The results of this plan are two-fold:  first, a freshness in the program each week, even with familiar features, and second, cumulative emphasis upon one truth, thus fulfilling the conditions of memory, and therefore of nurture.

(2) The Activity of the children.

The increased mental ability will permit interesting exercises to take the place of some of the physical outlets for activity necessary in the preceding period, but they must be brief and compelling in their attractiveness.

The use of motion songs is outgrown, especially with boys.  During many years there has remained in memory the expression in the face of a boy, head and shoulders taller than any other child in the primary department, as he stood pointing to pedal extremities, not less than number fours, and singing, “Little feet, be very careful where you take me to.”  The sentiment could not possibly have been wrung from him had not the superintendent been his mother.

Hand work suggestive of the lesson, such as pasting, coloring, tearing, cutting and simplest writing for the older ones, is growing in favor as a means of utilizing the activity and impressing the lesson.  An outline of the methods of this work is impossible here, but three words of caution must be spoken.

First:  Choose the time for hand work carefully.

While it will give wise outlet for activity and aid memory, if used in the wrong place it will tend to dissipate the influence of the lesson.  Even the pasting of a picture when the feelings are deeply stirred could give them sufficient expression so that they would be satisfied without further action.  They ought to impel to imitation of the action in the story with all the intensity that has been aroused, instead of being expended in a mechanical way.  In view of this fact, the proper subject of the hand work would seem to be the lesson of the week preceding, and the best time for it, just prior to the beginning of the session, if that be of the usual hour length.  This time is practicable even where the session immediately follows the church service, and it has three advantages.  It will counteract lack of punctuality, will utilize activity at its most disastrous stage—­the unoccupied minutes before the program proper begins—­and will not crowd out from the hour any other training equally important.

Second:  Remember that valuable as the hand work is in clarifying and impressing the lesson, it is only a shell containing the truth.  Therefore, a teacher who occupies a large part of the hour in this way is not giving the child sufficient spiritual nourishment.

Third:  This work must be raised above the level of similar week-day occupations.

This may be done through emphasizing the fact that the child is making a book of Bible stories, and special care must be used to make it beautiful and worthy.  A mission of help or cheer to some one else may also be held out as a climax to its completion.