Picture Work Part 3

The natural man who has forgotten how things look to the eyes of a child has a tendency to put things wrong end to; word first, thing last; precept first, example last; to plunge _in medias res_ without introduction--in short, to put the mental or spiritual cart before the horse. And it requires self-sacrifice to reverse the order, enter into the limitations of a little child's mind, see with his eyes, think his thoughts.

It is a favorite simile among writers on education that the mind is not unlike a field, and that the steps of instruction answer to the successive stages of the farmer's work. First there is the preparation of the soil, then come the planting, the cultivating, and in due time the harvest, the mill, and the market. Two of these steps, the preparing and the applying, concern us here; the work of presenting and elaborating is a theme by itself, and has been treated in a separate chapter.

1. Preparing the ground: Approach.

The art of "getting a good ready" is an art worth mastering. In sermon or Sunday-school lesson alike the beginning is the main concern. It is a good plan to seem to waste time at the start. Nine tenths plowing, harrowing, marking out, one tenth sowing, and (as we shall see) no looking for a crop at all, is a just proportion for the most of our lessons. We shall be always safe in counting upon a sufficient number of stony-ground hearers to justify us in clearing the ground, and making it mellow with interest and expectation. And even those who would receive the word with gladness cannot take it in unless they have something to grasp it with, cannot hear without something to hear with.

And this must be given them by the teacher.

We are here at the very heart of the science of teaching. A little two-year-old child will serve us as an example. He is to be put in bed in a strange room, and is to go to sleep alone. Spring the idea upon him and he will reject it. Prepare him for it, by telling him a story of a little boy who went to bed in a new room, a new bed, and all alone, and he is eager for the hour of bed-time. When the time comes, the picture already in his mind, of a little boy, a new room, a peaceful going to bed, welcomes the actual experience, point for point.

The wise mother has made a nest for the experience.

So might a teacher prepare the minds of his pupils to receive the idea of ninety millions of miles.

"If any one there in the sun fired off a cannon straight at you, what should you do?"

"Get out of the way," would be the answer.

"No need of that," the teacher might reply. "You may quietly go to sleep in your room, and get up again; you may learn a trade, and grow as old as I am--then only will the cannon-ball be getting near, then you may jump to one side! See, so great as that is the sun's distance!"

So writes a German teacher--explaining the law of apperception, of making a nest for the idea.

We cannot understand--cannot even see or hear--the absolutely new.

Every new plan or way of looking at things, or doctrine, is received into the mind on one condition only--that it be introduced by a comrade already there. Then when the new idea calls from without, its fellow answers from within, and an entrance is effected.

The bearing of this upon our theme is ill.u.s.trated by the plan of a school princ.i.p.al, recently described to me, to eradicate the plague of stealing that had broken out in the school. He talked to the pupils of giants, drew out the children's ideas, and by effective picture-work made the creatures out to be an ugly, uncanny crew. He then was ready to declare to the children that he had discovered a giant in the school, and in due time told them his name--Selfishness, I think it was--and then described his evil works. The moral of this story is that the plan worked, and stealing disappeared from the school from that day.

Who of us teachers might not be emulous of becoming thus skilful in mellowing the soil and making it warm in the genial sunshine of true picture-work?

2. Gathering the crop: Taste.

qIf deliberation is a virtue at the start, brevity and patience are a necessity at the finish. When the teacher has planted an interest-awakening picture in the minds of the children, his main work is done. He may safely leave them to make the application. He has supplied the cause; the effect will take care of itself. It is often convenient and suggestive to remember that children are not fools. "A child knows a thing or two," 'tis said, "before he knows much of anything." And one of the very first things he knows is how to put his finger on the moral in a story; and he can feel it long before he knows it. But that is when he is left to himself. If you take the helm, ten to one he'll know without feeling, which is the curse of us all.

Better, if we must choose, that he feel without knowing in terms, than indulge in mere intellectual casuistry.

In your childish haste to have a crop or to see what was going on under ground, did you ever unearth the newly-planted row of peas? And was that row ever so green and straight and thick-standing as those that had been let alone? But the plants of love to G.o.d and moral taste are tenderer than these. They must be shined upon, warmed, and watered many days before they are ready to give an account of themselves. Love is a silent thing before it is outspoken. True feeling has few words, is not self-conscious, likes not to be asked questions. In its own good time it wells up and finds vent in deeds, and even in words.

The deepest thing a teacher does is to form taste. But all taste grows slowly, by unconscious accretion. The Chinese money-changer sets his apprentice at work handling good money only. For ten Years he touches nothing else. He can then detect a counterfeit coin. How? Perhaps he cannot tell how. His way is surer, deeper. He feels it. He has taste.

So with the building of the taste for good books, for pictures, for nature. It is a slow process--many a book to be absorbed, picture seen and loved, and mountain and flower and sunset gazed upon, before taste is formed.

And the taste for G.o.dliness, for religion, is no exception. It is the finest and rarest of all tastes, and hence is the slowest and quietest of all in its development.

But did you ever see, in the hot house, shall we say, of the Sunday-school, seed sown, harvest reaped, yes, and cakes taken from the oven, within the limits of a single half hour? Does the figure halt, or was it a miraculous quickening of the processes of nature, or was it in truth a great mistake and a sin against natural spiritual growth?

There need be no fear, then, that the children will not feel, and in time know, the meaning, for them, of their stories and pictures. And a wise teacher well knows the ways of helping them: by questioning, _not_ directly, and by hiding the moral so near the surface that it will come forth of itself.

VII.

HOW TO LEARN HOW.

The foregoing chapters have dealt chiefly with the theory of picture-work, answering the questions what and why. But practical teachers will go a step further and ask where to find and how to use materials, what to do first, what next, in becoming expert in using and making pictures, stories, and ill.u.s.trations; in short, how to learn how. Those who are not of the practical sort should omit this chapter, and no one should expect to enjoy or profit by it who has not the time and the will to go through the exercises described.

_Models._ A study of some of the remarkable pictures of secular literature will reveal many points in story-telling.

Mark how Chaucer made such a picture of his Canterbury pilgrims that not only the color, the action, and the characters of the scene, but also the very atmosphere of the jolly crowd has been clear and vivid for more than four centuries.

Macaulay boasted that he would write a history which would supersede the latest novel on the tables of the young ladies of the day. How did he accomplish this? Read his "History of England" and learn the secret of the power to picture.

Study George Eliot's "Silas Marner" to learn how to tell a story. The interest never flags, the proper perspective is always maintained, light and shade are in due proportion, and the lesson to be learned is taken, not as a bitter dose, but as one drinks in the fresh air of a clear May morning.

Study pictures of Bible scenes by great masters to see what aspect of the scene--what moment of the event--the painter chose as the climax of interest and meaning. Although the aim in Sunday-school work is spiritual and not artistic, the heart will be reached more surely if the eyes are appealed to and a subordinate artistic aim is kept always in mind.

What is the favorite view-point in picturing Noah's ark (the procession--a source of never-failing interest to old and young--is a conspicuous feature); in Abraham's sacririfice (Andrea del Sarto seizes the moment when Abraham is about to slay Isaac and the ram appears in the thicket); in the early life of Moses? Note also the subjects in the life of Christ oftenest chosen by the artist.

In what parables does Christ choose a definite locality well known to his hearers, definite characters, a definite point and only one, a definite purpose, and a clearly defined and applied moral? In the presentation of which parables do we _not_ find simple language, direct discourse, a dramatic style, and a question in order to drive home the point?

Try the effect of subst.i.tuting in any one of the parables indirect discourse for direct, statements for questions.

Make a study of the Sermon on the Mount with a view of finding opportunities for picture-work.

On how many and on what occasions did Jesus use objects in his teaching? Might he not have gotten along without using the objects themselves on those occasions? What seems to have been his purpose?

What was the result?

_Seeing._ Suppose that you were an artist searching in the Bible for scenes to paint:

1. What picture would you find in Matthew VIII., verse 1? verse 2?

verse 3? verse 4? Can you see (and hear) each of these?

2. What is _the_ picture in the whole pa.s.sage (verses 1-4)? How many elements has it, in respect of number, form, color, sound, atmosphere?

3. Which of these should be chosen in telling the story to children, and in what order?

4. How many pictures are there in verses 5-13? What is the central picture?

5. In verses 23-27. How many pictures are there in this pa.s.sage? Which is the central picture? How would you lead the pupils to see it? What first? what next? what last?

6. In Matthew, chapters ix. and xiii. How many separate pictures are there? Which are the most important to try to see? What objects, pictures, drawings, maps, would you use in making it real to your cla.s.s?

_Construction._ In the previous chapter there was brought out the need of adapting the stories of the Bible to the comprehension of modern hearers. Suggestions were given both for cutting down and filling in.

Choose a story, as of the brave Hebrew boys who stood by what they thought was right even in captivity; the young king who asked G.o.d to give him wisdom and whose way of ruling showed that his request had been granted; the shepherd boy whom the Lord chose; or choose an incident, or a period of a year of the life of Christ (as the "Year of Beginnings," the "Year of Popularity," the "Year of Opposition").

Subdivide each of these into smaller stories or incidents (Daniel, for instance, had three great tests, each complete in itself, and lived under three kings), then combine into a whole, applying the principles of story-telling and of adaptation.

Test your story by telling it to a child or a group of children. Tell the same story not once but many times.

_Choice._ Do not pad. Avoid diffuseness. Put in only those details that are salient--that leap out at you--that are necessary to the picture and the meaning. Any one can put in everything. It is only the born story-teller, or the one who will sit down by the side of a child and patiently observe the points that the child sees and likes to hear, that can be trusted to put in and to leave out just the right points.