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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/17570-0.txt b/17570-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..78d336d --- /dev/null +++ b/17570-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8729 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Religious Education in the Family, by Henry +F. Cope + + +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: Religious Education in the Family + + +Author: Henry F. Cope + + + +Release Date: January 21, 2006 [eBook #17570] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE +FAMILY*** + + +E-text prepared by Stacy Brown Thellend, Kevin Handy, John Hagerson, and +the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team +(http://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE FAMILY + +by + +HENRY F. COPE + +General Secretary of the Religious Education Association + + + + + + + +The University of Chicago Press +Chicago, Illinois +Copyright 1915 by +The University of Chicago +All Rights Reserved +Published April 1915 +Second Impression September 1915 +Third Impression March 1916 +Fourth Impression June 1917 +Fifth Impression August 1920 +Sixth Impression July 1922 +Seventh Impression September 1922 +Composed and Printed By +The University of Chicago Press +Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. + +The University of Chicago Press +Chicago, Illinois + +The Baker and Taylor Company +New York + +The Cambridge University Press +London + +The Maruzen-Kabushiki-Kaisha +Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Sendai + +The Mission Book Company +Shanghai + + + + +PREFACE + + +In the work of religious education, with which the present series of +books is concerned, the life of the family rightly occupies a central +place. The church has always realized its duty to exhort parents to +bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, but +very little has ever been done to enable parents to study systematically +and scientifically the problem of religious education in the family. +Today parents' classes are being formed in many churches; Christian +Associations, women's clubs, and institutes are studying the subject; +individual parents are becoming more and more interested in the rational +performance of their high duties. And there is a general desire for +guidance. As the full bibliography at the end of this volume and the +references in connection with each chapter indicate, there is available +a very large literature dealing with the various elements of the +problem. But a guidebook to organize all this material and to stimulate +independent thought and endeavor is desirable. + +To afford this guidance the present volume has been prepared. It is +equally adapted for the thoughtful study of the father and mother who +are seeking help in the moral and religious development of their own +family, and for classes in churches, institutes, and neighborhoods, +where the important problems of the family are to be studied and +discussed. It would be well to begin the use of the book by reading the +suggestions for class work at the end of the volume. + +With a confident hope that religion in the family is not to be a wistful +memory of the past but a most vital force in the making of the better +day that is coming, this volume is offered as a contribution and a +summons. + + The Editors + +New Year's Day, 1915 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + I. An Interpretation of the Family 1 + + II. The Present Status of Family Life 10 + + III. The Permanent Elements in Family Life 27 + + IV. The Religious Place of the Family 37 + + V. The Meaning Of Religious Education in the Family 46 + + VI. The Child's Religious Ideas 60 + + VII. Directed Activity 75 + + VIII. The Home as a School 87 + + IX. The Child's Ideal Life 101 + + X. Stories and Reading 110 + + XI. The Use of the Bible in the Home 119 + + XII. Family Worship 126 + + XIII. Sunday in the Home 145 + + XIV. The Ministry of the Table 164 + + XV. The Boy and Girl in the Family 173 + + XVI. The Needs of Youth 183 + + XVII. The Family and the Church 198 + + XVIII. Children and the School 212 + + XIX. Dealing with Moral Crises 218 + + XX. Dealing with Moral Crises (_Continued_) 231 + + XXI. Dealing with Moral Crises (_Continued_) 240 + + XXII. Dealing with Moral Crises (_Concluded_) 249 + + XXIII. The Personal Factors in Religious Education 259 + + XXIV. Looking to the Future 268 + +Suggestions for Class Work 281 + +A Book List 290 + +Index 297 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +AN INTERPRETATION OF THE FAMILY + + +§ 1. TAKING THE HOME IN RELIGIOUS TERMS + +The ills of the modern home are symptomatic. Divorce, childless +families, irreverent children, and the decadence of the old type of +separate home life are signs of forgotten ideals, lost motives, and +insufficient purposes. Where the home is only an opportunity for +self-indulgence, it easily becomes a cheap boarding-house, a +sleeping-shelf, an implement for social advantage. While it is true that +general economic developments have effected marked changes in domestic +economy, the happiness and efficiency of the family do not depend wholly +on the parlor, the kitchen, or the clothes closet. Rather, everything +depends on whether the home and family are considered in worthy and +adequate terms. + +Homes are wrecked because families refuse to take home-living in +religious terms, in social terms of sacrifice and service. In such +homes, organized and conducted to satisfy personal desires rather than +to meet social responsibilities, these desires become ends rather than +agencies and opportunities. + +They who marry for lust are divorced for further lust. Selfishness, even +in its form of self-preservation, is an unstable foundation for a home. +It costs too much to maintain a home if you measure it by the personal +advantages of parents. What hope is there for useful and happy family +life if the newly wedded youth have both been educated in selfishness, +habituated to frivolous pleasures, and guided by ideals of success in +terms of garish display? Yet what definite program for any other +training does society provide? Do the schools and colleges, Sunday +schools and churches teach youth a better way? How else shall they be +trained to take the home and family in terms that will make for +happiness and usefulness? It is high time to take seriously the task of +educating people to religious efficiency in the home. + + +§ 2. THE RELIGIOUS MOTIVE + +The family needs a religious motive. More potent for happiness than +courses in domestic economy will be training in sufficient domestic +motives. It will take much more than modern conveniences, bigger +apartments, or even better kitchens to make the new home. Essentially +the problem is not one of mechanics but of persons. What we call the +home problem is more truly a _family_ problem. It centers in persons; +the solution awaits a race with new ideals, educated to live as more +than dust, for more than dirt, for personality rather than for +possessions. We need young people who establish homes, not simply +because they feel miserable when separated, nor because one needs a +place in which to board and the other needs a boarder, but because the +largest duty and joy of life is to enrich the world with other lives and +to give themselves in high love to making those other lives of the +greatest possible worth to the world. + +The family must come to a recognition of social obligations. We all hope +for the coming ideal day. Everywhere men and women are answering to +higher ideals of life. But the new day waits for a new race. Modern +emphasis on the child is a part of present reaction from materialism. +New social ideals are personal. We seek a better world for the sake of a +higher race. The emphasis on child-welfare has a social rather than a +sentimental basis. The family is our great chance to determine childhood +and so to make the future. The child of today is basic to the social +welfare of tomorrow. He is our chance to pay to tomorrow all that we owe +to yesterday. The family as the child's life-school is thus central to +every social program and problem. + + +§ 3. WIDER CHILD-WELFARE + +This age knows that man does not live by bread alone. Interest in +child-welfare is for the sake of the child himself, not for the sake of +his clothes or his physical condition. Concern about soap and +sanitation, hygiene and the conveniences of life grows because these all +go to make up the soil in which the person grows. There is danger that +our emphasis on child-welfare may be that of the tools instead of the +man; that we may become enmeshed in the mechanism of well-being and lose +sight of the being who should be well. To fail at the point of character +is to fail all along the line. And we fail altogether, no matter how +many bathtubs we give a child, how many playgrounds, medical +inspections, and inoculations, unless that child be in himself strong +and high-minded, loving truth, hating a lie, and habituated to live in +good-will with his fellows and with high ideals for the universe. Modern +interest in the material factors of life is on account of their potency +in making real selfhood; we acknowledge the importance of the physical +as the very soil in which life grows. But the fruits are more than the +soil, and a home exists for higher purposes than physical conveniences; +these are but its tools to its great end. Somehow for purposes of social +well-being we must raise our thinking of the family to the aim of the +development of efficient, rightly minded character. The family must be +seen as making spiritual persons. + + +§ 4. THE COST OF A FAMILY + +Taking the home in religious terms will mean, then, conceiving it as an +institution with a religious purpose, namely, that of giving to the +world children who are adequately trained and sufficiently motived to +live the social life of good-will. The family exists to give society +developed, efficient children. It fails if it does not have a religious, +a spiritual product. It cannot succeed except by the willing +self-devotion of adult lives to this spiritual, personal purpose. + +A family is the primary social organization for the elementary purpose +of breeding the species, nurturing and training the young. This is its +physiological basis. But its duties cannot be discharged on the +physiological plane alone. This elementary physiological function is +lifted to a spiritual level by the aim of character and the motive of +love. Families cannot be measured by their size; they must be measured +by the character of their products. If quality counts anywhere it counts +here, though it is well to remember that it takes some reasonable +quantity to make right quality in each. + +The family needs a religious motive. It demands sacrifice. To follow +lower impulses is to invite disaster. The home breeds bitterness and +sorrow wherever men and women court for lust, marry for social standing, +and maintain an establishment only as a part of the game of social +competition. To sow the winds of passion, ease, idle luxury, pride, and +greed is to reap the whirlwind. Moreover, it is to miss the great +chance of life, the chance to find that short cut to happiness which +men call pain and suffering. + +A family is humanity's great opportunity to walk the way of the cross. +Mothers know that; some fathers know it; some children grow up to learn +it. In homes where this is true, where all other aims are subordinated +to this one of making the home count for high character, to training +lives into right social adjustment and service, the primary emphasis is +not on times and seasons for religion; religion is the life of that +home, and in all its common living every child learns the way of the +great Life of all. In vain do we torture children with adult religious +penances, long prayers, and homilies, thinking thereby to give them +religious training. The good man comes out of the good home, the home +that is good in character, aim, and organization, not sporadically but +permanently, the home where the religious spirit, the spirit of +idealism, and the sense of the infinite and divine are diffused rather +than injected. The inhuman, antisocial vampires, who suck their +brothers' blood, whether they be called magnates or mob-leaders, +grafters or gutter thieves, often learned to take life in terms of graft +by the attitude and atmosphere of their homes.[1] + + +§ 5. MOTIVES FOR A STUDY OF THE FAMILY + +The modern family is worthy of our careful study. It demands painstaking +attention, both because of its immediate importance to human happiness +and because of its potentiality for the future of society. The kind of +home and the character of family life which will best serve the world +and fulfil the will of God cannot be determined by sentiment or +supposition. We are under the highest and sternest obligation to +discover the laws of the family, those social laws which are determined +by its nature and purpose, to find right standards for family life, to +discriminate between the things that are permanent and those that are +passing, between those we must conserve and those we must discard, to be +prepared to fit children for the finer and higher type of family life +that must come in the future. + +Methods of securing family efficiency will not be discovered by +accident. If it is worth while to study the minor details, such as +baking cakes and sweeping floors, surely it is even more important to +study the larger problems of organization and discipline. There is a +science of home-direction and an art of family living; both must be +learned with patient study. + +It is a costly thing to keep a home where honor, the joy of love, and +high ideals dwell ever. It costs time, pleasures, and so-called social +advantages, as well as money and labor. It must cost thought, study, +and investigation. It demands and deserves sacrifice; it is too sacred +to be cheap. The building of a home is a work that endures to eternity, +and that kind of work never was done with ease or without pain and loss +and the investment of much time. Patient study of the problems of the +family is a part of the price which all may pay. + +No nobler social work, no deeper religious work, no higher educational +work is done anywhere than that of the men and women, high or humble, +who set themselves to the fitting of their children for life's business, +equipping them with principles and habits upon which they may fall back +in trying hours, and making of home the sweetest, strongest, holiest, +happiest place on earth. + +Heaven only knows the price that must be paid for that; heaven only +knows the worth of that work. But if we are wise we shall each take up +our work for our world where it lies nearest to us, in co-operation with +parents, in service and sacrifice as parents or kin, our work in the +shop where manhood is in the making, where it is being made fit to dwell +long in the land, in the family at home. + + + I. References for Study + + Edward Lyttleton, _The Corner-Stone of Education_, chaps. i, vii. + Putnam, $1.50. + + A. Gandier, "Religious Education in the Home," _Religious + Education_, June, 1914, pp. 233-42. + + + II. Further Reading + + _The Family a Religious Agency_ + + C.F. and C.B. Thwing, _The Family_. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, $1.60. + + J.D. Folsom, _Religious Education in the Home_. Eaton & Mains, + $0.75. + + G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_. Revell, $1.35. + + + _The Place of the Family_ + + A.J. Todd, _The Family as an Educational Agency_. Putnam, $2.00. + + W.F. Lofthouse, _Ethics and the Family_. Hodder & Stoughton, $2.50. + + J.B. Robins, _The Family a Necessity_. Revell, $1.25. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. Describe the changes within recent times in the conditions of + the home, its work, housing, and supplies. How far have these + changes affected the community of the family, the continuity of its + personal relationships, and its religious service? + + 2. What are the fundamental causes of family disasters? Admitting + that there are sufficient grounds for divorce in numerous + instances, what other causes enter into the high number of + divorces? + + 3. State in your own terms the ultimate reasons for the maintenance + of a family. + + 4. What are the motives which would make people willing to bear the + high cost of founding and conducting a home? + + 5. What points of emphasis does this study suggest in the matter of + the education of public opinion? + + 6. State your distinction between the family and the home; which is + the more important and why? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _The Corner-Stone of Education_, by Edward Lyttleton, headmaster of +Eton, is a striking argument on the determinative influence of parental +habits and attitudes of mind. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE PRESENT STATUS OF FAMILY LIFE + + +§ 1. CONTRASTED TYPES + +In a beautiful village, in one of the farther western states, two men +were discussing the possible future of the home and of family life. +Sitting in the brilliant moonlight, looking through the leafy shades, +watching the lights of a score of homes, each surrounded by lawn and +shade trees, each with its group on the front porch, where vines trailed +and flowers bloomed, listening to the hum of conversation and the +strains of music in one home and another, it seemed, to at least one of +these men, that this type of living could hardly pass away. The separate +home, each family a complete social integer, each with its own circle of +activities and interests, its own group, and its own table and fireside, +seemed too fine and beautiful, too fair and helpful, to perish under +economic pressure. Indeed, one felt that the village home furnished a +setting for life and a soil for character development far higher and +more efficient than could be afforded by any other domestic +arrangement--that it approached the ideal. + +But two weeks later two men sat in an upper room, in the second largest +city in America, discussing again the future of the family. Instead of +the quiet music of the village, the clang of street cars filled the +ears, trains rushed by, children shouted from the paved highway, +families were seated by open windows in crowded apartments, seeking cool +air; the total impression was that of being placed in a pigeonhole in a +huge, heated, filing-case, where each separate space was occupied by a +family. One felt the pressure of heated, crowded kitchens, suffocating +little dining-rooms; one knew that the babies lay crying in their beds +at night, gasping their very lives away, and that the young folks were +wandering off to amusement parks and moving-picture shows. Here was an +entirely different picture. How long could family life persist under +these conditions where privacy was almost gone and comfort almost +unknown? + +In the village separate home integers appear ideal; in the city they are +possible only to the few. The many, at present, find them a crushing +burden. Desirable as privacy is, it can be purchased at too high a +price. It costs too much to maintain separate kitchens and dining-rooms +under city conditions. + + +§ 2. COMMUNAL TENDENCIES + +Present conditions spell waste, inefficiency, discomfort. The woman +lives all day in stifling rooms, poorly lighted, with the nerve-racking +life of neighbors pouring itself through walls and windows. The men +come from crowded shops and the children from crowded schoolrooms to +crowd themselves into these rooms, to snatch a meal, or to sleep. How +can there be real family life? What joy can there be or what ideals +created in daily discomfort and distress? Little wonder that such homes +are sleeping-places only, that there is no sense of family intercourse +and unity. Little wonder that restaurant life has succeeded family life. + +Many hold that we are ready for a movement into community living, that +just as the social life of the separate house porches in the villages +has become communized into the amusement parks in the cities, so all the +activities of the family will move in the same direction. How long could +the family as a unit continue under these conditions? + +The village life will persist for a long time; it may be that, when we +apply scientific methods to the transportation of human beings in the +same measure as we have to the moving of pig iron, we can develop large +belts of real village life all around our industrial centers. But more +and more the village tends to become like the city; in other words, +highly organized communal life is the dominant trend today. Just as +business tends to do on a large scale all that can be more economically +done in larger units, so does the home. We must look for the increasing +prevalence of the city type of life for men and women and for families. + + +§ 3. THE ECONOMICAL DEVELOPMENT + +It is worth while to note, in some brief detail, just what changes are +involved in the tendency toward communal living. At the beginning of the +industrial revolution which ushered in the factory period, each family +was a fairly complete unit in itself. The village was little more than a +nucleus of farmhouses, with a few differing types of units, such as +workers in wood, in wearing apparel, and in tools. The home furnished +nearly all its own food, spun and made its clothes, trained its own +children, and knew scarcely any community endeavor or any syndication of +effort except in the church. + +The industrial revolution took labor largely out of the home into the +factory. Except for farm life, the husband became an outside worker and +the older boys followed him to the distant shop or factory. Earning a +living ceased to be a family act and became a social act in a larger +sphere. But in this change it ceased to be a part of the family +educational process. Boys who, from childhood up, had gradually learned +their father's trade in the shop or workroom, which was part of the +house, where they played as children in the shavings, or watched the +glowing sparks in the smithy, now missed the process of a father's +discipline and guidance as their hands acquired facility for their +tasks. The home lost the male adults for from nine to twelve hours of +each day, more than two-thirds of the waking period, and thus it lost a +large share of disciplinary guidance. In the rise of the factory system, +to a large extent the family lost the father. + +When the workshop left the home its most efficient school was taken from +it. The lessons may have been limited, crude, and deadly practical, but +the method approximated to the ideals which modern pedagogy seeks to +realize. Among the shavings children learned by doing; schooling was +perfectly natural; it involved all the powers; it had the incalculable +value of informality and reality. The father gone and the mother still +fully occupied with her tasks, the children lost that practical training +for life which home industry had afforded. On the one hand, the young +became the victims of idleness and, on the other, the prey of the +voracious factory system. + +This condition gave rise to the public-school system. It appealed to +Robert Raikes and others. The school appeared and took over the child. +Of course schools had existed, here and there, long before this, but now +they had an enlarged responsibility; they must act almost in the place +of the parents for the formal training of children. Having lost the +father and older males for the greater portion of the day, the home now +loses the children of from seven to the "'teen" years for five or six +hours of the day. The mother is left at home with the babies. The +family, once living under one roof, now is found scattered; it has +reached out into factory and school. Its hours of unified life have been +markedly reduced. + +But the factory system soon had a reflex influence on the home. That +which was made in the factory came back into the home, not only in the +form of the articles formerly made by the men, but in those made by the +women. Clothes, candles, butter, cheese, preserves, and meat--all +formerly home products for the use of the family producing them--now +were prepared in larger quantities, by mechanical processes, and were +brought back into the home. Woman's labor was lightened; the older girls +were liberated from the loom and they began to seek occupation, +education, and diversion according to their opportunities in life. + +That last step made it possible for people to think of the communization +of home industry, to think of eating food cooked in other ovens than +their own, to think of one oven large enough for a whole village. Many +interesting experiments in co-operative living immediately sprang up. +But the next step came slowly and, even now, is only firmly established +in the cities, in the actual abandonment of the family kitchen for the +community kitchen in the form of the restaurant. In such families we +have unity only in the hours of sleep and recreation. + +Along with abandonment of the separate kitchen there has proceeded +the abandonment of the parlor in the homes of the middle classes. +To lose the old, mournful front room may be no subject for tears, +but the loss of the evening family group, about the fireside or +the reading-lamp, is a real and sad loss. The commercialized amusements +have offered greater attractions to vigorous youth. The theater and +its lesser satellites, amusements, entertainments, lectures, the +lyceum, and recreation-by-proxy in ball games and matches have taken +the place of united family recreation. Of course this has been a +natural development of the older village play-life and has been by +no means an unmixed ill. + +Now, behold, what has become of the old-time home life! The family that +spent nearly twenty-four hours together now spends a scarce seven or +eight, and these are occupied in sleeping! Little wonder that the next +step is taken--the abandonment of this remainder, the sleep period, +under a domestic roof, as the family moves into a hotel! + +Along with the tendency toward communal working and eating we see the +tendency to communal living by the development of the apartment +building. Since roof-trees are so expensive, and since in a practical +age, few of us can afford to pay for sentiment, why not put a dozen +families under one roof-tree? True we sacrifice lawns, gardens, natural +places for children to play; we lose birds and flowers and the charm of +evening hours on porches, or galleries, but think of what we gain in +bricks and mortar, in labor saved from splitting wood and shoveling +coal, in janitor service! The transition is now complete; the home is +simply that item in the economic machinery which will best furnish us +storage for our sleeping bodies and our clothes! + +We are undoubtedly in a period of great changes in family life, and no +family can count on escaping the influence of the change. The one single +outstanding and most potent change, so far as the character of family +life is concerned, is, in the United States, the rapid polarization of +population in the cities. The United States Census Bureau counts all +residents in cities of over 8,000 population as "urban." In 1800 the +"urban" population was 4 per cent of the total population; in 1850 it +was 12.5 per cent; in 1870, 20.9 per cent; in 1890, 29.2 per cent; in +1900, 33.1 per cent; in 1910 it was estimated at 40 per cent.[2] Here +is a trend so clearly marked that we cannot deny its reality, while its +significance is familiar to everyone today. + +However, the village type remains; there are still many homes where a +measure of family unity persists, where at least in one meal daily and, +for purposes of sleeping and, occasionally, for the evening hours of +recreation, there is a consciousness of home life. Yet the most remote +village feels the pressure of change. The few homes conforming to the +older ideals are recognized as exceptional. The city draws the village +and rural family to itself, and the contagion of its customs and ideals +spreads through the villages and affects the forms of living there. +Youths become city dwellers and do not cease to scoff at the village +unless later years give them wisdom to appreciate its higher values. The +standard of domestic organization is established by the city; that type +of living is the ideal toward which nearly all are striving. + +The important question for all persons is whether the changes now taking +place in family life are good or ill. It is impossible to say whether +the whole trend is for the better; the many elements are too diverse and +often apparently conflicting. Faith in the orderly development of +society gives ground for belief that these changes ultimately work for a +higher type of family life. The city may be regarded as only a +transition stage in social evolution--the compacting of masses of +persons together that out of the new fusing and welding may arise new +methods of social living. The larger numbers point to more highly +developed forms of social organization. When these larger units discover +their greater purposes, above factory and mill and store, and realize +them in personal values, the city life will be a more highly developed +mechanism for the higher life of man. The home life will develop along +with that city life. + + +§ 4. PURPOSEFUL ORGANIZATION + +At present the home is suffering, just as the city is suffering, from a +lack of that purposeful organization which will order the parts aright +and subject the processes to the most important and ultimate purposes. +The city is simply an aggregation of persons, scarcely having any +conscious organization, thrown together for purposes of industry. It +will before very long organize itself for purposes of personal welfare +and education. The family is usually a group bound in ties of struggle +for shelter, food, and pleasure. Such consciousness as it possesses is +that of being helplessly at the mercy of conflicting economic forces. +The adjustment of those forces, their subjection to man's higher +interests, must come in the future and will help the family to freedom +to discover its true purpose. + +It is easy to insist on the responsibility of parents for the +character-training of their children, but it is difficult to see how +that responsibility can be properly discharged under industrial +conditions that take both father and mother out of the home the whole +day and leave them too weary to stay awake in the evening, too poor to +furnish decent conditions of living, and too apathetic under the dull +monotony of labor to care for life's finer interests. The welfare of the +family is tied up with the welfare of the race; if progress can be +secured in one part progress in the whole ensues. + +There are those who raise the question whether family life is a +permanent form of social organization for which we may wisely contend, +or is but a phase from which the race is now emerging. Some see signs +that the ties of marriage will be but temporary, that children will be +born, not into families but into the life of the state, bearing only +their mothers' names and knowing no brothers and sisters save in the +brotherhood of the state. Whether the permanent elements in family life +furnish a sufficiently worthy basis for its preservation is a subject +for careful consideration. + + +§ 5. THE HOME AND THE FAMILY + +The family is more important than the home, just as the man is more than +his clothing. The form of the home changes; the life of the family +continues unchanged in its essential characteristics. The family causes +the home to be. Professor Arthur J. Todd insists that the family is the +basis of marriage, rather than marriage the cause of the family.[3] +Small groups for protection and social living would precede formal +arrangements of monogamy. Westermarck concludes that it was "for the +benefit of the young that male and female continued to live +together."[4] The importance of this consideration for us lies in the +thought of the overshadowing importance of this social group which we +now call the family. The family is the primary cell of society, the +first unit in social organization. Our thought must balance itself +between the importance of this social group, to be preserved in its +integrity, and the value of the home, with its varied forms of activity +and ministry, as a means of preserving and developing this group, the +family. + +One hears today many pessimistic utterances regarding the modern home. +Some even tell us that it is doomed to become extinct. Without doubt +great economic changes in society are producing profound changes in the +organization and character of the home. But the home has always been +subject to such changes; the factor which we need to watch with greater +care is the family; the former is but the shell of the latter. + +The character of each home will depend largely on the economic condition +of those who dwell in it. The homes of every age will reflect the social +conditions of that age. The picture in historical romances of the home +of the mediaeval period, where the factory, or shop, joined the +dining-room, where the apprentices ate and roomed in the home, where one +might be compelled to furnish and provision his home literally as his +castle for defense, presents a marked difference to the home of this +century tending to syndicate all its labors with all the other homes of +the community. Since the home is simply the organization and mechanism +of the family life, it is most susceptible to material and social +changes. It varies as do the fashions of men. + +Much that we assume to be detrimental to the life of the home is simply +due to the fact that in the evolution of society the family, as it were, +puts on a new suit of clothes, adopts new forms of organization to meet +the changing external conditions. + + +§ 6. THE HOME CHANGING; THE FAMILY ABIDING + +The home is of importance only as a tool, a means to the final ends of +the family life; the test of its efficiency is not whether it maintains +traditional forms but whether it best serves the highest aims of family +life. We may abandon all the older customs; our regret for them, as we +look back on the days of home cooking, cannot be any greater than the +regrets of our parents or grandparents looking back on the +spinning-wheel and the hand loom that cumbered the kitchen of their +childhood. Surely no one contends that family life has deteriorated, +that human character is one whit the poorer, because we have discarded +the family spinning-wheel. Through the changes of a developing +civilization, as man has moved from the time when each one built his own +house, worked with his own tools to make all his supplies, to these days +of specialized service in community living, the home has changed with +each step of industrial progress, but the family has remained +practically unchanged. + +The family stands a practically unchanging factor of personal qualities +at the center of our civilization; the family rather than the home +determines the character of the coming days. In its social relationships +are rooted the things that are best in all our lives. In its social +training lie the solutions of more problems in social adjustment and +development than we are willing to admit. The family is the soil of +society, central to all its problems and possibilities. + +Before church or school the family stands potent for character. We are +what we are, not by the ideals held before us for thirty minutes a week +or once a month in a church, nor by the instructions given in the +classroom; we are what parents, kin, and all the circumstances that have +touched us daily and hourly for years have determined we should be. + +The sweetest memories of our lives cluster about the scenes of family +life. The rose-embowered cottage of the poet is not the only spot that +claims affectionate gratitude; many look back to a city house wedged +into its monotonous row. But, wherever it might be, if it sheltered love +and held a shrine where the altar fires of family sacrifice burned, +earth has no fairer or more sacred spot. The people rather than the +place made it potent. + +Stronger even than the memories that remain are the marks of habits, +tendencies, tastes, and dispositions there acquired. Many a man who has +left no fortune worth recording to his sons has left them something +better, the aptitude for things good and honorable, the memory of a good +name, and the heritage of a life that was worthy of honor. The personal +life has been always the enduring thing. Our concern for the future +should be not whether we can pass on intact the forms of home +organization, but whether we can give to the next day the force of ideal +family life. Perhaps like Mary we would do well to turn our eyes from +the much serving, the mechanisms of the home, to set our minds on the +better part, the personal values in the association of lives in the +family. + + + I. References for Study + + W.F. Lofthouse, _Ethics and the Family_, chaps. ii, xi, xii. Hodder + & Stoughton, $2.50. + + Charles R. Henderson, _Social Duties from the Christian Point of + View_, chaps. ii, iii. The University of Chicago Press, $1.25. + + C.W. Votaw, _Progress of Moral and Religious Education in the + American Home_. Religious Education Association, $0.25. + + + II. Further Reading + + Jacob A. Riis, _Peril and Preservation of the Home_. Jacobs, + Philadelphia, Pa., $1.00. + + Charles R. Henderson, _Social Elements_. Scribner, $1.50. + + Charles F. Thwing, _The Recovery of the Home_. American Baptist + Publication Society, $0.15. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. The tendency toward community life illustrated in the schools, + amusement parks, and hotel life. Remembering the ultimate purpose + of the family, how far is communal life desirable? + + 2. Does the apartment or tenement building furnish a suitable + condition for the higher purposes of the family? + + 3. Is it possible to restore to the home some of the benefits lost + by present factory consolidation of industry? + + 4. What can take the place of the old household arts and of those + which are now passing? + + 5. What steps should be taken to secure to the family a larger + measure of the time in terms of occupation of the parents? + + 6. What are the important things to contend for in this + institution? Why should we expect change in the form of the home + and what are the features which should not be changed? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] Figures taken from C.W. Votaw, _Progress of Moral and Religious +Education in the American Home_, 1911. + +[3] A.J. Todd, _Primitive Family and Education_, p. 21. A most valuable +and suggestive book. + +[4] Cited by Todd, p. 21. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE PERMANENT ELEMENTS IN FAMILY LIFE + + +§ 1. THE DOMINANT MOTIVE + +The chief end of society is to improve the race, to develop the higher +and steadily improving type of human beings. We can test the life of the +family and determine the values of its elements by asking whether and in +what degree they minister to this end, the growth of better persons. +This is more than a theoretical aim or one conceived in a search for +ideals. It is written plain in our passions and strongest inclinations. +That which parents supremely desire for their children is that they may +become strong in body, capable and alert in mind, and animated by worthy +principles and ideals. The parent desires a good man, fit to take his +place, do his work, make his contribution to the social well-being, able +to live to the fulness of his powers, to take life in all its reaches of +meaning and heights of vision and beauty. In true parenthood all hopes +of success, of riches, fame, and ease, are seen but as avenues to this +end, as means of making the finer character, of growing the ideal +person. If we were compelled to choose for our children we should elect +poverty, pain, disgrace, toil, and suffering if we knew this was the +only highway to full manhood and womanhood, to completeness of +character. Indeed, we do constantly so choose, knowing that they must +endure hardness, bear the yoke in their youth, and learn that + + Love and joy are torches lit + At altar fires of sacrifice. + +With this dominating purpose clearly in mind we are prepared to ask, +What are the elements of family life which among the changes of today we +need most carefully to preserve in order to maintain efficiency in +character development? In days when the outer shell of domestic +arrangements changes, when readjustments are being made in the +organization of the family, what is there too precious to lose, so +worthy and essential that we waste no time when seeking to maintain it? + + +§ 2. POTENCIES TO BE PRESERVED--SOCIAL QUALITIES + +The first great element to be preserved in all family life is that of +the power of the small group for purposes of character development. The +infant's earliest world is the mother's arms. In order to grow into a +man fitted for the wider world of social living, he must learn to live +in a world within his comprehension. A child's life moves through the +widening circles of mother-care, family group, neighborhood, school, +city, state, and nation into world-living. He must take the first steps +before he is able to take the next ones. He must learn to live with the +few as preparation for living with the many. In earliest infancy he +takes his first unconscious lessons in the fine art of living with other +folks as he relates himself to parents and to brothers and sisters. + +Secondly, the family life affords the best agency for social training. +The family is the ideal democracy into which the child-life is born. +Here habits are formed, ideals are pictured, and life itself is +interpreted. It is an ideal democracy, first, because it is a social +organization existing for the sake of persons. The family comes nearer +to fulfilling the true ideal of a democratic social order than does any +other institution. It is founded to bring lives into this world; it is +maintained for the sake of those lives; all its life, its methods, and +standards are determined, ideally, by the needs of persons. It is an +ideal democracy, secondly, because its guiding principle is that the +greater lives must be devoted to the good of the lesser, the parent for +the little child, the older members for the younger, in an attempt to +extend to the very least the greatest good enjoyed by all. Thirdly, +ideally it is a true democracy in that it gives to each member a share +in its own affairs and develops the power to bear responsibilities and +to carry each his own load in life. Thus the family group is the best +possible training for the life and work of the larger group, the state, +and for world-living.[5] The maintenance of the ideals of the state, as +a democracy, depends on the continuance of this institution with its +peculiar power to train life in infancy and childhood for the life of +manhood in the state. Such training can be given only in the smaller +group that is governed by the motives peculiar to home and family life. +The power to impress these principles depends on the size of the group. +The small social organization, the family circle of from three members +to even a dozen, bound by ties of affection, is the one great, efficient +school, training youth to live in social terms. + +Thirdly, the family sets spiritual values first. Our age especially +needs men and women who think in terms of spiritual values, who rise +above the measures of pounds and dollars and weigh life by personal +qualities and worth. That is precisely what the home does. It prizes +most highly the helpless, economically worthless infant; it measures +every member by his personal character, his affectional worth. Its +riches do not depend on that which money can buy, but on the personal +qualities of love, goodness, kindness; on memories, associations, +affection. The true home gives to every child-life the power to choose +the things of the world on the basis of their worth in personality. Only +the mistaken judgments of later years, the short-minded wisdom of the +world, make youth gradually lose the habit of preferring the home's +spiritual benefits to the material rewards of the world of business. No +life can be furnished for the strain of our modern materialism that +lacks the basis of idealism furnished in the true family. + + +§ 3. POTENCIES TO BE PRESERVED--THE MORAL LIFE + +Fourthly, the power of family living to develop love as loyalty is to be +noted. In this small group is laid the foundation of the moral life. +"The family is the primer in the moral education of the race."[6] Here +the new-born life begins to relate itself to other lives. Here it begins +life in an atmosphere saturated by love, the central principle of all +virtue, eventually loyalty to ideals in persons and devotion to them, +"the greatest of these," because it is the parent of all virtue. The +moral life, that life which is adjusted, capable, and adequately motived +for helpful, efficient, enriching living with all other lives, is not a +matter of rules, regulations, and restrictions. Neither is it a matter +of separate habits as to this or the other kind of behavior, though this +comes nearer to it than do rules and prescriptions. The character-life +which parents desire for their children is not that which will do the +right thing when it has discovered that right thing in some book of +rules, nor that life which will do the right thing because society +points that way, nor even that life which automatically does the right +thing, but it is the life which, constantly moved by some high inner +compulsion, some imperative of vision and ideal, moves to the highest +possible plane of action in every situation. This is the life of +loyalty. It begins with loyalty to persons, with that devotion which +begins with affection. In no other place is this so well developed as in +the relations of the family. This is the child's first and most +potential school. Here the lessons are wholly unconscious; here they are +strengthened by the pleasurable emotions. It is a joy to be loyal to +those we love. Indeed, who can tell which comes first, the joy, the +loyalty, or the love? + +The power of this small social group of the family to develop the +fundamental principle of loyalty, the root of all virtues, gives a +position of great importance to the affections in the family. We do well +to contend for the maintenance of conditions of family living which will +strengthen the ties of affection. If children could be thrust into the +care of the state, in large groups, separated from parental care and +oversight, it is difficult to see what emotional stimulus toward +affection would remain. The personal devotion to intimate adults would +in only the smallest degree compensate for the loss of father and +mother. We know nothing of such devotion arising to any large degree in +orphan asylums, still less in institutions under the cold and impersonal +care of the state. It has been urged that the affections of parents +stand in the way of a scientific regimen and education for small +children. The cold, passionless, automatic parent, then, would be the +ideal--a Mr. Dombey or a Mr. Feverel. Parents make many mistakes, but +these mistakes are not due to too much affection, but to untrained minds +and uneducated affections. It were better to save the values of their +affections and on them to build a wise discipline for childhood by +providing adequate training of parents for their duties. + +Fifthly, there are some elements of the cost of family life, even its +apparently unnecessary sacrifice and pain, that we do well to seek to +keep. Character grows in paying the high price of maintaining a family. +It is the most expensive form of living for adults. Marriages are now +delayed because of the fear of the actual monetary cost; but far more +serious is the cost in care, in nerves, in patience, in all the great +elements of self-denial. No child ever knows what he has cost until he +has children of his own. But this discipline of self-denial is that +which saves us from selfishness. It is necessary to have some personal +objects for which to give our lives if they are to be saved from +centrifugation, from death through ingrowing affection. True, many +bachelors and spinsters have learned the way of self-denying, +fellow-serving love. But how can a true parent escape that lesson? Nor +does it stop with parents; as children grow up together they, too, must +learn mutual forbearance, conciliation, and, soon, the joy of service. +One sees selfishness in the little child gradually fading in the +practice of family service, helpfulness, consideration for others. The +single child in a family misses something more important than playmates; +he misses all the education of play and service. But who cannot remember +many families that have grown to beauty of character under the +discipline of home life, and especially when this has involved real +sacrifices? The stories in the Pepper books illustrate the spirit that +blossoms under the trials and hardships of the struggle of a family for +a livelihood and for the maintenance of a home. + +A clear function becomes evident for this social group called the +family. It is that of dealing with young lives, in groups bound by ties +of blood and similarity, for purposes of the development of personal +character. The family has an essentially educational function. Bearing +in mind that "educational" means the orderly development of the powers +of the life, we can think of our families as existing for this purpose +and to be tested by their ability to do this work, especially by their +ability to develop persons, young lives, that have the power, the +vision, the acquired habits and experience to live as more than animals. +The family is an educational institution dealing with child-life for its +full growth and its self-realization, especially on character levels. +The educational function suggests the features of family life which we +do well to seek to preserve. Many incidental forms may pass, but the +essential human relations and experiences that go to develop life and +character must be maintained at any cost. + + + I. References for Study + + C.F. and C.B. Thwing, _The Family_, chap. vii. Lothrop, Lee & + Shepard, $1.60. + + W.F. Lofthouse, _Ethics and the Family_, chaps. iv, v. Hodder & + Stoughton, $2.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + "The Improvement of Religious Education," _Proceedings of the + Religious Education Association_, I, 119-23. $0.50. + + _Religious Education_, April, 1911, VI, 1-48. + + S.P. Breckinridge and E. Abbott, _The Delinquent Child and the + Home_. Russell Sage Foundation, $2.00. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What is the chief end of all forms of social organization? + + 2. What is in the last analysis the aim of every parent? + + 3. What advantage has the family over the school and larger groups + for educational purposes? + + 4. In what sense is the family an ideal democracy? + + 5. Show how the family sets spiritual values first. + + 6. What in your judgment are the first evidences of character + development? In what way do these come to the surface in the + family? What is the factor of love in the development of character? + + 7. Is that an ideal family in which none of the members bear pain + or are called upon for self-denial? Can you see any especial + advantage to character in the very difficulties and apparent + disadvantages in the life of the family? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[5] See "Democracy in the Home," _American Journal of Sociology_, +January, 1912. + +[6] Francis G. Peabody, _The Approach to the Social Question_, p. 94. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE RELIGIOUS PLACE OF THE FAMILY + + +§ 1. DEVELOPMENT AS A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION + +The family is the most important religious institution in the life of +today. It ranks in influence before the church. It has always held this +place. Even among primitive peoples, where family life was an uncertain +quantity, the relations of parents, or of one of the parents, to the +children afforded the opportunity most frequently used for their +instruction in tribal religious ideals and customs. We cannot generalize +as to the practices of savage man in regard to family life, for those +practices range from common promiscuous relationships, without apparent +care for offspring, to a family unity and purity approaching the best we +know; but this much is certain, that there was a common sense of +responsibility for the training of young children in moral and religious +ideas and customs, and that, in the degree that the family approached to +separateness and unity, it accepted the primary responsibility for this +task. The higher the type of family life the more fully does it +discharge its function in the education of the child.[7] + +It might be safe to say that among primitive peoples there were three +stages, or types, of relationship based on the breeding of children, or +three stages of development toward family life. The first is a loose and +indefinite relationship existing principally between the adults, or the +males and females, under which children born when not desired are +neglected or strangled and, when acceptable, may be in the care of +either parent, or of neither. Since the group, associated through +infancy with at least one parent, is as yet undeveloped, any instruction +will be individual and usually incidental. + +The second form is that of a kind of family unity, either about the +mother or the father, or both, or about a group of parents, in which the +children live together and are sheltered and nurtured for their earlier +years. Here, however, the real relationship of the child is to the +tribe, the family is but his temporary guardian, and, at least by the +age of puberty, he will be initiated into the tribal secrets. If he is a +boy, he will cease to be a member of the family group and will go to +live in the "men's house," becoming a part of the larger life of the +tribe.[8] Such moral and religious instruction as he may acquire will +come from the songs, traditions, and conversation which he hears as a +child. + +The third type approaches the modern ideal, with a greater or less +degree of permanent unity between the two parents and with permanence in +the group of the offspring. The parental responsibility continues for a +greater length of time and, since the tribe makes smaller claims, and +the parents live in the common domestic group, much more instruction is +possible and is given. The tribal ideals, the traditions, observances, +and religious rites are imparted to children gradually in their homes. + +The last type brings us to the Hebrew conception of family life. It +developed toward the Christian ideal. At first, polygamy was permitted; +woman was the chattel of man and excluded from any part in the religious +rites. But it included the ideal of monogamy in its tradition of the +origin of the world, it denounced and punished adultery (Deut. 22: 22), +and it gave especial attention to the training of the offspring. "And +these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart; and +thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of +them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, +and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up ... and thou shalt +write them upon the door-posts of thy house and upon thy gates" (Deut. +6: 6, 7, 9). + +Much later, the messianic hope, the belief that in some Jewish family +there should be born one divinely commissioned and endowed to liberate +Israel and to give the Jews world-sovereignty, operated to elevate the +conception of motherhood and, through that, of the family. It made +marriage desirable and children a blessing; it rendered motherhood +sacred. It tended to center national hopes and religious ideals about +the family.[9] + +There are a few glimpses of ideal family life in the Old Testament. They +are all summed up in the eloquent tribute to motherhood in the words of +King Lemuel in the last chapter of the Book of Proverbs. It must be +remembered, however, that such ideals did not belong to the Jews alone, +that Plutarch shows many pictures of maternal fidelity and wifely +devotion, that Greek and Roman history have their Cornelia, Iphigenia, +and Mallonia.[10] + +The Jews are an excellent example of the power of the family life to +maintain distinct characteristics and to secure marked development. +Practically throughout all the Christian era they have been a people +without a land, a constitution, or a government, and yet never without +race consciousness, national unity, and separateness. Their unity has +continued in spite of dispersion, persecution, and losses; they have +remained a race in the face of political storms that have swept other +peoples away. Their unity has continued about two great centers, the +customs of religion and the life of the family. + + The results of Jewish respect for family life can also be seen in + the health of their own children. In 1910, for instance, among poor + Jews in Manchester the mortality of infants under one year of age + was found to be 118 per thousand; among poor Gentiles, 300 per + thousand; and comparisons made some six years ago between Jewish + and Gentile children in schools in the poorer parts of Manchester + and Leeds (England) have shown that the Jewish children are + uniformly taller, they weigh more, and their bones and teeth are + superior.[11] + + +§ 2. THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY + +The Christian family is a type peculiar to itself, not as a new +institution, for it has developed out of earlier race experience, but as +controlled by a new interpretation, the spirit and conception of the +home and family given in the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. He did not +give formal rules for the regulation of homes; rather he made a +spiritual ideal of family life the basic thought of all his teaching. He +said more about the family than concerning any other human institution, +yet he established no family life of his own. He is called the founder +of the church, yet he scarcely mentions that institution, while he +frequently teaches concerning home duties and family relations. He +glorifies the relations of the family by making them the figure by which +men may understand the highest relations of life. He speaks more of +fatherhood and sonship than of any other relations. He gives direction +for living, using the family terms of brotherhood. He points forward to +ideal living in a home beyond this life. He teaches men when they think +of God and when they address him to take the family attitude and call +him Father. + +If we sum up all the teachings of Jesus and separate them from our +preconceptions of their theological content, we cannot but be impressed +with the facts that he seized upon the family life as the best +expression of the highest relationships; that he pointed to a purified +family life, in which spiritual aims would dominate, as the best +expression of ideal relationships among his followers; and that he +glorified marriage and really made the family the great, divine, +sacramental institution of human society. + +We can hardly overestimate the importance of such teaching to the +character of the family. The early Christians not only accepted Jesus as +their teacher and savior; they took their family life as the opportunity +to show what the Kingdom of God, the ideal society, was like. Family +life was consecrated. Men and women belonged to the new order with +their whole households. Religion became largely a family matter. The +worship that had been confined to the temple now made an altar in every +home and a holy of holies in the midst of every family. The scriptures +that belonged to the synagogue now belonged in the home. Above all, this +family existed for the purposes taught by Jesus, that men might grow in +brotherhood toward the likeness of the divine Fatherhood. It was an +institution, not for economic purpose of food and shelter, not for +personal ends of passion or pride, but for spiritual purpose, for the +growth of persons, especially the young in the home, in character, into +"the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." + +Christianity is essentially a religion of ideal family life. It +conceives of human society, not in terms of a monarchy with a king and +subjects, but in terms of a family with a great all-Father and his +children, who live in brotherhood, who take life as their opportunity +for those family joys of service and sacrifice. It hopes to solve the +world's ills, not by external regulations, but by bringing all men into +a new family life, a birth into this new family life with God, so +securing a new personal environment, a new personality as the center and +root of all social betterment. He who would come into this new social +order must come into the divine family, must humble himself and become +as a little child, must know his Father and love his brothers. + +Christianity, then, not only seeks an ideal family; it makes the family +the ideal social institution and order. It makes family life holy, +sacramental, religious in its very nature. This fact gives added +importance to the preservation and development of the ideals of family +life for the sake of their religious significance and influence. It not +only makes religion a part of the life of the home but makes a religious +purpose the very reason for the existence of the Christian type of home. +It makes our homes essentially religious institutions, to be judged by +religious products. + + + I. References for Study + + G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_, chap. xvi. Revell, + $1.35. + + Article on "The Family," in Hastings, _Encyclopaedia of Religion + and Ethics_. + + + II. Further Reading + + On the educational function of the family: A.J. Todd, _The + Primitive Family as an Educational Agency_. Putnam, $2.00. + + On the religious place of the family: C.F. and C.B. Thwing, _The + Family_. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, $1.60. + + I.J. Peritz, "Biblical Ideal of the Home," _Religious Education_, + VI, 322. + + H. Hanson, _The Function of the Family_. American Baptist + Publication Society, $0.15. + + W. Becker, _Christian Education, or the Duties of Parents_. Herder, + $1.00. A striking presentation of the Roman Catholic view; could be + read to advantage by all parents. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What place did religion hold in the primitive family? What + reference or allusion do we find in the Old Testament to the place + of religion in the family (Deut. 6:7-9, 20-25)? What in the New + Testament? + + 2. What has been the effect of purity of family life on the Jewish + race? + + 3. What place did the family hold in the teachings of Jesus? + + 4. What shall we think of the relations of the church and family as + to their comparative rights and our duty to them? + + 5. Do you agree that the family is the most important religious + institution? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] For a brief statement see Brinton, _Religions of Primitive Peoples_, +Lecture 4, § 7; also Todd, _The Family as an Educational Agency_. + +[8] See Webster, _Primitive Secret Societies_, chaps. i, ii. + +[9] On the place of the family in different religious systems see the +fine article under "Family" in Hastings, _Encyclopaedia of Religion and +Ethics_. + +[10] See Lecky, _History of European Morals_, chap. ii. + +[11] Quoted by Lofthouse in _Ethics and the Family_, p. 8, from W. Hall, +in _Progress_ (London), April, 1907. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE MEANING OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE FAMILY + + +§ 1. THE FUNCTION OF THE FAMILY + +With the brief statement of the history of the family and of its +function in society which has already been given we are prepared to put +together the two conclusions: first, that the family has an educational +function, in that it exists as a social institution for the protection, +nurture, development, and training of young lives, and, secondly, that +it is a religious institution, the most influential and important of all +religious institutions, whenever it realizes in any adequate degree its +possibilities, because it is rooted in love and loyalty. It exists for +personal and spiritual ideals and, in Christianity, it is inseparably +connected with the teachings and the ideals of Jesus. It is educational +in function and religious in character, so that it is essentially an +institution for religious education. Religious education is not an +occasional incident in its life; it is the very aim and dominating +purpose of a high-minded family. + + +§ 2. WHAT IS RELIGIOUS EDUCATION? + +To make this the more clear we may need to clarify our minds as to +certain popular conceptions of education. Education means much more +than instruction; religious education means much more than instruction +in religion. Many habitually think of an educational institution as +necessarily a place where pupils sit at desks and teachers preside over +classes, the teachers imparting information which is to be memorized by +the pupils, so that, from this point of view, a Sunday school would be +almost the only institution for the religious education of children in +existence, because it is the only one exclusively devoted to imparting +instruction to children in specifically religious subjects. Such a view +would limit religious education in the home to the formal teaching of +the Bible and religious dogma by parents. The memorizing of scriptural +passages and of the different catechisms once constituted a regular duty +in almost all well-ordered homes. Today it is rarely attempted. Does +that mean that religious education has ceased in the home? + +But education means much more than instruction. Education is the whole +process, of which instruction is only a part. Education is the orderly +development of lives, according to scientific principles, into the +fulness of their powers, the realization of all their possibilities, the +joy of their world, the utmost rendering in efficiency of their service. +It includes the training of powers of thought, feeling, willing, and +doing; it includes the development of abilities to discern, +discriminate, choose, determine, feel, and do. It prepares the life for +living with other lives; it prepares the whole of the life, developing +the higher nature, the life of the spirit, for living in a spiritual +universe. + +Religious education, then, means much more than instruction in the +literature, history, and philosophy of religion. It means the kind of +directed development which regards the one who is developing as a +religious person, which seeks to develop that one to fulness of +religious powers and personality, and which uses, as means to that end, +material of religious inspiration and significance and, indeed, regards +all material in that light. Religious education seeks to direct a +religious process of growth with a religious purpose for religious +persons. Religious education is the spirit which characterizes the work +of every educator who looks on the child as a spiritual nature, a +religious person; it is the work of every educator who sees his aim as +that of training this spiritual person to fulness of living in a society +essentially spiritual. + +In simplest possible terms, religious education means the training of +persons to live the religious life and to do their work in the world as +religious persons. It must mean, then, the development of character; it +includes the aim, in the parents' minds, to bring their children up to +the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. It is evident that +this is a much greater task, and yet more natural and beautiful, than +mere instruction in formal ideas or words in the Bible or in a +catechism; that it is not and cannot be accomplished in some single +period, some set hour, but is continuous, through all the days; that it +pervades not only the spoken words, but the actions, organization, and +the very atmosphere of the home. + + +§ 3. THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS + +Normal persons never stop growing. Just as children grow all the time in +their bodies, so do adults and all others grow all the time in mind and +will and powers of the higher life whenever they live normally. We grow +spiritually, not only in church and under the stimulus of song and +prayer, but we grow when the beauty of the woods appeals to us, when the +face lightens at the face of a friend, when we meet and master a +temptation, when we brace up under a load, when we do faithfully the +dreary, daily task, when we adjust our thoughts in sympathy to others, +when we move in the crowd, when we think by ourselves. The educational +process is continuous. The children in the home are being moved, +stimulated, every instant, and they are being changed in minute but +nevertheless real and important degrees by each impression. There is +never a moment in which their character is not being developed either +for good or for ill. Religious education--that is, the development of +their lives as religious persons--goes on all the time in the home, and +it is either for good or for ill. + +Next to the idea of the continuous and all-pervasive character of this +process of religious development the most important thought for us is +that religious education in the home may be determined by ourselves. +This continuous, fateful process is not a blind, resistless one. It is +our duty to direct it. It is possible for wise parents to determine the +characters of their children. We must not forget this. It cannot be too +strongly insisted on. The development of life is under law. This is an +orderly world. Things do not just happen in it. We believe in a law that +determines the type of a cabbage, the character of a weed. Do we believe +that this universe is so ordered that there is a law for weeds and none +for the higher life of man? Do we hold that cabbages grow by law but +character comes by chance? If there is a law we may find it and must +obey it. If we may know how to develop character, with as great +certainty as we know how to do our daily work, will not this be our +highest task, our greatest joy, the supreme thing to do in life? + + +§ 4. THE CONSEQUENT OBLIGATION + +This is the first great obligation of parents and of those who are +willing to accept the joys and responsibilities of parenthood. We have +no right to bring into this world lives with all the possibilities that +a religious nature involves unless we know how to develop those lives +for the best and from the worst. When we picture what a little child may +become, from the vile, depraved, despoiling beast or the despicable, +sneaking hypocrite on one extreme, to the upright, God-loving, +man-serving man or woman with the love of purity, honor, truth, and +goodness speaking through the life, we may well pause, realizing we need +more than a sentimental desire that the child may reach the heights of +goodness: we must know the way there and the methods of leading the life +in that way. True devotion to God and to childhood will mean more than +petitions for the salvation of children; it will mean the prayer that is +labor and the labor that is prayer to know how they may attain fulness +of spiritual life; it will mean reverent searching into the divine ways +of growth in grace. The study of the means and methods of religious +education, especially of children, in the home and family, is one of the +most evident and important religious duties resting on parents and all +who contemplate marriage and family life. + + +§ 5. WHAT IS MEANT BY THE RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD? + +In discussing the development of character in children one hears often +the question, "Which is the earliest virtue to appear in a child?" +People will debate whether it is truthfulness, reverence, kindness, or +some other virtue. All this implies a picture of the child as a tree +that sends forth shoots of separate virtues one after another. But the +character desired is not a series of branches, it is rather like a +symmetrical tree; it is not certain parts, but it is the whole of a +personality. The development of religious character is not a matter of +consciously separable virtues, but is the determination of the trend and +quality of the whole life. Moral training is not a matter of cultivating +honesty today, purity tomorrow, and kindness the day after. Virtues have +no separate value. Character cannot be disintegrated into a list of +independent qualities. We seek a life that, as a whole life, loves and +follows truth, goodness, and service. + + +§ 6. EARLY TENDENCIES + +But it is wise to inquire as to those manifestations of a pure and +spiritual life which will earliest appear. One does not need to look far +for the answer. Children are always affectionate; they manifest the +possibilities of love. True, this affection is rooted in physiological +experience, based on relations to the mother and on daily propinquity to +the rest of the family, but it is that which may be colored by devotion, +elevated by unselfish service, and may become the first great, ideal +loyalty of the child's life. Little boys will fight and girls will +quarrel more readily over the question of the merits of their respective +parents than over any other issue. Almost as soon as a child can talk he +boasts of the valor of his father, the beauty of his mother. Here is +loyalty at work. He stands for them; he resents the least doubt as to +their superiority, not because they give him food and shelter, but +because they are his, because to him they are worthy; in all things they +have the worth, the highest good; they are, in person, the virtue of +life. Therefore in fighting for the reputation of his parents he is +practicing loyalty to an ideal. + +The principle of loyalty is the life-force of virtue; it is like the +power that sends the tree toward the heavens, the upthrust of life. It +may be cultivated in a thousand ways. Provided there is the outreach and +upreach of loyalty within and that there is furnished without the worthy +object, ideal, and aim, the life will grow upward and increase in +character, beauty, and strength. + +Next to the affectionate idealization of parents and home-folk one of +the earliest manifestations of the spirit of loyalty in the child is +his desire to have a share in the activities of the home. He would not +only look like those he admires; he would do what they do. This is more +than mere imitation; it is loyalty at work again. The direction of this +tendency is one of the largest opportunities before parents and can make +the most important contribution to character. + +The religious life of the child is essentially a matter of loyalty. His +faith, affections, aspirations, and endeavors turn toward persons, +institutions, and concepts which are to him ideal. He does not analyze, +he cannot describe, or even narrate, his religious experiences, but he +affectionately moves, with a sense of pleasure, toward those things +which seem to him ideal, toward parents, customs of the home or school, +the church, his class, his teacher, toward characters in story-books. He +is likely to think of Jesus in just that way, as the one person whom he +would most of all like to know and be with. The life of virtue and the +religious life then will be weak or strong in the measure that the child +has the stimulating ideals which call forth his loyalty and in the +measure that he has opportunity to express that loyalty. His religious +life will consist, not so much in external forms perhaps, still less in +intellectual statements about theology or even about his own +experiences, as in a growing realization of the great ideals, an +increasing sense of their meaning and reality within, and, on the +objective side, a steady moving of his life toward them in action and +habits and therefore in character and quality. + + +§ 7. IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS + +It is worth while to insist upon two important considerations. Parents +who stand as gardeners watching the growth of the tender plant of +child-character may be looking for developments that never ought to come +and will be disappointed because they were looking for the wrong thing. +First, in watching for the beginnings of the religious life of the child +in the family we are not expecting some new addition to the life, but +rather the development of this whole life as a unity in a definite +direction which we call religious. It is the first and most important +consideration that religious education is not something added to the +life as an extra subject of interest, but the development of the whole +life into religious character and usefulness. Secondly, this growth of +religious character is going on all the time. It is not separable into +pious periods; it is a part of the very life of the family. Perhaps this +increases the difficulty of our task, for it removes it from the realm +of the mechanical, from that which is easily apprehended and estimated. +It takes the task of the religious education of children out of the +statistical into the vital, and reminds us that we are growing life +every second, that there is never a moment when religious education is +not in operation. This demands a consideration, not alone of lessons, of +periods of worship and instruction, but of every influence, activity, +and agency in all the family life that in any way affects the thinking, +feeling, and action of the child. We are thinking of something more +important than organizing instruction and exercises in religion in the +home; we are thinking of organizing the family life for religious +purposes, for the purpose of growing lives into their spiritual fulness. + +Perhaps the capital mistake in the religious education of the family is +that we overemphasize this or the other method and mechanism instead of +bending every effort to secure a real religious atmosphere and soil in +which young souls can really grow while we leave the process of growth +more largely to the great husbandman. And the second great mistake is +that we are looking for mechanical evidence of a religious life instead +of for the development of a whole person. We must reinterpret the family +to ourselves and see it as the one great opportunity life affords us to +grow other lives and to bring them to spiritual fulness by providing a +social atmosphere of the spirit and a constant, normal presentation of +social living in spiritual terms. + + +§ 8. THE ORGANIZATION OF LOYALTY + +When parents conceive the family in these terms and so organize the life +of the home, the child becomes conscious of the fact, and at once the +life of the family furnishes him with his first, his nearest, and most +satisfactory appeal to loyalty. He feels that which he cannot analyze or +express, the spiritual beauty and loyalty of family life. That life +furnishes a soil and atmosphere for his soul. It is an atmosphere made +of many elements: the primary and dominating purpose of parents and +older persons, the habitual life of service and love, the consciousness +of the reality of the Divine Presence, the fragrance of chastened +character and experience, the customs of worship and affections. These +things are not easily created, they cannot be readily defined, nor can +directions be given in a facile manner for their cultivation. They are +the elements most difficult to describe, hardest of all to secure when +lacking, least easily labeled, not to be purchased ready-made, and yet +without them religious education is wholly impossible in the family. +Without this immediate appeal to loyalty the loyalties of the child +toward higher and divine aims do not develop early; they are retarded +and often remain dormant. For us all scarcely any more important +question can be presented than this: What appeals to spiritual idealism +and loyalty does our family life present to the child? What quickening +of love for goodness and purity, truth and service, is there in the home +and its conduct? + + + I. References for Study + + G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_, chaps. i, ii, xii, + xiii. Revell, $1.35. + + George Hodges, _Training of Children in Religion_, chaps. i, ii. + Appleton, $1.50. + + J.T. McFarland, _Preservation versus Resurrection_. Eaton & Mains, + $0.07. + + + II. Further Reading + + C.W. Votaw, _Progress of Moral and Religious Education in the + American Home_. Religious Education Association, $0.25. + + George Hodges, _Training of Children_, chaps. i, ii, xv. Appleton, + $1.50. + + G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_, chaps. i, iv, xvi. + Revell, $1.35. + + E.C. Wilm, _Culture of Religion_, chaps. i, ii. Pilgrim Press, + $0.75. + + C.W. Rischell, _The Child as God's Child_. Methodist Book Concern, + $0.75. + + E.E. Read Mumford, _The Dawn of Character_. Longmans, Green & Co., + $1.20. See especially chap. xii on "The Dawn of Religion." + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. How would you define education? + + 2. What is the difference between education and religious + education? + + 3. What makes the home especially effective in education? + + 4. Is it true that it is possible to discover the laws of growth + and so determine the development of character? + + 5. Recall any very early manifestations of religious character in + small children. What would you regard as the best kind of + manifestation? + + 6. What is the essential principle of the right life? How may we + develop this in childhood? + + 7. What are the things which most of all impress children? + + 8. Would you think it wise to bring a child under the influence of + a religious revival? + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE CHILD'S RELIGIOUS IDEAS + + +How shall I begin to talk with my child about religion? Even the most +religious parents feel hesitancy here. It may not be at all due to the +unfamiliarity of the subject, though that is often the case; hesitation +is due principally to a conscious artificiality in the action. It seems +unnatural to say, "My child, I want to talk with you about your +religious life." And so it is. There is something wrong when that +appears to be the only way. That situation indicates a lack of freedom +of thought and intercourse with the child and a lack of naturalness in +religion. + + +§ 1. THE FUNDAMENTAL DIFFICULTY + +The instinct is correct that tells us that we should be trespassing on a +child's rights, or breaking down his proper reticence, in abruptly and +formally questioning him about his religious life. The reserve of +children in this matter must be respected. The inner life of aspiration, +of conscious relationship to the divine, is too sacred for display, even +to those who are near to us. He violates the child's reverence who tears +away his reticence. Even though the child may not consciously object, +the process leads him toward the irreverent, facile self-exposure of +the soul that characterizes some prayer meetings. But we may, also, as +easily err in the other direction and, by failing to invite the +confidences of our children, lead them to suppose we have no interest in +their higher life. + + +§ 2. CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS + +First, we must be content to wait for the child to open his heart. We +must not force the door. But we can invite him to open, and the one form +of invitation that scarcely ever fails is for you to give him your +confidence. Talk honestly, simply to him of the aspects of your +religious life that he can understand. If he knows that you confide in +him, he will confide in you. Here beware of sentimentality. Religion to +the child will find expression in everyday experiences. Your philosophy +of religion he cannot comprehend, and with your mature emotions he has +no point of contact. Perhaps the best method of approach is to relate +your memories of those experiences which you _now see_ to have had +religious significance to you. At the time they may have had no such +special meaning. You did not then analyze them. Your child will not and +must not analyze them, either; he must simply feel them. + +Secondly, rid your mind of the "times and seasons" notion. There is no +more reason why you should talk religion on Sunday than on Monday, +unless the day's interests have quickened the child's questioning. There +can be no set period; no times when you say, "This is the forty-five +minutes of spiritual instruction and conversation." The time available +may be very short, only a sentence may be possible, or it may be +lengthened; everything will depend on the interest. It must be natural, +a real part of the everyday thought and talk, lifted by its character +and subject to its own level. Its value depends on its natural reality. + + +§ 3. RELIGIOUS REALITY + +Thirdly, avoid the mistake of confounding conversation on "religion" +with religious conversation, of thinking that the desired end has been +attained when you have discussed the terminology of theology. To +illustrate, in the family one hardly ever hears the word hygiene, but +well-trained children learn much about the care of their bodies in +health, and the family economy is directed consciously to that end. A +good, nourishing meal always contributes more to health than many +lectures on dietetics. Yet back, hidden away in the manager's mind, is +the science of dietetics. So is it with quickening the child's power and +thought in the spiritual life. We must avoid the abstract, the +intellectually analytical. Religion should present itself concretely, +practically, and as an atmosphere and ideal in the family. We parents +must not look for theological interest in the child. A Timothy Dwight at +ten or twelve, though once found in Sunday-school library books, is a +monstrosity. The child's aspiration, his religious devotion, his love +for God will find expression in almost every other way before it will be +formulated into questions of a serious theological character. Nor ought +we to force upon him the phrases of religion to which we are accustomed. +He will live in another day and must speak its tongue. His faith must +find itself in consciousness and then be permitted to clothe itself in +appropriate garments of words. Those garments must be woven out of the +realities of actual experiences in the child's life. We cannot prepare +or make them for him. The expression of religion will be consonant with +the stage of development. If his faith is to be real he must never be +allowed or tempted to imagine that if only he can use the words, the +verbal symbol, he has the fact, the life-experience. Try then to use +words which are simple and meaningful to him and be content to wait for +life to lead him to formulate vital verbal forms for himself. + + +§ 4. PATIENCE AND COMMON-SENSE + +Fourthly, we must have faith in God's laws of growth. If we be but +faithful, furnishing the soil, the seed, the nurture, we must wait for +the increase. Many factors which we cannot control will determine +whether it shall be early or late and what form it shall take. We must +wait. It is high folly that pulls up the sprouting grain to see whether +it is growing properly. + +Fifthly, manifestations of the religious life will vary in children and +in families. The commonest error is to expect some one popular form +alone, to imagine that all children must pass through some standardized +experiences. Mrs. Brown's Willy may rise in prayer meeting. Do not be +downhearted. Willy is only doing that which he has seen his parents do, +and, usually, only because they do it. Your boy, or girl, is seeking +health of life, of thought, of action; is growing in character. Let them +grow, help them to grow. You know they love you even when they say +little about it; you do not expect them to climb to the housetop and +declare their affection. A flower does not sing about the sun, it grows +toward it. That is the test of the child's religion: Is he growing +Godward in life, action, character? + + +§ 5. THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD + +Sixthly, deal most carefully with the child's consciousness of God. The +truth is that the child in the average home has a consciousness of God. +It grows out of formal references in social rites and customs, informal +allusions in conversation, and direct statements and instruction. But +frequently the resultant mental picture is a misleading one, sometimes +even vicious in its moral effect. Where superstitious servants take more +interest in the child's religious ideas than do his parents, we have the +child whose life is darkened by the fear of an omnipotent ogre. +Nursemaids will slothfully scare small children into silence by threats +of the awful presence of a bogey god. The life of the spirit cannot be +trusted to the hireling. Parents must be sure of the character as well +as the superficial competency of those who come closest to childhood. A +child's ideas are formed before he goes to school. The family cannot +delegate the formation of dominant ideas to persons trained only for +nursery tasks. + +But frequently the mother is a misleading teacher. To her the child goes +with all the big questions outside the immediate world of things. Is she +prepared to answer the questions? Few dilemmas of our life today are +more pathetic than this: the mother has outgrown the theology of her +childhood; she remembers keenly the suffering and superstition, the +struggle that followed the darkened pictures she received as a little +one, but she has nothing better to offer the child. No one has taught +her how to put the later, more spiritual concepts into language for the +child of our day. Weakly she falls back on the forms of words she once +abhorred. + +There are certainly two approaches of reality for the child-mind to the +idea of God. Two immediate experiences are rich in meaning; they are the +life of the family and the wonder of the everyday world, the life and +variety of nature and human activities. The first is a very simple and +rich approach. By every possible means help children in the family to +think of God as the great and good Father of us all. Do this in the +phrasing of prayers and graces, in the answers to their questions, in +the casual word. Why should we assume that the Fatherhood of God is for +the adult alone? And why should it be that this rich concept dawns on us +like a new day of freedom in truth in later years instead of becoming +ours in childhood and so determining the habit and attitude of our +lives? The finest, the ideal person is, to the child, the father. God in +terms of fatherhood is the sum and source of all that is ideal in +personality. + +The child's keen interest in the world of nature is our opportunity to +lead him to love the gracious source of all beauty and goodness. How +keen is the child's enjoyment of the beauty of the world! Can we forever +fix the general concept of all this beauty as the thought of God in the +words of flower and leaf, mountain and stream? And might we not also +connect the idea of God with the affairs of daily life? That depends on +the parent's attitude of mind; if we think of the universal life that is +behind all battles and business and affairs, there will be a difference +in our answers to the thousand curious inquiries that rise in the +child's mind. + +Nor must we leave the child to think of God as a separate, far-off +person, on a throne somewhere in the skies. The child is finding his way +into a universe. The God who is a minute fraction of that universe makes +possible the religion that is no more than a negligible fraction of +life. The child asks concerning clouds, the sea, the trees, the birds, +and all the world about him; he tends to interpret it causally and +ideally. Childhood affords the great opportunity for giving the color, +the beauty and glory, the life of the divine to all this universe, to +instil the feeling that God is everywhere, in all and through all, and +that in him we live and move and have our being. The child's joy in this +world can thus be given a religious meaning. He sings + + My God, I thank thee thou hast made + This earth so bright...., + +and so beauty and joy become part of his religion. His faith becomes a +gladsome thing; he knows that the trees of the forest clap their hands, +the mountains and the hills sing, and the morning stars chant together +in the gladness of the divine life. + +Such a view of the world comes not by prearranged and indoor interviews. +One must walk out into the good outdoor world for the opportunity and +the inspiration. The garden plot, the park, and, best of all, the open +fields and woods speak to a child and furnish us an open book from which +we may teach him to read. Recalling religious impressions, the writer +would testify to feeling nothing deeper, as a result of church +attendance in childhood, than the shapes of seats and the colors of +walls; but there remain deep impressions of wonder, beauty, and the +meaning of God from Sunday mornings spent with his father under the +great beeches in Epping Forest, listening to the reading and singing of +the old hymns, or joining in conversation on the woods and the flowers, +and even on the legends of Robin Hood in the forest. + + +§ 6. THE EVERYDAY OPPORTUNITIES + +Seventhly, natural conversation affords the best opportunity for direct +instruction. A child is a peripatetic interrogation. His questions cover +the universe; there are no doors which you desire to see opened that he +will not approach at some time. There is great advantage when the +religious question rises normally; when the child begins it and when the +interest continues with the same naturalness as in conversation on any +other subject. Then questions usually take one of three forms: mere +childish, curious questions, questions on conduct, and questions on +religion in its organized form. + +The child's curiosity is the basis of even those questions which have +usually been credited to preternatural piety. The tiny youngster who +asks strange questions about God asks equally startling ones about +fairies or about his grandmother. But his questions give us the chance +to direct him to right thoughts of God. Here we need to be sure of our +own thoughts and to keep in mind our principal purpose, to quicken in +this child loyalty to the highest and best. He must be shown a God whom +he can love and, at the same time, one who will call for his growing +loyalty, his courage, and devotion. Everything for the child's future +depends on the pictures he now forms. We all carry to a large degree our +childhood's view of God. + +Some of the child's questions probe deep; how shall we answer them? When +you know the truth tell him the truth, being sure that it is told in +language that really conveys truth to his mind. The danger is that +parents will attempt to tell more than they know, to answer questions +that cannot be answered, or that they will, in sloth or cowardice or +ignorance, tell children untrue things. If a child asks, "Did God make +the world?" the answer that will be true to the child may be a simple +affirmative. If the child asks or his query implies, "Did God make the +leaves, or the birds, with his fingers?" we had better take time to +show the difference between man's making of things and the working of +the divine energy through all the process of the development of the +world. When the child asks, "Mother, if God made all things, why did he +make the devil?" it would surely be wise and opportune to correct the +child's mental picture of a personal anti-God and to take from him his +bogey of a "devil." But the question of the relation of God to the +existence of evil would remain, and the best a parent could do would be +to illustrate the necessities of freedom of choice and will in life by +similar freedom in the family. + +It must be remembered that children's curious questions are only their +attempt to discover their world, that they have no peculiar religious +significance, but that they afford the parent a vital opportunity for +direct religious instruction. These questions must be treated seriously; +something is missing in parental consciousness when the child's +questions furnish only material for jesting relation to the family +friends. + + +§ 7. MORAL TEACHING + +_Questions on conduct_: Scores of times in the day the children come in +from play or from school and tell of what has happened. Their more or +less breathless recitals very often include vigorous accounts of +"cheating," "naughtiness," unfair play, unkind words, discourtesies, +all dependent as to their character on the age of the children and all +opening doors for free conversation on duties and conduct. Here lies one +of the large opportunities for moral instruction. There is no need to +attempt to make formal occasions for this; so long as children play and +live with others they are under the experience of learning the art of +living with one another; this is the simple essence of morality. The +parent's answers to their questions on conduct, the comments on their +criticisms, and the conversation that may easily be directed on these +subjects count tremendously with the child in establishing his ideals +and modes of conduct. Returning to his play, there is no mightier +authority he can quote than to say, "My mother says--," or "My father +says--." + +Let no one say that instruction in moral living is not religious, for +there can be no adequate guidance in morals without religion, nor can +the religious quality of the life find expression adequately except +through conduct in social living. Children need more than the rules for +living; they must feel motives and see ideals. They do not live by rules +any more than we do. Besides the rule that is known there must be a +reason for following it and a strong desire to do so. All ethical +teaching needs this imperative and motivation of religion, the +quickening of loyalty to high ideals, the doing of the right for +reasons of love as well as of duty and profit. + +The father's opportunity comes especially with the boys. They are sure +to bring to him their ethical questions on games and sport; he knows +more about boys' fights and struggles than does the mother. When the +boys begin to discuss their games the father cannot afford to lack +interest. Trivial as the question may seem to be, it is the most +important one of the day to the boy and, for the interests of his +character, it may be the most important for many a day to the father. If +he answers with sympathy and interest this question on a "foul ball" or +on marbles or peg-tops, he has opened a door that will always stay open +so long as he approaches it with sincerity; if he slights it, if he is +too busy with those lesser things that seem great to him, he has closed +a door into the boy's life; it may never be opened again. Children learn +life through the life they are now living. Real preparation for the +world of business and larger responsibilities comes by the child's +experiences of his present world of play and schooling and family +living. To help him to live this present life aright is the best +training that can be given for the right living of all life. + +_Questions on organized religion_: As children grow up, the church comes +into their range of interests. Just as they often make the day school +focal for conversation, as they recount their day's work there, so they +retain impressions of the church school, of the services of the church, +and will always ask many questions about this institution and its +observances. Here is the opportunity, in free conversation, to tell the +child the meaning of the church, the significance of membership therein, +and to lead him to conscious relationship to the society of the +followers of Jesus. (See chap. xvii, "The Family and the Church.") + + + I. References for Study + + Alice E. Fitts, "Consciousness of God in Children," _The Aims of + Religious Education_, pp. 330-38. Religious Education Association, + $1.00. + + W.G. Koons, _Child's Religious Life_, sec. II. Eaton & Mains, + $1.00. + + J. Sully, _Children's Ways_, chap. vi. Appleton, $1.25. + + + II. Further Reading + + George Hodges, _The Training of Children in Religion_, chaps. i-vi. + Appleton, $1.50. + + George E. Dawson, _The Child and His Religion_, chap. ii. The + University of Chicago Press, $0.75. + + Edward Lyttleton, _The Corner-Stone of Education_, chap. viii. + Putnam, $1.50. + + T. Stephens (ed.), _The Child and Religion_. Putnam, $1.50. + + C.W. Richell, _The Child as God's Child_. Eaton & Mains, $0.75. + + W.G. Koons, _The Child's Religious Nature_. Eaton & Mains, $1.00. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What are the special difficulties which you feel about + introducing the topic of religion to children? Describe any methods + or modes of approach which have seemed successful? + + 2. Would you regard it as a fault if a child seems unwilling to + talk about religion? What do you think "religion" means to the + child-mind? + + 3. In what ways do children's aptitudes differ and what factors + probably determine the difference? What was your own childish + conception of God? Did you love God or fear him? Why? + + 4. Is it ever right to teach the child those conceptions which we + have outgrown? What about Santa Claus and fairies? How can you use + childish figures of speech as an avenue to more exact truth? + + 5. Does the child learn more through ears or eyes? Through which + agency do we seek to convey religious ideas? + + 6. Is it possible to make the child see the intimate relation + between conduct and religion? How would you do this? + + 7. Give some of the characteristics of a religious child of seven + years, of ten. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +DIRECTED ACTIVITY + + +Probably all parents find themselves at some time thinking that the +real, fundamental problem of training their children lies in dealing +with their superabundant energy. "He is such an active child!" mothers +complain. Were he otherwise a physician might properly be consulted. But +the child's activity does seriously interfere with parental peace. It +takes us all a long time to learn that we are not, after all, in our +homes in order to enjoy peaceful rest, but in order to train children +into fulness of life. That does not mean that the home should be without +quiet and rest, but that we must not hope to repress the energy of +childhood. One might as well hope to plug up a spring in the hillside. +Our work is to direct that activity into glad, useful service. + + +§ 1. VALUE OF ACTIVITY + +The things we do not only indicate character, they determine it. Our +thoughts have value and power as they get into action. To bend our +energies toward an ideal is to make it more real, to make it a part of +ourselves. Children learn by doing--learn not only that which they are +doing but life itself. + +It may be doubted whether a child ever grew who did not plead to have a +share in the work he saw going on about him. That desire to help is part +of that fundamental virtue of loyalty of which we have spoken above; it +is his desire to be true to the tendency of the home, to give himself to +the realization of its purposes. Of course he does not think this out at +all. But this desire on the part of the child to have a hand in the +day's work is the parent's fine opportunity for a most valuable and +influential form of character direction. + +One of the tests of a worthy character is whether the life is +contributory or parasitic, whether one carries his load, does his work, +makes his contribution, or simply waits on the world for what he can +get. A religious interpretation of and attitude toward life is +essentially that of self-giving in service. "My Father worketh hitherto +and I work." "I must be about my Father's business." How noticeable is +the child's interest in the vivid word-picture of One who "went about +doing good"! + + +§ 2. THE BLESSING OF LABOR + +The home is the first place for life's habituation to service. The child +is greatly to be pitied who has no duties, no share in the work. Where +the hands are unsoiled the heart is the easier sullied. It is the height +of mistaken kindness, one of the common errors of an unthinking, +superficial affection, to protect our children from work. This is a +world of the moral order and of the glory of work. + +When the child is very small it must learn this by having committed to +it very simple duties. As soon as it is able to handle things it may +learn to do that which is most helpful with those things, to care for +its toys, to put them away neatly. A child can learn while very young to +take care of its spoon, of certain clothes, of chair, and pencil and +paper. True, it is much easier to "pick up" after the child; but to do +so is to yield to our own sloth. The more tedious way is the one we must +follow if we would train the child. + +Besides the care of his possessions the child will gladly take a share +in the general work of the home. Let some daily duty be assigned to each +one; such simple responsibilities as picking up all papers and magazines +and seeing that they are properly stacked or disposed of may be given to +one; another may sweep the stairs every day with a whisk broom (in one +instance a boy of eight did this daily); another may be "librarian," +caring for all books; each one, after eight years of age, should make +her own bed; each one should be entirely responsible for his own table +in his room. Many homes permit of many other "chores," such as keeping +up the supply of small kindling, caring for a pet or even a larger +animal, keeping a little personal garden or vegetable plot. Under those +normal conditions of living, which some day we may reach, where each +family, or all families, have trees and flowers and ample space, the +opportunities are increased for joyous child activities which +consciously contribute to social well-being as a whole. + + +§ 3. RELIGION IN ACTION + +Perhaps some will say, this is not religious education, it is everyday +training. Yes, it is "everyday training," but it is the training of a +religious person with the religious purpose of habituating the child to +give his life in service to his world. That is precisely what we +need--_religion in everyday action_. The atmosphere and habitual +attitude and conversation of the family must be depended on to give a +really religious meaning to these everyday acts, to make them as +religious as going to church, perhaps more so, and so to make them a +training for the life that is religious, not in word only, but in deed +and in truth. + +Whatever we may say to children on the subject of religion, whether +directly or in teaching by indirection through songs and worship, must +pass over somehow into action in order to have meaning and reality. It +must be realized in order to be real. The difficulty that appears is +that of connecting the daily act with its spiritual significance. Yet +that is not as difficult as it seems. If the act has religious +significance to us, if we form the habit of really worshiping God with +our work, seeking in it to do his will, the child will know it. We +cannot keep that hidden. The spiritual life will never be more real to +the child than it is to us, and no amount of moralizing or +spiritualizing about our acts or his will give them religious +significance. + +At least one person will testify that, after being brought up in a +really religious home, the most strikingly religious memory of that home +is an occasion when he delightedly carried a tray of food to a sick +neighbor. It was doing the very thing that he longed to do, realizing +the aspiration that had been unable to find words or form before. So the +life of action can be steadily trained by acts of kindness. Habits are +acts repeated until they pass from the volitional to the involuntary. +The only process we can follow is steadily to train the children in the +willing and doing of the right, the good, and the kindly deed, until it +becomes habitual. Let the child prepare the tray of delicacies, pack the +flowers we are sending, carry them over if possible, at least have a +share in all our ministries.[12] + +The modern Sunday school recognizes the importance of activity in +forming religious character; therefore it plans and organizes social +activities for students to carry out.[13] The parents ought to know what +is designed for each child in his respective grade and to plan to +co-operate with the school. Where the family unites in the forms of +service suggested for the children, these activities lose all +perfunctoriness and take on a new reality. Social usefulness becomes a +normal part of life. + +Do we remember the best times of our childhood? Were they not when we +were doing things? And were not the best of these best times when we +were doing the best things, those that seemed ideal, that gave us a +sense of helping someone or of putting into action the best of our +thoughts? That is the chance and the joy our children are longing for, +and that joy will be their strength. + + +§ 4. RELIGION IN SERVICE + +The family has excellent opportunities for developing through its own +activities and duties the habits of the religious life. Children may +acquire through daily acts the habit of thinking of life as just the +chance to love and serve. Service may become perfectly normal to life. +Our modern paupers, whether they tramp the highways or ride in private +cars, came usually out of homes where the moral standard interpreted +life as just the chance of graft, to gain without giving, to have +without earning. Parental indulgence educates in pauperism. Let a boy +remain the passive beneficiary of all the advantages of a home until he +is sixteen or eighteen, and it will be exceedingly difficult to convert +him from the pauper habit. + +The hard task before parents is to save their children from the snare of +passive luxury. Perhaps, remembering our toilsome youth, we seek to +shield them. It is a serious unkindness. It is a wrong to our world. The +religious mind is the one that takes life in terms of service, sees the +days as doors to ways of usefulness, girds itself with the towel, and +finds honor in bending to do the little things for the least of men. +Vain is all family worship, all prayer and praise and catechism, unless +we train the feet to walk this way so that they may visit the +imprisoned, clothe the naked, comfort the sad, and cheer the broken in +heart. The family may make this the normal way to live. + +If the family would train boys and girls who shall be true followers of +the great Servant, it must stand among men as a servant, it must see +itself as set in the community to serve, and by habits of service and +helpfulness, by its whole social tone, it must quicken in its own people +the sense of social obligation and a realization of the delight in +self-giving. A home that is selfish in relation to other homes, in +relation to its community, can have no other than selfish, antisocial, +and therefore irreligious children. The first step in the welfare of a +child is to see that the home which constitutes his personal atmosphere +is steeped in the spirit of good-will toward men. + +The whole attitude of life is determined by the thought-atmosphere of +the family. The greedy family makes the grafting citizen. The grasping +home makes the pugnacious disturber of the public peace. Greater than +the question whether you are a good citizen in your relation to the +ballot box is the one whether you are a cultivator of good citizenship +in your home. No amount of Sunday-school teaching on the Beatitudes or +week-day teaching on civics is going to overcome the down-drag of +envious, antisocial thought and feeling and conversation in the home. +Home action and attitude count for more than all besides. + +It is equally true that no other influence can offset the salutary power +of a truly social home, that the easiest, most natural, and effective +method of teaching social duty and unselfishness is to do our whole +social duty unselfishly. + + +§ 5. FAMILY TRAINING FOR SOCIAL LIVING + +The supreme test of the religious life here is ability to live among men +as brothers and to cause the conditions of the divine family to be +realized on earth. If we can realize that the purpose of Jesus was to +bring men into the family of God, that the aim of all religious endeavor +is the family character in men and women and the conditions of that +family in all society, we must surely appreciate the possibility of the +human family as a training school for this larger family of humanity. + +The infant approaches social living by the pathway of the society of the +family. We all go out into life through widening circles, first the +mother's arms, then the family, the neighborhood, the city, the state, +the nation, the world-life. Each circle prepares for the next. The +family is the child's social order; its life is his training for the +larger life of nation and human brotherhood. + +Just how men and women will live in society is determined principally by +the bent of their characters in the social order of the family. Their +attitude to the world follows the attitude of the family, especially of +the parents. They interpret the larger world by the lesser. The home is +the great school of citizenship and social living. + +All the moral and religious problems of the family find a focus in the +purpose of preparing persons for social living. The family justifies its +cost to society in the contribution which it makes in trained and +motived lives. As a religious family its first duty is to prepare the +coming generation to live in a religious society, in one which will +steadily move toward the divine ideal of perfect family relations +through brotherhood and fatherhood. Its business is not to get children +ready for heaven, but to train them to make all life heavenly. Its aim +is not alone children who will not tear down the parents' reputation, +but men and women who will build up the actual worth and beauty of all +lives. + +The realization, in the family, of the purpose of training youth to +social living and service in the religious spirit depends on two things: +a spirit and passion in the family for social justice and order, and the +direction of the activities of the family toward training in social +usefulness. + +Only the social spirit can give birth to the social spirit. True lovers +of men, who set the values of life and of the spirit first, who give +their lives that all men may have freedom and means to find more +abundant life, come out of the families where the passion of human love +burns high. The selfish family, self-centered, caring not at all in any +deep sense for the well-being of others, existing to extract the juice +of life and let who will be nourished on the rind, becomes effective to +make the social highwayman, the oppressor. From such a family comes he +who breaks laws for his pocketbook and impedes the enactment of laws +lest human rights should prevent his acquisition of wealth; he who +hates his brother man--unless that brother has more than he has; the foe +of the kingdom of goodness and peace and brotherhood. + +And goodness is as contagious as badness. Children catch the spirit of +social love and idealism in the family. Where men and women are deeply +concerned with all that makes the world better for lives, better for +babies and mothers, for workers, and, above all, for the values of the +spirit gained through leisure, opportunities, and higher incentives; +where the family is more concerned with folks than with furniture; where +habitually it thinks of people as Jesus did, as the objects most of all +worth seeking, worth investing in, there children receive direction, +habituation, and motivation for the life of religion, the life that +binds them in glad love to the service of their fellows, and makes them +think of all their life as the one great chance to serve, to make a +better world, and to bring God's great family closer together here. + + + I. References for Study + + G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_, pp. 142-50. Revell, + $1.35. + + W.S. Athearn, _The Church School_, pp. 85-102. Pilgrim Press, + $1.00. + + G. Johnson, _Education by Plays and Games_, Part I. Ginn & Co., + $0.90. + + + II. Further Reading + + E.D. Angell, _Play_. Little, Brown & Co., $1.50. + + Fisher, Gulick, _et al._, "Ethical Significance of Play," + _Materials for Religious Education_, pp. 197-215. Religious + Education Association, $0.50. + + Publications of the Play Ground Association. + + + III. Methods and Materials + + PLAY + + Forbush, _Manual of Play_. Jacobs, $1.00. + + A. Newton, _Graded Games_. Barnes, $1.25. + + Von Palm, _Rainy Day Pastimes_. Dana Estes, $1.00. + + Johnson, _When Mother Lets Us Help_. Moffat, Yard & Co., $0.75. + + WORK + + Canfield, _What Shall We Do Now?_ Stokes, $1.50. + + Beard, _Jack of All Trades_. Scribner, $2.00. + + Beard, _Things Worth Doing_. Scribner, $2.00. + + Bailey, _Garden Making_. Macmillan, $1.50. + + Bailey (ed.), _Something to Do_ (magazine). School Arts Publishing + Co. + + + IV. Topics for Discussion + + 1. Is the quiet child an ideal child? How far should we go in + restraining activity? + + 2. The relative advantages of work and leisure for children. What + of the value of chores to you; did you do them? Describe any forms + of children's service in the home which have come under your + observation. + + 3. What forms of community service can be done by children and by + young people? + + 4. Recall any lessons learned by activity in your early home life. + + 5. Give in their order, according to your judgment, the potencies + for religious character in the home. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[12] A short list of books on child activity in the home is appended at +the end of this chapter; a fairly complete list, long enough for any +family, will be found on p. 117 of _The Church School_, by W.S. Athearn. + +[13] See W.N. Hutchins, _Graded Social Service for the Sunday School_. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HOME AS A SCHOOL[14] + + +The home is so mighty as a school because, requiring little time for +formal instruction, it enlists its scholars so largely in informal +activities. It trains for life by living; it trains as an institution, +by a group of activities, a series of duties, a set of habits. If the +home is to prepare for social living it will be most of all and best of +all by its organization and conduct as a social institution. + + +§ 1. AN IDEAL COMMUNITY + +For the purposes of society homes must be social-training centers; they +must be conducted as communities if their members are to be fitted for +communal living. No boy is likely to be ready for the responsibilities +of free citizenship who has spent his years in a home under an absolute +monarchy; or, as is today perhaps more frequently the case, in a +condition of unmitigated anarchy. A free society cannot consist of units +not free. The problems of parental discipline arise and appear as +persistently irritating and perplexing stumbling-blocks in many a home +simply because that home is organized altogether out of harmony and +relation with the normal life in which it is set. Society environing the +home gives its members the habits of twentieth-century autonomy, +individual initiative and responsibility, together with collective +living and working, while the home often seeks to perpetuate +thirteenth-century absolutism, serfdom, and subjection. In social living +outside the home we learn to do the will of all; in the home we attempt +to compel children to do the will of one. + + +§ 2. COMMUNITY INTERESTS + +The home organized as a social community will give to every member, +according to his ability, a share in its guidance and will expect from +every member the free contribution of his powers. Its rules will be made +by the will of all, and its affairs governed, not by an executive board +composed of the parents, but by the free participation and choice of +all. The young will learn to choose by choosing; will learn both how to +rule and to be ruled by a share in ruling. + +To be explicit, suppose a piece of furniture is desired for the home. +Two plans at least are possible: first, the "head of the home" may go +forth and purchase it without consulting anyone, or after advising with +the other "head"; or, second, before a purchase is made, the wisdom of +such an addition to the furniture may be suggested in the open council +of the whole family and the purchase discussed and determined by all. +Such councils, usually coming at or after the principal meal, freely +participated in by all, give even to the youngest a sense of the cost of +a home, of the care that goes into it, with, what is more important, a +sense of a share in these cares and costs; they cultivate habits of +prudence, of consideration of a matter, of steady judgments, of +deference to the wishes and wisdom of others. Of still greater +importance is another practical issue of such a plan--that every member +of the household has a new sense of proprietorship with deepened +responsibility. Instead of thinking of any household possession as +father's or mother's, or even mine, it becomes _ours_. The parents no +longer need to say, "Children, do not mar the furniture; it costs money +to replace it." The children know that already, and they have the same +pride in the home possessions and the same desire to preserve them as +they have in that which is peculiarly their own. A habit of mind results +from such a course so that, by thinking in terms of common possession of +the best things of life, there is cultivated that respect for the rights +of others which is simply right social thinking. + +The same plan could be pursued in relation to almost every interest of +the family--as the planning of the annual vacation and outing, the +holidays, picnics, and birthday celebrations, the church and religious +exercises. Above all, in the last mentioned, this social spirit may be +cultivated. The father may cease to be the "high priest" for his family +and become a worshiper along with the other members. The effect will be +that his children are more likely to stay as worshipers with him than if +they gazed on him as on some lonely elevation, unrelated to them in his +religious exercises. The reading, the song, the prayers, the comment and +discussion, the story-telling, and all that may make up the regular +specific religious activities of the family should be such that all may +have a share in them. Nothing could be finer, diviner, and bring larger +helpfulness for social living than the attempt of the least little +lisping child to throw herself into the unified family act of prayer, as +when one little tot, unable to say the Lord's Prayer, united in worship +at the time of that act by saying, as reverently as possible, "One, two, +three, four, five," etc., up to ten. The ability to count was her latest +accomplishment; counting to ten was bringing the very best thing she +then had and, in the act of family worship, offering her part to the +Most High. A fine sense of worship and a desire to be one with the +others in this united, communal service prompted the participation. + + +§ 3. COMMUNITY SERVICE + +Community service may be cultivated in the home. Here is the ideal +social community, where there are neither parasites nor paupers, where +all give of their best for the best of all. No one doubts that the baby +gives its full share of happiness and cheer, and the aged their offering +of consolation and experience; but the difficulty is supposed to be with +the lad and the girl who would rather play than work. Usually this is +because the habits of co-operation in the life of this community have +been too long neglected. The small boy or girl had no share in its work. +Parents are too busy to think through the matter of finding suitable +duties for all. It is so much easier to do things one's self, even +though the child misses the benefits of participation. More frequently +the blame lies in the fact that parents desire to shield children from +labor. Some would have them grow up without knowing what they count as +the degradation of toil. But a boy who knows nothing of the "chores" has +missed half the joys of boyhood, and has a terribly hard lesson ahead of +him when he goes out to relate himself to life. No matter what one's +station may be, there is a part to be played, and one's piece of work to +be done. The greatest unkindness we can do our children is to train them +to lives that do not play their part. The home is our chance to train a +man to harmonious usefulness in his world. Not only should the family +train to social co-operation and service, but it should train to +efficiency therein. Do not let your child's duties become a farce; let +them exact as much of him as the world will exact also; that is, +efficiency, accuracy, thoroughness, and fidelity. + + +§ 4. A SCHOOL OF SOCIAL MINISTRY + +The family trains lives for social ministry. The unsocial lives come out +of unsocial homes. The home that exists for itself alone trains lives +that exist only for themselves; these are the homes that throw the sand +of selfishness into the wheels of society; they ultimately effect social +suicide through selfishness. The attitude and atmosphere of the home are +of first importance here. As we think, so will our children act. If the +home is to us a place without responsibilities for the neighborhood, +without duties to neighbors, without social roots, then it is a school +for industrial, commercial, and social greed and warfare. As we think in +our hearts and talk at our table, so are we educating those who sit +thereat. + +If we would have our homes really efficient and worthy agencies for +education in social living, the first thing to do is to seek the social +atmosphere, to cultivate all those influences which young lives +unconsciously absorb. We all know that character comes through +environment in large measure, and that the mental and spiritual +environment is by far the most potent. Here is something that affects us +more than the finest or poorest furniture and that gives the real zest +and flavor to any meal. The choice of our own reading enters here, not +only the matter of reading in sociology, but of all reading, as to +whether it blinds with class prejudices, intensifies caste feeling, or +atrophies social sympathy by pandering to selfishness and sensuousness. +The control of our own feelings and judgment enters here. Do we +sedulously cultivate charity for others? Do we stifle impatience, +bitterness, class feeling? Do we guide the conversation of visitors and +the family group so that antisocial passions are subdued and a spirit of +brotherly love and compassion for all is cultivated? Here men and women +have opportunity to give evidence of a change of heart; here they need +that awakening to social consciousness which is a new birth, a +regeneration into the life of the Son of Man who came to give his life. + +By its active ministry the family is training for social living. When a +child carries a bowl of soup to some sick or needy one, he learns a +lesson never to be forgotten. The memories of hours of planning and +preparation for some neighborly service--the making of bread, the +packing of a box, the preserves for the sick--shine out like sunshine +spots along childhood's ways; they direct manhood's steps. + +We are gradually learning that social duties are not learned save +through social deeds; that even the most carefully prepared and +perfectly pedagogical systems of instruction fail, standing alone. The +college student uses the laboratory method in his sociology--though we +know that sociology may be as far from social living as the poles are +apart. The Social Service Association of the Young Men's Christian +Association has given up attempts to teach social duty in favor of the +plan of undertaking specific pieces of social activity. The home must +adopt the laboratory method. The important thing is, not what the father +or mother may systematically teach about the social duties of the +children, but what kinds of service, of ministry and normal activity +they may lead the children to; that is, in what ways they may all +together discharge their functions in society. + + +§ 5. FAMILIES AS COMMUNITY FACTORS + +Each family must clearly see its normal relations to its community, to +the social whole; first, as an association of social beings having +social duties, obligations, and privileges; then, to see that the +ordering of the daily life is the largest single factor in determining +the value of the family to the development of the community, fitting +harmoniously into the larger community, and rendering its share of +service. + +The disorderly home spreads its immoral contagion beyond its walls, out +into the front yard, out and up and down the street, and all through the +village and city. The City Beautiful cannot come until we have the Home +Beautiful. Training each one to play his part in keeping the house in +order, picking up and setting in place his own tools and playthings, +preventing and removing litter, scraps, and elements of disorder and +discomfort, acquiring habits of neatness based on social motives--these +things make more for the city of beauty and health than all our lectures +on clean cities. + +No family lives to itself. Young people need to see clearly how their +homes and their habits in the home impinge on other homes and lives. +This is impressed upon us in an accentuated and acute degree in city +living. One can hardly imagine a finer discipline of grace than +apartment living, though one may well question whether it is not morally +and hygienically flying in the face of the natural order. We may not +have for a long time municipal ordinances forbidding boiled dinners, +limburger, and phonographs in city apartments; but if, unfortunately, we +are compelled to live in these modern abominations, we ought to +cultivate a conscience that will not inflict our idiosyncrasies, either +in culinary aromas or in musical taste, on our neighbors. But there are +matters greater than these by which the home trains for social +thoughtfulness. No man has a right to grow weeds at home, because the +seeds never stay there. A howling dog, a disease-breeding sty, a +fly-harboring stable, must be viewed, not from the point of the family's +convenience, but from that of others' welfare. + + +§ 6. TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP + +The family has a duty to train children for Christian citizenship. No +other institution can take its place even here. Courses of lectures in +churches and settlements effect excellent results, and the study of +civics from the moral and ideal viewpoint should be encouraged in the +schools; but the home is the place where, after all, citizens are +trained and the value or menace of their citizenship determined. If we +stop long enough to get a clear understanding of what we mean by +citizenship this will be the more evident. + +Citizenship is the condition of full communal, social living in a +democracy. It is not a special department or activity of a man's life +which he exercises once in a while, as at the primary or at the polls or +through the political campaign; it is a permanent condition, the +condition of his social living in a democracy. It seems to be worth +while to think of this enough to be quite sure of it, for we have +thought too long of citizenship as a special aspect of one's life or as +an occasional duty; we have called for good citizenship at times of +election and have been content with dormant citizenship at other times; +we have said that one was exercising his citizenship when he voted, and +have forgotten that he was exercising it or abusing or neglecting it as +he walked the streets, talked with his neighbors, or in any way lived +the life that has relations to other lives. + +Matters of citizenship are simply matters of social living, as social +living expresses itself through what we call government; that is, +through communal, civic, national administration and regulation. +Citizenship is social control in action, not through political activity +alone, but through all that concerns civic and communal life. In view of +this it may be worth while to look a little more closely into the +relations of family life to this matter of the determination of the +character of our citizenship. + +The family is an agency for religious training in citizenship. The +family is the first, smallest, and still the most common and potent +social group. It is the community in which we nearly all learn communal +living. At first it is a child's world, then comes his city, and then +his nation, but ere long again the family is his own kingdom. Its +ideals, constantly interpreted in action, determine our ideals. Where +the father is greedy, self-centered, regarding the home as solely for +his convenience as his private boarding-house, where he is a despotic +boss, why should not the son at least tolerate bossism in his city if he +does not himself pattern after his father on a wider scale and regard +the city or the state as his private boarding-house and the treasury as +his private manger? Where the mother is a petty parasite, what wonder +the children regard with indifference, if not even with admiration, the +whole system of civic and social barnacles, leeches, and other +parasites? + +The very organization of the home must prepare for civic duty by laying +upon all appropriate duties and activities. It ought to be an ideal type +of community. But that can never be until we take the training of +parents seriously in hand; until we cease to delegate the pedagogy of +courtship, marriage, and home-founding to the comic supplements of the +Sunday papers and to the joke columns. Parents must themselves be +trained for the business of the organization of homes as educational +agencies. + +The life and work of the home ought to train religiously for +citizenship, by causing each to bear his due share of the burdens of +all. Where the child has been forced to do the indolent parent's share, +to support the slothful father, he can only look forward to the time +when he will be free to support only himself, and have no other than +purely egoistic obligations; this is an utterly immoral conception, and +one squarely opposed to good citizenship. Where the boy or the girl has +been trained to regard all toil as dishonorable, where each has been +taught scrupulously to avoid every burden, they come into social living +with habits set against bearing their share and toward making others +carry them. The indolent parent makes the tax-dodging citizen, as the +indulgent parent often makes the place-hunting citizen who becomes a tax +on the public. + +The ideals of the family determine the needs of citizens. Its +conversation, its reading, its customs, set the standard of social +needs. Where the father laughs at the smartness of the artful dodge in +politics, where the mother sighs after the tinsel and toys that she +knows others have bought with corrupt cash, where the conversation at +the meal-table steadily, though often unconsciously, lifts up and lauds +those who are out after the "real thing," the eager ears about that +board drink it in and childish hearts resolve what they will do when +they have a chance. Where no voice speaks for high things, where no tide +of indignation against wrong sweeps into language, where the children +never feel that the parents have great moral convictions--where no +vision is, the people perish. + +Yet to realize this civic responsibility of the home would be, in the +greater number of instances, to remedy it. In those other instances +where there are no civic ideals, where the domestic conscience is dead, +there rests upon the state, upon society, for its own sake, the +responsibility to train those children so that, at any rate, they will +not perpetuate homes of this type. We may do very much by the +stimulation and direction of parents. Men need but to be reminded of +their duty to make it a part of their business to train their children +in social duty. + + + I. References for Study + + Taylor, _Religion in Social Action_, chaps. vii, viii. Dodd, Mead & + Co., $1.25. + + E.J. Ward, _The Social Center_, chap. v. Appleton, $1.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + Lofthouse, _Ethics in the Family_. Hodder & Stoughton, $1.50. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What is the special social importance of the family? + + 2. How do children acquire their social ideals from the home? + + 3. What are the advantages which the home has as a school? + + 4. How do homes train for the responsibilities of citizenship? + + 5. Can you describe any plans of community councils in the home? + + 6. How would you promote community service in the family? + + 7. What are the dangers of unsocial and selfish lives growing in + the home? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[14] This chapter is, with the publisher's kind permission, taken, with +sundry minor changes, from the author's pamphlet, _The Home as a School +for Social Living_, published by the American Baptist Publication +Society in the "Social Service Series." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE CHILD'S IDEAL LIFE + + +The modern child is likely to miss one of the great character enrichings +which his parents had, in that he is in danger of growing up entirely +ignorant of the poetic setting of religious thought in historic and +dignified hymns. The great hymns have done more for religious thought +and character than all the sermons that have ever been preached. Even in +the adult of the purely intellectual cast the hymn, aided by rhythm, +music, repetition, and emotion, is likely to become a more permanent +part of the mental substratum than any formal logical presentation of +ideas. How much more will this be the case with the child who feels more +than he reasons, who delights in cadence and rhythm, and who loves a +world of imagery! + + +§ 1. SONG AND STORY + +Very early life's ideals are presented in poetic form; plays, +school-life, love of country, friendships, all take or are given metric +expression. So, for children, hymns have a perfectly natural place. The +child sings as he plays, sings as he works, sings in school, and, as +long as life and memory hold, these words of song will be his +possession; in declining years, when eyes are failing and other +interests may wane, fragments of childhood's songs and youth's poems +will sing themselves over in his memory; while in the years between how +often will some stanza or line spring into the focus of thought just at +the moment when it can give brave and helpful direction! + +Those years of facile memorization should be like the ant's summer, a +period of steady storing in mind of the world's treasures of thought. No +man ever had too many good and beautiful thoughts in his memory. Few +have failed to recall with gratitude some apparently long-forgotten word +of cheer, light, and inspiration stored in childhood. The special virtue +of the hymn, among all poetic forms of great thoughts, is that memory is +strengthened by the music and the thought further idealized by it, while +frequent repetition fixes it the more firmly and repetition in +congregational song adds the high value of emotional association. + +But what kinds of memory treasures are being given to the modern child +in the realm of religion? In by far the greater number of instances in +the United States neither church nor Sunday school nor home brings to +him any knowledge of the great hymns of religion.[15] In the churches +that use these hymns the child is frequently not in the Sunday +services; he is in the children's service or the school, while in the +majority of churches a weak-minded endeavor for amusement has +substituted meaningless rag-time trivialities for rich and dignified +hymns. Perhaps the custom of encouraging congregations to jig, dance, +cavort, or drone through the frivolities of "popular" gospel songs is +only a passing craze, but it is a most unfortunate one; it tends to +divorce worship and thought, to make worship a matter of purely +superficial emotions, and to form the habit of expressing religion, the +highest experience of life, in language, often irreverent and almost +always trivial, slangy, or ridiculous. It is an insult to the +intelligence of children to ask them to sing + + We're pilgrims o'er the sands of time, + We have not long to stay, + The lifeboat soon is coming, + To carry the pilgrims away. + +It is the duty of parents to know what their children are learning in +the Sunday school. Not only are they often missing the opportunity to +lay up the treasure of elevating, inspiring thoughts; they are acquiring +crude, mistaken, misleading theological concepts in the hideous, +revolting figures of "evangelistic songs"; they are storing their minds +with atrocities in English and in figures of speech; they are acquiring +the habits of sentimentality in religion and inhibiting the finer, +higher feelings. They are blunting their higher feelings by repeating +incongruous and nauseating figures of being "washed in blood," or they +are carelessly singing sentiments they do not understand. + +What can the family do about this? It ought to assert its rights in the +church. It ought to protest and rebel against the debauching of mind and +the degrading of religion (all for the sake of selling trashy books at +$25 per hundred). A parent would do better to keep his child from church +and Sunday school than to permit his mind to be filled with the +sanguinary pictures of God, the mediaeval theology of the modern +songbook, and its offenses against truth in thought and form. But the +family can work positively and more effectively by providing good hymns +for children in the home. + + +§ 2. TRAINING IN SONG + +Almost without exception all children will sing if encouraged early in +life. In the family group one has only to start a familiar song and soon +all will be singing. It is just as natural to sing "Abide with Me" when +the family sits together in the evening as it is to start "My Alabama +Choo-choo." Children like the swing of "Onward, Christian Soldiers" just +as much as in the northern states they like "Marching through Georgia." +If they do not know the hymns the home is the best of all places in +which to learn them. + +A large section of real family life is missing in families that do not +sing together. A home without song lacks one of the strongest bonds of +family unity, and the after-years will be deprived of a memory dear +indeed to many others. Days often come when the wheels of family life +seem to develop friction, when little rifts seem to throw the members +far apart, but the evening song brings them together. The unity of +action, of feeling, the development of emotions above the day's +irritation and strife, all help to new joys in family living. + +We may well think of the fine songs and the great hymns together. There +is no fixed wall between "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory," and "The Son +of God Goes Forth," nor between "My Old Kentucky Home" and "Jerusalem +the Golden." The modern home has the musical instruments to lead in +song--though they are not always essential--and lacks only the planning +and forethought to develop the joys of song. It must provide the thought +that applies the simpler forms of musical expression to the sweetening +and enriching of life. + +Let no one say, "My family is not musical." That simply means that your +family does not take time for music and song. Build on the training in +patriotic and folk-songs given in the schools; sing these same songs +over in the home and then associate with the best of them the best of +the hymns. Cultivate the habit of binding the whole realm of feeling in +music together, the hymns and the songs, to make religion mean beauty +and devotion and to make the finer sentiments of life truly religious. + +This costs time and thought. Someone must plan that the books of songs +and hymns are provided, that the opportunity is given, and that wise, +unobtrusive leadership is there. Have ready several copies of the book +containing the best hymns. Think out your plan of procedure in advance, +selecting the songs, or at least the first one. Then at the right time +simply begin to play that song and you will scarcely need to invite the +children to sing with you. + +Should anyone doubt whether children will enjoy singing good hymns, he +may purchase a few records for the phonograph, for example, "O Come All +Ye Faithful," "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," "O Zion Haste," "Holy, +Holy, Holy," "Abide with Me." These will suit those of from ten upward; +younger children will enjoy "Can a Little Child Like Me," "Brightly +Gleams Our Banner," "Jesus Loves Me." "I Think When I Read That Sweet +Story," and "For the Beauty of the Earth," though they will join gladly +in the other hymns. Or, instead of using the phonograph, sit down +quietly at the piano and play these hymns, with just enough emphasis for +the children to catch the rhythm, and they will soon be standing at the +piano singing with you.[16] + + +§ 3. PLAY ACTIVITY + +The child is a playing animal. Play is not an invention of the devil, +designed to plague parents and to lead children to waste their time. It +is nature's best method of education, for when a child plays he is +simply reaching forward in his activities to the realization of his +ideals. Play is idealized experiences. There is always a significance of +wider and maturer experience in children's play. Therefore the family +must find space and time and adaptation of organization to the child's +need of spontaneous, free activity in play. + +The special religious value of play lies in the fact that the child in +his games is experimenting with life, learning its lessons; especially +is he learning the art of living with other lives. It is our religious +duty to see to it that our children become used to living in society by +playing in social groups. Scarcely anyone is more to be pitied than the +lonely child standing in the corner of the playground, able only to +watch the games, because parental prohibition has already made him a +solitary and unsocial creature. + +The educational potencies of play are so great that we dare not leave +its activities to chance. Parents must study the power of play, its +psychological and educational values, in order to direct its activity to +the highest good. + +The adequate care of a child's play-life will involve, in addition to +the trained intelligence of the parents, provision for space in the +house and also outdoors, willingness to subordinate our peace and our +pleasure to the child's play at times, a reasonable though not +necessarily expensive provision of play materials, attention to the +character of the plays and playmates. The home will not lose its harmony +and beauty if it is filled with playing children. Its function has to do +with their development rather than with the preservation of chairs. + + + I. References for Study + + H.F. Cope, _Hymns You Ought to Know_, Introduction. Revell, $1.50. + + W.F. Pratt, _Musical Ministries_. Revell, $1.00. + + H.W. Hulbert, _The Church and Her Children_, chap. x. Revell, + $1.00. + + + II. Further Reading + + For a list of great hymns see _Hymns You Ought to Know_, edited by + Henry F. Cope, and mentioned above. It contains one hundred + standard hymns with a brief account of each hymn and of each + author. + + E.D. Eaton, "Hymns for Youth," _Religious Education_, December, + 1912, VII, 509. + + See report of the Commission on Worship in the Sunday School, in + _Religious Education_, October, 1914. + + Read especially the chapter on this subject in H.H. Hartshorne, + _Worship in the Sunday School_. Columbia University, $1.25. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What special advantages do songs and hymns have in their + pedagogical power? + + 2. What hymns do you remember from childhood? In what way are these + hymns valuable to you? + + 3. What changes would you like to see in the hymns the children + learn today? + + 4. What difficulties do you find in training children to sing in + the home? + + 5. Is it worth while to teach children to play? What games have + special educational value? What games have religious significance + or value? Give reasons for your opinions. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[15] One of the best collections of suitable religious songs is _Worship +and Song_. Pilgrim Press, $0.40. + +[16] An excellent plan is worked out in _The Children's Hour of Story +and Song_ by Moffat and Hidden, Unitarian Sunday School Society, in +which children's stories are given and following them suitable songs and +hymns with the music for each. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +STORIES AND READING + + +If we would teach religion to our children we must adopt the method of +Jesus; that of telling stories. The story has the advantage, first, of +its natural interest, and, then, of the indirect manner of its +presentation of the truth, together with the fact that that truth is +embodied in a statement of life and experience. Besides, story-telling +to any person of active interests is one of the easiest and most +stimulating methods of teaching. + + +§ 1. STORY-TELLING + +So much has already been written on the art of telling stories that only +a few suggestions are needed here. First, understand why you tell the +story. Normally a double motive enters in, namely, the conveyance of +truth in life, at the same time affording real pleasure to the +listeners. Either motive alone will be inadequate. You cannot convey the +truth without the desire to give pleasure; you cannot make the pleasure +worth while without the truth. But this is the place to insist that the +truth which you desire to convey must find its way to the conviction of +the child through the story and not through any moral or preface or +particular statement which you may make. The moral or lesson must be +clear to you but carefully held in reserve to direct the matter and +manner of the story. + +Secondly, be prepared to pay the price of this most effective method of +instruction. It will cost the reservation of a certain amount of time +both for acquiring the story and for relating it. It will require +careful thought and planning, especially to be sure that the story is +told in sympathy with the child's world. People who are too busy to tell +their children stories are, perhaps fortunately, coming to realize that +they are too busy to have children. If it looks like a waste of time to +turn off the lights and sit by the firelight for from twenty to thirty +minutes, we shall need to revise our estimates of the value of +child-character. Nor must we shrink from the investment of time in +preparation for the narration of the story; if it is worth telling, it +is worth telling well. + +Thirdly, keep a record of sources of stories. This may be preserved in a +notebook. One parent used a card-index for this purpose. There are a few +books published containing good collections.[17] You will find most +valuable your own little book in which you have noted down the fugitive +stories and short selections which are to be found in general +literature.[18] + +Fourthly, do not tell a story so as to close the child's interest in the +narrative. Stories ought to lead to inquiry and further reading in the +book or other source from which they have been drawn; indeed, +story-telling is one excellent method of quickening an interest in +reading. + +Fifthly, allow the children to retell the stories to one another. Often +the whole family will be entertained and helped by the explanation which +a small child will give of the story he has learned by hearing it +repeated a few times from his mother's lips. + +Sixthly, telling Bible stories to children in the quiet hour is the best +of all methods to stimulate their interest in the Bible itself. It is +much better to tell the story in your own language than to read it +either in the Bible or in a paraphrase. For one reason, you will never +tell it twice the same way, and children will watch with interest +changes in the narration. As soon as they can read, secure some of the +simple Bible narratives and put these in their hands.[19] + + +§ 2. BOOKS AND READING + +A home without books is like a house with only one window; it can look +out in only one direction, in that of the present. It knows only a +limited world; its children have a short measure of the joy of life, +they can know here only those whom they see today, their friends must be +few, their world narrow and confined. + +If the books are not in your home the children will find them elsewhere. +Unless the school kills the taste for reading, as it sometimes does, the +young folks will open ways somehow into the ideal realm of books. As +they grow up, the book takes the place of the story. The printed page is +the child's key to all routes of travel, routes that lead to other times +and lands, routes that lead to other people and into their hearts and +minds. The child sees conduct and feels it as it is in action in lives +before him, but he begins to discriminate and to analyze it only through +reading; souls are revealed where the purpose of the writer is that the +reader may see the springs of action in the character portrayed. +Fiction, biography, travel, and adventure soon pass from the merely +exterior happenings to the discovery of meanings in character. + + +§ 3. DANGERS OF READING + +Since the book needs only one for its enjoyment, while the story +requires two, there is less control over reading. There is only one way +to be sure that children are not devouring vicious books and that is to +make sure that they have an ample supply of healthful, helpful ones. +This is especially necessary in a day that caters to sloth in reading. +The tendency is for reading to take the facile decline from book to +cheap magazine, from magazine to newspaper, and from the newspaper to +skimming the headlines and the "funnies." The cheaper papers appeal to +the lowest intelligence and strike at the line of least moral and mental +resistance. Reading enriches the life but little and may impoverish it +greatly unless there is developed the habit of drawing on the world's +great treasures of thought and feeling. Open windows in your children's +souls by giving them books; keep them open by encouraging the reading +habit. Great souls wait for them, willing to converse and become their +friends and teachers if they will but take down these books from the +shelves and open them with an eager mind. + + +§ 4. DEVELOPING GOOD TASTE + +_What can be done to quicken a love of good reading in children?_ +Recognize that not all children develop this appetite at the same age, +that girls read more than boys, that boys usually have a period of +decline in reading interest from seventeen to twenty-one or even later. +But everything really depends on whether we ourselves love good books +and keep them on hand. One of the life-centers of a family should be the +bookshelf, while the picture of the evening lamp and the reading group +will constitute one of its best memories. Where books are at hand and +where they are used daily, the children need little urging to read. Now +this does not mean that yards of choice editions make a book-loving +family. There is a difference between bindings and books. It means books +known and loved, familiar friends for daily converse, books on handy +shelves and fit to be used as common food. + +_Do you know what your children read?_ Do you watch as carefully the +food of mind and spirit as you do that of the body? Do you show an +interest in the books they plan to draw from the public library? Can you +guide them intelligently when they ask for suggestions of interesting +books? Do you know the healthful, suitable ones? + + +§ 5. PROMOTION OF THE READING INTEREST + +The Sunday school might aid greatly in promoting the habit of selecting +and reading good books. Children often come home from day school +clamoring for some book which the teacher has recommended as interesting +and valuable. The Sunday-school teacher's recommendation would also +carry weight. In every church, whether there exists a Sunday-school +library or not, there ought to be a library or book committee which +would watch for the right reading for the different grades and would +cause the titles of good books to be placed on a bulletin board. +Further, such a committee might very well place a copy of the book +selected in the teacher's hand in order that the teacher might call the +attention of the class directly to it. Of course the range of selection +should be as wide as the world of books and should include fiction, +romance, song, and story.[20] Parents could do the same sort of thing. +Why not talk up the best books we remember? As to those old-time books, +we need to realize that tastes change. Perhaps they owed much of their +interest to their vivid descriptions of contemporary life. Therefore we +must commend the new books, those that belong to the children's own +days, too. This can be done, provided we really know the books, not by +saying, "We should like you to read _Sandford and Merton_," but rather, +"There is a capital story in _Captains Courageous_; have any of you read +it?" Leave the matter there, or, at most, go only far enough to +stimulate interest. + + + I. References for Study + + St. John, _Stories and Story Telling_, chaps. i-v. Eaton & Mains, + $0.50. + + Forbush, _The Coming Generation_, chap. viii. Appleton, $1.50 + + Winchester, "Good and Bad Books in the Home," in _The Bible in + Practical Life_, p. 38. Religious Education Association, $2.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + Partridge, _Story Telling in School and Home_. Sturgis & Walton, + $1.25. + + H.W. Mabie, _Books and Culture_. Dodd, Mead & Co., $1.25. + + + III. Methods and Materials + + ON STORY-TELLING + + E.P. St. John, _Stories and Story Telling_. Eaton & Mains, $0.50. + + Wyche, _Some Great Stories and How to Tell Them_. Newson & Co., + $1.00. + + L.S. Houghton, _Telling Bible Stories_. Scribner, $1.25. + + Bryant, _How to Tell Stories for Children_. Houghton Mifflin Co., + $1.00. + + E.M. and G.E. Partridge, _Story Telling in School and Home_. + Sturgis & Walton, $1.25. + + DIRECTING CHILDREN'S READING IN THE HOME + + Macy, _A Children's Guide to Reading_. Baker & Taylor Co., $1.25. + + Field, _Finger Posts to Children's Reading_. McClurg, $1.00. + + Arnold, _A Mother's List of Books for Children_. McClurg, $1.00. + + For a short practical list see the different lists classified under + Sunday-School Departments in W.S. Athearn, _The Church School_, + particularly pp. 54, 83, 118, 169. Pilgrim Press, $1.00. + + + IV. Topics for Discussion + + 1. Do you remember any stories which especially impressed you as a + child? What were their qualities? What were the qualities of their + narration? + + 2. What are your difficulties in story-telling to children? + + 3. Is the habit of reading books passing among children? If so, + what are the reasons? + + 4. What responsibility has the public library toward the child's + selection of books? toward promoting book reading? + + 5. How many families co-operate with the library? + + 6. How might the church co-operate? + + 7. Does the reading of newspapers by children affect their general + habits of reading? In what ways? + + 8. What personal difference is there, if any, between the effect of + a borrowed book and of one the child owns? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[17] Laura E. Cragin, _Kindergarten Bible Stories_. Fifty-six of the Old +Testament stories. There is also a companion volume of New Testament +stories. + +James Baldwin, _Old Stories of the East_. Fresh and interesting versions +of the familiar Old Testament stories. + +Kate Douglas Wiggin, _The Story Hour_. Good stories and a suggestive +introduction on story-telling. + +_Half a Hundred Stories for the Little People_, by various authors. + +[18] _A List of Good Stories to Tell to Children under Twelve Years of +Age_, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, $0.05. There are references to +books in which the stories may be found, including 25 Bible stories, 16 +fables, 14 myths, 14 Christmas stories, 7 Thanksgiving stories, etc. + +[19] Such as O'Shea, _Old World Wonder Stories_; George Hodges, _The +Garden of Eden_; Cragin, _Old Testament Stories_; Mary Stewart, _Tell Me +a True Story_. + +[20] The H.W. Wilson Co., White Plains, New York, publishes a list of +_Children's Books for Sunday-School Libraries_. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE USE OF THE BIBLE IN THE HOME + + +If we keep clearly in mind the aim of religious education in the family +as that of the development of the lives of religious persons, the place +and value of the Bible will be evident. It will be used as a means of +developing and directing lives. This will be quite different from a +perfunctory use because our fathers used it or a use under the +compulsion of the fear lest some strange evil should befall us, some +visitation of an offended deity. + + +§ 1. THE CHILD'S NEED + +Children need the Bible as a part of their social heritage. Just as they +get a larger life, inspired and stimulated by the realization of their +connection with the past of their family and their country, so the Bible +brings them into connection with the religious history of the race. +General history brings heroic forefathers into the stream of +consciousness; we feel the push of their lives. So the Bible reveals the +stream farther back and makes us part of the process of life in unity +with great characters and great movements. + +The child has a right to the Bible as his literary heritage. Here in the +Bible is the precipitation of the ideals of a people unique in the +place which religion held in their lives. Here is a literature which is +the source of much of the best in the language and reading of the +child's life. Its phrases are beautiful and convenient embodiments of +religious ideals; they will have a steadily developing richness of +meaning as life opens out to the child.[21] + + +§ 2. DIFFICULTIES + +The difficulties in the way of the use of the Bible in the home are: the +crowded programs, or a lack of time due to the absence of any program +for the days; a feeling of unnaturalness in the special reading of this +book; the decay of the custom of reading aloud; parental ignorance of +the Bible and especially of its beauties for the young; and the +excessive amount of task-reading frequently required by the schools. The +Sunday school also sometimes offends in this respect by overemphasis on +academic tasks for home work. + + +§ 3. METHODS + +First, let parents use the Bible themselves. Use the books as you wish +children to use them. This will be the longest step you can take toward +the solution of the problem. + +Secondly, use the Bible naturally. When children have an aversion to the +Bible it is due usually to two causes: the peculiar place and use of +the book which makes it a thing apart from life, and often an object of +dread; and the practice of using it as a task-book, to be opened only in +order to prepare Sunday-school lessons. Just as it takes years to +overcome the aversion set up against English literature by its +analytical study in the schools, so that the child becomes a man before +he voluntarily reads Dickens, Thackeray, the poets, and essayists, in +the same manner we have succeeded in making the Bible undesirable to +youth. If you read passages aloud, use the tone of voice which would be +appropriate if this was a new book not bound in leather. Read it for +pleasure as one would read a literary masterpiece--not because opinion +might frown on you if you had not read the classic. Does someone object +that that would be to degrade the Bible to the level of secular +writings? You cannot degrade a literature; it makes its own level and +our labels do not affect it. Certain it is that a pious tone of voice +will not protect the Bible from the secular level. But to use it +unnaturally will degrade it in the opinion of those who hear us. + +Thirdly, make its use a pleasure. All children enjoy story-telling and +listening to reading. Many parents practice the children's hour, some +period in the day when they will, alone with the children, read and talk +with them. Let the Bible story be the reward of a good day, something +promised as an incentive to good behavior. Children delight, not alone +in the story itself, but in rhythmic passages, in the poetic flights of +Isaiah and the beautiful imagery of the Psalms. To them it is natural +and pleasant to think of the hills that skipped and the stars that sang +and the trees that gave forth praise. They know the song of nature and +are happy to find it put into words. + +Fourthly, use the Bible as a book of life. How many times a day do +questions of conduct arise in the family! How often do children ask what +is right, and freely discuss the question! Here is a book rich in +precept and example on at least many of the questions. There are +pictures of actual lives meeting real temptations; there are the +epigrammatic precepts of Proverbs and of the teachings of Jesus. Call +attention to them, not as settling the question out of hand, but as +testimony to the point. Accustom children to getting the light of the +Bible on their lives, remembering that this book is a light and not a +fence nor a code of laws. + +Fifthly, use the Bible in worship. This does not conflict with the plea +for its use naturally, for worship should be as natural as any of the +social pleasures of the family. Here select those passages for reading +which count most for the spirit of worship. It is a good plan to read a +short passage, suitable for memorizing, so frequently that children +learn it and are able to repeat it in concert. Be sure that all the +passages read or recited are short. It will often be wise to preface the +reading with a brief account of its original circumstances, so that all +may hear the words as the actual utterances of a real man living in real +life. + +Sixthly, provide material which helps to make the Bible interesting, and +which helps children to see its pictures through the eyes of geography +and history.[22] + +Seventhly, make the use of the Bible possible at all times for all. See +that as soon as the child can read he has his own Bible, that it is in +large, readable type, as much like any other book as possible. It is no +evidence of grace to ruin the eyes over diamond-text Bibles. If +possible, also provide separate books of the Bible, in modern literary +form and some in the idiom of our day.[23] + + +§ 4. DOUBTFUL METHODS + +It is doubtful whether good comes from the use of the Bible as a +riddle-book, nor do the "Bible games" tend to develop a natural +appreciation of the book. There is no new light but rather a confusing +shadow thrown on the character of Joseph by the foolish conundrum +concerning Pharaoh making a ruler out of him. Sending a child to the +Bible to discover the shortest verse, the longest, the middle one, etc., +trains him to regard it as an odd kind of book, to think of it as a +dictionary, and to use it less. + +We assume too readily that a knowledge of the separate details of +biblical information, such as the date of the Flood, the age of +Methuselah, the names of the twelve tribes, the twelve apostles, the +books of the two Testaments, is the desired end. But one might know all +these things and many more and be not one whit the better. For the child +surely the desirable end is that he may feel deeply the attractiveness +of the character of Joseph or of Jesus, may say within himself, "What a +fine man; I want to be like him." Be sure the persons are real, that you +see them living their lives in their times, just as you live your life +now. + + + I. References for Study + + T.G. Soares, "Making the Bible Real to Boys," in _Boy Training_, + pp. 117-40. Association Press, $0.75. + + W.T. Lhamon, "Bible in the Home," _Religious Education_, December, + 1912, p. 486. + + G. Hodges, _Training of Children in Religion_, chap. x. Appleton, + $1.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + _The Bible in Practical Life._ Religious Education Association. + Numerous references to the use of the Bible in the home in this + volume. + + Patterson Dubois, _The Natural Way_, sec. iv. Revell, $1.25. + + + III. Methods and Materials + + "Passages of Bible for Memorization," _Religious Education_, + August, 1906. + + Louise S. Houghton, _Telling Bible Stories_. Scribner, $1.25. + + Johnson, _The Narrative Bible_. Baker & Taylor Co., $1.50. + + Hall and Wood, _The Bible Story_, 5 vols. King, $2.00 by + subscription. + + Courtney, _The Literary Man's Bible_. Crowell, $1.25. + + The above are but a few of the many collections of biblical + material. + + + IV. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What are the conditions which seem to make the reading of the + Bible different from other reading? Is there a sense of unreality + about it as a book? What are the causes? + + 2. Try the experiment of reading the story of Joseph at one + sitting. Try to retell this to children. + + 3. What biblical material stands out in your memory of childhood? + In what degree is this due to the art of the story-teller or the + reader? to the character of the material? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[21] See M.J.C. Foster, _The Mother the Child's First Bible Teacher_. + +[22] Mackie, _Bible Manners and Customs_. + +Chamberlin, _Introduction to the Bible for Teachers of Children_. + +Worcester, _On Holy Ground_, 2 vols. + +[23] For example, Moulton, _Modern Reader's Bible_. The new Jewish +renderings of Old Testament books are good, especially the Psalms. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +FAMILY WORSHIP + + +Family worship has declined until, at least in the United States, the +percentage of families practicing daily worship in the home is so small +as to be negligible. If this meant that a general institution of +religion had passed out of existence the fact would be highly +significant. But it is well to remember that family worship has never +been a general institution. We have generalized the picture of the +"Cotter's Saturday Night" so eloquently drawn by Burns; it has been +applied to every night and to every fireside. Daily family worship was +observed in practically all the Puritan homes of New England; but there +is no evidence for it as a uniform custom, either in other parts of this +country or in other parts of the world, save perhaps in sections of +Scotland. True, there were many families which observed the custom; but +there were also many families of church members and doubtless of truly +religious people in which family worship as a regular institution was +unknown. This has been especially true in the type of family life which +has developed under modern social conditions. Further, even so simple an +exercise as grace at meals has not always been a general custom. + + +§ 1. PAST CUSTOMS + +But the fact today is that family worship is so rare as to be counted +phenomenal wherever found. The instances, though not general, were +common a generation ago. Many are living to whom family worship afforded +the largest part of their conscious and formal religious education. +Following the morning meal, or, occasionally, the evening meal, the +family waited while the father, or the mother in his absence, read a +portion of the Scriptures and offered prayer. In other families the act +of worship would be the closing one of the day, perhaps participated in +by the older members only, the younger children having repeated their +prayers at bedside on retiring. A thousand happy and sacred associations +gather about the memories of these occasions: the sense of reverence, +the feeling that the home was a sacred place, the impression of noble +words and elevating thoughts, the reflex influence of the prayer that +committed all to the keeping and guidance of God.[24] + + +§ 2. WHY FAMILY WORSHIP? + +Parents need to see the values in family worship. We have been insisting +on the primary importance of the religious interpretation of the family +as an institution, on the power of the religious motive, and the +atmosphere of religion. But wherever there is a truly religious motive +and a permanent religious atmosphere these will find definite expression +in acts easily recognized as religious. Love is the motive and +atmosphere of the true home, but love blossoms into words and bears +fruit in a thousand deeds. The life of love dies without reality in act. +Ideals are precipitated in expressive acts. So is it with religion in +the home; it must not only be real in its sincerity, it must be +realized, must pass over into conduct and action, as suggested above in +chaps. vii and viii. And it must do this in ways so sharply defined and +readily recognized as to leave no doubt as to their meaning. True, all +acts may be religious and thus full of worship--this is most important +of all--but worship expressly unites all such acts in a spirit of +loyalty and aspiration. + +Worship is a necessity for the sake of the ideal unity of the family +life. Just as the individual must not only feel the religious emotion +but must also do the thing called for, so must this united personality +of the family give expression to its faith and aspiration, its motives +and emotions, in such a manner that, acting as a social unit, all can +together put the inner life into the outer form. The social value of +family worship is the strongest reason for its maintenance. It is the +united act of the family group, the one in which group consciousness is +expressly directed to the highest possible aims. Every period of worship +brings the family into unity at an ideal level. + +The expression of religion in definite forms is necessary for children, +too, as furnishing a means by which they can manifest their feeling of +the higher meaning of family life. The reality of that feeling is +stimulated in the daily, common life of the right family; the hour of +worship is one out of many definite forms of its concrete expression. It +is the form which gathers up the totality of feeling and aspiration into +an act of worship and praise toward God, the Father of all families. It +is evident there cannot be true worship in the family that is +irreligious in its essential qualities, in its character, in its ideals +and atmosphere. + + +§ 3. ADVANTAGES + +The period of worship is a necessity in interpreting to all the spirit +and meaning of a religious family. It objectifies the inner life. It +makes definite, tangible, and easily remembered the general impressions +of religion. It precipitates the atmosphere of religion into +definiteness. In the chemical laboratory of a university there is +usually a decided atmosphere of chemistry, but no one expects to become +a chemical engineer by absorbing that atmosphere, nor even to attain a +simple working knowledge by merely general impressions. Definiteness +aids in gathering up our knowledge, our impressions. + +The reading of the Bible in the home will give, when the passages are +wisely chosen, forms of language into which the often chaotic but +nevertheless valuable and potential emotions of youth fall as into a +beautiful mold; they become remembered forms of beauty thereafter. + +Family worship furnishes opportunity for direct religious instruction. +When the home life has its regular institution, as regular as meals and +play, the formality, the apparent abnormality of conversation about +religion, is absent. Children expect and look forward to the period when +the family will lay other things aside to think on the eternal values. +Their questions in the breathing-space that always ought to follow +worship become perfectly natural and sincere. + +Family worship lifts the whole level of family life. Ideally conceived, +it simply means the family unity consciously coming into its highest +place. Children may not understand all the reading nor enter into the +motives for all parts of the petition, but they do feel that this moment +is the one in which the family enters a holy place. They feel that God +is real and that their family life is a part of his whole care and of +his life. One short period of natural reverence sends light and calm +all through the day. Where the home is the place where true prayer is +offered, the family is the group which meets in an act of worship; here +and into this group there cannot easily enter strife, bickerings, or +baseness. One short period, five minutes or even less, of quietness, of +united turning toward the eternal, gives tone to the day and finer +atmosphere to the home. + +What our community life might be like without the churches, faulty or +incompetent as we may know some of them to be, what that life would lose +and miss without them is precisely, and perhaps in larger degree, what +the family life misses without its own institution of regular devotion +and worship. + + +§ 4. THE DIFFICULTIES + +We can always afford to do that which is most worth while doing; our +essential difficulty is to shake off the delusion of the lesser values, +the lower prizes, to realize that, of all the good of life, the +characters of our children, the gain we can all make in the eternal +values of the spirit, in love and joy and truth and goodness, is the +gain most worth while. We tend to set the making of a living before the +making of lives. We need to see the development of the powers of +personality, the riches of character, as the ultimate, dominant purpose +of all being. Once grasp that, and hold to it, and we shall not allow +lesser considerations, such as the pressure of business, the desire for +gain, for ease, for pleasure, for social life, to come before this first +and highest good; we shall make time for definite conscious religion in +the life of the family.