Produced by Emmy, Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) Transcriber's Note: Bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= and italic text by _underscores_. MODERN SUNDAY SCHOOL MANUALS Edited by Charles Foster Kent in Collaboration with John T. McFarland ORGANIZING AND BUILDING UP THE SUNDAY SCHOOL By JESSE LYMAN HURLBUT [Illustration] NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & GRAHAM Copyright, 1910, by EATON & MAINS TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE I. The Historic Principles Underlying the Sunday School Movement 7 II. The Constitution of the Sunday School 14 III. The Necessity and Essentials of a Graded Sunday School 21 IV. The Grading of the Sunday School 30 V. The Departments of the Graded Sunday School 37 VI. The Superintendent 46 VII. The Superintendent's Duties and Responsibilities 53 VIII. The Associate and Department Superintendents 63 IX. The Secretary of the Sunday School 69 X. The Treasury and the Treasurer 75 XI. Value of the Sunday School Library 81 XII. The Management of the Library 91 XIII. The Teacher's Qualifications and Need of Training 98 XIV. The Training and Task of the Teacher 105 XV. The Constituency of the Sunday School 113 XVI. Recruiting the Sunday School 122 XVII. The Tests of a Good Sunday School 129 Appendix 135 PREFATORY IN the preparation of this volume the purpose was to supply a convenient handbook upon the organization, the management, and the recruiting of the Sunday school, to be read by those desiring information upon these subjects. But after the larger part of the work had been prepared a desire was expressed that the method of treatment be so modified that the volume might be employed as a text-book for classes and individual students in the department of teacher-training. It has been the aim of the author not to alter the work so materially as to render it unfitting for the general reader; and with this in view the series of blackboard outlines for the teacher, and the questions for the testing of the student's knowledge, have been placed at the end of the book. In the hope that both the reader and the student may receive profit from these pages the book is committed to the public. =JESSE LYMAN HURLBUT.= I THE HISTORIC PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL MOVEMENT 1. =Magnitude of the Sunday-School Movement.= At the opening of the twentieth century the Sunday school stands forth as one of the largest, most widely spread, most characteristic, and most influential institutions of the Anglo-Saxon world. Wherever the English race is found the Sunday school is established, in the Mother isle, on the American continent, at the Cape of Good Hope, and in Australasia. In the United States and Canada it has a following of fourteen million members, representing every religious denomination. Its periodical literature has a wider circulation than that of any other modern educational movement. It touches every class of society, from the highest to the lowest; and its largest membership is found among the young, who are of all ages the most susceptible to formative forces. It is safe to say that this institution has exerted a powerful influence upon the majority of the men and women of to-day, and is now shaping the character of millions who will be the men and women of to-morrow. 2. =A Modern Movement.= Great as it appears in our time, the Sunday school is comparatively a modern institution. Undoubtedly, the germ of it can be traced back to that source of all the religious life of the civilized world, the Hebrew people. The elemental principle of the Sunday school is possibly to be found in the prophetic guilds before the Exile, and the schools of the Jewish scribes after the Restoration. The great Bible class of Ezra (Neh. 8) was not unlike a modern Sunday school. Yet as an organized institution the Sunday school began with Robert Raikes, the philanthropist of Gloucester, England, who on one Sunday in 1780 called together a group of street boys in a room on Sooty Alley, and employed young women to teach them the rudiments of reading and religion. If Raikes had not happened to be the editor of the town newspaper, and in constant need of copy, his Sunday school might soon have been forgotten. But from time to time he published concerning it paragraphs which were copied into other papers and attracted attention, so that the Sooty Alley Sunday school became the parent of a vast progeny throughout the United Kingdom and beyond the seas. No institution then in existence, or recorded in church history, suggested to Robert Raikes either the name or the plan. Both arose out of his own good heart and active mind. But since his day both the name "Sunday school" and its plan of working have been perpetuated, and every Sunday school in the world is a monument to Robert Raikes, the editor of Gloucester. 3. =A Lay Movement.= It is a significant fact that the first Sunday school was established not by a priest, but by a private member of the Church of England, that its earliest teachers were not curates, nor sisters, but young women of the laity, and that throughout its history the movement has been directed and carried forward, in all lands and among nearly all denominations, by lay workers.[1] This is noteworthy, because in the eighteenth century, far more than in our time, the teaching of religion was regarded as the peculiar function of the clergy, and lay preaching was frowned upon as irregular. The earliest Sunday school may have been preserved from churchly opposition by its own insignificance; or it may have won the favor of the clergy by the fact that all its pupils at the close of the morning session were regularly marched to church. Whatever the cause may have been, it is certain that under a providence which we must regard as divine, both in its beginning and throughout its history, the Sunday school, although a laymen's movement, has received favor, and not opposition, from the clergy and the Church. 4. =Unpaid Workers.