Chapter II: Stories of Three Patriarchs 65

8. The Call of Abram 67
9. Giving Lot the First Choice 72
10. Abram’s Rescue of Lot 77
11. Abraham Entertaining Angels 83
12. The Song of Mary (Christmas Lesson) 88
13. Review 93

=Appendixes= 97

A. Memory Work 99
B. Book List 101
C. List of Stereographs 103
D. Aids for Superintendent and Teacher 105
E. Outline of Lessons for the Year 107

OUT OF CHILDHOOD INTO YOUTH

Traits of Boyhood and Girlhood

At the beginning of the period of childhood for which the Junior Course is intended, approximately nine years of age, there appears to be in the life of the normal boy or girl a real transition as the traits and interests of earlier years give way to those of full fledged boyhood and girlhood. Strange premonitions of impending physical and mental changes now appear, with suggestions of riper years that are rapidly approaching. The physical and mental changes of this period are accompanied by an awakening of social consciousness. This is noticeable in the friendships formed, in the increase of love and sympathy for others and in the dawning recognition of obligations toward others. The opposite of the same tendency is reflected in the sense of rivalry and emulation and, especially in boys, in the developing spirit of pugnacity, tempered with a tendency to defend the weak. This growing social consciousness brings with it also a stronger consciousness of self, a clearer recognition of right and wrong and an awakening of conscience which now begins to take the place of rules made by others as a guide to action.

The Inner Life of the Spirit

The normal growth of the inner life of the spirit is likewise rapid, the spiritual awakening which may be counted on during this period bringing with it the first religious crisis in the life of the boy and girl. For this crisis the most careful preparation should be made. When the spiritual awakening comes, the child should be given an opportunity to choose for himself to live as God’s child in obedience to his laws and in loving unselfish devotion and service for others. When the choice has been made, the new sense of responsibility which follows must be fostered and the child aided by suggestion and encouragement in daily conduct to follow right habits of thought and action. The meaning, need and the helpfulness of worship may be taught through actual participation in services of worship suited to the pupil’s age and the manner of his natural expression of religious impulses and aspirations.

Materials and Methods

The materials provided in the course of religious instruction for this period take into account the growing interest of the pupil in definite information and knowledge. This material includes stories with a rich coloring of adventure and connected historical narratives appealing to the interests of this age. By the use of these materials the mind of the pupil is stored with the best Biblical images of strong and noble character as his studies introduce him to the great heroes and champions of the faith of past ages. Much emphasis is laid upon religious privileges and duties, while profitable occupation exercises are suggested to insure a daily reinforcement of the lesson taught in the Sunday school hour. By precept and example the teacher may inculcate habits of neatness, accuracy, punctuality, patience and other virtues. He may watch over the religious life and as a wise specialist in the field of soul nurture may anticipate and prepare the way for each successive stage of that life’s unfolding.

This Text Book

The introductory chapters of this Teacher’s Text Book, entitled Our Juniors, Their Teachers and Lesson Helps, present in detail the aims, the methods and the underlying principles governing this Junior Course. A careful study of this chapter together with the introductory chapters for the other years of the course will be found most profitable.

The Course and the Writer

We would unreservedly commend the writer of this course, Josephine L. Baldwin, to the confidence of all teachers. She writes, not from theory alone, but from long, practical experience in teaching Junior children. Every one of the lessons contained in this course she has taught repeatedly. As a teacher of teachers, therefore, she speaks with authority in the suggestions and directions contained in this Teacher’s Text Book. The stories and suggestions regarding method in the form in which they are here presented, are the rich fruitage of her expert knowledge and training. There are no better courses for use with children of junior age than this course. It is a tool well fashioned for its intended use. As such it will not furnish a substitute for intelligent study and devotion on the part of the teacher, nor will its use lessen the dependence of the teacher on Divine help and inspiration in teaching; but these personal qualifications being present, this Junior Course and the graded system, of which it is a part, should yield large returns for the Kingdom in the stimulation, growth, and enrichment of the religious experience and life of children.

THE EDITOR.

