It is late in the day to inquire why the Sunday-school teacher needs training; but the question is often asked, and the answers are ready:
(1) The General Principle. All good work involves the prerequisite of training. Especially is this true of teaching; and there is a reason why the principle holds with regard to the Sunday-school teacher even more directly than with the secular teacher. While the subjects of teaching are vitally important, relating to character and efficient service, the time for teaching is short, less than an hour each week, in contrast to the twenty or twenty-five hours in the week-day school. To make an impression in so short a teaching period, with such long intervals between the lessons, demands that the teacher be one who possesses exceptional fitness for his work, and this superior fitness cannot be obtained without special and thorough training.
(2) The Teacher's Responsibility. All-important as is the work of religious teaching, for which the Bible is the chief text-book in the church, there is but one institution in our time charged with that mighty duty, and that is the Sunday school. The Bible is rarely taught in the home, which should be the first place for teaching it; it is only incidentally taught in the pulpit, of which the aim is not so much instruction as inspiration. Practically all the teaching of the Bible now devolves upon the Sunday school, and the Sunday school only. If the Sunday schools of the world for one generation should fail to teach the word of life, the knowledge of that word would well-nigh cease. And the one person charged with that task, the one on whom the responsibility rests, is the Sunday-school teacher. He who is intrusted with so great a work, and upon whose fidelity the work depends, must have a proper equipment; and that equipment presupposes training.
(3) The Demand of the Age. We are living in an intellectual age, unparalleled in the history of the world. The boundaries of knowledge in every direction have widened, and in each realm the search is deeper and more thorough. Such wealth has been added through recent investigations to the store of Bible knowledge that most commentaries, expositions, and introductions of the past have now but slight value. Another exceedingly important realm that has been added to the domain of knowledge is that of child study, but recently an unexplored field, now open to every reader. In such a time as this the teacher who would impart the contents of the Bible to the young must have eyes and mind opened. He must know the results of modern investigation in the Scriptures and in the nature of those whom he teaches. His pupils are under the care of trained and alert specialists through the week; they must receive instruction from well-taught minds in the Sunday school.
(4) The Teacher and His Class. The peculiar relation already referred to as existing between the Sunday-school teacher and his class presents another incentive to training. His relation is not like that of the secular teacher, who speaks with authority, and can command attention and study. The teacher in Sunday school cannot require his scholars to learn the lesson; the authority of the parent is rarely employed to compel home study; and as a result most of our scholars come to the Sunday school unprepared. This is not the ideal or the ultimate condition, but unfortunately it is still the real condition in at least nine out of ten Sunday-school classes. This condition makes the demand upon the teacher all the greater. Because his scholars are unprepared he must be all the better prepared. He must be able to awaken and arouse his pupils; he must inspire them to an interest in the lesson; he must so teach as to lead them into knowledge of the truth and a desire to seek it for themselves. Anyone can teach the scholar who is eager to learn; but to teach those who come to the class unprepared and careless, to send them away with a clear-cut understanding of the lesson, and an awakened intelligence and conscience—all this, under the conditions of the Sunday-school teacher's task, and in his peculiar relation to his scholars, requires not only ability, but also thoroughly trained ability.
In view of all these considerations, it is not surprising that at the opening of the twentieth century the demand of the Sunday schools everywhere is for better teaching, and for teachers who have themselves been taught and are able to teach others.
XIV
THE TRAINING AND TASK OF THE TEACHER