Unity.
One of the greatest of American preachers never goes beyond "firstly." He makes but one point in each sermon. But he makes that point, drives it home, burns it in, wears a crease in the brain that nothing can ever iron out. Every picture—and those sermons are full of pictures—bears upon that one point, and every argument and lesson, for which the pictures have been laying the foundation, is a part of the same unity. You never hear him say, "And we learn further," but always, "The same truth comes out in another way." One is never more than two bases away from the home plate. It is not a cross-country run, but a game of score and tally.
At the opposite pole from this intensive method is the typical Sunday-school lesson. The typical Sunday-school lesson is—is it not?—hodge-podge. Does the last lesson always bear upon the lesson of to-day? Is to-day's aim single? Do you hold before your mind the one point, the one picture, that your pupils shall carry away with them as an everlasting possession, or do you have in mind to display so many pictures, so many points, that some must needs take effect?
It is easier—at least it is lazier—to providemany thingsthan to preparemuch. One can rake over an acre more easily than dig one post-hole. And the deeper you go the harder grows the digging. But it's the last six inches of hole that makes firm the top two feet of post.
Now pictures help toward unity of aim in a lesson in two ways: they help to elaborate the one main point—twenty illustrations of one point, not twenty points from one illustration; they help to teach us the law of unity, for a true picture has but one theme, is always simple.
Reality.
"The great trouble with the stuff taught in our schools is that so much of it always remainsstuff, and never gets worked up intoboy." So said Dr. Parkhurst, in a sermon from the text, "Taste and see that the Lord is good." The only way to work up the raw materials of a boy into real boy is to bring him into touch with them, to have him taste, see, handle. But in order to be tasted these materials must be real. And to make them real is the first duty of the teacher. It is also his hardest task. For consider what it costs to make a thing so real to yourself that it can't help being real to some one else! Ah! there's the rub. It costs to do that—costs time, pains, life.
How long did the Lord make Ezekiel lie on his left side, and how long on his right side, without the relief of turning over from one side to the other, before he judged him ready to deliver his message with a due sense of the reality of its import? Three hundred and ninety days "for the iniquity of the house of Israel," forty days more "for the iniquity of the house of Judah"; each day for a year. After that there was no lack of a "realizing sense" in Ezekiel. He had "been there" himself. And was it by way of mere luxury or was it from pedagogical necessity that the Lord showed himself last of all to Paul also, and sent him into the desert, for a year or more, to think it over and get a real grip on the experience? It was a true instinct that made Thomas, the doubting one, want to reinforce a sight-picture by a touch-picture. A dose of the same "doubt" would be a tonic to much of the pale "faith" in the world.
When I was a boy I wrote, after the fashion of the day, an "essay" on a subject about which I had the slenderest knowledge. A tannery lay on my way to school, and the tanner would have been friendly and communicative, but the encyclopedia article, "Leather," was my sole authority. You may imagine the result: a cold, dead thing, not in the least savoring of real leather. On the other hand, when I became a man, I traveled a thousand miles merely to see, and hear the voice of, a master whom I admired and whose picture I wished to have hanging in my mind. Who has not, when freed from the dead atmosphere of the schools, done a like thing? And with what gain to the precious sense of reality!
The whole country, not long since, was touched—many people were shocked—by the news that a Christian minister had dared to see with his own eyes the evils he was fighting, the existence of which he had been challenged to prove. Many good people at that time thought he had made a mistake. He said, "It is necessary that some one see these things. Do you think that I would be so base as to ask another to do what I would not do myself?" The result has proved the soundness of this position. No one now doubts that Dr. Parkhurst was in the right. For not only were the facts shown to exist as alleged, but (and this is the point) the man himself who had seen them was so filled with a burning sense of their terrible reality, that he clung to his point with an everlasting grip, carried it triumphantly, and laid the foundations of our "civic renaissance."
The vast audience who heard Bishop Thoburn, missionary to India for thirty years, at Chautauqua, was stirred to its depths by the simple power of the man. What was the secret of his power? It did not lie in his bodily presence; it grew out of what the man had done. He was a man of action. He had given his life, and had lived. His speech was of that which he had lived. You felt that he had a right to speak—for every sentence had behind it weeks of real life.
Who has not felt the same when listening to one who speaks of that which he does know? And who has not felt the difference when trying to listen to one who talks, but whose words are not loaded with life?
You must have seen, acted, felt, if you would make your hearers see and feel and act. Talk is cheap, especially borrowed talk. It is not the story in the lesson quarterly that you can build into the lives of your class; it is the story in you. It is the picture that has become a part of your life, that will be most likely to be built into the fabric of theirs.
Order.
