to as existing between the Sunday-school teacher and his class presents
another incentive to training. His relation is not like that of the
secular teacher, who speaks with authority, and can command attention
and study. The teacher in Sunday school cannot require his scholars to
learn the lesson; the authority of the parent is rarely employed to
compel home study; and as a result most of our scholars come to the
Sunday school unprepared. This is not the ideal or the ultimate
condition, but unfortunately it is still the real condition in at least
nine out of ten Sunday-school classes. This condition makes the demand
upon the teacher all the greater. Because his scholars are unprepared he
must be all the better prepared. He must be able to awaken and arouse
his pupils; he must inspire them to an interest in the lesson; he must
so teach as to lead them into knowledge of the truth and a desire to
seek it for themselves. Anyone can teach the scholar who is eager to
learn; but to teach those who come to the class unprepared and careless,
to send them away with a clear-cut understanding of the lesson, and an
awakened intelligence and conscience--all this, under the conditions of
the Sunday-school teacher's task, and in his peculiar relation to his
scholars, requires not only ability, but also thoroughly trained
ability.
In view of all these considerations, it is not surprising that at the
opening of the twentieth century the demand of the Sunday schools
everywhere is for better teaching, and for teachers who have themselves
been taught and are able to teach others.
XIV
THE TRAINING AND TASK OF THE TEACHER
1. =The Training Needed.= Many faithful workers in the Sunday school
realize their need of preparation; but, while conscious of unfitness,
they have no clear conception of the equipment which they require. What
are those fields of knowledge which should be traversed by one who has
been called to teach in the Sunday school? They comprise four
departments: (1) the Book, (2) the scholar, (3) the school, and (4) the
work.
(1) _The Book._ We have already noted that the Sunday school is
differentiated from other systems of education in the fact that it uses
mainly but one text-book, the Holy Scriptures. For that reason the
teacher must first of all acquaint himself as thoroughly as possible
with the contents of that wonderful volume. He should be a twentieth
century Bible student; not a student or a scholar according to the light
of the Middle Ages, or the seventeenth century, or even of the first
half of the nineteenth century; for in all those periods the aims, the
methods, and the scope of Bible study were different from those of the
present time. He who is to teach the Bible successfully to-day must have
some knowledge of the Bible in the following aspects:
(a) Its Origin and Nature. He must have a definite idea of how the
sixty-six books of Scripture were composed, written, and preserved;
and, as far as may be known, who were their authors.
(b) Its History. The Bible is, more than anything else, a book of
history, containing the record of a people who received the divine
revelation and preserved it. The divine revelation cannot be taught nor
comprehended unless the annals of that remarkable people, the
Israelites, be first read and understood. Therefore biblical history
should be the first subject to be studied by the teacher in the Sunday
school. The leading facts and underlying principles of that unique
history must be understood; not in an outline of minute details, but as
a general landscape, in which each lesson of the Bible will take its
place.
(c) Its Geographical Background. The Bible brings before us a world of
natural features which remain--seas, mountains, valleys, and plains; a
world of political divisions which has passed away; its empires,
kingdoms, and tribal relations; and cities and towns, some of them now
desolate, others in poverty and in ruin. The teacher who is to instruct
his pupils must be able to see those abiding elements, and by the aid of
his historical imagination to reconstruct those that have changed. He
must make that ancient world of the Bible roll like a panorama before
the eyes of his mind.
(d) Its Institutions. Upon every page of the Bible are stamped pictures
of manners, customs, institutions, forms of worship, that are unfamiliar
to our Christian, Anglo-Saxon, modern world. The teacher must become
familiar with this local color of another civilization, and enable his
class to see it through his eyes.
(e) Its Ethical and Religious Teaching. In the past, and until a
generation ago, the Bible was studied only for its doctrines. It was
generally treated as one book, all written at once and by one author;
its history, biography, institutions, were passed over as unimportant;
while every sentence was searched for some light upon theology. From the
Bible, by assorting and grouping its texts out of every book, a system
of doctrine was constructed; and the mastery of this system with its
proof-texts was regarded as the principal work of the Bible student.
That method of Bible study has justly fallen into disuse among modern
scholars. The Bible is now looked upon as a record of life rather than
as a treasury of texts. Yet its stream of ethical, religious, and
spiritual teaching must be found and followed by the student who is to
teach the truth; and the doctrines revealed through the Bible should be
regarded as a necessary part of his training.
(2) _The Scholar._ One book must be studied closely by the teacher, and
that is his pupils. During the last thirty years human nature in all its
stages, as child, as youth, during adolescence, and in maturity--especially
in the earlier periods--has been investigated as never before. The
student in our time can enter into the results of special study upon
these subjects. He needs to know what the best books can give him of
child study and mind study; and to supplement book-knowledge in this
department with watchful eyes and close thought upon the traits which he
finds in his own scholars.
