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Title: The Boy and the Sunday School
A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday
School with Teen Age Boys
Author: John L. Alexander
Release Date: May 28, 2005 [EBook #15923]
Language: English
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THE BOY
AND THE
SUNDAY SCHOOL
A Manual of Principle and Method for
the Work of the Sunday School
with Teen Age Boys
JOHN L. ALEXANDER
_Superintendent Secondary Division
International Sunday School Association
Author and Editor "Boy Training," "The Sunday
School and the Teens," "Boys' Hand
Book, Boy Scouts of America"
"Sex Instruction for Boys," etc_.
=Introduction by=
MARION LAWRANCE
_General Secretary, World's and
International Sunday School Associations_
ASSOCIATION PRESS
NEW YORK: 347 MADISON AVENUE
1920
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF
YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS
THIS LITTLE BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE MEN WHO MUST FACE ALL THE PROBLEMS
OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL--TO THE MEN WHO HOLD THE KEY TO ALL THE LIFE AND
PROGRESS OF THE SCHOOL--THE SUPERINTENDENTS OF NORTH AMERICA.
INTRODUCTION
The Sunday school chapter of Church history is now being written. It
comes late in the volume, but those who are writing it and those who are
reading it realize--as never before--that the Sunday school is rapidly
coming to its rightful place. In the Sunday school, as elsewhere, it is
the little child who has led the way to improvement. The commanding
appeal of the little ones opened the door of advance, and, as a result,
the Elementary Division of the school has outstripped the rest in its
efficiency.
Where children go adults will follow, and so we discover that the Adult
Division was the next to receive attention, until today its manly
strength and power are the admiration of the Church.
Strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless true, that the middle
division, called the Secondary, and covering the "Teen Age," has been
sadly neglected--the joint in the harness of our Sunday school fabric.
Here we have met with many a signal defeat, for the doors of our Sunday
schools have seemed to swing outward and the boys and girls have gone
from us, many of them never to return. We have busied ourselves to such
an extent in studying the problem of the boy and the girl that the real
problem--the problem of leadership--has been overlooked.
The Secondary Division is the challenge of the Sunday school and of the
Church today. It is during the "Teen Age" that more decisions are made
_for_ Christ and _against_ him than in any other period of life. It is
here that Sunday school workers have found their greatest difficulty in
meeting the issue, largely because they have not understood the material
with which they have to deal.
We are rejoiced, however, to know that the Secondary Division is now
coming to be better understood and recognized as the firing line of the
Sunday school.
What has been needed and is now being supplied is authoritative
literature concerning this critical period. Indeed, the Sunday school
literature for the Secondary Division is probably appearing more rapidly
now than that for any other division of the school.
This book is a choice contribution to that literature. It comes from a
man who has devoted his life to the boys and girls, and who is probably
the highest authority in our country in this Department. The largest
contribution he is making to the advancement of the whole Sunday school
work is in showing the fascination, as well as the possibilities, of the
Secondary Division. We are sure this little book will bring rich returns
to the Sunday schools, because of the large number who will be
influenced, through reading its pages, to devote their lives to the
bright boys and fair girls in whom is the hope, not only of the Church,
but of the World.
=Marion Lawrance.=
Chicago, June 1, 1913.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
Foreword 13
I The Home and the Boy 23
II The Public School and the Boy 32
III The Church and the Boy 37
IV The Sunday School or Church School 41
V The Boy and the Sunday School 48
VI Fundamental Principles in Sunday School Work with Boys 57
VII Method and Organization 62
VIII The Organized Sunday School Bible Class 74
IX Bible Study for Boys 93
X Through-the-Week Activities for Boys' Organized Classes 104
XI The Boys' Department in the Sunday School 120
XII Inter-Sunday School Effort for Boys 135
XIII The Older Boys' Conference or Congress 138
XIV The Secondary Division or Teen Age Boys' Crusade 158
XV Sex Education for Boys and the Sunday School 176
XVI The Teen Boy and Missions 193
XVII Temperance and the Teen Age 202
XVIII Building up the Boy's Spiritual Life 208
XIX The Teen Age Teacher 215
XX Danger Points 265
XXI The Rural Sunday School 268
XXII The Relation of the Sunday
School to Community Organizations 277
FOREWORD
A great deal of material has come from the pens of various writers on
boy life in the last few years. Quite a little, also, has been written
about the Sunday school, and a few attempts have been made to hitch the
boy of the teen years and the Sunday school together. Most of these
attempts, however, have been far from successful; due, in part, to lack
of knowledge of the boy on the one hand, or of the Sunday school on the
other. Generous criticism of the Sunday school has been made by experts
on boy life, but this generally has been nullified by the fact that the
critics have had no adequate touch with the Sunday school or its
problems--their bread-and-butter experience lay in another field.
"The Men and Religion Forward Movement," in its continent-wide work,
discovered not a few of the problems of the Sunday school, and
attempted a partial solution in the volume on boys' work in the
"Messages" of the Movement. It was but partial, however, first, because
the volume tried to deal with the boy, the church and the community all
together, and second, because it failed to take into account the fact
that there are two sexes in the church school and that the boy, however
important, constitutes but a section of the Sunday school and its
problems.
In view of this, it may not be amiss to set forth in a new volume a more
or less thorough study of the Sunday school and the adolescent or teen
age boy, the one in relationship to the other, and at the same time to
set forth as clearly as possible the present plans, methods and attitude
of the Sunday school, denominationally and interdenominationally.
In the preparation of this little book I have utilized considerable
material written by me for other purposes. Generous use has also been
made of the Secondary Division Leaflets of the International Sunday
School Association. A deep debt of gratitude is mine to the members of
the International Secondary Committee: Messrs. E.H. Nichols, Frank L.
Brown, Eugene C. Foster, William C. Johnston, William H. Danforth, S.F.
Shattuck, R.A. Waite, Mrs. M.S. Lamoreaux, and the Misses Minnie E.
Kennedy, Anna Branch Binford and Helen Gill Lovett, for their great help
and counsel in preparing the above leaflets. Grateful acknowledgment is
also made to Miss Margaret Slattery, Mrs. J.W. Barnes, Rev. Charles D.
Bulla, D.D., Rev. William E. Chalmers, B.D., Rev. C.H. Hubbell, D.D.,
Rev. A.L. Phillips, D.D., Rev. J.C. Robertson, B.D., and the Rev. R.P.
Shepherd, Ph.D., for their advice and suggestions as members of the
Committee on Young People's Work of the Sunday School Council of
Evangelical Denominations. The plans and methods of these leaflets have
the approval of the denominational and interdenominational leaders of
North America. I wish, also, to make public mention of the great
assistance that Mr. Preston G. Orwig and my colleague, Rev. William A.
Brown, have rendered me in the practical working out of many of the
methods contained in this volume. Two articles written for the "Boys'
Work" volume of the Men and Religion Messages, and one for "Making
Religion Efficient" have been modified somewhat for this present work.
The aim has been to set forth as completely as possible the relationship
of the Sunday school and the boy of the teen years in the light of the
genius of the Sunday school.
No attempt has been made in this volume to discuss the boy
psychologically or otherwise. This has been done so often that the
subject has become matter-of-fact. My little volume on "Boy Training,"
so generously shared in by other writers who are authorities on their
subjects, may be referred to for information of this sort. "The Sunday
School and the Teens" will, likewise, afford valuable technical
information about the Sunday school, it being the report of the
International Commission on Adolescence.
This book is largely a volume of method and suggestion for leaders and
teachers in the Sunday school, to promote the better handling of the
so-called boy problem; for the Sunday school must solve the problem of
getting and holding the teen age boy, if growth and development are to
mark its future progress. Of the approximately ten million teen age boys
in the field of the International Sunday School Association, ninety per
cent are not now reached by the Sunday school. Of the five per cent
enrolled (less than 1,500,000) seventy-five per cent are dropping from
its membership. Every village, town and city contributes its share
toward this unwarranted leakage. The problem is a universal one.
The teen age represents the most important period of life. Ideals and
standards are set up, habits formed and decisions made that will make or
mar a life. The high-water mark of conversion is reached at fifteen, and
between the ages of thirteen and eighteen more definite stands are made
for the Christian life than in all the other combined years of a
lifetime.
It marks the period of adolescence, when the powers and passions of
manhood enter into the life of the boy, and when the will is not strong
enough to control these great forces. Powers must be unfolded before
ability to use them can develop, and instincts must be controlled while
these are in the process of development. The importance of systematic
adult leadership during this period of storm and stress cannot be too
strongly emphasized.
The teen age boy is naturally religious. Opportunity, however, must be
given him to express his religion in forms that appeal to and are
understood by him. In other words, his religion, like his nature, is a
positive quantity, and will be carried by him throughout the day, to
dominate all of the activities in which he engages.
The problem also reaches through the entire teen years and must be
regarded as a whole, rather than as a series of successive stages, each
stage being separate and complete in itself.
The great problem, then, which confronts us is to keep the boys in the
church and Sunday school during the critical years of adolescence and
to bring to their support the strength which comes from God's Word and
true Christian friendship, to the end that they may be related to the
Son of God as Saviour and Lord through personal faith and loyal service.
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alexander, Editor.--Boy Training (.75). The Sunday School and the Teens.
(The Report of the International Commission on Adolescence) ($1.00).
Alexander, Editor.--The Teens and the Rural Sunday School. (The Report
of the International Commission on Rural Adolescence.) _In preparation_.
Boys' Work Message (Men and Religion Movement) ($1.00).
Fiske.--Boy Life and Self-Government ($1.00).
Hall.--Developing into Manhood (Sex Education Series) (.25)
Hall.--Life's Beginnings (Sex Education Series) (.25)
Secondary Division Leaflets, International Sunday School Association
(Free).
1. Secondary Division Organization.
2. The Organized Class.
3. State and County Work.
4. Through-the-week Activities.
5. The Secondary Division Crusade.
Swift--Youth and the Race ($1.50).
THE BOY AND HIS EDUCATION
Three institutions are responsible for the education of the adolescent
boy. By "education" is meant not merely the acquisition of certain forms
of related knowledge, but the symmetrical adaptation of the life to the
community in which it lives. The three institutions that cooperate in
the community for this purpose are: the _home_, the _school_, and the
_church_. There are many organizations and orders that have a large
place in the life of the growing boy, but these must be viewed solely in
the light of auxiliaries to the home, school and church in the
production of efficient boyhood and trained manhood.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON EDUCATION
Draper.--American Education ($2.00).
Payot.--Education of the Will ($1.50).
I
THE HOME AND THE BOY
The greatest of the three institutions affecting boy life, from the very
fact that it is the primary one, is the home. The home is the basis of
the community, the community merely being the aggregation of a large
number of well-organized or ill-organized homes. The first impressions
the boy receives are through his home life, and the bent of his whole
career is often determined by the home relationships.
The large majority of homes today are merely places in which a boy may
eat and sleep. The original prerogatives of the father and mother, so
far as they pertain to the physical, social, mental and moral
development of boyhood, have been farmed out to other organizations in
the community. The home life of today greatly differs from that of
previous generations. This is very largely due to social and economic
conditions. Our social and economic revolution has made vast inroads
upon our normal home life, with the result that the home has been
seriously weakened and the boy has been deprived of his normal home
heritage.
To give the home at least some of the old power that it used to have
over the boy life, there must needs be recognized the very definite
place a boy must have in the family councils. The general tendency
today, as far as the boy is concerned, is an utter disregard on the part
of the father and mother of the importance of the boy as a partner in
the family. He is merely the son of his father and mother, and their
obligations to him seemingly end in providing him with wholesome food,
warm clothing, a place to sleep and a room in which to study and play in
common with other members of the household. Very little thought is given
on the part of the father and mother to the real part the boy should
play in the direction of the family life. Family matters are never
determined with the help of his judgment. They are even rarely discussed
in his presence. Instead of being a partner in the family life, doing
his share of the family work and being recognized as a necessary part of
its welfare, he is only recognized as a dependent member, to be cared
for until he is old enough to strike out and make a place for himself.
This sometimes is modified when the boy comes to the wage-earning age,
when he is required to assist in the support of the family, but even
then his place in the family councils to determine the policy of the
family is usually a very small one.
In the home of today few fathers and mothers seem to realize the claim
that the boy has upon them in the matter of comradeship. The parent
looks upon himself very largely in the light of the provider, and but
very little attention is paid to the companionship call that is coming
from the life of his boy. After a strenuous day's work the father is
often physically incapacitated for such comradeship and only the
strongest effort of will on his part can force him to recognize this
fundamental need of his boy's life. It is just as necessary that the
father should play with and be the companion of his boy as it is for him
to see that he has good food, warm clothing, and a comfortable bed to
sleep in. The father generally is the boy's hero up to a certain age.
This seems to be an unwritten, natural law of the boy's life, and the
father often forfeits this worship and respect of his boy by failing to
afford him the natural companionship necessary to keep it alive. In
addition to a place and a voice in the councils of the family, it is
necessary that the boy should have steady parental companionship to
bring out the best that is in him.
The ownership of personal property and its recognition by the parent in
the life of the boy is fundamental to the boy's later understanding of
the home and community life. Comparatively few fathers and mothers ever
recognize the deep call of the boy life to own things, and frequently
the boy's property is taken from him and he is deprived of its use as a
means of punishment for some breach of home discipline. In many families
the boy grows up altogether without any adequate idea of what the right
of private property really is, with the result that when he reaches the
adolescent years and is swayed by the gang spirit, whatever comes in his
way, as one of the gang, is appropriated by him to the gang use. This
means that the boy, because of his ignorance, becomes a ward of the
Juvenile Court and a breaker of community laws. The tendency, however,
today in legal procedure is to hold the parents of such a boy liable for
the offenses which may be committed. Instead of talking about juvenile
delinquency today we are beginning to comprehend the larger meaning of
parental and community delinquency. Out of nearly six hundred cases
which came before the Juvenile Court in San Francisco last year only
nineteen, by the testimony of the judge, were due to delinquency on the
part of the offender himself. The majority of the remaining cases were
due to parental delinquency, or neglect of the father and mother. A
real part in the home life may be given to the boy by recognizing his
individual and sole claim to certain things in the home life.
Failure on the part of the father and mother to recognize the growth of
the boy likewise tends to interfere with normal relationships in the
home. Many a father and mother fail to see and appreciate the fact that
their boy really ceases to be a child. Because of this, parents very
often fail to show the proper respect for the personality of the boy,
riding rough-shod over his feelings and will. There follows in matters
of this kind a natural resentment on the part of the boy which sometimes
makes him moody and reticent. This, in its turn, causes the parents to
try to curb what they consider a disagreeable disposition on the part of
the boy. Sometimes this takes the form of resentment at the fact that
the boy wishes at times to be alone, and so fathers and mothers are
continually on the watch to prevent the boy from really having any time
of his own. All of these things put together have but one logical
result, the ultimate break between the boy and the home, and the
departure of the boy at the first real opportunity to strike out for
himself, thus sundering all the home relationships.
Perhaps one of the saddest things in the home life today is the neglect
of the father to see that his boy receives the necessary knowledge
concerning sex, that his life may be safeguarded from the moral perils
of the community. This is not always a willful breach of duty on the
part of the father, but usually comes from ignorance as to how to broach
this subject to the boy. A great many growing lives would be saved from
moral taint and become a blessing instead of a curse if the father
discharged his whole duty to his growing son, by putting at his disposal
the knowledge which is necessary to an understanding of the functions of
the sex life.
To recapitulate, several things are necessary to bring about real
relationships in the home life between the parents and the boy. These
are: a place for the boy in the family councils as a partner in the
home life, the boy's right to companionship with his parents, the
privilege and responsibility of private ownership, the right a boy has
to his personality and privacy, and tactful and timely instruction in
matters of sex. This might be enlarged by the parents' privilege of
caring for and developing social life for the boy in the home, a
carefully planned participation in its working life, instructions in
thrift and saving, and a general cooperation with the school and the
church, as well as the auxiliary organizations with which the boy may be
connected, so that the physical, social, mental and spiritual life of
the boy may become well balanced and symmetrical. Add to this the
Christian example of the father and mother, as expressed in the everyday
life of the home, and especially through family worship and a
recognition of the Divine Being at meal time, and without any cant or
undue pressure there will be produced such a wholesome home environment
as to assure the boy of an intelligent appreciation of not only his
father and mother, but of his home privileges in general, and of the
value of real religion.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE HOME
Allen.--Making the Best of Our Children. Two vols. ($1.00 each).
Field.--Finger-posts to Children's Reading ($1.00).
Fiske.--Boy Life and Self-Government ($1.00).
Kirkpatrick.--Fundamentals of Child Study ($1.25).
Putnam.--Education for Parenthood (.65).
II
THE PUBLIC SCHOOL AND THE BOY
Of the primary institutions that are cooperating in the life of the boy
today, without a doubt the public school is the most efficient and most
serviceable. Today the school offers and compels a boy to get certain
related courses of study which will make him a better citizen by fitting
him in a measure for the procuring of an intelligent and adequate
livelihood. The school by no means is perfect in this matter, and as
long as over fifty per cent. of the boys fail to graduate even from the
eighth grade in the grammar school, and but one per cent. go to college,
there will be great need of a reconstruction of its methods of work.
Without question, the curricula of the public school should be modified
so as to meet the needs of all the boys in the community and vocational
and industrial training should have larger place in our educational
plans. The boy who is to earn his livelihood by his hands and head
should receive as much attention and intelligent instruction as the boy
who aims at a professional career. However, with all its limitations,
the public school is the only institution which has a definite policy in
the education of the boy. The leaders of the public school system know
whither they are going and the road they must travel to reach the goal.
Perhaps the greatest weakness of our public school system today is the
inability, because of our division between church and state, to give the
boy any religious instruction in connection with what is styled "secular
education." For the first time in the history of the world has religious
instruction been barred from the public school, and that in our free
America. Most intelligent Christian men now realize that, because of the
division between church and state in our country, religious instruction
in the public school is impossible, as the school is the instrument of
the state in the production of wealth-producing citizenship. The men who
with clear vision see these things also see this limitation of the
public school system and recognize that the church has a larger mission
to fulfill in America than in any other country, it the education of the
boy is to be symmetrical and well balanced.
Perhaps the problem of our public school system of education which has
not yet been solved is the vast possibility of the directed play life of
our boys. It is well known by students of boy life that the character of
the boy is very largely determined by the informal education which comes
from his part in sports and play. In some cities the public school has
sought to give partial direction to the play life of the boy through
public school athletic leagues, but even these leagues touch but a small
part of the boy life of any community. Besides the injection of
industrial and vocational training in large quantity in public school
curricula, more thought and place will have to be given to the
expression of the boy life in play than is now provided for.
In addition to this, the home and the church must render a united
cooperation to make the school life of the boy what it ought to be. The
Parents' and Teachers' Association in the public school is doing much to
bring this about between the home and the school, and it may be that a
Teachers' Association, consisting of officials and teachers of the
public school and the officials and teachers of the Sunday school, might
bring about a closer cooperation in the secular and religious education
of the boyhood of the community. Both these associations, if fostered,
would certainly tend to create a wholesome school atmosphere, which
would render a tremendous service in safeguarding the moral life of the
boy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON PUBLIC SCHOOL
Baldwin.--Industrial-social Education ($1.50).
Bloomfield.--Vocational Guidance of Youth (.60).
Brown.--The American High School ($1.40).
Crocker,--Religious Freedom in American Education ($1.00).
--Religious Education (.65).
III
THE CHURCH AND THE BOY
If the foregoing facts considering the home and school life are
absolutely true, and the consensus of opinion of the students of boy
life would have it so, it means that the church has a larger opportunity
than formerly supposed to influence the boy life of the community.
The investigator into the life of boyhood has revealed to us the fact
that a boy's life is not only fourfold--physical, social, mental and
spiritual--but is also unified in its process of development. If this be
so, there must be a common center for the boy's life, and neither the
home nor the school can, because of social or economic or political
conditions, become this center. The only remaining place where the boy's
life can be unified is the church.
The life of the church, generally speaking, is largely manipulated in
the services of worship, the Sunday school, and such auxiliary
organizations as the Brotherhood, Christian Endeavor, Missionary
societies, and other like organizations. At the present time the church
organization itself is but little adapted to the needs of the growing
boy, the church being a splendidly organized body for mature life. On
the other hand, until lately, the Sunday school has been recognized as a
place for children under twelve years of age. With the Adult Bible Class
movement of the past few years, there has come a revival in the Sunday
school in adult life, so that the place of adults and children in the
Sunday school has been magnified. There still remains, however, the need
of a modification of Sunday school organization to meet the need of the
adolescent boy.
The opportunity that faces the church and the Sunday school in this
adaptation is tremendous. Investigations of the past few years have
demonstrated beyond a doubt that the time to let loose impulses in the
life for the development of character is between the ages of fourteen
and twenty, or the plastic years of early and middle adolescence. Recent
studies have shown that the break in school life occurs at about
fourteen and a half or fifteen years, and that the majority of cases in
the juvenile courts fall in the same period. More souls are born into
the Kingdom of God in the early years of adolescence than at all other
ages of life put together, and the vantage ground of the church lies at
these ages, the effort necessary being the minimum and the results being
the maximum that can be attained.
The problem of the church in touching these adolescent years is to make
the right use of all the facts of boy life. Too long has the church
looked upon the boy as a mere field of operation. Too long has she
considered the boy as a dual personality and regarded life as both
secular and spiritual. Today she is beginning to understand that all
boyhood life is spiritual; that there are no secular activities in
boyhood, but that every activity that a boy enters into has tremendous
spiritual value, either for good or for bad. It is especially true in a
boy's life that the spiritual finds expression through the physical. It
should be true of all life, but a boy especially lives by physical
expression.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE CHURCH
Foster.--The Boy and the Church (.75).
Gray.--Non-Church Going, Its Reasons, and Remedies ($1.00).
Hodges.--Training of Children in Religion ($1.50).
Hulbert.--The Church and Her Children ($1.00).
IV
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL OR CHURCH SCHOOL
The Sunday school is the biggest force of the church in the life of the
boy. At times he refuses to attend the stated worship of the church, but
if the Sunday school be in the least interesting he will gladly attend
it. Its exercises and procedure must, however, be interesting, and
rightly so. The boy has the right to demand that the time, his own time,
which he gives to the Sunday school, should be utilized to some decently
profitable, pleasurable end. Education, even religious education, is not
necessarily a painful process. Discipline of mind or body has ceased to
be a series of disagreeable, rigid postures or exercises. Medicine has
no virtue merely because it is bad to the taste, and modern medical
usage prescribes free air and warm sunshine in large doses in place of
the old-time bitter nostrums. Even where the boy spirit needs
medication, the means employed need not be sepulchral gloom, solemn
warning, other-world songs, and penitential prayers, with great moral
applications of the non-understandable. The germs of spiritual disease
give way before the sunshine of the spirit, just as fast, if not faster,
than the microbes before the sun. The Sunday school, then, should be a
happy, joyous, sunny place, brimful of ideas, suggestion and impulse;
for these three are at once the giants and fairies of religious
education, and are the essential elements of character-making.
To produce all of the above, three things are needed: adequate
organization, careful supervision, and common-sense leading. The first
is imperative, because all education is a matter of organization. The
second is part of the first, as supervision is the genius of
organization. The third is fundamental, for all expression--true
education--depends on the teacher or leader, whose innate idea of the
fitness of things keeps him from doing, on the one hand, that which is
just customary, or, on the other hand, that which may appear to be just
scientific. The science of yesterday should be the tradition of today;
that is, if we are making progress in educational processes. Today's
science also should be fighting yesterday's for supremacy. Common sense
lies somewhere between the two.
The only two of these three Sunday school essentials that this chapter
deals with are organization and supervision.
The Sunday school should be a kind of a religious regiment, martial both
in its music and its virtues for its challenge to the adolescent boy.
Now, every regiment, in peace or war, is properly organized with
battalions, companies, and squads. Everything is accounted for, arranged
for, and some one definitely held responsible for certain things--not
everything. The organization covers every member of the regiment; so
should the Sunday school.
In Sunday school nomenclature the regimental battalions are
"Divisions"--Elementary, Secondary, and Adult, by name. The companies
likewise are named "Departments," each division having its own as in the
"Elementary"--"Cradle Roll," "Beginners," "Primary," and "Junior." The
squads in each case are the "Classes" that make up the Departments. _It
is essential that the Secondary, or Teen Age Division, which enrolls the
adolescent boy, be adequately organized._
Regiments, Battalions, Companies, and Squads must be properly
officered--must be supervised. Colonels, Majors, Captains, Lieutenants,
Sergeants and Corporals are the arteries of an army. In Sunday school
language, the head of the regiment is the General Superintendent, and
all the heads of divisions and departments are likewise named
Superintendent. The leader of the squad is the Teacher. Then a properly
supervised Sunday school is organized not unlike an army, and would be,
according to a diagram, like the following:
General Superintendent
|
------+-----------------+----------+------+-----------------+---
| | | |
Elementary Secondary Adult Special
Superintendent Superintendent Superintendent Superintendent
Cradle Roll Intermediate Organized Bible
Superintendent Superintendent Class
Superintendent
Beginners' Senior Home Superintendent
Superintendent Superintendent
or
Primary Teen Age
Superintendent Superintendent
or
Junior Boys'
Superintendent Superintendent
and
Girls'
Superintendent
Thus the modern school of the church would have at least twelve
superintendents to oversee its work, to say nothing of the special
workers, such as Training, Missionary and Temperance. This may seem like
an unnecessary array of officers, but the experienced will admit that
they are essential to good results in teaching boys and girls of varying
requirements. _Not until the Secondary or Teen Age Division is
adequately supervised, will the teen age boy or his religious education
be properly cared for_.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE SUNDAY SCHOOL
Frost.--The Church School (.65).
