OUR SUNDAY SCHOOLS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18802, 3 March 1923, Page 18

OUR SUNDAY SCHOOLS

By Ajipuus. “He that teachoth, let him give himself to his teaching.” INTRODUCTORY. Through the courtesy of the editor of the Otago Daily Times space is to bo placed at the disposal of tho Utago Council of Sunday School Unions every Saturday for news and notes bearing on Sunday schools and matters of religious education. The column exists to give Sunday school information of local, dominion, or world-wide interest; and nows of any plans, devices, or methods that have proved successful in local schools will be specially varied. There is a very general feeling abroad among Sunday school workers to-day that the standard of educational and spiritual efficiency of their work must be raised. They should eagerly welcome this generous recognition on tho part of the press as a means to tho end they seek. This column can be made of great practical value if those concerned will loyally co-operate by passing on through it any help they have received or useful experience they have acquired. Those concerned in the religious education of the young feel strongly that tho dignity and significance of their calling cannot bo over-estimated. It has been shrewdly observed that the eighteenth century discovered man, the nineteenth century discovered woman, and that it has been loft to this twentieth century to discover the child. Nearly a quarter of the century has already gone, and we have still far to go in discovering tho nature and needs of the child and providing for them. Methods in day schools havo been revolutionised in the last few years, and Sunday schools havo by no means stood still. While a lamentable conservatism in some quarters must be admitted, yet it could bo shown that in certain particulars at any rate religious educationists have been well ahead of their secular confreres. Tho fact is that the Sunday schools must move forward if they are to make any adequate attempt at all to cope with the ever-increasing burden that is being laid upon them in this land. The principles of our national secular system of education expressly exclude the religious side of the child’s nature from its scope, and in all but a tragically small proportion of onr homes there is no regular attempt made to supply this urgent need. Practically tho whole burden of tho religious training of the youth of tho nation is thus thrown upon tho Churches through their Sunday schools; and if the coming generation is to be saved from grogs materialism with the most fatal and niinous consequences it must bo largely the Sunday school that will do it. It is an urgent recognition of some such facts as these that has led two of tho big churches of tho dominion to observe 1923 as a special Children’s Year, in which the spiritual welfare of the children shall have first place in the life and thought of the Church. A Children’s Year programme was adopted by tho Methodist Conference 12 months ago, and is now being put into operation throughout iho dominion with increasing vigour. The Presbyterian Church followed on similar lines at its Assembly last November, and its plans are not yet so far advanced. Nevertheless through the co-operation of both churches it is hoped to make the yoiy a memorable one ii# tho history of Sunday school enterprise in the dominion. “AMPLIUS.” The pen-name at the head of this column may require a little explanation. It is told of tho groat Michael Angelo that one day ho was going tho round of his students looking at their drawings. Ho stopped before one of them, and, taking a chalk, wrote upon it “Amplius.” It means wider, loftier, more roomy, and spacious. And that is the keynote that Sunday school workers must strike this Children’s Year in all their thinking and planning. NEWS AND NOTES. It is welcome nows that tho Olago Council of Sunday School Unions has completed arrangements with Miss F. S. Warner, of Auckland, who made so many friends here last November, to spend a year in Dunedin as tho council’s export organiser. Miss Warner expects to reach Dunedin on tho 15th inst., and writes that she is looking forward to commencing her duties the following day. The annual Youth Workers’ Institute organised by tho Youth Committee of the Dunedin Presbytery is to be hold this year from April 50 to May 4, probably in St. Andrew’s Bible School. In tho Sunday school section of tho institute chief emphasis will be laid upon intermediate work, that department being admittedly the most neglected in our Sunday schools. It is hoped to obtain a series of addresses from Miss* vV arner. The Rev. R. M. Ryburn, dircctpr of youth work of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, is. at present in the midst of a fortnight’s visit to Dunedin. He is chiefly concerning himself with problems of tho organisation of his department, bnt is also inquiring into the matter of establishing a thorough course of teacher training. MR W. O. PEARCE’S WORLD TOUR. Mr W. C. Pearce, Associate General Secretary of the World’s Sunday School Association, who was absent from tho United States for eight months on a world tour, returned to New York on October 26, just in time to attend the Executive Committee meeting of that association. During the previous 14 months, Mr Pearce had visited 29 nations, which comprise approximately thirteen hundred millions of the world’s population. In his report to tho World’s Committee he emphasised the following impressions which be had received : 1. The present ora is marked by racial and national bitterness and strife. Everywhere there is suspicion and fear. In Turkey, Greece, Palestine, Egypt, India, China, Siberia, and Russia there is unrest, revolution, massacre, bloodshed, and all kinds of suffering. This world plight, Mr Pearca says, is not a failure intellectually or commercially. but is fundamentally a breakdown in morals. The world needs moral disarmament, which can bo produced alone by spiritual armament. Either the man and money power of the Christian world must bo mobilised effectually to teach tho Gospel of tho Prince of Peace, or wo will head steadily towards a war far more disastrous and bloody than the one just passed. 2. Everywhere the door is wide open for the Christian message. Not a nation was visited in which the Sunday school is not welcome. Tho street Sunday schools in Egypt and India, Barrio Sunday schools in the Philippine Islands, and the homo Sunday schools of China, Korea, and Japan are witnesses of what could lie done in all parts of the world with adequate support as to equipment, literature, and leadership. 3. Tho Christian leaders of all nations strongly supported hv tho missionaries in all mission fields are forming national .Sunday School Associations to develop, extend, and improve the Church’s teaching agency—♦ho Sunday school. In a few years the whole world should be organised so that tho Sunday school experience of all nations of the world would b© easily available to each nation.