PMIH W\ ' HANDBOOK^ff ■ 1 1 SUNDAY SCHOOL 1 [ WORK PETERS 9 1 i i A PRACTICAL HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK REV. L. E. PETERS Sunday-school CMissionary and Leader of Sundaf-school Institutes PHILADELPHIA AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY igco Copyright 1900 by the American Baptist Publication Society from tbe Societie'a own press TO !)♦ Z. C. ffarrow For Twentjy-five jyears PIONEER SUNDAY-SCHOOL MISSIONARY In fVest Virginia PREFACE These lessons have been prepared in compliance with the request of A. J. Rowland, d. d., Secretary of the American Baptist Publication Society. The author, as Sunday-school missionary, has felt the need of such a series in his work of holding institutes, and to put into the hands of Sunday-school officers and teachers and normal classes. In the original plan of the book he prepared a series of lessons on the facts and doctrines of the Bible, but a simi- lar work was in the hands of the publishers covering the same ground, and it is deemed expedient to publish only one series at present. We recommend students of this series to study also the series by Rev. Harold Kennedy, entitled "Lessons from the Desk." INTRODUCTION 1. Pedagogy is the science of teaching. It includes the principles and methods of teaching, and may be applied to teaching of any kind or in any kind of school. 2. Teaching is causing another to understand (Neh. 8 : 8). The Bible is the best book on pedagogics. It not only tells us what to teach, but how to teach. Christ is the model teacher, in methods as well as in truth to be taught. 3. Sunday-school pedagogics is the application of the laws and best methods of teaching to Sunday-school work. The object of these lessons is to present these. 4. Suggestions in the use of these lessons. (i) Personal Study. Let the text of the lesson be thoroughly studied and the outline memorized. Then re- cite it to yourself or some one else. (2) Normal Class Work. Organize a normal class, to meet once a week, and furnish each student with a copy of the book, and have the lesson recited, as in school, the teacher placing the outline on a blackboard or large sheet of paper as the lesson proceeds. It will be well before- hand for the teacher to make a faint outline on the board that cannot be seen by the class ; then trace it. This will give better form and proportion to the outline. Drill on the outline until the class can readily repeat it without the board. The teacher should not be confined simply to the text of the lesson, but be free to add additional matter and illustrations. This will lighten up the lesson text and make it more interesting and impressive. 5 6 INTRODUCTION (3) Normal Lectures. By this method the teacher only uses the book and masters the lesson, using the text and outline as the basis of a lecture, which may be extended and illustrated according to time and circumstances. This is probably the best form to use in Sunday-school institutes and conventions. Here only two or three lessons can be given to illustrate the whole course, recommending the formation of classes for regular systematic study. CONTENTS FAGB Introduction 5 PART I How We Teach, or Methods of Sunday- school Work ii-97 I. The Sunday-school Idea ii II. Organization i8 III. Graded Sunday-schools 24 IV. Supplemental Organization 30 V. The Superintendent 17 VI. The Teacher 41 VII. How to Study a Sunday-school Lesson ... 50 VIII. The Laws of Teaching 55 IX. How TO Teach a Sunday-school Lesson ... 66 X. Questioning 70 XI. Illustrations 78 XII. Methods of Review 83 XIII. Christ the Great Teacher 88 XIV. The Holy Spirit as a Teacher 94 7 8 CONTENTS PAGB PART II Whom We Teach, or a Study of the Scholar 98-128 I. Childhood 98 II. Boyhood and Girlhood 104 III. Youthhood no IV. Manhood AND Womanhood 117 V. The Scholar's World 123 PART I HOW WE TEACH OR METHODS OF SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL IDEA. Read Neh. 8 : i-8 ; Matt. 21 : 23-32. The Sunday-school idea is the idea of interlocutory (speaking between) teaching. The teacher and pupil ask and answer questions, make statements, and talk about the truth under consideration. It is the school idea and the school methods applied to Bible study. The school method differs from both lecture and preaching methods, and is es- pecially adapted to the instruction of children and youth. It may be otherwise defined as the catechetical method. The Sunday-school idea is the Bible idea of teaching. The word ' ' teach ' * occurs more frequently in the Bible than the word "preach." This idea may be traced all through biblical and ecclesiastical history.^ I. The Sunday-school Idea hi Bible History. Calling to our aid ancient history and Jewish tradition, the idea may be definitely traced. 1 For a full discussion of the subject, see Trumbull's " Yale Lectures on Sunday-schools," to which we are indebted for the main facts of this lesson. lO HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK 1. Rabbinical Traditiojis. The rabbis say that Methuse- lah taught school before the flood and after it Eber ; that Abraham was a student of the Torah, and that he took les- sons on the priesthood from Melchisedek ; that Jacob went to the Bible scliool ; that Moses was at the head of a great school, and that because Joshua was such a good pupil he made him his successor. They say, moreover, that the great victory of Deborah and Barak enabled them to open the Bible schools which the Canaanites had closed. 2. Rays of Light from the Old Testainent. Gen. 14 : 14 shows that Abraham had three hundred and eighteen trained servants in his household. "Trained," or "in- structed," as it is in the margin, conveys the idea of a school. 2 Chron. 17 : 7-9 shows that Jehoshaphat sent priests and Levites through the country who "taught in Ju- dea, having the book of the law with them," and through country and city " taught the people." They simply held Bible institutes. (See also Deut. 31 : 12.) Neh. 8 : 1-8 is a good description of a Sunday-school. We find in it the place, organization, superintendent, teachers, devotional ex- ercises, and class work. Ver. 8 gives us the best definition of teaching that caiflJis found. The teachers "caused them to understand the reading." Teaching is causing another to understand. 3. Light from Contemporary History. Josephus claims that from the times of Moses it was the custom of the Jews to assemble every Sabbath, not only to hear the law read, but "to learn it accurately." Philo, antedating Josephus about seventy-five years, calls the synagogues " houses of instruction," or, as we would say, "schoolhouses." Trum- bull says, from 80 b. c. to a. d. 65, schools were established throughout Palestine and teachers were appointed in every principal town. The evidence of Jewish schools is the evi- dence of the school idea as applied to religious instruction. THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL IDEA I I The method in these schools was substantially the Sunday- school method. In the primary grade, from five to ten years of age, the work was learning the simple text of Scrip- ture. After this the Jewish commentaries were studied. The work was laid out in courses of study, and the schools were graded. The method of teaching was interlocutory, and great importance was attached to these schools by the Jews. Jewish schools for Bible study were regarded as the life of the nation. " If you would destroy the Jews you must destroy the schools," was a maxim. 4. This Sunday-school Idea in the New Testament. The system of schools mentioned above was in vogue in Palestine in the time of our Lord, and it has been inferred that he attended them while "subject to his parents" in Nazareth. We see him at the age of twelve years " in the midst of the doctors (teachers) asking and answering ques- tions." Christ was an itinerant teacher, for Matthew says he ' ' went about in all Galilee teaching in their synagogues. ' ' Christ' s method of teaching was chiefly the interlocutory. We have only two continued discourses recorded as coming from him, the Sermon on the Mount and his farewell ad- dress to his disciples. But we have many interlocutory lessons recorded. Study Matt. 21 : 23-32 with this idea in view. The Gospel of John is a series of "conversations of Jesus," as it has been not inappropriately called. The Great Commission is given in the phraseology of inter- locutory teaching, "Go teach," make disciples or learners, "train," etc. Not only Christ, but the apostles, largely followed the interlocutory method of instruction. "They ceased not to teach and preach Jesus" (Acts 5 : 42) ; " Paul and Barna- bas continued in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord (15 : 55)." Paul's custom was to go into the synagogue on the Sabbath and teach and preach. Thus in 12 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK the days of Abraham, Moses, Ezra, Christ, and the apos- tles, the Sunday-school idea prevailed to a large extent // The Sunday-school Idea in Ecclesiastical History. In the first two decades of Christianity, when most of its converts were from the Jews, it would be natural for them to follow the synagogue method of teaching ; but when Gentile communities were reached, there would be some modification of methods, yet the catechetical method largely prevailed. Baron Bunsen says: "The apostolic church made the school the connecting link between herself and the world." So popular and influential were the Christian schools in the fourth century, that Julian the Apostate issued an edict suppressing Christian teachers from the schools, which he sought to take under his control. Chris- tians were persecuted, and accused of propagating their cause by getting the children into their schools. Schaff, in his "History of the Christian Church," makes this significant statement, which shows the value of inter- locutory teaching : It is a remarkable fact, that after the days of the apostles no names of great missionaries are mentioned till the open- ing of the Middle Ages. . . There were no missionary socie- ties, no missionary institutions, no organized efforts in the Ante- nicene age ; and yet in less than three hundred years from the death of St. John the whole population of the Roman Empire, which then represented the civilized world, was nominally Chris- tianized. This marvelous success is attributed to the use of the Bible method of teaching. This Sunday-school method was largely followed in the first three centuries. The great teachers of these early centuries, as Clement, at the head of the Alexandrian School, Origen, and Augustine, all attribute their success to catechetical teaching. THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL IDEA 1 3 From a survey of ecclesiastical history from the days of Christ and the apostles we glean the following summary re- specting the value and influence of the Bible idea of teaching ; 1. Bible facts were most effectively lodged in the mind, and practical truths impressed on the heart, by this method of teaching. In the ecclesiastical records of the fourth and fifth cen- turies illustrations abound showing that large portions of the Bible, and in some instances the whole Bible, Old and New Testaments, have been memorized. It is also a recog- nized fact in ecclesiastical history that the highest and purest types of Christian life are found where Bible-schools prevailed. This is the secret of that type of life found among the Albigenses, Waldenses, Lollards, or Wycliffites, and the Bohemians. 2. When the catechetical teaching has been supplanted by ritualism, piety declined and a fossilized formalism took its place. Just in proportion as the Sunday-school idea was ignored or recognized, declension or advancement followed, and the church lost or gained spiritual power. This fact is most forcibly illustrated in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- turies, when there was a decline in interlocutory teaching in Protestant Europe, Great Britain, and America. The ra- tionalism that followed the French Revolution swept over Germany. England had reached probably her lowest point in moral tone and the waves of these corrupt waters were beginning to sweep over the new world. In the latter part of the eighteenth century and first of the nineteenth, great revivals broke out under Zinzendorf in Germany, Wesley and Whitefield in England, and Edwards and Whitefield in America. With these came the revival of interlocutory teaching, and the Sunday-school idea. During this period Robert Raikes began his work at Gloucester, England. 14 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK 3. While the preaching of the gospel in sermonic form always has been, and always will be, the greatest power in Christianity, history shows that it must be sustained by in- terlocutory teaching. It was preaching, faithful, earnest, warm-hearted, majestic preaching, that brought about the great Reformation of the sixteenth century ; but it was the faithful teaching which followed that sustained it From such teaching the Reformation obtained its best fruits. Rome was quick to learn this lesson from the Reformation and returned to the school idea ; and the secret of her power to-day is not so much her pulpit as her parochial schools. 4. The Sunday-school idea practically applied has had great influence in national reforms and national prosperity. Lord Mahon points to the Sunday-school as the beginning of a new era in the national life of England in the days of Robert Raikes. Green, the English historian, speaking of the dark days following the American Revolution, just after the beginning of Raikes' work, says : "It was then that the moral, the philanthropic, the religious ideas which have molded English society into its present shape, first broke the spiritual torpor of the eighteenth century." John Bright attributes much of the good of millions of England' s people to Sunday-schools. Sunday-schools led to penny postage in England, and paved the way to the or- ganization of British Bible and missionary societies. What Sunday-schools have done for England they have done, and much more, for America. Says Trumbull: "America has been practically saved to Christianity and the religion of the Bible by the Sunday-school." 