Foundation Work
The work of the primary department lies at the foundation of all
Sunday-school work. This does not mean that there is no chance of a
child's becoming a good Bible scholar and a noble Christian if he
misses the primary training, but it does mean that without a
flourishing primary department a school can scarcely be called
successful, while with it half the success of the school is assured.
The primary teacher molds the soft clay; her successor with the child
must cut the hard marble.
Teaching that thus lies at the foundation must deal with fundamental
matters, with the greatest lives of the Bible, the great outlines of
history, the great essentials of doctrine, the root principles of
morality. Details are to be filled in later. The danger is that the
teacher will attempt to teach too much, will expect the little ones to
know about Hagar when it is enough for them to know about Isaac; or
about Jeremiah, when Daniel would be sufficient; or about the order
in which Paul wrote his letters, when it might well suffice for them
to know that Paul wrote them.
But though many questions are too hard to ask, no question is too easy,
and no point is so simple that in these first days you may safely take
it for granted. Laugh if you please, but I do not think that even these
days of sand-maps and pricked cards have produced a method much more
helpful for the primary teacher than the old questioning of my boyhood,
over and over repeated: "Who was the first man?" "Who was the strongest
man?" "Who was the oldest man?" and the like.
The primary teacher's right-hand man is named Drill,--Ernest Drill. No
mnemonic help--that _is_ a help--is to be despised. Rhymes giving in
order the books of the Bible, the Commandments, Beatitudes, list of
the twelve apostles, may wisely be used. No memory verse or golden
text, once learned, should be allowed to lapse into that easy pit, a
child's quick forgetfulness. Better one thing remembered than a
hundred things forgotten. Foundation-stones are few and simple, but
they must be firm.
Now the first essential, if one would do this foundation work
successfully, is to get a room to work in. A room that lets in floods
of sunshine and fresh air. A room with pretty pictures and bright
mottoes on the wall, with canary songs and blooming plants. A room
with little chairs, graded to the scholars' little heights. A room
with a visitors' gallery for the mothers. Or, if your church was not
blessed with a Sunday-school architect, then such a room in a house
next door or across the street, to which your class may withdraw after
the opening exercises. Or, if your work must be done in the church, as
so much primary work must be, then a temporary room, shut off by drawn
curtains, or even by a blackboard and a screen, is far better than the
distractions of the open school.
The blackboard just mentioned, at any rate, the room should contain; the
shrewd use of it will create an intense interest that will almost cause
oblivion of the most distracting surroundings. A padded board gives the
best effects,--such a board as you yourself may easily and cheaply make
with a pine backing, a few layers of cheap soft cloth, and a covering of
blackboard cloth nailed firmly over all. In the chapter on blackboard
work I have tried to show how easily possible, and at the same time how
valuable, is the use of the blackboard. If the children are too small to
read, they may at least know their letters, and recognize S for Saul and
P for Peter, and a cross for Christ, while the immense resources of
simple drawings are always open to you.
The primary teacher is fortunate, nowadays, in being able to buy, at
slight cost, series of pictures illustrating each quarter's lessons.
These pictures are either colored brightly or simple black and white,
and vary in size from four or five square feet to the little
engravings in the Sunday-school paper. Whatever picture is used
should be hidden until it is time to exhibit it, and produced with a
pretty show of mystery and triumph. Some teachers hang these pictures,
after use, in a "picture-gallery," where the children may become
familiar with them, and to this gallery they may be sent for frequent
reference against the coming review day.
After all, the primary teacher's chief reliance for purposes of
illustration must be natural objects. In this reliance we merely imitate
the example of the great Teacher. The objects to be used will most often
be suggested by the lesson text itself. A lily, a vine, seed, leaven, a
door, a sickle, a cake, a cup, grass,--are not each of these objects at
once associated in your mind with passages of Scripture? Hunt out the
suggested objects, and simply hold them before the children as you talk
about the lesson, and you will find them a wonderful assistance.
A more difficult process is to discover illustrative objects when none
are directly suggested in the text. In a temperance lesson, for
instance, there may be no mention of the wine-cup, yet you will bring a
glass, fill it with wine-colored water, and place in it slips of paper
cut to resemble snakes. On each is written some fearful result of
drinking alcoholic liquors; and after the children have drawn forth,
with pincers, one after the other, and read what is written upon it,
they will not soon forget how many evils come out of the wine-cup.
