{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_41505/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_41505","id":"gutenberg_41505","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41505","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Teaching & Education","Religious education -- Teaching methods","Visual education"],"text":"Note: Images of the original pages are available through\n      Internet Archive/American Libraries. See\n      http://archive.org/details/picturework00herv\n\n\nTranscriber's note:\n\n      Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).\n\n      Text enclosed by tilde characters is in bold face (~bold~).\n\n\n\n\n\nPICTURE=WORK\n\nby\n\nWALTER L. HERVEY, Ph.D.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNew York    Chicago    Toronto\nFleming H. Revell Company\nLondon and Edinburgh\n\nCopyright, 1896, by\nW. L. Hervey\n\nCopyright, 1908, by\nFleming H. Revell Company\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n                                                                 Page\n\n   I. The Problem and One of Its Solutions                          5\n\n  II. Types of Picture-Work                                         9\n\n III. A Picture-Book, and How to Use It                            22\n\n  IV. Side-Lights                                                  26\n\n   V. Stories and Story-Telling                                    31\n\n  VI. Some First Principles: Unity, Reality, Order                 44\n\n VII. How to Learn How                                             56\n\nVIII. Books, Pictures, and Illustrative Material                   71\n\n  IX. False Picture-Work                                           82\n\n   X. A Co\u00f6perative Study                                          87\n\n\n\n\nPicture=Work.\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\nTHE PROBLEM AND ONE OF ITS SOLUTIONS.\n\n\nA friend of the writer, who has since attained to the dignity of a\nteacher of teachers, relates to the honor of his wise mother that when\nhe was a boy she did not make him promise not to smoke or chew or play\ncards--probably compassing these ends in other ways--but she did exert\nher influence to lead him not to read Sunday-school books. For this\nwarning, he says, he has never ceased to be thankful. In these days of\nsupervising committees and selected lists, when standard literature,\nundiluted, has found its way into the Sunday-school library, such a\ncourse would not be warranted. But there are still thoughtful persons\nwho do not feel that in the matter of Sunday-schools they are out of\nthe woods yet.\n\n\"Do you know anything about Sunday-schools?\" was asked of one of these,\na representative woman.\n\n\"I'm sorry to say that I do,\" was the reply.\n\nAnd there are other signs that the number is increasing of those who\nbelieve that in the choice of a Sunday-school the greatest care must be\nexercised. Some there are, who, it may be through over-conscientiousness,\nare fain to give up the search in despair, preferring to teach their\nchildren at home.\n\nThere is probably no other Sunday-school that, in point of order, quiet\nseclusion of classes, professional preparation of (paid) teachers, can\ncompare with the \"Religious School\" of Temple Emanuel in New York City.\nBut there is no intrinsic reason why the mechanical and pedagogical\ndifficulties might not one day be as successfully removed everywhere as\nin this model school; and why they may not be removed in every grade.\nIn the infant classes, through the beneficent influence of the\nkindergarten, there are already signs of promise. In the senior\ndepartments the problem is less complicated. But in the classes where\nis found \"the restless, wide-awake, active, intense, ingenious,\nirrepressible boy,\" or \"the girl who is just beyond girlhood and yet\ncan scarcely be regarded as a woman,\" and her awkward, self-conscious,\nmisunderstood brother--here the problem remains, and no one denies that\nit is a hard one. Who cannot at this moment see with his mind's eye a\npicture of such a class--on the one side a vision of inattention,\ninsubordination, irreverence, on the other, incompetence, blindly,\nconsecratedly, painfully doing his--or her--best?\n\nIn all things relating to the common schools there is a quickening of\npopular interest and of professional spirit. The time is at hand when\nnone but trained experts will be allowed to teach. Is the instruction\nand guidance of young minds in matters pertaining to the Heavenly\nFather and the things of the unseen world a task less difficult,\ndelicate, important, than the teaching of arithmetic and geography? The\nquestion answers itself. It follows that the religious and moral\ninstruction of our children will one day be put on a firmer and more\nscientific basis.\n\nIn this reform there are three steps: the securing of proper external\nconditions for thought and feeling--in blunter words, the banishment of\nhubbub; the systematic training of the teacher; the enrichment of the\nlesson by giving to it reality, meaning, and life. The last of these\nends is the only one here under consideration. To this end there are\ndoubtless several ways. \"Picture-work\" is one of these, and, it is\nbelieved, one of high importance. That it is neglected is beyond\nquestion. To point out its value and set forth its method are the aims\nof this little book.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\nTYPES OF PICTURE-WORK.\n\n\nIn the Dresden Gallery, the writer once saw two children, brother and\nsister, one ten and the other twelve, looking at the Sistine Madonna.\nThey entered the room, and without heeding the crowd there gathered,\nalmost instantly fixed their gaze upon the picture. For many minutes\nthey seemed to be under a spell. They were drinking in something. The\ngreat picture was speaking to them--to their very souls. And they\nunderstood something of its message. At all events they felt its\ninfluence--which is much better than merely to understand.\n\nMore striking, because more unexpected, was the influence of a large\ncopy of the same picture upon a little boy not two years and a half\nold. Although this child was passionately fond of pictures, no other\npicture ever seemed to appeal to him as this one did. As soon as it was\nbrought into the house he instantly began to examine it, and pass\njudgment upon it. He at once found the center of interest, the young\nchild and his mother, then pointed to the angels, the \"grandfather,\"\nand lastly to the \"lady,\" but returned always to the \"dear little baby\nJesus.\" From this time the story of the birth of Jesus was the one\nstory most loved by the child. And a collection of thirty or more\nmadonnas (\"mother-pictures,\" the child called them) by other great\nmasters was a never-failing source of delight to him.\n\nEven very young children appreciate the best pictures and the best\nstories. In fact the younger they are the better sometimes seems to be\ntheir taste. Are we doing all that we may to gratify, and at the same\ntime to form, this taste?\n\nBut our term, \"picture-work,\" includes more than pictures painted with\nthe brush. Literature is full of pictures no less beautiful in theme\nand in execution, and even more important in meaning, than Raphael's\nmasterpiece. The story of the good bishop, Monseigneur Bienvenu, as it\nis told for us in \"Les Miserables,\" is a picture, and so are all such\nstories. Literature is full of them. The Bible is a treasure-house of\nmasterpieces. More wonderful, too, are these story pictures, just as\nthey are, if told so that they can be seen and felt, than they could\never be made with brush or pencil.\n\nHow may we gain the power to paint these pictures, helping when help is\nneeded, standing aside when our bungling efforts would only destroy the\ninterest and the charm--rub off, as it were, the delicate bloom?\n\nTo give help in finding the answer to these questions is the object of\nthe chapters that follow. Meanwhile we return to our present theme.\nWhat is picture-work?\n\nThere is the main story and the telling of it--a work of art as we\nshall see--and there are also the side-lights, without which no\nstory-teller can capture and hold his audience.\n\nThe story to be told, let us say, is the healing of the paralytic. But\nbefore the story begins, the ground must be cleared. The oriental house\nand bed must be pictured. Get a real specimen of each, if you can, of\ncourse.[1] Provide yourself with pictures in any case, but first of\nall, make an eastern house and bed yourself. A square paper box--a hat\nbox will do--with a hole cut in the top, ready to be torn up when the\ntime comes; a stairway made of paper, leading up the outside of the\nhouse to the roof; a small piece of felt--an old bed-quilt will serve\nequally well--with strings tied in each end, for the bed, to show how a\nbed could be let down, rolled, and \"taken up\"; with these accessories\nthe teacher is ready to begin the work of sketching the real picture,\nthe story of the miracle.\n\n          [1] See Chapter VIII., last heading.\n\nNot merely for children, but for grown folk too is this kind of\npicture-work a means of teaching. In a densely populated quarter of New\nYork City there is to-day a minister who is not content with mere\nword-pictures. He brings into the pulpit the objects themselves--it may\nbe a candle, a plumb line, a live frog, an air pump. With him the\nmethod is a success, as it has been with others. Does this seem crude?\nSo are the mental processes of every forty-nine out of fifty the world\nover.\n\nDr. Parkhurst in the second of those memorable sermons with which he\nopened the public campaign against Tammany, carried into the pulpit and\nshowed his congregation the very bundle of indictments with which he\nwas to strike the first blow for civic purity.\n\nEzekiel went still further, and not only used objects but actions to\nenforce and illustrate his terrible sermon:\n\n\"To the amazement of the people, setting them all awondering what he\ncould mean, he appears one day before them with fire, a pair of scales,\na knife, and a barber's razor. These were the heads, and doom was the\nburden of his sermon. Sweeping off, what an easterner considers it a\nshame to lose, his beard, and the hair also from his head, this bald\nand beardless man divides them into three parts; weighing them in the\nbalance. One third he burns in the fire; one third he smites with the\nknife; and the remaining third he tosses in the air, scattering it on\nthe winds of heaven.\" Thus the prophet under divine direction foretells\nthe disgrace, division, destruction, dispersion of his people.\n\nNot less striking is the story of Jeremiah's dramatic sermon as\ngraphically told by Dr. Guthrie, from whom the preceding account has\nbeen quoted:\n\n\"The preacher appears--nor book, nor speech in hand, but an earthen\nvessel. He addresses his hearers. Pointing across the valley to\nJerusalem, with busy thousands in its streets, its massive towers and\nnoble temple glorious and beautiful beneath a southern sky, he says,\nspeaking as an ambassador of God, 'I will make this city desolate and\nan hissing' ... pauses--raises his arm--holds up the potter's vessel,\ndashes it on the ground; and planting his foot on its shivered\nfragments, he adds, 'Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, even so will I break\nthis people, and this city as one breaketh a potter's vessel.'\"\n\nIt may have been the inspiration of such examples as these that moved\nBeecher when, in the stirring days before the war upon the platform of\nPlymouth Church, after taking up one argument after another against\nabolition and answering it, he carried each one to the side of the\nplatform and threw it over into the pile with its predecessors, saying,\n\"That disposes of you.\" And in his famous Liverpool address, did he\nnot, when speaking of the freeing of the slaves, throw down and trample\nupon actual chains?\n\nAt the heart of even the boldest of such instances of picture-work,\nthere lies a true and universal principle. And we may be sure that we\nare more likely to err on the side of stiffness and conventionality\n(which is often sheer laziness and ignorance), than on the side of\nreality and life.\n\nThe unaided imagination--the power of the eyes to \"see pictures while\nthey're shut\"--will, however, often serve us more safely, and not less\nsurely. That was a vivid and memorable action-picture, drawn for us by\nBishop Vincent, at a vesper service at the close of a Chautauqua\nSabbath, in the \"Hall in the Grove.\" \"What if the Master himself were\nagain on the earth at this hour, here at Chautauqua, and should come up\nthe hill, through the trees yonder, and should stand between these\npillars and speak to us now....\" The picture was complete and\nirresistible. We all saw and realized all that we needed to see and\nfeel, in order to receive the lesson that followed.