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Page 62
Skillfully used questions and suggestions can be made an important means
of stimulating the imagination. Such helps as: Do you think the sea of
Galilee looked like the lake (here name one near at hand) which you
know? How did it differ? What tree have you in mind which is about the
same size as the fig tree in the lesson? How does it differ in
appearance? Close your eyes and try to see in your mind just how the
river looked where the baby Moses was found. Have you ever seen a man
who you think looks much as Elijah must have looked? Describe him. If
you were going to make a coat like the one Joseph wore, what colors
would you select? What kind of cloth? What would be the cut or shape of
it?--Hardly a lesson period will pass without many opportunities for
wise questions whose chief purpose is to make real and vivid to the
child the persons or places described, and so add to their significance
to him.
5. _Dramatic representation can be used as an incentive to the
imagination._ Children easily and naturally imagine themselves to be
some other person, and often play at being nurse or school teacher or
doctor or preacher. Nearly every child possesses a large measure of the
dramatic impulse, and is something of an actor. It is great fun for
children to "tog up" and to "show off" in their play. And not only is
all this an expression of imagination actively at work, but such
activities are themselves a great stimulus to the imagination. The child
who has dressed up as George Washington and impersonated him in some
ceremonial or on a public occasion will ever after feel a closer reality
in the life and work of Washington than would come from mere reading
about him. A group of children who have acted out the story of the good
Samaritan will get a little closer to its inner meaning than merely to
hear the story told. The girl who has taken the part of Esther appearing
before the king in behalf of her people will realize a little more fully
from that experience what devotion and courage were required from the
real Esther. A class who have participated in a pageant of the Nativity
will always be a little nearer to the original event than if their
imaginations had not been called upon to make real the characters and
incidents.
USING THE MEMORY
The memory should play an important part in religion. Gems from the
Bible, stories, characters, and events, inspiring thoughts and maxims,
and many other such things should become a permanent part of the
furnishing of the mind, recorded and faithfully preserved by the memory.
Laws of use of memory.--The laws by which the memory works have been
thoroughly studied and carefully described, and should be fully
understood by every teacher. Further than this, _they should be
faithfully observed in all memory work_. These laws may be stated as
follows:
1. The law of _complete registration_. The first act in the memory
process is fully and completely to register, or _learn_, the matter to
be retained. The retention can never be better than the registration of
the facts given into the memory's keeping. Half-learned matter easily
slips away, never having been completely impressed on the mind. It is
possible to lose both effort and efficiency by committing a verse of a
poem barely up to the point where it can doubtfully be repeated instead
of giving it the relatively small amount of additional study and
practice which would register it firmly and completely. Whatever is
worth committing to memory should therefore be carried past the barely
known stage and committed fully and completely.
2. The law of _multiple association_. This only means that the new facts
learned shall be related as closely as may be to matter already in the
mind. And this is equivalent to saying that the material learned shall
be _understood_, its meaning grasped and its significance comprehended.
To understand for yourself the value of association, make this
experiment: Have some one write down a list of ten unrelated words in a
column, and hold the list before you while you have time to read it over
just once slowly and carefully. Now try repeating the words in order
from memory. Next, have your friend write ten other words which this
time form a connected sentence. After reading these words over once as
you did the first list, try repeating them in order. You find that you
have much trouble to memorize the first list, while the second presents
no difficulty at all. The difference lies in the fact that the words of
the first list were unrelated, lacking all associative connections with
each other, while those of the second list formed a connected chain of
associations.
It is possible to give the child biblical or other matter to memorize
that has little more meaning to him than the list of unrelated words
have to us. For example, this text is required of primary and junior
children in a lesson series: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth
shall make you free." And this: "Let us therefore draw near with
boldness unto the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may
find grace to help us in time of need." It is evident that younger
children could by no possibility understand either of these beautiful
passages, and hence in committing them will only be learning so many
unrelated words.
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