The Mena weekly star. (Mena, Ark.) 1904-1977, 1919-08-14
TEACHING KINDNESS

But soon the impress fades away;
One lifelong influence we find
In little deeds from day to day"
The following maxims offer a fine
background for oil our moral work:
"As a man thinketh in his heart, so
is he. Proverbs.
Whatsoever things are true, what
soever things are honest, whatsoever
things are just, whatsoever things are
pure, whatsoever things are of good
report, think on these things" Coles
SLAMS.
What you look at longest you grow
to look like. Henry Van Dyke.
When you go to help child solve
problem in mathematics you do-not
say a word to the child about the
many wrong ways he could use, for
you realize that just as long as the
pupil thinks about the wrong way, he
cannot think about the right way. All
teachers recognize this as self evil
dent principle, but few teachers real
ize the principle applies to the child's
moral as we'll as intellectual training.
You can no more teach a child to be
good by continually telling him of
evil than you can teach him to be a
mathematician by continually plac-
ingg misstatements before him. If
you wish a child to be a musician you
cannot have him study discord, but
harmony. SO in the great school Of
life we cannot afford to waste our
time studying life's discords if we
wish to learn life's concords.
A very successful teacher told me
that she never dwelt upon evil when
talking to children. Her one aim was
to keep their minds filled with
thoughts of the good, the true and the
beautiful. Thought is the great Gre
ative force, and our acts, whether
good or bad, are the products of our
thoughts. All great, good, heroic
acts, all deeds of cruelty and crime
springs from the tiny embryo of
thought. 1t is not what a child has,
or wears, or knows, or says, or does,
but what he thinks as he works, as he
plans or as he plays, that is moulding
his character, that is shaping his life.
If we want the building to be beauti-
full we must see that nothing but
good stones are used in its construc-
ton. If we wish to make the child g
life better we must make his thoughts
better. If the thought of good pre-
dominates, nothing can harm or
contaminate him. When a child is
thinking of good it is impossible for
him to think of evil. If his mind is
filled with thoughts of love, of purity
and peace, there is no place for
thoughts of hate, obscenity and dis
cord. You cannot fill vessels al
ready full. The only thing that con-
Germs the teacher is to see that the
vessels are filled with the right quail
ity of thought.
We are told that Variety is the
spice of life," and nowhere is this
spice in greater demand than in the
schoolroom. Many teachers fail be-
cause they never learned that monot-
ony is stagnation. To benefit the child
you must have his interest and his CO.
operation. These cannot be secured
by following in the old beaten paths
A teachers success not only rests
upon her ability to recognize a good
method, but upon her knowledge OF
the proper time to change the method.
A certain method may be the very
best of its kind, producing most graft
flying results, yet if used to safety it
is failure. For this reason teachers
must change their methods of pre-
senting the points of lesson, using
various individual, palatable ways of
presenting the same thought Sup
pose it is desired to present the
thought of kindness upon the minds of
the children. You might proceed this
way. First write the word "kind" on
the board, then have two or three
children give the meaning of the word.
After obtaining their primitive ideas,
ask the children to find the word in
their dictionaries-have one of them
read this definition to the entire class,
next explain to them, provided they
are not advanced sufficiently to ex-
plain it to you, how, by the addition of
the sufiix mess" we get the word
Kindness" that mess" means state or
condition of being kind After talk
ing with the children long enough to
arouse their interest in the subject of
kindness, write on the board: "Be
We kind and affectionate one to an
other" Some of the children instant
ly recognize the lines, hands go up,
and / am told, "Jesus said that" and
at is in the Bible" "Yes, Jesus said
that, and here is something else that
he said," and / write, eff We love me,
We will keep my commandments"
then say, Children, many people
think, or act as if they think the Bible
was written just for the people who
lived at the time it was written. That
is not the exact truth, for while it was
written for them, it was also written
for you, for men, for everybody. so
when Jesus said, BE We kind and af-
fectionate one to another he spoke
to you, TO me, just as much as He
spoke to Peter or to John. If We love
me We will keep my commandments, is
what Christ is this morning saying
to every little boy and girl in Mena,
in Arkansas, in the United States,
yes, in. the whole big round world to-
day. Jesus knew it was impossible
for us to love people and never do
anything to please them. 1t is so
easy to say we love God, or our
friends, or our parents, but merely
saying the words amounts to nothing
unless we prove the truth of our