USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > The Religious Education Association : proceedings of the first annual convention, Chicago, February 10-12, 1903 > Part 16
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Some good men seem to feel that the International
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Sunday School Association cannot sanction a departure from the uniform lesson system without committing suicide. As a loyal supporter of the Association in its proper work, I have three reasons for believing other- wise. In the first place, the principal responsibility of the Association to the Sunday schools of this country is for organization and education; secondly, in my own state, in actual experience, I find the schools using three sorts of lessons, while all are loyal to the state and inter- national organization; and finally, at the Denver Conven- tion the Association voted to recognize a departure from the uniform lesson idea in the interests of the little ones.
As a matter of fact, the days of rigid uniformity have passed. Uniformity is not essential to the kind of unity which has greatest value. The whole trend of education today is away from uniformity and in favor of reason- able freedom. It is being universally recognized that individual freedom for experiment under reasonable limitations is the surest way of providing for wise prog- ress on the part of the public. The International Association can well afford to encourage the Sunday schools which are able to try experiments to do so, and not to charge them with disloyalty to the interests of the Sunday-school movement at large, with which they feel themselves in heartiest sympathy. How many such schools there are, at present, no one can estimate. Prob- ably their number is quite limited. Someone has de- clared that at least 80 per cent. of the Sunday schools are entirely satisfied with the uniform lesson system. Perhaps that estimate is too moderate. The student of religious education has no complaint to make. He simply asks for freedom to assist the smaller number of schools to experiment with courses which give promise of usefulness for the whole Sunday-school world.
The International Association is not an experimenting body. It can lend its approval and official support only
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to methods and courses which have passed successfully innumerable tests. That there should be, however, a body of experimentalists, not hostile but friendly, not theorizers but active workers, of whose results the Association might be free to avail itself, but for whom it would not be officially responsible, seems wholly desirable.
The program of such a body of students I will not attempt to outline this evening. A single opinion would be of slight value. The subject is foremost in its impor- tance. It merits the most thorough investigation of a large and representative commission, such a one as this pandenominational body may be able to create. It is almost needless to say that such a commission must include very variant types of experienced and interested students of the Sunday-school problem, some of whom are conversant with the details of the history of the Sunday-school movement during the past quarter- century, none of them being partisans of some particular method.
The courses resulting from such co-operation will have to recognize the limitations of the average school when intended for such a school. The greatest practical problem for the commission will be the maintenance of the working unity of a Sunday school together with the provision of courses which meet the actual requirements of each class or department.
The problem is far from being a hopeless one. Rapid advances have been made toward its solution already. One of the most hopeful indications of the future which awaits the Sunday school is the wealth of good sugges- tions and fairly workable schemes with which such a commission would be deluged during its first year of existence.
We will all agree that such courses as are planned for the betterment of the Sunday-school situation should recognize in their treatment of the Bible the historical
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point of view. They should provide for primary and intermediate scholars a well-graded, wisely adjusted series of lessons leading to the thorough and repeated study of the whole Bible. For advanced classes they should furnish courses of varying length and of a specializ- ing character which take up the themes of biblical intro- duction, the special study of the biblical books, the funda- mentals of religious thinking, church history, and similar subjects of supreme value to the matured and thoughtful mind.
To bring about ideal results will require much time and patience, great willingness to yield on minor points of difference, a spirit of unselfish co-operation between all who are interested, a kindly considerateness, a readi- ness to experiment. The relation which we as promoters of religious education may properly hold to this long process will be that of uniting to create true standards, and then of giving our moral and practical support to legitimate attempts to give these standards a working form which may help to solve the perplexities of the Sunday-school instruction of today.
THE TEACHING STAFF OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL
REV. PASCAL HARROWER, A.M.,
CHAIRMAN SUNDAY SCHOOL COMMISSION, DIOCESE OF NEW YORK; REC- TOR CHURCH OF THE ASCENSION, WEST NEW BRIGHTON, NEW YORK
The popular phrase "the man behind the gun" is a condensed statement of the teacher's place in the work of education. Given organization and curriculum and text-books, and assume for these the highest excellence, we have still to reckon with the teacher. It is he who in the last analysis decides the value of all the rest.
I. The make-up of the teaching staff.
I. The source of teacher-supply is in the volunteer laity. So true is this that the mere suggestion of a paid teacher in our Sunday schools comes as a shock to the majority of people. So far as now appears, we shall continue to get our main supply from this source. It has become traditional, as it is also in other fields of social service.
