Sunday-school institutes and normal classes

Front matter

{LIBRARY OF CONGRESS .f t foV-t r j35> S f UNITED STATES'OF AMERICA.!

SUNDAY-SCHOOL

Institutes and formal Classes

Contents

THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHERS' INSTITUTE.

Page

I. The Place and Aim op the Sunday-School 9

II. The Sunday-school Teacher Needs Preparation

1. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the Sunday-school teacher's call. He comes before his pupil in the parent's place, with the preacher's theme — to do a parent's and a pastor's work.

2. First of all, the Sunday-school teacher needs personal piety. No one can teach the Gospel of the Son of God without some experience of his grace. Can the blind teach painting ? Can the deaf teach music? We remember who asked the question, and to whom : " Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things % "

3. But with grace the teacher needs knowledge. His success depends largely upon his personal relations with Jesus. But much also depends upon his fondness for, and familiarity with, the word of God, and the eagerness and aptness with which he comes to teach it. The divine grace reaches the heart through the divine truth. Man is "born again," and "sanctified," by the word of God. The teacher must himself* have a knowledge of the truth to be taught.

4. He should understand the principles involved in the work of teaching. God's grace operating upon character through truth communicated to the intellect does not ignore the laws of intellectual action. "When God called his ministers he prepared them by fire — a symbol of force. The fire of Pentecost was a tongue of fire — a symbol of speech. It rested upon the heads of the apostles, thus by a flaming sign indicating the true power of the gospel ministry — man's intellect, enlightened and vivified by the divine wisdom and love.

Plain men, indeed, were the fishermen of Galilee who first taught the Gospel, but they were not uneducated men. They may not have been familiar with the subtleties of Greek philosophy, nor were they ranked as scholars in the then approved Jewish schools. But they were men of native strength, taught in the Hebrew Scriptures. They enjoyed intimate fellowship with, the wisest of teachers for three years. They were earnest men ; and then, there came upon them a supernatural baptism. This gave them power over the dogmatists of Judea, the false philosophers of Greece, and the masses of the people, both Jews and Greeks.

5. The standard of secular education in this country is so high, and the appliances employed so perfect, that the Sabbath-school must elevate its standard if it would maintain its power. Children measure their teachers in these days. Many of them are able to do it. No sincerity of character or earnestness of effort can compensate for a poorly prepared lesson, or for habitual incompetency on the part of a Sunday-school teacher. It is a lamentable hinderance to one's success in this field to have his scholars contrasting his matter and style of teaching with those of ordinary teachers in the public schools, or detecting the sophisms or superficial evasions of his explanations. It is not only that the teacher suffers in the estimation of his scholars, but the system of truth he represents also suffers loss.

6. All truth is divine. We may regard the teachers of natural science and mathematics in our public schools and academies as so many embassadors of God to the soul of the child. In the Sunday-school we have charge of another department of divine teaching. Ours is the ethical and spiritual, and we deal with intellect. We seek to exalt and sanctify it — to connect it with a " pure conscience " and a redeemed heart, that it may become the throne of a " faith unfeigned." The secular teachers tell the little ones of God in nature ; we, of God in grace. They conduct them through the outer courts of the cosmos ; we lead them beyond the vail, into the innermost sanctuary, where God's voice is heard, and where man may commune face to face with him. We must, therefore, be " apt to teach." We are to show ourselves " approved " — " workmen that need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." Wisely did the apostle suggest to

Timothy, " Give attendance to reading," ... u to doctrine."

All these considerations impel us to offer our plea in behalf of a more thorough preparation on the part of Sunday-school teachers for their work.

