Part 4

_Specifics._ True picture-work has, as we have seen, a true bearing upon the question, How to help children conquer their faults. "Don't," even "Please don't," is ineffectual and unpedagogical. So is every means that is direct and negative instead of indirect and constructive. It is a thousand times easier to empty a tumbler of air by filling it with water than by the use of the air pump.

And so, just as we know that singing has a marvelous power to sweeten and calm the spirit of a young child, so a story is often the shortest and the most effective means to bring him to himself. A story is a specific. The right story will heal its proper disorder. There is danger here, 'tis true; "the intent to teach," as Herbart writes, spoils it all. Stories should be given as food rather than as medicine. There is all the greater need, therefore, for practice.

Find, adapt, make up stories to meet the needs of a child who is idle; of one who is mean, lacks self-control, is slovenly, careless, untruthful, etc.

_Texts._ On the other hand, it is just as necessary that illustrations attach themselves to their proper principles, as that principles find the concrete key that will serve as their open sesame into the child's mind.

Mr. Barrie tells of a newspaper writer who never conversed five minutes with a friend without getting a suggestion for a leader or a "story." The teacher ought to be no less fertile in finding texts, and in pressing everything he meets--whether in books, in newspapers, or on the street--into the service of the Sunday-school lesson.

For example, the street car on which you ride to school or to business in the morning suddenly stops. It stands still three, five, fifteen minutes. You are late. Twenty others are late. Reason, a careless truck-driver has driven an inch too near the track. What does this illustrate?

A pound of cotton, worth a few cents, may be made into yarn and become worth more; into chintz and be worth still more, etc. What is the truth hidden in this fact?

A thoughtful teacher, in reply to the question, "What stories have you found especially helpful?" contained in the blank on story-telling (Chapter X.), gave the following:

"Cato's words, 'Carthage must be destroyed' (the power of words); Hercules at the parting of the ways (the necessity of choice); Macbeth's 'I have lived long enough' (the end of a wasted life); The Ancient Mariner--'He prayeth best' (the secret of prayer); the parable of the wicked husbandmen (irreverence)."

VIII.

BOOKS, PICTURES, AND ILLUSTRATIVE MATERIAL.

The teacher should be a capitalist. He should not run dry every Sunday, and fill in during the week only enough for the next lesson; as a schoolboy who fills his mind with facts and empties it on examination day. The true teacher is independent of the "Quarterly." He uses it but does not lean on it. For the facts there given are, as a rule, isolated, and so half dead; the illustrations are at best warmed over. Neither can give a strong head of steam. There is not enough, and what there is is cold.

Other remedies for this condition are suggested elsewhere. Here it is urged that the teacher must be a reader of books. The following are given as types. They have been selected after searching the lists of many publishers, and are recommended only after a personal examination:

_Books Telling the Story of the Bible._

There are many Bible stories for children, some of them good, but most of them far from ideal when both the story and the pictures are considered. Those with highly colored, gaudy pictures should be shunned as they tend to give low ideals morally and spiritually as well as to corrupt the child's artistic taste. To publish a story of the Bible with illustrations taken only from great masters is a good work waiting for some one who wishes to be of service to the world.

"The Story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation," by Charles Foster. Charles Foster Publishing Co., Philadelphia, Pa. 75 cents.

Of the many Bible stories published this is the most complete and the most popular. In the matter of pictures, however, it is poor.

"Children's Treasury of Bible Stories," by Mrs. Herman Gaskoin. Macmillan & Co. Three parts, 18mo, 30 cents each.

The best Bible story we have found. It is most suggestive and interesting, showing how to picture Bible scenes.

"Stories from the Bible," Rev. Alfred J. Church. Macmillan & Co. 256 pp., $1.25.

Excellent as giving a condensed account of the Bible narrative in Bible language. The teacher who uses these stories will often find it necessary to supplement them with suitable introductions and side-lights.

"The Sweet Story of Old," by Mrs. Haskell. Dutton. 4to, 50 cents.

A small book of Bible stories for young children, with pictures which are quite good.

"First Steps for Little Feet," by Charles Foster. Charles Foster Publishing Co. 50 cents.

Bible stories told in simple language for the youngest children. Fair outline pictures.

"The Story of Jesus," by Louisa T. Craigin. Illustrated with one hundred full-page illustrations from the designs of Alexander Bida, together with many other pictures of the Holy Land. Fords, Howard & Hulbert. $10.00.

A beautiful and sympathetic account of the life of Jesus, especially rich in descriptions of Palestine and in other materials for word-pictures. The numerous pictures of landscapes and scenes from the life of Christ are helpful.

The same in paper covers in 15 numbers, 50 cents each.

"From Olivet to Patmos." The First Christian Century in Picture and Story. By Louisa Seymour Houghton. American Tract Society. $1.50.

"The Life of Christ in Picture and Story," by Louisa Seymour Houghton. American Tract Society. $1.25.

The last two books contain some poorly executed but well-chosen pictures of Bible lands, showing architecture, costumes, street scenes, etc.

_Books About Palestine._

"The Land and the Book," by W. M. Thomson. Harper & Bros. $8.00, $6.00.

Recommended by a high authority as the best book on Palestine for a teacher who can own only one.

"Boy Travelers in Egypt and the Holy Land," by T. W. Knox. Harper & Bros. $3.00.

"Sinai and Palestine in Connection with their History," by Dean Stanley. A. C. Armstrong. $2.50.

An excellent standard work.

"Pictured Palestine," by James Neill. Anson D. Randolph. $2.25.

Shows the contrast between eastern life and our own. Very good pictures illustrating many phases of oriental life.

"In Scripture Lands." Scribner's. $3.50.

Beautiful pictures.

"Earthly Foot-Prints of the Man of Galilee," by Bishop John H. Vincent, D.D., LL.D., Jas. W. Lee, D.D., Robert E. M. Bain. New York and St. Louis: N. D. Thompson Publishing Co. $4.75.

Four hundred fine, large photographic views and descriptions of places connected with the earthly life of our Lord and his apostles.

_Books on the Use of Stories and Illustrations._

"The Use of Stories in the Kindergarten," by Anna Buckland. Ginn & Co. 15 cents.

"The Place of the Story in Early Education," by Sara E. Wiltse. Ginn & Co. 132 pp., 50 cents.

Two suggestive and helpful essays that every teacher should read.

"Yale Lectures on Preaching," by Henry Ward Beecher. Fords, Howard & Hulbert. $2.00.

An inspiring book. The chapter on "Rhetorical Illustrations" is especially applicable, but the entire work, although written for preachers, has rich stores of instruction and guidance for teachers.

"The Art of Illustration," by C. H. Spurgeon. Wilbur B. Ketchum. $1.25.

A book by a master giving the secret of his art.

_Stories and Themes._

"Parables from Nature," by Margaret Gatty. Macmillan & Co. 2 vols., 18mo, $1.50.

A wonderful book, in which nature is used to typify spiritual truths. It should be owned by every mother and teacher.

"Parables. Laws of Nature and Life, or Science applied to Character," by Louisa Parsons Hopkins. Lee & Shepard. 15 cents.

Brief and suggestive.

"Stories of the Saints," by Mrs. C. Van D. Chenoweth. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. $1.00.

Supplies a want which should be more "felt" than it is. Is it not as important that our children should know the story of Christian saints and martyrs as that of Greek gods and heroes?

"Kindergarten Stories and Morning Talks," by Sara E. Wiltse. Ginn & Co. 212 pp., 75 cents.

"Stories for Kindergartens and Primary Schools," by Sara E. Wiltse. Ginn & Co. 50 cents.

"A Brave Baby and Other Stories," by Sara E. Wiltse. Ginn & Co. 50 cents.

These three books are storehouses of inspiration and models of story-telling.

"Child Stories from the Masters," by Maude Menefee. Kindergarten Literature Co., Chicago. $1.00.

An excellent selection of themes from poets, dramatists, and the Bible. The teacher will do well to study the originals and try to improve upon the stories given.

"Child's Christ-Tales," by Andrea Hofer. Woman's Temple, Chicago. $1.00.

Choice illustrations from the masters. Suggestive tales and parables.

"The Kindergarten Sunday-School," by Frederika Beard. Kindergarten Publishing Co., Woman's Temple, Chicago.

