Organizing and Building Up the Sunday School Part 7

(3) _A Population Changing Socially._ A serious problem often arises, not from a decline but from a change in the social condition of the population within the sphere of the church. The downtown church may have been forsaken by its former members, but people of another cla.s.s, and in greater numbers, have taken their places. The mansions have become boarding houses, flats and apartment houses have arisen, while the thronged sidewalks, and the children playing in the streets, are evidence that the material for members of the church and the Sunday school is greater than before. True, the new inhabitants are of a different social order from the old, clerks and porters instead of merchants, employees instead of employers, working people in place of the leisure cla.s.s. The fact that the social level of the neighborhood may be regarded by the worldly-minded as lower than formerly does not lessen its need of the gospel, nor render it less promising for Christian work. The church should look upon its field with unprejudiced eyes, should have an understanding of the time; should be alert to see and to seize its opportunity; and should change its methods with its changed const.i.tuency. The field must not be abandoned; it must be cultivated, and new forms of tillage will bring forth abundant harvests.

(4) _An Alien Population._ The most perplexing of all social problems arises when immigration has swept into the district surrounding the church a tide of people whose birth and speech are foreign, supplanting and in large measure driving out the native population. There are sections in our cities where the signs on the stores are all Bohemian, or Polish, or Yiddish; where an English-speaking church would remain absolutely empty, though thousands throng the streets. It may be that in such conditions gospel work under American methods can no longer be maintained; and a removal may be necessary. But even in the most unpromising fields this conclusion should not be hastily reached. We spend large sums in sending missionaries to the lands from which some strangers come; should we not embrace opportunities of evangelizing these at our own door? There are difficulties, but they are not nearly as insuperable as those in foreign fields. These foreign-born or foreign-descended children sit beside our own in the public school; should we shut them out from our Sunday schools? In less than a generation millions of these boys and girls will be as thoroughly American as our own children. When we consider the question of abandoning any field on account of its foreign population, let us widen our horizon of thought to embrace the future as well as the present, and then form our conclusion concerning the duty of the Sunday school to the community.

3. =Practical Suggestions.= A few hints, some of them already given, may summarize the practical side of the subject:

(1) _Study the Field._ The Sunday school must live not in the past, but in the present, with a clear vision of the future. It must not only cherish a loving memory of its field as it has been, but understand thoroughly what it is, and what forces are shaping it for the future.

The leaders in each Sunday school working for itself, or preferably those conducting the Sunday schools of a neighborhood working unitedly, should ascertain the nationality, religious condition, and church relations of every family in the district; and not only of every family, of every individual who may have a room in a boarding house. Each political organization knows the residence and party proclivities of every voter in the district; and the churches may learn from the politicians practical lessons upon the best methods of work.

(2) _Cultivate the Field._ Since the scholars must come to the school from the population around it, they should be sought, brought in, taught, and evangelized, with all the energy and wisdom which the church possesses. And not only the scholars, but also, in large degree, the teachers must be home-born and home-taught; therefore the Sunday school, to be successful, must train up workers from its own const.i.tuency.

(3) _Provide for all Elements._ By diligent and constant effort the school should be made representative of all ages, of all cla.s.ses, of all sections, and as far as practicable of all races found in its community.

(4) _Adapt Methods._ If a former const.i.tuency has removed from the field, and a new population has surged in, the new element must be looked upon as the const.i.tuency of the school. Its needs must be recognized, however different they may be from the needs of the past; and plans must be formed to meet those needs, whatever transformation of the school the new plans may involve.

XVI

RECRUITING THE SUNDAY SCHOOL

1. =Necessity.= The aspiration for advancement is natural and n.o.ble; and therefore every member of the Sunday school who is interested in its welfare, whether officer, teacher, or pupil, desires it to increase in membership, and to spread its benefits as widely as possible. But the recruiting of the Sunday school is not only desirable, but necessary. It is found that in every school there exists an outflow as well as an inflow of members. If in certain departments, as the Primary, new scholars are constantly enrolled, in other departments, as the older grades of the Intermediate and the Senior, there is as constant a dropping out of members from the school. It has been estimated that in most Sunday schools from twenty to twenty-five per cent of the membership changes annually, so that the average period of a teacher or scholar in the Sunday school is less than five years. There are some who remain longer, but others who are members for even a shorter time. Upon the average, every school is a new school once in four or five years. If one fifth of the school leaves every year, there must be an equal number enter it, to keep the school at its normal size. But any inst.i.tution dependent upon the maintenance of a const.i.tuency, whether it be a periodical, a life-insurance a.s.sociation, or a Sunday school, begins to decline when its number remains stationary. The health and life of the school, therefore, require a constant renewal of its membership. The school must have new blood, or it will soon be impoverished and in time die.

