work carried on by Madison:

The school at Madison not only educates in a knowledge of the scriptures, but it gives a practical training that fits the student to go forth as a self-supporting missionary to the field to which he is called. In his student days he is taught how to build, simply and substantially, how to cultivate the land and care for the stock. All these lines are of great educational value. To this is added the knowledge of how to treat the sick and care for the injured. This training for medical missionary work is one of the grandest objects for which any school can be established . .

If many more [students] in other [of our] schools were receiving a similar training, we as a people would become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. The message would quickly be carried to every country, and souls now in darkness would be brought to the light.--EGW to those bearing responsibilities in Washington and other centers, January 6, 1908; 11 Manuscript Releases, pp. 192-193.

Went for a walk with L., who gave her final promise.--Magan diary entry, September 30, 1904.

One day in early September 1905, Ed Sutherland hitched the mule to the milk cart and drove to the railway station to meet Percy and his new wife, Dr. Lillian (for that was what everyone called her).

Sutherland was astounded to find that she gladly accepted the mule ride and expressed cheerful acceptance of her new quarters. Lillian fit in beautifully into this new, difficult way of life.

By the fall of 1905, there were a number of small functioning cabins on the place. Each faculty member or family was in a separate cottage. The exception was Percy and Dr. Lillian, who were in one of the upstairs rooms in the mansion. She later recalled that it had no running water, no bathroom, no carpet, and no clothes closets. There were kerosene lamps for light and a small wood-burning stove for heat. For decades, the room had been used to store and dry tobacco. Lillian spent several days hauling up buckets of water and washing the odor out of the wood.

The couple were anxious to have their own place. In late September, while carpenters did the heavy construction, Percy and Dr. Lillian laid the floors, lathed the rooms (except the ceilings), and did the sandpapering, painting, and finishing. Soon their home was completed.

Throughout the property, the first tables were planks laid on sawhorses; their dressers dry-goods boxes; and no two chairs or stools were alike.

All equally shared in the difficulties and blessings. Everyone worked well together. And, although mistakes were at times made, they learned from them how to keep doing better.

It was mutually agreed that each of the faculty would receive a salary of $13 a month, and were charged with board, room, laundry, livery hire, etc.

At the end of the year, any profit was divided into three parts--one-third going to the teachers (in 1908 it figured to 12 cents a hour) and two-thirds used for repairs, improvements, and expansion. By 1918, the faculty members were still receiving $13 a month. (In 1912, Magan made a clarifying statement that he and Sutherland needed more money than that per month, due to their traveling to raise funds. In addition, both had some property located elsewhere which brought in a little money which helped subsidize their trips.)

Sutherland believed that two basic principles of the school were to make the students self-sacrificing and self-supporting. If we are to raise up men like the Apostle Paul, he would say, we should teach them to be become self-supporting.

Another important principle was strict and persistent economy. As the school grew, instead of building large, expensive, well-equipped buildings, the new dwellings were small, simple, and inexpensive. In this way, teachers and students could build them, and the students left the school prepared to develop similar institutions.

Another principle was the one study plan. Each student carried just one major subject, and to it he gave three hours a day to classwork in that subject and three hours to preparation for class. During one term, the students would cover in succession as much work as if three or more major studies had been taken simultaneously.

Throughout the remaining hours of the day the work program gave the students instruction and practice in practical work. Each student was gradually rotated from one line of work to another until he received a well-rounded training in the care and management of livestock and poultry, garden and dairy, building construction, and other farm work.

Another principle was self-government. Early each fall, Sutherland called students and teachers together and started a self-governing council. This group, known as the Union Body, became the legislative arm of the school. Sutherland read the rules which he had earlier copied from a letter by Mother [Ellen] White:

The rules governing the schoolroom should, so far as possible, represent the voice of the school. Every principle involved in them should be so placed before the student that he may be convinced of its justice. Thus, he will feel a responsibility to see that the rules he himself has helped to frame shall be enforced.--Education, p. 290.

The Union Body became one of the strongest, single educational features of the school. When students left Madison, they already had practical experience, not only in practical work and book knowledge, but also in governance.

The governing body at Madison was not the faculty or a presidents council, but the entire school family sitting in session, called the Union Body. Working together in this group, students and teachers jointly made rules, enforced discipline, planned for needed improvement, and directed the various departments of the school. Only matters requiring cash expenditures were referred to the board of directors. One night each week was set aside for a meeting of the Union Body.--R.W. Schwarz, Light Bearers to the Remnant, p. 246.

