department, and not much in the primary; but we have already seen that story-telling is the essential method of these departments. But it will work well with the juniors, and better throughout adolescence. The other is that it must by this time have become perfectly plain that the ideal recitation is no mere recitation at all, but rather a discussion which uses the results of preliminary assignments, and of which reciting is therefore a part. This leads us to the consideration of the next method.

3. The discussion method develops the lesson within the class period. By skillful questions, the teacher sets the pupil to thinking and gets him to express his thought, then uses it as a basis for further question and discussion. The truth of the lesson is thus gradually educed. The teacher draws the pupil out. The work of the hour is constructive and, in the primary sense of the word, educative.*

The great virtue of the method is its live and cooperative character. There is nothing mechanical or rigid about it. Things keep moving. It demands the activity both of teacher and pupil. The class goes away with no ready-made information loosely lodged in their heads, but with ideas of their own making.

But this method, too, has its difficulties and dangers :

(1) It is a mistake to attempt to educe particular facts by discussion. You must tell them to the pupil, or he must find them out somewhere. Socrates' method of questioning and discussion has long been pointed to as an ideal. It is true that he was a master at stirring his hearers to think for themselves. We can learn much from him and his questions. But there is a great difference of presupposition between Socrates' method and our own. He believed that all truth dwelt within the soul of the pupil himself. He held that knowledge is in reality recollection. He thought that the human soul had lived before coming to this earth, just as it will live hereafter; and that the truths known in that former existence had left their print upon it. Truth lies, therefore, implicit within one; to know is but to become clearly conscious of one's own latent memories. The duty of the teacher is to help bring them to the light. By questioning and discussion he makes the pupil think, not only for himself, but upon that which is within himself. Socrates meant far more by the maxim, "Know thyself," than we do when we quote it.

We do not believe in this doctrine. Facts, we now know, come to us from without. Men might have peered forever into their own

* The word "educate" comes from the Latin “educo," which was derived from "e," meaning "out,” and “duco," meaning “to lead."

souls and might have discussed with one another until doomsday, without ever learning the simple fact that salt is made of sodium and chlorine. Someone had to observe that. You can never by questioning get out of a pupil the fact that Peter was a fisherman, or that Paul was born at Tarsus, unless that fact has first been put into him.

You waste time, then, in attempting to pull facts out of the class that they do not know, or to create such knowledge by discussion. The province of the method is the organization of facts. You are to make the pupil think about the facts of the lesson, relate them to one another, draw inferences from them and arrive at new truths. But the facts themselves he must find out, either in his previous study, or by looking them up as you ask for them, or by having others tell him. Any other method than previous study, moreover, is poor economy. Every pupil should come with the main facts of the lesson already fixed in his mind. You will rapidly question the class upon them; and then you have a common basis upon which discussion may proceed. You are ready to go on, to inquire into matters that have escaped notice, to round out the pupil's knowledge and to develop the truth of the lesson.

(2) There is danger that the pupils will not study. The discussion method can get along without previous preparation on their part. Each can look up his facts in the text-book as the lesson proceeds, or catch them from the answers of someone else. But the result is that the pupils make no real contribution to the discussion, and lack the basis of knowledge which they need to comprehend its more vital truths. The discussion is bound to degenerate. The class flits about on the surface of the passage for the day; and the teacher is driven to catch-penny devices of entertainment.

(3) There is danger of wandering from the point-this even if the pupils do study. Answers that are not quite right will throw you off the track; questions will be raised about remote and minor issues; or some suggestive remark will entice you to spend too much time in its development. It is hard to keep perspective. Everything seems important at the time. In teaching a class, as in writing a book, the biggest problem is to know what to keep out. You must have a plan well thought out before. You will have to adapt it, of course, to the exigencies of the discussion. You may even have to leave it. But it will at least give you a sense of direction and proportion.

