What the Sunday-school library should be depends on what the community is. These libraries, therefore, should not pattern after one another like peas in a pod, as is too often the case, but each should have an individuality of its own. The Sunday-school in a city, with an overflowing public library and an excellent public-school library at hand, has no excuse for distributing secular books; while such books may form a useful addition to the library of a country school.
Of course there is danger in admitting secular books to the Sunday-school library under any circumstances, and I would not for the world add one more to the many subtle inroads upon the Lord's day. If you place in your library any books that are not suitable Sunday reading, cover them with paper of a distinctive color, mark them "For week-day reading only," and watch them carefully, that you may withdraw them from circulation if you find themtrenching on the sacred hours. With proper restrictions, however, the church may find here a blessed ministry to many book-hungry communities. Biographies like Irving's "Washington" or Holland's "Lincoln"; histories like Motley's "Rise of the Dutch Republic"; poems like "Snowbound," "The Idyls of the King," "Evangeline"; essays like Smiles' "Self Help" or Mathews' "Getting on in the World"; books of science like Winchell's "Sparks from a Geologist's Hammer" or Proctor's "Other Worlds than Ours,"—if you can get your scholars to read on week-days such books as these, you will deepen, broaden, and enrich the soil in which you do your Sunday sowing.
But the more the community needs books, the harder it is to raise money for them. This, however, is merely a difficulty of the start. A few books, shrewdly chosen, will create a hunger for more, and that hunger will open the pocketbooks.
Hold a book social, admission to which shall be a copy, old or new, of some good book. The entertainment at this social should be appropriate. Let each person that comes carry about him a token of some book, such as a card about his neck reading, "Who teaches you?" ("Hoosier School Master"!). Illustrate a poem with shadow pictures. Place about the room numbered portraits of authors for the company to name. Add readings and essays on literary themes.
A course of lectures and concerts is possible, nowadays,for almost any enterprising community, and the proceeds will give the library a start.
For a time you may charge two cents for the reading of each book, thus forcing the library itself to earn its double in the course of a year.
At the beginning,—or, for that matter, all the time,—the generous among the church-members may be urged tolendbooks to the library for a year at a time. Such books should be covered with different paper from the others, and plainly marked with the name of the lender and an injunction to especial carefulness in handling them.
The library will be generously supported, if its books are sensibly selected; but this is not an easy task. Do not leave it to any single man, but appoint the wisest men and women of the church a committee on selection, and require them all to read every book that is chosen. Obviously, the value of such a committee will increase with the growing years, and it should be a permanent body.
Many booksellers will send books on approval. The review columns in the religious papers should be regularly watched. The committee should be placed on the mailing-lists of all the best publishers, to receive their regular announcements of books. They should get into correspondence with the librarians of other schools, learning from them what books are popular and helpful. And, above everything else, they should get in contact with the scholars of their own school, to watch the practical effect of the books they select.
Regarding the selection of books, first, some "dont's."
Don't choose any volume, no matter how famous, without reading every word of it. One of the grandest of biographies, for instance, is Franklin's autobiography; but you will not wish to put before young readers his chapter on his religion—or lack of it. Wonderfully inspiring essays are Emerson's; but here and there a sentence speaks of Christ as a mere man. A very stimulating booklet is "Blessed be Drudgery"; but one sentence spoils it for our use, since it places Jesus at the end of a list of philosophers at whose head stands Herbert Spencer.
Don't buy "fads." Wait and see whether the book now so much lauded is heard of next year.
Don't buy the books that have fittingly been called "a-little-child-shall-lead-them" stories. Bill Nye described them as tales relating how a dear little boy, though but five and a half and crippled, took in back stairs to scrub, and supported his widowed mother, and sent his sister to college.
Don't buy "libraries." As sensibly let a man that has never seen you order for you a suit of clothes.
Don't buy "sets" and "series" and "sequels." Judge every book on its merits.
Don't buy the books of one publishing-house alone, however excellent, any more than you would fill your home with the works of only one painter.
Don't confine your choice merely to the "Sunday-school writers." Books that are not virile enough toattract and help folks outside the Sunday-school are not likely to prove very useful inside.
Don't buy by authors. "Aunt Mary's Candlestick," by Jemima Jones, may have been the greatest success of the year in your school; but that is no reason why you should load up with "Aunt Mary's Dust-brush" and "Aunt Mary's Needlecase" and "Aunt Mary's Dish-mop," by the same industrious author.
In fine, don't buy any book, no matter who is its publisher or author, or what its reputation, unless that particular book meets some particular need of your particular school.
And now, what shall we buy? Stories, of course, in delightful measure. The Sunday-school library has the highest authority for teaching in parables. And for these stories there are three requirements.
First, they must be attractive. What is the use of a book if it will not be read?
Second, they must be natural. He who is the Truth will never bless a story of lifeless, jerking, galvanized puppets, gibbering forced aphorisms and preposterous piety, and acting in a red fire of sensational incidents. Real boys and girls, real men and women, real life, and therefore life intensely interesting,—these must dwell in our Sunday-school stories.
And finally, the stories must be helpful. Each must have a point, a purpose. They must be outright for Christ, if they are to make outright Christians.
Don't neglect the old-fashioned stories, such as the Rollo books. They are full of meat. Especially helpful are such stories of Bible times as "Ben Hur." Provided their imaginings do not outrun the Bible facts, we can scarcely have too many of them. Do not forget, either, the books that tell the Bible stories themselves, in simple language, for the little ones. Above all stories, do not omit the "Pilgrim's Progress," but buy a volume in large type and beautifully illustrated.
Next to stories, what? Emphatically, lives of the great Christians; above all, missionaries. There are brief, bright, well-illustrated lives of Mackay, the marvelous mechanic, Carey, the consecrated cobbler, Paton, the hero of the New Hebrides, Livingstone the daring, Martyn the saintly, Judson the sagacious, Patteson, the white knight of Melanesia, and a host of other grand men. What inspiration to a splendid life is to be gained from the story of Madagascar's dusky martyrs, or the account of Allen Gardiner's magnificent death in Patagonia! What a spur to active service is the tale of the winning of Hawaii, the opening up of Japan, the self-sacrificing missions of the Moravians, the daring ride of Whitman across the continent for the salvation of Oregon!
