JAC Online

Personal Dealing 1
by Mrs. General Florence Booth

Extract from Training Staff Council Lectures 1925  

 
In Chapter VII of Orders and Regulations for the Training of Officers we read, 'Of the various means adopted for training and blessing the Cadets, not the least valuable will be personal dealing by the Officers.'  Personal dealing is one of the most important of all our Training operations.  Here the smaller Garrisons have the advantage, because in the smaller Garrisons there is no excuse for not adequately using this method of personal dealing as a means of helping the Cadets.  I do not propose to repeat any of the instructions in the Orders and Regulations.  You have those before you.  It is mentioned in those Orders that Cadets must be seen at least such and such a number of times.  I hope no Officers in small Garrisons would think of estimating the number of interviews they should give by that minimum laid down for the larger Garrisons.  In the smaller Garrisons you are happily able to give the Cadets all the help required by means of this personal touch, this personal interviewing.
 
In Training Work we cannot emphasise too highly the importance of the individual.  In some sections of The Salvation Army work there is a temptation to think of humanity in the mass, to look on the world as a vast ant-hill or beehive.  This outlook is much too impersonal, and Training Officers must avoid any tendency to this view.  For them, each Cadet – the man, the woman – must stand out distinctly among the others.  Certainly Cadets cannot be trained unless you give much personal attention to the individual.  This principle applies to every section of the Training Work, as well as to personal interviews.  For instance, for part of their education Cadets are gathered together in classes; yet the teaching of a class, to be successful, must be individual; that is to say, the co-operation of the individual must be secured.  Education can only be offered much as a meal is offered. The individual must partake or no good can result; and no teacher can accomplish anything without the cooperation of the pupil.  Because of the importance of the individual, personal dealing is one of the chief responsibilities of Training Officers.  It is the best way in which the Officer can bring the influence of his own spirit to bear upon the spirit of the Cadet, and impress his mind upon the mind of the Cadet. The human spirit needs experts.  It is a great field of influence, and God has so arranged that we have power to influence one another by personal intercourse.  Every Training Officer should seek to be an expert in personal dealing.
 
As I was meditating upon this subject I saw that Salvation itself is brought about in a personal interview of the soul with God; brought about by the knowledge of the soul by God and the knowledge of God by the soul; because of this knowledge, this personal contact.  In conversion, the influence of the Holy Spirit brings the light of revelation to the soul, so that the soul sees and knows itself as it has never seen and known itself before; realizes its sin and rebellion, realizes the truth and makes the discovery of the love and power of God.  Speaking humbly, we may say God is willing to use our personal interviews powerfully to bless those whom we desire to help; through your personal interviews the Cadets may receive a revelation of your love and desire for them, and by that means you may bring to them a revelation of God and the knowledge of themselves. 
 
I want to say a few words first on what I will call the technicalities of the personal interview.  The interviewing at the Training Garrisons must be well organized.  Suitable people only should be entrusted with this privilege; and those who are so entrusted should be very clearly instructed as to the nature of the interviews, particularly as to the necessities for the preservation of the strictest confidence and privacy.  Any repetition of what Cadets have said, or what has been said to the Cadets, during an interview should be absolutely forbidden.  In speaking together about the Cadets, junior Officers, unless they have been warned, might easily make the mistake of retailing what has been said in an interview and of repeating anything that strikes them as being especially foolish, or especially interesting, such as any incident that has been told them of the home or Corps life.  Even if that which is repeated is quite harmless and comparatively unimportant in itself, yet for the Cadets to have any idea of such a repetition, or talking over, cannot fail to be harmful.  To feel that what they have said will leak out, will make the Cadets reticent.  Let it be made a matter of honour among the junior Officers that the personal interviews with Cadets are absolutely confidential and that, for the protection of the Cadet, what is said my not be repeated to anyone.  I know that in ordinary conversation – at meal times, for instance – the temptation to talk the Cadets over is very great indeed; but this temptation must be revisited.
 
Points under discussion in personal interviews should not be made known to any to whom such knowledge is not absolutely necessary. There are certain things in confessions made by Cadets of which the Officer should be able to say to the Cadet, 'No one will know of this.'  When the confession is not of this character, the interviewer should plainly say to the Cadet, 'I shall have to speak of this to the Chief Side Officer,' Or 'to the Principal' as the case may be.
 
