Martin Grove Brumbaugh

“ The Aim of Teaching is Right Living.—We err when we assume that intellectual endeavor will inevitably lead to right conduct. Nothing is more obvious than the fact that our conduct is far below the plane of our thought. We know vastly better than we do the things that are right and true. Nor do we quite understand the function of good teaching if we neglect to cultivate the feeling powers of the soul. ”

“ The opportunity to strengthen the altruistic feeling or "love for the other."—In the broadening and deepening experience of adolescence such conceptions as love, suffering, sacrifice, and surrender reveal a new meaning and strange force of attraction. No opportunity comparable to the one presented in this awakening ever returns, as the soul, with life before it, stands at the divergence of the paths, one leading toward God and service, the other away from him into self, and deliberate, decisive choice to be made. ”

“ Nothing is quite so deadly in the realm of the will as the fact that the pupil knows that his teacher threatens, commands, talks—but never acts. If you really do not intend to enforce obedience, do not utter the command. If you do not intend to compel obedience, do not assume the rôle of guide and teacher. How many children come into caprice instead of regulated conduct because they have from infancy lived in a realm of caprice, of confusion, and of disorder; a realm that moved by no law and hence set no law of guidance in the soul of the child. ”

“ The end of all endeavor is to do the will of God, and the goal of all teaching is to equip a human soul to live in joyous accord with the infinite wisdom. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." ”

“ The opportunity to foster high ideals. Whether it be consciously defined or not, every one has that toward which ambitions and effort go forth, and this ideal determines what character shall be. No one can give an ideal to another, as a book is handed over, for it is a personal thing, to be fashioned by each soul for itself out of that which it has absorbed through the years.
It is in the transition from childhood to maturity that every life decides what (for it) seems most worth while, and to this ideal makes surrender of thought, desire, and effort. ”

“ It is seeing the old once more, but seeing it from a new point of vantage; just as a man climbing a tower with windows at stated points sees in each case all that he saw before, but sees it in a new setting, sees it as part of a larger scene, and sees it finally as a part of a mighty whole. Wisely conducted, the review establishes proportion in the knowledge set in the soul and leads finally and directly to the fact that all truth is at last one truth; all life at last one life ”

“ If the pupil is narrow and circumscribed in his thought at this time, the fault lies in large measure at the teacher's door, for every impulse is to stretch in interest to the farthest limit in every direction. There will never again be such an opportunity to establish the world-wide interests begun in the Intermediate age, for life settles in a groove in adulthood and new interests do not readily appeal. ”

“ Examination is the process through which the teacher aims to test the result of instruction and learning. Its value is twofold: it adds to the learner's knowledge by the preparation he makes for the examination, and it gives the teacher a means of measuring the results obtained through instruction and drill. If the examination tests only knowledge gained by direct teaching, it is of little value. If, on the contrary, the questions are so phrased as to cause the pupil to think his way out of things known into some newer and higher order of knowledge, it is a valuable exercise. ”

“ Instance a poor child whose life is pent within the narrow walls of a city tenement, one who has never seen the park, much less the great, grand farms of the country; what can even this simple language of Whittier's figure to that child? Do you not see that first of all the needed thing in teaching is to bring new thoughts into terms of old thoughts, to interpret the new by the old, to translate all abstract truth into terms of conduct and into terms of real concrete experience. ”

“ It is a mark of weakness to engage in mental sauntering. The wise teacher will hold a thought before his pupils until, like a jewel, it flashes light from every facet. He will also use the best things done by some one pupil to stimulate like results in others. Above all, a consecrated teacher will not grow weary in well doing, for he should have an unflinching faith in God, in his pupil, and in the power of his teaching to produce Christian character. ”

“ It is my conviction that we act more nearly in harmony with our feelings than our thoughts. If, then, conduct, right action, or character is the end of all true teaching; if, as Jesus taught, it is not what we know, nor yet what we feel, but what we do, that makes life worth while, it is of the utmost importance that we should so train the feeling life as well as the thought life as to prepossess the soul to right conduct. But the feelings are intensely concrete. ”