[25] + + +§ 5. TYPES OF WORSHIP + +There are three simple forms which worship takes in the family: first, +grace offered at the meals; secondly, the prayers of children on +retiring and, occasionally, on rising; thirdly, the daily gathering of +the family for an act of the spirit. The statement of the three forms +reads so as to give them a formal character, but the most important +point to remember is that wherever they are true acts of worship they +are formal only in that they occur at definite, determined times and +places. The acts have no merit in themselves. Merely to institute their +observance will not secure religious feeling and life in the home. These +three observances have arisen because at these times there is the best +and most natural opportunity for the expression of aspiration, desire, +and feeling. + + +§ 6. METHODS OF FAMILY WORSHIP + +1. _Grace at meals._--Shall we say grace at meals? To assent because it +is the custom, or because it was so done in our childhood's home, may +make an irreligious mockery of the act. Perhaps, too, there are some who +even hesitate to omit the grace from an unspoken fear that the food +might harm them without it. All have heard grace so muttered, or +hurriedly and carelessly spoken, void of all feeling and thought, that +the act was almost unconscious, a species of "vain repetition." + +There are two outstanding aspects of the asking of a blessing--the +desire to express gratitude for the common benefits of life, and the +expression of a wish, with the recognition of its realization, that at +each meal the family group might include the Unseen Guest, the Infinite +Spirit of God. That wish lifts the meal above the dull level of +satisfying appetites. Just as, in good society, we seek to make the meal +much more than an eating of food, "a feast of reason and a flow of +soul," so does this act make each meal a social occasion lifted toward +the spiritual. The one thought at the beginning, the thought of the +reality of the presence of God, and of the nearness of the divine to us +in our daily pleasures, gives a new level to all our thinking. + +How shall we say grace, or "ask a blessing"? First, with simplicity and +sincerity. Avoid long, elaborate, ornate phrases. It is better to err +in rhetoric than in feeling and reality. The sonorous grace may soon +become stilted and offensive. It is better to say in your own words just +what you mean, for that will help all, even to the youngest, to mean +what they say with you. + +Vary the form of petition. Sometimes let it be the silent grace of the +Quakers; sometimes children will enjoy singing one of the old four-line +stanzas, as + + Be present at our table, Lord, + Be here and everywhere adored; + These mercies bless and grant that we + May feast in Paradise with thee. + +One might use the first three of the following lines for breakfast and +the last three at another meal: + + For the new morning with its light, + For rest and shelter of the night, + We thank the heavenly Father. + + For rest and food, for love and friends, + For everything his goodness sends, + We thank the heavenly Father.[26] + +or + + When early in the morning the birds lift up their songs, + We bring our praise to Jesus to whom all praise belongs. + +One especially needs to guard against the purely dietetic grace, the one +that only asks that the deity will aid digestion, as that form so often +heard, "Bless these mercies to our use."[27] + +Should we say grace on all occasions of meals? What shall we do at the +social dinner in the home? The answer depends on the purpose of the +grace. Is it not that in our own group we may have the consciousness of +the presence of God? When the meal is that of our own group with a +friend or two, we bring the friends into the group and the act of family +worship is maintained. Usually this is the case. So it will be when the +group is entirely at one in this desire: the asking of grace will be +perfectly natural. But when the group is a large one, when the sense of +family unity is lost, or when the observance would seem unnatural, it is +better to omit it. Grace in large gatherings often seems an uncovering +of the sacred aspects of the home life. + +2. _Bedtime prayers._--What of children's bedtime prayers? Many can +remember them. To many the most natural, helpful time for formal periods +of prayer is in the quiet of the bedroom just before retiring. But there +is a grave danger in establishing a regular custom of bedside prayers +for children, a danger manifest in the very form of certain of these +prayers, as + + Now I lay me down to sleep, + I pray the Lord my soul to keep. + +It is as though the child were saying, "The day is ended during which I +have been able to take care of myself, the hours of helpless sleep +begin, and I ask God to take care of me through the terrors of the +night." For some children, at least, the night has been made terrible by +that thought; they have been led to feel that the day was safe and +beautiful, but that the night was so dangerous and fearful that only the +great God could keep them through it, and it was an open question +whether their prayer for that keeping would be heard. + +One must avoid also the notion that such prayers are part of a price +paid, a system of daily taxation in return for which heaven furnishes us +police protection. + +The best plan seems to be to encourage children to pray, to establish in +them the habit of closing the day with quiet, grateful thoughts, to +watch especially that the prayers learned in early life do not distort +the child's thoughts of God, and to make the evening prayer an +opportunity for the child to express his desires to God his Father and +Friend. Having done this, as the children grow up it is best to leave +them free to pray when and where they will. One may properly encourage +the evening, private prayer; but the child ought to have the feeling +that it is not obligatory, that it must grow out of his desire to talk +with God, and, above all, that it has no special connection with the +hour and act of retiring for sleep but rather, so far as time is +concerned, with the closing of the day. Mothers must see far beyond the +charm of the picture formed by the little white-robed figure at her +knee. There is no hour so rich in possibilities for this growing life. +It is one of the great opportunities to guide its consciousness of +God.[28] + +3. _General family prayers._--It is true that, in many homes, under +modern conditions of business, it is almost impossible for the family to +be united at the hour when worship used to be customary, following +breakfast. However, that is not the only hour available. In many +respects it is a poor one for the purpose of social worship; it lacks +the sense of leisure. But there are few families where the members do +not all gather for the evening meal. It is not difficult to plan at its +close for ten minutes in which all shall remain. Without leaving the +table it is possible to spend a short time in united, social worship. +Or, by establishing the custom and steadily following it, it is possible +to leave the table and in less than ten minutes find ample time for +worship in another room. + +Really everything depends at first on how much we desire to have family +worship, whether we see its beauty and value in the knitting of home +ties, in the elevation of the family spirit, and in the quickening of +the religious ideas. We find time to eat simply because we must; when +the necessity of the spirit is upon us we shall find time also to +worship and to pray. + +Next to the will to make time comes the question of method. First, +determine to be simple, natural, and informal. A stilted exercise soon +becomes a burden and a source of pain to all. In whatever you do, seek +to make it possible for all to have a share by seeing that every thought +is expressed within the intelligence of even the younger members, that +is, of those who desire to have a share. This does not mean descending +to "baby-talk." Just read the Twenty-third Psalm; that is not baby talk, +but a child of seven can understand what is meant up to the measure of +his experience; the language is essentially simple though the ideas are +sublime. + +Secondly, insure brevity. For that part of worship in which all are +expected regularly to unite, ten minutes should be ample. Some excellent +programs will not take more than half this time. Family worship is not a +diminutive facsimile of church worship. Doubtless the experiment has +failed in many families because the father has attempted to preach to a +congregation which could not escape. Keep in mind the thought that this +is to be a high moment in each day in which every member will have an +equal share. + +Thirdly, plan for the largest possible amount of common participation. +This is to be the expression of the unity of the family life. Children +enjoy doing things co-operatively and in concert. + +Fourthly, treat the occasion naturally in relation to other affairs. +Proceed to the worship without formal notice, without change of voice, +and without apology to visitors. Take this for granted. At the close +move on into other duties without the sense of coming back into the +world. You have not been out of it; you have only recognized the eternal +life and love everywhere in it. + +4. _Suggestions of plans._--There are given below seven outlines of +plans of worship. They are plans which have been in use and have been +tried for years. Their only merit is simplicity and practicability; but +they are at least worthy of trial. There is no special significance in +the arrangement of the days and this may be changed in any way +desirable. Further, all plans should be elastic; there will come special +days, such as festivals and birthdays, when the program should be +varied. For example, on a birthday the child whose anniversary then +occurs should have the privilege of making the choice of recitation or +reading or of determining the order of all the parts of this brief +period of worship. + + + MONDAY + + 1. A short psalm repeated in concert. + + 2. A brief, informal petition by father or mother. + + 3. The Lord's Prayer, in which all join. + + Before attempting even this simple plan, prepare for it by first + selecting several suitable psalms. The following should be + included: the 1st, 19th, 23d, 24th, 100th, 117th, 121st, and a part + of the 103d. You would do well to memorize one of these yourself, + so as to be able to lead without reading from the book. Next, think + over with some care the things for which you may pray, the + aspirations which your children can share with you. Few things are + more difficult than this, so to pray that all can make the prayer + their own. Let it also be a prayer of love and joy, not a craven + begging off from punishments, nor a cowardly plea for protection + and provision. We can pray over all these things with gratitude and + with confidence toward the God of love. Do not try to preach in + your prayers. Many prayers have been ruined by preaching, just as + some preaching has been spoiled by praying to the people. Usually + four or five sentences will do for the one day. Better a single + thought simply expressed than the most brilliant attempt to inform + the Almighty on all the events of the world that day. + + A prayer in which all can join is always desirable. The Lord's + Prayer never wearies us nor grows old. Children enter into it with + some new meaning every day; it covers all our great, common, daily + needs. + + + TUESDAY + + 1. A few favorite memory verses repeated by all (from either the + Bible or other literature). + + 2. Read a very brief passage from the Bible. + + 3. Prayer, ending with the Lord's Prayer. + + Many excellent selections will be found in Dr. Dole's book + mentioned at the end of this chapter. Encourage children, however, + to make their selections from the poems and passages they already + know. + + The passage of the Bible selected to be read should be one which + first of all incites to worship, and should be chosen for its + inspiration and literary beauty. A few lines from the great + chapters of Isaiah (e.g., chaps. 35 and 55), from the Psalms (e.g., + Pss. 61, 65, 145), from the Sermon on the Mount, from 1 Cor., chap. + 13, from the parables of Jesus, will be suitable. + + The closing prayer may be extemporaneous or may be read from one of + the books of prayers. Many of the prayers in the Episcopal Prayer + Book are especially beautiful and quite suitable. Of course in + families of the Episcopal church the collect for the day would be + the right prayer to use. It is sometimes necessary to use prayers + prepared beforehand; some persons never acquire the ability to pray + aloud, even in their own families. But halting sentences that are + your own, that your children recognize as yours, may mean more to + them than the finest flowing phrases from a book. Use the prayers + from the book, not as a substitute, but as an addition. + + + WEDNESDAY + + 1. A good poem from general literature. + + 2. Prayer. + + There are so many good collections of the great and inspiring poems + that one hesitates to recommend any collection. Remember that a + poem may be religious and imbued with the spirit of worship, + helpful to the purpose of this occasion, even though it contains no + allusions to Scripture and makes no direct references to religious + belief. "A House by the Side of the Road"[29] is thoroughly human, + popular, and could not even be accused of being a classic; but it + has a helpful motive and is likely to lead the will toward the life + of service and brotherhood. Some would prefer to read a part of one + of the great hymns. + + + THURSDAY + + 1. A brief reading or recitation from the New Testament. + + 2. A few moments' conversation on the reading. + + 3. A very brief prayer followed by a song. + + The only apparent difficulty here is in starting the conversation. + Do not ask formal questions; rather put them something like this: + "I wonder whether people would do just the same on our street + today." Make the conversation as general as possible; do not + slight, nor scoff at, the contribution of even the least in the + group. + + + FRIDAY + + 1. A few verses in concert. + + 2. Read a parable or very brief narrative. + + 3. The Lord's Prayer. + + The reading had better be from one of the paraphrases if it is a + narrative from the Old Testament.[30] Even in reading the New + Testament one can at times use with advantage the + _Twentieth-Century Bible_ or the _Modern Reader's Bible_. + + + SATURDAY + + 1. A period of song. + + 2. Closing prayer, with the Lord's Prayer. + + Perhaps only one song can be sung. It need not be a hymn; that + should depend on the choice of the children. Help them to put + together all the good songs, including the hymns, in one category + in their minds. + + + SUNDAY + + 1. Ask: "What has been the best we have read or repeated in our + worship this week?" + + 2. Ask: "What shall we learn for memory repetition this week, what + psalm or other passage for our concerted worship?" + + 3. Read the psalm selected. + + 4. Closing prayer. + + 5. Period of song, lasting as long as desired. + + This exercise evidently permits of extension in time and should be + arranged in accordance with the program for the day. + + + I. References for Study + + George Hodges, _The Training of Children in Religion_, chaps. viii, + ix. Appleton, $1.50. + + _The Improvement of Religious Education_, pp. 108 to 123. Religious + Education Association, $0.50. + + Mrs. B.S. Winchester, "Methods and Materials Available," _Religious + Education_, October, 1911. $0.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + Koons, _The Child's Religious Life_. Eaton & Mains, $1.00. + + Hartshorne, _Worship in the Sunday School_. Columbia University, + $1.25. + + + III. Methods and Materials + + A.R. Wells, _Grace before Meat_. U.S.C.E., $0.25. + + C.F. Dole, _Choice Verses_. Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts. + Privately printed. + + F.A. Hinckley (ed.), _Readings for Sunday School and Home_. + American Unitarian Association, $0.35. + + J. Martin, _Prayers for Little Men and Women_. Harper, $1.25. + + S. Hart (ed.), _Short Daily Prayers for Families_. Longmans, $0.60. + + G.A. Miller, _Some Out-Door Prayers_. Crowell, $0.35. + + Oxenden, _Family Prayers_. Longmans, $1.50. + + George Skene, _Morning Prayers for Home Worship_. Methodist Book + Concern, $1.50. + + W.E. Barton, _Four Weeks of Family Prayer_. Puritan Press, Oak + Park, Ill. + + Abbott, _Family Prayers_. Dodd, Mead & Co., $0.50. + + _Prayers for Parents and Children._ Young Churchman Co., Milwaukee, + Wisconsin, $0.15. + + + IV. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What are the causes for the decay of the custom of family + worship? + + 2. What influences us most: public opinion, popular custom, + economic pressure? + + 3. How have the changes affected the religious influence of the + home? + + 4. What features of the older customs are most worth preserving? + + 5. Recall any of childhood's prayers which you remember. How many + maintain the custom of bedtime prayers in mature life? + + 6. What should be the central motive of "grace" at meals? + + 7. Would there be advantage in occasionally omitting the "grace"? + + 8. Give reasons for and against "grace." + + 9. Criticize the proposed plan of evening family prayers. + + 10. Describe any plans which have been tried. + + 11. Why is it desirable to maintain family worship? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[24] For a study of children's worship see H.H. Hartshorne, _Worship in +the Sunday School_; "Report of Commission on Graded Worship," _Religious +Education_, October, 1914. + +[25] "Parents who give up such a practice as family prayers mainly +because they know of many other people who have done the same are +just as much the slaves of public opinion and ignorant cant as the +narrowest Lowlander who forbids his children secular history on +Sunday."--Lyttleton, _Corner-Stone of Education_, pp. 207-8. + +[26] Quoted by W.S. Athearn, _The Church School_. + +[27] A number of good poems are given in A.R. Wells, _Grace before +Meat_. + +[28] W.B. Forbush gives a number of poetic forms of prayer for children +in _The Religious Nurture of a Little Child_, pp. 12, 13. + +[29] By Samuel Walter Foss. + +[30] One handy form is _The Heart of the Bible_, prepared by E.A. +Broadus; another, _The Children's Bible_. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +SUNDAY IN THE HOME + + +Almost every family finds Sunday a problem. Other days are well occupied +with full programs; this one has a program for only part of its time. +Other days are rich with the liberty of happy action, but this one is +frequently marked by inaction, repression, and limitations. As soon as +the evanescent pleasure of Sunday clothes has passed, for those for whom +it existed at all, the children settle down to endure the day. + + +§ 1. THE MEANING OF THE DAY + +Fathers and mothers who vent a sigh of relief when Sunday is over must +marvel at the strains of "O day of joy and gladness." Yet this day +defeats its purpose when it is of any other character. We have no right +to rob it of its joy and its healing balm. On the day made for man, +sacred to his highest good, whatever hinders the real happiness of the +child ought to be set aside. + +Instead of accepting traditions regarding the method of observing the +Sunday, would it not be worth while to ask ourselves, For what use of +the day can we properly be held responsible? Here are so many--fifty-two +a year--days of special opportunity. To us who complain that business +interferes with the personal education of our children through the week, +what ought this day to mean? To us who lament the little time we can +spend with our families, what ought this day to mean? And what ought we +to try to make it mean to children? + +We call this God's day; what must some children think of a God who robs +his day of all pleasure? If this is the kind of day he makes, then how +unattractive would be his years and eternity! It is the day when we have +our best opportunity to show them what God is like, to interpret his +world and his works in terms of beauty, kindness, riches of thought, and +love. + +It ought to be the day reserved for the best in life, for the treasures +of affection, for the uses of the spirit. Whatever is done this day must +come to this test, Is this a ministry to the life of goodness, truth, +and loving service? Does this enrich lives? In other words, we may put +the broad educational test to the day and its program and determine all +by ministry to growing lives. + + +§ 2. CONSERVING THE VALUES + +The family faces the problem of the opposition between the rights of man +on this day and the greed of commerce, the fight between a day of rest +and a day of work. Man's right to rest is assured, legally, but +commerce in the name of amusement and in the guise of petty and +unnecessary trading constantly maintains its fight to invade the day of +rest, to turn it from ministry to man as a person to the dull level of +the week of ministry to things. The home has much at stake in this +struggle. It needs one day free from the life that tears its members +apart, free from the toil that engrosses thought, free for its members +to live together as spiritual beings. + +In the need for one day, free from the things that hinder and devoted to +the life of the spirit, the home finds the guiding principle for the use +of the day; all members are to be trained to use it as a glorious +opportunity, a welcome period, a day of the best things of life. It is +devoted to personality, to man's rights as a religious being. + +Surely one of the best things of life will be that we shall meet one +another, shall look into faces of friends and companions! And this +opportunity of social mingling is lifted to a high level when it is an +act of the larger family life, the life that brings God and man into one +family. That is what the church meeting and service ought to be: our +Father's larger family getting together on the day of the life that +makes them one. For the child the church school and the children's +service of worship are their immediate points of vital touch with the +church family. If we think of the day as affording us the pleasure of +social mingling with friends and members of that family, Sunday morning +will cease to be a period of unwilling observance of empty duties. Of +course that will depend, too, on the measure in which the church and +school grasp their opportunity to make this the best of days.[31] + +Further, let the home keep this day as the one of personal values all +the way through, sacred to that life of love, friendship, and joy in the +presence of one another which is the essential life of the family. It +has always been a good custom for friends to visit on this day, for +families grown up and established around their own hearths to gather +again for a few hours. It is the day when we have time to discover how +much greater are the riches of friendship than aught besides, when, +looking into the eyes of those we love, we see "the light that never was +on sea or land," the ultimate good! + +The hours of being together are the hours of real education. Children +cannot be with good and great people and remain the same. Their lives +need other lives. Above all, they need us. This should be the day for +real mothering and fathering. Nothing ought to be permitted to interfere +with this, neither our social pleasures nor the demands of the church. + + +§ 3. THE PROBLEM OF PLAY + +What shall we do with the child who wants to play on Sunday? Is there +any other kind of child? They all want to. It is as natural for a child +to play as it is for a man to rest; it is as necessary. A child is a +growing person learning life by play. Because play seems trivial to us +we assume it is so to them; we would banish the trivial from the day +devoted to the higher life. In some families play is forbidden because +children find pleasure in it, and adults find it impossible to associate +piety and pleasure. + +Shall we then throw down all barriers and make this day the same as all +others? No, rather make the day different by throwing down barriers that +stand on other days. Let this be the day when the barriers between +father and sons, parents and children, are let down and all can enter +into the joy of living. + +Play is to a child the idealization of life's experiences and the +realization of its ideals. That is why he plays at school, idealizing +the everyday life; that is why he plays at housekeeping, at being in +church, at being a railway engineer, even a highwayman or an outlaw. The +traditional games are the game of life itself in terms of childhood. +Play as idealized experience and realized ideals is to the child what +the church, worship, and the reading of fiction and essays are to the +adult. Play is the child's method of reaching forward into life's +meaning. Some games as old as history carry a weight of human tradition +and experience as rich for a child as the adult obtains from historical +review and from association with the past. There is a sense in which the +child playing these games opens the Bible of the race.[32] + +We cannot make children over into our pattern; we have to learn from +them. Indeed, we come to life through their ways. We must become as +little children. Before we settle the question of play on Sunday we do +well to be sure that we know what play means to children, that we really +grasp something of its educational value and its religious potency. Then +we can proceed to a family policy in Sunday play. + + +§ 4. A POLICY ON PLAY + +_Keep the day as one of family unity._ Help the child to think of it as +a day protected for the sake of family togetherness. You can play that +for this day the ideal is already realized of a family life +uninterrupted by the demands of labor and business. + +_Maintain the unity by doing the ideal things together._ Go to the place +of worship together, provided it is the place where the child can find +expression for spiritual ideals. If the Sunday school does not really +lift the child-life and really teach the child, if it is not honest with +him and makes no suitable provision for his developing nature, he will +be better off in a quiet hour of family conversation and reading at +home. That means the application of parents to this hour.[33] It +banishes the monstrous Sunday supplement with its hideous, debasing +pictures. It substitutes conversation in the whole group, reading aloud +of stories and poems, biblical and otherwise, and songs, hymns, or at +times the walk in the fields or parks. Fortunately the better type of +Sunday school is more and more to be found; children are more and more +receiving a ministry actually determined by their needs. So far as the +church service is concerned the ideal situation is found when a parallel +service is provided for children, based on their needs and capacities. +As to attendance, under other circumstances, in the family pew, that +depends on whether the child is gaining an aversion to the church by the +torture and tedium often involved. Without doubt many adults acquired +the settled habit of sleeping in church because that was the only +possible relief in childhood.[34] + +_Maintain the family unity by stepping into the child's ideal life. +Expect activity and use it._ Why should we assume that because the adult +finds a Sunday nap enjoyable the child will be blessed by enforced +silence? I would rather see a father playing catch with his boys on +Sunday than see the boys cowed into silence while he slept a Sabbath +sleep. Children will play. Their play is innocent; more, it may be +helpful and educative; we can insure these values in it by our +participation. That is the parent's opportunity for a closer sympathy +with his children. Playing together is the closest living, thinking, and +feeling together. Where games are shared, confidences, secrets, and +aspirations are shared, too. Besides, the participation of the adult may +tend to tone up the game and to moderate boisterousness. + +_Seek the beautiful._ Speaking as one who has been under both the +puritanical regulation and the so-called "continental" freedom of Sunday +observance, nothing seems much more beautiful than the sight of an +entire family playing at home, in the park, or off in the woods or the +fields of the country. Life is strengthened, ideals are lifted, family +ties knit closer, gratitude is quickened, and courage stimulated by play +of this kind. + + +§ 5. POINTS OF DIFFERENCE + +But because it is evidently most important that this day should be +different from other days, it is well to mark that difference in our +plays and pleasures and to follow some simple principles for Sunday +play. + +First, make it the day of the _best_ plays. The participation of parents +will tend to have this effect. Sometimes some forms of play may be +reserved for this day. + +Secondly, our play should never interfere with the rights of those who +desire to be quiet or to observe the day in ways differing from ours. We +must respect the rights of all. + +Thirdly, our play must not cause additional or unnecessary labor. + +Fourthly, our play must not interfere with the pleasures of others. For +instance, in the city children who can use the public tennis courts +every day should keep off them on Sunday in order to give opportunity to +those who can use them only on that day. + +Having said so much on play on Sundays, we must not leave the impression +that play is the principal thing. It would be the principal thing for +children compelled to work or confined in crowded tenements on all other +days. This is a day of rest. Play should not be carried beyond the rest +and refreshment stage. + +Nor must we assume that a recognition of play involves neglect of +worship and instruction. Both should be cherished among the delights of +the day. Every attempt to make the day a happy one, by normal play, +associates the emphasis on worship with increased happiness in the +child's mind. + + +§ 6. THE SUNDAY AFTERNOON PROBLEM + +"What shall we do?" the children ask restlessly on Sunday afternoons, +and it is by no means a strange question. All the week they have their +school work, on Saturdays their play. No wonder Sunday afternoon seems +dull. Yet if we older ones use it aright this is our opportunity to give +them the best time of all the week. We can make this part of the day +really a holiday if we just take time to plan it right. There is +something wrong in the home in which the child, as he grows up, does not +look forward happily to his Sunday afternoons. + +Sunday afternoon should be a family festival time. Keep it sacred to the +family. Business and social life claim us all the week, and the church +claims its share of this day; but these afternoon hours we can, if we +will, reserve for our own home life, for the closer drawing together of +children and parents. To hold this time sacred for the children and +their interests will help to solve "the Sunday afternoon problem." + +1. _The child's question, "What shall I do next?"_--Children are +dynamic, perpetually active. They grow in the direction toward which +their activities are turned. Repression is impossible. We must either +find the best things for them to do, or let them chance on things good +or bad. The following outline for Sunday afternoon is given in the hope +that it may help to answer the "what next." + + + 1. Begin to make _The Family Book_. + + 2. Give "festival name" to the day, and take an excursion in honor + of the one for whom the day is named. + + 3. Organize an exploring party to discover peoples and scenes of + long, long ago. + + 4. Get acquainted with some beautiful home thoughts. + + 5. Enjoy an evening hour of song and praise. + + +2. _"The Family Book."_--To start _The Family Book_, mother or father +raises the question at dinner: "What was the best Sunday of all last +year, and why was it the best?" Everyone, from the oldest down to the +least, should have a chance to tell. The statements of the older ones +will encourage the younger. + +That question will start another: What is the very best thing we can +remember about the year past? Let everyone take a pencil and paper and +in just ten minutes decide on and write down the one thing best worth +remembering. Perhaps the baby cannot write yet, but he or she will want +paper and pencil, too. Now, instead of making our answers known to one +another, we fold the papers and keep them till the evening meal. We will +open them then and talk it all over. Afterward we are going to copy the +answers into a new book we are going to make. + +This new book is to be called _The Family Book_, and we expect to put +into it all the pleasant things we wish to record about our home and +family. Any blank book with ruled lines will do. Some time today we will +elect a keeper of the book, and before we go to bed we will see the +first entry in that book under the title, "Happy Memories of 1915." That +will make a good beginning for _The Family Book_. Next Sunday we will +discuss and set down in the book the happy memories of the intervening +week. + +3. _The festival name._--Now, we have been sitting, talking, and writing +as long as the children will care to be still. Suppose we all go +outdoors together, every one of us. What if the weather is bad? It is +seldom truly bad, and there is so much real happiness in going out in +all weathers together. + +But where shall we go? There is no fun in walking simply for exercise or +health. Well, says father, we can decide where to go by naming the day. +How? We will find the most interesting birthday or anniversary that +falls today or during the next week. If one of the family has a birthday +then, that one shall choose our walk for us. If not, then when we have +chosen the national hero or heroine whose birthday falls near this time, +or the event the anniversary of which comes nearest, we will go, if +possible, where something will remind us of that person or event. + +So we fall to discussing the possibilities. We search through almanacs +until we find the anniversary that suits us all. Perhaps one of the +parents has anticipated all this by looking up the matter, and has a +good name to suggest. Or the older ones may consult a dictionary of +dates. It may turn out to be the birthday of a national hero. In the +city he may have a statue; in the country may be found the kinds of +woods, flowers, or animals he loved. + +4. _The exploring party._--But even after the walk it will not be long +before the little ones are asking, "What can we do next?" So we organize +the exploring party. Our object is to discover the countries, scenes, +strange peoples, and most interesting persons we have heard of in the +Bible. We are to find them in the advertising sections of old magazines. +Let each one take a magazine and go through it, looking for oriental +scenes, for pictures of incidents and of men and women that will remind +him of Bible scenes and characters. These are to be cut out, explained, +and arranged in the order of time, as they happened, every member of the +family helping. The same plan may be applied to scenes of missionary +work, using blank books for stories of heroism which children will +illustrate with the magazine pictures. + +5. _Home thoughts._--"Home, sweet home," is just a corner of the +afternoon saved for the discovery and reading of selections that are +worth keeping in our memories and are also likely to help us hold our +homes in some measure of the love and reverence they deserve. There are +songs of home that ought never to be forgotten. + +6. _Religious reading and songs close the day happily._--Children love +religious reading and songs, provided they are offered for their worth +and not as an exercise, or to be learned as an empty duty. Take down +your Bible and read Psalm 100, "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all +ye lands"; see whether they do not all enjoy the music and majesty of +those lines. You will not find it difficult to secure their co-operation +in learning that by heart. + +Then close the day with an hour of song. The children will remember +songs learned thus all their lives; therefore those worth remembering +should be chosen. For one, there is that dear old song many of us +learned at mother's knee, "Jesus loves me, this I know." That and others +that are appropriate can be found in almost every hymnbook. Many books +of school songs also have a few hymns and Sunday songs that children +like. + +Parents are puzzled, perhaps most of all, to choose appropriate stories +to read to the children on Sunday. Youngsters prefer, of course, the +told story to the read one, but if you wish to read you will make no +mistake in selecting _Christie's Old Organ_; _Aunt Abbey's Neighbors_, +by Annie T. Slosson; _The Book of Golden Deeds_, by Charlotte M. Yonge; +and _Telling Bible Stories_, by Louise S. Houghton. _Some Great Stories +and How to Tell Them_, by Richard Wyche, and _Story Telling_, by Edna +Lyman, will serve as good guides to what to tell, and how to tell it. + +7. _Naming the day._--From week to week variety should enter into the +Sunday program. On the Sunday following the one described above we can +begin at the dinner table the happy task of "naming the day." We can +decide whether it shall be called after one of our own number, whose +birthday falls near this date, or after one of the anniversaries of the +week following. + +Perhaps someone suggests calling it after the feast day of the church +year observed by certain churches. That should lead to discussion and +investigation of the meaning of the day. + +When all are agreed on a name, write it under its date on your wall +calendar. It will be a convenient suggestion for next year, unless the +decision is for a different name when the day again comes round. It will +also call to mind some of the interesting discussions which it aroused. + +After this we might call for _The Family Book_, which now contains, you +will recall, the family's decision as to the best Sunday and the +happiest occurrences of the year before. The keeper, appointed last +week, must bring it out. We can read what we wrote a week ago and decide +on the things worth entering this week. Records of birthdays, special +happenings to each of the family, the bright sayings of little ones, and +the visits of friends and relatives all should go in. + +8. _"I remember" stories._--While _The Family Book_ is open is the +psychological moment for father and mother to tell stories of their +childhood. Every child likes to hear the story that begins, "I +remember," and feels a thrill of pride in belonging to something that +goes back and has a history. The old family album is a never-failing +source of delight, not so much because of the pictures as because of +what they suggest of family traditions. + +Now is a good time to select some certain thing which shall be used only +on this day, such as a festival lamp or candlestick, some festival +plates or dishes--just one thing or set of things toward the use of +which we can look forward during the week. This helps to make Sunday +what we used to call "a treat." + +9. _Golden deeds._--Last week we started _The Family Book_ in which to +keep a record of all the happy experiences that belong to our family. +This week we begin another book. In it we expect to place every week +just one splendid story, the account of a golden deed, some piece of +everyday kindness or heroism of which we have read or heard or which we +have witnessed. Everyone is to have a chance to contribute to this book, +all the family deciding by vote each week as to which story should be +placed on its pages. + +Did you read in the paper this week of some brave or kindly deed done by +a boy or a girl, a man or a woman? Did you see someone do an act of +kindness? Cut out the account or write out the story and have it ready +for your own _Golden Deed Book_. Everyone must watch all the week for +the right kind of stories. It is wonderful how much good you will find +in the world when you are looking for it. + +Sunday afternoons all the family can hear each story and talk over its +fine points of virtue and goodness. Thus may be developed an +appreciation of the human qualities that are really admirable. We can +discuss also the probability of certain of the stories and the +righteousness of the deeds. + +Any blank book will do, or even a composition book. It will help to keep +hands happily occupied if you make your own covers and cut out gilt +letters for the title. Often you can find pictures to illustrate the +stories chosen; sometimes you may prefer to draw the illustrations. Keep +_The Golden Deed Book_ in a safe and convenient place, because there +ought to be something to go into it every week. For instance, did you +read the other day of the young man who jumped in front of a train to +save a young girl? He lost his life, but he saved hers. Can you find +that story and put it in the book? Perhaps you have found one that seems +even more fitting. + +10. _Various plans._--Giving happiness creates it. Plan something every +Sunday for the happiness of others. Occasionally go in a body to call on +someone who will be made happy by the visit. + +If you walk in the park or elsewhere, see how many things you can +discover that you have read about in the Bible or know to be mentioned +there. + +Try the game of "guessing hymns." While someone plays the familiar +tunes, each takes a turn at identifying them and the hymns to which they +belong. + +Set aside twenty minutes for each one to write a letter to send to the +brother or sister, relative or friend, at a distance. Even the baby can +scratch something which he thinks is a "real enough" letter in penciled +scribbles. + +Close the day with quiet reading and song, or with the memory exercise +in which all endeavor to repeat some simple psalm or a few verses, like +the Beatitudes. All children like to repeat the Lord's Prayer in family +concert. + + + I. References for Study + + Emilie Poulsson, _Love and Law in Child Training_, chaps. i-iv. + Milton Bradley, $1.00. + + _Happy Sundays for Children_ and _Sunday in the Home_. Pamphlets. + American Institute of Child Life, Philadelphia, Pa. + + + II. Further Reading + + _Sunday Play._ Pamphlet. American Institute of Child Life, + Philadelphia, Pa. + + Hodges, _Training of Children in Religion_, chap. xiii. Appleton, + $1.50. + + + III. Methods and Materials + + _A Year of Good Sundays._ Pamphlet. American Institute of Child + Life, Philadelphia, Pa. + + + IV. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What is the real problem of Sunday in the family? Is it that of + securing quiet or of wisely directing the action of the young? + + 2. Recall your childhood's Sundays. Were they for good or ill? + + 3. What are the arguments against children playing on Sunday? Is + there any essential relation between the play of children and the + wide-open Sunday of commercialized amusements? + + 4. Can you describe forms of play in which practically all the + family might unite? + + 5. What characteristics should distinguish play on Sundays from + other days? Is it wise to attempt thus to distinguish this day? + + 6. Criticize the suggestions on occupations for Sunday afternoons. + + 7. Recall any especially helpful forms of the use of this day in + your childhood, or coming under your observation. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[31] See chap. xvii, "The Family and the Church." + +[32] See chap. vii on "Directed Activity," and the references for study +at its end. + +[33] Much may be learned by a study of Primary plans in a modern Sunday +school. See Athearn, _The Church School_, chap. vi. + +[34] Since we are dealing here especially with religious education in +the family, the author refers to his more extended treatment of the +question of children in church services in _Efficiency in the Sunday +School_, chap. xv. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE MINISTRY OF THE TABLE + + +Shall the periods for meals be for the body only or shall we see in them +happy occasions for the enriching of the higher life? Upon the answer +depends whether the table shall be little more than a feeding-trough or +the scene of constant mental and character development. In some memories +the meals stand out only in terms of food, while pictures of dishes and +fragments of food fill the mind; in others there are borne through all +life pictures of happy faces and thoughts of cheer, of knowledge gained +and ideals created in the glow of conversation. + + +§ 1. THE OPPORTUNITY + +The family is together as a united group at the table more than anywhere +besides. Table-talk, by its informality and by the aid of the pleasures +of social eating, is one of the most influential means of education. +Depend upon it, children are more impressed by table-talk than by +teacher-talk or by pulpit-talk. They expect moralizing on the other +occasions, but here the moral lessons throw out no warning; they meet no +opposition; they are--or ought to be, if they would be effective--a +natural part of ordinary conversation and, by being part and parcel of +everyday affairs, they become normally related to life. The table is the +best opportunity for informal, indirect teaching, and this is for +children the natural and only really effective form of moral +instruction. + +The child comes to these social occasions with a hungry mind as well as +with an empty stomach. His mind is always receptive--even more so than +his stomach; at the table he is absorbing that which will stay with him +much longer than his food. Even if we were thinking of his food alone, +we should still do well to see that the table is graced by happy and +helpful conversation; nothing will aid digestion more than good cheer of +the spirit; it stimulates the organs and, by diverting attention from +the mere mechanics of eating, it tends to that most desirable end, a +leisurely consumption of food. + +The general conversation of the family group has more to do with +character development in children than we are likely to realize, and the +table is peculiarly the opportunity for general conversation. Here, most +of all, we need to watch its character and consider its teaching +effects. Where father scolds or mother complains the children grow +fretful and quarrelsome. Where father spends the time in reciting the +sharp dealing of the market or the political ring, where mother +delights in dilating on the tinsel splendors of her social rivalries, +they teach the children that life's object is either gain at any cost or +social glory. But it is just as easy to do precisely the opposite, to +speak of the pleasures found in simpler ways, to glory in goodness and +kindness, and to teach, by relating the worthy things of the day, the +worth of love and truth and high ideals. The news of the day may be +discussed so as to make this world a game of grab, inviting youth to +cast conscience and honor to the winds and to plunge into the greedy +struggle, or so as to make each day a book of beautiful pictures of +life's best pleasures and enduring prizes. + + +§ 2. DIRECTING TABLE-TALK + +But table-talk, helpful, cheerful, and educative, does not occur by +accident. It comes, first, from our own constant and habitual thought of +the meals in social and spiritual, as well as in physical, terms. And it +reaches its possibilities as we endeavor to create and direct the kind +of conversation that is desired. "Let all your speech be seasoned with +salt," wrote the apostle, and we might add, let your salt be seasoned +with good speech. That is the quality we must seek, the seasoning of +healthful, saving, and not insipid, speech. + +One of the great advantages of "grace before meat" lies in this: it +gives a tone to the occasion. Its chief meaning is surely that we +remind ourselves of the ever-present guest who is also the giver of all +good. Where the grace is not a perfunctory act, but rather the welcoming +of such a guest, the meal has started on a high level. We cannot do +better than so to act and speak as those who take the divine presence +for granted. We need not preach about it; we need only to assume it and +move on the level of that friendship. Children will feel it; they will +seek to answer to it, and will find pleasure in the very thought which +they have perhaps never expressed in words. + +The central idea of the grace suggests another means of helpful +influences at the table, by bringing into our homes, for the meals, the +friends whose lives will lift these younger ones. It is worth everything +to live even for an hour with good and broadening lives. There are +obligations to our guests to be considered, and their wishes should be +consulted, but one always feels that children are being cheated when +they are sent to eat at another table and deprived of the peculiar +intimate touch with lives that bring the benefits of travel and +experience. Ask your own memory what some persons who ate at the table +with you in childhood meant to you. + +The wise hostess knows that even when she brings together the group of +mature folks, and even when they are wise and witty, she must be +prepared adroitly to inspire the conversation or it may flag at times. +How much more does the conversation need direction where we have the +same group every day composed largely of immature persons! When you have +thought of all the portions and all the plates, have you thought of the +food for the spirit? + +Before suggesting methods of selection and direction, let a word of +explanation be said: food for the spirit is not confined to theology, to +hymns and the Bible; it is whatever will help us to feel and think of +life as an affair of the spirit. And this must come in very simple +terms, by the elementary steps, for young folks. It will be whatever +will in any way help us to live more kindly, more cheerfully, more as +though this really were God's world and all folks his family. Whatever +does this is truly religious. + + +§ 3. METHODS + +Plan for the food of the spirit as seriously at least as for the food of +the body. Learn to recognize poisons and also indigestibles. The first +are subjects of scandal, bitterness of spirit, malice, impatience, +tale-bearing, unkindly criticism, and discontent. The second are +subjects too heavy for children: your formal theology would be one of +them, your judgments on some intricate subjects may be among them. It is +seldom wise to announce negative injunctions, but we can make up our +own minds to avoid the conversational poisons and, when they appear, it +is always easy to push them out. Even when the unpleasant subject is so +common to all and has been so impressive in the day's experience that it +threatens to become the sole, absorbing topic, we can say, "We won't +talk of it at table! Let's find something better." But we must then have +ready the something better; that will be possible only by forethought. + +First, save up during the day, or between the meals, the best thoughts, +the cheering, kind, ideal, and amusing incidents. Cultivate the habit of +saying to yourself, "This is something for us all to enjoy tonight at +the table." + +Secondly, expect the other members to bring their best. Ask for "the +best news of the day" from one and another. Encourage them to tell of +good things seen and done and of pleasant and ideal things heard and +spoken. + +Thirdly, use the incidents as the basis of discussion. Let children tell +what they think of moral situations. Often they will quote the opinions +of teachers and others. Always you will secure under these circumstances +the unreserved expression of what they actually think. A free, informal +conversation of this sort where opinions are kindly examined and +compared is the finest kind of teaching. + +Fourthly, do not forget the grace of humor. To see the odd, whimsical, +startling side of the incident or experience trains one to see the +interplay of life, to catch a ray of light from all things, and to +moderate our tendency to permit our tragedies to pull the heavens down. + +Fifthly, use this period to strengthen the consciousness of family unity +by recounting past happy experiences and discussing plans of family +life. In one family there are few meals from October to Christmas that +do not include reminiscences of the summer in the woods and by the +water, or from Christmas to June without plans for the next summer in +the same place. Then, too, if you are contemplating something new, a +piano, a chair, an automobile, talk it all over here. Let each one have +his share in the planning. The effect is most important for character; +the children acquire the sense of a share in the family community life. +They get their first lessons in citizenship in this group, and they thus +learn social living. Then when the chair, or what not, is bought, it is +not alone the parents' possession; it belongs to all and all treat it as +the property of all. + +Sixthly, introduce great guests who cannot come in person. It is fine +fun to say, "We have with us tonight a man who loved bees and wrote +books." Let them guess who it was; help, if necessary, by an allusion +to _The Life of the Bee_ and _The Blue Bird_. They will want to know +more about Maeterlinck and they will joyously imagine what they would +say to him and how he would answer, what he would eat and how he would +behave. In this way we may enjoy knowing better Lincoln, Whittier, +Florence Nightingale, and an innumerable company. + +Seventhly, this is the place to remind ourselves that table-manners are +no small part of the moral life. By the habituation of custom we can +establish lives in attitudes of everyday thoughtfulness for others, in +the underlying consideration of others which is the basis of all +courtesy. Children's questions on table-etiquette must be met, not only +by the formal rules, but also by their explanation in the intent of +every gentle life to give pleasure and not pain to others, so to live in +all things as to find helpful harmony with other lives and to help them +to find and be the best. It is not only impolite to grab and guzzle, it +is unsocial and so unmoral, because it is both a bad example and a +distressing sight to others. It is irreligious, because whatever tends +to make this life less beautiful must be offensive to the God who made +all things good. + +If we ourselves seek to maintain beauty, order, and kindliness in the +conduct of the table, our children acquire a love of all that makes for +beauty and order and kindliness, for righteousness in the little things +of life. A clean tablecloth may be a means of grace. You have to try to +live up to it. Order and quietness in eating are not separable from the +rest of the life. To lift up life at any point is to raise the whole +level. To let it down at any point is to let all down. But to lift up +the level of conversation at the table is to raise the level of the +entire occasion and to make it more than a period of eating, to convert +it into a festival, a joyous occasion of the spirit. The meal should be +in all things worthy of the unseen guest. + +How near we all come together at the table! In its freedom how clearly +are we seen by our children! Here they know us for what we are and so +learn to interpret life. + + + I. Reference for Study + + _Table Talk._ Pamphlet. American Institute of Child Life, + Philadelphia, Pa. + + + II. Topics Tor Discussion + + 1. The relation of mental conditions to digestion. + + 2. The relation of table-etiquette to life-habits. + + 3. The table as an opportunity for the grace of courtesy, and the + relation of this grace to Christian character. + + 4. Training children in listening as well as in talking at table. + + 5. Do you regard table-talk and table-manners as having any + directly religious values? Why? + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE BOY AND GIRL IN THE FAMILY + + +Much that has been said so far has had in mind only the problems of +dealing with younger children in the life of the home. Indeed, almost +all literature on education in the family is devoted to the years prior +to adolescence. But older boys and girls need the family and the family +needs them. Many of the more serious problems of youth with which +society is attempting to deal are due to the fact that from the age of +thirteen on boys have no home life and girls, especially in the cities, +are deprived of the home influences. + + +§ 1. THE GROWING BOY + +The life of the family must have a place for the growing boy. It must +make provision for his physical needs; these are food, activity, rest, +and shelter. Youth is a period of physical crisis. Health is the basis +of a sound moral life. Many of the lad's apparently strange propensities +are due to the physical changes taking place in his body and, often, to +the fact that it is assumed that his rugged frame needs no care or +attention.[35] + +It will take more than tearful pleading to hold him to his home; he can +be held only by its ministry to him; he will be there if it is the most +attractive place for him. Some parents who are praying for wandering +boys would know why they wandered if they looked calmly at the crowded +quarters given to the boy, the comfortless room, the makeshift bed, and +the general home organization which long ago assumed that a boy could be +left out of the reckoning. + +The boy needs a part in the family activities. He can belong only to +that to which he can give himself. It will be his home in the degree +that he has a share in its business. Begin early to confer with him +about your plans; make him feel that he is a partner. See that he has a +chance to do part of the work, not only its "chores," but also its forms +of service. But even a boy's attitude to the "chores" will depend on +whether they are a responsibility with a degree of dignity or a form of +unpaid drudgery. His room should be his own room, and he should be +responsible for its neatness and its adorning. Services which he does +regularly for all should receive regular compensation. In all services +which the home renders for others he should have a share; this is his +training for the larger citizenship and society of service.[36] + +The boy is a playing animal. Not all homes can be fully equipped with +play apparatus. But no parents have a right to choose family quarters as +though children needed nothing but meals and beds. The shame of the +modern apartment building is that its conveniences are all for passive +adults. To attempt to train an active, growing, vigorous, playing human +creature in one of these immense filing-cases, where all persons are +shot up elevators and filed away in pigeonholes called rooms, is to +force him out to the life of the streets. The thoughtless +self-indulgence of modern parents, seeking only to live without physical +effort, is the cause of much juvenile delinquency.[37] + +But play for the boy is more than shouting and running in the grass and +among trees; he needs books and opportunities for indoor recreation. For +the sake of the lad we had better sacrifice the guest-room if necessary, +and make way for the punching-bag and the home billiard-table or +pool-table; here is a magnet of innocent skilful play to draw him off +the street and to bring the boy and his friends under his own roof. If +possible his room ought to be the place that is his own, where his +friends may come, where he may taste the beginnings of the joys of +home-living in receiving them and entertaining them.[38] + +A workbench in the attic or basement has saved many a boy from the +street. Such apparatus truly interferes with the symmetrical plan of a +home that is designed for the entertainment of the neighbors; but +families must some time choose between chairs and children, between the +home for the purpose of the lives in it and the household for the +purpose of a salon.[39] + + +§ 2. RELIGIOUS SERVICE + +In the religious family there is valuable opportunity to train youth to +one form of participation in the religious life. Whatever the family +gives or does for social service, for philanthropic enterprises, for the +support of the church or religious work, ought to be, not the gift of +one member or of the heads alone, but of the whole family, extending +itself in service through the community, the nation, and the world. The +form and the amount of the gifts ought to be a matter of family +conference and each member ought early to have the opportunity and the +means of determining his share in such extension. The child's gifts to +the church should not be pennies thrust into his hand as he crosses the +threshold of home for the Sunday school, but his own money, from his own +account--partly his own direct earnings--appropriated for this or for +other purposes by himself and with the advice of his parents. Family +councils on forms of participation in ideal activities, by gifts and by +service, bind the whole life together and form occasions in which the +child is learning life in terms of loving, self-giving service.[40] + +The boy needs friendship. Not all his needs can be met by the schoolboys +whom he may bring into his room, nor can they all be met by his mother's +affection. He needs a father. The most serious obstacle to the religious +education of boys is that most of them are half-orphans; intellectually +and spiritually they have no fathers. The American ideal seems to be +that the man shall be the money-maker, the woman the social organizer, +and the children shall be committed to hired shepherds or left to shift +for themselves. + + +§ 3. THE FATHER AND THE BOY + +No one else can be quite the teacher for the boy that his father ought +to be. No man can ever commit to another, still less to some tract or +book, the duty of guiding his boy to sanity and consecration in the +matter of the sex problems. + +The first word that needs to be said on this subject is that such +problems receive safe and sufficient guidance only in the atmosphere of +affection and reverence. Do not attempt to teach this boy of yours as +though you were dealing with a class in physiology. The largest thing +you can do for him is to quicken a reverence for the body and for the +functions of life. By your own attitude, by your own expressions and +opinions, lead him to a hatred and abhorrence of the base, filthy, and +bestial, to a healthy fear and detestation of all that despoils and +degrades manhood, and to a reverence for purity, beauty, and life.[41] + +Be prepared to give him, on the basis of reverence, the clean, clear +facts. Be sure you have the facts. Do not think he is ignorant; he is in +a world seething with conversation, stories, pictures, and experiences +of evil. The trouble is that his facts are partial, distorted, and +unbalanced by positive errors; his knowledge is gained from the street +and the school-yard. Only a personal teacher can help him unravel the +good from the bad, the true from the false. Do not trust to your own +general knowledge; take time to read one of the simple and sane books on +this subject.[42] Be ready to lead him aright. Remember this subject has +provoked a large number of books, many of which are foolish and others +unwholesome. Do not try to deputize your duty to some doubtful book. + + +§ 4. FATHERING THE BOY + +But the boy needs more than instruction on a special subject; he needs +personality, he needs the time and thought of, and _personal contact_ +with, his father. Men who do not live with boys never know what they +lose. And alas, see what the boy misses! He has been his mother's boy up +to school age when school takes him and gives him a woman's guidance, +while the Sunday school is likely to keep him--for a while only--under +the eye of some dear sister who "just loves boys." The system is a +vicious one. The lad needs developed masculinity. If he gets it neither +in school nor in the home he will find it on the street corner, through +the vicious boy-leader of the degrading poolroom or the alleys. + +The boy who finds his father eager to talk over the game, to discuss the +merits of peg-tops, to walk, row, play, and work with him, finds it as +simple and natural to talk with him over his moral and religious +questionings as it is to talk over the daily happenings. To live with +the boy is to find the youth with you. But it is hard work discovering +your young men if you lost your boys.[43] + + +§ 5. THE GROWING GIRL + +Almost all that has been said about the boy applies to the girl of the +same years. Let _a special plea_ be entered here against the notion that +girls are favored when sheltered from a share in the activities of the +home. They desire to express their ideals as much as do boys. Much of +the so-called craze for amusements is due to the fact that the family is +so organized that there is no vent to the ideals there, no chance to +have a share in the business of life. Young folks with the sense that +"this is our home," not "our parents', but _ours_" bend their energies +to its adorning, and find in it the chance to realize some of their +passion for beauty and for service.[44] + +Mothers usually do better than do fathers in the matter of sex +instruction. Yet they usually begin too late, long after the little girl +has acquired much misleading information in the school. Here, too, the +first aim must be to quicken reverence for life, to set up the +conception of the beauty and dignity of sex functions before the baser +mind of the street has had an opportunity to interpret them in terms of +the dirt.[45] + +Above all, with boys and girls, the whole subject, including marriage +and the founding of a family, must ever be treated with dignity and +reverence. Foolish parents jest with their girls about their beaux and +boast that their little ones are playing at courtship. If they could +realize the wonder awakened, followed by pain and then by hardened +sensibilities and coarsened ideals, they would sacrifice their jests for +the sake of the child's soul. We wonder that youth treats lightly the +matter of social purity when we have treated the sacred relations of +life as a jest. If this family in which they now live is to be a place +of sacred associations, of real religious life, the whole matter of +marriage and the family must be treated with reverence. Their practice +will not rise above our everyday ideals as expressed in casual +conversation and in our own practice. + + + I. References for Study + + THE BOY + + W.A. McKeever, _Training the Boy_, Part III. Macmillan, $1.50. + + _Boy Training_, Part IV. A Symposium. Associated Press. + + Johnson, _The Problems of Boyhood_. The University of Chicago + Press, $1.00. + + THE GIRL + + Margaret Slattery, _The Girl in Her Teens_, chaps. iv, vii. Sunday + School Times Co., $0.50. + + Wayne, _Building Your Girl_. McClurg, $0.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + W.B. Forbush, _The Coming Generation_. Appleton, $1.50. + + Puffer, _The Boy and His Gang_. Houghton Mifflin Co., $1.00. + + Irving King, _The High School Age_. Bobbs-Merrill, $1.00. + + _Building Childhood_, A Symposium. Sunday School Times Co., $1.00. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What are the special needs of the growing boy? + + 2. What are the things that a boy enjoys in his home? + + 3. In what way does city life interfere with the natural + development of the child? + + 4. What are some of the natural expressions of religion for a boy? + + 5. How early should the sex instruction begin? + + 6. What does a father owe to the boy, and what are the best methods + of meeting the duty? + + 7. What are the normal activities for girls in the home? + + 8. What are their especial needs? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[35] A good brief book on the problem of the adolescent is E.T. Swift, +_Youth and the Race_; another, from the school point of view, is Irving +King, _The High-School Age_, which has much material of great value to +parents. + +[36] On the various activities of boys see W.A. McKeever, _Training the +Boy_. + +[37] See the notable report by Breckinridge and Abbott, _The Delinquent +Child and the Home_. + +[38] On the gregarious instincts see J.A. Puffer, _The Boy and His +Gang_. + +[39] See the books on manual work given in chap. vii, "Directed +Activity." + +[40] On the religious life of the boy in relation to society and the +church see Allan Hoben, _The Minister and the Boy_, and the author's +treatment of boys and the Sunday school in _Efficiency in the Sunday +School_, chap. xiv; also J. Alexander _et al._, _Training the Boy_, a +symposium. + +[41] On the attitude of reverence in this question read Dr. Cabot's fine +essay, _The Christian Approach to Social Morality_. + +[42] The works of Dr. W.S. Hall, _From Boyhood to Manhood_, for parents' +guidance with boys of thirteen to eighteen; E. Lyttleton, _Training of +the Young in Laws of Sex_, is excellent for fathers; _Reproduction and +Sexual Hygiene_ is a text for older youth to be recommended; also, for +reading, N.E. Richardson, _Sex Culture Talks_, D.S. Jordan, _The +Strength of Being Clean_. + +[43] For further studies of the problem of the boy parents would do well +to read: _Building Boyhood_, a symposium; W.A. McKeever, _Training the +Boy;_ W.B. Forbush, _The Coming Generation;_ W.D. Hyde, _The Quest of +the Best_. + +[44] On activities see W.A. McKeever, _Training the Girl_. + +[45] On the problem with young children see M. Morley, _The Renewal of +Life_; in connection with older girls see K.H. Wayne, _Building Your +Girl_. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE NEEDS OF YOUTH + + +Families are for the spiritual development of youth as well as of +childhood. The home is for the young people as well as for the younger +ones. But the very period when they slip from church school is also the +period when they are often lost to the real life of the family. In some +measure this is due to the natural development of the social life. The +youths go out to work, move forward into enlarging social groups which +demand more of their free time. They are learning the life of the larger +world of which they are now a part. + + +§ 1. THE SCHOOL OF YOUTH + +But the family is still the home of these young people; normally it is +still the most vital educational influence for them. Yet there is no +problem more baffling than that of family ministry for, and leadership +of, the higher life of youth. + +It is a short-measure interpretation of the home which thinks of it as +only for young children and old folks. The young men and women from +sixteen to twenty and over still need training and direction; they need +close touch with other lives in affection and in an ideal atmosphere. In +a few years they, too, will be home-makers, and here in the home they +are very directly learning the art of family life. + +For youth there are few effective schools, outside the home, other than +the streets and the places of commercialized amusement. Even where the +other agencies of training are used, such as college, classes, and +associations (such as the Y.M.C.A. and the Y.W.C.A.), life, at that +period, needs the restraints on selfishness that come from family life, +the refining and socializing power of the family group. + + +§ 2. SPECIAL NEEDS OF YOUTH + +What are the special needs of youth upon which the family may base a +reasonable program for their higher needs? + +First, the need of sound physical health. This is a period of physical +adjustment. Rapid bodily growth is nearly or quite at an end; new +functions are asserting themselves. The new demands for directed +activity may, under the ambitious impulses of youth, make undue drafts +on the energies. The apparent moodiness that at times characterizes this +period may be due to poor health. The moral strain of the period will +need sound muscles and good health. Parents who would sit up all +night--perhaps involuntarily--when the baby has the colic treat with +indifference sickness in youth and too readily assume that the young +man or the young woman will outgrow these physical ills. But bodily +maladjustment or incapacity has most serious character effects. To live +the right life and render high service one needs to be a whole person, +with opportunity to give undivided attention and undiminished powers to +the struggle of life. + +Secondly, this is peculiarly the period of the joy of friendships. The +social nature must have its food. This young man has discovered that the +world consists of something besides things; it is full of people. He is +just learning that they are all persons like himself. He enters the era +of conscious personal relationships. He would explore the realm of +personality. He touches great heights of happiness as other lives are +opened to him. It is all new and wonderful, this realm of personality, +with its aspects of feeling, thinking, willing, and longing. + + +§ 3. MAINTAINING FRIENDSHIP WITH YOUTH + +Do parents know how hungry their older children are for their +friendship? They will never tell us, for this world is too new and +strange for facile description; they are always bashful about their +hunger for persons until they find the same hunger and joy in us. We +imagine that they are indifferent to us; the trouble is we are hidden +from them. We seldom give them a chance to talk as friend to friend, +not about trifling things, but about life itself and what it means. +Perhaps at no point do parents exhibit less ability for sympathetic +reconstruction and interpretation of their own lives than here. They +recall the pleasures of childhood and provide those pleasures for the +children. Why not recall the hunger of eighteen years of age and give +these youths the very bread of our own inner selves? Or do we, when they +ask this bread, give them the stone of mere provision for their physical +needs or the scorpion of careless indulgence in things that debase the +tastes? + +One perplexing phenomenon must not be overlooked: it will often happen +that young people pass through a period of what appears to be parental +aversion. There will sometimes seem to be suspicion, violent opposition, +and even hatred of parents. This is no occasion for despair. It is a +stage of development. It is due to the attempt of a will now realizing +its freedom under social conditions to adapt itself to the will that has +hitherto directed it. To some degree the sex consciousness, which leads +to viewing the parents in a new light, may enter in. It may be easily +made permanent, however, if parents do not do two things: first, adjust +themselves and their methods to the new social freedom of the youth, +and, secondly, fling open the doors into their true selves now fully +understandable by these men and women. + +But the family life must make provision for the wider friendships of +youth. Somewhere this insatiable appetite for the reality of lives will +feed. Groups of friends your young man and woman will find somewhere. If +they cannot bring them into your home they will go elsewhere. You can +scarce pay any price too high for the opportunity that comes when they +are perfectly free to have their friends with them and with you, when +home becomes the natural place of the social meetings of youth. If you +are afraid of the wear on the furniture you may keep your furniture, but +you will lose a life or lives. Here is the opportunity of the home to +enter a wider ministry, to be a place of the joy of friendships to many +lives. + + +§ 4. AT THE DOOR OF A NEW WORLD + +As through friendships the youth enters and explores this wonderful +realm of personality he will find some persons more wonderful than +others. Those instincts of which he is largely unconscious will impel +him to make a selection. The same law is operative with the young woman. +Mating is normally always first on the higher levels of personalities; +it first calls itself friendship, nor does it think farther. But father +and mother, if they have the least spiritual vision, stand in awe as +they see their children taking their first evident steps toward +home-making. What an opportunity is theirs! + +Yet here, as the home faces its duty toward a family yet to be, is just +where some of the most serious mistakes are made. This is no time for +teasing and jesting, still less for mocking ridicule. If you treat this +essentially sacred step as a joke it will not be strange if the young +people follow suit and take marriage as a yet larger joke. The home is +the place where the home is treated most irreverently. Of course one +must not take too seriously those "calf" courtships, prematurely +fostered by boys and girls, under the pressure of the high-school +tendency to anticipate all of life's riper experiences. But even here +jesting and teasing will only tend to confirm and make permanent what +would be but a temporary aberration. In that case either silence or +kindly, simple advice will help most of all. + +To young people who think at all courtship has its times of vision, when +they stand trembling before the unknown future, when they, with youth's +idealism, make high vows and stand on high places. Give them at least +the opportunity to enter your inmost self, to find there all the light +you can give them and all the memory of your own joys and hopes. Make +them feel, though you need not say it, that they are at the threshold of +a temple. If to you this is an affair of the spirit it will be a matter +of religion to them. + +Approached in such a temper, many of the practical problems of courtship +settle themselves. Take the case of the young man at home. If he knows +that you think with him of the high meaning of this experience he will +not hesitate to bring the young woman to the home. She will feel your +attitude. Upon this level questions of times and seasons, hours in the +parlor, and all the matters of their relations will settle themselves. +If you treat courtship as a matter of the spirit he will do just what he +most of all wants to do, treat this woman who is to be his mate as a +person, a spirit, with reverence and love that lifts itself above lust. +This is the only ground upon which you can appeal to either in matters +of conduct at this time. The conventions of society they will despise; +but the inner law speaks to them when the outer letter has no meaning. + + +§ 5. THE SOCIAL LIFE + +We must expect our children to go out into their larger world. The +beginning of adolescence is the normal time of their social awakening, +their conversion from a nature that turns in upon itself to one that +moves out into a world of persons. For them, now, the home group ought +to be seen as a society as well as a family, as the social group +gathering about a definite ideal and mission into which they should +delight to project themselves. The appeal of religion is peculiarly +vivid just now, for it involves a recognition of one's self as a person +with the power of personal choices and with the opportunity to find +association with other persons. The family must aid its young people to +see the opportunity which the church offers for ideal social +relationships which direct themselves to high and attractive service. + + +§ 6. AMUSEMENTS + +What should the family do about the question of the amusements of young +people? + +Healthy young persons must have recreation. They will seek it on its +highest level first and find their way down the facile descent of +commercialized amusements only as the higher opportunities are denied +them. They would always rather play than be played to; they would +rather, where early labor has not sapped vitality, play outdoors than +sit in a fetid atmosphere watching tawdry spectacles. But play, the +idealization of life's experiences, they will find somewhere. To this +need the home must minister by the provision of space, time, +opportunity, and the means of play. If through either sloth, +selfishness, preoccupation, or a mistaken idea of an empty innocence of +life you make recreation and social intercourse impossible in the +family, the young people will find it on the street or in the crowd. In +the family that plans for recreation and provides facilities and time +for young people to play the problem is a minor one. + +But young people will naturally desire to project themselves into the +social amusements of the larger groups. Then we ought to know what those +amusements are; we must be able to advise, from actual knowledge, not +from hearsay or prejudice, as to the healthful and worth while. The home +must insist on the provision in the community for the safe socialization +of amusements. The thousands of young girls in the cities, who tramp the +pavements down to dance halls, primarily are only seeking the +satisfaction of a normal craving; and they, on their way to the dance +halls, pass the splendid plants of the schools and the churches, +standing dark and idle. Families must develop a public opinion that will +demand, for the sake of their young people, a provision for amusement +and recreation that, instead of poisoning the life, shall strengthen, +dignify, and elevate it. If the demand for clean drinking-water is a +proper one, is the demand for healthful food for the life of ideals less +so? + +There can be no doubt of the attitude of any home with the least +conscience for character toward all forms of public amusements in which +young people are herded promiscuously for the mere purpose of killing +time in trivialities. The "white cities" with their glittering lights +and baubles are often moral plague colonies. The amusements debase the +intellect, blunt the moral sensibilities, and appeal to the baser +passions. They are the low-water mark, we may hope, of commercialized +amusement. But they remind us that young people demand company and +change from the monotony of the day's toil. They ask us as to the +provision we are making for young people and challenge us to use their +inclinations for good. + +But besides these "shows" there are many dignified forms of social +recreation. Good music is to be heard and good plays are to be seen. + +The theater, whether of the regular drama or of the motion-picture type, +offers a perplexing problem, principally because, in the first place, +American people have been too busy conquering a new soil and making a +living to give careful thought to the social side of aesthetics and +recreation, and, secondly, because the ministry of social recreation has +fallen almost entirely under the dominance of the same trend; it has +been thoroughly commercialized. We cannot cut the puzzling knot by +simply prohibiting all forms of public theatrical entertainment. For one +reason, these forms shade off imperceptibly from the church service to +the extremes of the vaudeville. But the simple fact is that we no longer +indiscriminately class all theaters as baneful and immoral; we are +coming to see their potentialities for good. If the young will go, as +they will--and ought--to the theater, and if the theater can lift their +ideals, parents would do well to guide their children in this matter and +to enlist the aid of the theater. + +It is worth while to come to a sympathetic understanding of the place of +the drama and the opera, to see what they have meant in the education of +the race and what is the significance, to us, of the fact of the strong +dramatic instinct in childhood. Naturally the subject can only be +mentioned here and the suggestion be offered that parents take time to +cultivate an appreciation of good orchestral and concert music and of +the drama. + +The social life will find outlet in other directions. Young people need +our aid to find social groups which will inspire and develop them, +especially groups that are serviceful. + + +§ 7. THE CALL TO SERVICE + +This is the period when ideals begin to give direction to the hitherto +undirected activity of childhood and youth. Young people are idealists. +They see no height too giddy, no task too hard, no dream too roseate, +and no hope unattainable. If the times are out of joint they believe +they were "born to set them right." Whatever is wrong or imperfect they +would take a hand in setting it right. We know we felt that way, but we +are loath to believe our children also cherish their high hopes. And so +the tendency of the adult is to treat with cynicism the dreams of youth. +Often we sedulously endeavor to pervert him to our blasé view of the +world; we would have him believe it is a fated heap of cinders instead +of an almost new thing to be formed and made perfect. In the home those +ideals must be nourished and guided. See that at hand there are the +songs and essays of the idealists. Give them Emerson and forget your +Nietzsche. Renew your own youth. Get some of Isaiah's passion and let it +breathe its fervor on them. Feed by poem, song, story, essay, and +conversation the life of ideals. + +Stop long enough to see the life that like an engine with steam up is +surely going somewhere and help it to find an engineer. We call this the +period of sowing wild oats. Wild oats are simply energies invested in +the wrong places. The dynamic of youth must go somewhere and do +something. Fundamentally it would rather go to the good than the bad. We +know that this was true of us at that time; why should we assume less of +others? Hold to your faith in youth. Fathers who with open eyes and +active minds--not with sleepy fatalism--believe in their boys, have boys +who believe in them. + +They wait for leadership. If you have dropped into the easy slippers of +indifference to social reform and other types of ideal service, get +back into the fight again beside this new man of yours. + +They wait for friendship in this matter of their ideals and their +service. At any cost keep open house of the heart. + +They wait for a life-task. This is the period of vocational choice. It +will make a tremendous difference to this life whether his work shall be +merely a matter of making a living or shall be his chance to invest life +in accordance with his new ideals. Shall he go out to be merely one of +the many wage-earners or salary-winners to whom life is a great orange +from which he will get all the juice if he can, regardless of who else +goes thirsty? Or shall he see an occupation as his chance to pay back to +today and tomorrow that which he owes to yesterday? as his chance to +give the world himself? He need not be a minister or a missionary to +make his life a ministry; he will find life, he will be a religious +person in no other way than as his dominating motive shall be to find +the fulness of life in order to have a full life to give to God's world. +The answer will depend on what life means to you, how you are +interpreting it, and how you aid him in thinking of it and making his +high choice. You will have abundant opportunity to show what it is to +you--as you have been doing all along--by your daily attitude; you will +have abundant opportunity to talk it all over, for he will certainly +discuss his trade or profession with you. The family must give to the +life of the new day makers of families to whom life means a chance to +realize the God-vision of the world. + + + I. References for Study + + H.C. King, _Personal and Ideal Elements in Education_, pp. 105-27. + Macmillan, $1.50. + + E.D. Starbuck, _The Psychology of Religion_, chaps., xvi-xxi. + Scribner, $1.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + 1. ON YOUTH + + C.R. Brown, _The Young Man's Affairs_. Crowell, $1.00. + + Wayne, _Building the Young Man_. McClurg, $0.50. + + Swift, _Youth and the Race_. Scribner, $1.50. + + Wilson, _Making the Most of Ourselves_. McClurg, $1.00. + + 2. ON RECREATIONS + + L.C. Lillie, _The Story of Music and the Musicians_. Harper, $0.60. + + Gustav Kobbe, _How to Appreciate Music_. Moffat, $1.50. + + P. Chubb, _Festivals and Plays_. Harper, $2.00. + + _Dramatics in the Home, Children in the Theater, Problems of + Dramatic Plays_, monographs published by the American Institute of + Child Life. Philadelphia, Pa. + + L.H. Gulick, _Popular Recreation and Public Morality_. American + Unitarian Association. Free. + + M. Fowler, _Morality of Social Pleasures_. Longmans, $1.00. + + Addams, _The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets_. Macmillan, + $1.25. + + The moving-picture or cinema presents a problem to parents; see + Herbert A. Jump, _The Religious Possibilities of the Motion + Picture_ (a pamphlet) and _Vaudeville and Moving Pictures_, a + report of an investigation in Portland, Ore. _Reed College Record, + No. 16._ + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What are the reasons why young people leave home? + + 2. Where do the young men and young women whom you know spend their + evenings? Why is this the case? + + 3. Mention the special needs of young people in the family. + + 4. What are the difficulties in maintaining the friendship of our + young people? + + 5. Have you ever seen evidences of the phase mentioned as aversion + to parents? + + 6. What are some common mistakes of treating the subject of + courtship? + + 7. What are the special social needs of young people? + + 8. What is the religious significance of the period of social + awakening? + + 9. What are the special dangerous tendencies in public amusements? + + 10. How does the social instinct express itself in social service? + + 11. What of the relation of "wild oats" to directed work? + + 12. What may be done for vocational direction in the family? + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE FAMILY AND THE CHURCH + + +If the family is engaged in the development of religious character +through its life and organization, it ought somehow to find very close +relations with the other great social institution engaged in precisely +the same work, the church. Both churches and homes are agencies of +religious education. In a state which separates the ecclesiastical and +the civil functions, where freedom of conscience is fully maintained, +these two are the only religious agencies engaged in education. + +As the family is the child's first society, so the local church should +be the child's second, larger, wider society. The home constitutes the +first social organization for life, the one in which growing lives +prepare for the wider social living. Then should come the next forms of +social organization, the school and the church, each grouping lives +together and preparing them, by actual living, for wider circles of +life. + + +§ 1. RELATIONS OF CHURCH AND HOME + +Many of the perplexing problems which arise in the family, as an +institution, in respect to its relations to the church, and as to the +developing relations of children to the church, would be largely solved +if we could get an understanding of the fundamental relations of these +two institutions. The institutional difficulties occur because these +relations appear to be competitive. Here is the family with its +interests in bread-winning, comforts, recreations, and pleasures, and on +the opposite side, making apparently competing claims for money, time, +interest, and service, stands the church. That is the picture +unconsciously forming in many minds. There is more or less feeling that +money given to the church is taken from the family and impoverishes it +to that degree, that time given to the church is grudgingly spared from +the pleasures of the home, that it is always a moot question which of +the two institutions shall win in the conflict of interests. + +But the family must take for granted the church as its next of kin. The +home must not by its attitude and conversation assume that the problems +of the relationship of children to the church arise largely from the +opposite concept, as though these were rival institutions. We carelessly +think of the children as those who, now belonging to us, are to be +persuaded to give their allegiance to another institution, the interests +of which are in a different sphere. We think of the church as an +independent thing and therefore feel quite free to discuss its merits or +shortcomings and to criticize it if it fails to meet our standards, +just as we would criticize the baker for soggy or short-weight bread; to +our minds, the church is something set off in society, separate from the +homes, as much so as the schools or the library or a fraternal lodge. + +This thought of the church as a separate something, having an existence +independent of ourselves and our families, leads us farther astray and +makes yet more difficult the development of right relations between the +church and the children. If the church is a thing apart we can analyze +its imperfections as we might stand and ridicule a regiment of raw +recruits. It marches by while we stand on the curb. But here, surely, is +one of the simplest and most easily forgotten truisms: the church is no +more than our own selves associated for certain purposes. If the church +fails in an adequate ministry for children, shall we condemn it as we +would a bridge that failed to carry a reasonable load? We do but condemn +ourselves. If my church is not fit to send my children to, then I must +help to make it fit. Before falling back on the lazy man's salve of +caustic ridicule, before taking the seat of the scornful, before setting +in the child's mind an aversion to this institution, based on my +opinion, let me be sure I have done all that lies in my power to better +it. True, I am only one; but surely, where so many family tables are +each Sunday devoted to finding fault with the church and its services, +I can find many others who will aid in at least stimulating a sense of +personal responsibility for any incompleteness in the church. + +The family cannot afford to take the attitude of hostile criticism, for +it is thus fighting its first and most natural ally, the one other +institution engaged in its own special work. If the forces for spiritual +character be divided, how easily do the opposing forces enter in and +occupy! The family needs the support of the wider public opinion of the +church, insisting on the supremacy of righteousness. The family needs +the co-operation of the church in its task of developing religious +lives. The family needs the power of this larger social body controlling +social conditions and making them contributory to character purposes. +The family needs the stimulus which a larger group can give to children +and young people. + +This does not mean that we must never criticize the church. It is not +set off in a niche protected from the acid of secular tongues and minds. +Ministers of the gospel are unduly resentful of criticism, perhaps +because, after they leave the seminary, no one has a fair opportunity to +controvert their publicly stated opinions. But the church needs the +cleansing powers of kindly, wise, creative criticism. Anyone can find +fault, but he is wise who can show us a better way. This church is the +family's ally; it is our business to aid her to greater effectiveness. +The new church for our own day awaits the services of the men of today. + +The purpose of the family is the basis of alliance with the church. As +in every other relation and purpose of the home, so here: the dominant +factor is the conscious function of the home and family. If the home is +really a religious institution it will seek natural alliance with all +other truly religious institutions. Ideally, what is a church but a +group of families associated for religious purposes? Is not the church +simply a number of families co-operating in the ideal purposes of each +family, the development of the lives of religious persons and the +control of social conditions for the sake of that purpose? Without +entering into disputation as to the relationship of little children to +the church, is there not just this relation to the human society called +the church, that it is a grouping of families for the purpose of the +divine family? + + +§ 2. THE FAMILY IDEAL IN THE CHURCH + +Would there be any question as to the naturalness of the relation of our +children to the church if the family ideal so controlled our thinking as +to saturate theirs? Is not this the present need, that both family and +church shall conceive the latter in family terms? By this is meant, not +simply that we shall think of what is called "a family church," a church +into which we succeed in projecting our families in a fair degree of +integrity, but that we shall think of the organization and mission of +the church in terms of family life and of the ideal of the divine +family. Keeping in mind the general definition already given of a family +as persons associated for the development of spiritual persons, let us +hold the church to that same ideal; the lives of persons associated in +the broadest fellowship that includes both God and man for the purposes +of spiritual personality. The church then should be the expression of +that family of which Jesus often spoke, the family that calls God Father +and man brother. + +Closer and more helpful relations between family and church follow where +the principles of the family prevail in the latter. The family is an +ideal democracy because it exists primarily for persons. It places the +value of persons first of all. So with the true church; it will exist to +grow lives to spiritual fulness, and to this end all buildings, +adornments, exercises, teachings, and organizations will be but as +tools, as means serving that purpose. As the family sees its house, +table, and activities designed to personal ends, so will the church. In +an institution existing to grow lives, the great principle of democracy +and of the family will prevail, viz., that to the least we owe the most. +Just as the home gives its best to the little child, so will the church +place the child in the midst. Just as the home exists for the child and +thus holds to itself all other lives, so will the church some day exist +for the little ones and so hold and use all other lives. + +The prime difficulty of relating the children in our families to the +average church lies in the fact that they are children, while the church +is an adult institution. Its buildings are designed for adults--save in +rare and happy exceptions;[46] its services are designed for adults; it +has a more or less extraneous institution called a school for the +children. The church spends its money for adults; it compasses sea and +land to make one proselyte and coerce him back in old age, and allows +the many that already as children are its own to drift away. It often +fails to see that if it is to grow lives it must grow them in the +growing period. There still remain many churches that must be converted +from the selfishness of adult ministry and entertainment to self-giving +service for the development of spiritual lives and, especially, for the +development of such lives through childhood and youth. They must hear +again the Master's voice regarding "these little ones," regarding the +significance of the child. And all must be loyal to his picture of his +Kingdom as a family and must, therefore, do what all true families do, +become child-centric. A church in which children occupy the same place +that they hold in an ideal family will have no difficulty in finding a +place for the children. It will be a natural and unnoticed transition +from the family life in the home to the family life in the church. + + +§ 3. A PLACE FOR ALL IN THE CHURCH + +The family may help directly toward the realization of this ideal by an +insistence on the family conception and the family program in the +church. Bring the children with you to the church and seek to find there +a place for each as natural as the place he occupies in the home. If the +church makes no such provision, if it has no place for children, in the +name of our wider spiritual family relationships we must demand it. Let +the voice of the family be heard insisting on suitable buildings and +specially designed worship for child-life--suitable forms of service and +activity. Let the thought that goes to furnish these in the home be +carried over to provide them in the church. + +Parents may help their children to find right relations with the church +by their attitude toward it as the larger family group. To think and act +toward this institution as our home, the wider home of the families, is +to establish similar habits of thought in children. Such a concept is +not always easy to maintain; the church includes many of different +habits of thought from ourselves, divergent tastes and habits of general +life. Here one must exercise the family principle of responsibility +toward the weaker and immature. This family, the church, just like our +own family, exists, not to minister to our tastes, but that we may all +minister to others. + +The principal service which the family may render to the church is, +then, to foster an interpretation and view of the latter which will +relate it more closely to the home and will make it evidently natural +for child-life to move out into this wider social organization for +religious culture and service. Surely this should be the attitude toward +membership in the church, whether that membership begins theoretically +in infancy or in maturer years; the child is trained to see the church +as his normal society, the group into which he naturally moves and in +which he finds his opportunity for fellowship and service. The family +may well hold that relationship steadily before its members. In +childhood the child is in the church in the fellowship of those who +learn. The Sunday school is the spiritual family in groups discovering +the way of the religious life and the art of its service. The fellowship +grows closer and the sense of unity deepens as the child's relationship +passes over from the passive to the active, from the involuntary to the +voluntary--just as it does in the home--and develops, as the child comes +into social consciousness, into a recognition of himself as belonging to +a social organization for specific purposes. + + +§ 4. CHILD UNITY WITH THE CHURCH + +At some time every child of church-attending parents will want to know +whether he "belongs to the church." One must be very careful here, +regardless of the ecclesiastical practice, to show the child that he is +essentially one with this body, this religious family. He may be too +young to subscribe his name to its roll, but he belongs at least to the +full measure of unity appreciable by his mind. He must not be permitted +to think of himself as an outsider. Indeed, no matter what our theology +may hold, every religious parent believes that his children belong to +God. Do they not also belong to the church in at least the sense that +the church is responsible for their spiritual welfare? + +The sense of unity must be developed. Writing the child's name on the +"Cradle Roll" of the church school may help. Assuming, as he develops, +that he is a part of this spiritual family, naturally expecting that he +will have an increasing share in its life, will help more. Parents who +dedicate their children to God pass on to them the stimulus of that +dedication. A church service of dedication is likely to impress them +with a feeling of unity with the church; seeing other children so +dedicated they know that a similar occasion occurred in their own early +lives. + +The forms of relationship must develop with the nature of the child. The +church needs not only a graded curriculum of instruction but a graded +series of relationships by which children, step by step, come into +closer conscious social unity, each step determined by their developing +needs and capacities. + +It is easy to say that the responsibility lies with the church to +provide these methods of attachment. But the church we have been +sketching is a congeries of families, after all, and it will do just +what these families, particularly the parents in them, stimulate it to +do. + + +§ 5. INCIDENTAL DIFFICULTIES + +But what of those instances in which parents are convinced that the +church does not furnish a normal and healthy atmosphere for the child's +spiritual life? There are churches where the Sunday school is simply a +training school in insubordination, confusion, and irreverence, or where +religion is so taught as to cultivate superstition and to lead +eventually either to a painful intellectual reconstruction or to a +barren denial of all faith. There are churches of one type so devoted +to the entertainment of adults, to the ministry to the pride of the +flesh and the lust of things, that a child is likely to be trained to +pious pride and greed, or of another type, in which religion is a matter +of verbiage, tradition, and unethical subterfuge. + +Parents must be true to their responsibilities. The family is the +child's first religious institution. Fathers and mothers are not only +the first and most potent quickeners and guides in the religious life, +but they are primarily responsible for the selection of all other +stimuli to that life. Under the drag of our own indifference we must not +withhold from the child the good he would get even from the church we do +not particularly enjoy; neither dare we, for fear of criticism or +ostracism, force the child under influences which, in the name of +religion, would chill and prevent his spiritual development, would +twist, dwarf, or distort it. Responsibility to the spiritual purpose of +the family is far higher than any responsibility to a church. The +churches are ordered for the souls of men. + +What shall we do in the family when the sermon is always tediously dull? +Don't try to force children to go to sleep in church; they will never +get over the habit. Insist that there shall be a service suitable for +them parallel to the adult service of worship.[47] Next, try to +overcome the present popular obsession regarding the sermon. The church +is more than an oratory station. The sermon is only one incident. Many +criticisms of the sermon indicate that the critic measures the preacher +by ability to entertain, that he attends church to be entertained. If +that is essentially your attitude, you cannot complain if your children +are dissatisfied unless they too are entertained according to their +childish appetites. When the sermon is poor, put it where it belongs +proportionately and enlarge on the many good features of church +fellowship and service. + +In a word, let the church be to the family that larger home where +families live together their life of fellowship and service in the +spirit and purpose of religion and where there is a natural place for +everyone. + + + I. References for Study + + H.W. Hulbert, _The Church and Her Children_, chaps. i-v. Revell, + $1.00. + + H.F. Cope, _Efficiency in the Sunday School_, chaps. xiv-xvi. + Doran, $1.00. + + George Hodges, _Training of Children in Religion_, chap. xiv. + Appleton, $1.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + A. Hoben, _The Minister and the Boy_. The University of Chicago + Press, $1.00. + + E.C. Foster, _The Boy and the Church_. Sunday School Times Co., + $0.75. + + G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_, Part II. Revell, + $1.35. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What are the special common interests of church and family? + + 2. What are the fundamental relationships of the two? + + 3. What conception of the church ought to be fostered in the + children's minds? + + 4. When is criticism of the church unwise? + + 5. What changes might be made in church life for the sake of the + children? + + 6. What changes would bring the church and the home closer + together? + + 7. What should be the children's conception of unity with the + church? + + 8. Should children attend, in family groups, the church service of + worship? + + 9. Does the plan of a short service for children meet the need? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[46] See a pamphlet on _Church School Buildings_ (free) published by the +Religious Education Association; also H.F. Evans, _The Sunday-School +Building and Its Equipment_. + +[47] See the author's suggestion for the Sunday school in _Efficiency in +the Sunday School_, chap. xv. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +CHILDREN AND THE SCHOOL + + +Wise parents will know the character of the influences affecting their +children at all times. At no time can their responsibility be delegated +to others. There is a tendency to think that when children go to school +the family has a release from responsibility. But the school is simply +the community--the group of families--syndicating its efforts for the +formal training of the young. Every family ought to know what the +community is doing with its children. The school belongs to all; it is +not the property of a board, nor a private machine belonging to the +teaching force; it belongs to us and we owe a social duty as well as a +family obligation to understand its work and its influence on the +children. + +Parents ought to visit the school. Wise principals and teachers will +welcome them, setting times when visits can best be made. The visitors +come, not as critics, but as citizens and parents. The principal +benefits will be an acquaintance with the teachers of our children and a +better understanding of the conditions under which the children work for +the greater part of the day. By far the larger number of teachers most +earnestly desire character results from their work. It will help them +to know that we are interested in what they are doing. + + +§ 1. HOME AND SCHOOL CO-OPERATION + +Parents and teachers, both desiring spiritual results, can find means of +co-operation. Parent-teacher clubs and associations have done much to +bring the home and the school together. Meeting regularly in the +evening, so that fathers, too, can attend, gives opportunity to work out +a common understanding to raise the spiritual aims of the school, and to +discover means by which the families may aid in securing better +conditions for school work. + +One of the most important considerations relates to the moral effect of +the school life and environment. We are committed in this country to the +principle that the public school cannot teach religion, but this by no +means relieves it of responsibility for moral character. The family +needs this ally. Children expect instruction in the school and they feel +keenly the power of its ideals and the standards established by its +methods and requirements. The family and the school greatly need to +co-ordinate their efforts here to the end that there may be under way in +both an orderly program for the moral training of children. + + +§ 2. THE SCHOOL TEACHING PARENTS + +The school may help the home if arrangements are made for parents to +meet regularly and receive instruction in those forms of moral training +which can best be given at home. This is one method of solving the vexed +question of sex instruction. Many hesitate as to the wisdom of such +instruction in schools; but no one doubts that it ought to be and could +be given in families but for the fact that parents are both ignorant of +what to tell and indifferent to the matter. It may be that some day the +state will not only say that the child must go to school, but also that +every parent intrusted with children must either prove ability to train +and instruct in these and other matters or go to school to obtain the +necessary training. The state would not go beyond its province if it +required ignorant parents--and that means most of us in matters of moral +training--to go to school and learn our business. And without waiting +for such compulsion the school may now offer opportunity for all parents +to obtain the desired information. Teachers are especially trained to an +understanding of child-nature and to methods of pedagogy; they are +prepared to teach many things we ought to know; why should not the +family obtain the advantage of such expert knowledge? + +The school would also be within its province if it undertook to +stimulate the indifferent parents, both rich and poor, to an +appreciation of the educational task and opportunity of the home. Each +institution greatly needs the other. The school reaches all the children +of all the people; might it not be made a larger means of helping all +the parents of all the children to quickened moral responsibility and to +greater educational efficiency? + + +§ 3. CONTROLLING SCHOOL CONDITIONS + +The family ought to know the conditions at the school outside the +recitation or working hours. Few parents have any conception of the +power of the playground over moral character. Perhaps a smaller number +realize how dangerous are some of the elements at work there. Play of +itself is immensely valuable, but play means playfellows, and some of +these are simply purveyors of indecency and moral contagion in +conversation and act. We are required to send our children to school; we +have a right to demand freedom from moral contagion. Do you know what +goes on in secret places on the grounds? Do you know that the vilest +ideas and phrases are current in pictures, cards, on scraps of paper, +and in handwriting on walls, not only in the high schools, but often +among children of from six to twelve years of age? This is too large a +subject to be developed properly here. It is one familiar to all +wide-awake school men and women and ought to be equally so to the +parents of children. Where the school combats this evil the home should +intelligently aid; where the school is indifferent the family dare not +rest until either the indifference is quite dispelled or the indifferent +dismissed. + +Do not expect to get the facts concerning these suggested conditions by +inquiry among your children. They are reticent, naturally, on such +matters when talking with adults; besides, the sense of school honor +holds them to silence. If they tell you voluntarily, you are happy in +their free confidence. Do not betray it; simply let it lead you to make +further inquiry at the school from the authorities and stimulate you to +insist that, for the sake of the spiritual good of the young, the school +must furnish conditions of moral health. + + + I. References for Study + + Ella Lyman Cabot, _Voluntary Help to the Schools_, chaps. vii, + viii. Houghton Mifflin Co., $0.60. + + W.A. Baldwin, "The Home and the Public Schools," _Religious + Education_, February, 1912. $0.65. + + + II. Further Reading + + M. Sadler, _Moral Instruction and Training in Schools_. 2 vols. + Longmans. + + John Dewey, _The School and Society_. The University of Chicago + Press, $1.00. + + Smith, _All the Children of All the People_. Macmillan, $1.50. + + G.A. Coe, "Virtue and the Virtues," _Religious Education_, + February, 1912. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What ought parents to know about public-school life? + + 2. In visiting a school what may the parent do to acquire + information in the proper way? + + 3. How may the home co-operate with the school? + + 4. What degree of instruction in morals ought the school to give? + + 5. In what way does the school best help in moral training? + + 6. What do you know about the conditions on the playgrounds of your + own school? + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES + + +Moral crises arise in every family. Deeply as we may desire to maintain +an even tenor of character-development, in harmony and quietness, +occasions will bring either our own imperfections or those of our +children--or of our neighbors' children--to a focus and throw them in +high relief on the screen. Progress comes not alone in perpetual +placidity. When temper slips from control, when angry passions rule, +when the spirit under discipline rebels, when a course of petty +wrongdoing comes to a head, when secret sins are discovered, and when we +suddenly find ourselves confronted with a tragic problem in the higher +life, it is still important to remember that the crisis is just as truly +a part of the educational process as is the orderly, gradual method of +development. + +A moral crisis is an experience in which our acts are such, or have such +results, that they are thrown out in a white light that reveals their +inner meaning, so that they are sharply discerned for their spiritual +and character values. Then in that light courses of conduct have to be +valued anew, reconsidered, and determined. + +Two courses are open in times of moral crisis in the family. One is to +bend our efforts to settle the situation, to proceed on the policy of +getting through with the crisis as quickly as possible, to seek to +remove the pain rather than to cure the ill. The other is to regard the +crisis as a revealer of truth, to use it as a valuable opportunity, one +in which moral qualities of acts are so easily evident, so keenly felt, +as to make it a time of spiritual quickening, a chance for the best sort +of training. + + +§ 1. THE PROMISE OF IMPERFECTION + +The perfect child is the one unborn; shortly after his birth he begins +to take after his father. The perfect character does not exist in a +child. It is as unreasonable to expect it as it would be to look for the +perfect tree in the sapling. _Character comes by development_; it is not +born full-blown. Childhood implies promise, development. Therefore +parents must not be surprised at evidences that their children are +pretty much like their neighbors' children. Outside of the old-time +Sunday-school-library book the child who never lied, lost his temper, +sulked, or made a disturbance never existed and never will, except in a +psychopathic ward in some hospital. Could anything be sadder than the +picture of the anemic, pulseless automaton who is always "good"? + +When parents speak of the "natural depravity" of their children, they +are commonly using terms they do not understand. What they mean is the +natural immaturity of their children, a condition of imperfection in +which they may rejoice, as it shows the possibility of development. The +child is in the world to grow to the fulness of all his powers. The +powers of the higher life are to develop as truly as those which we call +physical and mental. The family is the great human culture-bed for the +development of those powers, their training-field and school. + +Does someone say, concerning a little child, "But we thought he had the +grace of God in his heart, that he had been born again and would no more +do wrong"? True, he may be born again, but there is a world of +difference between being born and being grown up. From one to the other, +in the realm of character, is a long and tedious process, with many a +stumble, many a fall, many a hard knock, and many a lesson to be +learned. Every moral crisis is part of the struggle, the experience and +training that may make toward the matured life. You have no more right +to expect your child to be a mature Christian than you had to expect him +to be born six feet tall. + +A moral crisis is a lesson. The important consideration for the parent, +then, is to see the wrongdoing of the child as an experience in his +moral upward climb; not as a fall alone, but as part of the acquisition +of the art of standing upright and walking forward. Dealing with such an +occasion one may well say to himself or herself, "This is my chance to +guide, to make this experience a light that shines forward on the way +for the child's weak feet and to strengthen him to walk in it." For is +it not true with us that practically all we really know has come by the +organizing of our different experiences? Think whether it is so or not. +And is it not to be the same with the child? + +We can study here only a few typical moral crises, perhaps those that +give greatest perplexity to parents. They cannot be successfully met as +isolated instances, but must be seen as a part of the whole educational +process. Those to whom the development of character is a reality will +watch tendencies and train them before they focalize in crises. + + +§ 2. THE COLLISION OF WILLS + +Parenthood presents tremendous moral strains; it is rife with +temptations. It offers a little world for autocracy to vaunt itself. The +martinets command, often totally blind to the changing nature of the +subjects as they pass from the submissive to the rebellious. One day the +parents wake up to realize that they are not the only ones possessed of +will. + +When to your Yes the child says No, while you may not applaud, you ought +to rejoice; you have discovered a will, you have found developing in +your child the central and essential quality of character. Forgiveness +will be hard to find and recovery still more difficult if you make the +mistake of attempting to crush that will. The child needs it and you +will need its co-operation. The power to see the possibility of choice +of action, to know one's self as a choosing, willing entity, able to +elect and follow one among many courses of action, is a distinctive, +Godlike quality. The opposition of wills is like the birth of a new +personality, a new force thrown out into the world to meet and struggle +and adjust itself with all other persons. + +When the collision comes, take a few long breaths before you move; take +time to think what it means. _Keep your temper._ Do not break before the +other will by an exhibition of chagrin that your authority is defied. +From now on the basis of any real authority is being transformed from +force and tradition to a moral plane. + +Therefore, first, be sure you are right in your direction or request. +You cannot afford to make the child think that authority is more +important than justice, that might makes right in the social order of +the home. If you do he will accept the lesson and practice it all his +life. + +Remember the right has many elements. There is the child's side to +consider. As soon as he can decide on courses of action his ideas of +justice are developing. To do him an injustice is to help make him an +unjust man. + +Secondly, help him to see the right. This will involve sympathetic +explanations of your reasons which you may have to give in the form of +simple arguments or of a story, perhaps from your own experience, or by +an appeal or reference to the wider knowledge of the older children. It +may be necessary to let him learn in the effective school of experience. +Other means failing, allow him to discover the pain and folly of his own +way when it is wrong. Of course this does not apply if he is minded, for +instance, to imbibe carbolic acid. But even in such circumstances it +would be better to prove his unwisdom by demonstration--as a drop of +acid on a finger tip--than to let the issue rest on blind authority. One +such demonstration gives a new, intelligible basis to your authority in +other cases. + +Thirdly, help him to will the right. Help him to feel that he must +choose for himself, to recognize the power of the will and the grave +responsibilities of its use. He is entering the realm of the freedom of +the will. Every act of deliberate choice, with your aid, in a sense of +the seriousness of choice, goes to establish the character that does not +drift, is not dragged, and will not go save with its whole selfhood of +feeling, knowing, choosing, and willing. + + +§ 3. ANGER + +An angry child is a child in rebellion. Rebellion is sometimes +justifiable. Anger may be a virtue. You would not take this force out of +your child any more than you would take the temper out of a knife or a +spring. Anger manifested vocally or muscularly is the child's form of +protest. But, established as a habit of the life, it is altogether +unlovely. Who does not know grown-up people who seem to be inflexibly +angry; either they are in perpetual eruption or the fires smoulder so +near the surface that a pin-prick sets them loose. Usually a study of +their cases will show either that the attitude of angry opposition to +everything in life has been established and fostered from infancy or +that it was acquired in the adolescent period. + +The angry, antisocial person is most emphatically an irreligious person; +there can be no love of his brother man where that spirit is. The home +is the place where this ill can best be met and cured, for it deals most +directly with the infant, and for the adolescent it is the best school +of normal social living. + +Let no one think the angry demonstrations of little children are +negligible or that they have nothing to do with the religious character +of the child or the adult. They are important for at least two reasons, +first, as furnishing the angry one opportunity to acquire self-control, +to master his own spirit, and, secondly, because they disturb the peace +and interfere with the well-being of others. + +It is possible to set up habits of anger in the cradle. In the first +instance the infant encountered opposition in the cradle and proceeded +to conquer it by yelling, and so, day after day, he found anger the only +route to the satisfaction of his desires. He grew to take all life in +terms of a bitter struggle and every person became his natural enemy. + +In the case of the adolescent it sometimes happens that a boy or a girl +will make a very tardy passage through the normal experience of social +aversion, the time when they seem to suspect all other people, to flee +from social intercourse and to sulk, to want to be off in a corner +alone. This is a normal phase of adolescent adjustment, coming at +thirteen or fourteen, but it ought to pass quickly. A few allow this +period to become lengthened; they fail to regain social pleasure and +soon drift into habits of social enmity. This may be due to scolding at +this period, or to a lack of healthful friendships. + + +§ 4. METHODS OF DEALING WITH ANGER + +It is evident that talking, lecturing, or arguing with the angry infant +will not help the case. He may feel the emotion of your anger but +misses any shreds of your logic. Parents ought first to ask, Why is an +infant angry? With the infant, with whom there are no pretensions or +affections, there is commonly a simple cause of his rebellion. The baby +yelling like an Indian and looking like a boiled lobster is neither +possessed of an evil spirit nor giving an exhibition of natural +depravity; he is lying on a pin, wearing the shackles of faddish infant +fashions, or he is trying to tell you of disturbances in the department +of the interior. Furnish physical relief at once and you put a period to +the display of what you call temper; try to subdue him by threats and +you only discover that his lungs are stronger than your patience; you +yield at last and he has learned that temper properly displayed has its +reward, that the way to get what he wants is to upset the world with +anger. That is one of life's early lessons; it is one of the first +exercises in training character. + +_Consider the future._ Each family is a social unit, a little world. +Within this world are in miniature nearly all the struggles and +experiences of the larger world of later life. It is a world which +prepares children for living by actually living. The qualities that are +needed in a world of men and women and affairs are developed here. When +young children exhibit anger parents must ask, How would this quality, +under similar circumstances, serve in the business of mature life? +Anger is an essential quality of the good and forceful character. +Somehow we have to learn to be angry and not sin. Anger is the emotional +effect of extreme discontent and opposition. For the stern fight against +evil and wrong, life needs this emotional reinforcement. But it must be +purified, it must be controlled. Like the dynamic of steam, it must be +confined and guided. Love must free it from hatred; self-control must +guide it. + +When children are angry, help them to think out the causes for the +feeling. Instead of denouncing or deriding them, stop to analyze the +situation for yourself. It may be that they are entirely justified, that +not to be angry would be an evidence of weakness, of base standards of +conduct or conditions, or of weak reactions to life's stimuli. Always +help the child to see why he is angry. Perhaps the situation is one he +may remedy himself. Is he angry because the top-string is tangled? Stay +with him until he has learned that he can remove the cause of his own +temper. + +Step by step, dealing with each excitement of anger, _train him in +self-control_. Self-mastery is a matter of learning to direct and apply +our own powers at will. It is developed by habitual practice. It is the +largest general element in character. The temper that smashes a toy is +the temper that kills a human being when it opposes our will, but it is +the same temper that, being controlled, patiently sets the great ills of +society right, fights and works to remove gigantic wrongs and to build a +better social order. That patience which is self-control saves the +immensely valuable dynamic of the emotions and harnesses them to Godlike +service. And that patience is not learned at a single lesson, not +acquired in a miraculous moment; it is learned in one little lesson +after another, in every act and all the daily discipline of home and +school and street. + +Children must learn to qualify and govern temper by love in order to +save it from hatred. When the irritating object is a personal one the +rights, the well-being, of that one must gain some consideration. There +will be but little feeling of altruism in children under thirteen; we +must not expect it; but egoism is one way to an understanding of the +rights, the feelings, and needs of others. The child can put himself in +the other's place. He is capable of affection; he loves and is willing +to sacrifice for those he loves, and when he is angry with them, or with +strangers, he must be helped to think of them as persons, as those he +loves or may love. He also can be aided to see the pain of hatred, the +misery of the life without friends, the joy of friendships. + +Anger against persons is the opportunity for learning the joy of +forgiveness and, if the occasion warrants, the dignity and courage of +the apology. The self-control, consideration, and social adjustment +involved must be learned early in life. It is part of that great lesson +of the fine art of living with others. Little children must be +habituated to acknowledging errors and acts of rudeness or temper with +suitable forms of apology. Above all, they must, by habit, learn how +great is the victory of forgiveness.[48] + + + I. References for Study + + _The Problem of Temper._ Pamphlet. American Institute of Child + Life, Philadelphia, Pa. + + E.P. St. John, _Child Nature and Child Nurture_, chap. v. Pilgrim + Press, $0.50. + + J. Sully, _Children's Ways_, chap. x. Appleton, $1.25. + + + II. Further Reading + + Patterson Du Bois, _The Culture of Justice_, chaps. i-v. Dodd, Mead + & Co., $0.75. + + E.H. Abbott, _The Training of Parents_. Houghton Mifflin Co., + $1.00. + + M. Wood-Allen, _Making the Best of Our Children_. 2 vols. McClurg, + $1.00 each. + + H.Y. Campbell, _Practical Motherhood_. Longmans, $2.50. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What special opportunities are offered in the rise of moral + crises? + + 2. Do we tend to expect too high a development of character in + children? + + 3. How early in life do we have manifestations of a conscious will? + + 4. What constitutes the importance of early crises of the will? + + 5. What are probably the causes when children habitually defy + authority? + + 6. Is anger always a purely mental condition? + + 7. What importance have the angry demonstrations of infants? + + 8. What is the relation of the control of temper to the rightly + developed life? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[48] See Gow, _Good Morals and Gentle Manners_, chap. viii. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES (_Continued_) + + +§ 1. QUARRELS + +A child who never quarrels probably needs to be examined by a physician; +a child who is always quarreling equally needs the physician. In the +first there is a lack of sufficient energy so to move as to meet and +realize some of life's oppositions; in the other there is probably some +underlying cause for nervous irritability. + +It is perfectly natural for healthy people to differ; in childhood's +realm, where the values and proportions of life are not clearly seen, +where social adjustments have not been acquired, the differences in +opinions, as in possessions, lead to the expression of feeling in sharp +and emphatic terms. Rivalry and conflict are natural to the young +animal. Children do not wilfully enter into conflicts any more than +adults; they are only less diplomatic in their language, more direct, +and more likely to follow the word with attempts at force. + +In few things do parents need more patience than in dealing with +children's quarrels. First, seek to determine quietly the merits of the +cause; but do not attempt to pronounce a verdict. It is seldom wise to +act as judge unless you allow the children to act as a jury. But +ascertain whether the quarrel is an expression somewhere of anger +against injustice, wrong, or evil in some form. Sometimes their quarrels +have as much virtue as our crusades. It is a sad mistake to quench the +feeling of indignation against wrong or of hatred against evil. A boy +will need that emotional backing in his fights against the base and the +foes of his kind. While rejoicing in his feeling, show him how to direct +it, train him to discriminate between hatred of wrong and bitterness +toward the wrongdoer. Help him to see the good that comes from loving +people, no matter what they do. + +Our methods of dealing with a quarrel will do more to develop their +sense of justice than all our decisions can. Be sure to get each one to +state all the facts; insist on some measure of calmness in the recital. +Keep on sifting down the facts until by their own statements the quarrel +is seen stripped of passion and standing clear in its own light. Usually +that course, when kindly pursued and followed with sympathy for the +group, with a saving sense of humor, will result in the voluntary +acknowledgment of wrong. The boys--or girls--have for the first time +seen their acts, their words, their course, in a light without +prejudice. They are more ready to confess to being mistaken than are we +when convinced against our wishes. + +When no acknowledgment of wrong is proffered voluntarily, we must still +not offer a verdict. Put the case to the contestants and let them settle +it. Listen, as a bystander, coming in only when absolutely necessary to +insist on exact statements of fact. That course should be excellent +training in clear thinking, in the duty of seeing the other man's side, +in the deliberation that saves from unwise accusations and the serious +quarrels of later life. Teach children to think through their +differences. + +The perpetually petulant child, bickering with all others, should be +taken to a physician. Get him right nervously, physically, first. He is +out of harmony with himself and so cannot find harmony with others. When +the condition of habitual bickering seems to afflict all the children in +the family, it cannot be settled by attributing it to a mysterious +dispensation of natural depravity. The probability is that the home life +is without harmony and full of discord, that the parents are themselves +petulant and more anxious to assert their separate opinions than to find +unity of action. Nothing is more effective to teach children peaceful +living than to see it constantly before them in their parents. A +harmonious home seldom has quarrelsome children. Such harmony is a +matter of organization and management of affairs as much as of our own +attitude. + +Some children are educated to a life of quarrels by being trained in the +family that spoils them. The single child is at a great disadvantage; he +occupies the throne alone. His home life becomes a mere series of spokes +radiating from himself. When he finds the world ordered otherwise, he +quarrels with it and tries to rearrange the spokes into a new, +self-centric social order. Whatever the number of children may be, each +one must learn to live with other lives, to adjust himself to them. +Neighboring social play and activities are the chance for this. Do not +try to keep Algernon in a glass case; he needs the world in which he +will have to live some day. + + +§ 2. FIGHTING + +The best of men are likely to have a secret satisfaction in their boys' +fights, and the bravest of mothers will deplore them. The fathers know +how hard are the knocks that life is going to give; the mothers hope +that the boys can be saved from blows. A man's life is often pretty much +of a fight, every day struggling in competition and rivalry; we have not +yet learned the lesson of co-operation, and we still tend to think of +business as a battlefield. Something in us calls for fighting; we have +to use the utmost strength at our command to fight the evil tendencies +of our own hearts; often we rejoice in life as a conflict. It feels good +to find causes worth fighting for. If all this is true of the man, it +is not strange that the small boy, scarce more than a young savage, will +find opportunities for conflict. He is more dependent on the weapons of +force than is his father. He cannot cast out the enemy with a ballot, +nor with a sneer or biting sarcasm, nor by some device or strategy of +business or affairs. He can only hit back. Taken altogether, boys settle +their differences as honestly at least as do men. + +Moreover, children's fights are not as cruel as they seem to be; even +the bloodshed means little either of pain or of injury. A boy may be +badly banged up today and in full trim tomorrow; it is quite different +with the wounds bloodlessly inflicted by men in their conflicts. + +Does all this mean that boys should be encouraged to fight? No; but it +does mean that when Billy comes home with one eye apparently retired +from business, we must not scold him as though he were the first +wanderer from Eden. That fight may have been precisely the same thing as +a croquet game to his sister, or any test of skill to his big brother, +or a business transaction to his father; it was a mere contest of two +healthy bodies at a time when the body was the outstanding fact of life. +The fight may give us our chance, however, to aid him to a sense of the +greatness of life's conflict, to a sense of the qualities that make the +true fighter. It may leave him open to the appeal of true heroism. We +must make light of the victory of brute strength, just as we may make +light of his wounds and scars, and glorify the victory of the mind and +will. + +The boy who fights because he lacks control of temper needs careful +training. He gets a good deal of discipline on the playground and +street, but it is not always effective; the beatings may only further +undermine control. But the lack of self-control will manifest itself in +many ways and must be remedied at all points. The discipline of daily +living in the family must come into play here. + + +§ 3. SELF-CONTROL + +The matter of self-control is not separable into special features; one +cannot learn control under one set of moral circumstances without +learning it for all. The boy who strikes without thinking is simply one +who acts without thinking. He tends to throw away the brakes of the +will. The regain of control comes only through training at every point +in deliberation of action. + +Probably there is no other point at which children so frequently and +readily learn control as in the matter of speech. The family where all +speak at once, where a babel of sounds leads to a rivalry of vocal +organs, is not only a nuisance to the neighbors, it is a school of +uncontrolled action to the children. Just to learn to wait, even after +the thought is formed into words, until it shall be my turn or my +opportunity to speak is a fine discipline of control. To do that every +day, year after year, tends to break up the hair-trigger process of +action. + +Control is gained also by the acquisition of the habit of thought +regarding general courses of action. We can hardly expect meditation on +the part of little children. But those who are older, those entering +their teens, may and should be able to think things out, to plan out the +day's actions, to determine their own ways of conduct. Children who have +the custom of quiet, private prayer often develop ability to see their +conduct in the calm of those moments. They get a mental elevation over +the day and its deeds. + + +§ 4. GOOD FIGHTS + +The evident danger of undue deliberation of action must be met by +another cure of the personal-conflict spirit; that is, the substitution +of games of rivalry and skill for the unorganized rivalry and "game" of +fighting. The transition from the bloody arena to the excitement of a +game is very easy and natural. But the game is the boy's great chance to +learn life as a game to be played according to the rules. All that the +fight calls for--courage, endurance, skill, quickness of action, and +grim persistence--comes out in a good game. Here is a suitable youthful +realization of the fight that is worth waging. Our participation in the +youths' games, our appreciation of their points, our joy in honestly won +success, is the best possible way to lead up to their taking life in +terms of a good fight, a grand game, a real chance to call out the +heroic qualities. Turn every fighting instinct into the good fight that +will clarify and elevate them all. + + + I. References for Study + + W.L. Sheldon, _Ethics in the Home_, chaps. xi, xii, xiii. Welch & + Co., $1.25. + + E.A. Abbott, _Training of Parents_, chap. v. Houghton Mifflin Co., + $1.00. + + + II. Further Reading + + Ella Lyman Cabot, _Every Day Ethics_. Holt, $1.25. + + M. Wood-Allen, _Making the Best of Our Children_. 2 vols. McClurg, + $1.00 each. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. Do all children quarrel? Should one punish for small quarrels? + + 2. What are the facts which ought to be ascertained regarding any + quarrel? + + 3. What special opportunities do children's differences offer? + + 4. What are the causes of habitual petulance? What are the dangers + of this habit of mind? + + 5. Is fighting necessarily wrong? What part does it play in the + lives of men? + + 6. What are the dangerous elements in boys' fights? + + 7. What special quality of character needs development in this + connection? + + 8. What are the valuable possibilities in the fighting tendency? + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES (_Continued_) + + +§ 1. LYING + +Parents are likely to be wilfully blind to the faults of their children. +But some faults cannot be ignored; they must surely quicken the most +indifferent parent to thought. We suffer a shock when our own child +appears as a wilful liar. + +"What shall I do when I catch the child in an outright lie? Surely he +knows that is wrong and that he is wilfully doing the wrong!" + +First, be sure whether he is "lying." Lying means a purposeful intent to +deceive by word of mouth or written word. When Charles Dickens wrote +_Oliver Twist_ he described a burglary that never happened, so far as he +knew. He intended the reader to feel that it was true. Was he lying? No; +because he simply used his imagination to paint a scene which was part +of a great lesson he desired to teach the English public. Even had he +had no great moral purpose, it would still not have been a lie, just as +we do not accuse the writer of even the most frivolous novel of lying. +He is simply creating, or imitating, in the field of imagination. + +Imagination is the child's native world. When the little girl says, "My +dolly is sick," she is saying that which is not so, but instead of +reproving her for lying, you prepare an imaginary pill for the doll. +Many children's lies are simply elaborations of their doll- and +plaything-imaginings. When my little daughter told me, and insisted upon +it, that she had seen seven bears, of varied colors, on the avenue, +should I have reproved her for lying? Was it not better to humor her +fancy, to draw it out, to give it free play, being careful gradually to +let her know that I knew it was fancy? I entered into the game with her +and enjoyed it so long as we all understood it was only fancy. It is a +crime to crush a child's power of creating a world by imagination, a +fair world, set in the midst of this world where things are imperfect, +jarring, and disappointing, a world in which everything is always "just +so." + +But one must also carefully aid the child in distinguishing between the +world of fancy and the world of fact. This takes time and patience. We +must not rob the life of fancy nor must we allow the habits of freedom +with ideas to pass over into habits of carelessly handling realities. +Along with the development of fancy we must train the powers of exact +observation and statement of facts. The child who saw seven bears, red, +green, yellow, etc., must go to see real bears and must tell me exactly +their colors and forms. Daily training in exactitude of statements of +real facts is the best antidote for a fancy that has run out of its +bounds. It establishes a habit of precision in thinking which is the +essence of truth-telling. + + +§ 2. PROTECTIVE LYING + +But there is another form of lying which is frequently met in some form. +It may be called protective lying. Ask the little fellow with the +jam-smeared face, "Have you been in the pantry?" and he is likely to do +the same thing that nature does for the birds when she gives them a coat +that makes it easier to hide from their enemies. He valiantly answers +"No, Mother." He would protect himself from your reproof. There has been +awakened before this the desire to seem good in your eyes and he desires +your approbation most of all. The moral struggle with him is very brief; +he does not yet distinguish between being good and seeming good; if his +negative answer will help him to seem good he will give it. + +What shall we do? First, stop long enough to remember that appetites for +jam speak louder than your verbal prohibitions. The jam was there and +you were not. It can hardly be said that he deliberately chose to do a +wrong; he is still in the process of learning how to do things +deliberately, just as you still are, for that matter. Consider whether +your training of the anti-jam habit has been really conscientious and +sufficient to establish the habit in any degree. It were wiser to ask +these things of yourself before putting the fateful question to him. It +would be better not to ask a small child that question. It demands too +much of him. Besides, you are losing a chance to establish a valuable +idea in his mind, namely, that acts usually carry evidences along with +them. Better say, "I see you've been in the pantry." That will help to +establish the habit of expecting our acts to be known. Then would follow +with the little child the careful endeavor to train him to recognize the +acts that are wrong because harmful, greedy, against the good of others, +and against his own good. + +Just here parents, especially many religious parents, meet the +temptation thoughtlessly to use God as their ally by reminding the child +that, though they could not see him in the pantry, God was there +watching him. In the vivid memory of a childhood clouded by the thought +of a police-detective Deity, may one protest against this act of +irreverence and blasphemy? True, God was there; but not as a spy, a +reporter of all that is bad, anxious to detect, but cowardly and cruel +in silence at all other times! Let the child grow up with the happy +feeling that God is always with him, rejoicing in his play, his +well-aimed ball, his successes in school, his constant friend, helper, +and confidant. I like better the God to whom a little fellow in Montana +prayed the other day, "O God, I thank you for helping me to lick Billy +Johnson!" The child of the pantry needs to know the God who will help +him to do and know the right. + + +§ 3. OLDER CHILDREN + +But protective lying presents a more serious problem with older +children. The school-teacher and parent meet it, just as the judge and +the employer meet it in adults. The cure lies early in life. +Truth-telling is as much a habit as lying is. Perhaps it is more easily +practiced; its drafts are on the powers of observation and memory rather +than on those of imagination. Along with the child's imaginative powers +there must be developed the powers of exact observation and description. +Exact observation and description or relation are but parts of the +larger general virtue of precision. Help children at every turn of life +to be right--right in doing things, right in thinking, in saying, and in +execution. Precision at any point in life helps lift the life's whole +level. Truth-telling is not a separable virtue. You cannot make a boy +truthful in word if you let him lie in deed. You cannot expect he will +speak the truth if you do not train him to do the truth, in his play, in +ordering his room, in thinking through his school problems, and in +thinking through his religious difficulties. Truth-telling is the verbal +reaction of the life which habitually holds that nothing is right until +it is just right. + +Two things would, ordinarily, make sure of a truthful statement, instead +of a protective lie, in answer to your question: first, that the young +person has been trained to the habit of seeing and stating things as +they are--and that you really give him a chance so to state them, and, +secondly, that to some degree there has been developed a recognition of +considerations or values that are higher than either escape from +punishment or the winning of your approbation. He will choose the course +that offers what seems to him to be the greater good; he will choose +between punishment, with rectitude, a good conscience, a sense of unity +with the higher good, of peace with God his friend, a greater +approximation to your ideal, on the one side, and, on the other, escape +from punishment. + +Everything in that crisis will depend on how real you have made the good +to be, how much the sense of the reality of God and his companionship +has brought of joy and friendship, and how high are his values of the +actual, the real, the true. + + +§ 4. AT THE CRISIS + +But what shall we do as we meet the lie on the lips of the child? First, +as already suggested, do not wait until you meet it. Train the child to +the truthful life. Second, be sure you do not make too heavy moral +demands. Remember the instinct to protect himself from immediate +punishment or disapprobation is stronger than any other just then. Do +not ask him to do what the law says the prisoner may not do, incriminate +himself. We have no right to put on our children tests harder than they +can bear. Often we put those which are harder than we could face. What +you will do just then depends on what you have been doing for the +training of the child or youth. Do not expect him to solve problems in +moral geometry if you have neglected simple addition in that realm. + +Punishment by the blow or the immediate sentence will be futile. The +offender must know he has trespassed in a realm beyond your +administration and rule; he has done more than commit an offense against +you. Whatever consequences follow--such as your hesitation to accept his +word--must evidently be a part of the operation of the entire moral law. +Help him to see that lying strikes at the root of all social relations +and would make all happy and prosperous living, all friendship, and all +business impossible by destroying social confidence. + +Facing the crisis, do not demand more than your training gives you a +right to expect. Often, instead of the direct categorical question as to +guilt, we must gradually draw out a narrative of the events in question; +we must patiently help the child to state the facts and to see the +values of exactitudes. Without preaching or posing we must bring the +events into the light of larger areas of time and circles of life, help +him to see them related to all his life and to all mankind and to the +very fringes of existence, to God and the eternal. That cannot be done +in a moment; it is part of a habit of our own minds or it is not really +done at all. At the moment we can, however, make the deepest impression +by insistence on the importance of the actual, the real, the exactly +true. + + + I. References for Study + + E.L. Cabot, _Every Day Ethics_, chaps. xix, xx. Holt, $1.25. + + W.B. Forbush, _On Truth Telling_. Pamphlet. American Institute of + Child Life, Philadelphia, Pa. + + J. Sully, _Children's Ways_, pp. 124-33. Appleton, $1.25. + + + II. Further Reading + + G.S. Hall, "A Study of Children's Lies," _Educational Problems_, I, + chap. vi. Appleton, $2.50. + + E.P. St. John, _A Genetic Study of Veracity_. Pamphlet. + + J. Sully, _Studies in Childhood_. + + E.H. Griggs, _Moral Education_. Huebsch, $1.60. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. Are there degrees of lying? + + 2. When is a lie not a lie? + + 3. How can we discriminate among the statements of children? + + 4. How can we help them to recognize the qualities of truth? + + 5. In what ways are parents to blame for forcing children to + protective lying? + + 6. What of the relation of the thought of God to the demands for + truth? + + 7. Would you punish a child for lying and, if so, in what way? + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES (_Concluded_) + + +§ 1. DISHONESTY + +Many parents appear to think that the child's concepts of property +rights and of fair dealing are without importance. Habits of pilfering +are permitted to develop and success in cheating wins admiration. Low +standards are accepted and religion is divorced from moral questions. +The family attitude practically assumes that all persons cheat more or +less and that it is necessary only to use wisdom to insure freedom from +conviction. + +Responsibility lies at home. We shall never have an honest generation +until we have honest men and women to breed and train it. It is folly to +think we can lay on the public schools the burden of the moral education +of the young. Much is already being attempted there; yet little seems to +be accomplished because the home, having the child before and after +school and for a longer period each day, furnishes no adequate basis in +habits, ideals, and instruction for the moral work of the school. If +parents assume that one cannot succeed with absolute integrity, that +dishonesty in some degree is necessary to prosperity, then children will +learn that lesson despite all that may be said elsewhere. Honest +children grow where, in answer to the false statement, "You will starve +if you do business honestly," parents say, "Then we will starve." + +But the very home life itself can be a teacher of dishonesty. Is it +largely a matter of sham and pretense for the sake of social glory? Does +it prefer a cheap veneer to a slowly acquired genuine article? Is the +front appearance that of a dandy while the backyard looks like a +slattern? Is the home striving for more than it deserves? Is it trying +to get more out of life than it puts in? Evading taxes, avoiding duties, +a community parasite, does it commend to children the arts of social +cheating and lying? Such homes teach so loudly that no voice could be +heard in them. + +Given the atmosphere, ideals, and practices of the honest life in the +home itself, the problems of conduct, in the realm of these rights, are +more than half solved. Here in the home the real training for the life +of business takes place. Not for an instant can we afford to lower +standards here, nor to lose sight of the life-long power of our ideals, +our habits, and our attitudes on the conduct of the next generation. Do +parents know that the problems of lying, cheating, quarreling are the +great, vital questions for their children, much more important than +industrial or professional success in life; that on these all success is +predicated? If they do, surely they cannot regard the problems which +arise as mere incidents; surely they will provide for the culture of the +moral life as definitely as for the culture of the physical or the +intellectual! + + +§ 2. LESSONS IN HONESTY + +But children also acquire habits from their playmates. Whenever the act +of pilfering appears, the wrong must be made clear. Some sense of +property rights is necessary; not the right, as some assume, to do what +you will with a thing because you have it, but the right to enjoy and +usefully employ it. Help children to see the difference between mine and +thine. Slovenly moral thinking often comes from too great freedom in +forgetful borrowing within the family. In this little social group the +members must first acquire the habits of respect for the rights of +others. Through toys, tools, and books the lesson may be learned so +early that it becomes a part of the normal order of things. + +Children can learn that the game of life has its rules and that the +breach of these rules spoils the game and prevents our own happiness. +They can learn, too, that these are not arbitrary rules; they are like +the laws of nature; they are the conditions under which alone it is +possible for people to live together and to make life worth while. +Gambling is wrong because it is unsocial; it is the attempt to gain +without an equivalent giving. Cheating is wrong, no matter how many +practice it, just as surely as cheating is wrong in the game on the +playground. + +Children are really peculiarly sensitive to the social consciousness. In +school under no circumstances will they do that which the school custom +forbids or the older boys condemn. In the home, despite contrary +appearances, the opinion of elders, brothers, sisters, and parents is +the recognized law. Every small boy wants to be like his big brother. +Children's conduct may be guided by an understanding of the social will +outside the school and home. Help them to know that all people +everywhere in organized society condemn cheating and dishonesty.[49] + +Sentiment and emotional feeling must back up all teaching of conduct. +Your stories and readings should be selected with this in mind. The +approbation of parents and of the great Father of all enters as an +effectual motive. + +But parents seldom understand these problems; they attempt to deal with +each one as it arises until they are weary of the seemingly endless +procession and abandon the task. Their endeavors are based on faint +memories of such problems in their own youth or on rule-of-thumb +proverbial philosophy about morals and children. Does not the +development of moral ability and culture deserve at least as much +attention as any other phase of the child's life? After all, what do we +most of all desire for all our children--position, fame, ease? or is it +not rather simply this, that, no matter what else they do, they may be +good and useful men and women? Then what are we doing to make them good +and useful? + +A clear view of the need for moral training, a belief that is possible, +will surely lead to serious attempts to learn the art of moral training. +In this they need not be without guidance. There is a number of good +books on character development in the child.[50] The foundation for all +such training of parents ought to be laid in an understanding of what +the moral nature is, and then of the laws of its development. Later the +specific problems may be separately considered. + + +§ 3. TEASING AND BULLYING + +Teasing is the child's crude method of experimentation in psychological +reactions; the teaser desires to discover just how the teased will +respond. It degenerates, by easy steps, into a thoughtless infliction of +pain in sheer enjoyment of another's misery, and then into brutal +bullying. When only two children are together mere teasing will not +last long; either the teaser will tire of his task or his teasing will +turn to that lowest of all brutalities, delight in inflicting pain on +weaker ones. + +But teasing is a serious problem in many families; the whole group +sometimes lives in an atmosphere of ridicule, derision, and annoyance. +Teasing is likely to appear at its worst wherever a group is gathered, +for the guilty ones are under the stimulus of the praise of others; they +inflict mental pain for the sake of winning approbation. + +Teasing has a pedagogical basis. A certain amount of ridicule acts +healthfully on most persons. Even children need sometimes to see their +weaknesses, and especially their faults of temper, in the light of other +eyes, in the aspect of the ridiculous. But children are seldom to be +trusted to discipline one another; freedom to do so is likely to develop +hardness, indifference to the sufferings of others, and arrogance from +the sense of lordship. The corrective of ridicule is safe only as it is +a kindly expression of the sense of humor. The ability to see and to +show just how foolish or funny some situations are will turn many a +tragedy of childhood into a comedy. Whenever children laugh at the +distresses or faults of others, help them to laugh at their own. +Cultivate the habit of seeing the odd, the whimsical, the humorous side +of things. A sound sense of kindly humor often will save us all from +unkind teasing. + + +§ 4. SOME CURES FOR TEASING + +Help the habitual and unkind teaser to see how cowardly the act is, to +see how it is against the spirit of fair play. Call on him to help the +weaker one. If he is teasing for some fault of temper or some habit, +show him the chance that is afforded to do the nobler deed of helping +another to overcome that fault. + +Let the cowardly teaser reap the consequences of his own act; he must +bear the burden of the critic, the expectation of perfection. Teasing +him for his own shortcomings will sometimes cure him, but usually he +loses his temper quickly. Make him feel the injustice of the teaser's +method. If he is a bully he needs bullying. If ever corporal punishment +is wise it is in such a case. He who inflicts pain simply because he can +deserves to endure pain inflicted by someone stronger. But one must be +careful not to confirm him in the coward's code. The injustice of it he +must see, see by smarting under it. If ever punishment before others is +wise it is in this case; for surely he who delights in humiliating +others must be humiliated. But though justice suggests this course, +experience shows that it does not always work; the bully only bides his +time, and, cherishing resentment, he wreaks it on the weaker ones. + +The best cure for brutal teasing will take a longer time than is +involved in a thrashing. Besides, the teaser will get his thrashings +very soon from other boys. It requires time to change the habits that +make bullying possible. Try gradually helping him to see the beauty and +pleasure of helpfulness. Give him a chance to give pleasure instead of +pain. Help him to taste the joy of praise, the praise that helps more +than all teasing criticism. Help him to see that it is more truly a mark +of superiority to help, to cheer, to do good, than to oppress and tease. +Take time to habituate him in helpfulness. + +In dealing with teasing in the family, two other things are worth +remembering: First, the teased must be taught the protective power of +indifference. Teasers stop as soon as their barbs fail to wound; the fun +ends there. Laugh at those who laugh at you, and they will soon cease. +Secondly, the atmosphere and habit of the family determine the course of +teasing. Where carping criticism and unkindly ridicule abound, children +cannot be blamed for like habits. Where the sense of humor lightens +tense situations, where we sacrifice the pleasure of stinging criticism +for the sake of encouraging those who most need it, children are quick +to catch those habits too. The teasing child usually comes out of a +family of similar habits. On seeing our children engaged in teasing +others, our first thought ought to be as to the extent to which we may +have been their example in this respect. Constant watchfulness on our +part against the temptations to tease will have an effect far more +potent than all attempts to talk them out of the habit; it will lead +them out. + + + I. References for Study + + 1. HONESTY + + P. Du Bois, _The Culture of Justice_, chaps. iii, x. Dodd, Mead & + Co., $0.75. + + E.P. St. John, _Child Nature and Child Nurture_, chap. viii. + Pilgrim Press, $0.50. + + 2. TEASING + + W.L. Sheldon, _A Study of Habits_, chap. xvii. Welch & Co., + Chicago, $1.25. + + + II. Further Reading + + ON GENERAL MORAL TRAINING + + Sneath & Hodges, _Moral Training in School and Home_. Macmillan, + $0.80. + + E.O. Sisson, _The Essentials of Character_. Macmillan, $1.00. + + H. Thisleton Mark, _The Unfolding of Personality_. The University + of Chicago Press, $1.00. + + Paul Carus, _Our Children_. Open Court Publishing Co., $1.00. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. Of what importance is the child's sense of possession? + + 2. What are the first evidences of a consciousness of property + rights? + + 3. How do homes train in dishonesty? + + 4. What is the relation between cheating and dishonesty? + + 5. What is a child seeking to do when he teases another? + + 6. What are the unfortunate features of teasing? + + 7. What is the relation of teasing to bullying? + + 8. What cures would you suggest for either? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[49] Parents will be helped by the practical discussions of cheating, +cribbing, and other boy problems in Johnson, _Problems of Boyhood_. + +[50] See "Book List" in Appendix. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE PERSONAL FACTORS IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION + + +Whoever will stop to review his early educational experience will be +impressed with the instantaneous and vivid manner in which certain +teachers spring into memory. They are seen as though actually living +again. We have difficulty in recalling even the subjects they taught, +while of the particulars of their teaching we have absolutely no +recollection. But they continue to influence us; they are like so many +silent forces leading our lives to this day. The teacher is always +greater than his lesson, and what he is, is greater than what he says. +The religious education of the young depends more on the gift of +persons, on contact with lives, than on anything else. + +There are instructors and there are teachers; the former impart +information, the latter convey personality; the former deal with +subjects, the latter teach people. The greatest factor in education as a +process of developing persons is the power of stimulating personality. +The power of the family as an educational agency is in the fact that it +is an organization of persons for personal purposes. When you take the +persons away you remove all educational potencies. + +The depersonalized home is the modern menace. We have come to think that +provided you throw furniture and food together in proper proportions you +can produce a capable life. So we depend on the home as a piece of +machinery to do its work automatically, forgetting that the working +activity is not the home but the family, not the furniture but people. +Life can only come from life, and lives can only come from lives. +Personality alone can develop personality. By so much as you rob the +family life of your personal presence, as mother or as father, you take +away from its reality as a family, from its force as an educational +agency, from its religious reality. + + +§ 1. ORPHANED FAMILIES + +All that is said here about fathers might well be applied to mothers, +save that they are not as flagrant sinners in this respect, and, +besides, it comes with better grace for a father to speak on the sins of +fathers. + +There are too many fathers who are financial and physiological fathers +only. A good father easily grows as crooked as a dollar sign when he is +nurtured only on money. Many, both fathers and mothers, take parenthood +wholly in physiological terms, imagining--if they think about it at +all--that they have fully discharged all possible obligations if only +they know how to bear, feed, and clothe children properly. True, such +duties are fundamental, but no father can be rightly called "a good +provider" who provides only _things_ for his family, no matter with what +generosity he provides these things. Our homes need more of ourselves +first of all. + +He makes a capital error of setting first things in secondary places who +willingly permits business to interfere with the pleasure of being with +his children. Our social order fights its own welfare as long as any +father is chained to the wheels of industry through the hours that +belong to his home. But there are just as many who are not chained, but +who enslave themselves to business, and so miss the largest and best +business in the world, the development of children's characters. + +Many a good father goes wrong here. Love and ambition prompt him to +provide abundantly for his children; he enslaves himself to give them +those social advantages which he missed in youth. + +But it is a short-measure love that gives only gifts and never gives +itself. The heart hungers, not for what you have in your hand, but for +what you are. "The gift without the giver is bare." No amount of +bountiful providing can atone for the loss of the father's personality. +It is easy for the hands to be so engrossed in providing that the home +is left headless and soon heartless. If we at all desire the fruits of +character in the home we must give ourselves personally. + +It is not alone the habitué of the saloon or the idler in clubs and +fraternities who is guilty of stealing from the home its rightful share +of his presence. He who gives so much of himself to any object as not to +give the best of himself to his family comes under the apostolic ban of +being worse than an infidel. _A father belongs to his home more than he +belongs to his church._ There have been men, though probably their +number is not legion, who have allowed church duties, meetings, and +obligations so to absorb their time and energy that they have given only +a worn-out, burned-out, and useless fragment of themselves to their +children. Some have found it more attractive to talk of the heavenly +home in prayer-meeting or to be gracious to the stranger and to win the +smile of the neighbor at the church than to take up the by-no-means-easy +task of being godly, sympathetic and cheerful, courteous and kind among +their children and in their homes. No matter what it may be, church or +club, politics or reform organization, we are working at the wrong end +if we are allowing them to take precedence of the home. + + +§ 2. THE FATHER'S CHANCE + +The father owes it to his family _to give himself at his best_, that is, +as far as possible, when his vitality is freshest and his powers +keenest to answer to the young life about him. He owes it to his family +to conserve for it the time to think of its needs, time to listen to the +wife's story of its problems, time to sit and sympathize with children, +time to hear their seemingly idle prattle, time to play with them. Have +you ever noticed this great difference between the father and the +mother, that while the latter always has time to bind up cut fingers and +to hear to its end the story of what the little neighbor, Johnny Smith, +did and said, somehow father's ear seems deaf to such stories and he is +often too busy to sympathize? It might work a vast change in some +families if the "children's hour" had a call to the father as well as to +the mother. Of course we are crowded with social engagements and life is +at high pressure under the enticing obligation of uplifting and +reforming everybody else, yet one hour of every evening held sacred for +the firelight conversation, one in which the children could really get +at our hearts, might be worth more to tomorrow than all our public +propaganda. + +Fathers owe their brains as well as their hands to their families. +Competent and efficient fatherhood does not come by accident. We are +learning that children cannot be understood merely by loving them, that +two things must be held in balance: the scientific and the sympathetic +study of childhood. Is there any good reason why, while so readily +granting that mothers should belong to mothers' clubs, study child +psychology, the hygiene of infancy, domestic science, and eugenics, we +should assume that fathers may safely dispense with all such knowledge? +There are men who sit up nights studying how to grow the biggest +radishes in the block, there are men who toil through technical +handbooks on the game of golf, who would look at you in open-eyed wonder +if you should suggest the duty of studying their children with equal +scientific patience. They of course desire to have ideal children but +they are not willing to learn how to grow them. + + +§ 3. FATHERING AS A MAN'S TASK + +It takes intelligence and burns up brain power to keep the confidence of +your boy so that he will freely talk of his own life and needs to you. +Those much-to-be-desired open doors are kept open, not by accident, nor +by our sentiments or wishes alone. A boy changes so fast that a man has +to be alert, thinking and trying to understand and sympathize all the +time. The boy sees through all sleepy pretenses of understanding. We +keep the open door of confidence only as by steady endeavor we keep in +real touch with the boy's world. + +Fathers are ignorant of the problems of family training; they oscillate +between the wishy-washy sentimentality that permits anarchy in the home +and the harsh, unthinking despotism that breeds hatred and rebellion. +Fathers criticize the public schools but never take the time to go and +look inside one. They laugh at women's clubs because they are too lazy +to make a like investment in the patient study of some of their +problems. They affect indifference to the parent-teacher clubs while +remaining ignorant of the significant things they have already +accomplished for the schools. If we were to make an inventory of what +the women, the mothers, have accomplished by study, agitation, and +legislation for social, civic, ethical, and religious betterment, we +proud lords of creation would, or ought to, hang our heads in shame. + +Fatherhood is our chance to become. It is our chance to grow into our +finest selves. The measure of its gains to us depends upon the measure +of our gifts to its opportunities and duties. It is our chance to be +what we should like our children to be, our chance to find ourselves. +All that it costs, all the self-denial, labor, and often pain it must +mean, is just the process of developing a fine, rich life. Now, that +life is just the greatest gift that any man can make to his home and his +world. We can never give any more than ourselves or any other than +ourselves, and this pathway of sacrifice, this costly way of +home-making, is a man's chance to become Godlike. The race has come +upward in this way. It needs the masculine in its ideal self as well as +the feminine. There is no race salvation without constant individual +self-giving. That self-giving must be balanced equally on the part of +the man and the woman. Fatherhood, like motherhood, is just our chance +to learn life's best lesson, that there is a certain short path to +happiness which men have called the way of pain and God calls the way of +peace. + +Motherhood is a sacred portion, but so is fatherhood. Its calls are just +as high, its service just as holy, its opportunities just as large, its +meaning just as divine. How worse than empty are all our pratings about +divine fatherhood if we illustrate its meaning only degradingly or +misleadingly! And just as the life of the spirit is the gift of that +divine fatherhood, so for us the gift of our lives, ourselves, is the +largest and richest contribution we can make to the religious lives of +our children. + +The father as a teacher teaches by what he is. The classes in the home +have no set lessons, for the text is written in lives and the word is +spoken and taught in personality. You effect the religious education of +your children in the degree that you give yourself as a simple religious +person to them. + + + I. References for Study + + Hodges, _Training of Children in Religion_, chap. vii. Appleton, + $1.50. + + K.G. Busby, _Home Life in America_, chaps. i, ii. Macmillan, + $2.00. + + + II. Further Reading + + E.A. Abbott, _On the Training of Parents_. Houghton Mifflin Co., + $1.00. + + Allen, _Making the Most of Our Children_. 