(3) _The School._ The teacher in the Sunday school needs to understand
the institution wherein he is a worker. The Sunday school is like the
week-day school, yet unlike it; and the teacher must be able to
appreciate at once what he can follow and what he should avoid in the
methods of the secular school. The history of the Sunday-school
movement, its fundamental principles, its organization, officers,
methods of management, and aims--all these are in the scope of the
teacher's preparation.
(4) _The Work._ Whether on Sunday or on Monday, a teacher is after all a
teacher, and the laws of true teaching are the same in a Sunday school,
in a public school, and in a college. The application of those laws may
vary according to the ages of pupils, the subjects of instruction, and
the aims of the institution, but the principles are unchanging. Those
enduring principles of instruction are well understood, are set down in
text-books, and can easily be learned by a student. There are successful
teachers who know these principles by an intuition that they cannot
explain; but most people will save themselves from many mistakes and
comparative failure by a close study of modern educational methods.
In some way knowledge in all these four great departments of training
should be obtained by the teacher, if possible, before he enters upon
his task; but if he has missed earlier opportunities of preparation he
must acquire this knowledge even while he is teaching. The outlines of
such a course of study should be given in the training class for young
people; and such a training class should be regarded as essential to
every well-organized school.[11]
2. =The Teacher's Task.= All the preparation briefly outlined in these
last paragraphs is only preparatory to the work which the teacher is to
do in his vocation. The task set before the teacher is fourfold:
(1) _As a Student._ The studies named above are not completed when the
teacher has passed out of the training class with a certificate of
graduation. The public-school teacher who ceases to study after
finishing the course of the normal school is foredoomed to failure. The
training class or the training school has only outlined before the
teacher the fields to be traversed, and shown him a few paths which he
may follow. He who has undertaken to teach a group of scholars, whether
in the Beginners Department, the Senior Department, or any grade between
them, must continue his studies, in the Bible, in the specific course of
graded lessons which he is teaching, and in general knowledge; for there
is no department of thought or action which will not bring tribute to
the teacher, to be turned into treasure for his class. The Sunday-school
teacher must ever maintain an open mind, a quick eye, and a spirit eager
for knowledge. His accumulation will prove a store upon which to draw
for teaching; and even that unused will give its weight to truth
imparted to his class.
(2) _As a Friend._ The teacher is more than a student dealing with
books; he is a living soul in contact with living souls. If the most
masterly lesson teaching in the realm of thought could be spoken into a
phonograph, and then ground out before a class, it would fail to teach,
for it would utterly lack the human element. Knowledge counts for much
in teaching, but personality counts for far more. If a teacher is to be
successful he must have a close relationship with his class. They must
know him, he must know them, and there must be a common interest, nay, a
common affection, between the two personalities of teacher and pupil. He
must be a friend to each one of his scholars, schooling himself, if need
be, to friendship; and each of his scholars must be made to realize that
his teacher is his friend. This personal affection need not always be
stated in words. The teacher who constantly assures his scholars that he
loves them will not be believed as readily as the one who shows his love
in his spirit and his acts, even though he may refrain from affectionate
forms of speech.
(3) _As a Teacher._ Teaching requires more than the possession of an
abundant store of information upon any subject. He is not a teacher who
simply pours forth upon the ears of his pupils an undigested mass of
facts, however valuable those facts may be. The true teacher after large
preparation assorts his material, and selects such matter as is
appropriate to his own class. This he arranges in a form to be readily
received, thoroughly comprehended, and easily remembered. He comes
before his class with the fixed purpose that every pupil shall carry
away with him a knowledge of the lesson, and shall not forget it. He
must awaken the pupil's attention; for talking to an inattentive group
of people accomplishes no more than preaching to tombstones in a
graveyard. He must obtain the cooperation of the pupil's interest, and
induce him to think upon the subject. He must call forth from his pupil
some expression of his thought in language, for one is never sure of his
knowledge until he has shaped it into words; and that which the pupil
has stated he is much surer to remember than that which he has merely
heard. Teaching, then, involves (1) selection of material, (2)
adaptation of material, (3) presentation of truth, (4) awakening
thought, (5) calling forth expression, (6) fixing knowledge in the
memory.
(4) _As a Disciple._ It is the teacher's task not only to impart to his
scholars valuable information about the Bible, about God, about Christ,
and about salvation; but, far more than imparting an intellectual
knowledge, to bring the living word into relation with living souls, to
inspire a fellowship of his pupils with God, to have Christ founded
within them, to make salvation through Christ their joyous possession.