You may be talking about the imprisonment of John the Baptist. Produce
a pasteboard chain, painted black on one side. Each link tells in red
letters one of the horrors of his imprisonment,--loneliness, fear,
despair, and the like. Turn over the chain and show the underside
gilded, the links reading, "More faith," "Near to God," "God's favor,"
"Courage," "Eternal reward." There was a bright side, after all.
You are on the stumbling-block lesson, and you bring in some awkward,
rough wooden blocks, on which you tack labels as the lesson proceeds:
"A spiteful temper," "A gossiping tongue," "Envy," "Suspicion,"
"Swearing," "Treating to strong drink," "Playing marbles for 'keeps.'"
You are teaching about the paralytic let down through the roof. It has
not required many minutes, with pasteboard, scissors, and glue, to
construct a dainty little model of an old-time Jewish house, outside
stairs, inner court, overhanging court roof, and all. And how the
little model illuminates the story! The jail in which Peter was
imprisoned, the table around which the Last Supper was celebrated, the
Tabernacle, the Temple,--from the many excellent pictures and
descriptions obtainable, even quite ambitious models are possible of
manufacture. And once made, they are aids and joys forever.
The sand-map has become justly popular. It is easily formed, requiring
only a shallow tray, some sharp, clean sand, pieces of looking-glass
for lakes and seas, blue yarn for rivers, some rocks for mountains,
wooden blocks for houses, dried moss for trees, little toy men, boats,
horses, and such readily found apparatus.
In turn you can build up, with its accommodating materials, the Sea of
Galilee and the scene of the feeding of the five thousand, all
Palestine with the courses of Christ's journeys, Asia Minor and
Macedonia with the route of Paul on his second great missionary
journey. Much of this the children themselves will help you prepare,
and will learn a great deal by so doing. Indeed, the wise teacher will
do as little as possible herself even in getting ready to teach, and
will make her scholars themselves her assistant teachers.
That is one of the beauties of such kindergarten devices as pricking
paper and weaving bright yarn back and forth to fill up the picture
outlined by the holes. It is the scholars' work, and not your own, and
they do not forget their own work. Simple designs illustrating the
lessons can thus be pricked into the children's memories at the point
of a pin.
It is best not to confuse the class with a multiplicity of objects,
but to fix on a single symbol for each lesson, that will stand
distinctly for the lesson in the weekly and quarterly reviews. The
kind of object should constantly vary. If this week it is cut out of
pasteboard, next week let it be modeled in clay, and the following
week let it be a picture in black and white. The simpler, the better:
a cup for the lesson at Sychar; a dried leaf for the parable of the
fig-tree; a square of white cloth for Peter's vision on the housetop.
Do not produce the object till you want it in your teaching, or the
children's interest will be dissipated before you have need of it. Get
a little cabinet in which to store all your teaching apparatus. Do not
keep the object in sight after you are through with it, or you will
lose attention from your next point. Remember, in all object-teaching,
how inferior is any symbol to the truth symbolized,--its shadow only,
a mere hint of it,--and learn to drop the interest-exciting object and
use the interest for the truth you want to teach.
In this branch of your work a knowledge of common science will prove
invaluable. Botany and geology, chemistry, zooelogy, and astronomy open
one's eyes to the beauties and marvels of God's handiwork, and disclose
analogies abounding and true. There is much also to learn from the books
of models,--models for suggestion, of course, and not for slavish
imitation,--such as Tyndall's "Object-lessons for Children," Roads'
"Little Children in the Church of Christ," and Stall's "Five-minute
Object-sermons to Children," or his "Talks to the King's Children."
The most valuable "objects" are the children themselves, when you can
carry out an illustration with their own active bodies. For instance, in
teaching the lesson on the first council at Jerusalem, arrange the
chairs in two groups, distant as far as possible from each other. One is
Antioch, the other is Jerusalem. Two picked scholars, Paul and Barnabas,
set out from the Antioch corner toward Jerusalem corner. Some of their
comrades accompany them part way. The scholars at the other side of the
room receive them with interest. Paul and Barnabas--or the teacher for
them--tell their story. A Pharisee rises, and the teacher puts words in
his mouth. Peter rises and tells about Cornelius. James, the most
dignified boy present, gives his decision. Judas and Silas are selected
to escort Paul and Barnabas back again, bearing a letter.
The visit of the Queen of Sheba, the taking of Joseph to Egypt, Paul's
vision in Troas and passage to Macedonia, the parallel history of the
northern and southern kingdoms,--indeed, countless events,--may be
illustrated in this way. The only danger is that the whole may seem too
much like play; but this danger is easily avoided by an earnest teacher,
and the gains in interest and remembrance will prove rich justification.
