The aim and design of this work is to observe, collate, and condense, as far as possible, the _best_ thoughts, experience, and observation of Sabbath-school laborers and authors, not only in this country but also in Great Britain, and to combine these with the observation and experience of the writer during the last forty-five years. The author is greatly indebted particularly to the London Sunday-School Union publications, and to _The Sunday-School Times_ of Philadelphia, as well as to most of his fellow-laborers and writers in both countries. Gladly would he give credit in every instance, but their works have been so read and their thoughts gathered up, preserved, and noted for use during many years, and their views so assimilated with the author's and made his own, that he is now quite unable to trace them accurately to their right sources. They have become the property of all, and he has appropriated and adopted them into the line of his own thought in the one great work. The best examples and the best new improvements are here given for the Sabbath-school artist to copy. No one man or school or country embodies them all. None, however, are mere theories. Everything here stated has been tried and proved. The future progress of the Sabbath-school will be carefully watched, in order to add to or modify subsequent editions of this book, so that the Sabbath-school worker, with no other guide-board but this "Index," may be enabled, by divine grace, to enter the right path and to do a good Christian work in training up the children and youth of his generation. THE AUTHOR. NEW YORK, _February, 1868_. CONTENTS. I. THE SABBATH-SCHOOL 7 II. HISTORY AND PROGRESS 10 III. CONVENTIONS 23 IV. INSTITUTES 31 V. THE SUPERINTENDENT 39 VI. THE LIBRARY AND LIBRARIAN 53 VII. THE SECRETARY 59 VIII. THE TEACHER 61 IX. PREPARATION 63 X. THE TEACHER TEACHING 70 XI. ILLUSTRATIVE TEACHING 87 XII. PICTORIAL TEACHING 94 XIII. OBJECT-TEACHING 103 XIV. THE BLACKBOARD 112 XV. THE INFANT-SCHOOL 124 XVI. YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN'S BIBLE-CLASSES 145 XVII. THE ART OF SECURING ATTENTION 157 XVIII. THE ART OF QUESTIONING 163