THE PUPIL

Leaders of classes, and individuals pursuing these studies apart from classes, are urged to read the chapter entitled "Teaching Hints," on page259, before beginning this section

1.There never was a time when so many people were students of human life as to-day. Professional men, business men, politicians, educators, parents, indeed the whole thinking world has apparently matriculated in a college of life. What is it, how does it develop, how may it be influenced, how led to action? These are typical questions to which answers are sought. There would be no value in this study were it not for the fact that life, like all other of God's creations, is under law, and the laws are unchangeable and universal. Certain causes will always produce certain results under normal conditions.

2.Since these laws of life may be known, two conclusions follow: first, results which are desired in a life can be intelligently planned for; second, haphazard, ignorant work with a life becomes culpable in proportion to the issues at stake and the opportunity for acquiring skill in the work.

3. Why the Sunday-school Teacher should know the Pupil.—Next to fathers and mothers, the duty of understanding life is laid most imperatively upon Sunday-school teachers. Four unanswerable arguments present themselves as proof.

(1)The issues are the most vital in the world.The case the lawyer seeks to win is important, but the case the teacher seeks to win involves character, not reputation, and the outcome is eternal.

(2)A mistake with a life cannot be wholly rectified.There is a best time for each phase of work with a life—a time to form habits and store memory, a time to shape ideals and to crystallize life purposes, a time to broaden sympathies and to lead to service; if this best time be passed, the results, if obtainable at all later, come with greater effort and with less success.

(3)The time is short.Measured on the dial, an hour in a week or a lifetime out of an eternity is too brief to allow of one wasted moment, one experimental or ignorant touch upon a soul. But measured by the duration of a given opportunity the time is shorter still. Conditions in the life are constantlychanging, never to return in the same way again. What is done in "buying up the opportunity," must be done quickly.

(4)Success is largely conditioned upon obedience to God's laws.Only the Holy Spirit can make spiritual work effective, but he always operates in accordance with God's laws. There are conditions between the teacher and God which must be met before he can work, and conditions between the teacher and the pupil. These conditions or laws are not hidden and mysterious, but may be definitely known, and in proportion as they are obeyed will God have access to the soul of the pupil.

4. What the Teacher Should Know about the Pupil.—Every teacher owes to God and to the life he seeks to touch a twofold knowledge: first, a knowledge of the general laws in all life, and second, a knowledge of the individual life of each pupil.

(1)General knowledge.Since the purpose of this study of the pupil is to afford a general knowledge of life, four preliminary statements will suffice in this connection.

(a) Life is constantly changing. This change is evident in growth or increase in size and development or increase in power. It occurs not only in the body but the soul as well, or that part of life which is not physical, and is a result of nourishing food and proper exercise. The Sunday-school has recognized this fact of change by its division of the life of the pupil into six periods, Beginners, Primary, Junior, Intermediate, Senior, and Adult. These periods mark different stages in development.(b) Each period has certain predominant characteristics and out of these characteristics arise definite opportunities and needs. To meet these opportunities and needs is the goal of work for each period. The final goal of developed Christian character can be attained only through reaching the goal of each period.(c) Development is gradual, constant and progressive. The soul comes into the world containing infinite but undeveloped possibilities. The unfolding is gradual and constant as the possibilities are called out by the needs of the life. There is also an order in unfolding. The soul develops power for simple mental processes first and for thecomplex later: interest in self first and in others later; consciousness of the natural first, the spiritual later. The teacher who knows God's order, obeys his laws and waits his time is the teacher whose seed sowing is reaped in the hundredfold harvest.(d) It is impossible to ignore the physical and mental side of the pupil and be successful in spiritual work with him. The lesson cannot reach the soul save by way of physical senses and a physical brain and mental processes identical with those necessary in apprehending a history lesson. The Holy Spirit applies the truth to the life but he has only so much to apply as has been received into the mind. Therefore pure air and bodily comfort, acute senses and obedience to the laws of the mind are as surely linked with spiritual work as prayer.

(b) Each period has certain predominant characteristics and out of these characteristics arise definite opportunities and needs. To meet these opportunities and needs is the goal of work for each period. The final goal of developed Christian character can be attained only through reaching the goal of each period.

