The making of a teacher : a contribution to some phases of the problem of a religious education

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Brumbaugh, Martin Grove,

1862-1930.
The making of a teacher

THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

THE MAKING
of a TEACHER

A CONTRIBUTION TO SOME PHASES OF
THE PROBLEM OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

V/ BY

Martin G. Brumbaugh, Ph.D., LL.D

Professor of Pedagogy in the
University of Pennsylvania

{FOURTH EDITION)

PHILADELPHIA

THE SUNDAY SCHOOL TIMES COMPANY
1905

Copyright, 1905, by The Sunday School Times Company.

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, 1905.
Entered according to the Act of Parliament of Canada,

IN THE YEAR 1905, BY ThE SuNDAY SCHOOL TiMES

Company at the Department
OF Agriculture.

Kachdkuck verboten, Uebbrsetzungsrecht vorbehaltem.

All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION,

The opening chapter of Genesis is a record of
transcendent things. It reveals God at work. He
is recorded as creating the physical universe and
all the life that subsists upon it. Among the in-
teresting phrases descriptive of his activity, none
is of greater moment than the phrase — " Let us
make man." So far as we know, this proposition
involved the production^ out of crude material,
of a wholly new creature. Man is a new creation,
not a new combination. In a vastly more re-
stricted sense, but in harmony with the same cen-
tral idea, it has seemed to me wise to name this
volume — " The Making of a Teacher," instead
of " The Training of a Teacher." The training
of a teacher assumes that we have the teacher
at the beginning of the process and that our work
is to modify something already provided. This
does not describe accurately the process by which
we are to secure teachers. A teacher is some-
thing different from a man. To make a teacher
involves a new creation out of the raw materials
which constitute humanity at large. We must
create a new product. This new product is the
teacher. The teacher is more than a man trained
to be a different kind of a man. He is a new

VI INTRODUCTION

product, the result of making over again in a
new order and with additional elements the primi-
tive material which God has placed fundamentally
in every human .being. To the extent that we
comprehend the vast difference between what
we are by native endowment and what we become
by specific training will we understand the signi-
ficance of the problem with which we have to do.
Education is more than a transforming process,
it is a creative process. By it we become
a new creature. Our problem then would seem
to be, in its broad aspects, a study of what our
native common endowments are, and a study of
what educational processes at work upon this na-
tive material may produce. The emphasis of
study should rest upon the second of these propo-
sitions. At the outset we shall believe in the
creative value of education. We are warranted
both by experience and by study in believing that
education is a far-reaching and momentous influ-
ence. To be a man, man must be educated. To
be a teacher, man must be made over again into
a new agency. No fixed and rigid laws can de-
termine what this making over implies, since the
teacher must from time to time be made into an
agency adequate to the needs of a changing and
growing Christian civilization. The accepted
teacher of yesterday is by no means the accepted
teacher of to-morrow. We shall understand our

INTRODUCTION VU

problem best as we attach increased significance
to the function of the teacher in civiHzation and as
we interpret our standards of efficiency in the
Hght of to-morrow.

Teaching is always prophetic. It aims to de-
scribe the needs of the future, and to equip the
childhood of the present for the mature life that
is to be. Teaching must always proceed on the as-
sumption that its test is to be found not in the im-
mediate product which it sends out from the class
room, but in the wider circles of influence which
it will exert on the days and the activities that
are to be. A wise teacher concerns himself pri-
marily with the task of equipping- human souls
for life's service. It lays the emphasis of its
concern not upon the scraps of knowledge which
it gives from day to day, but upon the fiber of
character which it builds for all the years to
come.

The Sunday-school is not an organization pri-
► marily to acquaint children with biblical facts,
but to set the currents of the soul in the chan-
nels of truth, that they may flow out into wider
and wider reaches of power and steadier and
steadier sweeps of influence. It would indeed
be a thankless task if, as a result of our teaching,
the stream were to become more narrow, more un-
stable as it approaches the years of maturity, and
be lost in the sands and the swamps and the

Vlll INTRODUCTION

desert places. Life must be guided into ever
widening and deepening channels, and the initial
impulses that are given to it by the teacher must
persist until it flows at last into the great all-
embracing life that is hid with God.

This volume does not aim to present an ex-
haustive analysis of the factors involved in the
making of a teacher. It does, however, under-
take to lay before the minds of sincere students
many of the cardinal guidances to that end. In
the light of our needs to-day, it presents what
seem to be the most needed elements of guid-
ance.

The title of the volume is to be interpreted m
a restricted sense. Primarily the book is intended
for Sunday-school teachers ; they need and should
have all the assistance and guidance that ex-
perience and study can provide. No logical or-
ganization of the entire problem of the making
of a teacher has been undertaken. There are many
phases of the whole problem which would not
be at this stage of our development of sufficient
moment to teachers to warrant one in present-
ing them. Only those aspects of the problem
which seem to be paramount in the line of our
present conditions are here considered. If any
teacher is prepared for a more extended and de-
tailed study of the educational laws underlying
the processes of teaching, the author would com-

INTRODUCTION Ix

mend to him the standard treatises on education
which may be obtained anywhere. The purpose
iicre has been to vitaHze certain educational prin-
ciples, to push their application home to the
conscience, and, if possible, to inspire in the heart
of the teacher a great desire to make the most
of the vital opportunities that are his. The
teacher of a secular school will find here the
same underlying guidance needed by him in his
work. The volume, therefore, will be of service
to any teacher who earnestly desires to accom-
plish the best results.

Much of this material appeared originally in a
series of tw^enty-five articles in The Sunday
School Times. Additional material was incor-
porated in the Leaflets of the Correspondence
Course of The Sunday School Times. Some of
it has not appeared heretofore. All the material
has been revised and molded into such form as
to make it in the judgment of the author most
helpful to teachers.

In submitting the articles in the form in which
they are cast the author finds himself open to two
criticisms : ( i ) From the scientific men who in-
sist that professional material shall be cast in
technical language. The assumption underlying
this position is that accurate thought can only
be portrayed in technical terms. For this point of
view the author has no sympathy. He has always

X INTRODUCTION

been of the opinion that if the truth is clearly
apprehended it may be expressed in simple lan-
guage, and he is grateful that his own experience
has been such as to enable him at least in part
to translate his technical training into the homely
and forceful phrases of common experiences. (2)
From the sincere friends who fear that the ma-
terial will be too difficult for the great masses of
teachers engaged in conscientious effort to do
some good somewhere in the great world of re-
ligious activity. A few friends have pointed out
the danger in this direction and have held that
the multitude of teachers are not yet prepared to
take up material as formal as this must neces-
sarily be. With this criticism the author has much
sympathy. It is his desire to help the humblest,
and he believes that any earnest individual who
will give himself steadily to the task will be
able to utilize the discussions of this volume in
his upbuilding. This latter class has been kept
steadily in mind. Unless the many can be helped
there is little need of undertaking the task of
helping.

The author has reason to believe that the em-
phasis of the discussion here presented rests
where it belongs. That the fundamental need of
the religious world to-day is a better under-
standing of the laws and materials of teaching;
that, in short, a rich life is worth more to the

INTRODUCTION XI

young learner than a rich curriculum. If thor-
oughly equipped and trained teachers can be
secured, all other needs incident to perfect prod-
ucts will follow. If the vital need is provided all
attendant conditions to right teaching will in-
evitably be secured. It seems manifestly foolish
to waste time and energy upon subordinate mat-
ters when the dominant question is unsettled and
even unnoted. The cry of childhood is for teach-
ers, teachers, teachers ; and we must not give
a stone when childhood calls for bread. What
does all the inanimate material of education
amount to if it is not quickened into life and
made an active thing by the spirit of a trained
teacher ! In the confident belief that the kingdom
of righteousness through the Sunday-school will
be advanced by an earnest study of these guiding
principles, this volume is given to those that love
children well enough to teach them wisely and
well. M. G. B.

Philadelphia, June i, 1905.

CONTENTS

I

The General Problem Stated .

II
.'^ How Knowledge Reaches THE Soul . . , , ii

III

-^ How Attention May Be Secured 25

IV
^ Guiding Principles in Attention 38

V
— Some Facts Concerning Memory 48

VI
— - Retention and Recollection 58

VII
The Building of Ideals ()^

VIII
Feeling and Imagination 'J^

IX
Educational Principles of Moment .... 95

XIV CONTENTS

X

— The Use of Symbols . io6

Kl

On Different Kinds of Knowledge . , . .125

XII
Facts About Judgment 136

XIII
Reason AND Educational Ends 153

XIV
Some Laws of Teaching 164

XV
Train Up a Child 174

XVI
— Soul- Activity Through Words and Questions, 191

XVII
The Teacher's Personal Equipment .... 202

XVIII

Qualities that Make the Teacher a Good

Governor 213

XIX
Concerning the Course of Study 226

CONTENTS XV

XX

CON'CEKNING THE RECITATION 237 '^

XXI

Phases of Religious Training 250

XXII
Jesus THE Ideal Teacher 262'

XXIII

Educational Principles Used by Jesus . . . 273 -

XXIV

Educational Methods Used by Jesus . « . 288

XXV

Some Aspects of Religious Teaching .... 298

XXVI

Some Suggestions for the Sunday-School

Teacher 308

XXVII
Some Thoughts on Religious Education . . 320

XXVIII
The Scope of Religious Education , . , .331

I

THE GENERAL PROBLEM STATED

' I ^HE kind of an education that human beings
are capable of receiving depends upon the
nature of their souls. All animals are capable
of being trained. They may by repeated exer-
cises of a given sort be led to do certain things
which they would not of themselves be capable
of doing. The doing of these things is the re-
sult of training. Animals thus acquire the abil-
ity to perform certain acts and so-called tricks.
They can do no more. They repeat only the
acts thev are trained to perform.

""educaLT They cannot be educated, for
education implies the power in
the learner to originate thoughts and acts be-
yond those taught. This power of self-initiative
is the basis of education. The learner wisely
taught a few guiding facts and principles is
capable of adding additional facts and of estab-
lishing additional principles. Children have this
power. God set it in their souls. They can be
educated. Those that guide this activity are
educators. We usually refer to them as teachers.

Teachers must understand the nature of the

2 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

human soul. They must also possess a knowl-
edge of the subject-matter which, under their
guidance, is the occasioner of thought, feeling,
and volition in the pupil. This knowledge of
the subject-matter is the scholarship of the
teacher. It should be clear, distinct, adequate,
and, in some aspects, exhaustive. These terms
will be more fully explained later on. But if
the teacher's sole equipment is a knowledge of
the materials of an education, he is helpless in
the emergencies of the teaching process, — those
rare but not infrequent moments when a young
soul needs specific guidance, a guidance that can
be given only by a teacher whose trained insight

is able to discover the specific
^EqJipment' "^^d, and is prepared to meet

it. It is this insight, this power
of vision, that the teacher needs more than he
needs the mastery of the subject-matter of the
lesson. In a few rare spirits this insight is in-
stinctive and innate. Happy the child whose
teacher is thus richly endowed ! To most of us,
this power is the product of study and of re-
flection.

Therefore this volume undertakes to outline
a course of study that will aid in acquiring this
power. There will be no attempt to phrase the
lessons in technical language. The plain, simple
English of our every-day life will best convey

THE GENERAL PROBLEM STATED 3

to the student the data to be set forth. The im-
portant thing is not to say it in formal phrases,
but to see it as it is.

In addition to this knowledge of mental activ-
ity and of subject-matter, the teacher must pos-
sess a knowledge of educational principles and
of educational methods. Why things should be
presented in this or that order,

'^'Methods""" at this or that time, with this
or that emphasis, and with or
without illustration, — these are vital questions.
To this, if one adds the ability to manage a class,
to secure order, attention, and interest, one has
in effect compassed the scope of the problem of
making a teacher.

The exercise of this equipment within the
limits set by the nature of the soul, by methods
that are wise, and through a teacher whose love
for childhood and for truth exceeds his knowl-
edge of teaching, w-ill accomplish the result we
hope for. — the training up of a soul into a knowl-
edge of the truth as it is in Him, a knowledge of
the truth that is glorified, not by its entertain-
ment, but by its use in a life of service.

Emerson once wrote his daughter that he
cared little concerning the name of school she
attended, but that he cared much concerning the
teachers with whom she studied. He understood
what we shall all have to understand, that the

4 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

school is a living agency, a place where life
touches life; and that teaching is the conscious
act of the trained spirit of a teacher influencing
the less trained spirit of the pupil, to the end
that the pupil may come into
Emerson's Idea possessiou of all the knowledge,
culture, and training he is
capable of receiving. The entire value of the
teaching process is to be found in the power
of the teacher to enrich the soul of the learner.
I once addressed a group of boys in a junior
church service, on the mission work in Porto
Rico. With some degree of enthusiasm it was
explained to the boys what the conditions really
are in this little "Pearl of the Antilles." It was
a story of work done, of people helped, of chil-
dren-made happy, of homes made clean, of life
made sweet. At the conclusion of the talk a
boy of fourteen arose and said:
A Boy's Idea " I now know better than be-
fore the needs of these people.
I feel that we ought to help them. I move that
we send ten dollars to Porto Rico to help the
work."

It was a short speech. But it was a good one.
The boy scarcely realized that he had really
tabulated the order of mental activities. Note
his remark. "I know," "I feel," "I move."
Touched in his intellect, his sensibilities, and his

THE GENERAL PROBLEM STATED 5

will, the whole round of mental action was ex-
ercised.

Teaching always must touch this entire circle.
To know is only to enrich the mind. To know,
to feel, to do, is to enrich the soul. The mind is
the intellectual function of the soul. To inform
the mind is one thing. To enrich the soul is

quite another thing. The teach-
Soui Enrichment er in the Sunday-school above

all other teachers must know
how to enrich the soul, — to occasion right
thought, to secure keen feeling, and to ensure
right action.

Jesus was a teacher of human souls, not of
human intellects. The great teachers of Greece
rested their discourses upon an appeal to the in-
tellect. Their great orations conclude with an
appeal to reason — it is the summing up in logical

order of the principles an-
D?I!r!^ Dille nounced in the discourse. The

Roman Flans

hearer was led to know. There
is a reason for this. Greek philosophy as formu-
lated by Socrates assumed that if one knew the
right he would surely do it. We have abundant
proof of the inadequacy of this teaching. The
great teachers of Rome rested their discourses
upon an appeal to the sensibilities. Their great
orations conclude with an appeal to the feelings
— it is the sweep of a lofty sentiment to a climax

6 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

that swayed the auditors as the summer winds
move the ripening grain. Many of our Ameri-
can orators have followed these Roman models.
But the greatest teacher of all, Jesus of Naza-
reth, directed his appeal to the will. He was too
wise to be content with intellectual products as
were the Greeks, or with emotional products as
were the Romans. He understood that the soul
is cultured only when the will

Jesus' Plan is moved to act. Notice how he
concludes that most wonderful
of all addresses, the Sermon on the Mount:
" Every one therefore that heareth these words
of mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto
a wise man;" and, again: "And every one that
heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not,
shall be likened unto a foolish man." Note that
the difference is not in the understanding, but
in the doing, of the truths he uttered. Both
heard. The foolish man' did not act. The wise
man acted. We want teaching like this, teaching
that appeals to the will, teaching that ends in
noble living.

Books, apparatus, maps, charts, — in short, all
the materials used in the teaching process, — are
but the scaffolding that a wise teacher uses to
build a human soul. But the soul itself is the
product the teacher must see from the beginning,
not merelv the materials with which he works.

THE GExXERAL PROBLEM STATED /

The choicest fruit earth holds up to its Creator
is a good, clean, vigorous man or woman. To
ripen, elevate, educate a man^ a woman, that is
worth while. To the accomplishment of this we
may well devote our thought, our prayer, our
constructive effort. And as the task is most
worthy, the process is most difficult and delicate.
But it can be done, it must be done, if we are to
meet our responsibilities and prove equal to our
opportunities.

All good teaching is methodic. It follows some

plan that experience and research have approved.

To teach without method, or to teach unmindful

of method, is to fail utterly. No

^TTJS^T amount of zeal, no wealth of en-

be Methodic '

thusiasm, no acceptance of the
place of teaching from a sense of duty, valuable
as these may be, will in any appreciable degree
ensure results such as we pray for and long to
achieve.

Our methods of teaching find their sanction
in certain underlying laws. These laws are our
educational principles. These educational prin-
ciples, when rightly understood, will likewise be
found to rest upon another series of laws which
inhere in the mind itself. The teacher must know
(i) how the mind operates, (2) how these laws
of the mind express themselves in terms of
educational principles, and (3) how these

8 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

educational principles determine methods of
teaching.

A complete recognition of this threefold aspect
of the problem of teacher-making is found in the
teaching of Jesus. It is said that he taught in
parables. That is, his method of teaching was

in the form of the parable. The
l%tZ payable method of teaching

rests upon the well-known ed-
ucational law that we should proceed from the
concrete to the abstract. He saw the kingdom
of heaven in a mustard seed ; in a man that is a
householder; in a man which sowed good seed
in his field ; in leaven, which a woman took, and
hid in three measures of meal ; in a treasure hid
in a field ; in a merchantman seeking goodly
pearls ; in a net which is cast into the sea ; and
so on through the series. In each case it is to be
noted that he presents the concrete, the familiar,
easily understood experiences of the every-day
life of his hearers, and upon these he builds their
understanding of the abstract and new knowl-
edge of the kingdom.

It is becoming increasingly clear to educational
experts that no finer example of teaching is to
be found anywhere than that exemplified by the
Great Teacher, Jesus of Nazareth. We shall find
in the method of others many valuable applica-
tions of educational law. We shall learn from

THE GENERAL PROBLEM STATED 9

the long array of educational reformers many
broken fragments of good teaching. But the
perfect ideal, the rounded model of all wise
teaching, is found onl\- in the activities of Jesus
of Nazareth.

Our Sunday-school teaching is even now too
frequently simply the interpretation of a lesson.
It is, I fear, quite generally an attempt, success-
ful or otherwise, to explain the meanings of
terms ; to locate, geographically and historically,
the events of the lesson ; to memorize some
Golden Text; to strain to the limit the language
of the Bible in an effort to find in each lesson

some all-comprehensive guid-
some Defects ance ; and to bring about these

results under conditions of in-
struction and of discipline that defeat whatever
of virtue such a process might have. It is not
the fault of the Sunday-school teachers that this
has been possible, it is the result of our system.
We have frequently given over to wholly un-
trained teachers the immature mind, the mind
that is not able to reject or to accept, but is
wholly without an experience against which to
measure the quality of its instruction. To teach
a mature mind the truth of God is a noble work.
To teach a child the truth of God is a nobler
work. For the Sunday-school teacher there
opens a splendid prospect, a glorious possibility.

lO THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

To see a human soul open clear and sweet in
the light of His truth, and to be conscious, as
the gardener is, that it is your planting, your
watering, — that exalts teaching.

II

HOW KNOWLEDGE REACHES THE SOUL

1^ NOWLEDGE arises in the human soul
through the special senses. These senses
are sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Some
object in the external world comes within the
range of the activity of one or more of these
senses. Instantly a nervous excitation is occa-
sioned. The nerves of the senses affected carry
the impression made upon them

How We Know to the brain. This impression
is a sensation. The body is lit-
erally packed with these sensation carriers.
Taken as a whole they are the nervous system.
This includes the brain, the spinal marrow,
ganglia, the nerves proper and the senses above
referred to. A critical study of this nervous
system in such a treatise as Carpenter's^ would be
interesting and profitable, if one wished to un-
derstand the physical basis of the mental life;
only a few of its manifold aspects can here be
considered.

The relative value of these special senses in

* Principles of Mental Physiology, by William Benjamin Car-
penter.

II

12 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

education is in direct ratio to the range of their
activity. We see farther than we hear. Educa-
tion through the eye is perhaps better education
than any other. " Seeing is beheving." It is
well, however, to consider how valuable are the

sensations of touch in the right
the Senses education of the mind. If under

touch we group the sensation of
temperature, this sense falls within the law an-
nounced. When these senses operate in con-
junction, the value of the sensation each conveys
is increased. For this reason illustrated ad-
dresses are effective. If a child handles an ob-
ject as he hears of it from his teacher, the value
of the instruction is enhanced.

The thing to bear in mind is that these special
senses complement one another. Note the highly
significant value of the sign at the railroad
crossing : " Stop, look, listen ! " Here, too, the
thoughtful teacher will see reasons for variety
in presentation of truth, and also for the value
of concrete illustration in teaching. It is well
to consider the value of these sense-organs, and
to note that each sensation must be a vivid one
if the mental result is to be educationally valu-
able. If you have children with defective vision
or impaired hearing, the problem of their educa-
tion becomes a special one. They should have
all the skill and patience and sympathy that a

HOW KNOWLEDGE REACHES THE SOUL 1 3

noble teacher can command. I would advise
teachers to read the story of Dr. Howe's work
with Laura Bridgman, and especially the almost
miraculous work of Miss Sullivan with Helen
Keller.^ If to those to whom so much was de-
nied such splendid results have come, the teacher
has no reason for despair on the side of physi-
cal limitation in childhood. In a large Sunday-
school it would be manifestly wise to make
special provision along certain lines for the de-
fective pupils.

This nervous system is the sentinel of the soul.
It gathers in from all sources myriads of sensa-
tions. These sensations sweep with more than
lightning speed to the brain. In the brain they
undergo a change. At one instant they are phy-
sical forces, the phenomena of the physical realm ;
they may be measured, and in general treated as
are other things that are physical or material.
At the next instant they have un-

Sensations j ^ t i.- i-"!

and Percepts ^^ergone a transformation. They
shed their material qualities, and
take to themselves spiritual qualities. They are
no longer things of the brain and of the
nerves. They are now things of the soul.
They have passed from the field of the
physiologist to the realm of the psychologist.

1 Laura Bridgman, by Maud Howe and Florence Howe Hall.
The Story of My Life, by Helen Keller,

14 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

They are henceforth phenomena of the soul.
They are now percepts, not sensations, and
we say the soul perceives them. How this
transformation is wrought, I know not. It is the
mystery of knowledge. God has so organized
this complex of body and of soul that things of
the former may instantly become things of the
latter. Until this transformation occurs, the
thing presented to the senses is not an element of
knowledge. We cannot say that knowledge en-
ters the soul. It does not exist in the nerves,
nor in the brain, nor in our environment. Things
that do exist in these external agencies are only
the occasioners of knowledge. Knowledge dwells
only in the realm of the spirit. We have not
taught a thing when we have presented it to the
senses. It is not taught until it is the possession
of the spirit. Teachers should ponder well this
initial step in knowledge, until they see clearly
what really is meant by imparting knowledge to
the human soul.

The main question is this : How does the soul
gain knowledge and what does it do with this
knowledge? Do you see clearly why this is an
important inquiry? A fact exists somewhere in
God's realm. For you it exists only when it is
in your soul and your soul knows the fact as its
own possession. The problem then is to track
the fact from the realm of things to its resting-

HOW KNOWLEDGE REACHES THE SOUL 15

place ill the soul. Let us follow its trail. It
comes within the range of our special senses.

These special senses are the
Explained scouts of the soul. They seize

upon the fact. They report it
through the nervous system to the brain. Think
of the innumerable multitude of these incoming
reports. Each one is called a sensation. The
brain may be likened to a central office in a tele-
phone system, the wires of which are the nerves
reaching to the body's surface and, in the power
to detect facts, far beyond the range of the body.
Make a rough chart of the range of their opera-
tions. Think of the many, many calls they make
upon the central office. Consider how busy the
central office is. At times the rush of calls is so
great that all the calls cannot be attended to.
Some of these sensations are in some manner
miraculously changed. The soul takes notice of
them. They appear in consciousness, the same
and yet not the same. Ponder well this process.
The sensation is suddenly transformed into a
fact in the soul. It is a percept. This is only a
name for the product of the soul's action upon
a sensation. What was simply a physical force is
now a spiritual thing, one simple element with
which the soul is enabled to work in rearing
within itself the temple of knowledge. The char-
acter of that temple is determined by these ele-

l6 THE MyVKING OF A TEACHER

ments. It cannot build with what it does not
have. Consider carefully what this temple of
knowledge should be like ; ask and answer the
question : What does God want a human soul
to contain? You will then understand the value
of placing the right things in the soul, and of
keeping out such things as will mar the temple.
Is it too much to say that what we most desire
that soul to become is achieved only by placing
in it the materials with which alone it is able to
make itself so?

For example : God evidently wants every hu-
man soul to be beautiful in his sight. How can
it become so? What perceptions will result in

such a soul-quality? We cannot
Illustration attach too mucli importance to

an understanding of this point.
I urge you at this point to read Hawthorne's
" Great Stone Face." Read it carefully. See
how Ernest actually became the man he longed
to discover. He alone had for years received
the materials out of which by God's laws the soul
could grow to the ideal he longed for. The law
is : We grow upon what we feed. Choose then,
the right nutrition for a soul. " Evil communi-
cations corrupt good manners" is as true to-day
in America as it was in the long ago in Corinth.
Do not lightly regard the significance of the
tilings you place in the soul of your pupil.

HOW KNOWLEDGE REACHES THE SOUL 1 7

Pestalozzi was accustomed to point to a hole
in the wall of his dilapidated school-room at
Stanz, and say to his class, " What do you see ? ''
They answered, " We see a hole in the wall."
Then he would say, "But what do you see?"
And they replied, " We see a large hole in the
wall." Then, with increased emphasis, " But
what do you see? " They said, " We see a large
jagged hole in the wall." And thus he con-
tinued the process of stimulat-

Pestalozzi's • ,i • i-i i

Method ^"& their vision until he was as-

sured that they really saw the
object, until it became a clear percept in their
minds. I use the term percept as a name for the
mental product of a sensation. The power of the
soul to create these percepts from sensations is
called perception. Clear perception is, therefore,
the first step in clear knowing.

Let us now consider another aspect of the pro-
cess by which a sensation becomes a percept.
The percept is in the soul. It is a fact of the
spiritual life. Every fact of the spiritual life is
known as such by the soul. The power of the
soul to know its own products is called con-
sciousness. The soul, not the body, creates the
elements of knowledge from the crudest percept
to the highest generalization of reason. It has
the power to know its own products. How it
does this is again a mystery. Let us be content

l8 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

to understand that it does know its products.
Consciousness is the revelator to the soul of its
own possessions. Facts of knowledge are facts
in consciousness. The soul, through conscious-
ness, has noted them. It has been said that con-
sciousness rings the rising bell in the dormitories
of the soul. Its powers are by

Consciousness •, i j i i.^ i-n

Defined ^^ awakened, or, better still, are

directed to the incoming sensa-
tions, and the soul sees them as they become in
it elements of spiritual activity. To understand
this is to understand a vital fact in the equipment
of the teacher. Knowledge must be so occa-
sioned in the learner that he is conscious of it,
that he knows it. Thus it is apparent that mere
telling is not teaching. It will be well at this
point in your study to read thoughtfully chapter
I, section 2, of Dr. H. Clay Trumbull's " Teach-
ing and Teachers." ^

No amount of preparation on the part of the
teacher, no amount of skill in presenting data
to the consciousness, no amount of exposition
on the part of the teacher, will answer liere.
These are all good. They are all necessary.
But they must be used with that rare insight that
enables the teacher to know that the pupil is for
himself consciously entertaining the facts im-

^The price of this book is $1.25. It can be ordered from The
Sunday School Times Co., as can nil others mentioned here.

HOW KNOWLEDGE REACHES THE SOUL I9

parted. By participation in the lesson the pupil
reveals what is in his consciousness. All good

teaching seeks for expression

pupil thinks, what he says, what
he gives expression to in words, in actions, in
deeds, that reveals what is really taught. Mechani-
cal repetition from memory of formulated an-
swers is not the result the true teacher seeks. I
once knew a teacher who was so much concerned
in having the exact text of the lesson repeated by
the pupil that it was said of him that he actually
cut the grade of a pupil for failure to insert a
comma at the place it occurred in the text-book.
This teacher, like some of those whom Jesus
knew, was more concerned for the technical de-
tails than for the weightier matters of the law.
Be sure that the emphasis of your teaching and
of your concern rests upon the essentials of the
teaching process.

If now it is reasonably clear to us how sen-
sations become percepts, and how the soul
through consciousness is aware of its own con-
tent, we may profitably ask under what conditions,

both physical and psychical, con-
condui^ons sciousness best entertains the

facts of knowledge. The physi-
cal conditions comprise all the agencies that sur-
round the child in learning, and the psychical

20 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

conditions include all those states of the
soul that aid in producing vivid impressions in
consciousness. Of the physical environment of
the learner it is not necessary now to write. Let
us pass that by for a subsequent treatment, not
because it is unimportant, but because the psychi-
cal conditions are logically next in order of study.

Consciousness may be thought of as a lumi-
nous quality that fills all the recesses of the soul.
It has a focus and an outer field of less vivid
illumination. This focus is capable of endless
shifting. Thus at one moment one, and at a
second moment another, area of consciousness
is in the focus. We say the mind wanders. We
mean that the focus of consciousness is con-
stantly shifting.

We put pen to paper to write upon a given

theme. The focus of consciousness is unsteady.

We think of the theme and lo ! the tick of the

clock, the creaking of a chair,

Co'lTsiiousnesl ^^e passing of a trolley car, the
rumble of an engine, the pres-
ence of a fly on our desk, the rustle of the leaves
in a tree near by, and countless other things, are
sufficient, each in turn, to change the focus and
compel the mind to consider other things. In
despair we drop the pen, fold our arms, and wait
the shifting of our focus to the matter of the
theme. I once saw a man in church, in the

HOW KNOWLEDGE REACHES THE SOUL 21

presence of the congregation, go forward and
adjust a lamp that was not properly suspended.
He could not focus his mind upon the discourse
until the lamp ceased to control the focus.

Is there a power that will hold the focus stead-
ily upon one particular field of knowledge to the
exclusion of all others? There is such a power.
It is attention. Attention is the power of the
soul by which the focus of consciousness is held
steadily upon a given group of ideas in the soul.
When the soul takes notice of its perceptions
we say it is conscious of them. Thus conscious-
ness is the soul's power of knowing its own con-
tent. The perceptions in the soul seem to be in
constant motion. They flow now into, now out
of, the focus of consciousness ; that is, they are
constantly changing from the point of clear
knowing, — which is the center or focus of con-
sciousness,— to some region or range in which
they are not so clearly known. They may even

pass wholly beyond the range of
o^sensltro'lls consciousness. Have you ever

yielded to an attitude of mind
passive to this stream of sensations? It seems
as if one could stand aside and look passively
upon the passing procession of perceptions. Can
we arrest this procession, stop it, hold one per-
ception in the focus of consciousness, and deny
it the tendency it has to rush on? If so, we have

22 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

in this power of arrest our first great educational
possibility; for if we can compel the soul to re-
gard one and disregard other perceptions, we
have in doing this the possibility of reorganizing
the content of the soul. The perception we ar-
rest and hold in consciousness is by that process
greatly changed. The soul becomes familiar
with it. The soul gains mastery over it. The
soul learns how to use it. The soul endows it
with new power, and with vital relations. Thus
the soul uses the enriched perception as it could
not use it before. Whatever power, then, can
hold one perception for a time in consciousness
is of the highest educational value. That power
is Attention. It has a negative aspect in that it
refuses to attend to such things as may clamor
for consideration. It has its

What Attention •, • i. • j.i i. "i

Does positive aspect in that it may

compel consciousness to rest
upon one thing to the exclusion of all others.
Thus attention is the power that makes possible
the instruction of the learner. Without atten-
tion there can be no true teaching. The teacher
must secure attention at the outset. To teach in
the hope that, by teaching, attention will finally
be secured, is hazardous and wasteful. It is to
be noted that the teacher cannot compel atten-
tion, but the teacher can secure attention. How
may this power of attention be secured?

HOW KNOWLEDGE REACHES THE SOUL 23

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

Does knowledge come into the human soul from with-
out? If so, how?

If tlie special senses were never to report sensations,
what would be the condition of the human soul?

Do you remember a thing better from hearing it or
from reading it? How does this bear upon the right
method of instruction?

Some people are said to be ear-minded; others eye-
minded; what do you mean by this?

Jot down on a sheet of paper the different things
that come into the focus of consciousness in your own
mind in any given two minutes of time. Will the fact
that you jot them down have anything to do with the
character of the things which you note?

Have you been telling your children, or have you been
teaching them, great fundamental spiritual truths?

Why should the child give expression to his knowl-
edge?

Is your class so organized that the pupils are free to
say what they have in their minds? Do they keep to the
subject under study?

Do you deliberately cultivate freedom of expression
in your class? Should you do so? Why?

Have you ever seriously studied the way you know
the content of your own soul ?

Have you any definite method of preventing the minds
of your pupils from wandering?

Jot down in your note-book the things that you do in
order to keep the focus of consciousness upon the thing
which you most desire the pupil to consider.

24 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

Is it true that without attention there can be no true
teaching? If so, why?

Explain fully the function of consciousness.

What is the relation of attention to the stream of
sensations?

What power of the soul brings percepts to the focus
of consciousness?

Attention makes possible the enrichment of percepts.
Explain this statement.

In Milton's Comus the Lady, in a critical moment, ex-
claims, " I was all ear." What does Milton understand
by this sentence?

Why cannot a teacher compel attention? What fol-
lows?

Ill

HOW ATTENTION MAY BE SECURED

AXZE have now tracked our fact through sen-
sation, perception, and consciousness, to
attention. What will attention do with it? This
question cannot now be answered wisely. We
must first study this power of attention. It is
most significant. Is it always the same? Is it
easily controlled? Is it always active? You
should at this point make note of the power of
attention as it manifests itself while you study
these words. Do you focus on this line your en-
tire attention? Is it easy for some outside fact,
calling through the senses, to destroy your at-
tention? Can I readily shift your attention?
What peculiar quality in this discussion seems to
hold your attention most steadily? What can
you most readily give up, what do you find your-
self holding to most tenaciously?

In the preceding chapter the question was
raised : " How may attention be secured ? " The
answer to this is important, because, as we have
seen, without attention there is no fixedness in
thought. This will be apparent to anybody who
will for a moment consider the stream of thought

25

26 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

that passes under the focus of consciousness. It
is one minute one thing and another minute an-
other thing, and so on through an almost end-
less series.

It is not to be understood that there is no
connection between the different percepts in the
stream of thought. There probably is, but the
connection is oftentimes so subtle that we fail to
recognize it, and in general it is of such a char-
acter as to make it practically useless for educa-
tional purposes. It is only when attention arrests
the stream of thought, and holds

Arresting the ^j £ £ consciousness upon

stream of Percepts '^

one distinct aspect of this stream
of thought, that anything like vivid, connected
thought arises in the soul. It is, therefore, of the
utmost importance to understand something of
the fundamental laws that control attention, and
something of the skill which a teacher needs to
possess in order to be sure to command the at-
tention of the pupil.

If now we ask what it is that causes attention
to fasten upon one and not another of the differ-
ent areas of thought in the mind, to hold the
focus of consciousness at this
What Guides j^gtcad of somc Other place, we

Attention r ^

have reached the fundamental
question. In each case it is some agency of
the soul that does it. We can secure it in no

HOW ATTENTION MAY BE SECURED 2/

Other way. No outside influence can do more
than produce the conditions within the soul
that result in attention. Why does my mind in
any given moment rest upon this instead of some
other thing? What directs attention? The an-
swer to this question a teacher needs to consider
carefully.

The area of attention is not so great as that
of consciousness. Real education has to do not
with all that is in consciousness but only with
that part which lies within the area of attention.
There are three areas of possible knowledge in
the soul, (i) The widest area,

consciourness" ^hich may be called the beyond-
conscious (sometimes referred
to as the sub-conscious area) ; (2) the area of
conscious knowledge; and (3) the limited area
within these which is the vivid area of attention.
Wundt likens the different areas to the whole
field of vision when one looks out upon a land-
scape. There is the vague fringe of practically
unnoted objects, the less extended circle of ob-
jects seen, and the specific object upon which
one focuses his attention. Everything in teach-
ing depends upon the skill of the teacher in fixing
attention upon the specific things the pupil should
consider. Our attention rests upon those things
which are for us objects of interest, and the de-
gree of our attention to any given thing is but

28 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

the expression in terms of mental activity of the
soul's interest in that thing.

Two of the three types of attention are here
to be distinguished. Voluntary attention is the
act of the will compelling attention to -rest upon
the subject under consideration. It is usually,
and especially in children, a relatively weak form
of attention. The power of the will is not suffi-
ciently strong to fix attention for any consider-
able time upon a given theme or
Attention g^oup of facts. We somctimcs
endeavor to secure this type of
attention by saying, " Now, children, give me
your attention." We cannot command attention.
Again, we resort to threats, to scolding, to abuse,
as if in these agencies we had found some effica-
cious control over the attention. It is needless
to say that all these are useless.

The second type of attention is usually called
involuntary or positive attention, by which we
simply indicate that it is not under the control
of the will. By what, then, is it controlled? Our
involuntary attention rests upon those things
which are for us objects of interest. Where there
is no interest, there is no posi-
' ATtTtSn^ tive attention. Where there is no
positive attention, there is sel-
dom clear knowledge in consciousness. Where
there is no clear knowledge in consciousness,

HOW ATTENTION MAY BE SECURED 29

there is confusion and darkness, the vague
borderland of superstition and of doubt, and of
all the other ills which may break into the human
soul, and take possession of what ought to be a
steadfast and clear-minded spirit, if properly
taught.

Thus interest controls involuntary attention.
Through interest we give ourselves to the lesson
presented. We are interested in a thing when we
are affected by it. Whether the thing presented
is pleasurable or painful it matters not. What
Interest and ^ large field of study opcus up
Involuntary at this poiut ! Voluntary atten-

Attention i* • i n i.- r^.

tion is always ileetmg. it can-
not be prolonged. But interest is abiding, and
interest controls involuntary attention. Hence
involuntary attention is vastly more significant
as a requisite mental state for the learner than
is voluntary attention.

The teacher needs to note here how very diffi-
cult it is to teach the child in opposition to his
interests. It is of course true that through vol-
untary attention we may be able to do so, but it
is doubtful whether the result justifies the strug-
gle by which it is secured. How anxiously we
endeavor to secure in our pupils the fullest at-
tention to the great truths of religion. Think
of the punishments, the penalties, the exhorta-
tions, that have been employed to this end ! Per-

30 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

haps you have a personal experience on this
point. How much of all this do you think is
justified by the results attained? May it be pos-
sible that over-solicitous parents
invo"veT ^^^^ ^" ^o"^^ cases, by their fail-
ure to understand this, actually
defeated the very purpose they had so much at
heart ? I understand how difficult it is to say this
without opening the way for decided dissent ; but
let us be fair. What are the facts as they are
known to you? I once knew a child in school
to weep bitterly because she was reproved for
whispering. The teacher said, in giving the re-
proof, " You are a naughty girl." Inquiry re-
vealed the fact that the child wept because she
was in imminent fear of a visit from the devil.
Her mother had repeatedly said to her, " If you
are naughty, remember that the bad man will
be sure to catch you."

Note the struggle in your own soul between

what you will to attend to and the thing you

really do attend to. Your interest is in conflict

with your will. For a short time your will may

succeed in directing your attention, but sooner

or later interest wins the strug-

An Illustration gle, and we follow its beckon-

ings. We go to church. We

resolve to listen to the sermon. We hear the text.

We follow the opening words of the discourse.

now ATTENTION MAY BE SECURED 3 I

Our will is in control, and suddenly we find our
attention upon some topic wholly foreign to the
service. We exert our will ; back comes our at-
tention ; we again hear the discourse, and presto !
once more the attention has played truant to the
will, and is following again the overmastering
beckonings of our interest.

As a child I went frequently several miles
to Sunday-school. The way in summer led
through a beautiful bit of God's grand old forest.
The birds sang in the trees. The squirrels leaped
from bough to bough. The color and fragrance
of myriads of flowers enraptured me. The green
sward was checkered with sun and shadow. It
seemed to my young spirit as if God had rained
beauty in endless profusion all about me. How
I longed to stay and revel in this flower-scented,
sun-illumined, bird-choired spot!

In the Sunday-school a sincere teacher
wrought as best he knew to fix my attention upon
young Samuel, upon the kings of Israel, upon
the wise Solomon, upon Paul's exhortations ; but
ever and anon I found my attention drawn as by
a magnet to the scenes yonder in the forest. In-
terest was drawing me. My will was helpless to
resist. Teachers, you little know the army of
competitors against which you must struggle to
gain the attention of a soul. And yet, gain it
you must, if you are to enrich that soul. If it

32 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

is difficult for the pupil to command attention,
how much more difficult is it for the teacher to
do so. The more excellent way is to ascertain
the interests of the pupil.

If my teacher had only known the things of
interest to me, how readily he could have made
them the occasion of securing my attention, of
building there the tabernacles of truth, into
which with joy my spirit would have entered to
find and to partake of His truth. How splendidly
Jesus understood this. To those
UseT'interest whose interests clustered about
their flocks he was the Good
Shepherd. To the man whose flock had been
scattered, how readily would the search for the
one that was lost quicken interest, secure atten-
tion, arouse concern, and lead to an understand-
ing of his mission. To those whose physical ills
had saddened life, how tenderly helpful was the
statement, " They that are whole need not a phy-
sician, but they that are sick." How their in-
terest was thus aroused, and they were fitted to
understand, " I came not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance."

Interest is not some strange and foreign con-
dition of the spirit. Interest as such is but a
name to characterize the attitude of the soul to the
things which, by reason of its past experiences, it
cares to own. As it has come up through the

HOW ATTENTION MAY BE SECURED ^3

years of unfolding, the soul has gathered here

and there particular fields of thought, particular

answers to its inquiries, and

What Interest Is specific nourishment of its own,
and it has come at last to rela-
tively full and complete knowledge. Conscious-
ness of this begets interest, and holds the mind
with a hunger which can be satisfied only when
it comes into the possession of the fuller knowl-
edge in these several channels or avenues.

If, then, we wish to teach easily, we must teach
in harmony with the interests in the soul. It is
my abiding faith and conviction that God has set
in every human soul a hunger for himself. The
race craves a knowledge of him, and the wise
teacher will need to make no apology to secure
the interest on the part of the child in the

The Race Craves matters presented in the Sun-
a Knowledge day-school, — provided only the
of God teacher remembers the fact that

the new knowledge which the teacher yearns to
present to the hungry soul, and which the hun-
gry soul itself craves, must always be presented
in terms which will link the new knowledge with
the past experience of the child. The pupil must
see the new in the light of the old. His knowl-
edge must grow from a common center, other-
wise it is fragmentary, uninteresting, causes
dissatisfaction, and is substantially worthless.

34 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

It is well to note that the secret of an abiding
love for the truths of religion is best secured
by creating pleasurable interest in the child's soul
for the things of the higher life. A pious old
minister, with a keen insight that we should
strive to imitate, was deeply concerned in the
welfare of a fatherless grandson. He took the
boy with him when visiting the poor of his rural
parish in the valleys of the Alps. The boy was
enraptured by the beauty so lavishly displayed
on mountain and glen. When they entered the
poverty-stricken houses of the poor, and the boy
saw how impossible it was for the children of
these homes to enjoy God's beautiful pictures, he
was led to say : " Grandpa, when

Pestalozzi's j j ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^

-^ Example '

side of the poor." A noble reso-
lution this ! He kept it, and the world knows the
result. That boy was Henry Pestalozzi, a father
to orphans, the founder of universal elementary
education. He rightfully enjoys the high tribute
paid him by his biographer : " He lived like a
beggar that he might teach beggars to live like
men." By creating interest in the poor, the great
reformer never could turn from them.

I urge you to write the story of some girl ov
boy, some young man or woman, whose life was
but the working out of some great resolution,
made in a moment when the soul was aglow with

HOW ATTENTION MAY BE SECURED 35

interest. Compare your story with the incident
in the Hfe of Ruth, the resolute-hearted and pure-
spirited daughter-in-law of Naomi. When
Naomi, widowed, broken in spirit, and absolute-
ly impoverished, set out for Bethlehem, she ad-
vised Orpah and Ruth to seek their own fortunes
in the land of their nativity. But Ruth embraced
her mother-in-law, and said : " Entreat me not to
leave thee, and to return from following after
thee; for whither thou goest, I will go; and
where thou lodgest, I will lodge ; thy people shall
be my people, and thy God my God ; where thou
diest, will I die, and there will I be buried."
Here is a sublime surrender of
Ruth's Example a noble woman to a great pur-
pose. God sustained Ruth. She
became the great soul her resolution fitted her to
be. Read the sequel : "The book of the genera-
tions of Jesus Christ . . . And Boaz begat
Obed of Ruth ; and Obed begat Jesse ; and Jesse
begat David the king . . . And Jacob begat
Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born
Jesus, who is called Christ." It is a holy thing
to plant a high purpose in a human soul. God
will make it in his own time serve great ends.
It is worth while to work for the moment when
your pupil rises at his best, and makes declara-
tion for the Christian life. Not the many things,
but the decisive things, mold our lives.

36 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

If you have carefully considered the phases of
attention so far discussed, you will readily un-
derstand that voluntary attention is of question-
able value in teaching young children, — that
involuntary attention is tremendously significant,
and that it is made so by the intimate relation it
sustains to interest. The Herbartians in Ger-
many and in America alike agree that the
doctrine of interest is the most valuable doctrine
announced to teachers in a half-

"^"'inteJelr "' century. Herbart's " Science of

Education" and De Garmo's

" Interest and Education" are typical treatises

upon this significant phase of teacher equipment.

" But," asks the teacher, " how am I to ascer-
tain the interests of childhood, and so secure
positive attention in my class ? " I wish I could
in a sentence answer that question. How I have
longed for the magic words ! They have not yet
been discovered ; but some thoughts may be sub-
mitted later that will in a way clarify the vague
longings of the sincere student.