Let us at once recognize the singular importance of this service. It was the peculiar glory of the old Jewish church that its supreme teachers were the prophets who gave their free and voluntary service to religion and the state. It is even more true of Christianity that it has inspired such service, and has grown in proportion as the sense of personal responsibility has developed richness and power. Volunteer work is in a sense ideal. It sup- plies vision and power. The prophet was prophet be- cause he saw at first hand. He inspired all the regular and systematized service of the world with the clearness and vigor of his vision. His service had a glow and warmth and life which lifted all other service and set a standard for all other workers. That is the ideal.
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But volunteer service has its defects. It is open to the danger of losing its vision. And when vision and high purpose fail, the volunteer service drifts. It loses grip, it loses intelligence, it becomes a matter of inclina- tion ; and the quality of it falls. When the quality falls, then the work done falls in value. It loses dignity and importance, and the inevitable result is that work which should command the highest grade of service is forced to depend on an inferior supply of workers. I do not intend any unkind judgment of the teachers of our schools. I am simply noting a fact which grows out of certain inevitable laws.
2. The church should therefore endeavor to place this great work of religious education upon such a plane as shall enable her to command the highest grade of service. There are unused forces in our parishes which we do not at present command. An interesting com- ment on present Sunday-school work was noted some time ago in the fact that in the Sunday schools of a cer- tain city, twenty-five years ago, the teaching staff num- bered in its list several lawyers, two judges, a number of prominent business men, and intelligent, enthusiastic mechanics. Today their places are almost wholly sup- plied by young women. The proportion of men has notably fallen in all our Sunday schools.
This suggests the unused forces which the church has lost. I shall not be accused of discourtesy toward that vast force of earnest women who have served and still serve the church in our schools. But I am convinced that we are losing some of the most valuable forces in our modern life by this absence of men. In our public schools about 90 per cent. of teachers are women and only 10 per cent. are men. It is probable that the same proportion holds in our Sunday schools. This means that the overwhelming proportion of our boys are "being educated without the influence of the masculine mind."
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Into the discussion of this I may not enter. But I do profoundly believe that the fact itself is most unfor- tunate. We may well remember that the greatest teachers have been men, that the prophets and poets and revealers of the past have been men; that the great religions of the world bear the names of men. And no one here will deny that in the average man, not less than in the average woman, there is a power of sympathy and a strength of purpose which the church needs in her educational work.
Facing the future, carrying in our thought the mil- lions of lives that are today slowly fashioning the faith they will confess tomorrow, remembering that the youth in our churches is impressed by the atmosphere and con- tacts that surround him in the impressionable morning hours of life, we may well ask how we can infuse into our religious education some richer supply of masculine force and send the boy on to his manhood with better equipment. The church cannot afford so to educate her youth that they will not associate with her all that can command their mature admiration and reverence. The world is after all saved by its ideals, and in every age the church must create these. It is important for us to look to our ideals.
3. To pay the Sunday-school teacher is not yet a familiar thought to our people, and it is hardly probable that the paid teacher will be largely available in the immediate future. But, on the other hand, there is no reason why the paid teacher should not be used wher- ever possible. There is, in fact, a certain benefit to be had from such an arrangement. The trained teacher who brings to his work intellectual fitness and spiritual enthusiasm acts directly upon the volunteer. He sets a certain standard of regularity, of preparation, of skilled and effective service, which lifts the whole work of religious instruction to a higher level. Indeed, I am
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confident that if it were possible to introduce into the average Sunday school one teacher highly trained for his work, he would directly set in motion ideas and methods, and inspire such new and splendid conceptions of the Sunday school, as to bring about an altogether new era for that school. I need not remind you that this was the secret of that new ardor for religious educa- tion that fell upon the great diocese of Orleans when Archbishop Dupanloup gathered his curés and delivered those famous conferences on the "Ministry of Cate- chizing." Here we have the trained mind and eager enthusiasm of the master-teacher creating among the untrained pastors of his diocese a fresh and wonderful estimate of their opportunities and duties.
II. The duty of the church to the teaching staff.
Where the church lays upon her members a specific responsibility she owes them preparation to meet it. This is true as applied to the laity no less than to the clergy. Standing in the presence of the world, the church claims to be responsible for the clearness with which the world shall know the truth of God and the soul. Her message is not merely one of exhortation and appeal, but one of enlightenment as well. It is the last word of Jesus Christ that the work of the church shall be one of instruction. This message of religion to the mind of man is the pecul- iarity of Christianity as compared with other great faiths. For in the final outcome no faith can hold the heart and will that does not hold the thought. I believe that we shall at once allow that the strong ages of the faith have been those when in the deepest sense the church recognized the intelligence of men not only as something which religion could trust, but as something whose regard was itself essential to the vigor and influence of religion. However we may discount systems of belief that have been from time to time dominant, we cannot discount their importance to the ages that produced them.
