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BV 1520 .F47 1916 
 Fergusson, Edmund Morris, 
 
 1864-1934. 
 How to run a little Sunday 
 
 school 
 
How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
How to Run a Little 
 Sunday School 
 
 c^^ 
 
 E. MORRIS FERGUSSON 
 
 '•" » '•Uiij% 
 
 ....,y^ 
 
 APPf^ 1918 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 London and Edinburgh 
 
Copyright, 1916, by 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 
 New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
 Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. 
 London : 2 1 Paternoster Square 
 Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street 
 
Preface 
 
 The worker in the little ueighborhood Sunday 
 school, ambitious, earnest, perplexed with many dif- 
 ficulties, ought to have a book on Sunday-school 
 method all his own. In point of fact he needs a 
 whole literature. It was necessary that modern 
 methods in general and grading in particular should 
 be worked out first with refercjice to conditions in the 
 large and well appointed Sunday schools. This hav- 
 ing been done, the time is ripe for an independent 
 literature of the little Sunday school, in which its 
 principles of operation, its strategic factors and its 
 most effective modes of work shall be studied directly, 
 and not merely by parenthetical chapters and para- 
 graphs. To such a literature this book is a modest 
 and at present a rather lonesome contribution. 
 
 The size of the little school interest in America is 
 worth considering. In the great states of the plains 
 and in part of the South the Sunday school of fifty 
 members is the prevailing type. The International 
 Suuday-School Association's statistics seem to indi- 
 cate that half the Sunday-school population of the 
 United States is enrolled in Sunday schools of sixty- 
 five members or less. Even in populous New Jersey, 
 with the highest average membership of any state, 
 the schools of fifty or fewer enroll five per cent, of the 
 total Sunday-school membership. For Canada the 
 proportion is even more impressive. There is noth- 
 
 5 
 
6 Preface 
 
 ing little about the little Sunday school, when con- 
 sidered as a constituency standing for its rights. 
 
 When we realize, moreover, what our countiy and 
 the world owe to these same little Sunday schools, 
 and what our city churches have received from them 
 in well started religious life, is it not our common 
 shame that the call of the little Sunday school for 
 adequate educational leadership should for so long 
 have gone practically unheeded ? 
 
 As General Secretary of the New Jersey Sunday- 
 school Association, and later as Educational Super- 
 intendent of Sabbath-school Missions for the Presby- 
 terian Church, the writer has come into close contact 
 with conditions and needs in the work for little Sun- 
 day schools in all parts of the United States. While 
 realizing the inherent difficulties of the typical little- 
 school situation, he nevertheless believes that the best 
 and highest in modern Sunday-school method belongs 
 of right to this work, and that the workers in these 
 fields are themselves competent to introduce it and 
 lead it to a successful issue. 
 
 This book, therefore, is written for the man or 
 woman in the little Sunday school, to show how such 
 a school may lift itself out of the ruts of custom and 
 tradition, gain the vision of a better day, and tak(^ its 
 rightful place among the progressive, graded, efficient 
 and spiritually successful Sunday schools of its field. 
 
 Thanks are due Miss Martha E. Eobisou, Snperin- 
 t(Mident of Eural Work of the Pennsylvania State 
 Sabbath -School Association, for a number of valuable 
 criticisms and suggestions, which have been embodied 
 in the proofs. 
 
Contents 
 
 I. What It Needs 9 
 
 General Needs — Members — Organization 
 — Teachers — Housing — Equipment — 
 Relations — Support. 
 
 II. Making a Start 26 
 
 The Simple Start— The Educational Start 
 — Remaking an Old School — Insuring 
 Permanence — What to Teach — Educa- 
 tional Lessons — The New Plan at Work. 
 
 III. Increased Attendance .... 42 
 
 A Laudable Ambition — Retention and 
 Graduation — Dangers in Numbers — Re- 
 wards, Wise and Otherwise — New 
 Classes — A Table of Growth — Winning 
 New Pupils — Gospel Salesmanship — 
 The Extension Departments. 
 
 IV. Running by the Week .... 63 
 
 The Superintendent a Teacher — The 
 Weekly Routine — Notes on a Rural 
 Program — Class Instruction — Desk In- 
 struction—Official Routine — The Wor- 
 shiping Sunday School. 
 
 V. Running by the Quarter ... 81 
 
 The Sunday-School Calendar — Planning 
 the Desk Work — Replanning the Class 
 Work — Appraising the Term's Work 
 — Records and Recognitions — An Edu- 
 cational Festival. 
 
 7 
 
8 Contents 
 
 VI. Running by the Year ... 97 
 
 An Educational Perspective — Reorganizing 
 for the New Year — Two Plans of Class 
 Formation — The Course of Study — Ob- 
 serving Promotion Day — Present and 
 Future Teachers — The Official Staff — 
 The School's Finances — The Workers' 
 Conference. 
 
 VII. Getting Results ..... 114 
 
 Reasonable Expectations — A Table of Re- 
 sults — Overcoming Difficulties — The 
 Securing of Life-Decisions. 
 
WHAT IT NEEDS 
 
 General Needs.— Whoever has to do with the 
 leading of a Sunday school, in a neighborhood where 
 workers are few and difficulties many, will have to 
 give careful consideration to the question of what his 
 Sunday school needs. 
 
 Some needs, while undoubtedly great, are so gen- 
 eral as to call for little comment. They speak for 
 themselves. The Sanday school needs first of all a 
 competent leader. Perhaps the superintendent feels 
 that that need, at any rate, is now well supplied. 
 Perhaps he feels that a great mistake has been made 
 in choosing him, and that some one far more compe- 
 tent than he ought to be found and installed as his 
 successor. If this last is his feeling, there is much 
 hope for the school. He should however hold his 
 place until the ideal successor appears, and meantime 
 do his best and learn how to do better. 
 
 Devoted workers are needed to stand by the leader 
 and help him in carrying out his plans. Well adapted 
 supplies are needed, including some helps not now 
 on the market in form suited to the needs of such a 
 school as we are about to study. God's gracious 
 power is needed, with a constant sense of dependence 
 on Him and a spirit of prayer and love for souls. 
 The school must realize its need of these things. We 
 may say indeed that humility, a sense of need for 
 help, human and divine, is the greatest need of all. 
 
 9 
 
lo How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 Leaviug for the time these general needs, what are 
 some of those specific needs of the little Sunday school 
 which effort might conceivably supply? The term 
 '^ little" is of course relative. A school of fifty mem- 
 bers is little in comparison with the average Sunday 
 school of the city, about which nearly all the books 
 on Sunday-school work are written. It is larger, 
 however, than the average Sunday school in some 
 states of the Union. What are some of the needs of 
 such a school 1 
 
 Members. — To begin with, there must be enough 
 persons, big and little, to form an organized com- 
 pany. Nine people, for instance, could make a Sun- 
 day school, with three in a younger class, four in an 
 older class, and two teachers, one of them acting as 
 superintendent. A Sunday school of eleven, with an 
 average attendance of nine, ran for several years in 
 Ocean County, New Jersey ; and there are doubtless 
 hundreds as small or smaller the country over. 
 
 Larger numbers than that, however, are required 
 for a properly organized Sunday school. The school 
 of thirty members, or twenty, or even ten, need not 
 feel discouraged ; but fifty is the membership required 
 for a really satisfactory educational organization. 
 With two officers, five teachers and forty-three pu 
 pils, a Sunday school in the rural districts may con- 
 sider itself ready for thorough and up-to-date work. 
 
 Let us take these numbers as the standard of mem- 
 bership for the typical little Sunday school. Such a 
 school, of course, will try to grow as much larger as 
 it can, by organizing new classes and increasing the 
 size of those it has. But, for the purposes of our 
 study, we will think of a Sunday school as composed 
 
What It Needs 1 1 
 
 of fiv^e classes and fifty members all told. We will 
 keep ill miud these five classes, eveu if our own 
 school has but four, or three, or even two : the others 
 will in such case represent vacancies not yet filled. 
 
 Organization. — How shall this force be organized 1 
 
 First, of course, we will have a primary class. 
 *' Infant class," our grandfathers called it; but an 
 iufaut is one who canuot talk, and such a name is a 
 base slander as applied to these youngsters. As 
 soon as possible the primary teacher should have an 
 assistant to care for the beginners during the lesson 
 story period. The primary class should take in all 
 the younger children up to and including eight years 
 of age. 
 
 Secondly, a junior class. Here belong the boys 
 and girls from nine to twelve, the finest bunch of hu- 
 manity in the whole school, the best workers, the 
 quickest learners, the most willing to learn new hab- 
 its, the readiest to love and follow Jesus as their Lord. 
 They should never on any account be mixed with the 
 older ones above or with the little ones below ; and 
 they should never lose a single Sunday's lesson. 
 
 Thirdly, an intermediate class, thirteen to sixteen 
 or so. This is usually the hardest class in the school 
 to handle successfully ; but it is also the class from 
 which can be secured the most remarkable results. 
 This class should be organized and given some 
 special work to do. Its president and secretary 
 should be real helpers to the teacher, as well as lead- 
 ers of the class in good works. 
 
 Fourthly, a senior or young people's class of young 
 men and women. The ages may run from sixteen to 
 twenty -three or four. This class also should be or- 
 
12 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 ganized, with a full set of officers and committees, 
 and a definite program of work. 
 
 Lastly, an adult class, the men and women of the 
 Sunday school. Their membership will mostly be of 
 married people, and their average attendance will be 
 low, for they are full of cares and cannot command 
 their own time every Sunday. But their roll should 
 be carefully kept just the same. Their education in 
 religion is quite as important as that of any of the 
 younger ones. Keep the seniors and the adults care- 
 fully distinguished. 
 
 With a teacher for each of these five classes, a sec- 
 retary to look after records, purchases and details, 
 and a superintendent in charge of the wliole, and 
 with forty-three pupils distributed among the five 
 classes, the necessary organization of our Sunday 
 school of fifty members is complete. 
 
 Suppose it happens that we are so weak on some 
 one of these groups that if we were to divide this 
 way the junior class would be large and the inter- 
 mediate very small, or the intermediate large and the 
 senior small : what then ? Keep the class lines firm 
 as to age, notwithstanding. Perha]3S one or two of 
 the oldest and brightest in the class below may be al- 
 lowed to come over to the upper class, if needed to 
 make up a company. But remember that it is lessons, 
 not looks, that count, and that all such inequalities 
 will correct themselves before long, as promotions 
 take place and newcomers enter. 
 
 Teachers. — A Sunday school is a school. It may 
 and should serve other useful purposes ; but unless it 
 is a real school it is not worthy of its honored name. 
 Hence the five leaders of these classes must not 
 
What It Needs 13 
 
 merely be teachers, so-called. Each of them must be 
 able to teach the particular class he has by causing 
 its members to do, to know, to be and to love along 
 the lines of activity, knowledge, character, and 
 heart-power appropriate to their years. There is no 
 other possible way of making the Sunday school a 
 school than to get, improve and keep a set of teachers 
 for these classes. As it is seldom that such teachers 
 can be found in the community and put to work just 
 as they are, the school must plan to train them. But 
 that is another story. 
 
 Even this, however, is not all. The superintend- 
 ent must be a teacher too. There are so many ways 
 of not making a Sunday school a school, and some of 
 them are so easy, so customary and so dear to the 
 back -number superintendent's heart, that only a 
 superintendent with the true teacher-spirit is likely 
 to find the strait and narrow way of educational ex- 
 cellence that this book aims to set forth. 
 
 Not only must we have these five classes in our 
 Sunday school of to-day : we must retain them as a 
 permanent basis of our teaching plant. Year after 
 year the work of these five classes must go on. The 
 children will grow with the years ; the teachers must 
 remain. Until some such arrangement is established, 
 a Sunday school is not really a school. An instructor 
 who travels with his class is not a teacher but rather 
 a tutor. Tutors have their honored place ; but they 
 are not teachers. A teacher's work is defined in 
 terms of the school ; a tutor's in terms of the partic- 
 ular pupils he is engaged to teach. Our five teachers 
 must be so related to the Sunday school that they will 
 constitute a faculty, each responsible, not for taking 
 
14 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 care of certain individuals year after year, but for 
 discliargiug a certain section of tlie whole school's 
 responsibility. Each teacher, then, as he senses this 
 trust, will seek to make himself a real primary 
 teacher, or intermediate teacher, or whatever he is, 
 and will study how best to do what needs to be done 
 for his particular pupils during that period of their 
 lives when it is his business to teach them. 
 
 Housing. — The Sunday school must meet some- 
 where. The place of meeting must be such as to 
 furnish proper conditions for good Sunday-school 
 work. Not many of our little- school meeting-places 
 are such as the work needs. Of course these cannot 
 be rebuilt and refurnished to order. But when we 
 know what housing we ought to have, and why what 
 we do have hinders us from reaching good results, 
 we shall be nearer to gaining these results than we 
 were before. 
 
 A study of good housing for the small rural Sun- 
 day school, therefore, is thoroughly practical, even if 
 there seems to be not the slightest visible prospect 
 that a new or improved building can be had. It is 
 always the unseen that creates the seen. Mind rules 
 matter. To have a Sunday school that needs a good 
 building, that is already doing work worthy of a 
 good building, that will do still better work when it 
 gets its good building, and that knows exactly what 
 sort of building it wants, is to have a school that will 
 surely, some day, get the building it needs. 
 
 Plan now for what the Sunday school now needs, 
 and for what it is going to need, as far ahead as you 
 can see. Eemember the necessary limitations of work 
 with small numbers. One separate room for the pri- 
 
Wliat It Needs 15 
 
 maiy class, another for the adult class, and a broad, 
 well-phiiined room for all the rest, is probably the best 
 arrangement a five-class school can have, in the pres- 
 ent stage of the Sunday-school art. The other uses 
 to which the building is to be put must also not be 
 forgotten. 
 
 The main room should be open and cheery in effect, 
 with flat floor a little broader than long, access from 
 the rear, light from rear and sides, a low platform 
 with movable desk, and an unbroken wall behind 
 the desk, so that light will fall on whatever is there 
 displayed. Many a blackboard is made useless by 
 the difficulty of so placing it that all the audience can 
 read what is put thereon. Maps, wall charts and a 
 lantern screen will all require such a wall for proper 
 display. Seat with light, comfortable chairs that can 
 be quickly rearranged in any combination, and give 
 each class its table. The primary room should also 
 be light and flat-floored, seated with low chairs and, 
 if possible, with a tight partition between it and the 
 main room. Only on special occasions should the 
 children sit with the main school ; and then they may 
 bring their little chairs with them and carry them 
 back when their part in the service is over. 
 
 If a separate primary room is not now possible, its 
 place can be taken for several months in the year by 
 a good out-of-doors. A fine yard, with overhanging 
 trees and a soft green turf, is an educational asset that 
 some Sunday schools have and do not use, and that 
 others could have for a little concerted effort. There 
 is nothing essentially irreligious about fresh air. On 
 the plains, in the arid or semi-arid states, a sunshade 
 would have to be erected or grown ; but what such a 
 
i6 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 school bad to do without iu maples and green grass it 
 would gain in regularity of clear weather. 
 
 Far different from the vision thus hinted at is the 
 reality for most of our five-class Sunday schools. 
 Some meet in old country churches with fixed pews, 
 some in district schoolhouses with fixed desks, built 
 with fearsome exactitude to fit Young America's 
 graded backs and knees. Every possible combina- 
 tion of expedients to draw classes together around and 
 in and over such desks and seats is already familiar 
 to the rural Sunday-school worker and therefore need 
 not be discussed here. Courage ! Eelief is coming, 
 aud that from two directions. Educational reformers 
 are demanding freedom of life in the school, with a 
 daily program calling for seated work only a part of 
 the time. They, too, want an open floor, with relief 
 from desk tyranny. Then the rural life movement 
 leaders want the schoolhouse as a community center, 
 with floors that can be used for all sorts of occasions. 
 Let the rural Sunday-school leaders join in the de- 
 mand for schoolhouse seating reform. The chance 
 for getting all we need may be nearer than we think. 
 
 The chief disadvantage of church pews is the dif- 
 ficulty of introducing tables for centralized class work. 
 Hinged boards, with swinging brackets, may be at- 
 tached to the pew-backs. By stretching strong wires 
 here and there and running light curtains between 
 the classes, an excellent amount of class privacy can 
 be secured during the lesson period ; though the 
 drawback of noise will of course continue. 
 
 Equipment. — Besides seating, curtains, screens and 
 class tables, a blackboard has long been preached as 
 a superintendent's necessity. It is, if the superin- 
 
What It Needs 17 
 
 tendent has learned how to use it and knows what he 
 wants it for. Orders of service, new hymns, mottoes, 
 notices and other messages to the eye can be written 
 with an expressman's crayon on large sheets of paper 
 tacked to the wall. Some expert can usually be found 
 who will do this lettering in advance, the superin- 
 tendent furnishing copy. By ruling such a sheet 
 with vertical pencil lines half an inch apart to repre- 
 sent the Sundays, and cross-hatching with similar 
 half-inch lines leading to a scale in the margin, and 
 graduating this scale according to the size of the 
 school, a chart can be formed on which the attend- 
 ance can be plotted by the secretary each Sunday, the 
 jagged line showing the school's record for the year. 
 
 An instrument to accompany the singing is usually 
 counted a necessity. A piano is better than an organ 
 as a leader of voices, because it more clearly marks 
 the rhythm. If the school has a cabinet organ, let it 
 also have some one who will take a few lessons in the 
 simple art of keeping the organ's inner works clean 
 and in order. The accompanist's musical training 
 should also be a matter of interest to the school. A 
 cornet helps in an out-of-doors gathering ; but in a 
 small room its leadership tires the voices and encour- 
 ages loud singing. Even when well muted, its brass 
 throat is too strong. If used at all, let it be on special 
 occasions. 
 
 Several other items of Sunday-school equipment 
 may be briefly noted. A wall clock, well tended, 
 helps in securing punctuality by all concerned. A 
 bulletin-board, mounted near the door on the eye- 
 line, saves the giving out of many a notice and secures 
 publicity for reports, lists of honors and announce- 
 
l8 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 meuts of forthcoming events. Shelves for the Bibles 
 and hymnals enable these to be decently cared for. 
 A separate box or tray for each class will serve for 
 keeping on hand a supply of pads, pencils and other 
 supplies. A set of Bible maps is needed for occa- 
 sional desk use and for loan to classes whose lesson 
 may need map illustration. The small Kent and 
 Madsen maps, mounted on collapsible iron standard 
 and sold for five dollars, are ideal for the little Sunday 
 school's needs. 
 
 Most important of all the items of the schooPs per- 
 manent equipment is its Bible supply. Without re- 
 laxing the effort to have each pupil and teacher own 
 his own Bible and bring it with him, provide an 
 adequate supply of Bibles in readable type, and 
 watch their condition. The trend of the times is 
 towards the use of the American Standard Bible ; and 
 if there were no other reason for falling in line, the 
 inconvenience of having two versions in use is so 
 great that the school should promptly put itself on a 
 revised -version basis and encourage all buyers of new 
 Bibles to buy that version alone. There are however 
 many other reasons. The new version of the old 
 Book is the basis of all the graded lessons. The 
 paragraphic and poetic arrangement of the Bible 
 text aids the student in following the subject and 
 understanding the treatment. The translation at 
 many points is clearer, making good sense where 
 King James's translators, working over three hun- 
 dred years ago, were able to make little or none. 
 The great early manuscripts of the New Testament, 
 unknown or unavailable in 1611, have enabled our 
 modern translators at many points to get nearer to 
 
What It Needs 19 
 
 what the sacred text originally was and so to give ns 
 God's Word more perfectly. Those who once ac- 
 custom themselves to the use of the new version find 
 it just as precious and godly as the dear old form, 
 and better for the work of teaching religion to the 
 children. 
 
 Hymn-books, the library and the lesson-help 
 supply will be considered in connection with the 
 work for which these items of equipment are needed. 
 
 Relations. — Nothing that is unrelated can properly 
 call itself alive. No amount of internal progressive- 
 ness will make any Sunday school, lai'ge or small, 
 what it should be, unless it freely relates itself to 
 the life around it and so becomes a part of a larger 
 whole. 
 
 If the Sunday school is a church school, its first 
 and nearest relation will be to the local church of 
 which it is a part. It will try to run itself on a 
 church policy. The pastor will be its pastor ; and 
 though he may be able to attend only once in two 
 weeks, or three, or four, when he comes he will be 
 honored as the ranking officer and his leadership will 
 be sought. The right of the church to direct in 
 general the Sunday school's work will be acknowl- 
 edged. By conference, sympathy and cooperation 
 the school and the church will make themselves one. 
 
 Beyond the local church lies the denomination. 
 This represents the Suiulaj^ school's religious family 
 connection. Duties under this head include (1) a 
 study of the denomination's doctrines, polity and 
 lines of work by the senior class as a regular part 
 of its course of study ; (2) a systematic platform 
 treatment of its principal missionary and benevolent 
 
20 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 causes, with gifts thereto ; (3) au annual offering, 
 large in proportion to ability, for the support of the 
 denominational Sunday-school work, and (4) annual 
 statistical reports promptly and fully rendered. It 
 will ordinarily include also (5) the preference by 
 the school of its own denominational lesson helps 
 and supplies. 
 
 A union Sunday school has neither church nor de- 
 nomination. Its members however have each their 
 sei)arate denominational allegiance and know where 
 the nearest pastor or missionary representing that 
 denomination may be found. It is just as necessary 
 for each boy and girl in a union school to have a 
 church home as it would be if he belonged to a 
 church school. If possible secure a visit and a 
 helpful talk from each pastor represented, utiliz- 
 ing his visit to arrange for the public reception by 
 his church of any of his people who desire to con- 
 fess Christ. 
 
 The spirit of Christian unity is abroad. More and 
 more we are coming to see the evil of denominational 
 rivalry and the waste of separation for merely sec- 
 tarian reasons. The union school should encourage 
 the union of all its people in one community church, 
 of whatever denomination the majority prefer. But 
 where there is no such community church, the union 
 school should maintain connection, on behalf of its 
 members, with one particular local church of each 
 represented denomination. 
 
 Quite different from these relations is the relation 
 of each Sunday school, whether denominational or 
 union, to all the other Sunday schools of its own 
 county. This relationship is free, voluntary and 
 
What It Needs 2 1 
 
 mutuaL Every Sunday school, whether church or 
 union, does some things on its own responsibility. 
 One of these has been to form a county Sunday- 
 school association, or to fall in with the county 
 work already organized in most of the counties of 
 North America. 
 
