Mr. Settle: How many of you are teachers of intermediate classes in the Sunday-school? Practically all of you are such. Let me see how many of you are teachers of boys' classes. Then teachers of girls' classes. Very evenly divided. Suppose we occupy this next ten minutes in a discussion of intermediate problems.

      A Delegate: What is the best way to interest the boy who does not study the lesson and who does not like to read?

      Mr. Settle: Is there a teacher here this morning who has had particular success in this direction? If so, I would be glad if that one would answer this question.

      A Delegate: I have done this, which has brought very satisfactory results: Sometimes I would tell a story to a boy about the Sunday-school lesson, and then he would have to read it.

      Mr. Settle: What age boys have you in mind?

      A Delegate: Well, from nine to thirteen years of age.

      Mr. Settle: The intermediate grade includes ages from eleven or twelve up to thirteen or sixteen. It depends. There is no iron-bound rule for grading a Sunday-school on the basis of age. We are taking now the boys and girls between, say, ten or eleven or thirteen and fifteen or sixteen. It differs for boys and girls. This is a very good suggestion that the sister has given. Is there another suggestion that some one has?

      A Delegate: I have found great success in giving the boys a verse of Scripture, which they all repeat with me, when they get confused in that way, and do not want to pay attention; something like, "Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord."

      Mr. Settle: You remember in the Home Study text-book the way to get home study is, first, expect it, then ask for it, then use it, then command it. And you teachers in the intermediate grade at the Sunday-school, if you expect to get work from your boys and girls at home by simply assigning it to them this Sunday, and then next Sunday don't ask for it, they will be greatly disappointed. They think you do not mean it when you assign them home tasks. So if you expect your pupils to come prepared, do not overlook any little details. Boys and girls are quick to take up anything of that kind as an excuse for their failure.

      A Delegate: There is just one little thing that is helpful. If you take little cards, of any size, and write on them questions about personalities that will be in the next Sunday-school lesson, and you write out some question regarding these different personalities on a little slip of paper, then cut this paper up into a puzzle shape, then wrap it up in attractive little tissue paper, different colors, and at the close of the lesson just say, "I have something here I want to give you, a little task to take home with you, and there is a puzzle inside of it, and you take this home and next Sunday when you come I want you to answer the questions." If possible, make the questions involve the lesson, particular truths you want to bring out, and your young people will be delighted with it, and it will bring about study that you will not get in any other way. For instance, you can suggest the place in the Bible that they can find the answer.

      A Delegate: I would like to know how you keep boys that are getting past sixteen, and are hardly young men and are not little boys.

      Mr. Settle: J. Walter Carpenter has as a topic the question of manual work as a means of holding and interesting the intermediates. I think he will give us something interesting along that line. Class organization has been found helpful. Now, has some one else a suggestion to give the brother in answer to his question?

      A Delegate: In the last few years I [530] have had quite an experience with more than a hundred boys from ten to sixteen years old. In the first place, I never go before the class without knowing my lesson. And, another thing, I go to teach with all my might, and in some way or other I have had no trouble, with all sorts of boys, and have their attention, so that I hardly have to say anything to a boy on the side. But I take from nearly every lesson something that shows the struggle of life and bring that out. I make every boy feel he has a battle. Nothing so appeals to a boy. The hardest things are the things that fire him. I bring those points. Sometimes it is not more than a small part of the lesson. I never try to go over the whole lesson in teaching boys of that age, but I tell them the story of the lives of other men, the struggles they have had, the very hardest things I have heard of in their lives, and how they overcame those things, how they became strong; and I appeal to the boy to overcome everything. I always appeal to the boys to help other boys, to always be on the lookout for boys that are not as fortunate as they are, and to help them to overcome their difficulties.

      Mr. Settle: I think that strikes bedrock. Surely every teacher in the Sunday-school ought to be fired with the feeling and the absolute knowledge of the fact that he or she is the most important worker in the whole Sunday-school. The superintendent is not the most important worker; the treasurer or the secretary or the other officers are not the most important workers in the Sunday-school. It is the teacher. And the teacher who feels that way about his office can not help but come and teach the class in a way and an attitude that will engage the attention of those boys and girls.

      A Delegate: I teach a class of boys, and I have found by going into the homes of the boys continually, not once or twice or three times, but every week or two or three weeks, getting acquainted with the parents, and if you can not interest the parents, the boys have an interest in you for your coming into their home life.

      Mr. Settle: That is a point that has not been touched yet; get in touch with your pupils' home life. How can you know anything about your pupils if you do not know anything about their home life?

      A Delegate: I may say that I take my boys into my home. We have a class organization, and the first Tuesday in every month we have a meeting. I insist on their coming at 7:30, and I send them home at 9:30. All the boys in my class are from thirteen to sixteen inclusive, and I have forty-two on my roll.

M. C. SETTLE.

My boys like to come. Once in awhile I pass a basket of apples. I nearly always start them home with a story. I was fortunate in taking this class when we were studying David, and David surely appeals to all the boys. And I am glad to tell you that I have no trouble to keep my boys. I have good attention in the class, and I have a good average attendance, because my membership committee works. They save me all that work, or comparatively all. I try to get around and see them often. They expect me. But, so far as getting in new boys is concerned, my membership committee does that.

      Mr. Settle: I take it your class is organized. You understand you can just as well organize a class under sixteen as a class over sixteen. It is often easier to organize an intermediate class than a senior or adult.

      Bowman Weir spoke on "Missions in the Intermediate Grades."

      Prof. W. F. Smith, of the chair of Bible-school pedagogy at Lexington, gave an address on "Characteristics of Boys and Girls in the Intermediate Grades."

      J. Walter Carpenter, of Uniontown, Pa., discussed "Manual Work as a Means of Holding and Interesting the Intermediates."

      Chairman. Settle: I am sure that I voice the sentiment of all that are here this morning in saying that we appreciate what these three brethren have [531] brought to us in this conference, and I think I voice the feeling of all that are here this morning when I say that we shall all of us go back to our work feeling better equipped to teach intermediate boys and girls, and determined that we will do better work than we shall have ever done before.

[CCR 530-532]