THE SECRETARY OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL
1.Importance.The secretary of the Sunday school is an officer of far greater importance than is generally supposed. In too many schools some youth in the adolescent period is made secretary, merely to keep him in the school, without consideration of his capacity and adaptedness to the office. As a result of an unsuitable appointment, the minutes of the teachers' meetings are incomplete, the registry of the classes is neglected, and the true condition of the school cannot be ascertained. If by any good fortune or by a more careful choice an able and faithful secretary takes his place, at once a new impulse is felt by the school. The superintendent, the teachers, and even the scholars will realize that energy, accuracy, and thoroughness count for much in the work of this department. They will appreciate faithful service, and will themselves respond to its influence.
2.Qualifications.The ideal secretary of a Sunday school should possess the following characteristics:
(1)A Business Man.He should possess the instincts of a man of business, being willing to work, systematic in method, and thorough in care of details.
(2)Regular in Attendance.He should make the Sunday school his business on Sunday, with a fidelity equal to that which he manifests towardhis vocation through the week. His regularity should also embrace promptness, coming in advance of the hour; for much of the secretary's work may be done before the opening of the service.
(3)Good Writer.He should be able to write legibly, and possess skill in framing sentences correctly, and in writing them plainly, without unnecessary flourishes.
(4)Quick Mental Action.His mental processes should be sufficiently rapid for him to set down an ordinary motion, presented in a public meeting, without requiring it to be repeated or written out by the mover. An able recorder will promptly express in the minutes the form of a motion or the spirit of a speech, thereby saving much time in the meeting and much space in the report.
(5)Quiet Manner.The secretary should watch the program and do his work without interrupting it. He should never appear among the classes during prayer, during the reading of Scripture, or while a speaker is addressing the school. Only under urgent necessity should he come to a class in the lesson period, and in that case only at its beginning. During intervals in the service, or during the singing, he may find it needful at times to pass among the classes; but he should do this necessary work quietly, without distracting the attention of the school.
(6)Courteous Conduct.His bearing should always be that of a gentleman, refined and courteous, thoughtful of others and patient toward all; a manner enabling him to win the friendly aid of every teacher, upon whom the accuracy of the class record must depend.
Whoever can be found, in the school or the community, possessing these qualities, or approaching them, should be chosen as secretary of the Sunday school, whether man or woman. Often a young woman, accustomed through the week to business methods, becomes an efficient secretary of the Sunday school.
3.Appointment.The secretary should be elected by the board of officers and teachers. As he is not merely an assistant to the superintendent, but an officer of the school, it is not necessary that he should receive a nomination from the superintendent. His term of office should be one year, with as many reëlections as will promote the good of the service.
4.Assistants.In almost any school the secretary will need an assistant, whom he should nominate, subject to confirmation by the board of teachers and officers.
5.Department Secretaries.In a graded Sunday school there should be an assistant secretary for each department, who may be one of the teachers, or in the Senior and Adult grades, one of the scholars. He should take the records of the classes in the department and transmit them to the secretary of the school. But the secretary is responsible for the records of the entire school, and should see personally that the record of each department is complete.
6.Duties.The work of the secretary may be classified as follows:
(1)Record of Meetings.As secretary of the board of teachers and officers, he should be present at all business meetings and make a careful record.Every motion should be stated clearly, with the names of its mover and its seconder, and the action taken. A statement should be given of every committee appointed, its purpose, and the names of its members. All committees should be expected to present written reports, however brief. A concise summary of each report, in a few sentences, or a single clause, should appear in the minutes of the meeting at which the report is presented; and the report itself should be filed for reference in case it should be needed. A committee once named is on the minutes, and cannot be ignored nor forgotten until its report has been presented and adopted, and the committee has been formally discharged. For example, it is not sufficient for the committee on the Christmas entertainment to hold the entertainment; it must afterward report that the entertainment was held on a certain date; must have its report adopted, and receive its discharge. It should be the duty of the secretary from time to time to call for reports of committees named in the minutes of previous meetings, to insist that a report be rendered, and that some action be taken upon it.
(2)Record of the School.In every well-ordered Sunday school the secretary summarizes in writing the attendance in each department, the total attendance, the number of new scholars, and other items to be preserved, including the weather, which may sometimes account for a small attendance; also a comparison with the record of the same Sunday last year. This report should be read to the school by the secretary at the call of the superintendent, or posted before the school;and it should also be recorded in a book which will contain the statistics of the school through a term of years.
(3)Records of Classes.The secretary and his assistants should prepare the books in which the class record of attendance is recorded. The name of each scholar should be given correctly and fully (for example, not "F. Jones," but "Frederick Jones"). The secretary should see that the record of attendance for each Sunday is accurately kept. He will need to give special attention to classes where substitutes take the place of absent teachers, and to see that the record for the day is not neglected. As often as the arrangement of the class books requires the rewriting of the names of the scholars, he should transcribe the list, always writing every name in full. In looking through the class lists he should note the names of those who have been absent for a series of sessions, and should report them to the superintendent, for consideration and for investigation of every habitual absentee. If these scholars can be visited, many of them may be retained in the school.
