The following is Chapter One of The Seven Laws of Teaching (unabridged) by JOHN M. GREGORY, LL.D. The Seven Laws of Teaching (Unabridged) is available at Logos School Materials for $10.00 along with our popular study guide Practical Applications for the 7 Laws of Teaching

CHAPTER 1

THE LAWS OF TEACHING.

1. Teaching has its natural laws as fixed as the laws of circling planets or of growing organisms. Teaching is a process in which definite forces are employed to produce definite effects, and these effects follow their causes as regularly and certainly as the day follows the sun. What the teacher does, he does through natural agencies working out their natural effects. Causation is as certain, if not always as clear, in the movements of mind as in the motions of matter. The mind has its laws of thought, feeling, and volition, and these laws are none the less fixed that they are spiritual rather than material.

2. To discover the laws of any process, whether mental or material, makes it possible to bring that process under the control of him who knows the law and can command the conditions. He who has learned the laws of the electric currents may send messages through the ocean; and he who has mastered the chemistry of the sunbeam may make it paint him portraits and landscapes. So he that masters the laws of teaching may send knowledge into the depths of the soul, and may impress upon the mind the images of immortal truth. He who would gain harvests must obey nature’s laws for the. growing corn; and he who would teach a child successfully must follow the laws of teaching, which are also laws of the mental nature. Nowhere, in the world of mind or in the world of matter, can man produce any effects except as he employs the means on which those effects depend. He is powerless to command nature’s forces except as, by design or by chance, he obeys nature’s laws. What is Teaching?

3. Teaching, in its simplest communication of knowledge. This knowledge may be a fact, a truth, a doctrine of religion, a precept of morals, a story of life, or the processes of an art. It may be taught by the use of words, by signs, by objects, by actions, or examples; and the teaching may have for its object instruction or impression — the training of mind, the increase of intelligence, the implantation of principles, or the formation of character; but whatever the substance, the mode, or the aim of the teaching, the act itself, funda-mentally considered, is always substantially the same: it is a communication of knowledge. It is the painting in another’s mind the mental picture in one’s own — the shaping of a pupil’s thought and understanding to the comprehension of some truth which the teacher knows and wishes to communicate. Further on we shall see that the word communication is used here, not in the sense of the transmission of a mental something from one person to another, but rather in the sense of helping another to reproduce the same knowledge, and thus to make it common to the two.

4. To discover the law of any phenomenon, we must subject that phenomenon to a scientific analysis and study its separate parts. If any complete act of teaching be so analyzed, it will be found to contain seven distinct elements or factors: (i) two actors — a teacher and a learner; (2) two mental factors — a common language or medium of communication, and a lesson or truth to be communicated ; and (3) three functional acts or processes —• that of the teacher, that of the learner, and a final or finishing process to test and fix the result.

5. These are essential parts of every full and complete act of teaching. Whether the lesson be a single fact told in three minutes or a lecture occupying as many hours, the seven factors are all there, if the work is entire. None of them can be omitted, and no other need be added. No full account of the philosophy of teaching can be given which does not include them all, and if there is any true science of teaching, it must lie in the laws and relations of these seven elements and facts. No true or successful art of teaching can be found or contrived which is not based upon these factors and their laws.

6. To discover their laws, let these seven factors be passed again in careful review and
enumeration, as follows : (i) a teacher; (2) a learner; (3) a common language or medium of communication ; (4) a lesson or truth ; (5) the teacher’s work ; (6) the learner’s work ; (7) the review work, which ascertains, perfects, and fastens the work done. Is it not obvious that each of these seven must have its own distinct characteristic, which makes it what it is ? Each stands distinguished from the others, and from all others, by this essential characteristic, and each enters and plays its part in the scene by virtue of its own character and function. Each is a distinct entity or fact of nature. And as every fact of nature is the product and proof of some law of nature, so each element here described has its own great law of function or action, and these taken together constitute the SEVEN LAWS OF TEACHING.

7. It may seem trivial to so insist upon all this. Some will say : ” Of course there can be no teaching without a teacher and a pupil, without a language and a lesson, and without the teacher teaches and the learner learns ; or, finally, without a proper review, if any assurance is to be gained that the work has been successful and the result is to be made permanent. All this is too obvious to need assertion.” So also is it obvious that when seeds, soil, heat, light, and moisture come together in proper measure, plants are produced and grow to the harvest; but the simplicity of these common facts docs not prevent their hiding among them some of the profoundest and most mysterious laws of nature. So, too, a simple act of teaching hides within it some of the most potent and significant laws of mental life and action.

The Laws Stated.

