THE SPRING QUARTER by William C. White

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, April 15, 1880

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 16

THE SPRING QUARTER.

By William C. White

BY W. C. WHITE.

As we enter a new quarter, it will be profitable for each Sabbath-school worker to review carefully the work of the last three months, and note the degree of progress and improvement that has been made. Study carefully the weak points in the work, search out the cause of the failure, and then decide to make that point a special study, and by earnest effort to become particularly successful on that very point. Nothing short of steady and continual improvement should satisfy the Bible student.

Besides a steady improvement in the methods of the school, we should aim at a large increase of membership, and the establishment of many new schools during the spring quarter. Now that the winter is past, all of the old members who have been kept away by bad roads and their distance from the school, should join the school for summer work. A committee may be appointed by each school to look up all the Sabbath-keepers in reach of the schools, and encourage them to attend. The whole school should be active and earnest in the work of bringing in new scholars. Visit your neighbors, tell them about your school, give the Instructor to their children, and invite them to visit your school. Whenever visitors come, meet them cordially, make them at home, give them a place in your best class, and then furnish them with the lesson for next Sabbath, and urge them to come again.

The children especially should receive attention at this time of the year. Many children of our neighbors and friends who would not come in the winter, can be induced to attend during the summer. The very little ones should be gathered in; many who were too young to attend last summer may be brought in and formed into infant classes.

CLASSIFICATION AND LESSONS.

The infant and children’s classes should be furnished with the small book, “Bible Lessons for Little Ones.” Those who can read, and those whose parents will teach them the lesson at home, will find but little difficulty in learning a lesson each week; but for those who cannot read, and who are not taught at home, one-half of a lesson is usually enough, and this should be taught to them by the teacher.

Those children who have thoroughly mastered the first book should be furnished with the new book just completed for them, called, “Bible Lessons for Little Ones, No. 2.” This contains fifty-two lessons upon Bible history, from the birth of Moses to the time of Joshua. It is bound in flexible cloth, and can be obtained of the tract societies, or from the offices of publication, for 15 cents a copy. In many schools there are children studying the lessons printed in the Instructor, that cannot understand them, because they are too young, or do not get the assistance which they need at home. Such children should join the classes studying these little books.

New scholars between the ages of fourteen and twenty should usually be classified in one of those divisions studying the lessons on history printed in the Instructor. These lessons will be of the greatest interest, and to the person not thoroughly posted in Bible history, of the greatest importance; for a good knowledge of Bible history is indispensable to a correct understanding of the prophecies.

It is contemplated in the plan of these lessons to notice briefly the remaining historical events of the Old Testament, and then, after tracing the history of the Jews through the intervening period, to enter upon the study of the New Testament. We should therefore advise the majority of those studying the historical lessons given in the Instructor, to continue without change.

But there are, in some schools, a number of adults who are well qualified to study the prophecies, but who did not commence with the division when it took up the lessons, and therefore joined the history, or youths’ division, rather than to begin the study of prophecy when the class was in the middle of a long and difficult subject. For the use of such persons, and for new schools that may be organized, we have bound the lessons on prophecy for 1879, in a neat pamphlet, called, “Lessons on Prophecy, for Bible Classes.” Price 10 cents.

We recommend all schools that contemplate making changes, to weigh the matter carefully, and change only where there are real advantages to be gained; but if changes are necessary, make them as soon as possible, so that all new classes may begin the new books, on, or soon after, the first Sabbath in the quarter. Then if each school which fails to begin the first Sabbath in the quarter, will make up lost time by some extra study, there will be many classes studying the same lesson each Sabbath, and whenever these classes meet at camp-meeting or quarterly-meeting, they will be prepared to work together.