Seven Graded Sunday Schools Part 4

All these books are catechetical in form, simple in statement, and seek through the questions to give the theme a natural unfolding. They are printed uniform in series. The Junior books have each about twenty pages the size of the Church Catechism, and the Senior books have each about thirty pages.

The Catechism is the first book of the series. Experience teaches that then memory best aids in its mastery. To these text-books on the Catechism is added a supplement on the books of the Bible and its history and geography. The "Life of Christ" undertakes to tell that life in the words of the gospels. "Church History" treats of the apostolic Church and great events in that history, as the Crusades and the Reformation under Luther and Wesley. The first Senior book, "Jewish History," follows mainly the outline of the Old Testament emphasized by the lessons of the international course. The second year book completes that history, and has chapters on the Bible--its translations and geography, etc. The third and fourth years are employed in the study of "Christian Evidences."

A glance shows that the course of study is a study of the Bible, the Junior books being taken from the New Testament, while the Senior cover the Old Testament.

This system calls for regular examination in which the cla.s.ses of the school partic.i.p.ate; it creates an atmosphere of study for the scholars.

They are expected and required to study, and they meet that expectation.

This system further promotes harmony between the different departments of the school and forms a basis for promotion for the scholars and cla.s.ses. Promotions are as regular and as judicious as in the public schools.

For what it is, and what it promises, it is brought to the attention of the Church and Sunday school.

THE GRADING.

In this work the number of departments into which the school is to be divided must be fixed. The following will probably be found requisite: Primary, Junior, Senior, Normal, a.s.sembly, and Reserve Departments. The Primary Department may be graded in unison with the school and a course of four years' study be adopted. The Normal Department takes the Chautauqua a.s.sembly course of study. The a.s.sembly is the adult Bible Cla.s.s of the school. Graduates of the Normal Department const.i.tute the Reserve Department. This department studies the Sunday school lesson a week in advance of the rest of the school, and stands ready to fill the places of absentee teachers. The main body of the school const.i.tutes the Junior and the Senior departments. The course of study is for these Departments, and covers a period of eight years. Their grading is a work of tact and difficulty.

The scholars should be formed into cla.s.ses, averaging seven to a cla.s.s.

These cla.s.ses, when organized, should be seated in the school, with the view of promotion from year to year. In a school of five hundred pupils the cla.s.ses would average about five to each grade.

Where these departments occupy the same room the Juniors may be seated on one side, according to rank, and the Seniors on the other side. The position of the cla.s.s, being won by merit, becomes a place of honor which the superintendent wisely uses. In the first organization a perfect grade is not attainable. Out of the material given only an approximation to the ideal can be hoped for. Time will cure defects.

Each year the entire system moves. With a few annual promotions the actual attains the ideal and the system becomes perfect in its grade.

In this we make haste slowly.

THE STUDY OF THE BOOKS.

The time of the introduction of the books and the method of their study are for the decision of the school. A suggestion may be offered. The Sunday school year may follow that of the public school. If so, their study would begin in September, and the examination would be the June following. But, whenever introduced, it should be made plain that the books are auxiliary only to the International System of Bible study.

Each session should have an allotted period of time, at least five minutes, for their study. Each teacher can divide the given matter into convenient parts so that the whole may be mastered in nine months. This study will be tested by an examination.

THE ANNUAL EXAMINATION.

This examination is the keystone of the whole system. Without it the course of study is a failure. Its importance must be emphasized before the whole school. How to emphasize it is a problem that each school must solve. A description of the plan adopted in the school where the system originated may throw some light on that question. Some Sunday in June is selected as the day for the examination, and of that day the school is forewarned. Examination questions, twenty in number, and covering the work of the year, are furnished each scholar. These questions are so printed as to leave blank s.p.a.ces under each question for the answer to be written by the scholar. The whole session of the school is given up to the examination. The papers are gathered and careful work is put thereon in marking the same. Each answer is marked on a scale of 5, and, if the answers are correct, the paper is marked 100. The marks thus make a system of percentage easily understood by all. The minimum percentage to pa.s.s the examination is 75. Those who get 75 and upward are known as honor students.

The Sunday following the examination a full report of the work of the school is read. An honor roll of students who pa.s.s the examination is placed upon the blackboard or printed in fine form and placed upon the walls of the room. These honor names are arranged alphabetically and without the percentage of standing, so that it is an equal honor to all students.

The Commencement Day of the graduates of the Normal Cla.s.s occurs shortly after the examination. These exercises are given on some suitable evening of the week, and are made the event of the school year. After the exercises comes the banquet. For this occasion the Sunday school room is made by the graduates a veritable bower of floral beauty. The Normal graduates and the honor students are received as the honored guests at these festivities.