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The significance of this fact bears directly upon the present occasion. It throws meaning into the very ques- tion that lies behind this movement for a better and larger religious education of our youth. Nothing could be more disastrous to the cause of Christianity than to let the world suppose that the church has grown indiffer- ent to this question. And further, no mistake could be more serious than to ignore in matters of faith those educational principles which are recognized in secular schools. This movement of human thought, this spirit of broad and devout inquiry, this bold and reverent study of the Bible-these are in truth the very essence of faith. They mark its courage, its hopefulness, its complete self-mastery and poise. They may appear to many to have the accent of too great freedom ; but what the world asks of religion is not fear or halting dread, but largeness of movement based on resolute faith in God, and no less resolute faith in the human soul. Such an attitude commands the respect of men, and it becomes religion to assume the rôle of leadership. Nothing was so characteristic of Jesus as his attitude of Master. It was he who claimed to be the Lord of the human heart, and we may not doubt the assurance out of which he spoke.
It is not difficult to see the force with which this applies to the question before us : How shall the church prepare the teachers of religion for their work .?
I. First, I believe that our theological seminaries have, as a rule, lost sight of the ministry of teaching. The temptation of the ministry is to regard its work as hor- tatory rather than instructional. It is easier to appeal to men than it is to instruct men.
To discourse and to teach are two very different things; the one can perfectly exist without the other. One might listen for a long time to fine discourses on a particular science without ever know- ing this science well, without acquiring anything but some vague
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and incoherent ideas of it. It is the same in religion. There is no parish where religion is not made the subject of discourse or ser- mons every Sunday; but those where religion is really and thoroughly taught, where the preaching is a real course of religious teaching, and a word of life for the mind and for faith, are they numerous? So it is not to discourse in sermons that our Lord and the church call us, but to teach ; and by that to enlighten, nourish, and quicken souls.1
Now, I fear such a conception of the ministry as this is not the conception commonly held in our theological schools. And because of this there has come to be a corresponding failure on the part of the church in making the Sunday school a really educational factor in modern Christianity.
It is well for us frankly to acknowledge the essential truth of this statement. When we speak of the teaching staff of our Sunday schools, we must not forget that there lies behind it the ministry, and back of that stands the seminary that is responsible for the character of that ministry. No one here would dare to impeach the work of the layman who faces his class on Sunday, unless he is prepared to impeach the work of the ministry that has produced the layman ; and no one will presume to hold the minister responsible for not being able to do what the church has never taught him how to do.
I confess I do not cherish great hopes for our Sunday- school teachers until the church has provided a min- istry of teaching to lead them. This is the first point of attack in the movement for a better teaching staff. The pastoral chair in our theological schools is the deter- mining factor in this whole problem. We cannot too strongly emphasize this point. It seems to me that if the movement represented in this Convention could bring about what I may call a renaissance of the teaching min- istry, it would have done an incalculable good. I am quite willing to submit myself to correction, but I believe
' DUPANLOUP, The Ministry of Preaching, p. 50.
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that it is a fair criticism of the ministry of today that its ideals are too largely those of the public speaker, pro- ducing detached and transient impressions, rather than those of the religious teacher ; and that the pulpit of our time is not producing a well-instructed laity. A well-instructed laity will alone furnish an ample supply of teacher-material.
2. Secondly, the church owes the Sunday-school teacher definite training for his work. This work is educational in the largest sense of the word. The unprepared teacher cannot do it as it should be done. How shall this be accomplished? The question would be easily answered if the system of parochial schools obtained, or if the paid teacher were available. In some few churches where wealth and location combine to favor it, the trained specialists with training classes may be utilized. But let us think of those who face the harder problem - the average church throughout the land. Here I think we must fall back upon the pastor. He is the natural head-master of his school. If he brings to his pastorate the essential qualifications, training, and sympathy, he can create a new standard of teaching which in the end will place his school upon a true educa- tional basis. Responsibility must lodge somewhere, and the pastor is the natural leader of his people. But this leadership must be definite, based on definite convictions, and carry with it definite, explicit knowledge.
There are instances of the conspicuous success of such leadership. I may note one instance of a small church, -its annual budget was less than one thousand dollars-whose pastor, a young man who had fortunately been well prepared, conducted for some three years his teachers' training class. Out of this class ten new teach- ers were added to the teaching staff, eight of whom were high-school graduates, and represented "the best-educated part of the little community." But suppose, as is so
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frequently the case, the pastor has no special qualifica- tions. There are available in most communities secular teachers who have been thoroughly prepared. Many of these are deeply interested in the moral welfare of chil- dren, and can be induced to lead such training classes.