The way in which a subject lies in the mind of an ordinary, unregenerate adult, one may be safe in saying, is just the wrong way—the way in which it should not be presented to a child. The order of exposition is in general the reverse of the order of acquisition. The natural man who has forgotten how things look to the eyes of a child has a tendency to put things wrong end to; word first, thing last; precept first, example last; to plungein medias reswithout introduction—in short, to put the mental or spiritual cart before the horse. And it requires self-sacrifice to reverse the order, enter into the limitations of a little child's mind, see with his eyes, think his thoughts.
It is a favorite simile among writers on education that the mind is not unlike a field, and that the steps of instruction answer to the successive stages of the farmer's work. First there is the preparation of the soil, then come the planting, the cultivating, and in due time the harvest, the mill, and the market. Two of these steps, the preparing and the applying, concern us here; the work of presenting and elaborating is a theme by itself, and has been treated in a separate chapter.
1. Preparing the ground: Approach.
The art of "getting a good ready" is an art worth mastering. In sermon or Sunday-school lesson alike the beginning is the main concern. It is a good plan to seem to waste time at the start. Nine tenths plowing, harrowing, marking out, one tenth sowing, and (as we shall see) no looking for a crop at all, is a just proportion for the most of our lessons. We shall be always safe in counting upon a sufficient number of stony-ground hearers to justify us in clearing the ground, and making it mellow with interest and expectation. And even those who would receive the word with gladness cannot take it in unless they have something to grasp it with, cannot hear without something to hear with. And this must be given them by the teacher.
We are here at the very heart of the science of teaching. A little two-year-old child will serve us as an example. He is to be put in bed in a strange room, and is to go to sleep alone. Spring the idea upon him and he will reject it. Prepare him for it, by telling him a story of a little boy who went to bed in a new room, a new bed, and all alone, and he is eager for the hour of bed-time. When the time comes, the picture already in his mind, of a little boy, a new room, a peaceful going to bed, welcomes the actual experience, point for point. The wise mother has made a nest for the experience.
So might a teacher prepare the minds of his pupils to receive the idea of ninety millions of miles.
"If any one there in the sun fired off a cannon straight at you, what should you do?"
"Get out of the way," would be the answer.
"No need of that," the teacher might reply. "You may quietly go to sleep in your room, and get up again; you may learn a trade, and grow as old as I am—then only will the cannon-ball be getting near, then you may jump to one side! See, so great as that is the sun's distance!"
So writes a German teacher—explaining the law of apperception, of making a nest for the idea.
We cannot understand—cannot even see or hear—the absolutely new. Every new plan or way of looking at things, or doctrine, is received into the mind on one condition only—that it be introduced by a comrade already there. Then when the new idea calls from without, its fellow answers from within, and an entrance is effected.
The bearing of this upon our theme is illustrated by the plan of a school principal, recently described to me, to eradicate the plague of stealing that had broken out in the school. He talked to the pupils of giants, drew out the children's ideas, and by effective picture-work made the creatures out to be an ugly, uncanny crew. He then was ready to declare to the children that he had discovered a giant in the school, and in due time told them his name—Selfishness, I think it was—and then described his evil works. The moral of this story is that the plan worked, and stealing disappeared from the school from that day.
Who of us teachers might not be emulous of becoming thus skilful in mellowing the soil and making it warm in the genial sunshine of true picture-work?
2. Gathering the crop: Taste.
If deliberation is a virtue at the start, brevity and patience are a necessity at the finish. When the teacher has planted an interest-awakening picture in the minds of the children, his main work is done. He may safely leave them to make the application. He has supplied the cause; the effect will take care of itself. It is often convenient and suggestive to remember that children are not fools. "A child knows a thing or two," 'tis said, "before he knows much of anything." And one of the very first things he knows is how to put his finger on the moral in a story; and he can feel it long before he knows it. But that is when he is left to himself. If you take the helm, ten to one he'll know without feeling, which is the curse of us all. Better, if we must choose, that he feel without knowing in terms, than indulge in mere intellectual casuistry.
In your childish haste to have a crop or to see what was going on under ground, did you ever unearth the newly-planted row of peas? And was that row ever so green and straight and thick-standing as those that had been let alone? But the plants of love to God and moral taste are tenderer than these. They must be shined upon, warmed, and watered many days before they are ready to give an account of themselves. Love is a silent thing before it is outspoken. True feeling has few words, is not self-conscious, likes not to be asked questions. In its own good time it wells up and finds vent in deeds, and even in words.