Cope.--Efficiency in the Sunday School ($1.00).
Lawrance.--Housing the Sunday School ($2.00).
--How to Conduct a Sunday School ($1.25).
Meyer.--The Graded Sunday School in Principle and Practice (.75).
SCHEME OF ORGANIZATION OF THE MODERN SUNDAY SCHOOL
DIVISIONS AND DEPARTMENTS
============================================================
ELEMENTARY | SECONDARY | ADULT | SPECIAL
--------------+---------------+--------------+--------------
Cradle Roll | (A) | Adult | Missionary
(1 Minute-3 | Intermediate | Bible |
years) | Department | Class |
--------------| (13-16 years) | Department | Temperance
Beginners' |---------------| (21 years +) |
Department | Senior |--------------|
(4-5 years) | Department | Home[1] | Purity
--------------| (17-20 years) | Department |
Primary |===============| Visitation |
Department | (B) | Department | Training
(6-8 years) | Teen Age or | |
--------------| High School | |
Junior | Department | | Parents
Department |===============| |
--------------| Girls' | |
| Department | | Parents and
| (13-20 years) | | Teachers
| | |
| (C) | |
| Boys' | | Etc.
| Department | |
| (13-20 years) | |
============================================================
V
THE BOY AND THE SUNDAY SCHOOL
There are two factors in the above subject--the factor of the boy and
the factor of the Sunday school.
The factor of the boy is the more important of the two, as the Sunday
school exists merely for the purpose of serving the boy. The boy,
therefore, should be thought of first, and the Sunday school should be
planned to meet his needs.
What then is the factor of the boy? "The boy is a many-sided animal,
with budding tastes, clamorous appetites, primitive likes and dislikes,
varied interests; an idealist and hater of shams, a reservoir of nerve
force, a bundle of contradictions, a lover of fun but a possible lover
of the best, a loyal friend of his true friends; impulsive, erratic,
impressionable to an alarming degree." Furthermore, the boy is
maturing, traversing the path from boyhood to manhood, is unstable, not
only in his growth, but also in his thought, is restless because of his
natural instability, and sometimes suffers from headiness and
independence. Between boyhood and manhood he travels swiftly, the
scenery changes quickly as he travels--_but he is traveling to manhood_.
No railway train or vehicle can keep pace with his speed. Morning sees
him a million miles farther on his way than night reckoned him but half
a day before. And yet, in all of it, he moves by well-defined stages in
his journey towards his destination of maturity. Today he is
individualistic, tomorrow heroic, a little later reflective and full of
thought, but in all of it is progressively active, moving forward by
leaps and bounds. His needs also increase with his pace, and must be
fully and timely met, if he is to reach symmetrical maturity. He needs
but three things to attain his best: proper sustenance, unlimited
activity, and careful guidance. Given these three rightly and at the
proper time, the quality of his manhood will go beyond our fondest hope.
The sustenance must be in keeping with his years, the activity in line
with his strength, and the guidance adapted to the needs of his
spirit--firm, compelling, but not irksome. In it all the boy is to be
encouraged in self-expression, resourcefulness, and independent manhood.
Such is a partial appreciation of the boy and his wonderful capacities,
a passing glimpse into a treasure house of wealth and possibility.
What now is the Sunday school? In the days that are past, it was looked
upon merely as a weekly meeting of boys and girls. Today it is regarded
as an institution for the releasing of great moral and religious
impulses into life. Of late there have even crept into its life the
names and some of the methods of our public school system. Grading and
trained teaching have also come into its life to stay; the modern Sunday
school is but little like that of a decade ago, and the changes are not
yet done with. Some of the innovations will be proved by experience and
retained with modification, while others doubtless will be eliminated as
worthless for the purposes of the Sunday school in its ideals of moral
and religious education. Improvement, however, is in the school
atmosphere.
However, with all the change, past, present and contemplated, the school
proper has but little time for the doing of its work. Fifty-two sessions
a year, of an hour's or an hour and a half's duration at best, fifty-two
or seventy-eight hours a year, only one-third of which is given to Bible
study, furnish a meager opportunity to accomplish its aim. Compared with
twelve hundred hours a year in the public school, or the twenty-eight
hundred hours a year a boy may work, it seems pitifully small, for the
aim of the Sunday school is bigger than the other two. The Sunday school
purposes to fit the boy to play the game in public school and work and
life. It seeks to give him impulses that will help him to keep clean,
inside and outside, to work with other boys in team play, to render
Christian service to his fellows, and to love and worship God as his
Father and Christ as his Saviour. The means it employs for these great
purposes are Bible study, Christian music, the association of the boys
in classes, and Christian leadership. To these the school is beginning
to add through-the-week meetings for what have been called its secular
activities. All this has come after a great deal of campaigning on the
part of groups of devoted men and women interested in boy life and
welfare. The Sunday school has had to overcome many handicaps in
reaching the boy of teen age, among which were the lack of efficient,
virile teachers, a misunderstanding of boy nature, lessons not adapted
to the boy's needs, music that was not appealing, and the indiscriminate
grouping of boys with members of the other sex. These, however, have
been rapidly overcome, and today the school is fairly well organized to
meet the needs of the boy.
There are yet some definite things to be written into the life of the
Sunday school to win and hold the boy of teen age in its membership for
life.
The first of these is the incorporation into the Sunday school
activities of those things that interest and touch and mold every phase
of a boy's life. It means the allotment of a definite part of the school
period for the discussion of the things the group of boys will engage in
during the week, and a through-the-week meeting as a real part of the
school work. This allows and provides for the athletic, outdoor,
camping, social, and literary outlet for the boy spirit.
Another forward step is graded Bible study, graded athletics, graded
service, graded social life, and graded mental activities. The work of
the school, to hold the boy, must be new and diverse in its interests,
and big enough and broad enough to command his constantly changing
attention. As his years so shall his interest be. To his years the work
of the Sunday school must correspond.
The Organized Bible Class that is self-governing must be added to the
above. Better have the gang on the inside of the church with a
Christian-altruistic content, than to permit the boys to organize under
self-direction on the outside. The Bible Class, too, has advantages over
every other form of organization. It has the Bible at its heart, the one
thing necessary to assure permanence, and never allows the thought of
graduation. Other boy organizations meet the need of certain specified
years; the Bible Class meets all the needs of all the years, and is
flexible enough to include all the special needs that are met by other
forms of organization.
The greatest need of the Sunday school is capable teaching. By it the
Bible Class becomes efficient or the reverse. For the boy the teacher
should be a man, a Christian man, who has personality enough to command
the boy's respect, and ability enough to direct the boy in doing things.
This means a comrade-relationship of work and play, Bible study and
athletics, spiritual and social activity, Sunday and week-day interest,
and a disposition on the part of the leader to get the boy to do
everything--government, planning, presiding, achieving--for himself.
This is true teaching and leadership. The greatest thing in the Sunday
school is the teacher. For now abideth the Lesson, the Class, and the
Teacher, but the greatest of these is the Teacher.
In view, then, of all that has gone before, what shall be said of the
Sunday school and the boy? Each to each is the complement; the two
together form a winning combination. On the one hand, the modern Sunday
school should meet the boy's need at every stage of his development in a
physical, social, mental, and spiritual way. It should give him variety
and progression in the processes of his maturing, and suitable
organization and trained leadership for character-building and
man-making. On the other hand, the boy will render the Sunday school and
church his service, and through both give his heart's thought, devotion,
and worship to his Lord. This is the whole matter of the Sunday school
and the normal boy, and is our vision of the future of the church. The
past did not do it! The past is dead!
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE BOY AND THE SUNDAY SCHOOL
Boys' Work Message (Men and Religion Movement) ($1.00).
Foster.--The Boy and the Church (.75).
Lewis.--The Intermediate Worker and His Work (.50).
--The Senior Worker and His Work (.50).
Robinson.--The Adolescent Boy in the Sunday School (_American Youth_,
April, 1911) (.20).
VI
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES IN SUNDAY SCHOOL WORK WITH BOYS
Five fundamental principles must be kept in mind when work with boys in
the Sunday school is attempted, and without these five principles very
little will be accomplished:
1. _The first of these is the Fourfold Life_. A boy lives physically,
socially, and mentally, as well as spiritually. He lives seven days a
week, twenty-four hours a day, not merely an hour or an hour and a half
on Sunday. His spiritual impulses are received and find their expression
in the physical, social and mental activities in which he is engaged
during the week. Any work that is attempted with a group of boys which
ignores this fourfold life of the boy cannot be a success. The man,
then, who plans to work with boys must plan to touch the various phases
of the boys' lives as he works with them, and he must also do this work
in proportion, not putting too much emphasis on any one phase, but
allowing equal emphasis on all. The ideal for a perfect work with boys
is that which is gleaned from a study of the boyhood of Christ, for the
boy Jesus, "grew in wisdom" (mentally), "and in stature" (physically),
"and in favor with God" (spiritually), "and with man" (socially). The
secret of the life of the Christ as a boy lies in his symmetrical and
well-balanced growth.
2. _The second principle is Progression._ In a successful church work
with boys the activities must be graded and progressive. The public
school could not command the presence of a boy if the work which it gave
him today was the same as that of last week, and that of last week the
same as that of a year ago. The inherent interest of the public school
to a boy is that he is discovering new things for himself, or being
taught new things all the while. This principle must be incorporated in
church and Sunday school work to keep the continued interest of the boy.
It must be observed, not only in Bible study (and this should be
graded), but also in the physical, social, mental and service activities
in which the boy finds himself engaged.
3. _The third principle is Service_. Too long has the church bribed her
boys and expected them to remain with her and in her service after
offering them wages for doing the thing which they ought to have done
for sheer love of it. Socials and clubs and athletic organizations and
other devices have been used as a bid to hold the boy, instead of being
used because the church owed these things to the boy as part of his
all-round development. "Where the treasure is, there will the heart be
also"; and it stands to reason that the heart of the boy will be where
he is giving most of himself. If he is investing himself heavily in the
interest and service of the church, that is where his interest will be.
4. _The fourth principle is Organisation_.
The law of the boy life in adolescence is organization, or the gang.
The church has its choice, either to let the boys organize themselves on
the outside, under self-directed and therefore incompetent leadership,
or to organize the boys on the inside of the church, provide a definite
place for this organization, and so permeate the gang instinct with the
spirit of Christian altruism. Every church organization for boys, the
organized Bible class, the church club, and other church forms of
organization, are aiming to do just this thing. The law of the boy's
life is to associate with his fellows and the expression of his purposes
is team work. The church, through suitable organization, can meet this
need of the boy life.
5. _The fifth and last principle is Leadership_. Leadership is
inseparable from organization, and organization is useless without
leadership. The leadership which is necessary for a group of adolescent
boys is that of a man, and the problem which is presented to a leader
with a group of boys in the adolescent years is not that of teaching,
but of awakening virile ideas and purposes in the boy life. The leader
must be able to enter into sympathy with and in at least a partial way
into participation with all the activities of the group. Everything that
a boy does is just the thing that the man used to do. There is,
therefore, little hardship, but instead the joy of living again, when a
man becomes the leader of a group of boys.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES
Alexander (Editor).--Boy Training (.75).
Boys' Work Message (Men and Religion Movement) ($1.00).
Robinson.--The Adolescent Boy in the Sunday School (_American Youth_,
April, 1911) (.20).
VII
METHOD AND ORGANIZATION
=Organization=
By organization is meant, of course, boy organization, the form of
organization that attempts to keep the adolescent boy tied up to the
interests of the church. Today the forms of organization for this
purpose are legion, and strangely enough every such form but one has its
headquarters outside of the local church it seeks to serve. The one
exception is the form known as the Boys' Organized Bible Class, an
integral part of the Sunday school with no allegiance of any sort or
kind to any organization but the local church of which it is a
part--bone of its bone, flesh of its flesh, muscle of its muscle.
These organizations that flourish in our modern church life naturally
fall into three classes: religious, semi-religious and welfare. Other
nomenclature, characterizing them might be used, and would be by their
founders, but these words classify them for the purpose of our
investigation. The _religious_ organizations have for their sole aim the
deepening of the religious impulse, and the missionary objective of
carrying this impulse to others. The _semi-religious_ are built around
religious and symbolic heroes, make a bid for the heroic and the gang
spirit, and seek to inculcate more or less of religious truth by the
sugar-coat method. The _welfare_ type aims at the giving of all sorts of
activity in order to keep the boy interested and busy, and so raise the
tone of his life in general.
The religious type of organization includes the forms that may be
classed under the church brotherhood idea--the junior brotherhoods of
various sorts. They originated because of the need of some kind of
expression for the religious impressions that were continually coming to
the boy in his church life. The idea was good, but its release poor.
Senior forms of organization were imitated, adult forms of worship and
service diminutized, and juvenile copies of mature experience
encouraged. Junior brotherhoods and junior societies thus have tended to
destroy the genuine, natural, spontaneous religious life of boys, and
have unconsciously aided the culture of cant and religious unreality.
The semi-religious organizations have gone a full step beyond those of
the religious type. Societies like the Knights of King Arthur, Knights
of the Holy Grail, Modern Knights of St. Paul, and others of such ilk
have in symbolism sought to teach and find expression for the religious
impulse. The method has been more or less the religious type in
disguise--ancient titles, elaborate ritual, initiations, and degrees,
red fire, fuss and feathers, and something doing all the time to attract
the boy. The result has been and is a play-idea of organization and a
make-believe environment on the part of the boy. In his thought it never
classifies with his school or home or general church life. It is a
thing apart, some thing or place to retire to, to forget the everyday
thing for a moment of romance. The mature mind that is responsible for
all of this, however, seeks to bend and use this make-believe world for
the inculcation of religious truth; and the product is an astonishing
variety of results. Most of it is beyond the grasp of the ordinary man,
the only man who at present or at any time will do this work in the
church; and where set programs or ritual are followed the work itself
loses its fire and misses its effectiveness.
The welfare type of organizations has multiplied in the past few years,
_and their less religious activities have served to keep the religious
and semi-religious types alive_. The Boys' Brigade, the National First
Aid Association, the Woodcraft Indians, Sons of Daniel Boone, Boy
Scouts, and others of like type, are in season and out of season
appealing to American boyhood. Their aim is not specific, but general
and vague: "Something to do, something to think about, something to
enjoy, with a view always to character-building." Their appeal is
mostly to the physical and the out-of-doors; their philosophy that of
the recapitulation of the culture epochs. Their promoters do not claim
that they touch all of life. They seek to dominate the leisure time
only, and to produce goodness by affording no free time for positive
wrong-doing. The domination is also physical expression, and the mental
and spiritual in the boy and his home, school, and church life are not
vitally affected directly.
All three types, however, have done splendid work in the past, and are
rendering good service in the present as they will in the future. The
success of each depends entirely on its leadership. If a leader be
steeped in the Idylls of the King, the Knights of King Arthur will be
popular with the boys and the church. If the superintendent of the
brotherhood or society be human and magnetic, the church and the boy
will sing its praises. If the scoutmaster is an out-of-door man and has
a point of contact with the boy, the Boy Scouts will be the solution of
all our difficulties. Here lies the crux of the whole matter. If boys
are added to the church through any organization, it is not because of
the method, but because of the worker of the method. The method counts
because it is part of the worker--is in his blood.
=Method=
The aim of all church work should be the production not merely of
manhood but _Christian manhood_. The vision is to see the boy a
Christ-like boy--a physically, socially, mentally and spiritually
balanced man in the making. The organizations used, then, in boys' work
should be selected with this aim in mind.
Again, modern psychology has demonstrated to us that all boy activities
must be graded according to each stage of a boy's development, and that
there are several such stages. In the adolescent boy these may roughly
be classed as the heroic and reflective stages, or as early, middle, and
late adolescence. Boy activities, then, must group themselves to
minister to the needs of each separate stage in order to work
effectively. But psychology has also shown us that the activities of any
one stage must also be graded to meet the needs of that one stage. Thus
the heroic may run from the twelfth to the fifteenth year, and the
activities of this phase should be graded to meet the development of the
phase. This is well illustrated by the Tenderfoot Second Class Scout and
First Class Scout degrees of the Boy Scouts which operate in this
period.
The factors of the problem, then, to be considered in the method are:
First, Christian Manhood; second, the fact that there are distinct and
separate stages of growth in a boy's development, each stage having its
own well-defined steps of growth; and third, the selection of existing
boy organization activities to meet the need and produce the aim or
desired result.
By way of illustration, let us consider a group of boys just past their
twelfth year. All their physical, social, mental, and spiritual needs
are to be met. The boys are just adolescent and their outlook because of
that is altruistic. They have reached the "ganging" period, and so must
have some form of organization. What organizations can be used to lead
them into Christian manhood between the twelfth and fifteenth year?
There are the Knights of King Arthur, the Boy Scouts, the Junior
Brotherhood, the Christian Endeavor, and the Sunday School Bible Class.
There are others--hosts of them--but these widely known forms will suit
the purpose. For physical purposes we have the Scouts, for social
purposes the Scouts, Knights, and the Bible Class; for mental purposes
the Knights, and for spiritual purposes the Knights, Brotherhood,
Endeavor, and the Bible Class. To see a boy get his own full development
under this plan he must needs belong to at least five organizations; and
_the principle of association among boys is not gangs but the gang_.
However, much can be done under difficulties. The Scouts will afford
free, physical, outdoor expression, without which there is no boy. The
Knights will furnish mental ideals and objectives; for the Knights of
King Arthur is the mental expression of the Boy Scouts and the Boy
Scouts is the physical expression of the Knights of King Arthur. Both of
them, with the Bible Class group, will furnish social stimulus and the
Bible study, and the more or less valuable devotional expression of the
Endeavor and Brotherhood will take care of the spiritual. In using an
organization, a clearly defined idea of the end sought should always be
in view.
=Efficiency=
In all church work for boys, efficiency should be sought. _It should
also be kept in mind that it is church work for boys_.
In all our discussion two things must seem striking: first, that we must
at present use at least five organizations to meet the boy need, five
gangs, when the principle of boy association is not gangs but the gang;
and second, that all of these organizations, with the exception of the
Bible Class, have their headquarters outside of the local church itself.
The headquarters are in New York, Detroit, Boston, Cincinnati,
Baltimore, etc., while the work they seek to do is the local church's
business. Further, they have all had their birth in the misunderstanding
of the church as to her mission for boys. The church, however, has now a
new vision of her mission, as manifested by her patience and forbearance
in trying out and listening to the voices of all these organizations
that would help her from the outside. The church is awake to the need,
but is confused in the method, because she recognizes that no single
organization that knocks at her door is sufficient and complete enough
for her task. She needs all their methods without their organization.
She cannot assume their organization, because it is not of her own flesh
and blood.
_A boy's allegiance cannot be split up among gangs. He must be a member
of the gang._ One organization is all that he can comprehend with
loyalty at one time. _This organization must be also of the local
church._ But the church needs no new organization. All she needs is
activities suitable to the boy's growth. _She has an organization that
the boy cannot outgrow--the Organized Bible Class._ At fifteen he is
through with the Scouts and the Knights, and at eighteen or twenty he is
through with fraternities and orders, or ought to be; for, if a boy be
not starved for these things when a boy, he will outgrow them as he
outgrows a suit of clothes. Graduation from these orders very often
means graduation from the Sunday school and church; for no single
organization can be conceived, that with ritual and form can bind
together the activities of twelve to fifteen, fifteen to twenty, and
twenty to thirty. However, there can be no graduation from the Organized
Bible Class, flesh of the church's flesh, blood of her blood, muscle of
her muscle; and the Organized Bible Class is flexible enough for an
adjustment to every stage of boy development, and to all its physical,
social, mental and spiritual needs. The organized class between twelve
and fifteen can include all the interests of those years, and when the
next stage of growth is on, can discard these for the interests that
lie between fifteen and twenty, and so on to the end.
The Organized Bible Class is simple in organization, is modern and
elastic, affords the minimum of organization and the maximum of
efficiency, is big enough to meet all the boy's needs, and is the
church's own. Into it can be poured all the activities of all the
organizations ever known, and it can be made the richest and best
adapted organization to the boy life of the Church that has yet been
conceived.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON METHOD AND ORGANIZATION
Alexander (Editor).--Boy Training (Chapter on Auxiliary Organizations)
(.75).
--Sunday School and the Teens (Chapter on Organizations) ($1.00).
Foster.--The Boy and the Church (Chapter on Books and Notes) (.75).
VIII
THE ORGANIZED SUNDAY SCHOOL BIBLE CLASS[2]
When all the plans and methods of work are reduced to a minimum, there
is but one. This finds expression in the gang or club life. Boys get
together in a group, elect their own officers and select a man who is to
be their adviser. Then they go out and do the thing they have organized
for in what is to them the simplest and best-known way. It may be stamp
collecting, or star studying, woodcraft, or camping, or the hundred and
one other forms of boy activity which are so common today. Seventy-five
per cent. of these clubs are formed solely for the purpose of physical
expression in athletics. Hundreds of such clubs exist today to meet the
various needs of the growing boy. The Knights of King Arthur, the Boy
Scouts, the Woodcraft Indians, the Sons of Daniel Boone, the Knights of
the Holy Grail, the Knights of St. Paul, and dozens of others have been
conceived and born for the purpose of meeting the needs of boys, as the
founders of the organizations saw them.
In harmony with all the other boys' organizations, and yet bigger than
all of them put together, is the Sunday school organization for
boys--the Organized Bible Class. It is purely and simply a church
organization, and owes no allegiance to any organization outside of the
local church. It is also a distinct part of the church life and an
organic part of the Sunday school, which is large enough to hold the
boy's interest from the cradle roll to the grave. The other
organizations serve their day in the life of the boy and cease to be. It
is difficult, almost an impossibility, to get normal boys, after fifteen
years of age, to take much interest in the so-called boys'
organizations, because their lives have outgrown these activities and
there is no longer any need of them. The Organized Bible Class presents
a method that can never be outgrown. _It also has at its heart Bible
study, which is the one essential to permanence in any work with boys_.
=Class Organization=
_Objective_.--Class organization is of no value unless the class has
definite objectives. The members should be made to feel that there is
some great purpose in the organization. The objectives for a teen age
class should be:
1. The winning of the class members to personal allegiance to Jesus
Christ as Saviour and Lord; and
2. The proper expression of the Christian life in service for others in
the name and spirit of the Christ. Thus one strengthens one's self and
helps others.
_Why Organize_.--(a) It is natural for a boy to want to get into an
organization of some kind. Seventy-five per cent. of the boys of a
community are, or have been, connected with some sort of organization.
These organizations, rightly controlled, and dominated by strong
Christian leadership, can be made a power for good in the community and
in the lives of their members. It matters not what the organization may
be connected with, it is the activities that appeal.
Why should not the Sunday school take advantage of this natural,
God-given instinct, to plan such organization in the church as will
present the strongest claim for the loyalty of the boys in the teen age?
(b) The organization is in the hands of the members of the class,
activities are planned by them, and discipline, when necessary, is
administered by them. The position of the teacher is thereby
strengthened. Instead of being an "autocrat" or "czar" in dealing with
the class, the function is that of counsellor and friend.
(c) It develops initiative, self-reliance, self-control, and the ability
to do things; character is thereby developed, and strong Christian
character is what the church needs today.
(d) The Organized Boys' Bible Classes will, without a doubt, become as
universal in their scope as Organized Adult Bible Classes. To be
affiliated with the biggest teen age organization in the world will, in
itself, appeal to every teen age boy and girl.
(e) Organization increases class spirit. The organized class becomes
"our class," not the "teacher's class." The unorganized class suffers
greatly if the teacher is removed, and sometimes is obliged to disband.
The organized class helps to secure another teacher, and, in the
interim, maintains its class work and is thus kept together. Though much
depends upon the teacher, the permanency of the class should not rest
wholly upon his personality and work. Changes must necessarily come.
(f) Organization enables the class to do things. The appointment of
special committees, the assignment of definite work to each committee,
and the introduction of various class activities does much toward
realizing the ideal--"an adequate Christian service for every member."
Large and permanent success is assured when this ideal is attained.
=Standard of Organization=
1. The class shall have at least five officers: President,
Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer, and Teacher. It shall also have as
many committees as necessary to carry on its work.
2. The class shall be definitely connected with a Sunday school.
3. A Sunday Bible session and, if practicable, week-day session or
activities.
4. The age limits of the class shall be not less than thirteen or more
than twenty years.
=How to Organize=
Secure Secondary Division Leaflet No. 2, of the International Sunday
School Association.
