UC-NRLF EACH AND TEACHERS LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Deceived JA |y| 6 V893 ' l8 * Accessions No. H'T Class No. TEACHING AND TEACHERS OR THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER'S TEACHING WORK THE OTHER WORK OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER BY H. CLAY TRUMBULL, D.D. Editor of The Sunday School Times; Formerly Normal Secretary of The American Sunday School Union. PHILADELPHIA : JOHN D. WATTLES, Publisher. 1888. WYEBSIT7 Copyright, 1884, by H. CLAY TRUMBULL. PREFACE. THE special characteristic of this volume on the Sunday- school teacher's work, in contrast with the many other books on the same general subject, is its attempt at com- pleteness in a systematic order, with the avoidance of purely technical terms. Its style is adapted to the ordinary teacher's comprehension, and its aim is to be readable ; while the whole structure of the work is based on sound philosophical principles. The writer has had some advantages for this service, in that he has had not a little experience in Sunday-school teaching in both church and mission schools, in city and in country, and has long had occasion to study and to write on the principles and the methods of Teaching. In lectures and addresses, and in colloquial discussions, for a series of years, on the various phases of this general theme, before Sunday-school conventions and institutes, teachers' meetings, normal classes, and theological semi- naries, he has been compelled to test his theories and his opinions, by comparison with other experts, and under the pressure of keen criticism from bright thinkers and Preface. sharp doubters ; so that what he now gives to the public is the matured result of the experience, the study, and the discussions, of years. Much that is in these pages has, in one form or another, already seen the light, in the columns of The Sunday School Times, The National Sunday School Teacher, The Sunday School Workman, The Sunday School World, The Sunday School Journal, The Independent, The New York Observer, The Congregationalist, The Advance, and other religious papers. Much of it, however, is quite new ; and all of it has been re-cast for this work. That there is a place for such a volume, the writer has not a doubt. That this volume will fill that place, is his desire. It is for the readers to ascertain how far it meets their needs in the direction of its aim and endeavor. PHILADELPHIA, September, 1884. CONTENTS Page PREFACE , . . xi PART I. THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER'S TEACHING WORK. THE TEACHING PROCESS. CHAPTER 1. ITS NATURE. PRELIMINAR Y STATEMENT, SECTION I. NOT ALL TEACHING IS TEACHING. Teaching and Teaching ; Vague Notions of Teaching ; One Hindrance to Knowledge; Claiming is not Having; How Many " Teachers" are Teachers f . . 5 SECTION II. TELLING IS NOT TEACHING. A Common Error; No Teaching Without Learning; Ignorance of Long- time Hearers ; A Good Teacher's Great Failure ; The Pump and the Bellows; What Telling may do 9 iii iv Contents. SECTION III. HEARING A RECITATION IS NOT TEACHING. Hearing is not Teaching; Reciting is not Learning; Rote- questions bring Rote answers; Buying Books does not Bring Knowledge; Blind Alec of Stirling ; Parrot Mathematicians ; What Memorizing cannot do 16 SECTION IV. WHAT TEACHING IS. Showing Errors is not Showing the Truth; Indefiniteness of the Definitions; The Essence of All Teaching ; Teaching Includes Learning; Other Meanings for Teaching, than Teaching; Two Persons Needed to make One Teacher; A Teachers Other Work than Teaching 26 CHAPTER 2. ITS ESSENTIALS. PRELIMINARY STATEMENT 35 SECTION I. YOU MUST KNOW WHOM YOU ARE TO TEACH. ~Wliy You should Know Your Scholars ; Absurd Teaching ; Well-informed Ignorance; Children s Lack of Knowledge; All Things to All Men ; Giving a Prescription 37 SECTION II. YOU MUST KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TO TEACH. Scholars may Study, but Teachers must; A Boston Blunder; Knowing about the Lesson, without Knowing the Lesson; A Yorkshire Method; WJiat you must be Sure of 52 Contents. v SECTION III. YOU MUST KNOW HOW YOU ARE TO TEACH. Page Knowing How is Essential to Well-doing ; A Doctor with all Kinds of Knowledge but One ; The Need of a Vent-hole ; Choosing your own Method . , . , ,60 CHAPTER 3. ITS ELEMENTS. PRELIMINARY STATEMENT 68 SECTION I. HAVING THE ATTENTION OF THOSE YOU WOULD TEACH. No Teaching without Attention ; What Attention is ; Attention on the Play-ground; Attention in the Army ; Attention in the Sunday- school; Attention at Family Prayers; The Necessity of Holding Attention as well as Getting it 70 SECTION II. MAKING CLEAR THAT WHICH YOU TEACH. Making Truth Clear is More than Declaring Truth; Intermediate Agencies in the Transfer of Ideas; Words Less Expressive than Visible Objects ; Signs have not Always the Same Meaning ; Speaking in Unknown Tongues; Children's Impressions from Unfamiliar Words ; Cultivating Stupidity Getting the R eturn Message ... 79 SECTION III. SECURING YOUR SCHOLARS' CO-WORK: Need of the Scholar's Help ; The Learner must Give, to Keep ; Telling, a Part of Learning ; The, Difference between Teaching and Preaching ; Contents. Page Influence and Instruction; Cleansing a Mind, not Furnishing it; Teaching not the Teacher's only Work; Philosophy of the Teaching- process 92 CHAPTER 4. ITS METHODS. PRELIMINARY STATEMENT 103 METHODS: IN PKEPAKATION. SECTION I. HOW TO STUDY YOUR SCHOLARS FOR THEIR TEACHING. Difficulty of Showing how to Know Human Nature ; The Science and the Art of Teaching; Color-blind Teachers; Old Sermons for New Hearers; Aptness to Teach; The Child and the Chinaman; Knowing a Child's Character; Knowing his Surroundings; Knowing his Attainments; How to Compass All This 105 SECTION II. HOW TO STUDY A LESSON FOR ITS TEACHING. What Solomon and Paul would Need; What Studying a Lesson Means ; Having d Plan of Study; Old- Time Plans and Later Ones; The Order of True Study; Not Attempting Too Much; Testing One's Preparation 116 SECTION III. HOW TO PLAN FOR A LESSON'S TEACHING. Necessity of a Teaching Plan ; Tantalus and his Successors ; JBugbear Methods of Teaching ; Being Scientific without Knowing it ; Various Contents. vii Page Lights from one Crystal ; Ananias and Sapphira ; A Beginning, a Middle, and an Ending ; Keeping within Time ; " One Teacher s Way of Doing 125 METHODS: IN PKACTICE. SECTION I. HOW TO GET AND HOLD YOUR SCHOLARS' ATTENTION. The Teacher R esponsible for his Scholar's Duty ; Forcing Another 1 s Incli- nations; The Eyes and the Tongue; Lessons from the Pulpit ; Begin Right; The Blackboard, Seen andUnseen ; A Sheep-shearing Utilized; Holding as Well as Getting 138 SECTION II. HO W TO MAKE CLEAR THAT WHICH YO U WO ULD TEACH. The Main Point Now ; Starting at the Bottom ; Working Patiently ; Using Illustrations; A Pattern Example; Avoiding Symbolic Language; Miracles Simpler than Parables; The Help of the Scholar's Eye . . 150 SECTION III. HOW TO SECURE YOUR SCHOLARS 1 CO -WORK IN LESSON- TEA CHING. Finding the Scholar's Level; Knowing Too Much to Teach; Putting Chil- dren at Ease ; Giving Them Something to Do ; Naaman and Gehazi ; Modes of Questioning ; Gall's System; Fitch's Mistake; How Not to Do It; Scholars' Questions; Class Slates; Inter-working Plan . . . 167 METHODS: IN KEVIEW. SECTION I. TESTING THE SCHOLARS KNOWLEDGE. Examinations Needful in all Schools ; A New Application of Pharaoh's Dream; Necessity of Frequent Testings; Elijah and Ahab ; One viii Contents. Page Scholar's Progress ; Methods of Test Questioning ; Father Paxsons Trouble; Getting What You Want; The Test in Testing 199 SECTION II. FASTENING THE TRUTH TAUGHT. Over and Over Again; A Lesson from the Jesuits; How Much Reviewing is in Order ; Our Liability to Forget ; The Method of Jesus ; Paul's Method; Repetition at a Pulpit Power; Repetition in Literature; Class Methods of Repetition 210 SECTION III. NEW -VIE WING THE WHOLE. 4 Threefold Work in Reviewing; How a Child Learns to Read; Gain of a Perspective; Three Lessons New-viewed; The Thirteenth New Lesson ; Specimen New - Views 221 RECAPITULATION , ... .236 PART II. THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER'S OTHER WORK THAN TEACHING. THE SHAPING AND GUIDING OF SCHOLARS. PRELIMINARY STATEMENT 241 SECTION I. HAVING AND USING INFLUENCE. The Meaning of " Influence;" Fro 1 ^, the Heavens; Voluntary and In- vofantary ; A Right Purpose ; Uncle John Vassar ; A Reinemlert,d Contents. ix Pagfl Teacher; Specimen Superintendents; Thomas Arnold's Power; The Power of Character; The Church Window; The Incarnation; Unconscious Tuition; Losing an Ideal; A Teachers Responsibility; Now, and By and By 243 SECTION II. LOVING, AND WINNING LOVE. What Love is ; No Power Like Love ; Love in a Garret ; Every Man Has a Heart ; Love as a Duty ; Instances of Love ; All Can Love ; Christ's Image Reproduced in Love 28/ SECTION III. MANAGING SCHOLARS WHILE PRESENT. Practical Details to be Considered ; What Managing Means ; Gain of a Great Need ; A Troublesome Class ; A Teacher s Sufficiency ; Testing the Teacher; Preparation Needjul ; At the Teacher 1 s Home ; A Word in the Ear; Specimen Scholars; A Class as a Class; A Teacher's Helpers; Having What You Want,- A Slow Work; The Bronze Finishers 297 SECTION IV. REACHING SCHOLARS WHEN ABSENT. Danger of Losing the Absent; Causes of Absence ; Gain of Work for the Absent ; The Apostle John and the Robber ; Calling Back the Truant ; Writing Letters to the Absent ; Gain through Letter- Writing . . . 327 SECTION V. HELPING SCHOLARS TO CHRISTIAN DECISION. The End and Aim of Sunday-school Work; Confounding Conversion with Regeneration; Urging the Wrong Child; Mistaking the Spiritual State of Others; Seeking to Learn a Scholars Needs; Helping a Scholar to the Right Stand 340 x Contents. SECTION VI. COUNSELING AZD AIDING AT ALL TIMES. Page General Duties of a Teacher ; The Sunday-school in the Plan of God; The Family, the School, and the Pulpit; Advantages of the School over Family and Pulpit; The Clergyman over All; Helping Scholars in Secular Concerns; Helping into the Ministry; Duties Never Con- flict; Guiding a Scholar's Reading ; Caring for Christian Scholars; A Lesson from the Looms ; The Final Judgment 352 INDEX . 379 I. THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER'S TEACHING WORK THE TEACHING PROCESS. 1. ITS NATURE. PRELIMINARY STATEMENT. ALL Sunday-school teachers ought to be teachers in the Sunday-school. Being teachers in the Sun- day-school, they ought to teaeh in the Sunday- school. In order to teach in the Sunday-school, they need to know what teaching is. An initial purpose of this volume is so to designate and define the nature and methods, and so to indicate the comparative rarity, of proper Sunday-school teach- ing, as will enable Sunday-school teachers to know whether or not they are, or ever have been, teachers in the Sunday-school. There is practical need of honest doubt at this point ; especially on the part of those who have never supposed there was any cause of questioning just here. This may, indeed, seem to be a confusing and a discouraging way of approaching so important a subject; but there is sometimes a gain through one's being confused and discouraged. If one is in serious PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. Gain through confusion. Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. error, it is important to find it out. If one is on the wrong track, it is well for him to be discouraged in and from his purpose of continuing on that track. And, in such a case, confusion of mind may he a necessary preliminary to a new clearness of appre- hension. And first, in this instance, it is well to note, that not all teaching is teaching. Vague Notions of Teaching. NOT ALL TEACHING IS TEACHING. Teaching and Teaching ; Vague Notions of Teaching ; One Hindrance to Knowledge; Claiming is not Having; How Many "Teachers" are Teachers ? EVERYBODY will admit that not all teaching is what it ought to be. Everybody might fairly admit that not all teaching is what it is supposed to be. "Whether it be generally admitted or not, it is cer- tainly true, that a great deal that bears the name of " teaching" is by no means entitled to that name ; that although it is " teaching," in name, it is not teaching, in fact. There are even those who call themselves "teachers" who do not know whether they are teachers or not. They actually cannot tell what teaching is. The very word "teaching" has a vague and undefined meaning in their minds ; and they would be puzzled to give it any fair explana- tion. It is, indeed, often the case, that our familiarity with a word stands in the way of our knowing that word's meaning. We are so accustomed to the word itself, and have freely used it so long, that we PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. Acquaint- ance may hinder knowledge. Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER!. Nature of the Teaching Process. Define teaching do not stop to consider its real scope and limitations, as we employ and apply it ; nor would it always be easy for us to express our understanding of the idea which it is designed to convey. In many cases, therefore, there is a decided gain in our putting our- selves directly at the task of settling the meaning of a word which is on our lips every day of our lives. "We may find that we have had an entirely wrong conception of its signification and purport; or, again, we may find that we have had no specific conception of its signification and purport, but have merely taken it as the current designation of a fact, or a thing, with which we are in a general way familiar. That " teaching " is a word of this sort, will be plain to almost any one who gives the matter a mo- ment's reflection. What is " teaching" ? You say that you are a " teacher : " what do you mean by that? You say that you are " ready to teach " your class: what do you mean by that? You say that you " have taught " your class : w^hat do you mean by that ? How many of those who call themselves, or who are called by others, " Sunday-school teach- ers," have a clear idea of what u teaching " is, Sunday-school teaching or any other kind of teach- ing, or, can define their understanding of that term ? Yet how can a person fairly be called a teacher, when he does not as yet; know what teaching is ? There would certainly seem to be very little hope of a man's success in any line of endeavor, so long as he is igno- Counted on the Rolls. rant as to what he has undertaken to do ; or, so long as he is in doubt a to the nature of his undertaking. It is obviously true that a man may be called " a teacher" without being a teacher. A superin- tendent may designate a person to the office of teacher in the Sunday-school, or the church authori- ties may duly designate him as such, without his being competent to teach. That makes him " a teacher " by the record ; but it does not make him a teacher in fact. Nor does his acceptance of the position tendered him, make the selected " teacher " a teacher. His saying that he is " a teacher," no more gives him a fitness to teach, than does the similar saying of those who are in authority over the school. "How many legs does a calf have, if you count his tail one ? " is a boy's conundrum. " Five," answers one. " Not a bit of it," says the other. " Counting a calf's tail a leg, does n't make it one. A calf has only four legs, however you count them." How many real teachers are there in all the Sunday- schools of the United States, " counting" all who are on the rolls as teachers? There are two ways of answering that question ; and the answers would be a long way apart. Until each one of those " teach- ers " knows what teaching is, he is unable to decide for himself whether he is a teacher in fact, or only " a teacher " by the record. Yet it makes a vast dif- ference to a Sunday-school, whether it has teachers who fill their places, or only teachers who hold them. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. A teacher may be no teacher. Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. Poor substi- tutes for teaching. As an evidence of the prevalent uncertainty and indefiniteness in the use of this term, it may be well to look at two or three of its common and improper uses, by referring to certain processes which often pass for teaching, but which arc not teaching. The considering of these misuses of the term, will pre- pare the way for a more intelligent examination into its strict and proper meaning. Talking to the Deaf. n. TELLING IS NOT TEACHING. A Common Error ; No Teaching without Learning ; Ignorance of Long- time Hearers; A Good Teacher's Great Failure; The Pump and the Bellows ; What Telling may do. ONE of the commonest mistakes of a Sunday-school teacher- is in supposing that telling a thing to a scholar is teaching that thing to the scholar. Tell- ing a thing may be a part of the process of teaching ; and again it may not be ; but telling, in and of itself, never is teaching it cannot be. Until a teacher realizes this truth,he is not prepared to be a teacher; therefore I would like to tell this truth to all teach- ers and to all who want to be teachers, although I am very well aware that merely telling it in this way will not teach it to anybody. If the scholar is deaf, and you tell him a truth by word of mouth, with your head down so that he cannot see the movement of your lips, it is very clear that you have not taught him what you have told him. If he has ears, but they are intent on some- thing else than your words while you are talking to him ; or, if you talk in a language which he does not PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. closed ears. 10 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. No teaching without learning. If only tell- ing would teach ! understand, it is equally clear that your telling is not teaching, so far as he is concerned. Thus far all will agree; but the principle involved has a pro- founder reach than this. No person learns at once everything that is told to him; and no person is taught until he learns ; nor more than he learns. To tell a child for the first time all the letters of the alphabet does not teach him his alphabet. To tell a scholar all the rules of grammar or of arithmetic, all the boundaries of all the states of the Union, or all the principles of natural or moral philosophy, does not, by any means, teach him all those things. Teaching would be a very simple matter, if telling were teaching ; but no one thinks of counting the two processes identical except in the sphere of purely religious truth ; as in the church and Sunday- school. Who would think of teaching an apprentice to shoe a horse, or to set type, or to make a watch, by simply telling him how ? Who would expect artists, or authors, or soldiers, to be taught in their profession by the mere telling of their duties ? If men and women knew all the valuable truths which have been told them, from the lecture platform, in social con- verse, and by direct personal instruction, how wise the world would be ! If children had been taught all the good things that have been told to them at home and elsewhere, how much more they would know than their parents who have not always been taught An Ignorant Hearer. 11 by simply being told ! And what learned congrega- tions we should have, if all that some of these wise and venerable preachers have told their people, had been learned by their people ! That telling has not been teaching in every case, all will see at a glance, whether they are ready or not to agree that telling is never teaching, nor ever can be. How common it is for a preacher who has been faithful in proclaiming the truth from the pulpit, to bemoan the fact that persons who have safrunder his preaching for years are found to be in woful igno- rance on points which he has pressed most plainly and earnestly, until it seemed to him that every hearer must understand them perfectly! A preacher of rare ability and of rare faithfulness, who was a pupil of Dr. Thomas Chalmers, and who remained the pastor of a single I$QW England church during the period of nearly a full generation, gave me this testi- mony : " There was in my congregation a woman of more than average intelligence, who seemed to me one of rny most interested hearers, as, for years, she was one of the most regular attendants at our church services. I was often encouraged by her attentive and responsive appearance as I preached, although she was not a member of the church. But by and by she fell sick, and I visited her to press home the subject of her personal needs and duty as a sinner. To my amazement, I found her hardly less ignorant of the great fundamental truths of the gospel than PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER l . Nature of the Teaching Process. Ignorance of many good listeners. 12 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER!. Nature of the Teaching Process. Hearing all and learning nothing. Teachers and preachers. if she had been brought up in a heathen land. I tell you, that as I stood by her bedside trying to make plain to her, in that late hour of her probation, those simple truths which I had repeated to her from the pulpit over and over again, and which I had sup- posed she knew all about, I had a new sense of the fact, that to say a thing explicitly and repeatedly is not necessarily to make that thing the possession of those who hear it." .Or, in other words, that preacher had then and there found out, what many a preacher before and since has discovered, and what many another, unfortunately, has not yet perceived that telling a thing is not teaching that thing. BTor is it merely because the preacher stands off at a distance, and talks to the whole congregation instead of to a single individual, that his telling is, in itself, no teaching. A teacher's talk is no more teaching, than is a preacher's talk. A scholar may be as ignorant of the truths which his teacher has repeated to him plainly, and pressed home on him individually, many times over, as was ever a passive listener in the congregation to a preacher's words from the pulpit. I, certainly, can testify, out of my personal experience, that one of the godliest and most learned men who ever occupied a place as a Sunday-school teacher was a marked illustration of failure just at this point. That man was a distin- guished jurist; one whose praise was in all the churches and whose memoir is in the Sunday- The Passive Bucket. 13 school libraries. He prepared himself most elabo- rately on his lesson. He came to the class with full notes. He talked wisely, plainly, directly, from the beginning to the end of the lesson-hour although commonly with his eyes closed, and always without asking any questions. He taught much by his punctuality, and his fidelity, and his Christ-like spirit in their admirable example. He was loved and honored by his class ; and he is remembered by his scholars gratefully. ' But if he ever taught a single truth by his telling it in that class, here, in my case, is one scholar who is not aware of it. I do not recall a single fact, a single precept, a single doctrine, taught directly by the words of that Sun- day-school teacher. Nor is this a solitary or an ex- treme case in illustration of the fact that telling a thing in a Sunday-school class is not teaching that thing. The wisest preachers and teachers have recognized this truth, even though it has, by no means, found general acceptance as yet. " Nothing is more ab- surd," says an eminent English teacher, " than the common notion of instruction, as if science were to be poured into the mind, like water into a cistern." It is as if in comment on this figure, that Thomas Carlyle has said : " To sit as a passive bucket, and be pumped into, can in the long run be exhilarating to no creature, how eloquent soever the flood of utter- ance that is descending." So brilliant and witty a PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. A good teacher who talked with- out teaching. The passive bucket and the pump. 14 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CH AFTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. Pharaoh's lean kine. The Sunday- school bellows. A poor preaching service. preacher as Dr. Robert South put the same truth, although by a different figure, two centuries ago, when he described preaching to passive hearers as " a kind of spiritual diet upon which people are always feeding, but never full; and many poor souls, God knows too, too like Pharaoh's lean kine, much the leaner for their full feed." And of the teaching, or training, process aimed at in the church, he adds : " To expect that this should be done by preaching or force of lungs, is much as if a smith or artist, who works in metal, should expect to form and shape out his work only with his bellows." Yet, how large a place the bellows tills at the modern Sunday-school forge ! A vast deal of what is called " Bible-class teach- ing " is talking, but not teaching. It might pass for fourth-rate, or third-rate, or second-rate, or at the very best and rarest as first-rate preaching, or lec- turing ; but it never ought to be called teaching. The teacher talks; the scholars listen. The teacher is, doubtless, a gainer in his mind and heart by what he says ; but not so his silent scholars. They hear, but do not learn. The " exercise " is an exercise only to the exerciser. The whole thing is a pocket-edition, in poor type, of a pulpit-led service, with many of the disadvantages and few of the benefits of the large- page edition. And not a little of the ordinary class-teaching in the Sunday-school is of the same character. The teacher talks; the scholars listen. Telling has its Place. 15 There is a " teacher," but no teaching. There are "learners," but no learning. It is not a pleasant thing to face such a fact as this ; but since it is a fact, it ought to be faced by those interested. Telling a thing may be an important part of the process of teaching a thing. The telling may in itself interest or impress even where it fails to in- struct. A teacher may teach in other ways than by his telling truths that are worthy of his scholars' hearing and learning. However this may be, it is important that every teacher should understand, at the first and at the last, that telling a thing is not in itself teaching a thing ; and that, if he is a teacher a*t all, it will be through the use of some other method than mere talking. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. What telling may do. 16 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. A clear distinction. m. HEARING A RECITATION IS NOT TEACHING. Hearing is not Teaching; Reciting is not Learning; Rote-questions briny Rote-answers; Buying Books does not Bring Knowledge; Blind Alec of Stirling ; Parrot Mathematicians ; What Memorizing cannot do. * ANOTHER common mistake of the Sunday-school teacher, is in supposing that hearing a recitation is teaching; nor is that error, by any means, confined to the Sunday-school. Recitation may, it is true, have an important part in the process of teaching. It may in itself advantage the scholar, and the teacher may have a duty of listening to it; but the hearing of a recitation is not in itself teaching ; nor is it always an essential in the teaching process. As Professor Hart states it: " A child recites lessons when it repeats something previously learned. A child is taught when it learns something from the teacher not known before. The two things often, indeed, go together, but they are in themselves essen- tially distinct." If merely hearing scholars recite were in itself teaching, then all who are in the neighborhood Parrot Recitations. 17 of an' Oriental school would be teachers ; for the scholars in the Easfc study aloud, and all recite to- gether, and their recitations can be heard by the passers-by, and sometimes by all the dwellers within half a street's length. Not even the Orientals, how- ever, would claim that their hearing the clatter of these recitations made teachers of them. Nor would it be teaching, if one, hearing the recitation, should hold the book of the learner in his hand, observing the correspondence of the words recited with those recorded. A fellow-pupil could do that, without becoming thereby a teacher. There is an immense deal of mere rote recitation by scholars, younger and older. Scholars fasten in their memory words to which they attach no mean- ing or a wrong meaning; and these memorized words, or sounds of words, they rattle off upon call, without having any correct or well-defined idea of their signification. Under these circumstances, who would claim that these scholars are taught anything, or that their knowledge is tested, by reciting what they have memorized even to an exceptionally skilled and intelligent teacher? A lady told me, that for years, while a child, she recited the first answer in the Westminster Catechism as u Mansche- fand is to glorify God and to joy him forever." What that word if manschefand " meant, she did not understand, nor was she taught either the word or its meaning by reciting it to a " teacher." She had PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. Hearing is not teaching. Rote recita- tions. What is " Mansche- fand"? 18 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. Lord Byron's beginning. memorized the answer by having it told to her before she could read, and its repeated recitation gave no help to its understanding. Similar failures to understand words in the catechism, or the ques- tion-book, or to get any help in their understanding through their mere recitation, could be instanced by parents and teachers on every side. Even where the scholar understands the meaning of the words memorized by him, it may be only a rote-recitation that he gives to a teacher. An Eng- lish educationalist has cited, in illustration of the frequent senselessness of rote-recitations, an incident from the life of Lord Byron. Referring to a school where he was a pupil at five years of age, Byron said : "I learned little there except to repeat by rote the first lesson of monosyllables, 4 God made man, let us love him,' etc., by hearing it often re- peated, without [my] acquiring a letter. Whenever proof was made [or was asked] of my progress, at home, I repeated these words, with the most rapid fluency; but, on turning over a new leaf, I continued to repeat them, so that the narrow boundaries of my first year's accomplishments were detected, my ears boxed (which they did not deserve, seeing that it was by ear only that I had acquired my letters), and my intellects consigned to a new preceptor." And a similar shortcoming might be found in the work of a scholar who could read intelligently, and who had memorized faithfully, but whose teacher had mis- An Unlooked-for Journey. 19 taken the hearing of a recitation for teaching. His answer may have no proper relation to the question asked of him. Another question would have brought the same answer, and the same question given a second time would bring another answer. His memorizing has been of the words of the answer, without any thought of the words of the question to which they were designed as an answer. This truth was forced on my mind in my earliest teaching experience. While yet but seventeen, I had a class in the Sunday-school, of wide-awake boys, keen enough in matters of thought and action, but naturally conforming to the methods of study which met their teacher's idea of teaching. The book used in that class was one in which every answer was printed out in full, just below its question. The ordinary practice of the scholar was to fasten the answers in memory; and the ordinary practice of the teacher was to ask the questions in the words of the book, and hear the scholars recite the answer. Now for the working of that plan ! One Sunday, the lesson for the day was The Walk to Emmaus. The first question on the page was " Where is Em- maus ? " As I took my book in hand for the " teach- ing exercise," I recalled that the scholar at my right hand was a boy who had been absent the previous Sunday. Accordingly I asked in kindly interest, " Where were you last Sunday, Joseph ? " Quick as a Hash the answer came back, " Seven and a half PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. The teacher taught. Ihe scholar at Emmaus 20 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. Many books, but no knowledge. miles north-west of Jerusalem." " Well, you are certainly excusable for not being here" was my mor- tified response; for then, for the first time, I realized that that scholar might as well have been north-west of Jerusalem or south-east of Timbuctoo, for all the good he gained from a class where hearing a recita- tion had been looked at as teaching. That was a long while ago : it would be pleasant to believe that no illustration of this error in the teacher's work could be found in these days of improved Sunday- school methods and normal-class instructions. The memorizing of words is in itself no more the securing of ideas, than is the buying of books the securing of knowledge. A man may have his li- brary shelves stored with the most choice and valu- able works in every department of literature, science, and the arts, and yet be ignorant, not only of the knowledge covered by any one of those volumes, but also of the advantage which would come from the possession of such knowledge. Nor would his knowl- edge be increased in the slightest degree, if he had ten such libraries instead of one. So, also, a child may have fully memorized all the answers in his catechism, or his question book, including the choicer words of Scripture, without having received a single idea covered by those words ; nor would any multiplication of similar words in his memory neces- sarily convey an added idea to his mental posses- sions. This is obviously true where the words are The Blind Led Blindly. 21 in another language than the pupil's own. It is equally true where the words are in the pupil's lan- guage, but utterly beyond his comprehension. It is none the less a truth in any case ; for the receiving of ideas is quite another matter from the fastening of mere words in the memory : the two processes may go on at the same time, and again they may not ; but in no case are they identical. That this truth is as true practically as it is philo- sophically, has been shown by experiment many times over; and its truth finds fresh illustration under the eye of every intelligent and observing parent or teacher. A notable and well-authenticated case of its testing, is that of " Blind Alec " of Stir- ling, in Scotland, as recorded in all its details in Mr. James Gall's "Nature's Normal School." This was more than fifty years ago. Alexander Lyons, or " Blind Alec" as he was called, was a man of mature years and of average intelligence. He had actually committed to memory the words of the entire. Bible. " Any sentence, or clause of a sentence, from Scrip- ture, \vhich another began, he could not only finish, but tell the particular verse in the Bible where it was to be found ; and, what was still more remark- able, the number of any verse in any chapter and book being given, he was able immediately to re- peat" the verse. Moreover, he had for years been in the daily habit of recalling and reciting passages of Scripture thus memorized. This man, thus sup- PART!. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. Blind Alec's blind memorizing. 22 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Tea-'hiug Process. Knowing the words is not knowing their sense. Parrot recita- tions in geometry. plied with Bible words, was thoroughly tested, not only by Mr. Gall, but by the more intelligent citi- zens of Stirling, lay and clerical, at a public meeting, called for the express purpose of ascertaining his knowledge of the truths clearly covered by the words in his memory. He was first questioned in the facts of English history, which he had been taught by the conveying to him of its ideas rather than by any set form of words covering those ideas; and he was found intelligently familiar with its truths in the field he had traversed. But in not a single instance could he quote a Bible text in explanation, in proof, or in enforcement, of the simplest doctrine or duty. The conclusion was irresistible, in his case, that by all his Bible word-memorizing, in his early life and in his later, he had never, at the first or afterward, acquired a single Bible idea, that u there was in Alec's mind no connection between the truths or duties of Scrip- ture, and the words which taught them." Nor has it, so far, been different with any other person than " Blind Alec " from that day to this ; for the mere memorizing of words is never, in itself, the gaining of ideas. " There is a well-authenticated instance of a stu- dent who actually learned the six books of Euclid by heart, though he could not tell the difference between an angle and a triangle." A Scotch friend tells me of a fellow-student of his, who was accus- tomed to memorize the demonstrations from Euclid Supplied, but not Informed. for his lessons, day by day, without any understand- ing of their meaning, and who would rattle them off as if in explanation of the diagram on the black- board in the recitation room. His comrades would sometimes mischievously change the lettering on the diagrams before his recitation hour; and then he would push ahead with his memorized demonstra- tion, pointing out the alphabetical signs as he named them, in utter ignorance of the mathematical absur- dities he was insisting on. Thus he furnished to his teacher a good illustration of the fact that hearing a recitation is not teaching, and that there is no neces- sary connection between memorizing and learning. Let me not be misunderstood just here. I am not claiming that no gain is possible from storing words in the memory, any more than I am claiming that no gain is possible from buying books for one's library, or from having one's library shelves stored with volumes in every department of knowledge. I am claiming, however, that neither the buying of books nor the memorizing of words and sentences is in itself the acquisition of knowledge. At the best, in either case, this is only the gathering of the materials of knowledge, or of instruments for its acquisition. And since memorizing words is not in itself knowledge, it can no more be made knowledge through the recitation of those words, than the pos- session of books can be made the acquisition of knowledge through their cataloguing. Memorizing PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process . Having a library is not having knowledge. 