The teacher-training handbook revised

Front matter

^nnbbatik

Robert Perry Shepherd Marion Stevenson

REVISED EDITION

Part I. — The Sunday-School. Lesson 1 — Sunday-school Beginnings 9

Lesson 2 — The International Sunday-School Association. 11

Lesson 3 — The World's Sunday-School Association 14

Lesson 4 — Relation o^ the Sunday-school 16

Lesson 5 — Functions of the Sunday-school 20

Lesson 6 — Organization of the Sunday-school 24

Lesson 7 — Administration 28

Lesson 8 — Special Days 33

Lesson 9 — Special Days (Continued) 36

Lesson 10 — Sunday-school Music 40

Part II. — The Pupil. Foreword . 45

Lesson 11 — ^'He Himself Knew What Was in Man'' 45

Lesson 12 — Infancy 49

Lesson 13 — Childhood Unfolding 54

Lesson 14 — The Primary Pupil 57

Lesson 15 — The Junior Age 60

Lesson 16 — Authority and Obedience 65

Lesson 17 — The Intermediate Period 69

Lesson 18 — Adolescence 73

Lesson 19 — Senior Age, Tragedy 76

Lesson 20 — Maturity 80

Part III. — The Teacher. Lesson 21 — Teaching 85

Lesson 22 — The Teacher's Knowledge 88

Lesson 23 — The Science of Teaching 91

Lesson 24 — Words 93

Lesson 25 — Elementary Grades 97

Lesson 26 — Advanced Grades 100

Lesson 27 — The Adult Department 103

Lesson 28 — Preparing to Teach 106

Lesson 29— The Art of Teaching 109

Lesson 30 — Teachers' Meetings and Teacher-Training 114

Part IV.— The Book. Lesson 31— The Old Testament Books 119

Lesson 32 — The New Testament Books 121

Part v.— Old Testament History. Lesson 33 — The Chosen Family 123

Lesson 34 — The Chosen People 125

Lesson 35 — The Chosen Kingdom 128

Lesson 36 — The Divided Kingdom — Israel 131

Lesson 37 — The Divided Kingdom — Judah 132

Lesson 38 — The Jewish Province 135

Part VI. — New Testament History. Lesson 39 — Matthew — Jesus, the Wonderful Counsellor... 139

Lesson 40 — Mark — Jesus, the Mighty God 141

Lesson 41 — Luke — Jesus, the Everlasting Father 143

Lesson 42 — John — Jesus, the Prince of Peace 145

Lesson 43— The Life of Christ 147

Lesson 44 — Acts of Apostles, the Planting of the Church.. 150 Lesson 45 — Epistles and Revelation — The 'Development of

the Church and the Coming Kingdom 153

Lesson 46— The Bible the Word of God 156

Part VII. — Bible Geography. Lesson 47— The Old Testament World 159

Lesson 48 — Old Testament Palestine — Topography 161

Lesson 49 — Old Testament Palestine — Political Divisions. 164

Lesson 50 — Palestine in the Time of Jesus , 166

Lesson 51— The New Testament World 169

Part VIM.— Bible Institutions.

Lesson 52— The Tabernacle 173

Lesson 53 — The Priesthood v * . . 175

Lesson 54— The Offerings 178

Lesson 55— The Feasts 181

Lesson 56— The Temple 184

Lesson 57 — Baptism 186-

Lesson 58— The Church 188

Lesson 59 — The Lord's Supper 192

Introduction

It has become more and more clear with passing years that the teaching of religious life and thought is one of the urgent demands which the world is making on the modern church. To develop teachers who are not only willing to teach but competent, prepared in Christian character and scholarship and skill, is an imperative duty of pastors and leaders. The adequate teaching of the Christian religion is the most important function of the church.

Adequate nrenaration for teaching must include, if indeed it does not spring from, a vision of the need and opportunity of the plans and methods peculiar to the modern Sunday School. This institution, the only one whose sole work is religious education and Christian culture, is the foremost bulwark of Christian civilization, and has recently come to be a mighty factor in the evangelization of paganism throughout the world. For this reason, the vision of the Sunday School as an institution, an organization, and a factor of religious culture is first presented in the arrangement of the topics treated in this volume.

Scarcely second in importance to adequate preparation for teaching is a vision of the dignity, importance and possibilit^'es which the Sunday School teacher enjoys. No teacher in any institution of learning comes more directly in touch with the formative and constructive principles of human life and character. The subject matter taught, the conditions of the teaching, and the issues dependent on good teaching and bad teaching are the most momentous and important to be found in any department of human instruction.

For this reason, the vision of the Sunday School is followed in order with a vision of the mind with which the Sunday School teacher must deal. The influence of the modern Sunday School begins in the home. When the babe is brought into the world the Sunday School makes immediate claim on the life of both the mother and the new life which God has sent. Until the last problem which vexes maturity and age is solved, the Sunday School claims a right to deal with the human mind. The technical view of the mind and its development is subordinated, throughout the discussion of the pupil,

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to the religious significance of its different conditions, changes and operations.

The next obvious requirement of adequate preparation for coaching is the insight into what to do with knowledge gained; how to use it in teaching; how to select what has most need to be taught; how to prepare it for presentation; how to adapt it to the minds to be taught; how to present it in such ways that the teacher may really know that teaching is being done; and what results are to be looked for, and when, in the process of teaching, are w^hat all Christian teachers have profound need to know. Here, again, all technical treatment of the science of Pedagogy, is subordinated as far as possible to the religious significance of teaching and to the necessities of active work in the teaching of the Christian religion.

Having dealt in order with the field of activity, the worldfield and the local community, the institution, the pupil, and the teacher, the vital elements of Biblical scholarship essential to adequate preparation for teaching are carefully presented. The fundamental nature of a clear working knowledge of the Bible is too obvious and too widely recognized to Deed re-statement and re-emphasis.

*lf the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." Jesus' evident teaching in this statement is that it is more diiflacult to get blind leaders and blind followers out of the ditch than to open the eyes of leaders so that no one need fall. The supreme need of the whole world is for religious education. This teaching can be done only by those who are willing to consecrate time and effort and energy to the toil of preparation for effective work as Servants of the Lord.

The authors would be untrue to themselves and their work if their prayerful interest failed to follow each teacher and student with whom they are permitted to co-operate in the work of teacher training. The hope of being helpful to those who are preparing to exercise the most powerful, as well as the most beautiful of all arts, the teaching of Jesus Christ, the Truth of God, to men, has been a constant incentive. Prayer has gone into every line written. The delight of preparing this work for service will be made more precious by the knowledge that the work is serving. Faithfully yours,

ROBERT PERRY SHEPHERD.

MARION STEVENSON.

S

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PART I.— THE SUNDAY SCHOOL. Lesson 1.-— Sunday School Beginnings

1 Name. Names are used to desi^ate objects rather rhan to characterize them. The official designation of the institution, which exists solely for education in the Christian religion is The Sunday School. Other names have been suggested to characterize it. Sabbath School, Bible School, Church School, and the like are unofficial. Since the official name is fixed, it might be well to use it uniformly.

2. British Beginnings. A sympathetic woman in Gloucester, England, called a friend's attention to the hapless lot of the waifs and gamins of the city. Robert Raikes, in 1780, began to teach small groups of ignorant urchins how to read and write. The primary purpose was secular education. The use of the Catechism was quite subordinate to the purpose of teaching reading, arithmetic and writing. So rapidly did the Idea spread through Great Britain that before the close of that century a council of Bishops of the English Church was called to take action against the desecration of the Sabbath, by the ^'Ragged Schools," as they were known in England for many years.

3. American Beginnings. May 23. 1832, is the first significant date in American Sunday School history. Representatives from thirteen States and two territories met in conference. A call for a National Sunday School convention was issued. This convention met in New York city the following October. Seventy-eight questions on thirteen phases of Sunday School work were sent to workers everywhere. The three hundred answers received are preserved in a volume of twenty-four hundred pages in the library of the American Sunday School Union in Philadelphia.

4. Progress. Conventions of workers have proved from the first the heart of Sunday School publicity, inspiration, instrnction and vision. The Second National Convention. Philadelphia. May 22, 1833, gave full discussion to "Private Sunday Schools" for those unwilling through prejudice or poverty to attend the general school. The Home Department had its first prominence there.

