The Home Department is for the benefit of persons who cannot attend Sunday school. The conditions upon which membership is secured are that they shall study the lesson for the day one half hour on the Sabbath; all members to report quarterly whether they have kept the pledge. Those who join this department are members of the school and entitled to all its privileges, such as lesson helps, the use of library, and all other things that other members enjoy. This department should include persons who are distant from the school, the aged, the sick, and may include persons who reside hundreds of miles away, especially those who have been members of the school in other days. This department should have a superintendent who will give it attention and look after all who become members.
THE ERIE PLAN.
BY H. A. STRONG.
THE query often arises whether the modern Sunday school is now at its maximum of efficiency in the line of its development. Wonderful is the progress already attained. The introduction of the International Lesson System marks an epoch. Before that separate schools and even teachers were a law unto themselves. Now schools are in touch one with another; sectarian barriers have been broken down; the unity of the cause is recognized. The Church is one; so are her schools. The culture and the spirituality of the Church catholic everywhere are now the teacher of the teachers. Helps to Bible study are so multiplied and improved that it is difficult to see how an advance step could be taken here. The testimony is well-nigh uncontradicted that the Bible is studied as never before in the light of modern research and science. Teachers, as a body, are measuring up to these privileges and responsibilities.
The advance movement in Sunday school work may not be in its literature, nor in the efficiency or the enthusiasm of its corps of teachers. Elsewhere must we look for the necessity for improvement.
The Sunday school is a school. The expression sounds trite and tautological; but it needs emphasis. Bishop Vincent in his latest book, "The Modern Sunday School," discusses the proposition that the "Sunday school is and must be a school." Out of the fullness of his knowledge and experience proof is there given that the organization, system of teaching, and methods of the public schools must be appropriated by the Sunday school of the day. The modern Sunday school must stand or fall as it is contrasted with the modern public school. By such a comparison alone can excellencies or deficiencies be revealed.
Wonderful has been the development of the public school system in the present generation. Great teachers have appeared in all ages and schools have gathered about them. But this age is remarkable in this, that it has adopted a system of instruction for youth and has trained teachers for that system. The combination of these two elements makes the modern common school system. Let the adults of to-day state the case of their day. Such a comparison would show the value of the present. The great boon from the State to the youth of to-day is an educational system based on scientific principles.
In that system two essentials must be emphasized: first, departments; and, second, the place of the pupil. These departments form a series that are mutually related and dependent. They each mark a step in the development of the mind of the pupil. Again, the pupil has his proper place in that system, assigned not by caprice but by a principle. That principle is the attainment of the pupil in the studies of the system. A competent instructor could find by examination the true place of any pupil in any city public school. Such a statement is so self-evident that it excites no surprise. It is as it should be. The method of assignment and promotion is the public school system. Without it that system would not be what it is.