True Education

The Principle of Cooperation

The principle of cooperation is invaluable in the home training of the young. From their earliest years children should be led to feel that they are a part of the home firm. Even the little ones should be trained to share in the daily work and should be made to feel that their help is needed and appreciated. The older ones should be their parents’ assistants, entering into their plans and sharing their responsibilities. Let fathers and mothers show their children that they value their help, desire their confidence, and enjoy their companionship, and the children will respond. Not only will the parents’ burden be lightened and the children receive a practical training of inestimable worth, there will be a strengthening of the home ties and a deepening of the very foundations of character. TEd 177.5

Cooperation should be the spirit of the schoolroom, the law of its life. Teachers who gain the cooperation of their pupils secure an invaluable aid in maintaining order. By helping in the schoolroom many students whose restlessness leads to disorder and insubordination would find an outlet for their superfluous energy. Let the older assist the younger, the strong the weak, and, so far as possible, let all be called upon to do something in which they excel. This will encourage self-respect and a desire to be useful. TEd 178.1

It would be helpful for young people, and for parents and teachers as well, to study the lesson of cooperation as taught in the Scriptures. Among its many illustrations notice the building of the tabernacle—that object lesson of character building in which all the people united, “everyone whose heart was stirred, and everyone whose spirit was willing.” Exodus 35:21. TEd 178.2

Read how the wall of Jerusalem was rebuilt by the returned captives in the midst of poverty, difficulty, and danger, the great task accomplished successfully because “the people had a mind to work.” Nehemiah 4:6. Consider the part acted by the disciples in the Savior’s miracle of feeding the multitude. The food multiplied in the hands of Christ, but the disciples received the loaves and gave to the waiting throng. TEd 178.3

“We are members of one another.” As everyone therefore “has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” Ephesians 4:25; 1 Peter 4:10. TEd 178.4

The words written of the idol builders of old might well be adopted as a motto by character builders of today: “Everyone helped his neighbor; and said to his brother, Be of good courage!” Isaiah 41:6. TEd 178.5