5. H. Clay Trumbull, a man of imperishable honor in the historj^ of religious education, was the first Secretary of the Sunday School movement of the present day. Twenty-five years elapsed before the Third National Convention met, Philadelphia, February 22-24, 1859. From this date the institution began a development which is the most remarkable feature of modern church history.

6. Larger Things. The Civil War, most appalling tragedy in the history of nations, gave intense earnestness to the modern apostles of the Prince of Peace. Two of earth's greatest men, B. F. Jacobs and John H. Vincent, were associated with Mr. Trumbull as secretaries of the first great Sunday School convention. The Fourth National Convention met in Newark, N. J., April 28, 1869. Twenty-eight States, one territory and five foreign countries were represented by five hundred and twenty-six delegates. More than twenty-five hundred visitors attended.

7. Unity. The second great date in Sunday School history is April 16-19, 1872. The greatest forward step ever taken in religious education was accepted and authorized by the Fifth National Convention at Indianapolis.

8. B. F. Jacobs, by fervent appeal, won an almost unanimous vote of the convention for a Uniform Lesson System for all Sunday Schools. The committee appointed to the task were instructed so to prepare the system of lessons as to cover practically the whole of the Bible during a period of seven years. The period was reduced by a later convention to six years. Thirty years' experience disclosed many serious defects in the Uniform Lessons as an educational scheme for all grades of pupils. But the" result for Christian union, the most vital problem of modern Christendom, of the adoption and use of this Uniform Series, is immeasurable.

9. Changes. The appointment of a National Statistical Secretary by this convention gave concrete shape to Organized Sunday School work 'and prepared the way for the great development of the institution. The admission to the convention of a few Canadian delegates gave it an international character and made inevitable the significant change in the scope of the organized work.

Review Questions.

Does a name designate or characterize an individual or institution? (1.)

Were the first Sunday Schools primarily for religious instruction? Why? (2.)

How will you remember the number of States represented, and the place of meeting of the first general Sunday School assembly? Was it a convention? Why? Is the date important? (3.)

i>o conventions play any real part in religious education? How? (4.)

Have you read the biography of H. Clay Trumbull, by Philip Howard? (5.)

Does your work in Sunday School count all it ought for Christian union? Why? (8.)

Does it appear to you that Christ has any direct work in Sunday School development and progress in America? In your school?

Lesson 2. — The international Sunday School Association.

10. Change. The National Convention merged into the international institution at its sixth session, Baltimore, May 11-13, 1875. From that date to June, 1911, the larger body has held triennial sessions, two each in Atlanta, Toronto, and Louisville, the others in Chicago, Pittsburg, St. Louis, Boston and Denver, and the last one at San Francisco.

11. Incorporation. By act of Congress in 1907 the institution was incorporated with the name. The International Sunday School Association. Its corporate purpose is "to promote organized Sunday School work, to encourage the study of the Bible, and to assist in the spread of the Christian religion." It has no capital stock. It is now spending about thirty thousand dollars annually in the prosecution of its work.

12. Field. Mexico, Central America and the W^est Indies were officially included with Canada and the States in 1896. At the same convention, Boston, Sunday School evangelization among negroes became a definite work of the association. Ten years later the continent of South America was in-

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eluded so that the Association now covers the Western Hemisphere in its plans and prayers.

13. Official Statement. The world-sweeping tendency toward Christian union quickens denominational sensitiveness, 'lo calm the fear of all denominational Christians the convention at Louisville, in 1908, officially denned its plans as follows :

'* Resolved, That the work of the International Sunday School Association may be denned as follows;

''First — It seeks to enlist all Sunday Schools in the common study of the lesson, but never to organize schools.

"Second — It seeks to enlist all Sunday Schools in the adoption of the best metnoas of promoting ehiciency in the work of teacher-training.

"Tnird — it seeks in all proper ways to enlist theological seminaries to tne extent of giving due recognition to tne Sunaay School in tneir curriculum.

•'Fourth — It disclaims all creed-making power, and the sole function of its Lesson Committee is to seiect topic, the Scripture and the golden text, leaving interpretation of the Scripture to the various denominations.

''Fifth — It disclaims all authority over the churches and denominations.

"Sixth — It disclaims all legislative functions, save within its own sphere and for its own proper ends.

"Seventh — The work it seeks to do is confined to the common ground occupied by all the various denominations co-operating with it, a ground which these bodies have found can best be occupied through this common organization. The common ground and interests are chiefly as follows:

''(a) A uniform lesson system, graded or otherwise.

"(h) The propagation of the best methods and ideals in Sunday School pedagog>^

"(c) The promotion of all Sunday School life and progress through inspirational conventions and associations for the use and benefit of all the denominations.

"Eighth — The Association recognizes that in m-any of the above lines of activity the various denominations prosecute plans and methods of their own. In all such cases the International Association seeks not to hinder or trespass but to help. In short, it offers itself as the willing servant of all for Jesus* sake. It seeks to be a clearing-house of the best meth-

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ods and best plans in the Sunday School world. Above all, it seeks to be the means of extending a knowledge of the Bible, the inspired Word of God, through the Sunday School to the whole world."

14. Complete System j As rapidly as can be done the Association will perfect State and provincial organizations throughout its field. These associations will organize local schools into township, district, city and county associations for mutual help and dissemination of the best ideas in Sunday School work in conventions and institutes.

15. Revolution. Recognizing certain deficiencies in the Uniform Lessons, the Association had recognized the issue of "Supplemental Lessons" for Primary pupils. For twelve years before the Toronto convention of 1905 the leaders in Elementary Grade work had been seeking authority to issue Graded Lessons adapted to pupils under seventeen years of age. That convention authorized the lessons fOr the Primary Department. The Louisville convention consummated the work by authorizing the joint lesson committee to prepare a complete course covering seventeen years of Sunday-school work. In the historic of Christianity this is the greatest forward step ever taken in religious education.

16. Obligations. Every Sunday School in the world which makes use of the Uniform or Graded Lessons, a graded school, Home Department, Cradle Roll, Systematic Visitation, Handwork, Systematic instruction in Temperance, Missions, or Adult Bible Class Organization, is under all the obligations of gratitude to support loyally the International Sunday School Association and to make use of it as a ready and adequate agency to reach the places which lie yet in the darkness beyond.

Review Questions.

Did you send your superintendent or pastor as a delegate to any triennial convention of the Sunday School? Why not?

What is Sunday School business? (11.)

Is there much work ahead of the International Association? What do you know of North or South America as mission fields? (12.)

What is the most striking feature of the "official statement," its positive plans or its negative positions? (13.)

Who is the General Secretary of your State Sunday School

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Association? Was your school reported before tlie last county convention?

How do the Graded Lessons work with the pupils of your school? What?

Discuss the work of Marion Lawrance, W. C. Pearce, Mrs. J. W. Barnes, Mrs. Mary Foster Bryner, Mrs. Zillah Foster Stevens, Dr. Jas. E. Shepard, Dr. Franklin McElfresh, Hugh Cork and W. A. Brown. Ask your pastor.

Lesson 3. — The World's Sunday School Association.

17. Beginnings- An Executive Committee of the International Association met at Chautauqua in 1886. B. F. Jacobs, for twenty-one years the chairman of that committee, suggested calling Sunday School workers of all the world to meet in London, three years later. The mass convention sent Dr. J. L. Phillips to begin organized Sunday School work in India.

18. The St. Louis Convention of 1893 took Japan under consideration. The London convention of 1898 gave Korea first attention. The whole work of the convention was slowly gathering momentum for a world-wide task.

19. Thirteen hundred delegates, representing twenty-six countries and fifty-two denominations, held the Fourth World's Sunday School convention at Jerusalem in April, 1904, the convention being held in a tent near the Damascus Road, ''outside the city walls." It was a dramatic assembly of Christian forces, and gave the Sunday School rating as a world force.

20. Thirty-seven countries and fifty-three denominations were represented at the World's Fifth Convention at Rome, in May, 1907. Africa as a field for religious education by Sunday School methods was considered. Dr. Royal J. Dye is the Secretary for the World's Sunday School Association for Congo Free State. The Bolenge Church is world-famed for its missionary enterprise. The Rome convention crystallized the Sunday School movement into a definite institution.