OUR JUNIORS, THEIR TEACHERS AND LESSON HELPS

GRADED INSTRUCTION

Reasons for Having a Graded System

The reason for having a graded course of instruction for the Sunday school is that the children differ year by year in knowledge, capacity, interests, and needs. Graded lessons are simply an attempt to meet these differences with instruction suited to each year of the developing life. The aim of religious education is to fit the child for complete Christian living, to make him not simply a religious individual but a useful member of society, intelligently devoted to the highest welfare of his fellows and of mankind. In order that this may be accomplished he must have knowledge and his knowledge must lead to action. There is a broad purpose underlying the graded lessons which is thus stated in terms of the children’s religious needs.

The Purpose of the Graded Course

The purpose of the graded lessons is to meet the spiritual needs of the pupil at each stage of his development. The spiritual needs, broadly stated, are these:

1. To know God as he has revealed himself to us in his Word, in nature, in the heart of man, and in Christ.

2. To exercise toward God the Father, and his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, trust, obedience, and worship.

3. To know and do our duty to others.

4. To know and do our duty to ourselves.

The Material Used

The material through which this purpose is to be attained is taken mainly from the Bible and treated as story, biography, history, or literature according to the period for which it is used. There are certain facts, not found in the Bible, the knowledge of which is essential if the pupils are to see God in the present day world. Therefore, many nature lessons are given to the little children, incidents in the lives of modern followers of the Lord are provided for the older children, and broader studies from the field of modern reform and of missionary movements for young men and women. There are also lessons on the Book itself and how it has come to us. All of these lessons start outside of the Bible and lead back into it for their explanation. The Bible lessons begin with the Word and go out into life for their application. The one is just as biblical as the other.

THE JUNIOR COURSE

Arrangement of Material

In the Graded System the Junior Course follows the two-years Beginners’ Course and the three-years Primary Course. In those earlier years the stories are not chosen chronologically but are grouped under themes. The sense of time dawns when the child is about nine years old, therefore the Graded Lessons for the Juniors are arranged chronologically, at first by periods and later in a straight chronological course from the Conquest of Canaan to the end of New Testament History.

The Aims

The aim for the Junior lessons as a whole is:

=To help the child to become a doer of the Word, and to lead him into conscious loyalty to Jesus Christ.=

The aims for each of the four years are these:

=1. To awaken an interest in the Bible, and love for it; to deepen the impulse to choose and to do the right.=

=2. To present the ideal of moral heroism; to reveal the power and majesty of Jesus Christ, and to show his followers going forth in his strength to do his work.=

=3. To deepen the sense of responsibility for right choices; to show the consequences of right and wrong choices; to strengthen love of the right and hatred of the wrong.=

=4. To present Jesus as our Example and Saviour; to show that the Christian life is a life of service; to deepen interest in the Book which contains God message to the world.=

In the first year all but eight of the fifty-two lessons are the elemental stories taken from the first five books of the Bible. This is as it should be, for these stories appeal more strongly at this time than at any later period. As the first twenty-six lessons are found in the book of Genesis the stories are easy to find and the child is not perplexed and confused by having to search for the one he wants among many books with unfamiliar and difficult names. He is led by easy stages in his Bible readings, and through the charm of the stories, together with his growing ability to handle the book in which they are found, the child not only becomes interested in the Bible but learns to love it.

The second part of the aim implies obedience, and that may be said to be the key-word of this year’s work. (See the Junior motto and verse for the year on the inside of front cover of the Work Book.) With these children, it is largely the absolute obedience of the immature. This form of obedience is a temporary virtue which must eventually be lost in self-control. But no one can attain the most perfect self-mastery who has not first learned to yield obedience to rightful authority. The transfer of the seat of authority from without to within should keep pace with the child’s growth in knowledge, in emotional balance and control, in moral strength, and in the ability to form accurate judgments. The teacher’s aim is to bring the child’s will into line with God’s will for him.

The Correlated Lesson

In the Junior period it is essential that two lessons be given every week, the one the regular lesson in the Junior Graded Series and the other a lesson dealing with the more mechanical part of the instruction. This is called the Correlated Lesson because it is closely related to the main lesson. The reason for having it is that during the Junior period there is a large amount of information which must be given in order that the pupils may grasp the truths in the lesson stories and learn how to handle the Bible with ease.