(4)Records of Scholars.In addition to the record in the class books, another record should be kept of every member of the school, including every officer, teacher, and scholar; a card catalogue, each name upon a separate card, and all the cards filed in alphabetical order. The card for each scholar should give besides his name the date of his entrance to the school, either the date of his birth or his age at entering—approximative, if above eighteen years; his residence, with street and number in a city; parents' names; class towhich he is assigned; his relation to the church or congregation, and any other important facts. The card should contain the record of every promotion, and its date; of any changes in residence, and other details, so that it becomes a reliable and complete history of each individual in the school. In many schools the birthday of each member is kept upon the record, and is recognized by sending a birthday card. If a scholar or teacher leaves the school the fact is recorded, and the card is then taken from the regular catalogue and filed permanently in the list of "former members."
(5)Literature of the School.The secretary should be in charge of the literature used by the school, its text-books, lesson-quarterlies, and other periodicals. He should see that the literature is ordered in full time, should receive it, keep it in his care, and attend to its distribution. The particular text-book for each grade is fixed by the superintendent; and the secretary should receive from him direction as to the lesson helps for each grade.
(6)Correspondence.The secretary should conduct all correspondence in behalf of the school or of the teachers as a body, unless for a special purpose the chairman of a committee be in charge of correspondence relating to his work.
The secretary who with the aid of his staff undertakes to do all the work that rises before him will not find his task a light one. But his department carried on with vigor will greatly promote the success of the Sunday school.
THE TREASURY AND THE TREASURER
1.In the Early Sunday School.A study of origins has shown that in the earliest Sunday schools in America, as in England, provision was made for the payment of officers and teachers. In the first schools established in and near Philadelphia, each paid teacher had charge of what would now be considered a department, and the practical teaching was given under his direction by scholars, who were called monitors. But in a new country, where the settlements were small and the people mostly poor, the system of paid teachers soon passed away, and the schools were carried on by voluntary and unpaid workers. It was fortunate for the American Sunday school that in its beginnings it required but little money. For the place of meeting any chapel or schoolhouse or settler's cabin would serve. The literature was exceedingly meager—a few Testaments and spelling books, and generally these were brought by the teachers and scholars. When the earliest lesson books were published, they were not quarterlies, nor annuals, to be thrown away after one using, but were studied year after year. The largest item of expense was the library; and as this was an institution for the entire neighborhood, the families willingly contributed toward it. Not until the Sunday school had become thoroughly founded did the question of its financial support arise as a problem.
2.In the Modern Sunday School.As the Sunday school advanced in position, in influence, and in better methods of work, its expenses naturally increased. Now, in the opening of its second century, its financial requirements are far greater than they were even a generation ago. It asks for special and suitable buildings, with rooms and furnishings adapted to the educational needs of its several departments; for a periodical literature suited to teachers and scholars of every grade, and requiring to be renewed every year; for an organ or piano—often for several, with an orchestra added; for an equipment of song books different from those in the church service; for entertainments and gifts at Christmas, and a day's outing for all in the summer; for libraries containing popular books for the scholars and helpful works for the teachers in their work. The demands of a large and growing Sunday school, in city or country, are great, but in nearly all congregations the funds for the support of the Sunday school are obtained with less effort than those for any other department of church activity, and in this liberality the Christian people show their wisdom and insight.
3.Practical Ways and Means.The methods of financial support for the Sunday school are exceedingly varied. The simplest plan is through a regular weekly contribution in the classes. Where attention is given to the collection, and an appeal is occasionally made in its behalf, the school will generally obtain the funds needed for its own support. When the special need arises for the purchase of a piano or a library, some entertainment may be held which will by its profits swellthe receipts. The objection to these methods, which are almost universal, is that they appeal to self-interest, and fail to educate the members of the school in true liberality. It is forourschool,ourpiano,ourlibrary, that the appeal is made and the money is contributed. The scholars should be taught to give to the cause of Christ and his gospel, and not merely to interests from which they themselves are to receive a reward.
4.The Ideal Way of Giving.The more excellent way is for the church in its annual estimate of expenses to include a fair, even liberal, allowance for the Sunday school, and at intervals through the year pass over to the treasury of the Sunday school the funds appropriated, to be expended according to principles and regulations provided. Then let every officer, teacher, and pupil in the school, from the Adult Department to the Primary, and even to the Beginners, make his own weekly offering to the church. Most church schools contribute to the cause of foreign missions; but there is equal reason why they should give to all the general benevolent objects for which the church receives an annual collection. This plan would unite the church and the school more firmly, would avoid multiplying and conflicting objects for which funds are raised, and, best of all, would train every child in the Sunday school to systematic giving upon the true gospel principle, which is "not to be ministered unto, but to minister."