Care should be taken in regard to the rooms in which interviews take place.  These should be suitable for interviews; suitable in the case of junior Officers as well as for the Principal and Chief Side Officers.  During the personal interview Officers should be as free as possible from interruption.  It is very important that cadets should never be kept waiting in company before an interview, and, if at all possible, the Cadet should be able to leave the room where the interview has taken place without immediately meeting any other Cadet.  In arranging these details which make so much for success, no time need be wasted even in the larger Garrisons, because, if there are to be a number of interviews one after the other, arrangements can be made for one Cadet (but not more than one) to be in readiness to be interviewed.  In smaller Garrisons that would not be necessary for you would not have to send far for the Cadets.  The Cadet waiting on the interviewing Officer ought easily to be able to find any Cadet without loss of time.  It is very important that the Cadet should not be aware hours beforehand that an interview is pending.  Let the interview quickly follow the summons, especially where there may be some important matter in the Cadets' life or experience to deal with.  If you give him an hour, or even half an hour, in which to feel apprehensive about the interview, he will have that much time in which to put himself into an attitude of resistance.  The effect of an interview on the mind of the Cadet is very largely spoiled if there is any sign of hurry on the part of the interviewer; this cannot but be so if the Cadet is aware that two or three of his comrades are waiting outside for an interview.  These little technicalities in regard to interviewing are more important than is sometimes realized; and I am quite sure that, when Cadets have been kept waiting in companies for an interview, the talk between the Cadets whilst idly waiting has not been in some cases at all helpful.
 Never, in any circumstances, let interviews be arranged in alphabetical rotation.  This cannot be done, even in a large Garrison, without the knowledge spreading, and Cadet Brooks or Cadet Brown saying, 'The Colonel has got through the "A's" and it will soon be my turn!'
 
Records of interviews must be carefully kept, and a certain arrangement is necessary, especially in the large Training Garrisons where so many interviews must be held by the Principal and the Chief Side Officer; but no discoverable rotation, whether alphabetical or that of going through Brigades or Classes, can be helpful.  It may be necessary that one interview be quickly followed by another and another with the same Cadet; therefore, any idea that you can see all the Cadets for the first time, or for the second time, before you see any Cadet for the third time is quite out of the question.  Let there be no hampering rules of that kind.  In interviewing as in mending, 'a stitch in time saves nine'.  When, in the first interview, light comes to you as to the particular way in which a Cadet needs helping, then quickly see that Cadet again, if desirable, and bring in the further help.
 
Let there be no routine, then, no absolutely hard-and-fast line, as to the order of the interviews.  Impressions received during one interview will often very naturally give the right direction to the subsequent interview.  The records of those who have already been seen should be carefully studied.  In opening an interview it is often very useful to refer to some comparatively small matter.  For instance, you may notice in a Meeting, or on some other occasion, a Cadet looking very tired.  If you send for that Cadet and inquire the reason, and then say, 'As you are here, let us have a little talk,' an interview pleasingly free from constraint will probably follow. Your interviewing should seem so spontaneous that the Cadets could not associate it with mere rote or officialism.  If at a loss of an introduction to an interview, walk through the Garrison and grounds looking around you for some guidance.  Then when you send for the Cadet you can say, 'I saw you at such and such a place speaking to So-and-So.  Are you friendly with that Cadet?'  And if they say, 'Yes', and that friendship is likely to be helpful to the Cadet, say, 'I am glad you are on friendly terms,' or give a word of warning, if that be necessary.
 
The manner, method, and time of the interview should be made as helpful as possible, and the mere business routine disguised as far as possible.  The work involved in this large Training Garrison at Clapton is wonderfully compassed.  Very hard and close work has to be put in when so many Cadets gather under the same roof.  During the past Session, Colonel Russell, the Chief Side Officer for Women, had no less than 777 interviews with her Cadets.  The total number of interviews in this Garrison during the past Session (men and women) was 4,899.
 
