LIBRARY OF THE University of California. Class Sunday-School Problems A Book of Practical Plans for Sun- day-School Teachers and Officers By AMOS R. WELLS Author of** Sunday- School Success, ' " Three Tears with the Children" ** Studies in the Art of Illustration, etc. W. A. WILDE COMPANY BOSTON AND CHICAGO RAL Copyright, 1905, By W. A. Wilde Company, All rights reserved. Sunday-School Problems. Entered at Stationers' Hall, London. S Vis* o W 4- PREFACE If you are looking in this book for a systematic treat- ment of the subject, for big words and philosophical analyses, I am afraid you will be disappointed. But if you want to know what practical Sunday-school workers have found helpful in solving the principal problems of their work, I hope you will be aided by these pages. This book is a record of my thoughts and observations on the Sunday school during the past seven years. Its various chapters have already enjoyed, separately, a wide reading. They have appeared in The New Cen- taury Teacher^ The Sunday-School Times, The Pilgrim cher (Congregational), The Baptist Teacher, Tlie Westminster Teacher (Presbyterian), the publications of the British Sunday-School Onion, and addresses before various Sunday-school conventions, the American Bible League, and the Religious Education Association. Whatever may be said of those that discuss the Sun- d.i y school from the outside, I am sure that the actual teachers of the Sunday school are interested far less in theories and criticisms and profound disquisitions on "the Sunday-school movement," than in the very humble 4 PREFACE but infinitely important question, how to get Bible wis- dom into Tom Jones and Susie Brown. This book says nothing, I believe, about " the Sunday-school movement." It is just about Tom and Susie. Amos R. Wells. Boston. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. HOW TO GET HOME STUDY 7 II. THE LAST FIVE MINUTES 16 III. WHAT TO DO WITH BACKWARD SCHOLARS . ■ . 22 IV. WHAT TO DO WHEN THE LESSON HOUR IS CUT SHORT 27 V. THE GOOD OF GOALS 34 VI. WHAT TO DO W HII THE DISORDERLY SCHOLAR, 43 VII. is mi; GOLDEN tex I 'WORTH WHILE? ... 52 VIII. tin: teacher's MANNER 57 IX. A GOOD SUNDAY-SCHOOL PATCH 63 X. WHAT TO DO WHEN THE ATTENDANCE WANES, 68 \i. THE HOY OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL 79 \n. THOSE notices 86 XIII. Ill I : SWING OF THE SCHOOL 93 XIV. THi: PEDAGOGIC VALUE OF FUN 97 XV. L TEACHES BY POST 108 XVI. THE SUPERINTENDENT'S BLACKBOARD ... 116 XVII. THE SUNDAY SCHOOL AS AN AVOCATION . . 124 XVIII. HOW TO BUILD UP THE ADULT BIBLE CLASS, 132 \ IX. WH VT TO DO Willi HIE HARDER LESSONS . . 141 XX. THE BIBLE IN THE GLASS 150 \\l. PATRIOTISM IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL ... 158 xxil. "SUNDAY-SCHOOLY" 164 5 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XXIII. CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 173 XXIV. CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES 198 XXV. THE LESSON PERSPECTIVE 207 XXVI. THE SUPERINTENDENT THAT NEEDS A MUZZLE 213 XXVII. "PEARLS BEFOUL swim;" 218 XXVIII. THE CLASS NUCLEUS 222 XXIX. WHAT TO DO WITH " THE HIGHER CRIT- ICISM" 225 XXX. THAT EASILY POSSIBLE TEACH ERS' MEETING, 238 XXXI. THE RIGHT BAIT 247 XXXII. HOW TO USE DECISION DAY 250 XXXIII. BIBLE-MARKING IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL . 25(1 XXXIV. HOW TO INSPIRE LOVE FOR THE BIBLE . . 261 XXXV. PENCIL AM) PAPER 268 XXXVI. WORKING WITH THE YOUNG PEOPLE'S SO- CIETY 27;} XXXVII. WHY no WE TEACH IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL! 277 XXXVIII. HOW TO TELL A BIBLE STORY 284 INDEX 295 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS CHAPTER I HOW TO GET HOME STUDY What complaint is most frequently heard from the Sunday-school teacher ? Undoubtedly this : " I can't get my scholars to study at home." And that is a pretty serious complaint, if the teacher desires to teach, and not merely to lecture; to educate, not harangue. Of course, much good may be done the scholars, and the school is well worth while, though Bibles are never opened at home, and ail the class learns about the lesson is what their teacher tells them ; but Sunday-school efficiency is doubled or quadrupled if home study prepares a founda- tion on which the teacher can build. Creating an Appetite.— Nor is the object of home study merely to gain information ; that is where many teachers fail in their efforts to obtain it. One important function of home work is to create a zest, an appetite, for the work of the school. No teacher will persuade his scholars to study the lesson by scolding them. In some way, home study must be made attractive. The element of play must enter it. We have none of the imperative motives which the secular schools can bring to bear upon their students, but must make up the lack by ingenuity and skill. 7 8 SUNDAY SCHOOL PROBLEMS Plan for It. — It is essential, then, that the Sunday- school teacher plan carefully for the home study of his scholars, as carefully as for his own work in the class. Every week he should present some device, not al- ways, though often, a different one. Beginning with slight, easy tasks, let him go on to more difficult work; but from the start — and here is where many teachers fail — it must be something quite definite, and something that is evidently worth while, no mere answering of a set of leading questions. Follow It Up.— Any attempt to bring about home study will be useless unless it is followed up, regularly and persistently. Call for the results of it the first thing, at the beginning of every lesson. While home study is becoming a habit, it would be worth while to give each scholar a postal card, on which, the middle of the week, he will send the teacher a report of his work. A record of the scholars' faithfulness in this regard should be kept explicitly. Indeed, it will help greatly if this matter is recognized each Sunday in the secretary's report to the school, so that the scholars may know how many have studied at home the past week, and for what average and aggregate time, and what improvement is being made. At the end of the year, if such home work as I shall sug- gest is carried out, the school will have ample material for a notable exhibit, interesting to the entire church, and a fine advertisement for Bible-study. Helps. — It is useless to require home study until the scholars have Bibles ; and almost useless unless the Bibles are of clear, large type. If they are the Revision, the scholars' pathway will be wonderfully smoothed. But HOW TO GET HOME STUDY 9 they will also need the helps that come with a teacher's Bible, especially the atlas, the references, and the index. As to the concordance, that feature in a teacher's Bible is so condensed as to be more of an aggravation than an aid. By all means, every scholar that can afford a full concordance and a Bible dictionary should be induced to purchase them. For the others, a little class library may be kept in the most easily accessible place, and there should be found not only the books already mentioned, but good commentaries on the portion of Scripture the school is studying. Does any one demur at the cost of this ? Remember, the books will answer for years, and it is as foolish to at- torn pt Biblical studies without text-books as to send your children to the secular schools without grammar, arith- metic, and geography. Instruction in the use of these helps must be given. Few scholars know how to use the concordance or Bible index, or on what map of the atlas to look for a certain place, or even how to get the most out of their regular lesson helps. An entire session of the school might prof- itably be spent by the teacher in giving this necessary instruction and drill. Plain Directions. — It is hardly possible to be too ex- plicit in giving directions for home study. Fix a reg- ular time for this work, so that each of the class may know that, when he sits down for his daily ten or fifteen minutes with the lesson, all the other members of the class, so far as possible, are at the same task. And give the scholars written programmes for their study, as : — 1. Intervening events and lesson proper (Bible.) 10 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PK01JLEMS 2. Place (atlas). 3. Time (lesson help). 4. Persons (Bible dictionary). 5. Events (commentary). 0. Teachings (lesson helps, etc.). 7. Scripture light (Bible index). One of these points may be taken up on each of the seven days of the week, and the lesson may be studied in this order in the class. Such a programme, however, soon grows monotonous, and the scholars will become able to do this fundamental work more rapidly, leaving time, at home and in class, for more attractive advanced work such as I shall indicate. If possible, interest the parents in this home study. Nothing will better promote the success of your class. In any event, it is an admirable plan for you, once each week, to* study the lesson with one of your scholars, tak- ing them in turn. Not only will you thus give them the most needed intellectual help, but you will get closer to their spiritual needs than in any other way. In addition, it will be a delightful stimulus if the scholars themselves meet occasionally at one of their homes, for an evening of study together. Specimen Studies. — The nature of the special home studies, which are to add zest to your routine work, de- pends, of course, on what part of the Bible you are study- ing. If, for example, you are entering upon the life of Saul, set your class to preparing historical charts, show- ing the Hebrew kings in order, at distances proportioned to the lengths of their reigns. If you are beginning the life of Christ, interest your scholars in constructing HOW TO GET HOME STUDY 11 charts which will show in order all the recorded events of his life. If the lessons lie in the Psalms, get the class to go through the entire book, prefixing a title to each Psalm, or classifying the Psalms under a few suitable heads, such as " Psalms of Praise." The lesson may be one of the miracles. Then have the scholars make a list of the Bible miracles that are akin to it, such as all miracles of healing. A parable may be the lesson theme. In that case the class may be set to writing paraphrases; or, if any are capable of the feat, they may be asked to tell the story in original verse. A quarter's lessons lie in Genesis. Ask the scholars to read the entire book, finding a keyword for each chap- ter. A lesson from Proverbs may contain a maxim re- garding money. Induce the scholars to collect the rest of the proverbs that discuss the use of wealth. The choice of the twelve disciples is the theme. Obtain, from this home study, lists of events and savings which will exhibit all that the New Testament tells us concerning each disciple. Give your work an air of completeness, of finality. For instance, with the first temperance lesson of the year let each scholar get (or make) a blank book, in which he will copy, during the four temperance lessons of the year, all that the Bible says on this theme. Or, you are beginning the lessons in the life of Samuel. Get- ting other blank books, the scholars will proceed to com- pile, as they go on, their own biographies of the great judge, gathering up whatever the Bible or the lesson helps Bay about him. In the same way the class will 12 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS make their own lives of Paul, putting in an account of each Epistle at the time when it was written. Some lessons taken from the minor prophets will give rise to another little book, one page being devoted to each of the twelve, the Bible dictionaries being ransacked for all known facts of their lives. At another time, as you draw near to the end of a series of Old Testament studies, the order may be: Prepare a list of all the principal characters of the Old Testament, in their chronological order.- In such ways the scholars will be made to feel that they are actually achieving something, completing something. One of the most profitable lines of home study is the correlation of the Bible, illustrating Scripture with Scripture, making the scholars familiar with the Bible as a whole and not merely with the fragments on their lesson leaves. Thus a lesson from a Bible address, such as that of Moses in Deuteronomy or that of Paul on Mars Hill, will suggest a study of all the orations of the Bible; and this study will extend over several Sabbaths, to be followed, at intervals, by similar studies of Bible poems, Bible letters, and the like. Similarly, the lesson on Elijah's ravens will bring about a search for Bible birds; and other lessons will lead you to study Bible fishes, trees, mountains, children, mothers, brothers, rivers, and like topics almost without end. With older scholars the object of exploration may be more ethical, and they may be asked to illustrate the main teaching of the next lesson, for instance, by three passages from other parts of the Bible. Or, for work with a still wider range, ask the scholars to bring in next Sunday, each of HOW TO GET HOME STUDY 13 them, a set of ten references obtained from reference Bibles and appropriate to the various sections of the lesson, the class to select, by vote, the references that seem on the whole to be the best. By such contrivances as these, frequently varied, you may attach your week's lesson to the rest of the Bible, and make your scholars feel that the entire sixty-six books are one Book. As the teacher earnestly plans for home study, a great number of devices will occur to his mind. One of the best of these is Bible marking. Some simple system of indicating the subjects of verses, such as by significant letters in the margin,— P for prayer, S for sin, SI for salvation, — prove sufficient to interest your scholars in hunting up correlated texts, and making their Bibles books that can be used. Occasionally let the teacher prepare a set of questions on the lesson, a set quite full and difficult. Using some manifolding device, prepare a copy for each scholar, as a guide and stimulus to homo study. Occasionally, too, Mid perbaps better, get the scholars themselves to pre- pare at home sets of questions on the coming lesson, sending them to you by Friday, that you may use the questions on the coming Sunday. Sometimes, at the beginning of the year, perhaps, let the teacher give each member of his class a blank book, saying, "This is your Duty Book. I want you to write out in it, each week, in the course of your home study, a statement of the duty or duties the lesson inculcates, l.ring these books to the class, so that we may compare notes." Many classes will be interested in making their own 14 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS Bible commentaries. For this purpose they will need a lot of blank paper of uniform size. Cutting out the lesson text from their lesson leaves or quarterlies, they will paste it on one of these sheets, writing beneath whatever explanation is needed, prefixing verse numbers to each point taken up. They will be interested in this work in proportion as they are faithful to it, and see it growing till it promises to cover the whole Bible. If you have many lessons from a single book, as from one of the Gospels, get each scholar to print the name of the book on a blank book, and write inside a running analysis of the chapters. Be sure to have in each book a title page and a preface, the latter to contain an ac- count of the author and the circumstances under which the book was written. Sometimes ask the class to bring, written out, analyses of the current lesson made under the following heads : Time; Place; Connection; Chief person ; Subordinate persons: Chief event; Subordinate event; Chief teach- ing; Subordinate teaching. Use this order in the class discussion. Often let a review be part of the home study. To insure this you might ask the class, for instance, to write out, and hand or send to you during the week, a full statement of the teachings of the lesson just studied. I do not think that acrostics are generally practically helpful, though if the scJioI'ii> them they will promote home study. I do believe, however, in the preparation of diagrams showing the succession of historical events, reigns of kings, and the like, and espe- cially do I believe in home-made maps; for example, a HOW TO GET HOME STUDY 15 map showing Christ's journeys, a different color for each journey, the events being indicated by numbers with marginal explanations ; or a similar map for Paul's jour- neys, or one for the various travels and events of Moses' life, or one for the various exiles. Quite a different line of work, promotive of home study, is the search for illustrations of the lesson truths. It may be a temperance lesson ; send the class to study the newspapers for illustrations. At other times urge them to bring you illustrations from biography, history, tin.* annuls of missions. Bible scrap-books will prove useful in stimulating home study. They will be receptacles for maps and diagrams, for all pictures illustrating the Bible, and for photographs of famous paintings of Biblical subjects. If there is a place for such a collection it is astonishing how rapidly it will grow, and interest in it will grow with equal rapidity. I have named a variety of methods for promoting home stmlv, and yet I have only begun ; for, like any other line of endeavor, skill in this work and abundance* of plans are the fruit of sincere attempts and persistency. We can obtain home study if we want it, and if we will add to our desires a measure of ingenuity, energy, and perseverance. CHAPTER II THE LAST FIVE MINUTES In many Sunday schools it is the custom to ring a sig- nal bell five minutes before the close of the teaching. Whether he like it or not, that bell marks a crisis in the teacher's work. The test of his teaching has come. Now or never he must manage those finishing touches which in the case of his pedagogic effort, as of a statue or a poem, ally it to the endless years, or, failing, send it to the refuse heap of all poor work. How Not to Do It. — Those precious five minutes must never be spent on Sunday-school mechanics, — collecting the pennies, making announcements, distributing the li- brary books or papers. These should all have been cleared out of the way. Nor should this climactic time be spent upon any minor detail of the lesson. No matter what interesting fact you leave out, no matter what bright anecdote or telling point you omit, go at once to the main teaching of the lesson, and during those five minutes drive it home. Yet you will not succeed if you allow an uneasy sense of hurry to dissipate your attention and that of your scholars. They must not be made to feel, " Only five minutes more ! " but, " Now for the best ! " If anything, proceed more deliberately than before, since a sense of leisure is necessary for the wisest teaching and the surest learning. 16 THE LAST FIVE MINUTES 17 Especially, have a carefully matured plan for those last five minutes. If the half-hour's teaching has given you a sudden inspiration for your close, and you are certain it is worth following, follow it ; but such inspirations are far more likely to come if you are prepared against their not coming. For instance, just when that warning bell rings, some anecdote appropriate to the lesson will catch the attention of your scholars and withdraw it from the thought of time ; but you must have it ready in reserve, as a part of your lesson plan. Not with Homilies. — The most common use of the last five minutes is in exhortation. That is almost always a mistake. Restless with the half-hour's steady thought, the class will not be appreciative of sermonettes. It is necessary, if you would hold their attention, to give them something to do. If you can set them to work, and make their own activity of hand and mind draw to- gether the lesson thoughts into some rememberable whole, you will have set a worthy and workmanlike seal on your teaching. It seemed to me that I could not furnish more tical help in this chapter than by suggesting perhaps a dozen ways of doing this. 1. Give each member of the class a slip of paper, and ask them to sum up the teaching of the lesson in a single word— or in two words, three, or ten, as seems best. After all are done, each will read his summary, and you will state which seems the best, and why. 2. Place on the blackboard — and always a large block of paper will answer, if you have no blackboard — some symbol of the lesson. It may be a diagram, a simple picture, a mere acrostic. Explain it briefly ; then hand 18 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS out pencils and paper and have the symbol copied, and the copies taken home as souvenirs of the lesson. If the paper you give out for this purpose is heavy, and neatly cut into some pretty shape, it will be more likely to be kept. 3. Distribute among the scholars brief quotations from well-known writers bearing on the great truth of the les- son. These will be read aloud one by one,' and you will comment, very briefly, on each. 4. Get the class to question you on the events of the lesson, and urge them to press in the queries as rapidly as possible, while you make your answers brisk and brief. At the close, you yourself will ask the one important question, forcing home the lesson truth upon their con- sciences. 5. Show the class some beautiful picture previously concealed, such a picture as llolman Hunt's" The Shadow of the Cross." Get them to tell you what idea is brought out by the artist. 6. A very impressive method of closing is to give each scholar a personal note, fitting the lesson to his special need. Have these notes read in silence, and then ask that all heads be bowed while you offer a short closing prayer. 