Application of a lesson involves, then, the making sure, on the part of the teacher, that the truths taught carry over into the life of the pupil and modify it for good.  Someone has said that the application has been made when a pupil

  “Knows more,
  Feels better,
  Acts more nobly,”

as a result of the teaching done.  There is a prevalent conception that application has been made in a recitation only when pupils go out from a recitation and translate the principle studied into immediate action.  There are lessons where such applications can be made and, of course, they are to be commended.  Particularly are they valuable in the case of young children.  But surely there are other justifiable interpretations to the term application.

We need to remind ourselves that there are three distinct types of subject matter that constitute the body of our teaching material.  These are, first of all, those lessons which are almost wholly intellectual.  Debates are conducted by the hundreds on subjects that lead not to action but to clearer judgment.  Classes study subjects by the month for the purpose of satisfying intellectual hunger.  Such questions, for instance, as “Succession in the Presidency,” or the “Nature of the Godhead”—­questions gone into by thoroughly converted Latter-day Saints, not to bring themselves into the Church, nor to lead themselves into any other kind of action except the satisfying of their own souls as to the truth.  In other words, it appears clear that there may be application on a purely intellectual level.  Application upon application is made until a person builds up a structure of faith that stands upon the rock in the face of all difficulties.

A second type of lessons appeals to the emotions.  They aim to make pupils feel better.  They may or may not lead to immediate action.  Ideally, of course, every worthy emotion aroused should find, if possible, suitable channels for expression.  Pent up emotions may become positively harmful.  The younger the pupils the more especially is this true.  Practically every educator recognizes this fact and gives expression to it in language similar to the following quotation from Professor S.H.  Clark: 

“Never awaken an emotion unless, at the same time, you strive to open a channel through which the emotion may pass into the realm of elevated action.  If we are studying the ideals of literature, religion, etc., with our class, we have failed in the highest duty of teaching if we have not given them the ideal, if we have not given them, by means of some suggestion, the opportunity for realizing the ideal.  If there is an emotion excited in our pupils through a talk on ethics or sociology, it matters not, we fail in our duty, if we do not take an occasion at once to guide that emotion so that it may express itself in elevated action.”

And yet there is a question whether this insistence upon action may not be exaggerated.  Abraham Lincoln witnessed an auction sale of slaves in his younger days.  He did not go out immediately and issue an emancipation proclamation, and yet there are few who can doubt that that auction sale registered an application in an ideal that persisted in the mind of Lincoln through all those years preceding our great civil war.