III. What Preparation Is Needed !

1. The Sunday-school teacher should at least have a tolerable acquaintance with what are familiarly called the " common English branches." The reasons for this are too obvious to require a statement here. We are acquainted with persons who, notwithstanding great ignorance and habitual violation of the laws of English grammar, are most successful Sunday-school teachers. These cases are exceptional. They show what consecrated hearts may do. When some one complained to Rowland Hill of the blunders in speech of one of his plain preachers, Hill replied, " Never mind his breaking grammar, if the Lord helps him to break the poor sinner's heart." So we say concerning this work of Sunday-school teaching. Let the truth be taught by earnest hearts. Let the living water be dipped from the fountain and distributed to thirsty souls. If this can be done in a golden chalice, well. If God appoint for the service some marred or misshapen pitcher, let it also drop into the crystal depths, and be borne dripping with living waters to the thirsty lips. But these exceptions in the line of divine

Providence do not annul the law of human preparation. So we place as one of the first and plainest requirements in the teacher's culture a tolerable knowledge of his own language and of the best way to use it.

2. The teacher should know something about the Book which he makes his text-book — the Holy Bible. He should know something of its construction ; how, and when, and w T here, its several parts were prepared ; in what languages and for what specific purpose. He should know also something about the " canon " and the several " versions," especially our own precious English version ; the evidences of genuineness and authenticity the Holy Scriptures possess, together with the laws of interpretation and criticism which are applied by wise biblical scholars to this sacred volume — all these should have a place in our Sunday-school teacher's preparation.

3. He should study the contents of the Book. The truth is here : he should explore it. The Bible is not a mint with the gold and silver in piles of completed coin, stamped and polished, and ready for easy appropriation. It is a mountain rather than a mint. In its heart are the veins of gold. These are to be sought after and dug out with patience, prayer, and painstaking.

It is not enough to know what persons and places and facts and principles are contained in a specific lesson. The teacher should have a previous and general knowledge of the leading characters, the historic outlines and details, the geographical facts, the chronology, the doctrinal system and ethical principles of the Bible. He should have a reservoir of knowledge which specific lessons would tap and utilize. He should be ready for unexpected questions on collateral themes from his class. He would certainly by this process be able to understand the meaning of each lesson much more thoroughly than if he were dependent upon its contents and the present examination alone for his knowledge of the subjects it introduces to his pupils.

4. As already intimated, the teacher must know the peculiarities of mind and its marvelous processes. He must know how to excite this miud to independent activity. He alone is a true teacher who in accordance with the laws of mental and spiritual life trains the pupil to put forth intellectual efforts at will in the acquisition and appropriation of the truth. Now this whole question of education — the principles and methods involved in it — is one of vast moment. Parents and Sabbath-school teachers, as well as secular educators, should give it the most candid and careful and exhaustive examination.

5. The teacher needs more than a knowledge of the philosophy of teaching; more than the statement of the formal modes of teaching. What he most needs here is practical illustration. He should be permitted to examine, compare, and discuss various plans of teaching. He needs practice under the eye of experienced educators. There should be some place to which he may bring the difficulties which have embarrassed him, that, if possible, they may be removed.

IV. Facilities Foe Preparation Needed

1. The labor of the Sunday-school teacher is voluntary, and performed under the pressure of secular occupations. Mothers come to the Sunday-school, as teachers, from the nursery, merchants and clerks from the counter and counting-room, mechanics from the shop, farmers from the field, lawyers from the bar, jurists from. the bench, physicians from the bed-side, students from the recitation-room. They are engaged six sevenths of their time in callings wholly unconnected with the specific work of the Sabbath-school. To perform it they turn aside from their habitual paths of thought and effort. Many of them are wholly deficient in mental discipline, and, with no time for preparation, must make sad work with the brain of the pupil and the Book of God on the Sabbath.

2. For other professions regular schools of preparation are established, and a curriculum appointed. In the school of medicine, law, or theology, the student gives his whole time to study. He secures the funds requisite, abandons every other enterprise, and devotes all his energies to the one work. In the secular normal schools the same singleness of purpose and occupation gives the student power. He is a man of one work, and he succeeds. In the same way, and for the same reason, county or district institutes are efficient. Where have we any thing in the Sunday-school department comparable to these Teachers'' Institutes of our public school system ? And yet, how much more important the truth we teach, and the work we contemplate ; and how much more inefficient and unprepared the persons now professing to teach this important truth and do this great work!