Study this leaflet carefully, noting especially the standard of
organization and the suggestive constitution, which seek to define an
organized class. Distribute leaflets among those whom you wish to
interest and enlist. Organization should not be forced on the class. Do
not go at it as though you were laying a trap. Observe the following:
(a) Think it through yourself; then put yourself in the pupil's place
and ask yourself the question, "How would I like to have this presented
to me?" This will give you the viewpoint of your class, and you are then
ready to go ahead. You must believe in it thoroughly, enthusiastically,
before you can hope for the interest and enthusiasm of your class.
(b) Next, get two or three of your "key" pupils, and talk it over with
them. Show them the possibilities of the organization, emphasizing the
physical, mental, social and spiritual activities.
(c) Follow this with a special meeting of the class, to be held either
at the home of the teacher or one of the class.
(d) Make the organization genuine, and show that you mean business. The
teen age abhors shams, and will readily detect any weak spots in the
organization. Impress upon them the necessity of selecting capable
officers. Adopt the class constitution, which follows, select class name
and motto, and elect the officers.
(e) Then let the officers conduct the meetings, both in the Sunday and
the mid-week sessions. The teacher is one of the class and is the
director of activities; the officers and committeemen do the work.
(f) In all things keep in close touch with the general superintendent
and the departmental superintendent of the school. Seek the strength
that comes from advice and cooperation.
=Constitution=
A class constitution is not essential, but is often helpful. The
following form of constitution is merely suggestive and may be changed
to conform to the needs of the class.
_Article I_--Name.
Our class shall be known as _______________
_____________ and shall be connected
with, and form a part of, the
______________Sunday school of_______.
_Article II_--Object.
The object of the class shall be the training of Christian character for
Christian service in the extension of Christ's Kingdom by means of Bible
study, through-the-week activities, mutual helpfulness, and social
fellowship, in addition to the winning of its members' allegiance to
Christ as Saviour and Lord.
_Article III_--Class Spirit.
To create an individuality in class spirit, loyalty and enthusiasm, the
class shall have an emblem, a motto and a color. It may also have a
flower, a song, a yell, a whistle, or such other additions as may seem
wise.
_Article IV_--Membership.
Any boy may become a member of this class on invitation of the class.
_Article V_--Officers.
The class officers may include the following: Teacher, President,
Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer. The officers shall be elected
by ballot semiannually by the class, and no officer shall serve in the
same position more than two terms in succession, except the teacher,
whose election or appointment is governed by the church or Sunday
school. The teacher may be elected by the class from a list provided by
the church authorities.
_Article VI_--Committees
There shall be as many committees in the class as necessary, such as
Social, Literary, Music, Athletic, etc.
_Article VII_--Meetings.
The class shall meet at ____o'clock each Sunday for its regular Bible
study session. Week-day meetings may be held each week. Special meetings
may be called at any time by the president, and the presence of
one-fourth of the enrolled membership shall be necessary for the
transaction of class business.
_Article VIII_--Duties of Officers and Committees.
Sec. 1. The teacher shall teach the lesson, shall be an ex officio
member of all committees, and shall work cooperatively with the
president in promoting the interests of the class.
Sec. 2. The president shall preside at meetings of the class, shall have
general supervision over the officers, and shall see that the work of
the class is pushed in accordance with its object.
Sec. 3. The vice-president shall take the president's place in case of
absence, and shall render such assistance to the president as may be
required of him.
Sec. 4. The secretary shall make class announcements, keep minutes of
all meetings, write to absent members, and report any information to the
teacher which may be desired.
Sec. 5. The duty of committees shall be defined by the activity each
carries on, said committee being responsible to the class for the work
entrusted to it.
_Article IX_--By-Laws.
From time to time the class may amend this constitution and pass such
by-laws as seem wise in carrying forward the work of the class.
A careful study of the Organized Class diagram on another page (86) will
furnish the teacher with a workable plan. In all cases it should be
adapted to local conditions.
Mid-week activities should be planned as a part of the weekly program,
keeping in mind the fourfold life of the pupil. The planning of these
activities should be left almost entirely to the class; any plans that
the teacher may have should be turned over to the class by way of
suggestion. Place the responsibility on the members of the class, and
once they have caught the idea there will be no lack of suggestions on
their part.
THE TEEN AGE BOYS' ORGANIZED CLASS
|
ORGANIZATION
|
+---------------+-------------+
| | |
OFFICERS | COMMITTEES
| | |
President [A] | Athletic
Vice-President [A] | Social
Secretary [A] | Membership[3]
Treasurer [B] | Program[4]
Teacher [B] | Etc.
|
CLASS MEETING
|
+----------------+--------------+
| | |
SUNDAY SESSION | THROUGH-THE-WEEK SESSION
| | |
Opening Services | |
Class Lesson | DETERMINED BY ACTIVITY
Discussion of | |
Through-the-Week | |
Activities | ACTIVITY COMMITTEE IN CHARGE
Closing Services |
|
RANGE OF CLASS ACTIVITIES
|
+------------+--------+--------------+----------+
| | | | |
PHYSICAL MENTAL SOCIAL SPIRITUAL SERVICE
[A] Older Boy [B] Adult
Prepared by John L. Alexander, Superintendent Secondary Division
International Sunday School Association.
The class session on Sunday should be in charge of the president of the
class. The opening services may consist of a short prayer by the teacher
or pupil volunteering; reading of brief minutes, covering the mid-week
activities and emphasizing the important points brought out by the
teacher in the lesson of the previous Sunday; collection and other
business. The president then turns the class over to the teacher for the
teaching of the lesson. The closing services of the class should by all
means be observed.
_Committees._--Short-term committees are the more effective, covering
the activities when planned. The short-term committee plan, however,
need not be suggested to the class until it discovers that the long-term
or standing committee has failed. They will doubtless be the first to
suggest the new plan.
=Class Grouping and Size=
It should be sane and natural and not too large. This should be
specially borne in mind in working with boys; a "gang" usually consists
of from seven to fourteen. The girls' class is different, and the size
of the group does not materially matter. The class, however, should not
be so unwieldy as to make it impossible for the teacher to give personal
attention to each individual.
It is impossible to get the best results when pupils of twelve and
eighteen are members of the same class, for they are living in two
different worlds of thought. A teacher cannot hope to hold together a
group in which there is such disparity of age. A working basis is
(13-14), (15-17), (18-20). This is but a foundation on which to work.
The correct grouping should be on a physiological basis instead of
chronological. A pupil ofttimes will not fit into a group of his or her
own age; physiologically, they may be a year or two in advance of the
rest of the class, and are mingling through the week with an older
group. Adjustments in such cases should be made so that the pupil is
permitted to find his or her natural grouping. Like water, they will
find their level.
Under no ordinary circumstances should classes be mixed (boys and girls
together).
=Class Names and Mottoes=
_Names._--A class name will help to create a strong and healthy class
spirit, and is valuable as a means of advertising the class and its
work.
Some prefer to take class numbers or letters, thus recognizing their
relationship to the Sunday school; others select names from the Bible to
indicate their relation to Bible study; others choose names that
indicate some kind of Christian service, thus committing the class to
Christian work; while others take names of heroes or use Greek letters.
_Mottoes._--A motto is perhaps more important than a name. It will help
to place and keep before the class a definite purpose. If often repeated
it will aid in producing in the class the spirit expressed in the motto.
The following well-known mottoes may be suggestive: We're in the King's
Business--We Do Things--The World for Christ--We Mean Business--The
Other Fellow--Every Man Up--Quit You Like Men.
=International Teen Age Certificate of Recognition=
The International Sunday School Association, through its Secondary
Division, issues a certificate, or charter of recognition.
This certificate represents a minimum standard of organization for
classes, which is considered practical for scholars of these ages. It
gives the class the recognition of the International, State or
Provincial Associations; and to the schools whose denominations add
their seal and signature, or provide a joint certificate, denominational
recognition as well. The certificate of the Secondary Division is
beautifully lithographed, and is suitable for framing for the class
room. For classes of the Intermediate age (13-16 years) an Intermediate
seal is affixed, and a Senior (17-20 years) or Adult seal may be added
upon the advance of the class to these departments. It can be secured by
filling out the application blank at the end of this leaflet, and by
sending the same, together with twenty-five cents to cover the cost, to
your State or Provincial Association, or Denominational headquarters.
Seals may be secured from the same sources.
This certificate and registration links the class to the Sunday school
teen age brotherhood throughout the world.
[Illustration: =Emblem=]
The royal blue and white button (white center with blue rim) has been
adopted for both the Intermediate (13-16 years) and Senior (17-20 years)
Departments, the blue indicating loyalty and the white purity.
=Application Blank=
for
=International Certificate of Recognition=
=Secondary Division=
Years 13-20.
Name of Class ________________________________
Name of Sunday School ________________________
Name of Denomination _________________________
Town or City ________________ County _________
State or Province ____________________________
Has the class the following officers: President, Vice-President,
Secretary and Treasurer? ___________
Is the class of intermediate age (13-16), or senior
age (17-20)? ______________
What is the average age of the members of your
class? __________
Name of Class Teacher __________
Post-office address __________
Name of Class President __________
Post-office address __________
Does the class use the Secondary Division Emblem?
____________________________________
Class motto _______________________________________
Date of organization ______________________
Present Membership _______________________
Date of Application ___________ 19__
Filled out by:
Name ________________________________________
Post-office address ____________________________________
Kindly fill out this blank carefully. Detach and
send same with twenty-five cents to your State Sunday
School Association office.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE ORGANIZED CLASS
International Leaflets on Secondary Adult Classes (Free).
Pearce.--The Adult Bible Class (.25).
IX
BIBLE STUDY FOR BOYS
The study of the Bible that contributes to the boy's education is now
generally accepted to be that which is adjusted to the known
characteristics of boys. At one time, not so very far distant, all
Scripture was supposed to be good for a boy's moral and spiritual
character-building. One part of the Bible was held to be as good as any
other, the important thing necessary being to get the Bible into the
life of the boy, somehow. It did not matter much whether the boy
understood all he read and was told, or not. It would prepare him for
some future crisis and enable him some time to better meet a possible
temptation. It was to be a sort of preventive application, very much as
vaccination now is administered to ward off dreaded disease. And, to
tell the exact truth, it often did, and the treatment proved more
efficacious than some of the present-day Bible study methods, where mere
knowledge is attempted. The mistake was the misunderstanding (for
misunderstanding it was, and not a desire to merely plague the boy) of
the fact that boys were developing creatures, spiritually as well as
physically, and that Bible study could be made pleasant as well as
profitable. It was a mistake due to a purely mature point of view and a
failure to know that the boy mind needed different treatment from that
of the adult. Lately we have discovered, thanks to general education,
that a boy's Bible study can be adapted to a specific purpose, and to a
present, clear, distinct and practical need of boy life.
A recent writer has said, "We have come to a fairly definite
understanding that we must take the boy as he is; we must inquire into
his needs; we must consider the conditions of his religious development.
We must ask, then, of the Bible, how far it can be effective to meet
these needs and this development. The fixed factor is the boy, not the
Book. At the same time, we are not obliged to begin always as if the
Bible were a new thing in the world, and its claim to value as religious
material were to be considered afresh. We know that the Bible has proved
itself good. We know that it has been effective in the life of boys. The
question, then, really before us is, What parts of the Bible are really
desirable for the boy, and how are they to be presented so as to be most
useful?"
This, in other words, is Graded Bible Study, and, possibly, were we to
give a Bible to the boy and induce him to read it, the parts which he
would read would help us a lot in determining the material that would
challenge his interest. The parts he skipped over would also fix our
problem for us.
The writer had a unique experience in his boyhood. His folks were
members and officers of a church where long doctrinal sermons were the
rule. These had little interest for the growing boy, but parental
persuasion kept him in the pew for hours at a stretch. The boy, under
these circumstances, had to do something in self-preservation, so he
spent the long hours in reading the Bible. The stories of the
Patriarchs, the Judges, the Kings, and the Acts were his peculiar
delight. The sermon period ceased to be tiresome and often was not long
enough. He never read Leviticus, or the Prophets, or the Gospels, or the
Epistles, however. They had no meaning for him. As well as he can now
remember, between his ninth and twelfth years, his favorite Scripture
was the Patriarchs and Judges. Between his twelfth and sixteenth years
he was passionately fond of the Kings and the Acts. After that he began
to feel interested in the Gospels. He was pretty well grown up before he
cared either for the Prophets or the Epistles; they were too abstract
for him.
The writer's experience corresponds fairly well with the growing modern
usage in Bible study with boys. The philosophy underlying Graded Bible
Study is merely to meet the present spiritual needs, as indexed by the
characteristics of the period of his development.
At present there are many schemes of Graded Bible Study for boys on the
market. Some of it has been prepared to meet a theory of religious
education. The University of Chicago Series of textbooks and the Bible
Study Union (Blakeslee) Lessons are examples of this trend. Both of them
are exceptionally good. Other courses have sprung up, being written and
used among boys here and there, and later worked together into a Bible
study scheme. The Boys' Bible Study Courses of the Young Men's Christian
Association are recognized as such. Then there is the present system of
Graded Bible Study of the International Sunday School Association.
Fifteen complete years of Graded Bible Study, from the fourth to the
eighteenth year, may now be used in the Sunday school. Great care has
been exercised in the selection of the material with the aim of fixing
definite ideals of Christian life and service. These courses are divided
as follows:
=Possible Present Use of the Graded Lessons=
=Departments Years Courses of Study=
Beginners | Four |
| Five | A Unit of two years.
| Six |
Primary | Seven | A Unit of three years.
| Eight |
| Nine | Lower--A Unit of two
| Ten | years.
Junior |
| Eleven | Upper--A Unit of two
| Twelve | years.
| Thirteen | Lower--A Unit of two
| Fourteen | years.
Intermediate |
| Fifteen | Upper--A Unit of two
| Sixteen | years.
| Seventeen A Unit of one year.
|
Senior | Eighteen | A Unit of two years.
| Nineteen |
|
| Twenty
Lesson Committee Leaflet No. 2,
International Sunday School Association.
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE PUPILS OF A SUNDAY SCHOOL, AND CHARACTER
OF GRADED LESSONS FOR EACH DEPARTMENT
=Divisions Departments Age or Grade Themes of Lessons=
/ /Four --1st year --God the Heavenly Father,
| BEGINNERS / our Provider and Protector.
| \ Five --2d year --Thanksgiving, prayer, helping
E | \ others.
L | /Six --1st year --God's power, love and care,
E | | awakening child's love, trust
M | | and confidence.
E | | Seven --2d year --How to show love, trust and
N | PRIMARY / obedience, in Jesus' love and
T | \ work for men; how to do God's
A | | will.
R | | Eight --3d year --People who choose to do God's
Y / | will; how Jesus revealed the
\ \ Father's love and will.
| /Nine --1st year --Stories of beginnings, three
| | patriarchs, Joseph, Moses and
| | Jesus.
| | Ten --2d year --Conquest of Canaan, stories of
| | New Testament, life and
| JUNIOR / followers of Jesus.
| \ Eleven --3d year --Three Kings of Israel, divided
| | kingdom, exile and return,
| | introduction to New
| | Testament.
| | Twelve --4th year --Gospel of Mark, studies in
| | Acts, winning others to God,
\ \ Bible the Word of God.
/ / /Thirteen --1st year--Biog. studies in Old
| | | Testament, religious leaders
| | Lower / in N.A. salvation and service
S | | \ Fourteen --2d year--Biog. studies in New
E | INTERME- / | Testament, Christian leaders
C | DIATE \ \ after New Testament times.
O | | /Fifteen --3d year--Life of the Man
N | | Upper / Christ Jesus.
D / | \ Sixteen --4th year--Studies in Christian
A \ \ \ living.
R | /Seventeen--1st year --World as a field for Christian
Y | | service; problems of youth in
| | social life; Ruth; James.
| | Eighteen --2d year --Religious history and
| SENIOR / literature of the Hebrew
| \ people--Old Testament.
| | Nineteen --3d year --Religious history and
| | literature of the New
| | Testament.
\ \Twenty --4th year --
ADULT Grading and Classification and Courses now being studied by a
Special Committee of the International Association.
Prepared by Professor Ira M. Price, Secretary International Sunday
School Association Lesson Committee.
These International Lessons are undoubtedly the best on the market at
the present time, although they are very far from being perfect. Gradual
changes, coming from experience in the local Sunday school, will modify
them considerably in the next few years, and they may actually prove to
be forerunners for an almost entirely new series of courses and lessons.
They have been generously received by the eager workers in the local
Sunday school, as an advance on the Uniform Lessons, and where they are
now being tried satisfaction, for the most part, is being evinced. A
great deal of dissatisfaction has been found with the treatment of these
Graded Lessons in some quarters, the Lesson Helps being too mature for
teen age boys. _However, in appraising the value of these Graded
Lessons, two things should be kept in mind, viz.: the selection of the
Lesson Material, and the Lesson Help Treatment of the selected
material._ Opposition to the lessons should never be taken because of
the Lesson Helps. These can be remedied by the denominational publishing
houses, if their attention is called to the weakness or mistake of
treatment, and the teen age teacher can give great assistance to the
denominational editors by counseling with them.
Here and there the suggestion has sprung up for a Graded Uniform Lesson.
That is precisely what the treatment of the Uniform Lesson was for a
number of years, and is yet. It is not adaptation of treatment that is
needed, but adaptation of material that is demanded--courses of study
that fit the religious, spiritual need of the various stages of
development. This much is positively settled.
There is, however, some good reason and very strong ground for uniform
cycles, based on seasonable development rather than on chronological
years and intellectual rating. In some places the present Elementary
International Graded Lessons are being used just this way, although they
do not yield themselves readily to this usage. Cycles of four courses
for the three main divisions of boyhood, nine to twelve years, thirteen
to sixteen years, and seventeen to twenty years, four courses to each
period, based on the general, seasonable development of each period,
have much in their favor. Thus we might have four courses built on
Individual Heroism, four on Altruistic Heroism, and four on the Social
Adaptation which marks the reflective period between seventeen and
twenty. Boys do not mature by years. Growth and development is a jump
from plateau to plateau.
This would fit in also with the general objective of the Sunday school,
and is not the mere impartation of information, but the letting loose of
moral and religious values in life. The latter is produced more by
contact of personality with personality than by intellectual processes.
Should such a plan ever be adopted the courses of study must be
pedagogically arranged and in keeping with the best findings of
psychological usage.
At any rate, whatever be the course of study, the teen age boy needs to
have his life and activity center about the dynamics of the Bible. "The
Art of Living Well" can only be learned out of the textbook of the
experience of the ages. The ordinary tasks and interests of boys, as
well as daily conduct, can be made great channels for life's best
achievement only in proportion to the dynamic throb of the Word that has
inspired men to heroism amid the commonplace and the uncommon, to
self-sacrifice and peace.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON BIBLE STUDY
Alexander.--Sunday School and the Teens ($1.00).
Horne.--Leadership of Bible Study Groups (.50).
Starbuck.--Should the Impartation of Knowledge Be a Function of the
Sunday School? (.65).
Use of the Bible Among Schoolboys (.60).
Winchester.--The International Graded Sunday School Lessons (_American
Youth_, April, 1912) (.20).
X
THROUGH-THE-WEEK ACTIVITIES FOR BOYS' ORGANIZED CLASSES[5]
The Sunday school has at last begun to realize that a boy demands more
than spiritual activity to round out his life into symmetrical
development. It also comprehends that religion is more than a set of
beliefs--_that religion is a life at work among its fellows._ "For to me
to live is Christ"--to live, play, love, and work. Because of these two
reasons, the Sunday school assumes its obligation to direct and foster
the through-the-week life of its boys, as well as the Bible period of
the Sunday session of the school.
_Contact_.--Of course, for a long time the leaders and teachers of Boys'
Organized Bible Classes have felt the need of a through-the-week
contact with the members of the class. The school period of one hour or
an hour and a half has been found by most teachers to be too meager for
a healthy class life. Then, too, most teachers are realizing that really
to touch the life of the boy more contact than the teaching of the Bible
lesson is necessary. Some teachers are taking an interest in the school
or working conditions of the teen boy. Quite a few teachers are now
deeply interested in the leisure time of their pupils, and have begun to
direct the physical, social and mental activities of the teen years, as
well as the spiritual. They have realized that the teen age is not made
up of disjointed and disconnected activities, but is in a continual
process of development, and that its growth is normally symmetrical and
its activities intertwined.
_The Organized Class._--The great majority of Sunday school teachers
have no desire to try any auxiliary organization in combination with
their classes. They are somewhat dubious of the machinery, ritual, etc.,
which are concomitants of these schemes. Again and again they have
voiced a demand, not for new organizations, but for activities to deepen
interest in the organization that the teacher understands--the Bible
Class.
The Organized Boys' Bible Classes operate in the Secondary Division or
teen years of the Sunday school, from 13 to 20, and include both the
younger and older boys. The earlier and later adolescent periods are
separate and distinct groups. Plans and activities that have proven
successful with one group will prove to be ineffectual with the other.
All things should be planned to meet the development of the group. In
the following list of activities the group interests have not been
separated as they intermingle with each other. _If the class be allowed
to choose and voice its sentiment, the right activity will always be
selected._ Besides, if the members make their own choice, there can be
little complaint at results, and they will work harder for the success
of their own plans. All this develops character, which is one of the
real reasons for these through-the-week activities.
=Activities for Teen Boys' Organized Bible Classes=
#Physical#
ATHLETICS
Free Hand and Calisthenic Drills Fire, Ambulance, Life-saving Drills
Single Stick and Foil, Boxing Swimming Water Polo Water Sports Jumping
and Running Shot Put Discus Throwing Baseball, Indoor and Outdoor
Basket-ball Football Volleyball La Crosse, Bowling Tennis
GAMES
Observation, Agility, Strength, Fun--Indoor and Outdoor Quoits
SIGNALING
Semaphore Wig Wag Heliograph Wireless
WOODCRAFT
Tracking and Trailing Bird, Plant, Tree, Grass and Flower Lore Star,
Wind and Water Knowledge Stalking with Camera Wild Life
CAMPING
Tent and Tepee Making Moccasin Making Huts, Lean-to, Shacks Grass Mat
Weaving Map Making Knot Tying Fire Lighting Boat Management Boat and
Canoe Building Canoeing Fishing Camp Cooking Week-end Camps Indian Camps
Over-night Camps Hikes, Tramps, Walks, Gypsy and Hobo Hill Climbing
HYGIENE
Care of body, eyes, nails, teeth, etc. Laws of recreation, Hiking, etc.
Kite Making and Flying Gliding and Aeroplaning Circus Stunts Sport
Carnival Corn, Apple, Clam Roasts, etc. Moonlight Trips, Rides, etc.
Cycling Skating Hockey Skiing
#Social#
Home Socials: Stag Ladles' Nights Parents' Nights
Entertainments: Playets Minstrel Show Lincoln Night Washington Night
Stunts and Skits Mock Trial Declamation or Oratorical Contest Glee
Concert
Game Tournaments: Checkers Caroms Chess Ping-Pong Bowling
Hayseed Carnival Parlor Magic Athletic Stunts Independence Day Political
Campaign Town Meeting Sex Instruction Practical Citizenship
Exhibition: Pet Show Mandolin and Guitar Fests Fireside and Joke Nights
Spelling Bee History Bee Geography Quiz Hallowe'en Night Pop-corn
Festival Masked Partners Library Party Supper or Banquet Father and Son
Spread Class Guest of Class Calendar Exhibit Coin Exhibit Stamp Exhibit
Arts and Crafts Photographs Wild Flower Tree and Plant Sea Shell
Post-cards
Social Sing: Popular Songs Old Familiar Songs School Songs Patriotic
Hymns Church Music
#Mental#
Practical Talks: Elementary Mechanics Applied Electricity Wireless
Chemical Analysis Natural Science Mineralogy Nature Study First Aid
Thrift and Property Use of Library
Life-work Talks: Ministry Law Medicine Teaching Business
The Trades: Blacksmith Carpenter Plumbing Printing Painting Bricklaying
Masonry Farming Seamanship Architecture Art Chemistry Forestry
Engineering: Mechanical Electrical Surveying
Citizenship: The Township or Municipality--Town Meetings Select and
Common Councils Commission Government
The State--The Legislature The Courts The Governor's Staff
Literary Stunts: Declaiming Extemporaneous Speech Editing Paper
Educational Trips: Community Visitation--Shops and Factories Fire Houses
City or Community History Public Buildings Public Utilities, etc.
Neighborhood Visitation--Famous Places Great Industries Coal Mines, etc.
Arts and Crafts: Drawing Bent Iron Work Clay Modeling Basket Making
Hammock Weaving, etc. Stamp Collecting Coin Collecting Sketch Collecting
Kodaking and Photographing Debating Reading Night and Courses
Discussions Congress and Senate Poster Making Travel and Science Talks
Stereopticon Moving Pictures
Literary Stunts--Essay Writing and Reading
The Nation--Congress Army and Navy Civil Service Diplomatic and Consular
Service
Duties of Citizen--Elections Jury Service Maintenance of Law
Current Topics
#Spiritual#
Graded Bible Study
Daily Readings
Systematic Instruction: Church Membership Benevolences Missionary
Operations
Supplemental Talks: General Church History Denominational History Local
Church History
Church Organization: Denominational Local Church Sunday School Auxiliary
Societies
Teacher Training Class
Cooperation in Church Activity Personal Evangelism Directed Reading
NOTE: Of course all the activities enumerated in this leaflet are
Spiritual. This list merely emphasizes a few activities usually
designated spiritual.
