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Page 17
The material must fit the aim.--What materials of religious truth
should the teacher bring to his class? The answer is that truths and
lessons must be suited to the aim we seek. Would we lead our children to
understand the Fatherhood of God and to love him for his tender care?
Then the lessons must contain this thought, and not be built on
irrelevant material. Would we lead youth to catch the thrill and
inspiration of noble lives, to pattern conduct after worthy deeds? Then
our lesson material must deal with the high and fine in character and
action, and not with trivial things of lesser value.
So also, if we would capture the interest of childhood for the church
school and bind its loyalty to the church, the subject matter we offer
and the lessons we teach in the house of God must contain the glow and
throb of life, and not be dry and barren. If we would awaken religious
feeling and link the emotions to God, we must not teach empty lessons,
meaningless dates, and musty facts that fail to reach the heart because
they have no inner meaning.
Small use to set high aims and then miss them for want of material
suited for their attainment. Small use to catalogue the fine qualities
of heart and mind we would train in our children and then fail of our
aim because we choose wrong tools with which to work. Not all facts
found in the Bible are of equal worth to children, nor are all religious
truths of equal value. Nothing should be taught _just because it is
true_, nor even because it is found in the Bible. The final question is
whether this lesson material is the best we can choose for the child
himself; whether it will give him the knowledge he can use, train the
attitudes he requires, and lead to the acts and conduct that should rule
his life.
The material must fit the child.--The subject matter we teach _must
also be fitted to the child_. It must be within his grasp and
understanding. We do not feed strong meat to babes. What may be the
grown person's meat may be to the child poison. It does no good to load
the mind with facts it cannot comprehend. There is no virtue in truths,
however significant and profound, if they are beyond the reach of the
child's experience. Matter which is not assimilated to the understanding
is soon forgotten; or if retained, but weighs upon the intellect and
dulls its edge for further learning.
There can be little doubt that we have quite constantly in most of our
Sunday schools forced upon the child no small amount of matter that is
beyond his mental grasp, and so far outside his daily experience that it
conveys little or no meaning. We have over-intellectualized the child's
religion. Jesus was "to the Greeks foolishness" because they had no
basis of experience upon which to understand his pure and unselfish
life. May not many of the facts, figures, dates, and events from an
ancient religion which we give young children likewise be to them but
foolishness! May not the lessons upon some of the deepest, finest and
most precious concepts in our religion, such as faith, atonement,
regeneration, repentance, the Trinity, be lost or worse than lost upon
our children because we force them upon unripe minds and hearts at an
age when they are not ready for them?
Let us then, _not forget the child_ when we teach religion! Let us not
assume that truths and lessons are an end in themselves. Let us
constantly ask, as we prepare our lessons, Will this material work as a
true leaven in the life? Will it take root and blossom into character,
fine thought, and worthy conduct? While our children dumbly ask for
living bread let us not give them dead stones and dry husks, which
cannot feed their souls! Let us adapt our subject matter to the child.
The use of stress and neglect.--That the lesson material printed in
the Sunday school booklets is not always well adapted to the children
every teacher knows. But there it is, and what can we do but teach it,
though it may sometimes miss the mark?
There is one remedy the wise and skillful teacher always has at his
command. By the use of _stress_ and _neglect_ the matter of the lesson
may be made to take quite different forms. The points that are too
difficult may be omitted or but little emphasized. The matter that best
fits the child may be stressed and its application made. Illustrations,
stories, and lessons from outside sources may be introduced to suit the
aim. Great truths may be restated in terms within childhood's
comprehension. The true teacher, like the craftsman, will select now
this tool, now that to meet his purpose. Regardless of what the printed
lesson offers, he will reject or use, supplement or replace with new
material as the needs of his class may demand. The true teacher will be
the master, and not the servant, of the subject matter he uses.
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