pupils live five days in that atmosphere) reading with difficulty, through a pair of glasses, questions on the location of New England Manufactories, as she bends over a cramped and scrawly paper. Says Fitch: "That is the best questioning which stimulates action on the part of the hearer, and gives him a habit of thinking and enquiring for himself-which makes him rather a skilful finder than a patient receiver of the truth." There is only one kind of action we can surmise as likely to be "stimulated" by much of the Sunday School Questioning. Here is a sample from a New England "Sabbath School Question Book" of a few years since: "Did you ever read in your library books about good children who died very happy?" "How many years of Sabbaths has a person lived who is fifty years old?" "Which would you prefer to lose, your dinner to-day, or your Sunday School instruction?". Most of us can guess what the reply to this interrogation should be!

Kinds of Questions.

Professor F. A. Manny, quoting from Fitch, gives three kinds: (1) Descriptive Questions, mere fact, with typical word "What?" (2) Narrative, process or method, with typical word "How?" (3) Explanatory, meaning or use, with typical word "Why?"

Perhaps a simpler and better division of Questions, from the view-point of internal character, is that of Prof. McMurry, into Fact Questions and Thought Questions. The former are "Who?" "Where?" "What?" the latter are "How?" and "Why?" Fact Questions should be almost the exclusive type before the age of 8 or 9; they should predominate, with some Thought Questions, from that age to Adolescence (12 years on); while they should be subsidiary to Thought Questions from Adolescence onward. This is because the former are concrete and belong to the concrete age, the age of Acquisition; while the latter are more abstract, and come in gradually as Reflection develops. This differentiation should be constantly borne in mind.

Professor McMurry, looking at it from the view-point of the lesson, gives (1) Preliminary Questions, that is one should start off with some broad, searching, all-round Review Question, that gets the pupils at once in touch with the lesson for the day;

rounds them up, so to speak; collects their wits; connects the new with the old; focuses the gist of the previous lessons and connects them all together into a well-knit scheme. Some large "left-over problem" from previous lesson; some wide generalization that would come from the comparison of a large number of formerly considered facts, such are excellent "starters."

(2) Leading Questions, around which shorter, subsidiary ones are wielded. These leading questions form the backbone or skeleton of the lesson plan, in the new material.

(3) Frequent Review Questions, which sum up the points made thus far in new work. Children's memories are short at first, and their "weaving ability" limited. The younger the children, the more needful this gathering together of points and loose ends. Every five minutes or so, sum up, with "Let's see where we are. What new facts have we learned?" capitulation drives new material home "apperceptively.”

This re

(4) Final Review Questions that gather up the scheme of the entire lesson. Thus we also connect the present lesson with a few words on the following one for next week. We have here again the "formal steps" of teaching reproduced in Questioning, i.e., Preparation, Presentation, Association or Comparison, Generalization, Application.

Questioning as viewed by Professor Fitch is divided by him as follows: "Questions as employed by teachers may be divided into three classes, according to the purposes which they may be intended to serve. There is, first, the preliminary or experimental question, by which an instructor feels his way, sounds the depths of his pupils' previous knowledge, and prepares them for the reception of what it is designed to teach. Then, secondly, there is the question employed in actual instruction, by means of which the thoughts of the learner are exercised, and he is compelled, so to speak, to take a share in giving himself the lesson. Thirdly, there is the question of examination, by which a teacher tests his own work after he has given a lesson and ascertains whether it has been soundly and thoroughly learned. If we carefully attend to this distinction we shall understand the meaning of the saying of a very eminent teacher, who used to say of the interrogative method, that by it he first questioned the

knowledge into the minds of the children, and then questioned it out of them again."

Curiosity Kindled by Questions.

Says Fitch: "It is chiefly by questions judiciously put to a child before you give him a lesson, that you will be able to kindle this curiosity, to make him feel the need of your instruction, and bring his intellect into a wakeful and teachable condition. Whatever you may have to give in the way of new knowledge will then have a far better chance of being understood. For you may take it as a rule in teaching, that the mind always refuses to receive certainly to retain any isolated knowledge. We remember only those facts and principles which link themselves with what we knew before, or with what we hope to know or are likely to want hereafter. Try, therefore, to establish, in every case, a logical connection between what you teach and what your pupils knew before. Make your new information a sort of development of the old, the expansion of some germ of thought or inquiry which lay hid in the child's mind before. Seek to bring to light what your pupil already possesses, and you will then always see your way more clearly to a proper adaptation of your teaching to his needs."

How to Learn How to Question.

Holmes tells us (1) Listen to the questions of children. (2) Ask questions often of others. (3) Write questions out at home on each lesson. This should always be done to clarify the lesson in your own mind and give you confidence and ease, no matter if the lesson be supplied with good questions already. Make up new ones. (4) Study Question Books. This is about the only use we can see in most of the Series of such manuals extant.

Character of Questions You Are to Form.

Fitch gives the following helpful and pregnant suggestions and maxims:

1. The language of questions. Cultivate great simplicity of language. Use as few words as possible, and let them be such as are adapted to the age and capacity of the class you are teaching. Remember that questions are not meant to display your own learning or acquirements, but to bring out those of the

children. It is a great point in questioning to say as little as possible; and so to say that little as to cause the children to say as much as possible. Conduct your lessons in such a way that if a visitor or superintendent be standing by, his attention will be directed, not to you, but to your pupils; and his admiration excited, not by your skill and keenness, but by the amount of mental activity displayed on their part.

2. Not to give information in the questions. Do not tell much in your question. Never, if you can help it, communicate a fact in your question. Contrive to educe every fact from the class. It is better to pause for a moment, and to put one or two subordinate questions, with a view to bring out the truths you are seeking, than to tell anything which the children could tell you. A good teacher never conveys information in the form of a question. If he tells his class something, it is not long before he makes his class tell him the same thing again; but his question never assumes the same form, or employs the same phraseology as his previous statement; for, if it does, the form of the question really suggests the answer, and the exercise fails to challenge the judgment and memory of the children as it ought to do.

3. Get entire sentences for answers. A teacher ought not, in fact, to be satisfied until he can get entire sentences for answers. These sentences will generally be paraphrases of the words used in the lesson, and the materials for making the paraphrases will have been developed in the course of the lesson by demanding, in succession, meanings and equivalent for all the principal words. Remember that the mere ability to fill up a parenthetical or elliptical sentence proves nothing beyond the possession of a little tact and verbal memory. It is worth while to turn around sharply on some inattentive member of the class, or upon some one who has just given a mechanical answer, "Tell me what we have just learned about such a person." Observe that the answer required to such a question must necessarily be a whole sentence; it will be impossible to answer it without a real effort of thought and of judgment.

4. Do not put vague questions. It is of great importance, also, that questions should be definite and unmistakable, and, for the most part, that they admit of but one answer. An unskillful

teacher puts vague, wide questions, such as, "What did he do?" "What did Abraham say?" "How did Joseph feel at such a time?” "What lesson ought we to learn from this?" questions to which no doubt he sees the right answer, because it is already in his mind; but which, perhaps, admit of several equally good answers, according to the way the different minds would look at them. He does not think of this; he fancies that what is so clear to him ought to be equally clear to others; he forgets that the minds of the children may be moving on other rails, so to speak, even though directed to the same object. So, when an answer comes which is not the one he expected, even though it is a perfectly legitimate one, he rejects it; while, if any child is fortunate enough to give the precise answer which was in the teacher's mind, he is commended and rewarded, even though he has exerted no more thought on the subject.

5. Do not ask Questions that cannot be answered. For similar reasons it is generally necessary to abstain from giving questions to which we have no reasonable right to expect an answer. Technical terms, and information children are not likely to possess, ought not to be demanded. Nor should questions be repeated to those who cannot answer. A still more objectionable practice is that of suggesting the first word or two of a sentence, or pronouncing the first syllable of a word which the children do not recollect. All these errors generate a habit of guessing among the scholars, and we should ever bear in mind that there is no one habit more fatal to accurate thinking, or more likely to encourage shallowness and self-deception, than this. It should be discountenanced in every possible way; and the most effective way is to study well the form of our questions, to consider well whether they are quite intelligible and unequivocal to those to whom they are addressed, and to limit them to those points on which we have a right to expect clear and definite

answers.

6. Do not give questions that only require "Yes" or "No" for an answer. There is a class of questions which hardly deserve the name, and which are, in fact, fictitious or apparent, but not true questions. I mean those which simply require the answer "Yes" or "No." Nineteen such questions out of twenty carry their own answers in them; for it is almost impossible to