4. The best method is, therefore, a combination of recitation and discussion. We may call it the cooperative method, for it alone

deserves the name. No recitation is genuinely social unless the results of previous study are used in live discussion. No discussion is really cooperative unless the pupil is prepared to do his part; and this is insured only by definite assignment.

The essential characteristics of this method are implied in what we have said concerning recitation and discussion. We may sum them up briefly :

(1) The teacher keeps a week ahead of the class. He studies, not only the lesson for the coming Sunday, but the lesson which he is then to assign for the next. He blocks out carefully the course which its discussion is to take, and finds a definite piece of work for each pupil.

(2) After the main teaching period, he devotes a second period of five or ten minutes to the assignment for the next Sunday. It is a task that demands his best efforts. The way that he uses these minutes determines the way in which the pupils will study throughout the week. The teaching of the lesson begins right here. This is the introduction. It must tell enough of what is coming to make the pupil want to know more, and to set him to work intelligently. Simply to say, “Next Sunday we will study about so-and-so,” is no assignment at all.

(3) On the next Sunday, he develops the lesson by a discussion, in the course of which each pupil gets called upon, in one way or another, for the results of his work. The union of recitation and discussion is organic, not mechanical. The pupil's reports are made a vital part of the development of the lesson.

(4) The motive of the hour is social. · The method is adapted to pupils, therefore, who have reached the age of social initiative-those of the junior and higher departments.

(5) The method may be adapted to the development of the pupils by changing the character of the assignments. In the lower grades only bits of memory work can be assigned for home study; then definite questions whose answers are to be written out, and manual work to be done. In higher grades questions will be assigned for oral, rather than written answer; then topics may gradually be substituted for questions. The topical method of assignment finally may be adapted to the maturity of any class, by broadening the topics and making them demand more research.

5. With adult pupils who are intellectually mature, the research method is best. The teacher becomes simply the leader of a group of students who are together pursuing an investigation. A topic is

assigned to each pupil, upon which he is to find out all he can and bring back a report to the class. If the subject be the social teachings of Jesus, the pupil is not given a text-book wherein they are all set down in order, ready for him to learn in the shortest possible time, neither is he told them by means of a lecture or discussion. He is rather assigned a given topic and sent to the gospels to find out for himself just what Jesus said about it, then to the histories and commentaries to learn what were the social conditions of Jesus' time with respect to it. He comes back to the class with the facts he has discovered and with the conclusions he draws from them, and himself leads the discussion on his topic. It is clear that this is simply the cooperative method carried to its highest development. Not nearly all adult classes can use it, however. It demands an exceptionally strong and well-equipped teacher; and it can be used only with pupils who have the intellectual ability to do such research work and are willing to take the time for it.

6. In the lecture method the teacher does all the talking. Its virtues are: (1) its definite and systematic presentation of the lesson; (2) its economy of time; (3) its attractiveness to many busy men and women who do not have the time or, more often, the inclination to study a lesson for themselves. Its weakness is, of course, the fact that the teacher does all the work and there is little or no study by the pupil. It is an excellent method with advanced classes, if you cannot get them to work in a better way. It demands the very best of teachers, and one who is a direct and resourceful public speaker. Such a teacher may attract large numbers of men and women to the Sunday school who would not enter any other class.

7. Drill lessons and review lessons have a place in the work of the Sunday school, and methods of their own. We shall think of them in a later chapter.

QUESTIONS

1. Why is there no one method of teaching that one may always follow?

2. In what ways may a teacher use a story?

3. What are the steps involved in the recitation method? With what difficulties does it confront you?

4. How shall you go to work to get the pupil to study?

5. How shall you endeavor to retain the attention and interest of the pupil throughout the recitation period?

6. What are the difficulties and dangers of the discussion method? 7. Describe carefully the cooperative method, and show how it may be adapted to the maturity of the pupil.

8. Describe the research method. What are its advantages and its difficulties?

9. What are the advantages of the lecture method? What its dis advantages?

10. What do you consider the best method in general for each d· partment of the Sunday-school? Give reasons for your choice.