Part 2

Several years ago, while in attendance upon a Sunday-school meeting, the writer of this enjoyed a lengthened interview with the late Rev. Dr. Lyman Beecher, then in his prime. Our conversation turned upon that unfortunate feature of the cause in England which virtually excluded all the better-to-do children of that country. Dr. Beecher's eye lit up at once, and with great animation, as he said to me: "It was the same here at first, and I do not know but I had an important hand in producing the change. I saw the tendency of things, and feared that our Sunday-schools would result in a failure if only the poor children gained the benefit of them in this land, and it troubled me for some year or two. At last," said he, energetically, "I resolved to overthrow that system, and went and called upon Judge W., one of my most influential families, and said, 'Judge W----, I want you to bring your children to Sunday-school next Sabbath.' '_Me_!' exclaimed the Judge in amazement. 'Yes, you,' calmly responded Dr. Beecher: 'I have made up my mind to take _my children_, and I want you and a few others of the best families to popularize the thing.' A little explanation secured the object. He then called upon Mrs. S----, the most aristocratic lady in the community, and said, 'Mrs. S---- I want you to lead _your two daughters_ into our Sunday-school next Sabbath;' and, said the Doctor, 'Mrs. S---- almost shouted in astonishment;' but a more particular and careful explanation than sufficed with Judge W---- succeeded here; and then the family of the first physician was in like manner secured, and we all turned our labor and influence on the Sunday-school movement, and it gave an unheard-of impetus to our Sunday-school, and by means of the press and by letters and personal conversation the facts became known and met with almost universal approval and adoption in our country, and the reform soon became complete." Blessings, a thousand blessings rest upon the memory of the man, or the men and women, who aided to bring about this glorious change in this land!

The law of progress is very noticeable in the teaching of the Sabbath-school. Robert Raikes's first idea was scarcely more than to keep the children out of the streets and to protect the Sabbath. Then the children were taught to read and write. After that a great advance was made by the introduction of the Bible as the reading-book; the next step was to commit the Bible to memory; and then the Christian Churches took hold of the Sabbath-school.

For awhile _Memory_ was crowded to its utmost extent, to the injury of the scholar, and more memorizing became the hobby in most of our schools. After a while the physicians checked this, by telling us that by crowding the memory we were developing a new disease amongst children, viz., Hydrocephalus, or water on the brain. Then our schools were in trouble, and resort was had to question-cards, and finally question-books became the hobby. In a few years question-books began to be stale and monotonous, and we appealed to the imagination and resorted to stories and anecdotes until they wearied, and then we searched commentaries, and theology was administered to the children in large doses. After that what was called spiritual teaching was adopted, but that soon degenerated into mere exhortation. Now we find that we must comprehensively grasp and rightly use them all, and make a hobby of none. The _memory_ is the grand store-house of the mind, and it should be well filled; but it is folly to over-stock it and overwhelm the brain. The _imagination_ is God's grand medium of worship and communion with him and the spiritual world. We cannot worship God without it. Let us not exorcise it because some abuse it. "The _imagination_ has the same place in the faculties that the eye has among the senses." The _intellect_ is God's great gift which distinguishes man from the brute. Let us never worship nor pervert it. The _heart_ is the soul of man. To save it the Son of man came down from heaven to earth. Unless the heart is gained all is lost; but if we appeal to the heart alone, we but develop the puny Christian. Let us, therefore, use all wisely, but misuse none. At first the aim of Sabbath-school teaching was very feeble and indefinite: to keep the children out of mischief--teach them to read the Bible--correct their manners and make them good children--not profane and disobedient. Then the aim was to give them a general knowledge of Bible history and catechism. The ablest early Sabbath-school works published under the patronage of the Queen of England did not even hint at the possible conversion of the children. The Bible was long introduced as a book of task lessons to the young, and catechism and hymn learning engrossed our Bible classes. Now, the Bible is exalted, and so applied in our Sabbath-schools as to be the most attractive of all books to the children and youth. _Now_, the aim of Sabbath-school teaching is, or ought to be, the _immediate_ conversion of the children to Christ. It is a poor excuse to suffer a child to drown because we have but one opportunity of saving it. _Now_, many Sabbath-school teachers have learned the great and precious art of leading even little children to Jesus--"Just now."

Sabbath-schools are, as we believe, about to enter upon a great and glorious career, compared with which all the past history of the cause is but as the early dawn before a bright and glorious day; and this era is the culture and training by the word and grace of God of all that constitutes the best style of man and Christian; for we hold it to be the true teacher's position that there is no weakness or infirmity of temper, habit, purpose, or character in any of our pupils that the Sabbath-school, with its divine text-book and the promised Spirit of God, is not perfectly competent to remove. Let this be our standard, and according to our faith be it unto us. May the great Master so bless and prosper this heaven-born institution that speedily "our children may _all_ be taught of the Lord, and that great may be the peace of our children."