5.The Sunday-School Treasurer.The work of the treasurer is very different from that of the secretary; yet the two offices are often held by one person. In that case they should be regardedas distinct positions; the election to the two offices should be separate, and not at the same time for one person as secretary and treasurer. At every business meeting a separate report should be presented for the two departments, and the treasurership should not be regarded as a branch of the secretary's work. If the plan outlined in the last paragraph be adopted as the method of providing for the financial needs of the Sunday school, it might be well to choose the treasurer of the church as treasurer of the Sunday school, thus giving unity to the financial administration of the entire organization.
6.The Treasurer's Work.This will require a person who is known as careful in accounts, as well as honorable in all his dealings.
(1)His Charge.All the funds of the Sunday school should pass through his hands. If money is raised for any purpose, or a money-making entertainment is held, the treasurer should take charge of the receipts and pay the bills. For this purpose he should be ex officio a member of all committees required to receive and disburse funds.
(2)Bank Account.Except in small and remote places, the treasurer will find it desirable to keep an account with a bank in behalf of the school, and deposit therein all moneys received. Under no circumstances should he deposit Sunday-school funds as a part of his own private account, but should keep separate accounts as an individual and as treasurer.
(3)Reports and Vouchers.At each meeting of the governing board of the school he should present a statement of the condition of the treasury,with exact mention of all moneys received and paid since the last meeting; and for every payment he should show a receipt or voucher, and on it the "O. K." or approval of some qualified person who knows that it is correct.
(4)Bills.He should receive all bills against the school, and should inform himself concerning them, in order to be able to answer any questions raised by members of the board. He should present at the meeting a statement of all the unpaid bills on hand, with a forecast of bills expected, and obtain a vote of the board upon each bill that is to be paid.
(5)Checks.It is desirable to pay bills as far as possible with checks, as the check will often serve as a receipt; and the receipted bills should be filed together for reference.
(6)Audits.An Auditing Committee should be appointed, to examine the accounts of the school from time to time, and always when the treasurer completes his term, alike whether he is reëlected or gives place to a successor. This committee should either present a written report, or should sign their names to the treasurer's report, with the indorsement, "Audited and found correct."
Most of the above recommendations, perhaps all of them, state the methods that would be followed by any intelligent, businesslike treasurer. But in the continent-wide area of the Sunday school, of necessity, not all treasurers are intelligent or experienced in business methods; and there are doubtless many who may profit by these suggestions.
(7)Study of Benevolent Interests.One of the most important duties of a treasurer in a modernSunday school is to study the different charitable objects that present themselves to the school, decide upon their merits, and then present them understandingly to the members of the school, with a view to eliciting their interest and training them in the spirit and habit of intelligent giving. This important task raises the treasurership out of mere mechanical service, and constitutes it one of the directing forces in the school.
VALUE OF THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL LIBRARY
1.The Library of the Past.Until quite recent times the Sunday-school library was understood to be a collection of books, mainly of an entertaining character, kept in the school, distributed at its sessions, and read by the scholars, for enjoyment rather than for instruction. Such a library was regarded as an essential of the Sunday school. However small or however poor the school, it must have a library. Books were scarce, and desirable books were high in price. There were no free public libraries, and few circulating libraries. The library was regarded as the principal attraction of the school, and it drew the scholars. Many children attended two Sunday schools in order to obtain each week two library books. The books were read by all the family; and in many homes the Sunday-school library furnished most of the reading matter. The literature may not have been of the highest grade, but, with all its defects, the Sunday-school library of the past was a useful and valuable institution.
2.Its Decline in the Present.In recent times, and especially in well-settled and cultured communities, the Sunday-school library has lost much of its importance. Very many schools have closed their libraries; and in the schools continuing their use only a small proportion of the scholars obtain books. Inquiry has shown that in cities andsuburban towns a school of two hundred members will include not more than thirty who make use of the library. When the library is closed scarcely any complaints from the scholars are heard; nor is the closing of the library followed by a loss of scholars. Publishing houses which formerly issued fifty new books each year, especially for Sunday-school libraries, have entirely abandoned this branch of business. It cannot be maintained that the Sunday-school library for the entertainment of the scholars now holds a prominent place, or is a factor of success, in the best American Sunday schools.
3.Causes of Decline.It is not difficult to find reasons for this present lack of interest in the Sunday-school library. Books are now far more abundant than they were formerly. They are sold cheaply, and are to be found in almost every home. The periodical literature in circulation to-day is apparently a hundredfold greater than it was two generations ago. Every city and almost every town has its public library. Many schools are furnished with free libraries. Readers can scarcely find time for the books and magazines that are open to them. Moreover, the Sunday school now stands in such recognized honor and power that it no longer needs the old-time library as a bait for scholars. The library for mere recreation does not readily fit into the general scheme of education in the modern Sunday school. Then, too, the educational work of the school demands such an outfit of books and periodicals, renewed each year, that the additional expense of the library is a heavy burden. Sharp criticism ispassed upon the quality of the books in most Sunday-school libraries, as being almost wholly stories, and stories of a cheap and commonplace character, many of them absolutely injurious. The conducting of the library is often found to interfere with the order and work of the school. These are among the causes which have led to disuse of the library in many Sunday schools.