3. Yet we can have no permanent theological normal school for the training of Sunday-school teachers. The candidates have neither time nor means for such a course of preparation. Shall we therefore abandon all attempts at organizing a common plan for the culture of teachers ? Shall we leave it to the schools themselves to devise methods adapted to their needs? Because we cannot enjoy the privileges of the university, shall we despise proffered academic aid ? If daily toil keeps the apprentice boy from the advantages of the public school, may he not be partially compensated for his loss by the evening school of his ward or village ?

4. The necessity indicated may not be felt by individual schools which enjoy the advantages of a good teachers' meeting. Usually in such schools only the most efficient persons are appointed to the teacher's office, and these are regularly and carefully taught, that they may profitably teach ; and yet the best teachers' meeting we ever knew failed to become an effective training-school for teachers. Business to be transacted, specific lessons to be prepared for the ensuing Sabbath, and a certain amount of devotional service to be engaged in, rendered the pursuit of a regular course of study impracticable. There are various exercises which the teacher needs, and studies which he should prosecute, all of which are prohibited by the pressure of current preparations. A clergyman may increase in theological knowledge and pulpit efficiency while engaged in appointed clerical labors ; but, before all this, there is a certain preparatory training which fits him for his subsequent efforts, and which is indispensable to his success. This is no more a necessity of the preacher than of the teacher. Even onr best schools, then, would be benefited by a general plan of teacher-training.

5. But we must remember that first-class Sabbath-schools, with well-ordered teachers' meetings, are rare and exceptional. In many schools the teachers' meeting is limited to a small minority of those engaged in the Sabbath work. In some schools this meeting is held annually, and then for the election of officers ; or monthly, and merely for the transaction of business. In all schools of this class teachers are expected to do their work without other specific preparation than they voluntarily give at home to the lesson, and with no previous training whatever.

6. Suppose, then, that any one school has a corps of good teachers and a good teachers' meeting, and suppose it does not need any outside help in the culture of its teachers, the whole duty of that school is not done when it becomes in itself strong, studious, and successful. I assert that no school can be thus independent by virtue of its own internal strength ; for it still owes sympathy, counsel, and assistance to the weaker and less successful schools of its neighborhood.

7. Whether, therefore, we look at the best or the poorest of our schools, the conclusion is forced upon us: We must have a general system for the training of teachers — a svstem that will secure the establishment of regular weekly teachers' meetings where they are not now held, and provide, in some form or other, a complete preparatory course of training in connection with those schools which have all along sustained the teachers' meeting.

8. Conventions, local and general, may render assistance by the dissemination of Sunday-school ideas, the comparison of plans, the discussion of principles, and the occasional illustration of approved methods. But the best convention we ever attended left an important work undone. Mere conventions, in which whole counties, and even States, are represented, cannot meet the demand we have specified. The introduction of institute exercises, or normal methods, into these conventions, has been a means of improving their character. But in the midst of these occasional and exceptional exercises we have asked, Is there not yet something more practical — some plan better adapted to the necessities of the work ?

V. ■sunday- School Institutes

1. The friends of popular education many years ago felt the imperative demand for some plan or organization by which a higher standard of culture should he attained by those professing to teach the rudiments of secular knowledge to the children of the land. Dr. William E. Channing, in an address delivered at the Ocleon in Boston in 1837. thus plead for an institution in which teachers should be professionally trained :

i; We need an institution for the formation of better teachers, and until this step is taken we can make no important progress. The most crying want in this commonwealth is the want of accomplished teachers. We boast of our schools, but our schools do comparatively little for want of educated instructors. "Without good teaching a school is but a name. An institution for training men to train the young would be a fountain of living waters, sending forth streams to refresh present and future ages. As yet onr legislators have denied to the poor and laboring classes this principal means of their elevation. We trust they will not always prove blind to the highest interest of the State. We want better teachers and more teachers for all classes of society^— for rich and poor, for children and adults. One of the surest signs of the regeneration of society will be the elevation of the art of teaching to the highest rank in the community. . . . Socrates is now regarded as the greatest man in an age of great men. The name of king has grown dim before that of apostle. To teach, whether by word or action, is the highest function on earth."

