100 Sermon Illustrations on Education

EDUCATION, Method of Knowledge is not to be crammed in by mere naked dictation; you must teach as Nature teaches,—geutly, softly, kindly; a little now, a little then; a little here, a little there; a little this way, a little that way. See how Nature trains her plants in the field! If you have gone into the cornfield early in the morning, you have seen the little drop of dew on the top of each wheat-ear, standing there and asking the sun to kiss it, and impart to it some new chemical virtue; and having been kissed by the sun, and invigorated, it looks for a little groove, a little canal, a little fissure, in the plant, and runs down that fissure to the root, and nourishes it. That takes place every morning; and what is the consequence? Why, there is the ear filling all round the top of the stalk,—a number of rows, in each row a number of little granular buds when the summer sun shines out; the dew drop is formed, and these little granular buds swell; they harden; they swell again, and harden again: the summer sun shines out still more bravely: and then you have the full corn in the ear, which bows its head, and asks the reaper to take it in.

— Dr. Beaumont

One evening not long since, as I was seated at my table busily engaged in sewing, my attention was attracted by a confused noise among a pile of school-books near me. I soon discovered that it was caused by a strife for pre-eminence among them. Each claimed to be most important to man. When my attention was first drawn to them, History had the floor. "I am the most useful book in the world," it exclaimed boastingly. "Who could give a knowledge of the past ages of the world were it not for me? What else contains a record of the warrior's fame, of the statesman's renown, of all great deeds in ages past? On the pages of History will the great deeds that have been transpiring for the past few years be written." — "Stop, vain boaster!" exclaimed Geography. "I think I can claim supremacy even over thee, great as thou art! Who would know even that there was a world, were it not for my pages? I describe countries, tell where different bodies of water lie, and even tell what different nations inhabit various portions of the earth. Were it not for me, would it be known even that the earth is round?" — "Enough, friend Geography!" exclaimed Natural Philosophy. "We acknowledge your importance; but, my friends, were it not for me, who would understand why the apple falls to the ground, instead of rising to the sky? Who could understand the law of gravitation, or the other laws which govern the earth? Who could tell how steam is made the servant of man; or how news is made to flash along the telegraph-wire, or how" — Up sprang a little blue-backed Spelling-Book. "Cease this squabbling!" it exclaimed. "Know ye that I am the greatest among you! Were it not for these twenty-six letters, not one of you would ever have had an existence; to me you owe all your greatness; without me, you are nothing." They all hung their heads abashed. Burke's Weekly.

An interesting side-light on the kind of men who attend the classes of the city evening technical schools was given by a commissioner of the Board of Education in a recent address to young men:

“I visited the forge-room” (said he), “where a class of twenty-five young blacksmiths were shaping and welding various models of iron bars and iron blades. It was an inspiring scene. No man, however indolent or indifferent to the world’s work, could have looked on without having his ambitions revived. The glowing metal yielded to the hammer blows of these youthful artizans, because interest in their work and a desire to become producers directed their bare and brawny arms. I walked about unnoticed. They felt no interest in commissioners of education. At one of the anvils I noticed a particularly fine, well-built young fellow. He was wholly absorbed in his work, so when I picked up the book he had partly hidden under his cap on his toolbench it did not attract his attention. What book do you think it was? Oh, no, not a treatise on tool-work in iron; that would have been fine. It was something even finer than that. The book was a copy of Vergil’s ‘Eneid’ and the marginal notes on the pages show that he was as ambitious to acquire a taste for good literature as for the possession of technical skill.”--New York _Press_.