In the first year the books and divisions of the Bible must be taught. In the other years Bible geography becomes increasingly important as a background for the lessons, and this is the time when it should be studied; for the sense of location dawns at about the ninth year and the interest in geography is at its highest during the Junior period. Some knowledge of the manners and customs of Bible lands is necessary for an understanding of many of the stories. All through the Junior period are required frequent drills on essential facts and all material for memorization in order that those things may be permanently held in memory.

A Junior child cannot profitably pay attention to one subject for more than twenty minutes consecutively. The lesson story on any given Sunday requires that much time, so it would be impossible to combine with it in one Junior lesson period the necessary correlated information. Fifteen minutes should be devoted to the Correlated Lesson, preferably the first quarter of the Sunday-school hour, to be followed by the service of worship and all the other exercises, leaving the last twenty minutes for the lesson of the day.

In schools where this plan is followed and the lessons are well taught, the memory texts are both learned and remembered. The children are familiar with Bible lands and can associate events with the places where they occurred. They understand the strange customs of Bible times and therefore are not puzzled by accounts that would otherwise be unintelligible. They know the Bible as a book and can find references easily. The upper grade Juniors can find a score of the great passages in the Bible without having the reference given. In schools where the correlated lessons are not taught the children are not only ignorant of many things they ought to know, but do not gain the benefit that they should get from the course of study.

THE JUNIOR PERIOD

Beginning and End

Only broad and general statements can be made concerning the division lines between the different departments of the Sunday school, especially after the end of the Primary; but the largest factor in deciding when the Junior period begins is the ability on the part of the pupils to read well enough to be able to read in the Bible without too much stumbling. The end of the period is indicated by the beginning of adolescence, and this fixes the Junior period of the normal child as extending over at least three years. The course provides studies for four years.

Characteristics

The general characteristics of the children in this period are marked, differing in many important particulars from those of the period before and still more sharply from those manifested in the adolescent years. There is a reaching out for and a choice of companions differing from the happy-go-lucky way in which the Primary child accepts his neighbors as playmates and a growing tendency to concentration in groups or gangs accompanied by the most intense loyalty to the members of the group. The normal interests which have an important bearing are those in reading, heroes, the forces of nature, and the attainment of results. Intellectually, the child begins to seek for reality. The historic sense develops, and the sense of location both develops and matures during this period. There is a deep regard for authority if rightly administered by one who the child feels has a right to rule over him. Memory is strong and retentive. A deep-seated, though egoistic, sense of justice is apparent. This is preeminently a time when habits are formed and fixed.

There are limitations here, as in every other period. The child is and must be more or less self-centered, because this is a time when he must pay attention to himself and get himself adjusted to the world about him before he can send his energies out in service for others, as will be normal in the next period. The reasoning power is very weak, depending upon sequence rather than causality. The interest in people is altogether in conduct and not at all in character; what a person does is what these children care about, not what he is.

Spiritual Needs

The study of even these few characteristics so briefly stated makes it evident that the children have special spiritual needs; that is, certain phases of the great fundamental truths which underlie all religious teaching will make the strongest appeal and be most helpful at this time. For instance, in God’s relation to us, it is not the Fatherhood of God which will appeal more strongly, but the Kingship of God, his authority, his wisdom, his justice and power; but with this presentation of the majesty of the Creator must be closely associated the thought of God as a daily Companion, as a Saviour from the power of sin, and as the Giver of eternal life and a heavenly home. Our relation to God as subjects of the King, and as dependent upon him for guidance, is linked with the thought of the privilege of cooperating with him in such forms of service as are possible to children, and in such manifestations of love as find natural expression in prayer, praise, and worship.

The Junior in his relation to others must be taught to play fair, to obey those in authority, to cooperate heartily in the duties and joys of the home life, and to champion right causes, whether standing alone or in company with others. The duties the child owes to himself which can best be taught and are most needed in this period are the formation of right personal habits, making right choices, and establishing right conceptions of progress.

THE JUNIOR TEACHER

Personality

A great deal is said about the characteristics of the Junior pupils and how these affect the plans that are made for their instruction. They also have a bearing upon the type of adult who should deal with the children in this formative period. It should not be necessary to say that the teacher must be a Christian and a church member, for consistency and common sense alike would demand that he who seeks to prepare recruits for the army of the Lord must be in active service himself. He cannot say, “Go”; he must be able to say, as the Master did, “Come, follow me.” The blind cannot be leaders of the blind. But there are many kinds of Christians and church members-persons who differ in temperament and in ways of looking at religious truth.

