Advanced department. We shall deal with some of the problems of the department in a later chapter. Enough here to say that its courses should be wholly elective, and largely of a practical character. The advanced students should get what they want and what they need. No one ought ever graduate from the Sunday school. We all need it for sake of the spiritual nourishment of stated Bible study, and for maintenance of the intellectual vigor of our faith. More than this, the Advanced department has wonderful possibilities as a school of practical religion. A well-conducted class for mothers will help solve many problems respecting the children, as well as give to the mothers themselves a new inspiration. A class for men in social and civic problems may help toward better conditions in your city, as well as make religion vital to the men themselves.

QUESTIONS

1. Why is instruction in the Bible the chief work of the Sunday school? From what other sources than the Bible may it draw material for instruction?

2. Explain the four principles of teaching brought out in this lesson -self-activity, apperception, adaptation and organization.

3. State the chief advantages of a system of ungraded and uniform lessons.

4. What are the chief disadvantages of such a system? Give a careful statement of reasons for each.

5. What is the specific aim of each department of the Sunday school? Show how this aim depends upon the interests and needs of the pupil in each stage of development.

LESSON XIII

METHODS OF TEACHING

The teacher must do more than study his lesson; he must plan definitely just how to teach it. You cannot know your subject too thoroughly. It is the primary requisite of good teaching. But it will not insure good teaching. You must know how, as well as what to teach.

We are often misled by the ease and spontaneity of a great preacher who uses no notes, or of a teacher who inspires us with his own vision of the truth. We suppose that they need not prepare in the painstaking way that we must. We wish that we had their genius. But the secret of genius, it has been well said, is hard work. Many hours of mental travail lie back of that clear-cut, inspiring sermon; the perfect mastery of a plan gives surety of movement to the thought of the teacher. We hear sometimes of "born teachers." They are few; and those few love their work too much ever to attempt it without preparation. The moment one begins to think of himself as a born teacher, he is in danger of losing his birthright.

There is no one method for Sunday school teaching. Methods are means to an end. They depend upon the nature of the pupil, upon the subject to be taught, upon the material conditions which the teacher faces and the resources at his command. Each Sunday presents its specific problem. You must fit your method to conditions; it is your solution of the problem of the day.

In this chapter we shall think of the general methods of conducting a class. We shall consider the more important advantages and difficulties of each, and the grade of pupils to which it is best adapted. 1. Story-telling. Whether it deal with fact or fancy, a story is a work of the imagination. It makes the truth live. It makes us see the things it tells, and stirs our hearts to feel and our wills to act. "Of all the things that a teacher should know how to do," says President Hall, "the most important, without exception, is to be able to tell a story."

There are three ways in which we may use the story:

(1) As presentation. The lesson itself may be cast into story form. This is essential in the two lower departments; and there the telling

of the story is the central work of the hour. In the higher departments, too, it is sometimes well to present the lesson as a story if it is full of dramatic action.

(2) As preparation. A story may be very effectively used to lead up to the lesson-some bit of everyday experience, perhaps, that will arouse interest in the subject to be presented; or a review of previous lessons in quick, vivid narration; or the tale of what happened between the events of the last lesson and those of this.

(3) As illustration. The teacher needs no power more than that of conceiving analogies—seeing what the truth is like, and presenting it in terms of its likeness. That is what Jesus did. He was always telling stories. He taught in concrete pictures that brought home the truth to the simplest mind. Without a parable spake He not unto them."

2. The recitation method involves three steps: (1) assignment of the lesson; (2) the pupil's study; (3) the recitation itself. It enlists the cooperation of teacher and pupil. Each must do his part. The pupil must study and recite; the teacher must assign the lesson and conduct the recitation. Most Sunday school classes are conducted ostensibly in accordance with this method. In comparatively few, however, is it really carried out. It makes much greater demands upon both teacher and pupil than we are wont to think.

Some of us may have had the fortune to be in a class where the teacher asked only the questions printed in the lesson leaf. They went something like this: "Where did Peter and John go at the ninth hour? (v. 1). What time was this? (see notes). Why did they go? Whom did they see there? (v. 2). How long had he been lame? What did he ask of them? (v. 3). What did Peter say? (v. 4). What did the lame man expect? (v. 5). What did Peter then say? (v. 6). What then? (v. 7). What did the lame man do? (v. 8)." The teacher put these questions to the members of the class in turn; and each answered by reading the passage indicated.