2 vols. McClurg, $1.00 + each. + + Wilm, _The Culture of Religion_, chap. ii. Pilgrim Press, $0.75 + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. Which do you remember best, your teachers or your lessons? Why? + + 2. Describe, from your memory, some of the influences of + personality? + + 3. Are these influences greater or less with parents on children? + + 4. What are the causes that separate parents and children? + + 5. How shall we define duties to business, to society, and to the + family? + + 6. Under what circumstances is one justified in refusing time to + the church for the sake of the family? + + 7. What are the best times and opportunities for the strengthening + of the personal bonds between children and parents? + + 8. How shall we overcome the apparent difficulty of maintaining the + confidence of children? + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +LOOKING TO THE FUTURE + + +Whether we can remedy the ills of family living today or not, we can +determine the character of the family life of the future. The homes of +tomorrow are being determined today. The children who swing their feet +in schoolrooms and play in our gardens will control family living very +soon. We can do little to reconstruct the old order; we can do +everything to determine the new. When the mountain sides have been made +bare, forest conservation cannot save the old trees, but it can prepare +for new growths. Ours is the larger opportunity because we can determine +the ideals of our children. Today we can determine that they shall not +suffer from false conceptions, shall not bruise themselves in the blind +ignorance that compelled us to find our own way. We shall see that, +first, in the education of our children we can save the homes of +tomorrow by training the children of today to set first things first. If +family life has been neglected in America, it has been because we have +submerged its real values of character and affection in a flood of +things, of materialism. + + +§ 1. A CONSTRUCTIVE POLICY FOR CHARACTER + +The future higher efficiency of the family depends on an extension of a +conscience for character through all our thinking on the family. We are +really half-ashamed to talk of character. We blush for ideals but we +have no shame in boasting of commerce and factories; we are ashamed of +the things of beauty and we love only the useful. So we have become +ashamed of the ideals of the home. Not only do we passively acquiesce in +the popular attitude of indifference or derision, but we voice it +ourselves. We join in the jest at marriage; we joke over marital +infelicities. We would be ashamed to be caught singing "Home, Sweet +Home." What is more important, we show that, as a people, we have less +and less the habit of regarding the home as any other than a commercial +affair. The tendency is to determine domestic living wholly by economic +factors. The literature on the "home" is overwhelmingly economic; its +heart is in the kitchen. High efficiency on the physiological, sanitary, +culinary, and mechanical sides makes the modern home so convenient that +you can lie on a folding bed, press a button to light the grate fire, +turn on the lights, start the toaster, and wake the children. Homes are +places to hide in at night, to feed the body, arrange the clothes, and +start out from for real living. They are private hotels. + +If we would save the family we must save the child from losing sight of +the primacy of human values; we must strengthen his natural faith that +people are worth more than all besides, leading him into the faith that +moral integrity, truth, honor, righteousness, are the glory of a life. +More, these young lives must be trained to habitual and efficient +right-doing. In a word, the conservation of the home is simply a program +of beginning today ourselves to set first things first, to conserve the +human factors that will make homes, to make education everywhere in +school and church and home count first of all for character. And that +broader education we ourselves must test first of all by this, whether +it makes youth competent to live aright, cultivates the love of worthy +ideals, and makes him willing and able to pay the price of a trained +life consecrated to the service of his world, to the love of his +fellows, and to the making of a new world. + +We shall need, first, to safeguard the primary motives that enter into +the founding of families. Those motives begin to develop early. They are +in the making in childhood. Somehow we must plan the education of youths +so that they will think of homes and of marriage in new terms. Possibly +the public school will not only teach the physiology of marriage and the +bare physical facts of sexual purity, but will teach new ideals of +family life; it will count it at least as much a duty to cultivate a +love of home as it is to cultivate a love of country. It can set so +clearly the final objective of character that even children shall see +that life has higher ends than money-making and the family greater +purposes than garish social display. + + +§ 2. THE CHURCH AIDING + +Certainly the church must seek to quicken and develop new ideals of +family life; it must bring religion to our hearths and homes; it must +worry less about a "home over there," and show how truly heavenly homes +may be made here. It must not only get youth ready to die, it must +prepare them to live; to live together on religious terms. It will do +this, not only by general discussions in the pulpit, but by special +instruction in classes. No church has a clear conscience in regard to +any young person contemplating the duties of a family whom it has not +directly instructed in the duties of that life. + +It is a strange spectacle, if we would stop long enough to look at it, +of the church proclaiming a way of life but scarcely ever teaching it. +In any church there is a large number of young people under instruction; +what are they learning? Usually a theological interpretation of an +ancient religious literature. Some still are learning to hate all other +persons whose religion differs from the brand carried in that +institution. In a few years these youths will be bearing social burdens, +facing temptations, taking up duties; does their teaching relate at all +to these things? No, indeed, that would be "worldly"; it would seem to +be sacrilegious to teach them how actually to be religious. The business +of the church school is still largely that of filling minds with +theological data rather than training young, trainable lives to become +religious schoolboys, religious voters, religious parents. How many have +been at all influenced by Sunday-school teaching when they stepped into +a polling-booth, when they chose a life-mate, when they guided or +disciplined their children? If religious education does not at all +influence us in the great events of life, of what value is it to us? +Must it not be counted a sheer waste of time? + +If we would conserve the human values of the family we must train youth +to a religious interpretation of the home. If we cannot do that in the +church we might as well confess that the church cannot touch the sources +of human affairs. + + +§ 3. IDEALS AND METHODS + +No matter what the breadth of the interests of the public school, youth +will still need training for family living given under religious +auspices and with the religious aim. The day school may give courses in +domestic economy, but family living demands more than ability to sweep a +room or cook an egg. In fact, no one can be competent to meet its higher +demands unless at least two things are accomplished, first, that he, or +she, is led to see the family as essentially a religious, spiritual +institution because it is an association of persons for the purpose of +developing other persons to spiritual fulness; secondly, that he, or +she, is moved to willingness to count the work of the family, its +purpose and aim, as the highest in life and that for which one is +willing to pay any price of time, treasure, thought, and endeavor. + +This means that the fundamental need is that our young people shall grow +up with a new vision and a new passion for the home and family. That +passion is needed to give value to any training in the economics or +mechanics of the home; and that training is precisely the contribution +which the church should make to all departments of life today. It is the +prophet, the interpreter, revealing the spiritual meanings of all daily +affairs and quickening us to right feeling, to highly directed passion +for worthy ideals. + +From the general teaching, the high message of the church, directed to +this special problem, there must be formed in the mind of the coming +generation a new picture of the family, a new ethics of its life, a new +evaluation of its worth. That can come in part by the prophetic message +from the pulpit, but it will come more naturally and readily by regular +teaching directed to the actual experiences and the coming needs of the +young people who are to be home-makers. The soaring ideals pass over +their heads, but when you teach the practice, the details of the life of +the family in the spirit of these ideals, as interpreted and determined +by the higher conception, then they catch the vision through the +details. + +We need two types of classes in church schools in relation to the life +of the family: First, classes for young people in which their social +duties as religious persons are carefully taught and discussed. Perhaps +such courses should not be specifically on "The Family," but this +institution ought, in the course, to occupy a place proportionate to +that which belongs to it in life. The instruction should be specific and +detailed, not simply a series of homilies on "The Christian Family," +"Love of Home," etc., but taking up the great problems of the economic +place of the family today, its spiritual function, questions of choice +of life-partners, types of dwelling, finances and money relations in the +family, children and their training, and the actual duties and problems +which arise in family living. + +All topics should be treated from the dominant viewpoint of the family +as a religious institution for the development of the lives of +religious persons. The courses should be so arranged as to be given to +young people of about twenty years of age, or of twenty to twenty-five. +They should be among the electives offered in the church school. + +The second type of class would be for those who are already parents and +who desire help on their special problems. Many schools now conduct such +classes, meeting either on Sunday or during the week.[51] Work on +"Parents' Problems," "Family Religious Education," and similar topics is +also being given in the city institutes for religious workers. No church +can be satisfied with its service to the community unless it provides +opportunity for parents to study their work of character development +through the family and to secure greater efficiency therein. Such +classes need only three conditions: a clear understanding of the purpose +of meeting the actual problems of religious training in the family, a +leader or instructor who is really qualified to lead and to instruct in +this subject, and an invitation to parents to avail themselves of this +opportunity. + +The value of such a class would be greatly enhanced if it should be held +in close co-ordination with similar classes or clubs conducted by the +public schools.[52] Here all the parents of the community meet in the +school building, not to discuss how the teachers may satisfy parental +criticism, but to learn what the school has to teach on modern +educational methods applied to the life of the child, especially in the +family, and mutually to find ways of co-operation between the home and +the school for the betterment of the child. + + + I. References for Study + + Articles in _Religious Education_, April, 1911, VI, 1-77. + + Helen C. Putnam in _Religious Education_, June, 1911, VI, 159-66. + + George W. Dawson in _Religious Education_, June, 1911, VI, 167-74. + + Cabot, _Volunteer Help in the Schools_, chap. vii. Houghton Mifflin + Co., $0.60. + + + II. Further Reading + + Forsyth, _Marriage, Its Ethics and Religion_. Hodder & Stoughton, + $1.25. + + Lovejoy, _Self-Training for Motherhood_. American Unitarian + Association, $1.00. + + Pomeroy, _Ethics of Marriage_. Funk & Wagnalls, $1.50. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. In how far are home problems due to the ignorance of parents? + + 2. What do you regard as the essentials in the training of parents? + + 3. Where can the necessary subjects best be taught? + + 4. What are the difficulties in the way of teaching these subjects + to young people? + + 5. In how far can we direct the reading of young people toward sane + and helpful knowledge of family life and duties? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[51] Pamphlets on plans for parents' classes: _The Home and the Sunday +School_, Pilgrim Press; _Plans for Mothers' and Parents' Meetings_, +Sunday School Times Co.; _How to Start a Mothers' Department_, David C. +Cook Co.; _The Parents' Department of the Sunday School_, Connecticut +Sunday School Association, Hartford, Conn. + +[52] See pamphlet published by the National Congress of Mothers: _How to +Organize Parents' Associations and Mothers' Circles in Public Schools_. + + + + +APPENDIXES + + + + +APPENDIX I + +SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS WORK + + +This book is designed for individual reading or for use in classes. It +is not a textbook of the same character as a textbook in mathematics or +history, but the material is arranged so as to be both easily readable +and of ready analysis for classes. There are two methods of following +the course: one by work conducted under a regular teacher in a class, +and the other by private or correspondence study. + + +§ 1. THE CLASS + +The class should be composed of parents and other adults, inasmuch as +the work is designed for them. It may be a class in connection with the +Sunday school in a church, a class conducted by a mothers' club or +congress or by a parent-teacher association, or it may be organized +under other auspices. Or it might be organized by a group of parents in +any community. The class need not consist of either fathers or mothers +alone, as the work is planned for both. In any case the work of teaching +will be facilitated if, in addition to the customary officers of the +class, the teacher will appoint a librarian, whose duties would be to +ascertain for the members of the class where the books for study and +for reference may be obtained, that is, whether they are in the public +library, church library, or in private collections, and also, whenever +it is desired to purchase books, where they may best be secured. + + +§ 2. THE TEACHER + +The primary requisite for the teacher will be an eagerness to learn, a +sufficiently deep interest in the subject to lead to thorough study. No +one can teach this class who already knows all about the subject. A +spirit sympathetic with the child and the life of the family and a mind +willing to study the subject will accomplish much more than facile +rhetorical familiarity with it. The best teacher will not often be "an +easy talker" on the family; class time is too precious to be occupied +with a lecture. While, naturally, one who is a parent will speak with +greater experience than another, the ability to teach this subject +cannot be limited to fathers and mothers; physiological parenthood is +less important than spiritual parenthood. The teacher must have, then, +willingness to study the subject, ability to teach as contrasted with +mere talking, sympathy with parenthood, and a passion for the religious +personal values in life. + + +§ 3. GENERAL METHOD + +The teacher's aim will be to make this course definitely practical. The +book is not concerned so much with theories of the family as with the +present problems of the family, and especially with those that relate to +moral and religious education. There must be a sense of definite +problems to be concretely treated in all lessons. The teacher will +therefore encourage discussion, but will also avoid the tendency to +drift into desultory conversation. Direct the discussion to avoid +tedious détours on side issues. Direct the discussion to avoid the +tendency to treat superficially all the subject at one session. It will +be necessary frequently to insist that attention be focused upon the +immediate problems suggested by the lesson for the day, and to ask the +class to wait until the subjects which they in their eagerness suggest +shall come in their due order. + +Encourage personal experiences as sidelights and criticisms on the text, +but remember that no single experience is conclusive. Beware of the +over-elaboration and detailed narration of experiences. + +_Insist on a thorough study of the text._ Students should be so prepared +as to make a lecture superfluous and to allow discussion to take the +place of review and explanation. The greatest danger in parents' classes +is that the members do not study; class work becomes indefinite and soon +loses value. Again, the members of the class often are unwilling to be +governed by the schedule of lessons, and the class drifts into aimless +conversation. Adult students especially need to be turned from the +tendency to regard educational experience as having come to an end with +their school days. The members of this class will need encouragement; +they must be stimulated patiently until they have re-formed some habits +of study and rediscovered the pleasures of systematic thinking. The best +stimulus will be a teacher so convinced of the supreme importance of the +subject to be studied as to lead the members to recognize its importance +and the insignificance of any price they may pay for efficient spiritual +parenthood. + + +§ 4. CLASS WORK + +At the first session teach chap. i, which is introductory. Draw out +discussion on the points suggested therein, and assign this chapter and +the one following for the next session. The first lesson will give the +teacher opportunity to explain and illustrate the method of study, +presentation, and discussion. + +Assign the work carefully each week, calling especial attention to the +"References for Study." Secure promises from as many as possible to read +at least one of these references and to prepare a written report, on one +sheet of paper, for presentation at the next session. Ask others to look +into the special points which will be found in the references given +under the heading "Further Reading." + +In beginning a lesson it will be wise to call to mind first the +principle running through the book, that the great work of the family is +the development of religious persons in the home; then call to mind the +application of this principle in the last lesson. Make your review very +brief. + +Next, bring out the leading topic of the lesson for the day. This should +be done so as to present a vital issue and a live topic to the class. +Very often the best way of doing this is to state a concrete case +involving the issue discussed. The presentation of a definite set of +circumstances or a fairly complete experience involving the fundamental +principles under discussion is an instance of teaching by the "case +method." If the teacher will consider how the law student is trained by +the study of _particular cases_, the advantage of the method will be +clear. Be sure that the "case" selected will include the principles to +be taught. Prepare the statement of the case beforehand. This should be +done in a very brief narrative, so giving the instance as to enable the +class to see the reality of the question. Be sure that your instance is +itself vital and probable. A class of adults will especially need such +points of vital contact. By announcing the topic in advance the teacher +will often be able to obtain definite cases in point from the members. + +With the case thus presented take the points in the text and apply them, +first to the special case alone, but with the purpose of developing the +principles involved in that and similar cases. Beware of the special +danger of the case method, namely, that the class may discuss the +specific instances rather than the principles. + +_Teaching is more than telling_; it is stimulating other minds to see +and comprehend and state for themselves. Therefore the teacher must +first comprehend and be able to state for himself. Avoid repeating the +phrases of the text. Get them over into your own language and see that +the class does the same. Do not fail to call for the brief reports on +reading, and to make them a real part of the subject of discussion. + +_Questioning_ is the natural method of stimulating minds. Use the +question method, but do not confine yourself to "What does the author +say on this?" Direct your questions to the points stated and the issues +raised so as to compel students to think on the topics and so as to draw +out the results of their thinking. Form your own judgments and help the +class to form theirs too. Remember that the purpose of the class is to +get people thinking on the great subjects discussed. The text is not +written in order that groups of students may learn the author's +statements, but that they may be led to think seriously on all these +matters and stimulated to do something about them. + +Use the "discussion topics" given at the end of each lesson. They are +not designed to furnish a syllabus of the lesson, but to suggest +important questions for discussion, some of which may barely be +mentioned in the text. They may be used in assigning the advance work, +giving topics to different students, and they may be used in your review +of the previous lesson. + +A syllabus of each lesson will be helpful, provided it be prepared by +the students themselves. Encourage the careful reading of the lesson by +every member of the class, letting the syllabus grow out of this. + +Notebooks will have their largest value if used at home for two +purposes: first, to set down the student's analysis of the book as he +reads, secondly, to record the student's observations on definite +problems and on practice in the home. Note-taking in the class will have +very little value unless it is backed up by study at home. + +_Generalization._ Have clearly in your own mind a definite concept of +the general principle underlying each section. Read through each section +until you can state the principle for yourself. Bring your teaching into +a focus at the point of that principle before the lesson ends. Try to +get the members of the class to state the principle in their own words. + +_In action:_ The principles will have little value unless translated +into practical methods; direct your teaching to their actual use in +families. Your generalization is for guidance into application. Urge +that the plans described be actually tried. Expect this and call for +reports on plans tested in the daily experience of families. If a number +of students would try, for example, the plan of worship suggested for +two or three weeks and report their experiences in writing, together +with the accounts of any other plans tried, a valuable budget of helpful +knowledge could thus be gathered.[53] + +_Conference plan:_ Some classes will be able to meet twice a week, +taking the lesson at one session and at another spending the time in +conference. At the conference period the program might provide for (1) +brief papers by members of the class on topics personally assigned, (2) +abstracts or summaries of assigned readings, (3) discussion on the +particular points raised in the papers, and (4) conference on unsettled +questions from the lesson for the class period preceding. + +_Club work:_ A parents' club might be organized, either in a church or +in connection with a school, which would use this textbook, follow the +study work with conferences, and would secure for its own use a library +of the books listed after each chapter. Such a club would be able to put +into practice some of the plans advocated and could encourage their +application in groups of families. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[53] The teachers are especially invited to secure records of actual +experiments of this character. Accounts of tried methods of family +worship, especially those with new features, which should be given in +some detail as to the exact plan, the circumstances, the material used, +and the results, should be sent to the author in care of the publishers. +Perhaps in this way material which may be valuable to large numbers may +be gathered. + + + + +APPENDIX II + +A BOOK LIST + + +The following books would be found useful for the working library of a +class or club following the study of this text or for a section of the +church library on the home and family. The books marked with an asterisk +are the ones which may be regarded as of first practical value to +parents and others studying the development of character in the life of +the family. + +In addition to the titles mentioned below, the the references at the end +of each chapter in this book will furnish a list of other sources of +valuable material. + + + I. the Institution of the Family + + C.F. and C.B. Thwing, _The Family_. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, $1.60. + A historical survey of the family with a special study of its + modern dangers and needs. + + P.T. Forsyth, _Marriage, Its Ethics and Religion_. Hodder & + Stoughton, $1.25. An important, popular statement of the ethics of + marriage as the foundation of family life. + + *W.F. Lofthouse, _Ethics and the Family_. Hodder & Stoughton, $2.50 + net. The most important recent book on the family; traces its + historical development, the ethical ideals involved in the + institution, and discusses its present problems and perplexities. + + Katherine G. Busby, _Home Life in America_. Macmillan, $2.00 net. A + popular statement of the outstanding characteristics of life in + American homes; entertaining and informing. + + *Clyde W. Votaw, _Progress of Moral and Religious Education in the + American Home_. Religious Education Association, $0.25. A careful + and comprehensive survey, of great value. + + Charles A.L. Reed, _Marriage and Genetics_. Galton Press, + Cincinnati, Ohio, $1.00. A surgeon's message on eugenics, + especially on the aspects indicated in the title. A study of the + laws of human breeding. + + + II. Child Nature + + *E.P. St. John, _Child Nature and Child Nurture_. Pilgrim Press, + $0.50. A textbook dealing with the nature of the child and with + problems of his training in the home. + + *Irving King, _The High School Age_. Bobbs-Merrill & Co., $1.00 + net. A study of the nature and needs of boys and girls in the first + period of adolescence. Written for all who are alive to the + problems of this period as well as for school people; gives + constructive suggestions for educational problems. + + Elizabeth Harrison, _A Study of the Child Nature_. Chicago + Kindergarten College, $1.00. Long recognized as a standard for + parents in the study of the development and functions of the + child-life. + + George E. Dawson, _The Right of the Child to Be Well Born_. Funk & + Wagnalls, $0.75. A plain study of eugenics, non-technical and + helpful; includes a chapter on eugenics and religion. To be + commended to parents. + + George E. Dawson, _The Child and His Religion_. The University of + Chicago Press, $0.75. The religious nature and needs of the child + with some suggestions as to method. + + *W. Arter Wright, _The Moral Conditions and Development of the + Child_. Jennings & Graham, $0.75. An important and valuable book on + the newer views of the religious development of the child-life. + + Frederick Tracy and J. Stempfl, _The Psychology of Childhood_. D.C. + Heath & Co., $1.20. Gathers up the general results in the field of + child psychology. + + *W.G. Koons, _The Child's Religious Life_. Jennings & Graham, + $1.00. From the modern point of view, dealing with some of the + interesting problems of the relation of the child to religious life + and the development of his religious ideas. + + Thomas Stephens, _The Child and Religion_. Putnam, $1.50. A series + of short papers by English writers, particularly on the question of + child conversion. + + George A. Hubbell, _Up through Childhood_. Putnam, $1.25. A good + general review with special reference to religious problems and + religious institutions. + + Edith E.R. Mumford, _The Dawn of Character_. Longmans, Green & Co., + $1.20. A very important book, dealing especially with the moral + development of young children. + + + III. Training in the Home + + William B. Forbush (ed.), _Guide Book to Childhood_. American + Institute of Child Life, Philadelphia, Pa. Very valuable as a guide + to reading on the many problems of child-training. + + LeGrand Kerr, _The Care and Training of the Child_. Funk & + Wagnalls, $0.75. A good, general, brief study of the nature of the + child and the method of education. + + William J. Shearer, _The Management and Training of the Child_. + Richardson, Smith & Co. A popular and practical statement of many + problems and their treatment in the home and school. + + John Wirt Dinsmore, _The Training of Children_. American Book Co. + While written for school-teachers, this is one of the best studies + which parents could possibly read. + + A.A. Berle, _The School in the Home_. Moffat, Yard & Co., $1.00. + Contains much valuable suggestion to parents who really desire to + take advantage of the educational opportunities of the home. + + John Locke, _How to Train Up Your Children_. Sampson, Low, Marston + & Co., London. Written over two hundred years ago, and yet of very + great value in many parts to day. + + *William B. Forbush, _The Coming Generation_. D. Appleton & Co., + $1.50. Discusses the various aspects of child-training in the light + of the social consciousness of today. Many of the public agencies + for child betterment are carefully discussed. + + *William A. McKeever, _Training the Girl_. Macmillan, $1.50. + + *----, _Training the Boy_. Macmillan, $1.50. These two books + constitute one of the best collections of material, most practical + and helpful. They view girls and boys as active factors and all the + phases of home and community life are studied with reference to + their needs. + + + IV. Special Religious Training in the Home + + *George Hodges, _The Training of the Child in Religion_. D. + Appleton & Co., $1.50. One of the few books dealing in any modern + manner with the special problems of the religious life of the + family. + + Rev. William Becker, _Christian Education or The Duties of + Parents_. B. Herder, St. Louis, $1.00. Recent and interesting + sermons on the duties of parents in the religious education of the + Catholic child; a striking example of messages that ought to be + heard from every pulpit. + + John T. Faris, _Pleasant Sunday Afternoons for the Children_. + Sunday School Times Co., $0.50. A number of practical plans are + suggested. + + *George A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_. Fleming H. + Revell Co., $1.35. A book which all parents ought to read for its + valuable guidance on the general principles of religious education. + + Elizabeth Grinnell, _How John and I Brought Up the Children_. + American Sunday School Union, $0.70. A popular statement in a + simple form of methods of dealing with many of the problems of + religious training. + + + V. Moral Training + + Edward H. Griggs, _Moral Education_. B.W. Huebsch, $1.60. One of + the best-known books on this question, readable and helpful at many + points. + + Ennis Richmond, _The Mind of the Child_. Longmans, Green & Co., + $1.00. One of the most helpful books because of its new and + refreshing point of view. + + *Edward O. Sisson, _The Essentials of Character_. Macmillan, $1.00. + A book on the broad principles and ideals; one dealing with the + outstanding elements of character. + + Ernest H. Abbott, _On the Training of Parents_. Houghton Mifflin + Co., $1.00. A bright statement of some of the most perplexing + problems of family life. + + *Mary Wood-Allen, _Making the Best of Our Children_. First and + Second Series. A.C. McClurg & Co., $1.00 each. Takes one after + another of the different situations in child-training. + + *Patterson DuBois, _The Culture of Justice_. Dodd, Mead & Co., + $0.75. An important contribution, as it calls attention to some + frequently neglected aspects of moral training especially + applicable to the home. + + Walter L. Sheldon, _Duties in the Home_. W.M. Welch & Co. A + textbook, the thirty sections of which would furnish an excellent + basis for parents' discussions of home discipline. + + + VI. General Reading in the Home + + John Macy, _Child's Guide to Reading_. Baker & Taylor Co., $1.25. A + discussion of reading and the education of children thereby, with + suggestions and criticisms of suitable books in different + departments of reading. + + W.T. Taylor, _Finger Posts to Children's Reading_. A.C. McClurg & + Co., $1.00. A practical discussion of suitable reading for + children, with a list of books. + + *G.W. Arnold, _A Mothers' List of Books for Children_. A.C. McClurg + & Co., $1.00. The books are arranged by ages and topics, making + this one of the most useful collections available. + + Edward P. St. John, _Stories and Story Telling_. Eaton & Mains, + $0.35. A textbook, for parents' classes. It contains much valuable + material. + + E.M. Partridge, _Story Telling in School and Home_. Sturgis & + Walton, $1.35. One of the best discussions of the principles and + methods of story-telling, with a number of good stories. + + + + +INDEX + + +Activity in relation to character, 75 + +Amusement of young people, 190 + +Anger, Dealing with, 224 + + +Bible, Methods of using the, 121 + +Bible, The, in the home, 119 + +Blessing at table, 133 + +Book list on the family, 290 + +Books and reading, 113 + +Boy, The, in the family, 173 + +Boys' play, 175 + +Bullying, 253 + + +Character, A constructive policy for, 269 + +Child nature, Books on, 291 + +Child unity with the church, 207 + +Child welfare, Religious meanings of, 3 + +Childhood characteristics, 53 + +Christian family, The, as a type, 41 + +Church, The, and the children, 204 + +Church, The, and the family, 198 + +Church, The, and the program of the home, 271 + +Citizenship, Training for, 96 + +Class work, Plans of, 281 + +Community, The, in relation to the home, 88 + +Community service, 91 + +Conversation, Religious, 62 + +Courtship, 188 + + +Dishonesty, 249 + + +Economic development of the home, 13 + +Educational function, The, of the family, 46 + +Educational process, The, 49 + + +Factory system, The, and the home, 14 + +Family as an institution, Books on the, 290 + +"Family Book," 155 + +Family defined, 5 + +Family ideal in the church, 202 + +Family life, Dominating motive of, 27 + +Family worship, 126 + +Family worship, Methods of, 133 + +Father, The, and the boy, 177 + +Father, The, and the family, 263 + +Fighting among children, 234 + +Function of the family, 46 + +Future of the family, 268 + + +Girl, The, in the family, 180 + +God, The consciousness of, 64 + +Grace at table, 133 + + +Hebrew family life, 39 + +Home and school co-operation, 213 + +Home, is it passing? 10 + +Home, Religious interpretation of, 1 + +Home versus family, 18, 22 + +Honesty, Training in, 249 + +Hymns for children, 102 + + +Jesus' teaching on the family, 42 + + +Loyalty as the basic principle, 31, 54 + +Loyalty, The organization of, 57 + +Lying and the moral problem, 240 + + +Meals, Conversation at, 165 + +Moral crises, Dealing with, 218 + +Moral life, religious roots in the family, 31 + +Moral teaching, 70 + +Moral training, Books on, 294 + +Motive, Religious, in the family, 2 + +Music in the family, 105 + + +Organization of home, Purpose of, 19 + + +Parental aversion, 186 + +Parenthood and religious training, 260 + +Parents' classes, 274 + +Parents trained in schools, 214 + +Petulancy in children, 233 + +Play activity, 107 + +Play, A policy of, 150 + +Play on Sunday, 149 + +Prayers, Children's, 135 + +Prayers, Family, 137 + + +Quarrels of children, 231 + +Questions, Children's, 69 + + +Reading, Developing taste for, 115 + +Religious character of the family, 46 + +Religious development of the child, 52 + +Religious education in the family, Books on, 293 + +Religious education, Meaning of, 47 + +Religious growth of the child, 55 + +Religious history of the family, 37 + +Religious ideas of children, 60 + +Religious service, 78, 80 + + +School, The home as a, 87 + +Schools, Public, and the home, 212 + +Self-control, Developing, 227, 236 + +Social life of youth, 189 + +Social qualities to be developed, 28 + +Social training, 29, 82, 92 + +Socialization of the home, 16 + +Song and story, 101 + +Spiritual values, Place of, 30 + +Stories and reading, 110 + +Story-telling, 110 + +Sunday afternoon problem, 154 + +Sunday in the home, 145 + +Sunday play, 149 + + +Table, Ministry of the, 164 + +Table-talk, 169 + +Teasing and bullying, 253 + + +Will, Training the, 221 + +Work and character, 76 + +Worship in the family, 126 + +Worship, Outlines of, 139 + + +Youth in the home, 183 + + +PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. + + + + +THE CONSTRUCTIVE STUDIES + + +The Constructive Studies comprise volumes suitable for all grades, from +kindergarten to adult years, in schools or churches. In the production +of these studies the editors and authors have sought to embody not only +their own ideals but the best product of the thought of all who are +contributing to the theory and practice of modern religious education. +They have had due regard for fundamental principles of pedagogical +method, for the results of the best modern biblical scholarship, and for +those contributions to religious education which may be made by the use +of a religious interpretation of all life-processes, whether in the +field of science, literature, or social phenomena. + +Their task is not regarded as complete because of having produced one or +more books suitable for each grade. There will be a constant process of +renewal and change, and the possible setting aside of books which, +because of changing conditions in the religious world or further advance +in the science of religious education, no longer perform their function, +and the continual enrichment of the series by new volumes so that it may +always be adapted to those who are taking initial steps in modern +religious education, as well as to those who have accepted and are ready +to put into practice the most recent theories. + +As teachers profoundly interested in the problems of religious +education, the editors have invited to co-operate with them authors +chosen from a wide territory and in several instances already well known +through practical experiments in the field in which they are asked to +write. + +The editors are well aware that those who are most deeply interested in +religious education hold that churches and schools should be accorded +perfect independence in their choice of literature regardless of +publishing-house interests and they heartily sympathize with this +standard. They realize that many schools will select from the +Constructive Studies such volumes as they prefer, but at the same time +they hope that the Constructive Studies will be most widely serviceable +as a series. The following analysis of the series will help the reader +to get the point of view of the editors and authors. + + +KINDERGARTEN, 4-6 YEARS + +The kindergarten child needs most of all to gain those simple ideals of +life which will keep him in harmony with his surroundings in the home, +at play, and in the out-of-doors. He is most susceptible to a religious +interpretation of all these, which can best be fostered through a +program of story, play, handwork, and other activities as outlined in + + _The Sunday Kindergarten_ (Ferris). A teachers' manual giving + directions for the use of a one- or two-hour period with story, + song, play, and handwork. Permanent and temporary material for the + children's table work, and story leaflets to be taken home. + + +PRIMARY, 6-8 YEARS, GRADES I-III + +At the age of six years when children enter upon a new era because of +their recognition by the first grade in the public schools the +opportunity for the cultivation of right social reactions is +considerably increased. Their world still, however, comprises chiefly +the home, the school, the playground, and the phenomena of nature. A +normal religion at this time is one which will enable the child to +develop the best sort of life in all these relationships, which now +present more complicated moral problems than in the earlier stage. +Religious impressions may be made through interpretations of nature, +stories of life, song, prayer, simple scripture texts, and handwork. All +of these are embodied in + + _Child Religion in Song and Story_ (Chamberlin and Kern). Three + interchangeable volumes; only one of which is used at one time in + all three grades. Each lesson presents a complete service, song, + prayers, responses, texts, story, and handwork. Constructive and + beautiful handwork books are provided for the pupil. + + +JUNIOR, 9 YEARS, GRADE IV + +When the children have reached the fourth grade they are able to read +comfortably and have developed an interest in books, having a "reading +book" in school and an accumulating group of story-books at home. One +book in the household is as yet a mystery, the Bible, of which the +parents speak reverently as God's Book. It contains many interesting +stories and presents inspiring characters which are, however, buried in +the midst of much that would not interest the children. To help them to +find these stories and to show them the living men who are their heroes +or who were the writers of the stories, the poems, or the letters, makes +the Bible to them a living book which they will enjoy more and more as +the years pass. This service is performed by + + _An Introduction to the Bible for Teachers of Children_ + (Chamberlin). Story-reading from the Bible for the school and home, + designed to utilize the growing interest in books and reading found + in children of this age, in cultivating an attitude of intelligent + interest in the Bible and enjoyment of suitable portions of it. + Full instructions with regard to picturesque, historical, and + social introductions are given the teacher. A pupil's homework + book, designed to help him to think of the story as a whole and to + express his thinking, is provided for the pupil. + + +JUNIOR, 10-12 YEARS, GRADES V-VII + +Children in the fifth, sixth, and seventh grades are hero-worshipers. In +the preceding grade they have had a brief introduction to the life of +Jesus through their childish explorations of the gospels. His character +has impressed them already as heroic and they are eager to know more +about him, therefore the year is spent in the study of + + _The Life of Jesus_ (Gates). The story of Jesus graphically + presented from the standpoint of a hero. A teacher's manual + contains full instructions for preparation of material and + presentation to the class. A partially completed story of Jesus + prepared for the introduction of illustrations, maps, and original + work, together with all materials required, is provided for the + pupil. + +In the sixth grade a new point of approach to some of the heroes with +whom the children are already slightly acquainted seems desirable. The +Old Testament furnishes examples of men who were brave warriors, +magnanimous citizens, loyal patriots, great statesmen, and champions of +democratic justice. To make the discovery of these traits in ancient +characters and to interpret them in the terms of modern boyhood and +girlhood is the task of two volumes in the list. The choice between them +will be made on the basis of preference for handwork or textbook work +for the children. + + _Heroes of Israel_ (Soares). Stories selected from the Old + Testament which are calculated to inspire the imagination of boys + and girls of the early adolescent period. The most complete + instructions for preparation and presentation of the lesson are + given the teacher in his manual. The pupil's book provides the full + text of each story and many questions which will lead to the + consideration of problems arising in the life of boys and girls of + this age. + + _Old Testament Stories_ (Corbett). Also a series of stories + selected from the Old Testament. Complete instructions for vivid + presentation are given the teacher in his manual. The pupil's + material consists of a notebook containing a great variety of + opportunities for constructive handwork. + +Paul was a great hero. Most people know him only as a theologian. His +life presents miracles of courage, struggle, loyalty, and +self-abnegation. The next book in the series is intended to help the +pupil to see such a man. The student is assisted by a wealth of local +color. + + _Paul of Tarsus_ (Atkinson). The story of Paul which is partially + presented to the pupil and partially the result of his own + exploration in the Bible and in the library. Much attention is + given to story of Paul's boyhood and his adventurous travels, + inspiring courage and loyalty to a cause. The pupil's notebook is + similar in form to the one used in the study of Gates's "Life of + Jesus," but more advanced in thought. + + +HIGH SCHOOL, 13-17 YEARS + +In the secular school the work of the eighth grade is tending toward +elimination. It is, therefore, considered here as one of the high-school +grades. In the high-school years new needs arise. There is necessary a +group of books which will dignify the study of the Bible and give it as +history and literature a place in education, at least equivalent to that +of other histories and literatures which have contributed to the +progress of the world. This series is rich in biblical studies which +will enable young people to gain a historical appreciation of the +religion which they profess. Such books are + + _The Gospel According to Mark_ (Burton). A study of the life of + Jesus from this gospel. The full text is printed in the book, which + is provided with a good dictionary and many interesting notes and + questions of very great value to both teacher and pupil. + + _The First Book of Samuel_ (Willett). Textbook for teacher and + pupil in which the fascinating stories of Samuel, Saul, and David + are graphically presented. The complete text of the first book of + Samuel is given, many interesting explanatory notes, and questions + which will stir the interest of the pupil, not only in the present + volume but in the future study of the Old Testament. + + _The Life of Christ_ (Burgess). A careful historical study of the + life of Christ from the four gospels. A manual for teacher and + pupil presents a somewhat exhaustive treatment, but full + instructions for the selection of material for classes in which but + one recitation a week occurs are given the teacher in a separate + outline. + + _The Hebrew Prophets_ (Chamberlin). An inspiring presentation of + the lives of some of the greatest of the prophets from the point of + view of their work as citizens and patriots. In the manual for + teachers and pupils the biblical text in a good modern translation + is included. + + _Christianity in the Apostolic Age_ (Gilbert). A story of early + Christianity chronologically presented, full of interest in the + hands of a teacher who enjoys the historical point of view. + +In the high-school years also young people find it necessary to face the +problem of living the Christian life in a modern world, both as a +personal experience and as a basis on which to build an ideal society. +To meet this need a number of books intended to inspire boys and girls +to look forward to taking their places as home-builders and responsible +citizens of a great Christian democracy and to intelligently choose +their task in it are prepared or in preparation. The following are now +ready: + + _Problems of Boyhood_ (Johnson). A series of chapters discussing + matters of supreme interest to boys and girls, but presented from + the point of view of the boy. A splendid preparation for efficiency + in all life's relationships. + + _Lives Worth Living_ (Peabody). A series of studies of important + women, biblical and modern, representing different phases of life + and introducing the opportunity to discuss the possibilities of + effective womanhood in the modern world. + + _The Third and Fourth Generation_ (Downing). A series of studies in + heredity based upon studies of phenomena in the natural world and + leading up to important historical facts and inferences in the + human world. + + +ADULT GROUP + +The Biblical studies assigned to the high-school period are in most +cases adaptable to adult class work. There are other volumes, however, +intended only for the adult group, which also includes the young people +beyond the high-school age. They are as follows: + + _The Life of Christ_ (Burton and Mathews). A careful historical + study of the life of Christ from the four gospels, with copious + notes, reading references, maps, etc. + + _What Jesus Taught_ (Slaten). This book develops an unusual but + stimulating method of teaching groups of students in colleges, + Christian associations, and churches. After a swift survey of the + material and spiritual environment of Jesus this book suggests + outlines for _discussions_ of his teaching on such topics as + civilization, hate, war and non-resistance, democracy, religion, + and similar topics. Can be effectively used by laymen as well as + professional leaders. + + _Great Men of the Christian Church_ (Walker). A series of + delightful biographies of men who have been influential in great + crises in the history of the church. + + _Christian Faith for Men of Today_ (Cook). A re-interpretation of + old doctrines in the light of modern attitudes. + + _Social Duties from the Christian Point of View_ (Henderson). + Practical studies in the fundamental social relationships which + make up life in the family, the city, and the state. + + _Religious Education in the Family_ (Cope). An illuminating study + of the possibilities of a normal religious development in the + family life. Invaluable to parents. + + _Christianity and Its Bible_ (Waring). A remarkably comprehensive + sketch of the Old and the New Testament religion, the Christian + church, and the present status of Christianity. + +It is needless to say that the Constructive Studies present no sectarian +dogmas and are used by churches and schools of all denominational +affiliations. In the grammar-and high-school years more books are +provided than there are years in which to study them, each book +representing a school year's work. Local conditions, and the preference +of the Director of Education or the teacher of the class will be the +guide in choosing the courses desired, remembering that in the preceding +list the approximate place given to the book is the one which the +editors and authors consider most appropriate. + +For prices consult the latest price list. Address + +The University of Chicago Press +Chicago Illinois + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE FAMILY*** + + +******* This file should be named 17570-0.txt or 17570-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/5/7/17570 + + + +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. 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Cope</h1> +<pre> +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 <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Religious Education in the Family</p> +<p>Author: Henry F. Cope</p> +<p>Release Date: January 21, 2006 [eBook #17570]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE FAMILY***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Stacy Brown Thellend, Kevin Handy, John Hagerson,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net/)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<h1 class="padtop"> +RELIGIOUS EDUCATION<br /> +IN THE FAMILY<br /> +</h1> + +<h3><i>By</i></h3> + +<h2><span class="smcap">Henry F. Cope</span></h2> + +<h3><i>General Secretary of the Religious Education +Association</i></h3> + + +<h3 class="padtop">THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS<br /> +CHICAGO, ILLINOIS</h3> + +<h5 style="margin-bottom: .5em;"> +<span class="smcap plain">Copyright 1915 By<br /> +The University of Chicago</span></h5> + +<hr style='width: 10%; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;' /> + +<h5 style="margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;" class="plain">All Rights Reserved</h5> + +<hr style='width: 10%; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;' /> + +<h5 style="margin-top: .5em;" class="plain">Published April 1915<br /> +Second Impression September 1915<br /> +Third Impression March 1916<br /> +Fourth Impression June 1917<br /> +Fifth Impression August 1920<br /> +Sixth Impression July 1922<br /> +Seventh Impression September 1922</h5> + +<h5 style="margin-top: 4em;" class="plain">Composed and Printed By<br /> +The University of Chicago Press<br /> +Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.</h5> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h4 style="margin-bottom: .5em;">THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS<br /> +CHICAGO, ILLINOIS</h4> + +<hr style='width: 10%; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;' /> + +<h5 style="margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;">THE BAKER AND TAYLOR COMPANY<br /> +NEW YORK</h5> + +<hr style='width: 10%; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;' /> + +<h5 style="margin-top: .5em;">THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS<br /> +LONDON<br /> +THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA<br /> +TOKYO, OSAKA, KYOTO, FUKUOKA, SENDAI<br /> +THE MISSION BOOK COMPANY<br /> +SHANGHAI</h5> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p>In the work of religious education, with which the present series of +books is concerned, the life of the family rightly occupies a central +place. The church has always realized its duty to exhort parents to +bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, but +very little has ever been done to enable parents to study systematically +and scientifically the problem of religious education in the family. +Today parents' classes are being formed in many churches; Christian +Associations, women's clubs, and institutes are studying the subject; +individual parents are becoming more and more interested in the rational +performance of their high duties. And there is a general desire for +guidance. As the full bibliography at the end of this volume and the +references in connection with each chapter indicate, there is available +a very large literature dealing with the various elements of the +problem. But a guidebook to organize all this material and to stimulate +independent thought and endeavor is desirable.</p> + +<p>To afford this guidance the present volume has been prepared. It is +equally adapted for the thoughtful study of the father and mother who +are seeking help in the moral and religious development of their own +family, and for classes in churches, institutes, and neighborhoods, +where the important problems of the family are to be studied and +discussed. It would be well to begin the use of the book by reading the +suggestions for class work at the end of the volume.</p> + +<p>With a confident hope that religion in the family is not to be a wistful +memory of the past but a most vital force in the making of the better +day that is coming, this volume is offered as a contribution and a +summons.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">The Editors</span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table class="center" summary="toc" cellpadding="5"> +<tbody> +<tr> +<td class="right">I.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">An Interpretation of the Family</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">II.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Present Status of Family Life</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">III.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Permanent Elements in Family Life</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">IV.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Religious Place of the Family</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">V.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Meaning Of Religious Education in the Family</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_46">46</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">VI.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Child's Religious Ideas</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_60">60</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">VII.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Directed Activity</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">VIII.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Home as a School</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">IX.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Child's Ideal Life</span></td> <td class="right"> <a href="#Page_101">101</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">X.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Stories and Reading</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_110">110</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">XI.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Use of the Bible in the Home</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">XII.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Family Worship</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">XIII.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Sunday in the Home</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_145">145</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">XIV.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Ministry of the Table</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_164">164</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">XV.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Boy and Girl in the Family</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_173">173</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">XVI.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Needs of Youth</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_183">183</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">XVII.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Family and the Church</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_198">198</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">XVIII.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Children and the School</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_212"> 212</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">XIX.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Dealing with Moral Crises</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_218">218</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">XX.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Dealing with Moral Crises</span> (<i>Continued</i>)</td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_231"> 231</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">XXI.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Dealing with Moral Crises</span> (<i>Continued</i>)</td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_240">240</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">XXII.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Dealing with Moral Crises</span> (<i>Concluded</i>)</td> <td class="right"> <a href="#Page_249">249</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">XXIII.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Personal Factors in Religious Education</span> </td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_259">259</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td class="right">XXIV.</td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Looking to the Future</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_268">268</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td></td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Suggestions for Class Work</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_281">281</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td></td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">A Book List</span></td> <td class="right"> <a href="#Page_281">290</a></td> +</tr><tr> +<td></td> <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Index</span></td> <td class="right"><a href="#Page_281"> 297</a></td> +</tr></tbody> +</table> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">1</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>AN INTERPRETATION OF THE FAMILY</h3> + + +<h4>§ 1. TAKING THE HOME IN RELIGIOUS TERMS</h4> + +<p>The ills of the modern home are symptomatic. Divorce, childless +families, irreverent children, and the decadence of the old type of +separate home life are signs of forgotten ideals, lost motives, and +insufficient purposes. Where the home is only an opportunity for +self-indulgence, it easily becomes a cheap boarding-house, a +sleeping-shelf, an implement for social advantage. While it is true that +general economic developments have effected marked changes in domestic +economy, the happiness and efficiency of the family do not depend wholly +on the parlor, the kitchen, or the clothes closet. Rather, everything +depends on whether the home and family are considered in worthy and +adequate terms.</p> + +<p>Homes are wrecked because families refuse to take home-living in +religious terms, in social terms of sacrifice and service. In such +homes, organized and conducted to satisfy personal desires rather than +to meet social responsibilities, these desires become ends rather than +agencies and opportunities.</p> + +<p>They who marry for lust are divorced for further lust. Selfishness, even +in its form of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">2</a></span> self-preservation, is an unstable foundation for a home. +It costs too much to maintain a home if you measure it by the personal +advantages of parents. What hope is there for useful and happy family +life if the newly wedded youth have both been educated in selfishness, +habituated to frivolous pleasures, and guided by ideals of success in +terms of garish display? Yet what definite program for any other +training does society provide? Do the schools and colleges, Sunday +schools and churches teach youth a better way? How else shall they be +trained to take the home and family in terms that will make for +happiness and usefulness? It is high time to take seriously the task of +educating people to religious efficiency in the home.</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. THE RELIGIOUS MOTIVE</h4> + +<p>The family needs a religious motive. More potent for happiness than +courses in domestic economy will be training in sufficient domestic +motives. It will take much more than modern conveniences, bigger +apartments, or even better kitchens to make the new home. Essentially +the problem is not one of mechanics but of persons. What we call the +home problem is more truly a <i>family</i> problem. It centers in persons; +the solution awaits a race with new ideals, educated to live as more +than dust, for more than dirt, for personality rather than for +possessions. We need<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">3</a></span> young people who establish homes, not simply +because they feel miserable when separated, nor because one needs a +place in which to board and the other needs a boarder, but because the +largest duty and joy of life is to enrich the world with other lives and +to give themselves in high love to making those other lives of the +greatest possible worth to the world.</p> + +<p>The family must come to a recognition of social obligations. We all hope +for the coming ideal day. Everywhere men and women are answering to +higher ideals of life. But the new day waits for a new race. Modern +emphasis on the child is a part of present reaction from materialism. +New social ideals are personal. We seek a better world for the sake of a +higher race. The emphasis on child-welfare has a social rather than a +sentimental basis. The family is our great chance to determine childhood +and so to make the future. The child of today is basic to the social +welfare of tomorrow. He is our chance to pay to tomorrow all that we owe +to yesterday. The family as the child's life-school is thus central to +every social program and problem.</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. WIDER CHILD-WELFARE</h4> + +<p>This age knows that man does not live by bread alone. Interest in +child-welfare is for the sake of the child himself, not for the sake of +his clothes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">4</a></span> or his physical condition. Concern about soap and +sanitation, hygiene and the conveniences of life grows because these all +go to make up the soil in which the person grows. There is danger that +our emphasis on child-welfare may be that of the tools instead of the +man; that we may become enmeshed in the mechanism of well-being and lose +sight of the being who should be well. To fail at the point of character +is to fail all along the line. And we fail altogether, no matter how +many bathtubs we give a child, how many playgrounds, medical +inspections, and inoculations, unless that child be in himself strong +and high-minded, loving truth, hating a lie, and habituated to live in +good-will with his fellows and with high ideals for the universe. Modern +interest in the material factors of life is on account of their potency +in making real selfhood; we acknowledge the importance of the physical +as the very soil in which life grows. But the fruits are more than the +soil, and a home exists for higher purposes than physical conveniences; +these are but its tools to its great end. Somehow for purposes of social +well-being we must raise our thinking of the family to the aim of the +development of efficient, rightly minded character. The family must be +seen as making spiritual persons.</p> + + +<h4>§ 4. THE COST OF A FAMILY</h4> + +<p>Taking the home in religious terms will mean, then, conceiving it as an +institution with a religious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">5</a></span> purpose, namely, that of giving to the +world children who are adequately trained and sufficiently motived to +live the social life of good-will. The family exists to give society +developed, efficient children. It fails if it does not have a religious, +a spiritual product. It cannot succeed except by the willing +self-devotion of adult lives to this spiritual, personal purpose.</p> + +<p>A family is the primary social organization for the elementary purpose +of breeding the species, nurturing and training the young. This is its +physiological basis. But its duties cannot be discharged on the +physiological plane alone. This elementary physiological function is +lifted to a spiritual level by the aim of character and the motive of +love. Families cannot be measured by their size; they must be measured +by the character of their products. If quality counts anywhere it counts +here, though it is well to remember that it takes some reasonable +quantity to make right quality in each.</p> + +<p>The family needs a religious motive. It demands sacrifice. To follow +lower impulses is to invite disaster. The home breeds bitterness and +sorrow wherever men and women court for lust, marry for social standing, +and maintain an establishment only as a part of the game of social +competition. To sow the winds of passion, ease, idle luxury, pride, and +greed is to reap the whirlwind. Moreover, it is to miss the great +chance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">6</a></span> of life, the chance to find that short cut to happiness which +men call pain and suffering.</p> + +<p>A family is humanity's great opportunity to walk the way of the cross. +Mothers know that; some fathers know it; some children grow up to learn +it. In homes where this is true, where all other aims are subordinated +to this one of making the home count for high character, to training +lives into right social adjustment and service, the primary emphasis is +not on times and seasons for religion; religion is the life of that +home, and in all its common living every child learns the way of the +great Life of all. In vain do we torture children with adult religious +penances, long prayers, and homilies, thinking thereby to give them +religious training. The good man comes out of the good home, the home +that is good in character, aim, and organization, not sporadically but +permanently, the home where the religious spirit, the spirit of +idealism, and the sense of the infinite and divine are diffused rather +than injected. The inhuman, antisocial vampires, who suck their +brothers' blood, whether they be called magnates or mob-leaders, +grafters or gutter thieves, often learned to take life in terms of graft +by the attitude and atmosphere of their homes.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">1</a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">7</a></span></p> + + +<h4>§ 5. MOTIVES FOR A STUDY OF THE FAMILY</h4> + +<p>The modern family is worthy of our careful study. It demands painstaking +attention, both because of its immediate importance to human happiness +and because of its potentiality for the future of society. The kind of +home and the character of family life which will best serve the world +and fulfil the will of God cannot be determined by sentiment or +supposition. We are under the highest and sternest obligation to +discover the laws of the family, those social laws which are determined +by its nature and purpose, to find right standards for family life, to +discriminate between the things that are permanent and those that are +passing, between those we must conserve and those we must discard, to be +prepared to fit children for the finer and higher type of family life +that must come in the future.</p> + +<p>Methods of securing family efficiency will not be discovered by +accident. If it is worth while to study the minor details, such as +baking cakes and sweeping floors, surely it is even more important to +study the larger problems of organization and discipline. There is a +science of home-direction and an art of family living; both must be +learned with patient study.</p> + +<p>It is a costly thing to keep a home where honor, the joy of love, and +high ideals dwell ever. It costs time, pleasures, and so-called social +advantages, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">8</a></span> well as money and labor. It must cost thought, study, +and investigation. It demands and deserves sacrifice; it is too sacred +to be cheap. The building of a home is a work that endures to eternity, +and that kind of work never was done with ease or without pain and loss +and the investment of much time. Patient study of the problems of the +family is a part of the price which all may pay.</p> + +<p>No nobler social work, no deeper religious work, no higher educational +work is done anywhere than that of the men and women, high or humble, +who set themselves to the fitting of their children for life's business, +equipping them with principles and habits upon which they may fall back +in trying hours, and making of home the sweetest, strongest, holiest, +happiest place on earth.</p> + +<p>Heaven only knows the price that must be paid for that; heaven only +knows the worth of that work. But if we are wise we shall each take up +our work for our world where it lies nearest to us, in co-operation with +parents, in service and sacrifice as parents or kin, our work in the +shop where manhood is in the making, where it is being made fit to dwell +long in the land, in the family at home.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p>Edward Lyttleton, <i>The Corner-Stone of Education</i>, chaps. i, vii. +Putnam, $1.50.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</a></span>A. Gandier, "Religious Education in the Home," <i>Religious +Education</i>, June, 1914, pp. 233-42.</p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>The Family a Religious Agency</i></p> + +<p>C. F. and C. B. Thwing, <i>The Family</i>. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, $1.60.</p> + +<p>J. D. Folsom, <i>Religious Education in the Home</i>. Eaton & Mains, +$0.75.</p> + +<p>G. A. Coe, <i>Education in Religion and Morals</i>. Revell, $1.35.</p> + + +<p class="center"><i>The Place of the Family</i></p> + +<p>A. J. Todd, <i>The Family as an Educational Agency</i>. Putnam, $2.00.</p> + +<p>W. F. Lofthouse, <i>Ethics and the Family</i>. Hodder & Stoughton, $2.50.</p> + +<p>J. B. Robins, <i>The Family a Necessity</i>. Revell, $1.25.</p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. Describe the changes within recent times in the conditions of +the home, its work, housing, and supplies. How far have these +changes affected the community of the family, the continuity of its +personal relationships, and its religious service?</p> + +<p>2. What are the fundamental causes of family disasters? Admitting +that there are sufficient grounds for divorce in numerous +instances, what other causes enter into the high number of +divorces?</p> + +<p>3. State in your own terms the ultimate reasons for the maintenance +of a family.</p> + +<p>4. What are the motives which would make people willing to bear the +high cost of founding and conducting a home?</p> + +<p>5. What points of emphasis does this study suggest in the matter of +the education of public opinion?</p> + +<p>6. State your distinction between the family and the home; which is +the more important and why?</p></div> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">1</span></a> <i>The Corner-Stone of Education</i>, by Edward Lyttleton, +headmaster of Eton, is a striking argument on the determinative +influence of parental habits and attitudes of mind.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a></span></p> + +<h3>THE PRESENT STATUS OF FAMILY LIFE</h3> + + +<h4>§ 1. CONTRASTED TYPES</h4> + +<p>In a beautiful village, in one of the farther western states, two men +were discussing the possible future of the home and of family life. +Sitting in the brilliant moonlight, looking through the leafy shades, +watching the lights of a score of homes, each surrounded by lawn and +shade trees, each with its group on the front porch, where vines trailed +and flowers bloomed, listening to the hum of conversation and the +strains of music in one home and another, it seemed, to at least one of +these men, that this type of living could hardly pass away. The separate +home, each family a complete social integer, each with its own circle of +activities and interests, its own group, and its own table and fireside, +seemed too fine and beautiful, too fair and helpful, to perish under +economic pressure. Indeed, one felt that the village home furnished a +setting for life and a soil for character development far higher and +more efficient than could be afforded by any other domestic +arrangement—that it approached the ideal.</p> + +<p>But two weeks later two men sat in an upper room, in the second largest +city in America, dis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span>cussing again the future of the family. Instead of +the quiet music of the village, the clang of street cars filled the +ears, trains rushed by, children shouted from the paved highway, +families were seated by open windows in crowded apartments, seeking cool +air; the total impression was that of being placed in a pigeonhole in a +huge, heated, filing-case, where each separate space was occupied by a +family. One felt the pressure of heated, crowded kitchens, suffocating +little dining-rooms; one knew that the babies lay crying in their beds +at night, gasping their very lives away, and that the young folks were +wandering off to amusement parks and moving-picture shows. Here was an +entirely different picture. How long could family life persist under +these conditions where privacy was almost gone and comfort almost +unknown?</p> + +<p>In the village separate home integers appear ideal; in the city they are +possible only to the few. The many, at present, find them a crushing +burden. Desirable as privacy is, it can be purchased at too high a +price. It costs too much to maintain separate kitchens and dining-rooms +under city conditions.</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. COMMUNAL TENDENCIES</h4> + +<p>Present conditions spell waste, inefficiency, discomfort. The woman +lives all day in stifling rooms, poorly lighted, with the nerve-racking +life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span> of neighbors pouring itself through walls and windows. The men +come from crowded shops and the children from crowded schoolrooms to +crowd themselves into these rooms, to snatch a meal, or to sleep. How +can there be real family life? What joy can there be or what ideals +created in daily discomfort and distress? Little wonder that such homes +are sleeping-places only, that there is no sense of family intercourse +and unity. Little wonder that restaurant life has succeeded family life.</p> + +<p>Many hold that we are ready for a movement into community living, that +just as the social life of the separate house porches in the villages +has become communized into the amusement parks in the cities, so all the +activities of the family will move in the same direction. How long could +the family as a unit continue under these conditions?</p> + +<p>The village life will persist for a long time; it may be that, when we +apply scientific methods to the transportation of human beings in the +same measure as we have to the moving of pig iron, we can develop large +belts of real village life all around our industrial centers. But more +and more the village tends to become like the city; in other words, +highly organized communal life is the dominant trend today. Just as +business tends to do on a large scale all that can be more economi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a></span>cally +done in larger units, so does the home. We must look for the increasing +prevalence of the city type of life for men and women and for families.</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. THE ECONOMICAL DEVELOPMENT</h4> + +<p>It is worth while to note, in some brief detail, just what changes are +involved in the tendency toward communal living. At the beginning of the +industrial revolution which ushered in the factory period, each family +was a fairly complete unit in itself. The village was little more than a +nucleus of farmhouses, with a few differing types of units, such as +workers in wood, in wearing apparel, and in tools. The home furnished +nearly all its own food, spun and made its clothes, trained its own +children, and knew scarcely any community endeavor or any syndication of +effort except in the church.</p> + +<p>The industrial revolution took labor largely out of the home into the +factory. Except for farm life, the husband became an outside worker and +the older boys followed him to the distant shop or factory. Earning a +living ceased to be a family act and became a social act in a larger +sphere. But in this change it ceased to be a part of the family +educational process. Boys who, from childhood up, had gradually learned +their father's trade in the shop or workroom, which was part of the +house, where they played as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span> children in the shavings, or watched the +glowing sparks in the smithy, now missed the process of a father's +discipline and guidance as their hands acquired facility for their +tasks. The home lost the male adults for from nine to twelve hours of +each day, more than two-thirds of the waking period, and thus it lost a +large share of disciplinary guidance. In the rise of the factory system, +to a large extent the family lost the father.</p> + +<p>When the workshop left the home its most efficient school was taken from +it. The lessons may have been limited, crude, and deadly practical, but +the method approximated to the ideals which modern pedagogy seeks to +realize. Among the shavings children learned by doing; schooling was +perfectly natural; it involved all the powers; it had the incalculable +value of informality and reality. The father gone and the mother still +fully occupied with her tasks, the children lost that practical training +for life which home industry had afforded. On the one hand, the young +became the victims of idleness and, on the other, the prey of the +voracious factory system.</p> + +<p>This condition gave rise to the public-school system. It appealed to +Robert Raikes and others. The school appeared and took over the child. +Of course schools had existed, here and there, long before this, but now +they had an enlarged responsibility; they must act almost in the place +of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span> parents for the formal training of children. Having lost the +father and older males for the greater portion of the day, the home now +loses the children of from seven to the "'teen" years for five or six +hours of the day. The mother is left at home with the babies. The +family, once living under one roof, now is found scattered; it has +reached out into factory and school. Its hours of unified life have been +markedly reduced.</p> + +<p>But the factory system soon had a reflex influence on the home. That +which was made in the factory came back into the home, not only in the +form of the articles formerly made by the men, but in those made by the +women. Clothes, candles, butter, cheese, preserves, and meat—all +formerly home products for the use of the family producing them—now +were prepared in larger quantities, by mechanical processes, and were +brought back into the home. Woman's labor was lightened; the older girls +were liberated from the loom and they began to seek occupation, +education, and diversion according to their opportunities in life.</p> + +<p>That last step made it possible for people to think of the communization +of home industry, to think of eating food cooked in other ovens than +their own, to think of one oven large enough for a whole village. Many +interesting experiments in co-operative living immediately sprang up. +But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span> the next step came slowly and, even now, is only firmly established +in the cities, in the actual abandonment of the family kitchen for the +community kitchen in the form of the restaurant. In such families we +have unity only in the hours of sleep and recreation.</p> + +<p>Along with abandonment of the separate kitchen there has proceeded +the abandonment of the parlor in the homes of the middle classes. +To lose the old, mournful front room may be no subject for tears, +but the loss of the evening family group, about the fireside or +the reading-lamp, is a real and sad loss. The commercialized amusements +have offered greater attractions to vigorous youth. The theater and +its lesser satellites, amusements, entertainments, lectures, the +lyceum, and recreation-by-proxy in ball games and matches have taken +the place of united family recreation. Of course this has been a +natural development of the older village play-life and has been by +no means an unmixed ill.</p> + +<p>Now, behold, what has become of the old-time home life! The family that +spent nearly twenty-four hours together now spends a scarce seven or +eight, and these are occupied in sleeping! Little wonder that the next +step is taken—the abandonment of this remainder, the sleep period, +under a domestic roof, as the family moves into a hotel!</p> + +<p>Along with the tendency toward communal working and eating we see the +tendency to com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span>munal living by the development of the apartment +building. Since roof-trees are so expensive, and since in a practical +age, few of us can afford to pay for sentiment, why not put a dozen +families under one roof-tree? True we sacrifice lawns, gardens, natural +places for children to play; we lose birds and flowers and the charm of +evening hours on porches, or galleries, but think of what we gain in +bricks and mortar, in labor saved from splitting wood and shoveling +coal, in janitor service! The transition is now complete; the home is +simply that item in the economic machinery which will best furnish us +storage for our sleeping bodies and our clothes!</p> + +<p>We are undoubtedly in a period of great changes in family life, and no +family can count on escaping the influence of the change. The one single +outstanding and most potent change, so far as the character of family +life is concerned, is, in the United States, the rapid polarization of +population in the cities. The United States Census Bureau counts all +residents in cities of over 8,000 population as "urban." In 1800 the +"urban" population was 4 per cent of the total population; in 1850 it +was 12.5 per cent; in 1870, 20.9 per cent; in 1890, 29.2 per cent; in +1900, 33.1 per cent; in 1910 it was estimated at 40 per cent.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">2</a> Here +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span>is a trend so clearly marked that we cannot deny its reality, while its +significance is familiar to everyone today.</p> + +<p>However, the village type remains; there are still many homes where a +measure of family unity persists, where at least in one meal daily and, +for purposes of sleeping and, occasionally, for the evening hours of +recreation, there is a consciousness of home life. Yet the most remote +village feels the pressure of change. The few homes conforming to the +older ideals are recognized as exceptional. The city draws the village +and rural family to itself, and the contagion of its customs and ideals +spreads through the villages and affects the forms of living there. +Youths become city dwellers and do not cease to scoff at the village +unless later years give them wisdom to appreciate its higher values. The +standard of domestic organization is established by the city; that type +of living is the ideal toward which nearly all are striving.</p> + +<p>The important question for all persons is whether the changes now taking +place in family life are good or ill. It is impossible to say whether +the whole trend is for the better; the many elements are too diverse and +often apparently conflicting. Faith in the orderly development of +society gives ground for belief that these changes ultimately work for a +higher type of family life. The city may be regarded as only a +transition stage in social<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span> evolution—the compacting of masses of +persons together that out of the new fusing and welding may arise new +methods of social living. The larger numbers point to more highly +developed forms of social organization. When these larger units discover +their greater purposes, above factory and mill and store, and realize +them in personal values, the city life will be a more highly developed +mechanism for the higher life of man. The home life will develop along +with that city life.</p> + + +<h4>§ 4. PURPOSEFUL ORGANIZATION</h4> + +<p>At present the home is suffering, just as the city is suffering, from a +lack of that purposeful organization which will order the parts aright +and subject the processes to the most important and ultimate purposes. +The city is simply an aggregation of persons, scarcely having any +conscious organization, thrown together for purposes of industry. It +will before very long organize itself for purposes of personal welfare +and education. The family is usually a group bound in ties of struggle +for shelter, food, and pleasure. Such consciousness as it possesses is +that of being helplessly at the mercy of conflicting economic forces. +The adjustment of those forces, their subjection to man's higher +interests, must come in the future and will help the family to freedom +to discover its true purpose.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span></p> + +<p>It is easy to insist on the responsibility of parents for the +character-training of their children, but it is difficult to see how +that responsibility can be properly discharged under industrial +conditions that take both father and mother out of the home the whole +day and leave them too weary to stay awake in the evening, too poor to +furnish decent conditions of living, and too apathetic under the dull +monotony of labor to care for life's finer interests. The welfare of the +family is tied up with the welfare of the race; if progress can be +secured in one part progress in the whole ensues.</p> + +<p>There are those who raise the question whether family life is a +permanent form of social organization for which we may wisely contend, +or is but a phase from which the race is now emerging. Some see signs +that the ties of marriage will be but temporary, that children will be +born, not into families but into the life of the state, bearing only +their mothers' names and knowing no brothers and sisters save in the +brotherhood of the state. Whether the permanent elements in family life +furnish a sufficiently worthy basis for its preservation is a subject +for careful consideration.</p> + + +<h4>§ 5. THE HOME AND THE FAMILY</h4> + +<p>The family is more important than the home, just as the man is more than +his clothing. The form of the home changes; the life of the family<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span> +continues unchanged in its essential characteristics. The family causes +the home to be. Professor Arthur J. Todd insists that the family is the +basis of marriage, rather than marriage the cause of the family.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">3</a> +Small groups for protection and social living would precede formal +arrangements of monogamy. Westermarck concludes that it was "for the +benefit of the young that male and female continued to live +together."<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">4</a> The importance of this consideration for us lies in the +thought of the overshadowing importance of this social group which we +now call the family. The family is the primary cell of society, the +first unit in social organization. Our thought must balance itself +between the importance of this social group, to be preserved in its +integrity, and the value of the home, with its varied forms of activity +and ministry, as a means of preserving and developing this group, the +family.</p> + +<p>One hears today many pessimistic utterances regarding the modern home. +Some even tell us that it is doomed to become extinct. Without doubt +great economic changes in society are producing profound changes in the +organization and character of the home. But the home has always been +subject to such changes; the factor which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span>we need to watch with greater +care is the family; the former is but the shell of the latter.</p> + +<p>The character of each home will depend largely on the economic condition +of those who dwell in it. The homes of every age will reflect the social +conditions of that age. The picture in historical romances of the home +of the mediaeval period, where the factory, or shop, joined the +dining-room, where the apprentices ate and roomed in the home, where one +might be compelled to furnish and provision his home literally as his +castle for defense, presents a marked difference to the home of this +century tending to syndicate all its labors with all the other homes of +the community. Since the home is simply the organization and mechanism +of the family life, it is most susceptible to material and social +changes. It varies as do the fashions of men.</p> + +<p>Much that we assume to be detrimental to the life of the home is simply +due to the fact that in the evolution of society the family, as it were, +puts on a new suit of clothes, adopts new forms of organization to meet +the changing external conditions.</p> + + +<h4>§ 6. THE HOME CHANGING; THE FAMILY ABIDING</h4> + +<p>The home is of importance only as a tool, a means to the final ends of +the family life; the test of its efficiency is not whether it maintains +traditional forms but whether it best serves the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span> highest aims of family +life. We may abandon all the older customs; our regret for them, as we +look back on the days of home cooking, cannot be any greater than the +regrets of our parents or grandparents looking back on the +spinning-wheel and the hand loom that cumbered the kitchen of their +childhood. Surely no one contends that family life has deteriorated, +that human character is one whit the poorer, because we have discarded +the family spinning-wheel. Through the changes of a developing +civilization, as man has moved from the time when each one built his own +house, worked with his own tools to make all his supplies, to these days +of specialized service in community living, the home has changed with +each step of industrial progress, but the family has remained +practically unchanged.</p> + +<p>The family stands a practically unchanging factor of personal qualities +at the center of our civilization; the family rather than the home +determines the character of the coming days. In its social relationships +are rooted the things that are best in all our lives. In its social +training lie the solutions of more problems in social adjustment and +development than we are willing to admit. The family is the soil of +society, central to all its problems and possibilities.</p> + +<p>Before church or school the family stands potent for character. We are +what we are, not by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span> ideals held before us for thirty minutes a week +or once a month in a church, nor by the instructions given in the +classroom; we are what parents, kin, and all the circumstances that have +touched us daily and hourly for years have determined we should be.</p> + +<p>The sweetest memories of our lives cluster about the scenes of family +life. The rose-embowered cottage of the poet is not the only spot that +claims affectionate gratitude; many look back to a city house wedged +into its monotonous row. But, wherever it might be, if it sheltered love +and held a shrine where the altar fires of family sacrifice burned, +earth has no fairer or more sacred spot. The people rather than the +place made it potent.</p> + +<p>Stronger even than the memories that remain are the marks of habits, +tendencies, tastes, and dispositions there acquired. Many a man who has +left no fortune worth recording to his sons has left them something +better, the aptitude for things good and honorable, the memory of a good +name, and the heritage of a life that was worthy of honor. The personal +life has been always the enduring thing. Our concern for the future +should be not whether we can pass on intact the forms of home +organization, but whether we can give to the next day the force of ideal +family life. Perhaps like Mary we would do well to turn our eyes from +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span> much serving, the mechanisms of the home, to set our minds on the +better part, the personal values in the association of lives in the +family.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p>W. F. Lofthouse, <i>Ethics and the Family</i>, chaps. ii, xi, xii. Hodder +& Stoughton, $2.50.</p> + +<p>Charles R. Henderson, <i>Social Duties from the Christian Point of +View</i>, chaps. ii, iii. The University of Chicago Press, $1.25.</p> + +<p>C. W. Votaw, <i>Progress of Moral and Religious Education in the +American Home</i>. Religious Education Association, $0.25.</p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p>Jacob A. Riis, <i>Peril and Preservation of the Home</i>. Jacobs, +Philadelphia, Pa., $1.00.</p> + +<p>Charles R. Henderson, <i>Social Elements</i>. Scribner, $1.50.</p> + +<p>Charles F. Thwing, <i>The Recovery of the Home</i>. American Baptist +Publication Society, $0.15.</p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. The tendency toward community life illustrated in the schools, +amusement parks, and hotel life. Remembering the ultimate purpose +of the family, how far is communal life desirable?</p> + +<p>2. Does the apartment or tenement building furnish a suitable +condition for the higher purposes of the family?</p> + +<p>3. Is it possible to restore to the home some of the benefits lost +by present factory consolidation of industry?</p> + +<p>4. What can take the place of the old household arts and of those +which are now passing?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span></p> + +<p>5. What steps should be taken to secure to the family a larger +measure of the time in terms of occupation of the parents?</p> + +<p>6. What are the important things to contend for in this +institution? Why should we expect change in the form of the home +and what are the features which should not be changed?</p></div> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">2</span></a> Figures taken from C. W. Votaw, <i>Progress of Moral and +Religious Education in the American Home</i>, 1911.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">3</span></a> A. J. Todd, <i>Primitive Family and Education</i>, p. 21. A most +valuable and suggestive book.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">4</span></a> Cited by Todd, p. 21.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span></p> + +<h3>THE PERMANENT ELEMENTS IN FAMILY LIFE</h3> + + +<h4>§ 1. THE DOMINANT MOTIVE</h4> + +<p>The chief end of society is to improve the race, to develop the higher +and steadily improving type of human beings. We can test the life of the +family and determine the values of its elements by asking whether and in +what degree they minister to this end, the growth of better persons. +This is more than a theoretical aim or one conceived in a search for +ideals. It is written plain in our passions and strongest inclinations. +That which parents supremely desire for their children is that they may +become strong in body, capable and alert in mind, and animated by worthy +principles and ideals. The parent desires a good man, fit to take his +place, do his work, make his contribution to the social well-being, able +to live to the fulness of his powers, to take life in all its reaches of +meaning and heights of vision and beauty. In true parenthood all hopes +of success, of riches, fame, and ease, are seen but as avenues to this +end, as means of making the finer character, of growing the ideal +person. If we were compelled to choose for our children we should elect +poverty, pain, disgrace, toil, and suffering if we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span> knew this was the +only highway to full manhood and womanhood, to completeness of +character. Indeed, we do constantly so choose, knowing that they must +endure hardness, bear the yoke in their youth, and learn that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Love and joy are torches lit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At altar fires of sacrifice.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>With this dominating purpose clearly in mind we are prepared to ask, +What are the elements of family life which among the changes of today we +need most carefully to preserve in order to maintain efficiency in +character development? In days when the outer shell of domestic +arrangements changes, when readjustments are being made in the +organization of the family, what is there too precious to lose, so +worthy and essential that we waste no time when seeking to maintain it?</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. POTENCIES TO BE PRESERVED—SOCIAL QUALITIES</h4> + +<p>The first great element to be preserved in all family life is that of +the power of the small group for purposes of character development. The +infant's earliest world is the mother's arms. In order to grow into a +man fitted for the wider world of social living, he must learn to live +in a world within his comprehension. A child's life moves through the +widening circles of mother-care, family group, neighborhood, school, +city, state,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span> and nation into world-living. He must take the first steps +before he is able to take the next ones. He must learn to live with the +few as preparation for living with the many. In earliest infancy he +takes his first unconscious lessons in the fine art of living with other +folks as he relates himself to parents and to brothers and sisters.</p> + +<p>Secondly, the family life affords the best agency for social training. +The family is the ideal democracy into which the child-life is born. +Here habits are formed, ideals are pictured, and life itself is +interpreted. It is an ideal democracy, first, because it is a social +organization existing for the sake of persons. The family comes nearer +to fulfilling the true ideal of a democratic social order than does any +other institution. It is founded to bring lives into this world; it is +maintained for the sake of those lives; all its life, its methods, and +standards are determined, ideally, by the needs of persons. It is an +ideal democracy, secondly, because its guiding principle is that the +greater lives must be devoted to the good of the lesser, the parent for +the little child, the older members for the younger, in an attempt to +extend to the very least the greatest good enjoyed by all. Thirdly, +ideally it is a true democracy in that it gives to each member a share +in its own affairs and develops the power to bear responsibilities and +to carry each his own load in life. Thus the family group<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a></span> is the best +possible training for the life and work of the larger group, the state, +and for world-living.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">5</a> The maintenance of the ideals of the state, as +a democracy, depends on the continuance of this institution with its +peculiar power to train life in infancy and childhood for the life of +manhood in the state. Such training can be given only in the smaller +group that is governed by the motives peculiar to home and family life. +The power to impress these principles depends on the size of the group. +The small social organization, the family circle of from three members +to even a dozen, bound by ties of affection, is the one great, efficient +school, training youth to live in social terms.</p> + +<p>Thirdly, the family sets spiritual values first. Our age especially +needs men and women who think in terms of spiritual values, who rise +above the measures of pounds and dollars and weigh life by personal +qualities and worth. That is precisely what the home does. It prizes +most highly the helpless, economically worthless infant; it measures +every member by his personal character, his affectional worth. Its +riches do not depend on that which money can buy, but on the personal +qualities of love, goodness, kindness; on memories, associations, +affection. The true home gives to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span>every child-life the power to choose +the things of the world on the basis of their worth in personality. Only +the mistaken judgments of later years, the short-minded wisdom of the +world, make youth gradually lose the habit of preferring the home's +spiritual benefits to the material rewards of the world of business. No +life can be furnished for the strain of our modern materialism that +lacks the basis of idealism furnished in the true family.</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. POTENCIES TO BE PRESERVED—THE MORAL LIFE</h4> + +<p>Fourthly, the power of family living to develop love as loyalty is to be +noted. In this small group is laid the foundation of the moral life. +"The family is the primer in the moral education of the race."<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">6</a> Here +the new-born life begins to relate itself to other lives. Here it begins +life in an atmosphere saturated by love, the central principle of all +virtue, eventually loyalty to ideals in persons and devotion to them, +"the greatest of these," because it is the parent of all virtue. The +moral life, that life which is adjusted, capable, and adequately motived +for helpful, efficient, enriching living with all other lives, is not a +matter of rules, regulations, and restrictions. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span>Neither is it a matter +of separate habits as to this or the other kind of behavior, though this +comes nearer to it than do rules and prescriptions. The character-life +which parents desire for their children is not that which will do the +right thing when it has discovered that right thing in some book of +rules, nor that life which will do the right thing because society +points that way, nor even that life which automatically does the right +thing, but it is the life which, constantly moved by some high inner +compulsion, some imperative of vision and ideal, moves to the highest +possible plane of action in every situation. This is the life of +loyalty. It begins with loyalty to persons, with that devotion which +begins with affection. In no other place is this so well developed as in +the relations of the family. This is the child's first and most +potential school. Here the lessons are wholly unconscious; here they are +strengthened by the pleasurable emotions. It is a joy to be loyal to +those we love. Indeed, who can tell which comes first, the joy, the +loyalty, or the love?</p> + +<p>The power of this small social group of the family to develop the +fundamental principle of loyalty, the root of all virtues, gives a +position of great importance to the affections in the family. We do well +to contend for the maintenance of conditions of family living which will +strengthen the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span> ties of affection. If children could be thrust into the +care of the state, in large groups, separated from parental care and +oversight, it is difficult to see what emotional stimulus toward +affection would remain. The personal devotion to intimate adults would +in only the smallest degree compensate for the loss of father and +mother. We know nothing of such devotion arising to any large degree in +orphan asylums, still less in institutions under the cold and impersonal +care of the state. It has been urged that the affections of parents +stand in the way of a scientific regimen and education for small +children. The cold, passionless, automatic parent, then, would be the +ideal—a Mr. Dombey or a Mr. Feverel. Parents make many mistakes, but +these mistakes are not due to too much affection, but to untrained minds +and uneducated affections. It were better to save the values of their +affections and on them to build a wise discipline for childhood by +providing adequate training of parents for their duties.</p> + +<p>Fifthly, there are some elements of the cost of family life, even its +apparently unnecessary sacrifice and pain, that we do well to seek to +keep. Character grows in paying the high price of maintaining a family. +It is the most expensive form of living for adults. Marriages are now +delayed because of the fear of the actual monetary cost; but far more +serious is the cost in care, in nerves,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span> in patience, in all the great +elements of self-denial. No child ever knows what he has cost until he +has children of his own. But this discipline of self-denial is that +which saves us from selfishness. It is necessary to have some personal +objects for which to give our lives if they are to be saved from +centrifugation, from death through ingrowing affection. True, many +bachelors and spinsters have learned the way of self-denying, +fellow-serving love. But how can a true parent escape that lesson? Nor +does it stop with parents; as children grow up together they, too, must +learn mutual forbearance, conciliation, and, soon, the joy of service. +One sees selfishness in the little child gradually fading in the +practice of family service, helpfulness, consideration for others. The +single child in a family misses something more important than playmates; +he misses all the education of play and service. But who cannot remember +many families that have grown to beauty of character under the +discipline of home life, and especially when this has involved real +sacrifices? The stories in the Pepper books illustrate the spirit that +blossoms under the trials and hardships of the struggle of a family for +a livelihood and for the maintenance of a home.</p> + +<p>A clear function becomes evident for this social group called the +family. It is that of dealing with young lives, in groups bound by ties +of blood and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span> similarity, for purposes of the development of personal +character. The family has an essentially educational function. Bearing +in mind that "educational" means the orderly development of the powers +of the life, we can think of our families as existing for this purpose +and to be tested by their ability to do this work, especially by their +ability to develop persons, young lives, that have the power, the +vision, the acquired habits and experience to live as more than animals. +The family is an educational institution dealing with child-life for its +full growth and its self-realization, especially on character levels. +The educational function suggests the features of family life which we +do well to seek to preserve. Many incidental forms may pass, but the +essential human relations and experiences that go to develop life and +character must be maintained at any cost.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p>C. F. and C. B. Thwing, <i>The Family</i>, chap. vii. Lothrop, Lee & +Shepard, $1.60.</p> + +<p>W. F. Lofthouse, <i>Ethics and the Family</i>, chaps. iv, v. Hodder & +Stoughton, $2.50.</p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p>"The Improvement of Religious Education," <i>Proceedings of the +Religious Education Association</i>, I, 119-23. $0.50.</p> + +<p><i>Religious Education</i>, April, 1911, VI, 1-48.</p> + +<p>S. P. Breckinridge and E. Abbott, <i>The Delinquent Child and the +Home</i>. Russell Sage Foundation, $2.00.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. What is the chief end of all forms of social organization?</p> + +<p>2. What is in the last analysis the aim of every parent?</p> + +<p>3. What advantage has the family over the school and larger groups +for educational purposes?</p> + +<p>4. In what sense is the family an ideal democracy?</p> + +<p>5. Show how the family sets spiritual values first.</p> + +<p>6. What in your judgment are the first evidences of character +development? In what way do these come to the surface in the +family? What is the factor of love in the development of character?</p> + +<p>7. Is that an ideal family in which none of the members bear pain +or are called upon for self-denial? Can you see any especial +advantage to character in the very difficulties and apparent +disadvantages in the life of the family?</p></div> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">5</span></a> See "Democracy in the Home," <i>American Journal of +Sociology</i>, January, 1912.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">6</span></a> Francis G. Peabody, <i>The Approach to the Social Question</i>, +p. 94.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span></p> + +<h3>THE RELIGIOUS PLACE OF THE FAMILY</h3> + + +<h4>§ 1. DEVELOPMENT AS A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION</h4> + +<p>The family is the most important religious institution in the life of +today. It ranks in influence before the church. It has always held this +place. Even among primitive peoples, where family life was an uncertain +quantity, the relations of parents, or of one of the parents, to the +children afforded the opportunity most frequently used for their +instruction in tribal religious ideals and customs. We cannot generalize +as to the practices of savage man in regard to family life, for those +practices range from common promiscuous relationships, without apparent +care for offspring, to a family unity and purity approaching the best we +know; but this much is certain, that there was a common sense of +responsibility for the training of young children in moral and religious +ideas and customs, and that, in the degree that the family approached to +separateness and unity, it accepted the primary responsibility for this +task. The higher the type of family life the more fully does it +discharge its function in the education of the child.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">7</a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span></p> + +<p>It might be safe to say that among primitive peoples there were three +stages, or types, of relationship based on the breeding of children, or +three stages of development toward family life. The first is a loose and +indefinite relationship existing principally between the adults, or the +males and females, under which children born when not desired are +neglected or strangled and, when acceptable, may be in the care of +either parent, or of neither. Since the group, associated through +infancy with at least one parent, is as yet undeveloped, any instruction +will be individual and usually incidental.</p> + +<p>The second form is that of a kind of family unity, either about the +mother or the father, or both, or about a group of parents, in which the +children live together and are sheltered and nurtured for their earlier +years. Here, however, the real relationship of the child is to the +tribe, the family is but his temporary guardian, and, at least by the +age of puberty, he will be initiated into the tribal secrets. If he is a +boy, he will cease to be a member of the family group and will go to +live in the "men's house," becoming a part of the larger life of the +tribe.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">8</a> Such moral and religious instruction as he may acquire will +come from the songs, traditions, and conversation which he hears as a +child.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a></span></p> + +<p>The third type approaches the modern ideal, with a greater or less +degree of permanent unity between the two parents and with permanence in +the group of the offspring. The parental responsibility continues for a +greater length of time and, since the tribe makes smaller claims, and +the parents live in the common domestic group, much more instruction is +possible and is given. The tribal ideals, the traditions, observances, +and religious rites are imparted to children gradually in their homes.</p> + +<p>The last type brings us to the Hebrew conception of family life. It +developed toward the Christian ideal. At first, polygamy was permitted; +woman was the chattel of man and excluded from any part in the religious +rites. But it included the ideal of monogamy in its tradition of the +origin of the world, it denounced and punished adultery (Deut. 22: 22), +and it gave especial attention to the training of the offspring. "And +these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart; and +thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of +them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, +and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up ... and thou shalt +write them upon the door-posts of thy house and upon thy gates" (Deut. +6: 6, 7, 9).</p> + +<p>Much later, the messianic hope, the belief that in some Jewish family +there should be born one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span> divinely commissioned and endowed to liberate +Israel and to give the Jews world-sovereignty, operated to elevate the +conception of motherhood and, through that, of the family. It made +marriage desirable and children a blessing; it rendered motherhood +sacred. It tended to center national hopes and religious ideals about +the family.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">9</a></p> + +<p>There are a few glimpses of ideal family life in the Old Testament. They +are all summed up in the eloquent tribute to motherhood in the words of +King Lemuel in the last chapter of the Book of Proverbs. It must be +remembered, however, that such ideals did not belong to the Jews alone, +that Plutarch shows many pictures of maternal fidelity and wifely +devotion, that Greek and Roman history have their Cornelia, Iphigenia, +and Mallonia.<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">10</a></p> + +<p>The Jews are an excellent example of the power of the family life to +maintain distinct characteristics and to secure marked development. +Practically throughout all the Christian era they have been a people +without a land, a constitution, or a government, and yet never without +race consciousness, national unity, and separateness. Their unity has +continued in spite of dispersion, persecution, and losses; they have +remained a race in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span>the face of political storms that have swept other +peoples away. Their unity has continued about two great centers, the +customs of religion and the life of the family.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The results of Jewish respect for family life can also be seen in +the health of their own children. In 1910, for instance, among poor +Jews in Manchester the mortality of infants under one year of age +was found to be 118 per thousand; among poor Gentiles, 300 per +thousand; and comparisons made some six years ago between Jewish +and Gentile children in schools in the poorer parts of Manchester +and Leeds (England) have shown that the Jewish children are +uniformly taller, they weigh more, and their bones and teeth are +superior.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">11</a></p></div> + + +<h4>§ 2. THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY</h4> + +<p>The Christian family is a type peculiar to itself, not as a new +institution, for it has developed out of earlier race experience, but as +controlled by a new interpretation, the spirit and conception of the +home and family given in the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. He did not +give formal rules for the regulation of homes; rather he made a +spiritual ideal of family life the basic thought of all his teaching. He +said more about the family than concerning any other human institution, +yet he established no family life of his own. He is called the founder +of the church, yet he scarcely mentions <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span>that institution, while he +frequently teaches concerning home duties and family relations. He +glorifies the relations of the family by making them the figure by which +men may understand the highest relations of life. He speaks more of +fatherhood and sonship than of any other relations. He gives direction +for living, using the family terms of brotherhood. He points forward to +ideal living in a home beyond this life. He teaches men when they think +of God and when they address him to take the family attitude and call +him Father.</p> + +<p>If we sum up all the teachings of Jesus and separate them from our +preconceptions of their theological content, we cannot but be impressed +with the facts that he seized upon the family life as the best +expression of the highest relationships; that he pointed to a purified +family life, in which spiritual aims would dominate, as the best +expression of ideal relationships among his followers; and that he +glorified marriage and really made the family the great, divine, +sacramental institution of human society.</p> + +<p>We can hardly overestimate the importance of such teaching to the +character of the family. The early Christians not only accepted Jesus as +their teacher and savior; they took their family life as the opportunity +to show what the Kingdom of God, the ideal society, was like. Family +life was consecrated. Men and women belonged to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span> new order with +their whole households. Religion became largely a family matter. The +worship that had been confined to the temple now made an altar in every +home and a holy of holies in the midst of every family. The scriptures +that belonged to the synagogue now belonged in the home. Above all, this +family existed for the purposes taught by Jesus, that men might grow in +brotherhood toward the likeness of the divine Fatherhood. It was an +institution, not for economic purpose of food and shelter, not for +personal ends of passion or pride, but for spiritual purpose, for the +growth of persons, especially the young in the home, in character, into +"the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."</p> + +<p>Christianity is essentially a religion of ideal family life. It +conceives of human society, not in terms of a monarchy with a king and +subjects, but in terms of a family with a great all-Father and his +children, who live in brotherhood, who take life as their opportunity +for those family joys of service and sacrifice. It hopes to solve the +world's ills, not by external regulations, but by bringing all men into +a new family life, a birth into this new family life with God, so +securing a new personal environment, a new personality as the center and +root of all social betterment. He who would come into this new social +order must come into the divine family, must humble himself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span> and become +as a little child, must know his Father and love his brothers.</p> + +<p>Christianity, then, not only seeks an ideal family; it makes the family +the ideal social institution and order. It makes family life holy, +sacramental, religious in its very nature. This fact gives added +importance to the preservation and development of the ideals of family +life for the sake of their religious significance and influence. It not +only makes religion a part of the life of the home but makes a religious +purpose the very reason for the existence of the Christian type of home. +It makes our homes essentially religious institutions, to be judged by +religious products.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p>G. A. Coe, <i>Education in Religion and Morals</i>, chap. xvi. Revell, +$1.35.</p> + +<p>Article on "The Family," in Hastings, <i>Encyclopaedia of Religion +and Ethics</i>.</p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p>On the educational function of the family: A. J. Todd, <i>The +Primitive Family as an Educational Agency</i>. Putnam, $2.00.</p> + +<p>On the religious place of the family: C. F. and C. B. Thwing, <i>The +Family</i>. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, $1.60.</p> + +<p>I. J. Peritz, "Biblical Ideal of the Home," <i>Religious Education</i>, +VI, 322.</p> + +<p>H. Hanson, <i>The Function of the Family</i>. American Baptist +Publication Society, $0.15.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span></p> + +<p>W. Becker, <i>Christian Education, or the Duties of Parents</i>. Herder, +$1.00. A striking presentation of the Roman Catholic view; could be +read to advantage by all parents.</p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. What place did religion hold in the primitive family? What +reference or allusion do we find in the Old Testament to the place +of religion in the family (Deut. 6:7-9, 20-25)? What in the New +Testament?</p> + +<p>2. What has been the effect of purity of family life on the Jewish +race?</p> + +<p>3. What place did the family hold in the teachings of Jesus?</p> + +<p>4. What shall we think of the relations of the church and family as +to their comparative rights and our duty to them?</p> + +<p>5. Do you agree that the family is the most important religious +institution?</p></div> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">7</span></a> For a brief statement see Brinton, <i>Religions of Primitive +Peoples</i>, Lecture 4, § 7; also Todd, <i>The Family as an Educational +Agency</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">8</span></a> See Webster, <i>Primitive Secret Societies</i>, chaps. i, ii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">9</span></a> On the place of the family in different religious systems +see the fine article under "Family" in Hastings, <i>Encyclopaedia of +Religion and Ethics</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">10</span></a> See Lecky, <i>History of European Morals</i>, chap. ii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">11</span></a> Quoted by Lofthouse in <i>Ethics and the Family</i>, p. 8, from +W. Hall, in <i>Progress</i> (London), April, 1907.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span></p> + +<h3>THE MEANING OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE FAMILY</h3> + + +<h4>§ 1. THE FUNCTION OF THE FAMILY</h4> + +<p>With the brief statement of the history of the family and of its +function in society which has already been given we are prepared to put +together the two conclusions: first, that the family has an educational +function, in that it exists as a social institution for the protection, +nurture, development, and training of young lives, and, secondly, that +it is a religious institution, the most influential and important of all +religious institutions, whenever it realizes in any adequate degree its +possibilities, because it is rooted in love and loyalty. It exists for +personal and spiritual ideals and, in Christianity, it is inseparably +connected with the teachings and the ideals of Jesus. It is educational +in function and religious in character, so that it is essentially an +institution for religious education. Religious education is not an +occasional incident in its life; it is the very aim and dominating +purpose of a high-minded family.</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. WHAT IS RELIGIOUS EDUCATION?</h4> + +<p>To make this the more clear we may need to clarify our minds as to +certain popular conceptions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span> of education. Education means much more +than instruction; religious education means much more than instruction +in religion. Many habitually think of an educational institution as +necessarily a place where pupils sit at desks and teachers preside over +classes, the teachers imparting information which is to be memorized by +the pupils, so that, from this point of view, a Sunday school would be +almost the only institution for the religious education of children in +existence, because it is the only one exclusively devoted to imparting +instruction to children in specifically religious subjects. Such a view +would limit religious education in the home to the formal teaching of +the Bible and religious dogma by parents. The memorizing of scriptural +passages and of the different catechisms once constituted a regular duty +in almost all well-ordered homes. Today it is rarely attempted. Does +that mean that religious education has ceased in the home?</p> + +<p>But education means much more than instruction. Education is the whole +process, of which instruction is only a part. Education is the orderly +development of lives, according to scientific principles, into the +fulness of their powers, the realization of all their possibilities, the +joy of their world, the utmost rendering in efficiency of their service. +It includes the training of powers of thought, feeling, willing, and +doing; it includes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a></span> the development of abilities to discern, +discriminate, choose, determine, feel, and do. It prepares the life for +living with other lives; it prepares the whole of the life, developing +the higher nature, the life of the spirit, for living in a spiritual +universe.</p> + +<p>Religious education, then, means much more than instruction in the +literature, history, and philosophy of religion. It means the kind of +directed development which regards the one who is developing as a +religious person, which seeks to develop that one to fulness of +religious powers and personality, and which uses, as means to that end, +material of religious inspiration and significance and, indeed, regards +all material in that light. Religious education seeks to direct a +religious process of growth with a religious purpose for religious +persons. Religious education is the spirit which characterizes the work +of every educator who looks on the child as a spiritual nature, a +religious person; it is the work of every educator who sees his aim as +that of training this spiritual person to fulness of living in a society +essentially spiritual.</p> + +<p>In simplest possible terms, religious education means the training of +persons to live the religious life and to do their work in the world as +religious persons. It must mean, then, the development of character; it +includes the aim, in the parents' minds, to bring their children up to +the measure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span> of the stature of the fulness of Christ. It is evident that +this is a much greater task, and yet more natural and beautiful, than +mere instruction in formal ideas or words in the Bible or in a +catechism; that it is not and cannot be accomplished in some single +period, some set hour, but is continuous, through all the days; that it +pervades not only the spoken words, but the actions, organization, and +the very atmosphere of the home.</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS</h4> + +<p>Normal persons never stop growing. Just as children grow all the time in +their bodies, so do adults and all others grow all the time in mind and +will and powers of the higher life whenever they live normally. We grow +spiritually, not only in church and under the stimulus of song and +prayer, but we grow when the beauty of the woods appeals to us, when the +face lightens at the face of a friend, when we meet and master a +temptation, when we brace up under a load, when we do faithfully the +dreary, daily task, when we adjust our thoughts in sympathy to others, +when we move in the crowd, when we think by ourselves. The educational +process is continuous. The children in the home are being moved, +stimulated, every instant, and they are being changed in minute but +nevertheless real and important degrees by each<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span> impression. There is +never a moment in which their character is not being developed either +for good or for ill. Religious education—that is, the development of +their lives as religious persons—goes on all the time in the home, and +it is either for good or for ill.</p> + +<p>Next to the idea of the continuous and all-pervasive character of this +process of religious development the most important thought for us is +that religious education in the home may be determined by ourselves. +This continuous, fateful process is not a blind, resistless one. It is +our duty to direct it. It is possible for wise parents to determine the +characters of their children. We must not forget this. It cannot be too +strongly insisted on. The development of life is under law. This is an +orderly world. Things do not just happen in it. We believe in a law that +determines the type of a cabbage, the character of a weed. Do we believe +that this universe is so ordered that there is a law for weeds and none +for the higher life of man? Do we hold that cabbages grow by law but +character comes by chance? If there is a law we may find it and must +obey it. If we may know how to develop character, with as great +certainty as we know how to do our daily work, will not this be our +highest task, our greatest joy, the supreme thing to do in life?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span></p> + + +<h4>§ 4. THE CONSEQUENT OBLIGATION</h4> + +<p>This is the first great obligation of parents and of those who are +willing to accept the joys and responsibilities of parenthood. We have +no right to bring into this world lives with all the possibilities that +a religious nature involves unless we know how to develop those lives +for the best and from the worst. When we picture what a little child may +become, from the vile, depraved, despoiling beast or the despicable, +sneaking hypocrite on one extreme, to the upright, God-loving, +man-serving man or woman with the love of purity, honor, truth, and +goodness speaking through the life, we may well pause, realizing we need +more than a sentimental desire that the child may reach the heights of +goodness: we must know the way there and the methods of leading the life +in that way. True devotion to God and to childhood will mean more than +petitions for the salvation of children; it will mean the prayer that is +labor and the labor that is prayer to know how they may attain fulness +of spiritual life; it will mean reverent searching into the divine ways +of growth in grace. The study of the means and methods of religious +education, especially of children, in the home and family, is one of the +most evident and important religious duties resting on parents and all +who contemplate marriage and family life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a></span></p> + + +<h4>§ 5. WHAT IS MEANT BY THE RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD?</h4> + +<p>In discussing the development of character in children one hears often +the question, "Which is the earliest virtue to appear in a child?" +People will debate whether it is truthfulness, reverence, kindness, or +some other virtue. All this implies a picture of the child as a tree +that sends forth shoots of separate virtues one after another. But the +character desired is not a series of branches, it is rather like a +symmetrical tree; it is not certain parts, but it is the whole of a +personality. The development of religious character is not a matter of +consciously separable virtues, but is the determination of the trend and +quality of the whole life. Moral training is not a matter of cultivating +honesty today, purity tomorrow, and kindness the day after. Virtues have +no separate value. Character cannot be disintegrated into a list of +independent qualities. We seek a life that, as a whole life, loves and +follows truth, goodness, and service.</p> + + +<h4>§ 6. EARLY TENDENCIES</h4> + +<p>But it is wise to inquire as to those manifestations of a pure and +spiritual life which will earliest appear. One does not need to look far +for the answer. Children are always affectionate; they manifest the +possibilities of love. True, this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span> affection is rooted in physiological +experience, based on relations to the mother and on daily propinquity to +the rest of the family, but it is that which may be colored by devotion, +elevated by unselfish service, and may become the first great, ideal +loyalty of the child's life. Little boys will fight and girls will +quarrel more readily over the question of the merits of their respective +parents than over any other issue. Almost as soon as a child can talk he +boasts of the valor of his father, the beauty of his mother. Here is +loyalty at work. He stands for them; he resents the least doubt as to +their superiority, not because they give him food and shelter, but +because they are his, because to him they are worthy; in all things they +have the worth, the highest good; they are, in person, the virtue of +life. Therefore in fighting for the reputation of his parents he is +practicing loyalty to an ideal.</p> + +<p>The principle of loyalty is the life-force of virtue; it is like the +power that sends the tree toward the heavens, the upthrust of life. It +may be cultivated in a thousand ways. Provided there is the outreach and +upreach of loyalty within and that there is furnished without the worthy +object, ideal, and aim, the life will grow upward and increase in +character, beauty, and strength.</p> + +<p>Next to the affectionate idealization of parents and home-folk one of +the earliest manifestations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span> of the spirit of loyalty in the child is +his desire to have a share in the activities of the home. He would not +only look like those he admires; he would do what they do. This is more +than mere imitation; it is loyalty at work again. The direction of this +tendency is one of the largest opportunities before parents and can make +the most important contribution to character.</p> + +<p>The religious life of the child is essentially a matter of loyalty. His +faith, affections, aspirations, and endeavors turn toward persons, +institutions, and concepts which are to him ideal. He does not analyze, +he cannot describe, or even narrate, his religious experiences, but he +affectionately moves, with a sense of pleasure, toward those things +which seem to him ideal, toward parents, customs of the home or school, +the church, his class, his teacher, toward characters in story-books. He +is likely to think of Jesus in just that way, as the one person whom he +would most of all like to know and be with. The life of virtue and the +religious life then will be weak or strong in the measure that the child +has the stimulating ideals which call forth his loyalty and in the +measure that he has opportunity to express that loyalty. His religious +life will consist, not so much in external forms perhaps, still less in +intellectual statements about theology or even about his own +experiences, as in a growing realization of the great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span> ideals, an +increasing sense of their meaning and reality within, and, on the +objective side, a steady moving of his life toward them in action and +habits and therefore in character and quality.</p> + + +<h4>§ 7. IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS</h4> + +<p>It is worth while to insist upon two important considerations. Parents +who stand as gardeners watching the growth of the tender plant of +child-character may be looking for developments that never ought to come +and will be disappointed because they were looking for the wrong thing. +First, in watching for the beginnings of the religious life of the child +in the family we are not expecting some new addition to the life, but +rather the development of this whole life as a unity in a definite +direction which we call religious. It is the first and most important +consideration that religious education is not something added to the +life as an extra subject of interest, but the development of the whole +life into religious character and usefulness. Secondly, this growth of +religious character is going on all the time. It is not separable into +pious periods; it is a part of the very life of the family. Perhaps this +increases the difficulty of our task, for it removes it from the realm +of the mechanical, from that which is easily apprehended and estimated. +It takes the task of the religious education of children out of the +statistical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span> into the vital, and reminds us that we are growing life +every second, that there is never a moment when religious education is +not in operation. This demands a consideration, not alone of lessons, of +periods of worship and instruction, but of every influence, activity, +and agency in all the family life that in any way affects the thinking, +feeling, and action of the child. We are thinking of something more +important than organizing instruction and exercises in religion in the +home; we are thinking of organizing the family life for religious +purposes, for the purpose of growing lives into their spiritual fulness.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the capital mistake in the religious education of the family is +that we overemphasize this or the other method and mechanism instead of +bending every effort to secure a real religious atmosphere and soil in +which young souls can really grow while we leave the process of growth +more largely to the great husbandman. And the second great mistake is +that we are looking for mechanical evidence of a religious life instead +of for the development of a whole person. We must reinterpret the family +to ourselves and see it as the one great opportunity life affords us to +grow other lives and to bring them to spiritual fulness by providing a +social atmosphere of the spirit and a constant, normal presentation of +social living in spiritual terms.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span></p> + + +<h4>§ 8. THE ORGANIZATION OF LOYALTY</h4> + +<p>When parents conceive the family in these terms and so organize the life +of the home, the child becomes conscious of the fact, and at once the +life of the family furnishes him with his first, his nearest, and most +satisfactory appeal to loyalty. He feels that which he cannot analyze or +express, the spiritual beauty and loyalty of family life. That life +furnishes a soil and atmosphere for his soul. It is an atmosphere made +of many elements: the primary and dominating purpose of parents and +older persons, the habitual life of service and love, the consciousness +of the reality of the Divine Presence, the fragrance of chastened +character and experience, the customs of worship and affections. These +things are not easily created, they cannot be readily defined, nor can +directions be given in a facile manner for their cultivation. They are +the elements most difficult to describe, hardest of all to secure when +lacking, least easily labeled, not to be purchased ready-made, and yet +without them religious education is wholly impossible in the family. +Without this immediate appeal to loyalty the loyalties of the child +toward higher and divine aims do not develop early; they are retarded +and often remain dormant. For us all scarcely any more important +question can be presented than this: What appeals to spiritual idealism +and loyalty does our family life present to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span> child? What quickening +of love for goodness and purity, truth and service, is there in the home +and its conduct?</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p>G. A. Coe, <i>Education in Religion and Morals</i>, chaps. i, ii, xii, +xiii. Revell, $1.35.</p> + +<p>George Hodges, <i>Training of Children in Religion</i>, chaps. i, ii. +Appleton, $1.50.</p> + +<p>J. T. McFarland, <i>Preservation versus Resurrection</i>. Eaton & Mains, +$0.07.</p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p>C. W. Votaw, <i>Progress of Moral and Religious Education in the +American Home</i>. Religious Education Association, $0.25.</p> + +<p>George Hodges, <i>Training of Children</i>, chaps. i, ii, xv. Appleton, +$1.50.</p> + +<p>G. A. Coe, <i>Education in Religion and Morals</i>, chaps. i, iv, xvi. +Revell, $1.35.</p> + +<p>E. C. Wilm, <i>Culture of Religion</i>, chaps. i, ii. Pilgrim Press, +$0.75.</p> + +<p>C. W. Rischell, <i>The Child as God's Child</i>. Methodist Book Concern, +$0.75.</p> + +<p>E. E. Read Mumford, <i>The Dawn of Character</i>. Longmans, Green & Co., +$1.20. See especially chap. xii on "The Dawn of Religion."</p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. How would you define education?</p> + +<p>2. What is the difference between education and religious +education?</p> + +<p>3. What makes the home especially effective in education?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span></p> + +<p>4. Is it true that it is possible to discover the laws of growth +and so determine the development of character?</p> + +<p>5. Recall any very early manifestations of religious character in +small children. What would you regard as the best kind of +manifestation?</p> + +<p>6. What is the essential principle of the right life? How may we +develop this in childhood?</p> + +<p>7. What are the things which most of all impress children?</p> + +<p>8. Would you think it wise to bring a child under the influence of +a religious revival?</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>THE CHILD'S RELIGIOUS IDEAS</h3> + + +<p>How shall I begin to talk with my child about religion? Even the most +religious parents feel hesitancy here. It may not be at all due to the +unfamiliarity of the subject, though that is often the case; hesitation +is due principally to a conscious artificiality in the action. It seems +unnatural to say, "My child, I want to talk with you about your +religious life." And so it is. There is something wrong when that +appears to be the only way. That situation indicates a lack of freedom +of thought and intercourse with the child and a lack of naturalness in +religion.</p> + + +<h4>§ 1. THE FUNDAMENTAL DIFFICULTY</h4> + +<p>The instinct is correct that tells us that we should be trespassing on a +child's rights, or breaking down his proper reticence, in abruptly and +formally questioning him about his religious life. The reserve of +children in this matter must be respected. The inner life of aspiration, +of conscious relationship to the divine, is too sacred for display, even +to those who are near to us. He violates the child's reverence who tears +away his reticence. Even though the child may not consciously object, +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span> process leads him toward the irreverent, facile self-exposure of +the soul that characterizes some prayer meetings. But we may, also, as +easily err in the other direction and, by failing to invite the +confidences of our children, lead them to suppose we have no interest in +their higher life.</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS</h4> + +<p>First, we must be content to wait for the child to open his heart. We +must not force the door. But we can invite him to open, and the one form +of invitation that scarcely ever fails is for you to give him your +confidence. Talk honestly, simply to him of the aspects of your +religious life that he can understand. If he knows that you confide in +him, he will confide in you. Here beware of sentimentality. Religion to +the child will find expression in everyday experiences. Your philosophy +of religion he cannot comprehend, and with your mature emotions he has +no point of contact. Perhaps the best method of approach is to relate +your memories of those experiences which you <i>now see</i> to have had +religious significance to you. At the time they may have had no such +special meaning. You did not then analyze them. Your child will not and +must not analyze them, either; he must simply feel them.</p> + +<p>Secondly, rid your mind of the "times and seasons" notion. There is no +more reason why<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span> you should talk religion on Sunday than on Monday, +unless the day's interests have quickened the child's questioning. There +can be no set period; no times when you say, "This is the forty-five +minutes of spiritual instruction and conversation." The time available +may be very short, only a sentence may be possible, or it may be +lengthened; everything will depend on the interest. It must be natural, +a real part of the everyday thought and talk, lifted by its character +and subject to its own level. Its value depends on its natural reality.</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. RELIGIOUS REALITY</h4> + +<p>Thirdly, avoid the mistake of confounding conversation on "religion" +with religious conversation, of thinking that the desired end has been +attained when you have discussed the terminology of theology. To +illustrate, in the family one hardly ever hears the word hygiene, but +well-trained children learn much about the care of their bodies in +health, and the family economy is directed consciously to that end. A +good, nourishing meal always contributes more to health than many +lectures on dietetics. Yet back, hidden away in the manager's mind, is +the science of dietetics. So is it with quickening the child's power and +thought in the spiritual life. We must avoid the abstract, the +intellectually analytical. Religion should present<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span> itself concretely, +practically, and as an atmosphere and ideal in the family. We parents +must not look for theological interest in the child. A Timothy Dwight at +ten or twelve, though once found in Sunday-school library books, is a +monstrosity. The child's aspiration, his religious devotion, his love +for God will find expression in almost every other way before it will be +formulated into questions of a serious theological character. Nor ought +we to force upon him the phrases of religion to which we are accustomed. +He will live in another day and must speak its tongue. His faith must +find itself in consciousness and then be permitted to clothe itself in +appropriate garments of words. Those garments must be woven out of the +realities of actual experiences in the child's life. We cannot prepare +or make them for him. The expression of religion will be consonant with +the stage of development. If his faith is to be real he must never be +allowed or tempted to imagine that if only he can use the words, the +verbal symbol, he has the fact, the life-experience. Try then to use +words which are simple and meaningful to him and be content to wait for +life to lead him to formulate vital verbal forms for himself.</p> + + +<h4>§ 4. PATIENCE AND COMMON-SENSE</h4> + +<p>Fourthly, we must have faith in God's laws of growth. If we be but +faithful, furnishing the soil,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span> the seed, the nurture, we must wait for +the increase. Many factors which we cannot control will determine +whether it shall be early or late and what form it shall take. We must +wait. It is high folly that pulls up the sprouting grain to see whether +it is growing properly.</p> + +<p>Fifthly, manifestations of the religious life will vary in children and +in families. The commonest error is to expect some one popular form +alone, to imagine that all children must pass through some standardized +experiences. Mrs. Brown's Willy may rise in prayer meeting. Do not be +downhearted. Willy is only doing that which he has seen his parents do, +and, usually, only because they do it. Your boy, or girl, is seeking +health of life, of thought, of action; is growing in character. Let them +grow, help them to grow. You know they love you even when they say +little about it; you do not expect them to climb to the housetop and +declare their affection. A flower does not sing about the sun, it grows +toward it. That is the test of the child's religion: Is he growing +Godward in life, action, character?</p> + + +<h4>§ 5. THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD</h4> + +<p>Sixthly, deal most carefully with the child's consciousness of God. The +truth is that the child in the average home has a consciousness of God. +It grows out of formal references in social rites<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span> and customs, informal +allusions in conversation, and direct statements and instruction. But +frequently the resultant mental picture is a misleading one, sometimes +even vicious in its moral effect. Where superstitious servants take more +interest in the child's religious ideas than do his parents, we have the +child whose life is darkened by the fear of an omnipotent ogre. +Nursemaids will slothfully scare small children into silence by threats +of the awful presence of a bogey god. The life of the spirit cannot be +trusted to the hireling. Parents must be sure of the character as well +as the superficial competency of those who come closest to childhood. A +child's ideas are formed before he goes to school. The family cannot +delegate the formation of dominant ideas to persons trained only for +nursery tasks.</p> + +<p>But frequently the mother is a misleading teacher. To her the child goes +with all the big questions outside the immediate world of things. Is she +prepared to answer the questions? Few dilemmas of our life today are +more pathetic than this: the mother has outgrown the theology of her +childhood; she remembers keenly the suffering and superstition, the +struggle that followed the darkened pictures she received as a little +one, but she has nothing better to offer the child. No one has taught +her how to put the later, more spiritual concepts into language for the +child of our day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span> Weakly she falls back on the forms of words she once +abhorred.</p> + +<p>There are certainly two approaches of reality for the child-mind to the +idea of God. Two immediate experiences are rich in meaning; they are the +life of the family and the wonder of the everyday world, the life and +variety of nature and human activities. The first is a very simple and +rich approach. By every possible means help children in the family to +think of God as the great and good Father of us all. Do this in the +phrasing of prayers and graces, in the answers to their questions, in +the casual word. Why should we assume that the Fatherhood of God is for +the adult alone? And why should it be that this rich concept dawns on us +like a new day of freedom in truth in later years instead of becoming +ours in childhood and so determining the habit and attitude of our +lives? The finest, the ideal person is, to the child, the father. God in +terms of fatherhood is the sum and source of all that is ideal in +personality.</p> + +<p>The child's keen interest in the world of nature is our opportunity to +lead him to love the gracious source of all beauty and goodness. How +keen is the child's enjoyment of the beauty of the world! Can we forever +fix the general concept of all this beauty as the thought of God in the +words of flower and leaf, mountain and stream? And might we not also +connect the idea of God with the affairs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span> of daily life? That depends on +the parent's attitude of mind; if we think of the universal life that is +behind all battles and business and affairs, there will be a difference +in our answers to the thousand curious inquiries that rise in the +child's mind.</p> + +<p>Nor must we leave the child to think of God as a separate, far-off +person, on a throne somewhere in the skies. The child is finding his way +into a universe. The God who is a minute fraction of that universe makes +possible the religion that is no more than a negligible fraction of +life. The child asks concerning clouds, the sea, the trees, the birds, +and all the world about him; he tends to interpret it causally and +ideally. Childhood affords the great opportunity for giving the color, +the beauty and glory, the life of the divine to all this universe, to +instil the feeling that God is everywhere, in all and through all, and +that in him we live and move and have our being. The child's joy in this +world can thus be given a religious meaning. He sings</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My God, I thank thee thou hast made<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This earth so bright....,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and so beauty and joy become part of his religion. His faith becomes a +gladsome thing; he knows that the trees of the forest clap their hands, +the mountains and the hills sing, and the morning stars chant together +in the gladness of the divine life.</p> + +<p>Such a view of the world comes not by prearranged and indoor interviews. +One must walk<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span> out into the good outdoor world for the opportunity and +the inspiration. The garden plot, the park, and, best of all, the open +fields and woods speak to a child and furnish us an open book from which +we may teach him to read. Recalling religious impressions, the writer +would testify to feeling nothing deeper, as a result of church +attendance in childhood, than the shapes of seats and the colors of +walls; but there remain deep impressions of wonder, beauty, and the +meaning of God from Sunday mornings spent with his father under the +great beeches in Epping Forest, listening to the reading and singing of +the old hymns, or joining in conversation on the woods and the flowers, +and even on the legends of Robin Hood in the forest.</p> + + +<h4>§ 6. THE EVERYDAY OPPORTUNITIES</h4> + +<p>Seventhly, natural conversation affords the best opportunity for direct +instruction. A child is a peripatetic interrogation. His questions cover +the universe; there are no doors which you desire to see opened that he +will not approach at some time. There is great advantage when the +religious question rises normally; when the child begins it and when the +interest continues with the same naturalness as in conversation on any +other subject. Then questions usually take one of three forms: mere +childish, curious questions, questions on conduct, and questions on +religion in its organized form.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span></p> + +<p>The child's curiosity is the basis of even those questions which have +usually been credited to preternatural piety. The tiny youngster who +asks strange questions about God asks equally startling ones about +fairies or about his grandmother. But his questions give us the chance +to direct him to right thoughts of God. Here we need to be sure of our +own thoughts and to keep in mind our principal purpose, to quicken in +this child loyalty to the highest and best. He must be shown a God whom +he can love and, at the same time, one who will call for his growing +loyalty, his courage, and devotion. Everything for the child's future +depends on the pictures he now forms. We all carry to a large degree our +childhood's view of God.</p> + +<p>Some of the child's questions probe deep; how shall we answer them? When +you know the truth tell him the truth, being sure that it is told in +language that really conveys truth to his mind. The danger is that +parents will attempt to tell more than they know, to answer questions +that cannot be answered, or that they will, in sloth or cowardice or +ignorance, tell children untrue things. If a child asks, "Did God make +the world?" the answer that will be true to the child may be a simple +affirmative. If the child asks or his query implies, "Did God make the +leaves, or the birds, with his fingers?" we had better take time to +show<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span> the difference between man's making of things and the working of +the divine energy through all the process of the development of the +world. When the child asks, "Mother, if God made all things, why did he +make the devil?" it would surely be wise and opportune to correct the +child's mental picture of a personal anti-God and to take from him his +bogey of a "devil." But the question of the relation of God to the +existence of evil would remain, and the best a parent could do would be +to illustrate the necessities of freedom of choice and will in life by +similar freedom in the family.</p> + +<p>It must be remembered that children's curious questions are only their +attempt to discover their world, that they have no peculiar religious +significance, but that they afford the parent a vital opportunity for +direct religious instruction. These questions must be treated seriously; +something is missing in parental consciousness when the child's +questions furnish only material for jesting relation to the family +friends.</p> + + +<h4>§ 7. MORAL TEACHING</h4> + +<p><i>Questions on conduct</i>: Scores of times in the day the children come in +from play or from school and tell of what has happened. Their more or +less breathless recitals very often include vigorous accounts of +"cheating," "naughtiness," unfair play,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span> unkind words, discourtesies, +all dependent as to their character on the age of the children and all +opening doors for free conversation on duties and conduct. Here lies one +of the large opportunities for moral instruction. There is no need to +attempt to make formal occasions for this; so long as children play and +live with others they are under the experience of learning the art of +living with one another; this is the simple essence of morality. The +parent's answers to their questions on conduct, the comments on their +criticisms, and the conversation that may easily be directed on these +subjects count tremendously with the child in establishing his ideals +and modes of conduct. Returning to his play, there is no mightier +authority he can quote than to say, "My mother says—," or "My father +says—."</p> + +<p>Let no one say that instruction in moral living is not religious, for +there can be no adequate guidance in morals without religion, nor can +the religious quality of the life find expression adequately except +through conduct in social living. Children need more than the rules for +living; they must feel motives and see ideals. They do not live by rules +any more than we do. Besides the rule that is known there must be a +reason for following it and a strong desire to do so. All ethical +teaching needs this imperative and motivation of religion, the +quickening of loyalty to high<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">72</a></span> ideals, the doing of the right for +reasons of love as well as of duty and profit.</p> + +<p>The father's opportunity comes especially with the boys. They are sure +to bring to him their ethical questions on games and sport; he knows +more about boys' fights and struggles than does the mother. When the +boys begin to discuss their games the father cannot afford to lack +interest. Trivial as the question may seem to be, it is the most +important one of the day to the boy and, for the interests of his +character, it may be the most important for many a day to the father. If +he answers with sympathy and interest this question on a "foul ball" or +on marbles or peg-tops, he has opened a door that will always stay open +so long as he approaches it with sincerity; if he slights it, if he is +too busy with those lesser things that seem great to him, he has closed +a door into the boy's life; it may never be opened again. Children learn +life through the life they are now living. Real preparation for the +world of business and larger responsibilities comes by the child's +experiences of his present world of play and schooling and family +living. To help him to live this present life aright is the best +training that can be given for the right living of all life.</p> + +<p><i>Questions on organized religion</i>: As children grow up, the church comes +into their range of interests. Just as they often make the day school<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a></span> +focal for conversation, as they recount their day's work there, so they +retain impressions of the church school, of the services of the church, +and will always ask many questions about this institution and its +observances. Here is the opportunity, in free conversation, to tell the +child the meaning of the church, the significance of membership therein, +and to lead him to conscious relationship to the society of the +followers of Jesus. (See chap. xvii, "The Family and the Church.")</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p>Alice E. Fitts, "Consciousness of God in Children," <i>The Aims of +Religious Education</i>, pp. 330-38. Religious Education Association, +$1.00.</p> + +<p>W. G. Koons, <i>Child's Religious Life</i>, sec. II. Eaton & Mains, +$1.00.</p> + +<p>J. Sully, <i>Children's Ways</i>, chap. vi. Appleton, $1.25.</p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p>George Hodges, <i>The Training of Children in Religion</i>, chaps. i-vi. +Appleton, $1.50.</p> + +<p>George E. Dawson, <i>The Child and His Religion</i>, chap. ii. The +University of Chicago Press, $0.75.</p> + +<p>Edward Lyttleton, <i>The Corner-Stone of Education</i>, chap. viii. +Putnam, $1.50.</p> + +<p>T. Stephens (ed.), <i>The Child and Religion</i>. Putnam, $1.50.</p> + +<p>C. W. Richell, <i>The Child as God's Child</i>. Eaton & Mains, $0.75.</p> + +<p>W. G. Koons, <i>The Child's Religious Nature</i>. Eaton & Mains, $1.00.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. What are the special difficulties which you feel about +introducing the topic of religion to children? Describe any methods +or modes of approach which have seemed successful?</p> + +<p>2. Would you regard it as a fault if a child seems unwilling to +talk about religion? What do you think "religion" means to the +child-mind?</p> + +<p>3. In what ways do children's aptitudes differ and what factors +probably determine the difference? What was your own childish +conception of God? Did you love God or fear him? Why?</p> + +<p>4. Is it ever right to teach the child those conceptions which we +have outgrown? What about Santa Claus and fairies? How can you use +childish figures of speech as an avenue to more exact truth?</p> + +<p>5. Does the child learn more through ears or eyes? Through which +agency do we seek to convey religious ideas?</p> + +<p>6. Is it possible to make the child see the intimate relation +between conduct and religion? How would you do this?</p> + +<p>7. Give some of the characteristics of a religious child of seven +years, of ten.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>DIRECTED ACTIVITY</h3> + + +<p>Probably all parents find themselves at some time thinking that the +real, fundamental problem of training their children lies in dealing +with their superabundant energy. "He is such an active child!" mothers +complain. Were he otherwise a physician might properly be consulted. But +the child's activity does seriously interfere with parental peace. It +takes us all a long time to learn that we are not, after all, in our +homes in order to enjoy peaceful rest, but in order to train children +into fulness of life. That does not mean that the home should be without +quiet and rest, but that we must not hope to repress the energy of +childhood. One might as well hope to plug up a spring in the hillside. +Our work is to direct that activity into glad, useful service.</p> + + +<h4>§ 1. VALUE OF ACTIVITY</h4> + +<p>The things we do not only indicate character, they determine it. Our +thoughts have value and power as they get into action. To bend our +energies toward an ideal is to make it more real, to make it a part of +ourselves. Children learn by doing—learn not only that which they are +doing but life itself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a></span></p> + +<p>It may be doubted whether a child ever grew who did not plead to have a +share in the work he saw going on about him. That desire to help is part +of that fundamental virtue of loyalty of which we have spoken above; it +is his desire to be true to the tendency of the home, to give himself to +the realization of its purposes. Of course he does not think this out at +all. But this desire on the part of the child to have a hand in the +day's work is the parent's fine opportunity for a most valuable and +influential form of character direction.</p> + +<p>One of the tests of a worthy character is whether the life is +contributory or parasitic, whether one carries his load, does his work, +makes his contribution, or simply waits on the world for what he can +get. A religious interpretation of and attitude toward life is +essentially that of self-giving in service. "My Father worketh hitherto +and I work." "I must be about my Father's business." How noticeable is +the child's interest in the vivid word-picture of One who "went about +doing good"!</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. THE BLESSING OF LABOR</h4> + +<p>The home is the first place for life's habituation to service. The child +is greatly to be pitied who has no duties, no share in the work. Where +the hands are unsoiled the heart is the easier sullied. It is the height +of mistaken kindness, one of the common errors of an unthinking, +superficial affec<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span>tion, to protect our children from work. This is a +world of the moral order and of the glory of work.</p> + +<p>When the child is very small it must learn this by having committed to +it very simple duties. As soon as it is able to handle things it may +learn to do that which is most helpful with those things, to care for +its toys, to put them away neatly. A child can learn while very young to +take care of its spoon, of certain clothes, of chair, and pencil and +paper. True, it is much easier to "pick up" after the child; but to do +so is to yield to our own sloth. The more tedious way is the one we must +follow if we would train the child.</p> + +<p>Besides the care of his possessions the child will gladly take a share +in the general work of the home. Let some daily duty be assigned to each +one; such simple responsibilities as picking up all papers and magazines +and seeing that they are properly stacked or disposed of may be given to +one; another may sweep the stairs every day with a whisk broom (in one +instance a boy of eight did this daily); another may be "librarian," +caring for all books; each one, after eight years of age, should make +her own bed; each one should be entirely responsible for his own table +in his room. Many homes permit of many other "chores," such as keeping +up the supply of small kindling, caring for a pet or even a larger +animal, keeping a little personal garden or vegetable plot. Under those +normal conditions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span> of living, which some day we may reach, where each +family, or all families, have trees and flowers and ample space, the +opportunities are increased for joyous child activities which +consciously contribute to social well-being as a whole.</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. RELIGION IN ACTION</h4> + +<p>Perhaps some will say, this is not religious education, it is everyday +training. Yes, it is "everyday training," but it is the training of a +religious person with the religious purpose of habituating the child to +give his life in service to his world. That is precisely what we +need—<i>religion in everyday action</i>. The atmosphere and habitual +attitude and conversation of the family must be depended on to give a +really religious meaning to these everyday acts, to make them as +religious as going to church, perhaps more so, and so to make them a +training for the life that is religious, not in word only, but in deed +and in truth.</p> + +<p>Whatever we may say to children on the subject of religion, whether +directly or in teaching by indirection through songs and worship, must +pass over somehow into action in order to have meaning and reality. It +must be realized in order to be real. The difficulty that appears is +that of connecting the daily act with its spiritual significance. Yet +that is not as difficult as it seems. If the act<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span> has religious +significance to us, if we form the habit of really worshiping God with +our work, seeking in it to do his will, the child will know it. We +cannot keep that hidden. The spiritual life will never be more real to +the child than it is to us, and no amount of moralizing or +spiritualizing about our acts or his will give them religious +significance.</p> + +<p>At least one person will testify that, after being brought up in a +really religious home, the most strikingly religious memory of that home +is an occasion when he delightedly carried a tray of food to a sick +neighbor. It was doing the very thing that he longed to do, realizing +the aspiration that had been unable to find words or form before. So the +life of action can be steadily trained by acts of kindness. Habits are +acts repeated until they pass from the volitional to the involuntary. +The only process we can follow is steadily to train the children in the +willing and doing of the right, the good, and the kindly deed, until it +becomes habitual. Let the child prepare the tray of delicacies, pack the +flowers we are sending, carry them over if possible, at least have a +share in all our ministries.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">12</a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span></p> + +<p>The modern Sunday school recognizes the importance of activity in +forming religious character; therefore it plans and organizes social +activities for students to carry out.<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">13</a> The parents ought to know what +is designed for each child in his respective grade and to plan to +co-operate with the school. Where the family unites in the forms of +service suggested for the children, these activities lose all +perfunctoriness and take on a new reality. Social usefulness becomes a +normal part of life.</p> + +<p>Do we remember the best times of our childhood? Were they not when we +were doing things? And were not the best of these best times when we +were doing the best things, those that seemed ideal, that gave us a +sense of helping someone or of putting into action the best of our +thoughts? That is the chance and the joy our children are longing for, +and that joy will be their strength.</p> + + +<h4>§ 4. RELIGION IN SERVICE</h4> + +<p>The family has excellent opportunities for developing through its own +activities and duties the habits of the religious life. Children may +acquire through daily acts the habit of thinking of life as just the +chance to love and serve. Service may become perfectly normal to life. +Our modern paupers, whether they tramp the highways or <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span>ride in private +cars, came usually out of homes where the moral standard interpreted +life as just the chance of graft, to gain without giving, to have +without earning. Parental indulgence educates in pauperism. Let a boy +remain the passive beneficiary of all the advantages of a home until he +is sixteen or eighteen, and it will be exceedingly difficult to convert +him from the pauper habit.</p> + +<p>The hard task before parents is to save their children from the snare of +passive luxury. Perhaps, remembering our toilsome youth, we seek to +shield them. It is a serious unkindness. It is a wrong to our world. The +religious mind is the one that takes life in terms of service, sees the +days as doors to ways of usefulness, girds itself with the towel, and +finds honor in bending to do the little things for the least of men. +Vain is all family worship, all prayer and praise and catechism, unless +we train the feet to walk this way so that they may visit the +imprisoned, clothe the naked, comfort the sad, and cheer the broken in +heart. The family may make this the normal way to live.</p> + +<p>If the family would train boys and girls who shall be true followers of +the great Servant, it must stand among men as a servant, it must see +itself as set in the community to serve, and by habits of service and +helpfulness, by its whole social tone, it must quicken in its own people +the sense of social obligation and a realization of the delight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a></span> in +self-giving. A home that is selfish in relation to other homes, in +relation to its community, can have no other than selfish, antisocial, +and therefore irreligious children. The first step in the welfare of a +child is to see that the home which constitutes his personal atmosphere +is steeped in the spirit of good-will toward men.</p> + +<p>The whole attitude of life is determined by the thought-atmosphere of +the family. The greedy family makes the grafting citizen. The grasping +home makes the pugnacious disturber of the public peace. Greater than +the question whether you are a good citizen in your relation to the +ballot box is the one whether you are a cultivator of good citizenship +in your home. No amount of Sunday-school teaching on the Beatitudes or +week-day teaching on civics is going to overcome the down-drag of +envious, antisocial thought and feeling and conversation in the home. +Home action and attitude count for more than all besides.</p> + +<p>It is equally true that no other influence can offset the salutary power +of a truly social home, that the easiest, most natural, and effective +method of teaching social duty and unselfishness is to do our whole +social duty unselfishly.</p> + + +<h4>§ 5. FAMILY TRAINING FOR SOCIAL LIVING</h4> + +<p>The supreme test of the religious life here is ability to live among men +as brothers and to cause<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span> the conditions of the divine family to be +realized on earth. If we can realize that the purpose of Jesus was to +bring men into the family of God, that the aim of all religious endeavor +is the family character in men and women and the conditions of that +family in all society, we must surely appreciate the possibility of the +human family as a training school for this larger family of humanity.