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
As to the results accomplished in our school by the system, suffice it
to say they are manifold. Order, system, interest, care, study, regular
and punctual attendance by officers and teachers, have been some of the
results. In conclusion, let us pray that our superintendents and boards
will see the necessity for this system in their schools, and that before
long the schools of our Methodism may be one of continuous gradation.
THE PLAINFIELD PLAN.
BY JESSE L. HURLBUT, D.D.
TWO years have passed since our Sunday school was graded, and the
results of the system are now so apparent that we can safely recommend
our plan, for it has met and endured the test of time. Our Sunday
school, before the grading was accomplished, embraced about four hundred
scholars of all ages, with an average attendance of two hundred and
seventy-five. Its officers and teachers were fifty in number. It was by
no means an ideal school, though above the average in the efficiency of
its work and the interest of its exercises. Its building, however, is a
model of convenience and adaptation to the work of the Sunday school,
having around the main hall eighteen class rooms, all capable of being
either secluded or opened together at a moment's notice.
We found in out Sunday school certain evils and defects, all of which
may be seen elsewhere. Some of these were: 1. "Skeleton classes" in the
Senior Department, consisting of four or five scholars, being the
remains of what had once been large classes of boys and girls. 2. A
constant tendency among the young people to fall away from the school
after reaching the age of sixteen or eighteen years. 3. Great
discrepancies of numbers in the classes; large and small classes side by
side in the same grade. 4. In almost any given class a lack of unity in
the age and the intellectual acquirements of its members. 5. Great
difficulty in obtaining suitable teachers for new classes, or to take
the places of teachers leaving the school.
After many conversations a conclusion was reached that most of these
evils might be removed, and others of them might be lessened, if the
school were reorganized according to a good system, and then maintained
as a thoroughly graded school. A committee was chosen to prepare a plan.
Correspondence was held with graded schools, all printed information
was carefully studied, a plan was prepared, printed, submitted to the
Sunday School Board, discussed, modified, and finally adopted
unanimously. The following are the principal features of the plan, for
which we make no claim of originality, as each of its elements was
already in successful operation in one or more graded Sunday schools:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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