Then, there are the lives of great reformers like Luther, John Howard, Wilberforce, John B. Gough, and of such superb Christians as Gladstone, Wesley, Washington, William of Orange. There is no need of a long list. The trouble is not to find the books, but to awaken among your scholars a hunger for thereal heroism of real men as opposed to the imaginary heroism of fiction.
Another section of your library should contain books that bear directly on the work of the school. There must be the best works on teaching, such as Trumbull's "Teachers and Teaching," Schauffler's "Ways of Working," Boynton's "The Model Sunday-school," and Du Bois' "The Point of Contact." There must be some account of the Bible, like Rice's "Our Sixty-six Sacred Books"; some brief and attractive manual of Christian evidences, like Fisher's or Robinson's; some life of Christ, like Geikie's or Farrar's; some account of the history, polity, and teachings of your denomination. Thompson's "The Land and the Book," Smith's "Historical Geography of the Holy Land," Geikie's "Hours with the Bible," Taylor's "Moses, the Lawgiver," Deems' "The Gospel of Common Sense," Pierce's "Pictured Truth," Butterworth's "The Story of the Hymns,"—each of these is a type of a class of books helpful to teachers,—and to scholars also, if they can be brought to read them. Add, for the temperance lessons, such books as Banks' "The Saloon-keeper's Ledger," Gustafson's "The Fountain of Death," and Strong's "Our Country" and "The New Era."
I wonder that so few Sunday-school libraries contain the great Christian poems, such as "Paradise Lost," Browning's "Saul," Lowell's "Vision of Sir Launfal," Arnold's "The Light of the World," and many more that would illuminate the lessons.
Many fascinating books of science for young folks have been written expressly from the Christian stand-point. Why not add to the library such books as Kingsley's "Glaucus," Burr's "Ecce Cœlum," Agnes Gibberne's "Sun, Moon, and Stars," Keyser's "In Bird-land"?
I may seem to be suggesting books for the older scholars mainly. Let me here urge that equal care and thought be spent on the volumes for the little tots and the "intermediates." Their books are not so interesting to the mature-minded committee, and so they are more likely to be chosen at haphazard.
This is especially true of the books for the primary department. Two or three pounds of their diminutive volumes are shoveled up in a mass, read by title, and tucked in at the end of the list. This carelessness is especially injurious, because it is at their age that the reading habit is formed, and it is of the utmost importance that the tiniest books in the library shall be bright, helpful, and of real literary value. To discover these will prove one of the most difficult tasks of the conscientious committee.
Do not give up the old favorites. When Susan Coolidge's "Katy Did" series wears out, give the old books away to some poorer school and get a fresh set of the same. Remember that new scholars are all the time entering, and that there is no recommendation for a book so effective as the young people's own testimony, "I have read it, and I know you will like it."
Have an eye to the paper and type and binding. Many books intended for Sunday-school libraries are printed on stiff, pulpy paper, that refuses to remain open at any place without cracking the back, and use a cramped and formal typography more suitable to a funeral sermon than to a book intended to attract young folks.
If your funds allow, it is an admirable plan to obtain more than one copy of certain books especially likely to be needed by several classes at once, such as books on Christian evidences, on the Bible, and on the themes of the current lessons.
It is one thing to gather a library, and quite another to get it used, and well used. The first point is to introduce it to the teachers. They must consider these "teachers in 8vo" to be their assistants, and must be thoroughly acquainted with them.Every teacher should read every book in the library that is within the range of his scholars' comprehension.How otherwise can he guide their reading? Of course the most hasty perusal will be sufficient, provided it shows the teacher the heart of the book. A teacher should learn the useful art of rapid reading.
Let the teacher, as part of his preview of the quarter's lessons, make out a list of library books that teach the principal truths of the quarter ahead of him, and give this list to each scholar with the first lesson. A few minutes of each teachers' meeting might well be spent in giving suggestions regarding the use of the library to illustrate the next lesson. Let the teacheroften refer to these books in the course of his teaching, learn what appropriate books each scholar has been reading, and get him to give the class some account of them.
Often it will be well for the teacher to ask some scholar to read a certain story or biography or poem during the week, and be ready to tell about it for an illustration of next Sunday's truths.
If you have no teachers' meeting, once in a while the librarian may mention at the prayer-meeting some library book of timely helpfulness, or the pastor might even speak of it from the pulpit.
It is far better to buy the books a few at a time. In some schools a new book is added to the library every Sunday of the fifty-two. The chairman of the library committee comes forward with the book in his hand, and describes it in a few bright, brisk sentences. Its title and number are plainly written on the blackboard in front of the school. The choice is varied,—now a book for the youngest, next week one for the older scholars.
Some libraries have a special case for the new books, where every one can readily find them and examine them. Indeed, the scholars are far more easily introduced to all the books, new and old, if they have free access to the shelves and can handle the books themselves, thus coming to know each as an old friend. By the way, I do not believe in covering the books. Covered books have no individuality.
Happy the school that has a good-sized room for its library. Some even get it by placing the books in a house next door to the church.
I have known schools to get acquainted with their books by coming together for a "library evening," in which the wealth of the library was disclosed by various speakers, each trying to interest the school in one book, or class of books.
After all, the library catalogue may be the best agent of introduction. Every library should have one, though it is only a home-made affair, manufactured on a typewriter or a hectograph. Every book should be briefly described, so that the scholars may know, for instance, the scene and purpose of each story, the kind of man described in each biography, and whether it is a book for old, young, or primary scholars. Some librarians mark one catalogue for each class, indicating the books especially pleasing to scholars of the average age of the class, so that the teacher may guide their selection. Others divide the catalogue into sections, each containing the books appropriate to one division of the school.