The first necessity for successful personal dealing is the creation of the right atmosphere.  By atmosphere I mean that something which will make the Cadet feel at ease in the presence of the interviewer, and which will, in a measure, dissipate the nervousness and strangeness which are inevitable, and which must be taken into account and definitely allowed for.  The creation of this atmosphere rests, of course, with the interviewer rather than with the interviewed.  A sense of friendship must be established.  'A friend is one with whom you dare to be yourself.'  That is the kind of atmosphere we want between the interviewer and the interviewed; so that the Cadets shall feel at ease, be themselves, and show their hearts.  Study and experience are needed to become expert in this; but the hope of success rests in the character, in the personality, of the interviewer.  There must be a sympathetic heart, an alert mind, a quick apprehension; and the interviewer must reveal his own personality.  This is not easy.
 
I am speaking to those who have responsibility for personal interviewing, and who also have to instruct others how to qualify for personal dealing; and I would remind you that the interviewer must stand out as more than a mere Officer, one of many such as he.  Here again, the smaller Garrison has an advantage over the larger; but even in the smallest Garrison, the greatest car is needed to ensure that the person, the individual, shall emerge from the mere Officer.   The Officer, in his official position, has a certain responsibility, recognized of course by the Cadet: but in the successful personal interview all mere officialism will be overcome.  The official position must be lost sight of in something much more individual and personal; and the human being must appear rather than 'the Officer.' May I refer again to the illustration of Salvation?  Is not the humanity of Jesus as necessary to our Salvation as is His divinity? Was it not His sweet humanity that arrested us and secured our interest?    'The Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.'  (John i.14.)  Apart from that revelation of humanity, our hearts could not have been touched in the same way.  Is not the condescension of God necessary to our Salvation?  'Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.'  (Isaiah lvii. 15.)  The greatness of God, apart from this revelation of His love and sympathy, would appall and repel us.
 
If the higher Officers of the Training Garrison are to the do the best for the Cadets in personal interviewing, they must divest themselves of the thought of their high rank, and make as complete a revelation of their own hearts and personalities as possible.  The Cadet must be made to feel their personal interest in him individually.  That charity must possess them of which Paul spoke when he said, 'Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate.'  Man to man, woman to woman, the interviewing Officers should put themselves in the Cadets' places realizing their nervousness, lack of understanding, and, in many cases, the narrowness of their life and work up to the present time.
 Proper preparation for the interview will help to induce the right atmosphere, help to promote this revelation of personality, interest, and sympathy; and I believe that the first short interview can be made very useful to all subsequent interviews.  Preparation for the first interview is as important as for any.  For the first interview carefully prepare one or two questions from the papers concerning the Cadet.  Arm yourself with all available knowledge about him.  You should know from what Corps he has come, what business he has been engaged in, and something about his parents and relatives – whether the family is Salvationist or otherwise.  Make a note of any special knowledge you gain from the Cadet about himself, that this may be referred to in subsequent interviews.  Instead of asking for information from the Cadet a much better impression will be made if you can say 'I am interested to know that you come from such and such a place,' or, 'that such and such an Officer has sent you into the work.'  This will at once impress the Cadet that you regard him as an individual and not merely as one of a crowd.  From every set of Candidate's papers some particular facts can be selected which will reveal a knowledge of the Cadet on your part, and help to create, in the first short interview, that personal contact which will make all subsequent interviews so much more useful.
 
Here again, the smaller Garrisons have immensely the advantage over the larger.  It is not too great a task for the Principal in charge of thirty, forty, fifty, or sixty Cadets to make themselves familiar with the past history of any Cadet, so that the intimate and personal touch may be given at the first contact.  In larger Garrisons a private secretary can be trained to make the necessary search of the papers and to note succinctly what is required.  In preparing for subsequent interviews, notes of previous interviews should always be looked up.
 
