Skillfully used questions and suggestions can be made an important means of stimulating the imagination.  Such helps as:  Do you think the sea of Galilee looked like the lake (here name one near at hand) which you know?  How did it differ?  What tree have you in mind which is about the same size as the fig tree in the lesson?  How does it differ in appearance?  Close your eyes and try to see in your mind just how the river looked where the baby Moses was found.  Have you ever seen a man who you think looks much as Elijah must have looked?  Describe him.  If you were going to make a coat like the one Joseph wore, what colors would you select?  What kind of cloth?  What would be the cut or shape of it?—­Hardly a lesson period will pass without many opportunities for wise questions whose chief purpose is to make real and vivid to the child the persons or places described, and so add to their significance to him.

5. Dramatic representation can be used as an incentive to the imagination. Children easily and naturally imagine themselves to be some other person, and often play at being nurse or school teacher or doctor or preacher.  Nearly every child possesses a large measure of the dramatic impulse, and is something of an actor.  It is great fun for children to “tog up” and to “show off” in their play.  And not only is all this an expression of imagination actively at work, but such activities are themselves a great stimulus to the imagination.  The child who has dressed up as George Washington and impersonated him in some ceremonial or on a public occasion will ever after feel a closer reality in the life and work of Washington than would come from mere reading about him.  A group of children who have acted out the story of the good Samaritan will get a little closer to its inner meaning than merely to hear the story told.  The girl who has taken the part of Esther appearing before the king in behalf of her people will realize a little more fully from that experience what devotion and courage were required from the real Esther.  A class who have participated in a pageant of the Nativity will always be a little nearer to the original event than if their imaginations had not been called upon to make real the characters and incidents.

USING THE MEMORY

The memory should play an important part in religion.  Gems from the Bible, stories, characters, and events, inspiring thoughts and maxims, and many other such things should become a permanent part of the furnishing of the mind, recorded and faithfully preserved by the memory.

Laws of use of memory.—­The laws by which the memory works have been thoroughly studied and carefully described, and should be fully understood by every teacher.  Further than this, they should be faithfully observed in all memory work.  These laws may be stated as follows: