A practical handbook on Sunday-school work

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 similar 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 i. 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.

(1) Personal Study. Let the text of the lesson be thoroughly studied and the outline memorized. Then recite 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 beforehand 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.

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

. PAGE

Introduction 5

PART I How We Teach, or Methods of Sunday-school Work,. ... . . . . ... 11-97

I. The Sunday-school Idea 11

II. Organization 18

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

XL Illustrations 78

XII. Methods of Review 83

XIII. Christ the Great Teacher 88

XIV. The Holy Spirit as a Teacher .94

5 CONTENTS

r

PART II Whom We Teach, or a Study of the

Scholar 98-1

I. Childhood 98

II. Boyhood and Girlhood 104

III. YOUTHHOOD I IO

IV. Manhood and Womanhood 117

V. The Scholar's World 123

PART I HOW WE TEACH

OR

METHODS OF SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK

I. The Sunday-school Idea

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 especially adapted to the instruction of children and youth. It may be otherwise denned 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. 1

I. The Sunday-school Idea in Bible History. Calling to our aid ancient history and Jewish tradition, the idea may be definitely traced.

a 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.

1. Rabbinical Traditions. The rabbis say that Methuselah taught school before the flood and after it Eber ; that Abraham was a student of the Torah, and that he took lessons on the priesthood from Melchisedek ; that Jacob went to the Bible school ; 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 Testament. Gen. 14 : 14 shows that Abraham had three hundred and eighteen trained servants in his household. "Trained," or "instructed," 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 Judea, 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 exercises, and class work. Ver. 8 gives us the best definition of teaching that can be 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." Trumbull 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 evidence of the school idea as applied to religious instruction.

THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL IDEA II

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 Scripture. 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. " Tf 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 questions. ' ' 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 address 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 interlocutory 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 Barnabas 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 the days of Abraham, Moses, Ezra, Christ, and the apostles, 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. Christians were persecuted, and accused of propagating their cause by getting the children into their schools.

Schafif, in his "History of the Christian Church," makes this significant statement, which shows the value of interlocutory teaching :

It is a remarkable fact, that after the days of the apostles no names of great missionaries are mentioned till the opening of the Middle Ages. . . There were no missionary societies, no missionary institutions, no organized efforts in the Antenicene 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 Christianized.

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 respecting the value and influence of the Bible idea of teaching :

i. 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 centuries 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 recognized 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 Wyclifntes, 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 centuries, when there was a decline in interlocutory teaching in Protestant Europe, Great Britain, and America. The rationalism 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.

. 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 interlocutory 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 organization 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 advocates of the Sunday-school idea. When Celsus, the powerful enemy of Christianity, accused Christians of advancing 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 maintained," 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.

THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL IDEA IN

C I. Rabbinical Tradition

I. Bible History J 2 ' The Old Testament

1 I 3. Contemporaneous History

[_ 4. The New Testament

f 1. Effective in Early Centuries II. Ecclesiastical I 2 ' Catechetical Teachings ^. Ritualism History 1 3- To Sustain Preaching

3 ■ I 4. In National Reforms

[5. Advocated by Great Men

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 :

I. 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 harvest 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 organization 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.

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 (1 Cor. 12 : 12-20). Organization 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 harmony 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 dominate all. Then the organization is a power, while otherwise it will soon become a failure. This makes it especially necessary 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 organization. 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 deftness 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 weakened by disuse or dissensions it must fail.

B

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 organization dissolves. Take the life from the human body and it becomes dust.

Especially is the principle true and essential in the organization 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).

II. These Principles Applied to the Organization 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 organzation. This purpose is four-fold. (1) 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 Christian character, and (4) To train them for efficient and useful service.

2. The organization of the school must conform to this four-fold purpose. (1) As the first great aim is to give instruction 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 turned in that direction. (4) As it is to train for usefulness, it must have a distinctively training department for the preparation of teachers, that it may become self-perpetuating.

3. As the school is a means and not an end, it must :

(1) Constantly replenish its spent energies, keep down friction, 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, treasurers, or librarians, would be failures as teachers, while the converse is likewise true. In the application of this principle, assign work to the worker that (1) 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 : (1) 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 management 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 organization, the organization of the Sunday-school should be such as to give the greatest variety in its movements. No unyielding constitution should be adopted. Its government should be more by principles than rules. The order of exercises 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.

III. A Suggestive Organization.

We say suggestive, because no one can in his study organize 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 superintendent, 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 superintendent and officers in consultation with the pastor.

4. Classification. There are usually four grades : Primary, 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. (1) The international uniform lesson series. (2) A course of supplemental lessons. (3) A normal course for teachers. (4) A catechetical or doctrinal course.

1. Purpose

2. Conformity to

3. Means not End

4. Division of Labor

5. Power of Unity

6. Flexibility

7. Life

I. Give Instruction

< I D^ctracte, 4. Train for Service

1. Being a School

2. A School of Christ

3. Trend of Teaching

4. Training Departm't

2. Conformity in

3. As a Means

4. Assign to Worker

5. Unified by

What Wants to Do What Can Do What Learn to Do

Church as Basis Sup'ts Cabinet Teachers' Meeting

6. Flexibility by Lib. of Depts. and Vari. Ex.

7. Life from Holy Spirit

1. The Scholars (Neh. 8 : 3).

3. Teachers : App. by Off. and Pas.

4. Classification : Pri., Int., Adv., Adult

{I. International t No P r^r ental 4. Catechetical or Doctrinal

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:

i. 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 consideration 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.

I. Principles of Grading. 1. 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 completed before the pupil leaves that grade.

3. Promotion. 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 ambition and desire for higher attainments.

4. Examination. Promotion should be made on examination, 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 undergraduates.

The graduation point may be when a scholar has studied all the lessons, or, say, seventy-five per cent, of the International 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.

II. Methods of Grading.

We lay down here no inflexible rule, but give only suggestions. The superintendent and teachers of each school must determine the details of grading according to the circumstances of each school. Yet in all grading we recognize 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 Department. 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 Commandments, 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 memorizing Scripture, finish Broadus' "Catechism."

The instruction in this department should all be oral, using blackboard, charts, and objects.