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BV 1520 .B79 1921 
 Burroughs, Prince Emanuel, 
 
 1871-1948. 
 Building a succesful Sunday 
 
 school 
 
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Building a Successful 
 Sunday School 
 
Building a Successful 
 
 Sunday School 
 
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 By 
 
 P. E. BURROUGHS, D.D. 
 
 Author of ''The Present-Day Sunday School," "Winning 
 to Christ," " Church and Sunday- 
 School BuildingSt' etc. 
 
 New York 
 
 Chicago 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 London and 
 
 £di nburoh 
 
Copyright, 1921, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 Printed in U. S. A. 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago : 1 7 North Wabash Ave. 
 London: 21 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh : 75 Princes Street 
 
To My Wife 
 CORINNE GAYLE BURROUGHS 
 
Contents 
 
 I. What is a Successful Sunday 
 
 School? 9 
 
 II. What a Successful Sunday School 
 
 Will Do 21 
 
 III. Organizing the Sunday School for 
 
 Success 31 
 
 IV. Securing Officers and Teachers . 41 
 
 V. Housing the Sunday School . . 46 
 
 VI. Problems in Housing the Sunday 
 
 School 57 
 
 VII. How TO Secure Needed Housing . 66 
 
 VIII. Some Good Church and Sunday- 
 
 School Buildings . . .73 
 
 IX. Remodeling Present Buildings . 82 
 
 X. Equipment for the Sunday School 91 
 
 XI. How TO Build a Sunday School . 100 
 
 XII. How to Build a Sunday School 
 
 (Contmued^ . . . . .108 
 
 XIII. Organizations Which Help to 
 
 Build the Sunday School . . 114 
 
 XIV. Social Life and the Success of the 
 
 Sunday School . . . .124 
 
 XV. Recreations in the Building of the 
 
 Sunday School . . . .136 
 
 7 
 
8 
 
 Contents 
 
 XVI. Advertising the Sunday School . I4v 
 
 XVII. The Teachers* Meeting and the 
 
 Workers' Council . . .146 
 
 XVIII. Teacher Training Essential to 
 
 Success 151 
 
 XIX. Records in the Making of a Suc- 
 
 cessful Sunday School . .155 
 
 XX. Week-Day Work for the Sunday 
 
 School ..... 160 
 
 XXI. What of Special Days ? . . . 164 
 
 XXII. Standards for the Sunday School 169 
 
 XXIII. The Combined Service . . . 173 
 
 XXIV. Winning to Christ in the Sunday 
 
 School 178 
 
 Appendix: Suggested Questions . 186 
 
WHAT IS A SUCCESSFUL SUNDAY 
 SCHOOL? 
 
 A LITTLE Sunday school in a small town 
 down in Mississippi has a limited constit- 
 uency and a narrow outlook. The school 
 has poor equipment and has never made claim to 
 superior methods or approved forms of organiza- 
 tion. But this little Sunday school is presided over 
 by a devout Bible-loving man who gathers to his 
 support reverent and faithful teachers. The school 
 is marked by an atmosphere of reverence and has 
 long been distinctly evangelistic and markedly mis- 
 sionary. A half dozen preachers have come out of 
 this Sunday school and the school has produced a 
 number of earnest missionaries. Is this a successful 
 Sunday school? -. 
 
 No one can claim that this little Mississippi Sun- 
 day school is an unqualified success. When its pu- 
 pils entered the ministry and went away to the theo- 
 logical seminary they were surprised and even pained 
 to find that their knowledge of the Bible was frag- 
 mentary and superficial. They knew practically 
 nothing of PauFs missionary journeys; they could 
 not trace the travels of Abraham; they had no con- 
 nected view of the life of our Lord ; they knew little 
 
 9 
 
lO A Successful Sunday School 
 
 of the Messianic prophecies recorded in the Old 
 Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament. 
 Measured by the Bible knowledge which it had im- 
 parted through the long receptive years that little 
 Sunday school had all but failed. Measured by the 
 type of character produced and by the finer spiritual 
 fruitage, that Sunday school was a marked success. 
 While it did some things in glorious fashion, it failed 
 at certain other important points. It was a suc- 
 cessful Sunday school, but its success was partial. 
 It did much, but it could have done much more. 
 
 A country Sunday school in Kentucky maintained 
 for many years a high standard of spiritual effi- 
 ciency and was blessed with remarkable spiritual 
 
 fruits. Mr. J served as superintendent and by 
 
 his quiet devout bearing and deep piety gave to the 
 school an atmosphere of reverence which left its last- 
 ing impress on the young life of the community. 
 From that Sunday school there went out a long line 
 of consecrated believing men and women, preachers, 
 missionaries. Christian workers, faithful souls who 
 have ever since called that little Sunday school 
 blessed. 
 
 Was this a successful Sunday school? Without 
 doubt It bore worthy fruit in its chosen realm and 
 thus achieved a measure of success. Considering its 
 limitations, it produced really wonderful results. Its 
 pupils were imbued with reverence; they were 
 brought early to accept Christ Jesus as Lord and 
 Saviour; they were deeply taught in the practical, 
 moral and spiritual things of life. In the light of 
 modern Sunday-school development, it is easy to see 
 
What is a Successful Sunday School? il 
 
 that that Sunday school might have gone further 
 and done more for its pupils. It might have offered 
 them such fuller instruction and such wider training 
 as would have afforded a stronger foundation and a 
 more enduring usefulness. And yet who will say 
 that this was not a successful Sunday school? 
 
 It is not easy to define a successful Sunday school. 
 It is not easy to indicate the many elements which 
 go to make for success. Without undertaking an 
 exhaustive statement, it may suffice to say that the 
 Sunday school which lays claim to success must do 
 two things: (i) it must reach its constituency; (2) 
 it must teach its constituency. 
 
 A Sunday school, then, in order to be considered 
 in any sense successful must do these two things — it 
 must reach the people and it must teach the people. 
 It can hardly be said that one of these things is more 
 important than the other, since they are inter-de- 
 pendent. We cannot teach people unless we reach 
 them; when we reach people we will almost cer- 
 tainly teach them. A successful Sunday school 
 therefore is a school which reaches and teaches its 
 constituency. Mere bigness does not in itself consti- 
 tute a successful Sunday school. But no Sunday 
 school can be considered successful which is not 
 fairly reaching its constituency. 
 
 Mere bigness in numbers does not constitute a 
 really big Sunday school. A Sunday school with a 
 large enrollment and a large average attendance may 
 be essentially a little Sunday school. A Sunday 
 school with a small enrollment and a limited at- 
 tendance may be essentially a big Sunday school. 
 
12 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 The church which with a membership of 2,000 in the 
 midst of a dense population offering almost unlim- 
 ited possibilities has a Sunday school numbering 
 1,000 probably has a little Sunday school. The 
 church which has a membership of one hundred in 
 the midst of a sparse population in which several 
 churches are making claims and yet has a Sunday 
 school of one hundred and fifty, probably has a big 
 Sunday school. 
 
 Any Sunday school which, knowing fully its con- 
 stituency and its obligations and clearly defining its 
 possibilities, is fairly reaching its possibilities, is in 
 so far a successful Sunday school. " Possibilities " ! 
 The word is full of significance. It constitutes a 
 challenge. The word has come into frequent use 
 and has taken unto itself a definite meaning among 
 aggressive Sunday-school workers. Its very defi- 
 niteness marks the passage of Sunday-school effort 
 from the realm of the vague to the realm of intelli- 
 gent system. 
 
 " Mr. Superintendent, what are the possibilities of 
 your school; how large ought your school to be; 
 what membership is it possible for you to attain?" 
 We know many superintendents who will answer, 
 'not with a guess nor an estimate, but who can im- 
 mediately state the possibilities of their school, the 
 numbers which they might have in each department. 
 They have not simply the numbers, but the individual 
 addresses of all on whom they have claim or for 
 whom they may be properly responsible. Just as 
 the life insurance agent has an accurate list of his 
 "'possibilities," just as the enterprising real estate 
 
What is a Successful Sunday School? 13 
 
 man knows by name and address his "prospects," 
 so the efficient superintendent knows the people upon 
 whom his school may lay claim. The " possibilities " 
 of any Sunday school measure the responsibility and 
 the opportunity of that school. No school which has 
 not taken pains to know its possibilities and which 
 fails to take definite and intelligent steps to reach its 
 largest possible attendance, can be called a success- 
 ful Sunday school. No claims of quality in work 
 done, no claims of educational achievements, no 
 other accomplishments, can offset or atone for fail- 
 ure at this point. No school has a right to be a 
 little school. No superintendent has a right to have 
 a little school. 
 
 A big Sunday school! A school which however 
 small in numbers, however meager in attendance, is 
 yet reasonably reaching its possibilities; a school in- 
 stinct with the missionary spirit, an aggressive 
 school, a school which is sounding the conquering 
 note, a school whose parish is the world! Such a 
 school is essentially big. Such a school, big as meas- 
 ured not by mere numbers, but by worthy spirit and 
 by worthy achievement in reaching and teaching and 
 enlisting its real constituency, such a school surely is 
 the goal of every pastor and superintendent and 
 teacher. To be content with anything short of this 
 is to condemn ourselves of sloth and indifference in 
 a cause which ought to challenge the best that is 
 within us. 
 
 We enter no plea for mere bigness ; mere bigness 
 may represent the last word in real littleness. We 
 have scant sympathy with the nervous anxiety of 
 
 \y 
 
i4 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 would-be conservatives, of self-conscious and self- 
 appointed critics w^lio continually warn us against 
 the perils of numbers. They have told us with a 
 grave air that the Book of Numbers is not the only 
 inspired book in the Bible and that this Book of 
 Numbers is not the most valuable of Scripture writ- 
 ings ! They insist, and very properly, that the Sun- 
 day school is a school, that it is primarily an educa- 
 tional institution; they go further and declare that 
 it is repugnant to the mission and the essential na- 
 ture of the institution to measure it by mere num- 
 bers. In all of which and so far they are quite right. 
 The Sunday school is a school, but this does not 
 mean that it is like other schools. It is a school, but 
 in its mission, in its text-book, in its essential nature, 
 it stands alone among schools. It is the Bible school, 
 the school of the church, the school of Christ; it is 
 essentially missionary in its purpose, as essentially 
 missionary as the church itself. It must be aggres- 
 sive if it will rightly represent that Saviour whose 
 parting word of command was that we should go 
 into all the world and make disciples of all nations. 
 
 We know two Sunday-school superintendents who 
 fairly represent two extreme conceptions of the Sun- 
 day school. One of these men is a trained and suc- 
 cessful educator. He has studied the philosophy 
 and the history of education ; he is a master of psy- 
 chology and feels a just pride in his standing and 
 achievements in the educational world. He runs his 
 Sunday school primarily as a school. He discour- 
 ages enthusiasm and makes light of emotion. He 
 measures all methods and all processes by educa- 
 
What is a Successful Sunday School 1 15 
 
 tional standards. His final test is the deposit of in- 
 formation which his teachers have left with their 
 pupils. His school is dignified, but small; it con- 
 fines itself largely to effort in behalf of the sons and 
 daughters of its own church membership. Meas- 
 ured by ordinary educational standards, the school 
 is successful; measured by its vital moral and re- 
 ligious and evangelistic fruitage — well, one may in- 
 dulge serious questions, but one would hesitate to 
 speak dogmatically in this realm. The other super- 
 intendent is by nature and training a promoter; he 
 could put over a big real estate development or put 
 on the map a newly organized insurance company. 
 He is strong on promotion and is unexcelled when 
 it comes to arousing popular interest. All of his 
 fine powers of exploitation, his keen sense of adver- 
 tising values, his ability to kindle popular enthusi- 
 asm, these fine abilities he uses freely in the conduct 
 of his Sunday school. The result can easily be im- 
 agined. His school is large in numbers, full of en- 
 thusiasm and much in the limelight. It is to be 
 feared that its permanent fruits are not so abundant 
 or substantial as they might be. 
 
 Neither of these superintendents approximates the 
 ideal. Yet each of them is useful and each leads a 
 band of teachers whose loving and loyal service must 
 bear abundant fruit. Happily a superintendent does 
 not require to be ideal, or nearly so, in order to be 
 useful. These two superintendents are neighbours 
 and they are good friends; but they do not over- 
 admire each other as superintendents. Indeed, if 
 each could know what the other thinks and says of 
 
l6 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 him as a superintendent, their relations might be 
 strained. The " educational " superintendent is 
 very sure that the "promoter" superintendent is 
 lowering the whole Sunday-school standard and 
 substituting "moonshine" and "pop-corn" for 
 more substantial things. On the other hand, the 
 superintendent with the gifts of the promoter ex- 
 hausts the resources of his vocabulary in the effort 
 to describe the dullness and stupidity of the methods 
 and policies presented by his neighbour. 
 
 It is easy to make light of "mere bigness." Big 
 Sunday schools are of course not necessarily the best 
 Sunday schools. The Sunday school is a missionary 
 and educational and evangelistic institution; it is re- 
 pugnant to its very nature to measure it by mere 
 numbers. It is a school of religion, or better, it is a 
 school of Christianity, dealing with the deepest 
 things of God and the soul; it may not be estimated 
 alone by its bulk. 
 
 All of this and much more we may say ; but after 
 all is said, the fact stands out as clear as day, that we 
 cannot teach people until we reach them ; we cannot 
 influence people through the Sunday school in the 
 things of God and the soul until we bring them into 
 the Sunday school. It is also as clear as day that the 
 people who most deeply need our Sunday-school in- 
 struction are not the people who will, left to them- 
 selves, attend, but are the people who must be some- 
 how induced to attend. 
 
 It can hardly be said that enlarging numbers, or 
 the efforts necessary to bring them in, constitute any 
 barrier to educational, or religious, or evangelistic 
 
What is a Successful Sunday School ? 1 7 
 
 accomplishments. It may be seriously questioned 
 whether better educational and evangelistic fruits 
 are borne, or more abiding religious results achieved, 
 in little Sunday schools than in larger Sunday 
 schools. Poor work and meager results may mark 
 little as well as big schools. 
 
 One would be inclined to think that the same 
 energy and intelligence which make a Sunday school 
 large in attendance would tend also to make it effi- 
 cient and fruitful. Would not the apathy and in- 
 difference which account for small numbers be re- 
 flected in all the service rendered by the school? 
 Generally speaking, little stores are hardly the most 
 efficient or the best conducted stores; little railroads 
 have not won special distinction for their efficiency; 
 little educational institutions cannot in our day 
 justly claim superiority over those which number their 
 students into the thousands. If one were in quest 
 of inspiring ideals and stirring achievements in Sun- 
 day-school work, he would not seek out little schools, 
 though in these he might find much to commend. 
 There is no necessary antagonism between growth in 
 numbers and efficiency in service. These ought to 
 go hand in hand, each supplementing and augmenting 
 the other. Certain it is that the Sunday school 
 which lacks the aggressive spirit, which is content 
 with the numbers which it can attain without special 
 missionary eff'ort, is lacking in certain essential ele- 
 ments which characterized our Lord and His 
 apostles. 
 
 We have said that the Sunday school is educa- 
 tional and religious in its aim; it is more than that, 
 
i8 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 it is missionary. This school constitutes a wing of 
 the conquering army which is to bring this world 
 under the sway of Jesus Christ. This school is not 
 only to be missionary; it is to be evangelistic. It is 
 an institution conducted in His name who gathered 
 unprecedented multitudes to His teaching ministry. 
 Socrates, Plato and others devoted their teaching 
 ministry to the select few; Jesus of Nazareth as- 
 sembled and taught the multitudes. 
 
 The one unanswerable argument in favour of the 
 largest Sunday school possible lies here. So long as 
 the school is little, it ministers to those who least 
 need its ministry, to the children of the pastor, the 
 superintendent, the teachers, the people who in all 
 probability will in any case not leave their sons and 
 daughters wholly without religious instruction. As 
 the numbers in the Sunday school increase, the need 
 of those reached increases in proportion. Fre- 
 quently the Sunday school with two hundred mem- 
 bers which adds one hundred to its membership will 
 actually double its evangelistic opportunity. A Sun- 
 day school had five hundred members consisting al- 
 most wholly of believers and children who came from 
 Christian homes. This school went afield in an 
 aggressive campaign and brought in two hundred 
 new members. A new day dawned for that school ; 
 it fairly tingled with life; the spirit of evangelism 
 became rife as it faced its new evangelistic challenge 
 and opportunity. 
 
 It is thus easy to see that involved in the question 
 which we are considering is the larger question of 
 our interpretation of the mission and spirit of the 
 
What is a Successful Sunday School *? 1 9 
 
 church, of the attitude which the church shall as- 
 sume toward the outlying masses. The Sunday 
 school is no longer to be considered as an institution 
 apart from the church; it is not even to be thought of 
 merely as a school in which the church may instruct 
 its children with a view to future membership. The 
 Sunday school is the church engaged in vital phases 
 of its work; it is a school, but we are not to forget 
 that it is a Sunday school. Measured by its deposit 
 of instruction, the Sunday school can never hold high 
 rank among educational institutions. It assembles 
 on God's holy day, it meets in God's house, it studies 
 God's book, it has the peculiar promise of God's il- 
 luminating Spirit, it is led and served by devout men 
 and women who come to its session from their knees. 
 This school sends its light and warmth down through 
 all the week-days. It permeates with its sacred in- 
 fluence all other schools and lends a blessing to all 
 the days of the week. By every holy consideration 
 we are bound to extend its appeal and influence as 
 widely as may be. This school, let us say it again, 
 is evangelistic and missionary as well as educational. 
 It is educational in order that it may be in the best 
 sense missionary. 
 
 We live in a day of large Sunday schools. It is 
 easy to see that this development is only in its be- 
 ginnings. We have long had a few outstanding 
 schools which, by their numbers and their efficiency, 
 commanded wide attention. Sunday schools, large 
 in numbers and great in spiritual power, are now to 
 be found in all of the states. As is to be expected, 
 they may be found in most, of the larger centers ; but 
 
20 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 they may also be found in increasing numbers in the 
 towns and villages and even in the country. We 
 know schools which, including the Home Depart- 
 ment and the Cradle Roll, have upwards of five thou- 
 sand enrolled; it is not uncommon to hear of schools 
 which have a regular attendance of two thousand or 
 more. Schools with an actual attendance of one 
 thousand are now so common that they cease to at- 
 tract special attention. We are tempted to give a list 
 of some churches which maintain really large Sun- 
 day schools; it is hardly advisable. Developments 
 are so rapid that such a list would not be worth 
 while in any permanent record. One's heart must 
 beat fast and he must feel a sense of thrill as he 
 contemplates the possible developments of the next 
 ten and twenty years. 
 
 A successful Sunday school, then, is a school 
 which is reaching and really blessing its normal con- 
 stituency; a school which, aggressive in its extension 
 efforts, at the same time maintains a high spirit of 
 reverence and patiently and painstakingly teaches the 
 Word of Jehovah with a view to the salvation of 
 the lost and to the best and broadest development of 
 character and the finest culture of the spiritual life. 
 In the pages which follow we seek to point the way 
 to such a Sunday school. 
 
II 
 
 WHAT A SUCCESSFUL SUNDAY 
 SCHOOL WILL DO 
 
 IN the preceding chapter, we have seen that the 
 successful Sunday school is one which has 
 numbers in real proportion to its possibilities 
 and which is doing genuine educational and evangel- 
 istic work; in a word, the successful Sunday school 
 is the practically efficient Sunday school. Such Sun- 
 day schools make great churches ; there is nothing in 
 the whole domain of Christianity which is not 
 touched and influenced by such a Sunday school. 
 
 Efficient Sunday schools grow great churches and 
 build great church life. A brilliant pulpit figure, like 
 T. De Witt Talmage, may gather large congrega- 
 tions and there may be all the appearances of a 
 great church. But, if there is lacking the founda- 
 tion work of faithful religious instruction and the 
 persistent care and training of childhood and youth, 
 the apparently great church will go the way of the 
 lamented Brooklyn Church to which Dr. Talmage 
 so ably ministered. Great Sunday schools make 
 great churches. There is really no other way to 
 build great churches, save by worthy teaching and 
 training processes such as are maintained in the Sun- 
 day school. This method cannot fail. This educa- 
 tional method was the means used by the great 
 
 21 
 
22 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 Teacher in founding His earthly kingdom. It was 
 used by Paul in the early extension of that kingdom. 
 It has been used in every aggressive forv^ard move- 
 ment v^hich has marked the development of that 
 kingdom. 
 
 The above statement is amply illustrated and justi- 
 fied by the experience of the past hundred years of 
 foreign mission endeavour. The earlier foreign mis- 
 sion efforts ran along lines of evangelism and en- 
 listment. Approach v^as made to adults. Children 
 v^ere overlooked and educational processes wevQ 
 slighted. Apparently large progress was made on 
 many fields. Gradually it became painfully appar- 
 ent that the results were not stable and that the 
 progress was more apparent than real. The better 
 wisdom prevailed, and the missionaries abroad and 
 their supporters at home turned their attention to 
 the New Testament method of patient teaching. 
 Schools of all kinds, including of course Bible 
 schools, began to be established and an era of real 
 advance and stable progress was inaugurated. 
 
 By as much as the Sunday school makes for ef- 
 ficiency in the local church, it also makes for effect- 
 iveness in the denomination. The Methodist 
 Church has the largest Sunday-school constituency 
 in America. A leader in that church, now an hon- 
 oured bishop, has said: " If the Sunday school were 
 to go out of business, the Methodist Church would be 
 cut in half in fifteen years. In thirty years the 
 Methodist Church would for all practical purposes 
 cease to exist." There can be no surer evidence of 
 the indispensable service of the Sunday school than 
 
What a Successful School Will Do 23 
 
 is to be seen in the aggregate of capital and brains 
 with which the great Christian denominations are 
 seeking to promote Sunday-school work. 
 
 Efficient churches are buiU by great Sunday 
 schools. Great and efficient churches are not built 
 save by efficient teaching and character-building proc- 
 esses. Outstanding churches come to mind in this 
 connection, too numerous to mention. The Calvary 
 Baptist Church, Washington, D. C, the Bushwick 
 Avenue Methodist Church, Brooklyn, N. Y., the 
 First Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas, the First Meth- 
 odist Church, Memphis, Tenn., — but a complete list 
 would include practically every really great church 
 in the whole country. While the churches named 
 above have enjoyed the ministry of almost incom- 
 parable pastors, it is not too much to say that they 
 very largely owe their success and their eminence to 
 the quiet persistent influence of their efficiently con- 
 ducted Sunday schools. 
 
 Our statement that churches are made great by 
 efficient Sunday schools will probably be in itself 
 convincing. It would hardly seem to need argument 
 or illustration. We indicate briefly some considera- 
 tions upon which we base the statement. 
 
 I. The Sunday school offers a complete and ef- 
 fective method of church organization. A properly 
 organized Sunday school, reaching and teaching and 
 otherwise ministering to its normal possibilities, 
 means a well-organized church. The eight or nine 
 departments of the Sunday school, vigorously man- 
 aged, may touch helpfully and constantly every in- 
 dividual in the whole constituency of the church. 
 
24 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 both members and non-members. No individual, 
 from the infant in arms to the aged shut-in, no in- 
 dividual whether able to attend the pulpit ministries 
 of the church or not, can escape the wide-extended 
 net of the well-organized Sunday school. The de- 
 partment superintendents with their several corps of 
 helpers constitute a unique and always-ready force 
 for teaching, for ministering, or for enlistment in 
 practical service. Nothing of moment can escape so 
 complete an organization. Is it sudden disaster, a 
 death, an accident, a financial crash ? Is it a favour- 
 ing fortune, the coming of a babe, glad tidings from 
 a distant land, narrow escape from calamity? Is it 
 the pain of lingering illness, the weakness of life's 
 decline, the loneliness incident to a new environ- 
 ment ? It matters not ; the efficiently organized Sun- 
 day school will be in line to minister. 
 
 Ever>^ faithful pastor knows that a chief burden 
 on his heart is his own failure, and the failure of 
 his church, to function properly in practical minis- 
 tries. He has perhaps the haunting feeling that 
 hearts here and there are sore from neglect. He is 
 occasionally startled and grieved to learn that some 
 good but perhaps obscure man has passed through 
 dire trial and is grieved because the pastor and the 
 church did not come near in his time of need. Some 
 sister has received news of the tragic death of a son 
 in a distant state and the pastor and his members 
 have failed to show sympathy; the woman is, of 
 course, deeply grieved, but later when the pastor 
 learns concerning the situation, he is even more 
 deeply grieved. And thus on and on the pastor feels 
 
What a Successful School Will Do 25 
 
 uneasiness and bears distress because his church or- 
 ganization fails to function properly. Such failure 
 is practically impossible with a well-organized Sun- 
 day school. In case of failure, it is easy to locate 
 the responsibility, and the faithful pastor may spare 
 himself the blame. 
 
 The practical possibilities of the simple workable 
 organization afforded by the organized Sunday 
 school are all but limitless. They are becoming 
 more and more fully appreciated as they find dem- 
 onstration in many places. Not in all the history of 
 Christian effort and church development has any 
 other organization approximated this in complete- 
 ness and effectiveness of service. 
 
 This is not mere theory. The practical value of 
 the thorough effective organization offered by the 
 modern Sunday school has been demonstrated in 
 every part of the land. The well-organized church 
 is the church which has a complete and aggressive 
 Sunday-school organization. Pastors bear grateful 
 testimony to this fact. Future students of church 
 efficiency and organization will give primary atten- 
 tion to the Sunday school. The largest Protestant 
 theological Seminary in America, The Southern 
 Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Ky., has, 
 in recognition of this, established a chair of " Church 
 Efficiency and Sunday-School Pedagogy," thus link- 
 ing the Sunday school directly with the problems of 
 church efficiency. 
 
 2. The Sunday school is the chief agency of the 
 church for the promotion of Bible study. Apart 
 from the Sunday school, how much Bible reading 
 
26 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 and study would there be among our people ? If the 
 Sunday school should go out of existence, how much 
 Bible study would we have ? Many would read their 
 Bibles; how many would study them? The Sunday 
 school offers the only practicable effective means of 
 promoting popular Bible study and of growing Bible 
 scholars among the people. 
 
 The ministry of the pulpit is not intended to im- 
 part accurate detailed Bible knowledge. This min- 
 istry rather assumes a measure of Bible knowledge 
 and bases its appeal and admonition on such assump- 
 tion. The teacher of the Bible normally comes be- 
 fore the preacher of the gospel. The preacher as- 
 sumes the teacher; he takes for granted the instruc- 
 tion given in the Sunday school. The effectiveness 
 of the pastor's pulpit ministry must depend upon the 
 faithfulness of the teacher. 
 
 Since the Sunday school constitutes the only gen- 
 eral and effective method of promoting wide-spread 
 Bible study, it is not difficult to see that the Sunday 
 school is the real hope for the present and future 
 greatness of the church. 
 
 3. The Sunday school offers a means of enlisting 
 a large number of people in useful service. Officers 
 are needed for the school and for each department, 
 teachers and substitute teachers are called for, vis- 
 itors and other helpers are needed, workers with 
 talent for leadership in socials, plays and entertain- 
 ments are in demand, while a company of helpers 
 skilled in preparing lunches, suppers and banquets 
 is indispensable; the need for workers and the pos- 
 sibilities of enlistment through the Sunday school are 
 
What a Successful School Will Do 27 
 
 all but limitless. Many Sunday schools are now 
 employing from one hundred to two hundred regu- 
 lar workers, besides a variable number for special 
 tasks. This utilizing of talent, this enlistment of 
 workers must, even apart from the direct service 
 which they render, contribute largely to the develop- 
 ment of the churches. Our people grow through 
 serving, and this institution which offers endless va- 
 rieties of service must be a chief means of church 
 growth. 
 
