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MODERN SUNDAY SCHOOL MANUALS
Edited by Charles Foster Kent in Collaboration with John T. McFarland
ORGANIZING AND BUILDING UP THE SUNDAY SCHOOL
By JESSE LYMAN HURLBUT
[Illustration]
NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS
CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & GRAHAM
Copyright, 1910, by
EATON & MAINS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
I. The Historic Principles Underlying the Sunday School
Movement 7
II. The Constitution of the Sunday School 14
III. The Necessity and Essentials of a Graded Sunday
School 21
IV. The Grading of the Sunday School 30
V. The Departments of the Graded Sunday School 37
VI. The Superintendent 46
VII. The Superintendent's Duties and Responsibilities 53
VIII. The Associate and Department Superintendents 63
IX. The Secretary of the Sunday School 69
X. The Treasury and the Treasurer 75
XI. Value of the Sunday School Library 81
XII. The Management of the Library 91
XIII. The Teacher's Qualifications and Need of Training 98
XIV. The Training and Task of the Teacher 105
XV. The Constituency of the Sunday School 113
XVI. Recruiting the Sunday School 122
XVII. The Tests of a Good Sunday School 129
Appendix 135
PREFATORY
IN the preparation of this volume the purpose was to supply a convenient
handbook upon the organization, the management, and the recruiting of
the Sunday school, to be read by those desiring information upon these
subjects. But after the larger part of the work had been prepared a
desire was expressed that the method of treatment be so modified that
the volume might be employed as a text-book for classes and individual
students in the department of teacher-training. It has been the aim of
the author not to alter the work so materially as to render it unfitting
for the general reader; and with this in view the series of blackboard
outlines for the teacher, and the questions for the testing of the
student's knowledge, have been placed at the end of the book. In the
hope that both the reader and the student may receive profit from these
pages the book is committed to the public.
=JESSE LYMAN HURLBUT.=
I
THE HISTORIC PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL MOVEMENT
1. =Magnitude of the Sunday-School Movement.= At the opening of the
twentieth century the Sunday school stands forth as one of the largest,
most widely spread, most characteristic, and most influential
institutions of the Anglo-Saxon world. Wherever the English race is
found the Sunday school is established, in the Mother isle, on the
American continent, at the Cape of Good Hope, and in Australasia. In the
United States and Canada it has a following of fourteen million members,
representing every religious denomination. Its periodical literature has
a wider circulation than that of any other modern educational movement.
It touches every class of society, from the highest to the lowest; and
its largest membership is found among the young, who are of all ages the
most susceptible to formative forces. It is safe to say that this
institution has exerted a powerful influence upon the majority of the
men and women of to-day, and is now shaping the character of millions
who will be the men and women of to-morrow.
2. =A Modern Movement.= Great as it appears in our time, the Sunday
school is comparatively a modern institution. Undoubtedly, the germ of
it can be traced back to that source of all the religious life of the
civilized world, the Hebrew people. The elemental principle of the
Sunday school is possibly to be found in the prophetic guilds before the
Exile, and the schools of the Jewish scribes after the Restoration. The
great Bible class of Ezra (Neh. 8) was not unlike a modern Sunday
school. Yet as an organized institution the Sunday school began with
Robert Raikes, the philanthropist of Gloucester, England, who on one
Sunday in 1780 called together a group of street boys in a room on Sooty
Alley, and employed young women to teach them the rudiments of reading
and religion. If Raikes had not happened to be the editor of the town
newspaper, and in constant need of copy, his Sunday school might soon
have been forgotten. But from time to time he published concerning it
paragraphs which were copied into other papers and attracted attention,
so that the Sooty Alley Sunday school became the parent of a vast
progeny throughout the United Kingdom and beyond the seas. No
institution then in existence, or recorded in church history, suggested
to Robert Raikes either the name or the plan. Both arose out of his own
good heart and active mind. But since his day both the name "Sunday
school" and its plan of working have been perpetuated, and every Sunday
school in the world is a monument to Robert Raikes, the editor of
Gloucester.
3. =A Lay Movement.= It is a significant fact that the first Sunday
school was established not by a priest, but by a private member of the
Church of England, that its earliest teachers were not curates, nor
sisters, but young women of the laity, and that throughout its history
the movement has been directed and carried forward, in all lands and
among nearly all denominations, by lay workers.[1] This is noteworthy,
because in the eighteenth century, far more than in our time, the
teaching of religion was regarded as the peculiar function of the
clergy, and lay preaching was frowned upon as irregular. The earliest
Sunday school may have been preserved from churchly opposition by its
own insignificance; or it may have won the favor of the clergy by the
fact that all its pupils at the close of the morning session were
regularly marched to church. Whatever the cause may have been, it is
certain that under a providence which we must regard as divine, both in
its beginning and throughout its history, the Sunday school, although a
laymen's movement, has received favor, and not opposition, from the
clergy and the Church.
