Before class
This lesson closes the course with the six keys, so write them on a card, word for word as the book gives them on p. 111. Bring a newspaper, or a printed news page from this week. Keep the reading guide on p. 112 at hand while you study pp. 110–113; it gives one key for each part of the panel. Print Stretch 17 from the Big-Print Pack, and if you still have the earlier strips, put Stretch 16 up beside it.
Opening · 5 minutes
Unfold this week’s newspaper and ask: “If someone found this in a drawer a hundred and forty years from now, what would it tell them about us?” Let a few people answer: who was in charge, what everyone was talking about, who had just died. Then say: “Adams left us something like this. When his stream of time reached 1881, he filled the last panel with lists: who was president, who ruled the rest of the world, what had happened in America year by year, and who else was worth knowing. Today we read his newspaper.”
At the chart · 15 minutes
1The last oval. Start with the portraits. Have the class read them left to right, top row first, and find Washington, born 1732, in the first oval (pin 1, p. 110). Then go to the last oval of the second row, “Jas. A. Garfield,” born 1831, and ask what is missing. There is no death year, because he was in office as the edition was made (pin 3). Point out that Grant and Hayes have none either (p. 112). Finish by glancing left to the strip of timeline at the edge, where the last of these men stand as columns XVI to XX.
2A gallery of crowns. Move to the frame headed SOVEREIGNS. Ask someone to read the first oval, “Victoria, Queen of Eng.,” then send the class left across the strip of timeline to find her box on the England stream, the same queen drawn twice (pin 5). Let them name the kinds of rulers further down: kings, emperors, a pope, a sultan, a shah, the emperor of China (p. 112). Read the Reading Adams’ Dates box on p. 111 together, so everyone knows that “reigning” means reigning in 1881. Then read Daniel 2:21 aloud.
3Year by year. Show the class the first line of the chronological table, 1565, “St. Augustine, Fla., founded by the Spaniards” (pin 6). Explain the layout from p. 112: the year in bold at the left, the months beneath it, two long columns running down to 1881. Have them find 1776 and “July 4, Declaration of Independence,” and count how many lines Adams gives that one year. Then ask someone to carry 1775 back to the timeline on p. 107 and find the green band marked Revolution. A year read in a table and found again on the stream is Key 6 · Same column, same moment at work.
4The six keys one last time. End the course where Adams’ method began. Read the six keys from your card, exactly as the book names them on p. 111: Key 1 · Dates ride the stream of time; Key 2 · Nations are broad bands; Key 3 · A new color is a new ruler; Key 4 · A stream that splits is a revolt; Key 5 · A stream that ends in another is a conquest; Key 6 · Same column, same moment. For each one, ask the class to point to an example on any strip they have. Close with the red “1900” on pp. 110–111: Key 1, the next post, never reached.
Talk it over · 15 minutes
Five ovals carry the title “Gen.”: Washington, Jackson, Harrison, Taylor, Grant. Why did a young nation turn so often to its soldiers, and what does the psalm set beside chariots and horses?
Listen for: Listen for honest reasons: these men had led the country through danger, and people trusted them. Then read Psalm 20:7 and ask what we are tempted to trust in our own day, in place of the name of the Lord.
Daniel says God “removeth kings, and setteth up kings.” Look down the frame of sovereigns. How does that verse change the way you see a gallery of crowns?
Listen for: Good answers notice that the whole frame is tied to one year: every ruler in it is “reigning” in 1881 and no longer. If the class needs help, point to Victoria drawn twice, once as a portrait and once as a box on a stream that keeps moving.
Bunyan and Calvin share a list with poets, generals and naturalists. What does it say that Adams counted men of faith among the “eminent”?
Listen for: Some will say it shows Adams’ own faith; others that faith shaped the world as much as battles did. Both are worth hearing. Ask them whose names they would add from their own lives, and why.
To close
“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”Hebrews 13:8 · KJV
Crowns change hands and lists grow old, but you do not; keep us faithful, Lord, in our own short stretch of the stream.
With younger children (6–10)
Let them count the ovals with you, all the way to twenty, and find the first one, Washington. Then ask them to find a lady with a crown, Queen Victoria, and play a quick game of spot the twin by finding her box back on the England stream. Last, show them the red “1900” post and ask why nothing reaches it. The stream of time stopped at 1881, just before the post.