True Education

Health to Be Guarded

For almost every other qualification that contributes to success, teachers are in great degree dependent upon physical vigor. The better the health, the better will be the work accomplished. TEd 172.1

So wearing are teachers’ responsibilities that special effort on their part is required to preserve vigor and freshness. Often they become heart-weary and brain-weary, with the almost irresistible tendency to depression, coldness, or irritability. It is their duty not merely to resist such moods but to avoid their cause. They need to keep the heart pure, sweet, trustful, and sympathetic. In order to be always firm, calm, and cheerful, they must preserve the strength of brain and nerve. TEd 172.2

Since quality is more important than quantity, teachers should guard against overwork—against attempting too much in their own line of duty, against accepting other responsibilities that would unfit them for their work, and against engaging in amusements and social pleasures that are exhausting rather than recuperative. TEd 172.3

Outdoor exercise, especially in useful labor, is one of the best means of recreation for body and mind, and the example of teachers will inspire students with interest in, and respect for, manual labor. TEd 172.4

In every line, teachers should scrupulously observe the principles of health. They should do this not only because of its bearing upon their own usefulness, but also because of its influence on their pupils. They should be temperate in all things. In diet, dress, work, and recreation, they are to set an example. TEd 172.5

Physical health and uprightness of character should be combined with high literary qualifications. The more of true knowledge teachers have, the better will be their work. The schoolroom is no place for surface work. No teacher who is satisfied with superficial knowledge will attain a high degree of efficiency. TEd 172.6

But the usefulness of teachers depends not so much on the actual amount of their acquirements as on the standard at which they aim. True teachers are not content with dull thoughts, an indolent mind, or a loose memory. They constantly seek higher attainments and better methods. In the work of true teachers there is a freshness, a quickening power, that awakens and inspires their pupils. TEd 172.7

Teachers must have aptness for their work. They must have the wisdom and tact required to deal with minds. Teachers are needed who are quick to discern and improve every opportunity for doing good, teachers who combine enthusiasm with true dignity. Teachers are needed who are able to control, “apt to teach,” teachers who can inspire thought, arouse energy, and impart courage and life. TEd 173.1

Children and young people differ widely in disposition, habits, and training. Some have no definite purpose or fixed principles. They need to be awakened to their responsibilities and possibilities. Few children have been trained properly at home. Some have been household pets. Their whole training has been superficial. Allowed to follow inclination and to shun responsibility, they lack stability, perseverance, and self-denial. Often they regard all discipline as unnecessary. Others have been censured and discouraged, arbitrary restraint and harshness having developed in them obstinacy and defiance. If these deformed characters are to be reshaped, the work must, in most cases, be done by teachers. TEd 173.2

To accomplish this successfully, they must have the sympathy and insight that will enable them to trace to their cause the faults and errors of their students. They also must have the tact, patience, and firmness that will enable them to impart to each the needed help. The vacillating and ease loving will need such encouragement and assistance to stimulate exertion. The discouraged will need sympathy and appreciation to create confidence and thus inspire effort. TEd 173.3

Teachers often fail of coming sufficiently into social relation with their students. They manifest too little sympathy and tenderness, and too much of the dignity of the stern judge. While teachers must be firm and decided, they should not be exacting or dictatorial. Being harsh and censorious, standing aloof from their pupils or treating them indifferently, will close avenues to influence them for good. TEd 173.4

Under no circumstances should teachers manifest partiality. To favor the bright, attractive pupil, and be critical, impatient, or unsympathetic toward those who most need encouragement and help, is to reveal a total misconception of the teacher’s work. It is in dealing with faulty, trying ones that character is tested and it is proved whether teachers are really qualified for their work. TEd 173.5

Great is the responsibility of those who take upon themselves the guidance of a human soul. True fathers and mothers count theirs a trust from which they can never be wholly released. Boys and girls from their earliest to their latest days feel the power of that tie which binds them to the parents’ heart. The acts, the words, the very looks of the parents, continue to mold children for good or for evil. Teachers share this responsibility. They need constantly to realize its sacredness and to keep in view the purpose of their work. They are not merely to accomplish the daily tasks, to please their employers, and maintain the standing of the school, they also must consider the highest good of their students as individuals, the duties that life will lay on them, the service it requires, and the preparation demanded. The work that teachers do day by day will exert an influence on their pupils, and through them on others, that will extend and strengthen until time shall end. They must meet the fruits of this work in that great day when every word and deed shall be brought in review before God. TEd 174.1

Teachers who realize this will not feel that their work is completed when they have finished the daily routine of recitations and their pupils go home. They will carry these children and youth on their hearts. How to secure for them the noblest standard of attainment will be their constant study and effort. TEd 174.2