ind. Therefore
pure air and bodily comfort, acute senses and obedience to
the laws of the mind are as surely linked with spiritual work
as prayer.

(2) _Specific knowledge._ Though all lives possess the same general
characteristics and are under the same general laws, no two lives are
identical. Some unfold more rapidly than others, some have larger
capacity and more latent possibilities than others and all are in
differing circumstances. It is this variation that makes
individuality, and the more perfect the adaptation of the teacher's
work to the individual the greater the teacher's success.

Again, each life is immeasurably influenced by its environment. No
teacher can understand a pupil without knowing what has entered into
his life. "I am a part of all that I have met." The home and the daily
surroundings are the explanation of what the pupil is and an index to
what he needs. This specific knowledge can come only through close
personal observation and sympathetic intimacy with the pupil. In this
intimacy is revealed the pathway to the heart, as it winds through
ambitions and interests and love. Unless the teacher find this path to
the tender, responsive place whose gateway each soul keeps for itself,
the seed must fall on the stony ground where germination is
impossible.

Test Questions

1. Since laws of life are known, what two conclusions follow?

2. Give four reasons why the Sunday-school teacher should know the
pupil.

3. What twofold knowledge about the pupil should the teacher have?

4. How has the Sunday-school recognized the changing life of the
pupil?

5. Give three characteristics of development.

6. How may specific knowledge of the pupil be gained by the teacher?

Lesson 2

The Beginners Age, Three to Six

#5. General Characteristics#

(1) _Absorption._ The Beginners period, together with the Primary,
Junior, and Intermediate periods, is pre-eminently the absorptive time
of life. As the possibilities of the soul begin to awaken, curiosity,
imitation, imagination, feeling and all the manifold expressions of
its power, they require food and exercise just as the body requires
them to develop strength. Hence these years of most rapid development
are the years of greatest hunger, physical and mental, of greatest
capacity to receive and assimilate, and of greatest activity.

(2) _Rounded development._ These periods are also the years of rounded
development. Every part