One point needs especial emphasis. No matter how thoroughly you have told the story, or how fascinated the children have been held by your recital, never consider the hour well spent till you have read from the Bible itself the story you have been telling. The more delightful and satisfactory your own account has been, the more necessary is it to show the children that within the covers of the Book are to be found all these beautiful stories.
Part of your foundation work is certainly to teach the children to pray. There are many appropriate prayer poems, such as, for the beginning of the lesson:
"A prayer we lift to thee, dear Lord,
Ere we shall listen to thy word.
The truth thy Spirit brings from thee
Help us to study patiently.
For Jesus' sake. Amen."
Or this, for the close of the lesson:
"Our Father, through each coming day
Watch o'er our every step, we pray;
And may thy Spirit hide the word
Deep in our willing hearts, O Lord.
For Jesus' sake. Amen."
These the class may be taught to repeat in concert, with bowed heads.
One of the best methods is this. Let the teacher offer a simple prayer, sentence by sentence or clause by clause, the children reverently repeating it after her, all heads being bowed. Best of all, of course, are the Bible prayers, the prayer psalms, and the many noble prayer verses scattered here and there. Store the children's memories with these, and in coming years there will be no stammering or hesitancy when, in public or in private, they talk with their Father in heaven.
One of the primary teacher's chief allies is a happy temper. If you have it not, get it. An ounce of sunshine is better than an iron mountain of scolding. The voice alone may make or mar the lesson. Is it good-cheery, or goody-goody? How joyous Christ must have been! How his little children love fun! And how much easier it will be for you to get them to love him if you also love fun!
Indeed, we cannot know too thoroughly the child nature. The scientists' study of it is in its infancy, but a sympathetic heart will carry you farther in ten minutes than all their psychology in a lifetime. As you teach, have in mind, not your trials, joys, and hopes, but theirs. Don't talk about "ambition," but about "getting more praise than another girl"; or about "covetousness," but about "wishing you, and not Tom, had his new bicycle." Don't allegorize; that is a grown-up delight. Don't talk about "the hill Difficulty," "the bog of Despond." Do you tell me the children enjoy "The Pilgrim's Progress"? Yes; but not as allegory. Vanity Fair is a real town to them, and Mr. Pliable a real man. Avoid what I call "fanciful" teaching, and the rather build your lessons upon actual men and women, so that the children may come to know Eli and Gideon, Ruth and Martha, as vividly as they know the men and women around them. That is better than to know Lily Lazy and Matt Mischievous and the Sea of Sorrow.