Seven Graded Sunday Schools: A Series of Practical Papers

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Secretary of the Sunday School Union of the Methodist Episcopal Church NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS CINCINNATI: CURTS & JENNINGS

Copyright, 1893, by HUNT & EATON New York.


THE living question in the Sunday school of to-day is that which considers its form of organization. As every good public school at the present time is a graded school, so every first-class Sunday school must be. There can be no efficient, regular, and satisfactory work done in a Sunday school without a system of grade.
On this subject there is extensive inquiry, yet general lack of information. The majority of superintendents and teachers have either no conception or at best an exceedingly vague idea of what constitutes a graded Sunday school. We propose in a few words to set forth what are the essential features of a graded Sunday school.
The first essential is that the school be divided into certain general departments, which may be three, four, or five in number. In our opinion the best division is into the four departments—Primary, Intermediate, Junior, and Senior. These departments should exist in reality, as well as in name, and each department should be recognized as a separate element in the working of the school.
A second essential is that of a definite and fixed number of classes in each department. It is not a graded Sunday school where a teacher and her class are advanced together into the Senior Department whenever the pupils reach the specified age. The inevitable result of such a course will be to have in a few years in the Senior Department a large number of skeleton classes, each with a few members, which is the very evil to be avoided in the graded system. There should be in each department a definite number of classes, proportioned to the size of the school, and this number should be kept uniform. A Sunday school is always dying at the top, by the loss of its scholars after the age of fifteen years. For this fact there are many causes, some necessary, others avoidable. But, whatever be the cause, it is a fact to be provided for in the management of the school; and the provision should be, not in adding new classes, but in advancing scholars from the Junior Department and filling up senior classes already organized. The classes in the Senior Department should be kept few in number, but kept full in size.