A school building was needed, but Sutherland and Magan could never quite collect enough money to build it. Then one day, they decided that the Lord might want them to just keep working with what they had. Although conditions were somewhat rough, with classes and assembly meetings in the old mansion during the day and students sleeping there at night, perhaps it was best this way; so the students would be better prepared to deal with the hardships they would encounter upon graduation.

In February 1906, a report on the progress of the school was sent by Percy Magan to Ellen White.

We have a splendid class of students and they are gaining a good experience. Two of our number have recently gone to Cuba. They will study the language, and work with their hands and canvass till they can see some way open to do more . . We are endeavoring to train workers in the simple things of the third angels message. We teach them the Bible, physiology and hygiene, the English language, church history, the keeping of accounts, and how to give simple treatments. We are planning that no girl shall leave our school who is not a good cook, and able to make her own clothes, and do simple nursing for the relief of the sick. We endeavor to have each one have an experience in canvassing our books. To some, these things do not look like an education at all. They think our school is cheap and we should pay more attention to the things of the world taught in books, to Latin and Greek and the like.

Well, I have taught a good many years now in this cause and I have seen but little good come out of this so-called higher education . . Lately we have been following a new plan which our life in the country makes feasible: We can buy three cows for $100, and the butter which we get from the three cows will support a boy in school for a year. We own the cows but our students do the work of milking, butter making, and caring for them. In this way we are able to support them in school without any loss to ourselves, and the cows and their increase from a perpetual endowment for the benefit of the students in the school . .

God is teaching us many lessons of economy. We have exceedingly little to do with, but that is all the better, as it makes us all, both teachers and students, careful of every little that we do have. Besides, it will give our students a solid training in poverty and hardness, hardship and self-denial which will be invaluable to them when they go out into the work. I long to see noble men and women go forth from our schools, inured to hardship and toil, and afraid to go nowhere on earth where they may be called in their Masters  service.--Magan to Ellen White, February 1, 1906.

The visit of several leaders to Madison in January 1908 will be mentioned shortly. Just now, we want to quote part of Elder W.C. Whites official report of that visit, which included an interesting description of Madison in early 1908:

It was my privilege to accompany Elder A.G. Daniells and Professor Griggs on their visit to Madison early in January. We made a very full and thorough inspection of the place. We saw the pasture lands, the rich bottom lands, the orchard, the garden, the dairy, and the poultry yards. We inspected the stables, the farm implements, the creamery and the kitchen. We ate with the school family in the big dining rooms of the old log mansion-house, and then visited the cottages where the students lodge. We were impressed with the thrifty appearance of the farm and the Spartan simplicity of the board and lodgings.

Afterward, we met with the students and teachers in the modest cottage with one big room, which they use as an assembly hall, and had a two-hour conference with them over questions of preparation for service. When this conference was ended, we met with the teachers in one of the cottages and heard the story of the beginning of the work, some of the struggles, the failures and victories experienced in mastering the work of the farm and improving the dairy, also the plans, efforts, and successes in gathering means with which to build the dozen or more cottages, and of the plans for establishing a small sanitarium in harmony with special counsel given them in numerous testimonies of instruction.--W.C. White, The Nashville Agricultural and Normal Institute, Report of Plan of Organization and Workings, Spring, 1908.

Here is a description of the first nursing instruction at Madison:

The first class in nursing consisted of five girls who receive instruction from Mother D in a primitive treatment room in the old Plantation House. Hydrotherapy, massage, bed making, handling of patients, and the principles of a healthful diet were covered in the course.--Merlin Neff, For God and CME, p. 145.

Why is nutrition, hydrotherapy, and obedience to the eight laws so crucial? Proper food and attention to the eight laws builds the body. Water therapy brings the blood to and from the afflicted part, and heals the body. The life is in the blood (Lev 17:11); it is not in poisonous compounds.

(For the eight laws of health, see her 1905 book, Ministry of Healing, pp. 127:2. Read pp. 126-128. The chapter was written to physicians and health educators.)

In 1906, Ellen White wrote:

I fully believe that those who are connected with the school at Madison are carrying out the will of God.--EGW, letter dated October 30, 1906; in The Madison School.

In the summer of 1906, Ellen White visited Madison. Delighted at her arrival, the faculty and students arranged a picnic. While they all sat eating lunch on a beautiful wooded slope just west of the school buildings, Mother White, as she was affectionately known to them, said, This would be a good spot for a sanitarium.

Silence fell on everyone. No one answered her, but they all heard her words. The picnickers continued to pass the food. Then Mother White spoke again, You say you have no money, but you need to have faith. She looked around at them all, and each one felt the weight of that look.

Do you have faith anymore? Get your people together, and get a horse and mark out the site, even though you dont have money to begin.