</p> + +<p>The infant approaches social living by the pathway of the society of the +family. We all go out into life through widening circles, first the +mother's arms, then the family, the neighborhood, the city, the state, +the nation, the world-life. Each circle prepares for the next. The +family is the child's social order; its life is his training for the +larger life of nation and human brotherhood.</p> + +<p>Just how men and women will live in society is determined principally by +the bent of their characters in the social order of the family. Their +attitude to the world follows the attitude of the family, especially of +the parents. They interpret the larger world by the lesser. The home is +the great school of citizenship and social living.</p> + +<p>All the moral and religious problems of the family find a focus in the +purpose of preparing persons for social living. The family justifies its +cost to society in the contribution which it makes in trained and +motived lives. As a religious family its first duty is to prepare the +coming generation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span> to live in a religious society, in one which will +steadily move toward the divine ideal of perfect family relations +through brotherhood and fatherhood. Its business is not to get children +ready for heaven, but to train them to make all life heavenly. Its aim +is not alone children who will not tear down the parents' reputation, +but men and women who will build up the actual worth and beauty of all +lives.</p> + +<p>The realization, in the family, of the purpose of training youth to +social living and service in the religious spirit depends on two things: +a spirit and passion in the family for social justice and order, and the +direction of the activities of the family toward training in social +usefulness.</p> + +<p>Only the social spirit can give birth to the social spirit. True lovers +of men, who set the values of life and of the spirit first, who give +their lives that all men may have freedom and means to find more +abundant life, come out of the families where the passion of human love +burns high. The selfish family, self-centered, caring not at all in any +deep sense for the well-being of others, existing to extract the juice +of life and let who will be nourished on the rind, becomes effective to +make the social highwayman, the oppressor. From such a family comes he +who breaks laws for his pocketbook and impedes the enactment of laws +lest human rights should prevent his acquisition of wealth; he who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span> +hates his brother man—unless that brother has more than he has; the foe +of the kingdom of goodness and peace and brotherhood.</p> + +<p>And goodness is as contagious as badness. Children catch the spirit of +social love and idealism in the family. Where men and women are deeply +concerned with all that makes the world better for lives, better for +babies and mothers, for workers, and, above all, for the values of the +spirit gained through leisure, opportunities, and higher incentives; +where the family is more concerned with folks than with furniture; where +habitually it thinks of people as Jesus did, as the objects most of all +worth seeking, worth investing in, there children receive direction, +habituation, and motivation for the life of religion, the life that +binds them in glad love to the service of their fellows, and makes them +think of all their life as the one great chance to serve, to make a +better world, and to bring God's great family closer together here.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p>G. A. Coe, <i>Education in Religion and Morals</i>, pp. 142-50. Revell, +$1.35.</p> + +<p>W. S. Athearn, <i>The Church School</i>, pp. 85-102. Pilgrim Press, +$1.00.</p> + +<p>G. Johnson, <i>Education by Plays and Games</i>, Part I. Ginn & Co., +$0.90.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">86</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p>E. D. Angell, <i>Play</i>. Little, Brown & Co., $1.50.</p> + +<p>Fisher, Gulick, <i>et al.</i>, "Ethical Significance of Play," +<i>Materials for Religious Education</i>, pp. 197-215. Religious +Education Association, $0.50.</p> + +<p>Publications of the Play Ground Association.</p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Methods and Materials</span></p> + +<p class="center">PLAY</p> + +<p>Forbush, <i>Manual of Play</i>. Jacobs, $1.00.</p> + +<p>A. Newton, <i>Graded Games</i>. Barnes, $1.25.</p> + +<p>Von Palm, <i>Rainy Day Pastimes</i>. Dana Estes, $1.00.</p> + +<p>Johnson, <i>When Mother Lets Us Help</i>. Moffat, Yard & Co., $0.75.</p> + +<p class="center">WORK</p> + +<p>Canfield, <i>What Shall We Do Now?</i> Stokes, $1.50.</p> + +<p>Beard, <i>Jack of All Trades</i>. Scribner, $2.00.</p> + +<p>Beard, <i>Things Worth Doing</i>. Scribner, $2.00.</p> + +<p>Bailey, <i>Garden Making</i>. Macmillan, $1.50.</p> + +<p>Bailey (ed.), <i>Something to Do</i> (magazine). School Arts Publishing +Co.</p> + + +<p class="center">IV. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. Is the quiet child an ideal child? How far should we go in +restraining activity?</p> + +<p>2. The relative advantages of work and leisure for children. What +of the value of chores to you; did you do them? Describe any forms +of children's service in the home which have come under your +observation.</p> + +<p>3. What forms of community service can be done by children and by +young people?</p> + +<p>4. Recall any lessons learned by activity in your early home life.</p> + +<p>5. Give in their order, according to your judgment, the potencies +for religious character in the home.</p></div> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">12</span></a> A short list of books on child activity in the home is +appended at the end of this chapter; a fairly complete list, long enough +for any family, will be found on p. 117 of <i>The Church School</i>, by W. S. +Athearn.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">13</span></a> See W. N. Hutchins, <i>Graded Social Service for the Sunday +School</i>.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a></span></p> + +<h3>THE HOME AS A SCHOOL<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">14</a></h3> + + +<p>The home is so mighty as a school because, requiring little time for +formal instruction, it enlists its scholars so largely in informal +activities. It trains for life by living; it trains as an institution, +by a group of activities, a series of duties, a set of habits. If the +home is to prepare for social living it will be most of all and best of +all by its organization and conduct as a social institution.</p> + + +<h4>§ 1. AN IDEAL COMMUNITY</h4> + +<p>For the purposes of society homes must be social-training centers; they +must be conducted as communities if their members are to be fitted for +communal living. No boy is likely to be ready for the responsibilities +of free citizenship who has spent his years in a home under an absolute +monarchy; or, as is today perhaps more frequently the case, in a +condition of unmitigated anarchy. A free society cannot consist of units +not free. The problems of parental discipline arise and appear as +persistently irritating and perplexing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a></span>stumbling-blocks in many a home +simply because that home is organized altogether out of harmony and +relation with the normal life in which it is set. Society environing the +home gives its members the habits of twentieth-century autonomy, +individual initiative and responsibility, together with collective +living and working, while the home often seeks to perpetuate +thirteenth-century absolutism, serfdom, and subjection. In social living +outside the home we learn to do the will of all; in the home we attempt +to compel children to do the will of one.</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. COMMUNITY INTERESTS</h4> + +<p>The home organized as a social community will give to every member, +according to his ability, a share in its guidance and will expect from +every member the free contribution of his powers. Its rules will be made +by the will of all, and its affairs governed, not by an executive board +composed of the parents, but by the free participation and choice of +all. The young will learn to choose by choosing; will learn both how to +rule and to be ruled by a share in ruling.</p> + +<p>To be explicit, suppose a piece of furniture is desired for the home. +Two plans at least are possible: first, the "head of the home" may go +forth and purchase it without consulting anyone, or after advising with +the other "head"; or,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a></span> second, before a purchase is made, the wisdom of +such an addition to the furniture may be suggested in the open council +of the whole family and the purchase discussed and determined by all. +Such councils, usually coming at or after the principal meal, freely +participated in by all, give even to the youngest a sense of the cost of +a home, of the care that goes into it, with, what is more important, a +sense of a share in these cares and costs; they cultivate habits of +prudence, of consideration of a matter, of steady judgments, of +deference to the wishes and wisdom of others. Of still greater +importance is another practical issue of such a plan—that every member +of the household has a new sense of proprietorship with deepened +responsibility. Instead of thinking of any household possession as +father's or mother's, or even mine, it becomes <i>ours</i>. The parents no +longer need to say, "Children, do not mar the furniture; it costs money +to replace it." The children know that already, and they have the same +pride in the home possessions and the same desire to preserve them as +they have in that which is peculiarly their own. A habit of mind results +from such a course so that, by thinking in terms of common possession of +the best things of life, there is cultivated that respect for the rights +of others which is simply right social thinking.</p> + +<p>The same plan could be pursued in relation to almost every interest of +the family—as the planning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">90</a></span> of the annual vacation and outing, the +holidays, picnics, and birthday celebrations, the church and religious +exercises. Above all, in the last mentioned, this social spirit may be +cultivated. The father may cease to be the "high priest" for his family +and become a worshiper along with the other members. The effect will be +that his children are more likely to stay as worshipers with him than if +they gazed on him as on some lonely elevation, unrelated to them in his +religious exercises. The reading, the song, the prayers, the comment and +discussion, the story-telling, and all that may make up the regular +specific religious activities of the family should be such that all may +have a share in them. Nothing could be finer, diviner, and bring larger +helpfulness for social living than the attempt of the least little +lisping child to throw herself into the unified family act of prayer, as +when one little tot, unable to say the Lord's Prayer, united in worship +at the time of that act by saying, as reverently as possible, "One, two, +three, four, five," etc., up to ten. The ability to count was her latest +accomplishment; counting to ten was bringing the very best thing she +then had and, in the act of family worship, offering her part to the +Most High. A fine sense of worship and a desire to be one with the +others in this united, communal service prompted the participation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a></span></p> + + +<h4>§ 3. COMMUNITY SERVICE</h4> + +<p>Community service may be cultivated in the home. Here is the ideal +social community, where there are neither parasites nor paupers, where +all give of their best for the best of all. No one doubts that the baby +gives its full share of happiness and cheer, and the aged their offering +of consolation and experience; but the difficulty is supposed to be with +the lad and the girl who would rather play than work. Usually this is +because the habits of co-operation in the life of this community have +been too long neglected. The small boy or girl had no share in its work. +Parents are too busy to think through the matter of finding suitable +duties for all. It is so much easier to do things one's self, even +though the child misses the benefits of participation. More frequently +the blame lies in the fact that parents desire to shield children from +labor. Some would have them grow up without knowing what they count as +the degradation of toil. But a boy who knows nothing of the "chores" has +missed half the joys of boyhood, and has a terribly hard lesson ahead of +him when he goes out to relate himself to life. No matter what one's +station may be, there is a part to be played, and one's piece of work to +be done. The greatest unkindness we can do our children is to train them +to lives that do not play their part. The home is our chance to train a +man to harmonious usefulness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span> in his world. Not only should the family +train to social co-operation and service, but it should train to +efficiency therein. Do not let your child's duties become a farce; let +them exact as much of him as the world will exact also; that is, +efficiency, accuracy, thoroughness, and fidelity.</p> + + +<h4>§ 4. A SCHOOL OF SOCIAL MINISTRY</h4> + +<p>The family trains lives for social ministry. The unsocial lives come out +of unsocial homes. The home that exists for itself alone trains lives +that exist only for themselves; these are the homes that throw the sand +of selfishness into the wheels of society; they ultimately effect social +suicide through selfishness. The attitude and atmosphere of the home are +of first importance here. As we think, so will our children act. If the +home is to us a place without responsibilities for the neighborhood, +without duties to neighbors, without social roots, then it is a school +for industrial, commercial, and social greed and warfare. As we think in +our hearts and talk at our table, so are we educating those who sit +thereat.</p> + +<p>If we would have our homes really efficient and worthy agencies for +education in social living, the first thing to do is to seek the social +atmosphere, to cultivate all those influences which young lives +unconsciously absorb. We all know that character comes through +environment in large measure, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a></span> that the mental and spiritual +environment is by far the most potent. Here is something that affects us +more than the finest or poorest furniture and that gives the real zest +and flavor to any meal. The choice of our own reading enters here, not +only the matter of reading in sociology, but of all reading, as to +whether it blinds with class prejudices, intensifies caste feeling, or +atrophies social sympathy by pandering to selfishness and sensuousness. +The control of our own feelings and judgment enters here. Do we +sedulously cultivate charity for others? Do we stifle impatience, +bitterness, class feeling? Do we guide the conversation of visitors and +the family group so that antisocial passions are subdued and a spirit of +brotherly love and compassion for all is cultivated? Here men and women +have opportunity to give evidence of a change of heart; here they need +that awakening to social consciousness which is a new birth, a +regeneration into the life of the Son of Man who came to give his life.</p> + +<p>By its active ministry the family is training for social living. When a +child carries a bowl of soup to some sick or needy one, he learns a +lesson never to be forgotten. The memories of hours of planning and +preparation for some neighborly service—the making of bread, the +packing of a box, the preserves for the sick—shine out like sunshine +spots along childhood's ways; they direct manhood's steps.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">94</a></span></p> + +<p>We are gradually learning that social duties are not learned save +through social deeds; that even the most carefully prepared and +perfectly pedagogical systems of instruction fail, standing alone. The +college student uses the laboratory method in his sociology—though we +know that sociology may be as far from social living as the poles are +apart. The Social Service Association of the Young Men's Christian +Association has given up attempts to teach social duty in favor of the +plan of undertaking specific pieces of social activity. The home must +adopt the laboratory method. The important thing is, not what the father +or mother may systematically teach about the social duties of the +children, but what kinds of service, of ministry and normal activity +they may lead the children to; that is, in what ways they may all +together discharge their functions in society.</p> + + +<h4>§ 5. FAMILIES AS COMMUNITY FACTORS</h4> + +<p>Each family must clearly see its normal relations to its community, to +the social whole; first, as an association of social beings having +social duties, obligations, and privileges; then, to see that the +ordering of the daily life is the largest single factor in determining +the value of the family to the development of the community, fitting +harmoniously into the larger community, and rendering its share of +service.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</a></span></p> + +<p>The disorderly home spreads its immoral contagion beyond its walls, out +into the front yard, out and up and down the street, and all through the +village and city. The City Beautiful cannot come until we have the Home +Beautiful. Training each one to play his part in keeping the house in +order, picking up and setting in place his own tools and playthings, +preventing and removing litter, scraps, and elements of disorder and +discomfort, acquiring habits of neatness based on social motives—these +things make more for the city of beauty and health than all our lectures +on clean cities.</p> + +<p>No family lives to itself. Young people need to see clearly how their +homes and their habits in the home impinge on other homes and lives. +This is impressed upon us in an accentuated and acute degree in city +living. One can hardly imagine a finer discipline of grace than +apartment living, though one may well question whether it is not morally +and hygienically flying in the face of the natural order. We may not +have for a long time municipal ordinances forbidding boiled dinners, +limburger, and phonographs in city apartments; but if, unfortunately, we +are compelled to live in these modern abominations, we ought to +cultivate a conscience that will not inflict our idiosyncrasies, either +in culinary aromas or in musical taste, on our neighbors. But there are +matters greater than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</a></span> these by which the home trains for social +thoughtfulness. No man has a right to grow weeds at home, because the +seeds never stay there. A howling dog, a disease-breeding sty, a +fly-harboring stable, must be viewed, not from the point of the family's +convenience, but from that of others' welfare.</p> + + +<h4>§ 6. TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP</h4> + +<p>The family has a duty to train children for Christian citizenship. No +other institution can take its place even here. Courses of lectures in +churches and settlements effect excellent results, and the study of +civics from the moral and ideal viewpoint should be encouraged in the +schools; but the home is the place where, after all, citizens are +trained and the value or menace of their citizenship determined. If we +stop long enough to get a clear understanding of what we mean by +citizenship this will be the more evident.</p> + +<p>Citizenship is the condition of full communal, social living in a +democracy. It is not a special department or activity of a man's life +which he exercises once in a while, as at the primary or at the polls or +through the political campaign; it is a permanent condition, the +condition of his social living in a democracy. It seems to be worth +while to think of this enough to be quite sure of it, for we have +thought too long of citizenship as a special aspect of one's life or as +an occasional duty; we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</a></span> have called for good citizenship at times of +election and have been content with dormant citizenship at other times; +we have said that one was exercising his citizenship when he voted, and +have forgotten that he was exercising it or abusing or neglecting it as +he walked the streets, talked with his neighbors, or in any way lived +the life that has relations to other lives.</p> + +<p>Matters of citizenship are simply matters of social living, as social +living expresses itself through what we call government; that is, +through communal, civic, national administration and regulation. +Citizenship is social control in action, not through political activity +alone, but through all that concerns civic and communal life. In view of +this it may be worth while to look a little more closely into the +relations of family life to this matter of the determination of the +character of our citizenship.</p> + +<p>The family is an agency for religious training in citizenship. The +family is the first, smallest, and still the most common and potent +social group. It is the community in which we nearly all learn communal +living. At first it is a child's world, then comes his city, and then +his nation, but ere long again the family is his own kingdom. Its +ideals, constantly interpreted in action, determine our ideals. Where +the father is greedy, self-centered, regarding the home as solely for +his convenience as his private boarding-house, where he is a despotic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">98</a></span> +boss, why should not the son at least tolerate bossism in his city if he +does not himself pattern after his father on a wider scale and regard +the city or the state as his private boarding-house and the treasury as +his private manger? Where the mother is a petty parasite, what wonder +the children regard with indifference, if not even with admiration, the +whole system of civic and social barnacles, leeches, and other +parasites?</p> + +<p>The very organization of the home must prepare for civic duty by laying +upon all appropriate duties and activities. It ought to be an ideal type +of community. But that can never be until we take the training of +parents seriously in hand; until we cease to delegate the pedagogy of +courtship, marriage, and home-founding to the comic supplements of the +Sunday papers and to the joke columns. Parents must themselves be +trained for the business of the organization of homes as educational +agencies.</p> + +<p>The life and work of the home ought to train religiously for +citizenship, by causing each to bear his due share of the burdens of +all. Where the child has been forced to do the indolent parent's share, +to support the slothful father, he can only look forward to the time +when he will be free to support only himself, and have no other than +purely egoistic obligations; this is an utterly immoral conception, and +one squarely opposed to good citizenship. Where the boy or the girl has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">99</a></span> +been trained to regard all toil as dishonorable, where each has been +taught scrupulously to avoid every burden, they come into social living +with habits set against bearing their share and toward making others +carry them. The indolent parent makes the tax-dodging citizen, as the +indulgent parent often makes the place-hunting citizen who becomes a tax +on the public.</p> + +<p>The ideals of the family determine the needs of citizens. Its +conversation, its reading, its customs, set the standard of social +needs. Where the father laughs at the smartness of the artful dodge in +politics, where the mother sighs after the tinsel and toys that she +knows others have bought with corrupt cash, where the conversation at +the meal-table steadily, though often unconsciously, lifts up and lauds +those who are out after the "real thing," the eager ears about that +board drink it in and childish hearts resolve what they will do when +they have a chance. Where no voice speaks for high things, where no tide +of indignation against wrong sweeps into language, where the children +never feel that the parents have great moral convictions—where no +vision is, the people perish.</p> + +<p>Yet to realize this civic responsibility of the home would be, in the +greater number of instances, to remedy it. In those other instances +where there are no civic ideals, where the domestic conscience<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span> is dead, +there rests upon the state, upon society, for its own sake, the +responsibility to train those children so that, at any rate, they will +not perpetuate homes of this type. We may do very much by the +stimulation and direction of parents. Men need but to be reminded of +their duty to make it a part of their business to train their children +in social duty.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p>Taylor, <i>Religion in Social Action</i>, chaps. vii, viii. Dodd, Mead & +Co., $1.25.</p> + +<p>E. J. Ward, <i>The Social Center</i>, chap. v. Appleton, $1.50.</p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p>Lofthouse, <i>Ethics in the Family</i>. Hodder & Stoughton, $1.50.</p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. What is the special social importance of the family?</p> + +<p>2. How do children acquire their social ideals from the home?</p> + +<p>3. What are the advantages which the home has as a school?</p> + +<p>4. How do homes train for the responsibilities of citizenship?</p> + +<p>5. Can you describe any plans of community councils in the home?</p> + +<p>6. How would you promote community service in the family?</p> + +<p>7. What are the dangers of unsocial and selfish lives growing in +the home?</p></div> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">14</span></a> This chapter is, with the publisher's kind permission, +taken, with sundry minor changes, from the author's pamphlet, <i>The Home +as a School for Social Living</i>, published by the American Baptist +Publication Society in the "Social Service Series."</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span></p> + +<h3>THE CHILD'S IDEAL LIFE</h3> + + +<p>The modern child is likely to miss one of the great character enrichings +which his parents had, in that he is in danger of growing up entirely +ignorant of the poetic setting of religious thought in historic and +dignified hymns. The great hymns have done more for religious thought +and character than all the sermons that have ever been preached. Even in +the adult of the purely intellectual cast the hymn, aided by rhythm, +music, repetition, and emotion, is likely to become a more permanent +part of the mental substratum than any formal logical presentation of +ideas. How much more will this be the case with the child who feels more +than he reasons, who delights in cadence and rhythm, and who loves a +world of imagery!</p> + + +<h4>§ 1. SONG AND STORY</h4> + +<p>Very early life's ideals are presented in poetic form; plays, +school-life, love of country, friendships, all take or are given metric +expression. So, for children, hymns have a perfectly natural place. The +child sings as he plays, sings as he works, sings in school, and, as +long as life and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span> memory hold, these words of song will be his +possession; in declining years, when eyes are failing and other +interests may wane, fragments of childhood's songs and youth's poems +will sing themselves over in his memory; while in the years between how +often will some stanza or line spring into the focus of thought just at +the moment when it can give brave and helpful direction!</p> + +<p>Those years of facile memorization should be like the ant's summer, a +period of steady storing in mind of the world's treasures of thought. No +man ever had too many good and beautiful thoughts in his memory. Few +have failed to recall with gratitude some apparently long-forgotten word +of cheer, light, and inspiration stored in childhood. The special virtue +of the hymn, among all poetic forms of great thoughts, is that memory is +strengthened by the music and the thought further idealized by it, while +frequent repetition fixes it the more firmly and repetition in +congregational song adds the high value of emotional association.</p> + +<p>But what kinds of memory treasures are being given to the modern child +in the realm of religion? In by far the greater number of instances in +the United States neither church nor Sunday school nor home brings to +him any knowledge of the great hymns of religion.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">15</a> In the churches +that use <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span>these hymns the child is frequently not in the Sunday +services; he is in the children's service or the school, while in the +majority of churches a weak-minded endeavor for amusement has +substituted meaningless rag-time trivialities for rich and dignified +hymns. Perhaps the custom of encouraging congregations to jig, dance, +cavort, or drone through the frivolities of "popular" gospel songs is +only a passing craze, but it is a most unfortunate one; it tends to +divorce worship and thought, to make worship a matter of purely +superficial emotions, and to form the habit of expressing religion, the +highest experience of life, in language, often irreverent and almost +always trivial, slangy, or ridiculous. It is an insult to the +intelligence of children to ask them to sing</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We're pilgrims o'er the sands of time,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We have not long to stay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lifeboat soon is coming,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To carry the pilgrims away.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is the duty of parents to know what their children are learning in +the Sunday school. Not only are they often missing the opportunity to +lay up the treasure of elevating, inspiring thoughts; they are acquiring +crude, mistaken, misleading theological concepts in the hideous, +revolting figures of "evangelistic songs"; they are storing their minds +with atrocities in English and in figures of speech; they are acquiring +the habits of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span> sentimentality in religion and inhibiting the finer, +higher feelings. They are blunting their higher feelings by repeating +incongruous and nauseating figures of being "washed in blood," or they +are carelessly singing sentiments they do not understand.</p> + +<p>What can the family do about this? It ought to assert its rights in the +church. It ought to protest and rebel against the debauching of mind and +the degrading of religion (all for the sake of selling trashy books at +$25 per hundred). A parent would do better to keep his child from church +and Sunday school than to permit his mind to be filled with the +sanguinary pictures of God, the mediaeval theology of the modern +songbook, and its offenses against truth in thought and form. But the +family can work positively and more effectively by providing good hymns +for children in the home.</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. TRAINING IN SONG</h4> + +<p>Almost without exception all children will sing if encouraged early in +life. In the family group one has only to start a familiar song and soon +all will be singing. It is just as natural to sing "Abide with Me" when +the family sits together in the evening as it is to start "My Alabama +Choo-choo." Children like the swing of "Onward, Christian Soldiers" just +as much as in the northern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span> states they like "Marching through Georgia." +If they do not know the hymns the home is the best of all places in +which to learn them.</p> + +<p>A large section of real family life is missing in families that do not +sing together. A home without song lacks one of the strongest bonds of +family unity, and the after-years will be deprived of a memory dear +indeed to many others. Days often come when the wheels of family life +seem to develop friction, when little rifts seem to throw the members +far apart, but the evening song brings them together. The unity of +action, of feeling, the development of emotions above the day's +irritation and strife, all help to new joys in family living.</p> + +<p>We may well think of the fine songs and the great hymns together. There +is no fixed wall between "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory," and "The Son +of God Goes Forth," nor between "My Old Kentucky Home" and "Jerusalem +the Golden." The modern home has the musical instruments to lead in +song—though they are not always essential—and lacks only the planning +and forethought to develop the joys of song. It must provide the thought +that applies the simpler forms of musical expression to the sweetening +and enriching of life.</p> + +<p>Let no one say, "My family is not musical." That simply means that your +family does not take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span> time for music and song. Build on the training in +patriotic and folk-songs given in the schools; sing these same songs +over in the home and then associate with the best of them the best of +the hymns. Cultivate the habit of binding the whole realm of feeling in +music together, the hymns and the songs, to make religion mean beauty +and devotion and to make the finer sentiments of life truly religious.</p> + +<p>This costs time and thought. Someone must plan that the books of songs +and hymns are provided, that the opportunity is given, and that wise, +unobtrusive leadership is there. Have ready several copies of the book +containing the best hymns. Think out your plan of procedure in advance, +selecting the songs, or at least the first one. Then at the right time +simply begin to play that song and you will scarcely need to invite the +children to sing with you.</p> + +<p>Should anyone doubt whether children will enjoy singing good hymns, he +may purchase a few records for the phonograph, for example, "O Come All +Ye Faithful," "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," "O Zion Haste," "Holy, +Holy, Holy," "Abide with Me." These will suit those of from ten upward; +younger children will enjoy "Can a Little Child Like Me," "Brightly +Gleams Our Banner," "Jesus Loves Me." "I Think When I Read That Sweet +Story," and "For the Beauty of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span> the Earth," though they will join gladly +in the other hymns. Or, instead of using the phonograph, sit down +quietly at the piano and play these hymns, with just enough emphasis for +the children to catch the rhythm, and they will soon be standing at the +piano singing with you.<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">16</a></p> + + +<h4>§ 3. PLAY ACTIVITY</h4> + +<p>The child is a playing animal. Play is not an invention of the devil, +designed to plague parents and to lead children to waste their time. It +is nature's best method of education, for when a child plays he is +simply reaching forward in his activities to the realization of his +ideals. Play is idealized experiences. There is always a significance of +wider and maturer experience in children's play. Therefore the family +must find space and time and adaptation of organization to the child's +need of spontaneous, free activity in play.</p> + +<p>The special religious value of play lies in the fact that the child in +his games is experimenting with life, learning its lessons; especially +is he learning the art of living with other lives. It is our religious +duty to see to it that our children become <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span>used to living in society by +playing in social groups. Scarcely anyone is more to be pitied than the +lonely child standing in the corner of the playground, able only to +watch the games, because parental prohibition has already made him a +solitary and unsocial creature.</p> + +<p>The educational potencies of play are so great that we dare not leave +its activities to chance. Parents must study the power of play, its +psychological and educational values, in order to direct its activity to +the highest good.</p> + +<p>The adequate care of a child's play-life will involve, in addition to +the trained intelligence of the parents, provision for space in the +house and also outdoors, willingness to subordinate our peace and our +pleasure to the child's play at times, a reasonable though not +necessarily expensive provision of play materials, attention to the +character of the plays and playmates. The home will not lose its harmony +and beauty if it is filled with playing children. Its function has to do +with their development rather than with the preservation of chairs.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p>H. F. Cope, <i>Hymns You Ought to Know</i>, Introduction. Revell, $1.50.</p> + +<p>W. F. Pratt, <i>Musical Ministries</i>. Revell, $1.00.</p> + +<p>H. W. Hulbert, <i>The Church and Her Children</i>, chap. x. Revell, +$1.00.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p>For a list of great hymns see <i>Hymns You Ought to Know</i>, edited by +Henry F. Cope, and mentioned above. It contains one hundred +standard hymns with a brief account of each hymn and of each +author.</p> + +<p>E. D. Eaton, "Hymns for Youth," <i>Religious Education</i>, December, +1912, VII, 509.</p> + +<p>See report of the Commission on Worship in the Sunday School, in +<i>Religious Education</i>, October, 1914.</p> + +<p>Read especially the chapter on this subject in H. H. Hartshorne, +<i>Worship in the Sunday School</i>. Columbia University, $1.25.</p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. What special advantages do songs and hymns have in their +pedagogical power?</p> + +<p>2. What hymns do you remember from childhood? In what way are these +hymns valuable to you?</p> + +<p>3. What changes would you like to see in the hymns the children +learn today?</p> + +<p>4. What difficulties do you find in training children to sing in +the home?</p> + +<p>5. Is it worth while to teach children to play? What games have +special educational value? What games have religious significance +or value? Give reasons for your opinions.</p></div> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">15</span></a> One of the best collections of suitable religious songs is +<i>Worship and Song</i>. Pilgrim Press, $0.40.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">16</span></a> An excellent plan is worked out in <i>The Children's Hour of +Story and Song</i> by Moffat and Hidden, Unitarian Sunday School Society, +in which children's stories are given and following them suitable songs +and hymns with the music for each.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span></p> + +<h3>STORIES AND READING</h3> + + +<p>If we would teach religion to our children we must adopt the method of +Jesus; that of telling stories. The story has the advantage, first, of +its natural interest, and, then, of the indirect manner of its +presentation of the truth, together with the fact that that truth is +embodied in a statement of life and experience. Besides, story-telling +to any person of active interests is one of the easiest and most +stimulating methods of teaching.</p> + + +<h4>§ 1. STORY-TELLING</h4> + +<p>So much has already been written on the art of telling stories that only +a few suggestions are needed here. First, understand why you tell the +story. Normally a double motive enters in, namely, the conveyance of +truth in life, at the same time affording real pleasure to the +listeners. Either motive alone will be inadequate. You cannot convey the +truth without the desire to give pleasure; you cannot make the pleasure +worth while without the truth. But this is the place to insist that the +truth which you desire to convey must find its way to the conviction of +the child through the story and not through any moral or preface or +particular statement which you may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span> make. The moral or lesson must be +clear to you but carefully held in reserve to direct the matter and +manner of the story.</p> + +<p>Secondly, be prepared to pay the price of this most effective method of +instruction. It will cost the reservation of a certain amount of time +both for acquiring the story and for relating it. It will require +careful thought and planning, especially to be sure that the story is +told in sympathy with the child's world. People who are too busy to tell +their children stories are, perhaps fortunately, coming to realize that +they are too busy to have children. If it looks like a waste of time to +turn off the lights and sit by the firelight for from twenty to thirty +minutes, we shall need to revise our estimates of the value of +child-character. Nor must we shrink from the investment of time in +preparation for the narration of the story; if it is worth telling, it +is worth telling well.</p> + +<p>Thirdly, keep a record of sources of stories. This may be preserved in a +notebook. One parent used a card-index for this purpose. There are a few +books published containing good collections.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">17</a> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span>You will find most +valuable your own little book in which you have noted down the fugitive +stories and short selections which are to be found in general +literature.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">18</a></p> + +<p>Fourthly, do not tell a story so as to close the child's interest in the +narrative. Stories ought to lead to inquiry and further reading in the +book or other source from which they have been drawn; indeed, +story-telling is one excellent method of quickening an interest in +reading.</p> + +<p>Fifthly, allow the children to retell the stories to one another. Often +the whole family will be entertained and helped by the explanation which +a small child will give of the story he has learned by hearing it +repeated a few times from his mother's lips.</p> + +<p>Sixthly, telling Bible stories to children in the quiet hour is the best +of all methods to stimulate their interest in the Bible itself. It is +much better to tell the story in your own language than to read it +either in the Bible or in a paraphrase. For one reason, you will never +tell it twice the same way, and children will watch with interest +changes in the narration. As soon as they can read, secure <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span>some of the +simple Bible narratives and put these in their hands.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">19</a></p> + + +<h4>§ 2. BOOKS AND READING</h4> + +<p>A home without books is like a house with only one window; it can look +out in only one direction, in that of the present. It knows only a +limited world; its children have a short measure of the joy of life, +they can know here only those whom they see today, their friends must be +few, their world narrow and confined.</p> + +<p>If the books are not in your home the children will find them elsewhere. +Unless the school kills the taste for reading, as it sometimes does, the +young folks will open ways somehow into the ideal realm of books. As +they grow up, the book takes the place of the story. The printed page is +the child's key to all routes of travel, routes that lead to other times +and lands, routes that lead to other people and into their hearts and +minds. The child sees conduct and feels it as it is in action in lives +before him, but he begins to discriminate and to analyze it only through +reading; souls are revealed where the purpose of the writer is that the +reader may see the springs of action in the character portrayed. +Fiction, biography, travel, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span>and adventure soon pass from the merely +exterior happenings to the discovery of meanings in character.</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. DANGERS OF READING</h4> + +<p>Since the book needs only one for its enjoyment, while the story +requires two, there is less control over reading. There is only one way +to be sure that children are not devouring vicious books and that is to +make sure that they have an ample supply of healthful, helpful ones. +This is especially necessary in a day that caters to sloth in reading. +The tendency is for reading to take the facile decline from book to +cheap magazine, from magazine to newspaper, and from the newspaper to +skimming the headlines and the "funnies." The cheaper papers appeal to +the lowest intelligence and strike at the line of least moral and mental +resistance. Reading enriches the life but little and may impoverish it +greatly unless there is developed the habit of drawing on the world's +great treasures of thought and feeling. Open windows in your children's +souls by giving them books; keep them open by encouraging the reading +habit. Great souls wait for them, willing to converse and become their +friends and teachers if they will but take down these books from the +shelves and open them with an eager mind.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span></p> + + +<h4>§ 4. DEVELOPING GOOD TASTE</h4> + +<p><i>What can be done to quicken a love of good reading in children?</i> +Recognize that not all children develop this appetite at the same age, +that girls read more than boys, that boys usually have a period of +decline in reading interest from seventeen to twenty-one or even later. +But everything really depends on whether we ourselves love good books +and keep them on hand. One of the life-centers of a family should be the +bookshelf, while the picture of the evening lamp and the reading group +will constitute one of its best memories. Where books are at hand and +where they are used daily, the children need little urging to read. Now +this does not mean that yards of choice editions make a book-loving +family. There is a difference between bindings and books. It means books +known and loved, familiar friends for daily converse, books on handy +shelves and fit to be used as common food.</p> + +<p><i>Do you know what your children read?</i> Do you watch as carefully the +food of mind and spirit as you do that of the body? Do you show an +interest in the books they plan to draw from the public library? Can you +guide them intelligently when they ask for suggestions of interesting +books? Do you know the healthful, suitable ones?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span></p> + + +<h4>§ 5. PROMOTION OF THE READING INTEREST</h4> + +<p>The Sunday school might aid greatly in promoting the habit of selecting +and reading good books. Children often come home from day school +clamoring for some book which the teacher has recommended as interesting +and valuable. The Sunday-school teacher's recommendation would also +carry weight. In every church, whether there exists a Sunday-school +library or not, there ought to be a library or book committee which +would watch for the right reading for the different grades and would +cause the titles of good books to be placed on a bulletin board. +Further, such a committee might very well place a copy of the book +selected in the teacher's hand in order that the teacher might call the +attention of the class directly to it. Of course the range of selection +should be as wide as the world of books and should include fiction, +romance, song, and story.<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">20</a> Parents could do the same sort of thing. +Why not talk up the best books we remember? As to those old-time books, +we need to realize that tastes change. Perhaps they owed much of their +interest to their vivid descriptions of contemporary life. Therefore we +must commend the new books, those that belong to the children's own +days, too. This can be done, provided we really know the books, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span>not by +saying, "We should like you to read <i>Sandford and Merton</i>," but rather, +"There is a capital story in <i>Captains Courageous</i>; have any of you read +it?" Leave the matter there, or, at most, go only far enough to +stimulate interest.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p>St. John, <i>Stories and Story Telling</i>, chaps. i-v. Eaton & Mains, +$0.50.</p> + +<p>Forbush, <i>The Coming Generation</i>, chap. viii. Appleton, $1.50</p> + +<p>Winchester, "Good and Bad Books in the Home," in <i>The Bible in +Practical Life</i>, p. 38. Religious Education Association, $2.50.</p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p>Partridge, <i>Story Telling in School and Home</i>. Sturgis & Walton, +$1.25.</p> + +<p>H. W. Mabie, <i>Books and Culture</i>. Dodd, Mead & Co., $1.25.</p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Methods and Materials</span></p> + +<p class="center">ON STORY-TELLING</p> + +<p>E. P. St. John, <i>Stories and Story Telling</i>. Eaton & Mains, $0.50.</p> + +<p>Wyche, <i>Some Great Stories and How to Tell Them</i>. Newson & Co., +$1.00.</p> + +<p>L. S. Houghton, <i>Telling Bible Stories</i>. Scribner, $1.25.</p> + +<p>Bryant, <i>How to Tell Stories for Children</i>. Houghton Mifflin Co., +$1.00.</p> + +<p>E. M. and G. E. Partridge, <i>Story Telling in School and Home</i>. +Sturgis & Walton, $1.25.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span></p> + +<p class="center">DIRECTING CHILDREN'S READING IN THE HOME</p> + +<p>Macy, <i>A Children's Guide to Reading</i>. Baker & Taylor Co., $1.25.</p> + +<p>Field, <i>Finger Posts to Children's Reading</i>. McClurg, $1.00.</p> + +<p>Arnold, <i>A Mother's List of Books for Children</i>. McClurg, $1.00.</p> + +<p>For a short practical list see the different lists classified under +Sunday-School Departments in W. S. Athearn, <i>The Church School</i>, +particularly pp. 54, 83, 118, 169. Pilgrim Press, $1.00.</p> + + +<p class="center">IV. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. Do you remember any stories which especially impressed you as a +child? What were their qualities? What were the qualities of their +narration?</p> + +<p>2. What are your difficulties in story-telling to children?</p> + +<p>3. Is the habit of reading books passing among children? If so, +what are the reasons?</p> + +<p>4. What responsibility has the public library toward the child's +selection of books? toward promoting book reading?</p> + +<p>5. How many families co-operate with the library?</p> + +<p>6. How might the church co-operate?</p> + +<p>7. Does the reading of newspapers by children affect their general +habits of reading? In what ways?</p> + +<p>8. What personal difference is there, if any, between the effect of +a borrowed book and of one the child owns?</p></div> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">17</span></a> Laura E. Cragin, <i>Kindergarten Bible Stories</i>. Fifty-six +of the Old Testament stories. There is also a companion volume of New +Testament stories. +</p><p> +James Baldwin, <i>Old Stories of the East</i>. Fresh and interesting versions +of the familiar Old Testament stories. +</p><p> +Kate Douglas Wiggin, <i>The Story Hour</i>. Good stories and a suggestive +introduction on story-telling. +</p><p> +<i>Half a Hundred Stories for the Little People</i>, by various authors.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">18</span></a> <i>A List of Good Stories to Tell to Children under Twelve +Years of Age</i>, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, $0.05. There are +references to books in which the stories may be found, including 25 +Bible stories, 16 fables, 14 myths, 14 Christmas stories, 7 Thanksgiving +stories, etc.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">19</span></a> Such as O'Shea, <i>Old World Wonder Stories</i>; George Hodges, +<i>The Garden of Eden</i>; Cragin, <i>Old Testament Stories</i>; Mary Stewart, +<i>Tell Me a True Story</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">20</span></a> The H. W. Wilson Co., White Plains, New York, publishes a +list of <i>Children's Books for Sunday-School Libraries</i>.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span></p> + +<h3>THE USE OF THE BIBLE IN THE HOME</h3> + + +<p>If we keep clearly in mind the aim of religious education in the family +as that of the development of the lives of religious persons, the place +and value of the Bible will be evident. It will be used as a means of +developing and directing lives. This will be quite different from a +perfunctory use because our fathers used it or a use under the +compulsion of the fear lest some strange evil should befall us, some +visitation of an offended deity.</p> + + +<h4>§ 1. THE CHILD'S NEED</h4> + +<p>Children need the Bible as a part of their social heritage. Just as they +get a larger life, inspired and stimulated by the realization of their +connection with the past of their family and their country, so the Bible +brings them into connection with the religious history of the race. +General history brings heroic forefathers into the stream of +consciousness; we feel the push of their lives. So the Bible reveals the +stream farther back and makes us part of the process of life in unity +with great characters and great movements.</p> + +<p>The child has a right to the Bible as his literary heritage. Here in the +Bible is the precipitation of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span> the ideals of a people unique in the +place which religion held in their lives. Here is a literature which is +the source of much of the best in the language and reading of the +child's life. Its phrases are beautiful and convenient embodiments of +religious ideals; they will have a steadily developing richness of +meaning as life opens out to the child.<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">21</a></p> + + +<h4>§ 2. DIFFICULTIES</h4> + +<p>The difficulties in the way of the use of the Bible in the home are: the +crowded programs, or a lack of time due to the absence of any program +for the days; a feeling of unnaturalness in the special reading of this +book; the decay of the custom of reading aloud; parental ignorance of +the Bible and especially of its beauties for the young; and the +excessive amount of task-reading frequently required by the schools. The +Sunday school also sometimes offends in this respect by overemphasis on +academic tasks for home work.</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. METHODS</h4> + +<p>First, let parents use the Bible themselves. Use the books as you wish +children to use them. This will be the longest step you can take toward +the solution of the problem.</p> + +<p>Secondly, use the Bible naturally. When children have an aversion to the +Bible it is due usually <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span>to two causes: the peculiar place and use of +the book which makes it a thing apart from life, and often an object of +dread; and the practice of using it as a task-book, to be opened only in +order to prepare Sunday-school lessons. Just as it takes years to +overcome the aversion set up against English literature by its +analytical study in the schools, so that the child becomes a man before +he voluntarily reads Dickens, Thackeray, the poets, and essayists, in +the same manner we have succeeded in making the Bible undesirable to +youth. If you read passages aloud, use the tone of voice which would be +appropriate if this was a new book not bound in leather. Read it for +pleasure as one would read a literary masterpiece—not because opinion +might frown on you if you had not read the classic. Does someone object +that that would be to degrade the Bible to the level of secular +writings? You cannot degrade a literature; it makes its own level and +our labels do not affect it. Certain it is that a pious tone of voice +will not protect the Bible from the secular level. But to use it +unnaturally will degrade it in the opinion of those who hear us.</p> + +<p>Thirdly, make its use a pleasure. All children enjoy story-telling and +listening to reading. Many parents practice the children's hour, some +period in the day when they will, alone with the children, read and talk +with them. Let the Bible story be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span> the reward of a good day, something +promised as an incentive to good behavior. Children delight, not alone +in the story itself, but in rhythmic passages, in the poetic flights of +Isaiah and the beautiful imagery of the Psalms. To them it is natural +and pleasant to think of the hills that skipped and the stars that sang +and the trees that gave forth praise. They know the song of nature and +are happy to find it put into words.</p> + +<p>Fourthly, use the Bible as a book of life. How many times a day do +questions of conduct arise in the family! How often do children ask what +is right, and freely discuss the question! Here is a book rich in +precept and example on at least many of the questions. There are +pictures of actual lives meeting real temptations; there are the +epigrammatic precepts of Proverbs and of the teachings of Jesus. Call +attention to them, not as settling the question out of hand, but as +testimony to the point. Accustom children to getting the light of the +Bible on their lives, remembering that this book is a light and not a +fence nor a code of laws.</p> + +<p>Fifthly, use the Bible in worship. This does not conflict with the plea +for its use naturally, for worship should be as natural as any of the +social pleasures of the family. Here select those passages for reading +which count most for the spirit of worship. It is a good plan to read a +short passage,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span> suitable for memorizing, so frequently that children +learn it and are able to repeat it in concert. Be sure that all the +passages read or recited are short. It will often be wise to preface the +reading with a brief account of its original circumstances, so that all +may hear the words as the actual utterances of a real man living in real +life.</p> + +<p>Sixthly, provide material which helps to make the Bible interesting, and +which helps children to see its pictures through the eyes of geography +and history.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">22</a></p> + +<p>Seventhly, make the use of the Bible possible at all times for all. See +that as soon as the child can read he has his own Bible, that it is in +large, readable type, as much like any other book as possible. It is no +evidence of grace to ruin the eyes over diamond-text Bibles. If +possible, also provide separate books of the Bible, in modern literary +form and some in the idiom of our day.<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">23</a></p> + + +<h4>§ 4. DOUBTFUL METHODS</h4> + +<p>It is doubtful whether good comes from the use of the Bible as a +riddle-book, nor do the "Bible games" tend to develop a natural +appreciation of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span>the book. There is no new light but rather a confusing +shadow thrown on the character of Joseph by the foolish conundrum +concerning Pharaoh making a ruler out of him. Sending a child to the +Bible to discover the shortest verse, the longest, the middle one, etc., +trains him to regard it as an odd kind of book, to think of it as a +dictionary, and to use it less.</p> + +<p>We assume too readily that a knowledge of the separate details of +biblical information, such as the date of the Flood, the age of +Methuselah, the names of the twelve tribes, the twelve apostles, the +books of the two Testaments, is the desired end. But one might know all +these things and many more and be not one whit the better. For the child +surely the desirable end is that he may feel deeply the attractiveness +of the character of Joseph or of Jesus, may say within himself, "What a +fine man; I want to be like him." Be sure the persons are real, that you +see them living their lives in their times, just as you live your life +now.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p>T. G. Soares, "Making the Bible Real to Boys," in <i>Boy Training</i>, +pp. 117-40. Association Press, $0.75.</p> + +<p>W. T. Lhamon, "Bible in the Home," <i>Religious Education</i>, December, +1912, p. 486.</p> + +<p>G. Hodges, <i>Training of Children in Religion</i>, chap. x. Appleton, +$1.50.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p><i>The Bible in Practical Life.</i> Religious Education Association. +Numerous references to the use of the Bible in the home in this +volume.</p> + +<p>Patterson Dubois, <i>The Natural Way</i>, sec. iv. Revell, $1.25.</p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Methods and Materials</span></p> + +<p>"Passages of Bible for Memorization," <i>Religious Education</i>, +August, 1906.</p> + +<p>Louise S. Houghton, <i>Telling Bible Stories</i>. Scribner, $1.25.</p> + +<p>Johnson, <i>The Narrative Bible</i>. Baker & Taylor Co., $1.50.</p> + +<p>Hall and Wood, <i>The Bible Story</i>, 5 vols. King, $2.00 by +subscription.</p> + +<p>Courtney, <i>The Literary Man's Bible</i>. Crowell, $1.25.</p> + +<p>The above are but a few of the many collections of biblical +material.</p> + + +<p class="center">IV. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. What are the conditions which seem to make the reading of the +Bible different from other reading? Is there a sense of unreality +about it as a book? What are the causes?</p> + +<p>2. Try the experiment of reading the story of Joseph at one +sitting. Try to retell this to children.</p> + +<p>3. What biblical material stands out in your memory of childhood? +In what degree is this due to the art of the story-teller or the +reader? to the character of the material?</p></div> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">21</span></a> See M.J.C. Foster, <i>The Mother the Child's First Bible +Teacher</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">22</span></a> Mackie, <i>Bible Manners and Customs</i>. +</p><p> +Chamberlin, <i>Introduction to the Bible for Teachers of Children</i>. +</p><p> +Worcester, <i>On Holy Ground</i>, 2 vols.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">23</span></a> For example, Moulton, <i>Modern Reader's Bible</i>. The new +Jewish renderings of Old Testament books are good, especially the +Psalms.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span></p> + +<h3>FAMILY WORSHIP</h3> + + +<p>Family worship has declined until, at least in the United States, the +percentage of families practicing daily worship in the home is so small +as to be negligible. If this meant that a general institution of +religion had passed out of existence the fact would be highly +significant. But it is well to remember that family worship has never +been a general institution. We have generalized the picture of the +"Cotter's Saturday Night" so eloquently drawn by Burns; it has been +applied to every night and to every fireside. Daily family worship was +observed in practically all the Puritan homes of New England; but there +is no evidence for it as a uniform custom, either in other parts of this +country or in other parts of the world, save perhaps in sections of +Scotland. True, there were many families which observed the custom; but +there were also many families of church members and doubtless of truly +religious people in which family worship as a regular institution was +unknown. This has been especially true in the type of family life which +has developed under modern social conditions. Further, even so simple an +exercise as grace at meals has not always been a general custom.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span></p> + + +<h4>§ 1. PAST CUSTOMS</h4> + +<p>But the fact today is that family worship is so rare as to be counted +phenomenal wherever found. The instances, though not general, were +common a generation ago. Many are living to whom family worship afforded +the largest part of their conscious and formal religious education. +Following the morning meal, or, occasionally, the evening meal, the +family waited while the father, or the mother in his absence, read a +portion of the Scriptures and offered prayer. In other families the act +of worship would be the closing one of the day, perhaps participated in +by the older members only, the younger children having repeated their +prayers at bedside on retiring. A thousand happy and sacred associations +gather about the memories of these occasions: the sense of reverence, +the feeling that the home was a sacred place, the impression of noble +words and elevating thoughts, the reflex influence of the prayer that +committed all to the keeping and guidance of God.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">24</a></p> + + +<h4>§ 2. WHY FAMILY WORSHIP?</h4> + +<p>Parents need to see the values in family worship. We have been insisting +on the primary importance of the religious interpretation of the family +as an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span>institution, on the power of the religious motive, and the +atmosphere of religion. But wherever there is a truly religious motive +and a permanent religious atmosphere these will find definite expression +in acts easily recognized as religious. Love is the motive and +atmosphere of the true home, but love blossoms into words and bears +fruit in a thousand deeds. The life of love dies without reality in act. +Ideals are precipitated in expressive acts. So is it with religion in +the home; it must not only be real in its sincerity, it must be +realized, must pass over into conduct and action, as suggested above in +chaps. vii and viii. And it must do this in ways so sharply defined and +readily recognized as to leave no doubt as to their meaning. True, all +acts may be religious and thus full of worship—this is most important +of all—but worship expressly unites all such acts in a spirit of +loyalty and aspiration.</p> + +<p>Worship is a necessity for the sake of the ideal unity of the family +life. Just as the individual must not only feel the religious emotion +but must also do the thing called for, so must this united personality +of the family give expression to its faith and aspiration, its motives +and emotions, in such a manner that, acting as a social unit, all can +together put the inner life into the outer form. The social value of +family worship is the strongest reason for its maintenance. It is the +united act<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span> of the family group, the one in which group consciousness is +expressly directed to the highest possible aims. Every period of worship +brings the family into unity at an ideal level.</p> + +<p>The expression of religion in definite forms is necessary for children, +too, as furnishing a means by which they can manifest their feeling of +the higher meaning of family life. The reality of that feeling is +stimulated in the daily, common life of the right family; the hour of +worship is one out of many definite forms of its concrete expression. It +is the form which gathers up the totality of feeling and aspiration into +an act of worship and praise toward God, the Father of all families. It +is evident there cannot be true worship in the family that is +irreligious in its essential qualities, in its character, in its ideals +and atmosphere.</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. ADVANTAGES</h4> + +<p>The period of worship is a necessity in interpreting to all the spirit +and meaning of a religious family. It objectifies the inner life. It +makes definite, tangible, and easily remembered the general impressions +of religion. It precipitates the atmosphere of religion into +definiteness. In the chemical laboratory of a university there is +usually a decided atmosphere of chemistry, but no one expects to become +a chemical engineer by absorbing that atmosphere, nor even to attain a +simple<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span> working knowledge by merely general impressions. Definiteness +aids in gathering up our knowledge, our impressions.</p> + +<p>The reading of the Bible in the home will give, when the passages are +wisely chosen, forms of language into which the often chaotic but +nevertheless valuable and potential emotions of youth fall as into a +beautiful mold; they become remembered forms of beauty thereafter.</p> + +<p>Family worship furnishes opportunity for direct religious instruction. +When the home life has its regular institution, as regular as meals and +play, the formality, the apparent abnormality of conversation about +religion, is absent. Children expect and look forward to the period when +the family will lay other things aside to think on the eternal values. +Their questions in the breathing-space that always ought to follow +worship become perfectly natural and sincere.</p> + +<p>Family worship lifts the whole level of family life. Ideally conceived, +it simply means the family unity consciously coming into its highest +place. Children may not understand all the reading nor enter into the +motives for all parts of the petition, but they do feel that this moment +is the one in which the family enters a holy place. They feel that God +is real and that their family life is a part of his whole care and of +his life. One short period of natural reverence sends light and calm +all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span> through the day. Where the home is the place where true prayer is +offered, the family is the group which meets in an act of worship; here +and into this group there cannot easily enter strife, bickerings, or +baseness. One short period, five minutes or even less, of quietness, of +united turning toward the eternal, gives tone to the day and finer +atmosphere to the home.</p> + +<p>What our community life might be like without the churches, faulty or +incompetent as we may know some of them to be, what that life would lose +and miss without them is precisely, and perhaps in larger degree, what +the family life misses without its own institution of regular devotion +and worship.</p> + + +<h4>§ 4. THE DIFFICULTIES</h4> + +<p>We can always afford to do that which is most worth while doing; our +essential difficulty is to shake off the delusion of the lesser values, +the lower prizes, to realize that, of all the good of life, the +characters of our children, the gain we can all make in the eternal +values of the spirit, in love and joy and truth and goodness, is the +gain most worth while. We tend to set the making of a living before the +making of lives. We need to see the development of the powers of +personality, the riches of character, as the ultimate, dominant purpose +of all being. Once grasp that, and hold<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span> to it, and we shall not allow +lesser considerations, such as the pressure of business, the desire for +gain, for ease, for pleasure, for social life, to come before this first +and highest good; we shall make time for definite conscious religion in +the life of the family.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">25</a></p> + + +<h4>§ 5. TYPES OF WORSHIP</h4> + +<p>There are three simple forms which worship takes in the family: first, +grace offered at the meals; secondly, the prayers of children on +retiring and, occasionally, on rising; thirdly, the daily gathering of +the family for an act of the spirit. The statement of the three forms +reads so as to give them a formal character, but the most important +point to remember is that wherever they are true acts of worship they +are formal only in that they occur at definite, determined times and +places. The acts have no merit in themselves. Merely to institute their +observance will not secure religious feeling and life in the home. These +three observances have arisen because at these times there is the best +and most natural opportunity for the expression of aspiration, desire, +and feeling.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span></p> + + +<h4>§ 6. METHODS OF FAMILY WORSHIP</h4> + +<p>1. <i>Grace at meals.</i>—Shall we say grace at meals? To assent because it +is the custom, or because it was so done in our childhood's home, may +make an irreligious mockery of the act. Perhaps, too, there are some who +even hesitate to omit the grace from an unspoken fear that the food +might harm them without it. All have heard grace so muttered, or +hurriedly and carelessly spoken, void of all feeling and thought, that +the act was almost unconscious, a species of "vain repetition."</p> + +<p>There are two outstanding aspects of the asking of a blessing—the +desire to express gratitude for the common benefits of life, and the +expression of a wish, with the recognition of its realization, that at +each meal the family group might include the Unseen Guest, the Infinite +Spirit of God. That wish lifts the meal above the dull level of +satisfying appetites. Just as, in good society, we seek to make the meal +much more than an eating of food, "a feast of reason and a flow of +soul," so does this act make each meal a social occasion lifted toward +the spiritual. The one thought at the beginning, the thought of the +reality of the presence of God, and of the nearness of the divine to us +in our daily pleasures, gives a new level to all our thinking.</p> + +<p>How shall we say grace, or "ask a blessing"? First, with simplicity and +sincerity. Avoid long, elaborate, ornate phrases. It is better to err +in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span> rhetoric than in feeling and reality. The sonorous grace may soon +become stilted and offensive. It is better to say in your own words just +what you mean, for that will help all, even to the youngest, to mean +what they say with you.</p> + +<p>Vary the form of petition. Sometimes let it be the silent grace of the +Quakers; sometimes children will enjoy singing one of the old four-line +stanzas, as</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Be present at our table, Lord,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be here and everywhere adored;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These mercies bless and grant that we<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May feast in Paradise with thee.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>One might use the first three of the following lines for breakfast and +the last three at another meal:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For the new morning with its light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For rest and shelter of the night,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We thank the heavenly Father.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For rest and food, for love and friends,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For everything his goodness sends,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We thank the heavenly Father.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">26</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>or</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When early in the morning the birds lift up their songs,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We bring our praise to Jesus to whom all praise belongs.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>One especially needs to guard against the purely dietetic grace, the one +that only asks that the deity will aid digestion, as that form so often +heard, "Bless these mercies to our use."<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">27</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span></p><p>Should we say grace on all occasions of meals? What shall we do at the +social dinner in the home? The answer depends on the purpose of the +grace. Is it not that in our own group we may have the consciousness of +the presence of God? When the meal is that of our own group with a +friend or two, we bring the friends into the group and the act of family +worship is maintained. Usually this is the case. So it will be when the +group is entirely at one in this desire: the asking of grace will be +perfectly natural. But when the group is a large one, when the sense of +family unity is lost, or when the observance would seem unnatural, it is +better to omit it. Grace in large gatherings often seems an uncovering +of the sacred aspects of the home life.</p> + +<p>2. <i>Bedtime prayers.</i>—What of children's bedtime prayers? Many can +remember them. To many the most natural, helpful time for formal periods +of prayer is in the quiet of the bedroom just before retiring. But there +is a grave danger in establishing a regular custom of bedside prayers +for children, a danger manifest in the very form of certain of these +prayers, as</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Now I lay me down to sleep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I pray the Lord my soul to keep.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is as though the child were saying, "The day is ended during which I +have been able to take care of myself, the hours of helpless sleep +begin, and I ask God to take care of me through the terrors of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span> +night." For some children, at least, the night has been made terrible by +that thought; they have been led to feel that the day was safe and +beautiful, but that the night was so dangerous and fearful that only the +great God could keep them through it, and it was an open question +whether their prayer for that keeping would be heard.</p> + +<p>One must avoid also the notion that such prayers are part of a price +paid, a system of daily taxation in return for which heaven furnishes us +police protection.</p> + +<p>The best plan seems to be to encourage children to pray, to establish in +them the habit of closing the day with quiet, grateful thoughts, to +watch especially that the prayers learned in early life do not distort +the child's thoughts of God, and to make the evening prayer an +opportunity for the child to express his desires to God his Father and +Friend. Having done this, as the children grow up it is best to leave +them free to pray when and where they will. One may properly encourage +the evening, private prayer; but the child ought to have the feeling +that it is not obligatory, that it must grow out of his desire to talk +with God, and, above all, that it has no special connection with the +hour and act of retiring for sleep but rather, so far as time is +concerned, with the closing of the day. Mothers must see far beyond the +charm of the picture formed by the little white-robed figure at her +knee. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span> is no hour so rich in possibilities for this growing life. +It is one of the great opportunities to guide its consciousness of +God.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">28</a></p> + +<p>3. <i>General family prayers.</i>—It is true that, in many homes, under +modern conditions of business, it is almost impossible for the family to +be united at the hour when worship used to be customary, following +breakfast. However, that is not the only hour available. In many +respects it is a poor one for the purpose of social worship; it lacks +the sense of leisure. But there are few families where the members do +not all gather for the evening meal. It is not difficult to plan at its +close for ten minutes in which all shall remain. Without leaving the +table it is possible to spend a short time in united, social worship. +Or, by establishing the custom and steadily following it, it is possible +to leave the table and in less than ten minutes find ample time for +worship in another room.</p> + +<p>Really everything depends at first on how much we desire to have family +worship, whether we see its beauty and value in the knitting of home +ties, in the elevation of the family spirit, and in the quickening of +the religious ideas. We find time to eat simply because we must; when +the necessity of the spirit is upon us we shall find time also to +worship and to pray.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span></p> + +<p>Next to the will to make time comes the question of method. First, +determine to be simple, natural, and informal. A stilted exercise soon +becomes a burden and a source of pain to all. In whatever you do, seek +to make it possible for all to have a share by seeing that every thought +is expressed within the intelligence of even the younger members, that +is, of those who desire to have a share. This does not mean descending +to "baby-talk." Just read the Twenty-third Psalm; that is not baby talk, +but a child of seven can understand what is meant up to the measure of +his experience; the language is essentially simple though the ideas are +sublime.</p> + +<p>Secondly, insure brevity. For that part of worship in which all are +expected regularly to unite, ten minutes should be ample. Some excellent +programs will not take more than half this time. Family worship is not a +diminutive facsimile of church worship. Doubtless the experiment has +failed in many families because the father has attempted to preach to a +congregation which could not escape. Keep in mind the thought that this +is to be a high moment in each day in which every member will have an +equal share.</p> + +<p>Thirdly, plan for the largest possible amount of common participation. +This is to be the expression of the unity of the family life. Children +enjoy doing things co-operatively and in concert.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span></p> + +<p>Fourthly, treat the occasion naturally in relation to other affairs. +Proceed to the worship without formal notice, without change of voice, +and without apology to visitors. Take this for granted. At the close +move on into other duties without the sense of coming back into the +world. You have not been out of it; you have only recognized the eternal +life and love everywhere in it.</p> + +<p>4. <i>Suggestions of plans.</i>—There are given below seven outlines of +plans of worship. They are plans which have been in use and have been +tried for years. Their only merit is simplicity and practicability; but +they are at least worthy of trial. There is no special significance in +the arrangement of the days and this may be changed in any way +desirable. Further, all plans should be elastic; there will come special +days, such as festivals and birthdays, when the program should be +varied. For example, on a birthday the child whose anniversary then +occurs should have the privilege of making the choice of recitation or +reading or of determining the order of all the parts of this brief +period of worship.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">MONDAY</p> + +<p>1. A short psalm repeated in concert.</p> + +<p>2. A brief, informal petition by father or mother.</p> + +<p>3. The Lord's Prayer, in which all join.</p> + +<p>Before attempting even this simple plan, prepare for it by first +selecting several suitable psalms. The following<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span> should be +included: the 1st, 19th, 23d, 24th, 100th, 117th, 121st, and a part +of the 103d. You would do well to memorize one of these yourself, +so as to be able to lead without reading from the book. Next, think +over with some care the things for which you may pray, the +aspirations which your children can share with you. Few things are +more difficult than this, so to pray that all can make the prayer +their own. Let it also be a prayer of love and joy, not a craven +begging off from punishments, nor a cowardly plea for protection +and provision. We can pray over all these things with gratitude and +with confidence toward the God of love. Do not try to preach in +your prayers. Many prayers have been ruined by preaching, just as +some preaching has been spoiled by praying to the people. Usually +four or five sentences will do for the one day. Better a single +thought simply expressed than the most brilliant attempt to inform +the Almighty on all the events of the world that day.</p> + +<p>A prayer in which all can join is always desirable. The Lord's +Prayer never wearies us nor grows old. Children enter into it with +some new meaning every day; it covers all our great, common, daily +needs.</p> + + +<p class="center">TUESDAY</p> + +<p>1. A few favorite memory verses repeated by all (from either the +Bible or other literature).</p> + +<p>2. Read a very brief passage from the Bible.</p> + +<p>3. Prayer, ending with the Lord's Prayer.</p> + +<p>Many excellent selections will be found in Dr. Dole's book +mentioned at the end of this chapter. Encourage children, however, +to make their selections from the poems and passages they already +know.</p> + +<p>The passage of the Bible selected to be read should be one which +first of all incites to worship, and should be chosen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span> for its +inspiration and literary beauty. A few lines from the great +chapters of Isaiah (e.g., chaps. 35 and 55), from the Psalms (e.g., +Pss. 61, 65, 145), from the Sermon on the Mount, from 1 Cor., chap. +13, from the parables of Jesus, will be suitable.</p> + +<p>The closing prayer may be extemporaneous or may be read from one of +the books of prayers. Many of the prayers in the Episcopal Prayer +Book are especially beautiful and quite suitable. Of course in +families of the Episcopal church the collect for the day would be +the right prayer to use. It is sometimes necessary to use prayers +prepared beforehand; some persons never acquire the ability to pray +aloud, even in their own families. But halting sentences that are +your own, that your children recognize as yours, may mean more to +them than the finest flowing phrases from a book. Use the prayers +from the book, not as a substitute, but as an addition.</p> + + +<p class="center">WEDNESDAY</p> + +<p>1. A good poem from general literature.</p> + +<p>2. Prayer.</p> + +<p>There are so many good collections of the great and inspiring poems +that one hesitates to recommend any collection. Remember that a +poem may be religious and imbued with the spirit of worship, +helpful to the purpose of this occasion, even though it contains no +allusions to Scripture and makes no direct references to religious +belief. "A House by the Side of the Road"<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">29</a> is thoroughly human, +popular, and could not even be accused of being a classic; but it +has a helpful motive and is likely to lead the will toward the life +of service and brotherhood. Some would prefer to read a part of one +of the great hymns.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center">THURSDAY</p> + +<p>1. A brief reading or recitation from the New Testament.</p> + +<p>2. A few moments' conversation on the reading.</p> + +<p>3. A very brief prayer followed by a song.</p> + +<p>The only apparent difficulty here is in starting the conversation. +Do not ask formal questions; rather put them something like this: +"I wonder whether people would do just the same on our street +today." Make the conversation as general as possible; do not +slight, nor scoff at, the contribution of even the least in the +group.</p> + + +<p class="center">FRIDAY</p> + +<p>1. A few verses in concert.</p> + +<p>2. Read a parable or very brief narrative.</p> + +<p>3. The Lord's Prayer.</p> + +<p>The reading had better be from one of the paraphrases if it is a +narrative from the Old Testament.<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">30</a> Even in reading the New +Testament one can at times use with advantage the +<i>Twentieth-Century Bible</i> or the <i>Modern Reader's Bible</i>.</p> + + +<p class="center">SATURDAY</p> + +<p>1. A period of song.</p> + +<p>2. Closing prayer, with the Lord's Prayer.</p> + +<p>Perhaps only one song can be sung. It need not be a hymn; that +should depend on the choice of the children. Help them to put +together all the good songs, including the hymns, in one category +in their minds.</p> + + +<p class="center">SUNDAY</p> + +<p>1. Ask: "What has been the best we have read or repeated in our +worship this week?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span></p> + +<p>2. Ask: "What shall we learn for memory repetition this week, what +psalm or other passage for our concerted worship?"</p> + +<p>3. Read the psalm selected.</p> + +<p>4. Closing prayer.</p> + +<p>5. Period of song, lasting as long as desired.</p> + +<p>This exercise evidently permits of extension in time and should be +arranged in accordance with the program for the day.</p></div> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p>George Hodges, <i>The Training of Children in Religion</i>, chaps. viii, +ix. Appleton, $1.50.</p> + +<p><i>The Improvement of Religious Education</i>, pp. 108 to 123. Religious +Education Association, $0.50.</p> + +<p>Mrs. B. S. Winchester, "Methods and Materials Available," <i>Religious +Education</i>, October, 1911. $0.50.</p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p>Koons, <i>The Child's Religious Life</i>. Eaton & Mains, $1.00.</p> + +<p>Hartshorne, <i>Worship in the Sunday School</i>. Columbia University, +$1.25.</p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Methods and Materials</span></p> + +<p>A. R. Wells, <i>Grace before Meat</i>. U.S.C.E., $0.25.</p> + +<p>C. F. Dole, <i>Choice Verses</i>. Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts. +Privately printed.</p> + +<p>F. A. Hinckley (ed.), <i>Readings for Sunday School and Home</i>. +American Unitarian Association, $0.35.</p> + +<p>J. Martin, <i>Prayers for Little Men and Women</i>. Harper, $1.25.</p> + +<p>S. Hart (ed.), <i>Short Daily Prayers for Families</i>. Longmans, $0.60.</p> + +<p>G. A. Miller, <i>Some Out-Door Prayers</i>. Crowell, $0.35.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span></p> + +<p>Oxenden, <i>Family Prayers</i>. Longmans, $1.50.</p> + +<p>George Skene, <i>Morning Prayers for Home Worship</i>. Methodist Book +Concern, $1.50.</p> + +<p>W. E. Barton, <i>Four Weeks of Family Prayer</i>. Puritan Press, Oak +Park, Ill.</p> + +<p>Abbott, <i>Family Prayers</i>. Dodd, Mead & Co., $0.50.</p> + +<p><i>Prayers for Parents and Children.</i> Young Churchman Co., Milwaukee, +Wisconsin, $0.15.</p> + + +<p class="center">IV. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. What are the causes for the decay of the custom of family +worship?</p> + +<p>2. What influences us most: public opinion, popular custom, +economic pressure?</p> + +<p>3. How have the changes affected the religious influence of the +home?</p> + +<p>4. What features of the older customs are most worth preserving?</p> + +<p>5. Recall any of childhood's prayers which you remember. How many +maintain the custom of bedtime prayers in mature life?</p> + +<p>6. What should be the central motive of "grace" at meals?</p> + +<p>7. Would there be advantage in occasionally omitting the "grace"?</p> + +<p>8. Give reasons for and against "grace."</p> + +<p>9. Criticize the proposed plan of evening family prayers.</p> + +<p>10. Describe any plans which have been tried.</p> + +<p>11. Why is it desirable to maintain family worship?</p></div> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">24</span></a> For a study of children's worship see H. H. Hartshorne, +<i>Worship in the Sunday School</i>; "Report of Commission on Graded +Worship," <i>Religious Education</i>, October, 1914.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">25</span></a> "Parents who give up such a practice as family prayers +mainly because they know of many other people who have done the same are +just as much the slaves of public opinion and ignorant cant as the +narrowest Lowlander who forbids his children secular history on +Sunday."—Lyttleton, <i>Corner-Stone of Education</i>, pp. 207-8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">26</span></a> Quoted by W. S. Athearn, <i>The Church School</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">27</span></a> A number of good poems are given in A. R. Wells, <i>Grace +before Meat</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">28</span></a> W. B. Forbush gives a number of poetic forms of prayer for +children in <i>The Religious Nurture of a Little Child</i>, pp. 12, 13.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">29</span></a> By Samuel Walter Foss.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">30</span></a> One handy form is <i>The Heart of the Bible</i>, prepared by +E. A. Broadus; another, <i>The Children's Bible</i>.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span></p> + +<h3>SUNDAY IN THE HOME</h3> + + +<p>Almost every family finds Sunday a problem. Other days are well occupied +with full programs; this one has a program for only part of its time. +Other days are rich with the liberty of happy action, but this one is +frequently marked by inaction, repression, and limitations. As soon as +the evanescent pleasure of Sunday clothes has passed, for those for whom +it existed at all, the children settle down to endure the day.</p> + + +<h4>§ 1. THE MEANING OF THE DAY</h4> + +<p>Fathers and mothers who vent a sigh of relief when Sunday is over must +marvel at the strains of "O day of joy and gladness." Yet this day +defeats its purpose when it is of any other character. We have no right +to rob it of its joy and its healing balm. On the day made for man, +sacred to his highest good, whatever hinders the real happiness of the +child ought to be set aside.</p> + +<p>Instead of accepting traditions regarding the method of observing the +Sunday, would it not be worth while to ask ourselves, For what use of +the day can we properly be held responsible? Here are so many—fifty-two +a year—days of special<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span> opportunity. To us who complain that business +interferes with the personal education of our children through the week, +what ought this day to mean? To us who lament the little time we can +spend with our families, what ought this day to mean? And what ought we +to try to make it mean to children?</p> + +<p>We call this God's day; what must some children think of a God who robs +his day of all pleasure? If this is the kind of day he makes, then how +unattractive would be his years and eternity! It is the day when we have +our best opportunity to show them what God is like, to interpret his +world and his works in terms of beauty, kindness, riches of thought, and +love.</p> + +<p>It ought to be the day reserved for the best in life, for the treasures +of affection, for the uses of the spirit. Whatever is done this day must +come to this test, Is this a ministry to the life of goodness, truth, +and loving service? Does this enrich lives? In other words, we may put +the broad educational test to the day and its program and determine all +by ministry to growing lives.</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. CONSERVING THE VALUES</h4> + +<p>The family faces the problem of the opposition between the rights of man +on this day and the greed of commerce, the fight between a day of rest +and a day of work. Man's right to rest is assured,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span> legally, but +commerce in the name of amusement and in the guise of petty and +unnecessary trading constantly maintains its fight to invade the day of +rest, to turn it from ministry to man as a person to the dull level of +the week of ministry to things. The home has much at stake in this +struggle. It needs one day free from the life that tears its members +apart, free from the toil that engrosses thought, free for its members +to live together as spiritual beings.</p> + +<p>In the need for one day, free from the things that hinder and devoted to +the life of the spirit, the home finds the guiding principle for the use +of the day; all members are to be trained to use it as a glorious +opportunity, a welcome period, a day of the best things of life. It is +devoted to personality, to man's rights as a religious being.</p> + +<p>Surely one of the best things of life will be that we shall meet one +another, shall look into faces of friends and companions! And this +opportunity of social mingling is lifted to a high level when it is an +act of the larger family life, the life that brings God and man into one +family. That is what the church meeting and service ought to be: our +Father's larger family getting together on the day of the life that +makes them one. For the child the church school and the children's +service of worship are their immediate points of vital touch with the +church family. If we think of the day as affording<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">148</a></span> us the pleasure of +social mingling with friends and members of that family, Sunday morning +will cease to be a period of unwilling observance of empty duties. Of +course that will depend, too, on the measure in which the church and +school grasp their opportunity to make this the best of days.<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">31</a></p> + +<p>Further, let the home keep this day as the one of personal values all +the way through, sacred to that life of love, friendship, and joy in the +presence of one another which is the essential life of the family. It +has always been a good custom for friends to visit on this day, for +families grown up and established around their own hearths to gather +again for a few hours. It is the day when we have time to discover how +much greater are the riches of friendship than aught besides, when, +looking into the eyes of those we love, we see "the light that never was +on sea or land," the ultimate good!</p> + +<p>The hours of being together are the hours of real education. Children +cannot be with good and great people and remain the same. Their lives +need other lives. Above all, they need us. This should be the day for +real mothering and fathering. Nothing ought to be permitted to interfere +with this, neither our social pleasures nor the demands of the church.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">149</a></span></p> + + +<h4>§ 3. THE PROBLEM OF PLAY</h4> + +<p>What shall we do with the child who wants to play on Sunday? Is there +any other kind of child? They all want to. It is as natural for a child +to play as it is for a man to rest; it is as necessary. A child is a +growing person learning life by play. Because play seems trivial to us +we assume it is so to them; we would banish the trivial from the day +devoted to the higher life. In some families play is forbidden because +children find pleasure in it, and adults find it impossible to associate +piety and pleasure.</p> + +<p>Shall we then throw down all barriers and make this day the same as all +others? No, rather make the day different by throwing down barriers that +stand on other days. Let this be the day when the barriers between +father and sons, parents and children, are let down and all can enter +into the joy of living.</p> + +<p>Play is to a child the idealization of life's experiences and the +realization of its ideals. That is why he plays at school, idealizing +the everyday life; that is why he plays at housekeeping, at being in +church, at being a railway engineer, even a highwayman or an outlaw. The +traditional games are the game of life itself in terms of childhood. +Play as idealized experience and realized ideals is to the child what +the church, worship, and the reading of fiction and essays are to the +adult. Play is the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">150</a></span> child's method of reaching forward into life's +meaning. Some games as old as history carry a weight of human tradition +and experience as rich for a child as the adult obtains from historical +review and from association with the past. There is a sense in which the +child playing these games opens the Bible of the race.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">32</a></p> + +<p>We cannot make children over into our pattern; we have to learn from +them. Indeed, we come to life through their ways. We must become as +little children. Before we settle the question of play on Sunday we do +well to be sure that we know what play means to children, that we really +grasp something of its educational value and its religious potency. Then +we can proceed to a family policy in Sunday play.</p> + + +<h4>§ 4. A POLICY ON PLAY</h4> + +<p><i>Keep the day as one of family unity.</i> Help the child to think of it as +a day protected for the sake of family togetherness. You can play that +for this day the ideal is already realized of a family life +uninterrupted by the demands of labor and business.</p> + +<p><i>Maintain the unity by doing the ideal things together.</i> Go to the place +of worship together, provided it is the place where the child can find +expression for spiritual ideals. If the Sunday <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span>school does not really +lift the child-life and really teach the child, if it is not honest with +him and makes no suitable provision for his developing nature, he will +be better off in a quiet hour of family conversation and reading at +home. That means the application of parents to this hour.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">33</a> It +banishes the monstrous Sunday supplement with its hideous, debasing +pictures. It substitutes conversation in the whole group, reading aloud +of stories and poems, biblical and otherwise, and songs, hymns, or at +times the walk in the fields or parks. Fortunately the better type of +Sunday school is more and more to be found; children are more and more +receiving a ministry actually determined by their needs. So far as the +church service is concerned the ideal situation is found when a parallel +service is provided for children, based on their needs and capacities. +As to attendance, under other circumstances, in the family pew, that +depends on whether the child is gaining an aversion to the church by the +torture and tedium often involved. Without doubt many adults acquired +the settled habit of sleeping in church because that was the only +possible relief in childhood.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">34</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span></p><p><i>Maintain the family unity by stepping into the child's ideal life. +Expect activity and use it.</i> Why should we assume that because the adult +finds a Sunday nap enjoyable the child will be blessed by enforced +silence? I would rather see a father playing catch with his boys on +Sunday than see the boys cowed into silence while he slept a Sabbath +sleep. Children will play. Their play is innocent; more, it may be +helpful and educative; we can insure these values in it by our +participation. That is the parent's opportunity for a closer sympathy +with his children. Playing together is the closest living, thinking, and +feeling together. Where games are shared, confidences, secrets, and +aspirations are shared, too. Besides, the participation of the adult may +tend to tone up the game and to moderate boisterousness.</p> + +<p><i>Seek the beautiful.</i> Speaking as one who has been under both the +puritanical regulation and the so-called "continental" freedom of Sunday +observance, nothing seems much more beautiful than the sight of an +entire family playing at home, in the park, or off in the woods or the +fields of the country. Life is strengthened, ideals are lifted, family +ties knit closer, gratitude is quickened, and courage stimulated by play +of this kind.</p> + + +<h4>§ 5. POINTS OF DIFFERENCE</h4> + +<p>But because it is evidently most important that this day should be +different from other days, it is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span> well to mark that difference in our +plays and pleasures and to follow some simple principles for Sunday +play.</p> + +<p>First, make it the day of the <i>best</i> plays. The participation of parents +will tend to have this effect. Sometimes some forms of play may be +reserved for this day.</p> + +<p>Secondly, our play should never interfere with the rights of those who +desire to be quiet or to observe the day in ways differing from ours. We +must respect the rights of all.</p> + +<p>Thirdly, our play must not cause additional or unnecessary labor.</p> + +<p>Fourthly, our play must not interfere with the pleasures of others. For +instance, in the city children who can use the public tennis courts +every day should keep off them on Sunday in order to give opportunity to +those who can use them only on that day.</p> + +<p>Having said so much on play on Sundays, we must not leave the impression +that play is the principal thing. It would be the principal thing for +children compelled to work or confined in crowded tenements on all other +days. This is a day of rest. Play should not be carried beyond the rest +and refreshment stage.</p> + +<p>Nor must we assume that a recognition of play involves neglect of +worship and instruction. Both should be cherished among the delights of +the day. Every attempt to make the day a happy one, by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span> normal play, +associates the emphasis on worship with increased happiness in the +child's mind.</p> + + +<h4>§ 6. THE SUNDAY AFTERNOON PROBLEM</h4> + +<p>"What shall we do?" the children ask restlessly on Sunday afternoons, +and it is by no means a strange question. All the week they have their +school work, on Saturdays their play. No wonder Sunday afternoon seems +dull. Yet if we older ones use it aright this is our opportunity to give +them the best time of all the week. We can make this part of the day +really a holiday if we just take time to plan it right. There is +something wrong in the home in which the child, as he grows up, does not +look forward happily to his Sunday afternoons.</p> + +<p>Sunday afternoon should be a family festival time. Keep it sacred to the +family. Business and social life claim us all the week, and the church +claims its share of this day; but these afternoon hours we can, if we +will, reserve for our own home life, for the closer drawing together of +children and parents. To hold this time sacred for the children and +their interests will help to solve "the Sunday afternoon problem."</p> + +<p>1. <i>The child's question, "What shall I do next?"</i>—Children are +dynamic, perpetually active. They grow in the direction toward which +their activities are turned. Repression is impossible. We must either +find the best things for them to do, or let<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span> them chance on things good +or bad. The following outline for Sunday afternoon is given in the hope +that it may help to answer the "what next."</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>1. Begin to make <i>The Family Book</i>.</p> + +<p>2. Give "festival name" to the day, and take an excursion in honor +of the one for whom the day is named.</p> + +<p>3. Organize an exploring party to discover peoples and scenes of +long, long ago.</p> + +<p>4. Get acquainted with some beautiful home thoughts.</p> + +<p>5. Enjoy an evening hour of song and praise.</p></div> + + +<p>2. <i>"The Family Book."</i>—To start <i>The Family Book</i>, mother or father +raises the question at dinner: "What was the best Sunday of all last +year, and why was it the best?" Everyone, from the oldest down to the +least, should have a chance to tell. The statements of the older ones +will encourage the younger.</p> + +<p>That question will start another: What is the very best thing we can +remember about the year past? Let everyone take a pencil and paper and +in just ten minutes decide on and write down the one thing best worth +remembering. Perhaps the baby cannot write yet, but he or she will want +paper and pencil, too. Now, instead of making our answers known to one +another, we fold the papers and keep them till the evening meal. We will +open them then and talk it all over. Afterward we are going to copy the +answers into a new book we are going to make.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span></p> + +<p>This new book is to be called <i>The Family Book</i>, and we expect to put +into it all the pleasant things we wish to record about our home and +family. Any blank book with ruled lines will do. Some time today we will +elect a keeper of the book, and before we go to bed we will see the +first entry in that book under the title, "Happy Memories of 1915." That +will make a good beginning for <i>The Family Book</i>. Next Sunday we will +discuss and set down in the book the happy memories of the intervening +week.</p> + +<p>3. <i>The festival name.</i>—Now, we have been sitting, talking, and writing +as long as the children will care to be still. Suppose we all go +outdoors together, every one of us. What if the weather is bad? It is +seldom truly bad, and there is so much real happiness in going out in +all weathers together.</p> + +<p>But where shall we go? There is no fun in walking simply for exercise or +health. Well, says father, we can decide where to go by naming the day. +How? We will find the most interesting birthday or anniversary that +falls today or during the next week. If one of the family has a birthday +then, that one shall choose our walk for us. If not, then when we have +chosen the national hero or heroine whose birthday falls near this time, +or the event the anniversary of which comes nearest, we will go, if +possible, where something will remind us of that person or event.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span></p> + +<p>So we fall to discussing the possibilities. We search through almanacs +until we find the anniversary that suits us all. Perhaps one of the +parents has anticipated all this by looking up the matter, and has a +good name to suggest. Or the older ones may consult a dictionary of +dates. It may turn out to be the birthday of a national hero. In the +city he may have a statue; in the country may be found the kinds of +woods, flowers, or animals he loved.</p> + +<p>4. <i>The exploring party.</i>—But even after the walk it will not be long +before the little ones are asking, "What can we do next?" So we organize +the exploring party. Our object is to discover the countries, scenes, +strange peoples, and most interesting persons we have heard of in the +Bible. We are to find them in the advertising sections of old magazines. +Let each one take a magazine and go through it, looking for oriental +scenes, for pictures of incidents and of men and women that will remind +him of Bible scenes and characters. These are to be cut out, explained, +and arranged in the order of time, as they happened, every member of the +family helping. The same plan may be applied to scenes of missionary +work, using blank books for stories of heroism which children will +illustrate with the magazine pictures.</p> + +<p>5. <i>Home thoughts.</i>—"Home, sweet home," is just a corner of the +afternoon saved for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span> discovery and reading of selections that are +worth keeping in our memories and are also likely to help us hold our +homes in some measure of the love and reverence they deserve. There are +songs of home that ought never to be forgotten.</p> + +<p>6. <i>Religious reading and songs close the day happily.</i>—Children love +religious reading and songs, provided they are offered for their worth +and not as an exercise, or to be learned as an empty duty. Take down +your Bible and read Psalm 100, "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all +ye lands"; see whether they do not all enjoy the music and majesty of +those lines. You will not find it difficult to secure their co-operation +in learning that by heart.</p> + +<p>Then close the day with an hour of song. The children will remember +songs learned thus all their lives; therefore those worth remembering +should be chosen. For one, there is that dear old song many of us +learned at mother's knee, "Jesus loves me, this I know." That and others +that are appropriate can be found in almost every hymnbook. Many books +of school songs also have a few hymns and Sunday songs that children +like.</p> + +<p>Parents are puzzled, perhaps most of all, to choose appropriate stories +to read to the children on Sunday. Youngsters prefer, of course, the +told story to the read one, but if you wish to read you will make no +mistake in selecting <i>Christie's Old Organ</i>; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span><i>Aunt Abbey's Neighbors</i>, +by Annie T. Slosson; <i>The Book of Golden Deeds</i>, by Charlotte M. Yonge; +and <i>Telling Bible Stories</i>, by Louise S. Houghton. <i>Some Great Stories +and How to Tell Them</i>, by Richard Wyche, and <i>Story Telling</i>, by Edna +Lyman, will serve as good guides to what to tell, and how to tell it.</p> + +<p>7. <i>Naming the day.</i>—From week to week variety should enter into the +Sunday program. On the Sunday following the one described above we can +begin at the dinner table the happy task of "naming the day." We can +decide whether it shall be called after one of our own number, whose +birthday falls near this date, or after one of the anniversaries of the +week following.</p> + +<p>Perhaps someone suggests calling it after the feast day of the church +year observed by certain churches. That should lead to discussion and +investigation of the meaning of the day.</p> + +<p>When all are agreed on a name, write it under its date on your wall +calendar. It will be a convenient suggestion for next year, unless the +decision is for a different name when the day again comes round. It will +also call to mind some of the interesting discussions which it aroused.</p> + +<p>After this we might call for <i>The Family Book</i>, which now contains, you +will recall, the family's decision as to the best Sunday and the +happiest occurrences of the year before. The keeper,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">160</a></span> appointed last +week, must bring it out. We can read what we wrote a week ago and decide +on the things worth entering this week. Records of birthdays, special +happenings to each of the family, the bright sayings of little ones, and +the visits of friends and relatives all should go in.</p> + +<p>8. <i>"I remember" stories.</i>—While <i>The Family Book</i> is open is the +psychological moment for father and mother to tell stories of their +childhood. Every child likes to hear the story that begins, "I +remember," and feels a thrill of pride in belonging to something that +goes back and has a history. The old family album is a never-failing +source of delight, not so much because of the pictures as because of +what they suggest of family traditions.</p> + +<p>Now is a good time to select some certain thing which shall be used only +on this day, such as a festival lamp or candlestick, some festival +plates or dishes—just one thing or set of things toward the use of +which we can look forward during the week. This helps to make Sunday +what we used to call "a treat."</p> + +<p>9. <i>Golden deeds.</i>—Last week we started <i>The Family Book</i> in which to +keep a record of all the happy experiences that belong to our family. +This week we begin another book. In it we expect to place every week +just one splendid story, the account of a golden deed, some piece of +everyday kindness or heroism of which we have read or heard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span> or which we +have witnessed. Everyone is to have a chance to contribute to this book, +all the family deciding by vote each week as to which story should be +placed on its pages.</p> + +<p>Did you read in the paper this week of some brave or kindly deed done by +a boy or a girl, a man or a woman? Did you see someone do an act of +kindness? Cut out the account or write out the story and have it ready +for your own <i>Golden Deed Book</i>. Everyone must watch all the week for +the right kind of stories. It is wonderful how much good you will find +in the world when you are looking for it.</p> + +<p>Sunday afternoons all the family can hear each story and talk over its +fine points of virtue and goodness. Thus may be developed an +appreciation of the human qualities that are really admirable. We can +discuss also the probability of certain of the stories and the +righteousness of the deeds.</p> + +<p>Any blank book will do, or even a composition book. It will help to keep +hands happily occupied if you make your own covers and cut out gilt +letters for the title. Often you can find pictures to illustrate the +stories chosen; sometimes you may prefer to draw the illustrations. Keep +<i>The Golden Deed Book</i> in a safe and convenient place, because there +ought to be something to go into it every week. For instance, did you +read the other day of the young man who jumped in front of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span> train to +save a young girl? He lost his life, but he saved hers. Can you find +that story and put it in the book? Perhaps you have found one that seems +even more fitting.</p> + +<p>10. <i>Various plans.</i>—Giving happiness creates it. Plan something every +Sunday for the happiness of others. Occasionally go in a body to call on +someone who will be made happy by the visit.</p> + +<p>If you walk in the park or elsewhere, see how many things you can +discover that you have read about in the Bible or know to be mentioned +there.</p> + +<p>Try the game of "guessing hymns." While someone plays the familiar +tunes, each takes a turn at identifying them and the hymns to which they +belong.</p> + +<p>Set aside twenty minutes for each one to write a letter to send to the +brother or sister, relative or friend, at a distance. Even the baby can +scratch something which he thinks is a "real enough" letter in penciled +scribbles.</p> + +<p>Close the day with quiet reading and song, or with the memory exercise +in which all endeavor to repeat some simple psalm or a few verses, like +the Beatitudes. All children like to repeat the Lord's Prayer in family +concert.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p>Emilie Poulsson, <i>Love and Law in Child Training</i>, chaps. i-iv. +Milton Bradley, $1.00.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">163</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Happy Sundays for Children</i> and <i>Sunday in the Home</i>. Pamphlets. +American Institute of Child Life, Philadelphia, Pa.</p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p><i>Sunday Play.</i> Pamphlet. American Institute of Child Life, +Philadelphia, Pa.</p> + +<p>Hodges, <i>Training of Children in Religion</i>, chap. xiii. Appleton, +$1.50.</p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Methods and Materials</span></p> + +<p><i>A Year of Good Sundays.</i> Pamphlet. American Institute of Child +Life, Philadelphia, Pa.</p> + + +<p class="center">IV. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. What is the real problem of Sunday in the family? Is it that of +securing quiet or of wisely directing the action of the young?</p> + +<p>2. Recall your childhood's Sundays. Were they for good or ill?</p> + +<p>3. What are the arguments against children playing on Sunday? Is +there any essential relation between the play of children and the +wide-open Sunday of commercialized amusements?</p> + +<p>4. Can you describe forms of play in which practically all the +family might unite?</p> + +<p>5. What characteristics should distinguish play on Sundays from +other days? Is it wise to attempt thus to distinguish this day?</p> + +<p>6. Criticize the suggestions on occupations for Sunday afternoons.</p> + +<p>7. Recall any especially helpful forms of the use of this day in +your childhood, or coming under your observation.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">164</a></span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">31</span></a> See chap. xvii, "The Family and the Church."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">32</span></a> See chap. vii on "Directed Activity," and the references +for study at its end.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">33</span></a> Much may be learned by a study of Primary plans in a +modern Sunday school. See Athearn, <i>The Church School</i>, chap. vi.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">34</span></a> Since we are dealing here especially with religious +education in the family, the author refers to his more extended +treatment of the question of children in church services in <i>Efficiency +in the Sunday School</i>, chap. xv.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>THE MINISTRY OF THE TABLE</h3> + + +<p>Shall the periods for meals be for the body only or shall we see in them +happy occasions for the enriching of the higher life? Upon the answer +depends whether the table shall be little more than a feeding-trough or +the scene of constant mental and character development. In some memories +the meals stand out only in terms of food, while pictures of dishes and +fragments of food fill the mind; in others there are borne through all +life pictures of happy faces and thoughts of cheer, of knowledge gained +and ideals created in the glow of conversation.</p> + + +<h4>§ 1. THE OPPORTUNITY</h4> + +<p>The family is together as a united group at the table more than anywhere +besides. Table-talk, by its informality and by the aid of the pleasures +of social eating, is one of the most influential means of education. +Depend upon it, children are more impressed by table-talk than by +teacher-talk or by pulpit-talk. They expect moralizing on the other +occasions, but here the moral lessons throw out no warning; they meet no +opposition; they are—or ought to be, if they would be effective—a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span> +natural part of ordinary conversation and, by being part and parcel of +everyday affairs, they become normally related to life. The table is the +best opportunity for informal, indirect teaching, and this is for +children the natural and only really effective form of moral +instruction.</p> + +<p>The child comes to these social occasions with a hungry mind as well as +with an empty stomach. His mind is always receptive—even more so than +his stomach; at the table he is absorbing that which will stay with him +much longer than his food. Even if we were thinking of his food alone, +we should still do well to see that the table is graced by happy and +helpful conversation; nothing will aid digestion more than good cheer of +the spirit; it stimulates the organs and, by diverting attention from +the mere mechanics of eating, it tends to that most desirable end, a +leisurely consumption of food.</p> + +<p>The general conversation of the family group has more to do with +character development in children than we are likely to realize, and the +table is peculiarly the opportunity for general conversation. Here, most +of all, we need to watch its character and consider its teaching +effects. Where father scolds or mother complains the children grow +fretful and quarrelsome. Where father spends the time in reciting the +sharp dealing of the market or the political ring, where mother<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">166</a></span> +delights in dilating on the tinsel splendors of her social rivalries, +they teach the children that life's object is either gain at any cost or +social glory. But it is just as easy to do precisely the opposite, to +speak of the pleasures found in simpler ways, to glory in goodness and +kindness, and to teach, by relating the worthy things of the day, the +worth of love and truth and high ideals. The news of the day may be +discussed so as to make this world a game of grab, inviting youth to +cast conscience and honor to the winds and to plunge into the greedy +struggle, or so as to make each day a book of beautiful pictures of +life's best pleasures and enduring prizes.</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. DIRECTING TABLE-TALK</h4> + +<p>But table-talk, helpful, cheerful, and educative, does not occur by +accident. It comes, first, from our own constant and habitual thought of +the meals in social and spiritual, as well as in physical, terms. And it +reaches its possibilities as we endeavor to create and direct the kind +of conversation that is desired. "Let all your speech be seasoned with +salt," wrote the apostle, and we might add, let your salt be seasoned +with good speech. That is the quality we must seek, the seasoning of +healthful, saving, and not insipid, speech.</p> + +<p>One of the great advantages of "grace before meat" lies in this: it +gives a tone to the occasion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span> Its chief meaning is surely that we +remind ourselves of the ever-present guest who is also the giver of all +good. Where the grace is not a perfunctory act, but rather the welcoming +of such a guest, the meal has started on a high level. We cannot do +better than so to act and speak as those who take the divine presence +for granted. We need not preach about it; we need only to assume it and +move on the level of that friendship. Children will feel it; they will +seek to answer to it, and will find pleasure in the very thought which +they have perhaps never expressed in words.</p> + +<p>The central idea of the grace suggests another means of helpful +influences at the table, by bringing into our homes, for the meals, the +friends whose lives will lift these younger ones. It is worth everything +to live even for an hour with good and broadening lives. There are +obligations to our guests to be considered, and their wishes should be +consulted, but one always feels that children are being cheated when +they are sent to eat at another table and deprived of the peculiar +intimate touch with lives that bring the benefits of travel and +experience. Ask your own memory what some persons who ate at the table +with you in childhood meant to you.</p> + +<p>The wise hostess knows that even when she brings together the group of +mature folks, and even when they are wise and witty, she must be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">168</a></span> +prepared adroitly to inspire the conversation or it may flag at times. +How much more does the conversation need direction where we have the +same group every day composed largely of immature persons! When you have +thought of all the portions and all the plates, have you thought of the +food for the spirit?</p> + +<p>Before suggesting methods of selection and direction, let a word of +explanation be said: food for the spirit is not confined to theology, to +hymns and the Bible; it is whatever will help us to feel and think of +life as an affair of the spirit. And this must come in very simple +terms, by the elementary steps, for young folks. It will be whatever +will in any way help us to live more kindly, more cheerfully, more as +though this really were God's world and all folks his family. Whatever +does this is truly religious.</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. METHODS</h4> + +<p>Plan for the food of the spirit as seriously at least as for the food of +the body. Learn to recognize poisons and also indigestibles. The first +are subjects of scandal, bitterness of spirit, malice, impatience, +tale-bearing, unkindly criticism, and discontent. The second are +subjects too heavy for children: your formal theology would be one of +them, your judgments on some intricate subjects may be among them. It is +seldom wise to announce<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span> negative injunctions, but we can make up our +own minds to avoid the conversational poisons and, when they appear, it +is always easy to push them out. Even when the unpleasant subject is so +common to all and has been so impressive in the day's experience that it +threatens to become the sole, absorbing topic, we can say, "We won't +talk of it at table! Let's find something better." But we must then have +ready the something better; that will be possible only by forethought.</p> + +<p>First, save up during the day, or between the meals, the best thoughts, +the cheering, kind, ideal, and amusing incidents. Cultivate the habit of +saying to yourself, "This is something for us all to enjoy tonight at +the table."</p> + +<p>Secondly, expect the other members to bring their best. Ask for "the +best news of the day" from one and another. Encourage them to tell of +good things seen and done and of pleasant and ideal things heard and +spoken.</p> + +<p>Thirdly, use the incidents as the basis of discussion. Let children tell +what they think of moral situations. Often they will quote the opinions +of teachers and others. Always you will secure under these circumstances +the unreserved expression of what they actually think. A free, informal +conversation of this sort where opinions are kindly examined and +compared is the finest kind of teaching.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span></p> + +<p>Fourthly, do not forget the grace of humor. To see the odd, whimsical, +startling side of the incident or experience trains one to see the +interplay of life, to catch a ray of light from all things, and to +moderate our tendency to permit our tragedies to pull the heavens down.</p> + +<p>Fifthly, use this period to strengthen the consciousness of family unity +by recounting past happy experiences and discussing plans of family +life. In one family there are few meals from October to Christmas that +do not include reminiscences of the summer in the woods and by the +water, or from Christmas to June without plans for the next summer in +the same place. Then, too, if you are contemplating something new, a +piano, a chair, an automobile, talk it all over here. Let each one have +his share in the planning. The effect is most important for character; +the children acquire the sense of a share in the family community life. +They get their first lessons in citizenship in this group, and they thus +learn social living. Then when the chair, or what not, is bought, it is +not alone the parents' possession; it belongs to all and all treat it as +the property of all.</p> + +<p>Sixthly, introduce great guests who cannot come in person. It is fine +fun to say, "We have with us tonight a man who loved bees and wrote +books." Let them guess who it was; help, if neces<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span>sary, by an allusion +to <i>The Life of the Bee</i> and <i>The Blue Bird</i>. They will want to know +more about Maeterlinck and they will joyously imagine what they would +say to him and how he would answer, what he would eat and how he would +behave. In this way we may enjoy knowing better Lincoln, Whittier, +Florence Nightingale, and an innumerable company.</p> + +<p>Seventhly, this is the place to remind ourselves that table-manners are +no small part of the moral life. By the habituation of custom we can +establish lives in attitudes of everyday thoughtfulness for others, in +the underlying consideration of others which is the basis of all +courtesy. Children's questions on table-etiquette must be met, not only +by the formal rules, but also by their explanation in the intent of +every gentle life to give pleasure and not pain to others, so to live in +all things as to find helpful harmony with other lives and to help them +to find and be the best. It is not only impolite to grab and guzzle, it +is unsocial and so unmoral, because it is both a bad example and a +distressing sight to others. It is irreligious, because whatever tends +to make this life less beautiful must be offensive to the God who made +all things good.</p> + +<p>If we ourselves seek to maintain beauty, order, and kindliness in the +conduct of the table, our children acquire a love of all that makes for +beauty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">172</a></span> and order and kindliness, for righteousness in the little things +of life. A clean tablecloth may be a means of grace. You have to try to +live up to it. Order and quietness in eating are not separable from the +rest of the life. To lift up life at any point is to raise the whole +level. To let it down at any point is to let all down. But to lift up +the level of conversation at the table is to raise the level of the +entire occasion and to make it more than a period of eating, to convert +it into a festival, a joyous occasion of the spirit. The meal should be +in all things worthy of the unseen guest.</p> + +<p>How near we all come together at the table! In its freedom how clearly +are we seen by our children! Here they know us for what we are and so +learn to interpret life.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">Reference for Study</span></p> + +<p><i>Table Talk.</i> Pamphlet. American Institute of Child Life, +Philadelphia, Pa.</p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Topics Tor Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. The relation of mental conditions to digestion.</p> + +<p>2. The relation of table-etiquette to life-habits.</p> + +<p>3. The table as an opportunity for the grace of courtesy, and the +relation of this grace to Christian character.</p> + +<p>4. Training children in listening as well as in talking at table.</p> + +<p>5. Do you regard table-talk and table-manners as having any +directly religious values? Why?</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">173</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<h3>THE BOY AND GIRL IN THE FAMILY</h3> + + +<p>Much that has been said so far has had in mind only the problems of +dealing with younger children in the life of the home. Indeed, almost +all literature on education in the family is devoted to the years prior +to adolescence. But older boys and girls need the family and the family +needs them. Many of the more serious problems of youth with which +society is attempting to deal are due to the fact that from the age of +thirteen on boys have no home life and girls, especially in the cities, +are deprived of the home influences.</p> + + +<h4>§ 1. THE GROWING BOY</h4> + +<p>The life of the family must have a place for the growing boy. It must +make provision for his physical needs; these are food, activity, rest, +and shelter. Youth is a period of physical crisis. Health is the basis +of a sound moral life. Many of the lad's apparently strange propensities +are due to the physical changes taking place in his body and, often, to +the fact that it is assumed that his rugged frame needs no care or +attention.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">35</a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">174</a></span></p> + +<p>It will take more than tearful pleading to hold him to his home; he can +be held only by its ministry to him; he will be there if it is the most +attractive place for him. Some parents who are praying for wandering +boys would know why they wandered if they looked calmly at the crowded +quarters given to the boy, the comfortless room, the makeshift bed, and +the general home organization which long ago assumed that a boy could be +left out of the reckoning.</p> + +<p>The boy needs a part in the family activities. He can belong only to +that to which he can give himself. It will be his home in the degree +that he has a share in its business. Begin early to confer with him +about your plans; make him feel that he is a partner. See that he has a +chance to do part of the work, not only its "chores," but also its forms +of service. But even a boy's attitude to the "chores" will depend on +whether they are a responsibility with a degree of dignity or a form of +unpaid drudgery. His room should be his own room, and he should be +responsible for its neatness and its adorning. Services which he does +regularly for all should receive regular compensation. In all services +which the home renders for others he should have a share; this is his +training for the larger citizenship and society of service.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">36</a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span></p> + +<p>The boy is a playing animal. Not all homes can be fully equipped with +play apparatus. But no parents have a right to choose family quarters as +though children needed nothing but meals and beds. The shame of the +modern apartment building is that its conveniences are all for passive +adults. To attempt to train an active, growing, vigorous, playing human +creature in one of these immense filing-cases, where all persons are +shot up elevators and filed away in pigeonholes called rooms, is to +force him out to the life of the streets. The thoughtless +self-indulgence of modern parents, seeking only to live without physical +effort, is the cause of much juvenile delinquency.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">37</a></p> + +<p>But play for the boy is more than shouting and running in the grass and +among trees; he needs books and opportunities for indoor recreation. For +the sake of the lad we had better sacrifice the guest-room if necessary, +and make way for the punching-bag and the home billiard-table or +pool-table; here is a magnet of innocent skilful play to draw him off +the street and to bring the boy and his friends under his own roof. If +possible his room ought to be the place that is his own, where his +friends may come, where he may taste the beginnings of the joys of +home-living in receiving them and entertaining them.<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">38</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">176</a></span></p><p>A workbench in the attic or basement has saved many a boy from the +street. Such apparatus truly interferes with the symmetrical plan of a +home that is designed for the entertainment of the neighbors; but +families must some time choose between chairs and children, between the +home for the purpose of the lives in it and the household for the +purpose of a salon.<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">39</a></p> + + +<h4>§ 2. RELIGIOUS SERVICE</h4> + +<p>In the religious family there is valuable opportunity to train youth to +one form of participation in the religious life. Whatever the family +gives or does for social service, for philanthropic enterprises, for the +support of the church or religious work, ought to be, not the gift of +one member or of the heads alone, but of the whole family, extending +itself in service through the community, the nation, and the world. The +form and the amount of the gifts ought to be a matter of family +conference and each member ought early to have the opportunity and the +means of determining his share in such extension. The child's gifts to +the church should not be pennies thrust into his hand as he crosses the +threshold of home for the Sunday school, but his own money, from his own +account—partly his own direct earnings—appropriated for this or for +other purposes by himself and with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span>the advice of his parents. Family +councils on forms of participation in ideal activities, by gifts and by +service, bind the whole life together and form occasions in which the +child is learning life in terms of loving, self-giving service.<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">40</a></p> + +<p>The boy needs friendship. Not all his needs can be met by the schoolboys +whom he may bring into his room, nor can they all be met by his mother's +affection. He needs a father. The most serious obstacle to the religious +education of boys is that most of them are half-orphans; intellectually +and spiritually they have no fathers. The American ideal seems to be +that the man shall be the money-maker, the woman the social organizer, +and the children shall be committed to hired shepherds or left to shift +for themselves.</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. THE FATHER AND THE BOY</h4> + +<p>No one else can be quite the teacher for the boy that his father ought +to be. No man can ever commit to another, still less to some tract or +book, the duty of guiding his boy to sanity and consecration in the +matter of the sex problems.</p> + +<p>The first word that needs to be said on this subject is that such +problems receive safe and sufficient <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span>guidance only in the atmosphere of +affection and reverence. Do not attempt to teach this boy of yours as +though you were dealing with a class in physiology. The largest thing +you can do for him is to quicken a reverence for the body and for the +functions of life. By your own attitude, by your own expressions and +opinions, lead him to a hatred and abhorrence of the base, filthy, and +bestial, to a healthy fear and detestation of all that despoils and +degrades manhood, and to a reverence for purity, beauty, and life.<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">41</a></p> + +<p>Be prepared to give him, on the basis of reverence, the clean, clear +facts. Be sure you have the facts. Do not think he is ignorant; he is in +a world seething with conversation, stories, pictures, and experiences +of evil. The trouble is that his facts are partial, distorted, and +unbalanced by positive errors; his knowledge is gained from the street +and the school-yard. Only a personal teacher can help him unravel the +good from the bad, the true from the false. Do not trust to your own +general knowledge; take time to read one of the simple and sane books on +this subject.<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">42</a> Be ready to lead him aright. Remember this subject has +provoked <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">179</a></span>a large number of books, many of which are foolish and others +unwholesome. Do not try to deputize your duty to some doubtful book.</p> + + +<h4>§ 4. FATHERING THE BOY</h4> + +<p>But the boy needs more than instruction on a special subject; he needs +personality, he needs the time and thought of, and <i>personal contact</i> +with, his father. Men who do not live with boys never know what they +lose. And alas, see what the boy misses! He has been his mother's boy up +to school age when school takes him and gives him a woman's guidance, +while the Sunday school is likely to keep him—for a while only—under +the eye of some dear sister who "just loves boys." The system is a +vicious one. The lad needs developed masculinity. If he gets it neither +in school nor in the home he will find it on the street corner, through +the vicious boy-leader of the degrading poolroom or the alleys.</p> + +<p>The boy who finds his father eager to talk over the game, to discuss the +merits of peg-tops, to walk, row, play, and work with him, finds it as +simple and natural to talk with him over his moral and religious +questionings as it is to talk over the daily happenings. To live with +the boy is to find the youth with you. But it is hard work discovering +your young men if you lost your boys.<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">43</a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">180</a></span></p> + + +<h4>§ 5. THE GROWING GIRL</h4> + +<p>Almost all that has been said about the boy applies to the girl of the +same years. Let <i>a special plea</i> be entered here against the notion that +girls are favored when sheltered from a share in the activities of the +home. They desire to express their ideals as much as do boys. Much of +the so-called craze for amusements is due to the fact that the family is +so organized that there is no vent to the ideals there, no chance to +have a share in the business of life. Young folks with the sense that +"this is our home," not "our parents', but <i>ours</i>" bend their energies +to its adorning, and find in it the chance to realize some of their +passion for beauty and for service.<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">44</a></p> + +<p>Mothers usually do better than do fathers in the matter of sex +instruction. Yet they usually begin too late, long after the little girl +has acquired much misleading information in the school. Here, too, the +first aim must be to quicken reverence for life, to set up the +conception of the beauty and dignity of sex functions before the baser +mind of the street has had an opportunity to interpret them in terms of +the dirt.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">45</a></p> + +<p>Above all, with boys and girls, the whole subject, including marriage +and the founding of a family, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span>must ever be treated with dignity and +reverence. Foolish parents jest with their girls about their beaux and +boast that their little ones are playing at courtship. If they could +realize the wonder awakened, followed by pain and then by hardened +sensibilities and coarsened ideals, they would sacrifice their jests for +the sake of the child's soul. We wonder that youth treats lightly the +matter of social purity when we have treated the sacred relations of +life as a jest. If this family in which they now live is to be a place +of sacred associations, of real religious life, the whole matter of +marriage and the family must be treated with reverence. Their practice +will not rise above our everyday ideals as expressed in casual +conversation and in our own practice.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p class="center">THE BOY</p> + +<p>W. A. McKeever, <i>Training the Boy</i>, Part III. Macmillan, $1.50.</p> + +<p><i>Boy Training</i>, Part IV. A Symposium. Associated Press.</p> + +<p>Johnson, <i>The Problems of Boyhood</i>. The University of Chicago +Press, $1.00.</p> + +<p class="center">THE GIRL</p> + +<p>Margaret Slattery, <i>The Girl in Her Teens</i>, chaps. iv, vii. Sunday +School Times Co., $0.50.</p> + +<p>Wayne, <i>Building Your Girl</i>. McClurg, $0.50.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p>W. B. Forbush, <i>The Coming Generation</i>. Appleton, $1.50.</p> + +<p>Puffer, <i>The Boy and His Gang</i>. Houghton Mifflin Co., $1.00.</p> + +<p>Irving King, <i>The High School Age</i>. Bobbs-Merrill, $1.00.</p> + +<p><i>Building Childhood</i>, A Symposium. Sunday School Times Co., $1.00.</p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. What are the special needs of the growing boy?</p> + +<p>2. What are the things that a boy enjoys in his home?</p> + +<p>3. In what way does city life interfere with the natural +development of the child?</p> + +<p>4. What are some of the natural expressions of religion for a boy?</p> + +<p>5. How early should the sex instruction begin?</p> + +<p>6. What does a father owe to the boy, and what are the best methods +of meeting the duty?</p> + +<p>7. What are the normal activities for girls in the home?</p> + +<p>8. What are their especial needs?</p></div> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">35</span></a> A good brief book on the problem of the adolescent is E. T. +Swift, <i>Youth and the Race</i>; another, from the school point of view, is +Irving King, <i>The High-School Age</i>, which has much material of great +value to parents.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">36</span></a> On the various activities of boys see W. A. McKeever, +<i>Training the Boy</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">37</span></a> See the notable report by Breckinridge and Abbott, <i>The +Delinquent Child and the Home</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">38</span></a> On the gregarious instincts see J. A. Puffer, <i>The Boy and +His Gang</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">39</span></a> See the books on manual work given in chap. vii, "Directed +Activity."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">40</span></a> On the religious life of the boy in relation to society +and the church see Allan Hoben, <i>The Minister and the Boy</i>, and the +author's treatment of boys and the Sunday school in <i>Efficiency in the +Sunday School</i>, chap. xiv; also J. Alexander <i>et al.</i>, <i>Training the +Boy</i>, a symposium.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">41</span></a> On the attitude of reverence in this question read Dr. +Cabot's fine essay, <i>The Christian Approach to Social Morality</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">42</span></a> The works of Dr. W. S. Hall, <i>From Boyhood to Manhood</i>, for +parents' guidance with boys of thirteen to eighteen; E. Lyttleton, +<i>Training of the Young in Laws of Sex</i>, is excellent for fathers; +<i>Reproduction and Sexual Hygiene</i> is a text for older youth to be +recommended; also, for reading, N. E. Richardson, <i>Sex Culture Talks</i>, +D. S. Jordan, <i>The Strength of Being Clean</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">43</span></a> For further studies of the problem of the boy parents +would do well to read: <i>Building Boyhood</i>, a symposium; W. A. McKeever, +<i>Training the Boy;</i> W. B. Forbush, <i>The Coming Generation;</i> W. D. Hyde, +<i>The Quest of the Best</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">44</span></a> On activities see W. A. McKeever, <i>Training the Girl</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">45</span></a> On the problem with young children see M. Morley, <i>The +Renewal of Life</i>; in connection with older girls see K. H. Wayne, +<i>Building Your Girl</i>.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span></p> + +<h3>THE NEEDS OF YOUTH</h3> + + +<p>Families are for the spiritual development of youth as well as of +childhood. The home is for the young people as well as for the younger +ones. But the very period when they slip from church school is also the +period when they are often lost to the real life of the family. In some +measure this is due to the natural development of the social life. The +youths go out to work, move forward into enlarging social groups which +demand more of their free time. They are learning the life of the larger +world of which they are now a part.</p> + + +<h4>§ 1. THE SCHOOL OF YOUTH</h4> + +<p>But the family is still the home of these young people; normally it is +still the most vital educational influence for them. Yet there is no +problem more baffling than that of family ministry for, and leadership +of, the higher life of youth.</p> + +<p>It is a short-measure interpretation of the home which thinks of it as +only for young children and old folks. The young men and women from +sixteen to twenty and over still need training and direction; they need +close touch with other lives in affection and in an ideal atmosphere. In +a few years they,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span> too, will be home-makers, and here in the home they +are very directly learning the art of family life.</p> + +<p>For youth there are few effective schools, outside the home, other than +the streets and the places of commercialized amusement. Even where the +other agencies of training are used, such as college, classes, and +associations (such as the Y.M.C.A. and the Y.W.C.A.), life, at that +period, needs the restraints on selfishness that come from family life, +the refining and socializing power of the family group.</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. SPECIAL NEEDS OF YOUTH</h4> + +<p>What are the special needs of youth upon which the family may base a +reasonable program for their higher needs?</p> + +<p>First, the need of sound physical health. This is a period of physical +adjustment. Rapid bodily growth is nearly or quite at an end; new +functions are asserting themselves. The new demands for directed +activity may, under the ambitious impulses of youth, make undue drafts +on the energies. The apparent moodiness that at times characterizes this +period may be due to poor health. The moral strain of the period will +need sound muscles and good health. Parents who would sit up all +night—perhaps involuntarily—when the baby has the colic treat with +indifference sickness in youth and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span> too readily assume that the young +man or the young woman will outgrow these physical ills. But bodily +maladjustment or incapacity has most serious character effects. To live +the right life and render high service one needs to be a whole person, +with opportunity to give undivided attention and undiminished powers to +the struggle of life.</p> + +<p>Secondly, this is peculiarly the period of the joy of friendships. The +social nature must have its food. This young man has discovered that the +world consists of something besides things; it is full of people. He is +just learning that they are all persons like himself. He enters the era +of conscious personal relationships. He would explore the realm of +personality. He touches great heights of happiness as other lives are +opened to him. It is all new and wonderful, this realm of personality, +with its aspects of feeling, thinking, willing, and longing.</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. MAINTAINING FRIENDSHIP WITH YOUTH</h4> + +<p>Do parents know how hungry their older children are for their +friendship? They will never tell us, for this world is too new and +strange for facile description; they are always bashful about their +hunger for persons until they find the same hunger and joy in us. We +imagine that they are indifferent to us; the trouble is we are hidden +from them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span> We seldom give them a chance to talk as friend to friend, +not about trifling things, but about life itself and what it means. +Perhaps at no point do parents exhibit less ability for sympathetic +reconstruction and interpretation of their own lives than here. They +recall the pleasures of childhood and provide those pleasures for the +children. Why not recall the hunger of eighteen years of age and give +these youths the very bread of our own inner selves? Or do we, when they +ask this bread, give them the stone of mere provision for their physical +needs or the scorpion of careless indulgence in things that debase the +tastes?</p> + +<p>One perplexing phenomenon must not be overlooked: it will often happen +that young people pass through a period of what appears to be parental +aversion. There will sometimes seem to be suspicion, violent opposition, +and even hatred of parents. This is no occasion for despair. It is a +stage of development. It is due to the attempt of a will now realizing +its freedom under social conditions to adapt itself to the will that has +hitherto directed it. To some degree the sex consciousness, which leads +to viewing the parents in a new light, may enter in. It may be easily +made permanent, however, if parents do not do two things: first, adjust +themselves and their methods to the new social freedom of the youth, +and, secondly, fling open the doors into their true<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">187</a></span> selves now fully +understandable by these men and women.</p> + +<p>But the family life must make provision for the wider friendships of +youth. Somewhere this insatiable appetite for the reality of lives will +feed. Groups of friends your young man and woman will find somewhere. If +they cannot bring them into your home they will go elsewhere. You can +scarce pay any price too high for the opportunity that comes when they +are perfectly free to have their friends with them and with you, when +home becomes the natural place of the social meetings of youth. If you +are afraid of the wear on the furniture you may keep your furniture, but +you will lose a life or lives. Here is the opportunity of the home to +enter a wider ministry, to be a place of the joy of friendships to many +lives.</p> + + +<h4>§ 4. AT THE DOOR OF A NEW WORLD</h4> + +<p>As through friendships the youth enters and explores this wonderful +realm of personality he will find some persons more wonderful than +others. Those instincts of which he is largely unconscious will impel +him to make a selection. The same law is operative with the young woman. +Mating is normally always first on the higher levels of personalities; +it first calls itself friendship, nor does it think farther. But father +and mother, if they have the least spiritual vision, stand in awe as +they see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">188</a></span> their children taking their first evident steps toward +home-making. What an opportunity is theirs!</p> + +<p>Yet here, as the home faces its duty toward a family yet to be, is just +where some of the most serious mistakes are made. This is no time for +teasing and jesting, still less for mocking ridicule. If you treat this +essentially sacred step as a joke it will not be strange if the young +people follow suit and take marriage as a yet larger joke. The home is +the place where the home is treated most irreverently. Of course one +must not take too seriously those "calf" courtships, prematurely +fostered by boys and girls, under the pressure of the high-school +tendency to anticipate all of life's riper experiences. But even here +jesting and teasing will only tend to confirm and make permanent what +would be but a temporary aberration. In that case either silence or +kindly, simple advice will help most of all.</p> + +<p>To young people who think at all courtship has its times of vision, when +they stand trembling before the unknown future, when they, with youth's +idealism, make high vows and stand on high places. Give them at least +the opportunity to enter your inmost self, to find there all the light +you can give them and all the memory of your own joys and hopes. Make +them feel, though you need not say it, that they are at the threshold of +a temple. If to you this is an affair of the spirit it will be a matter +of religion to them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span></p> + +<p>Approached in such a temper, many of the practical problems of courtship +settle themselves. Take the case of the young man at home. If he knows +that you think with him of the high meaning of this experience he will +not hesitate to bring the young woman to the home. She will feel your +attitude. Upon this level questions of times and seasons, hours in the +parlor, and all the matters of their relations will settle themselves. +If you treat courtship as a matter of the spirit he will do just what he +most of all wants to do, treat this woman who is to be his mate as a +person, a spirit, with reverence and love that lifts itself above lust. +This is the only ground upon which you can appeal to either in matters +of conduct at this time. The conventions of society they will despise; +but the inner law speaks to them when the outer letter has no meaning.</p> + + +<h4>§ 5. THE SOCIAL LIFE</h4> + +<p>We must expect our children to go out into their larger world. The +beginning of adolescence is the normal time of their social awakening, +their conversion from a nature that turns in upon itself to one that +moves out into a world of persons. For them, now, the home group ought +to be seen as a society as well as a family, as the social group +gathering about a definite ideal and mission into which they should +delight to project themselves.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span> The appeal of religion is peculiarly +vivid just now, for it involves a recognition of one's self as a person +with the power of personal choices and with the opportunity to find +association with other persons. The family must aid its young people to +see the opportunity which the church offers for ideal social +relationships which direct themselves to high and attractive service.</p> + + +<h4>§ 6. AMUSEMENTS</h4> + +<p>What should the family do about the question of the amusements of young +people?</p> + +<p>Healthy young persons must have recreation. They will seek it on its +highest level first and find their way down the facile descent of +commercialized amusements only as the higher opportunities are denied +them. They would always rather play than be played to; they would +rather, where early labor has not sapped vitality, play outdoors than +sit in a fetid atmosphere watching tawdry spectacles. But play, the +idealization of life's experiences, they will find somewhere. To this +need the home must minister by the provision of space, time, +opportunity, and the means of play. If through either sloth, +selfishness, preoccupation, or a mistaken idea of an empty innocence of +life you make recreation and social intercourse impossible in the +family, the young people will find it on the street or in the crowd. In +the family that plans<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span> for recreation and provides facilities and time +for young people to play the problem is a minor one.</p> + +<p>But young people will naturally desire to project themselves into the +social amusements of the larger groups. Then we ought to know what those +amusements are; we must be able to advise, from actual knowledge, not +from hearsay or prejudice, as to the healthful and worth while. The home +must insist on the provision in the community for the safe socialization +of amusements. The thousands of young girls in the cities, who tramp the +pavements down to dance halls, primarily are only seeking the +satisfaction of a normal craving; and they, on their way to the dance +halls, pass the splendid plants of the schools and the churches, +standing dark and idle. Families must develop a public opinion that will +demand, for the sake of their young people, a provision for amusement +and recreation that, instead of poisoning the life, shall strengthen, +dignify, and elevate it. If the demand for clean drinking-water is a +proper one, is the demand for healthful food for the life of ideals less +so?</p> + +<p>There can be no doubt of the attitude of any home with the least +conscience for character toward all forms of public amusements in which +young people are herded promiscuously for the mere purpose of killing +time in trivialities. The "white cities" with their glittering lights +and baubles are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">192</a></span> often moral plague colonies. The amusements debase the +intellect, blunt the moral sensibilities, and appeal to the baser +passions. They are the low-water mark, we may hope, of commercialized +amusement. But they remind us that young people demand company and +change from the monotony of the day's toil. They ask us as to the +provision we are making for young people and challenge us to use their +inclinations for good.</p> + +<p>But besides these "shows" there are many dignified forms of social +recreation. Good music is to be heard and good plays are to be seen.</p> + +<p>The theater, whether of the regular drama or of the motion-picture type, +offers a perplexing problem, principally because, in the first place, +American people have been too busy conquering a new soil and making a +living to give careful thought to the social side of aesthetics and +recreation, and, secondly, because the ministry of social recreation has +fallen almost entirely under the dominance of the same trend; it has +been thoroughly commercialized. We cannot cut the puzzling knot by +simply prohibiting all forms of public theatrical entertainment. For one +reason, these forms shade off imperceptibly from the church service to +the extremes of the vaudeville. But the simple fact is that we no longer +indiscriminately class all theaters as baneful and immoral; we are +coming to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">193</a></span> see their potentialities for good. If the young will go, as +they will—and ought—to the theater, and if the theater can lift their +ideals, parents would do well to guide their children in this matter and +to enlist the aid of the theater.</p> + +<p>It is worth while to come to a sympathetic understanding of the place of +the drama and the opera, to see what they have meant in the education of +the race and what is the significance, to us, of the fact of the strong +dramatic instinct in childhood. Naturally the subject can only be +mentioned here and the suggestion be offered that parents take time to +cultivate an appreciation of good orchestral and concert music and of +the drama.</p> + +<p>The social life will find outlet in other directions. Young people need +our aid to find social groups which will inspire and develop them, +especially groups that are serviceful.</p> + + +<h4>§ 7. THE CALL TO SERVICE</h4> + +<p>This is the period when ideals begin to give direction to the hitherto +undirected activity of childhood and youth. Young people are idealists. +They see no height too giddy, no task too hard, no dream too roseate, +and no hope unattainable. If the times are out of joint they believe +they were "born to set them right." Whatever is wrong or imperfect they +would take a hand in setting it right. We know we felt that way, but we +are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">194</a></span> loath to believe our children also cherish their high hopes. And so +the tendency of the adult is to treat with cynicism the dreams of youth. +Often we sedulously endeavor to pervert him to our blasé view of the +world; we would have him believe it is a fated heap of cinders instead +of an almost new thing to be formed and made perfect. In the home those +ideals must be nourished and guided. See that at hand there are the +songs and essays of the idealists. Give them Emerson and forget your +Nietzsche. Renew your own youth. Get some of Isaiah's passion and let it +breathe its fervor on them. Feed by poem, song, story, essay, and +conversation the life of ideals.</p> + +<p>Stop long enough to see the life that like an engine with steam up is +surely going somewhere and help it to find an engineer. We call this the +period of sowing wild oats. Wild oats are simply energies invested in +the wrong places. The dynamic of youth must go somewhere and do +something. Fundamentally it would rather go to the good than the bad. We +know that this was true of us at that time; why should we assume less of +others? Hold to your faith in youth. Fathers who with open eyes and +active minds—not with sleepy fatalism—believe in their boys, have boys +who believe in them.</p> + +<p>They wait for leadership. If you have dropped into the easy slippers of +indifference to social reform<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">195</a></span> and other types of ideal service, get +back into the fight again beside this new man of yours.</p> + +<p>They wait for friendship in this matter of their ideals and their +service. At any cost keep open house of the heart.</p> + +<p>They wait for a life-task. This is the period of vocational choice. It +will make a tremendous difference to this life whether his work shall be +merely a matter of making a living or shall be his chance to invest life +in accordance with his new ideals. Shall he go out to be merely one of +the many wage-earners or salary-winners to whom life is a great orange +from which he will get all the juice if he can, regardless of who else +goes thirsty? Or shall he see an occupation as his chance to pay back to +today and tomorrow that which he owes to yesterday? as his chance to +give the world himself? He need not be a minister or a missionary to +make his life a ministry; he will find life, he will be a religious +person in no other way than as his dominating motive shall be to find +the fulness of life in order to have a full life to give to God's world. +The answer will depend on what life means to you, how you are +interpreting it, and how you aid him in thinking of it and making his +high choice. You will have abundant opportunity to show what it is to +you—as you have been doing all along—by your daily attitude; you will +have abundant opportunity to talk it all over, for he will certainly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">196</a></span> +discuss his trade or profession with you. The family must give to the +life of the new day makers of families to whom life means a chance to +realize the God-vision of the world.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p>H. C. King, <i>Personal and Ideal Elements in Education</i>, pp. 105-27. +Macmillan, $1.50.</p> + +<p>E. D. Starbuck, <i>The Psychology of Religion</i>, chaps., xvi-xxi. +Scribner, $1.50.</p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p class="center">1. ON YOUTH</p> + +<p>C. R. Brown, <i>The Young Man's Affairs</i>. Crowell, $1.00.</p> + +<p>Wayne, <i>Building the Young Man</i>. McClurg, $0.50.</p> + +<p>Swift, <i>Youth and the Race</i>. Scribner, $1.50.</p> + +<p>Wilson, <i>Making the Most of Ourselves</i>. McClurg, $1.00.</p> + +<p class="center">2. ON RECREATIONS</p> + +<p>L. C. Lillie, <i>The Story of Music and the Musicians</i>. Harper, $0.60.</p> + +<p>Gustav Kobbe, <i>How to Appreciate Music</i>. Moffat, $1.50.</p> + +<p>P. Chubb, <i>Festivals and Plays</i>. Harper, $2.00.</p> + +<p><i>Dramatics in the Home, Children in the Theater, Problems of +Dramatic Plays</i>, monographs published by the American Institute of +Child Life. Philadelphia, Pa.</p> + +<p>L. H. Gulick, <i>Popular Recreation and Public Morality</i>. American +Unitarian Association. Free.</p> + +<p>M. Fowler, <i>Morality of Social Pleasures</i>. Longmans, $1.00.</p> + +<p>Addams, <i>The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets</i>. Macmillan, +$1.25.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">197</a></span></p> + +<p>The moving-picture or cinema presents a problem to parents; see +Herbert A. Jump, <i>The Religious Possibilities of the Motion +Picture</i> (a pamphlet) and <i>Vaudeville and Moving Pictures</i>, a +report of an investigation in Portland, Ore. <i>Reed College Record, +No. 16.</i></p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. What are the reasons why young people leave home?</p> + +<p>2. Where do the young men and young women whom you know spend their +evenings? Why is this the case?</p> + +<p>3. Mention the special needs of young people in the family.</p> + +<p>4. What are the difficulties in maintaining the friendship of our +young people?</p> + +<p>5. Have you ever seen evidences of the phase mentioned as aversion +to parents?</p> + +<p>6. What are some common mistakes of treating the subject of +courtship?</p> + +<p>7. What are the special social needs of young people?</p> + +<p>8. What is the religious significance of the period of social +awakening?</p> + +<p>9. What are the special dangerous tendencies in public amusements?</p> + +<p>10. How does the social instinct express itself in social service?</p> + +<p>11. What of the relation of "wild oats" to directed work?</p> + +<p>12. What may be done for vocational direction in the family?</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<h3>THE FAMILY AND THE CHURCH</h3> + + +<p>If the family is engaged in the development of religious character +through its life and organization, it ought somehow to find very close +relations with the other great social institution engaged in precisely +the same work, the church. Both churches and homes are agencies of +religious education. In a state which separates the ecclesiastical and +the civil functions, where freedom of conscience is fully maintained, +these two are the only religious agencies engaged in education.</p> + +<p>As the family is the child's first society, so the local church should +be the child's second, larger, wider society. The home constitutes the +first social organization for life, the one in which growing lives +prepare for the wider social living. Then should come the next forms of +social organization, the school and the church, each grouping lives +together and preparing them, by actual living, for wider circles of +life.</p> + + +<h4>§ 1. RELATIONS OF CHURCH AND HOME</h4> + +<p>Many of the perplexing problems which arise in the family, as an +institution, in respect to its relations to the church, and as to the +developing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span> relations of children to the church, would be largely solved +if we could get an understanding of the fundamental relations of these +two institutions. The institutional difficulties occur because these +relations appear to be competitive. Here is the family with its +interests in bread-winning, comforts, recreations, and pleasures, and on +the opposite side, making apparently competing claims for money, time, +interest, and service, stands the church. That is the picture +unconsciously forming in many minds. There is more or less feeling that +money given to the church is taken from the family and impoverishes it +to that degree, that time given to the church is grudgingly spared from +the pleasures of the home, that it is always a moot question which of +the two institutions shall win in the conflict of interests.</p> + +<p>But the family must take for granted the church as its next of kin. The +home must not by its attitude and conversation assume that the problems +of the relationship of children to the church arise largely from the +opposite concept, as though these were rival institutions. We carelessly +think of the children as those who, now belonging to us, are to be +persuaded to give their allegiance to another institution, the interests +of which are in a different sphere. We think of the church as an +independent thing and therefore feel quite free to discuss its merits or +shortcomings and to criticize it if it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span> fails to meet our standards, +just as we would criticize the baker for soggy or short-weight bread; to +our minds, the church is something set off in society, separate from the +homes, as much so as the schools or the library or a fraternal lodge.</p> + +<p>This thought of the church as a separate something, having an existence +independent of ourselves and our families, leads us farther astray and +makes yet more difficult the development of right relations between the +church and the children. If the church is a thing apart we can analyze +its imperfections as we might stand and ridicule a regiment of raw +recruits. It marches by while we stand on the curb. But here, surely, is +one of the simplest and most easily forgotten truisms: the church is no +more than our own selves associated for certain purposes. If the church +fails in an adequate ministry for children, shall we condemn it as we +would a bridge that failed to carry a reasonable load? We do but condemn +ourselves. If my church is not fit to send my children to, then I must +help to make it fit. Before falling back on the lazy man's salve of +caustic ridicule, before taking the seat of the scornful, before setting +in the child's mind an aversion to this institution, based on my +opinion, let me be sure I have done all that lies in my power to better +it. True, I am only one; but surely, where so many family tables are +each Sunday devoted to finding fault with the church<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span> and its services, +I can find many others who will aid in at least stimulating a sense of +personal responsibility for any incompleteness in the church.</p> + +<p>The family cannot afford to take the attitude of hostile criticism, for +it is thus fighting its first and most natural ally, the one other +institution engaged in its own special work. If the forces for spiritual +character be divided, how easily do the opposing forces enter in and +occupy! The family needs the support of the wider public opinion of the +church, insisting on the supremacy of righteousness. The family needs +the co-operation of the church in its task of developing religious +lives. The family needs the power of this larger social body controlling +social conditions and making them contributory to character purposes. +The family needs the stimulus which a larger group can give to children +and young people.</p> + +<p>This does not mean that we must never criticize the church. It is not +set off in a niche protected from the acid of secular tongues and minds. +Ministers of the gospel are unduly resentful of criticism, perhaps +because, after they leave the seminary, no one has a fair opportunity to +controvert their publicly stated opinions. But the church needs the +cleansing powers of kindly, wise, creative criticism. Anyone can find +fault, but he is wise who can show us a better way. This church is the +family's ally; it is our business to aid her to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">202</a></span> greater effectiveness. +The new church for our own day awaits the services of the men of today.</p> + +<p>The purpose of the family is the basis of alliance with the church. As +in every other relation and purpose of the home, so here: the dominant +factor is the conscious function of the home and family. If the home is +really a religious institution it will seek natural alliance with all +other truly religious institutions. Ideally, what is a church but a +group of families associated for religious purposes? Is not the church +simply a number of families co-operating in the ideal purposes of each +family, the development of the lives of religious persons and the +control of social conditions for the sake of that purpose? Without +entering into disputation as to the relationship of little children to +the church, is there not just this relation to the human society called +the church, that it is a grouping of families for the purpose of the +divine family?