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True Education
dealing successfully with the willful and disobedient. Love and
tenderness, patience and selfcontrol, will at all times be the law of
their speech. Mercy and compassion will be blended with justice.
When it is necessary to give reproof, their language will not be exag-
gerated, but humble. In gentleness they will set before wrongdoers
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their errors and help them to recover. Every true teacher will feel
that it is better to err on the side of mercy than on the side of severity.
Many youth who are thought incorrigible are not so hard of heart
as they appear. Many who are regarded as hopeless may be reclaimed
by wise discipline. Often these are the ones who most readily melt
under kindness. If teachers gain the confidence of tempted ones
and recognize and develop the good in their characters, they can, in
many cases, correct the evil without calling attention to it.
The divine Teacher bears with the erring through all their per-
versity. His love does not grow cold, His efforts to win them do not
cease. With outstretched arms He waits to welcome again and again
the erring, the rebellious, and even the apostate. His heart is touched
with the helplessness of the little child subject to rough usage. The
cry of human suffering never reaches His ear in vain. Though all are
precious in His sight, the rough, sullen, stubborn dispositions draw
most heavily on His sympathy and love, for He traces from cause to
effect. The one who is most easily tempted, and is most inclined to
err, is the special object of His solicitude.
Parents and teachers should cherish the attributes of Him who
makes the cause of the afflicted, the suffering, and the tempted His
own. They should have “compassion on those who are ignorant and
going astray,” since they also are “subject to weakness.”
Hebrews
5:2
. Jesus treats us far better than we deserve, and as He has treated
us, so we are to treat others. The course of no parent or teacher is
justifiable if it is different from that which the Savior would pursue
under similar circumstances.
Meeting Life’s Discipline
Beyond the discipline of the home and the school, all have to
meet the stern discipline of life. How to meet this wisely is a lesson
that should be made plain to every child and to every young person.
It is true that God loves us, that He is working for our happiness,