Everyone was stunned. But when they finished their picnic lunch, they all hurried to their little chapel, knelt, and prayed together. Then they got a mule, hitched him to a plow, and marked out the spot where the sanitarium would be built.

Not long after Ellen White went back to California, a tired and ailing businessman from Nashville stopped by one day. I have heard that you folk give treatment for the sick and furnish them a healthful diet. Will you let me come here and try to get well?

Ere, uh, said Mother Druillard, We are not quite ready for that yet.

But the man would not be put off. So Mother D screened off a corner of the plantation house porch. Then, with her usual determination and skill she and her three nursing students helped him so much that he recovered his health, went back to Nashville, and spread the word that the folk out at Madison get people well.

This meant they had to get to work and build something. The first sanitarium consisted of a small cottage with a capacity for 11 beds and had treatment rooms opening onto a porch. Kerosene lamps lighted the place and a woodstove heated it. Kettles and pots set on top of the stove provided water for hydrotherapy treatments. The treatment table consisted of a wide board on two sawhorses.

Soon the elite of Nashville were wending their way to this little place out in the country; here they found not only physical restoration but Christian warmth and the love of Christ.

First a cottage was built for a sanitarium, in the grove which Mrs. White at the first pointed out, saying, This would be a good place for a sanitarium. So it grew, and it grew, until it became the fourth in size and equipment of all the Seventh-day Adventist sanitariums in America.--A.W. Spalding, Christ's Last Legion, p. 171.

The year 1907 was a difficult one. Drought hit the entire area and greatly reduced the summer harvest. However, in spite of many difficulties, under Magans supervision work on a larger sanitarium building continued while Sutherland went to the West Coast to raise money.

When the sanitarium was completed, Dr. Newton Evans joined the group and became the first medical superintendent of the institution. Gradually, they were to keep enlarging it.

Later that year, Magan expressed their objective in these words:

We have toiled and struggled against a great many difficulties during the last four years. We have felt that we were willing to pass through these hard experiences if we could only see the fulfillment of the testimonies concerning Christian education and self-supporting missionary work by the lay members.--Magan to W.C. White, December 3, 1907.

In February 1907, Ellen White wrote this to the leadership of the Southern Union Conference:

There is need of such an institution as has been established near Nashville, and let not one endeavor to hinder the attendance of those who can at that school best, receive the training that will fit them to labor in the Southern States and in other mission fields.--EGW to Southern Union Conference Committee, February 24, 1907.

In January 1908, delegates of the Southern Union Conference assembled in Nashville. While there, they heard reports of the plans and activities of the NANI (Nashville Agricultural and Normal Institute, still the official name of Madison at that time). Suspicion against Madison continued to be strong in many minds--for four reasons: Madison's ownership, management, curriculum, and support. To put it into a word, it was independent.

But, before the conference began, word was suddenly received at Madison that some important visitors were about to arrive: A.G. Daniells, W.C. White, G.W. Irwin, M.E. Kern, and Fred Griggs. We have several descriptions of what happened.

We have already quoted part of Elder W.C. Whites official report, which provided an interesting description of Madison in early 1908.

Here is part of Elder Haskells report. He was still president of NANIs board of trustees:

The school is yet in its infancy, but the instructors are seeking in all things to follow the light that God has given, and are actually demonstrating the utility of returning to the original plan of education. Already there is a marked change in the farm, under their cultivation. It is the object of this school to give the students an education which shall make them efficient in all useful employments, such as carpentry, farming, dairying, poultry raising, gardening, etc., as well as in the knowledge obtained from books and to do self-supporting work in any field to which they are called.

At present there are but few schools where the value of manual training is emphasized as a means of self-support.--S.N. Haskell, Report of the president of NAMI, Spring 1908.

Lastly, we shall take a peek at Magan's private diary notations, reprinted with all its unusual abbreviations, initial caps, and all the rest. These diary entries tell an intriguing story:

January 3: E.A.S. recd letter from Homer Salisbury from Washington tell that H.E. Rogers, the statistical sec. of the Gen. Conf. had told him that the reason NANI was not listed in the 1907 year book was because the leaders had told him that we were independent, got our own money and made no report to an organized body.

January 5: Recd word that Daniells, W.C. White, Irwin, Kern, and Griggs would arrive Nashville tomorrow.

January 7: Held a counsel and prayer meeting at Mrs. Druillards preparatory to the arrival of Elder Daniells, White, et al. Went to Madison with the old mare and Mrs. Lenkers rig and met them. White and Griggs pleasant, Daniells very distant.

After dinner took them all over the premises. Daniells did not seem much impressed with the place, thought it, I judge, pretty tough looking. In the evening Daniells spoke to the school. Very stiff at first but God laid hold of him and warmed him up. Finally he prayed for the NANI. Afterwards M.B. DeGr[raw] told him she was glad he at last could pray for the school.

