roduction of the International Lesson
System marks an epoch. Before that separate schools and even teachers
were a law unto themselves. Now schools are in touch one with another;
sectarian barriers have been broken down; the unity of the cause is
recognized. The Church is one; so are her schools. The culture and the
spirituality of the Church catholic everywhere are now the teacher of
the teachers. Helps to Bible study are so multiplied and improved that
it is difficult to see how an advance step could be taken here. The
testimony is well-nigh uncontradicted that the Bible is studied as never
before in the light of modern research and science. Teachers, as a
body, are measuring up to these privileges and responsibilities.

The advance movement in Sunday school work may not be in its literature,
nor in the efficiency or the enthusiasm of its corps of teachers.
Elsewhere must we look for the necessity for improvement.

The Sunday school is a school. The expression sounds trite and
tautological; but it needs emphasis. Bishop Vincent in his latest book,
"The Modern Sunday School," discusses the proposition that the "Sunday
school is and must be a school." Out of the fullness of his knowledge
and experience proof is there given that the organization, system of
teaching, and methods of the public schools must be appropriated by the
Sunday school of the day. The modern Sunday school must stand or fall as
it is contrasted with the modern public school. By such a comparison
alone can excellencies or deficiencies be revealed.

Wonderful has been the development of the public school system in the
present generation. Great teachers have appeared in all ages and schools
have gathered about them. But this age is remarkable in this, that it
has adopted a system of instruction for youth and has trained teachers
for that system. The combination of these two elements makes the modern
common school system. Let the adults of to-day state the case of their
day. Such a comparison would show the value of the present. The great
boon from the State to the youth of to-day is an educational system
based on scientific principles.

In that system two essentials must be emphasized: first, departments;
and, second, the place of the pupil. These departments form a series
that are mutually related and dependent. They each mark a step in the
development of the mind of the pupil. Again, the pupil has his proper
place in that system, assigned not by ca