5. The great men of the world have been identified with and advocated the Sunday-school idea. We have seen how inspired men, in the Old and the New Testament, taught and advocated teaching. In Christian history, men THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL IDEA 15 of all the leading professions and callings have been advo- cates of the Sunday-school idea. When Celsus, the pow- erful enemy of Christianity, accused Christians of advan- cing their cause by getting hold of the children in their schools, Origen, in his reply, admitted the charge, but showed how the children were improved and benefited by the teaching. St. Francis Xavier said: "Give me the children until they are seven years old and any one may have them after that." Luther said, "For the church's sake, Christian schools must be established and main- tained," and wrote a catechism for the use of his people. Bishop Andrews, of the Church of England, in the study of ecclesiastical history found that interlocutory teaching was the secret of the church's success. Scotch and English church councils have declared in favor of it. In later days, such men as Lyman Beecher, Francis Wayland, E. N. Kirk, Doctor Doddridge, Albert Barnes, and many others, have been the warmest advocates of Sunday-schools. To- day we have men of all ranks and professions, from the president of the United States down, actively engaged in Sunday-school work. The Sunday-school idea has grown into such vast proportions in organization and methods of work that at present it encircles the entire Christian world. BLACKBOARD EXERCISE THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL IDEA IN r I. Rabbinical Tradition T -n-i-i tT- * 2. The Old Testament L Bible History ^ ^ Contemporaneous History I 4. The New Testament II. Ecclesiastical History 1. Effective in Early Centuries 2. Catechetical Teachings vs. Ritualism 3. To Sustain Preaching 4. In National Reforms 5. Advocated by Great Men 1 6 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK II. ORGANIZATION. Definition. Organization is systematic preparation for work, or the systematic arrangement of the several parts of a whole so that each part contributes to the object of the organization. The organization of a Sunday-school is the arrangement of all its component parts and exercises in the best way to accomplish the greatest good upon the part of the school as a whole. It may be well to study first : / The Principles of Organization. There are fundamental principles that are essential to the proper and complete organization of any body. I. Purpose. Organization is not undertaken for its own sake, but has a purpose. Each part also has its purpose. The human body is an organization as a dwelling-place and convenience of the human soul while in this present state of existence, and each part of the body is organized for a given purpose, as the eye for seeing, the ear for hearing the foot for locomotion, the hand for handling, etc., yet all work together, animated by a common purpose and toward a common end. 2. The organization must conform to the purpose in view. No one would organize an army, an engineer corps, a steamer's crew, a "gang" of railroad men, a set of har- vest hands, or a business corporation alike, for the simple reason that they are to accomplish different ends. Each should be organized for the special end in view. 3. Organization is a means, not an end. The reason why so many organizations fail is not because the organiza- tion is not good, but because it is not properly employed. Organization is simply preparation for work, and when the organization is complete the work should begin. ORGANIZATION 1/ 4. Organization means division of labor. Each part does what no other part can do. The eye, the ear, the foot, the hand, as well as every other organ of the body, has each its specific functions (i Cor. 12 : 12-20). Organi- zation seeks to find the right part for the right place and properly adjust it in relation to the other parts in the whole. When the organization is composed of men, women, and children, there must be such a division of labor that each one will be placed where he can contribute most for the accomplishment of the whole. 5. The power of organization is unity. "How should one chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight ?" (Deut 32 : 30.) By an organization which has God behind it as its life-giving power. If each part works out of har- mony with the other parts the friction lessens the power ; but when all work together the power is increased. When each part of the organization has a will of its own, as in any organization of human beings, one purpose must domi- nate all. Then the organization is a power, while otherwise it will soon become a failure. This makes it especially neces- sary in the organizations of human beings that the body have a head, one whom all will joyously follow. The achievements of an organization are often due to the leaders more than to any other cause. Obedience here is the principle. 6. Flexibility is also a fundamental principle in organiza- tion. The hand has a unity in its organization, yet it is so flexible that it can be turned from the simplest, crudest labor to a work demanding the utmost delicacy and skill. If it becomes stiffened by age or disease, it loses the deft- ness it possessed. So with an organization ; it must be fitted to the end to be accomplished, and it must preserve intact its capacity to attain that end. If it becomes weak- ened by disuse or dissensions it must fail. B 1 8 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK 7. Finally, organization implies life. It is essential both to its formation and perpetuation. Aristotle said, " Life is the cause of organisms. ' ' Take away the life and the or- ganization dissolves. Take the life from the human body and it becomes dust. Especially is the principle true and essential in the or- ganization of religious bodies as churches and Sunday- schools. If the organization is social, then a social spirit or life will support it ; if it is political, a political spirit or life will sustain it ; and if it is Christian, a Christ spirit or life must dominate it, or it will die as a distinctive Christian organization. It may exist as a social compact, but like the church of Laodicea, it may ' ' have a name to live, but be dead." See Ezekiel's vision of dry bones (Ezek. 37 : 1-14). IL These Principles Applied to the Orgatiization of the Sunday-school. This brings us at once to consider : 1. The purpose of the Sunday-school. This must be clearly understood before we can proceed to form an organ- zation. This purpose is four-fold, (i) To give instruction in the Bible. (2) Through this instruction to lead persons to Christ. (3) To develop in these persons, who have been led to Christ and have accepted him, a symmetrical Chris- tian character, and (4) To train them for efficient and use- ful service. 2. The organization of the school must conform to this four- fold purpose, (i) As the first great aim is to give in- struction in the Bible, the organization must be a school, with such facilities as are necessary to give this instruction. (2) As its second aim is to bring persons to Christ, it must be a school of Christ, with teachers who have been to Christ themselves. (3) As its pupils are to be built up in Christian character, its teaching and influence must all be ORGANIZATION 1 9 turned in that direction. (4) As it is to train for useful- ness, it must have a distinctively training department for the preparation of teachers, that it may become self-perpet- uating. 3. As the school is a means and not an end, it must : (i) Constantly replenish its spent energies, keep down fric- tion, and keep the organization intact, always ready for the best service and results. (2) It must not consider its work as done so long as it can find one person to lead to Christ, and whom it can develop and train. 4. As organization means division of labor, the greatest care should be taken to get the right persons in the right place. Some persons who make splendid secretaries, treas- urers, or librarians, would be failures as teachers, while the converse is likewise true. In the application of this prin- ciple, assign work to the worker that (i) He wants to do ; (2) That he can do ; or (3) That he is willing to learn to do. 5 . Since unity is an essential principle in organization, in its application to the Sunday-school, it must have : (i) An organization preceding and dominating it in order that there shall be unity and harmony in its teaching. This preceding and dominating organization is the church, which must organize the school as a department of church work, by selecting the superintendent and other officers, or at the least by approving them. (2) These other officers then become the superintendent's cabinet, to unify the man- agement of the school ; and he should have (3) a teachers' meeting, to unify the teaching and keep it in harmony with the standards of the church. 6. Variety. Since flexibility is a principle in organiza- tion, the organization of the Sunday-school should be such as to give the greatest variety in its movements. No un- yielding constitution should be adopted. Its government 20 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK should be more by principles than rules. The order of ex- ercises should be varied and changed from time to time as necessity requires. The various departments should have ample liberty and latitude. 7. As organization implies life, the most systematic and complete will fail without it. The organization of the Sunday-school must have the Holy Spirit as the vital power. The life of Jesus Christ in officers and teachers will insure the Holy Spirit's aid in the prosecution of the work. /// A Suggestive Organization. We say suggestive, because no one can in his study or- ganize every Sunday-school that should be formed in the country. The organization in its details must vary with circumstances. We must have in nearly every school some such organization as the following : 1. The Scholars. "Men, women, and children, all who can understand" (Neh. 8 : 3), 2. Officers. Pastor, superintendent, assistant superin- tendent, secretary, treasurer, chorister, organist, librarian, chalk-talker, and committees for special work. These should be appointed or approved by the church, except the committees. 3. Teachers. These should be appointed by the super- intendent and officers in consultation with the pastor. 4. Classijication. There are usually four grades : Pri- mary, intermediate, advanced, and adult, according to age and attainment. (This will be fully considered in the lesson on grading.) 5. Course of Study. We must have a course of study. There may be more than one course of study pursued at the same time, (i) The international uniform lesson series. (2) A course of supplemental lessons. (3) A normal course for teachers. (4) A catechetical or doctrinal course. ORGANIZATION I. Principles Application to S. S. III. Suggested Form BLACKBOARD EXERCISE ORGANIZATION Purpose Conformity to Means not End Division of Labor Power of Unity Flexibility Life I. Purpose Fourfold 2. Conformity in As a Means 4. Assign to Worker 5. Unified by 1. Give Instruction 2. Lead to Christ 3. Develope Character 4. Train for Service I. Being a School {I A School of Christ Trend of Teaching Training Departm't Repl. Spent Energies Never Stop. What Wants to Do What Can Do What Learn to Do Church as Basis Sup'ts Cabinet 3. Teachers' Meeting 6. Flexibility by Lib. of Depts. and Vari. Ex. 7. Life from Holy Spirit 1. The Scholars (Neh. 8:3). 2. Officers: Pas., Supt., As. Supt., Sec, Treas., Org., Chor., Lib., Ch. T., Com. 3. Teachers : App. by Off. and Pas. 4. Classification : Pri., Int., Adv., Adult {I. International 3.- ST'""' 4. Catechetical or Doctrinal 22 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK III. GRADED SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. In the organization and management of Sunday-schools, two essential characteristics must be kept in view, viz, that the Sunday-school is both a religious assembly and a school. Neither must be neglected or sacrificed for the other. The worshipful and devotional character can be maintained to a very high degree without sacrificing the instructive, and may be made very helpful to it. A system of grading is essential to the school idea. We may learn much from the methods of grading in the public school, yet there is an essential difference. In grading a Sunday- school three difficulties confront us that are not found in the public school: 1. Voluntary Atte7idance. We do not have the authority of the State to put a pupil where he properly belongs. In the public school the sole basis of gradation is the pupil's attainments, irrespective of size, age, or social conditions, while in the Sunday-school we must needs give some con- sideration to these. However, if we begin with the pupil from early childhood, there will be no difficulty here ; but this we cannot do with all our Sunday-school scholars. 2. The Bible is not a graded text-book. The grading must be done in the selection of the portions that are to be taught and in the teaching, especially in the latter, 3. All grades study the same lesson. This fact is not found in any other school in the world that claims to be a graded school. The grading here must be done in the teaching in the International Lesson system and in courses of supplemental lessons. / Pri7icipies of Grading. I. Classification. No school can be properly graded GRADED SUNDAY-SCHOOLS 23 without proper classification. The classifications should have respect chiefly to attainments and age. 2. Assigned Work. A definite amount of work should be assigned in each grade, and that work should be com- pleted before the pupil leaves that grade. 3. ProfHotion. There should be a fixed day each year for promotion of pupils. This will give them something to look forward to with pleasing anticipation and will tend to hold them in the school. It is no wonder so many scholars drop out of Sunday-school in their teens when there is no inducement for them to remain, nothing to stimulate ambi- tion and desire for higher attainments. 4. Exami7iatio)i, Promotion should be made on exami- nation, oral in the lower and written in the higher grades. 5. Graduation. This does not mean that the students in the Sunday-school are to cease to attend it, any more than graduates from college are to lay aside all books and cease to study. They are only prepared to commence to study. That is what "commencement days" mean. But it means, when a certain amount of work is done, a certain course of study is taken, that there should be a recognition of it in some way that will give pleasure to the graduates and stimulus and encouragement to the under- graduates. The graduation point may be when a scholar has studied all the lessons, or, say, seventy-five per cent, of the Inter- national Lessons in a six or seven years' series. These series are arranged so as to cover the whole field of the Bible in outline. Then, also, an examination may be given on the supplemental lessons that may be adopted. //. Methods of Grading. We lay down here no inflexible rule, but give only sug- gestions. The superintendent and teachers of each school 24 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK must determine the details of grading according to the cir- cumstances of each school. Yet in all grading we recog- nize several great departments, and the grading in these departments will be left to the judgment of those who have charge of them. 1. The Primary Departmetit. Age from four to eight years. If this department is large it may be divided into small classes, with assistant teachers over them. As the pupils are to remain in this grade four years, it might be a good plan to subdivide according to the years and put them into four classes. These will seat all first-year, second-year, etc., together, which will represent the grade to the eye. First Year. Titles, Golden Texts, and simple facts of the International Lessons. Second Year. In addition to the first, the Ten Com- mandments, the Lord's Prayer, Twenty-third Psalm, and Beatitudes. Third Year. Teach most of the regular lessons and begin the work in a good primary catechism — Broadus' "Catechism," first grade — and memorize other portions of Scripture that the teacher may select. Fourth Year. In addition to regular lessons and memo- rizing Scripture, finish Broadus' "Catechism." The instruction in this department should all be oral, using blackboard, charts, and objects. 2. The Intermediate Department. Age, eight to twelve years. In passing from one grade to another there will necessarily be a change of teachers. When it is generally known that this is the rule of the school there will be no objections. In large schools, where there will be a number of classes in each department, it will be well to have a superintend- ent of each one. GRADED SUNDAY-SCHOOLS 2 5 First Year. The International Lesson is studied more thoroughly. The • ' Intermediate Quarterly ' ' is used and all the blanks filled up in writing. The supplemental work here may be learning the books of the Bible in order and such other memory work as the teacher may assign. Second Year. In addition to the regular lessons, the books of the Bible reviewed, giving their classification, authors, dates, and design of each book.^ Third Year. In addition to regular lessons, select por- tions of Scripture to be memorized. Teach the names and characteristics of the patriarchs, judges, kings of Israel and Judah, and the twelve apostles, teacher arranging so much for each week. Fourth Year. Here the pupil is in the twelfth year of his life and eighth year of his Sunday-school life, and, if the work in previous grades has been well done, you can give as the supplemental lessons this year a brief oudine of the life of Christ. It may be easily arranged by quar- ters, as : First quarter, from his birth to his baptism ; second quarter, Judean ministry ; third quarter, Galilean ministry ; fourth quarter, Perean ministry.'^ 3. Advanced Department. Age, twelve to sixteen. This is the most important grade in the school because it is the hardest age at which to hold pupils. The best and wisest teachers should be selected for this grade. It is usually the largest department of the school, and will be in the same room with the seniors. They like, at this age, recog- nition, and in the opening and closing exercises they should receive such as may be suitable. In the regular lessons they study the "Advanced Quarterly," and work should be 1 For this work, " Lessons from the Desk." by Rev. Harold Kennedy, and published by the American Baptist Publication Society, will prove invaluable. 2 "The Life of Christ," by O. C. S. Wallace, d. d., will be found very help- ful in this work. 26 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK assigned in the lesson to each pupil, as to one the places of the lesson, to another the persons, etc. The supplemental lessons may be : First Year. Outline O. T. history from creation to exodus from Egypt. Second Year. O. T. history from exodus from Egypt to the coronation of King Saul. Third Year. Finish O. T. history. Fourth Year. New Testament history. Of course the history in this grade will be only in brief outline, so that it will leave with the pupils of this grade the framework of Bible history. 4. Sejiior Department. Age, sixteen to twenty. In this grade the " Senior Quarterly " will be used and all the matter worked up that it suggests in the way of special topics along the line of the International Lessons. For supplemental work, take something like the following : First Year. "The Dawn of Christianity," Vedder. Second Year. " Short History of Baptists," Vedder. Third Year. Christian evidence. Fourth Year. Christian evidence. Or, for the whole four years, the Christian Culture Courses of the B. Y. P. U. This latter course would keep the young people's society and Sunday-school together during a most important period of life. 5. The Normal Department. From the senior depart- ment pupils may be graded and promoted to the normal department. Put into this department all who are willing to become teachers and to prepare themselves for the work, or those who wish to study more systematically the Bible. Of this department we may notice : (i) The Teacher. The pastor, superintendent, or a practical teacher from the public schools may be placed as teacher of the normal department. GRADED SUNDAY-SCHOOLS 2/ (2) The Course of Study. The Chautauqua Normal Union Course is the best. Then each student may be en- rolled as a Normal Union student, and, on finishing the course, receives a diploma from the Chautauqua Normal Union. (3) Tiyne and Place of MeettJig. If the time can be given to it, take a week-day evening or an hour on Sunday, and, if neither of these can be had, take the regular Sunday- school hour and drop the regular lessons. 6. The Lecture Department. This takes in every one over twenty years of age and during the remainder of life, if the scholars choose. There is no formal organization as in the other departments. The method of teaching is by practical running comment on the lesson, bringing out the spiritual lessons, and with forcible incident and illustration impressing them on the heart. This department should meet in the main audience room of the church if it is ar- ranged in apartments, and the pastor will probably be the best teacher. If the superintendent has charge of it he must do it while the class-work is going on in the other departments under the supervision of his assistants. Every one not in the other departments may attend this. They may or may not study the lesson previously. Strangers may drop in here and be greatly benefited. It is more like a preaching service with an expository sermon. The lecture on the lesson may often take on the evangelistic form and be a real soul-winning sermon. Special features may be intro- duced, from time to time, to awaken and keep up interest. BLACKBOARD EXERCISE GRADING r I. vc \ 2. Bi [3. Al rp, I i. Vol. Attendance T^-i if- \ 2. Bible not Gr. Text-book Uitticulties J _ ^^j ^^^^^^ ^^^g g^^g Lesson 28 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK Principles for ■ Methods for ( I. Class, by Age and Att. 2. Def. Work Assigned 3. Day of Promotion 4. Examinations 5. Graduation Pri. Dep't 2. Int. Dep't 3. Adv. Dep't 4. Senior Dep't 5. Normal Dep't 6. Lecture Dep't First Year Second Year Third Year Fourth Year First Year. Second Year Third Year Fourth Year P^irst Year Second Year Third Year Fourth Year First Year Second Year Third Year Fourth Year 1. Teacher 2. Course of Study 3. Time and Place IV. SUPPLEMENTAL ORGANIZATION. In addition to the organization and grading considered in the two preceding lessons, there are other means of per- fecting the work of the Sunday-school. These it is not proper to omit in a manual of this kind, and as they may be briefly treated under the head of organizations we in- clude them in this lesson. SUPPLEMENTAL ORGANIZATION 29 / Class Organization. The school and its work will be helped greatly by proper class organization. It will promote a wholesome class spirit, unity, and acquaintance. The organization may be simple. There should be : 1. A President. This should as a rule be the teacher, yet it would be proper to elect any other member president. 2. A Secretary, to keep the class records, call the roll, and mark the attendance. 3. A Treasurer, to take the collection in the class and keep the account of all contributions, which he will turn over to the treasurer of the school. 4. Committees, to look up absent scholars, bring in new ones, and introduce strangers to the teachers, who will in- troduce them to the class. 5. Class Meetings. These may be held at such time and place as is most convenient for social purposes, and to cultivate a better class acquaintance and class spirit. If the school is in city or town, class outings in the summer will be pleasant and profitable. // The Teachers' Meeting. No Sunday-school is properly organized that does not sustain a weekly teachers' meeting. When ? Every week, as near the middle of the week as convenient, so that the teachers will have time to prepare for it, and time to work up the suggestions they receive at the meeting. Where ? At the most central point for all the teachers. This may be a room in the church, the pastor's study, or the home of one of the teachers. Sometimes it works well to meet at the homes of the teachers in rotation. Why? We should have a teachers' meeting: i. Be- cause it promotes mutual acquaintance, sympathy, and fel- 30 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK lowship among the teachers. 2. It unifies the teaching. 3. It improves the methods of teaching. 4. It secures better results to the school. How ? How shall the teachers' meeting be conducted ? I. Have a season of prayer. 2. Study the next Sunday's lesson. 3. Discuss methods of teaching it in the various grades. Let teachers be appointed the week before to present plans for teaching — a plan for teaching it to adult classes, another for the intermediate classes, and another still for the primary. 4. Then consider any difficulties which any of the teachers may be laboring under, any en- couragements they may be having in their classes, or inci- dents connected with their class-work. Remember that it is a teachers' meeting and it is proper to consider all ques- tions relative to teaching. It will be well for the teachers to prepare questions for this part of the meeting. /// The Home Department. The Home Department is the "pick-up" train of the Sunday-school. It gathers in all that cannot, or think they cannot, attend the regular sessions of the school, but want to study the Bible in a regular and systematic way. When there are a sufficient number who are willing to join the Home Department, it may have an organization of its own. We here briefly describe it : I. The enrollment. The community is canvassed, and all who will agree to study the Sunday-school lessons thirty minutes each week at home are enrolled as members of the school. This will reach (i) Those who live at too great a dis- tance from the school to attend regularly. (2) Mothers with small children and no one to care for them in their absence. (3) The "shut-ins," who will be glad to occupy a portion of their weary hours in this way. (4) Servants SUPPLEMENTAL ORGANIZATION 3 I and employees whose time is not their own. (5) Traveling men who cannot be at home, save at intervals. Those who are enrolled are to have all the privileges of the school. Lesson helps and papers are to be furnished them, and a catalogue of the library to which they may have access, and the privilege of making regular contributions to the work of the school. 2. Officers. A superintendent, and visitors who make a thorough canvass of the community and induce all not at- tending the school to join the Home Department. The ter- ritory is divided into districts, and one or more visitors assigned to each district. 3. Classes. There may be four kinds of classes formed : (i) Individual classes, who live in the same district, under the supervision of a visitor, who corresponds to the teacher. They study independently of each other, and have no class meetings. (2) Family classes. In some instances there will be families too remote from the school to attend, and will agree to study the lesson together. (3) Neighborhood classes, where several families may agree to study the lesson together. There are not enough to organize and support a school, and are too remote from the main school to at- tend. They may be formed thus into a neighborhood class. (4) Correspondence classes. Any one may start, in connec- tion with the Home Department, a correspondence class of persons who are scattered and too far away for visitation. Correspondence may thus be opened with lumber and min- ing camps and remote communities. 4. Supplies. Home Department supplies consist of a visitor's book, with full instructions, circulars explaining the work, pledge cards, membership certificates, report cards, etc.^ The quarterlies and papers are also furnished. 1 All of these supplies can be obtained from the American Baptist Publica- tion Society, Philadelphia, or from the nearest Branch. 32 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK A collection envelope accompanies the report card, for a contribution to be sent in with the quarterly report of the student. 5. Advantages of the Home Department, (i) It takes the school to the homes of those who do not attend it at the church. (2) It solves the vexed problem, "How can we get all our church-members into the Sunday-school?" (3) It increases the attendance of the main school. (4) It is an evangelizing agency for the community. (5) It is a good help to the pastor in his work of visitation. (6) It promotes Bible reading in the family. (7) It develops Christian workers. IV. House to House Visitation. This visitation is different from that in the Home De- partment — different visitors, different objects, and different methods. It may be accomplished by an individual school, but it is probably better to make it a general work by a union effort of all the schools in a town, city, district, or county. It is more a department of international work than that of any one school. In such union there will be both strength and impressiveness. To prosecute it success- fully there must be : 1. Orga?iizatio?i. This organization should represent the pastors and superintendents of all the schools of all de- nominations in the community. Then, 2. District the Territory. In the town or city it may follow wards or streets ; in the country the school districts would be a natural and convenient division. 3. Appoint visitors, and furnish each with a visitor's book and a list of questions on slips of paper to be filled up by each family visited, for the purpose of obtaining de- sired information, as whether they attend Sunday-school anywhere, and if so, what school ; if not, what school they SUPPLEMENTAL ORGANIZATION ^^ would prefer, and whether they are suppHed with Bibles, and what church they attend, etc. 4. Appoint a Visitmg Day. Then let all the visitors assemble for a season of prayer before they start out, and when the canvass is complete have another meeting for reports. The information obtained will be astonishing. Whole cities and counties have been visited in a day. Every house in the community should be visited. Much care and judgment should be exercised in prosecuting the work. Visitors must not be abrupt nor canvass in the spirit of a governmental census taker or commercial agent, but be polite, kind, and winning. Such a day' s work can- not fail to make a most favorable impression on a commu- nity, especially when it is known that every house has been religiously canvassed, 5. Let this be done frequently enough to have the work efficient and impressive. The information obtained can be distributed to the various schools and made useful in their special work. Those, for instance, that would prefer the Baptist school or church can have their names and ad- dresses given to the pastor or superintendent of the Baptist church, and so on of each denomination. 6. The advantages of such a work would be : (i) To awaken the whole community religiously and show the people that the churches were really interested in them. (2) It would be a revelation to the churches of the religious condition of the community. (3) It would awaken an interest in the churches themselves for the community they never had before. (4) It would bring all the churches and Sunday-schools of the community into closer touch, sym- pathy, and co-operation with each other. (5) It would destroy a great deal of denominational prejudice and nar- rowness. (6) It would increase the number and develop Christian workers. (7) It would prove a great blessing to C 34 HANDBOOK OK SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK the workers themselves as well as increase attendance upon the Sunday-school and church. BLACKBOARD EXERCISE SUPPLE.MENTAL ORGANIZATION Class Organiza- tion II. Teachers' Meet- ings III. Home Dep't IV. House to House Visitation President Secretary Treasurer Committees Class greetings r When? Where ? Why? How? 1. Promote Acq., Symp., Fel. 2. Unifies Teaching 3. Improves Methods 4. Secures Better Results 1. Prayer 2. Study Lesson 3. Discuss Methods of Teaching 4. Questions 1. Enroll: Dist., Mothers, " Shut-ins," Serv., Trav. 2. Officers : Sup't, Visitors 3. Classes : Ind., Fam., Neighb., Corre. 4. Supplies : Vis. Book, Cert., Cards, Helps, etc. 5. Advantages : R. Homes, R. All, Incr. Att., Evan., Helps Pastor, Bible R., Dev. Workers Organization District the Territory Appoint Visitors Visitors' Day Distribute Inf. {Awake Com., Inform Ch's, Stim. Interest, Co-op., De- stroy Prej., Dev. Workers, Benefit Workers THE SUPERINTENDENT 35 V. THE SUPERIXTEXDENT. A large Sunday-school which is thoroughly organized may have several superintendents. If the departments are large, with a number of sub-grades and classes, each department may have its own superintendent. Yet all are subordinate to the chief superintendent, who is installed into his office by the authority of the church. What we say of the superintendent here may apply to all. Notice : / His Qualifications. We may not find in one person all the desirable quali- fications that may be mentioned, but we should find in the assistants what is lacking in the principal. To avoid mistakes in his selection we may consider the superintendent's qualifications : I. Negative, (i) We do not want a loiterer, one who is habitually behind time. Tardiness is a crime, and the superintendent must not be a criminal, a time-stealer. (2) We do not want a "lemon squeezer," a sour, sullen disposition, always finding fault with everybody and every- thing, whose forte is scolding. A superintendent with too much acid in his nature will sour every one else, keep every one in pickle, and fail to sweeten any lives of those he comes in contact with. (3) We do not want a Solomon in his own esteem, a self-conceited man who knows more than "seven men who can render a reason." He takes no sug- gestions from any one, favors nothing that he does not originate, reads nothing on Sunday-schools, makes no im- provement. (4) We do not want one of porcupine nature, whose forte is criticism. His sharp quills are always out ; you are afraid to come near him, for you are sure to be stabbed by some sharp remark that hurts for days afterward. 36 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK (5) We do not want a talking machine. The talkative superintendent may be a good-natured man, but he is af- flicted with the gift of speech. He opens the school with a lecture, he exhorts between every verse of the hymns, he preaches in the review. 1 know a school that elected a good business man super- intendent, "because he could not make a speech," They succeeded. 2. Positive. Having seen what we do not want in a superintendent, it will be more pleasant to search for the qualities that we do want. (i) Cheerfuhiess. Cheerfulness is the bright sunlight of the soul. He who possesses it makes every one happy with whom he comes in contact. The cheerful super- intendent never shows discouragement in his face. If it is a dark, gloomy, rainy day, he commences his school, by saying in fact, if not in words, "It is very dark and gloomy on the outside to-day, but I am so glad that it is so bright and cheerful in here." His face is a benediction on the school. (2) Teachableness. The good superintendent is a thorough Bible student, and hence he is teachable. He never feels that he knows enough. He is always open to suggestions. He reads the best books on Sunday-school work, and attends all the institutes and conventions that he can. Being teachable he is a teacher. He is up on all the latest approved methods of teaching. (3) Lovableness. That quality that excites love. Loveli- ness is moral magnetism. Add to this deep piety and we have a superintendent who is a moral and spiritual magnet. He has a most tender regard for the feelings of others, studiously avoids saying or doing anything that will disturb uneasy tempers. He is an amiable gendeman. He wins. (4) Gentleness. Gentleness has been defined as love in THE SUPERINTENDENT 37 society holding delightful intercourse with those around it. This quality in a superintendent gives him a permanent popularity. The virtue that includes in it softness of man- ner, tenderness of feeling, kindness of action, mildness of speech, and docility of spirit, cannot fail to render its possessor lovable and attractive. As the mission of the Sunday-school is to win to Christ, the more of this quality in the leader, the greater will be the number of those who will be won. (5) Firmness. The superintendent has much to test him. He is the sovereign in the government of the school, and his management depends upon firmness as well as kindness. He must first be sure that he is right, and then, when he takes a position, he must maintain it at all hazards. (6) Executive Ability. As the superintendent is the chief executive officer, he should possess a large share of execu- tive ability. This is the ability to foresee, plan, and exe- cute. He must have a will of his own and know how to use it. He must be a man who brings things to pass. This quality includes in it promptness and perseverance. No one who is not prompt and persevering will bring things to pass. (7) Piety. There are many other desirable traits in the superintendent that might be considered, but our space for- bids, and we close this part of our lesson with the perfect number seven. Piety includes so many good traits, and covers so many defects, that we may regard it as the one essential qualification of the superintendent. If he is pious he will be prayerful, patient, and powerful. //. His Work. I. In the School. By "in the school" we mean during the session of the school, and in order to perform his duties there properly he should be in the room fifteen or twenty 38 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK minutes before the time to open the exercises, in order to see that the sexton has done his duty and everything is in order for the session. Then his work in the school is : (i) To begin on time. One tap of the bell should be the signal for order ; then taking his place on the platform he should wait for quietness. The hymn should be an- nounced distinctly, or place the number on the board. (2) The superintendent should lead all the general exer- cises according to a well-arranged order of exercises, which may be changed from time to time. It should contain the elements of appropriateness, unity, variety, and impressive- ness. Especially should he make the opening prayer, for he knows best the spiritual needs of the school. (3) During class-work he should remain at the desk, where he can see all that is going on, and keep a note-book to make a record of anything he may wish to call attention to in future conferences with officers or teachers. If the different departments meet in different rooms, a visit from the superintendent for a few moments, if it is only to say, "How do you do," will be welcomed. Five minutes be- fore class-work closes he should give a signal, usually one tap of the bell, that all may close on time. (4) The platform review should be given by the super- intendent, using a blackboard. This review should be short, pointed, practical, impressive, bringing out a practi- cal summary of the lesson. The acrostic form will appeal to the eye and aid the memory. (5) He should aim to make the closing exercises helpful in impressing the teaching of the hour. Abruptness in closing should be avoided. The secretary's report should be placed on the board that all may see it, the papers distributed in the classes to avoid confusion. 2. Out of the School. As the superintendent can be with his school only an hour in the week, it is evident that THE SUPERINTENDENT 39 most of his work must be done out of the school. It may be summarized as follows : The work of the superintendent is to prepare for the work in the school. But to specify : (i) Hold cabinet meetings. His cabinet is composed of all the officers of the school and the pastor — who is really an officer of the school. They should meet at least once a month, and consider all questions of interest to the school, decide on new methods that are to be employed. No new method should be employed as a mere experiment, but should be first considered in the cabinet meeting, then submitted to the teachers, then put into practice. It will be well for members of the cabinet to visit other schools, observe their methods, and report. The cabinet meeting can be made very helpful to the school. (2) To hold a weekly teachers' meeting. If the superin- tendent is determined to have a teachers' meeting, he can have one. The best and only way to have a teachers' meeting is to have it. If the teachers cannot meet every week, meet every other week and take up two lessons. (3) The superintendent should visit his pupils as often as possible. If the plan of house to house visitation is adopted, he can occasionally go with the visitors. Children will be delighted to see their superintendent in their homes. (4) Out of the school the superintendent should read and study along the line of his work, keeping up with the latest and best books on the subject of Sunday-schools. (5) He should also attend Sunday-school institutes and conventions, both as a worker and a learner. The super- intendent who does not attend such meetings will soon win for himself the appropriate title of a "back number." (6) Out of the school the superintendent should prepare all the details of work in the school, as the lesson review, selection of hymns, Scripture passages that are to be used, and notify persons whom he wants to take part in the exer- 40 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK cises in any way. Then after the school has closed and he returns home, let him review all the work of that session, and ask himself where he could have improved it. Suggestions : The Superintendent s Library. Every wide-awake, up- to-date superintendent should have a library. I suggest the following: "The Baptist Superintendent," a monthly magazine, published by the American Baptist Publication Society, 25 cents a year; "A Model Superintendent," Trumbull, $1.00 ; "The Church School, and its Officers," Vincent, 75 cents ; "Ways of Working," Shauffler, |i.oo; "Sunday-school Success," Wells, $1.25 ; "How to Make the Sunday-school Go," Bener, $1.00; "Seven Graded Sunday-schools," edited by Hurlbut, 60 cents ; "Teaching and Teachers," Trumbull, $1.00. "The Sunday School Times" and "International Evangel," are among the best periodicals outside of the regular denominational papers, quarterlies, and teacher's journal, with which the superin- tendent should be familiar. BLACKBOARD EXERCISE THE SUPERINTENDENT His Qualifications Negative Positive 1. Slow 2. Sour 3. Solomon 4. Sharp 5. Talking Machine I. 2. 3- 4- 5- 6. . 7- Cheerfulness Teachableness Lovableness Gentleness Firmness Executive Ability Piety THE TEACHER 41 His Work In the School Out of the School - 1. Begin on Time 2. Lead General Exercises 3. During Class Work 4. Reviews 5. Closing Exercises 1. Hold Cabinet Meeting 2. Hold Teachers' Meeting 3. Visit Pupils 4. Read and Study 5. Attend Institutes 6. Prepare all Details His Library VL THE TEACHER. While the office and work of the superintendent cannot be too highly regarded, we must not underestimate the sacredness and power of the office and work of the teacher. What the teacher needs first and foremost is a just concep- tion and appreciation of his sacred office and God-given work. In this lesson we notice six things concerning the Sunday-school teacher. /. His Calling. Alas, too many Sunday-school teachers never have a serious thought about their work, and teach simply because they have been asked to "take a class" and can give it up as easily as they take it. Our teachers never will be brought up to the fullness of their efficiency tmtil they feel that they are called of God to teach. Hence we announce : I. This calling is of God. All Christians are called of God to some purpose : i Cor. i : 26, " For you see your calling, brethren." Then in answer to prayer he designates 42 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK some particular work. Paul's first prayer was: "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? " and the Lord answered by calling him to be an apostle (Rom. i : i). The Holy Spirit said to the church at Antioch : "Separate me Bar- nabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them." This was not the general call of all Christians, but a special call to these two men and tio one else. But this calling was to ministers or missionaries ? In this same church there "were certain prophets and teachers" (Acts 13:1). In I Cor. 12 : 28 the office of teacher is distinctly pointed out : " God hath set some in the church, first apos- tles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers." The teacher must realize this and feel that he is teaching because God wants him to teach. 2. This calling is ofteji jnade known through the church. The church is instructed to pray for workers : "Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers into his harvest." The church at Antioch sent out Saul and Barnabas as missionaries and the Holy Spirit made it known to them that he had called them. A pray- ing church will be sure to find workers. The teacher should regard the voice of the church as the voice of God. Yet he should feel impressed in his own heart that God has called him to teach ; one is the internal, the other the external call. They corroborate each other. //. His Qualificatiotis. Since the office of teacher is a divine calling, it follows that he who fills it must possess proper and essential quali- fications. The Sunday-school teacher should be I. A Christian ; not a mere professor, but a true Chris- tian in belief, experience, and life. He should believe the truth he is to teach, he should feel its power in his own soul, and live it every day before the world and his class. THE TEACHER 43 2. He should be a consistent church-member. This means that he should have a church preference, with con- scientious beliefs concerning its doctrine ; that he should belong to the church with which the school is connected, and that he should be loyal to it in its doctrine, officers, and work. He is expected to lead his pupils into the church, and he cannot do it unless he goes into it himself. 3. He should be pious, prayerful, and punctual. His piety will show him his own weakness, keep him close to God, and warm his heart. Prayerfulness will establish pious habits in the teacher, keep his class constantly be- fore a throne of grace as their intercessor, and give him the light of the Spirit for study and teaching. Punctuality will show him the value of time and enable him to economize every moment. 4. Personal magnetism and enthusiasm will add im- mensely to his power. He will draw his pupils to him and kindle a flame of zeal in them that will glow in the study of their lessons and warm a frozen recitation. 5. The teacher must love his work. If he loves God and feels that he has called him to his work he cannot help loving it. It should be a part of his very being. The expression ' ' wedded to one' s work ' ' has more in it than we think. The relation between the teacher and his work is a most tender and loving relation. Divorce means death. Teacher, if you would succeed, learn to love your work and value it as your own life. 6. The teacher should be friendly, one who can make friends, appreciate friends, and keep friends. Each mem- ber in the class should feel that the Sunday-school teacher is a friend at all times, and that he can go to him with any trouble or at any time. The teacher should also en- courage these friendly feelings, sympathy, and helpfulness between himself and his class. 44 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK 7. Finally, on this line the teacher should be a teacher not simply in name, but in knowledge, skill, tact, and power. A natural teacher with all the acquired qualifica- tions is the best. If we would rely more on God to make and choose our Sunday-school teachers for us we should have fewer failures, for he knows whom to call. A teacher is one who wants to teach, loves to teach, can teach, and does teach. /// His Preparation. Preparation means getting ready. By preparation here I do not mean the preparation of a given lesson, but the general preparation in getting ready to prepare and teach any lesson. The minister' s preparation for his work does not consist in making sermons, the lawyer's in tr^-ing cases, nor the physician' s in writing prescriptions, but in getting ready to do these things. The teacher, in preparing to teach, should take three courses of study : 1. He should study what he is to teach. A course of outline study of the Bible as a whole, its origin, interpre- tation, structure, history, geography, institutions, doctrine, etc., such a course as is outlined by the companion volume to this, "Lessons from the Desk," by Mr. Kennedy. This general outline study of the Bible will make the study of a given lesson much easier. 2. He should study how he is to teach. In these days of advanced methods of Sunday-school work and the many helpful books on the subject brought within easy reach of the teacher, he is inexcusable for ignorance. Besides, most of our children are taught in the public schools according to the latest and best methods, and they will soon detect poor teaching in the Sunday-school, and it will fail to hold them. A course of study in the principles and methods or science of teaching is essential to efficiency in THE TEACHER 45 the Sunday-school. This course of study it is the purpose of this manual to furnish. 3. The teacher should study ivhoni he is to teach. It is not enough for the teacher to know the truth he is to impart and the method of imparting it, but he must know the per- sonality he is to teach. He is to use rt// the pupil' s powers of thinking, feeling, and willing, and how can he do this if he does not know these powers, their strength and laws of operation. He must know how to reach his pupil's mind, heart, and will. A course of study in human nature, and especially child study, is essential. Part H. of this manual is a mere outline of this branch of study. We hope the teacher will greatly extend it. IV. His Study. We do not give here the method of the teacher' s study, but the general characteristics of it. Five points may be given the teacher : 1. He should study prayerfully, that is, he must ask God to help him understand the spiritual truth he studies. The Bible is unlike all other books in that it has a spiritual interpretation that can be discerned only by the spiritually minded, and the spiritually minded teacher is the prayer- ful teacher. Hence prayer helps him to study. 2. He should study reverently. It is a serious matter to prepare to teach God' s word. The teacher is dealing with divine truth and immortal souls with a view of bringing the two together. How reverent we should feel in the bodily presence of Jesus. We are no less in his presence when we come before his open word to get a message to deliver to precious souls. Study reverently. He should 3. Study habitually. Mental habits may be easily formed as well as physical, and by training the mind to think habitually along certain lines, it will naturally recur to those 46 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK topics. If the teacher will form the habit of studying his Bible every day, and especially along the line of the lessons, he can utilize many moments that would otherwise be lost. When he once has formed the habit of finding spiritual lessons from the text of the lesson, they soon become easy. Besides this he will begin to turn everything else into les- sons, as the preacher turns everything he learns into ser- mons. P'orm studious habits. 4. The teacher should study systematically. Study along similar lines, collecting and arranging similar truths in their proper relations to each other. Systematic study is the easiest and most aids the memory and prepares it best for teaching. Many an otherwise good sermon has been lost to the audience because it had no system in its make-up. The same is true of a lesson that is to be taught. Much depends on arrangement. 5. The teacher should study thoroughly. Superficial preparation discourages, if not disgusts, an intelligent class, and is very harmful to the teacher. Thorough preparation in our Sunday-school w^ork is the remedy for many an ill. Thorough preparation gives the teacher self-confidence when he comes before his class, and inspires confidence on the part of the class. This also "increases their faith" in the word and its author. Be thorough. V. His teaching. Three points will describe in a general way the teaching of the Sunday-school teacher. I. It should be sound in doctrine. We are often asked if we should teach doctrine in the Sunday-school. My re- ply is, that if we teach at all we must teach doctrine. But what is sound doctrine ? It is evangelical : a proper con- ception of God, our relations to him, his love, and our re- lations to it, proper conceptions of ourselves, proper con- THE TEACHER 47 ceptions of Christ, the work of the Spirit, and the way of salvation. For a Baptist, sound doctrine includes that sys- tem of belief held by the denomination. Teach the dis- tinctive doctrines of Baptists ? Certainly, that is what they are for. The Jews were instructed to teach their distinctive doctrines to their children, and why not we ? We should hold no doctrine that we are not willing to teach in the Sunday-school or elsewhere. Let the teaching be sound in doctrine. 2. // should be 7iatural in method. There is a natural way to teach all truth and a natural way to teach every lesson. The teacher must find that way, and follow it. There is a natural point at which to begin every lesson, a natural way to proceed to unfold it, and a natural way in which to reach every heart. The skillful teacher will soon find it. There is a natural way to reach the child mind, the boy mind, the girl mind, the youth's mind, and the mind of the adult and aged ; the same is true of their hearts. Teaching should be natural. 3. // should be practical i}i application. The Sunday- school class is not a debating society for the discussion of knotty theological questions, nor a factory for spinning fine theories, nor a social club for "a good time," but a con- flict in which head and heart come in contact with head and heart, where souls are to be won as the fruits of the greatest victories, and lives are to be made better and hap- pier. Let much time be given to the practical lessons. Better take only one or two and impress them well than to skim over a large number. Practical teaching is clear, im- pressive, and moves to action. If your teaching causes the pupil to think, understand, feel, and act, it is practical in the highest sense, VI. His Pastoral Work. The teacher bears something of the relation to his class 48 HAxXDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK. that the pastor does to his congregation. He is their shep- herd in spiritual things. This relation readily suggests duties in this direction. 1. He is to know his flock. The shepherd of Palestine, of whom Jesus spoke, knew the name and face of every sheep in his flock. So the teacher must know his class, their names, places of abode, dispositions, and the world in which they live, their home life, school life, street life, social life, business life — must know their moral and spirit- ual condition. To do this he must visit them at their homes, their school, in short, must go into the world in which they live. 2. He is to lead his flock. The shepherd went before his flock, never driving, but leading them. The teacher must lead his class, in thinking, study, and living, influ- ence them for good. Often he will lead them out of the world in which he finds them into a better world, or life. To do this it is well to have them at his home and cul- tivate a good social atmosphere for them. This will be leading them into "green pastures and beside the still waters." Lead them to Christ and into the church. 3. He is to feed his flock. The shepherd made ever}^ preparation to feed well his flock. So the teacher must prepare out of school to feed well his "little flock" in school. 4. This pastorate jueans to care for the flock. The shep- herd nurses the sick of his flock and carries the lambs in his bosom across the streams. So there is much pastoral work for the teacher, in looking after the sick, and helping the lambs over the many streams of trial and doubt. 5. // means to defend the flock. In the East the sheep were in danger of being attacked by wolves, and the shep- herd would hazard his life in defending them. How many ravenous beasts seek to prey upon our children and youth, THE TEACHER 49 as the saloon, the theater, the ballroom, and many other social evils! Let the teacher be found on the right side of these questions and ready to defend his class from them. BLACKBOARD EXERCISE THE TEACHER TT- c ]]' / '• ■^^^'^ God ^ \ 2. Made Known Through the Church - I. A Christian 2. Consistent Church-member 3- Pious, Prayerful, Punctual Qualifications ■< 4- Personal Magnetism 5. Must Love the Work 6. Be Friendly . 7- Natural Teacher Study What Preparation - 2. Study How . 3- Study Whom r I Prayerful 2. Reverent Study - 3' Habitual 4. Systematic L 5. Thorough Teaching r I. sc \ 2. N i 3. P> Sound in Doctrine atural in Method ractical in Application Pastoral Work L 5 1. Know 2. Lead 3. Feed 4. Care for Defend 50 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK VII. HOW TO STUDY A SUNDAY-SCHOOL LESSON. I once visited a mansion on a hill near a town in the mountain region of West Virginia. My object was pleasure and information. I made a study of the building and premises. In doing so I did three things : (i) I went all around the building, viewing it from every point of the compass, (2) I went all through it from cellar to dome, getting a magnificent view of the surrounding country from the observatory ; I also studied the plan of its construction, the great halls and stairways, the various apartments and rooms and their relations to each other. (3) Then the gentleman who showed me through told me all he knew about it. That visit and study suggested to me three rules for the study of a Sunday-school lesson, which I give in the following outline : / Study all Around the Lesson. If I had viewed the mansion from only a single point, I should have gotten only a partial view of it. So with a Bible lesson, we must study the lesson text in all its sur- roundings, look at it from many points of view. We should study the lesson \. hi its historical stirroimdings. For illustration, we take a passage from some portion of one of the Minor Prophets, e. g., Hosea. We cannot understand it until we know when Hosea prophesied, and what was the object of his prophecy, determined only by a study of the condition of Israel at the time of his prediction. In other words, w^e must know the history that called forth the lesson text. The same is true of many of the psalms. If the lesson be Ps. 137, we must study the condition of the Jews in HOW TO STUDY A SUNDAY-SCHOOL LESSON 5 I Babylon, or we cannot understand it. This is what is called "the historic setting of the lesson." But we must also study the lesson 2. In its logical surroundings, that is, study it in relation to the context. Get the connection between the present and the preceding lesson. If we are to take a few verses from a given book, we must study these verses in relation to the book as a whole. It is often necessary to read the whole book through, as one of the Minor Prophets, or Epistles, to get the logical connection of the lesson text. Again, it is often essential to an understanding of a lesson, to study it 3. In its geographical surroundings. Many of the allu- sions and figures of Paul' s Epistles will be much better un- derstood when we know where he was and how he was situated when writing. When a prisoner, surrounded by soldiers and military accoutrements and weapons, it was natural for him to describe the Christian as a soldier and the Christian life as a warfare. Dr. David Gregg has drawn a most interesting, as well as strong and conclusive, argument for the divine inspiration of the whole Bible from the setting of its revelation, the testimony of the land to the book in its geography and history. This method applies to the study of any given portion of the Bible. Study all around the lesson. // Study all Through the Lesson. To study all through a lesson is to study it from begin- ning to end, to explore every part of it and note carefully the relations of these parts to each other, to thoroughly analyze it. It is said that in every lesson there are seven elements : time, place, person, fact or thought, difficulty, doctrine, duty. To study all through a lesson involves several distinct processes. They may be briefly mentioned : 52 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK 1. Read the lesson and its setting until the mind is familiar with it. 2. Make a paraphrase of the facts of the lesson in your own language, either oral or written or both. 3. Be sure you understand the meaning of every word and phrase of the lesson text. Here use the helps. 4. Find all the practical lessons that are taught in the lesson text and context, and write them out in a brief con- cise statement, placing them in their natural order. 5. Then go over the whole lesson with your class before you, and select such truths as you think they most need and that you will have time to teach. 6. Then make a plan of teaching it to your class. The plan must suit the grade of the class ; a primary plan, an intermediate plan, an advanced plan. 7. Pray before you begin the study. Pray all through it, and enfold it with prayer two or three days before you teach it. /// Study all About the Lesson. By this I mean that the teacher should study the lesson independently all that he can, and then use the best helps available. It is a very poor teacher who will use no helps at all ; it is a worse one who depends entirely upon helps. If the teacher can find for himself what is in the help, so much the better. The helps are a great convenience and time-saver. We offer here a few suggestions in regard to lesson helps : I. Use the best of your own denomination. The quar- terly your class uses, and the teachers' magazine, — for the teacher should study the lesson in line with the pupil, only more extensively and thoroughly. For that reason he should have the teachers' journal and a good lesson commen- tary. While denominational helps should come first, the HOW TO STUDY A SUNDAY-SCHOOL LESSON 53 teacher is not confined to them. There are some excel- lent undenominational lesson helps, as " Peloubet's Select Notes," "The Sunday School Times," and "International Evangel." 2. Use lesson helps as helps. Do not depend too much upon them. Study independently until you get all you can, then use the helps to perfect your work. Or study the lesson independently until you get hungry, then read about it until you get full. 3. Use the helps in the study of the lesson, and not in the teaching before the class. The questions in the helps are to stimulate study upon the part of the teacher. He should use nothing before the class but the Bible, neither should the class use anything else. 4. In addition to the usual periodical lesson helps, the teacher should use maps, charts, and commentaries, and especially a good Bible dictionary, or an encyclopedia, if he has access to one. 5. But the best help is the Bible itself. What the Bible says about the lesson in other passages is most helpful. Consult the parallel passages. This is especially necessary when the lessons are from some of the historical books of the Old Testament or from the Gospels. In conclusion, let me suggest another form of presenting the three rules I have given for the study of a lesson ; this will give the heart preparation as well as the intellectual. Memorize them in this form : FIRST. 1. Study all aroinid the lesson. 2. Study all through the lesson. 3. Study all about the lesson. SECONDLY. I. Pray all around Xhe. lesson. 54 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK 2. Pray all through the lesson. 3. Pray all about the lesson. Additio7ial Hints on Preparation. 1. Begin early. 2. Read often. 3. Prepare much more than you expect to teach. 4. Make several plans of teaching, then adopt the best. 5. Talk with others about the lesson, especially at the teachers' meeting. 6. Remember that a studious teacher makes a studious class. 7. Remember also that a full teacher makes a full class, and an empty teacher an empty class. BLACKBOARD EXERCISE HOW TO STUDY THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL LESSON ii; Historical Surroundings Study All Around \ ^; Geographical II. All Through 1. Read Less. Fam. 2. Make Paraphrase 3. Und. Meaning Word and Phrase 4. Find Prac. Lessons 5. Select Truths 6. Make Plan : Pri., Int., Adv. 7. Pray III. All About the Lesson 1. Use Best Denom. Helps and Others 2. Helps as Helps 3. Helps in Study not Teaching 4. Use Com., Map, Bible Diet., Encyc. 5. Bible Best Help Memorize : Study, Pray Hints on THE LAWS OF TEACHING 55 1. Begin Early 2. Read Often 3. Prepare More Teach T^ . ,4. Several Flans Preparation ^^ Talk-Teachers' Meeting I 6. Studious Teacher, Studious Class (^ 7. Full Teacher, Full Class VIII. THE LAWS OF TEACHING. What is teaching? The Bible, to my mind, furnishes the best definition. We may formulate it from Neh. 8:8: "They (Ezra's teachers) read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense and caused them to un- derstand the reading." Teaching is causing another to u?iderstand. As it is a cause of which learning is the effect, it must be governed by law. Teaching is as much governed by law as are ' ' the circling planets above us or the growing organisms beneath us." If we would teach we must know and observe these laws, then we cannot fail to teach. For a full, thorough, and philosophical discus- sion of these laws we refer the student to Gregory' s ' ' Seven Laws of Teaching." In this lesson we can do no better than to give a summary of them, stating them in Doctor Gregory's own language, and illustrating them from our own experience in teaching. There are seven factors in all teaching, no matter what the subject may be. There must be a teacher, a learner, a medium of communication be- tween teacher and pupil, a lesson^ a teaching process, a learning process, and a test. These he formulates into laws as follows : / The Laiu of the Teacher. It is so simple and self-evident, that a mere statement of 56 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK it would seem all that is necessary. It is thus : The teacher must kjiow what he zuou/d teach. How often we attempt to teach what we do not know, that is, understand. If we do not understand a truth ourselves, how can we ex- pect to make others understand it ? When we have studied a lesson until we are so full of it that we feel we must teach it, then we have the law, though reversed in terms, in its deepest significance. But there are degrees in knowledge. We may know a truth so as to be able 1. To simply recognize it. This is the degree of a knowledge of thousands of persons whom I have simply met once or twice. This is the lowest degree of knowledge. Any teacher should be ashamed not to go beyond this. The teacher should know the truth so as to be able 2. To reproduce it at will. This requires a degree of familiarity with it. It may be only a surface knowledge of it, — ability to state the facts of a truth or lesson without the reasons therefor. This degree is insufficient for a teacher. He must know the truth so as to be able 3. To explaiii it. They "gave the sense" in Ezra's Bible-school. The inquiring pupil always wants to know the whys. The teacher must be able to give them, or to confess ignorance. There are some Bible truths that must be taught without explanation, as the Trinity and the nature of Christ. But this does not change the law. But no truth can be fully understood by itself. The teacher must 4. Know it in its relations, beauty, and power. All truth is related. This is especially true of Bible truth. How often do we get new views of old and familiar texts. These views have always been there, we have simply discovered their new relations. Only thorough and persistent study dis- covers them. The Bible is a great kaleidoscope — every time we turn it we get a new view of truth. THE LAWS OF TEACHING 57 //. The Law of the Learner. No matter how much a teacher may know, and how well he can impart it, there can be no teaching without an at- tentive and interested pupil. Hence the law of the learner is as follows : The learner must attend with interest to the fact or truth to be learned. There can be no teaching without attention, and hence it is sure failure to attempt it. Under this law we may inquire 1. What is attention? It has been defined as "mental attitude," the attitude of the whole mind toward the thing to which it is attending, "the will power marshaling all the faculties of the mind for some expected onset." Or to avoid all technicality, attention is being "ready to learn." The mind aroused, active, and eager for work. 2. W' hat kinds of attention do we have ? Two, com- pelled and attracted. The first is forced by an effort of the will in obedience to a command. It is short-lived and easily exhausted. Attracted attention is full of power and is long-lived. Forced attention is wearisome to the mind. This is why so many people get tired in church and Sun- day-school scholars in class. The preacher, or teacher, fails to interest, and attention is forced for courtesy's sake. Attracted attention is strengthening to the mind and de- lightful to give. Forced attention may be made to grow into the attracted, or the attracted may degenerate into the compelled. 3. upon whom devolves the responsibility of attention ? With the teacher, if it is attracted attention. It is his duty to win and hold the attention of the class. Of course it is the duty of the scholar to give respectful attention. But the teaching should be of such a character that it is de- lightful to attend to it. 4. What hinders atte7ttio7i ? Lack of interest upon the 58 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK part of the pupil, and interruptions, such as taking collec- tions or distributing papers during class work, or receiving visitors. The teacher must awaken interest in the subject, and remove the first hindrance, and then suppress all inter- ruptions or distractions. Attention must be a unit ; if there is division in the mental forces, there will be failure, hence the preachers say, "give us your undivided attention." It is a law of the mind to attend to that which interests it ; so the one sovereign remedy for inattention is interest. 5. Violations of this law. The law of attention is violated when an attempt is made to teach without it ; when an effort is made to hold it after the mind of the pupil is exhausted ; when no interest in the subject is excited ; when the teacher reads a list of questions out of a lesson help, never raising his eyes from work or paper. To win and hold attention, know and obey its laws. ^ /// The Law of the Language. We may have a teacher with head and heart full of knowledge, a pupil eager to learn and all attention ; but there can be no teaching, without a medium of communi- cation between them. This medium must be physical and be a sign, object, motion, written or spoken language ; but both teacher and pupil must alike understand it. Hence, the law of the language is : The language used in teaching must be common to teacher and learner. Words are signs of ideas. If the idea is wanting in the mind, the word is a senseless sound to the ear. I may use a combination of sounds, as, auto, igna, inpo, solga, dib, sur ; but what sense is there in them ? But if both the speaker and hearer recog- nize an idea in each sound, thought is communicated. In the application of this law I. The teacher must keep within the vocabulary of the ^See Lesson IX. THE LAWS OF TEACHING 59 pupil. The teacher usually knows many more words than his pupil, and is constantly violating this law, and failure in teaching is the result. I heard a preacher "explain (?) hope" to a class of little girls in this way : "Children, you know this beautiful stream of water running behind the meeting-house is composed of oxygen and hydrogen ; so hope is composed of two elements, desire and expectation," It would have been a good illustration for a class that had been studying chemistry. 2. Words of double meaning must be explained. A boy hitched his horse to a post, and then read to his mother in the Bible, "My days are swifter than a post," and he was puzzled, for the post did not go ahead. Another boy read, "The wicked flee when no man pursueth," and said he would like to see that wicked Jfea that no man pursueth. 3. The figurative language of the Bible often puzzles children, because they give to words their literal meaning. Trumbull says, when he was a boy in Sunday-school they told him he had to be either a sheep or a goat, and he wanted to grow up and be a man. 4. The teacher should avoid high-sounding words, or "big words," just for the sake of using them. A story is told of a teacher who asked the following question on the "husks" that the swine did eat in the parable of the Prodigal Son : ' ' Boys, are you of the opinion that the custom- ary aliment of swine is congenial to the digestive apparatus of the gefiiis Jiodio ? ' ' All the answer he got was, ' ' Eh ? ' ' No law of teaching is more violated than this law of the language. Teacher and learner must perfectly understand each other if there are to be the best results in teaching. 5. It must also be remembered that the language of things is as forcible in expression as that of words. The eye is often more eloquent than the voice ; the expressions of the face, the movement of the limbs and body, aid the 6o HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK words in expressing their ideas. A German described John B. Gough as "the man what talks mit his coat-tails." Use objects and pictures, which make the most lasting im- pressions on the child mind. 6. A few suggestions grow out of this law. (i) The teacher should know, improve, and use the pupil' s vocabulary. Use child language with children, and technical language with scholars and critics. (2) Use short words and sentences. (3) Use variety of expression. (4) Use objects, pictures, and illustrations. IV. The Law of the Lesson. The lesson is the center of the teacher s work. It is the truth that is to be transferred from the mind and heart of the teacher to the mind and heart of the pupil. It has to do with the known and the unknown. With the teacher it is known, and the pupil unknown. It is a fact that we can learn the unknown only by comparison with what we already know, hence. Doctor Gregory's fourth law is : The truth to be taught must be learned through the truth already known. " Knowledge is truth discovered and understood." Hidden truth is not knowledge until it is revealed and ex- plained. Truth is like the precious metal, it may be hid in a deep mine, known only to God who put it there ; but when it is discovered, mined, and put to use, it is the known, or knowledge. The known to an individual is what he has mastered and made his own. With this we must begin to teach. In the application of this law we must 1. Begin with what the pupil knows. What he knows of the lesson, or what he knows that is like the lesson. Find what the pupil knows and make use of it. 2. Proceed step by step by comparison, comparing the known with the unknown, connecting lessons already learned with those to be learned. THE LAWS OF TEACHING 01 3. Make the steps short, easy, and natural. Learning is like climbing a ladder, but the rungs must not be too far apart. Yet these steps must be in proportion to the ability of the student to climb. 4. Avoid violations of this law. They are many, as, as- signing too long and too difficult tasks, attempting to teach too much at a time, attempting to explain the un- known by the unknown, by using strange illustrations, fail- ing to use the pupils' knowledge, or to show the connection it bears to the new truth. F. The Law of the Teaching Process. The first four laws of the teacher, the learner, the lan- guage, the lesson, show the nature of teaching ; the next three, the processes or these laws in motion. Truth cannot be conveyed from one mind to another as a basket of po- tatoes can be emptied into another basket, but it must "be recognized, re-thought by the receiving mind." There is no teaching unless the pupil's mind is active on the same thought of the teacher. Hence, the law of the teaching process is : Excite and direct the self-activities of the learner, and tell hint nothing he can learn for himself By careful study of this l^w of the teaching process, we may find the function of the teacher — not to tell a truth, nor read a truth out of a book, but to lead out the pupil to discover the truth for himself This he may do by creating in him a desire to know, by showing him the value of knowledge, by being thoroughly familiar with the truth himself, by waking up the mind and setting it to work by proper questions, by setting before the pupil the knowledge he wants to teach as a prize and encouraging him to win it, by keeping constantly in mind that the great aim of study and teaching is to acquire knowledge and to develop power. Many learn without a teacher, which shows that 62 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK the work of the teacher is not to cram information into the mind of the pupil but to aid him to self-learning, and strengthen him in self-confidence. The function of the Sunday-school teacher is wider and deeper than that of any other teacher, except the gospel minister, because he not only excites and directs the intel- lect of his pupil, but has an influence over all his powers, moral and religious. By the exercise of these the pupil's intellectual powers are more evenly adjusted, and he is much more of a man for this symmetrical development. From this law we may deduce a few practical suggestions for the teacher : 1. Do not mistake telling for teaching. You may tell the same fact ten times and no one will learn it. You only have to teach it once. 2. Thorough teaching aids the memory. If the pupil fails to remember the last lesson it is because he failed to learn it well. 3. In the recitation do not be in too great a hurry for answers. Give the pupils time to think. 4. Do not put the answer into the question ; that is only another way of telling. 5. Do not exhaust the subject of the lesson, but raise additional points for pupils to look up afterward. VI. The Law of the Learning Process. On the learning process we pass to the side of the pupil. The law of the teaching process shows the means of self- activities, and the law of the learning process the manner of employing these activities. Doctor Gregory thus states the law : "The learner must reproduce in his own mind the truth to be acquired.''' This law can be of great service to the pupil in studying his lesson. Simply repeating back to the teacher in the THE LAWS OF TEACHING 63 same words what has been told him, is no evidence of learning on the part of the pupil. The pupil must re-think and reproduce the lesson in his own words, is the meaning of this law. Yea, more, the learner must use the new truth thus gained in investigating for himself the dis- covery of additional new truth. Both teacher and pupil should be investigators. Doctor Gregory makes five stages in learning a lesson . 1. Memorized and recited word for word. 2. Understanding the thought of the lesson. 3. Translating the thought into the pupil's own words. Here the work of discovery begins. 4. Proving the statements made in the lesson. Espe- cially the Bible student should see that "these things are so." 5. The highest stage is to see the uses and application of the knowledge thus learned. No lesson is completely learned that does not pass through these five stages. To this law there are two limitations : 1. The age and power of the pupil. 2. The kind of knowledge studied. Suggestions. This law suggests : 1. Slow, patient, thorough study, until clearness is reached. 2. Avoiding the slavish habit of clinging to the language of the book or teacher. 3. Original thinking. 4. Finding the whys and wherefores of the lesson. 5. Above all to find the practical applications of the truth learned. There is always more in a Bible lesson than lies on the surface of its f;icts. 64 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK VII. The Law of Review. We might think that when the processes of the foregoing laws have been employed by teacher and pupil together that the work would be done. Not so. One more thing, often the most difficult to do, must be done. The work must be tested. This is done only by review. The law is stated as follows : The completion, test, and confirm atio7i of teaching, must be ?nade by reviews. The law states : 1. The aim of reviews, which is three-fold, (i) To com- plete knowledge, dressing it up, putting on "the finishing touches," polish. (2) To confirm knowledge. "Line upon line, and precept upon precept," is the Bible injunc- tion. Continuous drill on the same truth confirms it, and fixes it in the mind. General Grant said, that he was kept saying for six years in school, that "a noun is the name of a person, place, or thing," and after a while he came to be- lieve it. (3) To facilitate the use of knowledge. The reason why a skillful musician can "run the scales" of a piano so rapidly and gracefully, is that the hands have gone over that keyboard thousands of times. I have learned that the oftener I teach the same lesson, or preach the same ser- mon, the better I can do it. It is the result of review. 2. The nature of review, (i) It is more than mere rep- etition. Review is a new view in many respects. A ma- chine repeats exactly the same process, but a teacher should not be a mere machine. Review in different forms of ex- pression. (2) Reviews may be partial or complete. In our Sunday-school system, we should have a weekly re- view of every lesson, and a quarterly review of all the lessons of the quarter. (3) Reviews often bring out new truth. This is especially true in Bible study. Our last study of a given passage is the bc^t. THE LAWS OF TEACHING 65 BLACKBOARD EXERCISE LAWS OF TEACHING f I. Recognize I. J 2. Reproduce Teacher 1 3. Explain [ 4. Relations, Beauty, Power II. Learner 1. What is Attention? 2. Kind of Attention 3. Responsibility for Attention 4. Hindering Attention 5. Violations III. Language 1. Pupil's Vocabulary 2. Double Meanings 3. Figures of Speech 4. Big Words . 5. Of Objects 6. Suggestions: Use 1. Pupil's Vocabulary 2. Short Words and Sentences 3. Variety of Expression 4. Objects, Pictures r I. Begin with the Known IV. J 2. Steps of Comparison Lesson 1 3. Make Short, Easy, Natural [ 4. Violations V. Teaching Process I. Function of Teacher : Aid, Strengthen 1. Telling Not Teaching 2. Thorough Teaching Remembered Suggestions \ 3. Don't Hurry 4. Answers in Questions 5. Don't Exhaust Subject VI. Learning Process Memorize, Recite Understand Translate Prove See Uses Limited by Age of Pupil Kind of Knowledge 66 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK VII. Reviews {I. To Complete Knowledge 2. To Confirm Knowledge 3. To Facilitate Use of Knowledge {I. More than Repetition 2. Partial or Complete 3. Develops New Truth IX. HOW TO TEACH A SUNDAY-SCHOOL LESSON. If the teacher will master the principles of teaching as outlined in the last lesson, he will have but little difficulty in teaching any lesson. We assume that the teacher and class are both prepared on a given lesson, and are now brought face to face in the class. To secure the best re- sults of a recitation, we must /. Have Favorable External Conditions. There are some circumstances under which it would be impossible to teach. If the house were on fire we should not attempt it. If everything around us is in confusion it were almost as useless. To do my best in teaching, I would want : 1. A classroom for myself and class alone. If it were only curtained from the main room I would want this. That I could have in connection with almost any school. 2. A blackboard. Semelroth' s endless, gum-cloth roller- board is the best. I would make my own maps on the board or large sheets of paper. 3. Freedom from interruption. Register attendance, take the collection, and introduce visitors or new scholars, all before the teaching begins. After beginning allow nothing to interrupt the clnss-work. HOW TO TEACH A SUNDAY-SCHOOL LESSON 6/ // Get and Hold the Attentioti of the Class. This is absolutely essential, as there can be no teaching without it. Never begin without it. It is the "Law of the Learner," and if it is violated, failure will be the inevitable result. How ? 1. Through the eye. Exhibit an object, no matter what ; make a mark, or even feign to make one on the board, and it will attract the attention of the class at once. 2. By startling or odd questions. I once got the atten- tion of a wriggling class of boys, on Easter Sunday, by be- ginning with the question: "Boys, do you like eggs?" "How do you like them cooked ?" etc. 3. Hold the attention by keepittg up the i7iterest in the lesson. If any one pupil seems to grow inattentive, wake him up with a question. The question is the instrument to awaken interest. Encourage the pupils also to ask ques- tions. But avoid discussion for discussion's sake. ///. Review the Last Lesson and Connect it with the Present. This is in accordance with the "Law of the Lesson." New truth is learned from the truth already known. If the lesson is the beginning of a new series, then begin with the approach to the lesson. This approach should always be- gin with something the pupil knows. LV. Bring Out by Questions the Facts of the Lesson. The facts must be gotten as the basis of doctrinal and practical teaching in the lesson. This may be done 1. By questioning from the pupils what they know. 2. By questioning into them what they do not know. 3. By questioning out what has been questioned in, 4. By letting in the light through the windows of illus- tration. 68 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK V. Then Find and Formulate the Great Doctrinal Points of the Lessson. Do not aim to bring out every doctrine and formulate it, but a few of the most prominent. This may be done in two ways : 1. Get each pupil, if possible, to find and state a doc- trine. If several find the same thing so much the better. 2. Or ask, "How does this lesson teach the doctrine of 'the atonement' ?" for instance. VI. Find and Apply the Practical Lessons. This is the part of the teaching most important and most neglected. Never consider the lesson taught without the practical lessons applied. Illustrations that move the heart make the best applica- tion. The aims of the application are : 1. To awaken the impenitent. 2. To lead the inquirer to Christ. 3. To encourage, comfort, and consecrate the believer. VII. Review and Leave the Lesson as a Whole on the Alind. This can be done best by putting it on the board. Allit- eration aids the memor}'. I used with good effect in the lesson on The Three Hebrews in the Fiery Furnace, the fol- lowing summary : F URIOUS lERY FURNACE EARLESS AITHFUL OUR The furious king had the Hebrews thrown into the fiery furnace because they w^ould not worship his image ; but they were fearless and faithful, and the fourth person, the Son of God, was with them and protected them. Seeking T Instructed in T R Believing H U Obeying e T Rejoicing in H HOW TO TEACH A SUNDAY-SCHOOL LESSON 69 I have also used the following in teaching the lesson on Philip and the Eunuch. After getting the setting and circumstances of the text, note that here we have S I E R Hi7its on Teaching the Lesson, 1. If in a separate room begin and end the lesson with prayer. Yet that may be done anywhere. 2. Make the recitation sprightly. Don' t let it drag. 3. Preserve a reverent spirit throughout the lesson. Avoid frivolity, but be cheerful. 4. Encourage the class to ask as well as answer questions. 5. Assign work to each pupil on the next lesson. BLACKBOARD EXERCISE HOW TO TEACH A SUNDAY-SCHOOL LESSON I. r I. Separate Room Favorable Ex- \ 2. Blackboard ternal Conditions y 3. Freedom from Interruptions II. r I. Through the Eye Getting and \ 2. Starding Questions Holding Att'n ( 3. Keep up Interest III. r See " Law of Lesson " Connec'g Rev'w\ Use " Law of Approach" IV. r I. Questioning Out What Pupil Knows Question on J 2. Questioning in What Pupil Does Not Know Facts I 3. Questioning Out What Pupil Has Learned [ 4. Illustrations 70 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK V. r , T7_„u TD.-„:i Yind One ^ , ] I. Each Pupil Doctd^al Points 1 ^- ^^'"^ '^ ^^^ Doctrine Taught? (I. To A -^ 2. To L is. ToE VI, C I. To Awaken Impenitent Practical -I 2. To Lead Inquirers to Christ Application (3. To Encourage, Comfort, Consecrate, Believers VII. Review, Whole Lesson, Examples Prayer Sprightliness Hints -j Reverence Questions by Class Assign ^Vork X. QUESTIONING. There is nothing so important, so essential, and difficult in teaching as questioning. The question may be said to be the instrument in teaching. Defi7iitio7is. The question has been variously defined, as : "an incomplete statement," the teacher stating part of a proposition in such a way that it requires the answer to the question to complete it, e. g., "Who baptized Jesus?" Ans., "John the Baptist"; putting it in the declarative form, we would say : "Jesus was baptized by ." Here it takes the addition of John the Baptist to complete the statement. Again, a question is " a corkscrew" to draw- out thoughts from the pupil ; "a shuttle" flying back and forth between teacher and pupil, weaving the warp and woof of the lesson; "a pickaxe" to dig into the deep mine of Bible truth ; " a probe " to prick the conscience of the pupil. / The Value of the Question. I. // awakens attention. A question being "an incom- QUESTIONING J I plete Statement," and the mind recognizing only a part of the statement, at once interest arises to know the remainder of it, or the answer. Nothing wakes up a drowsy, listless audience in public address so quickly as for the speaker to throw in a few sharp interrogatives. If a pupil becomes in- attentive, fire a few questions at him. 2. It tests the pupil' s preparation of the lesson. The pu- pil cannot complete the statement of a partial proposition unless he knows it, and he cannot know it without previous study. If he knows that his knowledge is thus to be tested, it will also stimulate him to study. If the teacher lectures to his class, the pupil may depend upon him to tell every- thing about the lesson. 3. // develops thought. If the mind does not, at the time the question is propounded, recognize the answer that completes the partial proposition, it goes at once in search for it. Thus it awakens desire, prompts inquiry, directs research, and is " a positive teaching power." 4. // tests the teacher s work. The question is espe- cially valuable in review. The teacher cannot know whether he has imparted a single idea until the pupil gives it back to him. The teacher, especially in a Sunday- school class, where study is voluntary, must necessarily tell much of the truth he wants to communicate, but he should never leave the lesson until he has gotten it all back from the class by questions. 5. // arouses the conscience. Here is where it is "a probe." I was first awakened to a sense of the need of conversion, by the minister coming to me in the congrega- tion, taking me by the hand, and looking me straight in the face, saying, "Young man, are you a Christian?" It went to the heart. A superintendent once asked his secre- tary, amoral young man, "What became of Noah's car- penters?" That question led to his conversion. He felt 72 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK that he was helping to build the ark without any hope of getting into it. (See John 6 : 6/ ; Luke lo : 36, 37.) The teacher has no more powerful instrument in reaching the heart of his pupil than the question. 6. The question is also valuable in correcting the pupils' mistakes. When pupils answer wrongly, do not flatly con- tradict them, but lead them to see the errors by a series of questions. It is much better to lead pupils to find their own mistakes than directly to point them out to them. // The Preparation of Questions. "Any fool can ask a question," says an old proverb, but the question of a fool will be a foolish question. It takes a wise man to ask wise questions. To learn the art and wis- dom of questioning : 1. Study the questions of children. They go directly to the point. A minister once, after preaching a very noisy sermon, went home with one of his deacons for dinner, who had a bright little girl, five or six years old. The minister took her on his lap to talk to her, when she looked up into his face, and said : "Mr. , what for you scream so?" That was sufficient. Arouse the questioning spirit in a child, which is easy to do, then watch it work. Then think how you can apply what you have learned to teaching. I learn some of my most valuable lessons from children. 2. Ask questio7is with others. For instance, at teachers' meeting let all take their turn in asking questions on the lesson. At first the exercise will drag, but after a little persistence it will begin to grow, and become an easy and delightful exercise. The same may be practised in any so- cial gathering on any subject. We used to have spelling matches and pronouncing "bees," why not get up a ques- tioning " bee" ? 3. Write questions on the lesson. If the teacher will QUESTIONING 73 write twenty-five or thirty questions on the lesson, keeping in mind the needs of his pupils, the scope of the lesson, and the line he proposes to pursue, he will find it exceed- ingly profitable in acquiring the art of questioning. 4. Study the published questions in the lesson helps. As we have said before, and cannot too often insist upon, these printed questions are for the teacher's study of the lesson at home, and not for his use before the class. They are helpful in awakening thought, stimulating inquiry, and directing a line of preparation. If the teacher will prepare a list of questions on the lesson, before he examines those in the helps, he will be encouraged with his own work, and find valuable aid in revising and perfecting his own list. He may not use exactly either list before the class, but the preparation will make him able to use what at the time of teaching he feels is necessary. /// Some Characteristics of Good Questions. It must be borne in mind that good questions and good answers come out of a thorough and complete knowledge of the subject upon which they are asked. The following are some of the characteristics of good questions to a Sunday- school class : I. Originality. They are to be bred and born in the teacher's brain, not read from a printed list. I once heard a man give a "model lesson" (?) in a Sunday-school con- vention. He copied veybatim the list of questions in the quarterly on the blackboard, and read them off to the class. If he had simply handed the printed list to the class it would have saved him that labor. No one knows so well as the true teacher what questions should be pro- pounded to his class, for no one knows the class as he is supposed to know it. Hence, he should seek to make his questions his own. 74 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK 2. Clearness. The word clear (from clarus, bright, bril- liant), originally refers to that which shines and impresses the senses through the eye without any obstruction. A clear question is one that comes to the mind of the pupil without dimness, dullness, obstruction, or obscurity. The pupil must know what the teacher means by the question, and this he cannot know if the question is not clear. It should shine with divine truth as the subject of its inquiry. If the teacher would be called a "bright" teacher, let him ask clear questions. 