The Sunday School Teachers' Magazine, and Journal of Education (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1866 edition. Excerpt: ...does not exist inherently in the teacher's mind. It is at first external to himself; a book revelation, --" Treasures of antiquity, laid up In old historic rolls; " and these must find a place in his own understanding ere they can be transferred to those of his scholars. There are exceptions to this law, I know, yet it is not the least striking feature in the plan of salvation that the diffusion of gospel truth is entrusted not merely to human expositors, but to oral as distinguished from written teaching; man's liighest physical endowment, the gift which was his glory, but has been too often his shame, is made the chosen instrument of his moral restoration. Thus, in a deep spiritual sense, "life and death are in tho power of the tongue." It is an axiom in education that in order to render any subject intelligible, the teacher must know it thoroughly for himself; a vague and imperfect acquaintance with it will not suffice. The old story of the professor of languages who contrived to keep just one lessor ahead of his pupil, is unsound in principle, though passable ae a joke; and the frequently quoted anecdote of the perplexed student whom Archbishop Whately advised to take a pupil, when he had thought of obtaining a tutor, though it records the benefit derived by the half-furnished instructor, does not detail the effects of the process on his unfortunate victim. Other qualifications being equal, the mind that is most amply and accurately stored will dispense its stores in the most effective manner. The first practical question, therefore, which presents itself is this: --How may Sunday school unions promote a fuller and more accurate acquaintance on the part of teachers with the leading truths of the sacred volume? Manifestly by two principal...