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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Jul 23, 1914

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 91, No. 30.

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Educational Department

By W. E. Howell

J. L. SHAW General Secretary E. GRIGGS N. Am. Div. Secretary W. E. HOWELL N. Am. Div. Asst. Secretary

Enlist for Life

THERE is an ancient saying, uttered on his deathbed by the patriarch Jacob to his first-born son, from which we may learn a modern lesson. The saying is this: “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.” This statement is not so remarkable in itself, for its truth will hardly be questioned by any one. But when taken in connection with what goes before, it is very illuminating. Jacob said to Reuben: “Thou art my first-born, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power.” Surely this would be highly commendatory were it not followed immediately by the fateful saying quoted above. The only fault with Reuben was the unstableness of his ways. With all his excellencies of might and strength and dignity and power, he could not excel because of this one fundamental weaknesshe was too easily moved.

There is creeping into the ranks of our teachers a spirit of moving about from one place to another that does not augur well for the upbuilding of our schools. Some teacher in Michigan thinks he would like to go to California, and writes there for a position. A teacher from Iowa who has been “trying it awhile” in Oregon, thinks it too rainy there, and that he would better go to Oklahoma. Some one in Kansas finds it too hot there in summer, and decides to try it in Minnesota. A principal in Colorado has a relative or an “old friend” or schoolmate in Illinois, and thinks it would be fine to be together, so he tempts him away from a needy place. If the itinerary of some of our teachers could be written up, you would think this one an annual inspector of schools, and that one a traveling salesman of school supplies. In some of our academies you can almost tell the number of years the school has been operating by the number of principals it has had. In some of our local conferences the educational superintendent has almost at times to wipe the slate clean and start a new list of church-school teachers for the next year. Some of these changes may be occasioned by marriage, or by going back to school, or by discovering an opening in some academy for which the teacher has been looking ever since he took his first church school. But a very considerable part are owing to a habit of shiftinessa kind of Wanderlustthat has been gradually growing up among our teachers.

We do not say that the teachers themselves are wholly to blame for this roving about. The fault lies also at the door of boards and patrons. Some boy or girl has to be disciplined for breach of conduct. The parent, who should have trained him better in childhood, takes offense, and works up a sentiment against the teacher or principal. The board, influenced perhaps by the enchantment of distance, sends away for some one else, and decides to “try” him for a year. Some brother has donated land for the

academy, and feeling a certain proprietary right in the school, disagrees with the principal, who does not manage the school just as the donor with his country district education of twenty-five years ago thinks it ought to be conducted. He therefore urges that a “new” man be looked up for another year. Some of these conditions on the other side of the question from the teacher, are difficult to correct until we can educate the people to a wiser course, but it will help greatly if the teacher himself maintains a more stable attitude.

The best advice we can give our teachers is to enlist for life. What do we mean by this? We mean that when a teacher takes up church school work, he do it with a devotion and an abandon of all other prospects, which alone will assure success in so responsible a vocation; that he enter upon his work with the feeling that if the Lord so will, he will teach church school for life. If church-school teaching is worth carrying on at all, it is worthy of the very best any man or woman has to put into it, of enthusiasm, talent, and time. That teacher will make the greatest success who, when he accepts a particular school, does it with the idea that he may stay there for ten years, and plans and works accordingly. Our children should not be exposed to the experiments of a teacher who enters upon his work with the sentiment, “Well, I think I’ll try church-school teaching for a year, and see how it goes.” It usually does not go, and the children are the sufferers.

It is difficult to understand how some of our academies survive the number of beheadings and amputations they do. With their more complicated problems of dormitory life and daily curriculum, they require the most stable management it is possible to give them. We know one academy in which the principal and all the teachers but one have been changed for two succeeding years; another in which all but the principal and one teacher have been changed the last two years; another which has had four principals in seven years; another which has had eight principals in nine years. On the other hand, we know one academy whose principal has served five years; the business manager and teacher, three years; the matron, three; the preceptress and teacher, two; and one new teacher, oneall elected for another year. In another, the principal has been chosen for his ninth year, and some of his teachers have served as high as five years. It is a well-established fact that it takes a man his first year really to get his bearings in a new setting, the second to get real constructive work under headway. He then needs the next few years to build something stable and permanent. He never can succeed by Reubenizing, so to speak, whether on his own initiative or on that of some one else.

Our academies, like our church schools, are worthy the very best talent that can be put into them, college-trained teachers when possible. Our boards should use great care in selecting their teachers, then when elected give them a chance to succeed, even when they have faults. Our teachers should settle it once for all that academy teaching is just as honorable a calling as college teaching; that church-school teaching is equally honorable and worthy with both; and that, so far as their devotion and enthusiasm and efforts are concerned, when they take up either they will enlist for life.

W. E. H.