An attempt to solve the infant class problem. Three series of lessons, each having sequence and unity. Suggestive in its plan, and likely to help teachers to improve upon the models given.

_Books to be Read for the Sake of a Better Understanding of Child Nature._

"Study of Child Nature," by Elizabeth Harrison. Chicago Kindergarten Training School. $1.00.

"Children's Rights," by Kate Douglas Wiggin. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. $1.00.

"A Boy's Town," by W. D. Howells. Harper & Bros., New York. $1.25.

"Being a Boy," by Charles Dudley Warner. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. $1.25.

"The Story of a Bad Boy," by T. B. Aldrich. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. $1.25.

"The Mill on the Floss," by George Eliot. Harper & Bros. Popular ed. 75 cents.

"Cuore, An Italian Schoolboy's Journal," by Edmondo de Amicis. N.Y. Crowell. Illustrated edition. $1.50.

_Pictures and Books from which Pictures may be Culled._

"The Life of Christ as Treated in Art," by F. W. Farrar, D.D., F.R.S. Macmillan & Co. $8.00, $5.00.

"The Christ Child in Art," by Henry Van Dyke. Harper & Bros. $4.00.

"Sacred and Legendary Art," by Mrs. Anna Jameson. Longmans, Green & Co. 2 vols., 16mo. $2.50.

"The History of Our Lord as Exemplified in Works of Art," by Mrs. Anna Jameson. Illustrated. 2 vols. Longmans, Green & Co. $8.00.

All the above are standard works and are excellent.

"The Earthly Footprints of Our Risen Lord," by Fleming H. Revell. 4to. $1.50.

A continuous narrative of the four gospels according to the revised version, illustrated by numerous half-tone pictures. The selection is not so choice as one could wish, yet many of the pictures are by the best artists, and present a consecutive pictorial story of the life of Christ.

"The Photographs of the Holy Land." Globe Bible Publishing Co., Philadelphia. $3.00. The same in cheaper style in eight portfolios at 10 cents apiece.

Photographs of classic and modern pictures of the child Jesus and of other Biblical subjects. Unmounted, card size, 3-3/4 cents each; cabinet size, 7-1/2 cents each. A catalogue in German will be sent on application. R. Tamme, Dresden, Germany.

There is no duty on pictures.

Blue print copies of pictures of Biblical scenes by the old masters and by modern artists. Mr. Alfred A. Hart, 221 West 109th Street, New York City. Card size, one cent each.

Clear, durable, excellent; of a kind likely to develop good taste. The low price makes it possible to encourage children to make collections of their own. A single secular school has used over twelve thousand of these pictures.

The Christmas catalogues of publishers often contain serviceable pictures.

The standard histories of art are full of illustrative material. The teacher should be ever on the alert.

_Objective Helps; Blackboard Sketches._

Cards for children to prick and sew. Bible Study Publishing Co., 21 Bromfield Street, Boston, Mass.

Scroll of history. See "The Modern Sunday School," p. 297. John H. Vincent.

Sunday-school Museum. Read description of one at Akron, in "The Modern Sunday School," p. 301.

Illustrative Blackboard Sketching, by W. Bertha Hintz. E. L. Kellogg & Co. 53 pp. 30 cents.

A helpful guide designed for those entirely ignorant of the art of drawing, who nevertheless like to work out their own way of putting a lesson, for the eye as well as for the ear, in preference to ready-made blackboard exercises and "pictured truth" at second hand.

IX.

FALSE PICTURE-WORK.

A book on helps, to be truly helpful, must deal with negative as well as with positive matters--those things which we ought to leave undone as well as those we ought to do. Any treatment of true picture-work is lacking in completeness, not to say in candor, which does not say a word about false picture-work.

If there were only some way of crawling into the inside of the children's brains, and marking the effect of the alliterations, juxtapositions, and symbolisms of what goes by the name of picture-work! Can't we devise a meter for estimating the precise emotional and spiritual value of a board filled with marks in various colors in the form of anchors, hearts, keys, crosses, not to mention other less sacred things?