\n\nBut the imagination must be strengthened and fed by plenty of sense\nmaterial. It can be trusted to respond with its pictures, provided it\nhas been given material enough and provided these materials are\nskilfully brought to mind. In the following extract from the wonderful\n\"Story of Jesus,\"[2] which should be in the hands of every parent and\nteacher, we find a type of picture-work which illustrates this point,\nfor it quickens and makes many calls upon the imagination: \"Imagine\ntraveling through a state no larger than Vermont, and finding not only\napples and pears, quinces and plums, waving corn-fields, maples and\ncedars, but orange-trees fragrant with snowy blossoms, and heavy with\ngolden fruit in January; figs and dates, pomegranates and bananas--all\nwithin a day's journey! The fields over which you pass glow like\ngorgeous Persian carpets....\" This is a part of the author's picture of\nPalestine.\n\n          [2] See Chapter VIII.\n\nAnd here is a bit of Archdeacon Farrar's graphic word-picture of\nNazareth, where Jesus spent nearly thirty years of his life on the\nearth:\n\n    \"Gradually the valley opens into a little, natural-looking\n    amphitheater of hills, supposed by some to be the crater of an\n    extinct volcano; and then, clinging to hollows of a hill, which\n    rises to the height of some five hundred feet above it, lie, like\n    'a handful of pearls in a goblet of emerald,' the flat roofs and\n    narrow streets of a little eastern town. There is ... a clear,\n    abundant fountain, houses built of white stone, and gardens\n    scattered among them, umbrageous with figs and olives, and rich\n    with the white and scarlet blossoms of orange and pomegranates. In\n    spring, at least, everything about the place looks indescribably\n    bright and soft; doves murmur in the trees; the hoopoe flits about\n    in ceaseless activity; the bright blue roller-bird, the commonest\n    and loveliest bird in Palestine, flashes like a living sapphire\n    over fields which are enameled with innumerable flowers.\"\n\nWho having once read, seen, and felt this picture can ever forget it or\nfail to feel the atmosphere of this place? It is thus we come to\nrealize that Jesus Christ was really once a boy, a young man, a human\nbeing, on the earth. Even here, however, all possible helps in the form\nof pictures, maps, etc., must be called in as aids to the picturing\npower of the mind.\n\nThe number of \"likes\" in the two foregoing selections (there are at\nleast eight of them expressed or implied) suggests the remark of a\nhumble woman regarding the parables, \"I like best the likes of\nScripture.\" This word lies at the root of all picture-work. Whether in\nthe parables of Jesus, who was the prince of teachers, or in the\ndiscourses of great preachers whose sermons teem with \"likes,\" or in\nthe story-teller's skilful comparison of place with place, people with\npeople--Palestine with Vermont as to size, with England, Scotland, and\nWales as to its divisions--Galilee, Samaria, and Jud\u00e6a being \"united\nbecause they had one government, one ruler; separate because of their\npeculiar characteristics, their definite boundaries, and jealous claims\nto special privileges\"--in all the notion of likeness is the central\npoint of the thought.\n\nWe never can know anything without having something to know it with. A\n\"like\" is the key that enables us to unlock and to enter the door of\nthe unknown.\n\nIt is through picture-work also--to go a step further--that we come to\nhave revealed to us our own characters. This type of picture-work is at\nonce the most difficult and the most important of all. An example of\nsuch picture-making is chosen from an account written by Miss Wiltse,\nsetting forth her method of making stories in order to suit the needs\nof specific cases among her pupils. Not every one has the love or the\ngenius of Miss Wiltse, and no one can hope to win such success as hers\nat once; but it may be that by catching some of her spirit, studying\nher plan, and patiently practicing, we may learn this royal way of\nreaching the hearts of our children.\n\n\"There was in my kindergarten,\" she writes, \"a little boy whose deceit\nand cruelty were quite abnormal; he would smile in my face with\nseraphic sweetness while his heavy shoe would be crushing his\nneighbor's toes.... He seemed incorrigible. At last I wrote a story\nentitled 'The Fairy True Child,' into which I put my strongest effort\nto reach this untruthful child. I told it to the class, and before it\nwas concluded this boy's head was low upon his breast, his cheeks\naflame with conscious guilt. No direct reference was made to him; no\nother child thought of him in connection with the story. The next day\nhe asked to have it repeated, and his conduct was noticeably better;\nthe story became his moral tonic, and one glad day he threw his arms\nabout me, saying he wanted to keep his Fairy True Child always.\n\n\"Another child who was feeble-minded was helped to be free from his\nmental inertia and day-dreaming by a story written expressly for him,\nin which 'I AM THAT WHICH WILLS' was pictured as a fairy, coming softly\nto the little boy whose power to try was lost, kissing his eyes,\nbreathing softly upon his lips, putting her finger softly upon his\nears--making each more ready and attentive--and finally enthroning the\nlittle boy's own fairy in its place in his brain, where the fairy grows\nmore and more princely, and the little boy more and more manly, trying\nhard, so very hard, to keep the dear little fairy on his throne.\"\n\nHere, then, we have some of the types of picture-work: the picture and\nthe story, the parable in its various forms, and the word-picture--whether\nof things or actions; illustrations or side-lights, the \"likes\" with\nwhich a skilful teacher illumines his teaching, and the objects, models,\nmaps, and sketches on pad or blackboard, with which he re-enforces the\nlagging imaginations of his hearers.\n\nWhat, then, is a picture? A picture is anything that helps us to see\nmore clearly, feel more heartily, and act upon more faithfully the\ntruth which is not or cannot be immediately present to our senses. The\ntruth to be pictured may be the truth of people, places, and\nactions--external things; it may be the truth of character and of inner\nlife--the things that are unseen, which we could never see at all\nexcept by the aid of real things or pictures of real things; just as,\nfor example, our idea of God is built out of our experience of\nmountains, flowers, thunder-storms, our mother's tenderness, and our\nfather's strength. These pictures may be drawn or painted; they may be\nexpressed in words or in deeds, with pen or brush, with actions, with\nthings.\n\nWhere to find our materials and how to use these tools with economy and\neffectiveness are the questions that next claim our attention.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\nA PICTURE-BOOK, AND HOW TO USE IT.\n\n\nThe Bible is a picture-book. It is history, literature, logic,\nphilosophy; but, more than all these, for children and all who have the\nheart of childhood, it is a store-house of pictures.\n\nThe first thing needful for a teacher, if he would touch his pupils, is\nto see these pictures himself. This, we must admit, is seldom done. For\nit is one of the sad things about the human mind that it possesses the\npower to read the words that set the picture forth without seeing the\npicture, and without being touched by the emotion which only the\npicture can arouse. We can seem to pray the Lord's Prayer, for example,\nwhile in reality we are merely making articulate--sometimes\ninarticulate--sounds.\n\n\"I believe it would startle and move any one,\" said Robert Louis\nStevenson, referring to the gospel of St. Matthew, \"if he could make a\ncertain effort of imagination and read it freshly like a book, not\ndroningly and dully like a portion of the Bible.\"\n\nWho of us has not been thus startled and moved? It may have been on\nhearing a story read by one who read as though he had seen the men and\nthe events face to face. It may have been by being helped to realize\nand see by pictures or by being ourselves on the ground made sacred by\nthe story, or, perchance, by being in the same case as those described.\nIt may have been on reading the old stories \"freshly, like a book,\"\nperhaps after many years, when the old-time droning and the dulness are\nforgotten, and the simple beauty and power of the old stories come home\nto us. At such times we say, This is the very Word of God. Were ever\npictures painted like these?\n\nThomas Hardy says of one of his characters that, like every healthy\nyouth, he had an aversion to the reading of the Bible. Some of us know\nwhat that means, though we did not know it was _healthy_. Better, we\nmight almost say, that the child spent his time in some other way than\nto read the Bible or be taught it, only to conceive a dislike for its\nstories. Better a child never went to Sunday-school than that he should\ngo to have interest deadened. He may wait many a year before the\nfreshness returns.\n\n\"Two grand qualifications are equally necessary in the education of\nchildren,\" said Horace Mann, \"love and knowledge.\" The teacher of the\nBible must indeed _know_--not know about, merely, but be personally\nacquainted with--the old patriarchs, their dress, occupation, country,\nway of life, and character; the judges, likewise, the prophets and\nkings, the children of Israel as a people, the apostles and their\nfriends, and, above all, Christ himself. Does it make little difference\nwhether we think of Christ as an oriental or as an Italian; whether as\nclad in the turban and flowing white robes of the East or in more\nconventionalized attire; whether as he is pictured for us in the vivid\nand startling colors of the artist Tissot, or in the cold conventional\nsteel of our grandmother's best parlor; or the base wood-cuts of some\nmodern lesson leaves?\n\nTo us as well as to our Lord himself it makes a vital difference\nwhether his youth was spent amid arid wastes--as many of us picture\nPalestine--or in the peaceful beauty of such a retreat as that\ndescribed for us in Archdeacon Farrar's picture.\n\nWe must indeed have knowledge, as full, as exact, as personal as it can\nbe made for us or as we can make it for ourselves. And from this will\ncome _love_. The more full, exact, and personal our vision, the more\ndeep-seated will be our love. We should therefore seek our knowledge at\nfirst hand. We should look upon \"helps\" as we regard crutches--good\nuntil we can walk alone; bad the instant they keep us from using our\nown powers, seeing with our own eyes.\n\nIn picture-work, as in everything else, love is the principal thing. A\nteacher of little children, whose privilege it is to help them to enter\ninto loving appreciation of buds and leaves, soil and roots, winter and\nhow everything prepares for it, spring and how it wakes everything to\nnew life, must herself love nature. No \"science\" falsely so called will\nsuffice. \"_Do you really love nature?_\" as President G. Stanley Hall\nhas said with an indescribable emphasis on every word, is the question\nof questions to ask such a teacher. \"_Do you really love the pictures\nof the Bible?_\" is likewise the question of questions for the parent\nand teacher whose high privilege it is to lead children from the first\nof their acquaintance to love the great Picture-Book.\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\nSIDE-LIGHTS.\n\n\n\"Can you apply a parable?\" says one of Robert Louis Stevenson's\ncharacters. \"It is not the same thing as a reason, but usually vastly\nmore convincing.\"\n\nThe spiritual truth which we would have enter the child's mind--how is\nit to gain admittance? Not by a surgical operation; much less by the\nuse of a foreign language or--what is quite the same thing--of abstract\nlanguage. Not by any direct means, but indirectly, by objects,\nscaffolding, types, the story, and the illustration.\n\n\"Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact, and no\nspiritual fact can be understood except by first knowing the natural\nfact, which is, as it were, its double.\" It is so with the child, it is\nno less true of grown folk. If it were not for the world of nature--of\nboundless horizon, ceaselessly flowing rivers, of deaths and\nresurrections, of parasites--we should be powerless to grasp the truths\nof the world of spirit. The circle in the water, for example, the\napples on the plate, one specked, then all rotten, these all are but\nletters of the alphabet by which we spell out _Influence_.\n\nThere must first be in the thing-world--to give one more example--the\n\"rolling-stone,\" \"the last straw,\" \"the bird in the hand,\" \"the\nleaven,\" the ore, worth seventy-five cents as ore, worth four dollars\nas bar-iron, worth $400,000 when worked up into hair-spring, before we\ncan understand, or explain, or talk about the corresponding things in\nthe realm of the unseen. Which is only another way of saying that he\nwhose mind is not filled with the truths of nature is but ill furnished\nfor understanding the truth of God.\n\nHow may we gain this power to enrich our teaching with side-lights?\n\n1. By studying the great masters of the art of illustration. Beecher,\nSpurgeon, Dr. Parkhurst, are all worthy of emulation. Beecher testifies\nthat in his early preaching the power to illustrate was only latent. He\nfound that he was not reaching his hearers and he began to search for\n\"likes.