CHAPTER III

"UNDERSTANDING YOUR OBJECT=

_Know your subject well, but know also your object. Know the latter just a little better. This chapter will help you to do this task_

UNDERSTANDING YOUR OBJECT

BEFORE you teach young folks or old folks, fix it in your mind that it is just as important to understand your object as well as your subject. It is not sufficient that we know our subject well--this we must do, of course. We must have a full knowledge of the subject and then "some more," but this does not make us a Master teacher. A teacher training class only goes half way in making us fit if it simply prepares us to teach the subject matter of the lesson. You must also understand the object. And the object is the child before you. So often all the teaching is over their heads. They don't see the point. There is no point, to them. How can they see it if in their minds it does not exist? When the lesson is over they are "glad." Glad it is all over, and they don't know what it is all about. The teacher did not know the full lesson. She was full of her subject--she was ignorant of her object. She did not understand the child. _Understand_ your object and by this we mean--understand the child. Always remember the true child is not only a miniature adult and so dismiss the thought at that--"only a man in the making" he doesn't count much until he grows up and is not worthy special study in the period of making. This is crotchet thinking. He belongs to as distinctive a race as does the man of eighty. He has his own laws, his own reasons for acting, and every act has a meaning all his own. It becomes our business to discover the reasons why he says "those words" and to discuss their meaning with him. We must try to see as the child sees, and look at things from his viewpoint.

It is related that one of the most famous artists of his day had a compelling ambition to paint the face of children. He was a pronounced failure. The faces he painted resembled those of sober adults. He could not dash into his pictures the touch of youth. He did not understand children. He could not see with their eyes. One day, when his study door was open, a little fellow came in and stood gazing at a picture leaning up against the wall, its base resting on the floor. By and by the artist saw him get down on all fours and gaze with passionate intensity at the picture. The artist said "I would give most anything if I could see what he sees." "You can," said a voice in the halls of his mind, "if you look at the picture from his level." So the artist got down on his knees beside the child and looked at his own picture from the child's level. What he saw he never related, but after that hour, he painted the "Angelic Faces"--a picture admired the world over. He had found out a secret. He had seen things from a child's level. What a miracle it is to know this! I would climb the highest mountain, pierce the darkest jungle, cross the wildest sea, explore the trackless desert, push on through the maddest night, gird the earth a score of times--just to find him. I would rather know the child and understand him, so I could reach his little soul than to have discovered the North Pole.

Once upon a time there was a teacher who was instructing her class of boys on the lesson of Jonah. She was a graduate of a string of teacher-training classes. She had gone the limit in preparing her lesson. She was full of the subject. She talked over the heads of the boys. They did not understand even a little bit of the lesson. After she had finished, she turned to her class and said "Now boys, what does the story of Jonah teach you?" and one little fellow piped out, "Please, teacher, the story of Jonah teaches me that you can't keep a good man down." The teacher turned to young George and administered to him a stinging rebuke, "How dare you," said she, "on the Sabbath Day, in God's house and before the open Bible, make light of religious matters? I am ashamed of you. If you were my son I would feed you on bread and water for a week." Little George kept his eye on the door, wondering if he could, with safety, make his escape. He never came again. Now the teacher knew Jonah, but she didn't know George. If she had said to George, "Now, George, that wasn't exactly the reply that I wanted, but I am glad that you have got a thought about the lesson. Come to my house next Tuesday night and take supper with me and I will show you pictures of Jonah and tell you stories about this wonderful man and then I think you will get it right in your head." If she had tried this method she would have got the real Jonah into George and she would have gotten George into her heart. If she had known as much about George as she did about Jonah, she would have known that that reply was a bit of pleasantry, coming spontaneously from a young heart. She did not understand her object.

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