THE TRAINING AND TASK OF THE TEACHER
1.The Training Needed.Many faithful workers in the Sunday school realize their need of preparation; but, while conscious of unfitness, they have no clear conception of the equipment which they require. What are those fields of knowledge which should be traversed by one who has been called to teach in the Sunday school? They comprise four departments: (1) the Book, (2) the scholar, (3) the school, and (4) the work.
(1)The Book.We have already noted that the Sunday school is differentiated from other systems of education in the fact that it uses mainly but one text-book, the Holy Scriptures. For that reason the teacher must first of all acquaint himself as thoroughly as possible with the contents of that wonderful volume. He should be a twentieth century Bible student; not a student or a scholar according to the light of the Middle Ages, or the seventeenth century, or even of the first half of the nineteenth century; for in all those periods the aims, the methods, and the scope of Bible study were different from those of the present time. He who is to teach the Bible successfully to-day must have some knowledge of the Bible in the following aspects:
(a) Its Origin and Nature. He must have a definite idea of how the sixty-six books of Scripture were composed, written, and preserved;and, as far as may be known, who were their authors.
(b) Its History. The Bible is, more than anything else, a book of history, containing the record of a people who received the divine revelation and preserved it. The divine revelation cannot be taught nor comprehended unless the annals of that remarkable people, the Israelites, be first read and understood. Therefore biblical history should be the first subject to be studied by the teacher in the Sunday school. The leading facts and underlying principles of that unique history must be understood; not in an outline of minute details, but as a general landscape, in which each lesson of the Bible will take its place.
(c) Its Geographical Background. The Bible brings before us a world of natural features which remain—seas, mountains, valleys, and plains; a world of political divisions which has passed away; its empires, kingdoms, and tribal relations; and cities and towns, some of them now desolate, others in poverty and in ruin. The teacher who is to instruct his pupils must be able to see those abiding elements, and by the aid of his historical imagination to reconstruct those that have changed. He must make that ancient world of the Bible roll like a panorama before the eyes of his mind.
(d) Its Institutions. Upon every page of the Bible are stamped pictures of manners, customs, institutions, forms of worship, that are unfamiliar to our Christian, Anglo-Saxon, modern world. The teacher must become familiar with this local color of another civilization, and enable his class to see it through his eyes.
(e) Its Ethical and Religious Teaching. In the past, and until a generation ago, the Bible was studied only for its doctrines. It was generally treated as one book, all written at once and by one author; its history, biography, institutions, were passed over as unimportant; while every sentence was searched for some light upon theology. From the Bible, by assorting and grouping its texts out of every book, a system of doctrine was constructed; and the mastery of this system with its proof-texts was regarded as the principal work of the Bible student. That method of Bible study has justly fallen into disuse among modern scholars. The Bible is now looked upon as a record of life rather than as a treasury of texts. Yet its stream of ethical, religious, and spiritual teaching must be found and followed by the student who is to teach the truth; and the doctrines revealed through the Bible should be regarded as a necessary part of his training.
(2)The Scholar.One book must be studied closely by the teacher, and that is his pupils. During the last thirty years human nature in all its stages, as child, as youth, during adolescence, and in maturity—especially in the earlier periods—has been investigated as never before. The student in our time can enter into the results of special study upon these subjects. He needs to know what the best books can give him of child study and mind study; and to supplement book-knowledge in this department with watchful eyes and close thought upon the traits which he finds in his own scholars.
(3)The School.The teacher in the Sundayschool needs to understand the institution wherein he is a worker. The Sunday school is like the week-day school, yet unlike it; and the teacher must be able to appreciate at once what he can follow and what he should avoid in the methods of the secular school. The history of the Sunday-school movement, its fundamental principles, its organization, officers, methods of management, and aims—all these are in the scope of the teacher's preparation.
(4)The Work.Whether on Sunday or on Monday, a teacher is after all a teacher, and the laws of true teaching are the same in a Sunday school, in a public school, and in a college. The application of those laws may vary according to the ages of pupils, the subjects of instruction, and the aims of the institution, but the principles are unchanging. Those enduring principles of instruction are well understood, are set down in text-books, and can easily be learned by a student. There are successful teachers who know these principles by an intuition that they cannot explain; but most people will save themselves from many mistakes and comparative failure by a close study of modern educational methods.
