Newspaper Page Text
May 22, 1912] THE
report of publication and sabbath
SCHOOL WORK.
(Continued from last issue.)
The Tcxarkana Depository.
Wo reDort a year's wnrlt rm ?v>q nnr? ?*#
w . - ? . - - ? VM v*. V v VI cue UVi/UOitory
at Texarkana, indicating a growing appreciation
of its resources and a pride in its welfare on the
Y .rt of the people in the Synods west of the Mississ'ppi
River. The development of the depository has
been slow but steady, and the report for thi3 year
6i;ows that it has been operated at a small loss
which can be overcome by a slight increase in the
volume of sales. The saleB for the year were $44,D77.36
and the notable fact is that while this volume
of business has been developed at Texarkana the
main office at Richmond has at the same time shown
a steady increase in sales. Our chief concern is that
it may serve our people efficiently and aid in the
great work of building up our church in the Southwest.
We again urge that our church membership
in the Synods weBt of the Mississippi River shall
mnko n lnrppr nao r\f fhn anioti.1 0^1. 1 1? ?J
w? .-"v. ?|..^uuiu OIUVR UL UOUK3 UUU
literature we are maintaining for their benefit at
Texarkana, a eftock which in extent and variety exceeds
in many particulars that carried at Richmond.
The New Graded Lessons for Sunday Schools.
In our last annual report we called the attention
cf the church and the Assembly to the dangers lurking
in the new system of Graded Lessons being so industriously
and persistently exploited by interdenominational
Sunday school workers and interested
publishers. Our warning was effective in keeping a
large majority of our schools from adopting a system
filled with insidious heresies and Impossible of effective
use except in highly organized schools, but we
are sorry to report that in a large number of our
schools the serieB of helps offered by a publishing
syndicate, in which \fnthnHia? ?nj ??
r .. ?..vv?wv..?b wiu vuuglCgO'UUUtll Iliterests
predominate, have been introduced. 'It is our
conviction that this material has been ordered by
Sunday school superintendents and teachers who have
been swept off their feet by the claims of enthusiasts
that only by the use of the new Graded Lessons can
a school show it is "progressive." In practically every
ease we believe the pastor and session have not been
consulted and they are not aware of the character
of the helps being used. It is necessary to again repeat
the statement of last year, that it is a physical
and financial impossibility for us to publish a treatment
of the seventeen different lessons called for in
the proposed graded course, and if a considerable
number of our schools abandon the use of the Uniform
Lesson helps we now publish the circulation
will soon drop to a point below the cost of production,
which will mean serious financial disaster for your
Publishing House, and will make it impossible for us
to supplement the fund placed in our hands for Extension
work.
Publication Work of tbe Year.
The output of printed matter for the year shows an
advance over former years, both in the number of
periodicals issued and in miscellaneous matter printed.
The notable book of the year was "Alexander's
Digest" Revised, a splendid work of over 800 pages,
which brings the legislative enactments of our Assembly
down to 1910 and makes them available for
ready reference. Two thousand copies of the monumental
work were published, representing a vast
amount of painstaking work on the part of the late
W. A. Alexander, D. D., and Prof. Geo. F. Nicolassen,
who completed the compilation and editing nf Uio
work. We issued by the direction of the Assembly a
small Book of Prayers, designed to stimulate the setting
up and the re-establishment of family altars. In
the same connection we issued a small pamphlet containing
forms of prayer for mothers to use with children
where for any reason the father could not
lead the family devotions.
We issued during the year 49,460 copies of the
"Assembly Songs," bringing the total for this very
Popular book to over 90,000 copies within the first two
>ears of its existence, a circulation never before attained
by a book issued by our Committee.
We also published a series of seven missionary
Pamphlets, prepared by Dr. Williams, one devoted to
pach country in which we maintain mission stations,
ai?d these little booklets will be of the highest value
to the missionary leaders of our Church.