\" He went about his farm, upon the streets, among mechanics, in\nfact everywhere, with the thought of the next Sunday's sermon in his\nmind, saying, \"What is this like? what will that illustrate?\" A glance\nat his sermons shows them full of side-lights from business, life at\nsea, from the farm and the home, from mechanical processes, as the\ncutting and polishing of precious stones, and very often from nature.\n\nIn a recent sermon Dr. Parkhurst illustrated his single point from\nbotany, physics, physiology, a ship, and from the actual experience of\ntwo men engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the same appetite.\n\nBut the power of these great preachers is only the reflex of the method\nof Christ himself. No man had greater power in picture-work. In range,\nfertility, aptness, and result, the word-pictures of Jesus stand alone\nin the history of teaching, just as in respect of beauty and power they\nstand alone in literature.\n\n2. The power of picturesque speech is acquired through earnestness and\nlove of truth, as well as through rich experience of nature and of\ncommon life. This is hinted at by Emerson: \"A man's power to think and\nto speak depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his\nlove of truth.... Picturesque language means that he who employs it is\na man in alliance with truth and God. A man conversing in earnest, if\nhe watch his intellectual processes, will find that a picture arises in\nhis mind, contemporaneous with every thought, which furnishes the\nvestment of the thought. Hence good writings and brilliant discourse\nare perpetual allegories. This imagery is spontaneous, provided one\nhave lived sufficiently to fill his mind with the raw materials of such\npictures. One bred in the woods shall not lose his lesson in the roar\nof cities.... At the call of a noble sentiment, again the woods wave,\nthe pines murmur, the river rolls and shines, and the cattle low upon\nthe mountains, as he saw and heard them in his infancy. And with these\nforms, the spells of persuasion, the keys of power are put into his\nhands.\" And as it is with contact with nature, so it is with first hand\nexperience of life in any form.\n\n3. Practice. The effects of practice have already been cited in the\ncase of Beecher. It is one of the mournful facts of human life that so\nmany powers that might have been brought out by practice always remain\nin the latent state. Practice story-telling, practice finding \"likes,\"\nand you will find before long that there is growing up in you a new\npower, just as if you were to discover in your organism a stop, by\npulling which you could jump ten feet in the air. \"Practice is nine\ntenths. A course of mobs is good practice for orators. All the great\nspeakers were bad speakers at first.\" And a course of nephews and\nnieces is the best of practice for story-tellers, and for those who\nwould be adepts in the use of side-lights.\n\nA word of caution. Great care must be used not to make the stories and\nillustrations more prominent than the truth we wish to illustrate. Dr.\nWilliam M. Taylor tells of a conversation with a carpenter in which he\nadvised him to use certain decorations. \"That,\" said the carpenter,\n\"would violate the first rule of architecture. We must never construct\nornament but only ornament construction.\" So it is in story-telling.\nNever tell a story for its own sake, merely, but for the sake of the\ntruth that lies embedded in it. A story or an illustration must grow as\nnaturally out of the subject as a flower grows out of a plant.\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\nSTORIES AND STORY-TELLING.\n\n\nThat was a profound and true saying uttered by President G. Stanley\nHall not long ago, that \"of all the things that a teacher should know\nhow to do the most important, without any exception, is to be able to\ntell a story.\" And a student pursuing a university course in education,\nafter seeking to know what stories to choose, where to find them, how\nand to whom and wherefore to tell them, touched the same truth when he\nsaid, \"It gradually dawned upon me that if I knew how to tell a story,\nI had mastered the main part of the art of teaching.\" For to know a\ngood story is to have literary and pedagogic taste; to adapt or make a\ngood story for children is both to know the secret of the mind of a\nchild and to have creative power; to tell a good story is to be a\nmaster of a noble art.\n\nThe child's thirst for stories--has it no significance, and does it not\nlay a duty upon us? And yet the insatiableness of the child's thirst is\noften paralleled by the inadequacy of the teacher's power to satisfy\nit, and by the parent's despair at being so bankrupt of material.\n\nIn his admirable suggestions for making the Sunday-school able to\nappeal to the interest and the respect of boys and girls who are no\nlonger children, and whom to treat as children is an offense against\ngood taste and Christian charity, Bishop Vincent recommends, among\nother things, \"lectures and outlines, and independent statements by\nindividual pupils and teachers.\" Story-telling, both by teachers and\npupils, is here suggested as a means of further enrichment.\n\nThe \"wholes\" of Scripture narrative, whole books, whole lives, whole\nstories _told as wholes_ by the teacher or by a single pupil, and\nnot picked out piecemeal by the teacher from halting individuals--these\nare the things that in the class give interest and that in the mind\nlive and grow and bear fruit. \"Moral power is the effect of large\nunbroken masses of thought; in these alone can a strong interest be\ndeveloped,\" and from these alone can a steady will spring.\n\nHe who has never read or heard as a whole, at one, or at most, two\nsittings, the story of an entire book of the Bible, as Jonah, Daniel,\nJob, or one of the Gospels, has missed one of the chief sources of\ninterest and power.\n\nOur course through the Bible--incident by incident, verse by verse,\nhere a little, there a little, years of \"lessons,\" but no idea even of\nthe life of Christ as a whole--is not unlike the toilsome road\ntraversed by the boy \"reading\" C\u00e6sar as his first Latin author: so many\nseparate, mutually repellant parts, but no wholes, no idea of what it\nis all about; or it may be compared to the route of the milk-man--a\nstop at every other house, and never a good run.\n\nNot one of these plodders, the Sunday-school pupil, the young Latin\nstudent, the milk-man's hack, can be looked upon as a model of\nspiritedness or of continuity.\n\nA teacher of English in the old days, when literature was used chiefly\nas a clothes-line on which to air grammatical linen, was once guilty of\ngiving out a lesson in Washington Irving--so many constructions,\nfigures, analyses, so many pages, and no more. The end came in the\n_middle_ of the ride of the headless horseman. But by the time the\nnext class studied Irving the teacher had met with a change. The limit\nof the first lesson was set according to the structure of the story.\nThe pupils were told to read the story.\n\n\"Only read it!\" said they. \"Aren't we to do anything with it?\"\n\n\"No,\" said the teacher, \"you are to read it _for fun_.\"\n\nShould one be in danger of being misunderstood in saying that we do not\nhave enough of reading the Bible for fun, for the pure enjoyment of its\nstories and of its matchless pictures? The rest will come in due\ncourse. It will come just so surely as the story is _realized_.\n\nBut important as reading is, telling is incomparably better. The eye of\nthe teacher is then fixed on the class, not on the book; the tone is\nconversational, the hand is free to gesture and to draw. One can grasp\nthe whole of the story and the whole of the situation. One can bring\nout dramatic power. For there are few stories that do not have some\ndramatic quality, both in the making and in the telling. The following\npoints kept in mind will aid the teacher:\n\n1. The story must have a beginning, concrete, interest-compelling,\ncuriosity-piquing. \"All things have two handles; beware of the wrong\none.\"\n\n2. It must have a climax, properly led up to, easily led down from; and\nthat never missed.\n\n3. Many good stories have rhythm, recurrence, repetition of the _leit\nmotiv_. \"The Three Bears\" is a favorite for this reason, among\nothers. The commands of the Lord to Moses were regularly repeated\nthrice in the Bible story; in the book of Daniel the sonorous catalogue\nof flute, harp, sackbut, and the rest, comes in none too often for the\npurposes of the story-teller.\n\n4. All good stories have unity; parts well subordinated; the main\nlesson unmistakably clear; the point, whether tactfully hidden or\nbrought out by skilful questions, never missed.\n\nThis use of stories by exactly reproducing them is naturally the\nteacher's first method. There follow naturally the _adaptation_ of\nstories and the making of _original_ stories. The latter way must\nbe dismissed with a single word of caution. Beware of a certain fatal\nfacility in reeling off \"made-up\" stories. Have you not heard such\nteachers and such stories? The latter at least are not true, or\nhealthy, or wholesome. They are about unreal people who do unnatural\nthings. They are a poor, ragged device for covering the nakedness of\nbarefaced moralizing.\n\nNo one who has tried to tell Bible stories to children, whether young\nor old, can fail to appreciate the need of adaptation: of enrichment\nand expansion on the one hand, of condensation on the other. Suppose\nthe story to be told is the parable of the Good Samaritan. There must\nfirst be preliminary work. The minds of the children must be made\nready, not merely for the lesson, as, for example, by a talk on the\nmeaning of \"neighbor,\" but also for the story. This latter kind of\npreparation for three reasons:\n\n1. To give your hearers something of the same knowledge about the road\nfrom Jerusalem to Jericho, the relations of Jews and Samaritans, the\nstanding and dignity of high priests and Levites possessed by those who\nheard the parable from the lips of Jesus.\n\n2. To give the setting of the story--time, place, people, customs,\natmosphere.\n\n3. To make the language, the steps, the moral, as intelligible to your\nhearers as they were to the young lawyer to whom the story was first\ntold.\n\nThe need of the first way of filling in the picture is brought out by\nMrs. Gaskoin in the \"Children's Treasury of Bible Stories,\" Part III.:\n\n    \"Pages might be written about this parable, for every line is full\n    of teaching, wrapped in beautiful words. But my object just now is\n    only to draw your attention to the circumstance that the third\n    person who passed the wounded man--and the only one who cared about\n    his sufferings and took pains to relieve them--was a Samaritan. On\n    this the point of the story turns. First a priest, and then a\n    Levite, whose very offices alone should have made them ready\n    helpers, had shunned their poor countryman, and had passed on\n    without even a word of sympathy. But the person who did pity him,\n    and, indeed, showered kindnesses upon him, was, not only neither\n    priest nor Levite, not only a mere stranger--but a Samaritan. Now\n    to say this was the same thing to the \"lawyer\" who was listening to\n    the tale as to say that he was an enemy. The Lord could have chosen\n    no stronger expression; in using it he spoke quite as plainly as\n    when, once before, his words had been these: 'I say unto you which\n    hear: Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them\n    that curse you!' Clearly, then, it is only by understanding how the\n    Jews felt toward the Samaritans, that we can grasp what the blessed\n    Savior meant when he said that every disciple of his must love his\n    'neighbor' as himself.\"\n\nA striking example of the mode of using a full knowledge of customs and\npeople to enrich the story is given by the same author in the following\nvivid word-picture of the thrilling experience of Zacharias. After\ndescribing the method of choosing by lot the priests to take charge of\nthe temple services, the narrative continues:\n\n    \"To Zacharias, however, one autumn, the coveted lot did fall, and\n    leaving his quiet home, he went up to Jerusalem, and there entered\n    at once upon his sacred duties. They lasted for eight days,\n    including two Sabbaths.... Every morning at nine o'clock, and every\n    afternoon at three, a priest entered the Holy Place to sprinkle the\n    incense-offering on the golden altar. He was accompanied by an\n    assistant priest, who withdrew as soon as he had made the necessary\n    preparations. The privilege of sprinkling the incense-offering,\n    like the other priestly functions, was bestowed by lot. One day,\n    during his week of attendance in the Temple, the lot fell upon\n    Zacharias. So, in his white robes, with bare feet and covered head,\n    he went slowly up, through court after court, to the entrance of\n    the Holy Place. Then a bell rang, all the other ministrants on duty\n    in the Temple took their places, and the people assembled in the\n    various courts composed themselves for prayer. Zacharias\n    disappeared within the sacred enclosure, and in due course his\n    attendant left him alone there, separated from the Holy of Holies\n    itself only by the splendid Veil-of-Partition. Silvery clouds of\n    fragrant smoke presently arose from the kindled incense--then,\n    kneeling before the altar, he paused, in prayer and adoration.