)e should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” — p ™ 226
imparting to the child the things the race has learned through long years of experience and experiment, and recorded for our benefit. Education is, therefore, only one element in “ training.” In the original, the word “ train” means “ to make narrow.” It means, therefore, to condense into one narrow stream all the waters spread out over a wide expanse. It implies concentration, and from this it comes to mean to “ dedicate,” or to devote everything to one single purpose. Webster gives the definition of the verb “train” as follows: “ To instruct by exercise; drill, educate; draw along; form to a proper shape; discipline or tame for use; to prepare for a definite task, as specialized work or ath letic feats.” From this we see the wide field this word covers. In the Bible sense, therefore, it means to “ prepare” a child by precept, example, education, discipline and instruction, not only for this life, but especially the life to come. We may sum up the three elements in “training” as: Education - Example - Discipline The part of education, in its narrow sense, as distin guished from example and disciple, is to bring the knowl edge of the past and the discoveries of history in every field of human experience to the child by orally relating them, and teaching the child to read and obtain for him self this knowledge from books, pictures and illustrations. But merely instructing a child and then leaving him to make his own way and choice is spiritually fatal, and so the knowledge we wish to impart must be acted out and by experiment proved to be true and reliable. The func tion of the school is to impart the knowledge of the past and present in the field of the arts and sciences, history, economics and all other matters, by teaching the child to understand language and to read the records. The func tion of the Christian home, and to a less effective degree the church, is to impart the revelation of God, and the knowledge of salvation as set forth in the Bible, the Word of God. Must Be Proved But this knowledge must be proved and be able to pass the test. In our classes in physics and chemistry we were taught that certain reactions took place when cer tain elements were mixed according to prescribed formu las. And then to prove these theories, we went to the laboratory and mixed these elements, and found that what we had been told was true, for “it worked.” So too, we may teach our children the things about God and Christ and salvation, but we must also be able to demon strate it in the laboratory of the home, and in our daily life. And so we come to the second important ingredient in Christian training—EXAMPLE. A child is a born imitator, and very early begins to emulate what he sees in others. “ Like father, like son,” is true in a wider sense than heredity and genetics. These determine the fixed elements of physical similarity and mental capacities and emotional stability; but character, habits, and actions are also largely influenced by what they hear and see in others. And since a child sees more of father and mother during the first few years of life, he will be affected by his parents more than by anyone else. If you are a real Christian, your children will see it (concluded on next page)
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he w ill not depart from it (Prov. 22:6). The word “ child” used in these verses, and occurring as the word “Nahar” in the Hebrew Bible some sixteen times, almost invariably refers to a young child of tender age, and not to an adolescent or teen-ager whose habits and character have already largely been fixed. It refers particularly to a child in the home, and especially before it comes under the influence of others in the school and in company with others. As you watch that little one trundle off to school in a few days, or you accompany him to meet the teacher, remember this: what the school will do for that child depends not nearly so much upon how that teacher will influence him, as upon the things he has already absorbed at home, never to be lost; and the record inscribed by you with indelible ink upon the parchment of that child’s mind before he spent his first day at school is of utmost importance. When that child makes the first trip to school, it means that your influ ence in the life of that child is reduced to an alarming degree. Not only will he be out of your sight and control for several hours a day, but in this hectic age of jazz with its myriads of extra activities of a social and recreational nature, the hours not in school are also preoccupied. You will never again have the opportunity of influencing that life in the degree and effectiveness of those pre-school years. Before the school bell clanged in the ears of your darling, home was his world; mother the most, if not the - only, prominent, important person in the world. But now the world is to be enlarged and home will seem a smaller, less important place; other people will crowd into the picture, and mother will have to share the interest of that child with others, many of whom will have no real interest in his moral and spiritual training. Education Begins A t Home The beginning of a child’s “ training” begins in the home the moment he is bom. Even before consciousness and memory, the training begins. If you doubt this, re member a baby of only a few days can be a “ spoiled” baby, as to the time of feeding, the time for sleeping, and other unconscious acts. How soon a baby learns that if it cries it will be picked up and petted, and if crying does not bring this attention, it will soon learn to stop crying when it fails to bring results. If by a display of unconscious temper it gets results, the method will be re peated and intensified. By the time a child is ready to go to school a large percentage of his habits have been fixed, which all subsequent training can never completely over come. Modem psychology today is largely occupied in the treatment of behaviorism, by seeking for childhood causes for everything. They speak of early inhibitions, frustra- tions, restraints, escapism, and a hundred other experi ences of childhood, even in infancy, and some even of a prenatal nature, which results in these departures from the pattern of normal human behavior. While we would not go along with all that the psychiatrist imagines, and we know that the cause of “behavior” lies deeper in the field of human depravity and sin, it only adds proof of the tremendous importance of early training. The word “ train” used in the Bible includes more than education. Education, according to the accepted defini tion, is “ imparting and transmitting to a child, the ac cumulated knowledge and experiences of the race.” It is
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SEPTEMBER, 1960
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