For centuries education has had to do chiefly with the memory. This faculty of the mind has been taxed to the utmost, while the other mental powers have not been correspondingly developed. Students have spent their time crowding the mind with knowledge, very little of which could be utilized. The mind thus burdened with that which it cannot digest and assimilate is weakened; it becomes incapable of vigorous, self-reliant effort, and is content to depend on the judgment and perception of others.
Seeing the evils of this method, some have gone to another extreme. In their view, people need only to develop that which is within them. Such education leads students to self-sufficiency, thus cutting them off from the source of true knowledge and power.
The education that consists in the training of the memory tends to discourage independent thought, and has a moral bearing that is too little appreciated. As students sacrifice the power to reason and judge for themselves, they become incapable of discriminating between truth and error, and fall an easy prey to deception. They are easily led to follow tradition and custom.
It is a fact widely ignored, though never without danger, that error rarely appears for what it really is. It is by mingling with or attaching itself to truth that it gains acceptance. The eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil caused the ruin of our first parents, and the acceptance of a mingling of good and evil is the ruin of men and women today. The mind that depends on the judgment of others is certain, sooner or later, to be misled.
Only through individual dependence upon God can we possess the power to discriminate between right and wrong. Each person is to learn from Him through His Word. Our reasoning powers were given us to use, and God desires them to be exercised. "Come now, and let us reason together" (Isaiah 1:18), He invites us. In reliance upon Him we may have wisdom to "refuse the evil and choose the good." Isaiah 7:15; James 1:5.
Personal Element Essential
In all true teaching the personal element is essential. Christ in His teaching dealt with people individually. By personal contact and association He trained the Twelve. In private, often to but one listener, He gave His most precious instruction. He opened His richest treasures to the honored rabbi at the night conference on the Mount of Olives, and to the despised woman at the well of Sychar, for in these hearers He discerned the impressible heart, the open mind, the receptive spirit. Even the crowd that so often thronged His steps was not to Christ an indiscriminate mass of human beings. He spoke directly to every mind and appealed to every heart. He watched the faces of His hearers, marked the lighting up of the countenance, the quick, responsive glance, which told that truth had reached the soul; and there vibrated in His heart the answering chord of sympathetic joy.
Christ discerned possibilities in every human being. He was not turned aside by an unpromising exterior or by unfavorable surroundings. He called Matthew from the tollbooth, and Peter and his associates from the fishing boat, to learn of Him.
The same personal interest, the same attention to individual development, are needed in educational work today. Many apparently unpromising young people are richly endowed with talents that are not being used. Their faculties lie hidden because of a lack of discernment on the part of their teachers. In many a boy or girl outwardly as unattractive as a roughhewn stone may be found precious material that will stand the test of heat, storm, and pressure. True educators, keeping in view what their students may become, will recognize the value of the material with which they are working. They will take a personal interest in each pupil and will seek to develop all their powers. However imperfect, every effort to conform to right principles will be encouraged.
Every young person should be taught the necessity and the power of application. On this, far more than on genius or talent, success depends. Without application the most brilliant talents avail little, while with rightly directed effort persons of very ordinary natural abilities have accomplished wonders. And genius, at whose achievements we marvel, is almost invariably united with untiring, concentrated effort.
All the Faculties to Be Developed
Young people should be taught to aim at the development of all their faculties, the weaker as well as the stronger. With many there is a disposition to restrict their study to certain lines for which they have a natural liking. This error should be guarded against. The natural aptitudes indicate the direction of the lifework, and, when legitimate, should be carefully cultivated. At the same time it must be kept in mind that a well-balanced character and efficient work in any line depend, to a great degree, on that symmetrical development which is the result of thorough, all-around training.
Teachers should constantly aim at simplicity and effectiveness. They should teach largely by illustration, and even in dealing with older pupils should be careful to make every explanation plain and clear. Many students well advanced in years are but children in understanding.
An important element in educational work is enthusiasm. On this point there is a useful suggestion in a remark once made by a celebrated actor. The archbishop of Canterbury asked him why actors in a play affect their audiences so powerfully while ministers of the gospel often affect theirs so little. "With due submission to your grace," replied the actor, "permit me to say that the reason is plain: It lies in the power of enthusiasm. We on the stage speak of things imaginary as if they were real, and you in the pulpit speak of things real as if they were imaginary."
Teachers are dealing with things real, and they should speak of them with all the force and enthusiasm that a knowledge of their reality and importance can inspire.
Teachers should see to it that their work tends to definite results. Before attempting to teach a subject, they should have a distinct plan in mind, and should know just what they want to accomplish. They should not rest satisfied with the presentation of any subject until their students understand the principle involved, perceive its truth, and are able to state clearly what they have learned.
So long as the great purpose of education is kept in view, students should be encouraged to advance just as far as their capabilities will permit. But before taking up the higher branches of study, let them master the lower. This is too often neglected. Even among students in the higher schools and the colleges there is great deficiency in knowledge of the common branches of education. Many students devote their time to higher mathematics when they are incapable of keeping simple accounts. Many study elocution with a view to acquiring the graces of oratory when they are unable to read in an intelligible and impressive manner. Many who have finished the study of rhetoric fail in the composition and spelling of an ordinary letter.
A thorough knowledge of the essentials of education should be not only the condition of admission to a higher course, but the constant test for continuance and advancement.
The Study and Use of Language
In every branch of education there are objects to be gained more important than those secured by mere technical knowledge. Take language, for example. More important than the acquirement of foreign languages, living or dead, is the ability to write and speak one's mother tongue with ease and accuracy. But no training gained through a knowledge of grammatical rules can compare in importance with the study of language from a higher point of view. With this study, to a great degree, is bound up life's happiness or sorrow, prosperity or adversity.