4. =Unpaid Workers.= It has been stated that Raikes paid the young women
who taught in his Sunday school a penny for each Sunday. But as the
movement went onward the conductors and teachers were soon giving their
service freely; and this has been the prevailing rule throughout the
world. There are a few Sunday schools wherein a curate or assistant
pastor is the superintendent, and a few mission schools that employ a
salaried teacher who works through the week as a visitor; but it may be
asserted that the world-wide army of Sunday-school workers lay upon the
altar of the Church their free-hearted, unpaid offering of time, study,
and effort. This has been and is a noble, a self-denying, a splendid
service; but it has also been a potent element in the progress of the
movement. Those who would establish a school, alike in the city and on
the frontier, have not been compelled to wait until funds could be
raised for the salary of a superintendent and teachers. If only churches
rich enough to pay for workers had established Sunday schools in our
country, the Sunday school as an institution would not have advanced
westward with the wave of population. And not only has the unpaid
service aided the growth of the movement, it has also added to its moral
and religious power. The pupils and their parents have recognized that
the teachers were working not for pay, but from love for their scholars
and their Saviour; and that love has imparted to their message a power
all its own.
5. =Self-supporting.= The Sunday school has been from the beginning and
even now remains in large measure a self-supporting movement. It
everywhere involves expense for furniture, for teaching requisites, for
song books, for libraries; but for the most part the money to meet these
expenses has been contributed in the school, among its own members, and
not by the church. Instances are on record, even, where the church, in
former times, charged and received rent for the use of its property by
the Sunday school! Such short-sighted practice has been rare, but
multitudes of churches have found the Sunday school a source of far
greater profit than expense. In other words, those who have done the
work of the school have also paid its bills, and many families that have
received its benefits have been exempt from its burdens. It is
noteworthy, however, that this condition is passing away, that churches
are awakening to their responsibility and opportunity, and are giving to
the Sunday school that liberal support which its work requires and
deserves. In the ratio of investment and return, no department of the
church costs so little and rewards so richly as an efficient Sunday
school.
6. =Self-governing.= As a result of being self-supporting, the Sunday
school has also been a self-governing institution. Paying its own way
and asking no favor, it has been almost everywhere an independent body,
accepting no outside authority. It has grown up almost unrecognized and
unnoticed by the churches. Fifty years ago scarcely one of the
denominations, great or small, gave the Sunday school recognition as an
integral part of its system. Little attention was paid to it in the
ruling body of the local church. It chose its own officers, obtained its
own teachers, made its own rules, and for its teachings was responsible
to no ecclesiastical authority. It was generally an ally to, but
independent of, the church. In this respect a gradual change has taken
place. Its relations are now much closer, its position is defined; and
the institution is sanctioned and supervised by the church.
7. =Self-developing.= The system of the Sunday school has been evolved
without guidance or control from any human authority. It has been from
the first self-organizing, and has been also self-developing. Some might
consider the form which it has taken accidental; but it is better to
regard it as providential. The men and women who laid the foundations
of the Sunday school were building under a divine direction of which
they were unconscious. Working apart from each other, on both sides of
the sea, and separated by wilderness and prairie, everywhere they
established an institution under the same general principles, and with
substantial unity in its plans. Perhaps one cause for its unity of
method is that it arose in the midst of the Anglo-Saxon race, a people
which has instinctive tendencies toward law, system, and organization.
If it had started among a Latin people, where men, and not systems,
rule, there might have been a different form of organization, with
different aims, with different titles for officers, in every province.
But throughout the English-speaking world, which is the habitat of the
Sunday school, the institution bears the same name. Its principal or
conductor is called a superintendent--cumbrous though the title may
be--and its working force are known as teachers.
8. =Bible Study.= The most prominent trait in the Sunday school of the
present is that it has become the most extensive movement for
instruction in the Sacred Scriptures that the world has yet seen. All
these millions of members, young and old, are engaged in the study of
one book--the Holy Bible. Many of these millions, indeed, study the
Bible superficially, unintelligently, with narrow interpretations and
crude methods; yet in the Sunday schools of the lowest type as well as
of the highest some portion of the Bible every week is brought to the
scholars' attention. That the Bible is so generally known and so widely
circulated, that the demand for this ancient book warrants the printing
of more than ten million copies every year, is due more to the Sunday
school, with all its defects of method, than to any other institution.
