THE query often arises whether the modern Sunday school is now at its
maximum of efficiency in the line of its development. Wonderful is the
progress already attained. The introduction of the International Lesson
System marks an epoch. Before that separate schools and even teachers
were a law unto themselves. Now schools are in touch one with another;
sectarian barriers have been broken down; the unity of the cause is
recognized. The Church is one; so are her schools. The culture and the
spirituality of the Church catholic everywhere are now the teacher of
the teachers. Helps to Bible study are so multiplied and improved that
it is difficult to see how an advance step could be taken here. The
testimony is well-nigh uncontradicted that the Bible is studied as never
before in the light of modern research and science. Teachers, as a
body, are measuring up to these privileges and responsibilities.
The advance movement in Sunday school work may not be in its literature,
nor in the efficiency or the enthusiasm of its corps of teachers.
Elsewhere must we look for the necessity for improvement.
The Sunday school is a school. The expression sounds trite and
tautological; but it needs emphasis. Bishop Vincent in his latest book,
"The Modern Sunday School," discusses the proposition that the "Sunday
school is and must be a school." Out of the fullness of his knowledge
and experience proof is there given that the organization, system of
teaching, and methods of the public schools must be appropriated by the
Sunday school of the day. The modern Sunday school must stand or fall as
it is contrasted with the modern public school. By such a comparison
alone can excellencies or deficiencies be revealed.
Wonderful has been the development of the public school system in the
present generation. Great teachers have appeared in all ages and schools
have gathered about them. But this age is remarkable in this, that it
has adopted a system of instruction for youth and has trained teachers
for that system. The combination of these two elements makes the modern
common school system. Let the adults of to-day state the case of their
day. Such a comparison would show the value of the present. The great
boon from the State to the youth of to-day is an educational system
based on scientific principles.
In that system two essentials must be emphasized: first, departments;
and, second, the place of the pupil. These departments form a series
that are mutually related and dependent. They each mark a step in the
development of the mind of the pupil. Again, the pupil has his proper
place in that system, assigned not by caprice but by a principle. That
principle is the attainment of the pupil in the studies of the system. A
competent instructor could find by examination the true place of any
pupil in any city public school. Such a statement is so self-evident
that it excites no surprise. It is as it should be. The method of
assignment and promotion is the public school system. Without it that
system would not be what it is.
Apply now these essentials as tests to the Sunday schools. How are
pupils there assigned and promoted? The answer must be that such
assignment and promotions are there unknown. Here we touch a radical
defect and weakness. The statement of that weakness hardly needs
elaboration.
As we study further the public school system we find there a course of
study. That course of study, comprehensive and complete, the work of
educators, is the glory of the system. It is this curriculum that makes
its pupils students. In these points also compare the Sunday school.
A summary of these conclusions may be made. The modern Sunday school is
not the peer of the modern public school. The Sunday school has a
defective system of unrelated, independent departments. The modern
public school has a perfect system of correlated dependent departments.
The Sunday school has no system of promotions, no training school for
teachers, and no course of study. Do its pupils study? Why, they are not
required, nor examined.
Is there a remedy for such defects? Could its department be perfected?
Yes; but the disease is deeper than that. Could a system of promotions
be devised? Undoubtedly. Could a teachers' class be formed? Many schools
have that. To treat these symptoms separately is not to reach the source
of the disease. It is but to tamper with difficulties.
The solution lies in a "Course of Study." In the public school the
system rallied around a common center--its course of study. All the
agencies employed were to render that course effective. Out of a
supplemental lesson system will arise conditions that will crystallize
into correlation of departments, methods of promotion, a Normal
Department with its commencement day, and, best of all, by the help of
the home and the church, an atmosphere of study for the scholar without
which a school cannot be.
It is believed that such a course of study is practicable. Is it not
thus that the modern Sunday school as a school must be improved?
It is evident that the course of instruction in the Sunday school will
be different from that of the day school. There, mental culture is
sought; here, spiritual culture is the end in view. There, many are the
text-books on diverse themes; here, one book and one theme. The Bible
and its revelation must be the book and the theme of any supplemental
lesson system. It may be taken as an axiom that that system will be the
most efficient and acceptable which has the most of the Bible in it and
whose teachings best mirror the Bible.
The writer has prepared a series of text-books to be used as a
supplemental course of study in the Sunday school. These books have been
compiled in connection with his work as superintendent; and as they were
completed they were tested in the Sunday school at Erie, Pa. The first
one was written five years ago, and since then they have been
continuously used.
This school, as now graded, consists of the following departments:
Primary, Junior, Senior, Normal, Reserve, and Assembly. The Primary
Department has a four years' course and classes to correspond. The
Normal Department has adopted the two years' course of study of the
Chautauqua Normal Union. The course of study to which attention is
directed is an eight years' course--four years for the Junior
Department and four for the Senior Department. This course receives
pupils from the Primary room at the age of about ten, and, after it is
finished, passes them on to the Normal Department.