The Junior period is a time when the pupils are searching for realities. If normal children, normally trained in the home and church, they have almost unbounded credulity, which during this period rapidly develops with growing knowledge and experience into true faith. This is the God-given time for so strengthening the foundations of religious belief for the children that in the succeeding periods, when doubts will normally arise and sometimes beat most insistently upon the house of their faith, it will stand firm because built upon a rock. It is a crime to suggest doubts to Junior children or to surround them with an atmosphere of uncertainty. The teacher who attempts to guide children in this period should know what he believes, and believe it with all his heart, and speak with no uncertain sound. This may seem an almost impossible condition in an age when most learned scholars find innumerable points of criticism upon which they cannot agree, and concerning which many declare themselves to be agnostic; but there are certain great fundamentals which all must believe if they are to be intrusted with the leading of the young, and those who are chosen for Junior teachers should have the temperament which puts emphasis upon the positive and constructive in belief rather than upon the things which lie on debatable ground.

A person who has not a keen sense of justice, and who is not able to be impartial and to keep in the background any personal preferences that he may have, should not attempt to teach Juniors. The children will apply to themselves the most rigid rules if given an opportunity for self-government, and will rejoice in obeying them, but they will resent with the utmost intensity the slightest ruling of a teacher or superintendent which has in it a taint of partiality or injustice. This does not mean that the teacher of Juniors must be ideally perfect. The impossible is not required of anyone in God’s work; but because “we teach only a little by what we say, much more by what we do, and most of all by what we are,” it is more important that the Junior teacher should cultivate those qualities in himself which appeal most strongly to the Junior child than it is that the lessons chosen for the children shall present those qualities through the lives of the heroes of the past.

The best teacher is one in whom the pupil feels the presence of religion as a concrete, natural thing. The best Sunday-school teaching is an initiation of the pupil into sacred things, and initiation is a process of admitting one to a society of persons and fellowship. Many persons have been asked to say what in their experience as Sunday-school pupils most influenced them for good. The reply, apparently the invariable reply, has been, “The personality of the teacher rather than the content of formal instruction.” Nothing in the way of methods or advice can take the place of wholesome, winning personality that actually lives in the realities of the Christian experience and truly admits pupils into the fellowship of this life.[1]

Opportunity

It is the aim of the Sunday school “gradually to bring to completeness or perfection the worthy qualities and characteristics of each pupil, and repress the unworthy, to the end that he may do the work and exert the influence of a true Christian in his environment.” The Junior period is a time when the Sunday-school teacher is given a unique opportunity for helping to realize this aim. In the child’s physical life this is a time of slow growth and bodily vigor, which makes possible a degree of concentration in work and study not to be expected in the earlier years. It is a time when the memory is both strong and retentive, and the child may make the greatest treasures of holy writ his own for all time if he learns them in these years.

The brain cells are still plastic, though hardening rapidly. It is therefore easy to get the child to act along suggested lines, and through incentives and rewards to secure that regular, voluntary repetition of the right act which is necessary for the formation of a habit. The fact that this is the great habit forming and fixing period of life makes evident at once the large opportunity and the corresponding responsibility of the Sunday school in its relation to Junior children.

Teachers, while endeavoring to exemplify the virtues which they inculcate, should constantly aim to help their pupils to form such habits as regular Bible reading and study, church attendance and attention (which is even more important), punctuality, cooperation, industry, thoroughness, perseverance; cheerful, systematic, intelligent giving, reverence and orderliness. It is tremendously important that the children shall form character building habits at this time; for “whatever is found in the life as habits of thought, feeling, and action at the dawn of adolescence will then be greatly magnified and strengthened.”

Another fact which emphasizes the opportunity this period presents is that at some time during these years, usually toward the end of the period, comes the first great age of spiritual awakening, when the child may be expected to become conscious of his relationship to Christ, and proclaim his newly realized loyalty. In the eyes of the church the child is a member of the kingdom of heaven. It now becomes the duty of the church “to see that the child does not lose his spiritual inheritance; that he is kept in the kingdom and so trained that at the time when he becomes fully conscious of his relationship to the Divine, he will choose to claim his inheritance as a child of God and lead the life for which it calls.”

