The Sabbath School

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 21, 1880

The Sabbath School.

HOW TO SECURE REGULAR ATTENDANCE.

UNDER the heading of "Notes on Open Letters," the Sunday-School Times for September 25, gives the following excellent advice:— "A teacher has a duty not only to be at Sunday-school himself, but to see that his scholars are there. It is a comparatively easy matter to take care of scholars who want to be taken care of. The real trouble is in attending to those who don't want any attention. A young man applied to a Boston merchant for a situation as salesman. 'Can you sell goods to a customer?' asked the merchant. 'I think I could sell to any man who wanted to buy,' was the young man's answer. 'Oh, that's nothing to the purpose!' said the merchant. 'Any fool can sell to a man who wants to buy. I want clerks who can sell to the men who don't want to buy.' It is still true that 'the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.' There is a thought worthy of attention in that Boston merchant's idea of a good salesman. The angels had to 'lay hold' on Lot, to induce him to leave Sodom, when he was inclined to stay there at the risk of the city's doom. And many a teacher has to do a similar work for scholars who would sooner be in Sodom than in Sunday-school. A young lady teacher in central New York wants light as to her duty in this direction. She asks: "'What would be the best way to secure a regular attendance from one's scholars? And, is it best to visit them every time they are absent? I am a young teacher; but I love my class dearly.' "That last sentence lays a good foundation for the answer to the first question. If a teacher would have his scholars always in attendance at Sunday-school, he must 'love them dearly.' As to the methods of securing regularity in a class, we wrote some time ago, as follows, in answer to a correspondent: 'Let the scholars feel, to begin with, that you count punctuality and regularity important. Always be on hand yourself at the school. Let no slight cause keep you away, or behind time, for a single Sunday. Give prominence to regularity in your work with the scholars. Note their attendance. Commend those who are regular. Ascertain the cause of every absence, and express regret that anything should have kept a scholar away. If possible, see each absent scholar during the week following his absence. If you cannot see him, send him word, by letter or by a class-mate. Call attention to the attendance of the class month by month, showing who was most regular, and who least so. In such ways emphasize the importance of regularity, and stimulate to its attainment. Talk earnestly and lovingly on the subject with those who are irregular. In some schools there are proper rewards for regular attendance.' "'It requires a constant and steady pressure, with tact and wisdom on the teacher's part, to secure the regular attendance of restless and wayward scholars; but the thing can be done, and it ought to be.' It is, as we have here intimated, not essential that every scholar should be visited personally on every absence from the class. But a teacher should always take pains to learn in some way why a scholar is away, and to let the scholar know that he is missed, and is wanted in the school. Visiting at the scholar's home has its part in keeping up a love of the teacher, a love of the school, and a love of regularity in attendance. That visiting must not be neglected on the one hand, nor made a mere formality and counted on too confidently, on the other."