\n    Suddenly he became aware that he was not alone. Lifting his eyes he\n    saw, to the right of the altar, a glorious angel, who thus\n    addressed him, dispelling his gathering fear: 'Fear not, Zacharias,\n    for thy prayer is heard, and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a\n    son, and thou shalt call his name John.' ... 'Whereby shall I know\n    this?' he asked, hesitatingly. And the angel, answering, said unto\n    him, 'I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God, and am sent\n    to speak unto thee, and to show thee these glad tidings. And behold\n    thou shalt be dumb and not able to speak, until the day that these\n    things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words,\n    which shall be fulfilled in their season.'\n\n    \"Meanwhile the people were anxiously waiting for Zacharias to\n    return. His reappearance would be the signal for the laying of the\n    sacrifice upon the altar, accompanied by a joyous outburst of the\n    beautiful Temple music. Great, then, was their uneasy wonder at the\n    unusual delay. But at last he did appear.\"\n\nAn illustration of what is meant by re-telling the old story in a\nmodern way for modern hearers is found in the following characteristic\nextract from a sermon of Dr. Parkhurst's on the text, \"And he arose and\ncame to his father\":\n\n    \"The prodigal had not enjoyed nearly as much as he expected--what\n    he had arranged to enjoy. His scheme had collapsed; his experiment\n    broken down. Going away from home and living as though he had no\n    home had not worked as he expected that it was going to. Lonely,\n    ragged, hungry, he thought the thing all over and said to himself:\n    'I think I had better go home.' He had let go of home, but home had\n    declined to let go of him. He had been his father's boy for twenty\n    years or more, and his experience in the far country had not been\n    quite able to cure him of it. Home still had a pull upon him.\"\n\nWhile many of the stories both of the Old and of the New Testament need\nexpansion rather than contraction--think of trying to bring the\nmasterly story of Jonah or the wonderfully simple tale of the\nShunemite's son into any smaller compass!--yet the need of condensing\nthe long stories, of Abraham, Joseph, David, Daniel, for instance, is\nobvious, for we must give the children a picture of the whole life and\ncharacter of these great and simple figures. To this end selection and\nsuppression are necessary.\n\nThe various books mentioned in a later chapter are all more or less\nsuccessful in the attempt to recast the old original story. So perfect\nis the original form, however, that the task is one of extreme\ndifficulty. Yet it must be attempted by every teacher, and it is\ncertainly worth a trial. The following suggestions may prove helpful in\nboth modes of adaptation:\n\n1. Use direct discourse. It will require an effort to keep yourself\n(in your embarrassment) from taking refuge behind the indirect form,\nsaying, for example, \"And when he came to himself he said _that he\nwould_ arise and go to _his_ father and tell him _that he had_ sinned.\"\n\n2. Choose actions rather than descriptions, the dynamics rather than\nthe statics of your subject. Those of us who have grown away from\nchildhood tend to reverse the true order, to place the emphasis on the\nquestion, \"What kind of a man was he,\" and not on, \"What did he do.\"\nLet what he did tell what he was. Your story will thus have \"go,\" as\nall Bible stories have.\n\n3. Use concrete terms, not abstract; tell what was done, not how\nsomebody felt or thought when something was being done; be objective,\nnot subjective.\n\n4. A story-teller should, in short, have taste. To form this taste it\nis indispensable that he should not read, but _drink in_ the great\nmasters: Homer, Chaucer, Bunyan, Hawthorne (\"The Wonder Book,\" for\nexample), and above all the Bible itself. No one can absorb these\nwithout unconsciously forming a pure, simple style and getting a more\nchildlike point of view and way of speech. Modern writers and modern\nways of thinking are, in general, too reflective, self-conscious,\nsubjective, and, where children are concerned, too direct, bare,\n\"preachy.\"\n\n5. But the secret of story-telling lies not in following rules, not in\nanalyzing processes, not even in imitating good models, though these\nare all necessary, but first of all in being _full_--full of the\nstory, the picture, the children; and then, in being morally and\nspiritually up to concert pitch, which is the true source of power in\nanything. From these comes spontaneity; what is within must come out;\nthe story tells itself; and of your fulness the children all receive.\n\nFinally, the points of practical story-telling may be thus outlined:\n\n1. See it. If you are to make me see it you must see it yourself.\n\n2. Feel it. If it is to touch your class it must first have touched\nyou.\n\n3. Shorten it. It is probably too long. Brevity is the soul of\nstory-telling.\n\n4. Expand it. It is probably meager in necessary background, in\ndetails.\n\n5. Master it. Practice. Repetition is the mother of stories well told;\nreadiness, the secret of classes well held.\n\n6. Repeat it. Don't be afraid of re-telling a good story. The younger\nthe children are, the better they like old friends. But every one loves\na \"twice-told tale.\"\n\n\n\n\nVI.\n\nSOME FIRST PRINCIPLES: UNITY, REALITY, ORDER.\n\n\n_Unity._\n\nOne of the greatest of American preachers never goes beyond \"firstly.\"\nHe makes but one point in each sermon. But he makes that point, drives\nit home, burns it in, wears a crease in the brain that nothing can ever\niron out. Every picture--and those sermons are full of pictures--bears\nupon that one point, and every argument and lesson, for which the\npictures have been laying the foundation, is a part of the same unity.\nYou never hear him say, \"And we learn further,\" but always, \"The same\ntruth comes out in another way.\" One is never more than two bases away\nfrom the home plate. It is not a cross-country run, but a game of score\nand tally.\n\nAt the opposite pole from this intensive method is the typical\nSunday-school lesson. The typical Sunday-school lesson is--is it\nnot?--hodge-podge. Does the last lesson always bear upon the lesson of\nto-day? Is to-day's aim single? Do you hold before your mind the one\npoint, the one picture, that your pupils shall carry away with them as\nan everlasting possession, or do you have in mind to display so many\npictures, so many points, that some must needs take effect?\n\nIt is easier--at least it is lazier--to provide _many things_ than\nto prepare _much_. One can rake over an acre more easily than dig\none post-hole. And the deeper you go the harder grows the digging. But\nit's the last six inches of hole that makes firm the top two feet of\npost.\n\nNow pictures help toward unity of aim in a lesson in two ways: they\nhelp to elaborate the one main point--twenty illustrations of one\npoint, not twenty points from one illustration; they help to teach us\nthe law of unity, for a true picture has but one theme, is always\nsimple.\n\n\n_Reality_.\n\n\"The great trouble with the stuff taught in our schools is that so much\nof it always remains _stuff_, and never gets worked up into _boy_.\" So\nsaid Dr. Parkhurst, in a sermon from the text, \"Taste and see that the\nLord is good.\" The only way to work up the raw materials of a boy into\nreal boy is to bring him into touch with them, to have him taste, see,\nhandle. But in order to be tasted these materials must be real. And to\nmake them real is the first duty of the teacher. It is also his hardest\ntask. For consider what it costs to make a thing so real to yourself\nthat it can't help being real to some one else! Ah! there's the rub. It\ncosts to do that--costs time, pains, life.\n\nHow long did the Lord make Ezekiel lie on his left side, and how long\non his right side, without the relief of turning over from one side to\nthe other, before he judged him ready to deliver his message with a due\nsense of the reality of its import? Three hundred and ninety days \"for\nthe iniquity of the house of Israel,\" forty days more \"for the iniquity\nof the house of Judah\"; each day for a year. After that there was no\nlack of a \"realizing sense\" in Ezekiel. He had \"been there\" himself.\nAnd was it by way of mere luxury or was it from pedagogical necessity\nthat the Lord showed himself last of all to Paul also, and sent him\ninto the desert, for a year or more, to think it over and get a real\ngrip on the experience? It was a true instinct that made Thomas, the\ndoubting one, want to reinforce a sight-picture by a touch-picture. A\ndose of the same \"doubt\" would be a tonic to much of the pale \"faith\"\nin the world.\n\nWhen I was a boy I wrote, after the fashion of the day, an \"essay\" on a\nsubject about which I had the slenderest knowledge. A tannery lay on my\nway to school, and the tanner would have been friendly and\ncommunicative, but the encyclopedia article, \"Leather,\" was my sole\nauthority. You may imagine the result: a cold, dead thing, not in the\nleast savoring of real leather. On the other hand, when I became a man,\nI traveled a thousand miles merely to see, and hear the voice of, a\nmaster whom I admired and whose picture I wished to have hanging in my\nmind. Who has not, when freed from the dead atmosphere of the schools,\ndone a like thing? And with what gain to the precious sense of reality!\n\nThe whole country, not long since, was touched--many people were\nshocked--by the news that a Christian minister had dared to see with\nhis own eyes the evils he was fighting, the existence of which he had\nbeen challenged to prove. Many good people at that time thought he had\nmade a mistake. He said, \"It is necessary that some one see these\nthings. Do you think that I would be so base as to ask another to do\nwhat I would not do myself?\" The result has proved the soundness of\nthis position. No one now doubts that Dr. Parkhurst was in the right.\nFor not only were the facts shown to exist as alleged, but (and this is\nthe point) the man himself who had seen them was so filled with a\nburning sense of their terrible reality, that he clung to his point\nwith an everlasting grip, carried it triumphantly, and laid the\nfoundations of our \"civic renaissance.\"\n\nThe vast audience who heard Bishop Thoburn, missionary to India for\nthirty years, at Chautauqua, was stirred to its depths by the simple\npower of the man. What was the secret of his power? It did not lie in\nhis bodily presence; it grew out of what the man had done. He was a man\nof action. He had given his life, and had lived. His speech was of that\nwhich he had lived. You felt that he had a right to speak--for every\nsentence had behind it weeks of real life.\n\nWho has not felt the same when listening to one who speaks of that\nwhich he does know? And who has not felt the difference when trying to\nlisten to one who talks, but whose words are not loaded with life?\n\nYou must have seen, acted, felt, if you would make your hearers see and\nfeel and act. Talk is cheap, especially borrowed talk. It is not the\nstory in the lesson quarterly that you can build into the lives of your\nclass; it is the story in you. It is the picture that has become a part\nof your life, that will be most likely to be built into the fabric of\ntheirs.\n\n\n_Order._\n\nThe way in which a subject lies in the mind of an ordinary,\nunregenerate adult, one may be safe in saying, is just the wrong\nway--the way in which it should not be presented to a child. The order\nof exposition is in general the reverse of the order of acquisition.\nThe natural man who has forgotten how things look to the eyes of a\nchild has a tendency to put things wrong end to; word first, thing\nlast; precept first, example last; to plunge _in medias res_ without\nintroduction--in short, to put the mental or spiritual cart before the\nhorse. And it requires self-sacrifice to reverse the order, enter into\nthe limitations of a little child's mind, see with his eyes, think his\nthoughts.\n\nIt is a favorite simile among writers on education that the mind is not\nunlike a field, and that the steps of instruction answer to the\nsuccessive stages of the farmer's work. First there is the preparation\nof the soil, then come the planting, the cultivating, and in due time\nthe harvest, the mill, and the market. Two of these steps, the\npreparing and the applying, concern us here; the work of presenting and\nelaborating is a theme by itself, and has been treated in a separate\nchapter.\n\n1. Preparing the ground: Approach.