Basic HTML Version
Methods of Teaching
149
So long as the great purpose of education is kept in view, students
should be encouraged to advance just as far as their capabilities will
permit. But before taking up the higher branches of study, let them
master the lower. This is too often neglected. Even among students
in the higher schools and the colleges there is great deficiency in
knowledge of the common branches of education. Many students
devote their time to higher mathematics when they are incapable
of keeping simple accounts. Many study elocution with a view to
acquiring the graces of oratory when they are unable to read in an
intelligible and impressive manner. Many who have finished the
study of rhetoric fail in the composition and spelling of an ordinary
letter.
A thorough knowledge of the essentials of education should
be not only the condition of admission to a higher course, but the
constant test for continuance and advancement.
The Study and Use of Language
In every branch of education there are objects to be gained more
important than those secured by mere technical knowledge. Take
language, for example. More important than the acquirement of
foreign languages, living or dead, is the ability to write and speak
one’s mother tongue with ease and accuracy. But no training gained
through a knowledge of grammatical rules can compare in impor-
tance with the study of language from a higher point of view. With
this study, to a great degree, is bound up life’s happiness or sorrow,
prosperity or adversity.
The chief requisite of language is that it be pure and kind
and true—“the outward expression of an inward grace.” God says:
“Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things
are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, what-
ever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is
anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.”
Philippians 4:8
.
And if such are the thoughts, such will be the oral expression.
The best school for this language study is the home, but since
the work of the home is often neglected, it devolves on teachers to
aid their pupils in forming right habits of speech.
[144]