Truth never comes to the child disembodied and detached, but always with
the slant and quality of the teacher's interpretation of it. It is as if
the teacher's mind and spirit were the stained glass through which the
sunlight must fall; all that passes through the medium of a living
personality takes its tone and quality from this contact. The pupils may
or may not grasp the lessons of their books, but their teachers are
living epistles, known and read by them all.

For it is the concrete that grips and molds. Our greatest interest and
best attention center in persons. The world is neither formed nor
reformed by abstract truths nor by general theories. Whatever ideals we
would impress upon others we must first have realized in ourselves. What
we _are_ often drowns out what we say. Words and maxims may be
misunderstood; character seldom is. Precepts may fail to impress;
personality never does. God tried through the ages to reveal his
purposes to man by means of the law and the prophets, but man refused to
heed or understand. It was only when God had made his thought and plan
for man concrete in the person of Jesus of Nazareth that man began to
understand.

The first and most difficult requirement of the teacher, therefore,
is--_himself_, his personality. He must combine in himself the qualities
of life and character he seeks to develop in his pupils. He must look to
his personality as the source of his influence and the measure of his
power. He must be the living embodiment of what he would lead his pupils
to become. He must live the religion he would teach them. He must
possess the vital religious experience he would have them attain.

The building of personality.--Personality is not born, it is made. A
strong, inspiring personality is not a gift of the gods, nor is a weak