The modern Sunday school

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Introduction

The pastor of a church is the pastor of its Sunday school. He is not the superintendent, unless regularly elected to that office, and it is usually much better that he be not thus burdened. He is pastor — the superintendent's pastor, and the pastor of the entire flock. He has the care of all upon his heart. He should feel keenly and constantly this responsibility in the varied spheres of duty and dependence.

To be a faithful pastor one needs to understand the theoretical basis, the ecclesiastical relations, the historical development, and the distinctive mission of the Sunday school and of its collateral agencies. The more he knows on these subjects the more cautiously and wisely he will work, the greater his influence as a pastor will be, and consequently the larger the success of the church he serves.

Sunday-school work is not beneath the most thoughtful attention and the utmost enthusiasm of our most scholarly ministers. The Sunday school cannot be a "small matter" in the estimation of a large man in this age of educational emphasis and progress when pedagogy, psychology, the scientific study of childhood, and sociological problems of every kind are receiving the most careful attention of the ablest, broadest, and profoundest thinkers of the age.

Aiming at practical results, this is a book of theories, b INTRODUCTION.

dealing, however, with theories only as they are necessary to successful work. True ideas are at the root of true work. It makes a great difference what people believe. He who holds an error is likely to put it into practice and to set himself for its defence. The beginning of God's service is honest faith in God's truth. Doctrines are practical things, and in Sunday-school work they are essential. The "work" is, indeed, very simple, practical, and commonplace. But he who thinks that "anybody can teach in Sunday school" harbors a heresy which works harm to the institution and to all who are connected with it.

There is another false idea from which has sprung a widespread harvest of tares. It is that "the Sunday school is independent of the church." Akin to it and equally injurious is the opinion that "the Sunday school is the children's church." These are errors ; nor do these exhaust the list, which some good men have in all sincerity accepted, and by which, unconsciously to themselves, much of their earnest service has been misdirected.

Theories determine methods, and methods are the mediums of contact between teacher and the taught. The experienced teacher develops plans of work in accordance with his theory and in subjection to the necessities of his individuality. As he thinketh so he teacheth. And while no one else may be able to employ his particular devices, a knowledge of them, and especially of the ideas from which they spring, will be useful to all other teachers. There is a quickening power in ideas. To know ten different ways in which ten men teach, will certainly help the eleventh teacher, although,

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after all, he follows his own course and discards every one of the ten methods proposed by his exemplars. He is helped by them because he sees in one or more of the plans radical principles of education which suggest to him other and original ways of reaching, arresting, awakening, and developing mind.

These chapters are the result of many years of thought and experiment. The author was a Sunday-school pupil before he was five years old. His father was for a long time a successful Sunday-school superintendent. He has himself served as teacher, superintendent, pastor, and normal-class conductor, and has been for thirty-five years a close and careful observer of the Sunday school on both sides of the ocean. He has taken a special interest in the training of Sunday-school teachers through institutes and normal classes ; and has given much attention to the devising of plans for unifying all departments of church work, to the end that there may be economy of power and a hearty and intelligent co-operation among all the agencies of the church in the work of Christian culture.

N"o one department of the church can alone educate her youth. Certainly the Sunday school at its best cannot do it. There are other and more important instrumentalities. Home, with its authority, early opportunity, affection, and example ; the Sanctuary, with its living voice and solemn services ; the Pastorate, with its daily contacts and personal magnetisms ; the Press, with its silent, multiplied, and perpetual ministries — all of these must unite with the Sunday school to give it indorsement, support, and authority. This book is based upon this radical co-operative idea.

8 INTRODUCTION.

With the new thought of the times concerning education and especially with the new enthusiasm concerning primary education, the modern leaders of the Sunday-school movement have made prompt application of the best theories and methods in secular pedagogy to Biblical and religious instruction. The return, through Pestalozzi, to the Socratic method and the noble work by Dr. Sheldon, of Oswego, are bearing fruit in the scientific method of President G. Stanley Hall, of Clark University; Professor Starbuck, of Leland Stanford, Jr., University ; of the "Chautauqua 'New Education in the Church/' the "Normal Bible School," of Springfield, Mass., and other modern advance movements. An admirable monograph by Mary E. Hutcheson, on "Sunday School Beform," recently issued, calls the attention of the Church to the demand for the application to the work of religious education of the most advanced secular theories and methods.

There is no danger that a more perfect knowledge of God's way with the human soul in the processes of education and providence will diminish our confidence in the divine processes of grace in "conviction," "conversion," "salification," and "edification "

John H. Vincent.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Three Schools 11

II. The School and the Church 15

Chapter I. The Three Schools

The Sunday school is a modern title for an ancient and apostolic service of the church. It is a school on Sunday. It is a school for "disciples." It is a school with a "Master/' It is a school with "lessons." It is a school with a text-book." All this the Sunday school is, and all this also is the church.