In some way knowledge in all these four great departments of training should be obtained by the teacher, if possible, before he enters upon his task; but if he has missed earlier opportunities of preparation he must acquire this knowledge even while he is teaching. The outlines of such a course of study should be given in the training class for young people; and such a training class should beregarded as essential to every well-organized school.[11]
2.The Teacher's Task.All the preparation briefly outlined in these last paragraphs is only preparatory to the work which the teacher is to do in his vocation. The task set before the teacher is fourfold:
(1)As a Student.The studies named above are not completed when the teacher has passed out of the training class with a certificate of graduation. The public-school teacher who ceases to study after finishing the course of the normal school is foredoomed to failure. The training class or the training school has only outlined before the teacher the fields to be traversed, and shown him a few paths which he may follow. He who has undertaken to teach a group of scholars, whether in the Beginners Department, the Senior Department, or any grade between them, must continue his studies, in the Bible, in the specific course of graded lessons which he is teaching, and in general knowledge; for there is no department of thought or action which will not bring tribute to the teacher, to be turned into treasure for his class. The Sunday-school teacher must ever maintain an open mind, a quick eye, and a spirit eager for knowledge. His accumulation will prove a store upon which to draw for teaching; and even that unused will give its weight to truth imparted to his class.
(2)As a Friend.The teacher is more than a student dealing with books; he is a living soulin contact with living souls. If the most masterly lesson teaching in the realm of thought could be spoken into a phonograph, and then ground out before a class, it would fail to teach, for it would utterly lack the human element. Knowledge counts for much in teaching, but personality counts for far more. If a teacher is to be successful he must have a close relationship with his class. They must know him, he must know them, and there must be a common interest, nay, a common affection, between the two personalities of teacher and pupil. He must be a friend to each one of his scholars, schooling himself, if need be, to friendship; and each of his scholars must be made to realize that his teacher is his friend. This personal affection need not always be stated in words. The teacher who constantly assures his scholars that he loves them will not be believed as readily as the one who shows his love in his spirit and his acts, even though he may refrain from affectionate forms of speech.
(3)As a Teacher.Teaching requires more than the possession of an abundant store of information upon any subject. He is not a teacher who simply pours forth upon the ears of his pupils an undigested mass of facts, however valuable those facts may be. The true teacher after large preparation assorts his material, and selects such matter as is appropriate to his own class. This he arranges in a form to be readily received, thoroughly comprehended, and easily remembered. He comes before his class with the fixed purpose that every pupil shall carry away with him a knowledge of the lesson, and shall not forget it. He mustawaken the pupil's attention; for talking to an inattentive group of people accomplishes no more than preaching to tombstones in a graveyard. He must obtain the coöperation of the pupil's interest, and induce him to think upon the subject. He must call forth from his pupil some expression of his thought in language, for one is never sure of his knowledge until he has shaped it into words; and that which the pupil has stated he is much surer to remember than that which he has merely heard. Teaching, then, involves (1) selection of material, (2) adaptation of material, (3) presentation of truth, (4) awakening thought, (5) calling forth expression, (6) fixing knowledge in the memory.
(4)As a Disciple.It is the teacher's task not only to impart to his scholars valuable information about the Bible, about God, about Christ, and about salvation; but, far more than imparting an intellectual knowledge, to bring the living word into relation with living souls, to inspire a fellowship of his pupils with God, to have Christ founded within them, to make salvation through Christ their joyous possession. Nor is his work as a working disciple accomplished when all his scholars have become Christians in possession and profession, and members of Christ's Church. By his example and his teachings he should lead them to efficient service for Christ in the church, in the community, and in the state. There is work for every member in the church, and work for everyone possessing the spirit of Christ in the community. Whatever may have been the type of a saint in the twelfth century, or in the sixteenth,or even in the early nineteenth century, in these stirring, strenuous years of the twentieth century the disciple of Christ is a man among men or a woman among women, active in the effort to make the world better, and to establish in his own village, or town, or ward of the city, the kingdom of heaven on earth. To inspire his scholars for such labors, and to lead them, is the supreme opportunity and work of the teacher.
