No clearness of knowledge may be expected unless the teacher knows clearly at the start just what it is that he expects the scholars to know; and the building grows with double certainty if the little workmen themselves are given glimpses of the architect's plans,—at least of a "front elevation." "For these three months," the teacher may say, "we are to study Christ's life as Mark records it. My plan is for you to vote each Sunday on the most important facts we have studied,—either in the lesson text or in the 'intervening events.' Sometimes it will be one fact; it will never be more than three. All together there are thirty facts we shall learn, and they will make an outline history of Christ's entire life."
How such a scheme, clearly and often stated, will clarify and systematize the quarter's work! Three or four times during the three months the teacher will propound brisk questions covering the points of all the previous lessons of the quarter, following this by a written test. Let him prepare for each lesson a card, on which he prints questions answerable by the facts to be learned. Fastening twelve hooks on a board, he hangs these cards on the hooks week by week, and uses them in these reviews and in the final review of the quarter. If the class is one of little tots, a symbol for each lesson, cut out of pasteboard or consisting of some object, may be hung up in place of the card,—such a symbol as a needle stuck in a piece of cloth, answering to the story of Dorcas.
Some such preparation will make thoroughly successful a written examination on review day. The questions should be simple and clear, and such as can be answered fully in a very few words. They should take up only the points on which emphasis has been laid throughout the quarter. If the teacher presents the plan in a jolly way, the class will enter into it heartily, as good fun.
For a change, now and then invite the scholars to bring in, on review day, lists of what each considers the ten principal events of the quarter. A comparison is to be made, and the events that receive the most votes will constitute a model list. This exercise in itself will make a pretty good review.
An excellent review may be based upon the six natural divisions of all lessons,—times, persons, places, events, sayings, teachings. The "sayings" are the short sentences best worth memorizing. A review "quiz" may take up these six points one after the other, carrying each over the entire range of lessons, sometimes chronologically, but more often at haphazard.
A more elaborate plan is to assign each of these categories to some scholar the week before, telling him, for instance, that you will depend upon him alone to fix the location of all the events in the twelve lessons. Carrying out the comparison indicated in the title to this chapter, you may do very thorough work by getting each scholar to keep a Sunday-school ledger. He will open up a page to the account of "persons," another to the account of "events," and so on, and will make weekly entries on each page. The quarterly review will then be indeed his trial balance.
I am very fond of a map review. Using a large outline map, sometimes one drawn before the class on the blackboard by a scholar who has practised the feat, I call for the first event of the quarter's lessons, and one of the class places a figure 1 at the scene of the event; thus with all the events in order. Then, reviewing again, I ask, pointing to the map, "What was event No. 7, here at Sychar?" or, "Four events at Jerusalem—what were they, in order?"
Another good way to use the map—a map, this time, drawn in outline on a large sheet of manilla paper—is to employ "stickers," bright bits of gummed paper, cut to various shapes. Blue stars, for instance, stuck here and there over the map, will indicate the points where Abraham is found in a series of lessons. They may be numbered, or not. Gold stars may show where Christ worked the miracles studied during the quarter. All the events in one year of Christ's ministry may be represented by green stars, in another year by scarlet stars, or purple stars. The method branches out into many fascinating applications.
Some teachers make large use of the golden texts. If these have been emphasized, they may wisely be introduced in the review. Write each upon a card. If you have artistic talent, you may make each card a thing of beauty, to be kept as a souvenir by the scholar. These cards will be distributed at random, and each scholar will be expected to answer the questions, first of the class and then of the teacher, on the lesson whose golden text he holds. I would not urge the recalling of lessons by titles, for the titles are not constituent parts of the lesson; but the golden text usually goes to the heart of the matter. Neither would I favor such a plan as the one last mentioned, that assigns one lesson to each scholar, unless the entire class is drawn into active participation by such a questioning from the scholars as I have indicated.
A pleasant and profitable review for some classes is based on the quotable passages in the quarter's Scripture. These memorable sentences are written on cards, which are distributed evenly. Every scholar is expected to tell when, where, and by whom his quotation was first spoken, and at the close of the exercise each scholar will be called upon to repeat all his quotations from memory. Then the teacher will gather the cards, mix them up, present the pile now to this scholar and now to that, and ask him to give the facts about whatever quotation he may draw. The success of this method of review, as of all others, will largely depend upon its previous announcement, the scholars having gone over the quarter's lessons at home with this coming test in mind.