=Service Activities=
Christ challenged men to self-sacrifice. He said: "He that would be
greatest among you let him be the servant of all." In this way
adolescent boys must be challenged to lives of unselfish, altruistic,
Christ-like service. There is no other test for the teacher. It is his
business to get teen age boys to serve. This the boy does, first by the
desire to help another, then by right living, doing right for the sake
of right; then by religious belief, which forms a cable to bind him back
in simple faith on God, until he comes face to face with the Master of
men, living right, doing right, thinking right, loving right, serving
right, with all his life, because of his love for Christ.
Physical Service--
Organize and manage Boys' Baseball Nine.
Organize and manage Boys' Football Eleven.
Organize and manage Boys' Basket-ball Five.
Organize and manage Boys' Track Team.
Organize and manage Boys' Tennis Tournaments.
Coach younger boys in baseball.
Coach younger boys in basket-ball.
Coach younger boys in football.
Coach younger boys in track athletics.
Coach younger boys in tennis.
Train younger boys in free-hand gymnastics.
Train younger boys in life-saving drills.
Assist in the running of inter-class athletics.
Assist in the running of inter-school athletics.
Lead gymnastic groups for the local school.
Teach boys to swim.
Assist in the running of aquatic meets.
Leaders to encourage boys to get into athletics.
Leaders to encourage boys in outdoor life.
Leaders to encourage boys in camps and hikes.
Leaders to encourage boys in woodcraft and scouting.
Lead a gymnastic class in Social Settlement.
Manage and coach athletics in Social Settlements.
Assist as Play Leader in public playground.
Organize, manage, and umpire Boys' Twilight Ball League.
Assist in sport carnival, circus, exhibits, etc.
Make a specialty of some form of camp life and teach it to boys.
Social Service--
Become responsible for some boy.
Plan a social time.
Assist in planning an entertainment.
Manage and coach musical activity.
Teach games to backward boy.
Assist in exhibit.
Manage celebration.
Promote class and school picnics.
Secure home for boy from country.
Take boys home for meal and social time.
Promote musical and dramatic entertainments in settlements and
orphanages.
Visit sick boys in hospital.
Arrange outings for needy mothers, and children, crippled and
unfortunate boys.
Automobile party for above.
Play Santa Claus to poor families.
Lead in keeping school and shop morally clean.
Stand for clean thoughts, clean speech, clean sport.
Seek leadership in public school clubs.
Get interested in the boy life of the community.
Help boys to find employment.
Help enforce minor laws.
Take an interest in the delinquent boy.
_Mental Service._--
Secure speakers for practical talks.
Secure speakers for life-work talks.
Lead in some mental activity.
Promote an educational trip.
Teach elementary arts and crafts.
Conduct discussion of practical citizenship.
Lead discussion of current topics.
Lead younger boys as suggested under class activities--Mental.
Teach English to foreign-speaking boys.
Help wage-earning boys in elementary subjects, arithmetic, geography,
etc.
Encourage grade boys to stay at school by coaching them in studies.
Organize civic nights.
Organize debates.
Organize camera trips and photo study.
Organize Around-the-Fire and story nights.
Lend books and guide the reading of boys.
Edit class or school paper.
Be foreman in printing room of above paper.
Lead observation trips.
_Spiritual Service._--
Lead a Boys' Bible Class.
Take part in Boys' Conferences.
Lead Boys' Meetings.
Teach in extension Sunday school.
Serve on Sunday school Committees.
Serve on Church Committees.
Take an interest in every church organization.
Promote systematic giving among boys.
Lead a Mission Biography group.
Lead an inner circle for prayer and Bible study.
Promote a census of non-church boys.
Visit homes to invite fellows to church services.
Join a training class.
Lead campaign to increase Sunday school membership.
Promote inter-class relationships.
Lead prayer groups or circles.
Help in Home Department.
Serve on Reception Committee at Church or Sunday school.
Visit teen age Shut-ins.
Visit prisoners in jails.
Do chores for sick folks.
Help the aged to and from church services.
Support a bed in a hospital.
The Organized Class, its officers, teacher and committees ought to find
enough to do in the above long list. The service activities have been
listed without any idea of order or grading. They are also for
individuals and the class as a whole. They are merely suggestive. The
class and the teacher should do things as a real part of the class life.
[Illustration]
ORGANIZED CLASS ACTIVITIES
BOYS' BIBLE CLASSES
JOHN L. ALEXANDER,
Secondary Division Superintendent, International Sunday School
Association.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THROUGH-THE-WEEK ACTIVITIES
Adams.--Harper's Outdoor Book for Boys ($1.75).
Alexander.--Opportunity for Extension of Boys' Work to a Summer Camp
Headquarters (_American Youth_, June, 1911), (.20).
--Using Nature's Equipment--God's Out-of-Doors (_American Youth_,
August, 1911). Single copies out of print, but bound volume for 1911 may
be obtained for $1.50.
Baker.--Indoor Games and Socials for Boys (.75).
Bond.--Scientific American Boy at School ($2.00).
Boys' Handbook. (Boy Scouts of America) (.30).
Brunner.--Tracks and Tracking (.70).
Burr.--Around the Fire (.75).
Camp.--Fishing Kits and Equipment ($1.00).
Chesley.--Social Activities for Men and Boys ($1.00).
Clarke.--Astronomy from a Dipper (.60).
Corsan.--At Home in the Water (.75).
Cullens.--Reaching Boys in Small Groups Without Equipment. (_American
Youth_, February, 1911.) (.20).
Dana.--How to Know the Wild Flowers ($2.00).
Ditmars.--The Reptile Book ($4.00).
Fowler.--Starting in Life ($1.50).
Gibson.--Camping for Boys ($1.00).
Hasluck.--Bent Iron Work (.50).
--Clay Modeling (.50).
--Photography (.50).
--Taxidermy (.50).
Job.--How to Study Birds ($1.50).
Kenealy.--Boat Sailing ($1.00).
Lynch.--American Red Cross First Aid ($1.00).
Parsons.--How to Know the Ferns ($1.50).
Pyle.--Story of King Arthur and His Knights ($2.00).
Reed.--Bird Guide. In 2 volumes. (Vol I, $1.00, Vol. II,.75).
Reed.--Flower Guide (.50).
Scout Master's Handbook (.60).
Seton.--Book of Woodcraft ($1.75).
----Forester's Manual ($1.00).
Seven Hundred Things a Bright Boy Can Make ($1.00).
Warman.--Physical Training Simplified (.10).
White.--How to Make Baskets ($1.00).
XI
THE BOYS' DEPARTMENT IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL[6]
The Boys' Department in the Sunday school is the grouping together of
organized classes for the sake of unity and team work among the
adolescent boys. Investigation proves that boys work together best when
separated from men, women and girls. The Boys' Department contemplates a
change from the usual organization in the Sunday school, in that the
classes of boys between twelve and twenty years of age shall meet as a
separate department of the school and have their own closing and opening
services, and the natural activities that would spring from a separate
departmental life. The underlying idea of the Boys' Department is to
make the boys feel that they are a real part of the Sunday school, with
a real purpose and actual activities. Where it has been tried, not only
has the attendance been increased, but the enrollment in the department
has been doubled and trebled. The department also presents an
opportunity of interesting boys in all forms of church life through the
committee work which the department inaugurates. The criticism that the
Boys' Department may become a junior church is not borne out by the
experience of the men who have tried it. On the other hand, the
testimony is that the Boys' Department has increased the attendance at
the morning and evening services of the church, and has created a
general interest and enthusiasm for the entire church life. The Boys'
Department is not urged on any basis of sex segregation, although a good
many educators are urging the segregation of the sexes in public
education. The underlying idea of the Department is to group the boys
together for team work and cooperation, with a clear understanding of
the gang principle which clamors for a club or organization that
satisfies the social and fraternal need. In fact, it is the neglect of
the latter by the Sunday school that has brought the countless boys'
organizations into existence, and the well-conducted Boys' Department,
composed of well-organized, self-governing Bible classes, will mean much
to the general church life, as well as to the simplifying of the present
complicated scheme of work with boys. Nearly all of these auxiliary boy
organizations have had their birth in the Sunday school, through the
attempt to meet the boy need, which the Sunday school hitherto has not
seen its way clear to do.
When departmental organization, however, is mentioned, the genius of the
individual leader and teacher must come into play. The form of
organization that may be successful with one leader may be a failure
with another. This chance does not lie or inhere in the organization,
but in the leader; for the gifts, talents, equipment and adaptability of
leaders vary just as much in Sunday school organization as in the
so-called secular forms of activity. The best form of organization,
then, as well as the most successful form for the local school, is the
"kind that works."
_Three Proved Forms of Departmental Organization_
Successful organization is the result of experiment. None but the result
of experiment has a right to be exploited. Sunday school teen age
workers have tried, proved and found satisfactory to their own liking,
by its results, the following three kinds of teen age organization for
the local school:
_Intermediate and Senior Departments_
The first of these is known as the Intermediate and Senior Departmental
organization. Its characteristic is the dividing of the teen age into
two groups--Intermediate, 13 to 16 years, and Senior, 17 to 20 years. In
some schools these departments meet separately for Sunday school work.
Wherever this is done there should be at least a superintendent and
secretary for each. While the general principles of the work are the
same, the problems and details of the classes are sometimes different.
The department superintendent should have special charge of his
department and be responsible for building it up; also for department
teachers' meetings, and should be personally acquainted with every
scholar. The department secretary should keep an alphabetical and
birthday card index of scholars; send welcome letters to new scholars;
provide the superintendent with a list of new scholars, that they may be
properly presented to the department; send lists of absentees to
teachers; keep a record of correlated work accomplished by scholars,
quarterly lesson examinations, etc.
_Teen Age Department_
In some schools the custom is to combine the Intermediate and Senior
Departments into one and to regard the years, 13 to 20, as a series of
eight grades. Several large schools are enthusiastic about this plan,
and as the worship requirements are much the same in the teen years the
Opening and Closing Services are acceptable to all grades. This
arrangement also is adaptable to limited equipment, and affords a
certain amount of hero-worship to the younger boy on account of the
older boy being present. It also offers the older boy a field of service
through helpfulness to the younger members of the department. In some
schools this adaptation is known as the High School Department.
_Boys' Departments_
During the last few years separate Boys' Departments have come into
favor with some Sunday school workers. These departments should not be
attempted, however, until every class is organized (see chapter on The
Organized Sunday school Bible Class), and there is efficient leadership
to guide them. A premature start may be ineffective and prejudice
parents and boys.
=The Departmental Committees=
_Executive Committee_
The Executive Committee has direct oversight of the general affairs of
the department and acts officially between sessions on matters needing
prompt attention. It is made up of the officers, general superintendent
of the school, the pastor of the church, and the president and teacher
of each class.
_Inter-Class Committee_
The Inter-Class Committee has the direction and supervision, through
sub-committees, of all the activities of the department, such as:
Athletics
Outings
Camping
Socials
Entertainments
Lectures
Library
Vocational Talks
Practical Talks
Congress or Senate Debates
Current Topics
Practical Citizenship
Service Councils
Degrees and Initiations
Employment Bureau
Home Cooperation
School Cooperation
_Committee on Sunday school Life_
This Committee has a twofold function, the planning of the department
program for general school festivals and matters of general school
business. The diagram shows the activities of this committee.
COMMITTEE ON SUNDAY SCHOOL LIFE
FEAST DAYS GENERAL BUSINESS
Children's Day Sunday School Board Meetings[7]
Christmas Teachers' Meetings
New Year's School Elections
Easter Membership Campaigns for Entire School
Rally Day School Needs
Anniversary Picnics
Specials, Etc. Socials, Etc.
_Committee on Church Life_
The Church Life Committee also has a double task. Its activities along
the lines of church life are as follows:
=Committee on Church Life=
WORSHIP MEMBERSHIP AND BENEVOLENCES
Morning Preaching Service
Evening Preaching Service
Mid-week Prayer Service
Special Services
Invitation
Current Expenses
Extension Support
Social Life
Auxiliary Organizations
_Committee on Inter-Church Life_
The Inter-church Life Committee, through its representatives on the
Inter-Sunday school Councils and Committees, cares for its part of the
common teen age Sunday school life of the community. In this way the
Sunday school is made to loom large as the teen age organization in the
town or city. Some of its activities would be:
Inter-Church Council
Normal Institute
Training Classes
Athletic League
Church Census
Boys' Conferences
Girls' Conferences
Publicity
Special Cooperation.
SUNDAY SCHOOL SECONDARY DIVISION
THE TEEN AGE BOYS' DEPARTMENT
|(Every class organized)
|
ORGANIZATION
|
-----------------------------------------------
| | |
OFFICERS | COMMITTEES
| | |
Church Board [a] | ------------------------------------
Sunday School Board [a] | | | | | |
Sunday School | | | | | |
Superintendent[a] | Executive | Sunday School Life | Church Life
| | Inter-Class Inter-Church Life
Superintendent [b] | | |
Assistant Superintendent[b] | ------------- -------------
Treasurer [b] | | | | |
Advisory Superintendent[c] | Feast General Worship General
| Days Interest Church
| Life
DEPARTMENT ACTIVITY
|
------------------------------------------------
| |
SUNDAY SESSIONS MASS WEEK MEETINGS
| (Occasional when there is a motive)
Opening Service
Class Hour
Department Affairs
Closing Services
[a] Supervisory [b] Older Boy [c] Adult
Prepared by John L. Alexander, Superintendent Secondary Division
International Sunday School Association
POINTS OF CAUTION!
The promoters of a Boys' Department in the Sunday school should not be
too hasty in pushing the organization. There are certain facts to be
kept in mind in effecting a workable, durable department.
1. The Boys' Department is merely one of the departments of the school,
and nothing must be done that will cripple or weaken the remainder of
the school. Where possible it is best to promote separate departments
for teen age boys and girls at the same time. This will reduce
opposition and achieve efficiency.
2. There is no use in trying to organize a Boys' Department, where there
is no adequate meeting place. The value of a Boys' Department lies
almost entirely in the unity produced by the worship of the opening and
closing services and the discussion of departmental common affairs.
3. The Department cannot take the place of the Organized Class. Where it
does, it is temporary, hurrah-in-character, inefficient and harmful.
The Sunday school is educational in purpose. The Boys' Department must
be likewise.
4. Nothing should be advocated or promoted in the Boys' Department that
is not in accord with the Sunday school and Denominational policy. The
Boys' Department is part of the Church.
_Class Organization_
The classes of the teen years should all be organized before any scheme
for department organization is put in use. The Organized Class is based
on the so-called "gang instinct," and is the unit of all organization.
_Departmental Progressive Steps_
The steps in organizing a Teen Age Boys' or Secondary Division
Department should be:
1. Appointment of Teen Age Superintendent.
2. Every class organized according to Denominational and International
Standard.
3. Two-session-a-week classes--Sunday and week-day.
4. Trained teachers.
5. Departmental organization.
=Departmental Equipment=
_Separate Rooms_
There should be separate assembly rooms or divisions for these
departments where they meet apart from each other. There should also be
separate rooms or screened-off places for the classes to meet.
_Equipment_
The outfit for the department and classes should include Bibles, tables,
blackboards, charts, pictures, maps--including maps for mission study,
also relief maps, mission curios, etc.
_Promotions_
Much should be made of promotions to and from the grades within the
department. A certificate or diploma recognizing regular work should be
granted on Promotion Day. Special work done is recognized by placing a
seal upon the certificate. Promotion exercises should include some
statement of the work accomplished.
_Sunday School Spirit_
In order to maintain a genuine spirit of Sunday school unity it is
desirable to have the whole school meet together from time to time for
the common tie and uplift of worship in the mass. The exercises of
festival occasions also help to bring this about, and the common
gatherings, regular or special, of the school, tend to magnify the
united leadership of officers and teachers. These should never interfere
with the work of instruction, the main objective of the school, but
should supplement it. Departments should be made to feel their
partnership in the Sunday school enterprise, and this may be brought
about by the reading of the departmental and school minutes in each
department. Continued emphasis should be placed on the oneness of the
school--"All one body, we." Thus we may hope for Christian comradeship
and loyalty.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON BOYS' DEPARTMENT
Boys' Work Message.--(Men and Religion Movement) ($1.00).
Cope.--Efficiency in the Sunday School ($1.00).
Huse.--Boys' Department in Springvale, Maine (_American Youth_,
February, 1911) (.20).
Stanley.--The Boys' Department in the Sunday School (_American Youth_,
April, 1911) (.20).
Waite.--Boys' Department of the Sunday School (Free leaflet).
XII
INTER-SUNDAY SCHOOL EFFORT FOR BOYS
This volume so far has discussed nothing save the work among teen age
boys in the local Sunday school, in Organized Class or Boys' Department.
This is as it should be, "beginning at Jerusalem" and taking care first
of the local school. To magnify the church and church school, however,
in the eye of the boy and to make it his central interest or the center
of his interests, it is necessary to view Sunday school effort in a
larger way than the work of the local school. The Sunday school must
become city-wide in its scope and effort. Common town-wide activity,
such as outings, athletics, camps, entertainments, lectures, campaigns,
etc., must be promoted jointly. Not only this, but the Christian boys
of the community must be taught the democracy of Christianity and be led
to work together in Christian service for each other and with each other
for all the boys of the city. Something of this has been attempted in
some places, but always under adult rule. Adult supervision--not
rule--is always necessary. Thus city camps and Sunday school athletic
leagues have flourished as adult effort for boys. That which is
contemplated in the following two chapters is distinctly work _by_ boys
_for_ boys in the Sunday school field. The need of adult help to
organize and set things going is recognized as necessary, good and the
proper thing. The value of the work will consist in the enlistment of
the boys themselves and the participation in and direction of the
proposed work by the boys. Boys are not as exclusive, limited or
provincial as adults. Their interests are wider than the local church.
The task is to couple those interests with the local church as the
center of greater community-wide activity, and to direct them to
effective service.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON INTER-SUNDAY SCHOOL OR CHURCH WORK
Barbour (Editor).--Making Religion Efficient (Boys' Work Chapter)
($1.00). This volume also contains the Men and Religion Charts.
Boys' Work Message (Men and Religion Movement) ($1.00).
XIII
THE OLDER BOYS' CONFERENCE OR CONGRESS[8]
This is one of the best forms of Inter-Sunday school work for boys. If
it is rightly handled, it will add much to the Christian enthusiasm of
the older boys of the Sunday schools.
_It is to be noticed, however, that it is an Older Boys' Conference._
This means that the ages are to be confined to the stretch between
fifteen and twenty years. Do not spoil your effort by "running in" boys
under fifteen. Of course the younger boy is important, but the type of
work accomplished in these conferences is beyond him and his presence
will nearly neutralize your effort.
The aim of the conference should be, not merely to put new Christian
enthusiasm into the older fellow, but to get him to talk over the
problems of the Sunday school from his own point of view. Hundreds of
these conferences have been held throughout the Continent, and scores of
boys have been led into Christian service thereby. The discussion at
these conferences is also most intelligent, being often above the grade
of adult groups. The boy gets to know the Sunday school by talking about
it, sees its problems, his own needs and the way to meet them. He
likewise gets a new idea of his obligations.
It is to be noticed again that it is an Older Boys' Conference. _This
means that the boys themselves should direct the work of the Conference
as much as possible, and that the Conference should be officered by
boys._ I have no sympathy with the men who cannot trust boys to do this
work. It is largely due to a fear that the boy will grow conceited
because of his new-found opportunity. It is due more, however, to the
fear that the boy will act unwisely from an adult viewpoint. Both of
these fears come from adult conceit and the inability to trust the boy.
Such men should leave boys and boys' work severely alone.
It is to be noticed for the third time that it is an Older Boys'
Conference. _This means that the large part of the program and all the
discussion should be by the boys themselves._ No man should take part in
the discussion save the man who leads it, and the future may also
provide a boy for the leadership of the discussion. The writer in over a
hundred conferences would allow no man to take part, as the aim of the
conference was to make it a boys' conference. If men may dominate and
intimidate the boy, better settle the matter in an adult group.
The officers of the Older Boys' Conference should be President,
Vice-President (who in most cases should be Toast-Master at the
Conference Banquet) and Secretary. There should also be a committee of
three boys appointed by the President (who may be helped to this end) to
report at the banquet session on the papers and discussions. In this way
the summary of the conference is as the boy sees it. This is the aim of
the conference.
Two ways are open for the election of the officers: by a Nominating
Committee and in open conference from the floor. _If a Nominating
Committee is the method, no man should be present to suggest or
dictate._ The committee should, however, have the right to consult
whomever they please, in order to get the information they may wish.
_The writer prefers the Open Conference Nominations from the floor. In
over two hundred conferences he has never yet been disappointed in the
choice of the boys._
The program should be distinctly a Sunday school one. The conference is
in the interests of the Sunday school. Keep it to the purpose intended.
Hundreds of good causes might be discussed, but the objective of the
conference would be missed. Below are three different length programs
used at different places. They may prove suggestive to those intending
to conduct such meetings.
A. Afternoon and Evening Conference (One Day).
PROGRAM
TORONTO
BOYS' WORK CONFERENCE
=December= 31, 1912
_Conference Theme:_--_Training and Service_
=St. James' Square Presbyterian Church=, Gerrard St., between
Yonge and Church Sts.
2:00 P.M. Registration of Delegates.
2:30 Music, in charge of Mr. W.R. Young,
Choirmaster of St. John's Presbyterian
Church.
Devotional--Rev. E.W. Halpenny,
B.D., General Secretary, Ontario
Sunday School Association.
3:00 The Message of the Galt Conference,
N.W. Henderson, Robert Walker,
Gordon Galloway.
3:20 Address--"Organized Sunday School
Work," by John L. Alexander, Chicago,
Ill., Superintendent Secondary
Division, International Sunday School
Association.
4:15 Group Conferences, led by Taylor Statten,
Preston G. Orwig and A.W.
Forgie.
5:45 Recreation, Seymour Collings, Physical
Director, Toronto Central Young
Men's Christian Association.
7:00 Banquet to Delegates, on floor of Association
Hall, Central Young Men's
Christian Association Building, corner
Yonge and McGill Streets.
Chairman--John Gilchrist, President
Toronto Sunday School Association.
(a) Music.
(b) Toasts--The King,--The Chairman
"Our Country."
(c) Address--"The Crusade"--John
L. Alexander.
=St. James' Square Presbyterian Church=
9:00 Devotional--Rev. E.W. Halpenny.
9:15 Group Conferences.
10:00 Address, "In Training," John L.
Alexander, Chicago, Ill.
10:45 Report of Group Conference Committees.
11:15 Address, "The Challenge of the New
Year," Charles W. Bishop, Canadian
National Secretary, Young Men's
Christian Association.
12:15 Adjournment.
B. Saturday and Sunday Conferences (One and a Half Days).
PROGRAM
WICHITA OLDER BOYS' CONFERENCE
MEN AND RELIGION FORWARD MOVEMENT
=Saturday, February= 10
9:30 A.M. Song Service.
9:35 A.M. Election of Officers.
10:00 A.M. Address, "Second Brand Cartridges,"
by Dr. David Russell, of South Africa.
10:30 A.M. Papers, read by boys, followed by
discussion, led by John L. Alexander.
"How Can We Help Increase the Number
of Boys Attending Sunday
School?"
"Why Don't the Older Boys Attend
Church Services? Should They Be
There?"
"Should an Older Boy Teach a Younger
Boys' Sunday School Class?"
11:45 A.M. Address, "Motive," Dr. C. Barbour,
Rochester, N.Y.
1:30 P.M. Recreation.
6:30 P.M. Address--Chairman Committee of 100.
Address--Local Chairman Boys' Work
Committee.
Report of Committees on Conference
Papers.
6:30 P.M. Address, "The Set of a Life," William
A. Brown, of Chicago.
Address, "Go to It," John L. Alexander,
Chicago, Ill.
=Sunday=
3:00 P.M. Mass Meeting for Older Boys, Addressed
by John L. Alexander, Chicago,
Ill.
C. Three Day (Part) Conference.
PROGRAM
_Conference Theme, "Training and Service."_
=Friday, December 13=
Beginning at 8:30 A.M. Addresses in seven High
Schools, by John L. Alexander.
6:15 P.M. Supper for Delegates.
7:00 P.M. Address by Hans Feldmann, Chairman
of Conference.
Address by Rev. R.S. Donaldson.
Remarks by Rev. F.H. Brigham and
John L. Alexander.
Close at 8:30 P.M.
=Saturday=
9:00 A.M. Songs and Devotional, led by W.H.
Wones.
9:30 A.M. Organization, to be led by John L.
Alexander.
9:45 A.M. Papers by Delegates. Discussion led by
John L. Alexander.
11:30 A.M. Address by Rev. F.H. Brigham.
12:00 to 2:00 P.M. Delegates home to lunch.
2:00 P.M. Concert by the Y.M.C.A. Boys' Glee
Club.
2:15 P.M. Discussion by subjects in groups, led
by John L. Alexander, F.H. Brigham,
W.H. Wones, and F.C. Coggeshall.