\n\nThe art of \"getting a good ready\" is an art worth mastering. In sermon\nor Sunday-school lesson alike the beginning is the main concern. It is\na good plan to seem to waste time at the start. Nine tenths plowing,\nharrowing, marking out, one tenth sowing, and (as we shall see) no\nlooking for a crop at all, is a just proportion for the most of our\nlessons. We shall be always safe in counting upon a sufficient number\nof stony-ground hearers to justify us in clearing the ground, and\nmaking it mellow with interest and expectation. And even those who\nwould receive the word with gladness cannot take it in unless they have\nsomething to grasp it with, cannot hear without something to hear with.\nAnd this must be given them by the teacher.\n\nWe are here at the very heart of the science of teaching. A little\ntwo-year-old child will serve us as an example. He is to be put in bed\nin a strange room, and is to go to sleep alone. Spring the idea upon\nhim and he will reject it. Prepare him for it, by telling him a story\nof a little boy who went to bed in a new room, a new bed, and all\nalone, and he is eager for the hour of bed-time. When the time comes,\nthe picture already in his mind, of a little boy, a new room, a\npeaceful going to bed, welcomes the actual experience, point for point.\nThe wise mother has made a nest for the experience.\n\nSo might a teacher prepare the minds of his pupils to receive the idea\nof ninety millions of miles.\n\n\"If any one there in the sun fired off a cannon straight at you, what\nshould you do?\"\n\n\"Get out of the way,\" would be the answer.\n\n\"No need of that,\" the teacher might reply. \"You may quietly go to\nsleep in your room, and get up again; you may learn a trade, and grow\nas old as I am--then only will the cannon-ball be getting near, then\nyou may jump to one side! See, so great as that is the sun's distance!\"\n\nSo writes a German teacher--explaining the law of apperception, of\nmaking a nest for the idea.\n\nWe cannot understand--cannot even see or hear--the absolutely new.\nEvery new plan or way of looking at things, or doctrine, is received\ninto the mind on one condition only--that it be introduced by a comrade\nalready there. Then when the new idea calls from without, its fellow\nanswers from within, and an entrance is effected.\n\nThe bearing of this upon our theme is illustrated by the plan of a\nschool principal, recently described to me, to eradicate the plague of\nstealing that had broken out in the school. He talked to the pupils of\ngiants, drew out the children's ideas, and by effective picture-work\nmade the creatures out to be an ugly, uncanny crew. He then was ready\nto declare to the children that he had discovered a giant in the\nschool, and in due time told them his name--Selfishness, I think it\nwas--and then described his evil works. The moral of this story is that\nthe plan worked, and stealing disappeared from the school from that\nday.\n\nWho of us teachers might not be emulous of becoming thus skilful in\nmellowing the soil and making it warm in the genial sunshine of true\npicture-work?\n\n2. Gathering the crop: Taste.\n\nqIf deliberation is a virtue at the start, brevity and patience\nare a necessity at the finish. When the teacher has planted an\ninterest-awakening picture in the minds of the children, his main work\nis done. He may safely leave them to make the application. He has\nsupplied the cause; the effect will take care of itself. It is often\nconvenient and suggestive to remember that children are not fools. \"A\nchild knows a thing or two,\" 'tis said, \"before he knows much of\nanything.\" And one of the very first things he knows is how to put his\nfinger on the moral in a story; and he can feel it long before he knows\nit. But that is when he is left to himself. If you take the helm, ten\nto one he'll know without feeling, which is the curse of us all.\nBetter, if we must choose, that he feel without knowing in terms, than\nindulge in mere intellectual casuistry.\n\nIn your childish haste to have a crop or to see what was going on under\nground, did you ever unearth the newly-planted row of peas? And was\nthat row ever so green and straight and thick-standing as those that\nhad been let alone? But the plants of love to God and moral taste are\ntenderer than these. They must be shined upon, warmed, and watered many\ndays before they are ready to give an account of themselves. Love is a\nsilent thing before it is outspoken. True feeling has few words, is not\nself-conscious, likes not to be asked questions. In its own good time\nit wells up and finds vent in deeds, and even in words.\n\nThe deepest thing a teacher does is to form taste. But all taste grows\nslowly, by unconscious accretion. The Chinese money-changer sets his\napprentice at work handling good money only. For ten Years he touches\nnothing else. He can then detect a counterfeit coin. How? Perhaps he\ncannot tell how. His way is surer, deeper. He feels it. He has taste.\nSo with the building of the taste for good books, for pictures, for\nnature. It is a slow process--many a book to be absorbed, picture seen\nand loved, and mountain and flower and sunset gazed upon, before taste\nis formed.\n\nAnd the taste for godliness, for religion, is no exception. It is the\nfinest and rarest of all tastes, and hence is the slowest and quietest\nof all in its development.\n\nBut did you ever see, in the hot house, shall we say, of the\nSunday-school, seed sown, harvest reaped, yes, and cakes taken from the\noven, within the limits of a single half hour? Does the figure halt, or\nwas it a miraculous quickening of the processes of nature, or was it in\ntruth a great mistake and a sin against natural spiritual growth?\n\nThere need be no fear, then, that the children will not feel, and in\ntime know, the meaning, for them, of their stories and pictures. And a\nwise teacher well knows the ways of helping them: by questioning,\n_not_ directly, and by hiding the moral so near the surface that\nit will come forth of itself.\n\n\n\n\nVII.\n\nHOW TO LEARN HOW.\n\n\nThe foregoing chapters have dealt chiefly with the theory of\npicture-work, answering the questions what and why. But practical\nteachers will go a step further and ask where to find and how to use\nmaterials, what to do first, what next, in becoming expert in using and\nmaking pictures, stories, and illustrations; in short, how to learn\nhow. Those who are not of the practical sort should omit this chapter,\nand no one should expect to enjoy or profit by it who has not the time\nand the will to go through the exercises described.\n\n_Models._ A study of some of the remarkable pictures of secular\nliterature will reveal many points in story-telling.\n\nMark how Chaucer made such a picture of his Canterbury pilgrims that\nnot only the color, the action, and the characters of the scene, but\nalso the very atmosphere of the jolly crowd has been clear and vivid\nfor more than four centuries.\n\nMacaulay boasted that he would write a history which would supersede\nthe latest novel on the tables of the young ladies of the day. How did\nhe accomplish this? Read his \"History of England\" and learn the secret\nof the power to picture.\n\nStudy George Eliot's \"Silas Marner\" to learn how to tell a story. The\ninterest never flags, the proper perspective is always maintained,\nlight and shade are in due proportion, and the lesson to be learned is\ntaken, not as a bitter dose, but as one drinks in the fresh air of a\nclear May morning.\n\nStudy pictures of Bible scenes by great masters to see what aspect of\nthe scene--what moment of the event--the painter chose as the climax of\ninterest and meaning. Although the aim in Sunday-school work is\nspiritual and not artistic, the heart will be reached more surely if\nthe eyes are appealed to and a subordinate artistic aim is kept always\nin mind.\n\nWhat is the favorite view-point in picturing Noah's ark (the\nprocession--a source of never-failing interest to old and young--is a\nconspicuous feature); in Abraham's sacririfice (Andrea del Sarto seizes\nthe moment when Abraham is about to slay Isaac and the ram appears in\nthe thicket); in the early life of Moses? Note also the subjects in the\nlife of Christ oftenest chosen by the artist.\n\nIn what parables does Christ choose a definite locality well known to\nhis hearers, definite characters, a definite point and only one, a\ndefinite purpose, and a clearly defined and applied moral? In the\npresentation of which parables do we _not_ find simple language,\ndirect discourse, a dramatic style, and a question in order to drive\nhome the point?\n\nTry the effect of substituting in any one of the parables indirect\ndiscourse for direct, statements for questions.\n\nMake a study of the Sermon on the Mount with a view of finding\nopportunities for picture-work.\n\nOn how many and on what occasions did Jesus use objects in his\nteaching? Might he not have gotten along without using the objects\nthemselves on those occasions? What seems to have been his purpose?\nWhat was the result?\n\n_Seeing._ Suppose that you were an artist searching in the Bible\nfor scenes to paint:\n\n1. What picture would you find in Matthew VIII., verse 1? verse 2?\nverse 3? verse 4? Can you see (and hear) each of these?\n\n2. What is _the_ picture in the whole passage (verses 1-4)? How\nmany elements has it, in respect of number, form, color, sound,\natmosphere?\n\n3. Which of these should be chosen in telling the story to children,\nand in what order?\n\n4. How many pictures are there in verses 5-13? What is the central\npicture?\n\n5. In verses 23-27. How many pictures are there in this passage? Which\nis the central picture? How would you lead the pupils to see it? What\nfirst? what next? what last?\n\n6. In Matthew, chapters ix. and xiii. How many separate pictures are\nthere? Which are the most important to try to see? What objects,\npictures, drawings, maps, would you use in making it real to your\nclass?\n\n_Construction._ In the previous chapter there was brought out the\nneed of adapting the stories of the Bible to the comprehension of\nmodern hearers. Suggestions were given both for cutting down and\nfilling in.\n\nChoose a story, as of the brave Hebrew boys who stood by what they\nthought was right even in captivity; the young king who asked God to\ngive him wisdom and whose way of ruling showed that his request had\nbeen granted; the shepherd boy whom the Lord chose; or choose an\nincident, or a period of a year of the life of Christ (as the \"Year of\nBeginnings,\" the \"Year of Popularity,\" the \"Year of Opposition\").\n\nSubdivide each of these into smaller stories or incidents (Daniel, for\ninstance, had three great tests, each complete in itself, and lived\nunder three kings), then combine into a whole, applying the principles\nof story-telling and of adaptation.\n\nTest your story by telling it to a child or a group of children. Tell\nthe same story not once but many times.\n\n_Choice._ Do not pad. Avoid diffuseness. Put in only those details\nthat are salient--that leap out at you--that are necessary to the\npicture and the meaning. Any one can put in everything. It is only the\nborn story-teller, or the one who will sit down by the side of a child\nand patiently observe the points that the child sees and likes to hear,\nthat can be trusted to put in and to leave out just the right points.\n\nTry writing out the story of Jonah, without the book. Compare your work\nwith the original. How might you have been less diffuse? What necessary\npoints did you omit? Did you use more or fewer general terms than the\noriginal? Were your words and expressions so picturesque as those in\nthe text?\n\n_Examples._ By way of illustrating the meaning of the foregoing points,\nit may be interesting to note the difference in concreteness, _i.e._,\nin the _picture_, to be found in the following paragraphs, all of\nwhich are intended to mean practically the same thing.\n\n(_a_) One bidden to obey and refusing, but afterward obeying, is a\nbetter example of obedience than one who obeys in word but not in deed.\n\n(_b_) Some one who was requested to do something refused in word, but\nobeyed in deed; another complied, but only in word. Which was the\nbetter example of obedience?\n\n(_c_) If some one in authority should tell some one to do something and\nhe should refuse but afterward comply, and should tell another to do\nsomething and he should say that he would without doing so, which of\nthese really would perform the will of the one who gave the command?\n\n(_d_) A certain man had some children. One day he told one of them\nto go and do some work that he wanted him to do. But the child said\nthat he wouldn't, etc.\n\n(_e_) Compare with these the same thought clothed in the concrete\nand picturesque words of our Lord himself:\n\n\"But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the\nfirst, and said, Son, go work to-day in my vineyard.\n\n\"He answered and said, I will not: but afterwards he repented, and\nwent.\n\n\"And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and\nsaid, I go, sir: and went not.\n\n\"Whether of them twain did the will of his father?\"\n\nIt would be equally possible to take the same clear-cut, dramatic\npicture and load it down--smother it--with words. But this kind of\npicture-work it is unnecessary to illustrate.\n\n_Expression._ Read each of the parables of Jesus, picturing in your\nmind everything that can be seen, heard, or felt. \"Put yourself in his\nplace\" regarding every one spoken of. When you have thus pictured the\nstory, and while you are picturing it, read aloud, or tell the story.