THE CONSTITUENCY OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL
1.Relation to the Community.The Sunday school is a temple built of living stones; and the quarry from which they are taken in the rough, to be cut and polished for their places in the building, is the entire community in which the school is placed. In our time, more than ever before, the reasons are imperative why special study should be given to the community from which the school must draw its members. Certain principles of administration will become apparent when once the field is carefully considered.
(1)Constituency Adjacent.The population from which a given Sunday school draws its members must be generally that immediately around it. Some teachers and scholars may come from a distance, but even in this age of convenient transit by trains and trolley cars, it is found that, taking the church building as a center, the constituency of the Sunday school in a city is mostly within a radius of half a mile, and in the country within a mile. Throughout that sphere of influence the church should look well to the population, should know its proportionate elements, as far as possible should come into acquaintance with the families, and should plan to win, to evangelize, and to hold all its natural following.
(2)Membership Representative.Upon general and almost invariable principles, the Sunday schoolshould represent all the elements of the population within its environment. If it be a residence section with isolated houses, each containing but one family of well-to-do people, the church is apt to be a family church, and a large Sunday school must not be looked for, since large mansions rarely contain large families. If, on the other hand, the neighborhood be populous, characterized by varied strata of society—a few rich, a goodly number fairly prosperous, and a greater mass of wage-earners, yet the section as a whole American and not foreign in its civilization—then a flourishing, active, and growing Sunday school should be expected. And it should embrace all these elements, the rich, the middle class, and the wage-earners, in the proportion which each bears to the community as a whole. If the school in such a population be small, or if it be composed exclusively of one class, whether it be the so-called better class or the mission class, there is a serious error in its policy. The true Sunday school should be representative of all the elements in the population. It is both a crime and a blunder to limit the efforts of a Sunday school to one class of society: a crime, because such a school leaves multitudes around it to perish; and a blunder, because the effort results in an anæmic, dwindling, dying institution.
(3)Methods Adapted.Almost every community, whether in city or in country, possesses some traits peculiar to itself. There may be two towns ten miles apart, one the wealthy residential suburb of a city, the other a settlement surrounding a great factory. The population of these two placeswill be in marked contrast, and the methods of Christian work successful in one will utterly fail in the other. One street or avenue in a city may mark the boundary line between family churches and mission churches. Within ten minutes' walk of each other may stand two churches of the same denomination, yet so utterly apart in spirit as to possess nothing in common but name. It is possible that each of these two organizations might learn something from the other, and might do their Master's work better by a closer community of interest and feeling. Yet it would be a mistake to introduce into either church all the plans that are successful in the other; or to reject in one Sunday school any method because it has proved a failure in another and a different field. The work of each church and Sunday school must be adapted to the population from which its membership is to be drawn.
2.The Changing Population.One of the most imperative questions confronting the gospel worker, both in the church and the Sunday school, arises from the constant changes taking place in our population. In the cities we see stately churches, once thronged, now well-nigh desolate, while their walls echo to the tread upon the sidewalk of a churchless multitude. In front of a fine old church, where once millionaires worshiped, the writer has often passed a news-stand upon which are for sale newspapers in seven different languages. And too often one finds that the churches of a generation ago have been turned into low theaters, or torn down, giving place to stores and office buildings. The general principle may be laiddown, that a church in the city almost never lives more than one generation in the same building and with the same character. After thirty years as the very longest period, if it is to retain its members, it must follow them in the march up-town; or if it is to retain its location and still hold a congregation it must seek an absolutely new constituency, and to this end must transform its methods of work. Nor are these migrations of population confined to the city. The towns and villages are governed by the same law of change. A village, once the seat of quiet homes, is suddenly turned into a factory town, with a new and strange population. The farms on country roads, abandoned by the families that formerly tilled them, are occupied by foreigners of alien speech and manners. The building of a railroad will open new towns, and at the same time will make more than one deserted village. These changes in population must be considered in their relation to the work of the Sunday school. The movement will be characterized by varied traits in different places.