4.The Uses of a Good Library.Notwithstanding the objections to the Sunday-school library, its neglect by many scholars, and its abolition in many schools, the fact remains that the majority of Sunday schools still retain the library, and claim that it is needed. There are even places where the Sunday-school library holds its own constituency in competition with the town library; and in small villages the Sunday school supplies most of the books in circulation. The principal claims made in behalf of such a library are the following:
(1)Family Needs.Every family needs good reading matter. The books that interest the young generally interest the old also. People who would be at a loss to select a book from the shelves of a public library will read the book brought to them from the Sunday-school library. The reading of the library-book fills leisure time on Sunday afternoons and on long winter evenings.
(2)Moral Influence.While most Sunday-school books as literature are open to criticism, yet in the realm of ethics they generally present high ideals. The characters depicted in them may not be symmetrical, but on the whole they are earnest and upright. Youth admires heroism; and thepersonalities portrayed in popular Sunday-school books are generally heroic, even though they may be unduly emotional. The boys who are picked up by the police in railroad centers, armed for fighting Indians or robbing trains, generally carry an assortment of cheap novels, but they are not from Sunday-school libraries. If the criterion be ethics and not literature, most Sunday-school books will stand the test.
(3)Aid to the School.As has been already suggested, the original aim of the library was to attract scholars to the school. In many places this influence is no longer needed; but there still remain communities where scholars are obtained and families are interested by means of the library. And it is an open question whether if the library had advanced step by step with the other departments of the school, if the same attention had been given to the supply and management of the library as has been given to the educational work, if the right books had been kept upon its shelves, and advanced methods had been sought in their distribution, the library of the Sunday school might not still be a vigorous and successful institution.
5.Principles of Selection.If the governing board of the school decides that a library for general reading by the scholars is desirable, the question at once arises as to what principles shall determine the selection of books. A few of these principles may be stated:
(1)Variety.The library should represent more than one department of literature. So general is the taste for stories that the tendency will beinevitable to overload the library with works of fiction. Therefore special care should be given to include in it the lives of great and good men—heroes, statesmen, explorers, leaders of the church, and missionaries. All of these present life on its romantic side, and may be found written in an entertaining manner. Upon the shelves should also be placed history and science—not in many-volumed treatises for scholars, but in popular books for young people. In fact, there are few departments of a good public library which may not properly be included in the library of the Sunday school, especially in places where the school is expected to supply the reading matter for the community.
(2)Popularity.Merely to place books on the shelves of a Sunday-school library will not insure the reading of them. This library aims to be emphatically a circulating library. Its books are not for show, but for use; and their place to be seen is not on the shelves of the library-room, but in the homes of the scholars and teachers. It is absolutely essential that no book be placed in the library unless it is sufficiently interesting to be taken out and read, for an unread book is worse thanuselessin the Sunday-school library. Although its principles be as sound as the Ten Commandments, if it be dull it must be condemned. Students may be willing to plod through an uninteresting book because it is profitable, but ordinary readers, especially youthful readers, will turn from it. Books should not be purchased because they are good, or because they are cheap; nor, on the other hand, should they be chosen only because they arepopular; yet an interesting, popular quality should be an absolute requirement in every book placed upon the library shelves.
(3)Literary Quality.Books are influential teachers, and a style like that of Hawthorne or Eliot will unconsciously mold the language of those who read it. On the other hand, the habitual readers of the slang in the comic paragraph of the newspaper will talk in a careless and inelegant manner. Of course, all books should be excluded from the library which deal in low, profane, or immoral language, without regarding the specious plea that such describe life as it is. We do not need to learn the language of the slums to know life; and, as one writer has said, we do not want a realism that can be touched only with a pair of tongs. The best pirate story in the English language is one that is without an oath from cover to cover,[10]and we would not exclude it from the Sunday-school library. Let us seek for writers whose expression is direct, smooth, and cultured. The Sunday school in its literature as well as its teaching should lead upward toward refinement of taste.
(4)Moral Teaching.The ethical standard of every book in the Sunday-school library should be of the highest. Not that every paragraph should end with the application like theHæc fabula docetof Æsop's fables, or that the characters in a story should be of a "goody-goody" kind, or that none but good people should appear upon the page. There must be some shadows in the perspective that the light may stand in contrast. But in nocase should wrong, or sin, or the doubtful moralities of modern society be made attractive. Moral problem stories, in which the boundary lines of right and wrong conduct are crossed and re-crossed until right seems wrong, and wrong seems right, should have no place. "Should love stories be admitted?" Not if the element of love enters as the dominant thought of the book. A story should not be forbidden because there is a pair of lovers in it; but it should not be accepted if the book shows no higher motive than to set forth their passion. Books should be sought that will inculcate a noble manliness for young men and a noble womanliness for young women, and there are such books in numbers sufficient to fill the library shelves.