2. In the autumn of 1839 Mr. Barnard held " the first of the class of meetings now known as ' Teachers' Institutes,' in Connecticut." It met in Hartford " under the invitation and preliminary arrangements of the Secretary of the Board of Commissioners of Common Schools." Mr. Barnard made this experiment in order " to show the practicability of making some provision for the better qualification of common school teachers, by giving the opportunity to revise and extend their knowledge of the studies usually pursued in district schools, and of the best method of school arrangements, instruction, and government, under the recitations and lectures of experienced and well-known teachers and educators." These meetings had long been known in the world of common schools before they were employed by Sunday-school people. Great good was produced by them. Teachers were quickened and instructed ; mere drones dropped out of the ranks. The teacher's profession was exalted.

3. The success of Teachers' Institutes in advancing the interests of secular education throughout the country suggested to Sunday-school workers the practicability and desirableness of adopting a similar method for the promotion of the higher and nobler ends which this institution contemplates. For several years the Sunday-School Institute has been in successful operation.

4. But what is an institute? To this question Mr. Barnard, in his " Report to the Board of Regents of Normal Schools in the State of Wisconsin," gives the following reply : " A Teachers' Institute is a gathering of teachers — old and young, experienced and inexperienced, of both sexes and of schools of different grades — in such number as will develop the sympathies and power of a common pursuit, and yet not so large as to exclude the freedom of individual action ; for a period of time long enough to admit of a systematic plan of operations, and yet not so protracted as to prove a burdensome expense, or an interruption to other engagements ; under the direction of men whose only claim to respect and continued attention must be their experience and

22 Sukd ay- School Teachers' Institute.

acknowledged success in the subjects assigned them, and in a course of instruction at once theoretical and practical, combined with opportunities of inquiry, discussion, and familiar conversation."

5. To illustrate this definition let me answer another question : What arc Sunday-school institute exercises ? They differ from convention speeches just as an actual plow differs from the picture of a plow. They require work instead of talk. At an institute some one teaches a Bible class, instead of telling how a Bible class should be taught. The teacher is watched, criticised, his methods commended or condemned. Some one resolves the institute into a school, and shows how in his own school he calls to order, opens, conducts, and closes a session. This gives rise to a comparison of programmes and plans. A teacher or minister gives a lesson in sacred history and geography. All present are students. He uses the blackboard and maps ; communicates facts, elicits them again, drills the institute in concert answers, etc. Again, the institute becomes a Bible class, and spends two hours or more in the critical study of some biblical selection. An infant or elementary class is brought in, and an experienced teacher gives a specimen lesson. The institute listens to carefully prepared lectures on various subjects, as " Illustration in teaching ;" " The art of asking questions ;" " The mind of a child;" "Memory — its power and cultivation ;" " The teacher in the preparation of his lesson ;" " Bible architecture ;" " Palestine ;" " Manners and customs of the Bible times," etc., etc. These and many other exercises may be introduced. The practical advantages are apparent.

VI. Sued Ay- School Institute Exercises

Let ns now present some of the exercises appropriate to a Sunday-School Institute. It is not to be expected that their practical value will be estimated alike by all who read our suggestions. In the hands of one worker a plan may be exceedingly useful, which other men would never adopt. We therefore place before our readers a large variety of methods. Should these suggest other and original plans not here indicated, and more effective than any of these, the object of the author will have been attained.

1. Opening Services. — The religious devotions of the institute should receive careful attention, especially the initiatory devotions, when the key-note is to be struck — the plane of thought and sentiment for the whole session to be determined. No careless appointment should here be made. The dull routine of a "prayer-meeting hour" is to be avoided. A topic being announced beforehand on the programme, all the Scripture readings, remarks, songs and prayers of the service should have reference to it. The following topics have been thus used with admirable results: "The Spirit of God now present;" "Our Homes ;" " The Preachers of the Word ;" " The Unconverted Scholars ;" " Senior Scholars," etc, etc. The reading of several Scripture selections, alternating with prayer and singing, will tend to instruct as well as to guide the teachers in their devotions.

