A SUNSHINY ROOM FOR THE PRIMARY DEPARTMENT. A teacher was absent one Sunday -there was no one to substitute. The logical decision in the mind of the superintendent was to send the class home. The superintendent never knew that timidly, yet full of glowing anticipation, had come into that class for the first time a sensitive seven year old who that week had broken-heartedly left the only home his few years had ever known -had "moved" with his family, had found everything new strange and had looked forward to Sunday to bring him to the beautiful church where he had in his heart felt he would find the comforting he craved. The superintendent and the absent teacher never knew that a little seven year old trudged away that Sunday morning never again to feel the same confident love for "Sunday School." and Every absence from class, every lesson inadquately taught, every second of disorderliness shared in or even witnessed in the church school, every falling short of what a school of religion should be and give must be reckoned with for soul scarring. Is our school disorderly? Is it only partially graded? Is it not as far departmentalized as its size warrants? Is our plant inadequate, unsanitary or illy equipped? Is there incompetent teaching or superintendence? Are there many children outside of our school for whom it should be responsible? 1. If there is disorder it is not a thing to be attacked directly. In solving some of the other problems we shall find our problem of disorder disappearing. But for worthy work with children and young people for their religious nurture, this problem must be solved. 2. There is no use putting off the day of grading a church school. It is sometimes a serious undertaking involving some sacrifices, but it is so well established now as the right way that we only waste time and unquestionably throw away part of our precious opportunity with youth so long as we fail to take this step. 3. If we study carefully the characteristics and interests of children and youth in the various periods of their development, we shall find convincing evidence, of which our own experience may be depended upon to furnish almost immediate proof, that little children before they go to school cannot to the best advantage be placed with any others for any part of their church school hour, that children in the first two or three years of their day school life have interests of their own and need a method in worship, instruction and expression peculiar to themselves, that the "Junior" child from about nine to the beginning of adol escence is disorderly and unnurtured in a worship service suited to children younger than himself or to the peculiar needs of adolescence, and that the adolescent should plan his own worship service, often conduct 'it, be taught through an approach much like that which meets him in the high school and express himself through a social life which becomes dampened and unnatural when grouping him regularly with the younger children. Also where the numbers warrant their separation we shall find it well worth our while to allow the interests of the younger adolescents, 12-14, to dominate one group while those of the middle adolescents, 15-17, dominate another, leaving the young people, 18 and over, to express their own interests in their own way. All this means that it is far more important than most of us have recognized to completely departmentalize the school. But this again requires 4. The suitable and well-equipped plant. Our church buildings have been prepared for the old Sunday School and present numberless problems for those interested in the new church school. The first step we should take is to recognize the deficiency of a plant which does not furnish suitable assembly rooms for the worship-service of all the departments that should be organized, and suitably equipped classrooms for every class above the primary grade. The next thing is to see what is the nearest approach within the possibility of our church. Some churches are wisely rolling up now the fund for a building when, as we hope, conditions shall make building a more possible undertaking, some are employing screens and curtains or renting a near-by building. 5. Have we teacher training classes for our promising youth in preparation for later teaching and for our teachers now in the harness that we may make their work stronger? Are we seeing to it that nearby community schools for teach er training are benefiting our teachers as much as possible? If our school is a great organization really requiring the full service of a trained worker, have we awakened to this fact and are we on the list of churches employing a director of religious education? Are all departments superintended with the efficiency we should expect even in a minor office in business? Is teaching receiving real supervision? 6. And when all these questions have been satisfactorily answered for our school the question of reaching the children outside will in all probability have solved itself. Four suggestions may be added as to how each reader of these pages may go about so great a task single handed. 1. We need none of us take up such a task as this single handed. It is our Father's work and he will work with us. 2. Gain the interest of the church as a whole. 3. A teacher training class needs only one to bring it into existence. In any church where one person feels it necessary the class becomes realty. a 4. Use outside means. Avail yourself of possible conventions, summer schools, et cetera. Bring back some one purpose clearly understood which you may carry through. Claim the interest of the state religious education committee. Call upon the field secretary for a set-up visit that he may survey the school, have conference with the officers and teachers, help to relate the work adequately to the church itself through a religious education committee and church budgeting. The CONGREGATIONAL SUNDAY SCHOOL EXTENSION SOCIETY Τ OUR MISSION SUNDAY SCHOOLS mission HE establishing of mission Sunday Schools is a rapidly growing feature of the work of the Sunday School Society. And it is natural that this should be the case, as with increased resources both in workers and funds, the opportunity has become correspondingly greater for extending the activities in all branches of service. We have thought that it would be of interest to our readers to know of the conditions under which this phase of our work is carried on, and to know also of the people with whom we work. The following are extracts from a few of the reports sent in by our field men, describing the founding of new schools on the frontier, and we believe our readers will find them of interest. The first, from the Northwest, tells the story of a new field in the prairie country of Idaho. Seven years ago the entire region around this school was a sage brush desert, but now, with the advent of the irrigation ditch, it has become a thriving community, shipping out, during one year alone, one hundred carloads of potatoes, and raising besides, some hundred thousand tons of alfalfa and wheat. Land recently valuable only for holding the world together is now selling for two hundred and fifty dollars per acre. Such results, however, have only been obtained by the hardest of physical labor by men who have levelled and dragged, and watched over the land faithfully for months at a time, spade in hand. By the third. year there is a small crop of alfalfa, by the fifth a well-paying one, and enough money is realized the seventh year to pay for all initial cost and work. In such a country a church was organized some fifteen months ago, but the town grew up only three miles away and the people wanted to move the church from the schoolhouse to the town, and thus the name of the church was changed and lots were bought for a building. Then the new Sunday School was born, and will hold sessions in one of the four rooms of the brick schoolhouse built where there was only sage brush in 1913, but where there now stands an incorporated town. There are at this time three other religious organizations in this vicinity, although there was only the Mormon when we entered the field. Within two years, with the right leadership, we should have both a church and school of considerably over a hundred members in a village of six or seven hundred people, with one thousand more within a five-mile limit. At the opening of the school, a list of sixty-seven persons, all heads of families, none of whom were connected with other churches, was given to the organizer with a view to inviting them to the school and church service the following Sunday. The school organized with a membership of fifty. A second school, which was organized with a membership of fortyfour, lies almost on the southern border of South Dakota. The country has been partially settled for about ten years, but as there is no railroad within thirty miles, a little inland town has sprung up. It is a country rich in possibilities, and the people, who are of a fine class, are now beginning to come into their own, after hard times in getting started. In the past they have depended for pastoral services upon a minister living 33 miles away who could come to them only twice a month and then only for a hurried session. During the summer a student pastor organized a school and carried it on very effectively. The field is large and the possibilities for more schools in this region most encouraging. Here is a wonderful opportunity for Christian service. A third school, and one from which a church will undoubtedly grow, is located in the Powder River district in Montana. Our missionary journeyed to a certain little town in the missionary car for the first time on a Thursday evening, met the T teacher of the little district school, called again the following day, and arranged for a meeting on Sunday morning. He then made appointment through the children to call for several families who had no conveyance, appointed one as pilot to take them out to those places, came out Sunday morning an hour and a half before meeting time, and with the pilot went out four times and brought a load each time. After preaching services the school was organized. The people responded in fine spirit and the expectations are great for an excellent. little school. With a pastor in charge of this larger parish, this and other schools can be well cared for. A NEW WORK MADE POSSIBLE BY WORLD HE Treasurer of The Congregational World Movement sent to the Sunday School Extension Society during the month of October, an appropriation large enough to enable the Society to commission Rev. J. F. Owens, Oriskany Falls, New York, as Field Worker for Alabama and Georgia for a period of one year. While this will not quite pay the entire salary and expenses, it will, with certain contributions that will come to us through Mr. Owens' services, be sufficient to meet the financial needs for a full twelve months. Mr. Owens will be located at Thorsby, Alabama, and be on the staff of the Thorsby Larger Parish, which includes the Thorsby Church and Academy work and all outlying territory within a radius of about forty miles of the village. The first service to be rendered by Mr. Owens will be the organization of Sunday School work in this entire territory. When this is accomplished, the various organizations will be transferred to one or more home missionary pastors, and Mr. Owens will then take hold of another section of Alabama or Georgia and do a similar work. The service to be rendered will be that of a distinctly pioneer character, going into places where Sunday School work does not exist. One special feature of the work to be accomplished in connection with the Thorsby Larger Parish will be that of interesting the parents of young people in sending them. to the Academy and thereby not only bring the Christian touch into the homes, but help to establish educational ideals. WANTED-TEN MISSIONARY CARS FOR IMMEDIATE F USE OR use in the mountains; on the prairie, that land of illimitable distances; in lumber and mining regions, and among larger parishes in rural communities. As you have given generously of money and encouragement in the past, come to our aid now. The call is urgent and insistent, and the reward well worth the sacrifice. |