I ..... CL - L a BV 1546 .P6 1923 Powell, Marie (Cole) 1882- Junior method in the church school ~ 1 J EDUCATION THROUGH ACTIVITY Fifth-Grade Boys making Livingstone’s African Villagd in the Sand Table y ®ije SiUimgbon Beligioug (Ebucatton ®ext£ Ziatoib <£. Batonep, General (Ebitor COMMUNITY TRAINING SCHOOL SERIES. NORMAN E. RICHARDSON, Editor Junior Method in the Church School - ' o I 00 i 3 7 1923 BY MARIE COLE POWELL tfeMlostoufei THE ABINGDON PRESS NEW YORK CINCINNATI Copyright, 1923, by MARIE COLE POWELL All Rights Reserved Printed In the United States of America TO MY MOTHER AND FATHER WHO UNDERSTOOD THE PLAY INTERESTS OF THEIR CHILDREN AND WHO HAVE ALWAYS BEEN MY BEST FRIENDS AND TEACHERS Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library / https://archive.org/details/juniormethodinchOOpowe CHAPTER CONTENTS PAGE Editor’s Introduction . n Preface . 13 I. The Junior’s World . 15 The Junior's Home. Variety of home life — Influence of the home on behavior — Attitude of the home to¬ ward the church school. The Junior's School. Manifold influences of the schoolroom — The ideals of the schoolroom — The internationalism of the schoolroom — The over¬ crowded schedule — The world of books. The Junior's Community. The world of play — Play in the city — Play in the country — Leisure time — The moving picture — The church’s task — The world of public events — The world of people. The Junior's Church. II. The Junior Child . 31 Personality is an indivisible whole — The teacher’s responsibility for the set of personality — Individual differences among children. Impulsive Tendencies of the Junior Child. Exuberant energy — The gregarious impulse. Spontaneous Interests of the Junior Child. Interest in real life — Interest in variety of experience — Interest in reading — Interest in heroic characters — Dramatic interest — Play interest. Other Characteristics of the Junior Child. Mental alertness — Self-assertiveness — Response to authority — Secretiveness about thought-life — Desire for the truth. Importance of the Junior Age. The importance of habit-formation — The instinctive response to re¬ ligion. III. Finding Standards in the Junior’s Experience. . . 44 The Aims of Religious Education for Juniors. The threefold aim of religious education — Fruitful knowl¬ edge — Right jgjtitudes — Skillful living — Making at¬ titudes and conduct habitual. The Junior's Capacity for Religious Life. His capacity for religious action — His capacity for organized re¬ ligious thought — His capacity for religious feeling. ■ The Adaptation of Method to the Religious Education ‘ of the Junior. Individual differences among children. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE IV. The Curriculum for the Junior Child . 59 The Threefold Curriculum of Religious Education. ! The curriculum of activity — The curriculum of worship — The curriculum of information. The Curriculum of Information for Juniors. Present experiences of nine to eleven-year-old children — Biblical material. Extra- biblical material. Stress and Neglect in Using the Curriculum. In teach¬ ing the life of Jesus — In teaching miracle stories — In teaching the Old Testament — In the use of his¬ torical material. V. Available Materials and How to Enrich Them . . 78 Existing Curricula for Juniors. International Les¬ son Series — Scribners’ Completely Graded Series — Chicago Constructive Series — Beacon Course — Christian Nurture Series — The Abingdon Religious Education Texts — Other Courses. Enriching the Present Curriculum. Use correspond¬ ing materials in other series — Omit lessons containing unfruitful material — Enrich the teacher’s back¬ ground. VI. The Art of Teaching Juniors . 93 The Trained Teacher. Preparation for the Lesson. The teacher’s prepara¬ tion — Preparation by the pupil. Securing Participation by the Group. Through finding the point of contact — Through interest — Through variety — Through activity. Making the Lesson Vivid and Vital. Testing Results of Teaching. Attention — Stimulated thinking — Participation in class work — Results in daily living. VII. Types of Teaching . . . 106 Types of Lessons. The informational lesson — The developmental lesson — The application lesson — The drill lesson — The appreciation lesson — The review lesson — The assignment lesson. Teaching Methods. The question-and-answer method — The discussion method — The topical method — The lecture method — The memory method — The manual method — The observation method — The story method — The dramatic method — The project method. VIII. The Classroom Period . _ . 121 Physical Conditions in the Classroom. Importance of physical conditions — Right classroom conditions for Juniors. 6 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE Supervising the Junior's Study. Reasons for super¬ vising study of Juniors — How to supervise the study of Juniors. Socializing the Classroom Period. Free discussion — Group preparation and recitation — Social emphasis upon teachings — The emphasis upon social motives — Class enterprises — Pupil organization — An informal classroom program. Planning the Classroom Period. The teacher’s plan — Order of the classroom procedure. IX. The Use of the Story in the Junior Department. 138 The Power and Purpose of the Story. The story makes truth attractive — The story makes a lasting impression — The story stimulates ideals — The story influences conduct. Story Interests of Juniors. Hero interests — Adventure interests — - Achievement interests — Historical in¬ terests. Types of Stories for Juniors. Bible stories — Ethical stories — Missionary stories — Appreciation stories — Entertainment stories. When and Where to Use Stories. The story in the service of worship — The story in the lesson period — The story in the missionary program — The story in the week-day meeting — The story for special occasions. Sources of Story Material for Juniors. X. Telling Stories to Juniors . 157 The Art of Story-Telling. How to know a good story — How to tell a good story. Outlining the Story. A good beginning — A simple, direct plot — A strong climax — A convincing end. Preparing the Story for Telling. Seeing the story — Feeling the story — Adapting the story — Practicing the story — Living the story. Telling the Story. The attitude of the story-teller — Make actions predominant — Use direct discourse — Use concrete terms — Employ variety — Avoid moral¬ izing — Be full of the meaning of the story. XI. Educating Juniors Through Worship . 170 f What is Worship? Worship includes emotion, thought and action — Worship is dominantly emo¬ tional. What is Worship For ? To make real the sense of companionship with God — To convince one of the worth and the ultimate victory of ideals — To give dynamic to desirable attitudes — To afford training in worship. How Juniors Worship. Juniors may be 7 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE unconventional — Juniors like variety — Juniors need concreteness and directness — Juniors need prepa¬ ration for worship. XII. The Elements of a Service of Worship . 181 Materials of Worship. Types of worship material — Correlating worship with instruction and expression. A Central Theme. The Story or Talk. Types of stories suitable for worship— Relative value of the story and the talk — Dramatizing the story for worship. Music. Types of hymns suitable for Juniors — Need of best leadership of Junior music — Learning new hymns. Prayer. The Junior’s attitude toward prayer — How Juniors like to pray — Public praying by Juniors — Teaching Juniors to pray. Responsive Service. The Offertory. XIII. Planning the Worship Program . 201 Planning the Conditions of Worship. The atmosphere necessary for worship — Effective leadership — Par¬ ticipation by the entire group. The Place of Worship in the Church School Session. Types of Junior Services of Worship. XIV. Education Through Activity . 219 Activity and the Learning Process. Types of Activity. Activity as mere outlet for energy — Activity planned by adults — Activity initiated by the child. The Project Method in Religious Education. Defining a project — Some values of the project method — Ex¬ amples of Junior projects. Testing the Activity of the Junior Department. Is it purposeful? — Is it worth while? — Is it self-directed? — Is it yielding Christian results? XV. Education Through Manual Work . 232 Reasons for Manual Work. To afford an outlet for physical energy — To maintain interest — To insure study of the lesson — To fix ideas — To provide life situations — To unify the various aspects of develop¬ ment. Types of Manual Work. Imitative handwork — Handwork as review — Interpretative handwork — Handwork for special uses — Creative handwork — cooperative handwork. Motives for Manual Work. The competitive 8 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE motive — The satisfaction derived from skill — The creative motive — The service motive. The Place of Manual Work in the Department Pro¬ gram. XVI. Education Through Dramatization . 245 Dramatization a Method of Learning Religion. Dram¬ atization provides fruitful knowledge — Dramatiza¬ tion develops right attitudes — Dramatization in¬ creases ability in Christian living. Methods of Procedure in Dramatization. Playing the story — Learning to dramatize a story — Writing the dramatization. Selecting Dramatic Material. Requirements for the Leader. Some knowledge of dramatic effect — Ability to present the story vividly — Ability to help children express their feelings — Willingness to help children to be original — Patience and time required. XVII. Training in Service . 259 The Purpose of Training in Service. To help those in need — To develop the individual Junior — To social¬ ize the Junior Group. Making the Service Program of Educational Value. By grading it — By making it worth while — By allowing for pupil initiative — By right combination of difficulty and ease of accomplishment — By ade¬ quate preparation for service — By directing it to¬ ward representative needs — By preventing false motives — By carrying the activities through to com¬ pletion. A Suggested Program of Service for the Junior Depart¬ ment. XVIII. The Junior Department at Work . 279 The Purpose of Organization. To develop responsi¬ bility — To develop leadership — To create effective conditions for work. Pupil Orgayiization. Junior self-government — Junior Elections — Tasks for the Junior Council. Adult Organization. Officers — Duties of officers — Teachers’ meetings and training classes. Records of Department Work. The purpose of records — Useful types of record keeping — Making use of records. Equipment for a Working Junior Room. Arrange¬ ment — Room decorations — F umiture — Classroom necessities — Pictures — Library. 9 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XIX. The Junior and the Church . 295 Developing the Junior's Loyalty to the Church. Through one united program for Juniors — Through pleasant associations with the church — Through sharing in the financial support of the church — Through an intelligent understanding of the church’s history and task — Through sharing in the work of the church. The Junior Church. Meaning of the term — Advan¬ tages of a Junior-church program — Difficulties to be avoided — Suggestions for a Junior-church program. The Junior as a Church Member. The time for church membership — Preparation for membership — The responsibilities of a Junior church member. XX. The Junior Teacher . 307 Qualifications of the Junior Teacher. Willingness and ability to acquire skill in teaching — Adaptability — The ability to play — Sense of humor — The open mind — Honesty in words, life, and purpose — Variety of interests — Deep Christian experience. The Teacher and the Child. Studying the individual child — The teacher, the child’s friend — Praying for the child. The Teacher and the Home. Visiting in the child’s home — Working with the parents. The Source of Power. Index . 318 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Education Through Activity . Frontispiece FACING PAGE Studying With the Stereoscope . 102 The Story in the Service of Worship . 150 The Prayer in the Service of Worship . . . 174 “Holy, Holy, Holy” . 188 Our American Neighbors . 228 David and Saul . ) . 246 Dramatizing “The Baby Moses”) 10 EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION There are three distinguishing features of this volume. In the first place the author, after having done a substantial amount of graduate work in religious education, spent several years as director of religious education and superintendent of the Junior Department in the First Congregational Church, Oak Park, Illinois. Under her leadership this department became widely known for the originality and effectiveness of its program. Mrs. Powell knows Junior boys and girls. Through years of intimate contacts with them she has achieved an unusual understanding of and sympathetic in¬ sight into their needs, limitations, and capacities. Scarcely less intimate and intelligent is the au¬ thor’s insight into the needs of those who are respon¬ sible for the work in the Junior Department of the church school. As a teacher of Junior methods in institutes and summer schools, Mrs. Powell has a nation-wide acquaintance. Hundreds of class¬ room discussions and private conferences are reflected in the selection and organization of the material which she has included in this text. The clearness and depth of convictions which have come as the result of careful training, wide observation, and practical experience are reflected on every page. The author has a distinct point of view concerning the objectives to be achieved and the methods and materials to be used. This book is not a rehash of materials that have appeared in ii EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION other places. It is, rather, a vigorous and intensely practical statement of principles and methods which give clear evidence of originality. Mrs. Powell writes with the authority of one who herself has done the work with brilliant success. Teachers in Junior Departments of the church school will find in this book an unfailing source of information and helpful suggestion. Norman E. Richardson. 12 PREFACE The years between nine and twelve are significant years in the development of the individual. They are the last years of childhood before the emergence of the new life forces which mark the transition to adult life. To misconceptions, bad habits, and wrong ideals formed during these years may be traced many of the maladjustments in adolescent life. Right ideas, habits of conduct-control, and Christian ideals acquired now will act as a steadying power in the turbulent years just ahead. These are the years when the mind is particularly receptive and the emotions are easily organized around ethical centers. Because of these facts habits of thinking, speaking, and acting may be acquired with facility. To make them desirable habits is the opportunity of the parents and teachers of Junior children. In the light of this opportunity it is apparent that the educational task of the leader of Junior boys and girls is a strategic as well as a coveted one. In order to help the teachers of Juniors, the writer has attempted to see the Junior child in the whole range of his life experience. The principles and methods suggested are those which will best meet the total needs of the Junior child’s life. The book seeks to show how some of the freer educa¬ tional methods of to-day may be used in a thor¬ oughly practical way and with clearly recognized results in the church school. It is the earnest hope of the author that through 13 PREFACE these pages teachers of Juniors may be helped to discover, not devices but true methods of education; that they may find ways of enrichng their teaching and, through that enrichment, of developing boys and girls who shall be thoroughly Christian within the religious capacities of Juniors; and, above all, the author desires, for herself and for all who lead childhood along the pathway of the present toward the future, an open mind which recognizes no method as final but which is ever seeking for clearer light along the pathway. The writer is deeply grateful to the many friends who have, consciously or unconsciously, helped in the making of this book. This includes the friends who have courteously loaned pictures of Junior groups, those who have contributed experiments in Junior teaching, and the publishers who have ex¬ tended permission to quote from their publications. Especially is she grateful to Dr. George H. Betts and the members of his seminar who gave stimu¬ lating criticism when this volume was in its begin¬ ning; to Mr. W. J. Hamilton, Mr. Warren T. Powell, and to the editor, Dr. Norman E. Richardson, who made valuable suggestions as to the organiza¬ tion of material; to the many students in her classes on Junior methods in different parts of the country, whose interest in the teaching task has been an inspiration. Above all, she acknowledges her appre¬ ciation of the help received from the teachers and Juniors of the Church School of the First Con¬ gregational Church, Oak Park, Illinois, whose Junior Department was the final laboratory which made possible this volume. The Author. 14 CHAPTER I THE JUNIOR’S WORLD The Junior’s world is twofold; first, the world of facts, and, second, these facts as he sees them. In one sense his environment is made up of certain fact-situations; in another sense his environment consists of that part of his surroundings of which he is conscious. It is quite possible for a person to have around him many things not really in his world; the Junior’s real world is that of his con¬ scious environment. The task of the Junior teacher is to help the Junior to become conscious of the best in his world — to interpret to him his world of facts. It is also true that there is an unconscious, as well as a conscious environment, shaping the Junior’s ideals of life. Sometimes we fail to recognize what impressions are being made, subconsciously, on the child’s mind, by certain elements in his environ¬ ment, of which he seldom speaks. One can never tell at what moment some one of these latent interests may spring into the field of the conscious life and demand a definite recognition. So the teacher’s task is as twofold as the Junior’s world. While one half of his task is to help the child interpret the facts of his universe, the other half is to help modify and recreate that uni¬ verse itself, not resting satisfied until the child’s environment is the best that it can be. The Junior teacher, who is interested in the Junior’s world 15 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL as well as in the Junior himself, will try to teach him standards of recreation — to raise his taste for fine things. At the same time the teacher will be active in many efforts to better the community situation, such as suppressing improper movies, or supplying types of entertainment suitable for children. The teacher will not be content to teach Tony that cleanliness is next to godliness, nor urge the washing of face and hands as a Christian duty, without visiting Tony’s home to see what can be done to make it a place where hands will not get soiled so easily or remain unwashed. This recognition of the child’s conscious and unconscious environment should be carried into the consideration of every part of the Junior’s world. His world we may subdivide into the fol¬ lowing: the Junior’s home, the Junior’s school, the Junior’s community, and the Junior’s church. THE JUNIOR’S HOME The world of any human being begins at the center and works outward. The home, that oldest of human institutions, remains for the Junior child, even with all his growing outside interests, the center of his world. It is there that heredity and environment combine their educative forces to write indelible impressions upon his consciousness, and it is just those indelible impressions with which teachers in the church school must reckon. Variety of home life. — In all our work with childhood and youth there is a tendency to gen¬ eralize. We classify their probable reactions, we assume that all children of a certain period of development will act in the same way in similar 16 THE JUNIOR’S WORLD circumstances, quite forgetting that “over and above all the mechanism of education stands the prin¬ ciple of personality.”1 So too we are very apt to discount or overlook the wide dissimilarity of environment that influences children growing up in the same community. What a variety of homes open their doors each morning to send their children to the public-school room! From what an assortment of home atmospheres the youth of a community come flocking to the church school upon a Sunday morning! The teacher of Juniors may well pause to ask herself the following questions before she starts her task of teaching: Is father his chum? Does mother play with the children? Has she time, after the demands of home, club, or committee, to read with them, to play with them — to pray with them? Does the whole family ever take its recreation together? Influence of the home on behavior. — When our Junior fails to perform the assigned task, may it not be due to the fact that he has never had any definite home tasks to perform? If he does not cooperate quickly and work easily with a group, we may discover that the home from which he comes is not run on the cooperative plan. In how many families are there family councils about matters which affect the entire home group, where father and mother take the children into their confidence, and really deliberate with them? The fact that a Junior does or does not have brothers and sisters, older or younger, will mean something with regard to his attitudes in the church school. Reprinted by permission of The Macmillan Company, from Peabody: The Religious Education of an American Citizen, p. 13. 17 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Homes vary too in their types of atmosphere. Possibly many a question of discipline in the Sunday- school class could be traced directly to the fact that the offending child comes on a Sunday morning from a jangling, nervous, soul-destroying home. And who can estimate the uplift of spirit with which a child may go out from a home where quiet, happiness, and mutual understanding are spirit¬ building forces? Attitude of the home toward the church school. — Are the Junior’s parents churchgoing people, or is this little child merely drawn to church by schoolmates? Is he sent merely to satisfy the con¬ sciences of adults who themselves prefer to remain at home? What is the attitude of father and mother with regard to the work of the church school? Is it looked upon as a vital part of their children’s education, a task to be taken as seriously as their public-school work, or do they fail to think of it as having any real educative value? These are not facetious questions. They point to factors that have the highest educational mean¬ ing. In rowing a boat it makes a great deal of difference whether one is going with or against the current. THE JUNIOR’S SCHOOL But the Junior’s world is far more inclusive than the four walls of home. He has had three years of school, years productive of wide expe¬ rience (in his own estimation). He has begun to feel the compulsion of an authority if not more binding than that of family, at least equally influ¬ ential. If the public-school nurse urges him to 18 THE JUNIOR’S WORLD wash his teeth every day, he grasps at this sug¬ gestion as at a brand-new idea, never heard before from mother’s reminding lips. He takes off his hat to his teacher (if she is pretty or understands boys) although parental authority has hitherto compelled only a grudging and very hasty snatch at it. Yes, the outside world is claiming him as a citizen of wider experience, and “public opinion” is now a factor to be reckoned with. Manifold influences of the schoolroom. — Perhaps the most potent factor in this larger world is the public-school room. This institution is made up of something more than just the world of books and study periods and accumulation of information. It includes that glorious company of friends and co-conspirators, all eager to taste of life and adven¬ ture, to try out the Real — that compound of gym¬ nasium and swimming tank, of athletic field and playground, that world where the gang is gradually being shaped into a mysterious power whose secrets only the initiated may know. The ideals of the schoolroom. — This school world holds many pitfalls as well as many opportunities. There is the chance for imitation of bad manners or the absorption of ideals of courtesy; there is the opportunity slavishly to follow the worst or to hold up the ideals of the finest; there is the con¬ tinual choice between companions who help or those who harm. The internationalism of the schoolroom. — There is in almost every schoolroom in America to-day a miniature world of nationalities where the Junior citizen may succumb to the temptation to shout “Dago” or “Sheeny” or “Chink,” or where he may 19 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL learn his first lessons in an altruistic patriotism and real internationalism. The basis of world-friendli¬ ness can be laid securely in the experiences of these years. The overcrowded schedule. — There is one factor in the Junior’s world which may sound like a tran¬ script from adult life, but which, sad to relate, is just as pertinent to the youth of to-day, and that is the overcrowded schedule of the average American child. Life is full to the brim of activities, most of them valuable, many of them no doubt helpful, but which taken all together may, in the long run, undermine the physical and spiritual vitality of the next generation. Any church-school teacher who has attempted to gather her group together on a week-day afternoon is familiar with the diffi¬ culties placed in the way by music lessons, dancing lessons, French lessons, younger boy Y. M. C. A. programs, and other activities. This fact of the heavy schedule can scarcely be given enough emphasis in our thoughts. Can we ever get sanity, poise, freedom from worry and nerve strain, if we never have a “mind at leisure from itself”? The world of books. — At the beginning of the Junior age the doors of the world of books swing open and the Junior rides and fights with King Arthur, he hides in leafy ambuscade with Robin Hood, he swings over the ice with Hans Brinker of the Silver Skates, or climbs the mountain heights with Heidi. Now, Alice leads him through Wonder¬ land, Robinson Crusoe beckons from his island, Odysseus carries him across the seas of adventure, or Jason involves him in the search for the Golden Fleece. 20 THE JUNIOR’S WORLD The fine art of discrimination is as yet denied the Junior. Is it, therefore, to be wondered at that Andy and Min Gump should help set his standards of home life or teach him to laugh at “love’s minor frictions,” or that the newspapers, from which it is so difficult to get unprejudiced judgments, should startle him with their lurid headlines or introduce him to the police records? Into this world of books the wise teacher will go hand in hand with her Junior pupils, reading those books which appeal to them, and introducing them to others which they may have overlooked, books with the power to set forth the highest and best ideals of life. THE JUNIOR’S COMMUNITY But the school, absorbing as are its interests, is not the only factor in the Junior’s surroundings with which to reckon. A community survey to deter¬ mine our Junior’s inherited environment might read somewhat as follows: 1. Does he live in an apartment house or in a real house with a yard around it? 2. How often does his world change due to fre¬ quent moving from one community to another? 3. Does he play at home, on the street, or in the public playground? 4. To what kind of moving pictures does he go? 5. Who is his favorite moving-picture star? 6. Is he ever taken to see great masterpieces of art or to hear great music? 7. Does he go on educational trips to see at first hand important industrial plants or com¬ mercial projects? The world of play. — The “world of play” varies 21 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL greatly among Juniors in different parts of our country. To some it is a great free unlimited opportunity for enjoyment. Others are denied the privileges of play. Undoubtedly, play is a neces¬ sary part of every child’s preparation for life and its privileges should be extended to all. Play in the city. — In spite of the fact that play is more and more recognized as an essential of child life, there still remain places where the child, to play, must be a criminal. The cry, “The cop is coming!” sounds the alarm in many a small play-world. This need is being met in part by the public playgrounds and the interest which the public school is taking in supervising the play of children. There are opportunities, however, for children with unlimited chances for play to share these chances with the city-cramped boys and girls, who welcome an invitation to the country now and then. Play in the country. — It would seem that the country child would naturally have more space and more time for the right kind of play, but those who have been brought up in the country say that this is not always the case. In speaking of the barren¬ ness of some country schoolhouses and their lack of attractiveness, one man declared that many country children do not really play. The dull routine and long hours of farm work leave young people with unimaginative minds, awkwardness in making social contacts, and a lack of suppleness, grace, and skill in the use of muscles. Those who teach Junior children in the country districts may reveal to them the possibilities of certain types of play, out in the open, and help them to feel a real gratitude for the experimental 22 THE JUNIOR’S WORLD ground, for nature study, and other opportunities for play which the country provides. The church school in the rural district may plan for group play and for entertainment with which the city child is surfeited, but of which the country child is so often deprived. Leisure time. — The play interest opens up the whole question of how the child spends his leisure time. A public-school principal once asked a group of children to answer in writing three questions: What is leisure time? Who is entitled to leisure? How would you spend an hour of leisure time in the morning? the afternoon? the evening? on Sunday? The following are some of the replies, and they show that the average child (for these were average children from average homes) likes the wholesome things in his environment. In answer to the first question they wrote as follows: (a) Leisure time is time in which one may do as he pleases. ( b ) Leisure time is time in which one does not have to work. The replies to the second question indicated that leisure is a reward for labor or for service rendered. Here are some of them: (a) An industrious person is entitled to leisure. ( b ) A person who works hard and does not waste time is entitled to leisure. ( c ) Everyone is entitled to leisure time when his work is finished. The replies to the third question, as to how leisure time might be spent, were most interesting: (a) In the morning I would take a hike or a bicycle ride into the country. While there I would look for plant and animal life. I would ask mother to pyt 23 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL up a good lunch and I would build a fire in the woods and eat my lunch there. In the afternoon I would play ball and read, or perhaps work in my garden and then take a nap. In the evening I would read, go to bed early, or see a good show. ( b ) On Sunday I would call for my best boy friend and go to the woods. We would like to take a lunch and a dog with us. (c) On Sunday afternoon several of the girls “dressed up,” took a book or some music, called for some other girls, and went to another girl’s house. Later in the afternoon they would all take a walk. The teacher who secured these replies from her pupils lists the activities as out of doors, food, play, reading, a good show, a change of scenery, comradeship, devotion, society, admiration — “all wholesome, honest, normal, legitimate ways to spend time.” Those who spend time at the movies specified the kind — an educational film, Western life, a comedy, but not “silly love stories.” One boy said, “Silly love stories make me sick.” The moving picture. — In spite of the encouraging nature of these replies, they undoubtedly do not indicate with any degree of accuracy the real num¬ ber of hours spent in the moving picture houses by a large majority of the American children to-day. Six hours out of the twenty-four the Junior spends in the schoolroom; during the remaining hours the processes of unconscious and environ¬ mental education are working slowly and surely toward the making of a man or a woman. Of all these forces none is more pervasive, more universal, more potent to-day than the cinematograph. With its appeal to the eye-gate, that surest of all avenues 24 THE JUNIOR’S WORLD to indelibility of impression, its suspended excite¬ ment, its portrayal of adventure and activity, its starring of heroes, and its often crude and unsubtle humor, it is pushing out the walls of the child’s world on every side. It can carry him to the utter¬ most parts of the earth; it knows no boundaries of time or space; it brings the far near at hand, and, together with much that is good and constructive, it opens up to growing minds a world of society and adventure which are at the most unnatural and unchildlike. It is said that the moving picture house pro¬ vides a place where mothers who want to “go out” may send their children, night after night, at the close of school and can feel that they are being entertained, while the mothers are quite oblivious to the bad air, the glaring lights, the nerve-strain, as over against an hour or two of invigorating play in the open air. Certain it is that the entire mental content of the American child’s mind is vastly different from that of the child of the same age ten years ago. This is, of course, always true, as times change, but it is particularly true now, due to the new world of ideas introduced by the moving picture. This cannot be said to be any more true of one class of children than of another. The price of admission seems to be the Open Sesame; the number of homes which attempt intelligently to regulate the attendance of their children seems to be very limited. The church’s task. — Those who teach the Junior child in the church school must, first of all, recog¬ nize this color given to the child consciousness by 25 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL the moving picture. Children to-day are perfectly familiar with many ideas, many phases of social life, many human emotions, of which the child of ten years ago was utterly unconscious. We cannot assume any longer in our teaching, that certain ideas are entirely foreign to the child’s mental content. They may be, but we cannot assume that they are. This may mean the introduction into our teaching of instruction about certain social situa¬ tions at a much earlier period in child develop¬ ment than was formerly thought proper. To recognize the real problems with which Juniors are familiar is one of the first essentials. It is not only what the child learns on Sunday but also what makes up his life during the week days that deter¬ mines his character. The church, or those who represent it, must educate the home with regard to the moving- picture question, educate the children to an appre¬ ciation of the best, and educate the community to provide for the community’s children sufficient moving-picture entertainment of the highest quality. If necessary, the church must itself operate a moving-picture machine in order to provide good pictures. Care should be taken, however, that it does not do what the community as a whole might do with greater success * The world of public events. — But the Junior is part of a larger world than any we have yet mentioned. He receives as his social heritage the accumulating contributions of many succeeding generations. It is a perplexed and perplexing world, where issues are confused, tremendous tasks of reconstruction uncompleted, a world to be saved 26 THE JUNIOR’S WORLD only by the stanchest, most daring Christian leadership in high places. It may be that only vague echoes of this troubled world filter down to our Junior through the daily press, the printed page, or the conversation of adults. Or, possibly in certain strata of our society, this consciousness may be more real through actual contact with some of these pressing social problems in the daily life of the child. But, however con¬ scious or unconscious he may be of this seething world beyond his immediate horizon, it is never¬ theless his world. He must accept it, become part of it, be made by it, or rise triumphantly superior to it, shaping and reshaping it to godlike ends. Every leader of Juniors, as he looks into the eager, vivid faces of his church-school group, may remem¬ ber with a thrill of spiritual adventure that “one slight wrist may lift a century from out the dust.”2 We shall see in later pages how the church may act as a connecting link between the Junior and this larger world. Surely, no institution which aims to supply Christian leadership can be content to let even its youngest members formulate their ideas of this changing world on the basis of rumor or through desultory avenues of information. Instead, the church will attempt to throw the white light of truth on perplexing social issues and lead its Junior members into an intelligent world-citizenship. The world of people. — The world of people is a world that cuts across the Junior’s other “worlds” continuously and which helps to make them power¬ ful in their influence. Home is not the house in which the Junior lives, but the people in that house. 2 Wharton, "A Torch Bearer,” in Artemis to Actaon. 27 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL School is not the four walls of the schoolroom; it is the teacher and companions with whom one spends the hours. The community itself is really a com¬ munity of people whose lives are brushing up against our Junior’s life in some way or other. One can hardly overestimate the influence of adults upon boys and girls. The power of sug¬ gestion in forming ideals is immeasurable. The Junior teacher may instruct, may lead discussions, may plan class activities, may seek to improve environment, but, over and above all these teach¬ ing elements, it is his own personality which is really the teacher. He is suggesting ideals by all his unconscious acts; he may consciously use the power of suggestion in the impartation of attitudes. His own life attitude may suggest to Junior boys and girls that of the most vital personality the world has ever known, so that at the center of the Junior’s world may be enshrined the Christ. THE JUNIOR’S CHURCH Somewhere in the world in which the Junior lives there stands a church, either of Gothic stone with spire pointing heavenward through suburban oaks, or a downtown city church, by the side of the road “where the crowds of men pass by,” or the little white church at the country crossroads. Whether it is a real factor in the Junior’s world depends very largely upon the church itself, or its representatives who have the shaping of the program for Junior boys and girls. “Years ago I joined the - Club,” said a father recently, mentioning the oldest family club in a growing suburban community. “Then there 28 THE JUNIOR’S WORLD came a time when I thought I would resign, but I thought of Mary, my daughter, coming along, and thought she might enjoy it some day, so I kept my membership. But, do you know, she is a Junior in high school now, and she hasn’t one speck of interest in any of the social doings at the club, but let there be any kind of a doings here at the church house, and wild horses can’t keep her away.” What shall we do as a church with the world in which the Junior finds himself? We have a responsibility for his community environment. If it is true that we must “put into the environment what we want in the child,” the church must play its part in making and keeping community life clean, morally uplifting, democratic. If, as Pres¬ ident King says, by “staying persistently in the presence of the best” the soul is carried on its up¬ ward way, then the church-school environment should be made so attractive that the love for God and his service will become contagious and the habits of reverence for and loyalty to the church will grow quite naturally out of the memory and anticipation of happy hours spent there under the creative leadership of Christian men and women who know and love the heart of a child. Against this background of the American child’s world stands the child himself. Will he be any easier to understand than the world of which he is a product? Let us ask ourselves, with all rever¬ ence and a deep desire to know the truth, “What manner of child is this?” For Further Reading : Horne — Idealism in Education , Chapter XXXI. 29 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Peabody — The Religious Education of an Amer¬ ican Citizen , Chapter II. Richardson — The Church at Play. Powell — Recreational Leadership for Church and Community. For data on the Junior’s World, see the following fiction: Kenneth Graham — Dream Days and The Golden Age . Booth Tarkington — Penrod. W. D. Howells — A Boy’s Town. Frances Hodgson Burnett — The One I Knew the Best of All. T. B. Aldrich — The Story of a Bad Boy. William Allen White — Court of Boyville. CHAPTER II THE JUNIOR CHILD There are perhaps three thoughts that will help the teacher in his study of the Junior child, whether this study be through the medium of reading about Juniors or by personal observation of them. First, personality is an indivisible whole and must be so considered. Second, the teacher is in a strategic position with reference to the development of that personality. Third, there are marked individual differences among children. Personality is an indivisible whole. — “We cannot send a boy’s mind to school, his body to the gym¬ nasium and his soul to church,” Dr. Soares once remarked. There have undoubtedly been moments in the experience of almost every church-school teacher when he has wished that he might have twelve disembodied little spirits before him on a Sunday morning instead of twelve very wiggly, provocative bodies, challenging the utmost of one’s faith to believe that much “soul” hides within. But the wise teacher will hold any such idea only as a passing thought, for he will rejoice that this small person is a “whole person” and is to be treated as such. He will also welcome the opportunity to help the Junior to achieve self-control with respect to both body and intellect. At the basis of the task of religious education lies the convic¬ tion that no personality is complete if religious JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL development is defective. Horace Bushnell re¬ minded us long ago that “the soul of education is the education of the soul.” The teacher’s responsibility for the set of per¬ sonality. — There is cause for hesitation on the part of the conscientious teacher in the thought that this child’s personality lies for a time each week in his keeping; that what it will become depends, in part, upon the influences set up around it by him; that while it is there as a spiritual reality, it is nevertheless a thing yet to be. “Every child is a candidate for personality,” says Dr. Coe.1 But the conscientious teacher may feel not only trep¬ idation but uplift in the thought that God and he together are at work on the creation and develop¬ ment of personality. It is to receive its permanent moral set at his hands. Individual differences among children. — We have noticed the wide dissimilarity of environment under which different children in even the same commu¬ nity develop. So too we must continually remind ourselves that although certain instinctive traits ap¬ pear in almost every child at about the same age, nevertheless instinctive reactions can never completely account for any person. We are, above all else, indi¬ viduals, and each personality offers a new problem. Says Dr. Peabody, “To discern the potential qualities of different lives — that is the infinitely varied and perplexing, yet fascinating task, which parents, pastors, and teachers have to meet. To take a life as it is and make of it what it was meant to be, to take a person and make of him a person- * 1 Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons, from Coe, Social Theory of Religious Education. 32 THE JUNIOR CHILD ality — that is the aim of religious as of all education. At the beginning of a chapter on spontaneous reactions of childhood, it is well to focus our thought on this wide variation in personality. It is all too easy for the student of child psychology to group children according to their ages and to fasten upon each age a list of characteristics which are sup¬ posed to find their most pronounced expression during that particular period. This done, how often the teacher wonders, when face to face with some apparently unclassified reaction in the case of a particular child, why he does not seem to conform to type. In the home, to fathers and mothers, children are so many distinct individualities; to teachers also they should stand out, each one in the group, an individual with particular limitations and capacities. IMPULSIVE TENDENCIES OF THE JUNIOR CHILD The impulses of Juniors are vigorous, spontaneous, and thoroughgoing. The list is a long one and includes wrestling and fighting, foraging, exploring, hunting, trading and bartering, making collections of everything from stamps to patent-medicine sam¬ ples, investigating how things are made and making them, chasing, climbing, falling. There is the im¬ pulse to express the parental attitude, to flock together in groups, to seek the approval of others, to compete with others, to imitate others. If any proposed activity offers a chance to put to use these many impulses and gives promise of loud and startling satisfactions, such as bring joy to a hardy nature, that is the activity for our Junior. 2 Reprinted by permission of The Macmillan Company, from Peabody: Tht Religious Education of an American Citizen, p. 169. 33 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL We shall consider only a few of these native dispositions. All are significant in the development of the individual, but some demand special con¬ sideration from the church-school teacher. Exuberant energy. — Anyone observing a group of Juniors together will be impressed with the fact that the very air is tense with a vitality, with an exuberance of energy that is just waiting to be let loose. Our Junior, first of all, likes activity. To the question put to countless teachers, as to whether this love of exuberant activity is an asset or a liability, the answer invariably comes back, “An asset.” Have you ever tried to teach a group of older Juniors in a community where the social life of an adult world has early been superimposed upon them, so that all efforts to awaken a spon¬ taneous response to ideas was met with a blase indifference — no initiative shown, no ideas forth¬ coming? Have you longed to stir them up and get some action, either good or bad? If so, you have most surely thanked God for activity. The psychologists tell us that without activity one cannot learn any of life’s lessons. It follows, therefore, that without the activity of the child the teacher cannot teach. The question that con¬ fronts the teacher is whether he shall help direct this outflowing abundance of activity, or shall the group alone control it; whether it shall be in con¬ trol of one child who is the ringleader or of an adult who is an intelligent guide. One thing is sure: the boys and girls themselves are certain to control the situation if the teacher in all his plans has not made adequate provision for an abundance of activity. 34 THE JUNIOR CHILD The gregarious impulse. — Of all the impulses to act, this one, to act in groups, causes more anxiety to many teachers than any other. It is one thing to solve a problem of conduct with one child who is alone; it is quite another thing to solve it when this one child plus his group of companions must be taken into account. The child of this age plays with other children more than he has done before. Fighting, wrestling, camping, games of competition — all these activities require the presence of others. During the latter part of this period that close amalgamation of individual units into the “gang” begins to take place. The first experiences that mark the transition from the individualism of early childhood to a more social interest and control are often painful. One does not need to see, one only needs to listen to a baseball game of nine-year-olds to detect the struggle between two selves. The instinct to organize into a team is there, but the incessant wrangling as to who is up to bat, whether that last strike was the third or not, how many balls have been thrown, and so on -ad infinitum , indicates that the way to group loyalty is still a long one. Yet, with all his individualism, the gang at times wields a powerful influence over the Junior. It is stronger, at times, than home or community, than parent or teacher. To be applauded by “the fellows” guarantees inter¬ nal satisfaction, let dissatisfied elders criticize as they may. SPONTANEOUS INTERESTS OF THE JUNIOR CHILD Some one has called interests “life-savers.” They may be either life-savers or life-destroyers. So 35 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL powerful are they in determining the set of a man’s character that they are of the utmost concern to the teacher. A man gives attention to that in which he is interested. The things that hold his attention determine his action, for the mind is so made that it must act upon the idea which is held in attention. A Junior’s interests are all interesting. Let us look at a few of them and see their significance. Interest in real life. — The reasons for the Junior’s abundant energy, which is constantly seeking to find new outlets, lie farther back than mere hood- lumism. They lie deep-seated in the nervous sys¬ tem which the child inherits. They are part and parcel of those innate urges which appear at this age. It is thirst for the real that accounts for much of the Junior’s strident and boisterous activity. It is real life which challenges his interest. He wants to come up against it, even though it is hard. His mischief, his annoying way of doing just the thing you wish he would not do, may often be accounted for by his investigation of real life. Noise is real. Confusion is real. Wrestling is real. Speeding along on roller skates, oblivious of pedes¬ trians on the walk; ringing the neighbors’ doorbells and running; climbing out to the very edge of a slender tree branch, even though he knows it will break with his weight — these and countless other experiences are fascinating because they are real. Interest in variety of experience. — This child is thoroughgoing in his search for actualities. He tries one experience after another, which fact sug¬ gests to the wise teacher that if he likes activity, he also likes it sufficiently varied. When the Junior expresses a desire for “something doing,” he means 36 THE JUNIOR CHILD not merely activity but something different. From the point of view of the teaching process, then, anticipation of pleasant surprise is a great thing. To know that the lesson will not be taught in the same old way Sunday after Sunday awakens lively anticipation. Interest in reading. — By the age of nine or ten, the newly acquired art of reading has become, in most cases, a pleasure instead of a task. If it is true that our thought-life plays an important part in controlling our actions, and so our destinies, since the Junior has this tremendous faculty for absorbing ideas, it will make a vast difference what books he reads. Interest in heroic characters. — As the Junior likes to do things himself, so too does he like, either in real life or in fiction, people who do things. It has been said that a normal boy would just as soon read about a good boy as a bad one, if the good boy will only “do something.” Ideals of right living will be appreciated most readily by Juniors through the concrete acts of the heroes whom they admire. They have a passion for the heroic, and admire prowess especially of the physical kind. Livingstone is their typical hero, first because he explored an unknown continent, fought single-handed with lions, and narrowly but bravely escaped from the poisoned arrows of enemies. Because he was physically brave they are prepared to admire him as the man who kept his word to a group of black folks, or who showed indefatigable determination to win his goal against all odds, or who sacrificed home, comforts, friends, success as the world calls it, for the sake of others. 37 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Dramatic interest. — Because the heroic is so real to him and because of his own motor-mindedness, the average child of this age feels himself capable of any degree of heroism. He often tries to prove to his friends, to the world at large, and sometimes to himself, that he has in him the stuff of which heroes are made. So real is this world of the heroic that one is not surprised to find the Knights of the Round Table, shields and lances in hand, prancing on fiery steeds across the garden plot; or on another day the same band transformed into a stealthy tribe of Indians, stalking with feathers and tomahawk across the front lawn; or, possibly, by another wave of the magic wand, turned into Robin Hood and his merry men lurking in ambush under the lilacs. This interest in dramatization is a teaching asset, as we shall see later on, and if wisely used, may open up the way for the child to live over again the great life experiences of the men and women whose ideals we would have him assim¬ ilate. Play interest. — It will readily be seen that most of these instinctive interests of childhood find their expression in a world of play. When we speak of a “world of play” we do not mean a world removed from actuality. The play world, on the other hand, is the most real world in which the child lives. Just how real it is was revealed by the ten-year-old girl who was asked, “Do you play much with your dolls?” “Oh, no,” she replied, “I don’t play with them at all. I just bathe them and dress them in the morning before I go to school. Then, they take a nap until I get home at noon. I feed them before I go back and when I get home in the afternoon 38 THE JUNIOR CHILD I take them out to get the fresh air and I sew for them and make their beds and keep their things looking nice. I don’t play with them.” OTHER CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JUNIOR CHILD There are certain general characteristics of the Junior child besides his interests, that are espe¬ cially meaningful to the teachers of Juniors. His mental alertness is closely related to his quick responses to every kind of sensory stimulus; his desire for the truth has some connection with his tendency to seek the real in his experience. The characteristics which will demand a large share of the teacher’s consideration are the Junior’s mental alertness, his self-assertiveness, his response to authority, his secretiveness about his thought- life, his desire for the truth. Mental alertness. — We must remember that the Junior’s activity is not only physical. He craves intellectual activity as well. His mind is active as well as his body. Puzzles, conundrums, and all sorts of tests of mental agility are enjoyed. The Junior age is the period of great mental alertness and acquisitiveness, when there seems to be no end to the amount of information which can be absorbed. While this is, therefore, the golden time for acquiring information, this mental vigor means also that the mind of the Junior is singularly open to truth if it is presented in the right way. During this age the foundation of an open-minded¬ ness which shall keep the spirit growing all through middle life and even through old age may be laid. Self-assertiveness. — The teacher of the oldest group in the Primary Department will often notice 39 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL toward the end of the year a subtle change coming over his class. Children who were formerly docile, pliable, and very susceptible to any suggestion from the teacher, suddenly break out into unac¬ countable spells of waywardness. Sometimes this commences with one child in the group and grad¬ ually spreads to the others; sometimes it seems to attack the entire group all at once. This means that the Primary child is about to enter his Junior inheritance and the new impulse to assert himself is appearing. This self-assertiveness is part of that creative impulse springing up within the child. He often makes us shudder at the blatancy of his self-assertion. Modesty is not one of his graces. He shrieks the “I” at us. We hear him tell with unconcealed pride that his father is richer, his brother stronger, or his Christmas presents more numerous than those of his friend; and his friend retaliates in kind. Response to authority. — But there are one or two anomalies in the Junior’s instinct to assert himself. Although he resents the authority of an individual, although he may do everything in his power to show that he need not respond to it, in spite of the fact that he has worn out more than one self-sacrificing Sunday school teacher by placing every conceivable obstacle in the way of discipline and authority, yet he responds to authority even of the militaristic type. He admires only the leader who can control him, even though he may attempt to upset that control. For the Junior knows that the man or woman who cannot control him and the rest of his group is a weakling. He or she comes not under his list of heroes who “do things.” And the 40 THE JUNIOR CHILD Junior is very discerning; he is not easily fooled about people. Emerson said: “They know truth from counterfeit as quick as the chemist does. They detect weakness in your eye and behavior a week before you open your mouth, and have given you the benefit of their opinion quick as a wink. If I can pass with them, I can manage well enough with their fathers.” Secretiveness about thought-life. — Another anom¬ aly lies in the fact that although they may shout their “ego” at the world, they are strongly secretive about certain phases of their thought-life, partic¬ ularly that which borders on the shores of imag¬ ination. Except for their absorbed interest in the recital of heroic deeds they will not let you know how much they really worship those heroes of their heart’s affection, nor let you even guess how much they live in the glamour of ideals. Their daydreams are not for telling. Yet the teacher who under¬ stands will know how shy they are about this hidden life, and will never forget for one moment that they do have their dreams, that a “boy’s will is the wind’s will and the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.” Desire for the truth. — Over against this inner dream life is that matter-of-factness which is so often thought of in connection with the child of the Junior age. Because his ideals are so insistent he longs to know if they be true. He no longer asks, “Is it a true story?” He knows whether or not it is true; at least he is skeptical if it has not the ring of the genuine about it. So he must have the truth in answer to his questions, no matter how difficult they are to answer. 