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.