The "Master" with the "disciples" about Him, by the seaside, on the mountain, in the desert, in the temple, in the synagogue, in the upper room — that was Sunday school in the first century. It was a school for question and answer, for conversation, for illustration, for application. There was no sermon, perhaps, nor lecture, save as the Teacher, in response to spoken question or look of wonder, continued for minutes to unfold the meanings of the Old Testament, or the mysteries of the new kingdom. It was not always held for one hour on Sunday. In those days all days were sacred, and all hours were laden with opportunity while the Son of God walked on the earth as Son of man among the sons of men.

There were times when the Master "worshiped" according to the established order of temple and synagogue. There were times when He "preached" — -the multitudes before Him, His themes the law, the prophets, the soul, the Father, the future — His illustrations taken from life and nature. But, supplementing service and sermon, He taught in the informal way of conversation when men sought Him to inquire concerning the things of the kingdom, when casual encounters gave Him opportunity, as at Jacob's well or on the way to Emmaus, or, when away "from the madding crowd," He talked of the deeper, personal verities of His mission to His own chosen disciples.

In these catechetical and confidential interviews, in these casual conversations full of question and suggestion, of susceptibility on the part of the taught, and of tact on the part of the teacher, I see the germinal school-idea of the church, continuing throughout the 2Tew Testament period of the early church, and reviving from time to time through all the centuries, whenever Biblical and vital piety broke the iron bonds of civil, ecclesiastical, and ritualistic oppression. Given an open Bible, an earnest believer, a sincere seeker, or an experienced saint, and the school-form of question, answer, illustration, and application is at once assured. The "conferences" of the Reformation, the "class-meetings" of the eighteenth-century revival, the "inquiry" and "fellowship meetings" of ISTew England, and the "Bible readings" of to-day are but normal, irrepressible, necessary outgrowths of a religion that believes and rejoices in supernatural realities as set forth in a written Word.

With such earnestness of faith comes one other pro-

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vision. The souls that love to build each other up by the natural processes of edification — the interchange, elucidation, and application of truth — seek also to help the unenlightened, that they, too, may know the way and the Word of the Lord. They seek for souls. They welcome inquirers. They awaken the indifferent. They instruct the young. They lay foundations of Christian character by the conveyance of Bible knowledge, teaching the susceptible, filling their memories with the facts and words of revelation, alluring them by the delights of association, of song, and of wise tuition — that the coming Spirit in youth or in later years may find truth ready for the kindling fires of grace. Thus the Sunday school becomes a preparatory school, giving the lessons of truth which, in after years, are to be fused by the power of the Spirit, and turned into living, throbbing energies of character.

Beyond the limits of the church, beyond the homes of believers, beyond the bounds of Christian civilization, are neglected multitudes to whom the very alphabet of religion is an unknown thing, and the familiar phrases of Christian faith a strange tongue. Children, neglected by parents, pastors, and godly neighbors, are growing up in absolute ignorance black as darkest paganism. Little careless feet patter about on the steps of stately cathedral, not knowing, save in senseless profanity, the name of the God to whom it is dedicated. Heathen crowds in the centers of Christian civilization ! To them come Christian teachers, like Raikes of Gloucester. Opportunity opens, and the Bible teacher enters.

Here, then, are three forms of the school-idea in the church of Christ:

1. The School Spiritual — for the promotion of personal divine life through high converse among mutually interested and eager souls, who fear the Lord, and speak often one to another; in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another, the Word of Christ dwelling in them richly. Among them through His own Word comes the Christ Himself, and their hearts burn within them as He talks with them by the way, and opens to them the Scriptures.

2. The School Preparatory — for the communication of the truth to the ignorant, the young, the susceptible, to whom this world is more real and more fascinating than the world to come; to the children of Christian people who at home see the Bible and occasionally hear it read, who go to the church for public service, and feel a personal, or family, or social interest in its members, its services, its pastor, its reputation. The Sunday school is a preparatory institution in which they receive systematic training in the letter of the Word and in the formulas of the church.

3. The Mission School — for carrying the gospel to the regions beyond — beyond the present reach of pulpit, church service, pastor, or church society; for gathering in the neglected and outcast ; for teaching the ignorant and prejudiced ; for preparing the ground that soon the church in her full organization may come to welcome and recognize, to enlist and bless the masses hitherto beyond her circle of power and fellowship.

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