We are capable of believing, not only that we love books which we do not love, but that we have read books which we have not read. A lifelong intimacy with their titles, a partial acquaintance with modern criticism, a lively recollection of many familiar quotations--these things come in time to be mistaken for a knowledge of the books themselves. Perhaps in youth it was our ambitious purpose to storm certain bulwarks of literature; but we were deterred by their unpardonable length. It is a melancholy truth, which may as well be acknowledged at the start, that many of the books best worth reading are very, very long, and that they can not, without mortal hurt, be shortened. Nothing less than a shipwreck on a desert island in company with Froissart’s “Chronicles” would give us leisure to peruse this glorious narrative, and it is useless to hope for such a happy combination of chances. We might, indeed, be wrecked--that is always a possibility--but the volume saved dripping from the deep would be “Soldiers of Fortune,” or “Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch.”--AGNES REPPLIER, “Compromises.”

Rev. W. F. Crafts says:

I have examined the educational record of the seventy foremost men in American politics--cabinet officers, senators, congressmen, and governors of national reputation--and I find that thirty-seven of them are college graduates, that five more had a part of the college course but did not graduate, while only twenty-eight did not go to college at all. As not more than one young man in five hundred goes to college, and as this one five-hundredth of the young men furnish four-sevenths of our distinguished public officers, it appears that a collegian has seven hundred and fifty times as many chances of being an eminent governor or congressman as other young men.

In the development of mineral resources and in manufactures, higher education is paying even larger proportionate returns than in agriculture. Practically the entire $2,000,000,000 yearly mineral production of the United States is directly due to a few chemical and electrical processes which were worked out by highly educated scientists. For example, the cyanide process of extracting gold, worked out in the laboratory in 1880 by McArthur and Forrest, is responsible for fully one-third of the world’s gold production, making possible the five million annual production of the Homestake mine in North Dakota and the one hundred and forty-five million of South Africa, and many other similar cases. The Elkinton electrolytic process of refining copper is in the same way used now in producing 700,000,000 pounds of copper annually in the United States. The Bessemer and the open-hearth processes of producing steel, by which nearly all of our 23,000,000 tons are produced annually, are due to the scientific researches of Sir Henry Bessemer, of Thomas and Gilchrist, and of Siemens. Birmingham, Pittsburg, and a host of wealthy cities could never have come into being but for these discoveries. James Gayley’s discovery taught the practical steelworkers how they could save one-third of their coke and at the same time increase the output of their furnaces by a new process of extracting the moisture from the blast. This alone means the saving from now on of 10,000,000 tons of coal annually in the United States.--New York _Evening Post_.

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John Stuart Mill, in his autobiography, says concerning his education:

The children of educated parents frequently grow up unenergetic because they lean on their parents, and the parents are energetic for them. The education which my father gave me was in itself much more fitted for training me to know than to do.

The St. Louis _Post-Dispatch_ noted the educational results of the cruise of the American fleet around the world in 1908:

“The most gigantic correspondence school in the history of education, with free courses in foreign travel, geography and natural history, is,” says the St. Louis _Post-Despatch_, “now in operation throughout the entire United States, and particularly in the West and Southwest. The instructors are the 15,000 sailors on Uncle Sam’s peace cruise around the world and the students are their relatives and friends, totaling 200,000 to a quarter of a million souls. The text-books are the shoals of entertaining and instructive letters from the fleet which are flooding the whole country with every mail, with throngs of picture post-cards as graphic illustrations. From Honolulu, Auckland, New Zealand and Sydney, Australia, tons of letters are now on their way to the loved ones at home, bearing vivid lessons in the civilization of the Pacific islands and the antipodes. All over the country forgotten text-books on geography are being resurrected from dusty chests, so that mothers, sisters and sweethearts may chart each day the course pursued by the fleet. Book-stores report a largely increased sale of maps, globes and charts, due to an awakened interest in the remote sections of the earth. To the hundred or so families in St. Louis which have relatives with the fleet have come voluminous and thrilling letters, making them more familiar with Trinidad than they are with Porto Rico, and better acquainted with Magdalena Bay than they are with Charleston harbor. Such letters as these, spreading information broadcast in the land, are proving a vast engine against provincialism, ignorance and narrowness, and affording a cosmopolitan education to multitudes.”