This concentration of attention upon the Bible has grown gradually in
the Sunday school. In the eighteenth century Sunday school, both of
England and America, religious instruction was only one of its aims; and
it was instruction in the catechism and forms of worship rather than in
the Bible. But by slow degrees the Bible came more prominently to the
front, until now the Sunday school is everywhere the school with one
text-book. He who surveys the Sunday school through the inner eye
beholds it on one day in each week covering the continent with its
millions of students, all face to face with some portion of the great
text-book of religion. The thoughtful observer will reflect that a
people whose children and youth come into weekly contact with the living
word will not wander far from the path of righteousness.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] An exception is to be noted in the Sunday schools of the Roman
Catholic Church, where most of the teachers belong to religious orders.
II
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL
The general characteristics of the Sunday school, as they have gradually
developed during its long history, must be considered in any plan for
organizing and conducting an individual school. The institution should
be studied both ideally and practically: practically, to ascertain what
the Sunday school has been and is now; yet ideally, with a view to
developing its highest efficiency and largest usefulness. Such a plan
for the specific Sunday school may be called its constitution. It is
desirable to have the constitution in written or printed form, but it is
not necessary. There is no more complete system than the government of
Great Britain, yet it has no written constitution; and Mr. James Bryce
has shown us in America that the instrument known as the Constitution of
the United States by no means represents our own actual method of
government. In every nation there is an unwritten law, wrought out of a
people's consciousness, which is more imperative and enduring than any
parchment scroll or printed form.
The general principles to be maintained in establishing and developing a
Sunday school are the following:
1. =Aim.= The primary aims of the Sunday school are religious
instruction, character-development, and effective service. It is not to
teach history, nor science, nor sociology, but religion; and not merely
to impart a knowledge of religion to the intellect of its pupils, but,
infinitely more important, to make religion an effective force in the
life of the individual scholar. As a Christian institution, in the
definition given by one of its greatest leaders,[2] "The Sunday school
is a department of the Church of Christ, in which the word of Christ is
taught, for the purpose of bringing souls to Christ, and of building up
souls in Christ." If it be in connection with a Jewish synagogue or
temple--as are some of the best Sunday schools or Sabbath schools in our
land--it is for the purpose of instruction in the faith of the ancient
fathers, and of making their teachings live again in the men and women
of to-day. A true religious education, such as the Sunday school seeks
to give, will include three aims: (1) knowledge, (2) character, (3)
service. There must be an intellectual grasping of the truth; a
character built on the truth, out of faith in God, and the life of God
inspiring the human soul; and service for God and humanity. The Sunday
school seeks to develop not only saints in fellowship with God, but
workers for God, who shall strive to realize on earth the kingdom of
God, not seeking to be ministered unto but to minister. There have been
centuries in the past when the Christian ideal was the cloistered saint,
living apart in communion with God. But that was a pitiably incomplete
conception of the perfect man. In our age we have the larger ideal of
saintliness with service; and to promote this should be the aim of every
Sunday school.
2. =Method.= To attain its aim the Sunday school employs the teaching
method. The Sunday school is not, as some weak-minded people have called
it, "the nursery of the church." Nor is it, as it has been named, "the
Bible service"; for, although it holds a service, it is more than a
service. It is not--or should not be--a gathering of groups, large or
small, where silent hearers listen to sermonettes by little preachers,
miscalled teachers. It holds a service imbued with the spirit of
worship, yet worship is not its central purpose. It should have music,
but it is not primarily a service of song. It should be pervaded by an
atmosphere of happiness, but mere enjoyment is not its object. The
Sunday school is a _school_: and the very word shows that its aim is
instruction and character formation, and its method is that of teaching.
For the work of a Sunday school the essentials are three:
(1) There must be the living teacher who is fitted to inspire, to
instruct, and to guide. His part is not merely to pour knowledge into
his pupils, but to awaken thought, to guide the search for truth, to
call forth expression in character and in action.[3]
(2) There must also be the scholar who is to be taught. It is his part
in the process of instruction not merely to listen and to remember, not
merely to receive impressions, but to give expression to the teaching,
in life, in character, in influence, and in service. The true
effectiveness of the teaching in the Sunday school will be shown by the
reproductive power of the truth in the life of the scholar.