“ Imagination.—Imagination is the power of the soul to work up into new combinations the things in memory. Memory keeps things as the soul got them through the senses. The products of memory have a basis in experience. The products of imagination have no such basis in experience. Imagination is the creator of new products. It cares not for [Pg 196] facts, but works after its own fancy. It is a more dangerous power because more free. To curb it at the outset is necessary. To allow it free range is to open the way for statements from the child that often alarm the parent or teacher. ”

“ They discern with an intuition that is as certain as logic the sincerity or insincerity of the teacher. It is a mistake to flatter, to scold, to threaten or to cajole pupils. These are the marks of poor teaching. A perfectly frank teacher will never cheapen his sacred opportunity by any trick or device that has the ring of insincerity. ”

“ No amount of teaching upon the subject of flowers and birds and trees can arouse the joy and gratitude which a drive through the country on a glorious spring morning awakens. No number of lessons upon self-control will make the impression upon the heart which the sight of it in another makes. The child cannot understand the nature and necessity of reverence, but he will feel it, if that be the influence of the Sunday-school hour. ”

“ It is not what he is restrained from doing, but what he is constantly encouraged to do that makes for right will training. The great power of Jesus as a teacher lies in his steadfast ability to teach the world what to do, how to act, right conduct in the midst of complex conditions. A negative code stops all endeavor, a positive code sets the soul aglow with the consciousness of things done, of processes initiated and completed, of struggles with wrong successfully ended, of progress from weakness to strength, from human error to Divine truth. ”

“ The First Step, Obedience.—At the beginning the feeling and thought elements are so numerous and so complex that the will is unable rightly to organize all this data into guidance. Hence the child must be guided by a will that has, through experience, acquired this power. The will of the parent and of the teacher is at the outset the effective guide, and the one necessity for the welfare of the child is obedience. Gradually the child finds his way through the maze of things his intellect and his sensibilities have retained, and then he becomes self-directive. His own will has asserted itself. ”

“ Highest of all, the soul is now able to give response to the right simply because it is the right. Duty has real meaning and conviction becomes a motive power.
As the large vision of what life may be dawns upon the soul, unbounded enthusiasm and courage possess it. There are no heights too dizzy to be reached, no obstacles too difficult to overcome. But enthusiasm often alternates with depression and self-distrust, leading to indifference, apathy, or recklessness. This is the explanation of the vacillating conduct almost universal during the early part of this period. ”

“ It is well also for the teacher to possess adequate knowledge; he should be able to separate a fact into its parts; that is, analyze it. This analytic power makes for vivid teaching but it is a power that the pupil in his early years cannot acquire. Only the mature mind is analytic, and the teacher who knows how to analyze a fact or a lesson knows the secret of proportion in teaching, the power to know what to make emphatic, what to make subordinate. It is a poor teacher who is unable to distinguish between a vital element and a non-vital element. ”

“ This quality of insight in the teacher's equipment will put the class upon a basis of work. The pupils will quickly realize that the teacher is imbued with a purpose; that he proceeds in a business-like way to accomplish a result which is seen to be of value. The very directness of the teacher is an asset of great significance. This always appeals to young persons. They like a lesson that is full of snap and action. They will not long abide a dull and dreary dragging over a subject—be it ever so fruitful in guidance. ”

“ To plan carefully and then to execute skilfully is the prime test of teaching. This plan must include a study of each pupil as well as a study of each lesson. It is at this point that so many teachers go wrong. They seem to think that a knowledge of the lesson is the only preparation required. They overlook the fact that it is vastly more important to know the pupil than it is to know the lesson. Those that know the subject-matter only are scholars, not teachers. ”

“ Teaching Defined.—The Sunday-school teacher as much as any other teacher should understand clearly what teaching is. Teaching is not telling, and no amount of talking to the pupil can be considered as teaching. Teaching is not determined by anything that happens outside the pupil, but by the action of the pupil's soul upon the things that are presented to it through the senses. Teaching may be defined as causing a human soul to know. ”

