Sunday-School Success Part 14

But how to get the ideas? Where to find the pictures?

Of course, in the first place, from the books of first-rate chalk-talkers, such as Pierce's "Pictured Truth," Frank Beard's "The Blackboard in the Sunday-school," and Belsey's "The Bible and the Blackboard" (an English book). Of course, also, from the many admirable periodicals that publish blackboard hints, such as the "Lesson Ill.u.s.trator," the "Sunday-school Times," and the teachers'

magazines of the various denominations. Get hints also from the blackboard work of the public school and the kindergarten, as to manner, if not as to matter.

But as for the design, your own is the best for you, and not another's. Study all the blackboard work you can find, and retain whatever gravitates to you; but your own original design is the one you will best understand, and in presenting it you will have more of that enthusiasm which makes success.

Learn to find pictures all through the Bible. I have just been searching my mind for a Bible text that promised nothing in the way of a picture.

At last I thought that "All have sinned and come short of the glory of G.o.d" would do. But in another second two pictures popped into my mind. I saw a river whose further bank was beautiful with flowers and trees, the paradise of "the glory of G.o.d," and across the river a bridge--lacking its final portion. I saw a ladder reaching up into some golden clouds back of which shone heaven, the city of "the glory of G.o.d"; but all the top rounds of the ladder were missing. Bridge and ladder had "come short." G.o.d's hand was needed, reaching across, reaching down, to help us over the sin-gap into "the glory of G.o.d." I do not believe it possible to find any Bible texts, still less any twelve consecutive verses of the Bible, that do not hide somewhere a capital picture.

Read your Bible pictorially. Make sketches everywhere upon the margin.

For practice, often take some pa.s.sage sure to come up in the International Lessons, such as Psalm 1, Isaiah 53, Proverbs 3, Matthew 5, Luke 2, John 14, Acts 9, Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 13, Hebrew 11, James 3. Delve into the pa.s.sage, meditate long over it, and see how many pictures you can get out of it.

Of the greatest a.s.sistance will be a book,--indexed as to texts, and also as to subjects, such as "temperance," "missionary,"

"resurrection," "courage,"--in which you will preserve every drawing you make, and all the most suggestive blackboard hints you clip from the teachers' magazines, together with simple outlines of all sorts of common subjects. These last will be particularly useful. There will be a ladder, an anvil, a horse, a lily, a broom, a fountain,--anything likely to be of use for a symbol. You will clip these from advertis.e.m.e.nts, catalogues, the ill.u.s.trated papers and magazines, and you will find your collection useful in many ways.

I have spoken as if the teacher should do all the blackboard work. On the contrary, he should do none that he can get his scholars to do for him. No matter if they do not do it as well as he. Get them to practise beforehand. Let them begin with only the simplest work; they will soon astonish you with their proficiency. And the cla.s.s will take far more interest in a poor drawing by one of their own number than in a good drawing by you.

Yes, and even when you preside at the blackboard yourself, give the cla.s.s pencils and paper occasionally, and let them copy what you draw.

Their attention will be a.s.suredly fixed, and an ineffaceable impression made on their memory. The drawings they complete, however crude, they will be glad to carry home to show their parents, and treasure as souvenirs of the lesson, or keep, if you choose, against the coming review day. If you use this method, you will soon come to cherish a deeper liking for that prime pedagogical virtue, simplicity.

For a final word: Take pains that your word-pictures keep pace with your chalk. Don't _ask_ your cla.s.s what you have drawn--that might lead to embarra.s.sing results! _Tell_ them. Put in all sorts of graphic little touches, even though you cannot draw a tenth of what you are talking about. The man on the Jericho road--how full of fear he was as he walked; how he whistled to keep up his courage; how one robber peeped from behind a rock, and another whispered, "He's coming!" how they sprang out, and he ran, and a third rascal sprang out in front and knocked him down; how he shouted, "Help! Thieves! Help!" and how only the echo answered him in that lonely place--all this must have happened many a time on that Jericho road, and you have a perfect right to stimulate with such natural and inevitable details the imagination of the children.

That is what they are for--both our word-picturing and our chalk-picturing: not to exhibit our nimbleness of wit or of finger, but to quicken the minds of the children,--that alone,--and make them more eager in the pursuit of truth.

Chapter x.x.xI

Foundation Work

The work of the primary department lies at the foundation of all Sunday-school work. This does not mean that there is no chance of a child's becoming a good Bible scholar and a n.o.ble Christian if he misses the primary training, but it does mean that without a flouris.h.i.+ng primary department a school can scarcely be called successful, while with it half the success of the school is a.s.sured.

The primary teacher molds the soft clay; her successor with the child must cut the hard marble.

Teaching that thus lies at the foundation must deal with fundamental matters, with the greatest lives of the Bible, the great outlines of history, the great essentials of doctrine, the root principles of morality. Details are to be filled in later. The danger is that the teacher will attempt to teach too much, will expect the little ones to know about Hagar when it is enough for them to know about Isaac; or about Jeremiah, when Daniel would be sufficient; or about the order in which Paul wrote his letters, when it might well suffice for them to know that Paul wrote them.

But though many questions are too hard to ask, no question is too easy, and no point is so simple that in these first days you may safely take it for granted. Laugh if you please, but I do not think that even these days of sand-maps and p.r.i.c.ked cards have produced a method much more helpful for the primary teacher than the old questioning of my boyhood, over and over repeated: "Who was the first man?" "Who was the strongest man?" "Who was the oldest man?" and the like.

The primary teacher's right-hand man is named Drill,--Ernest Drill. No mnemonic help--that _is_ a help--is to be despised. Rhymes giving in order the books of the Bible, the Commandments, Beat.i.tudes, list of the twelve apostles, may wisely be used. No memory verse or golden text, once learned, should be allowed to lapse into that easy pit, a child's quick forgetfulness. Better one thing remembered than a hundred things forgotten. Foundation-stones are few and simple, but they must be firm.

Now the first essential, if one would do this foundation work successfully, is to get a room to work in. A room that lets in floods of suns.h.i.+ne and fresh air. A room with pretty pictures and bright mottoes on the wall, with canary songs and blooming plants. A room with little chairs, graded to the scholars' little heights. A room with a visitors' gallery for the mothers. Or, if your church was not blessed with a Sunday-school architect, then such a room in a house next door or across the street, to which your cla.s.s may withdraw after the opening exercises. Or, if your work must be done in the church, as so much primary work must be, then a temporary room, shut off by drawn curtains, or even by a blackboard and a screen, is far better than the distractions of the open school.

The blackboard just mentioned, at any rate, the room should contain; the shrewd use of it will create an intense interest that will almost cause oblivion of the most distracting surroundings. A padded board gives the best effects,--such a board as you yourself may easily and cheaply make with a pine backing, a few layers of cheap soft cloth, and a covering of blackboard cloth nailed firmly over all. In the chapter on blackboard work I have tried to show how easily possible, and at the same time how valuable, is the use of the blackboard. If the children are too small to read, they may at least know their letters, and recognize S for Saul and P for Peter, and a cross for Christ, while the immense resources of simple drawings are always open to you.

The primary teacher is fortunate, nowadays, in being able to buy, at slight cost, series of pictures ill.u.s.trating each quarter's lessons.

These pictures are either colored brightly or simple black and white, and vary in size from four or five square feet to the little engravings in the Sunday-school paper. Whatever picture is used should be hidden until it is time to exhibit it, and produced with a pretty show of mystery and triumph. Some teachers hang these pictures, after use, in a "picture-gallery," where the children may become familiar with them, and to this gallery they may be sent for frequent reference against the coming review day.

After all, the primary teacher's chief reliance for purposes of ill.u.s.tration must be natural objects. In this reliance we merely imitate the example of the great Teacher. The objects to be used will most often be suggested by the lesson text itself. A lily, a vine, seed, leaven, a door, a sickle, a cake, a cup, gra.s.s,--are not each of these objects at once a.s.sociated in your mind with pa.s.sages of Scripture? Hunt out the suggested objects, and simply hold them before the children as you talk about the lesson, and you will find them a wonderful a.s.sistance.

A more difficult process is to discover ill.u.s.trative objects when none are directly suggested in the text. In a temperance lesson, for instance, there may be no mention of the wine-cup, yet you will bring a gla.s.s, fill it with wine-colored water, and place in it slips of paper cut to resemble snakes. On each is written some fearful result of drinking alcoholic liquors; and after the children have drawn forth, with pincers, one after the other, and read what is written upon it, they will not soon forget how many evils come out of the wine-cup.

