or the lessons for the following
reasons:

1. Bible truths needed first in the life of a little child have been
carefully selected and arranged in their logical order.

2. As many lessons as are needed to make each truth clear and to fix it
in memory are devoted to it.

3. The setting for the truths to be taught is given in stories, not
abstract statements.

4. The same Golden Text is used for all the lessons teaching one truth,
is simple, intelligible and, by repetition in connection with several
lessons, can be fixed.

5. The pictures accompanying the lessons are very choice both in theme
and execution.

Since the only ideas the child will receive of the lesson must come
through his senses and bodily activity, and since, of his senses, sight
and touch make a clearer impression than hearing, large use should be
made of them. Further, as this is the period of imitation of definite
acts, the lesson should present forcibly and fascinatingly, an activity
within his power to imitate.

The end sought, as a result of the nurture of this period, is that the
child may become truly a child of God, and never know a time when he did
not love Him.

This may be achieved, for the heart of a little child is open and
peculiarly sensitized to the matchless story of Jesus Christ. When it is
presented to him aright, he always responds in faith and love. In this
response, the conditions upon which spiritual sonship is conferred are
met, for, "As many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become
children of God, even to them that believe on His name."

CHAPTER V

CHILDHOOD--SIX TO TWELVE

No abrupt change marks the transition from the period of Early Childhood
to Childhood, but development is continuous and rapid in every
direction. The larger social world, entered through school life, and the
new intellectual world, revealed through ability to read, widen the
child's vision and develop possibilities hitherto latent, because
unneeded.

The Sunday School divides the period of Childhood into the "Primary
Age," from six to nine, and the "Junior Age," from nine to twelve,
basing the division as accurately as is possible upon the awakening of
these latent possibilities. The development of this period will
therefore be considered according to this classification.

THE PRIMARY AGE--SIX TO NINE

During these years the characteristics of Early Childhood remain in more
or less modified form. Physical growth is st