2. The Entire Work. — It will be desirable at times, where the institute is a short one, to present in very condensed form the whole range of practical Sunday-school work in a single session. We knew this to be done at an institute in Ohio, when the following addresses, each occupying seven minutes, were delivered. Of course every thing was very much condensed. Each speaker occupied all his time, but his limitation compelled careful elimination and abridgment. He said only his best things, and said them in the shortest and plainest way possible.

The Entire Work. [Seven Minute Addresses.]

1. Words from Parents to the Sunday-School, Rev. C. A. Van Anda.

2. Words from the Sunday-School to Parents, William Mitchell, Esq.

3. Words from the Pulpit to the Sunday-School, Rev. P. P. Ingalls.

4. Words from the Sunday-School to the Pulpit, Rev. E. House.

5. The Order of Exercises in Sunday-School, Rev.

C. Z. Case.

6. Bible Study in Sunday-School, Rev. J. II. Yincent.

7. The Infant Scholars in Sunday-School, Rev.

D. H. Moke.

8. Senior Scholars in Sunday-School, Professor Smith.

9. The Teachers' Meeting, Rev. H. M. Simpson. 10. The Sunday-School felt during the Week, Dr.

Walden. 3. Institute Conversations. — Long speeches are the bane of Conventions. In Sunday-school institutes the j should always be discouraged. If instead of speech-making we could occasionally have conversations our work would be much more profitable. Let the following serve as good examples of what we mean :

}so. 1. Teachers' Meeting.

Mr. A. A live Sunday-school must have a teachers' meeting.

Mr. B. But it is so difficult to get all the teachers to attend.

Mr'C. If only two come they may spend an hour profitably.

Mr. A. But we must be careful not to find fault and complain because so few are there.

Mr. 0. Should teachers be selected with reference to their residence near the place of meeting?

Mr. A. Certainly not. The main question is one of qualification.

*" Mr. D. Indifferent and incompetent teachers residing near the place of meeting will be less likely to attend than the earnest teacher who lives farther away.

Mr. E. Teachers at a distance who, on account of bad weather, rough roads, family cares, ill health, etc., are unable to attend the teachers' meeting regularly, may promise to spend at home in prayerful and careful study of the lesson the hour devoted to the meeting. This would interest them in the meetiug, and. guarantee their attendance at the earliest opportunity.

Mr. B. What exercises are appropriate to a teachers' meeting?

Mr. F. The recitation by every teacher from memory of the next Sabbath's lesson.

Mr. E. The hour should be spent, not on the subject-matter of the lessons, bnt on methods.

Mr. A. I understand that the teachers' meeting is not a Bible class.

Mr. G. It is rather to test the teacher's familiarity with the lesson, and, by illustrating methods of teaching, to aid him in his work.

Mr. B. Why not bring a class of juvenile pupils and have them taught by a teacher %

Mr. G. Then let the rest criticize the plan of the teacher.

Mr. A. Should this criticism take place before or after the class is dismissed.

Mr. G. Certainly after. Children should not hear criticisms before their teacher.

No. 2. How to get Attention.

Mr. A. AYe can do nothing with a class unless we have the attention.

Mr. B. The attention, too, of every pupil.

Mr. A. All the time. How shall we secure this?

Miss C. By being awake ourselves.

Miss E. By being ourselves absorbingly interested in the scholars and in the lesson.

Mr. D. By having something neio to tell.

Mr. F. In an emergency I would rise and stand while teaching.

Mr. A. I should like a blackboard, or at least a slate, on which to record some outline or initial letters to excite curiosity.

Miss G. The class should see that the teacher fullv understands his lesson and is independent of book and lesson-paper.

Mr. II. His eyes should be free.

Mr. I. Pie should use his will silently, and thus summon himself and command his class.

Miss E. The true teacher will address questions and remarks to persons most remote and to those who are most inattentive.

Mr. J. I use pictures a great deal in getting the attention of little people.

Mr. K. They may be used with older classes.