4i JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL IMPORTANCE OF THE JUNIOR AGE It remains for those of us who are to guide the child through the Junior years to ask ourselves, “What can the church do for him? What shall we in the Junior Department of the church school do with his activity, his sense of loyalty, his love of competition, his interest in reading, his fondness for dramatization, his exuberant play, his admiration of heroes?” In the following pages we shall attempt to answer these questions. For our present purpose we may remind ourselves that what we do with all these things now will determine what he will do with himself during the stormy years of adolescence just ahead. Some one has likened the Junior age to the mediaeval period, calling it a dead-level experience, immediately followed by adolescence, the time of “new life,” the Renaissance. At times it may seem to be more fascinating to work with that next period of adolescence when one can see the light dawn, but the work of the Junior teacher is critical. The future is in his hands. For this is the great period of habit-formation and habits rule by reason of their strength. The importance of habit-formation. — The very nature of the child’s nervous system is such that he must learn and express what he has learned. And with every repetition of that expression an indelible impression is made upon the mind. For this reason, even at this time, some mental processes and moral qualities have begun to be fixed for life. “Destiny is the harvest of character; Character is the summation of habit; Habit is the repetition of deed.” 42 THE JUNIOR CHILD The habit of religion is not all, but it is a power¬ ful, steadying force in the years to come. Later the organism will not be as plastic as in childhood. Physical and mental upheavals will require a back¬ ground of strongly intrenched habits of right think¬ ing, right feeling, and right living, if they are not to undermine the moral and religious fiber of life. The instinctive response to religion. — The teach¬ er’s great asset right now is that among all his other likes, the Junior likes religion; not false piety nor goody-goodness, but genuine, manly, womanly, invigorating religion. Let us never forget that he is instinctively religious and that it is his birth¬ right to have this capacity for religion cultivated. Parents and teachers alike should remember that among all the rights of the child, his right to be well born, his right to a proper environment, his right to an education, this right looms above all others, namely, his right to a normal, happy, invigorating Christian faith. “The constant thought of God as companion in the moral struggle”3 is the kind of faith which the Junior needs. For Further Reading: Hartshorne — Childhood and Character. Kirkpatrick — The Individual in the Making . Lee — Play and Education. Norsworthy and Whitely — The Psychology of Childhood. , 1 Hartshorne, Childhood and Character, p. 113, Pilgrim Press. Used by permission of the author. 43 CHAPTER III FINDING STANDARDS IN THE JUNIOR’S EXPERIENCE It is very easy for boys and girls to have the idea that much talking about religion constitutes a real religious experience, that one’s religion is primarily a matter of the inner thought life with¬ out reference to attitudes and to daily conduct. Due to a wrong conception of what religion really is, many persons have grown to maturity with a serious failure to relate their religious feelings and ideas to every-day living. One morning a man took his place at the break¬ fast table in a dining car, quite unaware that he was immediately recognized by an observer at the next table. She knew him to be a leading Sunday- school worker; she had heard him many times on platforms in various parts of the country, training the leaders of children. Did he have dyspepsia on this particular morning, or was it the habit of a lifetime, that prompted him to abuse the colored waiter, because an extra charge was made for bread and butter? It was war time. He had been travel¬ ing from coast to coast. He must have known that everyone was required to pay for this service. He certainly knew that the black-faced server of his meal was not responsible for the regulation. In the entire situation which was disgracefully pro¬ longed and full of the most virulent language, the 44 FINDING STANDARDS colored man was the superior gentleman and, whether he knew it or not, the better Christian of the two. The silent but indignant observer heard running through her thoughts to the recurring rhythm of the revolving car wheels, “What you are sounds so loudlyin my ears that I cannot hear what you say.” And she remembered too the Junior boy who, in trying to repeat this saying at home, unconsciously revised it to read, “What you are sounds so loudly in my ears that I do not take any stock in what you say.” Every Junior teacher may well set before him as a goal the development of Christians who ring true, whose lives meet the tests of a genuine religious experience. Integrity of thought is not enough; there must be integrity of life. To appreciate the fundamental aims of religious education is the first step toward reaching this goal. To be merely truthful or merely enthusiastic and loyal is not enough. The teacher needs to know what it means to Christianize the whole of life. THE AIMS OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION FOR JUNIORS There is a need for greater definiteness of aim in the whole educational task. This is particularly true in the field of religious education. Just because of the frequent failure of religious training to pro¬ duce actual results in character there is an urgent demand for a clearer definition of what our task is. Goals need to be clearly conceived. Our resources must be estimated. We must take stock of the obstacles to be overcome and then shape our methods for the achievement of the desired ends. If the teacher of religion knows clearly what he is expected to accomplish in his teaching, he has a standard 45 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL by which to measure his teaching ability as well as the child’s responses. He can thus determine whether or not he is actually teaching religion. The threefold aim of religious education. — If it is true that the world needs to-day men and women and youth who shall actually live as Christians, our first aim in religious education is obvious. It is to see that boys and girls acquire the ability to act religiously under all circumstances. This con¬ stitutes the teacher’s first duty. While ability to act in the right way may be developed by placing children in situations where they will have strong incentives to act properly, yet it must be remem¬ bered that there are two important factors upon which the will is dependent. An act of will implies choice between two or more possibilities of action. There must be an alternative. That the child may know what is the best act in a given situation, he must have a fund of ideas on which to base his decision. He must be informed as to the conse¬ quences of possible actions. He needs to be familiar with the ways in which others have acted in sim¬ ilar situations. Unless he has the power to dis¬ criminate between the better and the best way, his education is defective. In other words, he must have knowledge , and knowledge which will make possible the right choices. And yet it is possible for a person to have a store of useful knowledge without having acquired the ability to live in accordance with it. A person may know what is the right thing to do, yet fail to do it. If he is not ambitious and determined to do the right thing, or if he is not enthusiastic about the right, his knowledge does not bear fruit. 46 FINDING STANDARDS Tastes and desires need to fasten themselves upon the ideal if one is to follow, consistently, the path that knowledge points out as the right one. The motive force which propels a person to do the right thing when once he knows what it is and how to do it lies in his attitudes. These attitudes determine his scale of values, his convictions, his ideals. They make his ideas compelling. Fruitful knowledge of past, present, and future will con¬ tribute to the building up of a life attitude, but other elements also enter in. And no program of education is complete which contents itself with only knowledge as an end; it must, in addition, aim definitely to develop in the child those attitudes which will make everyday Christian living an actual accomplishment. So every teacher of religion finds himself con¬ fronted with three distinct yet correlated aims, expressed by Dr. Betts1 as 1. Fruitful Knowledge. 2. Right Attitudes. 3. Skill in Living. Fruitful knowledge. — This aim is of special im¬ portance to the teacher of Juniors, since during the years between nine and twelve the accumula¬ tion of information is particularly rapid. Facts are observed, truths learned, and ideas absorbed in large numbers. Children of this age receive a store of knowledge which bears fruit of religious value throughout the remainder of life. In dealing with the wealth of ideas which might be presented to them let us eliminate those which will only clog 1 Betts, George H., How to Teach Religion , Chapter III. The Abingdon Press. 47 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL the machinery of clear thinking and of ethical action. Confronted by each Sunday’s lesson, let us ask ourselves the question: “What power has this material to enrich and make over the expe¬ riences of the members of my group?” The Junior’s mind is at the top notch of recep¬ tivity not only on Sunday but also every moment of the days during the week. Through the ear- gate and the eye-gate, at home, on the playground, from the printed page and the vivid billboard, ideas are pouring in. Remembering that “as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,” must not the church-school teacher realize that to feed the thought-life of growing boys and girls is fundamental in the making of character? Moral and religious ideas must be winged with fire if they are to mount supreme above all the undesirable information which life itself is constantly thrusting upon the mind of youth. Right attitudes. — In the development of right attitudes the Junior teacher again has a coveted opportunity. The child’s attitudes are not fixed unalterably by his relatively few years of experience. Instead of a nonreligious or an irreligious attitude toward life and its problems, he may grow up to see all of life with a religious significance. He need not mature in such a way as to require a wrench of his whole moral nature to face squarely an ethical problem or to overcome a temptation, for many of the desirable attitudes may be made habitual through repetition. The ordinary child enters the Junior Depart¬ ment with certain attitudes and habits of action already in evidence. Some of these must be 48 FINDING STANDARDS strengthened and other new ones developed. It will be remembered from the study of the native reactions of children that certain of these desirable attitudes will have their basis in the instinctive impulses and spontaneous interests of children of this age. To be most dynamic, they must be grounded in the native tendencies of the child’s mind. What are some of the right attitudes which we should strive to develop in the child while he is in the Junior Department? The attitude of trust in God. The attitude of happiness. The attitude of gratitude. The attitude of honor. The attitude of obedience. The attitude of courage. The attitude of sympathy. The attitude of friendliness. The attitude of loyalty. Although the child of the Junior age is singularly receptive in his attitude toward new ideas, his con¬ duct is largely the result of instincts and their attendant emotions. The acquiring of properly organized ideas is a cognitive process, and this process, we have noted, is not yet highly developed at the age of ten or eleven. Undeniably, more attention should be paid in the teaching of Juniors to developing the appreciation or feeling and the motor sides of the child. One’s standards, ideals, and early prejudices are not easily purified or exalted in later years. Scales of values are formed at a very early age. Knowledge about life can still be acquired, through effort, after childhood; but the way in which one feels toward life is often deter- 49 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL mined before the parent or the teacher is aware of it. This is particularly true of the attitude toward religion. After all, loyalty to the highest and best one knows is not so much a matter of knowing what religion is as it is of practice, under favorable conditions, of trustfully taking God into account. The time to develop the most enduring appreciation of religious values is before the period of adolescence. Skillful living. — In practice it is hard to disso¬ ciate the right attitude from its expression in con¬ duct. If the attitude has become an inherent part of a person’s character, it will inevitably seek an outlet in activity. But one of the tragedies of education lies right here, in the gap so often seen between knowledge of the right thing to do and the actual doing of it. It was said of Bishop Whipple by a lumberman of the Northern woods, “There are two kinds of preaching, lip-preaching and life¬ preaching, and the life-preaching does not rub out.”2 Bishop Whipple’s life was in harmony with his spoken word. In a recent investigation3 it was discovered by a group of religious educators that many of the social maladjustments found in adolescence were due to ineffective methods of training in the years preceding adolescence. In the case of adolescent girls it was evident that the girl was unable to assemble her knowledge so as to solve her present problems; that she could not adjust herself to racial and national groups and individuals who 2 Speer, p. 26, Servants of the King. Missionary Education Movement. 3 See Journal of Religious Education, February, 1921. Articles by Mabel E. Stone and Percy R. Hayward. 50 FINDING STANDARDS were different from those with whom she was accus¬ tomed to associate; and that she lacked a sense of assurance that God is real. Adolescent boys were found to lack courtesy and a sense of right deport¬ ment. There were numerous cases of dishonesty and untruthfulness. There was a wrong attitude toward sex life, and a large group of miscellaneous maladjustments, all of which were traced more or less directly to wrong methods used in the educa¬ tion of these young people in the earlier years. Results of this kind suggest how critically important is the work of the Junior teacher in developing life-skills. In our teaching we should aim to develop: The self-controlled Junior. The chivalrous Junior. The generous Junior. The helpful Junior. The responsible Junior. The co-operative Junior. The Junior world-citizen. Making attitudes and conduct habitual. — Perhaps enough has already been said about the power of habit formation during the Junior period. Skill in Christian living means not sporadic attempts at being a Christian but the habitual attitudes of Jesus expressed day after day. Let us not be con¬ tent to simulate a desirable attitude or to give it an opportunity of expression in an occasional way, but let us see that desirable acts are repeated over and over again, for repetition under favoring con¬ ditions is the mother of habit. THE JUNIOR’S CAPACITY FOR RELIGIOUS LIFE To realize the aims of religious education for 5i JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Juniors, it is necessary to know just what is the Junior’s capacity for religious development. What kind of religious acts are natural Junior acts? How may we expect him to think about his religious experiences? How are his feelings related to his religious life? Only after determining the Junior’s capacity for religion is the teacher ready to take up intelligently the study of method. It is well, occasionally, to remind ourselves that the child’s capacity for religious life varies in quality from that of the adult. In spite of the fact that many of the issues of adult life are to-day brought within the limits of the child’s world, still the world of wonderful reality for him is the one made up of his own comrades and their purposeful play. Here it is that he lives and moves and has his being. This means that the child’s problems are to a certain extent different from those of his elders, though no less real because different. The prob¬ lems of the adult center in his business, politics, family, community — in the world of social con¬ tacts and future possibilities. Modern pedagogy acts on the assumption that the child is not merely preparing to live at some remote period in this adult world, but that he is living now in the present situation. His religion, then, to be his own, must be of such a character as to enable him to live at his best now, to meet his present problems. It may seem an astonishing fact that in spite of all our study of child life in recent years and our growing knowledge of psychology, still we err fre¬ quently at this point. Although we recognize in every book on pedagogy that a child’s mental state differs from that of an adult, we fail to see the 52 FINDING STANDARDS significance of this fact for religious education. We have adapted our educational processes to meet these child characteristics, yet in the field of reli¬ gious education we still are apt to treat children as little adults. We say one thing with our lips and another with our lesson material. We may recog¬ nize that the child is not religious in the same way that we are, but we go ahead and act on the assump¬ tion that he can and ought to be. The simple fact remains that he cannot. The Junior’s capacity for religious action. — The Junior’s capacity for religious action far exceeds his capacity for organized thought. The religion of the Junior child is preeminently active. This is not surprising since he lives so largely in a world made up of activity. Concrete deeds that have a religious value he will readily appreciate; the ab¬ stract statement of the principles that underlie the deed will convey only a vague meaning to him. He understands that “doing a good turn,” pre¬ paring his Sunday-school lesson, being on time, assisting the teacher, earning money for starving Armenians, playing fair and square, running errands, and a host of other concrete acts are “good” and therefore desirable. He can be led to see that such acts are the very essence of a vital religion. The Junior’s capacity for organized religious thought. — The Junior’s imagination is creative, very active, and an important factor in his thought life. Through the power of the imagination ideals are formed and deeds of heroism pictured. This imaginative power is directed toward the concrete. The Junior sees particularly the person doing the act rather than the idea back of it. If there are 53 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL certain desirable religious attitudes to be culti¬ vated in children of this age, the more concretely these attitudes can be set forth for the child, the more vividly will they be flashed upon his con¬ sciousness, and the more consistently will they be expressed in his conduct. The Junior’s reasoning faculties are limited and yet we should in all our teaching make a conscious effort to help him think more clearly, to rely less upon first impressions, and to arrive at his own conclusions. This child is now busy living and acquiring information that will later serve as a basis for thought. He has little time for organizing his thoughts. They are becoming orderly, however. Because he has not yet accumulated enough knowl¬ edge or lived through a sufficient number of expe¬ riences, he is often an inaccurate thinker, arriving at incorrect conclusions. Sometimes the Junior child does not hold his attention to any one set of facts long enough to see their bearing upon the problem under discussion. His failure to “get the point” is often discouraging to the teacher. And because he has not classified his knowledge he often, in answer to a question, brings out the idea that first comes to his mind, regardless of its pertinency. What church school teacher has not been vaguely mystified and perplexed at some such random answer? A group of Junior children were discussing with the leader of the department the uses of the money raised for church support. Finally the question of salaries was mentioned. “Whose salaries are paid by the church?” was asked. “The Sunday-school teachers’,” was one quick reply. This child, it 54 FINDING STANDARDS developed, knew perfectly well that no church school teacher in that church had ever been paid for his teaching services.4 The Junior child must gradually learn to think from the particular to the general, from concrete to abstract. All the teaching in the Junior Depart¬ ment should help him gradually to form principles of right action from the concrete deeds which he so readily appreciates. We must help the Junior to develop the power to reach general or abstract conclusions and not merely to consider the par¬ ticular ones in hand. One October evening a group of three boys were riding their bicycles through the neatly piled leaves that lined the parkways in front of their homes. These piles of leaves represented hours of labor, first by members of their own fam¬ ilies, and then by the street cleaners of the village. At the end of thirty minutes the work of one entire day was demolished. These boys were all normally thoughtful boys in their homes, helpful to their mothers, not unnecessarily destructive of property; no one of them wantonly would have despoiled the frosting of a newly baked cake in his own kitchen, or have littered the contents of the waste paper baskets all over the house. What they lacked was not thoughtfulness for others, but the application of that principle to wider social areas. This might have come from a more definite social emphasis in their religious training. The Junior’s capacity for religious feeling. — Chil¬ dren naturally have a marked capacity for feeling. This native capacity should be utilized, but not * For observations on children’s thinking, see Norsworthy and Whitely, Psychology of Childhood, Chapter X. 55 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL abused. The Junior’s feelings are apt to be strong and vivid while they last. They are not apt to be very deep or of a lasting quality. As new objects crowd in upon the child’s consciousness, one emo¬ tion gives place to another. However, this does not mean that the emotions are not influential in affecting conduct. The Junior acts more often under the propulsion of his feelings than of his ideas. The more often the Junior can be made to feel as he should, the more surely will his conduct be what it should, and outbursts of undesirable emotions will be less frequent. Feelings of sympathy, generosity, gratitude, good will, reverence, as we have seen, need to be cul¬ tivated. Religious training has sometimes been accused of arousing the emotions unduly or with¬ out supplying suitable outlets. The result is that the springs of fine feeling soon dry up. The teacher of Juniors needs to keep a fair balance between the impartation of ideas and the cultivation of feeling on the one hand and between the cultivation of the emotions and their expression in conduct, on the other. THE ADAPTATION OF METHOD TO THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF THE JUNIOR The whole point of view of this chapter assumes that the great objective in all religious education is the child himself, with his expression of character in Christian living. To this end the curriculum must be chosen which will best enable the teacher to meet the child’s needs and to develop his ability to live as he should. Method is that mode of pro¬ cedure which will best help the child to interpret life and to relate himself to it in the most fruit- 56 FINDING STANDARDS ful way. Method and devices should not be con¬ fused. Devices may mend a break or stop a leak temporarily; method is fundamental, and gives prin¬ ciples upon which to work intelligently. Devices may work in one situation and not at all in another; method can be applied to any situation, because it always grows out of the life experience of the child. The first three chapters of this book deal with the first objective of religious education, the child; the next two take up the question of subject matter; the remaining chapters have to do with method. Individual differences among children. — Last of all, not all children respond to religious training in the same way. The general law of individual variation applies to religious experience. Some individuals are ideo-motor. They respond chiefly in terms of action. Such children are quick to act. They are little troubled by the whys and wherefores. Their attitude toward life is primarily a desire to take up things that need to be done. Some children are emotional in their responses. For them, the mysti¬ cal element in religion has a strong pull. The teacher must study his group, must remember that no two souls travel the same way to God, and must prayerfully command all his understanding of human nature and all his knowledge of the technique of teaching for his supreme task, the making of individual Christians. For Further Reading : Betts, George Herbert — How to Teach Religion , Chapters III, IV, V, and VI. Coe — A Social Theory of Religious Education , Chapters II, V, VI, XI, and XII. 57 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Norsworthy and Whitely — The Psychology of Childhood , Chapters I and XIII. Strayer and Norsworthy — How to Teach , Chapters X and XI. Peabody — The Religious Education of an Amer¬ ican Citizen , Chapter I. Hartshorne — Childhood and Character , Chapters VI, X, and XI. Mumford — The Dawn of Religion in the Mind of the Child , Chapter VI. 58 CHAPTER IV THE CURRICULUM FOR THE JUNIOR CHILD A curriculum, however well planned, is of little practical use unless it is studied, and its study will bear little fruit unless done by children who have appetites for it. The children should recognize that the thing which they have been asked to study has grown out of their own experience and will minister to that experience. It is not sufficient that the teacher alone select the curriculum; we must get the children to choose it and to plunge into its study with the desire to find out what it contains for them. Too often in the past has a curriculum been superimposed upon children with no thought of its motivation. One of the first secrets of motivation of subject matter is that it shall be what the child needs and not what some older person erroneously surmises he ought to have. Teachers have been asking, “What shall we teach the children?” And the answer to that question points to the child and his needs, particularly the child as a member of society. There is particular need of a “socialized curriculum,” mean¬ ing one that better fits the child to live his own life, and to live in a world where great social issues are at stake. Are there any changes which should be made in our present curriculum of religious educa¬ tion which will make it more vital, more pertinent to the child’s experience? How can we enrich the 59 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL curriculum of religious education? In our study of what we shall teach Juniors, let us keep an open mind, recognizing the merit of much of our present teaching material, while we search out ways of enriching it and of increasing its educational value. THE THREEFOLD CURRICULUM OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION Every type of material used for teaching pur¬ poses in a Junior Department may and should be considered as curriculum material. So, we may say that our Junior will study a threefold curriculum: The Curriculum of Activity. The Curriculum of Worship. The Curriculum of Information. The last two are so closely bound up with the method of presentation that they will receive special atten¬ tion in chapters later on. This chapter and the next one deal with the Curriculum of Information for Junior children. The curriculum of activity.— The curriculum of activity is, in many ways, the most difficult of the three to plan for, to control, and to test by any standards of value. What the child thinks or says that he thinks the teacher can tabulate. What he does and is eludes statistics. One cannot plan a curriculum of activity for all the Junior’s waking hours. But the church school can do far more than it has been doing in making a place for a unified program of activity, definitely adapted to the age of each group. Naturally, this curriculum of activity will be related to the material studied in the lessons as well as to that which is included in the curriculum of worship. There will necessarily 60 CURRICULUM FOR THE JUNIOR CHILD be an overlapping of material and activity in all three of the curricula. Chapters XIV, XV, XVI, and XVII deal with the curriculum of activity. The curriculum of worship.— In Chapters XI, XII, and XIII the subject of the materials of worship will be considered along with the question of best methods in teaching Juniors how to worship. Naturally and desirably, some of the material used in the lesson study will creep into the worship curriculum, and the wise teacher will often take over from the worship period material used there for further teaching emphasis in the classroom. The materials of worship form a curriculum in them¬ selves and should be graded to meet the worship needs of Junior children. The curriculum of information. — Until a few years ago informational material was all that was thought of when the word “curriculum” was men¬ tioned. In the light of more recent theories of education information may be secured from ma¬ terials not always found between the covers of the textbooks. Any curriculum, to satisfy the student’s needs, must be identified with his present experiences, or, if taken from the past, must have a message closely related to his present interests. Information is for use. It is not to be labeled and set aside in pigeon holes of the mind for future use only, while the pupil suffers in present living situa¬ tions because he does not know how to meet them. THE CURRICULUM OF INFORMATION FOR JUNIORS A survey of existing curricula seems to indicate that at the present time the Junior child is suffer¬ ing somewhat from a diet of more or less inadequate 61 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL material. He is wide-awake and, because his mind is so unusually and readily receptive of any and all ideas, has been allowed to remain the victim of a curriculum which crams his receptive mind with many ideas not immediately needed while it denies it many more which would be of very immediate help. Those who understand the Juniors are becom¬ ing conscious of the lack of real nourishment in much of the material that is now on the market. They see that the Junior is not just to gorge himself in the Junior Department on enough food of every variety to last him for a lifetime; that the books of the Bible, and the kings of Judah and Israel in their order, the twelve apostles and the beatitudes and all the rest are not sufficient in themselves to help a Junior boy or girl to think clean thoughts, or to play a fair game, or to tell the truth at all times. Mrs. Dorothy Dickinson Barbour says:1 “What will most help him (the Junior) to carry out his own best purposes, and to make his purposes increasingly Christian? We realize that this implies knowledge of precisely what behaviors and ideals characterize a perfect Christian of ten. It calls for experience as to exactly the times when he feels it difficult to be good. It demands study of what does most help him to achieve and improve his purposes.’’ Our subject matter, then, should be such as will actually transform experience. It will not take precedence over the child, but will minister to him in his daily life, in his attempt to understand life, and to live as he should between Sundays as well 1 Dorothy Dickinson Barbour in Journal of Religious Education, December, 1920, “What to Teach Juniors.'^ 62 CURRICULUM FOR THE JUNIOR CHILD as on Sunday. The subject matter for Juniors should aim to be within the range of the Junior’s own interest and experience, so that he may, first of all, want to study it and, in the second place, understand and appropriate it. Present experiences of nine- to eleven-year-old children. — If we are to change the attitudes of children and give them real skill in Christian living, it is evident that some of the subject matter must be selected from their present experiences. What kinds of experiences in the lives of Juniors furnish material for religious education? First of all, such material may be found in the everyday living of the children. A group of chil¬ dren in a church-school class were discovered call¬ ing a little Armenian girl, recently admitted to the group, a “nigger.” The Christmas season was approaching, when the school was to make its gift of money for the starving children in Bible lands. The regular course of study was laid aside for four Sundays and the Near-East problem taken up with the class. This included stories of the heroism of some of the children in those same Bible lands. Gradually it developed that Mary, the Armenian child, had many relatives killed in the recent perse¬ cutions, that her own family had escaped to Amer¬ ica. When, on Christmas Sunday, a simple dram¬ atization of child-life in Palestine was given and the leading parts were taken by Mary and her Armenian brothers and sisters, contempt had given way to admiration. The real subject matter used in that class for those four weeks was not the Near- East problem but the social situation in the group, and the wise teacher found many ways for the 63 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL children to show their changing attitude to the little girl who was a stranger in a strange land. Legitimate material may also be found in social conditions in the community in which the children live. In a certain community the entire question of proper moving pictures was under agitated dis¬ cussion by the adults. Petitions were being cir¬ culated by the moving-picture manager for open Sunday movies. The same manager had disregarded the refusal of the local Board of Censors to show an undesirable film on Saturday afternoon, when the patrons of the house were largely children. Was this entirely an adult problem? The children did not think so. They understood that they were involved in the discussion. In little groups on street corners, in the Sunday school before the opening service, they fought their word-battles for and against, in imitation of their elders; and they quoted largely from the adults whom they knew. In one church school the superintendent called a meeting of the teachers of the Junior Department and it was decided to take at least three or four Sundays to study, as a department, some phases of com¬ munity life and its preservation from harmful influences. Those children were receiving their first training in the creation of an intelligent public opinion in community matters and in the applica¬ tion of Christian principles to the solving of social questions. Material of this type may also be found in present world- situations. We have already seen that chil¬ dren to-day live in a very large world. “He hath set the world in their hearts.” If we are ever to have a world in which peace shall reign and good- 64 CURRICULUM FOR THE JUNIOR CHILD will shall bind the nations together, we must begin with the children and make a place in the church- school curriculum for a study of the attitudes and conditions which will promote peace. We felt the failure of education sorely at this point when the horror of the World War was upon us. Let us not forget again that “The future lies with Those whose eyes Are open to the necessities.”2 It is one of the legitimate functions of the church school to open the eyes of the children through its curriculum. A word of caution is not out of place in speaking of this type of curriculum material. Because of the nature of the subject, it is difficult to have any suitable printed matter. Since it is to be found in the actual experiences of each group of Junior children, only those who are working with each group can know adequately what it will be and what is the opportune time for introducing it. In the hands of teachers who are not gifted in organ¬ izing their material well, this treatment of curric¬ ulum might descend into a mere aimless discussion of a variety of commonplace problems, while other aspects of the curriculum, such as the teaching from the Bible, might be neglected. If the church school has a trained director of religious education, working with a Church Board of Education and supervising the entire program of the church school, this type of material may be introduced as a defi¬ nite part of a larger program. 2 John Oxenham. 65 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Biblical material. — When we consider the material to be used in the Junior curriculum which is not found in the Bible, we shall see that it divides itself into such groupings as history, literature, nature, art, and music. The biblical material itself also falls naturally into such a grouping, for the Bible contains the literature and history of the Hebrew people. We need to remind ourselves, as well as the children whom we teach, that this great Book is really a library of books. As such it needs discrimination in the selection and teaching of its contents. What parts of the Bible supply material suitable for Junior children? While the Old-Testament material was the product of the childhood of the Hebrew people and has, therefore, in many places a charming directness of approach, a swiftness of action, a vividness of style that make many of its stories masterpieces, yet the Bible as a whole was not written primarily for children but for adults, and for adults living in a world of social situations and personal standards far different from those of to-day. This thought will guide us in the selection of Bible stories. On the basis of the Junior’s native interests, the Bible yields for him the lives of heroes who did things, the exploits of kings and the crowning of heroes, tales of adventure and exploring, of camp life in the desert, of the excursions of early mis¬ sionaries by land and sea, of shipwreck and of persecution, of the victorious life of a moral hero like Jesus. On the basis of the Junior’s needs, there are stories of men and women who lived in companionship with God, whose life experiences 66 CURRICULUM FOR THE JUNIOR CHILD were continually being reconstructed in the light of a growing God-consciousness and an increasingly clear ideal of conduct. Such stories will include the story of “Abraham, who went out not knowing whither he went,” but who went in company with his God; of Gideon, who, with a handful of men, overcame his enemies because of that inner con¬ sciousness that his God was with him. There are also the stories of men and women who learned life’s great lessons by passing through experiences duplicated in our own lives to-day. Such were Saul, who could not rule a kingdom because he could not rule his own spirit; David, who could be magnanimous to a foe, and from whose mind no amount of prosperity could obliterate the memory of old friendships. It is impossible to list here in detail all of the Bible material appropriate for Junior children. The following outline is merely suggestive, and within each group much wise selection of material is necessary. Hero Tales of Early Hebrews. Some Stories from the Times of the Kings. Few Selected Stories of the Prophets. Life of Jesus. Stories of the Early Christian Missionaries. • Extra-biblical material. — There is a wealth of material, not found in the Bible, available for the religious education of Juniors. This extra-biblical subject matter is rich in material of religious educa¬ tional value. For purposes of clearness we may subdivide it into material from (i) History, past and present, (2) Literature, (3) Nature, (4) Art, (5) Music. 67 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL History Past and Present. Children are the hope of the future in that they may inaugurate new attitudes toward the solving of the world’s prob¬ lems. They are also the inheritors and custodians of the past, and they need the clearest insight into the best which the past has to offer. Only thus can they conserve that past experience and utilize its richness of suggestion in the meeting of present situations. So, the appropriate study of history will greatly enrich the child’s experience. Remem¬ bering that we are not attempting to teach history in the church school, but, rather, Christian living, we shall select from the history of the past that ma¬ terial which is most serviceable in teaching religion. Teaching from history will include the lives of Christian heroes and heroines who have kept the torch burning since the days of Jesus and his early followers, and the stories of men and women living in our own day who are living as Christians — such men as Grenfell of the Labrador and Higgenbotham of India. The missionary literature of the church is rich with incidents suitable for the interests of growing boys and girls and removes from their minds any impression that God stopped revealing himself to men with the last page of the Bible. Junior children should receive some knowledge of the world’s needs and how they can be met. They need facts about children who work in indus¬ trial centers, children who starve in Bible lands, in the famine districts of China, in war-ridden Europe, about children who are misunderstood as the foreigners who come to America. There is also information about the Christian cause, the story of the extension of Christianity throughout the 68 CURRICULUM FOR THE JUNIOR CHILD world and its incarnation in the lives of Oriental Christians. Children can receive, in moderation, without any sectarian emphasis, something of the story of their own denominational history stressing its constructive values and also the achievements of their own local church with its plan of work, so that they may feel themselves a vital part of it. Literature. — While it is not the function of the church school to teach literature as such, still liter¬ ature holds for the understanding teacher a sure revelation of the ways of God with men. Under the inspiration of a tremendous spiritual idealism men and women have conveyed in forms of living beauty, in story and poetry, a wealth of religious values which should be linked with the Psalms and the Old-Testament stories in teaching Juniors. Some of this material from the field of literature may be chosen as a part of the curriculum of in¬ formation; some of it may be used as illustrative material; much of it will be incorporated in the curriculum of worship. Nature Material. In the Beginners’ and Primary Departments of the church school much of the teaching material is taken from the world of nature, yet in the available courses planned for Juniors there is little definite consideration of this type of subject matter. Why is this true? Have children suddenly, at the age of nine, ceased to love nature or to be influenced by her beauty? Juniors not only enjoy the beauty and the power of nature; they are beginning to be interested also in her wonderful laws. The following poem reflects the Junior’s attitude toward nature: 69 JUNIOR METHOD iN 'THE CHURCH SCHOOL Going to School to God3 “I like to go to school to God! I hear such strange, revealing things; He talks to me where rivers run And where a skylark soars and sings. “He teaches me his love and care Through every tree and blade of grass Here on the hill, where I may sit And listen while the wild winds pass. “He writes with glaciers on the rocks And with the stars that blaze on high; With fossil shells and ferns that fall And leave their imprint as they die. “His books are beds of slate and coal; His manuscripts sequoia trees; While earthquakes punctuate the tale And turn the pages of the seas. “His blackboard is a canyon wall Whereon he writes of ages past, In even lines the strata tell Of things that shall forever last. “He writes with rivers, and they carve The crevices he leaves, to tell The story of his living love In temple, tower, and pinnacle. “I like to go to school to God Because it always seems to me He talks in every breeze that blows; Through every bud, and bird and bee.” 3 By William L. Stidger, in T'he Christian Century, June 9, 1921. CURRICULUM FOR THE JUNIOR CHILD Through a study of nature’s laws Juniors can be led to see God’s marvelous forethought and care as in no other way. The Beacon Course of lessons recognizes the possibilities for the religious educa¬ tion of Juniors in this type of material and pro¬ vides for its teaching definitely during the Junior period in the course “ God’s Wonder World.” A whole year spent in studying nature material may seem too long a time; but a substantial amount of nature material can and should be incorporated into the Junior curriculum. Art Material . Great truths find their access to the human mind through more than one medium. There is a certain kind of appeal from the colored canvas and the chiseled marble which cannot be made by literature. Many are the instances of the power which the expression of religion in art has to touch the spirit. There should be a far larger use of it in our teaching of children. It seems almost unnecessary to say that all art material selected should be of the very best. Some religious pictures have very little real art value. There is so much that is good that we do not need to use anything less than the finest. It is true of children, as of adults, that we “needs must love the highest when we see it.” Representations like Michel Angelo’s sculptured “David” or Hofmann’s “The boy Jesus” have a tremendous power to revitalize the spirit. The illustrations accompanying Junior textbooks should also be of the best. They should be true to details of Palestine life and customs, to coloring and form, as well as to the spirit of the stories which they illustrate. In using art material it 7 1 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL should be graded as all other curriculum matter is. Some great works of religious art are beyond the comprehension of Junior children, as they repre¬ sent spiritual experiences to which they have not yet arrived. Music. Music provides another medium through which the spiritual nature may be touched with truth and beauty. Here again only the best should be used. We cannot expect serious expres¬ sions of religion in everyday living while children indulge in cheap tunes on Sunday. Great spiritual experiences require correspondingly lofty music for their expression. And children are capable of response to the very highest. STRESS AND NEGLECT IN USING THE CURRICULUM The teacher must not be a slave to his curriculum, but must use it only as a tool. It is almost im¬ possible for any group of textbook writers to pre¬ pare a course of study which shall adequately meet all the needs of all the children in all the various types of communities for an entire nation. It remains for the teacher to know how to emphasize certain parts of the curriculum and to neglect those which are not well suited to his group. In teach¬ ing the Junior curriculum there are several differ¬ ent ways in which we may all agree to use this law of “stress and neglect.” In teaching the life of Jesus. — In teaching the life of Jesus to Juniors the quality of moral heroism should be stressed. This emphasis must not fall short of those heroic aspects which appeal to the child in the Old-Testament hero stories. The events of Jesus’ life are sufficiently dramatic to hold 72 CURRICULUM FOR THE JUNIOR CHILD the admiring attention of any group of eleven-year- olds. He was beset by enemies and he held himself to speaking and living the truth in spite of physical and moral dangers. There is a point of contact between his life and that of the average child, in that he lived much in the open, tramped the hill country of Galilee, climbed Mount Hermon, sailed the seas in rough weather, and slept under the stars. The power of his winning personality which “drew all men to him” can also draw the American boy and girl. The Junior should also see Jesus fighting his battles for spiritual supremacy, meeting and over¬ coming the three temptations. Out of his moral struggles comes the convincing proof to a world of strugglers that they can “do all things through Christ.” Many young people have grown up with an unreal Christ who was never a flesh-and-blood character; in no sense human, only divine. They have a feeling that of course he was brave, of course he overcame temptations, for he had access to some supernatural power that helped him but which does not help us. He did not sin — no. Life placed in his way, as in ours, the opportunity, but he met these tempta¬ tions and left them behind. There is a thrill, an inspiration, a foretaste of glory in such a victorious achievement of character that will forever enshrine this hero in the child’s heart and mind. This is the kind of Lord and Master he will, first of all, understand, and then admire and follow.4 4 Such books as The Jesus of History, by T. R. Glover; A Young Man's Jesus, by Bruce Barton; and The Manliness of Christ, by Thomas Hughes, will help the .teacher in such an interpretation of Jesus. 73 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL In teaching miracle stories. — The very little child accepts the miraculous elements in life with no questions. To him natural and supernatural are alike marvelous. Just because the Junior has reached the age when he is interested to know if things are true, because he is asking “How can that be?”' special consideration should be given to the way in which stories of miraculous content are presented to him. Since he is more concerned with facts than with fancies, since he longs to come in contact with things which are primarily real, it is probably well not so to stress the miraculous element during the Junior period as to leave the impression that the laws which God has made for his world are easily set aside. The Junior is old enough to understand that life is full of what people have called miracles in the sense that the right thing often seems to happen just at the right time, and often when least expected. Such opportune events are found in the Bible as well as in subsequent history. The arrival of the American soldiers in Peking at the time of the Boxer siege was an occa¬ sion for thanksgiving to God. It may be well for Ju¬ niors to see that some events which have been loosely termed “miracles” do not indicate an abrogation of laws, but only the operation of established laws at the moment when such an operation is most needed. The Junior can understand too that life holds some miracles which no one has yet understood. Such miracles are birth and death, the recurrence of the seasons, and whither the stars are moving in their rapid flight through space. A short extract from God’s Wonder World indicates how such a sense of miracle may be conveyed to children. 74 CURRICULUM FOR THE JUNIOR CHILD “To this immense globe, the sun, that is so far away, we owe all our light and heat. ‘How can the light and heat reach us when they come so great a distance?’ you ask. “Ah! That we do not know. It is still a mys¬ tery. It is one of God’s laws that we have not yet discovered.”4 The selection of a few well-chosen miracle stories that will not baffle the Junior’s sense of reality but which suggest the possible revelation of laws not yet understood, may pave the way for a sympa¬ thetic study of the miraculous in later years. But such stories should be few at this time. It might be well to omit all stories that leave the impression that God arbitrarily breaks laws of his own making. In teaching the Old Testament. — Much of the Old-Testament material contains ethical standards which are not operative in the light of modern Christian thought. Some of the heroes indulged in actions which our young people are taught to condemn. Unless some great moral truth is taught, such stories should be omitted. Let us seek and teach the constructive elements in the lives of heroes. There is also much that is gruesome and bloody, that savors of hatred of enemies and the returning of evil for evil. There is need to disso¬ ciate the heroic and adventurous from the merely rough and uncivilized. “Jehu’s Bloody Revolu¬ tion,” and others like it, may be neglected in teach¬ ing children of this age. In the use of historical material. — Unfortunately, much of the material from biblical history has been 4 Cobb, God’s Wonder World, p. 31 1. The Beacon Press. 75 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL arranged for teaching in the chronological order. Students of the child mind tell us that children of the Junior age have a limited historical sense in that they cannot see events as growing out of each other. They do not comprehend the larger move¬ ments of history but they do understand the men who start and complete things. Not until the close of the sixth grade in the public schools do boys and girls take any interest in periods of history, in successions of kings and presidents, in the law of cause and effect in its operation in history. For this reason, in the best public schools, history is taught to children of this age in the form of biog¬ raphy. Through the lives of men and women who represent a movement or a period they gather the spirit of that age. Later on, during the seventh and eighth grades, they begin to see those men and women against the background of the historical events of their day. Any curriculum which stresses the biographical method of arrangement in presenting Old-Testament characters is adapted to the Junior’s mental capac¬ ity. We do not stress the outlines of Old-Testament history, the chronological order of events, but focus our attention upon the vivid, personal charac¬ teristics of the men and women who made that history so great. Often the chronological arrange¬ ment of Bible material makes necessary the inclusion of some stories which, by all our standards of good curriculum making, are not appropriate for Junior children and have no great teaching value for them. Any curriculum based on chronological arrangement should have the emphasis placed upon the lives of the people, not on the order of events. 76 CURRICULUM FOR THE JUNIOR CHILD For Further Reading: Coe — A Social Theory of Religious Education , Chapters V, VI, IX. Betts, George Herbert — “A Curriculum of Reli¬ gious Education/’ Journal of Religious Educa¬ tion , February, 1920. Betts, George Herbert — How to Teach Religion , Chapters IV and VII. Barbour — “What to Teach Juniors,” Journal of Religious Education , December, 1920. 77 CHAPTER V AVAILABLE MATERIALS AND HOW TO ENRICH THEM In the previous chapter we have suggested the types of material which will offer fruitful knowledge to Junior children. Let us now review some of the best existing curriculum material for Juniors. We need to discover how we may enrich our present curriculum so that it will contain the most fruit¬ ful subject matter available for the lives of Junior Christians. EXISTING CURRICULA FOR JUNIORS There are five series of lessons which are most commonly used in the church schools. In addition to these there are a few separate books which can be used in Junior classes if one desires to depart from a regular series. Among the existing cur¬ ricula there is practically nothing of the type of material which deals, first and foremost, with the actual living problems of Junior children. Such curricula, if they did exist, as far as printed form is concerned, would be more in the nature of guides to curriculum, suggestions as to how to stimulate pupil activities, attempts to point out to teachers how they may help pupils to discover their own purposes and carry them out — rather than a com¬ plete printed textbook with a few questions attached at the end. Because this ideal curriculum material 78 AVAILABLE MATERIALS does not as yet exist, we shall have to confine our¬ selves to the evaluation of the material now ready for use and to judge it by its relative approach to the more vital curriculum standards. International Lesson Series. — There are four types of courses prepared by the International Lesson Committee, the Uniform Lessons, the Uni¬ form Lessons Adapted, the Departmental Group Lessons, and the Closely Graded Lessons. International Uniform Lessons. These lessons use the same material for all ages and the same method of presentation. For these reasons they are not pedagogical and should never be used with children. International Uniform Lessons Adapted. The Uniform Lessons Adapted use the same lesson material for all ages but adapt the method of pre¬ sentation to suit the different ages. It is perfectly evident that this type of material cannot, from the very nature of the case, always be selected with reference to the actual experiences of Junior chil¬ dren, and no adaptation of method of presentation can possibly bring the subject matter within the child’s own experience. International Group Uniform Series. The Depart¬ mental Group Lessons come nearer to meeting the child’s natural interests and his developing needs in that the material for Juniors is different from that taught to younger or older groups. Under this system all the children in the Junior Depart¬ ment study the same lesson on the same day. The last word in grading and in curriculum making has not been said. There may be situations in which all the children in a Junior Department are so nearly 79 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL alike in their intellectual, emotional, social, and religious development that the same lesson ma¬ terial is adaptable for the entire group, but such occurrences are few. So there is need of lesson material to meet the different stages of develop¬ ment found within the years included in the Junior group. International Closely Graded Lessons. The Closely Graded Lessons provide a separate course of study for each of the three years in the Junior Depart¬ ment. The lessons include biblical and missionary material and are grouped in courses as follows: First Year. Stories From the Olden Time: Stories of the Beginnings. Stories of the Patriarchs. Stories of Moses and His Times. Parables of Jesus. Second Year. Hero Stories: Stories of Everyday Heroes. Stories of the Hero of Heroes. Stories of Heroic Followers of Jesus. Stories of Old Testament Heroes. Third Year. Kingdom Stories: Stories of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. *» The Exile and Return of the People of Judah. Introduction to New Testament Times In this series the child receives a paper-covered notebook, containing daily Bible readings with reference to the lesson for the following Sunday. 