4:00 P.M. Recreation period in Y.M.C.A. Building.
6:15 P.M. Banquet for delegates and men leaders
at boys' invitation.
Music by the Boys' Busy Life Club
Boys' Orchestra.
Toasts by three delegates.
Report of the Committee on Inter-Church
Program.
Addresses by John L. Alexander and
F.H. Brigham.
=Sunday=
3:00 P.M. Gospel Meeting for Older Boys, at
Grand Avenue M.E. Church. Speaker,
John L. Alexander.
The following announcements were on the backs of these programs:
#ANNOUNCEMENTS#
CONFERENCE HEADQUARTERS--The Session of St. James' Square Presbyterian
Church has kindly granted the Conference the use of the church and
school rooms. With the exception of the Banquet and Addresses which
follow, all sessions of the Main and Group Conferences will be held in
this Church.
REGISTRATION--Admission to the sessions of the Conference will be
granted only to those wearing the Souvenir Conference Badge, which will
be given to each delegate presenting a credential signed by the
Conference Secretary at the Conference Office, in St. James' Square
Church, any time after 1:30 P.M., Tuesday, December 31.
DISCUSSION--Come prepared to take part in the discussion, and to ask
questions regarding the particular needs of your school. An opportunity
will be afforded in the Group Conferences for this phase of the work.
NOTES--Take careful notes. They will help you make a good report to your
Sunday school after the Conference.
REMEMBER--You are responsible to those you represent for getting the
most out of every session. Be on hand promptly at the hour mentioned; it
will help.
BOOK EXHIBIT--Copies of all the latest books on Sunday school and Boys'
Work will be on exhibit in one of the Conference rooms. Teachers and
leaders should not miss this opportunity to look over some of the
splendid literature that has come recently from the press.
NOTE--Boys under 15 years of age will not be admitted.
=Basis Of Representation=
The delegates are to be boys between the ages of 15 and 20 years,
appointed by the officials of their Sunday school, on the basis of two
delegates for each boys' class (of the teen ages) and each boys' club,
and, additional to these, two delegates at large from each church. Men
leaders of clubs will also be registered as delegates.
=Registration Fee=
The Registration Fee is to be 50 cents, including the cost of the
banquet Saturday evening.
=Preliminary Arrangements For Older Boys' Conference=
I. Conference Committee:
1. Committee supervises, plans and is responsible for the conference.
2. Committee should consist of at least five adult members, and
profitably more, selected from the various Sunday schools.
3. Committee may appoint special sub-committees to take care of details
and close supervision.
II. Sub-Committees:
1. Publicity, Delegate and Registration.
2. Meeting Place and Decoration.
3. Program and Badge.
4. Entertainment and Recreation.
5. Banquet.
6. Sunday Meeting (if held).
III. Sub-Committee Duties:
1. Publicity Committee: This committee is responsible for press, pulpit
and Sunday school notices. It also has the duty of discovering the
leader of each Sunday school and of getting the delegates pledged and
registered. For this purpose three letters at least should be sent out
(see IV). A Registration Card also should be filled out by each delegate
and signed by Secretary of Publicity Committee before the conference.
[Illustration]
TORONTO
BOYS' WORK CONFERENCE
=December 31st, 1912=
This certifies that ____________________________________
Address ________________________________________________
has been accepted as a Delegate to the above Conference,
having made application and paid the Registration
Fee in due time. Upon presentation of this card
at the Conference Office, St. James' Square Presbyterian
Church, he is entitled to the Souvenir Conference
Badge, Program, and Banquet Ticket.
_______________________________________________
Registration Secretary.
The limit of accommodation for the main banquet on the floor of
Association Hall will be 600. Extra provision will be made elsewhere for
the balance if registration exceeds that number.
Provision has been made for { Main Banquet }
you at the {Auxiliary Supper}
This committee is also responsible for the Registration Table during the
conference.
2. Meeting Place and Decoration Committee: The duties of this committee
are obvious. Among them, however, are the following: Five chairs and two
small tables should be on the platform, and a blackboard with eraser and
abundant supply of chalk in _each_ meeting room.
3. Program and Badge Committee: This committee should be responsible for
the preparation, printing and distribution of programs. An ample supply
should be on hand during the conference sessions. A badge (delegate's)
is a good thing for the conference spirit.
4. Entertainment and Recreation Committee: Where delegates attend from
out-of-town, this committee arranges for their entertainment at the
homes of friends. At a local conference this committee is steadily on
the lookout for the purpose of making the conference and delegates
comfortable. Fresh air, telephone service, messages, etc., all of these
are highly important. This committee also should be responsible for
adequate plans for the conference recreation.
5. Banquet Committee: The details for the conference banquet, the
seating of the delegates and the serving of the food, all come under
this committee. If a special banquet menu and program are used, this
also is the duty of the committee. An orchestra to play through the
eating period is a splendid feature.
6. Sunday Meeting Committee: This committee should give careful
attention to the following details:
(a) _That any boy over fifteen years and under twenty-one years be
admitted to the meeting. One leader to each group of boys may attend,
but these must sit by themselves in the rear of the room_.
To secure these arrangements it will be necessary to put a force of
determined adult watchers at every door.
(b) Be sure to have a live organist, pianist or orchestra to lead the
music. A director to lead the singing, _with ginger_, will help.
(c) Have four ushers to each double or central aisle, and have two to
each single or side aisle.
(d) Everyone present at the meeting should have a song book or sheet.
(e) Be sure to have a plain white card, 3x5, and a small sharpened
pencil for each one present. This is absolutely necessary for the
Forward Step part of the meeting.
IV. Letters to be sent out (Publicity Committee):
1. _To Pastor_, _Superintendent_ or _Teacher_:
(a) Announcing the conference, its nature, purpose, etc.
(b) That it is confined to older boys--15 to 20 years--and one adult
leader from each school.
(c) From three to five delegates (Christian boys).
(d) Ask for name of adult leader.
(e) Enclose Postal Card.
2. _To Sunday School Adult Leader_:
(a) Send plan of conference and details.
(b) Enclose Tentative Program.
(c) Ask for names of boy (Christian) delegates, setting time limit and
enclosing credentials.
(d) Suggest that leader have a meeting of the delegates before the
conference to consider what the conference may mean to their own local
Sunday school.
3. _To Each Delegate_:
(a) Send a brief letter with program.
(b) Emphasize the Christian nature of the conference; that it is for
training and leadership, and that he has been chosen from his school for
this purpose.
(c) Suggest daily prayer as preparation.
V. Leaders' Meeting:
If possible, arrange for a luncheon or dinner conference for the Sunday
school adult leaders who are at the conference. Talk over the plans,
programs and hopes of the conference.
VI. Follow-Up After Conference:
1. A Second Leaders' Meeting. (Details at Conference)
2. Local Delegates' Meeting. (Details at Conference)
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON OLDER BOYS' CONFERENCE
Dunn.--What the State Boys' Conference Means to the Churches (_American
Youth_, April, 1911) (.20).
Hinckley.--The Unique Value of Conferences of Older Boys (_American
Youth_, April, 1912) (.20).
Scott.--Boys' Conference in Community and County (_American Youth_,
April, 1911) (.20).
Smith.--The Maine Boys' Conference (_American Youth_, April, 1911)
(.20).
XIV
THE SECONDARY DIVISION OR TEEN AGE BOYS' CRUSADE[9]
The Older Boys' City-wide Conference is outlined in the previous
chapter. It is a good, but intermittent, form of Inter-Sunday school
activity for boys. The Secondary Division or Teen Age Boys' Crusade is a
permanent form for such activity, and may be launched at the Older Boys'
Conference.
The idea of the Crusade germinated in the minds of the members of the
Toronto Secondary Division Committee in connection with a Sunday school
Older Boys' Conference in December, 1912. The objectives around which
the idea grew were a campaign for Organized Classes in every school, an
effort to reach Toronto's 10,000 non-Sunday school, teen age boys and a
training class for adolescent leadership. At the evening banquet, at
which the Crusade was presented, 55 Sunday schools registered for the
campaign and 187 older boys signed up for training and the effort to
reach the boys not in Sunday school. At a later meeting a plan of action
was decided upon.
_The Objective_
The aims to be kept in mind are fourfold: (1) To magnify the Christian
life and the preeminence of Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord; (2) to
organize the teen Christian boys of the Sunday school for organized
service; (3) to reach the teen non-Sunday school boys for Sunday school
attendance; (4) to train the teen boy for Christian leadership.
=The Crusade Outlined=
_Campaign of Bible Class Organization_
1. It is proposed that every class in the teen age or Secondary division
of every Sunday school be organized according to the International
Standard, and that the boys of the schools be given the task. (See
International Secondary Division Leaflet No. 2.)
_Campaign of Enlistment_
2. Coincident with the campaign of organization there should be a
systematic effort to reach every boy of the teen age for membership in
the Sunday school. This may be accomplished through two methods:
(a) Census and Survey. The city should be divided into districts and
mapped out by squares. Then the teen age campaigners should go two and
two for the purpose of a census-taking. The two-by-two system will
result in more thorough work, and it gives the opportunity of helping
the more timid boys by linking them with the bolder ones. An entire
square should be worked by the partners, both making the same call, and
every teen age boy in the town, whether a Sunday school attendant or
not, can be located this way. For this purpose an ordinary filing card
may be used, printed as follows:
Date ______________________
Name ______________________
Address ______________________
Religion (Catholic, Jew, Protestant)?
Attend Sunday school (yes or no)?
If yes, where? ______________________
Information gathered by
________________________
________________________
NOTE.--Once this information is gathered it can be kept up-to-date by
arrangement with the moving companies and the water, gas and electric
light companies. A monthly report from these companies, or a stock of
post-cards kept with them, will do the work. Another method is an annual
checking up with the city directory.
(b) Home Visitation for Enlistment. This is best accomplished by
personal invitation, letter, attractive advertising, etc. Assign to teen
age worker.
_Training Classes_
3. A training class or training classes, central or by districts, should
be arranged to specialize for teen age leadership.
(a) Adolescent Leadership Course (50 lessons) according to International
Standard.
(b) Demonstration Course in physical, social, mental and outdoor
activities.
_Service Programs_
4. Practical programs should be prepared and offered to schools and
organized classes to stimulate the membership of the Crusade.
"For none of us liveth to himself." "For unto every one which hath shall
be given, and from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be
taken away from him." "Service" is the magic word around which real life
swings. By giving, one gets. The investment of service, as individuals,
and as a class, will bring big dividends in the development of one's
personal life.
_Missions Program_
Promote (a) a course of study of "live" home and foreign mission
material; (b) systematic giving to missions; (c) the study of the
foreign population of your city, particularly of your own neighborhood;
(d) teaching non-English speaking men and boys to read and write; (e)
the investigation, and, when possible, the handling of needy cases in
your community. Anything going out from the class to the other fellow
comes under this head.
_Temperance Program_
Get information along the lines of: (a) bodily self-control; (b) the
injury of tobacco on the growing tissue; (c) the inroads of alcohol on
the growing and mature body; and (d) the economic, material and moral
waste of intemperance of every kind.
_Purity Program_
Hit hard for (a) clean speech, clean thoughts, clean sports; (b) for a
single sex standard; (c) chivalry and cleanliness among the sexes; and
(d) adequate education on sex matters.
Programs along these three lines will be furnished on application to the
State and Provincial Sunday School Association offices.
=Preliminary Plans For Crusade=
To get things in motion, two lines of action are suggested: First, plan
for a conference of older boys and workers with boys for the community
which you desire to cover. The program should aim to lay before the
conference the plan of the Organized Secondary Division Class; methods
of work should be discussed at group conferences; the Crusade Challenge
presented at the banquet; and the session should close with a rousing
inspirational address. Second, formation of an _Inter-Sunday School
Council_, the purpose of which is to plan and promote work for Secondary
Division Classes in the city.
_Promotion of Conference_
The Secondary Division Committee, headed by the Secondary Division
Superintendent of the city, township or county, in which the conference
is planned, should head the work, and representative men and older boys
should be chosen to form a Conference Committee.
First Steps. Call a meeting of the General Conference Committee. State
clearly the objective of the Conference and Crusade, then appoint the
following sub-committees: Program, Printing and Advertising, Banquet,
Registration, Recreation and Promotion.
=Duties Of Committees=
_Program_.--Plan program, secure speakers, organist and leader for
singing.
_Printing and Advertising_.--To have charge of all printing, such as
Advance Notices of Conference, Registration Cards, Banquet Tickets,
Tentative Program, Completed Program, Crusade Folder, Newspaper
Articles, Conference Badges or Buttons.
_Banquet_.--To arrange all the details of the banquet, the place where
it will be held, securing dishes and silverware, arrangement of tables,
decorations, etc.
_Registration_.--To arrange a simple system of registration, have charge
of distribution of programs and badges, tabulate record of registration
for report to convention, etc.
_Recreation_.--To plan for a period of organized recreation between the
afternoon and evening sessions.
_Promotion_ (perhaps the most important of all committees). The
responsibility of securing "picked" members of teen age classes and
workers to attend the Conference rests on the shoulders of this
committee. All members of the General Committee should share with them
this responsibility. The Committee should arrange for a meeting of
Sunday school Superintendents and every effort be made to have every
school represented, by either the Superintendent or a substitute
appointed by him. At this meeting outline carefully the plan of the
Conference and Crusade, enlist their cooperation, secure from each man
present a promise to see that delegates are sent from his school; supply
these men with literature and registration cards. Be sure to have a
record of the name and address of all in attendance at this meeting.
This is important. Make a special drive on this meeting, the object
being to line up a man in every last school who will make himself
responsible for that school being represented in the Conference. The
Superintendents not present at this meeting should be seen and written
to at once, urging upon them the importance of the work, apprising them
of the results of the Superintendents' Conference and showing them the
necessity of their schools being included in this city-wide campaign for
the adolescent boy. Other plans of promotion may be adopted by the
Committee, as warranted by local conditions.
_Meetings of General Committee._--The General Conference Committee
should arrange to meet at least once a week, for a month prior to the
Conference, and all plans of the sub-committees should be submitted to
this Committee for their approval before being put into operation.
=The Conference Program=
Conference Theme--Training and Service.
Temporary Chairman--President or Vice-President of Sunday School
Association, or acceptable substitute.
2:00 Registration of Delegates.
2:30 Devotional and Music.
3:00 Address, "The Biggest Thing in the World."
3:20 Secondary Division Organization--The Bible Class.
4:15 Group Conferences (City divided into districts).
5:45 Recreation.
7:00 Banquet to Delegates.
(a) Music--Orchestra.
(b) Toasts--Two Older Boys.
(1) Our Country.
(2) Our City.
(c) Address, "The Crusade."
8:45 Devotional
9:00 Question Box and Conference.
9:20 Address, "In Training" (Inspirational).
10:00 Adjournment.
=The Banquet Seating Plan=
The delegates from each Sunday school should sit together, and when
practicable be also grouped by denominations. At the close of the
address on the Crusade _the Inter-Sunday School Council should be
formed_.
This shall consist of two older boys and one man from each participating
Sunday school. The Council is subject to the call of the Chairman of the
Secondary Division Committee.
_Method of Enrollment_
1. After the presentation of the Crusade, pass a colored card to each
delegation, asking them to confer and to write on the card the names and
addresses of the two older boys they may choose to represent their
school, the name of school, also the names and addresses of the
teachers of the chosen delegates.
_The Adult representative from each school should be selected later by
the committee in charge of the Crusade Conference_.
2. Pass white cards, as soon as the colored ones have been properly
filled; or, better yet, place a white card in each banqueter's program
and challenge to service and training.
3. Write to each chosen representative before the first called meeting,
enclosing credential card to be signed by the superintendent of the
school, the pastor of the church, and write to each of these men
enclosing the plan of the Crusade.
=First Meeting of Council=
Do not allow more than two weeks to pass until the Council meets to lay
its plans. Strike, and keep on striking while the iron is hot.
_The Follow-Up_.--Call at once a meeting of the older-boy
representatives on the Inter-Sunday School Council. Do not call in the
men until later. This is an =Older Boy Movement=, and you are
going to get the Older Fellows in the Sunday school to go after the
Older Fellows out of the Sunday school. Impress upon the Council that
this is their job and whatever success is achieved will be due to their
efforts. Let a clean-cut spiritual atmosphere prevail at these meetings.
You will find that the boys are there for business.
It is suggested that the meetings be held Saturday evening, beginning at
5:30 with supper, to cost not more than fifteen cents per plate.
_First Meeting_.--Don't rush things. You will gain much by making the
fellows feel that you are all working this problem out together and that
the prayerful cooperation of every member is necessary. Don't stampede
the meeting with a lot of elaborate plans. If you have any plans, turn
them over to the Council by way of suggestion, and let that body use its
own judgment. Everything that is done by the Council should emanate from
its members. It is suggested that the purpose and program of this
meeting should be somewhat as follows:
(a) Statement of purpose of Council.
(b) Trace connection of Council to International work (i.e., Council,
City Secondary Division Committee, City Secondary Division
Superintendent, County Secondary Division Superintendent, State or
Provincial Secondary Division Committee, State or Provincial Secondary
Division Superintendent, International Secondary Division Committee,
International Secondary Division Superintendent, etc.--this to show them
that they are officially related to a world-wide movement).
(c) Fellowship and "Get Together."
Be sure to have Adult members at this meeting.
_Second Meeting_ (two weeks after first).--
At this meeting discuss:
(a) Importance of class organization--each member urged to get to work
at once in his local school.
(b) Age limit of classes now in the organization.
(c) Outline possibilities of Council for promotion and all-round
physical, mental, social and spiritual activities of teen age fellows of
the Sunday schools of the city.
(d) Discuss the idea of the census survey.
These two meetings will pave the way for the third and following
meetings. Don't meet simply for the sake of holding a meeting. Let your
fellows feel that when a call to meeting is received it is important.
_Third and Subsequent Meetings_
1. Lay your plans carefully for the census-taking, then complete the job
quickly.
2. Analyze the cards and distribute to the organized classes. Their work
then begins. Encourage regular reports on the work of the classes at
each meeting of the Council, the school representatives reporting.
3. Plan for the execution of the Missionary, Purity and Temperance
Programs.
4. Extend the Council's field until it covers the common physical,
social, mental and spiritual activities of the community teen age boys.
5. Plan for regular Conference or Banquet Programs.
6. Ultimately the entire common Sunday school athletic and social life
of the community would center in the Inter-Sunday School Council.
_Meeting of Superintendents_
It is suggested that at this juncture a meeting of Sunday school
Superintendents be called for the purpose of thoroughly acquainting them
with the plans of the Council. This will secure the cooperation of the
Superintendents, which is most essential. The effort to get the
Superintendents behind the work will be more successful if the city be
divided into sections and a Superintendents' meeting be held in each
section. These meetings can be made very helpful.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON BOYS' CRUSADE
High School Student Christian Movement Series:
Bulletin No. 1. The Local Organization (.05).
Bulletin No. 2. Typical Constitution (.05).
Bulletin No. 3. The Inner Circle (.05).
International Secondary Division Leaflet, No. 5 (Free).
XV
SEX EDUCATION FOR BOYS AND THE SUNDAY SCHOOL[10]
There can be no adequate comprehension of the physical side of boyhood
if the sex element be left out. In fact, we have discovered for
ourselves that this is the very element that constitutes the real
problem of boyhood; for until the idea of sex enters into the boy's
consciousness we are only dealing with an infant. It is the gift and
power of self-reproduction that changes the selfish, individual
existence into the larger, altruistic life. It is this that compels
gangs and team-work and the instinctive desire to negate self in service
for others. It is this that forms the basis for the tribal or community
desire; and on it, understood or not, is built all further achievement.
The real value of a brave to his tribe begins with the support of his
squaw, and the modern boy gets his importance among us, when, because of
bodily function, he awakens to the consciousness of the meaning of the
home. This comes gradually at puberty or adolescence with the knowledge
of the sex purpose. And it is the quality of this knowledge, its purity
and fear and regard, that makes the lad a worthy member of the larger
whole, or a peril.
Knowing this as we do, is it not a matter of some wonder that we have
never really made any systematic effort to instruct the boy concerning
his wonderful power? Very few fathers give their sons any guidance along
this line, although they do so quite freely on every other subject. Of
course, it is a sacred, delicate subject from which we naturally shrink,
but it is overmodesty to allow a lad to fall into the abuse of his
manhood, either alone or in twos, when a wise word, spoken in time,
would save the smirch on two lives or more. In fact, we are beginning
really to understand that it is just as imperative for us to teach a boy
how to live his life with the utmost happiness as to show him how to
procure the wherewithal to feed his body. For this reason it is being
advocated today that the boy should be given explicit instruction as to
the care of the organs of reproduction and detailed information as to
the functions of these organs, and many are doing this.
Our boys today are eating freely of "the knowledge of good and evil,"
and they are not as innocent as we could wish them to be. They are not
ignorant of the processes of life because we have said nothing
concerning them, but their knowledge is partial and faulty and clouded
with misinformation.
A few years ago a body of men were discussing this very thing in New
York City, and one of them suggested that every one present write on a
piece of paper the age at which he had his first sex knowledge and pass
it to the head of the table. The average age named by this group of
interested men was six and a half years. Not one of these men, either,
had ever had a single word spoken to him on this all-important subject
by any adult. Their knowledge was of the street. Is it any wonder, then,
that boys stray, mar their own lives, betray confidences and innocence
and become moral lepers, feeding like parasites on the fairest of our
communities?
Instruction in the processes of the function of reproduction would help
many a boy to a clean participation in and a happy understanding of the
home. The divorce evil and the necessity of a large number of surgical
operations among women, to say nothing of the so-called social evil,
would be greatly lessened by such instruction. The father, of course, is
the proper person to deal with this question.
=Parents and the Sex Problem=
When parents understand sex influence they will more than half meet the
problems of the teen age. To rightly instruct along sex lines and so
prepare boys and girls to meet the teen period is almost completely to
meet the teen problem.
Social and economic changes have moved this generation a full hundred
years ahead of our fathers. The change, however, has a moral menace in
it, for the slow but sure ways of the old-fashioned home with its
genuinely moral atmosphere have nearly slipped us. Today boys and girls
are herded together by the compulsion of the times and moral ideas are
in danger of being warped and twisted. Everything about us today is more
complex than formerly, and the more complex things become the more we
herd together. Mass life is common and growing--in education, in the
schools and in play life, in the big public playgrounds. Religious
activity, in spite of the group tendency toward the small group, is
still in the mass--Christian Endeavor, Sunday school groupings, etc.
With the growing assumption of week-day activities on the part of the
church, the moral peril increases.
To offset this increasing social danger sex instruction is an insistent
necessity. Boys and girls must be taught to see themselves as members
of society with all that that implies. To do so means a knowledge of
self and sex and their functions and responsibilities. The sources and
processes of life must be intelligently understood and thus respected.
Ignorance of life does not beget purity, respect and honor. A boy's
regard for a girl cannot proceed from lack of knowledge, although this
lack may be termed innocence. A girl's love for the best for self and
others is impossible unless she has knowledge tinged with the awe of
God's purposes. Too often have our boys and girls been merely innocent,
such innocence causing their fall. The tree of knowledge sometimes
demands a high price for its fruit. To safeguard lives unblighted, the
purity and processes of life's mystery must be imparted through
instruction to our growing youth.
This can best be done by the parents--father or mother--for since
children (boys or girls) ripen and come to puberty, individually and
independently, the parent is God's choice for this task. To group boys
and girls together for this instruction is terribly wrong, as the group
must contain those whose need for information varies. To talk on these
matters in mixed groups of boys and girls is to incite wrong impulses
and is criminal. The parent is God's instructor in these things--a
father to the son and a mother to the daughter. Anything else is second
or third best and only to be done under great necessity. Under unusual
conditions a _Christian physician_ may instruct small groups of like
physiological age, but the parental way is best, because it is both
natural and permanent and we seek both.
=Sunday School and Sex=
Parents must be trained for this high duty. To this end Fathers' and
Mothers' Meetings should be promoted separately by the Sunday school.
Not one merely but a series, so that every father and mother may be able
to attend. It would be well to promote these in small groups by
invitation and acceptance until every father and mother was reached. A
regular course of education might be arranged, viz.:
First Lecture--How to meet the questions of children.
Second Lecture--How to prepare the boy and girl for the understanding of
puberty.
Third Lecture--Adolescence: The Physiology and Anatomy of the Sex Organs
and Methods of Sex Instruction.
Fourth Lecture--Hygiene: Personal, Public, Home, School and Church.
These might be preceded by an address on the conditions that today make
the above necessary; such might be a Sunday evening sermon or week-night
address by the pastor of the church.
The lectures should be delivered and instruction given by a _Christian
Physician_.
Meetings should be held for fathers by themselves and for mothers
likewise; however, in either or both meetings the whole field--boys and
girls--should be discussed.
The whole campaign should be carried out quietly without fuss, feathers
or publicity. Shun the spectacular and remember it is the morality of
the boy and girl that is in question. Keep away from muck-raking, be
constructive and pure and business-like in the whole matter.
