PLAN FOR TEACHING NAMES OF BOOKS OF BIBLE. NAMES OF THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. The syllable accented takes the first note in the bar. 47 si Lev iti cus, Num - ast · es, Song of Sol mans, Co-rinthians, Co rinth Sam · u · el, Sam · u el, Kings, Kings, and Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Thessalonians, Thessalo - nians, Timothy, Timothy, Titus, Phi Joel, A sea, Hebrews, James, Peter, Peter, John, John, John, Jude, Reve Thoroughly teach these Names. In order to convince those who may not have considered the importance of the subject, take an illustration or two. Suppose a teacher with eight boys to say, "Now, dear boys, turn to the third chapter of Ruth." "Ruth," says one, "where's she?" Wonders, but can't remember, and after a bewildered pause, scrambles to the List of Names at the beginning of the Bible; but before he can see it there even, another, perhaps a little boy, has chapter and verse, and reads it. Disheartened, the poor fellow shuts the Bible, and says, "Bother the book; I shan't try again." He feels that his dignity has been insulted, and he can't stand it. Now, that boy can shine somewhere, perhaps with a pipe, an oath, rowing on the water, or a round at fighting; and he says, "Bother the class," and very soon "Bother the school," and does not come again. Now, I maintain we have no right to wound a boy before his fellow-scholars, when he is doing what he can, if it can be helped. Should any doubt on this question, let them try the ordeal upon themselves. Nothing teaches like experience. Let eight teachers or adults sit in full view of the minister, who says, "Please turn to the 7th chapter of Micah, 8th verse. When all have found it, I will read it." Pause. "Mr. XLNT, are you ready?" "Not exactly." "Miss Dunnowhere, we are all waiting for you." Surely, with a warmth in the cheek rising to summer, if not to fever heat, they would say, "I can't stand this;" "I shan't come again." Nor would they. Now, to have known the Names would have prevented all the evil in both cases. Then teach them thoroughly in the Infant Class, and repeat them often in the General School. When scholars thoroughly know by heart, and have said privately to Superintendent or Secretary, the contents of these two books, and the Names of the Books of the Bible, and possess a Bible of their own, they should be presented publicly, before the whole school, with a new Church Hymn. book and Bible Voices, Parts I. and II., and be raised at the next change to the Bible Classes. Perhaps the last quarters may be the most suitable times for removing scholars. As success in the Infant Class will consist in teachers losing their best scholars in this way, they should keep a private record of all children passed to the Bible Classes, as an encouragement from the past and a stimulus for the future. * This reward being almost the only expense for scholars, should be cheerfully borne by schools, having been well earned by the little ones. As soon as the quarter shall have turned, teachers should call the special attention of any other scholars likely to be ready for the next or following change. This will give a healthy impulse to their learning in the class, secure new help as leaders in answering, as well as increased effort and co-operation at home. In my visitation I have seen Infant Classes as under: No. 1. About forty crammed in a room almost to suffocation, left to a child, and no system of teaching. No. 2. Left to a child alone, about sixty to eighty children on a nice gallery; but what time could she have for teaching? No. 3. In a large cold room; high forms; teacher there sometimes; no system; opportunity lost. No. 4. A pious young lady alone; away in the morning; forty to fifty children; working very hard with letter-box, but no system that can be called up after six months. No. 5. A male teacher, about sixty years of age; eighty children; makes a toy of them, and they of him in return, but no system of suitable teaching. No. 6. An aged female left alone with eighty to a hundred children; no system of teaching that could be traced. No. 7. A perfect room; three first-class teachers, working well with letter-box, but without traceable system. Much time and labour lost. Too little remembered. The Infant Class always requires two teachers-one for Hymns and Singing; another for Catechism, Prayers, Graces, &c. and better seek the help of a day teacher to insure real teaching on a traceable system to little ones, than lose the precious season of childhood. E CHAPTER VIII. BOOKS TO BE TAUGHT IN THE INFANT CLASS. 1. Watts's First Catechism.-Contents: Twenty-four Questions and Answers on Bible Facts and Doctrines, and seventy on Bible Names and Characters; also, Graces, Prayers for Week-day and Sabbath, Lord's Prayer, and Ten Commandments. 2. Watts's Divine Songs.-Twenty-four of these are printed in large type to be used as reading lessons, with the whole of the First Catechism, two Lists of Lessons, and Names of Books of Bible set to music, on the first page. R. WATTS'S Prefaces to these little books are so wise DR and weighty that I deem no apology necessary for inserting them : WATTS'S FIRST CATECHISM. DR. WATTS'S PREFACE. "THE most general and the plainest principles of the Christian religion "are contracted into so short a form in this First Catechism, that they may 66 easily be learned by heart by a child of moderate capacity at four or five years old. Where the understanding appears more bright and early, the "child may begin sooner. The questions and answers are ranged in such order as may let the things of God into their minds in the easiest manner; and 'for this purpose they are described in the most obvious and familiar words "and phrases. Notwithstanding all the care that is taken in composing a Catechism in "the plainest language, yet it may cost the teacher some little pains to 6.6 66 "make the young child understand every word of it. But it is necessary. "the child should have some notion of the meaning of every answer "before he proceeds to the next question, because every following question depends upon some former answer. And parents and teachers should use "their utmost skill in leading the child into the meaning of every question "when they ask it, and of every answer when the child repeats it, that the "child may not hear and learn mere words and syllables instead of the great things of God and religion. Surely a child of four or five years old may easily 'learn one answer in the First Catechism every week; and since there are "but four-and-twenty questions in it, he may finish it in five or six "months' time; and he may grow very perfect both in the words and meaning by repeating it constantly once or twice every week till he is seven years old. If the young child can read before he has committed "this Catechism by heart, it may be useful for him to read it all over by way of lesson at the reading school every week while he is learning it, "that he may take in the meaning of it the better, and that the answer may become familiar and easy to him. 66 66 66 66 "When he can say the First Catechism perfectly, he may once in a "month at least read over the Second, till he be six or seven years old, and begins to commit it to memory. And by this means, perhaps, he may be "allured to get it by heart long before his teachers require it of him. 66 66 "It was not thought necessary to add the texts of Scripture to support "and prove the answers of this First short Catechism, as it is done in the Second, because the child who learns it is supposed to be rather too young "to compare the Catechism with all these Scriptures, and to discern the "conformity between them. Besides, it would take up too much time to employ a young child in learning all those Scriptures, and withhold him "too long from the Second Catechism. Yet it may not be amiss for the "child sometimes, when he reads over the Second Catechism, to read also "the Scriptures that stand as proofs of it; and this may be done even "before he begins to learn it by heart as well as afterwards, for these Scriptures are such as contain the chief and most important principles of "the Christian religion, and therefore he should be acquainted with them "betimes. And let children have early notice given them that though such Catechisms are composed by men for the easier conveyance of the knowledge of Divine things into the minds of children, yet they are, or should be, all taken out of the Word of God; for it is the Word "of God, and not the word of men, which must be the foundation and rule "of their belief and their practice." 66 66 66 |