= It has been stated that Raikes paid the young women who taught in his Sunday school a penny for each Sunday. But as the movement went onward the conductors and teachers were soon giving their service freely; and this has been the prevailing rule throughout the world. There are a few Sunday schools wherein a curate or assistant pastor is the superintendent, and a few mission schools that employ a salaried teacher who works through the week as a visitor; but it may be asserted that the world-wide army of Sunday-school workers lay upon the altar of the Church their free-hearted, unpaid offering of time, study, and effort. This has been and is a noble, a self-denying, a splendid service; but it has also been a potent element in the progress of the movement. Those who would establish a school, alike in the city and on the frontier, have not been compelled to wait until funds could be raised for the salary of a superintendent and teachers. If only churches rich enough to pay for workers had established Sunday schools in our country, the Sunday school as an institution would not have advanced westward with the wave of population. And not only has the unpaid service aided the growth of the movement, it has also added to its moral and religious power. The pupils and their parents have recognized that the teachers were working not for pay, but from love for their scholars and their Saviour; and that love has imparted to their message a power all its own. 5. =Self-supporting.= The Sunday school has been from the beginning and even now remains in large measure a self-supporting movement. It everywhere involves expense for furniture, for teaching requisites, for song books, for libraries; but for the most part the money to meet these expenses has been contributed in the school, among its own members, and not by the church. Instances are on record, even, where the church, in former times, charged and received rent for the use of its property by the Sunday school! Such short-sighted practice has been rare, but multitudes of churches have found the Sunday school a source of far greater profit than expense. In other words, those who have done the work of the school have also paid its bills, and many families that have received its benefits have been exempt from its burdens. It is noteworthy, however, that this condition is passing away, that churches are awakening to their responsibility and opportunity, and are giving to the Sunday school that liberal support which its work requires and deserves. In the ratio of investment and return, no department of the church costs so little and rewards so richly as an efficient Sunday school. 6. =Self-governing.= As a result of being self-supporting, the Sunday school has also been a self-governing institution. Paying its own way and asking no favor, it has been almost everywhere an independent body, accepting no outside authority. It has grown up almost unrecognized and unnoticed by the churches. Fifty years ago scarcely one of the denominations, great or small, gave the Sunday school recognition as an integral part of its system. Little attention was paid to it in the ruling body of the local church. It chose its own officers, obtained its own teachers, made its own rules, and for its teachings was responsible to no ecclesiastical authority. It was generally an ally to, but independent of, the church. In this respect a gradual change has taken place. Its relations are now much closer, its position is defined; and the institution is sanctioned and supervised by the church. 7. =Self-developing.= The system of the Sunday school has been evolved without guidance or control from any human authority. It has been from the first self-organizing, and has been also self-developing. Some might consider the form which it has taken accidental; but it is better to regard it as providential. The men and women who laid the foundations of the Sunday school were building under a divine direction of which they were unconscious. Working apart from each other, on both sides of the sea, and separated by wilderness and prairie, everywhere they established an institution under the same general principles, and with substantial unity in its plans. Perhaps one cause for its unity of method is that it arose in the midst of the Anglo-Saxon race, a people which has instinctive tendencies toward law, system, and organization. If it had started among a Latin people, where men, and not systems, rule, there might have been a different form of organization, with different aims, with different titles for officers, in every province. But throughout the English-speaking world, which is the habitat of the Sunday school, the institution bears the same name. Its principal or conductor is called a superintendent--cumbrous though the title may be--and its working force are known as teachers. 8. =Bible Study.= The most prominent trait in the Sunday school of the present is that it has become the most extensive movement for instruction in the Sacred Scriptures that the world has yet seen. All these millions of members, young and old, are engaged in the study of one book--the Holy Bible. Many of these millions, indeed, study the Bible superficially, unintelligently, with narrow interpretations and crude methods; yet in the Sunday schools of the lowest type as well as of the highest some portion of the Bible every week is brought to the scholars' attention. That the Bible is so generally known and so widely circulated, that the demand for this ancient book warrants the printing of more than ten million copies every year, is due more to the Sunday school, with all its defects of method, than to any other institution. This concentration of attention upon the Bible has grown gradually in the Sunday school. In the eighteenth century Sunday school, both of England and America, religious instruction was only one of its aims; and it was instruction in the catechism and forms of worship rather than in the Bible. But by slow degrees the Bible came more prominently to the front, until now the Sunday