Go to give good. Take hearty interest in the lesson, and have some thought to add to the discussion. Better yet, have some earnest question to ask. And ask it. If you come from another school, consider yourself a Christian ambassador bearing greetings of brotherly good will and common endeavor.
Go to get good. Be unobtrusive and teachable. And especially, show that you have received good. Express appreciation, after the lesson, to teacher and scholars. Then will you be blessed, and, changing the meaning of the word "visitation," these words from the Wisdom of Solomon may be applied to you: "In the time of their visitation they shall shine, and run to and fro like sparks among the stubble."
Chapter XXVII
"Under Petticoat Government"
One of the brightest women in the United States, a woman well known to the Protestant churches of the world, was groaning to me the other day: "What shall I do with those boys in my Sunday-school class? They are just at the age when they think they know a little more than any woman. They need a man. Don't you think the superintendent ought to remove them from under petticoat government?"
This cry, that came so strangely from a woman of her ability and fame, comes also from a throng of baffled Sunday-school teachers. The answer would be easy, if there were anything like as many good Sunday-school teachers among the men as among the women. As it is, however, most boy classes must be assigned either to a distasteful petticoat government, or to an incompetent pantaloon government, or—cast adrift until, long years afterward, they drop anchor in the haven of matrimony, and happily, perchance, appear once more in the Sunday-school, in the "Bible class."
The remedy, however, though not easy, is manifest. The boys do not need a man, but they do need in their teacher certain manly qualities that could be incorporated in a woman's teaching. These qualities all women whom the Lord of the Sunday-school has set over a class of his boys, should seek to get.