You may be talking about the imprisonment of John the Baptist. Produce a pasteboard chain, painted black on one side. Each link tells in red letters one of the horrors of his imprisonment,--loneliness, fear, despair, and the like. Turn over the chain and show the underside gilded, the links reading, "More faith," "Near to G.o.d," "G.o.d's favor,"

"Courage," "Eternal reward." There was a bright side, after all.

You are on the stumbling-block lesson, and you bring in some awkward, rough wooden blocks, on which you tack labels as the lesson proceeds: "A spiteful temper," "A gossiping tongue," "Envy," "Suspicion,"

"Swearing," "Treating to strong drink," "Playing marbles for 'keeps.'"

You are teaching about the paralytic let down through the roof. It has not required many minutes, with pasteboard, scissors, and glue, to construct a dainty little model of an old-time Jewish house, outside stairs, inner court, overhanging court roof, and all. And how the little model illuminates the story! The jail in which Peter was imprisoned, the table around which the Last Supper was celebrated, the Tabernacle, the Temple,--from the many excellent pictures and descriptions obtainable, even quite ambitious models are possible of manufacture. And once made, they are aids and joys forever.

The sand-map has become justly popular. It is easily formed, requiring only a shallow tray, some sharp, clean sand, pieces of looking-gla.s.s for lakes and seas, blue yarn for rivers, some rocks for mountains, wooden blocks for houses, dried moss for trees, little toy men, boats, horses, and such readily found apparatus.

In turn you can build up, with its accommodating materials, the Sea of Galilee and the scene of the feeding of the five thousand, all Palestine with the courses of Christ's journeys, Asia Minor and Macedonia with the route of Paul on his second great missionary journey. Much of this the children themselves will help you prepare, and will learn a great deal by so doing. Indeed, the wise teacher will do as little as possible herself even in getting ready to teach, and will make her scholars themselves her a.s.sistant teachers.

That is one of the beauties of such kindergarten devices as p.r.i.c.king paper and weaving bright yarn back and forth to fill up the picture outlined by the holes. It is the scholars' work, and not your own, and they do not forget their own work. Simple designs ill.u.s.trating the lessons can thus be p.r.i.c.ked into the children's memories at the point of a pin.

It is best not to confuse the cla.s.s with a multiplicity of objects, but to fix on a single symbol for each lesson, that will stand distinctly for the lesson in the weekly and quarterly reviews. The kind of object should constantly vary. If this week it is cut out of pasteboard, next week let it be modeled in clay, and the following week let it be a picture in black and white. The simpler, the better: a cup for the lesson at Sychar; a dried leaf for the parable of the fig-tree; a square of white cloth for Peter's vision on the housetop.

Do not produce the object till you want it in your teaching, or the children's interest will be dissipated before you have need of it. Get a little cabinet in which to store all your teaching apparatus. Do not keep the object in sight after you are through with it, or you will lose attention from your next point. Remember, in all object-teaching, how inferior is any symbol to the truth symbolized,--its shadow only, a mere hint of it,--and learn to drop the interest-exciting object and use the interest for the truth you want to teach.

In this branch of your work a knowledge of common science will prove invaluable. Botany and geology, chemistry, zoology, and astronomy open one's eyes to the beauties and marvels of G.o.d's handiwork, and disclose a.n.a.logies abounding and true. There is much also to learn from the books of models,--models for suggestion, of course, and not for slavish imitation,--such as Tyndall's "Object-lessons for Children," Roads'

"Little Children in the Church of Christ," and Stall's "Five-minute Object-sermons to Children," or his "Talks to the King's Children."

The most valuable "objects" are the children themselves, when you can carry out an ill.u.s.tration with their own active bodies. For instance, in teaching the lesson on the first council at Jerusalem, arrange the chairs in two groups, distant as far as possible from each other. One is Antioch, the other is Jerusalem. Two picked scholars, Paul and Barnabas, set out from the Antioch corner toward Jerusalem corner. Some of their comrades accompany them part way. The scholars at the other side of the room receive them with interest. Paul and Barnabas--or the teacher for them--tell their story. A Pharisee rises, and the teacher puts words in his mouth. Peter rises and tells about Cornelius. James, the most dignified boy present, gives his decision. Judas and Silas are selected to escort Paul and Barnabas back again, bearing a letter.

The visit of the Queen of Sheba, the taking of Joseph to Egypt, Paul's vision in Troas and pa.s.sage to Macedonia, the parallel history of the northern and southern kingdoms,--indeed, countless events,--may be ill.u.s.trated in this way. The only danger is that the whole may seem too much like play; but this danger is easily avoided by an earnest teacher, and the gains in interest and remembrance will prove rich justification.