Such a description may make plain how to emphasize the examination. At least two months before the examination the superintendent should make short, pointed appeals to the scholars and try to fill them with the spirit of study. These examination honors, open to every one, should be made plain to all. Adults work with an object in view. It is the same with the children.

The written examination, its report read to the school, the roll of honor, the promotions, the Commencement and its banquet, are appeals not made in vain to the modern child. What must be the legitimate result of such an appeal to the children? They work for the examination as they do for the examination in the public schools. These last weeks are busy ones. They meet evenings at the homes of the teachers, and on Sunday they gather at the church in special session for cla.s.s study.

Under such inspiration whole cla.s.ses have handed in perfect papers. And yet some may and will fail. For them a second examination is given.

Then on the day of promotion the whole school moves forward and occupies the rank won. A course of study can thus revolutionize a school and create an atmosphere of genuine study.

FOOTNOTE:

[A] These books have been published in pamphlet form by the Methodist Book Concern as "Graded Lessons for the Sunday School."

THE CHICOPEE PLAN.

BY HON. L. E. HITCHc.o.c.k.

CAN the graded system be successfully used in small Sunday schools? The plan described in this article has been in successful operation for several years in the Central Methodist Episcopal Sunday school in Chicopee, Ma.s.s., in which the membership during that time has averaged 200 and the average attendance has been about 150.

Before describing in detail the plan it may be well to stale three principles on which the plan is based:

1. A school, in order to be such, must be instructive as well as evangelistic, and if instruction is to be given there are many principles of instruction which have been worked out in our system of public schools and which have come to be accepted as right principles of teaching anything, and these principles cannot be ignored in teaching in the Sunday schools any more than they can in the day schools without impairment of the results desired.

2. In general terms, the most important principle of successful teaching is that it should be progressive and adapted in succeeding years to the normal development of the mind of the average child, and this relates to the method of teaching a given subject as well as to the selection of the subjects which shall be taught.

3. Another principle of successful teaching which is of almost as much importance as the one just alluded to is that there shall be one person at the head with a definite plan of work.

Applying these principles to Sunday school work, this school supposes that there is certain instruction which properly belongs to the Sunday school to give; that there is no reason why the Sunday school should not make use of the best methods of instruction which are known to educators so far as applicable; and that when the superintendent is elected to his place the church in effect commits to him or her the entire care of that part of the work of the church, and that it is perfectly proper for him to direct his teachers in the work which he will have done in his school during his term of office.

PLAN OF ORGANIZATION

The school is divided into three departments, Primary, Intermediate, and Senior. The Primary Department keeps the children until the New Year after they are eight years old; the Intermediate takes them through a ten years' course of study, and then the Senior Department receives them into the Bible cla.s.ses.

The Primary Department, which meets in a room by itself and has its own order of exercises, is divided into as many cla.s.ses with separate teachers as may be necessary for the proper care of its little folks, and all under the care of a superintendent of that department. The usual exercises of this department are of the general character customary in such grades.

In July the cla.s.s which will graduate at the end of the year is formed and placed in the care of a certain teacher, whose special duty is to see that the cla.s.s is prepared to graduate. The graduating exercises are public, and a neat diploma is presented to each scholar who thus graduates.

The Intermediate Department is divided into ten grades, each representing a year of study and each containing two cla.s.ses, one of boys and one of girls, although there is no reason why boys and girls should not be together in the same cla.s.s. There is no division of the Senior Department into grades. It contains only three cla.s.ses, namely, the Young Men's Bible Cla.s.s, the Young Ladies' Bible Cla.s.s, and the General Cla.s.s.

COURSES OF STUDY.

The princ.i.p.al work of the school is done along the lines of the International Lessons, which are used in all the departments, although the method of teaching them varies in the different grades.

In addition to the International Lessons Supplemental Lessons are taught in the Primary and Intermediate Departments. In the Primary Department these include the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, the Twenty-third Psalm, the Beat.i.tudes, and the Apostles' Creed.

The following schedule will show at a glance what are the specific studies of each grade in the Intermediate Department:

----------------------------------------------------------------------- Age. | Grade. | International Lesson. | Supplemental Lesson.[B]

----------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | 9 | I | Learn and recite the | First half of Catechism | | memory verses. | No. 1.

| | | 10 | II | Same as Grade I. | Last half of Catechism | | | No. I.

| | | 11 | III | Learn memory verses | Life of Jesus.

| | and one thought. | | | | 12 | IV | Study persons (if any) | Studies about the | | and one thought. | Bible.

| | | 13 | V | Study places (if any) | Bible Geography.

| | and two thoughts. | | | | 14 | VI | Study manners and customs | Bible History.

| | and two thoughts. | | | | 15 | VII | Teachings of the lesson | History of Christian | | having special reference | Church.

| | to manhood and | | | womanhood. | | | | 16 | VIII | Same as Grade VII. | History of M. E.