(a) There is the inequality in the size of classes, to which reference has already been made. When classes come together by accident, pupils bringing their friends, or new members joining whatever classes they please, some classes of boys or girls will inevitably be too large for good government or good teaching, and others will be too small to create any enthusiasm, either in the teacher or the pupils.
(b) There is also an inequality in the ages of pupils in the same class. A class may include one pupil or two pupils sixteen years old, and others as young as ten, or even nine years; some who during the week are in the high school, and others who can scarcely read the verses assigned to them.
(c) Where these inequalities of numbers and ages exist there is a lack of that class spirit which is an essential element of power in a well-ordered Sunday school. Every class should be a unit, with a strong social bond; but this ideal cannot be realized when there are in the class two or three youths in the noisy, assertive, self-conscious stage of early adolescence, and others who are several years younger. Nor can there be a proper social bond in a class with only two or three members. They are likely to be irregular in attendance, to find excuses for absence or for leaving the school, until at last the discouraged teacher and the listless scholars together drop out of sight.
For the correction of these evils of inequality in numbers and in ages, and of this lack of class spirit, the only successful method is to grade the school, and resolutely to keep it graded.
(3) Difficulties of Administration. The difficulties which confront the superintendent in the management of an ungraded school are many and great.
(a) The first and ever-present difficulty is in obtaining teachers for new classes. The constant growth of the Primary Department is his perennial perplexity. To relieve the congestion in the crowded Infant Class its older pupils must be brought into the main school, and teachers must be found for them. The superintendent is always seeking, and often seeking vainly, for new teachers.
(b) Another difficulty is found in the attempt to transfer scholars from one class to another. No matter how much out of place a pupil may be, it is almost impossible to transfer him to another class without incurring the displeasure of the teacher, the scholar, or the scholar's family. And however overgrown or ill-assorted a class may have become, to divide it is a delicate task, almost sure to cause ill feeling. Also, when there arises the need of a teacher for a new class just emerging from the Primary Department, the natural plan would be to combine some of the skeleton classes in the other departments, and thereby release a teacher for service with the new class. But the superintendent who attempts this plan finds that almost invariably it results in some of the older scholars leaving the school because their teacher is taken from them.
2. The Essentials of a Graded School. Briefly stated, the essentials of a graded Sunday school are the following:[4]
(1) Departments. The graded Sunday school is organized in certain distinct groups, of which the most important, for our present purpose, are the Primary, Junior, Intermediate, and Senior Departments. To these will be added the Beginners and Adult Departments when the subject comes up for a complete treatment. Each of these departments should have, if possible, a separate room; but if these rooms cannot be provided in the building, the pupils should be seated by departments in the different parts of the one room. Perhaps it may be assumed that there is a separate room for the Primary Department; then let those who have most recently come from the Primary be seated on the right block of seats; the Youths or Intermediate in the middle; and the Senior classes on the left block, or vice versa. The younger classes of the department should have the front seats, the older those in the rear, in regular gradation. The school may be arranged in the order shown in this diagram:
