ounded
by a corps of teachers nearly all of whom were prepared by intellectual
and divine strength to teach anything that could possibly be put into a
Sunday school course with propriety.

No longer were there "blind leaders of the blind" in the school, but
intelligent leaders in mind and heart. It was a proposition that needed
no demonstration to our superintendent that he now had the opportunity
to present the one thing needful in the school, namely, method and
system in instruction and the adaptiveness of work to the susceptibility
of the pupil, which is the essence of the grade idea. As soon, then, as
this idea was clear, our superintendent at once began inquiry and to
hunt literature bearing on this subject.

"The Modern Sunday School," by Bishop J. H. Vincent, was the first book
consulted, and the first sentence of Chapter XII, on Gradation, gave
the idea which settled the conviction. The sentence reads: "The Sunday
school is a school." Nothing is truer than this one sentence, and the
sooner our superintendents and teachers get this one idea ineradicably
fixed in their minds the better it will be for our Sunday school
interests. Most assuredly the "Sunday school is a school" to teach the
things of God, to instill his truths and impress his good deeds and
loving favors to the children of men upon the mind and hearts of those
who must grow up in the admonition of the Lord, if they would make
valiant soldiers and good citizens. It was evident that our Sunday
school was a school, though poor in order, poor in work, and poor in
everything but singing and the giving of picnics. Dr. Vincent's book was
further consulted, with others, and our superintendent reserved several
months to mature his plans and present them.

In the meantime several articles in the "Sunday School Journal" of May
and September, 1890, greatly helped him. A plan of action was finally
decided upon; first a new registration, giving name, age, educational
fitness, and some minor matters, was gotten of each pupil as accurately
as possible. In the meantime our plan had by this time been told the
school, and the taking of a new registration, preparatory to the
gradation, created a genuine revival of interest in the work. And, too,
when the fact was known that the school was undergoing a change which
would give larger and better opportunities to the children, fathers and
mothers who could not themselves read, but who knew what it was to have
John and Ma