The best blackboard work is that which grows before the children's eyes, which is made, not unveiled. Two minutes of rough sketching in the lesson hour is better than two hours of patient putting in of finishing touches beforehand. The best blackboard work is that which is original, personal. That which is given in the "lesson helps" is just what you should not use. It is not yours. If it does not help you to find your own way, it is useless--and worse than useless, because it tempts you to borrow without inspiring you to create. 6. In fine, the mission of the blackboard, as of all picture-work, is to help us to see the truth in the world or the truth in our own selves by showing us a truth that is easier to see or that is nearer at hand than that which we would learn. Like all picture-work, it fulfills its mission when it serves as a scaffolding, when it is kept subordinate. It fails when it obscures the truth, not helps to build it. False picture-work is anything that stands in the way of our seeing truth; as when we cannot see the woods for the trees--cannot see the Sunday-school lesson for the bizarre exhibitions on the blackboard. X. A COÖPERATIVE STUDY. In order to find out what Sunday-school teachers are doing in the matter of stories, illustrations, and picture-work generally, the writer prepared and distributed to a thousand teachers the following blank: _One response NOW is worth twenty a month hence._ STORY-TELLING. _To Sunday-school Teachers:_ For the purpose of devising means for the better preparation of Sunday-school teachers, the President of the Teachers College, New York, requests the teachers in your Sunday-school to answer the following questions. To save time and trouble use both sides of this sheet. Whenever possible answer by crossing out the term that does not apply. In every case where the answer is based on experience with children, state the age of the children. Please do not hesitate to return this blank, even if you have answered but a few questions. _Sources._--To illustrate the lesson do you use Bible stories, stories from good literature, or stories invented by yourself? _Subject._--Do you find your children more interested in stories of people or of nature? _Kind._--Which of the stories have you found more effective, modern or classic? Stories told or read? True or fictitious? Those based on poetry or prose? Stories in which the moral is set forth or hidden? _Experience._--What stories are you going to use in the Sunday-school lesson for next Sunday? _Precept._--If you do not use stories, what other means do you employ to enforce religious and moral lessons? Do you "moralize," and if so, with what obvious result? _Environment._--What means do you use of making the dress, customs, etc., of Bible people seem real to children?