William has been to school for over a year, and his teacher says to him one day: “Now, William, I am afraid your father will think that I am not doing well by you; you must write a composition--you must send your father a good composition to show what you are doing.” Well, William never did write a composition, and he does not know how. “Oh, write about something that you do know about--write about your father’s farm,” and so, being goaded to his task, William says: “A cow is a useful animal. A cow has four legs and two horns. A cow gives good milk. I love good milk.--William Bradshaw.” The master looks over his shoulder and says: “Pooh! your father will think you are a cow. Here, give me that composition, I’ll fix it.” So he takes it home and fixes it. Here it reads: “When the sun casts off the dusky garments of the night, and appearing o’er the orient hills, sips the dew-drops pendant from every leaf, the milkmaid goes a-field, chanting her matin song,” and so on, and so on. Now, I say that, rhetorically, the master’s composition was unspeakably better than William’s; but as a part of William’s education, his poor, scrawly lines are unspeakably better than the one that has been “fixt” for him.

— HENRY WARD BEECHER

See TESTIMONY OF NATURE.

IMPRESSIONS, EARLY

The things children most quickly note and in which they take most interest may indicate their bent of mind and help parents and instructors to shape their education along lines of least resistance. Thus R. H. Haweis says:

“Long before I had ever touched a violin I was fascinated with its appearance. In driving to town as a child--when, standing up in the carriage, I could just look out of the window--certain fiddle-shops hung with mighty rows of violoncellos attracted my attention. I had dreams of these large editions--these patriarchs of the violin, as they seemed to me. I compared them in my mind with the smaller tenors and violins. I dreamed about their brown, big, dusty bodies and affable good-natured-looking heads and grinning faces. These violin shops were the great points watched for on each journey up to London from Norwood, where I spent my early days.”

Professor Boris Sidis has given, in response to requests, an authentic account of the scope and aims of his son’s intellectual career. “I do not believe in the prevailing system of education for children,” writes Professor Sidis. “I have educated my son upon a system of my own, based to some extent upon principles laid down by Professor William James.” This system, Professor Sidis insists, has justified itself by its results in the case of the boy prodigy of Harvard. He knows as much at eleven, the father says, “as a gifted professor of mature years,” and when he grows up “he will amaze the world.” Nor is the result due to heredity or to abnormality of the child’s brain. The results achieved in the case of this eleven-year-old lad are due wholly to the methods of training pursued. To quote the father’s words as given the New York _American_:

“As the baby grows more rapidly after birth than at any other time, so his brain develops most rapidly then and becomes less sensitive to impressions as he grows older. The process of education can not begin too soon.

“I began to train my boy in the use of his faculties immediately after his birth. He was bound to use them anyway, and therefore I took care that he used them properly. I taught the child to observe accurately, to analyze and synthesize and make sound deductions. Neither his mother nor myself confused him with baby talk, meaningless sounds or foolish gestures, and thus, altho he learned to reason so early, his mind was no more burdened than that of the ordinary child.

“I knew that as soon as he began to speak his first interest would be in the sounds he was uttering, and so I trained him to identify the elements of sound. Taking a box of large alphabet blocks I named each to him day after day.

“In this way he learned to read and spell correctly before he was two years old. What was still more important, he learned to reason correctly.”

When I see a morning procession of pallid schoolboys staggering to school under a load of text-books almost too heavy to be held together by the strap that encircles them, or a bevy of young girls, bound on the same educational errand, more pallid and more exhausted by the eight or ten pounds of torture in the shape of grammars, dictionaries, geographies, arithmetics, geometries and philosophies, they, too, tug along the streets, I wish their piles of knowledge might be reduced one-half, for I can not but feel that with fewer books there would be more culture, that too many studies produce too little scholarship, and that the intellect which is forced will rarely be expanded.

— JAMES T. FIELDS

From the United States “Bureau of Census” Bulletin 103 are taken the following statistics of Sunday-schools in the continental United States:

Of the 178,214 Sunday-schools conducted by church organizations, 165,128, or 92.7 per cent., are returned by the Protestant bodies; 11,172 or 6.3 per cent. by the Roman Catholic Church and 1,914, or 1.1 per cent., by the remaining bodies.