January 8: Churned [cream to make butter]. Griggs spoke at worship and said nothing. Recess and White spoke, then a general meeting in which members of the school spoke of hopes and desires re. the work.

Then Daniells, White, Griggs, Druillard, DeG, Magans, Sutherland met at Mrs. Lenkers for conference. Talked re. the South first and opened their eyes to real conditions. After dinner N.H.D. [Druillard] read them financial statement. But little clashing and another meeting promised.

January 13: Meeting in Nashville. E.A.S., DeGraw, N.H.D. and I. All gave reports of N.A.N.I. The reports took the house. They were the feature of the day. E.A.S. drew one chorus after another of amens. I read the famous Whitman letter re. the Charter. E.A.S. returned to Madison.

[Marcus Whitman (1802-1847) was a famous American Presbyterian pioneer, physician, and missionary among the Indians in the Oregon Territory. He established two mission schools, one near the site of the present city of Walla Walla. His group experienced many hardships and in 1847 were slain by Cayuse Indians, provoked to the act by Jesuit missionaries working with French traders.]

January 14: Will White notified me that a Com. [committee] on investigation of our charter was wanted. Also he wanted a list of our needs to place before the Conference. I phoned E.A.S. to return. He came in on the 9:50 A.M. Aunt Nell, Miss DeG, E.A.S., and I had a talk re. the situation.

January 15: In open conf. I moved that Judge Simmons, W.H. Wilcox and F. Griggs be a com. to investigate our charter, etc. House thought it would be insult to us. Made them vote it. E.A.S. had long talk with Fred Griggs re. old troubles etc. Griggs saw we had the W.B. White crowd in a hard place.

January 16: Met Elder G.W. Irwin and K.C. Russell, who had arrived night before. Found Br. Griggs had gone. Got K.C. Russell to act on Com. on Investigation of NANI in his place. Judge Simmons, A.W. Wilcox, K.C. Russell accompanied by self went to Court House. Examined deed to property and charter unanimously. Bollman quibbling a little as usual. At 11:30 again at 2:30 Com. on Plans with E.A.S. and P.T.M. present met. W.C.W. called Daniells to speak re. status of Madison school and rel. [relative] to Conference. A.G.D. considered our organization should continue untrammeled. That there should be cooperation. Offered peace. We accepted.

January 19: Talked over reconciliation with the General Conference.

April 20-26: In Washington. Talks with Daniells and others. He very friendly and sincere. Met with committees, etc.--Magan diary entries, January 3-8, 13-16, 19, and April 20-26, 1908.

Madison was a special school. It was training workers for mission fields, both in America and overseas. As the graduates went out from it, the plan was that some would support themselves while working for souls. Still others would start new Madison's elsewhere and multiply the training process.

The plan of leadership in all ages is that everything operate in an orderly manner, with each level of operation subservient to another. The Madison plan was multiplication of trained laymen to go out, convert, and multiply still more workers.

Here is part of the letter that Ellen White had her son read to the assembled delegates at the above Nashville meeting:

Brethren Sutherland and Magan are chosen of God and faithful, and the Lord of heaven says of them, I have a special work for these men to do at Madison, a work of educating and training young men and women for mission fields. The Spirit of the Lord will be with His workers if they will walk humbly before Him. He has not bound about and restricted the labors of these self-denying, self-sacrificing men.--EGW, message to delegates attending Southern Union meeting at Nashville, January 6, 1908.

Many years later, in recalling those days at Madison, Magan wrote this to Warren Howell:

From Berrien Springs, some of us, as you know, went down to Madison, Tennessee, by the counsel and advice of Ellen G. White . . Do not think I am imparting information to you when I state that as far as the principles and plans which in an educational way govern in the Nashville Agricultural Normal Institute are concerned, they have never been very kindly received by the leaders in this denomination. I have letter after letter in my old files ridiculing our work there, styling it cheap, fanatical, etc. I am ready to grant that the educational work there is not perfect, and undoubtedly in many respects is very faulty, but I do believe that the fundamental ideas are in the main right, and that God has blessed the efforts far beyond our own sanguine expectations.--Percy T. Magan, letter to Warren Howell, January 13, 1926.

Unfortunately, the peace treaty of 1908 would eventually end.

The 1909 General Conference Session was held on May 13 through June 6. Sutherland traveled to it while Magan remained at Madison. But then, on June 4, Magan received a telegram, telling him to immediately come to Washington. The next day he boarded a train for Takoma Park Station. The plan was to get Magan to move to the General Conference and become Secretary of the Negro Work, a new department invented so they could put him in charge of it. Haskell met him at the train and told him not to do it.

