How Best to Teach by Christian Teacher

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 16, 1882

How Best to Teach.

By Christian Teacher

"The teacher must come down to the child's level.—You cannot intelligently converse with, or impart instruction to, any man without commencing on a ground common to both. Nor can you teach a child but by condescending to his level. This calls not for childishness, but childlikeness in teaching. Dr. Watts' Hymns are not childish, but they are childlike. So are Todd's Lectures to Children. So, in a special manner, are Old Humphrey's books. These interest the old as well as the young, yet they are seldom beyond the level of a child's mind. What was the secret of this adaptation? Step into the good man's study, and I will show you how Old Humphrey did. "He sat from hour to hour at his little table, his books spread around him, the Holy Bible in the most conspicuous place, and a large card before him, on which were written in a bold style the three words—allure, instruct, impress, to remind him of his work, and the way in which it was to be done." That was the secret of his success. He adapted himself to the youthful mind, and his works evince how well he had considered his work. Come down to the child's level, and take his hand. He will ascend as lofty a summit as you can climb with him, if you give him time to take each step intelligently.

Reason upwards.—State the simplest truths first, and advance only as you take the scholar with you. This process may be slow, but it is a secret of adaptation which the wise will cultivate. In the fable the tortoise outstripped the hare.

"To reason with a child, or any comparatively ignorant person, for the purpose of imparting instruction, the truth must be delivered in a comprehensible way. Few are willing to confess ignorance. Most make general acknowledgments of intelligence. The only means for thorough and intelligent education of youthful minds is by patient and laborious catechising. By continuous discourse you cannot impart so much instruction as by catechising. You may probably disclose more of your information by the former, but you secure more to the scholar by the other.

"There is a method of Sabbath-school instruction largely practiced and most pertinaciously adhered to, which, in a great measure, lacks the catechetical. It consists more of the exhortatory and illustrative. It is common among young teachers, in the ardor of their first love and awakened zeal, and among females, from the nature of their minds. The earnest and the lukewarm both practice it,—the one from an excess, and the other from a defect of zeal. The former is anxious to impress, and is impatient under the slow process of catechising; the latter does not wish annoyance, or the trouble of preparing. Hence both practice declamation, and telling stories, for the purpose of awakening and keeping alive the interest of their scholars. This practice is much easier than the catechetical, requires less knowledge and study, less skill and seriousness. It is much easier to give good advice to children than to break down truth by way of question and answer. It is much easier to relate exciting stories than to interest them by questions for illustration from Scripture. And many teachers, by such means, secure attention and esteem from their scholars. But we shrewdly suspect that the exercise and its result are not wholesome, or calculated to do the good desired. It is misdirected effort; it tends to dissipate the mind.

"Constant exhortation and story-telling have the same effect upon young minds as novel-reading upon elder persons. It makes the mind impulsive. It feeds by excitement. It seeks to secure and keep up attention by impulsive efforts. Without them the class or school, it is imagined, would fail to attend, and hence their frequent introduction. It prevents sober thought. There is no patience for anything but the exciting. The mind wanders, and does not fix upon truth presented. Can an habitual novel-reader peruse any work of solid matter? How often do we hear the humiliating confession that such exciting reading has dissipated the mind, and prevented sober thought! In like manner, though under the garb of sanctity, and in the Sabbath-school, the practice of teaching by impassioned exhortation and light story-telling is operating very injuriously upon the minds of youth, and training a generation of novel-readers. They will not find in sermons or good books the excitement that interests their minds. Hence, if mercy prevent not, they seek to satisfy their hunger by perusing novels, and these by no means the best."