Repetition – Sunday, February 27, 1944
One of the accepted methods of teaching and learning is by the process of repetition. By saying a thing over and over again, eventually it may become ingrained. But, effective as it is, this process may become very tiresome. Perplexed parents frequently become weary of the number of times they have to remind their children of even the simplest rules of conduct, with little apparent carry-over effect—and frequently from children comes the impatient reply: “O we know! We’ve heard that before!” After having gone through such repeat performances times without number, exhausted mothers and fathers have often despaired.
No doubt we could save our children many heartaches if they would only listen and learn. And beginning with this common experience of parenthood, we may well begin to appreciate something of the problems and the patience of the Father of all men, from whom has come a tireless repetition of fundamental truths all down through the centuries, notwithstanding which, men continue to go their own way and continue to get into trouble.
In virtually every generation prophets of the living God, men to whom it has been given to see beyond their time and place, have stated and restated the rules of life, and the consequences for disregarding them, and their words have been recorded for us to read and remember. But notwithstanding the times without number that these truths have been written and spoken and read and heard, and notwithstanding the distressing results that have followed the disregarding of them, in every generation the children of men, like their parents, insist upon learning many things for themselves, the hard way. With this in mind perhaps we can come to be more understanding of our own children and the children of others when they don’t, upon repeated hearings, remember to put all good advice immediately into practice.
If all the generations had done so, if parents themselves had done so, perhaps we could expect more from our children. But sooner or later, if our teaching has been sincere and understanding and patient and wise, as these, our children, take their places in the world, they begin to remember our teachings, and they become concerned to pass them on to their own growing sons and daughters—and they begin to know what it is that we have been trying so bard to say to them, and they begin to appreciate why. There are no new laws of morality or of safe conduct in life. They have all been revealed and known, and proved long since. But still the process of repetition goes on with much tiresome teaching and many threadbare words and with impatient children and weary parents—and with many needlessly paying a high price for costly lessons, most of which might have been learned without personal anguish, if we had been wise enough to believe what has happened in the past, and not so stupid as to believe it wouldn’t happen again under the same conditions.
By Richard L. Evans, spoken from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, Feb. 27, 1944, over Radio Station KSL and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System. Copyright – 1944.
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February 27, 1944
Broadcast Number 0,758