At the Helm
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 he has succeeded if
his teachers work as hard as they can in getting their scholars to work
as hard as _they_ can 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, "This _one_ thing 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 that he 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 them out 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 to the 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 counsel and 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,--_provided_ you 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 to these, 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 a _live_
superintendent--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.