The Chautauquan, Vol. 04, November 1883 / A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Promotion of True Culture. / Organ of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.

by Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle; Chautauqua Institution

3. The Sunday-school can in no sense do the work of the Christian home. It is an agency differing from all other agencies of the church, and is made necessary by the nature and extent of the body of truth accepted by the church, so necessary that without it the church would be to a certain extent crippled.

4. It is a school, organized and officered as such; occupying a well defined place in the religious system of the church, having a specific purpose, and entitled to certain prerogatives.

5. As a school, its constituency is a body of teachers and pupils, associated together voluntarily, but not without responsibility and accountability.

6. The Sunday-school in its theoretic constitution is the parallel of the secular school.

(a) As the latter derives its life from the community, so the Sunday-school derives its life from the religious community, the church.

(b) As the community delegates the power of control over the secular school to a representative body which exercises supreme authority over its affairs, so the church entrusts the management of the Sunday-school to her representative executive body, by whatever name known.

(c) As the representative body controlling the secular school places the oversight of the system and its details of management in the hands of a general executive officer, or superintendent, so the governing power of the church entrusts the management of the Sunday-school to one of similar name—a superintendent.

(d) As the secular school is within and subordinate to the community, and alongside of the home as its aid and supplement, so the Sunday-school is within and subordinate to the church, and beside the Christian home as its supplement.

Let us gather up these propositions concerning the Sunday-school into a general definition.

Definition.