(2425)
Rubenstein—that thunderer of the keyboard—is credited with the following dictum: “If I do not practise for a day I know it; if I miss two days my friends know it; and if I miss three days the public knows it.” (Text.)
(2426)
PRACTISE AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING
Many children outside of the Sunday-school will learn the Bible from Christian parents or will study it for themselves; but there is no way, so far as I can conceive, of learning the industrial work of the church except in some such training-school as the young people’s society furnishes. For this work can be learned only by doing it. It can not be taught by text-books, or imparted by instruction. Like every other kind of industrial training, it must be gained by practise. The carpenter learns to build a house with saw and hammer and nails in hand, not by reading an elaborate treatise on housebuilding. The painter takes his easel and brush, and practises long and patiently, if he would be an artist; there is no other way. It is exactly the same with the necessary activities of church life. If the church is worth sustaining, if its work is to be done in the future, if we are to have prayer-meetings and missionary activities and an earnest religious life, if the Church is to be a power for good citizenship and righteous living, it must have some such industrial training-school.—Francis E. Clark, “Proceedings of the Religious Education Association,” 1903.
(2427)
PRACTISE, GRADUATED
In drilling recruits for the Chinese army, each man is required to carry sand in his knapsack. For the first day he carries two ounces; on each succeeding day he increases this amount two ounces, until at last he is carrying sixteen pounds. These men can run at a dog-trot for ten consecutive hours and arrive at the end of that time in a fit condition for fighting.—Marshall P. Wilder, “Smiling ’Round the World.”
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