Religious Education

not mean that pictures of either sort should be exiguously excluded from either age.

Again, Modern Painters: German, French, English, and American, are better suited for Sunday School use, as being more devotional to modern modes of thought than the so-called Old Masters. As such they are in demand for children, while Old Masters can be appreciated only by those above adolescence. Most of the Madonnas are old Italian, and as such scarcely appeal at all to young children. A practical test of this may be made by giving children of varying ages the choice of one picture out of a collection of fifty of these various sorts. The Sistine, Bodenhausen, Ferruzzi, Max, and Modern Madonnas, such as Knaifel (Tennessee), Partridge, and Skolas, seem the most popular with children. In the Old Testament, almost all the cheaper reproductions are from Dorè, Raphael, Angelo, and Tissot. In the New Testament, Hofmann is the leader. Then comes Plockhorst, Dorè, Bouguereau, Bida, Müller, Raphael, Murillo, Zimmerman, and Tissot. There are, of course, many hundreds of scattered artists with two or three favorite and vivid pictures to their credit.

[It should be noted that The New York Sunday School Commission has published a book with all the pictures carefully listed, and has endeavored to aid teachers who want the most useful and devotional type of pictures for school use, by marking with a star (*) the best.]

It is well for everyone using pictures in the Sunday School to consider and to call attention to the distinction between imaginative pictures and real pictures. In some cases the one is better than the other type for purposes of illustration, and for the clearness of the impression received, and especially for the accuracy of the impression carried away. First, in all Scenery, the real is to be preferred, and the objective rather than the ordinary photograph. Thus the stereoscope is of particular worth, because it gives vivid, objective, natural representation of scenes in the Holy Land, with all the reality and truthfulness of detail and objective proportion, as if seen by the observer with the naked eye. Next in value come pictures in the flat, photographs of Bible scenery.

Second, in Bible History, illustrating topics, events, persons of Bible History, always point out the fact that none of such pictures are "real," that is, are actual representations of the portraits or events. Here again a distinction is to be noted. Where the picture is representative of actual present-day customs, which are known to be so similar to those of the time we use them for, as to be fairly accurate copies of such times and customs, we can count them as "real." But all other pictures are works of the imagination, perhaps nearly true to type and fairly good for general illustration, but nevertheless fanciful, and not to be used dogmatically to give a child the impression that this is an absolute portrayal. This is particularly the case in the many pictures of our Lord, of the Events in His Life, and of the many imaginative Old Testament Scenes. In fact it is best to show a scholar a great many pictures of the same subject, as for example, the Resurrection, the Crucifixion, the Temptation, the Head of Christ, etc., just to make it realize that all of them are but the ideal and fanciful representations of mankind. As such they lead us to a pictureless ideal, represented by the highest known art of the day of portrayal.

The coming into the field of our use of the Tissot pictures is a subject of sufficient congratulation to diminish our regret at the fewness of other modern pictures within our disposal.

Most of the Italian Masters' pictures are formal works of art, but with no appropriate religious content for us; as far removed from our conception of everyday life as a Latin Bible would be for a text book, and the German pictures, a principal alternative, for the most part entirely lack that artistic fire that gives works of art their reason for existence.

Graded Stereoscopic Work.

In even the humblest Sunday School the stereoscope and stereographs are to-day becoming an almost indispensable adjunct. The subjects involved are principally scenes from the Holy Land, its people, places, and customs. Nevertheless, there ought to be grading in their use, a sequence or order, by which the pupils are conducted in a systematic rather than a haphazard fashion through the land that Jesus trod.

Just as there are two kinds of lessons, so there are two methods or lines of grading possible in the use of stereographs.

(1) The International, Joint Diocesan, Blakeslee, or any OneSubject Lesson System. Here the stereographs will have to be supplemental, but nevertheless constantly used. Each Sunday School Library should possess an outfit of stereographs and instruments, and as any event in either Old Testament or New is located on the map, the scenes bearing on that locality are shown. This requires that the teacher look up beforehand the stereographs that belong to each particular lesson.

to the fully-tabulated tours at the end of the Picture Handbook of the Sunday School Commission of New York will quickly locate the stereographs wanted for each lesson. Those possessing the Forbush handbooks will find tables therein showing the application of the stereographs to all prominent courses. (2) In Fully Subject-Graded Schools. Subject-grading is the coming system. It is sweeping all other schemes aside most rapidly. A subject-graded school lives in the atmosphere of order, system, and grading. Naturally it will fall into system in the use of stereographs. The habit grows on one. Stereographs can be used as early as the ninth year, not much before, and are in order even in adult life. Properly speaking, they would first be used in the Old Testament stories, then in the life of Christ, the history of the Old Testament, the Messianic Life, the Apostolic Church, and even in Church History. For these last two courses, as well as for that on Christian Missions, it will be necessary to communicate with the Commission Supply Departments or with the publishers direct, and secure the list of stereographs bearing on places outside of Palestine.

It might be impracticable for each class in such a school to purchase all the stereographs required, though where this is done they would be used in sequence year after year by oncoming classes. It would probably be wiser therefore for the school to put in say one hundred views covering the entire field, cataloging them according to the lesson grading, so that each class could find its needed views, and have them, as a whole, form a part of the Sunday School Library, to be loaned out Sunday by Sunday to different classes throughout the school, a set for each grade. Thus there would be an economy in stereographs, which is important when so many are required. With any of these courses, or in whatever way the stereographs are used,

Historical Maps, comparative embossed Relief Maps, Religious Art of the Imaginative Type (pictures of Old Testament Scenes or of the Life of Christ), and above all the Bible, are expected to be constantly in hand.

QUESTIONS FOR THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION.

[SUGGESTED IN THE MAIN BY DR. HERVEY.]

1. "Which kind of Stories have you found most effective, modern or classic? Stories read or told? True or fictitious? Those based on poetry or prose? Stories in which the moral is set forth or hidden ?"

2. "What is your purpose in using Stories in Sunday School?"

3. "Mention five requisites of a good story-teller."

4. "What means can you make use of to make the customs, dress, manners, etc., of Bible people seem real to children?"

5. What Illustrative Methods, or Devices, other than Stories, have you found practicable? What are the best types of Pictures?

6. What advantages have stereographs over other illustrations?

CHAPTER XIX.

MANUAL WORK IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL.

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Religious Education: A Comprehensive Text Book, Bind 81;Bind 879