(5)Christian Spirit.It is not required that every book should set forth and illustrate a spiritual experience. It may be religious without preaching religion. But the morals it inculcates should be founded upon the gospels and inspired by faith. It should be reverent in its treatment of the Bible, of the church, and of the ministry. A book or a story designed to weaken belief in the Scriptures as records of the divine will, or holding the church up to scorn, or showing a minister as its villain, should be kept out of the Sunday-school library. Criticism or discussion of the Bible, of the church, and of the ministry has its place, but its place is not in the Sunday school. The Sunday school is distinctively a religious and a Christian institution, and the atmosphere of the Christian religion should pervade its library.
6.The Coming Sunday-School Library.Anotherlibrary of a higher type than that designed for the reading and recreation of the scholars is now arising to notice in many advanced Sunday schools, and is destined to become the Sunday-school library of the future, either supplementing the library of the past or taking its place. It is the library which is to the Sunday school what the college library is to the college, a workshop equipped with tools for the use of the teacher and the scholar. It will be at once a reference library, containing the best Bible dictionaries, cyclopedias, expository works, and gospel harmonies, open at certain times for the use of students; and also a lending library of books upon the Bible, upon the Sunday school, upon teaching, upon religion, upon character, and upon the varied forms of social service which are now calling for workers, and will call yet more imperatively in the coming years. The books for this library must be chosen with wisdom; for they should represent the results of the best scholarship, yet be expressed in language that the nonprofessional reader can understand; and many of them must be for the scholars, who are of all ages and all degrees of intelligence. Those of the Primary Department should be able to find in such a library the stories of the Bible told in such a fascinating manner that a child too young to read them may listen to them with interest, and picture-books illustrating the events, the people, the dress, and the landscape of the Bible. It should be planned to meet the needs of every grade in the Sunday school, and to aid every teacher and every scholar; and when established it should be made effective in the educationalwork of the school. Just as in the secular school and the college students are sent to the library with directions as to the books they will need, so in the Sunday school teachers will be able to counsel their scholars and to give them week-day work, so that the teaching will be more than the talk of the teacher; it will embrace the results of searching on the part of the scholar. Under the system of uniform lessons the use of such a library was well-nigh impracticable, because every class would need the same books at one time. But the uniform lessons are being rapidly displaced by the graded system, giving to each grade its own series of lessons; and this method, requiring different books for each age in the school, will open the way for reference work and study in the library. The time is at hand when such a working library will become a necessity in every well-organized school.
7.The Public Library and the Sunday School.It would seem that wherever the public library is free, available, and well conducted some arrangement might be effected whereby the Sunday-school libraries could be united with the public library. This would lessen expense and difficulty in management, would avoid the unnecessary reduplication of copies of the same books, and would give to the scholars at once a wider selection and the advantage of the open shelf. In more than one town this has been accomplished. The Sunday schools have transferred all their libraries to the public library, to its enlargement, and with no loss of members to the schools. Some Sunday schools in cities have been recognized as branch stations of the public library, giving them thebenefit of frequent changes in the equipment of books, which at regular intervals are selected from the store of the public library by the library committee of the school. The working library for teachers and scholars, proposed in the last paragraph, in many places might be established in the public library, wherever the schools in the community will unite to show that it is needed, to name the books required, and to make it practically useful.
THE MANAGEMENT OF THE LIBRARY
1.Library Committee.For the selection of books, whether in the reading library for scholars or the working library for teachers and scholars, a wise, intelligent, and careful committee should be chosen, and should be maintained in permanent service. The pastor and the superintendent should be ex-officio members of this committee, but it should also include some other persons sufficiently acquainted with books to pass upon their merits, and willing to give time, inquiry, and thought to the library. There may be schools fortunate in possessing librarians who devote themselves to the selection of books, as well as to the care of them; and in such schools the library committees will find their labors lessened. No book should be admitted to the library without examination and approval by the committee.