III.

CONVENTIONS.

The object of these gatherings is to arouse, to instruct, and to train. 1. To explore the districts, report the destitutions, and devise the best ways of filling up existing schools, of planting new schools, and reaching, if possible, every neglected child. 2. To call attention to the bad or inefficient habits in the modes of conducting and teaching in our Sabbath-schools, and to suggest a remedy by detailing the more excellent ways. 3. To instruct and train teachers how they may prepare and teach the lesson better, and how they can become better acquainted with children's character, language, and feelings. It is of prime importance that there should be frequent and earnest conferences of pastors, superintendents, and teachers, in order to become acquainted with all the best modes and real improvements that the most favored enjoy. A quarter of a century or more ago, county Sunday-school conventions and anniversaries were frequently held, but they were usually crowded into a single afternoon, giving the Bible Society the morning and the Temperance Union the evening of the day. The time was insufficient to examine the state of the cause, or the schools, with much care, although the meetings were uniformly pleasant, and sometimes of considerable interest; yet their influence was quite limited and evanescent.

It was during the early autumn of 1856 that the good Spirit prompted the Sabbath-school teachers of Massachusetts, one thousand strong, to pay a visit to the Crystal Palace and the Sabbath-school teachers of New York. They were received with great cordiality, and mingled delightfully with the Sabbath-school teachers of New York and Brooklyn during two or three days, closing with a grand Farewell Meeting in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. This religious festival afforded a good opportunity for the Sabbath-school laborers from the various sections of the country to compare views and converse freely about all departments of the good work. All this proved to be interesting and profitable beyond all expectation, and the result was, there arose a very general desire to renew these prolonged conferences of teachers, under other forms, as soon as practicable.

Accordingly, Massachusetts called a three-days State Sabbath-school Convention, in the city of Boston, later in the fall of the same year; and New York held its first State Sabbath-school Convention, of three days, in the city of Albany, in the month of January, 1857. Both conventions were enthusiastic and useful, and those States have continued these meetings annually since that period; and most of the Northern States, and some of the Southern States, have followed the good example, with the most beneficial results. They have awakened much interest and aroused the people everywhere. Beside the State meetings, County and Town Sunday-school Conventions have been organized quite extensively, combining counsels and efforts in all directions. The States appointed County Secretaries or Vice-Presidents, and counties gave the same office to the towns, forming a medium of union and communication, exploration and effort throughout.

These conventions are very useful; but care must be taken or they will degenerate into dull, heavy routine, or wordy discussions, or tedious essays, or mere story-telling, or a waste of time in organizing.

The whole value of Sunday-school conventions depends, of course, upon the manner in which they are conducted. Like the teaching by a wrong mode, they can be made profoundly wearisome, when they should always be made profoundly interesting and profitable. Let the convention be called with GREAT CARE and EFFORT. Let the call always proceed from the right source. Consider well as to the right time and the right place. Then first carefully counsel with the leading pastors and superintendents of the various denominations, so that they may understand it and arrange for it. Get a pastor to speak particularly and personally beforehand to three or four of his most active, influential ladies, asking them to notify other families and arrange so as to favor the convention. Take the same course with the men; for we must have much personal effort in getting it up. Let the call state distinctly the object, and, as far as may be, the order of the meetings, and send it out as early as three or four weeks before the meeting, to all, and with particular care. Do not depend upon newspaper advertisements to give notice. Get as many pastors, superintendents, and teachers as possible to _pledge_ a constant attendance at every meeting and be ready to aid at all times. Secure a light, cheerful, comfortable room. Place a large, clean blackboard, with crayons and rubber, on the platform, together with a supply of paper and pencils for taking notes. Appoint a good leader of singing. Meet promptly, and commence the meeting punctually, although but few may be present. Let the first half-hour be one of warm, earnest devotion. Have some appropriate, burning words of Scripture--two or three verses--ready to kindle and glow in every heart. The prayers and hymns should all be brief and directly to the point of seeking the blessing of God, without which all the efforts will be vain. Without God we can do nothing. Next call to order naturally, and waste not a moment of time in a simple organization. Have an understanding beforehand and call a good, influential man, fitted to preside, to the chair, and appoint a suitable Secretary, and, perhaps, a Business Committee. Then enter earnestly into the work before you. Wait not a moment for the business committee to report, but let the chairman call for reports from some section as to the state and prospects of Sabbath-schools. Gather information, and let that information be the _basis_ of systematic action.