The deepest thing a teacher does is to form taste. But all taste grows slowly, by unconscious accretion. The Chinese money-changer sets his apprentice at work handling good money only. For ten Years he touches nothing else. He can then detect a counterfeit coin. How? Perhaps he cannot tell how. His way is surer, deeper. He feels it. He has taste. So with the building of the taste for good books, for pictures, for nature. It is a slow process—many a book to be absorbed, picture seen and loved, and mountain and flower and sunset gazed upon, before taste is formed.
And the taste for godliness, for religion, is no exception. It is the finest and rarest of all tastes, and hence is the slowest and quietest of all in its development.
But did you ever see, in the hot house, shall we say, of the Sunday-school, seed sown, harvest reaped, yes, and cakes taken from the oven, within the limits of a single half hour? Does the figure halt, or was it a miraculous quickening of the processes of nature, or was it in truth a great mistake and a sin against natural spiritual growth?
There need be no fear, then, that the children will not feel, and in time know, the meaning, for them, of their stories and pictures. And a wise teacher well knows the ways of helping them: by questioning,notdirectly, and by hiding the moral so near the surface that it will come forth of itself.
The foregoing chapters have dealt chiefly with the theory of picture-work, answering the questions what and why. But practical teachers will go a step further and ask where to find and how to use materials, what to do first, what next, in becoming expert in using and making pictures, stories, and illustrations; in short, how to learn how. Those who are not of the practical sort should omit this chapter, and no one should expect to enjoy or profit by it who has not the time and the will to go through the exercises described.
Models.A study of some of the remarkable pictures of secular literature will reveal many points in story-telling.
Mark how Chaucer made such a picture of his Canterbury pilgrims that not only the color, the action, and the characters of the scene, but also the very atmosphere of the jolly crowd has been clear and vivid for more than four centuries.
Macaulay boasted that he would write a history which would supersede the latest novel on the tables of the young ladies of the day. How did he accomplish this? Read his "History of England" and learn the secret of the power to picture.
Study George Eliot's "Silas Marner" to learn how to tell a story. The interest never flags, the proper perspective is always maintained, light and shade are in due proportion, and the lesson to be learned is taken, not as a bitter dose, but as one drinks in the fresh air of a clear May morning.
Study pictures of Bible scenes by great masters to see what aspect of the scene—what moment of the event—the painter chose as the climax of interest and meaning. Although the aim in Sunday-school work is spiritual and not artistic, the heart will be reached more surely if the eyes are appealed to and a subordinate artistic aim is kept always in mind.
What is the favorite view-point in picturing Noah's ark (the procession—a source of never-failing interest to old and young—is a conspicuous feature); in Abraham's sacririfice (Andrea del Sarto seizes the moment when Abraham is about to slay Isaac and the ram appears in the thicket); in the early life of Moses? Note also the subjects in the life of Christ oftenest chosen by the artist.
In what parables does Christ choose a definite locality well known to his hearers, definite characters, a definite point and only one, a definite purpose, and a clearly defined and applied moral? In the presentation of which parables do wenotfind simple language, direct discourse, a dramatic style, and a question in order to drive home the point?
Try the effect of substituting in any one of the parables indirect discourse for direct, statements for questions.
Make a study of the Sermon on the Mount with a view of finding opportunities for picture-work.
On how many and on what occasions did Jesus use objects in his teaching? Might he not have gotten along without using the objects themselves on those occasions? What seems to have been his purpose? What was the result?
Seeing.Suppose that you were an artist searching in the Bible for scenes to paint:
1. What picture would you find in Matthew VIII., verse 1? verse 2? verse 3? verse 4? Can you see (and hear) each of these?
2. What isthepicture in the whole passage (verses 1-4)? How many elements has it, in respect of number, form, color, sound, atmosphere?
3. Which of these should be chosen in telling the story to children, and in what order?
4. How many pictures are there in verses 5-13? What is the central picture?
5. In verses 23-27. How many pictures are there in this passage? Which is the central picture? How would you lead the pupils to see it? What first? what next? what last?
6. In Matthew, chapters ix. and xiii. How many separate pictures are there? Which are the most important to try to see? What objects, pictures, drawings, maps, would you use in making it real to your class?
Construction.In the previous chapter there was brought out the need of adapting the stories of the Bible to the comprehension of modern hearers. Suggestions were given both for cutting down and filling in.
Choose a story, as of the brave Hebrew boys who stood by what they thought was right even in captivity; the young king who asked God to give him wisdom and whose way of ruling showed that his request had been granted; the shepherd boy whom the Lord chose; or choose an incident, or a period of a year of the life of Christ (as the "Year of Beginnings," the "Year of Popularity," the "Year of Opposition").
Subdivide each of these into smaller stories or incidents (Daniel, for instance, had three great tests, each complete in itself, and lived under three kings), then combine into a whole, applying the principles of story-telling and of adaptation.