24 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. The possible gains of memorizing. It may be memorizing that you want. words has an important place in a pupil's life. In secular school training there are rules 'and tables and lists that can profitably be fastened in the scholar's memory by rote, for convenience of future reference. In the Sunday-school, and in home reli- gious training, there should be a wise measure of memorizing, by the scholar, of the very words them- selves, of Bible passages, of hymns, and of accurate statements of important doctrine. But, whatever place or prominence is given to such memorizing, let not the mistake be made of supposing that the mere memorizing of these words in itself gives the scholar the possession of the idea covered by them. That idea could be conveyed without such memoriz- ing. It may be conveyed in connection with such memorizing. Again, such memorizing may be in connection with the wrong idea, or with no idea at all. Under no circumstances, however, nor in any instance, will the memorizing of the w,ords and the reception of the idea be one and the same thing. That cannot be. Nor can the wisest teacher in the world make the two things one, by simply hearing the recitation of what has been memorized. If you think that the memorizing of words is the great thing in your scholar's preparation for the " class exercise," by all means insist upon it. If you want to ascertain how much and how accurately he has memorized, hear him recite the words he has committed to memory. If particular questions upon Grindstone Exercises. 25 the lesson have been given him, to which he is to find answers, and you desire to know whether he has found the precise answers to those specific ques- tions, then ask him those questions and hear him give the answers. If this is your idea of a " class exercise," the way to secure it is as simple as turn- ing a grindstone crank. This may be all that you deem essential in a teacher's work; but how- ever desirable and important it may be, it cannot be called teaching ; nor would it be teaching if it were called so. It is hearing a recitation ; but hear- ing a recitation is not in itself teaching, nor ought it to pass for teaching. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. A class exercise. 2G Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching P/ocess. " Teaching' in the dic- tionaries. IV. WHAT TEACHING IS. Showing Errors is not Showing the Truth ; Indefiniteness of the Defini- tions; The Essence of All Teaching; Teaching Includes Learning ; Other Meanings for Teaching, than Teaching ; Two Persons Needed to make One Teacher; A Teacher's Other Work than Teaching. IT is evident, however, that the definition of u teaching " is not to be arrived at by merely show- ing that certain processes which too often pass for the teaching-process are by no means entitled to that designation. It is not enough to indicate what is not teaching ; the inquirer is still left in doubt as to what teaching is. It being shown that " tell- ing is not teaching," and that " hearing a recitation is not teaching," the question recurs with added force and importance, What is teaching ? Nor is it easy for the inquirer to obtain a clear and competent understanding of the term " teach- ing." The dictionaries will give him little aid on this point. Their definitions are varied, vague, and unsatisfactory. If he turns to the technical treatises and manuals on the subject, he will not be likely to gain a much clearer impression of the scope and Vagueness of Terms. 27 purport of the term. Out of an extensive study of the literature of teaching, for now more than twenty years, I can say with positiveness that, from the days of Roger Ascham down to the latest European and American educational writers, hardly one writer in fifty has even attempted to tell his readers what he means by the term " teaching," or to indi- cate the precise nature and limits of the teaching- process as he understands that process. Commonly, indeed, the term " teaching " is employed by such writers as though its meaning were well understood; yet, in many cases, their own uses of it, at different times and in different connections, would go to show their own lack of a well-defined meaning at- tached to it, which should sharply distinguish it from " educating," "training," "giving informa- tion," "exhibiting impressively," "instructing," "in- culcating," and other terms variously used as indi- cative of educational prpcesses. In hardly more than half a dozen instances have I found an educa- tional writer attempting to explain his understand- ing of this term " teaching," on which pivoted all the value of the instruction and guidance he essayed to give to his readers. It is, therefore, by no means a needless task for us to seek an intelligent under- standing of the nature and elements of the teaching- process, as preliminary to an inquiry into its wise methods. Jacotot claimed, that " to teach is to cause to learn." PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. Indefinite definings. 28 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. Teaching is causing to know. Teaching meant learning. Professor Hart improved on this definition by claiming, that" teaching is causing another to know." Probably 10 more simple or accurate definitions than these two bave ever been suggested. They certainly indicate the essence of true teaching. Teaching involves the idea of knowledge obtained by a process. One may, in- deed, teach himself, may be his own teacher, through reaching out after knowledge by an intelligently directed effort ; but no one can teach and to that extent be a teacher of either himself or another, without the obtaining of knowledge by the person taught. Teaching, in fact, includes the idea of learn- ing, not as its correlative term, but as one of its con- stituent parts. There can really be no such thing as teaching without learning ; the process of learn- ng must accompany the process of teaching, and must keep pace with it. Just to the extent of the learning on the one part, is there the teaching on the other part. If the learning-process halts, so baits the teaching-process. If the learning-process ends, the teaching-process has ended. Originally, in our English language, as in accord- ance with the analogy of other European languages, the word " learn " was used in the twofold sense of teaching and learning ; one could learn by himself, or he could learn another could cause another to learn. Thus, the poet Drayton makes a royal guide tell of the instructed king : " Who, till I learned him, had not known his might." Teaching Includes Learning. And Shakespeare's queen, in Cymbeline, asks of her court physician : ..." Have I not been Thy pupil long ? Hast thou not learn'd me how To make perfumes? distil? preserve?" In the natural progress of language, there came to be a subdivision of the twofold idea of the word "learn; " and the distinction between the objective and the subjective phases of the learning-process was indicated by the use of the term " teaching " for the one, and "learning" for the other. K~ow, therefore, "teaching" is that part of the twofold learning-pro- cess by which knowledge which is yet outside of the learner's mind is directed toward that mind; and " learning " is that part of the same twofold process by which the knowledge taught is made the learner's own. Still, as before, however, there can be no teacher where there is not a learner ; although, on the other hand, there may be a learner where there is no one else than himself to be his teacher. If this truth be borne clearly in mind, there is a decided gain in the verbal distinction of the two component parts of the learning-process, as made by our modern use of the words " teaching " and " learning ; " but if this distinction should lead us to suppose that there can be any teaching where there is no cor- responding learning ; that it is possible, in fact, for one to teach while no one learns ; then indeed it would be far better for us to go back to the old PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER!. Nature of the Teaching Process. The relation of teaching to learning. 30 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Other uses of the term " teaching." What we mean by Sunday- school teaching. terminology, and to insist in very phrase that no one is taught until he has learned, and that no one teaches another until the other learns ; that, in short, teaching another is ever and always learning another, causing another to learn. It is, of course, not to be denied, that the term " teaching " is often fairly employed in other senses than a technical one. Thus, we speak of the teach- ing of our example ; of our teaching others by the spirit which we manifest, or by the conduct which we display ; of our causing others to know, from what they see in us, that our way is desirable, or that it is undesirable ; of our thus leading them in the path we pursue, or impelling them toward another path than that. To teaching of this kind, all of us are given, at all times. In this sense, we all are teachers, always. We are continually caus- ing those about us to know the better way, or the worse. But it is not of this kind of teaching that we speak, when we say that we are Sunday-school teachers; that we are engaged in Sunday-school teaching; that we expect to teach our class next Sunday; or, that we taught our class last Sunday. We have in mind, in such phrases, an active and purposeful service, rather than that unconscious teaching of ours which is inevitable, whether we de- sire it or not. It is the causing another to know that which we know, and which he does not ; that which we want him to know, and which we seek to A Scholar's Help Essential. 31 have him know, which is " teaching " in its tech- nical sense; teaching in the sense in which we use the term, when we say that we have been teaching a particular lesson to a particular scholar or class. In this sense, " teaching " obviously involves the three- fold idea of a teacher, a lesson, and a learner ; it in- volves knowledge on the teacher's part, and, at the start, the lack of it on the part of the scholar; also, an actual transfer of that knowledge from the teacher's mind to the scholar's, before the teaching- process is concluded. Hence, to say that you have " taught a lesson," includes the idea that some one has learned that lesson ; for unless there is learning by a learner there can be no teaching by a teacher; and until the teacher has caused a learner to know a lesson, or a truth, the teacher has only been trying to teach so far without success. Intelligent, purposeful teaching includes the idea of two persons, both of them active. Nor is it- enough that there be two persons, both of them active ; both active over the same lesson. This may be secured by hearing a recitation, and commenting on it; but that is not, necessarily, teaching. The scholar, in such a case, may be merely exercising his memory, reciting what he has memorized ver- bally without understanding a word of it; he learns nothing; he is not taught anything ; he is not caused to know a single fact or truth, by his teacher's hear- ing him recite ; nor does he learn anything by his PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. Threefold idea of teaching. Two must combine tc make one teacher. 32 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. The teacher's other work than teaching. teacher's wisest comment, if he pays no attention to that comment, or if he is unable to understand it. " Teaching," as causing another to know, includes the mutual effort of two persons to the same end. The teacher must endeavor to cause the pupil to learn a particular fact or truth which he wants him to know; the learner must endeavor to learn that particular fact or truth. Until the two are at this common work, the process of teaching has not begun : until the learner has learned, the teacher has not taught. Teaching is by no means all of a teacher's work ; nor is it always the most important work of a teacher. Impressing one's pupils, and influencing them, are important factors in a teacher's work, when we speak of " a teacher," as one having children in charge, in a school on a week-day, or a Sunday. A teacher's spirit, a teacher's character, a teacher's atmosphere, and a teacher's life, impress and influ- ence a pupil quite as much as a teacher's words. It is a teacher's duty to love his scholars, and to show his love for them ; to have sympathy with them, and to evidence it ; to gain a hold on their affections, outside of the class-hour, as well as during it ; and to pray for them specifically and in abiding faith. There is no technical "teaching" in all this; but what would technical teaching be worth without this? There are teachers in the Sunday-school who do a great deal of good withouj teaching; No TtacUng Without Teaching. 33 they perhaps do a better work in the Sunday-school than many of their fellows, who do teach. Their work ought not to he undervalued because it is not teaching; neither ought it to be confounded with teaching. Impressing and influencing members of a class is one thing ; teaching a Bible lesson is another thing ; the two may go on together, or again there may be the one without the other. Whether the one or the other is wanted, or both together are desired, it is important to bear in mind what teaching is, as distinct from any other desirable work of a teacher. If a Bible lesson is worth teaching, it ought to be taught : if it is taught, it must be by the process of teaching; and there is no such thing as teaching by a teacher, unless at the same time there is learning by a learner. The question, there- fore, at the close of each Sunday-school hour, is not, "Were you with your class ? not, Did you prepare yourself on the lesson of the day before coming to your class ? not, Did you state and illustrate important truths which it would have been well for the mem- bers of your class to know ? not, Were your hearers attentive, and seemingly impressed ? but Did you cause anybody to know anything about the lesson of the day? That question you cannot properly answer, unless you have proof that some one of your hearers learned what you tried to make him know. Until you can speak with positiveness on this point, PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. The question for you. 34 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching Process. SVhere the proof rests. you cannot say whether or not you have taught the lesson, or any part of it, to all of your class, or to any one scholar. Although teaching is by no means the exclu- sive, nor yet always the foremost, duty of a teacher, yet teaching is teaching; and no preva- lence of popular opinion can make anything else than teaching, teaching. And let it be remembered that the proof of the teaching-process always rests with the learner ; not with the teacher, whether the scholars be young or old. The teacher can prove that he tried to teach ; the scholar alone can show that the teacher succeeded. THE TEACHING PROCESS. 2. ITS ESSENTIALS. PRELIMINARY STATEMENT. HAVING ascertained the nature of the teaching process, the next step is to consider its essentials. It being seen that the teaching process is twofold^ including both learning and teaching; that teaching involves the idea of a person who is to learn, a person who is to aid the learner in his learning, and a truth to be learned, it would seem to be obvious, that he who would teach intelligently must know whom he would teach, what he is to teach, and how he is to teach, before he can fairly begin his teach- ing. Knowledge at these three points is not merely desirable; it is essential. "Without such knowledge, intelligent teaching is an impossibility. It is not to be denied that there are Sunday- school teachers who retain their places for years, and who attend to what they understand to be their duties, week after week, during all that period, with- out having any fair knowledge of their scholar^ PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. Teachers whe never teach. 36 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. individually, of their lessons in detail, or of wise methods of teaching; but all this does not make these "teachers," teachers; nor does it make their " teaching," teaching. No teaching can be true teaching which lacks any one of the three essentials of teaching which are above indicated, and which are now to be considered in their order. Knowing Scholars as they Are. 87 YOU MUST KNOW WHOM YOU AEE TO TEACH. Why You should Know Your Scholars; Absurd Teaching; Well-informed Ignorance ; Children's Lack of Knowledge ; All Things to All Men ; Giving a Prescription. To begin with, as a teacher, you must know whom you are to teach; not merely know your scholars by sight, know them by name, know them so that you can greet them as acquaintances, but know them in their individual capacities, attain- ments, and needs. On the face of it, this knowledge of your scholars is essential as preliminary to any intelligent teaching on your part. It may be, they are blind. That fact does not forbid your teaching them ; but it does forbid your reliance on ordinary maps, pictures, and the blackboard, as teaching agencies. Possibly your scholars are deaf and dumb. If that be the case, the agencies which you would reject for the blind come up into added promi- nence as helps to teaching. Even though you are sure that your scholars can both see and hear, you need to know also that they are capable of under- PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. Your neces- sity of know- ing. 38 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. A sheer absurdity. standing your language, and that they are reasonably familiar with the words you employ; otherwise their eyes and ears might as well be closed, for all the good they get from your utterances. It is a sheer absurdity for you to attempt to teach another, unless you and your scholar are acquainted with a common language. It is a literal "absur- dity " more literally than, perhaps, you have had occasion to consider. What is an " absurdity " ? The root idea of that word is oh and surdus from a deaf man ; such responses as would come from a man who could not hear your remarks, but who wanted it to appear that he did. All of us have had, or have heard, " absurd " conversations of this sort. You meet a man on a country road, and, say- ing, " Good day " to him, you ask, " How far is it to Wilton, please ? " He nods back a good-day, with the u absurd " response for he is a deaf man "Well, no; I haven't got any Stilton cheese, but I've been making some good Young Americas." That man understood your question quite as well as many a scholar in the Sunday-school understands his teacher's ordinary language ; and if there were more outspoken answering in our Sunday-school classes, there would be more of these absurdities apparent to all. Socrates said that a knowledge of our own igno- rance is the first step toward true knowledge ; and it was Coleridge, I think, who supplemented this truth Recoiling from Goodness. 39 with the suggestion that, " we cannot make another comprehend our knowledge, until we first compre- hend his ignorance." So long as we suppose a scholar to know what he does not know, we shall refrain from causing him to know that, and in conse- quence we shall be unable to cause him to know anything beyond that anything to an understand- ing of which that is a prerequisite. Woful mistakes are constantly making in the Sunday-school, because of a teacher's failure to know his scholar just at this point to know his scholar's ignorance. A good illustration of the danger of a lack just here, is that given by Mrs. Horace Mann, in her story of a dis- trict school where, on the occasion of her visit, those boys who wanted " to be good " were asked to rise in their places ; and all but one stood up. When that solitary little fellow was urged by his teacher to rise with the others, he began to cry, with a whim- pering " No " " no " between his childish sobs. At this, Mrs. Mann stepped down alongside of him, and putting her arm over his shoulder tenderly, she asked, " What do you think it means to be good, my boy ? " " Ter be whipped ! " was the sobbing answer. The poor boy had been told when he was flogged, that it was to make him good; and his untutored mind recoiled from an added supply of that kind of " goodness." That boy understood his teacher quite as well as many a scholar has under- stood your wisest words spoken for his teaching. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. A knowledge of ignorance as a means of more knowl- edge. A boy's reluctanc6 to be good. 40 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. What a Bible class did not know. There is no mistake about this. The experience of the best teachers abundantly confirms this truth. An intelligent Bible class teacher in a NQW Eng- land church had before him ten or twelve adults, all of whom were church-members, and one of whom had long been a church-officer. In considering the opening verses of the Book of Acts, the teacher asked what was meant by the " passion " of Jesus there mentioned. Not getting an answer at ouce, he repeated the question in a leading form, " Why, what events in the story of Jesus are referred to, when he says here that ' he showed himself alive after his passion ' ? " but that also failed to bring an answer. Thinking that the lack must be in his mode of questioning, or in the hesitation of his scholars to speak out, he set himself to get an answer to that question. After following the matter until he was satisfied, he found that not a scholar in his class had any proper understanding of the term " passion " as applied to the closing sufferings in the human life of Jesus. That discovery changed utterly the methods of that teacher in his teaching work. He now for the first time comprehended the measure of his scholars' ignorance; and thus, for the first time, he was ready to begin their teaching. And his class was, in general intelligence, far ahead of the average class in the Sunday-schools of America. Not all scholars would stumble at the same term, but most of them would be ignorant of the mean- Unknown Tongues. 41 ing of some word in quite as familiar use as " pas- sion." An observant and faithful teacher in a Philadelphia Sunday-school, told me of his being surprised by the question, from a bright scholar who was about twenty-five years old, " Who was 'the despised Gali- lean'?" On one occasion I found myself, as a visitor for the day, teaching a class of JSTew York City lads, from fourteen to seventeen years old, bright lads, out of the better class of Christian homes in that city. In the lesson for the day, the differences between the teachings of Moses and the teachings of Christ the Law and the Gospel were touched upon I questioned those lads familiarly as to their understanding of the terms " Law " and " Gospel," and, to my surprise, I found that not one of them had any other idea, in either case, beyond a statutory civil enactment on th^ one hand, and certain books of the New Testament on the other. Is it strange that there are " absurd " answers, or no answers at all, to questions put by Sunday-school teachers, to scholars who have no better understanding than in these cases, of the words employed in their ques- tioning ? There are none of us but are using words con- tinually, in ordinary conversation, which are not understood by those whom we address by means of those words. Thus, at another time, I was pointing out to one of my little daughters the beauty of the PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process More cultured ignorance. Using strange words. 42 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. Where are the woods ? Where is the text? woods beyond the meadow we were passing, on a summer ride. The child looked puzzled, but said nothing. When another reference was made to the distant " woods," she ventured the inquiry, " Papa, where are the woods? Are they back of those trees ? " The meadow she knew, and the trees she knew, but where were the woods ? She had never been told, in so many words, that a great number of trees together were called u woods." I was then taught a lesson, when I thus learned her lack. Yet again, when I was leaving home for a brief absence, I asked another of my daughters to note her pastor's text on Sunday morning, and report it to me when I came back. She failed to do this. As I was going away for another Sunday, I repeated my re- quest. Again my daughter failed me. When this had happened the third time I proposed, like Mrs. Horace Mann, to look into the cause of this trouble; for I was sure that my loving daughter would have reported the text, if a willing mind were the only need. " RTow what is the trouble, my dear child ? " I asked her tenderly. u Whj; didn't you remember the text, or something about it ? " Encouraged by this, the little girl looked up and asked a question for herself: " Papa, what is the text ? " Another " ab- surdity " ! I had simply taken it for granted that my daughter knew what was the " text " in our pastor's morning service ; and she would have known it if I had been a better teacher. I was tell- Common Ignorance. 43 ing this incident soon after to a friend, and that friend told me of a similar " absurdity " in a home with which he was connected. A lad, who had been taken into that family as a farm boy, was told on Sunday, as he started for church, to be sure and remember where the " text " was. On his return he was questioned by his mistress: "Well, John, where was the text this morning ? " u I don't quite know, ma'am," he replied doubtingly ; " but I think it was somewhere down by the door." All in be- wilderment over that mysterious term " text," the well-intentioned but ill-taught lad had devoted his morning hour in church to finding out where that thing could be, any way ; and he was unwilling to confess his failure. That was an absurdity; just such an absurdity as every teacher is liable to have in his class, unless he measures wisely the knowledge of those whom he essays to teach. Children, generally, lack a knowledge of things, and an understanding of words, with which they are supposed to be familiar, to an extent far beyond the conception of those who have not given particular attention to this matter. In evidence on this point, Professor G. Stanley Hall, a keen observer of child nature, published, not long ago, the tabulated results of his careful examinations into the knowledge of common things possessed by children who were just entering the Boston primary schools. Out of some two hundred of these children, he found PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. Near the doc* Children's ignorance of common things. 44 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. Cn AFTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. Assu.ne Younger teachers are better. that one-fifth did not know their right hand, or their left ; one out of three had never seen a chicken ; two out of three had never seen an ant ; one out of three had never consciously seen a cloud ; two out of three had never seen a rainbow ; more than half of them were ignorant of the fact that wooden things are made from trees ; more tha& two-thirds of them did not know the shape of the world ; nine-tenths of them could not tell what flout is made of. And so on through a long list of lesser and larger matters in the realm of common things. A conclusion to which Professor Hall arrived, was : " There is next to nothing of pedagogic value, the knowledge of which it is safe to assume 'at the outset of school life." Unless the Sunday-school teacher has been at the pains of testing his scholars' knowledge at the point where he would begin his teaching, he is pretty sure to be in error as to the measure of their ignorance, and to be unfitted, in consequence, to teach them wisely. It is because of this liability of one, who well knows what he would teach, to fail of knowing accu- rately the measure of him whom he would teach, that many a learned man has proved to be among the poorest of teachers. Professor Payne, an eminent English teacher, has said, in recognition of this truth : " A man profoundly acquainted with a sub- ject may be unapt to teach it, by reason of the very height and extent of his knowledge. His mind Still Young in Feeling. 45 habitually dwells among the mountains, and he has therefore small sympathy with the toilsome plodders on the plains below. It is so long since he was a learner himself, that he forgets the difficulties and perplexities which once obstructed his path, and which are so painfully felt by those who are still in the condition in which he once was, himself. It is a hard task, therefore, for him to condescend to their condition, to place himself alongside of them, and to force a sympathy which he cannot naturally feel, with their trials and experience." Commonly, in- deed, he is unaware of the gulf which separates him from his scholars, because, while knowing what he would teach, he does not know, nor has he sought to understand, those whom he would teach. For this reason, also, young teachers in the Sunday-school are commonly more successful as teachers than older persons. The young teacher knows the scholar, by his very sympathy with the scholar in that scholar's lack of knowledge. When, indeed, you find a successful old teacher in the Sunday-school, you find one who has kept young, and who still feels young. Being young in feeling, he knows how the young folks feel ; and knowing their feelings, he more nearly knows them as they are. It is not alone in the measure of his knowledge, that a scholar is to be studied, and to be known by his teacher. It is in his personal tastes and pecu- liarities, in his feelings and desires, in hs^jaa^hods of PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. A great gulf. Using fly- poison wisely. 46 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. Cn IPTER 2. Essentials of the Caching process. Different work in different mtals. thought and his modes of action, irihis characteristics and tendencies, and in the nature of his home and week-day surroundings, that a scholar must he known before he can be taught intelligently. It is related of Professor Orfila, the great French toxicologist, that when he was testifying, in a court of justice, of the relative power of minute doses of a particular poison, one of the lawyers in the case inquired of him derisively, u Could you tell us, Professor, the precise dose of this poison which & fly could take safely?" "I think I could," was the cautious answer; "but I should need to know something about the particular fly urder treatment. I should want to know his size, his age, his state of health, his habits of life^ whether he was married or single, and what had been his surroundings in life so far. All these things bear on the size of the dose to be administered in any case." Surely a scholar deserves as much study, and as wise and as cautious treatment, as a fly. But not every teacher is as wise or as cautious as Professor Ornia. A wise Connecticut teacher illustrated the neces- sity of a careful study of each scholar individually, in order to his wise teaching, after this fashion : " Suppose that you were a worker in metals, and had a foundry and a forge in which you cast all manner of curious things, or at which you wrought all manner of cunning devices. Suppose a stranger should come to you, bringing sealed packages, and Know your Mater iaL 47 should say, < Here are various kinds of metais. Without unsealing them, put them at once into your furnace, run them into your mould, work them at your forge, treat them all alike, and produce for me a set of images, each the exact counterpart of the others. Would you not reply ? i The thing is im- possible. Let me know what I am working on. Brass will not melt as readily as lead. Iron is not as malleable as copper. Steel is not as ductile as gold. One process for one, another for another, is the rule of my trade.' i But,' he urges, ' metal is metal, heat is heat, a forge is a forge, a mould is a mould. Is not that enough?' Your answer is, 'Metals differ. The heat that melts one would sublime another. The mould that is strong enough for one is too weak for another. The blow that would crush the one would rebound from the other.' " And that wise teacher's enforcement of this telling illus- tration is worthy of the attention of every teacher : " My brother teachers, are we not too apt to think that the iron will, the leaden insensibility, the brazen defiance, and the golden sincerity, which exist in our classes, will, if put into the same furnace of appeal, shaped in the samo mould of instruction, and ham- mered at the same forge of argument, all conform to the same image ? Do we take pains enough TO learn the nature of the peculiar metal on which we are working? and to adopt wisely the means to the end, the process to tfie result ? " PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTEB 2 Essentials of the Teaching Process. Metals differ 48 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. A different teacher to every scholar. Dean Stanley says of the teaching-method of Dr. Thomas Arnold, " His whole method was founded on the principle of awakening the intellect of every individual boy." And that ought to be the basis of every good teacher's method. The distinguished principal of one of the !N"ew York state normal schools has said, that if he had a class of fifty scholars, he would try to be fifty dif- ferent teachers, as he turned from one to another of those scholars to instruct them severally. In doing this, that principal would simply be doing a teacher's duty; but it is a duty which can never be done intelligently until the teacher knows the differences which distinguish his scholars one from another. No wise adaptation of instruction is possible, unless the teacher understands the peculiarities of each scholar whom he is to instruct. If the scholar is already a consistent church-member, he certainly requires very different teaching from that suited to a young reprobate. If he is of a tender, loving heart, and of a mercurial temperament, his share of instruction should be another than that for a lad of a cool and calculating disposition. One scholar is to be reached through his feelings ; another through his reason. One likes pictures and stories ; another prefers to follow a thread of new thought. Each scholar has his individuality ; it is for the teacher to know what that is, as preliminary to any hopeful effort at teaching the scholar. Inspired Methods. 49 Jesus Christ, the Model Teacher, distinctly af- firmed his recognition of different classes of hear- ers, when he discoursed to the multitudes ; and he told his disciples plainly, that his manner of pre- senting truth was chosen in view of the fact that they were privileged to understand what his other hearers did not. His telling the truth in the form of parables, did not in itself teach his hearers ; but afterwards he taught to his disciples, that which not even they had learned from its mere telling. " There were gathered unto him great multitudes ; . . . and he spake to them many things in parables. . . . And [afterward] the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? And he answered and said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. . . . Therefore speak I to them in parables. . . . Hear you [now] therefore [the explanation of] the parable." Paul, also, had regard to the individual peculiarities of those whom he would teach, and adapted himself to them accordingly. " To the Jews, I became as a Jew, that I might gain Jews," he says. " To the weak I became weak, that I might gain the weak : I am become all things [by turns] to all [the different sorts of] men, that I may by all [these different] means save some." Paul would never have attempted to teach all the scholars in one class after the same pattern. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. The model teacher's method. All things to all. Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. cri ing a ] ption. Solomon's idea of wise training. A teacher's study of his every scholar is quite as important as his study of his every lesson ; and the former study ought, in fact, to precede the latter study ; for until you know whom you are to teach, how can you judge what is to be taught to him ? It has heen wisely said on this subject, that " a sick soul needs not a lecture on medicine, but a prescription." If you are to prescribe for a moral patient, you need to get down alongside of that patient, and to feel his pulse, and to look at his tongue, in order to know what is his precise condition, and what are his present requirements. With the highest attainable medical skill, and with a well-supplied apothecary's shop at his service, no physician could administer a prescription intelligently unless he knew who was his patient, and what were the nature and the stage of his disorder. Nor is a teacher more potent in his sphere, than is a physician in his. The best teacher in the world is not prepared to teach a Sunday- school class, until he knows the members of that class. He must know whom he is to Cause to know a truth, before he can fairly begin to cause that truth to be known. Solomon was wise enough, and even under Divine inspiration he was not too wise, to perceive and to point out the duty of treating each child as an individual personality, in all attempts at his training. " Train up [or, from the start, teach] a child [any child, every child] in the way he should go [not A Child's Own Way. 51 necessarily in the way of the other children; not in one and the same way for all children, but in his particular way, the way in which he, out of all the mass of humanity, ought to go ; whether any other child ever went that way before, or whether any other child will ever be suited to go that way again] : and [then] when he is old, he will not depart from it." That is Solomon's idea; although that is not the idea which popular error has twisted from that inspired injunction. As The Speaker's Commentary f?ays on this passage : " Instead of sanctioning a vigorous monotony of discipline under the notion that it is ' the right way ' [for all children, for all our scholars], the pro verb enjoins the closest possible study of each child's temperament, and the adapta- tion of his way to that." And as it is in training, so it is in teaching. Knowing the scholar individu- ally is essential to teaching the scholar fittingly. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. One way Jbr each. 52 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. Suppose the scholar does not study? n. YOU MUST KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TO TEACH. Scholars may Study, but Teachers must; A Boston Blunder ; Knowing about the Lesson, without Knowing the Lesson ; A Yorkshire Method ; What you must be Sure of. WHEN you fairly know whom you are to teach, then comes the question, "What are you to teach him? And until you know for yourself what you would cause your scholar to know for himself, you are, obviously, in no state of fitness to begin your work of causing him to know anything, of beginning your part in the twofold teaching process, the twofold learning process. You will ten times hear a teacher's complaint that his scholars do not study, where you once hear a teacher's admission that he goes to his class without knowing that which he seeks to cause his scholars to know. Yet a scholar's study in advance of the school-hour is not indispensable to a teacher's teach- ing, whereas a teacher's knowledge of that which he is to teach, is indispensable. Study on the scholar's part is very important in its place, important to the scholar in the exercise of his mental faculties, and Ears do not Make a Teacher. 53 in the storing of his mind ; but the scholar's pre- liminary study is no part of a teacher's teaching : it is not an element of the teaching process. That which a scholar has learned all by himself, before he and his teacher came together, the scholar deserves all credit for ; that which the teacher is to cause a scholar to know, must be the teacher's possession before he can make it the scholar's possession. If hearing a recitation were teaching, then it would not be necessary for a teacher to know in advance that which his scholar is to recite in the class. The real work in such a case would be the scholar's, in his preliminary study of the matter to be recited. The teacher's duty might be performed by a vigor- ous hold on the catechism, or the question book, or the Bible, in the class hour; and by the exercise of his lungs in asking the questions, or in giving the word for a start, the exercise of his eyes in following the lesson text and by the exercise of his ears in noting the recitation. Such " teaching " as that would not require any special preparation by the teacher for his class work, week by week. Much that is called teaching is, however, just that and no more; but calling it teaching does not make it teaching. It is not teaching, even if it is called that. Teaching involves and necessitates both a teacher and a scholar, and also a preliminary knowledge by the teacher of that which he is to cause the scholar to know by the aid of his teaching. PART L The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. If only hearing wert teaching. 54 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2 . Essen-tials of the Teaching Process. The way into the ditch. Ships and religion. It is obvious that we cannot intelligently cause another to know what we do not first know ourselves. The blind may, it is true, kindly undertake to lead the blind, but it is more than probable that both leader and led in such a case will, sooner or later, land in the ditch. There is a good deal of such leading, and d good deal of such landing, along our Sunday-school highways, at. the present day; but that does not, by any means, increase the desirable- ness of the method or of its results; nor does it change the nature of either. An inspired writer said of some would-be teachers, eighteen centuries ago : " For when by reason of the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need again that some one teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the ora- cles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of solid food." And that suggestion would have as much force in the case of a great many teachers now as it had then. In Boston Harbor there is a reformatory school-ship, on which boys are placed to learn the rudiments of navigation, and of mental and religious knowledge. One day, while the super- intendent of that school-ship was on shore, a stranger visited the vessel, and, according to custom, he ad- dressed the boys collectively. According, also, to a too common custom of talkers, if not of teachers, the stranger attempted to make use of illustrations with which he was unfamiliar, by indulging in nautical figures of speech, where he was at every disadvantage What is the Lesson f 55 with his bright sailor-boy hearers. When the super- intendent returned, he said to the boys, at their evening gathering for prayer, " Boys, I understand you had a stranger to talk to you to-day." "Yes, sir ! " " Yes, sir ! " came up from a hundred voices. " Well, what did he talk to you about ? " " About two things that he didn't understand ! " was the unexpected response from one sharp boy. " Why, what two things were those ? " " Ships and religion ! " was the witty answer, as giving the measure of that talker's knowledge of the topics he attempted to handle deftly. It would be well if no one since that stranger had attempted to teach what he did not understand. You are going to teach. Well, what are you going to teach ? " To teach Bible truth." But Bible truth is a large subject. You can hardly teach all of it at once. What part of it are you going to teach now ? " Oh! to-day's lesson, of course." What is to-day's lesson? It is Mark 5 : 21-43." I did n't ask where the lesson is, but what is it ? " It is ' Power over Disease and Death.' ' I didn't ask what the lesson is called, or what it is about, but what -is the lesson? " Why, the lesson is a number of verses out of Mark's Gospel, telling certain facts in the life of Jesus, showing his power to heal the sick and to raise the dead, and including several points of interest bear- ing on his knowledge as well as his power, and on the spirit of faith which he approved." Well, now PARTL The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essent als of the Teaching Process. Whatwfll you teach? 56 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. Are you ready ? the facts of this lesson clearly involve some points of geography and chronology, and of Jewish man- ners and customs in the days of Jesus ; are you thor- oughly familiar with all of these ? li Oh no ! I look upon such matters as of minor consequence." Very good, what do you look upon as of chief importance in this lesson ? Do you propose to teach the mere wards of the lesson, so that all your scholars can recite them ? or, the facts ? or, the involved doctrines? or, the practical applications of both facts and doc- trines? "Oh! I wouldn't confine my teachings to the mere memorizing of the words ; nor to the mere facts; yet I should want both words and facts to have a place in the teaching. And I should have in mind the doctrines and their applications, and I should try to teach more or less of them." Well, have you now fully in your mind the facts of this lesson, and the implied doctrines, and their applica- tions, which you propose to teach to your scholars as a class, and to one scholar and another of that class, as individuals ? Until you have all this in your mind, you are not fitted to teach all this to your scholars. If you have it in mind, it is because you as a teacher have made wise preparation so far for to-day's lesson teaching. One thing is sure, unless you know, before you begin to teach, just what you would cause your scholars to know by your teaching, they are not likely to know, when the class hour is over, just what you have caused them to know by your teaching. Examining the Patient. 57 If telling a thing were teaching that thing, the necessary preparation of a teacher for his teaching work would be greatly diminished. He would only have to fill his mind with such things as he deemed worth knowing, or worth telling, and then pour them out to his class in a stream of resistless elo- quence. He might then talk to his class about Bible geography, or Bible chronology, or the man- ners and customs of Bible lands, or the facts of the day's lesson, or the chief doctrines involved, or the applications of both facts and doctrines, just as he happened to think of these things, or as his class seemed to be interested in what he was saying. But all this could be done without any teaching whatsoever. There can be no teaching where nothing is learned. Until some one has been caused to know, the teaching attempted has not been a suc- cess is not a completed fact. Hence a teacher cannot know what he is to teach until he knows what he can teach at that time, to the scholar, or to the scholars, before hyn. He must not only know what he would tell to his class, but he must know what he can cause the members of his class to know with the help of his teaching. Because the sick soul needs not a lecture on medi- cine but a prescription, therefore it is essential, that he who would prescribe for a sick soul should not only know the peculiar capabilities and needs of his patient, but be familiar also with the nature and PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. What goes to complete teaching. 58 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. Sulphur and molasses for What it is necessary to know. strength of the medicine to be prescribed for the particular case under treatment. It might answer in Dotheboys Hall, before Mr. Dickens laid bare the methods of that Yorkshire institution, to prescribe a dose of sulphur and molasses for all the school- boys alike, on a winter's morning, whatever was the state of their appetites and digestive organs ; but that would hardly be called a wise medical treatment of the young in any first-class boarding-school at the present day. Nor does the fact that a similar mode of sup- plying all the scholars in a class or school with the same mental dose and that according to the teacher's fancy rather than the scholar's need still prevails in many a Sunday-school of our land, prove that there can be such a thing as intelligent teaching, where the teacher does not know that what he would like to teach can be put within the compre- hension, or is at all suited to the peculiar needs, of the scholars he essays to teach. The medicine itself must be known, and the size of a safe dose for the patient in hand must be. duly considered by the phy- sician, before there can be any wise prescribing for any patient, young or old. You must know what you can teach in this particular case, before it can fairly be said that you know what you are to teach. To know what you are to teach, necessitates an intelligent study of your lesson, while the scholars whom you are to teach are before your mind's eye as you are studying. You must consider well Your Scholars' Limits. 59 the capabilities and needs of your class as a whole, and of jour scholars individually. You must know what there is in the day's lesson, which it would be well for your scholars to know. You must know also whether or not your scholars can be made to know just that. If it is within the possibilities of their comprehension, then it is for you to get it fully and fairly into your mind, in order that it may be transferred to their minds. Until you know the lesson in this way, you do not know what you are to teach and surely you are not prepared for teaching until you know thus much ! PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. 60 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. No doing a thing \vithout knowing how. in. YOU MUST KNOW HOW YOU ARE TO TEACH. Knowing how is Essential to Well-doing ; A Doctor with all Kinds of Knowledge but One ; The Need of a Vent-hole ; Choosing your own Method. EVEN when you know accurately whom you are to teach, and what you are to teach, you still are unprepared to bear your part in the twofold teach- ing process, unless you know how you are to teach. The scholar being before you, and being well under- stood by you ; the truth which you would teach him, which you would aid him to learn, being well in yourmind, the question is still unanswered, How are you to teach him ? How are you to make him the mental possessor of that which is now your mind- treasure, and which you desire to have him possess ? In everything which needs doing, a knowledge of the method of doing is of prime importance. A man cannot milk a cow, or whitewash a garret, or make a shoe, or paint a picture, or write a book, or keep a hotel, or do anything else in this world, unless, perhaps, it is to fill a government office, without knowing how. The fact that the work The Young Doctor. 61 attempted is a religious one, does not make it any the less important that the doer should know how to do it. He who would preach, must know how to preach ; and he who would teach, must know how to teach. No man can call himself ready to teach, until he knows how he is to teach ; until he is not only acquainted with wise methods of teaching, but has decided upon his plan, in accordance with those methods, for the work immediately before him. It is one thing to have knowledge on any subject; it is quite another thing to be able to make that knowledge practically available to others. A young man goes through a course of study in medicine. He reads treatises in one branch and another of medical science, and medical practice; and he at- tends lecture after lecture from eminent professors in every branch. All this is very well in its way ; but it does not, in and of itself, make the young man a good physician. When the student is finally under examination for a medical diploma, it will not be deemed sufficient that he has attended the lec- tures regularly, and has studied the books faithfully ; nor yet, that his mind is stored with the great facts concerning the constitution and the disorders of the human body to which he is preparing to minister, and the nature and force of the remedies from which .he is to select for each case under treatment; he must also be able to say what he would do in a given PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. What a diploma cannot do. 62 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. Testing the young doctor's knowledge. emergency, how he would treat a particular case when it was before him. Imagine, for example, the examination of a medi- cal student : " Suppose you were called to see a man who had taken an overdose of laudanum, and was rapidly sinking; how would you treat the case?" u I should at once recognize his great danger, and my great responsibility, and I should want to do the very best I could for him." ' ' That is all very well, so far as your feelings and wishes go, but now, what is your knowledge of the thing to be done in this emergency ?" " Well, I think I ought to have some knowledge in that line. I have attended medical lectures for three years ; and the subject of poisons was handled at our college by one of the most dis- tinguished toxicologists in this country. Moreover, I have read on that subject as much as any young man of my age whom I know of." " You certainly seem to have had good opportunities of learning. And now we are trying to find out if you can put your knowledge to a good account. What would you do for this patient ? " " I should tell him plainly that his life depended on his getting that laudanum out of his stomach?" "Yes, but he might be already so drowsy that he couldn't hear you; or indeed he might not care to be cured; what then ? " " Oh ! I can't tell exactly what I would do in such a case. I have studied medicine faithfully. I know all about the human system, and all about Ready with a Plan. 63 drugs and medicines When I come to a case of any sort, I shall look at it as it is, and decide what it is best to do under the circumstances. I can't say beforehand just what I would do." " "Well, if you do not know how you would go to work to save a man who was sinking .under laudanum, or who had punctured the femoral artery, it would be too great a risk for the patient to be in your hands while you were deciding what was the proper mode of his treatment. He would be pretty sure to die on your hands in spite of all your lecture-hearing, and your home-studying. We shall not call you ready to practice medicine, until you know how to practice it in order to make it effective in a life and death matter of this kind." Just here a bystander interjects his view of meth- ods : " /never attended any medical lectures, nor read much on this subject, but I have seen the doctors treat some cases like the one you are talking about ; and if I were at hand when there was no one else to help, I would get such a man to swallow lukewarm water with mustard or soap in it, a pint at a time, and if that didn't answer, I would have my finger down his throat. And when that poison was out of him, I would have him take strong hot tea or coffee, and get him to bed; seeing to it that his respiration and pulse w'ere kept up, by artificial chafings and fomentations, and finally, that he had good rest and nourishment." " Well, now, that sounds practical." PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. Not prepared. Practical, even if not technical. 64 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials otthe Teaching Process. The need in every profes- sion. Teachers must know. It seems that the knowing how to do is the best kind of knowledge in such a case. It is all-important to the poisoned man that one who is treating him knows how to help him, even though he lacks the stores of other kinds of knowledge which fill the mind of a medical student who knows everything except the how to make his knowledge available. In every profession it is the same as in medicine ; and so it is in every occupation. A lawyer must not only know the law, and know his client's case, but he must know how to draw up his papers, how to make his motions, how to proceed at every step of the trial ; he must have a plan beforehand in the questioning, or the cross-questioning, of every witness on the stand, and in his method of bringing every man of the jury to see the case as he sees it. And what would an architect or a builder be worth, as a prac- tical matter, however much knowledge he had of styles, or details, of architecture, unless he knew how to arrange for the building material, so as to have each part fit the other parts, and to have every part ready just when and where it was wanted! From ruling a kingdom down to weeding an onion-bed, it is quite as important to know how to do what needs doing, as it is to have stores of knowledge concern- ing the things to be done. There is no class of persons in the' world who more need to have a knowledge of wise methods in their line of work, than Sunday-school teachers; A Too-full Barrel 65 and there are none who more commonly fail or fall short in their best endeavors because of their lack just here. Inasmuch as the essence of teaching is causing another to know, it is not enough that the teacher knows whom he woulcl teach, and what he would teach ; until he knows how he is to teach, he is yet unprepared for his teaching work. He must know the method by which he is to cause his scholar to know that which he knows, and which he wishes the other to know also ; or, his knowledge of both his subject and his scholar inevitably comes to naught. He may be brimful of Bible truth, and brimful also of a knowledge of human nature in general, and of his scholars in particular; brimful again of love for his subject and of love for his scholars; but all this threefold brimfulness is not sufficient to make him a teacher : nor can he be a teacher unless he knows how to teach, how to get some of his brimfulness into his scholars' brim- emptiness. Is not that obvious ? At a local Sunday-school convention in New Eng- land this question of knowing how to teach, was under discussion. "If only a teacher is full of his subject," said one speaker, " there will be no trouble in his knowing how to teach his class." " I don't agree to that," said another. " A barrel of cider may be so full that the cider won't run when you draw the tap ; it won't run, just because the barrel is so full. You must give some vent to that barrel else- PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. Too much brimfulness Lacking a vent. 66 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. Knowing more than you can teach. Choose your own method, where than at the tap ; and you must know where to put the vent." Fullness is by no means the only qualification of a good teacher ; nor is its lack the chief need in the Sunday-school teachers of to-day. Getting the vent-hole in the right place is quite as important as drawing the tap, in order to supply most of our Sunday-school classes with all that the teaching-barrel before them can furnish for their benefit. There are few Sunday-school teachers very few who do not know more about each lesson in hand than they know how to teach. If the aver- age Sunday-school teacher could cause every scholar of his class to know all that he knows of the les- son under consideration, there would be such an advancement in Bible knowledge as our fathers never dreamed of for this generation, and as we are not likely to see for some time to come. It is even affirmed by one of the most careful and accurate of our educational philosophers, that " it is a fallacy to assert that there is any necessary connection between knowing a subject and knowing how to teach it." If, however, these two kinds of knowl- edge have no necessary connection to begin with, they need to be connected in the mind of one who would prove himself a teacher. There are various methods of teaching. Not all subjects are to be taught in the same way. Not all teachers can use the same method. Not all methods are alike suited to every scholar. Nor are all Decide on Your Plan. 67 teachers to be instructed in the methods of teaching best adapted to them and to their classes, through the study of any one set of rules and precepts. It is for each teacher to decide for himself the method of teaching which, all things considered, is most desir- able for him, in the teaching of the lesson in hand to the particular scholars he is set to teach. The great question is, not, What are the different approved methods of teaching? not, What method of teaching is most commonly successful in the Sunday-school ? but, What method of teaching am I to adopt, in the teaching of this lesson, to this class ? or, How am I to cause these scholars to know these truths which I know, and which I want them to know ? That question settled, and there is another point gained in preparation for teaching. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 2. Essentials of the Teaching Process. Another point gained. THE TEACHING PROCESS. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 3. Elements of the Teaching Process. One and one and two. , 3. ITS ELEMENTS. PRELIMINARY STATEMENT. AND now we pass from the essentials for the teaching-process, to the several elements of that pro- cess; from that which is requisite for its attempting, to that which is involved in the act itself. The teaching-process "being, as is already shown, of a twofold nature, involving teaching on the one hand and learning on the other, its elements are three- fold, including a portion for each party separately, and a third portion for the two parties conjointly. The teacher must he ready to impart; the scholar must be ready to receive ; teacher and scholar must combine for the transfer. Neither party can com- plete the work without the other ; nor can the two parties complete the work without conjoint action. To begin with, the scholar must be attentive to the teacher who would cause him to learn. Then the teacher must make clear what he would have the scholar learn. Then the twofold work of the teach- From the Teacher's Stand-point. 69 ing-process, which is also the learning-process, can go on by the combined endeavor of the teacher and the learner. Hence it would appear that the elements of the teaching-process, as viewed from the standpoint of the teacher, are: Having the scholar's attention, making clear that which is to be taught, securing the scholar's co-work with the teacher. "Without these three elements the teaching-process cannot be complete. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 3. Elements of the Teaching Process. 70 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 3. Elements of the Teaching Process. The best and the worst. HAVING THE ATTENTION OF THOSE WOULD TEACH. YOU No Teaching without Attention; What Attention is; Attention on the f lay-ground ; Attention in the Army ; Attention in the Sunday- school ; Attention at Family Prayers; The Necessity of Holding Attention as well as Getting it. IT is obvious, that, even when the teacher has his scholar before him. ; has, also, in his own mind, well- defined facts or views, which he would transfer to the mind of his scholar ; and has, furthermore, a well-defined plan of teaching ; all this preparedness amounts to just nothing at all, unless the teacher has and holds the attention of his scholar. Without the attention of his scholar, the best teacher in the world cannot be a teacher to that scholar. Shake- speare says : " The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark, When neither is attended ; " and the poorest teacher can do no worse than the best teacher, when neither has attention. So far, perhaps, all will be ready to agree. Every teacher expects to have his scholars' attention ; and Attention Defined. 71 many a teacher flatters himself that he has it, T hen nothing like it is given to him. What is attention ? Attention is literally the stretching of one's self toward a thing : it is " the energetic application of the mind to any object," " with a view to perceive, understand, or comply." Attention involves the giving of one's self, by an intelligent surrender or devotion, to the one thing reached after, to the ex- clusion or forge tfulness, for the time. being, of every- thing else. Attention is something more than being silent ; silence is very often the result of listlessness or of slumber. Attention is something more than looking straight at the person or the thing needing attention : staring at vacancy gives all the fixity of gaze that the best attention calls for; but staring is by no means the giving of attention. Attention is some- thing more than hearing : one may hear the clatter of the steam-cars in which he rides, the din and rattle of the city streets along which he walks, or the rush and roar of the storm outside his house as he sits at home on a wintry night, and yet give no attention to that which he hears. His attention may be wholly on the book he is reading, the business mat- ter he is considering, or the picture he is examining, while the discordant sounds about him are heard without being heeded. Attention is something more than having an interest in a subject before one. Every man has an interest in his health, in his repu- tation, in his spiritual welfare ; but not every man PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 3. Elements of the Teaching Process. What atten- tion is. Hindrances to attention. Teaching and Teachers PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 3. Elements of the Teaching Process. Sporting list- lessly. gives attention to these things. He may even fail of attention to that which has more of his interest than anything else. The spirit may he willing and earnest, while the flesh is lethargic or weak. An overloaded stomach, or a hadly ventilated room, may keep a person from giving attention to words on a subject which has a vital and urgent interest to him. He came to the room expressly to hear about this; but just now he is dropping off into a doze, and he u doesn't care whether school keeps or not." Real attention includes looking at, listening to, being interested in, and, with a positive exercise of the will, reaching, out after, the thing demanding atten- tion. Until a scholar is thus attentive, no teacher on the face of the earth is capable of teaching that scholar. Let a boy have the bat in a game of cricket; what hope is there of his saving his wicket if he fails of attention to the movements of his opposing bowler ? How much would "a fielder" be worth, to catch the ball " on the fly," if he gave no attention to the bats- man, in a game of base-ball? Leave out attention, in a sportsman's gunning, and what would be his chances of success in the region of duck, or par- tridges ? Attention is no less a necessity in 'the more serious business of getting knowledge, than in the games and sports of life. Until you have attention you cannot begin the teaching process. There are a good many things which you would like to have The Military Standard. 73 in a scholar which, after all, you can get along with- out; but attention is not one of these. A scholar may lack knowledge, he may lack brightness, he may lack a good disposition, and yet he may be taught by you. But while a scholar lacks attention, teach- ing him is an impossibility. It is every way useless for a teacher to begin an effort at teaching until he has, in some way, secured the attention of his scholars. In military service, every plan and every move- ment are on a life-and-death basis. All that is said and all that is done, have an important part in making each man, who is either in authority or under authority, a success or a failure in that which he lives for, and for which he stands ready to die. Officers and men have a common interest and a two- fold work in that to which they have pledged them- selves, and which they have together undertaken. The power of the officers for that work is in and through their men. The efficiency of the men for that work is by and through the direction of their officers. Neither man nor officer amounts to any- thing without the other. There ought to be a les- son, then, in the method of securing the twofold work of officers and men in the army. However skilled are the officers, and however well disciplined and experienced are the men, before any movement is attempted, or any command to such movement is given,. the one word that always rings out from th? PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 3. Elements of the Teaching Process. A life-and- death basis. 74 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 3. Elements of the Teaching Process. " Attention ! Battalion I " commanding officer, as preliminary to his specific direction, is " Attention ! " There stand the soldiers, already in line, uniformed and trained alike. They are silent as the grave itself. Their eyes are on their commander, as if he were the only object of their sight. Their ears are open to the faintest whisper of his voice. Is not this enough ? Are those soldiers not already at attention? N"o; attention includes more than all this mere quiet passivity of being. There is an active, conscious, determined, earnest outstretching of one's self to heed and to co-work with the one who is to speak, which is essential to the act of attention. The commander's call, " Atten- tion ! Battalion ! " is as if he were to say, " Soldiers, I know you well. You know me. Our interests are one. I have words to speak to you, and I have work for you to do. Your lives and mine, and that which is dearer to us both than life itself, hinge on my wise direction and your faithful doing. Now, then, heed well, and be ready to do ! " The experience of cen- turies has taught soldiers that there is no hope of suc- cess in any army struggle unless the officers have first secured and are still holding their men's atten- tion. And all the experience of the world tends to show that untrained scholars have quite as much need as trained soldiers of giving attention to their leaders, in a work wherein leaders and led must act together or utterly fail. Yet it is a very difficult matter to get and to 1-^ld The Missing Class Books. 75 attention in a class ; and the lack of attention is more common and more disastrous in Sunday-school work than is commonly supposed. This in itself would be a reason, if other reasons were lacking, why telling a thing is not likely to be the teaching of that thing; for most of the telling in the Sunday-school is to those who are not giving their attention to the speaker. Professor Hart gives a striking illustration of this truth, out of his experience as superintendent of a Sunday-school in one of the more prominent churches of Philadelphia. He says : "In my own Sunday-school, I had neglected one morning to bring with me the teachers' class-books. After opening the school, I rang the bell as a signal for attention. [The fact that this was unusual, was a break in the ordinary course of the exercises, gave it an added and a special prominence before the entire school.] There was a general hush throughout the room. All eyes were turned to the desk. I said : t Your class- books, unfortunately, have been left behind this morning. They have been sent for, however, and they will soon be here. As soon as they come, I will bring them round to the several classes. In the meantime, you may go on with your regular lessons. 5 The bell was then tapped again, and the routine of the school resumed. In about a minute, a girl came up to the desk, with, ' Sir, teacher says, Will you please send her class-book ? it was not brought around, as usual, this morning, before school PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 3. Elements of the Teaching Process. Lack of attention is common and disastrous. 76 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 3. Elements of the Teaching Process. Inattention at family prayers. opened ! ' Here was a class of ten girls, averaging twelve years of age, and not one of them, nor their teacher, had heard or understood the notice, which I thought I had made so plain ! " Nor was the lack of attention thus indicated a marked exception in the experience of Sunday-school classes. If you think that attention is easily secured, or that it is commonly given by listeners of ordinary intelligence, test the matter, some time, in your home circle, at family prayers, when you are reading a Bible lesson. I have tried it in this way scores of times, and almost always with the same result. When all were seated, with the understanding that this was a religious service, and that the Bible read- ing was worthy of the attention of all, I have read a verse or two from the Bible, and then have suddenly asked a question as to the particular statements of the verses just read,' in order to see how many of my hearers had given their attention to the reading. Rarely have I obtained the correct answer from any one of those present. Of course this would have been different, had I announced, to begin with : " lam now going to read a verse, and then question you as to its statements. Please give your attention accord- ingly." My tests have been unexpectedly applied, for the purpose of ascertaining the ordinary attitude of the hearer, ' in the matter of attention. For example : I would read the passage in Mark 10 : 32-45, beginning : " And they were in the way, The Average Listener. 