7. Every teacher should have his own collection of poems, especially chosen for their helpfulness in illustrat- ing Scripture themes. Choosing from this collection the one best adapted to impress the lesson of the hour, place it in large script before the class, or dictate it line by line, while they copy it. Ask them to commit it to memory at home, and be sure at the next meeting of the class to have the poem recited. THE LAST FIVE MINUTES 19 S. Prepare a set of questions covering the ground of the lesson. Make them as crisp and interesting as possi- ble. Write them in plain, large script on a big sheet of paper, which you will hang before the class as soon as the five-minute bell rings. Furnish the scholars with pencils and paper, and bid them see who can answer cor- rectly the most of the questions before the close of the five minutes. 9. Print or write on a large sheet of paper some beautiful hymn or some fine prose quotation suitable to the lesson. Unroll it suddenly and place it before the class. Say a word about the author, if you know any fact of his life that adds force to the extract. Then get the class to read the quotation in concert, softly, and again and again, till the thought has thoroughly entered their minds. Close with silent prayer, all heads bowed, the petition being that God will make that truth a part of their lives. 10. Having determined what central teaching you wish to impress, examine carefully the past week of your life, and see if you have not had some experience which illustrates that truth. Study in the same way your scholars' lives, so far as you know them or can imagine them, and search out similarly illuminating experiences. Recall the news of the week, with the purpose of dis- covering some prominent event that brings out the main teaching of the lesson. From one or more of these sources you can doubtless glean an anecdote that will rivet the attention of the class for these concluding five minutes, and fasten the lesson truth in their minds better than a half-hour's homily. 20 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS 11. Teachers, especially of the younger classes, should make collections of well-told stories that point useful morals. They will serve as standing models for the teacher's style, and also will help by direct use. ('hous- ing one of these that is suitable, spend the last live minutes in reading it before the class (or get one of the class to read it), asking the scholars to listen intently and write out their remembrance of the story as soon as they get home. Give them stamped and directed envel- opes in which to mail to you these stories during the week, that you may examine them and read the best before the class on the next Sabbath. 12. Appoint one member of the class to take your place in front, and submit to be questioned on the lesson by all the class. As soon as he misses a question, appoint another to take his place, and so on. As the live min- utes draw near their close, tell the class that you also want to ask a question, the most important question of all ; and then proceed briefly to bring out, by a single heart-searching query, the truth you wish chiefly to impress. 13. All of the foregoing plans elicit the interested cooperation of the class; but you will gain and hold their attention very effectively if you can persuade some good speaker to "drop in" on the class just as the warn- ing bell rings, and talk to your scholars for five minutes on the topic which you have made your central theme. The class will accept a homily from a fresh speaker when the}' would not accept it from you. It will be seen that, if you are to make such thorough plans for these last five minutes, you must not be cheated THE LAST FIVE MINUTES 21 of them. The superintendent must understand that for no reason are they to be abbreviated. The warning bell and the closing bell must come with most " dependable " regularity. The ideal use of these five minutes will do five things, — one for each minute. 1. It will grip your scholars' attention, and hold it in defiance of all distractions. 2. It will concisely review the lesson. 3. It will bring it to a climax, a rememberable point. 4. It will apply this central truth to the heart- life of the scholars. 5. It will send them away stimulated, pleased, and wanting to come again. Thus treated, the last five minutes will be the eagerly anticipated crown of the entire session. Indeed, I might fittingly compare these final five min- utes to the arrow-head with its barbs, whereby the arrow makes a permanent conquest. And if I have given too complicated directions for fashioning the arrow-head, I hasten to remind the teacher that only one method, or even a part of one method, is to be applied at once, and continued till it becomes easy and familiar. Your last five minutes may not be pedagogically perfect; but if you realize their importance and do your best, they will grow constantly in attractiveness and force; and, any- way, even a clumsy arrow-head is better than a headless arrow. CHAPTER III WHAT TO DO WITH BACKWARD SCHOLARS The backward scholar is the teacher's test. If the teacher brings the backward scholar forward, he is the teacher's triumph. " What thank have ye" if ye make only bright scholars learn? "What do ye more than others ? " Sympathy. — I suppose the first requirement, if a teacher would help a backward scholar, is that he be sympathetic. You cannot greatly help any scholar, still less a dull one, until you believe in him, and show him that you believe in him. Remember Sir Walter Scott, and all the rest of the long line of brilliant men and women who were stupid children. Recognize diversities of gifts, and re- member that not all children are cast in the same mold. Courage will be half of progress for the backward scholar, and your courage will be more than half of his. Comradeship.— Though you are on terms of comrade- ship with no others of your class, you must be on such terms with the dull scholar. Your immediate pleasure would lead you to have more to do with the more at- tractive pupil, so that you will need to be on your guard here. Your personal leadership must move the back- ward scholar forward, and he will not follow your leading unless he likes you. And so it is a good plan to invite the less ready scholar to your own house, to study the lesson with you ; or, go 22 WHAT TO DO WITH BACKWARD SCHOLARS 23 to his house for this partnership study. You can show hi in how to study better in this way than any other, and that is the first thing he has to learn. Besides, with every such lesson you can »come into more intimate acquaintance with him. . Along this line, however, the aid of some one of his own age will be wortli more than yours. Children quite invariably learn more readily from one another than from their elders — a principle too often left out of sight in secular as well as religious instruction. And so, if you can naturally bring it about, get the brighter scholars to study the lessons with the duller ones. To show them how, have at your home occasional jolly "study bees" for the whole class, and then for some weeks set them to studying two by two, the duller with the brighter so far as you can arrange it, the younger with the older. There is one great advantage in going to the back- ward scholar's home to study with him, — you thus become familiar with his home surroundings. Many a poor scholar could be transformed into an excellent one if you could obtain the cooperation of his parents. No teacher can work very long in the homes of his scholars without waxing zealous for a home department of the Sunday school. Establish such a department, make a special effort to obtain the membership of the duller scholars' parents, persistently urge the study of the lesson as a united family, and as by magic your stupid scholars will be changed into earnest and effective pupils. I have spoken about the need of sympathy with- the backward scholar, such sympathy as this intimate knowl- edge will beget. A backward scholar should never be 24 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS scolded, in the class or out of it. He should never bo told that he is backward, lie should never be allowed even himself to admit that his abilities are less than his comrades'. Progress will be made through a feeling, not of inferiority, but of power. If you want your scholars to work you must till them, not with shame, but with interest. Begin with His Best Point. — Find out, therefore, what the backward scholar can do most easily and well, and develop that first. Get him to help you make ready for teaching the lesson. He may be a good penman. Get him to copy out the little question slips or outline slips you hand each scholar as a guide to the next week's study. He may be a fair reader. Find some interesting paragraph or brief article or poem on the lesson, or some phase of it, and have him read it before the class, pre- viously reading it at home. He may enjoy drawing and be measurably expert at it. Set him to preparing some diagram or chart or map for you, or even, if he is suffi- ciently skilful, get him to copy a picture of some Biblical landscape. He may have many friends. Interest him in the work of obtaining new scholars. He may be ready of speech. Ask him to exhibit to the class a picture or a series of pictures in some book, accompanying them with running comments. Set Him Definite Tasks. — Give him a single question to study during the week and answer the next Sunday. Assign to him a single verse of the lesson, and tell him that you and the class will look to him, and to him alone, for information on that verse. Give him a single anecdote or other illustration of the lesson theme, and ask him to WHAT TO DO WITH BACKWARD SCHOLARS 25 read it or tell it,' and apply it to the lesson. Have him write out the lesson story in his own words, and read this paraphrase as an introduction to the next Sunday's study. Form a definite aim in your own mind for the backward scholar, some little goal in view, the actual attainment of which will comfort you with assurance of progress. Tli is goal may be his mastery of a simple outline of the quarter's history, his grasp of a single great truth from the quarter's lessons, his retention of the main facts of a single life, or his ability to take part in a single phase of the class work. Tell him what is your aim for him. Devise some ledger or form of account by which he can measure and record his growth from Sabbath to Sabbath. In estimating him never judge him by others, but by himself, bearing distinctly in mind his initial dulness, and judging his advance from that. Especially, praise the backward scholar just as soon as you honestly can, and just as much and as frequently as you honestly can. Praise is the sunshine to his growing. Get others to praise him also. Show them the map he has drawn, the chart he has made, the little essay he has written ; and if he is not present, be sure to repeat to him their commendation. In all your class work with the backward scholar, put yourself in his place. Try to imagine his mental gm pings. For his sake be very clear, even on points that seem to you to be self-evident. The fullest of ex- planations and the most persistent of reviews will not be an injury to the rest of the class. Many children seem to know more than they actually, on thorough exam- 2<> SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS ination, do know ; and the presence of backward scholars may thus become a blessing to the brightest students. For this reason, especially, I would not transfer the dull scholar to a lower class, however clear it is that an error was made in placing him where he is. His Bible study may be spoiled for life by the shame of such a lowering in rank. Of course, I would not retain a back- ward scholar where his presence would seriously retard the progress of others, but, in our flexible Sunday-school work, that need never be feared. It may be an advantage, however, to try another teacher with your backward scholar, and with that end in view it would be well to effect an exchange of classes, some Sunday, with some teacher quite different from yourself. She may discover the secret of your failure, if you have failed, and be able to suggest to you ways of developing the child that you would never have thought of. In the same spirit, the day-school teacher should be consulted, and from his course with the backward scholar, and his fuller knowledge, born of longer observation than your poor hour a week can give you, he will be able very certainly to aid you in your difficult task. Humility is one of the true teacher's prime virtues, — the willingness to learn from others. Indeed, is any price, of lowliness, painstaking, or patience, too great to pay for the awakening of an immortal soul ? And when the end is gained, and the backward scholar has become a good Bible student, skilled in Christian truth and even able to lead others, will any road seem too long that you have traveled to reach that goal ? CHAPTER IV WHAT TO DO WHEN THE LESSON HOUR IS CUT SHORT One of the great advantages the secular schools possess over the Sunday schools is their uniform teaching periods. The secular teacher knows what time he has to develop the lesson. He is not likely to be interrupted, and he is certain that his time will not be cut short. Indeed, he would not tolerate other conditions. How Our Teaching Time is Cut Short. — In Sunday schools, on the contrary, there are a number of causes that may lessen the time for teaching. If the school is held after the morning services, whatever prolongs them will delay its opening, and part of the time thus lost is likely to be taken out of the teaching period. The scholars may be slow in arriving, or even the superintend- ent may be late. The opening exercises may be unduly prolonged by many causes. There may be some visitor, who is asked to " make a few remarks " to the school ; and " a few " is woefully indefinite ! There may be new music to practise for a special occasion, and this time is unwisely taken for the purpose. Your school may be blessed (?) with a talking superintendent, who confuses the superintendent's desk with a pulpit, and must have his little homily though the proper business of the school, the Bible lesson, is crowded out into the cold. Or, you may have the dilatory superintendent, or the fussy superintendent, or the drawling superintendent, any one 27 28 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS of whom is good for ten minutes a Sunday stolen from the lesson hour. Finally, a threatening storm, or various other causes, may cut short the hour at the end. There is no excuse for most of these abbreviations of the teaching time, and in the majority of cases the teach- ers should provide against the recurrence of the abuse by protests at the teachers' meeting or in private. Gen- erally, the singing or other opening exercises should be cut short rather than the lesson. Very seldom is it wise to ask any one to address the school, and never should any one that is destitute of the grace of brevity be given such an opportunity of disastrous dulness. However, times will come when even the shrewdest superintendent is obliged to cut short the lesson hour. If he knows what is coming, he will give notice to the teachers as long in advance as possible — on the previous Sunday, or at the be^innin^ of the session. Sometimes lie cannot do even this. The problem, then, is a real perplexity. The difficulty is one that spoils many lessons in many schools. No one plan is adequate to meet it, but I must name many points which the teacher should bear in mind in this emergency. A Short Plan.— Of course, if advance notice is given, the teacher can form a short plan for his lesson. He can lay out a set of clear-cut questions. He can go through them briskly. He may surprise himself with time to go through them again. Usually, however, there is no such notice, but, to your dismay, the superintendent comes around, as you are just fairly started, and says, "Sorry, but we'll have to close WHEN THE LESSON HOUR IS CUT SHORT 29 in ten minutes," and is off to the next class. Then what's to be done? Be Cheerful. — Well, meet the emergency with a smile. It is a notable test of your pedagogical resources. If you can come forth victorious from a suddenly shortened lesson hour, you can conquer almost any other difficulty of the teacher's art. Do not allow a feeling of dismay and of uselessness to possess you. Do not say to yourself, "Only ten minutes!" Say rather to yourself, " Now for six hun- dred precious seconds ! " Unless the scholars already know it, do not admit them into the secret that the teaching time has been abbreviated. Certainly do not let them guess it from your manner. Do not appear hurried, for that will spoil the effect of your work. Many a soul has been won for Christ in ten minutes. For all we know, it required no longer than that to win each of the twelve apostles. Ten minutes — why, they are ■ .small eternity ! Your " At Least."— Just the same, in spite of philoso- phy, it is far better to have your course of procedure thoroughly mapped out beforehand. And so I think that every lesson should be studied by the teacher with a view both to a long plan and to a short plan. That is, every preparation a teacher makes should have an " at least " section. So much, at least, must be taught— these few facts, this one truth. A lesson that is thus planned in sections need not be taught in a scrappy way. Indeed, it is much more likely to be presented as a well-balanced whole. You will have gained that sense of proportion which is so 30 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS large a part of wise teaching. You will have recognized the essentials of the lesson, and placed them in their rightful supremacy over the incidentals. For instance, you will not be likely, in teaching about the woman who touched the hem of Christ's garment, to spend half the lesson time in discussing the fashion of Oriental robes. Recognize Limitations. — It is a great thing for a teacher to recognize limitations, and not try to do more than under the circumstances oan be well done. Here are scholars more or less ignorant and stupid. Here is a lesson more or less beyond their comprehension. Here are distractions around them. Here is a cramped recita- tion period. It will save you a deal of discouragement and will render your teaching far more effective if you will plan your lesson simply, with only one or two clear- cut, easily attained ends in view ; in other words, if you will plan it for a possible cutting short of the lesson hour. Just Three Points. — And so I would have a regular schedule, an " at least " schedule, for each lesson. Three points. Three points only. First, just what happened. Second, the effect of this happening on the principal characters and on history. Third, what it all has to do with our own lives. The routine work — taking the collection, making the record of attendance, perhaps even the distribution of the papers — I would have clone at the very beginning of the lesson hour, and out of the way. Then I would plunge at once, first into the review, and then into the three fundamentals of the new les- son, just as I have outlined them. After these three points have been presented, and you WHEN THE LESSON HOUR IS CUT SHORT 31 are sure the class have mastered them thoroughly, take up the subordinate points, — the details of customs that are not essential to an understanding of the main points, the non-essential phrases and sentences in the text that require explanation, and the minor applications to modern life. This would be an anticlimax ? Yes, if you should stop here; but a few minutes should always be left at the end of the lesson, that you may bring up again the central teaching, and send your scholars away with that ringing in their heads. Such experiences as this article refers to are likely to make one understand the advantages of written questions. I do not mean the printed questions on the lesson leaves, though those are far better than they used to be ; but I mean your very own questions, carefully thought out, framed with brightness and variety, and precisely adapted to the needs of your class. Though I should al- ways write out such questions, for it is the best of prac- tice, I should not ordinarily read them ; but if you have in your pocket such a list of questions, how fine they will be to fall back upon when the demand comes for a swift close of the lesson ! Whip them out, introduce them with eclat as a novel exercise, read them briskly, and the class will be delighted with the change. Very likely you will be able to go over the entire list a second time before the superintendent summons the school to close. Come Quickly to the Point.— At any rate, whatever method you adopt, get to the central point of the lesson as soon as you can. (Not every teacher, alas ! knows what that central point is.) Whatever little 32 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS difficulties arise, whatever questions on non-essentials are asked, postpone them to the end of the lesson or promise to answer them after the session. Ask the hardest questions of the brightest scholars. Expedite matters in every way. Oil the wheels of the lesson. But do not, for the sake of saving time, leave out the little touches by which you hoped to get the lesson re- membered. That striking illustration, that clear-cut dia- gram, that illuminating picture, — be sure to get these in. Don't leave the class with the skeleton of the lesson ; clothe it with flesh and blood. Remember: there is ab- solutely no use in teaching at all, except as your teaching is remembered. The Application to Life.