would have stay together in the pupil's mind. But no teacher is foolish enough to want his pupils to hold the idea of "to-day's lesson" in memory together with the story of the Good Samaritan, or to preserve the thought that it was on the bottom of the page that a certain truth was brought out. He is wasting energy, therefore, and missing opportunities, to put such questions at all.

Question and answer should be parts of a single whole of meaning. They should be worth putting together and keeping together. The question should supply the one term, the answer the other, of an association that has permanent value. What did Jesus do when He saw that His disciples would not wash one another's feet? What story did He tell when a lawyer asked Him whom to consider a neighbor? What miracle did He perform at a wedding in Cana of Galilee? What great truth does the story of the Sower bring out?—are forms that have associative value.

son.

(4) Questions should be put in logical order. This is only to say that each should fall into its place in the development of the lesAll that has been said concerning the necessity of a lesson plan applies as well to the questions a teacher asks, as to the truths he means to bring out or the illustrative material he uses. Each question should grow out of what went before it, and lead up to what comes after. The whole should issue in a coherent presentation of the truth. It is harder to keep to the point, of course, when questions are asked and the discussion of the hour is live and generally cooperative, than it would be if the teacher were to do all the work and simply deliver a carefully prepared lecture. But it can be done.

(5) Questions should be so put as to keep the whole class interested and at work. Aside from their content, this depends upon a few simple rules of method:

(a) Do not rely upon concert answers. not to keep the whole class at work.

It is one of the surest ways You must bring the questions

home individually. Call upon particular pupils to answer.

(b) Ask the question first, then call upon the one who is to answer. Each member of the class should feel that the question is addressed to him, since he may be called upon to answer it.

(c) Call upon particular pupils several times in the course of a single recitation. Do not let a pupil feel that after he has answered his question, made his report or discussed his topic, his work is over for the day.

(d) Do not repeat a question if the pupil failed to understand it because of inattention. Go to another for the answer. Even if the

failure is due to inability to understand its meaning, it is best to let someone else answer; then recast and explain it if necessary.

(e) Do not repeat the pupil's answer. The class should be trained to pay as careful attention to one another's answers as to the teacher's questions and explanations.

(f) Do not get into the habit of calling most often upon your best pupils, and letting the weaker sit idle. We face a dilemma here. The weaker pupils need the questions most; yet when we call upon them the class hour drags and the discussion loses its interest. We need the help of the brighter pupils to keep things moving, and they deserve the chance to contribute to the development of the truth; yet we must not neglect the weaker.

(g) Do not let pupils get into the habit of failing to answer your questions, and become content to fail. Never give one up, or let him feel that his case is hopeless. Keep at him till you find a "point of contact." Your work is, like that of any teacher, individual. You ought never be content with only the ninety and nine.

(6) The questions should maintain the social motive of the hour. We have seen that the ideal method of teaching is cooperative,* and that the pupil's expression of that which is within him depends upon the social situation in which he finds himself.† In the next chapter we shall consider the class as a social institution. There is need here only to mention the bearing of this social motive upon questions.

(a) Asking and answering questions should be no formal or artificial exercise. It should express the natural give and take of social cooperation in the discovery and discussion of the truth. It follows that you ought to do all you can to encourage freedom of thought and expression. You will respect the pupil's answers, if they be sincere. You will not meet with ridicule or impatient sarcasm the blunders of a boy who is really trying. You will recognize, moreover, that pupils too have a right to ask questions, and will do your best honestly and squarely to meet their difficulties.

(b) To ask questions from a printed list in the text-book, or even to read off questions that you have yourself prepared, is to fail unpardonably. You ought to be able to look into the eyes of your pupils, and to talk with them as a man with his friends. This does not mean that you need not prepare questions. You ought to study carefully, not simply the lesson itself, but how best to question your class about it. *Lesson XIII., Sections 2, 3 and 4. † Lesson XV., Section 1.

And it is well to write out some of the questions, that you may get them clearly in mind. But all this must be done beforehand. Leave your notes behind when you come to the class. Let no paper come between you and your pupils. Better to make a few mistakes in the course of teaching that is live and personal than to be faultlessly logical because mechanical.

(c) The social motive gives us a concrete test for the application of our rules. Like all others, they have exceptions. "It is too much to demand a complete sentence for every answer, for what is good form in social intercourse is not bad form in the school-room."* Not all yes-and-no questions are illegitimate. The test is always, are we maintaining a real exchange of ideas, and giving expression to them in genuine social ways?