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

Can you detect any connection between successive
stages of consciousness?

Try to stop the stream of consciousness by an act of
will. Is it an easy or a difficult task?

How would you define attention?

HOW ATTENTION MAY BE SECURED 37

What is the vahie of the advice, " Pay no attention
tv:» it ? "

Two of the three types oi attention are here presented,
— what are they, and can you anticipate a third?

Will punishment increase attention? Why?

Recall to your mind times in your own life when you
were all attention, and explain the reason for your rapt
concern.

Just what is interest? How does it war with the
will ?

When children are not attentive is it evidence of de-
liberate hostility? If not, of what is it evidence?

Cite examples from the teachings of Jesus that clearly
indicate his recognition of the importance of interest.

Is the human soul innately clothed with interest in
God and things of his kingdom?

Here is the pupil, — here is the lesson. How may in-
terest in the former be aroused for the latter?

IV

GUIDING PRINCIPLES IN ATTENTION

np O UNDERTAKE an analysis of the inter-
ests in children that control attention is im-
possible. These interests are both varied and
subtle. They defy enumeration. They in a large
measure explain our differences and account for
our various careers. We act in response to our
feelings. Our feelings organize themselves about
our interests, hence our interests control our con-
duct. To live right one's interest must be quick-
ened for the right. In this field of interest, the
field of experience, the teacher must find what
Patterson Du Bois calls " the point of contact."
His excellent treatise under this title^ every
teacher should read.

If parents and teachers of children in the pri-
mary school could be led to realize the signifi-
cance of creating right interests in young souls,
how joyous would become the

The Feelings and r, • j. u- ~ u

Attention aftcr-proccsses m teachmg, how

readily would growing souls

feed upon the truth, how splendid would be the

happy procession of eager footsteps upward into

' The Point of Contact in Teaching.
38

GUIDING PRINCIPLES IN ATTENTION 39

holy living! I venture the assertion that our
weak spot in education is our neglect of the edu-
cation of the feeling-life of the child. When we
seek guidance upon this vitally significant phase
of mental growth we are met at the outset with
the fact that the theme has not been in any ade-
quate way considered. The great and potent
feeling-life of the child is practically unknown
and overlooked in our zeal to secure great issues
in the thought-life of the child. William James
points out the significant fact that the native in-
terests of children lie altogether in the sphere of
sensation. His discussion of this is most sug-
gestive.^

We are interested in those things which in our
past have for some reason become significant to
us. If now a new truth is to be given, it is wise
to link it with what we already know. Thus we
compel the pupil's attention by appealing to his
interest.

A fine example of good teaching is recorded
in Acts 17 : 22-31. Paul was in a strange city.
It was the capital of culture. Its citizens were
devoutly interested in their religion. They had
gods innumerable. For these gods they enter-
tained the greatest reverence. Paul knew this.
He was quick to discover the basis of their in-
terest. He begins his discourse by a reference to
* Talks on Psychology and Life's Ideals, chapter ix.

40 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

an altar and its inscription. They knew that
altar. They knew that inscription. At once he
had their attention. By a most skilful use of

what they knew he led them to
"^Attention"'* Understand what they did not

know. The interest they had in
what they knew was splendidly carried over into
the region of truth which Paul wished them to
know. Read the discourse carefully. See how,
step by step, he led them from altar and inscrip-
tion to God, the earth-creator, the life-giver, the
brotherhood-builder, the omnipresent, the true
God, the Father of the resurrected Christ. How
simple his opening words, how skilful his lead-
ing to the one thing he always preached, the
Christ.

In the familiar parable of the sower the Great
Teacher begins his discourse with a plain recital

of an every-day event familiar

flow Jesus Secured ai-j--i ttijxI-

Attention ^° "^^ disciplcs. He leads them
by most skilful transition to the
race-wide work of his people.

When Socrates was an old man, he one day
walked the streets of Athens alone. His head
was bowed, his body was bent, his step was un-
steady, in his hand he carried a massive cane.
Under his shaggy eyebrows darted out the keen
eye of an observant man.

Coming up the street was a young man. He

GUIDING PRINCIPLES IN ATTENTION 4I

walked erect, his head well poised, his step
elastic, his bearing worthy the Ephebi group to
which he belonged. Socrates saw all this. He
was pleased. As the young man
serufL^AMeilton ^ame near he stepped aside that
the old sage might pass. Quick as
a flash the heavy cane of the philosopher seemed
to slip and trip the young man. The latter in-
stantly recovered himself, and showed regret that
he might in any way have annoyed one so old
and so feeble. Suddenly Socrates turned, and,
looking the youth full in the face, said :

" My son, can you tell me where in this city I
may buy bread ? "

The youth promptly replied, " Sire, up yonder
street and two doors to the left."

Pleased at the directness and politeness of the
youth, Socrates said :

"And, my son, can you tell me where in all
this city I may buy wisdom ? "

The youth replied regretfully, " Indeed, sire, I
know not."

" Then," said the sage, " follow me and learn."
That youth was Xenophon, the life-long friend
and follower of the great Attic philosopher.

Great teachers are these. Note how each
grasped the fundamental law of teaching through
the interest aroused in his hearers.

There is a third type of attention that is worthy

\r'

42 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

of more than a passing notice. It is usually char-
acterized as expectant attention. The soul seems
at times to anticipate what is to occupy the focus
of consciousness, to be in a way
Attentron aware of objects in conscious-
ness before they are really in
the focus. The soul at times seems to sense
facts in advance of their clear definition in con-
sciousness.

Sometimes just an instant before the clock
strikes or the bell rings we seem to be aware
of the coming experience. The nerves seem to
be set to catch a certain sensation, the sensation
we desire, and lo ! it comes. This expectancy is
at times very marked. It is as if we set atten-
tion to watch for a certain fact or series of facts
before they arise in consciousness. This is then
followed by the facts expected arising in the
focus of consciousness. Under this aspect of atten-
tion one may find a clew to the power of sugges-
tion, of hypnotism, of mind-reading, and perhaps
of so-called Christian Science. Of these phe-
nomena v/e need not now take special notice.

We do seem to get a more vivid impression
if we set the attention trap in advance to catch
the fact when it does enter the focus of con-
sciousness. If we enter the class-room to teach,
confidently expecting to succeed, we are thereby
predisposed to success. A wise teacher always

GUIDING PRINCIPLES IN ATTENTION 43

seeks to prepare the mind for the best

things of the lesson. Tactfully the discussion

leads to expectant attention on

**Attention*" ^^^ P^^^ °^ ^^^^ pupils, and then
the best things are presented.
Sometimes a pause, a stress of voice, a kindling
eye, a pertinent question, or some kindred action,
is enough to arouse in advance the attention of
the pupils. Again it may require repeated ap-
proach by incident and illustration skilfully pre-
sented to accomplish the result. Instinctively a
good teacher will endeavor to predispose the soul
to receive the best things.

When once the teaching process has been car-
ried well along in this manner, it is frequently
possible for the pupil to run ahead in thought,
and predict for himself the issue of the narrative.
Here lies a law of teaching well worth our at-
tention. If we make our narrative so tedious,
so full of petty details, so annoyingly full of
qualifications, the mind of the pupil in a burst of
impatience sweeps all this aside, and demands
the next vital step in the series of incidents that
lead to the final issue ; or, what is worse, the
mind of the pupil may become
^"'"Itl^tC*""* lost in the maze of detail, and

Attention '

fail utterly to come at last into
a clear understanding of the central truth ar-
rived at bv the teacher. Hawlev Smith, the au-

44 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

thor of " The Evolution of Dodd," once told me
the hero of that story attended school one day,
and was absent the next. The parents of Dodd
sought the reason. Dodd explained that on the
first day the teacher taught dog to the class, and
that the following day dog was to be reviewed.
Dodd said he knew dog already, and he was sim-
ply out of school till the teacher on the follow-
ing day meant to take up the dog; " then," said
Dodd, " I am going to go again/' The teacher's
method did not keep pace with Dodd's unfolding,
and hence the difficulty. It is a good teacher
who knows how rapidly to move forward to the
new things. Too slow is as unwise as too fast.

It may be well to note that mere bodily atti-
tude is not a guarantee of attention. Pupils may
sit at attention, and yet their attention may be
far from the matter in hand. A young woman
once thanked me for the close attention I gave
to a paper she read at an educational meeting.
My eyes were fixed steadily upon her. I was
really not attending to the subject-matter of her
address, but I was absorbed by

An Illustration an enormous comb stuck loosely
in her hair. Every movement
of her head threatened to cast the valuable adorn-
ment to the rostrum floor. I was absorbed in the
fate of her comb and not at all in the subject
she discussed,

GUIDING PRINCIPLES IN ATTENTION 45

Pause in the midst of your teaching and ask
some pupil to repeat the main points from the
beginning". When he is well begun, ask a second
one to continue the review, and you will be
amazed at the result unless you have real atten-
tion in your pupils. The captain of a steamer,
whose hearing is dimmed, was frequently in-
formed by his passengers : " It is a beautiful
day, Captain." One day a quiet-voiced lady said
to him: "What lighthouse is that, Captain?"
To which he politely replied : '' Yes, a very fine
day."

So far from what we really expect is the an-
swer we sometimes receive. The pupil is not
thinking our thoughts. We do not have his at-
tention. We are not teaching.

Right bodily conditions, however, have much
to do with securing attention. To attend stead-
ily to one thing for any considerable time is
physically exhausting. Young pupils should not
be expected to give steady attention for more
than a few minutes to one thing. If this is not
kept in mind by the teacher, confusion, restless-
ness, disorder, arise in the class. As the pupil
advances in years the time of
^"'l'ip?r"an?" the recitation may be length-
ened. With young pupils a
change to some new activity is necessary. With
older pupils a change in the order of thought

46 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

may suffice. This is a matter of such significance
that the wisely-trained teacher will need to ob-
serve in her own pupils when attention yields
to fatigue. No arbitrary time can be set as a
limit to the recitation ; and, perhaps^ in the
Sunday-school this caution is not really pertinent.
The only guidance of value is this : Do not tax
the attention of the pupil beyond the limit of his
ability to give close attention to the exercise.

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

How do you explain the variation in attention on the
part of the different members of your class?

How do our feelings influence our actions? Do wc
act as we think or as we feel?

Explain the relation between your acts and your in-
terest.

Why did Paul begin his address on Mars' Hill by a
reference " To the Unknown God ? "

How does expectant attention differ from voluntary
attention ? from involuntary attention ?

Discuss the phenomena of hypnotism in their relation
to expectant attention.

Are you familiar with the general doctrine of sugges-
tion as a teaching agency?

H the teacher takes up the lesson expecting to secure
attention, is his expectation likely to be the more
readily realized? Why?

In case you do not secure attention from your pupils,

GUIDING PRINCIPLES IN ATTENTION 4/

name some things that may result in securing atten-
tion?

What is the measure of the rate of progress in unfold-
ing the truths of the lesson?

Are you ever tedious in teaching? Are you ever too
hasty or too obscure in covering the salient points in
the lesson?

How will you distinguish between bodily attitude and
true attention?

Should a teacher know the dominant interests of his
pupils? Why?

V

SOME FACTS CONCERNING MEMORY

T HAVE hinted that the mind has power to
enrich the facts of knowledge which it
holds in consciousness. Let us not forget this
statement while we consider an intermediate step
in the development of knowledge in the soul.
The report which the mind makes of the thing
it perceives is called a percept. This percept is
the mental result of a clear perception. It is by
some writers called an idea, by which they mean
that the mind has some sort of a picture of the
thing that exists outside the mind. We speak
of a real cat and of our idea of cat ; of cow and
of our idea of cow ; of things generally and of

our ideas of these things. These
^'^ Are*^^* ideas, then, are mental images

of things. Just what they are
like is not quite clear. But this is clear : By their
frequent reappearance in consciousness we come
to know them as the sign or image of the thing
itself. Given the idea, the appropriate object is
at once called by the idea into consideration. We
do not often get the wrong idea for a thing. The
mind is an accurate reporter. It seldom fails to
48

SOME FACTS CONCERNING MEMORY 49

make true connection between a given object and
its appropriate idea. We may depend upon the
integrity of its processes and the correctness of
its results.

But these ideas are not always in the focus
of consciousness, not always the things of atten-
tion, not always the objects of interest. These
ideas seem to be fleeting. They elude conscious-
ness, and others take their place. They do this
in spite of volition and of interest. Where do
they go? Can they be recalled? They perhaps
do not pass wholly out of consciousness, but they
are no longer the things of at-

What Memory Is tention. But they may be re-
called and again be made the
things of attention. The power by which the soul
retains and recalls its past experiences and makes
them again the things of attention is memory.

So important was memory held to be among
the ancient Greeks, that they not only deified her
as Mnemosyne, daughter of Uranus, but they
made her the mother of the sacred muses. These
nine muses w^ere the guardian divinities whose
function it w-as to preside over the nine impor-
tant branches of knowledge. They lived on
Mount Helicon, and Gray thus refers to their
influence :

" From Helicon's harmonious springs
A thousand rills their mazy progress take."

50 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

Thus in the Greek mind all knowledge was sup-
posed to flow from this great fountain of mem-
ory. In all ages memory has
^"^Memory "^ heen regarded as of transcend-
ent value. We have often bur-
dened it unduly, and made it blindly bear burdens
of ideas which it should not bear; and we have
regarded it not infrequently as the final resting-
place of ideas ; and, although in a vague way we
know what the abuse of memory is, yet we go
merrily on unloading upon it endless series of
facts, and complacently assuming that when a
fact is once in memory it is known.

I wish the teacher at this point to pause for a
moment and consider the miracle of memory.
Things learned in years agone are by it held in
the everlasting present. What we once learned
we always may know. What we now teach to
our pupils they may retain and recall as long as
their spirits are body-encased, and it is my con-
viction that they are recalled when, free from
the body, the spirit mounts to eternity. This is
God's method of dignifying the work of the
teacher. God has so planned
"^^ Memory ""^ ^hat what wc plant in a human
soul may bloom perennially. We
have no right to plant carelessly, since we have
no power to reset our plantings. If what we
place by wise teaching in the soul of a child were

SOME FACTS CONCERNING MEMORY 5 I

to fade and die in a fortnight, how very hopeless
and useless would our teaching be ! Thank God
that you teach for time and for eternity. Get up
on the heights. See the splendid prospect God
sets for those that teach in his name !

Let us consider the significance of this power
by which we retain and recall knowledge. We
are at once face to face with a well-known fact,
namely, that much of all we teach to a child
seems to be speedily forgotten. One teacher in
despair declared that her pupils seemed to have
traded their memories for what she called "for-
getters." It is undoubtedly true that many
things once in consciousness seem to have passed,
and passed forever, into regions beyond recall.
One Source Herein lies one explanation of
of Waste in the great waste in education.
Notice that I use the word
"seem" to describe what happens. It is perhaps
true that they do not pass beyond recall, but we
have lost them because of one of two things :
either we have not endeavored to recall them, or
we have lost the string of association by which
we might readily have drawn them again into
consciousness as objects of attention. Both of
these causes operate to lessen the value of teach-
ing.

Every time an element of knowledge is re-
called and made an object of attention there is

52 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

established an increasing tendency to make easy
its recall. The reverse is also true. Allow an
element of knowledge to lie unnoted in the dim
recesses of the mind, and there comes a time
when the power of recall seems to have been
lost. Hence the great importance of frequent

recalls of knowledge to the cen-
Vaiue of Recall tcr of consciousness. If this is

done with the wise variety in
method that a good teacher knows how to use
the result is most important. If, however, it be-
comes the monotonous iteration of the same
things in the same way interest is destroyed and
the teaching process is useless.

The little girl, daily required to hear the
twenty-third Psalm, finally said, " Mamma, let's
not read about ' The Lord is my shepherd ' to-
day, I am tired of that." The same truth holds
concerning the lesson plan. If the teacher re-
peats with endless monotony one order of exer-
cises from Sunday to Sunday he will find at last
that it is increasingly difficult to secure attention.
Frequent and varied reviews of truth, if wisely
conducted, are not distasteful to the pupil. But

frequent and monotonous re-
shakespeare views, as Shakespeare says,

" clog the hungry edge of appe-
tite." We all know how apprehensively we ap-
proach the quarterly review. We are practically

SOME FACTS CONCERNING MEMORY 53

defeated by our own state of mind when we enter
upon the exercise, and yet the review is a valu-
able, and may be made a delightfully interesting,
part of our teaching.

The longer we delay the recall of an image or
memory product the more difficult it is to recall
it. For this reason it is always wise to secure
a recall of the mental image as early as possible.
It is not the mere number of repetitions which
determines the final worth of an impression, but
the frequency of the repetitions. When a stone
is dropped into a pond of water the waves at
once begin to move outward from the center of
disturbance. The farther they move the less
distinct thev become, until finally
'''Tecai?' "** t'ley are practically beyond the
range of visual recall. We
say we can no longer see them. This figures in
a way the career of impressions in the mind.
The longer they are left unnoted the more diffi-
cult is the power of recall. Finally we say they
are beyond recall. The thing to note is that
while they are relatively active in consciousness
they should be recalled again and again until the
mind becomes facile in the power of recall.

The training of the memory is not the whole
of an education ; but it is a valuable part. To
know a thing implies the power to recall it. Of
what use is teaching if its results do not become

54 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

permanent possessions of the soul? It is my be-
lief that these memory images may be so taught
that they will outlive the body and remain with
us for all eternity. To hold this belief dignifies
the teaching process and honors the great Giver
of the soul. It also adds to the responsibility of

the teacher. We must not lightly
^EdlTcTtJon*' regard our teaching processes

nor thoughtlessly select our
teaching materials. The memory is a splendid
auxiliary to the higher thought processes ; since
it is the memory that must give permanency to
their activities by holding the results clearly and
readily in consciousness for use. When once a
thing has been clearly taught, the teacher should
develop occasions for its frequent recall. This is
most important. It renders knowledge facile. It
flows readily, easily, freely, in the mind. It
makes knowledge usable.

In your Sunday-school class, follow clear in-
struction with judicious drill. Think how many
things that you once knew are gone beyond re-
call, because you did not have them drilled into
your memory by frequent repetition. There is
nothing so senseless as to drill upon trivial or
non-understood things. Avoid that if you love
a child's soul ; but consider how unjustifiable is
a teaching process that does not carry knowledge
to the point where it becomes permanently use-

SOME FACTS CONCERNING MEMORY 55

fill. I ask you to give me the answer to the
question : " Seven times six are how many ? "
You know instantly. You have
Memory and Drill been drilled on that. You know
it in a usable way. " Seven
times sixteen are how many ? " You are not so
sure of your answer. You may want pencil and
pad for that, or you may do as one of my pupils
did, say seven times eight are fifty-six, and two
times fifty-six are one hundred and twelve. Note
how he had to change the problem into forms
that were drilled into him before he could men-
tally assert a conclusion. We must deepen the
impression if we are to secure proper and prompt
expression.

You will not forget that good teaching also
requires that the new thought-image is to be as-
sociated with other thought-images. Thus the
binding force of association is utilized to enrich
knowledge. Knowledge is not literary hash. It
is an organic meal, each part of which is to com-
plement each other part, and the laws of associa-
tion are to bind them into a unit.

Every time a former impression, or mental
image, is recalled, it is brought into some new
relation to other images. Even as simple an
image as that of dog is made richer by recall.
This enrichment is secured not only by increased
vividness, but also by increased association with

56 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

other images in the mind. Every time I recall
the figure of Jesus standing at dawn by the mist-
mantled shore of Galilee, the
MeroT.ml;is %ht Striking across the hill-top,
the small fire glowing in the
twilight, and illuminating the face of the Master,
— that splendid scene of a great life-light on a
background of night and darkness, — I can in-
creasingly comprehend his invitation to the night-
toilers : "Come and break your fast." I have
pondered this scene until it is so vivid that I al-
most discern the awe, the sacred hush, that over-
came the disciples ; and the glow of the fire seems
to me to illuminate a face that shines upon my
soul all through the day, all through the night.
I bless God for that picture of hope, of help, of
Him.

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

Note that the percept is also called an idea or an
image. Do you see why this is necessary?

Can you distinguish clearly the real cat, the picture
cat, the idea or image cat, and the word cat? In what
order should these be presented to the mind of the
pupil?

If we reverse the true order, what is likely to result?

Name any instance known to you in which the idea
recalled did not agree with the thing it represented.
What explanation can you offer of this confused result?

SOME FACTS CONCERNING MEMORY 5/

A child that had never before seen a fern called it
"a pot of green feathers." Do you see why?

If you have not thought of your primer for many
days, where was the knowledge of the primer since last
you thought of it until now? Could you have recalled
it at any moment of this intervening time?

Do we ever really forget?

Do we know a fact when we can repeat it from
memory?

Consider the permanency of knowledge once set in the
human soul.

How do }'ou proceed to make easy the power of the
child to recall what you have once taught?

What is the secret of interest in review work?

What is the relation of memory training to the whole
problem of education?

Consider what drill means in education.

What do the laws of association do with the facts in
memory ?

VI

RETENTION AND RECOLLECTION

np wo important things for the teacher arise
at this point. If the impression is to be
deep and abiding it must be made when the at-
tention is aglow with interest, i. The fact we
wish to impress must be given with directness
and with emphasis. You have often noticed the
tendency of children to study aloud. It is due to
the fact that the sound of the
"^'Tetenuoi'"' ^ords helps deepen the impres-
sion. I have known persons
who would nod the head, tap with their fingers,
or stamp their feet upon the floor that they might
in these ways deepen the impression. We do
know that a change in voice, a tension of muscles,
a momentary pause, the raising of the hand, the
repetition of the important words — all aid in
making vivid the impression in the mind of the
learner. We recall a place we have actually seen
better than one we have read about, because the
place seen is more vividly impressed, — its image
is more distinct, — than is that of the place we
have only seen indirectly through words. Teach-
ing through objects has a value that teaching
through words cannot possess.
58

RETENTION AND RECOLLECTION 59

2. The impression must be given when the
mind is in right attitude to attend to it. If we are
to retain the impression long, we must acquire
it under conditions of interest. The boy who is

excited over a game of ball is
"Reten^ion**^ able for a long while to recall
the details of the game. This
keen interest secures a fineness of detail that is
of tremendous significance. How futile it is to
try to secure right memory-products when the
mind of the pupil is attending to matters foreign
to the lesson in hand !

3. The value of the impression is heightened
when it is accompanied by strong feeling. This
is the basis of our great orations, our great hu-
manitarian societies, and our impassioned litera-
ture. Men and women under

Retention* the stress of great emotion were

so vividly impressed that they

could not remain quiet. The utterance of the

feeling was imperative. They spoke, they sang,

they wrought, because they felt keenly.

4. The value of the impression is also condi-
tioned by the state of the body. If we are

fatigued, if for anv bodily or
**of mI!"'' "lental cause the vigor of the

mind is in any degree impaired,
the product in memory is weak.

This analysis may seem somewhat tedious, but

60 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

if you will give it careful study you will see how
depth of impression is secured through attention.

Note in the next place that if the impression is
to be retained it must be frequently repeated.
The great bulk of our images answers to objects
that we have seen again and again. The more
frequently we recall an image to consciousness
the more enduring will be the image. This law
is so obvious that it has always been used by
teachers, and often to the abuse of the memory
instead of its training. Masses of unrelated and
non-understood things are drilled into the mem-
ory, as if the mere ability to re-
Repetition peat great sums of things were
in some way knowledge. Thus
arises that pernicious process of cramming, the
bane of healthy mental growth and the inevitable
retreat of poor teachers. Things thus forced
upon memory are so much dead wood. They
are not only useless, but they impair the memory
for its proper function, which is to hold for sub-
sequent use facts of knowledge already clearly
understood by the mind.

The function of memory is twofold, — to re-
tain and to recall knowledge. Let us now con-
sider the conditions under which knowledge is
most easily and surely recalled through an act
of memory. Note that there is a predisposition
to recall what has been vividly impressed. All

RETENTION AND RECOLLECTION 6 1

that our study can do is to point out the condi-
tions under which this natural tendency will
best manifest itself. The answer to this inquiry
is found in the experience, common to us all,

by which we attach to each fact
'Rlcoiiecuon*' ^^ knowledge some other fact

of knowledge. The greater the
number of these attachments or relations, the
more readily is each fact recalled. Thus we en-
deavor to link our facts together. Every such
connection makes each fact in the series more
valuable, because it is thus more readily recalled,
it is more usable ; and because it is thus enriched,
it has a wider use. Isolation of facts in the mind
is as fatal to mental growth as is isolation of the
individual to social progress. The value of fre-
quent recall of memory images lies in the at-
tachments or the relations they thus establish.
It is a most interesting study to trace the subtle
connections by which one memory image is re-
called by another. All these connections may
be grouped under general laws called the laws
of association. These association laws give us
the explanation of the power to recall memory

images. They are usually cata-

As^oratfon 'o§'";^ ^^ the (i) law of Con-
tiguity; (2) law of similarity or
resemblance; and (3) law of contrast. Others
are sometimes given.

62 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

(i) By the first of these laws we find it rela-
tively easy to associate places, things, and events
that lie near to each other. Experiences which
occur together usually suggest each other. When
one is recalled, the other is likely also to arise
in consciousness. I was in Louisiana at the time
of the great flood in western Pennsylvania.
These two facts have seemingly no relation, and
yet I seldom, perhaps never, recall my trip from
Shreveport to Monroe that I do not also recall
the awful loss of life at Johnstown. The two
things came together, and the one recalls the
other. The association is fixed ; the images are
wedded. What God thus joins together, we can-
not put asunder. When I recall the Sunday after-
noons of my boyhood summers, there always
arises the fragrant memory of walks in the forest
with my father. But why
Contiguity enumerate? The law is written
over all our experiences. The
thing to remember is that no unlovely memory
shall attach to the experiences of our youthful
years in the study of God's Word. Let all the as-
sociations of that study be wholesome and
sweet and helpful. Thus we shall permanently
predispose the soul of the child to a sincere love
for the better life and its lessons as we have
endeavored to impress them,

(2) Things that in some intrinsic manner re-.

RETENTION AND RECOLLECTION 63

semble one another arc usually so grouped that
their images mutually aid one another in recall.
As I think of Christmas giving, I recall the ob-
servance of this act in the island of Porto Rico.
There the gift-giving occurs at the anniversary
of the coming of the wise men from the East, who
came with gifts to Him whose star they saw in
the east, 1 can yet in memory see the grass-
filled boxes outside the doors of the peasants,

and the simple faith of a child-
Resembiance hood that belicvcs the wise men

will come on the backs of
donkeys. If a child has been naughty, the
donkeys eat the grass and leave the box empty.
If, on the contrary, the child has been good, the
fragrant grass becomes the depository of the
gifts that the wise men bear for those that are
worthy. While I write this, a flood of similar
observances in all parts of the world is recalled,
and while I ponder upon the world-wide custom,
my heart catches itself with a great joy as I re-
call the One in whose honor all this is done.
This is but a type of a form of association that
knits together in memory vast groups of related
images. A wise teacher always seeks to establish
association by resemblance.

(3) Things that in some manner suggest op-
position or contrast are generally so grouped in
memory that they mutually recall each other.

64 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

How full our lives are of contradictory things
that thrust themselves forward in association.
Upon Thanksgiving Day, when we had our home
dinners, how common was the remark, " I wish
every family in the city might to-day have as
good a meal." It was our own comfort in asso-
ciation with the needs of others that caused us

thus to recall the two together.
Contrast The fabric of our thought is

filled with these contrasted pic-
tures of sorrow and joy, of pleasure and pain,
of health and sickness, of right and wrong, of
life and death. The Bible itself is largely a rec-
ord of the conflict between two great opposing
forces, — good and evil, God and the evil one.
Good teaching notes this form of association, and
endeavors to impress truth by positive ideas of
what truth is, and by negative ideas of what it is
not. There is thus a basis in this law for positive
teaching and for negative teaching. We do what
is right by knowing what the right is, and also
by knowing what it is not.

One finds in these natural laws of association
most important guidance in teaching. The wise
teacher will use his materials of instruction in
such a way as to occasion in the mind large
groups of related truths, bound together by every
law of association through which the mind oper-
ates. In this way each new truth becomes a part

RETENTION AND RECOLLECTION 65

of a system of thought. It is enriched, and it
enriches by every proper association thus es-
tabHshed.

There are schemes of association that are de-
vised to trick the memory into grouping things
that are not naturally related. They are called
memory systems. They employ some form of
mnemonics to take the place of a natural law.
From all these keep yourself free. If they have
merit, it is due to their use of natural laws,
which had better be used instead. If they are
opposed to these laws, they are in the end per-
nicious. Nothing can be devised that is quite
so useful as the laws God has set in the soul.
Let us discover these laws and follow them.

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

Consider the value of directness and of simple lan-
guage in teaching.

What things in your experience as a pupil in the
S-inday-school do you recall most vividly? What sug-
gestion does this offer to you?

If fatigue has something to do with memory results,
has it also sotnething to do with teaching? What will
the amount of sleep you secure Saturday night have to
do with your usefulness as a teacher the next day?

How do you secure repetition without at the same
time resorting to the cramming process in teaching?

Just what is the legitimate use of memory?

66 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

Study your own mind processes to verify the state-
ment that the mind naturally tends to recall former facts
of knowledge. Is this recall a pleasurable activity?

How do you enrich a fact of knowledge?

Outline the laws of association, and write a paragraph
based upon your own experience illustrating each law.

Write out at length the laws of teaching that a study
of the laws of association suggests.

What laws of association, not named here, are sug-
gested to you by a study of your own processes of re-
call?

VII

THE BUILDING OF IDEALS

"jV/T EMORY is the soul's storehouse. In it is
treasured all our past. From it we draw
from time to time the elements of knowledge we
need for present use, in determining both what
to do with the new perceptions that are con-
stantly forming in the soul, and also what to
choose for guidance in conduct. Thus all that
we have known is of use in interpreting new
knowledge and in directing us to additional
knowledge.

A new object is presented to my senses. I

am not aware of having perceived it before. I am

surprised. *' What is it? " I ask.

^^KnowtraLr*^ ^^ °"^^ ^^^ ^y remembered
knowledge that in any way re-
sembles it rushes to my aid. The soul is resolved
to subdue it, if it can. It can, if it is not entirely
new. But if it is entirely new I cannot answer
the inquiry. The boy that for the first time tasted
a new kind of candy, — called in the trade a sour-
ball, — found it at last sweet, then transparent,
then hard, and finally thought he had identified
it. He said : " It is sweet ice." This was the
best he could do with it.

67

68 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

I recall a series of events. There is a break in
the series. Some additional element is needed
to complete it. Through this power of recall I
am made familiar with my present mental stock ;
I am also made aware of my lack. Knowing
what I need I am able to institute inquiries that
will secure it. Thus my knowledge becomes in-
creasingly complete.

Memory recall is exact recall. The thing
comes again just as it was. We recognize it not
only as a thing of the past, but the exact repro-
duction of the past. Is there
Exact Recall any Other method of recall ? Do
we possess the power to separate
past knowledge and recall only chosen parts of it,
and combine them into an object of thought,
each part of which is a past experience, but
which, as a whole, is not at all like anything in
our past knowledge? We have such a power.
It is at once the most fertile and the most dan-
gerous power we possess. We call it Imagina-
tion, by which term we designate the power of
the soul to work up its past ex-
""oeiiTed**" periences into new forms of
thought. It seems as if the soul
wearies of exact recall, and decides to follow
its own caprice, its own order of procedure. I
have known boys, accompanying their father for
a walk, obey the restraints of good form until

THE BUILDING OF IDEALS 69

the native woods were reached, when with a
shout and a leap all objective guidance was
thrown to the winds, and the boys ran and leaped
and shouted and reveled in the glorious freedom
of unrestrained activity. So it seems to me that
at times the soul breaks away from the routine
of memory recall, and virtually proclaims its
purpose to set in consciousness what it most en-
joys, regardless of the relation this may have or
not have to any real experience of the past.

Thus the soul builds only chosen elements, re-
jecting all that are broken or unlovely or unwor-
thy, into an ideal which it cherishes vastly more
than any real because it is the best combination
it can make from the best elements it can choose
out of its whole treasury of knowledge. The
function of this power of the soul is to create our
ideals. God wants us to enjoy not alone the
finest scenes that fall within our

Function of , t , i. • ^i

Imagination '^'c"' he wauts US to eujoy the
finest things our souls can enter-
tain. Hence he has given us this power of re-
creation by which we may make for ourselves
a world after our own wish, peopled as we pre-
fer, and abounding in such life and incident as
we can invest with the fullest measure of feel-
ing, and is consequently to us most delightful.
We know these products to be distinct from
memory products after we have created them

70 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

often enough to become familiar with the fact
that they cannot, as a whole, be referred to our
past experience for verification.

Thus by eliminating the things we care least
for, and by substituting others that we do care
for, we build, bit by bit, our beautiful ideals, —
the soul-images that so potentially influence our
lives. How full of feeling is this activity ! How
we revel in it because we are free from all limi-
tations ! Our minds are like the river that "glid-
eth at his own sweet will." Thus we make the
picture life of thought which at last we carve
into a life of deeds. Without

Power of Ideals ideals there could be no progress,
— only endless and changeless,
dreary and hopeless monotony. Without ideals
our minds would become like the wayside pool, —
stagnant and deadly. With ideals they become
like mountain rills that leap from moss-rimmed
rocks in endless showers of silver spray, clothed
in rainbows, and bearing in their sweep life and
beauty and grandeur. Happy the child whose
unfettered spirit may build after its own plans
the terraced slopes, the sun-crowned spires, the
carved pillars, and the golden portals of the
temple of truth. Into it his spirit may pass to
find the sweetest communions, and to gather in-
spiration for the highest achievements. It is the
soul's most holy place. Jdere the divinity that

THE BUILDING OF IDEALS 7I

is in US is enshrined. Here we may worship and
adore. The soul is most joyous when most free.
The desire to build ideals is innate. We long to
become what our ideals figure. The struggle is

always from the thing we are
Lowell to the thing we wish to be.

Lowell well portrays this in his
poem entitled " Longing " :

Of all the myriad moods of mind

That through the soul come thronging,
Which one was e'er so dear, so kind,

So beautiful as Longing?
The thing we long for, that we are

For one transcendent moment,
Before the Present poor and bare

Can make its sneering comment.

Still, through our paltry stir and strife.

Glows down the wished Ideal,
And Longing moulds in clay what Life

Carves in the marble Real;
To let the new life in, we know,

Desire must ope the portal ; —
Perhaps the longing to be so

Helps make the soul immortal.

Longing is God's fresh heavenward will

With our poor earthward striving;
We quench it that we may be still

Content with merely living;
But, would we learn that heart's full scope

Which we are hourly wronging.
Our lives must climb from hope to hope

And realize our longing.

72 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

Ah ! let us hope that to our praise

Good God not only reckons
The moments when we tread his ways,

But when the spirit beckons, —
That some slight good is also wrought

Beyond self-satisfaction.
When we are simply good in thought,

Howe'er we fail in action.

It is to be noted that this power to create ideals
is an intentional power. It is different from
dream-life and from the air-castle life that some
associate with it. This association has been un-
fortunate. This association has led many to re-
gard the imagination as a sort of capricious,
dreamy, hazy, and useless power. It has even
led us to regard the man of

An Intentional j^^^j^ ^^ ^ rainbow-chaser, a

Power '

dreamer, an impracticable and
altogether unworthy person. This is neither
just nor reasonable. It is in fact a most valuable
power, one that we should love well enough to
give it adequate exercise, and understand well
enough to give it thoughtful consideration in a
study of the complex soul of a child.

Through this power we bring our rich feeling-
life into happy combination with our thought-
life. The imagination is the feeling-power of the
soul. By it we invest the barren facts of knowl-
edge with all the glow and ardor and fragrance
which fill the recesses of the soul. Note that the

THE BUILDING OF IDEALS 73

imagination builds only concrete images. It

breaks up our abstract and general notions into

individual and concrete pictures.

Imagination and ^j^j^ j^ ^^^ -^ jj^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^j^^
Feeling -'

feeling-life. I think of leader-
ship, and there arises in my soul an image of that
heroic leader who for years fed his father-in-
law's flocks, and for the same time fed upon the
thoughts that God gave him, until he became
wise enough and strong enough to speak for God
in Egypt, to act for God in the wilderness, and
to talk with God in the morning, alone, above
the mountain mists. In my imagination there
looms up the heroic-souled Moses. I think of
noble womanhood, and there comes to me an
image of that queenly-spirited and really noble
woman — Ruth :

"When sick for home,
She stood in tears, amid the alien corn."

I think of father-love, and there sweeps into my
vision the broken-voiced and heart-wrung king
crying in the agony of his soul, " O my son Ab-
salom, my son, my son Absalom ! " How infi-
nitely superior as teaching material are these
warm, concrete pictures in the imagination to
the cold abstractions of memory and of judg-
ment! How the imagination speaks in the val-
ley of the soul, and the dry bones of thought

74 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

stand up, clothed with the flesh of feeling, and
thrilled with the warm pulse of life. Oh, my
teacher ! ponder well this power of the soul. Its
issues are so far-reaching and so fruitful.

Imagination is limited to our perceptions. We
cannot ideally create a world containing elements
wholly outside of our experience. The ideals of
the blind are colorless. The ideals of the deaf
are soundless. The ideals of the city child lack
the rich imagery of the country. The ideals of
the country boy lack the elements common to the
city boy. A girl educated in Ohio, where she
never saw a mountain, and her teacher had never
given her any notion of mountain beyond its ele-
vation, wept when she came east and drew near
to the great mountains of Pennsylvania. She
explained that she was frightened lest the train
should break asunder on the very crest of the
mountain. Upon inquiry, it was ascertained that
she thought the top of the mountain less than a
foot in width, with sharp slopes on either side.

The ideals of all of us are bound up with our
experience. If, then, we wish to build beautiful
and true images of the higher life, we must set

the elements of this life vividly
"''Ydeau *" ^" *^^ soul, and endeavor, by all

the skill at our command, to
help the pupil to erect right ideals of the life he
should live. The most elusive power of soul is

THE BUILDING OF IDEALS 75

the power of feeling. To capture the feelings is
to control the soul's citadel. Study carefully the
Bible references to the heart, the figurative foun-
tain of feeling. You will then begin to under-
stand why the Psalmist writes, "Thy word have
I hid in my heart." You will know with new
meaning the value of the wise man's injunction:
" Keep thy heart with all diligence." You will
also begin to comprehend the great beatitude :
" Blessed are the pure in heart." If this power
of feeling is so potent, let us ask ourselves prayer-
fully, "How may the feeling-life be trained?"

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

How do you distinguish between a product of the
memory and a product of the imagination?

What do the following words suggest to you : Carrara,
Miniver, Rococo. Vedas? If you cannot answer the
question " What is it ? " in each case, what do you do ?
What does this suggest to you as a teacher ?

Recall any related group of ideas, as the Presidents
of the United States in order, the kings of Israel in
order, the cities Paul visited on his way to Rome. If
you fail to recall all of the series, what do you do ?

Do you see any reason for calling imagination a
dangerous power? Ponder this thoughtfully.

In what way is our ideal related to the real? Which
is the more potential? Discuss the way we know an
imagination product from a memory product. What

76 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

is meant by the imagination's power to create ideals
being an intentional power?

Put your idea of goodness, of kindness, of helpful-
ness, and of faith, into a concrete image. Study what you
did in each case.

Are you trying Sunday by Sunday to give your pupils
the materials of thought with which they may through
imagination build a beautiful life?

VIII

FEELING AND IMAGINATION

T N THE preceding- chapter the question is
raised, How may the feehng-Hfe be ntihzed
in the education of a soul ? The answer to this
inquiry is as difficult as it is important. We all
agree that education must influence the whole
life of the soul. It must not be addressed to the
thought-life alone, but must also touch the feel-
ing-life and the will-life. Our educational litera-
ture is filled with elaborate discussions of the
thought-life, and some discussions of the will-
life, but really no clear discus-
SnatTon ^^ou of the feeling-life. When
we considered interest in its
relation to attention, the feelings thrust them-
selves into the discussion. Here, again, in a discus-
sion of the imagination these feeling elements
claim our thought. In fact, every time we
drop the plummet to the inner depths of our
discussion we shall invariably touch some aspect
of feeling.

Dr. Holland characterizes the atmosphere in
the Garden of Eden as " uneasy with its burden
of vitality." T have been in a tropical forest,

n

78 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

deep in a valley of Porto Rico, where the atmos-
phere seemed surcharged with the plastic ele-
ments of life. Light and warmth and moisture
were so beautifully blended that it seemed only
necessary to disturb, by a wave of the hand, the
delicate poise of elements, and there would burst
forth a wealth of bloom, a pro-
Tho"ifght fusion of life, to thrill the be-
holder. One felt instinctively
that life, nascent but real, was in the very ele-
ments about him. So, it seems to me, it is in the
soul. Everywhere, brooding like an over-soul
upon the thought-life, is this marvelous mystery
of feeling. One can feel the tension, one can al-
most vision the sweep of its power, as it surges
like a fragrant tide of life over the ranges of our
thoughts. There is a strangely solemn pause.
We await the issue. This feeling is gathering
strength. At last it breaks over all barriers, and
sweeps upward into thought. The tension is re-
lieved. The vague sweep of our feeling is crys-
tallized into thought, and rests in consciousness
as an element of knowledge.

"All thought begins in feeling, — wide
In the great mass its base is hid,
And, narrowing up to thought, stands glorified,
A moveless pyramid."

Thought that is born of feeling, and is "un-

FEELING AND IMAGINATION 79

easy with its burden of vitality," is thought en-
ergized for the will. It issues in action. We
feel keenly, know clearly, and
Feenngand ^^^ promptly. The act is con-
ditioned more by our feeling
than it is by our thinking. We act because we
feel, and as we feel. Hence to capture the citadel
of action, the cohorts of conduct, we must re-
gard the feelings. When our feelings are crys-
tallized into thought elements they naturally seek
the imagination as their channel of expression.
The imagination lies midway between feeling and
thinking. On the one side it shades into the
indefinable elements of feeling ; on the other side,
into the definable limits of thought. The imagi-
nation may be figured as the bridge that spans
the valley between the ranges of feeling and of
thought. Over this bridge our feelings sweep to
be organized into thoughts. Their passing is
most interesting. The result is
^%^IufS°* most perplexing. In the vistas
of thought we arrange our ideas
deliberately for some selected service. Over the
bridge swarm our feelings, and lo ! the ordered
array of ideas is broken, the unexpected has hap-
pened. The issue is action wholly unlike what we
planned, and frequently wholly beyond our con-
trol. We say we are carried away by our feel-
ings, swept from our thought moorings by the

8o THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

tide of emotion. Let us ponder this mysterious
process.

If we can figure imagination as a bridge over
which our emotions sweep into our thought-Hfe
and thence to our voHtional-hfe, a number of in-
teresting things arise for our study. Thought
may soUcit feeUng, may beckon to it to come over
and join in the complex of our ordered Hfe of
thought. This is especially true after experience
has demonstrated the enrichment of our thought
by the addition of feeling. Our thoughts may
be enriched in various ways. We note now only
one way, — by the addition of feeling. I heard a
good man say that when, at thirteen, he left home
for college, his father said to him : " My son,
if, when you are away from
Illustrations liomc, any of your comrades in-
vite you to touch even one drop
of liquor, I have only one thing to say, ' Remem-
ber your mother.' " The sweep of feeling from
a heart full of mother-love kept his hand, from
the withering curse. As I write these words
there comes to me a picture of our old village
doctor, standing in my father's store waiting to
receive from me his daily mail. As the pack-
age was passed to him, he looked me kindly but
earnestly in the eye, and said : " Martin, I have
known your family in this valley for three gen-
erations. I never knew one of them to be in-

FEELING AND IMAGINATION 8 1

toxicated. See to it that you do not break the
family record." It was the best temperance ser-
mon I ever heard.

Feehng may be weaker than thought, and the
minghng of the two leaves thought in control;
or it may be stronger, and place feeling in con-
trol; or they may be so evenly matched as to
leave the will without a motive strong enough
to afford guidance. We all pass under the as-
pects of the struggle between feeling and thought,
between emotion and reflection, between passion
and purpose. Sometimes the thought-power
seems to have strength to lift the draw of the
bridge, to close the avenue of approach, and to
compel the feelings to wait and wither and waste.
In the meantime, with cold, calculating intellect
we allow no emotion to tinge the colorless sky
of our thought. Against such a stolid and resist-
ing mind, " To-day, if ye will hear his voice,
harden not your heart." There is no justification
for the idea, so widely prevalent, that good
thinking must be thinking devoid of feeling. The

wise teacher will allow the feel-
A False View ing-life of the child to fuse with

his thoughts, will encourage all
that rich imagery that results, will be careful only
that the emotions which are at first crude and
untrained become at last refined and controlled.
The child that is being taught about the loving

82 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

Father has a perfect right to " come before his
presence with singing," to " enter into his gates
with thanksgiving " and with gladness, " and into
his courts with praise" and with rejoicing. To
deny him this need of his soul is to allow his
rich feeling-life at the first opportune moment to
run into riotous rebellion against the very things
we most desire him to accept. His emotions are
not to be driven with flaming sword and wrathful
menace from the fragrant fields of religious truth.
If only we knew how much better it is to be
kindly stern and sternly kind, than simply to be
sternly stern in dealing with our children in the
Sunday-school !

If we do banish the child's emotions from our
teaching processes, remember that these same
emotions will crowd the bridge, will pass the
gate, and sooner or later break down all barriers,
overthrow all thought restraint, and sweep the
child on to his doom. I've known parents and
teachers who unwisely undertook to do this very
thing. " Crucify all pleasurable activity," was
the cry. Alas ! they learned, at last, that God
gave us these emotions that we might train them
for service, that we might marshal them like an
army for the victories of the soul.

It is better to allow the normal flow of feeling
over into the region of thought. In this way
both thought and feeling become organized, and

FEELING AND IMAGINATION 83

pass under the control of the will. Note, too,
that when thought is stimulated by feeling there
is at once a mental result that demands expres-
sion. We do not always act as we think. Our
lives might be ideally moral if \ve did so. There
is a s-reat sfulf at times between the wav we think
duty and the way we act it. The closing of this
gulf is the work of the teacher whose interest is
moral or religious. Conscience is the revealer
of this gulf. By conscience we are made aware
of the difference between our

What Conscience j^ j y^ ■ thought and OUf
Does C5

real life in action. Conscience
seems to me to be really the measure of this dif-
ference. When the difference is great, the ten-
sion is great. We say conscience is aroused. What
really happens is that there is a sense of pain,
due to the tension by which we realize how far our
conduct falls below our ideal. When we do
our best, w^hen our conduct rises to the plane of
our ideal, we relieve the tension. Conscience is
quiescent. We feel no pain. We have acted up to
our thought-standard. We have for the time
lived ideally. Feeling aids conduct to reach this
high plane. It is, therefore, of tremendous value
in molding our lives on the ideal side. It follows
also that the power of the soul that builds our
ideals is a power most intimately identified with
the phenomena of conscience.

84 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

The ideal is the standard set in the soul up to
which conscience strives to draw our conduct.
If we are living below our best, it is perhaps due
to the fact that we lack a clear ideal of that best,
or it may be that we have so
Defined ^°"§^ ignored the beckonings of

our ideal that it is no longer po-
tent as guidance to us. We may live so long
below our best as to lose the power to reach it.
This may figure the state of mind possessed by
the habitually base man or woman. In that event,
the only human relief lies in building a new ideal
that may be reached. This may suggest the
problem of social reform in a score of direc-
tions.

But the child may be saved the awful struggle
with an ofifended ideal, provided wise teaching
makes easy and constant the realization of its
ideal. Let us call up again our bridge between
thought and feeling. If the feelings sweep over
the bridge, and, unchecked by thought, rush on
to action, we have a most dangerous condition.
The soul is in the thrall of unrestrained passion.
We have actions that are frenzied, intemperate,
and riotously excessive. We have the quality of
the mob. We are crazed by passion. This is
sometimes seen in children who give way to wild
bursts of anger and other base emotions that out-
rage all thought-ideals, and that seriously menace

FEELING AND IMAGINATION 85

the well-being of the child. The will is under
control of blind passion. The thing to remem-
ber is that feeling must be tempered by thought
before it is a wise guide to the will. On the other
hand, thought uninfluenced by feeling is at times
a dangerous guide to the will. Shakespeare
figures such a character in lago, who may be
characterized as a sort of intellectual devil. Evi-
dently it is the judicious blending of all the quali-
ties of soul that makes for sanity, — sanity of
thought, sanity of feeling, sanity of conduct.

The flow of feeling over the bridge in child-
hood is more steady and less checked than when
later in life there is an organized thought-life to
Children's intercept it. Children are im-
conduct pulsive. Feeling flows unre-
unstabie strained to conduct. Conduct is
not wisely regulated. No thought ideal has as
yet been set up. We must not, however, con-
clude that their feelings are not keen. To them
pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, are not only
very real, but very acute. Many are the trage-
dies of childhood that to mature minds seem
trivial. We teach wisely only as we keep close
to the realities of the child. We must become as
little children if we are to lead them. Remem-
ber that the concrete, living, acting qualities of
things are the ones from which the child most
fully secures nutrition. Press your lessons into

86 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

such forms, and the question of interest is set-
tled.

The teacher must distinguish carefully be-
tween true imagination and those wild and sud-
den bursts of fancy which most children manifest
at some time or other in the development of their
minds. This latter phase of the subject is some-
times treated of as fantasy, by which word we
are to understand the power of the soul to weave
our experiences into forms that are absolutely
unreal and unattainable. These grotesque and
fantastic products are sometimes spoken of as
phantasms, and the tendency of the child mind
to build these is so common that we have a whole
literature developed in harmony with this activ-
ity. It is the literature of fable and fairy tale

and all that sort of thing, the
Fantasy purpose of which seems to be to

give nutrition to the feelings
and to enable this power to work itself off in the
least harmful way. There is no law of the mind
to govern this act. We seem to have really no
part in it, but look upon the act as if it were
something going on independent of us. The
amount of attention is small and the products are
generally valueless. Unless the child indulges in
this activity at times when he ought to be en-
gaged in some serious matters, — that is, in mat-
ters that are specifically self-directed, — the pro-

FEELING AND IMAGINATION 8/

cess is not to be seriously regarded. The child
comes through the period witliout apparent in-
jury, and seems to be aware all the while that
there is no reality in this act. The process con-
tinues even when we are asleep, because the soul
never ceases to act. Alemory itself is active only
in a suggestive way ; that is to say, there seems
to be a willingness on the part of the memory to
allow these products to be worked up without any
regard to the result. The phenomena of this
phase of imagination need only to be recognized,
but not studied by the Sunday-school teacher.
His work is not with these side activities, save
only in so far as he recognizes what they are,
and makes proper note of their appearance.

The imagination proper, on the other hand,
is a very real power, and its products are perma-
nent. It is in one aspect a dangerous power.
Let us understand what that means. Any power
which reports the feeling-life intimately must be
trained with great delicacy and care, because
these feelings will assert themselves, no matter
what we may do to prevent it. If the feelings
themselves are unlovely and immoral, they are
very likely to occasion images that are of the
same character, and the child may be building in
his soul, even without our knowing it, images
that will interfere with anything like high and
helpful educational processes. It is the problem

88 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

of the teacher at this point to nourish the feel-
ings of the child with materials that will weave

themselves into pure and help-
Caution ^'■^^ images. Let us not be afraid

to take note of the feelings of the
child as they become molded into thought forms
by the imagination. Let us encourage the child
to give expression to his images, because in this
way he is most likely to create only the kind of
images that are pure and clean. Social Purity
Leagues are doing a great deal of work in this
direction. They try to keep the fountains of
feeling sweet, and as a result the whole thought
of the child is wholesome. I wish to commend to
you a thoughtful reading of Dr. Josiah Gilbert
Holland's chapter on " Vices of Imagination/' in
his volume entitled " Gold-Foil." You will find

it one of the most helpful ser-
""ouoted" nions in this direction. He points

out among other things that
m.any people toy with sin and they harbor these
unclean images sometimes for years. There
seems to be no act to indicate that they are pres-
ent when suddenly the crash comes. Dr. Hol-
land is of the opinion that these crises are not
sudden, but are due to the fact that the mind has
harbored unlovely images for years, and that
gradually the whole moral fiber was broken down
and finally could no longer restrain expression.

FEELING AND IMAGINATION 89

His description of the world of sense built by
the imagination seems to me to be so strikingly
effective that I quote for your study the para-
graph entire :

" How fair and foul it is ! Like a fairy island
in the sea of life, it smiles in sunlight and sleeps
in green, known of the world not by communion
of knowledge, but by personal, secret discovery!
The waves of every ocean kiss its feet. The airs
of every clime play among its trees, and tire
with the voluptuous music which they bear.
Flowers bend idly to the fall of fountains, and
beautiful forms are wreathing their white arms,
and calling for companionship. Out toward this
charmed island, by day and by night, a million
shallops push unseen of each other, and of the
world of real life left behind, for revelry and
reward ! The single sailors never meet each
other; they tread the same paths unknown of
each other; they come back, and no one knows,
and no one asks where they have been. Again
and again is the visit repeated, with no abso-
lutely vicious intention, yet not without gathering
the taint of vice. If God's light could shine upon
this crowded sea, and discover the secrets of the
island which it invests, what shameful retreats
and encounters should we witness — fathers,
mothers, maidens, men — children even, whom
we had deemed as pure as snow, flying with

90 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

guilty eyes and white lips to hide themselves from
a great disgrace !

It seems to me that we have here an excep-
tional opportunity for the Sunday-school, be-
cause, in a negative way, it protects the child, at
least for a time, from any nutrition of his feel
ings which might lead to such dire results ; and,
again, the Sunday-school does give the teacher
an opportunity to put into the mind of the child
through his feeling-life such a
A Sunday-School gfoup of rich Concrete materials

opportunity .

as will compel his mind to or-
ganize pictures through the imagination of
things that are pure and clean and lovely alto-
gether. Sometimes we are not satisfied because
we do not obtain the results in thought which
we desire. Even if thought is not secured and
expression is not obtained, some good has been
done by giving to the child the necessary mate-
rials out of which in due course of time he v/ill
build bit by bit in his soul images that will guide
him in right lines of wholesome thought. The
feelings are the quickeners of conduct, and if the
feelings are of the right sort the issue in con-
duct will always be worthy.

If one's feelings are molded into thought-
images by the imagination, and the teaching pro-
cess stops there, we are in very great danger
of giving the child the wrong materials for his

FEELING AND IMAGINATION 9I

final religious education. He must look beyond
these images, look through these images, and see
the reality of religion which these images merely
shadow forth and define. Back of the imagery
must be insight — an insight which recognizes that
the images themselves are not the final things,
but merely guides to the great unseen realities
which are, after all, the proper possessions of the
soul. If the mind of the child
hnages" rests in its images, it will come
at last to worship these, and
there results not true religion, but idolatry.
When the child worships the images of gods and
of other religious conceptions his intellectual life
corresponds to that of nations that have never
gone beyond the stage of idolatry. Image wor-
ship is almost a universal worship at a certain
stage, both in the development of the race and
of the individual. When the Israelites in the
wilderness were left to themselves, or seemed to
be left to themselves, they created some image,
as of a golden calf, and before it prostrated them-
selves in worship. But the true Christian
education pushes beyond imagery and seeks to
worship only real things of the spiritual life, and
understands that all this imagery is but an
attempt of the human spirit to give form and
definition to the unseen but very real things of
the kingdom of heaven.

92 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

Be sure, while you teach, to make clear to ths
mind of the child the great distinction between
an image and the reality which it represents, and
to impress upon the mind of the child that wor-
ship belongs not to the thing made by hand, but
to the things which these hand-wrought objects
in a crude way merely typify. You will see, of
course, that these images are the concrete ma-
terials up through which the soul of the child
climbs to his final and triumphant understanding
of religious things. You will use in your teach-
ing beautiful poems, beautiful
'Telmies'* songs, beautiful pictures, and
other art materials. See to it
that the child understands that all of these are
but the products — the broken products — of lim-
ited mental action, and that they are not the eter-
nal and enduring realities. Happy the teacher
that has skill and insight to lead the child out
of the things of the senses up into the things of
the spirit.

Thought is organized feeling. It is feeling

molded into permanent forms, and stored in

memory for use. The mold is the imagination.

Imagination is the power by

Thought Defined which the soul defines feeling,

molds it, gives to it limits and

bounds. All great virtues are objectified as

images. This is the picture-making power of the

FEELING AND IMAGINATION 93

soul. Faith, hope, and charity become the three
graces ; the three graces become three young
women, in whose faces the artist sets the quah-
ties that God, through him, seeks to reveal. We
need to define our reHgious feehngs in these
images. This makes more real our understand-
ing of them. Our painters, architects, sculptors,
poets, musicians, all use this power to convey by
images the great passions or emotions of the hu-
man soul. All the great produc-
'!Zf co^rltr tions of art are crystallized
feelings, caught in color or form
or sound or language, to be enjoyed forever. Take
up your favorite poems, musical productions,
and other rich art materials, and study them as
the definitions of religious feelings. It is not
■necessary to cite examples. The world is full
of material. Note, too, how full of symbolism
is our religious environment. Ask yourself what
all this objective symbolism is worth as teach-
ing data, and consider, too, how empty all these
forms are if the informing soul is not trained
to give them adequate interpretations. How bar-
ren is the soul that sees only the form in art or
nature.

"A primrose by a river's brim
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more."

94 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

Questions and Suggestions.
For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

Have you carefully considered the great need of a
better understanding of the feelings of a child?

Are these feelings to be suppressed, ignored, or
trained? Why?

Recall an instance in your own life when you ex-
perienced a vivid rush of emotion into your thought-life.
Do you see any significance in such an experience to the
value of Decision Day?

Write or narrate an instance in which your thought-
plans were broken up by your feelings.

Discuss with others the balancing of thought and of
feeling in your own experiences.

Does feeling necessarily interfere with right thinking?
When, if at all, does it do so?

Will an habitual feeling of hatred, jealousy, or kindred
passion, color one's thought upon a given subject?

Apply this to your opinion of some one who may have
done you an injustice.

Is the Sunday-school a place for the free activity of
the feeling-life?

Suppose you ignore the feelings in your teaching, what
becomes of interest in your class?

Study carefully the meaning and function of con-
science in this discussion.

Study " The Angelus," " Nearer, my God, to Thee,"
Whittier's " Trinitas," Gray's " Elegy," " The Sistine
Madonna," and in general all great art products, to see
how great souls define feelings — in color, sound, form,
and language.

IX

EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES OF MOMENT

np HE powers of the human soul are all pres-
ent at birth. They are given with the soul.
No new power is subsequently created. But
these powers do not all reach their maximum de-
velopment at the same time. Some develop
rapidly, some slowly. Those that develop most
rapidly provide by their activities the materials
upon which the more slowly developing ones
must act for their fullest growth. One does not
become active, and then another ;
''a'rowfh"' ^i'^e boys in a foot race, they all
begin to move at the same time,
but they do not travel at the same rate. Thus
they reach their culmination at different periods
in the life of the child.

There is an educational law that grows out of
this order of growth of soul powers. Direct
your teaching activities to the nutrition of those
powers that are at the time most active. The or-
der of their culmination is the
Two Vital Laws Order followcd in this discussion.
Knowledge must be adapted to
the capacity of the learner. This law, like the
former one, is w^orth much more than a passing

95

96 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

notice. It is not enough to have good material
with which to teach ; we must also know how to
adapt this material to the stage of development
attained by the learner. Teachers too often for-
get this fact. Sometimes they remember it, but
are helpless to conform to it. A few may be
wholly ignorant of its significance.

Sometimes we think that adapting the mate-
rials of instruction to the learner is accomplished
by the length of the exercise. For young pupils
we give short lessons. For older ones we in-
crease the dose ; as if in some way our teaching
materials were to be administered as we give a
medicine, — increasing the dose with the age of
the pupil. This is not the sort of adaptation the
true teacher has in mind. It is a difference in
quality, not in quantity. This change in quality
is not, again, to be thought of as a thing to be
secured by diluting the lesson with irrelevant
and useless things. It is a change in the quality
of thought in which the material of the lesson is
cast in the mind of the teacher, and in the lan-
guage with which it is conveyed to the mind of
the learner. Both in thought and in expression

it must be adapted to the mind
A Third Law of the pupil. The fact that one

can teach is not proof that one
can teach in every grade of the Sunday-school.
There are many details of method that make the

EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES OF MOMENT 9/

problem for each grade a specific and somewhat
distinct one. Some are most successful in pri-
mary work ; some in the advanced work. In gen-
eral, it is increasingly difficult to secure good
teaching as one moves downward through the
grades. It is also true that many teachers prefer
the younger groups under the mistaken notion
that here their mistakes are not so easily detected.
It is not a question of being found out ; it is a
question of doing genuinely effective teaching.
Thoughtful persons, realizing the greater diffi-
culty in securing good primary teachers and
knowing also the great importance of right be-
ginnings, have claimed, with much show of rea-
son, that the teacher of a primary grade has the
most responsible position. I do not wish to deny
this statement, but I do wish to plead for fine
teaching in every grade.

We are prayerfully asking how to keep the
large boys and girls in the Sunday-school. Let
one answer be this : put them in charge of su-
perior teachers. These older pupils know good
teaching. They grow weary in its absence. For
these we must make vastly better provision than
heretofore, or continue to deplore their all too
frequent withdrawal from the Sunday-school. A
superintendent should see to it that each teacher
is at work in the grade in which that one is most
likely to do the best work.

98 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

The primary teacher is not to assume that
his pupils know nothing when they enter his
class. The teacher never begins the education of

the child. Much has already
A Fourth Law been learned. The home and the

environment of the child, save
in exceptional cases, give the child much valuable
experience long before constructive processes
under competent guidance begin. Thus the
teacher is not the initial teaching agency. He
may be, often is, the first to comprehend what
the home and the environment have given, and
organize it into its highest utility in the soul.
For reasons here given, I wish to guard the pri-
mary teacher against a rather common miscon-
ception of his function. To adapt the subject-
matter of the lesson to his youthful learners, he
may make his instruction silly. Concrete teach-
ing at this stage is, of course, vital. But there
is no valid reason for introducing long and tedi-
ous and foolish stories about common objects
until the whole purpose of the illustration is lost
in its own over-wrought details. There is noth-
ing quite so pitiful as a teacher who has under-
estimated the capacity of his pupils, and who
flounders around in a desperate effort to accom-
plish something with nothing.

Some primary teachers have the idea that they
need only some objects like woolly sheep, dolls,

EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES OF MOMENT 99

rotten potatoes, and penny candles, in order to
be sure of a successful exercise. They push the
woolly sheep around on the table, they exhibit
the dolls, they cut open the potatoes, they light
the candles, and they talk, talk, talk, and lo ! it

is a lesson. The pupil follows
AMisUken ^j^j^ strange exhibition and is

pleased. So is the teacher. But
not one sane lesson, not one clear idea, is fixed
in consciousness. The teacher has evidently pro-
ceeded upon the theory that the more remote and
mysterious the connection between the object and
the moral to be drawn the better, evidently for-
getting that the child gets only the play side of
the game and not at all the moral. As a play it is
not even justifiable, since the child should handle
the objects of the game to make it worth while
to him. When will we learn to use objects like
these as educational agencies, and not merely as
things with which to tickle the fancy and catch
the interest of the child? It would add nothing
to the constructive value of these remarks to de-
scribe some such lessons that I have witnessed.
I have only sympathy for the teacher and for the
pupils. Let us not censure. Let us rather aid
in pointing the better way. I believe, with Dr.
Schaefifer, that " to a faithful teacher a tenth of a
grain of helpful suggestion is worth many tons
of destructive criticism."

lOO THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

The kindergartner knows well that play is not
of itself educational. It is the constructive phase
of play, the phase that the child cares least about,
that alone is educationally significant. With an
insight that is born of rare native qualities, re-
inforced by a critical study of educational pro-
cesses, the kindergartner skilfully shifts the
interest of the pupil to the aspect of the activity
that is constructive ; from an activity in which
the emphasis of interest in the learner passes from

the process to the end sought by
Play and Work the proccss ; from play to work.

In play, the interest rests in the
process ; the result is not significantly regarded.
In work, the interest rests in the result ; the pro-
cess is not significantly regarded. In the
Sunday-school, the emphasis must rest upon the
result, not upon the process. Use objects to lift
the child to a religious thought. Do not trifle with
the pupil's interest, and so secure no abiding
product of value to the learner.

We have so far considered the stages of soul-
unfolding usually described as the powers through
which we gain presentative and representative

knowledge. We have yet to con-
Additionai Laws sidcr the powers through which

w^e gain thought-knowledge. The
function of presentative knowledge is to afford
nutrition of feeling. The function of representa-

EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES OF MOMENT lOI

tive knowledge is to afford nutrition of defini-
tion. The function of thought-knowledge is to
afford nutrition of insight. In general, this
analysis indicates the proper organization of the
Sunday-school. There should be three depart-
ments. They may be designated the primary
department, covering, say, four years ; the inter-
mediate department, covering also about four
years ; and finally the Bible-class department,
covering the remainder of the life in the Sun-
day-school. Teachers should be prepared to en-
ter one or another of these departments. Their
study should center in the powers of soul, with
the training of which they shall be directly con-
cerned. My own judgment is that there should
be in a large Sunday-school a superintendent for
each department, with a general superintendent
over all. None of these should teach classes.
They should be steadily engaged in the observa-
tion of the work done in their
"orlTz^lT departments. They should never
criticise the teachers in the pres-
ence of their pupils. The teachers'-meeting held
weekly should first meet in separate sections.
Each superintendent should point out frankly
both the good and the bad teaching witnessed
by him or her. At the end of a half-hour, the
sections should meet together, and the general
superintendent should take up the questions relat-

102 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

ing to the unification of the entire work. This
will solve the question of proper supervision.

Have you ever seriously considered the value
of language to the human soul? Of course, you
have often been glad that the power of speech
is yours, and that you have learned the great
art of reading. But just what
LM^ua'c ^°^^ ^^^ language symbol mean
to you as you use it in teach-
ing? The most primitive nations have theories
for its origin. In general, these theories point
to a divine or supernatural origin. This indi-
cates the high estimate in which it is held. The
Oriaba Indians believe that language is the direct
gift of the Great Spirit, that their medicine man
and his son journeyed many moons to the east,
and received language in two separate sacred
bags. On the way home the son's curiosity led
him to take a peep, and some language escaped.
Later on the white man, com-
indian Legend ing that way, fouud these frag-
ments, but the medicine man
carried most of it in safety to his people, who
therefore speak almost the perfect language of
the Great Spirit.

Our own old North Europe ancestors had a
legend that man was born speechless ; that the
Divine Spirit in pity sent the goddess of sacred
song to earth. The goddess appeared in an en-

EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES OF MOMENT IO3

chanted grove, and sang the most ravishing
music her spirit ever knew. The dogs heard it,
and began to bark. The birds heard it, and began
to twitter. The frogs heard it, and began to croak.
The ducks heard it, and began to quack. The

fishes, agitated by the commo-
Norse Legend tion, thrust their eyes above the

water, but not their ears. They
saw, but heard not, and are mute to this day.
The brook heard it, and began to murmur as it
sb'pped over the shining shingle. The trees
heard it, and began to rustle their thousand leaves.
But man, of all created things, standing in the
midst of the grove, drank in the full song, and
sang it back again to the goddess. Thus from
heaven came speech to man.

The Bible, too, seems to indicate that God
aided Adam to acquire speech. Enough has been
given to indicate the priceless value of language.
Words at first are to us only the names for par-
ticular objects : man is papa ; horse is the old
family friend ; dog is the family pet ; cat is the
child's companion. Slowly he begins to under-
stand that the word he uses is applicable to many,
finally to all of a group. The word broadens in
meaning, and comes at last to denote objects uni-
versally. What a widening of the horizon this
is ! How the soul universalizes itself when it no
longer thinks in things, but in symbols ! Thus

I04 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

language is the soul's shorthand, by means of
which, with a few symbols, it comprehends myri-
ads of particulars. Think what
sot^shTthaL the words star, cow, wind, tree,
water, baby, now mean to you.
The power of the soul that builds these general
notions is called conception. Let us consider it
as the initial process in thought knowledge ; as
the first of a series of activities through which
we rise to general ideas, to laws, to principles, to
the final forms of thought in the soul.

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

What is meant by the nutrition of a mental power?

Explain how you would proceed to adapt the next
lesson in the International series to the pupils of your
grade. What is your standard of adaptation?

What has the language of the teacher to do with the
teacher's success?

Is it true that a teacher successful anywhere will be
successful everywhere in the grades?

Discuss with other teachers what you can do to retain
the young men and women in the Sunday-school.

What is your experience concerning the use of toys
in teaching a primary grade?

Do you know the difference between a device and a
method of teaching? Illustrate each. Is the use of a
doll or a sheep a method or a device?

Just what value can be placed upon teaching activities
that are like play?

EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES OF MOMENT IO5

Point out the reason for a three department organiza-
tion of the Sunday-school. Should each department have
a superintendent?

What is the value of close supervision of teaching?

Should superintendents be trained for their work?
What are the leading qualifications of a good superinten-
dent?

Why should you consider the value of language as part
of your equipment to teach?

What is the true origin of language?

How do you account for the first words used by a
child?

X

THE USE OF SYMBOLS

TV/T Y FIRST notion of a chair is a picture of
an old armchair in my father's house.
The chair I sat upon at the table was a high-
chair. This name kept it separate and apart
from the armchair, but bit by bit my mind began
to discern the relations of similarity in many
objects that at first seemed wholly separate and
distinct. I discerned seat, back, and legs. These
essential parts rightly joined make my idea of
chair. All objects having these marks I call

chair. Many accidental quali-
First Notions ties are found in the different

objects. The seat is of wood,
or of cane, or of plush, or of iron. The
back is square, or round, or long, or short,
or braced, or free from braces. The chair is
painted, or oiled, or plain. The quality of wood
is oak, or pine, or poplar, or mahogany. But in
all this varying detail my mind fastens upon
legs, seat, and back. These essential parts must
be present. Remove one or more of these, and
it is not chair. Thus by seeing the similarity in
essential parts I am able to group all such objects
1 06

THE USE OF SYMBOLS IO7

into one general notion, and that notion I call
chair.

The soul sees (perceives) objects through the
senses. Ideas of these arise in consciousness.
In this way the soul obtains a report for itself of
the objective world. It comes into the posses-
sion of possible knowledge. This possible knowl-
edge is made into actual knowledge by the act
of the soul upon it in consciousness. Attention,
as interest or will, holds this possible knowledge
in consciousness until the soul knows it. Mem-
ory retains knowledge. Imagination, aided by
feeling, combines the products of memory into
ideal forms, and then the soul is prepared to in-
vestigate these experiences and organize them
into the highest utility.

The powers by which it does this are called
the cognitive powers. These powers discover
the essential relations existing between the var-
ious facts of knowledge gathered in the soul.
They group these facts into appropriate classes
on the basis of these discerned relations, and
thus enable the soul with a few symbols, or
names, to carry large groups of related facts of
knowledge. Our individual experiences are so
numerous and so varied that it would be impos-
sible to carry them in memory, or make any sub-
stantial progress in thought, if we were obliged
to have as many different names or symbols in

I06 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

the soul as we have had experiences through the
senses. These are the powers then that

economize effort by building
Cognitive Powers away from concrete, individual

experiences, into symbols, laws
and principles, or, in other words, they are the
powers through which the spirit universalizes
itself. They are the last development of the soul
on the intellectual side. All previous acts in the
education of the intellect should point to the final
development of these powers at their best.

These cognitive powers are three : conception,
judgment, reason. They develop in the order
named, each using the material furnished by the
preceding one, and thus producing an order of
development of the greatest significance in teach-
ing. These powers do not immediately report
sense experiences, but they do produce immediate
knowledge, since all these relations which they
discover to exist are themselves objects of
knowledge. We have then to keep in mind two
different groups of objects of knowledge: (i)
that large and rich and concrete group of ma-
terials or objects of knowledge which are the
soul's report of its experiences with the objec-
tive world; (2) that equally important, sugges-
tive, and abstract group of objects of knowledge
which the soul itself creates.

It will be seen, therefore, that these powers

THE USE OF SYMBOLS IO9

deal absolutely with relations. They increase
the sum of knowledge in the mind. Inasmuch
as relations constitute the materials upon which
these powers act, they are usually called abstract
powers, and, because they work out into groups
Cognitive Powers ^H Concrete material of our pre-
Deai sentative powers, they are some-

wi e a ions ^jj^gj, called the elaborative
powers of the soul. The soul names these rela-
tions in the same way that it names its percep-
tions of things ; thus we have words, or signs,
or symbols, or marks, which denote products of
these, and it is these products, these names, that
become the basis of our organic thought; in
other words, these products organize the con-
crete facts into laws and principles of wide and
far-reaching application. We are very much fet-
tered when we are dependent upon concrete data
derived from the senses. We are unfettered and
free when we have these powers to build our
thoughts into principles and laws.

The power of the soul that builds these gen-
eral notions on the basis of similarity is concep-
tion. This process is unending.
Conception There is never a time when a
Avord is so full of meaning that
wider meaning may not attach to it. Our first
notion of God is often simple and vague. We
never cease to attach new meaning to the divine

no THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

personality. Education is largely a matter of
giving meaning to symbols.

The thought powers deal wholly with symbols.
These symbols are words, mathematical symbols,
and other general signs that represent many con-
crete experiences in one term, sign, or symbol.
For the purposes of the Sunday-school, the lan-
guage symbol is, of course, the potential one.
The soul has the power to group many similar
ideas into one, and name this one. We can think
individual notions into class notions. To do this
we must discern the relations existing between
these individual notions, as I did with the parts of
the chair.

Let us consider with care the value of giving
proper exercise to this significant activity. Its
function is to build general ideas, to group an
infinite number of individual perceptions under
one general notion, and to give to this general
notion a name. This name becomes its symbol,
its sign, or its mark. This name may be a word,
a figure, or any other abstract character. When
this name is given it is sometimes called a gen-
eral notion, sometimes a concept. We will use the
word concept. Conception is the power that
builds concepts out of percepts. How does it do
it? It holds in consciousness two or more ob-
jects of thought which have come at different
times into the soul, and which have remained in

THE USE OF SYMBOLS III

memory until a given moment. A new process
occurs. The soul seeks to find the essential attri-
butes which exist in the different
Concept Defined objects of thought considered.
If the same attributes are
found to exist in two or more of these objects,
this power groups into one the different objects
that contain these essential marks or attributes.
All the objects of knowledge possessing these
essential marks or attributes are then grouped
also into the same class, and a name is given to
this group or class. For illustration, I find in my
idea of chair the essential attributes, back, seat,
legs. When I find these three attributes or
marks in the same relation in different objects,
it becomes easy to disregard all other attributes
or marks, and to consider only these essential
ones, thus enabling me to place into one group
all the different objects which have these essen-
tial marks. I name this group with the word
chair, and thereafter I apply my notion of chair
to all the different objects that fall within this
group.

You see, then, why these may be called general
notions or concepts. They are the units of the
higlicr thought, just as bricks are the units of a
building, or as sand grains are the units of the
seashore. We use these concepts in the build-
ing of thought. The vital thing here is to see that

112 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

no individual notion is allowed to pass into a
class which does not possess the vital or essential
attribute or mark that belongs to that group.
Here is the place for the teacher to make time
by taking time. Here the teacher will go fast by
going slow, for work badly done at this point
will vitiate all subsequent thought process. Un-
less the concepts are clear the thinking cannot be
clear. From the point of view of a grammar-
ian these concepts are called common nouns, that

is to say, they are names com-
*C(Hicepts"'' ^'^on to all the objects of the

same kind or class. To teach
the exact meaning of a concept is of the utmost
importance. Here the teacher will find himself
embarrassed, and the mind of the pupil con-
fused, if he allow all accidental attributes or
marks to become the basis of classification. The
different varieties of chairs, the different shapes
of backs, the seat, the legs, the different mate-
rials of construction, different prices at which
they are bought, the different uses to which they
are applied, are all accidental attributes which
in an unguarded moment may enter the mind
of the child as a basis of classification and of
grouping. Lay them aside. Distinguish between
what is essential and what is not essential.
Fasten the activities of the child upon the essen-
tial things. Avoid laying emphasis upon the

THE USE OF SYMBOLS II3

non-essential things. In this way some clear
notion of the concept and its content may be
arrived at.

Children pick up words at random, they learn
them from one another, they bring them from
every conceivable source, and unless the teacher
goes through this list of materials and gives
them definite meaning, the child will be ham-
pered and hindered in arriving at clear thought.
In the fourth chapter of John we have the inter-
esting narrative of Jesus at Jacob's Well. We
are told by competent authorities that this inci-
dent occurred some time in the month of De-
cember. Jesus says to his disciples : " Say not
ye. There are yet four months, and then cometh
the harvest? behold, I say unto
Illustration you, Lift Up your cycs, and look
on the fields, that they are white
already tmto harvest." When I asked a boy the
time of the incident, he said, " March." I said,
" How do you arrive at that conclusion ? " He
said, " Because it was four months before har-
vest." I said to the boy, " When is harvest in
Palestine?" " Oh !" said he, " in Palestine ! I
hadn't thought of that."

The child's concept harvest meant that it was
a certain time on the calendar, — a time which
he arrived at by his limited observation in the
fields of Pennsylvania. Read Dr. Trumbull's

114 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

" Studies in Oriental Social Life," ^ for a clear
interpretation of the meaning Jesus here intended
to be conveyed. The boy had taken an acci-
dental attribute or mark of the concept harvest
for the essential one. The fact of the matter is
that somewhere on this broad earth God ripens
the harvest every day in the calendar year.
Somewhere the ripening grain bends in the

golden sun. Somewhere the
^^HarlTsV^ reaper is forever bending to his

toil. Somewhere the gleaner is
forever treading in the footsteps of Ruth. If,
then, our notion of harvest is not clear, how can
we understand the time set for the incident at
Jacob's Well? How difficult it would be to un-
derstand the quotation above in which the ripen-
ing souls of men, like the ripening grain, are
everywhere and always waiting for the reaper,
if harvest meant a restricted time. Let us learn
at this point that one clear thought, well set in
the soul of a child, is worth a multitude of con-
fused and conflicting ideas set in haste under
the impression that unless we teach much we
have not taught well. Here make haste slowly,
do your work well.

Remember that whatever is put into the mind
of a child under a term or word which ought not
to be put there under that term or word is likely
* Charles Scribner's Sons. Price, $3.

THE USE OF SYMBOLS I 1 5

to remain there to color all his subsequent
thought, and pervert all his subsequent thinking.
I have known children who were made to feel
that God himself was a cruel and exacting
Master, whose special function seemed to be to
follow after them, and to watch for their mis-
deeds and punish them for these misdeeds. Thus
the children put into their no-

"cTution" ^'"^^ °^ ^*^^ ^" element which
made it impossible for them for
years to come to reconcile the teachings of the
Sunday-school as to just what God is with these
early and false interpretations of his attributes.
A little child who was told by her mother that
God was always watching her and awaiting an
opportunity to punish her for her misdeeds, be-
came so wrought up over the matter that in her
mind God was simply a cruel and persistent force
dogging her life. One day, when she was about
to go from one room to another, her pet dog in-
sisted upon accompanying her. She pushed the
dog back as she tried to open the door, but the
dog insisted on passing through with her. After
two or three efforts, she turned on the dog and
said savagely, " Go away ; it is bad enough to
have God tagging after me wherever I go, with-
out being bothered with you."

I suppose that we all get these false notions, — ■
that is to say, we read meanings into terms which

Il6 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

do not rightly belong there. The accidental
qualities and the false qualities of our terms over-
shadow the essential qualities, and our life-actions
are colored and perverted thereby. I think we
are safe in saying that much of the wrong that
is done in this world is due to the fact that some
quality in our notions which should not be there
gives color and warrant to our deeds. It seems,
therefore, that in the Sunday-school especially
the greatest care should be exercised to attach
to a new word only the things which legitimately
belong to it, so that when the child thinks with
this new word and analyzes it, his data will
enable him to attain conclusions in harmony with
the facts of the case, and not conclusions that
are wholly at variance with the real meaning of
the term.

This is all the more important as one remem-
bers that when these words are joined together
they become the basis of our judgment, and
later on of our reason; and that we cannot judge

Words Become "OJ" ^^ason correctly unless we
Basis of hold right meanings for the

gmen s terms or words which lie at the
basis of our higher thought organization and
activity. Take the word " Sunday-school " itself.
I suspect that if we were to ask the children
what meaning they attach to that term it would
surprise us to find that most of them have vague

THE USE OF SYMBOLS II/

and perhaps false impressions. They do not
have under this term the notions or ideas which
ought to be placed there. In a vague way they
know that the Sunday-school is a place where
they ought to be, and they may perhaps under-
stand that it is a place where they are to learn
about God or about Jesus, or a place where they
are to study the Bible, or a place where they are
sent to be made good, or a place where they are
to be kept from mischief, or a place where they
are to appear in their best clothes ; but I doubt
very much whether we have stopped in our
teaching activity to make definitely clear to the
mind of the child just what the Sunday-school
is, and what should come into the mind of the
child as its purpose when the word '' Sunday-
school " is present in consciousness.

We are very likely to assume that familiar

terms like these that are on our lips constantly

are sufficiently understood by the children to be

of use to them. A good teacher

^""cJJar"'"^ will watch the full significance
of the most common words, and
see to it that these are built up with the right
significations attached to them, so that their use
will always give to the child clear knowledge and
true interpretation.

As a matter of experiment, I should like to
have you test your children on the meaning of a

Il8 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

few common words ; for instance, what they
mean by kindness, what they mean by rehgion,
what they mean by church, what they mean by
truthfulness, or some such equally familiar
words. A test of this kind will

An Experiment reveal to you how Unsafe it is
to assume that the child knows
the meanings of these terms as we wish them
to be known, and as they need to be known, in
order to use them properly in constructive
thought.

Words are only the symbols of thought. They
are the objective expressions for what we image
in thought. They have no life, no power, no
value in and of themselves. They are of value
only as they are used to call up in the mind
thought-images. Under the words are the
thoughts. It is of no use to ask pupils to mem-
orize the words when these words mean nothing
to the pupils. We have no right to burden the
memory with useless categories of symbols. I
write now for you a word — " miniver " — and,
after you have spelled it and pronounced it, I
ask you to think with it. Think hard ! Think
long ! Think well ! Think ? Ah ! no, you cannot.
It is a good word. What does it mean to you?
You often put the minds of your pupils into this
same vacuous condition. I wish I could make
you feel this as keenly as you may have made

THE USE OF SYMBOLS 1 19

some of your pupils feel it in days gone by.
Think now of the utter waste of time and of op-
portunity resulting from the foolish burdening
of the child mind with such meaningless symbols.

Write a list of words the meanings of which
you are confident the pupils in your class under-
stand. What words will you write? Do you
know any such list ? You cannot convey knowl-
edge in any other words. You cannot teach,
actually cannot, until you put
VoJbuiary thought iuto known symbols.
Where will you turn to get your
words? There is only one place — you must
gather the words from your pupils. Find the
words in their vocabulary ; that is, the words they
use vmconsciously in conveying thought, and yon
will then know within what language limits you
must labor to teach your class.

Put the truth of God into the symbols of the
child's soul, and he will understand, he will know,
he will grow. If you find, in the lesson you wish
to teach, any necessary symbols that are not
used by your pupils, teach these necessary words
before you undertake to convey truth by means
of them. Remember that it may be as vital to
the child to learn the full meaning of a new
word as it is to master a new fact of knowledge.
Do not wait for your pupils to tell you what lan-
guage difficulties lie in their way. Be yourself

120 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

on the watch for them. Let each child know
that you appreciate his possible difficulties and
are anxious to aid him to the best issues in his
study.

Words are the symbols with which we think
the many into the one. All the separate objects
in nature that are in an essential way related by
similarity are grouped into one general term.
The word names this general term. When once
the general term is clearly comprehended through
the power of conception, the natural tendency of
the mind is to put the new fact as it comes into
consciousness into relation with the general term
that denotes objects of that sort or kind. The
soul is uneasy with the new fact until it is identi-
fied as belonging to the proper group, and is ac-
cepted as one additional indi-
Concept Building vidual element of knowledge in
some general notion. The ques-
tion is, " What is it? " The answer to the ques-
tion comes when we identify it as one of the
many named by the general term. This general
term is the product of the power of conception,
and is called a concept. The grammarian calls
some concepts common nouns. The definition of
a common noun is also a descriptive statement of
what a concept is.

All the individual elements of knowledge that
we can group under one word are in some essen-

THE USE OF SYMBOLS 121

tial way related one to the other. Good teaching
implies the power to put many single elements
of knowledge, that is, many products of percep-
tion, under one symbol or word. To do this re-
quires the rarest insight. It compels the teacher

to present not merely new things
xJl^chfng Dols to the soul, but to present those

that are related to things already
in the soul, in order that the new may be identi-
fied readily and classified under some symbol
already present and only partly filled with mean-
ing. Do not for a moment think that teaching
is giving new symbols for new experiences in
thought. If this were so there would be demand
for as many separate symbols as there are dis-
tinct percepts in the soul. This would mean
that the power to form concepts is ignored, and
the soul would never rise above its most ele-
mentary stage of development. A good teacher
will aim to group the widest possible range of
related ideas under one term or word. An en-
riched mind is one that holds many details of
knowledge under the fewest terms. To do other-
wise is to encumber the meaning with empty
words, and to impair the ability of the pupil to
think readily. It results in a mental condition
that is best described by the word scrappy.
Beware of scrappy teaching. Make your efforts
count for organic thought.

122 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

There is a law of teaching that is of great
value to you : Teach the new fact in its relation

to what is already known by the
Relate Unknown pupil. The ncw fact may be

wholly new, and hence unknown.
Interpret it in the light of the related known facts
already organically set in the powers of the soul.
All truth is essentially related. Each element is
best understood in its relation to each other ele-
ment. Link all your facts together. Let the
learner understand that all you teach is related
to all that you ever will teach ; that, in short, he
is building his separate bits of knowledge Sun-
day by Sunday into one great, compact, related,
and organized system of truth. The pupil does
not know the new fact you teach to-day until he
knows it as part of all that he is to know. He
must not merely see the new fact. He must see
it in its relation to other facts already in his soul.
This power of knowing each fact in its relation

to what is already known is
Apperception sometimes called the power of

apperception. It is really the
identification of new knowledge by the knowl-
edge already in consciousness. It is thinking
separate facts into their appropriate classes. To
enrich the soul's content is to establish friendly
relations between all the separate elements of
knowledge held by the soul.

THE USE OF SYMBOLS 1 23

The teacher as well as the pupil must not only
know the new knowledge clearly, but also dis-
tinctly. By knowing it clearly, 1 mean knowing
it, and not something else instead of it. Clear
knowing stands opposed to all guessing, all vague
inference, all accidental attainment of right
results. By knowing it distinctly, I mean know-
ing it in its relation to other
"^''"oelZd"^' knowledge; that is, knowing it
in its class or group, knowing it
through apperception. The pupil's knowledge
is of little value unless it is both clear and dis-
tinct. It follows that the teacher must likewise
possess clear and distinct knowledge. The pupil
will not attain what the teacher does not possess.
Even with this equipment the teacher is but
poorly prepared to do good work. No one
teaches well until his knowledge is not only all
that the pupils' should be, but also something-
more. There is need of a reserve power in the
teacher. This reserve power gives confidence
and commands respect. It makes for all that is
best in the great work of furnishing the soul
with the necessary thoughts by means of which
it may weave its way steadily through mazes of
doubt and entangling dangers up at last to the
goal, — full reconciliation with God, and an un-
derstanding of the life of consecrated service
that he loves. What, then, may we regard as

124 "^"^ MAKING OF A TEACHER

thLs additional form of knowledge that the
teacher should possess ?

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-'lraining Classes.

Clearly define in your own mind what a symbol really
is.

How do class notions differ from individual ones?

Note clearly the distinction between essential and acci-
dental qualities of related objects.

Beginning with your first idea of a tree, how did you
arrive at the general concept tree}

How, if at all, has your concept of God changed in the
year just closed?

How can you enrich your pupil's soul?

What is the best means of enriching the thought pro-
cesses ?

What is the significance of the phrase " Well begun
is half done" ?

Symbols make the soul free — explain this stateinent.

What is the danger of putting new ideas into the soul
already containing general terms that you have not
tested ?

What is the test of good teaching, — many words, or
many ideas with few words? Why?

Point out the diflference between clear knowing and
distinct knowing.

General terms (concepts) are farther removed from
reality than particular terms (percepts). Explain this
clearly.

XI

ON DIFFERENT KINDS OF KNOWLEDGE

T F I SAY that Ruth, a Moabite woman, the
daughter-in-law of Naomi and EHmelech, the
widow of Alahlon, was the support of her
widowed mother-in-law, my knowledge is clear.
I know Ruth, and not some other person in her
stead. My facts are, so far as they go, correct.
My statement is lucid. This is the simplest form
of knowing with which the soul should concern
itself.

If, now, I wish to add to this clear knowledge,
the second form of knowing, I must see Ruth
in relation to other facts of knowledge. I must
put my clear knowledge into its appropriate class.
I must find Ruth as the support of Naomi, the
faithful gleaner in the fields of Boaz, the wife
of Boaz. the mother of Obed, and thus in the
ancestry of the Christ of the world. I must see
her steadfast, kindly considerate, devout, humble,
and possessed with an almighty

Distinct jQ^^g f^j. ^ji ^j^^^ jg i^gg^ jj^ tj^g

Knowing

womanhood of Israel. Thus my
knowledge of Ruth becomes not only clear, but
also distinct. Ruth is seen in her relation to other

125

126 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

persons and events in the sacred narrative. She
is no longer an isolated element of knowledge.
She forms part of the larger system of truth
with which she has to do. Thus I indicate the
kind of knowing the teacher should impart to
his pupils. To do this well, the teacher's knowl-
edge should rise above clearness and distinctness.
It should become adequate, by which I mean see-
ing the thing in its elements, in its parts, in its
analysis.

Take again this illustration. To know Ruth
adequately I must study her in her home-
land, in her sorrow at the loss of her husband,
in her firm resolve to follow Naomi, in her
willingly assuming the role of gleaner-beggar
under the law of Israel, in her glorious self-
surrender that she might care for an old and
helpless w^oman, in her daily industry in the har-
vest field, in her subsequent discovery by Boaz,
in her splendid exaltation, in her new home, in
her piety, her perfectness, her motherhood. Thus
by an analytic treatment of the theme I am made
familiar with details of great
Kno^^*g value to me as I teach, and even
if I do not attempt to lift my
pupils to adequate knowledge, my own mastery
of this form of knowledge is the best guarantee
on the intellectual side that I am fitted to give to
my pupils clear and distinct knowledge. This

ON DIFFERENT KINDS OF KNOWLEDGE 12/

additional form of knowledge is analytic beyond
the ability of the pupil below the Bible-class
grade. But it is, in my mind, the absolute pre-
requisite of successful teaching. Master the sub-
ject in detail, if you would teach well. Then, too,
you will find in this added increment of power
the secret of control. It is relatively an easy
task to control a class if the teacher's knowledge
is at once so clear, so distinct, and so adequate as
to challenge the respect and the admiration of
the pnpils.

Never use notes in your teaching, either
printed notes or written notes. Master all these
aids before you go to the class. Face to face,
take up the lesson and develop it. Fix its funda-
mental elements clearly in mind, and so teach.
You will find that it is a travesty on teaching to

ask printed questions from a
pTeJaration lesson-leaf, and expect to secure

prepared answers, and at the
same time secure the attention and interest of
your pupils. They soon detect the insincerity
of an incompetent teacher, and are likely to make
for such a teacher the lesson hour a time of sore
trial and useless effort. I wonder what our
honest opinion is in respect to all this. Do you
honestly feel just right before your class if you
know you have slighted the preparation of the
work? Can we truly commend our efforts to

128 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

God for his blessing, when, forsooth, our efforts
have been practically nothing ? Here is a respon-
sibility, an opportunity, an obligation to be met.
We can ill afford to pass this by unnoted.

There is only one other form of knowing, —
knowing the thing in its causes. This is exhaus-
tive knowledge, and belongs only to the expert.
But it is an ideal worth keeping in mind, a goal
worthy our efforts. It is a great thing to know
some one fact of knowledge exhaustively, to be an

authority upon it, to master it
Knowing* ^^ Others do not, and so stand

in some authoritative relation to
that thing. We all respect expert knowledge.
It is the final guidance. To cite the opinions of
others is well, but to create opinions for oneself
— that is best. Jesus was supremely great as a
teacher. He taught as one having authority.
His knowledge was exhaustive. It touched the
remotest causes. He left nothing to be said.

Luke 4 : 18-27 is a fine example of good teach-
ing. Jesus read a Scripture that was well-known
to his hearers. He read it from a familiar place,
— the reading-place in the synagogue. He used
a familiar scroll. He stood to read, as did every
priest. He was known perhaps by all those who
gathered that day to worship. Everything was
familiar, save only one thing. He read the lesson
with a new emphasis. " The Spirit of the Lord

ON DIFFERENT KINDS OF KNOWLEDGE 1 29

is upon me, he hath anointed nic, he hath sent
7}ic." It was this designation of himself as the
fulfilment of the prophecy that stirred his hearers.
There is always something unique, strong,
original, in a great teacher. Be sure to find this
element. Fasten upon it. Follow its guidance.

Thus will you catch in your own spirit some
of the power and majesty and dignity of great
teaching. You will also note that the distinguish-
ing quality of fine teaching is not in the fact that
it is radically and wholly unlike other teaching.

Good Teaching ^^ is using the samc data, but in
versus a way unknown to blundering

oac ing ^^^ untrained teachers. I have
seen thousands of teachers at work with tens
of thousands of pupils. I have but rarely
found wholly and absolutely worthless teaching.
Almost as rarely have I found absolutely fault-
less teaching. Most of it contained at least some
elements of worth. Much of it was really com-
mendable. But I wish I could clearly char-
acterize the stupendous gain to the pupil whose
teacher is superbly equipped, over and above the
worth to the pupil of that teacher whose work
is only fairly good. It is a question largely of
margins. The difference between the way we do
our teaching and the way we might do it is not
great measured in terms of effort on our part ;
it is great measured in results upon the souls of

130 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

our pupils. Ponder well what this means to you.
Let us endeavor to reduce the margin.

A teacher writes me that she has always been
doing her best; but she has not had the success
she longed for. She frankly confesses that she
has studied her commentaries and lesson helps
in the desperation of her desire to do her best.
She also says that her pupils are to her more of
a mystery than is her lesson. This is the very
crux of the whole matter. Ad-
^DifHcuity* mirably fitted with knowledge
of the subject-matter of the
lessons, she is confessedly ignorant of the ability
to fit this knowledge to the needs of her pupils.
They do not share in her splendid scholarship
because she does not know their capabilities, nor
do they know how to utilize what she has for
them. Knowledge must be transmuted into spir-
itual elements of a kind suited to the hearer, or
all splendid equipment fails to accomplish the
prayed-for results.

1 should like to commend to the teacher at this
point a careful re-reading of these chapters from
the first. Get the general outline of soul pro-
cesses definitely fixed, and then measure every
pupil in your class by this standard. Are you
aware that few of our pupils are wholly normal
in their unfolding? Do you note and know their
differences and variations from your normal

ON DIFFERENT KINDS OF KNOWLEDGE I3I

standard? When these variations are noted, do
you aim by all the energy and skill you possess
to win each pupil over to the ideal you have set?

We have already found how, by the power of
conception, the soul bunches many concrete ele-
ments of knowledge into one general class, — on
the basis of similarity, — and names this general
class. This name is a concept. Thus I come to
the use of the term apple ; so also I come to other
general terms, as peach, pear, plum, grape,
orange, lemon, banana, apricot, and aguacate.
Again, by the same power, on the basis of the
same general quality, I can build all these into a
still more general term, fruit. This widening of
the series goes on indefinitely. Each generaliza-
tion becomes wider; that is, it

Generalization includes more and more separate
objects of knowledge under one
general term. Perhaps if we knew all, we could
group all at last under one word that would
name all. Note that the wider the generaliza-
tion the farther the elements are removed from
reality. This is only another way of saying that
we drop increasing numbers of qualities that are
in each individual object, in order to bring it
within the compass of the general term. If now
we use these general terms of symbols as instru-
ments of thought, we find ourselves relatively
free to erect great systems of truth without paus-

132 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

ing at each new term to ascertain how many of
the original concrete elements we retain. While
this is going on, as it is in every soul, we are
also constantly receiving new concrete elements
of knowledge through the wide-open avenues of
perception.

Thus at any instant we find the soul furnished
both with percepts and concepts, with new knowl-
edge still in the concrete, as well as with old
knowledge in every stage of advance to the most
comprehensive symbols. The orange my friend
just gave me, fresh from his favorite tree in
Coamo, Porto Rico, is side by side with the more
general tenn orange, and also with the still wider
symbol, fruit. Now the soul naturally assumes
a very important function with reference to this
medley of knowledge elements. It endeavors for-
mally to find where the new belongs in the sys-
tem of old knowledge carried in memory from

former experiences. The soul
Mating Ideas seems to be fascinated with

this game of mating ideas, as a
child is pleased to put together a dissected toy.
It endeavors to set relations that are discerned
in two objects of thought over against each other,
and affirm their agreement or their disagreement.
This power of the soul is called judgment. This
affirmation is a sentence. As a product of an
act of judgment, it is called a judgment. If the

ON DIFFERENT KINDS OF KNOWLEDGE 1 33

ag-reement is affirmed, it is called a positive
judgment. If the agreement is denied, it is

called a negative judgment.
Judgment Judgment builds our percepts

and ' our concepts into higher
forms of thought.

A boy who for the first time saw an island,
and was told the name, finally remarked, " Why,
an island is a piece of shore out in the water."
He had compared island and land, and this was
his judgment. When I compare snow and
whiteness 1 announce the judgment, " Snow is
white." I also know at once that " Snow is not
black." Thus I affirm a positive as well as a
negative judgment concerning snow and white-
ness. Seeing these relations between the different
objects in thought is of the highest educa-
tional utility. To explain God is to lead the
child to identify him with the attributes of love
and mercy and power and majesty and glory.

Thus we bring him within our
Judg«ne"nt Comprehension. It is perhaps

true that we do not begin to ex-
haust the relations existing between separate
objects of thought. We carry great series of dis-
connected data that should be joined and wedded
in the soul. We do not often enough exercise
this splendid power of judgment. Every word
is the symbol of some more or less important

134 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

fact of knowledge. It is the business of the soul
to establish relations between these symbols.
God has given us this power of judgment for
that purpose. Let us endeavor to find the subtle
but essential ties that connect what may at first
seem separate and distinct facts of knowledge.
Thus we amass a healthy, a vigorous, a vital
activity in the soul. To join words into sentences,
to erect concepts and percepts into judgments,
is to give the soul the freer sweep, the wider view,
the more Godlike power. How may this power
of judgment be cultivated?

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

What four forms of knowledge are defined in this
article? Define each.

Take a subject, say, Gettysburg, Valley Forge, Moses,
or Paul, and discuss it, first clearly, then distinctly, then
adequately, and, if you can, exhaustively.

In what ways should the pupil know a subject?

Why should the teacher's knowledge be different in
kind from that of the pupil?

Discuss the value of analytic knowledge for the
teacher, of distinct knowledge for the pupil.

Which form of knowing corresponds to apperception?
Why?

What aids should the teacher use in the class?

How does good teaching differ from ordinary teach-
ing?

ON DIFFERENT KINDS OF KNOWLEDGE 1 35

Discuss the value of margins in equipment.

Why is it proper to say that our pupils are not all
normal in their unfolding?

What is judgment? Form a group of judgments re-
lating to the words sheep, shepherd, love, kindness, John,
John Baptist, and teaching.

How does a negative judgment arise?

How does a positive judgment arise?

Write ten of each kind.

XII

FACTS ABOUT JUDGMENT

JESUS declares to his followers that " with
what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged."
This is an eminently fair proposition. We have
no right to demand, or even to expect, from
others, what we are not willing to accord to
them. The same central idea is in the proverb,
" People that live in glass houses should not
throw stones." It is also found in the saying,
" Chickens come home to roost." It is a gen-
eral judgment, universally accepted, that in the
game of life we should " play fair." We are all
too willing to form opinions ;
Propo^suion ^hat is, to formulate judgment
upon almost every matter of
moment that arises. This is especially true of
matters of education and of religion. In some
range of knowledge we like to think our judg-
ment best. We usually select the ranges in which
exact determinations are least likely to be thrust
forward.

I saw a teacher once take a group of children
out for an afternoon of what she called nature
study. She made the children walk behind her
136

FACTS ABOUT JUDGMENT I 3/

with their hands behind their backs, quietly, in
perfect hne, and occasionally she would stop and
pick up a flower, or a leaf, or a bug, and, beckon-
ing to the children, say, " Form a circle around
me." Then she would say, " Children, here is a
flower which I have just discovered growing

amidst the grass. Notice its
One Way color, uotice its odor, notice the

shape of the petals. Now, come
on." And so, again and again, this monotonous
thing was repeated until every child was sick of
the so-called lesson in nature study.

I saw another teacher with a group of children
on a similar mission. The teacher walked behind,
and the children ran in every direction, happy,
free, active, unrestrained ; and the moment their
bright eyes lighted upon a flower, or a leaf, or a
bug, or any other object that interested them and
caught their attention, they ran with their find to
the teacher. The teacher smilingly said, " Tell
me about it. Where did you find it ? What was
it doing?" And some one would start with a
most interesting and enthusiastic statement of all

the facts which they were able
^Wa*y" ^^ gather concerning the object.

Then the teacher, with wise
questions and helpful suggestions and prudent
guidance, led the child, step by step, to discover
all that in its haste and immaturity it had failed

138 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

at first to note. I felt in my soul concerning this
latter teacher that " of such are the kingdom of
heaven."

Let us apply this to the Sunday-school lesson.
Some teachers come before the class with every-
thing ready, as they should, and then, following
a command that they be quiet, or sit just so,
their feet just at a certain place, their shoulders
thrown back, their little hands folded in their
laps, and their eyes glued on the teacher, the
children await the mysterious and marvelous
utterances which the teacher alone voices. How
tired the children are when the lesson is over,
and how glad that they can shake themselves and
forget! I have seen other classes in which the
children are crowded respectfully around the
teacher, but not military in attitude ; not dis-
orderly, but not statuesque; and
The Application the children are telling the
teacher out of the depths of their
own souls how the language of the lesson has
impressed them. The teacher, pleased but re-
served, guides the minds of the children, point
by point, to the great issues, and helps them to
discover the great truths. Nobody is tired, no-
body wearied, everybody surprised, when the
tap of the superintendent's bell hints to them
that time has been consumed in a most interest-
ing, helpful, inspiring way.

FACTS ABOUT JUDGMENT I 39

We talk too much to the child, as if somehow
it were our duty to establish in his mind an
impression of our great resources, our marvelous
skill, and our profound knowledge. Let the
teacher understand that it is his function to
bring- into class the concepts which he desires
to have compared, and then trust the child to act
upon these, to discover their relations, and to an-
nounce their agreements in fitting language.

I have no patience with that teacher who
wants things done just so, who marks it down
against a child every time the child shows the
least inclination to put original thought into his
statements, and who seems in some mysterious
way to feel congratulated when the children
grind out replies in language memorized from
books and from their teacher. What are we try-
ing to accomplish? Are we seeking to educate
machine-made products, or are we endeavoring
to develop a machine which, under God's guid-
ance, will be able by its own inherent powers to
build truth and enjoy truth? The activity occa-
sioned is worth more than the product, and the
training of a soul is of more moment than the
correct language of the answer to a question.

When these judgments are once set forth as a
result of the pupils' own discernment of essential
relations existing between objects of thought,
these judgments themselves become the funda-

140 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

mental element upon which a higher power of
the soul operates. This higher power is reason.
Reason puts two of these judg-
" by^Reason" Hicnts in relation, and undertakes
to set forth their agreement
or disagreement, dealing with judgments in
the same way that the power of judgment
deals with concepts. We call the products of
reason reasons. Reason is tlie crowning act. Its
product stands as the last and culminating act
of the intellectual life. Everything that goes
before should be tipped and pointed for reason,
and when we have taught the soul of a child to
reason correctly we have given it the finest in-
tellectual power that it can acquire.

Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd. Why
is he a shepherd? Why is he a good shepherd?
What must we set in the soul as objects of com-
parison in order to answer these questions?
David says, " The Lord is my shepherd." Why
is the Lord David's shepherd? Again, Jesus
says, " I am the way, and the truth, and the life."
What do these sayings mean ? Let us work them
out for ourselves with the same care that we
would work out a problem in arithmetic. Let us
not be satisfied with the vague and somewhat
comforting feeling that because these things are
said in the Book that we love, they must be true
whether we understand them or not. Help the

FACTS ABOUT JUDGMENT I4I

child to analyze judgments and reasons and see
the bases upon which they rest ; thus as he deals
with other judgments he will instinctively ac-
quire the means of forming similar ones for
himself.

Almost any man or woman will venture to
settle finally great questions in religion and in
education. One does not seem to realize that here
above all other places there is need of great
caution and accurate judgment. To form correct
judgments in these momentous matters really
demands the finest training, the keenest insight,
the greatest skill, the most comprehensive knowl-
edge. A dear friend the other day remarked to
me : " I really do not see what need there is
for extended training of the
One View Suuday-school teacher in rural
communities. Tell the children
what they should do and what they should not
do, and you have it. Any person can do this."
If this opinion be correct, it is of course useless
to have a prayerful concern about the matter.
If, however, we think that the best teaching is
none too good for His little ones, we must hold
to a different standard. In setting this different
standard, the question of training the judgment
assumes commanding proportions. It is not a
question of creating the power of judgment in
the soul. God has set it there. It will act.

142 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

The question is one of training this power, to
the end that it may put forth its acts under
proper guidance and upon right materials.

What does the soul do with concepts? It
turns them over to the next cognitive power,
called judgment. Judgment uses them in her
process to build higher forms of thought. Judg-
ment deals with two concepts present in con-
sciousness at the same time, and discovers their
relations, asserting either their agreement or dis-
agreement, and announcing its

A Question i ■ - j. i • i

Answered conclusion HI a Sentence, which
sentence is either positive or
negative in form as the judgment is positive or
negative. Here again I may use an illustration
found in a previous chapter. I say siiozu is zvhite.
I have compared the concepts snozv and zvhite-
ness, and asserted a relation which I discover to
exist in both. I say snozv is not green, and here
I assert an absence of relation between the no-
tions snozv and greenness.

We are all the while forming these judgments.
They constitute a most important part of the
materials of thought. Instinctively, the soul
pushes these various concepts into consciousness,
and compares them to determine whether they
contain any essential marks in common ; and
instinctively, also, the soul seeks to set forth in
words their agreement as thus discerned. It is

FACTS ABOUT JUDGMENT I43

better that the child should be led to discover
these relations for himself, and set them forth
in appropriate language, than to have the pro-
cess performed for him by the teacher. You will
notice the great difference be-
'^^elcMng' tween discovering these rela-
tions for ourselves and having
these relations discovered for us. Beware of
mechanical teaching here, — of formal, cut-and-
dried, juiceless, useless teaching. Every time the
occasion arises to do so, give the soul of the
child an opportunity to act for itself, to launch
out into its myriad possessions, and discover in-
herent and essential and vital relations existing
there. Some guidance will be necessary, a wise
question, a thoughtful suggestion, a little in-
telligent guidance, these are perhaps all that the
teacher needs to provide.

In conception the soul comprehends the sev-
eral parts as together comprising one thing. The
process is ended when the union of these parts
into one is effected, and this one is named. But
in judgment the soul comprehends two objects
of thought as two. These two are set over
against one another, and by a
j^dgmlnts process of comparison their
agreement or disagreement is
set forth in a statement which is called a judg-
ment. The fourth chapter of John discovers Jesus

144 '^HE MAKING OK A TEACHER

at Jacob's Well. Was he thirsty? To answer
this question is to form a judgment. This judg-
ment requires that we hold in mind two facts, —
the fact of Jesus and the fact of thirst. The re-
lation between these facts must be discovered,
and the conclusion set forth. We say, " Jesus was
thirsty," or we say, " Jesus was not thirsty." It
is evident that this is a difficult mental process.
The process is complex. Each element must be
clearly discerned. We must not let one slip.
We must not affirm or deny the fact till we have
discovered the relation between two apparently
separate facts of knowledge.

Here is matter for thought. The tendency in
children is to form hasty judgments, to guess at
the conclusion, to follow instantly the leadings
of the feelings. This power of judgment requires
an attitude of deliberation and of caution. This
attitude is not natural to the child or the youth.
Experience has not yet wrought upon them.
They are not fully aware of the danger in hasty
processes. Then, too, when once the act has been
carried to an issue and a conclusion announced,
the whole stock of knowledge in the soul rushes
to sustain the conclusion an-
MTJ:!' 70""«d. There is a pride of
judgment that renders difficult
any attempt to revise the conclusion. Hence it is
of the utmost importance that the first judgment

FACTS ABOUT JUDGMENT I45

upon the facts be the best jiulgment. Here the
wise teacher will pause and formulate an educa-
tional law: Arrive at conclusions in judgment
deliberately.

One has to guard against the tendency, all too
common in teaching, of demanding instant re-
plies to questions, and hasty responses to state-
ments of facts. We do not seem to realize that
a soul caught in the meshes of a great thought is
a soul struggling and strengthening. It will arise
at last free, joyous, and glorified. The struggle
is the vital thing. This gives

How Judgments li. i. j.t- 11

Should Grow culture to the power, and value
to the conclusion. I count it
good teaching when the judgment of the pupil
is for a time in suspense. It is a good practise
to put before the pupils a story full of concrete
data, and allow the pupils to find themselves in
the story, — that is, to consider all the elements,
and finally to arrive at a conclusion. The story
is all the more valuable as teaching material if
it contain concrete facts that appeal to the feel-
ings and solicit from them a response which clear
judgment may modify. You put the struggle be-
tween feeling and judgment before them and
only trained power will enable them to find their
way to the right conclusion.

A group of boys were hungry for apples. In
an orchard near by the trees were bending with

146 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

ripe red fruit. The owner they knew had gone
to town for his mail. There were so many apples
that the farmer would not miss just a few. The
boys debated for a time between desire and duty.
Finally one boy said, " Let's get some." Another
boy said, " I will watch down the road while you
run to the trees." A third said, " I won't take
these apples without asking the owner." What
do you think of each boy? Study your mental
process as you are formulating your reply. You
will then arrive at some understanding of the
process of forming judgments.
Two Illustrations A mother said that her son was
often wilful and perverse. He
insisted upon doing things she asked him not to
do. He refused to obey her commands. She
was often on the point of punishing him, but she
said, " He is my only son. How can I ? " Her
judgment was at variance with her mother-love.
It was difficult, it was painful, to act. A man
who lived in a city hoarded his money. He was
a hard master. He drove sharp bargains. He
insisted upon the last penny. He lived in a small
house. He wore poor clothes. He ate cheap
foods. His money increased greatly. He refused
to give to any charity. He had few friends. He
lived a lonely life. He died. People said, " It
is a good riddance." But in his will it was found
that all his savings were given to care for poor

FACTS ABOUT JUDGMENT 14/

boys. He suffered for years that he might make
it possible to save others from a Ufe of poverty.
Was lie justified? Was his life a success? See
again in this incident how the judgment is held in
suspense. The conflict is between feeling and
judgment. Jesus, in a number of parables, sets
forth the same struggle. He realized that it is
a good discipline for the judgment to struggle
against the beckonings of our feelings. To judge
wisely is to announce a deliberate conclusion, no
matter how the feelings may protest. Judgment
is a feelingless power. It is the act of the soul
in which the facts are coolly examined and a
verdict rendered as judicially as a judge an-
nounces a decree. Judgment, like justice, is
blindfolded that the solicitations of feeling may
not color the conclusion.

The motto of the ancient Greek was, " Let us

follow the argument whithersoever it leads." It

takes a brave and fearless intel-

A Greek Motto lect to do this. One Can see him
on the track of truth, following
patiently, heroically on, from one conclusion to
another. Refusing to be turned aside by any
emotion or concern, he pursues his quest in
harmony with the fixed laws of thought. See him
as he moves forward. What if his quest is vain,
still it is his to follow on, until hopeless, relief-
less, endless, he comes at last face to face with

148 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

blind, sickening, dying despair. He has lost, not
because he was turned aside, but because he had
no goal. A disciple said, " Lo, we have left all,
and have followed thee." Jesus was the great
argument. Brave and fearless men followed
him throughout all Galilee and Judjea ; down the
valley of the Jordan ; out into the wilderness ; up
into the mountain ; through the boisterous and
buffeting multitude, into the solitude of the star-
less night ; by the brook Kidron
A Holy Quest and the garden of Gethsemane ;
to the cross, the tomb, the gates
of death, and the portals of life eternal. They
came at last to see him as God sees him, and to
know him as he knew them. They found him ever,
because they followed him steadfastly. Thus in
our quest for truth, step by step, invoking the
guidance of trained judgment, we shall come at
last to the author of all truth. Happy the teacher
whose purpose is steadfast ; whose path of pur-
suit is never clouded by doubt nor crossed by
unbelief, and whose unwavering resolution car-
ries courage and comfort and conviction to his
pupils. To be fair, to be accurate, to be cautious,
is to inspire respect and to win confidence from
your pupils.

H we examine still more clearly an act of judg-
ment we shall find that it is accompanied by a
state of mind called belief. When I announce a

FACTS ABOUT JUDGMENT 1 49

judgment, based upon definite facts, my soul
assents to this judgment. I believe the conclu-
sion is true. When I assert that
"'"''Teurf ""** snow is crystalline, I believe the
assertion. When I assert that
God is love, I believe he is love. The very fabric
of my judgment is belief. When I cannot be-
lieve, I have not clearly judged. " Lord, I be-
lieve." This is the final v^'ord. To set belief in
the soul, we must train our pupils to formulate
true judgments. The attitude of belief rests
upon clearness in judgment. Thus judgment,
rightly trained, becomes the strong-sided cham-
pion of conviction.

Over against belief stands doubt. We have so
far assumed that the soul in judging either
accepts or rejects a statement. We have said
that judgment affirms or denies agreement be-
tween two objects of thought. We have a third
state of soul to consider. We may waver be-
tween acceptance and rejection,
Trise" ^^^ suspend our judgment. This

is a state of doubt. When the
relation between the objects of thought is not
discerned, the soul cannot formulate a decision.
We are in doubt. When we believe a thing the
mind is at rest. We are ready to act. When
we doubt a thing the mind is in unrest. We are
not ready to act. We must resolve the doubt,

150 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

establish belief, and so free the soul to move on
to action. On Monday Mary's mother took her
for a walk. Yesterday Mary's mother did not
do so. What will Mary's mother do to-day?
Last Sunday the teacher of William's class was
not present, nor was he present the Sunday be-
fore. What of next Sunday? Twice in succes-
sion James was late at breakfast, then he was
on time for three successive mornings. How
about the sixth ?

Doubt moves the mind away from the act of
judgment. The judgment is suspended until the
doubt is removed. Belief stands at one end, and
doubt at the other end, of a long series of mental
states. At one end is perfect confidence. Doubt
is wholly excluded. At another point doubt and
belief are exactly equal. The mind is deadlocked.
Farther on in the descending series all belief may
vanish, and the lowest level, that of absolute re-
jection, is reached. I make bold to say that
teachers do not ponder the issues of this para-
graph as they should. The teacher is himself at
the point of belief. His judgment is made up.
He assumes that he has secured the same mental
state of belief in his pupils. But has he? How
does he know? Surely he should know. The
Sunday-school class is not a forum in which the
teacher is to be confirmed in his judgment; it is,
in fact, the training-ground for young souls.

FACTS ABOUT JUDGMENT I5I

The vital thing is, what do they beheve? Upon
what judgments do they cHmb to clear convic-
tion? What can the teacher do to give disci])Hne
and nutrition to tlieir struggUng
""dim"" -^o"^s to the end that at last they
shall live in the clear air and
the serene heights whence they may confidently
proclaim, " Lord, I believe" ?

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

Why should religious and educational problems re-
quire the clearest judgment?

Criticize my friend's opinion of the functions of the
rural Sunday-school.

Illustrate the difference between conception and judg-
ment.

Build carefully at least a dozen judgments, noting all
the while the action of the soul in the progress.

What constitutes mechanical teaching?

What would you do to avoid mechanical processes in
your class?

What are the leading characteristics of the judgments
of children? What do they need?

Is there any danger in " lightning processes " in teach-
ing?

Write or narrate two or three stories in which feeling
and judgment are in conflict.

How is belief related to judgment?

Can you figure in your own mind the conflict between
doubt and belief?

152 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

This conflict may be represented by a figure in which
the range of doubt gradually yields to the range of be-
lief. Draw such a figure.

Is the teacher doing all that is necessary when he
himself forms clear judgments and arrives at stable
belief?

In belief the soul is at rest. In doubt it is not. Ex-
plain.

XIII

REASON AND EDUCATIONAL ENDS

VII7HEN I was a barefoot boy in the days that
never lose their fragrant memories, I fre-
quently accompanied my mother and other
women of blessed memory to the near-by moun-
tains to gather huckleberries. The long walks up
the mountainside in the cool of the morning, the
frequent rests by the mossy rocks, the refreshing
drink from the clear spring under the trees, the
chirp of birds, the flash of a squirrel leaping
among the leafy branches, the luncheon at the
noon hour, the tedious task of picking the blue
globules that filled my bucket all too slowly, the

weary journey home, — all these
Memories incidents now flood my memory

and moisten my eyes. The very
hand that is commanded to write trembles to
record what seems almost too sacred for the
many to share.

I recall now my mother's remark, " My son,
you have some ripe berries, some green ones,
some leaves, and some twigs. You must keep
your eye on the ripe berries only if you would
save me the task of going over your work again."

153

154 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

The boy was anxious to fill his bucket. He was
not at all concerned as to the quality of the con-
tents. Is this not likewise a picture of our efforts
to gather facts of knowledge?

We snatch greedily any and all things that will
" fill up " our quota of information. There is no
order, no unity, no harmony, in the things we
gather. If, however, we would gain at last a
harmonious group of similar or related facts, we
must fasten our mind's eye, attention, upon the
kind of facts we most need. We must gather
related facts of knowledge, or

Basis of Accurate , • . i_ . i i

Judgment paticnt processes by teacher and
parent alike will be required to
sort our mental wares and fit them for organic
relations. Accurate judgment presupposes wide
experience with the facts involved. Avoid hasty
generalizations. Do not speedily leap to con-
clusions.

A teacher in a public school in an eastern city
one afternoon found one of her pupils fast
asleep. She wakened him rather roughly, and
bade him attend to his lessons. The next day
she found him asleep again. She gave him a
sound shaking, and said, "If this happens again,
you go to the principal for punishment." It did
happen again and the boy was sent to
the principal with a note from the teacher
explaining his conduct, and declaring that the

REASON AND EDUCATIONAL ENDS 1 55

boy was too stupid to remain in school. The
principal, after reading the note, looked at

the boy, and said, " My lad,
^" scioo"* '" tell me why you sleep in school."

The boy hung his head and
made no reply. The principal called the boy to
his side and said, " I am sure there is a reason
for this. Surely no boy would sleep in school
unless he had good cause to do so, and I assure
you that I will be glad to aid you if I can. Come,
tell me all about it." Assured by this kindly
treatment the boy said, " Well, if I must tell you,
I will. I have no father. My mother washes
every day to earn bread for us, and to pay the
rent. My little sister is sick now, and mother
can't go out to wash. So, to help her, I get up
at four o'clock and carry the morning papers to
the houses in our end of the city. I get home
late in the morning, cold and hungry. We
haven't much to eat. Then I come to school, and
along in the afternoon I get so sleepy I just can't
keep awake. The teacher scolded me and sent
me up here. That's all there is about it." The
principal put his hand on the boy's head, and
said, " You're a brave fellow. I do understand,
my boy, and if I can I mean to help you. Help
your mother, come to school, never mind what
the teacher said. She didn't know." What the
principal said to that teacher you may conjecture.

156 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

Be assured it was good pedagogy. If we knew
the facts we would not so harshly and so hastily
judge.

When we discover truth-relations we announce

a judgment. When we discover cause-relations

we announce a reason. Reason is the product

of a mental process in which we compare two

judgments and set forth in a

Reason Defined third judgment the cause-rela-
tion that may exist between
them. Judgment uses the products of percep-
tion and of conception. Reason uses the products
of judgment. The highest thought activity
exercised by the soul is reason.

Since relations are only mental phenomena it
follows that reason is an abstract activity. Its
materials and its products are alike removed
from the realm of the concrete. The broader
the generalization, the more comprehensive the
law formulated by reason, the less easily may we
verify its conclusions by referring the result to
sense experiences. The things of reason are not
the things of sense. The final development of
the soul on the intellectual side is the develop-
ment of reason. Reason, both as a power and
as a product, is exclusively the activity of the
human soul. No other animal reasons, no matter
what other mental traits it may possess. To say
that a man possesses good reason is to pay him

REASON AND EDUCATIONAL ENDS 1 $y

the highest compliment possible in the domain of
the intellect. It follows that the teacher must

have in mind such a develop-
^RM^onr* ment of the pupil as will at last

culminate in the exercise of this
highest power of the soul on the intellectual
side.

While it is necessary to keep in mind that
reason is different from judgment and is a
higher power, it is, perhaps, wise to remember
that a complete analysis of these higher pov>rers
would show such a blending of judgment and of
reason that we may with no violence of our pur-
pose think of them jointly as the comparative
or cognitive or thinking power of the soul.

We have now discussed the perceptive powers,
the representative powers, and the cognitive
powers. There are no more to trace. We have
concluded the cycle of the intellectual powers.
There remains a consideration of the feelings
and of the will to cover the whole range of soul
activity. All the laws of the soul, all the data
of pure psychology fall within the outline here
presented. Upon these laws of the soul, as a

basis, rest the principles of
^^'easi^'"' Pedagogy; upon the principles

of pedagogy rest the general
methods of teaching; and upon the general
methods of teaching rest the special methods of

158 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

teaching the several branches of knowledge. Thus
a special method is justified by some general
method, which is in turn justified by some
pedagogic principle, and this general principle is
justified by some law of the soul. You will see
from this why the pedagogue is concerned with
the laws of the soul.

Teacher-training for the Sunday-school is
thus seen to be the same as teacher-training for
all schools, until we reach the special method
that relates to the subject we aim to teach. In
the case of the Sunday-school teacher, the subject
is, of course, religious truth. The problem is to
comprehend the general principles of the process,
common to all good teaching, and then to turn
all this broad training to use in the domain of
religious truth. The fact is that this broader
view of the problem is the most important phase
of our study. How can we do consistently the
daily tasks if we do not understand to what end
it all is to trend ? The ability to teach each lesson
as part of the whole truth, to make each fact
not only clear, but to relate it widely to other
facts, to establish innumerable thought relations,
this is to teach wisely. Let us consider some of
the general educational principles that naturally
are related to the more fundamental laws of soul-
growth.

What is the end to be visioned by the teacher

REASON AND EDUCATIONAL ENDS 1 59

and ultimately realized by the pupil? Here is a
far-reaching question. It is also a necessary
question, because we can never do the wisest
work in the least time, and with a minimum of

effort, unless we know from the
End°^ ^^ ^^^y beginning what the final

issue is to be. Here is the child
just opening its wonder-eyes in the primary
class :

"Just a-peeping
Through the sleeping

Month of infanthood;
Into wonder,
Into yonder

Life's infinitude.

"Just awaking,
Just a-taking

Everything for truth ;
Never dreaming
Of the teeming

Fallacies of youth.

"Just a-walking,
Just a-talking.

Little butter-ball;
Just a yearning
To be learning
Anything at all."

What of this one? Whither shall our teach-
ing and our training lead its footsteps, its heart-

I50 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

beats, its thought-processes? The wise man
admonishes us to " train up " this child, — up to
what ? What is the goal ? Over what track shall
its life-race be run? Where are the laurel-
wreaths set and the victory won? We all have
an answer to these questions. But is our answer
a usable one? Does it give us guidance in our
daily teaching? Let us consider this end up to
which the child is to be led.

What marks the progress of mankind from
savagery to civilization ? How do we differ from
the savage? The answer to this query will for-
mulate the gifts of civilization. We are only
the savage plus the endowments of civilization.
These endowments are the great

Institutions ,•, ,• r ,1 i

Defined uistitutions 01 the human race.

These institutions may be
grouped into six, — home, industry, society, state,
school, and church. These six contain all that
makes civilization. Cut these away, and we
remain only savages. The stage of our civiliza-
tion is determined by the degree in which we
honor all these and recognize their relative value
as ends in the up-bringing of a human soul. Of
these, religion, the function of the church, is the
most vital, and its relation to the others is, next
to its own observance, the most important prob-
lem to be worked out in the education of each
child. The end, then, is to train the child to live

REASON AND EDUCATIONAL ENDS l6l

completely. To live completely is to live in active
sympathy with these great institutions of our
civilization. To " train up "' means to train the
child to an understanding of these great institu-
tions and to a cheerful and cordial acceptance of
their worth as personal possessions of his own
soul. The first five named are the institutions
usually honored in the secular school. The last
and the greatest is peculiarly the one whose sig-
nificance is unfolded in the Sunday-school. To
train up a child to a religious life, a life of ser-
vice, patterned after the perfect life of the Son
of God, is, then, the end we have in mind. This
implies that religious life must also be under-
stood as a vital equipment for right interpreta-
tion of these other great institutions. To live
completely means not only to live religiously, but
it also means to live in a home sanctified by
religion, to apply the principles of religion to
one's daily toil, to cultivate only religious asso-
ciations, to labor for a religious government, and
to promote only such education as comprehends
the words of Jesus : "And this is life eternal,
that they should know thee the only true God,
and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus
Christ."

Here let us pause and formulate the end of
education that the Sunday-school should foster.
See clearly what it means to train a soul up into

1 62 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

high and holy service. Fix this end firmly in

your mind. It is only by doing this that we shall

The End for the ^^"^w how to interpret the les-

Sunday-schooi sons and quicken the activities

of the pupils. Note also that a

clear comprehension of a definite end to a large

degree determines the process by which it is

attained. Longfellow, in an eloquent plea for

the birds, calls their habitations in the tree tops

" half-way houses on the road to heaven." Let

us see that each lesson we teach becomes for our

pupils a distinct advance to the same ultimate

goal.

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

What makes one fact of knowledge more valuable than
another?

Point out the danger of hasty generalizations.

Had you been the principal in the case cited what
would you have said to the teacher?

Just what do you understand to be the function of
the soul's power called reason?

Is the test of reason the final test of truth ? Why ?

Construct a diagram showing the relation of psycho-
logic law to educational principle, to general method,
and to special method.

How does teacher-training for the Sunday-school dif-
fer from the training of the teacher of the secular school?
In what aspects do they agree?

REASON AND EDUCATIONAL ENDS 163

What is the end of education generally? Of religious
education ?

What is the meaning of the command, " Train up a
child ? "

Define civilization, and enumerate its gifts to the
human race.

How does religion relate itself to the other great insti-
tutions of civilization?

When the pupils are ours to educate, what is the end
we should keep constantly in mind ?

Does every lesson you teach count mightily for the
final purposes of life?

In what way does the aim of the Sunday-school differ
from the aim of the secular school?

Does the secular school give a complete education?

XIV

SOME LAWS OF TEACHING

A MIEL tells ns " Never to tire, never to
"^^ grow cold ; to be patient, sympathetic,
tender; to look for the budding flower and the
opening heart ; to hope always, like God ; to love
always, — this is duty." It is also a figuring of
the process of teaching.

I commend his words as a wise guidance for
the teacher. This process of teaching is con-
ditioned by the end set in the soul of the teacher.
If that end be tlie training of the individual to
right relations to the great institution of our
civilization, the individual may then be said to
live completely. To the achievement of this end
we must seek to give intellectual, moral, and
physical training to the pupil. Yet even in the
Sunday-school our training is

hiTenecfuaUzed over-intellcctiialized. We seem
to be more zealous in developing
the intellect than \vq are in developing the moral
or religious life. We have a craving for results
that may be measured. We have learned how
to measure knowledge. We have not so fully
learned how to measure the products of the emo-
164

SOME LAWS OF TEACHING l6$

tional and of the volitional life, and where we
cannot measure we do not try so carefully to
build. The necessary soul equipment includes
not only knowledge, but also skill and power.
Our emphasis is placed upon what the content
of the soul is, rather than upon what the soul
becomes under the training of the teacher.

There was a time when the pedagogic thought
of the day was colored by the philosophy of John
Locke. Then the test of service was the answer
to the question, What do you know? We then
passed to a conception of teaching that demanded
an answer to the question, What can you do?
Now, we must exact as the standard an answer
to the question, What are you? For we teach
more by what we are, than by what we know
or do. Each advance has been a valued one.
We shall at last come to the standard set by
Jesus, " Be ye." When we are what we would
have our pupils become we can best teach others.

In education culture is worth more than knowl-
edge. Not what we know, but what we are
capable of knowing, is of first importance in the
process. True teaching never fails to recognize
that the culture acquired in

Value of Culture learning anything is worth more

than the knowledge of the thing.

A fact as knowledge is frequently of small value ;

but as the developer of skill and power its value

1 66 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

may be great. There is an abundance of religious
knowledge fashioned by skilled workmen and
ready at hand. The fountains of religious cul-
ture are running low. The soul craves drink as
well as food. We really need a culture of the
religious spirit, — a culture that will give grace,
dignity, and humility to all our deeds.

The fine art of teaching aims to develop in the
human soul knoivlcdge, poiver, and skill. To the
attainment of these ends it is essential that the
mind of the teacher be organized in harmony
with fundamental educational laws, and that the
teaching process be conducted
Itms"" ^^^ harmony with the enlightened
methods that have gained cur-
rent use because of their intrinsic worth.

Paul, in writing to the Hebrew brethren, points

out the fact that strong meat belongeth to them

that are of full age. He also says that babes,

unskilled in the word of righteousness, must use

milk. Here is a recognition of the fact that the

food of the soul varies in kind with the age of

the pupil; that, in fact, the capability of the

pupil to grasp truth varies in the
The Law of . , r u- j

Capacity successive stagcs of his advance.
To what may we attribute this
constantly varying capability ?

I. Evidently not to the varying energy of
the soul as a whole ; for if this were so, primary

SOME LAWS OF TEACHING 1 6/

pupils and Bible-class pupils could be taught the
same kind of knowledge by the same method.
The only variation in the grades would be in the
amount of knowledge taught. Small doses for
small pupils, large doses for adults, would be
the fornmla. But there is a difference in kind
and in method as well as in amount. The teacher
has thus a threefold change to provide for.

2. Evidently not to the absence or non-
activity of some of the powers of the soul in
young pupils, and their presence or activity in
older pupils. If this were the true theory of soul
growth, we would have the theory of successive
creation of new powers for the soul through the
years of educational advance. We cannot think
of this theory of soul creation and retain our idea
that God makes each soul complete from the
beginning.

3. It follows then that all the powers are
present at the beginning, but that there is marked
change in the relative activity of these powers as
the child moves through the successive stages of

his educational advance. This
Theory^ change in the relative activity

explains the fundamental quality
of instruction in the different grades. Early in
life it is for the most part the presentative powers
that are active. Later on, the representative
powers dominate, and after adolescence, the

1 68 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

cognitive powers. Thus in the primary grade
the process is teaching through objects; in the
intermediate grades the process is teaching
through symbols', and in the advanced grades
the process is teaching through elaboration ; that
is, through the discerning of thought relations
by means of analysis and synthesis. It follows
that both in the materials of instruction and in
the method of instruction the teacher must adapt
himself to the capacity of the pupil.

At one pole of our educational world are
grouped the concrete data immediately reported
by the senses. At the other pole are grouped the
abstract data, elaborated by conception, judg-
ment, and reason, and the order of growth is
from one to the other of these intellectual poles.
Sensation reports facts about things. Reason
reports facts about relations as discerned in
symbols. The general law, then, of all teaching
is: From the concrete to the abstract, from the
particular to the general, from the simple to the
complex, — in short, from things
Reason^ ** to symbols and relations. When
once this whole range of process
has been covered, it is often wise and easy to
pass at once from the most simple to the most
complex, from the concrete to the abstract. This
is a method frequently used by Jesus. The rich
elements of feeling cling close to the concrete

SOME LAWS OF TEACHING 1 69

and particular facts in the soul. The keen ele-
ment of thought naturally clusters around the
abstract and general facts in the soul.

Teacher A says, " Children, it is noble, good,
and grand to be kind and helpful to those in need.
This is all the more true when the person in need
is a cripple. I want you to remember this, and

try always to be on the lookout
Two Illustrations for chances to render such aid."

Teacher B says, "Children, one
cold Sunday morning in December, when the
pavements were icy and dangerous, an old man
was slowly making his way to church. He was
a cripple. He trembled as he leaned on his
crutch and his cane. At the steps to his church
he set his crutch and cane upon the icy stone and
endeavored to lift his weak and trembling body
to the next step. His crutch slipped on the ice.
He almost fell. Thus several times he did his
best to enter his church. Each time he slipped
and with pain recovered himself. Just then a
college boy came that way. He saw the old man
in his struggle, and, hurrying forward, put his
arms gently around the poor cripple, lifted him
carefully to the vestibule, opened the door, set
the old man down, and walked hastily away.
Tell me, children, what you think of the college
boy. Tell me also, if you care to, what you
would have done had you been there."

I/O THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

Which of these teachers did the thing more
nearly in harmony with the educational law here
announced? How are you teaching? Are you
like A, or like B? Do you give facts first, or
definitions first?

A certain lawyer came one day to test a great
teacher. The lawyer asked a question. The
teacher answered it by quoting words the lawyer
well knew. But the lawyer was not satisfied. He
wanted to test the teacher still more — to ascer-
tain, if he could, whether the teacher knew only
the words of the law or whether he really was a
teacher of power and skill. The second question
could not be answered by quoting words known
to the lawyer. It could be ansv^'ered only by
original statement on the part of the teacher.

Let us study the method of the Great Teacher.
Had he been like A, he would have said,
" Lawyer, your neighbor is your helper in time

of need." But the Great
T^u/ht"* Teacher said, "A certain man

went down from Jerusalem to
Jericho. He fell among thieves. They tore from
him his garments. They beat him with clubs and
stones. They threw him into the bushes by the
roadside, thinking him half dead, and ran away.
Soon a priest came down the road. He saw the
wounded and dying man. He turned from the
middle path to the farther side of the road, and,

SOME LAWS OF TEACHING I /I

scarcely looking around, hurried on. Then a
Levite came down the road. He saw the
wounded and dying man. He stopped for a mo-
ment, looked at the man, looked up and down
the road, and then hurried on. Then a poor
Samaritan came riding by on his donkey. He
saw the wounded and dying man. He leaped from
his donkey, ran to the man, bound up his bleed-
ing wounds, poured soothing oil and wine upon
his cuts and bruises, spoke words of sympathy
and cheer, lifted him tenderly upon the donkey's
back, and brought him to an inn or hotel. Here
the Samaritan cared for the man all through the
night, and the next day before leaving gave
money to the inn-keeper, and said, ' Care for this
man until he is well. If the cost is more than I
have paid you in advance, I will settle on my
return.' Tell me, Lawyer, which of the three,
priest, Levite or Samaritan, was neighbor to the
man that fell among thieves?"

The lawyer needed no more information. He
was now able to answer his own question. He
had met a real teacher, who knew how to teach,
and how, also, in teaching to lay bare the insin-
cerity and the quibbling of a foolish questioner.
This is great teaching. He that did it is your
model.

The child speedily reaches a stage in his devel-
opment in which knowledge may be presented in

172 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

symbols, especially in the symbols we call words.
Thus things are by no means so widely valuable
as instruments of instruction as is language. A
wise teacher will be on the alert to detect the
moment when concrete teaching with objects may
be supplanted by teaching with

When Words t r^r r .

are Valuable language. Of course reference to
objects will continue all through
the grades, both in teaching a new idea, and in
making vivid what may have been in part or in-
adequately understood. But freedom to teach
as one should teach comes only where the pro-
cess may go on profitably in language. The
question is, then, to determine under what condi-
tions instruction through language may be profit-
ably carried on. The answer is most important :
Only when the words used in the teaching pro-
cess represent known ideas. We cannot teach
with the words that are not understood by the
child any more than we can move the mill with \
the water that has run by.

When, as I suspect we frequently do, we use
language that is void of meaning to the learner,
one of two things results, — the learner either be-
comes discouraged or is overawed, and there
arises in his soul a vague feeling that there is
some hidden and mysterious implication in the
matter presented into which he is supposed to
be unable as yet to penetrate. This latter frame

SOME LAWS OF TEACHING 1 73

of mind is all too common. Perhaps some of us
even foster it. But it has no justification. Strive
by all the power you possess to occasion clear
knowledge in the soul of the learner.

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

Put in language of 3'our own the purpose or end of
education as you understand it.

What is the relative value of knowledge and skill?
of knowledge and power? of skill and power?

Define culture and skill.

Just why is culture worth more than knowledge?

What is a good test of the value of a method?

In what way do you account for the varying capability
of the pupil?

Point out three theories of soul growth, and discuss
the result of accepting each of them in turn.

What determines the capacity of the pupil to know?

How does knowledge of things differ in quality from
knowledge of symbols?

Explain fully the vital distinction between teacher
A and teacher B.

How much concrete material did Jesus use in the
story of the Good Samaritan? Why?

When may we pass from teaching in things to teach-
ing in words?

Describe clearly the value of words as teaching ma-
terial.

How does vague knowledge become clear knowledge
in the soul?

Write five educational laws based upon this chapter.

XV

TRAIN UP A CHILD

' I ^HE equipment of the teacher embraces
■^ three distinct processes. First, the teacher
must understand the activities of the growing
soul. Second, the teacher must understand the
subject-matter which constitutes the nutrition
upon which the soul grows. This is the general
scholastic equipment of the teacher. Third, the
teacher must understand how to interpret this
subject-matter from time to time under the most
favorable conditions and in the right order to the
growing soul. This is the professional or peda-
gogical equipment of the teacher. It is this third
aspect of the problem that the teacher must heed
most carefully. Let us understand how impor-
tant it is to regard the teacher as the interpreter
of objective truth to the growing soul of a child.
The soul may be hungry, and the subject-matter

lying beyond it may be excellent,
Equi^Tment^ but if there is no intermediate

agency to bring the two things

together there can be no growth, no development,

no education. The teacher therefore is the vital

connecting link between objective truth and sub-

174

TRAIN UP A CHILD I75

jective development. What the teacher does
becomes significant. How the teacher does it is
the professional problem.

It is necessary at the outset to understand the
importance of the mastery by the teacher of cer-
tain fundamental laws of the teaching process.
These laws rest, of course, upon the needs of the
soul as these needs arise in its unfolding. To
become a fine teacher one must give attention to
the best laws of teaching. The purpose of these
laws is to accomplish in each individual pupil
some definite educational end. These principles
become the guidance to that end. They also
form a means of measuring the progress and
determining what each step of the process shall
be. The first question then is
o,..^iJi^^ n^ to determine the end. What do

Principles uo

we want the child to become as
a result of our teaching activity? Bear in mind
that this question must be answered within the
limits of the child's possibilities. We might want
him to fly, but we cannot teach him to do that.
We must remember what he can become, and
then ascertain how to achieve that result. In
general it may be said that the purpose of edu-
cation is to train the child to live completely,
which means that he must be equipped with
knowledge, mental power, and skill. Not one of
these, nor two of these, but all of these must be

1/6 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

secured in order that the pupil may live com-
pletely.

Let us now ask ourselves more in detail what
it means to live completely. Solomon admonishes
us to train up a child. Up to what shall we train
him? What are the ends or goals to which the
child is to be led? The answer to that must
be found in the quality of our civilization, which
civilization is more Christian than it is anything
else. The child must be trained
ItZuL "P to a right understanding of
the great institutions of our
Christian civilization. He must be shown what
these institutions are, what they stand for, and
what part he is to play under them in working
out the destiny of the human race under God.
For he will best work out his own destiny when
he sees himself as part of the great human
family.

These institutions of our civilization are the
home, the state, the school, the social life, the
industrial life, and the church. To live completely
one must live in complete understanding of the
significance of these great institutions, and in har-
mony with their highest ideals. It will be well
to work out these ideals with great care. Every
prominent question before our present civiliza-
tion rests upon the right relation of the individual
to these great institutions of our Christian civili-

TRAIN UP A CHILD I77

zation. The child must be taught his relations to
the home; the facts of fatherhood and mother-
hood, of childhood and brother-
' c'vn"!l"l'„°' hood. Here the letters of Paul

^1 V 1 1 12 d Lion

afford splendid guidance. How
strongly he urged right relations in the home,
and how much of all that he counted vital in the
organization of the church depends upon what
is done in the home, and how life is lived there !
Take the Temperance question, the Mormon
question, the Child Labor question, and other
great movements that stir ovu" thought to-day,
and see how important it is to understand that
no solution of these problems is possible except-
ing in so far as we have a clearly defined home
life which is menaced by the conditions that give
rise to these questions. We fight for the integrity
and the purity of the home institution, and we
array ourselves naturally and properly against

every influence that strikes at
Questioi^* ^^S^^^ home conditions. Let the

child understand that here is one
of the aspects of his education of vital concern
to the home and to the race. He can not live
completely unless he lives in proper relation and
subordination to the law of the home. Note also
what we think of any one who interferes with
the home. Point out the significance of societies
for the prevention of cruelty to children, of laws

178 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

for the punishment of wife-beaters, and all those
things which menace the integrity of our ideal of
a Christian home.

Consider the state as another of the great in-
stitutions of our modern civilization, and see how
conformity to its laws, devotion to its ideals, and
service in its welfare are regarded. See the
significance of punishment for the violation of
law, of public censure of the criminal, of appre-
ciation of the hero who serves his state, of con-
demnation for him who refuses
The state to cherish the ideals of his state,
and you begin to see the signi-
ficance of the institution of the state as a part
of the equipment of the child to live completely.
Notice the concern of the public when the wel-
fare of the state is menaced. Consider how trea-
son is regarded as shown in the case of Arnold,
and in the case of Judas, and others who were
false to their leaders, and through their leaders
to great institutions like the state and the church.
It is the same with the school. Every influ-
ence that menaces the school menaces our civili-
zation. And the child should be taught to respect'
the school, to take advantage of
The School its opportunities, to live always
in sympathy with its purpose,
and, in general, to promote educational institu-
tions as a part of his training for complete living.

TRAIN UP A CHILD 1 79

Social life also has its ideals, and it is a part
of the complete training of each individual to
understand his place in the social order, and to
discharge his obligations, and to live his life in
harmony with the best guidance that he can find,
to the end that he may so order his life that it
may harmonize with the community life of which
he is a part. Point out, too, at
Social Life this Stage the false conceptions
of what true social life is, and
how these should be avoided. The difference
between artificial and sincere living, between
playing a part as a clown or a zany, and the
true, sincere appreciation of, and participation in,
social things, should be clearly comprehended.
No man liveth to himself alone. He is, as God
taught in the beginning, his brother's keeper, and
complete living involves right social relations.

Point out also the importance of training up
the child to an understanding of the industrial
life of our modem civilization. He should be
taught to produce more than he consumes, and
thus add to the sum of our material welfare.
Let him see the significance of strikes, of labor
unions, of trusts, of corporate
Industry activities as they afifect the indus-
trial welfare of the whole peo-
ple, and help him, if possible, to seek the true
solution of these vexatious problems, and thus

l80 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

come to a proper understanding of all the prob-
lems that underlie a stable industrial community.

Finally, teach the child that complete living
implies living in harmony with the ideals of the
Christian religion. This means that he must
identify himself with some church organization,
and through it work out the salvation of the
human race before God, and thus in the most
definite way work out his own
The Church salvation. He must lose his life
if he is to find it. He must serve
now if he is to be served hereafter, which is
only another way of saying that he must save now
if he is to be saved hereafter, — for service is
saving. Whatever, then, the church opposes,
the individual must avoid. Whatever the church
cherishes as the true doctrine of righteous liv-
ing, he must cultivate. Thus the individual,
working out his destiny in harmony with this
great institution of civilization, comes to live
completely. This is the end which the teacher
is constantly striving to achieve.

Some guidance to this end must be kept in
mind. Study the significance of such educational
maxims as the following: Develop in each pupil
knowledge, power, and skill. Knowledge is the
content of the mind. Power is the strength of
■faculty in using knowledge, and skill is facility
in the use of knowledge. In education, culture

TRAIN UP A CHILD l8l

is worth more than knowledge. Prove this
proposition to yourself, especially as it relates to
religious culture. See what it means to have
depth of knowledge, strength of spirit, courage
of conviction, integrity of purpose, resoluteness
of will. Work out a justification for the saying
that the capability of the pupil to grasp truth
varies in the successive stages of his advance.
See what can be done with the child in the begin-
ning of his education, at the middle stage of his

education, at the end of his edu-
^hc'reTcVeT cation, explaining to yourself

what teaching through objects
means, likewise teaching through symbols, and
teaching through elaboration, and see whether
at last you can come to the formulation of the
doctrine that both in the material of instruction
and in the method of instruction the teacher
must always adapt himself to the capacity of the
pupil.

This will explain to you a great educational
law : From things through symbols to relations :
from the concrete to the abstract ; from the
simple to the complex. Turn now to the par-
ables, and see with what consummate skill Jesus
embodied this doctrine as the basis of nuich of
his teaching. Note with what simple things he
begins and with what broad generalizations he
ends. See how every apparently unimportant

l82 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

object in nature becomes the hint and the
approach to the great truths of the kingdom.
When you have clearly discussed this quality in
his own teaching, ask yourself the question. Am
I following his method? You will see in the

answer to that question the sig-
The Parables nificancc of the story, with its

rich, concrete data, appealing, as
it always does, to the interest of the child, and
predisposing him to organize clear thought and
formulate definite conviction. Note, too, the
value in this connection of indirect teaching as
opposed to direct teaching. By direct teaching
I mean telling the child; by indirect teaching I
mean leading the child to find out for himself
the truth under the guidance of the teacher. The
finest example of indirect teaching known to me
is recorded in Luke lo : 29-37. Study this with
the utmost concern. It is so fruitful as guidance
that one will inevitably teach better after master-
ing its message.

When the child is able to think in symbols,
he has made a great advance. Consider how long
it took the human race to pass through the stage

of development in which picto-
Things First rial writing alone was used. The

abstract symbol came only when
the mind was sufficiently developed to think in
the abstract. The child, like the race, must think

TRAIN UP A CHILD 183

in things until he is able to think in symbols. But
the child of to-day, more rapidly than the race,
rises to symbolic thought. This is due to the
fact that the more mature life about him thinks
in symbols. He has an example. The early race
had not.

Thus speedily the time will come when the
symbol may be used as the instrument of thought.
The mind no longer needs tlie immediate stim-
ulus of sensations. This is only another way
of saying education must unsense the mind. Of
course, all new experiences must come, as did
the first ones, in the concrete, but when the
mind is once familiar with the concrete, and has
the power to use its symbol, there is no longer
need for tedious reference to concrete things.
The mind becomes free. The symbol is the in-
strument of universal thought. See to it that
the symbols or words with which the child thinks
are clearly understood. No word should be
used in the thought processes whose meaning
is not clearly understood. To make its meaning
understood the word must be
Deftnmons referred to the thing it names,
or it must be interpreted into
ideas already known to the mind. The latter is
usually the step to be taken. It is the method
of definition. It lies at the basis of the dictionary.
The thought products will be no clearer than

184 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

are the meanings of the symbols with which
these products are secured. Do not take the
meanings of symbols for granted. Test each
word. See that its meaning is clear to the child.
You must think, not of your ability to use the
word, but of the pupil's. The teaching of the
exact meaning of the words that carry our reli-
gious ideals is necessary and wise teaching.

The most fruitful way to fasten the right
meanings of symbols in the consciousness of the
learner is to furnish occasions for their use by
the pupil in giving expression to his own
thoughts. This is valuable not alone as a means
of securing clear thinking, but also as a means
of exercising his own soul powers. Thus to the
power of clear thought he will add mental dis-
cipline, which is culture. It is
Symbols *'^^^ sclf-activity that is to be

guarded and guided always by
tlie teacher. As the {mpU gradually acquires the
power to think for himself the work of the
teacher gradually lessens. Thus it becomes true
that the function of a true teacher is to render
himself useless to the pu])il. i'onder the full
significance of this saying. The end is self-
guidance and self-control. The teacher hinders
the attainment of this end when he continues
those processes that keep the ptipil under guid-
ance and control which the pupil is able to fur-

TRAIN UP A CHILD 1 85

nish for the regulation of his own thonght-Hfe
and act-Hfe.

The process of instruction may be so conducted
as to leave the mind of the pupil passive and
receptive, or it may be so conducted as to
make the mind of the pupil active and
acquisitive. The latter is the better form of
teaching. The teacher is at fault when the think-
ing is all done for the pupil. The class exercise
is not an activit}' in which the pupil has little,
the teacher much, to do. The reverse is really
the condition that should prevail. Hence, avoid
as far as may be the habit of doing for the pupils
what they can do for themselves. To' talk much,
to recite or explain at knglh. lo monopolize the
time, is a weakness against which you must con-
stantly struggle. The really im-
toTeach' portaut matter is to force
activity upon the pui)il. Thus any
form of teaching that compels the pupil to do
original thinking, to weigh the facts, and to an-
nounce a conclusion, is of value. For that reason
the question becomes a fruitful agency in tlic
teaching process. T cannot here present at length
the importance of the question in the teaching
process. May I ask you to do a piece of research
work on your own account?

Take the words of Jesus, as found in the
Gospel of John or of Matthew. Make a list of

1 86 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

the questions he propounded. Classify them
upon some basis, as those that demanded imme-
diate reply and those that demanded only assent
or dissent in thought, or as those that were
addressed to his disciples, those that were ad-
dressed to the multitude, those that were
addressed to some one person, and those that
were addressed to any other persons, as the
Scribes, etc. Then ask yourself what each ques-
tion was intended to accomplish, and decide

whether it did accomplish its
Ques"«ons purposc. You will find in some

such study much that will help
you to teach well. Notice the clear, concise,
comprehensive character of Jesus' questions.
Formulate a dozen questions upon the next lesson
in the Sunday-school series. Test your ques-
tions. Are they clear? Are they concise? Are
they comprehensive ? Do they lead logically from
the simple aspects of the lesson to the more com-
plex aspects? Do the questions as a series cover
the vital points in the lesson? Does each ques-
tion help all the others ? You will not master the
teaching process until you have learned how to
put your own processes to the test.

To build a teacher, one must first have as mate-
rial the fine stuff from which is molded a Chris-
tian man, a Christian woman. It is no use to
veneer poor character with polished pedagogy.

TRAIN UP A CHILD 1 8/

Back of the way we do things is the doer of the
things. The discerning spirit of childhood looks

beneath the surface, sees under
A Prerequisite the acquired knowledge, power,

and skill, and demands a person-
ality with God's stamp upon it, — the stamp of
Christian character. The life that carries itself
clean and pure and strong always predisposes
other life to become like it. I say this because
T wish to have you understand most clearly that
no amount of professional skill can compensate
for the absence of the virtues that God wants
in every soul, and that God's children must find
there or be grievously disappointed. We
can make teachers by building professionally
upon good native qualities of soul. But we
cannot veneer a corrupt spirit into respec-
tability and efficiency. Teacher, be sincere, be
honest, be true, be clean, be humble, and you will
then be able to add all the qualities that give
efficiency to your work.

There is much to learn yet concerning the
qualities of spirit that a teacher should cultivate.
Let us ask what we need as equipments to teach.
What would you write as the necessary qualities ?
Suppose you make this your problem. It will
not be important that you answer the question
as others would. But it is important that you
set forth in order the qualities that you think

1 88 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

should be possessed by you as a teacher. Let us
begin the series. What shall go down first?
Shall we put down scholarship first? If so, why?
If not, why not ? Put the test to everything you
set down. Then, when the list is at last com-
pleted, ask this question: Do I possess these
qualities? Read the life of any
How to study ^g^^ teacher ; make a list of the

a Teacher &• '

qualities that made him a great
teacher. I name a few. Choose any one, —
Comenius, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Arnold, Fenelon,
Mann. Then turn to the life of Jesus and see
how all that was greatest in these men was but
an echo of that great voice, and all that was
found in them of good, conjoined with weakness
and limitation, was in him combined with
strength and freedom. You will not at first ap-
preciate the commanding worth of Jesus' teach-
ing. You must approach him gradually, attribute
by attribute. As the eye of one in the valley of
Lauterbrunnen climbs from valley to cascade,
from cascade to table-land, from table-land to
mountainside, and finally to the Jungfrau, lifting
her virgin brow clear and sparkling to the regal
sun, so the human spirit climbs from man to
man, from excellence to excellence, from
achievement to achievement, until at last it comes
to grasp something of the overmastering glory
and grandeur and greatness of that Teacher

TRAIN UP A CHILD I89

whose heart beats lovingly for childhood, and
whose spirit is suffused with the transcendent
glory of the Eternal Father. Jesus is the ideal
for all teachers.

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

Which is more important, what the teacher does or
how the teacher does it ?

What is the basis upon which the laws of teaching
ultimately rise?

Under what limitations must the teacher work?

Write a list of additional limitations under which
you do, but should not, teach.

In what way does the phrase, '"Train up a child,"
stand related to the broad ends in education?

Why does Solomon indicate that training is of perma-
nent value?

What are the great institutions of our civilization?
What makes them great institutions?

Write a list of current questions growing out of the
proper relation of the individual to the hotne, to the
state, to the school, to social life, to industry, and to
the church.

Are the questions of one of these institutions always
independent of the questions of the other? For example,
is the temperance question solely a home problem?

Notice how almost every great question is six-sided
and must be studied in its relation to each of these great
institutions. Thus you have an outline for the study of
a great question.

ipO THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

What would you consider conclusive evidence of the
growth of culture in the soul of a child? Apply the law,
"From sense to symbol," to each of the parables.

Does the child follow the order of race develop-
ment in his intellectual unfolding? What follows from
an affirmative answer to this question?

How do I know when a child uses a symbol properly?

As the pupil advances should the work of the teacher
lessen or increase? Why?

What would you consider as the necessary pre-
requisite to the making of a teacher?

How would you proceed to study a teacher, and what
significance would you attach to the different qualities
which you consider necessary?

XVI

SOUL-ACTIVITY THROUGH WORDS AND
QUESTIONS

"IIS^ORDS stand for ideas. Ideas stand for
thing-s. These things may be objects in
nature or they may be relations discerned in the
soul. We need not raise the question whether
or not we can think without symbols. The im-
portant fact to keep in mind is that we think
with these words. Hence it is of great signifi-
cance that we know what content the word car-
ries, what it means to the child. We all know
the ludicrous blunders made by
Thought children when they use words

whose meanings are not clear.
It is not necessary to specify. Since words are
the tools of thought, it is of first moment that
the exact use of each tool be understood by the
user.

When I was a youth, I became in some way
confused over cemetery and seminary. I was not
quite sure which word named the institution to
which young- ladies were sent to be educated. It
is my opinion that somewhere I had poor teach-
ing on this point. As a result, I have been forced

191

192 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

to eliminate both words from my vocabulary.
I use instead grave-yard and boarding-school.
How long I used these words interchangeably
before I became aware of my blunder I do not
know. There is only one way to be certain that
the word signifies what it should,

The Real Test — that is by furnishing occasions
for its use by the pupil in giving
expression to his own thoughts. Do not over-
look the fact that the word is to be used in ex-
pressing his own thoughts. Many words are
used by pupils in quotations from the Bible, and
from the sayings of the teacher, that are entirely
void of meaning to the pupil. Children are rather
fond of picking up words and using them in
fantastic ways. They are not yet aware of the
vital worth of exact meaning. The teacher must
understand the need, and seek to give the word
its right content.

We have heretofore considered how difficult
it is to secure right conditions for study, right
attitude of soul in the teaching process. For this
added reason we should be careful that the word
as a tool of thought is clearly comprehended. I
have placed emphasis upon this phase of teaching
in order to make meaningful an educational law :
The powers of the soul are developed and trained
only by occasioning their right activity. It is the
act of the soul upon the fact of knowledge that

STIMULATING SOUL-ACTIVITV I93

is most significant. Ponder this well. We see

again how impossible it is to be content to tell

facts to pupils, no matter how

Talking Not _,• .1 ■ • 1 1

x^o^iT- „ receptive their minds mav be.

leacning '■

We talk too much to our pupils.
We do not encourage them to talk. It is what
they say to you, what they think before they say
it, and what they think it with^ that is most im-
portant.

The teacher will at every point aim to occasion
a maximum of mental activity by the pupil. He
will so put his points, so arrange his statements,
that the pupil will from pure interest exercise the
powers of the soul to the limit. This means that

the teacher will exclude all irrel-
T ^tiJl evant matter and include all

reaching

pertinent matter. It also means
that the teacher will so master the theme, so
organize the subject-matter of the lesson, so for-
mulate his method, that the pupil's attention will
inevitably be secured. Cut out all discussion that
is irrelevant. I have known teachers whose inade-
quate preparation unfitted them to teach the
lesson. As a makeshift they digressed into sub-
jects that were wholly without relation to the
purpose of the recitation, and subjects that were
in themselves practically useless. The fault here
is obvious. The teacher did not comprehend the
significance of a great opportunity. Better not

194 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

teach than to teach error. Better not teach than
to teach fragmentarily. Better not teach than to
teach flippantly. Best of all, teach well. You
can, if you will. It may cost effort, but anything
we do that is worth doing is done at the price
of effort. To illuminate a soul is worth the
effort. To enthrone God, sacred and secure, in
a child's spirit is not a task, but a privilege. All
teaching is opportunity.

In presenting the lesson the teacher will bear
in mind that the wise use of questions is a potent
process in securing soul activity. Do you under-
stand the fine art of questioning? When the
teacher presents all the data of the lesson in

narrative form, that is, in the
Jue'stt'iing form of a story, the mind of the

pupil is frequently in a passive
or receptive condition. The pupil feels much like
a passenger on a train, — the thing to do is to
settle down comfortably, trust to the officials to
attend to every detail of the journey, and wait
patiently and submissively until the conductor
calls out the destination. The passenger has been
carried along without effort on his part. So it
may be in your class. The pupils resign them-
selves to your tender care, trust your ability to
see them safely through the lesson, and them-
selves take no active part in the process. But is
this teaching ?

STIMULATING SOUL-ACTIVITV 1 95

What, then, is the value of the question as a
teaching agency ? The question has always been
regarded as a most important means of stimu-
lating thought, and of creating knowledge in the
soul. Direct teaching is too frequently telling,
and telling is always poor teaching. Indirect
teaching is usually good teaching. It aims to
stimulate inquiry in the soul of the learner. It
leads him to discover truth for himself. He has,
as a result, the joy of discovery, the added power
of increased thought-ability due to the exercise
of his powers, and the fuller inter-relation of his
facts of knowledge one with another.

The soul is so constituted that its own

products, the products of its own activity, yield

for it the longest measure of

s^urJ^o'Ly joy. The student in botany who
finds in some sequestered nook
a rare and early blossom is overjoyed. He has
made a discovery so delightfully surprising that
for the time he thinks and talks only of the thing
that has so enraptured him. I recall a pupil of
mine, dull and listless in his work for a year,
who was finally persuaded to study botany. He
did his text-book work indifferently, but early in
June, upon a rainy afternoon, he accompanied
his classmates to a secret haunt of the orchid
family. Here the boy unexpectedly discovered
a rare white orchid, and, throwing himself upon

196 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

the wet ground beside the beautiful flower, wept
for joy. In his moment of supreme exaltation
he called alternately upon his teacher and his
God. He found the thing he loved. It opened
his soul to these exquisite thoughts of God and
he became a botanist of note. So always is the
feeling in the pupil when in answer to a wise
questioner he finds new truth full-born in his
soul.

When the narrative of facts is, at a prudently-
considered interval, broken to ask a question, the
whole mental complex is changed. The passive
and receptive quality of soul is changed to an
active and expressive quality. The tension of
actual thought is felt. The powers of the soul
are in action. They are thus quickened to act
by the use of the question. Do you see how this
really occurs now in your own thought processes ?
This power of the question to

The Law Stated COmpcl activC StatCS of SOul

results in the strengthening of
the powers thus exercised. They obey the well-
known law, development by exercise.

The most significant gain to the learner, under
wise questioning, is due to the fact that when
a question is unanswered in the soul, it stands
as a menace and as a challenge to all knowledge
in the soul. Instantly all that we know is mar-
shaled in review before the new and unrecognized

STIMULATING SOUL-ACTIVITV I 97

thing in consciousness. This calling upon all
that wo know to identify what is new is of far-
reaching value. It gives us many-
Theunanswered ^jj^ relational knowledge.

Question °

Each relation set up is an
enrichment of the soul. Each relation discovered
is a new fact of knowledge in the soul. Each
answer formulated and pronounced is a strength-
ening and significant influence in giving quality
and character to the whole mental complex.

There arc three types of questions that may
be regarded as of sufificient value to be considered
in this discussion, — the direct question, the
Socratic question, and the Master's question.

The direct question asks for specific data
possessed by the pupil as a result of his study.
It is a common and useful form of teaching.
" What is the lesson for the day ? " " What is
the Golden Text?" "What persons are pre-
sented in this lesson?" These
^Ouest'km* ^^^ types of the direct question.
In its use the teacher assumes
that the pupil has had time and data for study.
The question is a means of testing the fidelity
of the pupil to his assigned task. Then the
direct question is necessarily limited as a teach-
ing agency to that aspect of the instructional pro-
cess usually regarded as the test, the review, or
the examination. It is of use also in revealing

198 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

to the teacher the inadequacy or inequahty of the
learner's preparation. Thus the teacher has a
means of proving his pupils, and of teaching
most carefully and fully these things which the
pupil failed properly to grasp. The result should
be an adequate and equal arrangement of the
facts of knowledge in the student's soul. His
education may then be said to develop harmo-
niously all the powers of the soul.

Socrates was the wisest teacher of ancient
Greece. His method was unequaled among all
his countrymen. His pupils were as loyal, as
devoted, as enthusiastic, as one could wish for.
He was brave enough to die for his beliefs, and
he was skilful enough to impress his beliefs
indelibly upon his pupils. How did he teach?
Under direct questioning the teacher assumes
that by study the pupil acquires the answer to

the question. Socrates assumed
QuestioV*^ that all truth is inherent in each

soul. But the individual is not
aware of the content of his soul. The vital func-
tion of education is to make each soul aware
of its own content. How is that to be done? By
such a judicious use of questions as to lead each
unknown element of knowledge in the soul to
reveal its identity and its relation to all other
elements of knowledge in the soul. Thus with-
out education we know not what is innately in

STIMULATING SOUL-ACTIVITY 1 99

the soul. Education is the process of self-com-
prehension. " Know thyself " was his motto.
He uses the question as a potent means of attain-
ing the end indicated. But his presupposition is
wrong. We no longer think or believe that all
knowledge is innately set in each soul by some
power not ourselves. We believe that knowledge
arises in the soul by reason of the presentation of
objects from without, through sensation to con-
sciousness. The soul God gives. Its capacities
he sets. Its content we build.

Jesus used the direct question, as we all do
when we desire to test the fidelity of preparation
in our pupils. But he used a type of question
unique in teaching. He assumes that primary
knowledge in the soul arises from presenting
things to the senses. That these varied sense-
presentations are often vague and apparently con-
tradicting, and hence confusing, he also assumed.
He uses the question to break up

^use^byTesus' ^^^"6' coufusing, and Uncertain
knowledge, and to set in its place
clear, distinct, and certain knowledge.

In the north country, beyond the Sea of Gali-
lee, Jesus sat with a chosen group of his dis-
ciples. He asked them a question : " Whom do
men say that I am ? " The disciples gave in reply
the conjectures of the people. Some said Moses,
some Elias, some Jeremias, and some one of the

200 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

prophets. Then into this group of guesses he sets
a second question : " But whom say ye that I
am ? " This question dispelled all doubt. It
crystallized conviction. It established clear
knowledge. Thus the wise teacher understood
how important it is to call up in the mind of the
learner every possible explanation, and then,
when the mind is balancing the issues, to put for-
ward a question whose answer lifts the learner
to a declaration of an opinion and the formula-
tion of a conviction never again to be subject to
revision. To drive a soul to the final and con-
clusive statement of truth is always of moment
in the teaching process.

To question wisely is to catch glimpses of the
inner life, ^he secret thoughts, the vital forces of
a soul. It must be done in a spirit of loving con-
cern for the pupil. The more intimately the life
of the pupil is known^ the more sacred becomes
the office of teacher. Kinship of spirit is the best
warrant to teach.

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

What reasons do you have for teaching carefully the
meaning of words?

Should religious truth be set in more vague terms
than other truth?

STIMULATIN'G SOUL-ACTIVITY 201

May religious truth be taught as clearly as secular
truth ?

Why is the unanswered question a source of concern?

If the delay in finding answer to a question is pro-
longed, how does this delay affect the learner?

Explain clearly the value of the right activity of the
mental process.

What are you doing to aid your pupil to clear views?

Some questions are pertinent, some are impertinent.
Explain and illustrate.

Enumerate the values of the question as a form of
teaching.

What types of questions are wise? Why?

Study your own motive in questioning your pupil.

What is the relative value of the question for the
class and the question for the individual?

Explain the Socratic question.

Discuss the effect upon the pupils of unwise ques-
tions.

Frame ten wholly wise questions upon the subject-
matter of this chapter.

XVTI

THE TEACHER'S PERSONAL EQUIPMENT

V17E HAVE to this point been considering
the opening of a soul into full bloom. We
have seen it bud and grow and blossom. What
shall the fruitage be? That will depend upon
the nutrition and upon the pruning. The nutri-
tion is the Word of God. The pruning is the
act of the teacher.

This act is of so great importance that I have
thought it wise at this point to consider the

teacher in his relation to the
Prun^nir* P^^P'^^ especially in his relation

to the product of the teaching
process as it is bodied forth in conduct. No
religious instruction is worth the name that does
not condition conduct. It is one thing to know
the right. It is another thing to do the right. It
is not enough that our pupils should know the
right. They must do it. We live in deeds. The
Sunday-school is to be judged by the life of its
pupil. The teacher is to be justified by the
manner of the pupil's living acquired under his
guidance. If you entertain any other view of
your function, throw it away.

202

THE TEACHERS PERSONAL EQUIPMENT 203

We are met at the outset with the cry that
teachers are born, not made ; that some can teach
and some cannot ; and that any attempt to train
teachers is essentially impossible. Let us be sure
we are justified before we take
"^'Born*?*" ^^^^^ ^ position. I Iiave seen
thousands of teachers at work.
I have known them as pupils and as individuals.
I am frank to admit that some people are so
finely organized that they instinctively teach well.
This number is not large. I know that most of
the successful teachers of to-day are made, not
born. Here, as in almost every sphere of activity
that calls for skilled efforts, honest and sustained
effort is sure to accomplish a worthy result.
Lawyers, doctors, and clergymen are made over
under professional discipline and study. Why,
then, may we not assert the same of the teacher?
We have many excellent teachers in our public
schools because they have been trained to teach
in some of our many excellent training schools.
We shall accomplish equally important advances
in our Sunday-school teaching when we accept
this truth and act upon it.

Why do we hesitate to enter heart and soul
upon a campaign of teacher-training? Is it
because we are indifferent to the cause? Is it
because we are unwilling to put forth an honest
effort to achieve skill ? Is it simply because we

204 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

do not ? How I wish I had the power to stir the
indifferent, the lazy, the negHgent ones ! I have
in mind a large group of teachers who are
anxious to do the best things, who are busy with
a thousand cares, who turn to every possible
guidance that offers promise of help, and who
carry upon their consciences their responsibilities.
For these my heart warms. For these I am will-
ing to try, in the best way I

group will teach far better to-
morrow than they do to-day. These are the hope
of our children, our Sunday-school, our church.
For these I have a few suggestions.

You may feel that temperamentally you are
not suited to teach. You may be hasty, and at
times cross. You may be unsympathetic and
cold. You may be impulsive and rash. You may
be unnatural and foolish. You may be these and
other things equally objectionable in the teacher.
You may feel your limitations in scholarship, in
methods, and in skill in teaching. What of it?
These are limitations that you should remove,
regardless of your position of teacher. If, then,
teaching will aid you all the more surely to re-
move them, why not teach?

We all have our limitations. It is our business
to remove them. To train as a teacher is a most
direct manner of securing mastery over our own

THK tkaciikr's FKKSONAL KQUIPMENT 205

selves. Do you find it difficult to control your
class? Concentrate your effort to win this bat-
tle. Control IS essential to
Limitations teaching. Why should any boy
or girl act m Sunda)-school in a
manner which he or she knows would not be tol-
erated in a public school? Why? Tsn't it as
much a part of one's religious training to be
orderly as it is part of one's secular training?
Are you afraid you will lose a pupil if you
demand order ? You need not be. Settle it now
and for all time that you will have order in your
class. Teach nothing until you have it. Stop
teaching the moment you lose it. Do not go on
with the lesson until you are master of the con-
duct of your class. This is your first test. Control
is worth securing. Respect for you is essen-
tial to your ability to teach. How can you
achieve this condition of respect when the pupils
know that they, not you, set the standard of con-
duct in your class? A boy will respect you all
the more if you have the courage to assert your-
self in behalf of what is right and reasonable.
Do not hesitate one moment to exact respectful
attention. The only thing you need to consider
is the manner of securing it. Be firmly kind, but
also be kindly firm.

Be patient. Time wins many victories. What
cannot be done with a rush may be done in due

206 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

time. It is always unwise to create excitement in
the class. I am not averse to bright, snappy

teaching, the kind that carries
Essentui itself with a sweep and strength ;

but I do caution against fussy
ways that really defeat the ends sought. On
the other hand, it is manifestly impossible to hold
the attention of the class when the lesson drags
its weary length along. But when a pupil is
putting forth his best effort, no matter how poor
that effort may be, the teacher should patiently
and kindly aid the pupil to his best statement of
the facts he is to recite. To scold, to scowl, to
frown, to become angry, to be sarcastic, is to lose
all the golden opportunity that is the teacher's.
Put yourself as fully and as frequently as you can
in the place of the pupils. Remember the
meager and barren life some of them live. Let
infinite love, infinite patience, infinite tact,
characterize your work as a teacher. Above
all, do not grow discouraged when you
do not at once secure the results you long for.
You may be, you are if you teach well, accom-
plishing more than you know. Think what you
want your pupils to be ten, twenty years hence,
and labor to set up now the ideals to which,
through the years, their souls shall grow.

Jesus was always patient with the honest
learner. Cannot you afford to be the same ? In

THE TEACHERS PERSONAL EQUIPMENT 20/

John 7 we have Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles.
It was a season of sacred rejoicing in Jerusalem.
It was also a time of great excitement. Every-
body was crowding to the festal services. No
one was in a frame of mind to learn. Jesus
wisely waited the right moment before he essayed
to present his message. The last, the great day of
j^^ the Feast had come. When the

Psychological day was yet young, when the air
Moment ^^^ cool,when all the people were
astir, was not this the time to teach? No. See
the crowd converge upon the temple, each bear-
ing a Paradise apple in the left hand, branches
of trees in the right hand. Hear the sacred
music. See the procession of musicians, headed
by a priest bearing a golden pitcher. They move
to the Pool of Siloam, the golden pitcher is filled,
the choral march turns again to the temple.
Hear the cheers of the multitude and the sound
of cymbals and of trumpets. Surely now is the
time to speak. Ah, no. Be patient. Seven
times the procession weaves its ecstatic way
around the great altar of burnt-offering, upon
which rests the sacrifice. Hear the priest chant
the solemn words, " O then, now work salvation,
Jehovah ! O Jehovah, give prosperity." See
him pour upon the altar the water from the
golden pitcher. Hear the mighty chorus, the
great "Hallel" (Psalms 113-118), rising with

208 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

the voice of the flute. See the multitude shake
the branches toward the altar, while the priests

draw the threefold blast from
Tabfr'naciel ^^^^^^ trumpets. The echoes fill

the valleys round about. They
reverberate from the hillsides beyond, and then
a sacred hush settles over the vast multitude of
worshipers. The service ceases. A great silence
like a beauteous benediction nestles over the
sacred scene. And now, clear over the awed
multitude, like the voice of an angel, rang the
words, " If any man thirst, let him come unto
me and drink." Who has spoken? Who has
seized the supremest moment to say the suprem-
est thing? Let the officers answer. " Never man
so spake." Let us comprehend the patience that
knew the divine moment to speak. Let us seize,
as did he, the right moment to teach human souls.
Let us teach in the manner that he so splendidly
set! Here we have exemplified control and
patience worthy of the Son of God.

Do you love to teach ? Do you love children ?
You answer, in a perfunctory way, " Certainly I
do." But do you love them as Jesus loved them ?

Do you love them well enough
Love Essential to sufifer for them? If so, you

can teach. Love your pupils for
what you want them to become. Love them on
the ideal side. I know how difficult it is to accept

THE teacher's PERSONAL EQUIPMENT 209

this guidance. But I also know how great is the
value of this discipline to the teacher. At the
very last, Jesus gave the most searching exam-
ination to Peter before he was commissioned to
feed the lambs and the sheep in Jesus' fold.
W^'hat was the nature of that examination ? What
momentous questions were propounded? What
range of subjects was covered? Oh, teacher,
read John 21, and learn! Jesus asks of you one
great, overmastering, all-embracing question,
" Do you love me more than you love all else ? "
If so, you are divinely anointed to teach. The
best feeder is the greatest lover. The measure
of one's ability to feed his flock is the measure
of one's love for the Shepherd. No love, no
teaching. No matter what equipment you may
possess, what wealth of material, what compre-
hension of educational processes, you cannot
touch the life of a child until you have interfused
all that you have and all that you are with an
almighty love in your soul for Him, and for his
Httle ones.

This does not in any way depreciate the value
of one's scholarship. There is virtue for the
teacher in knowing clearly and adequately the
subject he is to teach. But love puts fire, spirit,
life, power, into one's knowledge. I wish to com-
mend a wise and comprehensive grasp of knowl-
ledge. Next to knowing the normal processes of

2IO THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

a soul's development, I count scholarship the
best intellectual equipment of the teacher. I

do not mean that masses of
What Love Does memory-products constitute the

best stock of knowledge; but
rather the inter-relation of these products one
with another. Knowledge for the teacher should
be organic. Each part should fit into each other,
as do the units of a mosaic. This is the result
of reflection, not of acquisition. We need, more
than any other one quality of mind, the habitual
tendency to ponder the significance of our sepa-
rate elements of knowledge. When we secure
the attention of our class, we should be able to
lead the pupils, step by step, into wide vistas of
related knowledge. We can do this only as we
ourselves understand these broad groups of rela-
tions. What confidence comes to the teacher
who is conscious that his grasp of the lesson is
sufficient to enable him to answer questions, to
add specific guidance, to be at home in thought
before his class !

The universal experience of teachers is that
no number of devices and lesson-plans will avail
if there is not back of all this a sane and sensible
and broad grasp of the whole field of religious
truth. This will not come to the teacher by
longing for it. It will not come by deploring its
absence. But it will come as the result of eflfort.

THE TEACHERS PERSONAL EQUIPMENT 211

Plain, cvery-day, and continued study, an hour
now and an hour then ; this counts. Let us
resolve, both for our own satisfaction and use-
fulness, and for the satisfaction
What Effort i r i r 1

Will Do ^"*^ usefulness of our pupils,

that we will, by all the ability
and time God gives us, grasp widely and fully
our problems. Then we shall always impress
upon our pupils the conviction that we are sin-
cere, and sincerity is a virtue of character, and
character is the great moral and religious light
whose radiations guide and direct more than do
our words. Character is God's currency. It is
never subject to depreciation. Its owner may
purchase souls for the kingdom when his beg-
garly dole of knowledge remains useless and
worthless on the threshold of a soul.

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

What is the part played by the teacher in the building
of a soul's content?

What would you say is the supreme test of good
teaching in the Sunday-school?

Discuss the statement " Teachers are born, not made."

If we really believe in the training of a teacher, what
is our personal duty in the matter?

Have you studied your own temperament? What
limitations, if any, does this study reveal?

212 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

Why is control said to be so important? Do you con-
trol each pupil in your class?

What will one's ability to control his own spirit be
worth in the class?

In what way does a wise teacher use the virtue of
patience? Cite examples.

What is the supreme test of one's fitness to teach for
God?

What is the value of daily devotion to study?

Back of all devices must be a sincere spirit. Prove
this.

What do you consider the psychological moment in
teaching?

Name all the values of scholarship to the teacher.

What are you doing now, what more can you do, to
fit yourself to teach? Will you do it?

XVIII

QUALITIES THAT MAKE THE TEACHER A
GOOD GOVERNOR

TyrATTHEW ARNOLD declares, "Conduct
■'•^■^ is three-fourths of hfe." Education is not
to be regarded as a function of society through
which knowledge alone is acquired. Teaching
embraces both instruction and discipline. Disci-
pline has as its end the training of pupils for the
duties, obligations, and responsibilities of life.
It follows that right conduct is secured only by
the formation of right character in early life.
The basic element in conduct is self-control and
self-guidance. Until the youth has acquired the
power of self-control and of self-guidance he
must be controlled and guided by some agent
acting for him. This agent usually is the teacher.
The function of the teacher as disciplinarian ends
as soon as this power of self-regulation is devel-
oped. Here the teacher needs
^''xr^u^sT "* to ^^^^" ^ great lesson,— trust
the pupil, believe in him, as
Jesus believed in mankind. We shall never make
our pupils self-regulating by suspecting, doubting,
watching, and spying upon them. It is generally

213

214 "^HE MAKING OF A TEACHER

admitted now that juvenile criminals are most
speedily reformed by putting them upon their
honor. The fact that somebody believes in a
boy is the surest stimulus to his standing stanch
and strong for the things that some one believes
him capable of doing.

When Jesus said to those he helped, " Go, sin
no more," he placed confidence in them, gave
them to understand that they could do the right,
and that he was willing to accept their own life
determinants after they had been properly taught.
It is not easy to describe the quality I have in
mind, but the thoughtful teacher will understand
that truth, taught in a way that impresses the
pupil with the fact that the teacher believes in
the pupil's ability to live it out in his daily life,
is most likely to find such a result is attained
by the pupil. Jesus told the people what he knew
they could do, and then left them to do it, under
the constant conviction that he expected no other
issue in conduct.

To control the pupil in class in such a way as

to lead him to live under self-guidance later on

in life the teacher must possess

"""contrS "' certain well-defined qualifica-
tions. The first of these is clear
knowledge. Of this quality in the teacher I
have already written. The basis of cheerful obedi-
ence on the part of the pupil is confidence, and

THE TEACHKR A GOOD GOVERNOR 2 1$

the clear knowledge displayed by the teacher is
a potent means of securing this confidence. The
teacher whose grasp of the subject-matter of in-
struction is clear always teaches with confidence.
Note, on the other hand, with what subterfuge
the unprepared teacher seeks to deceive the
pupils. To be conscious of inadequate knowledge
is to defeat the real purposes of instruction. I
have known teachers whose halting, hesitating, i
qualifying ways of putting things made amthing/
like successful effort impossible. What wins
confidence is the clear, specific statement of fact;
the direct, unostentatious reply to questions ; the
cool, deliberate manner that conveys more than
language. So, too, fresh knowledge is of
moment. One must go over the lesson thought-
fully just before it is to be taught. To have the
lesson fresh in mind, its different parts clearly
thought out, its applications drawn from current
incidents, and its whole presentation full of that
warmth and fervor that come only with fresh
contact with truth, — this is to possess an element
of control of far-reaching significance.

Fresh knowledge is knowledge made over

again in the soul by steady and

Knowledge frequent review of the same. It

will not do to let knowledge

lie unused for any length of time, and then

expect to use it as teaching material. It will lack

2l6 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

something, and that something is the very flavor
which makes it of use as teaching material.

In addition to scholarship as a basis of control,
the teacher should possess skill, both in teaching
and in managing a class. Knowing how to do
things is always an element of power. The
teacher who is unskilled, awk-
skiii as Control ward, hesitating, uncertain, shift-
ing, indifferent, will not control
well. The admiration of a boy goes to the man
who knows how to do things. The skilful player,
the skilful skater, the skilful hunter, the skilful
general, the skilful anything, appeals and con-
trols, Hov/ may this skill be acquired? Only
by intelligent and persistent practise. It cannot
be had in a day. It cannot be had from books.
It can be had only by a study of one's own ways
of doing things, and the constant determination
to do things better every time they are done.

The third element that makes for control is
love. Of this I have written in the preceding
chapter. The essential quality of that love is its
willingness to sacrifice, to suffer for the pupil.
The young woman teacher who
Love as Control a few years ago in Dakota was
obliged to close her school for
the day when a blizzard swept the prairie, exem-
plified this quality of love. Realizing that it was
equally impossible to remain in the schoolhouse.

THE TEACHER A GOOD GOVERNOR 21/

or to turn the children out to perish alone in the
storm, she resorted to heroic means to save their
lives. Tearing her skirts into shreds, and bind-
ing with these shreds all the pupils into one
group with herself in the lead, she led the little
group out into the pitiless storm. Far into the
night, under her courageous leadership, they
fought their way in the blinding blizzard.
Finally, almost exhausted and cruelly frozen, she
led every one safely to a farm-house and to
warmth and to shelter. Her loving devotion had
enabled her to fight the demon of death and to
win.

Some years ago, in Natchitoches Parish,
Louisiana, I met a young woman whose record
as a teacher had won for her the commendation
of her superintendent. She was a most interested
member of a teachers' institute held in that par-
ish. The next year, on my return, I missed her.
Inquiry developed the fact that this young
woman was dead. The cause of her death was
told me by one who loved her. She taught a
rural school, far back in the pine woods. Her
schoolhouse had neither door nor windows. The
children sat on cross-sections of

A Fine Example trecs Set ou end. The teacher
had no chair, no stove, no pro-
tection from the inclement weather. One day
in February a severe gulf-storm, damp and cold

21 8 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

and penetrating, swept over the state. Her half-
clothed children suffered from the cold. With-
out a moment's hesitation, she stood in the open
doorway, her face to her pupils, her back to the
cruel cold, that she might in some degree shelter
her pupils. Her love for them cost her life.
Pneumonia was that day contracted, and in less
than a week she was laid to rest in a bower of
roses carried by those that loved her, and for
whom she had given the highest expression of
love — her life.

This consecrated love involves, among its
minor qualities, the willingness of the teacher to
be present every Sunday, and on time. It also
involves concern for the pupil that is sick ; for the
pupil that is irregular in attendance ; for the pupil
that comes late ; for the pupil who is for any rea-
son out of joint with things. The teacher who has
the right quality of heart will be concerned for
this one and will be willing to sacrifice, if need
be, to bring him again to the fold, as Jesus was
willing to go out at night into the mountains to
recover the lost one.

Some teachers find it easy to love certain types
of children, and equally easy to hate other types.
The difficulty is that their love is selfish and
they expect to receive more than they are willing
to give. For that reason they make their heart
associations profitable things to themselves. They

THE TEACHER A GOOD GOVERNOR 219

rob the child, and when the child has nothing
worth taking the teacher has nothing to give.

The remedy for all this is to love
The Ideal Side the child on its ideal side,

to love it for what you want
it to be rather than what it is, and remem-
ber that a small amount of regard and interest
and love to one that needs it most is larger love
than a great amount bestowed upon one who
needs it least. Jesus was all the while searching
out those who had fewest friends and least affec-
tion, and, therefore, the most meager lives were
those that attracted him. Witness especially the
poor cripple at the pool, who gave utterance
to one of the saddest of all human expres-
sions recorded when he said, " Sir, I have no
man."

A very dear friend of mine declares that, so far
as he has power to do so, he means to let some
sunshine into those lives that need it most. I
commend his resolution. Consider most of all
the child whose home-life is cheerless, empty,
and forbidding. Pray for grace to be considerate
of this one. A small amount of concern for this

child will be like bread cast
* LHe^ "* upon the waters, like a little

leaven in a barrel of meal.
There are children in your class whose life-lines
are seldom crossed by the rays of cheer, and

220 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

kindness, and unselfish concern. Let your spirit
move lovingly to them. Remember how much
they need you. Remember how much joy is in
the soul of the teacher who redeems such ones
to a Christian life enriched by faith, and hope,
and love.

The fourth element that makes for control is

resolution, firmness, power of will. It stands

opposed to spasmodic control. It encourages

silence on the part of the teacher. It avoids the

show of force, and in an unob-

wiii as Control trusive way exhibits itself be-
fore the boys as backbone — the
quality which stands for certain principles and
will not see these principles violated, nor suffer
them, when violated, to go unnoted. Here the
teacher will, if not continually on the alert, com-
nit grave errors in building character. Some
teachers allow disorder and inattention to flour-
ish until these become intolerable. Then with a
show of force and a regimen that is unworthy
the name, they coerce the pupils temporarily into
order, and force attention. Good control is
always equable. Home control, like teacher con-
trol, is too often figured in the following words
from the pen of Jean Paul Richter :

" If the secret variances of a large class of
ordinary fathers were brought to light, and laid
down as a plan of studies and reading catalogued

THE TEACHER A GOOD GOVERNOR 221

for a moral education, they would run somewhat
after this fashion : In the first hour ' pure mor-
ality must be read to the child, either by myself
or the tutor ; ' in the second, ' mixed morality,
or that which may be applied to one's own ad-
vantage ; ' in the third, ' do you not see that your
father does so and so ? ' in the fourth, * you arc
little, and this is only fit for grown-up people ; '
in the fifth, ' the chief matter is

''!<ich^er'' ^^'^^ >'°^ should succced in the
world, and become something in
the state ; ' in the sixth, ' not the temporary, but
the eternal, determines the worth of a man ; ' in
the seventh, * therefore rather suffer injustice,
and be kind ; ' in the eighth, ' but defend your-
self bravely if any one attack you ; ' in the ninth,
' do not make a noise, dear child ; ' in the
tenth, * a boy must not sit so quiet ' ; in the
eleventh, ' you must obey your parents better ; '
in the twelfth, * and educate yourself.' So by
the hourly change of his principles, the father
conceals their untenableness and one-sidedness.
As for his wife, she is neither like him, nor yet
like that harlequin who came on to the stage
with a bundle of papers under each arm, and
answered to the inquiry, what he had under his
right arm, ' orders,' and to what he had under
his left arm, * counter-orders.' But the mother
might be much better compared to a giant

222 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

Briareus who had a hundred arms, and a
bundle of papers under each."

A fifth quahty that makes for control is alert-
ness, which is akin to interest. The teacher's eye
is a great governor ; it should rest in the right
place and seek out, without

Alertness as • i. j ••li

Control seemnig to do so, every possible

disorder. Unless a thing is of
such moment as to make it a matter of attention,
it is better not to see it ; that is to say, the teacher
seeing it should not see it, or hearing it should
not hear it. This alertness anticipates trouble,
nips it in the bud, kills the egg before the trouble
is hatched, and is, in general, the preventive
quality in control.

The sixth element that makes for control is
common sense, by which I mean sane judgment
about common things. It is the ability to dis-
tinguish between a matter which is of little or
no moment and a matter which is of great mo-
ment. It involves putting per-

Common Sense „ i.- • i. j- • r Ti. •

as Control spcctivc mto disciplmc. It IS
the quality that enables the
teacher to pass by the accidental quality and note
the essential tendency. Most teachers defeat
the very ends they most desire to accomplish be-
cause they lay tremendous emphasis upon unim-
portant matters. They have, therefore, nothing
left as a resource with which to impress the

THE TEACHER A GOOD GOVERNOR 223

weightier matters of the law. They lose the
whole value of good discipline to a soul because
they have spent themselves over things which the
pupils know are of little moment, and the pupils
soon come to understand how irrational such
control is.

The last of these elements that make for con-
trol is personal character, — the sum of what one
is, the spirit with which one does things, the
quality of head and of heart which make attrac-
tive the things that are right, and unattractive
the things that are wrong. We teach more by
what we are than by what we know. No other
equipment is comparable to per-
con^t*roi"* sonal worth. The teacher whose
own conduct is regulated by the
high qualities of an ideal Christian life will, by
the force of his own personality, best aid his
pupils to regulate their conduct by the same
exalted standards.

Emphasis is placed upon this matter of con-
trol because it is fundamental in building char-
acter. We must see plainly three steps in the
process of building a charactered soul. At the
first, the pupils need external
Ts^Essertia*!' guidance. This the teacher fur-
nishes. The above analysis of
the teacher's equipment is to indicate how he
may wisely administer this guidance. Then fol-

224 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

lows a transitional period, during which the
pupils are able in part to guide their own con-
duct, but are obliged in part to depend upon the
wiser and steadier guidance of the teacher.
Finally, the pupil is able to stand erect, to act
upon his own initiative. He is free from exter-
nal guidance. He has set up in his own soul a
regal guidance that is his own. His soul is free.
It acts as it should because it wills so to act. All
restraint is gone. Truth guides its decrees and
conditions its actions. Thus the saying of Jesus
becomes the goal of the teacher's effort, — " Ye
shall know the truth, and the truth shall make
you free."

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

Just what is embraced in the education of a people?

What Hmits, if any, would you place upon the saying,
" Trust the pupil " ?

In case your trust is betrayed, what would you do ?

What educational value attaches to securing the con-
fidence of the pupil?

Distinguish between fresh knowledge and stale knowl-

Discuss the value and the means of securing skill in
teaching.

Cite instances of sacrificing love on the part oi
teachers for their pupils.

THE TEACHER A GOOD GOVERNOR 22$

Do you know what it means to suffer for your pupils?

What reward have you if you love only the loving?
If you love the loveless?

Point out the evils of spasmodic control.

In what way may the saying, " The eye of the mas-
ter is worth both his hands," apply to the Sunday-
school teacher?

If the end of control is freedom through what means
do you seek to achieve this end?

Compare the relative worth of the seven elements of
control here presented, and determine in which of these
elements you are weak and in which you are strong; then
answer the question, What are you going to do about
it?

XIX

CONCERNING THE COURSE OF STUDY

TXT'E HAVE considered some of the aspects
of soul growth and some of the elements
in teacher equipment. We have seen so far what
a teacher should know of the child and what he
should be. What next is to be considered ? We
have not yet recognized an element of teacher-
training that seems to hold commanding place
in the thought of many. That element is the
knowledge of the subject-matter. What of that?
Should not the teacher know his subject? We
have already stated why scholarship is an aid
in the control of the class. Has it no other use?
Let us see.

There are three parts to the problem of
teacher-training : ( i ) there is a young and grow-
ing soul to be instructed and trained; (2) there
is a world of religious truth to
ProMem ^^ known and presented to this
young and growing soul ; and
(3) there is an intermediate agency — a living,
disciplined, and equipped teacher — whose func-
tion it is to interpret this world of religious truth
to the young and growing soul. There are
things of the spirit, spiritual ; and there are
226

CONCERNING THE COURSE OF STUDY 22/

things of the earth, earthy. The spiritual things
are subjective and intangible. The things of the
earth are objective and tangible. The teacher
must translate this objective world into terms
of the spirit. How can he do this if he is unfa-
miliar with this objective world? How can he
cause to arise in another soul knowledge that has
never crossed the bounds of his own ? Surely he
can give only as he possesses. It is evident then
that a knowledge of the subject-matter to be
taught is an essential equipment of the teacher.

But his knowledge of the subject-matter makes
him only a scholar. To understand how to trans-
mute this scholarship into terms of nutrition for
another soul, and to know also how to fit it to the
precise needs of the learner, adds to his scholarly
Scholarship ability the ability to teach. To

Makes Only a pause at Scholarship is to defeat
the ends of teaching. Thus many
good-intentioned persons fail to teach. They as-
sume that when one knows a thing he can teach
it. This is pedagogic heresy. I have known great
scholars who were miserable teachers. I recall
now an authority of world-wide renown in a
certain science whose attempts to teach were piti-
ful. He frankly confessed that he did not know
how to present his knowledge to the pupil. He
usually sat upon the teacher's desk and requested
his pupils to ply him with questions. He was a

228 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

veritable encyclopedia of information in his
chosen field, but he was not in any sense a real
teacher. I recall also a teacher of mine, years
ago, whose alert eye caught the first sign of in-

diflference in any pupil. I have
A Contrast known her to stop one pupil in

the middle of a sentence, and
ask another pupil to conclude the sentence and
proceed with the recitation. She was cruelly ex-
act, but she was a teacher. We learned things
in her classes. She knew how to hold the whole
class absolutely under the domination of her own
purpose.

The Sunday-school teacher has turned of late
to a study of the many excellent outlines of the
subject-matter of religious instruction. He has
been led to think that the mastery of some course
in Bible history, Bible geography, and Bible ma-
terials generally, will give him the guidance and
equipment necessary to teach successfully. He

knows, if he knows enough to
'^MisieV^* know his own procedure, that

his guidance and equipment are
by no means adequate. He does not get the re-
sults he longs for, labors for, prays for. Why?
He has been misled. Mere familiarity with the
subject-matter is but one of the three elements
of his equipment. He must master all these ele-
ments before he is a real teacher.

CONCERNING THE COURSE OF STUDY 229

An old gentleman in my native village, whose
occupation was that of carpenter, frequently said
to us, " Boys, you must not play with sharp tools.
Only trained mechanics should handle them.
Play, if you like, with the dull ones." Do you
agree with the opinion of the old carpenter? He
was a man of such kindly sympathy and fair
judgment that we all loved and

An Illustration respected him. He was a mod-
ern John Pounds. As he drove
nails into furniture he also drove many a help-
ful thought into the souls of the group of curious
boys that crowded his shop. I incline to accept
his opinion and to follow his advice. The dis-
cerning old man was wise enough to accept a
great truth. Fine tools for skilled workmen. I
recall also that my father never allowed me to
drive the spirited horse, but interposed no ob-
jection to my using an old family horse that was
so docile that he never did shy, back, kick, or
run. As a child these restrictions annoyed me.
I can see now that these men were wise with
years of actual experience. They understood
that the finest agents alone are fit to handle the
finest agencies, — that, in short, these are com-
plementary compensations in the economy of
things.

We are admonished not to cast our pearls be-
fore swine. A good reason is given. The swine

230 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

cannot comprehend the utiHty of pearls any more
than a novice can comprehend the exquisite skill
of a professional man. As long as we had
teachers whose conception of their work was

summed up in the three R's or in
The Three R's " lickin' and laniin', " there was

little use to think of refined
methods and adjusted materials of instruction.
The fact is that we had to develop a new concept
of the teacher's function before we could train
teachers in normal and other professional schools
for professional service. And the trained teacher
had to be developed before the curriculum could
be modified. When the trained teacher arose, the
materials of education naturally and inevitably
received modification. We developed the artist,
and the artist found for himself suitable tools
to carve his ideals into realities.

Some are clamoring for graded courses of
study. Unquestionably the subject-matter, both
in kind and in amount, should be adapted to the
capacity of the learner. No one would for a
moment question the value of refined and peda-
gogically organized material. The best is none

too good in the building of a
Dr. White soul, but the real question is

more fundamental than that of
the curriculum. Dr. E. E. White wisely remarks :
"Teachers are building their hopes of success

CONCERNING THE COURSE OF STUDY 23 I

on new plans and devices, or, to use a much
abused term, on method. This, too, without duly
appreciating, if seeing, the fact that the efficiency
of a device or method depends primarily on what
the teacher puts into it, and especially the deeper
fact that a teacher cannot put into a method
what he has not within himself."

This is precisely what seems to me to be true
in our Sunday-school agitation over graded
courses of study. We are not content with the
results attained. We are casting about for some
agency that shall be made to carry the burden
of blame. We have singled out the uniform
lesson as our scapegoat. Upon it we have placed

the burden of blame for inade-
u^rrjrn. quale results. But is this right?

Is it reasonable? Have we
found the right victim? The one thing that in-
sists upon expression here is the fact that the first
and foremost need is properly qualified teachers.
Before we refine our materials of instruction, we
must refine our teachers. The vital need of the
Sunday-school to-day is not graded courses of
study, but teacher-training. Seek first to secure
efficient teachers, and the graded course of study
will in due time be added. It will come as soon
as we have teachers to use it. Sharp tools are
for trained mechanics. The vital factor is the
teacher. To quote Dr. White again : '* The

232 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

teacher is cause; all else is only condition and
result."

Let us do some honest thinking right here. Let
us also do some earnest praying. It is so easy
to censure, so difficult to receive censure. It is
relatively easy to size up others, so difficult to
judge ourselves. We complacently put the blame
upon the materials given us. Why not fairly
face the possibility that it is more a matter of
the teacher than it is a matter of the course of
study? A teacher once whipped a boy. The
boy laughed. The teacher, angered, whipped the
boy more severely. The boy laughed all the
more boisterously. In amazement, the teacher
said : " What in the world are you laughing
about ? " The boy recovered himself, and said
in reply, " Why, teacher, you are whipping the
wrong fellow ! " In a liberal paraphrase of
Shakespeare, we may perhaps see the problem
as it is. " The fault, dear teacher, lies not with
our course of study, but with ourselves that we
are unsuccessful."

In saying this, two matters of moment must
be borne in mind: (i) Teachers are not prima-
rily to be blamed for the condi-
^"xhings "" tions that prevail. Just where
the responsibility rests is a
matter that merits investigation. Let us en-
deavor to find the cause. I suspect that even

CONCERNING THE COURSE OF STUDY 233

the pastor will not rashly disclaim responsibility.
But it is manifest that teachers who have been
willing to learn how to teach, and have had no
opportunity to do so, are not primarily at fault.
The time has come for a demand for greater ap-
preciation of the dignity and the worth of the
teacher, for better provisions for his training,
for a more skilful and close supervision of his
preparation and of his class exercises, and,
for a more enlightened comprehension of
the importance of the service the Sunday-
school may and should render to the church. (2)
We face a condition, not a theory. Those that
agitate for a reorganization of the subject-
matter are prone to overlook the fact that a
graded course of study implies, as a prerequisite
to its successful use, a professionally equipped
teacher. I assume that those who insist upon
immediate substitution of graded for uniform
lessons are either pure theorists, or they are rea-
soning from the secular to the Sunday-school
without considering what the graded course of
study signifies in the equipment of the secular
school teacher. Upon my desk is a plan of
teacher-training based upon a visit to the public
schools of a great city. The author found cer-
tain processes in vogue there. He assumes that
these should be used in the Sunday-school. His
assumption is wholly gratuitous. It is this sort

234 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

of guidance that produces confusion worse con-
founded.

Let us understand definitely that the secular
school has no final word to give as guidance in
this matter. Like the Sunday-school, it is search-
ing for the best things. It has
''^"Lho'o"/*' not found them.- To copy its
present plans would be of little
use in the final solution of our problem. It is
evident to me that the real answer in all this
can come only from an inductive study of our
conditions as they are. There should be a com-
mission named by the most competent Sunday-
school organization in the world. This commis-
sion should have the means at its command to
secure exact data of the present status of the
Sunday-schools, and upon this basis of fact, for-
mulate a report of our needs. Such a commis-
sion would be an epoch-making body in our
advance. Some patriotic lover of the cause may
find in this a suggestion of a service of far-
reaching importance.

The discontent with present results in moral
and religious training is not confined to the
Sunday-school. It is universal. We are passing
through a period of inquiry and of unrest.
We have taken account of our stock and we
realize our need. We must find a way to impress
moral and religious truth upon our children be-

CONCERNING THE COURSE OF STUDY 235

fore they reach maturity. It is the growing soul
in a growing body that calls for nutrition. We
must come to a quickened sense of this need if

we are to touch the whole life
Universal ^ °^ ^^^ child and of the race with

the influences that are holy and
enduring. My conviction is that at the heart of
this reform is the teacher. We teach vastly more
by what we are than by what we know. The
hope of our children is the life of the teacher,
and, of course, the life of the parent. Life molds
life. Let us center our thought upon the problem
of producing in the teacher all the qualities of
life that God would have in the soul of his chil-
dren. Then we shall easily, speedily, surely, gain
all the lesser conditions that make for success
in this supreme responsibility — the responsibility
of fitting life to achieve its full development here
and its triumphant glories hereafter.

Questions and Suggestions

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

Naine the parts of the problem of teacher-training
and discuss their relative importance.

Point out clearly the difference between a teacher
and a scholar.

Do you know of persons whose scholarship is much
better than is their teaching power?

Is a graded course of more moment than teacher-
training?

236 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

Which should come first, better teachers or better
materials? Why?

Suppose you had improved lesson-material and the
same teacher, would you surely improve the teaching?

If you had the task of reorganizing our whole Sunday-
school work, what would you do first?

What could a commission of trained and consecrated
leaders do for the Sunday-school ?

Do you favor such a commission? Why? What will
you do to secure it?

What, in your judgment, are the difiiculties to be
overcome in the matter of securing thoroughly-equipped
teachers for our Sunday-schools ?

XX

CONCERNING THE RECITATION

A N OBJECT of study is a lesson assigned to
'^^ be recited by the pupil. A subject of study
is a group of objects of study that are related one
to another, and, when taken together and organ-
ized, constitute a special line of investigation, as
the subject of history, the subject of arithmetic,
the subject of Bible geography, etc. A course of
study is a group of subjects of study so organ-
ized as to comprehend the entire

Terms Defined range of knowledge to be pre-
sented to the child in school ;
thus a course of study is made up of subjects of
study, and each subject of study is made up of
objects of study, and these objects of study are
the lessons which the pupil must prepare from
time to time.

The lesson assigned becomes the basis of the
recitation at the next stated period when the
class meets. Here is an important matter for the
Sunday-school teacher. You cannot have a
good recitation without proper preparation.
Work must be assigned in advance of the time
when it is to be recited, and some study should

237

238 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

be given to the lesson before the class meets to
recite, — this is fundamental in all good teaching.

Nobody thinks, who thinks
Preparation wisely, of Calling pupils to a

recitation without previously
assigning definite work to be prepared by them ;
except, of course, when the age of the pupils is
such that it is impossible for them to do any
outside study. But the child that can read intelli-
gently is prepared to study in advance of the
recitation, and should do so.

I notice generally that Sunday-school pupils
come to class without the least idea of what the
lesson is. The result is poor recitation, wasted
time, unprepared minds, futile effort and alto-
gether an unfortunate exercise. I see no reason
why a teacher of a Sunday-school class should
not assign the work a week in advance. It is
not enough to say that the lesson next Sunday
v/ill be found in such and such a place in the
Bible. That is not assigning a lesson, nor is it
a proper preparation for a recitation. Suppose
we have thirty minutes in which to teach a lesson.
A wise teacher will consider eight minutes of
that time well spent if spent in assigning the
work of the week to come. I believe that in this
one matter a great reform could be carried out
in our Sunday-school teaching. We have a right
to expect pupils to prepare their work, and it is

CONCERNING THE RECITATION 239

our duty as their teachers to have that work
properly prepared.

What should be the nature of this assignment
of work? In general, the teacher should point
out the leading things in the lesson that are
to be considered at the next recitation. It would
be well to have the pupils jot these down on a
sheet of paper. All points in a lesson are not
equally important. The pupils do
Assignment not know what are the important
things. They need to be guided
in their study, and the purpose of this assign-
ment is to show where the emphasis should be
placed, what should be wrought out with care,
and what should be carried as merely incidental
to these dominant and vital things. In particular,
the assignment should also lay upon each pupil
the obligation of reporting upon some special
thing. This special thing may be common to all
the class, or each may have a definite special task.

But I hear an objection to this. Teachers con-
sider only the lesson that is next to be taught,
and the truth is the teacher himself is usually
ignorant of what the second lesson is to be until
the first one is taught, all of which proves that
our present method of conducting training
classes, so-called, is bad. There is no pedagogi-
cal justification whatever for such narrow
preparation. It is bound to result in the inade-

240 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

quate and unsatisfactory conditions that now so

generally prevail. The leader of a training-class

should point out to the teachers

An Objection • 1 • 11 . c

Answered 1" "^s group a wholc quarter of
lessons, showing how one is re-
lated to another, for it is impossible to construct
a system of truth unless each lesson is taught as
part of all the lessons. We would not think of
allowing a teacher of arithmetic to present a part
of that subject, and at the same time be ignorant
of the other part. Why should we allow a
Sunday-school teacher to present one lesson, and
be entirely ignorant of what the next lesson is?
Are we not actually producing intellectual hash
for these children, and feeding them scrappy stuff
when they ought to have a well-organized, con-
nected, and properly related group of nutritions?
The recitation is the teacher's opportunity pre-
eminent to sit down with a small group of chil-
dren to consider with them a lesson, to look into
their faces, to question, to guide their thinking,
to lead them out of the mists
The Recitation ^ ghadows of doubt, and raise

an Opportunity '

them up into the broad table-
lands and the light of truth. It is unquestionably
a glorious and a holy opportunity. Prize the
recitation hour as the opportunity of your life
to do something, to do it well; an opportunity
that a soul should long for, pray for, prepare for.

CONCERNING THE RECITATION 24 1

The function of the recitation is primarily to
test the knowledge of the pupils, and knowledge
needs to be tested. By testing the knowledge I
mean proving it, putting it on trial, submitting
it to rigid cross-questioning in order to determine
whether or not it is good knowl-

''"Reciution"' ^dge or bad knowledge, clear
knowledge or confused knowl-
edge. This test should be, therefore, thorough,
searching, and inspiring. Avoid superficial,
haphazard recitations. They produce careless-
ness, indifference, and superficiality in the pupil.
The recitation is not likely to be of a higher order
than the requirement set by the teacher.

In testing a pupil's knowledge the recitation
must require full and accurate expression. In
no other way can the teacher determine what
the pupil knows, and in no other way should he
undertake to determine it. He must assume ab-
solutely nothing. Prove all things; hold fast to
that which is good. The recita-
^''e'citltion'" ^"^o" should be free; the pupils
should be permitted to say in
their own way what they understand to be the
truth. Of course, the wise teacher will not allow
one pupil to talk all the time, nor will he allow
any pupil to remain entirely silent throughout
the recitation. It is while the pupil states his
views and forms his thoughts and expresses

242 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

his Opinions that the teacher has a look into his
soul. This look will reveal to the teacher his
duty and his obligation.

As a second end in the recitation I would
name the test of the mental power of the pupil.
This will reveal itself to the thoughtful, observ-
ant teacher, as the pupil gradually moves away
from the technical knowledge of the book into
the freer knowledge of his own spirit, and also
as the pupil increasingly turns to his own experi-
ences and his own observations to fortify and
illustrate his opinions. The whole purpose here
is to ascertain whether or not the pupil is com-
ing into possession of increased mental insight,
and as he comes into the possession of this in-
creased power he is really acquiring the best
equipment for subsequent study, and also for
guidance in conduct.

A third end is to test the pupil's skill. Skill
is a difficult quality to define or to measure. It
is more evasive, more uncertain, more unequal
in different pupils than is knowledge, and yet it
is a matter that may be noted
Recitation ^^^^* pupils do becomc increas-
ingly proficient in their ability to
give expression to thought. They phrase their
sentences better, they organize their whole physi-
cal relation to thought better, and they think with
greater depth and rapidity as they take on skill

CONCERNING THE RECITATION 243

There are two methods of conducting the reci-
tation that claim our attention. The first of these
is the question method. The second is the topic
method. The question method is first of all
thorough. It enables the teacher to press the mat-
ter close and to find where there
MefhlT are depths of thought, and also
to discern where there are shal-
lows and weak places. A skilful questioner is
the despair of improper preparation. It is also
the power that makes clear to the pupil his limi-
tations. A pupil whose language is fluent may
talk glibly with a very superficial knowledge of
the subject^ but the keen questions of the teacher
reveal the weakness of the pupil and prepare the
way for more definite and concerted processes.

By a wise use of the question the teacher may
unfold the subject under consideration syste-
matically. He controls the order of the topics,
and can give proper emphasis to important mat-
ters, as all good teaching should. It also enables
the teacher to give incidental instruction under
the most favorable conditions. Sometimes the
question reveals the fact that a little side remark,
turning to the blackboard to make a diagram,
the introduction of concrete incidents, or the re-
statement of a forgotten fact, will help the pupil
to move on through a subject to clear conclusions.

Under no other form of teaching is this pos-

244 '^'i^E MAKING OF A TEACHER

sible with so little effort. All of this points to
the fact that the question should be clear, con-
cise, and definite. A question that is not clear
IS a bad question. A question that is not con-
cise is a confusing question. A question that is
not definite is a useless question. As a rule the
teacher should . organize ques-
Question tions in such an order as to un-
fold the subject of the lesson in
a logical order. Beginning at some definite point
the question should follow a connected sequence
leading step by step to the most important and
ultimate issues. Of course questions that can
be answered by " Yes " and " No " are generally
poor questions, and questions that convey to the
mind of the pupil the answer are also poor ques-
tions. The teacher, too, by his manner of asking
the question may predispose the child to answer
it in a manner to please the teacher rather than
to give an opinion or exercise his own best
thought. This question method has at least two
defects. It is liable to abuse, because pupils may
fall into the habit of answering in a few broken
phrases instead of answering in connected and
coherent sentences. This weakness, however,
may be overcome by the firmness of the teacher
in insisting upon getting right forms of expres-
sion from the pupil.

An objection to the question method is its

CONCERNING THE RECITATION 245

failure to compel systematic thought. The order
of the questions, as they are presented by the
teacher, relieves the pupil of the need of organiz-
ing his thought into a system. He follows the

system set by the teacher. When
Qu?sUonMethod ^he qucstions are printed in a

book, and the children are only
to make answers to these questions, there is
bound to result fragmentary thinking. The reci-
tation is to cultivate the power to classify or
arrange systems of thought, and should not pre-
sent classified and systematized thought to the
pupil. The question method is a fine method of
teaching, but it requires a finer teacher to use it
wisely. In the hands of an inexperienced or
untrained teacher it is liable to degenerate into
a very superficial, mechanical, and unsatisfac-
tory form of teaching. In general it may be said
that this method of teaching should not be pur-
sued until the pupils have reached the power to
think systematically, and this power comes rela-
tively late in the development of the pupil's mind.
The second method of conducting the recita-
tion is the topic method. Its cardinal virtue lies

in the fact that it is a good test
''"ivTe^hTd* o^ expression. It compels the

pupil to state a series of con-
nected thoughts, and throws upon the pupil the
responsibility of organizing this thought into a

246 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

system, and giving to it an expression which
necessitates systematic thought. For that reason
it is best suited to the more mature pupils. A
skilful teacher is required to guide this method
of teaching in order to avoid the possibility of
the recitation falling into a mere talking exer-
cise, in which no proper regard is given to im-
portant things, and in which no emphasis is
placed upon the vital thoughts of the lesson. It
is perhaps wise to combine these two methods,
using one and then the other, but always keeping
in mind the fact that no matter what the method
is, the aim is to test thoroughly what the pupil
knows, and what he is able to state concerning
what he knows.

There are three ways of calling upon pupils to
recite. The first of these is the consecutive
method. By this process the teacher begins at
one place in the class, and calls upon the pupils
in order from the first to the last. This enables
the teacher to accomplish a very great deal in a
short space of time, but it amounts to little more
than individual instruction, since the only pupil
that gives close attention is the

Reciting °"^ "^^° ^^ ^^ ^^^ *^"^^ reciting

and the one who is next to be

called upon. The pupils should not know in

advance the order in which they are to be called

upon to recite. The second method, then, cor-

CONCERNING THE RECITATION 24/

rects this error, and may be called the promiscu-
ous method. By this method the teacher calls
upon the pupils in no fixed order. The same
pupil may be called upon twice in succession,
and this promiscuous treatment of the pupils re-
quires that each one shall give close attention and
be prepared to recite. Here, of course, whether
a question is asked or a topic assigned, the pupil
who is to recite should not be told of it until the
question is asked or the topic announced.

The third method calls upon all the pupils to
recite simultaneously. It is called the concert
method, and is generally very poor. The few
pupils who are prepared lead in the answer and
the others chime in. The teacher has no means
of knowing who is talking. In this way the in-
different pupils conceal their inadequate prepa-
ration behind the others. The only purpose for
which I would advise the concert method is to
secure expression from certain timid pupils who

might otherwise not gain enough
Concert Method confidence to spcak. I have

known shy pupils who were
afraid of their own voices, and who would not,
therefore, recite if they thought others were lis-
tening. To encourage these to speak the concert
recitation has some merit. The wise teacher will
soon understand when to drop the plan and lead
the timid pupil to speak alone and courageously.

248 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

We have not yet reached the point in the de-
velopment of our Sunday-school work when it
is possible to submit the pupils at the end of a
year, or of a half year, to a rigid written exam-
ination, and yet such an examination is a part
of the full teaching process and should receive
the attention of Sunday-school teachers every-
where. We ought to be asking
ExaJilTation oursclves whether we have any
means now of proving our work,
and if we have no such means we should be
asking ourselves the question, What can be done
in order to accomplish this result ? At this point
I wish to say that the need of the examination is
conditioned upon the inadequate training of the
teacher. The better equipped on the professional
side the teacher is the less need there will be for
examination. If we may fairly assume that our
teaching processes are not what they shoidd be,
it follows as a pedagogical necessity that the
examination should in some way be used to sup-
plement what our teachers are now doing. The
significance of the examination will gradually
decline as the professional spirit of the teacher
rises, and I for one long for the
The Better Way day when we shall see more
clearly than we now do the great
value to the childhood of the church of trained
and consecrated teachers. The more I ponder

CONCERNING THE RECITATION 249

upon the problem the more fully am I con-
vinced that only through the proper training of
the teacher may we hope for ideal conditions in
the Sunday-school.

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

Note the relation between a lesson, a branch of learn-
ing, and a curriculum.

What part does the preparation play in the recitation?
Do we now utilize this part as we should? As we
could?

The recitation is the focus of the teacher's effort. Why
is this so?

What is embraced in a proper assignment of a lesson?

Answer the objections that may be urged against as-
signment of the lesson in advance.

What are the functions of the recitation?

How much of the whole time of the Sunday-school
should be given to the lesson?

What methods of conducting the recitation do you
use ?

Point out the values and the dangers of the question
method.

What ways of calling upon the pupils are to be
studied? Which one is the best? Why?

XXI

PHASES OF RELIGIOUS TRAINING

T N THE training of a soul in moral and re-
ligioiis truth, certain guiding principles
should be taken account of and should direct the
processes of the teacher. At the outset let us
agree upon one guiding principle that is far-
reaching in its significance. The mind must be
trained in the formation of right judgments be-
fore it can adequately deal with

A Fundamental i- • j. i.i --ri i t,

L^^ religious truth. ihe soul, by

training, becomes a keen instru-
ment of thought. It acquires the power to
separate and to combine, to analyze and to
synthesize the data furnished by the senses
and also the data furnished by its own activities.
This training is a prerequisite to the proper use
of religious truth. But this training can come
only by the proper exercise of the thought-
powers of the soul. I would so have it that this
training should be secured by judicious exercise
in secular truth and in the more elementary as-
pects of religious truth.

To make this training effective the teacher
must multiply incidents that occasion right judg-
250

PHASES OF RELIGIOUS TRAINING 2$ I

ment. Test your class frequently upon common
incidents in human life. These incidents should
aim to figure to the mind some moral or religious
truth, such as conscientiousness, truthfulness,
humility, etc. Make these tests at first very
simple, and let them become increasingly com-
plex. Note always how the
TeZ%s\7 emotional aspects of the case
condition the judgment of the
pupil. Your work is not well done until the
pupil has the power to discern between the deci-
sion that judgment enforces and the decision that
the feelings suggest. Note, too, how readily the
pupil at first is led astray in his judgment by con-
fusing real elements with accidental elements of
the problem. The young lady, fresh from school,
who was unable to compute the cost of thirteen
pounds of meat at nine cents a pound, provided
one-third of the meat was fat, is not the only
person whose mind goes astray on " the fat."

John was twelve years old. One morning his
mother called him at seven-thirty. John sprang
out of bed, dressed promptly, and presented him-
self on time at the breakfast table. While eating
his breakfast his mother said : " John, before
you go to school I want you to go on an errand
for me." " All right, mother dear," said John.
After breakfast John went out and played with
his comrades until school-time. At nine precisely

252 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

he was lined up, cheerful, and serenely happy at
school. He was industrious, polite, and orderly
all the morning in school. At noon he went
home. His mother said : " John, why did you
fail to go on that errand for me this morning? "

John looked his mother in the
"^^i^ohn"' ^ye and said: "I forgot." At

one-thirty he was in school
again on time. During the afternoon, as a boy
in the next grade below passed John's desk, in
some way John's foot tripped the smaller boy.
There was some confusion, and the teacher
turned to John and said : " John, how did you
happen to do that ? " John answered promptly :
" It was an accident, teacher." Evidently the
teacher was of a different mind. She said to
him : " You may remain after school ; I want
to see you." John remained. He reached home
half an hour late. " Why, John, you are late ;
what is the cause ? " asked his mother. " Oh, I
was talking to the teacher," said John. What do
you think of John?

As you read this over did you notice the change
in your opinion sentence after sentence? Read
it again and note at what places in the story you
approved, and at what places you did not ap-
prove, of John's conduct. What was your final
judgment based upon ? Did you count up all the
commendable things John did, and also count

PHASES OF RELIGIOUS TRAINING 253

up all the non-commendable things John did,
and then strike a balance? What really did de-
termine your final judgment? Did you take into
account all his acts, or did you judge him for
his last remark to his mother? How should we
arrive at a conclusion in a case like this?

You will notice that the story ends with an

appeal to judgment. This seems to me to be a

most important thing to keep in

as a result of bringing a group
of related ideas into consciousness that is sig-
nificant. All of these ideas should be weighed,
their relative significance and importance de-
termined, and the judgment at the end should
announce the verdict of the soul upon the facts
in evidence. A training to this end is most im-
portant. It stands opposed to those excessive
memory efforts which we have heretofore seen
are at war with all good teaching. It also stands
opposed to hasty generalizations, — the tendency,
all too common, of leaping to conclusions with-
out a proper consideration of the facts that
determine what the conclusion should be. I be-
lieve that Sunday-school teach-
^'oJp*rs^es"'^ ers are very much open to this
criticism. They state a fact or
two and then expect the pupils, on this meager
basis of concrete material, to arrive at a uniform

254 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

law governing religious conduct. Nothing is
gained by such processes, and much is lost. This
training stands opposed also to a form of reason-
ing which is capable of much mischief. I refer
to the form of reasoning called reasoning by
analogy. Some object of the physical world is
made to represent some object of the spiritual
world, and what is true of the object in the phy-
sical world is by analogy said to be true of some
object in the spiritual world.

I once heard a minister preach a sermon on
the admonition, " Be ye therefore wise as ser-
pents, and harmless as doves." He discussed
snakes to perfection, and then turned all the
detailed statement concerning snakes into de-
tailed spiritual guidance. He did the same thing
with the doves, and when the doves and the
snakes did not quite behave as he
Method*^ thought a Christian ought to be-
have, he pointed out the fact
that perhaps if we knew the serpent and the
dove well enough, we should find that they
actually did behave in such a way as to become
perfect models for religious guidance ! What I
wish you to see here is that a lot of gratuitous
information was read into the text, and the im-
pression left on the mind of the hearer was any-
thing but helpful or wholesome or inspiring.
I think that we are inclined to strain Bible

PHASES OF RELIGIOUS TRAINING 25$

language as if somehow it were capable of in-
definite expansion. We read into the text things
which we want there, whether they actually are
tliere or not. For the child it would seem to me
only fair that the language of the Bible should
have only such meanings attached to it as legiti-
mately inhere therein, and as fall within the
grasp of the child. There is no
T°ildercr reason why an exhaustive treat-
ment of the text should be given
to the child, and certainly no reason why there
should be forced and fanciful relations estab-
lished to impress the child with the marvelous
breadth and suggestiveness of the Word of
Truth.

Here again I wish to emphasize the important
fact that the concrete material should be pre-
sented first ; that speedily we should lift the pupil
out of this concrete material into forms of judg-
ment and reason. A teacher of eight-year-old
pupils said, " Children, you must always be kind
to animals ; God made them, and
PreJentetL ^^^ wauts you to treat them
kindly. Remember this lesson."
Another teacher, having the same grade of pupils,
said to them : " Children, one day, when Abra-
ham Lincoln and a party of friends were riding
over the plains of Illinois, they passed through
a thicket of wild plum trees. They stopped at a

256 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

stream to water their horses, and then traveled
on. They had gone but a short distance when
they noticed that Lincohi was not with the party.
One said to another, ' Where is Lincohi ? ' An-
other one rephed, ' The last I saw of Lincoln he
had caught two young birds which the wind had
blown out of the nest, and he was hunting for
the nest, that he might put them back into it.'
In a little while Lincoln came riding up to the
party, and some of them laughed at him, and
jokingly remarked that he must be tremendously
interested in young birds to waste his time on
them. Lincoln simply answered,
Lincoln's Act ' Gentlemen, I could not have
slept to-night if I had not re-
stored those little birds to their nest and to their
mother.' Children, what led Lincoln to do what
he did and to say what he said, and what do
you think of his conduct and his words? " V/hich
of these teachers taught the lesson?

About two years ago, in conversation with a
friend on a question of religious instruction in
the public schools, he said that in his judgment
the Bible should be taught to every child in the
American public schools, because of its splendid
moral precepts and because of its exquisite Eng-
lish, if for no other reasons. As we were dis-
cussing this matter we were walking into the
state capitol at Springfield, Illinois. Before en-

PHASES OK rf:ligious trainikg 257

tering the door wc paused to say a word about
Lincoln and his great work for the nation, when
my friend said, " Here, under the shadows of this
great building, I want to tell you a true story
concerning Lincoln. When he was a candidate
for Congress, he was anxious to know how the
ministers would vote. He asked a friend to find
out. His friend reported that the ministers were
divided on the question ; some would vote for
him, some would vote against him. Lincoln
quietly drew from his coat
^ihe^Bibie" Pocl<et a little Bible, and hold-
ing it in his hand, he said, ' If I
read this book right, every .preacher ought to be
with me in this contest.' " The story illustrates
the point. Put the concrete material into the
soul. It will stir there emotional elements of
tremendous value in moving the will to action.
In the next place conduct should be regulated
in harmony with moral ideas and the sentiment
of duty. The training of the judgment is im-
portant ; it formulates the creed. The training
of the will is more important ; it formulates con-
duct and builds character. A pupil should un-
derstand from day to day that
*''^Conduct"' ^^^^ things he does are either in
harmony with important laws
that are essential to his well-being, or that his
conduct is in violation of these laws, and that any

258 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

violation of an important law works disaster to
the offender. So important has this law become
in the minds of thoughtful men that they have
builded around it a doctrine of punishments of
far-reaching significance. The best statement of
this doctrine is in the chapter on " Moral Edu-
cation " in Herbert Spencer's " Education." Mr.
Spencer points out the fact that punishment
should be natural ; in other words, that the pun-
ishment should have some relation to the offense
committed. He calls this the doctrine of natural
consequences. It has received much attention
and wide acceptance. Beyond two important
limitations I wish to commend it. These limita-
tions, however, are vital in the acceptance of
the theory. The first of these is that natural law

takes no note of motive. It
^"orpunishmrn'r punishes all alike,— the teacher

should not. Some pupils do
wrong deliberately, others accidentally. There
should be a very marked distinction in the treat-
ment of the two cases, and this consideration of
motive is a distinct limitation of the general
doctrine of natural consequences.

The second of these limitations lies in the fact
that the business of the teacher is to anticipate
wrong-doing for the purpose of preventing its
commission. It is not the function of the re-
ligious teacher simply to punish the wrong-doer.

PHASES OF RELIGIOUS TRAINING 259

He must wound the inclination to do the wrong

thing. He must make wrong-doing impossible

.,,,,, , to the extent of his ability. It is

Limitations of ■'

Spencer's this ability to anticipate trouble,
Doctrine ^j^^ power to forcsce wrong
tendencies, that makes the preventive qualities of
moral teaching of great significance. We aim
to fit the child when he is a child to overcome the
tendency to do wrong before the act is committed.
We should aim, by appeals to his feeling as well
as his thought, to construct a system of moral
and religious truth within which his soul is pro-
tected from wrong-doing. It should be the
purpose of the teacher to make it hard for the
pupil to do wrong. For that reason another
important matter must be considered.

The soul must be instructed in moral ideals
and their spiritual significance. The child needs
to be led to an understanding of what a moral
ideal is. He needs also to be shown the value that
comes to him in the possession of such ideals,
and he needs further to be helped in applying
the moral ideals in concrete cases. I would there-
fore commend the following
Moral Ideals Order in presenting moral and
relisfious truth to the mind of
the pupil. First, the story, rich in concrete de-
tail, should stir the emotional life of the child to
quicken his vision and intensify his appreciation.

26o THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

Second, in order to heighten the effect of the
story, follow it with poetical selections that re-
enforce the ideas contained in the story. Third,
further intensify the story by the singing of such
songs as bear directly upon the incidents of the
story, and, in the fourth place, building out of
all this concrete threefold, presentative knowl-
edge, clear judgments in the form of maxims,
principles, rules, law of conduct. To put this
into a sentence, the thought is, — tell it, rhyme it.
sing it, formulate it. I believe the day will come
when we shall study the four things which are
indicated, and group our materials in harmony
with this classification. Then we may with some
degree of confidence lay our nutritional elements
upon the soul, confident that its fruitage in con-
duct will surely follow.

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

Why should the mind be trained to form correct
judgments, and what is the significance of this in re-
ligious training?

Make a list of what you consider to be fundamental
moral qualities.

Do you see clearly the difference between a decision
by the judgment and a decision colored by feeling?

Why should accidental qualities be fully set aside in
forming correct judgments?

PHASES OF RELIGIOUS TRAINING 26 1

What is your opinion of John at 9 A. M.? at noon?
at 430 P. ^I- ?

Write a diary of a day in some boy's life, and study it
in the manner indicated in the exercise in this chapter?

Why should the story end with an appeal to judg-
ment?

Should this appeal be used with children under the
age of ten ?

What things stand opposed to clear judgment?

What weakness may be discerned in Sunday-school
teaching as a means of training judgment?

If concrete material should be presented first, what
should it lead to?

What is more important than the training of the judg-
ment ? Why ?

Discuss the doctrine of natural consequences, and
point out its limitations.

What makes a moral idea spiritually significant?

In what way do the rhyme and the song enforce the
story ?

XXII

JESUS THE IDEAL TEACHER

T T SEEMS fitting- that this discussion should
inckide the presentation of some of the
salient characteristics of the principles and
methods of teaching used by Jesus. In its last
analysis the true training of the teacher for the
Sunday-school must be a training that fits him
to follow in some degree the perfect example
of the greatest teacher that ever stirred the
heart and stimulated the mind of a pupil. In

measuring the worth of any
Example tcacher three things must be

considered ; ( i ) the purpose or
end which the teacher aims to accomplish, (2)
the equipment of the teacher, (3) the material
employed to achieve the end.

All great teachers have set before them a
definite end. This end is the goal of all eflfort,
and when the pupil attains it, it is his good. In
what, then, may this good be said to consist?
Buddha makes it consist in the complete suppres-
sion of self. Plato makes it consist in the vision
of eternal ideas. Aristotle makes it consist in the
exercise of man's highest faculty, — his reason.
262

JESUS THE IDEAL TEACHER 263

Zeno makes it consist in a life according to na-
ture. Epicurus makes it consist in the enjoyment
of calm, abiding pleasure. Dante
The End m niakes it consist in the vision and

Jesus Teaching

enjoyment of God. Goethe and
others make it consist in devotion to the well-
being of humanity. Kant makes it consist in a
good will. Hegel makes it consist in conscious
freedom. Others make it consist in a preparation
for complete living, while still others define it as
consisting of a harmonious development of all
the powers of the soul. Jesus is no exception to
this rule. He declared that the end of the edu-
cation of the human soul is to fit it to live in har-
mony vvith the will of God. This will of the
Father is to be realized best in the kingdom which
Jesus established on earth, and which he so fre-
quently referred to as the kingdom of heaven.
The whole purpose of his teaching was to bring
men into right relations with the divine will, to
show them how to live in harmony wath the
divine power, and at last to unite them with the
divine personality. Thus, too, he anticipates the
best statement of modern pedagogy by demand-
ing ideal perfection, — perfection after God's
standards, — as the end of education.

What was the equipment of Jesus for this im-
portant work ? We have only a few glances into
the rich life that he lived to the age of thirty, but

264 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

all of these are significant, and indicate that he
was steadily pursuing a definite purpose and
fitting himself for a specific service. If now we
consider what he did after the age of thirty, we
are led to the conclusion that all these earlier
yea-rs were spent in study, in meditation, in
prayer, in direct communion with the Father,
There may have been times when he became im-
patient over the long delay of the time when he
should come forth and teach. If this were the
case, we have no hint of it in anything that he

said or did. On the contrary,
Jesus' Equipment it secms reasonable to assume

that he willingly spent thirty
years preparing himself to teach for three years.
How significant this is ! What a flood of light
it throws upon the relative significance of prepa-
ration and of performance of life service ! Most
of us would reverse the order, and undertake
after three years of preparation to render thirty
years of service to mankind, and even then we
would demand a pension for the remainder of our
days as additional compensation for our three
years of preparation and our thirty years of ser-
vice. How unlike Jesus this would be ! He un-
derstood what all of us must come to understand
more fully, that we must pay the price in eflfort
and time if we are to reach the point where we
can render large and efficient service to the race.

JESUS THE IDEAL TEACHER 265

Because his preparation was so unusual his
teaching Hkewisc is unusual. He was never con-
fused in a controversy. He never lacked for
methods to teach. He never failed to grasp the
right conditions under which to teach. He taught
with power because he was thoroughly prepared
to teach.

Usually, when we come to measure the power
of a teacher, we ask ourselves, what equipment
did he possess ? In what school was he trained ?
What courses did he study? What special lines
of research did he pursue? From what higher
institution of learning did he graduate ? In what
positions did he teach? and other kindred ques-
tions. How little Jesus seems to care for any
of these ! Note well the fact that nobody has
ever applied to him the phrase — a great scholar.
Knowledge was to him ,a means, not an end.
Scholarship, therefore, was not a final interest of
his life. On the other hand, he is everywhere
recognized as a great teacher, who used his
scholarship not to make others

Things He Knew learned, but to tcach others how
to live. He evidently read many
books. He was thoroughly conversant with the
Old Testament Scriptures. He quoted from
these freely and at will. The ability to do this
implies long years of faithful study in the quiet
and seclusion of his home at Nazareth, and at

266 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

intervals in his carpenter-shop or on the bluff
overlooking the plain beyond. He filled his spirit
with the rich nutrition of the words of God, and
his soul was afire with all the inspired sayings
of the men who, in days before, had walked close
enough to God to catch some hint of his majesty
and glory.

He opened no school. He announced no course
of study. He is himself the great university of
mankind. Every hungry soul becomes his pupil
by the very fact of its hunger. He assigns no
limited time for study, but re-
^ini?e"uy* ^^^^es of each enlistment for life
in service under the will of the
Father. He puts between that service and each
one of us no extended curriculum. He makes it
possible for the humblest and the weakest to be-
gin at once and to continue for all time in the
service of the Master. He does not discourage
scholarship. But he steadfastly insists that what-
ever our gifts and attainments may be, these are
only agencies to be used in a life of service to
our fellows in harmony with the divine will.

As to his method, he is not only unique, but he
is supreme. His appeal always is to the will of
his pupils. While the Greek teacher appealed to
the reason, and the Roman teacher to the emo-
tional life, Jesus centered his appeal upon the
will. He laid, therefore, upon himself the most

JESUS THE IDEAL TEACHER 26/

exacting test that any teacher could possibly as-
sume. In effect he said : " Judge me by what my
pupils do. Measure my power

""vviu * ^y ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ "^y disciples
live. Comprehend my purposes
and my skill and my ability by the life that my
followers live." How many of us are willing to
be judged by such a high standard? We are
generally content if we can impart intellectual
gifts. We long for the power that will enable
us to direct the conduct of our pupils, but Jesus,
with an insight that was rare and refined, under-
stood the supremely significant fact that high
teaching must produce high action in the learner.

There is a fine illustration of this in the closing
part of the Sermon on the Mount. Those that
hear his word and do it are wise. Those that
hear his word and do it not are foolish. The
whole emphasis rests upon the conduct of the
hearer. Jesus, therefore, stands out as the one
great teacher of the world who deliberately set
aside every other purpose and concentrated his
efforts in the production of Christian character.
In order to give strength to his teaching he al-
ways lived in harmony with the will of God. In
the very last trial, when his soul was agonized,
he prayed : "' Not my will, but thine, be done."

Here then is our problem. To teach as Jesus
taught, to bring every human will into harmony

268 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

with the divine will. This is not the abridgment
of individual power, it is the enlargement of

individual power. The divine
Our Problem will is SO niuch broader, freer,

saner than ours that when we
rise into harmony with it we rise into freedom ;
truth alone makes us free.

When we consider how high a standard Jesus
thus set for his own attainment one begins to
realize how perfectly competent he must have
been to do the thing which he undertook to do.
And when he reinforces this by his own splendid
example, his power as a teacher lifts him above
all competitors, and entitles him to be considered
the ideal teacher. A striking example of this is
found in Matthew ii. We have here a scene
in which Jesus figures with unusual suggestive-
ness. As he stands somewhere in the midst of
the multitude teaching, there is a commotion in
his audience. Two men are seen to push through

the crowd and hastily make their
johS.:S.es way directly to him. All eyes

are turned for the moment upon
this apparent intrusion. The discourse is inter-
rupted, and Jesus turns his attention to these
two men. They tell him that they have come
from John, that John is in prison, and that his
heart is heavy with the burden of suffering im-
posed upon him, that he is willing to endure

JESUS THE IDEAL TEACHER 269

provided only that lie is sure he is right, and to
confirm him John sends these two to ask Jesus,
"Art thou he that cometh, or look we for an-
other?" Study the conditions. — the interrupted
discourse, the multitude curious to know what
would happen, the two messengers waiting for
the word that John's soul craved to receive, the
teacher no douht anxious to continue the dis-
course to the multitude. What, under these cir-
cumstances, is the wise thing to do? How^ shall
John be satisfied, the multitude taught, and Jesus
vindicated? An impatient teacher might have
said, " Step aside, I will see you later. You must
not interrupt me now." The ordinary teacher
m.ight have said, " Tell John it is all right, he
shall not worry, I am the Christ." But the great
teacher understood that now is the time, and
here is the opportunity, to impress a great truth.
He sent back no word to John, but said, "Go
and tell John the things which ye hear and see :
the blind receive their sight, and

cleansed, and the deaf hear, and
tlie dead are raised up, and the poor have good
tidings preached to them." See the significance
of this reply. Answer John by telling him what
you see me do. Let John judge me not by what
I say, but by what I do. Here is a teacher that
points to a record of service, of large gifts of

2/0 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

help and hope and healing, and says, in effect,
let my record be my answer.

They tell the story of Giotto, the Florentine
artist, that one day Pope Boniface sent a mes-
senger to Giotto informing him that the Pope
wished some frescoes painted on the walls of St.
Peter's, and that the different artists, including
himself, were to submit samples of their work.
Giotto seized a brush, dipped it into red paint,
and with one sweep of his hand
Giotto's Example drew a perfect circle on the can-
vas, and handed this to the mes-
senger, saying, " Here is my drawing." The
messenger in amazement said, "Am I not to have
anything more than this ? " The artist replied,
" That is enough and to spare." The Pope,
pleased with this superb but simple expression of
ability, immediately called on Giotto to perform
the work.

So it seems to me that when John's disciples
came to Jesus, instead of sending testimonials
and recommendations and declarations of what
he was, Jesus, with the superb skill of a great
teacher, sent back the disciples to John simply
with the evidence of things done. But the inci-
dent is not closed. What of the multitude that
heard and saw all this? Jesus turns to them,
and with three questions of tremendous signi-
ficance and power shows them that this John who

JESUS THE IDEAL TEACHER 2/1

is now in prison was the power under God that
drew them out of the city into the wilderness.
And then, with a loyalty and a devotion that
beggar all description, Jesus stood before the
multitude and announced his allegiance to John.
John is in prison ; he is waiting the day of his
death ; he seems to be shorn of all his power ;
his influence seems to be gone, and but one act
remains in the tragedy of his career ; and yet
Jesus stood up for him with a courage and a
conviction that challenges the admiration of every
honest spirit. What of this John who, by false
process, is condemned to prison and to death?
" Verily, I say unto you. Among
Loyalty to a ^-^gj^-, |-|-,at are born of women

Friend

there hath not arisen a greater
than John the Baptist ; " and yet to this motley
multitude Jesus is a messenger of hope and of
help. Least of all those that step out of the king-
dom of sin into the kingdom of heaven is greater
than John. There is not in all literature an illus-
tration of an interruption of a great teacher
handled with such consummate skill as this. And
in the night, when you sit alone pondering over
the source of power, of strength, and of guid-
ance in your work as a teacher, call up this
splendid scene time and time again until some-
thing of its majesty and of its worth becomes the
possession of your own spirit.

272 T}IE MAKING OF A TEACHER

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

Why is a study of the teaching processes of Jesus of
greater significance than a study of the teaching pro-
cesses of Plato or Quintilian or Varro or Aristotle?

What do you conceive to be the end of the education
of a soul?

Criticise the different ends set forth by the various
authorities cited.

Why must one have an end in view in order to teach
well?

Do you think Jesus ever attended school with other
youths? If so, what sort of a pupil do yoiu conceive
him to have been ?

How much time did Jesus give to his preparation for
teaching? How much are you willing to give?

What are the entrance requirements to the school of
Jesus?

What importance attaches to the will as the soul power
to be trained ?

What test did he impose upon himself as a teacher?

Why is he called a great teacher rather than a great
scholar?

To live under the divine will is to live under restric-
tions. Is this true?

XXIII

EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES USED BY
JESUS

TTPON the laws of the soul rest the laws of
^^ teaching. We are limited in our teaching
processes by the possibilities of development that
God has set in each soul. To know these limits
is the first problem. These limits we have con-
sidered. What guidance may we now formulate
in harmony with the facts already set forth?

When we have answered this
The Question question we ought to know both

how and why we teach. The
mastery of educational law is not complete until
it influences potentially our actual processes. The
aim, then, is to help you to teach better than you
now do, — to teach more nearly as did Jesus.

We can give only what we have. " Bring your
health and your strength to the weak and sickly,
and so you will be of use to them. Give them

not your weakness, but your
The Answer energy, — so you will revive and

lift them up. Life alone can re-
kindle life. What others claim from us is not
our thirst and our hunger, but our bread and our

273

274 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

gourd." Initial energy is always lessened by use.
We never teach quite all we are capable of teach-
ing. Our equipment must exceed our pupils'
needs. There is an appreciable loss in its use.
Be sure you know more about your lessons than
your pupils can use. Better be over-stocked than
under-stocked with materials and powers of in-
struction. In its last analysis, is it not true that
power to teach is measurable only in quality of
soul ? It is not what we take on from others, but
what we actually are as the result of our own
activities, that best equips us to teach. Pay the
price of power. Put yourself daily to the test.
Keep some great problem constantly before you.
We grow slowly but surely into the quality of
soul we most steadfastly strive to secure. Chal-
lenge things. Interrogate things. Dean John
Donne was accustomed to say, " Naturally I
doubt and stick, and do not say quickly, good. I
censure much and tax."

There is nothing quite so hopeless as a putty-
and-paste mind. To be passively receptive is to
be useless. Hence I urge the constant exercise
of your soul's powers upon important themes.
Its growth is conditioned by its legitimate use.
In John 4 :3i the disciples say, "Master, eat."
They were justified in saying this because the
disciples had gone up into the city to buy meat.
Jesus had remained at the well because he

EDUCATIOXAL PRINCIPLES USED BY JESUS 2/5

was weary, and no doubt, as they thought, hun-
gry. Did Jesus eat of the food which the dis-
ciples brought from the city?
Soul Activity Auswcr the question instantly,
Yes or No, then turn to the
narrative itself and ascertain whether your an-
swer is correct. Have you in the narrative all
the facts necessary to form a proper conclusion,
— a satisfactory conclusion? We have no war-
rant whatever in attempting to compel children
to form conclusions without first having the
facts, and enough of the facts, to justify the con-
clusion. If we cannot give or direct the pupil to get
the facts, we should not expect a conclusion. The
powers of the soul cannot operate upon nothing.
They deal with materials that are as real to them
as marbles and tops and dolls are to children.

Reason moves in two directions. It may start
with individual or particular notions, and arrive
at general or universal notions, broadening its
range of knowledge at every step in this advance,
oi it may reverse this process. These two forms
of reason are called induction and deduction.
We reason inductively when we
'"Deduction"" ^tart with a particular or indi-
vidual notion and arrive at last
at a general or universal notion. We reason de-
ductively when we proceed in a reverse order.
Most of the teaching of Jesus is inductive. He

2/6 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

states a concrete fact that falls within the ex-
perience of his hearers, and then leads them to
the general or universal notion with which it is
related. There is another activity here that the
teacher needs to keep in mind. A general notion
may be given, and then separated into its essen-
tial attributes or marks, in which case the pro-
cess is analytic, or it may start with a concrete,
specific notion, and, gathering others to it, arrive
at last at the general notion. This process is

synthetic. I would advise you
""sSsts"" to turn to any good book on

teaching, and make a study of
these four forms of reasoning, — analytic, syn-
thetic, inductive, and deductive. When we dis-
regard these methods of teaching we become
dogmatic, by which one is to understand that
we force the child to accept conclusions which
he does not yet understand. This dogmatic ma-
terial is so much unassimilated matter in the
mind. The memory is stuffed with it. It is life-
less. It does not energize conduct. It affords no
insight. It has no effect upon character. The
consequence is that after a while the child, from
some other source, gets an inkling into the right
method of dealing with truth, and then in a fit
of despair he rejects all this dogmatic material,
and as a result comes to discredit a most im-
portant religious guidance.

EDUCATIONAL PRINXIPLES USED BY JESUS 2'J'J

You will not read in the sixth chapter of Mat-
thew, "Ye have heard it hath been said," but " I
say." You will read the plain, direct statement
of a far-seeing and wise Guide who knew. Hav-
ing disabused the minds of his disciples of any

doubt concerning his relation to
"I Say" the law, Jesus turns to teach the

things that are worth while, and,
in doing that, he takes up three matters.

The first is in the first verse, " Your alms ; "
the second one is in the fifth verse, " When thou
prayest ; " the third one is found in the sixteenth

verse, " Moreover when ye fast."
What He Says I Undertake to point out part

of the significance of these three.
Let us, as we read from this sixth chapter, see
clearly what Jesus visions before him. He is
thinking of people such as we are, living just as
we are living, surrounded just as we are sur-
rounded with social and other environments. He
is thinking of his disciples just as common folk,
living simple lives, in ordinary circumstances.
There is no great, marvelous mystery here at all,
but a direct guidance for the multitude of people
in their every-day afifairs.

He does not say that we are not to " give our
• alms." He assumes that we will. He takes that
for granted, and tells us how to do the thing that
we are going to do anyhow. He does not say

2/8 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

pray, but he says, " When thou prayest." He
assumes that you will pray. He tells you how to
do it. He does not say that " you shall fast,"
but *' when ye fast." He assumes that you will

do it. He is trying to tell you
He Tells How how. Oh, see the power of that !

He takes you as you are in the
plain performance of simple duty, accepts your
acts as you are accustomed to doing them. He
tells you how to guide your life as you never
knew for yourself, and as you never would know
if he had not spoken. Consider these three ; this
almsgiving^ this praying, this fasting. Why does
he not put some of the other things that concern
people here? He says: "Consider your alms-
giving, so that you do that in the right way ; "
"Consider your praying, so that you do that in
the right way; " " Consider your fasting, so that
you do that in the right way." Then he is done.
Why done? Because your alms-giving repre-
sents your relation to your fellow-men ; your
praying represents your relation to God himself;
and your fasting represents your relation to your
own self. My neighbor, my God, myself, — there
is no more ! How shall I treat my neighbor, my
God, myself? There is no more to be asked.
Human destiny comprehended and epitomized in
one sentence ! What a teacher he was !

Jesus seeks always to put the largest possible

EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES USED BY JKSUS 279

meaning in the fewest words. In doing this,
one must avoid the danger of generahzing
the statement to such an extent as to render it
practically useless. There must always be in the
statement something which the mind can grasp,
and around which it can group many other re-
lated facts. Simple elimination
A Caution is not concentration. It does not
do to say one of twenty things
with the thought that because you are brief you
are therefore successful. The thing to do is to
catch some general statement which visions the
whole field of related thought.

Good teaching is generous giving. No one can
teach well who is not perfectly willing to devote
his best energies and all his energies to the work.
I see so much listless, careless, half-hearted, in-
different teaching that I some-
Teaching^is times wish I had the power to
regenerate the spirit of some
teachers. They ought to be taken and shaken
and awakened to a realization of their true obli-
gations and opportunities. We cannot teach
without giving something of our own vital en-
ergy to the process. No great power will come
to the learner unless there is the giving of power
by the teacher.

One day in the thick of the multitude, as Jesus
stood teaching, a woman pushed her way through

280 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

the crowd to the Master. She was an invahd.
She had suffered for years. To her hfe was a
sorry burden, but to her Hfe was sweet, and to
feel its full, rich thrill in every tissue of her
body was the dream and hope of her spirit. She
believed that Jesus could help her. Without ask-
ing permission, and without regarding the cu-
rious eyes of the multitude, she
An illustration thrust forth her hand and
touched the hem of his garment.
It was enough. She was, in answer to her faith,
what she longed to be. The Teacher, turning,
said, " Who touched me? " and the curious mul-
titude, in surprise, asked, " How do you know
that you were touched ? " How little they un-
derstood the secret power of the Great Teacher.
The Master knew because, as he said, " I per-
ceived that virtue had gone out of me." Here his
teaching is the test. What the pupil gains you
lose. What the pupil gets you give. What the
pupil becomes you must be. The touch of the
hungry heart and the thirsty spirit gives comfort,
healing, health, to the learner, only when the
spirit of the teacher overflows with these gener-
ous endowments.

When I was a teacher in a country school, I
endeavored to do my work in harmony with the
best light I had. Sixty-seven pupils touched me
every hour of the day, and in the evening when

EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES USED BY JESUS 28 I

I took my dinner-pail in hand to return to my
home a mile away, I felt the exhaustion of the
day's work. There were times when I could
have thrown myself in a fence-corner on the
roadside, and counted it sweet rest. It costs some-
thing to do something, but there
^'" ^. is a blessed compensation. He

Compensation ^

giveth his beloved sleep, and in
the hours of recuperation he gives back not only
what he gave to his children, but more ; for he
comes not with a measure of justice, but with a
measure of love. And so we return to the work
day after day, renewed in spirit, enriched in soul,
because we have worked for him.

In the life of Pestalozzi one has a striking ex-
ample of the influence of a great purpose and the
results of a great love for children. When he
gathered his orphan children at Stanz, and de-
voted his whole life to their welfare, he made
report of his work to a friend in a letter contain-
ing the following words : '' First of all I had to
arouse in my pupils pure, moral,
^* stanz' " ^^^ noble feelings, so that after-
wards, in external things, I
might be sure of their ready attention, activity,
and obedience. I had, in short, to follow the
high precepts of Jesus Christ, ' Cleanse first that
which is within, that the outside may be clean
also ; ' and if ever the truth of this precept was

282 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

made manifest, it was made manifest then." Un-
der the influence of this noble impulse Pestalozzi
spent his days and his nights in perfecting a sys-
tem of education which touched not only the little
group whom he educated, but touched all Europe.
When his master production came to the hands
of Queen Louisa of Prussia she recorded in her
private diary : " I am reading Leonard and Ger-
trude, and enjoy transporting myself to this
Swiss village. If I were my own mistress I should
at once go to Switzerland and

Queen Louisa see PcStalozzi. Would that I

could take his hand, and that he
might read my gratitude in my eyes. With what
kindness and ardor he works for the good of his
fellow-men. Yes, in the name of humanity, I
thank him with my whole heart."

This queenly woman never saw the great edu-
cator. He had no time to visit royalty. He spent
his days teaching children whom the ravages of
war had left homeless and parentless. He spent
his evenings begging food to nourish their bodies.
He spent his nights while they slept patching their
tattered garments and washing their single bits
of clothing. He did all this because he learned
from the Master what it meant to love children.
He won the proud distinction of living like a
beggar that he might teach beggars to live like
men. Over his grave in the little village of Birr,

EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES USED BY JESUS 283

near the site of his first educational experiment,
and over his sleeping remains, is placed a monu-
ment in harmony with his own wish, " a rough,
unhewn stone, such as I myself have always
been." His grateful countrymen inserted on the
tablet the following tribute to his

A Grateful , 1 .i o • r ^i

Tribute great work: baviour of the

poor at Neuhof, at Stanz the
father of orphans, at Burgdorf and Munchen-
buchsee founder of the popular school, at
Yverdun the educator of humanity ; man. Chris-
tian, and citizen. All for others, nothing for him-
self. Peace to his ashes.

To our Father Pestalozzi
Grateful Aargau."

This is an example of what teachers may do
when they understand their exalted privileges, and
work in harmony with their divine prototype.

In the early years children need a great deal of
specific guidance, of directive activity, of au-
thoritative expression. When this authority is
once expressed, see to it that the act of the child

conforms thereto. You defeat
''s^K.CoXr the very best things you are

trying to accomplish if you do
not do this. In the later years of the child's life
in the Sunday-school he is to do more of these
things for himself. Control by the teacher will

284 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

gradually yield to self-control. Do not undertake
to treat boys of sixteen as you would treat boys
of six. You should expect different and better
things of the older pupils, and you make a great
mistake if you do not recognize the fact that these
young people have learned to do some things tor
themselves. Give them the responsibility. Elx-
pect of them the results. Recognize what they
have achieved in the years of their unfolding.
Meet them where they are. Teach them in har-
mony with their capability.

Jesus understood the importance of making
teaching an exchange of opinions. He encour-
aged his hearers to speak; gave due considera-
tion to what they said. He never rebuked them
for expressing their understanding of thought,
or for asking questions to gain clearer knowl-
edge. I think of him as he sat with little groups of

people, engaged in quiet conver-
^** ^Taik"*"'^ sation, listening to their remarks,

answering their questions, put-
ting them perfectly at their ease, but waiting
for the right moment to crystallize the whole dis-
cussion into some great guidance. How far we
are from the mark when we take all the time
of the recitation to tell the children what we
know and what we think ! How much better it
is to place the recitation on a conversational
plane ! In this way the pupil is part of the pro-

EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES USED BY JESUS 285

cess by which he is taught. He enters into the
whole activity through which he builds his spirit
into greater power and clearer thought.

Be always yourself in the presence of your
class. Do not undertake to play a part. Avoid
all affectation and unnatural and forced attitudes
of mind and of body. Children soon find out
any element of insincerity in the make-up of the
teacher. Avoid unnatural and harsh and high-
pitched tones of voice. Sometimes teachers yell
at their pupils. They think that intensity and

earnestness are expressed by in-
Be Natural creased pitch of voice. Nothing

quite so much upsets a class and
breaks in upon the serenity of the thought and
interferes with the purpose of the recitation as a
teacher whose voice is out of harmony with the
situation.

I recall now a teacher who taught with such
a high and unnatural voice that the children were
in a constant state of nervous excitement border-
ing on frenzy. I speak strictly within the truth
when I say that as I approached the room where
this teacher taught I heard his voice far out on

the campus. I recall another
Poor Teaching teacher who had this same habit.

One day a friend called him
from the class-room and said, " My dear friend,
I have just had a telephone message from a

286 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

gentleman six miles away, saying that his wife
was ill, and begging me to request you to speak
to your class in a little lower tone, in order not
to disturb her ! " He saw the point. He laughed,
but he did not need that suggestion again.

Sometimes we talk too rapidly. Our words
run together like the streakings of falling stars
across the sky. The result in the mind of the
child is confusing. If the things you say are
worth anything to the child, — and they ought to
be, — time yourself in such a manner as to give
force and purpose to your teaching. The most
impressive prayer I ever heard was spoken most
deliberately. It seemed as if every word was
pointed and purposeful. It burned in conscious-

o-w c- * * « ness like a star in the darkness

The Fine Art of

Knowing of the night. There was an
""^ ominous pause, as if somehow

each word had been sent on a long voyage, and
we were waiting for the signal from the other
side before another was launched. When the
prayer was ended it seemed as if we could not lift
our heads and open our eyes until we felt the
echo of the Amen straight from the throne. Do
we realize how much of all that is powerful in
the things that we do depends on the way we
do them? Let us fashion our way after the man-
ner of our great Example. Let us endeavor, so
far as in us lies, to teach as Jesus taught.

EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES USED BY JESUS 28/

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

When may an educational law be said to be honored
by the teacher?

Can we give to the child what we do not possess as
teachers ?

What important conclusions do you draw from your
answer to this question?

Should the teacher know more than the pupil is to
receive ? Why ?

Is it important that a teacher should be constantly
learning?

Why should a pupil be given the facts before he is
asked to formulate a judgment?

What two prominent forms of reasoned activity should
the teacher understand?

Did Jesus teach inductively or deductively? Prove
your answer.

What is the real difference between analytic teaching
and synthetic teaching?

What danger grows out of undertaking to put too
many things into a few words?

Explain the statement — "Good teaching is generous
giving."

What did Pestalozzi give to his pupils? What did
Jesus give? What are you giving?

What is the value of the interchange of thought be-
tween teacher and pupil?

What significance attaches to the tone of the voice in
teaching?

Formulate a brief outline of educational guidance from
the statements made in this chapter.

XXIV
EDUCATIONAL METHODS USED BY JESUS

JESUS taught with infinite patience. He never
was in a hurry. He had no time to be in a
hurry, but he always had time to do a thing that
should be done. Here is an example worth much
to every teacher. How hard it is for us to under-
stand that our best teaching is not always pos-
sible; that conditions determine results. A wise

„ .,^. , teacher will always labor to pre-
conditions In .

Class and dispose the learner to receive the
Results ^gg^ instruction. In the entire

round of the recitation there may be but one
minute when all the conditions make possible
fine teaching. It is the business of the teacher
to mold the conditions and bring to pass this
sublime moment and then teach as Jesus taught.
At the opening of Matthew 5, we have a strik-
ing illustration of the deliberate quality of this
teacher. He sees the multitude. He then goes
up into a mountain. Then he sat
No Haste In ^^ ^^^^^ ^f^^^. ^^^^ j^is dis-

Teaching '

ciples came unto him, and he
opened his mouth and spoke unto them. Notice
with what deliberation he predisposes the disciples
288

EDUCATIONAL METHODS USED BY JESUS 289

to receive this great message. There is no sign of
haste. There is no evidence of impatience. There
is no attempt to hurry the conditions, but, with a
masterful control of himself, he predisposes the
conditions for favorable teaching. I have no
doubt his sayings went all the more deeply into
the conscience, and fastened themselves more
securely within the soul of the disciples, because
of this deliberate treatment of them. In a pre-
ceding chapter I called attention to this same
quality when Jesus was at the Feast of the Taber-
nacles in Jerusalem, It will amply reward you
to go through the Gospels and make a personal
study of this same quality as it appears again
and again in his teaching.

Another quality in the teaching of Jesus that
stands out with marvelous clearness is his treat-
ment of common things to figure the mysteries of
the kingdom of heaven. We have an educational

law of great value which may be
ThinM""" formulated in some such way as

this : In teaching proceed from
the simple to the complex, from the concrete to
the abstract, from the individual to the universal.
This law was never better honored or more stead-
fastly adhered to by any great teacher than by
Jesus. It was his definite purpose to bring plainly
to the understanding of his disciples and the mul-
titude the significance of the kingdom of heaven.

290 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

With what fine skill he linked the kingdom of
heaven with all the common objects in the every-
day life of his hearers. It seems as if everything
that God had set in his universe became with this
teacher the type and symbol of the one great,
supreme truth that he came to teach. Let us
pray devoutly and study steadfastly to catch
something of his supreme power in the use of the
multitudinous materials so ready at hand as
teaching agencies.

In John 3, Jesus gives us an additional illus-
tration of his power to use familiar things im-
mediately present to the senses in enforcing a
great truth. A great scholar comes to him in
the night. Nicodemus, in fear of his associates,
slips through the shadows of the streets to the
place where the great teacher abides. He hastily
opens and closes the door, shuts himself from the
world, and opens himself to the great Teacher.
As these two sit conversing upon
isfccTdem'lfs ^^^^ mysteries of birth into the
kingdom, Nicodemus is puzzled,
perplexed, confused, and finds himself unable to
follow the great teacher's thought. The Teacher,
realizing this, says, " Marvel not," and then fol-
lows a fine illustration of the use of the concrete.
Through the room in which they sat swept the
night wind, and Jesus said, " Nicodemus, listen ;
the wind bloweth where it will, and thou hearest

EDUCATIONAL METHODS USED BY JESUS 29 1

the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it
cometh and whither it goeth : so is every one that
is born of the Spirit." Here Jesus shows again
his mastery over common things as a basis of
approach to the greater things which he desired
to present to the spirit of this learned man.

In the next chapter we have a finer illus-
tration of this great power. Jesus sat at a
well, and a woman of Samaria came to draw
water. He did an unusual thing, in saying to a
stranger-woman, " Give me a drink." On the
basis of this request, step by step, with skill and
patience and insight, he built into the spirit of

Jesus and the ^^'^'^ woman the great lesson that
Samaritan God is a Spirit, and that he that
^*'"'*" spake unto her is the Christ. So

incident after incident reveals skill in the use of
the concrete to help the learner comprehend the
abstract and the general truth. Note also the fact
that Jesus used the same method whether he
taught an ignorant woman or a learned doctor
of the law. He had no need to grade his mate-
rials, but he saw in everything sufficient material
to nourish every grade of mind that came to him
to learn. So, I take it, it would be with us if
we, like him, knew how to teach ; and once again
I must impress the fact that it is the power of
the teacher more than the grading of the material
that makes success possible in the training of a

292 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

human soul. Give the children teachers first.
Graded materials of instruction will inevitably
follow in due time.

Another marked characteristic of the teaching
of Jesus is found in the fact that he changed the
basis of instruction from one of negation to one
of assertion. He upturned all the negative forms
of thought that ran riot with the development of

the human spirit, and substituted
Teaching positive guidance in all right

living. Over and over again, in
the Sermon on the Mount, he reminded his
disciples that the law is ** Thou shalt not/' but
his teaching is " Thou shalt." There is a world-
wide difference between negative instruction and
positive instruction. These negative rules and
forms of thought have but one virtue. They
keep us from doing the thing that we ought not
to do. They fail to tell us what we should do ;
and the world needs guidance in right doing more
than it needs negations.

I sometimes think that if the old schoolhouses
could speak out the one word that they have
heard most frequently repeated within their
walls, they would send forth with a shout the
word " Don't ! " I am quite sure that in many
homes most of the moral teaching of the child
consists in telling him what he ought not to do.
From daylight to twilight it is one incessant

EDUCATIONAL METHODS USED BY JESUS 293

round of don't do this, and don't do that, anfl

don't do the other thing, until the wearied spirit

of the child in despair calls out,

Don't " What may T do ? " Jesus comes

as a protest against this pro-

scriptive teaching, and deliherately sets about to

tell the world what it must do to be saved. He

builds a positive and a constructive code of ethics,

and this product has been the guidance of the

human race in all the years that have intervened.

We know no better saying of what duty should
consist, we have no wiser statement of what
conduct should be, than the simple sayings of
the majestic Teacher. Let us consider thought-
fully the great value of this teaching of Jesus.
He tells us what we shall do. He knows what
conduct should be. He has the courage as well
as the ability to urge men everywhere to do
things because he knows the tilings that are right.
Some of us are not so clear in these matters.
We are able generally to issue a negative com-
mand, to halt wrong-doing, to stop evil tend-
encies ; but when we are asked to say, on the other
hand, what the child should do, we are helpless.
Our words fail to furnish guidance, and our best
thought is impetuous and useless.

I remember that the great laws written on the
tables of stone, and given to Moses when he was
in the mountain in the morning alone with God,

294 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

are couched in negative form. I appreciate all
that that means. I understand how necessary it

is that law should formulate its
^XLictZ'' <^ecree in that way, for law is the

arrest of wrong-doing. Jesus
Christ came to fulfil the law by showing the bet-
ter way. Instead of halting the human race
in the mad rush to ruin, he turns them face about,
and points them to the everlasting kingdom of
the Father, and says, with an appeal that is over-
mastering, " Come unto me." Perhaps nothing
in all the sayings of Jesus has been so potential
in confirming his divinity in the souls of his fol-
lowers as this specific guidance in right-doing.
We turn to him in the confident conviction that
he knows the way that we should tread. We
know that he knows, and for that reason we wor-
ship him. Is it necessary, then, to emphasize
more than has already been done the importance
of telling children always and everywhere the
things that they should do. The Sunday-school
should be the constructive agency, pointing chil-
dren steadily to those lines of thought and con-
duct that are in harmony with the divine law.

In harmony with this thought I wish to make
a suggestion to those earnest people who think
it their duty to fortify the minds of children
against all possible forms of evil by telling them
years in advance of the time what things they

EDUCATIONAL METHODS USED BY JESUS 295

shall be sure not to do. There was a time when
the public school teacher felt that he should an-
nounce at the opening of his school a long list of

rules telling children what they
The New Way should not do, but experience

soon taught that no number of
rules could possibly cover all the difficulties that
would arise in the school. For that reason this
plan was long since abandoned, and to-day we
put before the children no formal and extended
list of " Thou shalt nots ; " but instead, we ap-
peal to the common element of justice and equity
which is everywhere innate in the soul, and which
the pupil is just as likely to know as the teacher.
One teacher who thought he would avoid any
possible wrong-doing on the part of his pupils
noticed in a school-yard a wood-shed. Thereupon
he announced to the children that they must not
play on the roof of that wood-shed. It had not
entered the minds of the children that that was a
good place to play^ but at the suggestion of the
teacher they soon found out that that roof was

the only spot on earth that would
''rwroT/way ^^^vd adequate pleasure. Some-

times as many as seventeen were
found upon it! A very well-disposed mother,
but not wise, on leaving her home one day, said
to the older children, " Now be sure to put no
beans in the babv's ears." The children had

296 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

never thought of such a thing, but when she re-
turned the baby's ears were well filled with beans 1
Over against this sort of thing, and in harmony
with the example of Jesus, the better way is to
tell the child plainly just what he should do.

May I safely assume that, as a result of our
ordinary method of teaching, we make the child
more familiar with the evil to be avoided than
with the good to be performed? Is this wise?
Some negative teaching is undoubtedly neces-
sary. It has a preventive value. But my notion
is that the best teaching is that which gives to
our boys and girls guidance in the things to be
done. We no longer lay emphasis upon false
syntax to teach correct English, We no longer
make the misspelled word the most prominent
one. We lay the burden of our effort upon se-
curing correct forms of words and sentences.

We should commend the good
The Christ Way more than we condemn the evil.

This builds usable ethical and
religious concepts in the soul. The effect of this
is significant. How often the Christian leaders
denounce evil things with merciless energy ! How
seldom do they know how to give wise guidance
in reforming the world ! Let us pray for power
to guide the world to the right things, to the
Great Teacher, to the Father-soul,

EDUCATIONAL METHODS USED BY JESUS 297

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

What values attach to the quality of patience in teach-
ing?

Have you ever become angry with your pupils? What
was the net result ?

Make a list of common objects that you can readily use
to illustrate great religious truths.

Did Nicodemus get information or inspiration from
Jesus? Which is worth the more?

What is the value of individual teaching? Of class
teaching?

How did Jesus change his method in teaching different
persons ?

Point out just the difference between positive and
negative guidance.

In teaching, do you use don't or do most frequently?

How did Jesus modify the form of moral and religious
instruction ?

Is it wise to tell children everythmg they are not to
do?

A great reformer always has a positive remedy for evil.
Measure Jesus by this standard.

XXV

SOME ASPECTS OF RELIGIOUS TEACHING

T AM a believer in personal interviews. I think
a Sunday-school teacher should in some way
plan to have a brief talk with each member of his
class, at irregular intervals, as occasion opens
the way. In these talks there should be no at-
tempt to criticize or to scold or to find fault, but
a very honest attempt, and a

Personal £j. j. ^^ -^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^j^^

Interviews ' '^

child certain things which, in

years that are to come, he will find to be of some
use to him. I recall some such interviews as that
between good men who were my teachers and
myself, and the power of those interviews has
rested upon me in all the years that have fol-
lowed. It is a well-known fact that a child is
more impressed in a personal interview than by
any amount of class instruction. It is this per-
sonal concern for the child, this willingness to
act as friend and adviser, this deep-seated con-
cern which reveals itself in the personal quality
of interest and help, that sobers the child's
thought, steadies his conduct, and stimulates his
regard for the things that are sweet and clean
298

SOME ASPECTS OF RELIGIOUS TEACHING 299

and right. There is much warrant for this in
the example of Jesus. How often he had per-
sonal interviews that are recorded in the Gospels,
and how many more he probably did have that
are not recorded ! The burden of the whole
W'orld was upon him, and }'et he had time to
turn aside from the multitude and give to one
soul personal help and comfort and guidance.

In a preceding- chapter I called attention to
the fact that scholarship was not an end with
Jesus. I wish now to say that this is no evidence
that he himself was not a scholar. He was not only
familiar with the law of his own people, but he
knew the law of the Roman conquerors, and he
knew the customs, habits, and modes of life of
all the different peoples that thronged the great

cosmopolitan city of Jerusalem.
sc7oilrsh?p With his scholarship, therefore,

he was able to command respect,
but he did not obtrude this quality of his equip-
ment as a teacher upon his hearers. It was sim-
ply used to answer those who came to him to
confuse him, and to instruct those who came
to him to be guided of him. This seems to me to
be an ideal use of knowledge. When a teacher
is more anxious to impress a pupil with what
he knows than he is to incite his pupil to right
living, — when, in other words, the emphasis of
his thought and effort is directed to himself in-

300 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

stead of his pupils, he is not only a vain man,
but a poor teacher.

Another matter impresses itself upon my mind.
Teachers are sometimes over-critical with their
pupils. They demand statements in just one cer-
tain order of words. There are, of course, some
things that should be said just so, but the great
majority of things should be known clearly, and
then expressed freely in the language of the
learner. If the teacher finds a pupil stating a
great truth in language that adequately conveys
that truth, the teacher should appreciate the pu-
pil's effort, and not insist upon a restatement and
another restatement until the thing is said in just
the way the teacher wants it

'^T^'lllT" said. The result of this insist-

Expression

ence is that the pupil becomes
impressed with the finicky, fussy quality of the
teacher, and at last loses interest in the truth it-
self. If, however, the truth in the mind of the
child is not clear, the teacher should hold to the
discussion and ask for a restatement, a reorgani-
zation of the thought, again and again and again,
if need be, until the thing is clearly understood.
The emphasis of the teacher's concern should be
upon what the child thinks, and freedom should
be given to the child to formulate his thought in
language of his own spirit.

In order to help the pupil to right expression,

SOME ASPECTS OF RELIGIOUS TEACHING 3OI

the teacher slioukl constantly point out the beauty,

the simpHcity, and the strength of the EngHsh

of the Bible ; hold it up as a

'^''th^'W-hf * moc^el; encourage the child to

the oible ' ^

State things in the same splendid
English in which the truth of God comes to him
in his English Bible.

More and more, writers are recognizing that
the purest English to be found anywhere is in the
Bible. Many of the Psalms are models of strong
and yet simple English. Of this English in the
Bible a noted divine, Dr. Faber, says : " It lives

on the ear, like a music that can
Dr. Faber never be forgotten, like the

sound of church bells, which the
convert hardly knows how he can forego. Its
felicities often seem to be almost things rather
than mere words. It is part of the national mind,
and the anchor of national seriousness. The
memory of the dead passes into it. The potent
traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its
verses. The power of all the griefs and trials
of a man is hidden beneath its words. It is the
representative of his best moments, and all that
there has been about him of soft and gentle and
pure and penitent and good speaks to him forever
out of his English Bible. It is his sacred thing,
which doubt has never dimmed and controversy
never soiled. In the length and breadth of the

302 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

land there is not a Protestant with one spark of
religiousness about him whose spiritual biogra-
phy is not in his Saxon Bible."

How did Jesus impress his pupils? We are
told in Matthew 7 : 28 that the multitudes were
astonished at his doctrine. The source of this
astonishment is easily discovered. He did not
teach as others taught. There was something
in the quality of his instruction that lifted it out
of the class of man's effort. People who went
to hear him did not go away with the feeling
that they had the old things repeated to them in

pretty much the same manner as
impre°sTei"?hers they had been accustomed to

hear them from year to year.
Here was a teacher with a new method as well
as a new message. Their astonishment was due
not only to the original material that he pre-
sented, but also to the original manner that he
used. There was an earnestness and a directness
and a power in this teacher that differentiated
him from his contemporaries, and that still dif-
ferentiates him from all other teachers. This
peculiar and distinctive quality of his teaching
is explained in the next verse.

He taught them as one having authority. There
is a world-wide difference, even among men, be-
tween an author of a subject and an expounder
of a subject. For a man to teach with authority

SOME ASPECTS OF RELIGIOUS TEACHING 303

implies authorship, original power, knowledge
at first hand, direct personal contact with the

truth. Alost of us must remain
Authority always the expounders of things

thought out and wrought out by
others. It is only the rare mind that can claim
authorship, and that therefore can speak with
authority. Jesus as a teacher had more than the
power of a religious investigator. He knew
things at first hand. He is the truth. It was
this quality in his teaching that impressed his
hearers over and over again.

No man can teach as Christ taught ; but there
is a lesson that we teachers may learn even from
this divine " authority '' that is Christ's alone.
Wc may strive to give authority to our own
teaching. When a man makes discovery of a
new scientific law his name is heralded through-
out the civilized world. He is at once lifted out
of the common group and placed in that select
and limited circle of truly great benefactors of
the race. There are not many of these. One
can almost coinit them over on the fingers of
two hands, and yet they are the great lights that

illumine the pathway of the mul-
A Comparison titude. And we must recognize

Jesus as the only divine and per-
fect type of the original discoverer, of the
man with a message. He has given to us

304 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

the largest personal gift that the race has ever
received, and deserves, as does no one else, to be
called the master of those that teach. I do not
say this in any burst of enthusiasm or religious
fervor, but as a result of a cool, deliberate judg-
ment after years of study of his own teaching
and its influence, and the teaching and influence
of every great educator in the past three thousand
years.

What joy, then, must come to him who, in a
sense, teaches with authority, who is himself the
discoverer of the truth that he announces! Most
of us have a few little things that we have worked
out in some way that gives us an impression that
they are peculiarly our own. How we like to tell
these things! How we like to work them into
our discussion, and with what satisfaction we
regard their acceptance by others ! When Galileo
discovered the movement of the earth around the
sun, it is said that he was so
Joy in overcome with emotion that it

Discovery

hastened his death; and in his
dying hours he clasped in his hands the wet
proofs of his book announcing his great discov-
ery to the world. When Kepler made his great
discovery that the planets moved in elliptical or-
bits, it is said that his hand trembled with emotion,
and that he was unable to complete his calcula-
tions for some time. When at last the full proof

SOME ASPECTS UF RELIGIOUS TEACHING 305

of the theory was before him, he exclaimed :
" Great God, I think ihy thoughts after thee !"
These are but examples of the supreme ecstasy of
the spirit that moves out into new and untrodden
paths, and finds there the rich treasures of God.
What must have been the ecstasy of the Great
Teacher as he unfolded the mysteries of his
Father to the astonished multitude. A weak
teacher would have been swept from his moor-
ings and carried away on the tides of enthusiasm
his teaching produced, but Jesus was always su-
premely himself. There is no finer tribute to
his great power than his ability to preserve his
poise under all circumstances.

I wish to urge upon each teacher the great
importance of taking up some one thing, and
studying it until it is mastered, of investigating it
until its full significance is grasped, of pondering
upon it until it illumines all the ranges of one's
thought. It has been my privilege from time
to time to enjoy unusual ex-

JMastery a Source „ • a j i-i^i

of Power periences, to do some little
things that were not done before,
and I know in part the intense rapture of the
spirit when it comes into the possession of an
experience that is unique, of a truth that has not
been discerned. I find that these experiences are
the most fruitful ones, and that they become the
richest teaching material that I possess.

306 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

It is a good thing to use those rich and rare
personal experiences that come to us from time
to time as we touch human life and come to un-
derstand human need. How often I have seen
a listless class stirred to interest by the teacher's
skill in presenting at the right moment some
personal experience bearing upon the point at
issue. It means something to

Autobiography ^^^'^^ P^^P^^ ^^ ^^''^ ^ ^°^^ '"

upon the life of another. We
read the autobiographies of men with great in-
terest, and even when they have left no such
record, we naturally delight to construct in our
own minds a picture of their lives.

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

What is your experience as to the value of personal
interviews with your pupils?

Make a list of the persons with whom Jesus had
personal interviews.

What do you consider to be the true function of
knowledge ?

How exact should the pupils' statements be in order
to meet the approval of the teacher?

What difference would you make between clear think-
ing and clear language?

Give some reasons for the matchless English of the
Bible?

SOME ASPECTS OF RELIGIOUS TEACHING 307

Was Jesus concerned primarily in pleasing his pupils?
If not, what was his first concern?

Should a teacher aim primarily to satisfy his pupils or
to make them hungry?

Point out clearly the significance of teaching with
authority.

What relation exists between the personal experience
and the statements of a teacher?

In what respect is biography the best material in teach-
ing?

Make a list of great biographies that have in them
the flash of divinity.

XXVI

SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR THE SUNDAY-
SCHOOL TEACHER

'\7' OU will naturally study the lives of great
•* teachers in order to find the guidance you
need, and in order to discover if possible the
secret of the service they rendered. Such study is
always stimulating and helpful. As we come to
know what they did, under what conditions they
wrought, against what limitations they were
obliged to struggle, there arises in us a desire and
a resolution to make our own teaching count for
high and worthy ends. " Biography is history
teaching by example." Autobiography is the
most stimulating of all history teaching. To see
a man's life as he knew it is a rare inspiration.

I commend to you the interesting and val-
uable study of the life of Jesus, and would
count it of great value to you if you were to
conceive what Jesus might have written concern-
ing himself from time to time, as he moved
^^ among men and taught them.

Autobiography No sucli rccord is left to us, but

of Jesus 1 J • 1 i. J.

some such record we might at-
tempt to construct. I should like to know what
he thought after he had concluded the marvelous
308

SOME SUGGESTIONS 3O9

Sermon on the Mount ; what he thought when
Nicodemus left him ; what he thought after the
visit to the house of Mary and Martha, and what
he thought after he left Jacob's Well ; in
short, what he thought each time after he had
taught the multitude, or his disciples, or some
one person. I wonder whether we go from our
teaching sobered and thoughtful. Do we take our
pupils before the Father in prayer, and ask of
him the question, " Have I done the best things
to-day that I could have done ? '' It is this kind
of personal criticism that makes growth possible
in the teacher.

Jesus sympathized with every condition of
human life. No man was so poor but that Jesus
was willing to help him. Xo man was so low
but that Jesus had a word of guidance and help.

No man was so far removed
s'imVathy ^^om what he ought to be but

that Jesus was willing to see
him, to teach him, to help him. His sympathies
were as broad as the human family, and he
seemed to love those most that needed it most,
and to extend the largest measure of help to those
that were most helpless. We are sometimes told
that we should treat all our pupils alike. This is
both true and false, depending entirely upon how
we interpret the maxim. Let the emphasis of
your interest and guidance rest upon the child

3IO THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

that seems most to need it. Remember the poor
child that comes to the Sunday-school ; remem-
ber those that have no proper home, and to the
extent of your ability lay the emphasis of your
concern and of your suggestions upon those. It
is comparatively easy for us to be interested in
the interesting children, in those that are bright
and clean and well-dressed and well-mannered,
and yet, if we are to understand the full force of
the teaching of Jesus, we must not allow our
personal feelings to carry us away from the ob-
ligation that we owe to the more unfortunate
little ones, to whom the kind word and the sym-
pathetic concern of the teacher is perhaps the
only bright spot in their dreary lives.

Sometimes children are slow to grasp the truth.
Their every-day experience is such as to give
them little that will aid in the interpretation of
religious thought. They come to the Sunday-
school, and do not respond with that alertness
and interest which we so much desire to secure
from our pupils. Remember

E^wronment ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^7 "o* be due to the
fact that the child is essentially
stupid, nor to the fact that the teacher is neces-
sarily weak. If the child lives the entire week
in an atmosphere that provides little or no re-
ligious nutrition, how in reason can we expect
anything like satisfactory results from a thirty

SOME SUGGESTIONS 3II

minutes' recitation once a week ? Sometimes you
may incline to censure the pupil for lack of
progress and of interest in the lessons you labor
to fix in his spirit. Do not forget to reckon up
the many influences in his life that are at war
with your purposes. When he moves your way,
even the slightest degree, you will not forget
what a struggle this may represent in his soul.
This is only another way of saying that the
child who is thus unfortunately homed deserves
consideration and care and patience at the hands
of the teacher. Be patient! Be patient! And
evermore be patient !

There is a certain group of pupils that come to
the Sunday-school through force of habit. It
has been a family experience, perhaps for genera-
tions. The Sunday-school is one of the regular
items in the life of the child. No argument is nec-
essary, no command is needed.

Another Child's • • ,

Environment "° Unnecessary provisions need
be made, — the child simply
comes. The habit is fixed. His presence in the
Sunday-school is regular, and, for the most part,
satisfactory. Frequently, but not always, this
group belong to Christian homes. The influence
of a family altar upon the religious training of a
child cannot well be overestimated. To gather,
in the evening quiet, about the family Bible, to
hear its soul-satisfying words read by a pious

312 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

father, to kneel by the side of a good mother, to
repeat with brother and sister and parents the
Lord's Prayer, to worship God at home, this is
to build character after the best models and this
is to put upon the young soul an impress that
neither time nor eternity can remove. Happy
the teacher whose pupils are thus predisposed to
receive from him the words of light and of love
and of life !

There is another group of children that come
to the Sunday-school because their companions,
playmates, and friends attend the Sunday-
school, and they are thus drawn into the group.
There is nothing in the home-life of these chil-
dren to dispose them to attend or to prevent
them from attending. They are

^XiUr ^* simply caught in the community
spirit, and carried into the
Sunday-school. Most Sunday-schools encourage
their regular pupils to bring in other pupils, and,
I believe, in many cases give prizes or premiums
as a fonn of recognition to those pupils who
bring in the largest group of new pnpils.

There is another group that come to the
Sunday-school upon parental command, and in
part, it may be, to atone for the parents' own lack
of religious concern. The parents do not go to
the Sunday-school. They perhaps do not go to
church, yet they feel that some sort of religious

SOME SUGGESTIONS 313

activity ought to be going on in the family, and,

in order to quiet their consciences and show at

least a form of religious con-

A^ten'dance ^^^" ^'^^^' ^^"*-^ their children to
Sunday-school, hoping thereby
to poultice their own consciences and thus per-
haps keep themselves above the community criti-
cism.

There is another group that come to the
Sunday-school just because they come. There
is no habit to bring them there ; no co-operation
of pupils to bring them ; there is no stress of the
home to bring them ; they just drop in.

These types of Sunday-school pupils are to be
found everywhere, and many other types might
be pointed out. I have said enough to indicate
to you this significant thing; namely, that chil-
dren come with varied motives and equipment to
the Sunday-school. Do you know enough about
your own pupils to sort them out into such groups
as these? Have you ever asked
"^MomVnV* yourself the question, "How
shall each one of these groups be
regarded and taught ? " Think over these mat-
ters. Make a little investigation of the condi-
tions under which you teach. Study your stock
in trade. See what you have to build upon. It
will, perhaps, help you to see your problem from
a new point of view.

314 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

Ideally the home should be so organized that
every member of it is uneasy with the stress of
concern for the right education of each member
in religious things. It is the business of the
home to make easy the pathway of the child
through the Sunday-school — which is the church
— to the Father. The Sunday-

'^''fh^"Hrr/"* school teacher and the pastor

the nome '^

should both alike co-operate
with the home in securing this direct approach
on the part of each child to the great things of
life. We must not put obstacles in the way. Let
us try ourselves by this test : what am I doing
personally to make easy the growth of each of
my pupils into higher spiritual insight and use-
fulness ?

At this point I wish also to call attention to the
Sunday-school literature which has been made
the butt of ridicule, of criticism, and of jests,
everywhere in this country. The general notion
seems to be that Sunday-school literature is bad ;
that children ought not to read it because its
ideals are not true to life, and one hears, until
he is weary of it, the ordinary statement that
Sunday-school books always emphasize the fact
that the good die early and the bad hang on
endlessly.

I believe a vast amount of this criticism is
wholly unwarranted. I am quite sure that the

SOME SUGGESTIONS 315

literature in the Sunday-school is not as bad as
most people would seem to indicate that it is, and

yet I am far from being an
Our Literature apologist for that literature.

Fundamentally I want children
to read. They should read the Bible, of course, but
they should read such other material, based upon
concrete every-day life, as will help them to come
into a vital understanding of what religious life
means. No doubt many of our books, written
by people whose intentions were better than their
achievements, ought not to be within the reach
of the child. No book should go into a Sunday-
school until some competent person has read it
and indicated his approval of it. There should
be in every Sunday-school a critic of literature,
to whom the purchase of all books should be re-
ferred. This may be the librarian, or it may be
somebody else, designated by the superintendent,
whose business it shall be to answer to the
Sunday-school for the quality of material which
is laid before the children. The test of a book
should be rigorously insisted upon. How shall
we decide when a book is of the right sort?

In harmony with the general educational
thought underlying these chapters, the first mark
of a suitable book is its power to interest the
reader. It must have that quality, otherwise it
will not be taken from the library, or, if taken, it

3l6 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

will not be read. But the book must be more than
interesting. Mere interest means little to the

child. Some of the most perni-
**rBook** cious books in the Avorld are en-

trancingly interesting to a child.
The second mark, then, of a book is its power
to make the reader think. Does it stimulate
thought? Does it crystallize interest into judg-
ments? Does it exercise the higher powers of
thought? If not, throw it aside. It is useless,
and may be worse than useless. The third mark
of a good book is its power to make the reader
live a better life. Can the lessons of the book be
applied in every-day life? Does it teach con-
duct ? Does it mold character ? Does it influence
will? Is it a book that makes life richer by mak-
ing action truer? Not one of these tests, but all
of them, must be applied to every book. If the
book fails, as many will, to pass this threefold
test, exclude it from the library.

I pity a Sunday-school whose only boast con-
cerning its library is in the large number of
books which it has on its shelves. It is not the
quantity, but the quality, that is to be considered.

It is not necessary for the child
A Few Books ^ |^ omnivorous reader, but

Essential '

he does need to be an inter-
ested, thoughtful, and transformed reader. There
are a few books of such supreme value to child-

SOME SUGGESTIONS 317

hood that it is ahnost a crime to allow a child
to grow up ignorant of them. There is an irre-
parable loss to the child that has not read " Pil-
grim's Progress," " Robinson Crusoe," " The
King of the Golden River," " Aesop's Fables,"
" Water Babies," and kindred works that con-
tain the very elements out of which is woven
tiie fabric of a fine character. Books are teachers,
and they must accomplish what other teachers
should accomplish, or they are to be laid aside as
falling below the needs of the Sunday-school.

A wise teacher of a child will know what books
that child reads. A wise teacher in a Sunday-
school will know what books his pupils are read-
ing week by week. Why should not the child
report to the teacher in a few sentences what
each book meant to him ? Would it not be well,
especially on review days, to have from each
child an expression of the best thoughts and the
best guidance which the reading of the quarter
affords? I cannot reconcile myself to the fact that

a teacher should go on from
Pupn's^Reldlng ^cek to wcck with a group of

children, ignorant of the read-
ing material with which they are nourishing their
spirits, framing their thoughts, and in part at
least modifying their conduct. Unless a book has
a specific value to a child, the child should not
read it. If it has a specific value, the teacher

3l8 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

should make note of that, and utiHze it in giving
unity and force and purpose to the whole teach-
ing activity. I shall not, of course, undertake
to say what books are good and what books are
bad. I do not know enough about the matter
in detail to judge books, but I have indicated here
the test by which every thoughtful and earnest
teacher will be able to settle this matter for him-
self.

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

What 13 the special value of the autobiographic
sketch ?

In what way does the life of a writer or teacher help
to explain his service?

What is your opinion of the statement that the teacher
should treat all pupils alike?

Discuss the reasons for the different rate of pro-
gress made by pupils.

How does the home life influence the quality of in-
struction in the Sunday-school?

Classify the members of your class on some such
basis as is indicated in this article.

What should the home do to promote the efficiency of
Sunday-school instruction?

Write a description of a home life that would best
promote your success as a Sunday-school teacher.

Should children study the Sunday-school lesson at
home?

What books do the pupils of your class read ?

SOME SUGGESTIONS 319

Are these the best books they could be induced to
read?

What guidance is afYorded to the children in choosing
reading matter from the Sunday-school?

What would you set down as the marks of a proper
book for a child ?

Make a list of books that you are willing to commend
to your pupils.

Why should a teacher know what books his pupils
read?

Should the books read by a child be counted a part
of the influence that educates the child? If so, what
use should be made of this material by the teacher?

XXVII

SOME THOUGHTS ON RELIGIOUS EDUCA-
TION

npHE Christian religion was scarcely four
hundred years old when its schools sup-
planted the schools of the Roman Empire. From
that time on through fourteen centuries, with
varying success, education remained a function
of the church. For the most part the teachers
were the ministers of the church or some or-
ganized body specifically trained and set aside
for teaching purposes. Even when the great

upheaval came in the Protestant
Chri^UaTschoois Reformation it did not affect the

relation of the church to the ed-
ucation of the people. Almost immediately after
the Reformation there sprang up in the Roman
church the Society of Jesus, one of the greatest
teaching bodies known in the religious world.
It was not until the close of the eighteenth cen-
tury that the state took charge of the education
of the masses. When education did become secu-
lar, the Sunday-school arose to supplement the
work of the state schools and to continue the
religious instruction of the child.

The Sunday-school became the legitimate in-
320

THOUGHTS ON RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 32 1

heritor of the central activities of education by

the church. The church did not comprehend fully

_. ^ . its oblioration to childhood until

The Coming »

of the the state itself took up in a seri-

sunday-schooi ^^^ ^^,^^^ ^j^^ problem of Univer-
sal intelligence. If children require a secular
education in order to fit them for the service of
the state, surely they need also a religious educa-
tion to fit them for the service of the church and
of the higher life.

For one hundred years now we have had this
dual aspect of education. The state educates
for this life ; the church educates for the life to
come. But the church cannot properly educate
for the life to come without educating for the
better things of the life that is. The state pro-
vides education for children for at least twelve
years. It maintains schools for upwards of eight
months in each of these years. It provides edu-
cation five days of each week
^""^Does^*"*' and five hours of each of these
days. It is therefore easy to
compute the amount of time which the state de-
votes to the education of the child. Compare
this with the meager time set aside by the church
for the education of the child in religious things.
One does not regard the contrast with compla-
cency, and the wonder is that the results are not
less meager than they are.

322 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

The state has not reached the limit of its edu-
cational concern. There are evidences on every
side that additional provisions should be made and
a more extended training provided. The amount
of money expended in public education increases
annually. This increase is not
"^syTt^m^ due alone to the fact that the
number of children to be edu-
cated is increasing, but is due to the fact that the
people believe enough in education to expend
each year more money per capita for the educa-
tion of each child. The system of state educa-
tion is a growing system. For example, in the
United States the expenditure per capita of pop-
ulation for public schools in 1870 was $1.75; in
1880, $1.97; in 1890, $2.31; in 1900, $2.94; in
1902, about $3.15.

The same may be said, of course, of
the Sunday-school, but its growth is not so
marked nor so steady as is that of the secular
school. The state wisely provides for the proper
training of the teachers who are to direct the
educational activity of the secular school. The
church is not acting with anything like the intel-
ligence that characterizes the

What is Needed state in this particular. Ought

we not also to make provisions

for the training of men and women to teach in

the Sunday-school? When you reach this ques-

THOUGHTS ON RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 323

tion, and before you formulate your reply, ask
yourself the personal question, What has the
church done to help me teach in the Sunday-
school? Ask also the question, What should the
church do to help me teach? Then ask yourself
the great question, What should I do to fit myself
to teach in the Sunday-school? The future of
the Sunday-school depends upon our answer.

Statistics show some interesting facts. Lan-
caster found that out of 598 young people 518
had some form of religious awakening between
the ages of twelve and twenty. According to
Drew, 573 out of 756 were converted between

the same ages, Gulic states that
AdlSLVn^ 430 out Of 536 were converted

between these ages. Ayres
gives 1,953 o"t of 2,672. Starbuck, 79 out of
100. These statistics refer to boys. The statis-
tics for girls would probably be even more con-
firmatory. If the greatest gain in numbers to
the church comes in these years, one can readily
see how tremendously important the activity of
the Sunday-school is in its soul-winning oppor-
tunity. It is also a well-known fact that the
crimes common to youth increase at a very rapid
rate at the age of twelve, and continue to increase
for three or four years, and then gradually de-
crease. For example, out of a total of 964 cases
of larceny committed by children under the age

324 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

of twenty-one, 85 were at the age of twelve, 116
at the age of thirteen, 154 at the age of fourteen,
155 at the age of fifteen, 167 at the age of six-
teen, 105 at the age of seventeen, 57 at the age
of eighteen, 34 at the age of nineteen, 14 at the
age of twenty, 3 at the age of twenty-one. Sub-
stantially the same order of facts
AdTel<!^nL applies to incorrigibility, to va-
grancy, to burglary, disorderly
conduct, assaults of all sorts, public intoxication,
and other misdemeanors of childhood. I do not
mean to say, and nobody would be justified in
saying, that the Sunday-school is responsible for
these crimes, but we must necessarily feel that
the Sunday-school should be one of the agencies
that ought actively to combat the tendencies to
these offenses, and that ought to make them a
decreasing activity.

We are face to face with the fact that our

secular schools cannot, in the very nature of the

case, give the religious training which the child

needs. All attempts to put upon the public school

this responsibility must necessarily be failures.

Some religious instruction is given in the secular

schools. More may be given in

sSl'll^Jt"! the future than at present. Tend-

encies in that direction manifest

themselves from time to time in our discussions,

and perhaps at no time has this matter received

THOUGHTS ON RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 325

more thought than it is receiving to-day. There
are certain things of the rehgious Hfe that can
safely and properly be taught without ofifense in
all secular schools, but when they have done
the best that they can do, and have reached ideal
conditions within their limitations, there will still
remain a large and important work for the
Sunday-school.

It will be seen from the statistics given in this
chapter that the vital years of training continue
through the age of adolescence. I have not at
all undertaken to present the problems peculiar
to this age. The time to do this has not yet come.
We need more facts and less hypotheses before
we can organize guidance. But enough is known
to warrant the statement that the Sunday-school
must retain its influence over our boys and girls
until they are fully matured. We must develop

means of making the Sunday-
"""pJiliem'' school worth while to young

men and women. This must not
be done at the expense of the primary and of
the intermediate grades, but it must be done by
additional provisions for advanced pupils.

I hope no one will misinterpret my purpose
when I say that too often these young men and
women are literally frozen out of the Sunday-
school. Many of them have not yet made a pro-
fession of the better life, and some one is put

326 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

in charge of them who conceives it to be his
solemn duty to lecture them every Sunday upon
their sinful v^^ays. Now, scolding is never teach-
ing, and young people are not in
^xSng"* this way won to the kingdom.
What they really need is a warm-
hearted, sane-minded, enthusiastic teacher, whose
energetic and zealous and capable teaching will
arouse and interest the class, and stimulate a love
for the religious life. Many young people be-
come disgusted when they are constantly lectured
and nagged and held up as " an awful example."
What shall be said of that Sunday-school that
puts in charge of these young people a teacher
who is no longer fit to teach the younger grades,
and who is given this advanced group solely to
get rid of him in some other place in which he
was a confessed failure?

These young men and women need wisest

guidance. For years they were children. They

lived with their faces cradle-ward. They are

now living with their faces turned to the future.

Life in a new and very real way is calling to

them. They are facing sun-ward. They need

help. They should have a

"^"you*!,"* *** teacher whose whole spirit is in

full sympathy with their hopes,

their aspirations, their yearnings. This is the

time for discussions. Let the members of the

THOUGHTS ON RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 32/

class formulate opinions and discuss great ques-
tions. Let their minds be active and expressive.
I have known teachers to suppress every free im-
pulse of a pupil. I have known others who knew
how carefully a young man states a hypothetic
case, when in fact he is really stating his own
case. The latter teacher will always use these
discussions to guide the inquirer in the right lines
of thought and of. effort.

Build in the souls of your pupils a wholesome
and abiding love for the Bible — for all of it,
from Genesis to Revelation. Dr. Nott once said,

" Men cannot be well educated
Dr. Nott without the Bible. It ought,

therefore, to hold the chief
place in every institution of learning throughout
Christendom." Franklin calls the Bible, the
newspaper, and the school, the principal support

of virtue, morality, and civil
"^"scott"" liberty. Scott, on his death-bed,

called for the Bible, saying,
" There is only one book." Sir William Jones
said, " The Bible contains more true sublimity,
more exquisite beauty, more pure morality,

more important history, and

Sir William r , • r , j ^

Jones ""^^ strams of poetry and elo-

quence, than can be collected
from all other books, in whatever age or lan-
guage they have been written."

328 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

And, if one could summon to his side all the
really great souls that have, in dying, made other
lives richer, they would invariably testify to its
worth and its power. So I say, with Dr. Holland,
"Let us stick to our Bible. It is our all — the
one regenerative, redemptive agency in the
world — the only word that even sounds as if it
came from the other side of the wave. If we
lose it, we are lost."

To put the Bible into the hands of all children,
and its precepts into their hearts, is a holy mis-
sion. When one counts over the services that
are really worth while, will it not invariably be
found that what one does to guide the timid foot-
steps to the Father is in the last analysis the best
service God gives him to do in this life? An old
teacher, whose many, many years of faithful ser-
vice had left him at last poor and alone, was one
day visited by a former pupil.

The Power of i • a i r

the Teacher "°^ ^ n\zn 01 mtiuence and oi
character. They discussed to-
gether at length the earlier days when this man
was a boy in the teacher's school. They recalled
many interesting incidents. The gratitude of the
man touched the heart of the poor old teacher.
The man invited the old teacher to the village inn
to dine with him. The old teacher begged to be
excused, saying, " I am too old, my hands
tremble, mv clothes are not fit." But the former

THOUGHTS ON RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 329

pupil insisted. The old teacher yielded. They
both enjoyed the meal : the man. because he was
honoring hi.s teacher ; the teacher, because he was
honored by his pupil. When they parted at the
railway station the man pushed his gold-headed
cane into the trembling hand of his dear old
teacher, saying, " Now, dear teacher, good-by
till we meet again."

The old teacher was so overcome by this act of
kindness that his eyes grew dim, and his voice
trembled even more than before. He protested
that he did not deserve this generous gift. The
man thought he did. He said so, and springing
upon the train called out again, " Good-by till
we meet again." The old teacher, his finger
pointing to the heavens, answered, " Yes, till we
meet again — up there."

Blessed is that teacher whose words and influ-
ence are such that at the last he can point with
gratitude to the Father's house and say to his
pupils, " Let us meet again — up there."

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

What led to the separation of school and church?

Enumerate the gains and the losses resulting from the
establishment of secular schools.

Why did the modern Sunday-school come so late in
the history of the church ?

330 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

Are we giving time enough to religious education?

What marked tendencies of a religious character as-
sert themselves at the age of adolescence?

Why should adolescent pupils remain in the Sunday-
school? What are you doing to keep them there?

May we complacently resign our children to the
secular school and demand of it their complete educa-
tion?

What reasons may be assigned for the relatively small
number of young men and women in the Sunday-school?

Do you try — really, earnestly try — to impress upon
your pupils the full value of a knowledge of the Bible?

Write a list of services you know the Bible has been
to you, to civilization.

What is the best service man can render to God
through teaching?

XXVIII
THE SCOPE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

JOHN RUSKIN once said that there were but
three questions that concerned the human
soul ; that if the human soul could propound to
itself these three questions, and answer them, it
had justified its right to be. The first of these
questions is this : How did I get into this world ?
The second : How am I going to get out of this
world ? And third : What had I

^"""♦•Jff* best do under the circumstances?
Questions

In other words, the three great
concerns of life center themselves around the
thoughts of our origin, our destiny and our duty,
and we have scarcely approached the problem of
duty until we see that problem in the light of our
destiny, and in the light of our origin ; for unless
we understand that with which we are endowed,
and that for which we have been endowed, we
will scarcely be able to make a rational use of
our lives. We may safely leave the question
of our origin and of our destiny to God. The
question of our duty we must face. What had
we best do under the circumstances?

When one comes to a consideration of the

331

332 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

moral life^ the life which sets before itself the
standard of living up to its best thought, one has

at once a heroic conception of
The Moral Life the human soul. If, to-day, we

had an appreciable group of peo-
ple who were heroic enough always to do the
things which they know are best to do, we would
at once have a most wholesome leaven in our
civilization.

If, to the thought that one is to live up to his
best knowledge, is added the additional fact that
where one's knowledge fails to give guidance one
must trust a higher and diviner guidance, so that
the life begins with thought and ends with faith,

one has the real conception of
The Religious ^j^^ religious character. I take

it that the child in the home lives
heroically when it lives up to all that it has been
taught, and, in the absence of guidance from that
side, lives up, in the next place, to the example
of its parents, its teachers, and those who stand
above it in years and experience, as examples of
what should be best in life. And so, in all the
years of our growth we need, not merely the
heroic moral quality, that makes us do the best
things we know, but also the higher religious
quality that makes us willing to be led in the
hours when our own thought and our own guid-
ance fail to give us direction. If to the moral

THE SCOPE OF KKLIGIOUS EDUCATION 333

conception of life's duty we add the acceptance
of a divine personality, revealed to mankind in
some form, and apprehended as God, we have
the religious life of the race.

There are three great virtues in civilization.
There are three great qualities in life to whicli
every one of us should be dedicated. There arc-
three virtues of the human soul that every indi-
vidual should strive to achieve. And to the ex-
tent that we manifest these, live them in the
midst of our fellows, to that extent may we be
said to live truly, and to live nobly.

There is, first of all, the virtue of civilization,
with which every soul should be invested. The
virtue of civilization is politeness. Not that sur-
face politeness that makes a man act a part in
society, but that genuine polite-

civUizat^on "^^^ °^ ^^^*^ ^^^^^ which makcs
each one treat each other as if
each were a perfect human being ; for the very
genius of politeness lies in the fact that we act
to every man as if he were perfect : that makes
our action as perfect as we can make it. And
there is always in society the need for this. We
are altogether too gruff, altogether too harsh,
altogether too uncivil — due to the many influ-
ences at work upon our lives ; and we need con-
scientiously, not only in our childhood, but in
our maturer years, to be taught that a part of the

334 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

real virtue of life is in the politeness with which
we meet one another, and in the courtesy
with which we come in touch with fellow-beings
in the world. No system of education that has
in mind the development of the higher virtues
of the religious life can possibly ignore this
fundamental need of civilization to the individ-
ual ; for, in a very appreciable way, the objective
measure of civilization may be found in the
changed way with which we deal with one an-
other. The rude savage knows none of the
courtesies of life. His code is harsh ; his doc-
trine is destructive ; his activity is selfish. But,
in our later civilization, we have overcome in
part, and we need to overcome in a larger way,
all those qualities of the barbaric spirit, and we
need to incorporate into each one civilization's
best gift to us, the courtesy, the kindly good
will, that should characterize enlightened human
life.

The second of the great virtues of the human
soul is the virtue of morality, which is con-
scientiousness, as contrasted with the virtue of
civilization, which is politeness. It means a great
deal to you, and it means a great

Moratity ^^^^ *° ^^' **^ ^^.ve around us
everywhere people who are liv-
ing conscientiously ; that is to say, who put their
best conscience, their most honest endeavor, into

THE SCOPE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 335

every service that life places upon them. To be
dependable in this world is a great power; and
the very strength and fabric of our modern life
rests upon the fact that we must depend one
upon another, and the very shame and ignoble-
ness of our modern life is that, all too frequently,
we do not find in our fellow-men that conscien-
tiousness which enables us, with confidence, to
rely upon them. The subordinate is not always
true to his superior, and the superior is not
always true to his subordinate. And so, in all
our industrial life, there are frictions, and diffi-
culties, and turmoils, because the virtue of
morality has not been incorporated into the life
of each one, and we have not learned that a part
of the regal business of the soul is to be con-
scientious in every phase of life, and in the per-
formance of every duty in life.

" In the elder days of Art,

Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the Gods see everywhere."

One's conscience ought to be such that he will
do every service of life, whether it is seen of his
fellow-men or seen only of his own conscience,
with the greatest care, knowing that his own
peace of mind, his own self-respect, his own
manhood, can never grow under deceit, or under

336 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

the pretense of being, in the appearances, what
he is not in the reality of things. What we

need as the very basis of
cr„fcirn« friendship in Hfe is that ab-

sohite truthfulness of character
that rings sincere to the very core. If
we have a friend that we love, we place in that
friend absolute confidence, and that confidence
depends upon the conscientiousness with which
our friend receives all our kindly offices and
friendly aid. The broad moral activity of the
race is figured in the simple words, conscientious
devotion to service, and the performance of duty
— truthfulness in all the relations of life. For
the childhood of the race, above all the intellec-
tual gifts of the sciences and the arts, there is this
supremely significant thing; for it is better that
our children, under our educational system,
should be trained to be thoroughly conscientious,
rather than to be thoroughly bright and smart.

The third of the great virtues of the human
soul is the virtue of the religious life, which ex-
presses itself in the word humility. No one can

be truly noble, heroic, helpful,
Reiizton "^ *^^^^ world, who does not have

a humble spirit, who has not
risen, in the study of his own limitations, to the
comprehension of the fact that all holy service
in the world is performed by the soul that is

THE SCOPE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 33/

imbued with the very spirit of humility. The
loud, the blatant, the arrogant man is always
the superficial, the never-to-be-trusted man. It
is the quiet doing of helpful things, so that one's
right hand is not informed of what one's left
hand doeth, that makes for the larger and better
services of life. The best things that we do are
not paraded in the newspapers ; they are not
written on the bill-board of the theaters; they
are not displayed in the public advertisements on
the walls of tumble-down buildings ; but they are
the quiet, humble services of the undiscoverable
heart that finds its joy and comfort in the thought
that it is helpful and useful to another in this
world.

A child, coming up through our systems of
training to-day, needs to be endowed with these
great virtues of the human soul, to the end that,
when he walks into his place in life, he shall find
this place demanding of him the exercise of these
great qualities of the human soul. And now, if
the essence of human greatness is in some way
contained in the thought of a humble and contrite
spirit, that is willing to question all things, to
learn from all sources, to analyze all problems,
and face heroically all questions of duty with a
humble spirit, then one is prepared to study,
with some degree of detail, just what the scope
of such a training is.

33'8 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

I should like to present it to you under three

aspects : First of all, the theoretical training in the

religious life. Second, the practical training in

SCO e of ^^^ religious life. And, third, the

Religious absolute training in the religious

Education jj^^^ ^^^ ^j^^^^ ^j^^.^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^

to be distinct, and they seem to be comprehensive.

By the theoretical training in religious thought
and conduct, I mean the informing of the intel-
lect with all that sum of principles that shall give
us intellectual guidance for the performance of
Theoretical ^"^y. I mean the training of
Training the intellect until it shall know
Defined ^j^^ difference between the right

and the wrong, the true and the false, the noble
and the ignoble things, until there is established
within each one a clear and definite theory of
conduct and duty, so that one has at least a ra-
tional basis for the acts of his life. Now, this
theoretical informing of the intellect in religious
things is again a matter which passes, in the
training of the child, through three distinct
epochs.

First in the theoretical training of the intel-
lect in religious things, is the nutrition of the
feeling-life of the child — the feeling of all that
keen interest of childhood, with literature as the
great material : the stories of heroic deeds, of
domestic, of civic and of social virtues — to the end

THE SCOPE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 339

that the child shall come to believe in the great
heroes of life. The biographical quality of our

early religious teaching is of
First Epoch tremendous significance. It is a

great time in the life of a child
when it erects in its soul a great character, and
tries to build its own emotions and its own acts
in harmony therewith.

You know that our own George Washington
has been, perhaps, above every other man, a
great inspiration to the childhood of the country ;
and what a marvelous thing that has been to the
childhood of this race! How many boys have
tried to be like that great boy, and how we have
idolized and glorified Washington's character, in

order that it might build itself
^rnSr'' up in the soul of the boy! And

so, in the life of a child, it needs
to have set in its spirit clearly defined characters
that it shall come to admire and strive to emu-
late.

The very earliest ideals that a child emulates
are found in the characters of the father and
mother. It is a marvelous thing to contemplate
to what extent all that you and I become in this
life may be traced directly to the early imitative
activities of our lives, when we believed our par-
ents and our school-teacher, perhaps, to be the
embodiment of all that we cared to be.

340 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

I know a child in Philadelphia that has reached
the point in his school career when the views of
the teacher have become the guidance of that
life; and, now and then, when the parents say
something, the child says, " Now, that cannot be
so, for Miss So-and-So, my teacher, says it is the
other way." There, you see, the child is moving
out to a new hero. And it is a

'^''EJa^mp^r ^ ^ ^^tt\e embarrassing, sometimes,
for a father to be called to ac-
count by his own child, to see the teacher en-
throned in the child's spirit ; and yet it is most
natural. It is the sign of a great teacher when
that power has most been wrought in the life of
a child. It is also the sign of a great responsi-
bility, for, when the child tries to live after you,
be sure that you are living in the light, or you
will lead the child out of the light.

We shall add light with the fairy story and
moral tale. The Bible, and all the legendary lore
which nourishes the feelings of a child, enter the
field on the religious side. But this should not
be the end of the training of the mind, for, if so,
the mind rests in mysticism. There is no power
to organize that right feeling, and stir it into a
definite code of conduct.

The second of these intellectual disciplines is
the nutrition of definition, just as the first is tfie
nutrition of feeling. By the nutrition of defini-

THE SCOPE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 34 1

tion I mean the training of tlie imagination to
define its feelings — put bounds and limits to

them. In the larger religious life
Second Epoch of the race, that activity has al-

Avays been at work, and its ob-
jectivity has shown itself in the great art works
of the religious life of the race. Now, if the
spirit stops with the mere definition of its feelings,
the mind rests in idolatry. The ancient civiliza-
tions of the world have never gone beyond the
nutrition of definition, and their idolatrous peo-
ple worshiped the images in which they objecti-
fied their own religious feeling, and have rested
content with wood and stone, instead of pushing
beyond into vital contact with a high principle.
Above the nutrition of definition, and beyond
it, in the theoretical training of a child in reli-
gious things, is the nutrition of insight, by means
of which, through the rational mind, we see back
of the mere imagery which our minds have cre-
ated, and come into close and vital touch with the

reality which stands behind all
Third Epoch imagery, and which is in spirit

what these in broken parts are
but the material representation of. To realize
unity with God is the perfection of the individual.
The nutrition of feeling is the function of the
home and the primary school : the nutrition of
definition is the function of the grammar school ;

342 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

and the nutrition of insight is the function of the
high-school, the college and the university. When
our feelings have been trained, our imagination
disciplined, and our reasoning power cultured,
we have completed the cycle of theoretical equip-
ment in religious things. The great problem
now is, how to build that splendid intellectual
possession into terms of conduct, how to make
all that the mind comprehends as duty figure
itself in deeds of helpfulness, in deeds of con-
sistent conduct. The grades of the Sunday-
school must also follow this order of soul growth.
That brings one to the discussion of the second,
or the practical, phase of religious training, by
which I mean the informing of the will, so that
Practical ^^ ^^^^^ work out in daily ser-
Training vicc, in daily deeds, in daily
Defined conduct, a code of activities in

harmony with all this theoretical training of the
race, and of the mind. To the Greek we owe
the fact that a rational basis for conduct was
estabhshed for the human race. If we have
nothing more than a rational basis for conduct,
we are theoretical teachers and theoretical peo-
ple, but if we can convert all that rational
thought, all that intellectual discernment of duty
into terms of conduct, then we have moved into
the will's domain, and we are doing that which
we know we should do.

THE SCOPE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 343

We have a strangely significant fact in our
public school system to-day, which is largely an
intellectualized system of education, and which,
in its inception and quality, is secular through
and through, and increasingly so, I regret to say.
We have omitted the serious discipline of the
will of the child for the perform-

wni*'E''ssent"Ii ^^^c of high moral and high re-
ligious service. We seem to be
content, as a nation, when our children have
mastered a certain curriculum of intellectual
truth, and have passed a reasonable examination
thereupon. As if, somehow, the informing of the
mind with truth was all that we needed for right
living in our modern civilization ; when all of us
know, if we have but a moment's sane reflection
upon the problem, that the vital need is not the
informing of the mind with truth, but the in-
forming of the will with motive, so that we shall
be constrained to do, when we know what to do.
When human life stops short with intellectual,
instead of will, problems, that moment the race
ceases to become effective in its service to the
future, and in its duty to its children.

For almost two thousand years education was
under the control of the church, which was a
highly developed dogmatic and religious institu-
tion. It laid upon the conscience of the child the
axioms of the church, the tenets and doctrines of

344 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

the faith. From the time that the Roman
schools were closed, under Theodosius II, at the
beginning of the fifth century, until the latter
half of the eighteenth century, education was
dominantly and continuously under the control
of religious agencies of some form or other. But
when the state, under the theory of paternal gov-
ernment, took the little child
^Ch*urch'' from the church, and made it
an object of concern from the
state's point of view, instead of from the church's
point of view, we lost in the higher and broader
side of the discipline of the child's will. To com-
pensate for that, have been substituted Sunday-
schools, as a complementary activity, to do, side
by side with the secular school, that part of the
discipline of the child which the secular school,
under the control of the state, has failed to do.

If we consider for a minute, we shall see that
this is true. We had no Sunday-schools until we
had state systems of education. The Sunday-
school is scarce a hundred years old in its present
organization. Robert Raikes lived only a little
over a hundred years ago — he who first practi-
cally set in operation the
Robert Raikes Sunday-school movement. It
came about the time of the
American Revolution and the French Revolution
— about the time of the great unrest, and the

THE SCOPE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 345

dawn of democracy among the nations of the
earth. Our great problem to-day in civiUzation
is to compel action, and not merely to acquire the
knowledge of what is best to do.

There are also three phases in the training of
the will in practical religious conduct. First, the
consecration of self to these intellectual ideals
that we have acquired. I do not believe that any
one is religiously, ethically, or even morally,
right; I do not believe that any soul lives right
in this world to-day from any
First Phase plane that you choose to meas-
ure from, who is not willing to
consecrate all of himself to the things that he
believes with his whole soul. Whatever we be-
lieve, that must be the thing to which all our
energies must be consecrated. If we believe it is
our duty to visit the sick and minister to the
poor, no inclemency of the weather, and no ex-
cuse of any sort, no palliation of conditions, will
break our heroic determination to do the thing
which we know we ought to do. And all through
one's life, the first great vital quality of religious
conduct lies in the fact that a man consecrates
himself through and through to the things that
he believes, and is living well up to the standards
of the best that is in him. Unless we teach our
children to believe in these great truths of the
race, and instruct them daily to achieve them in

346 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

life, we have fallen short in the discipline of the
will, and, therefore, in preparation for the actual
religious conditions of life.

The second of these great duties that comes

from the will, in the development of the religious

training of the child, is the reconciliation of the

individual with his lot. I do not mean quietism,

which makes a man go into the

Second Phase cloister, or the couvcut, or the
hermit's cell, away from the
world, but I mean that resolution which brings
peace to a man's mind amidst all the turmoil and
the strife of a busy daily experience. For it
seems to me that we need so to discipline our
souls that, wherever we work, in the midst of
what untoward conditions we find ourselves, we
can work with the heroism born of the con-
sciousness that we are right, and, thus, have
peace within.

This is a great doctrine for the human soul to
consider. But it does not mean that we shall be
doggedly content ; it does not stand opposed to
high aspiration, to the bettering of one's lot, the
widening of one's usefulness, the intensifying of
one's activities ; but it means that, in whatever
place we find ourselves in this world, we can
reconcile ourselves to that place, and work there.

A teacher, not long since, said to me : " Oh,
if I were only teaching in the University ! Then

THE SCOPE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 347

I should be happy. But I am teaching out here
in the country, where I am not appreciated,
where I do not have access to Hbraries, where
I am divorced from all contact with intellectual
people, and where I have not the stimulation and
companionship of bright minds. Oh, if I were
only in the city, in the University, then I should
be happy." But it matters not whether we teach

in the country or in the city,
The vital Fact whether we are employed in the

shop, or the forge, or the fac-
tory; the vital thing is that we never labor well
imtil we are content to labor there with all our
souls, and thus fit ourselves to labor in a larger
place. No one grows into larger usefulness by
fretting against his lot and the work he finds
himself called upon to perform. Whatever our
present duty may be, the best proof that we are
fitted to perform a larger service is that we are
performing our present task with infinite skill
and success. We need to put before our chil-
dren the gospel of doing daily service well ; not
half-heartedly, and therefore imperfectly.

The third of these trainings of the will consists
in giving to the child the power, and in exercis-
ing the power, of selecting, out of the many con-
flicting doctrines and teachings of the race, that
which is best for him, and erecting it into a doc-
trine and bond of belief which shall be his view-

348 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

point In life. For none of us can live our best
unless we live consistently, and we cannot live
consistently until we have settled
Third Phase with ourselves the things we be-
lieve, and standing firmly upon
these, live right out from them, along the plain,
straight, unchanging course which is given to us,
because we have settled in our own souls certain
fundamental things. So long as we are wander-
ing, so long as we are shifting, so long as we
are changing, so long as we are uncertain, and
willing to be shaken and molded and modified by
every influence at work upon our lives, we have
not reached the point where we can hope for any
large growth or wide usefulness in our lives.
This means that Jesus was supremely wise in the
parable of the shepherd and that one cannot
realize his full life without joining a religious
organization. For us this means the Christian
church.

We come, finally, to consider our third point,

the absolute process in religious culture. That

begins, as I have hinted in the theoretical process,

in accordance with natural law ; it is the modi-

,^ , ^ fying of the human soul as it

Absolute - o

Training finds itsclf in touch with natural
Defined things: it is conformity to law.

Herbert Spencer characterizes it as the adjust-
ment of the human being to his scientific en-

THE SCOPE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 349

vironment. It begins with yielding obedience and
respect to the inevitable laws fixed in things,
and against which it is foolishness to protest. Life
cannot be religiously lived save
First Need as it is lived in obedience to law
as set by Divine Wisdom.
In the second place, it consists in studying all
the codes and creeds and doctrines of history ; it
is the investigation of all that the
Second Need race has done in its efforts to
build itself up into a higher life.
It means a study of the historic forms of religious
life and training. In its full realization it re-
quires a systematic investigation of the growth
of religious ideals in the race.

And, in the third place, it means picking out

of all these, here and there, the things that are

best religiously ; separating the false from the

true, weighing all the evidence, all the facts

which have any bearing, from the wisdom of all

the great souls of all peoples,

Pinal Need and forming all that accepted

truth into a bond of doctrine

which shall become the creed of the soul, so that

it shall live and die, by reason of its conviction,

in the righteousness of that creed.

When once we reach that point, the training is
done, whether intellectual, or moral, or ethical, or
religious, or whatever it may be. So you will

350 THE MAKING OF A TEACHER

see, if you have followed the discussion, that it
terminates in one thing. There was first the dis-
cipline of the intellect in theoretical training;
then the discipline of the will for practical ser-
vice, and, finally, the discipline
^s!r^"ce'* of the soul to absolute stand-
ards of life, and then the appli-
cation of all this to service — for we have not
reached, to any appreciable degree, the end of all
high training until we have learned that we live
best when we live least for ourselves and most
for others. That man is richest in soul who has
given most to enrich other souls ; that man is a
beggar in his spirit who has never done kindly
ministrations to his fellow-men.

As I said not long since to a group of boys,
you have all the opportunity of being heroes. A
boy who will run all day over the hills of Penn-
sylvania to shoot a rabbit, and then sit down and
eat it in greedy selfishness, is not a good boy.
The boy I like will shoulder his gun when his
neighbor is sick, and bring back to the one in
distress the food and comfort that his body and
spirit need. It is the service we render, the
kindly spirit, the thoughtful concern for the wel-
fare of another soul, the giving of the cup of
water, in His name, that makes life rich and the
soul strong.

THE SCOPE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 35 1

Questions and Suggestions.

For testing one's grasp of the subject, and
for discussion in Teacher-Training Classes.

Has Ruskin stated the great problems of life correctly?

What constitutes moral activity?

How does moral character differ from religious char-
acter ?

What are the three great virtues of life?

Discuss at length the significance of politeness, con-
scientiousness, and humility.

What are the different aspects of the training necessary
for the religious life?

In what way may a course of study be formulated upon
the theoretic training here set forth?

Construct on the basis of your answer to these ques-
tions three necessary departments in a school of religious
instruction.

In practical religious training what three purposes
should be sought?

When may the child be said to have completed his
training in religious things?

How in this discussion do you find justification for the
quality in human souls which makes martyrs?

Does this discussion justify the conclusion that life
is service and that service is holy?

THE END.

Date Due

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