77 going up to Jerusalem ; and Jesus went before them : and they were amazed ; and as they followed, they were afraid. And he took again the twelve, and began to tell them what things should happen unto him." Now if I were to ask my questions about this verse while the very words themselves were ring- ing in the ears of the hearers, the right answers might be given through a recall of the still echoing sounds; therefore I would, as it were, break this echo by such a comment as this: "You will remember that this was not long after the Transfiguration." Then I would go on to ask : " By the way, how many of the disciples were with Jesus, just now?" Per- haps the answer, suggested by this mention of the Transfiguration, would be: "I think there w r ere three ; Peter, and James, and John." Or, again, one would say, " I don't recall how many were with Jesus, at this time." "But," I would say, "I have just read to you a verse which tells you how many were there." Yet, even then, it is quite likely that not one of my hearers could recall the statement as to "the twelve" which had been read to them, while they were not giving attention. So, again, if I were to ask : "Was Jesus at this time walking in the midst of his disciples? or were they just ahead of him?" or, " Can you tell me where the disciples were going when thisnncident occurred ? " Not one time in ten have I ever obtained a correct answer from even my more intelligent and thoughtful hearers, on such a PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 3. Elements of the Teaching Process. A sorry test, 78 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 3. Elements of the Teaching Process. Holding as well as having. test as this. And this is only one of many proofs that close attention is not easy to secure, nor is it com- monly secured, in ordinary religious services. Yet without having attention, the teaching-process must still wait for its very beginning. Nor is it less important to hold a scholar's atten- tion than to catch it. No teacher can begin to teach until he has caught the attention of his scholar. The moment that a teacher loses a scholar's attention, he ceases to be teaching that scholar. Holding the attention is as essential to a teacher's work, as keep- ing his balance is to a walker on a tight rope. In either case the loss is fatal to success. This being so, it is evident that a vital question to the teacher, as he begins his class-work, and at every moment as he goes on in it, is, not, Am I saying what needs to be said, and saying it so that these scholars ought to take it in ? but, Am I holding the attention of my scholars ? Failure at this point is, to say the least, a complete suspension of the teacher's work, and it ought to be so recognized by all. How to get atten- tion, and how to hold it, are matters in the art of teaching which are to be studied wisely, in view of one's personal characteristics and the peculiar needs and ways of his class ; but until a teacher realizes that he cannot begin to teach without having atten- tion, or continue to teach without holding attention, he fails as yet to apprehend one of the prime essen- tials of the teaching-process. A Means of Transfer. 79 n. MAKING CLEAR THAT WHICH YOU TEACH. Making Truth Clear is more than Declaring Truth; Intermediate Agencies in the Transfer of Ideas; Words Less Expressive than Visible Objects; Signs have not Always the Same Meaning; Speaking in Unknown Tongues ; Children's Impressions from Un- familiar Words; Cultivating Stupidity ; Getting the Return Message. WHEN a teacher, fully possessed of a truth worth teaching, fully familiar with wise methods of teach- ing, and fully acquainted with a scholar whom he would teach, finds himself face to face with that scholar, and the scholar, in turn, is there, all attent on receiving instruction, then comes the teacher's duty of making clear that which he would teach to the scholar ; and making a truth clear is something more than stating and declaring a truth ; often a great deal more. Truth cannot be transferred bodily from one mind to another ; it is always dependent for its transfer on some intermediate agency. The agency employed for the transfer of thought may be words, gestures, or visible objects, such as pictures, blocks, or figures ; but in any case the agency is, at the best, only a PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 3. Elements of the Teaching Process. Symbols of thought. 80 Teaching and Teachers. PART 1 The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTKR 3. Elements of the Teaching Process. Seeing i be a superfluous ajjpendage to a Sunday-school class. Why should not one of the scholars ask the questions from the book, in order to their answering by the other scholars in the class? In this way, a Sunday-school could be supplied with substitute- teachers at ten dollars a hundred, by any religious publishing house. And there are Sunday-schools where a supply of this sort would not make an observable diminution of the teaching-power in the several classes. The Bible itself may properly be in the hands of the teachers and of the scholars, for reference and Planning for the Eight Answer. 189 for cross-reference, in the process of teaching ; but even the Bible should not be referred to during the ordinary direct questioning in the teaching-process. Each statement of the text should be in the mind of the scholar, not in his eye, while he is being ques- tioned concerning its words and their meaning. When the intelligent memorizing of the text can be secured in advance, there is a decided gain in that method of having its words in mind ; but in the teaching-process proper, the co-work of teacher and scholar must be directed to the examination and understanding and applications of the lesson, through a simple, natural, and informal mode of questioning and answering, toward the desired end. In all your lesson-questioning, you must know before you frame each question just what answer you would have that question bring from your scholar, and you must so frame your question as to bring that answer, a^jd no other, as its natural and proper answer. If, indeed, you do not know what answer you are after, how can your scholar know what answer he shall give to you ? Of course, if you should be questioning your scholar about his personal feelings or opinions, or should be seeking informa- tion from him in matters beyond your own knowl- edge, the case would be very different. You could not then know what answer your question would bring from him. But, in lesson-questions which you are asking as a part of the teaching-process, you PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Having the text in mind. Know the answer you want. 190 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. How should your scholar know? All about Pilate. should always have the desired answer in mind, and shape your question for it accordingly. If you find, in any instance, that a question which you have put can fairly bring any other answer than the one you had in mind in its framing, you must accept that answer, when it comes to you, as so far a proper one; and if you still seek the other answer, you must try again, and by another question, for its obtaining. Yet just at this point many a scholar is checked and discouraged in his answering questions, by a teacher who questions clumsily, and then refuses to accept proper answers to his questions because they do not happen to be the very answers he had in his mind when he gave his vague and indefinite questions. Let me illustrate my meaning. I sat behind a teacher in a Sunday-school I visited. He had a class of bright lads, say from thirteen to fifteen years old. The day's lesson was "Jesus before the Governor." " What was Pila^ ?" asked the teacher. That seemed a good beginning. The question was a natural one. Why could not the scholars answer it ? Its shaping had not cost the teacher much thought. He little dreamed how much its answering would tax his scholars' powers. " What was Pilate?" "A Roman," answered one scholar. That was right, but it proved not to be the answer that the teacher looked for, and instead of accepting it as correct, and asking another question to bring the answer he wanted, he replied with sharp emphasis, " No, no. What was Pilate ? 191 What was Pilate ? " The boy, who had done his best, and had given a correct answer only to be told he was wrong, did not try again. Why should he? Another answered, " A foreigner." Right again, but the teacher's comment was, " No, no. What was Pilate ? " After some hard thinking, it seemed to strike one of the boys that possibly the teacher wanted to clas- sify Pilate in the order of beings, and he answered, "A man." This also was fair answer to the question, but the teacher received it as if it were a triumph of stupidity, and he snapped out his response as if he Vvere calling the class a pack of dunces, "No, NO, KO. What was Pilate ? " As simple answers did not seem to suit, the boys set their busy brains at work, and it occurred to one that the character of Pilate was perhaps to be passed on, so the answer came, "A coward." The teacher was in despair. His scholars were hopeless. It was of no use trying to make them learn anything. He would answer the question himself, " ~No ! " he replied to the suggested answer; "Pilate was the -governor." The tone in which he gave this information showed that he was ashamed of his scholars, and his scholars were apparently somewhat ashamed of themselves. It would not take that teacher long to have his scholars so that they would answer no questions in his class. What was the trouble in this case ? It certainly was not with the scholars. They did their best. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. What Is truth? 192 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. The teacher at fault. Look to your- self. Their answers were as good as could have been looked for. They did a great deal more thinking than their teacher. I followed them with my mind, as they were questioned, and I could not imagine what answer their teacher was after. The trouble with his question was, it was quite too indefinite ; it did not indicate the kind of information which he wanted. But still he put the blame on the boys, which fairly belonged on their teacher. He would not learn from them. When he asked, " What was Pilate?" and they answered, " A Roman," he should have replied, " Yes," and then have asked farther, " And what office did he hold ? " or some such ques- tion, to bring out the desired answer. If his original question was the best he could think of, he ought to have seen by its first response that another form was? needed to indicate the information he sought. Whenever a strange answer comes to a teacher's question, the teacher should try to see if it is not a fair answer, even though it be an unexpected one. If it is fair, he should receive it as correct, and ask himself how his question can be improved on, or supplemented, for his special purpose. The average scholar's answers are better, more thoughtful and appropriate, than the average teacher's questions. Bear this fact in mind while before your class, and understand, when no answer, or a wrong answer, comes to one of your questions, that the trouble is probably not with your scholars, but with the question you The Worth of Scholars' Questions. 193 have put to them. Re-shape that, and you may find your scholars brighter than you had supposed. Not only are the questions of the teacher to be made much of in securing the co-work of the schol- ars; but the questions of the scholars can do not a little in this direction. A question from a scholar often discloses more of his thoughts, and more of his "needs, than would appear through a score of questions from his teacher. A good teacher ought to train his scholars to imitate the Holy Child, who while he was yet but twelve years of age was in one of the Bible-schools of the temple-courts, sit- ting as a scholar before the teachers there, "both hearing them and asking them questions," as was the custom in his day in the Jewish schools, and as ought to be the custom in Christian schools in our day. Children love to ask questions. It is for their advantage, and for the advantage of the teachers also, that they be encouraged to question their teachers freely in the * hour of co-work for lesson- learning. Nor should the help of the scholars' eyes be over- looked in the effort at securing the co-work of schol- ars and teachers. Here is where the Bible itself may be found useful. Other verses than those of the lesson are to be sought out. Several passages are, perhaps, to be brought into comparison with the one now in hand. One scholar may be asked to find one passage, in his Bible; another, to look up another; PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Let the schol- ars question. Using their 194 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Class-slates. Map-draw- ing. and so on. Or, again, all may be asked to look at one passage at the same time. Again, it may be well to refer to a map in one of the Teachers' Bibles, in pointing out the place or places mentioned in the lesson. All may bend together over a common map, or each one may have his own map for separate reference. The use of slates .in the class has already been several times referred to. Well used, these slates can add much to the interest and profit of the school exercises. Small folding silicate slates are the most convenient. Each scholar can have one ; so also can the teacher. There need be nothing for- mal or constrained in the use of these slates. They are to be used when wanted, not otherwise. They will be found more and more helpful by those who use them most freely. When, for example, a lesson treats of the Tabernacle, or of the Temple, the form of that sanctuary can be better understood, in many classes, through the scholars sketching on their slates the outline of the holy place and the holy of holies, and marking there the location of the ark, of the can- dlestick, of the altar of burnt-offering, and of the other furniture, at the call, and, if necessary, with the help, of the teacher. So, again, the slates can be used for rude map drawing, or for noting the rela- tive positions and distances of places mentioned in the lesson-text. Even when no material objects are to be noted, it Using the Class-Slates. 195 may be an advantage to a scholar to observe and write down the main points and central truth of the lesson of the day, as they are successively emphasized by his teacher. As the principal divisions of the lesson are brought out, one by one, by the teacher, they can go down on the left-hand side of the schol- ars' slates. Then a proof text from the Bible may be entered on the right-hand side, over against each division. These texts may be noted in the class, or they may be afterwards looked up at home by the scholar, and shown to the teacher the next Sunday. Each scholar may be asked to write on his slate, at the close of the hour, the one important lesson he has personally received from the day's lesson, that it may stand out clearly in his own mind and be recog- nized by his teacher. A single text of Scripture to enforce the teachings of the day may be entered on the slates, to be memorized by the scholars and recited subsequently. The scholars may be asked to show the slates to their parents on their return home, and to request their parents to question them on the meaning of what is written there. The slates may be brought again the next Sunday, either with or without the notes on them, that the truths emphasized may be reviewed at the opening of the school, from sight or memory. Or the scholars may be induced to bring their own outline of the new lesson on their slates, for the teacher's examination ; and, thus, co-work, all PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Noting the main points. Carrying them home* 196 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Tea- hing Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Co- work, with the slate. All three at once. the week through, will be promoted. The scholars are certainly likely to have an added interest in the lesson, and to leave the class with a better under- standing of its facts and teachings, if they have writ- ten down its main divisions, or have noted its appli- cation to themselves. Attention is also fixed and held in the class through a call to look at the teacher's slate, as he outlines an object, or notes a division of the lesson ; with a request that the scholars will put the same on their slates. Many a teacher has gained a new hold on his class through the introduction and judicious use of slates. It will be a surprise to almost any teacher who has not before made use of them, to find how frequently they come into service, and how important a place they fill, when once they are available in his class. And so, in one way and another, the co-work of scholars and teachers can be secured in the progress of the teaching-process. And so, in one way or another, the co-w T ork of scholars and teachers must be secured, or there is no progress in, and no possible completion of, the teaching-process, which is the learning-process. Although the three phases of the threefold teach- ing-process attention, on the scholar's part; making truth clear, on the part of the teacher; co-work, by teacher and scholar, in the transfer of truth from the A Threefold Process. 197 mind of the teacher to the mind of the scholar have now been treated separately in their examina- tion and enforcement, it is to be understood that they are not separate and distinct processes, but are inter- working phases of the one threefold process. A teacher is not to see to it, that at one time his scholar gives him his attention, that at another time he makes clear the truth he would teach to that scholar, and that at yet another time he and the scholar co-work to a common end. On the contrary, the teacher is to see to it that, at all times while he is teaching : he has his scholar's attention, he is making clear what he would teach, and he and his scholar are co-working in the teaching-process. The co-working is, in fact, to go on from the beginning of the lesson - exercise ; the scholar meanwhile giving his attention, and the teacher making clear that which he would teach. And so the teaching-process which is the learning-process must go on, if it goes on at all. Up to this point, only the essential elements of the teaching-process have been considered; only those things without which the teaching-process cannot be complete. It is now time, however, to speak of reviewing as an element of successful teaching; and although it must be conceded that teaching is possi- PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Going on together. The next step. 198 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Reviewing is also threefold "ble without reviewing, it can fairly be claimed that there is no certainty of the completion of the teaching- process without a measure of reviewing, and that the highest attainment of the teaching- process is impossible except in conjunction with wise reviewing. Hence, the methods of reviewing cannot fairly be omitted from the methods of the teaching-process. " Reviewing" is a term much misunderstood. It is often looked upon as synonymous with " reitera- tion," or as " repetition," or as " recapitulation," or as " revision ;." yet, in fact, it means a great deal more than any one of these terms, or, perhaps, than them all. Reviewing, like any other phase of the teaching-process, has its threefold aspects, including one aspect for the scholar, one aspect for the teacher, and one aspect for teacher and scholar conjointly. Reviewing includes the testing of the scholar's knowledge, the fastening more firmly the truth taught by the teacher, and the new-viewing, by teacher and scholar, of the lesson, or lessons, as a whole. Reviewing goes to show what the scholar has learned, to fix what the teacher has taught, and to bring before teacher and scholar all that which has been taught or learned, into new light and into new re- lations. On the success of reviewing, therefore, hinges the measure of success of the entire teaching- process. The Need of Review- Tests. 199 METHODS: IN REVIEW. I. TESTING THE SCHOLARS KNOWLEDGE. Examinations Needful in all Schools; A New Application of Pharaoh's Dream ; Necessity of Frequent Testings ; Elijah and Ahab ; One Scholar's Progress ; Methods of Test Questioning ; Father Paxson's Trouble; Getting what You Want,- The Test in Testing. EXAMINATIONS are counted essential in all schools but the Sunday-school. It is universally understood that a scholar can, in one way and another, pass the ordinary class recitations fairly well, without being a master of the lessons gone over; and the examina- tions at the close of a week, or a month, or a year, are relied on for the testing of the real attainment made by the scholars in any branch of study except Bible study. But Bible knowledge is to be secured through the same mental processes as any other knowledge, and the testing of the knowledge gained by a scholar in the study of the Bible must be by the same method as his testing in any other department of knowledge. Hence the examination of a scholar by some method of reviewing is essential to the test- PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Testing is needful. 200 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Pharaoh's dream. A Sunday- school famine. ing to the ascertaining of that scholar's knowledge in the line of his Bible lessons thus far. Review-Sunday examinations are not always cal- culated to encourage a teacher concerning the pro- gress of his scholars, or the success of his work; but they are none the less important for all that. Pha- raoh's dream, which Joseph interpreted, seems to have had something of the nature of a review- examination, as that testing-time shows itself in many a Sunday-school. The "seven kine, fat-fleshed and well-favored," which came up out of the river, may pass for so many well-selected Bible lessons. The " meadow " in which those kine were feeding answers to the Sunday-school. " The seven other kine," that were " poor and very ill-favored and lean- fleshed," represent a too common style of scholars in our Sunday-school. Those ate up the first kine, without being the fuller for it. These devour the lessons which are found in the Sunday-school meadow ; but they give very little evidence of their good feeding. "The lean and the ill-favored kine did eat up the first seven fat kine : and when they had eaten them up, it could not be known that they had eaten them; but they were still ill-favored, as at the begin- ning." A great many scholars have nothing to show for their seven weeks, or their seven months, of abundant feeding in the Sunday-school meadow. Joseph told Pharaoh that this state of things in his i day indicated a danger of famine, in the meadows What Have the Scholars Gained f 201 of Egypt. It is fair to take a similar view of the danger at the present time, in the application of this dream to our Sunday-school meadow. When review-Sunday brings the testing-time which this dream would seem to illustrate, every teacher ought to face the question : What have your scholars gained from the study of the past quarter's lessons ? You have taught your scholars twelve lessons : have your scholars anything to show for them ? Can your scholars recall the main facts of those lessons ? Can they re-state the spiritual teachings or the practical applications of those lessons ? If indeed the exami- nation shows that, so far as assimilated Bible nour- ishment is concerned, your scholars are as poor and as lean-fleshed and as ill-favored as at the beginning, so that it cannot be known through the testing-pro- cess that they have had anything to eat since they came up into the Sunday-school meadow, you have good reason to be disturbed, and to set yourself at work vigorously to guard your scholars against the famine which imperils them. Whether it be dis- heartening or cheering to you, a review-examination of your scholars is essential to your understanding of their success and your success, in your and their common work; for not what the scholars have studied, but what they have to show for their study- ing, is the real measure of progress in your class ; as it is in every other teacher's class. Nor is it only by a periodical and formal, far less PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching The real test of progress. 202 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Informal reviewing. teachers experience. is it only by a written, examination of a series of Bible lessons gone over by a scholar, that a scholar is to be tested as to the knowledge gained by him, in his studies, or through his teacher's teaching of him. The testing-work must go on in conjunction with the other portions of the teaching-process ; and the reviewing must be frequent, and at times infor- mal, as well as being also at stated times and more formal : at the close of one day's lesson, at the open- ing of the lesson the next Sunday ; sometimes in mid- lesson, again at the close-of the month, or the quarter, and so on, all through the period of a teacher's work of teaching. Most teachers would be surprised at finding, by any fair testing of their work, how little, compara- tively, has been gained by their scholars, or rather how much which they supposed they had made clear has been missed by their scholars, in any lesson, or in any series of lessons of their teaching. And here is one of the real advantages of the testing nature of review-methods in the teaching-process. One of my daughters, who seemingly had real tact in dealing with little children, and who certainly had unusual love for the teaching-work, had a good illustrative experience in this line, at the very begin- ning of her Sunday-school teaching life. The class given to her was composed of children just out from the primary department. The lesson for the day was about Elijah and Ahab. My daughter delighted What One Test Revealed. 203 in pictorial, or descriptive, teaching. Graphically and vividly she pictured in simple language the appearance of Ahab and Elijah, explaining at every point the characteristics and relative positions and circumstances of Ahab, the idolatrous king of Israel, and of Elijah, the rugged and courageous prophet of Jehovah. The children listened as for their lives. They were all attention. There could be no doubt on that point. And when she had finished that story, she proceeded confidently to test her scholars' knowledge of it. Addressing a young girl, whose large bright eyes had never turned from her teacher's face during the spirited recital, and who was still all attent on her teacher's words, she said pleasantly : " And now I want to see what you re- member of what I have told you. "Who was this Ahab ? " The child's answer came back promptly, " God." That was discouraging. My daughter came home with a heavy heart, and told me of her failure. To her this was a mystery. To my mind it was perfectly explicable. That little girl was not lacking in natural brightness, but she had never been trained to independent thought. She had listened to the story with hearty interest, and had, probably, even gained a general impression of its main tenor. But she was unaccustomed to stop and reflect on what she had heard, and a direct question like the one given her, concerning the details of a narrative to PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Who was Ahab? A lack of training. 204 Teaching and Teachers. PABT I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process Meeting the difficulty. 1'rogress nnder wise methods. which she had just listened, was only a bewilderment to her. There was no reason why she should give one answer rather than another, save that "God" would seem to be a safe answer, a "good" answer, to any Sunday-school question; so that was ventured on with a grotesque inaptness. All this I explained to my daughter, and then I gave her some of these prac- tical points about the essentials and the methods of the teaching-process, emphasizing especially the im- portance of carrying her scholars along with her in co-work, and of testing their knowledge sentence by sentence as she made the truth clear to them, until they were more accustomed to study and to reflection, as supplemental to their attentive hearing. It may be well to adc that by these methods that teacher brought that scholar steadily, and even rapidly, forward in habits of Bible-study, so that at the close of the first year in that class, that same scholar stood first on the list for accuracy and com- pleteness, in a written examination of an entire quarter's lessons, first not in her class alone, but in a school of several hundred scholars. So it may be seen, that the testing of a scholar's knowledge by some method of reviewing may, on the one hand, be a means of immediate confusion and regret, and, on the other hand, may tend to the ultimate bringing of a scholar into habits of thoughtful endeavor, which but for some such method would never have been cultivated properly. Methods of Testing. 205 The methods of testing a scholar's knowledge are quite as simple as the methods of teaching truth to a scholar. In fact, he who can teach, will have no difficulty in testing the results of his teaching. The real harrier to the testing-process, which stands in the way of its exercise by many a teacher, is the fact that no teaching-process has gone hefore it. If a " teacher " has been contented with telling truth to a scholar, he has not taught that scholar ; hence it will not be easy for him to test the results of a teaching which never existed. Moreover, as intelli- gent questioning is a chief agency in the testing- process while it has no part in the telling-process, the teacher who relies on telling as a means of teach- ing is naturally unskilled in the true testing method. He, also, who has counted the hearing of a recita- tion as teaching, has not even attempted the impart- ing of knowledge to his scholar, and there is no reasonableness in an effort by him to test the efficacy of a teaching-process which he has never undertaken. Even though he has asked the scholar a series of printed questions as a means of securing the schol- ar's recitation, he has acquired thereby no experience which would aid him in asking other questions which should test the scholar's real knowledge of the subject matter of his recitation. If, indeed, there were testing-questions printed in the " lesson- help," the teacher might ask them of the scholar, and they would go for what they were w r orth. But PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. No teaching, no testing. 206 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Asking test- questions. that would be the lesson-help's testing of its own work ; not the teacher's testing of his work. The first thing for a teacher to consider in the testing-process is the question of what he has tried to teach the scholar, and what he wants the scholar to have in his mind. When the teacher is clear on these points, it is a very simple and a very easy thing to ask questions of the scholar accordingly. Take, for example, that lesson on Elijah and Ahah. After the teacher has endeavored to cause the scholar to know who Ahab was, and who Elijah was (not by merely telling the truth to the scholar, but by means of the teaching-process proper, including the ques- tioning of the scholar on these points before giving the needful information), then the teacher desires to test his scholar's knowledge so far. He may begin in this way : " How many men have I told you about?" ""What was the name of one of them ?" " What was the name of the other? " What office (or what rank, or station, or place) did one of these men hold ? " " What was the office (or mission) of the other?" "Which was the king?" Which was the prophet ? " " What is a king ? " " What is a prophet?" " Tell me what you can about Ahab." " Tell me what you can about Elijah." Questions like these would test quite fully the knowledge of any scholar on this starting point of the lesson; and some such testing as this is an important element in perfect- ing, and in giving proof of, the teaching-process. Knowing What You Are to Test. 207 A few testing-questions might well be asked at the close of every lesson, and again at the beginning of every subsequent one. In shaping these ques- tions, a teacher ought to have clearly in his mind just that portion of the truth he has endeavored to teach, which he deems it most i mportant for his scholar to know and remember. The absence of this knowledge in the teacher's mind is the chief difficulty in the way of review-questions for testing purposes by the average Sunday-school teacher. Good " Father Paxson," the veteran Sunday-school missionary of the West, used to tell of his first day in Sunday- school, when he was set to teach a class, while yet he had no experience as either scholar or teacher. He heard the scholars recite their memorized Bible verses faithfully ; and he had the idea as so many still have it that that was teaching a class. Then the scholars asked him if he would question them on their lesson ; if he would ask them testing-ques- tions. But that was quite out of his range of think- ing. " I told them," he afterwards said, " that there was nothing in particular in that lesson that I wanted to inquire about." And many a teacher since his day has failed of asking testing-questions of his scholars for the same reason as Father Paxson's there is nothing in particular in the lesson, which the teacher has tried to teach, or concerning which he wants to test the knowledge of his scholars. But when a teat-her has tried to teach anything in par- PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Father Pax- son's first teaching. Nothing to inquire about. 208 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. What to ques- tion about. The test in testing. tieular he has no trouble in testing the success of his endeavor. The same standard of questioning for a series of lessons, during a month, or a quarter, or a year, should be recognized by a teacher in the testing of his scholars, as for a single lesson. What did you seek to cause your scholars to know during that period ? Question about that. If, indeed, you count the titles and topics and golden texts of the lessons the chief matters of concern in the quarter's lessons, by all means confine your test-questions to them. If, however, you have tried to fasten the main facts of the lessons severally in your scholars' minds, let your test questions be directed to them. If, again, you have given a chief place to the teach- ings and applications of the lessons as they came before your class, your questions should be shaped accordingly, in the testing of your work in its review. Whether it be bones, or solid meat, or nutritious juice, that you would have the scholars lay hold of for their nourishment, see to it that your scholars understand your desire, and that your testing-ques- tions be all conformed to your deliberate and care- fully matured plan. And bear ever in mind this truth, as both an in- centive and a guide in your test-questioning : The true measure of your scholar's knowledge on any subject of study, is not what you have declared to him, not what he seemed to understand of your A Test of the Teacher's Success. 209 teaching, but what he can re-state to you in his own language as you and he go over it again together. It is a very common thing for us to say, when we are asked about one thing or another about something that we have often had in our minds that we know all about it, but cannot express our knowledge in words. As a rule, this is not a true statement of the case. If we have definite knowledge on a given subject of inquiry, we can express that knowledge in words; and just to the extent of our inability to so express ourselves, are we lacking in definiteness of knowledge. The truth is, that we have a good many vague ideas on many a subject, which we con- found with real knowledge of that subject. And so it is with our scholars. Test-questioning, therefore, is a test of the teacher's success quite as fully as it is of the scholar's attainment. It is alike important and valuable to both teacher and scholar. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. If you know, say so. 210 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. A threefold gain. n. FASTENING THE TRUTH TAUGHT. Over and Over Again; A Lesson from the Jesuits; How Much Reviewing is in Order ; Our Liability to Forget ; The Method of Jesus: Paul's Method; Repetition as a Pulpit Power; Repetition in Literature; Class Methods of Repetition. IT is not alone in testing the measure of knowledge already imparted to the scholar, that the work of re- viewing has its importance and value, in connection with the teaching-process. Reviewing has also much to do with deciding the measure of knowledge se- cured by the scholar. Reviewing, not only shows how much the scholar has been caused to know of the truth which his teacher has brought before him ; it also causes the scholar to know much that other- wise he would not know ; and, again, it enables him to continue to know much that he was caused to know, for the time being, but which he would again cease to know, if he were never reviewed in his attainments of knowledge. We rarely learn a truth, or a thing, by a single hearing or a single effort at doing. A little child has, commonly, to have a word said over to him Over and Over Again. 