3. Reviews. All Sunday schools have review Sundays; but not nearly all teachers know how to use them. The common mistake is to use the review simply to refresh the pupil's memory. But mere repetition is not review. It is for the sake of organization and perspective that we look back over the lessons of a series. The pupil, having gotten the whole, is now able to see the parts in right relation. He can now understand the bearing of particular events and lessons upon one another, and is prepared to unify and systematize his ideas.

Any method of review that will accomplish this work of organization is legitimate. It will not be accomplished by a mere recital of the title, golden text, chief events and "central truth" of each lesson in turn. It may be by a talk by teacher or superintendent, illustrated by blackboard, stereopticon or pictures. It may be by assigning questions or topics to pupils, and discussing their reports. It may be by getting pupils to make out their own outline of the series, or to write a short history of the period covered, a little drama representing some of its events, or an essay upon some assigned topic that presupposes an intelligent knowledge of the whole. It may be by giving them an examination. The ingenuity of the teacher will devise a hundred ways to engage the interest of his class in a review, if only he once gets the idea that it is for organization rather than for repetition. Indeed, if the teacher has rightly used the principle of continuity throughout the series, there is no line to be drawn between the methods of every lesson and those of review. The review simply completes the work which he has been trying to do every Sunday.

4. Examinations are so much misunderstood and misused in public school and college that most teachers do not even think of their use in * De Garmo: "Interest and Education," p. 193.

the Sunday school. Their function is conceived to be that merely of testing the pupil's knowledge. But if this were their only value, they might well be dispensed with. Any teacher can tell without them what progress his pupil has been making, what work he is prepared to do next, and so whether he deserves promotion. If a teacher cannot, there is something wrong with him.

The true function of the examination, like that of the review, is the organization of the pupil's knowledge. The examination is given, not for the teacher's sake, but for the pupil's. It supplies a motive for thorough work and a stimulus to final organization, that can be secured in no other way. And if the examination questions be rightly put, they in themselves constitute points of view which almost compel a true perspective.

"The function of the examination as a test of the pupil's knowledge is not of paramount importance, but its function as an organizing agency of knowledge is supreme. . . . The virtue of the examination lies in its power to force strenuous mental effort to the task of organizing a large body of facts and principles into a coherent system. This is the standard by which examination questions should be set. They should be large and comprehensive, so formulated that they will bring out and exercise, not the memory for details, but the capacity to grasp large masses of knowledge and weld the separate facts and principles into systematic unities." *

If this be the function of the written examination, it is as much needed in the Sunday school as in the public school. Indeed, it is more needed. "Just because the public school can use certain methods which are impracticable in the Sunday school for securing faithful work day by day, it could conceivably more easily than the Sunday school dispense with examinations." †

We need not fear that examinations will be unpopular and drive pupils from school, if we administer them with a degree of common

sense.

"At first, at least, the examination may be made optional, no pupil being obliged to take them, but all being encouraged to do so. The examination should not cover a long period, probably not to exceed three months, though when the system

...

Bagley; "The Educative Process," pp. 333, 334.

† Burton and Mathews: "Principles and Ideals for the Sunday School," p. 158.

is fairly under way an annual examination might be given for those who are willing to take it. If the lessons call for written work each week, the work thus done week by week should be taken into account in the examination. The quarterly examination should not be a mere test of memory. Its educational purpose should be distinctly kept in mind. If the questions are rightly framed, so as to constitute a real review of the main features of the quarter's work, they may very properly be put into the hands of the pupils on one Sunday, to be returned with the answers a week later, the pupils being instructed to make use of the Bible and any other accessible sources of information, personal help only being excluded."'*

Examination papers should always be carefully corrected, graded and handed back. Some sort of recognition should be given to those who pass examinations creditably—a list announced or posted, promotion to a higher class, a certificate given for each examination passed, or a diploma at the completion of a course covering several years of work. So conducted, examinations will be welcomed by most pupils. And they will help wonderfully to rescue the educational work of the Sunday school from the indefiniteness, lack of motive and low level of intellectual vigor which too often characterize it.

* Burton and Mathews: "Principles and Ideals for the Sunday School,” pp. 159, 160.