3. Sijnplicity. That is singleness. A simple question contains a single idea and requires but one answer. "Con- junctions," says W. T. Young, on the art of questioning, " should never be employed in crowding several details into one question ; too many points presented at once to the mind of the pupil distract his attention, and render an answer, if not impossible, at least slow and uncertain." Suppose a teacher should ask concerning John the Baptist. "Who was John the Baptist, and what was his mission, how did he dress, and where and how did he preach, and how did his plain preaching cost him his life, and at whose hands?" At once the mind of the pupil is con- fused at so long a compound question. Break it up into simple questions and he will easily and readily answer all of them. 4. Variety. The same question may be put in a variety of forms. If it is not understood because the teacher has made it too difficult, then it should be stated in an easier form ; or it may contain language familiar to the teacher, but unknown to the pupil, then the phraseology must be changed. Again, the same thought in a question may be put in a variety of ways, when the teacher wants to impress it on the memory, e. g., What prophet was taken to heaven without dying ? QUESTIONING 75 Elijah. Who was taken to heaven in a chariot ? EHjah. Who besides Enoch was translated ? Elijah. 5- Siiggestiveness. Not so much should the question suggest the answer as thought along the line of the answer. If, for instance, you want to make the pupil think of the new truth you want to teach, ask him questions about something he knows that is like the new truth. Thus according to a law of the mind you help the pupil to make a comparison between "the known and unknown" himself, which is far better than making it for him. 6. Practicalness, or the quality of being practical. The aim of teaching in the Sunday-school is broader than that of the secular school. The aim of the latter is to develop and instruct the mind, while that of the former, in addition, is to reach the heart and the moral and religious life of the pupil. This is its main aim, and hence the teaching must largely be practical, and the questions must not only test the intelligence of the pupil, but the state of his heart as well. Here the question is a probe. IV. Suggestions Concerning Answers. Good questioning brings as a rule good answers, and poor questioning poor answers. Note a few suggestions : 1. The answer should be clear, direct, and understood by the whole class. 2. As a rule the answer should be given in the pupil's own language. Proof-texts should be an exception. They should be given in the exact words of Scripture. 3. The answer should be in as few words as will express it, and in the best phraseology that the pupil can command. Encourage this always. 76 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK 4. Allow no guessing as answers. 5. Do not be in too great hurry for your answer. Give pupils time to think ; especially favor timid and dull ones. In review the questions may be put more rapidly. 6. Correct incorrect answers by helpful questions. 7. Commend occasionally especially good answers, and if an answer gives part of the truth, give credit for that part, and say ' ' yes, but ' ' V. Cautions and Hints. 1. Avoid foolish and frivolous questions. I once knew a class to spend the whole time of the lesson discussing the question, "How did Nebuchadnezzar know that the fourth person in the fiery furnace was like the Son of God ?" 2. Avoid loading down the question with big words and high-sounding phrases. 3. Avoid questions that can be answered by "yes" or "no." That is putting the answer in the question, e. g., Was Jesus born in Bethlehem ? Yes. Was Bethlehem in Judea ? Yes. Was he born in a stable ? Yes. Was he not cradled in a manger ? Yes. There is no teaching in such questions, no matter how many may be asked. 4. Avoid routine questioning or questioning "up and down" the class. Only the one whose "turn" it is to answer will give attention. Put the question to the whole class, then call upon some one to answer. 5. Avoid confining your questions to the bright and bold members of the class. Give the timid and dull ones a chance. 6. Avoid puzzling questions to make it appear that you are very smart. 7. Grade your questions in words, thoughts, and spiritual application. 8. Put questions before explanations. QUESTIONING 77 9. Go after something in every question, and do not come away until you get it. 10. Rub in the truth thoroughly with questions. Some one has said, "Grease the class with new truth, then while they shine with intelligence and are warm with interest, rub it in with questions." BLACKBOARD EXERCISE ? Def. : Inc. Stat., Corksc, Shuttle, Pickaxe, Probe I. Value 1. Awakens Attention 2. Tests Preparation 3. Develops Thoughts 4. Tests Teacher's Work 5. Arouses Conscience 6. Corrects Mistakes II. Preparation By Children Practice with Others By Writing on Lessons By Those in Helps III. Characteristics of Good 1. Originality 2. Clearness 3. Simplicity 4. Variety 5. Suggestiveness 6. Practicalness IV. Answers 1. Clear, Direct, For All 2. In Pupil's Own Language 3. Few Words, Best Phrase 4. No Guessing 5. Don't Hurry 6. Correct by Questions 7. Commend Good Ones 78 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK V. Cautions Foolish Questions Big \Yords Avoid -! ^* P^^^^"g Answer in Question Routine Questions Partial Distributing [_ 6. Puzzling Questions 7. Grade Questions 8. Put Question Before Explanation 9. Get Something 10. Rub in Truth XI. ILLUSTRATIONS. I have seen dwelling-houses without windows, but they were built in Indian times, when it was better not to have such openings than to have the Indians in the house. But that day has passed. A lesson without illustrations is like a house without windows. Illustrating means to let in the light. After the teacher has thoroughly mastered the les- son in his own mind, the next step in preparation is, "How can I make this truth clear to my pupils' mind?" By letting the light in through appropriate illustrations. / The Value of Illustrations. 1. They appeal to the two senses most used in conducting impressions to the brain, sight and hearing. The first thing a young child notices is a bright light. It soon learns to cry for it. The mind is always craving light ; let it in. Knowing that these are the two senses that he must most use, especially in the instruction of children, the good teacher will soon learn the value of appropriate illustra- tions. From this fact, it follows that 2. Illustrations witt and hold the attention. It is a good ILLUSTRATIONS 79 plan to begin a lesson with an illustration. A material ob- ject is always the best with young pupils ; for more ad- vanced, a story or incident will answer. Tell of something you have seen or heard that is like the truth you want to illustrate. If during the lesson the interest lags, use a bright illustration. Light wakes up. When I want to rise early to make an early train, I leave the window shade up, and I am sure to wake at daylight. 3. Illustrations make the teaching easy. They follow a law of the mind that we learn by comparison. The propo- sition is self-evident. Light reveals, and as illustrations let in light they reveal the truth to the pupil. The masses like illustrative preaching because it is easy and delightful to follow. I once heard a masterly argumentative discourse before a popular audience of eight thousand people, and more than two thousand five hundred left before the close. 4. Illustrations aid the 7neinory. When the mind fails to hold the whole truth of a lesson, sermon, lecture, or book, the illustrations hold part of it and suggest the re- mainder ; that is, if they are well chosen. It is said that a preacher may repeat frequently the same sermon to the same congregation if he will change the illustrations. I knew a college student who frequently prepared his lessons while taking a walk, associating the different points to be remembered with some object he saw. Then when he went to the recitation room, he simply took his walk over again. 5. Illustrations impress the truth. Nothing is so im- pressive as a well-told incident or story, especially if it is pathetic. This is also the secret of holding it in the memory. 6. Finally, illustrations a%uaken the conscience. This is the secret of evangelistic preaching. The great soul-win- ners have been powerful in illustration. The picture that 80 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK is so well drawn as to reveal the soul to itself will be sure to reach the conscience and move the will. Many Chris- tians attribute their first conviction of sin to a well-put illustration in sermon or lesson. //. Kinds of Illustrations. 1. Those which appeal to the eye, as material objects, pictures, actions. 2. Those which appeal to the imagination. They are word-pictures and stories. 3. Those which suggest comparison, as similes, meta- phors, and parables. 4. Those which appeal to the love of facts, as incidents, history, scientific truth, etc. /// Sources of Illustrations. Their source is inexhaustible. The teacher has the world before him. I. The world of material objects. Nature is profuse in her supply. A flower, a twig, a leaf, a spear of grass, plucked by the hand of the teacher on his way to the school, may be made a splendid messenger of divine truth. Our Lord drew more from this source than from any other. He proceeded from the natural to the spiritual. But the teacher must learn while passing through the material world to keep his eyes open. Let him get the facts of the lesson well in mind early in the week, then the remainder of the week keep watch for illustrations. I once was at- tending a Sunday-school institute when the next Sunday's lesson was on "Jesus and Zaccheus," and a very short man — a dwarf — came into the room. The first thing my mind said to me was, "There is Zaccheus." If the truth we are to teach is impressing us, the illustrations will be more easily found. ILLUSTRATIONS 8 1 2. The world of human life. There is no more fruitful source than the manifold affairs of everyday life in its social relations, varied callings and pursuits, its business, man- ners, and customs, etc. Here too, the teacher can draw from his own experience, which is one of the very best sources of illustration. The great preachers excel here. How much more forcible is an incident from human life if the teacher is able to say, "I saw it," "I heard it." "I felt it," for then it is more real to the class. The narration of our own Christian experiences is especially effective. I knew a man who had been under deep conviction of sin for months and was brought into the light by hearing a lady relate her conversion before a Baptist church prepara- tory to membership. There is no phase of human life that does not abound with illustrations of Bible truth. 3. The wof'ld of literature. History, biography, arts, sciences, poetry, fiction, and every form of literary produc- tion may be used as illustrations. There are many valu- able books of illustration, from a small handbook up to the encyclopedia, that may be consulted with much profit. Yet we must not forget that the Bible itself affords the best illustrations of its own truth. It has been said that for every abstract truth the Bible teaches it also furnishes an illustration. The profound doctrine of election and predestination is forcibly illustrated by reference to the homely art of the potter. A professor once advised his class to read the eighth and ninth chapters of Romans, and then go down to the pottery and see how the designer had power over the same lump "to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour." Where do we find better illustrations than our Lord' s parables ? The miracles of the Bible are but "acted parables," and are very forcible as illustrations. The healing of blind Bartimeus is a most excellent illustration of conversion. F 82 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK IF. Suggestions in the Use of Illustrations. 1. Use appropriate illustrations. Illustrations must illus- trate, fit the point. They should, if possible, focus the light on that particular point, by having a single analogous point to the truth to be illustrated. Then the mind cannot help seeing it, for it can see nothing else. 2. Do not make the illustration more prominent than the truth illustrated, else the mind will retain the illustration and forget the truth. 3. Do not use too many illustrations. Too much light dazzles and blinds. The illustrations will be remembered while the truth taught will be forgotten. 4. Never use an illustration for its own sake, or just be- cause it is a good story and you want to tell it. Teaching is not telling stories. I knew a teacher in the primary de- partment of a city Sunday-school who carried magazines to the classroom and read stories to the children ! 5. Do not be afraid of homely illustrations. They are far better than the "classic." Jesus used them. 6. Gather and preserve objects, incidents, etc., and have them ready for future use. When you go to the seashore from an inland country school, supply yourself w^ell with new objects for illustration, especially if you are a primary teacher. Make a scrap-book of the good things you read in papers, 7. If possible, begin and close with an illustration. An illustration at the beginning that will open up the subject, will at once awaken attention and interest. One at the close that gathers the whole subject up, and holds it before the mind in its unity, and impresses it, makes the whole subject stick. Christ closed his Sermon on the Mount with the illustration of the two builders, one on the rock and the other on the sand. METHODS OF REVIEW 83 BLACKBOARD EXERCISE ILLUSTRATIONS I. Value 1. Appeal to Two Senses 2. Win and Hold Attention 3. P'ollow Law of Mind 4. Aid the Memory 5. Impress the Truth 6. Awaken Conscience II. Kinds 1. Appeal to Eye 2. Appeal to Imagination 3. Suggest Comparison (^ 4. Appeal to Love of Facts III. Sources 1. Material Objects 2. Human Life 3. Literature IV. Suggestions as to Use 1. Appropriateness 2. Prominence 3. Number 4. Telling Stories 5. Homely, Classic 6. Gather and Preserve 7. Begin and Close With XIL METHODS OF REVIEW. Probably no work in our Sunday-schools is more impor- tant and more neglected or poorly done than stated reviews. The value of review in general was considered in the lesson on "The Science of Teaching." Here we shall consider principally methods, not of class review, which belong to the class-work, but of the review of the whole 84 HANDBOOK ON SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK school. These are of two kinds and may be considered in their order. /. The Weekly Review. No session should ever close without a review of the lesson. It tests the teachers' work in the classes, and gathers up the points in the lesson as a whole and im- presses them on the whole school. 1. Who should conduct it? The superintendent. But what if he can' t ? Then get a superintendent who can. But what if he won' t ? Then get one who will. He wants to know what his teachers have done, and he wants his school to be impressed with the truth of the lesson accord- ing to their spiritual needs, which he knows or should know better than any one else. It is his only opportunity to teach the whole school. He may teach it indirectly through the teachers' meeting, but he wants to come in direct contact with the minds and hearts of all in his school. 2. What time should be given to it? From five to eight minutes at the close of the class-work. 3. What should be its character ? (i) A summary of the truth of the lesson. (2) A practical application of the central truth of the lesson. (3) A forcible and affectionate expressio7i of the central truth of the lesson. 4. By what method should it be cojiducted? (i) By question and answer. (2) By statement and exhortation. (3) By illustration. A good illustration at the close may be made very effective. The superintendent should always have one ready. 5. Put the outline on the blackboard as the review pro- ceeds. METHODS OF REVIEW 8$ 6. How should it close f With prayer and the lesson song. If the pastor is present, and in the ideal church and school he is always present when at home, he should make this review prayer. Let the spirit and aim of the prayer be to bring God and the school together through the medium of his truth. Then if the lesson can be clinched with an appropriate song, the review will be a success. //. The Quarterly Review. A good /r