80 AVAILABLE MATERIALS There are questions to be answered in writing and spaces for the pasting of pictures to illustrate the lesson story. There are also memory selections. One excellent feature of this course is that appeal is made to the Junior’s admiration for heroes; the hero idea is carried throughout. The selection of heroes is excellent and the presentation is not con¬ fined to any chronological order. Specific activities to be carried out are, for the most part, included under “Notebook Work.” There are relatively few suggestions made to the child of life activities in which he may engage as a means of assimilating the knowledge gained in his lesson study. Far the larger proportion of questions asked him are of the knowledge-testing type rather than thought-questions which lead to further investiga¬ tion of truth or experimentation with life itself. The questions in the teachers’ textbooks come nearer to being vital questions; but here also they are not sufficiently close to child life. Many of them are too vague; they do not deal with a sufficient number of concrete situations of the kind that are apt to occur in the life of almost any Junior. Neither the pupil’s nor the teacher’s books are as attractive as they would be were the entire course printed in one book instead of in quarterly install¬ ments and between pasteboard covers. Scribner’s Completely Graded Series. — The course for Juniors in the Scribner’s Completely Graded Series is called “The Junior Bible.” It presents the Bible material chronologically from the early Hebrew Heroes down through the life and work of Paul. The course for each year in the Junior Department is as follows: 81 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL First Year. Early Heroes and Heroines. (From Abraham to David.) Second Year. Kings and Prophets of Judah and Israel. (From Solomon to the Maccabees.) Third Year. The Life and Words of Jesus. Fourth Year. Christian Apostles and Missionaries. (Stories of Paul and the early Christian missionaries, including the teachings of Paul.) The pupil is provided with a notebook contain¬ ing the Bible text for each lesson. This text is a translation which omits parts of the Bible account which are unnecessary for the meaning of the story. There are with each lesson questions to be an¬ swered and subjects to be discussed or debated. At the close of the child’s stay in the Junior Department he has a Junior Bible. There are also maps and colored pictures to be pasted in to illus¬ trate each lesson. The arrangement of material is chronological rather than biographical, which means that the Junior is obliged to cover a good deal of the Bible which does not relate very closely to his particular psychological problems. It means that the teacher is teaching Hebrew history to children who are interested not in historical movements but in people. To be sure, the people are there, but some of them could quite as well be omitted, such as Jehu and his bloody revolution. The ma¬ terial is chosen entirely from the Bible, allowing no place for any extra-biblical material except as it may be introduced by way of illustration. It is 82 AVAILABLE MATERIALS planned for four instead of three years in a Junior Department. Possibly the first year, on “Early Heroes and Heroines,” and the third year, on “The Life and Words of Jesus,” are the two which are the best adapted for use with Juniors. No attempt is made to interpret the lesson material for the child in his book; merely the Bible text is given. The questions for discussion are rather better than in some texts; they are often full of thought content, and they aim to relate to child experience. They suggest conduct as an end of the study. They are not all in the realm of the intellect but touch upon living. The expressional work is largely the answering of questions in writing or the writing of other assign¬ ments. There are few provisions for life activities. The teacher receives a cloth-bound book with ample helps for teaching the lessons. The appearance of the pupil’s book is good, though not bound in cloth. The pictures accompanying the course vary; some of them are very good while others are too highly colored. Chicago Constructive Series. — This series, pub¬ lished by the University of Chicago Press, contains the following courses: Grade 4. An Introduction to the Books of the Bible , Chamberlin. Grades 5-7. The Life of Jesus , Gates. Grades 5-7. Heroes of Israel , Soares. Grades 5-7. Old Testament Story , Corbett. Grades 5-7. Paul of Tarsus , Atkinson. The entire course shows evidences of rich scholar¬ ship, and this makes all of the books exceedingly helpful as reference books for a teacher using sim- 83 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL ilar courses in another series. In several cases the informational material is almost too abundant and there is a tendency to extend the courses over more time and to cover more material than can be done and at the same time hold the interest of Junior boys and girls. As a whole, these courses are rather beyond the ages for which they were written. Some groups of children who have enjoyed special advantages can use them successfully, but in the average church- school class they could better be used with children a little older than the ones for whom they were planned. The notebook work on the lives of Paul and Jesus is very monotonous, in that the story is printed with blank places left for the thought to be filled in in writing by the child. To do this week after week is sheer drudgery. The teacher using these courses would want to vary the expressional work materially. One outstanding feature of these courses is the attractive way in which they are gotten up. Beacon Course. — The Beacon Course, at present, offers only two courses for Juniors: Heroic Lives , Vail. God's Wonder World , Cobb. These two courses reach a very high standard in curriculum-making in many respects. They are exceedingly well gotten up and are very readable. Heroic Lives , especially, is written in a charming literary style. The stories in this book are well chosen and dramatically told. The book contains some heroes whom the average Junior teacher might not care to include in a course. The heroes of action will surely appeal to the Junior, but it is 84 AVAILABLE MATERIALS doubtful whether the child of this age will be as interested in men like Confucius, Buddha or Tagore as they will a little later w’hen they can understand something of the religious and philosophical mes¬ sages of these Oriental prophets. There are critics who feel that the book is not “sufficiently religious,” in that the emphasis of the religious point of view is noticeably lacking. Others feel that one may find in it deep religious values. As a source book for any teacher who wants illustrative or story material and as a source book for worship stories Heroic Lives will be of inesti¬ mable value. The same thing is true of God's Wonder World. It provides one of the very few source books for the church school teacher who wants to teach Juniors that God speaks in terms of natural law. Any Junior teacher can turn its pages occasionally and find some nature lesson which will nourish the reverence and wonder of the child in the presence of God’s “wonder world.” Christian Nurture Series. — The Christian Nurture Series is the series used in the Episcopal Church schools and in one or two respects makes a distinct contribution to curriculum making. The courses for the Junior years are: Ages 9-10. God’s Great Family. Ages io-ii. The Christian Seasons. Ages 11-12. Church Worship and Membership. The entire Christian Nurture Series centers in what is called the “Five Fold Plan.” The Curric¬ ulum contains not informational material alone, but is thought of as covering four other elements, mem¬ ory work, training in church loyalty, training in the devotional life and training in Christian service. 85 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL It is almost the only church-school curriculum at present which thinks of everything which touches the fourfold life of the child as material for study. Service activities are not left to the option of teachers or school officers; they are definitely planned for and taught as a part of the curriculum. Attendance at church services and participation in church activities become matters of definite teaching in every Sunday lesson. Training in systematic giv¬ ing, including instruction in the causes for which the gifts are offered, is a part of each year’s curriculum. While other church boards desire all these things and send out literature emphasizing them, the Episcopal Board says, “These matters of giving, serving, worshiping are just as much material for the year’s course of training as the study of the Bible and of missions. We will weave them all in together.” The course also makes a place for some of the most effective methods of teaching. It encourages the “class treasury,” so that all young people may have some choice in the matter of the causes to which their money shall go. Another good feature is the monthly letter sent to all parents explaining to them the work of the month and definitely show¬ ing how they may help the child with his lessons. The courses are bound in paper covers and are not very durable. Some of the expressional work could be improved and especially the appearance of the pupil’s notebook material. The content in all three courses for the Junior age involves much that lies outside the psychological interests of the child of this age. 86 AVAILABLE MATERIALS Any Junior teacher would be helped by looking over this course to see how training in worship, service, and church loyalty may be made an integral part of the year’s course of study. The Abingdon Religious Education Texts. — The Abingdon Religious Education Texts are the latest to enter the field. There are now in this series a number of texts ready for use with Juniors and still others are in process of preparation. The Junior-age textbooks include: The Rules of the Game , Lambertson. Stories from all over the world, including some Bible stories, of people who played the game of life and kept the rules. Followers of the Marked Trail , Frayser. Bible stories vividly retold for Juniors. A Travel Book for Juniors , Hanson. The account of a Junior boy who traveled through Palestine with his father. In many ways these texts fill a long-felt need for workers with Juniors. They offer biography of Bible heroes and of others, biography written in a vivid, forceful style. The stories are so chosen and so told that they relate closely to the average Junior’s everyday experiences. The book on Pal¬ estine makes it possible to teach the geography of the Holy Land in story form, and offers, ready to place in the hands of boys and girls, geographical material which hitherto the teacher himself has had to compile and adapt. The texts are attractively and well bound, printed on good paper and in large, clear type. The illus¬ trations are well chosen. They meet the age inter¬ ests and capacities of Juniors. 87 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Teachers’ manuals are provided which are rich in suggestions of activity within and without the classroom. Miss Frayser’s teacher’s manual especially attempts to suggest projects and life activities upon which boys and girls may work. It is to be hoped that so excellent a series will pro¬ vide, before its completion, some courses for Juniors which will start with the child’s own experiences, making the informational material something to be sought after as a help in the carrying out of his project, instead of always using it as the first means of approach. Other courses. — There is one other group of possible courses which ought to be mentioned in a discussion of available materials for Juniors. This includes a number of scattered and separate text¬ books, not published in any series or by any par¬ ticular church-school board. First of all, among these, mention should be made of some of the books published by the Missionary Education Movement, such as Giovanni , a Boy of Italy , by Ferris; Liv¬ ingstone Hero Stories , by Mendenhall; or African Adventurers , by Jean McKenzie. These books are all well written and convey in vivid story form the essential Christian spirit. An increasing number of Junior Departments are introducing such short- period courses at some point in the Junior curric¬ ulum. Sometimes it is of value to get away from the more stereotyped textbooks and to offer chil¬ dren a “real book.” Such a book as The Boy's Life of Christ , by Forbush, although it has ped¬ agogical faults, does tell the story of Jesus in a vivid, narrative style and reveals him as a hero whom every boy and girl can love and admire. 88 AVAILABLE MATERIALS ENRICHING THE PRESENT CURRICULUM If there are great reaches of appreciation, if there is a wealth of spiritual enjoyment in ma¬ terial not included in the course which we are teach¬ ing, how are we to avail ourselves of these treasures that we may give them to our boys and girls? What are we going to do about it? Use corresponding materials in other series.— Every teacher should make himself familiar with the best courses in other series which correspond with his own. If he is teaching Stories From the Olden Time to first-year Juniors, he ought to have the Scribner Junior Bible for first-year Juniors, Early Heroes and Heroines . If he is teaching Stories of the Hero of Heroes to second-year Juniors, he ought to know Gates’ Life of Jesus in the Con¬ structive Series and the Junior Bible course on Life and Words of Jesus. The teacher’s bookshelf, either his own or the church-school library, should hold these corresponding courses, so that he may get as many teaching points of view as possible of his material. Omit lessons containing unfruitful material. — Even the very best of study courses usually need to be shortened, not because the material in them is not well selected, but because, if a teacher uses each of the fifty-two prepared lessons, it will take all of the fifty-two Sundays in the year and leave no time in which to follow up real interests that develop in his class. Several Sundays should be taken for the teaching of lessons which grow out of the pupil’s own interests and particular needs. If the teacher pauses to do this, untaught lessons pile up and he becomes embarrassed. 89 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Sometimes a course of study contains a few lessons which are not well suited to a particular group of Juniors. These should be omitted and more fruitful material introduced. A class of Juniors may know the Joseph story so well that only brief mention need be made of it, while time is gained for some less known hero. There is one caution we must bear in mind. We must be sure that what we substitute is better than that which is omitted. The teacher must not follow just his own whims in the matter of selection, but must base his selection on a well-thought-out program for the year’s study. Enrich the teacher’s background. — But every teacher needs more than a familiarity with other teaching courses. His lesson material must be continually refreshened in his thinking, and this can best be done by the reading of books which will illuminate it for him. Only as he reads and steeps himself in the atmosphere of the course he is teaching will the course become a vivid, glowing thing to the child. What teacher will not make his class feel that they are walking over the hills with Jesus if he comes to the teaching of Jesus’ life fresh from a reading of A Pilgrim in Palestine , by John Finley? Mr. Finley had the privilege of being the first traveler to walk the length of the Holy Land after the World War. His book is dedicated to “her who made Palestine the nearest other country of my boyhood.” Was it his mother or a Sunday-school teacher? He does not say; but what teacher would not like to feel that he could do that for a group of boys and girls? Appended to this chapter is a list of books which 90 AVAILABLE MATERIALS may be of help in enriching the thought background of the Junior teacher. All of these books are very readable, not of such a character that the teacher need to drive himself to the study of them, but such books as will, in a delightful manner, make his subject matter vivid. SOME BOOKS FOR THE TEACHER TO READ On Palestine Finley — A Pilgrim in Palestine. Van Dyke — Out of Doors in the Holy Land. Wild — Geographic Influences in Old Testament Masterpieces. Crosby — Geography of Bible Lands. Hanson — A Travel Book for Juniors. How We Got Our Bible Hunting — The Story of Our Bible (Teacher’s edition and also an attractive illustrated edition). Chamberlin — Introduction to the Bible for Teachers of Children. On the Old Testament Knott — Students’ History of the Hebrews. Rogers— Great Characters of the Old Testament. Houghton — Telling Bible Stories to Children. On the New Testament Glover — The Jesus of History. Barton — A Young Man’s Jesus. Hayes — Great Characters of the New Testament. Bird — Paul of Tarsus. Clark — In the Footsteps of St. Paul. 9i JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL The Use of Art in the Junior Department Bailey — The Use of Art in Religious Education. Beard — Pictures in Religious Education. Vogt, Von Ogden — Art and Religion. For Further Reading : Betts — How to Teach Religion , Chapter VII, “The Subject Matter.” Jones — “The Junior and Out of Doors,” Church School , July, 1922. Bailey — The Use of Art in Religious Education , Chapter IV, “Pictures and Children,” and Chapter V, “Pictures for Juniors.” 92 CHAPTER VI THE ART OF TEACHING JUNIORS What does it mean, “to teach” another? It may mean little or much. It may mean to forget self in the effort to plumb the depths of person¬ ality, to enter into a prompt and sympathetic understanding of each young life in the schoolroom and of the world of which he is a part, to help these young lives to realize their utmost possibilities. Or it may mean going through classroom routine day after day, perfunctorily passing from one text to another with the ringing of the bells, dutifully observing all of the devices insisted upon by the normal school, with mind and heart leaping at the sound of the closing bell. If “to teach” means the first of these things, it must mean, also, the dedi¬ cation of self each day to the discovery of ever finer, surer, and more delicate ways of leading youth to its full self-realization. THE TRAINED TEACHER The teacher who would understand the art of teaching Juniors must begin with himself, for training is at the basis of the art of teaching. There are those in whom the motive for teaching is surer than in others, but all are under the necessity of knowing how it may best be done. Such training involves a knowledge of the subject matter, a knowledge of the child, and an understanding of 93 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL the methods of teaching. It also involves a love of the child to be taught as well as enthusiasm for the subject matter. The Junior teacher needs to enlist in training courses on the Bible, on psychology and pupil study, and on teaching methods. PREPARATION FOR THE LESSON The art of teaching depends not only upon the training of the teacher, but also upon adequate preparation for the lesson by both teacher and pupil. There is no substitute for lack of preparation on the part of the teacher. However gifted one may be with natural ability to teach, this inborn gift will not enable one to teach unfamiliar material to children who are unknown quantities. There is also the need of preparation on the part of the pupil and of the motivation of the pupil by the teacher for the lesson which is to be taught. The teacher’s preparation. — Enough has been said to indicate what kind of preparation a teacher needs. The conscientious teacher knows whether or not he has gone to meet his class fully prepared for the teaching of the lesson. When the teacher is fully prepared he can keep before him the great message of the lesson and the needs of each indi¬ vidual child, so that “power comes upon him” to master questions of discipline, to maintain the interest of the group, and to do all the thousand and one things involved in the teaching of a lesson. Preparation by the pupil. — Perhaps the most difficult problem which confronts the church-school teacher is the one of securing “home study” of the lesson. At innumerable teachers’ meetings this 94 THE ART OF TEACHING JUNIORS perplexing matter has been discussed and ways of solving the problem suggested. Like most problems, there is need to probe deep and to ask, “Why do the children not study?” Parents and teachers will give a number of answers to this question. “The children have so much school work that there is no time to study the church-school lesson.” “The boys and girls do not like to have church school just like the day school.” “The church-school lesson is too difficult; they do not understand it.” “They are not interested in the church-school lessons.” These and many other replies are given, some of them more nearly true than others. Probably the truest reply would be, “Children do not study because they do not want to and there is no authority in the church school which can compel study.” If this is true, what secret can secure the willing and interested study of the lesson by Junior pupils? There are, perhaps, several secrets of securing pupil preparation. We might begin by asking ourselves, “Why should the children want to study this particular course?” “What is there in it that makes it interesting to the child?” “Does it so meet the Junior’s present problems that he antic¬ ipates the study of it and feels it to be worth while?” In other words, can we not so plan the lessons that the child will have a motive for wanting to know their contents? We have done all too little about this matter of motivating the study of children. We have given gold stars and other symbols of success for work faithfully done, but there inevitably comes the time when the gold star fails to arouse enthusiasm 95 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL for the task, and then to what expedient shall we resort? Does interest in getting a star really beget interest in the lesson? Besides, we know, from our mature experience that we gain a great deal more from the study of a subject when, for some reason, we are filled with a great desire to blow about it. If we have a reason for wanting to know, study becomes a pleasure and we are willing to make a place for it among any number of other interests. This also helps to solve the problem of finding time for the study of the church-school lesson. We find the time for the things which interest us most. If we can be sure that the Junior is study¬ ing what he most needs and what he recognizes as being of great interest and of real worth, and if we can lead him to feel that he has a reason for wanting to study, we shall have gone a long way toward solving this problem of the pupil’s prep¬ aration. Furthermore, it is not surprising that Juniors find it difficult to remember the assignment or to maintain a sustained interest in the lesson when a whole week has intervened between Sundays — a week crowded full of many interests not particularly related to his church-school work. It is doubtful whether a child under twelve years of age can really study a lesson profitably under such condi¬ tions. Can he recall the situation in the last lesson sufficiently well to study this lesson as it should be studied? If there is little or no connection be¬ tween the lessons, is he able to study an absolutely new mass of material and, unaided, grasp its sig¬ nificance? Probably the best method to secure pupil study 96 THE ART OF TEACHING JUNIORS is to supervise it, see that it is done in the church- school period under the supervision of the teacher. This plan means that the Junior will have no “home work” for which he has not been prepared. This plan, if carried out, will ease the burden of the Junior teacher and will secure better results in the end. We shall see in the next chapter how such supervision may be carried out. SECURING PARTICIPATION BY THE GROUP But the art of teaching is, after all, not so much the art of doing something oneself as the art of getting the pupils to act. When real teaching is taking place, it is not the teacher alone who is working. We sometimes forget this in our frantic efforts to instruct the boys and girls. It is only when every member of the group is actively par¬ ticipating in the work of the classroom that teach¬ ing can be said to have reached its highest possi¬ bilities. If there is no real learning without activity, then it follows that he is not teaching who has not secured the active participation of the members of his class. How may the teacher of Juniors make sure that every Junior boy and girl will par¬ ticipate in the activities of the lesson period? Through finding the point of contact. — One of the greatest secrets of teaching is that of getting the interest of the pupils at the very outset of the lesson. A good beginning is the best guarantee of a good ending. The Junior teacher should always know beforehand how he is going to begin his lesson. He may well spend a good share of the time given to preparation in deciding which of many possible ways he shall choose. 97 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Just because Palestine is far away, and because the years intervene between us and the days of David or Hosea, there is the necessity of discover¬ ing something in the Junior’s own experience which is akin to the material which we are presenting. We, as teachers, must be so close to the child’s experience that we can find the point of contact between him and the new truth we wish to present. One Sunday a teacher of Juniors was planning to teach the lesson on Jesus and the disciples with¬ drawing to Mount Hermon, before their last trip to Jerusalem. Two boys in the class had been climbing in the Rocky Mountains the summer before. All of them were more or less familiar with mountain-climbing through books and the moving picture. All of them loved the idea of risk and danger. When they learned of the eternal snows upon Mount Hermon, of the dangers of climb¬ ing it even to-day, they were prepared to listen with a new interest to the story of this man who loved the out of doors and even its risks. Sometimes an introductory story will provide the point of contact. Everyone loves a good story. A teacher of second-year Junior girls came to the department superintendent near the beginning of the year and asked for the names of some good collections of stories with an ethical significance. She liked, she said, to start her lessons at times with a story closely related to the everyday lives of her girls to secure their interest in the problem. Through interest. — And why talk about “getting the child’s interest?” Every child is interested, intensely interested, in what concerns him. His interest is there if the lesson meets it. It often 98 THE ART OF TEACHING JUNIORS seems as though the key to the entire teaching process lay in this one word “interest.” We seek to interest the child that we may secure his par¬ ticipation; we provide him with an outlet for his activity that we may keep his interest. While the fundamental secret of holding the attention is to teach within the range of the child’s real interests, there are various devices which may be used to sustain a lagging interest or to recall a wandering attention. One of these is the pro¬ vision for variety. The Junior cannot hold his attention to any one thing for a very long period of time. A sudden change in the method of teach¬ ing in the middle of the class period will often act like a revivifying breeze. And variety in the manner of teaching from Sunday to Sunday will hold the loyalty and interest of the Junior to his work. How monotonous it must be to know with certainty that the same things are going to happen in just the same way Sunday after Sunday! Life, real life, is vastly more changing, and therefore more inter¬ esting, than that. Why not make the classroom period a piece of real life? In the past we have used the competitive impulse to maintain the attention of the children. Undoubt¬ edly, the competition between individual students has been overworked. We are coming to see that there are values to be gained from a cooperative study of the lesson in which we all work together, teacher and pupils, to discover the truth, each one eager to share any personal discoveries with all the others, not that he may shine in comparison with their dullness, but that we all together may be farther along the way toward truth. 99 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL However, individual Juniors or groups of them can discover the pleasure in competing with their own past records. To seek to surpass one’s own previous records of efficiency is a worthy ambition. To try to be more prompt and more regular in attendance than one has ever been before, for a whole class to pride itself upon having its work done more carefully, more neatly, more regularly than in the past, for a group of Juniors to strive with real effort always to be cheerful, loyal, quiet, and industrious members of the Junior Depart¬ ment — all of these efforts deserve the reward of com¬ mendation. Appreciation of such competitions with oneself should be freely granted to Junior children, for such praise stimulates further interested endeavor. The greatest secret of holding the Junior’s inter¬ est is undoubtedly to discover the activities which he enjoys and to see that he has the chance to learn through these activities. To allow children to have some initiative in the choice of subject matter and of those projects in learning which appeal to them will help to supply that type of attention which every teacher covets. Then there is the secret of maintaining a happy balance between a sense of working on something which is difficult enough to demand our highest powers and the sense of victory over a difficult task. Study should be hard enough to call for stim¬ ulating effort, but easy enough to allow for accom¬ plishment. Any child will tire of studying if after his effort he has a sense of defeat. But, if he feels that he is mastering the material, then his interest will grow. This is one of the advantages gained from supervision of the study of children. ioo THE ART OF TEACHING JUNIORS Last of all, interest is contagious. The teacher who is not vitally interested cannot hope to interest his Juniors. The Junior teacher who reported in a weary tone that her girls simply “are not inter¬ ested in their notebook work” was surprised, after an absence of two months, during which time her class was taught by another teacher, to find those same notebooks filled up with interesting and well- written material. It had been done by an “inter¬ ested” group of girls under the inspiration of an “interested” teacher. Through variety. — We have seen that we must have variety in our teaching methods, if we hope to interest youth. Some children will respond to one kind of activity, some to another. A varied program means that every type of child is being considered and will have an opportunity to express his latent powers. It is not difficult to vary the method or the tools used in teaching a lesson. Sometimes the teacher may tell the lesson story. At other times it may be told by the class members. Occasionally, for the sake of illustrating the value of cooperation, each child may be assigned one section of the lesson to be told as a sort of continued story. The appeal to the eye-gate through pictures, posters, and the stereoscope will afford many a delightful lesson hour. Plastecine is a tool with which some lessons may be well taught. Dramatization of the lesson story will often make its truth grip the imagination vividly. There are different possibilities in the use of the dramatic method. It need not necessarily imply elaborate preparation, but may often be done with no preparation at all. IOI JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL The dramatic interest can also be used in assign¬ ments for home study. The following is an illus¬ tration of its possibilities. A class of third-year Junior girls were studying the life of Christ. The assignment one Sunday was this: “Imagine that you are a girl living in Capernaum at the time when Jesus was living there. Write a letter to a girl friend in Jerusalem, telling her about the first time that you saw Jesus. ” All of the letters were good. Most of them indi¬ cated sympathetic understanding of the real per¬ sonality of Jesus. One little girl handed in the following simple interpretation of Jesus’ character. Capernaum, 15 Nizan. My dear Tirzah: The other day I saw the Christ for the first time. He was out on the hillside near the lake and he is not like what you would expect him to be. He is much like any other man except that he has such a gentle look in his eyes. He has cured my brother John who has been lame for years. I can hear his happy shouts now as he plays with the other children. Jesus has some men who go everywhere with him. He calls them his brothers. He says we are all brothers. Well, Tirzah, my father and brother are going to Jerusalem this week and they will tell you more about the Christ. Your loving friend Mary. Through activity. — In one sense participation means activity. Projects that involve physical activity and that require cooperative effort are a challenge to the interest and participation of the entire group. The whole question of the place of activity in the 102 STUDYING WITH THE STEREOSCOPE A Junior Department Group Meeting on a Week Day . . THE ART OF TEACHING JUNIORS Junior-Department program will be taken up in later chapters.1 MAKING THE LESSON VIVID AND VITAL All of the methods listed above are just so many ways of making the lesson vivid. Any plan that finds the point of contact between the child and the lesson, which enlists his interest at the start and holds it all through, which introduces variety into the teaching of the lesson and which utilizes all of the child’s active powers, is a plan which makes for vividness of impression. Vividness of presentation comes from feeling the lesson deeply, from seeing it as clearly as though one had been an eyewitness and from the ability to put oneself into the child’s point of view so that one may know just how to transfer the picture and the feeling from one’s own experience to his. TESTING RESULTS OF TEACHING Within a few years we shall in all probability know a great deal more than we now do about testing the religious reactions of children. Most of our estimates of the success or nonsuccess of our teaching methods heretofore have been too super¬ ficial. Yet there are a few tests which every teacher may and should apply to his teaching process from time to time, in order to see whether or not it is measuring up to his own standards of usefulness. Attention. — Attention is a much-worn word in pedagogical circles, but it represents a factor to be recognized and dealt with. It requires no special skill for a teacher of Juniors to know whether or 1 See Chapters 14-18 inclusive. IO3 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL not he has the nonvoluntary attention of his Juniors. It does require a highly specialized kind of skill to secure such attention. There are degrees of atten¬ tion, and the teacher who finds his pupils not only answering questions readily, but asking them be¬ cause their interest is leading them on to know more of the subject, may feel that his group is sat¬ isfactorily meeting one of the first tests of response. Stimulated thinking. — The asking of questions usually indicates that the thinking processes have been aroused. Yet this is not always so, for the Junior will ask many random questions which seem to be “off the point.” But the teacher can readily distinguish between those questions which mean that the mind is alert to the issue under dis¬ cussion and those which are prompted by idle curiosity or haphazard thought. What we covet as teachers is not so much the assurance that facts have been assimilated as the joy of seeing that minds have been opened to the truth and to a desire for further truth. Dr. Coe remarks that it will be a happy day for teaching when a child shall be given credit not for the quickness with which he answers a question but for the length of time it takes him to arrive at a conclusion. Too often it is the most rapid answerer of questions who wins the teacher’s approval. One real test, then, of response from the group is the indication that thinking is going on. Participation in class work. — Aside from the answering and asking of questions, there are other types of class activity which indicate a response to the teaching. A cheerful, cooperative spirit in the carrying out of all class projects, a ready response 104 THE ART OF TEACHING JUNIORS to all suggestions for work to be done, the offering of suggestions as to ways of bettering the classroom procedure — all of these mean that there is a re¬ sponse to the teacher and his method of teaching. Results in daily living. — Of all the tests the most vital and the one most surely indicating the extent to which the pupils have been “taught” is to be found in their daily living. And of all the tests this is the most difficult to apply with any certainty of accurate results. How may we know how religious a Junior is? To apply this test means that the teacher must live with his Juniors in some degree of intimacy, that he must know their problems and their attitudes toward them, and that he must see them in their homes. He must be in such close touch with the parents that they will help him to know how far the attitudes stressed in the church- school teaching are expressed in the home and play relationships. A teacher may do well to keep some simple form of recordi 2 for his own use indicating how far along each Junior is in the way of Chris¬ tian living, what problems he has met and solved, what habits he has overcome or established, just where he needs help most. Such a careful study of each child might make our teaching more direct, more personal, more constructive. For Further Reading : Strayer and Norsworthy — How to Teach . McMurry — How to Study . James — Talks to Teachers. Horne — The Art of Questioning. Betts — How to Teach Religion. i See Chapter XXIII, “The Junior Department at Work,” p. 287. 105 CHAPTER VII TYPES OF TEACHING The art of teaching, we saw in the previous chap¬ ter, depends, among other things, upon a knowledge of teaching method. The study of method in¬ cludes a study and comparison of the different types of lessons which may be taught and a study of the various types of classroom procedure. The teacher discovers from a study of method that all methods are not usable on all occasions, that lesson aims vary and, correspondingly, the method must be changed. Some methods are better adapted to a particular situation than are others. So he gradually comes to see that it is not safe to rely merely upon what some other teacher has done with success. TYPES OF LESSONS The type of lessons most commonly referred to are : the information lesson, the developmental lesson, the application lesson, the drill lesson, the appre¬ ciation lesson, the review lesson, and the assign¬ ment lesson. Some lessons involve the use of several of these types. In fact, it is almost impossible to teach a lesson and confine oneself to any one type exclusively. The informational lesson.— The informational lesson is used in the teaching of almost every other type of lesson mentioned, since facts — accurate 106 TYPES OF TEACHING facts — must be the basis for all our thinking, our reasoning, our appreciation. The danger some¬ times has been that we have placed too great em¬ phasis upon information, and not enough upon some of the other types of teaching. The Junior teacher has a great opportunity as well as a great responsibility in the use of this type of lesson, be¬ cause the Junior child is so ready to absorb facts. There is the opportunity to supply him with fruit¬ ful and accurate fact information at the time when it is easiest for him to acquire and retain it. The developmental lesson. — This type is some¬ times called the inductive lesson. In using it the teacher starts with some concrete situation or problem which grows out of the child’s own observation or experience. He helps him, first of all, to see the problem clearly; then to gather together, one by one, facts which will help him solve it. These facts are compared one with another. The useless ones are rejected. The helpful and pertinent ones are kept. The general principle of the solution of the problem which the study of these facts reveals is discovered. Lastly, this prin¬ ciple is applied and the solution discovered. The advantage of this type of teaching lies in the fact that it helps the child to discover truth for himself. The teacher who would use it success¬ fully must know his child well so that he may be sure to start with the child’s own experience. The pupil must have clearly in mind the problem upon which he is working. This means that the teacher must have the conclusion of the thought-process clearly in mind before he starts to teach. The application lesson. — This type of lesson is 107 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL often called the deductive lesson. The start here is made with the statement of some general prin¬ ciple. Then the pupil proceeds to verify it by the study of the experiences of others as well as his own. We try to help the pupil to see the applica¬ tion of this general truth in the lives of men and women and of the human race. The larger part of the lessons in the quarterlies follows this method. They proceed from the assump¬ tion of a general truth to its application in con¬ crete situations. Valuable as this method is, the teacher should take some of the Sunday school lessons and replan them so as to lead the pupil to discover the truth instead of always having it first stated for him. The drill lesson. — This type of lesson should receive the careful consideration of the Junior teacher. Educators have been disagreeing some¬ what of late as to the value of drills. Undoubtedly, there was a time when the drill method was over¬ worked; but, too, there may be a real danger in swinging away from it altogether. Religious experience cannot be drilled into a person. There will be less of the drill method used in the church school than in the public school. But the child, at the Junior age, responds to the drill method, and there are some things which he needs to know, and to know well, as a basis for religious experience. This is the time when he will readily learn memory selections from the Bible, those parts which are full of beauty or rich in suggestion of ideals of living. Since a large part of his curriculum ma¬ terial is from the Bible, and since the church school 108 TYPES OF TEACHING offers practically his only chance to learn about this book, he should learn, probably while he is in the Junior Department, something about the books of the Bible — how they were written and compiled and their order of appearance in the Bible. Since the lives of so many of the heroes whom he studies were lived in Palestine, a country whose geography receives so little attention in the public school, and since for the richest and fullest appreciation of these lives he needs to understand the geographical and historical background from which they sprang, he ought to have a ready, work¬ ing knowledge of the geography of the Holy Land. The appreciation lesson. — One of the most val¬ uable types of lessons for the teacher of religion is the lesson which seeks to develop the pupil’s appreciation of religious truth and beauty. While the aim of many Sunday school lessons is to create an appreciation of character or of truth, the method used in the presentation of the lesson material is more apt to stimulate analysis than appreciation. The child may be able to analyze great conduct without thrilling to its greatness. He may acquire knowledge about it but not of it. He may be able to comprehend an ideal without loving it and aspiring to it. It is of supreme importance that during the Junior age he shall acquire the greatest possible appreciative capacity. The things and the people whom we admire and enjoy are the things and the people that will make us live greatly and nobly. There are a few secrets for the teacher to remem¬ ber in the use of the appreciation lesson. First of all, the teacher cannot hope to arouse enthusiasm 109 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL for any life or any truth or any work of art unless he himself is deeply and sincerely enthusiastic about it. Appreciation begets appreciation. Sec¬ ondly, this does not mean that he is to force his evaluations or appreciations upon the pupil. Rather he should encourage the pupil to appreciate it in his own way. In the third place, adult standards of appreciaton must not be expected of the child. There are certain elemental conduct ideals which a Junior will readily admire, while he fails in his ability to appreciate some more subtle character traits. The opportunity for the Junior teacher in the use of the appreciation lesson is very great. Some children may be born with a greater capacity for enjoyment than others, but by training we may determine what they will enjoy. There is a second opportunity in the teaching of the appreciation method, and that is the opportunity to affect con¬ duct. For, while appreciation of the true and beautiful is not an absolute guarantee that one will live truly and beautifully, yet such an appre¬ ciation tends to make conduct true and beautiful. The review lesson. — The review lesson loses its greatest value if it is a mere repetition and recall of past lessons. Unless it is really a re-view, it does not accomplish its most fruitful purpose. The mountain climber, as he follows the trail which winds back and forth around the edge of the mountain, at every new turn and level of the trail sees much the same view which he saw before, but always from a little different, a little higher angle. The same scene appears different and usually more full of promise with every higher vision of it. no TYPES OF TEACHING The review lesson should have this effect upon the pupil. It should help him to see the old truths from a higher vantage point than when he first viewed them. Now he sees them in the light of all that has followed since his earlier vision. The assignment lesson. — Of all parts of the teaching process, none is more important than the assigning of a new lesson or of a further problem for study. The teacher who merely announces that the lesson for next time is such and such, with cer¬ tain questions to be answered, has announced a lesson; he has not assigned it. The assignment involves the preparation of the pupil’s mind for the following lesson. Its aim is largely to create a motive for further research, to stimulate the desire to explore further. But it must not stop there. It must contain a clear and definite statement of the task to be done, in language which the pupil can readily understand, and in a form so definite that he cannot forget or misinterpret it. If the Junior teacher actually teaches the lesson to his group under a plan of supervised study , the assignment becomes what it should be, an integral part of the whole teaching process, and not something tacked on at the end of the period. TEACHING METHODS In the teaching of a lesson in any one of the above ways, a variety of teaching methods may be used. Our Sunday-school teaching is apt to suffer from a paucity of methods. It is very easy for a teacher in any kind of a school to get into ruts and to plan lessons week after week using the hi JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL same pattern. One of the advantages of seeing others teach is the inspiration which comes to try something different ourselves. What are some of the methods which may be used effectively with Juniors? The question-and-answer method. — Of all the methods, the one in most common use is that of question and answer. Although in such common use, this method is capable of much improvement in the hands of the average teacher. It is not true, as some suppose, that anybody can ask a question satisfactorily. The important, and often difficult thing, is to ask a question that will secure a proper response from the child. The following are a few simple rules which will help to make questioning of the greatest value: First, questions should not always he concerned with facts. It is uninteresting to answer for any length of time such questions as: “What did Joseph ask his brothers first? What did he say when he saw Benjamin? What did Joseph do when he looked upon Benjamin? How was Benjamin served at the feast?” One question of inquiry as to the way in which Joseph evidently felt toward this youngest brother would bring out all the answers to the above questions. The most interesting questions are those which deal with reasons and feelings. They are some¬ times called thought questions. Three or four well- chosen thought questions may serve to bring out almost all the necessary facts. In order to answer intelligently a thought-question, one must know the facts of the lesson. Sometimes fact questions are necessary, but they should be subordinate to the main questions to be answered. 1 12 TYPES OF TEACHING In the second place, questions should economize time. Why ask three questions to get the desired information when by a little thought one would accomplish the same thing? In the third place, time should he taken to make questions interesting. The most fascinating lesson story may be robbed of all its romance by stupid, uninteresting questions. On the other hand, a question may be so worded that it immediately stirs a response in the child’s mind. Questions need to he clear and definite if children are to answer them. They must deal with only what is in their experience or on their level of understanding. This requires that the teacher shall understand how the different members of his class differ from each other. All questions are not for the same individual. The discussion method. — The discussion method is a further development of the question method. When questions are thought-provoking and refer to the pupil’s own experience, discussion is apt to follow. However, the Junior child does not carry on such a sustained or logical discussion as the adolescent does. He is not yet of the age when he is reasoning, testing, and questioning the truth in everything. His experience has not yet been full or deep or wide enough to furnish a basis for pro¬ tracted discussion. He will argue somewhat, but often his remarks are not to the point. However, use should be made of a simple form of discussion with Junior children. Questions asked should develop their ability to think clearly and to form right opinions. The children should be encouraged to express their ideas, but helped to clarify and revise them if they are inaccurate. ii3 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Discussion in a Junior class will need to be helped out by frequent questions and leadership on the part of the teacher in order that it may culminate in fruitful conclusions. A simple form of the debate may be used occa¬ sionally to stimulate the pupils’ thinking and to get them to look up facts and to verify principles. The question to be debated should be stated very simply so that both sides understand the same thing by it. Absolute fairness should be preserved in conducting the debate, as to time limits and the opportunity for refutation. No statements which cannot be verified should be allowed to pass by the teacher without further investigation and proof. The question to be debated should be of such a nature that whichever side wins no harmful or unethical issue appears to triumph. The topical method. — Junior children are not as able as those a little older to report on topics. They have not had sufficient training to enable them to select just the material pertinent to the subject under discussion or to abbreviate it or arrange it in an interesting way to present to others. If topics are assigned to them, they should have assistance in arranging the material before they present it to the class. Junior children can be taught, however, to do some simple research work. When further information is needed for the solution of a problem the Junior can be asked to look up and report upon some one definite thing which can be told in a few words. Children can be sent to the public library, espe¬ cially where there is a children’s librarian, to look for such information. 114 TYPES OF TEACHING A class of sixth-grade boys had been the despair of their teacher. “They never do any studying/’ he reported. During his absence from town the director of religious education took his class for several Sundays. On the first Sunday the question arose, “What became of Jesus’ disciples after his death?” Four boys were asked to look up one of each of the following four, James, Peter, John and Matthew, and to report on them the next Sunday. During the week that followed the director meant to send a reminder through the mail, as she did not want to come up against failure the first time she assigned a lesson. But the week was very full; Saturday came and no reminders had been sent. When she met the class Sunday morning she was almost startled to be greeted by, “Call on me first; I looked mine up.” And it developed that all four boys had been to the public library, sought the help of the children’s librarian, and had their reports ready. The pursuit of knowledge had been given a new dignity by the correlation with the public library. The lecture method. — The lecture method has come into great disapprobation, with the promotion of some newer and more effective teaching methods. However, there are times, even in the teaching of elementary grades, when some things have to be told to the children by the teacher. Sometimes the teacher, or some one who knows , can bring needed information to the class in a more interesting way than by the reading of books. Printed material may need to be adapted, abbre¬ viated, or made more interesting. Or perhaps there are things which need to be explained. The class which is interesting itself in the work of the Child ii5 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Welfare Society will enjoy an interesting talk on what is being done to make better babies. That group of Juniors which is working on a project of a mission school in China will work with greater enthusiasm if a truly interesting missionary talks to them about Chinese boys and girls and the help which is needed from this particular group of Juniors. The memory method. — Probably the reason why teachers of religion have not achieved surer results from the use of this method is that they have not properly understood how to use it. They have relied largely upon repetition alone to fix ideas in the child’s memory, forgetting or not realizing that memorizing is simply a process of habit formation and that all the laws which apply to the formation of any habit apply here also. Instead of one process, that of repetition, there are several which must be employed if the child mind is to retain what it has learned. In the first place, the thing to be memorized should appeal to the child. At the very outset a motive for memorizing the particular selection or list should be established. We will suppose that a Junior Department is to memorize the song “Soldiers of the Right.” It is in war time and they are to sing this song in a program of the entire church school. There is the motive of wanting the Junior Department to appear at its best and to sing well before the rest of the school. The idea of the morning’s theme is ex¬ plained before the song is learned. There is the added motive of wanting to get the message of the song before the others — the thought that there are battles of righteousness to be fought in the realm 116 TYPES OF TEACHING of character in times of peace. Then the song is played and the words sung once, and the martial spirit of it as well as the rhythmic, marching cadence have an immediate appeal in themselves. The first step in memorizing has been taken. Children will memorize much more easily if they see the selection to be learned as a whole before it is separated into smaller units for learning. The first approach to memory work should be a study of the selection with the group so that they under¬ stand its meaning and appreciate its beauty. Then repetition is not a meaningless process. Recall is based on the association of many ideas. Study the imagery of the Shepherd Psalm, the geograph¬ ical background, the shepherd life in Palestine, and memorizing is fraught with meaning. One group of Juniors built the story of this psalm in the sand table as a preparation for memorizing it. When it comes to repetition, if the first two processes have been successful, the child can be encouraged to go over the material a number of times and then recall as much of it as he can from memory. This means that he is focusing attention upon the significance of the selection while he is recalling it. After he has seen the meaning of it as a whole, it can be divided into smaller thought units and each of these studied, repeated, and recalled and repeated again. A unit should end where the thought ends. Then several units can be combined and repeated together, increasing each time the amount to be repeated. During the process of repetition care should be taken that no mistakes creep in, for the mistake once memorized is difficult to unlearn. ii 7. JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL It must be remembered that a child cannot study at high tension for a very long period of time. For this reason drill periods should not he too long without some variation in practice. Several short periods of vigorous, interested drill will accomplish more than one that is long drawn out. Varying the method of practice lessens fatigue and keeps the interest keen. Competitions between learners for the memorizing of a certain amount in a certain number of minutes will make a little variation. Sometimes one can change from the written to the oral method, from the blackboard to the seat, from individual to group recitation, or one can make a game out of it. When a thing is first being memorized it should he recalled at frequent intervals. The periods be¬ tween practice should be lengthened only gradually. Memory selections, after they have become a men¬ tal possession, should not be allowed to fall into complete disuse, but a place should be made for their use from time to time so that they may be¬ come permanent possessions. The manual method. — There is a place for a wise use of this method in a Junior program. Some things can best be learned with the aid of the hand. The Junior who makes a plastecine or sand map of Palestine, who models with his own hands the coast plain, the plateau, the central mountain range, the Jordan valley, the eastern range and the eastern plateau, knows what the Holy Land is like as he could not possibly know it by merely study¬ ing about it in a book. The observation method. — Education through the eye-gate is a sure process and one deserving care- 118 TYPES OF TEACHING ful attention from the teacher who wants to enrich his teaching equipment. Our teaching has paid altogether too little attention to visual education — to the study and appreciation of great pictures as an aid to religious development.1 Then there is the study of pictures which give the geographical background. A stereopticon talk on the Holy Land or on some mission field will lend enchantment to study for the average Junior. Fortunate is that church which has access to a moving-picture machine as an aid to the study of the church-school lesson. A visit to a museum will paint a picture of conditions surrounding home life in the Orient as no word brush can paint it. And when it comes to social service projects, the first-hand observation of social conditions, when wisely conducted, is the very best preparation for relief work. The story method. — It will not be necessary to say much about the story method here. This method is of such inestimable value in the teaching process that it will receive separate treatment in chapters entirely devoted to it. The dramatic method. — The dramatization of the story is a method which is coming to be used more and more. The child who not only reads and hears and talks about a situation, but who, in addition, actually lives through it in dramatic form, makes himself a part of it, enters into the experiences of others, and assimilates desirable attitudes until they become a very part of himself. The project method. — The project method is in !See discussion of Use of Pictures in Chapters on Cyrriculum and Worship, pages 7i, 182. 