school is everywhere the school with one text-book. He who surveys the Sunday school through the inner eye beholds it on one day in each week covering the continent with its millions of students, all face to face with some portion of the great text-book of religion. The thoughtful observer will reflect that a people whose children and youth come into weekly contact with the living word will not wander far from the path of righteousness. FOOTNOTE: [1] An exception is to be noted in the Sunday schools of the Roman Catholic Church, where most of the teachers belong to religious orders. II THE CONSTITUTION OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL The general characteristics of the Sunday school, as they have gradually developed during its long history, must be considered in any plan for organizing and conducting an individual school. The institution should be studied both ideally and practically: practically, to ascertain what the Sunday school has been and is now; yet ideally, with a view to developing its highest efficiency and largest usefulness. Such a plan for the specific Sunday school may be called its constitution. It is desirable to have the constitution in written or printed form, but it is not necessary. There is no more complete system than the government of Great Britain, yet it has no written constitution; and Mr. James Bryce has shown us in America that the instrument known as the Constitution of the United States by no means represents our own actual method of government. In every nation there is an unwritten law, wrought out of a people's consciousness, which is more imperative and enduring than any parchment scroll or printed form. The general principles to be maintained in establishing and developing a Sunday school are the following: 1. =Aim.= The primary aims of the Sunday school are religious instruction, character-development, and effective service. It is not to teach history, nor science, nor sociology, but religion; and not merely to impart a knowledge of religion to the intellect of its pupils, but, infinitely more important, to make religion an effective force in the life of the individual scholar. As a Christian institution, in the definition given by one of its greatest leaders,[2] "The Sunday school is a department of the Church of Christ, in which the word of Christ is taught, for the purpose of bringing souls to Christ, and of building up souls in Christ." If it be in connection with a Jewish synagogue or temple--as are some of the best Sunday schools or Sabbath schools in our land--it is for the purpose of instruction in the faith of the ancient fathers, and of making their teachings live again in the men and women of to-day. A true religious education, such as the Sunday school seeks to give, will include three aims: (1) knowledge, (2) character, (3) service. There must be an intellectual grasping of the truth; a character built on the truth, out of faith in God, and the life of God inspiring the human soul; and service for God and humanity. The Sunday school seeks to develop not only saints in fellowship with God, but workers for God, who shall strive to realize on earth the kingdom of God, not seeking to be ministered unto but to minister. There have been centuries in the past when the Christian ideal was the cloistered saint, living apart in communion with God. But that was a pitiably incomplete conception of the perfect man. In our age we have the larger ideal of saintliness with service; and to promote this should be the aim of every Sunday school. 2. =Method.= To attain its aim the Sunday school employs the teaching method. The Sunday school is not, as some weak-minded people have called it, "the nursery of the church." Nor is it, as it has been named, "the Bible service"; for, although it holds a service, it is more than a service. It is not--or should not be--a gathering of groups, large or small, where silent hearers listen to sermonettes by little preachers, miscalled teachers. It holds a service imbued with the spirit of worship, yet worship is not its central purpose. It should have music, but it is not primarily a service of song. It should be pervaded by an atmosphere of happiness, but mere enjoyment is not its object. The Sunday school is a _school_: and the very word shows that its aim is instruction and character formation, and its method is that of teaching. For the work of a Sunday school the essentials are three: (1) There must be the living teacher who is fitted to inspire, to instruct, and to guide. His part is not merely to pour knowledge into his pupils, but to awaken thought, to guide the search for truth, to call forth expression in character and in action.[3] (2) There must also be the scholar who is to be taught. It is his part in the process of instruction not merely to listen and to remember, not merely to receive impressions, but to give expression to the teaching, in life, in character, in influence, and in service. The true effectiveness of the teaching in the Sunday school will be shown by the reproductive power of the truth in the life of the scholar. (3) There must be a text-book in the hands of both the teacher and the pupil. In any school for religious instruction one book will of necessity stand prominent, that great Book of books which records the divine revelation to man. The Sunday school may teach history, geography, institutions, doctrines, literature of the Bible, but these only as a framework or a foundation for the education of the heart into a personal fellowship with God. This character-molding, faith-impelling force is the divine truth taught in the Bible through the experiences and teachings of patriarchs, prophets, priests, psalmists, sages, and apostles, and above all by the words and life and redemptive work of the Master himself. And the subjects of study in the Sunday school need not be limited to the text of Scripture. There may be extra-biblical material for the teaching of character and service; and all this should be open to the Sunday school. 