Principles of Teaching

by Adam S. Bennion

6	or	7	by	1	girl
8	or	9	by	0	girl
10	or	11	by	4	girls
12	or	13	by	3	girls
14	or	15	by	21	girls
16	or	17	by	29	girls
18	or	19	by	33	girls
20	or	21	by	13	girls
22	or	23	by	15	girls
24	or	25	by	11	girls
26	or	27	by	5	girls
28	or	29	by	2	girls
30	or	31	by	5	girls
32	or	33	by	3	girls
34	or	35	by	5	girls
36	or	37	by	0	girl
38	or	49	by	4	girls
40	or	41	by	1	girl

Two papers, A and B, written by members of the same grade and class in a test in spelling:

A.	B.
greatful	gratful
elegant	eleagent
present	present
patience	paisionce
succeed	suckseed
severe	survere
accident	axadent
sometimes	sometimes
sensible	sensible
business	biusness
answer	anser
sweeping	sweping
properly	prooling
improvement	improvment
fatiguing	fegting
anxious	anxchus
appreciate	apresheating
assure	ashure
imagine	amagen
praise	prasy

In a test in spelling wherein fifty common words were dictated to a class of twenty-eight pupils, the following results were obtained:

2	spelled correctly all 50
3	spelled correctly between 45 and 48
5	spelled correctly between 40 and 45
11	spelled correctly between 30 and 40
6	spelled correctly between 20 and 30
1	spelled correctly between 15 and 20

And now the question—what has all this to do with the teaching of religion? Just this: the differences among men as found in fields already referred to, are found also in matters of religion. For one man it is easy to believe in visions and all other heavenly manifestations; for another it is next to impossible. To one man the resurrection is the one great reality; to another it is merely a matter of conjecture. One man feels certain that his prayers are heard and answered; another feels equally certain that they cannot be. One man is emotionally spiritual; another is coldly hard-headed and matter-of-fact. The point is not a question which man is right—it is rather that we ought not to attempt to reach each man in exactly the same way, nor should we expect each one to measure up to the standards of the others.

An interesting illustration of this difference in religious attitude was shown recently in connection with the funeral of a promising young man who had been taken in death just as he had fairly launched upon his life's work. In a discussion that followed the service, one good brother found consolation in the thought that the Lord needed just such a young man to help carry on a more important work among the spirits already called home. His companion in the discussion found an explanation to his satisfaction in the thought that it was providential that the young man could be taken when he was, that he thereby might be spared the probable catastrophies that might have visited him had he lived. Each man found complete solace in his own philosophy, though neither could accept the reasoning of the other.

An interesting case of difference of view came to the attention of the teacher-training class at Provo when someone asked how the lesson on Jonah could be presented so that it would appeal to adolescent boys and girls. The query was joined in by several others for whom Jonah had been a stumbling block, when Brother Sainsbury, of Vernal, startled the class by saying Jonah was his favorite story. "I would rather teach that story than any other one in the Bible," he declared, and illustrated his method so clearly that the account of Jonah took on an entirely new aspect.

Many men and women in the world are shocked at the thought that God is a personality. To them the idea that God is simply a "man made perfect," a being similar to us, but exalted to deity, is akin to blasphemy. And then to add the idea of a heavenly mother is beyond comprehension. To Latter-day Saints, on the other hand, these thoughts are the very glory of God. To them a man made perfect is the noblest conception possible. It makes of Him a reality. And the thought of Mother—Heaven without a Mother would be like home without one.