The missionary and aggressive feature should first claim attention. Care must be taken that unimportant routine of particular schools does not clog the convention. If in a State gathering, you can hardly have time to hear reports except from counties. If a county meeting, hear from towns; and if in a town gathering, you can descend and hear suggestive reports from schools, leading to right action. In other conventions, references to individual schools must be mostly in the way of some spirited illustration. Get a bird's-eye view of your whole field, and then detail the best plans of meeting deficiencies, so as to reach effectually the whole outlying population, either by voluntary effort, or by Sabbath-school missionaries, in filling up existing schools and planting others as needed. After a thorough canvass of your whole field, then inquire what are the great wants and difficulties in our present Sabbath-school operations? and how can we best remove them and introduce all the _real_ modern improvements?

Descend next to details as to organization, good records, the library, superintendents, teachers, and how to get them and train them so as to be efficient; good order, music, prayers, and good teaching in the Infant, Scripture, and Bible classes, with such helps as the blackboard, object-lessons, map-drawing, Bible geography, and history; teachers' meetings, and how successfully and profitably to conduct them; missionary meetings, monthly concerts of prayer, temperance meetings, social gatherings, mothers' meetings in mission schools, and especially children's prayer-meetings; addresses, reviews, catechisms, &c., may all be considered.

Then again we want help for the teacher; how to teach, with examples of various modes; illustrative teaching, pictorial teaching; on the art of securing attention, and on the art of questioning; visiting, conversions, and training for Christian work and usefulness; how to enlist the Church, the parents, and the community, the pastors and church officers, in this great work. These and other subjects should be brought up, not for indefinite discussion and debate, but for careful information, deliberate thought, and suggestions resulting from observation and mature experience.

Let all things be so arranged that one topic will naturally flow into and call up another; and what you touch, handle well. If one subject is brought up, and no one is ready to take it up, pass on to another, until you come to one upon which some person has a question to raise, or a suggestion or information to offer, or an experience to refer to about it. Waste not a moment of time in pointless and prosy harangues. A good time merely, pleasant anecdotes, or touching recitals of dying children, or sharp discussions, are not sufficient to constitute a good Sabbath-school convention. The great idea of Sabbath-schools, be it never forgotten, is not singing, or exhibitions, or addresses, or concerts. It is to meet together for the saving worship of God, in the thoughtful study of his Holy Word, in the singing of his praise, and in solemn, believing prayer, through our Lord Jesus Christ. These are the high and holy objects to which all our conventions should contribute.

An important National Sabbath-school Convention was held in Philadelphia in the year 1859, and this gave an additional impulse to the cause. It was, however, during the years 1863 and 1864, that it was observed that these interesting Sabbath-school conventions were in danger of losing their power. They had fallen into a sort of routine, and had begun to be monotonous and stale to the regular attendants, because they were not sufficiently practical and profitable. The questions were, therefore, forced upon us, What must be done? What does the present crisis of the cause demand? How can our great gatherings be made more _useful_? Deliberation and counsel brought the answer: "We need more _instruction_." Teachers need training. They need to be taught how to prepare the lesson; how to secure attention; how to teach infants, juveniles, and adults; how to apply Bible truths. Superintendents need instruction how to gain order; how to organize and classify; how to open, conduct, and address and review the school; how to train the teachers and enlist the interest and service of parents, pastors, and the churches. All need inspiring with the spirit that will go forth and plant new schools, and gather in and secure a good religious education to every child in the community. In the way of accomplishment of these grand results the obstacles were foreseen--such as prosy essays, tedious discussions, formal addresses or sermons, which generalized everything and rendered it nought. On the other hand, we found a surfeit of touching little stories and old anecdotes, and it became necessary to strike out boldly for a reformation and an entire change of base in our plan of operations. Accordingly resort was had to what are called Sunday-school Institutes.

IV.

INSTITUTES.

They have grown out of the idea of the Public-school Teachers' Institutes, which have been sustained for many years with interest and profit, the expenses being cheerfully met out of the State Treasury. Our Sabbath-school Institutes are modeled somewhat on the same plan. The object is, by means of practical essays, model lessons, lectures, and drill exercises, to train the teachers and officers for their work. Institutes differ from other conventions in calling out the audience in responses, recapitulations, and more detailed instruction. They will take their character very much from the character and course pursued by the conductor. No two persons, perhaps, would conduct them alike. For instance, one man would give more attention to superintending, addresses, public exercises, singing, etc. Another to the blackboard, object teaching, and sacred geography; while another still, would give more attention to methods of teaching, teachers' meetings, normal classes, model lessons, etc. We would prefer to combine ALL these things in their due proportion, in every Institute, and make as complete and clear work on every point as possible. The great object is to make them _useful_. If this is secured, they will be all the more interesting. There are two great subjects which should always be before every Institute, as well as every convention, viz., 1. The extension of Sabbath-schools, so as to reach all of the neglected; 2. The elevation and improvement of existing schools; and they need improving, if not reforming, in every part.

The first idea of a Sabbath-school Institute that ever entered the mind of the writer was suggested to him by a pastor, Rev. W. A. Niles, in the State Sunday-school Convention at Buffalo, New York, in 1864. An experiment was soon successfully made, and since then they have become almost universally popular and useful. The same thought, we have since been informed, had been considered, and Institutes held by the Rev. J. H. Vincent, in the Western Methodist Conferences; and as long ago as 1827, the New York Sunday-school Union, in its Eleventh Annual Report, particularly recommended this plan "of a school for the training of Sabbath-school teachers."

The forms of these Institutes are various. Many are made up partly of convention and partly of Institute exercises. Ordinarily two or three days and evenings are entirely devoted to one, by a county, or district comprising a dozen counties. Another plan, when held in a city, is to devote all the evenings and a part of the afternoons of a week to it; as in New York city last year, and recently in Brooklyn; also, prefacing it with an elaborate sermon on the Sabbath evening previous. Another plan still is to devote the usual weekly Teachers' Meeting of a school to a regular normal class or training Institute. All these plans are useful in the hands of a good conductor.

_The Subjects_

for consideration in an Institute may be suggested as follows:

1. How to form new schools. 2. How best to gather in the children. 3. Their conversion and culture. 4. Organization and classification. 5. Superintendents' duties. 6. Opening and closing exercises. 7. The library and record books. 8. The Bible classes. 9. The intermediate classes. 10. The infant-school. 11. Anniversaries and concerts. 12. Reviews and catechisms. 13. Children's prayer-meetings. 14. Training of converts. 15. How to teach; with model lessons and examples of good modes. 16. Illustrative teaching. 17. Object teaching. 18. Pictorial teaching. 19. The use of the blackboard. 20. The art of questioning. 21. The art of securing attention. 22. The preparation of the lesson. 23. Teachers' meetings. 24. Sunday-school music. 25. Children's prayers and devotions. 26. Map drawing. 27. Bible geography, history, etc. 28. Temperance meetings.

_The Exercises_

of an Institute may be--

1. Devotional exercises for specific objects.

2. Reports of superintendents and teachers as to how they do it, or reports of the destitution, wants, or difficulties.

3. Instruction by the conductor to meet the above specific wants and difficulties.

4. Questions by teachers and answers by the conductor to meet the points in the subject not fully explained.

5. Preparation lessons, practice lessons, and model lessons.

6. Explanatory and instructive addresses, lectures or essays.

7. Model Opening Exercises and Teachers' Meetings.

8. Drill exercises on activity, curiosity, inquisitiveness; or how to gain attention, how to instruct, how to impress, etc.

_Every one_ should take some part in an Institute, _i. e._, take notes, ask or answer questions, or give information or lessons. Let none be mere spectators. Always have plenty of paper for taking notes, also pencils, and provide a good blackboard and crayons, and perhaps a map, together with a good warm, light and pleasant room to meet in.

Get up the Institute with care. Have it all well understood, and then talk about it, write and print about it, and get teachers and pastors pledged to attend. Pray much for the Institute, and select the best time, and do all that you undertake to do, thoroughly and well. Let one subject naturally glide into the succeeding one. Waste no time with outside men or topics, but adhere to your programme religiously. One or two good helpers from abroad are sufficient, and do not invite men out of compliment. Guard well all denominational interests and feelings. Draw together in harmony and conciliate. Never become opinionated or dogmatic, for the moment we cease to learn, our usefulness will decline. Give change, variety and life to all the exercises.

Finally, the spirituality of any Sunday-school gathering must be earnestly sustained, or all will be in vain. God alone can make a good superintendent, or a good Sabbath-school teacher. We are as nothing. The cause only is great. Therefore, with the Word of God in our hands, let _all things_ be done in a sense of real heartfelt dependence upon God, and with earnest, believing supplication for the Divine direction and blessing.

Many of our Sabbath-school Conventions and Institutes are now very properly assuming a mixed character, combining whatever is wanted of both, in every meeting. We need to arouse, instruct and train; and also to know the details of "how to do it." May the Master control all these gatherings to His glory and the good of man!

_Rules._

1. Draw out the people to explain their wants, experience, and difficulties.

2. Then supply their wants.

3. Get one conductor, pay his expenses, and assign him to a good, quiet, comfortable place of entertainment near the church.

4. Commence promptly, and keep strictly to the programme and to time.

The following programme of an Institute we think most useful. It should be sent out two to four weeks in advance of the time of meeting:

_PROGRAMME._

_Tuesday Evening_.

7 to 7.30, Religious conference and prayer for the Institute--two or three minute exercises.

7.30 to 7.40, Organization and miscellaneous business.