211 /nany times before he can say it plainly himself. As he grows older, he has to practice his lessons repeat- edly, in order to their learning. So simple a thing as the drawing of a straight line, or the making of the letters of the alphabet, is not to be done off-hand at the first showing how. Seldom can even a sincere lover of music catch a new tune which fastens his attention and delights his ear, if he hears it no more than once. And there are not many who, in the full maturity of their powers, can make their own, by a single reading, an attractive poem, which they under- stand at the fullest, and which takes a hold of their innermost being in its thought and phrasing. Men of the strongest mental powers want to read over and over again those books which they value most ; and their feeling is, that they could not learn all that those books can teach them without these repeated readings. And so it is, all the way along from child- hood to maturity : reviewing a truth once learned is essential to fastening that truth firmly in the mind that has received it. The schools of the Jesuits, as perfected under Aquaviva, three centuries ago, were quite in advance of anything the world had yet known in the educa- tional line ; and their power and effectiveness were such as to stay, in large measure, the progress of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. The methods of those schools are still worthy of imitation at many points. In their system of teaching, reviewing, as a PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4- Methods of the Teaching Process. Reviewing essential to keeping. The schools of the Jesuits. 212 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Once learn : twice repeat. The more you review, the more you gain. means of fastening the truth taught, was given a large prominence. On this point, Robert Herbert Quick says : " One of the maxims of this system was : Repetitio mater studiorum [Repetition is the mother of studies]. Every lesson was connected with two repetitions : one, before it began, of preceding work, and the other, at the close, of the wo^rk just done. Besides this, one day a week was devoted entirely to repetition. In the three lowest classes the desire of laying a solid foundation even led to the second six months in the year being given to again going over the work of the first six months. By this means, boys of extraordinary ability could pass through these forms in eighteen months, instead of three years." It is probably true, that the relative degrees of attainment in knowledge by scholars in different classes, under teachers of the same grade of ability, in our Sunday-schools, are in direct proportion to the frequency and thoroughness of reviewing by the teachers severally. It is probably also true, that from one-quarter to one-half of the entire time oc- cupied by a teacher in the teaching-process could be employed to advantage in one form or another of reviewing, in any and every class. This may in- deed seem a strange statement, to those teachers who are at a loss to know what to do when review- Sunday comes round, four times in a year ; but the more teaching and the better teaching a teacher Knowledge Fastened by Reviewing. 213 does between review-times, the more does a teacher value the opportunity of reviewing his work, and the better use does he make of such an opportunity. It might, indeed, be better for a teacher to give only four Sundays of the year to original teaching, and spend the other forty-eight Sundays in review- ing the new work of those four, than for him to fail in taking at least four Sundays in the year for the reviewing of the work of forty-eight, if the choice between these two methods had to be made. In the one case, the scholars would be likely to know at least four lessons very thoroughly. In the other case, the scholars would not be likely to have any one lesson firmly and intelligently fastened in the mind. If any one lesson were thus fastened, the teacher could not be sure of the fact, without the test of reviewing. Even those truths which have been fairly learned, are not sure to be retained in the memory without reviewing. Whatever may be said of the indelible- ness of impressions once made on the mind, it must be admitted that not all which we have known, at one time and another, is permanently available in our memories. Much that we formerly knew well, is now as if we had never known it. "Who of us can recall clearly every verse of poetry which he ever recited with ase ? Who of us can remember distinctly every anecdote which he ever told or knew ? Who of us carries in his mind, unfailingly, PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Four lessons well learned. Forgotten knowledge 214 Teaching and Teachers. PARTI. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Keeping kuowled^ fresh. Losing one's own tongue. all the explanations concerning the modes of manu- facture and the ways of working, of everything into which at any time he looked inquiringly and intelli- gently ? Who of us knows, so as to make the knowledge available, the full contents of one book in ten of those books which he has read or studied most carefully, or which, at the time, he mastered most successfully ? If, indeed, we do carry any of these things always in our mind, is it not because we have had reason to review the truths of our first learning, on more than one occasion, subsequently ? It is not merely in those things which were learned only for the time being, that reviewing is essential to their fresh retention in the memory. It is the same with many of those things which were learned most thoroughly and as for all time. Even our " mother tongue " is no exception to this. Take a child who has already learned to speak and read and write in his own language, and carry him over the ocean to live among those whose language is wholly different, and he is liable to lose the memory of the language which once filled all his mind, and was as familiar to him as his own breathing. This was the case with Dr. Yung Wing, the Chinese student, who had his second education in America. After his graduation from Yale College, wiien he decided to return to his native land, with %,noble purpose in behalf of those who were of his own blood, he found himself necessitated to learn the Chinese language Times and Methods of Reviewing. 215 over again ; because it had not been reviewed by him in all the years of his absence from China. And so it has been with many another person. "Without frequent reviewing, truths once learned by us most thoroughly are liable to pass from our memories; and, again, the truths which are now fresh in our minds will fail to become a permanency there. And if this be so with all of us, there is peculiar need of frequent reviewing in the process of teaching which is a process of causing our scholars to know that which we would have them to know for now and for always. The times and the methods of wise reviewing for the purpose of fastening truth in the scholar's mind, are not materially different from those which are desirable for the testing of the attainment in knowl- edge already made by the scholar. That which is most important to be remembered should be given largest prominence in reviewing. In many cases a truth should be reviewed, or repeated, or reiterated, at the time of its first mention. That was the way in which our Lord and his disciples frequently im- pressed a truth to which they attached peculiar importance ; sometimes with a slight change in the phraseology and meaning, and again in the very words first employed. " Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! And the disciples were amazed at his words. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Causing to know for always. Our Lord reviewing. 216 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. A threefold cord. Kejoice. Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, Chil- dren, how hard it is for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God ! It is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven." Again, " Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord ; thou kuowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith to him the second time, Simon, son of John, lovest thou me ? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord ; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Tend my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of John, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me ? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep." Can any one doubt that these truths were more firmly fastened in the minds of their hearers by their threefold repetition in immediate review ? Nor was that an uncommon method with our Lord, in his teaching. Paul wanted his Philippian converts to have joy in the Lord's service. After he had already used the words "joy," and " rejoice," nearly a dozen, times in his one letter, he goes on to repeat his in- junction to rejoice, with a defense of his reiterations of that injunction : " Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to Dr. Griffin's Text. 217 me indeed is not irksome, but for you it is safe." And then, to give added force to his often repeated injunction, he says: "Rejoice in the Lord alway: again I will say, Rejoice." It ought not to be irk- some to any teacher, to review his scholars in an important truth which he would have fastened in Uheir minds ; and to them it is safe. It was in that same letter to the Philippians, that Paul said again, of his review-methods, " Many walk, of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping." Old Thomas Fuller says of this improvement in Paul's later form of putting the truth : " Formerly he had taught it with his tongue, but now he taught it with his tears ; formerly he taught it with words, but now with weeping." There has been no time since the days of Paul when there was not an added power in simple repetition, as a means of fastening a truth in the minds of hearers or readers. Many a preacher gives a trip-hammer force to the text from which he preaches, by bringing it down on the ears of his hearers at the conclusion of every section if not, indeed, of every few sentences of his discourse, until that text is sure to be remembered by all who listen to him, even if nothing else that he brings to them finds a sure lodgment in their memories. The story is told of Dr. Edward Dorr Griffin, preaching a remarkable sermon during one of his earlier pastorates, at a season of spiritual declension, PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Tougue and tears. A trip- hammer text 218 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. A threefold cord. Refrains and choruses. when he fastened the attention and impressed the minds of all his hearers, before he had uttered a single word of his own, by the simple threefold repetition of his text, in solemn earnestness: "My soul, wait thou only upon God ; for my expectation is from him." "My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him." " My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him." That threefold repetition of the text was a whole sermon in itself. The preacher did not lose the hold thus gained on his hearers, until his whole congregation was swayed with strong emo- tion under the power of his message from God to them ; and that sermon was the beginning of a great awakening in his field of labor. The power of repetition, as a means of impressing and fastening a thought or a truth, is evidenced in all the varied range of literature. It is shown in those refrains and choruses of popular songs, which are remembered when all the other lines or verses are forgotten. It stands out in those reiterated words which make and mark the remembered burden of a poem, like the " Nevermore," of Poe's Raven, the " Stitch, stitch, stitch," of Hood's Song of the Shirt, or the " Break, break, break," of Tennyson's Song of the Sea. And it is scarcely less prominent in the prose, than in the poetry, of secular literature. Dick- ens often fixes the lesson of one of his plainly marked characters by the tireless repetition of a single dis- When to JReview. 219 tinctive or idiosyncratic phrase, in connection with that character, such as Mr. Toots's, " It's of no con- sequence ; " Captain Cuttle's, " When found, make a note on; " and Mr. Micawher's, " Until something turns up." Again, it is in the ceaseless knitting, knitting, knitting, of the heartless enemy of a hated race ; in the ever-recurring sound of the echoing footsteps of progressing destiny; and in the grim sawing, sawing, sawing, of the blood-craving citizen, that his Tale of Two Cities has its more thrilling effectiveness. And so it is to a greater or less degree in the work of other impressive writers. It would, indeed, he a pity if the Sunday-school teacher were not to avail himself of this recognized power of reiteration and repetition as a means of enforcing and fixing the truths he is teaching. A few review questions on last Sunday's lesson may wisely he asked at the beginning of each Sun- day's teaching exercise. A few questions tending to bring out the chief points of the day's teaching may follow at the close of that exercise. All the way along in one's teaching work, review questions, designed to bring up afresh and fasten anew impor- tant truths which the teacher wishes not to be for- gotten, may be asked, in conjunction with the cur- rent teaching. Sometimes, the mere repetition of a question, immediately on its being answered, may tend to impress and fix the answer itself in the mind of the scholar who gives and repeats the answer, as PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. The Tale of Two Cities. All the Tray along. 220 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Say it again. At any time aod always. would not otherwise be possible. For example, in studying the story of Daniel continuing to pray in spite of the threatened lions'-den, or of the three Hebrew children defying the furnace-fires, or of Peter and John preaching God's truth at the risk of imprisonment, a teacher might ask a scholar, " What lesson is there for you in this story? " And the answer might come back, " We ought to do right in spite of everything." ft What do you say is the lesson ? " asks the teacher again. " We ought to do right in spite of everything " is again answered. " What do you say is the lesson?" asks the teacher, for the third time. And for the third time the scholar answers, " We ought to do right in spite of everything." Can there be any doubt that that scholar is more likely to realize the force of his own answer, and to have the truth of it more firmly in his mind, in consequence of that repetition ? At stated times, and at other times, at any time and at all times, review questioning is in order, for the making firm and secure in the scholar's mind, of that which has once been put there, but which will pass out of mind unless it be often recalled to memory. You know what you deem of most im* portance in all that you have caused your schol- ars to know through your teaching. Let that be the main subject of your review questioning. Better than Repetition. 221 in. NEW-VIEWING THE WHOLE. A Threefold Work in Reviewing; How a Child Learns to Read; Gain of a Perspective; Three Lessons New-viewed; The Thir- teenth New Lesson; Specimen New -Views. IN addition to all the gain which conies from the work of reviewing, in the teaching-process, as a means of testing the measure of knowledge already attained by the scholar, and, again, as a means of fastening in the scholar's mind the truth already taught to him, there is a farther gain in this work, as a means of securing a new view of the truth which has been taught by the teacher, and which has been learned by the scholar. Indeed, this new-viewing of the truth is the chief gain of all reviewing at stated seasons, as in distinction from occasional and incidental reviewings ; and, again, it is the more important feature of reviewing, as essential to the completion of the teaching-process, in its distinction from reiteration, repetition, reca- pitulation, or revision. A word or a statement of truth uttered by a teacher, or by a scholar, can be at once reiterated, PAKT I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. A chief gain. 222 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. No new light in repetition. A new look possible. or repeated, by teacher or scholar, or by both teacher and scholar. There is a possible gain, so far, in the line of testing the understanding of the word or statement as first spoken; also, in the line of fixing the expressed thought in the mind of the learner; but no new view of the truth involved is likely to come through such reiteration or repetition. "No new light on the subject necessarily follows the second, or the tenth, repetition of a word or a state- ment in the form of its original expression. There is a reviewing, but no new-viewing, in such redupli- cation of that which was recognized in its complete- ness at the first. The main points of a series of statements may be recapitulated, after their first consecutive mention, without any new view of them being gained, or being aimed at. Similarly, a revision of the work done may leave it just as it was on its first going over. But a review of a series of words or statements, of facts or truths, which were before taken up singly, and were looked at only in their separateness, may give an utterly new view of the whole, a view of them in their relation to each other, and to a common whole, which would not have been possible except from this later standpoint of observation. This new-view- ing of the whole, in a review of the teaching-work of a month, or of a quarter, or of a year, is a phase of reviewing which cannot be ignored, or neglected, by any teacher, without a loss to his scholar of that An Element in all Progress. 223 view of the truth taught which would be likely to prove of more value to him than all which he has gained thus far from his teacher's teachings. I do not mean to claim that the word " reviewing" in itself means new-viewing, in the sense of which I here speak of new-viewing, and that, on the other hand, it does not mean reiteration, repetition, reca- pitulation, or revision ; for the word " reviewing," by dictionary definitions and in common usage, covers all the separate meanings of those words sev- erally. But I do claim that no one of the words " reiteration," " repetition," " recapitulation," or "revision," necessarily includes, or even suggests, the idea of an entirely new view of the work gone over; while "reviewing" can fairly be used to cover that idea. Moreover, I insist that the new- viewing of a series of lessons is a distinctive, an important, and an indispensable feature of reviewing, in wise Sunday-school teaching; that it is, in fact, the pre- eminent phase of all stated reviewing in the Sunday- school teaching-work. New-viewing, by reviewing, is an element in all progress of knowledge. In former days, children, while learning to read, were taught the alphabet before they were taught to recognize the letters of the alphabet in the composition of words. It was only by a new view, in review, of the force and the relations of the separate letters, as those letters are formed into words, that a child could make the alpha- PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Not in the dictionary. Learning the letters. 224 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The, Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Taking in physic. A better way. bet itself of any practical value as a means of attaining knowledge. In illustration of the difficulty of the impossibility, in fact of gaining a knowledge of the real meaning and use of letters when made up into words, unless by the aid of a new view, in review, an American writer, of fifty years ago, said : " We tell a child to say 'pe-aytch-wi-es-i-see,' and then call on him to pronounce it; " or, in other words, we call on idm to review his detached work, and make its several parts a whole. " What would he conclude, if he reasoned, [if he reviewed his work without a new view of it,] but that it must be ' peaytchwiesisee '? and by what magic can he learn that it should be pronounced 'fizik'?" Only th new view, which showed that the several letters, bearing the names, pee," "aytch," wi," "es," ; i," ; see," when brought together in that order, combine to make the word " physic," which is pronounced "fizik," en- abled a scholar to get any practical good out of his study of the letters either separately or in combina- tion. Since the days of Jacotot, the learning of the alphabet as preliminary to the learning of words, has grown steadily in disrepute ; and, now, a prop- erly taught child learns the names of words before his mind is uselessly burdened with the names of their constituent letters. But, even now, when a child has learned a series of words, one 'by one, he still needs to gain a new view of them, in their review, More than a Bricklayer. 225 in order to recognize their force in the sentence which they combine to form. He may take into his mind the full meaning of the several words, in their sepa- rateness: "Herein," " is," "love," "not," "that," "we," "loved,' loved," "us;" "God," "but," "that," "he," and yet have no understanding of the truth which is included in the meaning of those words as a complete sentence: " Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us." Even though he has repeated these words so many times that they are fastened surely in his memory ; and even though the testing of him, by careful reviewing, shows that he knows the meaning of each w r ord separately, he is yet without a knowledge of their force as a series of words, unless he has gained this new view of them, by their review as a series, and in their connection in that series. A man might handle every brick which entered into the building of a house, and even have a part in laying each successive course of bricks in that house, from foundation to coping, and yet have no real knowledge of the form and appearance of that house as a whole. Only as he obtained a new view of those bricks in their final relation to each other in that building, by standing off from it, when it was completed, and reviewing all the work on it in which he had had a part, can he intelligently understand the outline and the dimensions, or have any just sense of the general effect, of that structure in its PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Learning to read. A pile of bricks. 226 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Seeing a landscape. Related Bible truths. entirety. A man might roam over miles of varied territory, comprising meadow and woods and bills and valleys and rocks and streams, and yet have no true conception of the picturesqueness of the region as a whole. He could remember, indeed, that he had wandered in pleasant meadows, had groped along through dense woods, had forded murmuring streams, had picked his way up narrow and rugged paths on the rocky hillsides ; but each item of his progress thus far would still stand by itself in his memory, rather than stand in its relatings. Let him, however, at the close of his day's journeying, clamber a mountain summit, which overlooks all the way of his progress, and turn back to review the course he has just been over. That review gives him an utterly new view. "Straight his eye hath caught new pleasures, Whilst the landscape round it measures." Each separate stage of his day's slow progress is now a well-defined feature of the one picture before him. So it is in all attainments of knowledge; there is no true view of all that which has been learned in separate details, until a review of the whole gives a new view of the whole. All related truths have their perspective, in which they can be seen to an advantage not otherwise ob- tainable. All Bible-truths are related. To fail of bringing any series of Bible-truths into its proper Seeing in Perspective. 227 perspective, is to fail of seeing the truths of that series in their best light, and in such a way as to gain the fullest and most important understanding of them, in their relations to each other and to the great central truths of the Bible as a whole. A "perspective," it may be well to consider just here, is a view of a scene, or of a landscape, as gained from a single point of observation; or, more literally, as seen through some favorable opening. The per- spective of a series of truths, therefore, can best be obtained at the close of the examination of those truths in detail; after the main features of the field of observation have been made known to the ob- server by his special study, so that they can be recognized by him, as he now looks back upon them through the opening of a review-exercise. Each single lesson has its series of truths which ought to be looked at in perspective at the lesson's close; as, indeed, that series of truths cannot be looked at before. Reviewing a lesson to see it in perspective is quite a different matter from review- ing it for the purpose of testing the scholar's knowl- edge of it; or, again, from reviewing it for the purpose of fastening it in the scholar's mind. A per- spective reviewing of the lesson is a new-viewing of the lesson. This distinction should always be borne in mind by the teacher, in his work of reviewing. Whether the lesson be a simple narrative, a seem- ingly involved doctrinal teaching, or a few appar- PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Looking through. A whole and its parts. 228 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. . The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4, Methods of the Teaching Process. Jeroboam's progress in Bin. ently unconnected practical injunctions, it has its true perspective, and it ought to be looked at in perspective. Take such a lesson as that on the sin of Jeroboam, from 1 Kings 12 : 25-33. The details of the story are simple. Jeroboam found himself at the head of a great section of a divided kingdom. He reasoned, not unnaturally, that if his people went into the other kingdom to worship, their hearts would be drawn toward the government of that other kingdom. Yet there was now only one place of worship in the two kingdoms ; only one place approved of God for the entire people of both kingdoms. As Jeroboam thought on this subject, he decided to plan for another form of worship than that which God had directed. Then he made the two calves of gold, and set them up at the limits of his kingdom, and led his people into the sinful worship at those new shrines. When these facts are fairly in the scholars' minds, the teacher can bring the scholars, by a few well- directed questions, at the close of the class exercise, to see that this great sin of Jeroboam did not show itself at the worst to begin with. First, he thought about the difficulties in the way of doing right; then, he began to plan a way of avoiding the danger of right doing ; finally, he was doing wrong with all his might. And so the perspective of this lesson shows The Way of Progress in Sin : Thinking evil ; Plan- ning evil; Doing evil. If one would avoid Jero- Doctrines and Duties. 229 beam's final indulgence in gross sin, he should shun Jeroboam's beginnings of evil in parleying with temptations to sinning. Or, to take such a doctrinal lesson as is found in Romans 8 : 28-39. Seen in its details, it treats of foreknowledge, predestination, God's love, the be- liever's trials, the Saviour's constant nearness, and yet other matters. Seen in its perspective, it teaches that those who trust in Jesus may feel sure, that all the purposes of God, and all the plans of God, and all the permittings of God, and all the providences of God, are working together for their welfare for now and for eternity. Or, yet again, take such a lesson of practical injunctions as appears in Colos- sians 3 : 16-25. Considered verse by verse, this lesson touches the varied duties of husbands, wives, fathers, children, and servants, and treats of worship and of judgment and of hope. Looked at in per- spective, it shows that he who is a follower of Christ, in any station of life, has duties toward God : in his heart, in his conduct, and in his expectations. And so it might be found in the teachings of any Bible lesson and of every Bible lesson. A review of the lesson in perspective will give a new view of the lesson; a new view that is quite too important, and of too great practical value, to be missed *by the scholar through the teacher's failure to bring it to the scholar's notice. In the process of reviewing the lessons of a month, PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. The believer's confidence. The believer's duties. 230 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. The thirteenth lesson. Repetition gives no perspective. or of a quarter, or of a year, the gain of a new view as obtained in perspective stands out yet more promi- nently than in the case of a single lesson. The Bible lessons of a month, when viewed in perspective, are found to make one new lesson in four subdivisions ; or, perhaps, to stand out as one new lesson, without any apparent break from the beginning. So, in the case of the lessons of a quarter, as viewed jn per- spective, on the quarterly review Sunday : there are not -twelve separate lessons to be taken up again in their order, for re-examination ; but there is a new lesson, the thirteenth of the series, and that new lesson is to give a new view of the twelve lessons that it follows. Just here, it is important to emphasize again the distinction between reviewing for the purpose of test- ing or of fastening a scholar's knowledge, and review- ing for the purpose of getting a new view of all the lessons looked back on. To call up in their order all the lessons of a quarter, by their titles, by their topics, or by their specific facts and teachings as originally taught to the scholars, is not in the line of new-viewing the lessons of that quarter; it is not a proper method of viewing those lessons in per- spective. It may, indeed, have a value in testing or in fixing the scholar's knowledge of the details thus considered ; but when it is through with, the impor- tant work of new-viewing the quarter's lessons in their review is still unattempted ; and the series of Examples of New - Viewing. 231 lessons as a whole is not yet recognized by, nor indi- cated to, the scholars under instruction. The twelve minor lessons have been reviewed: the thirteenth, and most important lesson, has been not so much as named. Every series of Bible lessons has its unity as well as its diversity. It would be almost, if not quite, impossible to select twelve lessons from the Bible which should not be found to have peculiar relations to each other and to a common truth, or to a com- mon outline of truths. To recognize this unity of design, and to cause the scholars to see it, is a duty of the teacher in connection with a quarterly review- exercise. This gives a new-view of the lessons reviewed. This makes a thirteenth lesson by itself, out of the material furnished by the twelve lessons which it follows. Yet just this work, this most important work of the entire quarter, is a work less commonly attempted by Sunday-school teachers gen- erally, than perhaps any other portion of the teach- ing-work; it certainly is less common than any other phase of lesson-reviewing. A few examples of the method of finding a new lesson in twelve old lessons, may be given out of the selected lessons in the International series, quarter by quarter, as follows : Twelve lessons were taken from the last eight chapters in Acts. A new-view of them, in their review, showed a historical picture of Paul the Preacher, of Paul the Pastor, of Paul PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Me hods of the Teaching Process. Unity in diversity. Paul's story. 232 Teaching mid Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Twelve in one. The scholar's work. the Prisoner ; and their practical lessons were seen to be : Dangers in the Path of Duty ; Encourage- ments in the Path of Duty; Rewards in the Path of Duty. Twelve lessons from the Epistles, including Romans to Titus, showed the Christian Believer : (1.) The Believer's Character; What He Is. (2.) The Believer's Possessions; "What He Has. (3.) The Believer's Conduct; What He Does. Yet another twelve lessons, from Hehrews to the close of Revela- tion, showed, Our Saviour: (1.) Our Saviour's Work; What He Does for Us. (2.) Our Saviour's Provis- ions; What He Prepares for Us. (3.) Our Saviour's Demands ; What He Asks of Us. In each of these three review lessons, every lesson of the quarter re- viewed had its place in the new-view lesson, without any forcing. And so it might be in almost any quarter's lessons. Although this method of reviewing a series of lessons so as to find one new lesson in the several les- sons of the series, brings all of the lessons of the series into an utterly new light before the scholars, it is not as if the material out of which the new lesson is con- structed were before unknown to the scholars. The new lesson is still a review, while it is also a new view. Its very construction, indeed, is by the schol- ars themselves ; although under the skilled direction of their teacher. The teacher asks the scholars to look back over the lessons they have learned, and to tell him what they see in the direction of his point- Questioning- Methods. 233 ing. As they go on in this work of re-examination, under their teacher's guidance, they see for themselves the progress of the new lesson which their answers are constructing, and they have an interest in it, and an understanding of it, accordingly. It is as if the teacher were to take the irregularly formed hits of a dissected picture, each of which bits is known by itself to the scholars, but not understood in its rela- tions to the other bits, and should question the scholars as to the correspondence of certain outlines of one of these bits to the outlines of another bit ; and so should go on, in the way of such suggestions, until the scholars were all alive to the completion of the one picture of which those several bits were but the portions. That would not, indeed, be the drawing of the picture anew ; but it would be the showing anew a picture, which otherwise might never have been perceived by those who had in their possession all the material for its correct exhibit. A fevv general questions on the series of lessons as a whole, are better as the beginning of a review- exercise for the purpose of a new-view, than any attempt to recall the lessons separately would be. For example, when the quarter's lessons are from Exodus 35 : 25, to Deuteronomy 32 : 52 : In what books of the Bible have our lessons for this quarter been found? About how many years are covered by the range of these lessons? Concerning what people have all these lessons had to do? Whose PARTI. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. A dissected picture. How to begin. 234 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Leading np to the new view. people were this people called, peculiarly ? "Where did the opening lesson of the quarter find the Lord's people ? Where does the closing lesson leave them ? These questions will serve to show the scholars that the twelve lessons are one. Then comes the effort to find a common teaching in the twelve lessons. A few specimen questions, with their natural and prohable answers, will go to illustrate the method of drawing out from the scholars the common lesson of the series; it being borne in mind that these reviewing-questions are based on a foundation of knowledge acquired by the scholars in the former study of the lessons. Thus : For what purpose were the Lord's people led up and down in the wilderness, all these years? "For their training." For what purpose were all these varied directions given them : about offerings, and buildings, and feasts, and the like ? " To show them how the Lord would have them serve him." As applied to ourselves, then, what do all these lessons go to teach, and to illus- trate ? " Our proper service of the Lord." What is that, which you find as a practical teaching of this quarter's lessons ? " Our proper service of the Lord." Suppose we set that down on our class-slates, as the quarter's lesson-teaching: Our Proper Service of the Lord. Now, let us find out something more from these lessons about this one great subject. What is described in the first lesson of the quarter? " The bringing in of gifts for the Tabernacle, by all the Preparation a Necessity. 