The Doctrine of Formal Discipline

It is obvious that nothing can take the place of a good teacher. It has been said that the teacher is the school. Handsome school structures, furnished with the latest and most elaborate equipment are only means to an end. Unless we have teachers who have been properly trained, and who appreciate to the fullest extent their God-given mission, all our efforts must result in failure. It was Dr. Arnold who made the school at Rugby, and was not the same true of Socrates, of Plato, of Albertus Magnus, of St. Thomas Aquinas and other great teachers of all times. It was our divine Saviour who transformed a group of illiterate men into a band of teachers whose devotion to duty has. never been surpassed. Today, perhaps, more than ever, we hear the universal cry for teachers, – men and women of culture, who, while they understand the possibilities and the limitations of subject matter, and while they know the psychology of the special branches they teach, will never sacrifice the child in the interests of subject matter, but will use the subject matter as it should be used, as an epitome of the Truth that shall make men free