\nThe expression will take care of itself--_if only you see and hear_. In\nthis simple principle is contained the whole art of expression, _i.e._,\nof giving forth something which is within.\n\n_Environment._ What kind of country was Palestine? If Palestine were\ntaken up from the shore of the Mediterranean and planted on your state,\nwhere would Dan and Beersheba lie respectively? Wherein did its\ndivisions differ, in respect of people, surface, products, occupations?\n\nThe four routes of Christ's principal journeys are given as follows:\nBethlehem to Jerusalem, 6 miles north; Bethlehem to Egypt, 250 miles\nsouthwest; Nazareth to Jericho, 60 miles southeast; Nazareth to\nJerusalem, 65 miles south. Trace these routes on a sand map and on the\nblackboard. Describe the country passed through, the occupations of the\npeople, the mode of travel, the length of time required.\n\nAccount for the roughness of the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.\n\nWhat kind of place was C\u00e6sarea Philippi, and what kind of stream is the\nJordan at that point?\n\n_Sketching._ The teacher should practice until he can make, with\nthe flat crayon, something that looks like a mountain, a road, a\ntree--a scumble for the foliage and a stroke or two for the trunk, a\nman--two strokes will do for him (some teachers prefer to cut out\npictures and pin them on the board). It must be admitted that this\nmethod of trial and error is dangerous. But there are self-taught\nteachers who do pretty well.\n\n_Map-drawing._ To learn to sketch a map is a more hopeful task. Every\none should be able to follow on pad or blackboard a campaign, a flight\ninto Egypt, and a march up into Canaan; and to trace the journeys of\nJesus and of Paul.\n\nThe following directions will be found helpful in drawing, free-hand\nand with only two construction lines, the map of Palestine:\n\nDraw a horizontal line, and on it with the span of the hand, or with\nany convenient unit, measure three units, indicating their extremities\nby the figures 1, 2, 3, 4, from left to right. At the right extremity\nof this line, which we designate 4, draw a vertical line five units in\nlength (4-9). From the upper extremity of this line draw to the left a\nline parallel to 1-4, one unit in length (9-10). Join points 1 and 10\nwith an irregular line, thus indicating the coast. A perpendicular let\nfall from 10 to 3 would indicate the course of the Jordan, the source\nlying nearly opposite 8, the Sea of Galilee opposite 7, the Dead Sea\nbetween 4 and 5; and Jud\u00e6a, Samaria, Galilee, and Phoenicia will\neach occupy, roughly speaking, one and a half units. The principal\nmountains, cities, routes, may be indicated by initials, signs, or in\nany other appropriate ways. Each unit being 40 miles in length, the\ndimensions of Palestine and its parts may be derived. This same system\nmay, of course, be used in drawing any map.\n\nMiss Lucy Wheelock says that \"the most satisfactory map is one which\nthe teacher makes herself, drawing the outlines with a blue marking\ncrayon on a sheet of white silesia, or finished cotton cloth, and\nputting in thin strips of wood or rollers at top and bottom, so that it\nwill hang easily.\"\n\n_The sand table_, especially with work for younger children, is\nindispensable. This every one can learn to make and manage and can fit\nout with the needed materials. Let no one shrink from the simple task\nof getting together the equipment and learning to model a map of\nPalestine.\n\nThe following description of the way of making a sand map of Palestine\nhas been kindly furnished by Miss Juliet E. Dimock of Elizabeth, N.J.,\nwhose theory and practice in primary classes are alike admirable:\n\n\"Any carpenter will make for you a board, four feet six inches long,\nand two feet six inches wide, with a raised edge of one and one half\ninches. Paint the surface a bright blue, to represent the waters of the\nMediterranean. Procure about fifty pounds of molders' sand from a stove\nfoundry. The new sand is preferable to that which has been used for\ncasting, owing to its lighter color. Study a good map of Palestine\nuntil you have a clear idea of the coast-line, the sea-coast plain, the\nmountain region, with its principal peaks, the Jordan valley, and the\neastern table land.\"\n\n(A relief map is desirable as a guide. The relative heights of\nmountains are given in Hurlbut's \"Bible Geography.\" A cross-section of\nPalestine showing relief is given in the \"Bible Study Union Lessons,\"\nOld Testament History, Progressive Grade, First Quarter, Appendix pp.\n(V.), (VI.). The Bible Study Publishing Co., 21 Bromfield Street,\nBoston, Mass.)\n\n\"Cut a paper pattern of the rivers and have them cut out of tin by a\ntinsmith. Use mirrors for the waters of Merom, the Dead Sea, and the\nSea of Galilee, and white cord for the roads.\n\n\"When you are ready to go to work, place the board on a table and empty\nupon it your box of sand, which should be dampened until it can easily\nbe molded by the hand. Raise the head of the board, until the children\ncan see your work; if the sand is damp enough to keep its place, it can\nbe inclined at an angle of forty-five degrees. At first the children\nwill be interested in seeing you form the map; the coast-line, with its\n\"camel's hump\" for Mt. Carmel, the mountains, with snow-capped Hermon\ntowering above them all, the seas, rivers, roads, and finally the white\npaper boats on the Mediterranean.\n\n\"Take five minutes every Sunday for a supplemental lesson on the\nhistory of the land, beginning with the first settlement of the country\nby the Canaanites, the family of Noah's grandson. Use the map also,\nwhenever it is possible, to illustrate the lesson for the day; either\nas a map, or by building up the sand into a city, a garden, a temple,\nor a palace. The supplemental course might begin with the Garden of\nEden, with as great a variety of trees, flowers, and animals, as may be\neasily obtained. And by turning the board around, the map of the\nancient world may be made, and the stories of Noah, Babel, and Abram's\njourney from Ur of the Chaldees. Use small objects to make the places\non the map, and replace them with initial blocks when the children are\nsufficiently familiar with the story to tell it to you. A very little\ningenuity on the part of the teacher will suggest the objects to be\nused, which can be readily cut out of colored card-board.\n\n\"After school, return the sand to its box and pour at least a quart of\nwater over it. It will then be in good condition for next Sunday's\nuse.\"\n\n_Specifics._ True picture-work has, as we have seen, a true bearing\nupon the question, How to help children conquer their faults. \"Don't,\"\neven \"Please don't,\" is ineffectual and unpedagogical. So is every\nmeans that is direct and negative instead of indirect and constructive.\nIt is a thousand times easier to empty a tumbler of air by filling it\nwith water than by the use of the air pump.\n\nAnd so, just as we know that singing has a marvelous power to sweeten\nand calm the spirit of a young child, so a story is often the shortest\nand the most effective means to bring him to himself. A story is a\nspecific. The right story will heal its proper disorder. There is\ndanger here, 'tis true; \"the intent to teach,\" as Herbart writes,\nspoils it all. Stories should be given as food rather than as medicine.\nThere is all the greater need, therefore, for practice.\n\nFind, adapt, make up stories to meet the needs of a child who is idle;\nof one who is mean, lacks self-control, is slovenly, careless,\nuntruthful, etc.\n\n_Texts._ On the other hand, it is just as necessary that illustrations\nattach themselves to their proper principles, as that principles find\nthe concrete key that will serve as their open sesame into the child's\nmind.\n\nMr. Barrie tells of a newspaper writer who never conversed five minutes\nwith a friend without getting a suggestion for a leader or a \"story.\"\nThe teacher ought to be no less fertile in finding texts, and in\npressing everything he meets--whether in books, in newspapers, or on\nthe street--into the service of the Sunday-school lesson.\n\nFor example, the street car on which you ride to school or to business\nin the morning suddenly stops. It stands still three, five, fifteen\nminutes. You are late. Twenty others are late. Reason, a careless\ntruck-driver has driven an inch too near the track. What does this\nillustrate?\n\nA pound of cotton, worth a few cents, may be made into yarn and become\nworth more; into chintz and be worth still more, etc. What is the truth\nhidden in this fact?\n\nA thoughtful teacher, in reply to the question, \"What stories have you\nfound especially helpful?\" contained in the blank on story-telling\n(Chapter X.), gave the following:\n\n\"Cato's words, 'Carthage must be destroyed' (the power of words);\nHercules at the parting of the ways (the necessity of choice);\nMacbeth's 'I have lived long enough' (the end of a wasted life); The\nAncient Mariner--'He prayeth best' (the secret of prayer); the parable\nof the wicked husbandmen (irreverence).\"\n\n\n\n\nVIII.\n\nBOOKS, PICTURES, AND ILLUSTRATIVE MATERIAL.\n\n\nThe teacher should be a capitalist. He should not run dry every Sunday,\nand fill in during the week only enough for the next lesson; as a\nschoolboy who fills his mind with facts and empties it on examination\nday. The true teacher is independent of the \"Quarterly.\" He uses it but\ndoes not lean on it. For the facts there given are, as a rule,\nisolated, and so half dead; the illustrations are at best warmed over.\nNeither can give a strong head of steam. There is not enough, and what\nthere is is cold.\n\nOther remedies for this condition are suggested elsewhere. Here it is\nurged that the teacher must be a reader of books. The following are\ngiven as types. They have been selected after searching the lists of\nmany publishers, and are recommended only after a personal examination:\n\n\n_Books Telling the Story of the Bible._\n\nThere are many Bible stories for children, some of them good, but most\nof them far from ideal when both the story and the pictures are\nconsidered. Those with highly colored, gaudy pictures should be shunned\nas they tend to give low ideals morally and spiritually as well as to\ncorrupt the child's artistic taste. To publish a story of the Bible\nwith illustrations taken only from great masters is a good work waiting\nfor some one who wishes to be of service to the world.\n\n\"The Story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation,\" by Charles Foster.\nCharles Foster Publishing Co., Philadelphia, Pa. 75 cents.\n\nOf the many Bible stories published this is the most complete and the\nmost popular. In the matter of pictures, however, it is poor.\n\n\"Children's Treasury of Bible Stories,\" by Mrs. Herman Gaskoin.\nMacmillan & Co. Three parts, 18mo, 30 cents each.\n\nThe best Bible story we have found. It is most suggestive and\ninteresting, showing how to picture Bible scenes.\n\n\"Stories from the Bible,\" Rev. Alfred J. Church. Macmillan & Co. 256\npp., $1.25.\n\nExcellent as giving a condensed account of the Bible narrative in Bible\nlanguage. The teacher who uses these stories will often find it\nnecessary to supplement them with suitable introductions and\nside-lights.\n\n\"The Sweet Story of Old,\" by Mrs. Haskell. Dutton. 4to, 50 cents.\n\nA small book of Bible stories for young children, with pictures which\nare quite good.\n\n\"First Steps for Little Feet,\" by Charles Foster. Charles Foster\nPublishing Co. 50 cents.\n\nBible stories told in simple language for the youngest children. Fair\noutline pictures.\n\n\"The Story of Jesus,\" by Louisa T. Craigin. Illustrated with one\nhundred full-page illustrations from the designs of Alexander Bida,\ntogether with many other pictures of the Holy Land. Fords, Howard &\nHulbert. $10.00.\n\nA beautiful and sympathetic account of the life of Jesus, especially\nrich in descriptions of Palestine and in other materials for\nword-pictures. The numerous pictures of landscapes and scenes from the\nlife of Christ are helpful.\n\nThe same in paper covers in 15 numbers, 50 cents each.\n\n\"From Olivet to Patmos.\" The First Christian Century in Picture and\nStory. By Louisa Seymour Houghton. American Tract Society. $1.50.\n\n\"The Life of Christ in Picture and Story,\" by Louisa Seymour Houghton.\nAmerican Tract Society. $1.25.\n\nThe last two books contain some poorly executed but well-chosen\npictures of Bible lands, showing architecture, costumes, street scenes,\netc.\n\n\n_Books About Palestine._\n\n\"The Land and the Book,\" by W. M. Thomson. Harper & Bros. $8.00, $6.00.\n\nRecommended by a high authority as the best book on Palestine for a\nteacher who can own only one.\n\n\"Boy Travelers in Egypt and the Holy Land,\" by T. W. Knox. Harper &\nBros. $3.00.\n\n\"Sinai and Palestine in Connection with their History,\" by Dean\nStanley. A. C. Armstrong. $2.50.\n\nAn excellent standard work.\n\n\"Pictured Palestine,\" by James Neill. Anson D. Randolph. $2.25.\n\nShows the contrast between eastern life and our own. Very good pictures\nillustrating many phases of oriental life.\n\n\"In Scripture Lands.\" Scribner's. $3.50.\n\nBeautiful pictures.\n\n\"Earthly Foot-Prints of the Man of Galilee,\" by Bishop John H. Vincent,\nD.D., LL.D., Jas. W. Lee, D.D., Robert E. M. Bain. New York and St.\nLouis: N. D. Thompson Publishing Co. $4.75.\n\nFour hundred fine, large photographic views and descriptions of places\nconnected with the earthly life of our Lord and his apostles.\n\n\n_Books on the Use of Stories and Illustrations._\n\n\"The Use of Stories in the Kindergarten,\" by Anna Buckland. Ginn & Co.\n15 cents.\n\n\"The Place of the Story in Early Education,\" by Sara E. Wiltse. Ginn &\nCo. 132 pp., 50 cents.\n\nTwo suggestive and helpful essays that every teacher should read.\n\n\"Yale Lectures on Preaching,\" by Henry Ward Beecher. Fords, Howard &\nHulbert. $2.00.\n\nAn inspiring book. The chapter on \"Rhetorical Illustrations\" is\nespecially applicable, but the entire work, although written for\npreachers, has rich stores of instruction and guidance for teachers.\n\n\"The Art of Illustration,\" by C. H. Spurgeon. Wilbur B. Ketchum. $1.25.\n\nA book by a master giving the secret of his art.\n\n\n_Stories and Themes._\n\n\"Parables from Nature,\" by Margaret Gatty. Macmillan & Co. 2 vols.,\n18mo, $1.50.\n\nA wonderful book, in which nature is used to typify spiritual truths.\nIt should be owned by every mother and teacher.\n\n\"Parables. Laws of Nature and Life, or Science applied to Character,\"\nby Louisa Parsons Hopkins. Lee & Shepard. 15 cents.\n\nBrief and suggestive.\n\n\"Stories of the Saints,\" by Mrs. C. Van D. Chenoweth. Houghton, Mifflin\n& Co. $1.00.\n\nSupplies a want which should be more \"felt\" than it is. Is it not as\nimportant that our children should know the story of Christian saints\nand martyrs as that of Greek gods and heroes?\n\n\"Kindergarten Stories and Morning Talks,\" by Sara E. Wiltse. Ginn & Co.\n212 pp., 75 cents.\n\n\"Stories for Kindergartens and Primary Schools,\" by Sara E. Wiltse.\nGinn & Co. 50 cents.\n\n\"A Brave Baby and Other Stories,\" by Sara E. Wiltse. Ginn & Co. 50\ncents.\n\nThese three books are storehouses of inspiration and models of\nstory-telling.\n\n\"Child Stories from the Masters,\" by Maude Menefee. Kindergarten\nLiterature Co., Chicago. $1.00.\n\nAn excellent selection of themes from poets, dramatists, and the Bible.\nThe teacher will do well to study the originals and try to improve upon\nthe stories given.\n\n\"Child's Christ-Tales,\" by Andrea Hofer. Woman's Temple, Chicago.\n$1.00.\n\nChoice illustrations from the masters. Suggestive tales and parables.\n\n\"The Kindergarten Sunday-School,\" by Frederika Beard. Kindergarten\nPublishing Co., Woman's Temple, Chicago.\n\nAn attempt to solve the infant class problem. Three series of lessons,\neach having sequence and unity. Suggestive in its plan, and likely to\nhelp teachers to improve upon the models given.\n\n\n_Books to be Read for the Sake of a Better Understanding of Child\nNature._\n\n\"Study of Child Nature,\" by Elizabeth Harrison. Chicago Kindergarten\nTraining School. $1.00.\n\n\"Children's Rights,\" by Kate Douglas Wiggin. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.\n$1.00.\n\n\"A Boy's Town,\" by W. D. Howells. Harper & Bros., New York. $1.25.\n\n\"Being a Boy,\" by Charles Dudley Warner. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. $1.25.\n\n\"The Story of a Bad Boy,\" by T. B. Aldrich. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.\n$1.25.\n\n\"The Mill on the Floss,\" by George Eliot. Harper & Bros. Popular ed. 75\ncents.\n\n\"Cuore, An Italian Schoolboy's Journal,\" by Edmondo de Amicis. N.Y.\nCrowell. Illustrated edition. $1.50.\n\n\n_Pictures and Books from which Pictures may be Culled._\n\n\"The Life of Christ as Treated in Art,\" by F. W. Farrar, D.D., F.R.S.\nMacmillan & Co. $8.00, $5.00.\n\n\"The Christ Child in Art,\" by Henry Van Dyke. Harper & Bros. $4.00.\n\n\"Sacred and Legendary Art,\" by Mrs. Anna Jameson. Longmans, Green & Co.\n2 vols., 16mo. $2.50.\n\n\"The History of Our Lord as Exemplified in Works of Art,\" by Mrs. Anna\nJameson. Illustrated. 2 vols. Longmans, Green & Co. $8.00.\n\nAll the above are standard works and are excellent.\n\n\"The Earthly Footprints of Our Risen Lord,\" by Fleming H. Revell. 4to.\n$1.50.\n\nA continuous narrative of the four gospels according to the revised\nversion, illustrated by numerous half-tone pictures. The selection is\nnot so choice as one could wish, yet many of the pictures are by the\nbest artists, and present a consecutive pictorial story of the life of\nChrist.\n\n\"The Photographs of the Holy Land.\" Globe Bible Publishing Co.,\nPhiladelphia. $3.00. The same in cheaper style in eight portfolios at\n10 cents apiece.\n\nPhotographs of classic and modern pictures of the child Jesus and of\nother Biblical subjects. Unmounted, card size, 3-3/4 cents each;\ncabinet size, 7-1/2 cents each. A catalogue in German will be sent on\napplication. R. Tamme, Dresden, Germany.\n\nThere is no duty on pictures.\n\nBlue print copies of pictures of Biblical scenes by the old masters and\nby modern artists. Mr. Alfred A. Hart, 221 West 109th Street, New York\nCity. Card size, one cent each.\n\nClear, durable, excellent; of a kind likely to develop good taste. The\nlow price makes it possible to encourage children to make collections\nof their own. A single secular school has used over twelve thousand of\nthese pictures.\n\nThe Christmas catalogues of publishers often contain serviceable\npictures.\n\nThe standard histories of art are full of illustrative material. The\nteacher should be ever on the alert.\n\n\n_Objective Helps; Blackboard Sketches._\n\nCards for children to prick and sew. Bible Study Publishing Co., 21\nBromfield Street, Boston, Mass.\n\nScroll of history. See \"The Modern Sunday School,\" p. 297. John H.\nVincent.\n\nSunday-school Museum. Read description of one at Akron, in \"The Modern\nSunday School,\" p. 301.\n\nIllustrative Blackboard Sketching, by W. Bertha Hintz. E. L. Kellogg &\nCo. 53 pp. 30 cents.\n\nA helpful guide designed for those entirely ignorant of the art of\ndrawing, who nevertheless like to work out their own way of putting a\nlesson, for the eye as well as for the ear, in preference to ready-made\nblackboard exercises and \"pictured truth\" at second hand.\n\n\n\n\nIX.\n\nFALSE PICTURE-WORK.\n\n\nA book on helps, to be truly helpful, must deal with negative as well\nas with positive matters--those things which we ought to leave undone\nas well as those we ought to do. Any treatment of true picture-work is\nlacking in completeness, not to say in candor, which does not say a\nword about false picture-work.\n\nIf there were only some way of crawling into the inside of the\nchildren's brains, and marking the effect of the alliterations,\njuxtapositions, and symbolisms of what goes by the name of\npicture-work! Can't we devise a meter for estimating the precise\nemotional and spiritual value of a board filled with marks in various\ncolors in the form of anchors, hearts, keys, crosses, not to mention\nother less sacred things?\n\nI once saw a \"chalk talk\" given to two hundred Sunday-school children.\n_Dramatis person\u00e6_: three parrots; one unrecognizable, it was so badly\ndrawn; a second, indifferent; the third, capital, a speaking likeness.\nThe last was perched on S. T. Moral: \"Honesty is the best policy.\" The\nchildren were as delighted as if the text had been taken from the Bible\nand as interested in the display as if it had possessed the slightest\nvalue.\n\n\"But,\" it is urged, \"the children are always interested in such things.\"\nYes, and they would be more interested still if you showed them a monkey\nor displayed red, green, and blue lights. The law of interest tells us\nwhat shall _not_ be placed before the children--\"Nothing that is not\ninteresting\"--but as a guide to what we _shall_ give them it tells but\nhalf the story. The other half is, \"_Not everything that is interesting,\nand not anything just because it is interesting_.\"\n\nLet this caution not be misunderstood. The children must use their\neyes. To expect children to follow your stories by ear, and make up\ntheir mind-pictures out of whole cloth or from the few objects and\npictures that can be shown them, or to remember texts and lesson points\nout of hand, is to suppose them ready to graduate into the senior\ndepartment. Let us have more blackboards. An individual board for every\npupil, if possible, and the more use--wise use--of blackboards the\nbetter. But many \"blackboardists\" have yet to learn that it is possible\nto be apt without being alliterative, that one may be extravagant\nwithout being effective, sensational without being spiritual. In short,\nthey seem not to understand that common sense applies even to\nblackboard work.\n\nWhat are the points in good blackboard work? To be quite dogmatic, for\nthe sake of brevity, good blackboard work is:\n\n1. Simple. \"Blackboard ingenuities, dissolving from acrostic into\nenigma, and from enigma into rhyme are not necessary\" and they are\nharmful besides. They distract, distort, make dizzy. The best\nblackboard work has the fewest lines, the most unity in its variety,\nthe least approach to anything like a maze.\n\n2. Clear. The best blackboard work is that which is easiest to follow,\nhardest to forget.\n\n3. Varied. Our stock symbols are worked to death. Is it _right_ to\nuse the cross as commonly as you would a letter of the alphabet? Find\nsomething new or give the blackboard a vacation. It is not necessary\nthat there be a quarter hour on every day's program for blackboard\nwork. Who has not spent a \"bad quarter of an hour\" when the \"exercise\"\nwas perfunctory?\n\n4. Descriptive. All maps and plans, sketches of roads and rooms, of\nmountains and rivers, are good, because they help us to form for\nourselves the picture which we must see in order to grasp the meaning\nof the story. For example, we may illustrate the Mount of\nTransfiguration; first with four figures, then six, then four; the\nwinding road to Emmaus, two figures--straight lines, merely--and a\nlittle farther on, a third; the upper room, its occupants represented\nby marks or initial letters. Anything is helpful that gives a notion of\nposition, number, form, contrast, sequence, change.\n\n5. Free, living, personal. The best blackboard work is that which is\nfreest. Children are impressionists. For them the broad side of the\ncrayon is better than the point; two strokes better than twenty.\n\nThe best blackboard work is that which grows before the children's\neyes, which is made, not unveiled. Two minutes of rough sketching in\nthe lesson hour is better than two hours of patient putting in of\nfinishing touches beforehand.\n\nThe best blackboard work is that which is original, personal. That\nwhich is given in the \"lesson helps\" is just what you should not use.\nIt is not yours. If it does not help you to find your own way, it is\nuseless--and worse than useless, because it tempts you to borrow\nwithout inspiring you to create.\n\n6. In fine, the mission of the blackboard, as of all picture-work, is\nto help us to see the truth in the world or the truth in our own selves\nby showing us a truth that is easier to see or that is nearer at hand\nthan that which we would learn.\n\nLike all picture-work, it fulfills its mission when it serves as a\nscaffolding, when it is kept subordinate. It fails when it obscures the\ntruth, not helps to build it. False picture-work is anything that\nstands in the way of our seeing truth; as when we cannot see the woods\nfor the trees--cannot see the Sunday-school lesson for the bizarre\nexhibitions on the blackboard.\n\n\n\n\nX.\n\nA CO\u00d6PERATIVE STUDY.\n\n\nIn order to find out what Sunday-school teachers are doing in the\nmatter of stories, illustrations, and picture-work generally, the\nwriter prepared and distributed to a thousand teachers the following\nblank:\n\n    _One response NOW is worth twenty a month hence._\n\n    STORY-TELLING.\n\n    _To Sunday-school Teachers:_\n\n    For the purpose of devising means for the better preparation of\n    Sunday-school teachers, the President of the Teachers College, New\n    York, requests the teachers in your Sunday-school to answer the\n    following questions.\n\n    To save time and trouble use both sides of this sheet.\n\n    Whenever possible answer by crossing out the term that does not\n    apply.\n\n    In every case where the answer is based on experience with\n    children, state the age of the children.\n\n    Please do not hesitate to return this blank, even if you have\n    answered but a few questions.\n\n    _Sources._--To illustrate the lesson do you use Bible stories,\n    stories from good literature, or stories invented by yourself?\n\n    _Subject._--Do you find your children more interested in stories\n    of people or of nature?\n\n    _Kind._--Which of the stories have you found more effective, modern\n    or classic? Stories told or read? True or fictitious? Those based\n    on poetry or prose? Stories in which the moral is set forth or\n    hidden?\n\n    _Experience._--What stories are you going to use in the\n    Sunday-school lesson for next Sunday?