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THE QUARTERLY REPORTS

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Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 1, 1880

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 6, No. 25.

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THE QUARTERLY REPORTS.

By W. C. White

ANOTHER quarter has closed, and we shall soon see how many church clerks and Sabbath-school secretaries are alive to their responsibilities, and faithful and prompt in compiling and forwarding their quarterly reports. If the church and school are prompt to duty, and thorough in all their working plans, the task of keeping records and reporting quarterly to the State secretaries is comparatively easy. But however done it is the secretary's duty to report promptly at the close of each quarter. With the Sabbath-schools this is one of the conditions of membership in the State association. We regret that several of our best schools in Southern California neglected this duty last quarter. Whoever acts as secretary during a quarter should make the report of that quarter, and after submitting it to the superintendent for examination, should send it at once to the State secretary. Each superintendent should feel that he also is responsible for the failure of reports.
Several important additions have been made in the blank reports, to which we hope the schools will pay careful attention. As a principal object of the school is the conversion of the children, it is very appropriate that the number of scholars who are church members should be reported. Thus each school and State officer will know of what elements the schools are composed with which he must labor, and it will be a source of benefit to compare from quarter to quarter the progress of the schools in this direction.
However the funds of a school are gathered, and whether held by the secretary, as is common in most of our schools, or by a person specially appointed to act as treasurer, a careful and accurate account should be kept and the amount of receipts should be given in the report.
Most of our schools have wanted to pay one tenth of their receipts to their State S. S. Association, and all say that it is none too much. It is not enough to pay all the expenses of a State Association, but it will pay for stationery, postage, and blank reports if faithfully paid, and may sometimes pay for a few papers to be sent to the poor. We hope our schools will not withhold this small amount from the State Associations. We ask our schools to pay especial attention to these new features in the report as we want our next printed report to be very accurate and full on these points.
W. C. WHITE.