On June 8, he met with Daniells and other high-level leaders, and declined their offer. His diary entry for that day was significant:

June 8: Met Daniells, Olsen, Westworth, McVah, et al. They laid their plan before me. I declined. Talked with Sr. White, who told me not to bring my family to Washington. She told me that they have separated themselves from you and you from themselves. There will be a division. Magan diary entry for June 8, 1909.

The plan was to get Magan, an important fund-raiser, out of Madison, so the work there would be weakened and eventually fold. (The previous year the General Conference had sent him an urgent call to become superintendent of the Korean Mission.)

As she usually did, Ellen White followed up her conversation that same day with a letter, not only to Magan but also to Sutherland:

I am instructed to say to you, Be careful as to what moves you now make . . You need now to be careful that you do not take one step in a path where He is not going before you and guiding you. You should not leave your present field of labor unless you have clear evidence that it is the Lords will for you to do so.--EGW to Sutherland and Magan, June 8, 1909; Unpublished Testimonies, p. 447.

She also added this:

We hear much of the higher education as the world regards the subject. But those who are ignorant of the higher education as it was taught and exemplified in the life of Christ, are ignorant of what constitutes the higher education. Higher education means . . working together with Christ.

By pen and voice labor to sweep back the false ideas that have taken possession of men's minds regarding the higher education . . Higher education means conformity to the terms of salvation.--Ibid.

The above warning was almost prophetic. It would only be a few years before the thought would come strongly to Magan to leave Madison--for, what he thought, was an important work somewhere else.

Between 1911 and 1915, we find several significant entries in Magans diary. They reveal that not everyone valued the Spirit of Prophecy counsels, and that the peace made in 1906 had later evaporated:

In 1911, A.G. Daniells said something very significant to Magan:

January 2: E.A.S. arrived from Chicago. Told me had met Daniels who is sick. Daniells spoke at [Dr. David] Paulsons [city rescue mission, The Lifeboat Mission, in Chicago] and slept there. Daniells don't believe people should get out of the cities.--Magan, diary entry, January 2, 1911.

It was clear that even oft-repeated Spirit of Prophecy counsels did not bear much weight with him.

In 1913, Magan met with several physicians and high-ranking church leaders in Nashville:

February 6: [After listing those who were present]   . . Charges preferred vs. [against] E.A.S. re. article in Life Boat [Paulsons Chicago journal] on organization. Wight fears A Kingdom Within a Kingdom . . Wight has suspicioned us not being true to organization . . Wight said there was no place for us to conduct a school within the denomination. Says leading educators criticize our work. Accused E.A.S. of belittling Berrien [Springs] and Graysville [a Tennessee conference academy]. Don't like our conventions. We accused him and General Conference of violating their pact made at the last General Conference. His Wis. [Wisconsin] Speech. His telling Waller that we were of the devil and Testimonies n.g. [no good].--Magan, Diary entry February 6, 1913.

November 26: I went downtown and met Elder W.C. White at Prodo Hotel. He told of storm brewing vs. [against] us at Washington. Charge vs. [against] M.B. DeGraw getting students illicitly at Berrien. E.A.S. heretical teaching. My salary, etc. Left at noon.--Magan, Diary entry November 26, 1913.

February 28: Madison . . E.A.S. recd letter from F.M. Wilcox stating that no notices re. Madison could appear in R & H.Magan, Diary entry February 28, 1915.

The problem of Madison came up again at the 1915 Autumn Council.

In the preamble to the recommendations voted by the General Conference, some of the problems were stated. Since the Nashville Agricultural and Normal Institute [Madison] and the rural schools affiliated with it were not under direct conference control and management, the question naturally arose as to their relation to the organized work. The two chief causes of friction were listed: First the teachings given, or said to have been given, in them, relative to organization and conference work; and second, the manner in which the funds for their establishment and maintenance were secured. Merlin Neff, For God and CME, p. 177.

So Sutherland decided to attend classes in Nashville. But he had difficulty coaxing Magan, who was not interested, to also enroll. Finally Magan decided to go with him. How different the future might have been if Magan had decided not to go along and obtain an M.D. degree!

Magan described the school:

I think I realize more than ever before the necessity of Sister Whites warning our young people against going to these medical schools. They are certainly bad places, although there are many good people connected with them. There is such smoking, chewing, swearing, coarse and obscene language.--Magan to W.C. White, October 3, 1910.

While living on campus, they enrolled in August 1910 and commuted back and forth on motorcycles (which, due to winter weather and the gravel roads, was a dangerous activity).

As a premonition of future developments, Dr. Evans was given an urgent call to come help with the new school at Loma Linda. But he replied that he would not leave until a qualified physician could take his place.

