The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1911-03-22
Editor The Citizen:

Editor The Citizen:
Little of practical Importance has
been said about the graded lesson
system in our local Sunday School
Conventions. Neither is it our pur-
pose at this time to set forth the
construction plan of the separate
courses of Bible study, nor yet to
note the difficulties to be met in
their adoption. But it may be time
ly to say at least word respecting
the transition period through which
the Sunday school world is just now
passing.
Some References For the Old.
Doubtless the uniform lessons will
survive for another generation for
they have been mighty agency for
good in the past and are too strongly
entrenched in the minds and hearts
of the church constituency to be put
aside easily. Then, too, they meet
the requirements of that immense
Sunday school constituency which
prefers predigested material; as also
those who are sentimentally fearful
and afraid 10 cut loose from tradi-
ton. While those who are financial
ly involved in the uniform lesson
plan have buttressed it on every side
by commercial and vested interests,
and still others solemnly affirm the
grave defects of this new departure
in lesson study.
Success OF The New.
On the other hand, many schools
are inquiring about the graded sys-
TEN and asking for it's merits in pre-
10 @11
Sunday school is already recasting
it's methods, and revising it's ap-
peals, and so adapting itself to all
classes and ages with the result that
over one-half million of young men
alone became associated with the
Sunday school and church last year
through direct effort along modern
lines.
Our denominational houses have
been quick to recognize that the best
good of the child demands first con-
sideration, and have entered upon
the new lesson series with both care
and reluctance, knowing that the fl
nancial outlay must far exceed all
profits derived therefrom for some
time. However, the new graded
courses met with instant success in
q IlNSlOlu SISdlSI uelldllu lie DdSI
year than the most sanguine dared
to hope.
This prompt and hearty response
in general demonstrates beyond
question the recognized widespread
and earnest desire for a new type of
organized study and instruction in
the Sunday school. And the unani-
nous testimony of those who have
n RI n1 l,.D &c
the new methods, aside from the
psychological and pedagogical basis,
is highly favorable, and entirely sat
isfactory.
Some Unique Features.
The graded lesson studies faith
fully pursued will help the student
to locate the lesson in his own BIZ
BILE; to obtain clear idea of the
Bible story; to know it's relation to
other scripture; to feel the need of
a practical realization of it's precepts
in the individual life.
The method pursued in graded
Sunday school work is somewhat
similar to the grade work in the pub
lie or secular schools-a continuous
series of progressive Bible studies
from infancy throughout life, design
ed to meet the needs of the pupil in
each stage of his spiritual develop
ment, and making for thoroughness
and familiarity with and love for
Gods Word, so that he will become
persistent life-student of the old
Book, and the exemplar of it's teach
ings.
Those Sunday schools which to-
day confess to need of a diviner
aspiration, may find it in this toning
effect of an ungloved grasp of Gods
Word-in the rich feel" of a di-
rect handclasp with the Divine.
This is the careful design of the
graded Sunday school work: To lift
the school out of the whirl of ex-
cessive "lesson helps" Cor hind
rances), and to rescue it from the
crutch-like method of Bible study, in
its every endeavor to entwine the
tendrils of childhood and youth
about the Book of Books. To be
doing this faithfully is to be tilling
and seeding for a hundredfold har-
vest in direct Bible knowledge and
practical Christian training.
r. d. MINCH.
Damascus, Pa.