THEY have grown out of the idea of the Public-school Teachers' Institutes, which have been sustained for many years with interest and profit, the expenses being cheerfully met out of the State Treasury. Our Sabbath-school Institutes are modeled somewhat on the same plan. The object is, by means of practical essays, model lessons, lectures, and drill exercises, to train the teachers and officers for their work. Institutes differ from other conventions in calling out the audience in responses, recapitulations, and more detailed instruction. They will take their character very much from the character and course pursued by the conductor. No two persons, perhaps, would conduct them alike. For instance, one man would give more attention to superintending, addresses, public exercises, singing, etc. Another to the blackboard, object teaching, and sacred geography; while another still, would give more attention to methods of teaching, teachers' meetings, normal classes, model lessons, etc. We would prefer to combine ALL these things in their due proportion, in every Institute, and make as complete and clear work on every point as possible. The great object is to make them useful. If this is secured, they will be all the more interesting. There are two great subjects which should always be before every Institute, as well as every convention, viz., 1. The extension of Sabbath-schools, so as to reach all of the neglected; 2. The elevation and improvement of existing schools; and they need improving, if not reforming, in every part.

The first idea of a Sabbath-school Institute that ever entered the mind of the writer was suggested to him by a pastor, Rev. W. A. Niles, in the State Sunday-school Convention at Buffalo, New York, in 1864. An experiment was soon successfully made, and since then they have become almost universally popular and useful. The same thought, we have since been informed, had been considered, and Institutes held by the Rev. J. H. Vincent, in the Western Methodist Conferences; and as long ago as 1827, the New York Sunday-school Union, in its Eleventh Annual Report, particularly recommended this plan "of a school for the training of Sabbath-school teachers."

The forms of these Institutes are various. Many are made up partly of convention and partly of Institute exercises. Ordinarily two or three days and evenings are entirely devoted to one, by a county, or district comprising a dozen counties. Another plan, when held in a city, is to devote all the evenings and a part of the afternoons of a week to it; as in New York city last year, and recently in Brooklyn; also, prefacing it with an elaborate sermon on the Sabbath evening previous. Another plan still is to devote the usual weekly Teachers' Meeting of a school to a regular normal class or training Institute. All these plans are useful in the hands of a good conductor.

The Subjects

for consideration in an Institute may be suggested as follows:

The Exercises

of an Institute may be—

1. Devotional exercises for specific objects.

2. Reports of superintendents and teachers as to how they do it, or reports of the destitution, wants, or difficulties.

3. Instruction by the conductor to meet the above specific wants and difficulties.

4. Questions by teachers and answers by the conductor to meet the points in the subject not fully explained.

5. Preparation lessons, practice lessons, and model lessons.

6. Explanatory and instructive addresses, lectures or essays.

7. Model Opening Exercises and Teachers' Meetings.

8. Drill exercises on activity, curiosity, inquisitiveness; or how to gain attention, how to instruct, how to impress, etc.

Every one should take some part in an Institute, i. e., take notes, ask or answer questions, or give information or lessons. Let none be mere spectators. Always have plenty of paper for taking notes, also pencils, and provide a good blackboard and crayons, and perhaps a map, together with a good warm, light and pleasant room to meet in.

Get up the Institute with care. Have it all well understood, and then talk about it, write and print about it, and get teachers and pastors pledged to attend. Pray much for the Institute, and select the best time, and do all that you undertake to do, thoroughly and well. Let one subject naturally glide into the succeeding one. Waste no time with outside men or topics, but adhere to your programme religiously. One or two good helpers from abroad are sufficient, and do not invite men out of compliment. Guard well all denominational interests and feelings. Draw together in harmony and conciliate. Never become opinionated or dogmatic, for the moment we cease to learn, our usefulness will decline. Give change, variety and life to all the exercises.

Finally, the spirituality of any Sunday-school gathering must be earnestly sustained, or all will be in vain. God alone can make a good superintendent, or a good Sabbath-school teacher. We are as nothing. The cause only is great. Therefore, with the Word of God in our hands, let all things be done in a sense of real heartfelt dependence upon God, and with earnest, believing supplication for the Divine direction and blessing.

Many of our Sabbath-school Conventions and Institutes are now very properly assuming a mixed character, combining whatever is wanted of both, in every meeting. We need to arouse, instruct and train; and also to know the details of "how to do it." May the Master control all these gatherings to His glory and the good of man!

Rules.

1. Draw out the people to explain their wants, experience, and difficulties.

2. Then supply their wants.

3. Get one conductor, pay his expenses, and assign him to a good, quiet, comfortable place of entertainment near the church.

4. Commence promptly, and keep strictly to the programme and to time.

The following programme of an Institute we think most useful. It should be sent out two to four weeks in advance of the time of meeting:

PROGRAMME.

If no meeting is held on Tuesday evening, then drop out Thursday afternoon's exercises, and close up with the others. It is of the utmost importance that the pastors, superintendents, and teachers attend all the exercises. The Institute has an opportunity on every topic. Perhaps some pastor will favor with a model-lesson or drill-exercises on the subjects presented.

We need "line upon line" on some very important points, and, therefore, it is hoped that the repetition of some of these subjects in these articles will prove useful to many.