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a soul's development, I count scholarship the best intellectual equipment of the teacher. I do not mean that masses of What Love Does memory-products constitute the best stock of knowledge; but rather the inter-relation of these products one with another. Knowledge for the teacher should be organic. Each part should fit into each other, as do the units of a mosaic. This is the result of reflection, not of acquisition. We need, more than any other one quality of mind, the habitual tendency to ponder the significance of our separate elements of knowledge. When we secure the attention of our class, we should be able to lead the pupils, step by step, into wide vistas of related knowledge. We can do this only as we ourselves understand these broad groups of relations. What confidence comes to the teacher who is conscious that his grasp of the lesson is sufficient to enable him to answer questions, to add specific guidance, to be at home in thought before his class!

The universal experience of teachers is that no number of devices and lesson-plans will avail if there is not back of all this a sane and sensible and broad grasp of the whole field of religious truth. This will not come to the teacher by longing for it. It will not come by deploring its absence. But it will come as the result of effort.

What Effort
Will Do

Plain, every-day, and continued study, an hour now and an hour then; this counts. Let us resolve, both for our own satisfaction and usefulness, and for the satisfaction and usefulness of our pupils, that we will, by all the ability and time God gives us, grasp widely and fully our problems. Then we shall always impress upon our pupils the conviction that we are sincere, and sincerity is a virtue of character, and character is the great moral and religious light whose radiations guide and direct more than do our words. Character is God's currency. It is never subject to depreciation. Its owner may purchase souls for the kingdom when his beggarly dole of knowledge remains useless and worthless on the threshold of a soul.

QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS.

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

What is the part played by the teacher in the building of a soul's content?

What would you say is the supreme test of good teaching in the Sunday-school?

Discuss the statement "Teachers are born, not made." If we really believe in the training of a teacher, what is our personal duty in the matter?

Have you studied your own temperament? What limitations, if any, does this study reveal?

Why is control said to be so important? Do you control each pupil in your class?

What will one's ability to control his own spirit be worth in the class?

In what way does a wise teacher use the virtue of patience? Cite examples.

What is the supreme test of one's fitness to teach for God?

What is the value of daily devotion to study?

Back of all devices must be a sincere spirit. Prove this.

What do you consider the psychological moment in teaching?

Name all the values of scholarship to the teacher.

What are you doing now, what more can you do, to fit yourself to teach? Will you do it?

XVIII

QUALITIES THAT MAKE THE TEACHER A GOOD GOVERNOR

MATTHEW ARNOLD declares, "Conduct

is three-fourths of life." Education is not to be regarded as a function of society through which knowledge alone is acquired. Teaching embraces both instruction and discipline. Discipline has as its end the training of pupils for the duties, obligations, and responsibilities of life. It follows that right conduct is secured only by the formation of right character in early life. The basic element in conduct is self-control and self-guidance. Until the youth has acquired the power of self-control and of self-guidance he must be controlled and guided by some agent acting for him. This agent usually is the teacher. The function of the teacher as disciplinarian ends as soon as this power of self-regulation is developed. Here the teacher needs to learn a great lesson,-trust the pupil, believe in him, as Jesus believed in mankind. We shall never make our pupils self-regulating by suspecting, doubting, watching, and spying upon them. It is generally

The Law of
Trust

admitted now that juvenile criminals are most speedily reformed by putting them upon their honor. The fact that somebody believes in a boy is the surest stimulus to his standing stanch and strong for the things that some one believes him capable of doing.

When Jesus said to those he helped, “Go, sin no more," he placed confidence in them, gave them to understand that they could do the right, and that he was willing to accept their own life determinants after they had been properly taught. It is not easy to describe the quality I have in mind, but the thoughtful teacher will understand that truth, taught in a way that impresses the pupil with the fact that the teacher believes in the pupil's ability to live it out in his daily life, is most likely to find such a result is attained by the pupil. Jesus told the people what he knew they could do, and then left them to do it, under the constant conviction that he expected no other issue in conduct.

To control the pupil in class in such a way as to lead him to live under self-guidance later on in life the teacher must possess certain well-defined qualifica

Knowledge as
Control

tions. The first of these is clear knowledge. Of this quality in the teacher I have already written. The basis of cheerful obedience on the part of the pupil is confidence, and

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