Chapter XLI

Around the Council Fire

Our conventions are the grand council fires in the war the Sunday-school is waging against the forces of evil. The flame of the Holy Spirit should blaze in their midst. With military directness they should go straight to the immediate needs, find out what they are, plan the campaign. Orderly and in turn, all should have a part in them, not only the speakers, but the audience, one school and every school. With hearts uplifted, with zeal on fire, every teacher should leave the gathering bent on more valiant service.

Only a well-planned convention can effect this,--a convention long thought over and prayed over, not merely by one man, but by many.

These meetings not seldom remind one of a house of which the owner takes possession prematurely. Over yonder the scaffolding is still up, here they are just removing it, the sound of the hammer and the saw is everywhere, and the smell of wet plaster is in the air. Thus in many conventions. Here and there the president bustles around, over the platform, through the audience. The local committee of arrangements are like bees before swarming. We begin late and with apologies; so we continue.

The model convention, however, began at least as far back as the preceding convention. At that gathering suggestions for the next meeting were called for and obtained. During the following weeks the president visited or corresponded with every school in the district, trying to discover its excellences and lacks, that the convention might exhibit the one and supply the other. Indeed, at the very opening of the preceding convention the new officers, if any, were elected, that during the sessions they might have ears open and brains and tongues active, gathering hints for the profitable meeting they were to plan. Therefore it was early known precisely what the coming convention was to teach, and that convention, instead of b.u.mping along Haphazard Lane, rolls smoothly over Purpose Avenue.

Two methods will promote this preparedness of the audience, without which the best-prepared programme largely fails: there should be a convention press committee, whose pleasant task it is to pack the papers with appetizing details of the coming meetings; and every school should be supplied, at least two weeks beforehand, with a large number of the printed programmes. If these are attractively got up, if the topics meet genuine needs and are expressed brightly, suggestively, and not as Dr.

Dryasdust would formulate them, and if the various superintendents and pastors advertise the convention wisely, the audience that will come together will be ready for its work.

So large a part of most Sunday-school convention audiences comes from the immediate locality that especial effort should be made to interest beforehand the church and the town in which the meetings are held; and this not merely for the sake of the convention, but for the quickening of Sunday-school interests throughout the community. But if only a few persons are gathered, do not make the mistake of losing them in a large room, with scores of empty pews into which their zeal can creep away and hide itself. The same coals that grow black in all outdoors will make a little stove red-hot.

No small part of the preparation that is to make a success of your convention is the careful and _enterprising_ selection of speakers. The best policy is to choose none from "policy." Select the men that can inspire and instruct, though you must crowd out some pastor of a big church or some man with a big name. From the teachers themselves call out suggestions as to speakers as well as to topics. Search through your district for original workers, inventors, plummet men, women that win the hearts of the children, and get them to tell the convention how they do it. By all means call in the successful Christian teacher in the secular schools. If possible, import a skilled worker from outside your district. Fresh air will come in with him, the sense of a wider outlook.

Only, he must not be an opinionated egotist, one of those _ex-cathedra_ men, but a warm-hearted brother in the Lord; and it is far better to use him in several short speeches scattered over the programme than in one long address.

The wise choice of topics is quite as important as a wise choice of men to treat them. Let all programme-makers remember what the convention is to do: not to show off leaders, or to raise money, or to get acquainted, or to have a good time, but to learn more about teaching and managing Sunday-schools. Three aims must be set before every Sunday-school convention: to arouse new love for the Bible, to arouse new love for souls, to arouse new zeal for bringing these two together. Every convention, then, should divide its time among three cla.s.ses of topics: the Bible, the children, the teaching.

1. _The Bible._ Such themes as these are suggested: "How the Bible differs from all other books." "Recent Bible discoveries." "My way of studying the Bible." "Bible-marking." "How to study Exodus." "The use of a 'teacher's Bible.'" "Interleaved Bibles,--why and how." "The value of the Victoria revision." "The study of the Bible as literature." "What is the best commentary?" "Reading the Bible in course,--how to make it most profitable." "The Septuagint and its importance." "How the Bible came down to the printing-press." "The story of our English Bible."

2. _The Children._ "Imagination in children." "Reasoning processes that a child will not appreciate." "Why children love stories."

"Important differences between the child's mind and ours." "Put yourself in his place." "A child's confidence: how lost; how won."

"Prigs: how not to make them." "The self-conscious child and how to treat him." "Lessons from the playground." "Kindergarten principles of value in the Sunday-school."

3. _The Two Brought Together._ "What is a good question?" "How to get the cla.s.s to ask questions." "A cla.s.s that keeps its own order."

"Getting young people in love with the Bible." "The teacher's voice."

"Their own Bibles." "The quarterly left at home." "How to make the Bible real to the children." "Some tests our teaching should stand."

This outline does not omit the school management, and occasional discussion of the work of superintendents and other officers will belong under the last head; but the teachers are so many compared with the officers that _their_ work should be treated the more generously.