An illustration still simpler, and very effective, may be obtained
from the children merely by the motion of their hands. "Went _down_
from Jerusalem to Jericho"--all hands raised high and rapidly lowered.
"And _great_ was the fall thereof"--the same movement. "The Queen of
Sheba wondered"--hands raised in astonishment. "A sower went out to
sow"--hands sweep to the right and left. These concert movements not
merely fix the attention of the class, but serve as outlet to their
restlessness. Some teachers advise a halt midway in the lesson for the
introduction of some light gymnastics to rest the class. That is
well; but if the same result can be gained in immediate connection
with the lesson, so much the better.
After all has been said, however, the primary teacher's great art is
the art of story-telling. Learn to start right in. Preliminary
preachment will spoil it all. Use short and simple words. Keep clear
and distinct the order of events, and do not confuse the children by
going back to take up omitted points. Nevertheless,--and this is not a
contradiction,--repeat and repeat and repeat, telling each section of
the story over and over, in different ways and with ever-fresh
particulars, till the children's slippery memories have laid hold upon
it.
Introduce a myriad natural details, for which you must draw on a
consecrated imagination. You should hear Mr. Moody tell a Bible story!
It is not enough to say that Abraham determined to offer up Isaac as a
sacrifice. The great, loving soul of the evangelist has brooded too
long over the Bible for a statement so cold as that. He must tell
about the patriarch's sleepless nights; about his getting up and going
over to the bed of the boy so peacefully sleeping; about his weeping
when no one was watching him; how he couldn't eat his breakfast; how
his heart beat whenever he looked at the lad. And long before Mr.
Moody is through, the great sacrifice is so vivid to him and to us
that we all weep together, and no moralizing is needed.
You are not Moodys? No; but hundreds of primary teachers are doing just
this work, telling to their children the Bible stories as they must have
happened, reading with the heart and telling them to the life. Long
meditation is needed, persistent "putting yourself in his place," and it
is even well to write out the story in full before you attempt to tell
it. When you receive the reward, you will count the trouble as nothing.
Music is a great aid in the primary room. If you cannot afford a piano,
learn how cheap are the "baby organs," and how effectively they will
lead the children's singing. Even though you work in an extemporized
class-room, shut off by screens or a curtain from the rest of the
school, you can at least use "whisper songs." Yes, and these whisper
songs may often be motion songs, and serve to illustrate the lesson.
At least one song of the hour should bear directly on the central
thought of the hour, and before it is sung you should explain why you
call for it. Most of the best songs for this purpose will prove to be
standard hymns, and there is every reason why the simplest of these
should be taught to the children, that they may find as many points of
contact as possible with the services of the older church. The aid of
the parents may well be invoked to teach these hymns at home to the
children,--a helpful task, for more than the children's sake, at which
to set the parents.
The primary song-books contain bright little hymns appropriate to
introduce prayer, to open and close the school, to be sung before
Bible-reading and while the collection is taken. A clear-voiced
assistant, sitting and singing among the children, will train them
insensibly, and draw their childish voices into harmony with her own.
Just as the children will enjoy a class name, motto, colors, so they
will be delighted to select a class song; and this device may be
tried, together with many others mentioned in the chapter on "A
Singing Sunday-school."
Our foundation work will surely fall if it is not itself founded
firmly on the Bible. Be sure that each scholar has his own Bible--_and
a large-type copy_. Why is it that the smaller the child, the tinier
the type? It is not so with the children's other books. How can we
expect them to take any interest in pages that look so black and
uninteresting, and that, moreover, would ruin their eyes for life if
they did read them?
The Bible must not be so expensive that it cannot be marked freely. The
children will learn much by this exercise. A little set of colored
pencils may be given to each child, for class use only. The golden texts
and other verses, and the places where the lesson story may be read,
should all be marked with pencils of appropriate symbolic color. The
children can easily find the place, and the folks at home will know just
what passages to read to the children and to help them learn.
Make much of memory verses. We are filling the little heads nowadays
far more with sand-map puppets and blackboard rebuses than with the
Word of God. Drill often and thoroughly on these verses. Prepare a
Bible roll by fastening a long strip of manilla paper on a spring
window-shade roller. Let the lower line contain a few initial letters
hinting at the memory verse concealed just above it. After recitation,
pull this down for the scholars to compare; and so proceed through the
roll. An alphabet of Bible verses may thus be learned, or an alphabet
of Bible men and women.