A further benefit would follow from this resort to the secular teacher. Nothing is more important than to bring about what I may call a rapport between secular and religious education. Our public-school system is distinctly secular. But the more we can draw to our aid the trained and sympathetic co-operation of the public- school teachers, the more we shall do toward dissolving any antagonism that may exist, and swing into a great stream of educational effort the richest intelligence of the community. Nothing will do more to broaden the work of the church, on the one hand, and to deepen the work of the secular school, on the other. What the higher life of the nation needs today is this very merging of all separated forces for social betterment into one great movement. And I believe that what cannot be solved or brought about by specific enactments of law, may in its essential features be secured by this common enthusiasm for the true education of the youth in the village, the town, and the countryside. There is every reason to believe that in thousands of villages and towns throughout the country this effort would be eminently successful. It would result in a practical league of those already interested in the question, without the many possible difficulties that might attend a movement under the auspices and sanction of law. Here voluntary enthu- siasm would seem to have an advantage over methods enforced by governmental authority.
III. How shall the teacher fit himself ?
He must get to the very heart of his work. He must call it by its right name, and value it at the highest esti- mate. There is no greater work. This attitude of mind
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will prevent carelessness and guard against false conceit. Let me set down some of the things such a teacher can do; and in doing this I am thinking of the average teacher in the average school.
I. The cultivation of the spiritual life. Every great teacher and helper of men has carried within himself a rich spiritual life; not emotionalism and excitability of experience, but rather a profound faith, a reverent, earnest purpose, love of souls, gladness of service, patience of heart. The vision of God is in its very essence a strong, noble sense of eternal things. The teacher can develop this by laws as definite as those of music or art. It comes with prayer and thoughtfulness, with obedience to the divine voice. Such experience enriches the life and gives power to character.
2. The teacher must know the child. I do not mean this in any abstract and bookish sense. There are a few books which give the clue to the heart of a boy and girl that the teacher should read and talk over with some other teacher or friend. To be perfectly definite, let me mention : Forbush's The Boy Problem, Blows's Letters to a Mother, Harrison's Study of Child Nature. There are others no less valuable. The value of a book is that it opens the door for us to enter into the child-life. Sym- pathy with childhood and youth is the ultimate secret of influence. A thousand books are of no value if they are merely so many data, tabulated and filed away. Any book that tells us what boys and girls are thinking of -their problems, temptations, motives, weaknesses- is worth the labor of study. It is a good thing to read a thoroughly sensational story paper now and then, such as boys like, because it opens your eyes to the sort of language and adventure that appeals to them.
3. The teacher must be willing to practice, practice, practice. The art of putting a question, of telling a story, of meeting indifference, of winning and keep-
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ing attention, the way to get at the point and how to make it, skill in getting into touch with the pupil, the command of simple, direct, definite speech-all this is indispensable. The teacher himself must be willing to invest the effort to secure this. The task seems endless, and so it is. No artist ever yet did fine work but he was dissatisfied with it. Dissatisfaction is the mint-stamp of life. But the school that has a teachers' club, where the members can conduct classes, use maps, models, black- boards, and pictures, and submit to criticism, and discuss class problems-such a school is certain of success.
Nearly seventy years ago Dr. Channing pleaded for the establishment of a training college in Boston for teachers of public schools. Said he :
We want better teachers and more teachers for all classes of society, for rich and poor, for children and adults. One of the surest signs of the regeneration of society will be the elevation of the art of teaching to the highest rank in the community. Socrates is now regarded as the greatest man in an age of great men. The name of king has grown dim before that of apostle. To teach, whether by word or action, is the highest function on earth.
Standing here today, within the sunrise hours of the twentieth century, we may cherish the faith that there is swiftly coming a new and richer life of religion, and that the church is entering into that ministry of teaching by which she shall in larger measure establish the world in the knowledge and grace of Jesus Christ.
DISCUSSION
REV. RUFUS W. MILLER, D.D.,
SECRETARY OF SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORK IN THE REFORMED CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
The chief agencies of the Christian church at hand for religious education are the family, the Sunday school, and the pulpit; in particular the Sunday school as it is maintained by the church for the purpose of religious teaching.
Keeping in mind existing conditions in the Sunday school-the session of one or one and one-half hours, the system of volunteer and for the most part untrained teachers, the disproportionate time given to opening and closing exercises, the limitations as to separate rooms, appliances, and financial support-it would seem that the present International lessons are well adapted to accomplish the spiritual purpose of the Sunday school. The devotional, homiletical, and practical treatment of the lessons, dominated by the influence of the teacher as a personality, has done and is doing marvelous good.
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