(1)A Growing Population.The change may be that of a healthy growth in population, making the community a desirable place for a church and a Sunday school. Such a development is constantly taking place in the newer portions of a city, whose population is moving from the center to the rim; or it may be noted in suburban towns, as facilities of transportation bring new residents from the metropolis; or it may appear in villages springing up on the line of a railroad, where home-seekers are settling and building habitations.Leaders in church and Sunday-school work must watch these growing centers, and provide wisely for their religious needs. It will not suffice to wait for these newcomers to build their own churches and organize their own Sunday schools. Most of them are taxed to the utmost in building or buying their own homes, and will scarcely realize their need until the habit of neglecting worship has become fixed, and their children grow up without religious education. The old and strong churches must extend a hand to the settlers, must preëmpt church sites at the very beginning, must help to erect chapels, for a time must supply workers, and must set the current of the new settlement Godward and churchward. The reward of their labor and their liberality will not long be delayed.
(2)A Declining Population.There are places where the population has lessened, making the work of the Sunday school increasingly difficult and its results meager. It may be in the city, where business has crowded away the dwellers of other years, as in the lower end of Manhattan Island in New York. There tall office buildings and warehouses stand on sites formerly occupied by churches, but no longer needed, now that almost the only residents are the janitors and their families, living on the roofs of the towerlike temples of trade. But oftener the region of the declining population is found in the country. Villages once prosperous have gradually lost their inhabitants. In places where three or four churches, each with its Sunday school, were formerly well supported, there is now scarcely aconstituency for one. Yet all these churches, though decayed and dying by inches, are still maintained; and each church still houses a discouraged Sunday school, attended by a faithful few, but with no hope of growth and an imminent peril of extinction. If loyalty to a denomination could give way to love for the kingdom of Christ, these might be consolidated into one church and one Sunday school for all the community. We venture the prophecy that before the twentieth century comes to its close this will be throughout the American continent the accepted settlement of the question. May its fulfillment be not long delayed! In the meantime these decayed but still enduring Sunday schools and churches in a community should seek for peace and friendship, not emphasizing the points of doctrine or of system that differ, but those that agree, and striving to maintain the unity of the spirit in a bond of love.
(3)A Population Changing Socially.A serious problem often arises, not from a decline but from a change in the social condition of the population within the sphere of the church. The downtown church may have been forsaken by its former members, but people of another class, and in greater numbers, have taken their places. The mansions have become boarding houses, flats and apartment houses have arisen, while the thronged sidewalks, and the children playing in the streets, are evidence that the material for members of the church and the Sunday school is greater than before. True, the new inhabitants are of a different social order from the old, clerks and porters insteadof merchants, employees instead of employers, working people in place of the leisure class. The fact that the social level of the neighborhood may be regarded by the worldly-minded as lower than formerly does not lessen its need of the gospel, nor render it less promising for Christian work. The church should look upon its field with unprejudiced eyes, should have an understanding of the time; should be alert to see and to seize its opportunity; and should change its methods with its changed constituency. The field must not be abandoned; it must be cultivated, and new forms of tillage will bring forth abundant harvests.
(4)An Alien Population.The most perplexing of all social problems arises when immigration has swept into the district surrounding the church a tide of people whose birth and speech are foreign, supplanting and in large measure driving out the native population. There are sections in our cities where the signs on the stores are all Bohemian, or Polish, or Yiddish; where an English-speaking church would remain absolutely empty, though thousands throng the streets. It may be that in such conditions gospel work under American methods can no longer be maintained; and a removal may be necessary. But even in the most unpromising fields this conclusion should not be hastily reached. We spend large sums in sending missionaries to the lands from which some strangers come; should we not embrace opportunities of evangelizing these at our own door? There are difficulties, but they are not nearly as insuperable as those in foreign fields. These foreign-born or foreign-descended children sit beside our own inthe public school; should we shut them out from our Sunday schools? In less than a generation millions of these boys and girls will be as thoroughly American as our own children. When we consider the question of abandoning any field on account of its foreign population, let us widen our horizon of thought to embrace the future as well as the present, and then form our conclusion concerning the duty of the Sunday school to the community.
3.Practical Suggestions.A few hints, some of them already given, may summarize the practical side of the subject:
(1)Study the Field.The Sunday school must live not in the past, but in the present, with a clear vision of the future. It must not only cherish a loving memory of its field as it has been, but understand thoroughly what it is, and what forces are shaping it for the future. The leaders in each Sunday school working for itself, or preferably those conducting the Sunday schools of a neighborhood working unitedly, should ascertain the nationality, religious condition, and church relations of every family in the district; and not only of every family, of every individual who may have a room in a boarding house. Each political organization knows the residence and party proclivities of every voter in the district; and the churches may learn from the politicians practical lessons upon the best methods of work.
(2)Cultivate the Field.Since the scholars must come to the school from the population around it, they should be sought, brought in, taught, and evangelized, with all the energy and wisdom which the church possesses. And not only the scholars,but also, in large degree, the teachers must be home-born and home-taught; therefore the Sunday school, to be successful, must train up workers from its own constituency.
(3)Provide for all Elements.By diligent and constant effort the school should be made representative of all ages, of all classes, of all sections, and as far as practicable of all races found in its community.
(4)Adapt Methods.If a former constituency has removed from the field, and a new population has surged in, the new element must be looked upon as the constituency of the school. Its needs must be recognized, however different they may be from the needs of the past; and plans must be formed to meet those needs, whatever transformation of the school the new plans may involve.
RECRUITING THE SUNDAY SCHOOL
1.Necessity.The aspiration for advancement is natural and noble; and therefore every member of the Sunday school who is interested in its welfare, whether officer, teacher, or pupil, desires it to increase in membership, and to spread its benefits as widely as possible. But the recruiting of the Sunday school is not only desirable, but necessary. It is found that in every school there exists an outflow as well as an inflow of members. If in certain departments, as the Primary, new scholars are constantly enrolled, in other departments, as the older grades of the Intermediate and the Senior, there is as constant a dropping out of members from the school. It has been estimated that in most Sunday schools from twenty to twenty-five per cent of the membership changes annually, so that the average period of a teacher or scholar in the Sunday school is less than five years. There are some who remain longer, but others who are members for even a shorter time. Upon the average, every school is a new school once in four or five years. If one fifth of the school leaves every year, there must be an equal number enter it, to keep the school at its normal size. But any institution dependent upon the maintenance of a constituency, whether it be a periodical, a life-insurance association, or a Sunday school, begins to decline when its number remainsstationary. The health and life of the school, therefore, require a constant renewal of its membership. The school must have new blood, or it will soon be impoverished and in time die.
2.The Losses from the School.Before the presentation of plans for winning new scholars comes the vital question of holding the scholars already on the roll; for the condition of leakage has a close relation to growth or decline. If the causes of the leakage can be ascertained, and the drain can be stopped, we shall be materially aided in our effort to enlarge the school.
(1)The Search in the School.Careful notation should be kept of the grades from which scholars are lost, or which are below a normal membership; and equally careful inquiry should be made as to the cause of the decline, and methods to correct it should be sought. Is it in the Primary Department, which should be the most rapidly growing department in the school? Is it in the Junior or Intermediate Department, where there ought to be a steady increase, even if it be slow? Is it in the Senior Department? Here there is great danger of losses, especially among young men. Is it not possible to find why they leave the school, and what will induce them to remain? Perhaps the school is deficient in the Adult Department. Must it be admitted that the Sunday school is for children only, and that as soon as its members become men and women their departure from the school is to be expected? The investigation should be more than general, ascertaining what departments are suffering loss; it should be personal, including the name and grade of every scholar who hasceased to attend for a definite period; and as far as possible the reason for his leaving the school.
(2)Following up Absentees.A systematic plan for watching over the membership of the school should be instituted and vigorously maintained. For example, in some schools a report of every absentee is made by the secretary to the superintendent. On Monday morning each teacher receives by mail the list of his absent scholars, with a request to send in writing, as soon as practicable, the cause of absence for each one. In many schools this work of looking after the absentees is performed by paid visitors—a good plan, but not so good as for the teacher to come into personal touch with his own scholars. A business firm watches over its customers, and endeavors in every possible way to hold them. The Sunday school which can maintain its grasp upon its members has the problem of growth already half solved.
3.Characteristics of a Growing School.The strongest force in recruiting the Sunday school is to be found in the character of the school itself. The merchant must have his shelves stocked with attractive goods if he expects customers. In order to obtain scholars there must be a good school.
(1)Efficient.The school should maintain high educational standards; should be thoroughly graded in all its departments, with suitable lessons for each grade; and should have organized classes for young people and adults. The thoroughly good school will rarely lack for scholars.
(2)Attractive.The school should be attractive as well as efficient. Its meeting place should becheerful and airy, with suitable furniture and apparatus, above ground, and not a damp, dingy basement. It should have enjoyable exercises, like a school, yet not too severely like a public school. It should greet new members heartily, make them feel at home, and cultivate acquaintance with them. There should be an animating spirit of loyalty and love for the school; a devotion which will inspire active effort in its behalf. Around the school should be the atmosphere of a happy home.
(3)Prominent.Among the activities of the church the school should stand forth prominently. It should be kept in mind that, as the neighborhood furnishes the constituency of the school, so the school furnishes the members for the church. In our time three fourths of the accessions by profession of faith come from the Sunday school. The school should be held in honor as the principal source of supply to the church membership. If the audience room is large and imposing, and the Sunday-school room is inferior and unattractive; if the pulpit and the choir are amply supported while the school receives a narrow sustenance, however great the prosperity of the church its duration will be brief. The Sunday school must stand in the foreground, and not in the background, if the church is to grow; and the growing church should have a growing Sunday school.
(4)Special Occasions.Throughout the Sunday-school year occur days which should be recognized, as breaking the monotony of the regular exercises, and as attractive features of the school. Such are Christmas, Easter, Children's Day in June, Rally Day in the fall, and Decision Day, when the netis drawn for discipleship in behalf of the church. Some superintendents look upon these occasions as burdensome, but with careful preparation and an attractive program they will add to the interest of the school, while in no wise detracting from the efficiency of its educational work. An occasional social entertainment for the school, or for each department in turn, and an outing day in the summer, will strengthen thatesprit de corpsor animating spirit of the school which is its strongest drawing power in attracting new members.
(5)Special Helps.There are communities where certain methods may avail more than elsewhere. A well-conducted Sunday-school library, no longer needed in many places, may be of great value in villages where there is no public library. A reading room, social hall, and gymnasium may constitute the church a home for young men whose dwelling places may be in close tenement houses. Young men are in saloons, and young women are in amusement parks, who might spend their evenings under the healthy influence of the church if places were provided. These plans and other features of the institutional church will need careful and wise administration if they are to do good and not harm; but in many places they will minister to the success of the school and the church, and also to the uplifting of the community.
4.Reaching Beyond the School.Thus far in this chapter we have considered the school rather than the field. One of the chief tasks of the Sunday school, however, is to reach out and lay hold of all the inhabitants, both young and old, in the area of its influence. The following active measureshave proved effective in reaching the people and winning them to the school.
(1)Advertise.The school should be kept before the community in every legitimate way. Merchants tell us that the secret of success is first to have salable goods, and then to advertise them; and the same principle applies to the Sunday school. Printer's ink should be used liberally, but wisely. Only neatly printed, attractive matter should be employed. Invitation cards, leaflets, programs of special services, a little periodical devoted to the school, a year book containing the school register, and many other forms of advertisement will help to inform the neighborhood that the school is at work and is ready to welcome new members.
(2)Invite.Every officer, teacher, scholar, and parent should consider himself a committee to speak to others about the school, and to invite his friends and acquaintances to attend it. The little children should ask their playmates, boys and girls in school their classmates, young men their shopmates, young women their associates. No printed paper can have a tenth of the power possessed by the living voice and a hearty hand-shake. It is assumed that the invitation is given only to those who are not already attached to any church or school. All possible care should be taken to maintain a fraternal spirit, and not to build up our own wall by pulling down another.
