THE GREAT OBJECTIVE
All teaching has two objectives--the _subject_ taught and the _person_
taught. When we teach John grammar (or the Bible) we teach grammar (or
the Bible), of course; but we also teach _John_. And the greater of
these two objectives is John. It is easy enough to attain the lesser of
the objectives. Anyone of fair intelligence can master a given amount of
subject matter and present it to a class; but it is a far more difficult
thing to understand the child--to master the inner secrets of the mind,
the heart, and the springs of action of the learner.
Who can measure the potentialities that lie hidden in the soul of a
child! Just as the acorn contains the whole of the great oak tree
enfolded in its heart, so the child-life has hidden in it all the powers
of heart and mind which later reach full fruition. Nothing is _created_
through the process of growth and development. Education is but a
process of unfolding and bringing into action the powers and capacities
with which the life at the beginning was endowed by its Creator.
THE CHILD AS THE GREAT OBJECTIVE
The child comes into the world--indeed, comes into the school--with much
potential and very little actual capital. Nature has through heredity
endowed him with infinite possibilities. But these are but promises;
they are still in embryonic form. The powers of mind and soul at first
lie dormant, waiting for the awakening that comes through the touch of
the world about and for the enlightenment that comes through
instruction.
Given just the right touch at the opportune moment, and these potential
powers spring into dynamic abilities, a blessing to their possessor and
to the world they serve. Left without the right training, or allowed to
turn in wrong directions, and these infinite capacities for good may
become instruments for evil, a curse to the one who owns them and a
blight to those against whom they are directed.
Children the bearers of spiritual culture.--The greatest business of
any generation or people is, therefore, the education of its children.
Before this all other enterprises and obligations must give way, no
matter what their importance. It is at this point that civilization
succeeds or fails. Suppose that for a single generation our children
should, through some inconceivable stroke of fate, refuse to open their
minds to instruction--suppose they should refuse to learn our science,
our religion, our literature, and all the rest of the culture which the
human race has bought at so high a price of sacrifice and suffering.
Suppose they should turn deaf ears to the appeal of art, and reject the
claims of morality, and refuse the lessons of Christianity and the
Bible. Where then would all our boasted progress be? Where would our
religion be? Where would modern civilization be? All would revert to
primitive barbarism, through the failure of this one generation, and the
race would be obliged to start anew the long climb toward the mountain
top of spiritual freedom.
Each generation must therefore create anew in its own life and
experience the spiritual culture of the race. Each child that comes to
us for instruction, weak, ignorant, and helpless though he be, is
charged with his part in the great program God has marked out for man to
achieve. Each of these little ones is the bearer of an immortal soul,
whose destiny it is to take its quality and form from the life it lives
among its fellows. And ours is the dread and fascinating responsibility
for a time to be the mentor and guide of this celestial being. Ours it
is to deal with the infinite possibilities of child-life, and to have a
hand in forming the character that this immortal soul will take. Ours it
is to have the thrilling experience of experimenting in the making of a
destiny!
Childhood's capacity for growth.--Nor must we ever think that because
the child is young, his brain unripe, and his experience and wisdom
lacking, our responsibility is the less. For the child's earliest
impressions are the most lasting, and the earliest influences that act
upon his life are the most powerful in determining its outcome. Remember
that the babe, starting at birth with nothing, has in a few years
learned speech, become acquainted with much of his immediate world,
formed many habits which will follow him through life, and established
the beginnings of permanent character and disposition. Remember the
indelible impression of the bedside prayers of your mother, of the
earliest words of counsel of your father, of the influence of a loved
teacher, and then know that other children are to-day receiving their
impressions from us, their parents and teachers.
Consider for a moment the child as he comes to us for instruction. We no
longer insist with the older theologies that he is completely under the
curse of "original sin," nor do we believe with certain sentimentalists
that he comes "trailing clouds of glory." We believe that he has
infinite capacities for good, and equally infinite capacities for evil,
either of which may be developed. We know that at the beginning the
child is sinless, pure of heart, his life undefiled. To know this is
enough to show us our part. This is to lead the child aright until he is
old enough to follow the right path of his own accord, to ground him in
the motives and habits that tend to right living, and so to turn his
mind, heart, and will to God that his whole being seeks accord with the
Infinite.
Religious conservation.--If our leading of the child is wise, and his
response is ready, there will be no falling away from a normal Christian
life and a growing consciousness of God. This does not mean that the
child will never do wrong, nor commit sin. It does not mean that the
youth will not, when the age of choice has come, make a personal
decision for Christ and consecrate his life anew to Christ's service. It
means, rather, that the whole attitude of mind, and the complete trend
of life of the child will be religious. It means that the original
purity of innocence will grow into a conscious and joyful acceptance of
the Christ-standard. It means that the child need never know a time when
he is not within the Kingdom, and growing to fuller stature therein. It
means that we should set our aim at _conservation_ instead of
reclamation as the end of our religious training.
Yet what a proportion of the energy of the church is to-day required for
the reclaiming of those who should never have been allowed to go astray!
Evangelistic campaigns, much of the preaching, "personal work,"
Salvation Army programs, and many other agencies are of necessity
organized for the reclaiming of men and women who but yesterday were
children in our homes and church schools, and plastic to our training.
What a tragic waste of energy!--and then those who never return! Should
we not be able more successfully to carry out the Master's injunction,
"_Feed my lambs_"?
The child-Christian.--All of these considerations point to the
inevitable conclusion that the child is the great objective of our
teaching. Indeed, the child ought to be the objective of the work of the
whole church. The saving of its children from wandering outside the fold
is the supreme duty and the strategic opportunity of the church,
standing out above all other claims whatever. We are in some danger of
forgetting that when Jesus wanted to show his disciples the standard of
an ideal Christian he "took a child and set him in the midst of them."
We do not always realize that to _keep_ a child a Christian is much more
important than to reclaim him after he has been allowed to get outside
the fold.
The recent report of a series of special religious meetings states that
there were a certain number of conversions "_exclusive of children_,"
the implication being that the really important results were in the
decisions of the adults. The same point of view was revealed when a
church official remarked after the reception of a large group of new
members, "It was an inspiring sight, _except that there were so few
adults!"_ When shall we learn that if we do our duty by the children
there will be fewer adults left outside for the church to receive?
NO SUBJECT MATTER AN END IN ITSELF
The teacher must first of all take his stand with the child. He must
not allow his attention and enthusiasms to become centered on the matter
he teaches. He must not be satisfied when he has succeeded in getting a
certain fact lodged in the minds of his pupils. He must first, last, and
all the time look upon subject matter, no matter how beautiful and true
it may be, as a _means_ to an end. The end sought is certain desired
changes in the life, thought, and experience of the child. There are
hosts of teachers who can teach grammar (or the Bible), but
comparatively _few who can teach John_.
This does not mean that the material we teach is unimportant, nor that
we can fulfill our duty as teachers without the use of interesting,
fruitful, and inspiring subject matter. It does not mean that we are not
to love the subject we teach, and feel our heart thrill in response to
its beauty and truth.
Making subject matter a means instead of an end.--One who is not
filled with enthusiasm for a subject has no moral right to attempt to
teach it, for the process will be dead and lifeless, failing to kindle
the fires of response in his pupils and lacking in vital results. But
the true teacher never loves a body of subject matter for its own sake;
he loves it for what _through it_ he can accomplish in the lives of
those he teaches.
As a _student_, searching for the hidden meanings and thrilling at the
unfolding beauties of some field of truth which we are investigating, we
may love the thing we study for its own sake; and who of us does not
feel in that way toward sections of our Bible, a poem, the record of
noble lives, or the perfection of some bit of scientific truth? But when
we face about and become the _teacher_, when our purpose is not our own
learning but the teaching of another, then our attitude must change. We
will then love our cherished body of material not less, but differently.
We will now care for the thing we teach as an artisan cares for his
familiar instruments or the artist cares for his brush--we will prize it
as the _means through which_ we shall attain a desired end.
Subject matter always subordinate to life.--It will help us to
understand the significance of this fundamental principle if we pause to
realize that all the matter we teach our children had its origin in
human experience; it was first a part of human life. Our scientific
discoveries have come out of the pressure of necessities that nature has
put upon us, and what we now put into our textbooks first was _lived_ by
men and women in the midst of the day's activities. The deep thoughts,
the beautiful sentiments, and the high aspirations expressed in our
literature first existed and found expression in the lives of people.
The cherished truths of our Bible and its laws for our spiritual
development appeal to our hearts just because they have arisen from the
lives of countless thousands, and so have the reality of living
experience.
There is, therefore, no abstract truth for truth's sake. Just as all our
culture material--our science, our literature, our body of religious
truth--had its rise out of the experience of men engaged in the great
business of living, so all this material must go back to life for its
meaning and significance. The science we teach in our schools attains
its end, not when it is learned as a group of facts, but when it has
been _set at work_ by those who learn it to the end that they live
better, happier, and more fruitful lives. The literature we offer our
children has fulfilled its purpose, not when they have studied the
mechanism of its structure, read its pages, or committed to memory its
lines, but when its glowing ideals and high aspirations have been
_realized in the lives_ of those who learn it.
And so this also holds for the Bible and its religious truth. Its rich
lessons full of beautiful meaning may be recited and its choicest verses
stored in the memory and still be barren of results, except as they are
put to the test and find expression in living experience. The only true
test of learning a thing is _whether the learner lives it_. The only
true test of the value of what one learns is the extent to which it
affects his daily life. The value of our teaching is therefore always to
be measured by the degree to which it finds expression in the lives of
our pupils. _John_, not grammar (nor even the Bible), is the true
objective of our teaching.
EFFECT OF THE OBJECTIVE ON OUR TEACHING
Not only will this point of view vitalize our teaching for the pupils,
but it will also save it from becoming commonplace and routine for
ourselves. This truth is brought out in a conversation that occurred
between an old schoolmaster and his friend, a business man.