It is sometimes said that Junior children are “trying,” and this is absolutely true. Each class tries its teacher, not because the children wish to be aggravating, but because it is ordained that they shall gain their knowledge and experience by testing each new situation in which they find themselves, and each new person with whom they are brought into close contact. What they are seeking is reality, and they will experiment until they find out what is true about their teacher. They are not endeavoring to get their own way, though that may often seem to be the case. They never like a teacher who is weak and vacillating, but if in the testing process they discover a teacher who knows what he tries to teach, who is firm and kind, impartial, just, and loving, they will yield to that teacher the truest respect, admiration, loyalty, and affection. The Junior teacher should rejoice in the opportunity that his task affords. There is no other time in the life of a Sunday-school pupil when such a ready response will be made to the right influence, example, and instruction.

GUIDES FOR STUDY AND TEACHING

The Teacher’s Text Book

Two text books are provided with the lessons—one for the teacher and one for the pupil.

In the teacher’s book it has been the aim to give as much material for the individual study of the lesson as is possible within the prescribed limits of the book. Bible passages that throw light either upon the truth to be taught or upon the meaning of the lesson story have been carefully selected. The quotations from the commentators will also be found valuable. The plan of study that will bring the best results to any teacher using this book is first to read carefully the lesson passage and any history intervening between the lesson and the preceding one, to study what is said by the commentators and the Bible references that are given, and to glance over the suggestions under Lesson Preparation.

When these things have been done the teacher should turn away from all books and ask himself, “How can I best present this lesson to my class?” and with the needs of his own pupils in mind, plan the lesson for presentation. After the plan is settled the method of presentation as given in this book will not prescribe a method but may be helpful in the way of suggestion. The importance of individual preparation cannot be emphasized too strongly, for no ready-made lesson can be perfectly fitted to any class.

The lessons for the first half of the quarter are taken from the “morning stories” in the first eleven chapters of Genesis. These stories nourish the soul of the child as few other stories can, because they keep the child in the presence of God. It is a God who not only creates, but guides, loves, reproves, walks, and talks with man as one friend with another. The nine-year-old child is hardly yet beyond the stage where the fancies of fairy tale and myth make a strong appeal. For that reason it seems to him perfectly natural that God in visible presence should meet and converse with his children. These stories, therefore, strengthen the God-consciousness within him, and awaken a response which results in the realization that he, too, may have personal relation with his loving, heavenly Father.

“The ancient Hebrew had no notion of science. He did not ask for the immediate cause of physical events. It entirely satisfied his instinct for ultimate truth to assume that thunder was God’s voice; that God had planted those cedars whose life reached back before the memory of man. He related all mysteries to God, and in that relationship his mind rested and his heart was satisfied.”[2]

This is equally true of the child. His heart is satisfied with God, and he is not troubled with any questions concerning whether these early stories relate actual happenings or not. They are gloriously true because they tell the truth about God. They give the child an axis for his universe, and that is what he is seeking. The teacher should not try to interpret the stories, but simply tell them as nearly as possible in the splendid simplicity of the Bible language.

The Pupil’s Book for Work and Study

This book guides the pupil in his Bible reading and study, indicates verses or passages for memorization, and through the handwork furnishes him an opportunity for making the lesson his own. There are several reasons why this book is of high educational value. One is that it serves to fix the facts clearly in mind and facts are the basis of ideas. Ideas cannot be clearly seen until the facts are mastered.

But the book does much more for the pupil than to put him in the possession of knowledge. It gives him an opportunity to practice obedience in a different way from anything to which he has been previously accustomed. In the Primary Department the children do an increasing amount of handwork, but they do it with the help and under the supervision of their teachers. The nine-year-old child must learn to work by himself and to obey printed instructions.

Teachers examining this work for the first time may think that the pupils’ books for the first year are so stereotyped as to leave no room for originality. That is true in a sense, and the work has been prepared purposely in this way, for before the pupils can do original work, they must have a certain basis of knowledge. They must learn how to follow printed instructions carefully, and be able to make themselves do the thing they are told to do at the time they are told to do it. If through the books of the first year the pupils should learn to be both accurate and punctual, we might feel well repaid even if no other results come from this study. But the fact is that while doing the work exactly as it is assigned they will get the greatest benefit from the lesson themselves, for the spirit of obedience generates an atmosphere in which all the Christian graces possible to a child can best develop and flourish.