 4. By as much as the Sunday school enlists large 
 numbers in practical Christian service by so much it 
 offers training in Bible study and equipment for 
 practical usefulness. Successive generations of 
 young people are each year coming to the threshold 
 of the larger life. It has long been a matter of deep 
 concern in the churches that these youths shall be 
 trained for the duties and privileges of the Christian 
 life. 
 
 Our young peoples' societies are rendering excel- 
 lent service in training our young people. The 
 range of service in which these societies can offer 
 training is, however, necessarily limited. The train- 
 ing ordinarily afforded in the Christian Endeavour, 
 the Young Peoples' Union or the Epworth League 
 ought to be supplemented by the training which 
 Sunday-school effort offers In such variety and 
 abundance. The successful Sunday school calls Im- 
 peratively and constantly for many types of practical 
 service, much of which can be best rendered by our 
 young people and some of which they alone are In 
 position to offer. Canvassers are needed, records 
 
28 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 must be made and kept, multigraph letters must be 
 written, the indiiferent must be visited, the sick must 
 be cared for, the poor must be remembered, the err- 
 ing must be sought, hospitals must be brightened — 
 but the list goes on and on — indeed is there any 
 practical form of Christian or humane service which 
 does not fall within the pale of the Sunday school? 
 The Sunday school is not in its ultimate purpose 
 merely a training camp or a drill ground. And yet 
 in its practical working out, it is both training camp 
 and drill ground, probably the best ever offered for 
 our youths. 
 
 Along with our young peoples' societies, the Sun- 
 day school must thus be a chief means of raising up 
 Christian workers, ministers, missionaries and Chris- 
 tian leaders. A vigorous Sunday-school program 
 will call out unsuspected abilities, will enlist and 
 thus save from possible peril much talent, will dis- 
 cover and train those whom the Master has ordained 
 to high tasks of service and leadership. As the 
 pastor looks over his field, as the superintendent con- 
 siders and prays for his school, let it not be over- 
 looked that out of this institution and from its ac- 
 tivities must come practically all of the pastors, 
 superintendents, missionaries, and other workers in 
 all departments of Christian endeavour. 
 
 5. A successful Sunday school almost certainly 
 means large congregations. There are possible excep- 
 tions. In a general ministry among the churches ex- 
 tending over many years and covering many states, 
 the author has yet to find an exception. The churches 
 everywhere which maintain a large Sunday-school 
 
What a Successful School Will Do 29 
 
 attendance are blessed with a gratifying attendance 
 upon their preaching services. This question which 
 seems just now timely and interesting, will be dis- 
 cussed more at length in a later chapter. 
 
 We need not extend our discussion except to say 
 that the successful Sunday school insures that the 
 preaching ministry of the church will be properly 
 and scripturally supplemented by a corresponding 
 teaching ministry. Neither the teaching nor the 
 preaching of the Word is sufficient in itself. The 
 teacher must be supplemented by the preacher and 
 the preacher is ineffective without the teacher. This 
 is emphasized in the practice and the precepts of our 
 Lord Jesus and His apostles. It is based in the na- 
 ture of things. A large and efficient Sunday school 
 is required to fill out the proper ministry of the 
 church and to round out the best efficiency of the 
 preacher. 
 
 6. Crowning all that we have said, the Sunday 
 school is the prime evangelistic agency. When 
 evangelism declines in the Stmday school, evan- 
 gelism sets its face toward the open door of depar- 
 ture from the church. A proper evangelism finds its 
 roots and has its vital growth in the Sunday school. 
 
 The Sunday school offers the easy and natural 
 means of bringing children and young people to an 
 acceptance and confession of Christ Jesus as 
 Saviour. The reason is not far to seek. Each de- 
 partmental group offers distinct opportunity for 
 adapted evangelistic teaching. The graded lessons 
 which are now increasingly popular carry just the 
 word concerning the message and appeal of the 
 
30 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 Christ which is needed at successive life stages. A 
 Sunday-school assembly with its various officers and 
 teachers gathered for evangelism must in some 
 measure resemble that gathering on the day of Pen- 
 tecost when the plea of the apostles was faithfully 
 seconded by the one hundred and twenty disciples 
 who doubtless mingled with the multitudes and bore 
 personal witness to the lost. 
 
 But the Sunday school does more than merely 
 open the way for the winning of children and young 
 people. It opens the way for approach to men and 
 women, especially fathers and mothers. It affords 
 touch and leads to acquaintance with homes in which 
 are unsaved parents and others who need Christ. 
 Through its great organized class movement, the 
 Sunday school is directly reaching increasing num- 
 bers of men and women who apparently could not be 
 influenced through any other medium. Illustrations 
 could be indefinitely multiplied. Confessedly the 
 Sunday school is the right arm of the church in any 
 systematic effort to reach and win the lost. 
 
 On and on we might go naming preeminent church 
 problems which the Sunday school can solve; which 
 indeed the Sunday school is actually solving. Many 
 of these the Sunday school alone can solve. There 
 is not one of these problems which cannot be most 
 surely and satisfactorily solved by the Sunday school 
 which is honestly seeking to reach its real constit- 
 uency. In proportion very largely as the Sunday 
 school maintains aggressive efforts to bring the peo- 
 ple under its influence, will it function in the many 
 high tasks to which it is set in the church. 
 
Ill 
 
 ORGANIZING THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 FOR SUCCESS 
 
 DURING recent years the Sunday school has 
 been passing through transitional and al- 
 most revolutionary processes. In 191 1, 
 Mr. H. Beauchamp's book, " The Graded Sunday 
 School," came from the press. This was the first 
 book which undertook to point the way to organiza- 
 tion along the lines of grading and departmentiza- 
 tion. Then came along through the years a veritable 
 stream of books and other literature. Meantime the 
 Sunday schools of the land have been struggling on, 
 drying, testing, experimenting, sifting and gradually 
 finding themselves in the new day, making for them- 
 selves a body of established policies in organization 
 and management. 
 
 The Sunday schools have thus been passing 
 through trying times. All efforts to grade and de- 
 partmentize have been made more difficult by the 
 fact that our Sunday-school buildings have not lent 
 themselves to departmentization. With rare patience 
 and with wonderful persistence the Sunday-school 
 workers have faced the problems which inevitably 
 arose out of the new type of organization. The fact 
 
 31 
 
32 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 that the new ideals have steadily won their way in 
 an institution which is naturally conservative, and in 
 spite of all but impossible housing conditions, is suf- 
 ficient attestation of the fundamental soundness of 
 the principles on which these ideals are based. 
 
 At first the prime emphasis was on grading the 
 pupils. Gradually the emphasis has shifted to de- 
 partmentizing the pupils. The outstanding feature 
 of present-day Sunday-school organization is its de- 
 partmental divisions. Out of the experiences and 
 experiments of the past dozen years, departmental 
 management stands out as tested and finally ac- 
 cepted. Along with the department store has come 
 the departmental Sunday school. Grading our pupils 
 into classes must necessarily be a somewhat variable 
 process, differing in schools as they may be small or 
 large. Experience has demonstrated the blessing 
 and advantage of breaking the school into depart- 
 ments and conducting worship and instructional 
 programs according to the needs of departmental 
 groups. 
 
 The departmental lines, as at first devised and for 
 years accepted, are as follows : 
 
 Cradle Roll Class (In the 
 
 school) 3 years of age 
 
 Beginners 4 and 5 years of age 
 
 Primaries 6 to 8 years of age 
 
 Juniors 9 to 12 years of age 
 
 Intermediates 13 to 16 years of age 
 
 Seniors (Young People). 17 to 24 years of age 
 Adults 24 up 
 
 It will be observed that the Cradle Roll is listed 
 
Organizing the Sunday School 33 
 
 as one of the departments within the school. Like 
 the Home Department, the Cradle Roll grew np as 
 an outside effort. Gradually the conviction has 
 grown that children three years of age ought to be in 
 the Sunday school. Experimental efforts in this di- 
 rection have confirmed earlier theories, and we may 
 now consider the Cradle Roll Class or Department in 
 the Sunday school as an established and accepted 
 fact. 
 
 It should be said that in actual experience the 
 Senior Department has never been limited as above 
 indicated, but has included young people, the line 
 between this department and the Adult Department 
 being largely drawn on the basis of congeniality. 
 
 The Sunday-School Council of Evangelical De- 
 nominations and the International Sunday-School 
 Association have approved the following schedule: 
 
 Cradle Roll Class (In the 
 
 school) 3 years of age 
 
 Beginners 4 and 5 years of age 
 
 Primaries 6 to 8 years of age 
 
 Juniors 9 to 11 years of age 
 
 Intermediates 12 to 14 years of age 
 
 Seniors 15 to 17 years of age 
 
 Young People 18 to 24 years of age 
 
 Adults 24 years and up 
 
 The last-named plan, which provides for seven de- 
 partments instead of six, results from an effort to 
 secure a closer and more congenial grouping and one 
 which conforms more closely to the groupings found 
 in the public schools. Naturally some divergences 
 will arise in the forms of Sunday-school organiza- 
 
34 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 tion. It is difficult, perhaps impracticable, to main- 
 tain the same departmental subdivisions for small 
 schools of fifty to one hundred and large schools 
 which number many hundreds. As schools grow 
 very large the number of departments may be in- 
 creased or the departments themselves may be sub- 
 divided, as is suggested on page 40. 
 
 The plan of organization set forth above which 
 provides seven departments is devised with special 
 reference to large schools, those having an attend- 
 ance of 500 and up. The older form of organization 
 offering six departments has still some advantages in 
 general and especially for schools numbering 500 and 
 less: 
 
 (i) This plan has long been advocated and has 
 rooted itself in the thinking and the language of 
 Sunday-school people. 
 
 (2) It provides larger and more desirable de- 
 partmental groups. In schools numbering less than 
 500, difficulty is experienced in securing such num- 
 bers in the departments from the Junior Department 
 up as will justify separate assembly rooms, separate 
 organization and separate management. A chief 
 hindrance to departmental subdivision has been the 
 smallness of the numbers in each group and the con- 
 sequent temptation to combine departmental groups. 
 
 (3) The plan provides for four years in the 
 Junior and Intermediate Departments, which some 
 think is a distinct advantage over the odd number 
 three, offered in the plan providing for seven depart- 
 ments. With four years allotted to a department, it is 
 easy to preserve the separation of the sexes in classes 
 
Organizing the Sunday School 35 
 
 which is much to be desired in the teen ages. When 
 necessary two ages can be placed in one class, mak- 
 ing two classes of boys in a department ; likewise girls 
 of two ages can be put together in a class, and thus 
 four classes are provided in a department with sepa- 
 ration of the sexes. This is manifestly impracticable 
 when three years are allotted to a department. In 
 such cases it would probably be necessary to discard 
 sex separation and place all pupils of a given age in 
 one class. 
 
 (4) Architectural and other practical considera- 
 tions must, of course, weigh in favour of the simpler 
 form of organization, in so far as such simpler 
 method may seem to serve the ends sought in the 
 Sunday school. 
 
 We have observed already that a serious barrier 
 to departmentization of the Sunday school lies in the 
 fact that our buildings for the most part do not pro- 
 vide department rooms and thus make practically 
 impossible the handling of the school In separate 
 departmental units. A further difficulty lies in the 
 fact that our general superintendents are not yet as 
 a rule departmentized in their thinking and feeling, 
 and they are on this account sometimes slow to rec- 
 ognize and utilize the department superintendents in 
 a way to make successful departmental work. A yet 
 further difficulty grows out of the fact that we have 
 had little occasion or opportunity to train and equip 
 special departmental leaders. Gradually these diffi- 
 culties will be adjusted and we may reasonably hope 
 that the coming years will see the departmental Sun- 
 day school fully established throughout the whole 
 
36 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 world and yielding the results in enlarged and im- 
 proved educational work which we have anticipated. 
 
 Organising the Departments. 
 
 A first step toward the proper organization of the 
 Sunday school is the setting out and clearly defining 
 of the departments. When the departments are or- 
 ganized, as we have outlined, with superintendents 
 or directors and a full corps of officers, then comes 
 the problem which these officers must face, of a thor- 
 ough organization within the department itself. No 
 final rules for guidance can be here laid down. In 
 general, we must classify our pupils on the age basis. 
 Occasionally this basis of classification may require 
 to be disregarded, and congeniality, development, 
 standing in day-school may seem to deserve consid- 
 eration. When we pass the time of early adoles- 
 cence, the age basis must more and more fade away 
 until it is largely discarded in dealing with adults. 
 
 In all of the departments up to and through the 
 Intermediate, there is clearly gain in classifying on 
 the age basis. This gives a ready and impartial 
 basis for classifying incoming pupils; it provides a 
 basis for annual promotion; it makes possible the 
 orderly use of graded literature. 
 
 In all of these earlier departments the classes 
 should be small in number so that teachers may give 
 personal care and attention, both on Sundays and in 
 week-days, to the pupils. No rule can be safely laid 
 down, but six or eight pupils may well constitute a 
 full task for the average teacher in any part of the 
 school up to and through the Intermediate Depart- 
 
Organizing the Sunday School 37 
 
 ment. In the advanced departments the number in 
 the classes will be larger since these classes are sup- 
 posed to be organized in a way to utilize the energies 
 and develop the resources of the various members. 
 
 Department lines should be kept clear. Since the 
 age basis has been adopted, age lines should be in- 
 sisted upon. It is quite common because of a sup- 
 posed shortage in leaders to combine certain depart- 
 ments under a single management. Thus the Cradle 
 Roll Class is often merged with the Beginners. Se- 
 niors or Young People are sometimes merged with 
 Adults. There is, of course, distinct loss in such 
 merging of departments. The temptation is doubt- 
 less strong, but it must be resisted if the school as- 
 pires to reach its constituency in the most vigorous 
 and effective way. 
 
 The relation between the department heads and 
 the general superintendent cannot admit of clear 
 definition. This relationship will vary widely in dif- 
 ferent schools, and it may not be the same with all 
 of the department heads in a given school. Clearly 
 these department superintendents cannot expect to 
 exercise the independent leadership and direction of 
 their departments. In the selection of teachers, in the 
 inauguration of policies, in the expenditure of funds, 
 in all that directly or indirectly concerns the welfare 
 of the school as a whole, there must be interrelation, 
 conference and mutual confidence. These and many 
 similar problems which arise in the management of a 
 large school must be patiently worked out. Workers 
 who are deeply in earnest and working toward a 
 common goal learn readily and rapidly to relate 
 
38 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 themselves to each other in a happy and harmonious 
 relationship. 
 
 What we have thus far said relates especially to 
 department lines. Grading lines are to be no less 
 earnestly insisted upon. In very large schools there 
 must be, of course, a number of classes for each year 
 of age. 
 
 Unless there are special local conditions v^^hich 
 cause deviation from the normal, the enrollment in 
 the departments will be about in proportion to the 
 number of years allotted to each department which 
 in a school of 100 would mean an organization on the 
 lines mentioned on page 32 somewhat as follows: 
 
 Age 
 
 Cradle Roll Class 3 
 
 Beginners 4-5 
 
 Primaries 6-8 
 
 Juniors 9-12 
 
 Intermediates 13-16 
 
 Seniors (Young People) 17-24 
 Adults 25 up 
 
 4% 
 
 
 4 
 
 pupils 
 
 8% 
 
 
 8 
 
 <( 
 
 12% 
 
 
 12 
 
 (( 
 
 16% 
 
 
 16 
 
 (( 
 
 16% 
 
 
 16 
 
 it 
 
 20% ( 
 
 ?) 
 
 20 
 
 << 
 
 24% ( 
 
 ?) 
 
 24 
 
 (( 
 
 100% 100 
 
 A school of 600 would in like manner be organized 
 somewhat as follows: 
 
 Age 
 
 Cradle Roll Class 3 
 
 Beginners 4-5 
 
 Primaries 6-8 
 
 Juniors 9-12 
 
 Intermediates 13-16 
 
 Seniors (Young People) 17-24 
 Adults 25 up 
 
 4% 
 
 24 pupils 
 
 8% 
 
 48 
 
 
 1%% 
 
 72 
 
 
 16% 
 
 96 
 
 
 16% 
 
 96 
 
 
 20%(?) 
 
 120 
 
 
 24%(?) 
 
 144 
 
 
 100% 600 
 
Organizing the Sunday School 39 
 
 Likewise a school of 1,200 would be organized 
 somewhat after this fashion : 
 
 Age 
 
 Cradle Roll Class 3 
 
 Beginners 4-5 
 
 Primaries 6-8 
 
 Juniors 9-13 
 
 Intermediates 13-16 
 
 Seniors (Young People) 17-24 20%(?) 240 
 Adults 25 up 24% ( ?) 288 
 
 4% 
 
 48 pupils 
 
 8% 
 
 96 " 
 
 12% 
 
 144 " 
 
 16% 
 
 192 " 
 
 16% 
 
 193 " 
 
 100% 1200 " 
 
 Using the form of organization set forth on 
 page 33, the figures for a school of lOO would be 
 about as follows: 
 
 Age 
 
 Cradle Roll Class 3 4% 4 pupils 
 
 Beginners 4-5 8% 8 " 
 
 Primaries 6-8 12% 12 " 
 
 Juniors 9-11 12% 12 " 
 
 Intermediates 12-14 12% 12 " 
 
 Seniors 15-17 13% 12 " 
 
 Young People 18-^4 18% 18 " 
 
 Adults ^ up 22% 22 " 
 
 100% 100 " 
 
 For a Simday school of 6oo members the organi- 
 zation would be as follows : 
 
 Age 
 
 Cradle Roll Class 3 4% 24 pupils 
 
 Beginners 4-5 8% 48 " 
 
 Primaries 6-8 12% 72 " 
 
 Juniors 9-11 12% 72 " 
 
 Intermediates 12-14 12% 72 " 
 
 Seniors 15-17 12% 72 " 
 
 Young People 18-24 18% 108 " 
 
 Adults 25 up 22% 132 " 
 
 100% 600 " 
 
4% 
 
 48 pupils 
 
 8% 
 
 96 " 
 
 12% 
 
 144 " 
 
 12% 
 
 144 " 
 
 12%c 
 
 144 " 
 
 12% 
 
 144 " 
 
 18%; 
 
 216 " 
 
 22% 
 
 264 " 
 
 40 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 A Sunday school of 1,200 members would be or- 
 ganized as follows : 
 
 Age 
 
 Cradle Roll Class 3 
 
 Beginners 4-5 
 
 Primaries 6-8 
 
 Juniors 9-11 
 
 Intermediates 12-14 
 
 Seniors 15-17 
 
 Young People 18-24 
 
 Adults 25 up 
 
 100% 1200 " 
 
 A study of local conditions, and especially of cen- 
 sus returns, will reveal whether the departmental at- 
 tendance of a given school is according to a normal 
 standard. If it is not so, and any of the departments 
 in the school fall materially below the allotted quota, 
 such departments should be led to make increased 
 efforts to reach their possibilities. 
 
 In very large schools, the question is arising as to 
 subdividing the departments. This plan will doubt- 
 less rapidly grow in favour. Thus a school of 1,600 
 members might be organized somewhat as follows: 
 
 Cradle Roll Class No. 1 
 
 Cradle Roll Class No. 2 
 
 Beginners Department No. 1 
 
 Beginners Department .... No. 3 
 
 Primary Department No. 1 
 
 Primary Department No. 2 
 
 Junior Department No. 1 
 
 Junior Department No. 2 
 
 Intermediate Department... No. 1 
 Intermediate Department... No. 2 
 Young People's Department 
 Adults 
 
 100% 1600 " 
 
 There would probably be no occasion for dividing 
 the Young People and Adults. 
 
 2% 
 
 32 pupils 
 
 2% 
 
 32 ' 
 
 
 4% 
 
 64 * 
 
 
 4% 
 
 64 ' 
 
 
 6% 
 
 96 * 
 
 
 6% 
 
 96 ' 
 
 
 8% 
 
 128 ' 
 
 
 8%> 
 
 128 ' 
 
 
 8%, 
 
 128 * 
 
 
 8% 
 
 128 ' 
 
 
 20% 
 
 320 * 
 
 
 24% 
 
 384 * 
 
 
IV 
 SECURING OFFICERS AND TEACHERS 
 
 SUCH a Sunday-school organization as we have 
 outlined calls for a large force of officers and 
 teachers. A chief barrier to the enlargement 
 and efficiency of Sunday schools is the limited num- 
 ber of workers which we seem able to command as 
 officers and teachers. Almost any superintendent 
 will declare that he could greatly enlarge his attend- 
 ance and extend the usefulness of his school if only 
 he could command the needed officers and teachers. 
 Let a round table be conducted for Sunday-school 
 superintendents and the way opened for questions 
 from perplexed workers — a question nearly always 
 raised is as to how to secure officers and teachers. 
 Answers almost as numerous and various as the an- 
 swerers have been given. Like almost all of the prob- 
 lems arising in Sunday-school work, this one of call- 
 ing out and enlisting leaders depends for the most 
 part on tactful, consecrated, persistent energy and 
 that unfailing quality which strangely enough we call 
 common sense. Some more or less obvious observa- 
 tions must suffice. 
 
 Many of our best workers for various reasons are 
 not enlisted in Sunday-school effort. Conditions no 
 longer existing may have drawn them away from 
 
 41 
 
42 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 active service ; being timid, the statement of exacting 
 demands may have deterred them ; they may have 
 been overlooked or underestimated by previous 
 leaders in earlier movements; the methods pursued 
 or the spirit manifested in the past may not have 
 appealed to them; the scale on which the work has 
 been conducted may not hitherto have aroused their 
 interest. In every church there is a tendency on the 
 part of certain earnest and willing people to drift 
 into places of responsibility, while equally competent 
 people who are diffident may be gradually overlooked 
 in the assignment of tasks. This fact is of vast mo- 
 ment to the superintendent and pastor in quest of 
 new helpers. The inauguration of new and aggres- 
 sive policies may furnish the desired occasion for the 
 enlistment of the workers in question. 
 
 Furthermore, it must be evident that a vigorous 
 and efficient administration will do much toward 
 making timid and untried teachers efficient. Every 
 Sunday-school leader knows that a willing mind and 
 a self-sacrificing spirit, ready always to follow, count 
 for more than native or acquired gifts. Mr. Arthur 
 Flake, an authority on Sunday-school administra- 
 tion, declares that conscious ability and past achieve- 
 ments are no guarantee of usefulness on the part of 
 Sunday-school workers. He suggests on the other 
 hand that the timid and the hitherto untried often 
 give the most ready response and make the most un- 
 hesitating sacrifices and thus constitute the most 
 valuable and effective teachers. A vigorous and 
 sympathetic administration will often lift lagging and 
 inefficient workers out of their lethargy and make 
 
Securing Officers and Teachers 43 
 
 them stand on tiptoe, eager to do their utmost. A 
 high spirit of effort and devotion is infectious. 
 When proposed workers are being considered, the 
 real superintendent sees not what they are but what 
 they may be; he looks not at their present state but 
 at the high state to which he can lead and develop 
 them. 
 
 It is also to be remembered that boys and girls 
 grow rapidly ; so rapidly that we may easily overlook 
 their advancement. Youths well back in their teens 
 often make efficient secretaries and even successful 
 teachers. They are naturally tempted to excuse 
 themselves by the claim that they need to be taught; 
 this excuse is hardly valid in that youths of high- 
 school age long for active service and that they learn 
 best by doing. High-school girls under competent 
 leadership make helpful teachers in the earlier 
 grades which comprise little children. A teacher of 
 a half dozen difficult boys secured as his associate 
 and helper a high-school boy who had only recently 
 been converted. This older boy was always present 
 in the class to render any possible service, and on 
 week-days led the boys in their sports and athletic 
 activities. He organized them into a club and in 
 tactful ways drew other boys into the class. When 
 the number in the class reached twelve, the class was 
 divided and another high-school boy was called to its 
 leadership. This youth was, of course, the best 
 " substitute " teacher, and under his responsibilities 
 he rapidly grew until he was called to take full 
 charge of the boys' work in a neighbouring Sunday 
 school. The process may be a trifle slow, but it is 
 
44 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 sure, this process of growing our workers rather* 
 than expecting them to step fully equipped into the 
 service. 
 
 Many methods will suggest themselves for secur- 
 ing needed teachers. A study of the church rolls 
 may yield helpful suggestions; requests for sugges- 
 tions from interested workers may at any time lead 
 to rich finds; calls for volunteers may be worth 
 while; training schools and institutes are always in- 
 spiring; special vocational schools are being offered 
 for Sunday-school workers ; our Summer Assemblies 
 always offer helpful courses; Sunday-school conven- 
 tions which bring together groups of interested peo- 
 ple have long been found suggestive and quickening. 
 
 The general officers will, of course, bear in mind 
 that they have interested helpers in the securing of 
 new workers In the departmental superintendents. 
 The head of each department is to be held responsi- 
 ble for his department, and hence he will be keenly 
 interested to discover and enlist the best available 
 material. The spirit of team-work is the real key to 
 Sunday-school success. The general superintendent 
 who assumes responsibility for the finding of teach- 
 ers throughout the Sunday school does himself an 
 injustice and Inflicts wrong upon his fellow-workers 
 who direct the various departments. On the other 
 hand, if the department superintendents assume to 
 select the needed teachers apart from the main su- 
 perintendent, confusion and Inefficiency must result. 
 
 If you would have teachers sufficient In number 
 and skilled for the work, there is, after all, but one 
 sure way to get them; train them. The training 
 
Securing Officers and Teachers 45 
 
 processes which have been so vigorously pressed for 
 a dozen years are just now beginning to bear fruit. 
 The training of workers is a prime factor in creating 
 the present tides which are sweeping in Sunday- 
 school work. The training given to workers is in- 
 spiring them with the vision and courage which make 
 possible the big Sunday schools of our day. Train- 
 ing processes are never easy. Painful, difficult, pro- 
 longed they may be, but they constitute the only sure 
 means of reaching our most coveted goals. The 
 courses now offered by many agencies for the train- 
 ing of Sunday-school workers are the outgrowth of 
 efforts and experience continuing through many 
 years. They are skillfully adapted to meet the needs 
 of the workers and they offer studies which are com- 
 pelling in their interest and charm. They may be 
 pursued individually or in class. They lend them- 
 selves to the highly educated and to those who have 
 not enjoyed educational advantages. 
 
 Leaders who may be distressed because of the lack 
 of equipped teachers may well be heartened by the 
 many means now being effectively used to procure a 
 generation of trained workers. Our young peoples' 
 societies were never so active and efficient ; our Sun- 
 day schools, themselves, with their improved graded 
 lessons and their educational methods, must bear 
 fruit; our colleges and seminaries are laying in- 
 creased emphasis on the training of leaders and 
 teachers. One of the denominations reports 35,756 
 teacher training awards bestowed during the past 
 year in the church schools. Surely the future is 
 bright with hope. 
 
V 
 
 HOUSING THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 IF one were asked to name the outstanding bar- 
 rier to the growth of our Sunday schools, prob- 
 ably the almost universal answer would be, the 
 narrow limitations of our present buildings. We 
 have in all directions schools which are hampered in 
 their future growth by the inadequate quarters in 
 which they must do their work. Our really large 
 schools, almost without exception, are overflowing 
 their buildings and are using adjoining buildings, 
 tabernacles, tents, down-town theaters, or business 
 houses. 
 
 We cannot have large and efficient Sunday schools 
 without ample housing space. Our ideas as regards 
 the space necessary for the large Sunday school are 
 rapidly undergoing change. Through painful expe- 
 riences we are learning our lesson. The Sunday 
 school in which the author is permitted to labour 
 sought enlargement of numbers for a period of 
 years. Untiring and well-directed efforts proved 
 unavailing. Beyond a certain number it seemed im- 
 possible to go. Even that number could be main- 
 tained onl}^ with much difficulty. At last an adjoin- 
 ing residence was secured in which provision was 
 made for the Elementarv Departments and a down- 
 
 46 
 
Housing the Sunday School 47 
 
 town theater was put at the disposal of a great men's 
 class. In these ways fairly adequate space was pro- 
 vided for each department in the Sunday school. 
 Within four months the attendance doubled. Qearly 
 the building had set limits to enlargement which no 
 vigour of effort could overcome. This experience 
 is typical and the story might be duplicated in almost 
 any section. In every part of the countiy schools 
 are hampered and halted in their growth by insuffi- 
 cient space. Let the superintendent who has sought 
 in vain to enlarge his attendance make a detailed sur- 
 vey of his equipment with a view to determine 
 whether and how far he and his associates are being 
 defeated by limitations in the building. 
 
