THE BROKEN BLUEPRINT

PART THREE - F

THE STORY OF LOMA LINDA AND WHAT IT DID TO OUR CHURCH

(1905 - ONWARD)

THE CRISIS EXTENDS NATIONWIDE

THE 1923 COLORADO CONFERENCE

In response to this emergency, while some of our colleges waited to see what would happen, others had their junior college work accredited by the associations so they could graduate men and women qualified to attend Loma Linda.

By the early 1920s, the General Conference felt something had to be done about the matter. It was decided that an educational conference must be convened.

At the World Educational Convention, held at Colorado Springs, Colorado, on June 5-19, 1923, Elder Warren E. Howell (president of CME, from 1906 to 1907, and secretary of the General Conference Department of Education, from 1918 to 1930) laid out the facts which had led up to this crisis.

In our educational convention of 1910, a warning was sounded, which was not altogether untimely, against the menace of a disease then called universititis. What was then a possible two or three isolated cases has since become epidemic. The very psychology of building up our standards to match those of the educational world seemed to breed the ideal that if we were going to measure up to the standards of the world in our teaching, we must resort to the world for our training and our standing to reach up to those standards. In other words, since we were thought to have no grindstones of our own, Israel must go down to the Philistines, to sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his ax, and his mattock (1 Sam 13:20).

While the logic of this reasoning must be admitted, its fallacy lies in the false premise that we ever meant to adopt the worlds standards or its methods of reaching them. Our aim was to produce educational values equivalent to, and in our own estimation much superior to, anything the world gives. We should not dare to make such an assumption of superiority, were we not depending on the principles and methods of education that God has graciously given us. To the extent that we live up to these shall we have that prosperity and good success in true education vouchsafed to all Gods children, through Joshua (Joshua 1:8), at a crucial time in Israel's history.

While our teachers were resorting to centers of learning in increasing numbers, followed to no small degree by student graduates and undergraduates, a new menace arose from an unexpected quarter. Wisely or unwisely, our medical college had linked up with an organization which assumed the task of defining and dictating standards for medical schools, with a view of eliminating incompetent institutions. While the step we took looked innocent enough at first, the inevitable result of tying up an institution of our own with an organization of entirely different aims soon showed itself in a surprising way. A new standard was promulgated, requiring that all entrants to a standard [AMA-approved] medical college should present their credits from a school that was registered as standard by an association of educators who had assumed a similar task of standardizing literary schools.

From that day to this, the idea has been kept before our educators of registering our colleges in a secular standardizing association, thus tying them by much more than a thread to the educational policies of those who do not discern the voice of God and who will not hearken to His commandments [see MM 61-62]. Only two colleges have taken such a step, on the most moderate scale, that could be discovered, that of registering only the junior college department. Where this step will lead these schools and others that may take it, only He who reads the future as well as the past can predict. It would almost seem like tying ourselves to the tail of a kite, to be carried whither the holder of the string may list--seemingly in the direction of less efficiency to serve the cause of God.--Warren Howell, Review, September 12, 1923.

In that same presentation, Elder Howell, one of our ablest educational men and deeply faithful to the blueprint, said this to the assembled group:

The Spirit of Prophecy says our schools are to be like no other schools in existence, and the schools we shall establish in the closing years of the message are to be of an entirely different order from those we have established. There is too much clinging to old customs; and because of this we are far behind where we should be in the development of the third angels message. God has been waiting long and pleading long for us to believe in His way of education, and practice it 100% in our schools.

Too long we have been dawdling with the evanescent theories of men about education. Too long we have been dealing with the artificial standards set up by men who do not discern the voice of God, much less His matchless plan for building character and making missionaries . .

We are pursuing too largely the liberal-arts aim of mental discipline and culture, with too meager a provision for the practical arts of everyday life and for building character and making missionaries.--M.E. Howell, quoted in W.E. Straw, Rural Sociology and Adventist Education History (published by Madison College in 1961); [quoted earlier in Review, September 12, 1923].

In his presentation, Elder Howell then listed five Spirit of Prophecy points:

1. Limit the study of books to the strictly spiritual and useful.

2. Maintain for all students a full balance of useful labor and the teaching of the vocations participated in by both teachers and students.

3. Give large place and equal balance to actual training in missionary service during the school period, adapted to the age and ability of the young people, and likewise shared by both teachers and students.

4. Maintain school homes for all nonresident students.

5. Carry on the entire program in a rural environment where land can be cultivated, far enough from the city to escape its diverting and corrupting influences but within range of suitable population for missionary training field.

On these five commandments hang all the law and the prophets in Gods plan of education.--Ibid.

Elder Straw, who was also present at that 1923 educational council, made this comment:

Elder Howell then made a strong appeal for a return to the blueprint in our educational work. Three men bitterly opposed what was presented . . The three men who opposed the presentation, later not only quit teaching in our schools, but left the message and died out of the truth.--W.E. Straw, Rural Sociology and Adventist Education History. 

DOUBTS OVERWHELM MAGAN

BY 1926, MAGAN FELT LOCKED IN

When you choose to follow the worlds standard, soon others are the master and you are the slave.

During the late twenties the fad for surveys, reports, and questionnaires was developing in medical as well as other educational circles. Dr. Magan complained of the trend, and said he longed for the day when certain officials would not be butting in all the time, a hope that many other educators were to express in the next three decades! The questionnaires and requests for reports . . were almost beyond count. Neff, For God and CME, p. 268 [quoting Magan letter to N.P. Colwell head of the AMA accreditation committee, April 30, 1925].

In 1926, Magan wrote to Howell that, in earlier decades he was strongly opposed to degrees; he, Magan, now felt that we were locked in and knew not how to escape.

During the nineties and earlier years of this century . . I contended very earnestly that we did not need these long courses of study; that we should not give degrees, and that the more simple our schools were kept . . the better . . But as I saw it in those days, a very considerable number of our brethren were anxious that our students should have degrees, that we should have long courses of study, and that we should teach a number of subjects not really necessary . .

I will do everything I can and believe it is right that I should in order to circumvent the machinations of the North Central Association. But I will give degrees and do certain things before I will ever submit to shutting our schools up, although you know that in my heart of hearts I am opposed to all that kind of stuff; but we better do that than to shut up altogether.--Magan to Warren Howell, January 13, 1926.

Was there no God in heaven who could give His earthly children a better way? Had we come this far on one path and must now change to a different one, because it had become more important to align ourselves with the world rather than train our people to give the final message to all the world?

The key to Magan's error lies in the above statement. If Loma Linda totally walked away from degrees and accreditation, the school would not close! It would return to what it was doing in 1906 to 1910teaching blueprint medical missionary work.

While pressure was being applied to send our teachers to the universities so they could become qualified, in 1926 it was suggested that it would be more beneficial to send a teacher to the mission field to get a vision of the worlds need than to send him to a university (Review, March 18, 1926).

MAGAN REGRETFULLY REVIEWS THE PAST

With great sadness, and well-aware that history was repeating in his own time, Percy Magan reviewed the trend in our schools at the turn of the century:

As time went on our schools, to my mind, became more worldly. Long courses of study became the order of the day. Without in the slightest way reflecting on anyone who took part in this, I might fix the time when this movement began to take definite shape as in the nineties. You will remember that during the nineties there were a large amount of testimonies from Sister White sent to the old Battle Creek College complaining of the long courses of study, the number of subjects which were taught, and indirectly in regard to holding the students so that they might obtain degrees [see Unpublished Testimonies, pp. 48-59, 93-104; FE 338, 356, 359, 451; CT 374; 7T 281]

At that time I contended very earnestly that we did not need these long courses of study; that we should not give degrees, and that the more simple our schools were kept, and the more we kept away from worldly customs and appearances, the better. I was not the only one by any means in this movement. Out of it grew our church schools and intermediate schools, and a more or less definite revival on the subject of education among our people. You may remember that when a new corporation was formed about the year 1901 to hold the property of Emmanual Missionary College, the charter was drawn under the Benevolent Act and not under the Educational Act of the state of Michigan.

The great reason for this was to prevent the giving of degrees by the new school, as degrees could not be given under the Benevolent Act of the state of Michigan.

The men who founded Emmanual Missionary College had in mind that it should live up in every particular to its name, and that a simple missionary training for men and women desiring to give themselves to mission work for Prince Emmanual should be its constant and irrevocable aim and object. You may remember that it was seriously considered making Emmanuel Missionary College a school where only those desiring training for our work should be taken.

Time went on, however, and the founders were eliminated. Then a movement began for long courses of study, degrees, etc.; and, in the process of time [1910], a new charter was taken out under the Educational Act and the old one was done away with, with the avowed purpose of this being so the school could give degrees and in other ways conform to worldly requirements.--Percy T. Magan, letter to Warren Howell, January 13, 1926.

MAGAN CRUSHED: ALMOST NO MISSIONARIES

By 1927, it had become obvious to Magan, after all the work and expense carried out in changing our educational and medical work from the head to the tail, in order to graduate physicians with recognized degrees--that few of those Loma Linda graduates wanted to become missionaries! The entire changeover had been for naught. In 1927, Magan wrote this to Dr. Owen S. Parrett:

I was very much pained to see in a recent number of the Review a back page note advertising for doctors to go into the work.

It does seem too bad that, after all that providence, toil, and treasure have done to build up this school, such a small percentage of its output seems to be available for the one thing above all others for which it has been founded [gospel medical missionaries]. I feel that the situation is heart-breaking. I have given eleven of the best years of my life to endeavoring to put this school on a solid foundation, but I am now seriously raising the question in my own mind as to whether I cannot do more if I went out into some humble place in the work than I can by staying here when we see so little fruit of our labors.--P.T. Magan to O.S. Parrett, letter dated April 3, 1927.

As early as 1924, this problem was becoming serious. Few graduating physicians from the professional training program at Loma Linda wanted to go to foreign mission stations. Indeed--just as in the years since--most of them preferred to open private practices in California.

There was the constant problem of getting young doctors to the mission field after they had volunteered for service. At the 1924 Autumn Council Dr. Magan pleaded with the delegates to enlarge and reorganize the Medical Department of the General Conference with the aim of using C.M.E. graduates in a more efficient medical-missionary program. When conference officials in many sections of the united States complained that graduating physicians would not settle in their cities, and that too many graduates were remaining in southern California, Dr. Percy analyzed the issues.--Merlin Neff, For God and CME, p. 250.

You can visit our churches all over northern, central, and southern Californiaand you will find loads of dentists and physicians.

A revealing example of how far, in their thinking, CME students had strayed from the blueprint, was shown by their delight at Magan's efforts to bring them honor and prestige.

In 1932, he [Magan] was appointed a member of the California State Board of Medical Examiners, and the junior class congratulated him on his untiring efforts to bring honor and prestige to the institution.--Neff, For God and CME, p. 273; quoting letter of Junior Class of 1933 to Magan, January 26, 1933.

On one hand, Magan had clear evidence that Loma Linda was accomplishing little by providing AMA-type instruction to the students. Because the blueprint, which had been so carefully followed from 1905 through 1909, had been abandoned, graduates no longer wanted to be missionaries.

On the other hand, Magan was working as hard as he could to bring our other colleges down to the worldly standards that Loma Linda was on. He felt locked in and did not know what else to do. In 1927, he wrote:

I will be very glad when the time comes when I can honorably lay down my burdens here. The place is no easy one, and the only thing that has held me this long is that I do not want to be a coward and run away.--Magan to J.W. Christian, April 8, 1927.

A poor reason to keep doing what he was doing. 

MAGAN INTENSIFIES THE PUSH

MAGAN ELECTED TO CME PRESIDENCY

Percy T. Magan, who had been elected dean of CME in 1915, was elected president of CME on March 18, 1928 at the Loma Linda Constituency Meeting.

Forewarned of what was coming, he penned a note to the chairman the night before, absolutely refusing the position. The next morning he called the chairman out of its session to hand him the letter. But he was elected anyway (Magan diary entries, March 18-19, 1928). Four months earlier, Percy Magan had turned 60.

Ironically, ten days earlier, he had pled to be released entirely from all administrative positions.

I do ask to be relieved at this coming meeting from the position I have held so long [as dean and principal accreditation promoter], and I ask this without any reference or proviso as to the matter of title.--Magan to W.T. Knox, March 8, 1928.

Not only had he been the primary fund-raiser for the ever-increasing spiral of accreditation costs, but, by the 1920s, he was the leading figure urging the accreditation of other Adventist colleges, so they could send approved students to Loma Linda for training. It was his almost single-handed prodding that resulted in the demands placed before the 1928, 1931, and 1935 meetings for accreditation of colleges and certification of degreed teachers.

If the Irish educator had not continued to dramatize the seriousness of the issue of accreditation, the colleges might have operated indefinitely in a mediocre status.

As far back as 1920, Dr. Colwell had warned the trustees that the medical school should draw its students from colleges whose premedical course was recognized by accrediting boards (such as the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools), or the standing of its graduates would be jeopardized.

Dr. Percy carried on a voluminous correspondence with the denominations college presidents, and he sought the cooperation of A.M.A. officials. Eventually, though with misgivings on the part of some churchmen, the colleges obtained junior college accrediting, which eased the situation.

It was not long, however before some of the institutions decided to withdraw from the accrediting association, and it was necessary for Dean Magan to warn the boards of these colleges that such a backward step would bar their students from C.M.E. If a state of emergency developed, the medical school might find it necessary to [itself] offer the premedical course, although such a proposition was not looked upon with favor.--Merlin Neff, For God and CME, pp. 245-246.

