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184
True Education
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 insubordina-
tion 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.
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
.
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.
“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
.
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
.
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