Sunday-School Success: A Book of Practical Methods for Sunday-School Teachers and OfficersWells, Amos R. (Amos Russel)
Religion
Sunday-School Success: A Book of Practical Methods for Sunday-School Teachers and Officers
Wells, Amos R. (Amos Russel)
Sunday schools
Happy the school that has a good-sized room for its library. Some even
get it by placing the books in a house next door to the church.
I have known schools to get acquainted with their books by coming
together for a "library evening," in which the wealth of the library
was disclosed by various speakers, each trying to interest the school
in one book, or class of books.
After all, the library catalogue may be the best agent of
introduction. Every library should have one, though it is only a
home-made affair, manufactured on a typewriter or a hectograph. Every
book should be briefly described, so that the scholars may know, for
instance, the scene and purpose of each story, the kind of man
described in each biography, and whether it is a book for old, young,
or primary scholars. Some librarians mark one catalogue for each
class, indicating the books especially pleasing to scholars of the
average age of the class, so that the teacher may guide their
selection. Others divide the catalogue into sections, each containing
the books appropriate to one division of the school.
Not only should a teacher know _what_ his scholars are reading, but he
should find out _how_ they read. He should try to teach them the art
of reading. The demoralizing habit of reading merely for the moment's
pleasurable excitement and the next moment's forgetting may be formed
as easily with Sunday-school stories as with newspapers.
Some librarians, to this end, place in each book a slip of paper, and
the scholar is expected to write upon this at least one thing he has
learned from the book, telling at the same time how he likes it.
If the scholars, as will likely happen, are reading little but
stories, the librarian himself can do much to promote more solid
reading by reporting every month to the school the number of stories
read, the number of biographies, etc. This report may be made by
classes, and teachers and scholars should be urged to make a better
record next month.
Let me close this chapter with a few points regarding library
management.
It is poor economy of labor to change the librarian frequently, so
much of his usefulness depends on his familiarity with the books, and
that familiarity requires time to gain. If you can find a librarian
that does not especially need the benefit of the Bible study, one that
loves and understands children, keep him in office as long as may be.
But be sure to give him an assistant to aid the children in their
selections, or record the books while the librarian is consulting with
the children; also to take the librarian's place when he is sick or
absent, or possibly to take turns with him in presiding over the
library, so that each may recite the lesson half the time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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