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Coming Home

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 4, 1908

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 85, No. 23.

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Coming Home

By A. W. SPAULDING

“As I was saying,” continued the Visitor after the meeting had begun, “you may have an ideal plan, and it ought to give ideal results if you have ideal people to carry it out.”
“In other words, the ideal is unattainable,” rejoined the First Member.
“No,” answered the Visitor; “I’m not denying that there are ideal people; and that granted, all the rest may follow. But I question whether you can make your good results so nearly universal as to have general effect on the denomination or the world. Your ideal is a perfect home school, in which you have few enough members to permit of the teachers’ personal contact with the students, almost constantly; because, as you say truly, the personal influence of the teacher counts for more than anything else in the training of the student.”
“Especially if that influence is exerted on informal occasions,—more in the field and the home than in the class,” interposed the Youngest Member.
“Yes,” resumed the Visitor. “And then, since this limiting of attendance restricts the number who may have the benefit of any one school, you propose more schools, more ideal home schools.”
“Yes,” came a chorus.
“And in the ultimate you propose to make every home a school and every school a home.”
“We will not look so far,” said the First Member; “we will not say what every school should be; but seeing, from our experience, the need of this kind of school, where we have, not a factory in which thousands must fill the molds, but a home where the individual needs of every one are considered, and met by personal sympathy and help,—seeing this need, I say, we propose schools after this plan, and if there remained a need of another kind of school, we would give it place and welcome it. But whether or not every school should be a home, certain we are that every home should be a school.”
“And there,” said the Visitor, “is where your lack of the ideal factors makes the ideal results impossible. How many parents are there among us, do you think, who are capable of conducting such a school?”
“As many as it takes to mother and father one hundred forty-four thousand,” answered the First Member.
“Not now, perhaps,” said the Lady Teacher; “neither can there now be found one hundred forty-four thousand without guile in their mouths. But surely the one hundred forty-four thousand reach an ideal state, do they not? And we can not idly wait till the number is made up before we seek the ideal, or we shall lose our hope.”
“Explain to me, please,” said the Superintendent, “what your plan for this ideal family school would be. Would you have a daily program?”
“Nothing succeeds without system,” said the First Member; “no family does, and no school does. The fewer the number, the less machinery is needed, but still there must be system. Following my ideal of the family, combined with the needs of the school, I should suggest a program—which circumstances and experience might change at will—a program like this: A regular hour for rising; family worship; breakfast; chores; at about nine o’clock opening exercises, followed by necessary drills for an hour; then leisure to read, study for two hours; dinner at one; after that recreation and work for the afternoon—”
“Why, where are your classes?” interrupted the Superintendent.
The Youngest Member squared his shoulders. “How formal is the recitation,” he said; “disguise it as you may with the cunning of a clever teacher, the recitation is to the student a process of telling something to some one who he supposes already knows it much better than himself. The only inspiration possible in such an act is the inspiration of competition—to make a better recitation than one’s fellows. The proper purpose of our getting knowledge is to give it or its results to those who have it not.”
“But,” said the Visitor, “acting on that theory,—having no recitations,—how shall you know when a student is proficient, able to tell the truth aright to those ignorant of it? Perhaps he may misrepresent it, make mistakes, confuse people about God’s truth. What then?”
“Don’t you ever?” asked the Pleasant Member.
“Why, yes, I suppose I do, of course,” admitted the Visitor, slowly.
“We are students under God: what kind of recitation does God hold with us,” queried the First Member. “Does he require perfection in us, even comparative perfection, before he sends us to tell others of the truth? He desires perfection, and he draws us toward it; but he does that by having us exercise our powers in giving.”
“But I should not leave all to chance. One of the most pleasant hours in the home circle (and therefore in our home school) is the evening spent by the fireside; for I should not omit the open fireplace, I assure you. And there we should regularly meet in the evening, and learn to tell stories. At this time, since different ones, under the direction of their teachers, have been studying different things,—it may be in science, in history, in Christian doctrine, in anything,—at this time they should tell what they have learned; tell it, mind you, to many who do not know it; for the study-range of the circle is wide. There are little children, and older ones, as well as adults. And the test of actual learning will lie in the ability to tell, and tell simply and interestingly, to adapt to the audience.”
“But if you let it be given in this form,” objected the Superintendent, “you can not possibly in the time you have get over all that every one has learned during the day.”
“In my work,” said the Oldest Member, “I have learned to ask no more for a list of facts—a string of beads—from the treasure-house of my student’s mind, but to judge from the way he tells one thing, how he is grasping everything. I sample him, not drain him.”
“There lie yet untouched the whole outdoors, and the whole field of social life,” complained the Youngest Member. “We have touched only the indoor work.”
“And only touched it,” said the First Member. “You shall have the next hour, brother, to lead us wheresoever you will.” A. W. SPAULDING.