The work book ministers to the child’s growing sense of responsibility. If he accepts the responsibility and honestly tries to meet its requirements his character is strengthened thereby. If he shirks his duty his moral nature is weakened.

No teacher can afford to allow the children to neglect the work book. If they do not do the work there outlined, they cannot learn the lessons, no matter how well the stories may be told in class. The child learns not by hearing but by doing. On the other hand the book must never be thought of as an end in itself, but only as a means to an end. In one school the most perfect work book shown in the exhibit represented the most abject failure from the standpoint of religious education. It was made by a boy whose mother had compelled him to do the work and supervised it rigidly. He hated it with his whole heart because he was never permitted to play until that work was done. The mother was exceedingly proud of the book. To have it completed and neatly done was the end she had been seeking, and that she had attained. But the book was well-nigh worthless in the teacher’s estimation because it did not represent the child’s own initiative and volition. When the pupil, incited by example and suggestion and rewarded by commendation, chooses to do the work, the book becomes one of the important means by which the great end of character building is accomplished for him.

The teacher should always have a copy of the Pupil’s Book for Work and Study and do the work in it just as he would like to have the children do it. Of course it should be better done than any child can possibly do it. If the teacher colors the pictures with water colors, uses illuminated initial letters, and writes neatly and plainly, his book will be a great incentive to the children to do the very best possible work themselves.

In the beginning of the first quarter’s work the teacher should remember that these children are still to all intents and purposes Primary children unaccustomed to working alone. It is exceedingly important that each teacher should meet the children of the class during the week after teaching the first lesson and show them how to cut out the pictures for that first lesson and paste them in the book. The children would then be certain to start right, and though it may not be true that “well begun is half done,” a good beginning is so encouraging to the child that he is much more likely to keep up the work and to find it enjoyable. But if he makes mistakes or neglects to do the work at the beginning it is doubly difficult to interest him later. The week day gathering to start the children on their handwork might be called a Work Book Social, ending with games and light refreshments. When the children arrive have them take their books and read carefully with you the instructions on pages 2 and 3 before doing the pasting and writing for Lesson 1. Suggest that the picture sheet be handled very carefully so that the pictures needed for later use may not become marred or defaced in any way. Encourage the children to keep the book clean and neat. In order that the cover may not be soiled from use, it is well to make a cover for each book from manilla paper and place the picture sheet between the manilla cover and the cover of the book so that there will be no danger that the pictures will be lost as the book is carried home. Explain that the reading is to be done each day just as indicated in the book. Great stress should be put at all times upon the doing of these specified tasks regularly and keeping strictly up to date with them, in order that the children may form the habit of daily Bible reading and study.

Incentives and rewards will be found necessary as means for inducing the children to choose to do the work. Juniors do not love work, but are interested in the attainment of results, and when wisely led will learn later to love work for work’s sake. Among the incentives there should be a department Honor Roll, and a Class Banner. The first year children who complete their books satisfactorily should be given a social or outing at the end of each quarter. They like public recognition of every kind, so the prospect of having the book appear in the exhibit on promotion day is a strong inducement for doing good work.

Because of the necessary wear and tear on the book and the danger that it may be lost in carrying back and forth, it is not best to have the pupils bring their books every week to the school all through the year; but in the beginning it is desirable to have the book brought each week so that the teacher may see how the work is being done. After the children are well started the teacher can use his own book in the class in giving any necessary instruction.

The Children’s Bible

In the beginning of this Junior work every pupil must have a Bible of his own, the American Standard, if possible. If the parents will not or cannot provide one, the school must do so, for the child cannot possibly do the work as outlined unless he has a Bible to work with. It is also essential for other reasons. No one can be interested in a book which he does not know how to handle, and it is impossible for any child to become familiar with the Bible if the only time he uses it is on Sunday during the Sunday school session.

If some of the children have a King James Version and some the American Standard, explain that both are translations into English from another language, that the King James translation was made three hundred years ago and that of the American Bible finished at the beginning of this century. Tell the children also that because we think the American Standard gives the meaning more clearly we use it in these lessons whenever any memory texts are printed.

