"A prayer we lift to thee, dear Lord,Ere we shall listen to thy word.The truth thy Spirit brings from theeHelp us to study patiently.For Jesus' sake. Amen."
"A prayer we lift to thee, dear Lord,Ere we shall listen to thy word.The truth thy Spirit brings from theeHelp us to study patiently.For Jesus' sake. Amen."
Or this, for the close of the lesson:
"Our Father, through each coming dayWatch o'er our every step, we pray;And may thy Spirit hide the wordDeep in our willing hearts, O Lord.For Jesus' sake. Amen."
"Our Father, through each coming dayWatch o'er our every step, we pray;And may thy Spirit hide the wordDeep in our willing hearts, O Lord.For Jesus' sake. Amen."
These the class may be taught to repeat in concert, with bowed heads.
One of the best methods is this. Let the teacher offer a simple prayer, sentence by sentence or clause by clause, the children reverently repeating it after her, all heads being bowed. Best of all, of course, are the Bible prayers, the prayer psalms, and the many noble prayer verses scattered here and there. Store the children's memories with these, and in coming years there will be no stammering or hesitancy when, in public or in private, they talk with their Father in heaven.
One of the primary teacher's chief allies is a happy temper. If you have it not, get it. An ounce of sunshine is better than an iron mountain of scolding. The voice alone may make or mar the lesson. Is it good-cheery, or goody-goody? How joyous Christ must have been! How his little children love fun! And how much easier it will be for you to get them to love him if you also love fun!
Indeed, we cannot know too thoroughly the child nature. The scientists' study of it is in its infancy, but a sympathetic heart will carry you farther in ten minutes than all their psychology in a lifetime. As you teach, have in mind, notyourtrials, joys, andhopes, buttheirs. Don't talk about "ambition," but about "getting more praise than another girl"; or about "covetousness," but about "wishing you, and not Tom, had his new bicycle." Don't allegorize; that is a grown-up delight. Don't talk about "the hill Difficulty," "the bog of Despond." Do you tell me the children enjoy "The Pilgrim's Progress"? Yes; but not as allegory. Vanity Fair is a real town to them, and Mr. Pliable a real man. Avoid what I call "fanciful" teaching, and the rather build your lessons upon actual men and women, so that the children may come toknowEli and Gideon, Ruth and Martha, as vividly as they know the men and women around them. That is better than to know Lily Lazy and Matt Mischievous and the Sea of Sorrow.
Review often. When you have reached the point where you think the children cannot possibly forget, then—review again! Frequently say, "Now, after I have finished telling about the lesson, I am going to ask Fred to tell me about it; and after Fred is through, I shall asksome one elseto tell the same story." Often ask questions that can be answered in concert, and insist that all shall join in the reply. This will usually lead to a repetition that will prove helpful. In such concert work, if you do not watch, the more forward will be the only ones that will respond, and you will be obliged to draw out the timid and repress the pert by many a special question addressed to the former.
Sometimes it is hard to keep order; always hard, if the teacher has not by nature or attainment the face and voice and bearing that command order because they lovingly and firmly expect it. The teacher should be in the room before any scholar arrives. Much disorder has its source in those irresponsible ten minutes before the school opens. Then, while she is teaching, an assistant should sit with the children, ready to check their mischievousness, attend quickly to their needs and desires, care for the late comers, help them "find the place" in Bibles and song-books, and perform many other little offices. Some heads of large primary departments establish "hospitals," where are sent the children with "sick" hands or feet or tongues,—a special class where the most uncontrollable are "treated" till they are reported "cured." In general, however, if the children are interested, they will be orderly; and if the teacher is interested, so are likely to be the scholars. Put into the work your whole soul, and you are reasonably sure of getting the whole minds of the children.
Love them! I cannot better sum up the entire matter than in those two words. Love them, and they will love you and gladly obey you. Love them, and you will work hard for them, and will not mind the hardness. Love them, and your love will teach you how to teach them wisely. And the God of love, who loves little children, will give you, week by week, the fullness of his joy.
Some teachers omit the review, or pass over it in a perfunctory way. This is as if a merchant should never balance his books, or, taking a trial balance, should be heedless of the result. If we are to prosper in this our Father's business, we must be careful as any merchant to discover just where we stand with our scholars; we must test their progress often and thoroughly, and never rest satisfied or let them rest satisfied until they and we are assured that the balance is comfortably on the right side of the ledger.
One reason for the common shrinking from review day is because we have not manfully met it at the very beginning of the quarter. It is the preview that gives success to the review. When the teacher looks carefully through the twelve lessons ahead of him, grasps the underlying thread that binds them together, and forms his plan for a review at the outset, review day has lost all its terrors. Then every lesson becomes part of a consistent series. Then the weeklyreviews, which alone make possible a successful quarterly review, lay each a course of a steadily rising edifice.
No clearness of knowledge may be expected unless the teacher knows clearly at the start just what it is that he expects the scholars to know; and the building grows with double certainty if the little workmen themselves are given glimpses of the architect's plans,—at least of a "front elevation." "For these three months," the teacher may say, "we are to study Christ's life as Mark records it. My plan is for you to vote each Sunday on the most important facts we have studied,—either in the lesson text or in the 'intervening events.' Sometimes it will be one fact; it will never be more than three. All together there are thirty facts we shall learn, and they will make an outline history of Christ's entire life."
How such a scheme, clearly and often stated, will clarify and systematize the quarter's work! Three or four times during the three months the teacher will propound brisk questions covering the points of all the previous lessons of the quarter, following this by a written test. Let him prepare for each lesson a card, on which he prints questions answerable by the facts to be learned. Fastening twelve hooks on a board, he hangs these cards on the hooks week by week, and uses them in these reviews and in the final review of the quarter. If the class is one of little tots, a symbol for each lesson, cut out of pasteboard or consisting of some object, may be hung up in placeof the card,—such a symbol as a needle stuck in a piece of cloth, answering to the story of Dorcas.
Some such preparation will make thoroughly successful a written examination on review day. The questions should be simple and clear, and such as can be answered fully in a very few words. They should take up only the points on which emphasis has been laid throughout the quarter. If the teacher presents the plan in a jolly way, the class will enter into it heartily, as good fun.
For a change, now and then invite the scholars to bring in, on review day, lists of what each considers the ten principal events of the quarter. A comparison is to be made, and the events that receive the most votes will constitute a model list. This exercise in itself will make a pretty good review.
An excellent review may be based upon the six natural divisions of all lessons,—times, persons, places, events, sayings, teachings. The "sayings" are the short sentences best worth memorizing. A review "quiz" may take up these six points one after the other, carrying each over the entire range of lessons, sometimes chronologically, but more often at haphazard.
A more elaborate plan is to assign each of these categories to some scholar the week before, telling him, for instance, that you will depend upon him alone to fix the location of all the events in the twelve lessons. Carrying out the comparison indicated in the title to this chapter, you may do very thoroughwork by getting each scholar to keep a Sunday-school ledger. He will open up a page to the account of "persons," another to the account of "events," and so on, and will make weekly entries on each page. The quarterly review will then be indeed his trial balance.
I am very fond of a map review. Using a large outline map, sometimes one drawn before the class on the blackboard by a scholar who has practised the feat, I call for the first event of the quarter's lessons, and one of the class places a figure 1 at the scene of the event; thus with all the events in order. Then, reviewing again, I ask, pointing to the map, "What was event No. 7, here at Sychar?" or, "Four events at Jerusalem—what were they, in order?"
Another good way to use the map—a map, this time, drawn in outline on a large sheet of manilla paper—is to employ "stickers," bright bits of gummed paper, cut to various shapes. Blue stars, for instance, stuck here and there over the map, will indicate the points where Abraham is found in a series of lessons. They may be numbered, or not. Gold stars may show where Christ worked the miracles studied during the quarter. All the events in one year of Christ's ministry may be represented by green stars, in another year by scarlet stars, or purple stars. The method branches out into many fascinating applications.
Some teachers make large use of the golden texts. If these have been emphasized, they may wisely be introduced in the review. Write each upon a card.If you have artistic talent, you may make each card a thing of beauty, to be kept as a souvenir by the scholar. These cards will be distributed at random, and each scholar will be expected to answer the questions, first of the class and then of the teacher, on the lesson whose golden text he holds. I would not urge the recalling of lessons by titles, for the titles are not constituent parts of the lesson; but the golden text usually goes to the heart of the matter. Neither would I favor such a plan as the one last mentioned, that assigns one lesson to each scholar, unless the entire class is drawn into active participation by such a questioning from the scholars as I have indicated.
A pleasant and profitable review for some classes is based on the quotable passages in the quarter's Scripture. These memorable sentences are written on cards, which are distributed evenly. Every scholar is expected to tell when, where, and by whom his quotation was first spoken, and at the close of the exercise each scholar will be called upon to repeat all his quotations from memory. Then the teacher will gather the cards, mix them up, present the pile now to this scholar and now to that, and ask him to give the facts about whatever quotation he may draw. The success of this method of review, as of all others, will largely depend upon its previous announcement, the scholars having gone over the quarter's lessons at home with this coming test in mind.
The review may sometimes take the form of a contest; you may call it a "question tournament."Appoint leaders, and let them choose sides. Each side in turn has the privilege of asking a question of the other side. The question must be passed upon as fair by the teacher. The scholars on each side take turns in answering, and when the scholar whose turn it is cannot answer, his entire company has a chance. If no one on that side knows the answer, the other side gives the correct reply, and thereby scores one point. The side with the highest score wins the tournament.
Methods less brisk than this employ pen and ink. You may ask the scholars to bring to the class tabular outlines of the quarter's history. A little book, connected with the quarter's study in some way, may be offered as a reward for the best outline, if the teacher thinks it wise; some teachers would not. At another time ask each scholar to write a five-minute essay on some topic that will require study of all the lessons, the topics all being different. These essays are to be read before the class, and their themes should be as bright as the teacher and her shrewdest friends can make them. A variation of this plan is to propound to the class a series of questions, all requiring search through the twelve lessons, and allow each scholar to choose a question upon which he willspeakfor two, three, or four minutes before the class on review day.
Whatever your review gives or fails to give, be sure it leaves with your class a clear-cut outline or summary of the three months' study. Omit the considerationof lessons not closely connected with the story, like some of the temperance, Easter, and Christmas lessons. Center upon some graphical scheme whenever possible, if it is only a vertical line divided into decades along which events may be strung, or a circle so divided as to represent Moses' life or Christ's. If you can, group the lessons around some great personality prominent in them. Never fail to bind them together with the golden thread of their relation to Christ. Trace through them the progress of some thought or event, such as God's leadings that developed the Israelites, the growth of the Christian church, the unfolding of Christ's life, or David's, or Joseph's. Discover what unity the lessons have, and bring it out in the review.
If these matters have been discussed in the quarter's lessons, set them in fresh lights. It must be a new view as well as a review.
If you have succeeded well with one form of review, thank God, and—change the form next time. The methods suggested in this chapter are not equally valuable in all reviews. Make out a programme in January for the four reviews ahead of you, and plan them all differently.
And finally, review your reviews. Review them on the review day, going over the same ground at least twice, in varying mode; and in your weekly reviews thereafter take occasion now and then to revert to the work of the preceding quarter. A matter is not learned to-day unless it is learned for all days.
If the review discloses weak spots, strengthen them. If it discloses excellences, praise them. With steady and honest purpose, take on review day the trial balance of your work, and may God grant you a balance on the heavenward side of the ledger!
The superintendent of a Sunday-school is not the steam of the boat, for all true power comes from the Holy Spirit. He does not even tend the fires; that work the teachers must do. Neither does he make the chart by which the boat is steered; that is the work of the International Lesson Committee. No; the superintendent stands at the helm. He takes orders from the one Captain, and transmits them. Now he turns a wheel, now he pulls a bell-rope, now he shouts through a speaking-tube. In spite of the multiplied details, his work is simple. He has to know his ship, the waters, and the weather: that is, he has to know God, what he wants him to do; and his scholars, what they are capable of doing; and his teachers, what they are capable of getting the scholars to do. Knowing these three things, he will not fret himself with attempting impossibilities, tasks beyond the power of teachers and scholars and so aside from God's will for them, but he will know hehas succeeded if his teachers work as hard as they can in getting their scholars to work as hard astheycan to learn and do God's will.
The superintendent's work begins with himself, then goes on to his officers, then to his teachers, then to his scholars, then to other schools.
First, looking to himself, he must gain what some one lays down as the four essentials of success in Christian work: "consecration, concentration, tact, and contact." That is, his whole soul must be in his work; he must say, with Paul, "Thisonething I do"; he must come in touch with his forces, and he must know how to handle them after he touches them.
There are some men that should never be superintendents. One of these is Mr. Long, who has to say everything in four different ways, each way being Broadway. Another is Mr. Twitchall, who jerks out his words between the jerks of his nervous body, who darts here and there like the snapper of a whip, and infects the entire school with the contagion of his restlessness. Mr. Black is another, that man of gloomy face and sepulchral voice. Mr. Daggart is another, for his tongue is dipped in the venom of sarcasm and knows only to scold.
My favorite superintendent is Mr. Short, the son of Mr. Bright. He has all his father's good cheer. His face is full of a sunshine that doesn't need to be put into words. He is cordial even more plainly than he is spiritual, but because he is spiritual. He is businesslike. He is modest. He remembers thathe is only one, and the school two hundred, and he divides time on about that basis. He knows—oh, he knows the value of five minutes!
He has the grit of a bulldog, this Superintendent Short, son of Mr. Bright. When he is sure he has hold of a good thing, he does not dream of letting go, any more than those well-persuaded jaws. And he has the bulldog's independence and thick skin, but with more than bulldog reason; for is he not responsible to God alone? If God says, "Good!" what matters the sneer of a man? So he does the best he knows how, and keeps serene.
With all his independence he is modest and teachable, is Superintendent Short, son of Mr. Bright. He visits other Sunday-schools, and gets hints there. He visits the public schools, and gets many valuable hints from their superintendents. He reads everything that has Sunday-school methods in it, and from all this he gets hints. He goes around asking everybody, "How can I do better work? How can the school be improved?" and he receives into a teachable mind the hints he gets. When he has to find fault, he first praises what he can. Indeed, praise—for a wonder!—is his favorite form of criticism, and a stimulating form it is.
Withal, Superintendent Short is enterprising. He sets apart from his busy week regular times for his Sunday-school work, and makes a business of it. He is ready to spend money as well as time. He keeps a notebook crowded with new ideas, and carries themout one after the other in the order of their importance, as systematically as a great general conducts a campaign. He does not foolishly despise what is old and tested, but he knows how to freshen up old principles by new applications. He is broad-minded, too, with no "fads" or favoritisms, keeping equal interest in all departments of school work. And he does not stop with the mechanics of the Sunday-school. All his enterprise sets before it the one great goal of soul-saving.
Thus far the superintendent by himself; now a word about his relation to his officers. Just as the failure of a school on the spiritual side is quite often due to lack of a good teachers' meeting, so a failure on the administrative side is probably due to the lack of a "cabinet meeting," where the superintendent consults with all his officers and committees, and where each gets inspiration and counsel from the other. The teachers' meeting should be occupied with entirely different matters. It cannot take the place of a gathering of the executive, and ought to come on a different night.
This cabinet meeting must be set for a regular time, and nothing short of an earthquake must be allowed to break it up. Every officer should make a report to the cabinet, and the report should be in writing. The latter requirement saves time, adds dignity, and provides the meeting with definite statements as a basis for discussion.
A wise superintendent will utilize all his officers tothe utmost. He will make the assistant superintendent assist. The theory is that the assistant shall be able, in the superintendent's absence, to do everything the superintendent would do. How can he learn, except by doing everything, now and then, when the superintendent is present? Many a superintendent has worn himself out doing five men's work rather than train four men to help him. Elijah trained Elisha to be prophet in his stead. If he had not done so, I hardly think Elijah would have been carried to heaven in a chariot of fire. Every worker should prepare his successor, should make himself unnecessary.
Let it be the superintendent's ambition, then, to create an automatic Sunday-school, one he can leave to run itself. He must keep himself in the background. He must test the matter by occasional absences, on foray for ideas in other schools. He must do as little as possible himself,—no danger but it will be enough!—and he must get as much as possible done by others. So he will create, not a machine, but an organism.
In the third place,—the superintendent and the teachers. He must individualize them. As Garfield, the young school-teacher, was wont to lie awake nights, tracing out on his sheet in the dark a plan of the schoolroom, locating each scholar's desk and planning for that scholar's growth as he did so, thus the superintendent should consider separately and regularly each teacher's task and abilities, trials and successes.
It is his joyous work to encourage them, to note improvement in their scholars, to repeat to them the kind words of parents, to give them a cheer in their arduous and difficult and, for the time, thankless tasks. When a superintendent has praised discreetly, half his work is done.
Of course, the superintendent will study his lesson as thoroughly as any teacher; and this is not by any means an unnecessary remark, though some may think so. Indeed, there are even many occasions when he may teach a class, though usually he is best left free during the lesson hour to greet the strangers, or, watching from some central post like a general in battle, to fly to the rescue of some teacher whose class may be getting mischievous, restless, or careless.
For the superintendent should feel at perfect liberty to sit quietly down with any class in his school, and should do this so often and easily that his coming ceases to be a disturbance to teacher or scholars. If the superintendent is not welcome, it will be because he does not know how to help unobtrusively, and he would better stay away.
The best relations are not possible unless the superintendent visits the teachers in their homes, and gets them to come to his for frequent private consultations or for an occasional social hour all together. The teachers' meeting for the study of the lesson will not take the place of these heart-to-heart talks, in which sympathy and appreciation, friendly counseland united prayers, draw the teachers very close to their leader.
In the fourth place, the superintendent must know his scholars. If he has time to visit them, each visit will count; but that is in most cases too much to expect. Sunday-school socials and picnics will give him a chance to push a little further the knowledge of them that he will gain by his visits to their classes; but, after all, his best chance is in the passing salutation on the street. Often speak of the matter before the school, asking the scholars to greet you when they meet you; and then hail every urchin you run across as if he were your very own! If you make it a habit to tarry for ten minutes after the Sunday-school hour (tired?—never mind!), both teachers and scholars will besiege you then,—providedyou have made yourself worth besieging! That you are to be in every way the children's hero goes without saying,—the glorious big boy to whom all the boys look up proudly, the chivalrous knight whose colors all the girls are glad to wear,—it goes without saying, that is, if you deserve to be superintendent at all!
Fifthly and finally, the superintendent and other schools. He has been getting from them all he can, if he is enterprising; he should give to them all he can. The large cities have their superintendents' unions, composed of those that hold now, or have held, this post of honor and responsibility,—and few associations are as delightful. Nearly everywhere, Sunday-school conventions are available; and tothese, as gathering up in his own experience whatever his school has learned and accomplished, the superintendent should carry his freshest inspiration and his wisest plans. No superintendent can live—can be alivesuperintendent—to himself.
One thing should be said, to close this hasty sketch. If the superintendent is all this, or even part of all this, in his personal motives, and in his relations to officers, teachers, scholars, and other schools, he will always be a paid superintendent. He may have no salary; on the contrary, he may be decidedly out of pocket; but the rewards of his labor will be so abundant, so joyful, that not all the silver and gold in all the mines of earth could measure them.
At the opening of the school the superintendent hasn't half a chance; at the close he has a large chance—as large, in fact, as he is. At the opening the superintendent is merely a master of ceremonies to usher in the work as buoyantly as possible; at the close he is a teacher, the high priest of all the teachers. His work of introduction is important, but far more important is his work of peroration. The last five minutes furnish his chance to gather all the teachings of the hour into one point and press it home.
1. It ishischance. Now or never let him be original. Let him study his talents; some can work best with chalk, some with anecdotes, some with questions, some with exegesis, some with exhortation. Let him get up a specialty for those five minutes and burnish it till it shines. Whatever method he chooses should be filled with his personality and serve to impress his personality upon the school. It is life that tells on life, and the more of himself the superintendentputs into these five minutes the more will this, his chance, prove his success.
2. It is his chance to gatherallthe teachings of the hour. Not that he will try to "cover the ground" of the entire lesson. In that case his chance would turn out his mischance. He will not try, either, to give something for each class of scholars, forallthat he gives must be forallclasses. Among all the thoughts of all the departments, primary, intermediate, and senior, there is a single golden thought like a golden thread. These strands he must seize and weave them, in his five minutes, into a golden cord.
3. It is his chance to gather all the teachings of the hour intoonepoint. Probably every teacher in the school has been trying to teach too much. The lesson was intended for a wedge, but they have been using the blunt end. Turn it around. Illustrate the matchless might of simplicity. Do not think that, because the lesson was on the envy of Joseph's brethren, the theme of envy has become hackneyed, and you must talk about Jacob and Reuben and the Midianites and God's overruling providence. If the teachers have worked well, the scholars will be eager for further words on envy; if they have worked poorly, all the more need of a forcible presentation of the main theme.
4. It is his chance to gather all the teachings of the hour into one pointand press it home. His will be a lively school in proportion as it influences life. When the moral truths of our lessons are fixed in thelife, the facts connected with them will be fixed in the mind. Let the superintendent ask himself, for as many scholars of varied age and character as he can, "How might this lesson changehislife,herlife, for the coming week—forever?" Put the "snapper" on the hour. Let it be seen that you expect definite results in spirit and conduct.
Some urge that the superintendent should be mute at the close of the lesson hour, lest his words destroy the effect of the teachers' exhortations. To be sure, he may emphasize what they have not emphasized, though even this danger is very slight if the superintendent is careful to seize on the lesson's central thought; but if the impression made by the teacher is endangered by a few earnest words from the superintendent, whatwillbe left of it by the close of the conversation around the dinner-table?
A closing word regarding the superintendent's questions. In no better way than by questions can he win and hold the school's attention. Those given in the various lesson helps are intended to be simply suggestive of possible matter and manner. Five things are essential: (1) that the questions be simple enough to be understood by the youngest; (2) that they lead up to a point valuable enough to interest the oldest; (3) that they can be answered by a few words, preferably by one; (4) that they be presented in a brisk and businesslike way; (5) that prompt answers from all parts of the school together be insisted on, the answer being called for again and again tillall have connected themselves with it. Half a dozen such questions should lead up skilfully to the main lesson of the hour, which should receive brief but pointed application by anecdote, blackboard, or exhortation.
All this is a high ideal. "To attain it will require," you say, "much more than five minutes." You are right, Brother Superintendent: five minutes before the school, butone houror eventwo hoursof prayerful preparation at home. However, it is your chance. Do not ignobly lose it.
A rainy day is the best test of a Sunday-school, and its best opportunity.
For the scholars it is a sieve, separating the zealous workers from the careless ones.
For the general school it is an index, since if Christ is not "in the midst" of the few on rainy days, surely the many on sunny days are not wont to gather "in his name."
For the teacher it is a revealing question: "Do you teach for the excitement and praise of crowded benches, or is a single soul, with its issues of life and death, inspiration enough?"
It is the superintendent's chance, because then he learns his staff, the pick, the enthusiastic nucleus, of his school. It is a good day for "setting balls to rolling."
It is the scholar's chance,—his chance to show appreciation of the school by attendance; his chance for help on questions that try his soul.
It is the teacher's chance. He will never draw close to his scholars if not now; never see their nobility or their faults if not through the troubled lens of a rainy day.
It is the opportunity of the general school. Prayer-meeting workers often observe that the meetings held on stormy evenings are always the best, because every attendant feels it his duty to take active part. For the same reason a rainy day brings out the mettle of a Sunday-school. The bashful are impelled to greater boldness, the careless to stricter attention. Responsibilities are thrown upon unwonted shoulders. Many a Sunday-school worker has been developed by rainy days.
Teachers must do their scolding for poor attendance, if ever, on the days of crowded seats, because then only are the truants present. Have nothing but words of good cheer for the few who come on stormy days.
We are often told about preachers who, as a reward and an incentive, wisely preach their best (if they can) on rainy days, to the faithful few. For such days the teacher also must make his highest preparation, because then his work will produce best results; because then he will need to bring most inspiration with him, as he gets none from well-filled seats; because his scholars then not only deserve his best, but, lacking the zest of numbers, need his best to hold their attention; because they will appreciate better what they have come through difficulties to get.
On rainy days there are many late comers, and therefore many fine chances for practical Christianity. Greet them cheerfully, if you must stop your finest exhortation to do it. Such a close will be its most eloquent period.
If you investigate tactfully the absences of rainy days, you will often come upon a truer knowledge of the home life and needs of your scholars than any sunshiny observations could give you.
On rainy days, if ever, scholars should be sure of finding their own teacher; yet, as human nature is, on rainy days there is always necessary some fusion of classes. The teachers of joined classes may do much good or infinite harm. Criticism, expressed or implied, of the plans or precepts of the other teacher, is a poison which has few antidotes. If he has been teaching false doctrine, he, not his scholars, is to be told that fact. And, on the contrary, a word of wise praise for whatever of solid acquirement you may see in his scholars, as it comes from an outsider, will discover marvelously their teacher to them, and their possibilities to themselves.
As we need to emphasize the advantages of bad weather, so we need to remember the dangers of fine weather. Now, the teacher must be mindful not to lose the individuals in the crowd, or his teaching sense in the temptation to harangue. Now, the superintendent must remember that his unifying and organizing skill is especially needed. If rainy days are best for study and personal work, fair days, and,above all, hot days, are best for singing and concert drill in reading and questioning.
As our days, so shall our strength be, if we are Christ's, dear Sunday-school workers; but different kinds of days need different kinds of strength.
A large number of Sunday-schools are in the habit of holding a picnic every summer. In spite of the countless jests at the expense of the Sunday-school picnic, the custom is in every way commendable. Where can teacher and scholars, superintendent and teachers, better come into that familiar, every-day contact that tells so much of character and for character, than out under the open sky and in the merry meadows? And yet why is it that the very word "picnic" makes most Sunday-school teachers groan, and presents to the superintendent's mind a picture no more delectable than of hot, dusty cars, pushing, quarreling children, red-faced teachers, and lunches seized on by ants?
Of course, in moving so large a body of people, especially of youngsters, many untoward events are to be expected; but nevertheless, when the picnic is not a conspicuous success, there is usually one reason: it was not well planned for. So many managers ofpicnics are nothing but transportation managers! Getting a reduction of railroad fare, packing and unpacking the lunches, filing the children in and out of the cars,—such details sum up their plans. As for entertainment on the picnic grounds,—why, turn the children loose, and they will take care of that part of it!
On the contrary, he is a wise man that can entertain himself well and profitably for a day without aid from outside. The feat is impossible for most children. How well I remember my own childish miseries on holidays because I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do! On the haphazard plan your picnic will go uproariously for a time, but it will soon "fray out" into a tangle of ennui and quarrels.
In this brief chapter, then, I want to suggest merely one out of many schemes for a profitable picnic. It will include in the day's plans all ages and classes, and afford pleasure for mind and spirit as well as body.
In the first place, arrange with great care a programme of contests. If it is a joint picnic, some of the contests will be between representatives of the Sunday-schools that take part; otherwise, between classes and individuals of the one Sunday-school. Bring in the girls as well as the boys, and the men and women as well as the children. Running, sack-races, three-legged races, pole and rope climbing, boat-races, croquet and tennis matches, base-ball (a game among the old men will cause much amusement),the marching of competing companies, broom or flag drills for the girls, leaping, slow races on the bicycle, throwing the hammer, soap-bubble contests—why, the number of these sports is legion.
Just a few hints:—
Give no prizes, but "honorable mention."
Let the contests be well planned and advertised beforehand, and set the scholars to training for them.
Give every one a printed programme (which may be worked off on a manifolder), and so arrange it that the entire company, if possible, may be spectators of each contest.
Make everything as short and snappy as you can.
Throughout the programme, work in all classes and ages as best you may. Don't, for instance, put all the contests in which the little ones engage in the same part of the day.
In the second place, arrange a literary and religious programme that shall give a spiritual application to all these physical contests. Organize a Sunday-school choir, which, after careful previous practice, will sing some of the many songs that treat the Christian life as a race, or a wrestling, or a battle. Some of the Bible passages of similar tenor should be recited. Poems may be repeated bearing the same lesson. And the brightest of the scholars and teachers, of course not omitting your pastor, will give some very brief little essays or talks along this same line. This part of the day's programme may fitly be placed just after lunch, when in the heat of the day the athleteswill wish to rest, and when all will be ready to sit down and listen.
Much will depend on the master of ceremonies for the day. Let him be the jolliest man you can find, but withal a man of deep consecration, who can make all feel that, whether they eat or drink, or play games, or whatever they do, they must do all for the glory of God. In this spirit alone can you hope to have a profitable picnic.
Lifeless singing means, usually, a dead Sunday-school. Many a superintendent might greatly increase the vigor of his school by getting a little snap into the music. Different ways of singing will not of themselves solve the problem, but they will go far toward it. Here are a few methods which will add to the singing the variety that is the spice of it as well as of nearly everything else.
Try reading the song in concert before it is sung. It would puzzle most even of us older folks to tell, after we have sung a hymn, what is in it. Concert reading brings out unsuspected beauties of thought, and the hymn will be sung afterward with fresh zest and with fuller intelligence. The superintendent may vary this plan by reading the stanzas alternately with the school, or the girls may alternate with the boys. Occasionally get a single scholar to read the hymn before the school, or, what is far better, to commit it to memory and recite it.
Indeed, memory hymns, to be committed to memory by the entire school, and sung without the book, will prove very popular. Select songs that are worth learning for their words as well as for their music,—a thing which, alas! cannot be said of all our Sunday-school songs. One memory hymn a month might possibly be achieved, and your children will rapidly grow independent of hymn-books, as their grandsires were.
They may like to vote upon a school hymn for the entire year, and learn it in this way,—one that shall serve as a sort of rallying song throughout the twelvemonth. The various classes, too, may be encouraged to select their own class songs, and to practise them at their class socials. Then, once in a while, the entire school may listen while one or two classes sing their class hymns.
It would do no harm, either, for the superintendent occasionally to bind the children's interest to the singing by asking them to call for their favorites, that the school may sing them. This privilege may be granted to the classes or scholars that have the best record in attendance.
It will add interest to the singing if bits of pleasant information are sometimes given about the authors of our familiar songs. At the opening of the session, for instance, tell something about the blind hymn-writer, Fanny Crosby, and then let all the songs sung that day be by her; or tell a little about Miss Havergal's beautiful life, or give a few bright anecdotesabout Dr. S. F. Smith, and then use nothing but their hymns. Some such book as Hezekiah Butterworth's "Story of the Hymns" (New York: The American Tract Society. $1.75), or Duffield's "English Hymns: Their Authors and History" (New York: The Funk & Wagnalls Co. $3), will afford a plentiful supply of biographical material. Once in a while get one of the scholars to read one of these hymn anecdotes, or to tell it in his own words.
Prayer songs—there are many most beautiful ones—may be used as prayers, all heads being bowed while they are sung softly; or they may be read in the same way.
Antiphonal songs are easily arranged. Choose two classes of good singers in distant parts of the room, and let one sing the verses and the other the chorus of some suitable song. A hymn arranged in the form of question and answer, such as "Watchman, tell us of the night," or "Art thou weary, art thou languid?" is very effective when sung in this way, or when read in dialogue, the superintendent taking the questions and the school the answers.
Other dispositions may be made, for the sake of variety. Get the girls to sing the stanzas, and the boys the choruses, or the girls to sing one verse, and the boys the next, all uniting on the choruses; or, let the school to the right of the center alternate in singing with the school to the left. Send a company of singers into another room, with closed doors, and have them sing the chorus as an echo, very softly.Get the teachers to sing the stanzas of some song, while the whole school sings the refrain.
Solos are good once in a while, especially if you make the school the chorus for them. A quartette of picked singers may be introduced very delightfully on occasion, especially if their selection is germane to the lesson topic, and, best of all, if the quartette is chosen from the scholars themselves. The primary department will hugely enjoy singing one of their songs to the main school, and the older scholars will enjoy it quite as heartily.
Possibly a Sunday-school choir might be organized to advantage, the strong singers from among the more mature scholars being banded together to practice new music and lead the singing. School orchestras have been very useful in many churches, the boys being proud to serve the school with violin and cornet.
Most useful, however, in adding zest to the singing, are the simple changes and variations that shrewdly call attention to the old by putting it in a new place, or "putting it" in a new way. For instance, you might call fresh attention to a beautiful song by bidding all sing it without their books, while you "line it out" earnestly and brightly. You might preface a hymn with a sentence or two telling why you think it just the hymn to sing in connection with the day's lesson. You might piece together several verses from different songs, and ask the school to sing them in immediate succession, without prelude or interlude, noting the connection and progress of thethought. You might stimulate the scholars in this and that corner by asking now one class and now another to consider themselves the leaders in the song next to be sung. You might have occasional "new-hymn" days, in which will be sung no song ever tried by the school. You might even steal ten minutes, on very rare occasions, for song services, carefully planned so as to bear effectively on the lesson for the day. The ways are almost endless whereby a music-loving, child-loving superintendent can introduce his two loves to each other.
A few more general suggestions. First, to the organist or pianist. Why do you think it necessary to hammer out an entire piece of music before you let the fidgety children sing it? They already know every note of it, and are not interested in your performance; nor is any one else. They can find the place quite as quickly as you can. Except in the case of new songs, do let us off with the chord, and we'll canonize you as a model of self-restraint and good sense.
Then to the precentor, or whoever is responsible for the time you keep. Why is it so slow? I never could see why hymns should be sung so drawlingly as to make it quite impossible to grasp their thought. Time yourself in singing your next hymn, then read aloud the same hymn, forcing yourself to occupy the same time, and you will see why it is that our singing leaves our minds quite absolute blanks. This grievous fault must be remedied with the children if thesinging of hymns is ever to be, to the average grown-up, an intellectual and spiritual as well as a physical occupation.
And, to the same end, why is it that your school can sing readily, even without the book, the first two or three stanzas of so many songs, while every stanza beyond is an unknown land to them? It is because, owing chiefly to the slowness of our ordinary singing, we seldom compass the whole of a hymn. At the close of a well-written hymn is the climax, the thought up to which the whole has led, which binds it all together. Our songs, if they are to get hold upon our minds and lives, must be sung beyond their prelude, sung straight through.
To get hold of minds and lives,—that must be the end sought by all our singing.
In no way can more Christianity be taught in less time than by a good prayer. A Sunday-school that is not opened with the right kind of prayer remains tight shut until the teachers get hold of it, while the right kind of prayer at the close of the lesson hour rivets the lesson on the week to come.
Yet I know of no point in Sunday-school management regarding which superintendents are more careless. The children must listen to Magellan prayers that circumnavigate the globe; to mechanical prayers, cast in stereotyped forms; to officious prayers that volunteer to teach the coming lesson; to peacock prayers that flaunt big words and fine phrases; to wrinkled prayers, dealing with experiences into which the children will not grow for three decades. In some schools the superintendent always makes the prayer himself, praying in the same terms and tones and order for the same things. Elsewhere the superintendent invites others to perform this service, but,with pitiless impartiality, calls upon all that will, heedless whether they are capable or totally unfit for the difficult duty.
For it is not easy to guide the devotions of these varied ages and characters. The words must be so simple that the youngest can understand them. The thoughts must be so noble as to furnish an uplift to the oldest. The expressions must be direct, as in the realized presence of Christ. The prayer must be brief, and bright, and deeply in earnest, sincere as a child.
To perform this task, therefore, no one should be invited merely for policy's sake, merely because he is a visiting clergyman, a church officer, or a good-hearted layman. Ask no one that does not know the glorious language of a child's prayer. Give notice beforehand, since this prayer, if any, should be thought over and prayed over. And if you fear the prayer will lack a certain quality, shrewdly incorporate its name in your invitation, asking for a brief prayer, or a simple prayer, or a prayer about few things.
I wonder that this exercise is so seldom fixed upon the children's attention and interest by their own vocal participation in it. Indeed, it is not always that the school is able to repeat the Lord's Prayer together with the freedom and force born of long custom. The school may easily be taught to chant the Lord's Prayer, and that may be made most genuine praying. There are many suitable short Bible prayers that children might learn to say together, such as "Letthe words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer." Indeed, there are many prayer psalms that could be learned entire, the concert repetition of which would greatly enrich the Sunday-school hour. If yours is a model school, every scholar has his Bible, and Scripture prayers, not committed to memory, may be read in concert. And, besides, what more impressive conclusion to the session than the "Mizpah benediction," in which all voices join, or, perhaps better, the beautiful benediction in Numbers 6:24-26, "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee," etc.?
Then there is the hymn-book. If it is a good one, it contains many beautiful prayer hymns. Let the scholars all bow their heads, and sing softly Miss Havergal's tender consecration hymn, or "Nearer, my God, to thee," and you will find all hearts indeed drawn nearer heaven. Occasionally let the school read together one of these same hymns, also with their heads bowed.
And, by the way,—though it deserves more than a "by the way,"—insist on the bowing of the head,—not that the attitude is important in itself, but the reverence that the attitude arouses is of the highest importance. Wait till all heads are bowed before you begin the prayer or permit another to begin it. The half-minute of quiet or semi-quiet needed to gain this end is not ill-bestowed. Moreover, I should strongly advise you to go one step farther, and oncein a while have the entire school go down on their knees. This, the normal attitude of prayer, the children should be taught to assume in public, at least so often that it will not seem to them forced or unnatural.
Have you tried silent prayer? A blessed exercise it is, and one the children will love. Ask them to bend their heads or kneel, and then in perfect silence to pray for their teachers, or their pastor, or their dear ones at home, or some sick scholar. After a minute the superintendent will tenderly add a few closing sentences of vocal prayer.
And have you tried a chain prayer,—a prayer started by a leader, who will also close it, to which ten or twenty of the scholars contribute sentences of praise or petition? You will be astonished to see how many of the scholars will join in these prayers,—you will be astonished, that is, unless you are familiar with the training along this line so nobly accomplished in our modern young people's religious societies.
Still another way to obtain the scholars' careful heed to the prayer is to establish a form with which the superintendent will always begin his prayer, and which the entire school will repeat with him. The opening sentences of the Lord's Prayer may be used for such a purpose. Then, at the close of the prayer, after "for Jesus' sake," let all the scholars say "Amen."
An occasional Sunday-school prayer-meeting, held for ten minutes at the close of the lesson hour, will do much to inspire in the school a deeper spirit ofworship; that is, if the scholars themselves take part, and not the teachers only. And these Sunday-school prayer-meetings are magnificent opportunities for drawing the net. Hold them in a small room, that nearness may warm the coals of devotion to a glow. Do not hold them too frequently to be burdensome. Keep them brief and earnest. Let the teachers work for them in their classes, and use them as tests for their teaching. Above all, expect conversions in them, and, if you are faithful and faith-filled, you will get them.
This use of the scholar in the devotions of the school should be extended to his home. The superintendent may ask the scholars to pray every day during the coming week for the school, or for their teacher, or for their next lesson, that it may bring some one nearer Christ. For several weeks there may stand in bold letters on the blackboard a list of things that should be prayed for at home. The teacher, of course, must enforce these recommendations. If he will courageously hold once in a while a little prayer-meeting with his scholars, in the class-room, about the class-table, or, best of all, at his own home or at one of theirs, he will thereby teach them as much Christianity as otherwise he might in a year.
Indeed, the teacher has much to do in making yours a praying Sunday-school. To say nothing about the teacher's prayers for his scholars, which will be like steam to his pedagogic engine, and to say nothing about the united prayers of the teachers inthe teachers' meetings, the teacher's conduct during the prayer in the school is in itself half the scholars' attention, the knowledge on the part of the scholars that their teacher is praying for them will spur their home devotions, and the teacher's simple, ready participation in the school prayers will prompt their own. An excellent occasional method of opening the school is by a succession of very brief—almost sentence—prayers from six or eight of the teachers. A frequent topic for discussion in the teachers' meeting should be how best to inculcate in the school the spirit of devotion, since this great result is to be won only by the co-operation of all the working forces of the school.
Much is gained in this matter if you gain variety. Sometimes ask the older scholars themselves, several of them in succession, to offer brief prayers at the opening of the school. Sometimes let the superintendent's opening prayer attract attention by its exceeding brevity,—only three or four sentences, embodying a single petition. Do not place the prayer always at the same place in the programme; now let it come before the singing, now after; now lay emphasis on the prayer introductory to the lesson hour, now on the prayer that closes the hour and seeks to drive home its lessons. Be dead in earnest,—no, be alive in earnest. Be thoughtful and versatile. Be bright and cheery and simple-hearted and sympathetic. In these prayers, that should furnish the life-blood to the school, be all things to all—children, if by all means you may win one of them.
A word must be said about the co-operation of the Sunday-school and that other great modern agency for work with the youth, the young people's religious society. Whatever is said will be as true of the Epworth Leagues, Baptist Unions, and other denominational organizations as of the Christian Endeavor societies; but since the latter, like the Sunday-schools, are found in all denominations, and since my own especial work lies among them, it will be quite appropriate in this connection, as well as less confusing, to use only the one name, Christian Endeavor.
Though of ages so unequal, "S. S." and "C. E." are sisters. Both are international and interdenominational. Both apply the principle of age classification to religious work. Both are strongly evangelical, and earnest seekers of souls. Both are held in strictest subordination to the church. And both are Bible lovers; for the Christian Endeavor pledge requires daily reading of the Bible, and the weekly prayer-meetingtopic calls out no slight amount of Bible study. Moreover, this topic is usually in line with the week's Sunday-school lesson,—not the same as the latter, but suggested by it. The two agencies are at work in different fields. The one puts in, the other draws out. The one studies, the other practices. The Christian Endeavor society affords an excellent test for the Sunday-school, and is its complement. Whatever helps the one aids the other, and the two should labor hand in hand.
There are even some things that the Sunday-school might learn from its little sister. The principle of the pledge has proved attractive and powerful in the Christian Endeavor society. Why not adopt it in the Sunday-school, asking the scholars for voluntary vows that they will attend regularly and will spend fifteen minutes a day in studying their lessons? The monthly consecration meeting maintains wonderfully the spirituality, zeal, and discipline of the Christian Endeavor society. Why not a monthly consecration and experience meeting of Sunday-school teachers? Three or four Christian Endeavor societies cannot exist in the same town without forming a local union for mutual encouragement and consultation. Sunday-schools have their county conventions, but why not also this beautiful interdenominational fellowship among the Sunday-schools of every community? A large part of the remarkable success of Christian Endeavor is due to its being a work of the young people for themselves. There is close pastoral andchurch supervision, and it is welcomed; but the Endeavorers feel that it is their society, for whose honor they are responsible, and whose victories depend upon themselves. As far as possible, this spirit should be incorporated in the Sunday-school, so that the Bible study may not seem a work impressed on the scholars, but elected by them,—theirwork, and not their teachers'.
How can the Christian Endeavor society help the Sunday-school? Greatly in its prayer-meetings, by remembering the allied Sunday-school topic of the morning. Here is a chance for the teacher to enlarge upon some theme treated too hurriedly in the lesson hour, and for scholars to show their appreciation of their teacher by repeating some thought he brought out in the morning. If rightly managed, the Christian Endeavor meeting furnishes an admirable opportunity for advertising the Sunday-school, and practically applying the truths there taught.
But the help given may be far more direct. Every well-organized Christian Endeavor society has a Sunday-school committee, whose members put themselves under the direction of the superintendent, and make it the one object of their term's work to push in all possible ways the interests of the Sunday-school.
The members of this committee are usually chosen with an eye to their fitness for acting as substitute teachers. Sometimes the committee constitutes itself a normal class and studies the lessons a week in advance, considering especially the way to teach effectively.On the next Sunday, therefore, the superintendent will find any of these Endeavorers well prepared to fill a vacancy.
Everywhere, too, these Sunday-school committees help the busy teacher to look after the absent scholars and to care for the sick. It is far easier for these young people than for the teacher to learn the real causes of absence and to urge better attendance. In some schools the teachers fill out blank cards every Sabbath, giving the names of absentees or of the sick on whom they would like to have the Sunday-school committee call. These cards are collected, the calls made, and then the Endeavorers report to the teacher.
A kindred ministration is the gathering of new scholars. In many cities the Sunday-school committee has conducted a fruitful house-to-house canvass for new scholars, sometimes canvassing at the same time for new members of their society. Other committees distribute printed cards of invitation. Others organize "recruiting squads" among the scholars, and give little rewards to those that do the best work. Others make it their business to hunt out all the young strangers in the morning congregation and give them a personal invitation to the school. Still others distribute among the scholars "suggestion blanks," on which each scholar writes the names and addresses of young folks that might be won for the school. These Endeavorers call at the strangers' homes and go with them to the school, while others stand ready to welcome all strangers at the door and show themto appropriate classes. Thus they follow them up, that it may not be a case of "light come, light go."
The Endeavorers, under the direction of their Sunday-school committee, may be very helpful in the music. A choir or an orchestra may be organized from their numbers. An occasional song appropriate to the lesson may be rendered as a solo or quartette. When Sunday-school concerts are to be given, the Endeavorers will afford trained assistance. But especially the committee should become thoroughly familiar with the Sunday-school song-book, so that its members, scattered over the room, may carry with vigor any unfamiliar hymn, and give force and sprightliness to all the singing.
The Sunday-school librarian will find among the Endeavorers some efficient aids. The Sunday-school committee may advertise the new books in the Christian Endeavor meetings, and get the society to add to the library certain books of especial interest and helpfulness to Endeavorers. Sunday-school library socials have been held by some societies, the evening's exercises being so planned as to call attention to the best books in the library. The Endeavorers will help in covering books, in hunting up those that are lost, in reading new books and giving an opinion regarding them. Where subscriptions are taken for special papers or magazines, the Sunday-school committee will be glad to undertake this work. After these periodicals have been read, they will gather up the old copies to send to the hospitals.
The decorating for Christmas and Easter exercises or for Children's Day may be assigned to the Christian Endeavor society. The Endeavorers may be set to gathering in the scholars for Rally Day. They should be called upon for help on all such special occasions.
Some societies give parties now and then to the classes that have the best record, or divide the school into sections according to age, and entertain each section in turn at a Christian Endeavor social, closing the series with a pleasant evening spent with the teachers and officers alone.
It would weary you if I should rehearse all the ways in which Christian Endeavor societies have proved helpful to the Sunday-school. Many a primary department has gained much from close association with the work of the superintendent of the Junior Christian Endeavor society. I have heard of a large number of places where the Endeavorers organized and maintained mission Sunday-schools—schools that in many instances have grown to churches. Often the Endeavorers take charge of the ushering of the school, furnish flowers for every session, offer rewards to the scholars for excellence in various directions, help with swift feet in the messenger service of the home department, turn their trained forces into an occasional Sunday-school prayer-meeting,—indeed, they are as ingenious in discovering ways of helping this elder sister of the Christian Endeavor society as they are zealous and persistent in these labors after they are inaugurated.
If in some churches this help is not given, it is probably because it is not invited, or very likely through lack of organization. If the Christian Endeavor society has no Sunday-school committee, let the Sunday-school superintendent, who is a member of the societyex officio, interest himself in obtaining one. And then through this committee he can draft into the service all the other usual committees of the society—the lookout committee, to get new scholars; the prayer-meeting committee, to aid in the school's devotional exercises; the temperance and missionary committees, to give assistance in the special lessons on those themes; the music committee, to aid in the singing, and the flower committee, to help in the decorations; the social committee, to seek the absent and the sick; the good-literature committee, to help the librarian.
And if the Endeavorers do this, or a part of this, for the Sunday-school, why should not the Sunday-school do a little for the Christian Endeavor society? The superintendent may help it by calling upon it for assistance and by recognizing on fit occasions its officers and committees. He may even give it an occasional advertisement from the desk; and he, with his officers and teachers, may do much to put himself in touch with the young people by attending the Christian Endeavor meetings now and then. The teachers may help by introducing into their talks before the classes an occasional hint on the Christian Endeavor pledge or committee work, or by rememberingthe prayer-meeting topic and suggesting a thought or two that may be developed in the meeting, or by urging membership in the society upon those that do not already belong to it.
Thus it is seen how intimately these two organizations are related, and how much each may do to help the other. Do not allow them to labor apart. Parallel threads are weak; cables are made by twisting them together.