Training the Teacher Part 37

8. What are four tools at the teacher's disposal?

9. What const.i.tutes a good story?

10. What two processes are at work in every good recitation?

11. What are the three phases of oral instruction?

12. When is a review valuable?

13. What is meant by the will?

14. Name five elements that characterize good teaching?

15. What is Jesus' great power as a teacher?

NOTE.--This entire subject has been more fully discussed by Dr.

Brumbaugh in his book "The Making of a Teacher."

THE SCHOOL

MARION LAWRANCE

LESSON PAGE 1. The Sunday-school 219 2. The Sunday-school Equipped 224 3. The Sunday-school Organized 228 4. The Sunday-school Organized (concluded) 232 5. The Sunday-school in Session 236 6. The Sunday-school Teacher 240 7. The Workers' Meeting 244 8. Sunday-school Finance 248 9. The Sunday-school and Missions 251 10. Organized Adult Cla.s.ses 255

Teaching Hints

Leaders of cla.s.ses, and individuals pursuing these studies apart from cla.s.ses, are urged to read the chapter ent.i.tled "Teaching Hints," on page 259, before beginning this section

Lesson 1

The Sunday-school

#1.# The Sunday-school is the Bible-studying and teaching service of the church. It is a _church service_. All the members of the church should be connected with it. It should be under the care and control of the church. Its purpose is to present the Word of G.o.d, by the hand of competent living teachers, to every man, woman and child, for the purpose of leading them to Christ, developing their Christian characters, and training them for service.

#2. The Earliest Schools.#[A]--Schools for the study of G.o.d's Word seem to have existed as far back as the time of Abraham. In Moses'

day, schools were maintained for the religious training of the young.

These schools were numerous also in Ezra's time. Jesus no doubt attended such a school in his boyhood days. The schools of his time resembled the modern Sunday-school in some of their methods. There were elementary schools for children, and senior schools for both children and adults. These latter schools were connected with the synagogue. It was through these schools, chiefly, that the Christian church was extended and built up.

#3. The Raikes Movement.#[A]--The first seventeen centuries of the Christian era witnessed, for the most part, a general decline in the church and in Christian activity. During all this period, the church's life increased or waned in proportion as it attended to or neglected the religious instruction of the young. The seventeenth century, and much of the eighteenth century were dark days for the church. It was toward the close of this period that G.o.d saw fit to connect the name of Robert Raikes with the Sunday-school movement of the world. While he was probably not the founder of the first Sunday-school, his name is nevertheless inseparably connected with the beginnings of the modern Sunday-school. In the city of Gloucester, England, July, 1780, this man--the editor and proprietor of the Gloucester Journal--started his first Sunday-school, in the kitchen of a dwelling-house. This room was eleven feet long, eight feet wide, six and a half feet high. "The children were to come soon after ten in the morning and stay till twelve. They were to go home and stay till one, and after reading a lesson, they were to be conducted to church. After church, they were to be employed in repeating the catechism till half past five, and then to be dismissed with an injunction to go home without making a noise; and by no means to play in the street." Four women were employed as teachers in this school, at a shilling a day. The early Raikes schools were not connected with the church in any way.

[A] The statements in these paragraphs are taken in substance from "YALE LECTURES ON THE SUNDAY SCHOOL"

(Trumbull).

#4. Sunday-school Extension.#--Sunday-schools soon became very popular, and spread over Great Britain and into Europe. Sunday-schools are known to have existed in the United States as early as 1786, and probably much earlier than that (even in 1674). They found congenial soil in the Western Hemisphere, and multiplied rapidly. There are now more than a quarter of a million Sunday-schools in the world, enrolling more than twenty-five millions of people. More than one-half of this vast army is in North America.

#5. The Sunday School Union of London.#--This organization was effected in 1803 in Surrey Chapel, London, and is the oldest expression of organized Sunday-school work. It is local only in name.