(c) Development is gradual, constant and progressive. The soul comes into the world containing infinite but undeveloped possibilities. The unfolding is gradual and constant as the possibilities are called out by the needs of the life. There is also an order in unfolding. The soul develops power for simple mental processes first and for thecomplex later: interest in self first and in others later; consciousness of the natural first, the spiritual later. The teacher who knows God's order, obeys his laws and waits his time is the teacher whose seed sowing is reaped in the hundredfold harvest.

(d) It is impossible to ignore the physical and mental side of the pupil and be successful in spiritual work with him. The lesson cannot reach the soul save by way of physical senses and a physical brain and mental processes identical with those necessary in apprehending a history lesson. The Holy Spirit applies the truth to the life but he has only so much to apply as has been received into the mind. Therefore pure air and bodily comfort, acute senses and obedience to the laws of the mind are as surely linked with spiritual work as prayer.

(2)Specific knowledge.Though all lives possess the same general characteristics and are under the same general laws, no two lives are identical. Some unfold more rapidly than others, some have larger capacity and more latent possibilities than others and all are in differing circumstances. It is this variation that makes individuality, and the more perfect the adaptation of the teacher's work to the individual the greater the teacher's success.

Again, each life is immeasurably influenced by its environment. No teacher can understand a pupil without knowing what has entered into his life. "I am a part of all that I have met." The home and the daily surroundings are the explanation of what the pupil is and an index to what he needs. This specific knowledge can come only through close personal observation and sympathetic intimacy with the pupil. In this intimacy is revealed the pathway to the heart, as it winds through ambitions and interests and love. Unless the teacher find this path to the tender, responsive place whose gateway each soul keeps for itself, the seed must fall on the stony ground where germination is impossible.

1. Since laws of life are known, what two conclusions follow?

2. Give four reasons why the Sunday-school teacher should know the pupil.

3. What twofold knowledge about the pupil should the teacher have?

4. How has the Sunday-school recognized the changing life of the pupil?

5. Give three characteristics of development.

6. How may specific knowledge of the pupil be gained by the teacher?

5. General Characteristics

(1)Absorption.The Beginners period, together with the Primary, Junior, and Intermediate periods, is pre-eminently the absorptive time of life. As the possibilities of the soul begin to awaken, curiosity, imitation, imagination, feeling and all the manifold expressions of its power, they require food and exercise just as the body requires them to develop strength. Hence these years of most rapid development are the years of greatest hunger, physical and mental, of greatest capacity to receive and assimilate, and of greatest activity.

(2)Rounded development.These periods are also the years of rounded development. Every part of the body is growing and every power of the soul. While development is not perfectly symmetrical and balanced, as for example, feeling developing strength before reason, imagination before self-control, it is nevertheless all-sided and requires in consequence nourishment and activity in every part.

Conditions change as maturity approaches and development becomes more and more narrowed to a special line. The muscles of the blacksmith's arm increase in strength, the fingers of the violinist grow more flexible, the imagination of the poet more beautiful, the analytic power of the lawyer more keen, until physical and mental power begin to break; but, outside of the specialty, growth and development practically cease because of the cessation of nourishment and activity on other sides.

6. Special Characteristics

(1)Restlessness. This is the most restless period of all the Sunday-school life. A surplus of activity is generated in the body, and it must be expended if the child is to be in a healthy condition, as well as in a normal, happy mental state.

But the outgo of this activity should do more than merely reduce pressure, as the escape of steam from a safety valve. It is a law of life that we both understand and retain most thoroughly the thing we do. This abounding activity is God's great provision for enabling the child to make his own that which he is receiving through his senses. It is handling and eating the apple that makes him understand what it is. It is playing that he is the father or the Sunday-school teacher, performing the act of helpfulness and love that enables him to enter into the meaning of these relations and duties of life.

The problem of the Sunday-school teacher then is not "How can I keep the child still," but "How can I make this activity teach the child;" for, re-emphasizing the thought, "The child understands and remembers the action far better than the admonition."

(2)Imitation.The activity of this period is distinctly imitative. Just as the child must learn to form letters by copying them before he can develop an individual style of writing, so he must learn right action by imitating it before he can be independent and original. Every time a child imitates an action he understands its meaning better, he fixes it more securely in memory and he also makes its repetition so much the easier.

It is important, therefore, to note what he naturally imitates. In this period it is some definite act, not the spirit nor life of the actor. He does not aspire to resemble the character of the teacher, but he does try to speak and move and look as she does. As the action is performed, the life unconsciously but surely becomes like the one who is imitated.

(3)Curiosity.Because the child has everything to learn God has made him want to learn everything. As physical hunger arouses an effort to supply the need for physical food, so mental hunger or curiosity arouses an effort to supply mental food. It is most active in the period of greatest absorption, when the life must store for future use. There are two points in relation to curiosity which it is important for the Sunday-school teacher to remember.

(a) Its field of operation, or that toward which it is directed. Curiosity is selective, going out only toward those things in which the life is interested. In this period the child's interests are in activities in Nature and everyday life and in the things about him; but he desires toknow only the simplest facts concerning them. What the object is, where it came from, and what it will do, usually satisfy his curiosity regarding it. The teacher, therefore, is guided in the selection of what shall be given the child in a lesson.(b) Its channels of operation or that through which it acts. The channels through which curiosity reaches out for knowledge and brings back the results of its search are the senses. Every waking moment finds them taking in sensations which are carried to the brain through the nervous system. The more perfect the senses in their working the more correct the message they bring. Failure to learn and inattention are usually caused by some defect in the senses or other part of the body.While an adult can arrive at new ideas through other ideas, the child must receive practically all his ideas through his senses. This guides the teacher as to the method of presenting the lesson.

(b) Its channels of operation or that through which it acts. The channels through which curiosity reaches out for knowledge and brings back the results of its search are the senses. Every waking moment finds them taking in sensations which are carried to the brain through the nervous system. The more perfect the senses in their working the more correct the message they bring. Failure to learn and inattention are usually caused by some defect in the senses or other part of the body.

While an adult can arrive at new ideas through other ideas, the child must receive practically all his ideas through his senses. This guides the teacher as to the method of presenting the lesson.

(4)Fancy.This is the early form of imagination, unleashed and untrammeled, which transforms objects, gives soul to inanimate things and creates for the child his own beautiful play world.

(5)Self-interest.The beginner himself is the center of his little world. His thinking and his feeling revolve around his own personality, and his own advantage is the thing he constantly seeks. This is God's order of development. The consideration for others will follow later, but even now the child may be led into loving, unselfish acts through imitation and personal influence.

(6)Faith.Perhaps the better term in the beginning would be credulity, for faith is confidence which has a basis in knowledge, and knowledge does not necessarily enter into a child's belief. Anything an older person tells him is accepted unquestioningly, no matter of what sort it may be.

This means a great responsibility and an unequaled opportunity in the matter of religious instruction. The stories of God's power and the love of Jesus Christ are absorbed into the life, neither proof nor explanation being necessary nor indeedcomprehensible. As the stories multiply in the home and the Sunday-school that which was credulity at first becomes genuine faith. The child does not reason that God will do because he has done, but a feeling of the Divine strength and love grips him and out of this feeling grows loving confidence in the One who first loved him. If a child passes through the Beginners department without this response, his teacher has been out of touch with her Lord.

1. What are the age limits of the Beginners period?

2. What are the general characteristics of the Beginners Age?

3. What are some of the characteristics of these years of absorption?

4. What is meant by rounded development?

5. Name six special characteristics of the Beginners Age.

6. What is the purpose of a child's abounding activity?

7. What is gained by a child when he imitates an action?

8. What two points about a child's curiosity is it important for a teacher to know?

9. Who is the center of the little child's world?

10. By what means is true faith developed in a child?

7. Opportunities of the Beginners Age.—(1)Shaping character through influence.There are two ways of touching a life—the one through definite instruction, which must be understood to avail anything; the other through unconscious influence which is felt, not necessarily comprehended. The mind of the beginner is awake and active, but he can grasp little instruction beyond simplest facts about concrete things. Right and wrong, unselfishness, love, all the abstract standards and principles of life, he cannot comprehend intellectually, but he absorbs the influences that go out from them, and what is felt is always more powerful than that which lodges only in the head. During the first six years of life the child is peculiarly sensitive to every influence that comes to him out of his environment, and these,—not instruction,—determine what he shall be. No amount of teaching upon the subject of flowers and birds and trees can arouse the joy and gratitude which a drive through the country on a glorious spring morning awakens. No number of lessons upon self-control will make the impression upon the heart which the sight of it in another makes. The child cannot understand the nature and necessity of reverence, but he will feel it, if that be the influence of the Sunday-school hour.