</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. THE FAMILY IDEAL IN THE CHURCH</h4> + +<p>Would there be any question as to the naturalness of the relation of our +children to the church if the family ideal so controlled our thinking as +to saturate theirs? Is not this the present need, that both family and +church shall conceive the latter in family terms? By this is meant, not +simply that we shall think of what is called "a family church," a church +into which we succeed in pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span>jecting our families in a fair degree of +integrity, but that we shall think of the organization and mission of +the church in terms of family life and of the ideal of the divine +family. Keeping in mind the general definition already given of a family +as persons associated for the development of spiritual persons, let us +hold the church to that same ideal; the lives of persons associated in +the broadest fellowship that includes both God and man for the purposes +of spiritual personality. The church then should be the expression of +that family of which Jesus often spoke, the family that calls God Father +and man brother.</p> + +<p>Closer and more helpful relations between family and church follow where +the principles of the family prevail in the latter. The family is an +ideal democracy because it exists primarily for persons. It places the +value of persons first of all. So with the true church; it will exist to +grow lives to spiritual fulness, and to this end all buildings, +adornments, exercises, teachings, and organizations will be but as +tools, as means serving that purpose. As the family sees its house, +table, and activities designed to personal ends, so will the church. In +an institution existing to grow lives, the great principle of democracy +and of the family will prevail, viz., that to the least we owe the most. +Just as the home gives its best to the little child, so will the church +place the child in the midst. Just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span> as the home exists for the child and +thus holds to itself all other lives, so will the church some day exist +for the little ones and so hold and use all other lives.</p> + +<p>The prime difficulty of relating the children in our families to the +average church lies in the fact that they are children, while the church +is an adult institution. Its buildings are designed for adults—save in +rare and happy exceptions;<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">46</a> its services are designed for adults; it +has a more or less extraneous institution called a school for the +children. The church spends its money for adults; it compasses sea and +land to make one proselyte and coerce him back in old age, and allows +the many that already as children are its own to drift away. It often +fails to see that if it is to grow lives it must grow them in the +growing period. There still remain many churches that must be converted +from the selfishness of adult ministry and entertainment to self-giving +service for the development of spiritual lives and, especially, for the +development of such lives through childhood and youth. They must hear +again the Master's voice regarding "these little ones," regarding the +significance of the child. And all must be loyal to his picture of his +Kingdom as a family and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">205</a></span>must, therefore, do what all true families do, +become child-centric. A church in which children occupy the same place +that they hold in an ideal family will have no difficulty in finding a +place for the children. It will be a natural and unnoticed transition +from the family life in the home to the family life in the church.</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. A PLACE FOR ALL IN THE CHURCH</h4> + +<p>The family may help directly toward the realization of this ideal by an +insistence on the family conception and the family program in the +church. Bring the children with you to the church and seek to find there +a place for each as natural as the place he occupies in the home. If the +church makes no such provision, if it has no place for children, in the +name of our wider spiritual family relationships we must demand it. Let +the voice of the family be heard insisting on suitable buildings and +specially designed worship for child-life—suitable forms of service and +activity. Let the thought that goes to furnish these in the home be +carried over to provide them in the church.</p> + +<p>Parents may help their children to find right relations with the church +by their attitude toward it as the larger family group. To think and act +toward this institution as our home, the wider home of the families, is +to establish similar habits of thought in children. Such a concept is +not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span> always easy to maintain; the church includes many of different +habits of thought from ourselves, divergent tastes and habits of general +life. Here one must exercise the family principle of responsibility +toward the weaker and immature. This family, the church, just like our +own family, exists, not to minister to our tastes, but that we may all +minister to others.</p> + +<p>The principal service which the family may render to the church is, +then, to foster an interpretation and view of the latter which will +relate it more closely to the home and will make it evidently natural +for child-life to move out into this wider social organization for +religious culture and service. Surely this should be the attitude toward +membership in the church, whether that membership begins theoretically +in infancy or in maturer years; the child is trained to see the church +as his normal society, the group into which he naturally moves and in +which he finds his opportunity for fellowship and service. The family +may well hold that relationship steadily before its members. In +childhood the child is in the church in the fellowship of those who +learn. The Sunday school is the spiritual family in groups discovering +the way of the religious life and the art of its service. The fellowship +grows closer and the sense of unity deepens as the child's relationship +passes over from the passive to the active, from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">207</a></span> the involuntary to the +voluntary—just as it does in the home—and develops, as the child comes +into social consciousness, into a recognition of himself as belonging to +a social organization for specific purposes.</p> + + +<h4>§ 4. CHILD UNITY WITH THE CHURCH</h4> + +<p>At some time every child of church-attending parents will want to know +whether he "belongs to the church." One must be very careful here, +regardless of the ecclesiastical practice, to show the child that he is +essentially one with this body, this religious family. He may be too +young to subscribe his name to its roll, but he belongs at least to the +full measure of unity appreciable by his mind. He must not be permitted +to think of himself as an outsider. Indeed, no matter what our theology +may hold, every religious parent believes that his children belong to +God. Do they not also belong to the church in at least the sense that +the church is responsible for their spiritual welfare?</p> + +<p>The sense of unity must be developed. Writing the child's name on the +"Cradle Roll" of the church school may help. Assuming, as he develops, +that he is a part of this spiritual family, naturally expecting that he +will have an increasing share in its life, will help more. Parents who +dedicate their children to God pass on to them the stimulus<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span> of that +dedication. A church service of dedication is likely to impress them +with a feeling of unity with the church; seeing other children so +dedicated they know that a similar occasion occurred in their own early +lives.</p> + +<p>The forms of relationship must develop with the nature of the child. The +church needs not only a graded curriculum of instruction but a graded +series of relationships by which children, step by step, come into +closer conscious social unity, each step determined by their developing +needs and capacities.</p> + +<p>It is easy to say that the responsibility lies with the church to +provide these methods of attachment. But the church we have been +sketching is a congeries of families, after all, and it will do just +what these families, particularly the parents in them, stimulate it to +do.</p> + + +<h4>§ 5. INCIDENTAL DIFFICULTIES</h4> + +<p>But what of those instances in which parents are convinced that the +church does not furnish a normal and healthy atmosphere for the child's +spiritual life? There are churches where the Sunday school is simply a +training school in insubordination, confusion, and irreverence, or where +religion is so taught as to cultivate superstition and to lead +eventually either to a painful intellectual reconstruction or to a +barren denial of all faith.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span> There are churches of one type so devoted +to the entertainment of adults, to the ministry to the pride of the +flesh and the lust of things, that a child is likely to be trained to +pious pride and greed, or of another type, in which religion is a matter +of verbiage, tradition, and unethical subterfuge.</p> + +<p>Parents must be true to their responsibilities. The family is the +child's first religious institution. Fathers and mothers are not only +the first and most potent quickeners and guides in the religious life, +but they are primarily responsible for the selection of all other +stimuli to that life. Under the drag of our own indifference we must not +withhold from the child the good he would get even from the church we do +not particularly enjoy; neither dare we, for fear of criticism or +ostracism, force the child under influences which, in the name of +religion, would chill and prevent his spiritual development, would +twist, dwarf, or distort it. Responsibility to the spiritual purpose of +the family is far higher than any responsibility to a church. The +churches are ordered for the souls of men.</p> + +<p>What shall we do in the family when the sermon is always tediously dull? +Don't try to force children to go to sleep in church; they will never +get over the habit. Insist that there shall be a service suitable for +them parallel to the adult service of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">210</a></span> worship.<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">47</a> Next, try to +overcome the present popular obsession regarding the sermon. The church +is more than an oratory station. The sermon is only one incident. Many +criticisms of the sermon indicate that the critic measures the preacher +by ability to entertain, that he attends church to be entertained. If +that is essentially your attitude, you cannot complain if your children +are dissatisfied unless they too are entertained according to their +childish appetites. When the sermon is poor, put it where it belongs +proportionately and enlarge on the many good features of church +fellowship and service.</p> + +<p>In a word, let the church be to the family that larger home where +families live together their life of fellowship and service in the +spirit and purpose of religion and where there is a natural place for +everyone.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p>H. W. Hulbert, <i>The Church and Her Children</i>, chaps. i-v. Revell, +$1.00.</p> + +<p>H. F. Cope, <i>Efficiency in the Sunday School</i>, chaps. xiv-xvi. +Doran, $1.00.</p> + +<p>George Hodges, <i>Training of Children in Religion</i>, chap. xiv. +Appleton, $1.50.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">211</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p>A. Hoben, <i>The Minister and the Boy</i>. The University of Chicago +Press, $1.00.</p> + +<p>E. C. Foster, <i>The Boy and the Church</i>. Sunday School Times Co., +$0.75.</p> + +<p>G. A. Coe, <i>Education in Religion and Morals</i>, Part II. Revell, +$1.35.</p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. What are the special common interests of church and family?</p> + +<p>2. What are the fundamental relationships of the two?</p> + +<p>3. What conception of the church ought to be fostered in the +children's minds?</p> + +<p>4. When is criticism of the church unwise?</p> + +<p>5. What changes might be made in church life for the sake of the +children?</p> + +<p>6. What changes would bring the church and the home closer +together?</p> + +<p>7. What should be the children's conception of unity with the +church?</p> + +<p>8. Should children attend, in family groups, the church service of +worship?</p> + +<p>9. Does the plan of a short service for children meet the need? +</p></div> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">46</span></a> See a pamphlet on <i>Church School Buildings</i> (free) +published by the Religious Education Association; also H. F. Evans, <i>The +Sunday-School Building and Its Equipment</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">47</span></a> See the author's suggestion for the Sunday school in +<i>Efficiency in the Sunday School</i>, chap. xv.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">212</a></span></p> + +<h3>CHILDREN AND THE SCHOOL</h3> + + +<p>Wise parents will know the character of the influences affecting their +children at all times. At no time can their responsibility be delegated +to others. There is a tendency to think that when children go to school +the family has a release from responsibility. But the school is simply +the community—the group of families—syndicating its efforts for the +formal training of the young. Every family ought to know what the +community is doing with its children. The school belongs to all; it is +not the property of a board, nor a private machine belonging to the +teaching force; it belongs to us and we owe a social duty as well as a +family obligation to understand its work and its influence on the +children.</p> + +<p>Parents ought to visit the school. Wise principals and teachers will +welcome them, setting times when visits can best be made. The visitors +come, not as critics, but as citizens and parents. The principal +benefits will be an acquaintance with the teachers of our children and a +better understanding of the conditions under which the children work for +the greater part of the day. By far the larger number of teachers most +earnestly desire char<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">213</a></span>acter results from their work. It will help them +to know that we are interested in what they are doing.</p> + + +<h4>§ 1. HOME AND SCHOOL CO-OPERATION</h4> + +<p>Parents and teachers, both desiring spiritual results, can find means of +co-operation. Parent-teacher clubs and associations have done much to +bring the home and the school together. Meeting regularly in the +evening, so that fathers, too, can attend, gives opportunity to work out +a common understanding to raise the spiritual aims of the school, and to +discover means by which the families may aid in securing better +conditions for school work.</p> + +<p>One of the most important considerations relates to the moral effect of +the school life and environment. We are committed in this country to the +principle that the public school cannot teach religion, but this by no +means relieves it of responsibility for moral character. The family +needs this ally. Children expect instruction in the school and they feel +keenly the power of its ideals and the standards established by its +methods and requirements. The family and the school greatly need to +co-ordinate their efforts here to the end that there may be under way in +both an orderly program for the moral training of children.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">214</a></span></p> + + +<h4>§ 2. THE SCHOOL TEACHING PARENTS</h4> + +<p>The school may help the home if arrangements are made for parents to +meet regularly and receive instruction in those forms of moral training +which can best be given at home. This is one method of solving the vexed +question of sex instruction. Many hesitate as to the wisdom of such +instruction in schools; but no one doubts that it ought to be and could +be given in families but for the fact that parents are both ignorant of +what to tell and indifferent to the matter. It may be that some day the +state will not only say that the child must go to school, but also that +every parent intrusted with children must either prove ability to train +and instruct in these and other matters or go to school to obtain the +necessary training. The state would not go beyond its province if it +required ignorant parents—and that means most of us in matters of moral +training—to go to school and learn our business. And without waiting +for such compulsion the school may now offer opportunity for all parents +to obtain the desired information. Teachers are especially trained to an +understanding of child-nature and to methods of pedagogy; they are +prepared to teach many things we ought to know; why should not the +family obtain the advantage of such expert knowledge?</p> + +<p>The school would also be within its province if it undertook to +stimulate the indifferent parents,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">215</a></span> both rich and poor, to an +appreciation of the educational task and opportunity of the home. Each +institution greatly needs the other. The school reaches all the children +of all the people; might it not be made a larger means of helping all +the parents of all the children to quickened moral responsibility and to +greater educational efficiency?</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. CONTROLLING SCHOOL CONDITIONS</h4> + +<p>The family ought to know the conditions at the school outside the +recitation or working hours. Few parents have any conception of the +power of the playground over moral character. Perhaps a smaller number +realize how dangerous are some of the elements at work there. Play of +itself is immensely valuable, but play means playfellows, and some of +these are simply purveyors of indecency and moral contagion in +conversation and act. We are required to send our children to school; we +have a right to demand freedom from moral contagion. Do you know what +goes on in secret places on the grounds? Do you know that the vilest +ideas and phrases are current in pictures, cards, on scraps of paper, +and in handwriting on walls, not only in the high schools, but often +among children of from six to twelve years of age? This is too large a +subject to be developed properly here. It is one familiar to all +wide-awake school<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">216</a></span> men and women and ought to be equally so to the +parents of children. Where the school combats this evil the home should +intelligently aid; where the school is indifferent the family dare not +rest until either the indifference is quite dispelled or the indifferent +dismissed.</p> + +<p>Do not expect to get the facts concerning these suggested conditions by +inquiry among your children. They are reticent, naturally, on such +matters when talking with adults; besides, the sense of school honor +holds them to silence. If they tell you voluntarily, you are happy in +their free confidence. Do not betray it; simply let it lead you to make +further inquiry at the school from the authorities and stimulate you to +insist that, for the sake of the spiritual good of the young, the school +must furnish conditions of moral health.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p>Ella Lyman Cabot, <i>Voluntary Help to the Schools</i>, chaps. vii, +viii. Houghton Mifflin Co., $0.60.</p> + +<p>W. A. Baldwin, "The Home and the Public Schools," <i>Religious +Education</i>, February, 1912. $0.65.</p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p>M. Sadler, <i>Moral Instruction and Training in Schools</i>. 2 vols. +Longmans.</p> + +<p>John Dewey, <i>The School and Society</i>. The University of Chicago +Press, $1.00.</p> + +<p>Smith, <i>All the Children of All the People</i>. Macmillan, $1.50.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">217</a></span></p> + +<p>G. A. Coe, "Virtue and the Virtues," <i>Religious Education</i>, +February, 1912.</p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. What ought parents to know about public-school life?</p> + +<p>2. In visiting a school what may the parent do to acquire +information in the proper way?</p> + +<p>3. How may the home co-operate with the school?</p> + +<p>4. What degree of instruction in morals ought the school to give?</p> + +<p>5. In what way does the school best help in moral training?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">218</a></span>6. What do you know about the conditions on the playgrounds of your +own school? +</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<h3>DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES</h3> + + +<p>Moral crises arise in every family. Deeply as we may desire to maintain +an even tenor of character-development, in harmony and quietness, +occasions will bring either our own imperfections or those of our +children—or of our neighbors' children—to a focus and throw them in +high relief on the screen. Progress comes not alone in perpetual +placidity. When temper slips from control, when angry passions rule, +when the spirit under discipline rebels, when a course of petty +wrongdoing comes to a head, when secret sins are discovered, and when we +suddenly find ourselves confronted with a tragic problem in the higher +life, it is still important to remember that the crisis is just as truly +a part of the educational process as is the orderly, gradual method of +development.</p> + +<p>A moral crisis is an experience in which our acts are such, or have such +results, that they are thrown out in a white light that reveals their +inner meaning, so that they are sharply discerned for their spiritual +and character values. Then in that light courses of conduct have to be +valued anew, reconsidered, and determined.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">219</a></span></p> + +<p>Two courses are open in times of moral crisis in the family. One is to +bend our efforts to settle the situation, to proceed on the policy of +getting through with the crisis as quickly as possible, to seek to +remove the pain rather than to cure the ill. The other is to regard the +crisis as a revealer of truth, to use it as a valuable opportunity, one +in which moral qualities of acts are so easily evident, so keenly felt, +as to make it a time of spiritual quickening, a chance for the best sort +of training.</p> + + +<h4>§ 1. THE PROMISE OF IMPERFECTION</h4> + +<p>The perfect child is the one unborn; shortly after his birth he begins +to take after his father. The perfect character does not exist in a +child. It is as unreasonable to expect it as it would be to look for the +perfect tree in the sapling. <i>Character comes by development</i>; it is not +born full-blown. Childhood implies promise, development. Therefore +parents must not be surprised at evidences that their children are +pretty much like their neighbors' children. Outside of the old-time +Sunday-school-library book the child who never lied, lost his temper, +sulked, or made a disturbance never existed and never will, except in a +psychopathic ward in some hospital. Could anything be sadder than the +picture of the anemic, pulseless automaton who is always "good"?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">220</a></span></p> + +<p>When parents speak of the "natural depravity" of their children, they +are commonly using terms they do not understand. What they mean is the +natural immaturity of their children, a condition of imperfection in +which they may rejoice, as it shows the possibility of development. The +child is in the world to grow to the fulness of all his powers. The +powers of the higher life are to develop as truly as those which we call +physical and mental. The family is the great human culture-bed for the +development of those powers, their training-field and school.</p> + +<p>Does someone say, concerning a little child, "But we thought he had the +grace of God in his heart, that he had been born again and would no more +do wrong"? True, he may be born again, but there is a world of +difference between being born and being grown up. From one to the other, +in the realm of character, is a long and tedious process, with many a +stumble, many a fall, many a hard knock, and many a lesson to be +learned. Every moral crisis is part of the struggle, the experience and +training that may make toward the matured life. You have no more right +to expect your child to be a mature Christian than you had to expect him +to be born six feet tall.</p> + +<p>A moral crisis is a lesson. The important consideration for the parent, +then, is to see the wrongdoing of the child as an experience in his +moral<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">221</a></span> upward climb; not as a fall alone, but as part of the acquisition +of the art of standing upright and walking forward. Dealing with such an +occasion one may well say to himself or herself, "This is my chance to +guide, to make this experience a light that shines forward on the way +for the child's weak feet and to strengthen him to walk in it." For is +it not true with us that practically all we really know has come by the +organizing of our different experiences? Think whether it is so or not. +And is it not to be the same with the child?</p> + +<p>We can study here only a few typical moral crises, perhaps those that +give greatest perplexity to parents. They cannot be successfully met as +isolated instances, but must be seen as a part of the whole educational +process. Those to whom the development of character is a reality will +watch tendencies and train them before they focalize in crises.</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. THE COLLISION OF WILLS</h4> + +<p>Parenthood presents tremendous moral strains; it is rife with +temptations. It offers a little world for autocracy to vaunt itself. The +martinets command, often totally blind to the changing nature of the +subjects as they pass from the submissive to the rebellious. One day the +parents wake up to realize that they are not the only ones possessed of +will.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">222</a></span></p> + +<p>When to your Yes the child says No, while you may not applaud, you ought +to rejoice; you have discovered a will, you have found developing in +your child the central and essential quality of character. Forgiveness +will be hard to find and recovery still more difficult if you make the +mistake of attempting to crush that will. The child needs it and you +will need its co-operation. The power to see the possibility of choice +of action, to know one's self as a choosing, willing entity, able to +elect and follow one among many courses of action, is a distinctive, +Godlike quality. The opposition of wills is like the birth of a new +personality, a new force thrown out into the world to meet and struggle +and adjust itself with all other persons.</p> + +<p>When the collision comes, take a few long breaths before you move; take +time to think what it means. <i>Keep your temper.</i> Do not break before the +other will by an exhibition of chagrin that your authority is defied. +From now on the basis of any real authority is being transformed from +force and tradition to a moral plane.</p> + +<p>Therefore, first, be sure you are right in your direction or request. +You cannot afford to make the child think that authority is more +important than justice, that might makes right in the social order of +the home. If you do he will accept the lesson and practice it all his +life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">223</a></span></p> + +<p>Remember the right has many elements. There is the child's side to +consider. As soon as he can decide on courses of action his ideas of +justice are developing. To do him an injustice is to help make him an +unjust man.</p> + +<p>Secondly, help him to see the right. This will involve sympathetic +explanations of your reasons which you may have to give in the form of +simple arguments or of a story, perhaps from your own experience, or by +an appeal or reference to the wider knowledge of the older children. It +may be necessary to let him learn in the effective school of experience. +Other means failing, allow him to discover the pain and folly of his own +way when it is wrong. Of course this does not apply if he is minded, for +instance, to imbibe carbolic acid. But even in such circumstances it +would be better to prove his unwisdom by demonstration—as a drop of +acid on a finger tip—than to let the issue rest on blind authority. One +such demonstration gives a new, intelligible basis to your authority in +other cases.</p> + +<p>Thirdly, help him to will the right. Help him to feel that he must +choose for himself, to recognize the power of the will and the grave +responsibilities of its use. He is entering the realm of the freedom of +the will. Every act of deliberate choice, with your aid, in a sense of +the seriousness of choice, goes to establish the character that does not +drift,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">224</a></span> is not dragged, and will not go save with its whole selfhood of +feeling, knowing, choosing, and willing.</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. ANGER</h4> + +<p>An angry child is a child in rebellion. Rebellion is sometimes +justifiable. Anger may be a virtue. You would not take this force out of +your child any more than you would take the temper out of a knife or a +spring. Anger manifested vocally or muscularly is the child's form of +protest. But, established as a habit of the life, it is altogether +unlovely. Who does not know grown-up people who seem to be inflexibly +angry; either they are in perpetual eruption or the fires smoulder so +near the surface that a pin-prick sets them loose. Usually a study of +their cases will show either that the attitude of angry opposition to +everything in life has been established and fostered from infancy or +that it was acquired in the adolescent period.</p> + +<p>The angry, antisocial person is most emphatically an irreligious person; +there can be no love of his brother man where that spirit is. The home +is the place where this ill can best be met and cured, for it deals most +directly with the infant, and for the adolescent it is the best school +of normal social living.</p> + +<p>Let no one think the angry demonstrations of little children are +negligible or that they have nothing to do with the religious character +of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">225</a></span> child or the adult. They are important for at least two reasons, +first, as furnishing the angry one opportunity to acquire self-control, +to master his own spirit, and, secondly, because they disturb the peace +and interfere with the well-being of others.</p> + +<p>It is possible to set up habits of anger in the cradle. In the first +instance the infant encountered opposition in the cradle and proceeded +to conquer it by yelling, and so, day after day, he found anger the only +route to the satisfaction of his desires. He grew to take all life in +terms of a bitter struggle and every person became his natural enemy.</p> + +<p>In the case of the adolescent it sometimes happens that a boy or a girl +will make a very tardy passage through the normal experience of social +aversion, the time when they seem to suspect all other people, to flee +from social intercourse and to sulk, to want to be off in a corner +alone. This is a normal phase of adolescent adjustment, coming at +thirteen or fourteen, but it ought to pass quickly. A few allow this +period to become lengthened; they fail to regain social pleasure and +soon drift into habits of social enmity. This may be due to scolding at +this period, or to a lack of healthful friendships.</p> + + +<h4>§ 4. METHODS OF DEALING WITH ANGER</h4> + +<p>It is evident that talking, lecturing, or arguing with the angry infant +will not help the case. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">226</a></span> may feel the emotion of your anger but +misses any shreds of your logic. Parents ought first to ask, Why is an +infant angry? With the infant, with whom there are no pretensions or +affections, there is commonly a simple cause of his rebellion. The baby +yelling like an Indian and looking like a boiled lobster is neither +possessed of an evil spirit nor giving an exhibition of natural +depravity; he is lying on a pin, wearing the shackles of faddish infant +fashions, or he is trying to tell you of disturbances in the department +of the interior. Furnish physical relief at once and you put a period to +the display of what you call temper; try to subdue him by threats and +you only discover that his lungs are stronger than your patience; you +yield at last and he has learned that temper properly displayed has its +reward, that the way to get what he wants is to upset the world with +anger. That is one of life's early lessons; it is one of the first +exercises in training character.</p> + +<p><i>Consider the future.</i> Each family is a social unit, a little world. +Within this world are in miniature nearly all the struggles and +experiences of the larger world of later life. It is a world which +prepares children for living by actually living. The qualities that are +needed in a world of men and women and affairs are developed here. When +young children exhibit anger parents must ask, How would this quality, +under similar circum<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">227</a></span>stances, serve in the business of mature life? +Anger is an essential quality of the good and forceful character. +Somehow we have to learn to be angry and not sin. Anger is the emotional +effect of extreme discontent and opposition. For the stern fight against +evil and wrong, life needs this emotional reinforcement. But it must be +purified, it must be controlled. Like the dynamic of steam, it must be +confined and guided. Love must free it from hatred; self-control must +guide it.</p> + +<p>When children are angry, help them to think out the causes for the +feeling. Instead of denouncing or deriding them, stop to analyze the +situation for yourself. It may be that they are entirely justified, that +not to be angry would be an evidence of weakness, of base standards of +conduct or conditions, or of weak reactions to life's stimuli. Always +help the child to see why he is angry. Perhaps the situation is one he +may remedy himself. Is he angry because the top-string is tangled? Stay +with him until he has learned that he can remove the cause of his own +temper.</p> + +<p>Step by step, dealing with each excitement of anger, <i>train him in +self-control</i>. Self-mastery is a matter of learning to direct and apply +our own powers at will. It is developed by habitual practice. It is the +largest general element in character. The temper that smashes a toy is +the temper that kills a human being when it opposes our will, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">228</a></span> it is +the same temper that, being controlled, patiently sets the great ills of +society right, fights and works to remove gigantic wrongs and to build a +better social order. That patience which is self-control saves the +immensely valuable dynamic of the emotions and harnesses them to Godlike +service. And that patience is not learned at a single lesson, not +acquired in a miraculous moment; it is learned in one little lesson +after another, in every act and all the daily discipline of home and +school and street.</p> + +<p>Children must learn to qualify and govern temper by love in order to +save it from hatred. When the irritating object is a personal one the +rights, the well-being, of that one must gain some consideration. There +will be but little feeling of altruism in children under thirteen; we +must not expect it; but egoism is one way to an understanding of the +rights, the feelings, and needs of others. The child can put himself in +the other's place. He is capable of affection; he loves and is willing +to sacrifice for those he loves, and when he is angry with them, or with +strangers, he must be helped to think of them as persons, as those he +loves or may love. He also can be aided to see the pain of hatred, the +misery of the life without friends, the joy of friendships.</p> + +<p>Anger against persons is the opportunity for learning the joy of +forgiveness and, if the occasion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">229</a></span> warrants, the dignity and courage of +the apology. The self-control, consideration, and social adjustment +involved must be learned early in life. It is part of that great lesson +of the fine art of living with others. Little children must be +habituated to acknowledging errors and acts of rudeness or temper with +suitable forms of apology. Above all, they must, by habit, learn how +great is the victory of forgiveness.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">48</a></p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p><i>The Problem of Temper.</i> Pamphlet. American Institute of Child +Life, Philadelphia, Pa.</p> + +<p>E. P. St. John, <i>Child Nature and Child Nurture</i>, chap. v. Pilgrim +Press, $0.50.</p> + +<p>J. Sully, <i>Children's Ways</i>, chap. x. Appleton, $1.25.</p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p>Patterson Du Bois, <i>The Culture of Justice</i>, chaps. i-v. Dodd, Mead +& Co., $0.75.</p> + +<p>E. H. Abbott, <i>The Training of Parents</i>. Houghton Mifflin Co., +$1.00.</p> + +<p>M. Wood-Allen, <i>Making the Best of Our Children</i>. 2 vols. McClurg, +$1.00 each.</p> + +<p>H. Y. Campbell, <i>Practical Motherhood</i>. Longmans, $2.50.</p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. What special opportunities are offered in the rise of moral +crises?</p> + +<p>2. Do we tend to expect too high a development of character in +children?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">230</a></span></p> + +<p>3. How early in life do we have manifestations of a conscious will?</p> + +<p>4. What constitutes the importance of early crises of the will?</p> + +<p>5. What are probably the causes when children habitually defy +authority?</p> + +<p>6. Is anger always a purely mental condition?</p> + +<p>7. What importance have the angry demonstrations of infants?</p> + +<p>8. What is the relation of the control of temper to the rightly +developed life? +</p></div> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">48</span></a> See Gow, <i>Good Morals and Gentle Manners</i>, chap. viii.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">231</a></span></p> + +<h3>DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES (<i>Continued</i>)</h3> + + +<h4>§ 1. QUARRELS</h4> + +<p>A child who never quarrels probably needs to be examined by a physician; +a child who is always quarreling equally needs the physician. In the +first there is a lack of sufficient energy so to move as to meet and +realize some of life's oppositions; in the other there is probably some +underlying cause for nervous irritability.</p> + +<p>It is perfectly natural for healthy people to differ; in childhood's +realm, where the values and proportions of life are not clearly seen, +where social adjustments have not been acquired, the differences in +opinions, as in possessions, lead to the expression of feeling in sharp +and emphatic terms. Rivalry and conflict are natural to the young +animal. Children do not wilfully enter into conflicts any more than +adults; they are only less diplomatic in their language, more direct, +and more likely to follow the word with attempts at force.</p> + +<p>In few things do parents need more patience than in dealing with +children's quarrels. First, seek to determine quietly the merits of the +cause; but do not attempt to pronounce a verdict. It is seldom wise to +act as judge unless you allow the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">232</a></span> children to act as a jury. But +ascertain whether the quarrel is an expression somewhere of anger +against injustice, wrong, or evil in some form. Sometimes their quarrels +have as much virtue as our crusades. It is a sad mistake to quench the +feeling of indignation against wrong or of hatred against evil. A boy +will need that emotional backing in his fights against the base and the +foes of his kind. While rejoicing in his feeling, show him how to direct +it, train him to discriminate between hatred of wrong and bitterness +toward the wrongdoer. Help him to see the good that comes from loving +people, no matter what they do.</p> + +<p>Our methods of dealing with a quarrel will do more to develop their +sense of justice than all our decisions can. Be sure to get each one to +state all the facts; insist on some measure of calmness in the recital. +Keep on sifting down the facts until by their own statements the quarrel +is seen stripped of passion and standing clear in its own light. Usually +that course, when kindly pursued and followed with sympathy for the +group, with a saving sense of humor, will result in the voluntary +acknowledgment of wrong. The boys—or girls—have for the first time +seen their acts, their words, their course, in a light without +prejudice. They are more ready to confess to being mistaken than are we +when convinced against our wishes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">233</a></span></p> + +<p>When no acknowledgment of wrong is proffered voluntarily, we must still +not offer a verdict. Put the case to the contestants and let them settle +it. Listen, as a bystander, coming in only when absolutely necessary to +insist on exact statements of fact. That course should be excellent +training in clear thinking, in the duty of seeing the other man's side, +in the deliberation that saves from unwise accusations and the serious +quarrels of later life. Teach children to think through their +differences.</p> + +<p>The perpetually petulant child, bickering with all others, should be +taken to a physician. Get him right nervously, physically, first. He is +out of harmony with himself and so cannot find harmony with others. When +the condition of habitual bickering seems to afflict all the children in +the family, it cannot be settled by attributing it to a mysterious +dispensation of natural depravity. The probability is that the home life +is without harmony and full of discord, that the parents are themselves +petulant and more anxious to assert their separate opinions than to find +unity of action. Nothing is more effective to teach children peaceful +living than to see it constantly before them in their parents. A +harmonious home seldom has quarrelsome children. Such harmony is a +matter of organization and management of affairs as much as of our own +attitude.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">234</a></span></p> + +<p>Some children are educated to a life of quarrels by being trained in the +family that spoils them. The single child is at a great disadvantage; he +occupies the throne alone. His home life becomes a mere series of spokes +radiating from himself. When he finds the world ordered otherwise, he +quarrels with it and tries to rearrange the spokes into a new, +self-centric social order. Whatever the number of children may be, each +one must learn to live with other lives, to adjust himself to them. +Neighboring social play and activities are the chance for this. Do not +try to keep Algernon in a glass case; he needs the world in which he +will have to live some day.</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. FIGHTING</h4> + +<p>The best of men are likely to have a secret satisfaction in their boys' +fights, and the bravest of mothers will deplore them. The fathers know +how hard are the knocks that life is going to give; the mothers hope +that the boys can be saved from blows. A man's life is often pretty much +of a fight, every day struggling in competition and rivalry; we have not +yet learned the lesson of co-operation, and we still tend to think of +business as a battlefield. Something in us calls for fighting; we have +to use the utmost strength at our command to fight the evil tendencies +of our own hearts; often we rejoice in life as a conflict. It feels good +to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">235</a></span> find causes worth fighting for. If all this is true of the man, it +is not strange that the small boy, scarce more than a young savage, will +find opportunities for conflict. He is more dependent on the weapons of +force than is his father. He cannot cast out the enemy with a ballot, +nor with a sneer or biting sarcasm, nor by some device or strategy of +business or affairs. He can only hit back. Taken altogether, boys settle +their differences as honestly at least as do men.</p> + +<p>Moreover, children's fights are not as cruel as they seem to be; even +the bloodshed means little either of pain or of injury. A boy may be +badly banged up today and in full trim tomorrow; it is quite different +with the wounds bloodlessly inflicted by men in their conflicts.</p> + +<p>Does all this mean that boys should be encouraged to fight? No; but it +does mean that when Billy comes home with one eye apparently retired +from business, we must not scold him as though he were the first +wanderer from Eden. That fight may have been precisely the same thing as +a croquet game to his sister, or any test of skill to his big brother, +or a business transaction to his father; it was a mere contest of two +healthy bodies at a time when the body was the outstanding fact of life. +The fight may give us our chance, however, to aid him to a sense of the +greatness of life's conflict, to a sense of the qualities that make the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">236</a></span> +true fighter. It may leave him open to the appeal of true heroism. We +must make light of the victory of brute strength, just as we may make +light of his wounds and scars, and glorify the victory of the mind and +will.</p> + +<p>The boy who fights because he lacks control of temper needs careful +training. He gets a good deal of discipline on the playground and +street, but it is not always effective; the beatings may only further +undermine control. But the lack of self-control will manifest itself in +many ways and must be remedied at all points. The discipline of daily +living in the family must come into play here.</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. SELF-CONTROL</h4> + +<p>The matter of self-control is not separable into special features; one +cannot learn control under one set of moral circumstances without +learning it for all. The boy who strikes without thinking is simply one +who acts without thinking. He tends to throw away the brakes of the +will. The regain of control comes only through training at every point +in deliberation of action.</p> + +<p>Probably there is no other point at which children so frequently and +readily learn control as in the matter of speech. The family where all +speak at once, where a babel of sounds leads to a rivalry of vocal +organs, is not only a nuisance to the neighbors, it is a school of +uncontrolled action<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">237</a></span> to the children. Just to learn to wait, even after +the thought is formed into words, until it shall be my turn or my +opportunity to speak is a fine discipline of control. To do that every +day, year after year, tends to break up the hair-trigger process of +action.</p> + +<p>Control is gained also by the acquisition of the habit of thought +regarding general courses of action. We can hardly expect meditation on +the part of little children. But those who are older, those entering +their teens, may and should be able to think things out, to plan out the +day's actions, to determine their own ways of conduct. Children who have +the custom of quiet, private prayer often develop ability to see their +conduct in the calm of those moments. They get a mental elevation over +the day and its deeds.</p> + + +<h4>§ 4. GOOD FIGHTS</h4> + +<p>The evident danger of undue deliberation of action must be met by +another cure of the personal-conflict spirit; that is, the substitution +of games of rivalry and skill for the unorganized rivalry and "game" of +fighting. The transition from the bloody arena to the excitement of a +game is very easy and natural. But the game is the boy's great chance to +learn life as a game to be played according to the rules. All that the +fight calls for—courage, endurance, skill, quickness of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">238</a></span> action, and +grim persistence—comes out in a good game. Here is a suitable youthful +realization of the fight that is worth waging. Our participation in the +youths' games, our appreciation of their points, our joy in honestly won +success, is the best possible way to lead up to their taking life in +terms of a good fight, a grand game, a real chance to call out the +heroic qualities. Turn every fighting instinct into the good fight that +will clarify and elevate them all.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p>W. L. Sheldon, <i>Ethics in the Home</i>, chaps. xi, xii, xiii. Welch & +Co., $1.25.</p> + +<p>E. A. Abbott, <i>Training of Parents</i>, chap. v. Houghton Mifflin Co., +$1.00.</p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p>Ella Lyman Cabot, <i>Every Day Ethics</i>. Holt, $1.25.</p> + +<p>M. Wood-Allen, <i>Making the Best of Our Children</i>. 2 vols. McClurg, +$1.00 each.</p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. Do all children quarrel? Should one punish for small quarrels?</p> + +<p>2. What are the facts which ought to be ascertained regarding any +quarrel?</p> + +<p>3. What special opportunities do children's differences offer?</p> + +<p>4. What are the causes of habitual petulance? What are the dangers +of this habit of mind?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">239</a></span></p> + +<p>5. Is fighting necessarily wrong? What part does it play in the +lives of men?</p> + +<p>6. What are the dangerous elements in boys' fights?</p> + +<p>7. What special quality of character needs development in this +connection?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">240</a></span>8. What are the valuable possibilities in the fighting tendency? +</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<h3>DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES (<i>Continued</i>)</h3> + + +<h4>§ 1. LYING</h4> + +<p>Parents are likely to be wilfully blind to the faults of their children. +But some faults cannot be ignored; they must surely quicken the most +indifferent parent to thought. We suffer a shock when our own child +appears as a wilful liar.</p> + +<p>"What shall I do when I catch the child in an outright lie? Surely he +knows that is wrong and that he is wilfully doing the wrong!"</p> + +<p>First, be sure whether he is "lying." Lying means a purposeful intent to +deceive by word of mouth or written word. When Charles Dickens wrote +<i>Oliver Twist</i> he described a burglary that never happened, so far as he +knew. He intended the reader to feel that it was true. Was he lying? No; +because he simply used his imagination to paint a scene which was part +of a great lesson he desired to teach the English public. Even had he +had no great moral purpose, it would still not have been a lie, just as +we do not accuse the writer of even the most frivolous novel of lying. +He is simply creating, or imitating, in the field of imagination.</p> + +<p>Imagination is the child's native world. When the little girl says, "My +dolly is sick," she is saying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">241</a></span> that which is not so, but instead of +reproving her for lying, you prepare an imaginary pill for the doll. +Many children's lies are simply elaborations of their doll- and +plaything-imaginings. When my little daughter told me, and insisted upon +it, that she had seen seven bears, of varied colors, on the avenue, +should I have reproved her for lying? Was it not better to humor her +fancy, to draw it out, to give it free play, being careful gradually to +let her know that I knew it was fancy? I entered into the game with her +and enjoyed it so long as we all understood it was only fancy. It is a +crime to crush a child's power of creating a world by imagination, a +fair world, set in the midst of this world where things are imperfect, +jarring, and disappointing, a world in which everything is always "just +so."</p> + +<p>But one must also carefully aid the child in distinguishing between the +world of fancy and the world of fact. This takes time and patience. We +must not rob the life of fancy nor must we allow the habits of freedom +with ideas to pass over into habits of carelessly handling realities. +Along with the development of fancy we must train the powers of exact +observation and statement of facts. The child who saw seven bears, red, +green, yellow, etc., must go to see real bears and must tell me exactly +their colors and forms. Daily training in exactitude of statements of +real<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">242</a></span> facts is the best antidote for a fancy that has run out of its +bounds. It establishes a habit of precision in thinking which is the +essence of truth-telling.</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. PROTECTIVE LYING</h4> + +<p>But there is another form of lying which is frequently met in some form. +It may be called protective lying. Ask the little fellow with the +jam-smeared face, "Have you been in the pantry?" and he is likely to do +the same thing that nature does for the birds when she gives them a coat +that makes it easier to hide from their enemies. He valiantly answers +"No, Mother." He would protect himself from your reproof. There has been +awakened before this the desire to seem good in your eyes and he desires +your approbation most of all. The moral struggle with him is very brief; +he does not yet distinguish between being good and seeming good; if his +negative answer will help him to seem good he will give it.</p> + +<p>What shall we do? First, stop long enough to remember that appetites for +jam speak louder than your verbal prohibitions. The jam was there and +you were not. It can hardly be said that he deliberately chose to do a +wrong; he is still in the process of learning how to do things +deliberately, just as you still are, for that matter. Consider whether +your training of the anti-jam habit has been really conscientious and +sufficient<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">243</a></span> to establish the habit in any degree. It were wiser to ask +these things of yourself before putting the fateful question to him. It +would be better not to ask a small child that question. It demands too +much of him. Besides, you are losing a chance to establish a valuable +idea in his mind, namely, that acts usually carry evidences along with +them. Better say, "I see you've been in the pantry." That will help to +establish the habit of expecting our acts to be known. Then would follow +with the little child the careful endeavor to train him to recognize the +acts that are wrong because harmful, greedy, against the good of others, +and against his own good.</p> + +<p>Just here parents, especially many religious parents, meet the +temptation thoughtlessly to use God as their ally by reminding the child +that, though they could not see him in the pantry, God was there +watching him. In the vivid memory of a childhood clouded by the thought +of a police-detective Deity, may one protest against this act of +irreverence and blasphemy? True, God was there; but not as a spy, a +reporter of all that is bad, anxious to detect, but cowardly and cruel +in silence at all other times! Let the child grow up with the happy +feeling that God is always with him, rejoicing in his play, his +well-aimed ball, his successes in school, his constant friend, helper, +and confidant. I like better the God to whom a little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">244</a></span> fellow in Montana +prayed the other day, "O God, I thank you for helping me to lick Billy +Johnson!" The child of the pantry needs to know the God who will help +him to do and know the right.</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. OLDER CHILDREN</h4> + +<p>But protective lying presents a more serious problem with older +children. The school-teacher and parent meet it, just as the judge and +the employer meet it in adults. The cure lies early in life. +Truth-telling is as much a habit as lying is. Perhaps it is more easily +practiced; its drafts are on the powers of observation and memory rather +than on those of imagination. Along with the child's imaginative powers +there must be developed the powers of exact observation and description. +Exact observation and description or relation are but parts of the +larger general virtue of precision. Help children at every turn of life +to be right—right in doing things, right in thinking, in saying, and in +execution. Precision at any point in life helps lift the life's whole +level. Truth-telling is not a separable virtue. You cannot make a boy +truthful in word if you let him lie in deed. You cannot expect he will +speak the truth if you do not train him to do the truth, in his play, in +ordering his room, in thinking through his school problems, and in +thinking through his religious difficulties. Truth-telling is the verbal +reaction of the life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">245</a></span> which habitually holds that nothing is right until +it is just right.</p> + +<p>Two things would, ordinarily, make sure of a truthful statement, instead +of a protective lie, in answer to your question: first, that the young +person has been trained to the habit of seeing and stating things as +they are—and that you really give him a chance so to state them, and, +secondly, that to some degree there has been developed a recognition of +considerations or values that are higher than either escape from +punishment or the winning of your approbation. He will choose the course +that offers what seems to him to be the greater good; he will choose +between punishment, with rectitude, a good conscience, a sense of unity +with the higher good, of peace with God his friend, a greater +approximation to your ideal, on the one side, and, on the other, escape +from punishment.</p> + +<p>Everything in that crisis will depend on how real you have made the good +to be, how much the sense of the reality of God and his companionship +has brought of joy and friendship, and how high are his values of the +actual, the real, the true.</p> + + +<h4>§ 4. AT THE CRISIS</h4> + +<p>But what shall we do as we meet the lie on the lips of the child? First, +as already suggested, do not wait until you meet it. Train the child to +the truthful life. Second, be sure you do not make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">246</a></span> too heavy moral +demands. Remember the instinct to protect himself from immediate +punishment or disapprobation is stronger than any other just then. Do +not ask him to do what the law says the prisoner may not do, incriminate +himself. We have no right to put on our children tests harder than they +can bear. Often we put those which are harder than we could face. What +you will do just then depends on what you have been doing for the +training of the child or youth. Do not expect him to solve problems in +moral geometry if you have neglected simple addition in that realm.</p> + +<p>Punishment by the blow or the immediate sentence will be futile. The +offender must know he has trespassed in a realm beyond your +administration and rule; he has done more than commit an offense against +you. Whatever consequences follow—such as your hesitation to accept his +word—must evidently be a part of the operation of the entire moral law. +Help him to see that lying strikes at the root of all social relations +and would make all happy and prosperous living, all friendship, and all +business impossible by destroying social confidence.</p> + +<p>Facing the crisis, do not demand more than your training gives you a +right to expect. Often, instead of the direct categorical question as to +guilt, we must gradually draw out a narrative of the events in question; +we must patiently help<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">247</a></span> the child to state the facts and to see the +values of exactitudes. Without preaching or posing we must bring the +events into the light of larger areas of time and circles of life, help +him to see them related to all his life and to all mankind and to the +very fringes of existence, to God and the eternal. That cannot be done +in a moment; it is part of a habit of our own minds or it is not really +done at all. At the moment we can, however, make the deepest impression +by insistence on the importance of the actual, the real, the exactly +true.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p>E. L. Cabot, <i>Every Day Ethics</i>, chaps. xix, xx. Holt, $1.25.</p> + +<p>W. B. Forbush, <i>On Truth Telling</i>. Pamphlet. American Institute of +Child Life, Philadelphia, Pa.</p> + +<p>J. Sully, <i>Children's Ways</i>, pp. 124-33. Appleton, $1.25.</p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p>G. S. Hall, "A Study of Children's Lies," <i>Educational Problems</i>, I, +chap. vi. Appleton, $2.50.</p> + +<p>E. P. St. John, <i>A Genetic Study of Veracity</i>. Pamphlet.</p> + +<p>J. Sully, <i>Studies in Childhood</i>.</p> + +<p>E. H. Griggs, <i>Moral Education</i>. Huebsch, $1.60.</p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. Are there degrees of lying?</p> + +<p>2. When is a lie not a lie?</p> + +<p>3. How can we discriminate among the statements of children?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">248</a></span></p> + +<p>4. How can we help them to recognize the qualities of truth?</p> + +<p>5. In what ways are parents to blame for forcing children to +protective lying?</p> + +<p>6. What of the relation of the thought of God to the demands for +truth?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">249</a></span>7. Would you punish a child for lying and, if so, in what way? +</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<h3>DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES (<i>Concluded</i>)</h3> + + +<h4>§ 1. DISHONESTY</h4> + +<p>Many parents appear to think that the child's concepts of property +rights and of fair dealing are without importance. Habits of pilfering +are permitted to develop and success in cheating wins admiration. Low +standards are accepted and religion is divorced from moral questions. +The family attitude practically assumes that all persons cheat more or +less and that it is necessary only to use wisdom to insure freedom from +conviction.</p> + +<p>Responsibility lies at home. We shall never have an honest generation +until we have honest men and women to breed and train it. It is folly to +think we can lay on the public schools the burden of the moral education +of the young. Much is already being attempted there; yet little seems to +be accomplished because the home, having the child before and after +school and for a longer period each day, furnishes no adequate basis in +habits, ideals, and instruction for the moral work of the school. If +parents assume that one cannot succeed with absolute integrity, that +dishonesty in some degree is necessary to prosperity, then children will +learn that lesson despite all that may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">250</a></span> be said elsewhere. Honest +children grow where, in answer to the false statement, "You will starve +if you do business honestly," parents say, "Then we will starve."</p> + +<p>But the very home life itself can be a teacher of dishonesty. Is it +largely a matter of sham and pretense for the sake of social glory? Does +it prefer a cheap veneer to a slowly acquired genuine article? Is the +front appearance that of a dandy while the backyard looks like a +slattern? Is the home striving for more than it deserves? Is it trying +to get more out of life than it puts in? Evading taxes, avoiding duties, +a community parasite, does it commend to children the arts of social +cheating and lying? Such homes teach so loudly that no voice could be +heard in them.</p> + +<p>Given the atmosphere, ideals, and practices of the honest life in the +home itself, the problems of conduct, in the realm of these rights, are +more than half solved. Here in the home the real training for the life +of business takes place. Not for an instant can we afford to lower +standards here, nor to lose sight of the life-long power of our ideals, +our habits, and our attitudes on the conduct of the next generation. Do +parents know that the problems of lying, cheating, quarreling are the +great, vital questions for their children, much more important than +industrial or professional success in life; that on these all success is +predicated? If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">251</a></span> they do, surely they cannot regard the problems which +arise as mere incidents; surely they will provide for the culture of the +moral life as definitely as for the culture of the physical or the +intellectual!</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. LESSONS IN HONESTY</h4> + +<p>But children also acquire habits from their playmates. Whenever the act +of pilfering appears, the wrong must be made clear. Some sense of +property rights is necessary; not the right, as some assume, to do what +you will with a thing because you have it, but the right to enjoy and +usefully employ it. Help children to see the difference between mine and +thine. Slovenly moral thinking often comes from too great freedom in +forgetful borrowing within the family. In this little social group the +members must first acquire the habits of respect for the rights of +others. Through toys, tools, and books the lesson may be learned so +early that it becomes a part of the normal order of things.</p> + +<p>Children can learn that the game of life has its rules and that the +breach of these rules spoils the game and prevents our own happiness. +They can learn, too, that these are not arbitrary rules; they are like +the laws of nature; they are the conditions under which alone it is +possible for people to live together and to make life worth while. +Gambling is wrong because it is unsocial; it is the attempt to gain +without an equivalent giving.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">252</a></span> Cheating is wrong, no matter how many +practice it, just as surely as cheating is wrong in the game on the +playground.</p> + +<p>Children are really peculiarly sensitive to the social consciousness. In +school under no circumstances will they do that which the school custom +forbids or the older boys condemn. In the home, despite contrary +appearances, the opinion of elders, brothers, sisters, and parents is +the recognized law. Every small boy wants to be like his big brother. +Children's conduct may be guided by an understanding of the social will +outside the school and home. Help them to know that all people +everywhere in organized society condemn cheating and dishonesty.<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">49</a></p> + +<p>Sentiment and emotional feeling must back up all teaching of conduct. +Your stories and readings should be selected with this in mind. The +approbation of parents and of the great Father of all enters as an +effectual motive.</p> + +<p>But parents seldom understand these problems; they attempt to deal with +each one as it arises until they are weary of the seemingly endless +procession and abandon the task. Their endeavors are based on faint +memories of such problems in their own youth or on rule-of-thumb +proverbial <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">253</a></span>philosophy about morals and children. Does not the +development of moral ability and culture deserve at least as much +attention as any other phase of the child's life? After all, what do we +most of all desire for all our children—position, fame, ease? or is it +not rather simply this, that, no matter what else they do, they may be +good and useful men and women? Then what are we doing to make them good +and useful?</p> + +<p>A clear view of the need for moral training, a belief that is possible, +will surely lead to serious attempts to learn the art of moral training. +In this they need not be without guidance. There is a number of good +books on character development in the child.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">50</a> The foundation for all +such training of parents ought to be laid in an understanding of what +the moral nature is, and then of the laws of its development. Later the +specific problems may be separately considered.</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. TEASING AND BULLYING</h4> + +<p>Teasing is the child's crude method of experimentation in psychological +reactions; the teaser desires to discover just how the teased will +respond. It degenerates, by easy steps, into a thoughtless infliction of +pain in sheer enjoyment of another's misery, and then into brutal +bullying. When only two children are together mere teasing will not +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">254</a></span>last long; either the teaser will tire of his task or his teasing will +turn to that lowest of all brutalities, delight in inflicting pain on +weaker ones.</p> + +<p>But teasing is a serious problem in many families; the whole group +sometimes lives in an atmosphere of ridicule, derision, and annoyance. +Teasing is likely to appear at its worst wherever a group is gathered, +for the guilty ones are under the stimulus of the praise of others; they +inflict mental pain for the sake of winning approbation.</p> + +<p>Teasing has a pedagogical basis. A certain amount of ridicule acts +healthfully on most persons. Even children need sometimes to see their +weaknesses, and especially their faults of temper, in the light of other +eyes, in the aspect of the ridiculous. But children are seldom to be +trusted to discipline one another; freedom to do so is likely to develop +hardness, indifference to the sufferings of others, and arrogance from +the sense of lordship. The corrective of ridicule is safe only as it is +a kindly expression of the sense of humor. The ability to see and to +show just how foolish or funny some situations are will turn many a +tragedy of childhood into a comedy. Whenever children laugh at the +distresses or faults of others, help them to laugh at their own. +Cultivate the habit of seeing the odd, the whimsical, the humorous side +of things. A sound sense of kindly humor often will save us all from +unkind teasing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">255</a></span></p> + + +<h4>§ 4. SOME CURES FOR TEASING</h4> + +<p>Help the habitual and unkind teaser to see how cowardly the act is, to +see how it is against the spirit of fair play. Call on him to help the +weaker one. If he is teasing for some fault of temper or some habit, +show him the chance that is afforded to do the nobler deed of helping +another to overcome that fault.</p> + +<p>Let the cowardly teaser reap the consequences of his own act; he must +bear the burden of the critic, the expectation of perfection. Teasing +him for his own shortcomings will sometimes cure him, but usually he +loses his temper quickly. Make him feel the injustice of the teaser's +method. If he is a bully he needs bullying. If ever corporal punishment +is wise it is in such a case. He who inflicts pain simply because he can +deserves to endure pain inflicted by someone stronger. But one must be +careful not to confirm him in the coward's code. The injustice of it he +must see, see by smarting under it. If ever punishment before others is +wise it is in this case; for surely he who delights in humiliating +others must be humiliated. But though justice suggests this course, +experience shows that it does not always work; the bully only bides his +time, and, cherishing resentment, he wreaks it on the weaker ones.</p> + +<p>The best cure for brutal teasing will take a longer time than is +involved in a thrashing. Besides,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">256</a></span> the teaser will get his thrashings +very soon from other boys. It requires time to change the habits that +make bullying possible. Try gradually helping him to see the beauty and +pleasure of helpfulness. Give him a chance to give pleasure instead of +pain. Help him to taste the joy of praise, the praise that helps more +than all teasing criticism. Help him to see that it is more truly a mark +of superiority to help, to cheer, to do good, than to oppress and tease. +Take time to habituate him in helpfulness.</p> + +<p>In dealing with teasing in the family, two other things are worth +remembering: First, the teased must be taught the protective power of +indifference. Teasers stop as soon as their barbs fail to wound; the fun +ends there. Laugh at those who laugh at you, and they will soon cease. +Secondly, the atmosphere and habit of the family determine the course of +teasing. Where carping criticism and unkindly ridicule abound, children +cannot be blamed for like habits. Where the sense of humor lightens +tense situations, where we sacrifice the pleasure of stinging criticism +for the sake of encouraging those who most need it, children are quick +to catch those habits too. The teasing child usually comes out of a +family of similar habits. On seeing our children engaged in teasing +others, our first thought ought to be as to the extent to which we may +have been their example<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">257</a></span> in this respect. Constant watchfulness on our +part against the temptations to tease will have an effect far more +potent than all attempts to talk them out of the habit; it will lead +them out.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p class="center">1. HONESTY</p> + +<p>P. Du Bois, <i>The Culture of Justice</i>, chaps. iii, x. Dodd, Mead & +Co., $0.75.</p> + +<p>E. P. St. John, <i>Child Nature and Child Nurture</i>, chap. viii. +Pilgrim Press, $0.50.</p> + +<p>2. TEASING</p> + +<p>W. L. Sheldon, <i>A Study of Habits</i>, chap. xvii. Welch & Co., +Chicago, $1.25.</p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p class="center">ON GENERAL MORAL TRAINING</p> + +<p>Sneath & Hodges, <i>Moral Training in School and Home</i>. Macmillan, +$0.80.</p> + +<p>E. O. Sisson, <i>The Essentials of Character</i>. Macmillan, $1.00.</p> + +<p>H. Thisleton Mark, <i>The Unfolding of Personality</i>. The University +of Chicago Press, $1.00.</p> + +<p>Paul Carus, <i>Our Children</i>. Open Court Publishing Co., $1.00.</p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. Of what importance is the child's sense of possession?</p> + +<p>2. What are the first evidences of a consciousness of property +rights?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">258</a></span></p> + +<p>3. How do homes train in dishonesty?</p> + +<p>4. What is the relation between cheating and dishonesty?</p> + +<p>5. What is a child seeking to do when he teases another?</p> + +<p>6. What are the unfortunate features of teasing?</p> + +<p>7. What is the relation of teasing to bullying?</p> + +<p>8. What cures would you suggest for either?</p></div> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">49</span></a> Parents will be helped by the practical discussions of +cheating, cribbing, and other boy problems in Johnson, <i>Problems of +Boyhood</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">50</span></a> See "Book List" in Appendix.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">259</a></span></p> + +<h3>THE PERSONAL FACTORS IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION</h3> + + +<p>Whoever will stop to review his early educational experience will be +impressed with the instantaneous and vivid manner in which certain +teachers spring into memory. They are seen as though actually living +again. We have difficulty in recalling even the subjects they taught, +while of the particulars of their teaching we have absolutely no +recollection. But they continue to influence us; they are like so many +silent forces leading our lives to this day. The teacher is always +greater than his lesson, and what he is, is greater than what he says. +The religious education of the young depends more on the gift of +persons, on contact with lives, than on anything else.</p> + +<p>There are instructors and there are teachers; the former impart +information, the latter convey personality; the former deal with +subjects, the latter teach people. The greatest factor in education as a +process of developing persons is the power of stimulating personality. +The power of the family as an educational agency is in the fact that it +is an organization of persons for personal purposes. When you take the +persons away you remove all educational potencies.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">260</a></span></p> + +<p>The depersonalized home is the modern menace. We have come to think that +provided you throw furniture and food together in proper proportions you +can produce a capable life. So we depend on the home as a piece of +machinery to do its work automatically, forgetting that the working +activity is not the home but the family, not the furniture but people. +Life can only come from life, and lives can only come from lives. +Personality alone can develop personality. By so much as you rob the +family life of your personal presence, as mother or as father, you take +away from its reality as a family, from its force as an educational +agency, from its religious reality.</p> + + +<h4>§ 1. ORPHANED FAMILIES</h4> + +<p>All that is said here about fathers might well be applied to mothers, +save that they are not as flagrant sinners in this respect, and, +besides, it comes with better grace for a father to speak on the sins of +fathers.</p> + +<p>There are too many fathers who are financial and physiological fathers +only. A good father easily grows as crooked as a dollar sign when he is +nurtured only on money. Many, both fathers and mothers, take parenthood +wholly in physiological terms, imagining—if they think about it at +all—that they have fully discharged all possible obligations if only +they know how to bear, feed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">261</a></span> and clothe children properly. True, such +duties are fundamental, but no father can be rightly called "a good +provider" who provides only <i>things</i> for his family, no matter with what +generosity he provides these things. Our homes need more of ourselves +first of all.</p> + +<p>He makes a capital error of setting first things in secondary places who +willingly permits business to interfere with the pleasure of being with +his children. Our social order fights its own welfare as long as any +father is chained to the wheels of industry through the hours that +belong to his home. But there are just as many who are not chained, but +who enslave themselves to business, and so miss the largest and best +business in the world, the development of children's characters.</p> + +<p>Many a good father goes wrong here. Love and ambition prompt him to +provide abundantly for his children; he enslaves himself to give them +those social advantages which he missed in youth.</p> + +<p>But it is a short-measure love that gives only gifts and never gives +itself. The heart hungers, not for what you have in your hand, but for +what you are. "The gift without the giver is bare." No amount of +bountiful providing can atone for the loss of the father's personality. +It is easy for the hands to be so engrossed in providing that the home +is left headless and soon heartless. If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">262</a></span> we at all desire the fruits of +character in the home we must give ourselves personally.</p> + +<p>It is not alone the habitué of the saloon or the idler in clubs and +fraternities who is guilty of stealing from the home its rightful share +of his presence. He who gives so much of himself to any object as not to +give the best of himself to his family comes under the apostolic ban of +being worse than an infidel. <i>A father belongs to his home more than he +belongs to his church.</i> There have been men, though probably their +number is not legion, who have allowed church duties, meetings, and +obligations so to absorb their time and energy that they have given only +a worn-out, burned-out, and useless fragment of themselves to their +children. Some have found it more attractive to talk of the heavenly +home in prayer-meeting or to be gracious to the stranger and to win the +smile of the neighbor at the church than to take up the by-no-means-easy +task of being godly, sympathetic and cheerful, courteous and kind among +their children and in their homes. No matter what it may be, church or +club, politics or reform organization, we are working at the wrong end +if we are allowing them to take precedence of the home.</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. THE FATHER'S CHANCE</h4> + +<p>The father owes it to his family <i>to give himself at his best</i>, that is, +as far as possible, when his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">263</a></span> vitality is freshest and his powers +keenest to answer to the young life about him. He owes it to his family +to conserve for it the time to think of its needs, time to listen to the +wife's story of its problems, time to sit and sympathize with children, +time to hear their seemingly idle prattle, time to play with them. Have +you ever noticed this great difference between the father and the +mother, that while the latter always has time to bind up cut fingers and +to hear to its end the story of what the little neighbor, Johnny Smith, +did and said, somehow father's ear seems deaf to such stories and he is +often too busy to sympathize? It might work a vast change in some +families if the "children's hour" had a call to the father as well as to +the mother. Of course we are crowded with social engagements and life is +at high pressure under the enticing obligation of uplifting and +reforming everybody else, yet one hour of every evening held sacred for +the firelight conversation, one in which the children could really get +at our hearts, might be worth more to tomorrow than all our public +propaganda.</p> + +<p>Fathers owe their brains as well as their hands to their families. +Competent and efficient fatherhood does not come by accident. We are +learning that children cannot be understood merely by loving them, that +two things must be held in balance: the scientific and the sympathetic +study of childhood. Is there any good reason why, while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">264</a></span> so readily +granting that mothers should belong to mothers' clubs, study child +psychology, the hygiene of infancy, domestic science, and eugenics, we +should assume that fathers may safely dispense with all such knowledge? +There are men who sit up nights studying how to grow the biggest +radishes in the block, there are men who toil through technical +handbooks on the game of golf, who would look at you in open-eyed wonder +if you should suggest the duty of studying their children with equal +scientific patience. They of course desire to have ideal children but +they are not willing to learn how to grow them.</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. FATHERING AS A MAN'S TASK</h4> + +<p>It takes intelligence and burns up brain power to keep the confidence of +your boy so that he will freely talk of his own life and needs to you. +Those much-to-be-desired open doors are kept open, not by accident, nor +by our sentiments or wishes alone. A boy changes so fast that a man has +to be alert, thinking and trying to understand and sympathize all the +time. The boy sees through all sleepy pretenses of understanding. We +keep the open door of confidence only as by steady endeavor we keep in +real touch with the boy's world.</p> + +<p>Fathers are ignorant of the problems of family training; they oscillate +between the wishy-washy sentimentality that permits anarchy in the home<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">265</a></span> +and the harsh, unthinking despotism that breeds hatred and rebellion. +Fathers criticize the public schools but never take the time to go and +look inside one. They laugh at women's clubs because they are too lazy +to make a like investment in the patient study of some of their +problems. They affect indifference to the parent-teacher clubs while +remaining ignorant of the significant things they have already +accomplished for the schools. If we were to make an inventory of what +the women, the mothers, have accomplished by study, agitation, and +legislation for social, civic, ethical, and religious betterment, we +proud lords of creation would, or ought to, hang our heads in shame.</p> + +<p>Fatherhood is our chance to become. It is our chance to grow into our +finest selves. The measure of its gains to us depends upon the measure +of our gifts to its opportunities and duties. It is our chance to be +what we should like our children to be, our chance to find ourselves. +All that it costs, all the self-denial, labor, and often pain it must +mean, is just the process of developing a fine, rich life. Now, that +life is just the greatest gift that any man can make to his home and his +world. We can never give any more than ourselves or any other than +ourselves, and this pathway of sacrifice, this costly way of +home-making, is a man's chance to become Godlike. The race has come +upward in this way. It needs the masculine in its ideal self<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">266</a></span> as well as +the feminine. There is no race salvation without constant individual +self-giving. That self-giving must be balanced equally on the part of +the man and the woman. Fatherhood, like motherhood, is just our chance +to learn life's best lesson, that there is a certain short path to +happiness which men have called the way of pain and God calls the way of +peace.</p> + +<p>Motherhood is a sacred portion, but so is fatherhood. Its calls are just +as high, its service just as holy, its opportunities just as large, its +meaning just as divine. How worse than empty are all our pratings about +divine fatherhood if we illustrate its meaning only degradingly or +misleadingly! And just as the life of the spirit is the gift of that +divine fatherhood, so for us the gift of our lives, ourselves, is the +largest and richest contribution we can make to the religious lives of +our children.</p> + +<p>The father as a teacher teaches by what he is. The classes in the home +have no set lessons, for the text is written in lives and the word is +spoken and taught in personality. You effect the religious education of +your children in the degree that you give yourself as a simple religious +person to them.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p>Hodges, <i>Training of Children in Religion</i>, chap. vii. Appleton, +$1.50.</p> + +<p>K. G. Busby, <i>Home Life in America</i>, chaps. i, ii. Macmillan, +$2.00.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">267</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p>E. A. Abbott, <i>On the Training of Parents</i>. Houghton Mifflin Co., +$1.00.</p> + +<p>Allen, <i>Making the Most of Our Children</i>. 2 vols. McClurg, $1.00 +each.</p> + +<p>Wilm, <i>The Culture of Religion</i>, chap. ii. Pilgrim Press, $0.75</p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. Which do you remember best, your teachers or your lessons? Why?</p> + +<p>2. Describe, from your memory, some of the influences of +personality?</p> + +<p>3. Are these influences greater or less with parents on children?</p> + +<p>4. What are the causes that separate parents and children?</p> + +<p>5. How shall we define duties to business, to society, and to the +family?</p> + +<p>6. Under what circumstances is one justified in refusing time to +the church for the sake of the family?</p> + +<p>7. What are the best times and opportunities for the strengthening +of the personal bonds between children and parents?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">268</a></span>8. How shall we overcome the apparent difficulty of maintaining the +confidence of children?</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<h3>LOOKING TO THE FUTURE</h3> + + +<p>Whether we can remedy the ills of family living today or not, we can +determine the character of the family life of the future. The homes of +tomorrow are being determined today. The children who swing their feet +in schoolrooms and play in our gardens will control family living very +soon. We can do little to reconstruct the old order; we can do +everything to determine the new. When the mountain sides have been made +bare, forest conservation cannot save the old trees, but it can prepare +for new growths. Ours is the larger opportunity because we can determine +the ideals of our children. Today we can determine that they shall not +suffer from false conceptions, shall not bruise themselves in the blind +ignorance that compelled us to find our own way. We shall see that, +first, in the education of our children we can save the homes of +tomorrow by training the children of today to set first things first. If +family life has been neglected in America, it has been because we have +submerged its real values of character and affection in a flood of +things, of materialism.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">269</a></span></p> + + +<h4>§ 1. A CONSTRUCTIVE POLICY FOR CHARACTER</h4> + +<p>The future higher efficiency of the family depends on an extension of a +conscience for character through all our thinking on the family. We are +really half-ashamed to talk of character. We blush for ideals but we +have no shame in boasting of commerce and factories; we are ashamed of +the things of beauty and we love only the useful. So we have become +ashamed of the ideals of the home. Not only do we passively acquiesce in +the popular attitude of indifference or derision, but we voice it +ourselves. We join in the jest at marriage; we joke over marital +infelicities. We would be ashamed to be caught singing "Home, Sweet +Home." What is more important, we show that, as a people, we have less +and less the habit of regarding the home as any other than a commercial +affair. The tendency is to determine domestic living wholly by economic +factors. The literature on the "home" is overwhelmingly economic; its +heart is in the kitchen. High efficiency on the physiological, sanitary, +culinary, and mechanical sides makes the modern home so convenient that +you can lie on a folding bed, press a button to light the grate fire, +turn on the lights, start the toaster, and wake the children. Homes are +places to hide in at night, to feed the body, arrange the clothes, and +start out from for real living. They are private hotels.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">270</a></span></p> + +<p>If we would save the family we must save the child from losing sight of +the primacy of human values; we must strengthen his natural faith that +people are worth more than all besides, leading him into the faith that +moral integrity, truth, honor, righteousness, are the glory of a life. +More, these young lives must be trained to habitual and efficient +right-doing. In a word, the conservation of the home is simply a program +of beginning today ourselves to set first things first, to conserve the +human factors that will make homes, to make education everywhere in +school and church and home count first of all for character. And that +broader education we ourselves must test first of all by this, whether +it makes youth competent to live aright, cultivates the love of worthy +ideals, and makes him willing and able to pay the price of a trained +life consecrated to the service of his world, to the love of his +fellows, and to the making of a new world.</p> + +<p>We shall need, first, to safeguard the primary motives that enter into +the founding of families. Those motives begin to develop early. They are +in the making in childhood. Somehow we must plan the education of youths +so that they will think of homes and of marriage in new terms. Possibly +the public school will not only teach the physiology of marriage and the +bare physical facts of sexual purity, but will teach new ideals of +family<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">271</a></span> life; it will count it at least as much a duty to cultivate a +love of home as it is to cultivate a love of country. It can set so +clearly the final objective of character that even children shall see +that life has higher ends than money-making and the family greater +purposes than garish social display.</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. THE CHURCH AIDING</h4> + +<p>Certainly the church must seek to quicken and develop new ideals of +family life; it must bring religion to our hearths and homes; it must +worry less about a "home over there," and show how truly heavenly homes +may be made here. It must not only get youth ready to die, it must +prepare them to live; to live together on religious terms. It will do +this, not only by general discussions in the pulpit, but by special +instruction in classes. No church has a clear conscience in regard to +any young person contemplating the duties of a family whom it has not +directly instructed in the duties of that life.</p> + +<p>It is a strange spectacle, if we would stop long enough to look at it, +of the church proclaiming a way of life but scarcely ever teaching it. +In any church there is a large number of young people under instruction; +what are they learning? Usually a theological interpretation of an +ancient religious literature. Some still are learning to hate all other +persons whose religion differs from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">272</a></span> the brand carried in that +institution. In a few years these youths will be bearing social burdens, +facing temptations, taking up duties; does their teaching relate at all +to these things? No, indeed, that would be "worldly"; it would seem to +be sacrilegious to teach them how actually to be religious. The business +of the church school is still largely that of filling minds with +theological data rather than training young, trainable lives to become +religious schoolboys, religious voters, religious parents. How many have +been at all influenced by Sunday-school teaching when they stepped into +a polling-booth, when they chose a life-mate, when they guided or +disciplined their children? If religious education does not at all +influence us in the great events of life, of what value is it to us? +Must it not be counted a sheer waste of time?</p> + +<p>If we would conserve the human values of the family we must train youth +to a religious interpretation of the home. If we cannot do that in the +church we might as well confess that the church cannot touch the sources +of human affairs.</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. IDEALS AND METHODS</h4> + +<p>No matter what the breadth of the interests of the public school, youth +will still need training for family living given under religious +auspices and with the religious aim. The day school may<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">273</a></span> give courses in +domestic economy, but family living demands more than ability to sweep a +room or cook an egg. In fact, no one can be competent to meet its higher +demands unless at least two things are accomplished, first, that he, or +she, is led to see the family as essentially a religious, spiritual +institution because it is an association of persons for the purpose of +developing other persons to spiritual fulness; secondly, that he, or +she, is moved to willingness to count the work of the family, its +purpose and aim, as the highest in life and that for which one is +willing to pay any price of time, treasure, thought, and endeavor.</p> + +<p>This means that the fundamental need is that our young people shall grow +up with a new vision and a new passion for the home and family. That +passion is needed to give value to any training in the economics or +mechanics of the home; and that training is precisely the contribution +which the church should make to all departments of life today. It is the +prophet, the interpreter, revealing the spiritual meanings of all daily +affairs and quickening us to right feeling, to highly directed passion +for worthy ideals.</p> + +<p>From the general teaching, the high message of the church, directed to +this special problem, there must be formed in the mind of the coming +generation a new picture of the family, a new ethics of its life, a new +evaluation of its worth. That can come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">274</a></span> in part by the prophetic message +from the pulpit, but it will come more naturally and readily by regular +teaching directed to the actual experiences and the coming needs of the +young people who are to be home-makers. The soaring ideals pass over +their heads, but when you teach the practice, the details of the life of +the family in the spirit of these ideals, as interpreted and determined +by the higher conception, then they catch the vision through the +details.</p> + +<p>We need two types of classes in church schools in relation to the life +of the family: First, classes for young people in which their social +duties as religious persons are carefully taught and discussed. Perhaps +such courses should not be specifically on "The Family," but this +institution ought, in the course, to occupy a place proportionate to +that which belongs to it in life. The instruction should be specific and +detailed, not simply a series of homilies on "The Christian Family," +"Love of Home," etc., but taking up the great problems of the economic +place of the family today, its spiritual function, questions of choice +of life-partners, types of dwelling, finances and money relations in the +family, children and their training, and the actual duties and problems +which arise in family living.</p> + +<p>All topics should be treated from the dominant viewpoint of the family +as a religious institution<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">275</a></span> for the development of the lives of +religious persons. The courses should be so arranged as to be given to +young people of about twenty years of age, or of twenty to twenty-five. +They should be among the electives offered in the church school.</p> + +<p>The second type of class would be for those who are already parents and +who desire help on their special problems. Many schools now conduct such +classes, meeting either on Sunday or during the week.<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">51</a> Work on +"Parents' Problems," "Family Religious Education," and similar topics is +also being given in the city institutes for religious workers. No church +can be satisfied with its service to the community unless it provides +opportunity for parents to study their work of character development +through the family and to secure greater efficiency therein. Such +classes need only three conditions: a clear understanding of the purpose +of meeting the actual problems of religious training in the family, a +leader or instructor who is really qualified to lead and to instruct in +this subject, and an invitation to parents to avail themselves of this +opportunity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">276</a></span></p> + +<p>The value of such a class would be greatly enhanced if it should be held +in close co-ordination with similar classes or clubs conducted by the +public schools.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">52</a> Here all the parents of the community meet in the +school building, not to discuss how the teachers may satisfy parental +criticism, but to learn what the school has to teach on modern +educational methods applied to the life of the child, especially in the +family, and mutually to find ways of co-operation between the home and +the school for the betterment of the child.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">References for Study</span></p> + +<p>Articles in <i>Religious Education</i>, April, 1911, VI, 1-77.</p> + +<p>Helen C. Putnam in <i>Religious Education</i>, June, 1911, VI, 159-66.</p> + +<p>George W. Dawson in <i>Religious Education</i>, June, 1911, VI, 167-74.</p> + +<p>Cabot, <i>Volunteer Help in the Schools</i>, chap. vii. Houghton Mifflin +Co., $0.60.</p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Further Reading</span></p> + +<p>Forsyth, <i>Marriage, Its Ethics and Religion</i>. Hodder & Stoughton, +$1.25.</p> + +<p>Lovejoy, <i>Self-Training for Motherhood</i>. American Unitarian +Association, $1.00.</p> + +<p>Pomeroy, <i>Ethics of Marriage</i>. Funk & Wagnalls, $1.50.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">277</a></span></p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Topics for Discussion</span></p> + +<p>1. In how far are home problems due to the ignorance of parents?</p> + +<p>2. What do you regard as the essentials in the training of parents?</p> + +<p>3. Where can the necessary subjects best be taught?</p> + +<p>4. What are the difficulties in the way of teaching these subjects +to young people?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">278</a></span></p> + +<p>5. In how far can we direct the reading of young people toward sane +and helpful knowledge of family life and duties?</p></div> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">51</span></a> Pamphlets on plans for parents' classes: <i>The Home and the +Sunday School</i>, Pilgrim Press; <i>Plans for Mothers' and Parents' +Meetings</i>, Sunday School Times Co.; <i>How to Start a Mothers' +Department</i>, David C. Cook Co.; <i>The Parents' Department of the Sunday +School</i>, Connecticut Sunday School Association, Hartford, Conn.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">52</span></a> See pamphlet published by the National Congress of +Mothers: <i>How to Organize Parents' Associations and Mothers' Circles in +Public Schools</i>.</p></div> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">279</a></span></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">280</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="APPENDIXES" id="APPENDIXES"></a>APPENDIXES</h2> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">281</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="APPENDIX_I" id="APPENDIX_I"></a>APPENDIX I</h2> + +<h3>SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS WORK</h3> + + +<p>This book is designed for individual reading or for use in classes. It +is not a textbook of the same character as a textbook in mathematics or +history, but the material is arranged so as to be both easily readable +and of ready analysis for classes. There are two methods of following +the course: one by work conducted under a regular teacher in a class, +and the other by private or correspondence study.</p> + + +<h4>§ 1. THE CLASS</h4> + +<p>The class should be composed of parents and other adults, inasmuch as +the work is designed for them. It may be a class in connection with the +Sunday school in a church, a class conducted by a mothers' club or +congress or by a parent-teacher association, or it may be organized +under other auspices. Or it might be organized by a group of parents in +any community. The class need not consist of either fathers or mothers +alone, as the work is planned for both. In any case the work of teaching +will be facilitated if, in addition to the customary officers of the +class, the teacher will appoint a librarian, whose duties would be to +ascertain for the members of the class where the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">282</a></span> books for study and +for reference may be obtained, that is, whether they are in the public +library, church library, or in private collections, and also, whenever +it is desired to purchase books, where they may best be secured.</p> + + +<h4>§ 2. THE TEACHER</h4> + +<p>The primary requisite for the teacher will be an eagerness to learn, a +sufficiently deep interest in the subject to lead to thorough study. No +one can teach this class who already knows all about the subject. A +spirit sympathetic with the child and the life of the family and a mind +willing to study the subject will accomplish much more than facile +rhetorical familiarity with it. The best teacher will not often be "an +easy talker" on the family; class time is too precious to be occupied +with a lecture. While, naturally, one who is a parent will speak with +greater experience than another, the ability to teach this subject +cannot be limited to fathers and mothers; physiological parenthood is +less important than spiritual parenthood. The teacher must have, then, +willingness to study the subject, ability to teach as contrasted with +mere talking, sympathy with parenthood, and a passion for the religious +personal values in life.</p> + + +<h4>§ 3. GENERAL METHOD</h4> + +<p>The teacher's aim will be to make this course definitely practical. The +book is not concerned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">283</a></span> so much with theories of the family as with the +present problems of the family, and especially with those that relate to +moral and religious education. There must be a sense of definite +problems to be concretely treated in all lessons. The teacher will +therefore encourage discussion, but will also avoid the tendency to +drift into desultory conversation. Direct the discussion to avoid +tedious détours on side issues. Direct the discussion to avoid the +tendency to treat superficially all the subject at one session. It will +be necessary frequently to insist that attention be focused upon the +immediate problems suggested by the lesson for the day, and to ask the +class to wait until the subjects which they in their eagerness suggest +shall come in their due order.</p> + +<p>Encourage personal experiences as sidelights and criticisms on the text, +but remember that no single experience is conclusive. Beware of the +over-elaboration and detailed narration of experiences.</p> + +<p><i>Insist on a thorough study of the text.</i> Students should be so prepared +as to make a lecture superfluous and to allow discussion to take the +place of review and explanation. The greatest danger in parents' classes +is that the members do not study; class work becomes indefinite and soon +loses value. Again, the members of the class often are unwilling to be +governed by the schedule of lessons, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">284</a></span> class drifts into aimless +conversation. Adult students especially need to be turned from the +tendency to regard educational experience as having come to an end with +their school days. The members of this class will need encouragement; +they must be stimulated patiently until they have re-formed some habits +of study and rediscovered the pleasures of systematic thinking. The best +stimulus will be a teacher so convinced of the supreme importance of the +subject to be studied as to lead the members to recognize its importance +and the insignificance of any price they may pay for efficient spiritual +parenthood.</p> + + +<h4>§ 4. CLASS WORK</h4> + +<p>At the first session teach chap. i, which is introductory. Draw out +discussion on the points suggested therein, and assign this chapter and +the one following for the next session. The first lesson will give the +teacher opportunity to explain and illustrate the method of study, +presentation, and discussion.</p> + +<p>Assign the work carefully each week, calling especial attention to the +"References for Study." Secure promises from as many as possible to read +at least one of these references and to prepare a written report, on one +sheet of paper, for presentation at the next session. Ask others to look +into the special points which will be found in the references given +under the heading "Further Reading."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">285</a></span></p> + +<p>In beginning a lesson it will be wise to call to mind first the +principle running through the book, that the great work of the family is +the development of religious persons in the home; then call to mind the +application of this principle in the last lesson. Make your review very +brief.</p> + +<p>Next, bring out the leading topic of the lesson for the day. This should +be done so as to present a vital issue and a live topic to the class. +Very often the best way of doing this is to state a concrete case +involving the issue discussed. The presentation of a definite set of +circumstances or a fairly complete experience involving the fundamental +principles under discussion is an instance of teaching by the "case +method." If the teacher will consider how the law student is trained by +the study of <i>particular cases</i>, the advantage of the method will be +clear. Be sure that the "case" selected will include the principles to +be taught. Prepare the statement of the case beforehand. This should be +done in a very brief narrative, so giving the instance as to enable the +class to see the reality of the question. Be sure that your instance is +itself vital and probable. A class of adults will especially need such +points of vital contact. By announcing the topic in advance the teacher +will often be able to obtain definite cases in point from the members.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">286</a></span></p> + +<p>With the case thus presented take the points in the text and apply them, +first to the special case alone, but with the purpose of developing the +principles involved in that and similar cases. Beware of the special +danger of the case method, namely, that the class may discuss the +specific instances rather than the principles.</p> + +<p><i>Teaching is more than telling</i>; it is stimulating other minds to see +and comprehend and state for themselves. Therefore the teacher must +first comprehend and be able to state for himself. Avoid repeating the +phrases of the text. Get them over into your own language and see that +the class does the same. Do not fail to call for the brief reports on +reading, and to make them a real part of the subject of discussion.</p> + +<p><i>Questioning</i> is the natural method of stimulating minds. Use the +question method, but do not confine yourself to "What does the author +say on this?" Direct your questions to the points stated and the issues +raised so as to compel students to think on the topics and so as to draw +out the results of their thinking. Form your own judgments and help the +class to form theirs too. Remember that the purpose of the class is to +get people thinking on the great subjects discussed. The text is not +written in order that groups of students may learn the author's +statements, but that they may be led to think seriously on all these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">287</a></span> +matters and stimulated to do something about them.</p> + +<p>Use the "discussion topics" given at the end of each lesson. They are +not designed to furnish a syllabus of the lesson, but to suggest +important questions for discussion, some of which may barely be +mentioned in the text. They may be used in assigning the advance work, +giving topics to different students, and they may be used in your review +of the previous lesson.</p> + +<p>A syllabus of each lesson will be helpful, provided it be prepared by +the students themselves. Encourage the careful reading of the lesson by +every member of the class, letting the syllabus grow out of this.</p> + +<p>Notebooks will have their largest value if used at home for two +purposes: first, to set down the student's analysis of the book as he +reads, secondly, to record the student's observations on definite +problems and on practice in the home. Note-taking in the class will have +very little value unless it is backed up by study at home.</p> + +<p><i>Generalization.</i> Have clearly in your own mind a definite concept of +the general principle underlying each section. Read through each section +until you can state the principle for yourself. Bring your teaching into +a focus at the point of that principle before the lesson ends. Try to +get the members of the class to state the principle in their own words.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">288</a></span></p> + +<p><i>In action:</i> The principles will have little value unless translated +into practical methods; direct your teaching to their actual use in +families. Your generalization is for guidance into application. Urge +that the plans described be actually tried. Expect this and call for +reports on plans tested in the daily experience of families. If a number +of students would try, for example, the plan of worship suggested for +two or three weeks and report their experiences in writing, together +with the accounts of any other plans tried, a valuable budget of helpful +knowledge could thus be gathered.<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">53</a></p> + +<p><i>Conference plan:</i> Some classes will be able to meet twice a week, +taking the lesson at one session and at another spending the time in +conference. At the conference period the program might provide for (1) +brief papers by members of the class on topics personally assigned, (2) +abstracts or summaries of assigned readings, (3) discussion on the +particular points raised in the papers, and (4) conference on unsettled +questions from the lesson for the class period preceding.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">289</a></span></p> + +<p><i>Club work:</i> A parents' club might be organized, either in a church or +in connection with a school, which would use this textbook, follow the +study work with conferences, and would secure for its own use a library +of the books listed after each chapter. Such a club would be able to put +into practice some of the plans advocated and could encourage their +application in groups of families.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">53</span></a> The teachers are especially invited to secure records of +actual experiments of this character. Accounts of tried methods of +family worship, especially those with new features, which should be +given in some detail as to the exact plan, the circumstances, the +material used, and the results, should be sent to the author in care of +the publishers. Perhaps in this way material which may be valuable to +large numbers may be gathered.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="APPENDIX_II" id="APPENDIX_II"></a>APPENDIX II</h2><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">290</a></span></p> + +<h3>A BOOK LIST</h3> + + +<p>The following books would be found useful for the working library of a +class or club following the study of this text or for a section of the +church library on the home and family. The books marked with an asterisk +are the ones which may be regarded as of first practical value to +parents and others studying the development of character in the life of +the family.</p> + +<p>In addition to the titles mentioned below, the the references at the end +of each chapter in this book will furnish a list of other sources of +valuable material.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center">I. <span class="smcap">the Institution of the Family</span></p> + +<p>C. F. and C. B. Thwing, <i>The Family</i>. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, $1.60. +A historical survey of the family with a special study of its +modern dangers and needs.</p> + +<p>P. T. Forsyth, <i>Marriage, Its Ethics and Religion</i>. Hodder & +Stoughton, $1.25. An important, popular statement of the ethics of +marriage as the foundation of family life.</p> + +<p>*W. F. Lofthouse, <i>Ethics and the Family</i>. Hodder & Stoughton, $2.50 +net. The most important recent book on the family; traces its +historical development, the ethical ideals involved in the +institution, and discusses its present problems and perplexities.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">291</a></span></p> + +<p>Katherine G. Busby, <i>Home Life in America</i>. Macmillan, $2.00 net. A +popular statement of the outstanding characteristics of life in +American homes; entertaining and informing.</p> + +<p>*Clyde W. Votaw, <i>Progress of Moral and Religious Education in the +American Home</i>. Religious Education Association, $0.25. A careful +and comprehensive survey, of great value.</p> + +<p>Charles A. L. Reed, <i>Marriage and Genetics</i>. Galton Press, +Cincinnati, Ohio, $1.00. A surgeon's message on eugenics, +especially on the aspects indicated in the title. A study of the +laws of human breeding.</p> + + +<p class="center">II. <span class="smcap">Child Nature</span></p> + +<p>*E. P. St. John, <i>Child Nature and Child Nurture</i>. Pilgrim Press, +$0.50. A textbook dealing with the nature of the child and with +problems of his training in the home.</p> + +<p>*Irving King, <i>The High School Age</i>. Bobbs-Merrill & Co., $1.00 +net. A study of the nature and needs of boys and girls in the first +period of adolescence. Written for all who are alive to the +problems of this period as well as for school people; gives +constructive suggestions for educational problems.</p> + +<p>Elizabeth Harrison, <i>A Study of the Child Nature</i>. Chicago +Kindergarten College, $1.00. Long recognized as a standard for +parents in the study of the development and functions of the +child-life.</p> + +<p>George E. Dawson, <i>The Right of the Child to Be Well Born</i>. Funk & +Wagnalls, $0.75. A plain study of eugenics, non-technical and +helpful; includes a chapter on eugenics and religion. To be +commended to parents.</p> + +<p>George E. Dawson, <i>The Child and His Religion</i>. The University of +Chicago Press, $0.75. The religious nature and needs of the child +with some suggestions as to method.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">292</a></span></p> + +<p>*W. Arter Wright, <i>The Moral Conditions and Development of the +Child</i>. Jennings & Graham, $0.75. An important and valuable book on +the newer views of the religious development of the child-life.</p> + +<p>Frederick Tracy and J. Stempfl, <i>The Psychology of Childhood</i>. D. C. +Heath & Co., $1.20. Gathers up the general results in the field of +child psychology.</p> + +<p>*W. G. Koons, <i>The Child's Religious Life</i>. Jennings & Graham, +$1.00. From the modern point of view, dealing with some of the +interesting problems of the relation of the child to religious life +and the development of his religious ideas.</p> + +<p>Thomas Stephens, <i>The Child and Religion</i>. Putnam, $1.50. A series +of short papers by English writers, particularly on the question of +child conversion.</p> + +<p>George A. Hubbell, <i>Up through Childhood</i>. Putnam, $1.25. A good +general review with special reference to religious problems and +religious institutions.</p> + +<p>Edith E. R. Mumford, <i>The Dawn of Character</i>. Longmans, Green & Co., +$1.20. A very important book, dealing especially with the moral +development of young children.</p> + + +<p class="center">III. <span class="smcap">Training in the Home</span></p> + +<p>William B. Forbush (ed.), <i>Guide Book to Childhood</i>. American +Institute of Child Life, Philadelphia, Pa. Very valuable as a guide +to reading on the many problems of child-training.</p> + +<p>LeGrand Kerr, <i>The Care and Training of the Child</i>. Funk & +Wagnalls, $0.75. A good, general, brief study of the nature of the +child and the method of education.</p> + +<p>William J. Shearer, <i>The Management and Training of the Child</i>. +Richardson, Smith & Co. A popular and practical statement of many +problems and their treatment in the home and school.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">293</a></span></p> + +<p>John Wirt Dinsmore, <i>The Training of Children</i>. American Book Co. +While written for school-teachers, this is one of the best studies +which parents could possibly read.</p> + +<p>A. A. Berle, <i>The School in the Home</i>. Moffat, Yard & Co., $1.00. +Contains much valuable suggestion to parents who really desire to +take advantage of the educational opportunities of the home.</p> + +<p>John Locke, <i>How to Train Up Your Children</i>. Sampson, Low, Marston +& Co., London. Written over two hundred years ago, and yet of very +great value in many parts to day.</p> + +<p>*William B. Forbush, <i>The Coming Generation</i>. D. Appleton & Co., +$1.50. Discusses the various aspects of child-training in the light +of the social consciousness of today. Many of the public agencies +for child betterment are carefully discussed.</p> + +<p>*William A. McKeever, <i>Training the Girl</i>. Macmillan, $1.50.</p> + +<p>*——, <i>Training the Boy</i>. Macmillan, $1.50. These two books +constitute one of the best collections of material, most practical +and helpful. They view girls and boys as active factors and all the +phases of home and community life are studied with reference to +their needs.</p> + + +<p class="center">IV. <span class="smcap">Special Religious Training in the Home</span></p> + +<p>*George Hodges, <i>The Training of the Child in Religion</i>. D. +Appleton & Co., $1.50. One of the few books dealing in any modern +manner with the special problems of the religious life of the +family.</p> + +<p>Rev. William Becker, <i>Christian Education or The Duties of +Parents</i>. B. Herder, St. Louis, $1.00. Recent and interesting +sermons on the duties of parents in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">294</a></span> religious education of the +Catholic child; a striking example of messages that ought to be +heard from every pulpit.</p> + +<p>John T. Faris, <i>Pleasant Sunday Afternoons for the Children</i>. +Sunday School Times Co., $0.50. A number of practical plans are +suggested.</p> + +<p>*George A. Coe, <i>Education in Religion and Morals</i>. Fleming H. +Revell Co., $1.35. A book which all parents ought to read for its +valuable guidance on the general principles of religious education.</p> + +<p>Elizabeth Grinnell, <i>How John and I Brought Up the Children</i>. +American Sunday School Union, $0.70. A popular statement in a +simple form of methods of dealing with many of the problems of +religious training.</p> + + +<p class="center">V. <span class="smcap">Moral Training</span></p> + +<p>Edward H. Griggs, <i>Moral Education</i>. B. W. Huebsch, $1.60. One of +the best-known books on this question, readable and helpful at many +points.</p> + +<p>Ennis Richmond, <i>The Mind of the Child</i>. Longmans, Green & Co., +$1.00. One of the most helpful books because of its new and +refreshing point of view.</p> + +<p>*Edward O. Sisson, <i>The Essentials of Character</i>. Macmillan, $1.00. +A book on the broad principles and ideals; one dealing with the +outstanding elements of character.</p> + +<p>Ernest H. Abbott, <i>On the Training of Parents</i>. Houghton Mifflin +Co., $1.00. A bright statement of some of the most perplexing +problems of family life.</p> + +<p>*Mary Wood-Allen, <i>Making the Best of Our Children</i>. First and +Second Series. A. C. McClurg & Co., $1.00 each. Takes one after +another of the different situations in child-training.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">295</a></span></p> + +<p>*Patterson DuBois, <i>The Culture of Justice</i>. Dodd, Mead & Co., +$0.75. An important contribution, as it calls attention to some +frequently neglected aspects of moral training especially +applicable to the home.</p> + +<p>Walter L. Sheldon, <i>Duties in the Home</i>. W. M. Welch & Co. A +textbook, the thirty sections of which would furnish an excellent +basis for parents' discussions of home discipline.</p> + + +<p class="center">VI. <span class="smcap">General Reading in the Home</span></p> + +<p>John Macy, <i>Child's Guide to Reading</i>. Baker & Taylor Co., $1.25. A +discussion of reading and the education of children thereby, with +suggestions and criticisms of suitable books in different +departments of reading.</p> + +<p>W. T. Taylor, <i>Finger Posts to Children's Reading</i>. A. C. McClurg & +Co., $1.00. A practical discussion of suitable reading for +children, with a list of books.</p> + +<p>*G. W. Arnold, <i>A Mothers' List of Books for Children</i>. A. C. McClurg +& Co., $1.00. The books are arranged by ages and topics, making +this one of the most useful collections available.</p> + +<p>Edward P. St. John, <i>Stories and Story Telling</i>. Eaton & Mains, +$0.35. A textbook, for parents' classes. It contains much valuable +material.</p> + +<p>E. M. Partridge, <i>Story Telling in School and Home</i>. Sturgis & +Walton, $1.35. One of the best discussions of the principles and +methods of story-telling, with a number of good stories.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">296</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">297</a></span> +Activity in relation to character, <a href="#Page_75">75</a><br /> +<br /> +Amusement of young people, <a href="#Page_190">190</a><br /> +<br /> +Anger, Dealing with, <a href="#Page_224">224</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Bible, Methods of using the, <a href="#Page_121">121</a><br /> +<br /> +Bible, The, in the home, <a href="#Page_119">119</a><br /> +<br /> +Blessing at table, <a href="#Page_133">133</a><br /> +<br /> +Book list on the family, <a href="#Page_290">290</a><br /> +<br /> +Books and reading, <a href="#Page_113">113</a><br /> +<br /> +Boy, The, in the family, <a href="#Page_173">173</a><br /> +<br /> +Boys' play, <a href="#Page_175">175</a><br /> +<br /> +Bullying, <a href="#Page_253">253</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Character, A constructive policy for, <a href="#Page_269">269</a><br /> +<br /> +Child nature, Books on, <a href="#Page_291">291</a><br /> +<br /> +Child unity with the church, <a href="#Page_207">207</a><br /> +<br /> +Child welfare, Religious meanings of, <a href="#Page_3">3</a><br /> +<br /> +Childhood characteristics, <a href="#Page_53">53</a><br /> +<br /> +Christian family, The, as a type, <a href="#Page_41">41</a><br /> +<br /> +Church, The, and the children, <a href="#Page_204">204</a><br /> +<br /> +Church, The, and the family, <a href="#Page_198">198</a><br /> +<br /> +Church, The, and the program of the home, <a href="#Page_271">271</a><br /> +<br /> +Citizenship, Training for, <a href="#Page_96">96</a><br /> +<br /> +Class work, Plans of, <a href="#Page_281">281</a><br /> +<br /> +Community, The, in relation to the home, <a href="#Page_88">88</a><br /> +<br /> +Community service, <a href="#Page_91">91</a><br /> +<br /> +Conversation, Religious, <a href="#Page_62">62</a><br /> +<br /> +Courtship, <a href="#Page_188">188</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Dishonesty, <a href="#Page_249">249</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Economic development of the home, <a href="#Page_13">13</a><br /> +<br /> +Educational function, The, of the family, <a href="#Page_46">46</a><br /> +<br /> +Educational process, The, <a href="#Page_49">49</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Factory system, The, and the home, <a href="#Page_14">14</a><br /> +<br /> +Family as an institution, Books on the, <a href="#Page_290">290</a><br /> +<br /> +"Family Book," <a href="#Page_155">155</a><br /> +<br /> +Family defined, <a href="#Page_5">5</a><br /> +<br /> +Family ideal in the church, <a href="#Page_202">202</a><br /> +<br /> +Family life, Dominating motive of, <a href="#Page_27">27</a><br /> +<br /> +Family worship, <a href="#Page_126">126</a><br /> +<br /> +Family worship, Methods of, <a href="#Page_133">133</a><br /> +<br /> +Father, The, and the boy, <a href="#Page_177">177</a><br /> +<br /> +Father, The, and the family, <a href="#Page_263">263</a><br /> +<br /> +Fighting among children, <a href="#Page_234">234</a><br /> +<br /> +Function of the family, <a href="#Page_46">46</a><br /> +<br /> +Future of the family, <a href="#Page_268">268</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Girl, The, in the family, <a href="#Page_180">180</a><br /> +<br /> +God, The consciousness of, <a href="#Page_64">64</a><br /> +<br /> +Grace at table, <a href="#Page_133">133</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Hebrew family life, <a href="#Page_39">39</a><br /> +<br /> +Home and school co-operation, <a href="#Page_213">213</a><br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">298</a></span> +Home, is it passing? <a href="#Page_10">10</a><br /> +<br /> +Home, Religious interpretation of, <a href="#Page_1">1</a><br /> +<br /> +Home versus family, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a><br /> +<br /> +Honesty, Training in, <a href="#Page_249">249</a><br /> +<br /> +Hymns for children, <a href="#Page_102">102</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Jesus' teaching on the family, <a href="#Page_42">42</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Loyalty as the basic principle, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a><br /> +<br /> +Loyalty, The organization of, <a href="#Page_57">57</a><br /> +<br /> +Lying and the moral problem, <a href="#Page_240">240</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Meals, Conversation at, <a href="#Page_165">165</a><br /> +<br /> +Moral crises, Dealing with, <a href="#Page_218">218</a><br /> +<br /> +Moral life, religious roots in the family, <a href="#Page_31">31</a><br /> +<br /> +Moral teaching, <a href="#Page_70">70</a><br /> +<br /> +Moral training, Books on, <a href="#Page_294">294</a><br /> +<br /> +Motive, Religious, in the family, <a href="#Page_2">2</a><br /> +<br /> +Music in the family, <a href="#Page_105">105</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Organization of home, Purpose of, <a href="#Page_19">19</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Parental aversion, <a href="#Page_186">186</a><br /> +<br /> +Parenthood and religious training, <a href="#Page_260">260</a><br /> +<br /> +Parents' classes, <a href="#Page_274">274</a><br /> +<br /> +Parents trained in schools, <a href="#Page_214">214</a><br /> +<br /> +Petulancy in children, <a href="#Page_233">233</a><br /> +<br /> +Play activity, <a href="#Page_107">107</a><br /> +<br /> +Play, A policy of, <a href="#Page_150">150</a><br /> +<br /> +Play on Sunday, <a href="#Page_149">149</a><br /> +<br /> +Prayers, Children's, <a href="#Page_135">135</a><br /> +<br /> +Prayers, Family, <a href="#Page_137">137</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Quarrels of children, <a href="#Page_231">231</a><br /> +<br /> +Questions, Children's, <a href="#Page_69">69</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Reading, Developing taste for, <a href="#Page_115">115</a><br /> +<br /> +Religious character of the family, <a href="#Page_46">46</a><br /> +<br /> +Religious development of the child, <a href="#Page_52">52</a><br /> +<br /> +Religious education in the family, Books on, <a href="#Page_293">293</a><br /> +<br /> +Religious education, Meaning of, <a href="#Page_47">47</a><br /> +<br /> +Religious growth of the child, <a href="#Page_55">55</a><br /> +<br /> +Religious history of the family, <a href="#Page_37">37</a><br /> +<br /> +Religious ideas of children, <a href="#Page_60">60</a><br /> +<br /> +Religious service, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +School, The home as a, <a href="#Page_87">87</a><br /> +<br /> +Schools, Public, and the home, <a href="#Page_212">212</a><br /> +<br /> +Self-control, Developing, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a><br /> +<br /> +Social life of youth, <a href="#Page_189">189</a><br /> +<br /> +Social qualities to be developed, <a href="#Page_28">28</a><br /> +<br /> +Social training, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a><br /> +<br /> +Socialization of the home, <a href="#Page_16">16</a><br /> +<br /> +Song and story, <a href="#Page_101">101</a><br /> +<br /> +Spiritual values, Place of, <a href="#Page_30">30</a><br /> +<br /> +Stories and reading, <a href="#Page_110">110</a><br /> +<br /> +Story-telling, <a href="#Page_110">110</a><br /> +<br /> +Sunday afternoon problem, <a href="#Page_154">154</a><br /> +<br /> +Sunday in the home, <a href="#Page_145">145</a><br /> +<br /> +Sunday play, <a href="#Page_149">149</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Table, Ministry of the, <a href="#Page_164">164</a><br /> +<br /> +Table-talk, <a href="#Page_169">169</a><br /> +<br /> +Teasing and bullying, <a href="#Page_253">253</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Will, Training the, <a href="#Page_221">221</a><br /> +<br /> +Work and character, <a href="#Page_76">76</a><br /> +<br /> +Worship in the family, <a href="#Page_126">126</a><br /> +<br /> +Worship, Outlines of, <a href="#Page_139">139</a><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Youth in the home, <a href="#Page_183">183</a><br /> +</p> + +<hr style="width: 15%; margin-bottom: .1em;" /> + +<h4 style="margin-top: .1em; font-weight: normal;">PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.</h4> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">299</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="THE_CONSTRUCTIVE_STUDIES" id="THE_CONSTRUCTIVE_STUDIES"></a>THE CONSTRUCTIVE STUDIES</h2> + + +<p>The Constructive Studies comprise volumes suitable for all grades, from +kindergarten to adult years, in schools or churches. In the production +of these studies the editors and authors have sought to embody not only +their own ideals but the best product of the thought of all who are +contributing to the theory and practice of modern religious education. +They have had due regard for fundamental principles of pedagogical +method, for the results of the best modern biblical scholarship, and for +those contributions to religious education which may be made by the use +of a religious interpretation of all life-processes, whether in the +field of science, literature, or social phenomena.</p> + +<p>Their task is not regarded as complete because of having produced one or +more books suitable for each grade. There will be a constant process of +renewal and change, and the possible setting aside of books which, +because of changing conditions in the religious world or further advance +in the science of religious education, no longer perform their function, +and the continual enrichment of the series by new volumes so that it may +always be adapted to those who are taking initial steps in modern +religious education, as well as to those who have accepted and are ready +to put into practice the most recent theories.</p> + +<p>As teachers profoundly interested in the problems of religious +education, the editors have invited to co-operate with them authors +chosen from a wide territory and in several instances already well known +through practical experiments in the field in which they are asked to +write.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">300</a></span></p> + +<p>The editors are well aware that those who are most deeply interested in +religious education hold that churches and schools should be accorded +perfect independence in their choice of literature regardless of +publishing-house interests and they heartily sympathize with this +standard. They realize that many schools will select from the +Constructive Studies such volumes as they prefer, but at the same time +they hope that the Constructive Studies will be most widely serviceable +as a series. The following analysis of the series will help the reader +to get the point of view of the editors and authors.</p> + + +<h4>KINDERGARTEN, 4-6 YEARS</h4> + +<p>The kindergarten child needs most of all to gain those simple ideals of +life which will keep him in harmony with his surroundings in the home, +at play, and in the out-of-doors. He is most susceptible to a religious +interpretation of all these, which can best be fostered through a +program of story, play, handwork, and other activities as outlined in</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><b><i>The Sunday Kindergarten</i></b> (Ferris). A teachers' manual giving +directions for the use of a one- or two-hour period with story, +song, play, and handwork. Permanent and temporary material for the +children's table work, and story leaflets to be taken home.</p></div> + + +<h4>PRIMARY, 6-8 YEARS, GRADES I-III</h4> + +<p>At the age of six years when children enter upon a new era because of +their recognition by the first grade in the public schools the +opportunity for the cultivation of right social reactions is +considerably increased. Their world still, however, comprises chiefly +the home, the school, the playground, and the phenomena of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">301</a></span> nature. A +normal religion at this time is one which will enable the child to +develop the best sort of life in all these relationships, which now +present more complicated moral problems than in the earlier stage. +Religious impressions may be made through interpretations of nature, +stories of life, song, prayer, simple scripture texts, and handwork. All +of these are embodied in</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><b><i>Child Religion in Song and Story</i></b> (Chamberlin and Kern). Three +interchangeable volumes; only one of which is used at one time in +all three grades. Each lesson presents a complete service, song, +prayers, responses, texts, story, and handwork. Constructive and +beautiful handwork books are provided for the pupil.</p></div> + + +<h4>JUNIOR, 9 YEARS, GRADE IV</h4> + +<p>When the children have reached the fourth grade they are able to read +comfortably and have developed an interest in books, having a "reading +book" in school and an accumulating group of story-books at home. One +book in the household is as yet a mystery, the Bible, of which the +parents speak reverently as God's Book. It contains many interesting +stories and presents inspiring characters which are, however, buried in +the midst of much that would not interest the children. To help them to +find these stories and to show them the living men who are their heroes +or who were the writers of the stories, the poems, or the letters, makes +the Bible to them a living book which they will enjoy more and more as +the years pass. This service is performed by</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><b><i>An Introduction to the Bible for Teachers of Children</i></b> +(Chamberlin). Story-reading from the Bible for the school and home, +designed to utilize the growing interest in books and reading found +in children of this age, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">302</a></span> cultivating an attitude of intelligent +interest in the Bible and enjoyment of suitable portions of it. +Full instructions with regard to picturesque, historical, and +social introductions are given the teacher. A pupil's homework +book, designed to help him to think of the story as a whole and to +express his thinking, is provided for the pupil.</p></div> + + +<h4>JUNIOR, 10-12 YEARS, GRADES V-VII</h4> + +<p>Children in the fifth, sixth, and seventh grades are hero-worshipers. In +the preceding grade they have had a brief introduction to the life of +Jesus through their childish explorations of the gospels. His character +has impressed them already as heroic and they are eager to know more +about him, therefore the year is spent in the study of</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><b><i>The Life of Jesus</i></b> (Gates). The story of Jesus graphically +presented from the standpoint of a hero. A teacher's manual +contains full instructions for preparation of material and +presentation to the class. A partially completed story of Jesus +prepared for the introduction of illustrations, maps, and original +work, together with all materials required, is provided for the +pupil.</p></div> + +<p>In the sixth grade a new point of approach to some of the heroes with +whom the children are already slightly acquainted seems desirable. The +Old Testament furnishes examples of men who were brave warriors, +magnanimous citizens, loyal patriots, great statesmen, and champions of +democratic justice. To make the discovery of these traits in ancient +characters and to interpret them in the terms of modern boyhood and +girlhood is the task of two volumes in the list. The choice between them +will be made on the basis of preference for handwork or textbook work +for the children.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">303</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><b><i>Heroes of Israel</i></b> (Soares). Stories selected from the Old +Testament which are calculated to inspire the imagination of boys +and girls of the early adolescent period. The most complete +instructions for preparation and presentation of the lesson are +given the teacher in his manual. The pupil's book provides the full +text of each story and many questions which will lead to the +consideration of problems arising in the life of boys and girls of +this age.</p> + +<p><i><b>Old Testament Stories</b></i> (Corbett). Also a series of stories +selected from the Old Testament. Complete instructions for vivid +presentation are given the teacher in his manual. The pupil's +material consists of a notebook containing a great variety of +opportunities for constructive handwork.</p></div> + +<p>Paul was a great hero. Most people know him only as a theologian. His +life presents miracles of courage, struggle, loyalty, and +self-abnegation. The next book in the series is intended to help the +pupil to see such a man. The student is assisted by a wealth of local +color.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><b><i>Paul of Tarsus</i></b> (Atkinson). The story of Paul which is partially +presented to the pupil and partially the result of his own +exploration in the Bible and in the library. Much attention is +given to story of Paul's boyhood and his adventurous travels, +inspiring courage and loyalty to a cause. The pupil's notebook is +similar in form to the one used in the study of Gates's "Life of +Jesus," but more advanced in thought.</p></div> + + +<h4>HIGH SCHOOL, 13-17 YEARS</h4> + +<p>In the secular school the work of the eighth grade is tending toward +elimination. It is, therefore, considered here as one of the high-school +grades. In the high-school years new needs arise. There is necessary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">304</a></span> a +group of books which will dignify the study of the Bible and give it as +history and literature a place in education, at least equivalent to that +of other histories and literatures which have contributed to the +progress of the world. This series is rich in biblical studies which +will enable young people to gain a historical appreciation of the +religion which they profess. Such books are</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p><b><i>The Gospel According to Mark</i></b> (Burton). A study of the life of Jesus +from this gospel. The full text is printed in the book, which is +provided with a good dictionary and many interesting notes and questions +of very great value to both teacher and pupil.</p> + +<p><b><i>The First Book of Samuel</i></b> (Willett). Textbook for teacher and pupil +in which the fascinating stories of Samuel, Saul, and David are +graphically presented. The complete text of the first book of Samuel is +given, many interesting explanatory notes, and questions which will stir +the interest of the pupil, not only in the present volume but in the +future study of the Old Testament.</p> + +<p><b><i>The Life of Christ</i></b> (Burgess). A careful historical study of the life +of Christ from the four gospels. A manual for teacher and pupil presents +a somewhat exhaustive treatment, but full instructions for the selection +of material for classes in which but one recitation a week occurs are +given the teacher in a separate outline.</p> + +<p><b><i>The Hebrew Prophets</i></b> (Chamberlin). An inspiring presentation of the +lives of some of the greatest of the prophets from the point of view of +their work as citizens and patriots. In the manual for teachers and +pupils the biblical text in a good modern translation is included.</p> + +<p><b><i>Christianity in the Apostolic Age</i></b> (Gilbert). A story of early +Christianity chronologically presented, full of interest in the hands of +a teacher who enjoys the historical point of view.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">305</a></span></p> +</div> + +<p>In the high-school years also young people find it necessary to face the +problem of living the Christian life in a modern world, both as a +personal experience and as a basis on which to build an ideal society. +To meet this need a number of books intended to inspire boys and girls +to look forward to taking their places as home-builders and responsible +citizens of a great Christian democracy and to intelligently choose +their task in it are prepared or in preparation. The following are now +ready:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><b><i>Problems of Boyhood</i></b> (Johnson). A series of chapters discussing +matters of supreme interest to boys and girls, but presented from +the point of view of the boy. A splendid preparation for efficiency +in all life's relationships.</p> + +<p><b><i>Lives Worth Living</i></b> (Peabody). A series of studies of important +women, biblical and modern, representing different phases of life +and introducing the opportunity to discuss the possibilities of +effective womanhood in the modern world.</p> + +<p><b><i>The Third and Fourth Generation</i></b> (Downing). A series of studies in +heredity based upon studies of phenomena in the natural world and +leading up to important historical facts and inferences in the +human world.</p></div> + + +<h4>ADULT GROUP</h4> + +<p>The Biblical studies assigned to the high-school period are in most +cases adaptable to adult class work. There are other volumes, however, +intended only for the adult group, which also includes the young people +beyond the high-school age. They are as follows:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><b><i>The Life of Christ</i></b> (Burton and Mathews). A careful historical +study of the life of Christ from the four gospels, with copious +notes, reading references, maps, etc.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">306</a></span></p> + +<p><b><i>What Jesus Taught</i></b> (Slaten). This book develops an unusual but +stimulating method of teaching groups of students in colleges, +Christian associations, and churches. After a swift survey of the +material and spiritual environment of Jesus this book suggests +outlines for <i>discussions</i> of his teaching on such topics as +civilization, hate, war and non-resistance, democracy, religion, +and similar topics. Can be effectively used by laymen as well as +professional leaders.</p> + +<p><b><i>Great Men of the Christian Church</i></b> (Walker). A series of +delightful biographies of men who have been influential in great +crises in the history of the church.</p> + +<p><b><i>Christian Faith for Men of Today</i></b> (Cook). A re-interpretation of +old doctrines in the light of modern attitudes.</p> + +<p><b><i>Social Duties from the Christian Point of View</i></b> (Henderson). +Practical studies in the fundamental social relationships which +make up life in the family, the city, and the state.</p> + +<p><b><i>Religious Education in the Family</i></b> (Cope). An illuminating study +of the possibilities of a normal religious development in the +family life. Invaluable to parents.</p> + +<p><b><i>Christianity and Its Bible</i></b> (Waring). A remarkably comprehensive +sketch of the Old and the New Testament religion, the Christian +church, and the present status of Christianity.</p></div> + +<p>It is needless to say that the Constructive Studies present no sectarian +dogmas and are used by churches and schools of all denominational +affiliations. In the grammar-and high-school years more books are +provided than there are years in which to study them, each book +representing a school year's work. Local conditions, and the preference +of the Director of Education or the teacher of the class will be the +guide in choosing the courses desired, remembering that in the preceding +list the approximate place given to the book is the one which the +editors and authors consider most appropriate.</p> + +<p>For prices consult the latest price list. Address</p> + +<h3 style="margin-bottom: .2em;"> +THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS</h3> +<h4 style="margin-top: .2em;"> +CHICAGO ILLINOIS</h4> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE FAMILY***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 17570-h.txt or 17570-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/5/7/17570">http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/5/7/17570</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>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. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a8ed00e --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #17570 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17570) diff --git a/old/17570-8.txt b/old/17570-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e307d4a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/17570-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8730 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Religious Education in the Family, by Henry +F. Cope + + +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: Religious Education in the Family + + +Author: Henry F. Cope + + + +Release Date: January 21, 2006 [eBook #17570] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE +FAMILY*** + + +E-text prepared by Stacy Brown Thellend, Kevin Handy, John Hagerson, and +the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team +(http://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE FAMILY + +by + +HENRY F. COPE + +General Secretary of the Religious Education Association + + + + + + + +The University of Chicago Press +Chicago, Illinois +Copyright 1915 by +The University of Chicago +All Rights Reserved +Published April 1915 +Second Impression September 1915 +Third Impression March 1916 +Fourth Impression June 1917 +Fifth Impression August 1920 +Sixth Impression July 1922 +Seventh Impression September 1922 +Composed and Printed By +The University of Chicago Press +Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. + +The University of Chicago Press +Chicago, Illinois + +The Baker and Taylor Company +New York + +The Cambridge University Press +London + +The Maruzen-Kabushiki-Kaisha +Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Sendai + +The Mission Book Company +Shanghai + + + + +PREFACE + + +In the work of religious education, with which the present series of +books is concerned, the life of the family rightly occupies a central +place. The church has always realized its duty to exhort parents to +bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, but +very little has ever been done to enable parents to study systematically +and scientifically the problem of religious education in the family. +Today parents' classes are being formed in many churches; Christian +Associations, women's clubs, and institutes are studying the subject; +individual parents are becoming more and more interested in the rational +performance of their high duties. And there is a general desire for +guidance. As the full bibliography at the end of this volume and the +references in connection with each chapter indicate, there is available +a very large literature dealing with the various elements of the +problem. But a guidebook to organize all this material and to stimulate +independent thought and endeavor is desirable. + +To afford this guidance the present volume has been prepared. It is +equally adapted for the thoughtful study of the father and mother who +are seeking help in the moral and religious development of their own +family, and for classes in churches, institutes, and neighborhoods, +where the important problems of the family are to be studied and +discussed. It would be well to begin the use of the book by reading the +suggestions for class work at the end of the volume. + +With a confident hope that religion in the family is not to be a wistful +memory of the past but a most vital force in the making of the better +day that is coming, this volume is offered as a contribution and a +summons. + + The Editors + +New Year's Day, 1915 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + I. An Interpretation of the Family 1 + + II. The Present Status of Family Life 10 + + III. The Permanent Elements in Family Life 27 + + IV. The Religious Place of the Family 37 + + V. The Meaning Of Religious Education in the Family 46 + + VI. The Child's Religious Ideas 60 + + VII. Directed Activity 75 + + VIII. The Home as a School 87 + + IX. The Child's Ideal Life 101 + + X. Stories and Reading 110 + + XI. The Use of the Bible in the Home 119 + + XII. Family Worship 126 + + XIII. Sunday in the Home 145 + + XIV. The Ministry of the Table 164 + + XV. The Boy and Girl in the Family 173 + + XVI. The Needs of Youth 183 + + XVII. The Family and the Church 198 + + XVIII. Children and the School 212 + + XIX. Dealing with Moral Crises 218 + + XX. Dealing with Moral Crises (_Continued_) 231 + + XXI. Dealing with Moral Crises (_Continued_) 240 + + XXII. Dealing with Moral Crises (_Concluded_) 249 + + XXIII. The Personal Factors in Religious Education 259 + + XXIV. Looking to the Future 268 + +Suggestions for Class Work 281 + +A Book List 290 + +Index 297 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +AN INTERPRETATION OF THE FAMILY + + +§ 1. TAKING THE HOME IN RELIGIOUS TERMS + +The ills of the modern home are symptomatic. Divorce, childless +families, irreverent children, and the decadence of the old type of +separate home life are signs of forgotten ideals, lost motives, and +insufficient purposes. Where the home is only an opportunity for +self-indulgence, it easily becomes a cheap boarding-house, a +sleeping-shelf, an implement for social advantage. While it is true that +general economic developments have effected marked changes in domestic +economy, the happiness and efficiency of the family do not depend wholly +on the parlor, the kitchen, or the clothes closet. Rather, everything +depends on whether the home and family are considered in worthy and +adequate terms. + +Homes are wrecked because families refuse to take home-living in +religious terms, in social terms of sacrifice and service. In such +homes, organized and conducted to satisfy personal desires rather than +to meet social responsibilities, these desires become ends rather than +agencies and opportunities. + +They who marry for lust are divorced for further lust. Selfishness, even +in its form of self-preservation, is an unstable foundation for a home. +It costs too much to maintain a home if you measure it by the personal +advantages of parents. What hope is there for useful and happy family +life if the newly wedded youth have both been educated in selfishness, +habituated to frivolous pleasures, and guided by ideals of success in +terms of garish display? Yet what definite program for any other +training does society provide? Do the schools and colleges, Sunday +schools and churches teach youth a better way? How else shall they be +trained to take the home and family in terms that will make for +happiness and usefulness? It is high time to take seriously the task of +educating people to religious efficiency in the home. + + +§ 2. THE RELIGIOUS MOTIVE + +The family needs a religious motive. More potent for happiness than +courses in domestic economy will be training in sufficient domestic +motives. It will take much more than modern conveniences, bigger +apartments, or even better kitchens to make the new home. Essentially +the problem is not one of mechanics but of persons. What we call the +home problem is more truly a _family_ problem. It centers in persons; +the solution awaits a race with new ideals, educated to live as more +than dust, for more than dirt, for personality rather than for +possessions. We need young people who establish homes, not simply +because they feel miserable when separated, nor because one needs a +place in which to board and the other needs a boarder, but because the +largest duty and joy of life is to enrich the world with other lives and +to give themselves in high love to making those other lives of the +greatest possible worth to the world. + +The family must come to a recognition of social obligations. We all hope +for the coming ideal day. Everywhere men and women are answering to +higher ideals of life. But the new day waits for a new race. Modern +emphasis on the child is a part of present reaction from materialism. +New social ideals are personal. We seek a better world for the sake of a +higher race. The emphasis on child-welfare has a social rather than a +sentimental basis. The family is our great chance to determine childhood +and so to make the future. The child of today is basic to the social +welfare of tomorrow. He is our chance to pay to tomorrow all that we owe +to yesterday. The family as the child's life-school is thus central to +every social program and problem. + + +§ 3. WIDER CHILD-WELFARE + +This age knows that man does not live by bread alone. Interest in +child-welfare is for the sake of the child himself, not for the sake of +his clothes or his physical condition. Concern about soap and +sanitation, hygiene and the conveniences of life grows because these all +go to make up the soil in which the person grows. There is danger that +our emphasis on child-welfare may be that of the tools instead of the +man; that we may become enmeshed in the mechanism of well-being and lose +sight of the being who should be well. To fail at the point of character +is to fail all along the line. And we fail altogether, no matter how +many bathtubs we give a child, how many playgrounds, medical +inspections, and inoculations, unless that child be in himself strong +and high-minded, loving truth, hating a lie, and habituated to live in +good-will with his fellows and with high ideals for the universe. Modern +interest in the material factors of life is on account of their potency +in making real selfhood; we acknowledge the importance of the physical +as the very soil in which life grows. But the fruits are more than the +soil, and a home exists for higher purposes than physical conveniences; +these are but its tools to its great end. Somehow for purposes of social +well-being we must raise our thinking of the family to the aim of the +development of efficient, rightly minded character. The family must be +seen as making spiritual persons. + + +§ 4. THE COST OF A FAMILY + +Taking the home in religious terms will mean, then, conceiving it as an +institution with a religious purpose, namely, that of giving to the +world children who are adequately trained and sufficiently motived to +live the social life of good-will. The family exists to give society +developed, efficient children. It fails if it does not have a religious, +a spiritual product. It cannot succeed except by the willing +self-devotion of adult lives to this spiritual, personal purpose. + +A family is the primary social organization for the elementary purpose +of breeding the species, nurturing and training the young. This is its +physiological basis. But its duties cannot be discharged on the +physiological plane alone. This elementary physiological function is +lifted to a spiritual level by the aim of character and the motive of +love. Families cannot be measured by their size; they must be measured +by the character of their products. If quality counts anywhere it counts +here, though it is well to remember that it takes some reasonable +quantity to make right quality in each. + +The family needs a religious motive. It demands sacrifice. To follow +lower impulses is to invite disaster. The home breeds bitterness and +sorrow wherever men and women court for lust, marry for social standing, +and maintain an establishment only as a part of the game of social +competition. To sow the winds of passion, ease, idle luxury, pride, and +greed is to reap the whirlwind. Moreover, it is to miss the great +chance of life, the chance to find that short cut to happiness which +men call pain and suffering. + +A family is humanity's great opportunity to walk the way of the cross. +Mothers know that; some fathers know it; some children grow up to learn +it. In homes where this is true, where all other aims are subordinated +to this one of making the home count for high character, to training +lives into right social adjustment and service, the primary emphasis is +not on times and seasons for religion; religion is the life of that +home, and in all its common living every child learns the way of the +great Life of all. In vain do we torture children with adult religious +penances, long prayers, and homilies, thinking thereby to give them +religious training. The good man comes out of the good home, the home +that is good in character, aim, and organization, not sporadically but +permanently, the home where the religious spirit, the spirit of +idealism, and the sense of the infinite and divine are diffused rather +than injected. The inhuman, antisocial vampires, who suck their +brothers' blood, whether they be called magnates or mob-leaders, +grafters or gutter thieves, often learned to take life in terms of graft +by the attitude and atmosphere of their homes.[1] + + +§ 5. MOTIVES FOR A STUDY OF THE FAMILY + +The modern family is worthy of our careful study. It demands painstaking +attention, both because of its immediate importance to human happiness +and because of its potentiality for the future of society. The kind of +home and the character of family life which will best serve the world +and fulfil the will of God cannot be determined by sentiment or +supposition. We are under the highest and sternest obligation to +discover the laws of the family, those social laws which are determined +by its nature and purpose, to find right standards for family life, to +discriminate between the things that are permanent and those that are +passing, between those we must conserve and those we must discard, to be +prepared to fit children for the finer and higher type of family life +that must come in the future. + +Methods of securing family efficiency will not be discovered by +accident. If it is worth while to study the minor details, such as +baking cakes and sweeping floors, surely it is even more important to +study the larger problems of organization and discipline. There is a +science of home-direction and an art of family living; both must be +learned with patient study. + +It is a costly thing to keep a home where honor, the joy of love, and +high ideals dwell ever. It costs time, pleasures, and so-called social +advantages, as well as money and labor. It must cost thought, study, +and investigation. It demands and deserves sacrifice; it is too sacred +to be cheap. The building of a home is a work that endures to eternity, +and that kind of work never was done with ease or without pain and loss +and the investment of much time. Patient study of the problems of the +family is a part of the price which all may pay. + +No nobler social work, no deeper religious work, no higher educational +work is done anywhere than that of the men and women, high or humble, +who set themselves to the fitting of their children for life's business, +equipping them with principles and habits upon which they may fall back +in trying hours, and making of home the sweetest, strongest, holiest, +happiest place on earth. + +Heaven only knows the price that must be paid for that; heaven only +knows the worth of that work. But if we are wise we shall each take up +our work for our world where it lies nearest to us, in co-operation with +parents, in service and sacrifice as parents or kin, our work in the +shop where manhood is in the making, where it is being made fit to dwell +long in the land, in the family at home. + + + I. References for Study + + Edward Lyttleton, _The Corner-Stone of Education_, chaps. i, vii. + Putnam, $1.50. + + A. Gandier, "Religious Education in the Home," _Religious + Education_, June, 1914, pp. 233-42. + + + II. Further Reading + + _The Family a Religious Agency_ + + C.F. and C.B. Thwing, _The Family_. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, $1.60. + + J.D. Folsom, _Religious Education in the Home_. Eaton & Mains, + $0.75. + + G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_. Revell, $1.35. + + + _The Place of the Family_ + + A.J. Todd, _The Family as an Educational Agency_. Putnam, $2.00. + + W.F. Lofthouse, _Ethics and the Family_. Hodder & Stoughton, $2.50. + + J.B. Robins, _The Family a Necessity_. Revell, $1.25. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. Describe the changes within recent times in the conditions of + the home, its work, housing, and supplies. How far have these + changes affected the community of the family, the continuity of its + personal relationships, and its religious service? + + 2. What are the fundamental causes of family disasters? Admitting + that there are sufficient grounds for divorce in numerous + instances, what other causes enter into the high number of + divorces? + + 3. State in your own terms the ultimate reasons for the maintenance + of a family. + + 4. What are the motives which would make people willing to bear the + high cost of founding and conducting a home? + + 5. What points of emphasis does this study suggest in the matter of + the education of public opinion? + + 6. State your distinction between the family and the home; which is + the more important and why? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _The Corner-Stone of Education_, by Edward Lyttleton, headmaster of +Eton, is a striking argument on the determinative influence of parental +habits and attitudes of mind. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE PRESENT STATUS OF FAMILY LIFE + + +§ 1. CONTRASTED TYPES + +In a beautiful village, in one of the farther western states, two men +were discussing the possible future of the home and of family life. +Sitting in the brilliant moonlight, looking through the leafy shades, +watching the lights of a score of homes, each surrounded by lawn and +shade trees, each with its group on the front porch, where vines trailed +and flowers bloomed, listening to the hum of conversation and the +strains of music in one home and another, it seemed, to at least one of +these men, that this type of living could hardly pass away. The separate +home, each family a complete social integer, each with its own circle of +activities and interests, its own group, and its own table and fireside, +seemed too fine and beautiful, too fair and helpful, to perish under +economic pressure. Indeed, one felt that the village home furnished a +setting for life and a soil for character development far higher and +more efficient than could be afforded by any other domestic +arrangement--that it approached the ideal. + +But two weeks later two men sat in an upper room, in the second largest +city in America, discussing again the future of the family. Instead of +the quiet music of the village, the clang of street cars filled the +ears, trains rushed by, children shouted from the paved highway, +families were seated by open windows in crowded apartments, seeking cool +air; the total impression was that of being placed in a pigeonhole in a +huge, heated, filing-case, where each separate space was occupied by a +family. One felt the pressure of heated, crowded kitchens, suffocating +little dining-rooms; one knew that the babies lay crying in their beds +at night, gasping their very lives away, and that the young folks were +wandering off to amusement parks and moving-picture shows. Here was an +entirely different picture. How long could family life persist under +these conditions where privacy was almost gone and comfort almost +unknown? + +In the village separate home integers appear ideal; in the city they are +possible only to the few. The many, at present, find them a crushing +burden. Desirable as privacy is, it can be purchased at too high a +price. It costs too much to maintain separate kitchens and dining-rooms +under city conditions. + + +§ 2. COMMUNAL TENDENCIES + +Present conditions spell waste, inefficiency, discomfort. The woman +lives all day in stifling rooms, poorly lighted, with the nerve-racking +life of neighbors pouring itself through walls and windows. The men +come from crowded shops and the children from crowded schoolrooms to +crowd themselves into these rooms, to snatch a meal, or to sleep. How +can there be real family life? What joy can there be or what ideals +created in daily discomfort and distress? Little wonder that such homes +are sleeping-places only, that there is no sense of family intercourse +and unity. Little wonder that restaurant life has succeeded family life. + +Many hold that we are ready for a movement into community living, that +just as the social life of the separate house porches in the villages +has become communized into the amusement parks in the cities, so all the +activities of the family will move in the same direction. How long could +the family as a unit continue under these conditions? + +The village life will persist for a long time; it may be that, when we +apply scientific methods to the transportation of human beings in the +same measure as we have to the moving of pig iron, we can develop large +belts of real village life all around our industrial centers. But more +and more the village tends to become like the city; in other words, +highly organized communal life is the dominant trend today. Just as +business tends to do on a large scale all that can be more economically +done in larger units, so does the home. We must look for the increasing +prevalence of the city type of life for men and women and for families. + + +§ 3. THE ECONOMICAL DEVELOPMENT + +It is worth while to note, in some brief detail, just what changes are +involved in the tendency toward communal living. At the beginning of the +industrial revolution which ushered in the factory period, each family +was a fairly complete unit in itself. The village was little more than a +nucleus of farmhouses, with a few differing types of units, such as +workers in wood, in wearing apparel, and in tools. The home furnished +nearly all its own food, spun and made its clothes, trained its own +children, and knew scarcely any community endeavor or any syndication of +effort except in the church. + +The industrial revolution took labor largely out of the home into the +factory. Except for farm life, the husband became an outside worker and +the older boys followed him to the distant shop or factory. Earning a +living ceased to be a family act and became a social act in a larger +sphere. But in this change it ceased to be a part of the family +educational process. Boys who, from childhood up, had gradually learned +their father's trade in the shop or workroom, which was part of the +house, where they played as children in the shavings, or watched the +glowing sparks in the smithy, now missed the process of a father's +discipline and guidance as their hands acquired facility for their +tasks. The home lost the male adults for from nine to twelve hours of +each day, more than two-thirds of the waking period, and thus it lost a +large share of disciplinary guidance. In the rise of the factory system, +to a large extent the family lost the father. + +When the workshop left the home its most efficient school was taken from +it. The lessons may have been limited, crude, and deadly practical, but +the method approximated to the ideals which modern pedagogy seeks to +realize. Among the shavings children learned by doing; schooling was +perfectly natural; it involved all the powers; it had the incalculable +value of informality and reality. The father gone and the mother still +fully occupied with her tasks, the children lost that practical training +for life which home industry had afforded. On the one hand, the young +became the victims of idleness and, on the other, the prey of the +voracious factory system. + +This condition gave rise to the public-school system. It appealed to +Robert Raikes and others. The school appeared and took over the child. +Of course schools had existed, here and there, long before this, but now +they had an enlarged responsibility; they must act almost in the place +of the parents for the formal training of children. Having lost the +father and older males for the greater portion of the day, the home now +loses the children of from seven to the "'teen" years for five or six +hours of the day. The mother is left at home with the babies. The +family, once living under one roof, now is found scattered; it has +reached out into factory and school. Its hours of unified life have been +markedly reduced. + +But the factory system soon had a reflex influence on the home. That +which was made in the factory came back into the home, not only in the +form of the articles formerly made by the men, but in those made by the +women. Clothes, candles, butter, cheese, preserves, and meat--all +formerly home products for the use of the family producing them--now +were prepared in larger quantities, by mechanical processes, and were +brought back into the home. Woman's labor was lightened; the older girls +were liberated from the loom and they began to seek occupation, +education, and diversion according to their opportunities in life. + +That last step made it possible for people to think of the communization +of home industry, to think of eating food cooked in other ovens than +their own, to think of one oven large enough for a whole village. Many +interesting experiments in co-operative living immediately sprang up. +But the next step came slowly and, even now, is only firmly established +in the cities, in the actual abandonment of the family kitchen for the +community kitchen in the form of the restaurant. In such families we +have unity only in the hours of sleep and recreation. + +Along with abandonment of the separate kitchen there has proceeded +the abandonment of the parlor in the homes of the middle classes. +To lose the old, mournful front room may be no subject for tears, +but the loss of the evening family group, about the fireside or +the reading-lamp, is a real and sad loss. The commercialized amusements +have offered greater attractions to vigorous youth. The theater and +its lesser satellites, amusements, entertainments, lectures, the +lyceum, and recreation-by-proxy in ball games and matches have taken +the place of united family recreation. Of course this has been a +natural development of the older village play-life and has been by +no means an unmixed ill. + +Now, behold, what has become of the old-time home life! The family that +spent nearly twenty-four hours together now spends a scarce seven or +eight, and these are occupied in sleeping! Little wonder that the next +step is taken--the abandonment of this remainder, the sleep period, +under a domestic roof, as the family moves into a hotel! + +Along with the tendency toward communal working and eating we see the +tendency to communal living by the development of the apartment +building. Since roof-trees are so expensive, and since in a practical +age, few of us can afford to pay for sentiment, why not put a dozen +families under one roof-tree? True we sacrifice lawns, gardens, natural +places for children to play; we lose birds and flowers and the charm of +evening hours on porches, or galleries, but think of what we gain in +bricks and mortar, in labor saved from splitting wood and shoveling +coal, in janitor service! The transition is now complete; the home is +simply that item in the economic machinery which will best furnish us +storage for our sleeping bodies and our clothes! + +We are undoubtedly in a period of great changes in family life, and no +family can count on escaping the influence of the change. The one single +outstanding and most potent change, so far as the character of family +life is concerned, is, in the United States, the rapid polarization of +population in the cities. The United States Census Bureau counts all +residents in cities of over 8,000 population as "urban." In 1800 the +"urban" population was 4 per cent of the total population; in 1850 it +was 12.5 per cent; in 1870, 20.9 per cent; in 1890, 29.2 per cent; in +1900, 33.1 per cent; in 1910 it was estimated at 40 per cent.