Test your story by telling it to a child or a group of children. Tell the same story not once but many times.
Choice.Do not pad. Avoid diffuseness. Put in only those details that are salient—that leap out at you—that are necessary to the picture and the meaning. Any one can put in everything. It is only the born story-teller, or the one who will sit down by the side of a child and patiently observe the points that the child sees and likes to hear, that can be trusted to put in and to leave out just the right points.
Try writing out the story of Jonah, without the book. Compare your work with the original. How might you have been less diffuse? What necessary points did you omit? Did you use more or fewer general terms than the original? Were your words and expressions so picturesque as those in the text?
Examples.By way of illustrating the meaning of the foregoing points, it may be interesting to note the difference in concreteness,i.e., in thepicture, to be found in the following paragraphs, all of which are intended to mean practically the same thing.
(a) One bidden to obey and refusing, but afterward obeying, is a better example of obedience than one who obeys in word but not in deed.
(b) Some one who was requested to do something refused in word, but obeyed in deed; another complied, but only in word. Which was the better example of obedience?
(c) If some one in authority should tell some one to do something and he should refuse but afterward comply, and should tell another to do something and he should say that he would without doing so, which of these really would perform the will of the one who gave the command?
(d) A certain man had some children. One day he told one of them to go and do some work that he wanted him to do. But the child said that he wouldn't, etc.
(e) Compare with these the same thought clothed in the concrete and picturesque words of our Lord himself:
"But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to-day in my vineyard.
"He answered and said, I will not: but afterwards he repented, and went.
"And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not.
"Whether of them twain did the will of his father?"
It would be equally possible to take the same clear-cut, dramatic picture and load it down—smother it—with words. But this kind of picture-work it is unnecessary to illustrate.
Expression.Read each of the parables of Jesus, picturing in your mind everything that can be seen, heard, or felt. "Put yourself in his place" regarding every one spoken of. When you have thus pictured the story, and while you are picturing it, read aloud, or tell the story. The expression will take care of itself—if only you see and hear. In this simple principle is contained the whole art of expression,i.e., of giving forth something which is within.
Environment.What kind of country was Palestine? If Palestine were taken up from the shore of the Mediterranean and planted on your state, where would Dan and Beersheba lie respectively? Wherein did its divisions differ, in respect of people, surface, products, occupations?
The four routes of Christ's principal journeys are given as follows: Bethlehem to Jerusalem, 6 miles north; Bethlehem to Egypt, 250 miles southwest; Nazareth to Jericho, 60 miles southeast; Nazareth to Jerusalem, 65 miles south. Trace these routes on a sand map and on the blackboard. Describe the country passed through, the occupations of the people, the mode of travel, the length of time required.
Account for the roughness of the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.
What kind of place was Cæsarea Philippi, and what kind of stream is the Jordan at that point?
Sketching.The teacher should practice until he can make, with the flat crayon, something that looks like a mountain, a road, a tree—a scumble for the foliage and a stroke or two for the trunk, a man—two strokes will do for him (some teachers prefer to cut out pictures and pin them on the board). It must be admitted that this method of trial and error is dangerous. But there are self-taught teachers who do pretty well.
Map-drawing.To learn to sketch a map is a more hopeful task. Every one should be able to follow on pad or blackboard a campaign, a flight into Egypt, and a march up into Canaan; and to trace the journeys of Jesus and of Paul.
The following directions will be found helpful in drawing, free-hand and with only two construction lines, the map of Palestine:
Draw a horizontal line, and on it with the span of the hand, or with any convenient unit, measure three units, indicating their extremities by the figures 1, 2, 3, 4, from left to right. At the right extremity of this line, which we designate 4, draw a vertical line five units in length (4-9). From the upper extremity of this line draw to the left a line parallel to 1-4, one unit in length (9-10). Join points 1 and 10 with an irregular line, thus indicating the coast. A perpendicular let fall from 10 to 3 would indicate the course of the Jordan, the source lying nearly opposite 8, the Sea of Galilee opposite 7, the Dead Sea between 4 and 5; and Judæa, Samaria, Galilee, and Phœnicia will each occupy, roughly speaking, one and a half units. The principal mountains, cities, routes, may be indicated by initials, signs, or in any other appropriate ways. Each unit being 40 miles in length, the dimensions of Palestine and its parts may be derived. This same system may, of course, be used in drawing any map.
Miss Lucy Wheelock says that "the most satisfactory map is one which the teacher makes herself, drawing the outlines with a blue marking crayon on a sheet of white silesia, or finished cotton cloth, and putting in thin strips of wood or rollers at top and bottom, so that it will hang easily."
