FOR many years, while serving as superintendent of Sunday schools, I saw
hundreds of children grow up to young manhood and womanhood, and in a
majority of cases go out from the school because they had reached such
maturity. Every conceivable effort was made to retain them by securing
the best teachers and offering such attractive social influences as
could be introduced into a class. Occasionally some magnetic teacher
with marked and strong personality would succeed for a time in holding a
considerable number of young people in the school, but such teachers
were hard to find. The The scholars never seemed willing subjects, but
bound in some way to a service that was neither palatable nor in all
cases profitable. Why is this so? was the question asked by troubled
teacher and superintendent, and too often it was attributed to the
perverseness of the young people, and they were given over to the world
with the hope that early instruction might have left some seed in their
hearts that would in future years bear fruit for their good and the
glory of God.
In the midst of these discouraging conditions, which seemed to be almost
universal in the Sunday school (so much so that in every institute
program was found this topic: "How can the young people be retained in
the Sunday school," and when the paper was read and the discussion
ended, the mystery was not solved), the writer began to search for the
cause that produced these conditions, and asked the question of himself.
Why did you leave the Sunday school at the age of sixteen, just as these
people do you are so troubled about? Going back to those days and
digging out of memory their thoughts, I found that there existed in my
mind the thought which was confirmed by the conduct of all schools, that
the Sunday school was for children, and not for young people, and that
as I was no longer a child I was out of place. It was not that I did not
like to be in the school, but that I had changed conditions and the
school had not; therefore was not adapted to me or my wants. This was a
revelation which led to the thought that the fault was not in the
splendid young men and women who left us, but that of the organization
and adaptation of the school to their needs. The conclusion was that if
we would retain our young people in the school and church, we must adopt
methods and instruction which would be in accord with their age and
thought. The public schools at once gave a pattern to be followed. The
graded system made some part of the school fit every scholar who came to
it, and gave to each one in lower grade a laudable and helpful ambition
to reach the higher. This idea, I conceived, might, in a modified form,
be introduced into the Sunday school, and as soon as the plan was
matured I proceeded to introduce it into the Central Methodist Episcopal
Sunday School of Detroit. I will as briefly as possible outline it,
trusting it may be helpful to others.