(3) There must be a text-book in the hands of both the teacher and the
pupil. In any school for religious instruction one book will of
necessity stand prominent, that great Book of books which records the
divine revelation to man. The Sunday school may teach history,
geography, institutions, doctrines, literature of the Bible, but these
only as a framework or a foundation for the education of the heart into
a personal fellowship with God. This character-molding, faith-impelling
force is the divine truth taught in the Bible through the experiences
and teachings of patriarchs, prophets, priests, psalmists, sages, and
apostles, and above all by the words and life and redemptive work of the
Master himself. And the subjects of study in the Sunday school need not
be limited to the text of Scripture. There may be extra-biblical
material for the teaching of character and service; and all this should
be open to the Sunday school.
3. =Relation to the Church.= However independent of the church
organization the Sunday school may have been in its beginnings, and
however self-dependent some union Sunday schools may of necessity be in
certain churchless regions, the general fact is established that the
Sunday school as an institution belongs to the church, is under the care
of the church, has a claim upon moral and financial support by the
church, should be a feeder to the membership of the church, and should
gratefully accept the supervision of the church. It should regard itself
and be recognized by all as in many ways the most important department
of the church.
4. =Government.= All power must be under direction, and the mighty
energies of the Sunday school especially need a wise, strong guidance.
In the general management of the Sunday school two elements should be
recognized: (1) the rights of the workers and (2) the authority of the
church.
(1) It must ever be kept in mind that the Sunday school is an army of
volunteers. Its workers are men and women who of their own accord give
to the school without compensation their gift of service. Those who make
such a contribution to the success of the Sunday school should certainly
have a voice in its management.
(2) But it is not to be forgotten, on the other side, that the Sunday
school is not superior to the church, nor independent of it, but
subsidiary to it; hence the church should be able to exercise some
control over the school if such control shall ever be needed. For
example, in the choice of a superintendent, who is the executive officer
of the school, the ruling body of the local church and the working body
of teachers and officers should unite. No one should undertake to
conduct a church Sunday school unless he thus has the definite assurance
that his teachers are with him, and that his church is officially
supporting him.
5. =Officers.= Little need be said here on this subject, for it is one
with which every worker is familiar.
(1) There must be a leader, or manager, the executive head of the
school, who is universally styled the superintendent. If we were
organizing a new institution, and not describing one already world-wide
and with officers already named by common usage and consent, we would
prefer that the executive of the Sunday school receive the title of
Principal or Director; but the somewhat awkward word Superintendent is
settled upon him, and will remain.
(2) There must also be an assistant superintendent, or more than one, as
the size of the school may demand. The better title is associate
superintendent, as is now given in the larger number of well-organized
schools. The superintendent should have the privilege of nominating his
own associates or assistants, the nominations to be confirmed by the
board of teachers and officers.
(3) There will be a secretary, with such assistants as he may require,
to be nominated by the secretary and confirmed by the teachers.
(4) There will be a treasurer, to care for the funds, and to disburse
them as ordered by the board of teachers, or the Sunday school as a
whole.
(5) Lastly, but most important of all, there must be the working force
of instructors, the faculty of the institution, its teachers, who should
be carefully chosen. The pastor, as well as the superintendent, should
have an active voice in their call, since they are his coworkers in the
religious instruction of the congregation.
6. =Membership.= In the conception of a Sunday school, both ideal and
practical, the constituency for which it is established must be
considered. As has been noted, it was originally for children only, and
only for children who were destitute of home training, and outside of
church relationship. The earliest Sunday schools were what are called
in England ragged schools, and in America mission schools. But in the
noble evolution of the movement the Sunday school constituency has been
vastly enlarged; and now it is recognized that the Sunday school is for
all ages and all classes. It should embrace the young and old, the
ignorant and intelligent, the poor and rich, the sinner as well as the
saint. The Sunday school which fulfills its mission to society will
welcome all the world.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Bishop John H. Vincent.
[3] For qualifications and functions of the teacher see Chapters XIII
and XIV.
III
THE NECESSITY AND ESSENTIALS OF A GRADED SUNDAY SCHOOL
1. =The Necessity of Grading.= As the result of the gradual and unguided
evolution of the Sunday school through a century or longer, most schools
are now divided in a vague way into certain departments, generally known
as the Primary, or Infant Class; the Youths Department, or Boys and
Girls; and the Adult Department, or Bible Classes. Many who have charge
of schools such as these regard them as graded, and so report them. But
the mere naming of departments does not constitute a graded school.
Whoever studies the ungraded or loosely graded Sunday school will
perceive in it certain evils which can be removed only by a thorough
system of grading, maintained faithfully through a series of years. Some
of these conditions which make the graded Sunday school an absolute
necessity are the following:
(1) _The School as a Whole._ The close observer, looking at the entire
school, notes first of all that its gains and its losses in membership
are at the extremes of its constituency. It is the normal condition for
the gains to come in the Primary section; for the little children in
families are attracted to the school or brought there by older children.