Miss L. I keep three or four little stories on hand to illustrate the lesson, but keep them in reserve for use when the interest flags a little. I can sometimes go through the lesson without using more than one of the stories.

Mr. A. If I can succeed in getting my scholars to question me I find no difficulty in getting attention.

4. Sunday-School Miscellany. — An hour may be set apart for every body to say something on any and all subjects, the time of each speaker being limited to one, two, or three minutes. A single sentence, a word of advice, a bit of experience, a very short incident, an objection, a difficulty, a brief quotation from Scripture or poetry — so will the time pass by pleasantly and profitably to all. Written suggestions may also be forwarded to the Conductor's desk to be read during this exercise.

5. The Promise Meeting. — This is a suggestion of that successful evangelist, D. L. Moody, of Chicago. We saw him conduct such a meeting at the California State Sun day- School Convention. Any one was permitted to rise and repeat or read one of the " exceeding great and precious promises" of Scripture..

An expository or experimental sentence was allowed, but no long speeches. As passage after passage of the pure word dropped from living lips upon the ears of that vast assembly, it seemed as though a ; ' shower of diamonds" was falling from the open heavens. Our institutes cannot have too much of God's word in them, nor can they err by introducing warm personal religious experience to illustrate and enforce that word.

6. The Lecture-Lesson combines the peculiarities of a regular lecture and a recitation. The lecturer follows his outline of thought, but is at liberty to stop at any time and question his audience, subject them to a regular examination of the ground he has covered in his lecture, while they also are at liberty to arrest him by questions at any step of his discourse. What goes by the name of Bible-class teaching in many adult classes is little more than a lecture-lesson, and perhaps too often it is lecture without lesson — discourse without drill — preaching rather than teaching. The advantages of the lecture-lesson in an institute are apparent in the carefulness of preparation and of statement which it secures from the teacher, and the attention which it is apt to beget in the audience.

7. Institute Catechism.— The eighth annual session of the Detroit District Institute was held in Wayne, Mich., October 13th and llrtli. The following "Institute Catechism" was sent beforehand to all teachers :

The teachers in attendance are requested and expected to answer the following questions, writing the answer opposite the question. lS"o names are to be furnished or read. The list will be distributed and collected promiscuously, and no one will know the author of any of the answers made.

Careful and candid answers are desired.

(1.) How many scholars are there in your class ? —

(2.) How many of them have you visited at their houses within a year ? ....

(3.) How many hours a week on an average do you give to studying the lesson ? ....

(4.) Have you any Bible maps? ...... How

(5.) Have you a Bible Dictionary ? Whose ?

(6.) Do you use a Commentary ? . . . . Whose ? . . . .

(7.) What other helps clo you have or use in preparing your lessons ?

(8.) What books on the subject of Sunday-school teaching have you read ?

(9.) Do you ever take maps or pictures into your class to show to the scholars ? ....

(10.) Do you keep a blank book and scrap book to note down and preserve illustrations for future use ? . .

(11.) Have you ever used a paper or slate or pencil as an aid to illustrate lessons in your class? ....

(12.) How many from your class have united with the Church during the last year? ....

8. Test-Questions or Report Questions. — Instead of spending w T hole hours in hearing dull "reports" from ten, twenty, or fifty different schools, let a few pointed questions be put by the conductor, and answered promptly and briefly by representatives from the several schools. For example, How many schools are here represented? Pastors rise. If the pastor be absent let the superintendent rise. If neither pastor nor superintendent be here will a teacher rise to represent his school ? You now have a representation on the floor from every school. These persons are requested to answer the questions as they may be announced by the Conductor. "How long is your Sunday-school session I " Replies come in something like the following from the audience : " First Presbyterian, one hour and thirty minutes.*' " Second Baptist, one hour and ten minutes/' "Third Methodist, generally two hours, although the time on the programme is one hour and fifty minutes." " How much time do you spend in actual Bible study T' Answers: "Forty minutes;" "Twenty-five minutes;" "Including general review, thirty-five;" "Twentyseven;" "Twenty," etc. "Do you have regular teachers' meetings for the study of the lessons?" "Do you hold Sunday-school concerts I "