3. =Appointment.= The secretary should be elected by the board of officers and teachers. As he is not merely an assistant to the superintendent, but an officer of the school, it is not necessary that he should receive a nomination from the superintendent. His term of office should be one year, with as many reëlections as will promote the good of the service.
4. =Assistants.= In almost any school the secretary will need an assistant, whom he should nominate, subject to confirmation by the board of teachers and officers.
5. =Department Secretaries.= In a graded Sunday school there should be an assistant secretary for each department, who may be one of the teachers, or in the Senior and Adult grades, one of the scholars. He should take the records of the classes in the department and transmit them to the secretary of the school. But the secretary is responsible for the records of the entire school, and should see personally that the record of each department is complete.
6. =Duties.= The work of the secretary may be classified as follows:
(1) _Record of Meetings._ As secretary of the board of teachers and officers, he should be present at all business meetings and make a careful record. Every motion should be stated clearly, with the names of its mover and its seconder, and the action taken. A statement should be given of every committee appointed, its purpose, and the names of its members. All committees should be expected to present written reports, however brief. A concise summary of each report, in a few sentences, or a single clause, should appear in the minutes of the meeting at which the report is presented; and the report itself should be filed for reference in case it should be needed. A committee once named is on the minutes, and cannot be ignored nor forgotten until its report has been presented and adopted, and the committee has been formally discharged. For example, it is not sufficient for the committee on the Christmas entertainment to hold the entertainment; it must afterward report that the entertainment was held on a certain date; must have its report adopted, and receive its discharge. It should be the duty of the secretary from time to time to call for reports of committees named in the minutes of previous meetings, to insist that a report be rendered, and that some action be taken upon it.