119 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL reality a way in which one may use all the other methods. It provides a much greater opportunity for children to choose their own lines of thought and activity instead of placing before them a pro¬ gram which has been planned entirely by adults. It means that the child is given some chance to discover his own purposes, to follow them up and carry them through to a completion. This method is explained more fully in Chapter XIV. For Further Reading : Strayer and Norsworthy — How to Teach. Horne — The Art of Questioning. Earhart — Types of Teaching. Maxwell — The Observation of Teaching. Hayward — The Lesson in Appreciation. 120 CHAPTER VIII THE CLASSROOM PERIOD After the teacher has acquired some knowledge of teaching methods there remains the problem of what to do with them in the classroom. The teach¬ ing period in the average church school is so lament¬ ably brief that the teacher needs to know how to make every moment of it count to the utmost. We need more time for teaching religion, but we also need more understanding of the best way in which to use the time that is now ours. There are four ways in which the classroom period can be made more effective. One is by see¬ ing that the physical conditions are such as to promote good teaching; another is by the super¬ vision of the Junior’s study; the third, the social¬ izing of the teaching process as far as possible; and fourth, the careful planning of the classroom procedure. PHYSICAL CONDITIONS IN THE CLASSROOM \ In “Rabbi Ben Ezra” Browning asks, “Thy body at its best, how far can it project thy soul on its lone way?” Modern science has only one answer to that question. Our bodies at their best will make many things possible, among them the studying and teaching of a lesson. Importance of physical conditions. — Many a lesson undoubtedly goes by default, not because the 121 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL teacher was not prepared or the lesson uninterest¬ ing, but because some physical condition was uncom¬ fortable or distracting for the child.,-- Sometimes a move so simple as the opening of a window may change a class attitude, yet the teacher never thinks of it. Often the appearance of a visitor occurs just at the moment when the teacher needs the undivided attention of the class. Some teach¬ ing can never be effective because of the cluttered appearance of the surroundings. The teacher should, first of all, take stock of his teaching environ¬ ment and do whatever is in his power to make it right. Right classroom conditions for Juniors. — One of the most desirable conditions for Juniors is a class¬ room which insures privacy. Juniors are naturally noisy. They are noisy when they are not interested; they are often noisy when they are interested. If Junior classes meet too close together in one room, their noisiness is bound to overlap. The teaching in some class is sure to suffer. The church which has not separate classrooms should do all in its power to secure privacy in some other way. There are curtains which are fairly effective in shutting out noise and distractions. Screens, which will at least give a limited feeling of privacy, are avail¬ able for almost all of us. There are other physical aids to good teaching. Air that is kept fresh and not too warm will stim¬ ulate mental processes. The removal of hats and coats by both pupils and teachers will create an atmosphere of work in which it is easy to settle down for study. A woman can often double her effectiveness as a teacher by removing her wraps. 122 THE CLASSROOM PERIODT And the removal of all distractions, such as the interruptions of secretaries and superintendents in search of records or with zeal to make announce¬ ments or distribute literature, will do much to promote sustained attention and seriousness of attitude. SUPERVISING THE JUNIOR’S STUDYn Very few children, or adults either, know how to study. Without knowing how, time is wasted and the very results one sets out to accomplish are not realized. The average child needs help in the study of his church-school lesson. There are reasons why supervising the study of Juniors is particularly necessary. Reasons for supervising study of Juniors. — We need to remember the comparatively small amount of study required of these boys and girls of nine to eleven outside of the regular public-school room. In the public school they study for the most part in the schoolroom and often under the direct super¬ vision of the teacher. The church school, on the other hand, requires that almost all of its prepara¬ tion be done at home, out of the classroom. And it requires this under the most difficult of all condi¬ tions, usually with a whole week intervening between the assignment of the lesson and the recitation. This is a requirement which no Junior child is equipped mentally to meet. Far better results will be secured if the Junior class is turned into a study group where the teacher studies the lesson with (not for ) the pupils and where the sharp dis¬ tinction between study and recitation is done away with. 123 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Another reason is that the materials with which the Junior deals in religious education are not always easy to understand. It is no easier to solve a problem of conduct than one in arithmetic. It is as difficult to judge between ideals of living as between forms of rhetoric. The geography of Palestine is as hard to become familiar with as that of France or India. The literature of the Hebrew people, as well as their history, requires at least as much effort as that of England or America. And the average adult in the average home is • less able to help his child with the study of his Bible lesson than he is with his reading, geography, and even arithmetic, with its newer methods of presentation. Under this method of supervised study the Junior will get farther in less time than by having a lesson assigned which he is supposed to work out himself. No matter how explanatory or how helpful the Junior’s quarterly or notebook, one reason why the lessons learned in the church school seem to have so little “staying” quality is just because children, unaided, waste a great deal of unnecessary time on trying to do the “home work.” This lack of super¬ vision also means that because Juniors so often feel that they are getting nowhere, habits of not doing the work at all, or doing it in only a half effective way, are established. The teacher who studies with his class has the chance to keep interest alive. When the child works over the material at home it is hard for him to hold on to the thread of interest aroused in the class period the Sunday previous. When interest lags, study gets one nowhere. The teacher can 124 THE CLASSROOM PERIOD constantly utilize the play spirit and make the entire classroom session that “fusion of work and play” which is desirable. If the classroom activity can be carried out in the spirit of play, the child will devote all his energy to it and better results will be accomplished. How to supervise the study of Juniors. — Super¬ vision of study may be interpreted to mean several things. It may mean that each pupil studies the lesson alone, the teacher helping individuals with special problems. It may mean that small groups work on material together, the teacher assisting. Or it may mean that the teacher actually works out the lesson with the class. This last method of supervision is probably the one which can be used with the greatest satisfaction in the Junior Department, where only thirty or forty minutes are available for study. The first two methods are more usable when the Junior Department meets for two periods, thus allowing one for preparation and one for recitation. Of course two periods for study and recitation are desirable under any plan, as we shall see later, but, when only one is available, this must serve as study and recitation period combined. When the teacher studies the lesson with the class this is only one method of teaching, and a very excellent method. Let us see how this actually works out in a class¬ room. Let us suppose the lesson to be Lesson 41 in Hero Stories, the second-year Junior Course, in the International Graded Series, part 4, “The Man Who Kept His Word, David Livingstone.” The following outline suggests a mode of procedure, 125 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL indicating where and how the study may be super¬ vised and the assignments done on work already studied or on special subjects of interest to the lesson development. Aim. — To arouse the child’s admiration for Liv¬ ingstone’s fine sense of honor and his determination to make his own word “as good as a bond.” (Reworded from teacher’s textbook.) This is, in part, then, an appreciation lesson. As a result the child should be helped to appro¬ priate this same sense of honor in his own life. In addition to the main aim , two other results should obtain from the teaching of this lesson. The class should discover — 1. Livingstone’s motive for living as he did, the love which wanted to serve others rather than himself. 2. That missionaries carry the gospel, not just by “preaching” to the people, but by “living a life.” Approach. — See the teacher’s textbook, the story of the black man and his testimony to Livingstone years afterward. The teacher may add to this the story of Chuma and Susi carrying Livingstone’s body to the sea. The class may also be told of Westminster Abbey, where his body now lies with kings and statesmen. (See, Servants of the King, by Speer.) Supervised Study. — Introduced by the question: Who was this man set down in the heart of Africa whom black men never forgot? What things would we like to know about him? Discussion by children reveals that they would like to know the following things: 126 THE CLASSROOM PERIOD 1. How he happened to go to Africa. 2. What he did when he was a boy. 3. What he did to make the black man love him so. 4. What he did to be so honored as to be buried in Westminster Abbey. Teacher and class seek for the answers to these questions. The sources of information are: (a) Any general information the children may already have about Livingstone. (b) A special report may be given by one child asked to do this by the teacher the week before. He tells the story of Livingstone’s boyhood from Livingstone Hero Stories , by Mendenhall. (c) In answer to questions from the teacher, the class reads in their own notebooks and from the teacher’s textbook further material. (1 d ) The teacher supplements with selected material on Africa before Livingstone went there. This study reveals that there are still more things they would like to know about Livingstone. So this leads to Assignment One. — Some one child is asked to pre¬ pare a short travel talk for the next class session on Livingstone’s discoveries. All are asked to look, during the week, for pictures of African life. Lesson Story. — “The Man Who Kept His Word.” Told by the teacher, as dramatically as possible, keeping the element of suspense until the last moment in the following manner: 127 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL 1. Livingstone’s attitude toward the black people. 2. The trip to the coast. 3. Livingstone’s refusal to return to England and leave his men. As the element of appreciation does not want to be destroyed by immediate discussion, allow a few moments for expressions of appreciation by the pupils. Possibly show here some pictures of Livingstone, or the book, Livingstone the Path¬ finder , which the children may want to read for themselves. Brief Discussion. — This is for the purpose of leading up to further study at home. Question: Was Livingstone’s decision worth the sacrifice? What did he gain? Assignments for Next Lesson. — 1. Each member of the class is asked to make a simple chart. If he had gone home, By staying he he would have Gained Lost Gained Lost Faith of Seeing his black men. family. His family. Faith of black men. More glory. Some glory His own etc. Consciousness etc. self-esteem. of doing right. A sure road to the sea. 2. Several asked to bring some further exciting incidents from Livingstone’s life. 3. What is the best way for a missionary to show people what it means to be a fol- 128 THE CLASSROOM PERIOD lower of Jesus? By a life. Several pupils asked to look up one or two others who have done this. 4. One or two pupils asked to look up what other people thought of Livingstone. SECOND LESSON ON LIVINGSTONE Approach. — Teacher takes a few minutes to recall, by his own statement or by asking a few well- chosen questions, the problem before the class at the close of the previous session. Then calls for the assignments as follows: 1. Stories told of incidents from Livingstone's life. 2. Travel Talk, brief and prepared with help of the teacher. 3. Report on what others thought about Livingstone. The teacher's textbook con¬ tains excellent material for this. 4. The general assignment on what Livingstone gained and lost. Several of these charts might have been placed upon the board during the presession period. Brief com¬ parison of charts. Let pupils freely add to their own good points suggested by others. Assignment Five.-L&st of all, the teacher can call for reports on other lives like Livingstone's. This will act as an introduction to the next life to be studied, which in the course of study is John G. Paton. The above outline is given in detail so that it may be clear just how study and recitation and research work may be woven together. It reveals 129 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL one or two important things. First, that in order to teach many of the lessons in the lesson book satisfactorily we have to make at least two lessons out of them. It is far better to teach one lesson well and omit another than to teach two lessons only half well. Secondly, it shows how home study may be motivated. Some classes might not respond readily, at the beginning of the year, to the assignments suggested above, but pupils will be more apt to look up such topics as have been outlined than to write out the answers to a number of questions. If, for any reason, they fail to make the chart, the only general assignment, time should be taken in class for this, so that each pupil may enter it in his notebook, or so that it may be placed in the class book,1 if that plan of expressional work is followed. The outline also shows how naturally class projects grow out of such a plan of teaching and study. It is essen¬ tially a “socialized recitation,” in which pupils and teacher together are discoverers of truth. The dramatization of Livingstone’s life may fur¬ nish another lesson for the classroom. New appre¬ ciations result when his life is studied, for the purpose of dramatization. As the pupils reproduce that life, they enter more vitally into its spirit and meaning. It will also lead on to other projects. Natural questions to be asked by some child will be: “Are there men in Africa to-day carrying on Liv¬ ingstone’s work? Who are they? Where are they?” This makes the opportunity for the class to study something of the work of their own denominational missionaries in Africa. The class may make an 1 For "class books” see this chapter, page 132®. 130 THE CLASSROOM PERIOD African village showing the changes which come with missionary work. In a class in Gary where they were studying Africa and Livingstone one child asked if it would not be a good idea to make an American bed to send to the African children in one of their mission schools to show them just how a good, clean bed should look. This child, a girl, encouraged by the teacher’s assent but without other aid, made a little wooden bed out of boxes. She also made, at home, all the linen, quilts, and comforters for it.2 The class may become so interested that the teacher will want to take up with them, at a week-day period, or whenever the chance for missionary education is given in the department, Jean McKenzie’s African Adventurers , the story of two African boys. SOCIALIZING THE CLASSROOM PERIOD Socializing the classroom period is receiving a new emphasis to-day when the consideration of social needs is so much to the fore. It is further emphasized by the introduction of some freer methods of classroom discipline. It means larger pupil participation. It means that the success of the recitation is counted by the extent to which it depended upon and secured the contribution of every pupil. The teacher is thought of more as a member of the group than as one over the group. It means a more informal atmosphere in the classroom. It recognizes that we are all thoroughly social beings and that to live well in society we must have the chance to experiment with social living while we 1 Seen in the Gary Week-Day School exhibit of religious education. 131 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL are yet in the period of training. For this reason the classroom must be a piece of life, a small society in which all move freely and participate equally. Socializing the classroom can be accomplished in a number of ways, and where these methods are used they are a sure indication that the classroom is a “piece of life itself.” Free discussion. — Free discussion means not only that which comes as a response to questions asked by the teacher. It means also discussion initiated by the pupils. It is more like ordinary conversation in a home group. When this occurs there is a naturalness about the classroom proceedings which makes pupils and teachers forget that one is the teacher and the others “the taught.” Group preparation and recitation. — One of the best ways of socializing a group is to assign work which will require the united effort of all the class or to subdivide the class into smaller groups, each working upon some special task and reporting back to the others. A dramatization, we shall see in the chapter on that subject, is one of the surest ways of enlisting the effort of all. Its success depends upon the help of each individual pupil. Some questions assigned for discussion are such that they cannot be answered until every one in the class has looked up needed bits of information and these various elements have all been put together in the classroom. In order to get away from the purely individual¬ istic method of study and recitation some schools are making large use of the “class book” instead of the individual pupil’s notebook. The class book is the product of “all of us.” It should be as 132, THE CLASSROOM PERIOD attractive as possible in its cover and appearance. It is the work of the pupils from the cover, designed and executed by one or several of them, to the last period on the last page. It may contain class records of members, their names, what they have done in the way of helpful service; accounts of class activities; photographs of the class or of peo¬ ple in whom they have been interested, and written and illustrated accounts of the lessons they have studied during the year. What should go into the book is decided upon by the entire class in conference, but the actual work may be delegated to different individuals, each one taking his turn at placing in the contents. Sometimes the individual does his share alone, after the class has decided upon what it shall be, but at other times the whole class meets together to work upon the book. Into it go services of worship led by the class, favorite memory selections, pic¬ tures of heroes or heroines admired, class prayers — all that makes up the life of this particular class. Emphasis upon social teachings. — One evidence of the socialized classroom is the social emphasis given to many questions of life and conduct. It is true that the. Junior needs personal standards of conduct, but the weakness of much religious teaching has been in its purely individualistic interpretation. The Junior needs to see not only the individual but the social effects of wrong¬ doing; not only the way in which good will and justice react upon himself personally, but also upon society. The emphasis upon social motives. — The social¬ ized method of teaching emphasizes personal mo- 133 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL tives for right conduct. It also attempts to expand the child’s motive-power to social dimensions. The whole idea of the welfare of the class group is, of course, the basis of this freer method of classroom procedure. But constant attempts are made to utilize the student’s preparation and classroom work to meet the social needs of others. Class enterprises. — The procedure already sug¬ gested indicates that the class which is engaged upon class enterprises will be the most thoroughly socialized group. What some of these enterprises are will be suggested in later chapters on activ¬ ities of the Junior. But they must be, in every sense of the word, class enterprises. They should grow out of the desires and interests of the children, and, as far as possible, they should be actually carried out by them. Pupil organization. — If we are to have class enterprises and pupil initiative, some form of pupil organization is necessary. A later chapter will show how class and department organization may be developed. Suffice it to say here that a social organization must have a certain amount of free self-direction. An informal classroom program. — It is perfectly evident that the socialized recitation means the breakdown of the stilted, formal atmosphere of the old-time classroom. Evidences of this freer, less formal atmosphere are seen in any good public school to-day where there is an effort to socialize the teaching process. Many Sunday-school classes, it is regrettable, have had a “free, informal atmos¬ phere” where pupils have indulged in license instead of freedom and where disorder has prevailed. This 134 THE CLASSROOM PERIOD is not to be confused with that freedom which, while natural and informal, is self-controlled and governed by interest. PLANNING THE CLASSROOM PERIOD To realize social aims in the classroom and to supervise the pupil’s study, as well as his recita¬ tion, require not less but more planning. But it is not difficult to accomplish if the teacher works faithfully upon his plans. The teacher’s plan. — Only the teacher with a well-thought-out plan can be sure that he will have a mind at leisure from the mechanics of teaching during the classroom period, and will be able to hold the child in the center of his thought. Under any method there is always the problem of the responsive child who wants to do all the talking and take all the initiative and the slower child or the timid one who needs to be drawn out. If the recitation is to be socialized its plan must take into account every child in the group. To be helpful, the teacher’s plan should be a simple one. It should be written out, at least until one has had a great deal of experience. And it should be written in such a form that its main points of procedure stand out in the margin and indicate at a glance what the next move is. After the plan is written out it should be studied until the teacher knows it well. He must not be a slave to his written plan when he comes to the classroom, but should be able to forget it. He may have it with him for reference, but must have its main points in his own mind. It must be such a plan that will allow for variation according as the chil- x35 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL dren initiate new ideas themselves. No group will ever respond in class exactly as the teacher’s plan anticipates. And, last of all, the teacher’s plan should make a place for the individual differences in the children in his group. It should include some provision for getting a response from each child, some way, thought out beforehand, in which each child may be helped to participate. Order of the classroom procedure. — Only the individual teacher can decide upon the best order of procedure for his class room. Pupils, conditions, and aims vary. The following is merely a suggested form which indicates how the class time might be divided. A One-period Class Session Class business-— (Pupil officers presiding). Recitation on lesson studied by class the previous Sunday. New lesson Approach — By teacher or pupil teacher. Supervised study. Discussion. Assignment. Class worship. This order may be turned about, with class worship coming first and the business reserved for the closing period. There is no attempt in the above order to indicate the infinite variation in the teaching of the lesson, where the study may follow the telling of the lesson story by the teacher, or where dramatization may take the place of recita¬ tion, or where many other variations may occur. 136 ( THE CLASSROOM PERIOD Sometimes even class worship comes best at the very heart of the morning’s study. Two- Period Session First period. Class business. Supervised study. Interval for department worship. Second period. Recitation. Class worship. Expressional activity. Discussion of service activities. This order is not an absolute one. It only serves to indicate how a two-period class session pro¬ vides an opportunity for both supervised study and recitation and also how there is time for expres¬ sional work to be adequately done. For Further Reading : McMurry — How to Study. Dewey — How We Think. Strayer and Norsworthy — How to Teach , Chap¬ ter 14. Dewey — Schools of To-morrow. 137 CHAPTER IX THE USE OF THE STORY IN THE JUNIOR DEPARTMENT “What do you like best about your Junior De¬ partment?’’ a group of Juniors was asked. By far the largest number of them said, “We like the stories best.” Said one girl, “I like the opening services, but best of all are the stories.” Contrast with this the remark of a supervisor of instruction who is associated with a university department of religious education: “I cannot get my teachers of Juniors to use the story method. They preach to the children, but very few of them tell stories.” That Juniors as well as younger children love stories and respond to their appeal there is every evidence. Indeed, there seems to be no age limit beyond which the story does not have power to grip the hearer. THE POWER AND PURPOSE OF THE STORY Possibly we may feel the power and the signifi¬ cance of the story in the education of the Junior, if we think of the stories we tell as doing four things. They make truth attractive. They make lasting impressions. They stimulate ideals. They influ¬ ence conduct. Let us see how they do these things. The story makes truth attractive. — One may preach on the theme that it is great and beautiful to have faith in the good in one’s fellow men, but that truth becomes compelling when it is heard 138 THE USE OF THE STORY in the story of “Jean Valjean and the Bishop’s Candlesticks.” The sacrifice of the thing which one holds most dear in all the world in order to render some little service to others is a noble ideal; but it glows with attractiveness and seems infinitely worth while in Van Dyke’s story of “The Other Wise Man.” When a child listens to stories woven of such ideals the feeling element is strong, and when our feelings are touched and stirred the impression is deep and, under favorable conditions, tends to express itself in action. If we want to make our Juniors love honesty, bravery, unselfishness, let us embody these ideals in good stories and let the story do its work. The story makes a lasting impression. — What stories do you remember from your childhood? Of all the impressions left from those early days, is there not some story, good or bad, which has stayed with you through the years? “The spoken word is the remembered word,” says Seumas MacManus. The well-told story does not deal with abstractions. Indeed, it cannot, for a story means people and things and actions. The story is full of concrete images and pictures; and pictures, even word pictures, have a way of “sticking.” The child who shuts his eyes and thinks of David Livingstone does not see honor and self-sacrifice and service. He sees a jungle and lions and a brave man. He sees the same brave man forging ahead through fever swamps, his step lagging but determined. He sees him at the coast, literally turning his back on England and the sea and a great ship, and marching back 139 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL into the jungle again with a company of black men. He sees a little African village and a lonely white man and the sudden appearance of another white man who has found the lost missionary. These and many other vivid pictures the Junior will never forget and they spell for him the ideal of self-forgetful service and brave determination to accomplish a purpose. Why will he never forget such pictures? Not only because they are concrete images, but also because some person who had first seen them stood before him with animation, enthusiasm, and com¬ plete forgetfulness of self and told them to him. The personality of the story-teller enhances the power of the story. That is why G. Stanley Hall said, “Let me tell the stories and I care not who writes the textbooks.” Let every Junior teacher turn his textbook into a storybook. The story stimulates ideals. — After all, the value of any personality to the world depends upon how richly the mind is stored with images of “Whatsoever things are honorable, are just, are pure, are lovely, and of good report.” Childhood is the time for storing the mind with these mental pictures, for feeding the soul with idealism, for quickening the imagination and propelling it toward great ends. All these things can the story do. The story influences conduct. — It would be better to say that the good story tends to make conduct what it should be. For we must not rely upon stories alone to make character. We have seen that the story grips the feelings and that they, in turn, tend to express themselves in action. We have noted that attractive ideals tend to embody them- 140 THE USE OF THE STORY selves in human personality. We have also seen that the impressions of childhood stories abide and influence one even into mature years. And, added to this, under the power of their admiration for heroes and heroines, Juniors strive to emulate their heroes, and so great ideals become incarnated in the lives of growing boys and girls. Since these things are so, no teacher of Juniors can afford to deny himself the power of the story method. STORY INTERESTS OF JUNIORS One can learn about the story interests of Juniors in many books on story-telling or in books which deal with the characteristics of childhood. In these books we find our Junior referred to as be¬ longing to the “heroic age,” or the “Big-Injun age,” or, possibly, the “realistic age.” The story interests of a Junior are not hard to find. His interest is in hero stories, adventure stories, achievement stories, and stories of history. Hero interests. — The stories which the Junior hears will determine more surely than any other factor the kind of heroes whom he will admire. In these days, when the moving-picture story is fashioning the heroes for the childhood of the race, the incentive for the teacher to tell hero stories is stronger than ever. More and more hero stories should be told, stories which star heroes who are worth emulating instead of those who can shoot the straightest, ride the swiftest, or evade the most cleverly the hungry lions in the arena. If Bill Hart can shoot, so could Livingstone. Can Douglas Fairbanks ride? So could Marcus Whit- 141 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL man. Can the cinema hero “stop the mouths of lions”? So could Samson, the hero of a far-off tale. Adventure interests. — To the Junior every new day is an adventure in living, and he likes it full to the brim of the adventurous. Miss Cather sug¬ gests that the boys who would play pirate and brigand while they try to avoid the watchful eye of the policeman be given the right kind of stories of adventure that they may in part express these instincts in the adventures of story heroes.1 The establishment of the kingdom of God upon this earth is the greatest adventure upon which the human race has ever embarked. Its progress has depended upon one great adventure after another. Such adventures in Christian living are being launched every day in the lives of men and women, boys and girls. The literature of the church is full of these stories, and they are the natural food stuff for youthful souls. Achievement interests. — Juniors like to see re¬ sults. They applaud vociferously the hero crowned with success. What is success? How is it to be measured? What kinds of achievement deserve our applause? At whose feet shall we lay our laurel crowns? Upon an early recognition of just such values depends the whole character and destiny of boys and girls. Achievement is splendid, but it makes all the difference in the world what a man desires and what he achieves. Historical interest. — The Junior craves what he calls “true” stories. This does not mean that he is to be denied all the great folk lore of the past in which heroes fought and lived in a great cause. i See Cather, Educating by Story-Telling , p. 33. 142 THE USE OF THE STORY King Arthur and his knights he enjoys because they were true to their ideals. The great field of biography is open to the Junior teacher, for here are “true stories, ” and here too are stories of heroes, of adventure and of achievement. Miss Cather2 distinguishes between the biographies of more or less mythical men and women and those whose deeds history records with certainty. She says that the former stories are “true in spirit” while the latter are “true in fact.” Both kinds the Junior will hear. But, the church-school teacher will, perhaps, find more opportunity to tell the life stories of men and women who have actually lived and lived greatly. A book like Hunting’s Stories of Brotherhood furnishes biographical material of this kind. TYPES OF STORIES FOR JUNIORS When we have classified stories according to the story interests of childhood, we have given a basis for selection of story material that will meet the developing needs of child nature between the years nine and eleven. But there still remains the ne¬ cessity of classifying them in the groups which the Junior teacher will be most likely to use in his teaching. Any good story is suitable for telling in any good church-school class. But there are certain types of stories which will be more likely to meet the immediate aims of the Junior teacher. These are Bible stories, ethical stories, missionary stories, appreciation stories, and, occasionally, enter¬ tainment stories. It will be seen at a glance that * From Cather 's Educating by Story-Telling, copyright, 1918, by World Book Company, Yonkers-on-Hudson, N. Y. 143 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL this classification is not a very logical one, as a Bible story may be ethical, and an appreciation story could be drawn from the field of missionary literature or some other field. The classes are not mutually exclusive. But they designate fields from which the teacher is apt to draw his story material. Bible stories. — The Bible is a great storybook. Its stories meet the tests of good story-telling. They are full of action; they move swiftly; they have life-giving content; their heroes are ethical according to the standards of the times in which they lived; they are vivid stories, full of not-to-be-forgotten pictures. Yet, the Bible stories need to be carefully selected and adapted, just as most of the literature of any past race and generation does, to meet the needs of childhood. It is sometimes claimed that because the Bible is the product of a race in its infancy, its literature is, therefore, suitable for youth to-day. It is true that a race in its infancy is apt to pro¬ duce stories with certain essentially childlike ele¬ ments which are desirable for childhood. But there is usually a vast range of experience in any such literature, and some of it is not and was not written for youth. Let us remember that this is just as true of the literature of the Hebrew people, and let us reserve for more mature years those related experiences of a great people which only mature years can com¬ prehend, and let us offer to children the Joseph cycle and the story of the young man David and others which are adapted to their needs. It is claimed by many story-tellers that Bible stories should be kept, as far as possible, in the 144 THE USE OF THE STORY Bible language, some even insisting upon the King James version. The beauty of much of the King James version is recognized by everyone. But it must be remembered that it is a language far re¬ moved from the present usage of children. There seems to be no more reason for confining the telling of Bible stories to an obsolete form of speech than the hero tales of any other race. When the literature of every race, even the early English tales, is worked over and retold for boys and girls, why should they be expected to enjoy the Bible stories in unfamiliar words and phrases? There seems to be every reason why, for Juniors, who want things to seem real and vivid, and who want the past to seem like the Now and the Here, the stories of the Bible heroes should be retold in accordance with all the rules for the retelling of all the other stories from the past, which they are hearing in school and at the public library story hours. One young woman confessed that the Bible had never seemed like a real book to her because from childhood she had never been able to get away from its obsolete phraseology. If we can free our¬ selves from our traditional ideas and feelings about this great book, we shall discover that the Bible loses much of its possible power for children in the realistic age just because it does not seem real to them. It is a pity that heroes and heroines so very real and human and story situations so true to life in every age should lose any of their spiritual vitality because of the form in which they are told. The surest way to see that the Junior will turn to the Bible pages and read the old stories in the 145 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL beauty of their original setting is to tell them in all the vividness of the language which is real to him. Another way in which the Bible stories may be made more real is by giving children the “wholes” of Bible narratives. We need more short courses in the church school, where Juniors may start a subject or a life and complete it while interest is keen and with a vision of that subject or that life as a whole. Not many public schools spend fifty- two or even forty lessons on the biography of one man. Yet many a church-school class dissects Paul’s life or the life of Jesus thus minutely and in the effort to study every incident loses the significance of the life as a whole. The writer, after years in a church school where the life of Jesus was taught in recurring cycles, and with minuteness of detail, graduated from col¬ lege and came to the teaching of her first class with no distinct picture of the life of Jesus as a whole. One of the first things she did, after she had studied that life until she knew it from begin¬ ning to end, was to tell it to her ten-year-old girls in four class-room periods. She will never forget the marvelous interest those little girls showed as the Jesus-story grew from Sunday to Sunday. On the last Sunday, when the story of his death was briefly told, with no effort to work upon their emo¬ tions, but, rather, with studied attempt not to make it too gripping, the teacher suddenly noticed that there were tears in the eyes of almost every little girl. For the first time in their lives the Hero of heroes lived for them as truly as did all those others whom they loved and admired. They had 146 THE USE OF THE STORY followed his life through quickly from birth and childhood to manhood and its sudden but glorious end, and they felt the power of it. Ethical stories. — The Junior teacher can make splendid use of those stories which tend to develop certain character traits and attitudes. Sometimes there arises in a class a certain situation which demands reform. A story may pave the way. Possi¬ bly some child needs to be helped to overcome a fault. Why not let the well-chosen story wield its power? There are books and lists3 which will help the teacher discover such stories and some¬ times a situation may be saved by a story instead of by sterner or more direct discipline. Missionary stories. — There is no story the appeal of which is stronger to the average Junior than that chosen from the field of missionary heroism. Here are true stories, stories of heroes, of exploits, and of adventure. These are no mythical tales; living men and women move through them. In one church school the interest in the opening serv¬ ice of worship, which was almost null and void, was revived by the introduction into the service of the five-minute missionary story each Sunday. The missionary story may be the best kind of a “conduct” story, for it is in the lands where Chris¬ tianity is newly tried that one is apt to see the real transformation of life and conduct. On the mission field ideals of conduct are not blurred and softened down. They stand out sharp and clear. Such stories do not need to be saved for the special mis¬ sionary occasion. They may be used in the teaching of any lesson. After looking far and wide and 3 See list at end of this chapter. 147 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL failing to find it elsewhere, the Junior teacher will often find in the book of missionary heroism, just the story which he needs. Appreciation stories. — This class of stories will include a great variety of other classifications, but it deserves mention by itself because of the great value of the method it implies. We become like that which we love and admire. It is because the church school is, above all else, concerned with what its children will become, that it is one of its legitimate functions to cultivate in youth the power of appreciation. The Junior teacher and superintendent will find occasion to use a variety of appreciation stories. There is the story which leads to a deeper appre¬ ciation of some great hymn, or a passage from the Psalms. Possibly a great picture of deep religious significance is to be studied and the Juniors will need a story to make them feel its beauty and its message. Sometimes the appreciation story helps the Junior to feel and admire the fine qualities of people of other races. The more we can build up and strengthen the ability to appreciate, the more sure we may be of raising a generation of happy, idealistic people who have inner resources of spiritual enjoyment. Entertainment stories. — There are times when the church-school teacher needs to know how to tell a story which will merely make the time pass pleas¬ antly. The church to-day must provide wholesome entertainment for some of the leisure hours of its young people. A church in a small community where there was no adequate public library ran a summer story hour every morning from ten to 148 THE USE OF THE STORY twelve for the children who did not go away to summer resorts. Then there is the occasional party which the Junior Department is sure to hold during the year, when, after more lively games, all settle down for the story hour. To learn how to entertain helps one to master the art of teaching. WHEN AND WHERE TO USE STORIES In the preceding paragraphs it has been inti¬ mated that there are a number of places in the Junior Department where stories may be used. The Junior leader does well to have a variety of stories tucked up her sleeve, so that she may pull them out upon a minute’s notice. Exigencies are sure to arise and ability to tell a good story often saves the day. The story in the service of worship. — We shall see in the chapters on worship how central a place the story holds in the service of worship for Juniors. Since the story sets forth the worship theme of the morning, the Junior leader will need to know a large number of stories suitable for worship. She ought to make herself familiar with many col¬ lections, keeping a record of where each is found. The story in the lesson period. — What is true of the Junior superintendent is also true of the Junior teacher. Since the story is so powerful, the teacher will not only want to know how to tell the “lesson story,” but she will want to know a great number of other stories to supplement the teaching of a lesson, illustrating and enriching the teaching ma¬ terial. She too will turn the pages of many story¬ books and will, if she can, save her pennies in order that she may own a few of the best ones. A library 149 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL of a half dozen well-chosen story-books will make the Junior teacher’s lesson preparation a delight. The story in the missionary program. — We have already noted the power and popularity of mis¬ sionary stories with boys and girls. We have noted that these stories may be used in the teaching of almost any lesson or in any service of worship. But they take a central place in the regular mis¬ sionary program. The Junior teacher or leader should become familiar with the missionary literature of the church. Here is a worthwhile reason for joining a mission study class or going to a summer conference of missionary education where the teach¬ ing of missionary material is stressed. The story in the week-day meeting. — The kind of a story used in the week-day gathering of Juniors depends, of course, upon the character of that meeting. If it is a social occasion, the stories will be told to entertain. If the week-day meeting is in the form of a Mission Band, the type of story is determined. Possibly the Juniors are meeting to perform some service activity, and the leader will want to tell a story first, aimed to quicken the desire to serve, or perhaps to furnish information about this particular task they are undertaking. Possibly the story will follow the work hour as a reward for concentrated and earnest toil, and as a means of relaxation. The week-day group may be the church-school meeting for some specified part of its religious educational program. What part this is will deter¬ mine the type of story used. In some cases the Junior teacher may find it possible to get the class together on a week day, either occasionally or 150 THE STORY IN THE SERVICE OF WORSHIP Juniors of the First Congregational Church, Oak Park, Illinois THE USE OF THE STORY regularly, and may use part of this week-day hour for stories which will strengthen some part of the Sunday program — stories for which there is not time on Sunday. The story for special occasions. — Sometimes stories for special occasions are hard to find. Christ¬ mas has its wealth of literature and other holidays are almost equally fortunate, but there are some occasions for which story material is scarce. The teacher will find help here by watching the mag¬ azines and current periodicals, especially the period¬ icals of the church-school boards.4 The Junior teacher would do well to keep a story scrapbook and paste into this any unusual stories which she finds in periodical literature so that she may be sure to have them when Mother's Day, or Clean-Up Week, or some other special occasion comes around. SOURCES OF STORY MATERIAL FOR JUNIORS The following bibliography has been made with the church-school story-teller in mind. Almost all of the stories need adaptation for telling. From them the story-teller will select and adapt the particular incidents which she needs for her special use. The books which are suitable for Juniors to read by themselves are marked with an asterisk. Those not thus marked are intended only for the use of the story-teller. This list does not attempt to cover the entire range of stories for children of the Junior age, but seeks only to include the kind of story of which the Junior teacher in the church school will make the largest use. A few suggestions 4 Consult such magazines as The Church School, The Pilgrim Elementary Mag¬ azine, Missionary Education, Everyland, and others. 151 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL are given as to where to look for stories in the general field of children’s story-telling as well as some sugges¬ tions of good books and lists on children’s reading. Where to Find Bible Stories: *Hodges — The Garden of Eden. *Hodges — The Castle of Zion. * Hodges — When the King Came. *Frayser — Followers of the Marked Trail. Houghton — Telling Bible Stories. *Baldwin — Old Stories of the East. *Baker and Baker — The Bible in Graded Story. Olcott — Bible Stories to Read and to Tell. Where to Find Ethical Stories: Cabot — Ethics for Children. Cather — Educating by Story-Telling , Chapter XIII. (Contains a list of stories to develop or stamp out certain traits and instincts.) Dadmun — Living Together. *Lambertson — Rules of the Game. *Baldwin — American Book of Golden Deeds. *Babbitt — Jataka Tales. Richards — The Golden Windows. Slosson — Story Tell Lib. Sneath, Hodges, Tweedy — The King's Highway Series. Miller — My Book House. Volume entitled The Latch Key. (Consult ethical index.) Where to Find Stories for Special Occasions: Bailey — Stories for Every Holiday. Olcott — Good Stories for Great Holidays. * Dickinson — Children's Book of Christmas Stories. Skinner — Little Folks' Christmas Stories and Plays. Van Dyke — The Other Wise Man. *Skinner — Emerald Story Book (Spring and Easter). Slosson — Story Tell Lib (“The Little Boy Who Was Scaret o’ Dyin’,” Easter). THE USE OF THE STORY Where to Find Hero Stories: *Pyle — The Story of King Arthur and His Knights. *Boutet de Monvel — Joan of Are. *Bolton — Poor Boys Who Became Famous. *Bolton — Girls Who Became Famous. *Richards — Florence Nightingale. *Faulkner — Red Cross Stories. *M at hews — Argonauts of Faith (Stories of the Pilgrims). *Vail — Heroic Lives. * Jewett — God's Troubadour (St. Francis of Assisi). Heroes of Industry and Peace Gould — Heroes of Peace. Gould — Victors of Peace. ^Hunting — Stories of Brotherhood. *Baldwin — American Book of Golden Deeds. Grenfell — Adrift on an Ice Pan. *Parkman — Heroes of To-day. *Parkman — Heroines of Service. Riis — The Making of an American. Antin — The Promised Land. Where to Find Missionary Stories: Missionary Heroes *Mendenhall — Livingstone Hero Stories. * Mathews — Livingstone the Pathfinder. * Pa ton — The Story of John G. Patou. *Keith — The Black-Bearded Barbarian. *Faris — Winning the Oregon Country. *Fahs — Uganda's White Man-of-Work. *Cronk and Singmaster — Under many Flags. Kerr — Children's Missionary Story Sermons. *Applegarth — Lamp-Lighters Across the Sea. *Brummitt — Brother Van. Seebach -—Martin of Mansfield. Hutton — Missionary Program Material. 153 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Heroes of All Races *McKenzie — African Adventurers . *Ferris — Giovanni , Story of an Italian Boy. *Seaman — Americans All. *Ferris — The Honorable Crimson Tree. *Here and There Stories (Woman’s Board of Missions, 14 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.) *Fahs — Red, Yellow and Black. Burton — Comrades in Service. Speer — Servants of the King. *Hubbard — A Noble Army. Washington — Up from Slavery. *Brown — Old Country Hero Stories. * Wilson — Goodbird the Indian. Hutton — Missionary Program Material. Where to Find Stories About Pictures: *Chandler — Magic Pictures of Long Ago. *Chandler — More Magic Pictures of Long Ago. *Bacon — Pictures That Every Child Should Know. *Dela Ramee — Child of Urbino (“Bimbi” Stories). Where to Find General Stories: (The stories in this list would be appropriate to tell at children’s parties. Some stories in the other groups would also be suitable.) ^Harris — Uncle Remus Tales. *Kipling — Just So Stories. Quiller Couch — The Roll Call of Honor. Cather — The Pigeons of Venice (“Educating by Story- Telling’’). Dadmun — The Spring in the Sandy Desert (from “Living Together’’). Cather — The Duty That Was Not Paid (from “Edu¬ cating by Story-Telling”). Wilson — Myths of the Red Men, 154 THE USE OF THE STORY *LeBlanc — The Blue Bird for Children. Wilde — The Happy Prince. Olcott — Good Stories for Great Holidays. *Babbitt — Jataka Tales. Griffis — The Unmannerly Tiger and Other Tales (Korean). *Cather — Pan and His Pipes and Other Stories. Browning — How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix. Bolton — Poor Boys Who Became Famous. Where to Look for Story Lists: Esenwein — Children's Stories and How to Tell Them (Part III. Reading and Reference Lists Arranged by Ages and Topics). Cather — Educating by Story-Telling (Lists under dif¬ ferent topics. Also a list of stories for each month of the year for the first eight years of school. Also a complete bibliography of storybooks.) A list of Good Stories to Tell Children Under Twelve Years of Age, Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh, Pa. Guides to the Junior’s Reading: The Book Shelf for Boys and Girls , published by Chil¬ dren’s Department, Brooklyn Public Library. (Book¬ let of about fifty pages. Can be secured for twenty- five cents.) Olcott — The Children's Reading. Field — Finger Posts to Children's Reading. Periodicals Containing Stories for Children: Everyland, published by Missionary Education Move¬ ment, 150 Fifth Avenue, New York. Pilgrim Elementary Teacher , Pilgrim Press, 14 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. Missionary Education , published by Board of Sunday Schools of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 58 East Washington Street, Chicago, Illinois, 155 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL John Martin's Book , John Martin Book House, 33 West 49th Street, New York. The Story-Teller , published by The Story-Teller Com¬ pany, 80 Fifth Avenue, New York. For Further Reading : Cather — Educating by Story Telling , Chapters 1, 4, 9, 10, and 12. CHAPTER X TELLING STORIES TO JUNIORS To tell stories successfully to Juniors requires a mastery of the art of story-telling. The Junior story-teller must, first of all, know how to select story material for Juniors; he must know how to work that material over until it is suited to his Junior audience; he must understand the simple outline of a good story, must know the best way to prepare his story for telling, and, last of all, must study some of the methods which will make the actual telling of his story effective. THE ART OF STORY-TELLING If the Junior teacher is to use the story method, what is involved? There are a number of steps to be taken before the story is ever ready for the telling. Real preparation to tell the story begins long before the story-teller sits down with his story to make it his own. For he must decide which story, of all the wealth of stories, is the best one to tell. What is a “good” story? How does the story-teller go to work to prepare a story for telling? What are the most effective ways of telling stories? How to know a good story. — All stories are not good for all children and stories are not good simply because they are found in a church-school textbook. In selecting a story the first question to ask is, 157 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL “Does it meet the Junior’s story interests?” Possi¬ bly it is too simple for him and more suited to the Primary child. Possibly it is too old for him and will mean a great deal more to him if it is saved until he arrives at the romantic age. Let us not spoil the work of the story-teller during the adoles¬ cent period by using material which belongs to him, for there is a wealth of story literature which is suitable for the Junior alone. But it is not enough that the story should meet the Junior’s interests. It is conceivable that it might do that and still not be a “good” story for him to hear. There are adventure stories which are purely adventurous and sacrifice reality to be so. There are hero stories which star the wrong kind of a hero. There are stories of achievements which are far from enviable. There is a difference some¬ times between “what is good taste and what tastes good.” The truly good story always has a life- giving content. Some stories are not worth the time spent upon them because the truths they contain are not great or stimulating enough for the eager minds of children. Is the story we are going to tell such that the Junior’s imagination will be “captured by goodness”? The story should be true to life, not exaggerated. The trouble with many stories seen on the screen is that the situations in them are unreal and exag¬ gerated. They give children an untrue idea of life, a wrong perspective. Even a fairy tale must be true to the laws of life as it is lived in fairyland. For Juniors, as for all other children, the story should “ring true.” Last of all, the literary quality of the story should 158 TELLING STORIES TO JUNIORS be of the best. To judge of this quality, some books on story-writing and telling will help. If one has not a clear judgment on this, one must rely upon the opinion of those who have studied this subject and who know. The story which is a “good telling story” is full of action; it moves along swiftly, unim¬ peded by much description or any unnecessary detail. It leaves much to the imagination of child¬ hood and children are quick to fill in the suggested picture with quick strokes of the brush. The good story is full of real but dramatic situations; it holds the interest by well-sustained suspense. It is beautiful in its imagery, its ideas, and its language. How to tell a good story. — The second essential in the art of the story-teller, after learning how to recognize a good story, is, how to tell a good story. And the process of story-telling begins with out¬ lining the story so that the story-teller first of all and then his audience may see it clearly and love its pictures. OUTLINING THE STORY It will be a great help to the Junior story-teller if he forms the habit of making story outlines, at least until he has acquired ability as a story-teller. It is doubtful whether even the greatest artists ever get away from some analysis of their material, though years of practice may enable them to do it in a less mechanical way than at the beginning. The amateur can afford to take a paper and pencil and note the various scenes in his story from begin¬ ning to end. First, he will decide what is the special message of this story and write out its theme. This will 159 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL be very simple and uninvolved if it is a good story and has unity of thought and action. What is the central message of this particular story? Then follows the story outline. Of course this outline is merely for the teacher’s help in preparation. After the story has been mastered, the outline as it appears on paper should be quite forgotten. A good beginning. — The first element in the story outline is a good beginning. The child’s interest must be caught with the opening words. What is a good beginning? Some one has suggested that a good beginning is one that begins at once. This means that our Junior wants to get into the action of the story with the very first sentences. No long introduction* or detailed explanations or descriptions are tolerated by childhood. “On with the play” is the cry. Miss Slattery tells of once trying to discover from a group of public-school children, who had been having a series of story afternoons, what stories they liked best and why. One child said that he liked the “stories that began in the middle.” Upon closer questioning, it appeared that he had in mind a story which began something like this, “It was nine o’clock, and Jean was hurrying down the street.” Let the action start with the first words and sometimes let the action start “in the middle.” Do you remember how quickly the action starts in the story of Gideon? “Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from [his enemies] the Midianites.” Then the angel appears and startles Gideon, as well as any group of listeners, with his abrupt salutation, “The Lord is with thee, 160 TELLING STORIES TO JUNIORS thou mighty man of valor.” The story-teller who feels that perhaps the story of Gideon is too fa¬ miliar to his audience may disregard this very fine beginning and plunge further into the middle of the story. He may commence, “He was standing at the door of his tent and his army lay encamped before him. Over the hills the day before had swarmed the Midianites, the enemies of his people, and they came in as locusts for multitude.” To begin farther into “the middle” of certain familiar Bible tales will often arouse and hold the interest of Juniors. A good beginning should not only start the action immediately but it should, in a few sentences, give the setting of the story so that the background against which the characters move is perfectly clear. Then the first sentences should stir the imagina¬ tion so that the mind leaps forward with antici¬ pation to hear what becomes of the hero or what is to happen next. The beginning must make us want to know the end. In the Gideon story the mind is aroused at once. Why was Gideon thresh¬ ing in the winepress? Why must he hide from the Midianites? Why did the angel say, “The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor”? We are immediately concerned to find out these things and to know what comes of them. A simple, direct plot. — The plot is that tying up of the action, that presentation of a series of actions or incidents which become more and more involved, until they are suddenly cleared away at the climax of the story. Children’s stories must have very simple plots. In order that there may be suspense, the hero, of course, must meet with some obstacles, 161 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL some situations must need clearing up, some struggle with circumstances or with the inner desires must take place. But the story-teller must decide just what events are those which will be necessary to the main thought and action of the story. Omit any incidents or details which do not carry the action forward or add to the meaning of the story. See that the action moves swiftly. Do not bring in any detail, however interesting in itself, if it is not essential to the meaning of the story; it will only divert the interest from the main plot of the story. A strong climax. — The climax is the high point of the story. Here interest culminates. All through the good story there have been various crises each of which leaves the listener in suspense, filled with wonder as to whether the hero will be victorious. In the good tale the promise of victory alternates cleverly with possibility of defeat, until the listener, at the point of the climax, is breathless with desire to know how it will all come out. At the climax victory comes, situations are cleared up, the struggle is over. A convincing end. — When victory comes and the struggle is over, so is the story. If a good story begins at the beginning, it ends with the end of the action. If it is a good story, it does not need any appended word of explanation or any further development of its meaning. Such afterthoughts only mean an anti-climax and possibly moral confusion. PREPARING THE STORY FOR TELLING The outlining of the story is, of course, the first step by way of preparation. But after that comes the actual working over of the story until it be- 162 TELLING STORIES TO JUNIORS comes the possession of the story-teller and it is his to hand on to others. These steps of prepara¬ tion may be called seeing the story, feeling the story, adapting the story, practicing the story, and living the story. Seeing the story. — It is almost trite to say that the story-teller must first see his story before he can make others see it, but, like many really mean¬ ingful words, it needs to be said often. This process of seeing the story eliminates haste in preparation. It means real study of the background of the story, its main pictures, until its atmosphere is as real to the story-teller as that in which he lives and moves. He must live and move in the world of his story, and then he will be able to transport his Juniors on a sort of Aladdin’s carpet to that same story world. It is particularly necessary for teachers to visualize the background of Bible stories, and this means that teachers must know that background through reading books and studying courses which will make the setting of the Bible stories as real to them as stories taken from Amer¬ ican history. Feeling the story. — It is not only essential to see vividly the pictures of the story and the actors in it. The story-teller must also feel the story atmosphere. Writers on story-telling claim that no one should ever attempt to tell a story unless it appeals to him, unless he loves it so much and enters so sympathetically into its mood that he wants, above everything else, to share its meaning with some one else. Certainly, one must feel the beauty or power of the story before one can make a group of children enter into its meaning. 