235 people." "What is made prominent concerning all those gifts at that time ? * That they were offered willingly." Willingly ! "Well, what phase, or feature, of the Lord's service is indicated "by the willingness with which a gift is made to the Lord ? " Its spirit." Its what ? u Its spirit." "Well, if the spirit of our ser- vice of the Lord is important, let us put that down, on our class-slates, as one point in our review-lesson. Calling attention by a few questions to the pre- scribed details of the construction of the Tabernacle, as given in the second lesson of the series, will bring out the truth that it is the method of the Lord's ser- vice which is there emphasized ; and that point, also, can go down in its place on the class-slates. After this, as the several lessons of the series are called up in their order, the scholars will readily assign to them their places under the two sub-heads of the main topic on the class-slates. "When the lesson on the Day of Atonement is reached, a few questions will call out the truth that there it is the purpose of all this service which is illustrated : " That ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord." And so the review will bring the scholars to see, by their own work, that the lessons of the quarter form a new-view lesson, on Our Proper Service of the Lord: (1.) Its Spirit. (2.) Its Methods. (3.) Its Purpose. It need hardly be added,, that to secure the teach- ing of such a new-view lesson in a review of a series of lessons, the teacher must be well prepared with PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. The new view obtained. 236 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Seeking com- pleteness. Summing up may give a new view. his plan of the lesson, and with his outline of ques- tioning in order to bring that plan before the minds of his scholars; or, rather, in order to bring the minds of his scholars to recogn ; ze that plan as of their own finding in the series of lessons reviewed by them. But, without such a new view of a series of lessons in its review, the best study of a series of Bible lessons, under the best teacher in the world, would be incomplete, and one with which no teacher in the .world has a right to be satisfied. RECAPITULA TION. AND now, having gone over the teaching-process in all its details from its inception to its review, it may be well to look back upon our work as an entirety, in order to see its various portions in their relations to each other and to a common whole. There is often a gain to be secured from a recapitulation of the main points of such a work, even when no formal attempt is made at testing, or at fastening, or at new -viewing what has been taught. Indeed, a summing up of the steps of progress is, frequently, in itself, a new view of that progress; and so a recapitulation may secure the threefold advantage of reviewing. Our endeavor has been to ascertain what teaching Recapitulation. 237 is, and how to do it. In order to ascertain what teaching is, we have had to consider what it is not. "We have seen that much that passes for teaching is not teaching; that telling is not teaching; that hearing a recitation is not teaching. We have found that teaching is the causing to know, by an intelligent and purposeful endeavor; that teaching is a work of which learning is necessarily a compo- nent part; that only where something is learned, is anything taught; that there can be no teaching without correspondent learning ; that teaching is a twofold w^ork, including a teacher and a learner, and that the teaching-process is threefold, including one phase for the teacher, one phase for the scholar, and one phase for teacher and scholar conjointly. "We have seen, that the essentials of the teaching-process those things without which no teacher can teach are: a knowledge, by the teacher, of him whom he would teach ; a knowledge, by the teacher, of that which he would teach; and a knowledge, by the teacher, of how to teach that which he would teach, to the scholar whom he would cause to learn just that. "We have, furthermore, learned, that the essential elements of the teaching-process have, also, their threefold aspect : the scholar giving his attention ; the teacher making clear that which he would cause the scholar to know ; and teacher and scholar co-working in the effort to transfer knowledge from the teacher's mind to the scholar's PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. What we have seen. 238 Teaching and Teachers. PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. The teacher's responsi- bility. Complete, but not complete. mind; or, more properly, in the aiding .of the scholar to acquire the knowledge himself, under the guidance of his teacher. In studying the methods of the teaching-process, we have seen that those methods which involve the art of teaching as distinct from its science must be attended to by the teacher, in his preparation for his work, in his practice of his work, and in his review of his work. We have seen, also, that by the very nature of the teaching-process the teacher must be held responsible for the scholar's doing of his part in that process ; otherwise, the teacher would not be a necessity in every phase of the process. Hence, the teacher must not only know how to study his lesson and his scholar, and how to teach his lesson to his scholar; but he must know how to get and hold his scholar's attention, and how to secure his co-work, at every step of their common progress. We have found that even when the teaching- process seems complete, it is yet incomplete with- out the process of reviewing. Reviewing, also, is a threefold work, including the testing of the scholar's knowledge, the fastening of the truth taugh^ by the teacher, and the new-viewing of the truth as a whole, by the combined effort of teacher and scholar. And now that you have heard so much about the nature and the methods of the teaching-process, it devolves upon you anew to be doers of the truth, and not hearers only deceiving your own selves. n. THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER'S OTHER WORK THAN TEACHING THE SHAPING AND GUIDING OF SCHOLARS. PRELIMINARY STATEMENT THUS far, only the technical teaching-work of the Sunday-school teacher has been considered. But the teaching- work is by no means the only work of the Sunday -school teacher. There is a work of shaping and guiding the scholar, which no teacher has a right to ignore or neglect; a work which, in its place, is fully as important as is the teaching- work in its place. Teaching is teaching, and only teaching is teaching. Whether, therefore, teaching is counted of minor or of greater importance, it ought not to be confounded with anything else. If teaching is deemed worthy of attempting at all, it must be attempted in the one fc vvay in which alone it can be compassed; and that one way has been pointed out in the preceding pages. But, however important teaching may be counted, teaching is not everything ; nor ought it to PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. The one waj of teaching. 242 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. Another work. pass for all things else, any more than it ought to pass for anything else than itself. The work of shaping and guiding a scholar, is even more important to a scholar's character and destiny, than the work of merely teaching a scholar; although the^e is no reason for failing to attend to the important matter of teaching, because there is a yet more important matter of shaping and guiding to be attended to, at the same time as the teaching, and at other times as well. There are various phases in this work of shaping and guiding the scholar. Some of these phases it is well for us now to consider A Question of Gunpowder. 243 HAVING AND USING INFLUENCE. The Meaning of "Influence;" From the Heavens; Voluntary and Involuntary; A Eight Purpose /" Uncle John" Vassar; A Remem- bered Teacher; Specimen Superintendents; Thomas Arnold's Power; The Power of Character; The Church Window; The Incar- nation ; Unconscious Tuition ; Losing an Ideal ; A Teacher's ft e- sponsibility ; Now, and By and By. INFLUENCE is a power flowing in upon one, to shape or sway or bias him, accordingly. In the very nature of influence, as indicated in its etymology, (in and fluere, to flow in, or to flow in upon,) there is an idea of an active potency, of an on-moving tendency, such as is not essential to the very nature of informing, or instructing, or teaching; for knowledge may, or may not, he an active force in the mind of him who receives it. At the same time, the idea of influence is not that of a blind and mechanical force, which moves by its dead weight, but rather that of a " con- trolling power quietly exerted," "bringing about an effect, physical or moral, by a gradual, unobserved, and easy process." The power of gunpowder in the chamber of a cannon would not be spoken of as influ- PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTWN I. Having and Using Influence. A gradual process. 244 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. From the olauets. Shake- speare's view. encing the projectile in the direction of the cannon's mouth ; but the power of gunpowder might be spoken of as influencing the modes of modern warfare, and the policy and destiny of nations. The mighty en- gines of an ocean steamer are the power for its pro- pelling on its course; but the quiet movements of the rudder are the power which influences its direction. The primitive idea of " influence" was the potency of the heavenly bodies in the controlling of man's life and destiny; the " influent course of the planets; their virtue infused into, or their course working on, infe- rior creatures." The only instance in which the word appears in our English Bible, shows this meaning : " Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, Or loose the bands of Orion?" Shakespeare uses the word in this sense : "A breath thou art, Servile to all the skyey influences, That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st, Hourly afflict." And, again : " When I consider every thing that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment, That this huge stage presenteth naught but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; When I perceive that men as plants increase, Cheer'd and check'd even by the self-same sky, Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, And wear their brave state out of memory ; Then the conceit of this inconstant story Sets you most rich before my sight." From God Outward. 245 The poet Waller sings : " Our stars do show their excellence, Not by their light, but influence." Gradually the meaning of this word has been extended, without, however, losing all suggestion of its primitive force. It was raised from the idea of the quiet potency of the heavenly bodies, in the sphere of human thought and action, to the idea of the noiseless efficacy of tlie ceaseless workings of the God of all nature, in the whole realm of creation ; and then it was carried outward into all the repre- sentatives and all the agencies of God, in the shaping and directing work of the universe, more especially in their bearing upon human character and conduct. Thus, we speak of the influences of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the believer in Jesus, and in the very looks and speech of him who preaches Jesus. We speak, moreover, of the influences of affection and of affliction, the influence of memories and of habit, the influence of our surroundings, the influence of scenery, of music, of literature and art; and yet more than all of the immediate and direct personal influence of those who are our teachers, our companions, or in any way our patterns or our directors. And in all these uses of the word, it will be seen, there is the idea of an inflowing upon us of a quiet and efficacious potency from a centre of light and life, which gradually and unobservedly works a change in our feelings and course, in the direction of its out- PAET II. 'Jhe Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. The idea expanded. From a centre. 246 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. In and from. Good and evil. goings. It is, therefore, in a sense, the quiet powei of God, or of the representatives and agencies of God, which is recognized in the influences which we feel and to which we submit ourselves; and the same is true of the influence which we intelligently exert, or which insensibly flows out from us into the hearts and the minds of those who are about us. It is, in a measure, an emanation from God, which comes in upon us, or which goes out from us, as influence ; an inflowing upon ourselves, or upon others, of that which came from God, or which speaks of God. Of course, it is only good influences which are here spoken of, or which primarily affect our idea of the meaning of the word " influence; " for the good is the normal in the universe. But there is, inevitably, the correspondent ideaof the evil as over against the good, the malign as the converse of the beneficent. There was an adverse influence of the planets recognized in the earlier uses of this term. " They fought from heaven, The stars in their courses fought against Sisera," says the inspired Hebrew poem ; and Milton tells of the fixed stars being taught "Their influence malignant when to shower." But this is only another side of the same great truth: influence is normally the outflowing from God, and for God; abnormally, it is the outflowing of hostility to God, the outflowing of evil against God. In speak- Twofold Influence. 247 ing of the influence which one should have and should exert, there can be no doubt as to the meaning in- tended; it is good influence alone which can ever be a duty, or which can ever be counted a duty by a child of God. In order to the having and using of influence, good influence, of course, a teacher must be centred in God ; and all that he is or that he has, all that he says or that he makes use of, must represent God, must be, as it were, an outflowing from God toward those to whom he goes, and an inflowing from God upon those whom he reaches. To have and to use this influence, is the duty of every teacher ; and no matter how wisely and skillfully a teacher may teach, he cannot be a proper teacher, he cannot properly do a true teacher's work, unless he also influences influ- ences in the direction of his teaching, and by means of his teaching, as well as by many another means. Personal influence the influence which it is a teacher's duty to exert is twofold : voluntary and involuntary, intended and unintentional, conscious and unconscious. The one kind is the result of an intelligent and purposeful endeavor, an endeavor as deliberate, and it may be even as well planned and as systematic, as is the act and process of teaching ; the other is an outgrowth of the teacher's character ; it is incident to and dependent on what he is, rather than what he plans and purposes. Each phase of influence is important, and for each the teacher is PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. Centred in God. Voluntary and involun- tary. 248 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. Having a purpose. immediately responsible. It is the purposed and voluntary influence, however, which first demands attention, as in the line of the teacher's deliberate work for his scholar. To begin with, a teacher ought to be clear in his mind as to the direction in which he would influence his scholar by his words and by his endeavors. He who would influence the steamer's course by the quiet movements of the helm, needs to know the compass bearings of the land he would reach, or of the currents he would seek or would avoid. l$o steamer's pilot had ever a greater need of a knowl- edge of the trackless ocean's pathways, than has the teacher-pilot of an immortal scholar-soul in the life- voyage over the sea of probation. To know the di- rection of wise influence, a teacher has need of all the knowledge of the truth he is dealing with, all the knowledge of the scholar whom he would rightly guide, and all the knowledge of efficient methods of working, which he has found necessary in the teach- ing-process ; all these, and more also. Is it toward reverence, toward purity, toward truthfulness, toward courageous independence, toward fidelity in little things, toward obedience, toward a sense of sin, toward repentance, toward prayerfulness, toward a restful Christian faith, toward a grateful love of God, toward an unselfish love of one's fellow-man, is it away from meanness and falsity and selfishness and transgressions of every kind, that you would influ- The Sweet Psalmist. 249 ence your scholars, while you are teaching them as well as at other times ? Be sure on this point, for yourself, and then pursue your teaching-work, and your other work, with your scholars, accordingly. Being sure as to the aim of your endeavors at influence, you can make good use of all your knowl- edge of truth, of all your knowledge of your scholars, and of all your knowledge of wise methods of doing, in the direction of that aim. Nor is any of your knowledge, or of your skill, unimportant in the realm of influence. "When King Saul was troubled by an evil spirit, David was brought to quiet him by the influence of soothing music. As David stood before Saul, with his harp, did it matter nothing what music David brought from that harp, or how ? Suppose he had sounded out harsh discords there, or had struck his harp to the notes of wild martial airs ? Would he have soothed the spirit of Saul ? or, have jarred upon him, and increased his unrest of soul? It was the gentle, tender notes of the sacred music of " the sweet psalmist of Israel," that hushed to repose the agitations of the demon-pos- sessed king ; and it was the hand of him who was " cunning in playing," which directed the influence of the soothing airs as he swept the harp-string; " so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him." He who would influence a disturbed or a demon-possessed spirit to-day, needs to be " cunning in playing" on the harp-strings of PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. David before Saul. 250 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. David's logic. truth ; and he may well crave the skill of David as well as the faith in which David used his skill on the harp or with the sling. If a teacher desires earnestly to, influence his scholars to a personal love of Jesus, he will manifest that desire in all that he says, or does ; and all the truth that he teaches will be made to apply in that direction. " Knowing, therefore, the fear of the Lord," says Paul, " we persuade men" we influ- ence men. Old Thomas Fuller says : " Lord, I find David making a syllogism, in mood and figure; two propositions he perfected : ' If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear me : but verily God hath heard me; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer.' Now I expected that David should have concluded thus : ' Therefore I regard not wick- edness in my heart; ' but far otherwise he concludes: 'Blessed be God, who hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me.' Thus David hath deceived me, but not wronged me. I looked that he should have clapped the crown on his own, and he puts it on God's head. I will learn this excellent logic (for I like David's better than Aristotle's syllo- gisms), that whatever the premises be, I make God's glory the conclusion." He who reasons according to David's logic, will be bent on influencing men to give God the glory in all things." Paul was a powerful logician. He was a great teacher. He argued and taught earnestly in the line "Uncle John" Vassar. 251 of the truth. But Paul was even more desirous of influencing his brethren toward Christ, than of con- vincing them of the claims of Christ. " Brethren, my heart's desire and my supplication to God is for them, that they may he saved," he said ; and again : " I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren's sake, my kinsmen accord- ing to the flesh." There is more than a wish faith- fully to declare the truth, in such utterances as these. And where that spirit prevails, there will be influ- encing as well as instructing for the right. A young woman teacher, who found her health failing rapidly, said earnestly to a friend, concerning her Sunday-school class : " I would be willing to die if only by that means I could win my scholars to a trust in the Saviour." Such a teacher would be sure to lose no opportunity of influencing her scholars in the direction of her longings and prayers for them. Her teachings would have the element of influence in them, or would have the power of influence added to them. She would not be satisfied with merely bringing out the truths of a lesson she was teaching ; her endeavor would be to make that truth influential for good to her scholars. Every teacher has a re- sponsibility for influence as well as for instruction, in class-work, as well as in work outside of the class, on behalf of the scholars of that teacher's class. " Uncle John" Vassar, as he was called, was a lay- missionary worker, of marvelous power in influencing PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. . Having and Using Influence. Willing to die. 252 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. The village blacksmith. men toward Christ. The secret of his power, was his absorbing desire that all whom he knew should know and love his Saviour. It was not his teaching of the truth, but his influencing men in the line of the truth, that made him so effective as a Christian evangelist. He could never be in the company of any man, saint or sinner, for a single hour, hardly for a single minute, without seeking to influence that man in the direction of his Saviour. On one occasion, he visited a town in New England to aid a pastor there in Christian work. As the pastor was going with him from the railroad station to the par- sonage, at the time of his arrival, the former pointed him to a blacksmith's shop they were nearing, and said that its proprietor was something of a scoffer, whom he would like " Uncle John" to have a con- versation with, before he left the village. " Dear man," said " Uncle John," heartily, " I'll go right and see him now." It was to no purpose that the pastor suggested that the blacksmith was shoeing a horse, and that customers were in the shop : the King's business required haste. As the pastor looked on with surprise, he saw " Uncle John " go directly to the blacksmith, who left the horse he was shoeing, and evidently listened attentively to the new-comer's words. It was but a few minutes be- fore " Uncle John " had led that blacksmith behind the forge, that he might pray for him then and there. It was " Uncle John's" influence, not his instructions, Memories Recalled. 253 that swept that blacksmith away from his ordinary course of thought and action. The last time I met " Uncle John," he entered a Fourth Avenue car, at its starting-point near the Post-office, in New York City, just as I had taken my seat in it. Hardly had he given me a word of greeting, and spoken of the one theme ever uppermost in his mind, when a third passenger entered the car, taking his seat on its opposite side. "Dear man," said " Uncle John," at once, " I wonder \f he loves Jesus." And forthwith 2ie was across the car, seated by that man, with his hand on his knee, trying to influence him toward Christ. And no man could have it in his heart to repel the unmistakable personal interest in his spiritual welfare which " Uncle John's " very tone and manner, as well as his words of affection, made clear. It would be well if more Sunday-school teach- ers had the spirit of that lay-missionary even if they were not to evidence that spirit in the self-same way. "Where that spirit is, there is sure to be influence Christ-ward. Speaking out of my personal experience, I can say that I was influenced, while a scholar in the Sunday- school, a great deal more than I was ever taught there. There was comparatively little of thorough or syste- matic instruction in Bible-truth in my boyhood days ; but there was influencing then, as in the days of David and of Paul, and as there is to-day. I can particularly recall two of my teachers, out of several, PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having aud Using Influence. Does he love Jesus ? Two teachers remembered. 254 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. A loving word. Together with teach- ing. One made it his whole endeavor to instruct. He declared the truth explicitly and with plainness ; hut he was at no special pains to influence his scholars personally. The other was a man of less knowl- edge, hut was possessed with zeal for souls. His " teaching " was out of the question-book, and was somewhat perfunctory. But when the " lesson" was over, then that teacher would reach forward to his class, and laying his hands tenderly on the knees of one scholar or another, would look into the schol- ar's eyes, w r ith eyes that were brimming with loving tears, and would say, with a tremulous tenderness that carried the weight of his whole soul into his words : " My dear boy, I do wish you would love Jesus, and give him your whole heart ! " All the instruction out of the question-book of one of those classes, and out of the great brain of the teacher of the other class, has long ago passed from the mind of the scholar who tells of this ; but the influence of that persistent pleader for Christ and for souls is fresh and potent to-day ; and the pressure of those loving hands on that scholar's knee is felt, after forty years. as while those faithful hands still rested there. As it is with reference to the personal salvation of the scholar, so it is with reference to every point of belief and of practice in the realm of the teacher's oversight and endeavor. The teacher will seek to influence his scholar in the direction of the right, at the same time that he teaches the truth which enjoins, Good Superintendents. 255 or which illustrates, that phase of the right ; and at all other times, as well. If a teacher wants his scholars to he always truthful and honorable, and in the best sense manly, he will make every Bible nar- rative, or Bible precept, which bears on the principles involved in such a course, ring out in favor of the right, and against the wrong, with tones so sharp and clear that there can be no mistaking of their meaning. A lie will have no favor with him because Abraham or Eahab told it; nor will personal meanness be spoken of with allowance, because it shows itself in the course of Jacob. He will cause the principles laid down in the Bible, in favor of truth and honor, to appear as the only safe ground of action, regardless of the departure from that standard by a Jewish patri- arch, or by a Canaanitish woman. So, again, in all that relates to the indulgence of appetite, or to the fol- lowing of fashion in popular amusements. The Bible- teachings on these subjects will be found, and will be made plain, whatever may be the Lesson Committee's title of the passage of Scripture for the day's study. The best superintendents, " those who are most influential for good, are men who give large promi- nence to influence, in all that they say and do as superintendents. Their evident aim is to make all their part in the school exercises influential over their scholars, in the right direction. Years ago, I looked in upon the Tabernacle Sunday-school of Chicago, then superintended by Major D. W. Whittle, PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. Having a base-line, In the desk. 256 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. afterwards so prominent as an evangelist. It was evident that he was seeking, by all his conduct and all his words, to make the restless hundreds of boys and girls who were members of that mission- school, lovingly reverent in their spirit and manner. The cabinet-organ was playing, and the earlier com- ers were singing, while the school was slowly assem- bling. Meanwhile, the superintendent was near the door, greeting each scholar and teacher with a kindly word and look. When the hour of beginning had arrived, the superintendent stepped quietly to the desk, and, without so much as a bell-tap to call atten- tion, he faced the school, and raising both his ex- tended hands out toward the school, he lowered them slowly arid gently, as if to hush the school to reverent silence. The organ notes died away; and the superintendent said, in a low, clear voice : " How quiet and still it is, this beautiful autumn Sabbath ! We could almost hear the leaves fall, if there were trees about our Tabernacle. I sometimes wish we had trees planted all around our building ; that we might listen for the falling of the leaves." And that school-room of throbbing life was reverently quiet before the Lord. There was no instruction in the words and bearing of Major Whittle, in that opening service ; but there was influence in them, as he in- tended there should be. For years, the Sunday-school of the Biddle Market Mission, in St. Louis, was superintended by a Tom Morrison's Work. 257 warm-hearted Christian worker, familiarly known as "Tom" Morrison. There was very little attempt at instruction in his direction of the school exercises from the desk; but he was always endeavoring to influence his scholars and his teachers in the line of his own thoughts and feelings. I sat in his school, one Sunday, and felt the power of his deliberately inten- tioned influence in the simple reading of God's word. When he had brought the school, of wellnigh a thousand scholars, to reverent silence, he said ear- nestly : " Just listen now, while I read what dear Jesus says about his love for us. Listen all of you." And as he waited, Bible in hand, the room hushed to a silence that was broken only by the gentle cadence of falling water, in the fountain immediately before him. Even that pleasant sound seemed to be, in his mind, a possible barrier to the words he would have every ear to hear ; so he stooped from his place, and shut off the water supply for the moment. Then, as he began to read, " I am the good shep- herd," his eyes filled with tears, his voice trembled with emotion, and his whole soul seemed to go out in every word he read. There was no new teaching on that familiar passage, as he read it. Probably not a single person before him heard it now for the first time. But there was a new influence in it, an influ- ence which was purposely exerted by the teacher in the direction of the spirit of the truths of that pas- I can rarely hear that passage read by any PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. Stopping the fountain. 258 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. A preacher's influence. person, now, without feeling afresh its influence as directed by " Tom " Morrison's reading of it to his Biddle Market Mission. Influence is not instruc- tion, but influence is influence ; and influence is worth exerting, either with or without instruction. It is the preacher's influencing-power which is the preacher's chief power as a preacher, before an ordinary congregation. Of course, if a preacher were declaring the good-news of salvation to hearers who were before unaware of it, the bare information which he brought to their knowledge would be freshly instructive to them, and so be of the pro- foundest importance. But, where a preacher is repeating familiar Bible-truths to a mixed congrega- tion of saints and sinners, it is not the novelty of his discourse which gives it its chief value ; and since as has been already shown in this volume a preacher does not teach a truth, either fresh or trite, by merely telling it, therefore it is not as a means of direct instruction that his discourses have their highest im- portance. Yet, a good preacher's preaching does have power over both saints and sinners; it has power by its influencing, if not by its informing, or by its instructing; and this source of pulpit-power is not always estimated so highly as it should be, either by preacher or by hearer. Gospel truth can be made influential for good, by the preacher who is desirous of influencing his hear- ers by means of that truth. Gospel truth often is The Elements of Preaching. 259 thus influential. The familiar illustrations which have heen already referred to, of the bleached cloth and the cleansed basket, are proper illustrations of the truth that by passive-hearing one may be fairly influenced to the right ; although, as has been shown, Ihey are misused when claimed as showing that one can be taught while listening passively. There are preachers on every side who are influencing contin- ually by their preaching. There are hearers by the thousand who are continually being influenced by their preachers. Every preacher ought always to have in his mind, while preparing to preach and while preaching, the influencing power of the truth he would preach. That preacher makes a sad mis- take, who, confounding preaching with teaching, aims merely at an exposition of truth, deeming it sufficient to disclose the truth without an attempt at making it influential with his hearers, for their good. It is, indeed, the influence of the truth, which is the chief thing to be aimed at by the preacher, whether in expository or in topical preaching. " Preaching is the communication of truth by man to man," says Phillips Brooks. " It has in it two essential elements, truth and personality. Neither of these can it spare, and still be preaching. . . . The truth must come really through the person, not merely over his lips, not merely into his understand- ing and out through his pen. It must come through his character, his affections, his whole intellectual PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. The truth influencing. Truth and personality. 260 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SKCTION I. Having and Using Influence. Moody's power. The gain of knowledge. and moral being. ... I think that, granting equal intelligence and study, here is the great difference which we feel between two preachers of the word. The gospel has come over one of them. . . . The gospel has come through the other." The one has essayed to instruct by his preaching. The other has succeeded in influencing. "Who supposes that Mr. Moody's preaching-power is in the instruction furnished by his discourses? Who can doubt that his preaching-po\ver is in the influence of those discourses ? If it be said that his preaching-power, like the power of any other really effective preacher, is Holy Ghost power, that must, of course, be admitted ; but the question w r ould then again recur, How does the Holy Ghost work through the preacher ? by making him an instructive preacher ; or, by making him an influential preacher ? by en- abling him to inform his hearers ; or, by enabling him to influence them ? !N"or does this uplifting of the idea of the influence of truth depreciate the value and the importance of freshness and force in the truth presented, by either preacher or teacher. The more a man knows, the better he is furnished for preaching or for teaching ; and all the freshness and all the strength he can dis- play in his selection and in his presentation of truth, will be an added means of influence to him, if he seeks to use them influentially. A ship steers better with a cargo than without one. A preacher or a Rugby Chapel. 261 teacher who has knowledge, and who seeks to impart it, can be far more influential than if without knowl- edge. It is a familiar story, that an ignorant ex- horter once said to old Dr. South : " The Lord has no need of jour book-larnin'." "Whereat, the witty divine answered : " !N"or has he any greater need of your ignorance." " ' The knowledge of the priest,' said St. Francis de Sales, * is the eighth sacrament of the Church ; ' " and there is a truth in that sugges- tion for every branch of the Church. Influential preaching and teaching ought to be also instructive preaching and teaching. But a preacher must rely chiefly on influence as a means of making his preach- ing effective, and a teacher ought to see to it that all his teaching is made influential in the right direction. Dr. Thomas Arnold was both preacher and teacher. He was instructive in both spheres. He was pre-eminently influential in both. His scholars used to say, that a boy who was under his influence at Rugby could not find it in his heart to do a notably mean thing, because a boy's honor was made so much of in the teacher's teaching and practice. They also said, that they were influenced by the evident pur- pose of his chapel-discourses, even if they were as yet unable to be instructed by them. " Tom Brown " tells of the " tall, gallant form, the kindling eye, the voice now soft as the low notes of a flute, now clear and stirring as the call of the light-infantry bugle of him who stood there, Sunday after Sunday, witness- PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. The eighth sacrament. Dr. Arnold's power. 