— Therefore, be sure to make the application. It is by the application that a lesson goes, just as it is by the applied postage stamp that a let- ter goes. It is never enough to get a lesson into the head — that is what the secular schools do ; you must get it into the heart, if yours is to be a Sunday school. For there is no Bible lesson, no matter how hurried and brief, but may save a soul. Plan every week for that blessed end. Expect it every week. Remember how that discouraged minister came to Spurgeon and complained because after years of preaching he could point to only three or four converts. " Why, man alive ! " exclaimed the modern apostle, " you don't expect to save a soul every time you preach, do you?" "Why, no, of course not," answered the minister. " That's why you don't," said Spurgeon. So that, if you have the story of the brazen serpent to teach, and less time than usual at your disposal, you will WHEN THE LESSON HOUR IS CUT SHORT 33 of course be sure that your scholars have the outline of the event, — where the Israelites were, whither they were bound, what peril beset them, and how they were saved from the peril; but you will not tarry long over the route through the desert, or the exact kind of snakes that bit the Israelites, for you will be eager to get to Christ, who, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, has been lifted up on the saving cross. You will give them the drink of water, and then, if there is time, they may examine the pattern of the glass. Do Not Make a Ragged Stop.— That is one fault of most abbreviated lessons. Round out your task in a workmanlike manner. You may be discussing a trivial- ity when the warning signal comes. Break off at once and return to the great heart of the lesson. Let the last words be of that resplendent truth. But stop, anyway, when the rest of the school stops. No truth you may be teaching is so valuable as the ex- ample of prompt obedience. And then, when you reach home, think it all over, see just how you did it, and meditate how you may do it better when next such an emergency arises. This retro- spect and examination are well bestowed upon every lesson, but they are doubly necessary and valuable when the lesson hour has been cut short. CHAPTER V THE GOOD OF GOALS When I went to college the military drill of the students was conducted at one time by an irascible Ger- man drill sergeant. He had no mercy, either on our aching muscles or on our addled wits. He delighted in tricks to trap the unwary. Well do I remember how he would have us load our muskets, and then in measured, sonorous tones would give the command : " .Make ready — take aim " Then he would pause. In the pause some heedless and impatient gun would be sure to go olf. Outwardly dis- gusted, but inwardly, I have no doubt, chuckling glee- fully, our sergeant would growl: " Vy don't you vinish aiming?" Aimless Work. — That is a capital question for the Sunday-school teacher to ask himself, often and emphat- ically. So much of our Sunday-school work is aimless. We fire loud-voiced rounds, but the bullets have no billets. This chapter is to urge the establishment of goals, and to indicate what some of those goals should be. Every walker knows how much farther he can go, and how much more easily, when he is walking somewhither than when he is strolling aimlessly. Any worker knows how gloriously his labor is promoted by a division into stints. A chapter a day, for the writer, and the book gets done. A seam a day for the busy housewife, and 34 THE GOOD OF GOALS 35 the dress gets readily made. One point a decade for the statesman, and his nation advances to an empire. Divi- sion of labor among workmen has accomplished miracles of progress, but equally important is division of a task for a single laborer. The Satisfaction of Accomplishment.— And not only is more work done when stints are measured off and goals set up, but the work is done with more zest. We are not stupefied by the leagues ahead, but the end of our pres- ent journey is only a few rods distant. The mountain has reduced itself to shovelfuls, the impossible has be- come feasible. We leap and dance, for our work has be- come play. And after we have reached the goal, though we know another goal is before us, what a pleasant sense of achievement! Though what we have done is little, it is done, it is behind us, it is not to be done over again. If "nothing succeeds like success," it is also true that no spur to fresh endeavor is equal to past accomplish- ment. One reason why so little homo study is done in prepa- ration for Sunday-school lessons is because teachers so seldom give their scholars definite objects for study. The pupils are set down in a labyrinth, and no clew is •d in their hands. They are willing, most of them ; but even where there is a will there is not always a way, or, at least, a visible one. Say to your class : " Next Sunday I want each of you to bring me a list of the twelve leading events in the life of Elisha, and put them as nearly as you can in chrono- logical order." Tell them where to read in Kings and 36 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PKOBLKMS Chronicles, and you will have the best lesson on Elisha you ever heard recited. Say to your class : " Next Sunday we have the par- able of the prodigal son. I want each of you to read it carefully, and write out and bring in a statement of the different lessons you think it teaches." Let them mark the parable in their Bibles, to make sure they can find it. Give them each a sheet of paper — a small sheet of paper — on which the teachings of the parable are to be writ- ten. You will be measurably sure of some thought on that lesson, and of a good recitation. Say to your class: "It's a temperance lesson next Sunday. I think that, with a little study, you can bring in complete lists of the Bible passages that teach temper- ance." Show them how to use concordance and Bible index, and tell them how fine it will be to finish one Bible subject, actually to master it. You will touch high-water mark in that temperance lesson. Thus for each lesson you will set up a different goal, a goal related to the very heart of the lesson, something definite to be aimed at in the studying, and a clearly marked road thither. There is no other way to get home study than this ; there is no other way to get clear, brisk recitations. A Goal for Each Quarter.— At the beginning of every quarter, as at the beginning of every week, a goal should be set up. It will link all the lessons together with a purposeful enthusiasm. It will make a rememberable whole of what would otherwise be thirteen haphazard pieces. Let it be a feasible goal, not so easy as to require no THE GOOD OF GOALS 37 effort, nor so difficult as to stupefy effort. It must be ahead of the scholar, or it is no goal ; it must not be out of reach, or again it is no goal. For example, if you are studying the life of Christ, fix as a goal the ability to name all the recorded events in that life in chronological order. Few in the school, — young or old — can now do this. Perhaps none. But the task is well within the reach of all but the youngest. Or, if all the quarter's lessons lie within one book of the Bible, establish the purpose to give each chapter of the book a title appropriate to the contents, and com- mit these names to memory, with frequent drills in find- ing, by the use of that key, any subject that is treated in the book. Or, if the lessons deal with the kings of Israel and Judali, draw two parallel lines, and set up as your goal that the class shall become able to mark off upon those lines, in order, the reigns of the kings of the two king- doms, giving each its appropriate length and marking upon each the principal events in the history. If you are studying the Acts or the Epistles, aim in the same way to make an outline of events, inserting each Epistle in its proper place in Paul's life. The goal you set up will depend, of course, on the age and ability of your class, whether it shall be near or far away, and reached by an uphill road or a level. This, however, will be true of all classes : that the quarter's goal must be simple, definite, reachable, and touching all the lessons at their central points. So far as possible, let the quarter's goals of all the classes be the same. Teachers and scholars can then 38 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS compare notes and spur one another on. School tests of progress are possible, and pleasant emulation that is out of the question where the goals are heterogeneous. Definite Goals. — There is danger that in fixing on your goal you will not make it clear to your own mind, and therefore you cannot hope to make it clear to the minds of the children. Write down in black and white what the goal shall be. Write it out for your class as well as for yourself. Go to the goal yourself, before you an- nounce it, and examine every foot of the way thither, just as a surveyor makes wljat he calls a "preliminary reconnoissance " with pacing and pocket compass be- fore he goes over the ground with chain and theodo- lite. Graphic Presentations. — This definiteness which is the great gain of goals is distinctly enhanced b} T some graphic presentation of the object in view. For example, if you want the scholars to learn the events of Elijah's life, have them make outline maps of Palestine, extended from Zarephath to Sinai, and place figures 1, 2, 3, etc., at the points that are the scenes of the successive events. Fre- quent reviews, both with and without the maps, will fix them in the memory. Do not be afraid of tests, nor even of written examina- tions If the scholars have actually made definite prog- ress, they will be proudly eager to prove their gains- Sunday schools will not balk at written examinations when their work ceases to be chaotic and becomes syste- matic. Do not mistake a goal that you set up for yourself, and think it is necessarily therefore your scholars' goal. THE GOOD OF GOALS 39 Do not rest till they have adopted it with their interest and desire. Yes, even after this has happened, the teacher must hold hifl class to I heir aim. Determinations easily flag. There are many other goals to confuse, outside the Sun- day school. The teacher must often be his scholars' per- sistence. Do not allow the goal to fail out of sight a single Sunday. Speak of it often. Advertise it ingeni- ously. Insist upon it. Especially, put into this goal-pursuit the zest of a game. Sometimes you can wisely introduce friendly contests, half the class against the other half. Sometimes you can wisely offer a suitable reward, one that can be gained by all who attain a certain standard of excellence. But whatever spur you use, manifestly enjoy the work your- self, and your scholars are quite certain to enjoy it with you. Cheer the young workers by noting the progress they make all along the way. Interest their parents in the endeavor the children are making, and get their help to- ward the goal. And when the end is reached, arrange some jubilee to signalize the achievement. Perhaps it will be formal exercises on review day, with essays, and with specially invited guests. Perhaps, if the goal has meant the construction of maps or diagrams or the like, it will be an exhibition of these where all the church may see. The superintendent will announce to the school what has been accomplished. The pastor may even re- joice over it in his sermon. Cumulative Goals.— The goals of successive quarters, thus bravely won, should, if possible, themselves be 40 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS linked together. To this end a long look ahead must be taken, over the lessons of an entire year. Select such goals that the work may be cumulative. Fix on a suc- cession of goals of cognate interest — historical, biograph- ical, doctrinal — and thus bind the year's study into a unit. This is not always possible ; but it is a fine thing where it is possible. Goals for the School.— Thus far the scholars in their classes. But all I have said about the value of definite goals and the wise way of seeking them, applies equally well to the school as a whole. Whatever you wish the school to achieve, superintendent, break it up into small, precise tasks, and set them before the school as special aims for accomplishment within given times. These goals will be as diverse as the needs of the schools. Perhaps it will be an endeavor to persuade all to bring their Bibles to school. At the opening of every session, then, have all the Bibles in the school held up, while the class treasurers count them, and report their number when the collection is reported. Announce the number at the close of the school, with earnest comment on the increase or decrease. Keep a blackboard notice before the school, with figures on the point for a number of Sundays. Stick to your aim till you are sure that all the scholars have formed the habit of bringing their Bibles ; then celebrate your triumph, and set up a new goal. That new goal may be a one hundred per cent, en- largement of your school. Note the preciseness ; not an enlargement, but a one-hundred-per-cent. enlargement, or whatever detinite increase seems feasible. Place a va- THE GOOD OF GOALS 41 cant chair by the side of each scholar, and let it remain there until the scholar fills it with a recruit. Report every Sunday the number of chairs filled for the first time, and the number that remain to be filled. Draw on the blackboard one hundred squares, and till them up with white or red as each chair is tilled. And finally, when all are occupied, hold a jubilee ! . Perhaps your goal is promptness. You may give each scholar a number, and number a series of badges arranged on a board with hooks, that is placed at the entrance. As each scholar enters he takes the badge bearing his number, and pins it on. But the badges are removed as soon as the school is opened, so that late coiners wear no badge and are counted by the secretary. The badges are collected in baskets as the scholars pass out. This is continued till the happy month when, through all its weeks, every scholar has worn the badge. Then you celebrate your victory, and set up another goal. There are many more goals for which the entire school may strive, — that all may sing, that the contributions may reach a certain average, that the library books may be read to a certain extent, that a certain proportion of scholars may be reported as having studied the lesson at home at least an hour each v eek, that perfect order shall immediately follow the superintendent's lifting of his hand at the opening of the school, — ah, there are so many ways in which our schools may be improved, so many goals yet to reach ! Goals for Teachers and Officers.— Nor are these goals, so useful for the scholars, one whit less valuable for officers and teachers. That we will maintain a teachers, 42 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS meeting this year, and always be present when possible — what a goal is that, crowned with what regal possi- bilities ! That we will have regular cabinet meetings — meetings of pastor, superintendent, and officers — another magnificent goal. That every teacher will try to win for Christ this year every scholar of his class — the best goal of all. And, finally, there are certain goals of the inner life that must be set up in the heart of each man or woman who is seeking Sunday school success. The goal of a perfect motive — that I will come to do this thing, not from a sense of duty nor with any selfish or half-selfish aim, but solely because I love Christ and love his chil- dren. The goal of preparation — that I will spend half an hour a day on my lesson. The goal of personality— that I will become a friend, an intimate, of each of my scholars. The goal of a wider vision — that I will attend so many Sunday-school conventions this year, read such and such books and teachers' helps. The goal of peda- gogy — that I will overcome this defect of manner, win this grace or skill of the perfect teacher. Yes, yes; how goal adds itself to goal, a new one blessedly rising to view just as we reach the cynosure of past endeavor! For it is the rule of the Christian life — this rule of goals. It governs all progress along all lines of Christian effort. Every goal is a golden milestone along the road to the New Jerusalem. Therefore, " forgetting the things that are behind, and reaching forward to the things that are before, let us press toward each goal, for the prize of the high calling of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." CHAPTER VI WHAT TO DO WITH THE DISORDERLY SCHOLAR If the teacher has disorderly scholars in his class, the lesson is constantly perched on an active volcano. At any moment there may be an explosion, and the lesson will be torn to fragments or buried in debris. There is BO assurance of either pleasure or profit in a class that is subject to disorder. Yes, and if there is disorder in your cl;t>s, there is not much hope for the class next to you. If order is heaven's first law (as it is), it is certainly the first law of that heavenly tiling, the Sunday school. Disorder is always a result, for which, somewhere, there is a cause. Don't doctor symptoms. Discover what is at the bottom of the disorder, and remedy that. The disorder may be due only to the overflowing vitality of the boys and girls. In that case, take a leaf from the secular schools and try a bit of calisthenics just before the lesson is taught. It may be due to bad air. Open the windows. It may all spring from some mischievous scholar. Quell him or expel him. It may be due (more than likely — saving your pres- ence — it m doe) to unskilful teaching. Then learn your trade. The Start. — Certainly, with almost no exceptions, an interested class is an orderly one. Much depends upon the way you start out, and no part of the lesson deserves 43 44 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS such careful planning as the first three sentences. If you begin in a hesitant, apologetic, faint-hearted way, you have thrown up your case at the outset. If you begin with some surprising statement, or some brisk question, or with the holding up of some object or pic- ture, you will hook the most lively attention before it has time to wriggle out of the way. Much depends also on how you continue, after you have thus started out. Keep things moving. Moving objects hold the eye, and a lesson that progresses swiftly (if not too swiftly) holds the mind. By careful prepara- tion come to be at home in the lesson, so that you can range through it with easy freedom. Get a goal, and leap toward it. Your class will run eagerly alongside. Much depends also upon the expression of your face. A bright, quick eye, a mouth all ready to smile, a face mobile to every changing thought and responsive to every thought of the scholars, will attract and hold your class. A putty face, heavy and listless, will put them to sleep — or to mischief. And much depends upon the voice, — whether it is rasp- ing or flabby, or, perchance, is loving, cheery, and vibrant. On the whole, the right kind of voice is the teacher's most important exterior assistant. Some teachers can do more with a restless class by the one word " Now " (and any other word will do), than many teachers by a half hour's exhortation. Hand-Work. — Whatever qualities the teacher may pos- sess, however, she must count as her best ally in the preservation of order the scholars' own hands. Provide some work for them. Hand-work affords usually the WHAT TO DO WITH THE DISORDERLY SCHOLAR 45 best avenue for instruction, as well as the best remedy for disorder. This hand-work will vary, of course, with the lesson. Sometimes it will be the copying of an outline map or the drawing of a map from memory. Sometimes it will be a diagram that is copied, or a tabular outline of the lesson. Sometimes the teacher will read slowly a list of questions that call for very brief answers, and the class will be busied writing the answers. Sometimes, if your scholars are old enough, they may be set to copying some outline picture of a simple object, such as an Oriental lamp. Sometimes they may be persuaded to write paraphrases of the lesson text, or statements of the lesson teachings. One exercise of this kind, calling for hand-work, I would introduce into every lesson, plan- ning for it long ahead. It will prove a sovereign remedy for disorder. Work at Home.— Sometimes it will be necessary to do personal work with some particularly irrepressible scholar. You must get into helpful and close relations with him. Go to his house. Invite him to tea at your house. Try raspberry jam as a lubricant. Never threaten him without carrying out your threat ; better, never threaten him at all. Scolding disorder is like spreading mustard on a burn. Devise some occupation for the restless one. Many a shrewd teacher has taken the worst boy in his class and made him class sergeant to keep order; and he has kept it. Such a scholar, too, is just the one to take up the class collection, keep the class records, clean the blackboard (if you luckily— or en- terprisingly — have one), and aid the teacher in drawing 40 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS maps and making diagrams for her teaching opera- tions. Getting Help. — Rarely, and yet sometimes, the teacher will find it wise to get assistance in subduing the disor- derly scholar. If the other scholars can be trusted, quietly appeal to them to help maintain order and not to join in any pranks that may be started. If the superin- tendent is a wise man, call in his aid. Perhaps a few sentences from him, with the boy apart, will end the whole struggle. If the parents are wise (that is, if they really look at their child with seeing eyes), tell them frankly about his misdemeanors, and secretly conspire with them to make him what he should be. For elasses that are old enough to carry out the plan, try throwing upon them the responsibility of self-govern- ment. A class organization — constitution, president, committees, and all the rest — has a beautifully steady- ing influence. A committee on order, nominated and elected by the scholars themselves, will by that very proc- ess of election be rendered almost unnecessary. This plan is in harmony witli the self-governing methods that have been found so useful in various secular schools. Finally, but most important of all, try to cultivate in your class a spirit of reverence for sacred places and holy themes. 