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Practical Training
255
frequently a financial loss. But let us remember the blessing that
physical exercise brings to the students. Many students have died
while endeavoring to acquire an education, because they confined
themselves too closely to mental effort.
We must not be narrow in our plans. In industrial training there
are unseen advantages which cannot be measured or estimated. Let
no one begrudge the effort necessary to carry forward successfully
the plan that for years has been urged upon us as of primary impor-
tance.
* * * * *
Teachers will meet with trials. Discouragements will press upon
them as they see their work unappreciated. Satan will strive to afflict
them with bodily infirmities, hoping to lead them to murmur against
God, to close their eyes to His goodness, His mercy, His love, and
the exceeding weight of glory that awaits the overcomer. At such
times let teachers remember that God is leading them to more perfect
confidence in Him. If in their perplexity they will look to Him in
faith, He will bring them from the furnace of trial refined and purified
as gold tried in the fire.
Let the hard-pressed, sorely tried one say, “Though He slay me,
yet will I trust in Him.” “Although the fig tree shall not blossom,
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neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and
the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold,
and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will joy in the God of my salvation.”
Job 13:15
;
Habakkuk 3:17,
18
.
* * * * *
Let not teachers have favorites among their students, or give
to the bright, quick students the most attention. Those who are
apparently the most unpromising most need the tact and kindly
words that will bind their hearts to the heart of the teacher.
First impressions are not to be trusted. Students who at first seem
dull and slow may in the end make greater progress than those who
are naturally quicker. If they are thorough and systematic in their