The need is great, for the sources of our life must be kept clean if we
desire social health among our boys and girls. The land is full of the
plague, of open moral sewers and unholy cesspools. The street reeks with
the smut and filth of wrong sex knowledge, and our boys and girls are
getting experience in the laboratory of the immoral. The Sunday school
can help our common, public health by helping the parent. It should
major on parental instruction and keep it up until the parents have been
helped to the adequate fulfillment of their task.
=Sex Instruction for Boys=
Great care should be exercised in the giving of sex instruction to boys
of any age. In the first place, no one without expert knowledge has a
right to approach the boy on the subject. Even a father should make it
his business to master the problem by extensive and wise reading before
he becomes his boy's teacher. In the second place, books or pamphlets on
the subject are poor mediums for instruction on the sex functions.
Nearly every one that I have seen so far is either too technical or too
sentimental. There are a great many books on the market which had been
better left unpublished as far as their helpful influence is concerned.
The treatment of this problem should be oral instead of in written form,
and should be a straight, business-like talk, such as a father would
have with his son about his studies or work. The gush of sentiment plays
havoc with the emotions of the boy and lures him to the edge of the
precipice, just to look over. First, there should be the spoken word
concerning the function of the sex organs; and then, if the need is
urgent, a choice book to guide him a little farther on the way. The less
a boy thinks about these things the better. The instruction should be
for the purpose of teaching him the knowledge of himself in order that
he may see these things in their proper light and live purely, and not
for the purpose of giving him expert advice.
Another thing is necessary for good sex instruction. Up till a little
while ago it was the custom of workers with boys to caution the lads
against self-abuse. They used all kinds of colored slides and fearful
examples to impress on the boy the horror of the act, and very often
inflamed the boy to exactly the thing they were shooing him from. But
today we are learning the fact that the positive is of more force than
the negative, and that the "thou shalt" is better than the "thou shalt
not." There is a real reason why the later adolescent boy should give no
attention to the "thou shalt not," and so fall into the snare of the
negative; for it is the law of his being to "prove all things." It is
far better to lay emphasis on the legitimate purposes of the boy's sex
life, the glory it gives him and the beauty of the self-sacrifice it
begets, than to say a single word on the other side.
I have found it a good thing to refer to the practice of self-abuse of
any kind as a sure sign of weak mentality, and this has produced a
greater impression than anything else that I have formerly said. Boys,
it should be remembered, have brains and are really able to think. When
they act wrongly it is so often from lack of knowledge or because of
wrong knowledge. If I were to teach a boy my business I should tell him
everything that would make the business better, and say nothing of how
to put it "to the bad." Now what would we all do if our business was to
help boys to live clean lives, speak truth, bless the community with
unimpaired manhood and honor God with their united physical powers?
=Methods of Instruction=
It is necessary to keep in mind the stage of development of the boy. It
certainly would be foolish to tell a lad of eight years the facts that
should be given to a sixteen-year-old. Great tact and intelligence,
coupled with a knowledge of the stages of physical growth that a boy is
passing through, are necessary.
A boy of under twelve years should be approached biologically: the sex
element in nature study should be gradually disclosed to him. In this
period, when the spirit of curiosity is strong in the boy and he is
continually asking questions on the mystery of life--for instance, how
the stork or the doctor can bring the little brother or sister--it is
the best thing to answer the question with just enough truthful
information to satisfy. Great harm may be done by piling the mind of the
child with facts that cannot but be misunderstood. In the enthusiasm for
doing things right, there must be a guard against going too far.
The second stage of a boy's physical development, the early adolescent
stage--twelve to fifteen years--is the physiological. Puberty marks its
advent, although the exact sign of its arrival is hard to determine. It
has been easy to discover it in a girl's life, but it still remains a
matter of some guessing in a boy. _A recent work of Dr. Crompton states
that the kinking of the hair upon the pubic bone is a sure sign of the
beginning of the period_. Some physical directors have found this a
satisfactory sign, and have made this the basis of a graded work with
boys. It is in this period, then, that the boy should learn something of
the anatomy and physiology of the male sexual organs.
The third stage of sex instruction for boys is during the later
adolescent period--at least over fifteen years--and this should be
pathological. A free discussion of the so-called social evil and the
forms of venereal disease would certainly educate the boys to a proper
conception of the entire subject. All questions should be discussed in
ordinary language and business-like style.
=Sources of Knowledge for Sex Instruction=
1. THE BIOLOGICAL PERIOD (UNDER TWELVE YEARS).
--A Frank Talk with Boys and Girls About Their Birth (Free).
--A Straight Talk with Boys About Their Birth and Early Boyhood (Free).
Chapman.--How Shall I Tell My Child? (.25).
Muncie.--Four Epochs of Life (Chapters 7-12) ($1.50).
Thresher.--Story of Life for Little Children (Free).
--When and How to Tell Children. (Oregon State Board of Health.)
2. THE PHYSIOLOGICAL PERIOD (TWELVE TO FIFTEEN YEARS).
Hall.--From Youth Into Manhood (.50).
How My Uncle, the Doctor, Instructed Me in Matters of Sex (.10).
Lowry.--Truths (.50).
--The Secret of Strength (Social Hygiene Society of Portland, Oregon)
(Free).
--Virility and Physical Development (Social Hygiene Society of Portland,
Oregon) (Free).
--Address the Secretary of the Social Hygiene Society, 311 Young Men's
Christian Association Building, Portland, Oregon.
3. THE PATHOLOGICAL PERIOD (OVER FIFTEEN YEARS).
Educational Pamphlets, Nos. 1 and 6 (American Society of Sanitary and
Moral Prophylaxis) (.10 each).
--Four Sex Lies (Oregon State Board of Health) (Free).
Hall.--From Youth Into Manhood (Chapter on Sexual Hygiene) (.50).
Health and the Hygiene of Sex (.10).
The Young Man's Problem (.10).
=A Word of Caution=
Let it be repeated that sex instruction should be undertaken with great
tact and thoughtfulness. The one who gives the instruction--whether
parent or teacher--should post himself thoroughly and he should be
practical, go slow, not forcing the lad's development by unnecessary
knowledge, avoiding gush and sentiment. He should not seek confession or
allow the boy to confess to him, for confession will raise a barrier
between the two later on; he should help the boy without invading the
lad's innermost life, his soul; he should learn that there are recesses
in the boy's self that are his own and that bear no invasion, and he
should respect this right of privacy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON SEX
Alexander, Editor.--Sunday School and the Teens. (Chapter 14.) This is
the official utterance of the Commission on Adolescence, authorized by
the International Sunday School Association in convention at San
Francisco, and contains a complete, classified bibliography. ($1.00.)
_American Youth_ (April, 1913. This entire magazine number deals with
Sex Education) (.20).
XVI
THE TEEN BOY AND MISSIONS
No more difficult subject faces the Sunday school today than that of
really vitally interesting the teen age boy in the missionary
enterprises of the church. Missionary enthusiasts, here and there, have
doubtless had success in interesting numbers of boys, but, in spite of
this, the average, red-blooded, everyday, wide-awake fellow that
inhabits our homes, fills our streets, and honors our Sunday schools,
has little or no conception of missions, or even cares enough to make
any effort to discover what missions really signify. To the average boy
missions spell heathen and a collection and little more. There is no
real life interest, or even contact enough to develop an interest in the
subject. This is a Hunt, harsh analysis of the situation, but it is
both honest and true.
Giving money is not a genuine criterion of interest. I have known lots
of boys who contributed two cents a week to help the other fellow, not
because it was a conviction, but because it was a necessary thing to
keep in good standing on the posted bulletin, and thus to maintain the
regard and esteem of leader and comrades.
Business men and social leaders have been known to hesitate in
subscribing to funds until the subscription list had been perused by
them, when the list of names already secured has caused them to make
generous additions to the fund. The Sunday school offering is a poor
index of Sunday school enthusiasm. Giving money--even more than one can
afford to give--is not always real self-sacrifice. Sometimes it is
self-saving. At any rate, it is not the reliable guide of a boy's
interest.
Maybe we shall never get boys to understand the word Missions. Perhaps
it is hopelessly confused with heathen--a poor, unfortunate,
know-nothing, worth-little crowd of black or yellow people--who can
never amount to anything, unless money be given to put grit enough into
them to get them to try to live right--a pretty doubtful investment,
after all. Yes, this is the logic of the average boy, due to the
information of the non-christian's degradation, lack of initiative, low
ideals, and poor morals, as set forth by the returned missionary. Even
the fact that one or two folks, by reason of the missionary's work, have
been raised to better things, affords no promise of rejoicing on the
part of the boy. The American teen age boy shuns "kids," "dagoes,"
"hunkies," and everything that seems to him to be inferior. He may
occasionally give them a little pity, but he associates himself in
thought and interest and conduct only with his peers. His gang is as
exclusive as the traditions of Sons of the Revolution. The
non-christians of other lands, like the non-christians of North America,
somehow or other, have got to get as good as he is--not in morals, but
in genuine worth-whileness. If they can "pull off a couple of stunts"
that are beyond him, watch his real admiration and interest grow. Maybe,
after a while, we will drop the word Missions and substitute another
word--Extension. Perhaps! Then the fellow whom he teaches to "throw a
curve" in the vacant lot, or the foreign-speaking boy, who can "shoot a
basket," to whom he gives a half-hour lesson in English, or the Hindoo
lad, who easily swims the Ganges, and who is being sent to school by his
gang, will all command his interest, because they are partners with him
in the common things of his everyday life. The boy grows by
ever-widening circles of interest; first, the self, then the gang, then
the school life, then his city, then the state, then the nation, and so
on--out to humanity. And all of it must be on a par with his highest
ideals. That which falls below meets his contempt. Interest, then, in
non-christian folks in foreign lands, will become the boy's interest
only when it reaches his admiration and the level of the worth-while.
The pity and love that burns to help another is a mature passion, and is
only in germ in boyhood. It is capable, however, of great development.
The interest of the early adolescent is primarily physical. Most of his
life centers in his play and games. Wise educators are using the play
instinct as a medium for his education. Manual training is increasing,
the formal work of the class-room is taking on the nature of competition
and music, even music with its old-time monotony and routine of running
scales in the practice period under parental persuasion, has ceased to
be a thing of dread, and has become a delightful thing of play--a
building of houses, a planting of seeds, etc.
The heart of missions is a genuine regard for the highest welfare of the
non-christian, a real interest in the lives of others. Now interest is
the act of being caught and held by something. It is also temporary, as
well as permanent. This depends wholly on how much one is caught and
held. This fact is as true in boyhood as in manhood. Further, interests
are matters of association--one interest is the path to another.
Perhaps, then, the boy's play may widen to embrace China.
A group of boys, some time ago, were playing games in a church basement,
and the time began to lag just a little. A young man, who happened to be
present, was appealed to for a new game, and he taught them to "skin the
snake." It "caught on" immediately, and the group of boys grew hilarious
in their enjoyment. After a while, however, they stopped to rest, and
one of the boys turned to the man who had taught the game, and said,
"Where did you get that dandy stunt?" The reply was, "Oh, that's one of
the games that the fellows play over in China." There was silence for a
moment or two, and then one of the older fellows said, "Gee, do the
Chinks over there know enough to play a game like that?" Questions
followed thick and fast for a little while about the boys of China, and
the admiration of the boys increased with their knowledge. The boys of
China are a little closer, too, to the American boys of this particular
group whenever "skin the snake" is played. It is altogether too bad
that the play-life of the adolescent in non-christian lands is so
meager, for here in physical prowess is a real contact for the American
boy. The bigness of life is the sum of its contacts.
A boy between sixteen and twenty years is essentially social in his
interests. It is then that the call of the community, business life,
vocation, etc., to say nothing of the sex and the home voice--make their
big appeal. It is his own personal relation to these that makes them
real, and the closer his relation the deeper is his interest. The social
appeal stirs his thought and leads him to investigation. The similarity
of problems at home and abroad gives him contact with other lands, and
makes for him "all the world akin." The best approach to China's need is
the need of the homeland. Good government here is a link of Manchuria
and Mongolia. The underpaid woman in the shop, store and factory of
America is the introduction to the limitations of the womanhood of India
and the Orient. The problem of Africa is real only through the
economic, social and moral demands of Pennsylvania, Illinois, or
California. The value of all of these in his thought is the relation
which he holds individually to any one. The circle of his interests
grows by the widening of his knowledge. The law of his being is to
accept nothing on hearsay. He must prove all things and cleave only to
that which he finds true. This, however, is the path to missionary and
all other interests.
How, then, shall all this be worked out in Bible class and
through-the-week activity? The missionary lesson must not be just fact,
but related fact. The through-the-week meeting that contemplates the
deepening of interest in other lands must be recreational and social.
The contacts must be real, vital, and individual--expressed in the
concrete interests of the now. This is the principle. The method must be
the work of the lesson writer and the missionary expert, and, until this
is achieved, missions must still be but two uninteresting facts for the
teen age boy--Heathen and Collection.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE TEEN BOY AND MISSIONS
Fahs.--Uganda's White Man of Work (.50).
Hall.--Children at Play in Many Lands (.75).
Johnston.--Famine and the Bread ($1.00).
Matthews.--Livingstone, the Pathfinder (.50).
Speer.--Servants of the King (.50).
Steiner.--On the Trail of the Immigrant ($1.50).
XVII
TEMPERANCE AND THE TEEN AGE
Temperance embraces the abstaining from everything that challenges
self-control. The two deadliest foes of young life today are admittedly
alcoholic drinks and the cigarette, and any crusade against these for
the conservation of the boy in his teens should be welcomed. It is well,
however, to keep in mind that profane language, the suggestive story,
undue sex familiarity, athletic overindulgence, excessive attendance at
the moving picture shows, or entertainment places, the public dance, and
other things of like ilk in the community, exert a doubtful influence on
boy life.
Liquor is the greatest plague in a community, and does more to curse the
community than any other one thing. It breaks up homes, causes
divorces, deprives children of their legitimate sustenance, ruins the
life of the drinker, increases taxation, lowers the tone and morals of
the community, and is a detriment to our American life. Cigarette
smoking is bad for anybody. It harms the growing tissue, dulls the
conscience, stunts the growth, and steals the brainpower of growing
boys. In dealing with these facts in the Sunday school let us recognize
then, that they exist, that they are true; and then let us cease merely
to rehearse them from time to time.
The day of exhortation is past. Temperance education today consists in
the presentation of absolute, scientific fact. Sentimentality and the
multiplication of words no longer mean anything. In dealing with the
teen age boy, spare your words, but pile up the scientific, concrete,
"seeing-is-believing" data. By proved experiment let him discover
through the investigation of himself and others--through books,
pictures, slides, etc.--that everything we take for granted is
scientific truth. You do not need today to prove to a boy that liquor
is bad. Physiology in the public school and the everyday occurrences
about him have already furnished him with that knowledge. Furnish him
now with the actual facts of the effects of alcohol on the heart
centers, lung centers, locomotion centers, knowledge centers, and
inhibitory or control centers. Make no statement that is not absolutely
scientific. You cannot afford to lie, even to keep the boy from the
drink habit. Show concretely--better yet through the investigation of
the boy himself--the economic and moral waste of the liquor habit, but,
in everything, let the hard, cold facts speak for themselves. Let the
boy discover for himself that liquor not only would rob him of his best
development, if he should become a victim of the habit, but is lowering
the tone of his community and country now.
In the matter of pledge-signing be sure the boy knows what he is doing.
A written pledge may mean a different thing to you than to the boy. It
is better to discuss the subject minutely with the boy, then let him
write his promise in his own language, without any written guide. Do
not let the boy be anything but true to himself. Be scientific and
educational in all your methods.
When you approach tobacco and cigarettes, do not assume that the boy
regards these as bad. He will readily admit that liquor is harmful, but
will likely to refuse to recognize that the pipe, cigar, or cigarette
are immoral. Your education along this line must be absolutely
scientific. The appeal must be to the self and self-interest. They are
not good for an athlete; the best scholarship is threatened by them;
growing tissue is harmed by indulgence. The appeal must be accurate and
must apply now. Do not quote what will happen forty years hence. Boys do
not fear old age and its frailties. Present enjoyment is too keen. Do
not say that the habit is filthy, etc. Lay the emphasis on health,
physical fitness, the joy of present living. The appeal must be one of
best development. Economic opportunity also may play a part. If business
opportunity is lessened by the habit, prove it. Do not, however, say
anything that cannot be supported with incontrovertible evidence. Stick
to the scientific facts and the appeal to self-interest.
One thing more! Little good comes from denouncing tobacco in general. A
lot of good men, influential men, strong Christian men, use it. If you
have facts concerning the bad effects of smoking on mature men that are
reliable, make use of them, but be sure you are right about it.
Ignorance multiplied by forty or one hundred does not mean wisdom. It is
still ignorance. Keep yourself out of the crank army. Do not be so
intemperate yourself in thought, speech, and action as to lessen your
influence. Temporizing will not do the work, but let us be wise in our
approach to the subject before boys, whose viewpoint cannot be expected
to be that of adults.
Liquor and the cigarette are national perils, and both of them, for the
sake of the teen age boy, must be banished from the land.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON TEMPERANCE AND THE TEEN AGE
Chappel.--Evils of Alcohol (.60).
Horsely.--Alcohol and the Human Body ($1.00).
Jewett.--Control of Body and Mind (Concerning Cigarettes) (.60).
_Scientific Temperance Journal_ (Monthly) (.60 per year).
Towns.--Injury of Tobacco (Pamphlet, $1.50 per hundred).
XVIII
BUILDING UP THE BOY'S SPIRITUAL LIFE
The business of the Sunday school is the letting loose of moral and
religious impulses for life--the raising of the life, by information,
inspiration and opportunity, to its highest possible attainment. The
very highest reach that any boy's life can attain is the ideal of life
that Jesus has set forth. Nothing less than this can be the aim of the
Sunday school. Analyzing this ideal, we find that this means that the
boy must physically, socially, mentally, and religiously find the best,
build it into his life, and attain unto the "measure of the stature of
the fullness of Christ." Anything that does not contribute to this end,
in the principle or method of the Sunday school, is wrong. Likewise,
anything, tradition or prejudice, that keeps the school from reaching
the boy for the Christ-ideal is a positive affront to the Lord of the
Church. The Sunday school deals with a living, breathing boy--not a
theory, but a real combination of flesh, bone, muscle, nerve and blood.
It must minister to the needs of this combination in a generous way,
with physical, through-the-week activities, not to induce it to attend
Sunday school for worship and Bible study, but because the highest good
of the combination demands these things. The school also should see that
this living, breathing boy, who, by God's law of life, thinks and moves
by his thought, should receive the best opportunity to develop his mind
by supporting the state institutions in the community for that purpose,
and also in providing culture, recreation-education within the confines
of its own particular sphere. In addition to this, recognizing that the
boy belongs to the social life of the community, and "that no man liveth
unto himself or dieth unto himself," the Sunday school must recognize
its obligation to the community, as well as to the boy, and furnish him
an opportunity for the best social adjustment. The Kingdom of God is a
saved community of saved lives. It is best represented in the Scriptures
as a city, a golden city, without death, crying, or sorrow, all of them
intensely social things, as are their opposites, also. Every lesson the
school gives the boy socially, every chance it affords him to learn by
contact with his fellows of either sex, means just one more effort for
the Kingdom. Moreover, the Kingdom is a community of saved bodies, saved
minds, saved social relations and saved spirits, or a place or group
where the best dominates--the will of God rules over all lesser things,
changing and making them over into the best. Thus the Kingdom is where
life appreciates, enjoys, respects, and honors all of God's gifts,
whether it be body, mind, social relations, or material or spiritual
things. The task of the Sunday school, then, is to reach out
unswervingly, enthusiastically after these ends for the adolescent boy.
Like the commandments, he that transgresseth in one fails in all, in
the largest, truest sense.
The work of the Sunday school, summed up briefly, is to round out the
boy by all good things that he may see and know and acknowledge Jesus
Christ, the Master of Men, as the Master and Lord of his life, too. Any
step less than the joyous acceptance of the Son of God as Saviour of his
life is to miss the mark entirely. This is the end of all Sunday school
principle and method.
Further, Jesus Christ, as Saviour of Life, is not an idea, a theory, a
belief, but a practical, everyday, every-minute influence. "For me to
live is Christ." From this time forth everything in life is done in the
Christ-spirit. The boy does not cease to be a boy in the acceptance. He
is now a Christian boy, not a mature, Christian man. He still loves
play, but play is not marred now by the tricks that minister to self.
Play ministers now both to self and others. It does not nor cannot leave
out self, however. It saves self. So, with all things else in life, real
life that is lived seven days in the week, twenty-four hours in the day
among his fellows--and one week following without break the other.
Saviour of Life means saviour of body, of mind, of social contacts, of
spirit. It means more than formal religion, the attendance of services,
the saying of prayers, the observance of customs--these are all
excellent and necessary, but to be saved by the Saviour of Men means new
life, or life with a new, saved meaning: "I come that they might have
life and that they might have it more abundantly" (overflowingly). This
is the great objective of the Sunday school.
As soon as a life knows Jesus as Saviour, it asks the question, "What
wilt thou have me to do, Lord?" Notice, it is not, what shall I believe,
or what shall I cast out of my life? Doing regulates both of these, and
the "expulsive power of a new affection" settles nearly every problem by
displacement. This, after all, is Christianity--to be "In Christ." "Not
to be ministered unto, but to minister." "He that would be greatest, let
him be the servant of all." The quality of Christianity is Service. The
task of the Sunday school is the raising of the life by information,
inspiration and opportunity to its highest possible attainment.
Christian service is both the highest and the best. To the
acknowledgment of Jesus as Saviour and Lord, then, must be added the
free, voluntary, loving service for others in His name. This is the
Upbuilding of the Spiritual Life of the Boy.
What shall be used, then, for this purpose? Everything that will
minister to the result--Organization, Leadership, Bible Study,
Through-the-Week Activity, Material Equipment, Teaching, Song, Prayer,
Reproof, Inspiration, Guidance, and all else that the Sunday school may
know or discover. Two factors in it all are preeminent: Christ and the
Boy. All else are but means. The boy a loving, serving follower of his
Lord! This is the endless end.
What should the Sunday school do to achieve this? Reach to the utmost,
strive to the uttermost, use every resource, redeem every opportunity,
create, discover and harness every method, hold the boy to his best,
patiently see him develop, give him the material and spiritual elements
for his growth, afford him opportunity to find himself, help him to
crystalize his thought for life and lovingly aid him to meet, know and
acknowledge his Lord.
Thus the boy will be "built up in our most holy faith"--the faith that
loves and serves in healthy life for the joy of living.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE BOY'S SPIRITUAL LIFE
Alexander (Editor).--Boy Training (Chapter on "The Goal of Adolescence")
(.75).
Sunday School and the Teens (Chapter on "The Church's Provision for
Adolescent Spiritual Life") ($1.00).
Boys' Work Message, Men and Religion Movement (Chapters on "The Boy's
Religious Needs" and "The Message of Christianity to Boyhood") ($1.00).
XIX
THE TEEN AGE TEACHER[11]
The greatest problem that faces the Sunday school and Church as it seeks
to meet the needs of the boys and girls of the teen age is leadership.
The organized men's and women's Bible classes may meet that need. In
fact, the success and ultimate value of these classes lie in their
response and ability to face and supply this growing need.
God works best through incarnation. When he wanted to tell men who he
was, what he was, and how he wanted men to live, he spoke through
prophets, priests, patriarchs, and kings, and the Old Testament writings
came to us this way. However, men did not seem to understand the
message, and for nearly four hundred years he ceased to speak. Then,
"in the fullness of time," he came himself in the person of his own
Son--born in the womb after the fashion of a human baby, passed through
boyhood in the likeness of a boy and on into manhood as a man--to teach
us who he was, what he was, and how he wanted us to live; and Jesus is
just God spelling himself out in human history in the language that men
understand. This is incarnation, and as he was compelled to pour himself
out into man to reveal himself to men, so men and women who have seen
him must literally pour themselves out--incarnate themselves--into the
lives of growing boys and girls if these boys and girls of the teen age
are to know him.
Leadership has always been the cry of the world and the Church, and the
history of both is written in biography. The Pharaoh, the Caesar,
Charlemagne, Peter the Great, William the Silent, Henry of Navarre,
Queen Elizabeth, Ferdinand and Isabella, Columbus, the Pilgrim Fathers,
Washington, Lincoln, and the names of the great on the world's scroll
of fame tell the world's story. The Christ, Peter, John, Paul,
Augustine, Savonarola, Huss, Wycliffe, Luther, Zwingli, Knox, Roger,
Williams, Wesley, Finney, Moody, Booth; and "what shall I more say? for
the time would fail me to tell of 'those' of whom the world was not
worthy," and whose splendid achievements fill out the glorious history
of the Church--these, all of these, in their life and effort constitute
the story of the Kingdom.
The story is not yet complete. Still the world writes its progress in
the names of its great ones. And yet, as always, the Church must look
for its progress to its Christ-kissed men and women. While teen age boys
and girls escape us at the rate of one hundred thousand a year, the need
for leadership is among us.
There is no boy problem. There is no girl problem. Boys and girls are
the same yesterday, today and forever. The processes of their developing
life are as the laws of the Medes and Persians, without change, eternal
as the hills. Like the poor, they are always with us. There is neither
boy nor girl problem; it is a problem of the man and a problem of the
woman. Leadership is the key that unlocks the door of the teen age for
the Church.