(1)Purchase of Books.The simplest method for finding books is far from being the best method. It is to have a quantity of books—a hundred or more at one time—sent by booksellers on approval. This method involves hasty examination, and generally results in obtaining many useless, worthless books intermixed with a few good ones. The better plan is for the committee, first of all, to be supplied with catalogues from reputable publishers of books for children and young people, and also books on religious and biblical education; next toread carefully the reviews of books in these departments as given in the best literary and religious periodicals; then, to send only for such books as they judge will be desirable, receiving them on approval. Every book should not only be looked at, but read; and if at all doubtful read by more than one member of the committee. In some Sunday schools there is placed at the door a library box, in which may be deposited the names of books desired by members of the school. Lists of approved books are published by various houses and societies; and the catalogues of a few good Sunday-school libraries will aid committees. The library committee must scrutinize closely all donations of books offered to the library, and resolutely decline every book that is unsuitable, even at the risk of offending the donor. The Sunday-school library room must not be turned into a mausoleum for dead volumes. The committee must also beware of bargains offered by some booksellers who would unload upon Sunday schools their left-over and unsalable stock. That which costs little is generally worth less. The Sunday school must obtain only books that will be read and are worth reading.
(2)Frequent Additions.The usual method is to use the old library until its best books are either worn out or lost, and then to make a strenuous effort at raising money for the purchase of an entirely new collection. But the better plan is to add a few carefully selected books each month to the library. To examine at one time two hundred volumes is an impossibility, and in so large a purchase many undesirable books are sure to beincluded. It is not difficult to select after careful examination ten books each month, and thereby keep the library always at a high grade of excellence. With each purchase a slip describing the new books might be printed, and distributed to the school, thus keeping the library constantly before its patrons.
2.The Librarian.There is a close analogy between the work of the librarian in the public library and that in the Sunday school. For the public library everywhere a specialist is sought, one who knows books, can select them wisely, and can aid seekers after literature in their reading. The Sunday school needs just such a librarian, and all the more because the scholars cannot select from the open shelf, but must guess at the quality of a book from its title in the catalogue. It has been noticed that wherever a Sunday-school library is successful in holding the interest of the scholars there is found with it a librarian adapted to his work and devoting himself to it. We notice the characteristics of a good librarian in the Sunday school:
(1)A Bookman.He is a lover of books, acquainted with them, and interested in good literature. His work is more than to distribute books: he should aid, sometimes supervise, their collection.
(2)A Business Man.He is practical, orderly, and systematic in his ways of working; with a plan for his task, and fidelity in accomplishing it.
(3)Gentle in Manner.Opportunities will be frequent for the librarian to clash with the scholars on the one hand, or with the superintendent uponthe other. With one he may appear arbitrary, with the other disorderly, his work sometimes breaking into the program of exercises. He should be pleasant toward all, uniform in his dealings, and attentive to the general order of the school.
3.His Assistants.In most schools one assistant, in large schools several assistants, will be required by the librarian. He should nominate them, subject to the approval of the governing board of the school; and should require of them regular and prompt attendance, and attention to their work in the library. It is very desirable that the business should be so arranged as to allow the librarians to take part in the opening devotional service with the school, and not to be at work arranging books while others are at prayer.
4.The Management of the Library.This involves four processes: the collection, the assignment, the distribution, and the return of the books.
(1)The Collection.The books can easily be collected without interfering with the order of the school, if the library window is near the entrance to the building, and the scholars as they enter leave their books at the library. This is the method employed in most schools.
(2)The Assignment.How to enable each scholar to choose his book introduces one of the three problems in library management. The plan generally followed is to supply each scholar with a card bearing a number which represents the scholar. He selects from the catalogue a large assortment of books, and writes their numbers upon his card: the librarian assigns the scholar any one of the books selected, crosses it from his list,and upon another list marks the number of the book opposite the number of the scholar. The weakness of the plan is in the fact that the scholar has no means of learning from the catalogue what books are desirable; and a book desired by one may be entirely undesirable to another. Theoretically the scholar has the whole catalogue from which to choose; practically he has no choice, except the suggestion in the titles of the books. The open-shelf plan cannot be established in the Sunday school, for the room is usually too small, the time of the session is too brief, and the work of the school too important to allow interruption.
In some graded Sunday schools another plan is pursued, taking from the scholar all choice, but assigning to each grade books of certain numbers, all printed upon the card of the scholar, any one of which books he may receive at any time during his stay in the grade, but each of which will fall to his lot but once. This plan demands a library of books carefully selected, and as carefully fitted to each grade in the school. But this method is apt to be unsatisfactory to the scholars, who have their own preferences among the books. The difficulties in assigning books, and disappointments of scholars in failing to obtain the books desired, is a frequent cause for the disuse of the library; and this problem has not as yet been fully solved.
(3)The Distribution.This takes place at the close of the school, and brings in the second problem of library management. The books may be brought to the classes by the librarians, and distributed by the teachers; each scholar's book being indicated by his card placed within it. Thismethod often causes confusion; scholars being dissatisfied with their books and leaving their classes press around the library. Sometimes they exchange books with each other. This is a simple plan as far as the two scholars exchanging are concerned, but sure to make trouble in the record of the librarian. Or each class may be dismissed in turn, and obtain its books at the library window while passing out. But this plan causes a congestion of scholars at the library, and also requires much time. To manage the distribution of books demands a strong will, coupled with a gentle manner in maintaining the library rules.
