Middletown transcript., 1917-11-17
THE GRADED S. 5.
A Great Advance Over The Old
Teaching Methods Used

"A O1Col huV0uSC VVCI luC VlU
Teaching Methods Used
ABOUT A HALF CENTURY AGO
Fortunately for the Sunday Schools
of the great Methodist Church-for
they are the feeders of the Church, the
source whence come 85 per cent of its
members and 95 per cent of its. minis
ters-its leaders have caught the wiser
spirit of efficiency of this swiftly ad-
vancing commercial age, and are seek
ing to introduce in every department
of that important branch of church
work, the Sunday Schools, this same
business efficiency that will make "the
children of light as wise in their gener-
alton as the children of this world.
This departure from the old methods
in Sunday School work, represents as
great an advance as that of the speeding
railroad express over the numbering
stage coach of Is years ago
| This new Sunday School method is
based not only upon spiritual truth but
also uppn certain hitherto little needed
psychological and physiological laws of
the mind and body. In word, it avails
inself not only of Gods revealed spirit
ual truth, but also of His truth as
shown in the laws of the mind and
body of the student, young and old,
from infancy to the maturer years of
boy and girlhood, not indeed, to say of
man and womanhood. For after all
| Gods truth is one and consistent in all
its many realms.
In recent years there has been upon
the part of certain religious teachers
and preachers much metaphysical hair
splitting in their vain attempt to ex-
plain in terms of science the divinest of
all mysteries-the conversion of the
human soul, that profound and inscrut-
able mystery that the Son of God said
to Nlcodemus was ''as the wind that
bloweth where it listeth, and thou
tlCCI CoC CilC oOuuu IiCICol OuL CdIlSt IlOL
tell whence 1t cometh and whittier it
goeth."
These Athenians of the church, with
their itch ''to hear and tell some new
thing" and puffed up with the little
learning which Pope admonishes US is
"a dangerous thing" have presumpt-
uously sought to intrude into Gods
Holy of Holes, and with their so called
science measure and weigh the un-
searchable phenomena enshrouding this
marvellous incident in the life of
human being. Indeed, these religious
mountebanks would substitute their
patent formula of conversion for Gods
simple plan. If needed their vain ex-
ploitations would hinder rather than
advance the Gospel.
The Scribe. when he first heard of
these new Sunday School methods,
1.-The graded school, graded lessons
"teacher training" etc., thot IL was
more of this modern religious foolish
ness, but to his pleased surprise found
that it was highly useful, practical
common sense reform open to none of
the criticisms justly brought against
those new tangled speculations.
These three Sunday School experts
Revs. Harry c. Wilson, Arlo T. Brown
and Mrs. Bert Morehouse, in their
various addresses fully and entertain
ingly, set out the rationale of the new
system, explaining and illustrating the
later and better ways of doing sunday
School work; of teaching and training
the scholars, the little ones, the boys
and girls, the young men and women,
and of training the teachers themselves
for their work. ,e-..~. =
Here are few of tine wise innova-
tons. A disuse of the old Uniformity
of lessons which had whole school
from tots to seniors, studying the pro-
logue to the fourth Gospel, the proph-
ecies of jeremiah, Paul's discourse on
Mars Hill, or that most difficult of the
81 parallels of Jesus. the Unjust Stew
ard, concerning whose meaning the
most learned commentators are utterly
DIT variance, as anyone can discover by ;
reading half dozen or more.
This absurdity of teaching six year
olds and boys and girls far in their teens,
the same lessons, Is not found IN the
public schools which are thoroughly
graded and provide for gradual pro-
motion from elementary to more diff
cult studies as the pupils grow older.
Then the new way calls for study
Of child nature, boy and girl nature,
the character and tastes of older pupils
ETC., and for a far greater perfection
in the machinery of the Sunday School
than in the old haphazard style. This
increased efficiency is largely due to q
minute subdivision of authority and
work that seeks the teacher or officer
best fitted for one particular task-and
generally, but one.
This minute official oversight of every
department of school work, in the class
room and out Of it, beginning with the
,diligent outside hunt for scholars and
then keeping tab on them once they
are brought in-results in bigger and