Sunday-School Success A Book of Practical Methods for Sunday-School Teachers and Officers

_Birthday Letters._--Little children will prize highly a cordial, loving letter written to them by their teacher on their birthday. Doubtless the very oldest scholars in the sch...

The work of the primary department lies at the foundation of all Sunday-school work. This does not mean that there is no chance of a child's becoming a good Bible scholar and a...

An egotist is foredoomed to failure in the Sunday-school. The worker that hopes for success must cast to the winds any foolish pride in originality, and seek far and wide for th...

What the Sunday-school library should be depends on what the community is. These libraries, therefore, should not pattern after one another like peas in a pod, as is too often t...

Some teachers think that preparing the lesson is merely the loading of a cannon with powder, that it may go off with a big bang in the presence of admiring scholars. And the mor...

Before his listless and restless audience the lecturer took in his hand a piece of chalk, turned to the blackboard, and touched it. Instantly he had the eager attention of all....

Our conventions are the grand council fires in the war the Sunday-school is waging against the forces of evil. The flame of the Holy Spirit should blaze in their midst. With mil...

The Lesson Committee often assigns us two or three lessons in a book, and from these few lessons the scholars must get some comprehensive knowledge of the entire book. A book st...

Intemperance is the church's greatest foe, missions her greatest task. Around these two topics cluster the highest chivalry, the most splendid romance, of our modern world. The...

The superintendent of a Sunday-school is not the steam of the boat, for all true power comes from the Holy Spirit. He does not even tend the fires; that work the teachers must d...

Some teachers omit the review, or pass over it in a perfunctory way. This is as if a merchant should never balance his books, or, taking a trial balance, should be heedless of t...

A word must be said about the co-operation of the Sunday-school and that other great modern agency for work with the youth, the young people's religious society. Whatever is sai...

We are likely to think that the attention of children is hard to get; but the very opposite is true. The minds of children, like their tongues, are hung in the middle. It is the...

The teachers' meeting is not so much to get facts as to vivify and arrange them. The leader does not teach the lesson unless he teaches how to teach the lesson. This is a place...

The Master, who loves little children, stood in the Sunday-school door and cried to all that came up, "Who will teach my children about me?" And they all with one consent began...

In no way can more Christianity be taught in less time than by a good prayer. A Sunday-school that is not opened with the right kind of prayer remains tight shut until the teach...

Far above concordance, Bible index, Bible dictionary, commentary, I count the monotessaron the very best help to Bible study. The monotessaron, it might be parenthetically remar...

One of the brightest women in the United States, a woman well known to the Protestant churches of the world, was groaning to me the other day: "What _shall_ I do with those boys...

There are short-story writers who are able to hold our attention charmingly for an episode, and there are other minds which are able to lead us entranced through the varied scen...

Lifeless singing means, usually, a dead Sunday-school. Many a superintendent might greatly increase the vigor of his school by getting a little snap into the music. Different wa...

If I were asked to name the chief fault of the average teacher, I should say, "Asking questions that can be answered by 'Yes' and 'No.'" Among my acquaintances was once a teache...

A little child once declared that she liked a certain sermon because there were so many "likes" in it. For the same reason, that same child would have liked Christ as a Sunday-s...

On several pages of this book I have hinted at the use of the newspaper in our teaching; but the theme deserves a chapter to itself. An up-to-date teacher is respected, and it i...

Sunday-school teachers often make the mistake of confounding "lesson illustrations" with "practical applications." A lesson illustration is a picture of the truth you are studyi...

In one of those dreams which are truer than waking there passed before me a long line of the Sunday-school teachers I have known. One after the other they appeared--those that h...

The hard-working Sunday-school teacher picks up his cartridge, proudly carries it to the desired destination, and there explodes it. The shrewd Sunday-school teacher uses the sc...

Certain arts, such as sculpture, painting, and architecture, have been named the fine arts by some man who had not learned to look inward, and see what an infinitely finer art i...

I was once sergeant of a college military company that was being trained by an officer of the regular army from the nearest barracks. In one evolution it was made my duty to mar...

Ever since Socrates, conversation has been the soul of teaching, and ever since Adam and Eve the question has been the life of conversation. A teacher's success depends, in abou...

I use this title advisedly, because I believe that it requires more genuine inspiration to lead the average scholar to ask questions than to perform any other part of the teache...

The Bible is so full of suggestion that it is impossible, in the brief Sunday-school half-hour, to view the many fields of thought opened before us with any degree of satisfying...

I have read the lesson text, and the text before the lesson text and after it. I have read the wisest commentaries I can find, and as many of them as I can find time for. I have...

In his exceedingly suggestive book entitled "Before an Audience" Mr. Shepard insists strenuously on what he calls "physical earnestness" in a speaker. It is not meant by this th...

Some scholars side-track their teacher merely to show that they understand how to use the switch; others do it by simply fooling with the switch, in pure carelessness and though...

I believe in the organization of Sunday-school classes, because it fosters class spirit. If it is a good thing to have a class, it is a good thing for the class to have a spirit...

It is marvelous how rich in suggestion all passages of the Bible are to the thoughtful, studious mind. It is no less marvelous how bare and barren the wealthiest portions become...

At the opening of the school the superintendent hasn't half a chance; at the close he has a large chance--as large, in fact, as he is. At the opening the superintendent is merel...

The analogy for the class-building of some teachers is the arch. Every scholar is needed in his place, or the class-work collapses; and of course there is no room for a visitor....

The cliff-scaler, who lowers his comrade down the precipice, does not take for granted the fastening around the tree or the stoutness of the rope; but the Sunday-school teacher...

A large number of Sunday-schools are in the habit of holding a picnic every summer. In spite of the countless jests at the expense of the Sunday-school picnic, the custom is in...

For the general school it is an index, since if Christ is not "in the midst" of the few on rainy days, surely the many on sunny days are not wont to gather "in his name."

Of course, he is to be transformed into the early scholar, care being taken lest by mistake he be transformed into the scholar absent altogether. And during this process of tran...

The weak point in the preparation most Sunday-school teachers make is their failure to prepare a schedule for their teaching--the order, that is, in which they shall take up and...

The teacher's manner must be heart-born. It must not become mannerism, which is head-born, and never reaches hearts. "Manner maketh the man," and also the teacher,--half-way, at...