PUTTING ONESELF OUT OF BUSINESS
Robert Meyers 

         Medical doctors, unless they are wrongly motivated, labor for their own elimination. They encourage the patient to follow a regimen which will keep him away from the doctor's office. 

         Parents, if they are wise and strong, set out to make a grownup of a child and to make their own parenthood unnecessary. Instead of trying to keep the child dependent, good parents put themselves out of business by teaching the child to stand on his own two feet. 

         Teachers try to make students increasingly less dependent on the classroom and the text. They labor tirelessly for the time when the student can show diligence and insight comparable to, or better than, the instructor's. 

         In all three realms, the purpose of the guide is to free the object of his concern. If he tries to enslave the object, he harms it. Sydney Harris, who speaks more penetratingly of religious problems than many preachers, says: "This is the only test we can apply to discover whether our dedication and love are real or counterfeit --- for the counterfeit always discloses itself by trying to possess the object rather than liberate it. 

         "Parental love, for instance, should be a ladder, leading the child upward and outward; too often however, it is a cage or a chain or a corset of unyielding suffocation. Its aim is not the child's liberation but the parent's gratification. 

         "We can see how this perverted process works most clearly in education. The most badly miseducated person is the one who must continually use references, appeal to authorities, and substitute what has already been said by others for his own thinking. His education has crippled him for creative thought and made him totally dependent on 'the books.'" 

            These comments set up a goal for the Christian teacher. His aim should be the liberation of a spirit for creative and adventurous living in Christ. Knowing how dangerous freedom is, and how few equip themselves to use it wisely, he will dedicate himself to a lengthy preparation period. But it should not be his aim to enslave his pupil to his own insights or understandings. His happiest hour should come when the student proves he is a free man thinking for himself, but humbly aware under God of his human limitations.