The chief requisite of language is that it be pure and kind and true--"the outward expression of an inward grace." God says: "Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy--meditate on these things." Philippians 4:8. And if such are the thoughts, such will be the oral expression.
The best school for this language study is the home, but since the work of the home is often neglected, it devolves on teachers to aid their pupils in forming right habits of speech.
Teachers can do much to discourage the evil habit of backbiting, gossip, and ungenerous criticism that is the curse of the community, the neighborhood, and the home. No pains should be spared to impress upon students the fact that this habit reveals a lack of culture, refinement, and true goodness of heart. It unfits a person both for the society of the truly cultured and refined in this world and for association with the holy ones of heaven.
We think with horror of the cannibal who feasts on the still warm flesh of his victim, but are the results of this practice more terrible than the agony and ruin caused by misrepresenting motive, blackening reputation, dissecting character? The young should be taught what God says about these things: "Death and life are in the power of the tongue." Proverbs 18:21. Backbiters are classed with "haters of God," with "inventors of evil things," with those who are "violent, proud, boasters," "full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness." Romans 1:30, 31, 29. People whom God accounts as citizens of Zion are those "who speak the truth from their heart; who do not slander with their tongue, ... nor take up a reproach against their neighbors." Psalm 15:2, 3, NRSV.
God's Word condemns also the use of meaningless phrases and expletives that border on profanity. It condemns deceptive compliments, evasions of truth, exaggerations, and misrepresentations in trade, that are current in society and in the business world. "Let your 'Yes' be, 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No.' For whatever is more than these is from the evil one." Matthew 5:37. "Like a maniac who shoots deadly firebrands and arrows, so is one who deceives a neighbor and says 'I am only joking!'" Proverbs 26:18, 19, NRSV.
Closely allied to gossip is the covert insinuation, the sly innuendo, by which the unclean in heart imply the evil they dare not openly express. Teach young people to shun like leprosy every approach to these practices.
In the use of language there is perhaps no fault that old and young are more ready to pass over lightly in themselves than hasty, impatient speech. They think it a sufficient excuse to plead, "I was off my guard, and did not really mean what I said." But God's Word does not treat it lightly. The Scripture says: "Do you see someone who is hasty in speech? There is more hope for a fool than for anyone like that." "Like a city breached, without walls, is one who lacks self-control." Proverbs 29:20; 25:28, NRSV.
In one moment, the hasty, passionate, careless tongue may produce evil that a whole lifetime's repentance cannot undo. Oh, the hearts that are broken, the friends estranged, the lives wrecked, by the harsh, hasty words of those who might have brought help and healing!
The Grace of Self-forgetfulness
One characteristic that should be especially cherished and cultivated in every child is self-forgetfulness, a characteristic that imparts unconscious grace to the life. Of all excellent traits of character this is one of the most beautiful, and for every true lifework it is one of the qualifications most essential.
Children need appreciation, sympathy, and encouragement, but care should be taken not to foster in them a love of praise. It is not wise to give them special notice, or to repeat before them their clever sayings. Parents and teachers who keep in view the true ideal of character and the possibilities of achievement, cannot cherish or encourage self-sufficiency. They will not encourage in youth the desire or effort to display their ability or proficiency. Every person who looks higher than himself or herself will be humble, yet will possess a dignity that is not abashed or disconcerted by outward display or human greatness.
It is not by arbitrary law or rule that the graces of character are developed. It is by dwelling in the atmosphere of the pure, the noble, the true. And wherever there is purity of heart and nobleness of character, it will be revealed in purity and nobleness of action and of speech.
"Those who love a pure heart and are gracious in speech will have the King as a friend." Proverbs 22:11, NRSV.
Study of History Builds Character
As with language, so with every other study; it may be conducted so that it will tend to strengthen and upbuild character. Of no study is this truer than of history. Let it be considered from the divine point of view.
As too often taught, history is little more than a record of the rise and fall of kings, the intrigues of courts, the victories and defeats of armies--a story of ambition and greed, of deception, cruelty, and bloodshed. Thus taught, its results cannot but be detrimental. The heart-sickening reiteration of crimes and atrocities, the enormities, the cruelties portrayed, plant seeds that in many lives bring forth fruit in a harvest of evil.
It is far better to learn, in the light of God's Word, the causes that govern the rise and fall of kingdoms. Teach the young to study these records and see how the true prosperity of nations has been bound up with an acceptance of divine principles. Let them study the history of great reformatory movements, and see how often these principles--though hated and their advocates sent to the dungeon and the scaffold--triumphed through these very sacrifices.
Such study will give broad, comprehensive views of life. It will help young people understand something of its relations and dependencies, how wonderfully we are bound together in the great family of society and nations, and to how great an extent the oppression or degradation of one member means a loss to all.
In the study of arithmetic and mathematics the work should be made practical. Children and youth should be taught not merely to solve imaginary problems but to keep an accurate account of their own income and outgo. Let them learn the right use of money by using it. Boys and girls should learn to select and buy their own clothing, their books, and other necessities, and by keeping an account of their expenses they will learn, as they could learn in no other way, the value and use of money. Rightly directed it will encourage habits of benevolence. It will aid the youth in learning to give, not from the mere impulse of the moment, as their feelings are stirred, but regularly and systematically.
In this way every study may become an aid in the solution of that greatest of all problems, the training of men and women for the best discharge of life's responsibilities.