There is almost invariably a constant increase in this department,
requiring frequently the organization of new classes in the grade
above, among the younger boys and girls. But, on the other hand, there
is a constant loss of older scholars. In most schools, at the age of
fourteen, in what is known as the early adolescent period of life, the
pupils, for one reason or another, begin to drop out, and few enter to
take their places. Almost every school is thus growing at the bottom and
dying at the top. The Primary classes are full, but the classes of those
above fourteen years are usually small--two large boys here, three
yonder. And although girls continue in the school more frequently than
boys, there will appear the same conditions--some large classes of girls
and young women, but others where discouraged teachers are sitting down
with one, two, or three pupils. Six or eight years ago these same
classes came out from the Primary Department, each with eight or ten
pupils; now they are mere skeleton classes, barely alive, and threatened
with dissolution. Every earnest, thoughtful superintendent would rejoice
to find some plan that will guarantee large classes of young people
between sixteen and eighteen years of age, for this is the most vital
period in the life of the individual. Such a plan is proposed in the
graded system.
(2) _The Condition of the Classes._ Fixing the attention upon the
several classes, the critic of the school system notes three unfavorable
conditions:
(a) There is the inequality in the size of classes, to which reference
has already been made. When classes come together by accident, pupils
bringing their friends, or new members joining whatever classes they
please, some classes of boys or girls will inevitably be too large for
good government or good teaching, and others will be too small to
create any enthusiasm, either in the teacher or the pupils.
(b) There is also an inequality in the ages of pupils in the same class.
A class may include one pupil or two pupils sixteen years old, and
others as young as ten, or even nine years; some who during the week are
in the high school, and others who can scarcely read the verses assigned
to them.
(c) Where these inequalities of numbers and ages exist there is a lack
of that class spirit which is an essential element of power in a
well-ordered Sunday school. Every class should be a unit, with a strong
social bond; but this ideal cannot be realized when there are in the
class two or three youths in the noisy, assertive, self-conscious stage
of early adolescence, and others who are several years younger. Nor can
there be a proper social bond in a class with only two or three members.
They are likely to be irregular in attendance, to find excuses for
absence or for leaving the school, until at last the discouraged teacher
and the listless scholars together drop out of sight.
For the correction of these evils of inequality in numbers and in ages,
and of this lack of class spirit, the only successful method is to grade
the school, and resolutely to keep it graded.
(3) _Difficulties of Administration._ The difficulties which confront
the superintendent in the management of an ungraded school are many and
great.
(a) The first and ever-present difficulty is in obtaining teachers for
new classes. The constant growth of the Primary Department is his
perennial perplexity. To relieve the congestion in the crowded Infant
Class its older pupils must be brought into the main school, and
teachers must be found for them. The superintendent is always seeking,
and often seeking vainly, for new teachers.
(b) Another difficulty is found in the attempt to transfer scholars from
one class to another. No matter how much out of place a pupil may be, it
is almost impossible to transfer him to another class without incurring
the displeasure of the teacher, the scholar, or the scholar's family.
And however overgrown or ill-assorted a class may have become, to divide
it is a delicate task, almost sure to cause ill feeling. Also, when
there arises the need of a teacher for a new class just emerging from
the Primary Department, the natural plan would be to combine some of the
skeleton classes in the other departments, and thereby release a teacher
for service with the new class. But the superintendent who attempts this
plan finds that almost invariably it results in some of the older
scholars leaving the school because their teacher is taken from them.
2. =The Essentials of a Graded School.= Briefly stated, the essentials
of a graded Sunday school are the following:[4]
(1) _Departments._ The graded Sunday school is organized in certain
distinct groups, of which the most important, for our present purpose,
are the Primary, Junior, Intermediate, and Senior Departments. To these
will be added the Beginners and Adult Departments when the subject comes
up for a complete treatment. Each of these departments should have, if
possible, a separate room; but if these rooms cannot be provided in the
building, the pupils should be seated by departments in the different
parts of the one room. Perhaps it may be assumed that there is a
separate room for the Primary Department; then let those who have most
recently come from the Primary be seated on the right block of seats;
the Youths or Intermediate in the middle; and the Senior classes on the
left block, or vice versa. The younger classes of the department should
have the front seats, the older those in the rear, in regular gradation.