Among the Protestant bodies, the Methodist bodies rank first, with 57,464 Sunday-schools, or 32.2 per cent. of the total, and the Baptist bodies come next with 43,178 or 24.2 per cent. of the total the two families together reporting considerably more than one-half the entire number of denominational Sunday-schools. If to these be added the Presbyterian bodies, with 14,452 Sunday-schools, the Lutheran bodies with 9,450, and the Disciples or Christians with 8,078, the 5 bodies combined report 132,622 Sunday-schools or nearly three-fourths (74.4 per cent.) of the entire number and more than four-fifths (80.3 per cent.) of all those reported by Protestant bodies.

President Butler, of Columbia University, made the following reference to his friend, Dr. James H. Canfield, before the National Education Association at Denver, in July, 1909:

How patient he was with the typical errors of the pedagog, yet how fully he understood them! I remember a story that he told of himself when he was chancellor of the University of Nebraska. Toward the close of the college year a young tutor of mathematics who was completing his first year of service came into the chancellor’s office and asked whether he was to be reappointed for another year. The chancellor said: “Well, what do you yourself think of your work? What have you done that you are proud of?” The young tutor answered, “Mr. Chancellor, I have just held such a stiff examination in my course that I have flunked sixty members of the freshman class.” The chancellor looked at him kindly and said, “Young man, suppose I gave you a herd of one hundred cattle to drive to Kansas City, or Omaha, and you came in to tell me that you had driven them so fast and so hard, and had made such good time, that sixty per cent had died on the way. Do you think that I should want you to drive any more cattle to the Missouri River?” “No, sir,” said the tutor. “Well, I do not think we will let you drive any more freshmen.”

A Jesuit priest, F. Michael Perko, an Associate Professor of Education and History at Loyola University in Chicago. He says that many of the problems that motivated Catholics to start their own schools are behind the reasons conservative Protestants are starting their own schools:

1. Its lack of religious content.

2. Anxieties about anarchy and socialism.

3. States providing free textbooks (make individuals dependent on the state)

4. Deweyian progressivism.

5. Addition of new curriculum. (Evolution, sex education)

6. Coddled children, discipline problems.

7. Pandering to child's most self-indulgent interests.

8. Change for change's sake.

Perko is right about the need for alternative education, yet few Christians will support it.

Programs to teach kids to say "no" to drugs are liked by teachers but may not be too effective. Little change in behavior has been seen so far.

#901

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Economist Walter Williams learned a principle of success by missing lunch. He wasted all his lunch money and asked for more. Finally one day his mother said, "You knew you'd have to buy lunch when you spent the money," and refused to fork over a dime. He went without lunch the rest of the week. He thought his mom was the most callous on earth, but later realized, "If you don't have the guts to hold someone accountable for his imprudence, how can he learn to do better?"

The gold town of Virginia City, Nevada, had its first attempts at public education cut short by recalcitrant pupils shooting the teachers. Now a new teacher was hired out of the "Rowdy Fund," set up by a pair of penitent drunks who, in front of a full audience, had ripped to shreds with their knives the Comstock's first theatrical curtain. No one gave pale, slight Harry Flotz, a discouraged prospector going back to his first love, schoolteaching, more than one day; but Professor Flotz arrived in class with three Navy revolvers and a Bowie knife. During geography Flotz heard a whisper; like lightning one of his revolvers was trained on the offenders.

"Don't do that again," he said quietly. "I never give a second warning."

Story of a Chinese Christian who learned from adversity.

We cannot dispute God’s decisions. He alone knows who requires rougher treatment in his quarry. After Jesus’ resurrection, he told Peter that his death would involve persecution. Looking at John, Peter pouted, “Lord, what about him?” In other words, “If I have to suffer, shouldn’t he, too?” Jesus answered him bluntly: “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me” (Jn 21:22).

