A School Review.—For reviewing the lesson before the entire school, select one class a week beforehand and give it ten or twelve comprehensive questions, from the quarterly or original. At the close of the lesson ask this class to rise and answer the questions as another class, also rising, asks them. Let all the classes take turns in this service.
School Reviews.—For a change, it is well to incorporate the entire school in a general review,—omitting, of course, the younger classes. One person may conduct the review, or the questions on each lesson may be asked by a different teacher. Different classes may be assigned special lessons to illustrate by the concert repetition of Bible verses, or by a stanza of some song. One lesson of the quarter may be assigned to each class, and the questions that will be asked may be given to that class a week or two beforehand. In this case, general questions for the entire school should occasionally be interspersed.
A Teachers' Supper.—Once a year, at least, bring together all the teachers and officers around a well-filled table. After-dinner speeches, cheery and merry, may follow, and then a pleasant evening's entertainment.
The Annual Meeting.—Make this an event. A supper with bright speeches, the business meeting to follow; a brisk literary and musical entertainment; an introductory talk by some practical worker from abroad,—these are some of the ways of distinguishing the occasion.
Badges.—Any Sunday-school festival will be given eclat by the use of badges. The children will be proud to wear them, and will treasure them as souvenirs. They may be made almost without cost if you will use bright-colored cambric, and print upon them with a hand-stamp.
A Sunday-School Day.—If not once a year, at least once every few years, it is well worth while to make the Sunday-school the theme of all the exercises on the Lord's day,—both morning and evening services, and the Christian Endeavor meeting. The subject has so many practical aspects that much good will be done in addition to the quickening of the Sunday-school.
The Home Department.—Simply a promise to study the lesson at home for half an hour each week—that is the scheme of the home department. You may add visitors, records, reports, ad libitum, but the home department may be complete and satisfactory without these. The plan is so simple that any school can use it, and so fruitful of blessed results that no school dare neglect it. A thorough canvass for members of the home department seldom fails to bring new members into the main school at once, and as the home study arouses interest, new scholars are continually added from this source, besides the scores of aged and shut-ins whose lives are thus led into the green pastures of the Word.
Home Department Day.—On this occasion a special effort is made to bring to the Sunday-school the entire home department. They sit together, and special services are held in their honor and for their benefit.
Parents' Day.—Make a special effort once a year to bring out all the parents of the scholars. Issue special printed invitations. Have a printed programme. Let the exercises be the regular working of the school, with merely one short address to the parents in addition.