RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22718, 2 November 1935, Page 27

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

By Amplids. CHILD'S EVENING PRAYER. My Father, hear my prayer Before I go to rest; It is Thy little child That cometh to be blest. Forgive me all my sins, And let me sleep this night, In safety and in peace Until the morning light. Lord, lielp me every day To love Thee more and more, And try to do Thy will Much better' than before. Now look upon me, Lord. Ere I lie down to rest; It is Thy little child That cometh to be blest.

RURAL SUNDAY SCHOOL

Many of the Sunday schools of our laud are rural, often in small or out-of-the-way places in the country. These present a real problem. Here, for instance, is a school of about 30 scholars, meeting in one small church without any rooms at all, an organ or harmonium being the only instrument available. How can grading principles be brought into action in a case like this, and how can the varying needs of the children be met? If a lew teachers are available it simplifies matters a great deal. The first thing to do is to group the scholars according to age and the number of helpers. The ideal way is to take the primary age children, say up to eight and a-half, dividing them into two or more classes if there are teachers for them, then making at least two classes of older scholars, the first over eight and up to eleven and a-half, and the other of those over that age. The more these three divisions can be kept as separate groups the better, for each corresponds with the grading group of a fully graded school. If only three teachers are available they should take one of these divisions each. If more can be found the groups may be divided into smaller classes. In many cases the number of teachers will be small, but, if possible, these three groups should be kept, even if it means some rearranging of the times. Each group needs some specialised teaching that will appeal more directly to its stage of development than is found in the general teaching and worship taken with the whole school. It has been found possible to train one of the older scholars to take the primary children and give them their story while the older children are being taught. If there is only one teacher available, it will be impossible to give more than two lessons, one to the primary scholars, and one to the older ones, a junior lessOn being the best to take. While one group is having ii* lesson the other should be employed in some useful occupation. The primary story will take about ten minutes, during which the older children can be reading a Bible passage, or doing some selfteaching by means of questions prepared for them by the teacher, reading the lesson material in the folders, drawing maps, or doing work suggested by the previous lesson. The primary children, after having their lesson, can settle down to expression work under the supervision of an older scholar, while the other class is given its lesson. It is a great mistake to try to give the whole group the same lesßon. It was the writer's experience to find herself to only teacher in a school of 30 scholars for a period of some months owing to the illness of the regular superintendent. An experiment was tried which proved entirely satisfactory. The scholars were divided into two groups, those under nine being in one and those over nine in another. Among the scholars wae- a girl of 13 who could play the piano. Her assistance was sought, and she agreed to help with the music With the aid of a small folding paper blackboard she was able to supervise the expression work of the primary children. The teacher then gave her the primary class to teach, helping her to prepare her story during the week, and the two classes were taught at the same time, each with a lesson suited to its needs. When, after about six months illness, the superintendent returned to his task, he found that the young helper was greatly interested, and wished to keep on with her class. She did so, and for several years, until leaving the district, gave valuable service with those little children. , * The matter of worship in the oneroom school also provides a difficulty. When separate lessons are being taught it is, of course, impossible to correlate lesson and worship. It is important, however, that something should be provided in the service for each group. The opening items of worship can be general ones in which all can take part, and then some attempt should be made to have in turn a short item for each a simple hymn or talk for the primaries, followed by something more suitable for older scholars. The older scholars will join in to "help" the primaries in their hymn, when they would not willingly include it as part of their own worship. They can be asked to help the little children in the worship. Use should be made of a blackboard (brown or black paper makes a substitute), for short worship verses. While the little children are having a special item of worship, the older ones might be memorising passages of Scripture. " Where there is a will there's a way" is true in this matter too, and a teacher with sufficient vision will plan the programme in the way which will best suit the different groups. Something might even be done by gathering the little children before the older ones for a few minutes of their own, or by asking the older scholars to remain after the primaries are dismissed, in order that they might receive more particular teaching than is possible otherwise. In all these ways the principles of grading may be observed even in a one-room Sunday school. INFLUENCE OF MISSIONS. " I recall .a day in Africa/' said an eminent journalist, "when Dr Tucker said, 'Now we will go off and visit several villages, some heathen and some Christian, but we will not tell any of them that, we are coming.' I tell you now that the biggest sceptic on earth would have had some difficulty in maintaining his position had he been there and tried to do so. I would not have said one word to him. I would have let him see what I saw and heard what I heard. What would he have said? He would have said that the whole spirit and tone and look of one village was 1000 years different from the outlook and appearance and spirit of another village. In one village we saw the chie'ftan's home just as it had been centuries ago, surrounded by huts for his wives—he was very generous in the number, I may say; but, at any rate, each one had a little home for herself —there was that much in favour of the system. Then there was a joss house, with its symbols of ancient superstition, proving the power of the witch doctors, and all those things which had haunted our memories as we have studied the ancient life of the people of Africa. Everything there was exactly as it had been before any missionary went there. I went to villages of that type. " Then I went to another village, where I saw a church with a bell and was told by the doctor that every morning every family in the village went to family worship together in that church. Their roads.wore different; the gardens were different, loaded with beautiful, flowers, and there were orchards with lovely fruittrees and running streams. One ring of the bell and they came together and sang for us, and we saw in their faces indubitable proof that Jesus Christ does in the twentieth century, too, put His Name on the foreheads of His people. You can see and feel the differences: the transforming power of our God is in evidence in every part of the world." STUDY IN COMPARISON. "I hold no brief for the missionary. I am not even religious in the orthodox meaning of the word. But I have known missionaries and have observed the results of their labours in every great field and evangelistic endeavour from Persia to Polynesia, from the Congo to the China Seas, and it irritates and angers me to hear missionaries and their work condemned and derided by persons who are speaking from malice, prejudice, or ignorance. " I am a roving writer, and my job takes me to the four corners of the earth. That's why I can speak first-hand about so many missionaries. It has often seemed to me that no class of public servant —I use the term in the broader sense—has been so persistently muhnged and so generally misunderstood as the missionary. Yet, though malinged, misrepresented, miserably underpaid, often desparately lonely, frequently facing death, he has pursued the tasks assigned to him with a courage and devotion which merit the admiration of every right-think-ing man ynd woman."