238. But there are other difficulties,--difficulties growing out of individual peculiarities. While some would be harmed by much talk about sin, because they would thus either become acquainted with it, or else be filled with fantastic terror, there are others whom only the strongest language can move, and still others who themselves preach against the sins of the world, and, at the same time, front the world in proud security. Then there are those who brood over ethical problems, and who, without having heard of Spinoza, argue that what the Highest Judge has permitted to happen he has approved of, whence might is the practical proof of right. There are contemners of mere morality, who think that prayers will consecrate their evil actions. Isolated traces of such perversions may indeed be met with even in children, especially if their glib reproduction of the sermon, or worse yet, their praying aloud, has happened to receive praise. Hence it is necessary to observe the effect of religious instruction on each individual. Another task for home training. CHAPTER II =History= 239. The most common blunder that younger teachers of history are apt to make is that, without intending it, they become increasingly prolix in presentation. It is not that interest deepens, but that the network of events lures them, now one way, now another. This of itself evinces preparation; but mental preparation alone does not suffice; preliminary practice, too, is necessary. Young teachers of history, like young teachers in other subjects, are prone to error. What the prevailing error in a given study will be, is likely to depend upon conventional methods of presenting it. In Germany it is customary for the teacher himself to be the historian through whose mind all historical knowledge passes on its way to the children. But just as good writers of history are rare, so good teachers of history are likely to be few, since in an important sense they are at once teachers and oral historians. Where the text-book is depended upon for the narrative, as in the United States, a different difficulty presents itself to the teacher. What shall he do with the text, all the pupils having read it? Perhaps the commonest method is to call upon them one by one to reproduce it in class. But this is a deadening process, since it compels nineteen pupils to sit passive while the twentieth recites the words that the nineteen could repeat equally well. If, therefore, the besetting fault of the teacher of history in German is prolixity, that of the American teacher is tediousness. The German method is that of primitive man, where the legends of the tribe are handed down from father to son by word of mouth; the American presentation of history is modern, where all the resources of scholarship and the advantages of the printing press are utilized. Each method has peculiar advantages, the former having the