George Herbert Betts

“ God who creates the beautiful flowers, who causes the breezes to blow, who carpets the earth with green, who paints the autumn hillside with glowing color, who directs the coming and going of the seasons, who tells the buds when to swell and the leaves to unfold, who directs the sparrow in its flight and the bee in its search, who is in the song of the birds and the whisper of the leaves, who sends his rain and makes the thunder roll—this God can be brought, through the medium of nature's forms, very near to the child. ”

“ What truths will even now, while he is still a child, awaken his spiritual appreciation and touch the springs of his emotional response to the heavenly Father? What religious concepts, once developed, will lead the youth into a rich fullness of personal experience and develop in him the will and capacity to serve others? What religious knowledge will finally make most certain a life of loyalty to the church and the great cause for which it stands?" When we can answer these questions we shall then be able to say what knowledge is of most worth in the religious training of our children. ”

“ The building of personality.—Personality is not born, it is made. A strong, inspiring personality is not a gift of the gods, nor is a weak and ineffective personality a visitation of Providence. Things do not happen in the realm of the spiritual any more than in the realm of nature. Everything is caused. Personality grows. It takes its form in the thick of the day's work and its play. It is shaped in the crush and stress of life's problems and its duties. It gains its quality from the character of the thoughts and acts that make up the common round of experience. ”

“ Out of a band of commonplace fishermen and ordinary men he made a company of evangelists and reformers whose work and influence changed the course of civilization. Every person who responded to his instruction felt the glow of a new ambition and the desire to have a part in the great mission. Thus the teaching of Jesus entered into the actual life and conduct of his pupils. The truths he taught did not lie dormant as so much mere attainment of knowledge. They took root and blossomed into action, into transformed lives, and into heroic deeds of kindly service. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I will live as much as I can in the great out-of-doors, finding in its beauty and freshness new evidences of God's wisdom and goodness. I will never injure nor destroy, but do all I can to protect the beautiful living and growing things about me. I will find joy in the storm, the rain, and the snow, and then no day will seem dreary or dull to me. I will seek for some good purpose in all harmless created things, making comrades of my animal playmates, and taking an interest in all such things as creep or crawl or fly ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This is the final and sure test of the value of what we teach—how does it find expression in action? Do our pupils think differently, speak differently, act differently here and now because of what we teach them? Are they stronger when they meet temptation from day to day? Are they more sure to rise to the occasion when they confront duty or opportunity? Are their lives more pure and free from sin? Do the lessons we teach find expression in the home, in the school, and on the playground? Is there a real outcome in terms of daily living? ”

“ Who has not called a child from an interesting tale in a book he was reading, and found that it required the combined force of our authority and the child's will to break the spell of his interest and separate him from his book? Interest is always ready to flow in resistless current if we can but find the right channel and a way to set it free. When we find our class uninterested, therefore, we must first of all seek the explanation not in the children, but in ourselves, our methods, or the matter we teach. ”

“ Parallel with growth in the child's knowledge, his interests are taking root; his ideals are shaping; his standards are developing; his enthusiasms are kindling; his loyalties are being grounded. These changes go on whether we will or not—just because life and growth can not be stopped. The great question that confronts teacher and parent is whether through guidance, that is through education, we shall be able to say what attitudes shall arise and what motives shall come to rule, rather than to leave this all-important matter to chance or to influence hostile to the child's welfare. ”

“ There is no virtue in truths, however significant and profound, if they are beyond the reach of the child's experience. Matter which is not assimilated to the understanding is soon forgotten; or if retained, but weighs upon the intellect and dulls its edge for further learning.
There can be little doubt that we have quite constantly in most of our Sunday schools forced upon the child no small amount of matter that is beyond his mental grasp, and so far outside his daily experience that it conveys little or no meaning. We have over-intellectualized the child's religion. ”

“ I conceive the Bible as the matchless textbook of religion, the great repository of spiritual wisdom through the ages. It is the primary source to which we must go for material for religious instruction, not just because it is the Bible, but because its truths are the surest guide ever formulated for spiritual development.
Yet human experience and human problems are broader than the Bible. New ages bring new conditions and new needs. Eternal truths may take on new forms to meet new problems. ”

“ One can never teach all he knows. Dr. John Dewey tells us that the subject matter of our instruction should be so well mastered that it has become second nature to us; then when we come to the recitation we can give our best powers of thought and insight to the human element—seeking to understand the boys and girls as we teach them.
Our knowledge and mastery must always be much broader than the material we actually present. It must be deeper and our grasp more complete than can be reached by our pupils. For only this will give us the mental perspective demanded of the teacher. ”

“ The material must fit the aim.—What materials of religious truth should the teacher bring to his class? The answer is that truths and lessons must be suited to the aim we seek. Would we lead our children to understand the Fatherhood of God and to love him for his tender care? Then the lessons must contain this thought, and not be built on irrelevant material. Would we lead youth to catch the thrill and inspiration of noble lives, to pattern conduct after worthy deeds? Then our lesson material must deal with the high and fine in character and action, and not with trivial things of lesser value. ”

“ Too many, perhaps half unconsciously to themselves, carry the impression that religion belongs rather more to Bible times and peoples than to ourselves. Too many assent to the general truth of religion and the demands it puts on our lives, but fail to make a sufficiently immediate and definite application of its requirements to their own round of daily living. Too many think of the divine law as revealed in the Scriptures as having a historical significance rather than a present application. One of the tasks of deductive teaching is to cure this fatal weakness in the study of religion. ”

