But for the observance of this rule, another is indispensable. You must learn to teach without book. Perhaps you cannot do this absolutely. But the nearer you can approach to it, the better. Thorough preparation, of course, is the secret of this power. Some teachers think they have prepared a lesson when they have gone over it once, and studied out all the answers. There could not be a greater mistake. This is only the first step in the preparation. You might as well think that you have learned the Multiplication Table, and are prepared to teach it, when you have gone over it once and seen by actual count that the figures are all right, and you know where to put your finger on them when required. You are prepared to teach a lesson when you have all the facts and ideas in it at your tongue's end, so that you can go through them all, in proper order, without once referring to the book. Any preparation short of this will not do, if you want to command attention. Once prepare a lesson in this way, and it will give you such freedom in the art of teaching, and you will experience such a pleasure in it, that you will never want to relapse into the old indolent habit.
You are about to assume the charge of a class in the school under my care. Allow me, in a spirit of frankness, to make to you a brief statement of some of the aims of the institution, and of the principles by which we are guided in their prosecution.
1. "Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it." I have no professional conviction more fixed and abiding than this, that no persons more need the direct, special, continual guidance of the Holy Spirit than those who undertake to mould and discipline the youthful mind. No preparation for this office is complete which does not include devout prayer for that wisdom which cometh from above. If any one possession, more than another, is the direct gift of the Almighty, it would seem to be that of knowledge. The teacher, therefore, of all men, is called upon to look upwards to a source that is higher than himself. He needs light in his own mind; he should not count it misspent labor to ask for light to be given to the minds of his scholars. There is a Teacher infinitely wiser and more skilful than any human teacher. The instructor must be strangely blind to the resources of his profession, who fails to resort habitually to that great, plenary, unbounded source of light and knowledge. While, therefore, we aim in this school to profit by all subsidiary and subordinate methods and improvements in the art of teaching, we first of all seek the aid of our Heavenly Father; we ask wisdom of Him who "giveth liberally and upbraideth not." This, then, is the first principle that governs us in the work here assigned us. The fear of God is the beginning of knowledge. We who are teachers endeavor to show that we ourselves fear God, and we inculcate the fear of Him as the first and highest duty of our scholars; and in every plan and effort to guide the young minds committed to us, we ourselves look for guidance to the only unerring source of light.