 Every Sunday school needs the stimulus and con- 
 tact of good county work. For the little Sunday 
 school such help is indispensable. The annual con- 
 vention is its educational and inspirational rally, its 
 breathing time, its chance to share that joy and up- 
 lift of fellowship that the city school may have when- 
 ever it pleases. The county secretary is its friend 
 and correspondent, through whom it comes into re- 
 lation with the great Sunday-school world. Where 
 township and district work is done, the fellowship is 
 still closer. The organized Sunday-school work in 
 most of the states and provinces of North America is 
 the most effective agency for the promotion of im- 
 proved method. The remedy for any defects it may 
 show is not to withhold cooperation but to come in 
 and try to make the work better. Every county 
 Sunday-school association is free to manage its own 
 affairs ; and the little Sunday schools have as good 
 a right as any other party at interest to see that those 
 affairs are managed well. 
 
 The little Sunday school should therefore regularly 
 make its statistical report to the county Sunday- 
 school association, accompanying or following this 
 with its contribution for the county and state ex- 
 pense. If it does this, it will surely receive the 
 notice of the county convention ; and to this it 
 should send every year a representative delegation. 
 
22 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 Whether or not it succeeds in attaining all the 
 points of its deuomi national or state standard, it 
 will meet its neighbors, pick up points in con- 
 ferences, learn new ways of solving old problems 
 and lend its own good influence to help some less 
 fortunate school. 
 
 This county Sunday-school relationship is a part 
 of that community relationship which we are coming 
 more and more to recognize as a potent force for 
 social progress. The little Sunday school belongs 
 to its community, and for its community it ought 
 to live. Every home within its utmost parish limits, 
 unless directly under some other spiritual care, should 
 feel the effects of its efforts for good. Every evil that 
 hurts the community's life should feel its practical 
 opposition. Every movement for progress, material, 
 social, intellectual or religious, should fiud it a helper 
 and a friend. Let the city leaders learn by experi- 
 ence what the little Sunday school, when it enlists as 
 a social force, can do. 
 
 Support. — Last among the items to be mentioned 
 which this school needs for its work in the world is 
 the item of support. How to get a good support for 
 his struggling enterprise is our superintendent's ever- 
 present problem. 
 
 First comes the matter of pupil -support. The little 
 ones are all right. The boys and girls will usually 
 stand by. But the young men and women are often 
 careless ; while the adult class members come when 
 they please, and many who should be members never 
 come at all. Why is this? John Wanamaker, a 
 veteran Sunday-school worker as well as a merchant 
 prince, once remarked, *^If I found that a certain 
 
What It Needs 23 
 
 class of my customers was falling off in its trade and 
 leaving my store, I would never rest until I had found 
 out why they left ; and then I would make the changes 
 needed to bring them back again." The school can- 
 not run successfully without the hearty support of 
 all classes of its pupils, old and young. If that is 
 not given, it is the superintendent's duty, not to 
 complain and recriminate, but to find out why, and 
 then to make such changes as will win back the 
 stragglers, gain new recruits and hold all firmly in 
 line. 
 
 Then comes the support of the teachers. In a 
 large school a careless teacher here and there can be 
 ofi"set by harder work in the department, until his 
 resignation can be secured and a better worker in- 
 stalled. In a little school the full support of every 
 teacher is a necessity. Let the superintendent first 
 of all set his teachers an example of diligence and 
 punctuality. Let him interest himself in the prob- 
 lems of each teacher in turn : he can do that in a 
 little school. Once a month let him hold the stated 
 meeting of the workers' conference, leading his teach- 
 ers to God's throne in prayer for help, studying with 
 them some line of helpful instruction and laying 
 before them his own problems and plans for their 
 advice and decision. Thus he makes the school their 
 school ; and we cannot help taking an interest in 
 that which we feel to be our own. 
 
 The officers not teachers, and the presidents of the 
 senior and adult classes, are also members of the 
 workers' conference, and their support is to be sought 
 and secured in much the same way. The support 
 of the community will come in proportion as the 
 
24 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 Siiuday school shows such commuDity spirit as is 
 referred to above. 
 
 By far the most important support, and in many 
 cases the hardest to get, is the support of the parents. 
 Fathers and mothers want their children properly 
 educated, and generally believe in the Sunday school 
 as a good thing. But they seldom realize its true 
 aims or appreciate j ust how and when their coopera- 
 tion is most sorely needed. Sometimes the whole 
 force of the home's influence seems to be thrown 
 squarely against what the school stands for. When 
 educational reforms are introduced, calling for harder 
 work at home, they object. When they ought to 
 come and see for themselves what the Sunday school 
 is doing, they stay away. When they might plan 
 their Sundays so as to bring the whole family to the 
 Sunday school on time, they go visiting, or refuse to 
 '^ hitch up." When the superintendent makes some 
 mistake, or fails to please them, they criticize him 
 before the children, whose confidence he must have, 
 if he is ever to help them. When the Gospel has 
 been preached with power and earnest young hearts 
 want to stand up and confess their Saviour, how 
 often has the parents' " Not yet ; you are too young " 
 blocked the way and left the lambs locked out of the 
 fold within whose shelter they belong? 
 
 As before, however, we must not recriminate. How 
 to get the parents' support is a part of our Sunday- 
 school problem. If we have a definite idea of what 
 we want the school to be, and our idea is education- 
 ally right, getting the parents to share that idea and 
 join in the work of realizing it is simply a matter 
 of patience, sympathy, advertising and prayer. 
 
What It Needs 25 
 
 The active, intelligent support of the parents is 
 valuable in many ways. It is the unconscious in- 
 fluence of the home, however, that really counts. 
 Where interest in the wider life colors the talk at the 
 breakfast table, where reverence for God's day, God's 
 book and God's house shows in the family habits 
 and actions, where things are valued by other than 
 worldly standards, where prayer is no painful tbr- 
 mality but the natural expression of the parents' 
 attitude towards God, there the children will come 
 to Sunday school as bearers of a spiritual force that 
 will help to make the Sunday school go. Such chil- 
 dren will eagerly want what the school has to give, 
 and will give their own good influence in return. 
 We have not many such homes ; but it is part of our 
 work to secure more. 
 
 It is usually the mother that makes the home. 
 The Sunday school that holds, teaches, trains and 
 transforms the children is the successful Sunday 
 school. The Sunday school that has the homes 
 firmly on its side for a wise program of religious 
 education will hold, teach, train and trausform tlie 
 children. The Sunday school that converts the 
 mothers to its ideals and lines them up for daily 
 effort to bring these ideals to pass will have the 
 homes as outstations, feeders of itself as the central 
 enterprise. As we review the seven headings of this 
 chapter, then, and note how their initials spell for us 
 the word ^'mothers," let us take this, not as a mere 
 device to aid the memory, but as embodying a fun- 
 damental secret of success in our work of soul-saving 
 and life-training through the Sunday school. 
 
n 
 
 MAKING A START 
 
 The Simple Start. — Starting a new Sunday school, 
 or reviving an old one, is a comparatively simple 
 process. The average Sunday-school missionary goes 
 through with it from five to twenty times a year. 
 The community is canvassed in the interest of the 
 proposed organization and invited to a meeting. In 
 the course of this canvass the organizer seeks for a 
 likely man or woman for superintendent, with the 
 needed teaching force ; but he avoids any forestalling 
 of the community's choice. The people know the 
 dependable workers. At the meeting he presents the 
 project and gets the interested ones to vote to have 
 a Sunday school. He presides over the choice of 
 superintendent and enough teachers to insure a good 
 start. Pupils are enrolled and classes formed. Ques- 
 tions of time and place, name, denomination and 
 lesson helps are raised and settled. A subscription 
 is taken to pay for needed equipment. With a few 
 parting instructions, and an appointment to visit the 
 field soon again, the work is done. 
 
 There is nothing about a start like this that might 
 not be done by the people themselves, if some one 
 would take the lead. Many Sunday schools, indeed, 
 are started every year by the spontaneous, consecrated 
 effort of some earnest soul. In every state, at the 
 ofiBce of the state Sunday-school association, in the 
 
 26 
 
Making a Start 27 
 
 local and national Sunday-school headquarters of 
 every denomination, and at the general and district 
 offices of the American Sunday-School Union, are 
 expert Sunday-school workers to whom a local Chris- 
 tain worker might confidently appeal for suggestions 
 and at least moral sux^port. If there ought to be a 
 Sunday school in your neighborhood, or within your 
 reach, and there is not, start one. 
 
 The possibilities of gain to Christ's cause from the 
 starting of such a Sunday school are truly limitless. 
 No imagination can foresee what the simple lessons 
 there taught, with the worship and the sense of Chris- 
 tian fellowship and outlook, may mean to some of 
 those boys and girls, or to some repressed and long- 
 ing soul of maturer years. The little mission Sunday 
 school has proved for many a golden gateway into a 
 larger and more fruitful life. 
 
 The Educational Start. — This simple starting of 
 a Sunday school on customary lines, with all its pos- 
 sibilities of happy outcome, is something quite differ- 
 ent from the starting of a Sunday school, new or old, 
 on a career of definite purpose in the religious educa- 
 tion of the community. In the latter case our aim is 
 not simply to reproduce customary method and so 
 produce a * Agoing concern,'' that will keep up its 
 meetings and increase its interest and attendance, nor 
 yet to add to this sundry modern improvements as 
 called for in our Sunday-school standard, but rather 
 to secure certain results. We have a vision of these 
 individuals gathered, interested, taught, transformed, 
 built up in character on Christ the Foundation of 
 their lives, and released as agents in the renovation 
 of the community. We see not only these results but 
 
28 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 the successive steps by which they are to be secured. 
 It is this educational start with which we are now 
 chiefly concerned. 
 
 In the educational vision we get the perspective of 
 the years. Not the mere succession of Sunday ses- 
 sions interests us, but the slow and silent transforma- 
 tions that are to take place in the growing souls now 
 enrolled in our classes. By a right arrangement of 
 our forces we see their efficiency steadily increasing, 
 and with it the school's influence over its members. 
 As these grow towards maturity we see their loy- 
 alty returning to reenforce our staff, and their per- 
 sonality going out to enrich the community and the 
 world. 
 
 Devices and methods, be they never so standard 
 and modern, cannot make an educational Sunday 
 school. It is not a question of lessons and machinery, 
 but of what we are trying to do and by what steps we 
 [>lcin to do it. A purpose to win souls, and a clear 
 perception of the steps by which souls are to be won, 
 will make the crudest of beginnings educational. As 
 for the Holy Spirit's power, all of us rely on Him ; 
 but some look for Him to work outside of and beyond 
 their efforts, others within and through them. 
 
 Remaking an Old School. — In any Sunday school 
 which has been running for some years, the reformer 
 must beware of so breaking with the past that the 
 asset of the members' good habits shall be lost in the 
 transition. Eather should he seek to let the new 
 grow out of the old, always managing to keep the 
 larger part of his organization going on in the ac- 
 customed way. He must not be afraid of being 
 called inconsistent. Neither must he yield to the 
 
Making a Start 29 
 
 iusisteuce of this or that zealous specialist, until he 
 sees that the enterprise as a whole is ready for the 
 particular improvemeut recommeuded. 
 
 To play this part successfully, however, the super- 
 iuteudent must have his vision ; else will he simply 
 be one of the ten thousand old fogies who hold tight 
 the doors of their little Sunday schools against the 
 entrance of reform. He must be able to see that 
 particular school of his as it will look when recon- 
 structed for true educational service. He must be 
 able, too, to see the product of his school shaping 
 itself in tangible results year after year, as the good 
 work grows better and one success opens the way for 
 another. 
 
 The great lack in the rural field is usually com- 
 petent leaders. The personal factors of each local 
 situation must determine what to do first and what 
 next. The situation as we find it will determine the 
 method of our educational start. But it must not be 
 allowed to warp and limit our plans for the final 
 arrangement ; nor must we let any difficulties, how- 
 ever great, becloud the clear outlines of our vision. 
 
 The five classes of the standard little-school plan 
 have been described in Chapter I. So far as that 
 plan is not now the plan of the school, the needed 
 work is clear. Let the superintendent, alone or 
 with the help of one or more sympathetic fellow- 
 reformers, take the list of the classes as they 
 stand and draw up another list of the same pupils 
 as they would be if arranged in classes according 
 to the scheme outlined. What transfers will this 
 involve? By what moves may these transfers be 
 effected? If the ambition to have a thoroughly 
 
30 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 moderu schoo], giviug to every pupil a first-rate 
 religious educatiou, were properly presented, would 
 uot the scliool respond and endorse the movement? 
 If then it were announced that a few transfers weie 
 necessary, in order to put the school into good shape 
 educationally, would not most of the members stand 
 ready for their orders ? If the list were next read, 
 and if the classes to which the transferees are to come 
 w ere ready with an invitation and a welcome, would 
 not enough respond and go to insure the success of 
 the plan ? One or two might doggedly resist : the 
 cases of these might then be publicly postponed for a 
 month, during which the needed missionary work 
 could be done. Too many schools have tried and 
 succeeded in reorganizations of this sort for any 
 leader to say that it cannot be done. But there 
 may be a better way for this school than that here 
 outlined. 
 
 Suppose there are not five teachers, what then! 
 That brings us to the great law of educational re- 
 organization : Begin at the bottom and organize up. 
 If you can have five classes, let them be primary, 
 junior, intermediate, senior and adult. If but four, 
 diop the senior class, merging it with the adults. If 
 but three, make them primary, junior and adult. 
 If but two, throw the children of eleven and younger 
 in with the primary children and have a primary or 
 rather an elementary class and an adult class. In 
 each of these cases except the last, make the work 
 of each class as nearly as possible what it should be 
 for pupils of the standard ageF for that class. Sacri- 
 fice something of what the older ones should get, if 
 you must, but keep the work for the younger children 
 
Making a Start 31 
 
 all that it ought to be. Some of the needs of the 
 older ones can be covered in other ways. By folio w- 
 iug this principle we prepare for the future. Every 
 year's growth of the children brings us that much 
 nearer our educational goal. Have a well graded 
 school, therefore, for the youngest children ; and from 
 that starting-point have good grading as far up as 
 you can now go. 
 
 Insuring Permanence. — In building a home in the 
 forest it might be possible to find four trees growing 
 in such a position that their trunks would do for the 
 corner timbers of the house. Why should not the 
 pioneer follow such a plan! Because the trees are 
 alive. They seem fixed and stable to the eye ; but he 
 knows that their steady growth would erelong throw 
 his house out of plumb. Now that is just what hap- 
 pens in a Sunday school whenever organization is ef- 
 fected without providing for the element of living 
 growth on the part of the children. The classes may 
 be all right now ; but in a year or two the arrange- 
 ment will be out of plumb. 
 
 Once a year, therefore, the school must reorganize, 
 so as to bring it back to the form it held when the 
 year began. Only a few, it may be, will be affected; 
 but next year there will be a few more, and so on un- 
 til all are shifted to new positions. If these changes 
 are made arbitrarily they will be resented, and there 
 will be various kinds of trouble. But if the school 
 can be made to see what the changes mean, and how, 
 by making them steadily, year after year, each class 
 is kept at the one place in the school, doing its work 
 better and better as the years go by, opposition will 
 soon turn into enthusiasm. 
 
32 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 Promotion Sunday is the usual name for the day 
 when these changes are made. It might be held at 
 any time in the year ; and in itself it has nothing to 
 do with the use of graded lessons. If you have or- 
 ganized a class of children whose ages run from nine 
 to twelve, and if you want to keep your school so or- 
 ganized that the pupils from nine to twelve will al- 
 ways be in that class and under that teacher, then you 
 must keep putting in the nine-year-olds and taking 
 out the thirteen-year-olds, must you not f Then, no 
 matter what lessons your junior teacher uses, he will 
 every year be more of an expert in the handling and 
 teaching of junior children. But if you fail to make 
 these annual promotions and changes, he will get no 
 chance to practice on one group after another, but 
 will be carried along by the growth of his children 
 till he finds himself teaching not juniors but inter- 
 mediates j and they, as many have learned to their 
 sorrow, are a diflerent proposition altogether. 
 
 The only way to carry through a promotion plan 
 the first year is to have it in mind from the beginning, 
 and to make clear to all just what it will involve. 
 Settle therefore at once how the school year is to run. 
 The graded lesson courses all begin on the first Sun- 
 day in October ; and as you will surely be using 
 them some time if not ready to do so now, you will 
 do well to fall in line with the great majority of 
 gi'aded Sunday schools and fix your Promotion Sun- 
 day on the last Sunday of September. Let that be 
 the school's annual commencement, the close of its 
 scholastic year. Let it be agreed on and announced 
 long in advance. On that day the classes will be re- 
 organized by promotion, to bring them back to the 
 
Making a Start 33 
 
 age-limit and plan of grades which we intend to 
 maintain as the phiu of tliis school/ 
 
 If some few individuals, at the time of starting the 
 new plan, should refuse to be transferred so as to en- 
 able the graded classes to be properly formed, and if 
 the month of delay and friendly reasoning, as pro- 
 posed, should fail to move them, it would be proper 
 to let them stay in their former places until the next 
 Promotion Sunday, they taking full responsibility for 
 their position. By that time the good sense of the 
 new methods will have been shown ; and with others 
 moving up to claim the honors of promotion, and 
 younger children coming in, the tide of influence will 
 be too strong for the objectors to resist. Experience 
 on this point shows that reasonably good graded 
 work seldom fails to make converts if given a few 
 months' time. 
 
 What to Teach. — For more than a generation the 
 American Sunday school had the question of what 
 lessons to teach taken entirely off its hands. Among 
 the little schools particularly, the only lesson in sight 
 was the International Uniform Lesson. There was a 
 choice indeed between the lesson papers of this or 
 that publisher, between the use of denominational 
 helps or those of some independent house, and be- 
 tween the cheap lesson leaves in all the classes and the 
 more costly quarterlies, graded to fit the needs of 
 senior, intermediate, junior and primary pupils. 
 There were also special helps which might or might 
 not be used. But there was never a question that on 
 a given Sunday, in any class, the lesson would be 
 
 ^ For the description of a plan for condncting this promotion 
 service, see Chapter VI, p. 104, 
 
34 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 other than "David Brings the Ark to Zion," or 
 whatever the uniform lesson for that Sunday might 
 be. 
 
 Now, however, the little Sunday school finds itself 
 compelled to face the question. What lessons shall 
 we teach in our classes ? There are graded lessons to 
 consider as well as the uniform lesson j and both 
 systems are International. The graded system, it 
 seems, calls for seventeen lessons to be taught at once 
 in the same school. The text- books are quite uulike 
 those on the uniform system and much more expen- 
 sive. What should a little Sunday school do in so 
 bewildering a situation ? To hold on to the good old 
 uniform Bible lesson until clearly shown a better way 
 is for the average little school unquestionably the 
 wise course to pursue. 
 
 But the school must hold itself ready to be shown. 
 The uniform lessons are good ; but the graded lessons 
 when properly handled may be better. The real 
 question is. What do we need to teach these children ? 
 Lessons are a means, not an end. A school is not 
 made better by introducing graded lessons as a fad, 
 or to gain credit somewhere ; it may easily be made 
 worse. Let us try to free our minds of preconception 
 on this whole lesson question, and simply ask, as to 
 each of our five newly graded classes, What ought 
 this teacher to be given as the lesson course for this 
 class f 
 
 Educational Lessons. — For the adult class, in 
 most little schools, there will be small need to raise 
 the question. They are now following the uniform 
 lesson and getting from their weekly discussions of 
 the assigned Bible passage as much good as they 
 
Making a Start 35 
 
 would be likely to get from any other course that 
 their teacher could haudle. Let this good work 
 therefore go on for the rest of the year. There are 
 indeed courses for progressive adult classes that want 
 to get at modern topics like the liquor question, the 
 duties of parents or the social teachings of the Bible, 
 or that prefer the direct and continuous study of one 
 Bible book to the selected passage system of the uni- 
 form course. A committee of the class, with the 
 teacher, might investigate possibilities on this line 
 for consideration as plans are made for the new school 
 year. Meanwhile let every effort be made to get 
 more out of the weekly Bible study on the old accus- 
 tomed line. 
 
 Much the same is true of the senior class. For 
 young men and women there is now available even a 
 wider range of lesson choices than for adults. Possi- 
 bly they might be willing to follow a training course, 
 all joining in class study and those who so chose en- 
 rolling and taking the examinations. They would 
 work as hard in a singing class or in the games and 
 sports at a young people's social : why not go in with 
 equal zest for a diploma and some accurate knowledge 
 of the Bible and how to teach it? Then there are 
 books on mission study, presenting the lives of 
 famous workers who did great things for Jesus, that 
 would keep the class inspired for three months with 
 a glowing sense of the reality of their religion, and 
 that would send them back to their Bible lessons pre- 
 pared to get new and deeper meanings from its sacred 
 words. But if these and other proposals do not as 
 yet seem feasible, do not force them. Go on with the 
 uniform senior Bible lesson ; but help the teacher to 
 
36 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 make it more practical and to give the youug folks a. 
 better chance to take part in the discussion. 
 
 The intermediate class presents the hardest prob- 
 lem of the school. Between twelve and sixteen the 
 boys and girls are passing through the period of early 
 adolescence. It is not easy to interest them in any 
 line of study. They want to talk about everything 
 on earth but the lesson, and to do anything except 
 what the school, the teacher and their parents wish. 
 
 Splendid graded lessons are ready for the inter- 
 mediate class, if it is ready for the lessons. These 
 lessons, however, like lessons in the high school, pre- 
 suppose other lessons already learned in the grades 
 below. If the teacher of this class feels equal to new 
 and difficult work in lesson planning ; if he has the 
 class so well in hand that they will do some Bible 
 studying at home ; and particularly if the pupils are 
 already fairly well taught in the stories and facts as 
 to the great Bible characters in the Old Testament, 
 the first year Intermediate lessons may be introduced 
 at the beginning of any quarter. Where these condi- 
 tions are not fulfilled, it will be best at the start to go 
 on with the uniform lesson in the intermediate class. 
 
 Now comes the junior class. What do the boys 
 and girls from nine to twelve most need to learn in 
 the Sunday school ? Obedience, says one much -tried 
 worker. Reverence, insists another. Knowledge of 
 the Bible, says a third. The way to God, some 
 thoughtful soul may softly say. Youug as they are, 
 declares still another, they are sinners : what they 
 need is to find Christ their Saviour and give their 
 hearts to Him. 
 