The sand table, especially with work for younger children, is indispensable. This every one can learn to make and manage and can fit out with the needed materials. Let no one shrink from the simple task of getting together the equipment and learning to model a map of Palestine.
The following description of the way of making a sand map of Palestine has been kindly furnished by Miss Juliet E. Dimock of Elizabeth, N.J., whose theory and practice in primary classes are alike admirable:
"Any carpenter will make for you a board, four feet six inches long, and two feet six inches wide, with a raised edge of one and one half inches. Paint the surface a bright blue, to represent the waters of the Mediterranean. Procure about fifty pounds of molders' sand from a stove foundry. The new sand is preferable to that which has been used for casting, owing to its lighter color. Study a good map of Palestine until you have a clear idea of the coast-line, the sea-coast plain, the mountain region, with its principal peaks, the Jordan valley, and the eastern table land."
(A relief map is desirable as a guide. The relative heights of mountains are given in Hurlbut's "Bible Geography." A cross-section of Palestine showing relief is given in the "Bible Study Union Lessons," Old Testament History, Progressive Grade, First Quarter, Appendix pp. (V.), (VI.). The Bible Study Publishing Co., 21 Bromfield Street, Boston, Mass.)
"Cut a paper pattern of the rivers and have them cut out of tin by a tinsmith. Use mirrors for the waters of Merom, the Dead Sea, and the Sea of Galilee, and white cord for the roads.
"When you are ready to go to work, place the board on a table and empty upon it your box of sand, which should be dampened until it can easily be molded by the hand. Raise the head of the board, until the children can see your work; if the sand is damp enough to keep its place, it can be inclined at an angle of forty-five degrees. At first the children will be interested in seeing you form the map; the coast-line, with its "camel's hump" for Mt. Carmel, the mountains, with snow-capped Hermon towering above them all, the seas, rivers, roads, and finally the white paper boats on the Mediterranean.
"Take five minutes every Sunday for a supplemental lesson on the history of the land, beginning with the first settlement of the country by the Canaanites, the family of Noah's grandson. Use the map also, whenever it is possible, to illustrate the lesson for the day; either as a map, or by building up the sand into a city, a garden, a temple, or a palace. The supplemental course might begin with the Garden of Eden, with as great a variety of trees, flowers, and animals, as may be easily obtained. And by turning the board around, the map of the ancient world may be made, and the stories of Noah, Babel, and Abram's journey from Ur of the Chaldees. Use small objects to make the places on the map, and replace them with initial blocks when the children are sufficiently familiar with the story to tell it to you. A very little ingenuity on the part of the teacher will suggest the objects to be used, which can be readily cut out of colored card-board.
"After school, return the sand to its box and pour at least a quart of water over it. It will then be in good condition for next Sunday's use."
Specifics.True picture-work has, as we have seen, a true bearing upon the question, How to help children conquer their faults. "Don't," even "Please don't," is ineffectual and unpedagogical. So is every means that is direct and negative instead of indirect and constructive. It is a thousand times easier to empty a tumbler of air by filling it with water than by the use of the air pump.
And so, just as we know that singing has a marvelous power to sweeten and calm the spirit of a young child, so a story is often the shortest and the most effective means to bring him to himself. A story is a specific. The right story will heal its proper disorder. There is danger here, 'tis true; "the intent to teach," as Herbart writes, spoils it all. Stories should be given as food rather than as medicine. There is all the greater need, therefore, for practice.
Find, adapt, make up stories to meet the needs of a child who is idle; of one who is mean, lacks self-control, is slovenly, careless, untruthful, etc.
Texts.On the other hand, it is just as necessary that illustrations attach themselves to their proper principles, as that principles find the concrete key that will serve as their open sesame into the child's mind.
Mr. Barrie tells of a newspaper writer who never conversed five minutes with a friend without getting a suggestion for a leader or a "story." The teacher ought to be no less fertile in finding texts, and in pressing everything he meets—whether in books, in newspapers, or on the street—into the service of the Sunday-school lesson.
For example, the street car on which you ride to school or to business in the morning suddenly stops. It stands still three, five, fifteen minutes. You are late. Twenty others are late. Reason, a careless truck-driver has driven an inch too near the track. What does this illustrate?
A pound of cotton, worth a few cents, may be made into yarn and become worth more; into chintz and be worth still more, etc. What is the truth hidden in this fact?
A thoughtful teacher, in reply to the question, "What stories have you found especially helpful?" contained in the blank on story-telling (Chapter X.), gave the following:
"Cato's words, 'Carthage must be destroyed' (the power of words); Hercules at the parting of the ways (the necessity of choice); Macbeth's 'I have lived long enough' (the end of a wasted life); The Ancient Mariner—'He prayeth best' (the secret of prayer); the parable of the wicked husbandmen (irreverence)."
