As an encouragement to pupils we have found it wise to issue certificates to everyone as they complete the course of study of each department, and finally, when the Senior Course is completed, to issue a diploma. The assembly idea also obtains in our school as a part of our system. This has been found indispensable as an incentive to devotion, because it makes our higher Intermediate and Senior classes feel their importance in a measure when they are called together every fortnight to hear some talk or paper upon some religious topic, apart from the Primary and lower Intermediate classes. In order that the teachers might be more thoroughly interested in the success of the system, and thus influence their children, our superintendent has very wisely introduced the social feature into our work, and very often in our consideration of Sunday school matters we find ourselves in the midst of a pleasant and agreeable reception. This has worked well, for we are all creatures of humanity with the same innate social tendencies. The day of days, yes, the red-letter day, is "Promotion Sunday." These Sundays will never be forgotten. The enthusiasm is equal to that of Children's Day in every respect. Boys and girls with eager hearts pass from class to class. As a means necessary to the success of our system our superintendent very carefully presented the necessity of a larger library than we had. The plans for raising the money were arranged, and, to use the popular expression, "they worked like a charm." Hundreds of dollars were raised, with which we now have over one thousand volumes and a neatly built library case of twenty feet in length. It would be a pleasure to tell how that money was raised.
As to the results accomplished in our school by the system, suffice it to say they are manifold. Order, system, interest, care, study, regular and punctual attendance by officers and teachers, have been some of the results. In conclusion, let us pray that our superintendents and boards will see the necessity for this system in their schools, and that before long the schools of our Methodism may be one of continuous gradation.
THE PLAINFIELD PLAN.
BY JESSE L. HURLBUT, D.D.
TWO years have passed since our Sunday school was graded, and the results of the system are now so apparent that we can safely recommend our plan, for it has met and endured the test of time. Our Sunday school, before the grading was accomplished, embraced about four hundred scholars of all ages, with an average attendance of two hundred and seventy-five. Its officers and teachers were fifty in number. It was by no means an ideal school, though above the average in the efficiency of its work and the interest of its exercises. Its building, however, is a model of convenience and adaptation to the work of the Sunday school, having around the main hall eighteen class rooms, all capable of being either secluded or opened together at a moment's notice.
We found in out Sunday school certain evils and defects, all of which may be seen elsewhere. Some of these were: 1. "Skeleton classes" in the Senior Department, consisting of four or five scholars, being the remains of what had once been large classes of boys and girls. 2. A constant tendency among the young people to fall away from the school after reaching the age of sixteen or eighteen years. 3. Great discrepancies of numbers in the classes; large and small classes side by side in the same grade. 4. In almost any given class a lack of unity in the age and the intellectual acquirements of its members. 5. Great difficulty in obtaining suitable teachers for new classes, or to take the places of teachers leaving the school.
After many conversations a conclusion was reached that most of these evils might be removed, and others of them might be lessened, if the school were reorganized according to a good system, and then maintained as a thoroughly graded school. A committee was chosen to prepare a plan. Correspondence was held with graded schools, all printed information was carefully studied, a plan was prepared, printed, submitted to the Sunday School Board, discussed, modified, and finally adopted unanimously. The following are the principal features of the plan, for which we make no claim of originality, as each of its elements was already in successful operation in one or more graded Sunday schools:
1. That the school should be arranged in four general departments: The Senior, for all over sixteen years old; the Junior, from ten to sixteen years; the Intermediate, from eight to ten; and the Primary, for the children younger than eight years. These divisions are not arbitrary, but represent the average standard of age, to which exceptions might be made in special cases.