Seven Graded Sunday Schools: A Series of Practical Papers — John Shaqi
Seven Graded Sunday Schools: A Series of Practical Papers
Religion
Seven Graded Sunday Schools: A Series of Practical Papers
Christian education -- Teacher training; Sunday schools
Our future superintendent was then promoted to be the teacher of Bible
Class No. 3. It was not Class "Three" because its members knew more or
less than Class 1 and 2, but because its members were a class of misses,
while Classes 1 and 2 were masters and young men. In fact, Class 3 was
as much entitled to be Class 1 as Class 1 was to be Class 1. He was then
promoted to his present position. His career is related in order that it
may be shown that the conclusion which he had reached was founded upon
personal experience and observation, which he took no account of then,
but which served to demonstrate more forcibly to him that the Sunday
school was accomplishing nothing save the one fact that it met on Sunday
mornings ostensibly for religious instruction. It must be said, however,
in justice to other superintendents, that, whatever inclination he had
to seek and ascertain the defects and best needs of the school, he was
led slightly in that direction by those who had shown that something was
needed, and who knew that a change must take place if our Sunday school
would maintain her standing as a large and growing one in the
community. We numbered four hundred, in round figures, and while during
the boyhood of our superintendent the corps of teachers were not
efficient, by reason of the lack of advantages necessary to proper
qualification, yet when he came into office he found himself surrounded
by a corps of teachers nearly all of whom were prepared by intellectual
and divine strength to teach anything that could possibly be put into a
Sunday school course with propriety.
No longer were there "blind leaders of the blind" in the school, but
intelligent leaders in mind and heart. It was a proposition that needed
no demonstration to our superintendent that he now had the opportunity
to present the one thing needful in the school, namely, method and
system in instruction and the adaptiveness of work to the susceptibility
of the pupil, which is the essence of the grade idea. As soon, then, as
this idea was clear, our superintendent at once began inquiry and to
hunt literature bearing on this subject.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account