[2] Here +is a trend so clearly marked that we cannot deny its reality, while its +significance is familiar to everyone today. + +However, the village type remains; there are still many homes where a +measure of family unity persists, where at least in one meal daily and, +for purposes of sleeping and, occasionally, for the evening hours of +recreation, there is a consciousness of home life. Yet the most remote +village feels the pressure of change. The few homes conforming to the +older ideals are recognized as exceptional. The city draws the village +and rural family to itself, and the contagion of its customs and ideals +spreads through the villages and affects the forms of living there. +Youths become city dwellers and do not cease to scoff at the village +unless later years give them wisdom to appreciate its higher values. The +standard of domestic organization is established by the city; that type +of living is the ideal toward which nearly all are striving. + +The important question for all persons is whether the changes now taking +place in family life are good or ill. It is impossible to say whether +the whole trend is for the better; the many elements are too diverse and +often apparently conflicting. Faith in the orderly development of +society gives ground for belief that these changes ultimately work for a +higher type of family life. The city may be regarded as only a +transition stage in social evolution--the compacting of masses of +persons together that out of the new fusing and welding may arise new +methods of social living. The larger numbers point to more highly +developed forms of social organization. When these larger units discover +their greater purposes, above factory and mill and store, and realize +them in personal values, the city life will be a more highly developed +mechanism for the higher life of man. The home life will develop along +with that city life. + + +§ 4. PURPOSEFUL ORGANIZATION + +At present the home is suffering, just as the city is suffering, from a +lack of that purposeful organization which will order the parts aright +and subject the processes to the most important and ultimate purposes. +The city is simply an aggregation of persons, scarcely having any +conscious organization, thrown together for purposes of industry. It +will before very long organize itself for purposes of personal welfare +and education. The family is usually a group bound in ties of struggle +for shelter, food, and pleasure. Such consciousness as it possesses is +that of being helplessly at the mercy of conflicting economic forces. +The adjustment of those forces, their subjection to man's higher +interests, must come in the future and will help the family to freedom +to discover its true purpose. + +It is easy to insist on the responsibility of parents for the +character-training of their children, but it is difficult to see how +that responsibility can be properly discharged under industrial +conditions that take both father and mother out of the home the whole +day and leave them too weary to stay awake in the evening, too poor to +furnish decent conditions of living, and too apathetic under the dull +monotony of labor to care for life's finer interests. The welfare of the +family is tied up with the welfare of the race; if progress can be +secured in one part progress in the whole ensues. + +There are those who raise the question whether family life is a +permanent form of social organization for which we may wisely contend, +or is but a phase from which the race is now emerging. Some see signs +that the ties of marriage will be but temporary, that children will be +born, not into families but into the life of the state, bearing only +their mothers' names and knowing no brothers and sisters save in the +brotherhood of the state. Whether the permanent elements in family life +furnish a sufficiently worthy basis for its preservation is a subject +for careful consideration. + + +§ 5. THE HOME AND THE FAMILY + +The family is more important than the home, just as the man is more than +his clothing. The form of the home changes; the life of the family +continues unchanged in its essential characteristics. The family causes +the home to be. Professor Arthur J. Todd insists that the family is the +basis of marriage, rather than marriage the cause of the family.[3] +Small groups for protection and social living would precede formal +arrangements of monogamy. Westermarck concludes that it was "for the +benefit of the young that male and female continued to live +together."[4] The importance of this consideration for us lies in the +thought of the overshadowing importance of this social group which we +now call the family. The family is the primary cell of society, the +first unit in social organization. Our thought must balance itself +between the importance of this social group, to be preserved in its +integrity, and the value of the home, with its varied forms of activity +and ministry, as a means of preserving and developing this group, the +family. + +One hears today many pessimistic utterances regarding the modern home. +Some even tell us that it is doomed to become extinct. Without doubt +great economic changes in society are producing profound changes in the +organization and character of the home. But the home has always been +subject to such changes; the factor which we need to watch with greater +care is the family; the former is but the shell of the latter. + +The character of each home will depend largely on the economic condition +of those who dwell in it. The homes of every age will reflect the social +conditions of that age. The picture in historical romances of the home +of the mediaeval period, where the factory, or shop, joined the +dining-room, where the apprentices ate and roomed in the home, where one +might be compelled to furnish and provision his home literally as his +castle for defense, presents a marked difference to the home of this +century tending to syndicate all its labors with all the other homes of +the community. Since the home is simply the organization and mechanism +of the family life, it is most susceptible to material and social +changes. It varies as do the fashions of men. + +Much that we assume to be detrimental to the life of the home is simply +due to the fact that in the evolution of society the family, as it were, +puts on a new suit of clothes, adopts new forms of organization to meet +the changing external conditions. + + +§ 6. THE HOME CHANGING; THE FAMILY ABIDING + +The home is of importance only as a tool, a means to the final ends of +the family life; the test of its efficiency is not whether it maintains +traditional forms but whether it best serves the highest aims of family +life. We may abandon all the older customs; our regret for them, as we +look back on the days of home cooking, cannot be any greater than the +regrets of our parents or grandparents looking back on the +spinning-wheel and the hand loom that cumbered the kitchen of their +childhood. Surely no one contends that family life has deteriorated, +that human character is one whit the poorer, because we have discarded +the family spinning-wheel. Through the changes of a developing +civilization, as man has moved from the time when each one built his own +house, worked with his own tools to make all his supplies, to these days +of specialized service in community living, the home has changed with +each step of industrial progress, but the family has remained +practically unchanged. + +The family stands a practically unchanging factor of personal qualities +at the center of our civilization; the family rather than the home +determines the character of the coming days. In its social relationships +are rooted the things that are best in all our lives. In its social +training lie the solutions of more problems in social adjustment and +development than we are willing to admit. The family is the soil of +society, central to all its problems and possibilities. + +Before church or school the family stands potent for character. We are +what we are, not by the ideals held before us for thirty minutes a week +or once a month in a church, nor by the instructions given in the +classroom; we are what parents, kin, and all the circumstances that have +touched us daily and hourly for years have determined we should be. + +The sweetest memories of our lives cluster about the scenes of family +life. The rose-embowered cottage of the poet is not the only spot that +claims affectionate gratitude; many look back to a city house wedged +into its monotonous row. But, wherever it might be, if it sheltered love +and held a shrine where the altar fires of family sacrifice burned, +earth has no fairer or more sacred spot. The people rather than the +place made it potent. + +Stronger even than the memories that remain are the marks of habits, +tendencies, tastes, and dispositions there acquired. Many a man who has +left no fortune worth recording to his sons has left them something +better, the aptitude for things good and honorable, the memory of a good +name, and the heritage of a life that was worthy of honor. The personal +life has been always the enduring thing. Our concern for the future +should be not whether we can pass on intact the forms of home +organization, but whether we can give to the next day the force of ideal +family life. Perhaps like Mary we would do well to turn our eyes from +the much serving, the mechanisms of the home, to set our minds on the +better part, the personal values in the association of lives in the +family. + + + I. References for Study + + W.F. Lofthouse, _Ethics and the Family_, chaps. ii, xi, xii. Hodder + & Stoughton, $2.50. + + Charles R. Henderson, _Social Duties from the Christian Point of + View_, chaps. ii, iii. The University of Chicago Press, $1.25. + + C.W. Votaw, _Progress of Moral and Religious Education in the + American Home_. Religious Education Association, $0.25. + + + II. Further Reading + + Jacob A. Riis, _Peril and Preservation of the Home_. Jacobs, + Philadelphia, Pa., $1.00. + + Charles R. Henderson, _Social Elements_. Scribner, $1.50. + + Charles F. Thwing, _The Recovery of the Home_. American Baptist + Publication Society, $0.15. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. The tendency toward community life illustrated in the schools, + amusement parks, and hotel life. Remembering the ultimate purpose + of the family, how far is communal life desirable? + + 2. Does the apartment or tenement building furnish a suitable + condition for the higher purposes of the family? + + 3. Is it possible to restore to the home some of the benefits lost + by present factory consolidation of industry? + + 4. What can take the place of the old household arts and of those + which are now passing? + + 5. What steps should be taken to secure to the family a larger + measure of the time in terms of occupation of the parents? + + 6. What are the important things to contend for in this + institution? Why should we expect change in the form of the home + and what are the features which should not be changed? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] Figures taken from C.W. Votaw, _Progress of Moral and Religious +Education in the American Home_, 1911. + +[3] A.J. Todd, _Primitive Family and Education_, p. 21. A most valuable +and suggestive book. + +[4] Cited by Todd, p. 21. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE PERMANENT ELEMENTS IN FAMILY LIFE + + +§ 1. THE DOMINANT MOTIVE + +The chief end of society is to improve the race, to develop the higher +and steadily improving type of human beings. We can test the life of the +family and determine the values of its elements by asking whether and in +what degree they minister to this end, the growth of better persons. +This is more than a theoretical aim or one conceived in a search for +ideals. It is written plain in our passions and strongest inclinations. +That which parents supremely desire for their children is that they may +become strong in body, capable and alert in mind, and animated by worthy +principles and ideals. The parent desires a good man, fit to take his +place, do his work, make his contribution to the social well-being, able +to live to the fulness of his powers, to take life in all its reaches of +meaning and heights of vision and beauty. In true parenthood all hopes +of success, of riches, fame, and ease, are seen but as avenues to this +end, as means of making the finer character, of growing the ideal +person. If we were compelled to choose for our children we should elect +poverty, pain, disgrace, toil, and suffering if we knew this was the +only highway to full manhood and womanhood, to completeness of +character. Indeed, we do constantly so choose, knowing that they must +endure hardness, bear the yoke in their youth, and learn that + + Love and joy are torches lit + At altar fires of sacrifice. + +With this dominating purpose clearly in mind we are prepared to ask, +What are the elements of family life which among the changes of today we +need most carefully to preserve in order to maintain efficiency in +character development? In days when the outer shell of domestic +arrangements changes, when readjustments are being made in the +organization of the family, what is there too precious to lose, so +worthy and essential that we waste no time when seeking to maintain it? + + +§ 2. POTENCIES TO BE PRESERVED--SOCIAL QUALITIES + +The first great element to be preserved in all family life is that of +the power of the small group for purposes of character development. The +infant's earliest world is the mother's arms. In order to grow into a +man fitted for the wider world of social living, he must learn to live +in a world within his comprehension. A child's life moves through the +widening circles of mother-care, family group, neighborhood, school, +city, state, and nation into world-living. He must take the first steps +before he is able to take the next ones. He must learn to live with the +few as preparation for living with the many. In earliest infancy he +takes his first unconscious lessons in the fine art of living with other +folks as he relates himself to parents and to brothers and sisters. + +Secondly, the family life affords the best agency for social training. +The family is the ideal democracy into which the child-life is born. +Here habits are formed, ideals are pictured, and life itself is +interpreted. It is an ideal democracy, first, because it is a social +organization existing for the sake of persons. The family comes nearer +to fulfilling the true ideal of a democratic social order than does any +other institution. It is founded to bring lives into this world; it is +maintained for the sake of those lives; all its life, its methods, and +standards are determined, ideally, by the needs of persons. It is an +ideal democracy, secondly, because its guiding principle is that the +greater lives must be devoted to the good of the lesser, the parent for +the little child, the older members for the younger, in an attempt to +extend to the very least the greatest good enjoyed by all. Thirdly, +ideally it is a true democracy in that it gives to each member a share +in its own affairs and develops the power to bear responsibilities and +to carry each his own load in life. Thus the family group is the best +possible training for the life and work of the larger group, the state, +and for world-living.[5] The maintenance of the ideals of the state, as +a democracy, depends on the continuance of this institution with its +peculiar power to train life in infancy and childhood for the life of +manhood in the state. Such training can be given only in the smaller +group that is governed by the motives peculiar to home and family life. +The power to impress these principles depends on the size of the group. +The small social organization, the family circle of from three members +to even a dozen, bound by ties of affection, is the one great, efficient +school, training youth to live in social terms. + +Thirdly, the family sets spiritual values first. Our age especially +needs men and women who think in terms of spiritual values, who rise +above the measures of pounds and dollars and weigh life by personal +qualities and worth. That is precisely what the home does. It prizes +most highly the helpless, economically worthless infant; it measures +every member by his personal character, his affectional worth. Its +riches do not depend on that which money can buy, but on the personal +qualities of love, goodness, kindness; on memories, associations, +affection. The true home gives to every child-life the power to choose +the things of the world on the basis of their worth in personality. Only +the mistaken judgments of later years, the short-minded wisdom of the +world, make youth gradually lose the habit of preferring the home's +spiritual benefits to the material rewards of the world of business. No +life can be furnished for the strain of our modern materialism that +lacks the basis of idealism furnished in the true family. + + +§ 3. POTENCIES TO BE PRESERVED--THE MORAL LIFE + +Fourthly, the power of family living to develop love as loyalty is to be +noted. In this small group is laid the foundation of the moral life. +"The family is the primer in the moral education of the race."[6] Here +the new-born life begins to relate itself to other lives. Here it begins +life in an atmosphere saturated by love, the central principle of all +virtue, eventually loyalty to ideals in persons and devotion to them, +"the greatest of these," because it is the parent of all virtue. The +moral life, that life which is adjusted, capable, and adequately motived +for helpful, efficient, enriching living with all other lives, is not a +matter of rules, regulations, and restrictions. Neither is it a matter +of separate habits as to this or the other kind of behavior, though this +comes nearer to it than do rules and prescriptions. The character-life +which parents desire for their children is not that which will do the +right thing when it has discovered that right thing in some book of +rules, nor that life which will do the right thing because society +points that way, nor even that life which automatically does the right +thing, but it is the life which, constantly moved by some high inner +compulsion, some imperative of vision and ideal, moves to the highest +possible plane of action in every situation. This is the life of +loyalty. It begins with loyalty to persons, with that devotion which +begins with affection. In no other place is this so well developed as in +the relations of the family. This is the child's first and most +potential school. Here the lessons are wholly unconscious; here they are +strengthened by the pleasurable emotions. It is a joy to be loyal to +those we love. Indeed, who can tell which comes first, the joy, the +loyalty, or the love? + +The power of this small social group of the family to develop the +fundamental principle of loyalty, the root of all virtues, gives a +position of great importance to the affections in the family. We do well +to contend for the maintenance of conditions of family living which will +strengthen the ties of affection. If children could be thrust into the +care of the state, in large groups, separated from parental care and +oversight, it is difficult to see what emotional stimulus toward +affection would remain. The personal devotion to intimate adults would +in only the smallest degree compensate for the loss of father and +mother. We know nothing of such devotion arising to any large degree in +orphan asylums, still less in institutions under the cold and impersonal +care of the state. It has been urged that the affections of parents +stand in the way of a scientific regimen and education for small +children. The cold, passionless, automatic parent, then, would be the +ideal--a Mr. Dombey or a Mr. Feverel. Parents make many mistakes, but +these mistakes are not due to too much affection, but to untrained minds +and uneducated affections. It were better to save the values of their +affections and on them to build a wise discipline for childhood by +providing adequate training of parents for their duties. + +Fifthly, there are some elements of the cost of family life, even its +apparently unnecessary sacrifice and pain, that we do well to seek to +keep. Character grows in paying the high price of maintaining a family. +It is the most expensive form of living for adults. Marriages are now +delayed because of the fear of the actual monetary cost; but far more +serious is the cost in care, in nerves, in patience, in all the great +elements of self-denial. No child ever knows what he has cost until he +has children of his own. But this discipline of self-denial is that +which saves us from selfishness. It is necessary to have some personal +objects for which to give our lives if they are to be saved from +centrifugation, from death through ingrowing affection. True, many +bachelors and spinsters have learned the way of self-denying, +fellow-serving love. But how can a true parent escape that lesson? Nor +does it stop with parents; as children grow up together they, too, must +learn mutual forbearance, conciliation, and, soon, the joy of service. +One sees selfishness in the little child gradually fading in the +practice of family service, helpfulness, consideration for others. The +single child in a family misses something more important than playmates; +he misses all the education of play and service. But who cannot remember +many families that have grown to beauty of character under the +discipline of home life, and especially when this has involved real +sacrifices? The stories in the Pepper books illustrate the spirit that +blossoms under the trials and hardships of the struggle of a family for +a livelihood and for the maintenance of a home. + +A clear function becomes evident for this social group called the +family. It is that of dealing with young lives, in groups bound by ties +of blood and similarity, for purposes of the development of personal +character. The family has an essentially educational function. Bearing +in mind that "educational" means the orderly development of the powers +of the life, we can think of our families as existing for this purpose +and to be tested by their ability to do this work, especially by their +ability to develop persons, young lives, that have the power, the +vision, the acquired habits and experience to live as more than animals. +The family is an educational institution dealing with child-life for its +full growth and its self-realization, especially on character levels. +The educational function suggests the features of family life which we +do well to seek to preserve. Many incidental forms may pass, but the +essential human relations and experiences that go to develop life and +character must be maintained at any cost. + + + I. References for Study + + C.F. and C.B. Thwing, _The Family_, chap. vii. Lothrop, Lee & + Shepard, $1.60. + + W.F. Lofthouse, _Ethics and the Family_, chaps. iv, v. Hodder & + Stoughton, $2.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + "The Improvement of Religious Education," _Proceedings of the + Religious Education Association_, I, 119-23. $0.50. + + _Religious Education_, April, 1911, VI, 1-48. + + S.P. Breckinridge and E. Abbott, _The Delinquent Child and the + Home_. Russell Sage Foundation, $2.00. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What is the chief end of all forms of social organization? + + 2. What is in the last analysis the aim of every parent? + + 3. What advantage has the family over the school and larger groups + for educational purposes? + + 4. In what sense is the family an ideal democracy? + + 5. Show how the family sets spiritual values first. + + 6. What in your judgment are the first evidences of character + development? In what way do these come to the surface in the + family? What is the factor of love in the development of character? + + 7. Is that an ideal family in which none of the members bear pain + or are called upon for self-denial? Can you see any especial + advantage to character in the very difficulties and apparent + disadvantages in the life of the family? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[5] See "Democracy in the Home," _American Journal of Sociology_, +January, 1912. + +[6] Francis G. Peabody, _The Approach to the Social Question_, p. 94. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE RELIGIOUS PLACE OF THE FAMILY + + +§ 1. DEVELOPMENT AS A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION + +The family is the most important religious institution in the life of +today. It ranks in influence before the church. It has always held this +place. Even among primitive peoples, where family life was an uncertain +quantity, the relations of parents, or of one of the parents, to the +children afforded the opportunity most frequently used for their +instruction in tribal religious ideals and customs. We cannot generalize +as to the practices of savage man in regard to family life, for those +practices range from common promiscuous relationships, without apparent +care for offspring, to a family unity and purity approaching the best we +know; but this much is certain, that there was a common sense of +responsibility for the training of young children in moral and religious +ideas and customs, and that, in the degree that the family approached to +separateness and unity, it accepted the primary responsibility for this +task. The higher the type of family life the more fully does it +discharge its function in the education of the child.[7] + +It might be safe to say that among primitive peoples there were three +stages, or types, of relationship based on the breeding of children, or +three stages of development toward family life. The first is a loose and +indefinite relationship existing principally between the adults, or the +males and females, under which children born when not desired are +neglected or strangled and, when acceptable, may be in the care of +either parent, or of neither. Since the group, associated through +infancy with at least one parent, is as yet undeveloped, any instruction +will be individual and usually incidental. + +The second form is that of a kind of family unity, either about the +mother or the father, or both, or about a group of parents, in which the +children live together and are sheltered and nurtured for their earlier +years. Here, however, the real relationship of the child is to the +tribe, the family is but his temporary guardian, and, at least by the +age of puberty, he will be initiated into the tribal secrets. If he is a +boy, he will cease to be a member of the family group and will go to +live in the "men's house," becoming a part of the larger life of the +tribe.[8] Such moral and religious instruction as he may acquire will +come from the songs, traditions, and conversation which he hears as a +child. + +The third type approaches the modern ideal, with a greater or less +degree of permanent unity between the two parents and with permanence in +the group of the offspring. The parental responsibility continues for a +greater length of time and, since the tribe makes smaller claims, and +the parents live in the common domestic group, much more instruction is +possible and is given. The tribal ideals, the traditions, observances, +and religious rites are imparted to children gradually in their homes. + +The last type brings us to the Hebrew conception of family life. It +developed toward the Christian ideal. At first, polygamy was permitted; +woman was the chattel of man and excluded from any part in the religious +rites. But it included the ideal of monogamy in its tradition of the +origin of the world, it denounced and punished adultery (Deut. 22: 22), +and it gave especial attention to the training of the offspring. "And +these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart; and +thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of +them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, +and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up ... and thou shalt +write them upon the door-posts of thy house and upon thy gates" (Deut. +6: 6, 7, 9). + +Much later, the messianic hope, the belief that in some Jewish family +there should be born one divinely commissioned and endowed to liberate +Israel and to give the Jews world-sovereignty, operated to elevate the +conception of motherhood and, through that, of the family. It made +marriage desirable and children a blessing; it rendered motherhood +sacred. It tended to center national hopes and religious ideals about +the family.[9] + +There are a few glimpses of ideal family life in the Old Testament. They +are all summed up in the eloquent tribute to motherhood in the words of +King Lemuel in the last chapter of the Book of Proverbs. It must be +remembered, however, that such ideals did not belong to the Jews alone, +that Plutarch shows many pictures of maternal fidelity and wifely +devotion, that Greek and Roman history have their Cornelia, Iphigenia, +and Mallonia.[10] + +The Jews are an excellent example of the power of the family life to +maintain distinct characteristics and to secure marked development. +Practically throughout all the Christian era they have been a people +without a land, a constitution, or a government, and yet never without +race consciousness, national unity, and separateness. Their unity has +continued in spite of dispersion, persecution, and losses; they have +remained a race in the face of political storms that have swept other +peoples away. Their unity has continued about two great centers, the +customs of religion and the life of the family. + + The results of Jewish respect for family life can also be seen in + the health of their own children. In 1910, for instance, among poor + Jews in Manchester the mortality of infants under one year of age + was found to be 118 per thousand; among poor Gentiles, 300 per + thousand; and comparisons made some six years ago between Jewish + and Gentile children in schools in the poorer parts of Manchester + and Leeds (England) have shown that the Jewish children are + uniformly taller, they weigh more, and their bones and teeth are + superior.[11] + + +§ 2. THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY + +The Christian family is a type peculiar to itself, not as a new +institution, for it has developed out of earlier race experience, but as +controlled by a new interpretation, the spirit and conception of the +home and family given in the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. He did not +give formal rules for the regulation of homes; rather he made a +spiritual ideal of family life the basic thought of all his teaching. He +said more about the family than concerning any other human institution, +yet he established no family life of his own. He is called the founder +of the church, yet he scarcely mentions that institution, while he +frequently teaches concerning home duties and family relations. He +glorifies the relations of the family by making them the figure by which +men may understand the highest relations of life. He speaks more of +fatherhood and sonship than of any other relations. He gives direction +for living, using the family terms of brotherhood. He points forward to +ideal living in a home beyond this life. He teaches men when they think +of God and when they address him to take the family attitude and call +him Father. + +If we sum up all the teachings of Jesus and separate them from our +preconceptions of their theological content, we cannot but be impressed +with the facts that he seized upon the family life as the best +expression of the highest relationships; that he pointed to a purified +family life, in which spiritual aims would dominate, as the best +expression of ideal relationships among his followers; and that he +glorified marriage and really made the family the great, divine, +sacramental institution of human society. + +We can hardly overestimate the importance of such teaching to the +character of the family. The early Christians not only accepted Jesus as +their teacher and savior; they took their family life as the opportunity +to show what the Kingdom of God, the ideal society, was like. Family +life was consecrated. Men and women belonged to the new order with +their whole households. Religion became largely a family matter. The +worship that had been confined to the temple now made an altar in every +home and a holy of holies in the midst of every family. The scriptures +that belonged to the synagogue now belonged in the home. Above all, this +family existed for the purposes taught by Jesus, that men might grow in +brotherhood toward the likeness of the divine Fatherhood. It was an +institution, not for economic purpose of food and shelter, not for +personal ends of passion or pride, but for spiritual purpose, for the +growth of persons, especially the young in the home, in character, into +"the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." + +Christianity is essentially a religion of ideal family life. It +conceives of human society, not in terms of a monarchy with a king and +subjects, but in terms of a family with a great all-Father and his +children, who live in brotherhood, who take life as their opportunity +for those family joys of service and sacrifice. It hopes to solve the +world's ills, not by external regulations, but by bringing all men into +a new family life, a birth into this new family life with God, so +securing a new personal environment, a new personality as the center and +root of all social betterment. He who would come into this new social +order must come into the divine family, must humble himself and become +as a little child, must know his Father and love his brothers. + +Christianity, then, not only seeks an ideal family; it makes the family +the ideal social institution and order. It makes family life holy, +sacramental, religious in its very nature. This fact gives added +importance to the preservation and development of the ideals of family +life for the sake of their religious significance and influence. It not +only makes religion a part of the life of the home but makes a religious +purpose the very reason for the existence of the Christian type of home. +It makes our homes essentially religious institutions, to be judged by +religious products. + + + I. References for Study + + G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_, chap. xvi. Revell, + $1.35. + + Article on "The Family," in Hastings, _Encyclopaedia of Religion + and Ethics_. + + + II. Further Reading + + On the educational function of the family: A.J. Todd, _The + Primitive Family as an Educational Agency_. Putnam, $2.00. + + On the religious place of the family: C.F. and C.B. Thwing, _The + Family_. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, $1.60. + + I.J. Peritz, "Biblical Ideal of the Home," _Religious Education_, + VI, 322. + + H. Hanson, _The Function of the Family_. American Baptist + Publication Society, $0.15. + + W. Becker, _Christian Education, or the Duties of Parents_. Herder, + $1.00. A striking presentation of the Roman Catholic view; could be + read to advantage by all parents. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What place did religion hold in the primitive family? What + reference or allusion do we find in the Old Testament to the place + of religion in the family (Deut. 6:7-9, 20-25)? What in the New + Testament? + + 2. What has been the effect of purity of family life on the Jewish + race? + + 3. What place did the family hold in the teachings of Jesus? + + 4. What shall we think of the relations of the church and family as + to their comparative rights and our duty to them? + + 5. Do you agree that the family is the most important religious + institution? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] For a brief statement see Brinton, _Religions of Primitive Peoples_, +Lecture 4, § 7; also Todd, _The Family as an Educational Agency_. + +[8] See Webster, _Primitive Secret Societies_, chaps. i, ii. + +[9] On the place of the family in different religious systems see the +fine article under "Family" in Hastings, _Encyclopaedia of Religion and +Ethics_. + +[10] See Lecky, _History of European Morals_, chap. ii. + +[11] Quoted by Lofthouse in _Ethics and the Family_, p. 8, from W. Hall, +in _Progress_ (London), April, 1907. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE MEANING OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE FAMILY + + +§ 1. THE FUNCTION OF THE FAMILY + +With the brief statement of the history of the family and of its +function in society which has already been given we are prepared to put +together the two conclusions: first, that the family has an educational +function, in that it exists as a social institution for the protection, +nurture, development, and training of young lives, and, secondly, that +it is a religious institution, the most influential and important of all +religious institutions, whenever it realizes in any adequate degree its +possibilities, because it is rooted in love and loyalty. It exists for +personal and spiritual ideals and, in Christianity, it is inseparably +connected with the teachings and the ideals of Jesus. It is educational +in function and religious in character, so that it is essentially an +institution for religious education. Religious education is not an +occasional incident in its life; it is the very aim and dominating +purpose of a high-minded family. + + +§ 2. WHAT IS RELIGIOUS EDUCATION? + +To make this the more clear we may need to clarify our minds as to +certain popular conceptions of education. Education means much more +than instruction; religious education means much more than instruction +in religion. Many habitually think of an educational institution as +necessarily a place where pupils sit at desks and teachers preside over +classes, the teachers imparting information which is to be memorized by +the pupils, so that, from this point of view, a Sunday school would be +almost the only institution for the religious education of children in +existence, because it is the only one exclusively devoted to imparting +instruction to children in specifically religious subjects. Such a view +would limit religious education in the home to the formal teaching of +the Bible and religious dogma by parents. The memorizing of scriptural +passages and of the different catechisms once constituted a regular duty +in almost all well-ordered homes. Today it is rarely attempted. Does +that mean that religious education has ceased in the home? + +But education means much more than instruction. Education is the whole +process, of which instruction is only a part. Education is the orderly +development of lives, according to scientific principles, into the +fulness of their powers, the realization of all their possibilities, the +joy of their world, the utmost rendering in efficiency of their service. +It includes the training of powers of thought, feeling, willing, and +doing; it includes the development of abilities to discern, +discriminate, choose, determine, feel, and do. It prepares the life for +living with other lives; it prepares the whole of the life, developing +the higher nature, the life of the spirit, for living in a spiritual +universe. + +Religious education, then, means much more than instruction in the +literature, history, and philosophy of religion. It means the kind of +directed development which regards the one who is developing as a +religious person, which seeks to develop that one to fulness of +religious powers and personality, and which uses, as means to that end, +material of religious inspiration and significance and, indeed, regards +all material in that light. Religious education seeks to direct a +religious process of growth with a religious purpose for religious +persons. Religious education is the spirit which characterizes the work +of every educator who looks on the child as a spiritual nature, a +religious person; it is the work of every educator who sees his aim as +that of training this spiritual person to fulness of living in a society +essentially spiritual. + +In simplest possible terms, religious education means the training of +persons to live the religious life and to do their work in the world as +religious persons. It must mean, then, the development of character; it +includes the aim, in the parents' minds, to bring their children up to +the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. It is evident that +this is a much greater task, and yet more natural and beautiful, than +mere instruction in formal ideas or words in the Bible or in a +catechism; that it is not and cannot be accomplished in some single +period, some set hour, but is continuous, through all the days; that it +pervades not only the spoken words, but the actions, organization, and +the very atmosphere of the home. + + +§ 3. THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS + +Normal persons never stop growing. Just as children grow all the time in +their bodies, so do adults and all others grow all the time in mind and +will and powers of the higher life whenever they live normally. We grow +spiritually, not only in church and under the stimulus of song and +prayer, but we grow when the beauty of the woods appeals to us, when the +face lightens at the face of a friend, when we meet and master a +temptation, when we brace up under a load, when we do faithfully the +dreary, daily task, when we adjust our thoughts in sympathy to others, +when we move in the crowd, when we think by ourselves. The educational +process is continuous. The children in the home are being moved, +stimulated, every instant, and they are being changed in minute but +nevertheless real and important degrees by each impression. There is +never a moment in which their character is not being developed either +for good or for ill. Religious education--that is, the development of +their lives as religious persons--goes on all the time in the home, and +it is either for good or for ill. + +Next to the idea of the continuous and all-pervasive character of this +process of religious development the most important thought for us is +that religious education in the home may be determined by ourselves. +This continuous, fateful process is not a blind, resistless one. It is +our duty to direct it. It is possible for wise parents to determine the +characters of their children. We must not forget this. It cannot be too +strongly insisted on. The development of life is under law. This is an +orderly world. Things do not just happen in it. We believe in a law that +determines the type of a cabbage, the character of a weed. Do we believe +that this universe is so ordered that there is a law for weeds and none +for the higher life of man? Do we hold that cabbages grow by law but +character comes by chance? If there is a law we may find it and must +obey it. If we may know how to develop character, with as great +certainty as we know how to do our daily work, will not this be our +highest task, our greatest joy, the supreme thing to do in life? + + +§ 4. THE CONSEQUENT OBLIGATION + +This is the first great obligation of parents and of those who are +willing to accept the joys and responsibilities of parenthood. We have +no right to bring into this world lives with all the possibilities that +a religious nature involves unless we know how to develop those lives +for the best and from the worst. When we picture what a little child may +become, from the vile, depraved, despoiling beast or the despicable, +sneaking hypocrite on one extreme, to the upright, God-loving, +man-serving man or woman with the love of purity, honor, truth, and +goodness speaking through the life, we may well pause, realizing we need +more than a sentimental desire that the child may reach the heights of +goodness: we must know the way there and the methods of leading the life +in that way. True devotion to God and to childhood will mean more than +petitions for the salvation of children; it will mean the prayer that is +labor and the labor that is prayer to know how they may attain fulness +of spiritual life; it will mean reverent searching into the divine ways +of growth in grace. The study of the means and methods of religious +education, especially of children, in the home and family, is one of the +most evident and important religious duties resting on parents and all +who contemplate marriage and family life. + + +§ 5. WHAT IS MEANT BY THE RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD? + +In discussing the development of character in children one hears often +the question, "Which is the earliest virtue to appear in a child?" +People will debate whether it is truthfulness, reverence, kindness, or +some other virtue. All this implies a picture of the child as a tree +that sends forth shoots of separate virtues one after another. But the +character desired is not a series of branches, it is rather like a +symmetrical tree; it is not certain parts, but it is the whole of a +personality. The development of religious character is not a matter of +consciously separable virtues, but is the determination of the trend and +quality of the whole life. Moral training is not a matter of cultivating +honesty today, purity tomorrow, and kindness the day after. Virtues have +no separate value. Character cannot be disintegrated into a list of +independent qualities. We seek a life that, as a whole life, loves and +follows truth, goodness, and service. + + +§ 6. EARLY TENDENCIES + +But it is wise to inquire as to those manifestations of a pure and +spiritual life which will earliest appear. One does not need to look far +for the answer. Children are always affectionate; they manifest the +possibilities of love. True, this affection is rooted in physiological +experience, based on relations to the mother and on daily propinquity to +the rest of the family, but it is that which may be colored by devotion, +elevated by unselfish service, and may become the first great, ideal +loyalty of the child's life. Little boys will fight and girls will +quarrel more readily over the question of the merits of their respective +parents than over any other issue. Almost as soon as a child can talk he +boasts of the valor of his father, the beauty of his mother. Here is +loyalty at work. He stands for them; he resents the least doubt as to +their superiority, not because they give him food and shelter, but +because they are his, because to him they are worthy; in all things they +have the worth, the highest good; they are, in person, the virtue of +life. Therefore in fighting for the reputation of his parents he is +practicing loyalty to an ideal. + +The principle of loyalty is the life-force of virtue; it is like the +power that sends the tree toward the heavens, the upthrust of life. It +may be cultivated in a thousand ways. Provided there is the outreach and +upreach of loyalty within and that there is furnished without the worthy +object, ideal, and aim, the life will grow upward and increase in +character, beauty, and strength. + +Next to the affectionate idealization of parents and home-folk one of +the earliest manifestations of the spirit of loyalty in the child is +his desire to have a share in the activities of the home. He would not +only look like those he admires; he would do what they do. This is more +than mere imitation; it is loyalty at work again. The direction of this +tendency is one of the largest opportunities before parents and can make +the most important contribution to character. + +The religious life of the child is essentially a matter of loyalty. His +faith, affections, aspirations, and endeavors turn toward persons, +institutions, and concepts which are to him ideal. He does not analyze, +he cannot describe, or even narrate, his religious experiences, but he +affectionately moves, with a sense of pleasure, toward those things +which seem to him ideal, toward parents, customs of the home or school, +the church, his class, his teacher, toward characters in story-books. He +is likely to think of Jesus in just that way, as the one person whom he +would most of all like to know and be with. The life of virtue and the +religious life then will be weak or strong in the measure that the child +has the stimulating ideals which call forth his loyalty and in the +measure that he has opportunity to express that loyalty. His religious +life will consist, not so much in external forms perhaps, still less in +intellectual statements about theology or even about his own +experiences, as in a growing realization of the great ideals, an +increasing sense of their meaning and reality within, and, on the +objective side, a steady moving of his life toward them in action and +habits and therefore in character and quality. + + +§ 7. IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS + +It is worth while to insist upon two important considerations. Parents +who stand as gardeners watching the growth of the tender plant of +child-character may be looking for developments that never ought to come +and will be disappointed because they were looking for the wrong thing. +First, in watching for the beginnings of the religious life of the child +in the family we are not expecting some new addition to the life, but +rather the development of this whole life as a unity in a definite +direction which we call religious. It is the first and most important +consideration that religious education is not something added to the +life as an extra subject of interest, but the development of the whole +life into religious character and usefulness. Secondly, this growth of +religious character is going on all the time. It is not separable into +pious periods; it is a part of the very life of the family. Perhaps this +increases the difficulty of our task, for it removes it from the realm +of the mechanical, from that which is easily apprehended and estimated. +It takes the task of the religious education of children out of the +statistical into the vital, and reminds us that we are growing life +every second, that there is never a moment when religious education is +not in operation. This demands a consideration, not alone of lessons, of +periods of worship and instruction, but of every influence, activity, +and agency in all the family life that in any way affects the thinking, +feeling, and action of the child. We are thinking of something more +important than organizing instruction and exercises in religion in the +home; we are thinking of organizing the family life for religious +purposes, for the purpose of growing lives into their spiritual fulness. + +Perhaps the capital mistake in the religious education of the family is +that we overemphasize this or the other method and mechanism instead of +bending every effort to secure a real religious atmosphere and soil in +which young souls can really grow while we leave the process of growth +more largely to the great husbandman. And the second great mistake is +that we are looking for mechanical evidence of a religious life instead +of for the development of a whole person. We must reinterpret the family +to ourselves and see it as the one great opportunity life affords us to +grow other lives and to bring them to spiritual fulness by providing a +social atmosphere of the spirit and a constant, normal presentation of +social living in spiritual terms. + + +§ 8. THE ORGANIZATION OF LOYALTY + +When parents conceive the family in these terms and so organize the life +of the home, the child becomes conscious of the fact, and at once the +life of the family furnishes him with his first, his nearest, and most +satisfactory appeal to loyalty. He feels that which he cannot analyze or +express, the spiritual beauty and loyalty of family life. That life +furnishes a soil and atmosphere for his soul. It is an atmosphere made +of many elements: the primary and dominating purpose of parents and +older persons, the habitual life of service and love, the consciousness +of the reality of the Divine Presence, the fragrance of chastened +character and experience, the customs of worship and affections. These +things are not easily created, they cannot be readily defined, nor can +directions be given in a facile manner for their cultivation. They are +the elements most difficult to describe, hardest of all to secure when +lacking, least easily labeled, not to be purchased ready-made, and yet +without them religious education is wholly impossible in the family. +Without this immediate appeal to loyalty the loyalties of the child +toward higher and divine aims do not develop early; they are retarded +and often remain dormant. For us all scarcely any more important +question can be presented than this: What appeals to spiritual idealism +and loyalty does our family life present to the child? What quickening +of love for goodness and purity, truth and service, is there in the home +and its conduct? + + + I. References for Study + + G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_, chaps. i, ii, xii, + xiii. Revell, $1.35. + + George Hodges, _Training of Children in Religion_, chaps. i, ii. + Appleton, $1.50. + + J.T. McFarland, _Preservation versus Resurrection_. Eaton & Mains, + $0.07. + + + II. Further Reading + + C.W. Votaw, _Progress of Moral and Religious Education in the + American Home_. Religious Education Association, $0.25. + + George Hodges, _Training of Children_, chaps. i, ii, xv. Appleton, + $1.50. + + G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_, chaps. i, iv, xvi. + Revell, $1.35. + + E.C. Wilm, _Culture of Religion_, chaps. i, ii. Pilgrim Press, + $0.75. + + C.W. Rischell, _The Child as God's Child_. Methodist Book Concern, + $0.75. + + E.E. Read Mumford, _The Dawn of Character_. Longmans, Green & Co., + $1.20. See especially chap. xii on "The Dawn of Religion." + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. How would you define education? + + 2. What is the difference between education and religious + education? + + 3. What makes the home especially effective in education? + + 4. Is it true that it is possible to discover the laws of growth + and so determine the development of character? + + 5. Recall any very early manifestations of religious character in + small children. What would you regard as the best kind of + manifestation? + + 6. What is the essential principle of the right life? How may we + develop this in childhood? + + 7. What are the things which most of all impress children? + + 8. Would you think it wise to bring a child under the influence of + a religious revival? + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE CHILD'S RELIGIOUS IDEAS + + +How shall I begin to talk with my child about religion? Even the most +religious parents feel hesitancy here. It may not be at all due to the +unfamiliarity of the subject, though that is often the case; hesitation +is due principally to a conscious artificiality in the action. It seems +unnatural to say, "My child, I want to talk with you about your +religious life." And so it is. There is something wrong when that +appears to be the only way. That situation indicates a lack of freedom +of thought and intercourse with the child and a lack of naturalness in +religion. + + +§ 1. THE FUNDAMENTAL DIFFICULTY + +The instinct is correct that tells us that we should be trespassing on a +child's rights, or breaking down his proper reticence, in abruptly and +formally questioning him about his religious life. The reserve of +children in this matter must be respected. The inner life of aspiration, +of conscious relationship to the divine, is too sacred for display, even +to those who are near to us. He violates the child's reverence who tears +away his reticence. Even though the child may not consciously object, +the process leads him toward the irreverent, facile self-exposure of +the soul that characterizes some prayer meetings. But we may, also, as +easily err in the other direction and, by failing to invite the +confidences of our children, lead them to suppose we have no interest in +their higher life. + + +§ 2. CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS + +First, we must be content to wait for the child to open his heart. We +must not force the door. But we can invite him to open, and the one form +of invitation that scarcely ever fails is for you to give him your +confidence. Talk honestly, simply to him of the aspects of your +religious life that he can understand. If he knows that you confide in +him, he will confide in you. Here beware of sentimentality. Religion to +the child will find expression in everyday experiences. Your philosophy +of religion he cannot comprehend, and with your mature emotions he has +no point of contact. Perhaps the best method of approach is to relate +your memories of those experiences which you _now see_ to have had +religious significance to you. At the time they may have had no such +special meaning. You did not then analyze them. Your child will not and +must not analyze them, either; he must simply feel them. + +Secondly, rid your mind of the "times and seasons" notion. There is no +more reason why you should talk religion on Sunday than on Monday, +unless the day's interests have quickened the child's questioning. There +can be no set period; no times when you say, "This is the forty-five +minutes of spiritual instruction and conversation." The time available +may be very short, only a sentence may be possible, or it may be +lengthened; everything will depend on the interest. It must be natural, +a real part of the everyday thought and talk, lifted by its character +and subject to its own level. Its value depends on its natural reality. + + +§ 3. RELIGIOUS REALITY + +Thirdly, avoid the mistake of confounding conversation on "religion" +with religious conversation, of thinking that the desired end has been +attained when you have discussed the terminology of theology. To +illustrate, in the family one hardly ever hears the word hygiene, but +well-trained children learn much about the care of their bodies in +health, and the family economy is directed consciously to that end. A +good, nourishing meal always contributes more to health than many +lectures on dietetics. Yet back, hidden away in the manager's mind, is +the science of dietetics. So is it with quickening the child's power and +thought in the spiritual life. We must avoid the abstract, the +intellectually analytical. Religion should present itself concretely, +practically, and as an atmosphere and ideal in the family. We parents +must not look for theological interest in the child. A Timothy Dwight at +ten or twelve, though once found in Sunday-school library books, is a +monstrosity. The child's aspiration, his religious devotion, his love +for God will find expression in almost every other way before it will be +formulated into questions of a serious theological character. Nor ought +we to force upon him the phrases of religion to which we are accustomed. +He will live in another day and must speak its tongue. His faith must +find itself in consciousness and then be permitted to clothe itself in +appropriate garments of words. Those garments must be woven out of the +realities of actual experiences in the child's life. We cannot prepare +or make them for him. The expression of religion will be consonant with +the stage of development. If his faith is to be real he must never be +allowed or tempted to imagine that if only he can use the words, the +verbal symbol, he has the fact, the life-experience. Try then to use +words which are simple and meaningful to him and be content to wait for +life to lead him to formulate vital verbal forms for himself. + + +§ 4. PATIENCE AND COMMON-SENSE + +Fourthly, we must have faith in God's laws of growth. If we be but +faithful, furnishing the soil, the seed, the nurture, we must wait for +the increase. Many factors which we cannot control will determine +whether it shall be early or late and what form it shall take. We must +wait. It is high folly that pulls up the sprouting grain to see whether +it is growing properly. + +Fifthly, manifestations of the religious life will vary in children and +in families. The commonest error is to expect some one popular form +alone, to imagine that all children must pass through some standardized +experiences. Mrs. Brown's Willy may rise in prayer meeting. Do not be +downhearted. Willy is only doing that which he has seen his parents do, +and, usually, only because they do it. Your boy, or girl, is seeking +health of life, of thought, of action; is growing in character. Let them +grow, help them to grow. You know they love you even when they say +little about it; you do not expect them to climb to the housetop and +declare their affection. A flower does not sing about the sun, it grows +toward it. That is the test of the child's religion: Is he growing +Godward in life, action, character? + + +§ 5. THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD + +Sixthly, deal most carefully with the child's consciousness of God. The +truth is that the child in the average home has a consciousness of God. +It grows out of formal references in social rites and customs, informal +allusions in conversation, and direct statements and instruction. But +frequently the resultant mental picture is a misleading one, sometimes +even vicious in its moral effect. Where superstitious servants take more +interest in the child's religious ideas than do his parents, we have the +child whose life is darkened by the fear of an omnipotent ogre. +Nursemaids will slothfully scare small children into silence by threats +of the awful presence of a bogey god. The life of the spirit cannot be +trusted to the hireling. Parents must be sure of the character as well +as the superficial competency of those who come closest to childhood. A +child's ideas are formed before he goes to school. The family cannot +delegate the formation of dominant ideas to persons trained only for +nursery tasks. + +But frequently the mother is a misleading teacher. To her the child goes +with all the big questions outside the immediate world of things. Is she +prepared to answer the questions? Few dilemmas of our life today are +more pathetic than this: the mother has outgrown the theology of her +childhood; she remembers keenly the suffering and superstition, the +struggle that followed the darkened pictures she received as a little +one, but she has nothing better to offer the child. No one has taught +her how to put the later, more spiritual concepts into language for the +child of our day. Weakly she falls back on the forms of words she once +abhorred. + +There are certainly two approaches of reality for the child-mind to the +idea of God. Two immediate experiences are rich in meaning; they are the +life of the family and the wonder of the everyday world, the life and +variety of nature and human activities. The first is a very simple and +rich approach. By every possible means help children in the family to +think of God as the great and good Father of us all. Do this in the +phrasing of prayers and graces, in the answers to their questions, in +the casual word. Why should we assume that the Fatherhood of God is for +the adult alone? And why should it be that this rich concept dawns on us +like a new day of freedom in truth in later years instead of becoming +ours in childhood and so determining the habit and attitude of our +lives? The finest, the ideal person is, to the child, the father. God in +terms of fatherhood is the sum and source of all that is ideal in +personality. + +The child's keen interest in the world of nature is our opportunity to +lead him to love the gracious source of all beauty and goodness. How +keen is the child's enjoyment of the beauty of the world! Can we forever +fix the general concept of all this beauty as the thought of God in the +words of flower and leaf, mountain and stream? And might we not also +connect the idea of God with the affairs of daily life? That depends on +the parent's attitude of mind; if we think of the universal life that is +behind all battles and business and affairs, there will be a difference +in our answers to the thousand curious inquiries that rise in the +child's mind. + +Nor must we leave the child to think of God as a separate, far-off +person, on a throne somewhere in the skies. The child is finding his way +into a universe. The God who is a minute fraction of that universe makes +possible the religion that is no more than a negligible fraction of +life. The child asks concerning clouds, the sea, the trees, the birds, +and all the world about him; he tends to interpret it causally and +ideally. Childhood affords the great opportunity for giving the color, +the beauty and glory, the life of the divine to all this universe, to +instil the feeling that God is everywhere, in all and through all, and +that in him we live and move and have our being. The child's joy in this +world can thus be given a religious meaning. He sings + + My God, I thank thee thou hast made + This earth so bright...., + +and so beauty and joy become part of his religion. His faith becomes a +gladsome thing; he knows that the trees of the forest clap their hands, +the mountains and the hills sing, and the morning stars chant together +in the gladness of the divine life. + +Such a view of the world comes not by prearranged and indoor interviews. +One must walk out into the good outdoor world for the opportunity and +the inspiration. The garden plot, the park, and, best of all, the open +fields and woods speak to a child and furnish us an open book from which +we may teach him to read. Recalling religious impressions, the writer +would testify to feeling nothing deeper, as a result of church +attendance in childhood, than the shapes of seats and the colors of +walls; but there remain deep impressions of wonder, beauty, and the +meaning of God from Sunday mornings spent with his father under the +great beeches in Epping Forest, listening to the reading and singing of +the old hymns, or joining in conversation on the woods and the flowers, +and even on the legends of Robin Hood in the forest. + + +§ 6. THE EVERYDAY OPPORTUNITIES + +Seventhly, natural conversation affords the best opportunity for direct +instruction. A child is a peripatetic interrogation. His questions cover +the universe; there are no doors which you desire to see opened that he +will not approach at some time. There is great advantage when the +religious question rises normally; when the child begins it and when the +interest continues with the same naturalness as in conversation on any +other subject. Then questions usually take one of three forms: mere +childish, curious questions, questions on conduct, and questions on +religion in its organized form. + +The child's curiosity is the basis of even those questions which have +usually been credited to preternatural piety. The tiny youngster who +asks strange questions about God asks equally startling ones about +fairies or about his grandmother. But his questions give us the chance +to direct him to right thoughts of God. Here we need to be sure of our +own thoughts and to keep in mind our principal purpose, to quicken in +this child loyalty to the highest and best. He must be shown a God whom +he can love and, at the same time, one who will call for his growing +loyalty, his courage, and devotion. Everything for the child's future +depends on the pictures he now forms. We all carry to a large degree our +childhood's view of God. + +Some of the child's questions probe deep; how shall we answer them? When +you know the truth tell him the truth, being sure that it is told in +language that really conveys truth to his mind. The danger is that +parents will attempt to tell more than they know, to answer questions +that cannot be answered, or that they will, in sloth or cowardice or +ignorance, tell children untrue things. If a child asks, "Did God make +the world?" the answer that will be true to the child may be a simple +affirmative. If the child asks or his query implies, "Did God make the +leaves, or the birds, with his fingers?" we had better take time to +show the difference between man's making of things and the working of +the divine energy through all the process of the development of the +world. When the child asks, "Mother, if God made all things, why did he +make the devil?" it would surely be wise and opportune to correct the +child's mental picture of a personal anti-God and to take from him his +bogey of a "devil." But the question of the relation of God to the +existence of evil would remain, and the best a parent could do would be +to illustrate the necessities of freedom of choice and will in life by +similar freedom in the family. + +It must be remembered that children's curious questions are only their +attempt to discover their world, that they have no peculiar religious +significance, but that they afford the parent a vital opportunity for +direct religious instruction. These questions must be treated seriously; +something is missing in parental consciousness when the child's +questions furnish only material for jesting relation to the family +friends. + + +§ 7. MORAL TEACHING + +_Questions on conduct_: Scores of times in the day the children come in +from play or from school and tell of what has happened. Their more or +less breathless recitals very often include vigorous accounts of +"cheating," "naughtiness," unfair play, unkind words, discourtesies, +all dependent as to their character on the age of the children and all +opening doors for free conversation on duties and conduct. Here lies one +of the large opportunities for moral instruction. There is no need to +attempt to make formal occasions for this; so long as children play and +live with others they are under the experience of learning the art of +living with one another; this is the simple essence of morality. The +parent's answers to their questions on conduct, the comments on their +criticisms, and the conversation that may easily be directed on these +subjects count tremendously with the child in establishing his ideals +and modes of conduct. Returning to his play, there is no mightier +authority he can quote than to say, "My mother says--," or "My father +says--." + +Let no one say that instruction in moral living is not religious, for +there can be no adequate guidance in morals without religion, nor can +the religious quality of the life find expression adequately except +through conduct in social living. Children need more than the rules for +living; they must feel motives and see ideals. They do not live by rules +any more than we do. Besides the rule that is known there must be a +reason for following it and a strong desire to do so. All ethical +teaching needs this imperative and motivation of religion, the +quickening of loyalty to high ideals, the doing of the right for +reasons of love as well as of duty and profit. + +The father's opportunity comes especially with the boys. They are sure +to bring to him their ethical questions on games and sport; he knows +more about boys' fights and struggles than does the mother. When the +boys begin to discuss their games the father cannot afford to lack +interest. Trivial as the question may seem to be, it is the most +important one of the day to the boy and, for the interests of his +character, it may be the most important for many a day to the father. If +he answers with sympathy and interest this question on a "foul ball" or +on marbles or peg-tops, he has opened a door that will always stay open +so long as he approaches it with sincerity; if he slights it, if he is +too busy with those lesser things that seem great to him, he has closed +a door into the boy's life; it may never be opened again. Children learn +life through the life they are now living. Real preparation for the +world of business and larger responsibilities comes by the child's +experiences of his present world of play and schooling and family +living. To help him to live this present life aright is the best +training that can be given for the right living of all life. + +_Questions on organized religion_: As children grow up, the church comes +into their range of interests. Just as they often make the day school +focal for conversation, as they recount their day's work there, so they +retain impressions of the church school, of the services of the church, +and will always ask many questions about this institution and its +observances. Here is the opportunity, in free conversation, to tell the +child the meaning of the church, the significance of membership therein, +and to lead him to conscious relationship to the society of the +followers of Jesus. (See chap. xvii, "The Family and the Church.") + + + I. References for Study + + Alice E. Fitts, "Consciousness of God in Children," _The Aims of + Religious Education_, pp. 330-38. Religious Education Association, + $1.00. + + W.G. Koons, _Child's Religious Life_, sec. II. Eaton & Mains, + $1.00. + + J. Sully, _Children's Ways_, chap. vi. Appleton, $1.25. + + + II. Further Reading + + George Hodges, _The Training of Children in Religion_, chaps. i-vi. + Appleton, $1.50. + + George E. Dawson, _The Child and His Religion_, chap. ii. The + University of Chicago Press, $0.75. + + Edward Lyttleton, _The Corner-Stone of Education_, chap. viii. + Putnam, $1.50. + + T. Stephens (ed.), _The Child and Religion_. Putnam, $1.50. + + C.W. Richell, _The Child as God's Child_. Eaton & Mains, $0.75. + + W.G. Koons, _The Child's Religious Nature_. Eaton & Mains, $1.00. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What are the special difficulties which you feel about + introducing the topic of religion to children? Describe any methods + or modes of approach which have seemed successful? + + 2. Would you regard it as a fault if a child seems unwilling to + talk about religion? What do you think "religion" means to the + child-mind? + + 3. In what ways do children's aptitudes differ and what factors + probably determine the difference? What was your own childish + conception of God? Did you love God or fear him? Why? + + 4. Is it ever right to teach the child those conceptions which we + have outgrown? What about Santa Claus and fairies? How can you use + childish figures of speech as an avenue to more exact truth? + + 5. Does the child learn more through ears or eyes? Through which + agency do we seek to convey religious ideas? + + 6. Is it possible to make the child see the intimate relation + between conduct and religion? How would you do this? + + 7. Give some of the characteristics of a religious child of seven + years, of ten. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +DIRECTED ACTIVITY + + +Probably all parents find themselves at some time thinking that the +real, fundamental problem of training their children lies in dealing +with their superabundant energy. "He is such an active child!" mothers +complain. Were he otherwise a physician might properly be consulted. But +the child's activity does seriously interfere with parental peace. It +takes us all a long time to learn that we are not, after all, in our +homes in order to enjoy peaceful rest, but in order to train children +into fulness of life. That does not mean that the home should be without +quiet and rest, but that we must not hope to repress the energy of +childhood. One might as well hope to plug up a spring in the hillside. +Our work is to direct that activity into glad, useful service. + + +§ 1. VALUE OF ACTIVITY + +The things we do not only indicate character, they determine it. Our +thoughts have value and power as they get into action. To bend our +energies toward an ideal is to make it more real, to make it a part of +ourselves. Children learn by doing--learn not only that which they are +doing but life itself. + +It may be doubted whether a child ever grew who did not plead to have a +share in the work he saw going on about him. That desire to help is part +of that fundamental virtue of loyalty of which we have spoken above; it +is his desire to be true to the tendency of the home, to give himself to +the realization of its purposes. Of course he does not think this out at +all. But this desire on the part of the child to have a hand in the +day's work is the parent's fine opportunity for a most valuable and +influential form of character direction. + +One of the tests of a worthy character is whether the life is +contributory or parasitic, whether one carries his load, does his work, +makes his contribution, or simply waits on the world for what he can +get. A religious interpretation of and attitude toward life is +essentially that of self-giving in service. "My Father worketh hitherto +and I work." "I must be about my Father's business." How noticeable is +the child's interest in the vivid word-picture of One who "went about +doing good"! + + +§ 2. THE BLESSING OF LABOR + +The home is the first place for life's habituation to service. The child +is greatly to be pitied who has no duties, no share in the work. Where +the hands are unsoiled the heart is the easier sullied. It is the height +of mistaken kindness, one of the common errors of an unthinking, +superficial affection, to protect our children from work. This is a +world of the moral order and of the glory of work. + +When the child is very small it must learn this by having committed to +it very simple duties. As soon as it is able to handle things it may +learn to do that which is most helpful with those things, to care for +its toys, to put them away neatly. A child can learn while very young to +take care of its spoon, of certain clothes, of chair, and pencil and +paper. True, it is much easier to "pick up" after the child; but to do +so is to yield to our own sloth. The more tedious way is the one we must +follow if we would train the child. + +Besides the care of his possessions the child will gladly take a share +in the general work of the home. Let some daily duty be assigned to each +one; such simple responsibilities as picking up all papers and magazines +and seeing that they are properly stacked or disposed of may be given to +one; another may sweep the stairs every day with a whisk broom (in one +instance a boy of eight did this daily); another may be "librarian," +caring for all books; each one, after eight years of age, should make +her own bed; each one should be entirely responsible for his own table +in his room. Many homes permit of many other "chores," such as keeping +up the supply of small kindling, caring for a pet or even a larger +animal, keeping a little personal garden or vegetable plot. Under those +normal conditions of living, which some day we may reach, where each +family, or all families, have trees and flowers and ample space, the +opportunities are increased for joyous child activities which +consciously contribute to social well-being as a whole. + + +§ 3. RELIGION IN ACTION + +Perhaps some will say, this is not religious education, it is everyday +training. Yes, it is "everyday training," but it is the training of a +religious person with the religious purpose of habituating the child to +give his life in service to his world. That is precisely what we +need--_religion in everyday action_. The atmosphere and habitual +attitude and conversation of the family must be depended on to give a +really religious meaning to these everyday acts, to make them as +religious as going to church, perhaps more so, and so to make them a +training for the life that is religious, not in word only, but in deed +and in truth. + +Whatever we may say to children on the subject of religion, whether +directly or in teaching by indirection through songs and worship, must +pass over somehow into action in order to have meaning and reality. It +must be realized in order to be real. The difficulty that appears is +that of connecting the daily act with its spiritual significance. Yet +that is not as difficult as it seems. If the act has religious +significance to us, if we form the habit of really worshiping God with +our work, seeking in it to do his will, the child will know it. We +cannot keep that hidden. The spiritual life will never be more real to +the child than it is to us, and no amount of moralizing or +spiritualizing about our acts or his will give them religious +significance. + +At least one person will testify that, after being brought up in a +really religious home, the most strikingly religious memory of that home +is an occasion when he delightedly carried a tray of food to a sick +neighbor. It was doing the very thing that he longed to do, realizing +the aspiration that had been unable to find words or form before. So the +life of action can be steadily trained by acts of kindness. Habits are +acts repeated until they pass from the volitional to the involuntary. +The only process we can follow is steadily to train the children in the +willing and doing of the right, the good, and the kindly deed, until it +becomes habitual. Let the child prepare the tray of delicacies, pack the +flowers we are sending, carry them over if possible, at least have a +share in all our ministries.[12] + +The modern Sunday school recognizes the importance of activity in +forming religious character; therefore it plans and organizes social +activities for students to carry out.[13] The parents ought to know what +is designed for each child in his respective grade and to plan to +co-operate with the school. Where the family unites in the forms of +service suggested for the children, these activities lose all +perfunctoriness and take on a new reality. Social usefulness becomes a +normal part of life. + +Do we remember the best times of our childhood? Were they not when we +were doing things? And were not the best of these best times when we +were doing the best things, those that seemed ideal, that gave us a +sense of helping someone or of putting into action the best of our +thoughts? That is the chance and the joy our children are longing for, +and that joy will be their strength. + + +§ 4. RELIGION IN SERVICE + +The family has excellent opportunities for developing through its own +activities and duties the habits of the religious life. Children may +acquire through daily acts the habit of thinking of life as just the +chance to love and serve. Service may become perfectly normal to life. +Our modern paupers, whether they tramp the highways or ride in private +cars, came usually out of homes where the moral standard interpreted +life as just the chance of graft, to gain without giving, to have +without earning. Parental indulgence educates in pauperism. Let a boy +remain the passive beneficiary of all the advantages of a home until he +is sixteen or eighteen, and it will be exceedingly difficult to convert +him from the pauper habit. + +The hard task before parents is to save their children from the snare of +passive luxury. Perhaps, remembering our toilsome youth, we seek to +shield them. It is a serious unkindness. It is a wrong to our world. The +religious mind is the one that takes life in terms of service, sees the +days as doors to ways of usefulness, girds itself with the towel, and +finds honor in bending to do the little things for the least of men. +Vain is all family worship, all prayer and praise and catechism, unless +we train the feet to walk this way so that they may visit the +imprisoned, clothe the naked, comfort the sad, and cheer the broken in +heart. The family may make this the normal way to live. + +If the family would train boys and girls who shall be true followers of +the great Servant, it must stand among men as a servant, it must see +itself as set in the community to serve, and by habits of service and +helpfulness, by its whole social tone, it must quicken in its own people +the sense of social obligation and a realization of the delight in +self-giving. A home that is selfish in relation to other homes, in +relation to its community, can have no other than selfish, antisocial, +and therefore irreligious children. The first step in the welfare of a +child is to see that the home which constitutes his personal atmosphere +is steeped in the spirit of good-will toward men. + +The whole attitude of life is determined by the thought-atmosphere of +the family. The greedy family makes the grafting citizen. The grasping +home makes the pugnacious disturber of the public peace. Greater than +the question whether you are a good citizen in your relation to the +ballot box is the one whether you are a cultivator of good citizenship +in your home. No amount of Sunday-school teaching on the Beatitudes or +week-day teaching on civics is going to overcome the down-drag of +envious, antisocial thought and feeling and conversation in the home. +Home action and attitude count for more than all besides. + +It is equally true that no other influence can offset the salutary power +of a truly social home, that the easiest, most natural, and effective +method of teaching social duty and unselfishness is to do our whole +social duty unselfishly. + + +§ 5. FAMILY TRAINING FOR SOCIAL LIVING + +The supreme test of the religious life here is ability to live among men +as brothers and to cause the conditions of the divine family to be +realized on earth. If we can realize that the purpose of Jesus was to +bring men into the family of God, that the aim of all religious endeavor +is the family character in men and women and the conditions of that +family in all society, we must surely appreciate the possibility of the +human family as a training school for this larger family of humanity. + +The infant approaches social living by the pathway of the society of the +family. We all go out into life through widening circles, first the +mother's arms, then the family, the neighborhood, the city, the state, +the nation, the world-life. Each circle prepares for the next. The +family is the child's social order; its life is his training for the +larger life of nation and human brotherhood. + +Just how men and women will live in society is determined principally by +the bent of their characters in the social order of the family. Their +attitude to the world follows the attitude of the family, especially of +the parents. They interpret the larger world by the lesser. The home is +the great school of citizenship and social living. + +All the moral and religious problems of the family find a focus in the +purpose of preparing persons for social living. The family justifies its +cost to society in the contribution which it makes in trained and +motived lives. As a religious family its first duty is to prepare the +coming generation to live in a religious society, in one which will +steadily move toward the divine ideal of perfect family relations +through brotherhood and fatherhood. Its business is not to get children +ready for heaven, but to train them to make all life heavenly. Its aim +is not alone children who will not tear down the parents' reputation, +but men and women who will build up the actual worth and beauty of all +lives. + +The realization, in the family, of the purpose of training youth to +social living and service in the religious spirit depends on two things: +a spirit and passion in the family for social justice and order, and the +direction of the activities of the family toward training in social +usefulness. + +Only the social spirit can give birth to the social spirit. True lovers +of men, who set the values of life and of the spirit first, who give +their lives that all men may have freedom and means to find more +abundant life, come out of the families where the passion of human love +burns high. The selfish family, self-centered, caring not at all in any +deep sense for the well-being of others, existing to extract the juice +of life and let who will be nourished on the rind, becomes effective to +make the social highwayman, the oppressor. From such a family comes he +who breaks laws for his pocketbook and impedes the enactment of laws +lest human rights should prevent his acquisition of wealth; he who +hates his brother man--unless that brother has more than he has; the foe +of the kingdom of goodness and peace and brotherhood. + +And goodness is as contagious as badness. Children catch the spirit of +social love and idealism in the family. Where men and women are deeply +concerned with all that makes the world better for lives, better for +babies and mothers, for workers, and, above all, for the values of the +spirit gained through leisure, opportunities, and higher incentives; +where the family is more concerned with folks than with furniture; where +habitually it thinks of people as Jesus did, as the objects most of all +worth seeking, worth investing in, there children receive direction, +habituation, and motivation for the life of religion, the life that +binds them in glad love to the service of their fellows, and makes them +think of all their life as the one great chance to serve, to make a +better world, and to bring God's great family closer together here. + + + I. References for Study + + G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_, pp. 142-50. Revell, + $1.35. + + W.S. Athearn, _The Church School_, pp. 85-102. Pilgrim Press, + $1.00. + + G. Johnson, _Education by Plays and Games_, Part I. Ginn & Co., + $0.90. + + + II. Further Reading + + E.D. Angell, _Play_. Little, Brown & Co., $1.50. + + Fisher, Gulick, _et al._, "Ethical Significance of Play," + _Materials for Religious Education_, pp. 197-215. Religious + Education Association, $0.50. + + Publications of the Play Ground Association. + + + III. Methods and Materials + + PLAY + + Forbush, _Manual of Play_. Jacobs, $1.00. + + A. Newton, _Graded Games_. Barnes, $1.25. + + Von Palm, _Rainy Day Pastimes_. Dana Estes, $1.00. + + Johnson, _When Mother Lets Us Help_. Moffat, Yard & Co., $0.75. + + WORK + + Canfield, _What Shall We Do Now?_ Stokes, $1.50. + + Beard, _Jack of All Trades_. Scribner, $2.00. + + Beard, _Things Worth Doing_. Scribner, $2.00. + + Bailey, _Garden Making_. Macmillan, $1.50. + + Bailey (ed.), _Something to Do_ (magazine). School Arts Publishing + Co. + + + IV. Topics for Discussion + + 1. Is the quiet child an ideal child? How far should we go in + restraining activity? + + 2. The relative advantages of work and leisure for children. What + of the value of chores to you; did you do them? Describe any forms + of children's service in the home which have come under your + observation. + + 3. What forms of community service can be done by children and by + young people? + + 4. Recall any lessons learned by activity in your early home life. + + 5. Give in their order, according to your judgment, the potencies + for religious character in the home. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[12] A short list of books on child activity in the home is appended at +the end of this chapter; a fairly complete list, long enough for any +family, will be found on p. 117 of _The Church School_, by W.S. Athearn. + +[13] See W.N. Hutchins, _Graded Social Service for the Sunday School_. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HOME AS A SCHOOL[14] + + +The home is so mighty as a school because, requiring little time for +formal instruction, it enlists its scholars so largely in informal +activities. It trains for life by living; it trains as an institution, +by a group of activities, a series of duties, a set of habits. If the +home is to prepare for social living it will be most of all and best of +all by its organization and conduct as a social institution. + + +§ 1. AN IDEAL COMMUNITY + +For the purposes of society homes must be social-training centers; they +must be conducted as communities if their members are to be fitted for +communal living. No boy is likely to be ready for the responsibilities +of free citizenship who has spent his years in a home under an absolute +monarchy; or, as is today perhaps more frequently the case, in a +condition of unmitigated anarchy. A free society cannot consist of units +not free. The problems of parental discipline arise and appear as +persistently irritating and perplexing stumbling-blocks in many a home +simply because that home is organized altogether out of harmony and +relation with the normal life in which it is set. Society environing the +home gives its members the habits of twentieth-century autonomy, +individual initiative and responsibility, together with collective +living and working, while the home often seeks to perpetuate +thirteenth-century absolutism, serfdom, and subjection. In social living +outside the home we learn to do the will of all; in the home we attempt +to compel children to do the will of one. + + +§ 2. COMMUNITY INTERESTS + +The home organized as a social community will give to every member, +according to his ability, a share in its guidance and will expect from +every member the free contribution of his powers. Its rules will be made +by the will of all, and its affairs governed, not by an executive board +composed of the parents, but by the free participation and choice of +all. The young will learn to choose by choosing; will learn both how to +rule and to be ruled by a share in ruling. + +To be explicit, suppose a piece of furniture is desired for the home. +Two plans at least are possible: first, the "head of the home" may go +forth and purchase it without consulting anyone, or after advising with +the other "head"; or, second, before a purchase is made, the wisdom of +such an addition to the furniture may be suggested in the open council +of the whole family and the purchase discussed and determined by all. +Such councils, usually coming at or after the principal meal, freely +participated in by all, give even to the youngest a sense of the cost of +a home, of the care that goes into it, with, what is more important, a +sense of a share in these cares and costs; they cultivate habits of +prudence, of consideration of a matter, of steady judgments, of +deference to the wishes and wisdom of others. Of still greater +importance is another practical issue of such a plan--that every member +of the household has a new sense of proprietorship with deepened +responsibility. Instead of thinking of any household possession as +father's or mother's, or even mine, it becomes _ours_. The parents no +longer need to say, "Children, do not mar the furniture; it costs money +to replace it." The children know that already, and they have the same +pride in the home possessions and the same desire to preserve them as +they have in that which is peculiarly their own. A habit of mind results +from such a course so that, by thinking in terms of common possession of +the best things of life, there is cultivated that respect for the rights +of others which is simply right social thinking. + +The same plan could be pursued in relation to almost every interest of +the family--as the planning of the annual vacation and outing, the +holidays, picnics, and birthday celebrations, the church and religious +exercises. Above all, in the last mentioned, this social spirit may be +cultivated. The father may cease to be the "high priest" for his family +and become a worshiper along with the other members. The effect will be +that his children are more likely to stay as worshipers with him than if +they gazed on him as on some lonely elevation, unrelated to them in his +religious exercises. The reading, the song, the prayers, the comment and +discussion, the story-telling, and all that may make up the regular +specific religious activities of the family should be such that all may +have a share in them. Nothing could be finer, diviner, and bring larger +helpfulness for social living than the attempt of the least little +lisping child to throw herself into the unified family act of prayer, as +when one little tot, unable to say the Lord's Prayer, united in worship +at the time of that act by saying, as reverently as possible, "One, two, +three, four, five," etc., up to ten. The ability to count was her latest +accomplishment; counting to ten was bringing the very best thing she +then had and, in the act of family worship, offering her part to the +Most High. A fine sense of worship and a desire to be one with the +others in this united, communal service prompted the participation. + + +§ 3. COMMUNITY SERVICE + +Community service may be cultivated in the home. Here is the ideal +social community, where there are neither parasites nor paupers, where +all give of their best for the best of all. No one doubts that the baby +gives its full share of happiness and cheer, and the aged their offering +of consolation and experience; but the difficulty is supposed to be with +the lad and the girl who would rather play than work. Usually this is +because the habits of co-operation in the life of this community have +been too long neglected. The small boy or girl had no share in its work. +Parents are too busy to think through the matter of finding suitable +duties for all. It is so much easier to do things one's self, even +though the child misses the benefits of participation. More frequently +the blame lies in the fact that parents desire to shield children from +labor. Some would have them grow up without knowing what they count as +the degradation of toil. But a boy who knows nothing of the "chores" has +missed half the joys of boyhood, and has a terribly hard lesson ahead of +him when he goes out to relate himself to life. No matter what one's +station may be, there is a part to be played, and one's piece of work to +be done. The greatest unkindness we can do our children is to train them +to lives that do not play their part. The home is our chance to train a +man to harmonious usefulness in his world. Not only should the family +train to social co-operation and service, but it should train to +efficiency therein. Do not let your child's duties become a farce; let +them exact as much of him as the world will exact also; that is, +efficiency, accuracy, thoroughness, and fidelity. + + +§ 4. A SCHOOL OF SOCIAL MINISTRY + +The family trains lives for social ministry. The unsocial lives come out +of unsocial homes. The home that exists for itself alone trains lives +that exist only for themselves; these are the homes that throw the sand +of selfishness into the wheels of society; they ultimately effect social +suicide through selfishness. The attitude and atmosphere of the home are +of first importance here. As we think, so will our children act. If the +home is to us a place without responsibilities for the neighborhood, +without duties to neighbors, without social roots, then it is a school +for industrial, commercial, and social greed and warfare. As we think in +our hearts and talk at our table, so are we educating those who sit +thereat. + +If we would have our homes really efficient and worthy agencies for +education in social living, the first thing to do is to seek the social +atmosphere, to cultivate all those influences which young lives +unconsciously absorb. We all know that character comes through +environment in large measure, and that the mental and spiritual +environment is by far the most potent. Here is something that affects us +more than the finest or poorest furniture and that gives the real zest +and flavor to any meal. The choice of our own reading enters here, not +only the matter of reading in sociology, but of all reading, as to +whether it blinds with class prejudices, intensifies caste feeling, or +atrophies social sympathy by pandering to selfishness and sensuousness. +The control of our own feelings and judgment enters here. Do we +sedulously cultivate charity for others? Do we stifle impatience, +bitterness, class feeling? Do we guide the conversation of visitors and +the family group so that antisocial passions are subdued and a spirit of +brotherly love and compassion for all is cultivated? Here men and women +have opportunity to give evidence of a change of heart; here they need +that awakening to social consciousness which is a new birth, a +regeneration into the life of the Son of Man who came to give his life. + +By its active ministry the family is training for social living. When a +child carries a bowl of soup to some sick or needy one, he learns a +lesson never to be forgotten. The memories of hours of planning and +preparation for some neighborly service--the making of bread, the +packing of a box, the preserves for the sick--shine out like sunshine +spots along childhood's ways; they direct manhood's steps. + +We are gradually learning that social duties are not learned save +through social deeds; that even the most carefully prepared and +perfectly pedagogical systems of instruction fail, standing alone. The +college student uses the laboratory method in his sociology--though we +know that sociology may be as far from social living as the poles are +apart. The Social Service Association of the Young Men's Christian +Association has given up attempts to teach social duty in favor of the +plan of undertaking specific pieces of social activity. The home must +adopt the laboratory method. The important thing is, not what the father +or mother may systematically teach about the social duties of the +children, but what kinds of service, of ministry and normal activity +they may lead the children to; that is, in what ways they may all +together discharge their functions in society. + + +§ 5. FAMILIES AS COMMUNITY FACTORS + +Each family must clearly see its normal relations to its community, to +the social whole; first, as an association of social beings having +social duties, obligations, and privileges; then, to see that the +ordering of the daily life is the largest single factor in determining +the value of the family to the development of the community, fitting +harmoniously into the larger community, and rendering its share of +service. + +The disorderly home spreads its immoral contagion beyond its walls, out +into the front yard, out and up and down the street, and all through the +village and city. The City Beautiful cannot come until we have the Home +Beautiful. Training each one to play his part in keeping the house in +order, picking up and setting in place his own tools and playthings, +preventing and removing litter, scraps, and elements of disorder and +discomfort, acquiring habits of neatness based on social motives--these +things make more for the city of beauty and health than all our lectures +on clean cities. + +No family lives to itself. Young people need to see clearly how their +homes and their habits in the home impinge on other homes and lives. +This is impressed upon us in an accentuated and acute degree in city +living. One can hardly imagine a finer discipline of grace than +apartment living, though one may well question whether it is not morally +and hygienically flying in the face of the natural order. We may not +have for a long time municipal ordinances forbidding boiled dinners, +limburger, and phonographs in city apartments; but if, unfortunately, we +are compelled to live in these modern abominations, we ought to +cultivate a conscience that will not inflict our idiosyncrasies, either +in culinary aromas or in musical taste, on our neighbors. But there are +matters greater than these by which the home trains for social +thoughtfulness. No man has a right to grow weeds at home, because the +seeds never stay there. A howling dog, a disease-breeding sty, a +fly-harboring stable, must be viewed, not from the point of the family's +convenience, but from that of others' welfare. + + +§ 6. TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP + +The family has a duty to train children for Christian citizenship. No +other institution can take its place even here. Courses of lectures in +churches and settlements effect excellent results, and the study of +civics from the moral and ideal viewpoint should be encouraged in the +schools; but the home is the place where, after all, citizens are +trained and the value or menace of their citizenship determined. If we +stop long enough to get a clear understanding of what we mean by +citizenship this will be the more evident. + +Citizenship is the condition of full communal, social living in a +democracy. It is not a special department or activity of a man's life +which he exercises once in a while, as at the primary or at the polls or +through the political campaign; it is a permanent condition, the +condition of his social living in a democracy. It seems to be worth +while to think of this enough to be quite sure of it, for we have +thought too long of citizenship as a special aspect of one's life or as +an occasional duty; we have called for good citizenship at times of +election and have been content with dormant citizenship at other times; +we have said that one was exercising his citizenship when he voted, and +have forgotten that he was exercising it or abusing or neglecting it as +he walked the streets, talked with his neighbors, or in any way lived +the life that has relations to other lives. + +Matters of citizenship are simply matters of social living, as social +living expresses itself through what we call government; that is, +through communal, civic, national administration and regulation. +Citizenship is social control in action, not through political activity +alone, but through all that concerns civic and communal life. In view of +this it may be worth while to look a little more closely into the +relations of family life to this matter of the determination of the +character of our citizenship. + +The family is an agency for religious training in citizenship. The +family is the first, smallest, and still the most common and potent +social group. It is the community in which we nearly all learn communal +living. At first it is a child's world, then comes his city, and then +his nation, but ere long again the family is his own kingdom. Its +ideals, constantly interpreted in action, determine our ideals. Where +the father is greedy, self-centered, regarding the home as solely for +his convenience as his private boarding-house, where he is a despotic +boss, why should not the son at least tolerate bossism in his city if he +does not himself pattern after his father on a wider scale and regard +the city or the state as his private boarding-house and the treasury as +his private manger? Where the mother is a petty parasite, what wonder +the children regard with indifference, if not even with admiration, the +whole system of civic and social barnacles, leeches, and other +parasites? + +The very organization of the home must prepare for civic duty by laying +upon all appropriate duties and activities. It ought to be an ideal type +of community. But that can never be until we take the training of +parents seriously in hand; until we cease to delegate the pedagogy of +courtship, marriage, and home-founding to the comic supplements of the +Sunday papers and to the joke columns. Parents must themselves be +trained for the business of the organization of homes as educational +agencies. + +The life and work of the home ought to train religiously for +citizenship, by causing each to bear his due share of the burdens of +all. Where the child has been forced to do the indolent parent's share, +to support the slothful father, he can only look forward to the time +when he will be free to support only himself, and have no other than +purely egoistic obligations; this is an utterly immoral conception, and +one squarely opposed to good citizenship. Where the boy or the girl has +been trained to regard all toil as dishonorable, where each has been +taught scrupulously to avoid every burden, they come into social living +with habits set against bearing their share and toward making others +carry them. The indolent parent makes the tax-dodging citizen, as the +indulgent parent often makes the place-hunting citizen who becomes a tax +on the public. + +The ideals of the family determine the needs of citizens. Its +conversation, its reading, its customs, set the standard of social +needs. Where the father laughs at the smartness of the artful dodge in +politics, where the mother sighs after the tinsel and toys that she +knows others have bought with corrupt cash, where the conversation at +the meal-table steadily, though often unconsciously, lifts up and lauds +those who are out after the "real thing," the eager ears about that +board drink it in and childish hearts resolve what they will do when +they have a chance. Where no voice speaks for high things, where no tide +of indignation against wrong sweeps into language, where the children +never feel that the parents have great moral convictions--where no +vision is, the people perish. + +Yet to realize this civic responsibility of the home would be, in the +greater number of instances, to remedy it. In those other instances +where there are no civic ideals, where the domestic conscience is dead, +there rests upon the state, upon society, for its own sake, the +responsibility to train those children so that, at any rate, they will +not perpetuate homes of this type. We may do very much by the +stimulation and direction of parents. Men need but to be reminded of +their duty to make it a part of their business to train their children +in social duty. + + + I. References for Study + + Taylor, _Religion in Social Action_, chaps. vii, viii. Dodd, Mead & + Co., $1.25. + + E.J. Ward, _The Social Center_, chap. v. Appleton, $1.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + Lofthouse, _Ethics in the Family_. Hodder & Stoughton, $1.50. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What is the special social importance of the family? + + 2. How do children acquire their social ideals from the home? + + 3. What are the advantages which the home has as a school? + + 4. How do homes train for the responsibilities of citizenship? + + 5. Can you describe any plans of community councils in the home? + + 6. How would you promote community service in the family? + + 7. What are the dangers of unsocial and selfish lives growing in + the home? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[14] This chapter is, with the publisher's kind permission, taken, with +sundry minor changes, from the author's pamphlet, _The Home as a School +for Social Living_, published by the American Baptist Publication +Society in the "Social Service Series." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE CHILD'S IDEAL LIFE + + +The modern child is likely to miss one of the great character enrichings +which his parents had, in that he is in danger of growing up entirely +ignorant of the poetic setting of religious thought in historic and +dignified hymns. The great hymns have done more for religious thought +and character than all the sermons that have ever been preached. Even in +the adult of the purely intellectual cast the hymn, aided by rhythm, +music, repetition, and emotion, is likely to become a more permanent +part of the mental substratum than any formal logical presentation of +ideas. How much more will this be the case with the child who feels more +than he reasons, who delights in cadence and rhythm, and who loves a +world of imagery! + + +§ 1. SONG AND STORY + +Very early life's ideals are presented in poetic form; plays, +school-life, love of country, friendships, all take or are given metric +expression. So, for children, hymns have a perfectly natural place. The +child sings as he plays, sings as he works, sings in school, and, as +long as life and memory hold, these words of song will be his +possession; in declining years, when eyes are failing and other +interests may wane, fragments of childhood's songs and youth's poems +will sing themselves over in his memory; while in the years between how +often will some stanza or line spring into the focus of thought just at +the moment when it can give brave and helpful direction! + +Those years of facile memorization should be like the ant's summer, a +period of steady storing in mind of the world's treasures of thought. No +man ever had too many good and beautiful thoughts in his memory. Few +have failed to recall with gratitude some apparently long-forgotten word +of cheer, light, and inspiration stored in childhood. The special virtue +of the hymn, among all poetic forms of great thoughts, is that memory is +strengthened by the music and the thought further idealized by it, while +frequent repetition fixes it the more firmly and repetition in +congregational song adds the high value of emotional association. + +But what kinds of memory treasures are being given to the modern child +in the realm of religion? In by far the greater number of instances in +the United States neither church nor Sunday school nor home brings to +him any knowledge of the great hymns of religion.[15] In the churches +that use these hymns the child is frequently not in the Sunday +services; he is in the children's service or the school, while in the +majority of churches a weak-minded endeavor for amusement has +substituted meaningless rag-time trivialities for rich and dignified +hymns. Perhaps the custom of encouraging congregations to jig, dance, +cavort, or drone through the frivolities of "popular" gospel songs is +only a passing craze, but it is a most unfortunate one; it tends to +divorce worship and thought, to make worship a matter of purely +superficial emotions, and to form the habit of expressing religion, the +highest experience of life, in language, often irreverent and almost +always trivial, slangy, or ridiculous. It is an insult to the +intelligence of children to ask them to sing + + We're pilgrims o'er the sands of time, + We have not long to stay, + The lifeboat soon is coming, + To carry the pilgrims away. + +It is the duty of parents to know what their children are learning in +the Sunday school. Not only are they often missing the opportunity to +lay up the treasure of elevating, inspiring thoughts; they are acquiring +crude, mistaken, misleading theological concepts in the hideous, +revolting figures of "evangelistic songs"; they are storing their minds +with atrocities in English and in figures of speech; they are acquiring +the habits of sentimentality in religion and inhibiting the finer, +higher feelings. They are blunting their higher feelings by repeating +incongruous and nauseating figures of being "washed in blood," or they +are carelessly singing sentiments they do not understand. + +What can the family do about this? It ought to assert its rights in the +church. It ought to protest and rebel against the debauching of mind and +the degrading of religion (all for the sake of selling trashy books at +$25 per hundred). A parent would do better to keep his child from church +and Sunday school than to permit his mind to be filled with the +sanguinary pictures of God, the mediaeval theology of the modern +songbook, and its offenses against truth in thought and form. But the +family can work positively and more effectively by providing good hymns +for children in the home. + + +§ 2. TRAINING IN SONG + +Almost without exception all children will sing if encouraged early in +life. In the family group one has only to start a familiar song and soon +all will be singing. It is just as natural to sing "Abide with Me" when +the family sits together in the evening as it is to start "My Alabama +Choo-choo." Children like the swing of "Onward, Christian Soldiers" just +as much as in the northern states they like "Marching through Georgia." +If they do not know the hymns the home is the best of all places in +which to learn them. + +A large section of real family life is missing in families that do not +sing together. A home without song lacks one of the strongest bonds of +family unity, and the after-years will be deprived of a memory dear +indeed to many others. Days often come when the wheels of family life +seem to develop friction, when little rifts seem to throw the members +far apart, but the evening song brings them together. The unity of +action, of feeling, the development of emotions above the day's +irritation and strife, all help to new joys in family living. + +We may well think of the fine songs and the great hymns together. There +is no fixed wall between "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory," and "The Son +of God Goes Forth," nor between "My Old Kentucky Home" and "Jerusalem +the Golden." The modern home has the musical instruments to lead in +song--though they are not always essential--and lacks only the planning +and forethought to develop the joys of song. It must provide the thought +that applies the simpler forms of musical expression to the sweetening +and enriching of life. + +Let no one say, "My family is not musical." That simply means that your +family does not take time for music and song. Build on the training in +patriotic and folk-songs given in the schools; sing these same songs +over in the home and then associate with the best of them the best of +the hymns. Cultivate the habit of binding the whole realm of feeling in +music together, the hymns and the songs, to make religion mean beauty +and devotion and to make the finer sentiments of life truly religious. + +This costs time and thought. Someone must plan that the books of songs +and hymns are provided, that the opportunity is given, and that wise, +unobtrusive leadership is there. Have ready several copies of the book +containing the best hymns. Think out your plan of procedure in advance, +selecting the songs, or at least the first one. Then at the right time +simply begin to play that song and you will scarcely need to invite the +children to sing with you. + +Should anyone doubt whether children will enjoy singing good hymns, he +may purchase a few records for the phonograph, for example, "O Come All +Ye Faithful," "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," "O Zion Haste," "Holy, +Holy, Holy," "Abide with Me." These will suit those of from ten upward; +younger children will enjoy "Can a Little Child Like Me," "Brightly +Gleams Our Banner," "Jesus Loves Me." "I Think When I Read That Sweet +Story," and "For the Beauty of the Earth," though they will join gladly +in the other hymns. Or, instead of using the phonograph, sit down +quietly at the piano and play these hymns, with just enough emphasis for +the children to catch the rhythm, and they will soon be standing at the +piano singing with you.[16] + + +§ 3. PLAY ACTIVITY + +The child is a playing animal. Play is not an invention of the devil, +designed to plague parents and to lead children to waste their time. It +is nature's best method of education, for when a child plays he is +simply reaching forward in his activities to the realization of his +ideals. Play is idealized experiences. There is always a significance of +wider and maturer experience in children's play. Therefore the family +must find space and time and adaptation of organization to the child's +need of spontaneous, free activity in play. + +The special religious value of play lies in the fact that the child in +his games is experimenting with life, learning its lessons; especially +is he learning the art of living with other lives. It is our religious +duty to see to it that our children become used to living in society by +playing in social groups. Scarcely anyone is more to be pitied than the +lonely child standing in the corner of the playground, able only to +watch the games, because parental prohibition has already made him a +solitary and unsocial creature. + +The educational potencies of play are so great that we dare not leave +its activities to chance. Parents must study the power of play, its +psychological and educational values, in order to direct its activity to +the highest good. + +The adequate care of a child's play-life will involve, in addition to +the trained intelligence of the parents, provision for space in the +house and also outdoors, willingness to subordinate our peace and our +pleasure to the child's play at times, a reasonable though not +necessarily expensive provision of play materials, attention to the +character of the plays and playmates. The home will not lose its harmony +and beauty if it is filled with playing children. Its function has to do +with their development rather than with the preservation of chairs. + + + I. References for Study + + H.F. Cope, _Hymns You Ought to Know_, Introduction. Revell, $1.50. + + W.F. Pratt, _Musical Ministries_. Revell, $1.00. + + H.W. Hulbert, _The Church and Her Children_, chap. x. Revell, + $1.00. + + + II. Further Reading + + For a list of great hymns see _Hymns You Ought to Know_, edited by + Henry F. Cope, and mentioned above. It contains one hundred + standard hymns with a brief account of each hymn and of each + author. + + E.D. Eaton, "Hymns for Youth," _Religious Education_, December, + 1912, VII, 509. + + See report of the Commission on Worship in the Sunday School, in + _Religious Education_, October, 1914. + + Read especially the chapter on this subject in H.H. Hartshorne, + _Worship in the Sunday School_. Columbia University, $1.25. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What special advantages do songs and hymns have in their + pedagogical power? + + 2. What hymns do you remember from childhood? In what way are these + hymns valuable to you? + + 3. What changes would you like to see in the hymns the children + learn today? + + 4. What difficulties do you find in training children to sing in + the home? + + 5. Is it worth while to teach children to play? What games have + special educational value? What games have religious significance + or value? Give reasons for your opinions. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[15] One of the best collections of suitable religious songs is _Worship +and Song_. Pilgrim Press, $0.40. + +[16] An excellent plan is worked out in _The Children's Hour of Story +and Song_ by Moffat and Hidden, Unitarian Sunday School Society, in +which children's stories are given and following them suitable songs and +hymns with the music for each. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +STORIES AND READING + + +If we would teach religion to our children we must adopt the method of +Jesus; that of telling stories. The story has the advantage, first, of +its natural interest, and, then, of the indirect manner of its +presentation of the truth, together with the fact that that truth is +embodied in a statement of life and experience. Besides, story-telling +to any person of active interests is one of the easiest and most +stimulating methods of teaching. + + +§ 1. STORY-TELLING + +So much has already been written on the art of telling stories that only +a few suggestions are needed here. First, understand why you tell the +story. Normally a double motive enters in, namely, the conveyance of +truth in life, at the same time affording real pleasure to the +listeners. Either motive alone will be inadequate. You cannot convey the +truth without the desire to give pleasure; you cannot make the pleasure +worth while without the truth. But this is the place to insist that the +truth which you desire to convey must find its way to the conviction of +the child through the story and not through any moral or preface or +particular statement which you may make. The moral or lesson must be +clear to you but carefully held in reserve to direct the matter and +manner of the story. + +Secondly, be prepared to pay the price of this most effective method of +instruction. It will cost the reservation of a certain amount of time +both for acquiring the story and for relating it. It will require +careful thought and planning, especially to be sure that the story is +told in sympathy with the child's world. People who are too busy to tell +their children stories are, perhaps fortunately, coming to realize that +they are too busy to have children. If it looks like a waste of time to +turn off the lights and sit by the firelight for from twenty to thirty +minutes, we shall need to revise our estimates of the value of +child-character. Nor must we shrink from the investment of time in +preparation for the narration of the story; if it is worth telling, it +is worth telling well. + +Thirdly, keep a record of sources of stories. This may be preserved in a +notebook. One parent used a card-index for this purpose. There are a few +books published containing good collections.[17] You will find most +valuable your own little book in which you have noted down the fugitive +stories and short selections which are to be found in general +literature.[18] + +Fourthly, do not tell a story so as to close the child's interest in the +narrative. Stories ought to lead to inquiry and further reading in the +book or other source from which they have been drawn; indeed, +story-telling is one excellent method of quickening an interest in +reading. + +Fifthly, allow the children to retell the stories to one another. Often +the whole family will be entertained and helped by the explanation which +a small child will give of the story he has learned by hearing it +repeated a few times from his mother's lips. + +Sixthly, telling Bible stories to children in the quiet hour is the best +of all methods to stimulate their interest in the Bible itself. It is +much better to tell the story in your own language than to read it +either in the Bible or in a paraphrase. For one reason, you will never +tell it twice the same way, and children will watch with interest +changes in the narration. As soon as they can read, secure some of the +simple Bible narratives and put these in their hands.[19] + + +§ 2. BOOKS AND READING + +A home without books is like a house with only one window; it can look +out in only one direction, in that of the present. It knows only a +limited world; its children have a short measure of the joy of life, +they can know here only those whom they see today, their friends must be +few, their world narrow and confined. + +If the books are not in your home the children will find them elsewhere. +Unless the school kills the taste for reading, as it sometimes does, the +young folks will open ways somehow into the ideal realm of books. As +they grow up, the book takes the place of the story. The printed page is +the child's key to all routes of travel, routes that lead to other times +and lands, routes that lead to other people and into their hearts and +minds. The child sees conduct and feels it as it is in action in lives +before him, but he begins to discriminate and to analyze it only through +reading; souls are revealed where the purpose of the writer is that the +reader may see the springs of action in the character portrayed. +Fiction, biography, travel, and adventure soon pass from the merely +exterior happenings to the discovery of meanings in character. + + +§ 3. DANGERS OF READING + +Since the book needs only one for its enjoyment, while the story +requires two, there is less control over reading. There is only one way +to be sure that children are not devouring vicious books and that is to +make sure that they have an ample supply of healthful, helpful ones. +This is especially necessary in a day that caters to sloth in reading. +The tendency is for reading to take the facile decline from book to +cheap magazine, from magazine to newspaper, and from the newspaper to +skimming the headlines and the "funnies." The cheaper papers appeal to +the lowest intelligence and strike at the line of least moral and mental +resistance. Reading enriches the life but little and may impoverish it +greatly unless there is developed the habit of drawing on the world's +great treasures of thought and feeling. Open windows in your children's +souls by giving them books; keep them open by encouraging the reading +habit. Great souls wait for them, willing to converse and become their +friends and teachers if they will but take down these books from the +shelves and open them with an eager mind. + + +§ 4. DEVELOPING GOOD TASTE + +_What can be done to quicken a love of good reading in children?_ +Recognize that not all children develop this appetite at the same age, +that girls read more than boys, that boys usually have a period of +decline in reading interest from seventeen to twenty-one or even later. +But everything really depends on whether we ourselves love good books +and keep them on hand. One of the life-centers of a family should be the +bookshelf, while the picture of the evening lamp and the reading group +will constitute one of its best memories. Where books are at hand and +where they are used daily, the children need little urging to read. Now +this does not mean that yards of choice editions make a book-loving +family. There is a difference between bindings and books. It means books +known and loved, familiar friends for daily converse, books on handy +shelves and fit to be used as common food. + +_Do you know what your children read?_ Do you watch as carefully the +food of mind and spirit as you do that of the body? Do you show an +interest in the books they plan to draw from the public library? Can you +guide them intelligently when they ask for suggestions of interesting +books? Do you know the healthful, suitable ones? + + +§ 5. PROMOTION OF THE READING INTEREST + +The Sunday school might aid greatly in promoting the habit of selecting +and reading good books. Children often come home from day school +clamoring for some book which the teacher has recommended as interesting +and valuable. The Sunday-school teacher's recommendation would also +carry weight. In every church, whether there exists a Sunday-school +library or not, there ought to be a library or book committee which +would watch for the right reading for the different grades and would +cause the titles of good books to be placed on a bulletin board. +Further, such a committee might very well place a copy of the book +selected in the teacher's hand in order that the teacher might call the +attention of the class directly to it. Of course the range of selection +should be as wide as the world of books and should include fiction, +romance, song, and story.[20] Parents could do the same sort of thing. +Why not talk up the best books we remember? As to those old-time books, +we need to realize that tastes change. Perhaps they owed much of their +interest to their vivid descriptions of contemporary life. Therefore we +must commend the new books, those that belong to the children's own +days, too. This can be done, provided we really know the books, not by +saying, "We should like you to read _Sandford and Merton_," but rather, +"There is a capital story in _Captains Courageous_; have any of you read +it?" Leave the matter there, or, at most, go only far enough to +stimulate interest. + + + I. References for Study + + St. John, _Stories and Story Telling_, chaps. i-v. Eaton & Mains, + $0.50. + + Forbush, _The Coming Generation_, chap. viii. Appleton, $1.50 + + Winchester, "Good and Bad Books in the Home," in _The Bible in + Practical Life_, p. 38. Religious Education Association, $2.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + Partridge, _Story Telling in School and Home_. Sturgis & Walton, + $1.25. + + H.W. Mabie, _Books and Culture_. Dodd, Mead & Co., $1.25. + + + III. Methods and Materials + + ON STORY-TELLING + + E.P. St. John, _Stories and Story Telling_. Eaton & Mains, $0.50. + + Wyche, _Some Great Stories and How to Tell Them_. Newson & Co., + $1.00. + + L.S. Houghton, _Telling Bible Stories_. Scribner, $1.25. + + Bryant, _How to Tell Stories for Children_. Houghton Mifflin Co., + $1.00. + + E.M. and G.E. Partridge, _Story Telling in School and Home_. + Sturgis & Walton, $1.25. + + DIRECTING CHILDREN'S READING IN THE HOME + + Macy, _A Children's Guide to Reading_. Baker & Taylor Co., $1.25. + + Field, _Finger Posts to Children's Reading_. McClurg, $1.00. + + Arnold, _A Mother's List of Books for Children_. McClurg, $1.00. + + For a short practical list see the different lists classified under + Sunday-School Departments in W.S. Athearn, _The Church School_, + particularly pp. 54, 83, 118, 169. Pilgrim Press, $1.00. + + + IV. Topics for Discussion + + 1. Do you remember any stories which especially impressed you as a + child? What were their qualities? What were the qualities of their + narration? + + 2. What are your difficulties in story-telling to children? + + 3. Is the habit of reading books passing among children? If so, + what are the reasons? + + 4. What responsibility has the public library toward the child's + selection of books? toward promoting book reading? + + 5. How many families co-operate with the library? + + 6. How might the church co-operate? + + 7. Does the reading of newspapers by children affect their general + habits of reading? In what ways? + + 8. What personal difference is there, if any, between the effect of + a borrowed book and of one the child owns? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[17] Laura E. Cragin, _Kindergarten Bible Stories_. Fifty-six of the Old +Testament stories. There is also a companion volume of New Testament +stories. + +James Baldwin, _Old Stories of the East_. Fresh and interesting versions +of the familiar Old Testament stories. + +Kate Douglas Wiggin, _The Story Hour_. Good stories and a suggestive +introduction on story-telling. + +_Half a Hundred Stories for the Little People_, by various authors. + +[18] _A List of Good Stories to Tell to Children under Twelve Years of +Age_, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, $0.05. There are references to +books in which the stories may be found, including 25 Bible stories, 16 +fables, 14 myths, 14 Christmas stories, 7 Thanksgiving stories, etc. + +[19] Such as O'Shea, _Old World Wonder Stories_; George Hodges, _The +Garden of Eden_; Cragin, _Old Testament Stories_; Mary Stewart, _Tell Me +a True Story_. + +[20] The H.W. Wilson Co., White Plains, New York, publishes a list of +_Children's Books for Sunday-School Libraries_. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE USE OF THE BIBLE IN THE HOME + + +If we keep clearly in mind the aim of religious education in the family +as that of the development of the lives of religious persons, the place +and value of the Bible will be evident. It will be used as a means of +developing and directing lives. This will be quite different from a +perfunctory use because our fathers used it or a use under the +compulsion of the fear lest some strange evil should befall us, some +visitation of an offended deity. + + +§ 1. THE CHILD'S NEED + +Children need the Bible as a part of their social heritage. Just as they +get a larger life, inspired and stimulated by the realization of their +connection with the past of their family and their country, so the Bible +brings them into connection with the religious history of the race. +General history brings heroic forefathers into the stream of +consciousness; we feel the push of their lives. So the Bible reveals the +stream farther back and makes us part of the process of life in unity +with great characters and great movements. + +The child has a right to the Bible as his literary heritage. Here in the +Bible is the precipitation of the ideals of a people unique in the +place which religion held in their lives. Here is a literature which is +the source of much of the best in the language and reading of the +child's life. Its phrases are beautiful and convenient embodiments of +religious ideals; they will have a steadily developing richness of +meaning as life opens out to the child.[21] + + +§ 2. DIFFICULTIES + +The difficulties in the way of the use of the Bible in the home are: the +crowded programs, or a lack of time due to the absence of any program +for the days; a feeling of unnaturalness in the special reading of this +book; the decay of the custom of reading aloud; parental ignorance of +the Bible and especially of its beauties for the young; and the +excessive amount of task-reading frequently required by the schools. The +Sunday school also sometimes offends in this respect by overemphasis on +academic tasks for home work. + + +§ 3. METHODS + +First, let parents use the Bible themselves. Use the books as you wish +children to use them. This will be the longest step you can take toward +the solution of the problem. + +Secondly, use the Bible naturally. When children have an aversion to the +Bible it is due usually to two causes: the peculiar place and use of +the book which makes it a thing apart from life, and often an object of +dread; and the practice of using it as a task-book, to be opened only in +order to prepare Sunday-school lessons. Just as it takes years to +overcome the aversion set up against English literature by its +analytical study in the schools, so that the child becomes a man before +he voluntarily reads Dickens, Thackeray, the poets, and essayists, in +the same manner we have succeeded in making the Bible undesirable to +youth. If you read passages aloud, use the tone of voice which would be +appropriate if this was a new book not bound in leather. Read it for +pleasure as one would read a literary masterpiece--not because opinion +might frown on you if you had not read the classic. Does someone object +that that would be to degrade the Bible to the level of secular +writings? You cannot degrade a literature; it makes its own level and +our labels do not affect it. Certain it is that a pious tone of voice +will not protect the Bible from the secular level. But to use it +unnaturally will degrade it in the opinion of those who hear us. + +Thirdly, make its use a pleasure. All children enjoy story-telling and +listening to reading. Many parents practice the children's hour, some +period in the day when they will, alone with the children, read and talk +with them. Let the Bible story be the reward of a good day, something +promised as an incentive to good behavior. Children delight, not alone +in the story itself, but in rhythmic passages, in the poetic flights of +Isaiah and the beautiful imagery of the Psalms. To them it is natural +and pleasant to think of the hills that skipped and the stars that sang +and the trees that gave forth praise. They know the song of nature and +are happy to find it put into words. + +Fourthly, use the Bible as a book of life. How many times a day do +questions of conduct arise in the family! How often do children ask what +is right, and freely discuss the question! Here is a book rich in +precept and example on at least many of the questions. There are +pictures of actual lives meeting real temptations; there are the +epigrammatic precepts of Proverbs and of the teachings of Jesus. Call +attention to them, not as settling the question out of hand, but as +testimony to the point. Accustom children to getting the light of the +Bible on their lives, remembering that this book is a light and not a +fence nor a code of laws. + +Fifthly, use the Bible in worship. This does not conflict with the plea +for its use naturally, for worship should be as natural as any of the +social pleasures of the family. Here select those passages for reading +which count most for the spirit of worship. It is a good plan to read a +short passage, suitable for memorizing, so frequently that children +learn it and are able to repeat it in concert. Be sure that all the +passages read or recited are short. It will often be wise to preface the +reading with a brief account of its original circumstances, so that all +may hear the words as the actual utterances of a real man living in real +life. + +Sixthly, provide material which helps to make the Bible interesting, and +which helps children to see its pictures through the eyes of geography +and history.[22] + +Seventhly, make the use of the Bible possible at all times for all. See +that as soon as the child can read he has his own Bible, that it is in +large, readable type, as much like any other book as possible. It is no +evidence of grace to ruin the eyes over diamond-text Bibles. If +possible, also provide separate books of the Bible, in modern literary +form and some in the idiom of our day.[23] + + +§ 4. DOUBTFUL METHODS + +It is doubtful whether good comes from the use of the Bible as a +riddle-book, nor do the "Bible games" tend to develop a natural +appreciation of the book. There is no new light but rather a confusing +shadow thrown on the character of Joseph by the foolish conundrum +concerning Pharaoh making a ruler out of him. Sending a child to the +Bible to discover the shortest verse, the longest, the middle one, etc., +trains him to regard it as an odd kind of book, to think of it as a +dictionary, and to use it less. + +We assume too readily that a knowledge of the separate details of +biblical information, such as the date of the Flood, the age of +Methuselah, the names of the twelve tribes, the twelve apostles, the +books of the two Testaments, is the desired end. But one might know all +these things and many more and be not one whit the better. For the child +surely the desirable end is that he may feel deeply the attractiveness +of the character of Joseph or of Jesus, may say within himself, "What a +fine man; I want to be like him." Be sure the persons are real, that you +see them living their lives in their times, just as you live your life +now. + + + I. References for Study + + T.G. Soares, "Making the Bible Real to Boys," in _Boy Training_, + pp. 117-40. Association Press, $0.75. + + W.T. Lhamon, "Bible in the Home," _Religious Education_, December, + 1912, p. 486. + + G. Hodges, _Training of Children in Religion_, chap. x. Appleton, + $1.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + _The Bible in Practical Life._ Religious Education Association. + Numerous references to the use of the Bible in the home in this + volume. + + Patterson Dubois, _The Natural Way_, sec. iv. Revell, $1.25. + + + III. Methods and Materials + + "Passages of Bible for Memorization," _Religious Education_, + August, 1906. + + Louise S. Houghton, _Telling Bible Stories_. Scribner, $1.25. + + Johnson, _The Narrative Bible_. Baker & Taylor Co., $1.50. + + Hall and Wood, _The Bible Story_, 5 vols. King, $2.00 by + subscription. + + Courtney, _The Literary Man's Bible_. Crowell, $1.25. + + The above are but a few of the many collections of biblical + material. + + + IV. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What are the conditions which seem to make the reading of the + Bible different from other reading? Is there a sense of unreality + about it as a book? What are the causes? + + 2. Try the experiment of reading the story of Joseph at one + sitting. Try to retell this to children. + + 3. What biblical material stands out in your memory of childhood? + In what degree is this due to the art of the story-teller or the + reader? to the character of the material? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[21] See M.J.C. Foster, _The Mother the Child's First Bible Teacher_. + +[22] Mackie, _Bible Manners and Customs_. + +Chamberlin, _Introduction to the Bible for Teachers of Children_. + +Worcester, _On Holy Ground_, 2 vols. + +[23] For example, Moulton, _Modern Reader's Bible_. The new Jewish +renderings of Old Testament books are good, especially the Psalms. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +FAMILY WORSHIP + + +Family worship has declined until, at least in the United States, the +percentage of families practicing daily worship in the home is so small +as to be negligible. If this meant that a general institution of +religion had passed out of existence the fact would be highly +significant. But it is well to remember that family worship has never +been a general institution. We have generalized the picture of the +"Cotter's Saturday Night" so eloquently drawn by Burns; it has been +applied to every night and to every fireside. Daily family worship was +observed in practically all the Puritan homes of New England; but there +is no evidence for it as a uniform custom, either in other parts of this +country or in other parts of the world, save perhaps in sections of +Scotland. True, there were many families which observed the custom; but +there were also many families of church members and doubtless of truly +religious people in which family worship as a regular institution was +unknown. This has been especially true in the type of family life which +has developed under modern social conditions. Further, even so simple an +exercise as grace at meals has not always been a general custom. + + +§ 1. PAST CUSTOMS + +But the fact today is that family worship is so rare as to be counted +phenomenal wherever found. The instances, though not general, were +common a generation ago. Many are living to whom family worship afforded +the largest part of their conscious and formal religious education. +Following the morning meal, or, occasionally, the evening meal, the +family waited while the father, or the mother in his absence, read a +portion of the Scriptures and offered prayer. In other families the act +of worship would be the closing one of the day, perhaps participated in +by the older members only, the younger children having repeated their +prayers at bedside on retiring. A thousand happy and sacred associations +gather about the memories of these occasions: the sense of reverence, +the feeling that the home was a sacred place, the impression of noble +words and elevating thoughts, the reflex influence of the prayer that +committed all to the keeping and guidance of God.[24] + + +§ 2. WHY FAMILY WORSHIP? + +Parents need to see the values in family worship. We have been insisting +on the primary importance of the religious interpretation of the family +as an institution, on the power of the religious motive, and the +atmosphere of religion. But wherever there is a truly religious motive +and a permanent religious atmosphere these will find definite expression +in acts easily recognized as religious. Love is the motive and +atmosphere of the true home, but love blossoms into words and bears +fruit in a thousand deeds. The life of love dies without reality in act. +Ideals are precipitated in expressive acts. So is it with religion in +the home; it must not only be real in its sincerity, it must be +realized, must pass over into conduct and action, as suggested above in +chaps. vii and viii. And it must do this in ways so sharply defined and +readily recognized as to leave no doubt as to their meaning. True, all +acts may be religious and thus full of worship--this is most important +of all--but worship expressly unites all such acts in a spirit of +loyalty and aspiration. + +Worship is a necessity for the sake of the ideal unity of the family +life. Just as the individual must not only feel the religious emotion +but must also do the thing called for, so must this united personality +of the family give expression to its faith and aspiration, its motives +and emotions, in such a manner that, acting as a social unit, all can +together put the inner life into the outer form. The social value of +family worship is the strongest reason for its maintenance. It is the +united act of the family group, the one in which group consciousness is +expressly directed to the highest possible aims. Every period of worship +brings the family into unity at an ideal level. + +The expression of religion in definite forms is necessary for children, +too, as furnishing a means by which they can manifest their feeling of +the higher meaning of family life. The reality of that feeling is +stimulated in the daily, common life of the right family; the hour of +worship is one out of many definite forms of its concrete expression. It +is the form which gathers up the totality of feeling and aspiration into +an act of worship and praise toward God, the Father of all families. It +is evident there cannot be true worship in the family that is +irreligious in its essential qualities, in its character, in its ideals +and atmosphere. + + +§ 3. ADVANTAGES + +The period of worship is a necessity in interpreting to all the spirit +and meaning of a religious family. It objectifies the inner life. It +makes definite, tangible, and easily remembered the general impressions +of religion. It precipitates the atmosphere of religion into +definiteness. In the chemical laboratory of a university there is +usually a decided atmosphere of chemistry, but no one expects to become +a chemical engineer by absorbing that atmosphere, nor even to attain a +simple working knowledge by merely general impressions. Definiteness +aids in gathering up our knowledge, our impressions. + +The reading of the Bible in the home will give, when the passages are +wisely chosen, forms of language into which the often chaotic but +nevertheless valuable and potential emotions of youth fall as into a +beautiful mold; they become remembered forms of beauty thereafter. + +Family worship furnishes opportunity for direct religious instruction. +When the home life has its regular institution, as regular as meals and +play, the formality, the apparent abnormality of conversation about +religion, is absent. Children expect and look forward to the period when +the family will lay other things aside to think on the eternal values. +Their questions in the breathing-space that always ought to follow +worship become perfectly natural and sincere. + +Family worship lifts the whole level of family life. Ideally conceived, +it simply means the family unity consciously coming into its highest +place. Children may not understand all the reading nor enter into the +motives for all parts of the petition, but they do feel that this moment +is the one in which the family enters a holy place. They feel that God +is real and that their family life is a part of his whole care and of +his life. One short period of natural reverence sends light and calm +all through the day. Where the home is the place where true prayer is +offered, the family is the group which meets in an act of worship; here +and into this group there cannot easily enter strife, bickerings, or +baseness. One short period, five minutes or even less, of quietness, of +united turning toward the eternal, gives tone to the day and finer +atmosphere to the home. + +What our community life might be like without the churches, faulty or +incompetent as we may know some of them to be, what that life would lose +and miss without them is precisely, and perhaps in larger degree, what +the family life misses without its own institution of regular devotion +and worship. + + +§ 4. THE DIFFICULTIES + +We can always afford to do that which is most worth while doing; our +essential difficulty is to shake off the delusion of the lesser values, +the lower prizes, to realize that, of all the good of life, the +characters of our children, the gain we can all make in the eternal +values of the spirit, in love and joy and truth and goodness, is the +gain most worth while. We tend to set the making of a living before the +making of lives. We need to see the development of the powers of +personality, the riches of character, as the ultimate, dominant purpose +of all being. Once grasp that, and hold to it, and we shall not allow +lesser considerations, such as the pressure of business, the desire for +gain, for ease, for pleasure, for social life, to come before this first +and highest good; we shall make time for definite conscious religion in +the life of the family.[25] + + +§ 5. TYPES OF WORSHIP + +There are three simple forms which worship takes in the family: first, +grace offered at the meals; secondly, the prayers of children on +retiring and, occasionally, on rising; thirdly, the daily gathering of +the family for an act of the spirit. The statement of the three forms +reads so as to give them a formal character, but the most important +point to remember is that wherever they are true acts of worship they +are formal only in that they occur at definite, determined times and +places. The acts have no merit in themselves. Merely to institute their +observance will not secure religious feeling and life in the home. These +three observances have arisen because at these times there is the best +and most natural opportunity for the expression of aspiration, desire, +and feeling. + + +§ 6. METHODS OF FAMILY WORSHIP + +1. _Grace at meals._--Shall we say grace at meals? To assent because it +is the custom, or because it was so done in our childhood's home, may +make an irreligious mockery of the act. Perhaps, too, there are some who +even hesitate to omit the grace from an unspoken fear that the food +might harm them without it. All have heard grace so muttered, or +hurriedly and carelessly spoken, void of all feeling and thought, that +the act was almost unconscious, a species of "vain repetition." + +There are two outstanding aspects of the asking of a blessing--the +desire to express gratitude for the common benefits of life, and the +expression of a wish, with the recognition of its realization, that at +each meal the family group might include the Unseen Guest, the Infinite +Spirit of God. That wish lifts the meal above the dull level of +satisfying appetites. Just as, in good society, we seek to make the meal +much more than an eating of food, "a feast of reason and a flow of +soul," so does this act make each meal a social occasion lifted toward +the spiritual. The one thought at the beginning, the thought of the +reality of the presence of God, and of the nearness of the divine to us +in our daily pleasures, gives a new level to all our thinking. + +How shall we say grace, or "ask a blessing"? First, with simplicity and +sincerity. Avoid long, elaborate, ornate phrases. It is better to err +in rhetoric than in feeling and reality. The sonorous grace may soon +become stilted and offensive. It is better to say in your own words just +what you mean, for that will help all, even to the youngest, to mean +what they say with you. + +Vary the form of petition. Sometimes let it be the silent grace of the +Quakers; sometimes children will enjoy singing one of the old four-line +stanzas, as + + Be present at our table, Lord, + Be here and everywhere adored; + These mercies bless and grant that we + May feast in Paradise with thee. + +One might use the first three of the following lines for breakfast and +the last three at another meal: + + For the new morning with its light, + For rest and shelter of the night, + We thank the heavenly Father. + + For rest and food, for love and friends, + For everything his goodness sends, + We thank the heavenly Father.[26] + +or + + When early in the morning the birds lift up their songs, + We bring our praise to Jesus to whom all praise belongs. + +One especially needs to guard against the purely dietetic grace, the one +that only asks that the deity will aid digestion, as that form so often +heard, "Bless these mercies to our use."[27] + +Should we say grace on all occasions of meals? What shall we do at the +social dinner in the home? The answer depends on the purpose of the +grace. Is it not that in our own group we may have the consciousness of +the presence of God? When the meal is that of our own group with a +friend or two, we bring the friends into the group and the act of family +worship is maintained. Usually this is the case. So it will be when the +group is entirely at one in this desire: the asking of grace will be +perfectly natural. But when the group is a large one, when the sense of +family unity is lost, or when the observance would seem unnatural, it is +better to omit it. Grace in large gatherings often seems an uncovering +of the sacred aspects of the home life. + +2. _Bedtime prayers._--What of children's bedtime prayers? Many can +remember them. To many the most natural, helpful time for formal periods +of prayer is in the quiet of the bedroom just before retiring. But there +is a grave danger in establishing a regular custom of bedside prayers +for children, a danger manifest in the very form of certain of these +prayers, as + + Now I lay me down to sleep, + I pray the Lord my soul to keep. + +It is as though the child were saying, "The day is ended during which I +have been able to take care of myself, the hours of helpless sleep +begin, and I ask God to take care of me through the terrors of the +night." For some children, at least, the night has been made terrible by +that thought; they have been led to feel that the day was safe and +beautiful, but that the night was so dangerous and fearful that only the +great God could keep them through it, and it was an open question +whether their prayer for that keeping would be heard. + +One must avoid also the notion that such prayers are part of a price +paid, a system of daily taxation in return for which heaven furnishes us +police protection. + +The best plan seems to be to encourage children to pray, to establish in +them the habit of closing the day with quiet, grateful thoughts, to +watch especially that the prayers learned in early life do not distort +the child's thoughts of God, and to make the evening prayer an +opportunity for the child to express his desires to God his Father and +Friend. Having done this, as the children grow up it is best to leave +them free to pray when and where they will. One may properly encourage +the evening, private prayer; but the child ought to have the feeling +that it is not obligatory, that it must grow out of his desire to talk +with God, and, above all, that it has no special connection with the +hour and act of retiring for sleep but rather, so far as time is +concerned, with the closing of the day. Mothers must see far beyond the +charm of the picture formed by the little white-robed figure at her +knee. There is no hour so rich in possibilities for this growing life. +It is one of the great opportunities to guide its consciousness of +God.[28] + +3. _General family prayers._--It is true that, in many homes, under +modern conditions of business, it is almost impossible for the family to +be united at the hour when worship used to be customary, following +breakfast. However, that is not the only hour available. In many +respects it is a poor one for the purpose of social worship; it lacks +the sense of leisure. But there are few families where the members do +not all gather for the evening meal. It is not difficult to plan at its +close for ten minutes in which all shall remain. Without leaving the +table it is possible to spend a short time in united, social worship. +Or, by establishing the custom and steadily following it, it is possible +to leave the table and in less than ten minutes find ample time for +worship in another room. + +Really everything depends at first on how much we desire to have family +worship, whether we see its beauty and value in the knitting of home +ties, in the elevation of the family spirit, and in the quickening of +the religious ideas. We find time to eat simply because we must; when +the necessity of the spirit is upon us we shall find time also to +worship and to pray. + +Next to the will to make time comes the question of method. First, +determine to be simple, natural, and informal. A stilted exercise soon +becomes a burden and a source of pain to all. In whatever you do, seek +to make it possible for all to have a share by seeing that every thought +is expressed within the intelligence of even the younger members, that +is, of those who desire to have a share. This does not mean descending +to "baby-talk." Just read the Twenty-third Psalm; that is not baby talk, +but a child of seven can understand what is meant up to the measure of +his experience; the language is essentially simple though the ideas are +sublime. + +Secondly, insure brevity. For that part of worship in which all are +expected regularly to unite, ten minutes should be ample. Some excellent +programs will not take more than half this time. Family worship is not a +diminutive facsimile of church worship. Doubtless the experiment has +failed in many families because the father has attempted to preach to a +congregation which could not escape. Keep in mind the thought that this +is to be a high moment in each day in which every member will have an +equal share. + +Thirdly, plan for the largest possible amount of common participation. +This is to be the expression of the unity of the family life. Children +enjoy doing things co-operatively and in concert. + +Fourthly, treat the occasion naturally in relation to other affairs. +Proceed to the worship without formal notice, without change of voice, +and without apology to visitors. Take this for granted. At the close +move on into other duties without the sense of coming back into the +world. You have not been out of it; you have only recognized the eternal +life and love everywhere in it. + +4. _Suggestions of plans._--There are given below seven outlines of +plans of worship. They are plans which have been in use and have been +tried for years. Their only merit is simplicity and practicability; but +they are at least worthy of trial. There is no special significance in +the arrangement of the days and this may be changed in any way +desirable. Further, all plans should be elastic; there will come special +days, such as festivals and birthdays, when the program should be +varied. For example, on a birthday the child whose anniversary then +occurs should have the privilege of making the choice of recitation or +reading or of determining the order of all the parts of this brief +period of worship. + + + MONDAY + + 1. A short psalm repeated in concert. + + 2. A brief, informal petition by father or mother. + + 3. The Lord's Prayer, in which all join. + + Before attempting even this simple plan, prepare for it by first + selecting several suitable psalms. The following should be + included: the 1st, 19th, 23d, 24th, 100th, 117th, 121st, and a part + of the 103d. You would do well to memorize one of these yourself, + so as to be able to lead without reading from the book. Next, think + over with some care the things for which you may pray, the + aspirations which your children can share with you. Few things are + more difficult than this, so to pray that all can make the prayer + their own. Let it also be a prayer of love and joy, not a craven + begging off from punishments, nor a cowardly plea for protection + and provision. We can pray over all these things with gratitude and + with confidence toward the God of love. Do not try to preach in + your prayers. Many prayers have been ruined by preaching, just as + some preaching has been spoiled by praying to the people. Usually + four or five sentences will do for the one day. Better a single + thought simply expressed than the most brilliant attempt to inform + the Almighty on all the events of the world that day. + + A prayer in which all can join is always desirable. The Lord's + Prayer never wearies us nor grows old. Children enter into it with + some new meaning every day; it covers all our great, common, daily + needs. + + + TUESDAY + + 1. A few favorite memory verses repeated by all (from either the + Bible or other literature). + + 2. Read a very brief passage from the Bible. + + 3. Prayer, ending with the Lord's Prayer. + + Many excellent selections will be found in Dr. Dole's book + mentioned at the end of this chapter. Encourage children, however, + to make their selections from the poems and passages they already + know. + + The passage of the Bible selected to be read should be one which + first of all incites to worship, and should be chosen for its + inspiration and literary beauty. A few lines from the great + chapters of Isaiah (e.g., chaps. 35 and 55), from the Psalms (e.g., + Pss. 61, 65, 145), from the Sermon on the Mount, from 1 Cor., chap. + 13, from the parables of Jesus, will be suitable. + + The closing prayer may be extemporaneous or may be read from one of + the books of prayers. Many of the prayers in the Episcopal Prayer + Book are especially beautiful and quite suitable. Of course in + families of the Episcopal church the collect for the day would be + the right prayer to use. It is sometimes necessary to use prayers + prepared beforehand; some persons never acquire the ability to pray + aloud, even in their own families. But halting sentences that are + your own, that your children recognize as yours, may mean more to + them than the finest flowing phrases from a book. Use the prayers + from the book, not as a substitute, but as an addition. + + + WEDNESDAY + + 1. A good poem from general literature. + + 2. Prayer. + + There are so many good collections of the great and inspiring poems + that one hesitates to recommend any collection. Remember that a + poem may be religious and imbued with the spirit of worship, + helpful to the purpose of this occasion, even though it contains no + allusions to Scripture and makes no direct references to religious + belief. "A House by the Side of the Road"[29] is thoroughly human, + popular, and could not even be accused of being a classic; but it + has a helpful motive and is likely to lead the will toward the life + of service and brotherhood. Some would prefer to read a part of one + of the great hymns. + + + THURSDAY + + 1. A brief reading or recitation from the New Testament. + + 2. A few moments' conversation on the reading. + + 3. A very brief prayer followed by a song. + + The only apparent difficulty here is in starting the conversation. + Do not ask formal questions; rather put them something like this: + "I wonder whether people would do just the same on our street + today." Make the conversation as general as possible; do not + slight, nor scoff at, the contribution of even the least in the + group. + + + FRIDAY + + 1. A few verses in concert. + + 2. Read a parable or very brief narrative. + + 3. The Lord's Prayer. + + The reading had better be from one of the paraphrases if it is a + narrative from the Old Testament.[30] Even in reading the New + Testament one can at times use with advantage the + _Twentieth-Century Bible_ or the _Modern Reader's Bible_. + + + SATURDAY + + 1. A period of song. + + 2. Closing prayer, with the Lord's Prayer. + + Perhaps only one song can be sung. It need not be a hymn; that + should depend on the choice of the children. Help them to put + together all the good songs, including the hymns, in one category + in their minds. + + + SUNDAY + + 1. Ask: "What has been the best we have read or repeated in our + worship this week?" + + 2. Ask: "What shall we learn for memory repetition this week, what + psalm or other passage for our concerted worship?" + + 3. Read the psalm selected. + + 4. Closing prayer. + + 5. Period of song, lasting as long as desired. + + This exercise evidently permits of extension in time and should be + arranged in accordance with the program for the day. + + + I. References for Study + + George Hodges, _The Training of Children in Religion_, chaps. viii, + ix. Appleton, $1.50. + + _The Improvement of Religious Education_, pp. 108 to 123. Religious + Education Association, $0.50. + + Mrs. B.S. Winchester, "Methods and Materials Available," _Religious + Education_, October, 1911. $0.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + Koons, _The Child's Religious Life_. Eaton & Mains, $1.00. + + Hartshorne, _Worship in the Sunday School_. Columbia University, + $1.25. + + + III. Methods and Materials + + A.R. Wells, _Grace before Meat_. U.S.C.E., $0.25. + + C.F. Dole, _Choice Verses_. Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts. + Privately printed. + + F.A. Hinckley (ed.), _Readings for Sunday School and Home_. + American Unitarian Association, $0.35. + + J. Martin, _Prayers for Little Men and Women_. Harper, $1.25. + + S. Hart (ed.), _Short Daily Prayers for Families_. Longmans, $0.60. + + G.A. Miller, _Some Out-Door Prayers_. Crowell, $0.35. + + Oxenden, _Family Prayers_. Longmans, $1.50. + + George Skene, _Morning Prayers for Home Worship_. Methodist Book + Concern, $1.50. + + W.E. Barton, _Four Weeks of Family Prayer_. Puritan Press, Oak + Park, Ill. + + Abbott, _Family Prayers_. Dodd, Mead & Co., $0.50. + + _Prayers for Parents and Children._ Young Churchman Co., Milwaukee, + Wisconsin, $0.15. + + + IV. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What are the causes for the decay of the custom of family + worship? + + 2. What influences us most: public opinion, popular custom, + economic pressure? + + 3. How have the changes affected the religious influence of the + home? + + 4. What features of the older customs are most worth preserving? + + 5. Recall any of childhood's prayers which you remember. How many + maintain the custom of bedtime prayers in mature life? + + 6. What should be the central motive of "grace" at meals? + + 7. Would there be advantage in occasionally omitting the "grace"? + + 8. Give reasons for and against "grace." + + 9. Criticize the proposed plan of evening family prayers. + + 10. Describe any plans which have been tried. + + 11. Why is it desirable to maintain family worship? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[24] For a study of children's worship see H.H. Hartshorne, _Worship in +the Sunday School_; "Report of Commission on Graded Worship," _Religious +Education_, October, 1914. + +[25] "Parents who give up such a practice as family prayers mainly +because they know of many other people who have done the same are +just as much the slaves of public opinion and ignorant cant as the +narrowest Lowlander who forbids his children secular history on +Sunday."--Lyttleton, _Corner-Stone of Education_, pp. 207-8. + +[26] Quoted by W.S. Athearn, _The Church School_. + +[27] A number of good poems are given in A.R. Wells, _Grace before +Meat_. + +[28] W.B. Forbush gives a number of poetic forms of prayer for children +in _The Religious Nurture of a Little Child_, pp. 12, 13. + +[29] By Samuel Walter Foss. + +[30] One handy form is _The Heart of the Bible_, prepared by E.A. +Broadus; another, _The Children's Bible_. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +SUNDAY IN THE HOME + + +Almost every family finds Sunday a problem. Other days are well occupied +with full programs; this one has a program for only part of its time. +Other days are rich with the liberty of happy action, but this one is +frequently marked by inaction, repression, and limitations. As soon as +the evanescent pleasure of Sunday clothes has passed, for those for whom +it existed at all, the children settle down to endure the day. + + +§ 1. THE MEANING OF THE DAY + +Fathers and mothers who vent a sigh of relief when Sunday is over must +marvel at the strains of "O day of joy and gladness." Yet this day +defeats its purpose when it is of any other character. We have no right +to rob it of its joy and its healing balm. On the day made for man, +sacred to his highest good, whatever hinders the real happiness of the +child ought to be set aside. + +Instead of accepting traditions regarding the method of observing the +Sunday, would it not be worth while to ask ourselves, For what use of +the day can we properly be held responsible? Here are so many--fifty-two +a year--days of special opportunity. To us who complain that business +interferes with the personal education of our children through the week, +what ought this day to mean? To us who lament the little time we can +spend with our families, what ought this day to mean? And what ought we +to try to make it mean to children? + +We call this God's day; what must some children think of a God who robs +his day of all pleasure? If this is the kind of day he makes, then how +unattractive would be his years and eternity! It is the day when we have +our best opportunity to show them what God is like, to interpret his +world and his works in terms of beauty, kindness, riches of thought, and +love. + +It ought to be the day reserved for the best in life, for the treasures +of affection, for the uses of the spirit. Whatever is done this day must +come to this test, Is this a ministry to the life of goodness, truth, +and loving service? Does this enrich lives? In other words, we may put +the broad educational test to the day and its program and determine all +by ministry to growing lives. + + +§ 2. CONSERVING THE VALUES + +The family faces the problem of the opposition between the rights of man +on this day and the greed of commerce, the fight between a day of rest +and a day of work. Man's right to rest is assured, legally, but +commerce in the name of amusement and in the guise of petty and +unnecessary trading constantly maintains its fight to invade the day of +rest, to turn it from ministry to man as a person to the dull level of +the week of ministry to things. The home has much at stake in this +struggle. It needs one day free from the life that tears its members +apart, free from the toil that engrosses thought, free for its members +to live together as spiritual beings. + +In the need for one day, free from the things that hinder and devoted to +the life of the spirit, the home finds the guiding principle for the use +of the day; all members are to be trained to use it as a glorious +opportunity, a welcome period, a day of the best things of life. It is +devoted to personality, to man's rights as a religious being. + +Surely one of the best things of life will be that we shall meet one +another, shall look into faces of friends and companions! And this +opportunity of social mingling is lifted to a high level when it is an +act of the larger family life, the life that brings God and man into one +family. That is what the church meeting and service ought to be: our +Father's larger family getting together on the day of the life that +makes them one. For the child the church school and the children's +service of worship are their immediate points of vital touch with the +church family. If we think of the day as affording us the pleasure of +social mingling with friends and members of that family, Sunday morning +will cease to be a period of unwilling observance of empty duties. Of +course that will depend, too, on the measure in which the church and +school grasp their opportunity to make this the best of days.[31] + +Further, let the home keep this day as the one of personal values all +the way through, sacred to that life of love, friendship, and joy in the +presence of one another which is the essential life of the family. It +has always been a good custom for friends to visit on this day, for +families grown up and established around their own hearths to gather +again for a few hours. It is the day when we have time to discover how +much greater are the riches of friendship than aught besides, when, +looking into the eyes of those we love, we see "the light that never was +on sea or land," the ultimate good! + +The hours of being together are the hours of real education. Children +cannot be with good and great people and remain the same. Their lives +need other lives. Above all, they need us. This should be the day for +real mothering and fathering. Nothing ought to be permitted to interfere +with this, neither our social pleasures nor the demands of the church. + + +§ 3. THE PROBLEM OF PLAY + +What shall we do with the child who wants to play on Sunday? Is there +any other kind of child? They all want to. It is as natural for a child +to play as it is for a man to rest; it is as necessary. A child is a +growing person learning life by play. Because play seems trivial to us +we assume it is so to them; we would banish the trivial from the day +devoted to the higher life. In some families play is forbidden because +children find pleasure in it, and adults find it impossible to associate +piety and pleasure. + +Shall we then throw down all barriers and make this day the same as all +others? No, rather make the day different by throwing down barriers that +stand on other days. Let this be the day when the barriers between +father and sons, parents and children, are let down and all can enter +into the joy of living. + +Play is to a child the idealization of life's experiences and the +realization of its ideals. That is why he plays at school, idealizing +the everyday life; that is why he plays at housekeeping, at being in +church, at being a railway engineer, even a highwayman or an outlaw. The +traditional games are the game of life itself in terms of childhood. +Play as idealized experience and realized ideals is to the child what +the church, worship, and the reading of fiction and essays are to the +adult. Play is the child's method of reaching forward into life's +meaning. Some games as old as history carry a weight of human tradition +and experience as rich for a child as the adult obtains from historical +review and from association with the past. There is a sense in which the +child playing these games opens the Bible of the race.[32] + +We cannot make children over into our pattern; we have to learn from +them. Indeed, we come to life through their ways. We must become as +little children. Before we settle the question of play on Sunday we do +well to be sure that we know what play means to children, that we really +grasp something of its educational value and its religious potency. Then +we can proceed to a family policy in Sunday play. + + +§ 4. A POLICY ON PLAY + +_Keep the day as one of family unity._ Help the child to think of it as +a day protected for the sake of family togetherness. You can play that +for this day the ideal is already realized of a family life +uninterrupted by the demands of labor and business. + +_Maintain the unity by doing the ideal things together._ Go to the place +of worship together, provided it is the place where the child can find +expression for spiritual ideals. If the Sunday school does not really +lift the child-life and really teach the child, if it is not honest with +him and makes no suitable provision for his developing nature, he will +be better off in a quiet hour of family conversation and reading at +home. That means the application of parents to this hour.