3. =Relation to the Church.= However independent of the church organization the Sunday school may have been in its beginnings, and however self-dependent some union Sunday schools may of necessity be in certain churchless regions, the general fact is established that the Sunday school as an institution belongs to the church, is under the care of the church, has a claim upon moral and financial support by the church, should be a feeder to the membership of the church, and should gratefully accept the supervision of the church. It should regard itself and be recognized by all as in many ways the most important department of the church. 4. =Government.= All power must be under direction, and the mighty energies of the Sunday school especially need a wise, strong guidance. In the general management of the Sunday school two elements should be recognized: (1) the rights of the workers and (2) the authority of the church. (1) It must ever be kept in mind that the Sunday school is an army of volunteers. Its workers are men and women who of their own accord give to the school without compensation their gift of service. Those who make such a contribution to the success of the Sunday school should certainly have a voice in its management. (2) But it is not to be forgotten, on the other side, that the Sunday school is not superior to the church, nor independent of it, but subsidiary to it; hence the church should be able to exercise some control over the school if such control shall ever be needed. For example, in the choice of a superintendent, who is the executive officer of the school, the ruling body of the local church and the working body of teachers and officers should unite. No one should undertake to conduct a church Sunday school unless he thus has the definite assurance that his teachers are with him, and that his church is officially supporting him. 5. =Officers.= Little need be said here on this subject, for it is one with which every worker is familiar. (1) There must be a leader, or manager, the executive head of the school, who is universally styled the superintendent. If we were organizing a new institution, and not describing one already world-wide and with officers already named by common usage and consent, we would prefer that the executive of the Sunday school receive the title of Principal or Director; but the somewhat awkward word Superintendent is settled upon him, and will remain. (2) There must also be an assistant superintendent, or more than one, as the size of the school may demand. The better title is associate superintendent, as is now given in the larger number of well-organized schools. The superintendent should have the privilege of nominating his own associates or assistants, the nominations to be confirmed by the board of teachers and officers. (3) There will be a secretary, with such assistants as he may require, to be nominated by the secretary and confirmed by the teachers. (4) There will be a treasurer, to care for the funds, and to disburse them as ordered by the board of teachers, or the Sunday school as a whole. (5) Lastly, but most important of all, there must be the working force of instructors, the faculty of the institution, its teachers, who should be carefully chosen. The pastor, as well as the superintendent, should have an active voice in their call, since they are his coworkers in the religious instruction of the congregation. 6. =Membership.= In the conception of a Sunday school, both ideal and practical, the constituency for which it is established must be considered. As has been noted, it was originally for children only, and only for children who were destitute of home training, and outside of church relationship. The earliest Sunday schools were what are called in England ragged schools, and in America mission schools. But in the noble evolution of the movement the Sunday school constituency has been vastly enlarged; and now it is recognized that the Sunday school is for all ages and all classes. It should embrace the young and old, the ignorant and intelligent, the poor and rich, the sinner as well as the saint. The Sunday school which fulfills its mission to society will welcome all the world. FOOTNOTES: [2] Bishop John H. Vincent. [3] For qualifications and functions of the teacher see Chapters XIII and XIV. III THE NECESSITY AND ESSENTIALS OF A GRADED SUNDAY SCHOOL 1. =The Necessity of Grading.= As the result of the gradual and unguided evolution of the Sunday school through a century or longer, most schools are now divided in a vague way into certain departments, generally known as the Primary, or Infant Class; the Youths Department, or Boys and Girls; and the Adult Department, or Bible Classes. Many who have charge of schools such as these regard them as graded, and so report them. But the mere naming of departments does not constitute a graded school. Whoever studies the ungraded or loosely graded Sunday school will perceive in it certain evils which can be removed only by a thorough system of grading, maintained faithfully through a series of years. Some of these conditions which make the graded Sunday school an absolute necessity are the following: (1) _The School as a Whole._ The close observer, looking at the entire school, notes first of all that its gains and its losses in membership are at the extremes of its constituency. It is the normal condition for the gains to come in the Primary section; for the little children in families are attracted to the school or brought there by older children. There is almost invariably a constant increase in this department, requiring frequently the organization of new classes in the grade above, among the younger boys and girls. But, on the other hand, there is a constant loss of older scholars. In most schools, at the age of fourteen, in what is known as the early adolescent period of life, the pupils, for one reason or another, begin to drop out, and few enter to take their places. Almost every school is thus growing at the bottom and dying at the top. The