1 know of no better way of doing this than by a brief prayer just before the lesson, all heads being bowed while the teacher asks the divine blessing upon the class and upon the truths that are to be studied. Nor would it be at all out of place for the teacher to pause, even in the middle of the lesson, at WHAT TO DO WITH THE DISORDERLY SCHOLAR 47 some solemn and impressive point, and request the class to bow their heads in silent prayer, asking God to im- press the truth upon their minds and help them to carry it out in their lives. If the tone of the class is such that this moment of prayer would come naturally and easily, there need be no fear of disorder. The Superintendent's Responsibility. — Much of what I have said will apply equally well to the order of the en- tire school ; and yet of course this requires a little different treatment from the class, and I must next ad- dress the superintendent. We must remember that dis- order breeds disorder. A school that is allowed to be dis- orderly at the opening will be disorderly when it sepa- rates into classes, and class disorder means a disorderly close, when the school comes together again. To get order in a school, one must begin before the school begins. With delightful zeal, the children are likely to be over-prompt. When the school, as in so many places, is held just after the morning service, the grown-ups are still in church, and those children that did not go to church have the schoolroom to their riotous selves. No matter where or when the school is held, some older person should be in the schoolroom half an hour before the opening. If I were the superintendent, I should want to be there myself, ready for consultation with any officer or teacher, and eager to take advantage of any chance of becoming acquainted with the scholars. If this at any time is difficult or inexpedient, I should ap- point some one else to this service, or perhaps a succes- sion of persons, each taking the task for a month. More- ever, the trouble may be greatly diminished by urging 48 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS the children not to come so long beforehand, and the parents not to send them over-soon. Whoever superintends these early comers must have something provided to occupy their time. Mere forcible repression will only insure a postponement of disorder. Perhaps the best aid is a book full of pictures, each of which requires a little explanation. Or a collection of photographs from Bible lands may be used with fine effect. The second necessity, if one would have an orderly school, is that the school begin on time. I deprecate the use of a call-bell. It should be enough simply for the superintendent to step to the platform and raise his hand. If teachers and scholars are taught to watch for the signal and respond to it instantly with perfect order, the drill and the weekly obedience will prove one of the greatest gains that come from the entire work of the school. This initial quiet should have a well-understood pur- pose. What better than prayer, silent prayer with bowed heads for God's presence and blessing ? Print a brief form for it, and hang it before the school for the use of the younger scholars, and as a constant model for this unvoiced petition. At the close of this moment of silent prayer, without prelude except the sounding of the chord, let the school sing softly some stanza of a familiar hymn, which may be changed from month to month or from quarter to quarter. A regular and brisk order of service helps much to make an orderly school. Pack it full of things for the scholars to do. Leave little room for the superintendent, WHAT TO DO WITH THE DISORDERLY SCHOLAR 49 secretary, or any other officer. The talking superintend- ent is a recognized Sunday-school peril. Let him talk up the school in private, and not talk it — down — in public. In Mr. Wanaiuaker's great school the young folks are kept constantly eager for their part. Now they must say, " Good-morning, Mr. Wanamaker." Now they must hold up their Bibles. Now they must sing. Now they must read in concert. The opening exercises are an ani- mated drill, and no one has time to grow fidgety. It is very necessary, if an order of exercises is to be carried out in an orderly way, that there should be no gaps in it, no pauses while the superintendent is finding his place in the Bible, or consulting with some other officer, or while the secretary is feeling in his pockets for some announcement he intends to read. Such gaps are like holes in a fence, through which a whole drove of mischiefs is likely to leap. If the superintend- ent, with a strong voice, a decisive air, and thorough preparation of all details, passes swiftly from point to point of his programme, he will sweep the school along with him in perfect and beautiful order. Locate the Trouble.— In spite, however, of all these precautions, some particularly unruly scholar or set of scholars may persist in disturbing the school. The trouble will radiate out, and first of all it will be neces- sary to locate its source, and deal with that especial class or scholar. Too often the mistake is made of scolding the entire school for what is really the fault of a very few, and the school speedily resents this injustice. The first step is always for the superintendent to speak to the teacher. It is his business to preserve order in his 50 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS own precinct ; never take his work out of his hands till he has proved himself incompetent. Sometimes, in- stead of speaking to the one teacher, it will be sufficient to give an indirect hint through a general talk at the teachers' meeting on the subject of disorder, and the teachers' responsibility for it. Failing the teachers' effective action, the next step is for the superintendent to deal directly with the offending scholars; never by a public reprimand, which is more than likely to fix them in opposition to the rule of the school, but by private exhortation. If even this proves useless, the third step is a call upon the parents, a frank statement of the condition of affairs, the child himself being present, and a loving, manly ap- peal for their assistance in the matter. The last remedy, of course, is expulsion; and I am per- suaded that, long before the need for that arises, the other remedies 1 have named will prove efficacious. Getting Authority.— The Sunday school may be made as orderly as the secular schools. It will not be as easy, because in the secular schools the teacher is backed up by legal authority. But authority may be obtained for the Sunday-school superintendent and teachers. It is to be won from the parents. Get them to visit the school often. Their presence will of itself transform many a turbulent scholar. Better, enlist them among the regu- lar members of the school. A disorderly scholar whose parents are interested and regular participants in the school work, is indeed a rare bird. As the parents come in touch with the needs of the school and understand the aims of the teachers, they will gradually become ready WHAT TO DO WITH THE DISORDERLY SCHOLAR 51 and eager to back up the officers and teachers with what- ever authority they need to reprove, correct, and disci- pline. The parents will be added to the superintendent's staff ; they will become his orderlies. CHAPTER VII IS THE GULDEN TEXT WORTH WHILE ? Yes, if it is used ; no, if it isn't. The golden text takes space in our lesson helps. It costs time and thought to select it. It means trouble and expense all along the line. I have a feeling that comparatively few teachers use it, and that only a few of those few use it in such a way that it amounts to any- thing. Now, if it is worth while, let us change all this; and if it isn't worth while, let us frankly abolish it. It is worth while. In the first place, it is worth while to commit it to memory. I have just gone over the golden texts for the present year. Four out of the fifty- two, though for other reasons wisely chosen, are not sufficiently pointed outside their immediate application, and not worth com- mitting to memory ; they are merely fragments of narra- tive. The remaining forty eight, however, are precisely the kind of verses we wish to store up in our minds and those of our children. There is far too little committing to memory of Scripture nowadays, and this use alone of the golden texts would warrant their selection. Especially would it be well to fix upon the mind the chapter and verse numbers. A little extra labor and pains will effect this, and the value of a scripture quota- tion is quite doubled if you can give its exact location. Many of the golden texts are chosen from distant parts 52 IS THE GOLDEN TEXT WORTH WHILE? 53 of the Bible, and in considering them you have frequent opportunities to show the unity of the Book, and exhibit the beautiful interlocking of its parts. Review Them. — This use of the golden texts necessi- tates frequent reviews of them. The verses and their locations will speedily slip from your scholars' minds otherwise. A brisk review of the golden texts might be made the opening exercise in your class, and it would answer, in part at least, for that review of former les- sons which is so necessary if you would gain permanent results. Indeed, the golden texts of the quarter make an ad- mirable backbone for review day. Each text is usually the key to its lesson. The selection is sometimes open to criticism, but what isn't ? Certainly, though we might be better pleased with the set of golden texts that you and I might select, that satisfaction would not extend to the Sunday-school world. Use the texts, then, from week to week, keeping re- view day in mind. When that day comes, a good mode of utilizing them is to write them on cards, have the scholars draw them, and then let each scholar tell what he remembers about the lesson whose golden text he holds. If you intend to use this plan, announce it at the very beginning of the quarter, and urge your pupils, through all the three months, to work for the success of the little exercise. Unless in some such way as this the use of the golden text is planned for, you will probably not use it at all. But include it in your lesson scheme, and devise unhack- neyed ways of introducing it. 54 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS In the David and Jonathan lesson, for instance, you have brought out the beautiful story, and you have con- cluded by showing how much liner even the noblest human friendship will be if it is knit together by Christ. Then you close by calling for the golo/m text : " There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother." Or, the lesson is Paul's shipwreck, and you begin by asking the class to repeat together the golden text : "Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses." "Now that was written," you will say, "a thousand years before the event we are to study about to-day, but you will see how perfectly it describes what happened to Paul." Do not rest satisfied with one repetition of the text, though, in concert. Call for it from different scholars, liefer to it in many connections. Go back to it again and again. Whenever the thought is in your judgment the fundamental thought of the lesson, build up your teaching around it. Home-Made Cards. — One way to draw attention to the golden text is to assign it each week to a different scholar, making the assignment several weeks in advance, and having each text printed by the scholar on a large card, to be hung before the class during the recitation. These cards may be printed in colors. It may even be possible to get the scholars to decorate them with draw- ings of flowers or of symbolic designs, or with pretty bits of color or more appropriate pictures cut from periodicals and pasted on. The children will enjoy doing this work, and they will be quite as deeply interested also in the efforts of the others. IS THE GOLDEN TEXT WORTH WHILE? 55 This may be considered too elaborate a plan, but cer- tainly the scholars may be persuaded to bring to the class — all of them — the golden text written by them on slips of paper. The teacher will examine them, and give especial praise to the neatest and most accurate. This suggests the use of golden text cards as rewards for attendance, punctuality, and good lessons. If the teacher cannot afford to buy the published colored cards, she may make her own, and put into them a personality that the published cards, admirable as they are, neces- sarily lack. She may write them on prettily colored paper, those for each lesson on a new color. She may print them in fancy lettering. She may adorn them with colored designs, and with painted flowers. Now and then, she may write on the back a personal mes- sage, sent right into the heart life of some particular scholar. To many of these plans, a golden-text book is an appro- priate sequel. It consists of these cards, or slips of paper, or whatever you use, pasted on larger leaves, and finally bound together in neat little books. At the end of the year your golden-text books should be placed on exhibition, for all the school to enjoy, and imitate next year. In the Open Sessions.— And finally, how may we use the golden text in the open sessions of the school ? Whatever use is made of it should come at the close of the lesson hour, so as not to interfere with the teachers' plans. Some superintendents have it beautifully printed upon the back of a blackboard, in ornamental lettering made with colored chalk, Any class whose members 56 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS came to school able, every one of them, to write out the golden text, may delegate one of their number to go for- ward and turn this blackboard, exhibiting the design, at the same time repeating the text, which the school will immediately repeat in concert. Then the superintendent may tell a brief (a very brief) story illuminating the golden text, or he may have the school sing a gyolden-text song, some hymn chosen because it treats the theme of the text. Perhaps I have indicated with sufficient fulness some of the many ways in which the golden text may be used to add variety and interest to our Sabbath-school lessons. As you begin with the plans I have outlined, other plans will constantly suggest themselves. By the end of the year, through these wonderful condensations of truth, you will have fixed fifty-two miniatures of Bible events and lessons upon the gallery walls of your scholars' minds. Fifty-two Bible sentences, each freighted with the significance of a Bible incident or glorious passage — surely this, if anything in the world, is worth while. CHAPTER VIII THE TEACHER'S MANNER There is the what — but there is also the how. Most teachers think of what they are to teach, but few think of how they will teach it. The one is no less important than the other. Indeed, teaching has this in common with all the other fine arts, that manner often overranks matter. The painter's choice of a subject is less important than the way he depicts it, so that men would rather possess a broken pitcher delineated by Raphael than a " Coliseum by Moonlight" after the manner of Sam Spatterpaint. And surely when the theme is the loftiest of all possible themes, as it is in our Sunday-school classes, there is double urgency to present it in a manner as attractive and as noble. Children are Imitators. — Moreover, let those teachers that are careless regarding their style of teaching con- sider how certainly, if they are at all successful in win- ning their scholars, the manners which they exhibit will be reflected in those scholars' lives. Children are true Chinese in their certainty of imitation. It is even start- ling to note, in the scholars of a popular teacher, the identical gestures, intonations, phrases, and mannerisms used by their unconscious model. Listening the other day to a series of recitations by the class of Mrs. F. E. 57 58 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS Clark, that magnetic woman, the wife of the founder of Christian Endeavor societies, I could shut my eyes and scarcely persuade myself that it was not she herself who was speaking. Manners are the middlemen that carry the products of your heart and brain to the hungry markets of your scholars' lives. The old saying has it, " Manners makyth men " ; that is, a man's fortune depends on his manners. It might as truthfully be said, "Manners makyth — other men." The teacher that is careless in regard to his man- ner of teaching is like a farmer shoveling seed into the soil, anyway, anywhere, and to any depth, provided the seed gets in and gets covered up ; and the harvest is as scanty in the one case as in the other. Before I give my thought of what the teacher's man- ner should be, let me say what it should not be. Five negatives. i. It Should not be Flabby. — If the teacher evidently does " not care whether school keeps or not," one can hardly expect the scholars to entertain eager opinions on that subject. If the teacher appears bored, the class may well yawn. No matter how cleverly tuned your violin, you will draw no harmony from the instrument with a loose-screwed bow. 2. It Should not be Apologetic.—" I haven't had time to study the lesson," " I'm afraid you all know more about the lesson than I do to-day," — such admissions are weak, unnecessary, and harmful. Do not advertise your delinquencies. Teach as well as you can, and apologize by a well-prepared lesson next week. 3. It Should not be Fretted. — A worried countenance THE TEACHER'S MANNER 59 and anxious manners are poor arguments for Christianity and poor baits for your scholars' attention. 4. It Should not be Fussy. — Some teachers remind me of those young mothers that frantically trot their babies up and down to still their cries, adding all of their own nervousness to the poor infant's abundant supply. Such teachers fumble their books and lesson leaves incessantly, fly from this scholar to that with snatches of restless in- quiry, bustle around the school-room for dashes of con- sultation with officers and teachers, and miss no oppor- tunity to create confusion. Their classes will be pande- moniums and their teaching will be hodge-podge. 5. It Should not be Jack-in-the-Box-y. — Some teachers mistake jerkiness for energy, and explosiveness for point- edness. They fire off their questions like rockets. They dash off their explanations like a fire-engine in full career. They fling out their fingers in excited gestures. This is being animated, they think ; but it is only being nervous. The teacher's manner should be very different from all this. Perhaps its most important quality is confidence. Napoleon won his battles largely because he was so sub- limely sure that he would win them. A lion-tamer, or a child-tamer, is obeyed because he expects to be obeyed. If you can put into your pedagogic bearing the quiet as- surance of coming success, that success is half yours at the outset. An accompaniment of this characteristic is frankness, openness. A good teacher always looks his scholars straight in the eye. He talks in a cordial, free way, as if he were telling all his heart. He does not stammer, shift, falter, or act like an embarrassed school-boy. He 60 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS puts his class at their ease by being himself at his ease. He wins their confidences by giving his own. He is not over-familiar, but he is a comrade. He is not trivial, but he is cheery. He is not a teacher ; he is a friend. And lastly, — for the chief excellencies of a teacher's manner are three, — he will observe the often-heard in- junction, and "look alive." Too many teachers look dead. The level tones of their drowsy voices proceed from bodies almost as immobile as statues. The true teacher will " look alive " as to his hands, with an occa- sional irresistible gesture. He will " look alive " as to his face, for face gestures are the most expressive of all. Chiefly, he will " look alive " as to his eyes, which will kiudle with enthusiasm, melt with tenderness, and sparkle with fun. Life springs only from life, and lively looks are both the evidence of life in the speaker and the pro- vocative of life in the listener. How to Get the Right Manner.