I once saw a "chalk talk" given to two hundred Sunday-school children. _Dramatis personæ_: three parrots; one unrecognizable, it was so badly drawn; a second, indifferent; the third, capital, a speaking likeness. The last was perched on S. T. Moral: "Honesty is the best policy." The children were as delighted as if the text had been taken from the Bible and as interested in the display as if it had possessed the slightest value.

"But," it is urged, "the children are always interested in such things." Yes, and they would be more interested still if you showed them a monkey or displayed red, green, and blue lights. The law of interest tells us what shall _not_ be placed before the children--"Nothing that is not interesting"--but as a guide to what we _shall_ give them it tells but half the story. The other half is, "_Not everything that is interesting, and not anything just because it is interesting_."

Let this caution not be misunderstood. The children must use their eyes. To expect children to follow your stories by ear, and make up their mind-pictures out of whole cloth or from the few objects and pictures that can be shown them, or to remember texts and lesson points out of hand, is to suppose them ready to graduate into the senior department. Let us have more blackboards. An individual board for every pupil, if possible, and the more use--wise use--of blackboards the better. But many "blackboardists" have yet to learn that it is possible to be apt without being alliterative, that one may be extravagant without being effective, sensational without being spiritual. In short, they seem not to understand that common sense applies even to blackboard work.

What are the points in good blackboard work? To be quite dogmatic, for the sake of brevity, good blackboard work is:

1. Simple. "Blackboard ingenuities, dissolving from acrostic into enigma, and from enigma into rhyme are not necessary" and they are harmful besides. They distract, distort, make dizzy. The best blackboard work has the fewest lines, the most unity in its variety, the least approach to anything like a maze.

2. Clear. The best blackboard work is that which is easiest to follow, hardest to forget.

3. Varied. Our stock symbols are worked to death. Is it _right_ to use the cross as commonly as you would a letter of the alphabet? Find something new or give the blackboard a vacation. It is not necessary that there be a quarter hour on every day's program for blackboard work. Who has not spent a "bad quarter of an hour" when the "exercise" was perfunctory?

4. Descriptive. All maps and plans, sketches of roads and rooms, of mountains and rivers, are good, because they help us to form for ourselves the picture which we must see in order to grasp the meaning of the story. For example, we may illustrate the Mount of Transfiguration; first with four figures, then six, then four; the winding road to Emmaus, two figures--straight lines, merely--and a little farther on, a third; the upper room, its occupants represented by marks or initial letters. Anything is helpful that gives a notion of position, number, form, contrast, sequence, change.

5. Free, living, personal. The best blackboard work is that which is freest. Children are impressionists. For them the broad side of the crayon is better than the point; two strokes better than twenty.

The best blackboard work is that which grows before the children's eyes, which is made, not unveiled. Two minutes of rough sketching in the lesson hour is better than two hours of patient putting in of finishing touches beforehand.

The best blackboard work is that which is original, personal. That which is given in the "lesson helps" is just what you should not use. It is not yours. If it does not help you to find your own way, it is useless--and worse than useless, because it tempts you to borrow without inspiring you to create.

6. In fine, the mission of the blackboard, as of all picture-work, is to help us to see the truth in the world or the truth in our own selves by showing us a truth that is easier to see or that is nearer at hand than that which we would learn.

Like all picture-work, it fulfills its mission when it serves as a scaffolding, when it is kept subordinate. It fails when it obscures the truth, not helps to build it. False picture-work is anything that stands in the way of our seeing truth; as when we cannot see the woods for the trees--cannot see the Sunday-school lesson for the bizarre exhibitions on the blackboard.

X.

A COÖPERATIVE STUDY.

In order to find out what Sunday-school teachers are doing in the matter of stories, illustrations, and picture-work generally, the writer prepared and distributed to a thousand teachers the following blank:

_One response NOW is worth twenty a month hence._

STORY-TELLING.

_To Sunday-school Teachers:_

For the purpose of devising means for the better preparation of Sunday-school teachers, the President of the Teachers College, New York, requests the teachers in your Sunday-school to answer the following questions.

To save time and trouble use both sides of this sheet.

Whenever possible answer by crossing out the term that does not apply.

In every case where the answer is based on experience with children, state the age of the children.

Please do not hesitate to return this blank, even if you have answered but a few questions.