Primary classes are full, but the classes of those above fourteen years are usually small--two large boys here, three yonder. And although girls continue in the school more frequently than boys, there will appear the same conditions--some large classes of girls and young women, but others where discouraged teachers are sitting down with one, two, or three pupils. Six or eight years ago these same classes came out from the Primary Department, each with eight or ten pupils; now they are mere skeleton classes, barely alive, and threatened with dissolution. Every earnest, thoughtful superintendent would rejoice to find some plan that will guarantee large classes of young people between sixteen and eighteen years of age, for this is the most vital period in the life of the individual. Such a plan is proposed in the graded system. (2) _The Condition of the Classes._ Fixing the attention upon the several classes, the critic of the school system notes three unfavorable conditions: (a) There is the inequality in the size of classes, to which reference has already been made. When classes come together by accident, pupils bringing their friends, or new members joining whatever classes they please, some classes of boys or girls will inevitably be too large for good government or good teaching, and others will be too small to create any enthusiasm, either in the teacher or the pupils. (b) There is also an inequality in the ages of pupils in the same class. A class may include one pupil or two pupils sixteen years old, and others as young as ten, or even nine years; some who during the week are in the high school, and others who can scarcely read the verses assigned to them. (c) Where these inequalities of numbers and ages exist there is a lack of that class spirit which is an essential element of power in a well-ordered Sunday school. Every class should be a unit, with a strong social bond; but this ideal cannot be realized when there are in the class two or three youths in the noisy, assertive, self-conscious stage of early adolescence, and others who are several years younger. Nor can there be a proper social bond in a class with only two or three members. They are likely to be irregular in attendance, to find excuses for absence or for leaving the school, until at last the discouraged teacher and the listless scholars together drop out of sight. For the correction of these evils of inequality in numbers and in ages, and of this lack of class spirit, the only successful method is to grade the school, and resolutely to keep it graded. (3) _Difficulties of Administration._ The difficulties which confront the superintendent in the management of an ungraded school are many and great. (a) The first and ever-present difficulty is in obtaining teachers for new classes. The constant growth of the Primary Department is his perennial perplexity. To relieve the congestion in the crowded Infant Class its older pupils must be brought into the main school, and teachers must be found for them. The superintendent is always seeking, and often seeking vainly, for new teachers. (b) Another difficulty is found in the attempt to transfer scholars from one class to another. No matter how much out of place a pupil may be, it is almost impossible to transfer him to another class without incurring the displeasure of the teacher, the scholar, or the scholar's family. And however overgrown or ill-assorted a class may have become, to divide it is a delicate task, almost sure to cause ill feeling. Also, when there arises the need of a teacher for a new class just emerging from the Primary Department, the natural plan would be to combine some of the skeleton classes in the other departments, and thereby release a teacher for service with the new class. But the superintendent who attempts this plan finds that almost invariably it results in some of the older scholars leaving the school because their teacher is taken from them. 2. =The Essentials of a Graded School.= Briefly stated, the essentials of a graded Sunday school are the following:[4] (1) _Departments._ The graded Sunday school is organized in certain distinct groups, of which the most important, for our present purpose, are the Primary, Junior, Intermediate, and Senior Departments. To these will be added the Beginners and Adult Departments when the subject comes up for a complete treatment. Each of these departments should have, if possible, a separate room; but if these rooms cannot be provided in the building, the pupils should be seated by departments in the different parts of the one room. Perhaps it may be assumed that there is a separate room for the Primary Department; then let those who have most recently come from the Primary be seated on the right block of seats; the Youths or Intermediate in the middle; and the Senior classes on the left block, or vice versa. The younger classes of the department should have the front seats, the older those in the rear, in regular gradation. The school may be arranged in the order shown in this diagram: +---------------------------------------------+ |+-----------+ +------------+ +------------+| || OLDER | |FOURTH YEAR | |FOURTH YEAR || |+-----------+ +------------+ +------------+| | | |+-----------+ +------------+ +------------+| || OLDER | | THIRD YEAR | | THIRD YEAR || |+-----------+ +------------+ +------------+| | | ||YOUNG WOMEN| |SECOND YEAR | |SECOND YEAR || +-----------+ +------------+ +------------+| | | |+-----------+ +------------+ +------------+| || YOUNG MEN | | FIRST YEAR | | FIRST YEAR || |+-----------+ +------------+ +------------+| | SENIORS INTERMEDIATES JUNIORS | | | | +-----------------------+ | | | PLATFORM | | +---------+-----------------------+-----------+ (2) _Classes._ The number of classes should be fixed for each department, and their relationship established, so that when a group of scholars is promoted to a higher grade in the same department, or in the next department, they do not enter as classes, but as individuals; not to form new classes in the