Organizing and Building Up the Sunday School: Modern Sunday School ManualsHurlbut, Jesse Lyman
Religion
Organizing and Building Up the Sunday School: Modern Sunday School Manuals
Hurlbut, Jesse Lyman
Sunday schools
1. =Representative Character.= The first test of a Sunday school is
found in its relation to the community around it. The Sunday school is
not a bed of exotic plants, dug up from their native soil, potted and
protected in a conservatory. It is an outdoor garden wherein are
cultivated the flowers and fruits that are indigenous to the region. A
true Sunday school is a group of people drawn out of the larger world
around it, and representing every element in that world, both as regards
social life and age. If it represents the rich and the prosperous only,
it is not a good school, unless the neighborhood is unfortunate in
containing only such people. If it is a mission school for poor people
in the midst of a self-supporting population, it is not a good school.
If it includes few members above sixteen, and none above twenty-five
years of age, it is not a good school, for it should embrace all ages
from the infant to the grandfather. The school which is to stand on the
roll of honor is one that fairly represents its constituency.
2. =Organization.= Another requirement for a good school is that it be
well organized as a graded school. There may be Sunday schools which
make up by their spirit for what they lack in system; yet the exceptions
are few to the rule that in Sunday-school work organization is essential
to success. It is true that machinery creates no power; there is nothing
in a constitution and by-laws to make an institution successful. It is
the efforts of living men and women that bring to pass results. But
organization directs and economizes power; so that, other elements being
equal, the graded school quickly becomes the best school. We have
already seen that a graded school is one with departments defined, with
the number of classes in each department fixed according to the needs of
the school, with promotions at regular periods, based either on age or
examination or merit, or on all three factors in combination, with
lessons graded according to the departments, and, as its most important
element, with a change of teachers when the pupil is promoted from a
lower to a higher grade or department. The graded system is not easy to
establish; it requires firmness and tact in the authorities, and a
self-denying spirit on the part of teachers; but it will abundantly and
quickly repay all it costs in effort and sacrifice, and it is an
essential in a really good Sunday school.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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