Harry Lee painfully re-lived that truth. Born into a well-to-do, well-educated Chinese family, Harry seemed to have a comfortable future assured. Then his father died when Harry was still a boy. As the family’s wealth evaporated, Harry, the oldest son, was left with the responsibility for his mother and siblings.

From his teenage years Harry had loved and served the Lord. He felt called to the ministry and for 12 frustrating years sought to leave China to attend seminary. His close friends got out and established themselves in free lands. The woman he wanted to marry also left China. But Harry stayed while the government brought increasing pressure to close the church he led.

Then his brother, whom he’d led to Christ, died in prison. Harry was arrested while trying to escape China and was given 11 years imprisonment on trumped-up charges. Finally on his way to seminary at the age of 56, he wondered, “Did I require chastisement? Why did I have to suffer all that?” Then, considering the faithfulness and trustworthiness of God, he concluded, “Maybe God wanted me in another school first, before seminary. Maybe because I began as such a sheltered, privileged person, he had to get me ready for something more...to teach me faith, trust, peace, unaffected by circumstances.”

Interview with dynamic teacher-author Howard Hendricks, who tells how to develop and maintain a passion for teaching. Things of the heart are better "caught" than "taught." The best teachers are those who never stop growing.

"Passion Quiz" for teachers:

1. How much time do you spend each week on personal growth?

2. How often do you spend time with students outside of class?

3. How much do you know about your students’ personal lives?

4. How good are you at looking past their faults and weaknesses to see their potential in Christ?

One day in 11th grade, I went into a classroom to wait for a friend of mine. When I went into the room, the teacher, Mr. Washington, suddenly appeared and asked me to go to the board to write something, to work something out. I told him that I couldn't do it. And he said, "Why not?"

I said, "Because I'm not one of your students."

He said, "It doesn't matter. Go to the board anyhow."

I said, "I can't do that."

He said, "Why not?"

And I paused because I was somewhat embarrassed. I said, "Because I'm Educable Mentally Retarded."

He came from behind his desk and he looked at me and he said, "Don't ever say that again. Someone's opinion of you does not have to become your reality."

It was a very liberating moment for me. On one hand, I was humiliated because the other students laughed at me. They knew that I was in Special Education. But on the other hand, I was liberated because he began to bring to my attention that I did not have to live within the context of what another person's view of me was.

And so Mr. Washington became my mentor. Prior to this experience, I had failed twice in school. I was identified as Educable Mentally Retarded in the fifth grade, was put back from the fifth grade into the fourth grade, and failed again, when I was in the eighth grade. So this person made a dramatic difference in my life.

I always say that he operates in the consciousness of Goethe, who said, "Look at a man the way that he is, he only becomes worse. But look at him as if he were what he could be, and then he becomes what he should be." Like Calvin Lloyd, Mr. Washington believed that "Nobody rises to low expectations." This man always gave students the feeling that he had high expectations for them and we strove, all of the students strove, to live up to what those expectations were.

One day, when I was still a junior, I heard him giving a speech to some graduating seniors. He said to them, "You have greatness within you. You have something special. If just one of you can get a glimpse of a larger vision of yourself, of who you really are, of what it is you bring to the planet, of your specialness, then in a historical context, the world will never be the same again. You can make your parents proud. You can make your school proud. You can make your community proud. You can touch millions of people's lives." He was talking to the seniors, but it seemed like that speech was for me.

I remember when they gave him a standing ovation. Afterwards, I caught up to him in the parking lot and I said, "Mr. Washington, do you remember me? I was in the auditorium when you were talking to the seniors."

He said, "What were you doing there? You are a junior."

I said, "I know. But that speech you were giving, I heard your voice coming through the auditorium doors. That speech was for me, Sir. You said they had greatness within them. I was in that auditorium. Is there greatness within me, Sir?"

He said, "Yes, Mr. Brown."

"But what about the fact that I failed English and math and history, and I'm going to have to go to summer school. What about that, Sir? I'm slower than most kids. I'm not as smart as my brother or my sister who's going to the University of Miami."

