Indefiniteness may take the direction of failure to carry the thoughts of the lesson through to their final meaning and application, so that there is no vital connection made between the lesson truths and the lives of those we teach.  Or we may be indefinite in our interpretation of the moral and religious values inherent in the lesson, and so fail to make a sharp and definite impression of understanding and conviction on our pupils.  Our teaching must be clear-cut and positive without being narrowly dogmatic or opinionated.  The truth we present must have an edge, so that it may cleave its way into the heart and mind of the learner.

Dead levels.—­We need to avoid dead levels in our teaching.  This danger arises from lack of mental perspective.  It comes from presenting all the points of a lesson on the same plane of emphasis, with a failure to distinguish between the important and the unimportant.  Minor details and incidental aspects of the topic often receive the same degree of stress that is given to more important points.  This results in a state of monotonous plodding through so much material without responding to its varying shades of meaning and value.  Not only does this type of teaching fail to lodge in the mind of the pupil the larger and more important truths which ought to become a permanent part of his mental equipment, but it also fails to train pupils how themselves to pick out and appropriate the significant parts of the lesson material.  It does not develop the sense of value for lesson truths which should be trained through the work of the lesson hour.  Each lesson should seek to impress and apply a few important truths, and everything else should be made to work to this end.  The points we would have our pupils remember, think about and act upon we must be able to make stand out above all other aspects of the lesson; they must not, for want of emphasis, be lost in a mass of irrelevant or monotonous material of little value.

Lack of movement in recitation.—­Some recitations suffer from slowness of movement of the thought and plan of the lesson.  We sometimes say of a book or a play or a sermon that it was “slow.”  This is equivalent to saying that the book or play or sermon lacks movement; it dallies by the way, and has unnecessary breaks in its continuity, or is slow in its action.  The same principle applies in the recitation.  Pauses that are occupied with thought or meditation are not, of course, wasted; they may even be the very best part of the lesson period.  But the rather empty lapses which occur for no reason except that the teacher lacks readiness and preparation, and does not quite know at every moment just what he is to do next, or what topic should at this moment come in—­it is such awkward and meaningless breaks as these that spoil the continuity of thought and interest and result in boredom.  We must remember that every pause or interval of mere empty waiting without expectancy, or without some worthy thought occupying the mind, is a waste of energy, time, and opportunity, and also a training in inattention.