 And then comes a multitude of further suggestions, 
 
Making a Start 37 
 
 each with much iu its favor. Teach them the cate- 
 chism. Let them sign the temi)eraiice pledge and 
 learu what it means. Teach them missions. Get 
 them into the habit of going regularly to church. 
 IVIake I hem systematic givers. Good citizenship, 
 peace, purity, charity for the poor, care for the birds 
 and for dumb animals — these and many other lines of 
 teaching and training have been urged for junior 
 children ; and somewhere a society can be found ar- 
 dently at work lining up the children for the cause. 
 Some of these teachings are proposed for the Sunday 
 school, some for junior societies, leagues and bands, 
 some for the public school ; but if the teaching is 
 needed by these children, it is proper to consider 
 whether it should or should not be taught in our 
 junior class. 
 
 What are we trying to teach them now ? A series 
 of lessons from the Bible. Is next Sunday's selection 
 the best choice of Bible matter that could possibly be 
 made for a junior class ? Does it lay a foundation of 
 Bible knowledge on which the later lessons in this 
 and the higher courses can build? Are the children 
 learning to use their Bibles'? Is their interest in 
 Bible study increasing? Of all those matters that we 
 saw proposed for their learning, how much is now 
 being reached under these lessons ? What they are 
 now learning may be good i:i itself, and in relation to 
 our convenience in the handling of it ; but is it good 
 in relation to their need ? 
 
 The junior International graded lesson course is 
 four years long. The first year's course begins with 
 the Creation and runs through nine months to the 
 death of Moses; then it spends eight weeks with 
 
38 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 Jesus, learning some of the stories He told to illus- 
 trate His teachings, and closes with four weeks of 
 map-lessons on the journeys of Moses and his last 
 vision of the Promised Laud. Every lesson is a good 
 Bible story for pu]3ils of nine or ten, but can be made 
 interesting also to the older members. Eacli requires 
 the use of the Bible : the lessons are not printed in 
 the pupil's book, but answers to the questions must 
 be written there. The work thus gives that famili- 
 arity with the Bible as a book which the pupil needs 
 for his later studies. The stories of Noah, Abraham, 
 Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses, with their reverent 
 sense of God's presence and their ready obedience to 
 His commands, are well fitted to teach those virtues 
 that junior children need to learn. 
 
 These junior graded lessons, therefore, are what the 
 class needs to learn ; at least they are the best that we 
 are likely to find in the Sunday-school market. But 
 the teacher needs to learn how to teach them. To one 
 who has taught only the uniform lessons they repre- 
 sent an entirely different idea of what a Sunday- 
 school lesson is. A good day school teacher could 
 take the text-books and be ready in a week to begin 
 work. She knowf^ how to plan a recitation and how 
 to set her pupils at work embodying their new 
 knowledge in hand-made exercises. She also, prob- 
 ably, knows how to tell a story so as to convey a 
 moral without having to tack the moral od. The 
 untrained Sunday-school teacher will probably need 
 a month or two of advance study before being ready 
 to begin the lessons with the junior class. 
 
 The primary teacher needs a graded lesson even 
 more than the junior teacher does. She has often 
 
Making a Start 39 
 
 found it Lard to make the day's lesson seem even in- 
 telligible, much less interesting and profitable, to her 
 little ones. Memory work, therefore, has been her 
 favorite exercise. Even an untrained teacher can 
 take the beautiful stories and pictures of the primary 
 International graded lessons and make more of them 
 than of the uniform lessons. Give her therefore the 
 sample set of pupil's folders and the teacher's manual 
 of the first year primary course ; let her study them 
 diligently during the weeks remaining to the end of 
 the present quarter, teaching on her former plan 
 meanwhile. Then, on the first Sunday of the next 
 quarter, let her begin in the new way. 
 
 In ordering the supplies for this graded work re- 
 member that all these graded lessons are numbered 
 from 1 to 52, beginning with the first Sunday in Oc- 
 tober. If the work is to begin on that Sunday, order 
 Part I, including Lessons 1 to 13. If it is to begin on 
 the first Sunday of January — a very poor time to 
 begin — order Part II, Lessons 14 to 26 ; and so with 
 Part III and Part IV. The teacher's manual for the 
 first part in each course contains the explanatory 
 '* Foreword" for the year. In the advance buying 
 for the teacher, it is therefore better to procure one 
 copy of the teacher's manual for all four parts and 
 one set of the pupil's folders or books for the year, 
 so that the year's work can be studied as a whole. 
 The supplies will all be used sooner or later, even if 
 the class is to begin in the middle of the year. 
 
 These explanations refer to the *^ closely graded " 
 or original form of the International graded lesson 
 issues. The same lessons are also issued departmen- 
 tally, in serial form like the uniform lesson quarter- 
 
40 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 lies. As so issued, each lesson is dated and not 
 numbered. To carry out the former suggestions it 
 would simply be necessary for the school to subscribe 
 for one copy each of the primary aud junior lesson 
 issues for the remainder of the calendar year. The 
 departmental lessons are issued by certain of the de- 
 nominational Sunday-school houses. They were so 
 I)repared to fit the needs of the little school, where 
 but one lesson at a time can be taught in the junior 
 or the primary class 5 whereas the closely graded 
 lessons are meant to be taught to all grades in sepa- 
 rate classes side by side, a lesson to a year. Both 
 forms of lesson arrangement are in successful use in 
 hundreds of little Sunday schools. 
 
 The New Plan at Work. — The month or two be- 
 fore the starting time, during which the teachers were 
 studying their new text-books and making their plans, 
 has gone by. The changes and shifts needed to secure 
 a proi^erly graded set of classes have been made. On 
 the appointed Sunday, the first of the quarter, the new 
 lessons began. The school has been running on an 
 educational basis for two or three weeks. About 
 this time an intelligent visitor drops in. Of course 
 he asks, ''How are your new plans working?" 
 
 Theoretically, the answer ought to be, ''Splen- 
 didly ! " The primary teacher should beam with joy as 
 she turns from her fascinated circle of little ones ; and 
 they should join her in the chorus, holding up their 
 folders to show the pretty pictures they have drawn 
 about the beautiful stories that she has been telling 
 them. The juniors should likewise respond heartily, 
 producing their books with the pictures properly 
 pasted in, the memory texts correctly written, and 
 
Making a Start 41 
 
 every answer-blank filled with brief and scrawly 
 lesson wisdom. Each child should also display his 
 own Bible and be able to show the verses in Genesis 
 that he read at home last week as his lesson book di- 
 rected. In the intermediate class, if that also began 
 the new work, a good account of Abraham's life and 
 character should be forthcoming. The older classes 
 should report a more earnest grip on their lesson 
 tasks. A quiet spirit of purposefulness should per- 
 vade the school. 
 
 Exactly such results, with many other equally en- 
 couraging features, have actually been secured in 
 many newly graded little Sunday schools, according 
 to the reports of elementary workers familiar with 
 their fields. Such a response is what may reasonably 
 be expected when all the necessary conditions of suc- 
 cess have been met. This is the ' ' bogey score ' ' of the 
 grading game, the advertised maximum output of the 
 new machine. The fact that you or I cannot make 
 such a record the first time we try is no proof that 
 the course is bad and the advertisement a swindle : it 
 only shows that we have not yet learned the game. 
 
 If the superintendent and his teachers have never 
 tried this kind of work before, they must expect to 
 make many mistakes, and, in consequence, to meet 
 many difficulties. The smooth sailing that was ex- 
 pected may be months ahead, with stormy seas be- 
 tween. But if the leader has the vision, success is 
 sure ; and if careful preparation is made before the 
 start is attempted, and the little company of workers 
 is loyal and in earnest, in a few weeks the time of 
 struggle will be over, and the results of a wiser lesson 
 method will begin to appear. 
 
m 
 
 INCREASED ATTENDANCE 
 
 A Laudable Ambition. — The primal instinct of 
 every bealtby Sunday school is to grow. It may be 
 only a little school now ; but it does not intend to 
 stay little. It wants every new member it can get ; 
 and from time to time it lays plans and starts a cam- 
 paign of increase. A school that does not actively 
 try to grow larger is very likely to grow smaller ; for 
 the older ones in such a school are liable to drop out 
 faster than the younger ones come in. 
 
 In most American communities, also, there is a 
 certain amount of movement among the population. 
 Some of the best workers and their children remove 
 to other fields, generally the city, and newcomers 
 take their place. These newcomers seldom seek the 
 Sunday school ; they must be sought and won. If 
 the Sunday school is not ambitious to grow in num- 
 bers, the motive power necessary for this winning 
 process will be lacking. 
 
 Newcomers, however, are not the only available 
 source of new members. It is a sparsely settled 
 region indeed, or else a sadly overchurched one, 
 where there are not some people in the community, 
 and even some children, who ought to be in our Sun- 
 day school and are not. Some of these are former 
 members who have dropped from the ranks, not be- 
 cause the school has finished its work for them, and 
 
 42 
 
Increased Attendance 43 
 
 they their work for the school, but merely because 
 the school has failed to meet their needs. The people 
 who feel that attendiug Suuday school is worth their 
 while do not drop out ; aud all but the youug children 
 are likely to settle that question for themselves. 
 
 The school therefore should labor to bring in these 
 outsiders. At the same time it should seek to under- 
 stand why they left, and should plan to make it 
 thoroughly worth while for every one of them to re- 
 turn. Every failure is a lesson. 
 
 Retention and Graduation. — Back of all plans to 
 bring in, of course, must be the plan to keep in. It 
 is much easier to make it worth a pupil's while to 
 stay than to make it worth an outsider's while to 
 come ; for the pupil is already with us, one of our 
 force, able to show us what he wants if we have the 
 sense to learn it from him. The wise superintendent 
 is constantly studying his school, observing what 
 bores them and what arouses their appreciation or 
 their enthusiasm. The educational policy must also 
 be a popular policy, or its failure is sure. 
 
 That idea of the Sunday school's finishing its work 
 for anybody may strike some as preposterous. In a 
 broad sense indeed it is true : there will always be a 
 benefit yet to be received by continued attendance. 
 But why should not the studies of the Sunday school 
 lead to a definite conclusion 1 If the Sunday school 
 is to be a school, it must have a course of study. In 
 a course of study, however long, there comes some- 
 where a graduation. The ideal Sunday school, large 
 or small, will have a graduntion time for its graded 
 pupils, after which they will have the option of con- 
 tinuing their graded studies in the training class, or 
 
44 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 taking ungraded work iu the general adult class, or 
 going to work in one of the Sunday-school offices. 
 
 Dangers in Numbers. — Just as paying out fresh 
 string makes the kite drop, and putting in more 
 potatoes makes the pot stop boiling, so a rapid influx 
 of new members is liable to interrupt the steady 
 educational progress of the Sunday school. A meet- 
 ing for worship and speaking is helped by increase of 
 numbers. Let them come until there is standing 
 room only : the greater the crowd, the deeper the in- 
 terest, and the better the speaker will talk. But a 
 school is not so affected. Each teacher's work is 
 planned for a certain number of pupils, seated in a 
 certain way. When the class swells beyond its proper 
 limit, it becomes unmanageable. When several 
 classes are so swelled, the whole teaching plan breaks 
 down. The unruly ones take advantage of the crowd 
 to start disorder. The teacher's voice and reach will 
 not carry to the outer edge of the class circle ; voices 
 are raised till one class interferes with another ; and 
 the only recourse is to turn the school into a meeting, 
 start a song and proceed to work as a meeting and not 
 as a school. Many a revival has played havoc for a 
 time with good school work in just this way. 
 
 Along with plans to win new members, therefore, 
 must always go plans for handling them after they 
 are won. If five new pupils are coming next Sunday, 
 there ought to be five places ready to receive them. 
 Greetings, confusion and shuffling of seats to make 
 room for newcomers must not be allowed to subtract 
 from the value of the day's lesson to those who are 
 entitled to an unbroken lesson chance every Sunday 
 m the year, A visitors' bench or set of chairs near 
 
Increased Attendance 45 
 
 the door is a necessary piece of equipment for any 
 up-to-date Sunday school, and a superintendent or 
 associate ready to greet and assigu the new recruits is 
 a necessary officer. 
 
 Rewards, Wise and Otherwise. — In the laudable 
 ambition to grow in numbers, many devices have been 
 made use of, some of which have been widely adver- 
 tised among the smaller schools. Rewards are given 
 for bringing in new pupils. Sometimes a prize is 
 offered to the one who brings in the most new pupils. 
 The school is divided into two sections, the reds and 
 the blues, and a coutest is instituted to see which side 
 will gather in the most recruits by a certain time. 
 Organized classes in neighboring schools challenge 
 each other to contests and make all sorts of efforts in 
 the work of rounding up a crowd that will beat their 
 oppoueuts. The zeal and energy shown in these 
 enterprises is worthy of high praise. The getting of 
 new hearers within reach of gospel influence is in 
 itself greatly to be desired. What shall we say as to 
 the wisdom of such efforts on the whole ? 
 
 In order to meet this question fairly and settle it 
 adequately, it will be necessary to take up the whole 
 subject of rewards as a means of character-culture. 
 We desire the attendance of these outsiders that we 
 may save them from sin and build up their character 
 in the graces of the Christian life. Rewards affect 
 attendance and statistics ; but they also affect indi- 
 vidual character. Let us consider that phase of the 
 subject first. 
 
 Motives are either external or internal. An in- 
 ternal motive for an action is one that springs out of 
 the action itself. I do a kind deed, and my eou- 
 
46 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 science commends me. Perhaps the recipient is ap- 
 preciative. The results of my action make me feel 
 glad that I overcame my hesitation and did the deed ; 
 and next time the opportunity presents itself I will 
 probably do it again. In such a case I am moved by 
 an inner connection between the act and my feeling of 
 satisfaction following the act. My motive is inter- 
 nal. 
 
 Having done the good act, I go home and tell my 
 mother about it. She smiles and commends me. Her 
 approval blends with the api^roval of my own con- 
 science and so strengthens my internal motive to do 
 kind deeds. If she does no more than commend and 
 smile, I will go on in the strength of my own in- 
 ternal motive, which will gradually grow stronger 
 till kindness becomes the law of my life, inde- 
 pendently of what my mother or any one else may 
 think or say. 
 
 But suppose my mother gives me ten cents for being 
 so kind, and promises a like reward for every similar 
 act. That ten cents, representing to me candy, or 
 "the movies," or what not, constitutes an external 
 motive, having no relation whatever to my feelings 
 of honest satisfaction with myself for doing a good 
 deed. In fact, it tends to crowd out and obliterate 
 such feelings. I am out for money now, and have no 
 time to be sentimental. Neither does the offer of the 
 ten cents blend with my own feelings as the smile did. 
 It comes indeed from my mother's good heart ; but I 
 do not realize that. All I see is a chance to make 
 ten cents. Out I go, watching with a newsboy's eye 
 for the next ten cents' worth of opening to do a kind 
 deed. She might have made me a philanthropist: 
 
Increased Attendance 47 
 
 what she has done is to start me ou my way to being 
 a skinfliut aud a grafting politician.^ 
 
 Now let us apply this distinction between inner aud 
 outer connection to the matter of rewards for securing 
 new puj)ils. The application is also, of course, to re- 
 wards to the new pupils for coming to school, or to 
 old pupils for staying, or indeed to the whole round of 
 book-giving and pin-bestowing of which our Sunday- 
 school methods are so full. The fact that it may be 
 a Bible we give does not put a better face on the 
 matter. 
 
 Every reward that lies outside the real nature of 
 the deed done is a hindrance to the growth of good 
 character. Drugs and chemicals, even active poisons, 
 may make good medicine when administered to meet 
 a special and morbid condition. The offer of a re- 
 ward to incite to good work may similarly, at a par- 
 ticular j uncture, be wise policy in Sunday school. But 
 to rely on the practice regularly, as so many super- 
 intendents do, is like living on medicine instead of 
 cultivating natural health. The educatioiial Sunday 
 scliool makes its work its own reward and at every 
 point reduces external motive to the smallest amount 
 possible. 
 
 Instead, then, of any of these mechanical and dan- 
 gerous devices, cultivate school spirit, loyalty, en- 
 thusiasm. Instead of playing the reds against the 
 blues, dividing the forces when they are already so 
 prone to divide on any trifling pretext, play the 
 school against the outsiders. Get a school banner ; 
 or still better, let the boys furnish the sticks and the 
 
 »See Elizabeth Harrison's "A Study of Child Nature," pp. 
 139, 130, for a story illustrating this point. 
 
48 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 riggiug and the girls hold a sewing bee to embroider 
 or sew on the letters and fringe, and make your own 
 banner, the most gorgeous the county has ever seen. 
 Adopt school colors ; rehearse a school yell ; wear a 
 school badge. If the fraternal orders can make in- 
 surance capital out of regalia, titles and degrees, why 
 should the Sunday school spend its money for re- 
 wards when it can get better results by far out of a 
 little "ginger ' ' and enthusiasm ? 
 
 Campaign methods, however, are suggested merely 
 as a possible substitute for less desirable devices. We 
 have not attained to the natural method in educational 
 hygiene until the daily work of the Sunday school 
 becomes itself the reward relied on to hold fast those 
 now in and to attract those still outside. Every 
 step detailed in this book for improving the class 
 work and giving it a better grip on the life of pupils 
 and teachers is also a step in the work of enlarging 
 and steadying attendance. No item more regularly 
 recurs in the reports of work in graded Sunday 
 schools than that of improved regularity and in- 
 creased attendance as a result of having lessons to 
 study and teach that are definite, progressive and 
 worth while. 
 
 At the same time we must not forget the part that 
 was played in our illustration by the mother^ s smile. 
 The Sunday school must care and take notice when 
 its members do praiseworthy things. If this care is 
 expressed in wisely planned records, painstakingly 
 kept and regularly reported, and if this notice is 
 taken officially, in the shape of some simple system 
 of honors and recognitions, the results will fully equal 
 anything ever secured through costly reward sys- 
 
Increased Attendance 49 
 
 terns ; and the effect ou character will be good instead 
 of evil. ^ 
 
 New Classes. — In war, in football, in business and 
 in Sunday -scliool management, good tactics include a 
 determined holding of the initiative. As Ben Frank- 
 lin put it in his Poor Richard's Almanac, "Drive 
 thy work ; let not that drive thee." For growth in 
 numbers, therefore, the superintendent, as already 
 stated, must be ready. We have already seen how 
 the two- class school should organize, and what steps 
 it should take in growing up to the standard five-class 
 plan.^ By what further steps should it grow from 
 fifty to one hundred members? It will take ten 
 teachers to care for a school of that size : how should 
 these five new classes successively be formed ? 
 
 To a visitor trained in modern methods of Sunday- 
 school organization, the idea of running a whole 
 Sunday school with only five teachers seems shock- 
 ing. To throw together in one class not only all 
 three grades of the primary children, but even the 
 beginners, is a sin. To the city junior leader, also, 
 four grades in one junior class seems subversive of 
 all effective grading. To the secondary worker the 
 putting of older boys and girls in the same class is all 
 wrong : the sexes should be taught separately. When 
 these exponents of a city-made ideal are cornered by 
 the rural delegates at a county convention and asked 
 what they would do if five classes were all they had 
 and all they had any prospect of having, they usually 
 express sympathy for those so unfortunately situated, 
 deal out a few generalities, and take up another topic. 
 
 * For a working system of records, reports and recognitions, 
 see Chapter V. « Chapter II, p. 30. 
 
50 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 The present writer confesses with shame that for many 
 years, as a state Sunday-school general secretary, 
 something very like this was his j)ractice. 
 
 Now we must stand together for the proposition 
 that good educational work can be done with but five 
 classes j and this book is an honest effort to show how 
 it can be done. But we must also recoguize the truth 
 in these experts' claim of the great desirability of 
 closer gradiug when it can be had. The wise super- 
 intendent of the little Sunday school, therefore, will 
 be proud of his five classes, watchful of their educa- 
 tional welfare, and hopeful of the results to be secured 
 through his teachers' efforts ; and at the same time 
 he will plan with care the steps he intends to take for 
 the spreading out of his grades, as soon as enlarging 
 numbers make that possible. 
 
 Beyond the five-class structure already set forth, 
 three additional classes are greatly needed. Which 
 shall be formed first will depend for the most part on 
 the supply of teachers qualified to do good work 
 after being shown how, and also on the points in the 
 school where the need for change seems most urgent. 
 The steps to be taken in forming these new classes are : 
 
 1. The organizing of a beginners' class out of the 
 general primary class, by separating the children 
 under six and giving them a teacher of their own. 
 This work, indeed, may be started whenever an as- 
 sistant can be found, as was stated on page 11. As 
 always, the age-rules are subject to exception : it is 
 mental capacity that should really determine our 
 grading, with some regard also to physical develop 
 ment. For this class a teacher may be found among 
 the mothers, or developed by drafting one of the 
 
Increased Attendance 51 
 
 young women from the senior class as primary as- 
 sistant and alter a lew weeks promoting her to full 
 charge of the new class. A screened or curtained corner 
 should be given whenever possible, with small chairs 
 or low seats. The Beginners' Graded Lessons furnish 
 simple and beautiful stories and pictures which even 
 an untrained teacher can present and explain. 
 
 2. The separating of the younger and older 
 juniors. If two junior classes can be formed, let one 
 consist of boys and girls of nine and ten, the other of 
 boys and girls of eleven and twelve. At this age the 
 sexes, while preferring to play apart, are together in 
 school and home and can be successfully worked in 
 the same class, as two crowds studying together. 
 
 3. The separating of the intermediate boys and 
 the intermediate girls. Entrance on the period of 
 adolescence gives rise to a long series of what are 
 called secondary sexual instincts, in which the youth 
 acts in relation to the other sex without realizing 
 what force it is which moves him to his apparently 
 unaccountable conduct and state of mind. Kegard 
 for personal appearance, for instance, may develop 
 almost over night, to the amazement of the mother, 
 whose precepts about a clean face and tidy garments 
 have heretofore fallen on deaf ears. It is hard 
 enough to handle these early adolescents even in 
 separate classes, so strong and erratic are the im- 
 pulses that move them ; and in a mixed class things 
 are liable to be even worse. Nevertheless, the need 
 of graded instruction for these dear, foolish, splendid 
 boys and girls in this very period is so great, and the 
 instruction they need is so vastly diverse from that 
 needed by the sober, thoughtful, socially established 
 
52 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 youDg men and women of the middle and later ado- 
 lescent periods (sixteen to nineteen, nineteen to 
 twenty-four), that if we can have but two classes be- 
 tween thirteen and twenty-four, one should surely be 
 an intermediate class and one a senior. The senior 
 youDg men and women may continue to study to- 
 gether, as they meet together for j)rayer and service 
 in their young people's society. We can afford to 
 postpone that division till the school is considerably 
 larger. But the two intermediate classes should be 
 formed without a week's unnecessary delay. 
 