The need of the Sunday school in the teen age today is leadership. The
organized classes for men and women can solve the problem of the Church
among the teen age boys and girls. The number of teachers an organized
adult class produces is the measure of its ultimate usefulness in the
Kingdom.
The problem of the Sunday school, then, can be solved by men teachers
for boys' classes. The more masculine the Sunday school becomes the
deeper will be the boy's interest. A virile, active Christianity will
challenge the boy; and all other things being equal, the man teacher can
present such a Christianity. In some places this will not be possible
because of the dearth of men due to the lack of any sense of Christian
obligation on the part of the males of the community to the growing boy.
Where real men are missing, we will be forced of necessity to fall back
on the big-hearted women that have so long stood in the breach. It may
be well, also, to add that merely being a male does not constitute a man
or manhood. Some men will need to strengthen themselves to do their duty
as the leaders and teachers of boys in the Sunday school.
None but the strongest teachers should be selected. A boy of high school
age quickly detects weakness in a teacher. Selection of just "any one"
to teach a class is sure failure. The most important element in
organization is leadership. The teacher should aim to become more of a
leader than teacher. Boys' classes should be taught by men, and women
should teach classes of girls. It is impossible for a man to lead girls,
and just as impossible for girls to be led by a man.
With the period of adolescence come problems which can be understood and
solved only by those who have passed through the same experience. Manly
Christian leadership will help boys to grow naturally into Christian
manhood, while only the kind, sympathetic touch of the conscientious
Christian woman leader can help the girl in developing normally into
honored and respected Christian womanhood.
The conscientious Christian leader will keep in mind his obligation to
the individual members of the class. By reading and study he will become
acquainted with the characteristics of the teen age life, with a view to
planning such activities, for both the Sunday and the mid-week session,
as will eventually result in the development of stalwart Christian
manhood.
The successful teacher of the teen age class--
(a) Always sees and plans things from the viewpoint of the pupil.
(b) Teaches the scholar and not the lesson.
(c) Knows personally every member of the class--the home, school,
business, play, social and religious life of every member. This is often
accomplished through an invitation to dinner, a walk, a car ride, or
some other plan, which will bring the scholar and teacher together
naturally. With this knowledge in hand, the teacher can prepare the
lesson to fit the individual needs of the pupil.
(d) Visits the parents.
(e) Is always on hand, unless unavoidably prevented, in which case the
president of the class is notified.
(f) Has a capable substitute teacher to supply in the event of such
absence.
(g) Realizes that the function of his office is that of friend and
counselor.
(h) Follows up an absentee (1) through the other members of the class;
(2) Membership Committee; (3) telephone; (4) postcard or letter; (5)
personal call.
(i) Does not play favorites, nor neglect the less aggressive scholar.
(j) Has a plan and an objective, with special emphasis on the training
of older boys for leadership of groups of younger boys.
(k) Always keeps in mind that the supreme task and privilege of the
teacher are to win the boy to Christ for service in His church.
=The Teacher and the Home=
The Teacher can do his best work when working in conjunction with the
home. It is a good plan to visit the father and mother of the boy. It is
also a pretty good thing to occasionally drop in to see the father and
mother personally, telling them how the boy is getting along. An
invitation extended to the parents through the boy himself to attend a
week-night meeting of the class will also afford a valuable means of
contact with the home and parents.
The Teacher should by no means try to become a father to the boy. The
responsibility and duties of parents must not for one moment devolve
upon him. The following editorial from a New York evening newspaper puts
this idea in a very clear manner, and it should be given careful
consideration by every teacher:
"It takes time to point a boy right. The great merchant can touch a desk
bell to give orders for a steamship or a draft of a million dollars. But
the merchant's young son, age fourteen, cannot be touched off in that
way. The lad has just begun to move out among other boys. They do a
world of talking, these young chaps. The father must watch that talk,
and he can, if he will take the time.
"The older man has every advantage, for he is looked up to and beloved.
It is not so much the 'don'ts' as the 'do's' that constitute his power.
He can inspire with high resolve. He can narrate his own victories over
sore trials and fiery tests of his integrity. He can draw the sting of
poisonous suggestions, moral disheartenings and malice which his child
has been cherishing in his young heart. But this means time, and time
may be money. Yet no money can buy this sort of instruction, nor put a
price on it. The coin is struck in the soul. It is the costliest barter,
the very exchange of the soul.
"Boys who go right have invariably had a world of time spent on them in
this way. Boys go wrong because the father would not take the time from
the market. In after years the same parent will take vastly more time
to try, in tears of sorrow, to straighten out that boy."
=The Teacher and the School=
The Teacher must keep in mind that it is his business to work in
cooperation with all of the forces that are trying to help the boy to
live rightly in his community. The work of the public school must
continue to go on without a break if the ideals of our American
citizenship are to be maintained, and it is the business of the Teacher
to give his support, encouragement and cooperation for the carrying out
of the idea for which the school stands. The public school seeks to give
the boy the necessary education toward his earning a livelihood, and the
business of the Sunday school Teacher is to give him the right impulses
for his moral and religious life--to inspire him to seek the best in
everything. The Sunday school Teacher is in partnership with the public
school teacher in the education of the boy.
Several well-defined and exceedingly clear principles of action
underlie the successful handling of groups of boys:
First, there must be a clear plan well thought out, progressive in its
stages with an aim for each stage. In other words, no man need try to
work with a group of boys unless he knows what he wants to do, not only
in outline but in detail. He must have these details in mind and so well
worked out in his thought, knowing exactly what comes next and just what
is to be added to that which he has already accomplished, as to be
master of the situation at all times and to be the recognized leader.
Not only this, but the boys must feel that he really knows what he is
driving at in everything that he attempts.
Secondly, before the leader of a group of boys tries to do anything with
the group, if he is to be successful, it is necessary for him to make a
frankly outlined statement of his plan. That is to say, he should tell
the boys what the game is and how it is to be played, getting their
approval, and agreement to get in on the deal. He can explain this to
all of the boys at one time or singly to each boy. There is no question
but that he will succeed best if he will go over the matter first with
each individual boy personally, finding out his individual impressions
and opinions, and also having discussion before the group. This being
done the boys know the plan, the leader knows what he is working toward,
and the leader and the boys are partners in the work. Too often groups
of boys are brought together and the aim is so hazy in the leader's mind
that all the boys can possibly see in the scheme is a "good time."
Thirdly, the best way to have boys accomplish things is to allow them to
do the things. Many a leader of boys thinks out a plan, gives it to a
group of boys and then thinks that the boys are themselves doing it,
whereas he is only trying to use the boys as his instrument. The most
effectual way of getting boys to do things themselves is to let them do
as much as they can and will do under adequate supervision. Lead by
suggestion, so that unconsciously the boys follow your advice and
dictation, giving them the benefit of their decisions and impulses. Pure
self-government in which the boys are entirely the dictators of their
policies and activities cannot be thought of, because such a course is
so generally fatal to successful development. But self-government
fostered and dealt with through suggestion by the adult mind is just
what is needed, and should always be encouraged.
Fourth, in letting the boys run their own affairs in this way the
Teacher must become a real leader. A real leader never stalks in front,
nor gives orders openly. The generals of today fight their battles and
win them twenty-five miles in the rear of the firing line. So it is with
the Teacher. He must be the power behind the throne, rather than the
throne itself. He must be as a conscience--to hold the boys back just a
little when they go too fast and to push just a little when they are
going too slow. The Teacher must recognize himself to be the impetus,
not the goal. The solution of each problem that comes before the class
should not only be considered by the whole group, but should be solved
by the boys. The important thing for the Teacher to remember in these
matters is that the method of practical American citizenship is the
majority rule. But this boy majority rule should, of course, be tempered
by governing leadership. Thus the Teacher will not do anything that the
boy can do himself, and he will be continually placing responsibility on
the lad. Responsibility is the great maker of men.
Fifth, there will be of course noticeable differences among the boys of
any class. The most serious differences arise even among men. The boys
will "scrap" at times, and there will sometimes be a tension and
rigidity about their discussions that will approach the breaking point.
Through it all it will be difficult for the Teacher to keep himself
patiently aloof and allow the thing to work out its own way. Sometimes
an appeal will be made to him to settle the dispute, and he will be
tempted to do so, but often such action will imperil the object for
which he is working. It is best to allow the boys to discuss, and try
out all of their logic before he begins to make suggestions and, if he
can get the boys to settle the matter themselves, it is to his interest
to do so. If a deadlock threatens to exist, then by wise counsel and
judicious suggestions he may be able to lead the boys out of a quandary
in such a way that it will look as if the boys had gotten out of the
difficulty themselves. This will certainly add strength to their
organization, and they will settle their own quarrels with peace and
dignity. Sometimes the break between the boys will be so bitter as to
cause the formation of intensely hostile factions, and then the best
thing the Teacher can do is not to try any new patching or drawing
together of the opposing forces. There is no use trying to make boys who
are bitterly antagonistic agreeable to each other. Let them make new
alignments if necessary and in combinations of their own choosing, even
if the result should be the formation of new classes.
Sixth, the boys should make their own rules for their own government,
and they should also deal as a group with the infringement of their
rules. This will solve the discipline problem of the Teacher.
Responsibility should be the keynote of government, and the awakening of
such a feeling in the boys should be the goal.
=The Adolescent Change=
Until about the age of twelve the boy is distinctly individualistic and
selfish. At about twelve years of age his whole nature begins to change
because of the change in his bodily functions. This change occurs
anywhere from the twelfth to the sixteenth year and is really determined
by his physical development rather than by his chronological age. The
change of bodily functions gives him a new outlook upon life. He begins
to see and understand that he is a part of the community in which he is
living and begins to understand that the community life is made possible
by a disposition on the part of his neighbors to help each other. He
also begins to understand the institutional life about him and the
family and sex tie on which it is based. He sees also the need of the
school, the church and other public institutions. He also begins to
appreciate the wider range of things. Nature has greater appeal to him
now than ever. The woods and streams and outdoor life get a new
significance, and the question of livelihood, whether rural and
agricultural, or in the line of the various industries, takes a firm
hold upon his imagination, and gives him a life-compelling purpose. He
begins to feel the mating call and at its first impression is attracted
to the other sex, with the result that by and by he also becomes a
husband and father and a full-fledged citizen among his fellows. Up to
the age of adolescence, however, none of these emotions stir the boy.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ADOLESCENT AGE
The interests of the adolescent boy are general and not specialized
between the twelfth and eighteenth years. The boy gets his impressions
of the community objectively, in addition to increasing his
knowledge of the external world through his acquaintanceship with
its phenomena. The Universe and the Community are extensive and many
sided. The step also between twelve and eighteen years is short. The
boy's contact with these, then, must be rapid and general.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EARLY ADOLESCENT AGE
The early adolescent age from twelve to fifteen years is characterized
by a rapid and uneven growth during which vitality and energy alternate
with languorousness, and the boy is awkward and lazy, with bones greatly
outgrowing muscle. The boy also begins to take a new interest in sex and
sex relations, his features and voice change, and the inherited
tendencies begin to assert themselves. His health is usually at its
best, and during his active moments he is boisterous and vigorously
energetic. He is selfish, but shows signs of altruism; his regard for
law increases; the spirit of gang leadership begins to show itself; his
longing for friendship is noticeable; his sense of secretiveness is
apparent; and his self-assertiveness first begins to be manifested. He
is creative in imagination, shows marvelous powers of inference, becomes
strongly intellectual, begins to manifest analytic reasoning, imitates
the ideal, is uncertain in making decisions, is influenced by
suggestion, and possesses generally a strong but not a logical memory.
He develops natural religious notions, has strong impulses to do big
things, has definite convictions as to his belief in God and Heaven and
the understanding of traditional religious terms, shows a noticeable
lack of interest in the forms of worship, but a keen appreciation of the
spiritual, and is passing through a period when great resolves are most
often made.
CHARACTERISTICS OF LATER ADOLESCENCE
During the period of later adolescence from fifteen to eighteen years of
age, the body nearly attains its maximum growth, the mind begins to show
its dominance over the body, and all the bodily impulses grow stronger
and more vigorous. Altruism steadily increases; the consciousness of
society grows; an appreciation of individual worth and thought develops;
the call of sex and the love emotion grows in strength; sentiment is
inclined to become strong; boundless enthusiasm manifests itself; and
organization and cooperation begin to appeal and be appreciated more and
more. There is a growth in logic, independent thought, alertness in
thinking, and quickness of receptive powers. The boy at this age is in
the period of highest resolves and greatest endeavor, is apt to show
religious skepticism, and reason often takes the place of his faith.
=Classes of Boys or Boy Types=
In talking about boys either in the aggregate or as individuals it is
best to consider them as representative of certain definite types. Boy
life can be more easily considered in this way by making special study
of particular boy types. In the first place there are the psychological
types--the choleric, the sanguine, the phlegmatic, and the hybrid.
There are also the types of real life with which we are most
familiar--the masterful, the weak, the mischievous, the backward, the
shy, the bully, the joker, the "smartie," the echo or shadow, the quiet
or reticent, the girl-struck, the self-conscious, the unconscious, and
the forgetful. Lastly, we should also consider the different types of
the unfortunate boys, including the deficient, the delinquent, the
criminal, the dependent, the neglected, the foreign born, the
wage-earner, the poverty-stricken, boys of very wealthy parents,
overambitious boys who have overambitious parents, and street boys who
are either loafers or engaged in street trades, or are compelled to use
the street as a playground.
THE CHOLERIC BOY
The choleric fellow who is always off at "half-cock," running his head
into danger whenever he can, and who is extremely hectic in his make-up,
is always a problem. He needs a strong hand. Sometimes he will need
even physical repression, but he always demands great care and patience.
The Teacher should deal with each class of boys largely by suggestion,
but in the case of the choleric fellow he will often need to use orders
and demonstrate that he himself is in the saddle.
THE SANGUINE BOY
The sanguine fellow is the normal boy who, having a good digestion, a
good home and no cause for worry, sees things as they are and is apt to
take them as they come. He will be the easiest kind of a boy to get
along with, and the only thing that the Teacher will have to do may be
to provide for stimulation of his interest and ambition.
THE PHLEGMATIC TYPE
The phlegmatic chap requires patience more than anything else; generally
slow of body, he is usually slow of speech and thought. If the Teacher
is not careful he will be apt to call him "dense," and speak to him
sharply and at times rather crossly. He cannot do this if he expects to
win the fellow. Temperamentally, nature has made him what he is, and the
Teacher will have to work harder, make things more concrete that he
wants to teach, and hold his impatience in check. Phlegmatic though he
is, he will prove solid in everything he does, and he will be either a
rock of strength or of weakness to the Teacher. If he likes the Teacher
nothing will shake his love, but if he has a dislike for him, then the
Teacher is at the end of his endeavor as far as he is concerned.
THE HYBRID BOY IS A PROBLEM
The hybrid boy always furnishes a guessing contest--impulsive today, he
has to be repressed; phlegmatic tomorrow, he has to be stimulated; and
he may be sanguine the next day. There never was a pleasanter boy to
work with, but like the chameleon you are never sure of his color.
"Breath of balm and snow,
June and March together,
In an hour or so."
Just because he is so changeable the Teacher should show him his best
thought and work. It is just such fellows who are inclined to be
shiftless and who are generally crowded out in the fight for life.
Somewhere in the boy's nature, if the Teacher is patient, he will find
the rock bottom upon which to build manhood and citizenship. Such
achievement, however, comes only by great patience and hard work.
THE MASTERFUL BOY AND THE WEAK BOY
The masterful and weak boys represent the antipodes of boyhood. The
masterful boy will see things quickly, will be the leader of his gang,
will instinctively dominate and run the class unless the Teacher is on
his job. The weak boy will follow anywhere, be the cause good or bad,
and become either a devil or a saint. The masterful boy may be handled
by appealing to his sense of leadership. Responsibility should be placed
upon him. The Teacher should make him feel that he is leaning heavily on
him. The weak boy on the other hand should be tied up to some steady
phlegmatic fellow, the phlegmatic fellow being given the vision of how
he can be an older brother to the boy not as strong as himself. The
result will be that the weak boy will catch some of the spirit of the
phlegmatic chap, and gradually get some depth for himself.
THE MISCHIEVOUS BOY
Of all the boy types, the mischievous boy furnishes the real pleasure
for the worker with boys. The fellow whose eyes can twinkle and who will
play a practical trick on the friend he most respects is always a
delight. It is he that keeps the crowd in good humor, who is generally
deepest and most abiding in his affection, and who at the drop of the
hat would fight to the last ditch for his friend. To handle him rightly
does not require a six-foot rod, or a half-inch rule. But the Teacher
must keep him so busy doing the things that he likes that he will have
no dull moments in which to vent his inborn sense of humor.
THE BACKWARD BOY
The backward boy will need to be led out of himself. Give him things to
do which will make him forget himself and, by careful utilization of his
time, gradually he will develop into a normal boy.
THE SHY BOY
The shy boy has merely become shy because of lack of association.
Usually he has been brought up with his mother and sisters and merely
lacks the touch of a man and a man's viewpoint. After he comes in
contact with other boys, this will wear away. The problem of the Teacher
is to get the other boys in his class to pilot the boy into the deeper
waters.
"SMARTIE" AND JOKER TYPES
The "smartie" and the joker types are thorns in the flesh. Just as
thorns when pressed in too deeply require a surgical operation to remove
them, so it may be necessary for the Teacher to "sit on" both the
"smartie" and the joker. If the other boys of the class make up their
minds to unite in the task, both the "smartie" and joker will become
normal boys in less than one season's activities, and the Teacher will
show his generalship to be of the real sort by enlisting the other boys
to do the job.
THE ECHO OR SHADOW TYPE
The echo or shadow type is a serious problem. He it is who generally
hinders the good things in life and helps the bad. He can swear by the
ward boss in party politics, or he can prove himself an obstacle in the
way of civic and national righteousness. The Teacher's task in his case
is to somehow or other strike the cord of independence, teach him to do
things by himself, think for himself and stand on his own feet. Along
the coasts of the North Sea, they teach boys to swim by throwing them
out beyond their depth. It may be necessary to awaken manhood and
independence in the echo by swamping him when he is alone.
THE BULLY
The bully will be the worst type for the Teacher until the right boy
comes along; there is no use in the Teacher worrying himself until he
does, because of the bully's bluster and bluff. Usually the normal boy
will accept him at his face value, and it is only when a lad with
self-assertion comes along that the sparks will fly. Then the bully will
have to back down or take his medicine. A fight between boys is usually
not a good thing, but when it comes to putting the bully in his place it
is one of the greatest institutions that the savage man has invented.
Once a bully has lost his place, he may bluster, but his bluff is over.
THE QUIET OR RETICENT BOY
The quiet or reticent fellow is like the mighty sweeping river. He has
depths which have been unsounded, and his life has promise of great
possibilities. Just the opposite of the bully, he never blusters but
thinks out everything as it comes to him. Every impression is stored
away and out of the countless impressions which are made upon him there
emerges a man of real and wide interests. The task of the Teacher in his
case will be to discover his interests and help him to discover himself.
THE GIRL-STRUCK BOY
The girl-struck fellow somewhat discourages the worker with boys, and
yet it is natural that the boy should look with favorable eyes upon the
girl, just as the robin hears and answers to the call of his mate. Let
no Teacher or any worker with boys of any organization that has ever
been founded dream for one moment that either he or his institutions can
ever block out the lure of the girl. The girl-struck boy will have
numerous cases of puppy love, and it will be the task of the Teacher to
lead the boy into the kind of social relations that will enable him to
be a real value to those of the opposite sex whom he may meet. The boy
will prove a much better husband and father because of his experience.
THE SELF-CONSCIOUS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS BOY
The self-conscious and the unconscious boys are merely victims of their
surroundings. The self-conscious fellow has no confidence in himself. He
is continuously measuring himself by others and is possibly the victim
of parental teaching. The constant injunction to act like "Little
Willie" next door may have gotten on the boy's nerves, and if the lad
has a chance without undue embarrassment he will soon reach the normal
stage, and be always a little more courteous and respectful and
thoughtful than the fellow without this experience. The unconscious
fellow on the other hand will plug along doing all sorts of absurd
things, because of his lack of knowledge of the fitness of things. He is
generally the boy who grows up without any sense of consistency, and who
has had very much his own way of doing things. He will need to be helped
to adjust himself to his environment and to the way that other fellows
live. He also will develop as a good man if the Teacher is a good
worker.
THE FORGETFUL BOY
The same may be said about the forgetful boy and, in fact, about all
boys. The forgetful boy has merely not been interested enough to give
his attention to the things that the Teacher wants him to do. Once a boy
has his interest aroused, the Teacher will have no need of complaint of
forgetfulness or of any lack of interest in the boy.
THE UNFORTUNATE BOYS
The types which have been discussed will generally work out all right
and find their places in the various social strata in the community in
which they live. The unfortunate boys, however, are handicapped
tremendously by their environment and surroundings, and it will often
become a part of the Teacher's work to help secure a change in these
environments. Boys of very wealthy parents and boys from homes of
poverty are usually sinned against by their parents. The parents of
both are either so busy making money and spending it in the social
whirl, or so pushed by the pangs of hunger and the fight for life, that
the children who are brought into the world are left either very much to
themselves or to underlings who have very little interest in the boy's
welfare. It is these neglected boys that oftenest produce our great
criminals. All boys of this type somehow or other are tied together. The
neglected boy generally becomes the delinquent and the delinquent boy
the criminal, so that what might be said about one might also be said
about all. This class constitutes our national deficit when we come to
consider our assets in manhood, and the Teacher can do a tremendous
thing here by helping to form the undeveloped wills of these unfortunate
fellows.
THE DEFICIENT AND THE DEPENDENT
The deficient boy and the dependent are really out of the scope of the
Teacher. The dependent class will have to be taken care of by the
charitable institutions of the State, and the deficient boy because of
his lack of mental development will always be a ward of the community.
THE WAGE-EARNER AND THE OVERAMBITIOUS BOYS
The wage-earning boys and the boys of overambitious parents or those who
are overambitious themselves need all the help and sympathy that they
can get from a Teacher. The father who is pushing his boy because of his
own ambition will very often need to be talked to by the Teacher or his
friends, and given an understanding of the crime he is committing
against his own child. The overambitious fellow who is pushing
everything aside for a definite thing in life will often have to be
talked to in the plainest language by the Teacher to get him to see his
other responsibilities and duties in life. The wage-earning boy who
works from early in the morning until late at night to keep bread in his
mouth and breath in his body will compel the Teacher, if he is really
thoughtful, to give up some of the things which he has already held
dearest and possibly lead his wage-earning boy into outdoor activities,
even on the half holidays which he would naturally spend in the circle
of his own family.
THE STREET, FOREIGN-BORN AND NEGRO BOYS
The street, foreign-born and negro boys will furnish very much the same
kind of problem; because of a general rule, they may be all grouped
under the wage-earning class. Some may be more shiftless than others and
may need more attention, while others may be merely awaiting the touch
of sympathy and the helping hand to make strong men out of them. A
goodly percentage of our greatest Americans have been foreign-born boys,
and, if there is any class that the Teacher should be more patient with
than others, it is the immigrant and the son of the immigrant.
=Grouping Standards=
The Teacher will find it greatly to his advantage to group his boys
according to some standard. Unfortunately, all standards, so far, are
more or less artificial, but approximate success may be secured by using
the experience of boy workers in various parts of the country. The
standard which is most generally used is that of age. It is also the
most unsatisfactory. Boys mature physically rather than chronologically.
This makes the age standard a poor guess, because a boy may be
physically fourteen when he is chronologically eleven, and vice versa.
If the age standard be used, it would be preferable to group all the
boys of twelve years together, then the thirteen-year-old boys in
another group, and the same with the fourteen, the fifteen, the sixteen,
and the seventeen-year-old boys. This would be rather hard to do in
small places, although perfectly feasible in a larger town or city.
Because of its impossibility, as far as the rural districts are
concerned, it might be well to divide the years from twelve to eighteen
into three standards--twelve to fourteen, fourteen to sixteen, and
sixteen to eighteen. The age grouping, however, will never be reliable
in achieving results, as the individual physical development varies so
much.
The height and weight standard is more scientifically correct than the
age standard, although it has not been tested out enough to warrant any
authoritative declaration in its favor. If this method is used for
grouping, the standards for athletic competition among the boys might be
used; that is, all the boys of ninety pounds and under might be put
together, the same being true for those under one hundred and ten, one
hundred and twenty-five, and one hundred and forty pounds. If height is
used, boys of fifty-six and a half inches in height and classifying
under ninety pounds in weight might be grouped together. Also boys of
sixty-three inches in height and coming within the one hundred and ten
pound weight. This standard will doubtless become the real basis of all
groupings in the future, but as yet it needs more demonstration in order
that the various classifications may be made accurately.
A simple and rather satisfactory way of grouping is by the school boy
or wage-earning boy standard. If the boy happens to be in the grammar
school he may be grouped with boys of his own educational advancement;
so with the boys who are in the secondary or high schools, and the same
may be said of working boys who are forced to earn their own livelihood.