The school may be arranged in the order shown in this diagram:
+---------------------------------------------+
|+-----------+ +------------+ +------------+|
|| OLDER | |FOURTH YEAR | |FOURTH YEAR ||
|+-----------+ +------------+ +------------+|
| |
|+-----------+ +------------+ +------------+|
|| OLDER | | THIRD YEAR | | THIRD YEAR ||
|+-----------+ +------------+ +------------+|
| |
||YOUNG WOMEN| |SECOND YEAR | |SECOND YEAR ||
+-----------+ +------------+ +------------+|
| |
|+-----------+ +------------+ +------------+|
|| YOUNG MEN | | FIRST YEAR | | FIRST YEAR ||
|+-----------+ +------------+ +------------+|
| SENIORS INTERMEDIATES JUNIORS |
| |
| +-----------------------+ |
| | PLATFORM | |
+---------+-----------------------+-----------+
(2) _Classes._ The number of classes should be fixed for each
department, and their relationship established, so that when a group of
scholars is promoted to a higher grade in the same department, or in the
next department, they do not enter as classes, but as individuals; not
to form new classes in the department, but to be placed in classes
already formed. This plan will keep the classes in the Senior Department
always full, and avoid the unfortunate skeleton classes of the ungraded
school. It will also impress upon the pupils the importance of faithful
work.
(3) _Promotions._ There should be annual and simultaneous promotions
throughout the school. One Sunday in the year should be set apart as
Promotion Sunday; and on that day all promotions should be made. Those
who are to be advanced from the Intermediate to the Senior Department
are called out by name and placed in their classes, which are not new
classes, but old classes replenished with new members. These promotions
will vacate the seats of the Fourth Year classes in the Intermediate
Department. But these seats will at once be filled by the Third Year now
becoming the Fourth Year, and taking their seats; the Second Year pupils
becoming the Third Year; and the First Year the Second Year. The First
Year of the Intermediate Department will be left vacant, to be filled by
promotion of the Fourth Year in the Junior Department, and the moving up
of classes to the year above in the same department; and the First Year
of the Junior Department will be filled by promotion from the Primary
Department.
(4) _Teachers._ As groups of scholars pass either from one grade or from
one department to another there must also be a change of teachers. This
constitutes the crux of the entire system, and in its inception is apt
to prove the most formidable obstacle in grading the school. The pupils,
however, are accustomed to a system of promotions in the day school, and
expect to leave their teachers when they change their grades; but many
of the teachers in the Sunday school, not being trained under the
system, dislike to lose their scholars, and show their dissatisfaction
in ways that affect their pupils. This difficulty must be overcome by
tact and an appeal to unselfish motives; teachers must consent for the
sake of the common good to give up their old classes and take new ones
which begin in the department. The teacher may remain in the grade and
receive a new class each year as his pupils advance to a higher grade;
or he may remain with the class and advance until the pupils pass from
their former department to a higher one, as from Primary to Junior, from
Junior to Intermediate, and from Intermediate to Senior. He should then
return to a new first year's class in his own department and lead it
through the course. If any teacher asks, "Why cannot I go with my class
into the Senior Department?" the answer is that if the plan be permitted
for one it must be recognized for all; and in the Senior Department
there will follow an increasing number of classes, with a relatively
diminishing membership in each class. The scholars also need the
inspiration of contact with different teachers. Furthermore, the teacher
who is adapted to the Junior or Intermediate Department is rarely a
suitable teacher for Senior scholars. Hence there is need of a careful
assignment of teachers no less than of pupils. Therefore, to maintain a
graded school the pupils must change teachers when they change
departments.
(5) _Lessons._ There should be graded lessons for each department. If a
graded system be followed in the school, as it should be, with different
subjects, text-books, and lessons for each department, giving to the
entire school a regular, systematic, progressive curriculum, this
requisite will be met. If, however, the uniform lesson for all the
school be followed, as at present is still the case in many Sunday
schools, the graded teaching must be given in the form of supplemental
lessons, taught by the head of the department where it has a separate
room, or by the teacher if the departments must be assembled in one
room. In some form the graded teaching is an absolutely essential
requisite of the graded school. Most schools, when once thoroughly
graded, will realize the need of the next step in the evolution of the
institution--lessons graded in subjects as well as in methods for the
several departments.
(6) _Basis of Promotion._ The question is often asked, "Should
promotions be made on the basis of age, or as the result of
examinations?" The examination system may be regarded as desirable in
the Sunday school, but there are as yet few schools where thorough
examinations can be rigidly insisted on as a part of the school system,
and promotions invariably made to depend upon standing. A school which
meets only once a week, for a session of less than an hour and a half,
and with but one lesson period of forty minutes or even less, cannot
maintain the same strictness in its standards as the public school.