In 1911, an even more urgent call came for Dr. Evans to come to Loma Linda; and so he left. Sutherland and Magan still had three years to go; but Dr. Lillian, with the help of Druillard and the others, kept the sanitarium in operation.

While the two men were taking the medical course, Magan got to thinking and, from time to time, expressed himself to Sutherland. If I were out there at Loma Linda, I would work as hard as I could to get it fully accredited to train physicians!

For some reason, although it would surely seem that both men were fully grounded in the educational blueprint, neither one clearly understood this aspect of the blueprint. Ellen Whites repeated statements about avoiding all union with worldly educational institutions and agencies--which men such as John Burden, Dr. George Knapp Abbott, Warren E. Howell, S.N. Haskell, and Dr. Howard F. Rand clearly understood--were not understood by Percy Magan. Even Dr. W.A. Ruble understood the principle to some extent; but neither Magan nor Sutherland did.

On June 6, 1914, Sutherland and Magan both graduated with the M.D. degree. Sutherland was 49 years old, and Magan was 45.

A month later, a distinguished visitor arrived: Elder E.E. Andross, president of the board of the College of Medical Evangelists. He brought with him Dr. Newton Evans, who in August had been elected president of CME. They had come to urge Percy Magan to join the faculty of the new institution, but he said no.

In February 1915, Magan was invited to accompany Dr. Ruble and Evans to Chicago to meet with the AMA board, in their ongoing efforts to accreditate CME. At that time, Magan--a natural born salesman--made important contacts with some of the highest leaders in the AMA.

At Chicago, Magan for the first time faced CMEs accreditation problems; and his determination to help Loma Linda obtain full accreditation crystallized. The next time he was asked to join the CME staff, he accepted. The year was 1915; he had been elected dean of the school.

Sutherland was heartbroken and said, This is like tearing asunder bone and marrow. They had been together some thirty years.

Ellen Whites warning of June 8, 1909, quoted earlier, had been forgotten. Magan had been lured away from Madison. Decades later, Sutherland would also be lured away to a high-level church office.

When Magan left, he, of course, took Dr. Lillian with him. First, Dr. Evans had gone to Loma Linda; now Dr. and Dr. Magan. Sutherland felt crushed to the ground, and the others with him.

Yet the workers at Madison determined that their sacrifices would help a sister school. Later, as the financial crisis at Loma Linda deepened (in its efforts to meet accrediting requirements), Sutherland contacted some friends who gave funds to help Loma Linda. Truly, the folk at Madison had an unselfish spirit.

In late 1913, a librarian, from Nashville, had been a patient at the Madison sanitarium and was astonished at the school. Shortly afterward, when she married Dr. P.P. Claxton, U.S. Commissioner of Education, she suggested that, as part of their honeymoon, they visit the campus. When they did, this high-ranking government official got a chance to see the Spirit of Prophecy blueprint in action. Here is his glowing description of what he saw:

There are new things, and here is one: a school that is self-supporting; a school that receives no aid from public or invested funds, and asks none; a school that young men and women may enter without money, finish standard courses of study under well-prepared teachers, gain practical experience for life and for making a living, and leave unhampered by debt; a school that has succeeded in making all instruction definite, attractive, inspiring, and practical; a school that has succeeded in dignifying labor and making it highly profitable both educationally and financially . .

Here students, teachers, and directors, working together, constitute a self-supporting, democratic, educational community; the like of which I do not know--a fulfillment of the hopes and dreams of educators and philanthropists.

I have seen many schools of all grades in many countries, but none more interesting than this. Nowhere else have I seen so much accomplished with so little money. I know of no other place where so much can be accomplished by the investment of the small amount of money now needed by this school to provide the buildings and equipment necessary for a logical expansion of its work.--Dr. P.P. Claxton, Statement, reprinted in Madison Survey, October 1, 1950, pp. 2-3.

After Percy and Lillian permanently left for California in 1915, Sutherland and his associates gave consideration as to what should be done next. Magans earlier repeated assertions that, if he were at Loma Linda he would help them obtain full accreditation for their physicians course, stuck in Sutherlands thinking. Could it be, he thought, that Madison could obtain full accreditation for a nurses training program? With his usual vigor, he set to work examining the possibilities. Just as Gideon, many centuries before, had been restless to do something new, something which ultimately destroyed his offspring (Patriarchs and Prophets, pp. 555:5-556:0), so Sutherland started out on a path which would eventually destroy Madison. More on this later.

Friday, July 16, Ellen White passed to her rest. Believers everywhere mourned deeply. It was as if their mother had died.