That was not a recitation at all. It was simply nibbling at a few predigested Bible verses. Neither the teacher nor the pupils did anything except look at the page and open their mouths. There was no thinking going on. There had been no study on the part of the pupils; and there was no evidence of it on the part of the teacher.

Our example is purposely somewhat extreme. No lesson leaf would ask quite such feeble questions, or indicate so precisely the answer to every one. No teacher of any common sense would do nothing more than read off for answer such a list. But most pupils will, if they get

a chance, do exactly what those pupils did. So long as their lesson leaves are open at all, they will "look up" the answer to any question addressed to them, and read it, either from the verses of the lesson or from the editor's notes. Now and then a pupil is to be found who will put on an air of knowledge by paraphrasing the answer he finds in the book; but most of them are not ashamed frankly to read it.

Now, it may be quite legitimate for pupils to do this, but it is not reciting. The recitation method holds the pupil responsible for some definite piece of work, which he is to do outside of the recitation period, and upon which he is to report in class. It demands that he study.

It exacts yet more of you-the teacher. It makes you study two lessons for every Sunday—that upon which the class recites and that which you assign for the coming week. It makes you divide the teaching period into two parts-one devoted to the recitation and one to the assignment of the next lesson. It confronts you, moreover, with two practical difficulties:

(1) How shall you get the pupil to study? That is a hard problem, and one upon which any teacher of experience speaks with becoming humility. (a) You should show him how to study. Public school teachers are just finding out that it pays to take stated periods to study with their children and to teach them how to go at their lessons. (b) Your assignment of the lesson for the coming Sunday should be such as to arouse his interest and give him a motive for study. It should make him feel that the lesson contains something that he wants to know. (c) You should assign a definite task to each pupil, for which you will hold him responsible. It is not enough to say that you expect each to study the lesson, or to answer the questions of the text-book, or to do whatever writing or picture-pasting or map-drawing it requires. There must be some special bit of work for each, the results of which he is to bring back to class the next Sunday. The fact that you have the work so outlined makes him feel that you are really interested in the lesson, and he is ready to help you. His doing that bit of work, then, gives a motive that generally leads him to do the work that all are to do. (d) Above all, never assign anything that you will not call for at the next period; never fail to call for and use everything assigned. This is a rule that will often be hard to live up to; but you must hold to it as rigidly as you can. It is the one that clinches all the rest. Laxity here takes vitality out of the pupil's work, and soon begets carelessness and indifference.

(2) How shall you retain the attention and interest of the pupil throughout the recitation? It is quite possible that your very success in getting the pupil to study may be your undoing in the recitation period. If you do nothing more than hear a recitation, testing knowledge and receiving reports on tasks assigned, the period will be very monotonous and dry to the pupil—and more so the more thoroughly he has studied the lesson. This becomes more certain as pupils grow older. It is a frequent complaint of college students that "Professor So-and-so gives you nothing more than is in the text-book." The pupil must feel that he is getting something out of the recitation period itself.

own.

Testing, therefore, is only the beginning of your work in the recitation. You must be able to use the pupils' answers and reports in a further development of the lesson. You must be able to explain, illustrate, amplify, and finally sum up the results of their work and your The ideal recitation is in fact cooperative. All have studied a common assignment which becomes the basis of discussion. To that discussion each pupil brings in his special contribution, the bit of research or of memory work that was assigned to him, and for which he alone is responsible. The teacher, too, makes his contribution to the common store, and with tact and ingenuity weaves together what all have brought into a unified development of the truth. At the end the pupils know the truth, for they have themselves seen it grow in the discussion of the hour; and they feel that it is their own, for each has had his share in its development. The recitation has been social; the pupils feel the glow of helpfulness, and go home with an added zest to prepare to do their part on the coming Sunday.

Ideal! Impracticable! some of you are doubtless saying to yourselves. Such a conception of the recitation is ideal; but it is not impracticable. The thing has been done. Classes in many schools are now working in this cooperative way, and are getting results. You can realize this ideal if you will but put your whole heart into it, and take the time it demands. For it does demand work on the part of the teacher. Success depends primarily on two things: the care with which you plan the lesson before you assign it, and the tact with which you make inadequate and even partly false answers contribute to the working out of your plan. It takes patience, foresight and ingenuity; but it is worth the while.

Two remarks must be added. The first is that the degree to which such a social conception of the recitation can be realized depends upon the age of the pupils. It cannot be used in the beginners'