(3)Visit.The field belonging to the school should be bounded definitely, and should be thoroughly and systematically canvassed. It should be divided into districts, and each district assignedto a visitor and a committee, who should know who may be included in the proper constituency of the school. For this work many schools and churches employ a paid visitor or a deaconess; and none can surpass the zeal or fidelity of many who enter upon such a vocation. But the schools which cannot afford professional workers include some teachers and some adult scholars who can give a portion of their own time to the same task. An organized class of men might be named which grew into over a hundred members through persistent work by a simple plan. A lookout committee, after careful inquiry, would report the names and addresses of men eligible for membership. Then the members in order and by appointment, in groups of two, called upon each candidate, formed his acquaintance, and invited him to the class. Sometimes thirty or forty men would call, but in time almost every man visited yielded to the friendly social influence, became a member, and soon after a worker for the class.
5.A Danger.A caution may be needed with reference to all these plans of recruiting the school. Advertising may be carried to the excess of becoming sensational. Invitations may be pressed upon scholars in other schools. The effort for increase may degenerate into unfriendly rivalry. A good plan may work evil when worked in a selfish spirit. And a too-rapid growth is sure to be unhealthy. The late B. F. Jacobs said, "God pity the Sunday school that gets a hundred scholars at one time!" A quiet, steady, diligent, persistent effort for the school will be of permanent benefit, rather than a spasm of enthusiasm.
THE TESTS OF A GOOD SUNDAY SCHOOL
In the United States more than a hundred thousand Sunday schools are in session every week. Some of them are very good, many are only moderately efficient, and some are poor in every respect. The question arises, what constitutes a good Sunday school? Is it possible to establish some standard of measurement by which the rank of any Sunday school can be fixed? In such a standard there must be several factors, for the points of excellence in Sunday school are not one, but many. It is the aim in this closing chapter to ascertain the criteria or the tests of a good Sunday school. The statement of these tests involves the summing up and in some measure the repetition of much already given throughout these pages.
1.Representative Character.The first test of a Sunday school is found in its relation to the community around it. The Sunday school is not a bed of exotic plants, dug up from their native soil, potted and protected in a conservatory. It is an outdoor garden wherein are cultivated the flowers and fruits that are indigenous to the region. A true Sunday school is a group of people drawn out of the larger world around it, and representing every element in that world, both as regards social life and age. If it represents the rich and the prosperous only, it is not a good school, unless theneighborhood is unfortunate in containing only such people. If it is a mission school for poor people in the midst of a self-supporting population, it is not a good school. If it includes few members above sixteen, and none above twenty-five years of age, it is not a good school, for it should embrace all ages from the infant to the grandfather. The school which is to stand on the roll of honor is one that fairly represents its constituency.
2.Organization.Another requirement for a good school is that it be well organized as a graded school. There may be Sunday schools which make up by their spirit for what they lack in system; yet the exceptions are few to the rule that in Sunday-school work organization is essential to success. It is true that machinery creates no power; there is nothing in a constitution and by-laws to make an institution successful. It is the efforts of living men and women that bring to pass results. But organization directs and economizes power; so that, other elements being equal, the graded school quickly becomes the best school. We have already seen that a graded school is one with departments defined, with the number of classes in each department fixed according to the needs of the school, with promotions at regular periods, based either on age or examination or merit, or on all three factors in combination, with lessons graded according to the departments, and, as its most important element, with a change of teachers when the pupil is promoted from a lower to a higher grade or department. The graded system is not easy to establish; it requires firmness and tact in the authorities, and a self-denyingspirit on the part of teachers; but it will abundantly and quickly repay all it costs in effort and sacrifice, and it is an essential in a really good Sunday school.