(4)The Return.The theory of the Sunday-school library is that each scholar will bring his book back after a week or two weeks. But boys and girls—sometimes older scholars also—are apt to be careless. Books are exchanged between scholars, are loaned from one home to another, are forgotten, and are lost. And the books lost most readily are frequently those that are most sought for by the scholars. How to induce scholars invariably to return their books constitutes the third problem of library management. In many schools the percentage of lost books is exceedingly large. The librarian should do his utmost to reduce the loss to a minimum. To this end a few suggestions may be given:
(a) Record of Scholars. Every scholar's name and address, with his library number, should be kept on record in the library; and every effort should be made to make the record conform to all changes in residence.
(b) Record Sheet. The library should contain arecord sheet, showing the number of every book issued, and the number of the scholar receiving it; to be canceled when the book is returned. This will show who is responsible for every book out of its place from the library.
(c) Fines. A fine should be assessed upon the scholar for every book kept over time; and notice sent to the scholar at his home when a fine has become due.
(d) Rewards. Scholars should be paid a reward, perhaps of ten cents for each book, if they can succeed in tracing and finding any book which has been out of the library two months or more. These plans, or others, may lessen, but no plan will entirely remove, the evil of books lost to the library through neglect or a worse crime.
THE TEACHER'S QUALIFICATIONS AND NEED OF TRAINING
While the superintendent in the school is the moving and guiding intelligence, the pulse of the machine, the teacher in the class is the worker at the anvil, or the loom, or the lathe, for whom all the plans are made, and upon whom all the success depends. In the warfare for souls he is on the picket line and at close range, fighting face to face and hand to hand. The sphere of his effort is small, that group gathered around him for an hour on Sunday, but in that little field his is the work that counts for the final victory. His task requires peculiar adaptedness, supplemented by special training.
1.His Qualifications.There are on the American continent not less than a million and a half Sunday-school teachers, who give to the gospel their free-will offering of time, and toil, and thought. They are not like civil engineers or the majority of public-school teachers, graduates of schools that have given them training for a special vocation. In every respect they are laymen, engaged for six days in secular work, and on one day finding an avocation in the Sunday school. Yet there are certain traits, partly natural and partly acquired, which they must possess, if they are to find success in their Sabbath-day service.
(1)A Sincere Disciple.The Sunday-schoolteacher must be a follower of Christ, not merely in profession but in spirit. He is one who has met his Lord, has heard and has obeyed the call, "Follow me." He enlisted in the grand army of which Christ is the Commander, before he received his assignment to the army corps of the Sunday school, and his fidelity to the department is inspired by his deeper loyalty to his Lord. It is eminently desirable that the Sunday-school teacher should be a member of the church; but it is imperative that he should be a disciple of Christ.
(2)A Lover of Youth.By far the largest proportion of scholars in the Sunday school, perhaps nine tenths, are under twenty-five years of age. Therefore, with few exceptions, the teachers must deal with young people; and youth at all its stages is not easy to understand and to manage. Moreover, the fact that not only the teachers, but to a large extent the scholars, are volunteers enters into the problem. Pupils attend the week-day school and submit to a teacher's rule because they must, whether their teachers are acceptable or are disliked. But the rule in the Sunday school is not the law of authority; it is the law of persuasion. The teacher who cannot draw his scholars, but repels them, soon finds himself without a class. In all teaching sympathy, or the coördination between the interest of the teacher in the pupil and of the pupil in the teacher, is a strong factor in success; but in the Sunday school it is an absolute necessity by reason of the voluntary element in the constitution of the Sunday school. That mystic power which will combine uncongenial spirits, and fuse the hearts of teacher and scholar into one,is love. Let the teacher love his scholars, let him see in each pupil some quality to inspire love, and the battle is half won. Love will quicken tact, and love and tact together will win the complete victory.
(3)A Lover of the Scriptures.Whatever the Sunday school of to-morrow may become, the Sunday school of to-day is preëminently a Bible school. There are tendencies in our time which may in another generation render the Bible less prominent, and introduce into the Sunday school studies in church history, in social science, in moral reform, in missions, perhaps in comparative religion, or in some other departments of knowledge. But as yet the great text-book of the school is the Holy Scriptures. The volume should be in the hand of every teacher and of every scholar during the school session; and the teacher, especially, must study it during the week. If all of the Bible that he knows is contained in the paragraphs assigned for the coming lesson, and the rest of the book is sealed to his eyes, he will be a very poor teacher. He needs to have his mind stored with a thousand facts, and to have these facts systematized, in order to teach ten; and the nine hundred and ninety which he knows will add all their weight to the ten which he tells.