"It doesn't matter. It just means that you have to work harder. Your grades don't determine who you are or what you can produce in your life."

"I want to buy my mother a home."

"It's possible, Mr. Brown. You can do that." And he turned to walk away again.

"Mr. Washington?"

"What do you want now?"

"Uh, I'm the one, Sir. You remember me, remember my name. One day you're gonna hear it. I'm gonna make you proud. I'm the one, Sir."

School was a real struggle for me. I was passed from one grade to another because I was not a bad kid. I was a nice kid; I was a fun kid. I made people laugh. I was polite. I was respectful. So teachers would pass me on, which was not helpful to me. But Mr. Washington made demands on me. He made me accountable. But he enabled me to believe that I could handle it, that I could do it.

He became my instructor my senior year, even though I was Special Education. Normally, Special Ed students don't take Speech and Drama, but they made special provisions for me to be with him. The principal realized the kind of bonding that had taken place and the impact that he'd made on me because I had begun to do well academically. For the first time in my life I made the honor roll. I wanted to travel on a trip with the drama department and you had to be on the honor roll in order to make the trip out of town. That was a miracle for me!

Mr. Washington restructured my own picture of who I am. He gave me a larger vision of myself, beyond my mental conditioning and my circumstances.

Years later, I produced five specials that appeared on public television. I had some friends call him when my program, "You Deserve," was on the educational television channel in Miami. I was sitting by the phone waiting when he called me in Detroit. He said, "May I speak to Mr. Brown, please?"

"Who's calling?"

"You know who's calling."

"Oh, Mr. Washington, it's you."

"You were the one, weren't you?"

"Yes, Sir, I was."

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By Les Brown from A 3rd Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul, Copyright 1996 by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen

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Another version from Brett Blair's newsletter, 1/16/05:

In A 3rd Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul, there is a story about a student who was unlike most students. One day in the 11th grade he went into a classroom to wait for a friend. The teacher appeared and asked him to go to the blackboard. He replied, “I’m not one of your students.” The teacher said, “Doesn’t matter. Go to the board anyhow.” The student told him he couldn’t do that and when the teacher asked, “Why not?” the student told him he was mentally retarded. The teacher came over to the student and said, “Don’t ever say that again. Someone’s opinion of you does not have to be become your reality.”

It became a liberating moment for the student, a time of great learning. The teacher, Mr. Washington, became the student’s mentor. Later that school year Mr. Washington addressed the graduating seniors. And in his speech he said, “You have greatness within you ... You can touch millions of people’s lives.” After the speech the student went up to Mr. Washington and asked him if he had greatness within him. The teacher replied, “Yes, Mr. Brown, you do.” The student thanked him and told him that one day he would make the teacher proud.

In his senior year it happened that Brown was placed in Mr. Washington’s speech and drama class. Although Brown was a special education student, the principal realized that this would be a good match up. Mr. Washington gave Brown a larger vision of himself. While other teachers passed Brown from class to class, Mr. Washington made more demands of him. He made him accountable. He enabled him to believe in himself. Years later the famous, Les Brown, produced five specials on public television. Mr. Washington saw the program and called Les Brown to tell him how proud he was of his achievement.

When others believe in us we gain confidence in ourselves and are able to do great things. Naturally, we still have to apply ourselves. Les Brown had to work hard to finish high school. But, he was now motivated to learn. Our children need to hear from us that we believe in them. Our students, who could be our friends, relatives, or co-workers will be motivated to aspire to greater things when we believe in them.

________

Dr. Keith Wagner, St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, Sidney, Ohio

#4374

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Famous People Who Were Slow Starters: Winston Churchill seemed so dull as a youth that his father thought he might be incapable of earning a living in England. Charles Darwin did so poorly in school that his father once told him, "You will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family." G.K. Chesterton, the English writer, could not read until he was eight. One of his teachers told him, "If we could open your head we should not find any brain but only a lump of white fat."

