Moral uplift. 
  Inspiration. 
  Stimulus to intellectual awakening. 
  Spur to scholarship. 
  Help in getting a firm grip on the vital issues of life. 
  Personal kindness. 
  Encouragement in crises.

What a testimonial to the force of inspiration to higher ideals!

V. ENCOURAGEMENT AND DIRECTION GIVEN TO PUPILS’ EXPRESSION

Most pupils in class are ordinarily inclined to sit silently by and let someone else do the talking.  And yet, everyone enjoys participating in a lesson when once “the ice is broken.”  It is the teacher’s task first of all to create an atmosphere of easy expression and then later to help make that expression adequate and effective.  The bishop of one of our wards in southern Utah declared, not long ago, that he traced the beginning of his testimony back to a Primary lesson in which a skillful teacher led him to commit himself very enthusiastically to the notion that the Lord does answer prayers.  He said he defended the proposition so vigorously that he set about to make sure from experience that he was right.  The details of securing this expression will be more fully worked out in the chapter on Methods of the Recitation.

VI.  DISCOVERY OF PUPILS’ BETTER SELVES

One of the most fascinating problems in teaching is to come to know the real nature of our pupils—­to get below surface appearances to the very boy himself.  Most of the work of solving this problem necessarily must be done out of class.  Such intimate knowledge is the result of personal contact when no barriers of class recitation interfere.  It involves time and effort, of course, but it is really the key to genuine teaching.  It makes possible what we have named as factor number eight, which may be disposed of here for present purposes.  We read of bygone days largely because in them we hope to find a solution to the problems of Jimmie Livingston today.  How can we effect the solution if all that we know of Jimmie is that he is one of our fifteen scouts?  We must see him in action, must associate with him as he encounters his problems, if we would help him solve them.  Our discovery of our pupils’ better selves, and intelligent application, go together hand in hand.

VII.  INSPIRATION OF EXAMPLE AS WELL AS PRECEPT

When Emerson declared, “What you are thunders so loudly in my ears that I can’t hear what you say,” he sounded a mighty note to teachers.  Hundreds of boys and girls have been stimulated to better lives by the desire “to be like teacher.”  “Come, follow me,” is the great password to the calling of teacher.  The teacher conducts a class on Sunday morning—­he really teaches all during the week.  When Elbert Hubbard added his new commandment, “Remember the week-days, to keep them holy,” he must have had teachers in mind.  A student in one of our Church schools was once heard to say, “My teacher teaches me more religion by the way he plays basketball than by the way he teaches theology.”  It was what Jesus did that made him Savior of the world.  He was the greatest teacher because he was the greatest man.