The Training Garrison Officers should have a definite purpose before them in each interview.  In the first interview, by whatever Officer, the setting up of an intimate relationship should be aimed at, and this can only be done by setting the Cadet ease and winning his or her confidence.  The aim to set up an intimate relationship and to win the confidence of the Cadet should form the groundwork of all interviews, and be continually kept in view.  In many of the older Territories it is very difficult to achieve this aim, because the interview is looked upon by the Cadets merely as the official duty of the Officer.  It is well understood in the Field that the 'personal' is one of the methods of Training, and in some Corps there has been gossip and talk about the interviews which have not been helpful; so that some Cadets come to these interviews in a spirit of resistance and self-protection, determined not to commit themselves in any way.  That spirit must be broken down; and it can only be broken down by the absence of all officialism in these interviews.  Owing to this prejudice against the personal interview, junior Officers often receive confidences from Cadets who are reticent with the Principal, or Chief Side Officer, and so find a way to help them personally  This is valuable; and the junior Officers should be trained and encouraged to secure the confidence of the Cadet.  Nevertheless, the chief necessity is that the official interviewer shall be expert, able to overcome this difficulty, able to create from the very beginning the right kind of atmosphere and to set up the necessary relationship with the Cadet.
 
A professor lecturing to school teachers a little while ago said, 'Over the lintel of every school should be engraved the precept – 'Establish a background of sympathy.'  He was speaking to teachers of the importance of securing the cooperation and interest of their pupils, and saying how necessary it is that children should not only be ready to do what is easy and pleasant, but be induced to make an effort in that which is difficult.  'The child,' he said,' 'will do much that is irksome to give pleasure to one with whom he is in sympathy.'  A bond of sympathy will give you power to inspire the Cadets to rise equal to every difficulty and hardship.  In personal dealing this relationship of sympathy is of great importance.  With many Cadets the interviewer's task is to capture a confidence that has never been given to the nearest relative or most intimate friend.  No doubt, you who have had experience of Training Work realize how entirely without help, without true friendship, many of the Cadets have been.  That which is best in them has never been called out; and it is the greatest privilege to be able to minister to them after this fashion.  In the larger Training Garrisons there is little time in which to do this.  The number of interviews which the Principal, at any rate, can have with any one Cadet can, generally speaking, be but few.  The success of the later interviews (often considered the more important) certainly depends on setting up this relationship of sympathy with the Cadet in the first interview.
 
The chief purpose of the interview is the formation of character. Personal dealing is an important part of the work of the husbandman of souls; and to produce the harvest that we seek there must be a preparing of the ground as well as the sowing of the seed.  The harvest desired is that of a good character, a robust spiritual life. In these young hearts, with very few exceptions, spiritual life has already begun.  This gives us a boundless opportunity.
 
To possess the right idea for interviewing means to possess the right idea for Training Work as a whole; and I hope it is superfluous to say to you that Training Officers must plough deeply. They must dig down into the very springs of life and character.  The main object of Training is not mere technical skill.  The gloss given by discipline, the efficiency gained by practice, the enthusiasm born of association with enthusiastic leaders and participation in large Meetings – these are not the great aims of Training.  The great aim of Training is to show the men and women committed to us how to work at themselves, how to add to their faith virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, charity.  The aim of all good education is not such much to give vast stores of knowledge as to teach the pupils how to learn and how to profit by knowledge, so that they may continue to learn and to profit through all their subsequent days.
 
The chief advantage Training affords the Cadets is that it gives them an opportunity to learn to know themselves and to know how to improve themselves, so that they will be able to profit by that knowledge when Training days are over.  By personal dealing, more than by any other means, you will be able to help the Cadets to know themselves and to show them how to improve.  The human heart is 'deceitful above all things,' and the enemy of souls often succeeds in veiling the eyes of God's own children so that they fail to see their weaknesses, those vulnerable places where temptation will most easily and most certainly assail them.  How many are not forewarned and forearmed in that respect!
 
We cannot escape from the fact that many Cadets are weak in character, poor in mentality, indeed very poor material.  Some of these ought to be sent home; but some who are comparatively poor material should remain with us, because they seem likely to be among the weak things that God has chosen to confound the mighty.  They come to us at a time when they have the redeeming feature of youth.  They are mouldable, and we must awaken in them a desire to improve.  The most we can do to improve them is to help to open their hearts so that a new spirit will take possession of them.  I believe that personal interview is an important means to this end. Such Cadets especially need the personal touch.  They are apt to be lost in a crowd, apt to go to the wall; they can easily be pushed aside and are liable to discouragement.  If we can only encourage them to accept a higher standard for themselves we shall bring into fuller life some of those good qualities that have been allowed to lie dormant.  With these Cadets, and indeed with every Cadet, the personal interview can accomplish very much.
 
