The results of directing the activity into helpful channels will be found in better memory of the lesson and in the starting of right habits of action.

(4) _An imitable activity in the lesson._ In simplest facts set forth in a story of a person, not in exhortation, the lesson must make vivid and attractive an activity which the child can imitate. The more realistic the portrayal, the more surely will the child attempt to reproduce it.

#9. Difficulties in the Beginners Age.#--The difficulties of this period arise largely from the child's immaturity and are to be overcome by adaptation of methods and instruction.

(1) _Restlessness and lack of self-control, making sustained attention impossible._ A program consisting of brief exercises, varied in character, full of interest, and permitting frequent movement, will meet this condition.

(2) _Limited experience and scanty store of ideas._ This necessitates careful selection of teaching material, that spiritual truth outside the child's comprehension be not forced upon him, since he can grasp only that which is like something that he knows.

(3) _A limited vocabulary._ This calls for watchful care in language, particularly lest a familiar word be used in a sense unfamiliar to the child.

(4) _A conflicting home atmosphere._ When the child absorbs influences that lack Jesus Christ during seven days in the week, only a teacher filled with Divine life and power can effect counter-conditions more powerful in the brief time of her contact.

#10. Results to be Expected in the Beginners Age.#--Summing up the results already suggested, the work in the Beginners department will make its impress upon the feelings of the child, primarily. He will have learned some truths about the Heavenly Father, and his Son Jesus Christ, and there is an intellectual value in these. But this value cannot compare with that of the love and trust which come unconsciously, yet really, into his soul, if the teacher has done her work with G.o.d.

Test Questions

1. In what two ways may life be touched?

2. Give ill.u.s.trations of what is known as "unconscious influence."

3. What methods accomplish more than precepts with Beginners?

4. What spiritual truths can be taught in this period?

5. Name four needs of the Beginners Age.

6. What is meant by "atmosphere"? How utilized?

7. How may the child's activity be given the right direction?

8. Name four difficulties in the Beginners period.

9. How may restlessness be overcome?

10. What special care is needed in the teacher's choice of words?

11. What are some of the results to be expected in the Beginners Age?

Lesson 4

The Primary Age--Six to Nine

#11. General Characteristics of the Primary Age.#--The Beginner is easily traced in the Primary child, but more developed and stronger.

Two general characteristics may be specially mentioned:

(1) _Broader interests._ Curiosity is increasingly active concerning things with which the senses come in contact, yet the child in the Primary period is able to reach beyond that which he can see or handle. He cares nothing for abstractions like missions, or patriotism, or temperance, but his interest is genuine in the people and actions back of the abstraction. It is a law of the soul that interest in a certain thing will extend to other things related to it.

This makes it possible for the teacher to take the child far into the field of knowledge, provided the starting-point be something in which the child is naturally interested.

(2) _Greater mental power._ While the child does not reason as an adult, he enjoys thinking for himself. The Primary teacher who gives him predigested lessons, tells him everything in the picture, asks no questions, and does not lead him on to arrive at any conclusions for himself, not only fails to obtain results that are possible, but really r.e.t.a.r.ds the child's development. Personal effort must precede increase of strength in soul as well as body.

#12. Special Characteristics of the Primary Age.#

(1) _Physical activity._ In place of the restlessness of the preceding period, activity directed toward more definite ends appears. It is very important that the activity be expended rightly, since its use in every action strengthens some one of the rapidly forming habits.

(2) _Power of perception._ This is the ability of the mind to understand the sensations which senses and nerves send to the brain, or to interpret their meaning; as, for example, to know that the round yellow ball is an orange, or to recognize the different details in a picture. Perception grows constantly more quick and active as the child's store of knowledge increases. Two things must be remembered: (_a_) the teacher must be sure that the first idea of anything is the correct one, for it will be eradicated with difficulty, and upon it all future thinking in that line will be based; (_b_) since each sensation produces an idea embodying itself, and it is on these ideas that the soul is nourished, character must grow in quality like its food. "Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are."

(3) _Memory._ The mind has greater power to retain that which is given to it than in the preceding period, though it holds these facts disconnectedly rather than related into systematic knowledge, as they will be later. But this power of retention must not be abused through storing memory with a quant.i.ty of useless material. That which is impressed upon the plastic, non-resisting cells of the child's brain ought to have some immediate meaning and value for the life at a time when the intellectual and spiritual needs are so many.

(4) _Imagination._ This is the power of the mind to make living and real that which is not present to the senses. It is one of the most striking characteristics of the Primary period and one of the most important as well. The imagination works only with concrete things in childhood, making new objects out of the old, making the story and the mental picture as real as the tangible experience, making Jesus an actual present Helper and Friend. Later it will work with abstract ideas and ideals of life formed from the pictures it has cherished.

#13. Opportunities of the Primary Age.#

(1) _Character building through the mental picture._ Abstract ideas about which the mind reasons do not have power over the soul of the child. It is the vivid picture which imagination holds that arouses the feeling and impels the action. So great is the power of the picture that the teacher need not exhort and admonish concerning what ought to be done. She only need set forth the action in a story that appeals, and imagination will do the rest. While very many of these pictures come unconsciously to the child from his environment, it is the privilege of the teacher definitely and carefully to provide the highest type of mental picture through the well-selected story, in order to secure the finest action.

(2) _Increased knowledge of Bible facts._ The lesson may contain more than in the earlier period, because the child's interest in details has increased and he has greater power of attention. It is important to note, however, in what the increase may consist. It is not in the number of truths presented in the lesson, but in the number of details concerning the one truth for which the lesson stands. Since the mind has developed new power to hold the impressions which are made upon it, Scripture verses containing fundamental truths, like G.o.d's love and care, the duty of love toward him and others, and the necessity of obedience may be given, with explanation, for memorizing.

(3) _Service prompted through imitation and personal influence._ The activity should even now be tracing pathways in the brain that shall mean life habits of loving service for others. There is this difference, however, between service in childhood and later. The motives must now be supplied and strengthened by others; later the promptings will come from within.

#14. Needs of the Primary Age.#--In addition to the needs mentioned in the Beginners period, and which still obtain, there are two to be especially borne in mind.

(1) _The absolute necessity of knowing how to make spiritual truth live in story form._ The child can receive it in no other way, and there is therefore no subst.i.tute for a rightly prepared story given by a spiritually prepared teacher.

(2) _The necessity for the child to learn obedience in the use of his activity._ This is to be secured not by force, but because the one to whom it is to be rendered wins it through love and the power of personality.

#15. Difficulties in the Primary Age.#--There will still be difficulties in attention and in confining the instruction to that which the child can really grasp, but the greatest difficulty will center about the activity. Yet the whole problem will be solved with no harsh question of discipline if the child is kept constantly busy with that in which he is interested.

#16. Results to be Expected in the Primary Age.#--If the teacher has met her opportunity, there will be growing love to Jesus Christ, the beginning of service for him, and deep down in the soul of the child an increasing store of material out of which life ideals are to be fashioned in the days to come.

Test Questions

1. Name two general characteristics of the Primary Age. What years are included?

2. How are the child's broader interests shown?

3. What method of teaching can hinder the child's growing mental power?

4. Name four special characteristics of the Primary Age.

5. What is meant by power of perception? Ill.u.s.trate it.

6. How may memory be abused?