The Boy and the Sunday School

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).

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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).

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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).

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