Not only should a teacher knowwhathis scholars are reading, but he should find outhowthey read. He should try to teach them the art of reading. The demoralizing habit of reading merely for the moment's pleasurable excitement and the next moment's forgetting may be formed as easily with Sunday-school stories as with newspapers.
Some librarians, to this end, place in each book aslip of paper, and the scholar is expected to write upon this at least one thing he has learned from the book, telling at the same time how he likes it.
If the scholars, as will likely happen, are reading little but stories, the librarian himself can do much to promote more solid reading by reporting every month to the school the number of stories read, the number of biographies, etc. This report may be made by classes, and teachers and scholars should be urged to make a better record next month.
Let me close this chapter with a few points regarding library management.
It is poor economy of labor to change the librarian frequently, so much of his usefulness depends on his familiarity with the books, and that familiarity requires time to gain. If you can find a librarian that does not especially need the benefit of the Bible study, one that loves and understands children, keep him in office as long as may be. But be sure to give him an assistant to aid the children in their selections, or record the books while the librarian is consulting with the children; also to take the librarian's place when he is sick or absent, or possibly to take turns with him in presiding over the library, so that each may recite the lesson half the time.
The books will be gathered up on the entrance of the scholars. A table or a basket or an usher may be placed at the door for this purpose. If the scholars cannot be given access to the books and select them themselves, the librarians will pass quietly aroundamong the classes, leaving the new books at each table; but these books are never to be given to the scholars until just before they leave.
The most effective record, yet a very simple one, may be made by any librarian. Give to each scholar a card bearing his name and his number. On this he writes a list of about ten numbers of the books he prefers. As the librarian places his card in one of these new books, that number is scratched off and the date written opposite. At the same time the librarian writes the scholar's number and the date in his library catalogue after the number of the book taken out, and upon a list of the scholars' numbers writes the number of the book after the number of the scholar. When the book is returned lines are drawn through these records. Thus at any time the librarian can see what books are out, who has them, how long they have had them, what books each scholar has read, and how often each book has been taken out.
As the Sunday-school library should teach punctuality, among other good things, the librarian should strictly require every book to be brought back at the end of the week or fortnight, no matter who the scholar may be, or whether the book is in much or little demand. It may not be best to establish any system of fines, but a postal-card notice should be sent in aggravated cases, and sometimes the teacher should be asked to look up the book. It will spur the scholars to promptness if they know that each instanceof tardiness is recorded against their names on the library's records.
The proper care of books is another good thing the library should teach. Any marked blemish in a book should be noted when it is sent out; and when a book is injured by a scholar, the librarian should always speak to him about it, or get the teacher to do this if the child is a stranger to him. A plainly printed slip urging careful handling, forbidding dog's ears, and the like, may well be pasted in each book.
It is sometimes possible and advantageous to open the library at some time during the week, especially on prayer-meeting evenings, when the older folks can select their books, or, for the benefit of the children, on Friday afternoons after school.
Some classes will like to have little libraries of their own, containing Bibles for each scholar, Bible atlas, a Revised Bible, a Bible dictionary, a concordance, etc. Always it is well to arrange for the entire school a special reference library, the contents of which will largely change from quarter to quarter. In it will be placed the general Bible helps and whatever books are of special interest for the quarter's lessons. The scholars may be sent to these reference shelves during the lesson hour. At least one school has a special case, always open, for books of this nature, and places the case in the front of its main schoolroom.
On the whole, it will be seen that this chapter is a plea for a Sunday-school library that is a corporate part of the Sunday-school teaching, that will help theteacher on Sunday, and carry his teaching through the week. Such a library virtually adds scores of the wisest men and women to the teaching force of the school, and multiplies by many hours the pitiful thirty minutes given to the lesson.
Our conventions are the grand council fires in the war the Sunday-school is waging against the forces of evil. The flame of the Holy Spirit should blaze in their midst. With military directness they should go straight to the immediate needs, find out what they are, plan the campaign. Orderly and in turn, all should have a part in them, not only the speakers, but the audience, one school and every school. With hearts uplifted, with zeal on fire, every teacher should leave the gathering bent on more valiant service.
Only a well-planned convention can effect this,—a convention long thought over and prayed over, not merely by one man, but by many. These meetings not seldom remind one of a house of which the owner takes possession prematurely. Over yonder the scaffolding is still up, here they are just removing it, the sound of the hammer and the saw is everywhere, and the smell of wet plaster is in the air. Thus in many conventions. Here and there the presidentbustles around, over the platform, through the audience. The local committee of arrangements are like bees before swarming. We begin late and with apologies; so we continue.
The model convention, however, began at least as far back as the preceding convention. At that gathering suggestions for the next meeting were called for and obtained. During the following weeks the president visited or corresponded with every school in the district, trying to discover its excellences and lacks, that the convention might exhibit the one and supply the other. Indeed, at the very opening of the preceding convention the new officers, if any, were elected, that during the sessions they might have ears open and brains and tongues active, gathering hints for the profitable meeting they were to plan. Therefore it was early known precisely what the coming convention was to teach, and that convention, instead of bumping along Haphazard Lane, rolls smoothly over Purpose Avenue.
Two methods will promote this preparedness of the audience, without which the best-prepared programme largely fails: there should be a convention press committee, whose pleasant task it is to pack the papers with appetizing details of the coming meetings; and every school should be supplied, at least two weeks beforehand, with a large number of the printed programmes. If these are attractively got up, if the topics meet genuine needs and are expressed brightly, suggestively, and not as Dr. Dryasdust would formulatethem, and if the various superintendents and pastors advertise the convention wisely, the audience that will come together will be ready for its work.
So large a part of most Sunday-school convention audiences comes from the immediate locality that especial effort should be made to interest beforehand the church and the town in which the meetings are held; and this not merely for the sake of the convention, but for the quickening of Sunday-school interests throughout the community. But if only a few persons are gathered, do not make the mistake of losing them in a large room, with scores of empty pews into which their zeal can creep away and hide itself. The same coals that grow black in all outdoors will make a little stove red-hot.
No small part of the preparation that is to make a success of your convention is the careful andenterprisingselection of speakers. The best policy is to choose none from "policy." Select the men that can inspire and instruct, though you must crowd out some pastor of a big church or some man with a big name. From the teachers themselves call out suggestions as to speakers as well as to topics. Search through your district for original workers, inventors, plummet men, women that win the hearts of the children, and get them to tell the convention how they do it. By all means call in the successful Christian teacher in the secular schools. If possible, import a skilled worker from outside your district. Fresh air will come in with him, the sense of a wider outlook. Only, hemust not be an opinionated egotist, one of thoseex-cathedramen, but a warm-hearted brother in the Lord; and it is far better to use him in several short speeches scattered over the programme than in one long address.
The wise choice of topics is quite as important as a wise choice of men to treat them. Let all programme-makers remember what the convention is to do: not to show off leaders, or to raise money, or to get acquainted, or to have a good time, but to learn more about teaching and managing Sunday-schools. Three aims must be set before every Sunday-school convention: to arouse new love for the Bible, to arouse new love for souls, to arouse new zeal for bringing these two together. Every convention, then, should divide its time among three classes of topics: the Bible, the children, the teaching.
1.The Bible.Such themes as these are suggested: "How the Bible differs from all other books." "Recent Bible discoveries." "My way of studying the Bible." "Bible-marking." "How to study Exodus." "The use of a 'teacher's Bible.'" "Interleaved Bibles,—why and how." "The value of the Victoria revision." "The study of the Bible as literature." "What is the best commentary?" "Reading the Bible in course,—how to make it most profitable." "The Septuagint and its importance." "How the Bible came down to the printing-press." "The story of our English Bible."
2.The Children."Imagination in children.""Reasoning processes that a child will not appreciate." "Why children love stories." "Important differences between the child's mind and ours." "Put yourself in his place." "A child's confidence: how lost; how won." "Prigs: how not to make them." "The self-conscious child and how to treat him." "Lessons from the playground." "Kindergarten principles of value in the Sunday-school."
3.The Two Brought Together."What is a good question?" "How to get the class to ask questions." "A class that keeps its own order." "Getting young people in love with the Bible." "The teacher's voice." "Their own Bibles." "The quarterly left at home." "How to make the Bible real to the children." "Some tests our teaching should stand."
This outline does not omit the school management, and occasional discussion of the work of superintendents and other officers will belong under the last head; but the teachers are so many compared with the officers thattheirwork should be treated the more generously. I think most convention programmes deal far too much with the machinery of the work, any way.
The best mode of helping the officers is by an officers' conference; and if the convention holds but two sessions, I would urge that one of them be broken up into conferences. In one room the primary workers may meet; in another, the superintendents and their assistants; in others, the librarians, the secretaries, the choristers, the teachers of intermediate classes, the teachers of adult classes, the heads of home departments,the pastors. Programmes for these conferences should be arranged with as much care as for the main convention, and nothing should be done at random. It is a good plan, at the opening of these little simultaneous gatherings, to appoint one member of each to take notes of the best things and report them succinctly to the entire body when it reassembles.
There are three classes of topics that I especially delight to see on a convention programme. First, the fundamentals. We must not forget the host of new workers constantly coming into our ranks. "How to ask a question" is an old, old theme; but there are enough new teachers to keep it forever fresh and pertinent. Second, new methods, exploited by authorities, by practical workers. Third, what I call "encouragements," topics that inspire, cheer, comfort, victories gained, rewards in sight. Hallelujah themes.
To these I must add a fourth: work for the audience. I would give the listeners a chance to "talk back" about once every hour, and something to do, besides listening, every half-hour. Question-boxes on practical topics are incomparable interest-quickeners. An answer-box is a reversed question-box. It contains written answers by the teachers, two or three questions of wide scope and great importance being propounded on the programme; such questions as: "What do you do with pert children?" "How do you get your scholars to study their lessons?" A wise leader, with the grace of conciseness, is required for both these exercises.
Yes, and he is needed for the "open parliaments," or conversational discussions of helpful topics by brisk dialogue between audience and platform. These may be made merely parade-grounds for "smart" leaders, or genuine experience meetings, true council fires. It is wise to send a special invitation to your best teachers, asking them to be prepared with suggestions or questions for the open parliament, that it may start off with momentum already obtained. A summarist, too, is a good appointment; he listens quietly to the open parliament, and at the close gathers up, in a few sentences that stick, whatever is best worth preserving out of the discussion.
The open parliament most commonly held consists merely of dry and formal reports from each school, the roll being called. If such an exercise is held, place in charge of it a man thoroughly familiar with the schools, and able by brisk questioning to elicit a report that will picture the one school and stimulate the others.
A good presiding officer is half a convention. His first duty is to have a distinct understanding with each speaker that he is not to trespass on the next man's time, and his second duty is to cry "Stop, thief!" if the speakers do so trespass. The convention management should be a model for the Sunday-schools in every way, and in none more imperatively than in this of promptness.
But also as to order. Oh, the weak-kneed or the purblind presidents, that allow the talking, whispering,walking about of a few to filch from the many half the value of the meetings! Stop the speaker. Call a halt on the entire convention. Don't proceed another step till quiet is restored, and maintained. Be a platform czar, and your audience will be your happy serfs.
Then, the president is master of ceremonies. So much in acquaintanceships depends on tactful introductions! He should deliver to each successive speaker an audience that is in a glow of anticipation, and when the speaker is done,—yes, and all through,—his own cordial hands should lead the hearty applause, and he should take time for an appreciative word before passing to the next topic.
If the presiding officer is to do all this, he must plan beforehand almost every sentence he will use in introducing speakers or opening the discussions. He is to be suggestive; he is to set brains a-throbbing with eagerness and tongues aching with things to say; and he is to do it all in twenty words. Brevity, good humor, suggestiveness,—these, in this order, are the chairman's prime virtues.
At the opening of every convention the key-note of formality, routine, and perfunctoriness is struck in the address of welcome and the response. Their every word could safely be predicted in advance. The world is waiting for a programme committee that will be courageous enough to leave them out. If the pastor of the entertaining church has helpful ideas on Sunday-school work, by all means place himon the programme somewhere; but don't make a rut of him.