The above letter is very revealing, and told us this:

The AMA warning, that all our colleges must obtain accreditation, started in 1920.

At first, all that CME medical graduates would lose, by not having their undergraduate work taken in an accredited college, would be their standing; that is, their ability to take state board exams and later obtain high-paying positions in medical institutions. It would not affect whether CME could accept them as students. Medical graduates did not need standing in order to go overseas as missionary physicians.

Due to Magan's continual prodding, the colleges obtained junior college accreditation. Only the first two years at their institutions were accredited; since, back then, CME accepted students who had only taken a two-year, undergraduate premedical course.

But, rather quickly, having found that the agency chains were continually tightening about them--some of the colleges wanted to cancel their accreditation and return to freedom.

CME countered that by declaring that if the schools were not accredited, their graduates would be totally barred from entrance and CME would start training its own undergraduates.

1928: BOARD OF REGENTS FORMED

By the time the 1928 Autumn Council convened, another crisis had arrived. Magan warned the assembled leaders that dire results would follow, if all our colleges did not obtain accreditation. So it was voted to start the Seventh-day Adventist Board of Regents, headquartered at the General Conference. Magan explained it:

At this meeting, after hours of good discussion it was definitely decided that an S.D.A. Board of Regents should be created to take up and push along the matter of securing proper accrediting for all of our schools where the same would appear necessary.--Magan to Newton Evans, August 8, 1928.

Heretofore, only two year accreditation had been urged; but, by 1928, Magan was urging the colleges to go beyond two-year accreditation--and obtain senior (four-year) accreditation.

In 1928, denominational senior college accreditation became a major issue, and the battle waged between those who considered such recognition unnecessary and worldly, and those who realized that Christian education should reach the highest standard [the highest standard as defined by the world]. The college presidents placed the accreditation issue before the Autumn Council; but, as Dr. Magan described it, the issue was fought lock, stock, barrel, horse, foot, artillery! The C.M.E. administrators pointed to the rising standards in medicine, teaching, and other professions. Was it too much to ask Christian institutions to meet more rigid requirements?--Merlin Neff, For God and CME, p. 246.

But our denominational Board of Regents did not effectively push along as quickly as Magan wanted.

STRONG WORDS IN 1930

In the midst of this boiling pot of argumentation over accreditation, in the fall of 1930, one of our college presidents wrote this:

A leader in the educational world wrote to one of our educators as follows: Why do you seek affiliation with that very fine system of yours? In seeking affiliation with us, you will destroy your objective. We know why you want this; it is because of your premedical work. Why don't you find a way out? All the other schools do.

The president of a large university asked one of our college presidents some years ago: Why do you seek recognition? With your denominational program you are absolutely free to teach what you like . . We are the people that are bound.

Still another of our colleges was told that it would be a good thing if denominational colleges would mind their own business and not try to become affiliated with any other school; and that if they did so [seeking accreditation], it would mean sacrificing principle, but this will thwart their purpose.--H.H. Hamilton, president of Washington Missionary College [now Columbia Union College], in Review, October 9. 1930.

In the previous issue of the Review, Elder F.M. Wilcox (Review editor from 1911 to 1944), reprinted the following statement. It was part of a letter Ellen White wrote to George A. Irwin when he was about to become chairman of the CME board in 1908. She wrote him, that the Madison School was an example of what should be done at Loma Linda:

Madison speaks for itself and tells what might have been accomplished [at Battle Creek] . . Our schools should have little to say now of degrees and of long courses of study. The work of preparation for the service of God is to be done speedily. Let the work be carried forward in strictly Bible lines. Let every soul remember that the judgments of God are in the land. Let degrees be little spoken of. Let the meetinghouses that are needed in our cities be plain and simple, and erected without expense. Let time and means be wisely invested.--EGW, December 23, 1908; reprinted in Review, October 2, 1930. 

EVENTS IN 1931

CHURCH VOTES STATEMENT ON DEGREES

Magan continued to urge additional accreditation by our colleges. Neff, fully in favor of accreditation, describes the momentous action that was voted at the 1931 Autumn Council:

The church took a giant step forward in Christian education when it voted to accredit the liberal arts colleges; yet it was a slow and gradual process. From the Autumn Council of 1931, Dr. Percy sent a telegram recounting how he had talked on the floor for an hour and a half in favor of accrediting, and the Council had voted to accredit five senior colleges. When some of the institutions found it difficult to achieve senior college rating, their administrators felt embarrassed because the junior college accrediting seemed to emphasize their weakness.--Merlin Neff, For God and CME.

The rivalry between the schools only added to the problem. Instead of being content with not being accredited or only having a two-year accreditation, each of the colleges wanted to show that it was as capable as the other ones.

Their thinking was changing. College administrators and faculty were beginning to imagine that their position was weakness, because they did not fully ape the standards of the world.

At the 1931 Autumn Council, our leaders also voted this recommendation to our schools:

We recommend, that for the sake of maintaining Christian ideals, our college faculties should discourage the use of the title Doctor, for this practice has a tendency in the students minds to create a kind of educational aristocracy. It would seem that the Lords admonition against the use of titles of preferment (Matt 23:9-10) would apply here.

It is true we have employed the term, Doctor, as applied to our physicians for many years. Why should we not employ it to designate those who have a doctors degree in literary qualification? . .

In our schools . . as nowhere else, the employment of the term has a strong educating influence in placing before our youth worldly standards. It makes a distinction between men; it destroys the parity of the teaching brotherhood . .

Emphasis on worldly standards and academic distinction tends to professionalize our schools and dampen the spirit of evangelism.1931 Autumn Council recommendation, quoted in F.M. Wilcox editorial, Review, October 24, 1935.

WARNING OF BEING BLACKLISTED

In a letter to C.W. Irwin, who the previous year had been elected secretary of the Educational Department of the General Conference, Magan emphasized the urgency of getting our colleges accredited. He quoted from the August 29, 1931 (pp. 611-612), issue of the Journal of the AMA, in which CME was close to being blacklisted for accepting two-thirds (77 of 116) of its students from unaccredited colleges. Magan warned that the next step would be a lower rating for CME, to be followed by eventual loss of accreditation entirely and rejection of its graduates from taking state board examinations. Magan concluded with these words: Get ready, get ready, get ready (Magan to C.W. Irwin, September 23, 1931)!

As you might expect, Percy was in attendance at the following months Autumn Council.

VOTES TO LET COLLEGES OBTAIN ACCREDITATION

By this time, our teachers were demanding that all our colleges become accredited, and that they be sent off, at denominational expense, for advanced degrees. College administrators were generally in agreement. The pressure upon the General Conference to make a favorable decision was intense.

After long debate over the matter, the 1931 Autumn Council reluctantly voted to grant approval for all our colleges to seek accreditation. It also voted that each college could select a few teachers, to be sent off for advanced degrees.

But this decision opened Pandora's box. Immediately, on their own, our young people began attending outside universities in greater numbers. By 1935, more than forty were enrolled.

ACCREDITATION AGENCIES PLANNING TO FORBID INBREEDING

By the late 1920s, the accrediting associations had adopted a policy to discourage what they called inbreeding. This was, indeed, a sinister development.

In order to better understand what is involved here, according to the blueprint, a few highly trained teachers would instruct the students in our medical school. These students, upon graduating, would go into mission service. In later years, some would return and become teachers at the school. In other words, the original plan was that we would be training our own future teachers.

But the accrediting agencies wanted the approved colleges to forbid such a practice. Writing in 1931, one month after the 1931 Autumn Council decision, Percy Magan wrote this:

The Association of American Medical Colleges has made a report on our school, criticizing us very bitterly for having our teaching to such a large degree by our own graduates. These men feel that we have, as it were, intermarried amongst ourselves [incest] teaching-wise till we are almost idiots, and they make no bones about telling us so.

That is one reason we wanted to get outside of our own crew and get Dr. Hadley and Dr. Clarence Olsen. This matter, Brother Shaw, is most serious and it is more serious at present than it was a year ago.--Magan, letter dated November 20, 1931.

To put it bluntly, the AMA wanted more non-Adventists on the staff!

Like all the others, this demand was ultimately obeyed. For many decades now, a large admixture of non-Adventist faculty and staff at Loma Linda are not of our faith.

A year earlier, in 1930, the charge of inbreeding was already leveled at CME.

In the spring of 1930, scathing criticism of the medical school was administered by Dr. Fred Zapffe, executive officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges. He was disappointed to find that little progress had been made since his previous inspection six years before.

He reported that C.M.E. had an overcrowded curriculum, a foot looseness in supervision of clinical procedure, too much mere class-work, dangerous inbreeding of the faculty, and a need for better organization [Fred Zapffe to Magan, July 12, 1930]. The report caused Dr. Magan to say, In all my experience with the school I have never had such a scoring from an executive secretary as we have received from him [Magan to M.E. Kern, August 3, 1930].Neff, For God and CME, p. 271.