“ It is vastly better than telling, for telling things to pupils is not teaching, since it fails to cause the pupil's mind to act in any creative [Pg 203] way. It is a much abused method because many questions that an unwise teacher asks do not lead by synthesis to a common general truth or law. It is to be noted that the simplest form of questioning seeks only to obtain in answer a statement of fact, as when one asks how many miles it is from Jerusalem to Jericho, or who betrayed Jesus, or any similar question that calls for a statement of fact. ”

“ The pupil's knowledge should be clear, by which one means that he should know a thing and not some other thing in its stead; and a teacher's knowledge should be not only clear but related, by which one means that he should know a thing in its relation to all other things with which it is vitally connected. This makes for system in knowledge, and gives the teacher the power to teach each fact with its due emphasis, no more and no less. ”

“ If you will let me go into a man's library, I may be able to infer with much accuracy the calling of that man. If the majority of the books are medical or legal, I infer that the man is a doctor or a lawyer. If the majority of the books that are worn are light fiction, my inference is of a totally different nature. If, to change the illustration, I go to the home of a lady, and in the afternoon find that I can write my name in the dust on the polished piano-lid, I infer somewhat about the housekeeper in whose home I am. ”

“ The desire for good times is paramount, and its right indisputable in the conception of the young people. The delight in healthy outdoor sports continues with the athletically inclined, and ought to be fostered as a safety valve for surplus energy, a diverter of self-centered thought, and a tonic for excitable nerves. In the latter part of this period, however, the love of fun gives place to a love of functions, either the helpful sort of social commingling or the danger-filled type, marked by late hours, excitement, and overwrought imagination. ”

“ The old Mother Goose rhymes are excellent examples of stories full of action, and, as a result, of interest. The child personifies all things, that he may find in them the elements of life, of action, of things in the process of doing. If you will spend an hour with a boy who is riding a stick that is to him a horse, or a girl who is playing with a rag-doll, you will learn the method and value of action in the concrete materials of instruction. ”

“ Direct instruction is the communication of facts by the teacher through oral language to the pupil. The pupil in this type of learning follows the statements of the teacher and sees for himself the truth of the facts presented and the conclusion reached. The danger of direct teaching lies in the fact that the teacher may fail to arouse in the pupil a current of thought corresponding to his own. In this case there is no resulting knowledge in the soul of the learner; and, instead, there is likely to be confusion or disorder in the class. ”

“ The mind of the beginner is awake and active, but he can grasp little instruction beyond simplest facts about concrete things. Right and wrong, unselfishness, love, all the abstract standards and principles of life, he cannot comprehend intellectually, but he absorbs the influences that go out from them, and what is felt is always more powerful than that which lodges only in the head. During the first six years of life the child is peculiarly sensitive to every influence that comes to him out of his environment, and these,—not instruction,—determine what he shall be. ”

“ We are taught in a more restricted sense by our immediate environment, and especially by the people whose lives come in close contact with our own. In the most restricted sense we are taught by a trained mind, and this trained mind belongs to a person called a teacher. The process of teaching may be considered as the act of bringing into the consciousness of the learner the knowledge already in the consciousness of the teacher. We cannot teach what we do not know. Teaching ends when the pupil knows all that the teacher knows. ”

“ Atmosphere represents the sum total of all the influences at a given time. The soft music of the organ, the dim light, the stillness, the attitude of prayer, all create an atmosphere to which reverence and worship are the natural response. ”

“ To busy men and burdened women, the class ought to be a place of vision. Absorbed in one's tiny corner through six toiling days, the seventh should give opportunity to lift up the eyes and look on fields glorious in their incoming harvest. There is refreshment and inspiration and incentive now in the news from China and Japan and the islands of the sea. The teacher must bring the world-view to the class if he believes that world service is God's thought for manhood. ”

“ Every time a child imitates an action he understands its meaning better, he fixes it more securely in memory and he also makes its repetition so much the easier.
It is important, therefore, to note what he naturally imitates. In this period it is some definite act, not the spirit nor life of the actor. He does not aspire to resemble the character of the teacher, but he does try to speak and move and look as she does. As the action is performed, the life unconsciously but surely becomes like the one who is imitated. ”