 There is, of course, another question here — the 
 question as to whether we have the moral right to 
 seek enlargement of the Sunday school when such 
 enlargement means unseemly crowding and neces- 
 sarily results in inefficient work. However this may 
 be, it yet remains that a really big Sunday school 
 cannot be built up in small cramped quarters. A 
 company of young men debated far into the night as 
 to whether it is wrong to cheat a lawyer. On to- 
 ward day, a wise man closed the controversy by say- 
 ing : " It doesn't matter whether it is right or wrong, 
 you can't do it anyhow." 
 
 The Sunday schools of the country face an anom- 
 alous situation. Within a dozen years Sunday- 
 school organization has been revolutionized; the 
 Sunday school has attained an entirely new place in 
 the thinking of the people ; new methods and policies 
 have been inaugtirated for the upbuilding of the 
 
48 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 Sunday school. During this time our people have 
 been largely estopped from the erection of new build- 
 ings. Sunday schools everywhere are pressing 
 against the walls of the buildings which they occupy. 
 We may, therefore, expect unprecedented develop- 
 ments in the way of remodehng and new buildings in 
 the coming years. For guidance in the planning of 
 the large buildings which must be erected, we have 
 little in the way of experience and precedent to help 
 us. Here and there great buildings have been erected 
 as in Fort Worth and Wichita Falls, Texas, and 
 Lakeland, Florida, where we find departmental build- 
 ings which are capable of housing very large num- 
 bers. We hear of buildings projected in New York 
 City, Dallas, Texas, and Richmond, Va., which are to 
 cost around a million of dollars, and beyond doubt 
 such buildings capable of housing thousands of Sun- 
 day-school pupils will be erected in many sections. 
 
 In the light of such experience and precedent as 
 are available, we undertake to state some policies as 
 regards the housing of large Sunday schools which 
 will probably meet with general acceptance. 
 
 I. Fourteen square feet for each pupil should be 
 allowed from the Cradle Roll Qass to the Adult 
 Department. If a given department is expected to 
 have 100 pupils, 1,400 square feet of floor space 
 should be provided for that department. A total of 
 fourteen square feet per pupil should be allowed 
 throughout the school, regardless of whether a de- 
 partment room alone Is provided, or a department 
 room and class rooms. A suitable provision for a 
 Junior Department of 100 members, for instance. 
 
Housing the Sunday School 49 
 
 would be a department room With 700 square feet of 
 floor space and with class rooms comprising a total 
 of 700 square feet of space. 
 
 We must insist upon this full allowance of four- 
 teen square feet for each pupil throughout the entire 
 school. This demand has been carefully tested and 
 has met with wide approval on the part of experi- 
 enced workers. The allowance will seem unduly 
 large to workers who have known only cramped and 
 insufficient quarters. Disappointment and measur- 
 able inefficiency must result if we lower this stand- 
 ard, and provide less space than fourteen square feet 
 per pupil. 
 
 It is frequently found desirable as a measure of 
 economy to ask the Adult Department to use the 
 main auditorium for its assembly. If in this way we 
 save ourselves the necessity to provide an Adult As- 
 sembly room, we will need to allow only seven square 
 feet for each adult pupil in order to secure the 
 needed class-room space. 
 
 The organization and requirements of a Sunday 
 school of 200 in accordance with tables on page 32, 
 would be about as follows : 
 
 Pupils Square feet 
 
 Cradle Roll Class 3 112 
 
 Beginners 16 224 
 
 Primaries 24 336 
 
 Juniors 32 448 
 
 Intermediates 32 448 
 
 Seniors (Young People) 40 560 
 
 Adults 48 672 
 
 200 2,800 
 
 Following the method of organization presented 
 
^O A Successful Sunday School 
 
 on page 33, we would require for a school of 20O 
 
 provisions somewhat as follows: 
 
 Pupils Square feet 
 
 Cradle Roll Class 8 112 
 
 Beginners 16 224 
 
 Primaries 24 336 
 
 Juniors 24 336 
 
 Intermediates 24 336 
 
 Seniors 24 336 
 
 Young People 36 504 
 
 Aduhs 44 616 
 
 Square 
 
 Dept. 
 
 Class 
 
 Feet 
 
 Room 
 
 Rooms 
 
 336 
 
 
 
 672 
 
 
 6 
 
 1008 
 
 
 9 
 
 1344 
 
 
 12 
 
 1344 
 
 
 12 
 
 1680 
 
 
 6(?) 
 
 2016 
 
 
 6(?) 
 
 200 2,800 
 
 The organization and requirements of a Sunday 
 school of 600 would be somewhat as follows : 
 
 Pupils 
 Cradle Roll Class.... 24 
 
 Beginners 48 
 
 Primaries 72 
 
 Juniors 96 
 
 Intermediates 96 
 
 Seniors — 
 
 (Young People) ... 120 
 Adults 144 
 
 600 8400 7 51(?) 
 
 Using the method of organization presented on 
 page 33, we would have for a school of 600 as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 Ptipils 
 
 Cradle Roll Class 24 
 
 Beginners 48 
 
 Primaries 72 
 
 Juniors 72 
 
 Intermediates 72 
 
 Seniors 72 
 
 Young People 108 
 
 Adults 132 
 
 600 8400 8 54 
 
 \.u- 
 
 Square 
 
 Dept. 
 
 Class 
 
 Feet 
 
 Room 
 
 Rooms 
 
 336 
 
 
 
 672 
 
 
 6 
 
 1008 
 
 
 9 
 
 1008 
 
 
 9 
 
 1008 
 
 
 9 
 
 1008 
 
 
 9 
 
 1512 
 
 
 6(?) 
 
 1848 
 
 
 6(?) 
 
Housing the Sunday School 51 
 
 With these tables as a basis, it would be a simple 
 matter to make similar outlines for smaller schools, 
 or for schools of 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 or larger 
 numbers. 
 
 2. Department rooms should be provided for 
 each of the departments. If departmental rooms 
 and class rooms are provided, seven square feet per 
 person should be allowed for the department rooms 
 and seven square feet should be allowed for each 
 person for class-room space. If class rooms are not 
 provided, fourteen square feet per pupil should be 
 allowed in the department rooms. 
 
 The relative numbers to be provided for in each 
 department may be estimated on the basis of the 
 number of years allotted to each department. What 
 these numbers will be under normal conditions is in- 
 dicated by the tables given above. The architect, in 
 making plans for the Sunday-school building, should 
 be held to these relative proportions unless there are 
 exceptional conditions which justify a different 
 schedule. In a college town the presence of a great 
 number of students may require enlarged and alto- 
 gether exceptional space for the Senior or Young 
 People's Department. 
 
 3. Department rooms must be practically sound- 
 proof so as to admit of various forms of worship, 
 such as singing, without disturbing other groups. 
 Once attention is directed to this matter Its signifi- 
 cance must be apparent. Building committees and 
 architects nevertheless frequently yield to the temp- 
 tation to place folding doors or rolling partitions be- 
 tween the departments. Such partitions can never 
 
52 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 be satisfactory. Double plastered walls especially 
 treated to make them as nearly sound-proof as pos- 
 sible should always be used for this purpose. 
 
 4. Class rooms are desirable in every department 
 of the Sunday school. There is no class which will 
 not do better and be better taught in its own closed-in 
 class room. Class rooms are imperatively needed in 
 the advanced departments. No rule can be laid down 
 to govern the size or the number of class rooms. For 
 departments up through the Intermediate, rooms 6x8 
 feet are usually considered sufficiently large. The 
 mistake is frequently made of allowing unnecessary 
 space for class rooms in these departments, as the 
 mistake is also frequently made of allotting to these 
 classes too many pupils. 
 
 5. All general assemblies of the Sunday school 
 should be held in the main church auditorium. This 
 is necessary for the sake of a proper economy; few, 
 if any, churches feel themselves financially able to 
 provide two great spacious auditoriums — one for 
 worship and the other for the Sunday school. Apart 
 from the question of economy, this is desirable. 
 Such general assemblies of the Sunday school as 
 seem advisable ought to be held in the church audi- 
 torium. The Sunday school needs the dignity and 
 solemnity of this worshipful room. The younger 
 people need at least this much familiarity with the 
 main auditorium, since many of them, alas, may not 
 otherwise secure such desired touch with it. 
 
 Prof. H. F. Evans was a pioneer in the advocacy 
 of the use of the main auditorium for Sunday-school 
 assemblies. As early as 1914 he wrote in "The 
 
Housing the Sunday School 53 
 
 Sunday- School Building and Its Equipment " as 
 follows : 
 
 " The whole school will meet in general assembly 
 only occasionally, not over seven or eight times a 
 year. A large auditorium should not be built to be 
 used on so few occasions. Where shall these ses- 
 sions be held ? The obvious answer is, In the church 
 auditorium. Some may object at once. The church 
 proper should not be used for children's exercises 
 lest reverence be destroyed. One of the important 
 duties of the church school is to develop a sense of 
 reverence in the growing child. Surely no place 
 could be found more calculated to arouse reverence 
 than the church auditorium." 
 
 6. Since the general assemblies of the Sunday 
 school must be held in the main auditorium, the de- 
 partment rooms should be located and arranged with 
 a view to a quick and easy coming together of the 
 departments in the main auditorium. Though of 
 vital importance affecting the usefulness of a build- 
 ing and the pleasure which it will afford, this point 
 may be easily overlooked by the committee or the 
 architect who has not had attention especially di- 
 rected to it. 
 
 As an illustration of what is here meant, the audi- 
 torium of the building with which the author is asso- 
 ciated has on the side of the Sunday-school building 
 only one vestibule entrance. Through this one en- 
 trance every Sunday morning the Juniors, Interme- 
 diates and Seniors must pass in order to attend a 
 brief closing exercise. In order to avoid delay and 
 confusion, the three departments must carefully time 
 their closing and must be always exactly on a given 
 
54 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 moment. The slightest delay of any one of the de- 
 partments which may be occasioned by the most 
 trifling incident will bring two long columns to the 
 entrance at the same time. The result may well be 
 imagined. 
 
 And just here we may well raise the question of a 
 separate building. In order to house our large mod- 
 ern Sunday schools is it going to become necessary 
 or advisable to have two buildings, one primarily to 
 house the preaching service and the other to accom- 
 modate the teaching service? Mr. R. H. Hunt, of 
 Chattanooga, Tennessee, who, as an architect, is 
 making a specialty of designing very large buildings, 
 is inclined strongly to believe that a practical solu- 
 tion of our housing problem lies along the line pro- 
 posed, viz., the erection of two separate buildings, 
 properly related to each other. 
 
 On the other hand. Dr. W. J. McGlothlin, eminent 
 as a church historian, throws out this rather serious 
 warning: ^ 
 
 " It is important that all the activities of the 
 church should be carried on under the same roof in 
 the same building. A separate building for any part 
 of the church work tends to break up the unity of 
 the whole and secularize that portion which is sepa- 
 rated from the place of worship. There Is not want- 
 ing a disposition on the part of adult Sunday-school 
 classes, young people's societies and some other or- 
 ganizations to become detached from the church. 
 This tendency explains In part, no doubt, the de- 
 creasing attendance In American churches In recent 
 years. It Is undoubtedly strengthened by breaking 
 
 '"A Vital Ministry," Fleming H. Revell Company. 
 
Housing the Sunday School 55 
 
 up the various activities of the church, and carrying 
 them into different rooms or even separate buildings ; 
 for it is much easier to shp away from such a room 
 than from the church auditorium. By all means 
 have everything under the same roof." 
 
 The considerations which favour a separate build- 
 ing are, the securing of better light and better venti- 
 lation, and the opportunity offered in a separate 
 building of providing better educational facilities. 
 These considerations are largely architectural in 
 their nature and if they prevail and separate build- 
 ings are erected, the fundamental principles which 
 Dr. McGlothlin urges must be kept in mind. 
 
 Our concern here is not with the question of one 
 building or two ; that question must be variously de- 
 termined according to conditions. We are only con- 
 cerned with the previous questions raised above as to 
 easy and immediate access to the auditorium from 
 the various department rooms. We have in mind 
 especially the departments from the Juniors up, since 
 the lower departments will not so frequently be 
 called to assemble in the auditorium. Our insistence 
 is that v/hether one building or more than one is 
 erected, care shall be exercised to see that the vari- 
 ous departments may in ready and orderly fashion 
 assemble in the main auditorium. 
 
 7. We have outlined above the direct immediate 
 needs of the Sunday school in the way of depart- 
 ment and class rooms. There are, of course, many 
 other rooms whose claims must be considered. 
 Among these we may name without discussion the 
 following : 
 
56 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 1. A Geography Room. 
 
 2. A Mission Room. 
 
 3. Library Rooms. 
 
 4. A Reading Room. 
 
 5. Cloak Rooms. 
 
 6. A Teacher-Training Room. 
 
 7. Recreational Rooms. 
 
 8. Storage Rooms. 
 
 9. A Superintendent's Room. 
 
 10. A Secretary's Room (or rooms). 
 
 11. At least two rooms for stenographers or 
 
 other assistants. 
 
 12. A Mothers' Room. 
 
 13. A Cradle Roll Room. 
 
 14. A Janitor's Room. 
 
 15. A Janitor's Work Room. 
 
 Administrative offices are especially needful in 
 providing for large Sunday schools. We know of 
 one school which employs more than a dozen paid 
 workers. Paid workers for the Sunday school will 
 come more and more into vogue, and it is a far- 
 sighted policy which makes in new buildings ample 
 provision for the needed office space. 
 
VI 
 
 PROBLEMS IN HOUSING THE SUNDAY 
 SCHOOL 
 
 THE greatest peril which arises in the effort 
 to house the modern Sunday school lies in 
 the possible failure to recognize that perils 
 lurk along the path at every turn. The housing of 
 the Sunday school has entered upon a new and dis- 
 tinct development ; there is little in the past to guide 
 us. In fact, the traditions of the past constitute a 
 distinct menace. Efforts thus far made to house the 
 departmental Sunday school, admirable and self-sac- 
 rificing as they have been, have not met with un- 
 qualified success. In general these efforts have left 
 much to be desired. We discuss in this chapter some 
 of the problems which we face when we undertake 
 to build adequately for the Sunday school. 
 
 There is, first of all, danger that we shall plan on 
 an inadequate scale. The demands made by the 
 Sunday school are so extended that even informed 
 workers find it difficult to convince a congregation 
 and to lead them to plan on the large scale which is 
 required. The keenest and most frequent disap- 
 pointment is felt over the utter inadequacy of build- 
 ings which were supposedly very large. We rarely, 
 if ever, hear of a building which is "too large for 
 the Sunday school." More than once the author has 
 been called to examine spacious buildings recently 
 
 57 
 
58 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 completed, only to be told that the building had al- 
 ready proven utterly inadequate to meet the demands 
 made upon it. 
 
 It is always well to remember that the united and 
 prolonged effort required to erect a new building in- 
 fuses new life into a congregation and that the at- 
 tractiveness of a newly completed structure is calcu- 
 lated to stimulate larger attendance. This is, of 
 course, especially true of a building of unusual pro- 
 portions which, during its erection, has been widely 
 heralded as an up-to-date educational house. When 
 we plan a new building, we set pretty definite limits 
 to the possible Sunday-school attendance. These 
 limits will probably stand for many decades without 
 revision. It is a short-sighted policy to build simply 
 with an eye to present conditions and needs. There 
 is serious danger that new buildings will be planned 
 on a scale utterly inadequate to meet future growing 
 needs. These inadequate buildings will doubtless 
 prove a serious handicap to the expansion of the 
 Sunday school in the coming years. 
 
 When it is necessary to speak in general terms, it 
 is difficult to say in this matter just what one would 
 like to say. We will naturally think of the new 
 building in comparison with the present building, or 
 in comparison with other new church buildings re- 
 cently erected or now projected. Occasionally a 
 church will dare to disregard all precedents and will 
 step out and undertake a building on lines which will 
 provide amply, department by department, for a 
 really great Sunday school. Such churches will be 
 worthy pioneers; they will set a proper pace for 
 
Problems in Housing the Sunday School 59 
 
 churches in wide circles ; they will be benefactors of 
 the race. 
 
 Later on in these pages we outline a definite 
 method of determining with some system rather than 
 by mere guess what floor space will require to be 
 provided to meet given needs. The mistakes which 
 the churches make in building too small, generally 
 grow out of the vagueness with which they estimate 
 the needs of the Sunday school. They depend upon 
 guesswork and vague estimates rather than definite 
 scientific methods of determining needs. 
 
 There is, of course, the danger that the churches 
 will permit financial considerations to be the primary 
 factor in determining plans for the new building. 
 How often do we find the church leaders casting 
 about first of all to see " how much we can raise for 
 a building." This is a wrong approach to a great 
 problem. A bank wishing to erect a new building 
 would first of all consider its needs and weigh the 
 question as to what type of building is desirable and 
 what floor-space is necessary. When these questions 
 are determined, the officers and directors will face 
 the financial question with a view to determine 
 whether or how far the bank is in position to meet 
 the evident needs. A community wishing to erect a 
 schoolhouse will first face the question of the needs 
 to be met, the children of various grades to be pro- 
 vided for, the type of building which will befit the 
 situation. When these questions have had due and 
 primary consideration, then comes the question as to 
 whether or how far the community can provide 
 funds for the needed building. 
 
6o A Successful Sunday School 
 
 Churches probably constitute the only exception to 
 the wise custom which all but universally prevails 
 with institutions and individuals alike, of facing first 
 the question of need and later the question of re- 
 sources to meet the need. 
 
 In pointing out this mistake which pitches the 
 movement on small lines and belittles the whole 
 building project, and in suggesting that this mistake 
 is all too frequent, we do not forget the great num- 
 bers of right-thinking churches which, putting first 
 things first, start with a consideration of present and 
 prospective needs, and have tentative plans drawn 
 which will meet these needs. They then face the 
 question as to how far they can hope to provide the 
 needed funds. Thus the people are permitted to de- 
 vise their gifts, not in the dark without any definite 
 objective, but in clear light understanding the rea- 
 sonable needs and knowing the compromises which 
 must result if they fail to provide the desired sum. 
 Blessings upon these wide-visioned, far-seeing 
 churches; they will reap the fruits of their wisdom 
 not alone, but will bring down blessings upon wide 
 circles of churches. 
 
 The churches face difficulty and not a little peril 
 in the fact that within very recent years the Sunday 
 school in its organization and its consequent building 
 requirements has made a sharp turn. We may almost 
 say, " Old things have passed away ; behold all things 
 are become new." It is well to remind ourselves that 
 the first book ever written on the graded Sunday 
 school appeared in 191 1, and the present methods of 
 organization so familiar to active Sunday-school 
 
Problems in Housing the Sunday School 6 1 
 
 workers is of very recent origin. The stronger 
 financial factors, the men who must largely bear the 
 burden of the new building, may not have had occa- 
 sion to familiarize themselves with modern Sunday- 
 school methods and requirements. These men may 
 with the best of intentions and without the slightest 
 thought of harm jeopardize the best interests of the 
 Sunday school in the building program. A case in 
 point comes to mind. A church which chanced to be 
 without a pastor was minded to build. The men of 
 the church with an undefined and certainly uncon- 
 fessed feeling that preachers are sometimes assertive 
 in building projects, determined to arrange the plans 
 for the new building before a new pastor came on 
 the field. They secured the services of a well-known 
 commercial architect who did not know that Sunday- 
 school methods and ideals had materially changed 
 since his boyhood days. The men worked with the 
 architect and a church plan gradually took form. A 
 Sunday-school leader, honoured and trusted, hap- 
 pened in. The committee asked him to look over 
 their building plan. The auditorium was beautiful 
 and well-proportioned. They came to the Sunday- 
 school provisions. The Sunday-school man listened 
 quietly as the architect turned the various sheets. 
 He was about to leave the room without comment. 
 Urged by the men to tell them what he thought about 
 the plans, he said, " Gentlemen, you cannot erect this 
 building. It would be an affront to the Sunday- 
 school world. Childhood, hungry with moral and 
 spiritual needs, would cry out against you. Your 
 plans violate at practically every vital point the find- 
 
62 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 ings of modern educational and psychological re- 
 search." Be it said to the everlasting credit of that 
 company of men, they discarded the plans, secured a 
 pastor, called for the services of a Sunday-school 
 specialist, and began an entirely new effort to plan a 
 worthy educational building. 
 
 Since the days when men now in middle age were 
 in college and seminary, educators, psychologists and 
 practical workers have turned floods of light on re- 
 ligious education as conducted in the Sunday school 
 so that within recent years Sunday-school organiza- 
 tion has been completely revolutionized. The Sun- 
 day school of to-day bears scant resemblance to the 
 simple ungraded institution of a generation ago. 
 Since the days when most of the preachers and pas- 
 tors of our day were in training for the ministry, 
 courses in religious education and instruction in 
 Sunday-school pedagogy have been widely intro- 
 duced into our educational institutions. Thus the 
 older ministers missed the training which is now ac- 
 corded to practically all ministerial students. The 
 transition processes through which we are passing 
 will necessarily leave their trace in many church 
 buildings. 
 
 The reader has doubtless already discerned that a 
 problem which our churches must face in securing 
 adapted buildings lies in the fact that the architects 
 who must guide us in planning these buildings, save 
 In exceptional instances, have not enjoyed wide 
 experience in meeting the needs of the modern de- 
 partmental Sunday school. It is, of course, possible 
 that any given architect may not have had such prac- 
 
Problems in Housing the Sunday School 63 
 
 tical touch with modern Sunday-school work as 
 >vouId enable him to grasp the primary requirements 
 of a Sunday-school building. It is not usually the 
 way of successful professional men to confess igno- 
 rance where information is expected and is taken for 
 granted. It would be amusing, if it were not painful 
 and actually lamentable, to see the performances of 
 an architect who without knowledge of modern Sun- 
 day-school work and without experience in building 
 with a view to meet Sunday-school needs, undertakes 
 to draw plans for a modern Sunday-school building. 
 Millions of money, we would be safe in saying one 
 hundred millions of dollars a year, will, in normal 
 conditions, be expended for church and Sunday- 
 school buildings. These millions must pass through 
 the hands of our architects, by them to be moulded 
 into frame and brick and stone for the housing of 
 our church and Sunday-school interests. 
 
 While we are calling young men to dedicate their 
 lives to the ministry and missionary work, why may 
 we not suggest to devout youths the putting of their 
 lives on this altar? What need is more vital or more 
 urgent than the need for devout competent architects 
 to take our millions and give us in return useful, 
 adapted and beautiful buildings? Imperative as is 
 this need in the home lands, it is even more keenly 
 felt on foreign fields. Our Foreign Mission Boards 
 are quietly looking about for men whom they can 
 send to the foreign fields to guide in the extensive 
 building developments which are inevitable. 
 
 When we list the architect as among the serious 
 problems faced by our churches in the building pro- 
 
64 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 gram, we write no hard or unkind word either against 
 a noble profession or against the company of men 
 who are practicing this profession. Our present situa- 
 tion has arisen through no fault either of the profes- 
 sion or the men who follow it. We take no account 
 here of the architect who, lacking in reverence and 
 caution, fails to grasp the seriousness of this situa- 
 tion and is willing to rush in where angels might well 
 fear to tread. Nor do we care to think of the man 
 who knows not enough of the intricate and delicate 
 demands made on the building by the present-day 
 Sunday school, even to appreciate the difficulties in- 
 volved in its proper housing. One architect, called 
 upon to design a great Sunday-school building, vis- 
 ited a Sunday-school specialist and asked him to 
 state the organization and requirements of a great 
 Sunday school. Lest something might slip his mind, 
 he drew out an old envelope from his pocket to write 
 down " the organization and requirements of a great 
 Sunday school." One may readily be excused for 
 ignorance concerning the vast world of religious 
 education as it is conducted in the modern depart- 
 mental Sunday school, but what shall we say of the 
 man who entrusted v/ith the high task of housing 
 this institution is so ignorant concerning his own 
 ignorance as to suppose that a sufficient statement of 
 Its organization and requirements could be written 
 on the back of an envelope? 
 
 An architect in a Southern city aspired to be a spe- 
 cialist in the planning of apartment houses. He 
 read widely, made extended observations, studied 
 carefully the whole question of domestic architec- 
 ture. In order to complete his equipment the man 
 
Problems in Housing the Sunday School 65 
 
 became an apartment-house dweller. He lived for 
 years with his family in successive apartment houses 
 of different types. Thus patiently and persistently 
 he sought equipment for the planning and designing 
 of apartment houses. What are we to think of the 
 architect who never designed a really modern Sun- 
 day-school house, who knows little concerning the 
 requirements of the departmental school, who yet 
 will take fifty thousand dollars, or perhaps even five 
 hundred thousand dollars, of consecrated money and 
 turn it into a permanent building without taking the 
 pains to inform and equip himself for his task? 
 
 There is peril to the building project in the haste 
 which so often marks the planning and erection of 
 our great church buildings. Roman Catholics may 
 lay oif a period of five years or even twenty-five 
 years for the planning and bringing to completion of 
 a really great church building. Not so with evan- 
 gelicals. They usually drive through, frequently al- 
 lowing less than twelve months from the inception 
 of the building idea to the completion of the build- 
 ing. All too often, the most vital element In the 
 whole building program, the planning of the build- 
 ing, the devising of its floor-space, is slurred over as 
 if it were a matter of little moment. The commu- 
 nity which plans its building with the utmost of care, 
 which makes a study both of buildings and of litera- 
 ture on buildings, which confers with a wide circle 
 of informed and interested workers, which, after 
 plans are maturely made, waits for sentiment to crys- 
 tallize and errors to be detected, such community 
 will not likely have much to regret in its finished 
 building. 
 
VII 
 
 HOW TO SECURE NEEDED HOUSING 
 
 THE requirements for the new building 
 ought to be clearly stated and fully agreed 
 upon. This ought, of course, to be done 
 before the architect begins his work. Indeed, it 
 should be a primary step in the building program. 
 
 As an illustration of what is here meant and as 
 suggestive to prospective builders, we present the 
 schedule of requirements substantially as agreed on 
 by the First Baptist Church, Eldorado, Ark., for its 
 proposed new building: 
 
 The Auditorium. 
 
 Classic style, back and side balconies, seating 1,200 
 normally, in emergencies 1,500. 
 
 A'dministrative Offices. 
 
 Pastor's study, pastor's office, at least one Sunday- 
 school office and a janitor's room. 
 
 Social Provisions. 
 
 Kitchen, at least one kitchenette or dumb waiters, 
 tea room, banquet room, parlours. (The latter may 
 be used also for Sunday-school purposes.) 
 
 Sunday-School Provisions. 
 
 Provide on normal basis for a school of 1,200 
 members, with accommodation for 1,500 under pres- 
 sure. All general assemblies of the school to be 
 held in the main auditorium. 
 
 ^6 
 
How to Secure Needed Housing 67 
 
 The Sunday-school provisions to be as follows: 
 
 Square Dept. Class 
 
 Pupils Feet Room Rooms 
 
 Cradle Roll Class 48 672 1 
 
 Beginners 96 1344 1 8 
 
 Primaries 144 2016 1 12 
 
 Juniors 192 2688 1 20 
 
 Intermediates 192 2688 1 20 
 
 Seniors — 
 
 (Young People) ... 240 3460 1 8 
 
 Adults 288 4032 1 8 
 
 1200 16,800 7 76 
 
 Sunday-School Requirements. 
 
 All department rooms to be sufficiently sound- 
 proof to admit of departmental work and worship 
 throughout the school. 
 
