Alberta Industrial Academy by J. L. Stansbury

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 4, 1909

Alberta Industrial Academy

By J. L. Stansbury

We have forty-nine students enrolled, and three more have sent word that they are coming. I am glad to report that we have a very earnest and consecrated company of young people. I am well pleased with the good degree of spirituality in the school. It is the expressed purpose of nearly every one to be a worker in some part of the cause of truth. Several have paid their expenses by earning scholarships; others are planning to join in this work next summer.

A large per cent of our students are mature young men, who have a very definite purpose in view, and if they adhere to this purpose, in a short time this school can be called upon to furnish recruits for mission fields. They manifest an active interest in Sabbath-school work and young people’s work, and they are having the benefit of the experience of conducting Sabbath-school and young people’s meetings.

The weather has been very severe. For several nights the thermometer registered 50° to 60° below zero, and we are not very well protected from cold. Some of the coldest nights it registered as low as 20° below zero in our sleeping-rooms. Two families are living in tents on the school farm, that they may have the advantages of the school. In spite of all this exposure and the bitter cold, we are all enjoying good health. Nothing more serious has resulted than a few frosted ears, noses, fingers, and toes.

We are confident that students who cheerfully endure these disagreeable features, and do not allow our meager and inadequate accommodations to hinder or certainly discourage them in their educational work, are gaining an experience that will be a very essential qualification for missionary work in foreign countries, where there are so many obstacles to be overcome.

We have been pleased to note a marked progress in the various classes. Our hearts are filled with praise and thanksgiving to our Heavenly Father for the many evidences of his Spirit among us.

J. L. STANSBURY.