Its auxiliaries are to be found in all parts of the United Kingdom, Continental Europe and the various dependencies of Great Britain. It holds valuable properties in London, conducts an extensive printing establishment, and maintains a large corps of workers as secretaries, colporteurs, etc., not only in Great Britain but on the Continent, in India and elsewhere.

#6. The American Sunday School Union.#--The earliest Sunday-school organizations in North America were a Sunday School Union in New York City in 1816, another in Boston the same year, and still another in Philadelphia in 1817. These were combined in 1824 into a national society known as The American Sunday School Union. This society, through its large corps of missionaries, plants new Sunday-schools, especially on the frontier. It conducts a large publishing establishment at its headquarters in Philadelphia, and has done and is doing a great work.

#7. The National Sunday School Convention.#--The first national interdenominational convention in the United States was held in the city of New York in 1832. Delegates were present from fourteen states and four territories. A second convention was held in the city of Philadelphia, the following year, 1833. Not until 1859 was the third convention held, and this one also in the city of Philadelphia. In 1869, in Newark, N. J., may be said to have begun the present series of great conventions in our country, for they have been held triennially from that time until the present. The fourth and last strictly national convention was held in the city of Indianapolis in 1872. Here the International System of Uniform Lessons had its birth.

The International Lessons went into use January, 1873. They are selected by a committee appointed by the International Convention, co-operating with a similar committee appointed by the Sunday School Union of London. It was decided that the next convention should be international in character, and include the Dominion of Canada.

#8. International Sunday School Movement.#--International conventions have been held triennially since 1875.

The International Sunday School a.s.sociation administers its affairs through an Executive Committee of nearly one hundred men, representing every state, province, territory and country in and belonging to North America. In its main a.s.sociation, and through its auxiliaries, it employs a large number of Sunday-school workers in its various departments. It is supported by the voluntary offerings of Sunday-schools and individuals. Under its auspices are held annually about sixteen thousand Sunday-school conventions, the purpose of which is to give information, stimulation, and education along all lines of Sunday-school work.

#9. Auxiliary a.s.sociations.#--The various states, provinces, territories and countries of North America maintain a.s.sociations auxiliary to the International Sunday School a.s.sociation. The oldest existing organization is that of the Province of Quebec, which has been in continual operation since 1836. The states and provinces, for the most part, maintain annual conventions. Auxiliary to these auxiliaries are the a.s.sociations of the counties or next smaller political divisions. In the thickly settled portions of the country, still smaller organizations are effected in the townships and cities.

#10. The World's Sunday School a.s.sociation.#--The First World's Sunday School Convention was held in the city of London, England, in 1889, about two hundred and fifty delegates attending from North America.

The Second World's Convention was held in connection with the Seventh International Convention at St. Louis, Missouri, in 1893. The Third World's Convention was held again in London in 1898. Three hundred delegates were present from North America. The Fourth World's Convention was held in Jerusalem, Palestine, in 1904. Over eight hundred delegates attended from North America, and nearly five hundred from Great Britain, traveling in chartered steamships. The World's Fifth Sunday School Convention was held in the city of Rome, Italy, in 1907, with over eleven hundred delegates. And there the World's Sunday School a.s.sociation was organized, to hold conventions, gather statistics, and to co-operate with other organizations in increasing the efficiency of Sunday-schools throughout the world. The World's Sixth Sunday School Convention is to be held in Washington, D. C., 1910.

Test Questions

1. What is the Sunday-school?

2. Give instances of the earliest schools for the study of G.o.d's Word.

3. Describe what is known as the Raikes movement.

4. How early are Sunday-schools known to have existed on our continent?

5. How many Sunday-schools in the world to-day?

6. What proportion of these are in America?

7. What is the Sunday School Union of London?

8. What is the American Sunday School Union?

9. Where and when were the four National Sunday-school Conventions held?

10. When and where did the International Lessons have their origin?

When put into use?

11. How many International Conventions have been held?