In 1914, Mrs. Lida Scott (1868-1945), a daughter of multimillionaire Dr. Isaac K. Funk of Funk and Wagnalls Publishing Company (and sister of Wilfred Funk, its owner at that time), visited Madison as a patient. She had heard of the good work it was doing throughout the South, and she came to investigate. Just prior to arriving, she had lost her only child who died in an auto accident. But, at Madison, she encountered a Christian spirit and warm and loving friends.

Although reared in a luxurious home, she decided to throw in her lot with the pioneers at Madison, and lived there for years. With the passing of time, she helped fund many of the new institutions and projects. With the passing of S.N. Haskell in 1922, she replaced him as one of the rainbow seven. In 1924, she was instrumental in establishing the Layman Foundation, which fosters self-supporting work throughout the South. Lida Scott totally devoted herself to promoting the independent ministries.

Here is a description of Madison, penned by Lida Scott in 1929:

Practically 100% of our two hundred thirty-four students in high school and junior college are working their entire way, and there are twenty-four degreed teachers and thirty-two heads of industrial departments operated by teachers and students, beside thirty children in the demonstration school being supported from the profits of the industrial departments. It is evident that these departments must be on a paying basis, and must be conducted by artisans of no ordinary ability and devotion. We feel that we have met this necessity.--Lida Scott to G.F. Peabody, December 16, 1929.

Elsewhere in that same letter, she penned these words, which provide us with an outstanding description of Madison in 1929:

We already have good teachers of the trades, who are as interested as the rest of us in developing the industries to where they will not only take care of the salaries of all our teachers but will give employment to an increasing student body. I feel that a very happy solution to this nagging problem has been found and is one of our outstanding assets . .

In the industrial departments are included:

1. Agriculture, horticulture, bees, dairying, gardening, forestry, poulty, stock raising, landscape gardening, road making.

2. Mechanical arts including plumbing, electricity, blacksmithing, auto-mechanics, mill work, building, and painting, printing, machine work, cabinet work.

3. Food work, bakery, food factory, canning, local and city cafeteria, gristmill, sales department.

4. Laundry.

5. Dressmaking, tailoring, weaving, basketry.

6. Sanitarium and hospital of one hundred beds. Nursing education, treatment rooms, local and city.

7. Business.

8. Household economics.

In all there are approximately forty distinct lines of activity in which students earn their way.Lida Scott. Ibid.

A.W. Spalding, one of our denominations historians, later wrote this description of Madison:

It was their purpose to build the sanitarium, not as a distinct institution, but as an integral part of the school. It must partake of the simplicity of the school. It must make the same appeal to country environment and life, and it must have its part in educating the students for service.

To many people the name sanitarium conveys the idea of an immense building, with elevators, steam heat, expensive apparatus, gymnasium equipped with many artificial appliances for exercise, and an atmosphere of artificial life. When one comes upon the Madison Rural Sanitarium, the contrast is so strong that it frequently calls forth an exclamation of wonder. Arranged on three sides of a hollow square, with every room fronting on the verandah and open to light and air on two sides, the little one-story sanitarium seems not an institution, but the quiet retreat of a country home. The building is surrounded by the trees and blue-grass sward.  The sweeping view is beautiful, the quiet is impressive and restful. Patients accustomed to the noise and smoke-laden air of the city at once appreciate the quiet of the rural sanitarium.

The equipment is simple, consisting mostly of the hydropathic appliances in the two small treatment departments. For the healing of the sick, reliance is placed upon the natural remedies of fresh air, sunshine, water, proper diet, exercise, peace,  and joy.Arthur W. Spalding, The Men of the Mountains, p. 231.

Sutherland, in his studies of educational history, had earlier found that when Thomas Jefferson planned the University of Virginia, he decided that the school should only have small buildings, both to house students and for class instruction. There was less risk of fire and disease, could be built as funds became available, were easier to erect, encouraged self-government, and made institutional expansion easier and more flexible. Both Madison, as well as many of the little units, spawned by Madison over the years, generally followed that pattern.

Patronage of the Madison Sanitarium had continually grown, one new cottage after another was built for this purpose. This was in accordance with Sutherlands plan of having small buildings. By 1927, when North Hall (12 rooms) was built, there were 47 rooms in the several cottages.

An article, Self-Supporting College, in the May 1938 issue of the Readers Digest, on this amazing school which was unlike any other in the world, resulted in 5,000 inquiries from prospective students, many of them non-Adventist.

Madison's curriculum includes 27 industries, run by the students to support the college and themselves. Every student is required to work for at least half, and preferably all, of his academic expenses. He can enter Madison--as two thirds of the students do--with no more than the required deposit fee of $35, complete a four-year standardized college course for a Bachelor of Science degree, and graduate with the deposit intact. He will receive no outside financial aid in all that time. And he will leave college equipped to do not one job to several. --Self-Supporting College, Readers Digest, May 1938.

