Purpose: Educators, philosophers, and Christians have placed great emphasis on work as a means of character development. Seventh-day Adventists, as a group, have given special attention to including industries in connection with their schools for the specific purpose of using those industries to teach the youth the values which can be learned from manual labor. In spite of this emphasis, many industries have been closed owing to lack of financial viability.

Procedure: This study set out to examine two basic things. First, the financial success of the industries in three selected schools. Second, the degree to which students, their parents, the teachers, the administrators, the industrial managers, and the board members of Seventh-day Adventist schools still believe in the value of manual labor.

Findings: The findings were that Seventh-day Adventist school industries, in two of the three schools studied, made contributions to the financial well-being of the school. All three schools provided employment and work training to many of the students.

The results of the survey of 663 representatives of the three schools revealed that there is a strong ownership of the philosophy that students do in fact learn valuable lessons from manual labor. The respondents believed that schools should maintain industries for the students but not if the industries are unable to break-even financially. Privately owned businesses operating on the campus are viable alternatives to school-owned enterprises.

Conclusions and recommendations: Schools should continue to provide work experience through campus industries. Alternatives to the school owning the business should be pursued. Two scenarios for the operation of private businesses on campus are proposed.