Nor is his work as a working disciple accomplished when all his scholars
have become Christians in possession and profession, and members of
Christ's Church. By his example and his teachings he should lead them to
efficient service for Christ in the church, in the community, and in the
state. There is work for every member in the church, and work for
everyone possessing the spirit of Christ in the community. Whatever may
have been the type of a saint in the twelfth century, or in the
sixteenth, or even in the early nineteenth century, in these stirring,
strenuous years of the twentieth century the disciple of Christ is a man
among men or a woman among women, active in the effort to make the world
better, and to establish in his own village, or town, or ward of the
city, the kingdom of heaven on earth. To inspire his scholars for such
labors, and to lead them, is the supreme opportunity and work of the
teacher.
FOOTNOTE:
[11] For detailed methods and plans, see the volume of this series on
The Training of Sunday School Teachers.
XV
THE CONSTITUENCY OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL
1. =Relation to the Community.= The Sunday school is a temple built of
living stones; and the quarry from which they are taken in the rough, to
be cut and polished for their places in the building, is the entire
community in which the school is placed. In our time, more than ever
before, the reasons are imperative why special study should be given to
the community from which the school must draw its members. Certain
principles of administration will become apparent when once the field is
carefully considered.
(1) _Constituency Adjacent._ The population from which a given Sunday
school draws its members must be generally that immediately around it.
Some teachers and scholars may come from a distance, but even in this
age of convenient transit by trains and trolley cars, it is found that,
taking the church building as a center, the constituency of the Sunday
school in a city is mostly within a radius of half a mile, and in the
country within a mile. Throughout that sphere of influence the church
should look well to the population, should know its proportionate
elements, as far as possible should come into acquaintance with the
families, and should plan to win, to evangelize, and to hold all its
natural following.
(2) _Membership Representative._ Upon general and almost invariable
principles, the Sunday school should represent all the elements of the
population within its environment. If it be a residence section with
isolated houses, each containing but one family of well-to-do people,
the church is apt to be a family church, and a large Sunday school must
not be looked for, since large mansions rarely contain large families.
If, on the other hand, the neighborhood be populous, characterized by
varied strata of society--a few rich, a goodly number fairly prosperous,
and a greater mass of wage-earners, yet the section as a whole American
and not foreign in its civilization--then a flourishing, active, and
growing Sunday school should be expected. And it should embrace all
these elements, the rich, the middle class, and the wage-earners, in the
proportion which each bears to the community as a whole. If the school
in such a population be small, or if it be composed exclusively of one
class, whether it be the so-called better class or the mission class,
there is a serious error in its policy. The true Sunday school should be
representative of all the elements in the population. It is both a crime
and a blunder to limit the efforts of a Sunday school to one class of
society: a crime, because such a school leaves multitudes around it to
perish; and a blunder, because the effort results in an anaemic,
dwindling, dying institution.
(3) _Methods Adapted._ Almost every community, whether in city or in
country, possesses some traits peculiar to itself. There may be two
towns ten miles apart, one the wealthy residential suburb of a city, the
other a settlement surrounding a great factory. The population of these
two places will be in marked contrast, and the methods of Christian
work successful in one will utterly fail in the other. One street or
avenue in a city may mark the boundary line between family churches and
mission churches. Within ten minutes' walk of each other may stand two
churches of the same denomination, yet so utterly apart in spirit as to
possess nothing in common but name. It is possible that each of these
two organizations might learn something from the other, and might do
their Master's work better by a closer community of interest and
feeling. Yet it would be a mistake to introduce into either church all
the plans that are successful in the other; or to reject in one Sunday
school any method because it has proved a failure in another and a
different field. The work of each church and Sunday school must be
adapted to the population from which its membership is to be drawn.
2. =The Changing Population.= One of the most imperative questions
confronting the gospel worker, both in the church and the Sunday school,
arises from the constant changes taking place in our population. In the
cities we see stately churches, once thronged, now well-nigh desolate,
while their walls echo to the tread upon the sidewalk of a churchless
multitude. In front of a fine old church, where once millionaires
worshiped, the writer has often passed a news-stand upon which are for
sale newspapers in seven different languages. And too often one finds
that the churches of a generation ago have been turned into low
theaters, or torn down, giving place to stores and office buildings. The
general principle may be laid down, that a church in the city almost
never lives more than one generation in the same building and with the
same character. After thirty years as the very longest period, if it is
to retain its members, it must follow them in the march up-town; or if
it is to retain its location and still hold a congregation it must seek
an absolutely new constituency, and to this end must transform its
methods of work. Nor are these migrations of population confined to the
city. The towns and villages are governed by the same law of change. A
village, once the seat of quiet homes, is suddenly turned into a factory
town, with a new and strange population. The farms on country roads,
abandoned by the families that formerly tilled them, are occupied by
foreigners of alien speech and manners. The building of a railroad will
open new towns, and at the same time will make more than one deserted
village. These changes in population must be considered in their
relation to the work of the Sunday school. The movement will be
characterized by varied traits in different places.