We issued for the Home Mission Committee 6,000
copies of the Prayer Calendar for 1912, in which is
Presented the claims of all the 'Home agencies of the
church; and we also published a booklet of Home
Mission Stories for Young People for the Atlanta
' ommittee. Our facilities for publishing and distributing
educational material are at the call of all
,tle executive agencies of the church, and we are co?Peratlng
in an effective way in advancing the interests
of the whole church.
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE S
Sabbath School Extension Work.
The failure of the churches to raise the amount
asked for Extension Work by the Assembly ($30,000),
rendered it impossible for us to meet all the calls
made upon us for Sabbath school missionaries. The
church is proving reoreant to a great trust when she
falls to meet an opportunity to evangelize her share
of the great throngs of young people in the South
who are growing up without Gospel privileges. We
made the best use possible of funds at our command,
and by supplementing the amount contributed by the
churches and Sunday schools were able to employ
during the year sixteen field workers who labored in
eight Synods and eleven Presbyteries. Free literature
was supplied to 304 Sabbath schools, and of the
number about 90 were new organizations. In the
schools whose work was fostered by our Committee
were gathered over 15,000 young people, and the moBt
positive and helpful religious influence thnf tmiphcn
their lives is the teaching of the faithful workers in
these Sabbath schools. Donations of Bibles, tracts,
libraries, hymn books and Sunday school literature
to the value of $11,116.00 were made during the year,
and eternity alone can reveal the influence of these
printed messages of truth.
Financial Summary of Our Benevolent Work.
Received for Extension work from 1,209
churches $11,464.64
Received for Extension work from 92il Sabbath
schools, 10,063.51
Received for Extension work from miscellaneous
sources 941.29
Total receipts for Extension Work $22,469.34
Expenditure for Benevolent Work.
Salary and expenses of superintendent and
field workers $10,469.15
Donations of books, Bibles and literature,.. 11,116.97
Institutes and educational work, 1,023.29
Programs and envelopes for special collections
1,145.89
Printing, postage and incidentals, 914.80
Total expenditures for the year $24,763.77
Excess of expenditures over receipts, 2,304.43
We made good this excess by a donation from the
earnings of the Business Department. During the
past nine years we have given for the support of the
Benevolent or Extension work entrusted to our hande
$47,801.00. To make this large contribution to the
Benevolent fund we have violated the laws of sound
business prudence, for we Bhould have added this
fund to our working capital, which needs enlargement
very badly to meet the demands of our rapidly
growing business.
Estimate of Needs for 1912.18.
For the sypport of the Extension Work committed
to us we ask that $35,000 be raised by the churches
during the coming year, this amount being based
upon the following budget of estimated expenditures:
Salaries and expenses of Sunday school missionaries,
$17,000.00
Donation of Sunday school literature, Bibles,
tracts, etc 12,000.00
Printed matter for Extension Work 2,000.00
Institutes and Educational Work, 2,500.00
Young People's and Brotherhood Work 1,500.00
135,000.00
Submitted by order of the Executive Committee.
R. E. Magill, Secretary.
A* IMPENDING REVOLUTION.
By Rev. R. A. Lapsley, D. D? In his Annual Report
As is well known to the members of the Assembly,
It is proposed in many quarters to substitute for
the present series of Uniform Lessons a new system
of instruction, popularly known as the New Graded
Lesson Series. We believe that nothing will claim
the attention of your venerable body of more critical
Importance than the issues raised by this proposition.
It Is well for thft Gonoral iaaamhlir ./? .?? ?.l*v it.
_ ?v j iv dco mm iuc
utmost, clearness that thiB means nothing short of a
revolution, hoth as to the subjects selected and the
method of teaching the Scriptures in the Sabbath
school.
As this matter has already been referred to hoth
In the report of the Secretary of Publication and the
General Superintendent of Sabbath schools, and as
It is also made the Subject of a special communication
to the Assembly by the Executive Committee of
Publication, It need only be briefly treated here.
In these communications the Executive Committee
is asking the Asse'mbly to use Its authority In counsel
0 U T H (573) 17
ing all our Sabbath schools to stand by the Uniform
Lesson System, and not to adopt the Now Graded
Lessons. We ask the Assembly to take this position
on account of many serious objections to the new
system of lessons, which we state briefly:
First, our objections relate to the form in which
these New Graded Lessons are presented. It will be
seen that they embody a radical change m methods
of instruction. Instead of teaching the Sabbath
school lessons by means of quarterly, monthly and
weekly periodicals, prepared every year with fresh
material, and with constantly improving methods of
nrPRPn t In ST the Scrlntn poa *r\ ? VT
? v?W MW.?FVU* vw LV UiC KVU|ilC| til If i^BW
Graded Series proposes the use of a set of text-books
similar to those employed in the public Bchools. The
disadvantages of such a change are obvious. The
publishers, having Invested large sums in these textbooks,
cannot alter or improve them except at long
intervals. The instruction, therefore, by this New
Graded method will tend to become "stagnant, fixed
and fossilized."
Another practical difficulty is the cost of providing
the average school with such helps. The difference
in cost for a school of 100 pupils is something between
$16 for the old lesson helps and $45 for the
new. These flgureB contemplate the use of these lesson
helps in a comparatively small number of grades,
but if the New Graded System is carried out to its
fullest extent and text-books for the children and
teachers' books for the teachers are provided for all
the seventeen grades, the cost becomes prohibitive,
an onerous and almost impossible burden with any
except the very wealthiest schools. When the practical
Sunday school worker remembers how careless
children are with their lesson helps, he will see how
even this large estimate of cost must be greatly increased.
Added to these Dractical difficultly hnmovoj
others which appeal still more strongly to the mind
of anyone who is experiences in Sunday school work.
The new lessons are being hailed as the latest and
highest achievements in Sunday School Pedagogics.
On the contrary, many of the most thoughtful Sunday
school workers regard them in a very different
light. Thus considered, they are seen to be:
(1) Downward instead of up-grade. In the method
of instruction which they propose, instead of being
the very latest upward and progressive movement in
the line of Sunday School (Pedagogics, they carry us
back to the state of affairs which existed before the
v New Uniform Lessons were introduced. They roll back
the wheels of progress in Sunday school instruction
forty years, and the schools using them will revert
to the text-book system employed by all Sunday
cshools in the days of the old Union Scripture
Question books. They repeat the experiment tried
by the Blakesley system, which in vain endeavored
to gain a foothold in the Sunday school world, and
which we understand has finally been abandoned.
(2) They are divisive; they split the instruction of
the .Sabbath school into seventeen different fragments,
instead of the unity of aim and thought in the
teaching of the entire Sunday school, which has been
brought about by the Uniform Lessons We have
here proposed seventeen different grades of lessons
with seventeen topics, Scripture passages and aim of
instruction, every Sunday. The Uniform Lesson has
been one of the most wonderful agencies for bringing
together the whole Christian world in the united
study of the whole Word of God. This new system
proposes to split Christendom into divergent methods
and to throw away much that has been accomplished
by forty years of united Sabbath school effort.
(3) They are dangerous. Some of the courses,
particularly the "syndicate treatment" of these lessons,
are extremely defective in the matter of doctrinal
instruction, leaving out of view some of the
fundamental and necessary elements of Bible truth,
which ought to be gotten into the minds and hearts of
Sunday school children at as early an age as possible.
Not only are they defective, but the syndicate
treatment of these lessons has been used as a cover
under which to introduce loose ideas of Inspiration
and all the dangerous tendencies of the radical criticism.
This is seen particularly in the authorities
referred to in the text-books provided by the syndicate
treatment of the New Graded Lessons.
it; iuejr are uiB?Birous. rney spell nothing but
lose to our publishing business, and thus the serious
crippling of one of the moat effective agencies which
the Church has for the propagation of the truth. For
seven years past our own Committee has enjoyed the
favor of our people, with the consequent prosperity
which has made our business a source of revenue to
the Church rather than a burden upon its benevolent
contributions. From the direction of these New
Graded Lessons we see serious embarrassment, If no?
heavy financial loss, to our publication business, so
far as they are adapted <o our Sabbath Schcfols.