I think most convention programmes deal far too much with the machinery of the work, any way.

The best mode of helping the officers is by an officers' conference; and if the convention holds but two sessions, I would urge that one of them be broken up into conferences. In one room the primary workers may meet; in another, the superintendents and their a.s.sistants; in others, the librarians, the secretaries, the choristers, the teachers of intermediate cla.s.ses, the teachers of adult cla.s.ses, the heads of home departments, the pastors. Programmes for these conferences should be arranged with as much care as for the main convention, and nothing should be done at random. It is a good plan, at the opening of these little simultaneous gatherings, to appoint one member of each to take notes of the best things and report them succinctly to the entire body when it rea.s.sembles.

There are three cla.s.ses of topics that I especially delight to see on a convention programme. First, the fundamentals. We must not forget the host of new workers constantly coming into our ranks. "How to ask a question" is an old, old theme; but there are enough new teachers to keep it forever fresh and pertinent. Second, new methods, exploited by authorities, by practical workers. Third, what I call "encouragements,"

topics that inspire, cheer, comfort, victories gained, rewards in sight.

Hallelujah themes.

To these I must add a fourth: work for the audience. I would give the listeners a chance to "talk back" about once every hour, and something to do, besides listening, every half-hour. Question-boxes on practical topics are incomparable interest-quickeners. An answer-box is a reversed question-box. It contains written answers by the teachers, two or three questions of wide scope and great importance being propounded on the programme; such questions as: "What do you do with pert children?" "How do you get your scholars to study their lessons?" A wise leader, with the grace of conciseness, is required for both these exercises.

Yes, and he is needed for the "open parliaments," or conversational discussions of helpful topics by brisk dialogue between audience and platform. These may be made merely parade-grounds for "smart" leaders, or genuine experience meetings, true council fires. It is wise to send a special invitation to your best teachers, asking them to be prepared with suggestions or questions for the open parliament, that it may start off with momentum already obtained. A summarist, too, is a good appointment; he listens quietly to the open parliament, and at the close gathers up, in a few sentences that stick, whatever is best worth preserving out of the discussion.

The open parliament most commonly held consists merely of dry and formal reports from each school, the roll being called. If such an exercise is held, place in charge of it a man thoroughly familiar with the schools, and able by brisk questioning to elicit a report that will picture the one school and stimulate the others.

A good presiding officer is half a convention. His first duty is to have a distinct understanding with each speaker that he is not to trespa.s.s on the next man's time, and his second duty is to cry "Stop, thief!" if the speakers do so trespa.s.s. The convention management should be a model for the Sunday-schools in every way, and in none more imperatively than in this of promptness.

But also as to order. Oh, the weak-kneed or the purblind presidents, that allow the talking, whispering, walking about of a few to filch from the many half the value of the meetings! Stop the speaker. Call a halt on the entire convention. Don't proceed another step till quiet is restored, and maintained. Be a platform czar, and your audience will be your happy serfs.

Then, the president is master of ceremonies. So much in acquaintanceships depends on tactful introductions! He should deliver to each successive speaker an audience that is in a glow of antic.i.p.ation, and when the speaker is done,--yes, and all through,--his own cordial hands should lead the hearty applause, and he should take time for an appreciative word before pa.s.sing to the next topic.

If the presiding officer is to do all this, he must plan beforehand almost every sentence he will use in introducing speakers or opening the discussions. He is to be suggestive; he is to set brains a-throbbing with eagerness and tongues aching with things to say; and he is to do it all in twenty words. Brevity, good humor, suggestiveness,--these, in this order, are the chairman's prime virtues.

At the opening of every convention the key-note of formality, routine, and perfunctoriness is struck in the address of welcome and the response. Their every word could safely be predicted in advance. The world is waiting for a programme committee that will be courageous enough to leave them out. If the pastor of the entertaining church has helpful ideas on Sunday-school work, by all means place him on the programme somewhere; but don't make a rut of him.

At the very outset strike the key of prayer. Insert here and there throughout the programme a quiet ten minutes with the great Teacher.

By all means close with a devotional half-hour--not a hasty prayer punctuated with the snapping of watches. Sentence prayers by scores, prayer psalms softly repeated, prayer hymns read with bowed heads,--the convention should furnish an inspiration and model for the devotions of all the schools represented.

Scarcely less important is the element of song. Unconsciously to themselves, the audience should become a normal training-cla.s.s, learning how to conduct the singing of their schools in fresh and uplifting ways. Many, if not all of the methods mentioned in my chapter on this theme find fit application to the convention.

The social features deserve careful attention. Set the teachers to talking together; conversation was Socrates' university. One of the most helpful events may be a light supper given by the entertaining church. A small fee is charged, all sit down together, and at the close a series of happy speeches will bring out flashes of wit and bushels of sense.