(1) _A Growing Population._ The change may be that of a healthy growth
in population, making the community a desirable place for a church and a
Sunday school. Such a development is constantly taking place in the
newer portions of a city, whose population is moving from the center to
the rim; or it may be noted in suburban towns, as facilities of
transportation bring new residents from the metropolis; or it may appear
in villages springing up on the line of a railroad, where home-seekers
are settling and building habitations. Leaders in church and
Sunday-school work must watch these growing centers, and provide wisely
for their religious needs. It will not suffice to wait for these
newcomers to build their own churches and organize their own Sunday
schools. Most of them are taxed to the utmost in building or buying
their own homes, and will scarcely realize their need until the habit of
neglecting worship has become fixed, and their children grow up without
religious education. The old and strong churches must extend a hand to
the settlers, must preempt church sites at the very beginning, must help
to erect chapels, for a time must supply workers, and must set the
current of the new settlement Godward and churchward. The reward of
their labor and their liberality will not long be delayed.
(2) _A Declining Population._ There are places where the population has
lessened, making the work of the Sunday school increasingly difficult
and its results meager. It may be in the city, where business has
crowded away the dwellers of other years, as in the lower end of
Manhattan Island in New York. There tall office buildings and warehouses
stand on sites formerly occupied by churches, but no longer needed, now
that almost the only residents are the janitors and their families,
living on the roofs of the towerlike temples of trade. But oftener the
region of the declining population is found in the country. Villages
once prosperous have gradually lost their inhabitants. In places where
three or four churches, each with its Sunday school, were formerly well
supported, there is now scarcely a constituency for one. Yet all these
churches, though decayed and dying by inches, are still maintained; and
each church still houses a discouraged Sunday school, attended by a
faithful few, but with no hope of growth and an imminent peril of
extinction. If loyalty to a denomination could give way to love for the
kingdom of Christ, these might be consolidated into one church and one
Sunday school for all the community. We venture the prophecy that before
the twentieth century comes to its close this will be throughout the
American continent the accepted settlement of the question. May its
fulfillment be not long delayed! In the meantime these decayed but still
enduring Sunday schools and churches in a community should seek for
peace and friendship, not emphasizing the points of doctrine or of
system that differ, but those that agree, and striving to maintain the
unity of the spirit in a bond of love.
(3) _A Population Changing Socially._ A serious problem often arises,
not from a decline but from a change in the social condition of the
population within the sphere of the church. The downtown church may have
been forsaken by its former members, but people of another class, and in
greater numbers, have taken their places. The mansions have become
boarding houses, flats and apartment houses have arisen, while the
thronged sidewalks, and the children playing in the streets, are
evidence that the material for members of the church and the Sunday
school is greater than before. True, the new inhabitants are of a
different social order from the old, clerks and porters instead of
merchants, employees instead of employers, working people in place of
the leisure class. The fact that the social level of the neighborhood
may be regarded by the worldly-minded as lower than formerly does not
lessen its need of the gospel, nor render it less promising for
Christian work. The church should look upon its field with unprejudiced
eyes, should have an understanding of the time; should be alert to see
and to seize its opportunity; and should change its methods with its
changed constituency. The field must not be abandoned; it must be
cultivated, and new forms of tillage will bring forth abundant harvests.
(4) _An Alien Population._ The most perplexing of all social problems
arises when immigration has swept into the district surrounding the
church a tide of people whose birth and speech are foreign, supplanting
and in large measure driving out the native population. There are
sections in our cities where the signs on the stores are all Bohemian,
or Polish, or Yiddish; where an English-speaking church would remain
absolutely empty, though thousands throng the streets. It may be that in
such conditions gospel work under American methods can no longer be
maintained; and a removal may be necessary. But even in the most
unpromising fields this conclusion should not be hastily reached. We
spend large sums in sending missionaries to the lands from which some
strangers come; should we not embrace opportunities of evangelizing
these at our own door? There are difficulties, but they are not nearly
as insuperable as those in foreign fields. These foreign-born or
foreign-descended children sit beside our own in the public school;
should we shut them out from our Sunday schools? In less than a
generation millions of these boys and girls will be as thoroughly
American as our own children. When we consider the question of
abandoning any field on account of its foreign population, let us widen
our horizon of thought to embrace the future as well as the present, and
then form our conclusion concerning the duty of the Sunday school to the
community.
3. =Practical Suggestions.= A few hints, some of them already given, may
summarize the practical side of the subject: