Sunday-school essentials; what every Sunday-school teacher and superintendent needs the most in order to win success

Front matter

Book ,W4 5 GwrightN

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT;

WHAT EVERY SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER AND SUPER- INTENDENT NEEDS THE MOST IN ORDER TO WIN SUCCESS

Contents

'TEE PAGE

I. THE ONE SUFFICIENT MOTIVE 7

II. LOVE FOR THE PUPILS 11

Preface

At different times and under different circumstances very different things are essential for Sunday-school success. I do not pretend that this book treats all of these. It does aim, however, to discuss the Sunday-school needs most commonly felt, and to provide practical suggestions regarding them.

The thoughts and plans given in these pages all come out of actual Sunday-school work, and it is my hope and prayer that they may prove useful in other Sunday-school work, and helpful to other Sunday-school workers.

Amos R. Weixs.

Boston.

i

THE ONE SUFFICIENT MOTIVE

The Sunday-school teacher is beset with a crafty temptation — to work for himself.

It is natural and right to want our pupils to love us; indeed, we cannot really teach them much until they love us. But the mere desire for popularity, that these bright young folks may hang upon us like bees upon a flower and thereby advertise our sweetness to the world, accomplishes very little in Sunday-school teaching. " Woe unto you," said Christ, " when all men shall speak well of you ! " He might even have said, " all children." There may easily come a time when your true glory will be that you are unpopular with your class, for a season.

The right sort of teaching, based on the one sufficient motive, will make you beloved in the end ; but it is through so deep an absorption in the great, fundamental Sunday-school aim that actually you will not care whether your pupils love you or not, actually you will not think about that matter at all. Does this appear harsh? Wait; read on.

Sometimes this temptation to work for ourselves in our teaching springs from the eagerness for applause.

We want to hear people say : " What a fine teacher Miss S ymonds is ! how ingenious ! how tactful ! how skilled ! Her pupils are indeed fortunate." We want our class pointed out as the model class, and our methods held up as examples for the other teachers.

And of course it is wise and right to seek the best methods, and aim at perfection in the beautiful and difficult art of teaching. Without this desire and practice we shall hardly succeed; but we shall not succeed, either, if this is our main motive. The shrewdest forms of questioning, the most alluring " manual methods," the brightest anecdotes and illustrations, all are but tithing mint and anise and cummin if in them we are neglecting a weightier matter, the one weighty matter.

I spend no small part of my time in writing about good methods in teaching, but it is time thrown away unless teachers will put back of the best methods the best motive. That motive will vivify the methods; without it they are only empty shells. If a teacher lacks that motive I should say to him, " It makes no difference how you teach ; pay no attention to that just now; first things first: consider why you are teaching."

If one of the temptations of a teacher is to work for himself, another temptation is to work for his pupils.

" What ! " you exclaim ; " are we not to make our pupils' welfare our main thought ? " ~No ; strange as it seems to say it, we are not.

The teacher whose main thought is his own popularity or reputation is dependent for his success on his pupils' responsiveness ; but if his main thought is his pupils' welfare ; he is again dependent for his success upon hip

THE ONE SUFFICIENT MOTIVE 9

pupils' responsiveness. That is a matter largely beyond his control, and true success is always within a worker's control. Our pupils may prove careless, indifferent, ungrateful; bad home influences, evil companions, worldly temptations, the work of Satan and his cohorts, may be too much for us. Is our work therefore a failure ? Yes, if we predicate success upon our pupils' salvation. No, if our motive is deeper, and seeks a deeper and surer reward.

Ah, brothers and sisters in this holy calling, one purpose alone can furnish a firm fulcrum for our lever, and that is the desire to please our Saviour!

We have no right, after our teaching, to ask ourselves any question but this, " Have I pleased Christ ? "

This is within our control, this pleasing of Christ. It means that our hearts be pure, and that we do our best. Christ is not pleased with slovenly methods, but He is pleased with our best.

We are like a man sent out to sow a field; if the seed falls on stony ground or shallow ground, and if the birds come and eat it up, yet our work is a success because we have pleased the Master of the field. We may be sure that He will cause some of the seed to bring forth sixty or a hundredfold ; but if He does not, still we may be sure of our success. The success of the seed is not the success of the sower.