8. These laws are not obscure and hard to reach. They are so simple and natural that they suggest themselves almost spontaneously to any one who carefully notes the facts. They lie imbedded in the simplest description that can be given of the seven elements named, as in the following : —

(1) A teacher must be one who KNOWS the lesson or truth to be taught.

(2) A learner is one who ATTENDS with interest to the lesson given.

(3) The language used as a MEDIUM between teacher and learner must be COMMON to both.

(4) The lesson to be learned must be explicable in the terms of truth already known by the learner — the UNKNOWN must be explained by the KNOWN.

(5) Teaching is AROUSING and USING the pupil’s mind to form in it a desired conception or thought.

(6) Learning is THINKING into one’s own UNDERSTANDING a new idea or truth.

(7) The test and proof of teaching done —- the finishing and fastening process — must be a RE-VIEWING, RE-THINKING, RE-KNOWING, and REPRODUCING of the knowledge taught.

The Laws Stated as Rules.

9. These definitions and statements are so simple and obvious as to need no argument or proof; but their force as fundamental laws may be more clearly seen if stated as rules for teaching. Addressed to the teacher, they may read as follows : —•

I. Know thoroughly and familiarly the lesson you wish to teach ; or, in other words, teach from ‘ a full mind and a clear understanding.

II. Gain and keep the attention and interest of the pupils upon the lesson. Refuse to teach without attention.

III. Use words understood by both teacher and pupil in the same sense —• language clear and vivid alike to both.

IV. Begin with what is already well known to the pupil in the lesson or upon the subject, and proceed to the unknown by single, easy, and natural steps, letting the known explain the unknown.

V. Use the pupil’s own mind, exciting his self- activities. Keep his thoughts as much as possible ahead of your expression, making him a discoverer of truth.

VI. Require the pupil to reproduce in thought the lesson he is learning — thinking it out in its parts, proofs, connections, and applications till he can express it in his own language.

VII. Review, review, REVIEW, reproducing correctly the old, deepening its impression with new thought, correcting false views, and completing the true.

Essentials of Successful Teaching.

10. These rules, and the laws which they cut- line and presuppose, underlie and govern all successful teaching. If taken in their broadest meaning, nothing need be added to them ; nothing can be safely taken away. No one who will thoroughly master and use them need fail as a teacher, provided he will also maintain the good order which is necessary to give them free and undisturbed action. Disorder, noise, and confusion may hinder and prevent the results desired, just as the constant disturbance of some chemical elements forbids the formation of the compounds which the laws of chemistry would otherwise produce. Good order is a condition precedent to good teaching.

11. Like all the great laws of nature, these laws of teaching will seem at first simple facts, so obvious as scarcely to require such formal statement, and so plain that no explanation can make clearer their meaning. But, like all fundamental truths, their simplicity is more apparent than real. Each law varies in applications and effects with varying minds and persons, though remaining constant in itself; and each stands related to other laws and facts, in long and wide successions, till it reaches the outermost limits of the science of teaching. Indeed, in a careful study of these seven laws, to which we shall proceed in coming chapters, the discussion will reach every valuable principle in education, and every practical rule which can be of use in the teacher’s work.

12. They cover all teaching of all subjects and in all grades, since they are the fundamental conditions on which ideas may be made to pass from one mind to another, or on which the unknown can become known. They are as valid and useful for the college professor as for the master of a common school; for the teaching of a Bible truth as for instruction in arithmetic. In proportion as the truth to be communicated is high and difficult to be understood, or as the pupils to be instructed are young and ignorant, ought they to be carefully followed.

13. Doubtless there are many successful teachers who never heard of these laws, and who
do not consciously follow them ; just as there are people who walk safely without any theoretical knowledge of gravitation, and talk intelligibly without studying grammar. Like the musician who plays by ear, and without knowledge of notes, these ” natural teachers,” as they are called, have learned the laws of teaching from practice, and obey them from habit. It is none the less true that their success comes from obeying law, and not in spite of laws. They catch by intuition the secret of success, and do by a sort of instinct what others do by rule and reflection. A careful study of their methods would show how closely they follow these principles; and if there is any exception it is in the cases in which their wonderful practical mastery of some of the rules — usually the first three — allows them to give slighter heed to the others. To those who do not belong to this class of ” natural teachers,” the knowledge of these laws is of vital necessity.

Skill and Enthusiasm.

