The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1880, Page 54

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On Parochial Schools.

A Letter written by Prof. Selle to Rev. Moser.

Dear BrorHer Moser:—I can scarcely find
words adequately to express how your highly
valued letter has gladdened my heart... .. .
Parochial schools are assuredly essential to the
prosperity, yea, even to the continual subsist-
ence of our congregations. Glory, thanks and
praise to God for his boundless favor, by which
you, dear brother, have been enabled to organize
a parochial school. May your school prosper
and flourish to be the guide of many, many
souls to heaven! May your other congregations
in Missouri follow suit. The Lord will smile
upon your work and pour out His blessings
abundantly upon it.....

Bear with me, dear brother, while in the
following lines I give you my ideas as to the
best course to be pursued.

In 2 parochial school the Jabors of every day
ought to be sanctified by an opening with de-
yotional exercises—singing a hymn, and prayer.
The hymn may be either a morning hymn or
one more particularly relating to the subject of
which you are about to treat in the lesson fol-
lowing. The new hymn book, soon to be pub-
lished by the Ohio Synod, will supply you with
the proper hymns. The melody to be chosen
is by no means an indifferent matter. It ought
to be of a truly Lutheran character. By learn-
ing to sing the same tunes with the same hymns
that are sung in our German, Norwegian, &c.,
congregations your people will the more be and

remain conscious of the comforting and strength-
ening fact that they are one with the large Luth-
eran Church of all nations, or, in other words,
that, although their members may be but few
in their localities, they have many brethren in
the world of the same, one only true faith. . . .

As to the opening prayer I consider Luther's
‘Morning Benediction,’”’ found in our Small
Catechism, to be the most adapted one. It may
be said by the teacher or by some of the more
advanced scholars alternately, or your pupils
may say it together with united voices. Per-
haps, by the latter method even the smallest
children will learn this exquisite prayer by
heart so much the sooner. The religious in-
structions stand, as a matter of course, at the
head of the list of the branches to be taught in
our schools. By them the lambs of Christ are
to be strengthened in their baptismal covenant;
by them those that have been led astray from
the Good Shepherd have to be brought back to
His fold; by them, principally, they all have
to be qualified to be something to the honor of
our Great God, and to the real weal of their
fellow-men. The very best time of the day at
school, the first hour in the morning, ought to
be set apart for these instructions.

The lessons in Bible History and in the Cat-
echism are the most difficult ones to the teacher.
Here he stands on holy ground; here he is
answerable to the great Judge on high for every
word he utters; they are those lessons upon

which it mainly depends whether his labors
prove to be either a failure, yea, far worse than
a failure, or the means of conferring the high-
est blessings; these lessons, therefore, require
a teacher's prayerful, most diligent and studious

preparations. If you have no well compiled
collection of the most important histories of the
Bible, you will have to use the Bible itself for
a text-book, as I have had to do for a number
of years. ... As long as the children are still
incompetent to take in the whole history at
once, the repetition by questioning has directly
to follow each separate sentence of the relation,
or you have to tell the story several times in
succession before you commence to catechise
in it. Finally, you will dwell more at length,
but mostly also by questioning the children,
upon what the Lord especially intends to teach
us by the particular history, so that doctrine,
reprimand, consolation, and exhortation may
receive due attention. For a new school I
should at first select only five or six of the
most important histories of the Old Testament,
and then a similar number of the New Testa-
ment. After the creation of the world and of
man and his fall and its more immediate con-
sequences have been dwelled upon, we should
not withhold too long from our children the
sweet Gospel of our beloved Saviour, for this
alone can make our children truly happy and
pious. In asecond course, then, other important
histories may follow, first of the Old and then.
of the New Testament.

If you teach school five days a week, I think,
three morning hours should be given to Bible
history, since the holy history is, indeed, the
foundation of all our blessed doctrine set forth
in our catechism.—As long as your scholars
are not properly advanced, you will probably
have to restrict your endeavors to initiate them
into the holy truths by, at first, only making
them thoroughly acquainted with first the text
and then Luther’s explanation in his Small
Catechism, by and by also enabling them to
get at the right meaning of the several words.
I myself found it expedient, at the close of
each day’s school, to have all my scholars say
together the texts of all the six main divisions
of the Catechism. Thus even the smallest
children soon Jearned them perfectly by heart...

For a more advanced class you are, happily,
provided with a good translation of Conrad
Dietrich’s Catechism. Not to overtax their
memories, you will be contented if the scholars
commit verbally to it, besides some of our
standard hymns, only the most prominent de-
finitions, pointed out by Dietrich’s Catechism
itself.

It were an affront to tell you anything about
teaching the children their ‘‘a-b-c’s” and read-
ing. Allow me only a few words as to the
proper books necessary for this certainly very.
important part of your labors, You will with-
out doubt use the ‘‘ Primer”’ issued by the Syn-
odical Conference. But what book is to succeed
this? Alas! we have no proper readers pre-
pared yet. But our fathers of old knew of no

“*readers,’’ and still they learned to read well.
I think, after the Primer has been duly ab-
solved by the children, they may try to read in
the Scriptures, especially if you have them read
the same histories you have told them pre-
viously. This will, you see, answer a double
purpose, which I need not point out. Next,
then, Luther's Life, by Herman Fick, trans-
lated by Prof. Loy, may profitably be used.
It will, at the same time, make the scholars
somewhat acquainted with the history of the
Reformation,—for which reason, I should read
this book with the children even if we had
good ‘‘readers.’’ The first twenty articles of
our glorious Augsburg Confession, if you can
provide your school with them, would certainly
not be amiss as reading matter for a more ad-
vanced class. Our children ought at school to
become somewhat conversant with this con-
fession. . . .

With regard to writing and ciphering I have
nothing to say, only to let the children know
precisely what they have to do at any given
hour of the day. You yourself must keep the
time strictly, so as to accustom the pupils to
punctuality also in this respect.—If you have
time to teach geography, you are advised by
me not to give a text-book into the children’s
hands. Merely explain to them the hemi-
spheres, the map of the United States, and,
perhaps, also the Bible countries, in the best
manner you can after proper preparation for
these lessons, and, take my word for it, with
frequent repetitions the children will profit
more by this method than by merely commit-
ting to memory the answers given to the ques-
tions in the text-books.

Regarding discipline, the Holy Gospel dwell-
ing in your heart, certainly has taught you how
to administer it. A. father’s heart will win the
child’s heart, even though the father has to
chastise. Always let the ‘“‘apple lie near the
rods,’’ as Luther recommends; try never to
forget that only the Gospel cures the heart
from wickedness. Alas, that we all are always
too prone to lose sight of this important truth! ..

Set apart some time for practising our beau-
tiful melodies. Twenty minutes or a quarter
of an hour toward the close of every day, or
at least two half hours a week, spent for this
purpose are far from being lost. Even after
the children are tired out by their other les-
sons, their eyes will soon become bright and
their whole being enlivened when they are called
upon to sing. The ability to sing the hymns
they have learned by heart, will make these
hymns so much the more a lasting treasure to
the children, and soon you will also have a
more hearty chiming in at church, yea, soon
our unequalled hymns may be sung in family
worship in the houses of your members.

One word more and Iam done. Do I under-
stand you right that non-members are to pay
for tuition, whilst members of the congrega-
tion receive it gratuitously? I am sorry to say
that there is some such rule in many of our
congregations. . . . Is this a wise plan? I think