department, but to be placed in classes already formed. This plan will keep the classes in the Senior Department always full, and avoid the unfortunate skeleton classes of the ungraded school. It will also impress upon the pupils the importance of faithful work. (3) _Promotions._ There should be annual and simultaneous promotions throughout the school. One Sunday in the year should be set apart as Promotion Sunday; and on that day all promotions should be made. Those who are to be advanced from the Intermediate to the Senior Department are called out by name and placed in their classes, which are not new classes, but old classes replenished with new members. These promotions will vacate the seats of the Fourth Year classes in the Intermediate Department. But these seats will at once be filled by the Third Year now becoming the Fourth Year, and taking their seats; the Second Year pupils becoming the Third Year; and the First Year the Second Year. The First Year of the Intermediate Department will be left vacant, to be filled by promotion of the Fourth Year in the Junior Department, and the moving up of classes to the year above in the same department; and the First Year of the Junior Department will be filled by promotion from the Primary Department. (4) _Teachers._ As groups of scholars pass either from one grade or from one department to another there must also be a change of teachers. This constitutes the crux of the entire system, and in its inception is apt to prove the most formidable obstacle in grading the school. The pupils, however, are accustomed to a system of promotions in the day school, and expect to leave their teachers when they change their grades; but many of the teachers in the Sunday school, not being trained under the system, dislike to lose their scholars, and show their dissatisfaction in ways that affect their pupils. This difficulty must be overcome by tact and an appeal to unselfish motives; teachers must consent for the sake of the common good to give up their old classes and take new ones which begin in the department. The teacher may remain in the grade and receive a new class each year as his pupils advance to a higher grade; or he may remain with the class and advance until the pupils pass from their former department to a higher one, as from Primary to Junior, from Junior to Intermediate, and from Intermediate to Senior. He should then return to a new first year's class in his own department and lead it through the course. If any teacher asks, "Why cannot I go with my class into the Senior Department?" the answer is that if the plan be permitted for one it must be recognized for all; and in the Senior Department there will follow an increasing number of classes, with a relatively diminishing membership in each class. The scholars also need the inspiration of contact with different teachers. Furthermore, the teacher who is adapted to the Junior or Intermediate Department is rarely a suitable teacher for Senior scholars. Hence there is need of a careful assignment of teachers no less than of pupils. Therefore, to maintain a graded school the pupils must change teachers when they change departments. (5) _Lessons._ There should be graded lessons for each department. If a graded system be followed in the school, as it should be, with different subjects, text-books, and lessons for each department, giving to the entire school a regular, systematic, progressive curriculum, this requisite will be met. If, however, the uniform lesson for all the school be followed, as at present is still the case in many Sunday schools, the graded teaching must be given in the form of supplemental lessons, taught by the head of the department where it has a separate room, or by the teacher if the departments must be assembled in one room. In some form the graded teaching is an absolutely essential requisite of the graded school. Most schools, when once thoroughly graded, will realize the need of the next step in the evolution of the institution--lessons graded in subjects as well as in methods for the several departments. (6) _Basis of Promotion._ The question is often asked, "Should promotions be made on the basis of age, or as the result of examinations?" The examination system may be regarded as desirable in the Sunday school, but there are as yet few schools where thorough examinations can be rigidly insisted on as a part of the school system, and promotions invariably made to depend upon standing. A school which meets only once a week, for a session of less than an hour and a half, and with but one lesson period of forty minutes or even less, cannot maintain the same strictness in its standards as the public school. Moreover, new scholars are continually entering the schools, and, while most of them begin at the foot of the ladder in the Primary Department, yet others enter at various ages and in various grades. Any system of promotion based merely upon acquirement attested by examination is sure to become in many instances a meaningless form when applied to the Sunday school. Yet acquirements and examinations need not be ignored in the graded Sunday school. There may be certain ages at which the pupils shall by right pass from a lower grade to a higher. But it may also be arranged that pupils who are exceptionally bright, well-informed, and studious can be promoted a year in advance of their classmates by passing examination. Let the examination be given in writing to all the pupils, and let all be urged to take it; with the promise that those who pass will be promoted, even though they be less than the required age. But let it also be understood that failure to pass the examination will not keep the student for more than one year from promotion. In other words, the examination may well be made the door through which earnest students may pass on, and so keep abreast of their equals in training and ability. FOOTNOTE: [4] For a more complete statement, see the volume of this series on The Graded Sunday School in Principle and Practice, by Dr. H. H. Meyer. IV THE GRADING OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL The question is often asked, "How may an ungraded Sunday school be placed on a graded basis?" The work may seem simple, and easy of accomplishment, but when it is undertaken difficulties arise which must be intelligently and tactfully met. 1. =The Difficulties.