At the very outset strike the key of prayer. Insert here and there throughout the programme a quiet ten minutes with the great Teacher. By all means close with a devotional half-hour—not a hasty prayer punctuated with the snapping of watches. Sentence prayers by scores, prayer psalms softly repeated, prayer hymns read with bowed heads,—the convention should furnish an inspiration and model for the devotions of all the schools represented.
Scarcely less important is the element of song. Unconsciously to themselves, the audience should become a normal training-class, learning how to conduct the singing of their schools in fresh and uplifting ways. Many, if not all of the methods mentioned in my chapter on this theme find fit application to the convention.
The social features deserve careful attention. Set the teachers to talking together; conversation was Socrates' university. One of the most helpful events may be a light supper given by the entertaining church. A small fee is charged, all sit down together, and at the close a series of happy speeches will bring out flashes of wit and bushels of sense.
The business should be kept under. Introduce it a little at a time, rather than spend a fatiguing hour and a half. Make no parade of money-raising. Giving should be done quietly. Teach your teachers the grace of envelopes. Reduce all business to aminimum, remembering that the convention comes together not for legislation, but for inspiration.
The Sunday-school convention is not only a conference, but an exposition. Here should be gathered whatever new teaching apparatus any school has bought: wall-maps, sand-maps, relief-maps, material for object-lessons, portable blackboards, colored pictures illustrating the lessons, specimens of class tests, library catalogues, new kinds of class-books, collection-envelopes, singing-books, new editions of the Bible, lesson helps of all kinds,—it is clear how varied and valuable a collection may easily be brought together when once the teachers and officers understand what is wanted.
The library of the entertaining school should be open for visiting librarians to examine books and methods. The best new books might be brought in from all the libraries of the district, and if each school sent only one or two, the entire exhibit would furnish many a suggestion to wide-awake library committees.
One of the most important exhibits is a Sunday-school map of the district, indicating where schools are in existence, and also where schools might and should be placed.
There is one kind of exhibit that should rarely be made, if ever: an exhibit of the children themselves, either to "speak pieces" or to play Sunday-school and be taught. The latter use of them has advantages, but, to my mind, the gain to the audience is nothing compared to the children's increase of self-consciousness.I hide my head whenever I think of such a mock recitation in which I figured when a little boy, and remember how proud I was of my pert forwardness in answering all of the questions; before all those people, too!
In closing, let us ask how the convention results may be gathered up, preserved, and sown broadcast. A notebook should be in the hand of each attendant,—either given away or sold. The speakers should so mark their points and emphasize the subdivisions of their addresses that the thoughts can readily be grasped and retained. A printed syllabus is a great assistance to this end, and if the printing-press is too costly, a manifolder may be used. Blank pages should be left in the programme, to invite to note-taking.
And then, the new plans all jotted down, the felicitous expressions written outverbatim, the facts and figures clearly noted, let the convention be widely reported. Not merely should the convention press committee, that heralded the gathering through the papers, continue their labors long enough to render their previous work most fruitful, but every teacher present should carry the convention's best to his teachers' meeting and his class; yes, and to the church prayer-meeting. Thus will the ardor of the council fire spread throughout the army.
Certain arts, such as sculpture, painting, and architecture, have been named the fine arts by some man who had not learned to look inward, and see what an infinitely finer art is any that attempts to fashion the human soul. The pastor's and the teacher's arts, which are in essence one, though the tyranny of language forbids calling them the fine arts, may be given even a nobler title; they are the high arts.
We would sit down with bated breath and tense-drawn nerves to take to pieces for the first time the delicate machinery of a watch for cleaning and readjustment. If a sovereign diamond were placed in our hands for faceting, we would study for days its cleavage plane, its natural angles, and its matrix, and press it to the revolving wheel at last with timidity and shrinking. But when the most marvelously delicate, impressionable, yet abiding thing in the world is placed in our hands, together with the mightiestyet finest tools, and under conditions constantly varying, and we are told to fashion a human soul into truth and nobility, we sit down with confident smiles, and whack away.
It is impossible for a Sunday-school teacher to magnify his office. He needs a spiritual telescope, rather, to see above it and below it and on all sides of it. We Sunday-school teachers constitute an unordained ministry, whose functions are as sacred as those of the pulpit, though less inclusive. If we are faithful, conversions will be as frequent results of our lesson questions as of the pastor's sermons. "God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers." Let us desire earnestly the greater gifts; but if God calls us to be neither missionary nor pastor, but Sunday-school teacher, even that calling is too high for us fully to attain.
It is an anomaly to which the Christian world is just awaking that workers permit themselves to enter on this sacred art with no apprenticeship. Indeed, if such untrained workers were not admitted, there would soon be no Sunday-schools in the world to admit them. Long as the seminaries for ministerial preparation have existed, it is only recently that training-schools for lay workers have been formed. May they grow and multiply!
But until enlarged Christian activity places one of these blessed institutions within reach of each consecrated layman, we must do the best we can with other means of growth. We must organize regular Sunday-schoolconventions and teach one another there. We must build one another up in enthusiastic teachers' meetings. We must use the best lesson helps. We must read greedily every book and every article that promises to give us new ideas and methods and inspiration.
Now some object to all this. "You are needlessly discouraging us," they say. "You are making a very simple matter appear complicated; an easy one seem difficult. Christ's yoke is easy; Christ's gospel is plain; he will give us in that Sunday-school hour what we are to say. Your minute directions as to methods of study, as to concordance and commentary and maps, are flying in the face of Providence. The Spirit bloweth where he listeth."
The answer to all this is simple, and consists mainly in an appeal to experience. Simple and plain as Christ's message is, human lives are very complicated, and it is no simple matter or easy task to lay the Saviour's simple healing alongside their varied ills. Christ's burden is light; if it were heavier it would be easier to get paradoxical humanity to accept it. Christ will instruct us what to say, provided we have so trained our heart and brain that his words will not fall as senseless babble from our tongues. The Spirit does breathe where he listeth, but the experience of these centuries ought to teach us that God is never present in power where work and prayer have not invited him.