“ The test of useful knowledge.—This is all to say that the knowledge of the Bible given the child must in no sense be a merely formal knowledge, a knowledge of so many curious or even interesting facts separated from their vital meaning and application. It must not consist of truths which for the most part do not influence thought and action. Not how many facts are lodged in the mind, nor how many have passed through the mind and been forgotten, but how many truths are daily being built into character—this measures the value of the knowledge we teach the child from the Bible. ”

“ The raw material of our nature comes with us; is what heredity decrees. But the finished product bears the stamp of our training and development. Fate or destiny never takes the reins from our hands. We are free to shape ourselves largely as we will.
Our inner life will daily grow by what it feeds upon. This is the great secret of personality-building. What to-day we build into thought and action to-morrow becomes character and personality. Let us cultivate our interests, think high thoughts, and give ourselves to worthy deeds, and these have soon become a life habit. ”

“ The religious knowledge the child needs, therefore, is a knowledge that can at once be incorporated in his life. To supply the child with knowledge of this vital, fruitful sort becomes, then, one great aim in the teaching of religion.
But knowledge alone is not enough. Indeed, knowledge is but the beginning of religious education, whereas we have been in danger of considering it the end. Many there are who know the ways of life but do not follow them. Many know the paths of duty, but choose an easier way. Many know the road to service and achievement, but do not enter thereon. ”

“ To supply our children with religious knowledge is, therefore, one of the chief aims of our teaching.
Yet not all knowledge is of equal worth. Even religious knowledge is of all degrees of fruitfulness. Some knowledge, once acquired, fails to function. It has no point of contact with our lives. It does not deal with matters we are meeting in the day's round of experience. It therefore lies in the mind unused, or, because it is not used, it quickly passes from the memory and is gone. ”

“ If we would secure the child's interest, we must make certain of a "point of contact" in his own life and meet him on the plane of his own experience. God smiling in the sunshine, making the flowers grow or whispering in the breeze is closer to the child than God as "Creator." ”

“ 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. ”

“ The spontaneous, or nonvoluntary, attention that arises from interest is the basis on which all true education and training must be founded. The mind, and especially the child's mind, is so constituted that its full power is not brought to bear except under the stimulus and compulsion of interest. It is the story which is so entrancing that we cannot tear ourself away from it, the game which is so exciting as to cause us to forget all else in watching it, the lecture or sermon which is so interesting that we are absorbed in listening to it, that claims our best thought and comprehension. ”

“ For the first law of all learning is self-activity. There is no possibility of teaching a child who is not mentally awake. Only the active mind grasps, assimilates, remembers, applies. The birth of new ideas, the reaching of convictions, the arriving at decisions all come in moments of mental stress and tension. Lethargy of thought and feeling is fatal to all class-room achievement. Therefore, no matter how keenly alert the teacher's mind may be, no matter how skillful his analysis of an important truth may be if his class sit with flagging interest and lax attention. ”

“ What though the lesson be long—if it is to be learned, I'll master it! If I can stand at the head of my class, I will, but only when I have earned the right by honest effort. Because the world contains so many who must go hungry for want of food, and who lack other necessities and comforts, I will not needlessly spend nor waste anything of value. I will take pride in thrift and saving, and do all I can to encourage this spirit in others. ”

“ Men who set the standard for manliness, and women whose character and lives are the best definition of womanliness, are as much a revelation of God's work and power as a constellation of stars or the bloom of the rose. ”

“ For it is out of one's attitudes that his philosophy of life develops, and that he settles upon the great aims to which he devotes himself. It is in one's attitudes that we find the springs of action and the incentives to endeavor. It is in attitudes that we find the forces that direct conduct and lead to character.
To train the intellect and store the mind with knowledge without developing a fund of right attitudes to shape the course of action is therefore even fraught with danger. ”

“ THE CHILD'S CONCEPT OF GOD
The child must come to know about God, even as a little child. Long before he can understand about religion, he can learn about a heavenly Father. This does not imply that the child (or that we ourselves!) can know God in any full or complete way. Indeed, a God who could be known in his entirety by even the deepest and wisest finite mind would be no God at all. Yet everyone must give some meaning to God. Everyone does have some more or less definite idea, image, or mental picture of the God he thinks about, prays to, and worships. ”

“ When we revert to our own pupil days we find that the impressions which cling to our memories are not chiefly impressions of facts taught and of lessons learned, but of the personality of the teacher. We may have forgotten many of the truths presented and most of the conclusions drawn, but the warmth and glow of the human touch still remains.
To be a teacher of religion requires a particularly exalted personality. The teacher and the truth taught should always leave the impression of being of the same pattern. ”

“ Not to know its teachings is to miss the strongest and best foundation that has ever been laid for fruitful and happy living. To lose a knowledge of the Bible out of our lives is to deprive ourselves of the ethical and religious help needed to redeem society and bring the individual to his rightful destiny. Yet this generation is confronted by a widespread and universal ignorance of the Bible, even among the adherents of the churches. ”

“ But the rather empty lapses which occur for no reason except that the teacher lacks readiness and preparation, and does not quite know at every moment just what he is to do next, or what topic should at this moment come in—it is such awkward and meaningless breaks as these that spoil the continuity of thought and interest and result in boredom. We must remember that every pause or interval of mere empty waiting without expectancy, or without some worthy thought occupying the mind, is a waste of energy, time, and opportunity, and also a training in inattention. ”

“ There is no place for a spirit of irreverence and boisterousness in the church school, and the teacher must have for one of his first principles the maintenance of good conduct in his classroom. No one can tell any teacher just how this is to be achieved in individual cases, but it must be done. And the teacher who cannot win control over his class would better surrender it to another who has more of the quality of leadership or mastery in his make-up, for no worthy, lasting religious impressions can be given to noisy, boisterous, and inattentive children. ”