THE QUESTION-AND-ANSWER METHOD Skill in questioning lies at the basis of most good teaching of children. Good questioning stimulates thought, brings out new meanings, and leads the mind to right conclusions. Poor questioning leaves the thought unawakened, fails to arouse interest and attention, and results in poor mastery and faulty understanding. To the uninitiated it appears easy to ask questions for others to answer. But when we become teachers and undertake to use the question as an instrument of instruction we find that it is much harder to ask questions than to answer them, for not only must the questioner know the subject and the answer to each question better than his pupils, but he must be able constantly to interpret the minds of his pupils in order to discover their understanding of the problem and to know what questions next to ask. Questions slavishly dependent on the text.--Not infrequently one finds a teacher who uses questioning solely to test the knowledge of the pupils on the lesson text. Probably the worst form of this kind of questioning is that of following the printed questions of the lesson quarterly, the pupils having their lesson sheets open before them and looking up the answer to each question as it is asked. The following questions are taken from a widely used junior quarterly, the Bible text being Luke 10. 25-37: "Who wanted to try Jesus? What did he ask? What did Jesus say? What reply was made? What questions did the lawyer ask? How did Jesus answer him? What is such a story called? What is the name of this parable? Where was the man going? Who met him? How did they treat him? What did they take from him? Where did they leave him?" No one of these questions appeals to thought or imagination. All are questions of sheer fact, with none of the deeper and more interesting meanings brought. All of them may be answered correctly, and the child be little the wiser religiously. Such a method of teaching cannot do other than deaden the child's interest in the Bible, create in him an aversion to the lesson hour of the church school, and fail of the whole purpose of religious education. The teacher must _be able to use living questions, and not be dependent on a dead list of faulty questions embalmed in print_.