2. Articles and objects from ancient times or from other lands may occasionally be secured to show the children. Even if such objects may not date back to Bible times, they are still useful as a vantage point for the imagination.  A modern copy of the old-time Oriental lamp, a candelabrum, a pair of sandals, a turban, a robe, or garment such as the ancients wore—­these accompanied by intelligent description of the times and places to which they belonged are all a stimulus to the child’s imagination which should not be overlooked.  The very fact that they suggest other peoples and other modes of living than our own is an invitation and incentive to the mind to reach out beyond the immediate and the familiar to the new and the strange.

3. Pictures can be made a great help to the imagination. In the better type of our church schools we are now making free use of pictures as teaching material.  It is not always enough, however, merely to place the picture before the child.  It requires a certain fund of information and interest in order to see in a picture what it is intended to convey.  The child cannot get from the picture more than he brings to it.  The teacher may therefore need to give the picture its proper setting by describing the kind of life or the type of action or event with which it deals.  He may need to ask questions, and make suggestions in order to be sure that the child sees in the picture the interesting and important things, and that his imagination carries out beyond what is actually presented in the picture itself to what it suggests.  While the first response of the child to a picture, as to a story, should be that of enjoyment and interest, this does not mean that the picture, like the story, may not reach much deeper than the immediate interest and enjoyment.  The picture which has failed to stimulate the child’s imagination to see much more than the picture contains has failed of one of its chief objects.

4. Stimulate the imagination by use of vivid descriptions and thought-provoking questions. Every teacher, whether of young children or of older ones, should strive to be a good teller of stories and a good user of illustrations.  This requires study and practice, but it is worth the cost—­even outside of the classroom.  The good story-teller must be able to speak freely, easily, and naturally.  He must have a sense of the important and significant in a story or illustration, and be able to work to a climax.  He must know just how much of detail to use to appeal to the imagination to supply the remainder, and not employ so great an amount of detail as to leave nothing to the imagination of the listener.  He must himself enter fully into the spirit and enthusiasm of the story, and must have his own imagination filled with the pictures he would create in his pupils’ minds.  He must himself enjoy the story or the illustration, and thus be able in his expression and manner to suggest the response he desires from the children.  Well told stories that have in them the dramatic quality can hardly fail to stir the most sluggish imagination and prepare it for the important part it must play in the child’s religious development.