"does not go straight up" like the chimney.
These children had learned and recited that a mountain "is an elevation
of land a thousand or more than a thousand feet in height," but their
imagination failed to picture the mountain, since not even the smallest
mountain nor a high hill had ever been actually present to their
observation. Small wonder, then, that Sunday school children have some
trouble, living as they do in these modern times, to picture ancient
times and peoples who were so different from any with which their
experience has had to deal!

Guiding principles.--The skillful teacher knows how to help the child
use his imagination. The following laws or principles will aid in such
training:

1. _Relate the new scene or picture with something similar in the
child's experience._ The desert is like the sandy waste or the barren
and stony hillside with which the children are acquainted. The square,
flat-topped houses of eastern lands have their approximate counterpart
in occasional buildings to be found in almost any modern community. The
rivers and lakes of Bible lands may be compared with rivers and lakes
near at hand. The manner of cooking and serving food under primitive
conditions was not so different from our own method on picnics and
excursion days. While the life and work of the shepherd have changed, we
still have the sheep. The walls of the ancient city can be seen in
miniature in stone and concrete embankments, or even the stone fences
common in some sections.

The main thing is to get some _starting point_ in actual observation
from which the child can proceed. The teacher must then help the child
to modify from the actual in such a way as to picture the object or
place described as nearly true to reality as possible. The child who
said, "A mountain is a mound of earth with brush growing on it" had been
shown a hillock covered with growing brush and had been told that the
mountain was like this, only bigger. The imagination had not been
sufficiently stimulated to realize the significant differences and to
picture the real mountain from the miniature suggestion.

2. _Articles and objects from ancient times or from other lands may
occasionally be secured to show the children._ Even if such objects may
not date back to Bible times, they are still useful as a vantage point
for the imagination. A modern copy of the old-time Oriental lamp, a
candelabrum, a pair of sandals, a turban, a robe, or garment su