Haphazard work is not equal to thoughtful work.Minute directions that would be wasted on a barn-painter are a necessity of the artist. Impromptu never yet won a race with Preparation. And I know that many a teacher is mourning over his empty hands who might be rejoicing over great sheaves if his sowing had been more liberal and his teaching more painstaking.
And yet I sympathize with the weary discouragement of which all teachers feel a twinge when high ideals of teaching are held out before them. We are sure we are doing our best, already. It annoys us to be shown a better best. Our work is hard enough. It troubles us to be told that we must work harder before it can ever become easy. And especially, we are so confused by the multiplicity of good things we may do, of improvements we may make, that we do and make none of them.
Now the secret of success in all arts lies in this: the Incorporation of Ideas. The reception of ideas, the appreciation and praise of them, this is nothing, though many are satisfied to stop here; but the incorporation, the embodiment of them, this makes the artist. The artist is the man that is hungry for ideas,—for the ideal, that is; the man that, like Paul, proves them all by the tests of thought and experience, and then holds fast whatever is good, until it has become part of himself, until it is incorporated.
The artist is a man, too, that above all men knows the importance of trifles. The contour must be molded to nature precisely, the statue finished to thefinger-nail, the machine accurate in every line and surface. He will not try to attain the ideal at a bound; it is made up, he knows, of many ideas. He grasps one idea, and fixes that forever. Then, he has power for another.
One point at a time, then, fellow-laborers in this blessed work; one idea from an eager throng appealing to you in books, lectures, or papers, proved and found good, and then held fast by prayerful practice, by never-yielding effort, until it is added to the company of your unconscious forces. And then, in this power, to add another to it! Thus alone can we win, from Christ's university, the highest of alldegrees, Masters of his Art!
An egotist is foredoomed to failure in the Sunday-school. The worker that hopes for success must cast to the winds any foolish pride in originality, and seek far and wide for the wisest ideas and the freshest methods. A superintendent or a teacher without a notebook is only half a superintendent or teacher. Its pages should rapidly grow rich with plunder. The little white friend must be at hand when he attends conventions, when he reads, when he talks with other workers, when he thinks and prays over his sacred tasks.
The two chapters that follow are merely specimen pages of such notebooks. While I have utilized them to gather up various plans and experiences that could not fittingly find place elsewhere in the book, their chief purpose is to illustrate the wide-awake catholicity that must animate every successful worker in Sunday-schools.
It is right to say—though this is a matter of course—thata large majority of these paragraphs are condensed from that great storehouse of Sunday-school lore, the "Sunday-school Times."
Their Own Review.—Scholars are likely to answer with special zest the questions prepared by other scholars. One school asks its classes in turn to furnish three questions on each lesson, which are proposed to the entire school at the close of the lesson hour. From these questions are selected a number for the quarterly review. They are "manifolded," and written answers are expected from all present.
Out of Order.—An excellent review scheme was arranged by a superintendent who gave his school a list of twenty-six events in the life of Christ, all jumbled up, and asked them to come next Sunday prepared to arrange them in chronological order.
A School Review.—For reviewing the lesson before the entire school, select one class a week beforehand and give it ten or twelve comprehensive questions, from the quarterly or original. At the close of the lesson ask this class to rise and answer the questions as another class, also rising, asks them. Let all the classes take turns in this service.
School Reviews.—For a change, it is well to incorporate the entire school in a general review,—omitting, of course, the younger classes. One person may conduct the review, or the questions on each lesson may be asked by a different teacher. Different classes may be assigned special lessons to illustrateby the concert repetition of Bible verses, or by a stanza of some song. One lesson of the quarter may be assigned to each class, and the questions that will be asked may be given to that class a week or two beforehand. In this case, general questions for the entire school should occasionally be interspersed.
A Teachers' Supper.—Once a year, at least, bring together all the teachers and officers around a well-filled table. After-dinner speeches, cheery and merry, may follow, and then a pleasant evening's entertainment.
The Annual Meeting.—Make this an event. A supper with bright speeches, the business meeting to follow; a brisk literary and musical entertainment; an introductory talk by some practical worker from abroad,—these are some of the ways of distinguishing the occasion.
Badges.—Any Sunday-school festival will be given eclat by the use of badges. The children will be proud to wear them, and will treasure them as souvenirs. They may be made almost without cost if you will use bright-colored cambric, and print upon them with a hand-stamp.
A Sunday-School Day.—If not once a year, at least once every few years, it is well worth while to make the Sunday-school the theme of all the exercises on the Lord's day,—both morning and evening services, and the Christian Endeavor meeting. The subject has so many practical aspects that much good will be done in addition to the quickening of the Sunday-school.
The Home Department.—Simply a promise to study the lesson at home for half an hour each week—that is the scheme of the home department. You may add visitors, records, reports,ad libitum, but the home department may be complete and satisfactory without these. The plan is so simple that any school can use it, and so fruitful of blessed results that no school dare neglect it. A thorough canvass for members of the home department seldom fails to bring new members into the main school at once, and as the home study arouses interest, new scholars are continually added from this source, besides the scores of aged and shut-ins whose lives are thus led into the green pastures of the Word.
Home Department Day.—On this occasion a special effort is made to bring to the Sunday-school the entire home department. They sit together, and special services are held in their honor and for their benefit.
Parents' Day.—Make a special effort once a year to bring out all the parents of the scholars. Issue special printed invitations. Have a printed programme. Let the exercises be the regular working of the school, with merely one short address to the parents in addition.
A Parents' Social.—Parents and teacher should know one another, and there is no more gracious way to bring this about than by an evening spent together at the teacher's house.
Purpose Cards.—To stimulate the school in needed ways, have a "purpose card" printed. It will read,in tabular form, "I will endeavor to attend more faithfully, to prepare my lesson better, to get a new scholar," etc. Each member of the school signs his card, marks with crosses the "purposes" he makes his own, and returns the card to the superintendent.