(4)A Willing Worker.The teacher's love for Christ, for his scholars, and for his Bible is not to expend itself in emotion or even in study; it is to find expression in efficient service. A task is laid upon him which will demand much of his time and his power of body, mind, and spirit. He must be ready to meet his class fifty-twoSundays in the year: on days of sunshine and days of storm; when he is eager for the work, and when he is weary in it; when his scholars are responsive, and when they are careless; when his fellow workers are congenial, and when they are anti-pathetic; when his lesson is easy to teach, and when it is hard. He must be regular in his service, not turned aside by opportunities of enjoyment elsewhere; and he must give to it all his powers and all his skill. Work such as this can be sustained only by an enduring enthusiasm, a devotion to the cause; and therefore the teacher must have his heart enlisted as well as his will.
As a Sunday-school teacher, then, four harmonious objects will claim a share in his love: his Lord, his scholars, his Bible, and his work.
2.His Need of Training.For two generations it was supposed that any person fairly intelligent, without special equipment, was fitted to be a Sunday-school teacher. There are found no records of training classes in Sunday-school work earlier than 1855, when the Rev. John H. Vincent began to gather young people and train them for service in his Sunday school at Irvington, New Jersey. The seed of his "Palestine Class" grew into the "Normal Class"; and by 1869 there were in a few places classes for the teaching of teachers in the Bible and Sunday-school work. It is not remarkable that Sunday-school teacher-training should be delayed so long after the organization of the first Sunday school, when it is remembered that in America the first Normal School for secular teachers was not founded until 1839. The Chautauqua movement, begun in 1874, gave a strongimpetus to Sunday-school teacher-training; the state associations and denominational organizations took up the work; and now teacher-training classes are to be found in every state and province on the American continent. The thoroughly graded school includes in its system a class for the training of young people who are to be teachers.
It is late in the day to inquire why the Sunday-school teacher needs training; but the question is often asked, and the answers are ready:
(1)The General Principle.All good work involves the prerequisite of training. Especially is this true of teaching; and there is a reason why the principle holds with regard to the Sunday-school teacher even more directly than with the secular teacher. While the subjects of teaching are vitally important, relating to character and efficient service, the time for teaching is short, less than an hour each week, in contrast to the twenty or twenty-five hours in the week-day school. To make an impression in so short a teaching period, with such long intervals between the lessons, demands that the teacher be one who possesses exceptional fitness for his work, and this superior fitness cannot be obtained without special and thorough training.
(2)The Teacher's Responsibility.All-important as is the work of religious teaching, for which the Bible is the chief text-book in the church, there is but one institution in our time charged with that mighty duty, and that is the Sunday school. The Bible is rarely taught in the home, which should be the first place for teaching it; it is only incidentally taught in the pulpit, of which the aimis not so much instruction as inspiration. Practically all the teaching of the Bible now devolves upon the Sunday school, and the Sunday school only. If the Sunday schools of the world for one generation should fail to teach the word of life, the knowledge of that word would well-nigh cease. And the one person charged with that task, the one on whom the responsibility rests, is the Sunday-school teacher. He who is intrusted with so great a work, and upon whose fidelity the work depends, must have a proper equipment; and that equipment presupposes training.
(3)The Demand of the Age.We are living in an intellectual age, unparalleled in the history of the world. The boundaries of knowledge in every direction have widened, and in each realm the search is deeper and more thorough. Such wealth has been added through recent investigations to the store of Bible knowledge that most commentaries, expositions, and introductions of the past have now but slight value. Another exceedingly important realm that has been added to the domain of knowledge is that of child study, but recently an unexplored field, now open to every reader. In such a time as this the teacher who would impart the contents of the Bible to the young must have eyes and mind opened. He must know the results of modern investigation in the Scriptures and in the nature of those whom he teaches. His pupils are under the care of trained and alert specialists through the week; they must receive instruction from well-taught minds in the Sunday school.
(4)The Teacher and His Class.The peculiarrelation already referred to as existing between the Sunday-school teacher and his class presents another incentive to training. His relation is not like that of the secular teacher, who speaks with authority, and can command attention and study. The teacher in Sunday school cannot require his scholars to learn the lesson; the authority of the parent is rarely employed to compel home study; and as a result most of our scholars come to the Sunday school unprepared. This is not the ideal or the ultimate condition, but unfortunately it is still the real condition in at least nine out of ten Sunday-school classes. This condition makes the demand upon the teacher all the greater. Because his scholars are unprepared he must be all the better prepared. He must be able to awaken and arouse his pupils; he must inspire them to an interest in the lesson; he must so teach as to lead them into knowledge of the truth and a desire to seek it for themselves. Anyone can teach the scholar who is eager to learn; but to teach those who come to the class unprepared and careless, to send them away with a clear-cut understanding of the lesson, and an awakened intelligence and conscience—all this, under the conditions of the Sunday-school teacher's task, and in his peculiar relation to his scholars, requires not only ability, but also thoroughly trained ability.
In view of all these considerations, it is not surprising that at the opening of the twentieth century the demand of the Sunday schools everywhere is for better teaching, and for teachers who have themselves been taught and are able to teach others.