DISCUSSION SAMUEL H. WILLIAMS, PRESIDENT CONNECTICUT STATE SUNDAY SCHOOL ASSOCIATION, GLASTONBURY, CONNECTICUT The Sunday school of today is the result of a century of earnest, prayerful thought and persevering effort. Occasionally there has been some mighty step forward, as was the adoption of the Uniform Lesson System. And we are in the very midst of another advance, which will perhaps prove to be just as much of an epoch-maker as was that. But between such notable steps we must admit that there has still been progress; else such steps would not be possible. There has been steady and constant progress, and the present condition of the Sunday school is better than ever before. It may be that other institutions have made more rapid progress-for example, our public school system. But there are hundreds of country towns where the public schools are carried on in a way just as far behind the times as the Sunday schools in those same towns. I do not claim that religious education has advanced as rapidly as has so-called secular education, but that it is better now than ever before. There is one word that to my mind characterizes the present condition, namely, transition. We must see to it that out of the tangle of doubt and uncertainty and anticipation in which we are wandering we emerge on the further side. Upon being asked to take part in this discussion, I wrote to a dozen or more prominent Sunday-school workers, asking for their opinion on this subject. The replies have interested me greatly. As you might expect, some are hopeful, some pessimistic. As these opinions come from men of weight and influence, I will take time to bring some of them before you, as a symposium on the present condition of the Sunday school. Some say the present condition is discouraging, Because of the conservatism in the church, and the fact that the first available teachers are secured-though often incompetent. Because in a transitional state. Worse than six years ago. Teachers do not feel responsibility. Lack of interest on the part of adults. Ineffective because archaic. Fraught with menacing problems. Apathetic as to increased membership and influence. Preoccupation and indifference of parents and other adults. Others say the prospect is encouraging, Because the Sunday school is the strong right arm of the church, and is on the threshold of a tremendous forward movement. This transition is to better things. The Sunday school is venerable and mighty (like the Chinese empire); has the elements of a glorious future. Intelligent progress. A better class of men and women becoming interested. Much training done for Sunday-school work; and efforts for better instruction. Hopeful conditions as to spiritual life and efforts; and a transition as to ideas and methods of instruction. The condition is improving. Personally I am an optimist (except possibly some stormy Sunday afternoon, or some evening after a feebly and wearily attended teachers' meeting), and it does me good to get such a statement as that made by one of the prominent pastors in Connecticut, who for many years has been the superintendent of his own Sunday school: Sunday-school work taken as a whole is better done at this time than ever hitherto, and the general recognition of its defects is due to a rising ideal. I do not believe there is in the world today another such mighty power for good as the Sunday school. It has not lost its influence. I admit that there are great needs, and great possibilities of improvement. The ideal is far beyond the present attainment of most of our schools. But I have no patience with those who cry down the Sunday school as altogether behind the times, and therefore useless and superfluous. I have not time to discuss all the statements about the present condition of the Sunday school. There is much truth in what is said of the apathy of parents and adult members of the church. One man wrote: The adults of Christendom stand like swine with their feet in the trough. They do not know it, but there they are. The church architecture is first for them; the minister is called to suit their tastes; the singers are employed to charm them; the hours of service are allotted at their demands-at least three to one for the child; and the ministrations to them demand at least four-fifths of the budget appropriations, the child often being asked to support his own school. Surely there are conditions enough that are discouraging; we cannot shut our eyes to them, and we surely ought not if we would help to realize the possibilities of the Sunday school. Nor, on the other hand, can we avoid seeing, unless we habitually wear blue glasses, the great good the Sunday school is accomplishing in spite of its shortcomings. Only this morning I received a letter in reply to my inquiries from a man of national reputation as a Sundayschool worker, whom you would all know if I should mention his name. He gives seven points on the present condition of the Sunday school as showing his opinion of the very hopeful condition of things: 1. I have not seen a time since 1889 when the Sunday school seemed to be in as healthy and forward a condition as at present. 2. It is my belief, based on observation and wide correspondence, that the Sunday-school membership is larger now than it ever has been. 3. I believe there is more interest manifested in the evangelistic side of the work than ever before. 4. There is an intense interest in the matter of teacher-training. 5. More than ever before is it true that the minds of educators have been turned toward the Sunday school. 