The business should be kept under. Introduce it a little at a time, rather than spend a fatiguing hour and a half. Make no parade of money-raising. Giving should be done quietly. Teach your teachers the grace of envelopes. Reduce all business to a minimum, remembering that the convention comes together not for legislation, but for inspiration.

The Sunday-school convention is not only a conference, but an exposition. Here should be gathered whatever new teaching apparatus any school has bought: wall-maps, sand-maps, relief-maps, material for object-lessons, portable blackboards, colored pictures ill.u.s.trating the lessons, specimens of cla.s.s tests, library catalogues, new kinds of cla.s.s-books, collection-envelopes, singing-books, new editions of the Bible, lesson helps of all kinds,--it is clear how varied and valuable a collection may easily be brought together when once the teachers and officers understand what is wanted.

The library of the entertaining school should be open for visiting librarians to examine books and methods. The best new books might be brought in from all the libraries of the district, and if each school sent only one or two, the entire exhibit would furnish many a suggestion to wide-awake library committees.

One of the most important exhibits is a Sunday-school map of the district, indicating where schools are in existence, and also where schools might and should be placed.

There is one kind of exhibit that should rarely be made, if ever: an exhibit of the children themselves, either to "speak pieces" or to play Sunday-school and be taught. The latter use of them has advantages, but, to my mind, the gain to the audience is nothing compared to the children's increase of self-consciousness. I hide my head whenever I think of such a mock recitation in which I figured when a little boy, and remember how proud I was of my pert forwardness in answering all of the questions; before all those people, too!

In closing, let us ask how the convention results may be gathered up, preserved, and sown broadcast. A notebook should be in the hand of each attendant,--either given away or sold. The speakers should so mark their points and emphasize the subdivisions of their addresses that the thoughts can readily be grasped and retained. A printed syllabus is a great a.s.sistance to this end, and if the printing-press is too costly, a manifolder may be used. Blank pages should be left in the programme, to invite to note-taking.

And then, the new plans all jotted down, the felicitous expressions written out _verbatim_, the facts and figures clearly noted, let the convention be widely reported. Not merely should the convention press committee, that heralded the gathering through the papers, continue their labors long enough to render their previous work most fruitful, but every teacher present should carry the convention's best to his teachers' meeting and his cla.s.s; yes, and to the church prayer-meeting.

Thus will the ardor of the council fire spread throughout the army.

Chapter XLII

The Incorporation of Ideas

Certain arts, such as sculpture, painting, and architecture, have been named the fine arts by some man who had not learned to look inward, and see what an infinitely finer art is any that attempts to fashion the human soul. The pastor's and the teacher's arts, which are in essence one, though the tyranny of language forbids calling them the fine arts, may be given even a n.o.bler t.i.tle; they are the high arts.

We would sit down with bated breath and tense-drawn nerves to take to pieces for the first time the delicate machinery of a watch for cleaning and readjustment. If a sovereign diamond were placed in our hands for faceting, we would study for days its cleavage plane, its natural angles, and its matrix, and press it to the revolving wheel at last with timidity and shrinking. But when the most marvelously delicate, impressionable, yet abiding thing in the world is placed in our hands, together with the mightiest yet finest tools, and under conditions constantly varying, and we are told to fashion a human soul into truth and n.o.bility, we sit down with confident smiles, and whack away.

It is impossible for a Sunday-school teacher to magnify his office. He needs a spiritual telescope, rather, to see above it and below it and on all sides of it. We Sunday-school teachers const.i.tute an unordained ministry, whose functions are as sacred as those of the pulpit, though less inclusive. If we are faithful, conversions will be as frequent results of our lesson questions as of the pastor's sermons. "G.o.d hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers." Let us desire earnestly the greater gifts; but if G.o.d calls us to be neither missionary nor pastor, but Sunday-school teacher, even that calling is too high for us fully to attain.

It is an anomaly to which the Christian world is just awaking that workers permit themselves to enter on this sacred art with no apprenticeship. Indeed, if such untrained workers were not admitted, there would soon be no Sunday-schools in the world to admit them. Long as the seminaries for ministerial preparation have existed, it is only recently that training-schools for lay workers have been formed. May they grow and multiply!

But until enlarged Christian activity places one of these blessed inst.i.tutions within reach of each consecrated layman, we must do the best we can with other means of growth. We must organize regular Sunday-school conventions and teach one another there. We must build one another up in enthusiastic teachers' meetings. We must use the best lesson helps. We must read greedily every book and every article that promises to give us new ideas and methods and inspiration.

Now some object to all this. "You are needlessly discouraging us,"

they say. "You are making a very simple matter appear complicated; an easy one seem difficult. Christ's yoke is easy; Christ's gospel is plain; he will give us in that Sunday-school hour what we are to say.

Your minute directions as to methods of study, as to concordance and commentary and maps, are flying in the face of Providence. The Spirit bloweth where he listeth."