3.Order.A good school is orderly, yet it is not too orderly. Everybody is in place at the proper time. At the minute, and not a minute later, the superintendent opens the school. If he rings a bell, it is a gentle, musical one, held up by the leader as a signal and scarcely sounded. There is not more confusion than at the opening of any other religious service. Only one service is conducted at a time; singing is worshipful, just as well as prayer, and the Scriptures are read thoughtfully and reverently. No officers are rushing up and down the aisles during the services; no loud calls are made for order; yet there is a suitable quietness when quietness is desirable. A good school is never disorderly, yet it cannot be said that the best school is always the most orderly. Occasionally one sees a Sunday school where order has gone to the extreme of repressing all enthusiasm, where the program is too finely cut and too thoroughly dried, where the mechanism moves with the precision of the lockstep in a state prison. The ideal of the Sunday school is not that of the French minister of education who is reported to have stated that he could look at his watch and tell at that minute what question was before each class in every school in France!
4.Spirit.For lack of a more definite term we call the next characteristic of a good Sunday school its spirit. In any successful school one feels rather than finds a peculiar and individual atmosphere. Every member, from the superintendent tothe Primary scholar, manifests an interest in the institution; an interest of blended love, loyalty, enjoyment in it and enthusiasm for it. There is a social spirit in each class and in the school as a whole. Its members do not meet as passengers in a railway station, each one wrapped up in his own business and watching for his own train. They all have their individual friendships and social relations, yet a bond unites them all as members of one Sunday school. This peculiaresprit de corps, an interest in the institution, is a strongly marked feature in every progressive Sunday school.
5.Educational Efficiency.The Sunday school is in the world with a definite work—religious education. Its religion will be based on the Old Testament and kindred literature in a Jewish school; it will be based on both the Old and New Testament and supplemental literature in a Christian school; but whether Jewish or Christian, its work is the teaching of religion, as contained in the living Word, and illustrated by the lives and teachings of the heroes of the faith. The true test of a Sunday school is the answer that it can give to the question, "Does it teach the vital religious truths of the race so as to develop individual character and efficiency?" That is its task, and by its success in accomplishing it each school is to be judged; not by the splendor of its building, or the exactness of its machinery, or the enthusiasm of its members. The thirty or thirty-five minutes devoted to the lesson is the supremely important period in every true Sunday school. The time is often bound to be all too short for teaching divine truth, and printing it upon mind and memory so deeply thatall the studies and pleasures of the six days between the two Sundays will not cause the teaching to fade. Yet the time is as long as the ordinary teacher (or preacher) can hold attention to one subject, and therefore in most classes it is sufficient. Toward that half hour of teaching, therefore, all the energies of the school, of the training class, home study, teachers' meeting, gradation, government, should be turned. For the vital aim of the Sunday school is the eternal message of God to men through men, so that men and women of the Christ spirit and character may be developed.
6.Character-Building.The first task, therefore, of the Sunday school is to teach the Word, but that teaching is only a means to an end, and that end is greater than mere intellectual knowledge—it is the building up of a complete character. This is more than "bringing souls to Christ," or leading them into church membership. If the sole aim of the Sunday school was to compass the salvation of the scholar and to surround him with the walls of a church, then we might safely dismiss our scholars when they have passed through a crisis of conversion and entered the church door. But the Sunday school is to do more than save its scholars from sin. It is to train them in the completeness of a Christian character; and such a character involves not only personal righteousness but also service for God and humanity. Its aim is not to take people apart out of the world, but to set them in the world, equipped for work in making the world a Christian world, and thereby establishing on earth the kingdom of heaven. The measure by which the Sunday school accomplishessuch a work as this, constitutes the final, crucial test of its success.
It cannot be said that any one of these six essentials of a good Sunday school stands supreme. They do not march in Indian file; nor are they to be set one against another in a comparison of values. These traits of a complete Sunday school should rather be regarded as one of the New Testament writers describes the traits of a complete character, in that familiar yet only half-understood passage, "As in the harmony of a choral song, blend with your faith the note of energy, and with your energy the note of knowledge, and with your knowledge the note of self-mastery,"[12]through all the eight aspects of the Christian; so let these six essential elements be combined to form that noble institution, the ideal Sunday school.