The true objective saves from the rut of routine.--Said the business
man, "Do you teach the same subjects year after year?"
The schoolmaster replied that he did.
"Do you not finally come to know this material all by heart, so that it
is old to you?" asked the friend.
The schoolmaster answered that such was the case.
"And yet you must keep going over the same ground, class after class and
year after year!" exclaimed the business man.
The schoolmaster admitted that it was so.
"Then," said his friend, "I should think that you would tire beyond
endurance of the old facts, and grow weary beyond expression of
repeating them after the charm of novelty and newness has gone. How do
you live through the sameness and grind?"
"You forget one thing!" exclaimed the old schoolmaster, who had learned
the secret of the _great objective_. "You forget that I am not really
teaching that old subject matter at all; I am teaching _living boys and
girls!_ The matter I teach may become familiar. It may have lost the
first thrill of novelty. But the _boys and girls are always new_; their
hearts and minds are always fresh and inviting; their lives are always
open to new impressions, and their feet ready to be turned in new
directions. The old subject matter is but the means by which I work upon
this living material that comes to my classroom from day to day. I
should no more think of growing tired of it than the musician would
think of growing tired of his violin."
And so the schoolmaster's friend was well answered.
Unsafe measures of success.--It is possible to lodge much subject
matter in the mind which, once there, does not function. It is possible
to teach many facts which play no part in shaping the ideals, quickening
the enthusiasms, or directing the conduct. And all mental material which
lies dead and unused is but so much rubbish and lumber of the mind.
It plays no part in the child's true education, and it dulls the edge
of the learner's interest and his enjoyment of the school and its
instruction.
It is possible to have the younger children in our Sunday schools from
week to week and still fail to secure sufficient hold on them so that
they continue to come after they have reached the age of deciding for
themselves. The proof of this is all too evident in the relatively small
proportion of youth in our church-school classes between the ages of
fifteen and twenty-five.
It is possible to offer the child lessons from the Bible throughout all
the years of childhood, and yet fail to ground sufficient interest in
the Bible or religion so that in later years the man or woman naturally
turns to the Bible for guidance or comfort, and fails to make religion
the determining principle of the life.
The child the only true measure of success.--Let us therefore be sure
of our objective. Let us never be proud nor satisfied that we have
taught our class so much _subject matter_--so many facts, maxims, or
lessons of whatever kind. We shall need to teach them all these things,
and teach them well. But we must inquire further. We must ask, What have
these things _done_ for the boys and girls of my class? What has been
the outcome of my teaching? How much effect has it had in life,
character, conduct? In how far are my pupils different for having been
in my class, and for the lessons I have taught them? In how far have I
accomplished the _true objective_ of my teaching?
Let us never feel secure merely because the children are found in the
Sunday school, and because the statistical reports show increase in
numbers and in average attendance. These things are all well; without
them we cannot do the work which the church should do for its children.
But these are but the externals, the outward signs. We must still
inquire what real influence the school is having on the growing
spiritual life of its children. We must ask what part our instruction is
having in the making of Christians. We must measure all our success in
terms of the child's response to our efforts. We must realize that we
have failed except as we have caused the child's spiritual nature to
unfold and his character to grow toward the Christ ideal.
1. As you think of your own teaching, are you able to decide
whether you have been sufficiently clear in your objective? Have
you rather _assumed_ that if you presented the lessons as they came
the results must of necessity follow, or have you been alive to the
real effects on your pupils?
2. Are you able to discover definite changes that are working out
in the lives of your pupils from month to month as you have them
under your instruction? Are they more reverent, more truthful, more
sure against temptation, increasingly conscious of God in their
lives? What other effects might you look for?
3. Do you think that the church is in some degree overlooking its
most strategic opportunity in not providing more efficiently for
the religious education of its children? If more attention were
given to religious nurture of children, would the problems of
evangelism be less pressing, and a larger proportion of adults
found in the church? What can the church school do to help? What
can your class do?
4. Do you love the matter that you seek to teach the children? Do
you love it for what it means to you, or for what through it you
can do for them? Do you look upon the material you teach truly as a
means and not as an end? Are you teaching subject matter or
children?
5. Do you feel the real worth and dignity of childhood? Do you
sometimes stop to remember that the ignorant child before you
to-day may become the Phillips Brooks, the Henry Ward Beecher, the
Livingstone, the Frances Willard, the Luther of to-morrow? Do you
realize the responsibility that one takes upon himself when he
undertakes to guide the development of a life?
6. Can you now make a statement of the measures that you will wish
to apply to determine your degree of success as a teacher? It will
be worth your while to try to make a list of the immediate
objectives you will seek for your class to attain in their personal
lives. Keep this list and see whether it is modified by the
chapters that lie ahead.
FOR FURTHER READING
Harrison, A Study of Child Nature.
Moxcey, Girlhood and Character.
Dawson, The Child and His Religion.
Forbush, The Boy Problem.
Richardson (Editor), The American Home Series.
Richardson, Religious Education of Adolescents.