So long as the great purpose of education is kept in view, the youth should be encouraged to advance just as far as their capabilities will permit. But before taking up the higher branches of study, let them master the lower. This is too often neglected. Even among students in the higher schools and the colleges there is great deficiency in knowledge of the common branches of education. Many students devote their time to higher mathematics when they are incapable of keeping simple accounts. Many study elocution with a view to acquiring the graces of oratory when they are unable to read in an intelligible and impressive manner. Many who have finished the study of rhetoric fail in the composition and spelling of an ordinary letter.
(Ed 234.1)
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A thorough knowledge of the essentials of education should be not only the condition of admission to a higher course, but the constant test for continuance and advancement.
(Ed 234.2)
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And in every branch of education there are objects to be gained more important than those secured by mere technical knowledge. Take language, for example. More important than the acquirement of foreign languages, living or dead, is the ability to write and speak one’s mother tongue with ease and accuracy; but no training gained through a knowledge of grammatical rules can compare in importance with the study of language from a higher point of view. With this study, to a great degree, is bound up life’s weal or woe.
(Ed 234.3)
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The chief requisite of language is that it be pure and kind and true—“the outward expression of an inward grace.” God says: “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”Philippians 4:8. And if such are the thoughts, such will be the expression.
(Ed 235.1)
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The best school for this language study is the home; but since the work of the home is so often neglected, it devolves on the teacher to aid his pupils in forming right habits of speech.
(Ed 235.2)
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The teacher can do much to discourage that evil habit, the curse of the community, the neighborhood, and the home—the habit of backbiting, gossip, ungenerous criticism. In this no pains should be spared. Impress upon the students the fact that this habit reveals a lack of culture and refinement and of true goodness of heart; it unfits one both for the society of the truly cultured and refined in this world and for association with the holy ones of heaven.
(Ed 235.3)
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We think with horror of the cannibal who feasts on the still warm and trembling flesh of his victim; but are the results of even this practice more terrible than are the agony and ruin caused by misrepresenting motive, blackening reputation, dissecting character? Let the children, and the youth as well, learn what God says about these things:
(Ed 235.4)
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In Scripture, backbiters are classed with “haters of God,” with “inventors of evil things,” with those who are “without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful,”“full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity.”Romans 1:30, 31, 29. It is “the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death.”Romans 1:32. He whom God accounts a citizen of Zion is he that “speaketh the truth in his heart;”“that backbiteth not with his tongue,”“nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor.”Psalm 15:2, 3.
(Ed 235.6)
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God’s word condemns also the use of those meaningless phrases and expletives that border on profanity. It condemns the deceptive compliments, the evasions of truth, the exaggerations, the misrepresentations in trade, that are current in society and in the business world. “Let your speech be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: and whatsoever is more than these is of the evil one.”Matthew 5:37, R.V.
(Ed 236.1)
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“As a madman who casteth firebrands, arrows, and death, so is the man that deceiveth his neighbor, and saith, Am not I in sport?”Proverbs 26:18, 19.
(Ed 236.2)
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Closely allied to gossip is the covert insinuation, the sly innuendo, by which the unclean in heart seek to insinuate the evil they dare not openly express. Every approach to these practices the youth should be taught to shun as they would shun the leprosy.
(Ed 236.3)
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In the use of language there is perhaps no error that old and young are more ready to pass over lightly in themselves than hasty, impatient speech. They think it a sufficient excuse to plead, “I was off my guard, and did not really mean what I said.” But God’s word does not treat it lightly. The Scripture says:
(Ed 236.4)
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“Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words? there is more hope of a fool than of him.”Proverbs 29:20.
(Ed 236.5)
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“He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.”Proverbs 25:28.
(Ed 236.6)
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In one moment, by the hasty, passionate, careless tongue, may be wrought evil that a whole lifetime’s repentance cannot undo. Oh, the hearts that are broken, the friends estranged, the lives wrecked, by the harsh, hasty words of those who might have brought help and healing!
(Ed 236.7)
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“There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health.”Proverbs 12:18.
(Ed 237.1)
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One of the characteristics that should be especially cherished and cultivated in every child is that self-forgetfulness which imparts to the life such an unconscious grace. Of all excellences of character this is one of the most beautiful, and for every true lifework it is one of the qualifications most essential.
(Ed 237.2)
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Children need appreciation, sympathy, and encouragement, but care should be taken not to foster in them a love of praise. It is not wise to give them special notice, or to repeat before them their clever sayings. The parent or teacher who keeps in view the true ideal of character and the possibilities of achievement, cannot cherish or encourage self-sufficiency. He will not encourage in the youth the desire or effort to display their ability or proficiency. He who looks higher than himself will be humble; yet he will possess a dignity that is not abashed or disconcerted by outward display or human greatness.
(Ed 237.3)
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It is not by arbitrary law or rule that the graces of character are developed. It is by dwelling in the atmosphere of the pure, the noble, the true. And wherever there is purity of heart and nobleness of character, it will be revealed in purity and nobleness of action and of speech.
(Ed 237.4)
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“He that loveth pureness of heart, for the grace of his lips the King shall be his friend.”Proverbs 22:11.
(Ed 237.5)
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