The Secret of Good Teaching. know how to bring his scholars into active co-work. Then he was ready for teaching. If more persons were willing to do such work as this, there would be more "born teachers" in the world; more teachers in the Sunday-school who could teach. When you know your scholars, when you know your lesson, and when you know how you are to teach that lesson to those scholars, then, and not before, you are ready to try your hand at lessonteaching. PART I. CHAPTER 4. responsi bility. METHODS: IN PRACTICE. I. HOW TO GET AND HOLD YOUR SCHOLARS' The Teacher Responsible for his Scholar's Duty; Forcing Another's ALL due preparation having been made for the teaching-process, the teacher being familiar with his lesson, familiar with his scholars, and familiar with his plan of teaching, then comes the duty of putting in practice the methods which have been decided on. The teacher and his scholars are face to face for the teaching work. Now for the teaching-process in practice. To begin with, How can a teacher get and hold The teacher's his scholars' attention? Now, while this would seem to be laying on a teacher the performing of a scholar's duty, it is important for a teacher to understand, both first and last, that he has a responsibility for making his scholars attend to his teachings. A gentleman who, although he was a communicant in Working Against Odds. "Well, do "No," was 139 PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Process. an evangelical church, was commonly more interested in his week-day business than in his Sabbath duties, bought a pair of fine horses on a certain Saturday. When Sunday morning came, he went to church, and tried to fix his thoughts on the Teaching preacher's words, but those horses ran away with his thoughts. His wife perceived this; and after the service she said to him, "You were thinking more of your new horses than you were of the sermon, this morning." "I know it," he said. you think that was right?" she added. his frank reply. "I don't think it was for it. But, after all, I don't think I sorry the only one at fault in the matter. I tried to give horses. attention to our pastor, but I couldn't. I think he ought to have been able to pull me away from those horses." And there was a sense in which that gentleman had the right of it, in his way of looking at a preacher's duty. In that sense, a teacher ought to recognize his responsibility for getting and holding his scholars' attention, when he has them before him, even though a pair of horses should be pulling in the opposite direction. I'm right, and was A young man applied to a city dry-goods jobber for a position as salesman. "Can you sell goods?" was the merchant's first question. "I can sell goods any man who really wants to buy," was the qualified rejoinder. Oh, nonsense!" said the merchant. "Anybody can sell goods to a man who really wants to 66 Pulling harder than a pair of Selling to PART I. Teaching CHAPTER 4. The harder, the better. Beelzebub's way. to buy. I want salesmen who can sell goods to men who don't want to buy." And there is a similar want to this merchant's, in the field of Sunday-school teaching. It is comparatively an easy matter to teach those who really want to be taught; to hold the attention of those who are determined to be attentive. But there is a duty of getting and holding the attention of scholars whose thoughts are flying in every direction save that of the lesson of the day, yet who show, by their presence in the class, that they are not determinedly unwilling to yield their attention, if the teacher can give them sufficient inducements in that direction. The teacher's work would be shorn of half its power, and all its glory, if it were limited to the benefit of those scholars who came to the class with the readiness and ability to do their full duty without the help of a wise and determined teacher. How to win and hold attention when attention is not voluntarily proffered, is, therefore, a question of prime and practical importance in every teacher's sphere. There are different modes of catching attention. Milton says of Beelzebub in the Council of Pandemonium : There are teachers whose rising in their place, or PART I. The Teacher's whose bending forward in their chair, commands attention as instantly and as surely as ever a ringing Teaching voice commanded " attention" on the parade-ground; and again there are teachers whose mere presence and looks are not so effective over the imps in their class-Pandemonium. "They say the tongues of dying men Enforce attention like deep harmony." Baxter had, perhaps, this saying of Shakespeare in mind, when he said of his personal preaching: "I preached as never sure to preach again; And as a dying man to dying men." A teacher may on an occasion be so earnest, and so absorbed and inspired, that his every word shall enforce the attention of his scholars as if it were spoken with his dying breath. But, as a rule, teachers do not feel that they are dying; nor would it be well for them to feel so. And again, a very large share of scholars, as we find them, are by no means disposed to put themselves under a teacher whose sands of life are nearly run out, and who seeks to give prominence to that fact. With teachers generally, the securing of attention must be through some other agency than an imposing presence or profound solemnity. Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Baxter's way. right start. In securing the scholars' attention, much depends on the first movement, or the first spoken words, of Making a the teacher. A hint in this direction may be gained from the pulpit. Many a preacher expects to attract |