— Finally, having thus sketched my thought of the teacher's manner, as it should not be and as it should, let me suggest how the best man- ner of teaching may be obtained. In the first place, " know yourself.'' I would not have you become self-conscious ; but manners are to be judged by results, and if you are not getting the results of the best manner, it is necessary to see whether you do not lack the manner itself. For instance, if your class is stupid, consider whether you are brisk. If the class is restless, you may be nervous. If the class is careless, you may not appear sufficiently in earnest. Manners are the flowers of certain seeds. If you lack the flowers, plant the seeds. If, on the other hand, you are obtaining 61 already the results of a good manner, take no more thought about it. If I were a proverb-monger, I might say, " Every man his own manners," so essential is it that manners should spring from the real character of a man. " I must be myself," is generally the answer when defects of manner are pointed out; to which the proper reply is, " Yes; but you can change yourself." One of the best ways to get a good manner is to bor- row it from others. Such appropriation impoverishes nobody. Visit the classes of successful teachers. Watch those whom the children love. See what there is in their characters that is lacking from yours. Then try to re- produce it, within and without. One Point of Manners at a Time. — If you conclude that you are not vivacious enough, work for months at that fault, until it is remedied. Growth is easy, where revo- lution may be impossible. No one can teach in the best way without good health. A sound body goes far toward good cheer, and good cheer goes far toward mental alertness and sanity. I am quite sure, for example, that the efficiency of our Sunday schools would be vastly increased if all the teachers would take a brisk walk before entering on their duties. As to that confidence and zest in the work which is so necessary for success, it rests at bottom on thorough knowledge and full preparation. If you have a first-rate plan for the lesson, you will be eager to present it, and you will go before the class a master of the situation. Enjoy your work, and you will look as if you enjoyed it. 1TY 62 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS Be interested in the class, and your eyes cannot lack lus- tre. Know the importance of your task, and your voice cannot lack earnestness. Pray before you teach and as you teach, and you cannot teach flippantly or heedlessly. Fear God, and you will not fear your class, or be embar- rassed before them. Become the kind of teacher you wish to appear, and your manner outside the class will not belie your manner before your scholars. In short, the only secret of manners is being ; and if you get a soul that is on fire for truth, if you become a lover of God and of all God's children, if you fashion as a receptacle for that love of truth, of man, and of God, the beautiful casket of a well-trained mind in a vigorous body, — if you do these things, your teaching will of necessity become ardent, courageous, and winsome, and many will be the jewels of your crown. CHAPTEE IX A GOOD SUNDAY-SCHOOL PATCH The absence of a regular Sunday-school teacher makes a sad rent, there is no doubt about it. However excel- lent a substitute teacher may be, he is only a patch. It isn't pleasant to be patched, nor is it pleasant to be a patch ; but it can't be helped, and this chapter is to make the best of it. A Corps of Substitutes.— Of course, if yours is a model Sunday school, you hare business-like arrangements for this emergency. Your superintendent has enrolled a regular corps of possible substitutes, men and women who have agreed always to be ready to fill vacancies. The assistant superintendents have lists of these. The Sunday-school committee of the young people's society sometimes has the whole matter in charge. Sometimes this committee organizes a special class, whose members study each Sunday the lesson of the next week, in order to be ready for the substitute's post. The teachers should be taught that it is their duty to notify the proper official of their expected absence. All of these provi- sions will be made in a model Sunday school. But, alas ! few Sunday schools are models ; and even in the model schools, the best laid plans find themselves often defeated. Usually the substitute teacher is pressed into the service, not as part of a well-thought-out system, 63 64: SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS but at desperate haphazard ; and the question is, what shall he do ? I will try to answer that question. In the first place, be jolly about it. I would enlarge the proverb : Bis dat qui cito dat — et suaviter. You may be certain that the absent teacher has no good ex- cuse for absence, or that warning could have been given in time for ample preparation on the substitute's part, or that classes might just as well be put together (though you acknowledge that this process generally spoils both classes); and you may consider yourself a much-abused mortal in being asked to teach that class. But postpone such considerations. The superintendent probably isn't to blame, and certainly the waiting children are not. Is it your duty to teach that class ? If so, it is your duty to accept the duty pleasantly, and remedy the faulty conditions, if you can, afterward. Let us suppose that your conscience is in good working order, and that you consent to be a Sunday-school patch. At once several essentials of a good patch present them- selves for your imitation. Imprimis, a Good Patch is Never Conspicuous. — Mod- est} r is the first grace of a substitute teacher. Indeed, the very word, "substitute," conveys a hint toward hu- mility, since it comes from two Latin words signifying to "stand under," to be subordinate. The substitute teacher must not be a red patch on a gray garment. His teaching must merge into the teaching that has gone be- fore and is to follow after — that is, it must do this as nearly as a different personality, working hastily and in the dark, can do it. Not wholly in the dark, however. You know the characteristics of the teacher whose place A GOOD SUNDAY-SCHOOL PATCH 65 you are taking. Probably you know his methods. You can ask the class at the outset whether any plan had been set for the lesson. So far as you can, you will fit in • will make a chameleon of yourself, and adapt your color to your temporary abode. Then, in the second place, to return to our comparison, a patch must not draw. That was the point of the Saviour's parable about unshrunken cloth in an old gar- ment. You must not make it harder for the regular worker, but easier. You must not criticise him, even by the vaguest implication. Children are quick to see dis- paragement. If he is a dull teacher and you are a bril- liant one, it would be Christlike (is it too much to ask from human nature ?) if you would moderate your bril- liancy for the occasion. And if you can drop a word of hearty praise for the absent teacher, it will wonderfully smooth his pathway when he comes back. For a final point of comparison, a good patch must not be careless. No basting-stitches. No rough edges. No evidences of haste. Do you remember Grizers works of art? (I hope you have read Barrie !) Take her marvel- ous patching as your Sunday-school model. Really, there is no reason why a Christian, fairly well equipped with Bible knowledge, should go before a class of boys and girls with shamefaced apologies, and with that trite phrase, " You must teach me to-day, chil- dren," which means a discount of fifty per cent, in the children's estimation. If you must be a patch, be a silk one ; not even a patch need lack distinction. You know you are likely to be summoned as a substi- tute teacher. You have already held that honorable post 66 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS perhaps a dozen times. Why not plan for it ? This may be your only chance at influencing those immortal souls. It is worth more thought than you can give it during your walk from your chair to theirs. Your only wise course is to be ready with a few general schemes, which will lit any lesson ; then you will have nothing to do but carry out one of them. Here are a few devices that will be found useful. 1. Get the class to read the lesson text, verse about ; but before the reading ask one member of the class to watch for references to persons, another to pick out allu- sions to places, a third to make a mental list of events, a fourth to decide what is the principal teaching of the lesson, a fifth to do the same, a sixth to select the verse best worth committing to memory. Then go over these points, one at a time, using for your chief reference in each case the scholar to whom that topic has been assigned, but bringing in the rest of the class with a free conver- sation. Finally, review, changing the assignments about. 2. Tear up a sheet of paper, making slips, on each of which you will write the number of one of the verses of the lesson. Have the class read the lesson text, and then let the scholars draw these slips at random. Each scholar is to be questioned on the verse whose number he draws, and the rest of the scholars are warned to listen care- fully, because, as they are told, after the lesson is once discussed in this way, the slips are to be mixed up and drawn again, and the same questions are to be asked once more, a record being kept this time of the number of questions each scholar answers correctly and the num- ber he misses. A GOOD SUNDAY-SCHOOL PATCH 67 3. Read the lesson text, verse about. Then the class will question the teacher, each scholar asking questions on only one verse. After all the verses are discussed, the teacher takes his turn, and returns over the same ground, catechizing the scholars. The substitute teacher may safely launch out on any of these plans, only seeing to it that he does not use the same plan with the same class on two successive occasions. After his half-hour task is done, and the substitute teacher has substituted to the best of his extemporaneous ability, he may complete the graciousness of his patch by going to the regular teacher, reporting the way he taught the class and the points he tried to bring out, telling what forward glance, if any, they have cast over the coming lesson, and especially giving the teacher a word of cheer for himself and a little compliment for him to pass on to the class. That bit of conversation will be the fastening of the thread which will keep the patch from ripping out, and accredit you as a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. CHAPTER X WHAT TO DO WHEN THE ATTENDANCE WANES Perhaps there never has been much of an attendance to wane. In that ease, what I shall prescribe for a waning attendance will lit just as well. But more often it is necessary to propose remedies for a falling off in Sunday-school interest, both of teachers and scholars, with the resultant dropping down of attendance, while the blues and the dismals settle upon offieers and classes. Fortunate indeed is the school that knows nothing of sueh times. What is to be done in those emergencies? Well, in the first place, there may not be much reason for discouragement. Know your field. You may be fill- ing it better than you think. Families may have moved away. The boys and girls may have gone off to school or to business elsewhere. Young married couples may be kept home by little children. The establishment of new churches and Sunday schools may have provided for part of your old constituency. Those who are not " present " may be u accounted for," and satisfactorily. But if, on the other hand, your old scholars have left the school and are still in town, able to attend school but attending none, and if besides there are in town many ehildren and adults whom your Sunday school ought to reach and does not, then there is cause for alarm, for prompt investigation, and for the adoption of thorough remedies. 68 WHAT TO DO WHEN THE ATTENDANCE WANES 69 Never Scold About the Attendance. — The people you will have a chance to scold are almost certainly not the people that are to blame. Even if they were, scolding does no good. There is a reason for the poor attendance. Discover it, frankly acknowledge it, and set to work manfully upon the cure of it. This Reason May be Poor Teaching. — The teachers may not know enough about the Bible to make attend- ance worth while, or they may not tell what they know brightly enough to make the school attractive. The sovereign remedy for this trouble is a teachers' meeting. You doubtless have tried it in your school ; all schools do try it ; but the leader was a poor one, or the good leader got tired or moved away, and the teachers' meeting died or is dying. Resurrect it. You can. Obtain the best available leader. Contrary to the com- mon impression, executive ability is more necessary here than teaching ability. Your best leader for a teachers' meeting is some one that can set others to work, and draw out the thoughts and plans of all for the benefit of all. Introduce outside aid in the way of occasional lectures before the teachers by specialists. Assign defi- nite parts in the teachers' meeting to as many teachers as possible. Never spend more than half the time of the meeting upon the thing to be taught, and devote the rest of the time to discussing the best ways of teaching it. A good teachers' meeting is feasible everywhere, and a good teachers' meeting means full classes almost every time. The cause of the poor attendance may be a dull-looking school-room, that gives every one that enters it the blue 70 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS shivers. The remedy, of course, is to brighten up the room. Paint is cheap, wall paper is cheaper, pictures are cheaper still, and flowers are cheapest of all. Perhaps your opening exercises are listless, monoto- nous, drawling, and stupid. That cannot help affecting the attendance unfavorably, because its depressing in- fluence extends over the whole Sunday-school hour. The obvious remedy is to put variety and sparkle into this beginning of the school, with special music, an orchestra, an occasional recitation, much singing, Bible-readings diversified continually, a picture shown now and then, or some object from Bible lands. Plan the opening. Plan different openings. Let the openings move swiftly, with no harangues, but with much for all to do. This change alone will add to the interest of the school more than you imagine. Perhaps your attendance is waning because the scholars themselves are not interested in filling the school and keeping it full. " The best advertisement," any business man will tell you, " is personal mention." If Mrs. Sat- terleeand Mrs. Sapperton and Mrs. Schermerhorn will tell their next-door neighbors how very cheap and good are Wilkins & Wallace's towels, that enterprising firm may safely dispense with expensive newspaper announce- ments. There is no better way to promote the growth of your Sunday school than to set Charlie Faunce and Flossy Ool^rove to telling Tom Lemons and Susie Bald- win what perfectly splendid times they have there. There are several good ways of interesting the schol- ars in the work of bringing in new members. One method is to divide the scholars into companies of live, WHAT TO DO WHEN THE ATTENDANCE WANES 71 each five being made up from one class so far as possi- ble; then let the fives see how soon they can increase themselves to tens, by adding new scholars to their own class or any other. Announce the fact from Sunday to Sunday as each ten is completed. Another method is to start a contest, seeing which class, in proportion to its initial numbers, can, within a given time, increase its size the most. Prizes may add to the interest of the contest, if it is thought wise, and some schools are in the habit of presenting a reward to each scholar who brings another to the school, the re- ward being given after the new scholar has attended a certain number of weeks. The young people's society may be enlisted in this work. Most of these societies have Sunday-school com- mittees, formed for the express purpose of aiding the school in every way ; and of course the promotion of good attendance is one of their chief aims. In many localities the young people's societies have carried on a systematic, house-to-house canvass of the town for new scholars ; and if they do not do it, the school officers could easily organize such a canvass on their own account. "Where the young people do this work, some of the older members of the school should be deputed to oversee it, that their experienced wisdom may guide the young folks' energy and zeal. A permanent plan for recruiting should be part of the machinery of the school. I know of nothing better than to appoint in each class a membership committee, with a chairman, who makes weekly reports to the class. It would be best to have the class itself elect this committee 72 SUNDAY-SCUOOL PROBLEMS once a year. " Does any scholar know of any one who should be a member of this class?" This question should be asked every Sunday by every teacher. It is a great mistake to throw upon the teacher the responsi- bility for maintaining the attendance and increasing it. Talk about the interest and value of the class will come with far more grace from the scholars than from the teacher, and will be far more effective. A similar committee may be appointed, once a year or once a quarter, from the entire school. It might be called a " scout committee," or an " invitation commit- tee," and its duty should be to watch the Sunday con- gregations and invite all the strangers to come to the school ; offering to accompany them, if the school is held after the morning service. The Pulpit Announcement. — The work of such a com- mittee will be strongly aided by a hearty, attractive an- nouncement of the Sunday school from the pulpit, — not one of these perfunctory notices: "Sunday school at the conclusion of this service, and all are cordially in- vited to attend," but a few sentences into which some original emotion is evidently put, such as this announce- ment: " You don't know what you are missing if you are not attending our Sunday school. Last Sunday, for instance, I dropped into Professor Thomas's class, and I heard the most illuminating discussion of the parable of the talents I have ever listened to. Just step into the vestry at the end of this service, and try it for an hour." There are many other methods by which the pastor may promote Sunday-school attendance. One of the best of these is by taking the Sunday-school topic now WHAT TO DO WHEN THE ATTENDANCE WANES 73 and then for the theme of his sermon — not the whole lesson, so that he will exhaust it, but one small corner of it, with references to the larger subject which is to be treated fully in the Sunday-school classes. It is often very helpful also to hold a series of prayer meetings, whose topics are those of the following Sunday-school lessons. Home Department Help.— A first-class ally of the school in this matter of attendance is the home depart- ment. No Sunday school should try to get along with- out such a department, and this is only one of its ad- vantages. A well organized home department, with its score or more of zealous visitors, watching for every op- portunity to transform the home student into the regular attendant on the classes, will bring dozens of new schol- ars into the school every year, and bring them in under the best auguries for their permanent stay. A Matter of Age. — A step quite necessary to take, if you would build up the membership of your school, is to consider what ages are not well represented there, and so plan your campaign with special reference to the lacks you may discover. Is it adults you chiefly need ? Are you weak in the matter of young married people ? Is there a falling off among the boys when they get to their middle teens? One of these deficiencies is quite sure to bo discovered ; very likely all of them, with others. The best remedy is to set to work those of the par- ticular age or ages whom you already have in the school. Get the boys to bring in the boys, the young couples to seek out other young couples, set the primary depart- 74 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS ment and the adult department to enlarging themselves. There is no leader for a boy of twelve quite equal to an- other boy of twelve. Social Classes. — After you have studied into the mat- ter of ages, continue the process a little and see what social classes are represented in your school and what are not. Iiow about the servant girls? Are tho business men there, the merchants and their clerks? Are the students conspicuous by their absence? Yours is a rail- road town ; what is your Sunday school doing for the railroad men ? For many of these, perhaps for all of them, your only chance of interesting them in the school is by the estab- lishing of special classes, led by teachers peculiarly adapted to the constituency you are seeking to reach. A wide-awake Christian manufacturer may be persuaded to organize in the school a class for business men, young and old. Some college professor may gather around him the young collegians and the school teachers. Some wise and loving woman may draw together a class of servant girls. The necessities of the case will sometimes require these special classes to be held at other times than the regular Sunday-school hour. Servant girls' classes, for example, are generally held in the afternoon. A railroad men's class must be held whenever the most of the men are at leisure. You must enlarge your idea of the Bible school until it becomes a sort of Bible university. Many a Sunday school has been greatly enlarged and its interest magnificently quickened by a means that seems at first rather to rival the school than to aid it, — WHAT TO DO WHEN THE ATTENDANCE WANES 75 an outside Bible-study class, taking up a course alto- gether independent of the International Lessons. If you can find an inspiring teacher to give such a course, — everything depends upon the teacher, — and if you can bring together in the class your teachers, the older schol- ars, and those of the congregation that should be in the Sunday school but are not, it will be an easy thing, after the course is completed, to divert to the school the fresh interest that will certainly be aroused. The result will be a large ingathering of new scholars. A course of lectures on Biblical topics — again if the lecturer is an inspiring one — will prove almost as useful as the large