2. =The Losses from the School.= Before the presentation of plans for winning new scholars comes the vital question of holding the scholars already on the roll; for the condition of leakage has a close relation to growth or decline. If the causes of the leakage can be ascertained, and the drain can be stopped, we shall be materially aided in our effort to enlarge the school.

(1) _The Search in the School._ Careful notation should be kept of the grades from which scholars are lost, or which are below a normal membership; and equally careful inquiry should be made as to the cause of the decline, and methods to correct it should be sought. Is it in the Primary Department, which should be the most rapidly growing department in the school? Is it in the Junior or Intermediate Department, where there ought to be a steady increase, even if it be slow? Is it in the Senior Department? Here there is great danger of losses, especially among young men. Is it not possible to find why they leave the school, and what will induce them to remain? Perhaps the school is deficient in the Adult Department. Must it be admitted that the Sunday school is for children only, and that as soon as its members become men and women their departure from the school is to be expected? The investigation should be more than general, ascertaining what departments are suffering loss; it should be personal, including the name and grade of every scholar who has ceased to attend for a definite period; and as far as possible the reason for his leaving the school.

(2) _Following up Absentees._ A systematic plan for watching over the membership of the school should be inst.i.tuted and vigorously maintained.

For example, in some schools a report of every absentee is made by the secretary to the superintendent. On Monday morning each teacher receives by mail the list of his absent scholars, with a request to send in writing, as soon as practicable, the cause of absence for each one. In many schools this work of looking after the absentees is performed by paid visitors--a good plan, but not so good as for the teacher to come into personal touch with his own scholars. A business firm watches over its customers, and endeavors in every possible way to hold them. The Sunday school which can maintain its grasp upon its members has the problem of growth already half solved.

3. =Characteristics of a Growing School.= The strongest force in recruiting the Sunday school is to be found in the character of the school itself. The merchant must have his shelves stocked with attractive goods if he expects customers. In order to obtain scholars there must be a good school.

(1) _Efficient._ The school should maintain high educational standards; should be thoroughly graded in all its departments, with suitable lessons for each grade; and should have organized cla.s.ses for young people and adults. The thoroughly good school will rarely lack for scholars.

(2) _Attractive._ The school should be attractive as well as efficient.

Its meeting place should be cheerful and airy, with suitable furniture and apparatus, above ground, and not a damp, dingy bas.e.m.e.nt. It should have enjoyable exercises, like a school, yet not too severely like a public school. It should greet new members heartily, make them feel at home, and cultivate acquaintance with them. There should be an animating spirit of loyalty and love for the school; a devotion which will inspire active effort in its behalf. Around the school should be the atmosphere of a happy home.

(3) _Prominent._ Among the activities of the church the school should stand forth prominently. It should be kept in mind that, as the neighborhood furnishes the const.i.tuency of the school, so the school furnishes the members for the church. In our time three fourths of the accessions by profession of faith come from the Sunday school. The school should be held in honor as the princ.i.p.al source of supply to the church membership. If the audience room is large and imposing, and the Sunday-school room is inferior and unattractive; if the pulpit and the choir are amply supported while the school receives a narrow sustenance, however great the prosperity of the church its duration will be brief.

The Sunday school must stand in the foreground, and not in the background, if the church is to grow; and the growing church should have a growing Sunday school.

(4) _Special Occasions._ Throughout the Sunday-school year occur days which should be recognized, as breaking the monotony of the regular exercises, and as attractive features of the school. Such are Christmas, Easter, Children's Day in June, Rally Day in the fall, and Decision Day, when the net is drawn for discipleship in behalf of the church. Some superintendents look upon these occasions as burdensome, but with careful preparation and an attractive program they will add to the interest of the school, while in no wise detracting from the efficiency of its educational work. An occasional social entertainment for the school, or for each department in turn, and an outing day in the summer, will strengthen that _esprit de corps_ or animating spirit of the school which is its strongest drawing power in attracting new members.

(5) _Special Helps._ There are communities where certain methods may avail more than elsewhere. A well-conducted Sunday-school library, no longer needed in many places, may be of great value in villages where there is no public library. A reading room, social hall, and gymnasium may const.i.tute the church a home for young men whose dwelling places may be in close tenement houses. Young men are in saloons, and young women are in amus.e.m.e.nt parks, who might spend their evenings under the healthy influence of the church if places were provided. These plans and other features of the inst.i.tutional church will need careful and wise administration if they are to do good and not harm; but in many places they will minister to the success of the school and the church, and also to the uplifting of the community.

4. =Reaching Beyond the School.= Thus far in this chapter we have considered the school rather than the field. One of the chief tasks of the Sunday school, however, is to reach out and lay hold of all the inhabitants, both young and old, in the area of its influence. The following active measures have proved effective in reaching the people and winning them to the school.

(1) _Advertise._ The school should be kept before the community in every legitimate way. Merchants tell us that the secret of success is first to have salable goods, and then to advertise them; and the same principle applies to the Sunday school. Printer's ink should be used liberally, but wisely. Only neatly printed, attractive matter should be employed.

Invitation cards, leaflets, programs of special services, a little periodical devoted to the school, a year book containing the school register, and many other forms of advertis.e.m.e.nt will help to inform the neighborhood that the school is at work and is ready to welcome new members.

(2) _Invite._ Every officer, teacher, scholar, and parent should consider himself a committee to speak to others about the school, and to invite his friends and acquaintances to attend it. The little children should ask their playmates, boys and girls in school their cla.s.smates, young men their shopmates, young women their a.s.sociates. No printed paper can have a tenth of the power possessed by the living voice and a hearty hand-shake. It is a.s.sumed that the invitation is given only to those who are not already attached to any church or school. All possible care should be taken to maintain a fraternal spirit, and not to build up our own wall by pulling down another.

(3) _Visit._ The field belonging to the school should be bounded definitely, and should be thoroughly and systematically canva.s.sed. It should be divided into districts, and each district a.s.signed to a visitor and a committee, who should know who may be included in the proper const.i.tuency of the school. For this work many schools and churches employ a paid visitor or a deaconess; and none can surpa.s.s the zeal or fidelity of many who enter upon such a vocation. But the schools which cannot afford professional workers include some teachers and some adult scholars who can give a portion of their own time to the same task. An organized cla.s.s of men might be named which grew into over a hundred members through persistent work by a simple plan. A lookout committee, after careful inquiry, would report the names and addresses of men eligible for membership. Then the members in order and by appointment, in groups of two, called upon each candidate, formed his acquaintance, and invited him to the cla.s.s. Sometimes thirty or forty men would call, but in time almost every man visited yielded to the friendly social influence, became a member, and soon after a worker for the cla.s.s.

5. =A Danger.= A caution may be needed with reference to all these plans of recruiting the school. Advertising may be carried to the excess of becoming sensational. Invitations may be pressed upon scholars in other schools. The effort for increase may degenerate into unfriendly rivalry.

A good plan may work evil when worked in a selfish spirit. And a too-rapid growth is sure to be unhealthy. The late B. F. Jacobs said, "G.o.d pity the Sunday school that gets a hundred scholars at one time!" A quiet, steady, diligent, persistent effort for the school will be of permanent benefit, rather than a spasm of enthusiasm.

XVII

THE TESTS OF A GOOD SUNDAY SCHOOL

In the United States more than a hundred thousand Sunday schools are in session every week. Some of them are very good, many are only moderately efficient, and some are poor in every respect. The question arises, what const.i.tutes a good Sunday school? Is it possible to establish some standard of measurement by which the rank of any Sunday school can be fixed? In such a standard there must be several factors, for the points of excellence in Sunday school are not one, but many. It is the aim in this closing chapter to ascertain the criteria or the tests of a good Sunday school. The statement of these tests involves the summing up and in some measure the repet.i.tion of much already given throughout these pages.

1. =Representative Character.= The first test of a Sunday school is found in its relation to the community around it. The Sunday school is not a bed of exotic plants, dug up from their native soil, potted and protected in a conservatory. It is an outdoor garden wherein are cultivated the flowers and fruits that are indigenous to the region. A true Sunday school is a group of people drawn out of the larger world around it, and representing every element in that world, both as regards social life and age. If it represents the rich and the prosperous only, it is not a good school, unless the neighborhood is unfortunate in containing only such people. If it is a mission school for poor people in the midst of a self-supporting population, it is not a good school.

If it includes few members above sixteen, and none above twenty-five years of age, it is not a good school, for it should embrace all ages from the infant to the grandfather. The school which is to stand on the roll of honor is one that fairly represents its const.i.tuency.

2. =Organization.= Another requirement for a good school is that it be well organized as a graded school. There may be Sunday schools which make up by their spirit for what they lack in system; yet the exceptions are few to the rule that in Sunday-school work organization is essential to success. It is true that machinery creates no power; there is nothing in a const.i.tution and by-laws to make an inst.i.tution successful. It is the efforts of living men and women that bring to pa.s.s results. But organization directs and economizes power; so that, other elements being equal, the graded school quickly becomes the best school. We have already seen that a graded school is one with departments defined, with the number of cla.s.ses in each department fixed according to the needs of the school, with promotions at regular periods, based either on age or examination or merit, or on all three factors in combination, with lessons graded according to the departments, and, as its most important element, with a change of teachers when the pupil is promoted from a lower to a higher grade or department. The graded system is not easy to establish; it requires firmness and tact in the authorities, and a self-denying spirit on the part of teachers; but it will abundantly and quickly repay all it costs in effort and sacrifice, and it is an essential in a really good Sunday school.

