A Protest by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Feb 4, 1886

A Protest.

By Editor

A RECENT reference in an editorial note of the Sunday School Times on the evil of too much talking by the superintendent, has called out the following vigorous protest from a veteran superintendent in Connecticut:—

“You say: ‘Talking to a school is poor business for a superintendent.’ ‘Talking is not teaching.’ ‘As a rule, it is no improvement on preaching, and preaching is not the superintendent’s mission.’ I was superintendent for more than twenty years, and used often to think of such criticisms as this; but I thought, of course, that my opinion might be correct, and so did not allow myself to be influenced by them, excepting to be brief in what I did say. There may be many superintendents who want to drop in a few seeds each Sabbath, but who hold back because they see such expressions, and think their teachers may have the same views because they have read them in a book or paper, and so refrain from saying anything for fear their teachers will consider them talking superintendents. The regular sessions of the school are about the only times when the superintendent meets his scholars as a whole; and it seems to me that a few loving words, a few earnest thoughts, may bring his mind and heart in contact with theirs, and tend to warm and quicken their hearts. It does not seem to me that teaching is everything. I have been to prayer-meetings many times when I have not added to my knowledge so far as one or two particular brethren were concerned; but their remarks and prayers revealed a warm heart, and that had its effect upon me. So I think it may be with the superintendent who may look upon the members of his school in a fatherly way and be anxious to counsel and encourage them; and even if he says but little, that little may, in the course of years, have considerable to do in shaping the characters of the children and youth who are under his care in the Sabbath-school.”