Character Building (Continued)
“See…that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount.”
Chapter 26—Methods of Teaching (Continued)
The teacher should constantly aim at simplicity and effectiveness. He should teach largely by illustration, and even in dealing with older pupils should be careful to make every explanation plain and clear. Many pupils 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 had put to him the question why actors in a play affect their audiences so powerfully by speaking of things imaginary, while ministers of the gospel often affect theirs so little by speaking of things real. “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.”
The teacher in his work is dealing with things real, and he should speak of them with all the force and enthusiasm which a knowledge of their reality and importance can inspire.
Every teacher should see to it that his work tends to definite results. Before attempting to teach a subject, he should have a distinct plan in mind, and should know just what he desires to accomplish. He should not rest satisfied with the presentation of any subject until the student understands the principle involved, perceives its truth, and is able to state clearly what he has learned.
So long as the great purpose of education is kept in view, the youth 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.
And 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 weal or woe.
The chief requisite of language is that it be pure and kind and true—“the outward expression of an inward grace.” God says: “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” Philippians 4:8. And if such are the thoughts, such will be the expression.
The best school for this language study is the home; but since the work of the home is so often neglected, it devolves on the teacher to aid his pupils in forming right habits of speech.
The teacher can do much to discourage that evil habit, the curse of the community, the neighborhood, and the home—the habit of backbiting, gossip, ungenerous criticism. In this no pains should be spared. Impress upon the students the fact that this habit reveals a lack of culture and refinement and of true goodness of heart; it unfits one 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 and trembling flesh of his victim; but are the results of even this practice more terrible than are the agony and ruin caused by misrepresenting motive, blackening reputation, dissecting character? Let the children, and the youth as well, learn what God says about these things:
“Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Proverbs 18:21.
https://m.egwwritings.org/en/book/29.1200#1216
Dear Heavenly Father, Thank You for guiding, correcting, and encouraging us to fully develop into the beings You designed us to be. Please educate us to learn of You through nature and Scripture, to faithfully observe the laws of health, to engage in that which is both useful and honorable, and to preserve our minds and bodies that we might build solid characters that will reflect You. Regardless of circumstances, please bless us to sing songs of hope and faith and praise. Please bless us with that faith in Your Word, which is the key to knowledge and faith in Your Holy Spirit, which leads to true understanding. As we learn, please grant us the wisdom and power to obey You from a heart of love. Thank You for being a real Father to us and for loving us the way that You do. Please grant us the love for You that You deserve and which will be a blessing both to others and to ourselves, as we serve them, being faithful in the small things and wholly relying on You. Please grant to us that greatest of all wisdom, which gives quickness of insight and sympathy of heart, which brings us in touch with others, and enables us to arouse their better nature and inspire them to a higher life that we all may live the life of Heaven on Earth. Thank You, for we pray all these in the magnificent and worthy name of Thy dear Son, Jesus, our personal Savior. Amen.
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I coordinate wonderful health and worshipful events and conferences online and onsite as a gospel medical missionary at Uchee Pines, a total plant-based health retreat, where doctors and practitioners specialize in lifestyle medicine. For more details, visit https://www.ucheepines.org/events
Therefore, if at any time you fail to receive this post as a text, please visit
https://baiom.org/author/audreystovall/
where devotionals are first posted daily (almost without fail). From there devotionals are publicly shared to my page on FB, LinkedIn, and Signal (in My Story), and to a response-restricted group on WhatsApp.
NOTE: These began as daily texts to encourage my academy roommate and dear friend of nearly 50 years, until she suddenly passed March 2023. Now I continue to compile and send them to anyone who will receive them and to her family in honor of their mom.
Lately, I have begun featuring consecutive chapter portions of a select Bible-based book.
If you agree to continue receiving them, then this is my personal gift to you; and in this way, I not only honor God but the memory of a very dear friend whom I desperately miss.
My personal prayer is that God will bless me to find ways to multiply this gift, so that we all may be encouraged to be found faithful in the sight of a Holy God, whenever Christ returns or our eyes are shut in the sleep of death.
It is a prayerful process that leads me to share from my personal study.
So please feel free to forward to your loved ones or to anyone, as God leads you. I’m calling them Barb’s Devotionals.