 All class rooms above the Primary Department to 
 have plastered walls and tight-fitting doors. 
 
 All class rooms to open from the department room 
 with which they are associated. 
 
 Department rooms to be so located as to permit 
 easy and ready assembly in the main auditorium. No 
 single entrance to the auditorium to be used by more 
 than two departments. 
 
 Since a normal and evidently fair standard was 
 followed in the allotment of space there were no 
 questions and no contests between the various de- 
 partments as to what was a just proportion of space. 
 Since the architect was furnished with an exact 
 schedule of all requirements he was able in his first 
 effort to furnish almost exactly the floor-space ar- 
 rangements needed. With a few minor changes, his 
 plans were adopted and provisions made for the 
 erection of the building. 
 
 It must be at once apparent that this plan offers 
 
68 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 material advantages over the haphazard methods fre- 
 quently resorted to. It saves time for the church, it 
 saves expense for the architect; it assures adequate 
 and proportionate provision for each department in 
 the Sunday school; it guarantees proper provisions 
 for all types of church activity. 
 
 Let us set this same scientific plan of procedure 
 over against another adopted by a church in a dif- 
 ferent state. It became known that the church 
 wished to build. Architects, keen to secure the 
 work, drew and offered tentative plans. Having no 
 agreed schedule, they surmised the various require- 
 ments and made rough guesses as to relative space 
 for the departments. They made attractive pictures 
 of the buildings which they proposed. The commit- 
 tee was charmed by a certain beautiful picture and 
 chose the architect on that basis, supposing that it 
 would be easy enough to allot and arrange the floor 
 space to meet all needs. It developed that their re- 
 quirements could not be met within the limits pro- 
 vided and later it developed that the architect, having 
 no experience in meeting the problems in hand, was 
 unable to grasp and solve the problems. The com- 
 mittee wished to be released, but the architect, hav- 
 ing a signed contract and having expended much 
 labour, was unwilling to release them. This is 
 where the case stood when these lines were written. 
 
 The two instances, above mentioned, which might 
 be multiplied many times, sufficiently illustrate and 
 enforce our plea for a sane, scientific schedule to be 
 agreed on as the primary step in the building pro- 
 gram. Supposing that this schedule of needs for the 
 
How to Secure Needed Housing 69 
 
 church, the Sunday school, the social life and the ad- 
 ministrative features has been carefully worked out, 
 it should then be submitted to a number of thought- 
 ful workers, pastors, superintendents and Sunday- 
 school field workers for their frank suggestions. 
 Meantime it is well for the architect to be fully ad- 
 vised in order that he may be intelligently sympa- 
 thetic as regards the ideals and the details of the pro- 
 posed plan. When the architect has prepared pre- 
 liminary sketches showing the floor-plan arrange- 
 ments, these should be carefully scrutinized by a 
 goodly group whose judgment can be trusted. 
 
 The leading denominations have architectural de- 
 partments created to guide and serve the churches in 
 these important developments. These departments 
 may render invaluable service. It should be said in 
 this connection that architects who have had wide 
 experience in the planning of departmental Sunday- 
 school buildings offer substantial advantages over 
 architects who have not had such experience. Care 
 should, of course, be exercised to make sure that a 
 given architect has not simply built churches and 
 Sunday-school buildings, but that he has erected 
 modern adapted departmental Sunday-school build- 
 ings. 
 
 The architectural department of the Sunday- 
 School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 
 Nashville, Tenn., has proposed the following: 
 
 Standard for Church Buildings 
 I. The main auditorium shall provide as many 
 sittings as the churcli has members enrolled in its 
 membership. 
 
yo A Successful Sunday School 
 
 2. There shall be a secondary auditorium suitable 
 for the prayer-meeting and other week-day gather- 
 ings. This room should offer about one-fourth as 
 many sittings as the main auditorium. (One of the 
 departmental assembly rooms may be used as a sec- 
 ondary auditorium.) 
 
 3. There shall be a pastor's study or office, and at 
 least one additional office for church or Sunday- 
 school workers. 
 
 4. There shall be separate rooms for the Cradle 
 Roll Class and for the Beginners' and Primary De- 
 partments. 
 
 5. Department rooms and separate class rooms 
 shall be provided for the Junior, Intermediate, Senior 
 and Adult Departments. All department rooms 
 should be sound-proof so as to permit department 
 programs and worship. (The number provided for 
 in the assembly room of any given department should 
 be about equal to the number provided for in the 
 class rooms designed for that department.) These 
 department assembly rooms will usually offer suit- 
 able provisions for the young people's societies. Spe- 
 cial care should be exercised to see that ample pro- 
 visions are made for all the needs and uses of the 
 young people's societies. 
 
 6. Unless there are permanent local conditions 
 which justify a departure, the relative space allowed 
 for each department must be in proportion to the 
 numbers which may properly be expected in each 
 department, as follows: 
 
 Age 
 Cradle Roll Class... 3 
 
 Beginners 4-5 
 
 Primaries 6-8 
 
 Juniors 9-12 
 
 Intermediates 13-16 
 
 Seniors — 
 
 ( Young People ) . . 1 7-24 
 Adults 25 up 
 
 4 per cent. 
 8 " 
 
 of the whole school 
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 12 " 
 
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 16 " 
 
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 tt 
 
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 20 " 
 24 " 
 
 
 
 
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 tt 
 
 tt 
 
How to Secure Needed Housing 71 
 
 The Cradle Roll Class room should be half as 
 large as the Beginners' room. The Primary room 
 should be fifty per cent, larger than the Beginners* 
 room, while the space allowed for the Juniors and 
 Intermediates should be twice as large as that allot- 
 ted to the Beginners. The space for Seniors should 
 be two-and-a-half times as large as the Beginners' 
 room, and that for Adults should be three times as 
 large. (The Adults may well use the main audito- 
 rium for assembly, in which case the requirement for 
 this department will be correspondingly lessened.) 
 
 For each pupil in the Sunday school from the 
 Cradle Roll Class up, there should be an allowance of 
 fourteen square feet. Thus for forty Primaries there 
 should be an allowance of 560 square feet ; for sixty 
 Juniors we should allow 840 square feet. This al- 
 lowance of fourteen square feet should be made for 
 each pupil, whether or not separate class rooms are 
 provided. Thus the Junior Department of sixty 
 members should allow a total of 840 square feet, half 
 of this being given to assembly and half to class 
 rooms. 
 
 (For fuller discussion of the space needed for 
 each pupil and for each department, see booklet, 
 " Building for the Sunday School," issued by the 
 Sunday-School Board's Architectural Department, 
 Nashville, Tenn.) 
 
 7. At least two entrances (preferably four) into 
 the main auditorium shall be provided to facilitate 
 the quick assemblage of the whole Sunday school. 
 (It is assumed that all assemblies of the school will 
 be held in the main auditorium.) 
 
 8. There must be a kitchen and suitable provi- 
 sions for social functions, such as plays, musicals, 
 entertainments, luncheons, and banquets. (Social 
 life may well be administered departmentally and 
 hence the department rooms may well be used for 
 
72 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 social functions. See booklet, " Building for Social 
 Life/' issued by the Architectural Department.) 
 
 9. There shall be a baptistry and suitable robing 
 rooms. Toilets must be provided for men and for 
 women. 
 
 10. There must be a suitable room for the janitor. 
 (Many churches are providing for the janitor both a 
 living-room and a v^ork-room.) 
 
 Note, — In the case of small buildings, several of 
 the above points v^ill not be rigidly insisted upon. 
 
 Note. — Any building reasonably meeting the re- 
 quirements of this standard W\\\ be declared a stand- 
 ard building, and the name of the church v^ill be 
 entered upon a special honour roll. 
 
VIII 
 
 SOME GOOD CHURCH AND SUNDAY- 
 SCHOOL BUILDINGS 
 
 IN preceding chapters we have set forth the gen- 
 eral requirements for the Sunday school. In 
 this chapter we present some buildings from 
 small to large which fairly illustrate the present 
 trend in providing for the departmental Sunday 
 school. 
 
 It will be observed that the smaller buildings pro- 
 vide for the use of the same floor space for audito- 
 rium purposes and for Sunday-school work. This 
 arrangement is desirable for economy and for prac- 
 tical service. In larger buildings it is, of course, 
 generally desirable to have the auditorium complete 
 without Sunday-school evidences. This involves 
 rather large expenditure and hence we present some 
 buildings of the unified type which group Sunday- 
 school provisions about the main auditorium. 
 
 In all of the larger plans which we offer, there is 
 a ground floor utilized for Sunday-school purposes. 
 Properly treated, the ground floor offers large re- 
 sults at small cost. If cement floor is objectionable, 
 wood floors may be laid or the cement floor may be 
 covered with linoleum or cork carpet. 
 
 The buildings which are presented in these pages 
 have been erected or are in course of construction. 
 
 73 
 
74 
 
 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 R. H. Hunt, Architect. 
 
 A simple design marking a distinct step beyond the one- 
 room building. This plan has met with much favour, 
 having been erected with slight variations in several 
 states. 
 
 Auditorium proper seats 170 
 
 Adjoining rooms seat 130 
 
 Total seating capacity •^00 
 
Good Church and Sunday-School Buildings 75 
 
 An attractive design providing expanding auditorium 
 and excellent Sunday-school equipment. Lighted and 
 ventilated by clear story windows. This design is suit- 
 able for country, village or city. 
 
 Auditorium proper seats 1 50 
 
 Adjoining rooms seat 125 
 
 Total seating capacity 275 
 
76 
 
 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 
 An attractive design with unusually flexible and eco- 
 nomical provisions for church and Sunday-school work. 
 
Good Church and Sunday-School Buildings 77 
 
 •Main ftooB. ?l/vn- 
 
 Typical design which has much to commend it. Ground 
 floor and balcony floor plans are shown on the following 
 pages. 
 
78 
 
 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 Ground Floor Plan 
 
 (Main floor plan is given on preceding pajje and bal- 
 cony floor plan on the following page.) 
 
Good Church and Sunday-School Buildings 79 
 
 €t m m m m 
 
 Balcony Floor Plan 
 (Main and ground floors on preceding pages.) 
 
8o 
 
 A Successful Sunday School 
 
Good Church and Sunday-School Buildings 81 
 
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IX 
 
 REMODELING PRESENT BUILDINGS 
 
 WE cannot too earnestly insist that Sun- 
 day-school success must depend largely 
 upon sufficient and adequate housing. 
 Perhaps the reader has felt some sinking of heart as 
 he has passed through the preceding chapters which 
 urge the need for new and adequate buildings, in view 
 of the fact that he cannot hope for a new building in 
 his community. Even so, there may yet be hope. 
 Any present building may be remodeled, or an inex- 
 pensive separate building may be erected to house 
 certain departments. 
 
 The remodeling of buildmgs with a view to house 
 the modern Sunday school involves serious difficul- 
 ties. Architects with wide and successful experi- 
 ences in designing modern church buildings should 
 be sought for this service. The problems involved 
 in the remodeling of larger buildings are so many 
 and so complex, it is impracticable to offer here sug- 
 gestions or illustrations. The case is different with 
 smaller buildings. It is estimated that we have in 
 this country 60,000 one-room church buildings. Out 
 of these small churches must come many of our 
 leaders in all walks of life, men and women who will 
 be widely Influential. It must be evident that the 
 Interests of these churches merit earnest considera- 
 tion. 
 
 82 
 
Remodeling Present Buildings 83 
 
 We present in the following pages drawings and 
 suggestions for the remodeling of these one-room 
 church buildings. The drawings are for the most 
 part taken from a booklet, "Approved Plans for Re- 
 modeling Church Buildings," prepared by the au- 
 thor, and offered without charge by the Architec- 
 tural Department of the Baptist Sunday-School 
 Board, Nashville, Tenn. The methods of remodel- 
 ing presented and illustrated in this booklet suggest 
 a variety of ways in which the one-room building 
 may be improved. These include the following: 
 
 Addition in front of present building. 
 
 Addition to the back of present building. 
 
 Addition both at front and back of present 
 building. 
 
 Addition of one story m rear. 
 
 Addition of one story and basement in rear. 
 
 Erection of two stories and basement at back 
 of present building. 
 
 Addition on one side of present building. 
 
 Addition on both sides of present building. 
 
 Providing a basement floor. 
 
 Utilizing a present basement. 
 
 Installing a balcony. 
 
 Erection of porch. 
 
 Securing a vestibule. 
 
 Installing a baptistry. 
 
 Providing for a kitchen and for social life. 
 
 Providing for a furnace. 
 
 Providing for Delco electric light. 
 
 Adding a cupola or belfry. 
 
 Providing a porte-cochere (covered drive- 
 way). 
 
 Interior alterations. 
 
 Interior decorations. 
 
84 
 
 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 SKETCH OF ADDmCtJ ro 
 OLD BRtCK CHU RCH 
 
 V. P. Collins, Architect 
 
 Showing how a one-room building may be transformed into an 
 attractive church house with facihties for modern church and 
 Sundav-school work. 
 
Remodeling Present Buildings 85 
 
 
86 A Successful Sunday School 
 
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 I -lail r :: ■ # f i Tl w i ufjwi r 
 
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Remodeling Present Buildings 87 
 
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 A Successful Sunday School 
 
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Remodeling Present Buildings 89 
 
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 Addition maybe made at the back of the present building. 
 
 •AtTf^NATtPLlN rOR.INCR,tA/lN(l' 
 ' AUDI TOILIUMVW TING CAPACITY- 
 
 Addition may be made both at the back and on 
 the sides of the present building. 
 
90 
 
 A Successful Sunday School 
 
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X 
 
 EQUIPMENT FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 SUCCESSFUL Sunday schools can neither be 
 built nor run by little men. There must at 
 least be one big man. Big Sunday schools can- 
 not be run with little methods. They cannot be run 
 with little money. The church which plans to spend 
 $2,000 for its music and depends on the offerings of 
 the pupils to defray the Sunday-school expenses, will 
 probably always have a little Sunday school. 
 
 Sunday schools must be financed in a big way. It 
 is a law of life that we rarely get much more out of 
 things than we put in. If we put pennies and nickels 
 into the Sunday school, we will get back meager re- 
 sults. The Sunday schools which have grown really 
 great have been generously financed. The First 
 Baptist Church, Fort Worth, Texas, has for a num- 
 ber of years expended many thousands of dollars 
 annually in supporting its great Sunday-school pro- 
 gram. 
 
 All of this is said with peculiar reference to equip- 
 ment. At this point our churches are in special peril 
 of short-sighted policies. So rapid has been the 
 growth of the modern Sunday school there can be 
 little wonder that it is difficult for our churches to 
 grasp the necessity for ample and adapted equip- 
 ment. Many of our strongest business men grew up 
 
 91 
 
92 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 in little Sunday schools which were amply supported 
 by the tiny offerings of the pupils. The coming gen- 
 eration which is now being trained in departmental 
 Sunday schools will find it much easier to meet ade- 
 quately the equipment needs of the future Sunday 
 school. 
 
 Equipment should be ample and adequate. Good 
 workers call for good tools. Poor and insufficient 
 equipment will cheapen any Sunday school. The 
 author has occasion to inspect many new church 
 buildings; he often finds the beauty and the useful- 
 ness of these buildings marred by ill-adapted fur- 
 nishings brought over from old buildings. We may 
 direct attention to some leading items in the program 
 of furnishings for the Sunday school. 
 
 Sunday-school Seating. Here we are, through no 
 fault of our own, facing difficult conditions. Through 
 the years pews and opera chairs suitable for audi- 
 toriums of all kinds have been produced which, in 
 quality and variety, leave little to be desired. As 
 yet the market for Sunday-school seating has not 
 stabilized and we must, for the most part, use such 
 selections as we may be able to make from types of 
 seats really produced for other purposes. It will 
 perhaps require some years to remedy this situation. 
 The Sunday school is entitled to have types of seat- 
 ing, and indeed furnishings throughout, especially 
 adapted to meet its peculiar requirements. 
 
 It is difficult to offer general hints concerning seat- 
 ing for the Sunday school. We may safely venture 
 the following suggestions: 
 
 While pews are most suitable for the main audi- 
 
Equipment for the Sunday School 93 
 
 torium, they are not adapted for use anywhere in the 
 Sunday school and should not be considered. 
 
 Opera chairs may be used in certain departments, 
 provided there is no necessity to clear the room for 
 any purpose. Since this matter of clearing the room 
 and changing it temporarily for social or other pur- 
 poses is important, opera chairs are not to be gen- 
 erally recommended. 
 
 If folding chairs are to be used, care must be ex- 
 ercised in their selection, lest they be stiff in open- 
 ing and noisy in use. The author knows a junior 
 department which has felt itself greatly hampered by 
 a slight creak in the folding chairs which it seems 
 cannot be remedied, and which causes slight but very 
 real annoyance. 
 
 A study of the catalogues of houses which offer 
 furniture for schools and churches, will show a 
 variety of chairs which, by care in selection, will as- 
 Gure reasonably satisfactory results. 
 
 Sunday-school Cabinets. Here again we are in a 
 transition state. For the time being we must use for 
 the most part cabinets ;A^hich have been produced for 
 other purposes. Cabinets built-in, and thus perma- 
 nent, adapted and always available, are much to be 
 preferred. Resourceful architects, guided by 
 thoughtful building committees, can usually find 
 space for this purpose which might be otherwise 
 useless, though it ought to be said that this question 
 of suitable cabinet space is of such vital importance 
 that it should not be determined alone by questions 
 of convenience and economy. 
 
 Our purpose, however, in mentioning cabinets at 
 
94 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 this time is to insist upon the necessity of abundant 
 and convenient storage space for the whole school, 
 for each department and for each class. 
 
 Blackboards. Sunday-school workers who have 
 no occasion to frequent public-school buildings 
 would do well on many accounts to visit some well- 
 equipped public-school buildings. It may be inter- 
 esting to note the quantity and quality of the black- 
 boards provided. Sunday-school workers will do 
 well to study the methods and the equipment of 
 well-appointed day-school buildings. 
 
 We offer below suggestive lists of furnishings for 
 each department, as offered in standards of effi- 
 ciency adopted by the Sunday-School Board of the 
 Southern Baptist Convention, Nashville, Tenn., and 
 as is set forth in a special booklet published by the 
 Architectural Department of that Board. 
 
 The Cradle Roll Class Room 
 
 1. A low table for the teacher. 
 
 2. A piano (not always considered necessary). 
 
 3. Chairs (ten inches high), a special chair for 
 the member whose birthday is to be celebrated. 
 
 4. A cradle or Wall Cradle Roll. 
 
 5. Hooks for hats, coats, etc. 
 
 6. Suitable pictures for the walls. 
 
 7. A suitable marker indicating " The Cradle 
 Roll Class." 
 
 8. Suitable floor covering. 
 
 9. A cabinet for supplies. Workers' Library, 
 with suitable case. 
 
 10. Cut flowers and growing plants. 
 
 11. Blackboard and burlap to which pictures can 
 be pinned. 
 
Equipment for the Sunday School 95 
 
 Beginners' Department 
 
 1. A table for the superintendent and a desk for 
 the secretary. 
 
 2. Place for keeping supplies under lock and 
 key, preferably a closet or built-in cabinet. 
 
 3. A Bible for the department. (Department 
 name stamped in gold on back.) 
 
 4. A piano. 
 
 5. Chairs suited to the size of the children (ten 
 inches high). 
 
 6. Flowers, occasionally cut flowers or growing 
 plants. 
 
 7. Hooks for hats, coats, etc. (preferably a cloak 
 room). 
 
 8. Suitable pictures for the walls. 
 
 9. A mounted portable blackboard about three by 
 five feet. 
 
 10. A timepiece. 
 
 11. A thermometer. 
 
 12. Workers' Library, with suitable case. 
 
 13. A suitable marker over the door of entrance 
 indicating '* The Beginners' Department." 
 
 14. Suitable floor-covering. 
 
 Primary Department 
 
 1. Superintendent's desk. 
 
 2. Secretary's desk. 
 
 3. Chairs suited to the size of pupils (twelve 
 inches high). ' 
 
 4. Piano. 
 
 5. Bibles for the department. 
 
 6. A mounted blackboard about three by five 
 feet, and each class furnished with a blackboard or 
 at least a lapboard. 
 
 7. Flowers — cut flowers or growing plants. 
 
 8. Hooks for hats, coats, etc. (preferably a cloak 
 room). 
 
96 
 
 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 9. Low tables, provided there is also assembly 
 space. 
 
 10. A timepiece. 
 
 11. A thermometer. 
 
 12. A suitable marker over the door of entrance 
 indicating '* The Primary Department." 
 
 13. Suitable floor-covering. 
 
 14. Place for keeping supplies under lock and key^ 
 preferably a closet or a built-in cabinet. 
 
 15. Library for children and for workers, in suit 
 able case. 
 
 16. Suitable pictures for the walls. 
 
 The Albright Table 
 (Offered by Clanton and Webb, Atlanta, Ga.) 
 
 The Bapsubo Table 
 
 (Offered by the Baptist Sunday School Board, 
 Nashville, Tenn.) 
 
Equipment for the Sunday School 97 
 
 The Victory Table 
 (Offered by DeLong-Svoboda Co., Philadelphia, Pa.) 
 
 Junior Department 
 
 1. Superintendent's table. 
 
 2. Secretary's desk. 
 
 3. Chairs and tables suited to the size of thd 
 
 pupils. 
 
 4. Mounted blackboards about three by five feet, 
 and each class furnished with a class blackboard. 
 
 5. A piano. 
 
 6. Cabinet for curios and collections. 
 
 7. Closet or cabinet for literature and supplies. 
 
 8. Maps appropriate for the lessons being taught. 
 
 9. Suitable pictures for the walls, charts and a 
 United States flag and a Christian flag. 
 
 10. Hooks for hats, coats, etc. 
 
 11. Timepiece and a thermometer. 
 
 12. Suitable floor-covering. 
 
 13. A marker over the door of entrance indicating 
 " The Junior Department." 
 
 14. Bookcase for Junior Library. Books both for 
 pupils and for workers. 
 
98 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 iNTEnMEDIATE, SENIOR AND AdULT DEPARTMENTS. 
 
 /. Department Rooms 
 
 1. Superintendent's desk. 
 
 2. Secretary's desk. 
 
 3. Chairs. 
 
 4. Piano. 
 
 5. Bibles for the department. 
 
 6. A mounted blackboard about three by five 
 feet, and each class furnished with a blackboard. 
 
 7. Department blackboard ruled for class re- 
 ports. 
 
 8. Suitable pictures and maps for the walls. 
 
 9. Flowers — cut flowers or growing plants. 
 
 10. Hooks for hats, coats (preferably a cloak 
 room). 
 
 11. A timepiece. 
 
 12. A thermometer. 
 
 13. A marker over the door of entrance indicat- 
 ing the department. 
 
 14. Bookcase with books both for pupils and 
 workers. 
 
 15. Suitable floor-coverings. 
 
 II. Class Rooms 
 
 Table with drawer. 
 
 Chairs. 
 
 Blackboard with chalk rail. 
 
 Bibles. 
 
 Pictures and maps. 
 
 Standards of Excellence. 
 
 Certificate of Registration. 
 
 Suitable floor-coverings. 
 
 MarJ^er indicating the name of the class. 
 
Equipment for the Sunday School 99 
 
 A class room cabinet to be built in wall or door of class 
 room with two doors, one opening in class room, the other 
 opening in corridor or department room. 
 
XI 
 
 HOW TO BUILD A SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 THERE is no easy way to build a large and 
 successful Sunday school. We present in 
 this chapter what seems to be a perfectly 
 natural and sure and scientific method of building a 
 Sunday school. This method has been tested in all 
 parts of the land. Sunday schools using this method 
 have again and again doubled and even trebled their 
 membership. The author may speak with some as- 
 surance since he was personally associated with a 
 Sunday school in Nashville, Term., in which the plan 
 was tried under the leadership of Mr. Arthur Flake, 
 a specialist in Sunday- School Administration. The 
 following increases speak for themselves: 
 
 Average attendance for September, 1920 — 331 
 Average attendance for January, 1921 758 
 
 Officers and teachers, September, 1920 42 
 
 Officers and teachers, January, 1921 91 
 
 Weekly offering, September, 1920 $19.21 
 
 Weekly offering, January, 1921 65.12 
 
 T. Assuming that the enlargement is coming, 
 make plans to care for the increase. In the effort 
 
 100 
 
How to Build a Sunday School loi 
 
 mentioned, the first move was to select and assign to 
 the different departments a large number of possible 
 prospective teachers. These, together with the pres- 
 ent officers and teachers, were carefully instructed in 
 a training school which continued one week, the daily 
 program being as follows : 
 
 Meet in classes by departments, 6 :oo to 6 145 p. M. 
 Lunch free to all, 6:45 to 7:15. 
 Again meet in classes by departments, 7:15 to 8:00. 
 Address, 8 :oo to 8 145. 
 
 At the close of the week, there was, for each de- 
 partment, a group of departmental workers who had 
 studied under competent guidance a selected book 
 treating the department in which they were expected 
 to work. It may be profitable to name here the 
 books used in this course: 
 
 " Plans and Programs for Cradle Roll, Beginners, 
 and Primary Workers," by Miss A. L. Williams. 
 
 " Our Juniors, How to Teach and Train Them," 
 by Miss Baldwin. 
 
 "The Intermediate Department of the Sunday 
 School," by L. P. Leavell. 
 
 " Building the Bible Class " (Strickland, McGloth- 
 lin). 
 
 By this means a tentative organization was formed 
 to care for the large numbers which were now con- 
 fidently expected. 
 
 2. Take a religious census. This should be done 
 by the church which is launching the movement for 
 the enlargement of the Sunday school. This church 
 
102 A Successful Sunday Schcx>l 
 
 will be concerned to cover the territory, will have a 
 special incentive to do careful and thorough work, 
 and will need this opportunity to let the whole com- 
 munity know that it plans to meet its obligations in 
 the matter of its Bible School. 
 
 The successive steps will be somewhat as follows: 
 
 (i) Secure needed supplies. 
 
 The supplies needed will be somewhat as follows: 
 
 (a) Cards for the records of the canvass. 
 
 Use a Card for Each Individual* 
 
 Name 
 
 Number Street 
 
 Age (exact age, if possible) 
 
 Church Member? . 
 
 Answer "yes " or ** no." 
 
 Denominational Preference? 
 
 If no preference, write " none." 
 
 If each blank is not filled in, the information is incomplete. 
 
 (b) Cards of instruction to census-takers — at least 
 a card for each worker. These cards for the in- 
 struction of the workers, as well as for the records 
 of the census, may be printed locally, or may be se- 
 cured from the Sunday-school publishing houses. 
 
How to Build a Sunday School 103 
 
 ** Lift ttp yout eyes and look on the f ields*'' 
 
 Instructions to census- takers : 
 
 "'■ Master the rules before starting out. Know where you are 
 to go and what you are to do. 
 
 1. Use a card for each individual. Write only one name 
 on a card. 
 
 2. Do the writing yourself. Do not allow any one else to 
 do it. Be accurate. 
 
 3. Fill in each blank on each card or the information will be 
 incomplete and useless. Be accurate. 
 
 4. Get the exact age of each individual up to 20 years of 
 age. Over 20 and under 31, write " 20-31." Over 31, write 
 
 " 31+ ." 
 
 5. Stick to your own territory. Don't miss anybody. Be 
 accurate. 
 
 6. When your territory is finished, return the information 
 immediately to the Church. 
 
 (2) Plan for needed canvassers. 
 
 A large number will be needed, as the work ought 
 to be done expeditiously as well as thoroughly. 
 With proper instruction and guidance, interested 
 workers with or without special equipment, ought to 
 render acceptable service. Boys and girls fifteen 
 years of age and up will do excellent service, espe- 
 cially if they are associated in pairs with persons of 
 mature years. 
 
 The list of census takers should be carefully made 
 up; it is not wise to depend upon such a group as 
 may appear at the church at a given hour in response 
 to public appeals. The business in hand is serious, 
 and the work proposed calls for intelligence and 
 sacrifice. 
 
104 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 (3) Define and carefully survey the territory to 
 be canvassed. 
 
 It will of course be necessary to define clearly the 
 territory which is to be canvassed. 
 
 There is no occasion to be unduly scrupulous 
 about boundary lines. Your purpose is to secure in- 
 formation about people who attend no Sunday school 
 and who might properly or profitably be invited to 
 join your school. Incidentally you may secure much 
 information which will be of value to workers in 
 other schools, and such information may well be 
 handed to other superintendents entitled to it. 
 
 It will also be necessary to survey and subdivide 
 the territory with much care. Generally a commu- 
 nity map can be secured which will furnish an ac- 
 curate basis for this survey. This is always a critical 
 point in the program. Careless or haphazard meth- 
 ods of districting the territory may result in con- 
 fusion or the neglect of certain sections. Let a com- 
 petent committee have charge of this task and let 
 the work be done with painstaking care. 
 
 We have known several copies of a city map to be 
 cut up so as to give to each couple of canvassers a 
 map of the precise section for which they will be held 
 responsible. We have known outline pencilled 
 sketches to be made of territory to be assigned to 
 each couple. 
 
 (4) Plan to canvass the whole territory in one 
 afternoon. This has in practice proven most satis- 
 factory. Sunday afternoon will usually be the most 
 suitable time. Call the workers together for a brief 
 season of prayer and for such final instructions as 
 
How to Build a Sunday School 105 
 
 may seem to be needed. Send out the canvassers 
 two and two. The reasons for going in couples must 
 be apparent; they are practically the same as when 
 the Lord Jesus suggested this arrangement nearly 
 two thousand years ago. 
 
 Some things need to be especially insisted upon in 
 this final meeting: 
 
 Every home where white people live is to be 
 risited. 
 
 A separate card is to be filled out for every indi- 
 vidual in the home, from the babe to the aged shut- 
 in, not forgetting servants and other employees. 
 
 Homes where no one is found are to be carefully 
 noted and reported so that they may be visited at rs 
 later date. 
 
 Accuracy is essential. Errors in data will seri- 
 ously vitiate the ends sought. Careless handwriting 
 which cannot be read or which may be misread will 
 be a source of much loss and confusion. 
 
 Courtesy and tact will usually open the way into 
 any home. If, for any reason, a home does not 
 open, secure the best possible information from a 
 next-door neighbour. 
 
 Say a good word for the Sunday school. Apart 
 from all other results, this making of hundreds, per- 
 haps thousands, of visits should result in a wide ad- 
 vertising of the school. 
 
 After the canvass, let prompt returns be made at 
 the church where a committee will be receiving re- 
 ports and checking off the territory as they find it has 
 been covered. 
 
 3. On the basis of the census returns and addi- 
 
lo6 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 tional data gleaned from the present church 
 and Sunday-school rolls, grade and classify the 
 names of ail who ought to be members of your 
 school. 
 
 Just here is where defeat is frequently met. It is 
 easy enough in a rush of glad enthusiasm to take the 
 census and get the desired information. It is not easy 
 — it requires the finest skill and the utmost persist- 
 ence — ^properly to use the valuable information se- 
 cured by the canvass. 
 
 In order to make clear what is meant by the above 
 statement, let us set forth a concrete case. Out of 
 the returns from a given census all the names which 
 seemed to be " possibilities " were listed. To this 
 list were added any names of members of the school 
 which might have been overlooked. Thus a roll was 
 secured consisting of all present members and all pos- 
 sible members of the school. This list numbering 
 upwards of two thousand was treated as the 
 school's roll of membership. This membership was 
 carefully divided into grades and departments, and 
 classes were formed with teachers throughout each 
 department. 
 
 Thus the school at once numbered upwards of two 
 thousand on paper. There were more than one hun- 
 dred classes, many of them paper classes, and all of 
 the classes comprising names which were only po- 
 tentially members of the school. Thus the school of 
 about six hundred members became at once a school 
 with an enrollment of upwards of two thousand. 
 From fifty classes or fewer, the school went imme- 
 diately to more than one hundred classes. All that 
 
How to Build a Sunday School 107 
 
 was needed was to make the paper school a real 
 school. 
 
 The departmental officers leading and inspiring 
 their teachers set about making the paper classes real 
 classes, and the paper pupils real pupils. It was hard 
 work. Some teachers were given nothing more than 
 a list of names. Instead of being called to a well- 
 established class, a teacher was probably accorded a 
 space or room with vacant seats and a list of names 
 and addresses. 
 
 Naturally there was some loss and shrinkage in 
 this large school. The last report the author saw 
 showed an enrollment of fifteen hundred and an 
 actual attendance of twelve hundred and seventy- 
 two. No one will suppose for a moment that such 
 results as these are to be achieved without very great 
 and persistent effort. It is believed that the prin- 
 ciples which underlie the method outlined in this 
 chapter are the essential guiding principles in any 
 scientific plan for Sunday-school building. 
 
XII 
 
 HOW TO BUILD A SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 (Continued) 
 
 IN the preceding chapter, we have outlined a 
 sure and scientific method of building a Sun- 
 day school. There are other ways which have 
 been tried with success. There are doubtless meth- 
 ods yet untried which would succeed. The method 
 which we have offered involves simple and perfectly 
 natural steps, as follows: 
 
 1. Form an organization big and flexible enough 
 to take care of the large numbers desired and ex- 
 pected. 
 
 2. Find out by a census the names and addresses 
 of those who ought to be in the school. 
 
 3. Assign these names to teachers and depart- 
 mental officers, and hold these responsible for the 
 names assigned. 
 
 Measured by standards and methods which have 
 been tested in commercial life and in all promotion 
 efforts, this simple plan will stand the test. Best of 
 all, great schools have in various sections been re- 
 peatedly built in this way. 
 
 Many further suggestions might be made. Deep 
 earnestness, a determination to succeed, energy and 
 tact, these will develop suggestions and overcome 
 
How to Build a Sunday School 109 
 
 obstacles. We may here indicate some methods 
 which under test have proven their value. These 
 may well be stated concretely, since they form part 
 of a story of enlargement in a school in which the 
 author is a worker. 
 
 1. Growth by subdivision. All along the lines 
 new nuclei were formed. Classes were divided and 
 in some cases subdivided. New classes of many 
 kinds were started. When it was seen that a teacher 
 had the initiative and energy to build a class, his (or 
 her) pupils were divided and a part sent off to start 
 a new class. The reward for service was oppor- 
 tunity to face new difficulties, a new start with the 
 privilege of attaining success a second or third time. 
 Whole classes were built up and subdivided into new 
 classes from pupils brought into the school. Heroic, 
 courageous and indomitable spirit was manifested. 
 
 2. Saving workers by tactful transfer. Inevi- 
 tably a sudden enlargement of the force of officers 
 and teachers will result in many square pegs in 
 round holes. It may develop that workers chosen to 
 teach cannot succeed as teachers, but might make 
 successful secretaries, or officers of organized 
 classes, and thus on and on. It was so in the de- 
 velopment which we are here tracing. The neces- 
 sity for occasional transfer was emphasized and the 
 advantages were clearly set forth. Thus workers 
 were saved from failure or put in the way to more 
 effective service. 
 
 3. Providing transportation. In every large 
 church there are likely to be men who operate trucks 
 for business uses. Why not utilize these trucks on 
 
no A Successful Sunday School 
 
 Sunday? They can be driven through outlying dis- 
 tricts having a definite route and a definite schedule, 
 and bring scores of children. Streamers prepared 
 for each side of the truck announcing the purpose 
 or naming the Sunday school may be a proper and 
 helpful advertisement. The author has seen this 
 plan work successfully in more than one instance. 
 
 4. Visitation Week, At first one week was set 
 aside as " Visitation Week." During that week six 
 hundred and twenty-five visits were reported, while 
 probably as many more were made which were not 
 reported, since practically the whole church went 
 afield on a memorable Sunday and the days follow- 
 ing. The week was so glorious and blessed it was 
 continued in to a second week, and upwards of six 
 hundred more visits were reported, making a total in 
 two weeks of more than twelve hundred visits. Sat- 
 urday before the first Sunday in each month is desig- 
 nated as " Visitation Day " and hundreds of visits 
 are made on this day. 
 
 5. The combined service. The morning services 
 for teaching and for preaching were combined. In- 
 stead of a benediction and intermission after the 
 Sunday-school hour inviting children and young 
 people to go home, the Sunday-school service was 
 merged into the preaching service. No other one 
 thing could have done so much to put the pastor, 
 the deacons, the whole church influence back of the 
 Sunday school. The Sunday school has suffered 
 from nothing more than from being regarded as a 
 sort of " extra," " an addendum," an " aside," to the 
 church. The Sunday school will quickly come into 
 
How to Build a Sunday School ill 
 
 its own when it is regarded as a vital and essential 
 church agency invested with the same dignity and 
 possessing many of the possibilities which mark the 
 preaching service. 
 
 6. A Bible Class conducted in a down-town 
 theater or public hall. An outline of the methods 
 pursued in the conduct of a given class may be sug- 
 gestive. 
 
 How the class was built up: 
 
 ( 1 ) A three-inch two-colimin " ad " was inserted 
 in all of the local daily papers every Saturday or 
 Sunday morning. 
 
 (2) Five thousand cards, two by six inches, were 
 distributed each week as follows: two thousand on 
 Saturday afternoon were passed out in the business 
 district, dropped in parked automobiles, placed in 
 hotel room-boxes, and left in boarding-houses. The 
 remaining three thousand were similarly handed out 
 on Sunday morning, beginning at 8 130 o'clock. 
 
 (3) Two buglers stood on street corners about one 
 block in each direction from the theater and alter- 
 nated with the '' army morning call." As this at- 
 tracted groups of men, cards were again passed with 
 personal invitation to attend the Bible class. 
 
 (4) Large placards, fourteen by sixteen inches, 
 were placed permanently for display in show win- 
 dows throughout the business section. 
 
 How the class is financed: 
 
 Including the cost of advertising and compensa- 
 tion for the male quartette, the expenses of this Bible 
 
112 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 class amounted to about two hundred dollars per 
 month. This amount is easily raised by individual 
 offerings in the class. Each man present is given 
 an envelope and is asked to insert his offering and 
 write his name and address on the envelope. 
 
 How the class is conducted: 
 
 It opens and closes on time. 
 
 There is never an idle moment. No extra an- 
 nouncements are permitted. The teacher has just 
 twenty minutes for a crisp, thoughtful lecture on the 
 International Sunday-School Lesson for the day. 
 The class is dismissed promptly at 10:40, giving 
 ample time for the men to attend preaching services 
 which follow at eleven o'clock. 
 
 This class is marked by good cheer and a happy 
 fellowship. It is not a preaching service ; that comes 
 later. A good joke, a play of wit, a bit of repartee, 
 a pleasant surprise, music such as men love, negro 
 melodies, anything, everything that is bright, at- 
 tractive and wholesome is considered in order. 
 
 The class is evangelistic and deeply spiritual. 
 With all the merriment, and through all the varied 
 programs runs the stress of a serious purpose, the 
 tone of deep earnestness. The teacher, the pro- 
 moters of the class, every one connected with it 
 counts the work of the class as the most genuine of 
 Christian effort. 
 
 Suffer a final word. We have outlined above a 
 remarkable development. Glancing back over this 
 story, it is painfully clear that only a rough outline is 
 given, only some external steps are recorded. The 
 
How to Build a Sunday School 1 13 
 
 real story is not told, perhaps can never be told. The 
 scaffolding, the enclosing machinery, the externals 
 of the campaign, are set forth. The best things are 
 not told, the relentless energy born of faith and of 
 a vision of deep soul-needs, the heroic and self-for- 
 getting efforts of leaders who, in strange ways, im- 
 parted their spirit to others, the instant willingness 
 to put self, time, automobile, anything, everything 
 on the altar, — these things run along beneath the sur- 
 face of the brief story which we have outlined. 
 
 It is easy to tell of plans, machinery, organiza- 
 tion, visits, outward efforts. Some, alas, see only the 
 external and hear only the voice of the machinery. 
 It is not easy to tell of the heart-sweat, the tears, 
 the soul-agony, the prolonged waiting before God, 
 the tireless quest. Perhaps thoughtful and spiritu- 
 ally-minded souls who read this story told above will 
 know instinctively that the real and deeper story lies 
 beneath. " Not by might, nor by power, but by my 
 Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." 
 
XIII 
 
 ORGANIZATIONS WHICH HELP TO BUILD 
 THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 A SUCCESSFUL Sunday school must needs 
 be a complex institution with many inter- 
 relating agencies to which the school con- 
 tributes and which in turn make contribution to the 
 life of the school. There are many organizations 
 which have proven helpful in the building of Sunday 
 schools. No one of these is to be launched or main- 
 tained merely for the purpose of increasing Sunday- 
 school attendance. They all have their proper place 
 and render their legitimate service which is to be 
 kept always in view. 
 
 Organhations for Boys and Girls: 
 
 An informing article on " Community Organiza- 
 tion for Boys and Girls," in " The Encyclopsedia of 
 Sunday Schools and Religious Education" (Nel- 
 son), classifies such organizations as (i) religious; 
 (2) semi-religious, and (3) welfare. The best 
 known organizations are listed as follows: 
 
 I. Religious. 
 
 The Junior Baraca Loyal Movement, the Junior 
 Brotherhoods of St. Andrew, and of Andrew and 
 Philip, the Junior and Intermediate Christian En- 
 
 114 
 
Organizations Which Help 115 
 
 deavour Societies (including the Baptist Young Peo- 
 ple's Union and the Epworth League), the Mission- 
 ary and Sewing Circle, the Messenger Cadet Corps, 
 the Prayer Band, the Boys* and Girls' Choirs, the 
 Dorcas Circle, the Queen Esther Circle, the Mission- 
 ary Class, the Temperance Legion, the Philathea 
 Class, the Standard Bearers, the Life Saving Serv- 
 ice, the King's Sons and Daughters, the Boy Trust, 
 the Bethany Girls, and the Church Attendance 
 League. 
 
 2. Semi-religious. 
 
 The Knights of King Arthur, the Knights of the 
 Holy Grail, the Knights of Galahad, the Knights of 
 Saint Paul (Kappa Sigma Pi), the Epworth Court 
 of Arthur, the Knights and Esquires of the White 
 Shield, the Knights of Methodism, the Covenanter 
 companies and Miriam Chapters, the Queens of Ava- 
 lon, and the Girls' Friendly Society. 
 
 3. Welfare. 
 
 The Boys' Brigade, the Anti-Cigarette League, the 
 Mass Boys' Qub, the Church Boys' Club, the Wood- 
 craft Indians, the Boy Pioneers or Sons of Daniel 
 Boone, the Achievement Club, the Girl Pioneers of 
 America, the Boy Scouts, the Camp Fire Girls, the 
 Athletic League (Simday school or public), the Na- 
 tional First Aid Association, the Agricultural Club 
 (corn or canning), and the Social Center, 
 
 Among the most popular and helpful of the or- 
 ganizations for boys and girls, we may mention the 
 Boy Scouts and its sister organization, The Girl 
 Pioneers of America. We indicate below the 
 sources of information for both of these organiza- 
 
1 16 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 tions and we need only mention here some outstand- 
 ing items in their general program. 
 
 The Boy Scouts of America had its beginning in 
 this country when it was incorporated under the 
 laws of the District of Columbia in 1910. The new 
 organization proved popular and quickly absorbed 
 all similar organizations. There are three succes- 
 sive stages of advancement from the tenderfoot, to 
 the second-class scout, to the first-class scout. The 
 scout law which must be memorized and obeyed 
 from the tenderfoot stage indicates the spirit and in 
 a measure the purpose of the movement: 
 
 I. 
 
 2. 
 
 A Scout is Trustworthy. 
 A Scout is Loyal. 
 
 3. 
 
 4. 
 5. 
 
 A Scout is Helpful. 
 A Scout is Friendly. 
 A Scout is Courteous. 
 
 6. 
 
 A Scout is Kind. 
 
 7. 
 
 A Scout is Obedient. 
 
 8. 
 
 A Scout is Cheerful. 
 
 9- 
 10. 
 
 A Scout is Thrifty. 
 A Scout is Brave. 
 
 II. 
 
 A Scout is Clean. 
 
 12. 
 
 A Scout is Reverent. 
 
 The Girl Pioneers of America, companion organi- 
 zation to the Boy Scouts, offers outdoor life and 
 sports and seeks to develop strength, courage and 
 resourcefulness in girls. Every girl is asked to 
 make the following pledge: 
 
 I will speak the truth at all times. 
 I will be honest in all things. 
 I will obey the Pioneer Law. 
 
Organizations Which Help 1 1 7 
 
 The Pioneer Law, like tliat of the Boy Scouts, em- 
 braces twelve points. The Law is: 
 
 1. A Girl Pioneer is trustworthy.- 
 
 2. A Girl Pioneer is helpful and kind. 
 
 3. A Girl Pioneer is reverent. 
 
 4. A Girl Pioneer chooses happy, cheerful, 
 
 wholesome topics for conversation. 
 
 5. A Girl Pioneer keeps herself physically well 
 
 and strong. 
 
 6. A Girl Pioneer Is self-respecting and keeps 
 
 her thoughts clean. 
 
 7. A Girl Pioneer is brave. 
 
 8. A Girl Pioneer is loyal. 
 
 9. A Girl Pioneer does not speak ill of any 
 
 one. 
 
 10. A Girl Pioneer is cheerful. 
 
 11. A Girl Pioneer is industrious and thrifty. 
 , 12. A Girl Pioneer always remembers that peo- 
 ple are worth more than money or things, 
 and the Girl Pioneer values another for 
 what that other really is, not for what she 
 has. 
 
 Boy Scout literature is as follows : 
 
 Baden-Powell, Sir Robert. " Boy Scouts as a 
 National Organization." (London, 1910.) 
 
 Baden- Powell, Sir Robert. " Educational Possi- 
 bilities of the Boy Scouts' Training." (London, 
 1911.) 
 
 Young, R. E. comp. " Boy Scout Tests and How 
 to Pass Them." (Glasgow, 1913.) 
 
 Information concerning The Girl Pioneers may be 
 had from Miss A. B. Beard, Secretary, Flushing, 
 Long Island, N. Y. 
 
 Another organization which has been popular is 
 
Il8 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 the " Camp Fire Girls." Groups of girls from ten to 
 fifteen in number are drawn together under the di- 
 rection of a Guardian. Such groups are called 
 " Camp Fires " and each group is supposed to have 
 its own distinctive name. 
 
 Weekly meetings are held under the direction of 
 the Guardian and a special " Carnp Fire " service is 
 held once a month in which the girls wear their beads 
 and their ceremonial gowns and carry out a symbolic 
 ceremony. 
 
 The tasks for which " honours " are granted cover 
 the range of a girl's obligations and activities from 
 the simple duties of the home to the obligations of 
 business. Some examples as presented in the liter- 
 ature of the general organization are as follows : 
 
 To make a shirtwaist. 
 
 To cook meat in four ways. 
 
 To do all the work in a successful garden. 
 
 Wood carving. To make a useful piece of furni- 
 ture. 
 
 • To live for one year on a given allowance which 
 shall cover all personal expenses, and to keep full ac- 
 counts. 
 
 To be free from every indication of a cold for 
 two consecutive months between October and April. 
 
 To tell the history and meaning of the American 
 Flag and the flag of the country from which her an- 
 cestors came. 
 
 Girls must be twelve years of age before they can 
 be Camp Fire Girls. Information and literature can 
 be secured by addressing Headquarters, Camp Fire 
 Girls, 461 Fourth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 
 
Organizations Which Help 119 
 
 The Organized Class, 
 
 Organizations of the kind which we have pre- 
 sented are helpful both in their direct purpose and 
 in their indirect influence in building the Sunday 
 school. Since the organized class is organically a 
 part of the Sunday school and is primarily con- 
 cerned with its upbuilding, it is the most dependable 
 and fruitful of all the means yet devised for Sun- 
 day-school building. 
 
 The organized class is able to multiply its own 
 members. The really large classes of the country 
 are all organized classes. It is not uncommon to find 
 classes which number into the hundreds and occa- 
 sionally we find classes which pass the thousand 
 mark. The superintendent or pastor who aspires to 
 build a large Sunday school will do well to give sym- 
 pathetic backing and full sympathy to his organized 
 classes. 
 
 The organized class may indefinitely multiply its 
 ministries. The Adult Department of the Interna- 
 tional Sunday-School Association offers a leaflet en- 
 titled " One Hundred Things One Hundred Organ- 
 ized Bible Classes are Doing." The following selec- 
 tion from the total list, which represents a hundred 
 classes in nineteen denominations, will be suggestive 
 of the varied lines of service in which organized 
 classes may engage, and will prove stimulating to 
 organized class workers. 
 
 1. Contributed $1,500 toward the erection of a 
 reception room in the new church building In which 
 ^t present all services are conducted. 
 
 2. Furnished music for the choir, hymn-book/ 
 
120 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 for the congregation, and paid musical tuition fee of 
 the organist. Membership 25. 
 
 3. Contributed $60 to the support of a native 
 preacher in India. Membership 60. 
 
 4. Five members of class have entered college to 
 prepare for ministry. Class is supporting one for 
 the first year. Membership 296. 
 
 5. Contributed $60 to Sabbath School Mission. 
 Membership 310. 
 
 6. Conducted campaign of "Alley Evangelism" 
 in the neglected sections of their community v^^ith the 
 purpose of carrying the " good tidings " into these 
 byways. Membership 112. 
 
 7. Supported Deaconess working among the mill 
 people of their city. Membership 75. 
 
 8. Assumed the responsibility of managing and 
 teaching a class of boys from 13 to 18 years of age 
 which has grown in six months from 13 to 25. 
 Membership 72. 
 
 9. Provided the following workers for the Sun- 
 day school: Primary, Junior and Intermediate De- 
 partment Superintendents, Teacher in Senior De- 
 partment, three assistants in Primary Department, 
 two members of Orchestra, eight members Senior 
 Choir, three Home Department visitors, two members 
 Teacher Training Class, one or two substitute teach- 
 ers each Sunday, Chairman Home Missionary Com- 
 mittee of Woman's Society, and a number of work- 
 ers in the Christian Endeavour Society. Membership 
 80. 
 
 10. Secured employment, found boarding-houses, 
 visited the sick, looked after the poor and unfortu- 
 
Organizations Which Help 121 
 
 nate of the class and community, and helped prison- 
 ers on parole when they were found worthy of such 
 help. Membership 350. 
 
 11. Gave winter's lecture course w^hich attracted 
 large attendance and aroused general interest in 
 the city. This was the means of interesting 
 men of literary habits in the class work. Member- 
 ship y6, 
 
 12. Conducted street meetings regularly during 
 the summer months. Membership 400. 
 
 13- Organized and led a county delegation of 350 
 to the State Convention. Sixty-five members of 
 their own class were in the company. Membership 
 150. 
 
 14. Organized and maintains a church library 
 for Bible School, Christian Endeavour, and Mission- 
 ary workers of the church. At present has $40 
 worth of sectional bookcases containing about 250 
 volumes. Membership 125. 
 
 15. Class has helped to maintain a work among 
 boys at an average expense of $8 per week, or a total 
 of over $400 per year. This movement has resulted 
 in a boys' work which is greatly blessing school, 
 church and community. Membership 225. 
 
 16. Have organized and are now conducting in a 
 neglected part of the city a Mission Sunday school 
 which has an average attendance of 47. One of their 
 own members is superintendent of this school. 
 Membership 100. 
 
 17. Take charge of church prayer-meeting the 
 first Thursday of each month. Membership 48. 
 
 18. Contributed $35 of Native Bible in China,- 
 
122 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 where one of their own members is a missionary. 
 Membership 45. 
 
 19. Conduct a prayer circle each week to pray 
 for the women of the church. Membership 54. 
 
 20. Conduct a reading room which is kept open 
 each night. Membership 345. 
 
 21. Class is maintaining a room where every 
 evening music, sewing-machines, periodicals, lesson 
 helps, games and cordiality can be enjoyed by young 
 women. Membership 185. 
 
 22. Are educating a young lady to be a mission- 
 ary. Membership 225. 
 
 23. Two hundred dollars given annually to sup- 
 port a student preparing himself for the ministry. 
 Membership 221. 
 
 24. Paid for course of treatment for a young 
 man suffering with rheumatism and unable to work. 
 He was restored to health and enabled to take up 
 his work again. He and his wife recently united 
 with the church. Membership 114. 
 
 25. Contributed $120 to the expense of renovat- 
 ing the Sunday-school rooms, in addition to caring 
 for the entire expense of redecorating their own 
 class room. 
 
 26. Expends several hundred dollars annually 
 in Mutual Benefit Association for the relief of 
 members incapacitated by illness. Membership 
 200. 
 
 27. Conducted regular cottage meetings for Bible 
 study and prayer, which have been attended In three 
 years by 200 different women. Membership 50. 
 
 28. Is assisting one of its members to take a col- 
 
Organizations Which Help 123 
 
 lege course with the ministry in view. Membership 
 
 135- 
 
 29. Took an active part in the temperance cam- 
 paign, wielding the balance of power in a ward 
 where the vote was very close. Membership 143. 
 
 30. Gave supper for 200 poor children at Christ- 
 mas time who were brought to the church in vans, 
 and after being clothed and fed, a real Santa Claus 
 gave each child a personal gift. Upon leaving the 
 church each little guest received a pair of mittens 
 and a box of candy. Membership 250. 
 
 31. Meets bi-monthly in the evening for Mission 
 study. Membership 28. 
 
 32. Have opened rooms as a meeting place for 
 young men and conduct them along the lines of a 
 local Y. M. C. A., which the town is too small to 
 support. Membership 12. 
 
 33. Are paying the rent of a consumptive who is 
 unable to work. Membership 183. 
 
 34. Two classes have united in conducting a 
 down-town lunch room where the girls can get a 
 good wholesome lunch, cheap, with the privilege of 
 rest rooms and employment department. Member- 
 ship 47 and 85. 
 
 35. Publishes a monthly paper, The Purpose, 
 in the interest of church, school and class. Member- 
 ship 194. 
 
XIV 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE AND THE SUCCESS OF THE 
 SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 THE social appeal may offer a strong attrac- 
 tion to people younger and older, while h 
 properly ordered program of social activi- 
 ties may be of real educational and religious value. 
 Ours is essentially a social gospel. The Lord Jesus 
 in His ministry mingled freely with all types of peo- 
 ple and " table-talk " constituted a large element in 
 His teaching ministry. 
 
 Follozving department lines. More and more so- 
 cial life will follow the subdivisions of the Sunday 
 school. Each department in the Sunday school 
 should provide needed social functions for its mem- 
 bers. The Beginners should have their own parties, 
 the Primaries and Juniors should have their separate 
 entertainments, the Intermediate Department and the 
 Young People's Department should each have distinct 
 socials, while the Adults should develop in the de- 
 partment or in special classes the types of fellowship 
 and social diversion which they may seem to require. 
 In many churches this is an established custom. 
 Some churches seek to have some kind of social 
 " meet " for each department each month, or at least 
 each quarter. 
 
 We should no more provide one large room as the 
 " Social room " than we should provide one large 
 
 124 
 
Social Life and Success 12_J 
 
 room and call it the *' Sunday-school room." We 
 were doing that two or three decades ago, but we 
 have passed that day. There is as much reason for 
 departmentizing the social life as for departmentiz- 
 ing the Sunday school itself. 
 
 Why departmentize social activifiesf Some im- 
 portant conditions favour the departmentizing of the 
 social life of the people, following the lines of the 
 departments in the Sunday school. 
 
 1. This assures congenial groups which can be 
 managed together in any type of entertainment 
 which may be undertaken. 
 
 2. This assures about the number which can be 
 successfully managed and enables the workers to de- 
 termine in advance about what numbers should be 
 provided for. 
 
 3. A motive is provided since the workers in a 
 given department may utilize the social functions as 
 a means of building up their department. 
 
 4. This arrangement has additional advantage in 
 that the officers of the department constitute a group 
 of workers equipped and trained to direct the activi- 
 ties of the members of the department. 
 
 If we are to utilize the department rooms for so- 
 cial purposes, it will be well to furnish these rooms 
 with this end in view. Suitable floor coverings, such 
 as large rugs, crex matting, or linoleum, should be 
 provided. 
 
 Kitchenettes or dumb-waiters may be arranged for 
 rooms which are not adjacent to the main kitchen. 
 During the construction of the building, dumb-wait- 
 ers may be installed at low cost. 
 
126 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 Social Versus Recreational Provisions. 
 
 There is a manifest desire on the part of our 
 churches to minister to the practical needs of the 
 people. This desire grows out of the urgency of cer- 
 tain needs and out of the very legitimate wish to 
 open the way for the gospel which we preach. The 
 necessity for ministry on the part of the churches in 
 meeting social and recreational needs was much em- 
 phasized by certain experiences of the world war. 
 
 Besides the social life which forward-looking 
 churches have long been wont to provide, the 
 churches are considering the gymnasium, the swim- 
 ming pool and other means of recreation. It is not 
 our purpose to consider here the expediency of these 
 recreational agencies, but we do wish to say that first 
 attention should be given to the social needs. Ours is 
 a social gospel. Properly-directed social activities 
 will yield immediate fruit in larger attendance upon 
 the teaching and the preaching services and may be 
 made to contribute to evangelism and the upbuilding 
 of all good things in the community. Social activi- 
 ties and the proper mingling of the people in pleas- 
 ant fellowship Is essential to the very life of our 
 churches and to the gospel ends which we seek. 
 Happy and successful are the churches which meet 
 as fully as possible the social needs of their con- 
 stituency. This makes for solidarity of spirit, for 
 full understanding and closer fellowship, and for the 
 conservation of all the forces of the congregation. 
 
 In a word, we must provide for and cultivate the 
 social life of our people, while we may if the way 
 seems open and the demand seems to exist, minister 
 
Social Life and Success 127 
 
 to the recreational needs of the community. The 
 great churches, those in our busy centers and those 
 in our rural districts, which are reaching the people 
 in worthy fashion are pressing every effort to min- 
 ister to the social needs of all types and all ages. 
 For reasons which must be apparent, such ministry 
 must be more vital and fruitful and at the same 
 time much less expensive and burdensome than ef- 
 forts directed more definitely toward recreation, 
 such as the gymnasium and the swimming pool. 
 
 Adapting the building to meet social needs. The 
 church building must serve at least three great ends. 
 
 It must provide for the preaching of the gospel. 
 
 It must house the teaching service. 
 
 It must offer accommodations for social life. 
 
 The modern church building is the result of an 
 evolution; it reflects the development of church life 
 and activities. Threescore years ago church houses 
 were built almost exclusively for preaching. 
 Through long experience we have perfected our 
 ideals as regards provisions for the preaching serv- 
 ice. These ideals have been clearly stated by many 
 writers and have found expression in many build- 
 ings. 
 
 Gradually we have wrought out clear and definite 
 ideals for the building provisions needed by the 
 modern Sunday school. These also have been fully 
 stated and illustrated, and they are being rapidly in- 
 troduced into the planning of modem church build- 
 ings. 
 
 The necessity to make some provision In the 
 church house for social functions has been long rec- 
 
128 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 ognized, but little effort has been made to state or to 
 illustrate the underlying ideals which should guide 
 us here. At this point we seem still to live in the 
 days of the Judges, since ** every man does that 
 which is right in his own eyes," and no one has un- 
 dertaken to formulate general suggestions for our 
 guidance. 
 
 A Fair Balance is Required. 
 
 Provisions for preaching, for teaching and for 
 social life must receive proper relative emphasis. 
 Are there buildings which seem to lend themselves 
 almost exclusively to the preaching service ? Possibly 
 there are church buildings which come dangerously 
 near to being mere Sunday-school houses. As yet 
 .we have perhaps not developed buildings which over- 
 emphasize the social side. Certain it is that the 
 ideal church building will offer a reasonable balance 
 as between these three great lines of service. No 
 one of them can safely be neglected and no one of 
 them must dominate the building. 
 
 The Same Floor Space Must Generally Be Used 
 Both for Social Purposes and for Sunday-School 
 Uses. 
 
 We saw recently the floor plans for a great church 
 plant which is expected to cost well on toward a 
 million of dollars and which will certainly be an out- 
 standing building in the whole country. No space 
 in the plans was marked " parlour " or " social." A 
 large kitchen was provided adjacent to the Adult 
 Department with the idea that by the clearing of 
 chairs any room or rooms in that department might 
 
Social Life and Success 129 
 
 readily be made available for banquets or other so- 
 cial functions. Kitchenettes were provided near 
 each of the other departments with the evident in- 
 tention of using the department rooms for serving, 
 parties and any other type of social life. 
 
 Some Helpful Books. 
 
 Earnest attention has been given in recent years to 
 all phases of social activity in church and Sunday- 
 school life. As a consequence we have many sug- 
 gestive volumes from which it must be easy to select 
 a few choice books which, if placed at the disposal 
 of the departmental workers, will offer a variety of 
 fresh and stimulating suggestions. 
 
 The Association Press, New York, issued some 
 years ago a book entitled, " Social Activities for 
 Men and Boys." The book offers a digest of mate- 
 rial and plans furnished by men who have faced and 
 practically solved the problems of entertaining in 
 wholesome fashion men and boys. Social events, 
 games, entertainments are described and treated as 
 a means of attracting and holding men and boys so 
 that they may be led into the happiest kind of life 
 of body, mind and spirit. The following selections 
 from the classified index will indicate the scope of 
 the book. 
 
 Banquets and Dinners. 
 Camps and Camping. 
 Clubs for Boys. 
 General Social Events. 
 High School and College, 
 Outings. 
 Parlour Tricks. 
 
130 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 Receptions. 
 
 Socials for Less than Twenty. 
 
 Socials for More than Twenty. 
 
 Socials Including Ladies. 
 
 Songs and Yells. 
 
 Summer and Outdoor Affairs. 
 
 The United Society of Christian Endeavor offers 
 a suggestive volume, " Enjoyable Entertainments," 
 which has met with much favour. It presents out- 
 lines and more or less complete guidance for special 
 evenings with educational and religious ends con- 
 stantly in view. The following selected headings 
 will illustrate the type of ** evenings " which the book 
 proposes : 
 
 A Woodland April Joke. 
 
 The Waking of the Spring Flowers. 
 
 Santa Claus Motion Song. 
 
 A Japanese Ceremonial Tea. 
 
 An Indian Drill. 
 
 Scenes from " Pilgrim's Progress." 
 
 A Musical Evening. 
 
 A Millinery Marvel. 
 
 Mrs. Jarley's Waxworks. 
 
 Museum of Very Natural History. 
 
 Easter Lily Drill. 
 
 High Junks Along the Milky Way. 
 
 The Beggar Prince. 
 
 A Window Evening. 
 
 Scenes from American History. 
 
 A Surprise Flower Garden. 
 
 "The Children's Book of Games and Parties" is 
 replete with guidance for the entertainment of little 
 children and of boys and girls. The following para- 
 
Social Life and Success 131 
 
 graphs from the " Foreword to Mothers " are so 
 sympathetic and discerning that they win a quick 
 confidence in the abihty and purpose of the author 
 to make really helpful suggestions. 
 
 "The child's red letter day is the day when 
 mother allows him to have a party, or when he plays 
 a happy game with some other children. 
 
 " There is a very real reason for this child's happi- 
 ness. A party means for a child his first attempts 
 at giving pleasure to others; his pleasure in games 
 means that he has an opportunity to subordinate him- 
 self to others and find joy in being part of a small, 
 social group. 
 
 *' Too often we plan children's parties that are so 
 elaborate that they take away from the child's fine 
 joy in hospitality; he has no share in preparing for 
 the party, and no part in the entertainment of his 
 guests. And often, too, we encourage a child to play 
 alone, not realizing how important in his develop- 
 ment are the games that he plays with other boys 
 and girls. 
 
 "'The Children's Book of Games and Parties' 
 aims to help mothers to plan simple entertainments 
 for ever}^ possible occasion in the child's year, and 
 it offers games that will help to train the child's 
 dawning social instinct. The parties and games 
 cover all the interesting mile-stones In a child's life; 
 holidays, birthdays, and the different seasons. Each 
 entertainment has been planned having in mind those 
 activities and plays that most interest children and 
 they also give children a good deal to do in the way 
 of handicraft." 
 
132 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 The book is written in popular style, having in 
 mind children's as well as mothers' reading. 
 
 " Good Times with the Juniors " is offered by the 
 United Society of Christian Endeavor and has 
 through many years demonstrated its practical value. 
 Miss Lilian M. Heath is the author; in the preface 
 she has this timely word: 
 
 " One thing is certain. He who said, * Of such 
 is the kingdom of heaven,' was speaking of those 
 whose only conscious motive was play — natural, 
 graceful, happy, loving life-expression. The growth 
 resulting was involuntary. With the growth came 
 new impulses, new activities, and new growth. It is 
 the plan, in God's kindergarten. Brother, if we 
 would grow, let us not be afraid to play ! " 
 
 In the suggestions for " A Rope Social," the de- 
 lightful and wholesome spirit of the book finds 
 ample illustration: 
 
 This is best fun when held in a barn, or a 
 large attic, if stairways, etc., are safe ; and it will 
 prove a good opportunity to " rope in " new 
 members, or at least to make those who are not 
 members wish that they were. There is no pro- 
 gram, though Christian Endeavour songs at 
 the beginning and close are in order at every 
 Junior social. Girls may bring their skipping 
 ropes ; and, if the place admits of swings, by all 
 means put up several stout ones. Introduce the 
 game of " rope ring toss," or " grommet-pitch- 
 ing," as it is called by sailors. The rings are made 
 of rope with the strands first separated so as the 
 better to weave them into smooth, firm rings 
 about six to ten inches across. They are made 
 all of the same size, or of graduated sizes, as 
 
Social Life and Success 133 
 
 preferred. If desired, they may be wound with 
 ribbon. The game consists in throwing these 
 " grommets " over an upright stake, or over 
 pegs driven in the wall or in a board, each peg 
 being numbered. The players have each a cer- 
 tain number of throws and the score is kept to 
 see who is the most skillful. 
 
 When tired of this, they may play the game of 
 " pink violets," composed of a little delightful 
 nonsense and a good deal of running. The song 
 which accompanies it may be sung to the tune 
 of " Sing a Song of Sixpence," or to any other 
 that it will fit, or to not much of any tune at all. 
 The words are as follows : 
 
 "Pink, pink violets, and roses bright and blue! 
 A Junior in a prison — whatever shall we do? 
 We'll open the window east, and we'll open the 
 
 window west, 
 And never, never tell if the prisoner does the rest! " 
 
 The children range themselves in a circle, hold- 
 ing a rope to help keep the circle of a uniform 
 size. One of them, the prisoner, goes inside the 
 ring; another, the jailer, stands outside. They 
 begin to sing, and at the words, " We'll open 
 the window east, and we'll open the window 
 west," the players on first one side, then the op- 
 posite, lift the rope high enough for the prisoner 
 to pass under; but the jailer outside is watching. 
 The prisoner may take his choice, but must run 
 out at one side or the other before the song 
 stops, and must try to run once entirely around 
 the ring before being overtaken by the jailer. 
 Those holding the rope must neither help nor 
 hinder the runners after the start is made, and 
 the openings must be at about equal distances 
 from the jailer. If the prisoner can run clear 
 around the outside of the ring without being 
 
134 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 overtaken, he takes his place with the rest, be- 
 tween the two whose *' open window " set him 
 free; the former jailer becomes prisoner, the 
 former prisoner's right-hand neighbour becomes 
 jailer, and the game proceeds as at first. But, if 
 the prisoner is touched ever so lightly by the one 
 in chase, he is sent back to the center, where he 
 must remain; the jailer joins the ring anywhere 
 he chooses; his right-hand neighbour becomes 
 the new jailer and his left-hand one a new 
 prisoner with privilege of escape; and so the 
 game continues. Each time only the new pris- 
 oner may run out. Whenever a third of the 
 players are in the center at one time, it ends tlie 
 game. 
 
 After the enjoyment of the games and swings 
 an old-fashioned molasses candy-pull may com- 
 plete the festivities, and, as the Juniors vie with 
 one another in pulling and deftly handling these 
 most fascinating " ropes " of all as they gradu- 
 ally assume a light golden colour, the social is 
 sure to be voted a success. 
 
 " Social to Save," by Amos R. Wells, has been 
 before the public for many years with undiminishing 
 usefulness. The opening words of the book must 
 commend themselves to all thoughtful Christian 
 workers : 
 
 A company of men and women were ship- 
 wrecked on an island. Death stared them in the 
 face, — death from the hungry waves that lashed 
 the shore, death from the hunger that lashed 
 their fainting bodies. Wild beasts were prowl- 
 ing through the gloomy woods behind them, and 
 a cold night was settling down. What did they 
 do? The captain urged them to get together, 
 build a fire, organize two bands, one to hunt for 
 
Social Life and Success 135 
 
 food while the other made a stockade for safety, 
 and then, around the fire, safe in the stockade, 
 the entire company would eat and drink and 
 praise God together. 
 
 But they did none of these things. Said one, 
 " I am too busy ; don't you see I have set my 
 stakes for a house ? '' Said another, " I am too 
 bashful to go into company." Said a third, 
 " The ship's crew are dreadfully coarse men, 
 and reall)^ the party would better be more se- 
 lect." Said a fourth, " I am too tired ; it will do 
 me more good to sleep." " But it is for life," 
 urged the captain ; " for life and safety." 
 Nevertheless, he urged in vain. 
 
 A True Picture. 
 
 You know that no such scene as this was ever 
 on earth ? Would you were right ! For, indeed, 
 I have only pictured to you in a figure precisely 
 what is happening every month in thousands of 
 our Christian churches. Shipwrecked com- 
 panies are w«, cast up on these strange shores of 
 time out of the vast ocean of eternity, with 
 death and that ocean impatiently awaiting us, 
 and hunger at our hearts, and the night coming 
 down, and the beasts in the woods. And our 
 Captain urges us, for life, for safety, to live for 
 one another; to gather around the same camp 
 fire ; to give the reassuring pressure of the hand 
 and clasp of arm around the neck; to drive 
 away by love the wild beast of loneliness, and by 
 friendly merriment the ghost of gloom. " Be 
 social — to save," cries our Captain. But we 
 have no time. And we are too bashful. And 
 we abhor disagreeable people. And we want 
 our own set. And it does not come easy. And 
 we are too tired with our day's work. And 
 there will be enough without us. 
 
XV 
 
 RECREATIONS IN THE BUILDING OF THE 
 SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 WE must insist here as we have done else- 
 where that all measures adopted by the 
 churches, such as week-day organiza- 
 tions and all recreations shall be used to serve their 
 own primary and legitimate ends. Social ministries 
 must seek their own proper purposes and must not 
 be inaugurated simply to build the Sunday school or 
 the church. This must be evident and goes with the 
 saying. At the same time such ministries must re- 
 act favourably on the life of the Sunday school and 
 in many outstanding instances have contributed di- 
 rectly and largely to the success of the Sunday 
 school. 
 
 All public-spirited citizens stand ready to boost 
 and build the institution which unselfishly seeks to 
 meet community needs. With the growth of our 
 cities and the increasing congestion of daily life, 
 wholesome recreations are becoming a necessity. 
 The Young Men*s Christian Association and similar 
 organizations have made Invaluable contribution in 
 these lines, but the needs are so great and the op- 
 portunities for service so varied there can hardly be 
 any real competition. 
 
 Visitors to the Temple Baptist Church, Los An- 
 
 136 
 
Recreations in Building 137 
 
 geles, California, have been favourably impressed 
 with the attractive open space near the church build- 
 ing, operated by the church, and offering the privi- 
 lege of certain open-air games, notably lawn tennis. 
 The heart instinctively responds to the appeal of the 
 church which concerns itself with the recreation 
 needs of its constituency. 
 
 The gymnasium and the swimming pool or the 
 shower baths have, under certain conditions, met 
 with favour and these have aided materially in en- 
 larging Sunday-school attendance and increasing the 
 general usefulness of the Sunday school. 
 
 The practical service possible through these indoor 
 recreations must of course depend in a measure upon 
 conditions of climate. In the northern sections of 
 the United States and in Canada, the need for all 
 manner of indoor sports must be great. Through the 
 long winter months snow and ice abound and shut 
 the people in. Throughout the southern sections of 
 our country where even the winter months are open 
 and sunny, the people naturally seek exercise and 
 recreation in the great out-of-doors. 
 
 The author has seen more than one expensively- 
 constructed gymnasium in the Gulf States abandoned 
 because the climate permitted and almost compelled 
 open-air exercise. 
 
 The value of the gymnasium and the swimming 
 pool must also depend largely upon community con- 
 ditions and needs. The down-town church may find 
 in these recreational facilities a real asset in the 
 building of the Sunday school since these facilities 
 meet a real need among the people which the church 
 
138 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 seeks to serve. Another church located ten blocks 
 away in a residential district may try to duplicate this 
 successful work of the down-town church only to 
 meet with utter disappointment. This has actually 
 occurred. 
 
 It ought also to be said that the burdens and diffi- 
 culties involved in the installation and successful 
 handling of the gymnasium and the swimming pool 
 are such that no community ought to undertake such 
 service without a careful counting of the cost. To 
 meet the highest demand of usefulness the gymna- 
 sium must meet certain standard requirements as to 
 size, height of ceiling, light and ventilation. This nec- 
 essarily involves heavy expense. The play room which 
 some architects indicate as " the gymnasium " in 
 their floor-plan drawings, is frequently located on 
 the basement floor with many obstructing posts and 
 with poor ventilation. Among workers who have 
 had successful experience with the gymnasium, 
 there is an agreement that if such work is to be un- 
 dertaken at all it should be done on a worthy scale 
 with the provision of proper and ample equip- 
 ment. 
 
 If the question of expense must be considered in 
 connection with the gymnasium much more must 
 this question be considered when we face the prob- 
 lem of a swimming pool. The First Baptist Church, 
 Fort Worth, Texas, laid down seven distinct layers 
 as a foundation for its swimming pool. The build- 
 ing was made safe and the great body of water was 
 rendered secure, but this was done at heavy expense. 
 It is of course a serious proposition to inclose 
 
Recreations in Building 139 
 
 100,000 gallons of water in the midst of the founda- 
 tions and substructure of a great building. 
 
 Great as is the initial cost involved in the construc- 
 tion of these facilities, the expense of upkeep must 
 not be overlooked. A gymnasium calls for a physical 
 director or directors and this means, of course, a 
 constant outlay. A swimming pool may be a men- 
 ace in many ways unless there is a competent and 
 careful attendant. Besides the water must be fre- 
 quently changed and this alone may constitute a con- 
 siderable item of expense. 
 
 It must be apparent that these recreational facili- 
 ties, in order to make real contribution to the moral 
 and spiritual life which the Sunday school seeks 
 especially to build, must be managed with great skill 
 and wisdom. It is easily conceivable that these rec- 
 reations, if not wisely guarded, may be dissipative 
 and may work for the undoing of the real ends 
 which are sought in the Sunday school. So true is 
 this, the consensus of opinion among thoughtful 
 Sunday-school workers does not seem to regard with 
 favour these types of endeavour. 
 
XVI 
 ADVERTISING THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 THE successful Sunday school will be its 
 own best advertisement. Such a school 
 will advertise itself. This is one of its 
 distinct advantages. Any worth-while institution 
 gets a deal of free advertising. The Sunday school 
 which by its good equipment, its fine organization, 
 its excellent teaching attains high rank becomes an 
 asset to any community, and public-spirited citizens 
 of all kinds take pleasure in setting forward its in- 
 terests. 
 
 Nevertheless Sunday schools need to advertise. It 
 is well enough to make the school good and attract- 
 ive. It is also needful in tactful and effective ways 
 to let the community know concerning the attain- 
 ments and the attractions of the school. As busi- 
 ness men are not content to have good goods, but go 
 further and spend large sums to let the world know 
 about the goods they have, so Sunday schools can- 
 not be content with good wares of faithful and effi- 
 cient service, but must in all tactful ways let the 
 people know what they offer. 
 
 Church advertising, including of course Sunday- 
 school advertising, is In recent years entering upon 
 a new era. In practically every city there are ag- 
 
 140 
 
Advertising the Sunday School 141 
 
 gressive and wide-awake churches which advertise, 
 sometimes on bulletin-boards, sometimes in newspa- 
 pers, sometimes by the distribution of hand bills or 
 placing of placards. Since all other institutions 
 which must appeal for support and patronage to the 
 general public find it profitable to use various types 
 of advertising, it is reasonable to suppose that 
 churches and Sunday schools will do so. The 
 church program for advertising should be a unified 
 program and for this reason a general committee 
 should direct the whole plan. At the same time ad- 
 vertising should be definite and particular. Some 
 one thing should stand out with its appeal and other 
 things, if mentioned at all, should be incidental. 
 
 There is, of course, much publicity which a large 
 Sunday school may expect which will be gladly 
 given space as news. This type of publicity may be 
 much more valuable than display advertising for 
 which good sums would have to be paid. It is to be 
 remembered that when a Sunday school grows a 
 very large constituency and comes to hold a distinct 
 place in a community, all that concerns it and all 
 that is planned by it has an added news-value. The 
 Sunday school should, therefore, have a live pub- 
 licity representative who will see that news-ma- 
 terial is promptly offered the local papers and the 
 denominational press. This representative may well 
 be some young man or woman engaged in newspaper 
 work, or some one possessed of newspaper experi- 
 ence. Any young person who is alert and tactful 
 may, however, successfully render this service. 
 
 It is safe to predict that Sunday schools will in- 
 
142 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 creasingly make use of display advertising in local 
 newspapers. Concerning the propriety of this, there 
 can be no reasonable question. If it is right to offer 
 spiritual and educational advantages, it is of course 
 right to announce these advantages through legiti- 
 mate channels with a view to extending the bless- 
 ings to the largest possible numbers. The question 
 of expense is more serious. Church advertising of 
 striking themes and other attractions in local news- 
 papers has generally resulted in such enlarged plate 
 collections as more than meets the necessary ex- 
 pense. It will be borne in mind that the main bud- 
 get of expense is not greatly increased by the bring- 
 ing in of some scores of pupils into the Sunday 
 school. But the bringing in of these scores of pu- 
 pils may materially enlarge the weekly offerings. 
 Thus the expense of proper publicity may be offset 
 by enlarged offerings to the school. Even if this is 
 not practicable, it will probably always be possible 
 to find men and women of means who will count it 
 a privilege to make possible a proper advertising 
 campaign. 
 
 Organized classes of men and women may, in the 
 effort to keep their own class activities and claims 
 before the people, render to the whole school a valu- 
 able service. The advertising of any class or de- 
 partment in a Sunday school is really advertising the 
 whole school. Large classes for men which meet in 
 the church auditorium or In down-town theaters, or 
 in other public halls may, directly or indirectly, ren- 
 der helpful service in keeping the Sunday school be- 
 fore the community. 
 
Advertising the Sunday School 143 
 
 The observant superintendent with an instinct for 
 publicity will easily think of many methods of ad- 
 vertising his Sunday school. We venture to list 
 some simple methods which have found favour. 
 
 1. Use the weekly church bulletin. This little 
 sheet may well give much space to the largest and 
 most active of the church institutions. Some Sun- 
 day schools issue a special weekly bulletin of their 
 own and fill it with live newsy material. 
 
 2. Use the weekly religious paper or papers. 
 The colimms of these papers will be open to stimu- 
 lating news items. They frequently carry a weekly 
 report of attendance of Sunday schools which attain 
 or pass a given number. 
 
 3. Have a special Sunday-school bulletin-board. 
 This may be a large blackboard on which may be 
 written Sunday-school announcements or Sunday- 
 school slogans. Or better, it may be a patent ad- 
 vertising board with movable letters. These may be 
 home-made or purchased from the supply houses. 
 Or this publicity board may be so arranged that type- 
 written notices may be attached. Most large Sunday 
 schools can use to advantage a special bulletin-board. 
 
 4. Patronize the bulletin company of your city. 
 Sometimes suitable posters can be procured from the 
 Sunday-school publishing houses. 
 
 5. Street-car placards constitute an effective 
 publicity medium. These cards will be helpful at 
 any time, but will be especially so, Saturday and Sun- 
 day morning. 
 
 6. Cards or letters may well be distributed in 
 boarding-houses and hotels on Sunday mornings. 
 
144 ^ Successful Sunday School 
 
 7. Neatly framed placards announcing the Sun- 
 day school and inviting to its services are helpful 
 when placed in railroad stations, hotel lobbies, stores 
 and other public places. 
 
 8. The local papers, whether weekly or daily, are 
 usually glad to carry news-notes and announcements 
 which are of interest to any considerable number of 
 their readers. 
 
 The ** Publicity Hand Book," prepared by Mr. F. 
 E. Burkhalter especially for the use of Southern 
 Baptist churches, gives specific suggestions for pre- 
 paring news-copy and display advertising which 
 must be of value to those who lack experience and 
 training in the preparation of such material. These 
 suggestions are so timely and come with such high 
 authority, we venture to reproduce some of them. 
 
 1. Submit only such matter as is fresh. Material 
 that is out of date is not news. 
 
 2. See that all copy is easily read. Use type- 
 writer if possible and leave ample space between lines 
 for correction. Write only on one side of the paper. 
 
 3. Use simple words, brief sentences and short 
 paragraphs. 
 
 4. Tell all the essential facts of the story in the 
 first paragraph as briefly and in just as interesting 
 manner as possible. 
 
 5. Leave plenty of space at the top of the first 
 page for the writing of headlines, but do not under- 
 take to furnish these headlines yourself. 
 
 6. Be accurate. Never sacrifice your facts for 
 interest, but present them in as attractive and brief 
 fashion as possible. 
 
Advertising the Sunday School 145 
 
 7. Write for the man of the street, avoiding 
 clerical and other technical expressions. The aver- 
 age man is not highly educated, but he understands 
 plain English. 
 
 8. Never ask for the insertion in the news col- 
 umns of matter that should be paid for as advertis- 
 ing. 
 
 9. Get copy to the papers as early as possible. 
 For afternoon papers copy usually has the best 
 chance for publication if handed in by 8 a. m., and 
 for morning papers not later than 5 p. M. For 
 weekly papers, early Monday morning is usually an 
 acceptable hour. 
 
XVII 
 
 THE TEACHERS' MEETING AND THE 
 WORKERS' COUNCIL 
 
 THE first of these, true to its designation, is 
 not an organization, but a meeting, an as- 
 sembly, of teachers for study and mutual 
 profit. The Workers' Council, also true to its desig- 
 nation, is an organization, the governing body of the 
 school, the proper medium through which plans and 
 policies for the school are developed and announced. 
 The Teachers' Meeting. It should, of course, be 
 held weekly. A schedule which has found favour in 
 many large schools is somewhat as follows : 
 
 Wednesday 
 6:00 p. M. Meet for lunch. 
 6:30 p. M. Departmental conferences. 
 7:00 p. M. Teachers' Meeting for study 
 
 of lessons. 
 7:30 p. M. Mid-week prayer-meeting. 
 
 The lunch should either be free to all interested 
 workers, being provided by the church, or it should 
 be offered to the officers and teachers upon the basis 
 of approximate cost. Willing hands and loving 
 hearts can with proper appeal be enlisted to prepare 
 this evening meal, as can be attested by the experi- 
 ence of churches in various parts of the land ex- 
 tending through many years. 
 
 146 
 
The Teachers* Meeting 147 
 
 Various methods have been suggested as suitable 
 for the conduct of the teachers' meeting. The so- 
 called " Angle Method " has met with special favour 
 and has much to commend it. The outlines for the 
 teachers' meeting used in the First Baptist Church, 
 Nashville, Tenn., are offered as suggestive. 
 
 The purpose of the weekly Teachers' Meeting as 
 contemplated in this program is four-fold : 
 
 1. SOCIAL. The opportunity afforded by the 
 
 thirty minutes lunch for fellowship is helpful 
 and uplifting. 
 
 2. BUSINESS. 
 
 (i) The general conference for fifteen minutes at 
 the close of the lunch around the table di- 
 rected by the Superintendent gives an oppor- 
 tunity for the presentation and discussion of 
 questions affecting the school as a whole. 
 
 (2) The departmental conferences, ten minutes, 
 preceding the lesson period, affords an oppor- 
 tunity for the consideration of vital questions 
 concerning the work of each department. 
 Led by departmental superintendents. 
 
 3. LESSON STUDY— thirty-five minutes. 
 
 (i) Graded lessons: two graded lessons for fol- 
 lowing Sunday taught in each group twenty- 
 five minutes. Brief talks on " Lesson-Build- 
 ing," and story-telling, ten minutes. Adjourn 
 at 7:50 to mid-week prayer-meeting. 
 
 (2) Uniform Lessons. "Angle Method." The 
 " Angle Method " presents a simple, practical 
 
148 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 plan to teachers for gathering material, plan- 
 ning the lesson and methods of teaching it. 
 Adjourn to mid-week prayer-meeting, 7:50. 
 
 4. PRAYER. 
 
 At 7 : 50 the officers and teachers assemble 
 with the mid-week prayer-meeting. 
 Brief reports from each departmental super- 
 intendent as to attendance and interest. 
 
 GRADED LESSON ASSIGNMENTS 
 
 Should be made by departmental superintendents one 
 week in advance. Assigned to teachers in rotation. 
 
 UNIFORM LESSON ASSIGNMENTS 
 
 Should be made by the general superintendent or 
 the general secretary on Sunday morning preceding 
 the Teachers' Meeting. Assigned in rotation alpha- 
 betically. 
 
 " THE TEN ANGLES " 
 ANGLE No. I — Lesson Text — Lesson Story. 
 
 Read the lesson text or tell the story in your 
 own words. 
 
 ANGLE No. 2 — Connection. 
 
 Give subject of last lesson, brief intervening 
 histoi-y, time, place and circumstances leading 
 to this lesson. 
 
 ANGLE No. 3 — Biography. 
 
 Give the names of persons, classes and na- 
 tions mentioned or referred to in this lesson. 
 
 ANGLE No. 4 — References. 
 
 Give helpful references and parallel passages 
 showing how they bear on the lesson. 
 
The Teachers' Meeting 149 
 
 ANGLE No. 5 — Orientalisms. 
 
 Give any Oriental customs or manners pecul- 
 iar to this lesson, or any facts in geography 
 that would be helpful in understanding it. 
 
 ANGLE No. 6 — Point of Contact. 
 
 Give a good way to introduce this lesson, so 
 as to secure attention from the start. 
 
 ANGLE No. 7 — Central Truth. 
 
 Give the central truth of the lesson and the 
 reason for its choice. 
 
 ANGLE No. 2r— Other Teachings. 
 
 Put on the blackboard the other important 
 truths. 
 
 ANGLE No. 9 — Illustrations. 
 
 Give one or two illustrations that will help in 
 teaching this lesson. 
 
 ANGLE No. 10 — Practical Application. 
 
 Make a practical suggestion of the teachings 
 of this lesson. 
 
 Each Angler will have three minutes — no more. 
 
 ASSIGNMENT OF ANGLES 
 
 We want you 
 
 (Name of teacher) 
 
 to be present Wednesday evening 
 
 (Date) 
 192 1, to present Angle No 
 
 The Workers' Council. This body should be com- 
 posed of the general officers, together with the de- 
 partmental officers, including, of course, the officers 
 of the Cradle Roll and the Home Departments. Reg- 
 
i^o A Successful Sunday School 
 
 ular monthly meetings should be held and such oc- 
 casional meetings as may seem to be required. At 
 these meetings the superintendent, of course, should 
 preside, while the Sunday-school secretary should 
 keep all necessary records. 
 
 The meeting offers opportunity to consider and 
 determine policies and plans, and will constitute a 
 means of harmonizing and unifying the work of the 
 entire school. 
 
XVIII 
 
 TEACHER TRAINING ESSENTIAL 
 TO SUCCESS 
 
 THE teacher stands central in the whole 
 Sunday-school program. The entire or- 
 ganization is to be built around the teacher. 
 If the teacher fails, the whole framework of the 
 Sunday school goes largely for naught. Successful 
 teachers make successful Sunday schools. The wise 
 superintendent will keep a clear and constant eye 
 on the teachers and will count the work of the 
 teacher as every way fundamental. The trained 
 teacher is moreover essential to successful Sunday- 
 school management. Superintendents find that the 
 teachers who lend intelligent support to their 
 cherished plans for organization and enlargement 
 are invariably the teachers who have received train- 
 ing. 
 
 Our teachers must be trained because of the dif- 
 ficulty of their tasks and the limitations under which 
 they labour. They teach not the material which is 
 tangible and visible, but spiritual truth which can 
 neither be handled nor seen. They teach a book 
 which from its nature and from the conditions un- 
 der which it was produced involves peculiar diffi- 
 culty. They interpret to unfolding life God, His 
 character, His revelation and His redemption. Not 
 
 151 
 
152 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 only do our teachers have a difficult task; they have 
 peculiar limitations and restrictions in the perform- 
 ance of this difficult task. Unlike public school 
 teachers they can neither enforce discipline nor re- 
 quire study. They have only about thirty minutes in 
 seven days for their teaching work, while many cur- 
 rents are all the week inevitably sweeping counter to 
 their teaching. 
 
 Our Bible School teachers ought to seek training 
 because a little training will do so much for them. 
 A little knowledge, according to the old proverb, is 
 a dangerous thing. In some lines and under some 
 conditions this may be true, but it is not true that a 
 little training is dangerous to a sensible and devout 
 teacher. Every teacher knows the essential features 
 of Sunday-school management and organization; a 
 little special instruction will give him a vision of ap- 
 proved modem methods in management and organ- 
 ization. Every teacher knows something, perhaps 
 much, of human nature and the laws of the mind 
 and heart ; a little special instruction will clarify his 
 knowledge of the pupil and set him in right lines of 
 endeavour. All teachers know something of the 
 laws and principles of teaching; but a little definite 
 and well adapted guidance may remove difficulties 
 which have long baffled and may start in lines of 
 more successful effort. It means much that the 
 teacher shall have an ideal toward which to strive. 
 With such an ideal he will certainly grow and de- 
 velop as a teacher. A little training skillfully ad- 
 ministered will give such an ideal and thus put the 
 teacher in the way of constant improvement. 
 
Teacher Training Essential to Success 153 
 
 The Bible School teacher should seek training he- 
 cause thus in the midst of congenial associates and 
 in the pursuit of congenial tasks he can find that 
 mental stimulus and that intellectual refreshment 
 which he needs. His duties, increased by his volun- 
 tary service in the Sunday school, may forbid his 
 finding recreation and refreshment in " Shakespear- 
 ean Clubs " or " Conversational Clubs " or in any 
 other of the helpful or inspiring lines which are open 
 to people of more leisure. Many busy and burdened 
 religious workers have found in the training class 
 the very " club " they have long needed. 
 
 Our teachers should seek training because of the 
 wonderfully interesting and profitable lines of study 
 offered in our Normal Courses. One who knows not 
 the fine points of modern Sunday-school manage- 
 ment can hardly boast of reasonable intelligence con- 
 cerning ordinary matters of current religious work. 
 All the world is studying life, psychology, under 
 some phase or name. Our Normal Courses give in 
 charming fashion the principles underlying pupil 
 study. From the earliest history of the race the 
 principles and laws of teaching have been of deep in- 
 terest. But our Normal Courses bring to plain peo- 
 ple these principles in the simplest, most helpful way. 
 People are studying the Bible in numbers and with 
 zeal never known before. But the Bible work of- 
 fered in our Normal Courses is the crispest, bright- 
 est, most practical work anywhere offered. 
 
 Our teachers ought to be trained because such 
 training is the order of the day. Literally thousands 
 of Christian workers are now enrolled in training 
 
154 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 classes. Many schools have already established a 
 rule that none but diploma holders may occupy posi- 
 tions on their teaching staff. Once we entreatingly 
 asked, " Will you teach ? " Now, we are asking, 
 *' Can you teach ? " A teacher with nearly fifty years 
 of experience in teaching said recently on receiving 
 a Normal diploma, " I see a great procession moving 
 on and I cannot get my consent to be left out." 
 
 Finally, our teachers ought to seek Normal train- 
 ing because such training is offered zuithout money 
 and witJioiit price. At great expense the Sunday- 
 School Boards maintain for the sake of these teach- 
 ers Departments of Sunday-School I^Mucation, 
 which place all of their resources freely at the dis- 
 posal of Sunday-school teachers. The International 
 Sunday-School Association lends itself without re- 
 serve to these tasks. Skilled field workers serve the 
 churches and the teachers freely to the extent of 
 their ability. Leaflet literature, awards, record^ 
 keeping are offered without charge. 
 
XIX 
 
 RECORDS IN THE MAKING OF A SUC- 
 CESSFUL SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 RECORDS constitute a vital factor in build- 
 ing and maintaining a Sunday school. Suc- 
 cessful Sunday-school leaders lay prime 
 emphasis on their records. Department stores have 
 been made x->ossible by systems of bookkeeping which 
 enable the general manager and the department 
 heads to look constantly and clearly through the 
 business of each department. Departmental Sunday 
 schools in like manner depend for their success on 
 records which reflect conditions throughout the 
 school. 
 
 Accurate records tactfully made public constitute 
 a suitable recognition which must prove a desirable 
 award for faithfulness. This will hold for the school 
 as a whole, for each department and for each pupil. 
 The value of such publicity has long been recog- 
 nized in Sunday-school work, and in recent years, 
 especially in connection with efforts to build very 
 large schools, this publicity of records has come to be 
 regarded as invaluable. So true is this that some 
 large Sunday schools are employing expert stenog- 
 raphers at considerable expense to keep the records 
 and prepare statements for individual pupils, for 
 
 155 
 
156 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 classes, for departments and for the whole school. 
 Pupils who are at present studying in the public 
 school or who have in past studied in public schools, 
 will readily recognize and appreciate the educational 
 value of accurate records. 
 
 Various systems of records have been developed, 
 all of them possessing elements of merit. Perhaps 
 the most scientific and effective system yet devised is 
 " The Six- Point Record System." The name of the 
 system gives a hint of its nature ; it records six points 
 upon which the officers, teachers and pupils are 
 graded, i, Attendance; 2, On Time; 3, Bible 
 Brought; 4, Lesson Studied; 5, Offering; 6, Attend- 
 ance on the preaching service. 
 
 Are not these six things essential to a successful 
 Sunday school? Primarily we desire attendance; 
 regular attendance is necessary if we are to accom- 
 plish the educational and religious ends which we 
 seek. Punctuality is greatly to be desired, both for 
 the immediate work of the Sunday school and as a 
 measure of equipment for life's tasks. Ours is a 
 Bible school ; what can be more meaningful than the 
 bringing of the Bible into the school sessions? May 
 not the substitution of "helps" of various kinds des- 
 troy the distinctive element in our school? Surely 
 we desire studied lessons. Sunday-school teachers 
 do not have the authority nor exercise the discipline 
 which the public schools permit and some gentle 
 stimulus Is needed to secure a regular study of the 
 Sunday-school lessons. The bringing of an offer- 
 ing Is essential, both for the maintenance of self- 
 respect in lending a proper support to the institution 
 
Records 157 
 
 which so unselfishly ministers to us, and for the de- 
 velopment of the habit of giving. Attendance on the 
 preaching service is, of course, a prime essential for 
 Sunday-school pupils. We must not grow a genera- 
 tion which is careless and neglectful of the worship- 
 service of the church. 
 
 Thus this Six-Point Record System emphasizes 
 the six outstanding duties which require to be 
 pressed upon Sunday-school scholars. The proper 
 use of this system brings these six cardinal duties 
 constantly to the attention of the members of the 
 school. It is difficult to overestimate the possibili- 
 ties in the quiet continuous appeal and influence of 
 the system when operated through the years. 
 
 As devised and offered by the Sunday- School 
 Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, Nash- 
 ville, Tenn., the system provides cards, differing in 
 colour, to be used in keeping the records. (These 
 appear at the end of this volume.) 
 
 Records and Recognitions in Order to he Effective 
 Require the Utmost Care and Accuracy. 
 
 The Six-Point Record System and all similar sys- 
 tems, in order to be educationally effective, must be 
 skillfully and accurately handled. Any looseness 
 which encourages or permits pupils to obtain credits 
 to which they are not entitled, must be positively 
 harmful. Instead of cultivating valuable life habits, 
 we may thus confirm habits of duplicity which will 
 be immeasurably harmful. In the easy-going atmos- 
 phere which marks the Sunday school and in the ab- 
 sence of the discipline which marks the day-school. 
 
158 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 pupils may claim " studied lesson," when the 
 thoughtful teacher will discover that the claim is 
 not well based. Pupils will sometimes declare their 
 purpose to " attend preaching," thus getting the 
 credit due on this point, while the observant teacher 
 may note that the pupils later on overlook or " for- 
 get " their intention to remain for the preaching 
 service. Pupils may carelessly claim credit for " on 
 time " when the teacher may recall that they came 
 in after the required time. In all of these condi- 
 tions the pupils are to be safeguarded, gently and 
 sympathetically, with a view to real character-devel- 
 opment. 
 
 The making of the records in the class and in the 
 departments must be done with such dispatch as will 
 prevent the taking of undue time from the study of 
 the Bible-lesson. The general superintendent will, 
 especially in the early months of the introduction of 
 the system, wish to carefully guard this point. A 
 class of one dozen pupils, marking each on six dis- 
 tinct points has been actually known to consume 
 more than half of the time allotted for the lesson 
 in the leisurely making of the records ! 
 
 All methods of stimulus which involve recogni- 
 tion and the appeal to the desire for credit must be 
 carefully administered. The motives to which we 
 thus appeal, while they are within limits legitimate 
 and entirely proper, are yet not the highest motives. 
 We may encourage lesson-study by a suitable award 
 in the way of credit or recognition, but the wise 
 teacher will constantly foster also other and better 
 motives and will seek to inspire lesson-study by 
 
Records 1 59 
 
 means of the beautiful charm and interest of the 
 lessons themselves. We may for a time secure 
 church attendance by means of certain credits given, 
 but if we are vi^ise we will not rely too strongly on 
 this motive, but will cultivate a love for the sanc- 
 tuary which will make attendance on the worship- 
 hour a voluntary and spontaneous joy. 
 
 The fact thus pointed out that credits and recog- 
 nitions may be handled in a careless or arbitrary 
 fashion so as to produce pretense and hollowness 
 must not militate against their usefulness when 
 rightly handled along with other high motives. Some 
 perils are almost inevitably involved in all devices 
 for the quickening of interest and the stimulation of 
 effort. A good record system effectively admin- 
 istered is of inestimable value in promoting the best 
 Sunday-school work. 
 
XX 
 
 WEEK-DAY WORK FOR THE SUNDAY 
 SCHOOL 
 
 IN other chapters in this book we have discussed 
 various week-day activities. In order to direct 
 special attention to this question which is vital 
 both in building and in maintaining a large and ef- 
 ficient Sunday school, we bring together in this chap- 
 ter some special suggestions. 
 
 The week-day activities suitable for the Sunday 
 school are of course many and varied. We may 
 roughly classify them as : 
 
 1. Social activities. 
 
 2. Recreational activities. 
 
 3. Athletics. 
 
 4. Social uplift. 
 
 5. Class or Sunday-school building. 
 
 6. Daily Vacation Bible Schools. 
 
 Social Activities. It requires mucH sympathy and 
 not a little discernment to direct the social activities 
 of different groups, especially when those groups are 
 somewhat far removed in age or viewpoint from 
 ourselves. In general it is safe to let such groups 
 follow largely their own impulses and determine 
 their own plays and entertainments. 
 
 160 
 
Week-Day Work for the Sunday School 16 1 
 
 Those who may wish suggestions for the enter- 
 tainment of children, will find Carolyn Sherwin 
 Bailey's " The Children's Book of Games and 
 Parties " most helpful. The book falls into two 
 parts — games and parties. Among the games which 
 Miss Bailey suggests and describes, are the follow- 
 ing: Ball Games, Games for the Barn, Games for a 
 Walk, Games for a Rainy Day, Games for the School 
 Yard, Fireside Games, Rainy Sunday Plays, Games 
 and Plays at any Party, Hallowe'en Games, Wind 
 Games. Under the head of Parties, she discusses 
 besides these Story Parties, A Noah's Ark Party, A 
 Soap Bubble Party, The Child's Birthday Party, A 
 Gingerbread Party, and a Garden Tea Party. 
 
 It is, of course, more difficult to direct the social 
 activities of young people and adults. Mr. Walter 
 M. Wood has stated five tests which from the stand- 
 point of the Young Men's Christian Association 
 should be applied to any contemplated social event. 
 The tests may apply as well in the case of the Sun- 
 day school. Substituting the Sunday school for the 
 Young Men's Christian Association, these tests 
 would be : 
 
 1. Will It attract men and boys into the Sun- 
 
 day-school fellowship? 
 
 2. Will it aid the Sunday school to assimilate 
 
 its members into its varied activities? 
 
 3. Will it socialize the members by bringing 
 
 different individuals and groups into such 
 contacts as will increase their interest in 
 each other, reducing their prejudices and 
 cultivating their sympathies? 
 
l62 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 4. Will it recreate or relieve from the tedium 
 
 and enervating strain of one's usual line 
 of thought and action? 
 
 5. Will it culture or grow the finer sensibilities 
 
 and appreciations? 
 
 Mr. E. C. Knapp, General Secretary of the Inland 
 Empire Association, has given us an invaluable book, 
 " The Sunday School Between Sundays." Chap- 
 ters of special interest are as follows : 
 
 Socials and Stunts, Picnics and Outings, Saturday 
 Afternoon Outings, Parades and Pageants, Athletics 
 and Playgrounds, Gardens and Gardening, Mission- 
 ary Dramatics, Children's Parties, Beautifying 
 Grounds and Buildings, Boy Scouts and Camp Fire 
 Girls, Some Miscellaneous Activities. 
 
 Recreational Activities. Under this head would 
 fall diversions as offered by the Boy Scouts, The 
 Pioneer Girls, The Camp Fire Girls, and similar or- 
 ganizations. See Chapter XL 
 
 Athletics. Many churches are providing play 
 rooms, gymnasiums and swimming pools in their 
 buildings, and especially in the southern parts of the 
 country where the bright open weather tempts to 
 out-of-door sport, the churches are providing cro- 
 quet grounds, tennis courts and other open-air play 
 grounds. 
 
 Social Uplift. Various phases of social service 
 appeal especially to organized classes. The Organ- 
 ized Class Departments of the Denominational 
 Boards or of the International Sunday-School Asso- 
 ciation will furnish literature making helpful suggef 
 tions. 
 
Week-Day Work for the Sunday School 163 
 
 Class or Sunday-School Building. Efforts in the 
 direction of extension and enlargement offer, of 
 course, an endless variety of week-day activities. 
 Suggestions are offered in various chapters of this 
 book and in the books which deal especially with the 
 building of Sunday schools. 
 
 Daily Vacation Bible Schools. In our congested 
 cities multitudes of children play in the streets ex- 
 posed to all kinds of peril throughout the vacation 
 season. The Daily Vacation Bible School has dem- 
 onstrated its practical value in assembling these chil- 
 dren for training and Bible study. Literature and 
 full information may be secured from the Daily Va- 
 cation Bible School Association^ 90 Bible House, 
 New York City. 
 
XXI 
 
 WHAT OF SPECIAL DAYS? 
 
 IN the really successful Sunday school every 
 Sunday must be a special day. The secret of 
 success lies in steady and continuous processes 
 faithfully maintained. The Sunday school is an in- 
 stitution which is both spiritual and educational in 
 its nature. It engages in serious business. This 
 business calls for sane, continuous and persistent 
 effort. It is primarily concerned with the teaching 
 of the Bible and it succeeds or fails in proportion as 
 it imparts Bible knowledge in ways which strengthen 
 and develop Christian character. 
 
 The observance of *' Special Days " has without 
 doubt been overdone. The temptation is great and 
 the tendency is constant to depend on special days 
 with attractive announcements and unusual pro- 
 grams for the stimulation of attendance and the 
 maintenance of interest. Certain Sunday schools 
 have won the unenviable title of " Special-Day Sun- 
 day Schools." Some time ago a Sunday school in a 
 certain city attained a reputation for exceedingly 
 large attendance, reports stating that the attendance 
 often reached four thousand, with the suggestion 
 that this was probably the largest Sunday school in 
 the world. Feeling a special interest in large Sun- 
 
 164 
 
What of Special Days *? 1 65 
 
 day schools, the author sought fuller information 
 with a view to visiting the school. He learned that 
 the Sunday school in question was a '' special day 
 school." On certain occasions, by extensive adver- 
 tising, by strenuous promotion methods, by offering 
 a specially attractive program, the school drew to- 
 gether thousands of people. It was stated that the 
 superintendent, being a man of means and of great 
 zeal, freely expended money and at times even gave 
 cash awards for the bringing of certain numbers. It 
 developed that ordinarily the attendance averaged 
 only about four or five hundred ! This kind of Sun- 
 day school, with its inflation and pretense, makes a 
 spectacle over which angels might well weep. Such 
 a school dissipates and vitiates the efforts of serious 
 workers to teach the Bible and to promote character- 
 building processes. 
 
 The Sunday school which seeks to live and grow 
 on the poor and variable interest which may be 
 aroused by the observance of special days and by the 
 use of spasmo'dic methods, is in a most pitiable 
 plight. The Sunday school which, by special meth- 
 ods, secures large occasional attendance which it can- 
 not hope permanently to maintain, by so much un- 
 dermines real Bible instruction and brings itself 
 under suspicion of faulty methods. 
 
 Our Sunday schools have suffered much by such 
 zealous and too-frequent observance of special days 
 as lowers the spiritual tone, interferes with sober and 
 continuous Bible study and caters unduly to the love 
 for the sensational. According to Mr. Marion Law- 
 rance, more than two hundred special days are being 
 
l66 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 observed by the Sunday schools of America, " while 
 at least one hundred of them have come into more or 
 less prominence." It is interesting that an institu- 
 tion with only fifty-two sessions in the whole year 
 should have developed a hundred special days which 
 have come to be generally recognized. 
 
 The word of caution which we have set down re- 
 garding special days must not be allowed to weigh 
 against a sane and proper observance of some such 
 days. The very fact that this idea has been over- 
 worked is some evidence of its inherent merit. The 
 All-wise Father has broken what might be the mon- 
 otony of an unbroken year by giving us four more 
 or less clearly-defined seasons. Our natures crave 
 variety. While the Sunday school is concerned pri- 
 marily with Bible study, it yet faces out in so many 
 directions and touches life at so many angles, a 
 proper recognition and observance of special days 
 may be fruitful in many ways. 
 
 The earlier conception and observance of " Spe- 
 cial Days " usually involved the setting aside of the 
 lesson and the ordinary program for some special 
 and extraordinary program. It is doubtful whether 
 such procedure is ever desirable or justifiable. 
 Gradually we have come to recognize that we may 
 maintain our lesson period and our general schedule 
 and yet in many helpful ways observe special days. 
 The most important of the special days, such as 
 Christmas and Easter, have been given place and 
 proper treatment in various lesson systems. This 
 makes their observance natural and almost inevitable. 
 
 There are many special days to which no Sunday 
 
What of Special Days ? 167 
 
 school can well afford to be indifferent. Some of 
 these come in the natural round of the calendar, as 
 Christmas, Easter, Fourth of July; others grow out 
 of the needs of the Sunday school itself, as Rally 
 Day, Home Department Day, Cradle Roll Day; yet 
 others grow out of the obligations of the Sunday 
 school, as Missionary Day, Denominational Day, 
 Orphanage Day. A proper observance of these and 
 similar days may without breaking the regular Bible 
 instruction, or disturbing the usual order, stimulate 
 attendance and serve important educational pur- 
 poses. 
 
 This question, like all others which concern the 
 Sunday school, must be considered departmentally 
 as well as from the standpoint of the school as a 
 whole. There are days which may profitably be ob- 
 served by certain departments which would be en- 
 tirely meaningless to other departments. Christmas, 
 for instance, will mean much more to the younger 
 grades than to the grown-ups. Decision Day can 
 have little place in the Cradle Roll Class or in the 
 Beginners' Department. Certain days may well be 
 observed in some of the departments and entirely 
 ignored in others. Certain days may well be largely 
 emphasized in some departments and may have much 
 less emphasis in other departments. 
 
 Mr. Marion Lawrance has brought us under obli- 
 gation by his admirable book, " Special Days in the 
 Sunday School." The book is replete with happy 
 and stimulating suggestions and is indispensable for 
 superintendents who are jealous for the freshness 
 and variety of their programs. Mr. Lawrance well 
 
l68 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 insists that a majority of special-day celebrations 
 should be confined to the opening service of the 
 Sunday school in order that the period of Bible 
 study may be uninterrupted. Among other sug- 
 gestive chapter headings, v^^e find a long list of special 
 days happily grouped as follows : " Departmental 
 and Related Days," " Anniversary Days," " Patriotic 
 Days," "Folk and Fraternal Days," "Educational 
 Days," " Missionary and Benevolent Days," " Mis- 
 cellaneous Days," and "Evangelistic Days." This 
 book might well be in the hands of every general and 
 departmental superintendent. 
 
XXII 
 
 STANDARDS FOR THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 STANDARDS have long been used to stimulate 
 Sunday-school attendance and to increase 
 Sunday-school efficiency. Like all other stim- 
 ulants the standards must, of course, be used skill- 
 fully and in accordance with sound educational prin- 
 ciples. We have become familiar with standards of 
 at least three kinds. 
 
 Class Standards. 
 Departmental Standards. 
 Standards for the Whole School. 
 
 These standards have been widely offered and ex- 
 ploited by the Sunday-school houses. Full informa- 
 tion concerning the various standards may be had 
 upon application to any of the denominational pub- 
 lishing houses or the State Headquarters of the In- 
 ternational Sunday-School Association. 
 
 The Sunday-School Board of the Southern Baptist 
 Convention, Nashville, Tenn., has erected a special 
 super-standard for the larger Sunday schools which 
 have better equipment. Smaller Sunday schools or 
 schools without adequate buildings are not encour- 
 aged to undertake to reach this Advanced Standard. 
 Since It is believed to be the only standard of its kind 
 yet erected, and especially since it has demonstrated 
 
 169 
 
lyo A Successful Sunday School 
 
 its power to stimulate and bless the type of Sunday 
 schools which we are discussing in these pages, we 
 give below this 
 
 ADVANCED STANDARD 
 
 I. AN ADAPTED BUILDING 
 
 1. Department and Ci^ass Quarters. 
 
 The building shall provide ample facilities to enable 
 each department and class to be " standard." 
 
 _ (Standards for departments and classes will be fur- 
 nished on request.) 
 
 2. BUII^DING FACII.ITIES FOR MaIN ScHOOL. 
 
 The building shall provide adequately for the assembly 
 of the whole school v^^hen desired, as well as ample and 
 convenient quarters for the library, and for the secre- 
 taries. 
 
 II. PHYSICAL EQUIPMENT 
 
 3. Equipment eor the Main Schooi,, Departments and 
 
 ClyASSES. 
 
 The school shall provide ample physical equipment, in 
 the way of furniture, appliances, musical instruments, 
 etc., for the use of the general officers, and the main 
 school, as well as for the departments and classes, as re- 
 quired by the Departmental and Class Standards. 
 
