Project Gutenberg's The Boy and the Sunday School, by John L. Alexander
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
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
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOY AND THE SUNDAY SCHOOL ***
Produced by Curtis Weyant, Thomas Hutchinson and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.
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.
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).
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).
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).
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).
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 (1 Minute-3 years) |
Beginners' Department (4-5 years) |
Primary Department (6-8 years) |
Junior Department | (A) Intermediate Department (13-16 years) |
(A) Senior Department (17-20 years) |
Adult Bible Class Department (21 years +) |
Home[1]Department Visitation Department |
Missionary Temperance Purity Training Parents Parents & Teachers Etc. |
| (B) Teen Age or High School Department | ||||||||
| Girls' Department (13-20 years) (C) Boys' Department (13-20 years) | ||||||||
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).
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).
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).
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 _______________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.
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[B] | Athletic
Vice-President[B] | Social
Secretary[B] | Membership[3]
Treasurer[A] | Program[4]
Teacher[A] | 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] Adult [B] Older Boy
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.
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 BlankBIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE ORGANIZED CLASS
International Leaflets on Secondary Adult Classes (Free).
Pearce.—The Adult Bible Class (.25).
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. |
| Primary | Six Seven Eight | A Unit of three years. |
| Junior | Nine Ten | Lower--A Unit of two years. |
| Eleven Twelve | Upper--A Unit of two years. | |
| Intermediate | Thirteen Fourteen | Lower--A Unit of two years. |
| Fifteen Sixteen | Upper--A Unit of two years. | |
| Senior | Seventeen | A Unit of one year. |
| Eighteen Nineteen | A Unit of two years. | |
| Twenty | ||
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).
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.
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).
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).
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:
AthleticsCommittee 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 BUSINESSCommittee on Church Life
The Church Life Committee also has a double task. Its activities along the lines of church life are as follows:
WORSHIP MEMBERSHIP AND BENEVOLENCES
Morning Preaching ServiceCommittee 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
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
| | Inter-Class Inter-Church Life
Superintendent[b] | | Life
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).
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).
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.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.C. Three Day (Part) Conference.
PROGRAM
Conference Theme, "Training and Service."
Friday, December 13
Beginning at 8:30 A.M. Addresses in seven HighSaturday
9:00 A.M. Songs and Devotional, led by W.H.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.
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 BanquetThis 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).
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 ______________________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.
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.
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.
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.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).
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).
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).
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).
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).
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 Cæsar, 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.
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.
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).
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).
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).
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:
End of Project Gutenberg's The Boy and the Sunday School, by John L. Alexander
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOY AND THE SUNDAY SCHOOL ***
***** This file should be named 15923-h.htm or 15923-h.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/9/2/15923/
Produced by Curtis Weyant, Thomas Hutchinson and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.
*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
https://gutenberg.org/license).
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that
- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg-tm works.
- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
of receipt of the work.
- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
page at https://pglaf.org
For additional contact information:
Dr. Gregory B. Newby
Chief Executive and Director
gbnewby@pglaf.org
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit https://pglaf.org
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
https://www.gutenberg.org
This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.