How to make the lesson interesting. Oral instruction preferable. So much for the question how to make the lesson comprehensible to the child. As has already been said, this in itself goes a great way toward answering as well our second question, how to make it interesting, but other considerations must also be taken into account. The art of teaching history is in great part the art of story telling. Children love stories and particularly true stories if they are well told, but this love of a child for a good story is limited, especially in earlier years, to a story that is told. The mere technical difficulties of reading, the physical inconvenience of the posture demanded, the absence of that commentary which voice and gesture supply to the story, the impossibility of asking a book questions, and a number of other similar considerations make it undesirable that the first acquaintance of a child with a lesson shall come from a text-book. Text-books have their uses, particularly in the higher grades, for purposes of review, to aid the memory in retaining what has already been taught by word of mouth, but the practice that obtains in some schools of expecting the child to learn the lesson from the book before he comes to class is bad and should be avoided.
Some suggestions as to story telling. If then the first presentation of a lesson must be given orally by the teacher, it follows that the teacher has to perfect himself in the art of story telling. Like all other arts, the art of story telling cannot be imparted by rule and particularly not within the small scope of this introduction. A few suggestions however may be helpful. Lewis Carrol, whose Alice in Wonderland shows a rare insight into the childish mind, makes his Alice express a preference for books with plenty of illustrations and conversation. There are two hints here that are of value to the teacher of Biblical history, the first is to use pictures to illustrate a story and the second always to prefer direct discourse to indirect. To take up the second of these suggestions first, compare the following accounts of the same event and ask yourself which appeals more to you:
1. Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him and he ordered every man to leave him. And there stood no man with him while Joseph made himself known to his brethren. And he wept aloud and the Egyptians heard and the house of Pharaoh heard. And Joseph told his brethren who he was and asked whether his father was yet alive. And his brethren could not answer him, for they were affrighted at his presence. Joseph told them to come near, and they came near, and he told them that he was Joseph whom they had sold into Egypt and that they should not be grieved nor angry with themselves for having sold him thither, for it was in order to preserve life that God had sent him before them. For the famine had been in the land for two years and there yet remained five years during which there would be neither plowing nor harvest, and so God had sent him before them to give them a remnant on the earth and to keep them alive for a great deliverance.
2. Then could Joseph not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried, "Cause every man to go out from me." And there stood no man with him when Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. And he wept aloud, and the Egyptians heard and the house of Pharaoh heard. And Joseph said unto his brethren, "I am Joseph; doth my father yet live?" And his brethren could not answer him for they were affrighted at his presence. And Joseph said unto his brethren, "Come near to me, I pray you." And they came near. And he said: "I am Joseph your brother whom ye sold into Egypt. And now be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither; for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land; and there are yet five years in which there shall be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to give you a remnant on the earth and to save you alive for a great deliverance."
The reader will at once recognize in the second citation the exact language of the Bible. The first is the same passage turned into indirect discourse with no other change in its wording, yet how much it loses in force even for us adults and even in print; for children and in actual narration the story would lose even more.
The advantage of using illustrations. As for the advantage of using illustrations whether in the form of pictures that are distributed and passed around the class or in the form of stereoptican views, we have already suggested one advantage in that they help define for the child the meaning of some of the concrete terms not yet in his vocabulary, but they perform a still more important function in helping him to visualize the narrative. For what we see seems always a more intimate part of our experience than what we have merely heard. When Job wants to express the deeper intimacy of his new knowledge of God after God had appeared to him he declares, "I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee." (Job 42. 5.)
