Planned Prayer-Meetings.—It will greatly promote the devotional character of your school if you take twenty minutes each month for a prayer-meeting. Select four or five to offer prayer, and have them sit on the platform. A brief, tender talk from the superintendent and bright singing will complete a memorable meeting.
A Carryall.—I have heard of Sunday-schools that maintained omnibuses or large carriages, to gather up and carry to the school children whose homes were so far away that they could not otherwise attend.
Neighborhood Schools.—Distant groups of farmers' families, and others that cannot reach the school, should be organized in neighborhood Sunday-schools.
A New Object Each Month.—The scholars' offerings should be an education not only in the instinct of giving, but also in the intelligent choice of objects for giving. Every Sunday-school should have a benevolence committee, which carefully selects for each month a new object of beneficence. On the last Sabbath of each month a word should be said about the object that appeals for the gifts of the next month. This brief account should, of course, be supplemented by the teachers in their classes.
The Envelope System.—This plan of giving, which has done so much for our churches, should be used everywhere in the Sunday-school. Give each class a number and each scholar a set of dated envelopes, one for each Sunday, bearing his class number. Call for a contribution from each scholar each Sunday. Urge that all absent scholars send their contributions, or bring them the next Sunday. From this systematic giving you may go on to proportionate giving by impressing on the scholars their duty to set apart for God some regular proportion, say one tenth, of all the money they receive. If the school takes up monthly collections for special benevolent objects, the envelopes for these Sundays may be of a different color. If, as should always be the case, the expenses of the school are met by the church, leaving the entire school collections to be devoted to missions and charitable causes, the school committee on benevolences may select a different object of giving for each month. This object should then be written on each envelope for that month.
A Jug-Breaking.—One of the best ways of teaching children the value of little gifts and the importance of weekly savings for Christ's cause is by the collection of money in jugs. Set before them at the start some object for their gifts, that they may think and talk about it while they are saving; otherwise their minds are lifted no higher than their money. And how they will enjoy the jug-breaking!
Class-Books.—Not records of class attendance, but books for the library, paid for by the various classes, selected by these so far as their choice seems wise, and each of them bearing an inscription telling what class presented it to the school. Such gifts give the scholars a personal interest in the library they have helped to create.
Loan Libraries.—Instead of giving away the books your school has thoroughly read, loan them, in groups of fifty or so, to poorer schools. They will return them in good condition, and by that time there will be many new scholars in your own school to whom the books will be fresh.
Exchange Libraries.—There is no reason why neighboring schools, if their library funds are low, should not arrange to buy different books, and then exchange them after the original purchasers have used them for a year. All the schools in a town or township might well combine in an arrangement so economical.
Receiving the New Books.—The library will be advertised if the reception of new books is made an event. They may be put in a public place, all at one time, and formally presented to the school by pastor or superintendent, with a word about each. This may be done at Christmas, Easter, Children's Day, Thanksgiving, at any one or all of these holiday seasons.