Possibly the best and most satisfactory way of grouping boys is by their
interest. Some boys will be mutually interested in collecting stamps,
riding a bicycle, forming a mounted patrol, working with wireless, in
music and orchestra work, etc., and boys grouping together according to
such kindred interests as they manifest has proven most satisfactory in
general boys' work.
=Problems of Boy-handling Simplified by Natural Standard
Grouping=
Grouping the boys according to natural standards makes the problem of
handling them much simpler. Boys between twelve and fourteen are in the
age of authority, and the word of the Teacher will settle most
difficulties that arise. Boys between fourteen and sixteen are in the
age of experience, and an opportunity must be given them to check up
what they are told by what they are experiencing. Between twelve and
fourteen authority may be rigid. Between fourteen and sixteen it must be
giving way to reason. Authority will still continue to settle the boys'
disputes, but it will be the authority that gives reasons for its
action. Boys between the ages of sixteen and eighteen years can only be
handled on the basis of cooperation. They have passed from the stage of
blindly following what they are told. They have experience enough to
know that they are able to do things themselves, and they have
discovered enough things to give them a basis of doing things on their
own account. The way to handle boys rightly in this group will be by
tactful suggestion and cooperation on the part of the teacher. There
will be very little difficulty with the groupings if the Sunday school
superintendent or teacher respects the natural, group "ganging" of the
boys. The boys themselves group, not according to mental efficiency
tests, but according to physiological development. Thus we find boys of
various chronological ages in the same gang. A little common sense will
prevent many blunders.
=Securing Teen Age Teachers=
As soon as Sunday school teaching becomes a dignified, worth-while job,
men will be attracted to the task and privilege. The unemployed male
members of the church will then be led to see that there is something
real to be achieved. The vision of a symmetrically developed boy is all
that is needed to get most men. Of course, they demand a plan, and the
organized Sunday school class with through-the-week activities will
supply that.
Sometimes it is a good thing to send the boys themselves after the
teachers. This has been found to be of great profit in several places.
The request coming from the boys means a lot more than coming from the
superintendent. The following extracts from two letters of a teen age
superintendent give point to this idea.
"On Sunday a bunch of the younger boys came to Mr. Ball, and said, 'We
have no teacher; will you get one for us?' Mr. Ball looked at them, and
said, 'Who do you want, fellows?' They looked at each other--this was
something new. 'Who do we want?' and the leader turned around and said
to the fellows, 'Say, fellows, who _do_ we want?' A hurried consultation
revealed the fact that they wanted, of course, one of the prominent men
of the church. Mr. Ball said, 'All right; get hold of my coat-tail'; and
the crew got hold, and formed a snake line, and out of the school they
went, upstairs to one of the class-rooms, in search of Mr. B. They found
that he had left for home, and the boys looked at Mr. Ball and said,
'Now, what shall we do?' Mr. Ball said, 'Well, fellows, you know where
he lives. I can't go with you, but you fellows go to his home and camp
there until he says yes.' Off they started. Several men were telling me
this story, and one is a neighbor of Mr. B's. He said that when he got
home from Sunday school last Sunday--a bitter cold day--he went out into
his back yard, and, glancing over the fences, he saw a bunch of twelve
boys lined up on Mr. B's back porch, stamping their feet. He called
across to them, 'Say, fellows, what's the matter?' 'We're looking for a
Sunday school teacher,' they yelled back. He said he thought he'd drop.
"The next morning Mr. Ball met Mr. B. in the street car, and he grinned
across at him and said, 'Did a group of boys call on you yesterday, Mr.
B.?' 'They certainly did,' he replied, with a broad grin. 'Well, did
they get you?' 'Did they get me? Yes, they sure got me, and from now on
I'm going to teach their class; there was nothing else for me to do.'"
The story of another teacher acquired in this way reads as follows:
"Before the boys got to his house the man was getting ready for bed. He
had fixed the furnace, and had his bath robe on when the door-bell rang.
He had just said to his wife that he did not think any one would call
that night, and it was then about nine-thirty. When the bell rang his
wife snickered,' as he put it. He went down stairs, turned the gas on
low, and opened the door. Three older fellows stood on the porch. He
looked at them and they at him and then he asked them in. They filed
in--fellows 17 and 18 years of age. He led the way into the library,
like a monk in flowing robes, and the three fellows followed. Seating
themselves solemnly they stated the cause of their visit, and he started
to remonstrate, etc. They settled themselves comfortably in their
chairs, and said they had come to camp there until he 'saw it.' This is
the man's own story. He said that when he saw they were in earnest he
told them he would like to teach a class of fellows such as they, and
that he would take the class if they would get on the job."
=The Teen Age Older Boy as Teacher=
Increasing attention is being given in some places to the training of
older boys for the teaching of younger groups in the Sunday school. On
"Decision Day" volunteers are being asked to enter a Training Class, and
choice Christian boys are in this way being interested in the teaching
work of the school. In other places older boys are being put in charge
of younger boys' classes, and are meeting, either on Sunday or on a
week-night, for training. This latter plan affords real laboratory work,
without which teacher-training courses are pure theory. We learn by
doing.
The teen age boy as teacher will ultimately solve the problem of the
teen age teaching force. As Japan, Corea, India and China must
eventually be Christianized by native Christian forces, so the teen age
in the Sunday school will, of necessity, in principle and practice, be
led by the teen age. The duty of the missionary in non-christian lands
is to train the native forces for the task of Christianizing these
lands; likewise, the men of this Sunday school generation must lead and
train the older adolescent in the Secondary Division of the school for
the leading of the teen age into the service of the church.
PREPARATION FOR TEACHING
The really great task of the Christian adult and older boy in the Sunday
school is a real training for service. Stopping the leak from the teen
age in the Sunday school will never be accomplished until workers are
willing to prepare and equip themselves to a point where their wisdom,
ability and consecration will attract the active minds of the teen boys.
Every teacher should be an International Standard Teacher Training
graduate. Information concerning this course can be obtained from any
Sunday School Association.
PATIENCE NECESSARY IN THE TEACHER
Things cannot happen in a day. Christianity itself is a growing,
developing thing. "First the seed, then the blade, then the ear, then
the full corn in the ear." Have patience! Maybe you will have to win the
boys yourself first, before you can win them for Him. Read this letter
from a man who has the vision, the plan and a lot of common-sense
patience, and think it over:
"Very recently I came across your card, and it brought to mind the
promise I made to report progress with my class of boys.
"You see so many people in the course of a week, to say nothing of a
couple of months, that it may be well to remind you that I am the chap
who came to your room in ----, and afterward stuck to you all the way
to ---- when you were leaving town.
"When I saw you I was having an average attendance of three, if one is
allowed to stretch a fraction of a boy into a whole one, and a
membership in the class of four. These boys had lost all interest in the
Sunday school, and it was only that 'Dad said you must' that any of them
came at all to the service.
"Today I have done as well as the faithful servants, and behold my four
talents have gained other four. There is no longer a membership and
average attendance, for they all come when they are not sick or out of
town; and one thing which is a wonder to me is that a good many of the
boys from other schools come to us whenever there is no service in their
own churches.
"I have not said 'now boys' to this class once, but we have gone hunting
caves and are going again next Thursday, and we are all going camping if
we can arrange a time during the summer.
"These boys, who used to come to the church with a lurching walk and
underlip stuck out, now come in like men. They have covered the class
room walls with pictures from magazines, have brought rocking chairs
from home and use their room as the place to plan the fun for the
following week. They have, after some pretty violent pushing from the
teacher, petitioned the powers to give the basement of the church over
to them and the other classes of intermediate grade for the purpose of
having a social evening once each week. The petition has been granted
and we will probably open up about May 16th.
"None of my class show any violent signs of getting converted yet, but
when one considers that this is a class who could not keep a teacher
over three or four Sundays; who used to start a rough-house on all
proper and improper occasions, and who had been known to throw books or
any other handy article when they got sick of hearing any more Bible, I
think I can report progress.
"The most of my boys were arrested a couple of months ago for breaking
into summer camps and looking around. Today three of them came to my
office with one of their friends who had cut his foot and told me all
about their trouble, owning up to the whole business and ending by
saying that if I would take their Boy Scout society they would cut all
that kind of business out. I wish to God I had the time to take up this
Boy Scout job, but I have not; but I will do the next best thing by
taking them hiking on Thursday, which is my day of rest.
"One can't teach boys like these the beauties of religion any more than
he can teach Greek to a puppy. They are not up to this kind of thing, so
I am trying to teach them to be men, and when we get that lesson we
will try the higher one. Of course, I give them the moral side of every
lesson and point out how God has worked through some mighty mean
material.
"We still have a fight once in a while during class hours, and I call
time when they get too near the stove, but this is to be expected in a
class which is entirely self-governing. I never have said one word about
anything they have done in the class, except to impress upon them that
they should be men and the lesson is working slowly.
"Now, my good sir, don't try to reply to this letter. I know you get a
good many just like it, and I am writing just to give you my experience
in the hope that it may help some one else; also because I promised to
let you know what progress the class was making.
"_If you will drop into ---- in a year from now I hope to be able to point
to a much larger class than the first six months has shown and to show
you the majority in the church_.
"Thanking you for reading this far and
with kindest wishes, I am
"Very truly yours."
=The Boy the Main Issue=
The idea that must continually be kept in mind is the boy's good and the
boy. A lot of our teachers in the public schools are trying to teach the
subject-matter of the book when they ought to be teaching the boy. They
employ static methods. You can get up a goal for attainment and the boy
will reach the goal. Generally, however, he will go no higher than you
point. Your teaching should be dynamic rather than static.
Aim to secure balanced, symmetrical activities for your class. Remember
your boy is four-sided, that he is physical, mental, social and
religious in his nature. Do not neglect any one side of him, but get the
proper agencies to cooperate with you for these ends. _Let the boys do
whatever they can. Merely insist on adequate adult supervision_. Above
all be patient, practical and business-like and remember that old heads
never grow on young shoulders. _The Sunday school Teacher should take
his place in the community by the side of the teacher of secular
instruction. He is an educator, and is dealing with the most plastic and
most valuable asset in the community--boyhood_. Let him take his task
seriously, look upon his privilege with a desire to accomplish great
things, and always remember that the good of the boy is his ultimate
aim.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE TEEN AGE TEACHER
Brumbaugh.--The Making of a Teacher ($1.00).
Foster.--Starting to Teach (.40).
James.--Talks to Teachers ($1.50).
Kirkpatrick.--Individual in the Making ($1.25).
McElfresh.--Training of Sunday-school Teachers (_in preparation_).
Schauffler.--Lamoreaux-Brumbaugh-Lawrance. Training the Teacher ($1.00).
XX
DANGER POINTS
A real danger lies in boys' groups which are seemingly organized, yet
which really have no organization. A few Bible classes have officers,
such as president, secretary, and treasurer, and a few standing
committees, all of whom take no real part in the class life, the teacher
doing everything himself and attempting to deceive the boys by giving
them a show of organization. Such classes are detrimental to the spirit
of boys' work, and should not be tolerated.
The teacher who cannot retire his leadership to the rear of the class,
instead of posing at the front, is another serious damper to organized
work with boys in the Sunday school. A leader should have a strong
Christian character, have the quality of commanding the respect of
boys, have the ability to direct boys in doing things, be keen in his
sympathy, have patience and persistence, and be absolutely natural in
his bearing. He encourages freedom of thought on the part of the boys,
believes that a boy has brains enough of his own to think on any point
that may be discussed, is open and above-board in his teaching, has a
strong grip upon the practical truths of life, and tries to lead his
boys out of doubt and difficulty by the path of service.
If dangers such as these be eliminated from boys' work in connection
with the Sunday school, and if the spirit of sincerity and earnestness
pervades the work of the leaders, there should be little difficulty in
raising the boy through the physical, social and mental to the larger
spiritual expression for which the church stands. Every week hundreds of
boys of the adolescent years are lining up for Christian service all
over our land, and if the ideas and directions given these boys are of
the right sort, within one generation there will be no boy problem, for
the boy problem of this generation is not the problem of the boys, but
the problem of the men who are leading boys.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON DANGER POINTS
The Older Boy Sunday School Superintendent (_American Youth_, October,
1912). (.20).
Robinson.--The Adolescent Boy in the Sunday School (_American Youth_,
April, 1911). Single copies out of print but bound volume for 1911 may
be obtained for $1.50.
Statten.--Danger Lines in Using Boys (_American Youth_, June, 1912)
(.20).
XXI
THE RURAL SUNDAY SCHOOL
The problem of the rural Sunday school is its size and equipment. The
average number in the school is around eighty, and the building is
nearly always a single room. Some very small villages, near great
cities, and even some struggling mission Sunday schools in these cities
have to contend with the same problem. Some of this volume will apply to
the rural Sunday school, and some will not. It is the province of this
chapter to point out the parts that apply.
Everything that has to deal with the Organized Class or group is
applicable. The Organized Class is the unit and beginning of all
organization. The boy gang, or group, is common to both city and rural
district. There is no problem in either place, if there is no group of
boys. The Departmental groupings may not be feasible. Usually they are
not. There may not be enough groups of boys to form a club or Boy Scout
Troop or a chapter of a boy order. Generally this is true. And, after
all, it is a distinct gain to the Sunday school, as the grouping that is
made by force of compulsion is the Organized Class or group. The chapter
on the Organized Sunday School Bible Class will apply itself to the
rural school, wherever there is a half dozen boys and it is given a
chance.
The chapter on Bible Study will likewise fit into the rural situation.
No matter whether the boys be urban or rural, they demand Bible Study
that will fit into their religious, developing needs. Perhaps Bible
Study courses with rural application need to be arranged, and I am led
to believe that the illustrative material should be vastly different
from that used for city boys, and of a rural character. However, there
has been too much written and spoken of the difference between rural and
urban boys. The differences discovered by the writer seem to be all in
favor of the country boy--more wholesome surroundings, more quiet and
less nerve-destroying interests, and more time, because of fewer
commercial amusements to really discover things for themselves. The
average rural boy has read more and knows more about current events than
the city-bred lad. The country boy should not be provincialized by his
Bible Study, or anything else. He should be given as large a touch with
the world of men and letters as any one else. The illustrations used in
Lesson Helps, etc., should have some bearing on the life he leads, that
the application of the study may germinate in his daily life, else the
study will have little meaning, but he needs no separate, distinct
courses. It is not a different selection of material, but a different
treatment that is needed. The Denominational Leaders will sooner or
later be forced to heed this cry from the largest section of the Sunday
school field. Until they do Graded Lessons will not gain materially in
the open country.
On the other hand, where there is only one group of adolescent boys in
the Sunday school, Graded Lessons are practicable, as well as necessary
to the best religious development of boyhood. The grading is cut down to
a minimum, and it merely means fewer classes studying the same lesson.
It would mean just the one group, with a new course each year. The
difficulty is not with the lessons, but with the school officials and
the teacher.
The chapter on Through-the-Week Activities is very applicable. The gang
will get together some time, on Saturday night, if not at another time.
The Young Men's Christian Association County Work Secretaries are
getting the boys of the open country together for week-night meetings
without trouble. "Get something doing" and see how quickly the rural
boys will get together. These activities again will differ greatly from
those of city boys. There will be great emphasis on the Social and
Mental as against the Out-of-Door doings of the urban adolescents. The
principle already laid down, to let the boys themselves decide the
activity, will settle this difficulty at the start.
So as to the chapter on the Teen Age Teacher! Boys and men are the same
pretty much, wherever they live. They may be more deliberate, less
showy, and steadier in some places than others, but we cannot admit
inferiority or lack of interest on the part of the splendid rural boy.
He is filling the big jobs in our cities today, and will as long as the
cities last. The teen age teacher in the rural school needs to master
himself for his task. He is doing a bigger piece of work than his
brother of the city school. He is preparing men for urban leadership.
To make a long story short, the parts of this book that deal with the
small group are applicable to the rural Sunday school. The teen age
teacher in the rural school should begin with these, and maybe after a
while he will see opportunities for larger groupings. The Young Men's
Christian Association County Work Secretary certainly is. Inter-Sunday
school work is possible by the Sunday school forces themselves.
A fitting close to this chapter is the challenge to the teen age
teachers of the rural schools, which Mr. Preston G. Orwig has hurled at
North America:
"Every rural school has its quota of workers who are, perhaps
unconsciously, limiting their own usefulness, as well as retarding the
progress of the school, by meeting every new plan of work proposed with
the statement that, 'That plan is all right for the city, but it won't
work here because we have so few members and our people live so far
apart.' With the exception of the man who constantly reminds us that 'we
did not do it this way thirty years ago,' and who, in some cases, is
really a menace to the work, there is no greater obstacle confronting
workers in rural schools.
"In a recent conference of Secondary Division workers in rural Sunday
schools, a speaker was advocating the necessity of recognizing the
fourfold--physical, mental, social and spiritual--life of the scholars,
in planning for the work of the class. The tremendous opportunity of
teachers for reaching adolescent boys for Jesus Christ, through their
physical and social instincts, was emphasized. Luke 2:52 was quoted to
clinch the argument. In the discussion that followed everybody seemed
satisfied that a broader policy of work should be pursued. At this
juncture a man in the audience arose, and, in a most uncompromising
manner, attempted to show that it was useless to promote such methods
for rural schools, as the scattered population and limited membership
made it impossible to develop the work along the lines proposed.
"Later in the day, two of the members in this man's own class were
interviewed, and, in answer to direct questions concerning the above two
points, stated that during the winter months older boys and girls, many
of whom attended that very school, went as often as three nights a week
to a small pond in the community to skate, some of them traveling from
three to four miles to get there. Other sports were indulged in,
according to the season, and, according to these boys, they seldom
experienced great difficulty in getting 'a crowd' together. Frequently
their games wound up in a grand free-for-all fight.
"Now, had this teacher recognized the educative value of supervised play
and planned to meet his fellows on the ice, as a class, he would have
formed contacts there which he could never hope to form by simply
meeting them in the Sunday afternoon session. In addition to that he
would have an opportunity to help the class to apply practically the
truths of the Sunday lesson in the activities of everyday life.
"It would be well for such workers to remember that in some of our
larger cities one must oftentimes travel from one to two hours on
crowded trolley cars, in distance, perhaps, eight or ten miles, in order
to meet with his class. Again, in some sections of the city, populated
mostly by foreigners, the Sunday schools are often smaller, in point of
membership, than many of the rural schools.
"It matters not whether the boy or girl lives in the city or country,
the needs are the same. What is needed is 'Visioned Leadership.'
"It is, in a sense, pathetic, to note that these objections are always
of adult origin and are not the verdict of the boys. They, however, must
suffer in a handicapped development, through the shortsightedness of
their leaders. Where there's a will, there's a way."
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE RURAL SUNDAY SCHOOL
Cope.--Efficiency in the Sunday School ($1.00).
Fiske.--The Challenge of the Country (.75).
The Rural Church Message--Men and Religion Movement ($1.00).
XXII
THE RELATION OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL TO COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS
The church school is not, by any means, the only force in the community,
as far as the boy is concerned, but it is destined to be the biggest
force. The church, itself, is the most permanent institution of the
community, and will always be so, as long as humanity remains religious.
In the church are all the conserving elements of the community--slow to
change, it stands for the best. Having adopted anything after approved
worth commends it, it tenaciously holds it in trust. Communities may
have homes and schools, but, without the church, they are not good
places in which to live. The church, then, because it is most permanent,
should tie the loyalty of the boy to herself. This she best does
through her school--the Sunday school.
There are, however, other church forces in the community--organizations
fostered and supported by the material and moral enthusiasm of the
members of the church. Some of these organizations have been frankly
formed for the purpose of assisting the church in some special field of
religious education. This is essentially true of such boy organizations
as the Knights of King Arthur, Knights of St. Paul, Knights of the Holy
Grail, and the Boys' Brigade. It is essentially true, also, of the Young
Men's Christian Association. The first of these--the boy
organizations--constitutes a method which is at the disposal of the
church. The second--the Christian Association--has grown to be a mighty
operating force, with hundreds of employed officers and millions of
dollars of property. Save for the fact that church members compose the
directorates, it is independent of the church. With this and other
organizations what can the church's relationship be? The seeming answer
would be cooperation--a glad working together for the general betterment
of the community itself by tried and approved plans. However, a new
condition has arisen, which offers more than general cooperation between
the Church and these organizations for the teen age boy. Until recently
the church school had no clear-cut method for working with the teen age
lad, while the boy organizations referred to had such a method, and the
Young Men's Christian Association, after years of work, has a force of
more or less experienced experts in boy life in its employ. The methods
of these boy organizations and the boy experts of the Young Men's
Christian Association must have a field of operation, and the best
field, of course, is that of the church school, where boys should be
found. The Young Men's Christian Association, in its own building,
touches but a minute fraction of the boy life of the city in which it
operates, and, to touch the city boy life, must get out of its building.
It then has a choice of fields, Public Playground, Public School, or
Community Betterment. If, however, it is true to the principle of its
founding--to be an arm of the Church among young men--that which it
attempts to do should be tied up to the Church, or, in the case of teen
age boys, to the church school. To accomplish the latter, what shall the
procedure be? Shall the Young Men's Christian Association win the boy,
and then deliver him, saved for service, to the Church, or shall the
Young Men's Christian Association work with the Church as part of the
Church inside the church school? Common sense would say both ways, and
all other ways possible, just so the boy stands saved and in the Church
for service. And this is as it should be, and the employed experts of
the Young Men's Christian Association should render service to the
Church, both within and without the Church--and this service may be
through method, or organization, or both. At all times the weakness of
the Church should be the Association's opportunity to help the Church
realize herself, and this can best be accomplished by the constructive
suggestion that works its way out on the inside of the organization.
Little help comes from battering a wall on the outside. At least it does
not help the house inside any. Cooperation, then, must be understood as
the internal assistance given the Church herself to realize the need and
the plan to meet it.
In this regard every organization must clearly understand the church it
seeks to aid. Most organizations have singular aims and motives. The
Church is a complex organization, with many needs. The church school has
many divisions and departments, has two sexes to minister to, embraces
all ages, from the cradle to the grave, and usually has no paid
officers. Through it all proportion has to be maintained--balance of
organization, fair opportunity for all, young or old, male and female. A
plan for the education of the teen age boy will no more solve the
problem of the Sunday school than it would the educational, physical
employment, or social difficulties of the Young Men's Christian
Association. In proper relationship to the other factors of the problem
in church school, or Young Men's Christian Association, it would help
the whole organization. It surely takes more than plaster to make a
house, important as is plaster.
The Sunday school has its own problems of organization, sexes, ages,
equipment, equality, fair-play, opportunity, leadership, etc. No
organization can help these problems from the outside, or by emphasis on
any one phase. Gain in one department may be loss in another. The Sunday
school needs proportionate gain.
The Sunday school, therefore, should welcome any organization or method
that bids fair to help in the solution of its problems. It should
eagerly avail itself, especially, of the aid that the Boy Life Expert of
the Young Men's Christian Association can give, thus reducing religious,
economic duplication, and achieving united conservation of boy life. On
the other hand, the Boy Life Expert of the Young Men's Christian
Association should thoroughly acquaint himself with the genius of the
Sunday school, the plan of its organization, and the pith of all its
problems of sex and age, leadership and training, aims and objectives.
He should also know thoroughly the policies of denominational and
interdenominational Sunday school bodies, and, where there are
denominations in plural quantity, this may mean a task worth while.
Sometimes it is a slow process. Surely, so! The Kingdom, with all the
wisdom of Heaven, has been twenty centuries in the building, and it has
been wrought out in the Church. The contribution that each man or woman
makes must be small, but likewise great in its possibilities, if wisely,
patiently given.
An organization cannot be permanently helped by introducing into its
life the methods of another without the process of assimilation; neither
can strength be given merely a part of the body to cure the whole.
Organic tone is needed. Intelligent, Sunday school-wide cooperation!
This is the invitation of the church school to all existing
organizations. The conditions of the challenge are not easy, but the
task is interesting and worth while, and the promise of increased
efficiency is great indeed.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON SUNDAY SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS
Lawrance.--The Cooperation Sunday Schools Desire (_American Youth_,
April, 1911) (.20).
Flood.--A Federation of Sunday School Clubs (_American Youth_, April,
1911) (.20).
Alexander.--Sunday School Use of Association Equipment (_American
Youth_, April, 1911) (.20).
FOOTNOTES:
[1: Makes provisions for sick and shut-ins but essentially meant for
adults.]
[2: A large part of this chapter is taken from Secondary Division
Leaflet Number 2, International Sunday School Association.]
[3: Older Boy]
[4: Adult]
[5: Much of this Chapter has been drawn from Secondary Division Leaflet
Number 4, International Sunday School Association.]
[6: Much of this Chapter has been drawn from Secondary Division Leaflet
Number 1, International Sunday School Association.]
[7: The Executive Committee of the Department should have membership on
the Sunday School Board.]
[8: These conference may also be state wide in their scope.]
[9: This Chapter is largely drawn from International Sunday School
Association, Second Division Leaflet Number 5.]
[10: This Chapter is a compilation of articles written by the author in
the _Westminster Teacher_ and _Illinois Trumpet Call_.]
[11: This Chapter is a blending of articles written for the Boy Scout
Master's Handbook, the _Adult Magazine_ and hitherto unpublished
material.]
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