Bible-study class in promoting zeal for the Sunday school. Useful, also, is any pleasant entertain- ment under Sunday-school auspices — a concert, a stere- opticon lecture, a picnic, a novel form of sociable. Draw people together and set them to talking under the leadership of the school, and they will inevitably talk more or less about the school, and be drawn to it more or Any special feature you can introduce into the school routine will serve as additional basis for that advertise- ment which is quite as necessary for the King's business as for secular commerce. Now it will be some unusually good music. Now it will be a set of bright chalk talks. Now it will be a newly installed stereopticon (for these instruments may be made quite as serviceable by day- light as by night, and the use of them adds wonderfully to the interest). Now it will be some object lesson in- troductory to the theme of the hour. Now it will be a series of five minute drills on Bible geography or Bible 7G SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS history, briskly conducted with maps and charts. Any plan of this sort, carried on with zest, will show enter- prise, and demonstrate that the school is a live institu- tion, worth the attendance of live people. In country districts, and sometimes even in cities, a Sunday-school omnibus is quite essential if you would maintain attendance at the highest point. I say an om- nibus, but of course I mean any roomy vehicle, which will gather up all, both old and young, who could not otherwise get to the school. The especial advantage of this is manifest, of course, on stormy days. It is for these stormy days that we need to plan most carefully, since the habit of going to Sunday school is so easily broken ; even a single lapse may break it. Strive in every way to impress upon the teachers the especial need of their presence on such days. Some preachers make it a point to preach their best sermons on rainy Sundays. In the same wise fashion, devise all the pleasant plans you can for stormy Sabbaths, — some jolly surprise, which the scholars that are there will talk about with their mates, and say : " Don't you wish you hadn't stayed at home for the rain ?" Though, as I have said, " the best advertisement is personal mention," yet the Sunday school ma} r well take a leaf from the tradesmen's book, and make a liberal use of printer's ink. Set at the task the most skilful writer in the school, some one with a genius for attract- ive ways of putting things, some one who knows also how to display his thoughts in a neat and taking arrange- ment of type. A few dollars every quarter spent for advertising circulars would be quite as well spent as for WHAT TO DO WHEN THE ATTENDANCE WANES 77 missions ; indeed, it would mean many more dollars for missions in the end. In addition, try personally written postal cards and letters of invitation. Systematize the work. Almost any member of the school will be willing to write one such letter a month. As you obtain the names of those that should be in the school, distribute them around, and make sure that each receives the stimulating written in- vitation. By the time a person gets the invitation in all these ways, — by word of mouth, by circular, by pulpit notice, and by letter, — he will begin to think seriously of accepting it, in self-defence ! Much depends upon how the attendance is reported to the school each Sunday. Individual attendance rec- ords will be kept, of course, by the secretary of each class, and full recognition should be given to individuals who are faithful as well as to classes. Once a quarter is none too often for the school secretary to read the names of all who have been present every Sabbath. In making the weekly report, let the secretary study variety, and seek in every way to draw attention to his figures and their meaning. Sometimes— perhaps al- ways—the record should be a graphic one. Place a large placard before the school at the end of the session, reading, in bold characters easily deciphered across the room : " Attendance : last Sunday, ; this Sunday, ." Arrange it so that you can readily slip in the proper digits. Often, however, the emphasis of the voice must be added. This may be merely by way of a cheery com- ment, such as : " See how we are growing ! We'll soon 78 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS have to move outdoors to get room enough ! " or " Twenty more than last Sunday ! That means that about twenty of you told your friends what a good time we have here, and got them to come with you." If the attendance is less than last Sunday, let the superintend- ent and secretary stand up and point to the placard, and simultaneously say just "Oh!" If you are seeking to develop some particular department, the secretary should give a vocal report concerning it every Sabbath, such as : "Our adult department is coming up; thirty-five this Sunday ; that's a gain of ten in two weeks." And now, after these suggestions for the increase of the attendance, I want to set off against them a needed warning. It is very easy to exalt Attendance upon the throne where the Bible alone should rest in your Sunday school, and that is a fatal error. To be sure, there is no use in wise teaching unless you have scholars to teach ; but also, there is no use in having a room full of scholars unless you have wise teaching. Where the Bible is made vital in human lives, very slight effort will draw the crowds to it; where the fundamental purpose of the Sunday school is forgotten or relegated to the back- ground, no amount of modern advertising will hold the crowds that the advertising will gather. " And I, if I be lifted up," still declares our Saviour, "will draw all men unto myself." CHAPTER XI THE BOY OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL Doubtless for every girl whom a teacher is perplexed to win, there are a dozen boys. Therefore I will write about " the boy " rather than " the girl " in his out-of- school relations, though all that I shall say will be quite as applicable to the girl as to her brother. I am convinced that the place to win the boy is out- side the Sunday school. Most teachers seem to look upon their work as precisely analogous to fishing, the school-room being the pool to which the boy-trout re- sorts, and there alone they may cast their flies with any prospect of success. Teaching is more like hunting. You must go forth adventurously and range the wood- land. You must seek your game in their native lairs. Their haunts are many, and wide apart. You cannot sit still and bid them come to you ; and if you corral them and shoot at them en masse, that is sheer butchery ! A teacher's work is well-nigh a failure, then, if it is confined to the paltry hour of the Sunday school. You must win the boy on ground that is natural to him. But what ground is natural to him ? To give a few practical suggestions in answer to that question is the purpose of this chapter. Boys' Clubs — It has become quite the fashion to ad- vise the organization of boys' clubs, if religious workers wish to get hold of those tricksy spirits. Now there is 79 80 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEM8 no doubt that boys love a club, though I fear they enjoy the most preposterous club of their own contrivance far more than the finest arrangement craftily impressed upon them from the outside, though it be psychologically perfect in all its details, and modeled upon the ideas of the professor of pedagogy who has written the latest book. But really, with public-school teachers and Sun- day-school teachers and pastors and Christian Endeavor workers and parents and friends and philosophical in- vestigators of " the boy problem " all forming boy clubs, Johnny is in a fair way to be clubbed to death. Do not form a boys' club, therefore, in connection with your class, if that side of the boy-nature is already satisfied with such an organization. Try some other plan. Various Kinds of Clubs.— However, if the way is clear, a boys' club is certainly a good method. What sort of club? Boys are interested in many things, they are blessedly ready to be interested in nearly everything; therefore you have chiefly to ask what you know most about, like best, and can best do. Are you a walking enthusiast ? Then a walking club, — "The Peripatetics," perhaps, — with Saturday tramps to this and that object of local interest, with tests of speed and endurance, and with a fine infusion of John Burroughs and Bradford Torrey, will be the organization you are most likely to make succeed. Are you learned in history ? Then an indoor coterie, " The Explorers," will find the fascination of MacMaster and Macaulay, of Motley and Green. Whatever traces of the past are found in your neighborhood, also, will draw your club into the open. THE BOY OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL 81 Is chess your hobby ? Then establish a " Pillsbury Partnership," inaugurate a furore of gambits and prob- lems, and hold a tournament every fortnight. And it might as well be checkers, or tennis, or crokinole. If you can mount the class on bicycles, organize your- selves into "The Hotspurs," with meets, and century runs, and club colors, and mysterious bugle calls, and a range over the entire county. What delightful possibilities for you and the boys lie ensconced in a natural history club, the " Eye- Eyes " ("Indefatigable Investigators")! And that, whether you take for your province snails or stars, birds or butter- flies, fossils or flowers ! A museum. Scientific " papers." Exhibition days. Long rambles over hill and dale. A travel club (R. R. — the Royal Rangers ! ) will minis- ter to the boys' love of adventure. Rightly chosen books, together with a selection of the photographs of foreign scenes now so plentiful, excellent, and inexpensive, joined with essays and readings, and talks from the many — and nowadays they are many, at every crossroads — who have actually " been there," — is not that a promising prospec- tus? Then, there are possibilities of an art club (with the aid of photographs and half-tone prints), a puzzle club (" The Brain-Twisters "), a scrap-book club (" The Clippers "), — indeed, you can attach the club idea to any of your in- terests, with fair prospects of making it an absorbing in- terest with the boys. Club Mysteries.— One of the chief advantages of the club is its opportunity for the mysteriousness in which boys greatly delight. You can give it an odd name ; 82 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS known to the uninitiated only by cabalistic letters. You can have a badge or a button, a system of pass- words and hidden tokens, and even a secret language, made in- comprehensible by such easy devices as the addition of " i bus " " ery " and " atic " to every word, and the substi- tution of " hat " for " and," and " cob " for " the." l)ut if the club is overworked in your neighborhood, you can use the same ideas in other forms. It is not necessary to form a Philately Phellowship in order to utilize in your boy-winning those alluring bits of gummed paper. You can simply constitute your sitting-room a stamp exchange, and gather the boys there occasionally with their albums. You need not establish an athletic club in order to conduct a " Held day,'' in which the boys of your class, acting as marshals, will set up the lists in running, leaping, vaulting, throwing, wrestling, with all the boys in town. An evening of puzzles at your house may be better than a puzzle club, and an hour or two with your microscope may answer in lieu of the 4k Eye- Eyes." I am not urging the teacher to press into all their boy lives, obtruding himself upon every sport and making himself the monitor of every interest. I am only insist- ing that he should enter enough of their lives to know them thoroughly, and get into vital touch with them. That being accomplished, in whatever fashion, his work with the boy outside the school is done. "How Shall I Begin?" is the question sure to be asked by those who enjoy none of this contact with their scholars. Begin gradually. The boy is a shy animal, not to be THE BOY OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL 83 caught by a sudden leap. Perhaps an evening at your house is the best way, with good things to eat (the boy demonstrates the Chinese notion that the seat of the affections is the stomach !) and with the merriest of games. This may grow into a regular series of class socials, held once a month, sometimes at the home of the teacher, sometimes at the homes of the scholars. Later, the class may even venture upon corporate hospitality, and invite some other class to an evening's fun. A series of class excursions is another mode of ap- proach to boys that has proved its value. Take them to the menagerie, having previously armed yourself with a budget of animal anecdotes. Visit the art gallery with them, the museum, and the public library. Take them to the court house and the city hall. Be their chaperon at some interesting session of the legislature, the city council, the board of aldermen, or the school committee. Keep on the lookout for bright lectures to which you may escort them. Go with them to a college, and show them its ways of working. Pilot them through a fire en- gine house, a police station, a glass factory, a tannery, a flour mill. In the summer, conduct a grand outing, and " tent it " with them for a week. Not all of these charm- ing excursions will be open to you, but many of them will, and you can easily devise substitutes for those you must omit. It is impossible to measure the good you may accomplish through these excursions with your class. They will be worth, in character-building and for eter- nity, all the money and time they will cost, and a thou- sand times more. Little Attentions. — But along with these more elaborate 84 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS plans, there are many little attentions you can show the boys that will count, often, for as much as the exten- sive schemes. A jolly word when you pass them on the street. Friendly letters written to them when you ? or they, are out of town. Kindly messages and visits and little presents when they are sick. An invitation, now to this boy and now to that, to take a meal at your house, spend the evening, or pass the night. A little care in guiding their reading, with the recommendation of " splendid " books in the public library or the loan of equally " splendid " books from your own collection. One evening in the week regularly set apart as theirs, an evening in which you are " at home " to them and to them alone. One room in your house dedicated as class headquarters, and used for that purpose only and fully. A circular letter, to be passed from one to another, in a prescribed order. A cumulative letter, to be passed in like manner, but each member of the class to add a brief note as it comes to him. A class paper (if any scholar has a printing press or a duplicating contrivance) with its proper corps of editors and its important list of subscrib- ers. All of these ways of winning the boys are feasi- ble for some teachers, and some of them are feasible for all teachers. There is no need of emphasizing the necessity of see- ing them often in their own homes, knowing their parents, their surroundings, their helps and hindrances in this place where helps and hindrances are most pow- erful. This duty is quite generally recognized. Would that it were heeded as generally. In all of this familiar intercourse with the boys, where THE BOY OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL 85 does religion come in ? It comes in everywhere, under, neath, though it may come in nowhere on the surface. It is impossible to enter into any pleasant, helpful rela- tion with your scholars out of school that will not strengthen your influence in school, confirm your teach- ing and inspire their studying. The essentials are, first, to know the boy. You can- not teach any one until you know him. Second, to love the boy. You cannot know any one until you love him. Third, to get the boy to know you and love you, without which also he cannot be taught by you. Don't pretend. Don't "let yourself down" to them. Don't think that you must act like a boy in order to win a boy. Be sin- cere and manly and downright. Be jolly and sympa- thetic and alert. In becoming their comrade never cease to become their leader. And in it all, estimate very lightly what you are doing for them compared with what they are doing for you. CHAPTER XII THOSE NOTICES The giving of notices is a Sunday -school necessity. Some schools minimize the notices, others revel in them, but all must endure them. The Value of Notices. — And they are by no means an unmixed evil. Rightly managed, they may quicken attention and agreeably diversify the exercises. They introduce the scholars to new and helpful interests. They serve as a sort of table of contents of Christian work. They inuy be all this, but they seldom are. Usually, they are hindrances and nuisances. Usually, the hack- neyed introduction, " Listen to the following notices," is a signal for confusion or apathy. The superintendent stumbles over unfamiliar chirography. He drones and mumbles. lie rambles through long and unessential particulars. lie repeats, and repeats, and repeats. lie faithfully rehearses whatever stupidity is handed him. Thus, for instance : — "The twenty-first annual convention of the Sunday- school Association of Caldwell County will meet at Urbana on Thursday, December 6. Interesting ad- dresses are expected from the Rev. Dr. Augustus B. Brownlow and Prof. James L. Guinness. A full attend- ance is desired. All are urgently invited to be present. Per order committee, John Smith, chairman." 86 THOSE NOTICES 87 Great good will that do ! Brisk Notices. — How much more likely would the teachers be to attend that convention if the superin- tendent should say : — "I have made up my mind to go to Urbana next Thursday. I really can't afford to miss our county Sunday-school convention. Dr. Brownlow is to speak, — the most helpful Bible student within a hundred miles, — and Professor Guinness, — the man who carries on that splendid class of working men over in Shelby ville, you know. I hope that many of our teachers will be able to share this treat." Maybe it is a teachers 1 meeting : — "I desire to give notice that the regular teachers' meeting will be held this week on Tuesday evening at the usual time, 7.30 P. M. It will be held at the usual place, in the parsonage. A very full attendance is de- sired, as the meeting is to be addressed by Mrs. Randall, who will discuss the geography of Palestine. Don't for- get, the parsonage, and 7.30 p. M., sharp. I hope all the teachers will be present. Let every one come. The at- tendance at our teachers' meetings has fallen off lately. Now I hope that every teacher in this school will be at the parsonage next Tuesday evening, at 7.30 sharp. It is very desirable to have a full attendance. Yery. The parsonage, 7.30, Tuesday evening, remember. Let all come." That is a very naked hook, and it would be a hungry fish that would bite. Why such insistence on the familiar details, the "usual" time and place, and the desirability of attendance? Never mind the desir- 88 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS ability; what is needed is to arouse desire. Thus, perhaps : — " You all know that Mrs. 'Randall has just got back from the Holy Land. I was at her house the other evening, and she showed me a lot of interesting things, and told me a lot of interesting facts. She can make one almost believe he has been to Jerusalem himself, and Bethlehem and Nazareth, and all the precious places. Now she is going to speak at the teachers' meeting on Tuesday evening, and I don't believe the parsonage will begin to hold all that want to hear her. The teachers would better go early." From these illustrations several points will be evi- dent : — Notices should not be read, but given in the superin- tendent's own words, in a brisk, conversational style. The more of himself the superintendent puts into the notice, the more of his hearers is he likely to grip. At the same time, for the sake of accuracy, the super- intendent should have the notice before him in writing; and if he is to give several notices, they should be pinned or pasted together, to avoid confusion and quicken the operation. The tedious insistence on non-essentials is the great flaw in most giving of notices. Pick out what is impor- tant to be known, and let the rest go. On the other hand, a notice must be full enough to leave an impression of facts, and not flash like a meteor's path, that instantly melts into the sky. The value of a notice is quite doubled if you can say "I" all through it. Personality counts. If you have THOSE NOTICES 89 heard the lecturer whose course you are announcing, and like him, say so. If you are going to a meeting you are advertising and anticipate pleasure, put that in. And if you cannot incorporate your own personality, perhaps you can attach to the notice the personality of some one else. A bit of fun is invaluable, if you would have the notice remembered ; only, join the joke so closely to the an- nouncement that the two are inseparable, or the comi- cality will be certain to fly away with your hearers' attention, and leave far out of sight the facts to be remembered. In fine, the notices require preparation, often as careful preparation as any other feature of the Sunday-school hour. Usually, important interests depend upon them for their success, and it is a shameful neglect of " our Father's business" to present them in a slovenly and ineffective manner. Here, as everywhere else, profit springs from preparation. I would even go so far as to write out different ways of making important notices and study them, so as to select the most attractive phrases. Of course, this is only for practice, and not with any view to reading a written notice before the school. Much depends upon the voice you use. Let it be loud, but not harsh ; decisive, but not jerky ; pleasant, but not undignified. Much depends on the time you select. Do not choose a moment of restlessness and confusion, or a time when the school is attending to something else, — finding a hymn, perhaps, or making an offering. If the notices 90 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS are worth giving at all, they are worth a whole hearing and not a divided one. The best time for the notices is early in the session, perhaps following the prayer. Some particulars of lead- ing moment, however, may need to be repeated at the close of the hour, in order to clinch them upon the memory. Some notices may best be given upon the blackboard, without a spoken word. If you try the plan, make sure that every letter is easily read from the remotest corner of the room. A unique effect may be gained from a brightly worded announcement, prettily printed with colored chalk, put in place by the superintendent, and pointed to in absolute silence. A little drawing adds much to such advertisements, and even very indifferent talents shine under the gener- ous indistinctness of crayon. For example, if you want to announce a Christinas concert, draw a Christmas tree and color it green, with yellow flashing candles and bright red bundles. If it is a harvest festival you are proclaiming, depict an ear of golden corn. If it is an Easter exercise, draw an egg. Large sheets of paper, even the cheap manila wrapping- paper, make excellent substitutes for the blackboard, if you lack that most useful and easily obtained Sunday- school aid. A bulletin board at the entrance may give out most of your notices for you, or at least impress them more deeply on the mind. Little slips of paper, on which the notice has been printed by one of the man v inexpensive manifolding devices, may be placed in the hands of every one; and if the trouble is warranted, THOSE NOTICES 91 no better mode of Sunday-school advertising could be devised. The Extra Notices. — All that has been said applies, also, of course, to the many recurring notifications that can scarcely be called notices in any formal sense. For instance, the school has sent a gift to some mis- sionary, and a letter of thanks has been received. How tiresome to read the letter in toto, from the date line at the beginning, through all the pleasant but often incon- sequential particulars, to the signature at the close ! Let the superintendent fix in his mind the brightest points of the letter, and talk it off : — " You remember that ten dollars we sent Mr. Saunders, out in Idaho ? He has written me a letter, and you can't guess how much good that money has done. Why, it has bought the baby some new socks, and Jimmy Saun- ders a new pair of mittens, and mended a hole in the roof, and — " so you go on, while every mind is attentive. If you had read that letter, however brightly Mr. Saun- ders might have written it, you could not have produced an equal effect. There are also such announcements as the number present and the amount of the collection. These facts may be so stated as to increase both the attendance and the offering, or they may be put before the school in a way so dull and careless as to render the scholars them- selves stupid and indifferent. Sometimes the secretary and treasurer make these an- nouncements ; and this is a good plan, if they can be de- pended upon to speak at the right instant, briskly and loudly. Indeed, the superintendent will always do well 92 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS to get some one else to make an announcement for him, provided the substitute has some personal interest in what he is going to say, and can speak precisely to the point. And finally, I hope none of my readers will think I have spent too many words upon a small matter. No constantly recurring Sunday-school feature is a small matter. Only a few minutes are given to the notices, to be sure ; but multiply them by tens of thousands of schools and millions upon millions of listening scholars, and the total of precious time and possible influence would surely warrant many a chapter longer than this. It is the littles that make success, in the Sunday school and everywhere else. CHAPTER XIII THE SWING OF THE SCHOOL You notice the difference as soon as you enter. One school is alert, the other loggy ; one is attentive, the other heedless ; one is interested, the other bored. The first school seems to run itself ; the second, to be painfully hauled. The first school marches — tramp, tramp, tramp, the irresistible swing of the regiment. The second school hobbles and crawls. This is a fundamental difference in schools. There are other fundamental reasons why some schools are com- parative failures; but if they have not this regimental swing, that is certainly one reason. The Officers. — This swing implies, in the first place, good officers. When you see a body of men or boys marching with this glorious alacrity, unison, and poise, you will know that he of the shoulder straps or the chevrons is back of it. That march is his zeal incor- porated, his enthusiasm and skill and patience. And likewise when you see a Sunday school that goes with a swing you will be sure that its officers are no dawdling incompetents, but that they are business men, about the King's business. The Drill. — The Sunday-school swing implies, in the second place, long and persistent drill, just as in the case of the regiment. A certain measure of routine is essen- tial if a school is to run smoothly. Endless changes, 93 94 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS incessant variety, may keep the scholars expectant, but it also keeps them uncertain and hesitant. Familiar roads are smooth ; and if they are well made, they are free from ruts. The Band. — Much of the regimental swing is due, in the third place, to the regimental band. Its inspiring strains quicken every foot, with every heart. They bind the regiment firmly together by the invisible cable of sound, so that the thousand move as a single man. And what the band is to the regiment, that the enthusiasm of the superintendent is to the Sunday school. His smiles are reflected in the smiles of a hundred faces. His words of cheer, his jolly laugh, his calm trust and confidence, multiply themselves wherever he moves among the classes. It is a glorious privilege, thus to set the time for the march of the whole school. All Together.— Imt no one man makes the regimental swing, not even the colonel, lead he never so magnifi- cently. Xo band makes it, play it never so briskly. The regimental swing requires the co-operation of the men of the regiment, practically of them all. And so in the Sunday school : it is not enough for the superintendent to be enthusiastic or the teachers to be well trained ; the school will not swing till the scholars also have caught the step and are alive with the rhythm. The swing of the school begins with the opening word of the superintendent, or even with his decisive stepping upon the platform. That appearance before the school should be the sole signal for quiet and attention, recog- nized and obeyed as a thousand clanging call bells never would be. THE SWING OF THE SCHOOL 95 The Start. — If a company of soldiers starts to march in a straggling, listless way, they will straggle listlessly to their journey's end. How often, when I was drilling at school, did the sergeant stop the company with a sharp "Halt!" if we did not start off with left feet simulta- neously brisk ! And, alas ! for the multitude of schools that are started Sunday after Sunday in the same old, listless way — the same songs sung in the same fashion at the same intervals ; the same reading of Scripture, verse about; the same prayer, with its stock phrases about " choose out our changes " and " each and every one of us," and " all this with the forgiveness of our sins " ; the same conclusion, " The classes will now study the lesson." The superintendent should prepare for the start-off as thoroughly as the teachers prepare for the lesson. He should devise little surprises, a new order, fresh methods for the old order. The opening exercises give the time for the whole session. Do not let them drag. The Programme. — Beginning thus, the swing of the school will depend on a swift programme, well thought out beforehand, and carried through with no pauses or delays. If one feature fails or is tardy, pass promptly to the next, returning to it, if you choose and it is ready. It would be comical, if it were not so sad, to see how quickly a school goes to pieces while the superintendent is having a whispered consultation with one of his officers, or the secretary, who was to read a notice, is fumbling for it through his pockets. Allow no opportunity for this catastrophe. Keep things moving. The Close.— Then, if this swinging opening is to be brought to the climax of a swinging close that will carry 96 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS the effect of the Sunday school throughout the coming week, the school must not be allowed to break step in the teaching half hour. The superintendent, as was his duty, has delivered the scholars to the teachers with minds eager and receptive. It is their duty to deliver the scholars back to him still unfagged and alert. Im- press this responsibility upon them, and show them how to do it. In other words, have a weekly teachers' meeting ! There are many superintendents that will not know what I am talking about in this article, and never will know until chance, or a blessed providence, or the wise arrangement for visiting made by some Sunday-school association, brings them into a school that does move with a swing. I worked for years in a school without a swing, and knew no better till I was led, one happy day, into a school of the opposite kind. It was, indeed, an enlightenment. And after a man has had this experience he is never again satisfied with Sunday-school flabbiness. lie has seen that the Sunday-school swing means officers cheered by a sense of progress, teachers in their places with their hearts on their duty, enthusiasm everywhere, and bright- ness and determination. Best of all, he perceives that the school swing is infectious; that it draws in with it, in spite of themselves, the listless, the mischievous, and the stupid, and incorporates them with the onrush of the regiment. Were it only to sweep such as these into the kingdom of heaven, the Sunday-school swing would be infinitely worth while. CHAPTER XIV THE PEDAGOGIC VALUE OF FUN There is a capital story by Owen Wister called " Philosophy Four." It represents two hearty students of Harvard, who are afflicted with Course Four in the uncongenial study of philosophy, and are doing some very necessary but very doleful cramming under a pedantic tutor in preparation for the ordeal of final examinations. Maddened beyond control by the delights of a perfect June morning, they boldly escape from their tutor into a far-away meadow, where they convert philosophy into a jovial sport, pelting each other with inquiries concerning Pythagoras and the rest, and keeping score against each other as if the game were football or tennis. In the ex- amination next day they outrank their disgusted tutor — a conclusion entirely natural, and much applauded by the reader. Pleasure and Profit.— What was true of Philosophy Four is true of all studies whatever, and assuredly true of our Sunday-school work, namely, that " No profit goes where there's no pleasure ta'en, " and that, per contra, the nearer a study can approach to a game, the better results will be won, in the memory and the life. I do not advocate buffoonery, of course, the telling of jokes malapropos, the meaningless grin, the nervous titter, the sacrifice of worth to wit and of profit to a pun. A monkey in a school-room would doubtless win 97 98 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS and hold the attention of the children, but he would see the outside of the door even more promptly than Mary's little lamb. Still less do I suggest the use of sarcasm, that teachers should "make fun" of the mistakes of their scholars. Fun means sympathy, entering into the feeling of the class and into the spirit of your task. There is no fun that is not fun for two. The advantages of fun in teaching the Sunday-school lesson are many. It clarities the head. A good laugh is a tonic to the brain as well as to the blood. Note how the eyes of the children brighten when they are amused. Their minds brighten at the same time, back of their eyes. That is one reason why the stories told by a witty speaker are sure to be remembered, even though his earnest remarks are forgotten, and that is why so many are afraid of introducing humor into serious discussions. This difficulty, however, arises only from the habit of throwing in comicalities merely to raise a laugh, bits of humor that are practically unconnected with the subject, like clusters of electric lights placed in front of a picture. But there is no such difficulty if the fun is introduced like electric lights half covered in the ceiling, a reflector throwing all their light on the picture below. Attach your merriment to the points of the lesson so that the two are inseparably joined together in your scholars' minds, and whatever brightness you bring into the lesson will simply insure its retention in the memory. Another reason for the use of fun in teaching the lesson is that thus you check your scholars' tendency to THE PEDAGOGIC VALUE OF FUN 99 mischief. A good laugh is a safety-valve for energy that might otherwise work itself off in disorder. These lively pieces of humanity are determined to have a good time somehow. See that they have it, but in your way. Our Happy Religion. — The best reason for the intro- duction of fun into your teaching is that thus you show the happy side of religion; you make it evident that Christianity is not a compound of long faces, sighs, and darkened rooms, but that it is cheery, sunshiny, hearty, even jovial. Once in Canada I came across a summer colony of a peculiar sect, an article in whose creed was the right to laugh right out in meeting. I attended some of their religious gatherings, and was startled, and interested if not edified, by the frank, unafraid, unmistakable laughter with which, all over the auditorium, the brethren and sisters manifested their pleasure in the utterances of their minister. Well, I would not advocate that custom, but still I should decidedly prefer it to the religious whine and the pious groan. It appears more uncouth only because it is less common. Ah, Sunday-school workers, we are en- gaged in the propagation of earth's supreme happiness, the one source of all joy there is. As a commercial traveler carries samples of his goods, as a barber must look neat about the head and a tailor about the body, so let us, whose business it is to advocate the kingdom of heaven, exhibit in our lives the essence of that king- dom — not only righteousness and peace, but also joy in the Holy Ghost! A Merry Bearing. — To gain this desirable element for 100 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS your teaching, it is not essential that you have a sharp tongue, ready with quip and crank. A merry bearing, without a spoken word, will greatly commend you to the hearts of the young folks. Marvelous is the effect of a cheerful face, a dancing eye, a brisk and alert carriage, (io witli these to the class, and you have well-nigh suc- ceeded before you begin. Brisk Speech. — Add to this a sprightly way of talking. A droning teacher would better lav aside his commission till he can reform his voice. Questions that hesitate will never elicit prompt replies. Explanations that limp and exhortations that stumble will never lead these direct young minds into the kingdom of heaven. I think that most Sunday-school teachers talk too slowly. When men are eager, when they are "dead in earnest, " their words crowd on one another's heels, and Hash with the fiery torches of conviction. There is no deliberate, stately utterance when children are at play, or when grown-ups are really enjoying themselves. Be Your Scholars' Chum. — Another fatal defect of manner is that indefinable primness, quality of the tradi- tional schoolma'am, which at once puts a thousand leagues between you and your scholars. Most desirable is that easy comraderie with which all successful teach- ers approach their classes — a fascinating friendliness with which some are naturally gifted, but which others must strive after with long desire. The prim teacher will say, " You are mistaken, Lucy. Can you not give the correct reply?" And Lucy will blush and dumbly shake her head. The teacher who is "just too lovely for anything" will say, " O come now, Lucy, I know you THE PEDAGOGIC VALUE OF FUN 101 don't mean that! Just think a minute, dear." And Lucy will grin and give the right answer, if it is in her curly pate. Of course, this comraderie cannot be merely feigned. It must be the real thing, or not at all. The teacher must actually be on easy terms with her scholars, or she cannot talk easily with them. And how shall one get on easy terms with one's class ? It cannot be done with- out spending time and taking trouble. The teacher must have good times with the class outside the Sunday school. Arrange occasional expeditions with them, to some museum, or library, or public institution, or scene of historical interest. Take walks with them now and then, to study the birds, or the flowers, or the rocks. Hold a field day, for outdoor games and athletic con- tests. Invite them to your home for an evening of games. Now and then get them to meet at your house to study next Sunday's lesson with you, following the study with games, singing, and a round of apples and nuts. Invite other classes, that will be congenial, to join your class sometimes in these pleasant hours. Enjoying it Yourself. — And how, it may be asked, if you do not take kindly to games, if you do not enjoy them and are awkward at them ? What if fun does not "come natural " to you ? Well, in that case about the first thing you need to do is to make fun natural to you! Change your nature. Gloom is not goodness — it is almost its opposite. It is a serious handicap to be too serious ; it is likely to lessen your influence over others. Men that are most saintly and most deeply in earnest — like Phillips Brooks, 102 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS for instance, or Moody, or Spurgeon — are men that know best how to laugh and how to make others laugh. If you would strive as earnestly to learn to play as you strive to succeed in your work, you would learn to play, and your work would be immensely benefited by the operation. Certainly you cannot get your class to enjoy their work until you also enjoy it, until you put into it the vivacity and zest of recreation. Something of the spirit of a game should enter all recitations. Those two young men of " Philosophy Four" were all the better friends because of their friendly contest out in the meadows, and they became friends, moreover, with the subject. I like to divide classes, half against half, and keep competitive score of their answers to my questions. I like to set one scholar after another before a class, and see who can stand the longest fire of interrogatories. I like to write divisions of the subject upon slips of paper and have the class draw them by lot, each elucidating the topic he draws. I like to make an outline map upon the blackboard and then cover it while the scholars copy it from memory, fastening a gilt paper star upon the best copy. In many other ways it is possible to introduce into the recitation the spirit of a game, the spirit of friendly and fascinat- ing contest. Plan the Fun. — This enlivening of the lesson must be planned for as carefully as any other feature of the teacher's work ; it will not come without planning. Especially if the theme is heavy and difficult is such en- livening necessary for the best results. It will not des- troy good impressions; it will do the opposite, it will THE PEDAGOGIC VALUE OF FUN 103 clinch them. I would introduce into every lesson plan one section that I would call " Just for Fun." It would really be more than that, but never mind. Perhaps it would be merely the telling of a bright and pointed story. A good illustration, with a whiff of fun in it, will brighten a lesson wonderfully. To gather these I have a plan which I commend to all Sunday- school workers. I keep a large number of envelopes, each marked with the name of some virtue, vice, or other commonly recurring category, and all arranged in alphabetical order. Into these goes a large and con- stantly growing collection of anecdotes and other ma- terial for illustrations. When I read a good story, suitable for use in brightening a Sunday-school lesson, I cut it out and put it in the appropriate envelope. When I hear a good illustration I jot down the points, and file my notes in the same way. Thus I have at my instant command a well- filled storehouse of material for enlivening my lessons. Specimen Illustrations.— For example, we are to dis- cuss next Sunday Paul's testimony that he had learned, in whatsoever state, to be therein content. I find in my envelope marked "Contentment " some notes of a bit of observation made by a friend of mine, and I tell the class next Sunday how she was walking out one day when she passed the house of a poor old woman and saw her sit- ting on her front porch. Now this woman's husband, John by name, was a ne'er-do-well and a drunkard, who abused the old woman shamefully ; and yet she was sit- ting there, her face radiant with smiles. 