= If all our Sunday-school teachers were trained educators, accustomed to the methods of the public school, they would see at once the advantages of the graded system, and heartily enter into it. But most of our teachers are untrained, and their range of vision often fails to reach beyond their own class and their immediate environment. The relation between teachers and scholars is personal rather than official; and on both sides the personal equation often complicates the problem. In every school there are a few teachers who are so strongly influenced by their feeling for their pupils that they fail to recognize the needs of the school. There are also scholars, especially in the sentimental early adolescent age, who are unwilling to leave their teachers when promotion is offered to them. But unless the change of teachers is maintained the graded system will utterly fail to benefit the school; it will be graded in name only, and not in fact. This part of the program must be carried through, even though it may cost the school the loss of a teacher or two teachers and their scholars. 2. =The Remedy= for this difficulty is only to be found in carefully considered action by presenting the necessity and value of the plan so clearly that the teachers as a whole will fully understand it, appreciate its importance, and heartily accept it. The grading should not be attempted upon the mere fiat of the superintendent, nor on the vote of a bare majority of the workers. The teachers must recognize the self-sacrifice which it requires, and must make that self-sacrifice generously, giving up their scholars for the general good. The possible objections of the scholars are more easily overcome, for they are accustomed in the public schools to promotions with change of teachers, and readily accommodate themselves to the same system in the Sunday school. Thoughtfulness and kindness, with time, will soon remove the hindrances from the path of the graded school. 3. =The Method of Grading.= The school may be graded in either of two ways, the gradual or the simultaneous method. (1) In the gradual method the superintendent, with the concurrence of the teachers, may announce that after a certain date all promotions will be made in accordance with the graded system, leaving the classes as they are until the time for promotion arrives. Then promote from Primary to Junior, from Junior to Intermediate, and from Intermediate to Senior, according to the principles of the graded school; and in four or five years, if the system be maintained, the result will be a school fully graded in all its departments. (2) In the simultaneous method of grading, the plan must be carefully matured, and general coöperation of all assured. The following plan has been tested in more than one school, and found to work successfully: (a) Let a careful committee be chosen to arrange the details of grading. The committee should consist of teachers acquainted with the scholars as far as may be practicable, and should, of course, include the superintendent. They should also take an abundance of time for their work. (b) Obtain the ages of all the scholars between eight and eighteen years of age, and, approximatively, the ages up to thirty. Let this list be made quietly by each teacher for his or her own class. It may be desirable not to inform the pupils for what purpose the enrollment is made. Instances have been known where scholars have understated their ages, hoping thereby to remain with favorite teachers. (c) Let the committee go over the lists and assign the scholars to classes according to age and acquirement. In some degree social relations should be considered, so that each class may be as far as practicable a social unit. In the Intermediate Department boys and girls should be in separate classes, and not more than six or eight pupils should be placed in one class. No announcement of the assignment of scholars to classes should be made until the day fixed for the reorganization of the school. It will be a good plan to prepare a map or chart of the schoolroom, with the place proposed for each class indicated upon it. (d) On the day appointed, after the opening exercises, first let the seats or rooms set apart for the Senior Department be vacated; and then let the roll be called according to the new list. "Class No. 1, Senior Department. Mr. A----, with the following scholars." As their names are called let them take their places, until the list of classes and scholars in this department is filled. Next vacate the seats assigned to the Intermediate Department, and let these teachers and pupils take their places; then the Junior Department, according to the same plan. The Primary Department can be graded by its superintendent or teacher without aid from the committee. Let it be understood that every scholar must take the place assigned to him at the time when his name is called; and that only for an important reason can an assignment, when once made, be changed. In a large school there will be found a few cases where the committee has made a mistake, even with the greatest care; and these mistakes should be rectified, but not until the pupils have taken their new places temporarily in the scheme of the school. 4. =Advantages of Thorough Grading.