\n\n    _Precept._--If you do not use stories, what other means do you\n    employ to enforce religious and moral lessons? Do you \"moralize,\"\n    and if so, with what obvious result?\n\n    _Environment._--What means do you use of making the dress,\n    customs, etc., of Bible people seem real to children?\n\n    _Picture-work._--Do you use blackboard illustrations? What\n    other objective helps?\n\n    _Examples._--What stories have you found especially helpful?\n\n    _Purpose._--What is your purpose in using stories in the\n    Sunday-school?\n\n    _Principles._--Do you succeed in having such unity in the lesson\n    that the stories all contribute to one main thought? Mention five\n    requisites for a good story-teller.\n\n    Mention five qualities in a good story.\n\nTo these questions fifty-eight replies were received. Very few,\nhowever, gave the ages of the children, and the smallness of the number\nof replies--which after all is by no means discouraging--tends to\nvitiate the data as bases for generalization.\n\nSpace forbids giving more than a single group of typical answers. Some\nof the most helpful of the suggestions have been embodied in the\nforegoing. Further replies from thoughtful teachers will be welcome.\n\n    _Question_--Mention five requisites for a good story-teller.\n\n    _Answers:_\n\n    Sympathetic voice, manner, and face.\n\n    More knowledge of the subject than one wants to use.\n\n    The teacher must be interested, bright, imaginative, clear in\n    thought and expression.\n\n    Clear apprehension of the point to be made, clear knowledge of the\n    subject, understanding of the peculiarities of his hearers, tact in\n    making application, and dramatic power.\n\n    Power in word-painting--with a sense of perspective.\n\n    Unconsciousness of self.\n\n    A gift for mimicry.\n\n    Graphic description.\n\n    Sympathy with children.\n\n    Power to hold attention and keep to the main thought.\n\n    Animation, personal magnetism, originality, wit.\n\n    Conciseness, force.\n\n    Pleasant manner.\n\n    Ability to repeat a story without hesitation.\n\n    Power to put one's self into the time, circumstances, etc., of the\n    story.\n\n    Love of story-telling.\n\n    Quiet manners.\n\n    Gestures, good voice.\n\n    Small [easy?] words.\n\n    Ability to make the children help tell the story, by making them\n    gesture, point, express sorrow, surprise, etc., and answer\n    questions.\n\n    A good story-teller asks intensely interesting questions at exactly\n    the right point.\n\nA passage from Herbart forms a fitting close to this study:\n\n    \"The intent to teach spoils children's books at once; it is\n    forgotten that every one, the child included, selects what suits\n    him from what he reads, and judges the writing as well as the\n    writer after his own fashion. Show the bad to children plainly, but\n    not as an object of desire, and they will recognize that it is bad.\n    Interrupt a narrative with moral precepts, and they will find you a\n    wearisome narrator. Relate only what is good, and they will feel it\n    monotonous, and the mere charm of variety will make the bad\n    welcome. Remember your own feelings on seeing a purely moral play.\n    But give to them an interesting story, rich in incidents,\n    relationships, characters, strictly in accordance with\n    psychological truth, and not beyond the feelings and ideas of\n    children; make no effort to depict the worst or the best, only let\n    a faint, half-conscious moral tact secure that the interest of the\n    action tends away from the bad toward the good, the just, the\n    right; then you will see how the child's attention is fixed upon\n    it, how it seeks to discover the truth and think over all sides of\n    the matter, how the many-sided material calls forth a many-sided\n    judgment, how the charm of change ends in preference for the best,\n    so that the boy who perhaps feels himself a step or two higher in\n    moral judgment than the hero or the author, will cling to his view\n    with inner self-approbation, and so guard himself from a coarseness\n    he already feels beneath him. The story must have one more\n    characteristic, if its effect is to be lasting and emphatic; it\n    must carry on its face the strongest and clearest stamp of human\n    greatness. For a boy distinguishes the common and ordinary from the\n    praiseworthy as well as we; he even has this distinction more at\n    heart than we have, for he does not like to feel himself small, he\n    wishes to be a man. The whole look of a well-trained boy is\n    directed above himself, and when eight years old his entire line of\n    vision extends beyond all histories of children. Present to the boy\n    therefore such men as he himself would like to be.\"\n\n\nPrinted in the United States of America.\n\n\n\n\n_THE PRIMARY DEPARTMENT_\n\n~Old Testament Stories~ For Little Children. Illustrated, 12mo, cloth,\nnet $1.25.\n\n  ~By LAURA ELLA CRAGIN~\n\n      More \"Kindergarten Stories\" from the Old Testament in language\n      little tots can take in. The value of the book apart from the\n      excellence of the manner of telling the stories, lies in the fact\n      that Miss Cragin has made these stories follow closely the events\n      of the Old Testament.\n\n~Experimental Object Lessons~ Bible Truths Simply Taught. 12mo, cloth,\nnet 75c.\n\n  ~By CHARLOTTE E. GRAY~\n\n      \"The simple and instructive character of this book including its\n      adaptation to young minds and hearts, makes it the \"very thing\"\n      for Sunday school scholars and teachers.\"--_Religious Telescope._\n\n~Object Lessons for Children~ Or Hooks and Eyes, Truth Linked to Sight.\nIllustrated, 12mo, cloth, net $1.00.\n\n  ~By C. H. TYNDALL, Ph.D.~\n\n      \"For busy Sunday-school workers and others, we know no better\n      work of its kind.\"--_Cumberland Presbyterian._\n\n~Talks to Children~ 12mo, cloth, net 50c.\n\n  ~By T. T. EATON: D.D.~\n\n      \"It Reproduces Scripture History in the terms of modern life, and\n      gives it both a vivid setting before the youthful imagination and\n      a firm grip on the youthful conscience.\"--_Independent._\n\n~The Shepherd Psalm for Children~ With half-tone Frontispiece and 13\noutline Illustrations, 16mo, cloth, net 35c.\n\n  ~By JOSEPHINE L. BALDWIN~\n\n      \"Equally adapted to teach the teacher how to teach, to teach the\n      child how to learn, and to teach what ought to be\n      learned.\"--_Christian Advocate._\n\n~The Lord's Prayer for Children~ Illustrated. 12mo, cloth, net 50c.\n\n  ~By MARTHA K. LAWSON~\n\n      \"Miss Lawson is a specialist in the science of child study. The\n      book is invaluable to Primary teachers and leaders of Junior\n      classes.\"--_N.Y. Observer._\n\n~Seed for Spring-time Sowing~ A Wall Roll for the use of Primary,\nSabbath School and Kindergarten Teachers. Compiled by MRS. ROBERT\nPRATT, 75c.\n\n~Practical Primary Plans~ Illustrated with diagrams. Revised and\nenlarged. 16mo, cloth, net $1.00.\n\n  ~By ISRAEL P. BLACK~\n\n      \"The author goes through all the material, physical and spiritual\n      requirements for successful primary teaching.\"--_Christian\n      Advocate._\n\n~Our Children for Christ~ A Series of Catechetical Lessons on the\nReligion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. _New Improved Edition._ 16mo,\npaper, net 10c.\n\n  ~By REV. DOREMUS SCUDDER~\n\n\n~The Conversion of Children~ 12mo, paper, net 25c.\n\n  ~By E. PAYSON HAMMOND, M.A.~\n\n\n_FOR THE SUPERINTENDENT_\n\n~The Sunday School of To-day~ A Compendium of Hints for Superintendents\nand Pastors, with Suggestions and Plans for Sunday-School Architecture\nby C. W. STOUGHTON, A.I.A. Graphically illustrated, 12mo, cloth, net\n$1.25.\n\n  ~By WM. WALTER SMITH, A.B., A.N.~\n\n      \"A veritable mine of information and inspiration. It is not too\n      much to say that no pastor, superintendent, officer, or teacher\n      of the Sunday-school, can afford to neglect this\n      volume.\"--_Standard._\n\n~Secrets of Sunday School Teaching~ 12mo, cloth, net $1.00.\n\n  ~By EDWARD LEIGH PELL, D.D.~\n\n      The key-note of this book is given by the author in his Preface,\n      where he says: \"I have tried not to lay too much stress on\n      methods.\" While he puts \"motives\" first, however, he does not\n      ignore \"methods,\" but presents those which modern practice has\n      proved to be effective.\n\n~How to Conduct a Sunday School~ 12mo, cloth, net $1.25.\n\n  ~By MARION LAWRANCE~, _General Secretary of the International\n  S. S. Association._\n\n      \"Every superintendent, teacher, pastor, officer, should own it. A\n      perfect mine of hints and plans from the most experienced\n      Sunday-school leader of the day.\"--_Sunday School Times._\n\n~Thirty Years at the Superintendent's Desk~ Lessons Learned and Noted.\nA _multum in parvo_ of practical suggestions. Net 25c.\n\n  ~By J. R. PEPPER~\n\n~The Working Manual of a Successful Sunday School~ Cloth, net 50c.\n\n  ~By MARION LAWRANCE~\n\n      \"Valuable suggestions for superintendents, ministers.\"--_S. S.\n      World._\n\n~The Modern Sunday School in Principle and Practice~ 12mo, cloth,\nnet $1.00.\n\n    ~By HENRY F. COPE~\n\n      \"We know of no more scholarly nor practical manual. Thoroughly\n      scientific, intelligible to the man of average experience, it\n      gives the newest experiments with all grades.\"--_Heidelberg\n      Teacher._\n\n~The School of the Church~ Its Pre-eminent Place and Claim. 12mo,\ncloth, net $1.00.\n\n  ~By J. M. FROST, D.D.~\n\n      \"Commended for its careful analysis of the relation of the\n      Sunday-school to the Church, the teaching function of the\n      spiritual factors in that function.\"--_Standard._\n\n~The Church and Her Children~ A practical Solution of the Problem\nof Child Attendance. 12mo, cloth, net $1.00.\n\n  ~By HENRY W. HULBERT~\n\n      \"Pierces to the heart of one of the most important and\n      significant concerns of the present-day church--the problem of\n      fixing the habit of church attendance in\n      children.\"--_Continent._\n\n~Sunday School Success~ 12mo, cloth, gilt top, net $1.00.\n\n  ~By AMOS R. WELLS~\n\n      \"The best hand-book on methods of work and mastery of\n      difficulties we have yet seen. There is not a dull chapter in\n      it.\"--_Evangelical Messenger._\n\n~The Work of the Sunday School~ A Manual for Teachers. 12mo, cloth,\nnet $1.00.\n\n  ~By RAY CLARKSON HARKER~\n\n      \"A manual for teachers. Treats of some of the supremely\n      significant factors that must be properly handled in every\n      school.\"--_United Presbyterian._\n\n~Three Years With the Children~ 12mo, cloth, net $1.00.\n\n  ~By AMOS R. WELLS~\n\n      \"Abundant and suggestive methods for all sorts of addresses to\n      children, blackboard talks, object lessons, conversations,\n      etc.\"--_Baptist Union._\n\n~Children's Story-Sermons~ 12mo, cloth, net $1.00.\n\n  ~By HUGH T. KERR, D.D.~\n\n      \"The story sermons are so attractive, so simple, so full of\n      action, and interest and incident, that they will be valued for\n      the re-reading\" and re-telling to the delight of the\n      child.\"--_Sunday School Times._\n\n~Little Ten-Minutes~ Talks of a Pastor to His Children. 12mo, cloth,\nnet, $1.00.\n\n  ~By FRANK T. BAYLEY~\n\n      The _Advance_ says: \"Dr. Bayley seems to be able to create a\n      good story out of the commonest experiences.\"\n\n\n_FOR THE BEGINNERS_\n\n~Kindergarten Bible Stories~ Old Testament. Illustrated, 12mo, cloth,\nnet $1.25.\n\n  ~By LAURA ELLA CRAGIN~\n\n      \"Altogether it is the best book of Bible stories we have seen in\n      a long time. The author's gift in bringing out the lessons of the\n      stories is especially noted.\"--_Christian Observer._\n\n~Old Testament Stories for Little Children~ Illustrated, 12mo, cloth,\nnet $1.25.\n\n  ~By LAURA ELLA CRAGIN~\n\n      \"Insight, historic imagination, graphic fancy and tender love in\n      these narratives are combined with faithfulness to\n      Scripture.\"--_Western Recorder._\n\n~Bible Stories to Tell Children~ Illustrated, net $1.00.\n\n  ~By W. D. MURRAY~\n\n      \"The idea in re-telling some of the old Bible stories by means of\n      conversations carried on by the actors is to make the children\n      feel what the heroes thought and felt.\"--_Christian Endeavor\n      World._\n\n~Tell Me a True Story~ Tales of Bible Heroes for Children of To-day.\nIllustrated, cloth, net $1.25.\n\n  ~By MARY STEWART~\n\n      _Henry van Dyke_ says: \"It brings the meaning of Christianity\n      to the children's level.\"\n\n~The Shepherd of Us All~ Stories of the Christ Retold for Children.\nIllustrated, net $1.25.\n\n  ~By MARY STEWART~\n\n      There is a touching beauty and clearness about Miss Stewart's\n      pictures of the Christ life which will ineffaceably impress\n      itself upon the child heart.\n\n\n\n\n      *      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's note:\n\nMinor typographical errors have been corrected without note.\nIrregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been\nretained as printed.","title":"Picture-Work","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":17565}