hosts of teachers who can teach grammar (or the Bible), but
comparatively _few who can teach John_.

This does not mean that the material we teach is unimportant, nor that
we can fulfill our duty as teachers without the use of interesting,
fruitful, and inspiring subject matter. It does not mean that we are not
to love the subject we teach, and feel our heart thrill in response to
its beauty and truth.

Making subject matter a means instead of an end.--One who is not
filled with enthusiasm for a subject has no moral right to attempt to
teach it, for the process will be dead and lifeless, failing to kindle
the fires of response in his pupils and lacking in vital results. But
the true teacher never loves a body of subject matter for its own sake;
he loves it for what _through it_ he can accomplish in the lives of
those he teaches.

As a _student_, searching for the hidden meanings and thrilling at the
unfolding beauties of some field of truth which we are investigating, we
may love the thing we study for its own sake; and who of us does not
feel in that way toward sections of our Bible, a poem, the record of
noble lives, or the perfection of some bit of scientific truth? But when
we face about and become the _teacher_, when our purpose is not our own
learning but the teaching of another, then our attitude must change. We
will then love our cherished body of material not less, but differently.
We will now care for the thing we teach as an artisan cares for his
familiar instruments or the artist cares for his brush--we will prize it
as the _means through which_ we shall attain a desired end.

Subject matter always subordinate to life.--It will help us to