One point needs especial emphasis. No matter how thoroughly you have
told the story, or how fascinated the children have been held by your
recital, never consider the hour well spent till you have read from
the Bible itself the story you have been telling. The more delightful
and satisfactory your own account has been, the more necessary is it
to show the children that within the covers of the Book are to be
found all these beautiful stories.
Part of your foundation work is certainly to teach the children to
pray. There are many appropriate prayer poems, such as, for the
beginning of the lesson:
"A prayer we lift to thee, dear Lord,
Ere we shall listen to thy word.
The truth thy Spirit brings from thee
Help us to study patiently.
For Jesus' sake. Amen."
Or this, for the close of the lesson:
"Our Father, through each coming day
Watch o'er our every step, we pray;
And may thy Spirit hide the word
Deep in our willing hearts, O Lord.
For Jesus' sake. Amen."
These the class may be taught to repeat in concert, with bowed heads.
One of the best methods is this. Let the teacher offer a simple prayer,
sentence by sentence or clause by clause, the children reverently
repeating it after her, all heads being bowed. Best of all, of course,
are the Bible prayers, the prayer psalms, and the many noble prayer
verses scattered here and there. Store the children's memories with
these, and in coming years there will be no stammering or hesitancy
when, in public or in private, they talk with their Father in heaven.
One of the primary teacher's chief allies is a happy temper. If you
have it not, get it. An ounce of sunshine is better than an iron
mountain of scolding. The voice alone may make or mar the lesson. Is
it good-cheery, or goody-goody? How joyous Christ must have been! How
his little children love fun! And how much easier it will be for you
to get them to love him if you also love fun!
Indeed, we cannot know too thoroughly the child nature. The scientists'
study of it is in its infancy, but a sympathetic heart will carry you
farther in ten minutes than all their psychology in a lifetime. As you
teach, have in mind, not _your_ trials, joys, and hopes, but _theirs_.
Don't talk about "ambition," but about "getting more praise than another
girl"; or about "covetousness," but about "wishing you, and not Tom, had
his new bicycle." Don't allegorize; that is a grown-up delight. Don't
talk about "the hill Difficulty," "the bog of Despond." Do you tell me
the children enjoy "The Pilgrim's Progress"? Yes; but not as allegory.
Vanity Fair is a real town to them, and Mr. Pliable a real man. Avoid
what I call "fanciful" teaching, and the rather build your lessons upon
actual men and women, so that the children may come to _know_ Eli and
Gideon, Ruth and Martha, as vividly as they know the men and women
around them. That is better than to know Lily Lazy and Matt Mischievous
and the Sea of Sorrow.
Review often. When you have reached the point where you think the
children cannot possibly forget, then--review again! Frequently say,
"Now, after I have finished telling about the lesson, I am going to ask
Fred to tell me about it; and after Fred is through, I shall ask _some
one else_ to tell the same story." Often ask questions that can be
answered in concert, and insist that all shall join in the reply. This
will usually lead to a repetition that will prove helpful. In such
concert work, if you do not watch, the more forward will be the only
ones that will respond, and you will be obliged to draw out the timid
and repress the pert by many a special question addressed to the former.
Sometimes it is hard to keep order; always hard, if the teacher has not
by nature or attainment the face and voice and bearing that command
order because they lovingly and firmly expect it. The teacher should be
in the room before any scholar arrives. Much disorder has its source in
those irresponsible ten minutes before the school opens. Then, while she
is teaching, an assistant should sit with the children, ready to check
their mischievousness, attend quickly to their needs and desires, care
for the late comers, help them "find the place" in Bibles and
song-books, and perform many other little offices. Some heads of large
primary departments establish "hospitals," where are sent the children
with "sick" hands or feet or tongues,--a special class where the most
uncontrollable are "treated" till they are reported "cured." In general,
however, if the children are interested, they will be orderly; and if
the teacher is interested, so are likely to be the scholars. Put into
the work your whole soul, and you are reasonably sure of getting the
whole minds of the children.
Love them! I cannot better sum up the entire matter than in those two
words. Love them, and they will love you and gladly obey you. Love
them, and you will work hard for them, and will not mind the hardness.
Love them, and your love will teach you how to teach them wisely. And
the God of love, who loves little children, will give you, week by
week, the fullness of his joy.