Moreover, new scholars are continually entering the schools, and, while
most of them begin at the foot of the ladder in the Primary Department,
yet others enter at various ages and in various grades. Any system of
promotion based merely upon acquirement attested by examination is sure
to become in many instances a meaningless form when applied to the
Sunday school. Yet acquirements and examinations need not be ignored in
the graded Sunday school. There may be certain ages at which the pupils
shall by right pass from a lower grade to a higher. But it may also be
arranged that pupils who are exceptionally bright, well-informed, and
studious can be promoted a year in advance of their classmates by
passing examination. Let the examination be given in writing to all the
pupils, and let all be urged to take it; with the promise that those who
pass will be promoted, even though they be less than the required age.
But let it also be understood that failure to pass the examination will
not keep the student for more than one year from promotion. In other
words, the examination may well be made the door through which earnest
students may pass on, and so keep abreast of their equals in training
and ability.
FOOTNOTE:
[4] For a more complete statement, see the volume of this series on The
Graded Sunday School in Principle and Practice, by Dr. H. H. Meyer.
IV
THE GRADING OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL
The question is often asked, "How may an ungraded Sunday school be
placed on a graded basis?" The work may seem simple, and easy of
accomplishment, but when it is undertaken difficulties arise which must
be intelligently and tactfully met.
1. =The Difficulties.= If all our Sunday-school teachers were trained
educators, accustomed to the methods of the public school, they would
see at once the advantages of the graded system, and heartily enter into
it. But most of our teachers are untrained, and their range of vision
often fails to reach beyond their own class and their immediate
environment. The relation between teachers and scholars is personal
rather than official; and on both sides the personal equation often
complicates the problem. In every school there are a few teachers who
are so strongly influenced by their feeling for their pupils that they
fail to recognize the needs of the school. There are also scholars,
especially in the sentimental early adolescent age, who are unwilling to
leave their teachers when promotion is offered to them. But unless the
change of teachers is maintained the graded system will utterly fail to
benefit the school; it will be graded in name only, and not in fact.
This part of the program must be carried through, even though it may
cost the school the loss of a teacher or two teachers and their
scholars.
2. =The Remedy= for this difficulty is only to be found in carefully
considered action by presenting the necessity and value of the plan so
clearly that the teachers as a whole will fully understand it,
appreciate its importance, and heartily accept it. The grading should
not be attempted upon the mere fiat of the superintendent, nor on the
vote of a bare majority of the workers. The teachers must recognize the
self-sacrifice which it requires, and must make that self-sacrifice
generously, giving up their scholars for the general good. The possible
objections of the scholars are more easily overcome, for they are
accustomed in the public schools to promotions with change of teachers,
and readily accommodate themselves to the same system in the Sunday
school. Thoughtfulness and kindness, with time, will soon remove the
hindrances from the path of the graded school.
3. =The Method of Grading.= The school may be graded in either of two
ways, the gradual or the simultaneous method.
(1) In the gradual method the superintendent, with the concurrence of
the teachers, may announce that after a certain date all promotions will
be made in accordance with the graded system, leaving the classes as
they are until the time for promotion arrives. Then promote from Primary
to Junior, from Junior to Intermediate, and from Intermediate to Senior,
according to the principles of the graded school; and in four or five
years, if the system be maintained, the result will be a school fully
graded in all its departments.
(2) In the simultaneous method of grading, the plan must be carefully
matured, and general cooperation of all assured. The following plan has
been tested in more than one school, and found to work successfully:
(a) Let a careful committee be chosen to arrange the details of grading.
The committee should consist of teachers acquainted with the scholars as
far as may be practicable, and should, of course, include the
superintendent. They should also take an abundance of time for their
work.
(b) Obtain the ages of all the scholars between eight and eighteen years
of age, and, approximatively, the ages up to thirty. Let this list be
made quietly by each teacher for his or her own class. It may be
desirable not to inform the pupils for what purpose the enrollment is
made. Instances have been known where scholars have understated their
ages, hoping thereby to remain with favorite teachers.
(c) Let the committee go over the lists and assign the scholars to
classes according to age and acquirement. In some degree social
relations should be considered, so that each class may be as far as
practicable a social unit. In the Intermediate Department boys and girls
should be in separate classes, and not more than six or eight pupils
should be placed in one class. No announcement of the assignment of
scholars to classes should be made until the day fixed for the
reorganization of the school. It will be a good plan to prepare a map or
chart of the schoolroom, with the place proposed for each class
indicated upon it.
(d) On the day appointed, after the opening exercises, first let the
seats or rooms set apart for the Senior Department be vacated; and then
let the roll be called according to the new list. "Class No. 1, Senior
Department. Mr. A----, with the following scholars." As their names are
called let them take their places, until the list of classes and
scholars in this department is filled. Next vacate the seats assigned to
the Intermediate Department, and let these teachers and pupils take
their places; then the Junior Department, according to the same plan.
The Primary Department can be graded by its superintendent or teacher
without aid from the committee.
Let it be understood that every scholar must take the place assigned to
him at the time when his name is called; and that only for an important
reason can an assignment, when once made, be changed. In a large school
there will be found a few cases where the committee has made a mistake,
even with the greatest care; and these mistakes should be rectified, but
not until the pupils have taken their new places temporarily in the
scheme of the school.
4. =Advantages of Thorough Grading.= Many benefits will follow from the
proper organization of the school; and their value will be increasingly
apparent as the system is maintained through a series of years.
(1) _Appearance._ It is the testimony of every superintendent and pastor
who has graded his Sunday school that the appearance of the school is
greatly improved by the graded system. The older scholars are assembled
in one body, instead of being scattered throughout the room; scholars
of the same size and age are brought together in classes. The school
will also actually seem larger than it was before the grading.
(2) _Order._ The order of the school will be more easily maintained. The
big boys and the giggling girls, both at the self-conscious, awkward
age, will be in a new environment, no longer the leaders over smaller
and younger pupils, but in classes by themselves, and with
responsibilities appealing to their self-respect.
(3) _Social Relations._ It will be a benefit to the scholars of each age
to be associated in groups of the same period in life, with the same
interests and similar mental acquirements. Many scholars will find their
new associations more congenial than their former ones in the ungraded
classes, where older and younger people have been brought together. The
class will now become, far more than it was before, a social power.
(4) _Teaching Work._ In the ungraded class, with older and younger
pupils together, the teacher met with his greatest difficulty in finding
a common ground of interest. In the graded class, with pupils of uniform
age and equal intellectual understanding, the teaching can be better
adapted to the needs of the pupils.
(5) _Incentive to Interest._ The prospect of promotion awakens an
interest in the classes. Each scholar looks forward to the time when he
will attain to a higher grade with its enlarged privileges.
(6) _Obtaining Teachers._ The grading of the school greatly aids in the
solution of the ever-present problem of obtaining new teachers, (a) The
graded school requires a smaller number of teachers than the ungraded
school, since it provides for the consolidation of skeleton classes in
the Senior Department. This sets at liberty a number of experienced
teachers for service in other grades. (b) Whenever a new class comes
from the Primary Department, a teacher is already at hand in the Junior
Department whose class at the same time has advanced to the Intermediate
Department. The teacher goes year by year with his class until it leaves
the department, and then he returns to a new class beginning the studies
of the same department. (c) After the results of a teacher-training
class are available there will always be trained teachers waiting for
classes.
(7) _Leakage Period._ The young people between fifteen and twenty years
of age constitute the "leakage period,"[5] when they are in great danger
of drifting away from the school. They will be held to the school far
more firmly if they have before them the prospect of membership in large
classes of young people, with social opportunities, and club life, so
popular with youth at the early adolescent age. It has been clearly
shown by practical experience that an organized Senior Department, with
large classes kept full by regular reinforcement from the Intermediate
Department, will maintain itself and hold its members, while skeleton
classes of the young people constantly tend to disintegration.
The well-organized, completely graded Sunday school possesses such
evident and great advantages that it is certain to be established
wherever thorough and efficient religious instruction is sought. The
sooner it comes, and the more faithfully it is maintained, the better it
will be for the church of to-day and to-morrow, and the more quickly and
effectually will the grave problems of our modern civilization be
solved.
FOOTNOTE:
[5] Dr. A. H. McKinney, in After the Primary--What?
V
THE DEPARTMENTS OF THE GRADED SUNDAY SCHOOL
=General Scheme.= The four departments essential to a graded Sunday
school, whether large or small, have already been named by anticipation.
But it is necessary to give to the subject a closer consideration, and
to add the names of other departments which are needed either as
departments or subdivisions in the school. Following the analogy of the
secular schools, the great divisions of a Sunday school may be named as
Elementary, Secondary, and Advanced or Adult. The Elementary Division
will include the Cradle Roll, Beginners, Primary, and Junior, taking the
scholar up to twelve years of age. The Secondary Division will include
the Intermediate and Senior Departments, also the Teacher-training
Class, and will embrace the scholars between twelve and twenty years of
age. The Advanced or Adult Division will include all the classes wherein
the average age is above twenty years, including the Home Department.
Beginning with the youngest children, the departments of a thoroughly
organized school are the following: