"Why not? There are only a hundred of them, and I have managed that number for six hours a day, five days in a week, without difficulty."
"Well, now, let me see just what you think you gain."
"It would take too long to tell. In my own opinion, I gain almost everything. But, in the first place, let me suppose a case. We have one good teacher, we will say, in that cla.s.s, who knows just what she is about, and comes prepared to be about it. She has, say, two a.s.sistants, each carefully trained to a certain work; each understanding that in the event of the detention of the leader one of them will be called on to teach the cla.s.s, each pledging herself to notify the other of necessary absences. Don"t you see that it will rarely, if ever, happen that one of the three cannot be at her post? The very sense of importance and responsibility attached to their office will lessen the chance of absence, while one teacher in twenty is almost sure to be away. Then we have those young girls in their places in the Bible cla.s.s learning to be teachers indeed."
"But, Miss Wilbur, would not such a work be very hard for the leader?"
"Why harder than the present system in our school? I think, mind you, that it wouldn"t be nearly so hard. But, for the sake of the argument, I will say, Why any harder? Why cannot her one a.s.sistant relieve her in just the same way that the other twenty are supposed to do now? Is there any known reason why a hundred children cannot repeat the Lord"s Prayer together as well as have a lesson taught them together? Children like it, I a.s.sure you; there is an enthusiasm in numbers; they would much rather speak aloud and in beautiful unison, as they can be trained to do, than to speak so low that the recitation loses half its beauty, because they must not disturb others.
"Then, I don"t know how it is with other teachers, but, theoretically, you may plan out the work of these young teachers as much as you please, and, practically, they will do very much as they please; and it is a great deal harder for me to sit listening to a sort of teaching that I don"t like, and know that I am obliged to be still and endure it, than it is to do it myself.
"The idea that one hour of work on the Sabbath is so fearfully wearing, is in my humble opinion all nonsense; those who think so, have never been teachers of graded schools six hours a day, five days in the week, I don"t believe. However, that is my opinion, you know. I may be quite mistaken as to theory; but I know as much as this. I am sure I could do the teaching alone, and I am sure that I can"t do it with twenty helpers, so I just want to give it up."
"Don"t give up the subject yet, please; I am interested. There is an argument on the other side that is very strong, I think. You haven"t touched upon it. I have heard a good deal said, and thought it a point well taken, about the personal influence of each teacher. A sense of ownership that teachers of large cla.s.ses can hardly call out because of their inability to visit their scholars, and to be intimate with their little plans, and with their home life."
Marion did a very rude thing at this point--she sat back in her rocking-chair and laughed. Then she said:
"We are dealing, you remember, with our school. Now, you know the young ladies in that cla.s.s. What proportion of them, should you imagine, without knowing anything about the facts, do really visit their pupils during the week and keep themselves posted as to the family life of any of them?"
A faint attempt at a smile hovered over Dr. Dennis" face as he said:
"Not many I am afraid. Indeed, to be very truthful, I don"t believe there are five."
"I know there are not," Marion said, decidedly. "And my supposition is that our school will average as well as others. There are exceptions, of course, but we are talking about the average. Now, that item sounds real well in a lecture, or on paper, but when you come to the practical part they simply _don"t_ do it. Some of them know no more how to do it than kittens would, or than Ruth Erskine knows how to call on the second stratum of society in her own church."
Whereupon both pastor and visitor laughed. Dr. Dennis had heard of Ruth"s attempt in that line.
"We have to deal with very common-place human beings, instead of with angels. I think that is the trouble," Marion said, returning to the charge. "We can make nice rules, and they look well and sound beautifully; then if we can carry them out they are delightful, no doubt. But if we can"t, why, what are we going to do about it? If the ladies in question were salaried teachers in the day-school, a board of trustees could come together and dismiss them if they did not obey the laws. Who thinks of such a thing in the Sunday-school? It is like calling all these teachers together for a teachers" meeting. You can _call_ them to your heart"s content; I know you can, for I have tried it; and if there is not a concert, or a tea-party, or a lecture, or a toothache on the evening in question some of them will come, and the others _won"t_."
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER XVI.
THEORY VERSUS PRACTICE.
DR. DENNIS sat regarding his caller with a thoughtful air, while she sat back in the rocker and fanned herself, trying to cool off her eagerness somewhat, and feeling that she was exhibiting herself as a very eager person indeed, and this calm man probably thought her impetuous. She resolved that the next remark he called forth should be made very quietly, and in as indifferent a manner as possible.
"Why should not the primary room be cla.s.sified as well as the main department?" he asked, at last.
To Marion there was so much that was absurd involved in the question that it put her indifference to flight at once.
"Why should there be a separate room at all if they are to be so cla.s.sified? Why not keep them in the regular department, under the superintendent"s eye, and where they can have the benefit of the pastor"s remarks?"
"Because while they are so young they need more freedom than can be given them in the main room. They need to be allowed to talk aloud, and to sing frequently, and to repeat in concert."
"Precisely; and they do not need to be set down in corners, to be whispered at for a few minutes. Besides, Dr. Dennis, don"t you think that if in the school proper, the scholars were all of nearly the same age and the same mental abilities--I mean if they averaged in that way--it would be wiser to have very large cla.s.ses and very few teachers?"
"There are reasons in favor of that, and reasons against it," he said, thoughtfully. "I am inclined, however, to think that the arguments in favor overbalance the objections; still, the serious objection is, that a faithful teacher wants little personal talks with her pupils, and will contrive to be personal in a way that she cannot do so well in a large cla.s.s."
"That is true," Marion said, as one yields a point that is new to her, and that strikes her as being sensible. "But the same objection cannot be made in the primary cla.s.ses, because little children are innocent and full of faith and frankness. There is no need of special privacy when you talk with them on religious topics; they would just as soon have all the world know that they want to love and serve Jesus as not; they are not a bit ashamed of it; it is not until they grow older, and the influences of silent tongues on that subject all around them have had their effect, that they need to be approached with such caution."
"How is it that you are so much at home in these matters, Miss Wilbur?
For one who has been a Christian but a few weeks you amaze me."
Marion laughed and flushed, and felt the first tinge of embarra.s.sment that had troubled her since the talk began.
"Why," she said, hesitatingly, "I suppose, perhaps, I have common sense, and see no reason why it should be smothered when one is talking about such matters. People"s brains are not made over when they are converted.
The same cla.s.s of rules apply to them, I suppose, that applied before."
"I shouldn"t wonder if a majority of people thought that common sense had nothing to do with religion," he said, laughing; "and that is what makes us silly and sentimental when we try to talk about it. In our effort to be solemn, and suit our words to the theme, we are unnatural.
But your statement with regard to the little children is true; I have often observed it."
"That other point, about visiting, was the one that troubled me," Marion said. "It doesn"t annihilate it to say that teachers don"t visit; they don"t, to be sure, with here and there a delightful exception. My experience on this matter, as well as on several other matters connected with the subject, reaches beyond these few weeks of personal experience.
I have had my eyes very wide open; I was alive to inconsistencies wherever I found them; the world and the church, and especially the Sunday-school, seemed to me to be full of professions without any practice. I rather enjoyed finding such flaws. Why I thought the thin spots in other people"s garments would keep me any warmer, I am sure I don"t know; but I was fond of bringing them to the surface.
"Still, because a duty isn"t done is no sign that it cannot be. Of course a teacher with six pupils could visit them frequently, while one with a hundred could do it but rarely; and yet, systematic effort would accomplish a great deal in that direction, it seems to me. I don"t know why we should have more than fifty people in our churches; certainly the pastor could visit them much more frequently, and keep a better oversight, than when he had eight hundred, as you have; yet we don"t think it the best way after all. We recognize the enthusiasm of numbers and the necessity for economizing good workers so long as the field for work is so large.
"But I know a way in which a strong personal influence could be kept over even a hundred children; by keeping watch for the sick and sorrowing in their homes, and establishing an intimacy there, and by making a gathering of some sort, say twice a year, or oftener, if a person could, and giving the day to them; and, well, in a hundred different ways that I will not take your time to speak of; only we teachers of day-schools know that we can make our influence far reaching, even when our numbers are large; and we know that there is such an influence in numbers and in disciplined action, that, other things being equal, we can teach mathematics to a cla.s.s of fifty better than we can to a cla.s.s of five; and if mathematics, why not the Lord"s Prayer?
"Now I have relieved my mind on this subject," she added, laughing, as she arose, "and I feel a good deal better. Mind, I haven"t said at all that the present system cannot be carried out successfully; I only say that I can"t do it. I have tried it and failed; it is not according to my way of working."
"But the remedy, my dear friend; in our cla.s.s, for instance. Suppose we wanted to reorganize, what would we do with the teachers in rule at present?"
Marion dropped back again into her chair with a dismayed little laugh and an expressive shrug of her shapely shoulders.
"Now you have touched a vital difficulty," she said. "I don"t pretend to be able to help people out of a sc.r.a.pe like that. Having gotten themselves in, they must get out the best way they can, if there _is_ any way."
"I am surprised that you do not suggest that they be unceremoniously informed that their services are not needed, and advise them to join a Bible cla.s.s," Dr. Dennis said, dryly. "That is the practical and helpful way that the subject is often disposed of in our conventions. I often wonder if those who so suggest would like to be the pastor of the church where such advice was adopted, and undertake to heal all the sores that would be the result."
"So long as human nature is made of the queer stuff that it is, I offer no such remedy," Marion said, decidedly. "It is very odd that the people who do the least work in this world are the most sensitive as to position, etc. No, I see the trouble in the way. It could be partly disposed of in time, by sending all these sub-cla.s.ses out into the other school, and organizing a new primary cla.s.s out of the babies who have not yet come in."
"But there would be an injustice there. It would send out many babies who ought to have the privileges of the primary-room for some time yet."
"And there is another difficulty; it would send out those young girls as teachers of the children, and they are not fit to teach; they should be studying."
"After all," he said, going back to his own thoughts, instead of answering her last remark, "wouldn"t the style of teaching that you suggest for this one woman and her a.s.sistant involve an unusual degree of talent, and consecration, and abnegation?"
"Yes," Marion said, quickly and earnestly, "I think it would; and I believe that there is no teaching done in our Sabbath-school that is worthy of the name that does not involve all of these requirements; especially is it the case in teaching little children divine truths; one might teach them the alphabet without positive mental injury if they were not fully in sympathy, yet I doubt that; but one cannot teach the Sermon on the Mount in a way to reach the child-heart unless one is thoroughly and solemnly in earnest, and loves the souls of the little children so much that she can give up her very self for them.
"This is my theory; I want to work toward it. That is one of the strong reasons why I think two or three teachers are better for a primary cla.s.s than twenty; because a church can generally furnish that number of really consecrated workers that she can spare for the primary cla.s.s, while to find twenty who can be spared for that room one would need to go to paradise I am afraid. Now I know, Dr. Dennis, that such talk sounds as if I were insufferably conceited; but I don"t believe I am; I simply know what I am willing to try to do; and, to a certain extent, I know what I _can_ do. Why should I not? I have tried it a long time."
"If you are conceited," Dr. Dennis said, smiling, "it is a real refreshing form for it to appear in. I am almost a convert to your theory; at least so far as I need converting. If I should tell you that something like your idea has always been mine, you would not consider me a hypocrite, would you?"