The teacher should be a capitalist. He should not run dry every Sunday, and fill in during the week only enough for the next lesson; as a schoolboy who fills his mind with facts and empties it on examination day. The true teacher is independent of the "Quarterly." He uses it but does not lean on it. For the facts there given are, as a rule, isolated, and so half dead; the illustrations are at best warmed over. Neither can give a strong head of steam. There is not enough, and what there is is cold.
Other remedies for this condition are suggested elsewhere. Here it is urged that the teacher must be a reader of books. The following are given as types. They have been selected after searching the lists of many publishers, and are recommended only after a personal examination:
Books Telling the Story of the Bible.
There are many Bible stories for children, some of them good, but most of them far from ideal when both the story and the pictures are considered. Those with highly colored, gaudy pictures should be shunned as they tend to give low ideals morally and spiritually as well as to corrupt the child's artistic taste. To publish a story of the Bible with illustrations taken only from great masters is a good work waiting for some one who wishes to be of service to the world.
"The Story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation," by Charles Foster. Charles Foster Publishing Co., Philadelphia, Pa. 75 cents.
Of the many Bible stories published this is the most complete and the most popular. In the matter of pictures, however, it is poor.
"Children's Treasury of Bible Stories," by Mrs. Herman Gaskoin. Macmillan & Co. Three parts, 18mo, 30 cents each.
The best Bible story we have found. It is most suggestive and interesting, showing how to picture Bible scenes.
"Stories from the Bible," Rev. Alfred J. Church. Macmillan & Co. 256 pp., $1.25.
Excellent as giving a condensed account of the Bible narrative in Bible language. The teacher who uses these stories will often find it necessary to supplement them with suitable introductions and side-lights.
"The Sweet Story of Old," by Mrs. Haskell. Dutton. 4to, 50 cents.
A small book of Bible stories for young children, with pictures which are quite good.
"First Steps for Little Feet," by Charles Foster. Charles Foster Publishing Co. 50 cents.
Bible stories told in simple language for the youngest children. Fair outline pictures.
"The Story of Jesus," by Louisa T. Craigin. Illustrated with one hundred full-page illustrations from the designs of Alexander Bida, together with many other pictures of the Holy Land. Fords, Howard & Hulbert. $10.00.
A beautiful and sympathetic account of the life of Jesus, especially rich in descriptions of Palestine and in other materials for word-pictures. The numerous pictures of landscapes and scenes from the life of Christ are helpful.
The same in paper covers in 15 numbers, 50 cents each.
"From Olivet to Patmos." The First Christian Century in Picture and Story. By Louisa Seymour Houghton. American Tract Society. $1.50.
"The Life of Christ in Picture and Story," by Louisa Seymour Houghton. American Tract Society. $1.25.
The last two books contain some poorly executed but well-chosen pictures of Bible lands, showing architecture, costumes, street scenes, etc.
Books About Palestine.
"The Land and the Book," by W. M. Thomson. Harper & Bros. $8.00, $6.00.
Recommended by a high authority as the best book on Palestine for a teacher who can own only one.
"Boy Travelers in Egypt and the Holy Land," by T. W. Knox. Harper & Bros. $3.00.
"Sinai and Palestine in Connection with their History," by Dean Stanley. A. C. Armstrong. $2.50.
An excellent standard work.
"Pictured Palestine," by James Neill. Anson D. Randolph. $2.25.
Shows the contrast between eastern life and our own. Very good pictures illustrating many phases of oriental life.
"In Scripture Lands." Scribner's. $3.50.
Beautiful pictures.
"Earthly Foot-Prints of the Man of Galilee," by Bishop John H. Vincent, D.D., LL.D., Jas. W. Lee, D.D., Robert E. M. Bain. New York and St. Louis: N. D. Thompson Publishing Co. $4.75.
Four hundred fine, large photographic views and descriptions of places connected with the earthly life of our Lord and his apostles.
Books on the Use of Stories and Illustrations.
"The Use of Stories in the Kindergarten," by Anna Buckland. Ginn & Co. 15 cents.
"The Place of the Story in Early Education," by Sara E. Wiltse. Ginn & Co. 132 pp., 50 cents.
Two suggestive and helpful essays that every teacher should read.
"Yale Lectures on Preaching," by Henry Ward Beecher. Fords, Howard & Hulbert. $2.00.
An inspiring book. The chapter on "Rhetorical Illustrations" is especially applicable, but the entire work, although written for preachers, has rich stores of instruction and guidance for teachers.