21. For twenty-one years the World's Sunday School Association worked as a mass meeting. Like the Laymen's Missionary Movement, its work lay largely along the lines of investigation and report, and of enlisting the intelligent co-operation of prominent business men in Christian evangelization. Unlike the Laymen's Movement it seeks to go as a handmaid of Christian culture and introduce into all missions and into non-Christian lands the best m.ethods and plans of religious instruction known to Sunday School workers.

22. The Sixth World's Sunday School convention which met at Washington, D. C, in May, 1910, was undoubtedly the most n.'omentous gathering of Christian workers ever held on this earth. It capitalized the new institution and gave it motive and momentum.

23. One Hundred and Seventy-Five missionaries, from every country except Thibet, were in attendance. Three thousand delegates represented fifty-seven denominations and twenty-four countries. The convention ordered the Association to be incorporated, elected a full complement of officers and committees for the American and British sections, and pledged more than seventy-five thousand dollars for the cause of religious education by Sunday School methods throughout all the world.

24. Secretaries to every country and district will be provided as rapidly as resources will permit. Religious instruction of childhood, teacher training, organized adult class evangelization and culture, and every phase of organized Sunday School work will be brought to the help of the forces now in the fields and those yet to go.

25j From an inconspicuous beginning with ragged and ignorant waifs, the Sunday School has come to be the mightiest bulwark of Christian civilization, the most effective conqueror of the ignorant or wilful foes of Christ, and the only agency capable to bring the Open Book to the closed mind of mankind and waken it, nurture it, and cause it to stand face to face with the Saviour.

Review Questions.

Do you know where to get full information concerning both International and World's Sunday School Associations? "Ask Marion Lawrance," General Secretary, 805 Hartford Building, Chicago.

How and when did the World's Sunday School Association begin? (17.)

How will you remember the number of delegates, countries

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and religious bodies represented at the Jerusalem convention? (19.)

Are you interested in the work of the World's Association in Africa? Why? (20.)

What is the difference between the character of the work done by the Laymen's Missionary Movement and that of the World's S. S. Association? (21.)

Would you care to have a report of the Washington convention? Why? (22-23.)

Do you believe God is using the Sunday School to further his purposes in Christ?

Is He permitted to use you and your school to the fullest advantage? Why?

Lesson 4. — Relations of the Sunday School.

26. Church. The Sunday School is not an institution separate and distinct from the church. On the contrary, it is the church in the act of performing one of her most important functions. To train faithful men who shall be able to teach others also, to teach the church accurately to deliver the Message of Truth, is a vital part of the church's program. This she has largely missed for centuries.

27. Pastor. The minister of Christ has his church before him in the Sunday School. Indeed, his largest opportunity for effective service lies in guiding his teachers in their teaching of the unformed, rather than in his preaching to the formed or deformed.

28. Worship. The spirit of reverence for the Lrord's day, the Lord's house, the Lord's Book, and the Lord's work is sadly lacking in American life. If this spirit of reverence be not taught in the Sunday School it is taught, nowhere. If church authorities center their attention and effort on the Sunday School for one generation they may transform the vfhole spirit of worship in modern life.

29. The Church Enterprises. "The medieval idea of the church was a saved island of saints in an ocean of sinners. The modern ideal of the church is a sweetened ocean." In sweetening the ocean of human activity the modern church is

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compelled to engage in many forms of local and general work. Missions, temperance and civic betterment are among the most important of these. As the mind of the church authorities is more largely directed to the opportunities presented by the Sunday School, culture along the lines of applied Christianity will take vast strides forward.

30. The Home. The home is the foundation of Christian civilization. Upon the integrity and stability of the home rests every institution distinctive of Christian society. At no time in the history of Christendom has there been so iDUch need as in the living present for the church to contribute its largest and best life to the upbuilding of the home. No effort can be spared to bind the home and church more closely together in safeguarding the culture and moral welfare of the youth of the land. The "Family" department of Sunday School work, the Cradle Roll, Home Class and Systematic Visitation, every pastor should keep closely identified with his largest purposes for the home and the church.