An improvement in the outlook of the Cadets is most important, and the interview should aim at this. Some come into Training with a very inadequate idea of what a Salvation Army Officer should be, because have met no efficient Officers.  The smaller Corps are at present proportionately more fruitful in Candidates than are the larger; therefore, in every Garrison many Cadets, if not the majority, come from comparatively small Corps; and it is to be regretted that many small Corps have a succession of comparatively poor Officers.  I hope the investigation of every Officer's work at the expiration of five years will now enable the Territorial Commanders to eliminate some of those unsatisfactory people, our inferior Officers.  Having ascertained that a Cadet has been in touch only with inferior Officers, this fact in his experience should be boldly faced in the personal interview; for hero worship is a great factor in the formation of character, and the Cadet may have in his ken one or more inefficient Officers of narrow outlook, on whom he has set his admiration and whom he will seek to emulate.  The human spirit is so made as to be greatly influence by the example of others.  Nothing, indeed, more truly impresses the rightness or wrongness of conduct on the mind than to see it in action.  Precepts about conduct have comparatively little power to impress, but what people do impresses both young and old.
 
It has been said, 'Tell me a man's heroes and I will read you his character.'  It is part of the duty of the Training Officers to see that Cadets make a right choice of heroes, and to find some way of supplying the deficiency for those who have not known heroes either in life or literature. I do not in the least minimize the example of Jesus Christ when I say that some accepted hero, more nearly on a Cadet's own plane, will greatly aid in the formation of his character; for God, who has made the heart of youth, has, not without a purpose, made it very susceptible to hero-worship and emulation.  A soldier has said that when, as a young subaltern, he was growing slack, he was pulled up by a pithy and effectual remark by his superior officer. 'Take care!  You are forgetting Wellington and the history and traditions of the British Army!'  In leading and training Cadets, we must impress them with the traditions of our Army, and, as far as possible, teach them its history.  If we can inspire them to take as their heroes and heroines some of our glorious warriors of the past, that will help them.  How lamentably ignorant some Cadets are of the history of our Army!  Many of them know nothing of our heroes and heroines.  Their ignorance is revealed in their replies to question in the test papers for Candidates.  Many Candidates prove ignorant of the outstanding facts concerning the Founder's own life!
 
If they are to become efficient Officers, Cadets must set up a definite ideal of officership.  I think the lack of such an ideal accounts for the falling short of many of those young Officers who fail even though they are good. Lacking a high ideal of officership, they fall short.  The help given to Officers in the 'The Officer' and the inspiring accounts in 'The War Cry' of what is going on in the different Corps, have not power to appeal to the Officer who has passed through Training without setting up a standard for his own attainment.  The more that is said to Cadets about those who have greatly succeeded, the less they will feel this is possible of application to themselves, unless they have accepted a high standard and ideal for their own service.  The Cadet who passes through Training without being greatly inspired by personal touch with a successful Officer, and who has never perceived a high standard of officership in action, will go out into the Field thinking, 'I will do my best; I hope I shall get through,' but with no ennobling vision as to what he may accomplish and become, no vision, indeed, but a dreary stretch of the humdrum round of duty.
 
We must not forget that the poor quality Officer who has been a model for some of our Cadets has been commissioned from one or another Training Garrison.  Surely they should be as a warning to us, and help us to improve our methods.  If the quality of the Officer is improved, the quality of the Candidates and Cadets will, I am sure, improve.  We must keep definitely before us all the time that the Cadets we commission will raise the Officers of the future, and that Officers they raise will be much like themselves.  The best service the Training Officer can render to The Army is to bring each Cadet to accept a high ideal of officership, and to inspire him with faith and hope to follow after that ideal.  These, then, are some of the aims of the personal interview – to find out what hero, what heroine, the Cadet has set up for emulation; to discover his ideals; to judge how far he has embraced the principle of self-sacrifice, and whether his love for souls is such that he will seek after the worst; and to give him just the help he needs.