J.W., Sr., reveling in reminiscences before so patient a listener as the preacher, though it was an old story, rehearsed how he had served for years as superintendent of the country Sunday school, and how Mrs. Farwell was teacher of the Girls’ Bible Class.  Their home had always been Methodist headquarters, he said, as old-time Methodists usually say, and with truth.

When they moved to town the change brought no loss of church interest; the Farwells merely transferred it entire to Delafield First Church ("First” being more a title than a numeral, since there was no second).

But First Church had not a few progressive saints.  They wanted the best that could be had, so J.W., Sr., Sunday school enthusiast that he was, found himself in a new place of opportunity.  The Board of Sunday Schools at Chicago had been asked to help Delafield get itself in line with the best ideas and methods, and J.W., Sr., found the beginnings, at least, of Sunday school science in active operation.  At first, like a true country man, he was a little inclined to counsels of caution, but in his country Sunday school work he had acquired such strong opinions about old fogies that he dreaded being thought one himself.

“And that’s how it happened,” he said with a laugh, “that I was soon reckoned among the progressives.  In that first year I helped ’em win their fight for separate departments, and before long we had the makings of a real graded Sunday school.  Don’t you remember, mother, how proud you were when young J.W. there was graduated from the Primary into the Junior Department?”

All this was before Pastor Drury’s time, of course, but he had gone through the same experiences in other pastorates, and needed not to have anything explained.

“How long have we had a teacher-training class in our Sunday school?” he asked.

That called out the story of the struggles to set up what many openly called a useless and foolish enterprise.  The Sunday school was chronically short of teachers, and yet J.W., Sr., and the other reformers insisted on taking out of the regular classes the best teachers in the school, and a score of the most promising young people.  This group went off by itself into a remote part of the church.  It furnished no substitute teachers.  It wasn’t heard of at all.  And loud were the complaints about its crippling the school.

“But, pastor, you should have seen the difference when the first dozen real teachers came out of that class; we were able to reorganize the whole school.  Our John Wesley got a teacher he’ll never forget.  And, of course, we kept the training class going; it’s never stopped since.  The Board of Sunday Schools has given us the courses and helped us keep the class up to grade in its work, and you know what sort of teachers we have now.”

The pastor did, and was properly thankful.  In some of his other pastorates it had been otherwise, to his sorrow.