 4. Records and Library. 
 
 The school shall provide ample supplies and appliances 
 for an adequate system of records, and an adequate 
 library. (1) For General Officers: records and report 
 blanks needed by each in his specific work; a blackboard 
 for the General Superintendent; (2) for the General Sec- 
 retary: a room or designated space, furnished with suit- 
 able desk, shelving and drawers, also the Secretarial sup- 
 plies needed for the Record System and a blackboard for 
 his report; (3) there shall be a piano and an ample 
 supply of song books; (4) the Librarian shall have suit- 
 able desk room, shelving, record and report blanks and 
 serving facilities conveniently located. (.5) The Record 
 System shall include: (a) Enrollment, (b) individual 
 records of officers, teachers and pupils, (c) class records 
 
Standards for the Sunday School 171 
 
 and reports, (d) departmental records and reports, (e) 
 general records and reports and (f) quarterly or monthly- 
 reports to the home. (6) The Library must contain 
 one-half (J^) as many bound volumes as there are pupils 
 enrolled in the school, exclusive of the beginners, pri- 
 mary and home departments, embracing in the subjects 
 an equitable distribution among Baptist Doctrine and 
 History, Sunday School and B. Y. P. U. work, Missions, 
 Temperance, Soul-winning, Christian Service and Stew- 
 ardship, with a proper proportion of books for the pupils 
 of each department above the primary. 
 
 IIL DENOMINATIONAL SUPPORT 
 
 5. Supporting a Fui,i, Denominationai, Program. 
 
 The school shall give active support to the full pro- 
 gram for benevolences, missions, and Christian educa- 
 tion as outlined by the denominational organization 
 with which the church affiliates. 
 
 6. Ai,i, Causes Presented Educationai,i.y. 
 
 All the causes fostered by the denominational organiza- 
 tion, with which the church affiliates, shall be presented 
 annually to the school educationally, as well as for 
 contributions, as scheduled. 
 
 IV. TRAINED WORKERS 
 
 7. Training oe Generai, Geeicers. 
 
 All the general officers shall hold the Convention 
 Normal Course Diploma, fifty per cent (50%) of them 
 holding the blue seal, and there shall be one full post- 
 graduate among the officers and teachers of the school. 
 
 8. Training of the Departmentai, Geeicers and Teachers. 
 
 The training requirements of the departmental officers 
 and of the teachers shall be as indicated in the depart- 
 mental and class standards hereinafter provided. 
 
 V. STANDARD DEPARTMENTS AND CLASSES 
 
 9. Standard Departments. 
 
 All of the departments of the school shall be " stand- 
 ard " departments as follows: Cradle Roll, Beginners, 
 Primary, Junior, Intermediate, Senior, Adult and Home 
 departments. 
 
 (See department standards which will be furnished on 
 request.) 
 
172 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 10. Standard Ci^asses. 
 
 Four classes in the Junior department and four classes 
 in the Intermediate department, two of boys and two of 
 girls in each, two classes in the Senior department, one 
 of young men and one of young women, and one class in 
 the Adult department shall be " standard." 
 
 (See class standards which will be furnished on re- 
 quest.) 
 
 HOW TO ATTAIN THE ADVANCED STANDARD 
 
 The one comprehensive requirement in the Standard 
 is point 9, which declares that each of the eight depart- 
 ments of the school shall be " Standard." Schools as- 
 piring to attain the Advanced Standard will therefore 
 seek first of all to bring each department up to meet the 
 Standard erected for it. While this is being done, atten- 
 tion will be given to the various requirements of the 
 Standard as set forth above. 
 
 All Standard awards are bestowed for the calendar 
 year in which they are granted. 
 
 Applications must be made anew for each succeeding 
 year. 
 
XXIII 
 THE COMBINED SERVICE 
 
 EXPERIMENTS almost without number have 
 been made in combining the Sunday school 
 with the preaching service. Manifestly 
 something is seriously wrong with our long estab- 
 lished custom. We assemble the people for the study 
 of the Bible. We go through a complete program 
 of worship. We pronounce the benediction; very 
 likely the pastor oifers this " closing prayer." Then 
 we wonder that great numbers go away and do not 
 return later to the preaching service. 
 
 Could any procedure be more naive ? If we really 
 wished our children and young people to go away, 
 could we more skillfully encourage them to do so? 
 Pastors have lamented, parents have grieved, teach- 
 ers have mourned, superintendents have berated, but 
 what is more natural than that people should leave 
 when every arrangement is made to that end and a 
 " benediction " is pronounced in anticipation of their 
 leaving if not in invitation for them to take their de- 
 parture? That was a discerning pastor who served 
 notice on his superintendent that he must never ask 
 him to pronounce a benediction after the Sunday- 
 school service and ask the Lord to send the people 
 away. They will go away in sufficient numbers 
 
 173 
 
174 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 without being especially invited to do so. Surely we 
 must find " a yet more excellent way." 
 
 The combined service has long been put forward 
 as a solution of the problem of the non-attendance 
 on the preaching service of the Sunday-school pupils. 
 It has not always proven satisfactory. The habits 
 which have grown through generations cannot lightly 
 be set aside. Any innovation in established methods 
 of worship must be skillfully introduced and wisely 
 handled. The author has seen the combined service 
 successfully introduced and has seen it in at least 
 one instance pass the experimental stage. 
 
 This program seems to have met with favour; all 
 of the departments meet for opening service in their 
 own rooms ; the departments from the Juniors up as- 
 semble in the main auditorium twenty minutes be- 
 fore the hour for the preaching service. The Be- 
 ginners and Primaries conduct their own closing 
 exercises and dismiss from their department rooms. 
 When the Sunday school is assembled in the audi- 
 torium reports are received and posted, announce- 
 ments are made, brief worship is conducted. The 
 pastor is on the platform through this period, and 
 without intermission at the time for opening the 
 morning worship, the choir begins to sing the doxol- 
 ogy and the pastor takes the place of the superin- 
 tendent and proceeds with the service. It is not 
 necessary to make either service shorter, though with 
 the presence of large numbers of children in the 
 preaching service, the pastor will naturally guard the 
 time for the preaching hour. 
 
 Certain permanent and exceedingly gratifying re- 
 
The Combined Service 1 75 
 
 suits have been manifest. The older people declare 
 that never before in the history of the church did the 
 children and young people attend the preaching serv- 
 ice in such numbers. As a natural consequence, the 
 auditorium was crowded, chairs being used in the 
 aisles. But there were results which could hardly 
 have been anticipated. The pastor, cheered and 
 quickened by the presence of many children and by 
 overflowing audiences, preached with such fervour 
 and such evangelistic zeal as brought on a perennial 
 revival. In three months fifty-three converts were 
 received into church membership, and Sunday after 
 Sunday the great audiences were stirred and blessed. 
 Like most preachers whose congregations consist al- 
 most wholly of adults, the pastor had practically 
 ceased to take account of the children and rarely 
 lowered himself to their plane. With the presence 
 of goodly numbers of children, all of this was 
 changed. It quickly became apparent that the pastor 
 had readjusted his methods and that he had in con- 
 sequence gained a place in the hearts of the young 
 which he had not held before. 
 
 There were yet other results. The pastor was 
 brought into more vital support of the Sunday-school 
 program and the lines seem to be completely obliter- 
 ated between " the church " and " the Sunday 
 school." All came to feel instinctively that the 
 church was in the Sunday school and the Sunday 
 school was in the church. It became easy and natu- 
 ral for "the board of deacons" to vote the rather 
 large sums needed for the Sunday school. 
 
 We have introduced this discussion, not so much 
 
176 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 because of the abstract interest in the question at 
 issue, but because of its bearing on the success of the 
 Sunday school. The largest Sunday schools which 
 we know, those numbering two thousand and up- 
 wards, all seem to gravitate toward the combined 
 service. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say 
 that the adoption of the combined service has helped 
 materially in their eiforts to attain their present nimi- 
 bers and efficiency. It is at least suggestive that suc- 
 cessful Sunday-school builders almost without ex- 
 ception incorporate this method in their plans. 
 
 We offer some observations and suggestions in this 
 connection. 
 
 1. So long as the Sunday school is conducted as 
 a complete service in entire separateness from the 
 preaching service, so long will we find large numbers 
 of Sunday-school pupils leaving when the Sunday 
 school is dismissed; so long will we find it difficult 
 for the pastor to lend the fullest pastoral support to 
 the Sunday school ; so long will there remain the in- 
 tangible but more or less real line between the Sun- 
 day school and the church. 
 
 2. Such readjustments as are involved in the iiir 
 troducing of the combined service must require time 
 and tact and patience. It will require time for the 
 people and especially the working forces to accustom 
 themselves to the new order; it will require tact on 
 the part of the superintendent and his associates in 
 assembling the school and creating a spirit of loyalty 
 to the preaching service; it will require patience on 
 the part of officers and teachers and pupils in the 
 adjustment of many details. 
 
The Combined Service 177 
 
 3. Some things are essential to the success of the 
 combined service. Among these we may name punc- 
 tuahty all the way round. The departments must be 
 punctual in assembling in the auditorium; the super- 
 intendent must be punctual in conducting and con- 
 cluding his closing exercises; the pastor must be 
 punctual in opening his preaching service. A dispo- 
 sition to lag here and there with an occasional in- 
 fringement on the time of the preaching service will 
 produce inevitable confusion and dissatisfaction. 
 The Sunday school should be assembled in the audi- 
 torium by departments iind the several departments 
 should remain seated together for the preaching serv- 
 ice. There must be as little confusion and changing 
 of seats as possible just at the moment when the 
 pastor is introducing the worship service. Certain 
 space should be blocked off for each department. 
 Ushers should be carefully trained and must be alert 
 in seating the people who may be coming in for the 
 preaching service. 
 
 4. The meeting of the problems which arise in 
 introducing and managing the combined service are 
 such as require firmness, sympathy and initiative. It 
 is easy to run in old grooves and follow long-estab- 
 lished customs. It is far better to do this than to 
 undertake innovations unless there is clearly such co- 
 operative executive resource as promises a vigorous 
 and successful handling of the problems which are 
 sure to arise when innovations are made. 
 
XXIV 
 
 WINNING TO CHRIST IN THE SUNDAY 
 SCHOOL 
 
 BIG Sunday schools have special perils. The 
 bending of energy toward the securing of 
 numbers, the spirit which may be engen- 
 dered by the very fact of large numbers, these and 
 other considerations may bring peril. The soul-win- 
 ning spirit, the evangelistic effort, must constitute the 
 salt which is to save and keep sweet our growing 
 Sunday schools. 
 
 Inviting and bringing the lost to the Saviour de- 
 pends rather upon spirit than method. It is more a 
 question of atmosphere than of direct effort. Happy 
 the workers who know the fine art of creating at- 
 mospheres favourable to evangelism. Once we have 
 created that fine intangible condition which we may 
 term a favouring atmosphere, the way is quite open 
 to success in winning the lost. 
 
 Only recently the author was in a service with a 
 pastor in which more than forty young people openly 
 and joyously confessed Jesus as Lord and Saviour. 
 Patient and faithful efforts, earnest prayers, many 
 visits, had prepared the way for the special service. 
 It was quickly manifest, as the pastor pressed the 
 claims of Christ and urged an immediate decision, 
 that somehow a favourable atmosphere had been cre- 
 ated. There was death-like stillness; every eye 
 seemed riveted on the preacher as he spoke. With- 
 out personal approach or individual persuasion in 
 
 178 
 
Winning to Christ in the Sunday School 179 
 
 the compelling atmosphere which had been created, 
 the young people quietly and solemnly yielded their 
 hearts in surrender to the Lord Jesus and publicly 
 confessed Him as Saviour. Souls cannot be saved in 
 the midst of hurry and noise and confusion. Souls 
 cannot be won to Christ in an irreverent atmosphere. 
 
 Some one tells of a woman who spent a season in 
 a home where she had been hitherto a stranger. 
 When she was leaving the house, standing on the 
 threshold, she said to her hostess, " I do not know 
 what it is ; I cannot define it ; but something in your 
 home, something about you, has made me think 
 about Jesus. When I came to your home, I was 
 drifting and indifferent ; I had not been in your home 
 more than a few days until I felt a strange tugging at 
 my heart strings; a deep sense of my unworthiness 
 possessed me; to make a long story short, I got out 
 my long-neglected Bible and went down on my knees 
 and gave myself anew to God and His service. I do 
 not know what it is, I cannot define it, but some- 
 thing about you made me want to be good." We 
 know what that strange something was; it was the 
 fine indefinable atmosphere which certain devout 
 saints create about themselves. 
 
 A young farmer wooed and won a beautiful and 
 intelligent young Hebrew woman and brought her to 
 the family home. A few weeks later, this young 
 woman astonished the whole countryside by openly 
 confessing Christ and asking to be baptized into the 
 near-by country church. Telling the story of it to 
 a friend, she said, " I do not quite understand it my- 
 self. From childhood I was grounded in the faith 
 
l8o A Successful Sunday School 
 
 of my fathers. But something about this home, I 
 cannot tell what it was, impressed me and created a 
 sense of lack. They never talked to me about their 
 Messiah — I should have resented it if they had — ^but 
 their quiet demeanour, their beautiful reverence, 
 their simple prayers at the table and at the family 
 altar, strangely affected me. One day when I was 
 alone I took out my Hebrew Bible and knelt before 
 my Hebrew God and I said, * Oh, God of my fa- 
 thers, if thou art the God and Father of this Lord 
 Jesus, if He is the promised Messiah, I want to 
 know it.* Light dawned; I saw and believed that 
 Jesus was the Son of the Living God." What was 
 it? Atmosphere, that wonderful irresistible some- 
 thing which some individuals and some churches 
 have a way of creating about themselves. 
 
 In winning the lost, it will help us to observe the 
 y departmental lines. We will wish to do our evan- 
 gelistic work, as we do our teaching work, by de- 
 partments. The advantages of departmentization 
 have been emphasized many times over. These ad- 
 vantages are many and great; one is led to wonder 
 whether the greatest of them all is not the contribu- 
 tion which is thus made to evangelism. The workers 
 ' in each department should be departmentally trained 
 for this high task. The pastor or superintendent, or 
 both, will wish to deal with each department accord- 
 ing to its nature and its needs. The word of instruc- 
 tion, the prayer, the plea, will be adapted to the age 
 and development in each department. Pastors m 
 wide circles bear glad witness to the blessings which 
 come from this departmentizing of evangelistic ef- 
 
Winning to Christ in the Sunday School 18 1 
 
 fort. Each department can be skillfully managed 
 with a view to the best spiritual fruitage. 
 
 By ministry to social instincts we may pave the 
 way for soul-winning. During the thirty years in 
 which Mr. Frank L. Brown was superintendent of 
 the Bushwick Avenue Methodist Sunday School in 
 Brooklyn, three thousand young people were led to 
 accept and confess Christ as Saviour. We get inter- 
 esting light on this remarkable record when we read 
 from Mr. Brown's own pen the following story: 
 " When I had a class of fourteen-year-old boys, 
 years ago, I made it a point to have them once a 
 month at my home for some eats and games. One 
 night the boys were playing a game of rolling 
 big agates on the parlour carpet, these agates 
 stopping as near as possible to a mark. In their 
 interest they forgot the carpet and dug big 
 ridges in it with their shoe tips. The next morn- 
 ing Mrs. Brown, then a young bride, came down 
 with me to the parlour : * Oh, Frank, my car- 
 pet, my carpet ? ' * Yes, my dear, but my boys, my 
 boys ! I think we've got the boys ! ' Twenty-five 
 years after, a popular judge asked me to sit beside 
 him on the bench while he sentenced the young pris- 
 oners. Always his first question was : * Did you go 
 to Sunday school? Why did you leave it? Why 
 did you get away from the influence of your teacher? 
 If I give you another chance, will you go back to 
 your teacher and to the school ? ' He told me that 
 rarely did the boys come before him again after that 
 advice. And later he introduced me to a judge of 
 the Supreme Court as his old Sunday-school teacher. 
 
l82 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 He was one of those boys who dug up our parlour 
 carpet years before. And I said, * What's a mile of 
 carpet to a yard or two of boy? 
 
 Careful records should be kept with a view to 
 evangelism. 
 
 Back in the days when he was a pastor in Texas, 
 the author was permitted to lead his people in a 
 soul-winning campaign which based itself largely 
 upon a careful record of the spiritual condition of 
 the members of the Sunday school. These records 
 were made by departments. The teachers were 
 urged to visit the pupils and interview them person- 
 ally, partly with a view to securing accurate infor- 
 mation and partly in order to give notice in many 
 circles of the evangelistic efforts which were pro- 
 posed. Special cards were prepared for this purpose 
 as follows: 
 
 INFORMATION CARD 
 
 To be Filled Out by the Teacher After a Visit to the Home. 
 Form For Those Not Church Members. 
 
 Name 
 
 Address 
 
 Grade and Department ? 
 
 Regular Church Attendant ? 
 
 Ever made profession ? 
 
 Any evidence of interest ? 
 
 Religious condition of parents ? 
 
 (i) Father. Is he a church member ? 
 
 Where ? . . 
 
 (2) Mother. Is she a church member ? 
 
 Where ? 
 
 Add remarks, if desired, on other side of this card, 
 
 , Teacher. 
 
 Date 
 
Winning to Christ in the Sunday School 183 
 
 When this information had been secured, it was 
 placed before the Workers' Council. To the Junior 
 workers, this statement was made : " Of our seventy- 
 Juniors, twenty-six are behevers, having confessed 
 Christ; forty- four, their names and addresses being 
 on these cards, are not saved." 
 
 To the Intermediate Workers, announcement was 
 made thus : " We have thirty-eight in your depart- 
 ment who have confessed Christ; thirty-six Interme- 
 diate boys and girls are yet unsaved; their names and 
 addresses are recorded on these cards." 
 
 Similar announcement was made to the workers in 
 the Senior and Adult Departments. In the entire 
 school there were ninety-nine pupils, from the Junior 
 age up, who could make no claim to the salvation 
 which comes through Jesus Christ. All vagueness 
 was dispelled; each department knew the names and 
 addresses of its members who were lost. The task 
 of winning them to Christ immediately assumed a 
 definiteness and offered a challenge which had not 
 been felt before. Copies of the cards were made and 
 each teacher was given a full record of the unsaved 
 in his class. All went into a special campaign, work- 
 ing together, by personal approach, by appeals from 
 the platform, in the Sunday school and preaching 
 services, for the winning of the ninety-nine whose 
 names were listed. From week to week the cards 
 were checked up and those who confessed Christ 
 were taken from the list of the unconverted and 
 added to the list of the saved. At the end of three 
 months, without any special meetings, it was found 
 that fifty-five had been baptized. 
 
184 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 In order to secure a definite committal to seek the 
 Lord, the unconverted were asked to sign the follow- 
 ing card: 
 
 SEEKING JESUS 
 
 Knowing myself to be a sinner in need of a Saviour, I desire 
 to seek the Lord and become a Christian. I ask the prayers 
 of the church that I may be saved. 
 
 Name 
 
 Grade (or age) 
 
 Address 
 
 For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten 
 Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but 
 have everlasting life. (John 3 : 16.) 
 
 In order to keep accurate information and also to 
 send the announcement to the home, pupils who ac- 
 cepted Qirist were asked to sign in duplicate the fol- 
 lowing card, one copy being kept by the pastor, the 
 other being taken to the parents : 
 
 CONFESSION CARD 
 
 As a sinner lost and helpless, I take Jesus to be my Saviour 
 from sin. I love Him and trust Him as my Saviour and Lord. 
 It is my desire to be baptized in His name and it is my pur- 
 pose to obey and serve Him. 
 
 Name , 
 
 Grade (or age) 
 
 Address 
 
 As many as received him, to them gave he power to become 
 the Sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. 
 
 (John I ; 12.) 
 
Winning to Christ in the Sunday School 185 
 
 References: 
 
 With Christ After the Lost L. R. Scarborough 
 
 Winning to Christ — A Study in EvangeHsm, 
 
 P. E. Burroughs 
 The Sunday School as a Soul Winner, 
 
 J. L. Hurlbut 
 
 Passion for Souls Jowett 
 
 Spiritual Life in the Sunday School Chapman 
 
 The Child for Christ McKinney 
 
 Pastoral and Personal Evangelism Goodsell 
 
 How Can I Lead My Pupils to Christ? Pell 
 
 Early Conversion of Sunday-School Scholars, 
 
 Schauffler 
 Bringing the Pupil to a Decision for Christ. . .Mabie 
 
 Method in Soul Winning Mabie 
 
 Decision Day in the Sunday School Chapman 
 
 A Soul-Saving Sunday School Wells 
 
 Individual Work for Individuals Trumbull 
 
 Catching Men Alive Trumbull 
 
 The Personal Worker's Guide Chapman 
 
 Studies for Personal Workers Johnston 
 
 How to Bring Men to Christ Torrey 
 
 The Helping Hand Hamilton 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 Suggested Questions 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 1. Discuss some elements in a successful Sunday 
 school. 
 
 2. What is meant by the "possibilities" of a 
 Sunday school? 
 
 3. If choice must be made between the " educa- 
 tor " type of superintendent and the " promoter ** 
 type, as set forth in this chapter, which is to be pre- 
 ferred ? Why ? 
 
 4. Discuss the " one unanswerable argument " in 
 favour of the largest Sunday school possible. 
 
 5. Name some very large Sunday schools of 
 which you chance to know. 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 1. Discuss and justify the statement that efficient 
 Sunday schools grow great churches. 
 
 2. Show how the Sunday school offers a complete 
 and effective method of church organization. 
 
 3. Show the part which the Sunday school plays 
 in promoting Bible Study. 
 
 4. Discuss the Sunday school as a means of en- 
 listing large numbers in useful service and indicate 
 the advantage of such enlistment. 
 
 186 
 
Appendix 187 
 
 5. What bearing does the Sunday school have on 
 attendance at the preaching service? 
 
 6. What of the Sunday school as an evangelistic 
 agency ? 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 1. What is the outstanding feature of present- 
 day Sunday-school organization? 
 
 2. Indicate the department lines in the system 
 earlier adopted for Sunday-school organization. 
 
 3. What department lines have been more re- 
 cently adopted? 
 
 4. Which of these schemes do you prefer? 
 Why? 
 
 5. Note some barriers to the departmentization 
 of the Sunday school. 
 
 6. What is the generally accepted basis of classi- 
 fication ? 
 
 7. What as to the number in the classes ? 
 
 8. What relative numbers are to be expected in 
 the various departments? 
 
 9. When would it seem desirable to subdivide 
 the departments? 
 
 Chapter IF. 
 
 1. Discuss briefly the methods proposed for se- 
 curing new workers for the Sunday school. 
 
 2. What is suggested as the best method? 
 
 Chapter V. 
 I. How far does your judgment approve the 
 
l88 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 statement concerning the outstanding barrier to the 
 growth of our Sunday schools ? 
 
 2. Have we the moral right to ask people to 
 attend our Sunday school where we have not suitable 
 room for them? 
 
 3. What allowance shall be made for pupils 
 throughout the Sunday school ? 
 
 4. Show what space should be allowed for each 
 of the departments in a school of 300. 
 
 5. Why should department rooms be sound- 
 proof? 
 
 6. In what departments are class rooms most 
 desirable ? 
 
 7. Why should the auditorium be used for gen- 
 eral assemblies of the Sunday school? 
 
 8. Are separate Sunday-school buildings desir- 
 able? Why? 
 
 9. Indicate some special rooms which should be 
 provided. 
 
 Chapter VL 
 
 1. Discuss briefly the danger that new buildings 
 will be planned on an inadequate scale. 
 
 2. What of the danger of making financial con- 
 siderations primary? 
 
 3. Show how peril lies in the fact that a " sharp 
 turn " has been made In Sunday-school organization. 
 
 4. Why may the architect himself constitute a 
 possible barrier in the way of securing what we 
 need? 
 
 5. Show how a spirit of haste may imperil the 
 building project. 
 
Appendix 189 
 
 Chapter VII. 
 
 1. Give schedule of probable building require- 
 ments for a building which must offer 800 seatings 
 in the auditorium and provide for 1,000 in the Sun- 
 day school. 
 
 2. Reproduce in brief outline the standard for 
 church and Sunday-school buildings. 
 
 3. Indicate changes, if any, which you would 
 suggest in this Standard. 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
 1. Name the three best Sunday-school buildings 
 which you have personally inspected. 
 
 2. What is meant by the " unified type " of build- 
 ing? 
 
 Chapter IX, 
 
 1. What of the need for trained church architects 
 in the remodeling of church buildings? 
 
 2. Why should we feel special interest in the one- 
 room church building? 
 
 3. Indicate a half dozen methods of remodeling 
 the one-room building. 
 
 Chapter X. 
 
 1. Discuss the types of seating required for the 
 Sunday school. 
 
 2. What as to Sunday-school cabinets? 
 
 3. Which of the tables suggested most commends 
 itself? Why? 
 
190 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 Chapter XL 
 
 1. Give in outline the plan proposed for building 
 a Sunday school. 
 
 2. Outline the essential steps in taking a Sunday- 
 school census. 
 
 3. Show how a large Sunday school may be built 
 first on paper and then made a reality. 
 
 Chapter XII. 
 
 1. Discuss briefly the six suggestions set forth in 
 this chapter. 
 
 2. Outline the plan suggested for building a large 
 down-town class. 
 
 Chapter XIII. 
 
 1. What is your own estimate of the value of 
 outside organizations, such as are discussed in this 
 chapter, in the building of a Sunday school ? 
 
 2. Name the organizations which you consider 
 most helpful. 
 
 3. Discuss the organized class as a means of 
 building the Sunday school. 
 
 Chapter XIV, 
 
 1. Why should social life be departmentized ? 
 
 2. What of the relative value of social and recre- 
 ational activities? 
 
 3. Show how the church building may be adapted 
 to meet social needs. 
 
 4. Name some books which may be helpful in 
 guiding social life. 
 
Appendix 191 
 
 Chapter XV. 
 
 1. Indicate some difficulties as regards the gym- 
 nasium and the swimming pool. 
 
 2. What is your own estimate of the value of 
 these recreations in church life? 
 
 Chapter XVI. 
 
 1. State some methods of advertising a Sunday 
 school. 
 
 2. What is your own estimate of the propriety 
 and value of advertising the Sunday school ? 
 
 Chapter XVIL 
 
 1. Why the lunch in connection with a teachers* 
 meeting ? 
 
 2. State briefly the angle method of conducting a 
 teachers' meeting. 
 
 Chapter XVIII . 
 
 Indicate at least four reasons why teachers must 
 be trained. 
 
 Chapter XIX. 
 
 1. What of the value of records in the Sunday 
 school ? 
 
 2. What six points are stressed in the Six-Point 
 Record System? 
 
 3. Why the necessity for care and accuracy in 
 the keeping of records ? 
 
 Chapter XX. 
 
 I. What are some week-day activities in which 
 the Sunday school may engage? 
 
192 A Successful Sunday School 
 
 2. What are some tests for social activities pro- 
 posed by Mr. Walter M. Wood? 
 
 3. Which of these proposed activities impresses 
 you as most needed and most practically helpful ? 
 
 Chapter XXL 
 
 1. Discuss the value of special days. 
 
 2. Indicate some perils which arise in connection 
 with special days. 
 
 Chapter XXII . 
 
 1. What is your own estimate of the value of 
 standards in Sunday-school work? 
 
 2. What possible danger do we face in connec- 
 tion with standards? 
 
 Chapter XXIIL 
 
 1. State some considerations which favour the 
 *' combined service." 
 
 2. Indicate some essentials to success in handling 
 the combined course. 
 
 Chapter XXIV, 
 
 1. What of the meaning of " atmosphere " in 
 soul-winning ? 
 
 2. Why observe departmental lines in soul-win- 
 ning? 
 
 3. What of the value of records in soul- winning? 
 
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