104: SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS " Why, Aunt Marthy," said my friend, "you must have had good news, you look so happy." " No," said the dear old lad}', " but I was just thinking if my John was good and kind, how nice it would be!" Or perhaps the lesson is on prayer, and includes Christ's saying that whatever we ask for we are to be- lieve that we have it, and we — have it. Straightway in my envelope marked " Faith" I find the story of a very poor family of a town in which I once lived. There was nothing to eat in the house, but the mother had gone out to beg some bread and milk for her children. In eager and confident expectation the children sat in a row be- fore the lire, each with an empty bowl and a spoon. Suddenly the oldest noticed that the youngest had his bowl tipped very much to one side. "Sammy!" she exclaimed, "see what you're doin'! You're spillin' your milk — when you git it ! " Your Own Discoveries. — Such illustrations as these two are, for me, vastly better than perhaps more striking illustrations that I have merely picked up from books, because the two little events happened in my own town. In like manner, the anecdotes I discover for myself, in books, periodicals, or the sermons I hear, are better for my use than the admirable illustrations I find in the lesson helps, though I use them also. The more inti- mately the illustrations are associated with your own life, the more valuable will they be in your teaching. If that is true, then certainly the most useful illustra- tion of all is one associated with the lives of your scholars. If you have become one of their number, if you are ad- mitted to their little jokes and are acquainted with the THE PEDAGOGIC VALUE OF FUN 105 incidents of their lives that mean the most to them, then you will miss a great opportunity if you do not utilize such knowledge in teaching the lesson. For example, you are talking about Saul's rapid progress in evil as soon as he allowed the spirit of jealousy to creep into his heart, and you slyly remark, "Saul found his downward course accelerated after the first wrong step, just as Tom the other day kept rolling faster and faster when he slipped on Pigeon Hill ! " Tom, certainly, and probably all the rest of the class, will never forget that point. Use Your Imagination. — Perhaps the best mode of en- livening the lesson is by a vigorous use of a consecrated imagination applied to the Scripture you are studying. I was always impressed by this in the preaching of D. L. Moody. The great evangelist was never more happy than when engaged in the exposition of some event of the Bible. It was so real to him that he made it real to the audience. His hearers became spectators, as the actual scene was spread before their eyes. For instance, I shall never forget his rendering — that is the proper word — of the story of Elisha and the widow with her oil. Moody sent her and her boy around among the neighbors after oil jars, in which to store the ex- pected miraculous supply. "Rat- tat- tat!" " Who's there ? " "It's the Widow Benjamin. Have you any empty jars I could borrow ? " "Why, yes, one — and maybe two. Come right in, neighbor. And let my Isaac help you carry them home." 106 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS The other folks in the street begin to look out of the windows. " Why, what is the Widow Benjamin up to ? She and her boy Joseph have taken home ten jars already, by actual count, and if she isn't going out after more this very minute ! " " Rat-tat- tat ! " And thus the vivid description proceeded. Is there any doubt that every one in the room carried away an undying impression of at least that one Bible story, and of the lesson of faith and works which Mr. Moody drew appropriately from it ? The Story of the Demoniac— Mr. Moody's delight and model, Christmas Evans, the famous Welsh preacher, had the same sprightly imagination. So rememberable were his sermons that, though he left no writings, they have been transmitted to us minutely and faithfully from the memories upon which he stamped them. A good example is his sermon on the demoniac and the swine. We are made to see the swine heading for the cliff, and one of the swineherds, more alert than the rest, cries out : " What ails the hogs ? Look sharp there, boys — keep them in — use your whips ! Why don't you run? Why, I declare, one of them has gone over the cliff ! There, there goes another ! Drive them back, Tom ! " But over they all go, " black hog and all ! " So the story proceeds, with an animated conversation between the swineherds and the owner of the herd. Then the scene changes. The demoniac, clothed and in his right mind, is returning home. He shouts the good THE PEDAGOGIC VALUE OF FUN 107 news to every one he meets. His children see him in the distance. They run to tell their mother. The frightened family lock the doors against him. " Are all the windows fastened, children ? " " Yes, mother." "Mary, my dear, come from the window — don't be standing there." "Why, mother, I can hardly believe it is father! That man is well dressed." Thus Christmas Evans went on, picturing in his never- to-be-forgotten way the return of the restored demoniac. Well, we cannot all be Moodys or Christmas Evanses, but we can all get some of their life into us. We can all come out of the ruts, and stay out. We can all remem- ber that religion is no mouldy, dead-and-alive affair, but a vivacious, exhilarating joy. We can make the Sunday- school hour for our scholars the brightest hour of their week ; and in it all we shall only be illustrating the joy of the Lord, that thereby we may win them to its abid- ing strength. CIIAPTEK XV A TEACHER BY POST When I was a boy I had many Sunday-school teach- ers, but one, most faithful and long-continued, was a woman who i$ rtmv in heaven. I do not recall a word she said to me in all the years of her class instruction, and yet she is probably the most influential teacher I ever had, in any kind of school, because of three letters she wrote me at intervals of about a year. I was in the town and was seeing her every day. There was no apparent necessity for a letter. However, the fact that she wrote those letters to me made a tre- mendous impression upon me. They were well- written letters, and inspired a respect for her literary ability. They were beautifully neat and careful in appearance; time had evidently been lavished upon them. They were tender, urgent, thoughtful pleadings for me to declare myself a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, and join his church. "Well, I did not join the church till years afterward ; but those letters never released their hold upon me, and were positive factors in my decision. I do not recall (more shame to me !) that I ever replied to the letters, or even thanked the writer. Perhaps in heaven she will know of these sentences, and accept the long-delayed ac- knowledgment. This article is for the purpose of urging upon Sunday- 108 A TEACHER BY POST 109 school teachers just such work as that. Eemember, a letter is an event in a child's life, a rare surprise. To receive a letter — actually by post — gives the child a de- lightful sense of importance. The precious missive is sure to be treasured ; its contents are sure to be remembered. Nor even in the case of older persons — adult classes — is a letter despised. Always it is valued above the same words spoken. It is an assurance of interest on the part of the writer. It is proof that he is eager to spend time and strength to gain the ends of the letter. " Talking is easy," has passed into a proverb ; but letter- writing — everybody knows that that is not easy ! Indeed, because so much time and energy are required, many teachers will shrink from this suggestion. And yet, if you do a very little of this work every day, you will be amazed to see how easily you will do it, and how much of it you will get done in the course of the year. Much Depends Upon System.— While taking all advan- tage of unexpected occasions and opportunities, I should not wait for them, but I should plan this letter writing as far in advance as possible. I should even keep a little ledger, and set up a letter-account with every scholar — just when I wrote and when I received an answer, and what the results were. I should use copying ink, and make a press copy of all my letters, to review now and then what I had written to each, ami to avoid duplicat- ing. These copies, with whatever letters I received from each scholar, I should keep in separate pigeon-holes, one to a person, striving thus to give each correspondence the individuality that these different souls need. In your oral teaching you must do mass work, chiefly ; but in this 110 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS letter-writing you are doing just the personal work that is most fruitful. You can study every scholar by him- self and meet his own peculiar need. These Letters Need not be Long.— Just a line sometimes will be as good as a quire. " You gave us a good recita- tion last Sunday. Thank you ! " Can any one doubt that those ten words, received through the mail, would send a glow to any scholar's heart, and to his head the determination to give good recitations forever? Yet, though the letters may often be brief, they should never be careless. Use good stationery and good ink. Bring out your best penmanship. Always stamp them and send the letter by mail ; a letter sent around by the servant is not to the child a " real letter." Do not write at all until you can put your heart into the letter. It is the personal touch that counts. If the missives are in the least degree stiff or perfunctory, if they are written from duty and not desire, the sensitive recipients will feel it. Individualize the scholars as you write. Picture each before you. Think of his home, his surroundings, his likings, his tasks, his temptations. There is not in all the world a life like his ; let there be no other letter like yours to him. Of course this implies that you cannot use for this pur- pose the hektograph or other duplicating devices. For getting up diagrams, announcements, lists of questions, and similar pedagogic details, the duplicator is indispen- sable ; but one letter written solely to Lucy Brown is worth a dozen that Lucy must share with Susan Green and Alice Barber and Grace Colesworthy. This is not to say that a " round robin " is not a useful A TEACHER BY POST 111 variation in your epistolary labors. For example, you are absent on some delightful vacation trip and you wish to tell the whole class about your experiences, but you have no time to write each a long letter. In that case, you will place at the head of your account an alphabetical list of the class, with instructions to pass the letter around in that order. Seek and expect return letters. Ask questions, and in other ways show that a reply is desired. Be appreciative of it when it comes. Often the writing of this reply will be to the scholar the best part of the experience. I do not mean to imply that the letters should always, or perhaps often, be entirely serious. Bits of fun will brighten wonderfully your relations w T ith your scholars, and nowhere more than in these letters. Yet I should tuck away in each epistle, however merry, some earnest hint of eternal realities. I do not mean to imply, either, that the letters should be regular or frequent. Let them not become a burden to you, or familiar commonplaces to your scholars. Maintain the helpful element of surprise. Once in a while I should obtain the aid of some one else in this letter- writing. Here is a troublesome boy, and you are a woman. You may know some young man whom the lad admires, and a manly letter from him, on fundamental matters, may, if you can bring it about, do more for the boy than all your teaching; and it will be a part of your teaching. Here is a soul " almost per- suaded." A wise, loving note from the pastor or the pastor's wife may give just the needed spur to decision ; and you may obtain that note. Sometimes it will be 112 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS the superintendent that can write most helpfully ; some- times it will not be an adult at all, but another boy or girl. Just bear in mind this possibility of co-operation in letter-writing. Here, as well as everywhere else, it is not good to be alone. I find myself writing in terms of the boys and girls ; but let it be borne in mind that all these suggestions apply quite as forcibly to their elders. Human nature is about the same, at eight or eighty. Letters to Parents. — Indeed, one of the most fruitful lines of work you could follow, if you are a teacher of young folks, is the writing of letters to their parents. Not letters of complaint — strictures are always better spoken than written — but letters praising their children when you can praise them honestly, telling your plans for the children, asking their co-operation, and suggest- ing how it may be given. Of course these letters are not to take the place of conversation with parents, but they will be more impressive than talk, with them as with their children. In this letter-writing you will need to guard against any suspicion of favoritism. Take an early occasion to write to all your scholars, and when you write to any scholar thereafter, let it be, so far as possible, on an oc- casion evidently peculiar to himself. When to Write. — What are some of the occasions that afford good opportunities for these letters ? They are very numerous, when once you begin to look for them. Anniversaries always give a good chance. There are the seasons — the New Year, fit time for a guiding word, a twelvemonth motto ; the holy Easter, that well may A TEACHER BY POST 113 prompt an invitation to the new life in Christ ; Children's Day, and Rally Sunday, the beginning and close of vaca- tion, with suitable reminders of wise play and wise work ; Thanksgiving Day, with impulses for gratitude ; jubilant Christmas, that should bring its message of love and cheer. Lovely printed cards are available for most of these festivals ; but, even if they are used, the written word should not be omitted. For individual work, however, more personal anniver- saries are generally to be preferred. Next Sunday will be a year after Tom's joining the church. Why not a letter to him, reviewing his first year as a professed Christian, full of stimulus for the year to come? (Of course you wrote him a letter when he joined the church.) Or it may be just two years ago that Ed Ballentine entered your class. lie has forgotten the date, but a cordial letter from you on that anniversary will make membership in a Sunday-school class a vastly more important affair in his eyes henceforth. Birthdays are always fit times for tender and wise counsels, and your class birthday book should be always at hand. Per- haps it is ten years since you became teacher of that class, and what more appropriate than a special greeting (which may be printed this time) to all the present and former members ? A Correspondence Class. — I include the former mem- bers, because a Sunday-school teacher is losing much of the blessedness of this blessed relation unless he main- tains it after his scholars have left the class and school, and perhaps gone out into the busy world. I know a teacher of a class of servant girls. They, of course, 114 SUNDAY-SCIIOOL PROBLEMS make many changes in abode, but she follows them up. Tli us she has formed what she calls a correspondence class ; it has twenty-nine members, and each of them re- ceives a letter from her once a quarter. There are other occasions, many of them, that will furnish openings for fruitful letters. There are times of sorrow, when loved ones die, when sickness comes, or some disappointment or loss. Be ready then with a heartening word — not only spoken, with the meaningful pressure of the hand, but written, for reading over and over. There are times of joy, more likely to be neglected : The young man has been appointed valedictorian, has ob- tained a situation, has been admitted to the firm ; the young woman has read a charming essay at the literary club, or perhaps her marriage engagement is announced. Why should not such occasions be signalized by letters of congratulation ? Sometimes the occasion of the letter must not be stated, as when you realize that one of your scholars is exposed to sore temptation, and you must reach out a hand to him, though in the dark. Then you will im- provise an occasion from your own life. It will be a re- cent experience of yours, perhaps, which you want to share with him. It may be a bit of your reading, which you really must pass along. It may be a good poem, which has just come to you with new force, and you know his fondness for poetry. At such times you will be profoundly grateful that you have established the habit of writing letters to your scholars, so that such a message comes naturally from you to him. In the main, of course, the occasions for your letter- A TEACHER BY POST 115 writing will be connected with the ordinary progress of class work. You will wish to give praise for a lesson well learned. You will wish to make assignments of special work, and you know that a request by mail will be better heeded than one by mouth. You will want to impress some thought of the last lesson, or say some word for which there was no time in the class. You will be away on vacation, or they will be absent on theirs, and you wish to maintain the continuity of the class. You will be sending messages to sickrooms, often with little gifts. Best and chiefest of all, you will want to draw your scholars to Christ, and because of their diffidence, or perhaps because of your own, you will choose to break the ice by a letter, which will certainly be followed up by personal conversations. I have by no means exhausted this fruitful theme, but I have written enough to exhibit its wide possibilities. The teacher's art is manifold, and the best teacher is the one that is eager to teach in every way. He will follow the example of that superb teacher, Paul, and be made all things — letter-writer and all — to all his scholars, that by all means he may save some. CHAPTEE XVI THE SUPERINTENDENT'S BLACKBOARD IMAGINE a secular school without a blackboard! How constantly, in our public schools and colleges, this invaluable pedagogic aid is used, adding eve-gate to ear- gate, and doubling the access to the pupils' minds ! If our Bible schools are not to fall behind in educational power, they also must use the blackboard. And not only must there be one in front of the school, ready to carry its silent but forcible messages simultaneously to every brain, but each classroom must be furnished as well ; or, if your classes are still jumbled together in the general pandemonium of one " Sunday-school room," none the less should each class have either a blackboard or its equivalent in an eaormous paper tablet. The best blackboard for the superintendent is on the whole a stationary one, fastened to the wall in front of the school. It is conspicuous, is always in position, and is never in the way. It should run in grooves, being supported by weights, so that any one working at it may push it up as he writes. It is best to have two boards, one back of the other, acting as counterpoises, so that as one moves up the other moves down. Thus a design or inscription may be placed upon the board behind, to be disclosed at the proper minute by shoving up the board in front. Such a blackboard has proved very satisfac- 116 THE SUPERINTENDENT'S BLACKBOARD 117 tory in our school, and any good carpenter could make one. If for any reason this is impracticable, a portable board may be made by almost any one, or may be bought for from two dollars up. For drawing, the best is a black- board that is not a board at all, but simply a slate-sur- faced canvas, stretched tight, but giving beneath the chalk sufficiently to produce the most effective shading. While few Sunday schools have blackboards at all, of those few scarcely one uses the blackboard as much as it should, or as wisely. Blackboard work is an art in it- self, and like all arts it requires earnest and persistent study. *This is not to say that the effects should be intricate. On the contrary, it is the simple, straightforward black- board work that is the most attractive — outline drawing, rapidly made in the presence of the school, and clear, bold lettering. Colored chalk may be used with good results, but only the brightest of reds and yellows for what you want to be seen from the back of the room. I have seen black- board work in blue or green that was practically invisi- ble twenty feet off. Indeed, the back of the room must be your goal, for eye-gate as well as ear-gate. Whatever you write, print, or draw on the blackboard must be seen from that view- point, and without eye-strain, or you have bungled at your work. For what will the superintendent use his blackboard ? In the first place, sometimes if not always he will use it for the routine notices of attendance and collection ; 118 SUNDAY-SCHOOL PROBLEMS only, he will not use it in any routine fashion. For in- stance, he may print, with vim : — Tresent last Sunday, 4>3L Vfesent tkis Sunday • ZlO. LVasii YOUf{ inuttt Or, if the collection is falling off, he may prod the school thus : — Collection -to-day, — from t O I scholars OM/y 16? cents. ftOOM FO* IMPROVE** EWT f Or, if congratulations are in order, he will deliver them thus : — COMING UP! (jOOD! Or, if he wants to remind the scholars of the mission- ary object for which they are giving, he may use his best flourishes on the following: — UcnL