232 Teaching and Teachers." PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. A living helper. ing and pleading [influencing] for his Lord, the King of righteousness and love and glory, with whose spirit he was filled, and whose power he spoke." " What was it, after all," again says the enthusi- astic school-chronicler, " which seized and held these three hundred boys, dragging them out of them- selves, willing or unwilling, for twenty minutes, on Sunday afternoons ? . . . We couldn't enter into that we heard ; we hadn't the knowledge of our own hearts, or the knowledge of one another, and little enough of the faith, hope, and love needed to that end. But we listened, as all boys in their better moods will listen (ay, and men too, for the matter of that), to a man whom we felt to be, with all his heart, and soul, and strength, striving against what- ever was mean, and unmanly, and unrighteous, in our little world. It was not the cold, clear voice of one giving advice and warning from the serene heights, to those who were struggling and sinning below, but the warm, living voice of one who was fighting for us by our sides, and calling on us to help him, and ourselves, and one another. And so, wearily and little by little, but surely and steadily, on the whole, was brought home to the young boy, for the first time, the meaning of his life, that it was no fools' or sluggards' paradise, into which he had wan- dered by chance, but a battle-field ordained from of old, where there are no spectators, but the youngest must take his side, and the stakes are life and death." A Parent's Power 263 Nor was this influence of Dr. Arnold, over his scholars, in the direction of courageous Christian manliness, an incidental and unintended influence. It was purposed hy him, and his whole soul was in it. Similarly, every good teacher, in week-day school or Sunday-school, has some phase of conduct, or some principle of action, in the direction of which he is constantly seeking to influence the scholars of his charge; and the success of every teacher is largely dependent on his effectiveness in the direc- tion of his intended influence. Any wise parent knows, that his power over his children for good depends more on his endeavors to influence them to the right, than on any effort which he makes to instruct them in the right. It is not that he is to neglect their instruction, hut that while instructing them, as well as at other times, he is to strive to influence them in the direction of his long- ings and his prayers for them. A good mother, at an advanced age, said with reference to the use of tohacco by her own sons: "I always wanted my children not to use tobacco ; and I often told them BO. But I wish that I had realized its evil when I was a young mother as I do to-day. If I had, my children would never have touched it ; for I would have died but I would have influenced them to abhor it." Professor Calvin E. Stowe, when already a venerable theological professor, told of his father's influencing him, while yet a child to a reverential PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. Worth of a purpose. Against tobacco. 264 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. Handle with care. One side only. regard for the Bible itself. That father always spoke of the Bible with a reverent tenderness, and even handled it, as a book, in the same spirit. " I remember," said the aged Professor, "my father handing the Bible to me, when, at one time, I wanted to find something in it. He took it into his hands as if it were a sacred thing ; and as he put it into my hands he said, in seriousness, ' Be very careful of this Book, my son ; for it's very precious."' And so that father not only taught that truth to his son, but he sought, not unsuccessfully, to influence his son in the direction of that truth. Thus, also, it ought to be in the endeavors of every parent, every teacher, and every preacher, concerning whatever evil, or whatever good, has prominence in the mind of the instructor. Teaching should be counted rather as an incident to right influence, than as a substitute for it. To teach the truth as if it were to stand or fall on its own merits, is but a minor matter at the best. To use the truth as a means of influence in behalf of that which is far dearer to the teacher than life itself, is a very different matter. He who recognizes his duty of influencing his scholars, teaches as for his life, and theirs. All that has been said, up to this point, concern- ing the power and the duty of influence in a teacher's sphere and work, has had reference only to conscious and voluntary and intended influence. The other great phase of influence has been left untouched : Unconscious Influence. 265 that influence which is unconscious, involuntary, and unintended ; that influence which emanates from the teacher's v^ry character, disclosing itself, without his having a thought of such a disclosure, in his actions and manner and incidental words, also in his looks and in the varying expressions of his countenance. This latter phase of influence, however, is obviously too important to he overlooked, or to be under- valued, in a discussion of the teacher's work. Dr. Bushnell did more than any man had done before, to bring out the importance and the practical value of this involuntary or unconscious influence. Indeed, the very term " unconscious influence " had its origin, as a specific term, in his famous sermon, of forty years ago, on this subject, from the text " Then went in also that other disciple." He showed most clearly, that as Peter unconsciously influenced the action of John at the opetf sepulchre of Jesus, and as John unconsciously was influenced by Peter on that occasion, so, also, in many a sphere, " a Peter leads a John, a John goes after a Peter, both of them unconscious of any influence exerted or received. And thus our lives and conduct are ever propagating themselves, by a law of social contagion, throughout the circles and times in which we live." On the one hand, he pointed out that every man speaks to his fellows by two modes of language ; the language of speech, and the language of other expression than speech " that expression of the eye, the face, the PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. Thoughtless work. Dr. Bushnell's sermon. 266 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. Hearing with the eyes. The man back of the sermon. look, the gait, the motion, the time or cadence, which is sometimes called the natural language of the sen- timents." On the other hand, that " we*find every man with two inlets of impression : the ear and the understanding for the reception of speech ; and, the sympathetic powers, the sensibilities or affections, for tinder to those sparks of emotion revealed hy looks, tones, manners, and general conduct." And com- monly the impressions received by us through our sympathetic powers are more effective, in their influence upon us, than those which come through the understanding only. " Beholding, as in a glass, the feelings of our neighbor, we are changed into the same image, by the assimilating power of sensibility and fellow-feeling." This power of personal character as affecting the influence of the truth proclaimed by the person, has always been reco^iized in connection with the preacher of truth. It is the man back of the sermon that gives the sermon its chief power as a sermon. Milton refers to this influence of character as increas- ing the force of the words of truth, when he pictures Satan, awed by the character of the angelic messen- ger whose words he would not heed : " So spake the Cherub ; and his grave rebuke, Severe in youthful beauty, added grace Invincible : abashed the Devil stood, And felt how awful goodness is, and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely. The Church Window. 267 And George Herbert represents the preacher of Christ as having power for Christ just in proportion as the character and life of Christ are reproduced in the character and life of the preacher : Jesus himself being, as it were, pictured in the very countenance of him who tells of Jesus ; as though the preacher were a pictured- window in the church, whereon were delineated the features of the Son of God. " Lord, how can man preach thy eternal word ? He is a brittle, crazy-glass : Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford This glorious and transcendent place, To be a window, through thy grace. " But when thou dost anneal in glass thy story, Making thy life to shine within The holy preachers, then the light and glory More reverend grows, and more doth win ; Which else shows waterish, bleak, and thin. " Doctrine and life, color and light, in one, When they combine and mingle, bring A strong regard and awe : but speech alone Doth vanish like a flaring thing, And in the ear, not conscience, ring." Here, indeed, in this influence of the personal character of him who proclaims the truth, there would seem to be one reason for the Incarnation ; certainly one advantage of it. God's word has a power over man when expressed in an individual life, which that word lacks as a mere abstraction. Therefore, God condescended to draw man " with PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. A story in glass. The Incarna- tion. 268 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. The Truth in a Life. cords of a man, with bonds of love ; " " and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his .glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth." Before this, God's truth had been proclaimed ; now it was exhibited. Instruction had not been lacking ; but influence were impossible to the same extent without, as with, the embodiment of the taught-truth in a personality. Or, as Tennyson phrases this sentiment : " Tho' truths in manhood darkly join, Deep-seated in our mystic frame, We yield all blessing to the name Of Him that made them current coin ; " For wisdom dealt with mortal powers, Where truth in closest words shall fail, When truth embodied in a tale Shall enter in at lowly doors. "And so the Word had breath, and wrought With human hands the creed of creeds In loveliness of perfect deeds, More strong than all poetic thought ; " Which he may read that binds the sheaf, Or builds the house, or digs the grave, And those wild eyes that watch the wave In roarings round the coral reef." And so it is, that the " influence," which was first counted an inflowing upon our lives from the heavenly bodies, is found to be an inflowing upon us from the embodied truths of heaven ; and that he who has most of the spirit of Christ, who is nearest to A Pioneer Missionary. 269 Christ in his character and speech, and methods of working, in any and every sphere of truth-proclaim- ing, has more of influence over those who hear and observe him. Illustrations of the power of that influence which is found in one's personality, as over against, or as in addition to, any influence of the truth which one has to present, are to be noted in all spheres and on every side. A pioneer Sunday-school missionary was canvassing a thinly settled neighborhood in the West, for the purpose of organizing a Sunday-school in the log school-house of the settlement. Going through a clearing, he met a little boy whom he had not seen before ; and, greeting him pleasantly, he asked him to take a seat by him, on a fallen tree- trunk. As they sat there, the missionary gave the boy a little picture-card, and told him of his plans for a Sunday-school, and of the meeting called for that evening, for the starting of the school. " We are going to have a nice school," he said; "and we want all the boys to be in it. You'll come and join us, to- night, won't you ? " " IsTo," was the abrupt and em- phatic reply. The missionary was not a man to be easily discouraged ; so he took out a picture-paper from his pocket, and, putting his arm tenderly around the little fellow, he showed the paper, and explained its pictures; adding, that papers like that would be given to the scholars of the new Sunday-school, and that attractive books would be loaned to them also. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. An inaccessi- ble boy. 270 Teaching and Teachers. u You'll come, and get some of those papers and books, won't you ? " he said confidently. But, again, an emphatic " No " was the boy's only answer. That did seem a little discouraging ; but the missionary tried once more. He was a sweet singer, and he thought he would try the power of music, on the boy. He sang several verses of " I have a Father in the Promised Land; " and then he looked down at the little fellow, without a doubt of the result of this trial, and said heartily : " There, we're going to have such singing as that in the Sunday-school. "Won't you come and hear it, and learn to sing for yourself? " " No " was, for the third time, the resolute reply. Then the missionary was discouraged. He had found one inaccessible boy ; so he rose from his place on the log to go his way, leaving the boy sitting there. " Say ! " called out the boy, as the missionary moved off: " Are you goin' to be there ? " " Yes, I expect to be there to-night," answered the missionary. ki Then, I'll come," responded the boy; and the boy was there, when the school was started. Ah ! there was the power of unconscious personal influence. The truth that a Sunday-school was to be started, was in itself of no weight with that boy. All the direct arid intentional efforts of that mission- ary to influence the boy, by kind words, by earnest invitings, by the exhibit of cards and papers, and a promise of attractive books, and by the inducements of music, were ineffective. The boy knew little Unconscious Tuition. 271 about those things, and he cared less. But he had a human heart, and that heart was touched and swayed by the personal interest in himself, on the part of the man who had been sitting by his side on the log, whose arm had been put around him ten- derly, and who had been at the pains to show him those things, and to sing to him. He wanted to be near that man. If that man was to be in the school- house, the boy wanted to be there also. If it had been a grog-shop to which that man were going, the boy would have been ready to follow him there. And so the unconscious-influence is influencing, all unconsciously to themselves, the boys and the girls and the men and the women, in our newer settle- ments and in our older ones: influencing them for the right or against it, to the Sunday-school or to the drinking-saloon. The importance and the potency of this unconscious personal influence in every endeavor at religiously teaching the young, is obvious. Bishop Huntington, w r hile he was yet a professor in Harvard University, gave emphasis to this matter in an admirable essay on Unconscious Tuition, which was, in fact, an expan- sion of the truth brought out by Dr. Bushnell, in its application to the work of the teacher. " There is something very affecting," he said, u in the simple and solemn earnestness with which children look into their elders' faces. They know, by an instinct, that they shall find there an unmistakable signal of PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. Led along. Bishop Hun< tinjrton's 272 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. The gospel of the face. To say or to be. what they have to expect. It is as if the Maker had set up that open dial of muscle and fibre, color and form, eye and mouth, to mock all schemes of con- cealment, and [to] decree a certain amount of mutual acquaintance between all persons, as the basis of confidence or suspicion. It is the unguarded ren- dezvous of all the imponderable couriers of the heart. It is the public playground of all the fairies or imps of passion A teacher has only partially com- prehended the powers of his place, who has left out the lessons of his own countenance. There is a perpetual picture, which his pupils study as un- consciously as he exhibits it." And so, again, there are manifestations of a teacher's self in his voice and manners and general bearing, as this writer illustrates most impressively. And, beyond all de- finable details, " there is a total impression going out from character through the entire person, which we cannot wholly comprehend under any terms, nor grasp in any analysis." A teacher inevitably influences more by what he is seven days in the week, than by what he says one day in the week. He sways his scholars by his own character, and his own character even limits or mag- nifies the power of the word of truth which he teaches. This thought uplifts the possible power of a teacher, and it deepens the sense of his responsi- bility as a teacher. In order to his best teaching, a teacher must be the best man he can be. In pro- Loyalty to an Ideal. 273 portion as he is a true man of God, can he have power in teaching the truth of God. The first and the highest preparation of a teacher, for his work of having and using influence wisely, is, therefore, the preparation of himself in the faith and in the like- ness of Christ. " The measure of real influence " says Huntington, " is the measure of genuine per- sonal substance." " The Christian is called a light, not lightning," says Bushnell. "In order to act with effect on others, he must walk in the Spirit, and thus become the image of goodness : he must be so akin to God, and so filled with his dispositions, that he shall seem to surround himself with a hallowed atmosphere. It is folly to endeavor to make our- selves shine before we are luminous. If the sun without his beams should talk to the planets, and argue with them till the final day, it would not make them shine; there must be light in the sun, and then they will shine, of course." And if teachers shine, their scholars rejoice in their light. " There is a touching plea," says Hun- tington, again, in speaking of even the lower plane of secular teaching, " there is a touching plea in the loyal ardor with which the young are ready to look to their guides. In all men, and in women more than in men, and in children most of all, there is the natural instinct and passion for impersonating all ideal excellence in some superior being, and for living in intense devotion to a heroic presence. It 274 Teaching and Teachers. is the privilege of every teacher to occupy that place, to ascend that lawful throne of homage arid of love, if he will. If his pupils love [and honor] him, he stands their ideal of a heroic nature. Their ro- mantic fancy invests him with unreal graces. Long after his lessons are forgotten, he remains in mem- ory, a teaching power. It is his own forfeit if, by a sluggish brain, mean manners, or a small and selfish heart, he alienates that confidence and disappoints that generous hope." And if a teacher fails his scholar at this point of character, the loss to scholar as well as to teacher is unspeakable ; for the failure of one who is invested with ideal qualities is a failure beyond the actual reality. Hawthorne, in The Marble Faun, speaking of this truth, as he has spoken of almost every truth in the sweep of human fellowships, says : " The character of our individual beloved one having invested itself with all the attri- butes of right, that one friend being to us the symbol and representative of whatever is good and true, when he falls, the effect is almost as if the sky fell with him, bringing down in chaotic ruin the col- umns that upheld our faith. We struggle forth again, no doubt, bruised and bewildered. We stare wildly about us, and discover or it may be we never make the discovery that it was not actually the sky that has tumbled down, but merely a frail structure of our own rearing, which never rose higher than the house-tops, and has fallen because A Question of Christian Liberty 275 we founded it on nothing. But the crasi, and the affright and trouble, are as overwhelming, for the time, as if the catastrophe involved the whole moral world. Remembering these things, let them suggest one generous motive for walking needfully amid the defilement of earthly ways ! [And how much more weight should this thought of Hawthorne's have with the Sunday-school teacher than with the ordi- nary reader !] Let us reflect, that the highest path is pointed out by the pure ideal of those who look up to us, and who, if we tread less loftily, may never look so high again." And just here it is that the duty which Paul pointed out, of guarding our conduct, even within the limits of Christian liberty, with an eye to the tender consciences of sensitive observers, comes into exceptional prominence in the sphere of the Sunday- school teacher. There are few teachers who would not shrink from the thought of doing an obvious wrong which might be the means of destroying their influence for good with their scholars; but there are many teachers who feel free to do that which their scholars may, indeed, look upon as wrong, but which they themselves consider both innocent and allowable. They fail to realize the truth that the question of their personal influence for Christ brings a new element into the question, whether that which they know to be lawful is, in their case, also expedient. A Christian mother came to PART II. The Teacher's Other Work SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. The highest ideal. Being a stumbling- block. 276 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. Influence lost. The liberty to let alone. " said the mother. u What can I m j boy out of that class? It me to ask my counsel concerning her son. He had admired and loved his Sunday-school teacher; but he had learned that that teacher was accustomed to attend the theatre, and at once he lost confidence in his teacher's Christian character. "Nothing that that teacher can say, will now have any influ- ence with my son, do ? Shall I take seems useless for him to remain there any longer.'* The question in such a case is not, whether the teacher had a moral right to pursue the course which he did concerning theatre-going; but, whether it was wise for him thus to endanger his influence with his scholars. There are many such cases as this. "Wine-drink- ing, tobacco-using, card-playing, dancing, as well as theatre-going, on a teacher's part, have many times weakened or destroyed the teacher's good influence over his scholars in the Sunday-school. It is of no use to say that, because these things are in themselves harmless and allowable, as the teacher looks at them, therefore they are to be adhered to, at whatever con- sequences to scholars who have weak consciences on these points. If, indeed, adherence to a matter in dispute is a clear point of duty; if a teacher can say, concerning any of the above-named practices, that lie has no right to abstain from it; that he must wit- ness for it, as a means of promoting it for Christ, then, of course, it is not within the sphere of his The Aftermath of Influence. 277 Christian liberty ; lie must stand by it, at every cost or risk to himself or to others. But if it is a matter where he can choose for himself which course he will pursue, and he knows that his scholars are in- clined to count indulgence, in that line, a lowering of the Christian standard, and abstinence the course of the pure and the devoted Christian, then, surely, he is bound to consider his influence over those scholars as an important element in his decision of personal duty. .Then it is that the inspired admo- nition should ring anew in his ears : " Take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours [this liberty of indulgence] become a stumbling-block to the weak," lest *' through thy knowledge [thy knowl- edge of the innocence of that which by some is counted as wrong] he that is weak perish eth, the brother for whose sake Christ died. And thus, sin- ning against the brethren, and wounding their con- science, when it is weak, ye sin against Christ." A teacher's influence for good, whether it be his intentionally-directed influence, or his influence ex- erted unconsciously, is not always manifested imme- diately in the scholar's character or conduct. It is never , indeed, shown in its fullness at the first. It is often unapparent at the beginning, and sometimes for long years afterward ; yet it is all the more real for its vitality during a period of prolonged dor- mancy. And there is stimulus and encouragement to the faithful teacher in this thought. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. Take heed I Seed-time and harvest. 278 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. John New- ton's mother. A mission- scholar. John Newton's mother died when he was scarcely seven years old. She had "been faithful in word and in character, in her purpose of influencing her son aright; but he grew up godless and vicious. A pro- fane infidel sailor, the servant of a slave-dealer, and again a public felon, bound in irons and flogged at the whipping-post, his manhood's first harvest seemed a poor garnering for his mother's sowing. But underneath the surface of his heart's soil lay buried the memory of that mother's hand upon his head in prayer, as he kneeled with her in his boyhood. The loving pressure of that hand was never wholly lost to him. It was felt by him, at times, in all his darkest days of sinning ; and, by God's grace, it gently drew him back to the place of faith-filled prayer. From that root of influence there came the starting of new life in all the field of his mind and heart ; and the aftermath of his mother's influence has filled the world with song and story. And so, to a lesser or a larger degree, with many another wayward boy, from home or from school. In the city mission-school in Hartford, Connecticut, where I took some of my earliest lessons in the methods and the possibilities of teaching, more than thirty years ago, a kind-hearted teacher toiled faith- fully and endured patiently with one boy in his class who seemed thoroughly and hopelessly bad. He visited that boy in his wretched home, he invited him to his own pleasant room, he clothed him, he A Rescued Prodigal. 279 found one place after another of employment for him, he spoke to him always in kindness, counseling and warning him untiringly ; but all to no seeming pur- pose. The boy was still wild, coarse, profane, reck- less, ungrateful ; and at last he ran away from his home, and shipped on a Liverpool vessel from New York. The end had come to his life in that mission- school. "Was there nothing to show for all the influ- ence which had been exerted, in his behalf, there ? Three years went by. Then from the interior of British India word came from that boy, saying that he was a soldier in the English army under Sir Colin Campbell, battling against the Sepoys. Already he had marched nine hundred miles, and had endured untold privations and hardships. But there, in that far land, shut in among the mountains, away from home and Christian surroundings, sick in body and sad in spirit, he had recalled the lessons of his Hart- ford mission-school ; and now the aftermath of his discouraged teacher's influence showed itself in his words of penitence and gratitude, and of trust in his Redeemer's love. It is natural and proper to expect the greatest good in the immediate results of influence ; but we are encouraged also to believe that the secondary, or the ultimate, results of good influence may be even larger and better than the primary results. If not now, then by and by. If not in the first garnering, then in the aftermath. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. Saved at last, By and by. 280 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. Ten thou- sand ages. Another illustration. " Age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress; And as the evening twilight fades away, The sky is filled with stars invisible by day." What you do, and, more than all, what you are, to-day, is to have power over others, or in others, not only to-day, but in the long-distant future. " The teacher," says Confucius, " is a pattern for ten thou- sand ages." The chief harvest of your influence may be to-day ; and again it may be ten thousand ages hence whatever may seem to be your failure or your success to-day. " Bead we not the mighty thought Once by ancient sages taught ? Though it withered in the blight Of the mediaeval night, Now the harvest we behold ; See ! it bears a thousand-fold. " If God's wisdom has decreed One may labor, yet the seed Barely in this life shall grow, Shall the sower cease to sow ? The fairest truth may yet be born On the resurrection morn." A single added illustration may tend to fix more firmly in the reader's mind the importance of a teacher's looking well to the nature and tendencies of his personal influence conscious and unconscious in view of the unyielding permanence of the im- The Springs at Vichy. 281 pressions thereby produced in the scholar's life and character : The waters of the mineral springs at Vichy, in France, are widely known for their tonic and invigorating qualities. Thousands of health-seekers visit these springs annually; while the Vichy waters and their imitations find a ready market throughout the world. In addition to its health -giving char- acter, the water of some of these springs has the power of petrifying, or coating with stone, whatever is for any considerable time, and steadily, subjected to its action. Although the water itself is colorless and comparatively clear and free from sediment, it slowly precipitates its mineral components, which solidify on the surface where they fall, and form, as it were, a covering of unyielding rock. This pecu- liarity of the Vichy water is improved for the manu- facture of ornamental petrifactions in great variety, and the preparation and sale of these trinkets is quite a business in the vicinity of the springs. A prepared model, or pattern, is set where the spring-water can trickle steadily upon it, and there it is permitted to remain day after day. The water is limpid. Its flow is free. It merely passes over the pattern as if to wash it. It touches it and is gone. But, in passing, the water deposits, atom by atom, from its substance and possessions, that which hardens on the model below until that model is reproduced, or encased, all parts alike, in stone. If PART II. 'Ihe Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. Coated with stone. Following copy. 282 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. Like makes like. What is the pattern ? the pattern, in wood or metal or glass, is a cross, the deposit on it forms accordingly, and it is taken out as a cross of stone. If a plaster copy of an elaborately wrought piece of carving or sculpture is the pattern, the result -is a similar work in stone ; each figure and outline of the copy being so covered with the mineral deposit that it becomes a stone reproduction of the original carving or sculpture. So, under the running water at the springs at Vichy grow forms of beauty in enduring rock, just according to the patterns placed there. Nor is it alone at Vichy that the inflowing stream shapes itself in stone by the models over which it passes. The same process goes on continually in the sphere of every Sunday-school teacher. The current of his influence may seem colorless and inoperative. It may pass on so quietly over his scholar's mind that it seems likely to leave no im- pression there. Yet it surely deposits, atom by atom, from its substance and possessions, that which hardens into stone on the scholar's inner life, in conformity with the patterns which the teacher has selected, or which he has unconsciously presented to the scholar's mind. Every act, every word, every thought of tte teacher which enters into the stream of his personal character and influence contributes its mite to the forming rock in his scholar's heart and soul. The teacher selects and places the model by which this rock is shaped. The seemingly unim- The Perfect Pattern. 283 portant trickling of the minor streams of personal influence does the rest. The enduring stone shall show what was the teacher's model. Happy is that teacher whose life and character are so conformed to the only perfect Pattern, that he can say in con- fidence to his scholars, with the Apostle Paul, " Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ," until ye " are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit." PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION I. Having and Using Influence. His image. 284 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION II . Loving, and Winning Love. Unloving aud unloved, n. LOVING, AND WINNING LOVE. What Love Is ; No Power Like Love ; Love in a Garret ; Every Man Has a Heart ; Love as a Duty ; Instances of Love ; All Can Love; Christ's Image Reproduced in Love. "LoviNG" one's scholars, and "influencing" one's scholars, are by no means identical; although the two things very often go together. A teacher who loves his scholars and who is loved by his scholars is pretty sure to influence his scholars ; but a teacher may influence his scholars without either loving them or being loved by them. A teacher may have and exert an influence by the purity of his life, by the strength of his character, by the positiveness of his convictions, by the earnestness of his nature, by the persuasiveness of his words and manner, and yet be unloving and unloved as a teacher. But loving is as clearly a duty as influencing, on the part of a Sun- day-school teacher. Loving and winning are an inseparable portion of the obligations resting on every disciple of Christ, who goes in the name of Christ to those for whom Christ died. Love as a Duty. 285 Love, be it understood, the love which is here spoken of, is not a matter of emotion ; it is not a drawing of the affections in strong feeling toward one who is in himself attractive. If it were that which were looked upon as, in all cases, a duty, there would indeed seem to be insuperable obstacles to its uniform exercise ; and its very existence might fairly be counted beyond the scope of the teacher's will. The love which is a duty, is a recognition of every child as a fellow-creature, a fellow immortal with ourselves, a personal object of the love of God, and one who is dear to Jesus our Saviour. It in- volves a recognition of the peculiar needs of that one whom Jesus loves, and whom he asks us to care for for his sake. Such a recognition in its fullness will inevitably bring us to a sense of tender interest in the condition of him who represents so much; it cannot but create in us a desire to be of service to this possessor of an immortal soul for whom Jesus died ; and that desire will be sure to show itself in all that we say or do, in our intercourse with that personality. Love is, after all, the chief attraction in the Sun- day-school. It is the only power which reaches every "scholar alike. Every heart is human, and every human heart is open to the influence of genu- ine sympathy and affection. There are those who can be attracted to a Sunday-school by its showy appointments, its spacious rooms, its furnishing and PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION II. Loving, and Winning Love. What love involves. The chief power. 286 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION II. Loving, and Winning Love. Every one loves to be loved. A new convert. adornments. Others are won by its fine singing, or by its library and its picture-papers. Yet others enjoy its companionships, and the anticipation of its festivals and picnics. Some, it may be, think more of the instruction they receive there, and of the gain to their minds and hearts as Bible students. But no one of these attractions is alike for all. There are those who care nothing for singing, and who lack good taste and an appreciation of the beautiful. Many have no interest in books and papers, and many more have no enjoyment in mere Bible study. But every one loves to be loved, and finds pleasure in being where the very atmosphere of the place is redolent with sympathy and affection. That Sun- day-school where love is most prominent most apparent in desk and class is surest of being always attractive, always potent for good to its scholars. My earliest experience in the mission-school work gave me a lesson on this point which I have never forgotten. While I was yet a new comer into the fold of Christ, my heart brimming and burning with love for Him who loved me, and I desirous of show- ing that love in any way in my power, I was asked to have a part in a mission-school movement just be- ginning in a needy portion of our city, and I gladly assented. Finding my way to the place designated, on a Sunday noon, I groped along, up rickety stair- cases, and through dark passage-ways, dimly lighted by burning candles at mid-day, in a dilapidated pile Love in a Garret. 287 of old buildings near the river bank ; and there, in a room just under the roof, I found a few teachers and less than a score of ragged boys and girls from the more wretched homes of the wretched neighbor- hood. There was certainly nothing in the room itself which was attractive, and this was before the days of modern Sunday-school singing, or modern Sunday-school appliances generally. Apart from the heart attractions of the work undertaken there, what could win or hold such boys and girls as had already begun to gather there ? As I sat in that garret-room, looking about me with curious interest, on my first visit there, I noticed one little fellow all by himself in a corner, more wretched-looking, if possible, than any other there. He was in rags. His appearance w r as most uncleanly. His face was badly swollen, as if from a tooth-ache ; and, as he caught my attention, he was clumsily trying to re-adjust a coarse and dirty cloth, which had been tied as a bandage about his face, but which was slipping from its place. Touched with a sense of his wretchedness, I stepped across the room, and, taking the bandage from his hands, with a kindly word to him, I re-folded it as best I could, and, passing it around his cheeks, I tied it securely above his head. As, with another expres- sion of sympathy with the little fellow, I took away rny hands from his head, he turned his face up to mine with a look I shall never forget. It was a look PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION II. Loving, and Winning Love. A dreary spot. Won by a look. " 288 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION II. Loving, and Winning Love. Open, Sesame I A new life. of wonderment and of grateful joy commingled, as if out of an utterly new experience in his young life. It seemed to speak his unfeigned surprise that any one should have such a regard for him, or should lay hands on him except in violence or harshness. It seemed to say that he had already learned to shrink and groan and suifer ; but that never before had he known what it was to be loved. That look taught me the "Open, Sesame!" of the outcast's heart. It showed me that I could win love by showing love ; that I could do a work for Christ by eviden- cing the spirit of Christ in never so faint a degree. That look won my life to the Sunday-school work. That boy proved to be the son of a wandering scissors-grinder. He had really never known what a home w T as. Within a few weeks from the hour I first met him, both his parents were dead. That mission-school was the means of his rescue. First taken from it into an orphan asylum, he was after- ward he'lped to a place of honorable employment. Then he became a faithful soldier of his country. After that he was a consistent Christian worker. His first experience of Christian love was not his last. He lived to exemplify the power of love on himself, and in himself, and through himself; and so far he is a lesson to every one who would get good or do good in the Sunday-school field. It is not alone the poor outcast who feels the power of love, who is won by love, and who is glad and The Pre-eminence of Love. 289 grateful when he finds that he is loved. No child living is ahove being loved. Children who have love at home, appreciate it none the less when they feel its force and are swayed by its influence in the Sunday-school*. Love can reach all. " Aim at the heart, in your preaching," said an experienced preacher, in addressing a class of graduating divinity students. " Not every man has a head, but every man has a heart. If you aim at the head, you will miss some of your hearers. If you aim at the heart, you will hit them all. Aim at the heart." And that is as good counsel for the Sunday-school teacher as it is for the preacher. Unless a Sunday-school teacher has love and shows love, in his work for his scholars, he lacks one thing without which all else must go for naught. Though he speaks with the tongues of men and of angels, though he has the gift of prophecy, though he understands all knowledge and all mysteries, though he gives of his goods to feed the poor, and though he has all faith so that he could remove mountains, and yet has not love, that love which suffer eth long and is kind, which beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things, he is nothing as a true and efficient Sunday-school teacher. The true measure of a Sunday-school teacher's personal power over his scholars is found in his love for them, and in their love for him ; for love begets love, and he who loves truly is truly loved. I once PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION II. Loving, and Winning Love. Aim at the heart. Love begets love. 290 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION II. Loving, and Winning Love. A life for a life. Love can be won. knew a Sunday-school which was influential beyond all the Sunday-schools about it, and I was puzzled for the secret of its success. Its superintendent was a man not well furnished intellectually for such a work as he was carrying forward;* moreover, he lacked any special fitness in his personal magnetism, or in his administrative qualities, or in his skill and tact as a worker; yet old and young in the com- munity gathered in large numbers in his Sunday- school, and were kept there, year after year. It was a rarely successful school, while without any seeming reason for its great success. I asked that superin- tendent's pastor if he could tell me what was that man's powder. " I don't know that I can answer you any better," said the pastor, u than by saying that a member of my church said, not long ago, ' There are fifty men in this town who would die for that superintendent.' ' There was the source of that superintendent's power. He was, like Daniel, a u man greatly beloved." He was loved because he was loving. His love for all drew the love of all to him; and that was reason enough why his Sunday- school should be a power in his community. Every teacher can love his scholars, and by loving his scholars every teacher can win the love of his scholars; hence, as it is a duty of every teacher to love those whom God commits to his charge, it is every teacher's duty to be loved by the scholars of his charge. Many a teacher is loved very dearly; The Duty of Being Loved. 291 every teacher ought to be. "Don't you think my teacher is the best teacher that ever lived?" asked a scholar in that Hartford mission-school of which I have already spoken. And when a teacher was taken out of that very school by death, the heartiest tribute that was paid to his power as a teacher was the ejaculation of one of the boys in his class : " I tell you, he did love the boys." And, again, when one of the scholars out of that school was told, in her home of poverty, that she had but a little while to live, she said, in tender thoughtfulness: "Mother, don't tell my teacher I am dead; for it will break her heart to know it." And as those scholars mag- nified their teacher's love for them, so every scholar ought to have reason to magnify the love of his teacher for him. Some years ago, I was looking along a street in Lowell, Massachusetts, on a snowy Saturday even- ing, for the home of a good superintendent with whom I was to pass the Sabbath. Not being sure of the house, I stopped a thinly clad little girl, who was passing, and pointing to the house which I thought was the one sought for, I asked : " Do you know, does Deacon Chase live in this house ? " "I don't know if it's Deacon Chase," was the little girl's prompt reply ; "but the man who lives there is named Chase, and he's got white 'hair, and he loves little children." Ah ! that was a description which every Sunday-school worker might long for, PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION II. Loving, and Winning Love. Proofs of love. How she knew him. 292 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's -Other Work. SECTION II. Loving, and Winnii g Love. True Friends. Following the superin- Jende'at. whether his hair is white, or black, or brown. And when a man can be said by all to love little children, he will be loved by little children. I knew a Sun- day-school in Philadelphia where was no singing, no instrumental music, no audible prayer, no orna- mented walls, no room-adornments; but where love was, as it were, all in all to the scholars. It was a First-day School of the Friends, and the superin- tendent and every teacher were counted as loved friends by all their scholars. In one of the homes represented in that school a mother died, and her little son was well-nigh broken-hearted in a sense of his loss. But as he thought of the love and the sympathy he had lost, he turned in his longing to the love and sympathy which were left to him, and he said, through his tears : " Well, I've got Mr. Baily's Sunday-school to go to, haven't I, papa ? " And there was help to him in that thought. I knew another Sunday-school, in Connecticut, where were all the attractions of singing, and books, and pic- tures, and of a bright and well-furnished room, but where love, again, was the chief attraction, even if it did not seem to be all in all. The loved superin- tendent died out of that school, and it seemed as if every scholar's heart would break under a crushing sense of personal loss. A few weeks later a little German scholar of that school was called to die. When told that there was no hope of her recovery, her heart went out afresh in love toward her remem- An Attainment for All. 293 bered superintendent, and her face brightened up as she responded : " Then I shall be the first scholar from our school to meet Mr. Preston in heaven." Heaven itself was more attractive to that child, be- cause of her loved superintendent's presence there. Nor was he alone, as a representative of Jesus, in winning hearts heavenward by manifesting the love of Jesus. "Love is strong as death. . . . Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it." There is an encouragement in this thought, of the power of love, in the work of the Sunday-school teacher. Not all teachers have, or can have, every qualification for the teacher's work; but every teacher can love and can be loved. You may not be able to become expert as a " teacher," gaining a thorough knowledge of your lessons, of your scholars, and of wise methods of teaching; having power in holding your scholars' intelligent attention, in making clear what you would teach, and in securing the co- work of your scholars in the teaching process. You may lack skill in questioning, in illustrating, and in reviewing. All this lack may be regretted by you ; but if you are possessed with love for Christ, and with love for souls for Christ's sake, you will have power with your scholars in behalf of Christ. In the work of winning scholars to Christ, there are many agencies and helps; "and the greatest of these is love." The story has been told, of a young PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION II. Loving, and Winning Love. Strong as death. You can be loving. 294 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other \Vork. SECTION II. Loving, and Winning Love. Her special way. A class- reunion. woman teacher in an English Sunday-school who had rare success in winning her scholars to the Saviour. So uniform was this success, that it came to be taken for granted that a scholar who entered her class would be brought to Christ ; and her super- intendent asked her, at one time, what was her special way with her scholars, which had such po- tency. "I don't know of any special way of mine," she answered. " I only know that I can never look upon a scholar without the thought, There is one for whose soul the blood of the Son of God was shed ; and I cannot count anything too much to be done for that soul. I cannot rest satisfied till that one whom Jesus loves, loves Jesus." "Where there is such love as this there is likely to be such a result as this, such a record as this according to the teacher's loving faith. Indeed, the love of Christ is often first recognized by a scholar as it is evidenced and exhibited in the Christ-like love of a teacher. A striking illustration of this truth was given in a reminiscence of a class- reunion in Yale College, as related by a speaker at a Sunday-school convention held under the shadow of the walls of that college. " It is usual," he said, " as is perhaps known to many or all before me, for classes which have been graduated at this honored university to meet at certain intervals after gradua- tion, and renew the memories of college life. On such an occasion, after an absence of thirty years Christ Reproduced. 295 from the university, a class was gathered in yonder hotel. They had taken their seats at their supper- table, when a knock was heard at the door, and an elderly man entered the room; his head was gray with silvery sprinklings, his form was bent, and his features were wrinkled, doubtless with care rather than by the bruisings of years ; for his eye still flashed the fire of youth. He called many of those present by name, and all he addressed as classmates. But of the twenty-five there gathered not one knew him, so thoroughly had he become changed. He had been separated from his country and friends, in search of health, through most of the thirty long years then just passed, and in those thirty years the line of his life had crossed that of none of his classmates. A tear moistened his eye as he stood there ; for he felt that ' he had come unto his own and his own received him not.' At last, refusing to give his name, he stepped into the adjoining room, and led in his son, a fine young man of eighteen years. Scarcely had the son appeared, when the voices of all uttered the name of their now remembered classmate, so per- fectly did the features of the young man reflect the youth of his father." And, similarly, many a scholar who fails to recognize the love of Jesus as it is told of in his "Word, will see it, and rejoice in it, and be won to it, when it is shown reproduced in its living beauty, in the character of a loving teacher. " In that day," says Jesus, to those who thus repre- PART II The Teacher'i Other Work. SECTION II. Loving, and Winning Love. The father in the son* 296 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION II. Loving, and Winning Love. I in you. sent him in the power of the Spirit who dwells in the heart of the believer in Jesus " in that day, ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." And in that day those who love you, and who are loved by you, shall know that Christ is in you, and you shall have power to win them to his love as it is evidenced and illustrated in your love. And this power is the duty and the privilege of every believing teacher. Spirit and Work. 297 m. MANAGING SCHOLARS WHILE PRESENT. Practical Details to be Considered; What Managing Means ; Gain of a Great Need; A Troublesome Class; A Teacher 1 's Sufficiency ; Testing the Teacher; Preparation Needful; At the Teacher's Home ; A Word in the Ear ; Specimen Scholars ; A Class as a Class; A Teacher's Helpers; Having What You Want; A Slow Work ; The Bronze Finishers, AFTER all that can be said and properly said of the importance and practical value of influence and of affection in the sphere of a Sunday-school teacher's work, it must be admitted that both influence and affection are in the atmosphere and in the spirit of the teacher's work, rather than in the methods and in the practical details of that work. And when both atmosphere and spirit are all that they should be, the methods and the practical details of the work in this realm are not to be overlooked or under- valued. The teacher whose character is most Christ- like, and whose heart is overflowing with Christian love, coming face to face with a class of untrained and mischievous scholars in the Sunday-school , finds that there is a severe and rugged reality of difficul- PAKT II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION III. Managing Scholars while Present. Something practical. 298 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION III. Managing Scholars while Present. Now, what? A riding- school. ties to be encountered, and of obstacles to be over- come, in the management and control of those scholars, which cannot be met by any purpose, how- ever sincere, or however well carried out, of recog- nizing the importance and potency of one's personal influence, conscious and unconscious, and of loving and being loved as a teacher. Here are these scholars to be cared for. How can they be so man- aged as to bring them under influence and instruc- tion, and as to show love for them while winning their love ? This is a question which has to be met, and now is the time to meet it. And, at the start, it is well to consider the fact, that a class which needs managing should fairly have a certain attractiveness to a really good Sunday-school teacher, above any class which is under no necessity of management; that, indeed, a class can be said to have a value as a class in direct proportion to its need of being managed. " Manage " is primarily the government of a horse. It has its origin in the French manege, " riding-school," " horse-training," " horsemanship." Shakespeare says : " In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watched, And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars ; Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed." A horse needs managing, needs training, needs a firm hand, a skilled touch, and a wise discretion in his guidance and control, just in proportion to his Worth of High Spirit. 299 life and spirit and capabilities ; and both his attrac- tiveness and his market value rate accordingly. There are horses which need no managing. They have no spirit which requires controlling. They can be trusted safely in a milk-wagon, or a garbage-cart, with a child to drive them; and they have their uses in the world. But they are not of that sort which is described in the Book of Job : " Hast thou given the horse strength ? Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder? Canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper? The glory of his nostrils is terrible; He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength ; He goeth out to meet the armed men ; He mocketh at fear and is not affrighted, Neither turneth he back from the sword." Such a horse needs managing. So, also, does the hunter, or the carriage-horse, of high spirit and thorough training, which is the pride of his owner, or which is the delight of the family which he serves. Without the need of management, there is, indeed, no possibility of high attainment in a horse, or in any other creature formed for service. It is not that there is )ao worth where there is no restlessness and need of 'close control, in horses or in children, but it is that there are added advantages always accompanying these characteristics, in animal life, and that there is an added attractiveness in the possibility of securing these advantages. Oysters 300 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION III. Managing Scholars while Present. Oysters and trout, High possibilities. and brook trout, for example, are both very well in their way as articles of diet ; but when it comes to fishing for the one or the other of these denizens of the water, there is no such attractiveness in the slow dead-lift of the oysters, from their sea-bed, with the sure and clumsy oyster-tongs, as in the flashing of the fly, cast from the graceful rod-tip, in the effort to hook the trout in his shady pool under the forest trees, and in the adroit endeavor to land him safely when hooked. Brook-trout need managing. Oys- ters do not. There are Sunday-school classes which represent the oyster element, and there are others which are as lively and spirited as brook-trout. Again, there are classes which represent respectively, on the one hand, the war-steed, the spirited racer, or the blooded carriage-horse; and on the other hand, the spiritless treadmill hack. The teachers who have classes which need no management are in no need of counsel on this subject. If they think tfeem- selves entitled to congratulations, it would be un- generous not to gratify their expectations. But there are many teachers whose scholars are not altogether like oysters, nor yet like spiritless hack- horses. They need counsel and encouragement, and they are entitled to congratulations also; for their classes have higher possibilities than classes where there is less need of management. In other words, it ought to be a real comfort to a Sunday-school teacher to have scholars who pecu- Classes Which Differ. 301 liarly require managing, and who peculiarly lack it ; who have had no good teaching at home, and who seem to have no thought of any responsibility for the preparation of their lessons out of the Sunday-school hour, or for their quiet conduct during it. Scholars who lack all life and spirit, or, again, who are well taught by their parents, and who study their lessons faithfully, could almost take care of themselves. Teaching them in the Sunday-school is, in a sense, a supplemental work, and managing them is quite unnecessary. But when a scholar gets all his man- aging and all his teaching in the Sunday-school, and during the lesson-hour, having an exceptional need of both teaching and managing, he is one of the schol- ars worth having in charge. Sunday-school teaching and Sunday-school managing ought to amount to something in his case. There is cause of encourage- ment to teachers who have such scholars. Instead of repining over their trying lot, they have reason to rouse themselves to the exceptionally good work to which they are summoned by the exceptional need of their scholars. It is to teachers of this sort that these words of counsel are now addressed. That there are scholars in the Sunday-school who require managing, and that there are teachers who are at their wits' end in devising expedients for managing such scholars successfully, every one who has had wide experience in the Sunday-school sphere is well aware. A good illustration of the sort of PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION III. Managing Scholars while Present. Without need. With need. 302 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Olher Work. SECTION III. Managing Scholars while Present. A specimen class. scholars referred to, may be found in a picturesque description of a veritable class put into the care of a young woman teacher, as an experiment, not long ago, when she was first considering the question of entering the Sunday-school teacher's sphere. She had been a scholar in that school, and now she was asked to try her hand as a teacher there. Writing to me for counsel, she told of the class as it showed itself to her, on that first Sunday. " Oh, it was fearful ! " she wrote, " I thought that I had seen boys before, bat these went ahead of every experience that I ever had. I'd soon have straight- ened them out if I had had them in a day-school ; but, huddled in as they were, I was helpless- When they were bobbing around, it seemed as though there were about fifty of them, but I think there were about a dozen. They paid no attention whatever to me. I gained the attention of the whole class but twice, and then only about two seconds at a time. My face began to redden. Nearly all were provided with whistles, and they used them. I borrowed one, and was immediately assailed with, ' That's mine, he give it to me.' 'No, he didn't either; it's mine, he give it to me.' Then they put hats on each other's heads. 'Who cut your hair?' 'My father.' 'Who cut yours ? ' ' My uncle John.' Forthwith began a scrimmage to see whose hair was the shortest. And they pulled hair, till I wanted to pull too, or sink through the floor. The superintendent came at this A Tried Teacher. 303 juncture, and tried to help them, but their hair was too short. They insisted that we had to pay Christ money to save us. ' We want stories, our teacher used to tell them to us,' was hurled at me. ' Soon spitballs began to fly thick and fast. Then they out with their pins ; and their jumps, and jerks, and ' He's a-sticking a pin into me,' and 'He's a-stepping onto me,' and ' He's a-pulling my ear,' ' my hair,' etc., testified to their unwearying activity. Two boys tried to be still, and various were the attempts to get them into the tumult. One boy, who had a pin, changed seats with, I think, the only one who hadn't, and slyly slipped a pin beneath the chair, and up through the cane-seat. There was a jump, and a hunting for a pin to revenge himself with. I made the boy change back to his own seat, and so quieted the boy who was trying to be quiet. Then a discussion on ages began, and later a quarrel over library books. 'I'm going home in ten minutes.' 4 I'm going in five.' One of the little torments began to ask if I would not teach them next Sunday. * Perhaps we will behave better,' was the tempting bait held out. Two signals on the bell are given at the close of the school : at the first, they all jumped up, and turned their chairs around. I remonstrated, and all the satisfaction that I got was, ' Eyery one else is,' from a chorus of voices." And so on to the end of the school session. It will be admitted by all, that those scholars required managing. It will PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION III. Managing Scholars while Present. Trying to b quiet. 304 Teaching and Teachers. PART II. The Teacher's Other Work. SECTION III. Managing Scholars while Present. Who is suffi- cient ? be admitted by some, that those scholars were not unlike a great many other scholars in other Sunday- schools who also need managing. Sitting face to face with such a class as this, recog- nizing the intense personality of each one of these spirited, restless scholars, and perceiving how much needs to be done with each scholar and with all, in opposition to the nature and the habits and the tastes and purposes of each arid all, the best skilled teacher, with the most loving heart, and of the most patient and hopeful spirit, may well cry out in anxiety, if not in despair, "Who is sufficient for these things ? " And no teacher has a right to feel sufficient for, and competent to, the right management and training of scholars like these, in his own wisdom and strength. Here it is, at the very start, that a teacher's fitness and competency for the work of managing scholars in the Sunday-school, as well as for every other phase of the Sunday-school teacher's work, are dependent upon and are to be measured by the teacher's faith in Him whom he represents, whose he is, and before whom he stands. u Without me [or, apart from me], ye can do nothing," says Jesus to his best-loved disci- pies. And there is no place where the disciple of Jesus has more reason to realize the fullness of this truth, than where he faces his responsibility for the souls of those to whom he has been sent by his Saviour and theirs. When the father of a demon-possessed child came Power through Faith. 305 to Jesus in behalf of the loved one, whom neither the father nor yet the disciples of Jesus had been able to help, his cry of longing was : " If thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us." The teacher of those scholars who would seem little else than demon-possessed in the class just described, might well cry out, in the same words of longing, to Jesus: "If thou canst do anything, have compassion on us, and help us." The prompt and explicit answer of Jesus to the troubled father was and the same answer would apply with equal force to the troubled teacher " If thou canst ! All things are possible to him that believeth." As to the power of Jesus over the spirits of all, there need be no question or doubt. The only question is, as to the one who asks the help of Jesus in behalf of those given into his charge. All things in behalf of such objects of loving responsibility, are possible to him who has trustful faith in their behalf. A teacher has a duty to feel his in competency and his insufficiency, in and of himself, as he faces a responsibility like this. On the other hand, he has a duty to rest on his Saviour for wisdom, for strength, for skill, and for success in his work. 3, 278; retain responsibility, 358. Parrot-recitations, 17,22 90, 186. Passion of Christ, its meaning, 40. Passive learning, no, 98. Pastor, in charge of all the flock, 364. Pattern : teacher. 9, 1:J5 ; following the, 157, 282; Christ the Perfect, 282. Patience in teaching, 153. Patient and medicine, understanding both, 57. Paul's aim at influencing, 251. Paxson, ' Father," his first teaching ex- perience, 207. Payne. Joseph, his judgment of teachers, 44. Persistence, teacher's, exemplified, 331. Personality, power of, 259, 266. Perspective : seeing in, 226; not from repe- tition, 230. Peter: repeatedly enjoined, 216; his mis- take in limiting, 346. Pharaoh's lean kine: hearers like, 14; scholars like, 200. Philosophy of the teaching-process, 102. Physic, taking in, 224. Pictorial teaching defined, 127. Pilate, what was? 190. Plaintiff and defendant, 86. Plan: of study needed, 118; value of, 121; of study, having a, 129; subordinating the, 132. Planets, supposed influence of the, 244, 246. Planning for teaching, 125-137. Points, selecting certain, 124, 328. Index. 387 Polite attentions, subduing through, 317. Pope's Dunciad, 90. Porter, Noah, on reading, 95. Practical, importance of the, 63, 297. Practice, methods in, 138-198. Preacher: enlightened, 12; influence of a, 258. Preaching : not teaching, 14 ; and teach- ing, difference between, 93; defined, 98; elements of, 259; to the heart, 289. Preliminary requisites f ^r teaching, 118. Preparation : teacher's need of, 52. 55, 235, d09; methods in, 105-137; for teaching, special, 116. Prescription, not medical lecture, needed, 50. Preston, E. B., meeting in heaven, 293. Private, words with scholars in, "312. Profession, need of the practical in every 64. Progress, true test of, 201. Propitiation, failure to understand, 87. " P s" and " D's," the four, 121. Pulpit: Sunday-school antedates the, 354; limitations of the, 301. Purpose : of this volume, 3 ; having a, 248. Quarter's lessons, reviewing the, 230. Question: finding answer to a set, 25; for each scholar, 136; an unanswerable, 142 ; scholars should, 193 : repeating emphasizes a, 219. Question book : a case of too much, 19 ; in place of a teacner, Ifc8. Question-method : of Socrates, 94 ; of James Gall, 177; of Thomas K. Beecher, 179; <5f J. G. Fitch, 183. Questioning : preparing for, 131 ; for atten- tion, 145 ; the place of, I', 6 ; three grades of, 181; order of, 181; vague, 185; skill- ful, 189; true standard of, 208; in new- viewing, 233. Quick, Robert Herbert : on repetition, 212 ; on class-unity, 318. Quick answering, too, 316. Rabbinical : mnemonics, 119 ; schools, 358. Rarey's private word with a horse, 310. Reaching scholars when absent, 327-33'J. Reading, advising scholars about, 366. Recapitulation: limitations of, 221; gain of, 236. Reciting and learning, distinction be- tween, 16. Recitations, rote and parrot, 17, 89, 186. Record, making one's own, 375. Refrains and choruses, 218. Regeneration, conversion not, 342. Relation bet ween scholar and teacher, 353, , 363. Remembering: telling assists, 91; review- ing assists, 212 ; influence assists, 2 3. Repetition : assistance of, 92 ; importance of, 212; power of, 218; limitations of, 221 ; givt s no perspective, 230. Requirements for teaching three, 3> Responsibility : for influence, universal, 276; of teachers, 138, 167, 238, 362, 373; of parents, 358. Results of influence, 279. Reviewing: defined, 198, 223; three-fold- ness of, 198; informal, 202, 219; fasten- ing by, 210-220 ; importance of, 211: at stated times, 220; as new-viewing, 221; perspective in, 229. Review-methods, 199-238; of the Jesuits, 211; Christ's, 215; Paul's, 216. Revision, limitations of, 221. Robber-scholar, the Aposile John's, 331. Rope, an illustrative, 165. Rote recitations. 17, 89, 186. Rubbing it in, 182. Rugby Academy, use of influence at, 261. Sacrament, knowledge the eighth. 261. Salesman, test of a good, 139. Salt and ministers, 16:i. Saved as by fire, scholars, 344. Scholars: teaching deaf, 9 ; need of know- ing, 27, 47; help of, essential, 31 ; proof of success w th, U; reaching different. 388 Index. 48; and lesson, knowing, 58 ; studying, for tfieir teaching, 105-115; failing to know. 106 ; studying peculiarities of, 111, 130; out of school. 112; shaping and guiding, 241-2J-3; managing, while pres- ent, 297-326; reaching, while absent 327- 339 ; following up, 332 ; helping, to Chris- tian decision, 310-351 ; questioned con- cerning beliefs, 349; counselling and aiding, at all times, 352-377. School ship boys, addressing, 54. Scripture: senseless memorizing of, 22; wise memorizing of, 24. Securing scholars' co work, 92. Seeing : is believing, 80 ; not learning, 93. Selecting for scholars, 123. Self-help, indispensableness of, 95. Self-management and class-management, 309. Shakespeare: his use of "learn," 29; con- cerning attention, 70; his use of " influ- ence," 241; on management, 298. Shaping and guiding scholars, 277. Sheep or goat, expecting to be a, 161. Sheep-shearing, lesson from a, 147. Shepherd, teaching about the Good, 160. Ships and religion, ignorance concerning, 54. Signs need explaining, 81. f Similes, abundance of, to be found, 155. Simply, telling it, 152. Skill in -influencing, 249. Slates, use of, 195. Slowly, telling it, 152. Smith, Robert, on the Sunday-school bel- lows, 14. Socrates: concerning ignorance, 39; his question-method, 94.' Soldiers, who are already enlisted, 345. Solomon, concerning child-peculiarities, 50. Son, father seen in the, 295. Souls and soles, 86. South, Robert, on value of knowledge, 261. Sower, parable of the. 178. Special need, understanding a child's, 114. Spencer, Herbert, on co-work, 96. Spirit, advantage of a high, 299. Standard, raising scholar's, 323. Stanley, Dean, estimating Thomas Ar- nold's teaching-method, 48. Stealing, a wet blanket on, 114. Stowe, Calvin E., influenced by his father, 263. Straight line, children follow best, 158. Straightforwardness, gain of, 161. Studying: scholars, importance of, 50; scholars, for their teaching, 105-115; what it is, 117; plan in, 118; true order of, 122 ; a lesson, method of, 122. Stumbling-block : teacher's actions made a, 275 ; conversion made a, 347. Stupidity, artificially cultivated, 89. Sunday-school : meaning of teaching in, 30; its aim, 340 ; its origin, 353; and pa- rental responsibility, 358 ; advantages of the, 359. Superintendent : his use of influence, 255; a beloved, 290 ; following the, 292. Symbols : of thought, 79 ; danger of, 157. Synagogue-school, the, 356. Tale of Two Cities, Dickens's, 219. Talking : a teacher's, not teaching, 12 ; a lesson in, 168; without notes, 188. Talmud, on the synagogue, 357. Tantalus, a lesson from, 126. Teach : knowing what to, 52-60 ; deciding what to, 55 ; knowing how to, 60. Teacher : inname only, 7; one, who failed to teach, 12 ; how every one is a, 30 ; other work of the, 32: the, who never teaches, 35; advantages of a young, 44, 1G9; ears do not make a, 53 ; many a, need? teaching, 54 : two persons to make one, 101 ; a pattern, 135 ; responsibility of the, 138, 167, 238,362.279,373; ministry of the, 262; his duty of correspondence, 835; Index. 389 "the best, in the world," 291; one, who loved, 294; a tormented, 302; and scholar, relation between, 363; opinion of, its value, 368. Teaciiing: real and nominal, 5; vague notions of, 5, 27 ; not all, is teaching, 5-8 ; needs denning, 6, 26 ; telling is not, 9-15, 205 ; mistakes concerning its nature, 9, 16 ; hearing a recitation not, 16-24 ; what it is, 26; Jacotot's definition, of, 27; Hart's definition of, 28 ; more than learn- ing, 28 ; other uses of the term, 30 ; three- fold idea of, 31; influencing is not, 32; no teaching w ; thout, 33, 101, 241; and preaching, compared, 98; planning for, 125-137 ; and influencing, 254. Teaching-methods : Thomas Arnold's, 48 ; Christ's, 49 ; technical, 127. Teaching-process: nature of the, 3-34; proved by the learner, 34 ; its essentials, 35-67; its elements, 68-102; its three- foldness, 68, 196; what is involved in the, 101; philosophy of the, 102; meth- ods of the, 103-138. Tears, teaching with, 217. Technical : and practical compared, 63 ; teaching-methods, 127. Telling: not teaching, 9-15, 57, 205; the place of, 15. Temporary discouragements, 204. Tennyson, Alfred, on Christ's personality, 268. Testing: attention, 76; questions for, 153, 206 ; importance of, 199 ; in review-work, 202; methods of, 205 ; the test in, 208 ; of the teacher, 309 ; of the scholar's spirit- ual position, 348. Text : an unknown term. 42; the, near the door, 43 ; use of a startling, 142 ; a trip- hammer, 217. Theatre, losing influence by attending the, 276. Thinking before answering, 178. Thirst, spiritual, unsatisfied, 126. Tiiae : plenty of, for knowing scholars, 115; keeping within the, 133; amount of, for reviewing, 212 ; now the best, 339. Title, a misleading, 86. Tobacco, influenced against using, 263. Toxicologist, a useless, 62. Training: in attention, a lack of, 203; the value of, 371. Transfiguration, test-questions about the, 77. Trust: teachers must, 305; as a test of belief, 349. Truth, duty of influencing by, 259. Tumult, a class in, 302. Unconscious: gain, 99; influence, 265. Understanding, complete, essential to clearness 90. Unit, class as a, 318. Unity in teaching, securing, 231. University, Sunday school not a, 97. Unknown tongues in the Sunday-school, 41, 83. Unloved and unloving, teacher may be, 284. Unsaid, something must be left, 134. Vague : notions of teaching, 27 ; question- ing, 185. Vassar, " Uncle John," his influence, 252. Vent-hole, need of a. 66. Veterans, the value of, 371. Vichy, the waters at, 281. Vincent, John H. : his plan of study, 121 ; his blackboard-exercise, 144. Visiting scholars during the week, 112, 312. Walker, Mrs. Edward Ashley, on the salt of the earth, 163. Waller's use of " influence," 245. Wanted of scholars, what is, 173. Week-day study of scholars, 112. 390 Index. Wet blanket, use of a, 115. Whittle, Major D. W., personal influence of, 255. Wilkinson, William Cleaver: his learning- plan, 120; on management, 315. Window, the preacher as a, 267. Woods, where are the? 42. Words: difficulty of defining familiar, 5; as symbols, 80 ; inadequateness of mere, 80, 83; misunderstanding, 51, 84; not truths, 88; place of, 117; straightforward use of, 158; new-viewing, 224; private, with scholars, 310. Word-questions, beginning with, 180. Work : setting scholars at, 172 ; child-love of, 173; of scholar, in reviewing, 232; the teacher's other, 241-377; of the teacher, never finished, 370. Works, faith shown by, 306. Writing to scholars, 334. Wrong answers, using, 156. " Ws," the five, 120. Yale, a class reunion at, 294. Young teachers, advantages of, 45, 169. Yung Wing's forgetting Chinese, 214. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY BERKELEY Return to desk from which borrowed. This book is DUE on .the last date stamped below. DEO 5 1947 DeclCfSpAII OCT 9 19T9 CIS. 4 U79 LD 21-100i-9,'47(A5702sl6)476 443 mM