163 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL The question for the teacher or story-teller to face, then, is, “Are you gripped by the meaning of the story you are to tell?” Unless you are, unless you can identify yourself with the thought and feelings of the story, you cannot be sincere in telling it. And children are quick to detect insin¬ cerity of any kind. Every teacher may well ask himself, “Does next Sunday’s lesson story grip me?” If it does not, how, then, can I teach it? Adapting the story. — Some stories must be adapted before they can be told. If the story is too long, it must be shortened, for brevity is the soul of story-telling. If the story is too meager, it must be expanded. While too many details are an encumbrance to the movement of the tale, too few details mar its effectiveness. There must be enough detail to stir the imagination, and to make the background of the story familiar to the child. By comparing the story to be told with the out¬ line of a good story 1 one can tell whether it needs adaptation of structure. Sometimes, to bring out one point, certain incidents will be emphasized and others slighted or omitted. If the story is told to bring out another point, there will be need for a rearrangement of scenes. Sometimes the lan¬ guage will need to be changed. This does not mean to make the language any less beautiful, but for the purposes of vividness some old tales need a phraseology nearer to the child’s own daily expe¬ rience. Language does not need to be changed just because it is old, only when its unfamiliarity fails to make the pictures vivid to the child. Many stories, the plots and ideas of which are good, lack 1 See pp. 159-162. 164 TELLING STORIES TO JUNIORS vividness as we find them on the printed page because there is not sufficient vividness of style. The discourse may need to be changed from indirect to direct form, so that the characters talk to each other. The story may simply give actions with no word pictures to stimulate the imagination. In all of these ways the story-teller may have to enrich and reorganize his stories. However, it is not necessary to adapt all stories. Many of them could not be improved; they come to us in perfect form for telling. Practicing the story. — Most amateurs are afraid to rehearse their stories. They grow self-conscious at the thought. Yet many a story fails to grip children just because the one telling it has not practiced it until he knows it so thoroughly that it is his own. Practice is nine tenths of the secret of good story-telling. This point of thoroughly mastering the story cannot be overemphasized. It is not enough to think that by going over the story silently many times we have mastered it. We have not mastered it until we have heard the sound of our own voices. It is often surprising to find that though we think we know a story very well, when we come to say it aloud, we have to pause and hesitate. He who hesitates in the telling of a story is lost. Behind closed doors, standing as though facing one’s group, imagining that eager group before one, the story-teller should say his story aloud with all the vividness and charm he can command. And not only once should this be done, but several times, until one feels confidence and ease in the sense of mastery. 165 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Living the story. — When we spoke of feeling the story, we mentioned the fact that the story¬ teller must like and enter into the mood of his story if he is to tell it well. This is not an excuse for not telling certain great stories; it is a challenge to the teacher to bring himself up to the fine mood of the story. Has the lesson story gripped us? If not, let us not discard it, but, rather, let us seek to live its truth in our own lives. It is true that we cannot lead where we have not first followed. We must know the trail before we act as guides. Here is one of the greatest incentives a teacher has for enriching his personality and for living greatly. Dr. Esenwein says, “He should kindle the flame in his own life before he attempts to pass on the torch.”2 So let the teacher or leader live with the story he is to tell, live with it until he has made its greatness his own; let him not only live with it but live it. TELLING THE STORY The person who would like to become a really excellent story-teller must do more than read one or two chapters on story-telling. He ought to go into the study of the art with greater thoroughness than is possible in a general course on methods. Even though this is not possible for all, yet one can learn a few of the most essential and simple rules of story-telling and begin by practicing them conscientiously whenever one has an opportunity. Professor St. John speaks of some of these rules as “tricks of the story-teller’s trade.”3 Let us see 2 Esenwein, Children's Stories and How to Tell Them, Home Correspondence School, Springfield, Mass. 3 St. John, Stories and Story Telling, Chapter VI. Pilgrim Press. 1 66 TELLING STORIES TO JUNIORS what a few of them are and how we can apply them. The attitude of the story-teller. — Beginners often do not realize how important is the attitude of the story-teller. If the one telling a story is full of its meaning, his attitude is apt to be what it ought to be, full of animation and evident delight. En¬ joyment kindles enjoyment in others. But this enjoyment must be sincere. A forced vivacity is quickly discernible and distasteful to children. Animation does not mean restlessness, constant moving of the body. The story-teller should culti¬ vate poise; not stiffness, but a quiet manner. Do not make movements with any part of your body, except to change the position occasionally or to make a gesture which helps out the telling of the tale. Sometimes a person acquires habits of posture which greatly detract from the power of his story telling, but of which he is utterly uncon¬ scious. Any mannerisms which are at all notice¬ able will rivet the attention of Juniors upon the story-teller’s peculiarities instead of upon the story. Make actions predominant. — Remember, all through the telling of a story, to make the actions predominant rather than descriptions. It should not be necessary to describe the hero in a good story. Let his actions tell what he is. The Junior will have “action, good or bad.” The secret of character-painting is to make the characters vivid through their activity. Use direct discourse. — This is one of the simplest devices of good story-telling and one most imme¬ diately productive of results. See how lagging interest revives when the characters in the story 167 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL begin to talk directly to each other! Take any of the stories which Jesus told, such as the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and see how they are master¬ pieces in this respect. Take one of those stories and turn it into indirect discourse and see how it loses its vividness and power to hold attention. Use concrete terms. — We have said repeatedly in these pages that for the Junior, ideals and concepts grow out of concrete images. The Junior under¬ stands the concrete, where abstractions have little meaning to him. What people do he comprehends. How they feel when they are doing it or how others felt when they saw him doing it, do not interest the average child. Employ variety. — Interest in the story is pre¬ served by some very simple devices of manner and voice. A change in the speaking tone from loud to low, from fast to slow, or vice versa, will often bring back wandering attention. Merely a change in inflection will put new meaning into a story. Suddenly to drop the voice from a high to a low pitch will immediately create the impression that something is going to happen. The effect of a pause is much the same. The story-teller pauses, and his listeners wait with suspense to hear what is coming. Such pauses should come where the action is critical, so that the audience may not be disappointed in what follows the pause. Avoid moralizing. — It seems unnecessary to say this, for all books on story-telling for years have moralized on the bad effects of moralizing. Per¬ haps teachers of religion need this caution more than others because they are chiefly concerned with morals and conduct and so much of the teach- 168 TELLING STORIES TO JUNIORS ing method of the past has led the teacher to direct the process of truth finding instead of letting the child discover truth for himself. The Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh, says, “Avoid moralizing, for if a story is good enough to tell, it will do its own teaching. ” And it is easy to see that if a story has a great message of beauty and power, that message will pervade the entire story. If one must explain the message at the end, then the story has no mes¬ sage and does not deserve telling. Be full of the meaning of the story. — In studying the technique of any art the student may become so conscious of his technique that he loses the power of the artist. True art is where technique is merely the form which expression takes to give out a great idea. When the story has been outlined and prepared and practiced in accordance with the rules of good story-telling, then the story-teller wants to forget the mechanics of the art and give himself up to the meaning of his story. Then let nothing come between him and the group of waiting children for whom the story is to be the door into a world of beauty, of delight, and of lasting idealism. For Further Reading : Esenwein — Children’s Stories and How to Tell Them. Cather — Educating by Story-Telling. St. John — Stories and Story-Telling. Bryant — How to Tell Stories to Children. Shedlock — The Art of the Story-Teller. Lyman — Story-Telling , What to Tell and How to Tell It. Houghton — Telling Bible Stories. MacClintock — Literature in the Elementary Schools. 169 CHAPTER XI EDUCATING JUNIORS THROUGH WORSHIP The possibilities of worship as a factor in reli¬ gious education have been overlooked by many who are actually engaged in the educational task in our churches. In some church schools there is singing of songs, praying of prayers, reading of Scripture, and more singing of songs — but no wor¬ ship. This is not a harsh or unjust criticism. A comparison between the opening services in the church school and the service of worship for the adult congregation in the same church will reveal how often the form or spirit of worship is lacking in much of the program known as the opening or closing “exercises.” The program of worship is of vital concern to every teacher in a church school as well as to the one who is selected to lead the worship. Let us who are teachers pause a moment in our thinking and recall our own great moments of worship — those times when we felt an outgoing of our whole selves toward God and felt too that he was coming to meet us in that experience. Then let us imagine our own Juniors having some such feeling Sunday after Sunday as they meet for worship. In the school where there is such real worship, the task of the teacher is infinitely easier, from the point of view of discipline and of the preservation of his teaching values. 170 EDUCATING JUNIORS THROUGH WORSHIP If we can bring into every service of worship in the church school these same qualities which make life’s most worshipful moments so uplifting, we have solved the problem of worship. In order that we may understand how to make worship a real experience to Juniors, let us ask ourselves three questions. What is worship? This will tell us what happens to one in an act of worship. What is worship for? This will unfold the aims of wor¬ ship. How do Juniors worship? This will help us to see our problem concretely. WHAT IS WORSHIP? In the little that has been written on the sub¬ ject of worship there is quite a variety of opinion as to what worship really is. All agree on some elements in worship, but some stress one aspect of it; others, another. Perhaps, if we can again recall our most worshipful moments and try to think of just how we felt, we might agree that three definite things occur whenever a soul is truly worshiping. First of all, there is an outreaching of the self toward God , a feeling of comradeship, or some have called it “communion’’ with him. There is a reciprocal element in this, for as we reach out toward him we also feel that he draws near to us. Then, in such worshipful moments there is some thinking about things which concern God and ourselves. In some moments of worship this thinking is stronger than in others. And there is, in the third place, “ some attitude toward these things definitely taken.1’1 1 Schloerb, Rolland W., The Meaning and Function of Worship in American Protestantism. M. A. Thesis, Northwestern University, 1921. 171 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL That is, we have a decided feeling toward God and the things in which he and we are both interested. Such a definition of worship will mean more to us if, instead of being satisfied with answering the question, “What is worship?” in one or two sentences, we try to discover more in detail what is going on when a person is worshiping. Worship includes emotion, thought, and action. — As we think of those moments when we have most truly worshiped and have had the assurance that God was near, we recognize that our emotions were predominant. However, that outreach of the soul toward God is an act which includes both thought and emotion. If we feel deeply, the tend¬ ency is, also, to do something about it. Our feeling of appreciation or affection for a friend prompts us to do something for him. So when we realize God to be our Friend we are stirred to go out and share his work with him. In this way worship touches the will . But our feeling toward God would not be very deep or permanently satisfying if it were not based on some rather clear thinking about him. Our appreciations of our friends rest upon definite ideas as to what they are like and why they are worthy of our friendship. So in worship there must be some clear thinking about God and our relations to him if our attitude toward him is to be a perfect one. Worship, then, includes thought, emotion, and will — the entire personality of the worshiper. Worship is dominantly emotional. — It is impor¬ tant for the purposes of planning worship to grasp certainly the idea that in worship the attitude of the mind is the important thing. Other parts of 172 EDUCATING JUNIORS THROUGH WORSHIP the educational program may stress the acquisition of ideas or provide for the expression of attitudes in everyday living, but worship touches ideas with emotional power and creates a sense of their worth¬ whileness. Many a program entitled “Worship” may have a large informational element in it. It is necessary, especially for children whose thought- life is not well organized, to set up certain very definite ideas in the service of worship — ideas around which the feelings may play. But the presenting of those ideas is not for the sake of giving new ideas but for the purpose of creating in the worshiper desirable attitudes toward God and others. WHAT IS WORSHIP FOR? Once we have a picture of what is taking place in the mind of the worshiper, we can ask ourselves, “What, then, ought worship to do for him?” Or, from the point of view of those of us who are respon¬ sible for planning worship for children, “What are the aims of worship?” Although some of the following aims overlap each other, we may con¬ clude that worship should aim to accomplish four definite tasks: 1. To make real the sense of companionship with God. 2. To convince one of the worth and the ultimate victory of high ideals. 3. To give dynamic to desirable attitudes. 4. To afford training in worship. To make real the sense of companionship with God. — This function of worship is so fundamental that all the other aims find their beginning or their 173 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL end in it. To make real and to render permanent the consciousness of God as a Father and a Friend and a sense of comradeship with him — this is the chief end of worship. It is notable that religious teachings which are making a strong appeal to men and women to-day are those which make them feel that God envelops them with love and power and health. This surety that God cares is the birthright of every child. Worship should be so planned that it will make possible for boys and girls this God-consciousness which gives purpose to living and produces an inner harmony in the midst of all the complexities of modern life. We need to make God’s presence so real, so concrete, so clearly sensed, that they will naturally turn to God for help and for guidance. His Fatherhood must not be a far-away, remote possibility. Per¬ haps the added word “Friend” will help open up to boys and girls the sense of comradeship with him in the joint task of living. To convince one of the worth and the ultimate victory of ideals. — If people could clearly and con¬ tinuously see or feel the value of high ideals, their conduct would be ideal. But this sense of value is a flickering thing; it grows bright and again it is dim. Psychology tells us that when an idea takes on dynamic quality it produces in the person a sense of its value. We may be assured that gratitude to our heavenly Father is a desirable attitude. We may assent to the idea, but such assent is a vastly different thing from really feeling grateful to him. To keep alive an appreciation of our highest ideals requires moments of uplift such as worship 174 THE PRAYER IN THE SERVICE OF WORSHIP 1 S |HIII I I EDUCATING JUNIORS THROUGH WORSHIP affords. In the rush of present-day living, such occasions for uplift are all too few. In the late afternoon a group of boys at a summer camp climbed a high place overlooking the valley and the hills below. The sun brought out in sharp relief every hollow, every curving hill, every patch of woods. In the impressive silence which fell upon the group, one boy exclaimed, “Wouldn’t it be great if our lives could stand the test of eternity as these hills and valleys stand the light of the sun?” Without stained-glass windows, organ music, or chanted song, this boy was worshiping. He had been granted one of those flashes of insight which come all too seldom in a lifetime. But the conditions of real worship were all there. Note that all the ordinary distractions of life were removed. For the time being, little things, the parts of things, fell away and he saw “life steadily and saw it whole,” with its setting in eternity. To give dynamic to desirable attitudes. — Al¬ though the aim of much of our teaching is to estab¬ lish the desirable attitudes which we would have young people carry over into conduct, there is a way in which worship can do this more surely than any other process. There is born out of real wor¬ ship a longing to express the social God-comradeship feeling. Worship can crystallize this longing into concrete life-attitudes. “Do you know,” said a fifteen-year-old girl, “I can never possibly tell you what these services of worship here in the church school mean to me. They seem to touch our daily lives. I come in here all out of tune some mornings and upset about things and I go away sure that life is worth living. It makes it easy to be good 175 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL all week.” If worship means anything, it means just this, to reenergize the wills of men and women, until we have “the will of man willing immortal things.”2 What attitudes should worship develop? Harts- horne mentions five: Gratitude, Goodwill, Reverence, Faith, and Loyalty.3 Perhaps there are others, or possibly any desirable attitude of which one might think, could be classified under one of the above five. If worship includes some “thinking about things which concern God and ourselves and also some attitude toward these things definitely taken,” then any desirable attitude may be expressed in worship with the conviction that God and we are partners and that in the expression of this attitude, whether it be the attitude of sympathy, patriotism, good citizenship, or generosity, we are sharing God’s purposes with him. To afford training in worship. — One of the very definite aims of education through worship should be to afford a progressive training in the ability to worship. Many an adult has never learned how to worship. Although some feel instinctively the need for expressing themselves in this way and seek that expression in the Sunday-morning service, many others stay away because they do not really enjoy it. Still others attend the service, but frankly do not give their attention to the worship of the morning. They have never been taught how to worship. Juniors are ready to study the form of worship used in the church service on Sunday mornings, 2 Edith Wharton. * Hartshorne, H., Manual for Training in Worship. Charles Scribner's Sons. 176 EDUCATING JUNIORS THROUGH WORSHIP to become familiar with some of the accustomed prayers, hymns, and responses, and they should be given an opportunity, at least occasionally, to participate consciously with the adults in the morn¬ ing worship. On such occasions the service of worship should be planned to appeal to all the ages present. There is probably more of common desire and longing in adults and children than we some¬ times recognize. The common expression of this common desire will unite the family of God as no other thing can do. Training in worship should suggest to youth not only the possibility of its experience in a church but also the possibility of carrying that spirit of worship into other situations. Fortunate is the church school which can occasionally take its chil¬ dren out of doors to worship. Worship should also lead young people occasionally to want, in the midst of the week’s activities, that same sense of quiet and peace which comes when one is alone with God and thinks his thoughts after him. Children should learn through their worship training in the church school how to pray, so that their prayers at home will be more intelligently offered and more satis¬ fying. HOW JUNIORS WORSHIP Junior children are so continuously active and are so frankly challenging the reality of life’s expe¬ riences that we do not catch them, as often as we do adolescents, in the mood which borders on worship. Then, too, the average church-school teacher seldom follows his class members into their everyday experiences of living. He almost 177 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL never sees them in their unguarded moments of spontaneous worship. If the church-school leaders could do this, the problem of providing for children an adequate expression in and through worship would be a simpler one. Juniors may be truly worshiping, in a crude and violent form, and we may fail to recognize their mood as one of wor¬ ship. Juniors may be unconventional in their expres¬ sion of worship. — Juniors are not bound by tra¬ ditions. They will not feel impelled to worship in a certain set way. Their expression of the spirit of worship may even border on the irreverent, as far as the form of it goes, when there is within their soul only the deepest reverence. One night when Grenfell, of the Labrador, was showing his pictures and telling of his adventures, in one place in the program the hymn, “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” was announced. “Gosh! I love that song,” exclaimed a ten-year-old in the front row, and he sang it lustily. There was little doubt that he was worshiping; something had gripped him. His expression of adoration was not that of conventional worship; and he was on ordinary occasions a stumbling-block in the church-school service. Yet he was evidently capable of entering wholeheartedly into the spirit of worship. Juniors like variety in their worship. — The Junior boy who said he liked the stories in the service of worship best because “the stories were always different while the songs were the same,” indicated that children do not enjoy set forms which grow old and monotonous. Variety of activity has its appeal to the Junior in worship just as it does in his play 178 EDUCATING JUNIORS THROUGH WORSHIP or his work. He will follow a simple order of worship and enjoy its regularity for awhile, and then will welcome some change. Or he may enjoy a form of worship for an indefinite amount of time, if within that form there is sufficient variety in the materials of worship. Juniors need concreteness and directness in their worship. — The materials of worship need to be concrete for the Junior boy and girl. The beauty of this particular October day on which we are worshiping will arouse more gratitude than the thought of the beauty of nature in general. The story of Grenfell, who traveled unflinchingly through severe cold and hardship to save a sick boy’s life, will stimulate a sincerer prayer for willingness to do our duty than a glowing dissertation on the grandeur of the heroic. Services of worship should be aimed to arouse very directly the specific atti¬ tudes which a Junior should have toward God and his work. Juniors need preparation for worship. — Juniors worship best when their minds have been carefully prepared for each part of the service. Because the Junior’s attention is directed toward many things, the leader should plan to secure that attention by some definitely interesting approach during the first few minutes of the service of worship. Then the leader should keep that attention fixed upon every part of the service by some striking word of explanation, or a hint as to the meaning of what follows, or a brief story or incident told to prepare the worshiper to enter into the spirit of the service whether it be through hymn, prayer, or Scripture recitation. 179 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL For Further Reading : Cabot — What Men Live By. Fosdick — The Meaning of Prayer. Hartshorne — Worship in the Sunday School. Von Ogden Vogt — Art and Religion. 180 CHAPTER XII THE ELEMENTS OF A SERVICE OF WORSHIP In building a service of worship there are certain very definite elements to be considered and planned for. These include the materials of worship, the central theme, the story or talk, music, prayer, the responsive service and the offertory. Let us see how we should plan for each one of these ele¬ ments for a group of worshiping Juniors. MATERIALS OF WORSHIP The curriculum of worship has been mentioned before as correlated with the curriculum of informa¬ tion and of activity. The worship service is often the Junior superintendent’s great opportunity to enrich the entire curriculum, for usually he or she has a free hand here. Although the regular course of study may not include as wide a variety of sub¬ ject matter as could be desired for meeting the needs of Juniors, the leader is free to introduce into the curriculum of worship material, from the Bible, from literature, from history, from the records of Christian missions, from art, or from nature. Ma¬ terial for the purposes of worship may be secured wherever it can be found, provided that it carries the desired message. The leader of the Junior Department, or whoever is to conduct the service of worship, will do well to make himself familiar with as many sources of suitable material as possible. 181 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Types of worship material. — Probably the type of material used most frequently will be the story aimed to develop some one of the desirable atti¬ tudes. A reglimpse at our aims of worship will reveal all the possibilities in the way of story ma¬ terial here. A study of the types of worship serv¬ ices1 will suggest what a variety of story material may be used and how closely it may be adapted to the aim of each service of worship. In order to enrich every part of the service of worship, the leader may use the stories of great hymns or stories of times when prayer has been tremendously effective. For the out-of-door service of worship there are the stories of mountains, woods, and waters which lead quite naturally to the repeti¬ tion of the one hundred fourth psalm or to the singing of, “This is My Father’s World.” There is also the material suitable for the special days, when the services of worship will seek to make use of the particular appeal of these special occa¬ sions. Some of the special occasions which will have an appeal for Juniors are: Thanksgiving, Forefathers’ Day, Christmas, New Year’s, Lincoln’s Birthday, Washington’s Birthday, Easter, Mother’s Day, Clean Up Week, Children’s Week, Be Kind- to-Animals Week, Memorial Day, Flag Day, Inde¬ pendence Day. Not all of these special occasions need be memo¬ rialized in any one year, but any one of them is rich in suggestion of ideal qualities which may supply a theme for worship, and almost all of them will furnish an objective for service after worship has given the children suitable motives. _ 1 See end of Chapter XIII, Types of Junior Services of Worship. 182 ELEMENTS OF A SERVICE OF WORSHIP Occasionally pictures or some other expression of art may supply the theme for worship. A series of missionary worship services may lead up to the Sunday when Copping’s picture “The Hope of the World” is unveiled and hung upon the wall of the Junior room. In one school, Abbey’s “The Oath,” from the Holy Grail series, was made the center of a memorable worship service, when the ideals of Loyalty and Heroism had been the themes of worship for a month. Not in one year but in many will the Junior leader use all the wealth of possible curriculum material available for purposes of worship. Let the leader distinguish between that material which, while full of meaning, may be more adapted to the classroom, and that which in its simplicity, its emotional quality, and its beauty will bear its fruit in worship. Correlating worship with instruction and expres¬ sion. — One of the advantages of worship is that it provides for the expression of its own spirit almost immediately in song and prayer and spoken word, but such expression is not sufficient in itself. When worship is deep and vital it naturally seeks other outlets of a more practical and active nature. One group of suburban children after a worship program which presented the story of children in cities and mining centers, asked if they could not go outside at once and pick spring flowers for those who never had a chance to see them. The depart¬ ment immediately went in a body to the little patch of woods near by and gathered flowers which were sent, that very afternoon, into the city ten¬ ement districts for the children there. It is possible i83 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL and advisable to correlate the worship services very closely with the program of service activities. The wise leader of worship will plan also to have some of the services of worship correlated with the discussions which are going on in the various classes in the Junior Department. A CENTRAL THEME Every service of worship for children involves a central idea or theme around which to organize the appeal of the service. Sometimes this theme will stand by itself, chosen for just one service. Some¬ times it will be one aspect of a general theme for worship covering a longer period. In one Junior Department for four months in 1920, the theme, “The Spirit of the Pilgrims,” was chosen. Stories were told of the Pilgrims themselves, revealing their true spirit, followed by stories illustrating the expression of the Pilgrims’ spirit in our everyday living. Some of the Pilgrim qualities thought of by the children were faith, courage, self-sacrifice, overcoming obstacles, loyalty to God. The chil¬ dren then discussed how the Pilgrims believed in education and in extending its privileges to others, as, for example, to the Indians. So for the last month the theme chosen was “Carrying the Pilgrim Spirit to Others.” These last services were mis¬ sionary in character. There have been cases where one central theme for worship has been chosen for an entire year, each month considering some idea growing out of the central theme. Such a theme which was the basis for a year’s program of worship in one Junior Department was “The Family of God.” In fact, 184 ELEMENTS OF A SERVICE OF WORSHIP this theme was used in all departments of this particular church school, each department treating it according to the age of those enrolled. When such central themes are chosen it is possi¬ ble to correlate effectively the information, the worship, and the expressional activities. When one is worshiping in the thought of the “Family of God,” it is natural in class to study something about those members of the family whom we do not know very well, and it is sure to develop that the children will want to do something for their brothers and sisters in this great family. THE STORY OR TALK An important element in the service of worship for children is the story or talk which sets forth the central theme of the worship of the morning. Worship must be full of meaning; it must be focused upon a definite concept if it is to bear its greatest fruit. Every other part of the service of worship — the music, the prayers, the responses — should be meaningful in the light of this central theme as given out in the story. Children especially need to have thought content given to every part of the service of worship. The mere announcement of a hymn may call forth only a half-hearted re¬ sponse. But if the words of the hymn are plainly related to the idea of the morning, then it becomes more highly suggestive of spiritual values. Types of stories suitable for worship. — Remem¬ bering the aims of worship, we shall see that stories, in order to fulfill those aims, should be joyful, positive, constructive. If they are to make ideals appealing, and to stimulate new resolves, they must 185 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL be full of the ideal quality. If the aim of the wor¬ ship period is to arouse sympathy for the needs of others, the presentation of those needs should not have a depressing effect, but the story of the need should also suggest a way out. If “Honor” is the theme of the worship, the story should pic¬ ture, not the failure of honor to function, but its triumph in daily living. The predominating im¬ pression of the story should be one of victorious determination to live our best. Relative value of the story and the talk. — A word should be said of the relative value of the story and the talk in a service of worship for Junior children. There is no form so powerful as the story to make ideas vivid or truth appealing to children of this age. Many children’s sermons fail, because they are too “preachy.” They point out their moral too plainly. The story grips life because it is a reproduction of life itself. But there is a place, now and then, for the informal talk by the leader or for the interchange of ideas between leader and children. If some ethical problem is to be cleared up by the service of worship, or if an idea quite new in content is to be developed, it can often be done by the informal talk or con¬ versation and the spirit of real worship maintained at the same time.2 Dramatizing the story for worship. — There are times when the dramatization of a story by the children will further the spirit of worship. If a dramatization is used as a part of a worship service, however, care should be taken to have it done as 2 Examples of such talks, which are not “preachy,” but simple and dignified, may be found in the Manual for Training in Worship, by Hartshorne. 1 86 ELEMENTS OF A SERVICE OF WORSHIP simply as possible, with no arranging of scenery or other mechanism apparent to interrupt the spirit of worship. Everything should be in readiness, the children who are to participate all costumed and in their regular seats, so that at the moment of giving it they may start in with as few prelim¬ inaries as the leader does on ordinary occasions when she tells the story. MUSIC Aims as far-reaching as those we have outlined for the program of worship call for the very best music. Neither a child nor an adult can enter the presence of God on a cheap or unworthy melody. Public-school educators have taught us that music does not need to be “catchy” to appeal to children, but that the child’s taste may be cultivated to appre¬ ciate whatever is the best. Religious music should be truly great, as great as the soul’s aspirations; it should not recall in its rhythm, its tunes, or its words any of the cheaper experiences of life. Types of hymns suitable for Juniors. — There is to-day a variety of good religious music suitable for Junior children. The hymnology of the church is so rich with great hymns that one cannot exhaust all its possibilities during the years when children are in the church school. What types of hymns shall we select for Juniors? First of all, they will be hymns which deal primarily with conduct. Some of the greatest church hymns contain theological phrases that are remote from child thought. “Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty, God in three Persons, blessed Trinity.” 187 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Such a conception of God will only confuse the Junior and take his mind away from the idea of worship. Far better for Juniors is that other ver¬ sion of this hymn, “Perfect in power, in love and purity.” Good examples of hymns that deal with conduct are “Saviour, Teach Me Day by Day,” “Soldiers of Christ Arise,” “O Master, Let Me Walk With Thee,” “O Jesus, Prince of Life and Truth.” There should also be great care exercised to see that the hymns selected express spiritual experiences which are within the understanding of Juniors. In a certain Junior Department, one Sunday morning, where the entire form of worship was beautiful and reverential, one Junior girl sang a solo. The hymn chosen was “Jesus Calls Us.” The opening words of that hymn hardly express the attitude of the normal Junior child: “Jesus calls us; o’er the tumult Of our life’s wild, restless sea, Day by day his sweet voice soundeth, Saying, ‘Christian, follow me.’ ’’ The wilder and more restless the sea, the more appeal will it have for the average Junior. He is not ready to be called away from life, but to be called to it. So too some of the verses of that great hymn “Abide With Me” do not express thoughts to which the average young person can respond: “Swift to its dose ebbs out life’s little day; Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away; Change and decay in all around I see; O Thou who changest not, abide with me.” Some day, when he is older, that hymn may express 1 88 (■Mil . — HOLY, HOLY, HOLY” - ELEMENTS OF A SERVICE OF WORSHIP the longing of the Junior’s heart, but now, when he is alive and at the beginning of life, he can worship far better through that other beautiful evening hymn “Day is dying in the west, Heaven is touching earth with rest; Wait and worship while the night Sets her evening lamps alight Through all the sky. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts! Heaven and earth are full of thee, Heaven and earth are praising thee, O Lord Most High.” Children respond to stirring music of a martial or jubilant character and they should be given an opportunity to carry this jubilance and heroic am¬ bition over into their Christian experience. Some of the great church hymns are of this character, namely, “Onward, Christian Soldiers!” “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus,” and “We March, We March to Victory.” There are a number of songs written within the last few years which have a childlike appeal, either in the stirring rhythms or the simple melodies. Some of them are not quite as imposing or as sublime as the older hymns, but they are good music and satisfy something which is in every childish heart. Such a song is “Marching With the Heroes,”3 the words of which are not new, but the music for which is recent. But children should not sing only those songs which stir to action and decision. There is a place in their experience for prayerful , devotional hymns , such as “Immortal Love, Forever Full,” or “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind.” Quiet reflection is 3 See Hymnal for American Youth, No. 201. The Century Co. 189 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL a needed lesson for youth in this restless, rushing age. Fortunately, every year, hymns are being made from our best modern religious poetry , hymns which speak a message which children of to-day can readily appreciate. Examples of this kind are the following: “This Is My Father’s World” and “Be Strong,” both by Maltbie Babcock; “In Christ There Is No East or West,” by John Oxenham; “I Would Be True,” by Howard Walter; “Where Cross the Crowded Ways of Life,” by Frank Mason North. The last hymn represents the great need for more of its kind, hymns which express the growing social consciousness of our present day. Outside of the few great missionary hymns of the church, those with a large social content are very difficult to find. There is no type of hymn which the children enjoy singing more than the hymn of missionary heroism or endeavor. There is so much of color and action in the usual missionary hymn that its appeal is a very concrete one. That is one reason why children like to illustrate the great missionary songs. What Junior has not had fun cutting or coloring illustrations for “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains”? The entire hymn is full of pictures, so vivid that every child can see them, especially with a background of splendid missionary stories. Juniors, after hearing the stories of boys and girls of different races, and realizing how much some of those boys and girls have been willing to sacrifice that they might learn how to follow the Christian’s God, will sing from their hearts, “We’ve a story to tell to the nations, That shall turn their hearts to the light.” 190 ELEMENTS OF A SERVICE OF WORSHIP Need of best leadership of Junior music. — As important as is a good hymnal in a Junior Depart¬ ment, a good pianist is no less needed. We recog¬ nize the power of music and of a master hand at the piano in the Beginners’ room, but Juniors, in their worship, should also have the best leadership of music. It is possible for the piano to sound through the bustle of the pre-session period and to call each child from his special task to his seat in a frame of mind ready for worship. It is especially important that the pianist in the Junior Department shall be able to play hymns with a fine sense of time, rhythm, and feeling. How disappointing it is when a group of wide-awake Juniors feel inspired to sing “Stand up, stand up for Jesus, Ye soldiers of the cross,” to have the pianist drag its splendid marching rhythm or blunder over the notes! How agonizing it is when the leader of the worship service has her group of Juniors ready in a spirit of adoration to sing, “O little town of Bethlehem, How still we see thee lie,” to have the piano pound out the opening measures with no shade of mystery or serenity. The piano should be played, as it is in church, between various parts of the service, while hymns are being found, and while the offertory plates are being secured. The whole service is thus tied together by the music from the piano. If the Junior Department can have the leadership 191 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL of someone with real talent, one who has a sym¬ pathetic understanding of the religious educational program, such a person can help develop Junior choirs of boys or girls, or of both, affording an opportunity for children who especially love music to give their musical talent to the service of the church. These choirs from the Junior Department can sing during the department worship every Sunday morning, or occasionally, to fit in with the program of worship. No choirs, however, should supplant the singing by the entire Junior group, for all should have a chance to express themselves in worship through music. Learning new hymns. — The service of worship is not a time for the rehearsing of hymns. The enjoy¬ ment of many a beautiful song has been spoiled for children by the leader who stops them in the middle of a verse with the exhortation: “Some of us are not singing. Now, let us do this verse right over again and see if every single one can help.” Children do not need this kind of exhortation if the song is adapted to their interests and if it has been adequately led up to by the thought of the morning. At some other place in the morning session time can be taken to rehearse. PRAYER Children probably worship less during the prayers than during any other part of the service of wor¬ ship. They have difficulty in holding attention during the prayer. Very often they are frankly not “interested.” There are some perfectly obvious reasons for this. The Juniors’ attitude toward prayer. — Prayers 192 ELEMENTS OF A SERVICE OF WORSHIP offered by adults for children seldom voice the children’s thoughts. Even though these prayers are carefully thought out and simple, the very fact that some one else is doing the praying makes it difficult for the children actively to participate. Many prayers planned for Juniors are too long. A very few sentences can hold their attention; after that it is apt to wander. If form prayers are repeated, they are apt to become dead and mean¬ ingless through too much repetition. Probably the most pertinent reason for children’s failure to enjoy prayer is found in the fact that so many prayers are not the expression of a felt need or desire. Children will not really pray unless, at the very moment of praying, they are conscious of a need or unless they actually anticipate a real experience. For this reason preparation for the prayer should be made. It should come at that moment in the service of worship when the ideational and the emotional value is at its height. This is probably immediately after the story. If the prayer is used earlier in the service, some prep¬ aration must be made for it by the telling of a short incident or by in some way awakening a response in the child’s heart before he is allowed to pray. Prayer without the proper mind-set is futile. Children in one Junior Department were asked to write on “What I Like About the Serv¬ ices of Worship.” The answer of one girl was practically the answer of all: “I like the songs and the stories best of the opening services. The stories are always about something different. They are almost always original. I like the songs about marching to war like ‘Marching with Our Heroes’ 193 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL and ‘Stand Up for Jesus/ ” Out of about twenty answers handed in not one child even mentioned the prayers. When asked what kind of prayers they liked best, they replied, with one voice, “Those we all pray together.” They did not care, they said, to hear an adult pray for them as much as to pray themselves. How Juniors like to pray. — Prayers for Juniors should include a large number to be offered in unison. Such prayers will be particularly vital if the children themselves have helped to work them out. The following is a prayer composed by the children in one Junior Department. The way had been prepared for it by several weeks’ programs of worship based on stories of child life in the great cities and industrial centers. The children con¬ tributed ideas for the prayer which follows and several of the older ones wrote it out. “Our Father, we thank thee that we are thy children, and that we have parents here who pro¬ vide clothing, food, and education for us. We thank thee for our church and for our own depart¬ ment; and we thank thee, too, that we live where we know trees and the flowers and the big out-of- doors. “May we realize that there are many children all over the world who have not these things, and that we may share with them. “Help us to grow more like Jesus every day. Amen.” There are times when the adult leader should offer the prayer that children may receive an idea of prayer at its best, but such prayers should be short, simple, and dignified. They should always 194 ELEMENTS OF A SERVICE OF WORSHIP express the thought uppermost in the minds of the praying group. To arouse an interest in a certain line of thought and then to pray about other things, however worthy, is to induce insincerity in pray¬ ing, for the child cannot quickly make the transition from the absorbing idea of the moment to other realities. Not making the transition, he prays with the lips but not with the heart. There are accessible unison prayers which are beautiful and which express some universal desires of childhood. These may be selected carefully, accord¬ ing to the theme of the morning, and used effectively. Public praying by Juniors. — Should Juniors ever pray individually before the entire group? If chil¬ dren, as individuals, could be brought up from in¬ fancy so that they would pray aloud quite naturally, such prayers could be offered without any distract¬ ing self-consciousness. It should never be encour¬ aged if the children are embarrassingly self-con¬ scious. The leader who understands children can lead his group to a place where all self-consciousness fades away in the felt presence of God and where the children will quite naturally offer spontaneous prayers. This achievement is less difficult in the class group in a small room than with a larger number. When children plan and lead a service of wor¬ ship themselves they often accept it as a matter of course that some one of them will offer the prayer. Sometimes such a prayer will be read, but often, too, the children will think it quite natural that one shall “make up” the prayer. On the other hand, in some groups, especially groups of older boys, no one could be induced to do it. 195 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Teaching Juniors to pray. — If Juniors are to pray before the group, there should be a gradual process of education in prayer preparing them for it. An important factor in this process is to get the chil¬ dren to feel deeply and sincerely the significance of any petition which they are to offer. When they do feel deeply, it is natural for them to pray. This involves praying for objects or situations which lie within their own experience. The boys and girls must forget themselves in their prayer interests. They should gradually become used to hearing their own voices in prayer. They should learn what to pray for and how to word their prayers. A good beginning is the use of some unison prayers in which all may unite. Occasionally one class of Juniors may be asked to select and repeat from memory a prayer for the whole group. If the Junior classes are allowed to plan and conduct some of the services of worship, there is the opportunity for each class to learn how to compose its own prayer to meet the needs of the occasion. The next step might be for a group to divide the prayer into a series of short sentence prayers, each one in the group offering one of them. When this has been done in Junior classes it is possible for the Junior superintendent, with a blackboard in the front of the room, to get sugges¬ tions from the entire department for a prayer. On the basis of these suggestions the boys and girls can compose their own prayer for some occasion when they have all been deeply interested. If the Juniors have gradually become used to group and individual praying in their small classes, it will be comparatively easy to carry this habit 196 ELEMENTS OF A SERVICE OF WORSHIP over into use in the department service of worship. The success of the experiment will depend upon not forcing the children before they are ready to express themselves in prayer and upon progressing gradually from one step to another. The steps from reading a prayer to reciting from memory, and to offering one’s own prayer are quite easy. RESPONSIVE SERVICE There is no set rule which demands that all services of worship should contain the same ele¬ ments. The Deity will not be offended if the Scrip¬ tures are not read at every service. Indeed, unusual conditions of interest must prevail if Juniors are to listen to anything read to them, unless possibly it is read by one of their own group. Neither is it necessary to include the recitation of Bible pas¬ sages at every service. However, one of the reasons for memorizing the beautiful and uplifting selections from the Bible is that they may be used as a part of the worship service. AH such reading or recitation should, like the prayers, be motivated. The children should be led to feel the spirit of the selection before they repeat it. The twenty-third psalm was given a new significance for one group of Juniors on the Sunday when the fourth-grade girls sang that beautiful old song, “Jesus Shepherd,” before the group re¬ peated the psalm. On some special occasions other masterpieces than those in the Bible may be used for recitation or responsive reading. On Lincoln’s Birthday some of Lincoln’s own sayings may well be included in the service of worship. It is not necessary to go outside of the Bible for X9Z JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL an appreciation of the greatness of nature or God’s presence in it, and yet there may be an occasion when Van Dyke’s “Psalm of the Trees”4 will fit in as no other selection possibly could. The service of worship should not be used for drill in memory work — that should be done before or after worship or in the class groups. THE OFFERTORY If the offertory is incorporated into the service of worship, an opportunity is given to the children to express in definite activity newly aroused feel¬ ings of gratitude or desire to help. The giving of money too will seem far more significant and its possibilities more urgent if the offering is presented with beauty and dignity, as in the adult church service, rather than hastily collected by a class secretary and stuck into an envelope. There are various offertory services appropriate for Juniors. The following form was used in one Junior Department for one year and the boys and girls seemed to realize its meaning. Four boys or girls were chosen each Sunday to receive the offer¬ ing on offertory plates as they had seen it done in the regular church service. At a chord from the piano these four walked to the front of the room, picked up the plates and stood facing the depart¬ ment. The music ceased for a few moments and then were spoken these words: Leader: Freely ye have received from your heavenly Father, freely give. Children: What we have, that will we give unto thee. 4 From Van Dyke’s, Out of Doors in the Holy Land, Charles Scribner's Sons, 198 ELEMENTS OF A SERVICE OF WORSHIP All: Offertory Song (while the offering was col¬ lected). When the offering was collected the ushers stood at the back of the room until near the close of the last verse of the offertory song, when they came to the front and remained standing while all united in the following prayer. “Our Father, we thank thee for the happiness of giving; help us to share thy gifts with our brothers and sisters throughout the world. Amen.” There are a number of beautiful song responses5 which may be sung at the close of the offertory instead of the spoken prayer of dedication. SOURCES OF WORSHIP MATERIAL Worship Themes Hartshorne — Manual for Training in Worship. Stowell — Story Worship Programs for the Church School Year. Hartshorne — Stories for Worship and How to Follow Them Up. Stories Hartshorne — Manual for Training in Worship. Hartshorne — Stories for Worship and How to Follow Them Up. Stowell — Story Worship Programs for the Church School Year. Cabot — Ethics for Children. Kerr — Children's Story Sermons. Kerr — Children's Missionary Story Sermons. Hodges, Sneath, Tweedy — The King's Highway Series. * See Book of Worship, Hartshorne; Junior Hymns and Carols. Leyda Publish¬ ing Company. 