Installing the New Officers.—This should be done with some ceremony, including a very short address by the pastor, another by the outgoing superintendent or prominent officer, another by a representative of the incoming group, and an earnest prayer,—all to occupy no more than ten minutes. The scholars will have more respect for leaders thus honored, and the officers themselves will be more likely to magnify their office.
The Old Superintendent.—Some schools elevate the assistant superintendent regularly to the superintendency. Other schools adopt the opposite course, and make the superintendent of one year the assistant superintendent of the next. Either plan secures continuity of method.
A True Assistant.—The assistant superintendent should be prepared to do, in the superintendent's absence, everything the superintendent ordinarily does. How can he be prepared to do this unless the superintendent regularly shares all kinds of work with his assistant?
Help from the Public School.—In most communities a very inspiring series of lectures might be obtained from Christian teachers in the secular schools andcolleges, the purpose of each lecture being to show how, according to the best pedagogical methods, a certain lesson might be taught, or Sunday-school teaching in general be carried on.
Flowers at Home.—You will delight your school, and teach them many lessons, if you give each scholar—or get the teachers to do this—a bulb, a package of seeds, or a small potted plant like a rose. Hold an exhibition to show the results, and then have the flowers given to the sick, the hospitals, the poor, or sold for missions.
Easter Lilies.—A few cents invested in lily bulbs will make a beautiful Easter for your school. Give one to each scholar for him to raise, or, possibly, one to each class. The flowers, after Easter Sunday, are to be sent to the aged, the sick, and the poor.
An Easter Gift.—Some Sunday-schools give each scholar, on Easter day, a little rosebush or a package of seeds, that they may be tended and urged to bloom by Children's Day, when they are all brought in.
Vacation Transfers.—Some schools, when their scholars leave for a vacation, give them letters to schools where they will visit. These are printed forms, and include a detachable blank report, which, when filled out and returned, will show the scholar's attendance on the other school during his absence.
Planned Prayer-Meetings.—It will greatly promote the devotional character of your school if you take twenty minutes each month for a prayer-meeting. Select four or five to offer prayer, and have them siton the platform. A brief, tender talk from the superintendent and bright singing will complete a memorable meeting.
A Carryall.—I have heard of Sunday-schools that maintained omnibuses or large carriages, to gather up and carry to the school children whose homes were so far away that they could not otherwise attend.
Neighborhood Schools.—Distant groups of farmers' families, and others that cannot reach the school, should be organized in neighborhood Sunday-schools.
A New Object Each Month.—The scholars' offerings should be an education not only in the instinct of giving, but also in the intelligent choice of objects for giving. Every Sunday-school should have a benevolence committee, which carefully selects for each month a new object of beneficence. On the last Sabbath of each month a word should be said about the object that appeals for the gifts of the next month. This brief account should, of course, be supplemented by the teachers in their classes.
The Envelope System.—This plan of giving, which has done so much for our churches, should be used everywhere in the Sunday-school. Give each class a number and each scholar a set of dated envelopes, one for each Sunday, bearing his class number. Call for a contribution from each scholar each Sunday. Urge that all absent scholars send their contributions, or bring them the next Sunday. From thissystematicgiving you may go on toproportionategiving by impressing on the scholars their duty to set apartfor God some regular proportion, say one tenth, of all the money they receive. If the school takes up monthly collections for special benevolent objects, the envelopes for these Sundays may be of a different color. If, as should always be the case, the expenses of the school are met by the church, leaving the entire school collections to be devoted to missions and charitable causes, the school committee on benevolences may select a different object of giving for each month. This object should then be written on each envelope for that month.
A Jug-Breaking.—One of the best ways of teaching children the value of little gifts and the importance of weekly savings for Christ's cause is by the collection of money in jugs. Set before them at the start some object for their gifts, that they may think and talk about it while they are saving; otherwise their minds are lifted no higher than their money. And how they will enjoy the jug-breaking!
Class-Books.—Not records of class attendance, but books for the library, paid for by the various classes, selected by these so far as their choice seems wise, and each of them bearing an inscription telling what class presented it to the school. Such gifts give the scholars a personal interest in the library they have helped to create.
Loan Libraries.—Instead of giving away the books your school has thoroughly read, loan them, in groups of fifty or so, to poorer schools. They will return them in good condition, and by that time there willbe many new scholars in your own school to whom the books will be fresh.
Exchange Libraries.—There is no reason why neighboring schools, if their library funds are low, should not arrange to buy different books, and then exchange them after the original purchasers have used them for a year. All the schools in a town or township might well combine in an arrangement so economical.
Receiving the New Books.—The library will be advertised if the reception of new books is made an event. They may be put in a public place, all at one time, and formally presented to the school by pastor or superintendent, with a word about each. This may be done at Christmas, Easter, Children's Day, Thanksgiving, at any one or all of these holiday seasons.
Honor the Donors.—A special and attractive label for books presented to the library, with a space for the name of the person that makes the gift, will greatly increase the number of books received in this way.
Their Own Paper.—A large Sunday-school may publish a little weekly or monthly paper, the advertisements paying the bills. The older scholars will be interested in doing the work. The notes about the various classes, the library, the contributions, the school work, will all prove stimulating.
Sunday-School Calendars.—A good standing advertisement of the school in any home would be a neat calendar of the year, bordered with facts about the school, invitations, pictures of church, pastor, Sunday-school officers, and the like.
A Bulletin Board.—A conspicuous bulletin board, placed at the entrance, will save giving out many a notice.
The Notices.—The wise superintendent will plan every word he is to say before the school, even—yea, especially!—the giving of the notices. These notices will be the fewest possible; don't let the Sunday-school be used as a bill-board. Announce only what you want the scholars to remember, and in such a bright way that they can't forget it. And don't discredit your perspicuity and their attention by announcing it more than once.
Protect the Teacher.—One of the most important of the superintendent's duties is to protect the teacher from interruption during the recitation hour. A similar duty is to see that the time for the recitation suffers no diminution through the tardiness or prolixity of himself or any one else.
