Anderson University - Echoes Yearbook (Anderson, IN)

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art of teaching and have found methods that are said to be modern. But there is not a method of teaching known that Jesus did not use. Since we are to teach his book, how could we better prepare for success than by seeking to find the teaching principles we have learned in the accounts of the lVIaster,s work, make this knowledge thoroughly our own, then apply it in our own work? We shall then be copying after the only great and perfect pattern ever given. And, as I think of this problem again, I wonder if our evangelists would not do well to study the methods of the great teacher since there is more or less of teaching in their work also. YVhile our pastors will find full scope for teaching in their pulpits, the majority of us will go i11to the work of the Sunday-school. Oh, that we may catch a never-failing vision of the importance of that brief hour once a week, and of the good that may be accomplished through the Sunday-school and its activities. The Sunday-school is the churchis provision for the religious nur- ture of her children aside from what they get in the home, as well as the church's recruiting station for the un-churched, un-Christian homes. It is in the Sunday-school that the babes in arms are QI11'OllCd for religious education. lt is here the Beginners are led in their first steps toward the heavenly Father. It is here that our Primary and Junior children are trained to worship, and learn the grand stories and hymns of the faith. It should be here that our adolescent young people should be led to' decide for Christ, and to choose voca- tions where they can best serve Him. It is here that adults can all find some activity, if it is nothing Inore than recruiting the numbers of the school, and many will be teachers. Even the pastor will find opportunity to teach and train his young people to carry on the school efficiently and wisely. VVhat responsibility, then, rests on us who have now completed our train- ing and are ready to step into the gapping ranks of religious educators. How carefully and prayerfully we should approach our task. We cannot prepare too well. We cannot afford to neglect to follow in the steps of the great teacher, the perfect teacher, THE TEACHER-our Lord Jesus Christ. God, grant that our daily prayer shall be, Lord, make me a TEACHER, after thine own heartf' . PAGE TXVENTY-THREE

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1 l l l In the Footsteps of the Qreat Teacher Grace A. Phelps Teachers the world over, acknowledge Jesusias a g1'eat teacher, but not all acknowledge him as the greatest teacher who ever lived, He was not A great teacher, but THE great teacher, the greatest who ever uttered words. VVherein lay his perfection? He had the wonderful faculty of leading men and women to higher planes of thought and living, using langtiage and objects within their understanding. Not once was a question put to him, not once did a situation arise but that Jesus had a story to fit the case, wan object lesson, an argument or a project, that was apt to a perfect degree. l He told stories by the lakeside that led tl le people into the kingdom of heaven. VVhen the disciples asked him who would be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, he set a little child in the midst, so teaching a great truth by object lesson. At other times the Saddueees and Pharisees came questioning his authority, the conduct of his disciples, and the iineaning of the law, but Jesus was ready for them with a1'gument, and with stinging rebuke, silenced their wicked tongues. He had the project method at his command when he sent the ten cleansed lepe1's to show themselves to the priests, and when he sent the seventy forth to preach and heal the sick. He used marvelous sagacity in his talks with the woman and her friends at Jacob's well in Samaria. Many a great teacher has come and gO11C since, but the greatest of these have been thoseq who, like Jesus, walked and talked with men on their own ground, and who led them on, as Jesus invariably did, to higher thoughts and lives, using language Zllld objects within the everyday experiences of their auditors. His principles of teaching are as applicable today as they were nineteen centuries ago. What has all this to do with us-students and alumni of A.B.S.S.? .lust this! VVhile a few of our number will becof e evangelists and will stir the hearts of men and women to action by their won erful speech, yet the majority of us will be pastors, teachers of youth, and le ,ders in various capacities. It will be our task to lead onward in the Christian' life, those who have been won to Christ by the cvangelists. It will be our task to win men and women, and even little children, to Christ through teaching- selling', the message of Christ to them through teaching. i Now we all want to achieve the greatest success possible as teachers, and we all feel that the first requisite is study and tijaining, so we have studied the A l me .gf I yi. w,,,-up 1 1' PAGE TYVENTY-TXYQ

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l Rivals of the Great Teacher Karl Kreutg l The wide-spread indil'l'erence in China the claims of Jesus Christ is equaled only in America by the dense ignoranee of many Christians who pray that Christ may be accepted by the rest of the yvorld. We know almost nothing of the many teachers who are influencing a vaster population than does the Matchless Teacher. More sympathetic understanding is needed. . . l . . . . The average American would never tlnnle of tllflllllg to a11c1ent Blencius for ethical instruction, to Chinese Lao-tse for deep philosophy, or to Confucius, --Oriental heathen Confucius,-for an example of moral rectitude. Altho he would rightly scorn a fortune-teller who pored intently over a curious eight- sided device, drawing from the patterned lines an answer to future mysteries, yet he would scarcely take the bother to understand the fundamental heart- longing that had found flower in superstition. gTo the suggestion that Russian sympathy may be usurping Americais role of teacher-friend to China, the ordinary, provincial American would compress his lips with indignant prej- udice, and exclaim that innumerable evils surely must follow any connection with Bolshevism. However, it is a commonplace that the defects in China's teachers may be most easily corrected by first acknowledging the virtue which has made those teachers the pattern for thought and conduct, before presenting the superior claims of the Master whom the West would bring them. If one seeks to understand, he challenges reciprocal ui derstanding and so makes Jesus seem less- like a VVcstern importation. VV hen a Chinese gentleman of the old scliool is faced by a new idea, for example, a fundamental doctrine of Christianity, his first impulse is to quote some observation of the sages that he has learned by rote when a boy. Altho the only connection between the new idea and his quotation may be one word in common, yet it is likely that to maintain proper politeness, his reference to the classics will in some measure agree with the Christian idea. This is significant of the preparatory content of the Chinese classics. The Oriental, schooled in his own scriptures, remembers that during the days of Jeremiah, Mo Ti was expounding his doctrine of love, in which he aflirmed, God loves all menj, and that at the time of the Nlinor Prophets, Lao-tse w1'ote, 'SI-Ie who humbleth him- self shall be exaltedz he who exalteth himself sliall be l1LllUb'lCCl.,, With pithy proverbs, Chinese can match many Biblical statements, as for instance, Naked we came, naked we gof' f'VVho will not work shall not eat. f'The mark must he made in youthf, So the scholar admires Christianity because in some respects l ,sale m , s as s ' ' - M - '-ew .' 'W '.-..-fmf, ra:-.--1 ,iff - l PAGE TVWENTY-FO R l