Show iIN SABBATH SOHOOLS Rev Dr Meredith Interestingly Describes them THE LAEGESI IN THE COUNTRY Music Teachers the International Lesions and Chinese PupIls Deeply Discussed by Competent Authority New YORK Feb 191891 Special cor espondence of THE HERALD Tho Rev Dr R R Meredith is an authority on the modern Sunday school Perhaps he is the most generally recognized authority in the country His commanding Influence in Sunday school work dates back from a dozen or fifteen years In Boston his weekly exposition of the international lessons les-sons filled Tremont Temple winter after winter every Saturday afternoon When he left the Hub two or three years ago for Brooklyn large offers were made him to remain and devote himself to that work altogether al-together Since he became pastor of the Tompkins avenue Congregational church in the city of churches great audiences of Sunday schcol workers have gathered every Tuesday Tues-day evening to hear his discussion of the lesson for the succeeding Sunday Without I With-out regard for denominational lines people I of all creeds and of both sexes fill his enormous enor-mous normal class which thus becomes probably the most forceful agency in the faun try for the training ofSunday schoolteachers school-teachers Methodists Presbyterians Baptists Bap-tists alike finding matter of interest in his clearcut luminous and intensely practical Christology Question and answer fly fast and persons specially interested in Sunday school work often come long distances even from other states to attend V REV DR R R MEREDITH Dr Merediths Sunday school connected with the Tompkins Avenue church is one of the largest in the county numbering over 2000 With the very large branch school belonging to the Park Avenue church and presided over by an assistant pastor there is brought under his supervision probably the greatest number of Sunday school pupils influenced by any man in the country coun-try These circumstances give especial interest inter-est to his opinions on Sunday school methods the more so that the quarters occupied oc-cupied by his Sunday schoolthe success of the Tompkins Avenue church having compelled it to put up new and imposing buildingsare called the most modern best arranged and most carefully considered with respect to their uses of any Sunday school rooms in the country they are indeed in-deed the last word in Sunday school architecture archi-tecture What is now the approved method I found opportunity to ask him a few days ago of housing a Sunday school Does experience favor one large room or a considerable con-siderable number of smaller ones Both he answered The well regulated regu-lated modern Sunday school of any size requires re-quires the one large roomfor preliminary assemblage and the smaller rooms for class work in the diff rentdepartments In our Sunday school wohave the large main hall with anterooms and about it on three sides are the classrooms These are of half the height only of the large room so that we get two storiesor tiers All the partitions arc arranged to hove up and down or to oneside and all are on a line with the eyes of the superintendent so that when the school opens everything is thrown into one great assembling chamber without barriers to sight or to hearing Afterward the partitions are drawn and each class has full liberty for its own work and the children can ask their questions aloud instead of whispering This separation is absolutely necessary for the teachers ought not to have less than fortyfive minutes with the older pupils while twenty or twentyfive minutes is enough to tiro the little ones In my Sunday school we have on one side off the main floor one large room for the primary department which includes what people used to call the infant classes that is children who have not yet learned to read We throw all these into one great I class andtcachthem together They have rising seats arranged in concentric semicircles semi-circles so that all may seethe blackboards We give them object teaching to interest them and call out their intelligence and wo make great use of large colored cards and pictures At how early an age do you thifak it profitable pro-fitable for child to como lnC Many mothers bring children of three and sit with them I approve of this because be-cause the childs mind thus opens from the very first amid the right surroundfpgs Thp Sunday school room seems homelike to it and there is a good deal of value to be attached at-tached to these impressions on the consciousness con-sciousness < i r lIt SUNDAY SCHOOL ROOM or Tho room above the primary department depart-ment belongs to the juvenile department Children are transferred to this just as soon as they can read They remain in it until they are about twelve or thirteen years old The juvenile department occupies occu-pies one room only but it is divided into thirtyfive different classes under as many teachers It is the aim to keep the classes small so that each pupil may get individual attention Some classes include as many as twelve children but the most not above nine For my part I think eightabout the best number The room fs furnished with thirtyfive tables and each class gathers with the teacher about one of these The floor of the main Sunday school hall I is given to the intermediate department broken into seventyfour classes of young people form twelve to seventeen or eighteen eigh-teen years old This alsois furnished with tables supplied with mapsroference books etc and about these sit classes and teachers teach-ers All the work of the Sunday school library li-brary is attended to outside the season We do not allow any running about of librarians librari-ans to distract attention One side of the Sunday school hall opens as I said upon the anterooms and J about tho other two sides are the Bible class rooms There are two stories of these twentyeight in all The rooms vary in size accommodating from forty down Some of the classes are mixed in others the 8 xes are separated this is as circumstances circum-stances dictate we have no rule Some of the classes are taught by men others by j women the largest mixed class is taught very successfully by a young man I The large majority of Sunday schoolteachers school-teachers are women 1 No a full half of mine are men I have just about as many men as women right through the school But before we drop Sunday school architecture archi-tecture let me say that the present general arrangement of Sunday school rooms was originated by a Dutch architect of Akron Ohio whose name was Snyder He planned the first modern Sunday school for Louis Miller of the Chautauqua association I when Miller was settled at Akron about twenty years ago Snyders ideas have been greatly developed and modified and I myself have introduced conveniences he never thought of but for the main outline I now followed by all progressive city schools the credit belongs to him Many Sunday sohool workers do not agree with me you understand as to the advisability of keeping the primary department de-partment all in one great class or as to having hav-ing the little ones present with the older scholars at the opening of the school Some I 1 would divide them for more individual teaching and would have their rooms wholly separated and would almost make of them a separate school with separate administration But I believe in getting for a short time all pupils together for the sake of tho esprit de corps and to let the little lit-tle ones fully realize that they belong to the great body i What k school j J do you regard as a Sunday teachers most essantial qualifications ARRANGEMENT OF CLASSES A teacher must have average intelligence intelli-gence and common sense more than this is desirable but not necessary The one thing that cannot bo dispensed with is the consecration con-secration to do something for God It is not that vou do it for your own souls sake or even that you do it for the good of the children but that you do it for God This carries everything else with it whatever you do for Him you must do well and so the consecration carries with it the study the constant effort the concentration of the powers Do you not attach importance then to the higher education of Sunday schoolteachers school-teachers P I have had in my school at the same timo a comparatively uneducated working woman and a brilliant young man fresh from college and the woman went far beyond be-yond the other in the results she obtained because her heart was warmer to the work if the college man had had her fervor and had then added to his education he would of course have been more efficient than as thincs stood was either of them You cant stand out for classical scholarship scholar-ship Ive cot to have 280 teachers and if I havethat number of classical scholars in my congregations dont know where to lay hands on them rut the Sunday school teaching is grow log all the timemore and more intelligent The Sunday scfioola have fully purged H themselves think of the complaints that used to be lodgedand in some cases with justice against them I attribute this largely to tho public schools Such a public pub-lic school system as that of this country trains a body of clearheaded intelligent citizens The international lessons against which so much has been said have also a good deal to doW th it With all their disadvantages dis-advantages tho lesson sheets givethe average aver-age teacher far more than she would bo in any way likely to get herself They do such a preliminary work of study and exposition expo-sition that she hasjno excuse for going before be-fore her class without a full intelligent comprehension The international series has won its way Not a religiouspaper in the country would dare ignore it and the secular press finds itself obliged to give it progressively more and more attention In your Tuesday evening normal class do you mark out courses of reading for I teachers in Oriental history and customs 1 No some of the teachers do so themselves them-selves for their pupils My aim in popular I exposition is to make the Biblo practical It is not worth the paper it is written on except for whatit can do for us today I dont care any more about what happened I to Jesus than I do about what happened to Julius Caisar except so far as Jesus is a living liv-ing force to enter into our lives now boys and girls must take Him home and have Him with them Monday morning What do you think of present methods of teaching the Chinese in Sunday schools I cannot say anything about them except ex-cept as I have seen them in one city Boston There I was for some time familar with the work of Miss Carter who had as many as 200 under her instruction She went about among the laundries and so entered into the lives of the poor creatures that they felt toward her as to a mother and they came to her with every trouble She did infinite good but she was a very judicious woman and very careful in her selection of teachers r I 2 i INFANT CLASS ROOM I do not believe the present system of assigning a teacher to every Chinese pupil can be changed the Chinese cannot be taught in classes But the teachers should be mature women not young girls When a Chinaman makes iove to his teacher in ninetynine cases out of a hundred its the teachers fault She could have inspired him and ought to have inspired him with very different feelings She needs tact andyears Has there not boon a marked advance of school music late in Sunday Indeed yes off in the wilderness somewhere some-where there may be schools still singing Hold the Fort and other such jingle music matched with nonsense words but all the new music is of a much higher order In our school we use the Laudes Domino teaching the children the same hymns that are sung in church and prayer meeting The superintendents position must be becoming in the larger schools of more and more importance J In no long time the superintendent will be engaged at a high salary to give his entire time Then instead of assistant pastors pas-tors wo shall have pastors assistants The superintendent will be such an assistant and if he is as he ought to be the best business bus-iness man in the parish 5OOO or 6000 will not be too much to pay him He will work throughout the week among the congregation congrega-tion for the Sunday school The South church in New Britain Connecticut has salaried superintendent and the practice is sure to be followed City Sunday schools are becoming great and complicated organizations organ-izations ELIZA PUTNAM HEATON HORSEMEN ATTEN1ION Messrs Trinder Bailey of Atlantic Iowa are at J M Dees livery stable Ogaen with a carload of imported Clydesdale Clydes-dale stallions Prices on terms to suit purchasers pur-chasers r t |