You are not Moodys? No; but hundreds of primary teachers are doing just this work, telling to their children the Bible stories as they must have happened, reading with the heart and telling them to the life. Long meditation is needed, persistent "putting yourself in his place," and it is even well to write out the story in full before you attempt to tell it. When you receive the reward, you will count the trouble as nothing.
Music is a great aid in the primary room. If you cannot afford a piano, learn how cheap are the "baby organs," and how effectively they will lead the children's singing. Even though you work in an extemporized class-room, shut off by screens or a curtain from the rest of the school, you can at least use "whisper songs." Yes, and these whisper songs may often be motion songs, and serve to illustrate the lesson.
At least one song of the hour should bear directly on the central thought of the hour, and before it is sung you should explain why you call for it. Most of the best songs for this purpose will prove to be standard hymns, and there is every reason why the simplest of these should be taught to the children, that they may find as many points of contact as possible with the services of the older church. The aid of the parents may well be invoked to teach these hymns at home to the children,—a helpful task, for more than the children's sake, at which to set the parents.
The primary song-books contain bright little hymns appropriate to introduce prayer, to open and close the school, to be sung before Bible-reading and while the collection is taken. A clear-voiced assistant, sitting and singing among the children, will train them insensibly, and draw their childish voices into harmony with her own. Just as the children will enjoy a class name, motto, colors, so they will be delighted to select a class song; and this device may be tried, together with many others mentioned in the chapter on "A Singing Sunday-school."
Our foundation work will surely fall if it is not itself founded firmly on the Bible. Be sure that each scholar has his own Bible—and a large-type copy. Why is it that the smaller the child, the tinier the type? It is not so with the children's other books. How can we expect them to take any interest in pages that look so black and uninteresting, and that, moreover, would ruin their eyes for life if they did read them?
The Bible must not be so expensive that it cannot be marked freely. The children will learn much by this exercise. A little set of colored pencils may be given to each child, for class use only. The golden texts and other verses, and the places where the lesson story may be read, should all be marked with pencils of appropriate symbolic color. The children can easily find the place, and the folks at home will know just what passages to read to the children and to help them learn.
Make much of memory verses. We are filling the little heads nowadays far more with sand-map puppets and blackboard rebuses than with the Word of God. Drill often and thoroughly on these verses. Prepare a Bible roll by fastening a long strip of manilla paper on a spring window-shade roller. Let the lower line contain a few initial letters hinting at the memory verse concealed just above it. After recitation, pull this down for the scholars to compare; and so proceed through the roll. An alphabet of Bible verses may thus be learned, or an alphabet of Bible men and women.