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PART I.
The

Teacher's
Teaching
Work.

CHAPTER 1.

Teaching
Process.

if she had been brought up in a heathen land. I tell you, that as I stood by her bedside trying to make plain to her, in that late hour of her probation, those Nature of the simple truths which I had repeated to her from the pulpit over and over again, and which I had supposed she knew all about, I had a new sense of the fact, that to say a thing explicitly and repeatedly is not necessarily to make that thing the possession of those who hear it." Or, in other words, that preacher had then and there found out, what many a preacher before and since has discovered, and what many another, unfortunately, has not yet perceived― that telling a thing is not teaching that thing.

Hearing all and learning nothing.

preachers.

Nor is it merely because the preacher stands off at a distance, and talks to the whole congregation instead of to a single individual, that his telling is, in itself, no teaching. A teacher's talk is no more teaching, than is a preacher's talk. A scholar may be as ignorant of the truths which his teacher has Teachers and repeated to him plainly, and pressed home on him individually, many times over, as was ever a passive listener in the congregation to a preacher's words from the pulpit. I, certainly, can testify, out of my personal experience, that one of the godliest and most learned men who ever occupied a place as a Sunday-school teacher was a marked illustration of failure just at this point. That man was a distinguished jurist; one whose praise was in all the churches-and whose memoir is in the Sunday

The Passive Bucket.

13

PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 1.

Teaching
Process.

school libraries. IIe prepared himself most elaborately on his lesson. He came to the class with full notes. He talked wisely, plainly, directly, from the beginning to the end of the lesson-hour-although Nature of the commonly with his eyes closed, and always without asking any questions. He taught much by his punctuality, and his fidelity, and his Christ-like spirit-in their admirable example. He was loved and honored by his class; and he is remembered by his scholars gratefully. But if he ever taught a single truth by his telling it in that class,-here, in my case, is one scholar who is not aware of it. I do not recall a single fact, a single precept, a single doctrine, taught directly by the words of that Sunday-school teacher. Nor is this a solitary or an extreme case in illustration of the fact that telling a thing in a Sunday-school class is not teaching that thing.

The wisest preachers and teachers have recognized this truth, even though it has, by no means, found general acceptance as yet. "Nothing is more absurd," says an eminent English teacher, "than the common notion of instruction, as if science were to be poured into the mind, like water into a cistern." It is as if in comment on this figure, that Thomas Carlyle has said: "To sit as a passive bucket, and be pumped into, can in the long run be exhilarating to no creature, how eloquent soever the flood of utterance that is descending." So brilliant and witty a

A good

teacher who

talked with

out teaching.

The passive

bucket and

the pump.

PART I.
The

Work.

preacher as Dr. Robert South put the same truth, Teacher's although by a different figure, two centuries ago, when he described preaching to passive hearers as Nature of the "a kind of spiritual diet upon which people are Process. always feeding, but never full; and many poor souls,

CHAPTER 1.

Teaching

Pharaoh's lean kine.

God knows too, too like Pharaoh's lean kine, much the leaner for their full feed." And of the teaching, or training, process aimed at in the church, he adds: "To expect that this should be done by preaching or force of lungs, is much as if a smith or artist, who works The Sunday-in metal, should expect to form and shape out his work only with his bellows."

school

bellows.

A poor preaching service.

Yet, how large a place the bellows fills at the modern Sunday-school forge!

A vast deal of what is called "Bible-class teaching "is talking, but not teaching. It might pass for fourth-rate, or third-rate, or second-rate, or-at the very best and rarest-as first-rate preaching, or lecturing; but it never ought to be called teaching. The teacher talks; the scholars listen. The teacher is, doubtless, a gainer in his mind and heart by what he says; but not so his silent scholars. They hear, but do not learn. The "exercise" is an exercise only to the exerciser. The whole thing is a pocket-edition, in poor type, of a pulpit-led service, with many of the disadvantages and few of the benefits of the largepage edition. And not a little of the ordinary class-teaching in the Sunday-school is of the same character. The teacher talks; the scholars listen.

Telling has its Place.

There is a "teacher," but no teaching. There are "learners," but no learning. It is not a pleasant thing to face such a fact as this; but since it is a fact, it ought to be faced by those interested.

15

PART I. The Teacher's Teaching

Work.

CHAPTER 1. Nature of the Teaching

Process.

may do.

Telling a thing may be an important part of the process of teaching a thing. The telling may in itself interest or impress even where it fails to in- What telling struct. A teacher may teach in other ways than by his telling truths that are worthy of his scholars' hearing and learning. However this may be, it is important that every teacher should understand, at the first and at the last, that telling a thing is not in itself teaching a thing; and that, if he is a teacher at all, it will be through the use of some other method than mere talking.

PART I. 'I he Teacher's Teaching

Work.

CHAPTER 1.

Teaching

Process.

III.

HEARING A RECITATION IS NOT TEACHING.

Hearing is not Teaching; Reciting is not Learning; Rote-questions bring Rote-answers; Buying Books does not Bring Knowledge; Blind Alec of Stirling; Parrot Mathematicians; What Memorizing cannot do.

ANOTHER Common mistake of the Sunday-school teacher, is in supposing that hearing a recitation is teaching; nor is that error, by any means, confined Nature of the to the Sunday-school. Recitation may, it is true, have an important part in the process of teaching. It may in itself advantage the scholar, and the teacher may have a duty of listening to it; but the hearing of a recitation is not in itself teaching; nor is it always an essential in the teaching process. As Professor Hart states it: "A child recites lessons when it repeats something previously learned. A child is taught when it learns something from the teacher not known before. The two things often, indeed, go together, but they are in themselves essentially distinct."

A clear distinction.

If merely hearing scholars recite were in itself teaching, then all who are in the neighborhood

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