(2)Shaping character through imitation.The actions in this period which result from instruction are few compared to those which come from the instinct of imitation; therefore what the teacher is unable to do through precept she can accomplish through the power of example and story.

(3)Imparting simple spiritual truths.These must be truths with whose earthly likenesses the child is familiar. This will make possible stories of God's power as Creator, his love and care as Heavenly Father, stories of Jesus as the loving Friend and Helper of little children, and the necessity of obedience to his commands.

8. Needs of the Beginners Age.—If the opportunities of this period are to be realized, four things are necessary:

(1)A Christlike teacher.While influences go out from everything,—people, circumstances, conditions, even inanimate, senseless things,—a human life radiates the strongest influence. It has a twofold effect upon a little child: he not only feels the influence, but it also moves him to imitate the person. He may forget the lesson, he may not have comprehended it at all, but he has absorbed the teacher during the hour and he will try to reproduce what she has said and done even to her very tone, expression, and manner. If his model be a gentle voice or a loving word, the very act of imitating it makes him gentler and more tender, and what exhortation may not secure, influence and imitation will bring. Therefore a teacher will do her strongest work with a beginner by being like Jesus Christ.

(2)A suggestive atmosphere.Atmosphere represents the sum total of all the influences at a given time. The soft music of the organ, the dim light, the stillness, the attitude of prayer, all create an atmosphere to which reverence and worship are the natural response. In confusion and bustle, with loud voice and impatient movement on the part of the teacher, there could be only restlessness and irreverence and inattention on the part of the child. The atmosphere must suggest to the pupil that which the teacher desires from him, be he beginner or adult, for feeling and action are more influenced by atmosphere than admonition. The greatest work for the hour will have been accomplished if the child shall feel that the Lord was in that place, though he knew it not, intellectually.

(3)Right direction of activity.The activity of the child may prevent his receiving any benefit from the instruction, or it may be the most effective means for fastening impressions. It is such a constant and prominent factor in the problem of the hour's work that the teacher must plan beforehand just how it shall be directed. In addition to opportunities for general movement, such as rising for songs, or marching, every thought given to the child should have some action immediately connected with it as far as possible, both to help him remember it and make it easier for succeeding actions to follow. For exampleif the lesson is upon helpfulness, each child should be led into doing something for his neighbor before he leaves. A prayer attitude should accompany prayer. As this is the rhythmic period, motions which the children themselves suggest may accompany the songs. The results of directing the activity into helpful channels will be found in better memory of the lesson and in the starting of right habits of action.

(4)An imitable activity in the lesson.In simplest facts set forth in a story of a person, not in exhortation, the lesson must make vivid and attractive an activity which the child can imitate. The more realistic the portrayal, the more surely will the child attempt to reproduce it.

9. Difficulties in the Beginners Age.—The difficulties of this period arise largely from the child's immaturity and are to be overcome by adaptation of methods and instruction.

(1)Restlessness and lack of self-control, making sustained attention impossible.A program consisting of brief exercises, varied in character, full of interest, and permitting frequent movement, will meet this condition.

(2)Limited experience and scanty store of ideas.This necessitates careful selection of teaching material, that spiritual truth outside the child's comprehension be not forced upon him, since he can grasp only that which is like something that he knows.

(3)A limited vocabulary.This calls for watchful care in language, particularly lest a familiar word be used in a sense unfamiliar to the child.

(4)A conflicting home atmosphere.When the child absorbs influences that lack Jesus Christ during seven days in the week, only a teacher filled with Divine life and power can effect counter-conditions more powerful in the brief time of her contact.

10. Results to be Expected in the Beginners Age.—Summing up the results already suggested, the work in the Beginners department will make its impress upon the feelings of the child, primarily. He will have learned some truths about the Heavenly Father, and his Son Jesus Christ, and there is an intellectual value in these. But this value cannot compare with that of the love and trust which come unconsciously, yetreally, into his soul, if the teacher has done her work with God.