199 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Sneath, Hodges, Stevens — The Golden Rule Series. Dadmun — Living Together. Skinner — The Emerald Story Book. Ferris — Missionary Program Material. Music Smith — Hymnal for American Youth. Smith — Manuals of Hymn Study and Interpretation. Josephine L. Baldwin — Services and Songs for Junior Department. Hartshorne — Book of Worship. Ley da — Junior Hymns and Carols. Welsh and Edwards — The Romance of Psalter and Hymnal. Ninde — The Story of the American Hymn. Jones — Famous Hymns and Their Authors. Breed — The History and Use of Hymns and Hymn Tunes. Prayers Hartshorne — Book of Worship. Hartshorne — Manual for Training in Worship. Beard — Prayers for Use in Home , School and Sunday School. Diffendorfer — Thy Kingdom Come. For Further Reading : Hartshorne — Manual for Training in Worship. Weigle and Tweedy — Training the Devotional Life. Loveland — Training World Christians , Chapter VII, “Teaching How to Pray.” 200 CHAPTER XIII PLANNING THE WORSHIP PROGRAM Planning the worship program means building the service of worship itself. It means also the making sure that the most effective conditions of worship prevail. Furthermore we must decide at what time in the church school session the service of worship can be placed most effectively. PLANNING THE CONDITIONS OF WORSHIP Often a service of worship which has been care¬ fully thought out as to its constituent elements fails because some one of the necessary conditions has not been provided. The atmosphere may not be conducive to worship. Some leaders are not prepared or trained to lead worship effectively. There are times when sufficient thought has not been given to securing the participation in the service of worship of every member of the group. The atmosphere necessary for worship.— We have already noted that certain conditions tend to pro¬ duce a spirit of worship. The worshiper is sensitive to the thing which, for want of a better term, we shall call “atmosphere.” Children will worship best in an atmosphere which is quiet but happy and anticipatory; reverential, yet full of life. Worship is an active state. There can and should be an alertness of all the powers in wor¬ ship, and there is bound to be such alertness on 201 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL the part of worshiping children. Such an alertness is perfectly reverential. How can we best secure this atmosphere in which the soul will expand and reach out after God? First of all, the environment can suggest worship. It should contain beauty that will meet the eye and please the senses — beauty of coloring in walls, windows, or pictures; beauty of line and form in furnishings; suggestions of the beauty of God in flowers and plants; suggestion of the spirit of worship in an occasional picture hung where it will meet the eye during the period of worship. One Junior superintendent for a while made the experiment of hanging in the front of the room each Sunday morning a picture suggesting the worshipful atti¬ tude. She said nothing about these pictures except as the children began to comment on them. One day, to a group who were standing together in front of the picture of the morning, which happened to be “The Angelus,” the suggestion was made that they might like to bring pictures occasionally for all to enjoy. No suggestion was made as to the character of the pictures. It was interesting that almost all that were brought were in some way in keeping with the spirit of the worship services. Miss Beard, in her book, Pictures in Religious Education , makes valuable suggestions as to pic¬ tures which may be used to develop the spirit of worship as well as those which may hang on the wall of the Junior room permanently and contribute to the worshipful atmosphere. Some church schools are so situated that the children have access to a chapel in which to worship. This means that the environment has all the architectural features of 202 PLANNING THE WORSHIP PROGRAM the regular church atmosphere. Some schools, in order to have the benefit of a worshipful atmosphere, meet for their service of worship in the church auditorium. Still others plan to have at least one or two services there each year. Another element in the environment which makes for an atmosphere of true worship is the removal of all distractions. This involves notebooks placed in the classrooms before the service of worship begins; wraps removed and hung up out of the way, where they will not be seen cluttering up the room; no late-comers admitted during any part of the service; and, last of all, all adults kept from running around the room, no matter how important their secretarial or other business. Too much stress cannot be laid upon the im¬ portance of having children and teachers remove their hats and coats as soon as they enter the church school. When this is done all settle down to the work and pleasure of the morning, as if they had come to stay and had not just run in for an hour and were ready to leave at any moment. A child who is too hot because muffled up in his heavy over¬ coat in a warm room cannot worship well. The hand that keeps twirling a cap even absent-mindedly, is a distraction, and the eye that is taking in Vir¬ ginia’s new furs or Mary Ellen’s velvet bonnet can¬ not be an eye that is single in worship. The attitude of the leader will help to create the right atmosphere and will draw out from the chil¬ dren a corresponding attitude. To hold a group of Juniors the leader’s attitude should be interested, expectant, full of vivacity, but not the assumed vivacity which keeps “spilling over” onto the boys 203 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL and girls. It is possible for a leader to suggest vitality and yet to be perfectly poised and even quiet in her manner. The real secret of the leader’s attitude, as we shall see when we talk about leader¬ ship, is that he or she shall be so full of the spirit of worship that the children feel it from the first chord on the piano through to the closing response of the service. The attitude of teachers is also a contributing element to the atmosphere of worship. No founda¬ tions of reverential worship can be laid unless every teacher in the department is worshiping dur¬ ing every part of the service. The success of the service in reaching the worship needs of the chil¬ dren should be a matter of vital concern to every teacher, inasmuch as it is giving the dynamic to carry over into life those attitudes which he is try¬ ing to build up in the classroom. Effective leadership. — Not all people are able to lead a service of worship for Juniors. Many a person who is an excellent executive or who may have an educational vision, or who may be a suc¬ cessful teacher of children in the public school cannot lead a service of worship. Such leadership requires the ability to tell stories to children, to secure a response from them, a sure understanding of children’s everyday problems, a sympathetic feeling for normal child attitudes, a love of all that is beautiful in nature, in art, in music, in literature, in religion; a joyful, radiant personality, and, above all else, a warm personal religious experience which means an experience of worship. Added to these qualifications must be one other 204 PLANNING THE WORSHIP PROGRAM — preparation. And this preparation needs to be of two kinds. First, it must be intensive. The teacher should study what worship is, what it is for, and how Juniors worship, and should learn the technique of conducting a service of worship. In the second place, it means careful weekly prepara¬ tion of each Sunday morning worship service, a preparation as conscientious and as thorough as the pastor’s preparation for his morning service. There is absolutely no substitute for preparation as a means to conducting a service of worship that will touch the lives of boys and girls. Participation by the entire group. — One of the tests of the reality of the experience of worship to Juniors is the attitude of the group as a whole. Are all the pupils entering into the spirit of the service or is the appeal being made to only a few? Every once in a while the teacher of the oldest group of boys in one Junior Department would go to the Junior superintendent and say: “Can you keep my boys in mind a little bit more as you plan the services of worship? They have not seemed to be interested lately, and I find it difficult to keep them in order.” That superintendent was most grateful for the reminder, for it was easy to hold the younger Juniors during worship, but more difficult to discover the actual worship needs of the older boys. What are some secrets of securing participation by the whole group? Worship should appeal to the native interests of the children. In the first place, it should definitely provide for sufficient activity and for frequent change of activity. Processionals, recessionals, standing for hymns and responses, receiving the 205 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL offertory — in fact, as much active participation as possible should be provided. The service of wor¬ ship can make use of the child’s love of stories, his admiration for heroes, his dramatic instinct, his capacity for leadership. The idea of giving children an opportunity to lead in worship comes as a surprise to some, but others can testify to its gratifying results. The problem with Juniors is rather different from that with adolescents. The ability to lead in any capacity has not yet been highly developed. The Junior child, except the unusual one, cannot lead with the effective¬ ness of an adult. Yet we need to get away from our traditional ideas of the proprieties and be open- minded to new values which we may still discover. After a group of Juniors had had for some months a carefully planned and conducted service of wor¬ ship, each class was given the chance to plan and lead one service toward the end of the school year. Since this was the first trial with them of anything of the kind, in order that they might have something definite as a starting point, it was suggested that they take as the subjects for their worship pro¬ grams the idea which they thought the most im¬ portant in their course of study for the year, — the thought they would most like to share with all the others in the department. Then the director of education met with each class and studied with them the different parts of the usual service of worship, showing them how the parts were related to each other and getting from the children their ideas of how to reach the interest of all the children. After this preparatory study of worship each class chose its theme and built up its program around it. 206 PLANNING THE WORSHIP PROGRAM It was interesting to see the thoroughness with which they searched for hymns that would exactly express what they wanted to say. The youngest class of girls (fourth grade, aged nine) decided that of all their stories they liked the David story best. They immediately chose the best story-teller in the class to tell this story. They wanted to use their memory selection, psalm twenty-three, and decided that as it speaks of God’s care, they would use that idea as the central thought of their wor¬ ship service. They met, at their teacher’s sugges¬ tion, on week days for several rehearsals to learn a song, “Jesus Shepherd,” which the entire class sang. Their service of worship when finally worked out was as follows: Opening Song Response: Holy, Holy, Holy (al¬ ways sung by entire department). Hymn: “The King of Love My Shepherd Is.” Story: “David the Shepherd” (by Marjorie). Song: “Jesus, Shepherd” (by the class). The Shepherd’s Psalm: Repeated by the class. Prayer Song: “Lord of All Life” (first read aloud by entire department as a prayer and then sung). Offertory. Other services planned and led by children may be studied at the close of this chapter. The sixth- grade girls in planning Service IX (page 217) de¬ cided, for two reasons, that they must have a drama¬ tization. First, the fifth-grade girls had had one, and, secondly, “it will give a chance for every girl to do something.” So the interest in cooperation grew as the groups worked on this cooperative enterprise, the planning and leading of worship. Another child interest that should be observed 207 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL in arranging a service of worship, is the craving for variety. It is true that worship depends for the smoothness of its effect and the quietness of its atmosphere on a general order of procedure, which becomes sufficiently familiar so that children can follow from one part of the service to another with¬ out repeated announcements of the next thing on the program. Such an order of service can be placed on the blackboard or on a printed chart, with the numbers of hymns, and the pages where prayers or responses are to be found, clearly printed. In this way confusion can be avoided and attention to details need not detract from the atmosphere of worship. But, although some order of service should be maintained for a long enough period to enable the children to become familiar with it, yet, within this general order variety may be provided. The hymns, responses, and the story need not always follow in the same order. Occasionally a hymn may be sung as a prayer in place of a spoken peti¬ tion. The department can use three or four open¬ ing responses during the year, continuing each one long enough to learn it thoroughly. It has often been said that children are ritualists. If this is so, it is not true in the sense that they like traditional ritualism or worship best under its influence. They may enjoy it, however, if they feel its beauty or if they have helped to make it themselves, or if they have been brought up in a ritualistic church. Ritual to appeal to the matter-of-fact Junior must be simple and fraught with a symbolism which he can understand. If too elaborate, too 208 PLANNING THE WORSHIP PROGRAM abstract, or too highly colored, it may amuse instead of grip him. THE PLACE OF WORSHIP IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL SESSION It is difficult to determine upon any fixed place for the service of worship in the church-school session as long as there is such variation in church schools in their morning schedule. And even if all church schools followed the same plan, the place for the worship period probably should vary accord¬ ing to the local situation in each church. The average church school, in addition to its class periods, provides some time for worship, some for educational drills, and some for maintaining school spirit in the form of reports, announcements, etc. Sometimes the drills are conducted in the separate classes, but in some schools they are a part of the general department program. These last two — the drills and the maintaining of the school spirit — should be kept quite separate from the worship period. It should be perfectly clear in the minds of the children when worship ceases and other parts of the program begin. In the majority of church schools the service of worship probably comes at the beginning of the morning session. There is an advantage in this, in that the worship program with its uplifting sug¬ gestions sets the keynote for the day and sends the boys and girls to their other work of the morn¬ ing with quiet, anticipatory minds. Under this plan the last impression of the morning is that made in the classroom: Worship period. 209 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Departmental instruction and tests. Period for maintaining school spirit. Class period. Some schools, however, have tried with success having the service of worship come at the close of the morning session, commencing with the class work. This means that the Juniors come and settle down immediately to work in their class¬ rooms, and at the close of the morning all assemble for the worship period: Class period. Departmental period. School Spirit period. Worship. Those who have tried this plan say that this makes it possible to send the children home with all the impressions of the morning caught up and tied together by the common experience of wor¬ ship and also offers a chance for the children to express, through worship, all the cumulative aspira¬ tions aroused during the morning. However, under the first arrangement of time, each class may close with a brief period of worship, so that there is pre¬ served a chance for quiet prayer and meditation before dismissal. There are also schools which meet not only for an opening but also a closing period of worship. In many schools which follow this plan there is apt to be very little of a worshipful character in the closing period. It is more apt to be used for reports and announcements, and there is usually a good deal of confusion in the reassembling of a school for such a short period. If this plan is used, every care should be taken to make these closing moments 210 PLANNING THE WORSHIP PROGRAM very worshipful and inspiring. It is hardly worth while cutting short the altogether too brief class periods in order to reassemble a school or depart¬ ment unless something very meaningful in the way of worship is accomplished. It would be far better to add these few moments to the regular worship period, thus having time to work out one satisfac¬ tory service of worship. Increasingly church schools are adopting a longer Sunday morning session, running for two or three periods. In schools of this type the worship period may come between the class period and the period for class expression or service. There are various arrangements of this kind. The morning schedule would run, then, somewhat as follows: Class period. Departmental instruction. Period for school spirit. Worship. Class period. Each leader will have to study his group and the situation in his own school and determine by such study and by some experimentation where the worship service can be introduced most effectively into the morning program. Wherever worship comes it should have its definite amount of time allotted to it, and it should not, except on special occasions, run over that time. It requires time to worship “in spirit and in truth” just as it requires time to acquire information, and and each church school should work to gain more time for its entire educational program. But in the school which has only sixty minutes for its entire Sunday morning program not more than fifteen 2 II JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL or twenty minutes should be allowed for worship. The teachers should understand that they will have at least thirty-five or forty minutes in which to teach, for the teaching process cannot be hurried. TYPES OF JUNIOR SERVICES OF WORSHIP Service I Theme: “Willing to Help.” Instrumental Prelude. Call to Worship (by leader). “If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain. If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.” (Quoted in Hymnal j or American Youth, p. 3 5 . Century Co.) Hymn: “ Galilee” ( Hymnal for American Youth , No. 99). Unison Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13. Story: “Little Gavroche” (reprinted from Everyland in Stories for Worship , Hartshorne). Prayer (by leader). Hymn: “I Would Be True” ( Hymnal for American Youth , No. 170). Offertory. Unison Prayer. Service II Theme: “Heroism — Doing Hard Things.” Instrumental Prelude. Opening Song Response: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts, Heav’n and earth are full of thee, 212 PLANNING THE WORSHIP PROGRAM Heav’n and earth are praising thee, O Lord, most High. Amen. (See Book of Worship.) Psalm 91: The Soldier’s Psalm (in unison). Hymn: “Soldiers of Christ, Arise.” Story: “A Brave Soldier of Jesus Christ” (see Here and There Stories). Prayer of Faith (in unison. See Book of Worship , page 8). Offertory Hymn: “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus.” Service III Theme: “God With Us.” Instrumental Prelude. Opening Song Response: “The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the people keep silence before him” {Junior Hymns and Carols). Psalm 100 (in unison). Hymn: “Summer Suns Are Glowing” {Hymnal for American Youth , No. 52). Story: “The Man Who Conquered Because He Knew His God Was With Him— Gideon.” Prayer (by leader). Song Prayer: “Lord of All Life” {Book of Worship , No. 102); or “Our God, Our Help” {Hymnal for American Youth , No. 68). Service IV Theme: “The Unfinished Task.” Instrumental Prelude: Negro Melodies. Call to Worship (by leader) : “O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain. 213 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL America, America! God shed his grace on thee, And crown thy good with brotherhood, From sea to shining sea.” Hymn: “America the Beautiful.” Salute to the American Flag. Story: “The Unfinished Task.” The story of the work begun and continued by Abraham Lincoln and Booker T. Washington. American boys and girls to finish the work begun. Prayer (by leader): Our Father, we thank thee for the great work begun by men like Abraham Lincoln and Booker Washington. We thank thee that we can help finish the work which they began for the Negro boys and girls in this land of ours. We are sorry that these boys and girls have some¬ times been unhappy. Help us always to be kind and friendly to the people of other races who have come to live with us as our brothers and sisters. Make us willing to give money and serv¬ ice so that they too may be happy as we are in America, the beautiful. Amen. Lincoln’s Dedication from the Gettysburg Speech (by all in unison). Hymn: “0 Zion, Haste.” (Leader emphasize meaning of last verse, “Give of thy sons,” before the hymn is sung.) Salute to the Christian Flag: I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the Saviour for whose kingdom it stands, one brotherhood uniting all mankind in service and love. Hymn: “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” 214 PLANNING THE WORSHIP PROGRAM Service V (For some spring Sunday preceding Easter) Theme: “ Awakening Life.” Instrumental Prelude: “Spring Song” (Mendelssohn) Call to Worship: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts, Heav’n and earth are full of thee, Heav’n and earth are praising thee, O Lord Most High.” (See Book of Worship , Hartshome, Charles Scribner’s Sons.) Psalm ioo (in unison). Hymn: “This Is My Father’s World” (tune, “Cor¬ onation”) {Hymnal for American Youth , No. 46). Song by Junior Choir: “Sing, for the World Re¬ joices” {Hymnal for American Youth , No. 51). Story: “The Boy Who Discovered Spring.” (See The Knight of the Silver Shield , Alden.) Prayer {Stories for Worship , page 107). Hymn: “The Snow Has Vanished From the Hills” {Book of Worship , No. 123). Service V I (For Easter Sunday) Instrumental Prelude: Group of springtime hymns — “Sing, for the World Rejoices”; “This Is My Father’s World”; “The Snow Has Vanished.” Call to Worship (by leader) : “God hath sent his angels to the earth again, Bringing joyful tidings to the sons of men: They who first at Christmas thronged the heavenly way, Now beside the tomb door sit on Easter day. Angels sing his triumph, as you sang his birth, 215 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Christ the Lord is risen, Peace, good will on earth.” The Lord’s Prayer. Hymn: “God Hath Sent His Angels” (Hymnal for American Youth , No. 115). Story: “The Little Boy Who Was Scaret o’ Dyin’ ” (see Story Tell Lib , Slosson). Prayer. Hymn: “The Snow Has Vanished From the Hills.” Service VII (For Easter) Theme: “Unending Life.” Instrumental Prelude. Call to Worship: First verse of “Rejoice, Ye Pure in Heart.” Hymn: “Rejoice, Ye Pure in Heart.” Story: “Some Lives That Could Not Die.” (Weav¬ ing together lives of Livingstone, Alice Jackson, Borden of Yale.) Scripture: Hebrews n. 32-34 and 39-40. Also Hebrews 12. 1-2. Prayer: “A Prayer of Faith” (in unison. Book of Worship , page 8). Hymn: “For All Thy Saints.” (First three verses, emphasizing the third.) Easter Offertory. (The following services were planned and led by Juniors). Service VIII (Planned and led by sixth-grade girls and boys) Theme: “The Life of Jesus.” (Based on the Course of Study for the year and including their memory 216 PLANNING THE WORSHIP PROGRAM work, the Beatitudes and the hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy.”) Opening Response and Call to Worship: “Holy, holy, holy.” (Sung by the class alone as this was their memory work.) Hymn: “Once in Royal David’s City.” Story: Some Stories of Jesus. (The sixth-grade children represented some children in Jerusalem soon after the death of Jesus. One of the boys took the part of Peter who told them the stories he remembered about Jesus. At the close he called upon them to recite some of the sayings of Jesus which he is supposed to have taught them on a previous visit.) The Beatitudes (recited by the sixth grades). Letter (read by a girl). (This letter was supposed to have been written by a girl in Capernaum to one in Jerusalem telling about the first time she ever saw Jesus.)1 Dramatization of one of Jesus’ Stories, “The Parable • of the Wise and Foolish Virgins,” by sixth-grade girls. Jesus’ Prayer. Service IX (Planned and led by sixth-grade girls) Theme: “The Last Command of Jesus and Its Ful¬ fillment.” (This service was planned and carried out by the sixth-grade girls, using their Course of Study, “The Life of Paul and the Early Mis¬ sionaries” as a basis. It includes their memory work, “The Last Command of Jesus,” and the hymn, “Faith of Our Fathers.”) 1 See Chapter VI, page 102. 217 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Opening Hymn: “The Song of the New Crusade.” Story: The Story of Two Young Men, Paul and Jesus. The Last Words of Paul: “I have fought a good fight.” The Last Command of Jesus: Repeated by the class. Story: “To the Lions With the Christians!” Song: “Faith of Our Fathers.” Dramatization: “The New Life Coming to Chundra Lela ” A Prayer of Faith (unison). Hymn: “We’ve a Story to Tell to the Nations.” For Further Reading: Augustine Smith — Hymnal for American Youth. Josephine L Baldwin — Services and Songs for Junior Department. Hartshorne — Book of Worship. Hartshorne — Stories for Worship, Chapters I-IV inclusive. S towel! — Story Worship Programs for the Church School Year. 8 See Junior Hymns and Carols, Leyda Publishing Company, p. 48. 2l8 CHAPTER XIV EDUCATION THROUGH ACTIVITY To develop men and women with capacity to enter whole-heartedly and vigorously into the activities of the Christian program is the goal of religious education. But such activity must be the fulfillment of inner desire; it springs from within instead of being enforced from without. When one transcends self in one’s devotion to a larger good there is the highest personal satisfaction. But how shall we secure this activity which springs from within? The church needs it and seeks it in its training for leadership. Education recognizes its value. How can it be achieved? Not only do the world, the community, and the church need active personalities, but the individual needs whole-hearted activity for the development of his highest powers. Educators have come to see that a person’s ability to initiate, to choose rightly, to lead, is developed more surely and more quickly if while he is being educated he is given a chance to initiate plans, to make choices, to discover for himself newer and better ways of doing things. Let us see how a Junior Christian may be educated religiously through a program which makes a large place for the right use of activity. ACTIVITY AND THE LEARNING PROCESS It has long been recognized that “learning” is not a process from without, but an inner activity 219 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL of the mind. Dr. Dewey says, “In critical moments we all realize that the only discipline that stands by us, the only training that becomes intuition, is that got through life itself U’ The reason for this is that in “life” the individual is plunged into the midst of activities which concern him so greatly that he is obliged to participate in them and to learn their lessons. Without activity the pupil cannot learn. Without that same activity of the learner, the teacher cannot teach. TYPES OF ACTIVITY Activity is thought of in different ways. Since all kinds of activity are not equally valuable — and by that we mean equally educative — we need to consider at least three types which are used in teaching boys and girls. By comparison we can get some idea of the relative value of each. Activity as mere outlet for energy. — We have seen in earlier chapters that there is a legitimate use to be made of this kind of activity. Energy cannot be suppressed; it must be expressed. If not expressed constructively, it will find ways of dissipating itself, some of them harmful, or at least, wasteful. The Junior who is kept busy is more apt to be interested than the one for whom time drags. There is a value in this kind of expression and many Sunday programs fail of their greatest usefulness, just because the Junior is kept too passive and not given enough chance to let out the pent-up energy which he feels. Activity planned by adults. — When the plan for the Junior’s activity has been well thought out, appeals to his interests, and meets his ideas of what is 220 EDUCATION THROUGH ACTIVITY worth while, then we have a more educational use of activity. In the past most of the service programs or the expressional work in connection with the lesson study have been of this kind. Wher¬ ever there have been teachers of unusual insight, or a peculiarly “trying” class which has demanded some method different from the standard one, more attention has been paid to what the boys and girls themselves have wanted to do. Activities initiated by the child. — A few church schools, acting under a freer method of discipline, have found it possible to get away from overhead programs and to try to see if the children themselves have any worth-while purposes which they can follow out, with the help of the teacher, and thus gain practice in self-directed social endeavor. This kind of education affords real practice in living, for it is living itself. THE PROJECT METHOD IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION The utilization of the pupil’s own purposes in active projects has been called, for want of a better term, the “project method.” The name simply indicates that when this method is used something is projected. Education swings around an orbit in its progress and in succeeding generations strikes with special emphasis different arcs on the educa¬ tional curve. This is wholesome; it keeps us from stagnation. Just at present the educational pioneers are emphasizing an old, familiar law and calling it by a new name. “What, utilize the child’s own interests, his activity, his freedom? Why, that is as old as Froebel and Pestalozzi!” we exclaim. This is true, but we see the application of this 221 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL law in a new social situation, with children of a different environment, and against a background of newer discoveries in psychology. As we seek to apply it to our present-day teaching it becomes almost new in its manner of working. What, then, is a project? And what may we expect the use of this method to accomplish for our Juniors? Defining a project. — A project is any undertak¬ ing which makes use of children’s own purposes and which, therefore, calls into play the child’s spontaneous efforts. There may be individual projects, according to some thinkers, but we are concerned chiefly with those undertakings which express the will of a group of children and are, therefore, dominantly social. A Junior class at the beginning of the year is given its choice of three or four textbooks to study. Among them are Livingstone Hero Stories , Old Country Hero Stories , a course of Bible Hero stories. They choose, first, to study Livingstone, which they proceed to do for a month. Then they ask if they may follow this with some heroes who lived in America, so they study for another month or so the Old Country Heroes . During this study they become interested in some Americanization work with foreign boys and girls as well as the work of a mission station in Africa. The teacher asks if they would like to share what they have so greatly enjoyed in their hero stories with some other group of children. One child sug¬ gests a group of Italian children in a settlement. Then comes the suggestion that for these children in the American public schools good textbooks on heroes are available. 222 EDUCATION THROUGH ACTIVITY The next idea is, “Let us, then, write a book about heroes for some African boys and girls. ” But, comes the next thought, “Would these African children be able to read the English language?” They decide to think this over for a week. By the following Sunday the church missionary has sug¬ gested that in the school in India where she teaches they use English lessons for the children and that such textbooks as they might write would be used there gladly by herself and other teachers, espe¬ cially if they were well illustrated with attractive pictures. So the class votes to set to work on its task. Next comes the work of deciding upon which heroes shall go into the books. Which ones will we most enjoy using? Will these be the heroes who will appeal particularly to Indian boys and girls? Must we select only the heroes whom we have already studied or may we include some new ones? After great deliberation the following heroes are chosen: 1. Daniel in the Lions’ Den. 2. David and Goliath. 3. Joseph and His Coat of Many Colors. 4. Samson. 5. The Trial of Abraham’s Faith. 6. Jonah and the Whale. 7. Livingstone’s Fight With the Lion. 8. John Huss. The reasons for all the choices may not be apparent, but in every case they thought there was some quality in this hero which those far-away children would appreciate. It is interesting to note that, almost to a child, they thought some Bible heroes ought to be included. This meant that, in order JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL to write their stories, the group had first to study the material in the very course of Bible heroes which they passed by in the fall when they made their first choice of textbooks. And they studied these lives now with no forced interest, but for a pur¬ pose which was their own, and with a whole-hearted enthusiasm which their study in other years had lacked. Then came the telling of some of the new stories by the teacher, the retelling of old ones by class members, the consulting of books to verify facts, the selection of material out of which to make the notebooks, the writing of their hero tales, and, finally, the choice of appropriate pictures for illus¬ trations. Incidentally, there was involved some learning about the boys and girls in India to whom the books were to go, about their home and school life, and the social customs which would give them certain interests. This is simply one illustration of a project, but it suggests some of the main features of this method. It indicates that when this kind of activity is made the basis of teaching, the method utilizes the child’s Spontaneous interest Purposeful activity Creative power in a thoroughgoing way and in a social and dem¬ ocratic way. These things are to be remembered. The project method is not new. To some degree it has always been used by good teachers. It is simply a new emphasis of an old principle of teaching. In the second place, the project method is not so much a method as an approach to the teaching process. 224 EDUCATION THROUGH ACTIVITY It does not mean the laying aside of all the cus¬ tomary methods of teaching. It involves the use of all of these — study, research, recitation, even memory and drill and surely adult supervision. r But because it makes a place for the child to choose and to will he enters into all these customary learn¬ ing processes with the utmost of his endeavor and, therefore, gets the utmost of learning out of them. In the third place, this method does not mean the mere following of childish whims. It does not mean that every idea suggested by every child must be followed by him or by the group. But it acts on the assumption that the child is naturally active especially along social lines. As Dr. Kilpatrick says: “There is no normal boy but has already many socially desirable interests and is capable of many more. It is the special duty and oppor¬ tunity of the teacher to guide the pupil through his present interests and achievement into the wider interests and achievement demanded by the wider social life of the older world. ”l The project method does not mean the abdica¬ tion of the teacher. Never is there more need for the teacher to assist with his knowledge of life and his richer experience than when children are attempt¬ ing to discover truth and to accomplish a task of their own choosing. The only difference is that the teacher, instead of being an autocrat over his group, becomes, what every good teacher has always and must always be, a member of the class, sharing with his pupils the discovery of truth, the work on a common task. 1 William Heard Kilpatrick, “A Project Method: The Use of the Purposeful in the Educative Process,” Teachers College Bulletin, No. io. Series No. 3, October 12, 19x8. Published by Teachers College, New York City. 225 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Some values of the project method. — One of the first results from allowing children to enter upon properly directed projects is that it makes intelligent Christians. If boys and girls are allowed some chance to choose between different possibil¬ ities of action, they will learn by experience which are right and which are wrong. They will not be apt to repeat past mistakes. Their decisions in matters of conduct will tend to become more and more nearly right. In order to make choices they will need to know more than one line of thought or more than one possibility of action. They achieve the power of forming practical, moral judgments. Thus children become Christians who can pro¬ mote the Christian cause in the world intelligently. They will be well informed Christians. As we have already seen, one cannot choose wisely unless one knows how to choose. When a child is face to face with a situation of his own selection, where he is responsible for seeing it through, he suddenly be¬ comes aware of the need of facts upon which to base his decision. Here is where the teacher may need to come in, to help reveal to the child what kind of knowledge he needs for this particular task. In¬ stead of minimizing the need of information, this method emphasizes it. Children educated in this way will be skillful Christians. A wise use of the project method in¬ volves providing the Juniors with life situations in which to act, and with certain definite tasks of their own choosing in which Christian prin¬ ciples are involved. Here again the need of the adult leader is paramount. Children need his help to discover larger and more meaningful purposes 226 EDUCATION THROUGH ACTIVITY within themselves. Thus practice in real living is provided, for the classroom becomes a piece of life itself. Actual skill in being a Christian is developed when boys and girls are given a chance actually to “try Christianity’ ’ and to learn through the try¬ ing. It is the application of the old law, “Learn by doing.” There is a chance for skill to develop when children are engaged in a variety of activities. The individual differences among them can be taken into account. Let the child make that con¬ tribution to this common undertaking which he is best fitted to make and he will more easily find his place, ultimately, in the life of the church. Children, under this method, are more likely to become cooperative Christians . Cooperation means “working together.” Working together can be learned only by actually entering with others upon a joint task. It is not learned by talking about it, only by doing it. The Junior who shares a purpose with his classmates must have, to carry out this joint purpose, not only a will of his own but also a social will. He learns how to give up his own will to that of a larger number or how to convince others if he feels a burning conviction within him. And, last of all, the Junior Christian who is allowed some opportunity to enter into “purposeful activity” will be a loyal Christian. It is of the very essence of loyalty to attach itself to a cause of the individual’s own choosing. If Juniors are given many chances to choose worth-while Christian tasks, they will be more apt to work at them de¬ votedly. And, when they graduate from the Junior Department, every purposeful task they have 227 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL enjoyed acts as a link in the chain binding them and their interest to the undying service of Chris¬ tianity. Examples of Junior projects. — A reference to one or two such projects may be suggestive of the kinds which some leaders have worked out with their groups. One is that of a missionary service2 which was worked out with a certain group of Juniors. The children decided to learn all they could about “Our American Neighbors.” With this end in view they spent delightful hours with storybooks of life in the Philippines, Alaska, the mountains of the South, the lumber camps of the North, the adobe villages of Mexico. As they studied they made reproductions of community life in these different places, making with their own hands all the objects used in each village or camp. The boys fashioned houses and farming implements; the girls dressed dolls and made tents. Together they put their handiwork in place. They looked through magazines for pictures to guide them. They sought for stories of adventure and heroism among these “American Neighbors” of theirs. They put the whole thing together on long tables around the Junior room in order that the public might see it. The Juniors explained it all to their visitors by stories read, songs sung, or by informal talks. When Children’s Day came, they presented the continuous story of the year’s work in a pageant for which they wrote the parts and made the cos¬ tumes. The illustrations3 will show quite clearly 2 Alma Schilling, “Under Our Flag,” in The Church School, November, 1920. 8 See illustration facing p. 228. 228 Brick Church, Rochester, New York EDUCATION THROUGH ACTIVITY the extent and the fascination of this kind of a project. It also included service work and the giving of money to some of the more needy “Amer¬ ican neighbors.” One Junior Department in a Congregational church school took its part in a school project during the year of the tercentenary celebration of the Pilgrims. The school project for the year cen¬ tered around the Pilgrim spirit. It involved a study of the early Pilgrim ideal and was followed by stories of denominational heroes. The study of denominational missions was stressed for that year. Each department, including the Juniors, made a special study of some special phase of home or foreign missionary work. Services of worship were centered around the Pilgrim ideals of courage, loyalty, freedom, democracy. Boys and girls even in the Junior Department helped to plan and work out some of these services of worship. Each class and department engaged in some service work for a home or foreign mission station. The church missionary and his family were home on furlough from China that year. They were made much of and contributed largely to the success of the enterprise. On the night of the Christmas entertainment the church school gave a pageant which the boys and girls worked out themselves, called “Children of the Pilgrim Spirit.” In the various scenes of the pageant each department acted out what it had been doing as its service work for the year. The Juniors, with the aid of the church missionary and his family, gave a hospital scene in far-away China, where their box of gifts prepared for the June Christ- 229. JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL mas tree had just arrived and was being opened for the patients on Christmas eve. This project indicates how the activities of the different departments in one school can be tied together for one year, thus giving a sense of unity while it allows for infinite variety within each group. TESTING THE ACTIVITY OF THE JUNIOR DEPARTMENT Wherever church schools are making use of the children’s activity, it is important that the pro¬ grams be subjected to one or two tests to find out if the activities are those which are of greatest value. Is it purposeful? — Let us ask ourselves frankly, How much allowance are we making for the Junior’s own choices? Without disrupting our program can we so reorganize it that the boys and girls may make more of a contribution as we plan with them — not always for them — the activities of the year? Is it worth while? — This is a searching question. It is the writer’s belief that we need to reexamine the tasks set for Juniors in the light of this question. Undoubtedly, much activity in Junior Depart¬ ments is not worth while as over against the crying needs of the child himself and of the world in which he lives. How much of the writing of answers, the pasting of pictures, the making of scrapbooks is really worth while? These things may be decidedly worth while if they serve desirable ends and if they are not the only kind of activity provided. Is it self-directed? — This means simply that activity to produce the most effective results must not only grow out of the Junior’s own interests, but he must, after choosing it, go to work on it himself. Are we doing too much for our Juniors 230 EDUCATION THROUGH ACTIVITY to develop in them reliance and dependability? Can we restrain our own desire to do it, when we know we can do it better, and have the patience to let our Junior bungle it a little in order that he may learn how? Is it yielding Christian results? — It is quite con¬ ceivable that some activities which are thoroughly desirable in themselves may not be developing Christian traits because of the way in which they are being carried out. Juniors have not yet learned all the best ways of working together. It requires the active presence of the teacher at every point to see that children are considerate of their fellow workers, that they are thoroughgoing in their search for truth, that they are neat and particular in any manual work. It is not only important that children shall act, but that they shall act rightly. An enterprise is Christian not only by reason of the end achieved, but also because of the Christian spirit of those carrying it on. For Further Reading: Stockton — Project Work in Education. Thorndike — “Education for Initiative and Orig¬ inality,5 ’ Teachers College Record , October 25, 1919. (Secure from Teachers College Book Store, New York; price, 25 cents.) Kilpatrick — “The Project Method,5' Teachers College Record , October 12, 1918; price, 25 cents. 231 CHAPTER XV EDUCATION THROUGH MANUAL WORK Conspicuous in books on methods in the church school is the term “handwork.” When church- school leaders first caught the vision of what activ¬ ity could do in the religious education of a boy and girl, they confined their idea of activity almost entirely to that carried on by the hand. It was a much-needed vision, and the introduction of hand¬ work into the elementary grades did much to make over the conceptions of teaching, the classroom procedure, the attitude of boys and girls toward their work, and the results of teaching in terms of deeper interest and greater effort. With more and more study of the relation of activity to the learning process and with a better understanding of children, however, we have come to think of activity as not limited to the muscles of the hand but as employing the whole personality of the child. Instead of giving a reason for not having handwork, we now are called upon to give our reasons for using it. In other words, what we are seeking is the development of all-round per¬ sonalities and the most effective means of develop¬ ing them. What kinds of expression do children need for such development? If they need expression through manual work, we shall offer it to them. But what kinds of manual work are worth their time and 232 EDUCATION THROUGH MANUAL WORK effort? Why provide for expression through the hand, and how shall we make it productive of religious growth? REASONS FOR MANUAL WORK The reasons for the use of manual education in the Junior Department are not hard to find. Possi¬ bly some of them have seemed more imperative than they really are, while others which are of greater importance have not received so much emphasis. To afford an outlet for physical energy. — We have already agreed that the use of activity as an outlet for the overflowing energy of Junior boys and girls is a legitimate use. The muscles are fairly aching for activity and the mind works better when this longing to “do something” is satisfied. But our time in the church school is so limited that we need to see that whatever manual work we intro¬ duce satisfies some further need at the same time that it gives the Junior a chance to be physically active. In a limited class session with so great a task before us as the development of Christian character, we have no time for mere “busy work,” as handwork has sometimes been called. To maintain interest. — Here again we have a legitimate reason for giving the Junior’s hands something to do. The instinct to create is found in all of us. Boys and girls love to feel that they are “making” things. The boys and girls should have that joy which comes from the feeling that, out of their own desires and ideas, they have made something which is, in a peculiar sense, all their own. The church-school class which gives such an 233 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL opportunity to its Juniors is establishing a deep and fundamental interest in the work of the Junior Department and in the whole church enterprise. To insure study of the lesson. — One benefit of manual work is that it provides something definite to do. An assignment which calls for some hand¬ work cannot be as easily avoided as some other kinds of work. Questions on or reading of the lesson story may seem vague. But given something to do with his hands — here is a tangible result which the Junior can see and bring to class. Fur¬ thermore, just because he likes to “do” and to “make,” his interest will propel him to and through his study in spite of competing attractions. But it is not just study which we are after. We are seeking to secure fruitful study , study which gives pleasure, which leads on to further study and activity. When a Junior, in his study either at home or in the classroom, has made something of which he is proud, he has that glow of achievement which comes with success in any undertaking. He can see the result of his effort and so he feels the value of it. To this child it is not necessary to offer artificial rewards for his work or inducements to work. The result which he can see and handle and admire is reward enough. He has made some¬ thing worthy of his effort and he works for the love of the work itself. To fix ideas. — Ideas, even the most interesting ones, are elusive. How many adults try unsuccess¬ fully to recall some piece of information which once could be found at their tongue’s end! We are familiar with the old saying, “What goes in at the eye must come out at the muscles.” This 234 EDUCATION THROUGH MANUAL WORK is particularly true of the child under nine years of age, but it is also true of the Junior. The more avenues through which knowledge can be pre¬ sented to the child, the more sure is he to retain that knowledge. The Junior who makes a plastecine relief map of Palestine learns the geography of the Holy Land through more than one sense. His knowledge thus gained will last far longer than a mere study of a map made by some one else. The fifth-grade boys who made an African village in the sand table when they were studying the “Livingstone Hero Stories” have an indelible im¬ pression of Livingstone’s life and the conditions in Africa.1 To provide life situations. — One of the most convincing reasons for using manual work in the church school is that the pupil, instead of merely studying about life, is participating in life. Some lessons can be learned only when we actually get “into the game” of life. When a group of Juniors prepare to give a dram¬ atization of a Bible story, and when, in order to do this, they make the costumes and the scenery, and write the words of the dramatization, they are all working together in a cooperative endeavor, as they will have to do when they take part in the pro¬ ductive business of life later on. When there is to be a church school exhibit of the work of the year, and each Junior class helps to make maps, models, notebooks, hymn illustrations, posters, and mission¬ ary materials for it, here is a worthy enterprise which they are promoting by the work of their hands. They see their handiwork and they see 1 See frontispiece. 235 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL that it is good. And out of this cooperative endeavor has grown real character development. To unify the various aspects of development. — Character is made, not only by what we think and desire, but especially by what we do. The work of our hands helps to unify all methods of learning. To do a piece of work neatly, beautifully, accurately, and to have it done on time — this is to make for reliability of conduct and clearness of thinking. To make something and to compare its fitness and its appearance with something which another has made is to develop the ability to judge results. To be a member of a group working on a group task is to learn responsibility and the desire to do one’s best. In this, and in countless other ways, manual education is a means of unifying all results. It is character development. TYPES OF MANUAL WORK Manual work might be classified by the technical names of the different kinds which are ordinarily employed in the Junior Department. These are such processes as writing, drawing, modeling, sew¬ ing, construction, illustration and color work. Most Junior teachers have, at some time or other, used one or more of these types of handwork. Perhaps it will help us to see our problem a little more clearly, if we make a classification according to what the manual activities can do for the Junior. Such a grouping of manual work would be some¬ what as follows: Imitative work, handwork as review, interpretative work, handwork for special uses, creative work, and cooperative work. In such a classification, however, it must be remem- 236 EDUCATION THROUGH MANUAL WORK berecl that any one kind of handwork, such as modeling, for instance, might belong to more than one of these classes. That is, a child who models an Oriental sheepfold might be imitating another model. He might be recalling what he knew of shepherd life in Palestine. Or he might just go ahead and in his arrangement or working out of detail do some creative work. Imitative handwork. — Some handwork is imitative in whole or in part. There is value for the Junior in reproducing by imitation models of Palestine life or life in a mission land, or a map in sand or plastecine. To do this merely for the sake of imi¬ tating, however, will not appeal to the Junior as it does to a younger child. To make such imitative handwork really interesting to the Junior some further motive will probably have to be supplied. If he knows that his work will be used for some purpose, then he has an added reason for working. Handwork as review. — This type of handwork is used very largely. It means any manual work which helps the pupil to recall what he has learned. Much of the writing of answers to ques¬ tions in the pupil’s notebook is of this kind. Some¬ times maps made from memory serve as a means of recall and fixing ideas. When pupils are work¬ ing with their hands, it is valuable to plan their work so that it does suggest to them as many asso¬ ciations as possible with past material which they have studied. A group of sixth-grade Junior girls were planning to use some of the left-over church-school materials in scrapbooks for some children in India. They found enough pictures to illustrate the life of Jesus. 237 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL This could be done with little thought. It was necessary merely to paste in the pictures so that they would look well. But instead of that, the making of these scrapbooks was made the means of a new approach to the life of Jesus. In order to select and arrange the pictures so that they would tell the stories which the children of India might enjoy the most, the stories of a number of the pictures had to be retold by the class. Thus the handwork helped to recall and fix the chief events in the life of Jesus. Interpretative handwork. — Handwork may be a means of letting the Junior interpret the meaning of a story, a hymn, a picture, or a prayer. Juniors greatly enjoy work of this kind, and it is well worth trying because of its power to help them appreciate great messages. Some of the great church hymns are so full of pictures that illustrations can be easily found to interpret their meaning. “America the Beautiful” is one continuous pageant of color and action. The Lord’s Prayer may be saved from meaningless repetition and given a new significance by illustrating it in this way.2 Handwork for special uses. — When a Junior makes something for a definite purpose he has a peculiar sense of pleasure. To know that the product of his hands is to serve a necessary and useful pur¬ pose gives wings to his accomplishment. Here we get into the realm of motives which appeal strongly. To sew and hammer and paint in order that our class or department may put on a dramatization gives zest to the work. To make an attractive 2 There is a very helpful booklet on the subject of hymn interpretation through art. Twenty-five Hymns With Art Picture Illustrations, published by The Century Company. 