PREFACE
JESUS said to Peter—Lovest thou me—and when Peter had given his answer Jesus said "Feed my Lambs." The Master told him first to Feed the Lambs, afterward he said "Feed my Sheep." Jesus put first things first. Did Peter obey this command? We have no record of him giving especial attention to the Lambs. I imagine he was like the most and best of us—he forgot the Lambs. Let us try to remember what Jesus said. Feed the Lambs. The best way is to get them through the eye. Children see 18 times more through the eye than they hear through the ear. Eighty per cent of all the knowledge we receive from the cradle to the grave comes through the eye. It is the Big Highway with wide gates ever open to the heart of a child.
The moving pictures of the day are visited daily in the United States by six million of little children. This one, thing they are doing for the children: they are training them to look and see things; they are learning to be good lookers; they come to us in our Sunday Schools and children's meetings with eyes trained to look and happy is the teacher if he can show them truth. This he can do by object lessons. I have talked to over a million and a half of children by the use of objects; many of them have grown into adulthood and often when I talk to them of other days, they rehearse these lessons to me and I can thus see how well they remember and how deep and lasting is the impression made when truth enters the eye. It enters to stay. These visual lessons outlined in this book will help you to Feed the Lambs.
Somewhere I read the other day, about the boy who was present when Christ was feeding the multitude and this was the analysis that the teacher made of the boy with the loaves and fishes. First you will always find the boy in a crowd. Second, he always looks out for his stomach and so brought with him his lunch. Third, he can be worked and won if he is approached in the proper way, and to find the proper way is to find the golden key which unlocks a golden heart that will welcome the entrance of the golden truth of Jesus. One of the first principles of the knowledge of a child is that he is all eyes. Psychologists tell us that we see eighteen times more than we hear, but no psychologist has ever been able yet to figure out how much a boy can see. It seems to me that he sees fifty times more than he hears. That has been my experience, as I have labored with a million and a half boys and girls. Hence it is the first principle of the art of knowing children, the quickest and best way to teach them is through the eye, and so the use of pictures and objects and all things which appeal to the child's eye are master keys that unlock hearts. They receive the impressions through the eye, and these they seldom ever cast away. In discovering a child, always remember what a child may be and what he is now. We must have this long look into the future or we won't be able to look into the present, He is a whole congress of possibilities. Possibilities are the seeds that may germinate into a mighty force for good or evil.
There was once a teacher in old New England who taught a little district school, who had the gift of reading the possibilities of her children and trying to develop those possibilities. Her name was Miss Crochet. She could easily tell whether the disorderly boy was vicious or suffering from an overdose of animation. She understood children. One day while she was at prayer, a little boy in her class laughed out loud. After the prayer she said, "Who was that laughing while I was praying?" A little bit of a fellow held up his hand and said he did the laughing. The teacher said, "What were you laughing at?" "Something that Billy said, who sits next to me." "Billy, what did you tell him that caused him to laugh?" "I saw a little mouse." "What did you say about that mouse, Billy?" He said, "While Miss Crochet was saying her prayer a little gray mouse ran down the stairs." Of course, all the children laughed and the teacher said, "That was very bright, Billy. I think you have got the making of a poet in you. At least I am going to satisfy myself on that point." So Billy was called to the front. Miss Crochet, wanting to find out something about the boy, looked down at him and said, "I wonder if there is a possibility of making a poet out of this child." It certainly sounded so when he composed his first lines of poetry. So she said to him, "I will see whether you are a boy of mischief and interrupted my prayer as a disorderly act, or whether it was simply an overflow of an unrestrained impulse to say words poetically. I will give you three minutes to compose another line. If you do it in that time, and it is as good as your first lines, I will not punish you, but if you do not, I shall bring my rod down over your shoulder." So she said to him, "Compose your lines in three minutes or take your punishment." One minute passed, the second minute passed and there was no response from the boy. The teacher said, "There is only one minute left, now speak or be punished." The little fellow lifted up his head and said, "Here I stand by the side of Miss Crochet, when she brings down the rod, I intend to dodge it." She laughed, they all laughed, she said he would make a bright boy. She encouraged him in the writing of lines and he afterwards became a poet of fame. She understood Billy and so made Billy great.
Don't forget the boy is all eyes. Fill them full of truth. What you tell him may "go in one ear and out the other" but what you show him will not go in one eye and out the other eye. What does go in the eyes will stick in the head. And so the truth is carved in with it. The boy likes to see things, so show him Bible truth. That is the way to interest him, It is a sin to make Bible truth uninteresting. Know the child, and that will go a long way to prevent you from committing this sin.
C. H. WOOLSTON
Philadelphia, Pa.