"The Art of Illustration," by C. H. Spurgeon. Wilbur B. Ketchum. $1.25.
A book by a master giving the secret of his art.
Stories and Themes.
"Parables from Nature," by Margaret Gatty. Macmillan & Co. 2 vols., 18mo, $1.50.
A wonderful book, in which nature is used to typify spiritual truths. It should be owned by every mother and teacher.
"Parables. Laws of Nature and Life, or Science applied to Character," by Louisa Parsons Hopkins. Lee & Shepard. 15 cents.
Brief and suggestive.
"Stories of the Saints," by Mrs. C. Van D. Chenoweth. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. $1.00.
Supplies a want which should be more "felt" than it is. Is it not as important that our children should know the story of Christian saints and martyrs as that of Greek gods and heroes?
"Kindergarten Stories and Morning Talks," by Sara E. Wiltse. Ginn & Co. 212 pp., 75 cents.
"Stories for Kindergartens and Primary Schools," by Sara E. Wiltse. Ginn & Co. 50 cents.
"A Brave Baby and Other Stories," by Sara E. Wiltse. Ginn & Co. 50 cents.
These three books are storehouses of inspiration and models of story-telling.
"Child Stories from the Masters," by Maude Menefee. Kindergarten Literature Co., Chicago. $1.00.
An excellent selection of themes from poets, dramatists, and the Bible. The teacher will do well to study the originals and try to improve upon the stories given.
"Child's Christ-Tales," by Andrea Hofer. Woman's Temple, Chicago. $1.00.
Choice illustrations from the masters. Suggestive tales and parables.
"The Kindergarten Sunday-School," by Frederika Beard. Kindergarten Publishing Co., Woman's Temple, Chicago.
An attempt to solve the infant class problem. Three series of lessons, each having sequence and unity. Suggestive in its plan, and likely to help teachers to improve upon the models given.
Books to be Read for the Sake of a Better Understanding of Child Nature.
"Study of Child Nature," by Elizabeth Harrison. Chicago Kindergarten Training School. $1.00.
"Children's Rights," by Kate Douglas Wiggin. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. $1.00.
"A Boy's Town," by W. D. Howells. Harper & Bros., New York. $1.25.
"Being a Boy," by Charles Dudley Warner. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. $1.25.
"The Story of a Bad Boy," by T. B. Aldrich. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. $1.25.
"The Mill on the Floss," by George Eliot. Harper & Bros. Popular ed. 75 cents.
"Cuore, An Italian Schoolboy's Journal," by Edmondo de Amicis. N.Y. Crowell. Illustrated edition. $1.50.
Pictures and Books from which Pictures may be Culled.
"The Life of Christ as Treated in Art," by F. W. Farrar, D.D., F.R.S. Macmillan & Co. $8.00, $5.00.
"The Christ Child in Art," by Henry Van Dyke. Harper & Bros. $4.00.
"Sacred and Legendary Art," by Mrs. Anna Jameson. Longmans, Green & Co. 2 vols., 16mo. $2.50.
"The History of Our Lord as Exemplified in Works of Art," by Mrs. Anna Jameson. Illustrated. 2 vols. Longmans, Green & Co. $8.00.
All the above are standard works and are excellent.
"The Earthly Footprints of Our Risen Lord," by Fleming H. Revell. 4to. $1.50.
A continuous narrative of the four gospels according to the revised version, illustrated by numerous half-tone pictures. The selection is not so choice as one could wish, yet many of the pictures are by the best artists, and present a consecutive pictorial story of the life of Christ.
"The Photographs of the Holy Land." Globe Bible Publishing Co., Philadelphia. $3.00. The same in cheaper style in eight portfolios at 10 cents apiece.
Photographs of classic and modern pictures of the child Jesus and of other Biblical subjects. Unmounted, card size, 3¾ cents each; cabinet size, 7½ cents each. A catalogue in German will be sent on application. R. Tamme, Dresden, Germany.
There is no duty on pictures.
Blue print copies of pictures of Biblical scenes by the old masters and by modern artists. Mr. Alfred A. Hart, 221 West 109th Street, New York City. Card size, one cent each.
Clear, durable, excellent; of a kind likely to develop good taste. The low price makes it possible to encourage children to make collections of their own. A single secular school has used over twelve thousand of these pictures.
The Christmas catalogues of publishers often contain serviceable pictures.
The standard histories of art are full of illustrative material. The teacher should be ever on the alert.
Objective Helps; Blackboard Sketches.
Cards for children to prick and sew. Bible Study Publishing Co., 21 Bromfield Street, Boston, Mass.
