Sunday School is beginning to recognize what the day school has learned,
that the child both enjoys and masters a lesson which can be approached
through physical as well as mental avenues. In consequence, hand work is
being introduced to aid in religious instruction, as manual work in the
public schools for secular education, with most gratifying results in
both cases.


THE SENSES

More skill, more accuracy and more discrimination characterize the work
of the senses than in Early Childhood. The impressions are richer in
detail and meaning, because of the increased knowledge possessed by the
child. It is a commonplace that we receive from anything in proportion
to what we bring to it. The ear of the musician hears in an orchestra
what the child or the adult without the knowledge of music could never
detect, because he listens with more than they. The child can see in a
picture or circumstance, and hear in a conversation or a song, what once
he could not, because he brings a larger experience to bear upon it.
Criticism of others in the home, the lapses from Christ-like living, the
scenes of the street, things pernicious as well as helpful have greater
significance in character building than ever before. This gives still
graver emphasis to the work of nurture in guarding these wide-open
doorways to a hungry soul.

Growing out of the fact that the senses are the greatest source of
information to the child's mind, the method of teaching by means of
objects has arisen. Rightly used, there is great value in this mode of
instruction, but a serious perversion of its legitimate use has
developed in connection with religious instruction of little children.