When our teaching is thus based upon the one sufficient motive it is thereby freed from all anxiety. We shall be calm and peaceful. Every Sabbath will bring its reward in the Master's " Well done."

We shall not love the children less, but more; because they are Christ's dear children. We shall not do our work less faithfully, but more faithfully; because it is Christ's work. We shall toil no less eagerly, but His broad shoulders will be under the burden; the responsibility will be His. Our teaching will be lifted above passions and ambitions and frets and disappointments and fears. We shall come out into a large place, the realm of quietness and certainty.

And this life with Christ, this one motive of Christpleasing, will infallibly in the end make us beloved and honored, and draw our pupils to the love of Christ.

II Love For The Pupils

Among the Sunday-school teacher's fundamental needs is certainly love for his pupils. Fear of his pupils surely will not carry him far, nor will desire for their good opinion ; nothing will buoy him over the many difficulties of a teacher but a deep love for those he is teaching.

Love for them will not always be easy. Children often show their worst side to those that are trying to help them. Your pupils will be careless at times, and indifferent; they will be stupid occasionally; often they may be talkative and mischievous and sometimes even impudent. Love for them will positively be needed to overcome the repugnance that these actions will arouse, and keep the teacher a teacher.

The work of the Sunday-school teacher is hard: it means time taken from other things for study of the Bible and for visiting with your pupils, and it requires endless patience and persistence. Love alone can keep us at our difficult task — love for Christ, but a Christ-love that reaches out in sincere love for Christ's children.

This must not be a merely sentimental love, based on beautiful poems and exquisite pictures of childhood, feeding on fair faces and curls and dimples and clear young voices. The physical side of a child possesses great charm, and it is an inspiration to think of the boundless possibilities before a boy or a girl; but, like a summer landscape before a thunder-storm, all these allurements flee before a gust of petulance or selfishness or ugliness, and nothing remains but a disgusting sense of original sin.

What kind of love for our pupils must we seek, and how are we to get it?

Here, as everywhere, Christ must be our model. How can He, how does He, love us ? The best of us have so much evil in us, the loveliest of us have so much ugliness ! And Christ is so unselfish and so beautiful ! If we can get at the secret of His love for us, we may apply it to our pupils.

~Now Christ loves us partly because we are His workmanship. He created us in the beginning, and He continually preserves us. Somewhat as a mother loves even her misshapen child, or as an author loves his poem though the lines limp, or as a carpenter loves his table though one of the boards is cracked, so Christ honors in us the work of His own hands though we have spoiled it. Burbank's Shasta daisy must be sweeter to him than any common flower, because he has put so much of himself into it; and so the more creative work we do for our pupils, the more we shall love them. As we improve their characters, though only slightly, and as we teach them, though ever so little, we shall begin to love them.

Again, Christ loves us because He gave Himself for us, and from the foundation of the world. Through all the long ages, even in times of the vilest human perversity, there never was a day when Christ was not crucified for us. This He did because He understood the terrible pos-

LOVE FOR THE PUPILS 13

sibilities and certainties of sin; and something of this we can do for our pupils. We can see what their folly will bring to them, how this bad temper or this bad habit will result in the loss of friends and health and peace and prosperity and heaven itself; and the pity that we shall come to feel will be very close to love and will lead us to it.

Yes, and Christ loves us not only because He realizes our evil possibilities, but because He sees also our possibilities for good. He knows that He formed us in His image, and He longs to have us once more like Himself. He is lonely without us. And so the more we have Christ formed in us the more we shall see what graces and what joys are possible for all others. We shall sympathize the more with Chrises ideal for His children, and love in them the undeveloped and obscured image of His perfection.

And finally, Christ loves us because He has entered into our experiences, having been tempted in all points even as we are so sadly and constantly tempted. Surely this bond of love should unite us also with Christ's children. Whatever folly in them may tend to alienate our affection, we have only to look into our past lives and we shall see the same folly; we have only to look into our hearts and we shall see the possibility of it even now. Think what you yourself did once or said once to your own teacher or your father or mother. Ah, a good memory is necessary if one would be a good teacher !

Ill

AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE PUPILS

You will make no progress in love for your pupils if you do not understand them. It is often said, " Mrs. So-and-so is a success at raising flowers because she loves them so much." But watch Mrs. So-and-so and you will see that she knows just what kind of soil each plant prefers, just how much sunshine or shade or water or heat to give each plant, just how to prune the plants and keep off the insects. She loves flowers, to be sure; but because she loves them she has taken pains to understand them. Many love flowers as much as she does, but are too lazy or stupid to raise them. And many love children, but will not take pains to understand them, and therefore make failures of their Sunday-school teaching.

Would that we might understand children as easily as flowers ! But those flowerlike beings are endlessly complex. This minute the child will be a little angel, and the next a little imp. Now he is a marvel of keen wisdom, and soon he is unimaginably dense. To-day he is obstinate and rude; to-morrow he will be gentle and tractable. Especially at certain ages children are irritable and irresponsible, and the hapless teacher never knows whether his hour is to be a delight or a torment.

We have taken one important step toward understanding our pupils if we understand how complex and varying

AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE PUPILS 15

is this nature of theirs. Do not expect in your children uniformity or consistency of conduct. Two natures within them are very plainly struggling for control. Later in life, this struggle will have been decided ; or, if it still continues, it will be discreetly and respectably concealed. In childhood and youth, however, the contending forces are swaying backward and forward all over the field, and the issue of battle is distressingly uncertain. This condition, if the teacher really loves humanity, adds wondrous zest and incentive to his work. He is engaged in a grand warfare, and the prizes are infinitely precious.

Another aid in understanding children is to realize how short their life has been. Short as it is, they have learned wonderful things. The average child of the Intermediate Department has made acquisitions in language, motion, mental acumen and practical science, undoubtedly equal to all he is likely to acquire in all his later life. But this lore has been, in a way, forced upon him. Here every room has been a schoolroom, and every person and animal and thing has been an instructor. But figure up how many (rather, how few) hours of real instruction in the Bible your children have probably enjoyed thus far, and you will see that it is unreasonable to expect them to have learned much about the Scriptures or about religion. Most Sunday-school teachers quite fail to comprehend the density of their pupils' entirely excusable ignorance, and so shoot over their heads with their teaching, repeat too little and drill too seldom. Written work is of the greatest importance, and constant reviews, that the teacher may understand just where his pupils are mentally, and not try to teach them where they are not.

Again, you cannot understand a child without understanding his surroundings. Before they moved the Boston Art Museum to its present superb building, the site of it was occupied for many months solely by a tiny wooden structure whose purpose was a puzzle to most observers. In it an exceedingly careful series of investigations was made as to the light that fell from the sky at different times of day and in different seasons and upon different portions of the ground, for the little building was moved from place to place. Thus the architect was enabled to plan every room of the museum with full knowledge of how to place the windows for the best illumination of the objects to be exhibited there.

Such pains are taken with mummies and statues, and yet we Sunday-school teachers often attempt to plan and build the structure of an immortal character without once visiting the scene in which that character must have its chief development! We cannot understand our pupils without knowing what helps and hindrances they have at home. The growth of a plant depends largely upon its environment, nor is it otherwise with these human flowers.

You must go beneath the surface, if you would understand a child. Some that seem indifferent are feeling the most deeply. Some that appear careless are really experiencing the most concern. Some that are most mischievous and troublesome are actually yearning for the best life. Occasionally a child carries his heart on his sleeve, and his face is a clear window, disclosing what is going on within; but far more often you will find children shy of disclosing their noblest desires and finest impulses. The wise teacher will watch eagerly for revela-

AN UNDERSTANDING OE THE PUPILS If

tions of the true inner life of his pupils, and until he has seen it he will never be quite sure of the best-appearing of them, nor begin to be discouraged concerning the worstappearing.

But the most important thing needing to be said on this subject is that, just as the pure in heart are they that see God, so it is they that alone can see and understand God's dear children. Quite in proportion as you are sincere will others be sincere with you. Your Christlikeness will disclose whatever of Christlikeness is in the boys and girls, just as the musical vibrations of a finely attuned instrument draw out whatever possibility of musical vibrations exists in all the other objects in the room. And thus it is necessary above all for the Sunday-school teacher to understand himself, as a prerequisite to the understanding of his pupils.