That same year, Eleanor Roosevelt devoted one of her daily columns to the school. At the special request of U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull, she visited Madison and reported on an interview with Floyd Brailliar, Sutherlands brother-in-law.

No student receives a degree until he or she has acquired two skills in any line which seems to fit their capacity . . He [Floyd Brailliar] had made a survey of 1,000 of his graduates and not one among them had been forced to accept help either from the Government or private agencies during these difficult years [of the Great Depression].--Eleanor Roosevelt, My Day, October 7, 1938.

The following year, Madison's enrollment reached its highest, with nearly 500 students. From 1938 to 1940, there was a flurry of news articles about the school. Believe It or Not, Robert Ripley called it the only self-supporting college in America.

Madison College, Tennessee--Only self-supporting college in America. Receives no county, state, or federal aid. Buildings, grounds and equipment costing $520,000.00 represent profits of 27 campus industries operated by the students.--Ripleys Believe It or Not, February 16, 1939.

When a food factory in nearby Edgefield, closed down, Madison purchased the equipment in 1917. It became known as Madison Foods. By 1941 in this soybean factory

Beans are manufactured into thirty different food products which, in addition to what are consumed at the college, bring the institution a revenue of $60,000 a year.--R.L. Holman, Soybeans and College Degrees, Forward, February 1, 1941. [Forward was the name of a Presbyterian publication.]

In 1938, a New York writer came to Madison and was astounded at what he found. The following description, from a New York journal, is very descriptive:

Starting with some dilapidated farm buildings, 400 acres of worn land and 11 students in 1904, the Nashville Agricultural Normal Institute at Madison, Tennessee, has grown into a modern marvel of success.

The institute has, practically without endowment, put $520,000 from its own earnings into buildings, equipment and additional acreage. There are now more than 300 students from 36 states and nine foreign countries. Twenty-seven campus industries, run by the students to support the college and themselves. Students must earn at least half their expenses and it is preferred they earn all they spend in this manner.

A mere $35.00 deposit is required when the student enters the school and he may work his way entirely through the course he desires and receive his deposit back when he leaves. When he leaves the school he will be equipped to perform from one to several trades. A health institute, as Madison is in an area lacking in medical facilities, is an important feature of the institutes facilities.

Many new food products and improved methods of preparing and marketing foods have extended until it is now an extensive industry. Madison foods is a line which is sold in many parts of the country through chain stores and in New York. Vigorost, made from soy loaf after the milk is extracted, is featured by a cafeteria chain in New York City. More than $60,000 of these foods are sold yearly.

Food chemists of the school have been experimenting with 200 varieties of soy beans, eliminating objectionable taste and making them into delectable breakfast foods, bread, coffee substitute, condensed milk, and meat substitutes, some of which look and taste like beef but are even more nutritious and digestible.

The school has a broom factory which manufactures fifty dozen brooms daily and uses 25 acres of student-grown broomcorn annually.

The school sets the students an excellent example of self-sufficiency. It receives no aid from public funds and seeks none.

Students work five hours and study five hours daily. Their work is credited against educational and living expenses at a basic rate of ten cents per hour. Necessities, most of which are produced at the school, are sold at an equivalently low price. Most of the 120 buildings on the campus have been erected by student architects, carpenters and the like. Insofar as possible, students are given their choice in kinds of work. Many other advantages have accrued to both the school and the students by this cooperative plan.

Twice as many applications are made annually as the institute can receive. Preference is given to those who are poor and are expecting to earn all their expenses as they go.

There should be about ten thousand such practical self-supporting institutes in this country. Such schools would greatly reduce the high educational tax levy, and certainly would raise the standard of education to a much higher level of practicality.--The New Day, June 16, 1938.

In 1931 the farm produced 5,450 bushels of fruit and eight tons of grapes. The school canned 6,700 gallons of fruit and vegetables for use in the cafeteria. By the mid-1940s, Madison had 120 buildings. At one time, the institution had an acreage of 906 acres, with 789 acres at Madison and 117 at Ridgetop. There were more than 3,000 apple and peach trees at Ridgetop. It also owned a farm at Union Hill in Goodlettsville, Tennessee.

By 1954, its fiftieth anniversary, Madison had a family of 125 workers living on campus, carrying on all the activities of the school, sanitarium, farm, and the many industries. Two apartment houses and eleven cabins had been provided for workers while 43 private homes belonged to the institution.

The influence of Madison College has been felt throughout the world.--Editorial, The Nashville Tennessean, October 7, 1954.