= Many benefits will follow from the proper organization of the school; and their value will be increasingly apparent as the system is maintained through a series of years. (1) _Appearance._ It is the testimony of every superintendent and pastor who has graded his Sunday school that the appearance of the school is greatly improved by the graded system. The older scholars are assembled in one body, instead of being scattered throughout the room; scholars of the same size and age are brought together in classes. The school will also actually seem larger than it was before the grading. (2) _Order._ The order of the school will be more easily maintained. The big boys and the giggling girls, both at the self-conscious, awkward age, will be in a new environment, no longer the leaders over smaller and younger pupils, but in classes by themselves, and with responsibilities appealing to their self-respect. (3) _Social Relations._ It will be a benefit to the scholars of each age to be associated in groups of the same period in life, with the same interests and similar mental acquirements. Many scholars will find their new associations more congenial than their former ones in the ungraded classes, where older and younger people have been brought together. The class will now become, far more than it was before, a social power. (4) _Teaching Work._ In the ungraded class, with older and younger pupils together, the teacher met with his greatest difficulty in finding a common ground of interest. In the graded class, with pupils of uniform age and equal intellectual understanding, the teaching can be better adapted to the needs of the pupils. (5) _Incentive to Interest._ The prospect of promotion awakens an interest in the classes. Each scholar looks forward to the time when he will attain to a higher grade with its enlarged privileges. (6) _Obtaining Teachers._ The grading of the school greatly aids in the solution of the ever-present problem of obtaining new teachers, (a) The graded school requires a smaller number of teachers than the ungraded school, since it provides for the consolidation of skeleton classes in the Senior Department. This sets at liberty a number of experienced teachers for service in other grades. (b) Whenever a new class comes from the Primary Department, a teacher is already at hand in the Junior Department whose class at the same time has advanced to the Intermediate Department. The teacher goes year by year with his class until it leaves the department, and then he returns to a new class beginning the studies of the same department. (c) After the results of a teacher-training class are available there will always be trained teachers waiting for classes. (7) _Leakage Period._ The young people between fifteen and twenty years of age constitute the "leakage period,"[5] when they are in great danger of drifting away from the school. They will be held to the school far more firmly if they have before them the prospect of membership in large classes of young people, with social opportunities, and club life, so popular with youth at the early adolescent age. It has been clearly shown by practical experience that an organized Senior Department, with large classes kept full by regular reinforcement from the Intermediate Department, will maintain itself and hold its members, while skeleton classes of the young people constantly tend to disintegration. The well-organized, completely graded Sunday school possesses such evident and great advantages that it is certain to be established wherever thorough and efficient religious instruction is sought. The sooner it comes, and the more faithfully it is maintained, the better it will be for the church of to-day and to-morrow, and the more quickly and effectually will the grave problems of our modern civilization be solved. FOOTNOTE: [5] Dr. A. H. McKinney, in After the Primary--What? V THE DEPARTMENTS OF THE GRADED SUNDAY SCHOOL =General Scheme.= The four departments essential to a graded Sunday school, whether large or small, have already been named by anticipation. But it is necessary to give to the subject a closer consideration, and to add the names of other departments which are needed either as departments or subdivisions in the school. Following the analogy of the secular schools, the great divisions of a Sunday school may be named as Elementary, Secondary, and Advanced or Adult. The Elementary Division will include the Cradle Roll, Beginners, Primary, and Junior, taking the scholar up to twelve years of age. The Secondary Division will include the Intermediate and Senior Departments, also the Teacher-training Class, and will embrace the scholars between twelve and twenty years of age. The Advanced or Adult Division will include all the classes wherein the average age is above twenty years, including the Home Department. Beginning with the youngest children, the departments of a thoroughly organized school are the following: 1. =The Cradle Roll.=[6] This should include all the little ones in the families of the congregation who are too young to attend the school. Their names, in large lettering, in plain print rather than script, should be recorded upon a list, framed and hung upon the wall in the Primary room. A separate card catalogue should be kept of the names alphabetically arranged, with ages, birthdays, parents' names, and the street address of each family. Every effort should be made to keep the list complete; children should inform their teachers of new little brothers and sisters for the Cradle Roll; the pastor in his visitation should take their names and report them; and the teacher or conductor in charge of the Cradle Roll should occasionally visit every family on the list. Whenever gifts are made to the pupils of the school, as at Christmas or on birthdays, toys and dolls for the little ones of the Cradle Roll should not be forgotten. In a small school the care of the roll and the visiting of the families may be assigned to the Primary superintendent; but in a large Sunday school it will call for a special conductor, and recognition as a separate department. Let no one suppose that this is an unimportant, sentimental matter. The Cradle Roll, maintained as it should be, will awaken interest in every family having a name inscribed upon it, and in due time will lead many little feet to the
{'title': 'Organizing and Building Up the Sunday School by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}