The social needs must be met through frequent class and department gatherings, preferably in the homes, for the habit of reverence in God's house will receive almost fatal counteraction in the average social gathering of this age held in the church. Organizations like the "Knights of King Arthur," for boys, and the "Sunshine Club," for girls, are to be highly commended because of their social features, their appeal to the love of uniform, password and secrets, to hero worship and to activity through the ideals of life and service they make concrete and alluring.
Discipline of these independent, outspoken boys and girls is easy if the teacher will only lay hold of the heart instead of the coat collar, but, alas, the latter method takes less time. The world holds nothing truer and sweeter than the love of a child at this age, free as it is from all affectation and policy, and it is there in every heart, awaiting the touch of the teacher who can find the hidden spring. The contact on Sunday is not sufficient, however, to reveal it. The child must know through the letter, the call, the invitation to the teacher's home, the loving sympathy in his life and interests that the teacher wants him, not his Golden Text and offering, and in this knowledge the magic spring is found.
Besides the social life, the teacher should feel a responsibility in regard to what the children are reading. Papers like the Youth's Companion circulated among the members, suggestions as to books in the Sunday School or public library, books loaned to the children and questions as to their reading may save many a soul from the slimy trail of the serpent coiled in the dime novel.
A few suggestions may be added relative to the work in the School itself.
PLACE
The Juniors should have a separate department and place, for their work is distinct in character and methods from the Primary and Intermediate departments. Maps and charts should be added to the equipment, individual and personally owned Bibles, and where they can be had, tables for each class.
ORGANIZATION
For two important reasons the department should be divided into classes and the teaching done by the teachers, presupposing they have risen to their privilege and are trained. First, the week-day shepherding becomes an increasingly serious matter as the child is broadening in his relationships, and no superintendent can give it alone. Second, the recitation must give large opportunity for individual work on the part of the pupil during the lesson, and this is impossible in a department taught as a whole.
PROGRAM
The program should give prominence to supplemental work taught largely through drills, including—during the Golden Memory Period—the Books of the Bible, passages, chapters, facts concerning the Bible and training in its use, geography of the Holy Land, the catechism where used and the hymns of the church. Public recognition in badges, certificates and roll of honor will aid in securing the desired work along this and other lines.