uestioning, Miss Stevens rightly holds, defeats its
own ends. It maintains a nervous tension in the classroom that must
in the long run be injurious. More than that, it is a symptom of the
fact that the real work of the hour is being done by the teacher, and
the pupil's share is reduced simply to brief, punctuation-like
answers to the teacher's questions. Such questions appeal to mere
memory or to superficial judgment rather than to real thought; they
cultivate in the pupil neither independent judgment nor the power of
expression; they ignore individual needs and discourage initiative;
they make out of the classroom a place to display knowledge, rather
than a laboratory in which to acquire it.

"The second half of the proposition, that most Sunday school teachers
do not ask questions enough, has not been established by any such
investigation as that of Miss Stevens. A similar study, on the basis
of complete stenographic reports, of typical Sunday school lessons,
would be a most valuable addition to our resources in the field of
religious pedagogy. Till such a study is made, one must simply record
his conviction that Sunday school teachers, as a general rule, ask
too few, rather than too many questions. This conviction is based
upon general observation and upon the frequency of such remarks as,
'I just can't get my class to study,' 'There are only two or three
who ever answer my questions,' 'My pupils don't know anything about
the Bible,' 'As long as I do all the talking, things go all right,'
etc." Weigle, _Talks to Sunday School Teachers_.

The whole matter of questioning can be made to stand out most clearly,
perhaps, by listing the various types of question, the purposes which
each type serves, and the characteristics of a good question.

First of all there is the _Review question_. The great purpose of this
type of question is to systematize knowledge. Of course, it is valuable
as an aid to recollection--it is a challenge to memory--but it is
particularly helpful in that it makes the big essential points in a
course stand out in relief with minor points properly correlated and
subordinated. The review question is a guide to the pupil whereby he may
see the relative significance of the work he has covered. One of our
great difficulties lies in the fact that our teaching is so largely
piece-meal. Today's lesson is hurried through, isolated as it is