1. In what two ways may life be touched?

2. Give illustrations of what is known as "unconscious influence."

3. What methods accomplish more than precepts with Beginners?

4. What spiritual truths can be taught in this period?

5. Name four needs of the Beginners Age.

6. What is meant by "atmosphere"? How utilized?

7. How may the child's activity be given the right direction?

8. Name four difficulties in the Beginners period.

9. How may restlessness be overcome?

10. What special care is needed in the teacher's choice of words?

11. What are some of the results to be expected in the Beginners Age?

11. General Characteristics of the Primary Age.—The Beginner is easily traced in the Primary child, but more developed and stronger. Two general characteristics may be specially mentioned:

(1)Broader interests.Curiosity is increasingly active concerning things with which the senses come in contact, yet the child in the Primary period is able to reach beyond that which he can see or handle. He cares nothing for abstractions like missions, or patriotism, or temperance, but his interest is genuine in the people and actions back of the abstraction. It is a law of the soul that interest in a certain thing will extend to other things related to it. This makes it possible for the teacher to take the child far into the field of knowledge, provided the starting-point be something in which the child is naturally interested.

(2)Greater mental power.While the child does not reason as an adult, he enjoys thinking for himself. The Primary teacher who gives him predigested lessons, tells him everything in the picture, asks no questions, and does not lead him on to arrive at any conclusions for himself, not only fails to obtain results that are possible, but really retards the child's development. Personal effort must precede increase of strength in soul as well as body.

12. Special Characteristics of the Primary Age.

(1)Physical activity.In place of the restlessness of the preceding period, activity directed toward more definite ends appears. It is very important that the activity be expended rightly, since its use in every action strengthens some one of the rapidly forming habits.

(2)Power of perception.This is the ability of the mind to understand the sensations which senses and nerves send to the brain, or to interpret their meaning; as, for example, to know that the round yellow ball is an orange, or to recognize the differentdetails in a picture. Perception grows constantly more quick and active as the child's store of knowledge increases. Two things must be remembered: (a) the teacher must be sure that the first idea of anything is the correct one, for it will be eradicated with difficulty, and upon it all future thinking in that line will be based; (b) since each sensation produces an idea embodying itself, and it is on these ideas that the soul is nourished, character must grow in quality like its food. "Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are."

(3)Memory.The mind has greater power to retain that which is given to it than in the preceding period, though it holds these facts disconnectedly rather than related into systematic knowledge, as they will be later. But this power of retention must not be abused through storing memory with a quantity of useless material. That which is impressed upon the plastic, non-resisting cells of the child's brain ought to have some immediate meaning and value for the life at a time when the intellectual and spiritual needs are so many.

(4)Imagination.This is the power of the mind to make living and real that which is not present to the senses. It is one of the most striking characteristics of the Primary period and one of the most important as well. The imagination works only with concrete things in childhood, making new objects out of the old, making the story and the mental picture as real as the tangible experience, making Jesus an actual present Helper and Friend. Later it will work with abstract ideas and ideals of life formed from the pictures it has cherished.

13. Opportunities of the Primary Age.

(1)Character building through the mental picture.Abstract ideas about which the mind reasons do not have power over the soul of the child. It is the vivid picture which imagination holds that arouses the feeling and impels the action. So great is the power of the picture that the teacher need not exhort and admonish concerning what ought to be done. She only need set forth the action in a story that appeals, and imagination will do the rest. While very many of these pictures come unconsciously to the child from his environment, it is the privilege of the teacher definitely and carefully to provide the highest type ofmental picture through the well-selected story, in order to secure the finest action.

(2)Increased knowledge of Bible facts.The lesson may contain more than in the earlier period, because the child's interest in details has increased and he has greater power of attention. It is important to note, however, in what the increase may consist. It is not in the number of truths presented in the lesson, but in the number of details concerning the one truth for which the lesson stands. Since the mind has developed new power to hold the impressions which are made upon it, Scripture verses containing fundamental truths, like God's love and care, the duty of love toward him and others, and the necessity of obedience may be given, with explanation, for memorizing.

(3)Service prompted through imitation and personal influence.The activity should even now be tracing pathways in the brain that shall mean life habits of loving service for others. There is this difference, however, between service in childhood and later. The motives must now be supplied and strengthened by others; later the promptings will come from within.

14. Needs of the Primary Age.—In addition to the needs mentioned in the Beginners period, and which still obtain, there are two to be especially borne in mind.

(1)The absolute necessity of knowing how to make spiritual truth live in story form.The child can receive it in no other way, and there is therefore no substitute for a rightly prepared story given by a spiritually prepared teacher.

(2)The necessity for the child to learn obedience in the use of his activity.This is to be secured not by force, but because the one to whom it is to be rendered wins it through love and the power of personality.

15. Difficulties in the Primary Age.—There will still be difficulties in attention and in confining the instruction to that which the child can really grasp, but the greatest difficulty will center about the activity. Yet the whole problem will be solved with no harsh question of discipline if the child is kept constantly busy with that in which he is interested.

16. Results to be Expected in the Primary Age.—If theteacher has met her opportunity, there will be growing love to Jesus Christ, the beginning of service for him, and deep down in the soul of the child an increasing store of material out of which life ideals are to be fashioned in the days to come.

1. Name two general characteristics of the Primary Age. What years are included?

2. How are the child's broader interests shown?

3. What method of teaching can hinder the child's growing mental power?

4. Name four special characteristics of the Primary Age.

5. What is meant by power of perception? Illustrate it.

6. How may memory be abused?

7. What is imagination?

8. Name three opportunities of the Primary Age.

9. What does a well-defined mental picture lead to in the child's mind?

10. Why may a lesson contain more than in the Beginners period?

11. How does the source of motives toward service differ in childhood as compared with later life?

12. Name two needs of the Primary Age.

13. Name some of the difficulties.

14. What results may be expected?

17. General Characteristics.—A broad survey of this period reveals the fact that in a peculiar way God is preparing life for entrance upon the larger opportunities and responsibilities of maturity. There is new physical strength, new intellectual vigor, greater power of absorption and assimilation, a wider diffusion of interest. The curiosity of earlier years becomes a real spirit of investigation along lines of interest, and questioning, not alone to find out facts, but also foundations of belief begins to appear. The individuality of each child stands out more distinctly and emphasizes itself in two marked ways—first, the desire for prominence, and, second, an independence of spirit and action. Yet, with all this independence, the boys and girls are easily dealt with if authority is administered by one whose personality has commanded respect and love.

18. Specific Characteristics.

(1)Energy,—physical and mental.Though this has already been referred to in a general way, it must have special mention as one of the most marked and important features of the Junior period. Physical vigor is apparent in the force of bodily movements so trying to sensitive nerves—God's provision for the excess of nervous activity. It also appears in the type of games belonging to this period and the intensity with which they are played. The new mental power is evident in the ability to perform more difficult and complex mental tasks, to reason more clearly, and to attend more closely.

(2)Development of the social instinct.These years mark the rapid development of insistent and insatiable desire for close companionship with others. There are no standards of attainment nor social distinctions according to which friends are chosen. The "gang" or the club is based entirely on kinship of spirit among those of the same age and sex. Often geographical lines enter in, and the boys of a certain street or district will band together, and not uncommonly be the sworn enemies ofother gangs for no more valid reason than love of contest, growing out of the instinct of rivalry. But this martial aspect of gang life is not a characteristic of all the social tendency of the period. There is a drawing of child to child for peaceable purposes, the joy of common sympathies and interests and the fun of expeditions and good times together. This social awakening is God's plan for leading the life into larger relationships preparatory to taking its place in the world. What the companionship is in its influence upon character and ideals is the serious question for the home and the Sunday-school teacher.

(3)Hero-worship.This is pre-eminently the hero-worshiping period, with all that means in incentive to effort, in patterns of life, in imitation, in character-building. In mature years, the ideal of life is either a composite from many lives or, if it be one individual, a dissected individual, certain qualities picked out for admiration and emulation,—and over the rest, a mantle of charity. This analysis of character and discrimination is possible only to an intelligent and developed life. The child accepts his hero in his entirety. Whatever he does is right and is the goal of effort in imitation.

The physical element enters largely into the ideal of this period because of the prominence of the physical in the child's life, and, unhappily, physical and moral strength are not always balanced. Too much of the literature written to supply the ravenous desire of this age for reading portrays physical strength in criminal and in daredevil molds, and the moral side of the ideal is not only unfed, but perverted. The Sunday-school teacher must help the home at this point to supply the boys and girls, through books and living personality, with all the elements of worthy and imitable ideals, since the task of finally shaping these ideals lies in the years just beyond.