Thomas Edison's first teacher described him as "addled," and his

father almost convinced him he was a "dunce." Albert Einstein's parents feared their child was dull, and he performed so badly in all high school courses except mathematics that a teacher asked him to drop out.

Book of Lists, 1986, Irving Wallace, Wm. Morrow & Co., NY

"Why do we have to learn all of this dumb stuff?"

Of all the complaints and questions I have heard from my students during my years in the classroom, this was the one most frequently uttered. I would answer it by recounting the following legend.

One night a group of nomads were preparing to retire for the evening when suddenly they were surrounded by a great light. They knew they were in the presence of a celestial being. With great anticipation, they awaited a heavenly message of great importance that they knew must be especially for them.

Finally, the voice spoke, "Gather as many pebbles as you can. Put them in your saddle bags. Travel a day's journey and tomorrow night will find you glad and it will find you sad."

After having departed, the nomads shared their disappointment and anger with each other. They had expected the revelation of a great universal truth that would enable them to create wealth, health and purpose for the world. But instead they were given a menial task that made no sense to them at all. However, the memory of the brilliance of their visitor caused each one to pick up a few pebbles and deposit them in their saddle bags while voicing their displeasure.

They traveled a day's journey and that night while making camp, they reached into their saddle bags and discovered every pebble they had gathered had become a diamond. They were glad they had diamonds. They were sad they had not gathered more pebbles.

It was an experience I had with a student, I shall call Alan, early in my teaching career that illustrated the truth of that legend to me.

When Alan was in the eighth grade, he majored in "trouble" with a minor in "suspensions." He had studied how to be a bully and was getting his master's in "thievery."

Every day I had my students memorize a quotation from a great thinker. As I called roll, I would begin a quotation. To be counted present, the student would be expected to finish the thought.

"Alice Adams - 'There is no failure except ...'"

"'In no longer trying.' I'm present, Mr. Schlatter."

So, by the end of the year, my young charges would have memorized 150 great thoughts.

"Think you can, think you can't - either way you're right!"

"If you can see the obstacles, you've taken your eyes off the goal."

"A cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."

And, of course, Napoleon Hill's "If you can conceive it, and believe it, you can achieve it."

No one complained about this daily routine more than Alan - right up to the day he was expelled and I lost touch with him for five years. Then one day, he called. He was in a special program at one of the neighboring colleges and had just finished parole.

He told me that after being sent to juvenile hall and finally being shipped off to the California Youth Authority for his antics, he had become so disgusted with himself that he had taken a razor blade and cut his wrists.

He said, "You know what, Mr. Schlatter, as I lay there with my life running out of my body, I suddenly remembered that dumb quote you made me write 20 times one day. 'There is no failure except in no longer trying.' Then it suddenly made sense to me. As long as I was alive, I wasn't a failure, but if I allowed myself to die, I would most certainly die a failure. So with my remaining strength, I called for help and started a new life."

At the time he had heard the quotation, it was a pebble. When he needed guidance in a moment of crisis, it had become a diamond. And so it is to you I say, gather all the pebbles you can, and you can count on a future filled with diamonds.

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By John Wayne Schlatter, from A 2nd Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul, Copyright 1995 by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen

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When James A. Garfield was president of Hiram College in Ohio, a man brought his son for entrance as a student. The man wanted a shorter course of study than the usual. "The boy can never take all that in," said the father. "He wants to get through quicker. Can you arrange it for him?"

Garfield replied, "Oh yes, he can take a short course; it all depends on what you want to make of him. When God wants to make an oak tree, he takes a hundred years. He only takes two months to make a squash."

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Many want instant spirituality - like instant coffee or potatoes! It doesn't come that way! There are no short courses! No short-cuts! No gimmicks! It takes time to grow! Growth is a sequence - an orderly arrangement! "For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again" was God's indictment of the Hebrew Christians (Hebrews 5:12-14).

I've spent a fortune on my children's education and a fortune on their teeth. The difference is that they use their teeth. - Robert Orben in Reader's Digest