Substitute Groups.—The work of "substituting" may well be divided up. Ask a set of older scholars to be ready to substitute on the first Sunday of each month, another set on the second Sunday, and so on.
The Pastor as Substitute.—Certainly the pastor should not take a Sunday-school class of his own. That would be unfair to the rest of the school and the church. But he would get into helpful contact with a large number of people, young and old, if he should act every Sunday as a substitute teacher, now in this class and now in that.
A Five-Minute Meeting.—A few minutes of conference,immediately after the session of the school, will be a great help and stimulus to the teachers. One will ask help in a difficulty, another will report a method just proved successful. Everything will come fresh and vital from living experience.
How Many Absent?—Often let the secretary, in his report to the school, state only the numberabsentfrom each class and department. He will thus change the emphasis, and arouse a new and profitable interest.
A Roll-Call.—It takes time, but at long intervals a public roll-call of the entire school is worth while. Of course it should be well advertised beforehand, and the entire membership will wish to be present. Then make the hour so delightful that they will not think of staying away thereafter.
Honor Rolls.—Hang a large sheet of paper in a conspicuous position, and announce that you will print upon it the name of every one that brings in a new scholar. A red paper star after the name signifies one new scholar, a blue star a second scholar, and so on. A similar roll may be used to honor perfect attendance, stars of different colors being used for the different quarters.
Gold and Silver Stars.—There are well-based objections to any distinction of one class above another, but a plan that will be found very valuable, at least as a temporary stimulus, is this: Honor with a large silver star every class that has all its members present, and with a gold star each class that reports all itsmembers bringing Bibles, and that all have studied the lesson at least twenty minutes.
An Asterisk.—If by banners or in other ways you honor regular attendance, there will be a tendency to drop absent scholars from the rolls too quickly, because they lower the standard of their classes. An excellent way of getting around this difficulty is to "star" the name of every scholar that has been absent a month. This asterisk means that the name is not to be counted in making up the report, but the presence of the name on the list means that the scholar is not to be forgotten or neglected.
To Console Him.—One bright superintendent scorns to give a reward or prize for new scholars, but presents a nice leather-bound Bible, by way of compensation, to each scholar that for any cause is luckless enough toleavehis school!
A Spur.—Enforce punctuality by a large placard hung in front of the school, and reading, "You are early." When the school opens the card is turned, and now reads, in staring letters, "You are late!"
A Question Drill.—This is a good plan for teachers' meetings. The teachers should ask questions on each verse, turn about, and the leader should criticise the questions.
Teachers'-Meeting Roll-Call.—To insure previous study of the lesson, and to accustom the teachers to take part in the meeting, let the roll be called every week, and require each teacher to respond with somethought concerning the lesson, usually a comment on some particular verse.
Attendance on the Teachers' Meeting.—It will prove a helpful spur if this attendance is recorded regularly, and incorporated in all the reports made by the secretary to the school.
Union Teachers' Meetings.—If you cannot have a teachers' meeting for your Sunday-school alone, because you have no good leader, you can probably find a good leader in some neighboring church, and can give him and yourselves the stimulus of a large union gathering. This plan has many advantages, notably the opportunity for the comparison of methods. It has one great disadvantage: the work cannot apply so particularly to your individual school.
A Reception Class.—New scholars may all be placed in a "reception class," until their ability, knowledge, and character can be learned.
A Visitors' Register.—This is for the names and home addresses of all visitors. The little attention required to obtain these autographs pleases them and their friends, and breaks the ice for further acquaintance. The register should be kept open on some table in a central spot, with pen and ink always at hand.
An Address-Book.—This should contain, under proper and convenient classifications, the addresses of all scholars, teachers, and officers, past and present. It should always be kept in the church, and many will be the references to it.
A Cradle Roll.—This contains the names of thebabies of the church, for each of whom his mother is given a certificate of membership. This roll is read once in a while before the primary class.
Individual Histories.—At least one school has enough personal interest in its scholars to keep a history of each, in a book properly arranged for that purpose. This history includes the date of the scholar's joining the school and of his promotion to the various higher departments thereof, his birthday and the names of his parents, their church-membership, where the scholar lived when he joined the church, whom he married and when, his business, the date of his removal and the city to which he went, together with other and special facts.
District Reporters.—Appoint one scholar or teacher to watch each street in town,—preferably, of course, the street on which he resides,—and report promptly all newcomers, that they may be invited to the Sunday-school.
The Opening Prayer.—Let the ushers admit no one till it is over. Do not begin, or permit any one else to begin this prayer, till every head is bowed. Do not ask any one to offer this prayer without giving long notice; no haphazard prayer will answer.
Their Own Bibles.—A Bible in the hands of every scholar,—this alone makes possible variety and zest in the opening of the school.
Lesson Introductions.—In small schools it has often been found profitable for the superintendent to spend ten or fifteen minutes teaching to the entire school(with the exception of the primary department) the historical and similar details of the lesson. The teachers then add the lesson truths, teaching their individual classes.
Varying Programmes.—If the opening exercises of the school get into a rut, it is hard for the teachers to lift the school out of it. Some wise superintendents plan these exercises for weeks ahead, keeping careful record, and thus avoid monotony.
An Impressive Close.—One school closes its service with the Lord's Prayer, repeated by all as they stand. Then the school is seated, and waits in silence while the ushers, walking slowly up the aisles, dismiss each class in turn.
A Closing Prayer.—Here is a beautiful prayer to be repeated in concert at the close of school: "May the light of thy Word, O Lord, dwell in us richly, and guide us day by day. Amen."
Scripture in Closing.—To incite to Scripture memorizing, close the school with Bible verses repeated by all the scholars. Let each class in turn select the subject, such as "temperance," "obedience," "love," and announce it a week in advance.
The Teachers before the School.—Now and then ask some teacher to say a few words to the entire school at the close of the session, summing up the most important teachings of the hour. This gives the whole school a bit of inspiration from each teacher in turn, and gives to each teacher the inspiration of talking to the whole school.