(4)Memory in the height of its power.The broader the responsibilities to be assumed, the greater the demand upon the soul's resources to meet them. Just at the threshold of a larger life, the mind comes into its greatest power of retention. During the years from about nine to fifteen, conditions never to return so favorably make possible the fullest, broadest, and more accurate storing of the mind. The exact wording of a passage ofScripture is as easy to secure as the general sense of its meaning. Whole chapters do not tax the pupil beyond his mental ability. The mechanical, literal side of instruction, which deals with maps and names and facts about the Word, written and incarnate, should now be given. Held tenaciously and exactly in memory, they will reveal the spiritual treasure they contain to the larger spiritual vision of the next period. The careful selection and explanation of that which is to be memorized, so necessary in the preceding period, is not as necessary during these years. The enlarged experience of the child will make some meaning inhere in everything which is brought to him, so that it is not the dead weight it would have been earlier. Yet an abundant supply of food, intellectual and spiritual, for the present needs of an active, investigating, and tempted life must not be overlooked in eagerness to store for the future.

(5)Habit formation.The two physical conditions necessary for habit formation, easily impressed brain cells, and activity making these impressions, are at their best during this period. Every time an act is performed, a nervous force passes through the brain, stimulating nerves and muscles to action, and leaving the trace of its passage. Each repetition of the action deepens the tracing, until little pathways are established, and the nervous force follows these naturally and involuntarily. Sooner than is realized the pathway is so deep that only by effort can a given thought or nervous stimulus express itself in any other way than by passing through the accustomed channels out into the old action,—and this is habit.

The early stages are easy, usually unconscious, but any change when the path is deep and the cells hardened means greatest effort, and often unavailing struggle with self. The drunkard who in his sober moments implores the saloon-keeper to refuse him liquor, no matter how he may plead for it later, reveals the fact that habit or the tendency to follow the old brain paths may become stronger than desire and will and all outer human influence and incentives combined. Therefore the habit-forming period, when pathways may be traced in any direction, becomes one of the most responsible and wonderful of the life.

1. What are some of the general characteristics of the Junior Age? The years included?

2. Name five specific characteristics of the Junior Age.

3. How does energy show itself at this time?

4. What are some of the signs of the social instinct?

5. What is the great purpose of that instinct?

6. How may hero-worship be used by the teachers?

7. What teaching material is peculiarly well suited to the memory-activity of this period?

8. What is the process by which habit is created?

1. Give several reasons why it is important for the Sunday-school teacher to know the pupil.

2. How may the teacher best come to know the pupil?

3. What are the special characteristics of children of the Beginners age?

4. How would you develop true faith in a child?

5. What is the difference between influence and precept? Illustrate both.

6. How would you guide a child's activity in the right direction?

7. What results may properly be looked for in the Beginners age?

8. What general difference is there between children of the Beginners and the Primary age?

9. Describe and illustrate perception, memory, and imagination.

10. What is the difference between children's and grown people's motives for service?

11. Mention several characteristics of the Junior age.

12. What is the social instinct, and how does it show itself?

13. What sort of teaching material is well adapted to the Junior age?

19. Opportunities of the Junior Age.—No period offers opportunities bearing more directly and openly upon the formation of character than the Junior period, when manhood- and womanhood-to-be are so rapidly determining. Out of these opportunities five may be selected as most significant:

(1)The opportunity to gain spiritual ends through social means.The more a teacher can enter into the fun-loving, companionship-craving side of the pupil's heart, the greater his power over that life for distinctly spiritual things. It is after the party or the picnic or the tramp together that the personal message can be spoken.

(2)The opportunity to arouse and to guide the pupil's effort through heroic ideals.Sermonizing on what they should do is practically valueless with boys and girls of this age, for considerations of duty weigh little until the larger moral consciousness of the next period. Furthermore, they live but for the day, and do not appreciate the relationship between present action and future character. What they may do later as a result of their own convictions and understanding, they may be inspired to do now through the hero who has aroused their admiration and desire of imitation.

(3)The opportunity to establish right habits of life.The pathways of service through which the Christian life ought to express itself must be definitely and painstakingly traced in this period and the next. Motives for the action may not be the highest, and must often be supplied by another. For example, the daily Bible reading that ought to be prompted by real love for the Word later may now be done for love of the teacher—or because the promise was given, but in any event it is leaving its indelible impress—and making the "Quiet Hour" more assured in the future.

(4)The opportunity to build Bible knowledge into character.Impressions are necessary and effective in their place, but something more definite is needed for stability of character.The opportunity of supplementing impressions with facts is the one offered by this Golden Memory period. Two points should be noted:

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