The Rainbow Bookmark

There is no question but that learning the books and divisions of the Bible is one of the hardest tasks that the children will meet during the Junior period. Most of the books have names that are in a foreign language and therefore especially difficult to learn. But as the children commit anything to memory easily in this period, and as the interest in new words is strong, the work is not nearly so hard as adults are apt to think it. But whatever the difficulty may be it is essential, if the children are to get the best results from the Junior work, that in this first year they shall learn the names of the books of the Bible, and learn how to handle the Bible and find references quickly.

The use of the rainbow bookmark has been found helpful in interesting the children in the study and making it easier for them, and in awakening in them a desire to use their own Bibles. Its bright colors are attractive, and the rainbow standing for God’s promises has a beautiful meaning, which is joyfully recognized by the children when they hear the story of The Flood. The bookmark is also useful in conducting department or class drills.

This bookmark is made of nine ribbons in the prismatic colors with indigo and purple, darker shades of blue and violet, and a white ribbon to mark the Gospels. The colors are used in this order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue (light), white, indigo, violet, and purple. The ribbons put together in such a way that they will not tear the leaves of the Bible can be secured of the publishing house at 25 cents for each bookmark.

How the Bookmark Is Used

The bookmark is placed in the Bible by putting the ribbon at the end of the division for which it stands. In this way red follows Deuteronomy, and marks the five books of Law or the Pentateuch. Orange, following Esther, marks the twelve books of History. Yellow, following the Song of Solomon, marks the five books of Poetry. Green, following Daniel, marks the five books of the Major Prophets. Blue, following Malachi, marks the twelve books of the Minor Prophets. White, following Saint John, marks the four Gospels. Indigo, following Acts, marks the one historical book of the New Testament. Violet, following Hebrews, marks the fourteen Pauline Letters. Purple, following Jude, marks the other seven letters. Revelation, the one book of Prophecy in the New Testament, has no ribbon.

There is a peculiar fitness in having white, the combination of all the colors, for the Gospel story, which is the center and climax of all the Bible narratives, and it is very desirable to have the life of Christ marked in a peculiar way which will set it apart from the rest and emphasize its importance. In the regular order indigo, the darkest and least attractive of all the ribbons, would mark the Gospels, and there would be but one ribbon for the letters, which leaves a series of twenty-one names to be learned in one group.

The Bookmark as a Reward

This device is first mentioned in connection with Lesson 8. In the correlated work for Lesson 9 slips of paper of the bookmark colors are suggested as markers for the memory texts, and the children in this way begin to learn the kinds of books in the Bible. A sheet of paper for each color is not difficult to secure and would make enough strips for several classes.

If the school can afford to give them, the bookmarks make a fine reward to give to the children when they have learned the books and divisions perfectly. If the parents can afford to buy them and the school cannot, suggest that they do so but ask them to wait until the children know the names of the books, so that it will come as a reward in any case.

PROMOTION REQUIREMENTS AND HONORS

The Basis for Promotion

In any graded course of study the pupils are expected to earn promotion from grade to grade by attaining a certain required average in their work. In the Junior Course the Pupil’s Book for Work and Study is, as the name implies, both a guide in study, and a means of fixing in mind the knowledge which has been gained. To meet the requirements of this book the pupil must do the daily Bible readings, learn the memory text or texts each week, do whatever reading is required, and learn the hymns that are printed in the book. At the beginning of the course the pupils should understand that the doing of the work for which the Work Book calls is a requirement for promotion. In all schools seventy-five per cent out of a possible one hundred is accepted as a passing average. Therefore, three out of four Work Books satisfactorily completed during the year entitle the child to promotion. Knowledge that the requirements of the Work Book must be met in order to earn promotion is with many children one of the strongest incentives that can be presented to them for doing that work regularly and well.

Recognition for Extra Work

Every child should be incited to do more than merely meet the requirement that passes him from one grade to the next. It is to furnish this stimulation that extra honor work is provided. If the child chooses to complete the fourth Work Book he earns an honor in that way. If the hymn given for illustration is illustrated that gives another honor. Learning the optional memory passages, prayers, and hymns is a third method of gaining honors; and regular attendance upon the church service a fourth.