This does not mean that the teacher shall never lecture or talk to his class.  Indeed, the teacher who does not have a message now and then for his pupils is not qualified to guide their spiritual development.  It means, rather, that lecturing must not become a habit, and that on the whole it should be used sparingly with all classes of children.  It means also that all matter presented to the class by the teacher himself should be well prepared; that it should be carefully organized and planned, so that its meaning will be clear and its lesson plain, and so that time will not be wasted in its presentation.  It will be a safe rule for the teacher to set for himself not to come before his class with a talk that is not as well prepared as he expects his minister to have his sermon.  And why not!  The recitation hour should mean at least as much to the church class as the sermon hour means to the congregation.

THE QUESTION-AND-ANSWER METHOD

Skill in questioning lies at the basis of most good teaching of children.  Good questioning stimulates thought, brings out new meanings, and leads the mind to right conclusions.  Poor questioning leaves the thought unawakened, fails to arouse interest and attention, and results in poor mastery and faulty understanding.  To the uninitiated it appears easy to ask questions for others to answer.  But when we become teachers and undertake to use the question as an instrument of instruction we find that it is much harder to ask questions than to answer them, for not only must the questioner know the subject and the answer to each question better than his pupils, but he must be able constantly to interpret the minds of his pupils in order to discover their understanding of the problem and to know what questions next to ask.

Questions slavishly dependent on the text.—­Not infrequently one finds a teacher who uses questioning solely to test the knowledge of the pupils on the lesson text.  Probably the worst form of this kind of questioning is that of following the printed questions of the lesson quarterly, the pupils having their lesson sheets open before them and looking up the answer to each question as it is asked.

The following questions are taken from a widely used junior quarterly, the Bible text being Luke 10. 25-37:  “Who wanted to try Jesus?  What did he ask?  What did Jesus say?  What reply was made?  What questions did the lawyer ask?  How did Jesus answer him?  What is such a story called?  What is the name of this parable?  Where was the man going?  Who met him?  How did they treat him?  What did they take from him?  Where did they leave him?” No one of these questions appeals to thought or imagination.  All are questions of sheer fact, with none of the deeper and more interesting meanings brought.  All of them may be answered correctly, and the child be little the wiser religiously.  Such a method of teaching cannot do other than deaden the child’s interest in the Bible, create in him an aversion to the lesson hour of the church school, and fail of the whole purpose of religious education.  The teacher must be able to use living questions, and not be dependent on a dead list of faulty questions embalmed in print.