3t. Preparation for Home Life. The church must teach as only the church can teach that the home is a divine institution, that home ties are as sacred as God; that the marriage relation is not by legal contract merely but by divine l8w; that the relations of the home are the most sacred relations m the universe outside the tie that binds God to man. Only teaching such as this and the bringing of young Christian manhood and womanhood to the sacrament of marriage, fully apprised of the nature of the marriage relation, can stem the tide of divorces, of progressive polygamy and of all the individual and social evils in which America to-day leads Christendom.

32. Science of Parenthood. Through its departmental and class organizations, its facilities for special lectures and other educational functions, the Sunday School is far better adapted than any other institution in our civilization to teach the divine obligation of parents to personally nurture the spiritual life of their children, as well to supply their physical needs. Too often, parenthood is allowed to mean little more than a physical incident in life, rather than the highest, holiest and most Gbd-like activity entrusted to mankind. The new science of Paidology, child studr. has opened a field of investigation and research more vital and illuminative than the science of Psychology to which it is related.

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33. To the Community. It is the business of the Sunday School to reach throughout the commtmity of which it is a part and to claim in the name of Christ its childhood and mature life. Its obligation to the home is closely akin to its obligation to the state. The culture, the discipline and refinement which constitute the basis of Christian civilization must come to the state through the Sunday School more largely than by means of any other agency.

34. Conversion. Wisely to guide the life of childhood to its normal unfoldment into Christ, and wisely to train up in Christ the life which has been brought to him, is the supreme work of the Sunday School. To be working with childhood and youth in such closeness of friendship that in God's own time their lives may learn intelligently to believe on Christ, faithfully to love him and loyally to obey him in all relationships of life — this is the high art of Christian culture.

35. Instruction in Righteousness. Too often in the past Christian workers have felt that to lead the individuals in their classes into Christ was their final task. Indeed, the real task of Christian teaching has but begun. When a child is born into the family the task of rearing it is just begun. To guide the new Christian life to take its place in the new society of which it has become a part, to discharge faithfully the obligations and to meet the opportunities of the new life, is a duty of the chtirch. In olden days salvation was interpreted to mean a matter exclusively individual, whereas Christ's program plainly includes the creation of a new society wherein the social obligations of each to the other are of first concern. The neglect and indifference with which some bodies of Christians have regarded this phase of the Christian religion is almost unexplicable.

36. To the Nation and to the World. The obligation of a great opportunity is frequently urged by quoting the statistics that from 85 to 95. per cent of the additions to church membership come directly from the Sunday School or indirectly because of Sunday School teaching. The most significant phase of this truth is not in the large proportion of church membership which comes through the Sunday School but tlie large proportion of the Sunday School, from 60 to 85 per cent which does not come into church membership and Christian life. More than half the membership of the Sunday School goes out into the world with no more knowledge of Christ

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than they have seen in their Sunday School teacher and the Christian workers ot the school, with no more moral fiber and religious stamina than they have been taught by the Sunday School. The proround influence therefore of Sunday School teaching on home life, politics, business and society lends an importance far more than local to the work done. The quality of Sunday School instruction is probably the most potent single factor in determining the morality of the nation, the standard of its citizenship, its social honor, business and political integrity and domestic fidelity. The application of Sunday School methods to extend the cultural life of Christ Jesus to all nations is the secret of world-wide Christian conquest.

37. Each local Sunday School ought to recognize its obligation of gratitude to the Interpational Sunday School Association for facilities gotten and inspiration given. The obligation of world-wide opportunity rests upon every Sunday School in existence to make as large use as possible of the facilities afforded by the World's Sunday School Association for Christian conquest. Workers in every school should put their own best life, their largest and most helpful inspiration into the stream of activity which carries only the Open Book with an open mind to every living creature.

Review Questions.

How do you distinguish church from Sunday School? ^Tiy? (26.)

How do you learn reverence? How do you teach it? (28.)

How do you interest children in the enterprises of your church? Is your way the best way? (29.)

Is parental authority vital to home life? Are parental affection and common sense essential to parental authority? (30.)

How much time and money is spent to teach young men intelligent fatherhood? Is it worth the price? (31-32.)

If your Sunday School is "holding its own" who is responsible for holding the rest of the community? (33.)

Must a child go to the devil before it can be brought into Christ? Why so? How? (34.)

What is your church doing for civic betterment?

Are the men of your church interested to hold for Christ