 If the growth in numbers still continues, the next 
 two steps will be the similar dividing between the 
 boys and girls of the older junior class, where the sex 
 instincts are already beginning to make themselves 
 felt, and the dividing of the adult class into a class for 
 men and a class for women. This last is desirable 
 simply because adult life in its interests and mental 
 habits diverges strongly on sex lines, and the adult 
 students can get far more practical value out of their 
 weekly lesson discussions if they are not confined to 
 questions and subject-matter interesting to both sides. 
 
 A Table of Growth. — Putting these and the earlier 
 suggestions into tabular form, we may think of the 
 educational little Sunday school as a '^ modern im- 
 provement" offered in four sizes : 
 
 Size A. — Two classes, iweniy members. 
 Primary Class General Class 
 
 Pupils of 11 Children above 
 
 and under. II and adults. 
 
 Superintendent teaches general olass, using Uniform 
 
 Lessons. 
 Primary teacher uses Primary Graded Lessons, with 
 Bil^le work for older pupils. 
 
Increased Attendance 53 
 
 Size B. — Five classes, ffty members. 
 Primary Class Junior Class Intermediate Clas3 
 
 8 and under 9 to 12 13 to 16 or 17 
 
 Primary G, L. Junior G. L. U. L. now ; Int.G.L. 
 Asst. for Beg. next year. 
 
 Senior Class Adult Class 
 
 17 or 18 to 23 or 24 Over 24 
 
 U. L. or elective. U. L, or elective. 
 
 Two officers, superintendent and secretary-treasurer- 
 librarian ; five teachers. 
 
 Size C. — Eight classes, seventy-five or eighty members. 
 Beginners' Class Primary Class First Junior Class 
 
 3, 4 and 5 6, 7 and 8 9 and 10 
 
 Beginners' G. L. Primary G. L. Junior G. L., 1st 
 
 and 2d years. 
 
 Second Junior Class Intermediate Boys 
 
 11 and 12 13 to 16 or 17 
 
 Junior G. L., 3rd Intermediate G. L- 
 and 4th years. 
 
 Intermediate Girls Senior Class Adult Class 
 
 12 or 13 to 16 or 17 17 or 18 to 23 or 24 Over 24 
 Intermediate G. L. U. L, or elective. U. L. or elective. 
 
 Superintendent, secretary and one or two other officers, 
 with eight teachers. 
 
 Size D. — Ten classes, one hundred memhei's. 
 
 First three classes same as in Size C; but use assistants 
 as needed. 
 
 Divide Second Junior Class, boys and girls. 
 
 Divide Adult Class, men and w^omeu. 
 
 Promote one of the juvenile assistants to be teacher, and 
 take the best of the elementary teachers for Ele- 
 mentary Superintendent, in charge of beginners, 
 primary and junior work. 
 
 Increase above this size takes the Sunday school out of 
 the number of those considered in this book. 
 
 Winning New Pupils. — At do point has the little 
 Sunday school more of an advantage over the big 
 school than in the work of winning new pupils. In 
 city campaigning our efforts are for strangers, people 
 
54 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 we do not yet know. In llie country every possible 
 new pupil is already known and can be worked for as 
 an individual. With this tactical advantage, the 
 country school ought with the same amount of effort 
 to break the city school's record every time. 
 
 The methods of course will sharply diverge. The 
 city worker's model is the great advertiser, who first 
 has something good to sell and then prints his selling 
 talk so large and sends it forth so widely that if only 
 one in a hundred heeds and buys, his fortune is made. 
 That is the best he can do to meet the handicap of 
 vast numbers of indifferent and preoccupied people. 
 The country worker is relieved of this handicap ; and 
 therefore he needs a different model to pattern from. 
 His proper model is the life insurance agent. Not by 
 broadcast appeals, but by the listing of individual 
 "prospects" and steady personal follow-up work, are 
 recruits to be gathered for the little school. 
 
 Eegularly, once a year, a campaign for increasing 
 the Sunday school's membership should be begun. 
 Late summer will in most rural neighborhoods be the 
 best time to start this, for then the school is at its best 
 and the slim attendances of midwinter need to be fore- 
 stalled by adding new names to the roll. The graded 
 lessons, also, are nearing the close of their current 
 years, and Promotion Day, the last Sunday in Sep- 
 tember, will give the chance to rearrange classes and 
 properly bestow the new recruits. 
 
 Let the leaders in conference, then, look over the 
 situation. Ask first. What can be done to make the 
 school sessions more forceful and inspiring ? Mere 
 amusement is a weak attraction. Purposefulness, 
 brevity, force, spiritual earnestness, consideration for 
 
Increased Attendance ^^ 
 
 the ambitions and interests of the classes, the rigid 
 cutting out of every word of platform talk not abso- 
 lutely needed to carry out the school's plan — these 
 features will count for far more. Frank criticism by 
 each in turn, with suggestions for improvement, 
 should be called for, and new features and lines of 
 efifort planned for the Sundays to follow. 
 
 Next ask, What general influences are keeping any 
 in our community away? There may be some state 
 of feeling so deep-seated that only by a large and 
 carefully planned movement can it be neutralized and 
 overcome. Who are the strategic personal factors 
 whom we ought to secure ? Frequently one man or 
 woman, sometimes one boy or older girl, is a leader, 
 and by holding aloof is blocking the way for others 
 whom we have long courted in vain. The first step is 
 to recognize the actual situation and talk it frankly 
 over. The second is to agree on what ought not to be 
 done. It would be easy by a few false steps to make 
 the chance to win such a one much poorer than it is 
 now. The third is to pray together for courage, light 
 and the power of God's Spirit on the opposing hearts. 
 Then let the quiet work of canvassing for some one 
 of these strategic outsiders begin. 
 
 In his ''Yale Lectures on the Sunday School," 
 page 202 f., Dr. H. Clay Trumbull thus describes the 
 work of a New England country superintendent whom 
 he knew : 
 
 ''The superintendent of this Sunday school had 
 no . . . special fitness for his place, save a quiet, 
 earnest persistency of purpose. He was lacking 
 in personal magnetism, and was slow and heavy in 
 his manners. His Sunday school was a small one, 
 
56 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 haviog, say, forty or fifty scliolars, when he was 
 chosen as its superintendent. He wanted the school 
 membership increased ; but he knew of no other way 
 of bringing this about, except by going for oue person 
 at a time and sticking at him until he had him in as 
 a scholar. He fastened his eyes, for example, on 
 'Squire Brown, who ought to be in Sunday school on 
 his own account, and as a means of bringing others 
 in. He invited 'Squire Brown, accordingly, to join 
 one of the Bible classes. Then he asked 'Squire 
 Brown's wife to urge her husband to accept his invi- 
 tation. If this was not sufficient, he had 'Squire 
 Brown's children ask their father to come to their 
 Sunday school. Then, perhaps, he induced other 
 members of the Bible class to join in the same re- 
 quest ; and he went to the pastor to have him say a 
 word in that direction to 'Squire Brown. This work 
 was followed up untiringly, as though the superintend- 
 ent were really living only to the end of seeing 'Squire 
 Brown in the Sunday school. When 'Squire Brown 
 finally came in, as he was pretty sure to do, there was 
 at once another outsider — from the congregation or in 
 the field beyond it — on whom the superintendent's 
 eye was fixed ; and the same process w^as repeated 
 with him. 
 
 ''This was slow work, but it was sure work, and 
 it was a work which any determined man can do. 
 As the superintendent grew gray in the service, the 
 membership of his Sunday school was enlarged. At 
 last he had one hundred and fifty persons in that 
 school, a number equal to fully nine-tenths of the 
 entire congregation ; and the Sunday school was 
 called the *^ Banner Sunday school ''of the county. 
 
Increased Attendance 57 
 
 It had evangelized a large portion of the country 
 population of its township, while it had quickened 
 the life of the church of which it was a part ; and 
 it had illustrated a work which ought to be going on 
 in every country township of America.'^ 
 
 Without waiting until the 'Squire or any other im- 
 portant personage has thus been won over, let the 
 general campaign go on. Speak from the desk of the 
 need that every member of the school, large and 
 small, shall be a missionary. Let each class devote 
 five minutes to the compilation of a written list of 
 possible new members for that class ; names of those 
 reachable but properly assignable to another class 
 being so marked. If pencils and i^ads for this 
 work are distributed, it will lend seriousness to the 
 task. Let the lists thus drawn up be gone over by a 
 canvassing committee, in order that each class may 
 be definitely assigned certain individuals whom it 
 is to bring in, having them present if possible next 
 Sunday. "Where the field is shared with other 
 evangelical Sunday schools, steps should of course 
 be taken to forestall attempts at proselyting. If 
 possible, let all the schools unite in one concerted 
 appeal. Close the preparatory exercise with earnest 
 prayer for those we desire to reach, and for those 
 who will try this week to win them. 
 
 Gospel Salesmanship. — A good follow-up talk for 
 the Sunday after this start will be a little lesson on 
 the principles of salesmanship. Books, sewing-ma- 
 chines, life insurance and the blessings of Sunday- 
 school attendance are sold under the same set of rules ; 
 for in each case we are dealing with human nature. 
 The "prospect " must be persuaded to give up some- 
 
58 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 thiDg of value to him — his Suoday nap, maybe — in 
 exchange for the goods we have to offer. By the 
 rules of selling science the canvasser has these four 
 things to do : 
 
 1. Secure the prospect's favorable attention. We 
 must make him and his our friends (Acts xii. 20). 
 He must be in such an attitude towards us that any- 
 thing we may propose he will feel like doing. 
 
 2. Gain his interest. We must have a story to 
 tell that will make him listeu, ask questions, revolve 
 our words in his own mind. An^^thing in the Sun- 
 day school's work that is new, creditable and surpris- 
 ing will make good selling talk, if it is on a line that 
 will probably appeal to him. Somethiug that a class 
 or a pupil did well would be interestiug to one of the 
 same age. Some feature that greatly interests the 
 canvasser is likely to prove interesting to the one to 
 whom it is enthusiastically described. An exhibit 
 that can be shown to the eye is sure to interest if 
 properly explained. 
 
 3. Arouse his desire. This interest must be led 
 rapidly to the point where the prospect will want to 
 share in these good times, these interesting and in- 
 structive lessons, these spiritually searching and 
 moving talks, prayers and songs, these helpful class 
 activities for Jesus. As the Japanese schoolgirls in 
 a government school said when they heard of the 
 movement for united Sunday-school work in that 
 beautiful land, ''Where so much that is grand and 
 noble is being undertaken, shall we be left out?" 
 Take high ground : appeal to the deep desire of every 
 soul, even of wayward boys and girls, for higher and 
 better things. But desire for social pleasure, com- 
 
Increased Attendance 59 
 
 pauionship, music, pictures, books to read, artistic 
 hand- work to try one^s skill on — these reasonable de- 
 sires must be played upon also. Exhaust every le- 
 gitimate device to make the prospect want to come. 
 
 4. Lead him to action. As the good housekeeper 
 hovers over her syrup, to note the precise moment when 
 the deep -colored, steaming pailful of deliciousness is 
 ready to "jell " ; as the angler eyes his bobbing cork, 
 with his eager fingers clutching the still motionless 
 rod ; so must the canvasser watch his prospect for the 
 moment when desire should crystallize itself in action, 
 and be ready with his proposition. Just what is done 
 is mere detail. Shaking hands on the promise to 
 come to school next Sunday is the simplest substitute 
 for the "sign here" of the wily agent. But some 
 definite committal there must be ; and it must be 
 followed up at once in such a way as to close the 
 loophole of changed mind and re-decision. Let the 
 canvasser report immediately his success to the 
 superintendent or the teacher ; and let the prospect's 
 next mail contain a letter of welcome, with some ar- 
 rangement regarding the new member's presence and 
 place in school next Sunday. To make the newcomer 
 feel, "I must be there; they are expecting me," is 
 obvious wisdom. 
 
 While these canvassing methods are primarily for 
 the securing of pupils rather than teachers and 
 officers, it will often happen that among the listed 
 prospects is some one whom the superintendent covets 
 for a certain place in the working force. For several 
 reasons it is usually wise first to bring in such a 
 person as a member of the adult or senior class, or 
 perhaps as a temporary helper without responsi- 
 
6o How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 bility. Let the recruit first qualify as a private 
 before receiving his officer's commission. At the 
 celebration of the semi-centennial of the Pennsyl- 
 vania Eailroad, a high officer of that great system 
 declared that in all its fifty years the railroad had 
 never hired a conductor or an engineer or a superin- 
 tendent. Every one had been raised from the ranks. 
 If a strong and hearty school spirit is needful to the 
 success of the little Sunday school, here is a good way 
 to insure its development and preservation. 
 
 The Extension Departments. — If the Sunday 
 school is to serve the whole community, two sets of 
 people must be provided for who cannot ordinarily 
 become regular attendants — the babies and the shut- 
 ins. In the former class are all infants and all chil- 
 dren too young to become attending members of the 
 school. Distances, bad roads, muddy walking and 
 other special rural drawbacks tend to make mothers 
 in the country keep the little ones of three and four 
 at home where in the city they would go to Sunday 
 school without a question. Doubtless this tendency 
 can be largely overcome when a capable and enter- 
 prising beginners' teacher takes hold and convinces 
 the mothers that they can and should overcome ob- 
 stacles and provide for every beginner's presence in 
 class every Sunday. But as this condition is far 
 from prevalent as yet, it remains true that good 
 cradle-roll work is more needful in the country than 
 in the city, because more of the country children are 
 kept at home. 
 
 The life of the shut-ins, also, is more isolated and 
 monotonous in the country than where passers-by are 
 numerous and there is always something going on. 
 
Increased Attendance 6l 
 
 Mothers with youug childreD, the aged and infirm, 
 chronic invalids, and occasionally persons employed 
 on tasks which interfere with Sunday-school attend- 
 ance, are to be found in the average country field, 
 and the little Sunday school owes them its ministry 
 of cheer, fellowshii) and Bible study. Hence the 
 home department as well as the cradle roll should be 
 counted not merely feasible projects but necessary 
 parts of the little Sunday school, even if some already 
 busy worker has to add one or both of these responsi- 
 bilities to her busy life. Before starting the canvass 
 suggested under the former heading, plan for a home 
 department and a cradle roll, if these are not already 
 at work, and let the enrolling of members in both 
 these adjunct departments form part of the work. 
 
 Properly handled and pushed, each of these lines 
 of work may be made a notable feeder to the school's 
 attending membership. Many an otherwise godless 
 and indifferent or religiously hostile home has been 
 won for Christ through the school's interest in the 
 baby. Many such families every year are drawn 
 into happy relation to school and church before the 
 little one is ready to come to school as a beginner. 
 Many a home department member who reluctantly 
 accepted the quarterly and grudgingly promised the 
 half-hour-a-week minimum of lesson study and the 
 quarterly record and offering has ripened into an 
 earnest student of the Word ; and thousands of these 
 every quarter find that, now they care for the lessons, 
 the hindrances to their regular attendance on the 
 adult class are not so insuperable after all. Good 
 teachers and officers, also, are not infrequently gradu- 
 ated from the home department ranks. 
 
62 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 The true ideal for both these departments is some- 
 thiDg beyond the familiar cradle roll and home de- 
 partment routine. They properly form part of the 
 church's Department of the Home. Whatever tends 
 to make home happier, more efi&cieut, more godly 
 and a better support for the educational work of the 
 Sunday school and the church, is fit matter for the 
 real Home Department to embody in its program. 
 When the little school is ready to enter upon this 
 vast and inviting sphere of religious influence and 
 activity, there are books and tools in plenty to aid it 
 in wise and effective endeavor to win the homes for 
 Jesus and make each one an extension station in the 
 work of church and school. 
 
lY 
 RUNNING BY THE WEEK 
 
 The Superintendent a Teacher. — In the little 
 Sunday school, the superintendent is compelled to do 
 much of the teaching himself by the fact that all his 
 classes ordinarily meet in one room. The elementary 
 department programs of our graded Sunday-school 
 experts provide for a large amount of desk teaching, 
 over and above what is taught by the class teachers 
 in connection with the graded lesson. Some of this 
 is memory drill on supplemental lesson matter ; some 
 of it is instruction in missions, temperance and other 
 topics ; some is character- culture through birthday 
 and fellowship exercises, giving, singing, thanksgiv- 
 ing and prayer. With beautiful art all this is ar- 
 ranged to fit the children's needs, so that in each of 
 the three elementary departments, beginners, pri- 
 mary and junior, the pupil as the years pass shall 
 grow and develop in Christian character, living as 
 well as learning each week in accordance with his 
 unfolding needs and powers. 
 
 With one room for all the classes, much of this de- 
 partmental program work (fortunately not all) is im- 
 practicable. The child's spiritual needs, however, 
 are not less because we have one room instead of four 
 to teach him in. The responsibility for giving to 
 every child in the little school as much as possible of 
 what the three elementary departments would give 
 
 63 
 
64 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 him is laid upon the superintendent of the little Sun- 
 day school. Part of this trust he may pass over to 
 the teachers of these children ; but that which must 
 come to them through music, prayer and other con 
 certed exercises rests with him. 
 
 The superintendent, therefore, should seize any 
 opportunity that may come to him, at a convention 
 or institute, to learn what the primary and junior 
 leaders have to teach as to methods of departmental 
 program work. The kindergarten ways of the begin- 
 ners may not be usable by him ; but many of the 
 doings in a good primary room are full of suggestion 
 for his own desk use j and, in the good junior depart- 
 ment, much of what he sees may be bodily taken 
 over. There are of course many department super- 
 intendents of experience and local repute who have 
 not yet learned the modern ways, and the superin- 
 tendent who visits their rooms will do so as a student 
 rather than a copyist. But even so, much can be 
 learned by the visitor who can think as well as see 
 and hear. 
 
 The Weekly Routine. — If even ordinary good 
 work is to be done by the average superintendent of 
 the little school, to say nothing of such artistic lead- 
 ership as we have just been considering, he will have 
 to bring his preparatory labors down to a narrow 
 routine, that can be fitted into the crowded hours of 
 his busy life. We are laying out a Sunday-school 
 job for a man who thought he had a strong man^s 
 load to carry already. What cannot be done in one 
 or two evenings each week, or turned over to other 
 hands, will have to wait undone. We might as well 
 face the facts. 
 
Running by the Week 65 
 
 Monday and Friday eveniDgs, let iis arbitrarily 
 suppose, are set apart by the superinteudeiit for his 
 Sunday-school work, in addition to the actual time 
 of the session and the time just before starting for 
 school or church. The first evening may be given to 
 inspection of records, general preparation and cor- 
 respondence or telephoning to secure cooperation ; 
 the second to personal preparation for his own plat- 
 form work. 
 
 On Monday evening, then, the superintendent will 
 go over the class records, noting who are falling off 
 in attendance and so need a message or visit, what 
 classes are increasing in size and interest and how 
 the general totals compare with past records. Si^ecial 
 needs like the illness or resignation of a teacher, the 
 approach of a festival season or the call for some ad 
 ditional supplies, may now be considered and pro- 
 vided for or prepared for submission to the next 
 workers^ conference. With these matters cleared 
 away, a few birthday letters may be written, or a 
 message of encouragement sent to a worker who is 
 having a hard time. 
 
 Friday night will then be free for planning next 
 Sunday's program and thinking ahead for the Sun- 
 days to come. The plans for the current quarter and 
 the calendar for the year ^ will determine to a certain 
 extent what is to be done each Sunday. Completing 
 these plans, the superintendent will prepare himself 
 to carry them out. How the order of worship is to 
 be conducted, what hymns are to be sung, who be- 
 sides himself are to take part and how, what Bible 
 selection he will read, how he will pray and what 
 * See Chapters V and VI. 
 
66 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 shall be the substance of his brief talk from the desk, 
 must all be thought out aud made ready. A good 
 teacher would work as hard in preparing to meet a 
 single class ; but the superintendent is responsible 
 for a full half of next Sunday's opportunity for the 
 whole school. 
 
 Notes on a Rural Program. — In order that the 
 superintendent of the average little Sunday school 
 may have a chance to see himself at work, the fol- 
 lowing is submitted for his inspection. Is this a fair 
 statement of the way a session of the little country 
 Sunday school is frequently run ? 
 
 Open school at the usual hour, provided the 
 organist is not late. 
 
 Pass around Bibles, hymn-books and lesson 
 leaves. 
 
 Sing one or two hymns. 
 
 Bead the lesson for the day, responsively. 
 
 Lead the school in prayer. 
 
 Sing another hymn. 
 
 Secretary reads the minutes of last Sunday's session 
 and calls the roll of officers and teachers. 
 
 Sing the lesson hymn. 
 
 Lesson study for twenty or twenty- five minutes. 
 The superintendent teaches a class. 
 
 Secretary takes up the offering and marks the at- 
 tendance, soon after the teachers begin. 
 
 Librarian gives out books and papers, a little be- 
 fore the teachers close. 
 
 School called to order without notice. Singing. 
 
 Call for title, golden text and catechism question 
 for the day ; sometimes ask ''desk questions" on the 
 lesson. School responds by reading from the lesson 
 leaves. 
 
 Secretary reports attendance for the day, number 
 of visitors and collection by classes. 
 
Running by the Week 67 
 
 Notices and remarks ; sometimes a talk on the 
 lesson. Singing. 
 
 The Lord's Prayer in concert, standing. 
 Dismissal. 
 
 As a matter of fact, thousands of little Sunday 
 schools are being run to-day in not nearly so busi- 
 nesslike and orderly a fashion as this program indi- 
 cates. There are elements of moral strength in it 
 which all makers of Sunday-school programs ought 
 to study and emulate. Nevertheless it is not all it 
 ought to be. Let us see wherein it could be improved 
 on. 
 
 That waiting on the organist needs cutting out, to 
 begin with. How ? If the superintendent can raise 
 the tune, or has any one among his punctual helpers 
 who can, let him announce that next Sunday the 
 school will start on the minute ; and when the tardy 
 organist arrives, let her discover that the world can 
 move without her after all. That is one way. An- 
 other is to appoint an ambitious young musician as 
 assistant organist, whose duties shall include opening 
 the school if her principal is not on the bench at the 
 minute set for starting. 
 
 The distribution of supplies is a task educationally 
 valuable as an activity for a class of boys. Do not 
 waste it by doing the work yourself or letting the 
 secretary do it. Oversee it ; but put the work up to 
 a small committee of juniors, who must be there each 
 week in time to attend to their task. 
 
 Never sing hymns in bulk. Never use the language 
 of worship as a mere means of filling in time. The 
 pastor who said during prayer- meeting one cold night, 
 *^ In order that the sexton may have a chance to poke 
 
68 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 the fire, we will slug, 'Nearer, my God, to Thee,'^' 
 was franker than the average superintendent, but not 
 so very different. Sing nothing that is not actually 
 needed in your program plan. Most schools sing too 
 many hymns and have far too little of real worship 
 in song. 
 
 Why read the uniform lesson for the day ? Be- 
 cause the passage is printed on the lesson leaves'? 
 The leaves are useful in their place, but they do not 
 take the place of the Bible. Because we desire to 
 help the class work? Experience shows that the 
 practice does not help ; it hinders. When did any 
 pupil ever know an answer to a lesson question be- 
 cause he had just joined in reading the lesson verses? 
 Liturgic use and lesson use of the Bible are two en- 
 tirely different things. If the passage makes a good 
 class lesson, it will probably make a poor desk lesson. 
 Passages that make fine desk lessons for responsive 
 reading are not interesting for use by teachers in 
 class. Even if we are not yet ready, then, to abandon 
 the uniform lesson for class use, let us cease to use it 
 as our reading lesson. We can do better for our 
 school, every way. 
 
 As to the prayer, how much more helpful a prayer 
 is to the worshipers when it is brief and concerned 
 with a specific object ! Divide the praying. Near 
 the opening have an "invocation," briefly asking 
 God's blessing on the day's work, and closing with 
 the Lord's Prayer. Before the lesson have a general 
 prayer, still brief, but covering the school's needs 
 and feelings for that day. At the close have a brief 
 closing i^rayer ; or, if the pastor is present, ask him 
 to dismiss the school with the benediction. Try to 
 
Running by the Week 69 
 
 have one or more in the force besides yourself who 
 can pray in public. Let one of these sometimes 
 make the general prayer. Always notify such in 
 advance. 
 
 The idea of reading the minutes has been brought 
 over from lodges and societies. In these bodies the 
 reading of minutes is essential, for they are organiza- 
 tions whose present action is based on the action 
 taken at the last meeting. The Sunday school is not 
 such a society, except when it goes into business 
 session ; and even then its action is likely to be based 
 on present need rather than past decisions. Cut out 
 the minutes. Who cares what last Sunday's weather 
 was, or who prayed ! Eecord these facts, but spare 
 the school the reading of them. They are material 
 for the secretary's quarterly and annual reports, when 
 they will work up into interesting statistics. A brief 
 report, near the close of school, giving the facts of 
 attendance and offering for the day, is all that is 
 needed on this score. 
 
 Much the same may be said as to the roll call. It 
 may have some value in shaming a careless worker 
 into more regular attendance ; but more probably it 
 is not worth the time and attention it costs. The 
 school has only so much sit-still capacity, and every 
 draft upon it leaves that much less for lessons and 
 worship. Record these attendances silently. 
 
 The time allowed for class study in most little 
 Sunday schools is shamefully short. The senior and 
 adult classes should whenever possible have forty- 
 five minutes or an hour. If these can betake them- 
 selves to any other place for class study, let them 
 stay to the end and dismiss separately, of course 
 
yo How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 with a closing prayer. Thirty -five minutes will suit 
 the intermediates and juniors very well, if the 
 latter at least are working on the graded lessons and 
 have desks or tables on which to do hand-work for 
 parfc of the time. The primary class and even more 
 the beginners cannot sit still so long : let them there- 
 fore change seats quietly and turn from one kind of 
 lesson work to another. Class curtains or screens 
 will make this quite possible. Cut out ten minutes 
 from the old-fashioned program, allowing thirty -five 
 minutes for the teaching time. 
 
 It may sometimes be necessary for the superin- 
 tendent to carry a class temporarily ; but even in a 
 very small school he should be free to oversee the 
 classes, welcome visitors, prei^are for the next duties 
 and substitute in emergencies. No superintendent 
 can be a regular teacher and also take proper care of 
 his school. 
 
 Whether the teachers^ time be long or short, every 
 minute of it should be theirs without interruption . 
 Three minutes, regularly appointed at a certain time 
 in the opening service, should be set apart for the 
 marking of records and the taking of the ofiering in 
 classes ; and the collections should be made by the 
 secretary and the treasurer in a dignified way, with- 
 out delay and without confusion. To break in on a 
 teacher while he is opening up his lesson is a crime 
 against good education. To distribute books and 
 papers just as the closing points are being made is 
 even worse. Do all that just before the classes are 
 dismissed from their seats, or else at the door. 
 
 Teachers are entitled to two or three minutes' 
 notice before the school is called to order for the 
 
Running by the Week 7 1 
 
 closing service. This should be so given as not to 
 interrupt class work. The simjilest form of notice 
 is one tap on the bell. Where the school has a soft- 
 toned organ or a piano, and an accompanist who is 
 musician enough to know how to play softly and re- 
 ligiously, let music carry the message that in two or 
 three minutes lesson work will be over. A violinist 
 could do this, if he played softly enough, but not a 
 cornetist : his tones would make further teaching im- 
 possible. 
 
 About one superintendent in fifty can profitably 
 say the last word on the lesson, after his teachers 
 have done their best ; and he will probably be wise 
 enough not to say it. The other forty- nine should 
 do their desk talking before the lesson period, leav- 
 ing nothing to the close but the secretary's report 
 and a reverent dismissal. Any catechism or other 
 supplemental lesson needed by the school should 
 come in ahead of the teacher's lesson, so that that 
 may be free to make its closing impression on heart 
 and life. Notices should be given when the records 
 and offerings are taken. Everything that the whole 
 school should hear belongs in the opening service. 
 After that the class work has the right of way. 
 
 Many forms of reverent dismissal may be used 
 besides the Lord's Prayer. The Doxology is always 
 in order as a closing verse. The Aaronic benedic- 
 tion (Numbers vi. 24-26), or any of the benedictions 
 at the close of Paul's Epistles, may be made into 
 simple prayers by changing the pronoun "thee" or 
 *^you" to "us" ; and as such they may be used 
 with perfect propriety by a layman, or recited in con- 
 cert like the rather overworked Mizpah benediction. 
 
72 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 Benedictions, moreover, do not necessarily call for 
 a standing attitude. If the school is taught to sing 
 the last hymn sitting, a quiet, devotional hymn be- 
 ing chosen, and if after the hymn they are taught to 
 bend or kneel in reverence, saying together the bene- 
 diction prayer and then a silent prayer for God's 
 blessing and help, the organist breaking the silence 
 with the soft strains of a hymn-tune, a far more im- 
 pressive and worshipful close can be had than with 
 a tingling march-song, a few formal words and a 
 breaking of ranks while still standing. The distri- 
 butions, also, can be swiftly made while the school 
 is still seated, the classes leaving as each is supplied. 
 
 In the light of these suggestions, let the reader 
 now rewrite that program, correcting it into what he 
 thinks its proper shape should be. 
 
 Class Instruction. — To see that each class has a 
 prepared teacher, that every needed facility for good 
 class work is ready, and that the work of each class 
 is protected from curtailment or interruption, will 
 require planning and effort on the superintendent's 
 part. It is however his most important duty. If 
 this is successfully done, everything else becomes 
 relatively easy. Attendance takes care of itself if 
 there is always a smiling teacher, a comfortable 
 place, a good lesson and an undisturbed period. To 
 insure this, one or two good substitutes must be 
 within reach, and each teacher must learn that 
 absence without notice or presence without a pre- 
 pared lesson are not tolerated under this adminis- 
 tration. 
 
 If the teacher, however, is to acquire the habit 
 of making full preparation, and the class is to learn 
 
Running by the Week 73 
 
 the joy of steady and progressive lesson work, there 
 must be an end of all irregularity in the lesson time. 
 With rigid regularity, at a certain hour and minute 
 each Sunday, the lesson period must begin ; and 
 with equal regularity must each class be left alone 
 until the appointed minutes for warning and close. 
 If a chance visitation of the school, or the superin- 
 tendent's bright idea for the closing service, or the 
 excuse that this is Temperance Sunday or Review 
 Sunday or what not, is to mean that to-day the 
 teacher who planned a lesson for thirty-five minutes 
 is to get but twenty, what encouragement has that 
 teacher to plan again ? Something might be as im- 
 portant as the lessons our teachers are to teach this 
 Sunday ; but nothing can be as important as good 
 lessons from our teachers every Sunday : and the 
 price of such lessons is the superintendent's fixed 
 will to maintain lesson routine. 
 
 Unless each teacher is frequently consulted with 
 and if necessary helped in the conduct of his lesson 
 work, steady educational progress in each class will 
 be a matter of chance and good fortune rather than 
 plan. If the work of the teachers is to be successful 
 as a whole, it must have unity ; and that means that 
 it must be led. The musicians of the band may be 
 better players than the leader, but they need him not- 
 withstanding. Let the superintendent or his director 
 of instruction ask each teacher, perhaps once a month, 
 to tell what he has been teaching of late, how the class 
 is responding, what they seem to have learned and 
 decided on and what is his program of teaching for 
 the month to come. If he is wrestling with a hard 
 problem of lessons or discipline, help him, and call 
 
74 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 in whatever other help may be within reach. At the 
 monthly workers' conference let each in turn make 
 such a report, leading to a discussion of the difficulties 
 involved. Get the substitute teachers out to these 
 conferences, that they may join in this common study 
 of class problems. 
 
 Desk Instruction. — The superintendent, as already 
 remarked, is a teacher. His lessons, however, are not 
 arranged for him in a course and printed in a quarterly. 
 He must therefore plan his lessons as well as teach 
 them. There is so much to teach, and so little time 
 in which to teach it, that it is surely unwise for him 
 to spend that little in a reteachiug of lessons that his 
 teachers have taught already. Why should not the 
 superintendent have a lesson of his own 1 
 
 Much of the superintendent's best teaching will be 
 unconscious and incidental. His punctual arrival, 
 his reverent demeanor, his firm insistence on order 
 and punctuality in others, his courtesy and patience, 
 his regard for rights and feelings, his approval of the 
 things that are excellent, will all teach. But besides 
 these unconscious lessons there must be others, if the 
 class teaching is to be rounded into a system and the 
 school's weekly life made rich and full. 
 
 The school must be taught how its work should be 
 done. First determine what point needs reforming 
 and who are the leaders whom it is most important to 
 set right. Do all that can be done through private 
 interviews and arrangements with these. Then plan 
 to reach the point indirectly by some desk reference 
 that will not sound like a complaint or an exhorta- 
 tion. " As there seems to be some misunderstanding 
 of the hour when our services begin," said a pastor 
 
Running by the Week 7 j 
 
 once, quite casually, as lie gave out the notices, "I 
 will remark that our morning worship begins at half- 
 past ten o'clock." The rebuke did its work and left 
 no sting. '' In order to accommodate those whose time 
 is unusually valuable," the superintendent, as winter 
 comes on, might likewise say, " we will close half a 
 minute earlier ; and that will make it unnecessary for 
 any one to reach for his overshoes or wriggle into his 
 overcoat while we are singing our closing words of 
 praise to God or asking His blessing on our serv- 
 ice. ' ' 
 
 Other lessons are needed on the materials of wor- 
 ship. We approach God with the use of song, 
 prayer and fitly chosen verses from His Word. If 
 these are to become to us the means of devotion, we 
 must know them so well that we can use them uncon- 
 sciously, as we use the Lord's Prayer or our old prayer- 
 meeting hymns. Desk lessons, therefore, are needed 
 on these things. Take for instance the Long Meter 
 Doxology. Study it word by word. What is a 
 blessing? Name a few of the things you count bless- 
 ings. How do they come into our lives — by driblets, 
 or as a river ? They '' flow." From whom 1 ''AH 
 creatures " — who and what are included'? Shall the 
 heathen praise God, too 1 Why 1 If we sing that sec- 
 ond line, what is our duty as to these heathen ? Is 
 this world '' here below " the only world? When did 
 that ''heavenly host" sing in men's ears? Who 
 make up the Trinity? Read the familiar lines again 
 slowly and put these thoughts into them. Spend five 
 minutes or less with the school on this lesson ; then 
 rise and sing the lines as a song of gratitude to God. 
 
 The Twenty-third Psalm, divided into three or four 
 
76 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 lessoDS, may be similarly taught. So with the Apos- 
 tles' Creed, the First Psalm, the Two Great Command- 
 ments, and above all the Lord's Prayer. If material 
 for desk lesson teaching is needed, here it is. But 
 the superintendent must study not only what to say 
 but how to teach it by question, remark and suggested 
 illustration. He is not to preach or exhort on these 
 topics, but rather to stimulate thought ; and his 
 week's lesson must snap shut in five or at most seven 
 minutes. Never relax this rule. 
 
 On another Sunday the lesson may be a new hymn. 
 Be forehanded : choose the hymn and tune several 
 weeks ahead, and ask the organist to play the tune as 
 OlDening music, so that the school will learn it uncon- 
 sciously. Study the words like any other lesson, so 
 that you can call attention to that strong thought in 
 verse three, or ask a question as to what is meant in 
 such-and-such a line. Waken attention ; arouse in- 
 terest ; let all read the hymn together. Then let the 
 organist play the now familiar tune, and the new 
 hymn will sing itself. The leader will of course keep 
 the school up to time, correcting drag and uncertainty, 
 and will try to improve the attack by insisting that 
 all start off on the very first note. 
 
 Drills on the books of the Bible, the Ten Command- 
 ments and the catechism or other brief statement of 
 the Church's faith, and blackboard map lessons on 
 Palestine, the Sinai Peninsula and the Old and New 
 Testament worlds, also have their value, if the super- 
 intendent can teach briskly and write and draw freely 
 as he speaks. Most of this material, however, prop- 
 erly belongs in a course of correlated graded studies, 
 to be taught in the classes at the proper ages. Such 
 
Running by the Week 77 
 
 desk teachiug may be iDtroduced now and then with 
 good effect for a few weeks, until some one bit of 
 knowledge has been well learned. 
 
 Missionary teaching is even more desirable. The 
 superintendent should prepare himself by subscribing 
 to one or two missionary magazines, buying one or 
 more from among the multitude of interesting mission- 
 ary books issued every year, and jotting in a note-book 
 some items that will interest the school. Then let 
 him devote his desk talk once a month to some par- 
 ticular missionary hero or some country of which he 
 has read. If he cares, the school will care. Perhaps 
 some teacher can help in this with a short paper on a 
 missionary topic. A large part of this desk teaching, 
 in fact, may profitably be given by teachers and older 
 pupils ; the assignments being made at the monthly 
 meetings of the workers' conference. 
 
 Official Routine. — Neither for class nor for desk 
 instruction will there be the proper chance unless the 
 superintendent, as manager, sees thoroughly to his 
 Sunday school's routine. In a great hotel, on board 
 ship, on the train, everywhere we go, we see that 
 smoothness of living and liberty to do one's work at 
 ease comes through rigid insistence on the small de- 
 tails of the great task. So the superintendent must 
 work out with his secretary j ust how and when the 
 class supplies are to be distributed and collected, how 
 class attention can be saved, when and how new sup- 
 plies are to be ordered and how reports are to be 
 made up and published. With the accompanist he 
 must arrange what preludes and announcing music 
 are to be played, what new hymns are to be learned, 
 and which hymns are to be started with a single 
 
yS How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 chord instead of being played through. The tiniest 
 detail is important if it helps some one to do better 
 work or increases the chance for a good impression. 
 This principle is valid for the little school no less 
 than for that of five hundred. 
 
 If each helper were well educated and resourceful, 
 competent himself to lead the school, it would still help 
 him to have a fixed routine to go by. The superin- 
 tendent himself needs that. But for the young or the 
 slow and ill-trained helper, routine is indispensable. 
 Show such a one exactly what is expected of him each 
 week; commend him frequently for his regularity 
 and the helpfulness of his work ; so arrange that the 
 school as well as the leader will notice his faithful- 
 ness ; and then, having provided for these functions, 
 set about the training of some other ofiicial machine. 
 Watch for weaknesses, friction, overlap and all other 
 kinds of inefficiency. Ask, By what increase of offi- 
 cial service could that defect be provided for ! The 
 more efficient the Sunday-school machine becomes, 
 the easier it will be to secure the services of a new 
 officer. 
 
 The 'Worshiping Sunday School. — The highest 
 work of all in the Sunday school is its worship. In 
 worship we draw near to God. We believe that He 
 is, and so come before Him. We commune with Him 
 in praise, Bible reading and prayer, telling Him our 
 thoughts and letting Him speak to us in the Word 
 and through His Spirit's voice in our souls. We fear 
 and reverence Him, believing that He is the Ee- 
 warder of them that diligently seek Him, and that, 
 as a jealous God, He will not accept unworthy and 
 divided service. We offer ourselves to Him, sealing 
 
Running by the Week 79 
 
 our siucerity with a gift, an act of communion or a 
 vow. If ours is a Christian Sunday school, how can 
 its session be complete without worship i If worship 
 is what has j ust been stated, how can we designate as 
 worship such *' opening exercises" as those with 
 which our sessions too often begin ? 
 
 We need first of all to realize that worship, like its 
 divine Object, is jealous. Worship will not mix with 
 bustle, or with instruction, much less with irreverence 
 and disorder. A time must be set apart in our session 
 when we do nothing else but worship God. In this 
 worship all in the room, old and young, will heartily 
 join. It may be but for five minutes ; but through- 
 out that five minutes we must lead the school in what 
 some one has called " the practice of the presence of 
 God." The natural time for this will be at the open- 
 ing of the session ; but a little school which found it 
 impossible to overcome a straggling entrance of mem- 
 bers might transfer the period to the close. The 
 superintendent's leadership must extend to his own 
 conduct and state of mind : as priest of the worship- 
 ing company he must humble his own heart before 
 the shriue. 
 
 What order of worship shall be followed is not 
 essential if the spirit of worship is present. It is best 
 to begin with a call to worship, repeated each Sunday 
 until a new service is adopted. '^ The Lord is in His 
 holy temple " is a familiar example of such a call. 
 Then let the organist strike a chord, at which the 
 school will rise and sing one or two verses of a strong 
 but familiar hymn, or the Doxology. Still standing, 
 let them repeat some devotional Scripture sentences, 
 or the Creed. Follow this with a prayer and the 
 
8o How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 Lord's Prayer; tlicD sing a bymu expressive of real 
 devotion, consecration and faith. Eesuming seats, 
 ^ith latecomers now admitted, repeat together "I 
 was glad when they said unto me " (Ps. cxxii. 1), or 
 some similar verse, and a verse or two about giving. 
 The class records may now quietly be marked and 
 the offerings taken. At a signal each class secretary 
 will rise and come forward with the offering envelope, 
 depositing the same at the desk and bowing in a word 
 of concert prayer. Another song-verse, or the 
 "Gloria'' sung standing, may conclude the worship 
 period ; the desk lesson following. This is one way ; 
 there are jnany others. 
 
 A Sunday school whose opening moments are mo- 
 ments of reverent and humble approach to God will 
 carry the same spirit into its lesson time and on into 
 its week of living the lessons learned. A school 
 which every week seeks and finds the way to God 
 will find it no hard task to lead the little ones to Jesus 
 and to win even the careless and ungodly to the Ee- 
 deemer's fold. 
 
EUNNING BY THE QUAETER 
 
 The Sunday-School Calendar. — Every Sunday 
 school iustiDctively follows a calendar. Certain ob- 
 servances, year after year, take place at times more 
 or less definitely fixed ,* and these observances serve 
 to divide the year into terms which in some cases are 
 almost as definite as those of the public school. The 
 idea of attaching an educational value to these terms, 
 however, of making each stand for a purposeful effort 
 to win certain results, has not heretofore been con- 
 spicuous in our planning. Under the uniform lesson 
 system such an effort was scheduled for Review Sun- 
 day at the close of each quarter. But the call then 
 made for the results of the quarter's teaching seldom 
 took hold of the life of the school and was frequently 
 omitted altogether. In this chapter we shall try to 
 see how real educational results, quarter by quarter, 
 may be sought for and obtained. 
 
 The calendar of the little Sunday school in the 
 country and of its big city cousin are not in all re- 
 spects the same. The four main festivals of the 
 average American Sunday school — Easter, Children's 
 Day, Rally Day and Christmas — are observed with 
 equal zeal in city and country. Each ought to run 
 on a twelve-months' year, and usually does so when 
 firmly led. Each has, roughly speaking, nine good 
 months and three poor months in its year. The 
 
 81 
 
82 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 third calendar quarter, July to September, is the 
 weak time for the city school. The first quarter, 
 January to March, is the correspond! ug hard time for 
 the little school in the rural districts. 
 
 The superintendent who would be an educational 
 leader must have a yearly plan v»^hich, while taking- 
 full account of the people's customs and feelings, is 
 based not on them but rather on what his Sunday 
 school is to do as a school. If the three summer 
 months are the best time of his year, he will plan to 
 do his hardest work at that season. If attendance 
 during the winter period is reduced and uncertain, 
 he may reorganize the force and lighten the work of 
 that term, while counting it as much a duty as ever 
 to do all that can be done. 
 
 The four festivals mentioned, with the use of the 
 lesson quarterlies, have accustomed us to a quarterly 
 division of the Sunday-school year. We might speak 
 of our year as divided into four terms, the Easter 
 term, January to March, the Children's Day term, 
 April to June, the Eally Day term, July to Septem- 
 ber, and the Christmas term, October to December. 
 The work of each of these terms may be made to 
 head up in the festival which comes at or near its 
 close. If only we could so connect the work with the 
 festival as to make the classes feel that all the w^ork 
 was part of the festival preparations, what a motive 
 w© should have with which to keep our classes up to 
 their lesson tasks ! 
 
 Three problems, evidently, will have to be solved 
 before we can win for our project this desirable ad- 
 vantage. We must clearly see and definitely measure 
 our quarter's educational task. We must learn ho^ 
 
Running by the Quarter 83 
 
 to plan and coDduct a successful educational festival. 
 We must learn to relate tlie task to the festival so 
 that each shall belong to the other ; one the prepara- 
 tion, the other the conclusion. Let us study these 
 three problems in detail. 
 