An ill.u.s.tration still simpler, and very effective, may be obtained from the children merely by the motion of their hands. "Went _down_ from Jerusalem to Jericho"--all hands raised high and rapidly lowered.

"And _great_ was the fall thereof"--the same movement. "The Queen of Sheba wondered"--hands raised in astonishment. "A sower went out to sow"--hands sweep to the right and left. These concert movements not merely fix the attention of the cla.s.s, but serve as outlet to their restlessness. Some teachers advise a halt midway in the lesson for the introduction of some light gymnastics to rest the cla.s.s. That is well; but if the same result can be gained in immediate connection with the lesson, so much the better.

After all has been said, however, the primary teacher's great art is the art of story-telling. Learn to start right in. Preliminary preachment will spoil it all. Use short and simple words. Keep clear and distinct the order of events, and do not confuse the children by going back to take up omitted points. Nevertheless,--and this is not a contradiction,--repeat and repeat and repeat, telling each section of the story over and over, in different ways and with ever-fresh particulars, till the children's slippery memories have laid hold upon it.

Introduce a myriad natural details, for which you must draw on a consecrated imagination. You should hear Mr. Moody tell a Bible story!

It is not enough to say that Abraham determined to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice. The great, loving soul of the evangelist has brooded too long over the Bible for a statement so cold as that. He must tell about the patriarch's sleepless nights; about his getting up and going over to the bed of the boy so peacefully sleeping; about his weeping when no one was watching him; how he couldn't eat his breakfast; how his heart beat whenever he looked at the lad. And long before Mr.

Moody is through, the great sacrifice is so vivid to him and to us that we all weep together, and no moralizing is needed.

You are not Moodys? No; but hundreds of primary teachers are doing just this work, telling to their children the Bible stories as they must have happened, reading with the heart and telling them to the life. Long meditation is needed, persistent "putting yourself in his place," and it is even well to write out the story in full before you attempt to tell it. When you receive the reward, you will count the trouble as nothing.

Music is a great aid in the primary room. If you cannot afford a piano, learn how cheap are the "baby organs," and how effectively they will lead the children's singing. Even though you work in an extemporized cla.s.s-room, shut off by screens or a curtain from the rest of the school, you can at least use "whisper songs." Yes, and these whisper songs may often be motion songs, and serve to ill.u.s.trate the lesson.

At least one song of the hour should bear directly on the central thought of the hour, and before it is sung you should explain why you call for it. Most of the best songs for this purpose will prove to be standard hymns, and there is every reason why the simplest of these should be taught to the children, that they may find as many points of contact as possible with the services of the older church. The aid of the parents may well be invoked to teach these hymns at home to the children,--a helpful task, for more than the children's sake, at which to set the parents.

The primary song-books contain bright little hymns appropriate to introduce prayer, to open and close the school, to be sung before Bible-reading and while the collection is taken. A clear-voiced a.s.sistant, sitting and singing among the children, will train them insensibly, and draw their childish voices into harmony with her own.

Just as the children will enjoy a cla.s.s name, motto, colors, so they will be delighted to select a cla.s.s song; and this device may be tried, together with many others mentioned in the chapter on "A Singing Sunday-school."

Our foundation work will surely fall if it is not itself founded firmly on the Bible. Be sure that each scholar has his own Bible--_and a large-type copy_. Why is it that the smaller the child, the tinier the type? It is not so with the children's other books. How can we expect them to take any interest in pages that look so black and uninteresting, and that, moreover, would ruin their eyes for life if they did read them?

The Bible must not be so expensive that it cannot be marked freely. The children will learn much by this exercise. A little set of colored pencils may be given to each child, for cla.s.s use only. The golden texts and other verses, and the places where the lesson story may be read, should all be marked with pencils of appropriate symbolic color. The children can easily find the place, and the folks at home will know just what pa.s.sages to read to the children and to help them learn.

Make much of memory verses. We are filling the little heads nowadays far more with sand-map puppets and blackboard rebuses than with the Word of G.o.d. Drill often and thoroughly on these verses. Prepare a Bible roll by fastening a long strip of manilla paper on a spring window-shade roller. Let the lower line contain a few initial letters hinting at the memory verse concealed just above it. After recitation, pull this down for the scholars to compare; and so proceed through the roll. An alphabet of Bible verses may thus be learned, or an alphabet of Bible men and women.