When to use illustrations and what illustrations to use. Though the use of illustrations, particularly of stereoptican views, which have the advantage of focusing the attention of the class on one thing, are a decided help, they should be used only in reviewing the lesson. The reasons for this are: 1. that the picture distracts the attention of the class from what the teacher is saying, 2. that it prevents the smooth flow of narrative by the necessity of explaining details of the picture that are often irrelevant, 3. that the interest in the dramatic dialogue of the characters which reveals their motives and, in most cases, the actual moral of the story is sacrificed to the interest in picturesque details of dress, scenery, etc., 4. that the teacher is at the mercy of the artist's conception of the Biblical narrative which rarely does it justice from a Jewish or from an artistic point of view, and often does violence to the nobler conception of the story that the unaided imagination, stimulated by the teacher's narrative, would have constructed. Pictures that represent God in human form should of course not be allowed in a Jewish school. Nor should the school use such pictures as represent anything of a mystical character in images so definite and familiar that they dispel the whole mystical atmosphere. When, for instance, the revelation on Mount Sinai is represented by two tablets of stone falling from heaven into the waiting hands of Moses, as in one familiar picture, it is hardly likely to instil the highest form of reverence. Or when, as in another picture, the ascension of Elijah is represented by a chariot drawn by horses of a brilliant red, meant to suggest fire but too definite in outline to permit of such suggestion, the child will in all probability merely be amused at the peculiar color of the horses and the picture will not have illustrated the story for him at all. It is therefore apparent that the teacher must exercise some sort of censorship over the illustrations used in teaching.
Self activity of child. We have several times referred to the activity of the child's own imagination in working over in his mind the material supplied by the teacher, and the recognition of the fact that the child's mind is not passive but active leads us to the acceptance of a principle of the most far reaching importance in all education, namely, that the teacher cannot impart a lesson unless he can get the child's mind of its own accord to seek that very knowledge that he wishes to impart. This is the wisdom of the homely proverb, "You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink." We must stimulate an appetite for the mental food we wish to give the pupil even before we give it. How can this be done?
Jewish symbols and ceremonies a stimulus to self activity. When discussing the aim of instruction in Biblical history we took a hint from the Haggadah for Passover, the reading of which was mainly intended for pedagogic purpose since it is in fulfillment of the commandment, "And thou shalt tell to thy son in that day"; we may take another hint from it in this connection. The child at table on Passover eve sees before him a number of curious objects and ceremonials to which he is not accustomed. He sees the maẓẓot, the maror, and other symbols, he also notices the reclining attitude instead of the usual erect posture, and so he very naturally exclaims mah nishtannah! "How different is this night from other nights!" Then when his own curiosity has been stimulated he is given the answer to his questions and the lesson has been impressed upon him. The symbols and ceremonies of Jewish life which have their origin or explanation in the Biblical narrative are excellently adapted for this stimulation of intellectual curiosity which should precede the telling of the story. A reference to the Sabbath and how it is observed might well precede the story of creation which explains its origin and significance; a reference to the Passover observances might well precede an account of the Exodus; a reference to the synagogue might precede an account of the construction of the tabernacle, etc. These serve the double function of interesting the child in the narrative and of interesting him in those things in Jewish life which the narrative helps to explain. Where an object of Jewish ceremonial life cannot be found with which to stimulate his curiosity, some other fact of his experience may be taken instead. Thus the story of Noah might well be introduced by reference to the rainbow, the meaning of which the teacher will then undertake to explain to the child by the story.
The teacher's question as a stimulus to self activity. Inasmuch as there are in every class those of the type mentioned in the Haggadah "who know not how to question", it often becomes advisable for the teacher himself to put to the class the question that he wishes to have answered. And indeed an occasional question from the teacher in the very midst of the story may go a great way toward arousing interest and securing a clearer comprehension. Thus it may be that the teacher is telling the story of Joseph. He reaches the point where Joseph's brothers come to him to buy corn and explains how Joseph, having recognized them without their having recognized him, had them wholly in his power. He then asks, "Now what do you think you would do if you were Joseph and your brothers had treated you so cruelly and then they come to you for food and you have them in your power?" At once he has the class interested in the question of what Joseph actually did and their interest in the rest of the story as well as their better comprehension of the motives that underlie it is secured.