 Planning the Desk Work. — Taking up the first of 
 these three problems, and beginning with the work 
 of the superintendent, we see that he must first of all 
 arrange a series of desk lessons, each from four to 
 seven minutes in length, to be presented by himself 
 aud others after the opening worship and before the 
 classes turn to their separate lesson study. General 
 material for these desk lessons was suggested in Chap- 
 ter IV. Let the superintendent try his hand at teach- 
 ing one or more of these, until the method is clear. 
 A short, plain, earnest talk on the topic is good ; a 
 talk involving question and answer is better ; two or 
 three brief essays or recitations, introduced and fol- 
 lowed by words explaining and enforcing the ideas 
 thus presented, might be best of all. 
 
 The general and undated lesson material is for use 
 on Sundays not claimed for some seasonal topic. 
 Which these Sundays are can soon be determined. 
 Take a calendar for the year and four sheets of paper. 
 Write, in a column to the left, the dates of the Sun- 
 days for the quarter. For which of these is there a 
 clear motive or topic that ought to have the right of 
 way on that Sunday ? As fast as such a date is set-' 
 tied, put it down. 
 
 The first Sunday in January, for instance, is New 
 Year Sunday, when an encouraging talk on good 
 habits, especially good church habits, will be due. 
 Somewhere in the quarter, in a church Sunday 
 
84 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 scliool, will come one or more commuuiou seasons, 
 or a time of special revival interest : save the desk 
 lesson time, then or just previously, for an evangel- 
 istic appeal. The second quarter is particularly full 
 of set times — Easter (usually in April) ; Mother's 
 Day, second Sunday in May ; Peace Sunday, third 
 Sunday in May ; Memorial Day, a Sunday near the 
 month's close ; Children's Day, second Sunday in 
 June. Patriotic Sunday is of course the Sunday 
 nearest the Fourth of July ; Labor Sunday the first 
 in September, Rally or Promotion Sunday the last. 
 In the fourth quarter we have World's Temperance 
 Sunday, Thanksgiving Sunday, Bible Sunday (first 
 in December), Christmas Sunday and Old Year Sun- 
 day. To these general days an indefinite number 
 may be added from local customs, the missionary 
 and benevolent plans and directions of the denomi- 
 nation, and the school's relation to its community. 
 Some cities have a Hospital Sunday, for example : 
 there may be some similar custom in the little 
 school's neighborhood. A calendar committee from 
 the workers' conference might be a help to the su- 
 perintendent in the drawing up of such a list of as- 
 signed Sundays. 
 
 These settled, the remaining Sundays can be given 
 to the general desk teaching outlined in Chapter IV. 
 On one Sunday let the superintendent plan to teach 
 a new hymn. On another a temperance lesson may 
 be due, or a missionary presentation, or a drill on 
 Bible books or the map of Palestine. Put a few 
 more missionary books in the librarj^, and ask one or 
 two of the best speakers to search them for material, 
 presenting what they find to the school. For every 
 
Running by the Quarter 85 
 
 Sunday to be observed in remembrance of a cause, 
 literature in abundance is generally offered. Secure 
 this for use as needed; but beware of concert exer- 
 cises that call for a reduction of lesson time. 
 
 The calendar comi>leted for the year, or at least for 
 the coming quiirtcr, the superintendent should an- 
 nounce it, post a copy near the door and proceed to 
 the work of carrying it out. It is essential that the 
 school shall anticipate the use that is to be made of 
 the day. Material needed on any topic should be 
 written for in ample season. Persons expected to 
 take part should have early notice, with such help 
 as may be needed. Viewing all as his quarterly les- 
 son course, let the superintendent reckon up what he 
 has planned to teach ; and let him keep, week by 
 week, a brief but faithful record of how far he has 
 succeeded in presenting the material and in making 
 it interesting and significant to the school. 
 
 Replanning the Class Work. — In the same defi- 
 nite way will the work of each class need to be 
 planned for the term. We must bid farewell to the 
 notion that all necessary planning has been done for 
 us by the makers of our lesson helps. The graded 
 lessons have finished that idea. Under the uniform 
 system our plan was simply the particular way in 
 which we went at each lesson. If we failed to 
 master it, or to get a heart-warming discussion out 
 of it, we had missed oar opportunity for that Sun- 
 day ; but another opportunity was coming next Sun- 
 day, with a fresh lesson to work on. Each graded 
 lesson, however, is a lesson in the school sense of the 
 word. It must be learned, seen, experienced, ex- 
 pressed, applied, before we are ready to proceed to 
 
86 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 the next lesson. When these lessons are first intro^ 
 duced into a school, it is unfortunately necessary 
 that classes shall study courses without having first 
 had the courses which go before. How that would 
 work in mathematics or English any school-teacher 
 can see. We must give each class the course belong- 
 ing to that grade ; but for several years we shall have 
 to simplify the assignments of home work, making 
 the work easier and less thorough than the book 
 calls for, because these pupils have not had the 
 lessons of the grades below. This means a replan- 
 ning of the quarter's work. 
 
 Unless trained in school work, the teacher himself 
 can seldom do this replauning to advantage. A 
 director of instruction — some school-teacher, normal- 
 trained, working with and under the superintendent 
 — would be a great help here. Study eareliilly the 
 first two or three lessons to get the method proposed 
 by the leSvSon writer for pupils and for teaclier. 
 Study the "Foreword" for aims and suggesiious of 
 method. Consider the qualifications of the teacher 
 and the capacities of the class. Then fix a few defi- 
 nite specifications of what will constitute a satis- 
 factory lesson, including always some hand-work 
 or note-book work by which results can be expressed 
 and measured. Impress on the teacher the need of 
 finishing each lesson on this given scale, even if only 
 six lessons are covered in twelve Sundays' study. 
 More may be done, especially in discussion and per- 
 sonal application, but not less. 
 
 What of the classes still pursuing the uniform 
 lesson ? The same principle can be applied to them. 
 Let the teacher open a pocket record, entering in its 
 
Running by the Quarter 87 
 
 each Sunday on bis return home a statement of the 
 attendance, the lesson points presented, the interest 
 shown, (he response in answers and questions asked, 
 and the definite results which he thinks were secured. 
 In an older class a recording secretary might be 
 found, able and willing to keep such a record and 
 to read it as minutes at the opening of next Sunday's 
 class session. The idea that every Sunday's oppor- 
 tunity is an asset to be accounted for is worth culti- 
 vating. 
 
 Appraising the Term's Work. — Besides the usual 
 quarterly review and summing up of the matters 
 studied, to be attended to in the lesson-study period, 
 there should be on the closing Sunday of each quar- 
 ter a summing up of the results as a whole. What 
 have we done with our quarter's opportunity 1 Each 
 teacher and class must be led to face the actual record 
 of work done, and must be shown how to appraise 
 it in terms of educational value. If class and teacher 
 do this appraising together, and if the superintend- 
 ent's work comes in for its appraisal too, there need 
 be no embarrassment about the operation. 
 
 Before the advent of graded lessons, quarterly 
 written reviews were frequently held by enterprising 
 superintendents. Now that we have graded lesson 
 books which provide for some form of written work 
 on each lesson, our examination will consist in the 
 turning in of creditable books at the quarter's end. 
 We may supplement this by asking the teachers of 
 the graded classes to designate the honor pupil 
 of each class for the quarter, dividing the honors 
 where two or at most three are equally worthy. 
 And, as the class surveys its quarter's work, we may 
 
88 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 ask teacher and class to agree on how the work they 
 have done together, both as to qiiaiitity aud quality, 
 compares with a perfect scale of one liuudred for that 
 class. Adding a simple statement of the teacher's 
 record as to attendance or presence by qualified sub- 
 stitute, we have a working basis for a fairly definite 
 ai^i^raisal of the educational effort expended on each 
 quarter's work. This should be recorded and reported. 
 
 The conclusion of any such exercise as this will 
 naturally lead a Sunday school to prayer. How poor 
 and unworthy our efforts have been, in comparison 
 with our own powers, the preciousuess of the truths 
 we have had set before us, the fleeting character of 
 our opportunities and our need of the lessons we have 
 come so far short of learning ! Save a few minutes 
 at the close of the hour for a service of prayer and 
 reconsecration to the Sunday school's great and ex- 
 acting task. 
 
 Records and Recognitions. — Such a strictly edu- 
 cational record as has just been described is quite 
 apart from the necessary records of membership, 
 attendance and offering ordinarily kept by the secre- 
 taj-y. These also must be looked after by the super- 
 intendent ; for on them, properly planned, diligently 
 kept and wisely utilized, rests much of the efficiency 
 of the school. The work of the secretary in a large 
 Sunday school has been well discussed ; and endless 
 are the varieties of record books that have been pub- 
 lished to aid in handling twenty, thirty and fifty 
 classes. The special problem presented by the secre- 
 tarial needs of the school of five or at most ten classes 
 has not been studied with equal attention. 
 
 Besides the private record which each teacher ought 
 
Running by the Quarter 89 
 
 to keep, and the superintendent's pocket record, kept 
 in his own way, three records need to be kept by 
 the secretary. These are the class record, the school 
 weekly record and the register. The class record 
 should be kept in a class book, or on a class card 
 ruled and dated by Sundays. The punch-card sys- 
 tems now so common are adapted to the conditions of 
 a crowded city school where hundreds of records must 
 be made, gathered and checked up in a few minutes. 
 With but five classes to oversee, there is no reason 
 why each should not have its simple class book, with 
 a class roll that stays in the same order from Sunday 
 to Sunday, and that tells the full story of each Sun- 
 day's work in permanent and easily consulted form. 
 Each class should have its book and offering envelope 
 before the session opens, and these should be collected 
 before lesson-study time. 
 
 For the junior class a ^ ^junior record of credits "is 
 published, with loose leaves, one for each pupil and 
 one for the class as a whole. It provides for credit- 
 ing the pupil each week for attendance (20 points), 
 punctuality (10), Bible brought (10), offering flO^ 
 daily Bible reading (35, or 5 for each day), and 
 church attendance (15) ; total, 100 points. These are 
 the items of character-training on which special stress 
 needs to be laid while the child is passing through 
 this period ; hence this book, or some similar record, 
 is recommended for the junior class. 
 
 The school weekly record is usually kept on one 
 page of a book, arranged to form a record of pi^o- 
 ceedings for that day. Quarterly totals can be taken 
 from such a book only by copying the figures on an- 
 other sheet. Why not run the items as column-heads 
 
go How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 aloug the top of the record book's page, and the Sun 
 days for the quarter down the first column ? Then, 
 with two facing pages for one quarter's reports, the 
 record of one Sunday can be put on a single line, and 
 the columns can be footed and averaged at the bottom. 
 In the same way the four quarterly reports can be 
 arranged in four columns on another page, with an- 
 nual report and all other needed records for the year 
 on a dozen pages more. Any bright secretary can 
 rule such a book for himself, making it fit exactly 
 the life of his school.* 
 
 The register should be a large, well-bound minute 
 book, with alphabetic index of names and registry 
 numbers, and then one page, or half a page, allotted 
 to each member of the school. Beginning with super- 
 intendent and teachers, give each present member a 
 half-page and a consecutive number. Write each 
 name in full, exactly as written by its owner or his 
 parent. In abbreviated form add residence, birth- 
 day, date of joining the school, date of uniting with 
 church, name of parent or guardian, member of which 
 class and public school grade. Three or four lines 
 should suffice for this, leaving ample space for subse- 
 quent items: promoted to class (with date), 
 
 appointed teacher of..... class, left for 
 
 College, removed to , etc. The entries for 
 
 adults, of course, will omit year of birth and name of 
 parent or guardian. The present members should be 
 registered without undue delay ; and thereafter no 
 newcomer should be counted a member of the school 
 
 ^ The author's *' Westminster Ideal Secretary's Record for 
 Small Schools," published by the Westminster Press, Philadel- 
 phia, is constructed on this plan. Price, 25 cents. 
 
Running by the Quarter 91 
 
 till he has been present for several Sundays, has de- 
 clared his intention to be a permanent, obedient and 
 willing member, has been properly graded and placed 
 by the superintendent and has reported to the secre- 
 tary to be duly entered in the school register. 
 
 Every little Sunday school has need of such a record 
 as this. It will be well to entrust it to the most faith- 
 ful and painstaking member of the school, appointing 
 such person as biographer, historian or birthday sec- 
 retary. Impress it on every member that when he 
 leaves the school he must keep the biographer advised 
 of his address and his welfare, especially of such hap- 
 penings and achievements as may reflect credit on 
 the Sunday school that trained him for the work. 
 A birthday letter, with an offering enclosed for old 
 times' sake, would be a convenient way of securing 
 this permanent touch. Colleges coin the records 
 and the loyalty of their alumni into a substantial 
 asset : why should not the little Sunday school do the 
 same ? ^ 
 
 The class books, giving the detailed weekly record 
 of each teacher and pupil, are part of the school's 
 record system and should be carefully kept and filed 
 as historical material at the end of the year. Who 
 knows what famous man may revisit the old neigh- 
 borhood some day and ask to see the record of his 
 childish faithfulness at Sunday school ? At the forti- 
 eth reunion of what was once a little Sunday school 
 in the outskirts of Philadelphia, the old record, show- 
 ing the creditable attendance and work of John 
 
 ^ For a full account of such a register, as kept for forty years in 
 a little New England Sunday school, see Trumbull's "A Model 
 Superintendent, ' ' pages 15, 68-72, 
 
gl How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 Wauamaker as a junior pupil, formed an exhibit of 
 wliicii the aged superintendent and his surviving 
 fellow- workers were justly proud. 
 
 Of small value, however, are any records if no use 
 is made of the story they tell. The record is in order 
 to the report. Every Sunday, before school closi^.s, 
 the secretary should make his brief weekly report, 
 which may also be posted on the school's bulletin - 
 board. Every quarter a quarterly report should 
 be rendeied, giving the more important statistics 
 of the school's work for the term, including mem- 
 bership, number of new members, highest, lowest 
 and average attendance, number of visitors and offer- 
 ings for regular and special objects. The condensed 
 record of each class may also properly be given. 
 When to this is added by the superintendent the edu- 
 cational report previously suggested, with names of 
 honor members for the term, the school and its visit- 
 ing friends may gain a new conception of its impor- 
 tance and of their obligations. 
 
 An Educational Festival. — Any festival may be 
 called educational if it helps us in making a success 
 of our educational plans. If we prove ourselves able 
 to carry through a first-rate Christmas entertainment 
 or picnic, we may thereby gain such prestige as 
 leader that the school will permit us to introduce 
 graded lessons. But a real educational festival is one 
 in which, without sacrifice of interest and life, fea- 
 tures that teach wrong lessons are supplanted by 
 others representing studies in which the school has 
 been engaged and which it has prepared in form 
 worthy of presentation to an audience. 
 
 At present, in many little Sunday schools, some 
 
Running by the Quarter 93 
 
 of the festivals, especially Christmas, draw so heavily 
 on the time aud interest of the school and its best 
 workers that lesson work and religious interest are 
 alike forgotten for several weeks before the festal day. 
 This waste must be stopped ; and in its place a 
 system must be established that will earn an educa- 
 tional profit on every festival held by the school. 
 
 Festivals held on Sunday at the usual hour of the 
 session are generally of a staid and devotional type, 
 though sometimes admitting children's recitations. 
 When held on Sunday evening a somewhat larger 
 liberty is taken. On a week-night, especially in the 
 case of the Christmas celebration, many schools con- 
 sider costuming and dramatism quite permissible. 
 Santa Claus, alone or attended by various fanciful 
 characters, arrives to distribute the candy or other 
 gifts; and sometimes the young folks get up a 
 '^ cantata," which in Sunday-school language means 
 any light dramatic performance, largely musical, 
 offered for Sunday-school use. In some neighbor- 
 hoods so much effort has been spent and so many 
 really able presentations are remembered that the 
 people are hard to please. How can such a festival 
 be made over without robbing the occasion of its ex- 
 citement and its charm ? 
 
 Well, for one change, the Sunday school can with- 
 draw from the business of providing amateur per- 
 formances to the community. If these are desired, 
 bring together the leading committee workers of the 
 last few affairs and help them to organize a dramatic 
 association, auxiliary to Sunday school and church 
 if that is acceptable, independent if it is not. The 
 dramatic instinct is normal and healthy, and offers a 
 
94 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 fiue basis for good social fellowship. Encourage the 
 young people to serve the community in this way. 
 Let the atisociatiou include in its season's plan a 
 simple but good performance for the Christmas 
 festival and a missionary pageant to be given out- 
 of-doors in June. The senior or young people's class 
 may be willing to undertake this without forming a 
 new organization. 
 
 As to the gifts to the school, thousands of Sunday 
 schools have now learned by experience the truth 
 of what Jesus said so long ago about giving and 
 receiving. Let the Christmas festival always be a 
 time for bringing gifts for others needier than we. 
 The poor little waifs in the city slums, the toilers in 
 sweat-shops, the sufferers from the ravages of war, — 
 appeals for such as these will waken interest among 
 country children and bring out gifts that will deco- 
 rate the platform more impressively than holly and 
 greens. The Christmas example of the Wise Men 
 may be used in this connection. Are we not cele- 
 brating the birthday of our King? 
 
 The popularity of the children's recitations comes 
 largely from the fond pride of the parents in seeing 
 their darlings on the platform. What these recite is 
 a secondary consideration. Why then should they 
 not recite some of their Sunday-school lesson work ? 
 Why, also, should the recitations not be grouped so 
 that each will play its part in a joint endeavor, form- 
 ing a concert exercise, with a message and a value 
 that the children themselves can understand ? It is 
 not good for the moral health of a little child to send 
 him on the platform alone, and then to cheer and 
 congratulate him admiringly for what he has dona 
 
Running by the Quarter 95 
 
 The sweet uncoDSciousness of cbildhood is as easily 
 liiigered off and as impossible to restore as the bloom 
 on a butterfly's wing. Lift the children's minds 
 while they are being drilled to the thought that they 
 are to do this service for Jesus and to help the school 
 in its work ; keep their thoughts off themselves and 
 the glory they will win. So may their part be to 
 them a means of grace, a service rendered to the 
 Lord. 
 
 Simple children's pageants and dramatic perform- 
 ances can with no great difficulty be woven out of the 
 material of their graded lessons and their missionary 
 studies. Not every quarter can this be done, nor has 
 every teacher the ingenuity and patience to lead a 
 class in working out its plan. But the material is 
 there. Let the intermediate class, for instance, begin 
 in October to work up a few of the scenes in the life 
 of David, beginning with simple tableaux, expanding 
 a few of these into dialogue, and trying to make out 
 of some one, say the visit of David and Abishai to 
 Saul's camp (1 Sam. xxvi.), an animated moving 
 picture. Would not that class by Easter, perhaps 
 by Christmas, be ready to give a "show '' that would 
 be worth coming to see ? Would they not have to 
 study their Bibles as never before in order to learn 
 the facts and arrange the scenes and the talk f 
 Would not the moral force of the story impress itself 
 on actors and spectators alike ? That would be, so 
 far, an educational festival. 
 
 To a musician's ear and a musical educator ^s nerves, 
 the most unsatisfactory feature of the ordinary Sun- 
 day-school festival is its music. The school buys a 
 special service, spends weeks in practice, gives the 
 
96 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 performauce before a supposedly admiring company, 
 and then throws the service away. Does it pay to 
 do this ? Why not use every Sunday songs worthy 
 of being sung at a festival "? If the school will use a 
 really good song-book, learning a new hymn every 
 few Sundays, festival time will find it with plenty 
 of music on hand, new and old, that its audience will 
 be charmed to hear. A Sunday-school choir in a few 
 outside rehearsals can prepare some additional music. 
 Then the superintendent may draft his program as 
 he thinks best, posting it on blackboard or wall. 
 The music will thus be part of the school's educa- 
 tional exhibit ; and the approach of the festival will 
 be their incentive for singing well every Sunday. 
 
 The pupils' note-books, maps, folders and other 
 trophies of diligence in graded study may properly 
 be displayed as part of the festival decorations. 
 Stretch one or two strings at a convenient height 
 along the wall from window to window, and on these 
 hang the books, with names well displayed, so that 
 they may be examined by parents and other admirers. 
 One or two such exhibitions will serve to make the 
 home work seem to some of the careless ones more 
 worth doing. 
 
 If now the quarterly report of superintendent and 
 secretary can be closed a Sunday or two ahead, the re- 
 mainder of the record going over to the next quarter, 
 and if somewhere in the program this story of the 
 school's creditable progre^ss can be read, perhaps by 
 one of the young women whose pleasant voice will 
 give its facts a worthy hearing, the educational fea- 
 tures of our festival program will be for the time 
 complete. 
 
VI 
 
 eunni:ng by the yeae 
 
 An Educational Perspective. — It is necessary 
 that the superintendent shall learn to run his Sun- 
 day school by the year as well as by the week, and 
 that beyond the present year he shall take account of 
 the years to come and of those that have gone before. 
 His Sunday school is a school. Its work is the de- 
 veloping of characters and the shaping of lives. 
 These lives stretch for years, past and to come ; and 
 to-day's work in Sunday school is a cross-section of 
 the experiences through which pupils and teachers 
 are severally passing. His watchword might well 
 be, Not across, but along. His zeal should be, not 
 to run a session brighter and more successful than 
 any ever held before, but rather to perceive more 
 clearly than ever before what these souls need that 
 his Sunday school can give them, and to run such a 
 session that every soul shall through it receive the 
 exact help needed for that stage of his individual 
 forward way. 
 
 If this vision of each pupil's whole need is to be 
 wrought into action, we must divide our task into 
 units and plan to finish each unit in its appointed 
 time. We have already seen the general lAsm of 
 grading by which the pupil's life is divided into 
 periods of Sunday-school experience, — cradle roll, 
 beginners, primary, junior, intermediate, senior and 
 adult. Every child must make his way up through 
 
 97 
 
98 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 these successive ages ; aud it is for us, by grading the 
 school, to make our iustitutiou correspond at every 
 stage as well as we can to his needs at that stage. 
 Our general age-unit is the year. Our present task, 
 therefore, is to plan for such a year's work in our 
 little Sunday school that the needs of every pupil 
 shall be met as fully and as closely as our resources 
 and our powers of leadership allow. 
 
