Stories in the Sunday-School

Only recently has the value of teaching by stories been taken seriously in the Sunday-school. It is likely Robert Raikes, the founder of the modern Sunday-school movement, never thought of telling stories to “the terrible bad boys,” the waifs from the alleys of Gloucester, whom in 1780 he gathered into his first Sunday-school in that city. Nor did the four teachers whom he hired at one shilling each week seem to dream of the children’s thirst for stories. They were perfectly content to teach these “young savages” to repeat simple prayers, the Church of England catechism, Bible questions and answers, and to sing Doctor Watts’ hymns; and occasionally Robert Raikes gave them a crack on the head with his walking-stick in order to impress some knotty point of instruction. But the recent study of child-nature, and the influence of modern psychology and pedagogy on the church, have clearly marked out a better way. In the religious training of children, no less than in their general education, story-telling is seen to be the easiest, simplest, and most effective means of impressing upon a new generation the lessons that have been learned by those who have gone before.

Dr. H. E. Tralle, in “Teacher-Training Essentials,” says: “All in all, the story method is probably the most valuable of all methods of teaching in the Sunday-school.”

“Of all the things that a teacher should know how to do,” says President G. Stanley Hall, “the most important, without exception, is to be able to tell a good story.”

Every Sunday-school teacher who would be successful in teaching modern boys and girls must give attention to this golden method of instruction, and should, as early as possible, learn this “the easiest of all the creative arts,” the delightful art of story-telling.

But oral story-telling has value in the Sunday-school outside the class instruction. The story form is the best expression of children’s worship, and should be employed in what is called “the opening and closing exercises.” A short story is soon told, but its influence abides long after “the address” is forgotten. Let the story-tellers and their stories be selected with care, and many a dull opening or closing exercise will be enlivened and enriched. Bible stories, Christmas and Thanksgiving stories, missionary stories, altruistic stories, stories of hymns, stories of noble acts of children recorded in our daily papers, all are serviceable. Many of the stories in this volume have been told again and again in the opening and closing exercises of Sunday-schools with good results.

Dr. Richard Morse Hodge well says: “If you do not tell stories at the services of a Sunday-school, please reflect that some one else may be telling stories to the same children at some other time and place; may be doing more to promote their worship of God than what you may be doing for them by a less intelligent method of conducting the Sunday-school services.”