238 EDUCATION THROUGH MANUAL WORK notebook or map or model, that it may be on exhibit and show what the work of the church school is, appeals to the Junior as something worth while. Indeed, the more often handwork can be the out¬ come of real motives, the greater will be its edu¬ cational possibilities. When the need to be met does not concern our own welfare primarily, but is a need in the life of some one else who is dependent upon us for the service, then the making of things to help the other person becomes infinitely worth while. Sometimes the teacher complains that there is so “little time” for service work in these days when boys and girls are so busy. Perhaps the answer to that question is in curtailing some of the handwork which the Junior does not recognize as worthy of his effort and in placing in its stead manual work which is designed to serve others. Creative handwork. — In almost any kind of hand¬ work, unless the teacher insists on absolute uni¬ formity, there is a chance for the individual pupil to put in touches of his own individuality. But it is possible to plan some opportunity for Juniors to do really creative work, with very few sugges¬ tions or limitations from the teacher. One class of sixth-grade girls who had been study¬ ing the life of Jesus were allowed to paint pictures of some incident in his life. They were to be included in the annual church-school exhibit. The results were really quite remarkable. They were, of course, crude, as the drawing and painting of human figures was somewhat beyond the technique of most of them. And they were partly imitative, as the girls evi¬ dently drew upon their study of the works of great 239 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL artists for suggestions. But they showed a real feeling for the meaning of the incidents painted. There was action in all of them, not unlike the earliest attempts of men to express their feelings upon canvas. One Junior Department worked out for exhibit purposes and also for permanent use in the mis¬ sionary museum a series of missionary posters. Each Junior was asked to make an attractive poster illustrating the mission-study book which his class had completed. One Junior Department had the satisfaction of seeing upon the tables in its classrooms very artistic reed baskets to hold the supplies, baskets which the children had woven themselves under the supervision of a basket-maker. The class of girls who designed and made a Junior banner for the honor class always had a special sense of pleasure in the sight of that banner because it was their own creation. Cooperative handwork. — It should be the effort of every Junior Department to provide increasing opportunities for its Juniors to work on cooperative manual work. That is one reason why working for a dramatization is so vital. All can contribute to its success. Work in the sand table is another type of cooperative endeavor. The class book, in addition to or in the place of, the individual pupil’s notebook, gives a chance for all to plan its con¬ tents, to do the actual work upon it, and to share in the creation of a real class product. Occasionally, instead of each pupil illustrating a hymn it might be well to purchase larger and better pictures and to make a truly beautiful, good-sized, well-bound book to be placed permanently on the 240 EDUCATION THROUGH MANUAL WORK bookshelf in the Junior room for all to read. In¬ deed, a number of books of different kinds can be made in this way — hymn illustrations, books illus¬ trating life in different countries, illustrated lives of great missionaries, picture books of the life of Jesus or of Old-Testament heroes. Thus a Junior Department could secure quite a collection of art pictures of good size to be used by classes studying different subjects. MOTIVES FOR MANUAL WORK We have seen that suitable handwork through which worthy motives find expression, has educa¬ tional value and may contribute to the child’s religious training. What are some of these motives? The competitive motive. — If we were to rate motives in the order of their real worth, the appeal to the competitive instinct would probably not stand very high in the scale. We cannot neglect its appeal altogether, for Juniors are at the age when they love to compete; but we can try, so far as the work in the church school is concerned, to suggest that the Junior compete with himself and his own best previous records or that groups com¬ pete with each other for the sake of a better Junior Department. The appeal should not be made only to personal advancement. Shall rewards be given for good handwork? This is a question which Junior teachers frequently ask. The whole question of rewards is a complicated one. So often it is hard to be entirely fair in the granting of rewards or to have the decisions seem fair to the Junior. There must be certain stand¬ ards of merit which are perfectly clear to all and 241 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL The correlated period can often be used for this. Sometimes the teaching of the entire lesson can be organized around the handwork, such as working on maps or illustrating a book. There are certain types of handwork which can better be done on a week day. Some Junior Departments find it quite possible to get their Juniors together on one after¬ noon each week after school. When this is done the Juniors will probably respond better to some active phases of the work as a contrast to the more formal school room from which they have come. This makes a chance to introduce handwork. Where entire departments do not meet on a week day, often separate classes can meet with their teachers for expression through the hand. The Junior Department which has a two-period session or whose church school runs for the entire Sunday morning can easily provide a full period for expres- sional work. At any rate, there ought to be a few occasions when there are work-parties for the whole department, each group helping in some enterprise which concerns them all. For Further Reading : Hutton — Things to Make. Baldwin — The Junior Worker and Work , Chap¬ ter XV. Wardle — The Use of Handwork in Religious Education. Faris — The Sand Table. Miller — The Dramatization of Bible Stories , Chap¬ ter XIII, “Stage Setting and Properties,” and Chapter XIV, “Costuming.” 244 CHAPTER XVI EDUCATION THROUGH DRAMATIZATION There is one native tendency which teachers of children may always count upon, and that is the tendency to “play.” When the play interest is appealed to in teaching religious truth, the child’s whole personality is thrown into the learning of the lesson. That the drama may be used legitimately in and by the church requires little argument. Its use is every year becoming more widespread. But its use as a method in the religious education of children needs to be safeguarded by a knowledge of just how it may be made to accomplish the aims of religious education. To allow children to dram¬ atize merely for the sake of putting on a play to earn money, or to show off the dramatic prowess of individual boys and girls, is to waste time val¬ uable for other purposes. It may produce unde¬ sirable results in character. But to use dramatiza¬ tion legitimately, as a means by which the child enters into the great religious experiences through which others have passed is to bring about perma¬ nent and desirable changes in the child’s personality. DRAMATIZATION A METHOD OF LEARNING RELIGION The dramatic method will accomplish results which correspond to the three aims of religious education as given by Dr. Betts: Dramatization 245 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL provides a way for the child to secure “fruitful knowledge.” It tends to develop “right attitudes”; and it helps the child to acquire real “skill in living.” Dramatization provides fruitful knowledge. — We have only to recall some of our own experiences with the reading and acting of plays to see how one’s knowledge of the subject becomes richer and more meaningful when one has actually taken some part. When actually participating, we need to ask ourselves about every line and every situa¬ tion, “Just what does this mean? How did this character feel at this point? What is the author trying to bring out? How can I best interpret it?” At last we have completely identified ourselves with the characters; they do not live apart from us, for we are they and their experiences are ours. The child who participates in a dramatization assimilates the content of the play in just such a way. In order to take his part understanding^ he must study the situation out of which the play grew, the historical background, the ways in which people lived and thought at the time when the action of the play took place, and he must feel the message of the play. Knowledge thus acquired becomes an inherent part of the child’s mental and spiritual equipment. Dramatization develops right attitudes. — In dram¬ atization the feelings aroused are given an immediate opportunity for expression. The Junior living out the life of another person in a drama carries his newly aroused emotions and desires over into action — the action of the play. Because he thus expresses them they tend to become his own. To hear about the generosity of David in sparing Saul’s life is 246 DAVID AND SAUL By permission of the Rev. Wilfred Rowell and Miss Bertha Hoover, Union Church of Hinsdale. Illinois. DRAMATIZING “THE BABY MOSES” j I I I I EDUCATION THROUGH DRAMATIZATION one thing; to be that David is to assume the generous attitude. Thus feelings become definitely organized around moral centers. Miss Miller1 points out that in dramatizing Bible stories children enter into the life experiences of a highly religious people. If we are seeking to get the child to live all his life in a religious spirit, how can we better do it than by letting him really share the life experiences of a people who lived with this God-consciousness vivid and ever present? Dramatization increases ability in Christian living. — The child in a dramatization is meeting and solv¬ ing the life problems of other people. It naturally follows that as he meets and solves those problems he is forming his own standards and technique of conduct. This means an increased skill in meet¬ ing situations. If the method used in dramatization is the right one, real social living results. The children learn to work with others as all together express a great idea. They learn their places within the group. They learn to feel as they ought to in a given situation. Also, if the children criticize the results of their own acting, learn to form judg¬ ments, and to make suggestions of ways in which to improve their united endeavor, their thinking is concrete and practical. METHODS OF PROCEDURE IN DRAMATIZATION It is quite possible to use the dramatic method and not achieve any of these desirable results. Children may be thinking just of themselves and of the effect they are producing instead of the living message of the play. Results depend upon the » Miller, Dramatiiation of Bible Stories, Chapter I. University of Chicago Press. 247 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL method employed. There are three possible methods of procedure. Playing the story. — In the Primary Department children like to “play the story.” This means that they are satisfied with very simple presentations of the stories they like. But to the Junior, dram¬ atization means something more pretentious. Men¬ tion “acting the story” and his mind flies to a stage and scenery and costumes. It is to be an event. While we never want to devote too much attention to stage accessories in dramatic work with children, a certain amount of these is permissible to create the necessary atmosphere and illusion. Juniors are capable of going more deeply into a dramatization than are younger children. They are capable of discovering laws that apply to life in general. Occasionally, there is a chance in the class of Juniors to use the dramatic method very simply. We are studying about the prophet Amos and we have been working on the social situation which prompted his message. Many a group of Juniors will respond to the suggestion that half of us repre¬ sent the poor people and half the rich and priestly class, while one is Amos and stands at the temple door thundering out his message. Let each one take a turn and see who can read his words most effectively so that we get the meaning. There are some groups of Junior boys who might not respond to any such impromptu use of the dramatic method, but, on the other hand, there have been cases where the most enthusiastic group in the Junior Depart¬ ment has been the older Junior boys. Learning to dramatize a story. — We shall see 248 EDUCATION THROUGH DRAMATIZATION presently, how children can learn to take a story and work out their own dramatization of it, writing the parts themselves instead of taking a play which some one else has prepared. This type of dram¬ atization secures some results from the children which can be secured in no other way. There are those who maintain that this is the only way in which children ought to take up dramatization, claiming that only thus are we making dramatiza¬ tion truly educational. The writer believes most heartily in this method as one toward which to work. But, the fact remains that to assist children in writing their own dramatization requires some experience in the use of the dramatic method. It is not always easy for a teacher to start her work in dramatization in this way. A story to be dramatized follows the same general outline as the story to be told. First, a beginning which presents the situation and lets one imme¬ diately into the action. Second, comes the develop¬ ment of the plot. Then the climax, when the threads are unraveled, and finally the end. The first thing for the teacher to do is to select a story that is suitable for acting2 and then pre¬ pare it so that it can be told to her group. In telling a story to be dramatized the teacher will bring out the scenes which are most important for the action of the play. If she intends to use a dram¬ atization which some one else has worked out, her story will follow the outline as followed in the play. When the story has been told, the children are asked to select the most important pictures or a See section on “Selecting Dramatic Material,” pp. 253-254* 249 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL scenes as they remember them. These can be listed on the blackboard. It is possible that they may have too many scenes. Then, by discussion, they can decide which ones to omit as unnecessary for the action. In telling the story, the leader must use as nearly as possible the language which is used in the play, if a printed play is to be fol¬ lowed. After deciding upon the scenes, let the children volunteer to take different parts and let them act out each scene, one by one, as they think it should be done. After each scene there should be a chance for free criticism of the parts and for suggestions as to how to improve them. Then the scenes can be repeated in the light of the crit¬ icism. After they have thus been worked on, place the printed play in the hands of the children. Now let them study the play as they would study any lesson, trying to get the meaning of each situa¬ tion and each speech. Let different children read different parts each time. Let them act the scenes again in the light of the study of the play, never insisting that they shall be letter perfect in the saying of the parts, so long as the meaning is clear. Let the children act out the play at a number of group meetings, seeing that every child has the opportunity to impersonate several characters. Each child will become perfectly familiar with the whole play and can easily take any one of a number of parts in it. “Will the children not get tired of acting it so many times?” some one may ask. They will not get any more tired than they do at the rehearsal where they have tried to memorize lines and are 250 EDUCATION THROUGH DRAMATIZATION put through their parts over and over again until they are letter perfect. Variety is constantly introduced, because the children are encouraged to criticize their own action and interpretation each time they go through the play, with the idea of perfecting it. They keep making suggestions of better ways of doing and saying things. Thus monotony is avoided. Indeed, they should never feel that the play is so finished that it cannot be changed for the sake of better interpretation. When it is ready to be given before other classes or for fathers and mothers, let the children make sug¬ gestions as to who shall take the parts, helping them to make well-founded judgments. There are ways of safeguarding the children from self-consciousness and vainglory, one of the Junior’s temptations. By the method we have described the thoughts of the children, through all the days of preparation, have been kept upon the meaning of the play and the best ways of bring¬ ing out that meaning. When they are ready to give it for others they should realize that they are telling a story in action to others who do not know it as they do, so they must think, every moment, of the best ways in which to act their story. The stage-setting should be exceedingly simple, so that the thoughts of actors and audience are upon the play and not upon the background. The children participating should be in their costumes and seated in seats at the front but with the other children. The adult leader should say just a word about the story and, if adults are present, a little about the spirit in which the children are giving it. Then each character in the play should stand while 251 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL the leader tells who he is and explains, if that is necessary, why he wears the particular kind of costume which he has on. This is often necessary in the giving of Bible plays. By these simple intro¬ ductions, which tend to make players and audience one, the children who are taking part have their self-consciousness removed. They feel that they are just a part of a perfectly natural proceeding. Writing the dramatization. — The third possible method of procedure is that in which the children write their own dramatization. In simple stories it may not be necessary to write out the conversa¬ tion at all. It makes little difference if it varies slightly each time the story is acted. In longer dramatizations it is necessary to master the word¬ ing carefully. Sometimes this is done by all working on it together. When all have worked on it, it is possible for some of the older children to take these suggestions and apply them in detail. In this method, after the children have listened to the story as told by the adult leader, and have made out their own outline of the different scenes and have acted them out a number of times, then they are ready to sit down and write it out, instead of studying an already written play as the children do under the second method.3 When children write their own dramatization there is a greater chance for initiative and free expression of the creative instinct. The product is more nearly their own, and they feel it more deeply. Whether one uses the second or third method, ' For an “Outline of procedure in developing Biblical drama,’’ see, Miller, Dramatization of Bible Stories, pp. 15 and 16. University of Chicago Press. 252 EDUCATION THROUGH DRAMATIZATION it is possible to relate a number of other activities to the dramatization of the story. The children can study the manners and customs of the people in the play and themselves can make such simple stage accessories as they will need, like water jugs, wells, shields, etc. They can also design and make their own costumes out of simple materials. This is particularly easy in the case of almost any Oriental costume. If the scene is in Egypt, they can study Egyptian design and make borders appropriate for walls or costumes. One thoroughly worked out dramatization may become a class-project to cover a number of weeks, and it may end, especially if it is a missionary dramatization, in some definite service to the people of the country in which the story has its setting. SELECTING DRAMATIC MATERIAL Since our time for religious education is so limited, great care should be exercised in the selection of material to be dramatized. Unworthy stories should not be used. We want only the stories which, when reproduced by the children, will have power to enrich their lives. Since we want to improve the daily living of Junior children, we should choose for dramatization stories which have really great messages. Many Bible and missionary stories come under this classification. Here are people who lived greatly and earnestly. To enter into their lives is an uplifting experience. Since the Junior’s attitudes will be affected by those dramatizations in which he takes part, we must be sure that only ethical actions are starred. For this reason, Miss Miller suggests that the Jacob 253 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL story be passed by, as Jacob practiced deception and yet got all the things he wanted. As some stories are more dramatic than others, we should base our selections on the possibilities of dramatic action in the story. REQUIREMENTS FOR THE LEADER What does a leader need in order to use the dramatic method successfully with Juniors? She needs some technical knowledge, but the truth must not be lost sight of that the person who knows most about the technique of the drama is not always the one who can help children successfully to dramatize. Some knowledge of dramatic effect. — By this is meant some ability to see a story in its dramatic possibilities and its dramatic setting. This implies a little study of the structure of stories, so that the leader can pick out just those scenes which are necessary to the action of the play. By dramatic effect we also mean the manner in which children shall say and do certain things to produce certain effects. This does not mean posing children or getting them to imitate adult ways of expressing their feelings. They should be led to be natural in their parts, choosing their own actions and ges¬ tures as far as possible, but the adult leader ought to know when these are true to the ideas which need to be brought out so that she can help the children to express themselves with best effect. Ability to present the story vividly. — The extent to which the Juniors will throw themselves into the acting of the play, and, indeed, their attitude toward it, depends largely upon the vividness with 254 EDUCATION THROUGH DRAMATIZATION which the story is told to them the first time. It must grip them as they hear it if they are to make others feel its power when they act it. If they are not interested at this first telling, it will be difficult to create interest later on and the matter of disci¬ pline may present problems. Ability to help children express their feelings. — The leader should have that sympathetic attitude which makes children forget themselves in their attempt to feel as others do. As the play progresses, she must be able to help them to get the point of view of other persons. The leader’s own wealth of feeling, at every stage, must call out feeling from the boys and girls. In a variety of ways she must be able to help Mary or John see the story scene so clearly that he actually feels that he is back there in Palestine, among the hills, meeting Goliath single-handed or being sold to traders by jealous brothers. Willingness to help children to be original. — Few dramatizations will suffer from the original interpretations of the children, especially if the members of their own group are the critics, for children almost instinctively have the right ideas if they have been given sufficient information about the play. So long as a child’s original idea of the way to speak or act seems to bring out the mean¬ ing he is an artist and his contributions should be honored. Sometimes it is necessary to let children initiate a number of ideas which they will after¬ ward reject when they discuss their own suggestions. This takes more time, but the children enter into the action more completely if they are having a hand in the making of it. 255 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Patience and time required. — To work up a dramatization by any method which has the educa¬ tion of the child in mind requires time. There are no short-cuts. And not only is time necessary but patience, also, on the part of the leader. Chil¬ dren differ in their powers of expressing feeling. When will this boy who likes to occupy the center of the stage learn that others should have the same chance as he and that several of the group can do quite as well as he? When will this timid child, who has never been able to overcome her terrible shyness, come to feel this story so that she will be natural? How shall this boy who behaves only when he is doing something important learn to be interested in the efforts of others? It requires some skill to make all who are not acting at the moment feel that their minds are actively at work on the play while others are participating. For this reason plays or individual speaking parts should not be too long. Those who are listening do so in order that they may make improvement in interpretation, because they know that soon it will be their turn to take those same parts. For the sake of those who want further help with the method of dramatization with children and who want to know where to find good dramatizations to use, the following lists are appended. BIBLE PLAYS Rita Benton — Bible Plays. The Abingdon Press. Rita Benton — Shorter Bible Plays. The Abingdon Press. May Stein Soble — Bible Plays for Children. Cole — The Good Samaritan and Other Plays. 256 EDUCATION THROUGH DRAMATIZATION Miller — The Dramatization of Bible Stories. Uni¬ versity of Chicago Press. MISSIONARY DRAMATIZATIONS FOR JUNIORS Ferris — Livingstone Hero Plays. Missionary Edu¬ cation Movement. Prentiss — Just Plain Peter. Missionary Educa¬ tion Movement. Stowell — Making Missions Real. The Methodist Book Concern. Ferris — Alice's House Warming. Missionary Edu¬ cation Movement. CHRISTMAS PLAYS Ferris — Children of the Christmas Spirit. Mis¬ sionary Education Movement. McFadden — Why the Chimes Rang. Samuel French Company. SOURCES FOR CHILDREN’S PLAYS Missionary Education Movement, 150 Fifth Ave¬ nue, New York. Religious Drama Department of the Drama League, 59 East Van Buren Street, Chicago, Illinois. Denominational Mission Boards. Catalogue of the Department of Missionary Education, Board of Sunday Schools of the Meth¬ odist Episcopal Church, 58 East Washington Street, Chicago, Illinois. For Further Reading : Miller — The Dramatization of Bible Stories. MacKaye — How to Produce Children's Plays . 257 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Willcox — Mission Study Through Educational Dra¬ matics. Heniger — The Kingdom of the Child. Fry — Educational Dramatics. Miller — Dramatization in the Church School. t 258 CHAPTER XVII TRAINING IN SERVICE Replies from representative groups of teachers in different localities indicate that in only a rela¬ tively few churches does there exist a well-worked- out curriculum of graded service for the Juniors or for all ages in the church school. Such a cur¬ riculum is most effective if it is introduced in the Beginners’ Department and is developed in every succeeding department in the school. But where there is no such program of service for the whole school it is quite possible for a Junior Department to develop its own. THE PURPOSE OF TRAINING IN SERVICE Why should we train our boys and girls to serve? The most conclusive answer to this question is that their great Leader said, “I am among you as one who serves.” His plan was to take his followers into a partnership with himself — a loving partner¬ ship of service to their fellow men. It was not by his teachings only that he sought to train leaders, but by suggesting to them the immediate and active application of his teachings in daily living. The rich young ruler, Zacchaeus, the twelve, all were assigned work to be done. Why should not our program for the training of youthful leaders be equally far-seeing and effective? There are at least three purposes of this training. To help those in need. — The actual amount of 259 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL help which any group of Juniors can give to a needy world is almost infinitesimal in comparison with the world’s appalling want. However, one purpose of a program of service in a Junior Department is to relieve a small share of the world’s needs. No programs of equality of property, of rights, or of opportunities, will ever remove the necessity for mutual helpfulness. Since this is so, boys and girls should early learn to live in a world which must depend, for its happiness, upon the loving active service of the people who live in it. To develop the individual Junior. — While any program of service in a Junior Department may not be very important as far as the actual amount of help rendered is concerned, it is of vital im¬ portance in developing a generation of Christians whose lives will have the essential quality of Jesus’ life — that of service. The program of graded service has as its objective, not what we can get out of our Juniors, but what we can give to them. Our aim is not one hundred dollars for the Foreign Mission Board, or Thanksgiving dinners for the Sobrinsky’s and O’Mallon’s, or Christmas gifts for the Children’s Hospital. It is, rather, the development of serving Christians — those who shall know how to live in a world where the service motive must rule. To socialize the Junior group. — The ultimate aim of every program of service is not just the development of individual Christians as so many independent units in a world-society, but also to develop the “social consciousness” — the feeling that “all are one upon the human wheel.”1 From their training as Christian citizens and as church work- 1 Edwin Markham, Shoes of Happiness. 260 TRAINING IN SERVICE ers, boys and girls should acquire the ability to think together, to work together, to live together. In a certain Christian home it is the custom, every evening after dinner, while the family is still around the table, to have family prayers. There are four boys in that home ranging from one of high-school age down to a little fellow in first grade. Events of the day are talked over, family and school events, church affairs, world problems. After informal talk each member of the family — father and mother, and every boy — offers a prayer. It has been interesting to see how the prayers of these boys have grown in their scope from peti¬ tions for purely personal blessings to a real interest in great questions and in people of every race and color. Not long ago the youngest, in his turn, offered the following prayer: “O God, you help us and we’ll help you, and you and we will help everybody, and everybody will help everybody else. Amen.” It should be the aim of every program of training in service to develop boys and girls who have the spirit of this prayer — the spirit of a world-Christian. MAKING THE SERVICE PROGRAM OF EDUCATIONAL VALUE The curriculum of service is merely a part of the whole educational program, and as such, it must be planned so as to be of real educational value. No haphazard, sporadic giving of time, interest, and money will really develop serving Christians. No mere telling boys and girls that service is the thing will insure its practice. The Christian cause will depend for its fulfillment 261 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL upon those Christians who have had training in the practice of Christianity. The proposed pro¬ gram of service activities is the church’s practice laboratory for growing Christians. The service program can be made of educational value in the following ways: By grading it. — Education depends upon adjust¬ ing the teaching material to the age, interests, and capacities of different groups. If service is to educate for further service, its activities must be selected upon such a basis. The Junior boy ought not to be asked to fold paper flower baskets, if he could, with tools and paint brush, make or mend toys. It is not easy to determine activities suitable to the developing interests and capacities of boys and girls. If we err in our choices, it is usually that we have chosen services which are too easy rather than those which are too hard. The necessity for a developing program is apparent. Boys and girls will not grow, they will only lose interest, when, through a lack of planning, they are asked to do the same kinds of things year after year. There is so much of the world’s work to be done, that duplication and overlapping are unnecessary. By making it worth while. — Juniors have reached that stage of development where they require a reason for the thing they are asked to do. They want to feel that they are engaged upon worth while tasks. In the public schools, boys and girls of Junior age, during the Great War and since, have shown themselves capable of undertaking and carrying through some very responsible community tasks. The church should avail itself of these latent powers of service. 262 TRAINING IN SERVICE By allowing for pupil initiative. — Juniors will feel the worth-whileness of any task of their own choosing. They enjoy an increased sense of respon¬ sibility for the accomplishment of any undertaking which they themselves select. It is theirs and they rise to its fulfillment. Education comes, in part, from the intelligent investigation and discussion of different possibilities of service. By right combination of difficulty and ease of accomplishment. — In spite of the fact that the Junior wants to see results, his efforts are not always well sustained and his attention is apt to be vari¬ able. His service activities must not be so hard as to discourage him. This would not be true grading. Yet he should, year by year, be able to work at increasingly difficult tasks and to learn to sacrifice some things for the “joy that is set before him.” When he reaches a point of fatigue and play interests crowd out his interest in service, then is the time to reenforce his motive. Make the service activity real play so that he may say, like Grenfell of his difficult work in the frozen north, “It is all great fun.” By adequate preparation for service. — The intel¬ ligent investigation and discussion of worthy causes helps to “set” the mind toward them. Christianity depends upon intelligent service. Information and activity go hand in hand. The whole program of missionary education should be a preparation for distinct types of service activities. Biographies of great serviceable lives stimulate the desire to serve. The attractive mission study books now available for Juniors suggest fields where service is needed. 263 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL There should also be detailed instruction on particular tasks. If a Junior class is to take out a membership in the local Infant Welfare Society, that class should secure the literature which ex¬ plains the purpose and accomplishments of this great work for better babies. The class should talk with a representative of the society, should go to the annual Welfare Exhibit, and should visit the institutions for child welfare in the community. By such training will be developed a generation of intelligent community Christians. This same pro¬ gram of study and investigation may be used in helping a mission school, the Associated Charities, the Red Cross, or any other organization. By directing it toward representative needs. — A service program, if truly educational, makes it possible for each Junior to participate in many kinds of service. It does not perpetuate the type of Christian who will work for foreign missions to the exclusion of home, or vice versa. It is quite possible for a person to arrive at maturity with his “service consciousness” only partially developed. Often people do not lack sympathy for folks far away* but their failure to help out in certain great missionary causes is due to the fact that they have never been trained in their childhood to service outside of a limited little world immediately sur¬ rounding them. A graded curriculum of service should be so planned that every Junior has an opportunity to perform some services for his own churchy his imme¬ diate community , his nation and the larger world. These last two provide the home and foreign mis¬ sionary service activities. 264 TRAINING IN SERVICE By preventing false motives. — We have already indicated that the object of service is not only to help the one in need but also to create a desirable attitude in the one who serves. A great deal of philanthropy is handed out with a gracious but condescending attitude, as though the philanthropist were of different stuff from the one whom he is helping. It is particularly easy for children, and especially those of Junior age, who are readily puffed up with pride in their own welldoing, to get the idea that the very fact that they are able to help means that they are superior to those who must receive help from them. This “holier than thou” attitude is far from Christlike and ought to be discouraged whenever it appears. The Junior can reason things out with some assistance and the right kind of instruction will help obviate this difficulty. Teach the Junior why this particular need exists, that it is not the fault of those in need that they are poor or suffering. Let him understand why certain social conditions are as they are. Then cultivate in him a real admi¬ ration for other people, regardless of their outward appearances or circumstances. Last of all, show him, whenever possible, how these very people may be rendering service for him. It may be the miner in the depths of the earth, the miller, the bread maker, the clothes manufacturer all the countless host of those who labor that others may enjoy the fruits of their hands. Whenever possible, plan an exchange of gifts or service between two opposite kinds of groups, or a mutual undertaking for both groups. If a group of suburban Juniors can get in touch with a group 265 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL of Juniors in a city tenement district, it is possible to arrange for an exchange of services performed. One suburban Junior Department gave a Christ¬ mas party for a group of Italian boys and girls. As their share of the party the Italian guests put on a little Christmas program. In another suburban community where, on the outskirts of the village, there was a mission church school, the boys and girls of both schools worked up a foreign-missionary pageant together to be given at the annual meeting of the Woman’s Board of Foreign Missions. This getting together of different kinds of social groups in cooperative enterprises will help to promote a wider sympathy and a truer understanding. By carrying service activities through to com¬ pletion. — If “hell is paved with good intentions, ” some of the paving blocks must represent activities started and never finished. Better that a Junior class undertake one service project and carry it through to its logical conclusion than that it get a number of irons in the fire and just leave them there. Juniors like to feel that they have “arrived.” They will not always “arrive” if left to themselves, for their boundless energy may quickly shift to a new and more alluring interest. We must help them to stand fast. A SUGGESTED PROGRAM OF SERVICE FOR THE JUNIOR DEPARTMENT The real value of any curriculum of graded social service is to be secured when the activities grow out of the interests of the children, the special needs of their own churches and communities, or the opportunities of service provided for them by 266 TRAINING IN SERVICE their own home or foreign mission boards. No ready-made program of service can be taken over by a Junior Department and used without alter¬ ation. It must be adapted to the capacities of the particular groups and to the kind of community in which the department is located. Rural churches will have some opportunities of service peculiar to their own situation, and the same is true of city schools. The following program is very general. It indicates: 1. That instruction about service and the service rendered must go hand in hand. The service activ¬ ity will grow out of the knowledge of need, and vice versa. 2. That service activities should meet a variety of needs beginning with the world near at hand and extending to more distant places and people. 3. That service activities in the third year Junior should be more mature and difficult than those planned for the first year Juniors. 4. That some services should be department undertakings in which all the Junior classes unite. Others will be specially cared for by individual classes. The program of graded service affords a splendid opportunity to lead the Junior to feel that he is, not just a member of a church school, a separate organ from the church, but that the church school class and department are merely the means through which he, as a member of the church, is doing his share to carry on its work. Other valuable suggestions for service activities appropriate for Juniors may be secured from the books, Graded Social Service in the Sunday School , 267 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL by Hutchins, and The Church School of Citizenship , by Hoben. In the office of the Religious Education Association2 there are pamphlets published by individual church schools which indicate their service programs. Service Activities for the Department service 1. Regular weekly offering for church support. Occasionally a special gift of a picture or flowers for some place in the church. 2. Articles made and con¬ tributed to go in a Christmas box to the church missionary on the foreign field. A July Christmas tree. Plan and present an evening’s program in honor of the church mis¬ sionary home on fur¬ lough. Juniors dramatize some incident portraying their service work on the foreign field as a part of a church school pageant of Service. Regular weekly pledg¬ es to foreign missionary work of the church. INFORMATION 1. About the home church and its expenditures. Salaries for pastor, and other workers, upkeep of church house, church school supplies, social life for young people, etc. 2. About the work of the church missionary on the foreign field. Missionary programs and story hours depicting the work of educational, medical, and other types of mis¬ sionary work. Junior Mission Study books as texts in the church school classes or in the week-day meeting of the Junior Depart¬ ment. 2 Write to Religious Education Association, Chicago, Illinois. 268 TRAINING IN SERVICE Service activities asso¬ ciated with Special Days. (a) Dinners to fam¬ ilies under direc¬ tion of local Asso¬ ciated Charities. (b) Gifts of Christmas toys, etc. M oney for Christmas for Syrian and Arme¬ nian children or suffering children anywhere. (c) Special Lincoln’s Birthday offering for a Negro school. Possibly gifts of flags or school sup¬ plies for such a school. (d) Children’s Day. Take Children’s Day flowers to hospitals and down to crowded city sections. Start to save and earn money to provide summer outings for city children. 3. About Special Days call¬ ing for service expression. (a) Thanksgiving. About work of Associated Chari¬ ties. Special in¬ formation about particular families needing help. ( b ) About same fam¬ ilies helped at Thanksgiving or new groups. About starving children in Bible lands or others. (c) Lincoln’s Birth¬ day. About Negro situation. The unfinished work of Abraham Lincoln and Booker T. Washington. ( d ) About children in the city who do not have flowers or grass or access to the country. Stories to pave way for interest in providing trips to the country for such children and their mothers. 269 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL ( e ) Clean-Up Week. Children pledge to clean up their own yards and street. (J) Be Kind to Ani¬ mals Week. Make bandages for in¬ jured animals. M ake bird houses and bird baths. 4. Services for the shut-ins. Singing Christmas carols under windows of shut- ins on Christmas eve. Each class look after its own sick members. 5. Singing in the Junior Choirs. (i e ) About the advan¬ tages of clean cities. Story of Colonel Waring and his enlistment of children in a clean - up cam¬ paign. (/) About the Blue Cross Society. Ways in which kindness can be shown to animals. Appreciation of what animals do for us. 4. About particular people in the church who are shut in and would appre¬ ciate being remembered. 5. About the place of church music, its rela¬ tion to worship, etc. Service Activities for Each Junior Class First Year Juniors SERVICE ACTIVITY 1. For our home church. (a) Assisting the Junior superinten¬ dent on Sundays and week days for two months. INFORMATION 1. About the home church and its need of help in various ways. About service in the church school as being one department of the church. 270 TRAINING IN SERVICE (6) Distributing hym¬ nals, pasting mimeographed songs in Junior Hymnals, mount¬ ing pictures for department use. (c) Supplying flowers for church pulpit one Sunday. ( d ) Looking out for shut-ins. 2. For Our Community. (а) Gifts of toys or milk or apples for the Day Nursery or the Children’s Home. (б) Plan and give a party for some of these children. 3. For Our Nation. (a) Correspond e n c e with denomina- tional school among the Indians to see what is needed. Send money for desks, or school supplies. Send magazines or other articles asked for. ( b ) Send the American Boy or Youth's Companion to some boys and 271 2. About the Day Nursery and the Children’s Home. Visits to these places. 3. About our home mis¬ sionary enterprises. (a) About the Ameri¬ can Indians. Use the story of “Goodbird the Indian.” ( b ) About boys and girls in remote rural districts or the children of frontier mission¬ aries. JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL girls in the coun¬ try. Correspond with these boys and girls. 4. For Our World. (а) Make scrapbooks for children in Chinese hospital. (б) Girls make square handkerchiefs one yard square for Chinese girls to carry school books 4. Stories about one or two specific missions. Stories emphasizing the admir¬ able qualities of boys and girls of other races. Information about the specific children to be helped. in. Second Year Juniors SERVICE ACTIVITIES i. For Our Home Church (a) Preparing materi¬ als to be used in Primary Depart¬ ment. (b) Assisting depart¬ ment superintend¬ ent with hymnals, etc. (c) Placing flowers in pulpit one Sun¬ day. (d) Clean department closets. (e) Make surprise bags for sick boys and girls in their class or other classes. INFORMATION 1. About the varied work of the church, music, preaching, social service, missionary education. About other depart¬ ments of the church school. Occasional opportu¬ nities to hear short talks by the pastor or to con¬ fer with him as to ways in which the Juniors may help the church. 272 TRAINING IN SERVICE (/) Make objects to illustrate Bible customs. (g) Sing in one of Junior choirs. For Our Community. (a) Take out a class membership in the local Infant Wel¬ fare Society. ( b ) As a class, visit Exhibition of the Infant Welfare So¬ ciety during Bet¬ ter-Babies Week. (c) Help distribute posters advertis¬ ing this exhibit. ( d ) Supply milk for some baby center. (e) Sell Christmas Red Cross Seals. For Our Nation. (a) Collect and ar¬ range in piles pieces of bright- colored cloths of equal sizes for col¬ ored girls to use in making quilts. (b) Collect colored pic¬ tures to send to Negro school chil¬ dren. (c) Earn money and buy boxes of col¬ ored crayons, lead 2. About Infant Welfare. Why so many babies die. How this can be prevented. Need of air, sunshine, food, play. How the Infant Wel¬ fare Society helps chil¬ dren in all these ways. 3. About our nation and the home missionary work of the church. About the Negroes. Secure pictures from some Southern school showing types of chil¬ dren and activities. Study about the Ne¬ groes in our Northern cities, the housing prob¬ lem, etc. About Booker T. Washington and schools like Tuskegee. JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL pencils, knives, for children in a Ne¬ gro school. 4. Our World. (a) Collect surplus church school text¬ books and sup¬ plies, tie together in piles, label and pack to go to some mission school in Turkey and Ja¬ pan. Write direc¬ tions for using. (b) Make surgical dressings for a for¬ eign hospital. This is a good way to conserve the Junior Red Cross work which the children did in the 4. About the world needs and the way in which the foreign missionary work of the church is supplying them. Stories about the par¬ ticular foreign mission school which the chil¬ dren are helping. Stories about foreign hospitals and medical work. Such a story as “An Arm Out of Joint and What Came of It.” war. Third Year Juniors SERVICE ACTIVITIES INFORMATION i. Our Home Church. (a) Messenger service. Distributing cal¬ endars, church letters, home de¬ partment quarter¬ lies, etc. ( b ) Make objects illus¬ trating Bible and missionary lessons for church 1. About the need of help by the pastor and those working in the church office. Need to economize church funds. Keeping the church house in order and good repair. museum. 274 TRAINING IN SERVICE (c) Sing Christmas carols for shut-ins. (d) Girls make ban¬ ners for Junior Department. Also runners for piano and tables. Reed baskets for class supplies. (e) Boys make screens for Junior Depart¬ ment, racks for coats and hats. Reed baskets for class supplies. (/) Look over hym¬ nals, paste in loose pages, clean soiled spots. Our Community. (a) Take out a class membership in the Associated Char¬ ities. ( b ) Donate and col¬ lect clothes for lo¬ cal charities or Economy Shop. (c) Help Associated Charities espe¬ cially at Thanks¬ giving and Christ¬ mas. (i d ) Secure votes against Sunday movies. 2. About the Associated Charities and how it operates. About the recreational facilities of the commu¬ nity. Its amusements. Find out how the State or city cares for its tuber¬ cular or crippled children. Visit home for crippled children. 275 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL 3- ( e ) Take out a class membership in the Red Cross. (/) Plan and give an afternoon enter¬ tainment for chil¬ dren in Home for Cripples. Our Nation . (a) Make scrapbooks for children in the Southern moun¬ tains. ( b ) Save large, beau¬ tifully colored pic¬ tures to be used on walls of moun¬ tain cabins. (c) Girls either make simple garments for babies or col¬ lect old ones to send to visiting nurse in mountain districts. (d) Send books or cur¬ tain materials for school for moun¬ taineers. (e) Make scrapbooks illustrating the principles of true Americanism. In¬ clude graphic pic¬ tures of citizen¬ ship activities, sa¬ lute to American 3. About the foreigners in our midst and how we can help them to love Amer¬ ica and be good Amer¬ icans. Such books as Amer¬ icans All or Giovanni. About the Southern mountaineers, their splendid qualities and their limited opportu¬ nities. TRAINING IN SERVICE flag, the hymn, “America the Beautiful.” (/) Entertain a group of children from a city mission. ( g ) Dress dolls and make puzzles for city-mission Christmas tree. 4. Our World. (a) Work bags con¬ taining crochet needles and white thread for Chinese women and school girls. (b) Boys make puz¬ zles and games for Grenfell Mission. (c) Sell horn e-made candy and pop¬ corn balls to pay for scholarship of boy in foreign school. 4. About some definite mis¬ sion, not duplicating the information given in pre¬ vious years. About school life in for¬ eign countries. About industrial con¬ ditions as they affect the lives of children in the Orient. For Further Reading : Loveland — Training World Christians. Hutton — The Missionary Education of Juniors . Hutchins — Graded Social Service in the Sunday School. Hoben — The Church School of Citizenship. Diffendorfer — Missionary Education in Home and School. m JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Hutton — Things to Make. World Friendship for Boys and Girls, free pam¬ phlet by Missionary Education Movement, 150 Fifth Avenue, New York. CHAPTER XVIII THE JUNIOR DEPARTMENT AT WORK Dr. John Dewey tells the story of looking for school desks for a school where some freedom and initiative were to be allowed the pupils in place of the more stilted regulations of the formal school¬ room. After finding nothing that would answer the purpose the dealer said: “I am afraid we have not what you want. You want something at which the children may work; these are all for listening.” The Junior Department is not and ought not to be a place for just “listening.” It is a workshop in which every member should be busy. All depart¬ ment organization, all details of records and equip¬ ment, exist merely to make useful work possible. Unless they do this they should be changed. THE PURPOSE OF ORGANIZATION In many schools certain set forms of organization have been handed down from one set of officers to another, and these forms are perpetuated from year to year without consideration of whether the need for them still exists or whether they are accom¬ plishing the best results. What are the purposes of department organization bv which we may test its usefulness? To develop responsibility. — One purpose of organ¬ ization is to make responsible Christians of those enrolled in the church school. Tho Junior Depart^ 279 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL ment should be so organized that it permits the pupils to assume responsibilities instead of having everything done by the teachers and adult officers. We do not want “just listening,” but working boys and girls. To develop leadership. — It is not enough to develop a responsible feeling in youth. Real initi¬ ative and leadership are needed. Any department organization ought to be so flexible that it can be adapted to the possibilities of girl and boy leader¬ ship. There should be no overhead organization so rigid that the Junior superintendent is not free to shape her own policies for the particular needs of the Juniors, while she is, at the same time, closely tied up to the organization of the entire school. To create effective conditions for work. — In addi¬ tion to the development of responsibility and leader¬ ship in the Juniors, the purpose of department organization is to create the most effective conditions for work. It ought to be tested by its ability to further the aims of religious education. PUPIL ORGANIZATION If department organization is really to develop the initiative and responsible leadership of chil¬ dren, it must in some way be in the hands of the children themselves. We shall need, as we shall see later, a complete and effective organization of adult officers, but, under them, the Juniors them¬ selves should be in training. Christian democracy depends upon the training of youth in the tasks of democracy by active participation in a democratic organization in the schoolroom. Junior self-government. — What form of self- 280 THE JUNIOR DEPARTMENT AT WORK government is best adapted to Juniors? It is im¬ possible to suggest any one set form which is better than any other for all departments in all com¬ munities. Organization, to be truly helpful, will vary with the size of departments, classes, or churches. The types of children will also help determine the form of organization. Self-government for Juniors should be of a very simple form, not too complicated to be easily under¬ stood and easily carried out by girls and boys who have not yet learned to hold themselves to tasks for a very long period of time. One of the simplest forms is that of a Junior Council. The entire depart¬ ment elects a president and a secretary, if there is any real job for the secretary to do. Then each class elects a Council member, and these Council members, together with the Junior officers and the adult officers, comprise the Junior Council. Junior elections. — Great care should be taken to train Juniors to choose officers wisely. The Junior is apt to choose the best ball player or the boy who asserts himself rather than to do any real thinking about the qualities needed for depart¬ ment administration. Teachers and adult leaders should make it quite clear to the boys and girls what these qualities are. Reliability, willingness, prompt obedience, the desire to be of help — these are the prime qualifications. Care should also be taken to see that the opportunity to be a Council member or department officer, is handed around, so that all have a chance to lead for a period of the year. A child should hold his office long enough to get some real training out of it, but not so long that others will not have the same chance. 281 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL Tasks for the Junior Council. — What are the duties of the Junior Council? These will vary with the varying programs of different schools. In general, the Council should talk over what makes a good Junior Department, noting such things as regular attendance, promptness, home study, care¬ ful work in classes, and above all, the school atti¬ tude. At the beginning of the year each Council member, with the help of his teacher, should pre¬ sent these objectives to his class. It is his duty to see that his class does its very best to carry out these aims. It may be necessary to concentrate on some one or two aims for a definite period. In order that the Council members may be con¬ scious of actual accomplishment, they should be assigned such practical duties as ushering, greeting visitors, seeing that the work supplies for their own classes are on the class tables each Sunday and put away in their proper places afterward, keeping the pencils sharpened, and other necessary tasks. The Council members can be responsible for seeing that certain members of their classes are on hand to receive the offering in the month assigned to them or to distribute hymnals or assist the superintendent in other ways. The Junior Council can talk over plans for depart¬ ment social service, for parties or hikes, for any special occasions such as Christmas or Children’s Day. And any class, through its Council member, may make a suggestion of a plan to the Council. Occasionally there should be a chance for the Junior officers to preside over the department meeting, either on Sunday or on a week day. If there are week-day meetings of the department, the presL 282 THE JUNIOR DEPARTMENT AT WORK dent may always open this meeting and preside during the business. Occasionally the classes will plan and lead the opening services of worship.1 There should be the same organization for the Junior Department and the Junior Epworth League, or Junior Christian Endeavor, or any week-day meet¬ ing of the Junior group. The League is only the department meeting for a certain part of its pro¬ gram and the League work should be under the supervision of the Junior superintendent and those chosen by her to assist.2 ADULT ORGANIZATION The adult organization of the Junior Depart¬ ment exists for the purposes outlined above. It should include all the officers necessary to accom¬ plish these purposes and no more. Officers. — The number of officers will depend, as did the pupil organization, upon the size and program of the department. There will be the Junior superintendent, a secretary and a treasurer, or a secretary-treasurer combined, and a pianist. In addition, there may be some one whose special duty it is to look out for the supplies. This may be especially necessary if the department is large and both superintendent and secretary are too busy to be responsible for this end of the work. Some schools use a chorister, but he or she should work under the direction of the superintendent who plans the services of worship. Duties of officers. — The Junior superintendent has entire supervision of the department program. 