The Sabbath-School Index: Pointing out the history and progress of Sunday-schools, with approved modes of instruction.Pardee, R. G. (Richard Gay)
Religion
The Sabbath-School Index: Pointing out the history and progress of Sunday-schools, with approved modes of instruction.
Pardee, R. G. (Richard Gay)
Sunday schools
"Perhaps, gentle reader, before I actually enter upon my task of
teaching you to teach others by catechising, it may be as well to tell
you how I became a catechist myself; for the thought seized upon me
and occupied me much in very early life. I was at school at Rugby, and
at the time I speak of, was in what we called the '_upper third_.' The
'_upper fourth_' was under the care of Mr. Innes, afterwards Head
Master of the Royal Free Grammar School at Warwick. As I was sitting
one evening in the room of my private tutor, Mr. Homer, some one
knocked at the door, and in came Mr. Innes. 'Bather,' says he, 'when
Mr. Homer has done with you, will you come up into my room? I want to
speak to you; you will find nobody there but O---- (naming one of my
school-fellows) and myself.' Of course I went; and Mr. Innes,
motioning my companion to a chair and myself to another, took his own
and addressed us thus: 'I am going to set you two boys very hard at
work. Pray, O----, do you know anything about astronomy?' 'Not much, I
am afraid, sir.' 'And you, Bather?' 'Not so much as O----, I am
afraid.' 'Well, now, do not flatter yourselves that I am going to tell
you anything about it, for I shall do no such thing. Nevertheless, you
shall know more about it, and a good deal, too, before you go out of
this room.' He then put questions to us both, by which he soon
elicited all the particulars of such little knowledge as we possessed;
and then he questioned us further, soon causing us to make many
blunders, and then making us correct our answers, so that we certainly
did quit the room with fuller and more orderly notions of the matter
than we brought into it." He says, although this did not make him an
astronomer, yet it led him to think and discern what must be the most
effectual way of imparting knowledge, for "under Mr. Innes his
interest never flagged; he could have listened all night."
From the same source is here added another illustration of teaching by
the means of leading questions. "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit
into the wilderness," etc. "Then was Jesus." What do you mean by "then
was Jesus?" (Hesitates.) "Then took Mary a pound of ointment." What do
you mean by "then took Mary?" Then Mary took. What do you mean by
"then was Jesus?" and the answer came readily, "Then Jesus was." Now
you shall question me. Put me a question to which each clause shall be
a reply, beginning with the first. "When was Jesus led up to be
tempted?" "Then." So here you are taught--what? The time when these
things took place. Put me a question to which the words "led up" shall
be an answer. "What was done to Jesus?" He was "led up." Put a
question for the word "Spirit." "Who led him up?" "The Spirit." So of
the word "wilderness." "Whither did the Spirit lead him?" "Into the
wilderness."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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