6. Our theological seminaries and Christian schools are being aroused along this line. 7. The church itself is becoming aroused to the importance of Sunday-school work. Transition, as I have said, is a word that, more than any other, characterizes the present condition of the Sunday school. There is a dissatisfaction with what has been accomplished; a realization that the child needs, and is entitled to, the very best in all lines; that teachers need the very best training and equipment, as well as the most earnest devotion and feeling of responsibility. There is a reaching out after better leading, better teaching, better co-operation. And many eyes are turned toward this Association in the hope that from here may emanate the suggestions, practical and usable, that will help solve the great Sunday-school problems. THE PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING A GRADED CURRICULUM EDWARD P. ST. JOHN, SUPERINTENDENT NEW YORK STATE SUNDAY SCHOOL ASSOCIATION, PRATTSBURGH, NEW YORK The first step toward the discovery of the principles which should guide in the preparation of a graded Sunday-school curriculum is to define the end that is sought by Sunday-school instruction; the second is to ascertain what Nature (that is, God) is doing to further that end; and the third is to consider the means by which we may give added power to these natural tendencies. Probably all who engage in Sunday-school work would agree that its chief aim is to form the highest type of moral and religious character. Accepting this definition, we have to ask what Nature is doing toward the attainment of this end; and the answer is not uncertain. The modern psychologist declares that the man who lacks the elements of moral and religious character is as abnormal as the man who is blind. This fact has tremendous significance for us. It implies that if we would fall in line with the forces that rule the universe, religion is not to be imposed upon human nature from without. The process of character-building cannot be regarded as mechanical in its nature. It is not a pouring of moral precepts into the empty receptacle of the childmind. It is not primarily a process of pruning off undesirable growths by punishment, or of confining fluid impulses by a mold of law until they have taken permanent form in habit. It is rather a process of culture. The instruction should appeal to the better side of the nature, seeking by proper nourishment and suitable exercise to lead every healthy moral and religious impulse to its highest development. The first principle, then, may be thus stated: Moral and religious instruction should be chiefly positive and constructive in its nature, and must appeal to the elements of right character that exist in the pupil. Accepting this principle, which requires that we find our startingpoint for religious instruction in the life of the child, we find that, while religion is natural to the man, it reaches its highest development only in the adult. Certain regular stages in development, fairly uniform in the majority of individuals, appear. While the young child has the elements of religious and ethical character, these at first are germs only--tendencies which may be called moral or religious only in view of that to which they will normally give rise in later stages of life. These first hints of the higher life are followed in the boy and girl by other stages that are more advanced, but still immature. In adolescence and adult life still higher forms appear. The nature of the changes which naturally occur in these various stages of development begins to be quite clearly indicated by studies of childhood and adolescence. We have not been able to find for purposes of such study children who have received no religious teaching; but we are beginning to discover what phases of religion seem to appeal to natural interests and to make the deepest impressions, thus becoming a part of the life of the child. The characteristics of these stages stand out somewhat distinctly, but it must be remembered that the periods are telescoped into each other with no clearly marked dividing line. Early childhood, which lasts until about eight years of age, seems naturally to give the child a consciousness of God as back of Nature and its forces-a conception of the Deity as a great anthropomorphic Being who dwells in the distant heaven, but works His will on earth. He it is who hangs the moon and stars in space, who causes flowers to bloom and birds to sing. It is for this conception that the child is feeling when he asks who made the river and the trees, and who cares for the squirrels in the winter. For Him the child seems to feel some really natural reverence, and in His power there seems to be some natural faith. If some degree of trust in His love is not natural, it is at least very easily acquired. The foreshadowing of ethical feeling we find in the instinctive emotional life of a child, especially in the various phases of fear and anger, sympathy and love. Prepubescence, from about eight to twelve years of age, and the transition stage of adolescence, seem to bring the idea of God into closer relation to human life and conduct, and to give the conception of the divine Being as a maker of laws and prescriber of penalties and rewards. Never does mere authority, the "Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not," have greater influence over the child. This is a time when egoistic motives predominate in both moral and religious life, and when the child responds to the influence of his superiors more readily than at any other time. Never are outward observances more readily taken on. At first this response is imitative and formal; but after puberty, ideals play a larger part, and character as well as conduct brings its lessons and its stimulus. As the youth approaches the middle stage of adolescence, at about sixteen years of age, his idea of religion becomes still more definite and personal. Now he feels not merely a desire to escape penalty, but the necessity of a right relation between himself and God. Consciousness of a lack of harmony between his life and his ideals is forced |