14. Let no one fear that a study of the laws of teaching will tend to substitute a cold, mechanical sort of work for the warm-hearted, enthusiastic teaching so often admired and praised. True skill kindles and keeps alive enthusiasm by giving it success where it would otherwise be discouraged by defeat. The true worker’s love for his work grows with his ability to do it well. Even enthusiasm will accomplish more when guided by intelligence and armed with skill, while the many who lack the rare gift of an enthusiastic nature must work by rule and skill or fail altogether.

15. Unreflecting superintendents and school- boards often prefer enthusiastic teachers to those who are simply well educated or experienced. They count, not untruly, that enthusiasm will accomplish more with poor learning and little skill than the best trained and most erudite teacher who has no heart in his work, and who goes through his task without zeal for progress and without care for results. But why choose either the ignorant enthusiast or the educated sluggard ? Enthusiasm is not confined to the unskilled and the ignorant, nor are all calm, cool men idlers. Conscience and the strong sense of right and duty often exist where the glow of enthusiasm is unknown or has passed away. And there is an enthusiasm born of skill — a joy in doing what one can do well — that is far more effective, where art is involved, than the enthusiasm born of vivid feeling. The steady advance of veterans is far more powerful than the mad rush of raw recruits. The world’s best work, in the schools as in the shops, is done by the calm, steady, persistent efforts of skilled workmen who know how to keep their tools sharp, and to make every effort reach its mark. No teacher perhaps ever excelled Pestalozzi in enthusiasm, and few have ever personally done poorer work.

16. But the most serious objection to systematic teaching, based on the laws of teaching, comes from Sunday-school men, pastors and others, who assume that the principal aim of the Sunday-school is to impress and convert rather than to instruct; and that skilful teaching, if desirable at all, is much less important than warm appeals to the feelings and earnest exhortations to the conscience. No one denies the value of such appeals and exhortations, nor the duty of teachers, in both day-schools and Sunday-schools, to make them on all fit opportunities. But what is to be the basis of the Sunday teacher’s appeals, if not the truths of Scripture ? What religious exhortation will come home with such abiding power as that which enters the mind with some clear Bible truth, some unmistakable “Thus saith the Lord,” in its front? What preacher wins more souls than Moody with his open Bible ever in hand? What better rule for teacher or pupil than the Master’s ” Search the Scriptures” ? What finer example than that of Paul who “reasoned” with both prejudiced Jews and caviling Greeks ” out of the Scriptures” ? If the choice must be between the warm-hearted teacher who simply gushes appeals, and the cold- hearted who stifles all feeling by his icy indifference, give me the former by all odds; but why either ? Is there no healthful mean between steam and ice for the water of life ? Will the teacher whose own mind glows with the splendid light of divine truths, and who skillfully leads his pupils to a clear vision of the same truths, fail in inspirational power? Is not the divine truth itself — the very Word of God—•to be credited with any power to arouse the conscience and convert the soul ?

17. These questions may be left to call forth their own inevitable answers. They will have met their full purpose if they repel this disposition to discredit the need of true teaching-work, in Sunday-schools as well as in common schools; and if they convince Sunday-school leaders that the great natural laws of teaching are God’s own laws of mind, which must be followed as faithfully in learning his Word as in studying his works.

A Word to Teachers.

18. Leaving to other chapters the full discussion of the meaning and philosophy of these seven laws, we. only add here the exhortation to the teacher, and especially to the Sunday-school teacher, to give them the most serious attention. Sitting before your class of veiled immortals, how often have you craved the power to look into the depths of those young souls, and to plant there with sure hand some truth of science or some
grand and life-giving belief of the gospel ? How often have you tried your utmost, by all the methods you could devise, to direct their minds to the deep truths and facts of the Bible Lesson, and turned away, almost in despair, to find how powerless you were to command the mental movement and to secure the spiritual result? No key will ever open to you the doors of those chambers in which live your pupils’ souls; no glass will ever enable you to penetrate their mysterious gloom. But in the great laws of your common nature lie the electric lines by which you may send into each little mind the thought fresh from your own, and awaken the young heart to receive and embrace it. He who made us all of kindred nature settled the spiritual laws by which our minds must communicate, and made possible that art of arts which passes thought and truth from soul to soul.

19. Remark. In the discussion of these laws there will necessarily occur some seeming repetitions. They are like seven hill-tops of different height scattered over a common territory. As we climb each in succession, many points in the landscapes seen from their summits will be found included in different views, but it will be always in a new light and with a fresh horizon. The truth that is common to two or more of these laws will be found a mere repetition. New groupings will show new relations and bring to light for the care-ful student new aspects and uses. The repetitions themselves will not be useless, as they will serve to emphasize the most important features of the art of teaching, and will impress upon the younger teachers these principles which demand the most frequent attention.