The Sabbath-School Index: Pointing out the history and progress of Sunday-schools, with approved modes of instruction.Pardee, R. G. (Richard Gay)
Religion
The Sabbath-School Index: Pointing out the history and progress of Sunday-schools, with approved modes of instruction.
Pardee, R. G. (Richard Gay)
Sunday schools
There is no department of the Sabbath-school work of greater
importance and interest than this. We have known marked cases of
hopeful conversion of children from four to seven years of age to
result from the first hour of Bible instruction in the youngest infant
classes. Often the character and habits of scholars as such are formed
at the very first interview with their teacher, who thus meets them at
the very entering in of "the gates of life." It is well known that
some of our most distinguished divines, as well as active Christian
ladies, date their conversion back to the early age of four, five, or
six years. Therefore take measures in every Sabbath-school to organize
and sustain a first-class infant-school department.
1. Get a light, warm, airy room. A lean-to added to your chapel for
the purpose, or the use of the next-door neighbor's dining-room for an
hour a week, will answer. Give the children a room by themselves if
possible, to rise and sing, talk, recite, and pray. Furnish the room
with a good blackboard and crayons, and such Scripture prints and
cards and maps as you can obtain for the walls and for use. Provide
for them small, comfortable seats.
2. Select and call to the charge of this class the most pious, bright,
cheerful, patient, loving, gentle, winning teacher for children there
is to be found in the whole church, with a like assistant. Generally
the teacher will be a lady, although some men greatly excel as
infant-class teachers, so that the complaining remark of the little
girl to her mother, that she "hadn't any teacher to-day--it was only a
_man_," was quite too severe to be just. The little ones are greatly
blessed in their love for their teachers, for they want a large share
of demonstrative, life-like sympathy, expressed by a soft, loving
voice and a gentle manner--hands that will speak in all their
gestures, and a patience that endureth and a heart that loves to teach
them for Christ's sake. If the teacher feels the need of learning how
to do this good work, let him visit good week-day infant-schools, and
gather up suggestions and lessons, as well as confidence and
inspiration, for the great work.
3. Visit and gather in all the children from the ages of three or four
to seven years, whose parents are willing to send them, and at once
teach them habits of punctuality, order, regularity, and pleasant
worship. When they become well drilled and instructed, so that they
can clearly read the Bible, then transfer them to older classes,
unless there are good reasons to the contrary. Although they are
little, they are very precious, and amply worth all the painstaking
effort you can make for them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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