3. =Order.= A good school is orderly, yet it is not too orderly.

Everybody is in place at the proper time. At the minute, and not a minute later, the superintendent opens the school. If he rings a bell, it is a gentle, musical one, held up by the leader as a signal and scarcely sounded. There is not more confusion than at the opening of any other religious service. Only one service is conducted at a time; singing is worshipful, just as well as prayer, and the Scriptures are read thoughtfully and reverently. No officers are rushing up and down the aisles during the services; no loud calls are made for order; yet there is a suitable quietness when quietness is desirable. A good school is never disorderly, yet it cannot be said that the best school is always the most orderly. Occasionally one sees a Sunday school where order has gone to the extreme of repressing all enthusiasm, where the program is too finely cut and too thoroughly dried, where the mechanism moves with the precision of the lockstep in a state prison. The ideal of the Sunday school is not that of the French minister of education who is reported to have stated that he could look at his watch and tell at that minute what question was before each cla.s.s in every school in France!

4. =Spirit.= For lack of a more definite term we call the next characteristic of a good Sunday school its spirit. In any successful school one feels rather than finds a peculiar and individual atmosphere.

Every member, from the superintendent to the Primary scholar, manifests an interest in the inst.i.tution; an interest of blended love, loyalty, enjoyment in it and enthusiasm for it. There is a social spirit in each cla.s.s and in the school as a whole. Its members do not meet as pa.s.sengers in a railway station, each one wrapped up in his own business and watching for his own train. They all have their individual friendships and social relations, yet a bond unites them all as members of one Sunday school. This peculiar _esprit de corps_, an interest in the inst.i.tution, is a strongly marked feature in every progressive Sunday school.

5. =Educational Efficiency.= The Sunday school is in the world with a definite work--religious education. Its religion will be based on the Old Testament and kindred literature in a Jewish school; it will be based on both the Old and New Testament and supplemental literature in a Christian school; but whether Jewish or Christian, its work is the teaching of religion, as contained in the living Word, and ill.u.s.trated by the lives and teachings of the heroes of the faith. The true test of a Sunday school is the answer that it can give to the question, "Does it teach the vital religious truths of the race so as to develop individual character and efficiency?" That is its task, and by its success in accomplishing it each school is to be judged; not by the splendor of its building, or the exactness of its machinery, or the enthusiasm of its members. The thirty or thirty-five minutes devoted to the lesson is the supremely important period in every true Sunday school. The time is often bound to be all too short for teaching divine truth, and printing it upon mind and memory so deeply that all the studies and pleasures of the six days between the two Sundays will not cause the teaching to fade. Yet the time is as long as the ordinary teacher (or preacher) can hold attention to one subject, and therefore in most cla.s.ses it is sufficient. Toward that half hour of teaching, therefore, all the energies of the school, of the training cla.s.s, home study, teachers'

meeting, gradation, government, should be turned. For the vital aim of the Sunday school is the eternal message of G.o.d to men through men, so that men and women of the Christ spirit and character may be developed.

6. =Character-Building.= The first task, therefore, of the Sunday school is to teach the Word, but that teaching is only a means to an end, and that end is greater than mere intellectual knowledge--it is the building up of a complete character. This is more than "bringing souls to Christ," or leading them into church membership. If the sole aim of the Sunday school was to compa.s.s the salvation of the scholar and to surround him with the walls of a church, then we might safely dismiss our scholars when they have pa.s.sed through a crisis of conversion and entered the church door. But the Sunday school is to do more than save its scholars from sin. It is to train them in the completeness of a Christian character; and such a character involves not only personal righteousness but also service for G.o.d and humanity. Its aim is not to take people apart out of the world, but to set them in the world, equipped for work in making the world a Christian world, and thereby establishing on earth the kingdom of heaven. The measure by which the Sunday school accomplishes such a work as this, const.i.tutes the final, crucial test of its success.

It cannot be said that any one of these six essentials of a good Sunday school stands supreme. They do not march in Indian file; nor are they to be set one against another in a comparison of values. These traits of a complete Sunday school should rather be regarded as one of the New Testament writers describes the traits of a complete character, in that familiar yet only half-understood pa.s.sage, "As in the harmony of a choral song, blend with your faith the note of energy, and with your energy the note of knowledge, and with your knowledge the note of self-mastery,"[12] through all the eight aspects of the Christian; so let these six essential elements be combined to form that n.o.ble inst.i.tution, the ideal Sunday school.

FOOTNOTE:

[12] 2 Pet. 1. 5-7.

APPENDIX

BLACKBOARD OUTLINE AND REVIEW QUESTIONS

I. THE HISTORIC PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL MOVEMENT