Teachers' Institutes by Clifford A. Russell

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

Teachers' Institutes

By Clifford A. Russell

"If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength: but wisdom is profitable to direct."

When we find our tools becoming dulled, or perchance find that the newly purchased blade is far from keen, it is neither time nor effort misspent to grind and whet the edge until, razor-like, it cuts its way through with the least possible waste of energy.

Our younger teachers need the personal contact and influence of those of more experience. Oftentimes we who are older in the work find that our minds become dulled, and need the awakening, the inspiration, the sharpening, that comes from the interchange of thought, method, plans, devices, made possible in a properly conducted institute. Most of all, we need a new vision, a greatly enlarged, broadened, deepened vision, of what God demands of a Christian teacher.

For some years this work has been carried on in the Lake Union Conference. This year an institute was conducted in each of the seven conferences constituting this union. In every case, the conference president manifested his interest in the betterment of our schools by taking an active part. Out of nearly one hundred church-school teachers, only five failed to attend. Besides this, nearly all the academy teachers were in attendance at some one of these institutes. The president of Emmanuel Missionary College attended two, and the normal director four, of these gatherings.

So thoroughly converted have our people become to the idea of conducting these institutes that the teacher's salary and his traveling expenses are paid.

At several of these institutes, an exhibition of school work, largely industrial, was arranged.

The devotional hours were greatly appreciated, and several closed with a heart-searching consecration service.

Very interesting as well as instructive hours were those devoted to a round-table discussion of perplexing school problems, and to the question box, which formed an important feature of each institute.

Special emphasis was placed upon such topics as,—

Consecration
Cooperation
The Teacher's Influence in the School, the Home, the Church
School Discipline
School Sanitation
Supervised Recreations
Special Methods and Devices

Some one has said: "It is a good thing, sometimes, for a man to climb up out of his rut, and take a look into the other man's rut." We are all likely to think our rut the best, the safest. But sometimes we discover that the other man is following a far better rut, or, to drop the figure, that another teacher has devised ways and means of conducting a school which are far superior to our own, while perhaps some of our plans are better than his. The institute brings together these teachers, each with his own ideals, and the result can but make for increased efficiency in our teachers and the betterment of our schools.

I speak from observation when I say emphatically, The institute pays! CLIFFORD A. RUSSELL.