Scroll of history. See "The Modern Sunday School," p. 297. John H. Vincent.
Sunday-school Museum. Read description of one at Akron, in "The Modern Sunday School," p. 301.
Illustrative Blackboard Sketching, by W. Bertha Hintz. E. L. Kellogg & Co. 53 pp. 30 cents.
A helpful guide designed for those entirely ignorant of the art of drawing, who nevertheless like to work out their own way of putting a lesson, for the eye as well as for the ear, in preference to ready-made blackboard exercises and "pictured truth" at second hand.
A book on helps, to be truly helpful, must deal with negative as well as with positive matters—those things which we ought to leave undone as well as those we ought to do. Any treatment of true picture-work is lacking in completeness, not to say in candor, which does not say a word about false picture-work.
If there were only some way of crawling into the inside of the children's brains, and marking the effect of the alliterations, juxtapositions, and symbolisms of what goes by the name of picture-work! Can't we devise a meter for estimating the precise emotional and spiritual value of a board filled with marks in various colors in the form of anchors, hearts, keys, crosses, not to mention other less sacred things?
I once saw a "chalk talk" given to two hundred Sunday-school children.Dramatis personæ: three parrots; one unrecognizable, it was so badly drawn; a second, indifferent; the third, capital, a speaking likeness. The last was perched on S. T. Moral: "Honesty is the best policy." The children were as delighted as if the text had been taken from the Bible and as interested in the display as if it had possessed the slightest value.
"But," it is urged, "the children are always interested in such things." Yes, and they would be more interested still if you showed them a monkey or displayed red, green, and blue lights. The law of interest tells us what shallnotbe placed before the children—"Nothing that is not interesting"—but as a guide to what weshallgive them it tells but half the story. The other half is, "Not everything that is interesting, and not anything just because it is interesting."
Let this caution not be misunderstood. The children must use their eyes. To expect children to follow your stories by ear, and make up their mind-pictures out of whole cloth or from the few objects and pictures that can be shown them, or to remember texts and lesson points out of hand, is to suppose them ready to graduate into the senior department. Let us have more blackboards. An individual board for every pupil, if possible, and the more use—wise use—of blackboards the better. But many "blackboardists" have yet to learn that it is possible to be apt without being alliterative, that one may be extravagant without being effective, sensational without being spiritual. In short, they seem not to understand that common sense applies even to blackboard work.
What are the points in good blackboard work? To be quite dogmatic, for the sake of brevity, good blackboard work is:
1. Simple. "Blackboard ingenuities, dissolving from acrostic into enigma, and from enigma into rhyme are not necessary" and they are harmful besides. They distract, distort, make dizzy. The best blackboard work has the fewest lines, the most unity in its variety, the least approach to anything like a maze.
2. Clear. The best blackboard work is that which is easiest to follow, hardest to forget.
3. Varied. Our stock symbols are worked to death. Is itrightto use the cross as commonly as you would a letter of the alphabet? Find something new or give the blackboard a vacation. It is not necessary that there be a quarter hour on every day's program for blackboard work. Who has not spent a "bad quarter of an hour" when the "exercise" was perfunctory?
4. Descriptive. All maps and plans, sketches of roads and rooms, of mountains and rivers, are good, because they help us to form for ourselves the picture which we must see in order to grasp the meaning of the story. For example, we may illustrate the Mount of Transfiguration; first with four figures, then six, then four; the winding road to Emmaus, two figures—straight lines, merely—and a little farther on, a third; the upper room, its occupants represented by marks or initial letters. Anything is helpful that gives a notion of position, number, form, contrast, sequence, change.
5. Free, living, personal. The best blackboard work is that which is freest. Children are impressionists. For them the broad side of the crayon is better than the point; two strokes better than twenty.
The best blackboard work is that which grows before the children's eyes, which is made, not unveiled. Two minutes of rough sketching in the lesson hour is better than two hours of patient putting in of finishing touches beforehand.
The best blackboard work is that which is original, personal. That which is given in the "lesson helps" is just what you should not use. It is not yours. If it does not help you to find your own way, it is useless—and worse than useless, because it tempts you to borrow without inspiring you to create.
6. In fine, the mission of the blackboard, as of all picture-work, is to help us to see the truth in the world or the truth in our own selves by showing us a truth that is easier to see or that is nearer at hand than that which we would learn.
Like all picture-work, it fulfills its mission when it serves as a scaffolding, when it is kept subordinate. It fails when it obscures the truth, not helps to build it. False picture-work is anything that stands in the way of our seeing truth; as when we cannot see the woods for the trees—cannot see the Sunday-school lesson for the bizarre exhibitions on the blackboard.