Leaders of classes, and individuals pursuing these studies apart from classes, are urged to read the chapter entitled "Teaching Hints," on page [259], before beginning this section
Lesson 1
Knowing the Pupil
1. There never was a time when so many people were students of human life as to-day. Professional men, business men, politicians, educators, parents, indeed the whole thinking world has apparently matriculated in a college of life. What is it, how does it develop, how may it be influenced, how led to action? These are typical questions to which answers are sought. There would be no value in this study were it not for the fact that life, like all other of God's creations, is under law, and the laws are unchangeable and universal. Certain causes will always produce certain results under normal conditions.
2. Since these laws of life may be known, two conclusions follow: first, results which are desired in a life can be intelligently planned for; second, haphazard, ignorant work with a life becomes culpable in proportion to the issues at stake and the opportunity for acquiring skill in the work.
3. Why the Sunday-school Teacher should know the Pupil.—Next to fathers and mothers, the duty of understanding life is laid most imperatively upon Sunday-school teachers. Four unanswerable arguments present themselves as proof.
(1) The issues are the most vital in the world. The case the lawyer seeks to win is important, but the case the teacher seeks to win involves character, not reputation, and the outcome is eternal.
(2) A mistake with a life cannot be wholly rectified. There is a best time for each phase of work with a life—a time to form habits and store memory, a time to shape ideals and to crystallize life purposes, a time to broaden sympathies and to lead to service; if this best time be passed, the results, if obtainable at all later, come with greater effort and with less success.