 In planning this year's instruction we must keep 
 in mind what instruction the pupil has had before. 
 We must indeed consider what all his past experi- 
 ences have been, at home, on the farm, in the woods, 
 in his reading, and in the hidden life of his soul, 
 with its unspoken questionings, its ideals and ambi- 
 tions, its decisions and its defaults. All that we can 
 learn of every pupil must be taken into account in 
 settling how we shall try to help him during the com- 
 ing year. Nor must we fail to project ourselves 
 ahead into the years to come, with our plans for 
 more advanced work, to begin when that which we 
 are now starting shall have finished its course and 
 made possible a new departure. 
 
 Reorganizing for the New Year. — All the work 
 of the Sunday school should be made to end on 
 Promotion Day. The treasurer's books should close 
 for the year with the end of that calendar quarter. 
 The new class books and secretary's record should 
 start at that time. Honors for the year should 
 be announced. All terms of service of officers and 
 teachers should expire then ; the new appointees to 
 be determined at the next previous meeting of the 
 workers^ conference, except the superintendent, who 
 should be elected at least a month earlier. The 
 
Running by the Year 99 
 
 studies of each class for the coining year should be 
 auuouuced and the new books distributed. Most 
 important of all, the promotions for the year, with 
 announcement of every pupil's standing, should be 
 impressively attended to. it is the great day of the 
 Sunday-school year. 
 
 How the saperintendent is chosen will depend on 
 whether the Sunday school is or is not independent 
 of local church relationship. In a church school the 
 superintendent ought always to be chosen by the 
 cliurch ; for in no other way can the church's re- 
 sponsibility for its school be enforced and discharged. 
 The choice, however, should be in consultation with 
 the Sunday-school workers and subject to their ratifi- 
 cation or rejection ; in which latter case it would be 
 the duty of the church to propose another name. 
 The superintendent thus chosen can begin his year's 
 work with his force around him and his church be- 
 hind him ; and he ought to look forward with joy to 
 the good report he is to make of his stewardship at 
 the year's end. The union school will of course elect 
 its superintendent at its own business meeting, two 
 months before the beginning of his official term. 
 
 The secretary, the librarian, the associate superin- 
 tendent, the chorister or accompanist, and any other 
 officers needed for the superintendent's staff of official 
 helpers, should be nominated by him at the workers' 
 conference next aft^r his election and approved by 
 that body. It is a serious mistake to choose these 
 officers by nomination in meeting, without consult- 
 ing the executive head of the school as to the helpers 
 he wants. Let him pick them himself ; then let the 
 teachers pass on their acceptability. 
 
lOO How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 Two Plans of Class Formation. — lu reorganizing 
 the classes, tlie little Sunday school may make its 
 choice of two plans. It may make every class a fixed 
 class, annually promoting every pupil whose age and 
 attainment fit him for the work of the class ahead. 
 This is the method which has been assumed aud 
 recommended throughout this book. In the begin- 
 ners' and primary classes and the adult class it is the 
 only way. But for the junior, intermediate and 
 senior classes anotlier method is possible and for 
 some reasons desirable. We may call it the movable 
 class plan. 
 
 By this method the superintendent, once in three 
 years, will organize a new junior class out of the pri- 
 mary class and send it forth on its upward journey. 
 Its members will range in age from eight to ten, per- 
 haps eleven years. If the school is larger, such a 
 class may be formed oftener than once in three years. 
 From time to time, also, the senior class will finish 
 its work and go bodily into the adult class or the 
 ranks of the teachers and officers. On the Promotion 
 Day when a junior class reaches the average age of 
 twelve, it will be designated an intermediate class ; 
 when fifteen, a senior class ; when eighteen, a gradu- 
 ating class, ready to join the adults or go to work. 
 Teachers should properly change classes at these 
 times, shifting to the class below and so continuing 
 their junior, intermediate or senior work with a new 
 class of pupils. There are no individual promotions. 
 Each class pursues steadily the closely graded lessons, 
 taking every year's course in its proper order. 
 
 Each of these plans has its advantages and disad- 
 vantages. The school should weigh both with care, 
 
Running by the Year loi 
 
 decide which of the two it will follow, and pursue 
 cousisteutly the plau adopted. A few years heuce it 
 will be possible, as it is not now, to say positively 
 which of the two plans will bring on the whole the 
 best results. We may expect to find enthusiastic 
 advocates on either side. It would be well to have 
 in every county one or more little schools with fixed 
 classes and others with movable classes, each follow- 
 ing a graded course of study. Their delegates could 
 trieu discuss the matter at the county convention and 
 compare results. 
 
 The Course of Study. — In Chapter II we considered 
 the general question of lessons for the little Sunday 
 school, and what lessons the superintendent should 
 endeavor to introduce as the lesson system of his 
 school. In Chapter V we also considered how each 
 term's work on these lessons might be stimulated and 
 appraised. Presuming that the matter is settled that 
 the school is to use graded lessons in every class as 
 soon as that is practicable, the question now confronts 
 us, What lessons shall our five classes teach next 
 year ? 
 
 If the graded lessons were correctly introduced, the 
 answer to this will not be hard to find. Let each 
 class proceed to the next year of the course. The 
 primary class began with the first primary year ; it 
 will now proceed to the second primary year ; and so 
 with the junior class, and with the intermediate also, 
 if they too adopted the new course. If a beginners' 
 class has been organized, it will go on to the second 
 year, or will begin with the first year if it is starting 
 now. When any class finishes the last year of its 
 department course, the teacher will begin again with 
 
102 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 the first year, all those who began with him before 
 having now passed on to the next higher class. If he 
 has kept his note-books and his teachers' manuals, he 
 will be able now to give the lessons in better form 
 and at less expense to the school. 
 
 The method thus outlined is called the departmental 
 plan of handling the graded lessons. It goes with 
 the fixed class plan of graded organization. It can 
 be followed with two or more junior classes as easily 
 as with one, if the school prefers, all following the 
 same lessons together. It was to make this use of 
 the graded system easier in small schools that some 
 of the denominational publishers issued their de- 
 partmental lesson periodicals already referred to.^ 
 But the closely graded lessons can also be used de- 
 partmentally, and are so used in many little schools. 
 In such schools, when a second junior class is organ- 
 ized, it can be given its own grade of lessons, as 
 shown in the table on page 53. 
 
 The unfortunate feature of this departmental lesson 
 method is that different sets of promoted pupils get 
 their graded lessons in a diffeient order. Those en- 
 tering the junior class from the primary class last 
 year got the first year j unior lessons ; those promoted 
 this year will get the second year junior lessons, and 
 will not get those of the first year till they are twelve 
 years old. The departmental lesson issues aim to 
 meet this, first by making the junior cycle only three 
 years long, nine to eleven, and then by so planning 
 the lesson work that each year's course will be equally 
 adapted to all the junior years. A teacher using the 
 closely graded junior text-books, with a little help 
 
 ^ Chapter II, page 39. 
 
Running by the Year 103 
 
 from a lesson magazine, could do much of this adapt- 
 ing himself. 
 
 What this method particularly needs is an intro- 
 ductory primer or supplemental lesson-help for those 
 entering the junior class and not receiving the work 
 of the first junior j^ear. A mouth of special atten- 
 tion to such pupils, especially Jis to their use of the 
 Bible, would enable them to go on with profit in the 
 second and third junior year, possibly even in the 
 fourth also. A month or two of similar special drill 
 prior to promotion should be given the inteiiding 
 graduates, to fit them for taking up the advanced 
 work of the intermediate biographical course. 
 
 The movable class plan provides for going through 
 the whole graded course without disarrangement of 
 order. Each class takes every year the next course 
 and finishes it. No introductory or finishing courses 
 are necessary. The difiiculty here is that only one- 
 third or one-fourth of the class is correctly graded. 
 The junior class starts off with ages ranging from 
 eight to ten or eleven, and it studies the first year 
 course, intended for pupils nine years old. Year 
 after year this arrangement continues. The pupils 
 who were younger than the lessons at eight are in 
 the same position when they are fifteen : they have 
 for all these years been studying lessons a little too 
 old for them. This difficulty, however, will tend to 
 disappear ; as the intermediate courses, it is found, 
 can be followed with profit by any age from thirteen 
 to sixteen or even older. A more serious objection 
 to the movable class plan is likely to be found in the 
 difficulty of transferring teachers after three or four 
 years' service with an unbroken class. 
 
104 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 Observing Promotion Day. — Whether by the 
 fixed class plan or with movable classes, Promotion 
 Sunday must be observed with such dignity as befits 
 a great event in the younger pupils' lives. Let the 
 preparations be made well in advance. On the 
 superintendent's roll let each pupil have his correct 
 graded rating, witli some mark against the names 
 of such as have done work worthy of honor. In the 
 exercises of the day, the reading of these names, with 
 the higher ratings for the new year, will be the cli- 
 max of interest. Begin at the bottom, with the 
 names of the cradle roll members promoted to the 
 beginners or primary class. These earliest promo- 
 tions may take place semi-annually or oftener, but 
 they should all be announced here. The children, 
 sitting with their parents, should be escorted by a 
 committee of beginners to their new place, and a 
 welcome song sung in their honor. From beginners 
 to primary the change can be made in the same way. 
 In the promotions from the primary to the junior 
 class each pupil may be presented by the school 
 with a Bible, of the kind regularly used in the class. 
 The ceremony of transfer should vary with each 
 class, to correspond with the feelings of the different 
 ages. To treat an intermediate as he has just seen 
 the primary children treated would be an offense 
 indeed. Promotion certificates may be awarded if 
 the school desires : they are not essential. 
 
 The practical value of this ceremony is consider- 
 able. It sets forth to all the reality of the Sunday 
 school as a school and the dignity of its lesson tasks. 
 The memory of it spurs the careless to complete their 
 Bible memorizing and their note-book work, lest 
 
Running by the Year 105 
 
 they lose honor aud mention on the great day when 
 the work is judged. Under the spell of the swiftly 
 moving program the attention of pupils and class is 
 taken away from the sadness of bidding farewell to 
 the beloved former teacher and focused on the new 
 work in the new class, or under the new teacher, 
 with whom they are now to be. Changes that would 
 be quite impossible if proposed in cold blood in the 
 middle of the year can be carried through without a 
 ripple on Promotion Sunday. 
 
 Present and Future Teachers. — When the super- 
 intendent, by diligent interviewing and patient per- 
 suading, has secured the last teacher needed on his 
 team for the coming year's work, and has provided 
 each with the text-books and teacher's manuals of his 
 yearly course, his work as captain and manager is 
 about one- quarter done. Another fourth of the task 
 will be to lead and test the teaching work. No 
 teachers in any kind of school can run long without 
 supervising and cooperation. A plan for measuring 
 and appraising the teaching work was given in 
 Chapter V. In most classes, however, other help 
 will be needed if the year's work in every class is to 
 be well done. Here again may be emphasized the 
 great value to the superintendent of a competent 
 director of instruction, one who has learned how to 
 teach and can help each teacher to find and follow 
 the right method for his particular class and his 
 lesson course. If such a helper is to be had, let him 
 be formally elected and his duties and responsibilities 
 defined, that none may despise his educational au- 
 tnority within his official sphere. 
 
 Duties of the director of instruction will include 
 
io6 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 the keeping of the graded roll, the grading and as-' 
 sigument of each new pupil in consultation with the 
 superintendent, the study of each lesson course and 
 discussion of the same with the teacher in charge, 
 the noting of ail iinx^ortant memory assignments and 
 the hearing of these recited from time to time. 
 Whatever the director can do to lead to better 
 teaching will be part of his task. The rather com- 
 plicated order sheet for graded lesson supplies should 
 be filled out by him alone, and he should also check 
 and approve the goods on receipt and mark for dis- 
 tribution ; unless the secretary can be fully trusted 
 to attend to these matters. If such a worker can 
 be retained as general helper, free of steady class 
 teaching, the substitute problem will be fairly well 
 solved. This, however, will not often happen in the 
 little Sunday school. 
 
 So far, so good, as to half the superintendent's 
 teacher-problem. The classes are now, let us hope, 
 in good hands. How long will they stay so ? In a 
 fairly settled and quiet neighborhood about one 
 teacher in every four or five drops out in the course 
 of a year, for legitimate causes. In some fields half 
 the force needs renewing before the year is out. 
 Next year's line-up will surely need ^'new blood" 
 somewhere ; and if our team of five years hence is to 
 play a better game than that of the present season, 
 it is none too soon to begin now the work of coaching 
 recruits in general hitting and base-running and also 
 for their special places. In other words, we need a 
 teacher-training class. 
 
 So much has been issued on teacher-training that 
 it might perhaps be enough to refer the superintend- 
 
Running by the Year 107 
 
 ent to the leaflets of his own deuomiDatiou and of his 
 state or provincial Sunday-school association, with 
 further reference to the books on the subject. The 
 matter is not specitically ojie relating to the little 
 school ; for every Sunday school must provide for the 
 improvement and the renewal of its teaching force 
 or drop out of the race. A small class, meeting at 
 another hour than that of the school session, with (he 
 active teachers and some of the young folks joining 
 in common study, is a good plan for many little 
 schools ; because such a class can be taught by the 
 director of instruction, the superintendent or the 
 pastor without interference with Sunday duties, and 
 behind it can be thrown the full force of the school's 
 enthusiasm. But a session class of young persons not 
 teachers, taught as a branch of the young people's 
 or senior class, is equally desirable and in some cases 
 easier to carry. Suitable courses and text-books are 
 listed in the leaflets referred to. Keep the eye of the 
 class on its coming fitness for teaching service, rather 
 than on the certificates and diplomas it is to win. 
 
 The Official Staff.— Wliile the little Sunday school 
 needs no such array of officers as must be found in a 
 school of three or four hundred, it does need some ; 
 and the work of finding them and setting them at 
 work for the new year is not easy. Besides the su- 
 perintendent there must be a capable secretary ; and 
 unless the superintendent himself is a school man or 
 otherwise trained for educational leadership, there 
 must be a director of instruction. The duties of 
 these officers have already been discussed.^ A 
 musical leader is also essential, who will be the or- 
 
 1 Chapter V, pp. 86, 88-92 ; Chapter VI, p. 105 f. 
 
io8 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 gauist or i^ianist unless the school has a chorister ; in 
 which case the accompauist will rank as the chor- 
 ister's assistant. If the superintendent can lead the 
 singing at all, he had better be his own chorister. 
 The director of instruction, if not also a teacher, may- 
 act as associate superintendent ; otherwise some one, 
 preferably a promising young man, should hold and 
 fill that of&ce. The secretary can generally look 
 after the little school's library ; but if at all needed, 
 let a librarian be appointed. The birthday secre- 
 tary's work, described on page 91, may be an inde- 
 pendent office or under the care of the secretary. 
 
 Each of these main officers of the superintendent's 
 cabinet, with the assistants whom they in turn have 
 named, and with the treasurer and recording secre- 
 tary elected by the workers' conference, should be 
 formally installed a Sunday or two after the opening 
 of the year, or as part of the ceremonies of Promo- 
 tion Sunday. Secure if possible the presence of the 
 pastor or some other visiting dignitary. Arrange a 
 simple service, including a few appropriate verses 
 from the Bible, the reading of the names and offices 
 by the superintendent, a few questions by the pastor 
 as to each candidate's acceptance, his promises and 
 his reliance on Divine help, a prayer of consecration 
 and a hymn of work and service. The teachers may 
 also be installed at the same time ; and the school 
 should pledge its faithful cooperation with each offi- 
 cer and teacher in the year of work thus undertaken. 
 
 With his staff thus around him, the superintendent 
 who would get hearty and faithful service from each 
 officer and teacher must not fail to protect each 
 worker in his own jurisdiction and to notice, com- 
 
Running by the Year 109 
 
 meud and support every bit of work that is well 
 done. Keep the eyes of all ou the great task to be 
 accomplished, while eucouragiug each to feel that his 
 particular bit is a little more important than all the 
 rest. Give scope for originality, and let each good 
 piece of work bring credit to the worker by name. 
 Be firm in seeking the best results but teachable by 
 others as to ways and means for attaining these re- 
 sults. People have different ways of doing things. 
 Whenever jealousy or hard feeling breaks out, bring 
 on some new benevolent enterprise in which all must 
 join and work with a will to make it successful. 
 
 The School's Finances. — It is the superintend- 
 ent's duty to see that the Sunday school's income 
 fully covers its expenditures and that its bills are 
 paid on time. To let periodical accounts hang ou 
 for a year or longer, and to order more than can be 
 paid for within the time of a reasonable accommoda- 
 tion, is not good religion. In planning the year's 
 work, the budget of expense should be figured out 
 with care, not by guesswork but by ascertaining as 
 closelj^ as may be just what each projected activity 
 and purchase will cost. A file of receipted bills 
 showing former costs will help in this. The neces- 
 sary outgo thus figured, and the items approved in 
 workers' conference, equally definite plans for secur- 
 ing the money must next be determined upon. 
 
 It is a great mistake to measure the school's ability 
 to advance financially by what it has succeeded in 
 doing before. The expense of graded lesson text- 
 books as compared with quarterlies or lesson leaves 
 has made many a superintendent in a little Sunday 
 school turn down the plan without further considera- 
 
no How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 tion. But where did last year's income come from ! 
 How much of each family's iucome was contributed 
 to the Sunday school ? During the same period, how 
 much did these families spend on luxuries and indul- 
 gences? Convince the households concerned that the 
 new lesson books are worth paying for, and money 
 to pay for them will be forthcoming. But the super- 
 intendent, in ways already suggested, must do this 
 convincing ; and then he must coin the new interest 
 into contributions that will meet the new expense. 
 
 The annual budget of the school, with any special 
 payments under it which involve a change of items 
 or an unusual expenditure of any sort, should be sub- 
 mitted to the workers' conference for discussion and 
 decision. The workers should know what their work 
 is costing and how the school's money is being spent. 
 Otherwise they cannot take the interest they should 
 in the school's financial problems. 
 
 Where the little Sunday school is part of a church, 
 the same rule holds as in all church schools : the 
 school should be supported by the church. This does 
 not mean that the school shall lose its financial self- 
 respect. Let it take pride, if it will, in putting into 
 the church treasury more than it draws out. But let 
 the children feel that their school is part of the church 
 in which they are or are to be members, that the church 
 is generously paying their expenses, and that they con- 
 tribute regularly to its support. Let the church in 
 turn feel its responsibility for the school. Once a 
 year, at the annual church meeting, let it be settled 
 what the school's budget is to be and how the money 
 is to be paid ; also on which Sundays the collection is 
 to go for church support, and which are to be reserved 
 
Running by the Year 1 1 1 
 
 for benevolent offerings. By this sliding scale the 
 balance can easily be struck, according to the needs 
 of the church and the giving power of the Sunday 
 school. 
 
 The Sunday-school treasurer should not be counted 
 one of the superintendent's assistants, like the secre- 
 tary or the librarian. He is rather an officer of the 
 disbursing body, the workers' conference, and should 
 be chosen by them from among their number. 
 Whether he shall handle the money furnished by the 
 church for school expenses or simply receive the 
 school's offerings and pay them to the church treasurer 
 or send them on to the proper benevolent treasury, is 
 a matter to be settled locally. In an independent 
 school, of course, this question will not arise. The 
 superintendent must insist on the treasurer keeping 
 an account so simple and clear that the report at each 
 workers' conference will show exactly where the 
 school stands, what bills if any it owes and what is its 
 present duty or privilege as to new expenditure. 
 Every benevolent offering, also, must be promptly rep- 
 resented by a receipt showing that the full amount 
 has been remitted and acknowledged. It will be well 
 to put the chairman of the missionary committee in 
 charge of these benevolent receipts. 
 
 The giving of the school is no small part of its edu- 
 cational system. Every offering received should be 
 the expression by the givers of some feeling and pur- 
 pose, the outcome of a lesson which has impressed 
 their minds and touched their hearts. In most cases 
 the little school will ordinarily devote its collection 
 to local maintenance, contributing to benevolent and 
 missionary objects only on stated occasions. No self- 
 
1 12 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 respectiug Sunday school, however poor, will give to 
 missions and benevolence less often than once a 
 quarter. Once a month, on the first or some other 
 fixed Sunday, is much the better rule. A church 
 school, as already stated, will so arrange that its or- 
 dinary offerings are for church support, thus aj^peal- 
 ing to the pupils' loyalty to their church and its work. 
 In a union school, or wherever the offering is merely 
 for school expenses, do not dwell on the idea that we 
 are paying our share of the cost of what we are getting. 
 Train the pupils rather to look on their gifts as offer- 
 ings to help our school continue its good work. The 
 officers and teachers give both money and work. The 
 pupils in some cases give work ; but they and their 
 parents can all give money, and God will bless it to 
 great results, now and in days to come. Receive 
 every offering with a word of prayer, and count it as 
 part of the school's service of worship. 
 
 The Workers' Conference. — The plans for the 
 year would be incomplete indeed without an appoint- 
 ment and program for the regular meetings of the 
 workers' conference. By this new name is now des- 
 ignated what has been called the teachers' meeting, 
 the teachers' business meeting, the Sunday-school as- 
 sociation, the Sunday-school board, and perhaps other 
 names. Its membership includes the officers, the 
 teachers and the presidents of the senior and adult 
 classes, with the pastor and perhaps other officers of 
 the church. In order to tie up the young people's 
 society, the missionary society, and other local 
 church and religious organizations, the heads or ap- 
 pointed representatives of these should also be in- 
 cluded in the workers' conference roll. 
 
Running by the Year 113 
 
 Regular moDthly meetings of tliis body, on a stated 
 eveuiug or other time, should be x^rovided for by res- 
 olution or by-law. The meetings may be held at 
 some centrally located home. The program of the 
 conference will include devotion, business and instruc- 
 tion, an earnest though brief j)eriod of prayer and Bible 
 meditatiou, a brisk raising and settling of definite 
 items in a docket of business, and a half-hour period 
 of study and discussion on some text-book or some 
 vital topic of Sunday-school life, such as : 
 
 The Teacher's Influence. 
 
 How to Arouse Interest in the Lesson. 
 
 The Needs of Our Community. 
 
 Why We Should Give to Foreign Missions. 
 
 What I Learned at the Convention. 
 
 If I Were Superintendent. 
 
 By assigning topics like these to the members, to be 
 responded to with a ten-minute paper or address fol- 
 lowed by twenty minutes of discussion, the thoughts 
 of the whole force can be drawn together and focused 
 on one Sunday-school problem after another ; and 
 whether or not these problems are solved and im- 
 provements secured, the spirit of comradeship in serv- 
 ice will surely be advanced. 
 
yn 
 
 GETTING EESULTS 
 
 Reasonable Expectations. — Taking one year's rec- 
 ord as the measuring unit of its life, work and oi)por- 
 tiinity, what, within that period, ought the little 
 Sunday school to accomplish ? We have been dis- 
 cussing so far the plant and the process. What of the 
 product •? The farmer expects to harvest a definite 
 crop, the merchant to earn a definite profit, the manu- 
 facturer to finish a definite output, the stockholder to 
 receive a definite dividend. What shall be the crop^ 
 the profit, the output, the dividend of this Sunday 
 school for the year next ensuing ? 
 
 It is true that much of what any Sunday school 
 accomplishes is known only to God. It is also true 
 that results of high value often come from features 
 of the work on which we, the leaders, had previously 
 set small store. God's power is greater than our 
 plans ; even as His infinite love for the souls He has 
 entrusted to us is greater than our interest and affec- 
 tion for them, however sincere. But it is also true 
 that God works through means, and that our capacity 
 for analyzing, investigating, planning and executing 
 is part of the means. Science is constantly turning 
 its light on the dark corners of nature and showing 
 the causes and laws that control results in fields 
 hitherto deemed inscrutable. To make a close analy- 
 sis of his own little Sunday school, with a view to 
 determining what ought to be its standard product 
 
 114 
 
Getting Results 115 
 
 when rightly run, is part of the supeiinteudent's 
 duty ; and for him to balk at this on the ground that 
 it is God's work and therefore above analyzing is just 
 pious laziness, with a probable admixture of reluc- 
 tance to have his work submitted to any efficiency test 
 whatsoever. 
 
 Our basis of expectation must include the record 
 of what we have succeeded in accomplishing in the 
 past. But it must also take note of what we need to 
 accomplish in order to discharge fully our trust. 
 The little Sunday school is frequently the sole repre- 
 sentative of organized religion in its community. It 
 is therefore a station on the picket line of the Church 
 of Christ, and as such has a work to do which must 
 be done if the great cause is to be saved from disaster. 
 To do as well as last year, or even to make a ten per 
 cent, increase, is not enough. The real question is, 
 What is it that we need to do, and how nearly perfect 
 shall be our doing of it f 
 
 Five fields of effort stretch before the little Sunday 
 school. First of all is the community in which it 
 stands, with the wider field, reaching even to the end 
 of the world, of which it is a part through gifts, study 
 and prayer. By the law of Christ, it must lose its 
 life in order to find it : it must live for others before 
 it can begin to do its part for and with its own. 
 Then comes the development of Christian character 
 in its members ; of which their conversion to Christ 
 will ever be the central fact, though neither the 
 beginning nor the end of the school's teaching effort. 
 By the common consent of educators no less than the 
 teachings of the church, the Bible, apart from its 
 standing as God's inspired Word, is the basis and 
 
1 16 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 source of our best lessons in character : hence Bible 
 teaching will form the third line of effort for the 
 school. This will be supplemented and illustrated 
 by lessons from nature and from the lives and work 
 of Christ's followers in later ages and in the modern 
 field of missionary and social service ; but it may all 
 be called Bible teaching, since Bible principles and 
 precedents will underlie every lesson. Training for 
 service, an extension of the work for character, will 
 be our fourth division. Finally, we must provide 
 for self-perpetuation, through effort directed to the 
 strengthening and continuation of the school and its 
 work. 
 
 What, then, under these five heads, ought the read- 
 er's particular little Sunday school to accomplish in 
 one year? That question no authority outside the 
 field itself should presume to answer. Let the 
 superintendent himself answer it, by checking, in 
 the list which follows, every item that he feels might 
 fairly be debited against his school ; its size, equip- 
 ment, force, condition of educational progress and 
 quality of leadership being duly considered. Let 
 him add, as well he may, other items not here enu- 
 merated. Let all the items, as checked and added, 
 be noted in his pocket record, read and discussed at 
 the workers' conference and made the background of 
 his annual report. Let him lay them often at the foot- 
 stool of the Master Superintendent in humble prayer. 
 
 A Table of Results. — Bearing in mind what has 
 just been said, it seems reasonable to ask that a rural 
 Sunday school of five classes and about fifty members, 
 led by a consecrated, determined and capable leader, 
 adequately supported, should in one year's time per- 
 
Getting Results 1 17 
 
 form the follow iDg services for its members and the 
 commuDity, less such items as the superinteiideut 
 shall feel to be an overcharge against his particular 
 school : 
 
 (A) Community Uplift 
 
 The peace kept ; no new personal or family 
 quarrels. 
 
 Progress in cooperation ; some family or individual 
 reconciled and added or restored to the company of 
 workers. 
 
 Previous community undertakings, if any, for local 
 and outside service encouraged and kept up. 
 
 Some new or special enterprise undertaken by the 
 community for its own and others' good : the Sunday 
 school having had something to do with the move- 
 ment. 
 
 Some particular hindrance to moral progress shown 
 up, attacked and overcome. 
 
 Gifts made to at least four missionary or benevolent 
 causes, for work in communities beyond local reach. 
 
 (B) Development of Christian Character 
 
 Freedom of the community reached from special 
 cases of juvenile and adolescent delinquency. 
 
 Favorable reports recei^^^d from parents and school- 
 teachers of the daily conduct of the children. 
 
 Kegularity and increase in attendance of children 
 at church. 
 
 Establishment in the older beginners (children of 
 five) of right relations with God ; as manifested, 
 among other ways, in love for Jesus, appreciation of 
 God's goodness in nature and release from childish 
 fears. (This item to become an obligation after a 
 beginners' class has been organized and supplied with 
 the lessons of the beginners' course.) 
 
 Establishment in the older primary children (seven 
 and eight) of habits of daily home prayer, the study 
 of Bible texts and hymn verses, the creditable finish- 
 
ii8 Flow to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 ing of hand- work, regularity of attendance, reverent 
 conduct, the exercise of family graces, and progress 
 in personal relations with God as revealed in Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 Establishment in the junior children of habits of 
 daily Bible reading, church attendance and attention, 
 regular giving and lesson study ; with a readiness to 
 take steps indicative of the acceptance of Jesus Christ 
 as Savioui'. 
 
 Public confession of Christ as Saviour and evidence 
 of Christian experience by intermediate and senior 
 pupils, to a number averaging, from year to year, 
 one-sixth of the total enrollment of such pux^iis. 
 
 Some adult conversions and renewals in grace. 
 
 Increase, especially among the teachers and other 
 adults, in the spirit of willingness to learn. 
 
 Some new recruits for active service from among 
 the seniors and adults. 
 
 Some increase in the social virtues, fellowship, 
 sympathy, cooperation, loyalty and the like. 
 
 (C) Bible Teaching 
 
 In the school as a whole : 
 
 One year's training in worshipful approach to God, 
 through the reverent use of well planned opening 
 services, including Bible verses, song and prayer. 
 
 Lessons in fellowship, giving, temperance and other 
 elements of character-training, with appropriate Bible 
 readings, presented on at least twenty Sundays of the 
 year. 
 
 At least ten lessons or talks on missions given fiom 
 the platform ; with response to these and other mis- 
 sionary lessons in the form of offerings made and 
 service rendered. (The lesson is not taught until it 
 has been expressed by the pupil's own free act. ) 
 
 Thirty Bible verses, preferably in the form of 
 longer passages, and three standard hymns, memo- 
 rized by the school and used in its worship. 
 
 Ten new and good hymn tunes learned. 
 
Getting Results 119 
 
 Two educational festival programs prepared and 
 given by the school to the community. 
 
 By the graded classes : 
 
 The standard graded lessons, including intermediate 
 lessons, taught regularly in each class, with at least 
 six months' work in each class completed. Some sort 
 of response (attention, answers to simple questions, 
 interest in the lesson, home work attempted, home 
 work fully done) secured from every pupil whose 
 faculties are normal. 
 
 From one-half the pupils in intermediate and 
 lower grades, lesson hand- work secured of quality 
 available for exhibition. 
 
 All pupils graduating from one class or department 
 course to the next made ready for the work of the 
 higher course. 
 
 By the senior and adult classes : 
 
 At least forty lessons well presented by regular 
 teacher, with class discussion thereon. 
 
 Eecord of at least twenty practical topics that were 
 discussed in class at some length, several taking part 
 and views freely stated. 
 
 Each class self-managed throughout the year. 
 
 Average attendance equal to at least one-half the 
 average enrollment. 
 
 These classes have each, through committees or 
 otherwise, conducted one or more investigations and 
 brought in reports as to local evils, local or general 
 needs, or opportunities for service, with class discus- 
 sions thereon and some work done in following up 
 the matter. The township roads, the condition of 
 the church burying ground, the church ventilation 
 and how to improve it, a reported "speak-easy," 
 where and how the boys spend their Sundays, what 
 books our people are buying and reading, possibilities 
 of the country church, missionary work in Moslem 
 lands, the present condition of our county poorhouse 
 — such are samples of the lines on which such investi- 
 gations and reports might be made. 
 
120 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 (Dj TRAINING Foe, Service 
 
 Eegular tasks for the Sauday scliool performed by 
 the children under older leaders. 
 
 Newly promoted juniors familiarized with the use 
 of the Bible as a book. 
 
 Definite and related Bible knowledge, familiarity 
 with maps and other helps in Bible study, and inter- 
 est in Bible narratives aud events, imparted to the 
 juniors : one-fourth of the \Yhole regular course covered. 
 
 Ideals of service and lieroism for Christ imparted to 
 intermediates, as shown in essays and other responses. 
 
 Interest in selected missionary fields and workers 
 imparted to the pupils generally, as shown in in- 
 creased ofterings to missionary causes. 
 
 Increase in the use of the library and demand for 
 books helpful in character-growth and training for 
 service. 
 
 Organization or maijitenance of an active young 
 people's society, with a year's definite service along 
 usual Christian Endeavor or similar lines. 
 
 Completion of a year's standard teacher-training 
 work by one or more senior or adult training-class 
 students. 
 
 Eesumption of Sunday-school membership and 
 service by former members returned from college or 
 other outside opportunities for growth, so far as per- 
 mitted by conditions of the stay at home. (If this 
 does not take place, the leader should inquire what 
 is the matter with his school, that it should fail to 
 appeal to these young people as a field for service.) 
 
 At least one decision during the year, by an under- 
 graduate or graduate pupil, to dedicate the life to 
 some form of Christian service. 
 
 (E) Self-Perpetuation 
 
 Annual meeting held ; officers and teachers elected 
 and appointed for the new year. 
 
 The school reorganized, with all pupils promoted 
 one grade, except in the adult class and where de- 
 motion is necessary for the pupil's good. 
 
Getting Results 121 
 
 All members enlisted in loyal fellowship and serv- 
 ice for the support and improvement of the school. 
 
 Former members kept track of, and their loyalty 
 preserved and expressed in an annual communication 
 and contribution. 
 
 An average of one student per year of a standard 
 teacher- training course graduated and enlisted in the 
 teaching force as teacher, assistant or substitute. 
 
 An average of oue pupil a year added to the foice 
 of official assistants. 
 
 Each teacher, or his successor, continued for the 
 new year in the work of teaching pupils of the same 
 range of ages as those constituting the class at the 
 outset of the previous year. (Applies to schools fol- 
 lowing the fixed class plan.) 
 
 The school's rehition maintained with its larger 
 denominational and territorial fellowship, through 
 the prompt and full rendering of its statistical re- 
 ports and the payments of its due and equitable con- 
 tributions to the denominational and the associated 
 interdenominational Sunday-school work. 
 
 Ideas and stimulus for better work received from 
 some institute or convention. 
 
 Overcoming Difficulties. — Over against this ideal 
 (which, let it be repeated, the superintendent is to 
 cut down until it fits his school and his ambition), 
 let us place some of the more common difficulties re- 
 ported from the little schools, and see what we are to 
 do with them. Which of these, brother, applies to 
 your field ? 
 
 '^ There is such a low spiritual tone in our neigh- 
 borhood. '^ 
 
 " We have so few that are willing to help." 
 
 *' We have to deal with a rough element that would 
 not stand for such work as you describe." 
 
 " There is so much illiteracy in our community 
 that we have to use teachers who can barely read 
 
122 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 and write. What could they do with your graded 
 lessons f ' ' 
 
 "The people are very old-fashioned and set in 
 their ways." 
 
 " We are so split up with quarrels and jealousy. 
 If they would only pull togelher, we might have a 
 good school." 
 
 " Our roads are very bad, especially in winter, and 
 there is no place near the schoolhouse where horses 
 can be sheltered from the weather." 
 
 " Our best families are moving away." 
 
 " Our young x^eople leave us." 
 
 "This is a transitory population hereabouts : we 
 have almost a new school every year." 
 
 " We have one or two faithful workers who refuse 
 to adopt the new ways." 
 
 " The influence of the homes is against us." 
 
 "Our pastor gives us very little help." 
 
 "I have been superintendent here for twenty-three 
 years, and I think I know how this school ought to 
 be run." 
 
 Well, what shall we say to these difficulties 1 Not 
 all of them, fortunately, are found on the same field. 
 Some are merely the same old resistance that the 
 apostolic message has always had to encounter. 
 Paul in Corinth had to face most of them ; and 
 if he could have the help of the Spirit and of the 
 comforting presence of Jesus with him as he strug- 
 gled, so can we. Brethren, the vision of the little 
 Sunday school set forth in this book is nothing but 
 the Gospel of our blessed Lord put into adapted and 
 effective educational form. Of course it will have to 
 cut its way through difficulties. But back of it we 
 may through faith and prayer put the mighty power 
 of the kingdom of God. The difficulties are what we 
 are here for. Let us go forward. 
 
Getting Results 123 
 
 The remedy for low tone is high standard. Do 
 not be afraid of things different from what the people 
 expect in a Sunday school. iSome workers and fol- 
 lowers of kindled spirit you now have : draw these 
 together in bonds of ever closer fellowshix) and en- 
 thusiasm. Have something that the world will want, 
 keep it pure and sound, and let the world know of it 
 through reasonable publicity and community service. 
 As for the rough element, they are easier to reach 
 and lead than the rich and fashionable element, and 
 will soon appreciate any genuinely loving effort that 
 is made intelligible to them. The inertia of the 
 ''old-fashioned" folks is by no means confined to 
 the rural districts ; on the contrary, it is to the com- 
 munities where little schools are the rule that we 
 look for the great progressive movements that are 
 steadily advancing the cause of democracy and social 
 justice in our land. 
 
 In those special fields where illiteracy to a greater 
 or less extent prevails, it is true that some of the 
 graded lesson machinery cannot be used as planned. 
 But illiteracy and stupidity are two very different 
 things. The chance of finding a bright, motherly, 
 sensible primary teacher in such a neighborhood is 
 quite as good as in the city field ; and the love of 
 Jesus and of little children needs no alphabet to 
 spell its lore. Story-telling is one of the primitive 
 arts, and most of our graded beginners and pri- 
 mary work now consists of stories. Let this teacher 
 be given a young assistant who can meet her in the 
 home during the week, to read over the lesson story 
 and the Bible references, and to learn with her the 
 memory text and song verse. Add to this the pic- 
 
124 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 tures furnished for class display, illuslratiDg the 
 story, and one or two simple lessons in method, 
 based on the general explanations in the teacher's 
 manual, and the illiterate primary teacher may 
 prove an educational jewel. By a like process the 
 junior and intermediate teachers can be brought 
 along. Let the class meet at the teacher's home to 
 talk over the lessons to come. They go to school, 
 and can read if the teacher cannot. In the young 
 people's class let social life and class organization 
 be the leading features, with lessons in practical 
 Christian service. As for the adult class, let them 
 once in a while visit the primary class and hear 
 again the gospel stories and Old Testament narra- 
 tives of the graded course. In many sections, as ex- 
 perience shows, they thus hear some of the most fa- 
 miliar Bible stories for the first time. 
 
 Quarrels and jealousy are symptoms of a selfish 
 community. The people have too narrow a world 
 to think about and be interested in. Such traits 
 are the grown-uj) equivalent of disorder and scufiles 
 amo]]g the smaller fry, and are to be met in the same 
 way — by giving the whole company something new 
 and interesting to do. What will interest them is a 
 matter to be carefully studied. Consider the things 
 in which these people are rich ; then find and pre- 
 sent to them, in the most concrete and api^ealing 
 form, some class who in those same things are poor. 
 Have they fresh air and sunshine, woods and streams, 
 freedom and manly independence ? Tell them of the 
 cooped and enslaved toilers in the slums, the child- 
 widows and caste-bound millions of India, the lepers, 
 the sufferers from the awful ravages of war. Organ- 
 
Getting Results 125 
 
 ize first for service ou bebulf of some of these, theu 
 for farther study aud prayer in order to know more 
 of the conditions and the gosi^el work now being 
 done. How can jealousy and strife survive, when 
 we are working together with our Lord! 
 
 About the road question and the need of horse- 
 sheds or windbreaks to encourage regularity in all 
 weathers, little need here be said. To face and meet 
 such a community need is exactly the lesson to be 
 set in the forefront of the school's educational and 
 Christian program. Whatever will serve and bless 
 the community in its daily life, make living easier 
 and life more worth while, is an appropriate activity 
 for the church of Jesus Christ and a worthy accom- 
 paniment of the proclamation of the Gospel. 
 
 By just such services, together with a practical 
 interest in the quality of public school education and 
 in the social and cultural life of the community, can 
 an active Sunday-school band of workers fight the 
 difficulty of a vanishing population. These prosper- 
 ous families and ambitious young people leave for 
 reasons. Give them better reasons for staying, and 
 they will not go. The little Sunday school, if only 
 as a matter of self-interest, should study well the 
 modern literature of country life, and should line up 
 with the rural life movement. Invite the agricul- 
 tural college or other rural life workers to hold an 
 institute with you, and then work their plans. 
 
 In the great lumber regions of our country and in 
 mining and dry-farming areas, the tendency of people 
 to camp and move on seems irresistible. If the little 
 Sunday school finds itself in such case, let it try to 
 arrange its studies in compact three-months unita^ 
 
126 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 teacliiug what it cau in that time and reorganizing 
 its force aut'W for eacii term. The superintendent 
 will have to do much coaching of new teachers ; but 
 how widely the seeds of his work will be spread ! 
 
 The old teacher who declines to take up with the 
 new ways is no merely rural problem. We find him 
 (and her) everywhere. Patience and love, combined 
 with a steady call for results, will win. All judg- 
 ments as to teachers and officers should be objective, 
 based on a record and a standard which has or has 
 not been attained ; never subjective, based on what 
 the leader thinks or feels. If the superintendent can 
 say no more than that he does not like So-and-so as a 
 teacher, he should keep still until he cau state his 
 reasons in objective form. 
 
 The Securing of Life-Decisions. — The educational 
 process naturally leads the pupil up to thresholds on 
 which he must decide some momentous issue. The 
 teaching on temperance, for instance, leads to the 
 settlement of the pupil's attitude for life as to the use 
 of intoxicants and other indulgences. When this 
 leading is wisely planned and carried out, results in 
 character-formation are possible that otherwise it 
 would be vain to look for. 
 
 The principle governing the use of Promotion Day as 
 a time for securing necessary separations of pupils and 
 teachers will apply here. By appointing a day for 
 the consideration of our subject and heightening the 
 feelings appropriate to the day, we open the way to 
 the doing on that day of unusual deeds. Temperance 
 Day, therefore, should not come too often to lose its 
 force as an occasion. It should be preceded by one 
 or two Sundays of desk instruction on the evils of 
 
Getting Results 127 
 
 iDtemperauce, i^ersoual aud uationaL Good pledge- 
 cards should be ready and iu the teachers' hands. 
 After a short but earnest program of appropriate 
 recitations, Bible reading and prayer, let the temper- 
 ance decisions be called for, to be expressed by taking 
 the card and either signing it or carrying it home for 
 signature with the parents' approval. Decisions 
 quietly reached at home and then bravely announced 
 in Sunday school are worth far more than those se- 
 cured under the spur of an insistent appeal. 
 
 Once made, the decision should be followed up. A 
 temperance wall roll should be made or purchased 
 and the name of each signer legibly written thereon. 
 This should be hung where all can see and read the 
 names. On the next temperance occasion there 
 should be new names to add. The signers should be 
 brought together once or oftener, and given a talk, 
 with discussion, on how to keep the pledge, at home, 
 in company, on visits and at college or school. A 
 Band of Hope, even if run only for a year or two, 
 will serve to clinch into lifelong conviction senti- 
 ments that otherwise might yield to the stress of 
 temptation. 
 
 On precisely this plan the quest for decisions may 
 be made on the fundamental issue of the pupil's per- 
 sonal relation to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. 
 In this case all the graded teaching will lead up to 
 and pave the way for the general appeal. Even so, 
 however, there should be desk preparation for several 
 Sundays, with one or more gatherings of the teachers 
 and older pupils for prayer. Every decision for 
 Christ that can be gained during these preliminary 
 days should be welcomed, never held off. On the 
 
128 How to Run a Little Sunday School 
 
 day appointed have little talking and exhortation : 
 make it rather a businesslike time for settling the 
 matter of our relation to God and to Jesus Christ His 
 Son. The decisions can be announced in any way 
 that the religious customs of the church or the com- 
 munity call for ; but they should be recorded with care. 
 Every one thus confessing Christ will of course be 
 welcomed into the kingdom and helped to walk in 
 the Christian life and unite himself with others in 
 practical Christian fellowship, utterance and work. 
 
 Less visible, and less often thought of, but equally 
 important in the progress of Christ's kingdom, are 
 the decisions for life-service made by the young men 
 and women of eighteen to twenty-four. If not already 
 professing Christians, these decisions may coincide 
 with conversion ; but many who found Christ in 
 childhood or early youth have a new and deeper ex- 
 perience later ; and for this the thoughtful senior 
 teacher will earnestly work and pray. All the hero- 
 teaching and the biographical, historical and social 
 studies of the graded course point in the direction of 
 lives dedicated wholly to God and devoted to the 
 work of the kingdom, whether in ordinary vocations 
 or in the ministry and other special Christian call- 
 ings. The world has been taught by experience to 
 look to the little Sunday schools in the rural fields 
 for some of its ablest and most deeply consecrated 
 leaders. In raising up and fitting for service such 
 leaders, the Sunday school described in these pages 
 may hope, under God, to make itself a potent factor 
 in the progress of the kingdom. 
 
 2 PRINTKI) IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 

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