_Sources._--To illustrate the lesson do you use Bible stories, stories from good literature, or stories invented by yourself?

_Subject._--Do you find your children more interested in stories of people or of nature?

_Kind._--Which of the stories have you found more effective, modern or classic? Stories told or read? True or fictitious? Those based on poetry or prose? Stories in which the moral is set forth or hidden?

_Experience._--What stories are you going to use in the Sunday-school lesson for next Sunday?

_Precept._--If you do not use stories, what other means do you employ to enforce religious and moral lessons? Do you "moralize," and if so, with what obvious result?

_Environment._--What means do you use of making the dress, customs, etc., of Bible people seem real to children?

_Picture-work._--Do you use blackboard illustrations? What other objective helps?

_Examples._--What stories have you found especially helpful?

_Purpose._--What is your purpose in using stories in the Sunday-school?

_Principles._--Do you succeed in having such unity in the lesson that the stories all contribute to one main thought? Mention five requisites for a good story-teller.

Mention five qualities in a good story.

To these questions fifty-eight replies were received. Very few, however, gave the ages of the children, and the smallness of the number of replies--which after all is by no means discouraging--tends to vitiate the data as bases for generalization.

Space forbids giving more than a single group of typical answers. Some of the most helpful of the suggestions have been embodied in the foregoing. Further replies from thoughtful teachers will be welcome.

_Question_--Mention five requisites for a good story-teller.

_Answers:_

Sympathetic voice, manner, and face.

More knowledge of the subject than one wants to use.

The teacher must be interested, bright, imaginative, clear in thought and expression.

Clear apprehension of the point to be made, clear knowledge of the subject, understanding of the peculiarities of his hearers, tact in making application, and dramatic power.

Power in word-painting--with a sense of perspective.

Unconsciousness of self.

A gift for mimicry.

Graphic description.

Sympathy with children.

Power to hold attention and keep to the main thought.

Animation, personal magnetism, originality, wit.

Conciseness, force.

Pleasant manner.

Ability to repeat a story without hesitation.

Power to put one's self into the time, circumstances, etc., of the story.

Love of story-telling.

Quiet manners.

Gestures, good voice.

Small [easy?] words.

Ability to make the children help tell the story, by making them gesture, point, express sorrow, surprise, etc., and answer questions.

A good story-teller asks intensely interesting questions at exactly the right point.

A passage from Herbart forms a fitting close to this study:

"The intent to teach spoils children's books at once; it is forgotten that every one, the child included, selects what suits him from what he reads, and judges the writing as well as the writer after his own fashion. Show the bad to children plainly, but not as an object of desire, and they will recognize that it is bad. Interrupt a narrative with moral precepts, and they will find you a wearisome narrator. Relate only what is good, and they will feel it monotonous, and the mere charm of variety will make the bad welcome. Remember your own feelings on seeing a purely moral play. But give to them an interesting story, rich in incidents, relationships, characters, strictly in accordance with psychological truth, and not beyond the feelings and ideas of children; make no effort to depict the worst or the best, only let a faint, half-conscious moral tact secure that the interest of the action tends away from the bad toward the good, the just, the right; then you will see how the child's attention is fixed upon it, how it seeks to discover the truth and think over all sides of the matter, how the many-sided material calls forth a many-sided judgment, how the charm of change ends in preference for the best, so that the boy who perhaps feels himself a step or two higher in moral judgment than the hero or the author, will cling to his view with inner self-approbation, and so guard himself from a coarseness he already feels beneath him. The story must have one more characteristic, if its effect is to be lasting and emphatic; it must carry on its face the strongest and clearest stamp of human greatness. For a boy distinguishes the common and ordinary from the praiseworthy as well as we; he even has this distinction more at heart than we have, for he does not like to feel himself small, he wishes to be a man. The whole look of a well-trained boy is directed above himself, and when eight years old his entire line of vision extends beyond all histories of children. Present to the boy therefore such men as he himself would like to be."

Printed in the United States of America.

_THE PRIMARY DEPARTMENT_

~Old Testament Stories~ For Little Children. Illustrated, 12mo, cloth, net $1.25.

~By LAURA ELLA CRAGIN~