1 See Chapter XIII, "Planning the Worship Program.” * See Chapter XIX, "The Junior and the Church.” 283 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL She works out her year’s program with the Director of Education, if the church employs one. If not, her program is submitted to the superintendent of the church school and to the Church School Board or Committee of Religious Education. She leads all the department services, supervises officers and teachers, plans and presides at all teacher’s meetings, sees that her teachers are enrolled in training classes and is the personal friend of every girl and boy in her department. The secretary keeps all department records, keeps the files up-to-date, together with the superintend¬ ent works out a plan of getting in touch with ab¬ sentees, and should think of her task not merely as that of writing things on paper but of knowing the Junior membership personally. She should make her records living things and should always have them in such condition that they are imme¬ diately available and useful. The treasurer’s duties will depend upon the system of church-school finance. Whatever that system, the treasurer should keep a careful record of all pledges made by Juniors and should never let a Junior child fall behind in his payments for more than two Sundays. The treasurer is respon¬ sible with the superintendent, for training the Juniors in systematic and generous giving. The secretary of supplies will keep the supply closet in order, will give out all textbooks, and relieve the superintendent of all such details on Sunday mornings. A class needing paste, another asking for pencils, a child without a textbook — these are details which need not come to the super¬ intendent, who ought to be free to greet the children, 284 THE JUNIOR DEPARTMENT AT WORK to lead her service of worship without interruption, and to supervise the teaching. The pianist of the Junior Department has a great opportunity. This opportunity has been explained in the chapter on worship.3 Teachers’ meetings and training classes. — There should be regular meetings of the teachers and officers of the department. If the teachers do not have access to training classes, the Junior super¬ intendent should enroll in a Summer School of Religious Education or some Winter Training School and plan to bring back to her teachers the results of her study. This can be done at monthly teachers’ meetings or by some other plan. It is well to have every meeting of teachers and officers consider some phase of Junior work from the educa¬ tional point of view, in addition to discussing the specific problems of the department. A good text¬ book on Junior Methods may be made the basis of these discussions. However, every Junior teacher ought to plan to take such courses as were suggested in Chapter VI.4 In addition, there are correspondence courses in teacher training for which credit is given on the Standard Teacher Training Diploma. Of prep¬ aration for teaching it is true, as it is of many other things, that “where there is a will there is a way.” RECORDS OF DEPARTMENT WORK One of the weak points in many church schools is the keeping of records. Not much thought is given to the real purposes and usefulness of records, * Chapter XII, “The Elements of a Service of Worship." 4 Chapter VI, “The Art of Teaching Juniors." 285 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL and such as are kept are often not up-to-date or in the form in which they can be readily referred to and used. The Junior superintendent has the opportunity to compile some very helpful records. The purpose of records. — Records are useful in keeping track of the growth of a school both in numbers and in expansion of the work. They should help those in charge to see what has been done in previous years, in the way of enrollment, benev¬ olence, service work, worship, and study. But the most valuable purpose which records serve is to tell the story of individual pupils, so that new teachers and old ones may understand home condi¬ tions, the pupil’s attitude, his development from year to year. A file of such records is no collection of dry statistics; it is, as Paul might have said, “a living epistle.” Useful types of record-keeping. — The Junior superintendent will want to know on an enroll¬ ment card, the Junior’s name, his address, his telephone number, the date of his birth, the date of entering the church school, his grade in public school, his grade in the Junior Department, his parents’ names and their church affiliation, the name of his church-school teacher. It will prob¬ ably be found helpful to have duplicates of these cards, one file arranged in alphabetical order and one by Junior classes. The cards should be of uniform size. There are times when one wants to locate a pupil quickly in the alphabetical file. There are other occasions when one wants to take a whole class enrollment from the files when the pupils or parents of just one class are to be tel¬ ephoned or addressed by letter. 286 THE JUNIOR DEPARTMENT AT WORK Whoever is in charge of recognizing the Junior birthdays will want still another file arranged by months and birthdays. Card catalogues are much better than records kept in books, as cards can be withdrawn when pupils leave school or are absent for several Sundays. But there ought to be a more intimate record of each pupil than the one indicated above. The information on such enrollment cards is exceedingly useful, but it is only the outer husk and reveals very little of all that the Junior teacher ought to know in order that she may understand her pupils. Each teacher ought to keep a card file of her own class members. On this card she should note any of the information suggested above which she needs, such as address, phone number, parents’ names, etc. But, in addition, she should jot down such things as the following: 1. What are the home conditions? The occupation of the father. The number of brothers and sisters. The kind of a house or apartment. Comparative luxury or pov¬ erty. Christian influence of the home. Atti¬ tude of parents toward the church school. 2. The kind of recreation which the child enjoys. Moving pictures. How often does he go? To what kind? Kind of books read. Friends. 3. His standing in public school. 4. The pupil’s characteristics. His attitude in the class and department. Any indications of what the child thinks or feels. 5. Any effect upon his everyday living of the lessons studied in the church school. Information such as this will be culled from 287 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL visits in the home, talks with the parents, and the public-school teachers, and from personal observa¬ tion of the child. Parents may in time learn to talk freely with the teacher about their children and their special needs as well as the ways in which the church school can help the children. Of course Junior girls and boys should not know that they are being talked over. They should feel that all interchanges between parents and teachers are made in the friendliest spirit. Some such record of each pupil ought to be, not only in the hands of the teacher, but in the files of the Junior Department. Of other records we cannot speak at length. For her own reference, the Junior superintendent will want to keep a copy of the worship themes for each year and of the services of worship, noting when there have been desired results from a particular service. She will want on file the course of study for each year and the program of service activities. As a basis for discussion of individual and of class problems, some kind of a weekly or monthly report from each teacher will be helpful. Teachers can note down methods of teaching tried and found successful, reactions of pupils to the services of worship, indications of growth in character, or evidences that certain pupils need special attention. Such reports should not be so frequent or so in¬ volved as to be a burden to teachers, but every teacher will soon learn to see how valuable it is to keep records of work done and successful accom¬ plishment. For the purpose of cultivating certain invaluable habits class records of attendance, promptness, bringing Bibles, doing home work, and of school 288 THE JUNIOR DEPARTMENT AT WORK attitude are sometimes kept. On the basis of such records a personal report is sent to every home once a month or at least once in two months stating the ranking of the pupil. To make such reports truly helpful to parents and pupils, they should not be after the manner of the formal grading of the old-fashioned public school report. The gist of the records should be put into one or two sen¬ tences which are a personal note from teacher or superintendent to parents, indicating just where is strength and where weakness and how best to meet the situation and help the pupil. Such reports should be frank and honest, but always earnest and friendly. Any cases requiring special attention should always be preceded or followed up by a personal interview. Making use of records. — No department or church school should be cluttered up with records which are never or seldom referred to. All records of one kind should be kept on uniform cards or sheets and filed for convenient reference in a con¬ venient place. They should not be used promiscu¬ ously, but only by those who, for the best interests of pupils and school, need the information which they contain. EQUIPMENT FOR A WORKING JUNIOR ROOM The question of religious educational equipment is still in an experimental condition. That church which is planning to erect a new building ought to take plenty of time to investigate and discover what has been done in some of the newest church plants. But it is not enough that a committee which knows little about church architecture or the 289 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL religious educational needs of youth should merely visit churches. The building committee, which should contain some members who have particularly in mind the needs of the girls and boys, should consult with some good church bureau of archi¬ tecture.4 5 Such a bureau will know the best church plants to visit and will give advice with the par¬ ticular needs of a particular church in mind. The church having a small sum of money to spend ought to avail itself of such experienced help. Arrangement. — The Junior room ought to be large enough to provide for the needs of growing and constantly active bodies of Junior boys and girls. If possible, separate classrooms opening from or adjoining a general meeting room should be provided, at least for the older Junior classes. With the introduction of the freer classroom atmos¬ phere there are certain types of work which are not easy to carry on except where privacy can be assured. It is also true that the teacher who wants to make the classroom period not only educational but also worshipful needs to have privacy, just herself and her pupils unobserved by any other watching eyes. Because the Junior age is a noisy, active age, it is often difficult to maintain good discipline when classes meet where children are continually distracted by neighboring classes. If separate rooms are not available, the Junior room should be so large that there is plenty of space between class groups, and so that screens may be placed around classes when desired, to insure privacy. Screens ought to be strong and heavy 4 Bureau of Architecture of Methodist Episcopal Church, 58 East Washington Street, Chicago. 290 THE JUNIOR DEPARTMENT AT WORK enough to allow pictures to be attached to them, and maps, and even a hanging blackboard, unless some other provision is made for blackboard space. Whenever possible there should be space in the center of the room where the Juniors may meet for their service of worship instead of sitting around in class groups. The atmosphere of worship is far more reverential when there is an appropriate place for it. A few very fortunate schools have small chapels available for this purpose. Either outside of the Junior room or at the back there should be hooks or some arrangement for the care of wraps, so that they may be removed and hung safely out of the way as soon as the children enter. Some newer buildings have devices in the walls which hide all view of wraps. Where space is very limited removable racks may be placed in the room on Sundays. Room decorations. — The Junior room ought to be as beautiful and as attractive to girls and boys as the amount of money available can make it. Chil¬ dren will respond to a remarkable degree to a large, sunshiny room, with artistically tinted walls, simple but beautiful curtains, where plants are growing and the room invites one to linger. Tans and some shades of brown make a good background for pic¬ tures and permit a combination of other colors. The writer remembers a very beautiful Junior room done in tones of ivory, with inexpensive cur¬ tains of deep blue and dark oak furniture. The ivory-colored painted walls would wash, and it was not much more difficult to keep them clean than a tan would have been. Plain tan-colored or linen- colored crash makes serviceable and artistic cur- 291 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL tains, if a bit of color is introduced some other place in the room. Colors in curtain material should be avoided as they are apt to fade and look shabby. Materials used should be of such a kind as to be easily laundered. The older Junior girls can keep the curtains freshly washed and ironed as a class project. Older boys can undertake the washing of the woodwork. Furniture. — Chairs should be of a suitable height for Junior girls and boys and not left-overs from some older group. Many schools cannot afford to have chairs of varying sizes for the departments above the Primary, but the chairs can at least be selected with a view to the comfort of the pupils. Some schools prefer the desk chairs, having their Juniors meet in a more formal classroom atmosphere. The intellectual effect of such chairs may be good, and the right teacher may find them no obstacle in the way of a real social feeling. The round or square table, suitable for a class of six or eight Juniors, creates a social atmosphere and facilitates study and notebook work. Classroom necessities. — Each classroom, in addi¬ tion to a suitable table and chairs, should contain a blackboard, wall space for maps or pictures, and a drawer in the table, or a small cabinet for sup¬ plies. In some schools in which there is one general supply closet where things can be stored during the week, each table has placed upon it on Sunday mornings a reed basket tray or a box (decorated by the class with a picture or design) which holds pencils, crayons, paste, toothpicks, extra quarterlies, and notebooks — anything necessary for lesson study and classroom work. 292 THE JUNIOR DEPARTMENT AT WORK There should be available, upon application to the supply secretary, plastecine for maps, wall maps of Palestine and mission countries, and stereoscopes and stereographs. The Junior room should also contain a sand table which classes may use in turn. Lacking this, a large dripping pan can be filled with sand and used for more miniature work right on the class table. Pictures. — There are some excellent books6 now published which devote special chapters to pic¬ tures appropriate for the Junior room. A few good pictures, some in colors, are better than many half good or poor ones. Too many pictures up at one time may produce a cluttered effect. They should be framed in simple, dark frames and each picture should be hung in relation to the other pictures in the room and the wall space best suited to its size and shape. Library. — Either the church school or the Junior Department ought to have a library of teachers’ reference books. This library should contain a right proportion of books which will be especially helpful to the Junior teacher. Where money is available a library of books of missionary heroism to promote the reading of such books by the boys and girls is a good idea. Where public libraries exist, that look out for the reading of the com¬ munity children, the church school can use its money to best advantage by having an up-to-date library of religious education for parents and teachers and, for the young people, those books which deal especially with missions, or life ideals, or vocations. 6 Picturesr jn Religious Education, Beard. The Use of Art in Religious Education, Bailey. 293 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL For Further Reading : Stout — The Organization and Administration of Religious Education. Betts — The New Program of Religious Education. Cope — Efficiency in the Sunday School. Evans — The Sunday School Building and Its Equipment. Sunday School Departmental Architecture for Chil¬ dren's Groups , a pamphlet published jointly by the General Sunday School Board and the Board of Church Extension, Methodist Episco¬ pal Church, South. / 294 CHAPTER XIX THE JUNIOR AND THE CHURCH Religious education should so train the Junior that, increasingly, he will enjoy receiving at the hands of the church its spiritual ministries. It should also train him to build his life into the church, and through his devotion help it to bring in the kingdom of God. From the moment when he first has any associa¬ tions with the church he should feel that the church belongs to him and he to the church. He should never have the feeling that he is waiting until some future time to “belong.” He should never feel that he is affiliated merely with the church school or with any other subordinate part and not with the church itself. All church organizations should simply mean to him expressions of the church’s interest in him, avenues through which he can serve the church. It is quite possible for a church to grip its boys and girls with this feeling that it is their enterprise. A few years ago a large suburban church caught fire in a terrific electrical storm and practically burned to the ground. It was the pioneer church in the community and it was loved by old and young, those within and those without the church. In the early morning hours everyone who could turned out to help save what could be rescued from the burning building. The boys and girls were 295 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL there in full force. One of the trustees, suddenly remembering some important object, sent a boy of twelve back into the building for it. When the boy returned triumphantly presenting the desired article, the elderly trustee offered him a quarter. With a look of astonishment and of hurt pride which was perfectly genuine, the boy drew himself up and said, “No, thank you, sir, I can’t take it. I am a Boy Scout, and, besides, this is my church as well as yours.” “This is my church,” replied this boy so recently graduated from the Junior Department. Had not some of his own money helped to erect the new church house which was now threatened by the burning of the old building? Did he not worship within its walls each Sunday? How often had he started from its doors on his Scout hikes or played a game of basket ball in its spacious gymnasium! It was his church by all that it had done for him and all that he had done for it. DEVELOPING THE JUNIOR’S LOYALTY TO THE CHURCH The church which is ministering to its boys and girls in a thoroughgoing and competent way expects, and will not be disappointed in expecting, in return a growing loyalty to its work. But in order to secure this loyalty the church’s ministry to youth must recognize certain attitudes and habits in the child mind and certain laws of child growth. Through one united program for Juniors. — If the Junior is to be loyal to the church as a whole, and not to just some one Junior organization within the church, he must feel that the church has one great all-inclusive program. If there are several 296 THE JUNIOR AND THE CHURCH entirely unrelated programs1 — missionary and recre¬ ational, worship and service — and all lacking in correlation, the Junior becomes bewildered. If he is loyal at all, it is to that organization which offers him the most interesting things to do. If his loyalty is divided, and his attitude toward some is that of indifference, he fails to make the church as a whole the object of his intelligent devotion. The church should control this situation by placing in the hands of the church committee on religious education the entire power of initiating and super¬ vising the work with boys and girls. If suggestions of materials and programs coming from different organizations are to be adopted, let this committee build them all into a single program. If these separately promoted organizations are considered as necessary, they should be worked in as a part of the organized Junior Department or Junior class work. Duplication and confusion must be avoided. As long as boys and girls attend various meetings and participate in various programs apparently unrelated to each other, thus adding more meet¬ ings to their already overcrowded schedules, and as long as they contribute their money to three or four different budgets, they cannot be expected to realize that they are doing all these things for the church. Through pleasant associations with the church.— In one part of his definition of loyalty, Josiah Royce says that it is “voluntary devotion to a cause.” Children tend to give their voluntary devotion to that cause which has for them pleasant associa- 1 Such as Blue Birds, Wolf Cubs, Junior Epwortb League or Christian Endeavor, and the various Junior Missionary organizations. 297 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL tions. This is one reason for giving them a program of religious education which meets their needs, trained leaders whom they can admire and whom they will want to imitate, and a building and equip¬ ment which will draw them to the church over and over again in preference to other places of interest. The church-school class made interesting, the lesson taught vividly, the class hike out into the open, the “Junior Jolly” in the gymnasium, the moving picture on a Friday — all these things mean that the very word “church” calls up a picture of happiness in the child’s mind. Every moment, every cent, spent in making the church’s program interesting will yield a multiplied return in loyalty to the church. Through sharing in the financial support of the church. — The Junior will feel that the church be¬ longs to him, especially if he is consciously helping to support it. The church should pay all the ex¬ penses of the church school. Then the boys and girls should be given the opportunity to pledge definite amounts to the double budget of the church, for church expenses and for the church missionary work. The duplex envelope system is convenient and consistent with this educational principle. Naturally, the money which they turn in for church expenses swells the general church treasury and some of it goes for the support of the church school. But by this system the children are receiving a broader education, and they feel that the church school is not a separate undertaking of their own but is the church working for and with them. Some churches arrange to have their boys and 298 THE JUNIOR AND THE CHURCH girls make their yearly church pledges with their fathers and mothers at the time of the every-member canvass. This helps to make the children feel that they and their parents are members of the church together. Children should never be asked to pledge sup¬ port to the church budget without understanding what the money is used for. Juniors take a gen¬ uine interest in knowing what salaries are paid, how the money provides textbooks and supplies, and pays for the upkeep of the building and grounds. Boys and girls will often be far more careful of church property when they feel that they are pay¬ ing money for its care. Through an intelligent understanding of the church’s history and task. — In the chapter on curriculum,2 suggestions have been made of the knowledge which Juniors should have of the early heroes of the church, of denominational heroes and of the past history and future plans of their own local church. This knowledge should stress biography, organization, and program. Adequate provision should be made in the curriculum and time schedule for the presentation of this material. Through sharing in the work of the church. — The natural outcome of an intelligent interest in the work of the church is the desire to share in its work. For that reason, Juniors should be made to feel that all the service work which they do in the church school is their share in the service of the whole church. In order that the bond of loyalty to the church may be strengthened, their service work should include some tasks performed for the church itself.3 * See Chapter XVII, pp. 268-277. 299 2 See Chapter IV, p. 68. JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL THE JUNIOR CHURCH The Junior church idea has been vigorously pro¬ moted during the last few years. But it has not been clearly defined. Different people and churches mean different things by this term. It is possible that the Junior church idea may help to unify for the child his various relations to the church. But, if it is to do this, its program must not constitute simply one more detached organization to which the child is urged to belong. Meaning of the term. — In some localities the Junior church includes all the children of every age. In others some age limits are defined. Mr. Cross¬ land suggests that the age limit be from six to fourteen or sixteen.4 Others limit the Junior church to those boys and girls who are in the Junior De¬ partment. Not only are varying age groups included in the Junior churches, but also varying programs. For many, the Junior church is simply the boys and girls meeting during the adult church service in a separate room, or meeting at another hour, for worship. In many instances this plan has per¬ ceptibly increased the attendance of the children at church services. Some people mean by the term “Junior church” the boys and girls organized into a church of their own, with committees, formed after the fashion of the adult church committees — elders, deacons, official boards, or whatever officers the local church employs. In this way young people are trained to carry on the detailed work of the church. 4 Crossland, The Junior Church in Action, p. 27. 3°° THE JUNIOR AND THE CHURCH Advantages of a Junior-church program. — When compared with the two-period session of the church school,5 the chief advantages of organizing boys and girls into a Junior church are the additional amount of time available and the fact that they become familiar with the problems of church organ¬ ization. When they simply meet for a Junior- church service of worship in addition to the regular church-school hour, this plan is very little different from that of the plan suggested in Chapter XIV. The Junior church, however, does help the boys and girls to develop a church consciousness, and church habits which are valuable. It makes possi¬ ble worship planned to meet the needs of youth and makes them sense the responsibility for the management of such service.6 However, worship in the departments of the church school, should be planned in exactly the same way, so that the distinct advantage of the Junior church is that it affords familiarity with the church organization and provides more time for such carefully planned worship. Difficulties to be avoided. — There are some serious difficulties which are often overlooked by the enthusiasts of the Junior-church idea. The first one is the tendency to make the age group¬ ing too inclusive. Grading is just as essential in the Junior church as in the church school. It is no easier for children of widely different ages and interests to worship together in the Junior church and to work together for its success than in the church school. The average children’s sermon or sermonette 6 See Chapter XIII, p. 211. 6 See Chapters XI, XII, and XIII. 301 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL reveals this difficulty. Pastors, in their efforts to present the truth to three or four different psy¬ chological age groups, often hit wide of the mark and fail to reach any one of the groups. The method of approach, if suited to the six- or seven-year-old, only amuses the fourteen-year-old. If the leader of worship talks to the adolescents in the group, the younger ones get very little out of it. Another difficulty is the failure of many Junior church programs to correlate with the work of the different departments in the church school. If children are to worship in both the church school and the Junior church, there ought to be the closest correlation between the curriculum of worship in both places. If the Junior church is thought of as a church organization with Junior committees carry¬ ing out service projects, this work also ought to be closely correlated with the service program of the Junior Department as outlined in Chapter XVII. Suggestions for a Junior-church program. — A Junior-church program, to really minister to the needs of boys and girls, should not be merely added to or superimposed upon the church-school program. There should be one program for all Juniors, under the name of Junior church, or Junior Department, avoiding all duplications and overlapping of func¬ tions. Worship in the Junior church should follow the suggestions for Junior worship as given in Chap¬ ters XI, XII, and XIII. Sermonettes should be avoided and stories used largely. Worship in the Junior church should prepare Juniors for the adult service of worship. Better results will be obtained if the age groups 302 THE JUNIOR AND THE CHURCH in the Junior church conform as nearly as possible to the church-school age groups. In this way, training in church loyalty and church responsibility can be given under favorable conditions. There are some advantages in having children of different ages working and worshiping together in the Junior church just as in the adult church; age variation is not wholly to be condemned. But to secure these advantages requires the most careful planning and can be done effectively only by an experienced and well-trained leader. The practical difficulties are particularly embarrassing where the children from the Primary Department meet with the Juniors. THE JUNIOR AS A CHURCH MEMBER Every child should be considered a child of the church from infancy. Boys, and girls should grow up in the church always feeling themselves to be¬ long to it. If the teachers and leaders in the church school are doing their part well, the children are continually growing in “wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.” This does not mean a transition from overwhelming disfavor to favor. It means growth within the favor of God and likewise within the church. Yet there are certain culminations in the child’s development, times when he feels religious awaken¬ ings, sudden impulses toward the divine that differ in power from his more usual attitude. These crises should be met wisely and with some special form of preparation which will conserve the newly awakened possibilities of immediate religious devel¬ opment. At some of these periods the child is ready to be promoted from his childish church 303 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL allegiance to a more intelligent and voluntary service. The time for church membership. — One of these religious culminations often occurs about the age of eleven or twelve. Many boys and girls are ready, at this time, to enter into adult church membership. Third-year Juniors are only eleven, so that, often they are not quite ready to take this step for another year. They should not be urged or pushed beyond their development. Occasionally eleven-year-olds (especially girls, as they mature more rapidly than boys) are ready to unite with the church. In such cases they should not be held back. There is a less perceptible religious culmination with some children at about the age of nine. Once in a while some nine-year-old desires to become a church member. Probably, for most children, it is just as well to postpone this until some later day, as it is difficult to explain to a very young child even the simplest implications of church member¬ ship. But there are cases when a nine- or ten- year-old child is mature beyond his age and very persistent in his desire to become a member. Great tact should be used and care taken not to blight this flowering of the soul. Parents and teachers must study the individual child and act accord¬ ingly. Children of this age have been known to profit permanently by entering formally into the membership covenant. Preparation for membership. — All the work in the church school from the kindergarten up, sup¬ plemented by that done in the home, ought to constitute the Junior’s real preparation for church 304 THE JUNIOR AND THE CHURCH membership. If he has not been prepared by worship which has brought God near to him, by instruction that has taught him how to live as a Christian and what the church stands for, and by service which has established habits of Christian work, no short course in the essentials of church membership will really prepare him to graduate into the adult privileges and responsibilities of the church. But often it is well for the child to enter a special class taught by the pastor or the director of reli¬ gious education.7 Here he can look back over the teaching he has received and make a new applica¬ tion of it to his own life. What the child needs is not a detailed study, but a new vision of what a “child of God” may do and be as a member of the church. There are many courses for such classes on the market at present.8 Some of them have been pre¬ pared with a fine appreciation of the kind of prep¬ aration that really prepares a child for loyal support of the church. The responsibilities of a Junior church member. — When boys and girls enter the adult member¬ ship of the church they should feel that they have actually made a step forward. Not only should there be recognition of the fact in the church serv¬ ice, in the church school, and in the home, but a definite effort should be made to give them a few responsibilities for the church — responsibilities which they have never carried before. If the pastor himself will suggest services which boys and girls 7 For other plans, see Hay, The Child in the Temple, 1922 edition, pp. 7, 8. 8 For complete lists of such courses published by the different denominations, see The Church School, January, 1923. PP- 180-181. 305 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL can render, and if the women’s societies and the official board will also suggest needed activities suitable for boys and girls, the bond between the child and the church will be strengthened. All such suggestions should be made after consulta¬ tion with the Junior superintendent, or the church religious education committee, or whoever has charge of the Junior program, so that they may be included in the regular service work of the year. For Further Reading : Crossland — The Junior Church in Action. Hay — The Child in the Temple. Winchester — Making the Most of Life. 306 CHAPTER XX THE JUNIOR TEACHER Mary Antin tells of the Jewish woman who admonished her child for disobedience to his teacher. “Don’t you know,” asked the mother, “that teachers is holy?” Every teacher, especially the teacher of religion, ought to do all in his or her power to deserve so consecrated a tribute. The “holiness” of teachers is not only a gift; it is an achievement. No one who is not willing to make some sacrifice ought to accept the responsibility of teaching. But anyone who wants to give some form of definite Christian service will find no field where the re¬ wards and compensations of sacrifice are more satisfying than in the teaching of girls and boys. There are some qualifications which the teacher of Juniors shares in common with all teachers. There are others which are especially necessary for successful work in the Junior Department. QUALIFICATIONS OF THE JUNIOR TEACHER In any normal class, if the students are asked what they consider the first essential of a good teacher, they almost invariably reply, “Personality.” “Personality” may cover a multitude of sins or of accomplishments. What are the most desirable personal traits and how can they be acquired? Many of the qualities which go to make up the intangible thing we call “personality” can be 307 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL differentiated so that a teacher may work at the process of acquiring them. Of course, over and above these qualities, there is a certain charm of manner, a certain force of character that consti- tute individuality. Not all share equally in this indefinable power. The director of religious educa¬ tion or the Junior superintendent, in looking for teachers for the Junior Department, will naturally look for people who have enthusiasm and vitality, who dress neatly, who are sympathetic and friendly, whose whole personalities are such as to attract girls and boys and whose example is one which we want youth to imitate. All of the qualities men¬ tioned above can be cultivated by those who really desire them. Willingness and ability to acquire skill in teach¬ ing. — There is one essential qualification for the teacher of Juniors which ought to receive special mention. The teacher of adolescents may be one who naturally understands youth and who can be a friend and a leader. The teacher of Juniors must not only be all those things, but he or she must be one who has a natural aptitude for school¬ room methods. The teaching methods for Juniors follow so closely those in use in the public-school room that a Junior teacher ought either to have had some knowledge of public-school teaching or ought to be willing to enroll in training classes and acquire skill in the methods used in all elementary grades. That is one reason why women so often find it easier to teach Juniors than do men. The average woman has more of the innate aptitude for teach¬ ing. She is used to handling details and finds it 308 THE JUNIOR TEACHER easier to manage notebook work and sand-table modeling, pasting, and cutting and painting than the average man. She deals more often and more directly with children’s problems. She easily ac¬ quires familiarity with the tricks of discipline which are necessary to maintain order among energetic Juniors. Men are ordinarily more remote from actual everyday dealings with girls and boys. This does not mean that men should not teach the classes of Junior boys. We need more and more the teaching influence of strong men. But, whether man or woman, the Junior teacher must be one who is willing to learn all the teaching devices, and in order to learn them he must be one who has a natural aptitude for this particular kind of teach- ing. Adaptability. — The Junior teacher must be very adaptable. A class of Juniors contains many sur¬ prises. The unexpected is always occurring. No one who is easily “bothered” or who has unad- justable “old-maidish” tendencies ought to try to teach Juniors. The ability to play. — The teacher of Juniors ought to be generously blessed with the play spirit. The Junior lives in a world of play. He who would enter the Junior’s world must do it through the door of play. He must quickly recognize when the spirit of play is dominating his Juniors. He must be able to get out and play with them occasionally and must understand how to use the play spirit in the classroom. Sense of humor. — A sense of humor is an asset for any teacher. Perhaps the Junior teacher needs an unusually large share of it. It is not easy to 309 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL be patient with Juniors at all times. They annoy us, they disappoint us, they misbehave and are often very trying. A woman who had been for years an unusually successful grade-school principal once said to an anxious young mother, “My mother used to tell me never to let a child know that he could bother me.” That teacher who never shows that she is annoyed, who can see how funny some things are, who can, above all, get her Juniors to laugh with her and who can turn a troublesome incident into something to laugh at, will find the problem of classroom discipline easy to solve. The open mind. — There is one essential qualifi¬ cation of every teacher and that is what some one has called the “open mind.” The teacher is the leader, the interpreter, often the revealer of life. Life is a growing, changing thing. He can best teach youth what life means and how to live it who is constantly seeking to understand it better himself. The teacher should recognize that truth is not absolute, that he also is a student as well as a teacher. No one who has closed his mind to possi¬ ble new ideas on biblical interpretation or scientific discovery or educational methods should be on a teaching force. In selecting Junior teachers, beware of the person who is sure he “knows it all.” Honesty in words, life, and purpose. — The Junior teacher should live all the qualities which he wishes his Juniors to emulate. They are quick to detect insincerity of any kind. They should feel that the teacher is deeply in earnest in all that he says or does, and that he expects them to take seriously the class work which is their joint undertaking. Variety of interests. — One of the things which 310, THE JUNIOR TEACHER make for a richness of personality is variety of interest. One of the greatest of incentives for those of us who are older to live richly and deeply is just that we may be able to enrich the lives of boys and girls. “For their sakes I sanctify myself.” Since children differ so, one from another, we must approach each child from a distinct point of view. In order that a teacher may do this he must have many points of contact. He must stay persistently in the presence of the best in books, in music, in nature. . Deep Christian experience. — After all, all that any teacher has to give to his pupils is himself. All each of us can give is ourselves. And if we are to train Junior Christians, we must first of all have a deep experience of Christianity ourselves. Some one has said, “It is not the story in the lesson quar¬ terly that you can build into the lives of your class; it is the story in you.” On a mountain trail we choose as a guide the one who has first followed the way and knows its every turn. And our Chris¬ tian experience must be a growing one. The teacher must enrich his personality not only aesthetically and intellectually, but spiritually. The following resolve is the resolve of every earnest teacher: “I will hew great spaces, huge places of life for my soul, I will seek me a way no man has trod, I will blaze new trails to the heart of God.”1 THE TEACHER AND THE CHILD We have seen that church-school teaching is more than pouring in knowledge, that we are teach- 1 Angela Morgan, The Hour Has Struck, Dodd, Mead & Company. 31 1 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL ing “a child, not a book.” We are concerned with human lives and we want to help girls and boys to live divinely in their human relationships. The teacher becomes intimately bound up with the growing life of every pupil in his group. Studying the individual child. — In order that the Junior teacher may really help Junior girls and boys to live, he must know not only the general laws of child nature and nurture, but he must learn, against the background of these laws, to study each child individually. That is one purpose of the record card and the home questionnaire. Teaching becomes fascinating when it concerns itself with individuals in the making. To know each child well enough to understand his varying moods, his changes of attitude, his better and his less fine moments — this is to be able to teach with vision. The teacher the child’s friend. — Such knowledge of the individual child will make the teacher so sympathetic that he can enter into each child’s experiences. Juniors should come to feel that in their teacher they have found a real companion, one who will go on a hike and build a camp fire, or who will enter understanding^ into their home and school experiences. It is well if, occasionally, the Junior teacher can arrange to call in the home, not just on the parents, but for a personal call on the child. Go up to the boy’s room and enjoy his radio apparatus with him. Take a walk after school with the girl and her chum. Fortunate is that teacher who is so situated that she or he can at times invite the whole class or individuals into his or her own home. Praying for the child. — In prayer there is a 312 THE JUNIOR TEACHER source of power for the teacher. He is a co-worker with God in the creation of men and women. He may pray for every child in his group and feel confident that these prayers will endow him with strength to understand what to do, to discover better methods, and to help girls and boys to meet their everyday problems in the Christian spirit. THE TEACHER AND THE HOME That teacher who is the child’s friend knows his home conditions. Yet, in spite of individual teach¬ ers who find it possible to become familiar with the home life of their pupils, the church school, as a whole, has yet far to go in securing the most practical kind of cooperation with the homes. In order that the results of teaching in the church school may be conserved, there ought to be the closest kind of partnership between the home and the school. Visiting in the child’s home. — We have already suggested the advisability of the teacher going to the home for friendly calls. Sometimes, at the beginning, these calls may have to be merely social in a general way. But often the time comes when teacher and parent together may sit down and agree on what John most needs in the way of train¬ ing or how Mary’s needs can best be met. Miss Rankin, of Teachers College, has worked out a simple plan by which the parents of Begin¬ ners make notes in a small notebook of any indica¬ tions in the home life that the lessons of the church school are taking effect. These notebooks became the basis of a mutual interest in the child on the part of teacher and parent. Some adaptation of 3i3 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL this plan might be worked out for the Junior De¬ partment. Working with the parents. — Fathers and mothers are often vague as to just what their children are doing in the church school and just what is ex¬ pected of them as parents, because they have not been explicitly informed. They would be glad to help if they knew how. A good plan is to let the children in each Junior class plan an afternoon party for their mothers early in the fall. If they plan it themselves and feel that they are running it, they will be likely to drag even reluctant parents to the celebration. With the teacher’s help, they can plan a little program, either of individual musical numbers and recitations, or a brief dramatization. Then let some friend of the teacher, or the substitute teacher, take the children out of doors or into another room for a few games, while the teacher herself passes around the pupils’ notebooks and explains the course of study for the year. The Junior superintendent will say a word about the aims of the Junior Department, how the goal is to really help boys and girls to live better lives. She may speak briefly of the place which the service of worship plays in this program and also of the service activities. The mothers should go away with a few definite suggestions as to how to help the children with their work. After this short con¬ ference let the Juniors come back and serve the refreshments which they have prepared themselves. If they are boys, they might end the afternoon’s program by a rousing cheer for “our mothers.” Girls might do the same or sing a song to them. 3*4 THE JUNIOR TEACHER Some large schools always plan near the begin¬ ning of the school year a six-o’clock dinner for all the parents of the church school. The officers and teachers of the school are in the receiving line and welcome every parent. At one such recent event each parent was given a white ribbon for every Cradle-Roll child, a red ribbon for every child in the Primary Department, a blue one for children who were Juniors, and so on. After the dinner, around the tables, there is a well-planned program of toasts which reveal the manifold work of the church school. Some years the superintendent of each department tells briefly of the aims and plan of work of his department. Another year, the toasts might include “How we Worship/’ “How we Study,” “How we Serve,” “How we Play” throughout the entire school. It is well to vary the plan of program from year to year. Occasionally it will seem best to invite some speaker from outside who understands the task of religious education, though it is often better to deal concretely with the work of the school. The toasts should terminate in plenty of time for each department group of officers and teachers to retire to its own room or to some corner in the general room, if it is a one-room school, where they receive the parents whose children are in their particular departments. If possible, it is well, at such a meet¬ ing, to have on exhibit the handwork of the children, notebooks, maps, sand table stories, models, etc. Parents enjoy this, and it makes the work con¬ crete. A meeting of this kind can be varied by letting the boys and girls themselves tell what they are 3i5 JUNIOR METHOD IN THE CHURCH SCHOOL doing in the church school. A few can be selected who can best present the work. Such a program could be put on by a Junior De¬ partment alone instead of by the entire church school. On Mother’s Day the mothers of the Juniors may be their guests at the regular session of the church school. The opening service can have a theme appropriate for Mother’s Day and the mothers can visit the classes afterward. A Father’s Day service may be held by a similar plan. Mothers and Daughters and Fathers and Sons banquets have been popular in the last few years and have been very successful in cementing the ties between parents and children and between both parents and children and the church. When a report of the Junior’s work is sent to the home, provision should be made for a definite reply from the parents. Attached to the report may be a form slip which the parent may merely sign and return if he does not wish to do more. But there should be room enough for remarks by the parent. At least there should be some indication that the report has been read. THE SOURCE OF POWER Sara Cone Bryant, in her advice to story-tellers, says, “The secret of story-telling lies not in fol¬ lowing rules, not in analyzing processes, not even in following good models, though these are neces¬ sary, but, first of all in being full — full of the story, the picture, the children — and then in being morally and spiritually up to concert pitch, which is the true source of power in anything.”2 Not only of 2 Bryant, Stories and Story-Telling, D. Appleton & Company, publishers. 316 THE JUNIOR TEACHER story-telling is this true, but of the whole teaching process. The teacher must be “morally and spir¬ itually up to concert pitch.” Moral and spiritual power come from daily com¬ panionship with the One who is himself the source of spiritual power and whose power is available for every child of his for the asking. Jesus, the Great Teacher, was buoyed up by the sense of his Father’s power. So may every teacher feel who follows in his steps. “O teach me, Lord, that I may teach The precious things thou dost impart; And wing my words, that they may reach The hidden depths of many a heart.” 317 INDEX Activity — of the Junior, 34, 37; mental, 39; curriculum of, 60-61; to secure interest, 99, 100, 102; education through, 219-231; testing, 230-231 Aims — of religious education, 45-51; of worship, 173, 177 Attitudes — of parents, 18; toward church, 28-29; toward religion, 43; desirable, 48-51; in class, 104; recording, 105; toward the story, 138; toward prayer, 193— 195 ; in dramatization, 246-247 Bible, The — in the Junior curriculum, 66-67; use of, 72-76; in existing courses, 79-87; enriching, 89-91; books about, 91-92; stories from, 144-146, 152 Books — world of, 20; reading, 37; lists of, 91-92, 152-155; for the teacher, 91-92; class, 132-133; in the Junior room, 241; scrap, 237, 241, 268ff.; teacher’s library of, 293 Child, The — characteristics of, 31-43 Church — and community, 15, 25-26; and moving picture, 25-26; in Junior’s life, 27, 28-29, 295-298; service for the, 268fL; Junior’s loyalty to, 296-299; The Junior, 300-302; membership for Juniors, 303-305 Class — participation by the, 104; period, 121-137; book, 132-133; program, 136-137; worship, 210; organization, 281-282; records, 287 ; service activities, 268ff . ; equipment for the, 290-292 .Community — The Junior’s, 21-28; issues in the curriculum, 64; world, 27; service for the, 26811. Companions — in school, 19; in play time, 22-24, 35; influence of, 27-28; adult, 27, 40, 312; teachers as, 40, 312 Conduct — in the home, 17-18, 287, 313; habits of, 42-43, 51; as aim of religious education, 48-51, 231 ; Junior’s capacity for, 51-53 ; curriculum and, 62; as result of teaching, 105, 231 ; in class, 104, 134; story and, 140-141; stories, 152; worship and, 175-176; hymns of, 187-188; project method and, 226-248; dramatization and, 246-247 Curriculum — for the Junior child, 59-72; of activity, 60, 219-277; of information, 61-72; of worship, 61, 181-184; how to use the, 72-76; enriching the, 89-92 Department — projects, 228-229; testing activity of, 230-231; program, 243-244; service activities, 268ff.; organization of, 279- 285; purpose of, 279-280; relation to other groups, 296-297; relation to church, 296-299, 302-303 Differences — in home atmosphere, 16-18; in attitude of homes, 18; in environment, 21-22; in children, 32-33, 57 318 INDEX Dramatization — of lesson story, ioi, 130; as method of teaching, 1 19; in worship, 186; value of, 245-247; methods used in, 247- 253; materials suitable for, 253; use of, 254-256; sources of, 256- 257 Equipment — for Junior Department, 289-293 Habits — importance of, 43; of conduct, 51; formed in church school, 124, 228 Home — the Junior’s, 16-18; working with the, 288, 313-316 Hymns — suitable forjjuniors, 187-190; learning new, '192; illustrating, 238 Information — about world questions, 27, 64; curriculum of, 61-72; of the teacher, 90-91, 308-309; about the church, 299; about service needs, 268ff . ; about church membership, 304-305 Interests — of the Junior child, 35-38; curriculum based upon Junior, 6 iff. Lesson — courses, 79-88; period, 121-137; types, 106-110 Lists — of books for the teacher, 91-92; of stories for Juniors, 152- 155; of Bible stories, 152; of ethical stories, 152; of hero stories, 153; of missionary stories, 1 53-1 54; of worship stories, 199; of worship materials, 199-200; of services of worship, 212-218; of service activities, 268-277 Manual Work — as a teaching method, 118; reasons for, 233-236; types of, 236-241; motives involved, 241-243; when to use, 243- 244 Memory — lesson, 108-109; how to train the, 116-118 Method — contrasted with devices, 56-57; the question-and-answer, 1 12; the discussion, 113; the lecture, 115; the memory, 116; the manual, 118; the observation, 118; the story, 119; the dramatic, 1 19, 247-252; the project, 1 19-120, 221-225 Missionary Education — attitudes developed by, 49-51; curric¬ ulum of, 63-65, 68, 81, 88, 153-154, 268-277; movement, 88; stories for, 141-143, 147, 150, 153-154; developed through worship, 184-185, 190, 213-214, 217; developed through prayer, 194, 261; developed through projects, 228-230; developed through service, 259-261, 263-277; developed through giving, 298 Motives — for study, 59, 94-96, 100, 126-130, 134; for memorizing, 1 16; social, 153; for manual work, 241-243; preventing false, 265- 266 Moving picture — influence on child, 24-25; influence on church- school teaching, 26; church control of, 25-26; church use of, 26 Music — appropriate for Juniors, 187-190; in the curriculum, 72; leadership of, 191-192 Organization — purposes of, 279-280; pupil, 280-283; adult, 283-285; of Junior church, 301-303 Overlapping — of Junior organizations, 296-297, 302 Pictures — in the curriculum, 71; in textbooks, 71; sources of, 92; 3I9 INDEX stereoscope, ioi; in teaching, 118-119; stories about, 154; in worship, 183 Plan — the teacher’s, 135-136; of classroom procedure, 136-137; of worship program, 201-2 11 Play — child’s world of, 21-22; in the city, 22; in the country, 22-23; how children, 23-24, 38; spirit in teaching, 125; teacher’s ability to, 309 Project — method, 119, 221; definition of a, 222-225; values of, 226-227; examples of, 228-230 Prayer — hymns, 189; the Junior’s attitude toward, 192-194; by Juniors, 195; training Juniors in, 196 Pupil — interest of, 97-100; preparation of, 94-97; participation by, 104-105; initiative of, 132, 221, 224; self-government, 134, 280- 283; leadership, 279, 280 Reading — guiding the Junior’s, 20-21; Junior’s interest in, 20, 37 Records — purpose of, 286; useful types of, 286-288; how to use, 289; teachers', 312 Religion — Junior’s response to, 43; Junior’s capacity for, 51-56 Service — training in, 259-267; activities for Juniors, 268-277 Social — recitation, 131-134; teachings, 133; motives emphasized, 133-134 Story — power of the, 138-141; interests of Juniors, 141-143; types of, 143-146; when to use the, 149-151; sources of, 151-155; out¬ line of a good, 159-162; preparing the, 162-165; how to tell the, 166-169 Study — securing home, 94-95, 124; motivating the Junior’s, 59, 95796; supervising the Junior’s, 96, 125-131; reasons for super¬ vising, 123-125 Supervision — of Junior’s study, 96, 125-131; reasons for, 123-125 Teacher, The — responsibility of, 29, 32; qualifications of, 307-31 1; training of, 93, 308; and the child, 311-312; and the home, 313- 315; source of power for, 317 Teaching — art of, 93-105; preparation for, 94; testing results of, 1 03- 1 05; methods of, 1 1 2-1 19; conditions of, 121-123 Worship — importance of, 170; character of, 171-173; aims of, 173- 177; how Juniors, 177-179; elements of a service of, 181-199; source materials for, 199-200; necessary conditions for, 201-208; place of, in department program, 209-212; types of Junior services of, 212-218; pupil leadership of, 206-207 320 *• • ■ Princeton leo ogical Seminary Libraries 012 01237 6283 Date Due ' ' S * 5£ t - -