[33] It +banishes the monstrous Sunday supplement with its hideous, debasing +pictures. It substitutes conversation in the whole group, reading aloud +of stories and poems, biblical and otherwise, and songs, hymns, or at +times the walk in the fields or parks. Fortunately the better type of +Sunday school is more and more to be found; children are more and more +receiving a ministry actually determined by their needs. So far as the +church service is concerned the ideal situation is found when a parallel +service is provided for children, based on their needs and capacities. +As to attendance, under other circumstances, in the family pew, that +depends on whether the child is gaining an aversion to the church by the +torture and tedium often involved. Without doubt many adults acquired +the settled habit of sleeping in church because that was the only +possible relief in childhood.[34] + +_Maintain the family unity by stepping into the child's ideal life. +Expect activity and use it._ Why should we assume that because the adult +finds a Sunday nap enjoyable the child will be blessed by enforced +silence? I would rather see a father playing catch with his boys on +Sunday than see the boys cowed into silence while he slept a Sabbath +sleep. Children will play. Their play is innocent; more, it may be +helpful and educative; we can insure these values in it by our +participation. That is the parent's opportunity for a closer sympathy +with his children. Playing together is the closest living, thinking, and +feeling together. Where games are shared, confidences, secrets, and +aspirations are shared, too. Besides, the participation of the adult may +tend to tone up the game and to moderate boisterousness. + +_Seek the beautiful._ Speaking as one who has been under both the +puritanical regulation and the so-called "continental" freedom of Sunday +observance, nothing seems much more beautiful than the sight of an +entire family playing at home, in the park, or off in the woods or the +fields of the country. Life is strengthened, ideals are lifted, family +ties knit closer, gratitude is quickened, and courage stimulated by play +of this kind. + + +§ 5. POINTS OF DIFFERENCE + +But because it is evidently most important that this day should be +different from other days, it is well to mark that difference in our +plays and pleasures and to follow some simple principles for Sunday +play. + +First, make it the day of the _best_ plays. The participation of parents +will tend to have this effect. Sometimes some forms of play may be +reserved for this day. + +Secondly, our play should never interfere with the rights of those who +desire to be quiet or to observe the day in ways differing from ours. We +must respect the rights of all. + +Thirdly, our play must not cause additional or unnecessary labor. + +Fourthly, our play must not interfere with the pleasures of others. For +instance, in the city children who can use the public tennis courts +every day should keep off them on Sunday in order to give opportunity to +those who can use them only on that day. + +Having said so much on play on Sundays, we must not leave the impression +that play is the principal thing. It would be the principal thing for +children compelled to work or confined in crowded tenements on all other +days. This is a day of rest. Play should not be carried beyond the rest +and refreshment stage. + +Nor must we assume that a recognition of play involves neglect of +worship and instruction. Both should be cherished among the delights of +the day. Every attempt to make the day a happy one, by normal play, +associates the emphasis on worship with increased happiness in the +child's mind. + + +§ 6. THE SUNDAY AFTERNOON PROBLEM + +"What shall we do?" the children ask restlessly on Sunday afternoons, +and it is by no means a strange question. All the week they have their +school work, on Saturdays their play. No wonder Sunday afternoon seems +dull. Yet if we older ones use it aright this is our opportunity to give +them the best time of all the week. We can make this part of the day +really a holiday if we just take time to plan it right. There is +something wrong in the home in which the child, as he grows up, does not +look forward happily to his Sunday afternoons. + +Sunday afternoon should be a family festival time. Keep it sacred to the +family. Business and social life claim us all the week, and the church +claims its share of this day; but these afternoon hours we can, if we +will, reserve for our own home life, for the closer drawing together of +children and parents. To hold this time sacred for the children and +their interests will help to solve "the Sunday afternoon problem." + +1. _The child's question, "What shall I do next?"_--Children are +dynamic, perpetually active. They grow in the direction toward which +their activities are turned. Repression is impossible. We must either +find the best things for them to do, or let them chance on things good +or bad. The following outline for Sunday afternoon is given in the hope +that it may help to answer the "what next." + + + 1. Begin to make _The Family Book_. + + 2. Give "festival name" to the day, and take an excursion in honor + of the one for whom the day is named. + + 3. Organize an exploring party to discover peoples and scenes of + long, long ago. + + 4. Get acquainted with some beautiful home thoughts. + + 5. Enjoy an evening hour of song and praise. + + +2. _"The Family Book."_--To start _The Family Book_, mother or father +raises the question at dinner: "What was the best Sunday of all last +year, and why was it the best?" Everyone, from the oldest down to the +least, should have a chance to tell. The statements of the older ones +will encourage the younger. + +That question will start another: What is the very best thing we can +remember about the year past? Let everyone take a pencil and paper and +in just ten minutes decide on and write down the one thing best worth +remembering. Perhaps the baby cannot write yet, but he or she will want +paper and pencil, too. Now, instead of making our answers known to one +another, we fold the papers and keep them till the evening meal. We will +open them then and talk it all over. Afterward we are going to copy the +answers into a new book we are going to make. + +This new book is to be called _The Family Book_, and we expect to put +into it all the pleasant things we wish to record about our home and +family. Any blank book with ruled lines will do. Some time today we will +elect a keeper of the book, and before we go to bed we will see the +first entry in that book under the title, "Happy Memories of 1915." That +will make a good beginning for _The Family Book_. Next Sunday we will +discuss and set down in the book the happy memories of the intervening +week. + +3. _The festival name._--Now, we have been sitting, talking, and writing +as long as the children will care to be still. Suppose we all go +outdoors together, every one of us. What if the weather is bad? It is +seldom truly bad, and there is so much real happiness in going out in +all weathers together. + +But where shall we go? There is no fun in walking simply for exercise or +health. Well, says father, we can decide where to go by naming the day. +How? We will find the most interesting birthday or anniversary that +falls today or during the next week. If one of the family has a birthday +then, that one shall choose our walk for us. If not, then when we have +chosen the national hero or heroine whose birthday falls near this time, +or the event the anniversary of which comes nearest, we will go, if +possible, where something will remind us of that person or event. + +So we fall to discussing the possibilities. We search through almanacs +until we find the anniversary that suits us all. Perhaps one of the +parents has anticipated all this by looking up the matter, and has a +good name to suggest. Or the older ones may consult a dictionary of +dates. It may turn out to be the birthday of a national hero. In the +city he may have a statue; in the country may be found the kinds of +woods, flowers, or animals he loved. + +4. _The exploring party._--But even after the walk it will not be long +before the little ones are asking, "What can we do next?" So we organize +the exploring party. Our object is to discover the countries, scenes, +strange peoples, and most interesting persons we have heard of in the +Bible. We are to find them in the advertising sections of old magazines. +Let each one take a magazine and go through it, looking for oriental +scenes, for pictures of incidents and of men and women that will remind +him of Bible scenes and characters. These are to be cut out, explained, +and arranged in the order of time, as they happened, every member of the +family helping. The same plan may be applied to scenes of missionary +work, using blank books for stories of heroism which children will +illustrate with the magazine pictures. + +5. _Home thoughts._--"Home, sweet home," is just a corner of the +afternoon saved for the discovery and reading of selections that are +worth keeping in our memories and are also likely to help us hold our +homes in some measure of the love and reverence they deserve. There are +songs of home that ought never to be forgotten. + +6. _Religious reading and songs close the day happily._--Children love +religious reading and songs, provided they are offered for their worth +and not as an exercise, or to be learned as an empty duty. Take down +your Bible and read Psalm 100, "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all +ye lands"; see whether they do not all enjoy the music and majesty of +those lines. You will not find it difficult to secure their co-operation +in learning that by heart. + +Then close the day with an hour of song. The children will remember +songs learned thus all their lives; therefore those worth remembering +should be chosen. For one, there is that dear old song many of us +learned at mother's knee, "Jesus loves me, this I know." That and others +that are appropriate can be found in almost every hymnbook. Many books +of school songs also have a few hymns and Sunday songs that children +like. + +Parents are puzzled, perhaps most of all, to choose appropriate stories +to read to the children on Sunday. Youngsters prefer, of course, the +told story to the read one, but if you wish to read you will make no +mistake in selecting _Christie's Old Organ_; _Aunt Abbey's Neighbors_, +by Annie T. Slosson; _The Book of Golden Deeds_, by Charlotte M. Yonge; +and _Telling Bible Stories_, by Louise S. Houghton. _Some Great Stories +and How to Tell Them_, by Richard Wyche, and _Story Telling_, by Edna +Lyman, will serve as good guides to what to tell, and how to tell it. + +7. _Naming the day._--From week to week variety should enter into the +Sunday program. On the Sunday following the one described above we can +begin at the dinner table the happy task of "naming the day." We can +decide whether it shall be called after one of our own number, whose +birthday falls near this date, or after one of the anniversaries of the +week following. + +Perhaps someone suggests calling it after the feast day of the church +year observed by certain churches. That should lead to discussion and +investigation of the meaning of the day. + +When all are agreed on a name, write it under its date on your wall +calendar. It will be a convenient suggestion for next year, unless the +decision is for a different name when the day again comes round. It will +also call to mind some of the interesting discussions which it aroused. + +After this we might call for _The Family Book_, which now contains, you +will recall, the family's decision as to the best Sunday and the +happiest occurrences of the year before. The keeper, appointed last +week, must bring it out. We can read what we wrote a week ago and decide +on the things worth entering this week. Records of birthdays, special +happenings to each of the family, the bright sayings of little ones, and +the visits of friends and relatives all should go in. + +8. _"I remember" stories._--While _The Family Book_ is open is the +psychological moment for father and mother to tell stories of their +childhood. Every child likes to hear the story that begins, "I +remember," and feels a thrill of pride in belonging to something that +goes back and has a history. The old family album is a never-failing +source of delight, not so much because of the pictures as because of +what they suggest of family traditions. + +Now is a good time to select some certain thing which shall be used only +on this day, such as a festival lamp or candlestick, some festival +plates or dishes--just one thing or set of things toward the use of +which we can look forward during the week. This helps to make Sunday +what we used to call "a treat." + +9. _Golden deeds._--Last week we started _The Family Book_ in which to +keep a record of all the happy experiences that belong to our family. +This week we begin another book. In it we expect to place every week +just one splendid story, the account of a golden deed, some piece of +everyday kindness or heroism of which we have read or heard or which we +have witnessed. Everyone is to have a chance to contribute to this book, +all the family deciding by vote each week as to which story should be +placed on its pages. + +Did you read in the paper this week of some brave or kindly deed done by +a boy or a girl, a man or a woman? Did you see someone do an act of +kindness? Cut out the account or write out the story and have it ready +for your own _Golden Deed Book_. Everyone must watch all the week for +the right kind of stories. It is wonderful how much good you will find +in the world when you are looking for it. + +Sunday afternoons all the family can hear each story and talk over its +fine points of virtue and goodness. Thus may be developed an +appreciation of the human qualities that are really admirable. We can +discuss also the probability of certain of the stories and the +righteousness of the deeds. + +Any blank book will do, or even a composition book. It will help to keep +hands happily occupied if you make your own covers and cut out gilt +letters for the title. Often you can find pictures to illustrate the +stories chosen; sometimes you may prefer to draw the illustrations. Keep +_The Golden Deed Book_ in a safe and convenient place, because there +ought to be something to go into it every week. For instance, did you +read the other day of the young man who jumped in front of a train to +save a young girl? He lost his life, but he saved hers. Can you find +that story and put it in the book? Perhaps you have found one that seems +even more fitting. + +10. _Various plans._--Giving happiness creates it. Plan something every +Sunday for the happiness of others. Occasionally go in a body to call on +someone who will be made happy by the visit. + +If you walk in the park or elsewhere, see how many things you can +discover that you have read about in the Bible or know to be mentioned +there. + +Try the game of "guessing hymns." While someone plays the familiar +tunes, each takes a turn at identifying them and the hymns to which they +belong. + +Set aside twenty minutes for each one to write a letter to send to the +brother or sister, relative or friend, at a distance. Even the baby can +scratch something which he thinks is a "real enough" letter in penciled +scribbles. + +Close the day with quiet reading and song, or with the memory exercise +in which all endeavor to repeat some simple psalm or a few verses, like +the Beatitudes. All children like to repeat the Lord's Prayer in family +concert. + + + I. References for Study + + Emilie Poulsson, _Love and Law in Child Training_, chaps. i-iv. + Milton Bradley, $1.00. + + _Happy Sundays for Children_ and _Sunday in the Home_. Pamphlets. + American Institute of Child Life, Philadelphia, Pa. + + + II. Further Reading + + _Sunday Play._ Pamphlet. American Institute of Child Life, + Philadelphia, Pa. + + Hodges, _Training of Children in Religion_, chap. xiii. Appleton, + $1.50. + + + III. Methods and Materials + + _A Year of Good Sundays._ Pamphlet. American Institute of Child + Life, Philadelphia, Pa. + + + IV. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What is the real problem of Sunday in the family? Is it that of + securing quiet or of wisely directing the action of the young? + + 2. Recall your childhood's Sundays. Were they for good or ill? + + 3. What are the arguments against children playing on Sunday? Is + there any essential relation between the play of children and the + wide-open Sunday of commercialized amusements? + + 4. Can you describe forms of play in which practically all the + family might unite? + + 5. What characteristics should distinguish play on Sundays from + other days? Is it wise to attempt thus to distinguish this day? + + 6. Criticize the suggestions on occupations for Sunday afternoons. + + 7. Recall any especially helpful forms of the use of this day in + your childhood, or coming under your observation. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[31] See chap. xvii, "The Family and the Church." + +[32] See chap. vii on "Directed Activity," and the references for study +at its end. + +[33] Much may be learned by a study of Primary plans in a modern Sunday +school. See Athearn, _The Church School_, chap. vi. + +[34] Since we are dealing here especially with religious education in +the family, the author refers to his more extended treatment of the +question of children in church services in _Efficiency in the Sunday +School_, chap. xv. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE MINISTRY OF THE TABLE + + +Shall the periods for meals be for the body only or shall we see in them +happy occasions for the enriching of the higher life? Upon the answer +depends whether the table shall be little more than a feeding-trough or +the scene of constant mental and character development. In some memories +the meals stand out only in terms of food, while pictures of dishes and +fragments of food fill the mind; in others there are borne through all +life pictures of happy faces and thoughts of cheer, of knowledge gained +and ideals created in the glow of conversation. + + +§ 1. THE OPPORTUNITY + +The family is together as a united group at the table more than anywhere +besides. Table-talk, by its informality and by the aid of the pleasures +of social eating, is one of the most influential means of education. +Depend upon it, children are more impressed by table-talk than by +teacher-talk or by pulpit-talk. They expect moralizing on the other +occasions, but here the moral lessons throw out no warning; they meet no +opposition; they are--or ought to be, if they would be effective--a +natural part of ordinary conversation and, by being part and parcel of +everyday affairs, they become normally related to life. The table is the +best opportunity for informal, indirect teaching, and this is for +children the natural and only really effective form of moral +instruction. + +The child comes to these social occasions with a hungry mind as well as +with an empty stomach. His mind is always receptive--even more so than +his stomach; at the table he is absorbing that which will stay with him +much longer than his food. Even if we were thinking of his food alone, +we should still do well to see that the table is graced by happy and +helpful conversation; nothing will aid digestion more than good cheer of +the spirit; it stimulates the organs and, by diverting attention from +the mere mechanics of eating, it tends to that most desirable end, a +leisurely consumption of food. + +The general conversation of the family group has more to do with +character development in children than we are likely to realize, and the +table is peculiarly the opportunity for general conversation. Here, most +of all, we need to watch its character and consider its teaching +effects. Where father scolds or mother complains the children grow +fretful and quarrelsome. Where father spends the time in reciting the +sharp dealing of the market or the political ring, where mother +delights in dilating on the tinsel splendors of her social rivalries, +they teach the children that life's object is either gain at any cost or +social glory. But it is just as easy to do precisely the opposite, to +speak of the pleasures found in simpler ways, to glory in goodness and +kindness, and to teach, by relating the worthy things of the day, the +worth of love and truth and high ideals. The news of the day may be +discussed so as to make this world a game of grab, inviting youth to +cast conscience and honor to the winds and to plunge into the greedy +struggle, or so as to make each day a book of beautiful pictures of +life's best pleasures and enduring prizes. + + +§ 2. DIRECTING TABLE-TALK + +But table-talk, helpful, cheerful, and educative, does not occur by +accident. It comes, first, from our own constant and habitual thought of +the meals in social and spiritual, as well as in physical, terms. And it +reaches its possibilities as we endeavor to create and direct the kind +of conversation that is desired. "Let all your speech be seasoned with +salt," wrote the apostle, and we might add, let your salt be seasoned +with good speech. That is the quality we must seek, the seasoning of +healthful, saving, and not insipid, speech. + +One of the great advantages of "grace before meat" lies in this: it +gives a tone to the occasion. Its chief meaning is surely that we +remind ourselves of the ever-present guest who is also the giver of all +good. Where the grace is not a perfunctory act, but rather the welcoming +of such a guest, the meal has started on a high level. We cannot do +better than so to act and speak as those who take the divine presence +for granted. We need not preach about it; we need only to assume it and +move on the level of that friendship. Children will feel it; they will +seek to answer to it, and will find pleasure in the very thought which +they have perhaps never expressed in words. + +The central idea of the grace suggests another means of helpful +influences at the table, by bringing into our homes, for the meals, the +friends whose lives will lift these younger ones. It is worth everything +to live even for an hour with good and broadening lives. There are +obligations to our guests to be considered, and their wishes should be +consulted, but one always feels that children are being cheated when +they are sent to eat at another table and deprived of the peculiar +intimate touch with lives that bring the benefits of travel and +experience. Ask your own memory what some persons who ate at the table +with you in childhood meant to you. + +The wise hostess knows that even when she brings together the group of +mature folks, and even when they are wise and witty, she must be +prepared adroitly to inspire the conversation or it may flag at times. +How much more does the conversation need direction where we have the +same group every day composed largely of immature persons! When you have +thought of all the portions and all the plates, have you thought of the +food for the spirit? + +Before suggesting methods of selection and direction, let a word of +explanation be said: food for the spirit is not confined to theology, to +hymns and the Bible; it is whatever will help us to feel and think of +life as an affair of the spirit. And this must come in very simple +terms, by the elementary steps, for young folks. It will be whatever +will in any way help us to live more kindly, more cheerfully, more as +though this really were God's world and all folks his family. Whatever +does this is truly religious. + + +§ 3. METHODS + +Plan for the food of the spirit as seriously at least as for the food of +the body. Learn to recognize poisons and also indigestibles. The first +are subjects of scandal, bitterness of spirit, malice, impatience, +tale-bearing, unkindly criticism, and discontent. The second are +subjects too heavy for children: your formal theology would be one of +them, your judgments on some intricate subjects may be among them. It is +seldom wise to announce negative injunctions, but we can make up our +own minds to avoid the conversational poisons and, when they appear, it +is always easy to push them out. Even when the unpleasant subject is so +common to all and has been so impressive in the day's experience that it +threatens to become the sole, absorbing topic, we can say, "We won't +talk of it at table! Let's find something better." But we must then have +ready the something better; that will be possible only by forethought. + +First, save up during the day, or between the meals, the best thoughts, +the cheering, kind, ideal, and amusing incidents. Cultivate the habit of +saying to yourself, "This is something for us all to enjoy tonight at +the table." + +Secondly, expect the other members to bring their best. Ask for "the +best news of the day" from one and another. Encourage them to tell of +good things seen and done and of pleasant and ideal things heard and +spoken. + +Thirdly, use the incidents as the basis of discussion. Let children tell +what they think of moral situations. Often they will quote the opinions +of teachers and others. Always you will secure under these circumstances +the unreserved expression of what they actually think. A free, informal +conversation of this sort where opinions are kindly examined and +compared is the finest kind of teaching. + +Fourthly, do not forget the grace of humor. To see the odd, whimsical, +startling side of the incident or experience trains one to see the +interplay of life, to catch a ray of light from all things, and to +moderate our tendency to permit our tragedies to pull the heavens down. + +Fifthly, use this period to strengthen the consciousness of family unity +by recounting past happy experiences and discussing plans of family +life. In one family there are few meals from October to Christmas that +do not include reminiscences of the summer in the woods and by the +water, or from Christmas to June without plans for the next summer in +the same place. Then, too, if you are contemplating something new, a +piano, a chair, an automobile, talk it all over here. Let each one have +his share in the planning. The effect is most important for character; +the children acquire the sense of a share in the family community life. +They get their first lessons in citizenship in this group, and they thus +learn social living. Then when the chair, or what not, is bought, it is +not alone the parents' possession; it belongs to all and all treat it as +the property of all. + +Sixthly, introduce great guests who cannot come in person. It is fine +fun to say, "We have with us tonight a man who loved bees and wrote +books." Let them guess who it was; help, if necessary, by an allusion +to _The Life of the Bee_ and _The Blue Bird_. They will want to know +more about Maeterlinck and they will joyously imagine what they would +say to him and how he would answer, what he would eat and how he would +behave. In this way we may enjoy knowing better Lincoln, Whittier, +Florence Nightingale, and an innumerable company. + +Seventhly, this is the place to remind ourselves that table-manners are +no small part of the moral life. By the habituation of custom we can +establish lives in attitudes of everyday thoughtfulness for others, in +the underlying consideration of others which is the basis of all +courtesy. Children's questions on table-etiquette must be met, not only +by the formal rules, but also by their explanation in the intent of +every gentle life to give pleasure and not pain to others, so to live in +all things as to find helpful harmony with other lives and to help them +to find and be the best. It is not only impolite to grab and guzzle, it +is unsocial and so unmoral, because it is both a bad example and a +distressing sight to others. It is irreligious, because whatever tends +to make this life less beautiful must be offensive to the God who made +all things good. + +If we ourselves seek to maintain beauty, order, and kindliness in the +conduct of the table, our children acquire a love of all that makes for +beauty and order and kindliness, for righteousness in the little things +of life. A clean tablecloth may be a means of grace. You have to try to +live up to it. Order and quietness in eating are not separable from the +rest of the life. To lift up life at any point is to raise the whole +level. To let it down at any point is to let all down. But to lift up +the level of conversation at the table is to raise the level of the +entire occasion and to make it more than a period of eating, to convert +it into a festival, a joyous occasion of the spirit. The meal should be +in all things worthy of the unseen guest. + +How near we all come together at the table! In its freedom how clearly +are we seen by our children! Here they know us for what we are and so +learn to interpret life. + + + I. Reference for Study + + _Table Talk._ Pamphlet. American Institute of Child Life, + Philadelphia, Pa. + + + II. Topics Tor Discussion + + 1. The relation of mental conditions to digestion. + + 2. The relation of table-etiquette to life-habits. + + 3. The table as an opportunity for the grace of courtesy, and the + relation of this grace to Christian character. + + 4. Training children in listening as well as in talking at table. + + 5. Do you regard table-talk and table-manners as having any + directly religious values? Why? + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE BOY AND GIRL IN THE FAMILY + + +Much that has been said so far has had in mind only the problems of +dealing with younger children in the life of the home. Indeed, almost +all literature on education in the family is devoted to the years prior +to adolescence. But older boys and girls need the family and the family +needs them. Many of the more serious problems of youth with which +society is attempting to deal are due to the fact that from the age of +thirteen on boys have no home life and girls, especially in the cities, +are deprived of the home influences. + + +§ 1. THE GROWING BOY + +The life of the family must have a place for the growing boy. It must +make provision for his physical needs; these are food, activity, rest, +and shelter. Youth is a period of physical crisis. Health is the basis +of a sound moral life. Many of the lad's apparently strange propensities +are due to the physical changes taking place in his body and, often, to +the fact that it is assumed that his rugged frame needs no care or +attention.[35] + +It will take more than tearful pleading to hold him to his home; he can +be held only by its ministry to him; he will be there if it is the most +attractive place for him. Some parents who are praying for wandering +boys would know why they wandered if they looked calmly at the crowded +quarters given to the boy, the comfortless room, the makeshift bed, and +the general home organization which long ago assumed that a boy could be +left out of the reckoning. + +The boy needs a part in the family activities. He can belong only to +that to which he can give himself. It will be his home in the degree +that he has a share in its business. Begin early to confer with him +about your plans; make him feel that he is a partner. See that he has a +chance to do part of the work, not only its "chores," but also its forms +of service. But even a boy's attitude to the "chores" will depend on +whether they are a responsibility with a degree of dignity or a form of +unpaid drudgery. His room should be his own room, and he should be +responsible for its neatness and its adorning. Services which he does +regularly for all should receive regular compensation. In all services +which the home renders for others he should have a share; this is his +training for the larger citizenship and society of service.[36] + +The boy is a playing animal. Not all homes can be fully equipped with +play apparatus. But no parents have a right to choose family quarters as +though children needed nothing but meals and beds. The shame of the +modern apartment building is that its conveniences are all for passive +adults. To attempt to train an active, growing, vigorous, playing human +creature in one of these immense filing-cases, where all persons are +shot up elevators and filed away in pigeonholes called rooms, is to +force him out to the life of the streets. The thoughtless +self-indulgence of modern parents, seeking only to live without physical +effort, is the cause of much juvenile delinquency.[37] + +But play for the boy is more than shouting and running in the grass and +among trees; he needs books and opportunities for indoor recreation. For +the sake of the lad we had better sacrifice the guest-room if necessary, +and make way for the punching-bag and the home billiard-table or +pool-table; here is a magnet of innocent skilful play to draw him off +the street and to bring the boy and his friends under his own roof. If +possible his room ought to be the place that is his own, where his +friends may come, where he may taste the beginnings of the joys of +home-living in receiving them and entertaining them.[38] + +A workbench in the attic or basement has saved many a boy from the +street. Such apparatus truly interferes with the symmetrical plan of a +home that is designed for the entertainment of the neighbors; but +families must some time choose between chairs and children, between the +home for the purpose of the lives in it and the household for the +purpose of a salon.[39] + + +§ 2. RELIGIOUS SERVICE + +In the religious family there is valuable opportunity to train youth to +one form of participation in the religious life. Whatever the family +gives or does for social service, for philanthropic enterprises, for the +support of the church or religious work, ought to be, not the gift of +one member or of the heads alone, but of the whole family, extending +itself in service through the community, the nation, and the world. The +form and the amount of the gifts ought to be a matter of family +conference and each member ought early to have the opportunity and the +means of determining his share in such extension. The child's gifts to +the church should not be pennies thrust into his hand as he crosses the +threshold of home for the Sunday school, but his own money, from his own +account--partly his own direct earnings--appropriated for this or for +other purposes by himself and with the advice of his parents. Family +councils on forms of participation in ideal activities, by gifts and by +service, bind the whole life together and form occasions in which the +child is learning life in terms of loving, self-giving service.[40] + +The boy needs friendship. Not all his needs can be met by the schoolboys +whom he may bring into his room, nor can they all be met by his mother's +affection. He needs a father. The most serious obstacle to the religious +education of boys is that most of them are half-orphans; intellectually +and spiritually they have no fathers. The American ideal seems to be +that the man shall be the money-maker, the woman the social organizer, +and the children shall be committed to hired shepherds or left to shift +for themselves. + + +§ 3. THE FATHER AND THE BOY + +No one else can be quite the teacher for the boy that his father ought +to be. No man can ever commit to another, still less to some tract or +book, the duty of guiding his boy to sanity and consecration in the +matter of the sex problems. + +The first word that needs to be said on this subject is that such +problems receive safe and sufficient guidance only in the atmosphere of +affection and reverence. Do not attempt to teach this boy of yours as +though you were dealing with a class in physiology. The largest thing +you can do for him is to quicken a reverence for the body and for the +functions of life. By your own attitude, by your own expressions and +opinions, lead him to a hatred and abhorrence of the base, filthy, and +bestial, to a healthy fear and detestation of all that despoils and +degrades manhood, and to a reverence for purity, beauty, and life.[41] + +Be prepared to give him, on the basis of reverence, the clean, clear +facts. Be sure you have the facts. Do not think he is ignorant; he is in +a world seething with conversation, stories, pictures, and experiences +of evil. The trouble is that his facts are partial, distorted, and +unbalanced by positive errors; his knowledge is gained from the street +and the school-yard. Only a personal teacher can help him unravel the +good from the bad, the true from the false. Do not trust to your own +general knowledge; take time to read one of the simple and sane books on +this subject.[42] Be ready to lead him aright. Remember this subject has +provoked a large number of books, many of which are foolish and others +unwholesome. Do not try to deputize your duty to some doubtful book. + + +§ 4. FATHERING THE BOY + +But the boy needs more than instruction on a special subject; he needs +personality, he needs the time and thought of, and _personal contact_ +with, his father. Men who do not live with boys never know what they +lose. And alas, see what the boy misses! He has been his mother's boy up +to school age when school takes him and gives him a woman's guidance, +while the Sunday school is likely to keep him--for a while only--under +the eye of some dear sister who "just loves boys." The system is a +vicious one. The lad needs developed masculinity. If he gets it neither +in school nor in the home he will find it on the street corner, through +the vicious boy-leader of the degrading poolroom or the alleys. + +The boy who finds his father eager to talk over the game, to discuss the +merits of peg-tops, to walk, row, play, and work with him, finds it as +simple and natural to talk with him over his moral and religious +questionings as it is to talk over the daily happenings. To live with +the boy is to find the youth with you. But it is hard work discovering +your young men if you lost your boys.[43] + + +§ 5. THE GROWING GIRL + +Almost all that has been said about the boy applies to the girl of the +same years. Let _a special plea_ be entered here against the notion that +girls are favored when sheltered from a share in the activities of the +home. They desire to express their ideals as much as do boys. Much of +the so-called craze for amusements is due to the fact that the family is +so organized that there is no vent to the ideals there, no chance to +have a share in the business of life. Young folks with the sense that +"this is our home," not "our parents', but _ours_" bend their energies +to its adorning, and find in it the chance to realize some of their +passion for beauty and for service.[44] + +Mothers usually do better than do fathers in the matter of sex +instruction. Yet they usually begin too late, long after the little girl +has acquired much misleading information in the school. Here, too, the +first aim must be to quicken reverence for life, to set up the +conception of the beauty and dignity of sex functions before the baser +mind of the street has had an opportunity to interpret them in terms of +the dirt.[45] + +Above all, with boys and girls, the whole subject, including marriage +and the founding of a family, must ever be treated with dignity and +reverence. Foolish parents jest with their girls about their beaux and +boast that their little ones are playing at courtship. If they could +realize the wonder awakened, followed by pain and then by hardened +sensibilities and coarsened ideals, they would sacrifice their jests for +the sake of the child's soul. We wonder that youth treats lightly the +matter of social purity when we have treated the sacred relations of +life as a jest. If this family in which they now live is to be a place +of sacred associations, of real religious life, the whole matter of +marriage and the family must be treated with reverence. Their practice +will not rise above our everyday ideals as expressed in casual +conversation and in our own practice. + + + I. References for Study + + THE BOY + + W.A. McKeever, _Training the Boy_, Part III. Macmillan, $1.50. + + _Boy Training_, Part IV. A Symposium. Associated Press. + + Johnson, _The Problems of Boyhood_. The University of Chicago + Press, $1.00. + + THE GIRL + + Margaret Slattery, _The Girl in Her Teens_, chaps. iv, vii. Sunday + School Times Co., $0.50. + + Wayne, _Building Your Girl_. McClurg, $0.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + W.B. Forbush, _The Coming Generation_. Appleton, $1.50. + + Puffer, _The Boy and His Gang_. Houghton Mifflin Co., $1.00. + + Irving King, _The High School Age_. Bobbs-Merrill, $1.00. + + _Building Childhood_, A Symposium. Sunday School Times Co., $1.00. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What are the special needs of the growing boy? + + 2. What are the things that a boy enjoys in his home? + + 3. In what way does city life interfere with the natural + development of the child? + + 4. What are some of the natural expressions of religion for a boy? + + 5. How early should the sex instruction begin? + + 6. What does a father owe to the boy, and what are the best methods + of meeting the duty? + + 7. What are the normal activities for girls in the home? + + 8. What are their especial needs? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[35] A good brief book on the problem of the adolescent is E.T. Swift, +_Youth and the Race_; another, from the school point of view, is Irving +King, _The High-School Age_, which has much material of great value to +parents. + +[36] On the various activities of boys see W.A. McKeever, _Training the +Boy_. + +[37] See the notable report by Breckinridge and Abbott, _The Delinquent +Child and the Home_. + +[38] On the gregarious instincts see J.A. Puffer, _The Boy and His +Gang_. + +[39] See the books on manual work given in chap. vii, "Directed +Activity." + +[40] On the religious life of the boy in relation to society and the +church see Allan Hoben, _The Minister and the Boy_, and the author's +treatment of boys and the Sunday school in _Efficiency in the Sunday +School_, chap. xiv; also J. Alexander _et al._, _Training the Boy_, a +symposium. + +[41] On the attitude of reverence in this question read Dr. Cabot's fine +essay, _The Christian Approach to Social Morality_. + +[42] The works of Dr. W.S. Hall, _From Boyhood to Manhood_, for parents' +guidance with boys of thirteen to eighteen; E. Lyttleton, _Training of +the Young in Laws of Sex_, is excellent for fathers; _Reproduction and +Sexual Hygiene_ is a text for older youth to be recommended; also, for +reading, N.E. Richardson, _Sex Culture Talks_, D.S. Jordan, _The +Strength of Being Clean_. + +[43] For further studies of the problem of the boy parents would do well +to read: _Building Boyhood_, a symposium; W.A. McKeever, _Training the +Boy;_ W.B. Forbush, _The Coming Generation;_ W.D. Hyde, _The Quest of +the Best_. + +[44] On activities see W.A. McKeever, _Training the Girl_. + +[45] On the problem with young children see M. Morley, _The Renewal of +Life_; in connection with older girls see K.H. Wayne, _Building Your +Girl_. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE NEEDS OF YOUTH + + +Families are for the spiritual development of youth as well as of +childhood. The home is for the young people as well as for the younger +ones. But the very period when they slip from church school is also the +period when they are often lost to the real life of the family. In some +measure this is due to the natural development of the social life. The +youths go out to work, move forward into enlarging social groups which +demand more of their free time. They are learning the life of the larger +world of which they are now a part. + + +§ 1. THE SCHOOL OF YOUTH + +But the family is still the home of these young people; normally it is +still the most vital educational influence for them. Yet there is no +problem more baffling than that of family ministry for, and leadership +of, the higher life of youth. + +It is a short-measure interpretation of the home which thinks of it as +only for young children and old folks. The young men and women from +sixteen to twenty and over still need training and direction; they need +close touch with other lives in affection and in an ideal atmosphere. In +a few years they, too, will be home-makers, and here in the home they +are very directly learning the art of family life. + +For youth there are few effective schools, outside the home, other than +the streets and the places of commercialized amusement. Even where the +other agencies of training are used, such as college, classes, and +associations (such as the Y.M.C.A. and the Y.W.C.A.), life, at that +period, needs the restraints on selfishness that come from family life, +the refining and socializing power of the family group. + + +§ 2. SPECIAL NEEDS OF YOUTH + +What are the special needs of youth upon which the family may base a +reasonable program for their higher needs? + +First, the need of sound physical health. This is a period of physical +adjustment. Rapid bodily growth is nearly or quite at an end; new +functions are asserting themselves. The new demands for directed +activity may, under the ambitious impulses of youth, make undue drafts +on the energies. The apparent moodiness that at times characterizes this +period may be due to poor health. The moral strain of the period will +need sound muscles and good health. Parents who would sit up all +night--perhaps involuntarily--when the baby has the colic treat with +indifference sickness in youth and too readily assume that the young +man or the young woman will outgrow these physical ills. But bodily +maladjustment or incapacity has most serious character effects. To live +the right life and render high service one needs to be a whole person, +with opportunity to give undivided attention and undiminished powers to +the struggle of life. + +Secondly, this is peculiarly the period of the joy of friendships. The +social nature must have its food. This young man has discovered that the +world consists of something besides things; it is full of people. He is +just learning that they are all persons like himself. He enters the era +of conscious personal relationships. He would explore the realm of +personality. He touches great heights of happiness as other lives are +opened to him. It is all new and wonderful, this realm of personality, +with its aspects of feeling, thinking, willing, and longing. + + +§ 3. MAINTAINING FRIENDSHIP WITH YOUTH + +Do parents know how hungry their older children are for their +friendship? They will never tell us, for this world is too new and +strange for facile description; they are always bashful about their +hunger for persons until they find the same hunger and joy in us. We +imagine that they are indifferent to us; the trouble is we are hidden +from them. We seldom give them a chance to talk as friend to friend, +not about trifling things, but about life itself and what it means. +Perhaps at no point do parents exhibit less ability for sympathetic +reconstruction and interpretation of their own lives than here. They +recall the pleasures of childhood and provide those pleasures for the +children. Why not recall the hunger of eighteen years of age and give +these youths the very bread of our own inner selves? Or do we, when they +ask this bread, give them the stone of mere provision for their physical +needs or the scorpion of careless indulgence in things that debase the +tastes? + +One perplexing phenomenon must not be overlooked: it will often happen +that young people pass through a period of what appears to be parental +aversion. There will sometimes seem to be suspicion, violent opposition, +and even hatred of parents. This is no occasion for despair. It is a +stage of development. It is due to the attempt of a will now realizing +its freedom under social conditions to adapt itself to the will that has +hitherto directed it. To some degree the sex consciousness, which leads +to viewing the parents in a new light, may enter in. It may be easily +made permanent, however, if parents do not do two things: first, adjust +themselves and their methods to the new social freedom of the youth, +and, secondly, fling open the doors into their true selves now fully +understandable by these men and women. + +But the family life must make provision for the wider friendships of +youth. Somewhere this insatiable appetite for the reality of lives will +feed. Groups of friends your young man and woman will find somewhere. If +they cannot bring them into your home they will go elsewhere. You can +scarce pay any price too high for the opportunity that comes when they +are perfectly free to have their friends with them and with you, when +home becomes the natural place of the social meetings of youth. If you +are afraid of the wear on the furniture you may keep your furniture, but +you will lose a life or lives. Here is the opportunity of the home to +enter a wider ministry, to be a place of the joy of friendships to many +lives. + + +§ 4. AT THE DOOR OF A NEW WORLD + +As through friendships the youth enters and explores this wonderful +realm of personality he will find some persons more wonderful than +others. Those instincts of which he is largely unconscious will impel +him to make a selection. The same law is operative with the young woman. +Mating is normally always first on the higher levels of personalities; +it first calls itself friendship, nor does it think farther. But father +and mother, if they have the least spiritual vision, stand in awe as +they see their children taking their first evident steps toward +home-making. What an opportunity is theirs! + +Yet here, as the home faces its duty toward a family yet to be, is just +where some of the most serious mistakes are made. This is no time for +teasing and jesting, still less for mocking ridicule. If you treat this +essentially sacred step as a joke it will not be strange if the young +people follow suit and take marriage as a yet larger joke. The home is +the place where the home is treated most irreverently. Of course one +must not take too seriously those "calf" courtships, prematurely +fostered by boys and girls, under the pressure of the high-school +tendency to anticipate all of life's riper experiences. But even here +jesting and teasing will only tend to confirm and make permanent what +would be but a temporary aberration. In that case either silence or +kindly, simple advice will help most of all. + +To young people who think at all courtship has its times of vision, when +they stand trembling before the unknown future, when they, with youth's +idealism, make high vows and stand on high places. Give them at least +the opportunity to enter your inmost self, to find there all the light +you can give them and all the memory of your own joys and hopes. Make +them feel, though you need not say it, that they are at the threshold of +a temple. If to you this is an affair of the spirit it will be a matter +of religion to them. + +Approached in such a temper, many of the practical problems of courtship +settle themselves. Take the case of the young man at home. If he knows +that you think with him of the high meaning of this experience he will +not hesitate to bring the young woman to the home. She will feel your +attitude. Upon this level questions of times and seasons, hours in the +parlor, and all the matters of their relations will settle themselves. +If you treat courtship as a matter of the spirit he will do just what he +most of all wants to do, treat this woman who is to be his mate as a +person, a spirit, with reverence and love that lifts itself above lust. +This is the only ground upon which you can appeal to either in matters +of conduct at this time. The conventions of society they will despise; +but the inner law speaks to them when the outer letter has no meaning. + + +§ 5. THE SOCIAL LIFE + +We must expect our children to go out into their larger world. The +beginning of adolescence is the normal time of their social awakening, +their conversion from a nature that turns in upon itself to one that +moves out into a world of persons. For them, now, the home group ought +to be seen as a society as well as a family, as the social group +gathering about a definite ideal and mission into which they should +delight to project themselves. The appeal of religion is peculiarly +vivid just now, for it involves a recognition of one's self as a person +with the power of personal choices and with the opportunity to find +association with other persons. The family must aid its young people to +see the opportunity which the church offers for ideal social +relationships which direct themselves to high and attractive service. + + +§ 6. AMUSEMENTS + +What should the family do about the question of the amusements of young +people? + +Healthy young persons must have recreation. They will seek it on its +highest level first and find their way down the facile descent of +commercialized amusements only as the higher opportunities are denied +them. They would always rather play than be played to; they would +rather, where early labor has not sapped vitality, play outdoors than +sit in a fetid atmosphere watching tawdry spectacles. But play, the +idealization of life's experiences, they will find somewhere. To this +need the home must minister by the provision of space, time, +opportunity, and the means of play. If through either sloth, +selfishness, preoccupation, or a mistaken idea of an empty innocence of +life you make recreation and social intercourse impossible in the +family, the young people will find it on the street or in the crowd. In +the family that plans for recreation and provides facilities and time +for young people to play the problem is a minor one. + +But young people will naturally desire to project themselves into the +social amusements of the larger groups. Then we ought to know what those +amusements are; we must be able to advise, from actual knowledge, not +from hearsay or prejudice, as to the healthful and worth while. The home +must insist on the provision in the community for the safe socialization +of amusements. The thousands of young girls in the cities, who tramp the +pavements down to dance halls, primarily are only seeking the +satisfaction of a normal craving; and they, on their way to the dance +halls, pass the splendid plants of the schools and the churches, +standing dark and idle. Families must develop a public opinion that will +demand, for the sake of their young people, a provision for amusement +and recreation that, instead of poisoning the life, shall strengthen, +dignify, and elevate it. If the demand for clean drinking-water is a +proper one, is the demand for healthful food for the life of ideals less +so? + +There can be no doubt of the attitude of any home with the least +conscience for character toward all forms of public amusements in which +young people are herded promiscuously for the mere purpose of killing +time in trivialities. The "white cities" with their glittering lights +and baubles are often moral plague colonies. The amusements debase the +intellect, blunt the moral sensibilities, and appeal to the baser +passions. They are the low-water mark, we may hope, of commercialized +amusement. But they remind us that young people demand company and +change from the monotony of the day's toil. They ask us as to the +provision we are making for young people and challenge us to use their +inclinations for good. + +But besides these "shows" there are many dignified forms of social +recreation. Good music is to be heard and good plays are to be seen. + +The theater, whether of the regular drama or of the motion-picture type, +offers a perplexing problem, principally because, in the first place, +American people have been too busy conquering a new soil and making a +living to give careful thought to the social side of aesthetics and +recreation, and, secondly, because the ministry of social recreation has +fallen almost entirely under the dominance of the same trend; it has +been thoroughly commercialized. We cannot cut the puzzling knot by +simply prohibiting all forms of public theatrical entertainment. For one +reason, these forms shade off imperceptibly from the church service to +the extremes of the vaudeville. But the simple fact is that we no longer +indiscriminately class all theaters as baneful and immoral; we are +coming to see their potentialities for good. If the young will go, as +they will--and ought--to the theater, and if the theater can lift their +ideals, parents would do well to guide their children in this matter and +to enlist the aid of the theater. + +It is worth while to come to a sympathetic understanding of the place of +the drama and the opera, to see what they have meant in the education of +the race and what is the significance, to us, of the fact of the strong +dramatic instinct in childhood. Naturally the subject can only be +mentioned here and the suggestion be offered that parents take time to +cultivate an appreciation of good orchestral and concert music and of +the drama. + +The social life will find outlet in other directions. Young people need +our aid to find social groups which will inspire and develop them, +especially groups that are serviceful. + + +§ 7. THE CALL TO SERVICE + +This is the period when ideals begin to give direction to the hitherto +undirected activity of childhood and youth. Young people are idealists. +They see no height too giddy, no task too hard, no dream too roseate, +and no hope unattainable. If the times are out of joint they believe +they were "born to set them right." Whatever is wrong or imperfect they +would take a hand in setting it right. We know we felt that way, but we +are loath to believe our children also cherish their high hopes. And so +the tendency of the adult is to treat with cynicism the dreams of youth. +Often we sedulously endeavor to pervert him to our blasé view of the +world; we would have him believe it is a fated heap of cinders instead +of an almost new thing to be formed and made perfect. In the home those +ideals must be nourished and guided. See that at hand there are the +songs and essays of the idealists. Give them Emerson and forget your +Nietzsche. Renew your own youth. Get some of Isaiah's passion and let it +breathe its fervor on them. Feed by poem, song, story, essay, and +conversation the life of ideals. + +Stop long enough to see the life that like an engine with steam up is +surely going somewhere and help it to find an engineer. We call this the +period of sowing wild oats. Wild oats are simply energies invested in +the wrong places. The dynamic of youth must go somewhere and do +something. Fundamentally it would rather go to the good than the bad. We +know that this was true of us at that time; why should we assume less of +others? Hold to your faith in youth. Fathers who with open eyes and +active minds--not with sleepy fatalism--believe in their boys, have boys +who believe in them. + +They wait for leadership. If you have dropped into the easy slippers of +indifference to social reform and other types of ideal service, get +back into the fight again beside this new man of yours. + +They wait for friendship in this matter of their ideals and their +service. At any cost keep open house of the heart. + +They wait for a life-task. This is the period of vocational choice. It +will make a tremendous difference to this life whether his work shall be +merely a matter of making a living or shall be his chance to invest life +in accordance with his new ideals. Shall he go out to be merely one of +the many wage-earners or salary-winners to whom life is a great orange +from which he will get all the juice if he can, regardless of who else +goes thirsty? Or shall he see an occupation as his chance to pay back to +today and tomorrow that which he owes to yesterday? as his chance to +give the world himself? He need not be a minister or a missionary to +make his life a ministry; he will find life, he will be a religious +person in no other way than as his dominating motive shall be to find +the fulness of life in order to have a full life to give to God's world. +The answer will depend on what life means to you, how you are +interpreting it, and how you aid him in thinking of it and making his +high choice. You will have abundant opportunity to show what it is to +you--as you have been doing all along--by your daily attitude; you will +have abundant opportunity to talk it all over, for he will certainly +discuss his trade or profession with you. The family must give to the +life of the new day makers of families to whom life means a chance to +realize the God-vision of the world. + + + I. References for Study + + H.C. King, _Personal and Ideal Elements in Education_, pp. 105-27. + Macmillan, $1.50. + + E.D. Starbuck, _The Psychology of Religion_, chaps., xvi-xxi. + Scribner, $1.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + 1. ON YOUTH + + C.R. Brown, _The Young Man's Affairs_. Crowell, $1.00. + + Wayne, _Building the Young Man_. McClurg, $0.50. + + Swift, _Youth and the Race_. Scribner, $1.50. + + Wilson, _Making the Most of Ourselves_. McClurg, $1.00. + + 2. ON RECREATIONS + + L.C. Lillie, _The Story of Music and the Musicians_. Harper, $0.60. + + Gustav Kobbe, _How to Appreciate Music_. Moffat, $1.50. + + P. Chubb, _Festivals and Plays_. Harper, $2.00. + + _Dramatics in the Home, Children in the Theater, Problems of + Dramatic Plays_, monographs published by the American Institute of + Child Life. Philadelphia, Pa. + + L.H. Gulick, _Popular Recreation and Public Morality_. American + Unitarian Association. Free. + + M. Fowler, _Morality of Social Pleasures_. Longmans, $1.00. + + Addams, _The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets_. Macmillan, + $1.25. + + The moving-picture or cinema presents a problem to parents; see + Herbert A. Jump, _The Religious Possibilities of the Motion + Picture_ (a pamphlet) and _Vaudeville and Moving Pictures_, a + report of an investigation in Portland, Ore. _Reed College Record, + No. 16._ + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What are the reasons why young people leave home? + + 2. Where do the young men and young women whom you know spend their + evenings? Why is this the case? + + 3. Mention the special needs of young people in the family. + + 4. What are the difficulties in maintaining the friendship of our + young people? + + 5. Have you ever seen evidences of the phase mentioned as aversion + to parents? + + 6. What are some common mistakes of treating the subject of + courtship? + + 7. What are the special social needs of young people? + + 8. What is the religious significance of the period of social + awakening? + + 9. What are the special dangerous tendencies in public amusements? + + 10. How does the social instinct express itself in social service? + + 11. What of the relation of "wild oats" to directed work? + + 12. What may be done for vocational direction in the family? + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE FAMILY AND THE CHURCH + + +If the family is engaged in the development of religious character +through its life and organization, it ought somehow to find very close +relations with the other great social institution engaged in precisely +the same work, the church. Both churches and homes are agencies of +religious education. In a state which separates the ecclesiastical and +the civil functions, where freedom of conscience is fully maintained, +these two are the only religious agencies engaged in education. + +As the family is the child's first society, so the local church should +be the child's second, larger, wider society. The home constitutes the +first social organization for life, the one in which growing lives +prepare for the wider social living. Then should come the next forms of +social organization, the school and the church, each grouping lives +together and preparing them, by actual living, for wider circles of +life. + + +§ 1. RELATIONS OF CHURCH AND HOME + +Many of the perplexing problems which arise in the family, as an +institution, in respect to its relations to the church, and as to the +developing relations of children to the church, would be largely solved +if we could get an understanding of the fundamental relations of these +two institutions. The institutional difficulties occur because these +relations appear to be competitive. Here is the family with its +interests in bread-winning, comforts, recreations, and pleasures, and on +the opposite side, making apparently competing claims for money, time, +interest, and service, stands the church. That is the picture +unconsciously forming in many minds. There is more or less feeling that +money given to the church is taken from the family and impoverishes it +to that degree, that time given to the church is grudgingly spared from +the pleasures of the home, that it is always a moot question which of +the two institutions shall win in the conflict of interests. + +But the family must take for granted the church as its next of kin. The +home must not by its attitude and conversation assume that the problems +of the relationship of children to the church arise largely from the +opposite concept, as though these were rival institutions. We carelessly +think of the children as those who, now belonging to us, are to be +persuaded to give their allegiance to another institution, the interests +of which are in a different sphere. We think of the church as an +independent thing and therefore feel quite free to discuss its merits or +shortcomings and to criticize it if it fails to meet our standards, +just as we would criticize the baker for soggy or short-weight bread; to +our minds, the church is something set off in society, separate from the +homes, as much so as the schools or the library or a fraternal lodge. + +This thought of the church as a separate something, having an existence +independent of ourselves and our families, leads us farther astray and +makes yet more difficult the development of right relations between the +church and the children. If the church is a thing apart we can analyze +its imperfections as we might stand and ridicule a regiment of raw +recruits. It marches by while we stand on the curb. But here, surely, is +one of the simplest and most easily forgotten truisms: the church is no +more than our own selves associated for certain purposes. If the church +fails in an adequate ministry for children, shall we condemn it as we +would a bridge that failed to carry a reasonable load? We do but condemn +ourselves. If my church is not fit to send my children to, then I must +help to make it fit. Before falling back on the lazy man's salve of +caustic ridicule, before taking the seat of the scornful, before setting +in the child's mind an aversion to this institution, based on my +opinion, let me be sure I have done all that lies in my power to better +it. True, I am only one; but surely, where so many family tables are +each Sunday devoted to finding fault with the church and its services, +I can find many others who will aid in at least stimulating a sense of +personal responsibility for any incompleteness in the church. + +The family cannot afford to take the attitude of hostile criticism, for +it is thus fighting its first and most natural ally, the one other +institution engaged in its own special work. If the forces for spiritual +character be divided, how easily do the opposing forces enter in and +occupy! The family needs the support of the wider public opinion of the +church, insisting on the supremacy of righteousness. The family needs +the co-operation of the church in its task of developing religious +lives. The family needs the power of this larger social body controlling +social conditions and making them contributory to character purposes. +The family needs the stimulus which a larger group can give to children +and young people. + +This does not mean that we must never criticize the church. It is not +set off in a niche protected from the acid of secular tongues and minds. +Ministers of the gospel are unduly resentful of criticism, perhaps +because, after they leave the seminary, no one has a fair opportunity to +controvert their publicly stated opinions. But the church needs the +cleansing powers of kindly, wise, creative criticism. Anyone can find +fault, but he is wise who can show us a better way. This church is the +family's ally; it is our business to aid her to greater effectiveness. +The new church for our own day awaits the services of the men of today. + +The purpose of the family is the basis of alliance with the church. As +in every other relation and purpose of the home, so here: the dominant +factor is the conscious function of the home and family. If the home is +really a religious institution it will seek natural alliance with all +other truly religious institutions. Ideally, what is a church but a +group of families associated for religious purposes? Is not the church +simply a number of families co-operating in the ideal purposes of each +family, the development of the lives of religious persons and the +control of social conditions for the sake of that purpose? Without +entering into disputation as to the relationship of little children to +the church, is there not just this relation to the human society called +the church, that it is a grouping of families for the purpose of the +divine family? + + +§ 2. THE FAMILY IDEAL IN THE CHURCH + +Would there be any question as to the naturalness of the relation of our +children to the church if the family ideal so controlled our thinking as +to saturate theirs? Is not this the present need, that both family and +church shall conceive the latter in family terms? By this is meant, not +simply that we shall think of what is called "a family church," a church +into which we succeed in projecting our families in a fair degree of +integrity, but that we shall think of the organization and mission of +the church in terms of family life and of the ideal of the divine +family. Keeping in mind the general definition already given of a family +as persons associated for the development of spiritual persons, let us +hold the church to that same ideal; the lives of persons associated in +the broadest fellowship that includes both God and man for the purposes +of spiritual personality. The church then should be the expression of +that family of which Jesus often spoke, the family that calls God Father +and man brother. + +Closer and more helpful relations between family and church follow where +the principles of the family prevail in the latter. The family is an +ideal democracy because it exists primarily for persons. It places the +value of persons first of all. So with the true church; it will exist to +grow lives to spiritual fulness, and to this end all buildings, +adornments, exercises, teachings, and organizations will be but as +tools, as means serving that purpose. As the family sees its house, +table, and activities designed to personal ends, so will the church. In +an institution existing to grow lives, the great principle of democracy +and of the family will prevail, viz., that to the least we owe the most. +Just as the home gives its best to the little child, so will the church +place the child in the midst. Just as the home exists for the child and +thus holds to itself all other lives, so will the church some day exist +for the little ones and so hold and use all other lives. + +The prime difficulty of relating the children in our families to the +average church lies in the fact that they are children, while the church +is an adult institution. Its buildings are designed for adults--save in +rare and happy exceptions;[46] its services are designed for adults; it +has a more or less extraneous institution called a school for the +children. The church spends its money for adults; it compasses sea and +land to make one proselyte and coerce him back in old age, and allows +the many that already as children are its own to drift away. It often +fails to see that if it is to grow lives it must grow them in the +growing period. There still remain many churches that must be converted +from the selfishness of adult ministry and entertainment to self-giving +service for the development of spiritual lives and, especially, for the +development of such lives through childhood and youth. They must hear +again the Master's voice regarding "these little ones," regarding the +significance of the child. And all must be loyal to his picture of his +Kingdom as a family and must, therefore, do what all true families do, +become child-centric. A church in which children occupy the same place +that they hold in an ideal family will have no difficulty in finding a +place for the children. It will be a natural and unnoticed transition +from the family life in the home to the family life in the church. + + +§ 3. A PLACE FOR ALL IN THE CHURCH + +The family may help directly toward the realization of this ideal by an +insistence on the family conception and the family program in the +church. Bring the children with you to the church and seek to find there +a place for each as natural as the place he occupies in the home. If the +church makes no such provision, if it has no place for children, in the +name of our wider spiritual family relationships we must demand it. Let +the voice of the family be heard insisting on suitable buildings and +specially designed worship for child-life--suitable forms of service and +activity. Let the thought that goes to furnish these in the home be +carried over to provide them in the church. + +Parents may help their children to find right relations with the church +by their attitude toward it as the larger family group. To think and act +toward this institution as our home, the wider home of the families, is +to establish similar habits of thought in children. Such a concept is +not always easy to maintain; the church includes many of different +habits of thought from ourselves, divergent tastes and habits of general +life. Here one must exercise the family principle of responsibility +toward the weaker and immature. This family, the church, just like our +own family, exists, not to minister to our tastes, but that we may all +minister to others. + +The principal service which the family may render to the church is, +then, to foster an interpretation and view of the latter which will +relate it more closely to the home and will make it evidently natural +for child-life to move out into this wider social organization for +religious culture and service. Surely this should be the attitude toward +membership in the church, whether that membership begins theoretically +in infancy or in maturer years; the child is trained to see the church +as his normal society, the group into which he naturally moves and in +which he finds his opportunity for fellowship and service. The family +may well hold that relationship steadily before its members. In +childhood the child is in the church in the fellowship of those who +learn. The Sunday school is the spiritual family in groups discovering +the way of the religious life and the art of its service. The fellowship +grows closer and the sense of unity deepens as the child's relationship +passes over from the passive to the active, from the involuntary to the +voluntary--just as it does in the home--and develops, as the child comes +into social consciousness, into a recognition of himself as belonging to +a social organization for specific purposes. + + +§ 4. CHILD UNITY WITH THE CHURCH + +At some time every child of church-attending parents will want to know +whether he "belongs to the church." One must be very careful here, +regardless of the ecclesiastical practice, to show the child that he is +essentially one with this body, this religious family. He may be too +young to subscribe his name to its roll, but he belongs at least to the +full measure of unity appreciable by his mind. He must not be permitted +to think of himself as an outsider. Indeed, no matter what our theology +may hold, every religious parent believes that his children belong to +God. Do they not also belong to the church in at least the sense that +the church is responsible for their spiritual welfare? + +The sense of unity must be developed. Writing the child's name on the +"Cradle Roll" of the church school may help. Assuming, as he develops, +that he is a part of this spiritual family, naturally expecting that he +will have an increasing share in its life, will help more. Parents who +dedicate their children to God pass on to them the stimulus of that +dedication. A church service of dedication is likely to impress them +with a feeling of unity with the church; seeing other children so +dedicated they know that a similar occasion occurred in their own early +lives. + +The forms of relationship must develop with the nature of the child. The +church needs not only a graded curriculum of instruction but a graded +series of relationships by which children, step by step, come into +closer conscious social unity, each step determined by their developing +needs and capacities. + +It is easy to say that the responsibility lies with the church to +provide these methods of attachment. But the church we have been +sketching is a congeries of families, after all, and it will do just +what these families, particularly the parents in them, stimulate it to +do. + + +§ 5. INCIDENTAL DIFFICULTIES + +But what of those instances in which parents are convinced that the +church does not furnish a normal and healthy atmosphere for the child's +spiritual life? There are churches where the Sunday school is simply a +training school in insubordination, confusion, and irreverence, or where +religion is so taught as to cultivate superstition and to lead +eventually either to a painful intellectual reconstruction or to a +barren denial of all faith. There are churches of one type so devoted +to the entertainment of adults, to the ministry to the pride of the +flesh and the lust of things, that a child is likely to be trained to +pious pride and greed, or of another type, in which religion is a matter +of verbiage, tradition, and unethical subterfuge. + +Parents must be true to their responsibilities. The family is the +child's first religious institution. Fathers and mothers are not only +the first and most potent quickeners and guides in the religious life, +but they are primarily responsible for the selection of all other +stimuli to that life. Under the drag of our own indifference we must not +withhold from the child the good he would get even from the church we do +not particularly enjoy; neither dare we, for fear of criticism or +ostracism, force the child under influences which, in the name of +religion, would chill and prevent his spiritual development, would +twist, dwarf, or distort it. Responsibility to the spiritual purpose of +the family is far higher than any responsibility to a church. The +churches are ordered for the souls of men. + +What shall we do in the family when the sermon is always tediously dull? +Don't try to force children to go to sleep in church; they will never +get over the habit. Insist that there shall be a service suitable for +them parallel to the adult service of worship.[47] Next, try to +overcome the present popular obsession regarding the sermon. The church +is more than an oratory station. The sermon is only one incident. Many +criticisms of the sermon indicate that the critic measures the preacher +by ability to entertain, that he attends church to be entertained. If +that is essentially your attitude, you cannot complain if your children +are dissatisfied unless they too are entertained according to their +childish appetites. When the sermon is poor, put it where it belongs +proportionately and enlarge on the many good features of church +fellowship and service. + +In a word, let the church be to the family that larger home where +families live together their life of fellowship and service in the +spirit and purpose of religion and where there is a natural place for +everyone. + + + I. References for Study + + H.W. Hulbert, _The Church and Her Children_, chaps. i-v. Revell, + $1.00. + + H.F. Cope, _Efficiency in the Sunday School_, chaps. xiv-xvi. + Doran, $1.00. + + George Hodges, _Training of Children in Religion_, chap. xiv. + Appleton, $1.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + A. Hoben, _The Minister and the Boy_. The University of Chicago + Press, $1.00. + + E.C. Foster, _The Boy and the Church_. Sunday School Times Co., + $0.75. + + G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_, Part II. Revell, + $1.35. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What are the special common interests of church and family? + + 2. What are the fundamental relationships of the two? + + 3. What conception of the church ought to be fostered in the + children's minds? + + 4. When is criticism of the church unwise? + + 5. What changes might be made in church life for the sake of the + children? + + 6. What changes would bring the church and the home closer + together? + + 7. What should be the children's conception of unity with the + church? + + 8. Should children attend, in family groups, the church service of + worship? + + 9. Does the plan of a short service for children meet the need? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[46] See a pamphlet on _Church School Buildings_ (free) published by the +Religious Education Association; also H.F. Evans, _The Sunday-School +Building and Its Equipment_. + +[47] See the author's suggestion for the Sunday school in _Efficiency in +the Sunday School_, chap. xv. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +CHILDREN AND THE SCHOOL + + +Wise parents will know the character of the influences affecting their +children at all times. At no time can their responsibility be delegated +to others. There is a tendency to think that when children go to school +the family has a release from responsibility. But the school is simply +the community--the group of families--syndicating its efforts for the +formal training of the young. Every family ought to know what the +community is doing with its children. The school belongs to all; it is +not the property of a board, nor a private machine belonging to the +teaching force; it belongs to us and we owe a social duty as well as a +family obligation to understand its work and its influence on the +children. + +Parents ought to visit the school. Wise principals and teachers will +welcome them, setting times when visits can best be made. The visitors +come, not as critics, but as citizens and parents. The principal +benefits will be an acquaintance with the teachers of our children and a +better understanding of the conditions under which the children work for +the greater part of the day. By far the larger number of teachers most +earnestly desire character results from their work. It will help them +to know that we are interested in what they are doing. + + +§ 1. HOME AND SCHOOL CO-OPERATION + +Parents and teachers, both desiring spiritual results, can find means of +co-operation. Parent-teacher clubs and associations have done much to +bring the home and the school together. Meeting regularly in the +evening, so that fathers, too, can attend, gives opportunity to work out +a common understanding to raise the spiritual aims of the school, and to +discover means by which the families may aid in securing better +conditions for school work. + +One of the most important considerations relates to the moral effect of +the school life and environment. We are committed in this country to the +principle that the public school cannot teach religion, but this by no +means relieves it of responsibility for moral character. The family +needs this ally. Children expect instruction in the school and they feel +keenly the power of its ideals and the standards established by its +methods and requirements. The family and the school greatly need to +co-ordinate their efforts here to the end that there may be under way in +both an orderly program for the moral training of children. + + +§ 2. THE SCHOOL TEACHING PARENTS + +The school may help the home if arrangements are made for parents to +meet regularly and receive instruction in those forms of moral training +which can best be given at home. This is one method of solving the vexed +question of sex instruction. Many hesitate as to the wisdom of such +instruction in schools; but no one doubts that it ought to be and could +be given in families but for the fact that parents are both ignorant of +what to tell and indifferent to the matter. It may be that some day the +state will not only say that the child must go to school, but also that +every parent intrusted with children must either prove ability to train +and instruct in these and other matters or go to school to obtain the +necessary training. The state would not go beyond its province if it +required ignorant parents--and that means most of us in matters of moral +training--to go to school and learn our business. And without waiting +for such compulsion the school may now offer opportunity for all parents +to obtain the desired information. Teachers are especially trained to an +understanding of child-nature and to methods of pedagogy; they are +prepared to teach many things we ought to know; why should not the +family obtain the advantage of such expert knowledge? + +The school would also be within its province if it undertook to +stimulate the indifferent parents, both rich and poor, to an +appreciation of the educational task and opportunity of the home. Each +institution greatly needs the other. The school reaches all the children +of all the people; might it not be made a larger means of helping all +the parents of all the children to quickened moral responsibility and to +greater educational efficiency? + + +§ 3. CONTROLLING SCHOOL CONDITIONS + +The family ought to know the conditions at the school outside the +recitation or working hours. Few parents have any conception of the +power of the playground over moral character. Perhaps a smaller number +realize how dangerous are some of the elements at work there. Play of +itself is immensely valuable, but play means playfellows, and some of +these are simply purveyors of indecency and moral contagion in +conversation and act. We are required to send our children to school; we +have a right to demand freedom from moral contagion. Do you know what +goes on in secret places on the grounds? Do you know that the vilest +ideas and phrases are current in pictures, cards, on scraps of paper, +and in handwriting on walls, not only in the high schools, but often +among children of from six to twelve years of age? This is too large a +subject to be developed properly here. It is one familiar to all +wide-awake school men and women and ought to be equally so to the +parents of children. Where the school combats this evil the home should +intelligently aid; where the school is indifferent the family dare not +rest until either the indifference is quite dispelled or the indifferent +dismissed. + +Do not expect to get the facts concerning these suggested conditions by +inquiry among your children. They are reticent, naturally, on such +matters when talking with adults; besides, the sense of school honor +holds them to silence. If they tell you voluntarily, you are happy in +their free confidence. Do not betray it; simply let it lead you to make +further inquiry at the school from the authorities and stimulate you to +insist that, for the sake of the spiritual good of the young, the school +must furnish conditions of moral health. + + + I. References for Study + + Ella Lyman Cabot, _Voluntary Help to the Schools_, chaps. vii, + viii. Houghton Mifflin Co., $0.60. + + W.A. Baldwin, "The Home and the Public Schools," _Religious + Education_, February, 1912. $0.65. + + + II. Further Reading + + M. Sadler, _Moral Instruction and Training in Schools_. 2 vols. + Longmans. + + John Dewey, _The School and Society_. The University of Chicago + Press, $1.00. + + Smith, _All the Children of All the People_. Macmillan, $1.50. + + G.A. Coe, "Virtue and the Virtues," _Religious Education_, + February, 1912. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What ought parents to know about public-school life? + + 2. In visiting a school what may the parent do to acquire + information in the proper way? + + 3. How may the home co-operate with the school? + + 4. What degree of instruction in morals ought the school to give? + + 5. In what way does the school best help in moral training? + + 6. What do you know about the conditions on the playgrounds of your + own school? + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES + + +Moral crises arise in every family. Deeply as we may desire to maintain +an even tenor of character-development, in harmony and quietness, +occasions will bring either our own imperfections or those of our +children--or of our neighbors' children--to a focus and throw them in +high relief on the screen. Progress comes not alone in perpetual +placidity. When temper slips from control, when angry passions rule, +when the spirit under discipline rebels, when a course of petty +wrongdoing comes to a head, when secret sins are discovered, and when we +suddenly find ourselves confronted with a tragic problem in the higher +life, it is still important to remember that the crisis is just as truly +a part of the educational process as is the orderly, gradual method of +development. + +A moral crisis is an experience in which our acts are such, or have such +results, that they are thrown out in a white light that reveals their +inner meaning, so that they are sharply discerned for their spiritual +and character values. Then in that light courses of conduct have to be +valued anew, reconsidered, and determined. + +Two courses are open in times of moral crisis in the family. One is to +bend our efforts to settle the situation, to proceed on the policy of +getting through with the crisis as quickly as possible, to seek to +remove the pain rather than to cure the ill. The other is to regard the +crisis as a revealer of truth, to use it as a valuable opportunity, one +in which moral qualities of acts are so easily evident, so keenly felt, +as to make it a time of spiritual quickening, a chance for the best sort +of training. + + +§ 1. THE PROMISE OF IMPERFECTION + +The perfect child is the one unborn; shortly after his birth he begins +to take after his father. The perfect character does not exist in a +child. It is as unreasonable to expect it as it would be to look for the +perfect tree in the sapling. _Character comes by development_; it is not +born full-blown. Childhood implies promise, development. Therefore +parents must not be surprised at evidences that their children are +pretty much like their neighbors' children. Outside of the old-time +Sunday-school-library book the child who never lied, lost his temper, +sulked, or made a disturbance never existed and never will, except in a +psychopathic ward in some hospital. Could anything be sadder than the +picture of the anemic, pulseless automaton who is always "good"? + +When parents speak of the "natural depravity" of their children, they +are commonly using terms they do not understand. What they mean is the +natural immaturity of their children, a condition of imperfection in +which they may rejoice, as it shows the possibility of development. The +child is in the world to grow to the fulness of all his powers. The +powers of the higher life are to develop as truly as those which we call +physical and mental. The family is the great human culture-bed for the +development of those powers, their training-field and school. + +Does someone say, concerning a little child, "But we thought he had the +grace of God in his heart, that he had been born again and would no more +do wrong"? True, he may be born again, but there is a world of +difference between being born and being grown up. From one to the other, +in the realm of character, is a long and tedious process, with many a +stumble, many a fall, many a hard knock, and many a lesson to be +learned. Every moral crisis is part of the struggle, the experience and +training that may make toward the matured life. You have no more right +to expect your child to be a mature Christian than you had to expect him +to be born six feet tall. + +A moral crisis is a lesson. The important consideration for the parent, +then, is to see the wrongdoing of the child as an experience in his +moral upward climb; not as a fall alone, but as part of the acquisition +of the art of standing upright and walking forward. Dealing with such an +occasion one may well say to himself or herself, "This is my chance to +guide, to make this experience a light that shines forward on the way +for the child's weak feet and to strengthen him to walk in it." For is +it not true with us that practically all we really know has come by the +organizing of our different experiences? Think whether it is so or not. +And is it not to be the same with the child? + +We can study here only a few typical moral crises, perhaps those that +give greatest perplexity to parents. They cannot be successfully met as +isolated instances, but must be seen as a part of the whole educational +process. Those to whom the development of character is a reality will +watch tendencies and train them before they focalize in crises. + + +§ 2. THE COLLISION OF WILLS + +Parenthood presents tremendous moral strains; it is rife with +temptations. It offers a little world for autocracy to vaunt itself. The +martinets command, often totally blind to the changing nature of the +subjects as they pass from the submissive to the rebellious. One day the +parents wake up to realize that they are not the only ones possessed of +will. + +When to your Yes the child says No, while you may not applaud, you ought +to rejoice; you have discovered a will, you have found developing in +your child the central and essential quality of character. Forgiveness +will be hard to find and recovery still more difficult if you make the +mistake of attempting to crush that will. The child needs it and you +will need its co-operation. The power to see the possibility of choice +of action, to know one's self as a choosing, willing entity, able to +elect and follow one among many courses of action, is a distinctive, +Godlike quality. The opposition of wills is like the birth of a new +personality, a new force thrown out into the world to meet and struggle +and adjust itself with all other persons. + +When the collision comes, take a few long breaths before you move; take +time to think what it means. _Keep your temper._ Do not break before the +other will by an exhibition of chagrin that your authority is defied. +From now on the basis of any real authority is being transformed from +force and tradition to a moral plane. + +Therefore, first, be sure you are right in your direction or request. +You cannot afford to make the child think that authority is more +important than justice, that might makes right in the social order of +the home. If you do he will accept the lesson and practice it all his +life. + +Remember the right has many elements. There is the child's side to +consider. As soon as he can decide on courses of action his ideas of +justice are developing. To do him an injustice is to help make him an +unjust man. + +Secondly, help him to see the right. This will involve sympathetic +explanations of your reasons which you may have to give in the form of +simple arguments or of a story, perhaps from your own experience, or by +an appeal or reference to the wider knowledge of the older children. It +may be necessary to let him learn in the effective school of experience. +Other means failing, allow him to discover the pain and folly of his own +way when it is wrong. Of course this does not apply if he is minded, for +instance, to imbibe carbolic acid. But even in such circumstances it +would be better to prove his unwisdom by demonstration--as a drop of +acid on a finger tip--than to let the issue rest on blind authority. One +such demonstration gives a new, intelligible basis to your authority in +other cases. + +Thirdly, help him to will the right. Help him to feel that he must +choose for himself, to recognize the power of the will and the grave +responsibilities of its use. He is entering the realm of the freedom of +the will. Every act of deliberate choice, with your aid, in a sense of +the seriousness of choice, goes to establish the character that does not +drift, is not dragged, and will not go save with its whole selfhood of +feeling, knowing, choosing, and willing. + + +§ 3. ANGER + +An angry child is a child in rebellion. Rebellion is sometimes +justifiable. Anger may be a virtue. You would not take this force out of +your child any more than you would take the temper out of a knife or a +spring. Anger manifested vocally or muscularly is the child's form of +protest. But, established as a habit of the life, it is altogether +unlovely. Who does not know grown-up people who seem to be inflexibly +angry; either they are in perpetual eruption or the fires smoulder so +near the surface that a pin-prick sets them loose. Usually a study of +their cases will show either that the attitude of angry opposition to +everything in life has been established and fostered from infancy or +that it was acquired in the adolescent period. + +The angry, antisocial person is most emphatically an irreligious person; +there can be no love of his brother man where that spirit is. The home +is the place where this ill can best be met and cured, for it deals most +directly with the infant, and for the adolescent it is the best school +of normal social living. + +Let no one think the angry demonstrations of little children are +negligible or that they have nothing to do with the religious character +of the child or the adult. They are important for at least two reasons, +first, as furnishing the angry one opportunity to acquire self-control, +to master his own spirit, and, secondly, because they disturb the peace +and interfere with the well-being of others. + +It is possible to set up habits of anger in the cradle. In the first +instance the infant encountered opposition in the cradle and proceeded +to conquer it by yelling, and so, day after day, he found anger the only +route to the satisfaction of his desires. He grew to take all life in +terms of a bitter struggle and every person became his natural enemy. + +In the case of the adolescent it sometimes happens that a boy or a girl +will make a very tardy passage through the normal experience of social +aversion, the time when they seem to suspect all other people, to flee +from social intercourse and to sulk, to want to be off in a corner +alone. This is a normal phase of adolescent adjustment, coming at +thirteen or fourteen, but it ought to pass quickly. A few allow this +period to become lengthened; they fail to regain social pleasure and +soon drift into habits of social enmity. This may be due to scolding at +this period, or to a lack of healthful friendships. + + +§ 4. METHODS OF DEALING WITH ANGER + +It is evident that talking, lecturing, or arguing with the angry infant +will not help the case. He may feel the emotion of your anger but +misses any shreds of your logic. Parents ought first to ask, Why is an +infant angry? With the infant, with whom there are no pretensions or +affections, there is commonly a simple cause of his rebellion. The baby +yelling like an Indian and looking like a boiled lobster is neither +possessed of an evil spirit nor giving an exhibition of natural +depravity; he is lying on a pin, wearing the shackles of faddish infant +fashions, or he is trying to tell you of disturbances in the department +of the interior. Furnish physical relief at once and you put a period to +the display of what you call temper; try to subdue him by threats and +you only discover that his lungs are stronger than your patience; you +yield at last and he has learned that temper properly displayed has its +reward, that the way to get what he wants is to upset the world with +anger. That is one of life's early lessons; it is one of the first +exercises in training character. + +_Consider the future._ Each family is a social unit, a little world. +Within this world are in miniature nearly all the struggles and +experiences of the larger world of later life. It is a world which +prepares children for living by actually living. The qualities that are +needed in a world of men and women and affairs are developed here. When +young children exhibit anger parents must ask, How would this quality, +under similar circumstances, serve in the business of mature life? +Anger is an essential quality of the good and forceful character. +Somehow we have to learn to be angry and not sin. Anger is the emotional +effect of extreme discontent and opposition. For the stern fight against +evil and wrong, life needs this emotional reinforcement. But it must be +purified, it must be controlled. Like the dynamic of steam, it must be +confined and guided. Love must free it from hatred; self-control must +guide it. + +When children are angry, help them to think out the causes for the +feeling. Instead of denouncing or deriding them, stop to analyze the +situation for yourself. It may be that they are entirely justified, that +not to be angry would be an evidence of weakness, of base standards of +conduct or conditions, or of weak reactions to life's stimuli. Always +help the child to see why he is angry. Perhaps the situation is one he +may remedy himself. Is he angry because the top-string is tangled? Stay +with him until he has learned that he can remove the cause of his own +temper. + +Step by step, dealing with each excitement of anger, _train him in +self-control_. Self-mastery is a matter of learning to direct and apply +our own powers at will. It is developed by habitual practice. It is the +largest general element in character. The temper that smashes a toy is +the temper that kills a human being when it opposes our will, but it is +the same temper that, being controlled, patiently sets the great ills of +society right, fights and works to remove gigantic wrongs and to build a +better social order. That patience which is self-control saves the +immensely valuable dynamic of the emotions and harnesses them to Godlike +service. And that patience is not learned at a single lesson, not +acquired in a miraculous moment; it is learned in one little lesson +after another, in every act and all the daily discipline of home and +school and street. + +Children must learn to qualify and govern temper by love in order to +save it from hatred. When the irritating object is a personal one the +rights, the well-being, of that one must gain some consideration. There +will be but little feeling of altruism in children under thirteen; we +must not expect it; but egoism is one way to an understanding of the +rights, the feelings, and needs of others. The child can put himself in +the other's place. He is capable of affection; he loves and is willing +to sacrifice for those he loves, and when he is angry with them, or with +strangers, he must be helped to think of them as persons, as those he +loves or may love. He also can be aided to see the pain of hatred, the +misery of the life without friends, the joy of friendships. + +Anger against persons is the opportunity for learning the joy of +forgiveness and, if the occasion warrants, the dignity and courage of +the apology. The self-control, consideration, and social adjustment +involved must be learned early in life. It is part of that great lesson +of the fine art of living with others. Little children must be +habituated to acknowledging errors and acts of rudeness or temper with +suitable forms of apology. Above all, they must, by habit, learn how +great is the victory of forgiveness.[48] + + + I. References for Study + + _The Problem of Temper._ Pamphlet. American Institute of Child + Life, Philadelphia, Pa. + + E.P. St. John, _Child Nature and Child Nurture_, chap. v. Pilgrim + Press, $0.50. + + J. Sully, _Children's Ways_, chap. x. Appleton, $1.25. + + + II. Further Reading + + Patterson Du Bois, _The Culture of Justice_, chaps. i-v. Dodd, Mead + & Co., $0.75. + + E.H. Abbott, _The Training of Parents_. Houghton Mifflin Co., + $1.00. + + M. Wood-Allen, _Making the Best of Our Children_. 2 vols. McClurg, + $1.00 each. + + H.Y. Campbell, _Practical Motherhood_. Longmans, $2.50. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What special opportunities are offered in the rise of moral + crises? + + 2. Do we tend to expect too high a development of character in + children? + + 3. How early in life do we have manifestations of a conscious will? + + 4. What constitutes the importance of early crises of the will? + + 5. What are probably the causes when children habitually defy + authority? + + 6. Is anger always a purely mental condition? + + 7. What importance have the angry demonstrations of infants? + + 8. What is the relation of the control of temper to the rightly + developed life? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[48] See Gow, _Good Morals and Gentle Manners_, chap. viii. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES (_Continued_) + + +§ 1. QUARRELS + +A child who never quarrels probably needs to be examined by a physician; +a child who is always quarreling equally needs the physician. In the +first there is a lack of sufficient energy so to move as to meet and +realize some of life's oppositions; in the other there is probably some +underlying cause for nervous irritability. + +It is perfectly natural for healthy people to differ; in childhood's +realm, where the values and proportions of life are not clearly seen, +where social adjustments have not been acquired, the differences in +opinions, as in possessions, lead to the expression of feeling in sharp +and emphatic terms. Rivalry and conflict are natural to the young +animal. Children do not wilfully enter into conflicts any more than +adults; they are only less diplomatic in their language, more direct, +and more likely to follow the word with attempts at force. + +In few things do parents need more patience than in dealing with +children's quarrels. First, seek to determine quietly the merits of the +cause; but do not attempt to pronounce a verdict. It is seldom wise to +act as judge unless you allow the children to act as a jury. But +ascertain whether the quarrel is an expression somewhere of anger +against injustice, wrong, or evil in some form. Sometimes their quarrels +have as much virtue as our crusades. It is a sad mistake to quench the +feeling of indignation against wrong or of hatred against evil. A boy +will need that emotional backing in his fights against the base and the +foes of his kind. While rejoicing in his feeling, show him how to direct +it, train him to discriminate between hatred of wrong and bitterness +toward the wrongdoer. Help him to see the good that comes from loving +people, no matter what they do. + +Our methods of dealing with a quarrel will do more to develop their +sense of justice than all our decisions can. Be sure to get each one to +state all the facts; insist on some measure of calmness in the recital. +Keep on sifting down the facts until by their own statements the quarrel +is seen stripped of passion and standing clear in its own light. Usually +that course, when kindly pursued and followed with sympathy for the +group, with a saving sense of humor, will result in the voluntary +acknowledgment of wrong. The boys--or girls--have for the first time +seen their acts, their words, their course, in a light without +prejudice. They are more ready to confess to being mistaken than are we +when convinced against our wishes. + +When no acknowledgment of wrong is proffered voluntarily, we must still +not offer a verdict. Put the case to the contestants and let them settle +it. Listen, as a bystander, coming in only when absolutely necessary to +insist on exact statements of fact. That course should be excellent +training in clear thinking, in the duty of seeing the other man's side, +in the deliberation that saves from unwise accusations and the serious +quarrels of later life. Teach children to think through their +differences. + +The perpetually petulant child, bickering with all others, should be +taken to a physician. Get him right nervously, physically, first. He is +out of harmony with himself and so cannot find harmony with others. When +the condition of habitual bickering seems to afflict all the children in +the family, it cannot be settled by attributing it to a mysterious +dispensation of natural depravity. The probability is that the home life +is without harmony and full of discord, that the parents are themselves +petulant and more anxious to assert their separate opinions than to find +unity of action. Nothing is more effective to teach children peaceful +living than to see it constantly before them in their parents. A +harmonious home seldom has quarrelsome children. Such harmony is a +matter of organization and management of affairs as much as of our own +attitude. + +Some children are educated to a life of quarrels by being trained in the +family that spoils them. The single child is at a great disadvantage; he +occupies the throne alone. His home life becomes a mere series of spokes +radiating from himself. When he finds the world ordered otherwise, he +quarrels with it and tries to rearrange the spokes into a new, +self-centric social order. Whatever the number of children may be, each +one must learn to live with other lives, to adjust himself to them. +Neighboring social play and activities are the chance for this. Do not +try to keep Algernon in a glass case; he needs the world in which he +will have to live some day. + + +§ 2. FIGHTING + +The best of men are likely to have a secret satisfaction in their boys' +fights, and the bravest of mothers will deplore them. The fathers know +how hard are the knocks that life is going to give; the mothers hope +that the boys can be saved from blows. A man's life is often pretty much +of a fight, every day struggling in competition and rivalry; we have not +yet learned the lesson of co-operation, and we still tend to think of +business as a battlefield. Something in us calls for fighting; we have +to use the utmost strength at our command to fight the evil tendencies +of our own hearts; often we rejoice in life as a conflict. It feels good +to find causes worth fighting for. If all this is true of the man, it +is not strange that the small boy, scarce more than a young savage, will +find opportunities for conflict. He is more dependent on the weapons of +force than is his father. He cannot cast out the enemy with a ballot, +nor with a sneer or biting sarcasm, nor by some device or strategy of +business or affairs. He can only hit back. Taken altogether, boys settle +their differences as honestly at least as do men. + +Moreover, children's fights are not as cruel as they seem to be; even +the bloodshed means little either of pain or of injury. A boy may be +badly banged up today and in full trim tomorrow; it is quite different +with the wounds bloodlessly inflicted by men in their conflicts. + +Does all this mean that boys should be encouraged to fight? No; but it +does mean that when Billy comes home with one eye apparently retired +from business, we must not scold him as though he were the first +wanderer from Eden. That fight may have been precisely the same thing as +a croquet game to his sister, or any test of skill to his big brother, +or a business transaction to his father; it was a mere contest of two +healthy bodies at a time when the body was the outstanding fact of life. +The fight may give us our chance, however, to aid him to a sense of the +greatness of life's conflict, to a sense of the qualities that make the +true fighter. It may leave him open to the appeal of true heroism. We +must make light of the victory of brute strength, just as we may make +light of his wounds and scars, and glorify the victory of the mind and +will. + +The boy who fights because he lacks control of temper needs careful +training. He gets a good deal of discipline on the playground and +street, but it is not always effective; the beatings may only further +undermine control. But the lack of self-control will manifest itself in +many ways and must be remedied at all points. The discipline of daily +living in the family must come into play here. + + +§ 3. SELF-CONTROL + +The matter of self-control is not separable into special features; one +cannot learn control under one set of moral circumstances without +learning it for all. The boy who strikes without thinking is simply one +who acts without thinking. He tends to throw away the brakes of the +will. The regain of control comes only through training at every point +in deliberation of action. + +Probably there is no other point at which children so frequently and +readily learn control as in the matter of speech. The family where all +speak at once, where a babel of sounds leads to a rivalry of vocal +organs, is not only a nuisance to the neighbors, it is a school of +uncontrolled action to the children. Just to learn to wait, even after +the thought is formed into words, until it shall be my turn or my +opportunity to speak is a fine discipline of control. To do that every +day, year after year, tends to break up the hair-trigger process of +action. + +Control is gained also by the acquisition of the habit of thought +regarding general courses of action. We can hardly expect meditation on +the part of little children. But those who are older, those entering +their teens, may and should be able to think things out, to plan out the +day's actions, to determine their own ways of conduct. Children who have +the custom of quiet, private prayer often develop ability to see their +conduct in the calm of those moments. They get a mental elevation over +the day and its deeds. + + +§ 4. GOOD FIGHTS + +The evident danger of undue deliberation of action must be met by +another cure of the personal-conflict spirit; that is, the substitution +of games of rivalry and skill for the unorganized rivalry and "game" of +fighting. The transition from the bloody arena to the excitement of a +game is very easy and natural. But the game is the boy's great chance to +learn life as a game to be played according to the rules. All that the +fight calls for--courage, endurance, skill, quickness of action, and +grim persistence--comes out in a good game. Here is a suitable youthful +realization of the fight that is worth waging. Our participation in the +youths' games, our appreciation of their points, our joy in honestly won +success, is the best possible way to lead up to their taking life in +terms of a good fight, a grand game, a real chance to call out the +heroic qualities. Turn every fighting instinct into the good fight that +will clarify and elevate them all. + + + I. References for Study + + W.L. Sheldon, _Ethics in the Home_, chaps. xi, xii, xiii. Welch & + Co., $1.25. + + E.A. Abbott, _Training of Parents_, chap. v. Houghton Mifflin Co., + $1.00. + + + II. Further Reading + + Ella Lyman Cabot, _Every Day Ethics_. Holt, $1.25. + + M. Wood-Allen, _Making the Best of Our Children_. 2 vols. McClurg, + $1.00 each. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. Do all children quarrel? Should one punish for small quarrels? + + 2. What are the facts which ought to be ascertained regarding any + quarrel? + + 3. What special opportunities do children's differences offer? + + 4. What are the causes of habitual petulance? What are the dangers + of this habit of mind? + + 5. Is fighting necessarily wrong? What part does it play in the + lives of men? + + 6. What are the dangerous elements in boys' fights? + + 7. What special quality of character needs development in this + connection? + + 8. What are the valuable possibilities in the fighting tendency? + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES (_Continued_) + + +§ 1. LYING + +Parents are likely to be wilfully blind to the faults of their children. +But some faults cannot be ignored; they must surely quicken the most +indifferent parent to thought. We suffer a shock when our own child +appears as a wilful liar. + +"What shall I do when I catch the child in an outright lie? Surely he +knows that is wrong and that he is wilfully doing the wrong!" + +First, be sure whether he is "lying." Lying means a purposeful intent to +deceive by word of mouth or written word. When Charles Dickens wrote +_Oliver Twist_ he described a burglary that never happened, so far as he +knew. He intended the reader to feel that it was true. Was he lying? No; +because he simply used his imagination to paint a scene which was part +of a great lesson he desired to teach the English public. Even had he +had no great moral purpose, it would still not have been a lie, just as +we do not accuse the writer of even the most frivolous novel of lying. +He is simply creating, or imitating, in the field of imagination. + +Imagination is the child's native world. When the little girl says, "My +dolly is sick," she is saying that which is not so, but instead of +reproving her for lying, you prepare an imaginary pill for the doll. +Many children's lies are simply elaborations of their doll- and +plaything-imaginings. When my little daughter told me, and insisted upon +it, that she had seen seven bears, of varied colors, on the avenue, +should I have reproved her for lying? Was it not better to humor her +fancy, to draw it out, to give it free play, being careful gradually to +let her know that I knew it was fancy? I entered into the game with her +and enjoyed it so long as we all understood it was only fancy. It is a +crime to crush a child's power of creating a world by imagination, a +fair world, set in the midst of this world where things are imperfect, +jarring, and disappointing, a world in which everything is always "just +so." + +But one must also carefully aid the child in distinguishing between the +world of fancy and the world of fact. This takes time and patience. We +must not rob the life of fancy nor must we allow the habits of freedom +with ideas to pass over into habits of carelessly handling realities. +Along with the development of fancy we must train the powers of exact +observation and statement of facts. The child who saw seven bears, red, +green, yellow, etc., must go to see real bears and must tell me exactly +their colors and forms. Daily training in exactitude of statements of +real facts is the best antidote for a fancy that has run out of its +bounds. It establishes a habit of precision in thinking which is the +essence of truth-telling. + + +§ 2. PROTECTIVE LYING + +But there is another form of lying which is frequently met in some form. +It may be called protective lying. Ask the little fellow with the +jam-smeared face, "Have you been in the pantry?" and he is likely to do +the same thing that nature does for the birds when she gives them a coat +that makes it easier to hide from their enemies. He valiantly answers +"No, Mother." He would protect himself from your reproof. There has been +awakened before this the desire to seem good in your eyes and he desires +your approbation most of all. The moral struggle with him is very brief; +he does not yet distinguish between being good and seeming good; if his +negative answer will help him to seem good he will give it. + +What shall we do? First, stop long enough to remember that appetites for +jam speak louder than your verbal prohibitions. The jam was there and +you were not. It can hardly be said that he deliberately chose to do a +wrong; he is still in the process of learning how to do things +deliberately, just as you still are, for that matter. Consider whether +your training of the anti-jam habit has been really conscientious and +sufficient to establish the habit in any degree. It were wiser to ask +these things of yourself before putting the fateful question to him. It +would be better not to ask a small child that question. It demands too +much of him. Besides, you are losing a chance to establish a valuable +idea in his mind, namely, that acts usually carry evidences along with +them. Better say, "I see you've been in the pantry." That will help to +establish the habit of expecting our acts to be known. Then would follow +with the little child the careful endeavor to train him to recognize the +acts that are wrong because harmful, greedy, against the good of others, +and against his own good. + +Just here parents, especially many religious parents, meet the +temptation thoughtlessly to use God as their ally by reminding the child +that, though they could not see him in the pantry, God was there +watching him. In the vivid memory of a childhood clouded by the thought +of a police-detective Deity, may one protest against this act of +irreverence and blasphemy? True, God was there; but not as a spy, a +reporter of all that is bad, anxious to detect, but cowardly and cruel +in silence at all other times! Let the child grow up with the happy +feeling that God is always with him, rejoicing in his play, his +well-aimed ball, his successes in school, his constant friend, helper, +and confidant. I like better the God to whom a little fellow in Montana +prayed the other day, "O God, I thank you for helping me to lick Billy +Johnson!" The child of the pantry needs to know the God who will help +him to do and know the right. + + +§ 3. OLDER CHILDREN + +But protective lying presents a more serious problem with older +children. The school-teacher and parent meet it, just as the judge and +the employer meet it in adults. The cure lies early in life. +Truth-telling is as much a habit as lying is. Perhaps it is more easily +practiced; its drafts are on the powers of observation and memory rather +than on those of imagination. Along with the child's imaginative powers +there must be developed the powers of exact observation and description. +Exact observation and description or relation are but parts of the +larger general virtue of precision. Help children at every turn of life +to be right--right in doing things, right in thinking, in saying, and in +execution. Precision at any point in life helps lift the life's whole +level. Truth-telling is not a separable virtue. You cannot make a boy +truthful in word if you let him lie in deed. You cannot expect he will +speak the truth if you do not train him to do the truth, in his play, in +ordering his room, in thinking through his school problems, and in +thinking through his religious difficulties. Truth-telling is the verbal +reaction of the life which habitually holds that nothing is right until +it is just right. + +Two things would, ordinarily, make sure of a truthful statement, instead +of a protective lie, in answer to your question: first, that the young +person has been trained to the habit of seeing and stating things as +they are--and that you really give him a chance so to state them, and, +secondly, that to some degree there has been developed a recognition of +considerations or values that are higher than either escape from +punishment or the winning of your approbation. He will choose the course +that offers what seems to him to be the greater good; he will choose +between punishment, with rectitude, a good conscience, a sense of unity +with the higher good, of peace with God his friend, a greater +approximation to your ideal, on the one side, and, on the other, escape +from punishment. + +Everything in that crisis will depend on how real you have made the good +to be, how much the sense of the reality of God and his companionship +has brought of joy and friendship, and how high are his values of the +actual, the real, the true. + + +§ 4. AT THE CRISIS + +But what shall we do as we meet the lie on the lips of the child? First, +as already suggested, do not wait until you meet it. Train the child to +the truthful life. Second, be sure you do not make too heavy moral +demands. Remember the instinct to protect himself from immediate +punishment or disapprobation is stronger than any other just then. Do +not ask him to do what the law says the prisoner may not do, incriminate +himself. We have no right to put on our children tests harder than they +can bear. Often we put those which are harder than we could face. What +you will do just then depends on what you have been doing for the +training of the child or youth. Do not expect him to solve problems in +moral geometry if you have neglected simple addition in that realm. + +Punishment by the blow or the immediate sentence will be futile. The +offender must know he has trespassed in a realm beyond your +administration and rule; he has done more than commit an offense against +you. Whatever consequences follow--such as your hesitation to accept his +word--must evidently be a part of the operation of the entire moral law. +Help him to see that lying strikes at the root of all social relations +and would make all happy and prosperous living, all friendship, and all +business impossible by destroying social confidence. + +Facing the crisis, do not demand more than your training gives you a +right to expect. Often, instead of the direct categorical question as to +guilt, we must gradually draw out a narrative of the events in question; +we must patiently help the child to state the facts and to see the +values of exactitudes. Without preaching or posing we must bring the +events into the light of larger areas of time and circles of life, help +him to see them related to all his life and to all mankind and to the +very fringes of existence, to God and the eternal. That cannot be done +in a moment; it is part of a habit of our own minds or it is not really +done at all. At the moment we can, however, make the deepest impression +by insistence on the importance of the actual, the real, the exactly +true. + + + I. References for Study + + E.L. Cabot, _Every Day Ethics_, chaps. xix, xx. Holt, $1.25. + + W.B. Forbush, _On Truth Telling_. Pamphlet. American Institute of + Child Life, Philadelphia, Pa. + + J. Sully, _Children's Ways_, pp. 124-33. Appleton, $1.25. + + + II. Further Reading + + G.S. Hall, "A Study of Children's Lies," _Educational Problems_, I, + chap. vi. Appleton, $2.50. + + E.P. St. John, _A Genetic Study of Veracity_. Pamphlet. + + J. Sully, _Studies in Childhood_. + + E.H. Griggs, _Moral Education_. Huebsch, $1.60. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. Are there degrees of lying? + + 2. When is a lie not a lie? + + 3. How can we discriminate among the statements of children? + + 4. How can we help them to recognize the qualities of truth? + + 5. In what ways are parents to blame for forcing children to + protective lying? + + 6. What of the relation of the thought of God to the demands for + truth? + + 7. Would you punish a child for lying and, if so, in what way? + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES (_Concluded_) + + +§ 1. DISHONESTY + +Many parents appear to think that the child's concepts of property +rights and of fair dealing are without importance. Habits of pilfering +are permitted to develop and success in cheating wins admiration. Low +standards are accepted and religion is divorced from moral questions. +The family attitude practically assumes that all persons cheat more or +less and that it is necessary only to use wisdom to insure freedom from +conviction. + +Responsibility lies at home. We shall never have an honest generation +until we have honest men and women to breed and train it. It is folly to +think we can lay on the public schools the burden of the moral education +of the young. Much is already being attempted there; yet little seems to +be accomplished because the home, having the child before and after +school and for a longer period each day, furnishes no adequate basis in +habits, ideals, and instruction for the moral work of the school. If +parents assume that one cannot succeed with absolute integrity, that +dishonesty in some degree is necessary to prosperity, then children will +learn that lesson despite all that may be said elsewhere. Honest +children grow where, in answer to the false statement, "You will starve +if you do business honestly," parents say, "Then we will starve." + +But the very home life itself can be a teacher of dishonesty. Is it +largely a matter of sham and pretense for the sake of social glory? Does +it prefer a cheap veneer to a slowly acquired genuine article? Is the +front appearance that of a dandy while the backyard looks like a +slattern? Is the home striving for more than it deserves? Is it trying +to get more out of life than it puts in? Evading taxes, avoiding duties, +a community parasite, does it commend to children the arts of social +cheating and lying? Such homes teach so loudly that no voice could be +heard in them. + +Given the atmosphere, ideals, and practices of the honest life in the +home itself, the problems of conduct, in the realm of these rights, are +more than half solved. Here in the home the real training for the life +of business takes place. Not for an instant can we afford to lower +standards here, nor to lose sight of the life-long power of our ideals, +our habits, and our attitudes on the conduct of the next generation. Do +parents know that the problems of lying, cheating, quarreling are the +great, vital questions for their children, much more important than +industrial or professional success in life; that on these all success is +predicated? If they do, surely they cannot regard the problems which +arise as mere incidents; surely they will provide for the culture of the +moral life as definitely as for the culture of the physical or the +intellectual! + + +§ 2. LESSONS IN HONESTY + +But children also acquire habits from their playmates. Whenever the act +of pilfering appears, the wrong must be made clear. Some sense of +property rights is necessary; not the right, as some assume, to do what +you will with a thing because you have it, but the right to enjoy and +usefully employ it. Help children to see the difference between mine and +thine. Slovenly moral thinking often comes from too great freedom in +forgetful borrowing within the family. In this little social group the +members must first acquire the habits of respect for the rights of +others. Through toys, tools, and books the lesson may be learned so +early that it becomes a part of the normal order of things. + +Children can learn that the game of life has its rules and that the +breach of these rules spoils the game and prevents our own happiness. +They can learn, too, that these are not arbitrary rules; they are like +the laws of nature; they are the conditions under which alone it is +possible for people to live together and to make life worth while. +Gambling is wrong because it is unsocial; it is the attempt to gain +without an equivalent giving. Cheating is wrong, no matter how many +practice it, just as surely as cheating is wrong in the game on the +playground. + +Children are really peculiarly sensitive to the social consciousness. In +school under no circumstances will they do that which the school custom +forbids or the older boys condemn. In the home, despite contrary +appearances, the opinion of elders, brothers, sisters, and parents is +the recognized law. Every small boy wants to be like his big brother. +Children's conduct may be guided by an understanding of the social will +outside the school and home. Help them to know that all people +everywhere in organized society condemn cheating and dishonesty.[49] + +Sentiment and emotional feeling must back up all teaching of conduct. +Your stories and readings should be selected with this in mind. The +approbation of parents and of the great Father of all enters as an +effectual motive. + +But parents seldom understand these problems; they attempt to deal with +each one as it arises until they are weary of the seemingly endless +procession and abandon the task. Their endeavors are based on faint +memories of such problems in their own youth or on rule-of-thumb +proverbial philosophy about morals and children. Does not the +development of moral ability and culture deserve at least as much +attention as any other phase of the child's life? After all, what do we +most of all desire for all our children--position, fame, ease? or is it +not rather simply this, that, no matter what else they do, they may be +good and useful men and women? Then what are we doing to make them good +and useful? + +A clear view of the need for moral training, a belief that is possible, +will surely lead to serious attempts to learn the art of moral training. +In this they need not be without guidance. There is a number of good +books on character development in the child.[50] The foundation for all +such training of parents ought to be laid in an understanding of what +the moral nature is, and then of the laws of its development. Later the +specific problems may be separately considered. + + +§ 3. TEASING AND BULLYING + +Teasing is the child's crude method of experimentation in psychological +reactions; the teaser desires to discover just how the teased will +respond. It degenerates, by easy steps, into a thoughtless infliction of +pain in sheer enjoyment of another's misery, and then into brutal +bullying. When only two children are together mere teasing will not +last long; either the teaser will tire of his task or his teasing will +turn to that lowest of all brutalities, delight in inflicting pain on +weaker ones. + +But teasing is a serious problem in many families; the whole group +sometimes lives in an atmosphere of ridicule, derision, and annoyance. +Teasing is likely to appear at its worst wherever a group is gathered, +for the guilty ones are under the stimulus of the praise of others; they +inflict mental pain for the sake of winning approbation. + +Teasing has a pedagogical basis. A certain amount of ridicule acts +healthfully on most persons. Even children need sometimes to see their +weaknesses, and especially their faults of temper, in the light of other +eyes, in the aspect of the ridiculous. But children are seldom to be +trusted to discipline one another; freedom to do so is likely to develop +hardness, indifference to the sufferings of others, and arrogance from +the sense of lordship. The corrective of ridicule is safe only as it is +a kindly expression of the sense of humor. The ability to see and to +show just how foolish or funny some situations are will turn many a +tragedy of childhood into a comedy. Whenever children laugh at the +distresses or faults of others, help them to laugh at their own. +Cultivate the habit of seeing the odd, the whimsical, the humorous side +of things. A sound sense of kindly humor often will save us all from +unkind teasing. + + +§ 4. SOME CURES FOR TEASING + +Help the habitual and unkind teaser to see how cowardly the act is, to +see how it is against the spirit of fair play. Call on him to help the +weaker one. If he is teasing for some fault of temper or some habit, +show him the chance that is afforded to do the nobler deed of helping +another to overcome that fault. + +Let the cowardly teaser reap the consequences of his own act; he must +bear the burden of the critic, the expectation of perfection. Teasing +him for his own shortcomings will sometimes cure him, but usually he +loses his temper quickly. Make him feel the injustice of the teaser's +method. If he is a bully he needs bullying. If ever corporal punishment +is wise it is in such a case. He who inflicts pain simply because he can +deserves to endure pain inflicted by someone stronger. But one must be +careful not to confirm him in the coward's code. The injustice of it he +must see, see by smarting under it. If ever punishment before others is +wise it is in this case; for surely he who delights in humiliating +others must be humiliated. But though justice suggests this course, +experience shows that it does not always work; the bully only bides his +time, and, cherishing resentment, he wreaks it on the weaker ones. + +The best cure for brutal teasing will take a longer time than is +involved in a thrashing. Besides, the teaser will get his thrashings +very soon from other boys. It requires time to change the habits that +make bullying possible. Try gradually helping him to see the beauty and +pleasure of helpfulness. Give him a chance to give pleasure instead of +pain. Help him to taste the joy of praise, the praise that helps more +than all teasing criticism. Help him to see that it is more truly a mark +of superiority to help, to cheer, to do good, than to oppress and tease. +Take time to habituate him in helpfulness. + +In dealing with teasing in the family, two other things are worth +remembering: First, the teased must be taught the protective power of +indifference. Teasers stop as soon as their barbs fail to wound; the fun +ends there. Laugh at those who laugh at you, and they will soon cease. +Secondly, the atmosphere and habit of the family determine the course of +teasing. Where carping criticism and unkindly ridicule abound, children +cannot be blamed for like habits. Where the sense of humor lightens +tense situations, where we sacrifice the pleasure of stinging criticism +for the sake of encouraging those who most need it, children are quick +to catch those habits too. The teasing child usually comes out of a +family of similar habits. On seeing our children engaged in teasing +others, our first thought ought to be as to the extent to which we may +have been their example in this respect. Constant watchfulness on our +part against the temptations to tease will have an effect far more +potent than all attempts to talk them out of the habit; it will lead +them out. + + + I. References for Study + + 1. HONESTY + + P. Du Bois, _The Culture of Justice_, chaps. iii, x. Dodd, Mead & + Co., $0.75. + + E.P. St. John, _Child Nature and Child Nurture_, chap. viii. + Pilgrim Press, $0.50. + + 2. TEASING + + W.L. Sheldon, _A Study of Habits_, chap. xvii. Welch & Co., + Chicago, $1.25. + + + II. Further Reading + + ON GENERAL MORAL TRAINING + + Sneath & Hodges, _Moral Training in School and Home_. Macmillan, + $0.80. + + E.O. Sisson, _The Essentials of Character_. Macmillan, $1.00. + + H. Thisleton Mark, _The Unfolding of Personality_. The University + of Chicago Press, $1.00. + + Paul Carus, _Our Children_. Open Court Publishing Co., $1.00. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. Of what importance is the child's sense of possession? + + 2. What are the first evidences of a consciousness of property + rights? + + 3. How do homes train in dishonesty? + + 4. What is the relation between cheating and dishonesty? + + 5. What is a child seeking to do when he teases another? + + 6. What are the unfortunate features of teasing? + + 7. What is the relation of teasing to bullying? + + 8. What cures would you suggest for either? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[49] Parents will be helped by the practical discussions of cheating, +cribbing, and other boy problems in Johnson, _Problems of Boyhood_. + +[50] See "Book List" in Appendix. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE PERSONAL FACTORS IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION + + +Whoever will stop to review his early educational experience will be +impressed with the instantaneous and vivid manner in which certain +teachers spring into memory. They are seen as though actually living +again. We have difficulty in recalling even the subjects they taught, +while of the particulars of their teaching we have absolutely no +recollection. But they continue to influence us; they are like so many +silent forces leading our lives to this day. The teacher is always +greater than his lesson, and what he is, is greater than what he says. +The religious education of the young depends more on the gift of +persons, on contact with lives, than on anything else. + +There are instructors and there are teachers; the former impart +information, the latter convey personality; the former deal with +subjects, the latter teach people. The greatest factor in education as a +process of developing persons is the power of stimulating personality. +The power of the family as an educational agency is in the fact that it +is an organization of persons for personal purposes. When you take the +persons away you remove all educational potencies. + +The depersonalized home is the modern menace. We have come to think that +provided you throw furniture and food together in proper proportions you +can produce a capable life. So we depend on the home as a piece of +machinery to do its work automatically, forgetting that the working +activity is not the home but the family, not the furniture but people. +Life can only come from life, and lives can only come from lives. +Personality alone can develop personality. By so much as you rob the +family life of your personal presence, as mother or as father, you take +away from its reality as a family, from its force as an educational +agency, from its religious reality. + + +§ 1. ORPHANED FAMILIES + +All that is said here about fathers might well be applied to mothers, +save that they are not as flagrant sinners in this respect, and, +besides, it comes with better grace for a father to speak on the sins of +fathers. + +There are too many fathers who are financial and physiological fathers +only. A good father easily grows as crooked as a dollar sign when he is +nurtured only on money. Many, both fathers and mothers, take parenthood +wholly in physiological terms, imagining--if they think about it at +all--that they have fully discharged all possible obligations if only +they know how to bear, feed, and clothe children properly. True, such +duties are fundamental, but no father can be rightly called "a good +provider" who provides only _things_ for his family, no matter with what +generosity he provides these things. Our homes need more of ourselves +first of all. + +He makes a capital error of setting first things in secondary places who +willingly permits business to interfere with the pleasure of being with +his children. Our social order fights its own welfare as long as any +father is chained to the wheels of industry through the hours that +belong to his home. But there are just as many who are not chained, but +who enslave themselves to business, and so miss the largest and best +business in the world, the development of children's characters. + +Many a good father goes wrong here. Love and ambition prompt him to +provide abundantly for his children; he enslaves himself to give them +those social advantages which he missed in youth. + +But it is a short-measure love that gives only gifts and never gives +itself. The heart hungers, not for what you have in your hand, but for +what you are. "The gift without the giver is bare." No amount of +bountiful providing can atone for the loss of the father's personality. +It is easy for the hands to be so engrossed in providing that the home +is left headless and soon heartless. If we at all desire the fruits of +character in the home we must give ourselves personally. + +It is not alone the habitué of the saloon or the idler in clubs and +fraternities who is guilty of stealing from the home its rightful share +of his presence. He who gives so much of himself to any object as not to +give the best of himself to his family comes under the apostolic ban of +being worse than an infidel. _A father belongs to his home more than he +belongs to his church._ There have been men, though probably their +number is not legion, who have allowed church duties, meetings, and +obligations so to absorb their time and energy that they have given only +a worn-out, burned-out, and useless fragment of themselves to their +children. Some have found it more attractive to talk of the heavenly +home in prayer-meeting or to be gracious to the stranger and to win the +smile of the neighbor at the church than to take up the by-no-means-easy +task of being godly, sympathetic and cheerful, courteous and kind among +their children and in their homes. No matter what it may be, church or +club, politics or reform organization, we are working at the wrong end +if we are allowing them to take precedence of the home. + + +§ 2. THE FATHER'S CHANCE + +The father owes it to his family _to give himself at his best_, that is, +as far as possible, when his vitality is freshest and his powers +keenest to answer to the young life about him. He owes it to his family +to conserve for it the time to think of its needs, time to listen to the +wife's story of its problems, time to sit and sympathize with children, +time to hear their seemingly idle prattle, time to play with them. Have +you ever noticed this great difference between the father and the +mother, that while the latter always has time to bind up cut fingers and +to hear to its end the story of what the little neighbor, Johnny Smith, +did and said, somehow father's ear seems deaf to such stories and he is +often too busy to sympathize? It might work a vast change in some +families if the "children's hour" had a call to the father as well as to +the mother. Of course we are crowded with social engagements and life is +at high pressure under the enticing obligation of uplifting and +reforming everybody else, yet one hour of every evening held sacred for +the firelight conversation, one in which the children could really get +at our hearts, might be worth more to tomorrow than all our public +propaganda. + +Fathers owe their brains as well as their hands to their families. +Competent and efficient fatherhood does not come by accident. We are +learning that children cannot be understood merely by loving them, that +two things must be held in balance: the scientific and the sympathetic +study of childhood. Is there any good reason why, while so readily +granting that mothers should belong to mothers' clubs, study child +psychology, the hygiene of infancy, domestic science, and eugenics, we +should assume that fathers may safely dispense with all such knowledge? +There are men who sit up nights studying how to grow the biggest +radishes in the block, there are men who toil through technical +handbooks on the game of golf, who would look at you in open-eyed wonder +if you should suggest the duty of studying their children with equal +scientific patience. They of course desire to have ideal children but +they are not willing to learn how to grow them. + + +§ 3. FATHERING AS A MAN'S TASK + +It takes intelligence and burns up brain power to keep the confidence of +your boy so that he will freely talk of his own life and needs to you. +Those much-to-be-desired open doors are kept open, not by accident, nor +by our sentiments or wishes alone. A boy changes so fast that a man has +to be alert, thinking and trying to understand and sympathize all the +time. The boy sees through all sleepy pretenses of understanding. We +keep the open door of confidence only as by steady endeavor we keep in +real touch with the boy's world. + +Fathers are ignorant of the problems of family training; they oscillate +between the wishy-washy sentimentality that permits anarchy in the home +and the harsh, unthinking despotism that breeds hatred and rebellion. +Fathers criticize the public schools but never take the time to go and +look inside one. They laugh at women's clubs because they are too lazy +to make a like investment in the patient study of some of their +problems. They affect indifference to the parent-teacher clubs while +remaining ignorant of the significant things they have already +accomplished for the schools. If we were to make an inventory of what +the women, the mothers, have accomplished by study, agitation, and +legislation for social, civic, ethical, and religious betterment, we +proud lords of creation would, or ought to, hang our heads in shame. + +Fatherhood is our chance to become. It is our chance to grow into our +finest selves. The measure of its gains to us depends upon the measure +of our gifts to its opportunities and duties. It is our chance to be +what we should like our children to be, our chance to find ourselves. +All that it costs, all the self-denial, labor, and often pain it must +mean, is just the process of developing a fine, rich life. Now, that +life is just the greatest gift that any man can make to his home and his +world. We can never give any more than ourselves or any other than +ourselves, and this pathway of sacrifice, this costly way of +home-making, is a man's chance to become Godlike. The race has come +upward in this way. It needs the masculine in its ideal self as well as +the feminine. There is no race salvation without constant individual +self-giving. That self-giving must be balanced equally on the part of +the man and the woman. Fatherhood, like motherhood, is just our chance +to learn life's best lesson, that there is a certain short path to +happiness which men have called the way of pain and God calls the way of +peace. + +Motherhood is a sacred portion, but so is fatherhood. Its calls are just +as high, its service just as holy, its opportunities just as large, its +meaning just as divine. How worse than empty are all our pratings about +divine fatherhood if we illustrate its meaning only degradingly or +misleadingly! And just as the life of the spirit is the gift of that +divine fatherhood, so for us the gift of our lives, ourselves, is the +largest and richest contribution we can make to the religious lives of +our children. + +The father as a teacher teaches by what he is. The classes in the home +have no set lessons, for the text is written in lives and the word is +spoken and taught in personality. You effect the religious education of +your children in the degree that you give yourself as a simple religious +person to them. + + + I. References for Study + + Hodges, _Training of Children in Religion_, chap. vii. Appleton, + $1.50. + + K.G. Busby, _Home Life in America_, chaps. i, ii. Macmillan, + $2.00. + + + II. Further Reading + + E.A. Abbott, _On the Training of Parents_. Houghton Mifflin Co., + $1.00. + + Allen, _Making the Most of Our Children_. 2 vols. McClurg, $1.00 + each. + + Wilm, _The Culture of Religion_, chap. ii. Pilgrim Press, $0.75 + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. Which do you remember best, your teachers or your lessons? Why? + + 2. Describe, from your memory, some of the influences of + personality? + + 3. Are these influences greater or less with parents on children? + + 4. What are the causes that separate parents and children? + + 5. How shall we define duties to business, to society, and to the + family? + + 6. Under what circumstances is one justified in refusing time to + the church for the sake of the family? + + 7. What are the best times and opportunities for the strengthening + of the personal bonds between children and parents? + + 8. How shall we overcome the apparent difficulty of maintaining the + confidence of children? + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +LOOKING TO THE FUTURE + + +Whether we can remedy the ills of family living today or not, we can +determine the character of the family life of the future. The homes of +tomorrow are being determined today. The children who swing their feet +in schoolrooms and play in our gardens will control family living very +soon. We can do little to reconstruct the old order; we can do +everything to determine the new. When the mountain sides have been made +bare, forest conservation cannot save the old trees, but it can prepare +for new growths. Ours is the larger opportunity because we can determine +the ideals of our children. Today we can determine that they shall not +suffer from false conceptions, shall not bruise themselves in the blind +ignorance that compelled us to find our own way. We shall see that, +first, in the education of our children we can save the homes of +tomorrow by training the children of today to set first things first. If +family life has been neglected in America, it has been because we have +submerged its real values of character and affection in a flood of +things, of materialism. + + +§ 1. A CONSTRUCTIVE POLICY FOR CHARACTER + +The future higher efficiency of the family depends on an extension of a +conscience for character through all our thinking on the family. We are +really half-ashamed to talk of character. We blush for ideals but we +have no shame in boasting of commerce and factories; we are ashamed of +the things of beauty and we love only the useful. So we have become +ashamed of the ideals of the home. Not only do we passively acquiesce in +the popular attitude of indifference or derision, but we voice it +ourselves. We join in the jest at marriage; we joke over marital +infelicities. We would be ashamed to be caught singing "Home, Sweet +Home." What is more important, we show that, as a people, we have less +and less the habit of regarding the home as any other than a commercial +affair. The tendency is to determine domestic living wholly by economic +factors. The literature on the "home" is overwhelmingly economic; its +heart is in the kitchen. High efficiency on the physiological, sanitary, +culinary, and mechanical sides makes the modern home so convenient that +you can lie on a folding bed, press a button to light the grate fire, +turn on the lights, start the toaster, and wake the children. Homes are +places to hide in at night, to feed the body, arrange the clothes, and +start out from for real living. They are private hotels. + +If we would save the family we must save the child from losing sight of +the primacy of human values; we must strengthen his natural faith that +people are worth more than all besides, leading him into the faith that +moral integrity, truth, honor, righteousness, are the glory of a life. +More, these young lives must be trained to habitual and efficient +right-doing. In a word, the conservation of the home is simply a program +of beginning today ourselves to set first things first, to conserve the +human factors that will make homes, to make education everywhere in +school and church and home count first of all for character. And that +broader education we ourselves must test first of all by this, whether +it makes youth competent to live aright, cultivates the love of worthy +ideals, and makes him willing and able to pay the price of a trained +life consecrated to the service of his world, to the love of his +fellows, and to the making of a new world. + +We shall need, first, to safeguard the primary motives that enter into +the founding of families. Those motives begin to develop early. They are +in the making in childhood. Somehow we must plan the education of youths +so that they will think of homes and of marriage in new terms. Possibly +the public school will not only teach the physiology of marriage and the +bare physical facts of sexual purity, but will teach new ideals of +family life; it will count it at least as much a duty to cultivate a +love of home as it is to cultivate a love of country. It can set so +clearly the final objective of character that even children shall see +that life has higher ends than money-making and the family greater +purposes than garish social display. + + +§ 2. THE CHURCH AIDING + +Certainly the church must seek to quicken and develop new ideals of +family life; it must bring religion to our hearths and homes; it must +worry less about a "home over there," and show how truly heavenly homes +may be made here. It must not only get youth ready to die, it must +prepare them to live; to live together on religious terms. It will do +this, not only by general discussions in the pulpit, but by special +instruction in classes. No church has a clear conscience in regard to +any young person contemplating the duties of a family whom it has not +directly instructed in the duties of that life. + +It is a strange spectacle, if we would stop long enough to look at it, +of the church proclaiming a way of life but scarcely ever teaching it. +In any church there is a large number of young people under instruction; +what are they learning? Usually a theological interpretation of an +ancient religious literature. Some still are learning to hate all other +persons whose religion differs from the brand carried in that +institution. In a few years these youths will be bearing social burdens, +facing temptations, taking up duties; does their teaching relate at all +to these things? No, indeed, that would be "worldly"; it would seem to +be sacrilegious to teach them how actually to be religious. The business +of the church school is still largely that of filling minds with +theological data rather than training young, trainable lives to become +religious schoolboys, religious voters, religious parents. How many have +been at all influenced by Sunday-school teaching when they stepped into +a polling-booth, when they chose a life-mate, when they guided or +disciplined their children? If religious education does not at all +influence us in the great events of life, of what value is it to us? +Must it not be counted a sheer waste of time? + +If we would conserve the human values of the family we must train youth +to a religious interpretation of the home. If we cannot do that in the +church we might as well confess that the church cannot touch the sources +of human affairs. + + +§ 3. IDEALS AND METHODS + +No matter what the breadth of the interests of the public school, youth +will still need training for family living given under religious +auspices and with the religious aim. The day school may give courses in +domestic economy, but family living demands more than ability to sweep a +room or cook an egg. In fact, no one can be competent to meet its higher +demands unless at least two things are accomplished, first, that he, or +she, is led to see the family as essentially a religious, spiritual +institution because it is an association of persons for the purpose of +developing other persons to spiritual fulness; secondly, that he, or +she, is moved to willingness to count the work of the family, its +purpose and aim, as the highest in life and that for which one is +willing to pay any price of time, treasure, thought, and endeavor. + +This means that the fundamental need is that our young people shall grow +up with a new vision and a new passion for the home and family. That +passion is needed to give value to any training in the economics or +mechanics of the home; and that training is precisely the contribution +which the church should make to all departments of life today. It is the +prophet, the interpreter, revealing the spiritual meanings of all daily +affairs and quickening us to right feeling, to highly directed passion +for worthy ideals. + +From the general teaching, the high message of the church, directed to +this special problem, there must be formed in the mind of the coming +generation a new picture of the family, a new ethics of its life, a new +evaluation of its worth. That can come in part by the prophetic message +from the pulpit, but it will come more naturally and readily by regular +teaching directed to the actual experiences and the coming needs of the +young people who are to be home-makers. The soaring ideals pass over +their heads, but when you teach the practice, the details of the life of +the family in the spirit of these ideals, as interpreted and determined +by the higher conception, then they catch the vision through the +details. + +We need two types of classes in church schools in relation to the life +of the family: First, classes for young people in which their social +duties as religious persons are carefully taught and discussed. Perhaps +such courses should not be specifically on "The Family," but this +institution ought, in the course, to occupy a place proportionate to +that which belongs to it in life. The instruction should be specific and +detailed, not simply a series of homilies on "The Christian Family," +"Love of Home," etc., but taking up the great problems of the economic +place of the family today, its spiritual function, questions of choice +of life-partners, types of dwelling, finances and money relations in the +family, children and their training, and the actual duties and problems +which arise in family living. + +All topics should be treated from the dominant viewpoint of the family +as a religious institution for the development of the lives of +religious persons. The courses should be so arranged as to be given to +young people of about twenty years of age, or of twenty to twenty-five. +They should be among the electives offered in the church school. + +The second type of class would be for those who are already parents and +who desire help on their special problems. Many schools now conduct such +classes, meeting either on Sunday or during the week.[51] Work on +"Parents' Problems," "Family Religious Education," and similar topics is +also being given in the city institutes for religious workers. No church +can be satisfied with its service to the community unless it provides +opportunity for parents to study their work of character development +through the family and to secure greater efficiency therein. Such +classes need only three conditions: a clear understanding of the purpose +of meeting the actual problems of religious training in the family, a +leader or instructor who is really qualified to lead and to instruct in +this subject, and an invitation to parents to avail themselves of this +opportunity. + +The value of such a class would be greatly enhanced if it should be held +in close co-ordination with similar classes or clubs conducted by the +public schools.[52] Here all the parents of the community meet in the +school building, not to discuss how the teachers may satisfy parental +criticism, but to learn what the school has to teach on modern +educational methods applied to the life of the child, especially in the +family, and mutually to find ways of co-operation between the home and +the school for the betterment of the child. + + + I. References for Study + + Articles in _Religious Education_, April, 1911, VI, 1-77. + + Helen C. Putnam in _Religious Education_, June, 1911, VI, 159-66. + + George W. Dawson in _Religious Education_, June, 1911, VI, 167-74. + + Cabot, _Volunteer Help in the Schools_, chap. vii. Houghton Mifflin + Co., $0.60. + + + II. Further Reading + + Forsyth, _Marriage, Its Ethics and Religion_. Hodder & Stoughton, + $1.25. + + Lovejoy, _Self-Training for Motherhood_. American Unitarian + Association, $1.00. + + Pomeroy, _Ethics of Marriage_. Funk & Wagnalls, $1.50. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. In how far are home problems due to the ignorance of parents? + + 2. What do you regard as the essentials in the training of parents? + + 3. Where can the necessary subjects best be taught? + + 4. What are the difficulties in the way of teaching these subjects + to young people? + + 5. In how far can we direct the reading of young people toward sane + and helpful knowledge of family life and duties? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[51] Pamphlets on plans for parents' classes: _The Home and the Sunday +School_, Pilgrim Press; _Plans for Mothers' and Parents' Meetings_, +Sunday School Times Co.; _How to Start a Mothers' Department_, David C. +Cook Co.; _The Parents' Department of the Sunday School_, Connecticut +Sunday School Association, Hartford, Conn. + +[52] See pamphlet published by the National Congress of Mothers: _How to +Organize Parents' Associations and Mothers' Circles in Public Schools_. + + + + +APPENDIXES + + + + +APPENDIX I + +SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS WORK + + +This book is designed for individual reading or for use in classes. It +is not a textbook of the same character as a textbook in mathematics or +history, but the material is arranged so as to be both easily readable +and of ready analysis for classes. There are two methods of following +the course: one by work conducted under a regular teacher in a class, +and the other by private or correspondence study. + + +§ 1. THE CLASS + +The class should be composed of parents and other adults, inasmuch as +the work is designed for them. It may be a class in connection with the +Sunday school in a church, a class conducted by a mothers' club or +congress or by a parent-teacher association, or it may be organized +under other auspices. Or it might be organized by a group of parents in +any community. The class need not consist of either fathers or mothers +alone, as the work is planned for both. In any case the work of teaching +will be facilitated if, in addition to the customary officers of the +class, the teacher will appoint a librarian, whose duties would be to +ascertain for the members of the class where the books for study and +for reference may be obtained, that is, whether they are in the public +library, church library, or in private collections, and also, whenever +it is desired to purchase books, where they may best be secured. + + +§ 2. THE TEACHER + +The primary requisite for the teacher will be an eagerness to learn, a +sufficiently deep interest in the subject to lead to thorough study. No +one can teach this class who already knows all about the subject. A +spirit sympathetic with the child and the life of the family and a mind +willing to study the subject will accomplish much more than facile +rhetorical familiarity with it. The best teacher will not often be "an +easy talker" on the family; class time is too precious to be occupied +with a lecture. While, naturally, one who is a parent will speak with +greater experience than another, the ability to teach this subject +cannot be limited to fathers and mothers; physiological parenthood is +less important than spiritual parenthood. The teacher must have, then, +willingness to study the subject, ability to teach as contrasted with +mere talking, sympathy with parenthood, and a passion for the religious +personal values in life. + + +§ 3. GENERAL METHOD + +The teacher's aim will be to make this course definitely practical. The +book is not concerned so much with theories of the family as with the +present problems of the family, and especially with those that relate to +moral and religious education. There must be a sense of definite +problems to be concretely treated in all lessons. The teacher will +therefore encourage discussion, but will also avoid the tendency to +drift into desultory conversation. Direct the discussion to avoid +tedious détours on side issues. Direct the discussion to avoid the +tendency to treat superficially all the subject at one session. It will +be necessary frequently to insist that attention be focused upon the +immediate problems suggested by the lesson for the day, and to ask the +class to wait until the subjects which they in their eagerness suggest +shall come in their due order. + +Encourage personal experiences as sidelights and criticisms on the text, +but remember that no single experience is conclusive. Beware of the +over-elaboration and detailed narration of experiences. + +_Insist on a thorough study of the text._ Students should be so prepared +as to make a lecture superfluous and to allow discussion to take the +place of review and explanation. The greatest danger in parents' classes +is that the members do not study; class work becomes indefinite and soon +loses value. Again, the members of the class often are unwilling to be +governed by the schedule of lessons, and the class drifts into aimless +conversation. Adult students especially need to be turned from the +tendency to regard educational experience as having come to an end with +their school days. The members of this class will need encouragement; +they must be stimulated patiently until they have re-formed some habits +of study and rediscovered the pleasures of systematic thinking. The best +stimulus will be a teacher so convinced of the supreme importance of the +subject to be studied as to lead the members to recognize its importance +and the insignificance of any price they may pay for efficient spiritual +parenthood. + + +§ 4. CLASS WORK + +At the first session teach chap. i, which is introductory. Draw out +discussion on the points suggested therein, and assign this chapter and +the one following for the next session. The first lesson will give the +teacher opportunity to explain and illustrate the method of study, +presentation, and discussion. + +Assign the work carefully each week, calling especial attention to the +"References for Study." Secure promises from as many as possible to read +at least one of these references and to prepare a written report, on one +sheet of paper, for presentation at the next session. Ask others to look +into the special points which will be found in the references given +under the heading "Further Reading." + +In beginning a lesson it will be wise to call to mind first the +principle running through the book, that the great work of the family is +the development of religious persons in the home; then call to mind the +application of this principle in the last lesson. Make your review very +brief. + +Next, bring out the leading topic of the lesson for the day. This should +be done so as to present a vital issue and a live topic to the class. +Very often the best way of doing this is to state a concrete case +involving the issue discussed. The presentation of a definite set of +circumstances or a fairly complete experience involving the fundamental +principles under discussion is an instance of teaching by the "case +method." If the teacher will consider how the law student is trained by +the study of _particular cases_, the advantage of the method will be +clear. Be sure that the "case" selected will include the principles to +be taught. Prepare the statement of the case beforehand. This should be +done in a very brief narrative, so giving the instance as to enable the +class to see the reality of the question. Be sure that your instance is +itself vital and probable. A class of adults will especially need such +points of vital contact. By announcing the topic in advance the teacher +will often be able to obtain definite cases in point from the members. + +With the case thus presented take the points in the text and apply them, +first to the special case alone, but with the purpose of developing the +principles involved in that and similar cases. Beware of the special +danger of the case method, namely, that the class may discuss the +specific instances rather than the principles. + +_Teaching is more than telling_; it is stimulating other minds to see +and comprehend and state for themselves. Therefore the teacher must +first comprehend and be able to state for himself. Avoid repeating the +phrases of the text. Get them over into your own language and see that +the class does the same. Do not fail to call for the brief reports on +reading, and to make them a real part of the subject of discussion. + +_Questioning_ is the natural method of stimulating minds. Use the +question method, but do not confine yourself to "What does the author +say on this?" Direct your questions to the points stated and the issues +raised so as to compel students to think on the topics and so as to draw +out the results of their thinking. Form your own judgments and help the +class to form theirs too. Remember that the purpose of the class is to +get people thinking on the great subjects discussed. The text is not +written in order that groups of students may learn the author's +statements, but that they may be led to think seriously on all these +matters and stimulated to do something about them. + +Use the "discussion topics" given at the end of each lesson. They are +not designed to furnish a syllabus of the lesson, but to suggest +important questions for discussion, some of which may barely be +mentioned in the text. They may be used in assigning the advance work, +giving topics to different students, and they may be used in your review +of the previous lesson. + +A syllabus of each lesson will be helpful, provided it be prepared by +the students themselves. Encourage the careful reading of the lesson by +every member of the class, letting the syllabus grow out of this. + +Notebooks will have their largest value if used at home for two +purposes: first, to set down the student's analysis of the book as he +reads, secondly, to record the student's observations on definite +problems and on practice in the home. Note-taking in the class will have +very little value unless it is backed up by study at home. + +_Generalization._ Have clearly in your own mind a definite concept of +the general principle underlying each section. Read through each section +until you can state the principle for yourself. Bring your teaching into +a focus at the point of that principle before the lesson ends. Try to +get the members of the class to state the principle in their own words. + +_In action:_ The principles will have little value unless translated +into practical methods; direct your teaching to their actual use in +families. Your generalization is for guidance into application. Urge +that the plans described be actually tried. Expect this and call for +reports on plans tested in the daily experience of families. If a number +of students would try, for example, the plan of worship suggested for +two or three weeks and report their experiences in writing, together +with the accounts of any other plans tried, a valuable budget of helpful +knowledge could thus be gathered.[53] + +_Conference plan:_ Some classes will be able to meet twice a week, +taking the lesson at one session and at another spending the time in +conference. At the conference period the program might provide for (1) +brief papers by members of the class on topics personally assigned, (2) +abstracts or summaries of assigned readings, (3) discussion on the +particular points raised in the papers, and (4) conference on unsettled +questions from the lesson for the class period preceding. + +_Club work:_ A parents' club might be organized, either in a church or +in connection with a school, which would use this textbook, follow the +study work with conferences, and would secure for its own use a library +of the books listed after each chapter. Such a club would be able to put +into practice some of the plans advocated and could encourage their +application in groups of families. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[53] The teachers are especially invited to secure records of actual +experiments of this character. Accounts of tried methods of family +worship, especially those with new features, which should be given in +some detail as to the exact plan, the circumstances, the material used, +and the results, should be sent to the author in care of the publishers. +Perhaps in this way material which may be valuable to large numbers may +be gathered. + + + + +APPENDIX II + +A BOOK LIST + + +The following books would be found useful for the working library of a +class or club following the study of this text or for a section of the +church library on the home and family. The books marked with an asterisk +are the ones which may be regarded as of first practical value to +parents and others studying the development of character in the life of +the family. + +In addition to the titles mentioned below, the the references at the end +of each chapter in this book will furnish a list of other sources of +valuable material. + + + I. the Institution of the Family + + C.F. and C.B. Thwing, _The Family_. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, $1.60. + A historical survey of the family with a special study of its + modern dangers and needs. + + P.T. Forsyth, _Marriage, Its Ethics and Religion_. Hodder & + Stoughton, $1.25. An important, popular statement of the ethics of + marriage as the foundation of family life. + + *W.F. Lofthouse, _Ethics and the Family_. Hodder & Stoughton, $2.50 + net. The most important recent book on the family; traces its + historical development, the ethical ideals involved in the + institution, and discusses its present problems and perplexities. + + Katherine G. Busby, _Home Life in America_. Macmillan, $2.00 net. A + popular statement of the outstanding characteristics of life in + American homes; entertaining and informing. + + *Clyde W. Votaw, _Progress of Moral and Religious Education in the + American Home_. Religious Education Association, $0.25. A careful + and comprehensive survey, of great value. + + Charles A.L. Reed, _Marriage and Genetics_. Galton Press, + Cincinnati, Ohio, $1.00. A surgeon's message on eugenics, + especially on the aspects indicated in the title. A study of the + laws of human breeding. + + + II. Child Nature + + *E.P. St. John, _Child Nature and Child Nurture_. Pilgrim Press, + $0.50. A textbook dealing with the nature of the child and with + problems of his training in the home. + + *Irving King, _The High School Age_. Bobbs-Merrill & Co., $1.00 + net. A study of the nature and needs of boys and girls in the first + period of adolescence. Written for all who are alive to the + problems of this period as well as for school people; gives + constructive suggestions for educational problems. + + Elizabeth Harrison, _A Study of the Child Nature_. Chicago + Kindergarten College, $1.00. Long recognized as a standard for + parents in the study of the development and functions of the + child-life. + + George E. Dawson, _The Right of the Child to Be Well Born_. Funk & + Wagnalls, $0.75. A plain study of eugenics, non-technical and + helpful; includes a chapter on eugenics and religion. To be + commended to parents. + + George E. Dawson, _The Child and His Religion_. The University of + Chicago Press, $0.75. The religious nature and needs of the child + with some suggestions as to method. + + *W. Arter Wright, _The Moral Conditions and Development of the + Child_. Jennings & Graham, $0.75. An important and valuable book on + the newer views of the religious development of the child-life. + + Frederick Tracy and J. Stempfl, _The Psychology of Childhood_. D.C. + Heath & Co., $1.20. Gathers up the general results in the field of + child psychology. + + *W.G. Koons, _The Child's Religious Life_. Jennings & Graham, + $1.00. From the modern point of view, dealing with some of the + interesting problems of the relation of the child to religious life + and the development of his religious ideas. + + Thomas Stephens, _The Child and Religion_. Putnam, $1.50. A series + of short papers by English writers, particularly on the question of + child conversion. + + George A. Hubbell, _Up through Childhood_. Putnam, $1.25. A good + general review with special reference to religious problems and + religious institutions. + + Edith E.R. Mumford, _The Dawn of Character_. Longmans, Green & Co., + $1.20. A very important book, dealing especially with the moral + development of young children. + + + III. Training in the Home + + William B. Forbush (ed.), _Guide Book to Childhood_. American + Institute of Child Life, Philadelphia, Pa. Very valuable as a guide + to reading on the many problems of child-training. + + LeGrand Kerr, _The Care and Training of the Child_. Funk & + Wagnalls, $0.75. A good, general, brief study of the nature of the + child and the method of education. + + William J. Shearer, _The Management and Training of the Child_. + Richardson, Smith & Co. A popular and practical statement of many + problems and their treatment in the home and school. + + John Wirt Dinsmore, _The Training of Children_. American Book Co. + While written for school-teachers, this is one of the best studies + which parents could possibly read. + + A.A. Berle, _The School in the Home_. Moffat, Yard & Co., $1.00. + Contains much valuable suggestion to parents who really desire to + take advantage of the educational opportunities of the home. + + John Locke, _How to Train Up Your Children_. Sampson, Low, Marston + & Co., London. Written over two hundred years ago, and yet of very + great value in many parts to day. + + *William B. Forbush, _The Coming Generation_. D. Appleton & Co., + $1.50. Discusses the various aspects of child-training in the light + of the social consciousness of today. Many of the public agencies + for child betterment are carefully discussed. + + *William A. McKeever, _Training the Girl_. Macmillan, $1.50. + + *----, _Training the Boy_. Macmillan, $1.50. These two books + constitute one of the best collections of material, most practical + and helpful. They view girls and boys as active factors and all the + phases of home and community life are studied with reference to + their needs. + + + IV. Special Religious Training in the Home + + *George Hodges, _The Training of the Child in Religion_. D. + Appleton & Co., $1.50. One of the few books dealing in any modern + manner with the special problems of the religious life of the + family. + + Rev. William Becker, _Christian Education or The Duties of + Parents_. B. Herder, St. Louis, $1.00. Recent and interesting + sermons on the duties of parents in the religious education of the + Catholic child; a striking example of messages that ought to be + heard from every pulpit. + + John T. Faris, _Pleasant Sunday Afternoons for the Children_. + Sunday School Times Co., $0.50. A number of practical plans are + suggested. + + *George A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_. Fleming H. + Revell Co., $1.35. A book which all parents ought to read for its + valuable guidance on the general principles of religious education. + + Elizabeth Grinnell, _How John and I Brought Up the Children_. + American Sunday School Union, $0.70. A popular statement in a + simple form of methods of dealing with many of the problems of + religious training. + + + V. Moral Training + + Edward H. Griggs, _Moral Education_. B.W. Huebsch, $1.60. One of + the best-known books on this question, readable and helpful at many + points. + + Ennis Richmond, _The Mind of the Child_. Longmans, Green & Co., + $1.00. One of the most helpful books because of its new and + refreshing point of view. + + *Edward O. Sisson, _The Essentials of Character_. Macmillan, $1.00. + A book on the broad principles and ideals; one dealing with the + outstanding elements of character. + + Ernest H. Abbott, _On the Training of Parents_. Houghton Mifflin + Co., $1.00. A bright statement of some of the most perplexing + problems of family life. + + *Mary Wood-Allen, _Making the Best of Our Children_. First and + Second Series. A.C. McClurg & Co., $1.00 each. Takes one after + another of the different situations in child-training. + + *Patterson DuBois, _The Culture of Justice_. Dodd, Mead & Co., + $0.75. An important contribution, as it calls attention to some + frequently neglected aspects of moral training especially + applicable to the home. + + Walter L. Sheldon, _Duties in the Home_. W.M. Welch & Co. A + textbook, the thirty sections of which would furnish an excellent + basis for parents' discussions of home discipline. + + + VI. General Reading in the Home + + John Macy, _Child's Guide to Reading_. Baker & Taylor Co., $1.25. A + discussion of reading and the education of children thereby, with + suggestions and criticisms of suitable books in different + departments of reading. + + W.T. Taylor, _Finger Posts to Children's Reading_. A.C. McClurg & + Co., $1.00. A practical discussion of suitable reading for + children, with a list of books. + + *G.W. Arnold, _A Mothers' List of Books for Children_. A.C. McClurg + & Co., $1.00. The books are arranged by ages and topics, making + this one of the most useful collections available. + + Edward P. St. John, _Stories and Story Telling_. Eaton & Mains, + $0.35. A textbook, for parents' classes. It contains much valuable + material. + + E.M. Partridge, _Story Telling in School and Home_. Sturgis & + Walton, $1.35. One of the best discussions of the principles and + methods of story-telling, with a number of good stories. + + + + +INDEX + + +Activity in relation to character, 75 + +Amusement of young people, 190 + +Anger, Dealing with, 224 + + +Bible, Methods of using the, 121 + +Bible, The, in the home, 119 + +Blessing at table, 133 + +Book list on the family, 290 + +Books and reading, 113 + +Boy, The, in the family, 173 + +Boys' play, 175 + +Bullying, 253 + + +Character, A constructive policy for, 269 + +Child nature, Books on, 291 + +Child unity with the church, 207 + +Child welfare, Religious meanings of, 3 + +Childhood characteristics, 53 + +Christian family, The, as a type, 41 + +Church, The, and the children, 204 + +Church, The, and the family, 198 + +Church, The, and the program of the home, 271 + +Citizenship, Training for, 96 + +Class work, Plans of, 281 + +Community, The, in relation to the home, 88 + +Community service, 91 + +Conversation, Religious, 62 + +Courtship, 188 + + +Dishonesty, 249 + + +Economic development of the home, 13 + +Educational function, The, of the family, 46 + +Educational process, The, 49 + + +Factory system, The, and the home, 14 + +Family as an institution, Books on the, 290 + +"Family Book," 155 + +Family defined, 5 + +Family ideal in the church, 202 + +Family life, Dominating motive of, 27 + +Family worship, 126 + +Family worship, Methods of, 133 + +Father, The, and the boy, 177 + +Father, The, and the family, 263 + +Fighting among children, 234 + +Function of the family, 46 + +Future of the family, 268 + + +Girl, The, in the family, 180 + +God, The consciousness of, 64 + +Grace at table, 133 + + +Hebrew family life, 39 + +Home and school co-operation, 213 + +Home, is it passing? 10 + +Home, Religious interpretation of, 1 + +Home versus family, 18, 22 + +Honesty, Training in, 249 + +Hymns for children, 102 + + +Jesus' teaching on the family, 42 + + +Loyalty as the basic principle, 31, 54 + +Loyalty, The organization of, 57 + +Lying and the moral problem, 240 + + +Meals, Conversation at, 165 + +Moral crises, Dealing with, 218 + +Moral life, religious roots in the family, 31 + +Moral teaching, 70 + +Moral training, Books on, 294 + +Motive, Religious, in the family, 2 + +Music in the family, 105 + + +Organization of home, Purpose of, 19 + + +Parental aversion, 186 + +Parenthood and religious training, 260 + +Parents' classes, 274 + +Parents trained in schools, 214 + +Petulancy in children, 233 + +Play activity, 107 + +Play, A policy of, 150 + +Play on Sunday, 149 + +Prayers, Children's, 135 + +Prayers, Family, 137 + + +Quarrels of children, 231 + +Questions, Children's, 69 + + +Reading, Developing taste for, 115 + +Religious character of the family, 46 + +Religious development of the child, 52 + +Religious education in the family, Books on, 293 + +Religious education, Meaning of, 47 + +Religious growth of the child, 55 + +Religious history of the family, 37 + +Religious ideas of children, 60 + +Religious service, 78, 80 + + +School, The home as a, 87 + +Schools, Public, and the home, 212 + +Self-control, Developing, 227, 236 + +Social life of youth, 189 + +Social qualities to be developed, 28 + +Social training, 29, 82, 92 + +Socialization of the home, 16 + +Song and story, 101 + +Spiritual values, Place of, 30 + +Stories and reading, 110 + +Story-telling, 110 + +Sunday afternoon problem, 154 + +Sunday in the home, 145 + +Sunday play, 149 + + +Table, Ministry of the, 164 + +Table-talk, 169 + +Teasing and bullying, 253 + + +Will, Training the, 221 + +Work and character, 76 + +Worship in the family, 126 + +Worship, Outlines of, 139 + + +Youth in the home, 183 + + +PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. + + + + +THE CONSTRUCTIVE STUDIES + + +The Constructive Studies comprise volumes suitable for all grades, from +kindergarten to adult years, in schools or churches. In the production +of these studies the editors and authors have sought to embody not only +their own ideals but the best product of the thought of all who are +contributing to the theory and practice of modern religious education. +They have had due regard for fundamental principles of pedagogical +method, for the results of the best modern biblical scholarship, and for +those contributions to religious education which may be made by the use +of a religious interpretation of all life-processes, whether in the +field of science, literature, or social phenomena. + +Their task is not regarded as complete because of having produced one or +more books suitable for each grade. There will be a constant process of +renewal and change, and the possible setting aside of books which, +because of changing conditions in the religious world or further advance +in the science of religious education, no longer perform their function, +and the continual enrichment of the series by new volumes so that it may +always be adapted to those who are taking initial steps in modern +religious education, as well as to those who have accepted and are ready +to put into practice the most recent theories. + +As teachers profoundly interested in the problems of religious +education, the editors have invited to co-operate with them authors +chosen from a wide territory and in several instances already well known +through practical experiments in the field in which they are asked to +write. + +The editors are well aware that those who are most deeply interested in +religious education hold that churches and schools should be accorded +perfect independence in their choice of literature regardless of +publishing-house interests and they heartily sympathize with this +standard. They realize that many schools will select from the +Constructive Studies such volumes as they prefer, but at the same time +they hope that the Constructive Studies will be most widely serviceable +as a series. The following analysis of the series will help the reader +to get the point of view of the editors and authors. + + +KINDERGARTEN, 4-6 YEARS + +The kindergarten child needs most of all to gain those simple ideals of +life which will keep him in harmony with his surroundings in the home, +at play, and in the out-of-doors. He is most susceptible to a religious +interpretation of all these, which can best be fostered through a +program of story, play, handwork, and other activities as outlined in + + _The Sunday Kindergarten_ (Ferris). A teachers' manual giving + directions for the use of a one- or two-hour period with story, + song, play, and handwork. Permanent and temporary material for the + children's table work, and story leaflets to be taken home. + + +PRIMARY, 6-8 YEARS, GRADES I-III + +At the age of six years when children enter upon a new era because of +their recognition by the first grade in the public schools the +opportunity for the cultivation of right social reactions is +considerably increased. Their world still, however, comprises chiefly +the home, the school, the playground, and the phenomena of nature. A +normal religion at this time is one which will enable the child to +develop the best sort of life in all these relationships, which now +present more complicated moral problems than in the earlier stage. +Religious impressions may be made through interpretations of nature, +stories of life, song, prayer, simple scripture texts, and handwork. All +of these are embodied in + + _Child Religion in Song and Story_ (Chamberlin and Kern). Three + interchangeable volumes; only one of which is used at one time in + all three grades. Each lesson presents a complete service, song, + prayers, responses, texts, story, and handwork. Constructive and + beautiful handwork books are provided for the pupil. + + +JUNIOR, 9 YEARS, GRADE IV + +When the children have reached the fourth grade they are able to read +comfortably and have developed an interest in books, having a "reading +book" in school and an accumulating group of story-books at home. One +book in the household is as yet a mystery, the Bible, of which the +parents speak reverently as God's Book. It contains many interesting +stories and presents inspiring characters which are, however, buried in +the midst of much that would not interest the children. To help them to +find these stories and to show them the living men who are their heroes +or who were the writers of the stories, the poems, or the letters, makes +the Bible to them a living book which they will enjoy more and more as +the years pass. This service is performed by + + _An Introduction to the Bible for Teachers of Children_ + (Chamberlin). Story-reading from the Bible for the school and home, + designed to utilize the growing interest in books and reading found + in children of this age, in cultivating an attitude of intelligent + interest in the Bible and enjoyment of suitable portions of it. + Full instructions with regard to picturesque, historical, and + social introductions are given the teacher. A pupil's homework + book, designed to help him to think of the story as a whole and to + express his thinking, is provided for the pupil. + + +JUNIOR, 10-12 YEARS, GRADES V-VII + +Children in the fifth, sixth, and seventh grades are hero-worshipers. In +the preceding grade they have had a brief introduction to the life of +Jesus through their childish explorations of the gospels. His character +has impressed them already as heroic and they are eager to know more +about him, therefore the year is spent in the study of + + _The Life of Jesus_ (Gates). The story of Jesus graphically + presented from the standpoint of a hero. A teacher's manual + contains full instructions for preparation of material and + presentation to the class. A partially completed story of Jesus + prepared for the introduction of illustrations, maps, and original + work, together with all materials required, is provided for the + pupil. + +In the sixth grade a new point of approach to some of the heroes with +whom the children are already slightly acquainted seems desirable. The +Old Testament furnishes examples of men who were brave warriors, +magnanimous citizens, loyal patriots, great statesmen, and champions of +democratic justice. To make the discovery of these traits in ancient +characters and to interpret them in the terms of modern boyhood and +girlhood is the task of two volumes in the list. The choice between them +will be made on the basis of preference for handwork or textbook work +for the children. + + _Heroes of Israel_ (Soares). Stories selected from the Old + Testament which are calculated to inspire the imagination of boys + and girls of the early adolescent period. The most complete + instructions for preparation and presentation of the lesson are + given the teacher in his manual. The pupil's book provides the full + text of each story and many questions which will lead to the + consideration of problems arising in the life of boys and girls of + this age. + + _Old Testament Stories_ (Corbett). Also a series of stories + selected from the Old Testament. Complete instructions for vivid + presentation are given the teacher in his manual. The pupil's + material consists of a notebook containing a great variety of + opportunities for constructive handwork. + +Paul was a great hero. Most people know him only as a theologian. His +life presents miracles of courage, struggle, loyalty, and +self-abnegation. The next book in the series is intended to help the +pupil to see such a man. The student is assisted by a wealth of local +color. + + _Paul of Tarsus_ (Atkinson). The story of Paul which is partially + presented to the pupil and partially the result of his own + exploration in the Bible and in the library. Much attention is + given to story of Paul's boyhood and his adventurous travels, + inspiring courage and loyalty to a cause. The pupil's notebook is + similar in form to the one used in the study of Gates's "Life of + Jesus," but more advanced in thought. + + +HIGH SCHOOL, 13-17 YEARS + +In the secular school the work of the eighth grade is tending toward +elimination. It is, therefore, considered here as one of the high-school +grades. In the high-school years new needs arise. There is necessary a +group of books which will dignify the study of the Bible and give it as +history and literature a place in education, at least equivalent to that +of other histories and literatures which have contributed to the +progress of the world. This series is rich in biblical studies which +will enable young people to gain a historical appreciation of the +religion which they profess. Such books are + + _The Gospel According to Mark_ (Burton). A study of the life of + Jesus from this gospel. The full text is printed in the book, which + is provided with a good dictionary and many interesting notes and + questions of very great value to both teacher and pupil. + + _The First Book of Samuel_ (Willett). Textbook for teacher and + pupil in which the fascinating stories of Samuel, Saul, and David + are graphically presented. The complete text of the first book of + Samuel is given, many interesting explanatory notes, and questions + which will stir the interest of the pupil, not only in the present + volume but in the future study of the Old Testament. + + _The Life of Christ_ (Burgess). A careful historical study of the + life of Christ from the four gospels. A manual for teacher and + pupil presents a somewhat exhaustive treatment, but full + instructions for the selection of material for classes in which but + one recitation a week occurs are given the teacher in a separate + outline. + + _The Hebrew Prophets_ (Chamberlin). An inspiring presentation of + the lives of some of the greatest of the prophets from the point of + view of their work as citizens and patriots. In the manual for + teachers and pupils the biblical text in a good modern translation + is included. + + _Christianity in the Apostolic Age_ (Gilbert). A story of early + Christianity chronologically presented, full of interest in the + hands of a teacher who enjoys the historical point of view. + +In the high-school years also young people find it necessary to face the +problem of living the Christian life in a modern world, both as a +personal experience and as a basis on which to build an ideal society. +To meet this need a number of books intended to inspire boys and girls +to look forward to taking their places as home-builders and responsible +citizens of a great Christian democracy and to intelligently choose +their task in it are prepared or in preparation. The following are now +ready: + + _Problems of Boyhood_ (Johnson). A series of chapters discussing + matters of supreme interest to boys and girls, but presented from + the point of view of the boy. A splendid preparation for efficiency + in all life's relationships. + + _Lives Worth Living_ (Peabody). A series of studies of important + women, biblical and modern, representing different phases of life + and introducing the opportunity to discuss the possibilities of + effective womanhood in the modern world. + + _The Third and Fourth Generation_ (Downing). A series of studies in + heredity based upon studies of phenomena in the natural world and + leading up to important historical facts and inferences in the + human world. + + +ADULT GROUP + +The Biblical studies assigned to the high-school period are in most +cases adaptable to adult class work. There are other volumes, however, +intended only for the adult group, which also includes the young people +beyond the high-school age. They are as follows: + + _The Life of Christ_ (Burton and Mathews). A careful historical + study of the life of Christ from the four gospels, with copious + notes, reading references, maps, etc. + + _What Jesus Taught_ (Slaten). This book develops an unusual but + stimulating method of teaching groups of students in colleges, + Christian associations, and churches. After a swift survey of the + material and spiritual environment of Jesus this book suggests + outlines for _discussions_ of his teaching on such topics as + civilization, hate, war and non-resistance, democracy, religion, + and similar topics. Can be effectively used by laymen as well as + professional leaders. + + _Great Men of the Christian Church_ (Walker). A series of + delightful biographies of men who have been influential in great + crises in the history of the church. + + _Christian Faith for Men of Today_ (Cook). A re-interpretation of + old doctrines in the light of modern attitudes. + + _Social Duties from the Christian Point of View_ (Henderson). + Practical studies in the fundamental social relationships which + make up life in the family, the city, and the state. + + _Religious Education in the Family_ (Cope). An illuminating study + of the possibilities of a normal religious development in the + family life. Invaluable to parents. + + _Christianity and Its Bible_ (Waring). A remarkably comprehensive + sketch of the Old and the New Testament religion, the Christian + church, and the present status of Christianity. + +It is needless to say that the Constructive Studies present no sectarian +dogmas and are used by churches and schools of all denominational +affiliations. In the grammar-and high-school years more books are +provided than there are years in which to study them, each book +representing a school year's work. Local conditions, and the preference +of the Director of Education or the teacher of the class will be the +guide in choosing the courses desired, remembering that in the preceding +list the approximate place given to the book is the one which the +editors and authors consider most appropriate. + +For prices consult the latest price list. Address + +The University of Chicago Press +Chicago Illinois + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE FAMILY*** + + +******* This file should be named 17570-8.txt or 17570-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/5/7/17570 + + + +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. 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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: + + http://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. + diff --git a/old/17570-8.zip b/old/17570-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f061619 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/17570-8.zip diff --git a/old/17570.txt b/old/17570.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9be2d77 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/17570.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8730 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Religious Education in the Family, by Henry +F. Cope + + +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: Religious Education in the Family + + +Author: Henry F. Cope + + + +Release Date: January 21, 2006 [eBook #17570] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE +FAMILY*** + + +E-text prepared by Stacy Brown Thellend, Kevin Handy, John Hagerson, and +the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team +(http://www.pgdp.net/) + + + +RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE FAMILY + +by + +HENRY F. COPE + +General Secretary of the Religious Education Association + + + + + + + +The University of Chicago Press +Chicago, Illinois +Copyright 1915 by +The University of Chicago +All Rights Reserved +Published April 1915 +Second Impression September 1915 +Third Impression March 1916 +Fourth Impression June 1917 +Fifth Impression August 1920 +Sixth Impression July 1922 +Seventh Impression September 1922 +Composed and Printed By +The University of Chicago Press +Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. + +The University of Chicago Press +Chicago, Illinois + +The Baker and Taylor Company +New York + +The Cambridge University Press +London + +The Maruzen-Kabushiki-Kaisha +Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Sendai + +The Mission Book Company +Shanghai + + + + +PREFACE + + +In the work of religious education, with which the present series of +books is concerned, the life of the family rightly occupies a central +place. The church has always realized its duty to exhort parents to +bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, but +very little has ever been done to enable parents to study systematically +and scientifically the problem of religious education in the family. +Today parents' classes are being formed in many churches; Christian +Associations, women's clubs, and institutes are studying the subject; +individual parents are becoming more and more interested in the rational +performance of their high duties. And there is a general desire for +guidance. As the full bibliography at the end of this volume and the +references in connection with each chapter indicate, there is available +a very large literature dealing with the various elements of the +problem. But a guidebook to organize all this material and to stimulate +independent thought and endeavor is desirable. + +To afford this guidance the present volume has been prepared. It is +equally adapted for the thoughtful study of the father and mother who +are seeking help in the moral and religious development of their own +family, and for classes in churches, institutes, and neighborhoods, +where the important problems of the family are to be studied and +discussed. It would be well to begin the use of the book by reading the +suggestions for class work at the end of the volume. + +With a confident hope that religion in the family is not to be a wistful +memory of the past but a most vital force in the making of the better +day that is coming, this volume is offered as a contribution and a +summons. + + The Editors + +New Year's Day, 1915 + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER PAGE + I. An Interpretation of the Family 1 + + II. The Present Status of Family Life 10 + + III. The Permanent Elements in Family Life 27 + + IV. The Religious Place of the Family 37 + + V. The Meaning Of Religious Education in the Family 46 + + VI. The Child's Religious Ideas 60 + + VII. Directed Activity 75 + + VIII. The Home as a School 87 + + IX. The Child's Ideal Life 101 + + X. Stories and Reading 110 + + XI. The Use of the Bible in the Home 119 + + XII. Family Worship 126 + + XIII. Sunday in the Home 145 + + XIV. The Ministry of the Table 164 + + XV. The Boy and Girl in the Family 173 + + XVI. The Needs of Youth 183 + + XVII. The Family and the Church 198 + + XVIII. Children and the School 212 + + XIX. Dealing with Moral Crises 218 + + XX. Dealing with Moral Crises (_Continued_) 231 + + XXI. Dealing with Moral Crises (_Continued_) 240 + + XXII. Dealing with Moral Crises (_Concluded_) 249 + + XXIII. The Personal Factors in Religious Education 259 + + XXIV. Looking to the Future 268 + +Suggestions for Class Work 281 + +A Book List 290 + +Index 297 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +AN INTERPRETATION OF THE FAMILY + + +Sec. 1. TAKING THE HOME IN RELIGIOUS TERMS + +The ills of the modern home are symptomatic. Divorce, childless +families, irreverent children, and the decadence of the old type of +separate home life are signs of forgotten ideals, lost motives, and +insufficient purposes. Where the home is only an opportunity for +self-indulgence, it easily becomes a cheap boarding-house, a +sleeping-shelf, an implement for social advantage. While it is true that +general economic developments have effected marked changes in domestic +economy, the happiness and efficiency of the family do not depend wholly +on the parlor, the kitchen, or the clothes closet. Rather, everything +depends on whether the home and family are considered in worthy and +adequate terms. + +Homes are wrecked because families refuse to take home-living in +religious terms, in social terms of sacrifice and service. In such +homes, organized and conducted to satisfy personal desires rather than +to meet social responsibilities, these desires become ends rather than +agencies and opportunities. + +They who marry for lust are divorced for further lust. Selfishness, even +in its form of self-preservation, is an unstable foundation for a home. +It costs too much to maintain a home if you measure it by the personal +advantages of parents. What hope is there for useful and happy family +life if the newly wedded youth have both been educated in selfishness, +habituated to frivolous pleasures, and guided by ideals of success in +terms of garish display? Yet what definite program for any other +training does society provide? Do the schools and colleges, Sunday +schools and churches teach youth a better way? How else shall they be +trained to take the home and family in terms that will make for +happiness and usefulness? It is high time to take seriously the task of +educating people to religious efficiency in the home. + + +Sec. 2. THE RELIGIOUS MOTIVE + +The family needs a religious motive. More potent for happiness than +courses in domestic economy will be training in sufficient domestic +motives. It will take much more than modern conveniences, bigger +apartments, or even better kitchens to make the new home. Essentially +the problem is not one of mechanics but of persons. What we call the +home problem is more truly a _family_ problem. It centers in persons; +the solution awaits a race with new ideals, educated to live as more +than dust, for more than dirt, for personality rather than for +possessions. We need young people who establish homes, not simply +because they feel miserable when separated, nor because one needs a +place in which to board and the other needs a boarder, but because the +largest duty and joy of life is to enrich the world with other lives and +to give themselves in high love to making those other lives of the +greatest possible worth to the world. + +The family must come to a recognition of social obligations. We all hope +for the coming ideal day. Everywhere men and women are answering to +higher ideals of life. But the new day waits for a new race. Modern +emphasis on the child is a part of present reaction from materialism. +New social ideals are personal. We seek a better world for the sake of a +higher race. The emphasis on child-welfare has a social rather than a +sentimental basis. The family is our great chance to determine childhood +and so to make the future. The child of today is basic to the social +welfare of tomorrow. He is our chance to pay to tomorrow all that we owe +to yesterday. The family as the child's life-school is thus central to +every social program and problem. + + +Sec. 3. WIDER CHILD-WELFARE + +This age knows that man does not live by bread alone. Interest in +child-welfare is for the sake of the child himself, not for the sake of +his clothes or his physical condition. Concern about soap and +sanitation, hygiene and the conveniences of life grows because these all +go to make up the soil in which the person grows. There is danger that +our emphasis on child-welfare may be that of the tools instead of the +man; that we may become enmeshed in the mechanism of well-being and lose +sight of the being who should be well. To fail at the point of character +is to fail all along the line. And we fail altogether, no matter how +many bathtubs we give a child, how many playgrounds, medical +inspections, and inoculations, unless that child be in himself strong +and high-minded, loving truth, hating a lie, and habituated to live in +good-will with his fellows and with high ideals for the universe. Modern +interest in the material factors of life is on account of their potency +in making real selfhood; we acknowledge the importance of the physical +as the very soil in which life grows. But the fruits are more than the +soil, and a home exists for higher purposes than physical conveniences; +these are but its tools to its great end. Somehow for purposes of social +well-being we must raise our thinking of the family to the aim of the +development of efficient, rightly minded character. The family must be +seen as making spiritual persons. + + +Sec. 4. THE COST OF A FAMILY + +Taking the home in religious terms will mean, then, conceiving it as an +institution with a religious purpose, namely, that of giving to the +world children who are adequately trained and sufficiently motived to +live the social life of good-will. The family exists to give society +developed, efficient children. It fails if it does not have a religious, +a spiritual product. It cannot succeed except by the willing +self-devotion of adult lives to this spiritual, personal purpose. + +A family is the primary social organization for the elementary purpose +of breeding the species, nurturing and training the young. This is its +physiological basis. But its duties cannot be discharged on the +physiological plane alone. This elementary physiological function is +lifted to a spiritual level by the aim of character and the motive of +love. Families cannot be measured by their size; they must be measured +by the character of their products. If quality counts anywhere it counts +here, though it is well to remember that it takes some reasonable +quantity to make right quality in each. + +The family needs a religious motive. It demands sacrifice. To follow +lower impulses is to invite disaster. The home breeds bitterness and +sorrow wherever men and women court for lust, marry for social standing, +and maintain an establishment only as a part of the game of social +competition. To sow the winds of passion, ease, idle luxury, pride, and +greed is to reap the whirlwind. Moreover, it is to miss the great +chance of life, the chance to find that short cut to happiness which +men call pain and suffering. + +A family is humanity's great opportunity to walk the way of the cross. +Mothers know that; some fathers know it; some children grow up to learn +it. In homes where this is true, where all other aims are subordinated +to this one of making the home count for high character, to training +lives into right social adjustment and service, the primary emphasis is +not on times and seasons for religion; religion is the life of that +home, and in all its common living every child learns the way of the +great Life of all. In vain do we torture children with adult religious +penances, long prayers, and homilies, thinking thereby to give them +religious training. The good man comes out of the good home, the home +that is good in character, aim, and organization, not sporadically but +permanently, the home where the religious spirit, the spirit of +idealism, and the sense of the infinite and divine are diffused rather +than injected. The inhuman, antisocial vampires, who suck their +brothers' blood, whether they be called magnates or mob-leaders, +grafters or gutter thieves, often learned to take life in terms of graft +by the attitude and atmosphere of their homes.[1] + + +Sec. 5. MOTIVES FOR A STUDY OF THE FAMILY + +The modern family is worthy of our careful study. It demands painstaking +attention, both because of its immediate importance to human happiness +and because of its potentiality for the future of society. The kind of +home and the character of family life which will best serve the world +and fulfil the will of God cannot be determined by sentiment or +supposition. We are under the highest and sternest obligation to +discover the laws of the family, those social laws which are determined +by its nature and purpose, to find right standards for family life, to +discriminate between the things that are permanent and those that are +passing, between those we must conserve and those we must discard, to be +prepared to fit children for the finer and higher type of family life +that must come in the future. + +Methods of securing family efficiency will not be discovered by +accident. If it is worth while to study the minor details, such as +baking cakes and sweeping floors, surely it is even more important to +study the larger problems of organization and discipline. There is a +science of home-direction and an art of family living; both must be +learned with patient study. + +It is a costly thing to keep a home where honor, the joy of love, and +high ideals dwell ever. It costs time, pleasures, and so-called social +advantages, as well as money and labor. It must cost thought, study, +and investigation. It demands and deserves sacrifice; it is too sacred +to be cheap. The building of a home is a work that endures to eternity, +and that kind of work never was done with ease or without pain and loss +and the investment of much time. Patient study of the problems of the +family is a part of the price which all may pay. + +No nobler social work, no deeper religious work, no higher educational +work is done anywhere than that of the men and women, high or humble, +who set themselves to the fitting of their children for life's business, +equipping them with principles and habits upon which they may fall back +in trying hours, and making of home the sweetest, strongest, holiest, +happiest place on earth. + +Heaven only knows the price that must be paid for that; heaven only +knows the worth of that work. But if we are wise we shall each take up +our work for our world where it lies nearest to us, in co-operation with +parents, in service and sacrifice as parents or kin, our work in the +shop where manhood is in the making, where it is being made fit to dwell +long in the land, in the family at home. + + + I. References for Study + + Edward Lyttleton, _The Corner-Stone of Education_, chaps. i, vii. + Putnam, $1.50. + + A. Gandier, "Religious Education in the Home," _Religious + Education_, June, 1914, pp. 233-42. + + + II. Further Reading + + _The Family a Religious Agency_ + + C.F. and C.B. Thwing, _The Family_. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, $1.60. + + J.D. Folsom, _Religious Education in the Home_. Eaton & Mains, + $0.75. + + G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_. Revell, $1.35. + + + _The Place of the Family_ + + A.J. Todd, _The Family as an Educational Agency_. Putnam, $2.00. + + W.F. Lofthouse, _Ethics and the Family_. Hodder & Stoughton, $2.50. + + J.B. Robins, _The Family a Necessity_. Revell, $1.25. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. Describe the changes within recent times in the conditions of + the home, its work, housing, and supplies. How far have these + changes affected the community of the family, the continuity of its + personal relationships, and its religious service? + + 2. What are the fundamental causes of family disasters? Admitting + that there are sufficient grounds for divorce in numerous + instances, what other causes enter into the high number of + divorces? + + 3. State in your own terms the ultimate reasons for the maintenance + of a family. + + 4. What are the motives which would make people willing to bear the + high cost of founding and conducting a home? + + 5. What points of emphasis does this study suggest in the matter of + the education of public opinion? + + 6. State your distinction between the family and the home; which is + the more important and why? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _The Corner-Stone of Education_, by Edward Lyttleton, headmaster of +Eton, is a striking argument on the determinative influence of parental +habits and attitudes of mind. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE PRESENT STATUS OF FAMILY LIFE + + +Sec. 1. CONTRASTED TYPES + +In a beautiful village, in one of the farther western states, two men +were discussing the possible future of the home and of family life. +Sitting in the brilliant moonlight, looking through the leafy shades, +watching the lights of a score of homes, each surrounded by lawn and +shade trees, each with its group on the front porch, where vines trailed +and flowers bloomed, listening to the hum of conversation and the +strains of music in one home and another, it seemed, to at least one of +these men, that this type of living could hardly pass away. The separate +home, each family a complete social integer, each with its own circle of +activities and interests, its own group, and its own table and fireside, +seemed too fine and beautiful, too fair and helpful, to perish under +economic pressure. Indeed, one felt that the village home furnished a +setting for life and a soil for character development far higher and +more efficient than could be afforded by any other domestic +arrangement--that it approached the ideal. + +But two weeks later two men sat in an upper room, in the second largest +city in America, discussing again the future of the family. Instead of +the quiet music of the village, the clang of street cars filled the +ears, trains rushed by, children shouted from the paved highway, +families were seated by open windows in crowded apartments, seeking cool +air; the total impression was that of being placed in a pigeonhole in a +huge, heated, filing-case, where each separate space was occupied by a +family. One felt the pressure of heated, crowded kitchens, suffocating +little dining-rooms; one knew that the babies lay crying in their beds +at night, gasping their very lives away, and that the young folks were +wandering off to amusement parks and moving-picture shows. Here was an +entirely different picture. How long could family life persist under +these conditions where privacy was almost gone and comfort almost +unknown? + +In the village separate home integers appear ideal; in the city they are +possible only to the few. The many, at present, find them a crushing +burden. Desirable as privacy is, it can be purchased at too high a +price. It costs too much to maintain separate kitchens and dining-rooms +under city conditions. + + +Sec. 2. COMMUNAL TENDENCIES + +Present conditions spell waste, inefficiency, discomfort. The woman +lives all day in stifling rooms, poorly lighted, with the nerve-racking +life of neighbors pouring itself through walls and windows. The men +come from crowded shops and the children from crowded schoolrooms to +crowd themselves into these rooms, to snatch a meal, or to sleep. How +can there be real family life? What joy can there be or what ideals +created in daily discomfort and distress? Little wonder that such homes +are sleeping-places only, that there is no sense of family intercourse +and unity. Little wonder that restaurant life has succeeded family life. + +Many hold that we are ready for a movement into community living, that +just as the social life of the separate house porches in the villages +has become communized into the amusement parks in the cities, so all the +activities of the family will move in the same direction. How long could +the family as a unit continue under these conditions? + +The village life will persist for a long time; it may be that, when we +apply scientific methods to the transportation of human beings in the +same measure as we have to the moving of pig iron, we can develop large +belts of real village life all around our industrial centers. But more +and more the village tends to become like the city; in other words, +highly organized communal life is the dominant trend today. Just as +business tends to do on a large scale all that can be more economically +done in larger units, so does the home. We must look for the increasing +prevalence of the city type of life for men and women and for families. + + +Sec. 3. THE ECONOMICAL DEVELOPMENT + +It is worth while to note, in some brief detail, just what changes are +involved in the tendency toward communal living. At the beginning of the +industrial revolution which ushered in the factory period, each family +was a fairly complete unit in itself. The village was little more than a +nucleus of farmhouses, with a few differing types of units, such as +workers in wood, in wearing apparel, and in tools. The home furnished +nearly all its own food, spun and made its clothes, trained its own +children, and knew scarcely any community endeavor or any syndication of +effort except in the church. + +The industrial revolution took labor largely out of the home into the +factory. Except for farm life, the husband became an outside worker and +the older boys followed him to the distant shop or factory. Earning a +living ceased to be a family act and became a social act in a larger +sphere. But in this change it ceased to be a part of the family +educational process. Boys who, from childhood up, had gradually learned +their father's trade in the shop or workroom, which was part of the +house, where they played as children in the shavings, or watched the +glowing sparks in the smithy, now missed the process of a father's +discipline and guidance as their hands acquired facility for their +tasks. The home lost the male adults for from nine to twelve hours of +each day, more than two-thirds of the waking period, and thus it lost a +large share of disciplinary guidance. In the rise of the factory system, +to a large extent the family lost the father. + +When the workshop left the home its most efficient school was taken from +it. The lessons may have been limited, crude, and deadly practical, but +the method approximated to the ideals which modern pedagogy seeks to +realize. Among the shavings children learned by doing; schooling was +perfectly natural; it involved all the powers; it had the incalculable +value of informality and reality. The father gone and the mother still +fully occupied with her tasks, the children lost that practical training +for life which home industry had afforded. On the one hand, the young +became the victims of idleness and, on the other, the prey of the +voracious factory system. + +This condition gave rise to the public-school system. It appealed to +Robert Raikes and others. The school appeared and took over the child. +Of course schools had existed, here and there, long before this, but now +they had an enlarged responsibility; they must act almost in the place +of the parents for the formal training of children. Having lost the +father and older males for the greater portion of the day, the home now +loses the children of from seven to the "'teen" years for five or six +hours of the day. The mother is left at home with the babies. The +family, once living under one roof, now is found scattered; it has +reached out into factory and school. Its hours of unified life have been +markedly reduced. + +But the factory system soon had a reflex influence on the home. That +which was made in the factory came back into the home, not only in the +form of the articles formerly made by the men, but in those made by the +women. Clothes, candles, butter, cheese, preserves, and meat--all +formerly home products for the use of the family producing them--now +were prepared in larger quantities, by mechanical processes, and were +brought back into the home. Woman's labor was lightened; the older girls +were liberated from the loom and they began to seek occupation, +education, and diversion according to their opportunities in life. + +That last step made it possible for people to think of the communization +of home industry, to think of eating food cooked in other ovens than +their own, to think of one oven large enough for a whole village. Many +interesting experiments in co-operative living immediately sprang up. +But the next step came slowly and, even now, is only firmly established +in the cities, in the actual abandonment of the family kitchen for the +community kitchen in the form of the restaurant. In such families we +have unity only in the hours of sleep and recreation. + +Along with abandonment of the separate kitchen there has proceeded +the abandonment of the parlor in the homes of the middle classes. +To lose the old, mournful front room may be no subject for tears, +but the loss of the evening family group, about the fireside or +the reading-lamp, is a real and sad loss. The commercialized amusements +have offered greater attractions to vigorous youth. The theater and +its lesser satellites, amusements, entertainments, lectures, the +lyceum, and recreation-by-proxy in ball games and matches have taken +the place of united family recreation. Of course this has been a +natural development of the older village play-life and has been by +no means an unmixed ill. + +Now, behold, what has become of the old-time home life! The family that +spent nearly twenty-four hours together now spends a scarce seven or +eight, and these are occupied in sleeping! Little wonder that the next +step is taken--the abandonment of this remainder, the sleep period, +under a domestic roof, as the family moves into a hotel! + +Along with the tendency toward communal working and eating we see the +tendency to communal living by the development of the apartment +building. Since roof-trees are so expensive, and since in a practical +age, few of us can afford to pay for sentiment, why not put a dozen +families under one roof-tree? True we sacrifice lawns, gardens, natural +places for children to play; we lose birds and flowers and the charm of +evening hours on porches, or galleries, but think of what we gain in +bricks and mortar, in labor saved from splitting wood and shoveling +coal, in janitor service! The transition is now complete; the home is +simply that item in the economic machinery which will best furnish us +storage for our sleeping bodies and our clothes! + +We are undoubtedly in a period of great changes in family life, and no +family can count on escaping the influence of the change. The one single +outstanding and most potent change, so far as the character of family +life is concerned, is, in the United States, the rapid polarization of +population in the cities. The United States Census Bureau counts all +residents in cities of over 8,000 population as "urban." In 1800 the +"urban" population was 4 per cent of the total population; in 1850 it +was 12.5 per cent; in 1870, 20.9 per cent; in 1890, 29.2 per cent; in +1900, 33.1 per cent; in 1910 it was estimated at 40 per cent.[2] Here +is a trend so clearly marked that we cannot deny its reality, while its +significance is familiar to everyone today. + +However, the village type remains; there are still many homes where a +measure of family unity persists, where at least in one meal daily and, +for purposes of sleeping and, occasionally, for the evening hours of +recreation, there is a consciousness of home life. Yet the most remote +village feels the pressure of change. The few homes conforming to the +older ideals are recognized as exceptional. The city draws the village +and rural family to itself, and the contagion of its customs and ideals +spreads through the villages and affects the forms of living there. +Youths become city dwellers and do not cease to scoff at the village +unless later years give them wisdom to appreciate its higher values. The +standard of domestic organization is established by the city; that type +of living is the ideal toward which nearly all are striving. + +The important question for all persons is whether the changes now taking +place in family life are good or ill. It is impossible to say whether +the whole trend is for the better; the many elements are too diverse and +often apparently conflicting. Faith in the orderly development of +society gives ground for belief that these changes ultimately work for a +higher type of family life. The city may be regarded as only a +transition stage in social evolution--the compacting of masses of +persons together that out of the new fusing and welding may arise new +methods of social living. The larger numbers point to more highly +developed forms of social organization. When these larger units discover +their greater purposes, above factory and mill and store, and realize +them in personal values, the city life will be a more highly developed +mechanism for the higher life of man. The home life will develop along +with that city life. + + +Sec. 4. PURPOSEFUL ORGANIZATION + +At present the home is suffering, just as the city is suffering, from a +lack of that purposeful organization which will order the parts aright +and subject the processes to the most important and ultimate purposes. +The city is simply an aggregation of persons, scarcely having any +conscious organization, thrown together for purposes of industry. It +will before very long organize itself for purposes of personal welfare +and education. The family is usually a group bound in ties of struggle +for shelter, food, and pleasure. Such consciousness as it possesses is +that of being helplessly at the mercy of conflicting economic forces. +The adjustment of those forces, their subjection to man's higher +interests, must come in the future and will help the family to freedom +to discover its true purpose. + +It is easy to insist on the responsibility of parents for the +character-training of their children, but it is difficult to see how +that responsibility can be properly discharged under industrial +conditions that take both father and mother out of the home the whole +day and leave them too weary to stay awake in the evening, too poor to +furnish decent conditions of living, and too apathetic under the dull +monotony of labor to care for life's finer interests. The welfare of the +family is tied up with the welfare of the race; if progress can be +secured in one part progress in the whole ensues. + +There are those who raise the question whether family life is a +permanent form of social organization for which we may wisely contend, +or is but a phase from which the race is now emerging. Some see signs +that the ties of marriage will be but temporary, that children will be +born, not into families but into the life of the state, bearing only +their mothers' names and knowing no brothers and sisters save in the +brotherhood of the state. Whether the permanent elements in family life +furnish a sufficiently worthy basis for its preservation is a subject +for careful consideration. + + +Sec. 5. THE HOME AND THE FAMILY + +The family is more important than the home, just as the man is more than +his clothing. The form of the home changes; the life of the family +continues unchanged in its essential characteristics. The family causes +the home to be. Professor Arthur J. Todd insists that the family is the +basis of marriage, rather than marriage the cause of the family.[3] +Small groups for protection and social living would precede formal +arrangements of monogamy. Westermarck concludes that it was "for the +benefit of the young that male and female continued to live +together."[4] The importance of this consideration for us lies in the +thought of the overshadowing importance of this social group which we +now call the family. The family is the primary cell of society, the +first unit in social organization. Our thought must balance itself +between the importance of this social group, to be preserved in its +integrity, and the value of the home, with its varied forms of activity +and ministry, as a means of preserving and developing this group, the +family. + +One hears today many pessimistic utterances regarding the modern home. +Some even tell us that it is doomed to become extinct. Without doubt +great economic changes in society are producing profound changes in the +organization and character of the home. But the home has always been +subject to such changes; the factor which we need to watch with greater +care is the family; the former is but the shell of the latter. + +The character of each home will depend largely on the economic condition +of those who dwell in it. The homes of every age will reflect the social +conditions of that age. The picture in historical romances of the home +of the mediaeval period, where the factory, or shop, joined the +dining-room, where the apprentices ate and roomed in the home, where one +might be compelled to furnish and provision his home literally as his +castle for defense, presents a marked difference to the home of this +century tending to syndicate all its labors with all the other homes of +the community. Since the home is simply the organization and mechanism +of the family life, it is most susceptible to material and social +changes. It varies as do the fashions of men. + +Much that we assume to be detrimental to the life of the home is simply +due to the fact that in the evolution of society the family, as it were, +puts on a new suit of clothes, adopts new forms of organization to meet +the changing external conditions. + + +Sec. 6. THE HOME CHANGING; THE FAMILY ABIDING + +The home is of importance only as a tool, a means to the final ends of +the family life; the test of its efficiency is not whether it maintains +traditional forms but whether it best serves the highest aims of family +life. We may abandon all the older customs; our regret for them, as we +look back on the days of home cooking, cannot be any greater than the +regrets of our parents or grandparents looking back on the +spinning-wheel and the hand loom that cumbered the kitchen of their +childhood. Surely no one contends that family life has deteriorated, +that human character is one whit the poorer, because we have discarded +the family spinning-wheel. Through the changes of a developing +civilization, as man has moved from the time when each one built his own +house, worked with his own tools to make all his supplies, to these days +of specialized service in community living, the home has changed with +each step of industrial progress, but the family has remained +practically unchanged. + +The family stands a practically unchanging factor of personal qualities +at the center of our civilization; the family rather than the home +determines the character of the coming days. In its social relationships +are rooted the things that are best in all our lives. In its social +training lie the solutions of more problems in social adjustment and +development than we are willing to admit. The family is the soil of +society, central to all its problems and possibilities. + +Before church or school the family stands potent for character. We are +what we are, not by the ideals held before us for thirty minutes a week +or once a month in a church, nor by the instructions given in the +classroom; we are what parents, kin, and all the circumstances that have +touched us daily and hourly for years have determined we should be. + +The sweetest memories of our lives cluster about the scenes of family +life. The rose-embowered cottage of the poet is not the only spot that +claims affectionate gratitude; many look back to a city house wedged +into its monotonous row. But, wherever it might be, if it sheltered love +and held a shrine where the altar fires of family sacrifice burned, +earth has no fairer or more sacred spot. The people rather than the +place made it potent. + +Stronger even than the memories that remain are the marks of habits, +tendencies, tastes, and dispositions there acquired. Many a man who has +left no fortune worth recording to his sons has left them something +better, the aptitude for things good and honorable, the memory of a good +name, and the heritage of a life that was worthy of honor. The personal +life has been always the enduring thing. Our concern for the future +should be not whether we can pass on intact the forms of home +organization, but whether we can give to the next day the force of ideal +family life. Perhaps like Mary we would do well to turn our eyes from +the much serving, the mechanisms of the home, to set our minds on the +better part, the personal values in the association of lives in the +family. + + + I. References for Study + + W.F. Lofthouse, _Ethics and the Family_, chaps. ii, xi, xii. Hodder + & Stoughton, $2.50. + + Charles R. Henderson, _Social Duties from the Christian Point of + View_, chaps. ii, iii. The University of Chicago Press, $1.25. + + C.W. Votaw, _Progress of Moral and Religious Education in the + American Home_. Religious Education Association, $0.25. + + + II. Further Reading + + Jacob A. Riis, _Peril and Preservation of the Home_. Jacobs, + Philadelphia, Pa., $1.00. + + Charles R. Henderson, _Social Elements_. Scribner, $1.50. + + Charles F. Thwing, _The Recovery of the Home_. American Baptist + Publication Society, $0.15. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. The tendency toward community life illustrated in the schools, + amusement parks, and hotel life. Remembering the ultimate purpose + of the family, how far is communal life desirable? + + 2. Does the apartment or tenement building furnish a suitable + condition for the higher purposes of the family? + + 3. Is it possible to restore to the home some of the benefits lost + by present factory consolidation of industry? + + 4. What can take the place of the old household arts and of those + which are now passing? + + 5. What steps should be taken to secure to the family a larger + measure of the time in terms of occupation of the parents? + + 6. What are the important things to contend for in this + institution? Why should we expect change in the form of the home + and what are the features which should not be changed? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] Figures taken from C.W. Votaw, _Progress of Moral and Religious +Education in the American Home_, 1911. + +[3] A.J. Todd, _Primitive Family and Education_, p. 21. A most valuable +and suggestive book. + +[4] Cited by Todd, p. 21. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE PERMANENT ELEMENTS IN FAMILY LIFE + + +Sec. 1. THE DOMINANT MOTIVE + +The chief end of society is to improve the race, to develop the higher +and steadily improving type of human beings. We can test the life of the +family and determine the values of its elements by asking whether and in +what degree they minister to this end, the growth of better persons. +This is more than a theoretical aim or one conceived in a search for +ideals. It is written plain in our passions and strongest inclinations. +That which parents supremely desire for their children is that they may +become strong in body, capable and alert in mind, and animated by worthy +principles and ideals. The parent desires a good man, fit to take his +place, do his work, make his contribution to the social well-being, able +to live to the fulness of his powers, to take life in all its reaches of +meaning and heights of vision and beauty. In true parenthood all hopes +of success, of riches, fame, and ease, are seen but as avenues to this +end, as means of making the finer character, of growing the ideal +person. If we were compelled to choose for our children we should elect +poverty, pain, disgrace, toil, and suffering if we knew this was the +only highway to full manhood and womanhood, to completeness of +character. Indeed, we do constantly so choose, knowing that they must +endure hardness, bear the yoke in their youth, and learn that + + Love and joy are torches lit + At altar fires of sacrifice. + +With this dominating purpose clearly in mind we are prepared to ask, +What are the elements of family life which among the changes of today we +need most carefully to preserve in order to maintain efficiency in +character development? In days when the outer shell of domestic +arrangements changes, when readjustments are being made in the +organization of the family, what is there too precious to lose, so +worthy and essential that we waste no time when seeking to maintain it? + + +Sec. 2. POTENCIES TO BE PRESERVED--SOCIAL QUALITIES + +The first great element to be preserved in all family life is that of +the power of the small group for purposes of character development. The +infant's earliest world is the mother's arms. In order to grow into a +man fitted for the wider world of social living, he must learn to live +in a world within his comprehension. A child's life moves through the +widening circles of mother-care, family group, neighborhood, school, +city, state, and nation into world-living. He must take the first steps +before he is able to take the next ones. He must learn to live with the +few as preparation for living with the many. In earliest infancy he +takes his first unconscious lessons in the fine art of living with other +folks as he relates himself to parents and to brothers and sisters. + +Secondly, the family life affords the best agency for social training. +The family is the ideal democracy into which the child-life is born. +Here habits are formed, ideals are pictured, and life itself is +interpreted. It is an ideal democracy, first, because it is a social +organization existing for the sake of persons. The family comes nearer +to fulfilling the true ideal of a democratic social order than does any +other institution. It is founded to bring lives into this world; it is +maintained for the sake of those lives; all its life, its methods, and +standards are determined, ideally, by the needs of persons. It is an +ideal democracy, secondly, because its guiding principle is that the +greater lives must be devoted to the good of the lesser, the parent for +the little child, the older members for the younger, in an attempt to +extend to the very least the greatest good enjoyed by all. Thirdly, +ideally it is a true democracy in that it gives to each member a share +in its own affairs and develops the power to bear responsibilities and +to carry each his own load in life. Thus the family group is the best +possible training for the life and work of the larger group, the state, +and for world-living.[5] The maintenance of the ideals of the state, as +a democracy, depends on the continuance of this institution with its +peculiar power to train life in infancy and childhood for the life of +manhood in the state. Such training can be given only in the smaller +group that is governed by the motives peculiar to home and family life. +The power to impress these principles depends on the size of the group. +The small social organization, the family circle of from three members +to even a dozen, bound by ties of affection, is the one great, efficient +school, training youth to live in social terms. + +Thirdly, the family sets spiritual values first. Our age especially +needs men and women who think in terms of spiritual values, who rise +above the measures of pounds and dollars and weigh life by personal +qualities and worth. That is precisely what the home does. It prizes +most highly the helpless, economically worthless infant; it measures +every member by his personal character, his affectional worth. Its +riches do not depend on that which money can buy, but on the personal +qualities of love, goodness, kindness; on memories, associations, +affection. The true home gives to every child-life the power to choose +the things of the world on the basis of their worth in personality. Only +the mistaken judgments of later years, the short-minded wisdom of the +world, make youth gradually lose the habit of preferring the home's +spiritual benefits to the material rewards of the world of business. No +life can be furnished for the strain of our modern materialism that +lacks the basis of idealism furnished in the true family. + + +Sec. 3. POTENCIES TO BE PRESERVED--THE MORAL LIFE + +Fourthly, the power of family living to develop love as loyalty is to be +noted. In this small group is laid the foundation of the moral life. +"The family is the primer in the moral education of the race."[6] Here +the new-born life begins to relate itself to other lives. Here it begins +life in an atmosphere saturated by love, the central principle of all +virtue, eventually loyalty to ideals in persons and devotion to them, +"the greatest of these," because it is the parent of all virtue. The +moral life, that life which is adjusted, capable, and adequately motived +for helpful, efficient, enriching living with all other lives, is not a +matter of rules, regulations, and restrictions. Neither is it a matter +of separate habits as to this or the other kind of behavior, though this +comes nearer to it than do rules and prescriptions. The character-life +which parents desire for their children is not that which will do the +right thing when it has discovered that right thing in some book of +rules, nor that life which will do the right thing because society +points that way, nor even that life which automatically does the right +thing, but it is the life which, constantly moved by some high inner +compulsion, some imperative of vision and ideal, moves to the highest +possible plane of action in every situation. This is the life of +loyalty. It begins with loyalty to persons, with that devotion which +begins with affection. In no other place is this so well developed as in +the relations of the family. This is the child's first and most +potential school. Here the lessons are wholly unconscious; here they are +strengthened by the pleasurable emotions. It is a joy to be loyal to +those we love. Indeed, who can tell which comes first, the joy, the +loyalty, or the love? + +The power of this small social group of the family to develop the +fundamental principle of loyalty, the root of all virtues, gives a +position of great importance to the affections in the family. We do well +to contend for the maintenance of conditions of family living which will +strengthen the ties of affection. If children could be thrust into the +care of the state, in large groups, separated from parental care and +oversight, it is difficult to see what emotional stimulus toward +affection would remain. The personal devotion to intimate adults would +in only the smallest degree compensate for the loss of father and +mother. We know nothing of such devotion arising to any large degree in +orphan asylums, still less in institutions under the cold and impersonal +care of the state. It has been urged that the affections of parents +stand in the way of a scientific regimen and education for small +children. The cold, passionless, automatic parent, then, would be the +ideal--a Mr. Dombey or a Mr. Feverel. Parents make many mistakes, but +these mistakes are not due to too much affection, but to untrained minds +and uneducated affections. It were better to save the values of their +affections and on them to build a wise discipline for childhood by +providing adequate training of parents for their duties. + +Fifthly, there are some elements of the cost of family life, even its +apparently unnecessary sacrifice and pain, that we do well to seek to +keep. Character grows in paying the high price of maintaining a family. +It is the most expensive form of living for adults. Marriages are now +delayed because of the fear of the actual monetary cost; but far more +serious is the cost in care, in nerves, in patience, in all the great +elements of self-denial. No child ever knows what he has cost until he +has children of his own. But this discipline of self-denial is that +which saves us from selfishness. It is necessary to have some personal +objects for which to give our lives if they are to be saved from +centrifugation, from death through ingrowing affection. True, many +bachelors and spinsters have learned the way of self-denying, +fellow-serving love. But how can a true parent escape that lesson? Nor +does it stop with parents; as children grow up together they, too, must +learn mutual forbearance, conciliation, and, soon, the joy of service. +One sees selfishness in the little child gradually fading in the +practice of family service, helpfulness, consideration for others. The +single child in a family misses something more important than playmates; +he misses all the education of play and service. But who cannot remember +many families that have grown to beauty of character under the +discipline of home life, and especially when this has involved real +sacrifices? The stories in the Pepper books illustrate the spirit that +blossoms under the trials and hardships of the struggle of a family for +a livelihood and for the maintenance of a home. + +A clear function becomes evident for this social group called the +family. It is that of dealing with young lives, in groups bound by ties +of blood and similarity, for purposes of the development of personal +character. The family has an essentially educational function. Bearing +in mind that "educational" means the orderly development of the powers +of the life, we can think of our families as existing for this purpose +and to be tested by their ability to do this work, especially by their +ability to develop persons, young lives, that have the power, the +vision, the acquired habits and experience to live as more than animals. +The family is an educational institution dealing with child-life for its +full growth and its self-realization, especially on character levels. +The educational function suggests the features of family life which we +do well to seek to preserve. Many incidental forms may pass, but the +essential human relations and experiences that go to develop life and +character must be maintained at any cost. + + + I. References for Study + + C.F. and C.B. Thwing, _The Family_, chap. vii. Lothrop, Lee & + Shepard, $1.60. + + W.F. Lofthouse, _Ethics and the Family_, chaps. iv, v. Hodder & + Stoughton, $2.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + "The Improvement of Religious Education," _Proceedings of the + Religious Education Association_, I, 119-23. $0.50. + + _Religious Education_, April, 1911, VI, 1-48. + + S.P. Breckinridge and E. Abbott, _The Delinquent Child and the + Home_. Russell Sage Foundation, $2.00. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What is the chief end of all forms of social organization? + + 2. What is in the last analysis the aim of every parent? + + 3. What advantage has the family over the school and larger groups + for educational purposes? + + 4. In what sense is the family an ideal democracy? + + 5. Show how the family sets spiritual values first. + + 6. What in your judgment are the first evidences of character + development? In what way do these come to the surface in the + family? What is the factor of love in the development of character? + + 7. Is that an ideal family in which none of the members bear pain + or are called upon for self-denial? Can you see any especial + advantage to character in the very difficulties and apparent + disadvantages in the life of the family? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[5] See "Democracy in the Home," _American Journal of Sociology_, +January, 1912. + +[6] Francis G. Peabody, _The Approach to the Social Question_, p. 94. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE RELIGIOUS PLACE OF THE FAMILY + + +Sec. 1. DEVELOPMENT AS A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION + +The family is the most important religious institution in the life of +today. It ranks in influence before the church. It has always held this +place. Even among primitive peoples, where family life was an uncertain +quantity, the relations of parents, or of one of the parents, to the +children afforded the opportunity most frequently used for their +instruction in tribal religious ideals and customs. We cannot generalize +as to the practices of savage man in regard to family life, for those +practices range from common promiscuous relationships, without apparent +care for offspring, to a family unity and purity approaching the best we +know; but this much is certain, that there was a common sense of +responsibility for the training of young children in moral and religious +ideas and customs, and that, in the degree that the family approached to +separateness and unity, it accepted the primary responsibility for this +task. The higher the type of family life the more fully does it +discharge its function in the education of the child.[7] + +It might be safe to say that among primitive peoples there were three +stages, or types, of relationship based on the breeding of children, or +three stages of development toward family life. The first is a loose and +indefinite relationship existing principally between the adults, or the +males and females, under which children born when not desired are +neglected or strangled and, when acceptable, may be in the care of +either parent, or of neither. Since the group, associated through +infancy with at least one parent, is as yet undeveloped, any instruction +will be individual and usually incidental. + +The second form is that of a kind of family unity, either about the +mother or the father, or both, or about a group of parents, in which the +children live together and are sheltered and nurtured for their earlier +years. Here, however, the real relationship of the child is to the +tribe, the family is but his temporary guardian, and, at least by the +age of puberty, he will be initiated into the tribal secrets. If he is a +boy, he will cease to be a member of the family group and will go to +live in the "men's house," becoming a part of the larger life of the +tribe.[8] Such moral and religious instruction as he may acquire will +come from the songs, traditions, and conversation which he hears as a +child. + +The third type approaches the modern ideal, with a greater or less +degree of permanent unity between the two parents and with permanence in +the group of the offspring. The parental responsibility continues for a +greater length of time and, since the tribe makes smaller claims, and +the parents live in the common domestic group, much more instruction is +possible and is given. The tribal ideals, the traditions, observances, +and religious rites are imparted to children gradually in their homes. + +The last type brings us to the Hebrew conception of family life. It +developed toward the Christian ideal. At first, polygamy was permitted; +woman was the chattel of man and excluded from any part in the religious +rites. But it included the ideal of monogamy in its tradition of the +origin of the world, it denounced and punished adultery (Deut. 22: 22), +and it gave especial attention to the training of the offspring. "And +these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart; and +thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of +them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, +and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up ... and thou shalt +write them upon the door-posts of thy house and upon thy gates" (Deut. +6: 6, 7, 9). + +Much later, the messianic hope, the belief that in some Jewish family +there should be born one divinely commissioned and endowed to liberate +Israel and to give the Jews world-sovereignty, operated to elevate the +conception of motherhood and, through that, of the family. It made +marriage desirable and children a blessing; it rendered motherhood +sacred. It tended to center national hopes and religious ideals about +the family.[9] + +There are a few glimpses of ideal family life in the Old Testament. They +are all summed up in the eloquent tribute to motherhood in the words of +King Lemuel in the last chapter of the Book of Proverbs. It must be +remembered, however, that such ideals did not belong to the Jews alone, +that Plutarch shows many pictures of maternal fidelity and wifely +devotion, that Greek and Roman history have their Cornelia, Iphigenia, +and Mallonia.[10] + +The Jews are an excellent example of the power of the family life to +maintain distinct characteristics and to secure marked development. +Practically throughout all the Christian era they have been a people +without a land, a constitution, or a government, and yet never without +race consciousness, national unity, and separateness. Their unity has +continued in spite of dispersion, persecution, and losses; they have +remained a race in the face of political storms that have swept other +peoples away. Their unity has continued about two great centers, the +customs of religion and the life of the family. + + The results of Jewish respect for family life can also be seen in + the health of their own children. In 1910, for instance, among poor + Jews in Manchester the mortality of infants under one year of age + was found to be 118 per thousand; among poor Gentiles, 300 per + thousand; and comparisons made some six years ago between Jewish + and Gentile children in schools in the poorer parts of Manchester + and Leeds (England) have shown that the Jewish children are + uniformly taller, they weigh more, and their bones and teeth are + superior.[11] + + +Sec. 2. THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY + +The Christian family is a type peculiar to itself, not as a new +institution, for it has developed out of earlier race experience, but as +controlled by a new interpretation, the spirit and conception of the +home and family given in the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. He did not +give formal rules for the regulation of homes; rather he made a +spiritual ideal of family life the basic thought of all his teaching. He +said more about the family than concerning any other human institution, +yet he established no family life of his own. He is called the founder +of the church, yet he scarcely mentions that institution, while he +frequently teaches concerning home duties and family relations. He +glorifies the relations of the family by making them the figure by which +men may understand the highest relations of life. He speaks more of +fatherhood and sonship than of any other relations. He gives direction +for living, using the family terms of brotherhood. He points forward to +ideal living in a home beyond this life. He teaches men when they think +of God and when they address him to take the family attitude and call +him Father. + +If we sum up all the teachings of Jesus and separate them from our +preconceptions of their theological content, we cannot but be impressed +with the facts that he seized upon the family life as the best +expression of the highest relationships; that he pointed to a purified +family life, in which spiritual aims would dominate, as the best +expression of ideal relationships among his followers; and that he +glorified marriage and really made the family the great, divine, +sacramental institution of human society. + +We can hardly overestimate the importance of such teaching to the +character of the family. The early Christians not only accepted Jesus as +their teacher and savior; they took their family life as the opportunity +to show what the Kingdom of God, the ideal society, was like. Family +life was consecrated. Men and women belonged to the new order with +their whole households. Religion became largely a family matter. The +worship that had been confined to the temple now made an altar in every +home and a holy of holies in the midst of every family. The scriptures +that belonged to the synagogue now belonged in the home. Above all, this +family existed for the purposes taught by Jesus, that men might grow in +brotherhood toward the likeness of the divine Fatherhood. It was an +institution, not for economic purpose of food and shelter, not for +personal ends of passion or pride, but for spiritual purpose, for the +growth of persons, especially the young in the home, in character, into +"the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." + +Christianity is essentially a religion of ideal family life. It +conceives of human society, not in terms of a monarchy with a king and +subjects, but in terms of a family with a great all-Father and his +children, who live in brotherhood, who take life as their opportunity +for those family joys of service and sacrifice. It hopes to solve the +world's ills, not by external regulations, but by bringing all men into +a new family life, a birth into this new family life with God, so +securing a new personal environment, a new personality as the center and +root of all social betterment. He who would come into this new social +order must come into the divine family, must humble himself and become +as a little child, must know his Father and love his brothers. + +Christianity, then, not only seeks an ideal family; it makes the family +the ideal social institution and order. It makes family life holy, +sacramental, religious in its very nature. This fact gives added +importance to the preservation and development of the ideals of family +life for the sake of their religious significance and influence. It not +only makes religion a part of the life of the home but makes a religious +purpose the very reason for the existence of the Christian type of home. +It makes our homes essentially religious institutions, to be judged by +religious products. + + + I. References for Study + + G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_, chap. xvi. Revell, + $1.35. + + Article on "The Family," in Hastings, _Encyclopaedia of Religion + and Ethics_. + + + II. Further Reading + + On the educational function of the family: A.J. Todd, _The + Primitive Family as an Educational Agency_. Putnam, $2.00. + + On the religious place of the family: C.F. and C.B. Thwing, _The + Family_. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, $1.60. + + I.J. Peritz, "Biblical Ideal of the Home," _Religious Education_, + VI, 322. + + H. Hanson, _The Function of the Family_. American Baptist + Publication Society, $0.15. + + W. Becker, _Christian Education, or the Duties of Parents_. Herder, + $1.00. A striking presentation of the Roman Catholic view; could be + read to advantage by all parents. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What place did religion hold in the primitive family? What + reference or allusion do we find in the Old Testament to the place + of religion in the family (Deut. 6:7-9, 20-25)? What in the New + Testament? + + 2. What has been the effect of purity of family life on the Jewish + race? + + 3. What place did the family hold in the teachings of Jesus? + + 4. What shall we think of the relations of the church and family as + to their comparative rights and our duty to them? + + 5. Do you agree that the family is the most important religious + institution? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] For a brief statement see Brinton, _Religions of Primitive Peoples_, +Lecture 4, Sec. 7; also Todd, _The Family as an Educational Agency_. + +[8] See Webster, _Primitive Secret Societies_, chaps. i, ii. + +[9] On the place of the family in different religious systems see the +fine article under "Family" in Hastings, _Encyclopaedia of Religion and +Ethics_. + +[10] See Lecky, _History of European Morals_, chap. ii. + +[11] Quoted by Lofthouse in _Ethics and the Family_, p. 8, from W. Hall, +in _Progress_ (London), April, 1907. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE MEANING OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE FAMILY + + +Sec. 1. THE FUNCTION OF THE FAMILY + +With the brief statement of the history of the family and of its +function in society which has already been given we are prepared to put +together the two conclusions: first, that the family has an educational +function, in that it exists as a social institution for the protection, +nurture, development, and training of young lives, and, secondly, that +it is a religious institution, the most influential and important of all +religious institutions, whenever it realizes in any adequate degree its +possibilities, because it is rooted in love and loyalty. It exists for +personal and spiritual ideals and, in Christianity, it is inseparably +connected with the teachings and the ideals of Jesus. It is educational +in function and religious in character, so that it is essentially an +institution for religious education. Religious education is not an +occasional incident in its life; it is the very aim and dominating +purpose of a high-minded family. + + +Sec. 2. WHAT IS RELIGIOUS EDUCATION? + +To make this the more clear we may need to clarify our minds as to +certain popular conceptions of education. Education means much more +than instruction; religious education means much more than instruction +in religion. Many habitually think of an educational institution as +necessarily a place where pupils sit at desks and teachers preside over +classes, the teachers imparting information which is to be memorized by +the pupils, so that, from this point of view, a Sunday school would be +almost the only institution for the religious education of children in +existence, because it is the only one exclusively devoted to imparting +instruction to children in specifically religious subjects. Such a view +would limit religious education in the home to the formal teaching of +the Bible and religious dogma by parents. The memorizing of scriptural +passages and of the different catechisms once constituted a regular duty +in almost all well-ordered homes. Today it is rarely attempted. Does +that mean that religious education has ceased in the home? + +But education means much more than instruction. Education is the whole +process, of which instruction is only a part. Education is the orderly +development of lives, according to scientific principles, into the +fulness of their powers, the realization of all their possibilities, the +joy of their world, the utmost rendering in efficiency of their service. +It includes the training of powers of thought, feeling, willing, and +doing; it includes the development of abilities to discern, +discriminate, choose, determine, feel, and do. It prepares the life for +living with other lives; it prepares the whole of the life, developing +the higher nature, the life of the spirit, for living in a spiritual +universe. + +Religious education, then, means much more than instruction in the +literature, history, and philosophy of religion. It means the kind of +directed development which regards the one who is developing as a +religious person, which seeks to develop that one to fulness of +religious powers and personality, and which uses, as means to that end, +material of religious inspiration and significance and, indeed, regards +all material in that light. Religious education seeks to direct a +religious process of growth with a religious purpose for religious +persons. Religious education is the spirit which characterizes the work +of every educator who looks on the child as a spiritual nature, a +religious person; it is the work of every educator who sees his aim as +that of training this spiritual person to fulness of living in a society +essentially spiritual. + +In simplest possible terms, religious education means the training of +persons to live the religious life and to do their work in the world as +religious persons. It must mean, then, the development of character; it +includes the aim, in the parents' minds, to bring their children up to +the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. It is evident that +this is a much greater task, and yet more natural and beautiful, than +mere instruction in formal ideas or words in the Bible or in a +catechism; that it is not and cannot be accomplished in some single +period, some set hour, but is continuous, through all the days; that it +pervades not only the spoken words, but the actions, organization, and +the very atmosphere of the home. + + +Sec. 3. THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS + +Normal persons never stop growing. Just as children grow all the time in +their bodies, so do adults and all others grow all the time in mind and +will and powers of the higher life whenever they live normally. We grow +spiritually, not only in church and under the stimulus of song and +prayer, but we grow when the beauty of the woods appeals to us, when the +face lightens at the face of a friend, when we meet and master a +temptation, when we brace up under a load, when we do faithfully the +dreary, daily task, when we adjust our thoughts in sympathy to others, +when we move in the crowd, when we think by ourselves. The educational +process is continuous. The children in the home are being moved, +stimulated, every instant, and they are being changed in minute but +nevertheless real and important degrees by each impression. There is +never a moment in which their character is not being developed either +for good or for ill. Religious education--that is, the development of +their lives as religious persons--goes on all the time in the home, and +it is either for good or for ill. + +Next to the idea of the continuous and all-pervasive character of this +process of religious development the most important thought for us is +that religious education in the home may be determined by ourselves. +This continuous, fateful process is not a blind, resistless one. It is +our duty to direct it. It is possible for wise parents to determine the +characters of their children. We must not forget this. It cannot be too +strongly insisted on. The development of life is under law. This is an +orderly world. Things do not just happen in it. We believe in a law that +determines the type of a cabbage, the character of a weed. Do we believe +that this universe is so ordered that there is a law for weeds and none +for the higher life of man? Do we hold that cabbages grow by law but +character comes by chance? If there is a law we may find it and must +obey it. If we may know how to develop character, with as great +certainty as we know how to do our daily work, will not this be our +highest task, our greatest joy, the supreme thing to do in life? + + +Sec. 4. THE CONSEQUENT OBLIGATION + +This is the first great obligation of parents and of those who are +willing to accept the joys and responsibilities of parenthood. We have +no right to bring into this world lives with all the possibilities that +a religious nature involves unless we know how to develop those lives +for the best and from the worst. When we picture what a little child may +become, from the vile, depraved, despoiling beast or the despicable, +sneaking hypocrite on one extreme, to the upright, God-loving, +man-serving man or woman with the love of purity, honor, truth, and +goodness speaking through the life, we may well pause, realizing we need +more than a sentimental desire that the child may reach the heights of +goodness: we must know the way there and the methods of leading the life +in that way. True devotion to God and to childhood will mean more than +petitions for the salvation of children; it will mean the prayer that is +labor and the labor that is prayer to know how they may attain fulness +of spiritual life; it will mean reverent searching into the divine ways +of growth in grace. The study of the means and methods of religious +education, especially of children, in the home and family, is one of the +most evident and important religious duties resting on parents and all +who contemplate marriage and family life. + + +Sec. 5. WHAT IS MEANT BY THE RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD? + +In discussing the development of character in children one hears often +the question, "Which is the earliest virtue to appear in a child?" +People will debate whether it is truthfulness, reverence, kindness, or +some other virtue. All this implies a picture of the child as a tree +that sends forth shoots of separate virtues one after another. But the +character desired is not a series of branches, it is rather like a +symmetrical tree; it is not certain parts, but it is the whole of a +personality. The development of religious character is not a matter of +consciously separable virtues, but is the determination of the trend and +quality of the whole life. Moral training is not a matter of cultivating +honesty today, purity tomorrow, and kindness the day after. Virtues have +no separate value. Character cannot be disintegrated into a list of +independent qualities. We seek a life that, as a whole life, loves and +follows truth, goodness, and service. + + +Sec. 6. EARLY TENDENCIES + +But it is wise to inquire as to those manifestations of a pure and +spiritual life which will earliest appear. One does not need to look far +for the answer. Children are always affectionate; they manifest the +possibilities of love. True, this affection is rooted in physiological +experience, based on relations to the mother and on daily propinquity to +the rest of the family, but it is that which may be colored by devotion, +elevated by unselfish service, and may become the first great, ideal +loyalty of the child's life. Little boys will fight and girls will +quarrel more readily over the question of the merits of their respective +parents than over any other issue. Almost as soon as a child can talk he +boasts of the valor of his father, the beauty of his mother. Here is +loyalty at work. He stands for them; he resents the least doubt as to +their superiority, not because they give him food and shelter, but +because they are his, because to him they are worthy; in all things they +have the worth, the highest good; they are, in person, the virtue of +life. Therefore in fighting for the reputation of his parents he is +practicing loyalty to an ideal. + +The principle of loyalty is the life-force of virtue; it is like the +power that sends the tree toward the heavens, the upthrust of life. It +may be cultivated in a thousand ways. Provided there is the outreach and +upreach of loyalty within and that there is furnished without the worthy +object, ideal, and aim, the life will grow upward and increase in +character, beauty, and strength. + +Next to the affectionate idealization of parents and home-folk one of +the earliest manifestations of the spirit of loyalty in the child is +his desire to have a share in the activities of the home. He would not +only look like those he admires; he would do what they do. This is more +than mere imitation; it is loyalty at work again. The direction of this +tendency is one of the largest opportunities before parents and can make +the most important contribution to character. + +The religious life of the child is essentially a matter of loyalty. His +faith, affections, aspirations, and endeavors turn toward persons, +institutions, and concepts which are to him ideal. He does not analyze, +he cannot describe, or even narrate, his religious experiences, but he +affectionately moves, with a sense of pleasure, toward those things +which seem to him ideal, toward parents, customs of the home or school, +the church, his class, his teacher, toward characters in story-books. He +is likely to think of Jesus in just that way, as the one person whom he +would most of all like to know and be with. The life of virtue and the +religious life then will be weak or strong in the measure that the child +has the stimulating ideals which call forth his loyalty and in the +measure that he has opportunity to express that loyalty. His religious +life will consist, not so much in external forms perhaps, still less in +intellectual statements about theology or even about his own +experiences, as in a growing realization of the great ideals, an +increasing sense of their meaning and reality within, and, on the +objective side, a steady moving of his life toward them in action and +habits and therefore in character and quality. + + +Sec. 7. IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS + +It is worth while to insist upon two important considerations. Parents +who stand as gardeners watching the growth of the tender plant of +child-character may be looking for developments that never ought to come +and will be disappointed because they were looking for the wrong thing. +First, in watching for the beginnings of the religious life of the child +in the family we are not expecting some new addition to the life, but +rather the development of this whole life as a unity in a definite +direction which we call religious. It is the first and most important +consideration that religious education is not something added to the +life as an extra subject of interest, but the development of the whole +life into religious character and usefulness. Secondly, this growth of +religious character is going on all the time. It is not separable into +pious periods; it is a part of the very life of the family. Perhaps this +increases the difficulty of our task, for it removes it from the realm +of the mechanical, from that which is easily apprehended and estimated. +It takes the task of the religious education of children out of the +statistical into the vital, and reminds us that we are growing life +every second, that there is never a moment when religious education is +not in operation. This demands a consideration, not alone of lessons, of +periods of worship and instruction, but of every influence, activity, +and agency in all the family life that in any way affects the thinking, +feeling, and action of the child. We are thinking of something more +important than organizing instruction and exercises in religion in the +home; we are thinking of organizing the family life for religious +purposes, for the purpose of growing lives into their spiritual fulness. + +Perhaps the capital mistake in the religious education of the family is +that we overemphasize this or the other method and mechanism instead of +bending every effort to secure a real religious atmosphere and soil in +which young souls can really grow while we leave the process of growth +more largely to the great husbandman. And the second great mistake is +that we are looking for mechanical evidence of a religious life instead +of for the development of a whole person. We must reinterpret the family +to ourselves and see it as the one great opportunity life affords us to +grow other lives and to bring them to spiritual fulness by providing a +social atmosphere of the spirit and a constant, normal presentation of +social living in spiritual terms. + + +Sec. 8. THE ORGANIZATION OF LOYALTY + +When parents conceive the family in these terms and so organize the life +of the home, the child becomes conscious of the fact, and at once the +life of the family furnishes him with his first, his nearest, and most +satisfactory appeal to loyalty. He feels that which he cannot analyze or +express, the spiritual beauty and loyalty of family life. That life +furnishes a soil and atmosphere for his soul. It is an atmosphere made +of many elements: the primary and dominating purpose of parents and +older persons, the habitual life of service and love, the consciousness +of the reality of the Divine Presence, the fragrance of chastened +character and experience, the customs of worship and affections. These +things are not easily created, they cannot be readily defined, nor can +directions be given in a facile manner for their cultivation. They are +the elements most difficult to describe, hardest of all to secure when +lacking, least easily labeled, not to be purchased ready-made, and yet +without them religious education is wholly impossible in the family. +Without this immediate appeal to loyalty the loyalties of the child +toward higher and divine aims do not develop early; they are retarded +and often remain dormant. For us all scarcely any more important +question can be presented than this: What appeals to spiritual idealism +and loyalty does our family life present to the child? What quickening +of love for goodness and purity, truth and service, is there in the home +and its conduct? + + + I. References for Study + + G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_, chaps. i, ii, xii, + xiii. Revell, $1.35. + + George Hodges, _Training of Children in Religion_, chaps. i, ii. + Appleton, $1.50. + + J.T. McFarland, _Preservation versus Resurrection_. Eaton & Mains, + $0.07. + + + II. Further Reading + + C.W. Votaw, _Progress of Moral and Religious Education in the + American Home_. Religious Education Association, $0.25. + + George Hodges, _Training of Children_, chaps. i, ii, xv. Appleton, + $1.50. + + G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_, chaps. i, iv, xvi. + Revell, $1.35. + + E.C. Wilm, _Culture of Religion_, chaps. i, ii. Pilgrim Press, + $0.75. + + C.W. Rischell, _The Child as God's Child_. Methodist Book Concern, + $0.75. + + E.E. Read Mumford, _The Dawn of Character_. Longmans, Green & Co., + $1.20. See especially chap. xii on "The Dawn of Religion." + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. How would you define education? + + 2. What is the difference between education and religious + education? + + 3. What makes the home especially effective in education? + + 4. Is it true that it is possible to discover the laws of growth + and so determine the development of character? + + 5. Recall any very early manifestations of religious character in + small children. What would you regard as the best kind of + manifestation? + + 6. What is the essential principle of the right life? How may we + develop this in childhood? + + 7. What are the things which most of all impress children? + + 8. Would you think it wise to bring a child under the influence of + a religious revival? + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE CHILD'S RELIGIOUS IDEAS + + +How shall I begin to talk with my child about religion? Even the most +religious parents feel hesitancy here. It may not be at all due to the +unfamiliarity of the subject, though that is often the case; hesitation +is due principally to a conscious artificiality in the action. It seems +unnatural to say, "My child, I want to talk with you about your +religious life." And so it is. There is something wrong when that +appears to be the only way. That situation indicates a lack of freedom +of thought and intercourse with the child and a lack of naturalness in +religion. + + +Sec. 1. THE FUNDAMENTAL DIFFICULTY + +The instinct is correct that tells us that we should be trespassing on a +child's rights, or breaking down his proper reticence, in abruptly and +formally questioning him about his religious life. The reserve of +children in this matter must be respected. The inner life of aspiration, +of conscious relationship to the divine, is too sacred for display, even +to those who are near to us. He violates the child's reverence who tears +away his reticence. Even though the child may not consciously object, +the process leads him toward the irreverent, facile self-exposure of +the soul that characterizes some prayer meetings. But we may, also, as +easily err in the other direction and, by failing to invite the +confidences of our children, lead them to suppose we have no interest in +their higher life. + + +Sec. 2. CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS + +First, we must be content to wait for the child to open his heart. We +must not force the door. But we can invite him to open, and the one form +of invitation that scarcely ever fails is for you to give him your +confidence. Talk honestly, simply to him of the aspects of your +religious life that he can understand. If he knows that you confide in +him, he will confide in you. Here beware of sentimentality. Religion to +the child will find expression in everyday experiences. Your philosophy +of religion he cannot comprehend, and with your mature emotions he has +no point of contact. Perhaps the best method of approach is to relate +your memories of those experiences which you _now see_ to have had +religious significance to you. At the time they may have had no such +special meaning. You did not then analyze them. Your child will not and +must not analyze them, either; he must simply feel them. + +Secondly, rid your mind of the "times and seasons" notion. There is no +more reason why you should talk religion on Sunday than on Monday, +unless the day's interests have quickened the child's questioning. There +can be no set period; no times when you say, "This is the forty-five +minutes of spiritual instruction and conversation." The time available +may be very short, only a sentence may be possible, or it may be +lengthened; everything will depend on the interest. It must be natural, +a real part of the everyday thought and talk, lifted by its character +and subject to its own level. Its value depends on its natural reality. + + +Sec. 3. RELIGIOUS REALITY + +Thirdly, avoid the mistake of confounding conversation on "religion" +with religious conversation, of thinking that the desired end has been +attained when you have discussed the terminology of theology. To +illustrate, in the family one hardly ever hears the word hygiene, but +well-trained children learn much about the care of their bodies in +health, and the family economy is directed consciously to that end. A +good, nourishing meal always contributes more to health than many +lectures on dietetics. Yet back, hidden away in the manager's mind, is +the science of dietetics. So is it with quickening the child's power and +thought in the spiritual life. We must avoid the abstract, the +intellectually analytical. Religion should present itself concretely, +practically, and as an atmosphere and ideal in the family. We parents +must not look for theological interest in the child. A Timothy Dwight at +ten or twelve, though once found in Sunday-school library books, is a +monstrosity. The child's aspiration, his religious devotion, his love +for God will find expression in almost every other way before it will be +formulated into questions of a serious theological character. Nor ought +we to force upon him the phrases of religion to which we are accustomed. +He will live in another day and must speak its tongue. His faith must +find itself in consciousness and then be permitted to clothe itself in +appropriate garments of words. Those garments must be woven out of the +realities of actual experiences in the child's life. We cannot prepare +or make them for him. The expression of religion will be consonant with +the stage of development. If his faith is to be real he must never be +allowed or tempted to imagine that if only he can use the words, the +verbal symbol, he has the fact, the life-experience. Try then to use +words which are simple and meaningful to him and be content to wait for +life to lead him to formulate vital verbal forms for himself. + + +Sec. 4. PATIENCE AND COMMON-SENSE + +Fourthly, we must have faith in God's laws of growth. If we be but +faithful, furnishing the soil, the seed, the nurture, we must wait for +the increase. Many factors which we cannot control will determine +whether it shall be early or late and what form it shall take. We must +wait. It is high folly that pulls up the sprouting grain to see whether +it is growing properly. + +Fifthly, manifestations of the religious life will vary in children and +in families. The commonest error is to expect some one popular form +alone, to imagine that all children must pass through some standardized +experiences. Mrs. Brown's Willy may rise in prayer meeting. Do not be +downhearted. Willy is only doing that which he has seen his parents do, +and, usually, only because they do it. Your boy, or girl, is seeking +health of life, of thought, of action; is growing in character. Let them +grow, help them to grow. You know they love you even when they say +little about it; you do not expect them to climb to the housetop and +declare their affection. A flower does not sing about the sun, it grows +toward it. That is the test of the child's religion: Is he growing +Godward in life, action, character? + + +Sec. 5. THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD + +Sixthly, deal most carefully with the child's consciousness of God. The +truth is that the child in the average home has a consciousness of God. +It grows out of formal references in social rites and customs, informal +allusions in conversation, and direct statements and instruction. But +frequently the resultant mental picture is a misleading one, sometimes +even vicious in its moral effect. Where superstitious servants take more +interest in the child's religious ideas than do his parents, we have the +child whose life is darkened by the fear of an omnipotent ogre. +Nursemaids will slothfully scare small children into silence by threats +of the awful presence of a bogey god. The life of the spirit cannot be +trusted to the hireling. Parents must be sure of the character as well +as the superficial competency of those who come closest to childhood. A +child's ideas are formed before he goes to school. The family cannot +delegate the formation of dominant ideas to persons trained only for +nursery tasks. + +But frequently the mother is a misleading teacher. To her the child goes +with all the big questions outside the immediate world of things. Is she +prepared to answer the questions? Few dilemmas of our life today are +more pathetic than this: the mother has outgrown the theology of her +childhood; she remembers keenly the suffering and superstition, the +struggle that followed the darkened pictures she received as a little +one, but she has nothing better to offer the child. No one has taught +her how to put the later, more spiritual concepts into language for the +child of our day. Weakly she falls back on the forms of words she once +abhorred. + +There are certainly two approaches of reality for the child-mind to the +idea of God. Two immediate experiences are rich in meaning; they are the +life of the family and the wonder of the everyday world, the life and +variety of nature and human activities. The first is a very simple and +rich approach. By every possible means help children in the family to +think of God as the great and good Father of us all. Do this in the +phrasing of prayers and graces, in the answers to their questions, in +the casual word. Why should we assume that the Fatherhood of God is for +the adult alone? And why should it be that this rich concept dawns on us +like a new day of freedom in truth in later years instead of becoming +ours in childhood and so determining the habit and attitude of our +lives? The finest, the ideal person is, to the child, the father. God in +terms of fatherhood is the sum and source of all that is ideal in +personality. + +The child's keen interest in the world of nature is our opportunity to +lead him to love the gracious source of all beauty and goodness. How +keen is the child's enjoyment of the beauty of the world! Can we forever +fix the general concept of all this beauty as the thought of God in the +words of flower and leaf, mountain and stream? And might we not also +connect the idea of God with the affairs of daily life? That depends on +the parent's attitude of mind; if we think of the universal life that is +behind all battles and business and affairs, there will be a difference +in our answers to the thousand curious inquiries that rise in the +child's mind. + +Nor must we leave the child to think of God as a separate, far-off +person, on a throne somewhere in the skies. The child is finding his way +into a universe. The God who is a minute fraction of that universe makes +possible the religion that is no more than a negligible fraction of +life. The child asks concerning clouds, the sea, the trees, the birds, +and all the world about him; he tends to interpret it causally and +ideally. Childhood affords the great opportunity for giving the color, +the beauty and glory, the life of the divine to all this universe, to +instil the feeling that God is everywhere, in all and through all, and +that in him we live and move and have our being. The child's joy in this +world can thus be given a religious meaning. He sings + + My God, I thank thee thou hast made + This earth so bright...., + +and so beauty and joy become part of his religion. His faith becomes a +gladsome thing; he knows that the trees of the forest clap their hands, +the mountains and the hills sing, and the morning stars chant together +in the gladness of the divine life. + +Such a view of the world comes not by prearranged and indoor interviews. +One must walk out into the good outdoor world for the opportunity and +the inspiration. The garden plot, the park, and, best of all, the open +fields and woods speak to a child and furnish us an open book from which +we may teach him to read. Recalling religious impressions, the writer +would testify to feeling nothing deeper, as a result of church +attendance in childhood, than the shapes of seats and the colors of +walls; but there remain deep impressions of wonder, beauty, and the +meaning of God from Sunday mornings spent with his father under the +great beeches in Epping Forest, listening to the reading and singing of +the old hymns, or joining in conversation on the woods and the flowers, +and even on the legends of Robin Hood in the forest. + + +Sec. 6. THE EVERYDAY OPPORTUNITIES + +Seventhly, natural conversation affords the best opportunity for direct +instruction. A child is a peripatetic interrogation. His questions cover +the universe; there are no doors which you desire to see opened that he +will not approach at some time. There is great advantage when the +religious question rises normally; when the child begins it and when the +interest continues with the same naturalness as in conversation on any +other subject. Then questions usually take one of three forms: mere +childish, curious questions, questions on conduct, and questions on +religion in its organized form. + +The child's curiosity is the basis of even those questions which have +usually been credited to preternatural piety. The tiny youngster who +asks strange questions about God asks equally startling ones about +fairies or about his grandmother. But his questions give us the chance +to direct him to right thoughts of God. Here we need to be sure of our +own thoughts and to keep in mind our principal purpose, to quicken in +this child loyalty to the highest and best. He must be shown a God whom +he can love and, at the same time, one who will call for his growing +loyalty, his courage, and devotion. Everything for the child's future +depends on the pictures he now forms. We all carry to a large degree our +childhood's view of God. + +Some of the child's questions probe deep; how shall we answer them? When +you know the truth tell him the truth, being sure that it is told in +language that really conveys truth to his mind. The danger is that +parents will attempt to tell more than they know, to answer questions +that cannot be answered, or that they will, in sloth or cowardice or +ignorance, tell children untrue things. If a child asks, "Did God make +the world?" the answer that will be true to the child may be a simple +affirmative. If the child asks or his query implies, "Did God make the +leaves, or the birds, with his fingers?" we had better take time to +show the difference between man's making of things and the working of +the divine energy through all the process of the development of the +world. When the child asks, "Mother, if God made all things, why did he +make the devil?" it would surely be wise and opportune to correct the +child's mental picture of a personal anti-God and to take from him his +bogey of a "devil." But the question of the relation of God to the +existence of evil would remain, and the best a parent could do would be +to illustrate the necessities of freedom of choice and will in life by +similar freedom in the family. + +It must be remembered that children's curious questions are only their +attempt to discover their world, that they have no peculiar religious +significance, but that they afford the parent a vital opportunity for +direct religious instruction. These questions must be treated seriously; +something is missing in parental consciousness when the child's +questions furnish only material for jesting relation to the family +friends. + + +Sec. 7. MORAL TEACHING + +_Questions on conduct_: Scores of times in the day the children come in +from play or from school and tell of what has happened. Their more or +less breathless recitals very often include vigorous accounts of +"cheating," "naughtiness," unfair play, unkind words, discourtesies, +all dependent as to their character on the age of the children and all +opening doors for free conversation on duties and conduct. Here lies one +of the large opportunities for moral instruction. There is no need to +attempt to make formal occasions for this; so long as children play and +live with others they are under the experience of learning the art of +living with one another; this is the simple essence of morality. The +parent's answers to their questions on conduct, the comments on their +criticisms, and the conversation that may easily be directed on these +subjects count tremendously with the child in establishing his ideals +and modes of conduct. Returning to his play, there is no mightier +authority he can quote than to say, "My mother says--," or "My father +says--." + +Let no one say that instruction in moral living is not religious, for +there can be no adequate guidance in morals without religion, nor can +the religious quality of the life find expression adequately except +through conduct in social living. Children need more than the rules for +living; they must feel motives and see ideals. They do not live by rules +any more than we do. Besides the rule that is known there must be a +reason for following it and a strong desire to do so. All ethical +teaching needs this imperative and motivation of religion, the +quickening of loyalty to high ideals, the doing of the right for +reasons of love as well as of duty and profit. + +The father's opportunity comes especially with the boys. They are sure +to bring to him their ethical questions on games and sport; he knows +more about boys' fights and struggles than does the mother. When the +boys begin to discuss their games the father cannot afford to lack +interest. Trivial as the question may seem to be, it is the most +important one of the day to the boy and, for the interests of his +character, it may be the most important for many a day to the father. If +he answers with sympathy and interest this question on a "foul ball" or +on marbles or peg-tops, he has opened a door that will always stay open +so long as he approaches it with sincerity; if he slights it, if he is +too busy with those lesser things that seem great to him, he has closed +a door into the boy's life; it may never be opened again. Children learn +life through the life they are now living. Real preparation for the +world of business and larger responsibilities comes by the child's +experiences of his present world of play and schooling and family +living. To help him to live this present life aright is the best +training that can be given for the right living of all life. + +_Questions on organized religion_: As children grow up, the church comes +into their range of interests. Just as they often make the day school +focal for conversation, as they recount their day's work there, so they +retain impressions of the church school, of the services of the church, +and will always ask many questions about this institution and its +observances. Here is the opportunity, in free conversation, to tell the +child the meaning of the church, the significance of membership therein, +and to lead him to conscious relationship to the society of the +followers of Jesus. (See chap. xvii, "The Family and the Church.") + + + I. References for Study + + Alice E. Fitts, "Consciousness of God in Children," _The Aims of + Religious Education_, pp. 330-38. Religious Education Association, + $1.00. + + W.G. Koons, _Child's Religious Life_, sec. II. Eaton & Mains, + $1.00. + + J. Sully, _Children's Ways_, chap. vi. Appleton, $1.25. + + + II. Further Reading + + George Hodges, _The Training of Children in Religion_, chaps. i-vi. + Appleton, $1.50. + + George E. Dawson, _The Child and His Religion_, chap. ii. The + University of Chicago Press, $0.75. + + Edward Lyttleton, _The Corner-Stone of Education_, chap. viii. + Putnam, $1.50. + + T. Stephens (ed.), _The Child and Religion_. Putnam, $1.50. + + C.W. Richell, _The Child as God's Child_. Eaton & Mains, $0.75. + + W.G. Koons, _The Child's Religious Nature_. Eaton & Mains, $1.00. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What are the special difficulties which you feel about + introducing the topic of religion to children? Describe any methods + or modes of approach which have seemed successful? + + 2. Would you regard it as a fault if a child seems unwilling to + talk about religion? What do you think "religion" means to the + child-mind? + + 3. In what ways do children's aptitudes differ and what factors + probably determine the difference? What was your own childish + conception of God? Did you love God or fear him? Why? + + 4. Is it ever right to teach the child those conceptions which we + have outgrown? What about Santa Claus and fairies? How can you use + childish figures of speech as an avenue to more exact truth? + + 5. Does the child learn more through ears or eyes? Through which + agency do we seek to convey religious ideas? + + 6. Is it possible to make the child see the intimate relation + between conduct and religion? How would you do this? + + 7. Give some of the characteristics of a religious child of seven + years, of ten. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +DIRECTED ACTIVITY + + +Probably all parents find themselves at some time thinking that the +real, fundamental problem of training their children lies in dealing +with their superabundant energy. "He is such an active child!" mothers +complain. Were he otherwise a physician might properly be consulted. But +the child's activity does seriously interfere with parental peace. It +takes us all a long time to learn that we are not, after all, in our +homes in order to enjoy peaceful rest, but in order to train children +into fulness of life. That does not mean that the home should be without +quiet and rest, but that we must not hope to repress the energy of +childhood. One might as well hope to plug up a spring in the hillside. +Our work is to direct that activity into glad, useful service. + + +Sec. 1. VALUE OF ACTIVITY + +The things we do not only indicate character, they determine it. Our +thoughts have value and power as they get into action. To bend our +energies toward an ideal is to make it more real, to make it a part of +ourselves. Children learn by doing--learn not only that which they are +doing but life itself. + +It may be doubted whether a child ever grew who did not plead to have a +share in the work he saw going on about him. That desire to help is part +of that fundamental virtue of loyalty of which we have spoken above; it +is his desire to be true to the tendency of the home, to give himself to +the realization of its purposes. Of course he does not think this out at +all. But this desire on the part of the child to have a hand in the +day's work is the parent's fine opportunity for a most valuable and +influential form of character direction. + +One of the tests of a worthy character is whether the life is +contributory or parasitic, whether one carries his load, does his work, +makes his contribution, or simply waits on the world for what he can +get. A religious interpretation of and attitude toward life is +essentially that of self-giving in service. "My Father worketh hitherto +and I work." "I must be about my Father's business." How noticeable is +the child's interest in the vivid word-picture of One who "went about +doing good"! + + +Sec. 2. THE BLESSING OF LABOR + +The home is the first place for life's habituation to service. The child +is greatly to be pitied who has no duties, no share in the work. Where +the hands are unsoiled the heart is the easier sullied. It is the height +of mistaken kindness, one of the common errors of an unthinking, +superficial affection, to protect our children from work. This is a +world of the moral order and of the glory of work. + +When the child is very small it must learn this by having committed to +it very simple duties. As soon as it is able to handle things it may +learn to do that which is most helpful with those things, to care for +its toys, to put them away neatly. A child can learn while very young to +take care of its spoon, of certain clothes, of chair, and pencil and +paper. True, it is much easier to "pick up" after the child; but to do +so is to yield to our own sloth. The more tedious way is the one we must +follow if we would train the child. + +Besides the care of his possessions the child will gladly take a share +in the general work of the home. Let some daily duty be assigned to each +one; such simple responsibilities as picking up all papers and magazines +and seeing that they are properly stacked or disposed of may be given to +one; another may sweep the stairs every day with a whisk broom (in one +instance a boy of eight did this daily); another may be "librarian," +caring for all books; each one, after eight years of age, should make +her own bed; each one should be entirely responsible for his own table +in his room. Many homes permit of many other "chores," such as keeping +up the supply of small kindling, caring for a pet or even a larger +animal, keeping a little personal garden or vegetable plot. Under those +normal conditions of living, which some day we may reach, where each +family, or all families, have trees and flowers and ample space, the +opportunities are increased for joyous child activities which +consciously contribute to social well-being as a whole. + + +Sec. 3. RELIGION IN ACTION + +Perhaps some will say, this is not religious education, it is everyday +training. Yes, it is "everyday training," but it is the training of a +religious person with the religious purpose of habituating the child to +give his life in service to his world. That is precisely what we +need--_religion in everyday action_. The atmosphere and habitual +attitude and conversation of the family must be depended on to give a +really religious meaning to these everyday acts, to make them as +religious as going to church, perhaps more so, and so to make them a +training for the life that is religious, not in word only, but in deed +and in truth. + +Whatever we may say to children on the subject of religion, whether +directly or in teaching by indirection through songs and worship, must +pass over somehow into action in order to have meaning and reality. It +must be realized in order to be real. The difficulty that appears is +that of connecting the daily act with its spiritual significance. Yet +that is not as difficult as it seems. If the act has religious +significance to us, if we form the habit of really worshiping God with +our work, seeking in it to do his will, the child will know it. We +cannot keep that hidden. The spiritual life will never be more real to +the child than it is to us, and no amount of moralizing or +spiritualizing about our acts or his will give them religious +significance. + +At least one person will testify that, after being brought up in a +really religious home, the most strikingly religious memory of that home +is an occasion when he delightedly carried a tray of food to a sick +neighbor. It was doing the very thing that he longed to do, realizing +the aspiration that had been unable to find words or form before. So the +life of action can be steadily trained by acts of kindness. Habits are +acts repeated until they pass from the volitional to the involuntary. +The only process we can follow is steadily to train the children in the +willing and doing of the right, the good, and the kindly deed, until it +becomes habitual. Let the child prepare the tray of delicacies, pack the +flowers we are sending, carry them over if possible, at least have a +share in all our ministries.[12] + +The modern Sunday school recognizes the importance of activity in +forming religious character; therefore it plans and organizes social +activities for students to carry out.[13] The parents ought to know what +is designed for each child in his respective grade and to plan to +co-operate with the school. Where the family unites in the forms of +service suggested for the children, these activities lose all +perfunctoriness and take on a new reality. Social usefulness becomes a +normal part of life. + +Do we remember the best times of our childhood? Were they not when we +were doing things? And were not the best of these best times when we +were doing the best things, those that seemed ideal, that gave us a +sense of helping someone or of putting into action the best of our +thoughts? That is the chance and the joy our children are longing for, +and that joy will be their strength. + + +Sec. 4. RELIGION IN SERVICE + +The family has excellent opportunities for developing through its own +activities and duties the habits of the religious life. Children may +acquire through daily acts the habit of thinking of life as just the +chance to love and serve. Service may become perfectly normal to life. +Our modern paupers, whether they tramp the highways or ride in private +cars, came usually out of homes where the moral standard interpreted +life as just the chance of graft, to gain without giving, to have +without earning. Parental indulgence educates in pauperism. Let a boy +remain the passive beneficiary of all the advantages of a home until he +is sixteen or eighteen, and it will be exceedingly difficult to convert +him from the pauper habit. + +The hard task before parents is to save their children from the snare of +passive luxury. Perhaps, remembering our toilsome youth, we seek to +shield them. It is a serious unkindness. It is a wrong to our world. The +religious mind is the one that takes life in terms of service, sees the +days as doors to ways of usefulness, girds itself with the towel, and +finds honor in bending to do the little things for the least of men. +Vain is all family worship, all prayer and praise and catechism, unless +we train the feet to walk this way so that they may visit the +imprisoned, clothe the naked, comfort the sad, and cheer the broken in +heart. The family may make this the normal way to live. + +If the family would train boys and girls who shall be true followers of +the great Servant, it must stand among men as a servant, it must see +itself as set in the community to serve, and by habits of service and +helpfulness, by its whole social tone, it must quicken in its own people +the sense of social obligation and a realization of the delight in +self-giving. A home that is selfish in relation to other homes, in +relation to its community, can have no other than selfish, antisocial, +and therefore irreligious children. The first step in the welfare of a +child is to see that the home which constitutes his personal atmosphere +is steeped in the spirit of good-will toward men. + +The whole attitude of life is determined by the thought-atmosphere of +the family. The greedy family makes the grafting citizen. The grasping +home makes the pugnacious disturber of the public peace. Greater than +the question whether you are a good citizen in your relation to the +ballot box is the one whether you are a cultivator of good citizenship +in your home. No amount of Sunday-school teaching on the Beatitudes or +week-day teaching on civics is going to overcome the down-drag of +envious, antisocial thought and feeling and conversation in the home. +Home action and attitude count for more than all besides. + +It is equally true that no other influence can offset the salutary power +of a truly social home, that the easiest, most natural, and effective +method of teaching social duty and unselfishness is to do our whole +social duty unselfishly. + + +Sec. 5. FAMILY TRAINING FOR SOCIAL LIVING + +The supreme test of the religious life here is ability to live among men +as brothers and to cause the conditions of the divine family to be +realized on earth. If we can realize that the purpose of Jesus was to +bring men into the family of God, that the aim of all religious endeavor +is the family character in men and women and the conditions of that +family in all society, we must surely appreciate the possibility of the +human family as a training school for this larger family of humanity. + +The infant approaches social living by the pathway of the society of the +family. We all go out into life through widening circles, first the +mother's arms, then the family, the neighborhood, the city, the state, +the nation, the world-life. Each circle prepares for the next. The +family is the child's social order; its life is his training for the +larger life of nation and human brotherhood. + +Just how men and women will live in society is determined principally by +the bent of their characters in the social order of the family. Their +attitude to the world follows the attitude of the family, especially of +the parents. They interpret the larger world by the lesser. The home is +the great school of citizenship and social living. + +All the moral and religious problems of the family find a focus in the +purpose of preparing persons for social living. The family justifies its +cost to society in the contribution which it makes in trained and +motived lives. As a religious family its first duty is to prepare the +coming generation to live in a religious society, in one which will +steadily move toward the divine ideal of perfect family relations +through brotherhood and fatherhood. Its business is not to get children +ready for heaven, but to train them to make all life heavenly. Its aim +is not alone children who will not tear down the parents' reputation, +but men and women who will build up the actual worth and beauty of all +lives. + +The realization, in the family, of the purpose of training youth to +social living and service in the religious spirit depends on two things: +a spirit and passion in the family for social justice and order, and the +direction of the activities of the family toward training in social +usefulness. + +Only the social spirit can give birth to the social spirit. True lovers +of men, who set the values of life and of the spirit first, who give +their lives that all men may have freedom and means to find more +abundant life, come out of the families where the passion of human love +burns high. The selfish family, self-centered, caring not at all in any +deep sense for the well-being of others, existing to extract the juice +of life and let who will be nourished on the rind, becomes effective to +make the social highwayman, the oppressor. From such a family comes he +who breaks laws for his pocketbook and impedes the enactment of laws +lest human rights should prevent his acquisition of wealth; he who +hates his brother man--unless that brother has more than he has; the foe +of the kingdom of goodness and peace and brotherhood. + +And goodness is as contagious as badness. Children catch the spirit of +social love and idealism in the family. Where men and women are deeply +concerned with all that makes the world better for lives, better for +babies and mothers, for workers, and, above all, for the values of the +spirit gained through leisure, opportunities, and higher incentives; +where the family is more concerned with folks than with furniture; where +habitually it thinks of people as Jesus did, as the objects most of all +worth seeking, worth investing in, there children receive direction, +habituation, and motivation for the life of religion, the life that +binds them in glad love to the service of their fellows, and makes them +think of all their life as the one great chance to serve, to make a +better world, and to bring God's great family closer together here. + + + I. References for Study + + G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_, pp. 142-50. Revell, + $1.35. + + W.S. Athearn, _The Church School_, pp. 85-102. Pilgrim Press, + $1.00. + + G. Johnson, _Education by Plays and Games_, Part I. Ginn & Co., + $0.90. + + + II. Further Reading + + E.D. Angell, _Play_. Little, Brown & Co., $1.50. + + Fisher, Gulick, _et al._, "Ethical Significance of Play," + _Materials for Religious Education_, pp. 197-215. Religious + Education Association, $0.50. + + Publications of the Play Ground Association. + + + III. Methods and Materials + + PLAY + + Forbush, _Manual of Play_. Jacobs, $1.00. + + A. Newton, _Graded Games_. Barnes, $1.25. + + Von Palm, _Rainy Day Pastimes_. Dana Estes, $1.00. + + Johnson, _When Mother Lets Us Help_. Moffat, Yard & Co., $0.75. + + WORK + + Canfield, _What Shall We Do Now?_ Stokes, $1.50. + + Beard, _Jack of All Trades_. Scribner, $2.00. + + Beard, _Things Worth Doing_. Scribner, $2.00. + + Bailey, _Garden Making_. Macmillan, $1.50. + + Bailey (ed.), _Something to Do_ (magazine). School Arts Publishing + Co. + + + IV. Topics for Discussion + + 1. Is the quiet child an ideal child? How far should we go in + restraining activity? + + 2. The relative advantages of work and leisure for children. What + of the value of chores to you; did you do them? Describe any forms + of children's service in the home which have come under your + observation. + + 3. What forms of community service can be done by children and by + young people? + + 4. Recall any lessons learned by activity in your early home life. + + 5. Give in their order, according to your judgment, the potencies + for religious character in the home. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[12] A short list of books on child activity in the home is appended at +the end of this chapter; a fairly complete list, long enough for any +family, will be found on p. 117 of _The Church School_, by W.S. Athearn. + +[13] See W.N. Hutchins, _Graded Social Service for the Sunday School_. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HOME AS A SCHOOL[14] + + +The home is so mighty as a school because, requiring little time for +formal instruction, it enlists its scholars so largely in informal +activities. It trains for life by living; it trains as an institution, +by a group of activities, a series of duties, a set of habits. If the +home is to prepare for social living it will be most of all and best of +all by its organization and conduct as a social institution. + + +Sec. 1. AN IDEAL COMMUNITY + +For the purposes of society homes must be social-training centers; they +must be conducted as communities if their members are to be fitted for +communal living. No boy is likely to be ready for the responsibilities +of free citizenship who has spent his years in a home under an absolute +monarchy; or, as is today perhaps more frequently the case, in a +condition of unmitigated anarchy. A free society cannot consist of units +not free. The problems of parental discipline arise and appear as +persistently irritating and perplexing stumbling-blocks in many a home +simply because that home is organized altogether out of harmony and +relation with the normal life in which it is set. Society environing the +home gives its members the habits of twentieth-century autonomy, +individual initiative and responsibility, together with collective +living and working, while the home often seeks to perpetuate +thirteenth-century absolutism, serfdom, and subjection. In social living +outside the home we learn to do the will of all; in the home we attempt +to compel children to do the will of one. + + +Sec. 2. COMMUNITY INTERESTS + +The home organized as a social community will give to every member, +according to his ability, a share in its guidance and will expect from +every member the free contribution of his powers. Its rules will be made +by the will of all, and its affairs governed, not by an executive board +composed of the parents, but by the free participation and choice of +all. The young will learn to choose by choosing; will learn both how to +rule and to be ruled by a share in ruling. + +To be explicit, suppose a piece of furniture is desired for the home. +Two plans at least are possible: first, the "head of the home" may go +forth and purchase it without consulting anyone, or after advising with +the other "head"; or, second, before a purchase is made, the wisdom of +such an addition to the furniture may be suggested in the open council +of the whole family and the purchase discussed and determined by all. +Such councils, usually coming at or after the principal meal, freely +participated in by all, give even to the youngest a sense of the cost of +a home, of the care that goes into it, with, what is more important, a +sense of a share in these cares and costs; they cultivate habits of +prudence, of consideration of a matter, of steady judgments, of +deference to the wishes and wisdom of others. Of still greater +importance is another practical issue of such a plan--that every member +of the household has a new sense of proprietorship with deepened +responsibility. Instead of thinking of any household possession as +father's or mother's, or even mine, it becomes _ours_. The parents no +longer need to say, "Children, do not mar the furniture; it costs money +to replace it." The children know that already, and they have the same +pride in the home possessions and the same desire to preserve them as +they have in that which is peculiarly their own. A habit of mind results +from such a course so that, by thinking in terms of common possession of +the best things of life, there is cultivated that respect for the rights +of others which is simply right social thinking. + +The same plan could be pursued in relation to almost every interest of +the family--as the planning of the annual vacation and outing, the +holidays, picnics, and birthday celebrations, the church and religious +exercises. Above all, in the last mentioned, this social spirit may be +cultivated. The father may cease to be the "high priest" for his family +and become a worshiper along with the other members. The effect will be +that his children are more likely to stay as worshipers with him than if +they gazed on him as on some lonely elevation, unrelated to them in his +religious exercises. The reading, the song, the prayers, the comment and +discussion, the story-telling, and all that may make up the regular +specific religious activities of the family should be such that all may +have a share in them. Nothing could be finer, diviner, and bring larger +helpfulness for social living than the attempt of the least little +lisping child to throw herself into the unified family act of prayer, as +when one little tot, unable to say the Lord's Prayer, united in worship +at the time of that act by saying, as reverently as possible, "One, two, +three, four, five," etc., up to ten. The ability to count was her latest +accomplishment; counting to ten was bringing the very best thing she +then had and, in the act of family worship, offering her part to the +Most High. A fine sense of worship and a desire to be one with the +others in this united, communal service prompted the participation. + + +Sec. 3. COMMUNITY SERVICE + +Community service may be cultivated in the home. Here is the ideal +social community, where there are neither parasites nor paupers, where +all give of their best for the best of all. No one doubts that the baby +gives its full share of happiness and cheer, and the aged their offering +of consolation and experience; but the difficulty is supposed to be with +the lad and the girl who would rather play than work. Usually this is +because the habits of co-operation in the life of this community have +been too long neglected. The small boy or girl had no share in its work. +Parents are too busy to think through the matter of finding suitable +duties for all. It is so much easier to do things one's self, even +though the child misses the benefits of participation. More frequently +the blame lies in the fact that parents desire to shield children from +labor. Some would have them grow up without knowing what they count as +the degradation of toil. But a boy who knows nothing of the "chores" has +missed half the joys of boyhood, and has a terribly hard lesson ahead of +him when he goes out to relate himself to life. No matter what one's +station may be, there is a part to be played, and one's piece of work to +be done. The greatest unkindness we can do our children is to train them +to lives that do not play their part. The home is our chance to train a +man to harmonious usefulness in his world. Not only should the family +train to social co-operation and service, but it should train to +efficiency therein. Do not let your child's duties become a farce; let +them exact as much of him as the world will exact also; that is, +efficiency, accuracy, thoroughness, and fidelity. + + +Sec. 4. A SCHOOL OF SOCIAL MINISTRY + +The family trains lives for social ministry. The unsocial lives come out +of unsocial homes. The home that exists for itself alone trains lives +that exist only for themselves; these are the homes that throw the sand +of selfishness into the wheels of society; they ultimately effect social +suicide through selfishness. The attitude and atmosphere of the home are +of first importance here. As we think, so will our children act. If the +home is to us a place without responsibilities for the neighborhood, +without duties to neighbors, without social roots, then it is a school +for industrial, commercial, and social greed and warfare. As we think in +our hearts and talk at our table, so are we educating those who sit +thereat. + +If we would have our homes really efficient and worthy agencies for +education in social living, the first thing to do is to seek the social +atmosphere, to cultivate all those influences which young lives +unconsciously absorb. We all know that character comes through +environment in large measure, and that the mental and spiritual +environment is by far the most potent. Here is something that affects us +more than the finest or poorest furniture and that gives the real zest +and flavor to any meal. The choice of our own reading enters here, not +only the matter of reading in sociology, but of all reading, as to +whether it blinds with class prejudices, intensifies caste feeling, or +atrophies social sympathy by pandering to selfishness and sensuousness. +The control of our own feelings and judgment enters here. Do we +sedulously cultivate charity for others? Do we stifle impatience, +bitterness, class feeling? Do we guide the conversation of visitors and +the family group so that antisocial passions are subdued and a spirit of +brotherly love and compassion for all is cultivated? Here men and women +have opportunity to give evidence of a change of heart; here they need +that awakening to social consciousness which is a new birth, a +regeneration into the life of the Son of Man who came to give his life. + +By its active ministry the family is training for social living. When a +child carries a bowl of soup to some sick or needy one, he learns a +lesson never to be forgotten. The memories of hours of planning and +preparation for some neighborly service--the making of bread, the +packing of a box, the preserves for the sick--shine out like sunshine +spots along childhood's ways; they direct manhood's steps. + +We are gradually learning that social duties are not learned save +through social deeds; that even the most carefully prepared and +perfectly pedagogical systems of instruction fail, standing alone. The +college student uses the laboratory method in his sociology--though we +know that sociology may be as far from social living as the poles are +apart. The Social Service Association of the Young Men's Christian +Association has given up attempts to teach social duty in favor of the +plan of undertaking specific pieces of social activity. The home must +adopt the laboratory method. The important thing is, not what the father +or mother may systematically teach about the social duties of the +children, but what kinds of service, of ministry and normal activity +they may lead the children to; that is, in what ways they may all +together discharge their functions in society. + + +Sec. 5. FAMILIES AS COMMUNITY FACTORS + +Each family must clearly see its normal relations to its community, to +the social whole; first, as an association of social beings having +social duties, obligations, and privileges; then, to see that the +ordering of the daily life is the largest single factor in determining +the value of the family to the development of the community, fitting +harmoniously into the larger community, and rendering its share of +service. + +The disorderly home spreads its immoral contagion beyond its walls, out +into the front yard, out and up and down the street, and all through the +village and city. The City Beautiful cannot come until we have the Home +Beautiful. Training each one to play his part in keeping the house in +order, picking up and setting in place his own tools and playthings, +preventing and removing litter, scraps, and elements of disorder and +discomfort, acquiring habits of neatness based on social motives--these +things make more for the city of beauty and health than all our lectures +on clean cities. + +No family lives to itself. Young people need to see clearly how their +homes and their habits in the home impinge on other homes and lives. +This is impressed upon us in an accentuated and acute degree in city +living. One can hardly imagine a finer discipline of grace than +apartment living, though one may well question whether it is not morally +and hygienically flying in the face of the natural order. We may not +have for a long time municipal ordinances forbidding boiled dinners, +limburger, and phonographs in city apartments; but if, unfortunately, we +are compelled to live in these modern abominations, we ought to +cultivate a conscience that will not inflict our idiosyncrasies, either +in culinary aromas or in musical taste, on our neighbors. But there are +matters greater than these by which the home trains for social +thoughtfulness. No man has a right to grow weeds at home, because the +seeds never stay there. A howling dog, a disease-breeding sty, a +fly-harboring stable, must be viewed, not from the point of the family's +convenience, but from that of others' welfare. + + +Sec. 6. TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP + +The family has a duty to train children for Christian citizenship. No +other institution can take its place even here. Courses of lectures in +churches and settlements effect excellent results, and the study of +civics from the moral and ideal viewpoint should be encouraged in the +schools; but the home is the place where, after all, citizens are +trained and the value or menace of their citizenship determined. If we +stop long enough to get a clear understanding of what we mean by +citizenship this will be the more evident. + +Citizenship is the condition of full communal, social living in a +democracy. It is not a special department or activity of a man's life +which he exercises once in a while, as at the primary or at the polls or +through the political campaign; it is a permanent condition, the +condition of his social living in a democracy. It seems to be worth +while to think of this enough to be quite sure of it, for we have +thought too long of citizenship as a special aspect of one's life or as +an occasional duty; we have called for good citizenship at times of +election and have been content with dormant citizenship at other times; +we have said that one was exercising his citizenship when he voted, and +have forgotten that he was exercising it or abusing or neglecting it as +he walked the streets, talked with his neighbors, or in any way lived +the life that has relations to other lives. + +Matters of citizenship are simply matters of social living, as social +living expresses itself through what we call government; that is, +through communal, civic, national administration and regulation. +Citizenship is social control in action, not through political activity +alone, but through all that concerns civic and communal life. In view of +this it may be worth while to look a little more closely into the +relations of family life to this matter of the determination of the +character of our citizenship. + +The family is an agency for religious training in citizenship. The +family is the first, smallest, and still the most common and potent +social group. It is the community in which we nearly all learn communal +living. At first it is a child's world, then comes his city, and then +his nation, but ere long again the family is his own kingdom. Its +ideals, constantly interpreted in action, determine our ideals. Where +the father is greedy, self-centered, regarding the home as solely for +his convenience as his private boarding-house, where he is a despotic +boss, why should not the son at least tolerate bossism in his city if he +does not himself pattern after his father on a wider scale and regard +the city or the state as his private boarding-house and the treasury as +his private manger? Where the mother is a petty parasite, what wonder +the children regard with indifference, if not even with admiration, the +whole system of civic and social barnacles, leeches, and other +parasites? + +The very organization of the home must prepare for civic duty by laying +upon all appropriate duties and activities. It ought to be an ideal type +of community. But that can never be until we take the training of +parents seriously in hand; until we cease to delegate the pedagogy of +courtship, marriage, and home-founding to the comic supplements of the +Sunday papers and to the joke columns. Parents must themselves be +trained for the business of the organization of homes as educational +agencies. + +The life and work of the home ought to train religiously for +citizenship, by causing each to bear his due share of the burdens of +all. Where the child has been forced to do the indolent parent's share, +to support the slothful father, he can only look forward to the time +when he will be free to support only himself, and have no other than +purely egoistic obligations; this is an utterly immoral conception, and +one squarely opposed to good citizenship. Where the boy or the girl has +been trained to regard all toil as dishonorable, where each has been +taught scrupulously to avoid every burden, they come into social living +with habits set against bearing their share and toward making others +carry them. The indolent parent makes the tax-dodging citizen, as the +indulgent parent often makes the place-hunting citizen who becomes a tax +on the public. + +The ideals of the family determine the needs of citizens. Its +conversation, its reading, its customs, set the standard of social +needs. Where the father laughs at the smartness of the artful dodge in +politics, where the mother sighs after the tinsel and toys that she +knows others have bought with corrupt cash, where the conversation at +the meal-table steadily, though often unconsciously, lifts up and lauds +those who are out after the "real thing," the eager ears about that +board drink it in and childish hearts resolve what they will do when +they have a chance. Where no voice speaks for high things, where no tide +of indignation against wrong sweeps into language, where the children +never feel that the parents have great moral convictions--where no +vision is, the people perish. + +Yet to realize this civic responsibility of the home would be, in the +greater number of instances, to remedy it. In those other instances +where there are no civic ideals, where the domestic conscience is dead, +there rests upon the state, upon society, for its own sake, the +responsibility to train those children so that, at any rate, they will +not perpetuate homes of this type. We may do very much by the +stimulation and direction of parents. Men need but to be reminded of +their duty to make it a part of their business to train their children +in social duty. + + + I. References for Study + + Taylor, _Religion in Social Action_, chaps. vii, viii. Dodd, Mead & + Co., $1.25. + + E.J. Ward, _The Social Center_, chap. v. Appleton, $1.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + Lofthouse, _Ethics in the Family_. Hodder & Stoughton, $1.50. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What is the special social importance of the family? + + 2. How do children acquire their social ideals from the home? + + 3. What are the advantages which the home has as a school? + + 4. How do homes train for the responsibilities of citizenship? + + 5. Can you describe any plans of community councils in the home? + + 6. How would you promote community service in the family? + + 7. What are the dangers of unsocial and selfish lives growing in + the home? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[14] This chapter is, with the publisher's kind permission, taken, with +sundry minor changes, from the author's pamphlet, _The Home as a School +for Social Living_, published by the American Baptist Publication +Society in the "Social Service Series." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE CHILD'S IDEAL LIFE + + +The modern child is likely to miss one of the great character enrichings +which his parents had, in that he is in danger of growing up entirely +ignorant of the poetic setting of religious thought in historic and +dignified hymns. The great hymns have done more for religious thought +and character than all the sermons that have ever been preached. Even in +the adult of the purely intellectual cast the hymn, aided by rhythm, +music, repetition, and emotion, is likely to become a more permanent +part of the mental substratum than any formal logical presentation of +ideas. How much more will this be the case with the child who feels more +than he reasons, who delights in cadence and rhythm, and who loves a +world of imagery! + + +Sec. 1. SONG AND STORY + +Very early life's ideals are presented in poetic form; plays, +school-life, love of country, friendships, all take or are given metric +expression. So, for children, hymns have a perfectly natural place. The +child sings as he plays, sings as he works, sings in school, and, as +long as life and memory hold, these words of song will be his +possession; in declining years, when eyes are failing and other +interests may wane, fragments of childhood's songs and youth's poems +will sing themselves over in his memory; while in the years between how +often will some stanza or line spring into the focus of thought just at +the moment when it can give brave and helpful direction! + +Those years of facile memorization should be like the ant's summer, a +period of steady storing in mind of the world's treasures of thought. No +man ever had too many good and beautiful thoughts in his memory. Few +have failed to recall with gratitude some apparently long-forgotten word +of cheer, light, and inspiration stored in childhood. The special virtue +of the hymn, among all poetic forms of great thoughts, is that memory is +strengthened by the music and the thought further idealized by it, while +frequent repetition fixes it the more firmly and repetition in +congregational song adds the high value of emotional association. + +But what kinds of memory treasures are being given to the modern child +in the realm of religion? In by far the greater number of instances in +the United States neither church nor Sunday school nor home brings to +him any knowledge of the great hymns of religion.[15] In the churches +that use these hymns the child is frequently not in the Sunday +services; he is in the children's service or the school, while in the +majority of churches a weak-minded endeavor for amusement has +substituted meaningless rag-time trivialities for rich and dignified +hymns. Perhaps the custom of encouraging congregations to jig, dance, +cavort, or drone through the frivolities of "popular" gospel songs is +only a passing craze, but it is a most unfortunate one; it tends to +divorce worship and thought, to make worship a matter of purely +superficial emotions, and to form the habit of expressing religion, the +highest experience of life, in language, often irreverent and almost +always trivial, slangy, or ridiculous. It is an insult to the +intelligence of children to ask them to sing + + We're pilgrims o'er the sands of time, + We have not long to stay, + The lifeboat soon is coming, + To carry the pilgrims away. + +It is the duty of parents to know what their children are learning in +the Sunday school. Not only are they often missing the opportunity to +lay up the treasure of elevating, inspiring thoughts; they are acquiring +crude, mistaken, misleading theological concepts in the hideous, +revolting figures of "evangelistic songs"; they are storing their minds +with atrocities in English and in figures of speech; they are acquiring +the habits of sentimentality in religion and inhibiting the finer, +higher feelings. They are blunting their higher feelings by repeating +incongruous and nauseating figures of being "washed in blood," or they +are carelessly singing sentiments they do not understand. + +What can the family do about this? It ought to assert its rights in the +church. It ought to protest and rebel against the debauching of mind and +the degrading of religion (all for the sake of selling trashy books at +$25 per hundred). A parent would do better to keep his child from church +and Sunday school than to permit his mind to be filled with the +sanguinary pictures of God, the mediaeval theology of the modern +songbook, and its offenses against truth in thought and form. But the +family can work positively and more effectively by providing good hymns +for children in the home. + + +Sec. 2. TRAINING IN SONG + +Almost without exception all children will sing if encouraged early in +life. In the family group one has only to start a familiar song and soon +all will be singing. It is just as natural to sing "Abide with Me" when +the family sits together in the evening as it is to start "My Alabama +Choo-choo." Children like the swing of "Onward, Christian Soldiers" just +as much as in the northern states they like "Marching through Georgia." +If they do not know the hymns the home is the best of all places in +which to learn them. + +A large section of real family life is missing in families that do not +sing together. A home without song lacks one of the strongest bonds of +family unity, and the after-years will be deprived of a memory dear +indeed to many others. Days often come when the wheels of family life +seem to develop friction, when little rifts seem to throw the members +far apart, but the evening song brings them together. The unity of +action, of feeling, the development of emotions above the day's +irritation and strife, all help to new joys in family living. + +We may well think of the fine songs and the great hymns together. There +is no fixed wall between "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory," and "The Son +of God Goes Forth," nor between "My Old Kentucky Home" and "Jerusalem +the Golden." The modern home has the musical instruments to lead in +song--though they are not always essential--and lacks only the planning +and forethought to develop the joys of song. It must provide the thought +that applies the simpler forms of musical expression to the sweetening +and enriching of life. + +Let no one say, "My family is not musical." That simply means that your +family does not take time for music and song. Build on the training in +patriotic and folk-songs given in the schools; sing these same songs +over in the home and then associate with the best of them the best of +the hymns. Cultivate the habit of binding the whole realm of feeling in +music together, the hymns and the songs, to make religion mean beauty +and devotion and to make the finer sentiments of life truly religious. + +This costs time and thought. Someone must plan that the books of songs +and hymns are provided, that the opportunity is given, and that wise, +unobtrusive leadership is there. Have ready several copies of the book +containing the best hymns. Think out your plan of procedure in advance, +selecting the songs, or at least the first one. Then at the right time +simply begin to play that song and you will scarcely need to invite the +children to sing with you. + +Should anyone doubt whether children will enjoy singing good hymns, he +may purchase a few records for the phonograph, for example, "O Come All +Ye Faithful," "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," "O Zion Haste," "Holy, +Holy, Holy," "Abide with Me." These will suit those of from ten upward; +younger children will enjoy "Can a Little Child Like Me," "Brightly +Gleams Our Banner," "Jesus Loves Me." "I Think When I Read That Sweet +Story," and "For the Beauty of the Earth," though they will join gladly +in the other hymns. Or, instead of using the phonograph, sit down +quietly at the piano and play these hymns, with just enough emphasis for +the children to catch the rhythm, and they will soon be standing at the +piano singing with you.[16] + + +Sec. 3. PLAY ACTIVITY + +The child is a playing animal. Play is not an invention of the devil, +designed to plague parents and to lead children to waste their time. It +is nature's best method of education, for when a child plays he is +simply reaching forward in his activities to the realization of his +ideals. Play is idealized experiences. There is always a significance of +wider and maturer experience in children's play. Therefore the family +must find space and time and adaptation of organization to the child's +need of spontaneous, free activity in play. + +The special religious value of play lies in the fact that the child in +his games is experimenting with life, learning its lessons; especially +is he learning the art of living with other lives. It is our religious +duty to see to it that our children become used to living in society by +playing in social groups. Scarcely anyone is more to be pitied than the +lonely child standing in the corner of the playground, able only to +watch the games, because parental prohibition has already made him a +solitary and unsocial creature. + +The educational potencies of play are so great that we dare not leave +its activities to chance. Parents must study the power of play, its +psychological and educational values, in order to direct its activity to +the highest good. + +The adequate care of a child's play-life will involve, in addition to +the trained intelligence of the parents, provision for space in the +house and also outdoors, willingness to subordinate our peace and our +pleasure to the child's play at times, a reasonable though not +necessarily expensive provision of play materials, attention to the +character of the plays and playmates. The home will not lose its harmony +and beauty if it is filled with playing children. Its function has to do +with their development rather than with the preservation of chairs. + + + I. References for Study + + H.F. Cope, _Hymns You Ought to Know_, Introduction. Revell, $1.50. + + W.F. Pratt, _Musical Ministries_. Revell, $1.00. + + H.W. Hulbert, _The Church and Her Children_, chap. x. Revell, + $1.00. + + + II. Further Reading + + For a list of great hymns see _Hymns You Ought to Know_, edited by + Henry F. Cope, and mentioned above. It contains one hundred + standard hymns with a brief account of each hymn and of each + author. + + E.D. Eaton, "Hymns for Youth," _Religious Education_, December, + 1912, VII, 509. + + See report of the Commission on Worship in the Sunday School, in + _Religious Education_, October, 1914. + + Read especially the chapter on this subject in H.H. Hartshorne, + _Worship in the Sunday School_. Columbia University, $1.25. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What special advantages do songs and hymns have in their + pedagogical power? + + 2. What hymns do you remember from childhood? In what way are these + hymns valuable to you? + + 3. What changes would you like to see in the hymns the children + learn today? + + 4. What difficulties do you find in training children to sing in + the home? + + 5. Is it worth while to teach children to play? What games have + special educational value? What games have religious significance + or value? Give reasons for your opinions. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[15] One of the best collections of suitable religious songs is _Worship +and Song_. Pilgrim Press, $0.40. + +[16] An excellent plan is worked out in _The Children's Hour of Story +and Song_ by Moffat and Hidden, Unitarian Sunday School Society, in +which children's stories are given and following them suitable songs and +hymns with the music for each. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +STORIES AND READING + + +If we would teach religion to our children we must adopt the method of +Jesus; that of telling stories. The story has the advantage, first, of +its natural interest, and, then, of the indirect manner of its +presentation of the truth, together with the fact that that truth is +embodied in a statement of life and experience. Besides, story-telling +to any person of active interests is one of the easiest and most +stimulating methods of teaching. + + +Sec. 1. STORY-TELLING + +So much has already been written on the art of telling stories that only +a few suggestions are needed here. First, understand why you tell the +story. Normally a double motive enters in, namely, the conveyance of +truth in life, at the same time affording real pleasure to the +listeners. Either motive alone will be inadequate. You cannot convey the +truth without the desire to give pleasure; you cannot make the pleasure +worth while without the truth. But this is the place to insist that the +truth which you desire to convey must find its way to the conviction of +the child through the story and not through any moral or preface or +particular statement which you may make. The moral or lesson must be +clear to you but carefully held in reserve to direct the matter and +manner of the story. + +Secondly, be prepared to pay the price of this most effective method of +instruction. It will cost the reservation of a certain amount of time +both for acquiring the story and for relating it. It will require +careful thought and planning, especially to be sure that the story is +told in sympathy with the child's world. People who are too busy to tell +their children stories are, perhaps fortunately, coming to realize that +they are too busy to have children. If it looks like a waste of time to +turn off the lights and sit by the firelight for from twenty to thirty +minutes, we shall need to revise our estimates of the value of +child-character. Nor must we shrink from the investment of time in +preparation for the narration of the story; if it is worth telling, it +is worth telling well. + +Thirdly, keep a record of sources of stories. This may be preserved in a +notebook. One parent used a card-index for this purpose. There are a few +books published containing good collections.[17] You will find most +valuable your own little book in which you have noted down the fugitive +stories and short selections which are to be found in general +literature.[18] + +Fourthly, do not tell a story so as to close the child's interest in the +narrative. Stories ought to lead to inquiry and further reading in the +book or other source from which they have been drawn; indeed, +story-telling is one excellent method of quickening an interest in +reading. + +Fifthly, allow the children to retell the stories to one another. Often +the whole family will be entertained and helped by the explanation which +a small child will give of the story he has learned by hearing it +repeated a few times from his mother's lips. + +Sixthly, telling Bible stories to children in the quiet hour is the best +of all methods to stimulate their interest in the Bible itself. It is +much better to tell the story in your own language than to read it +either in the Bible or in a paraphrase. For one reason, you will never +tell it twice the same way, and children will watch with interest +changes in the narration. As soon as they can read, secure some of the +simple Bible narratives and put these in their hands.[19] + + +Sec. 2. BOOKS AND READING + +A home without books is like a house with only one window; it can look +out in only one direction, in that of the present. It knows only a +limited world; its children have a short measure of the joy of life, +they can know here only those whom they see today, their friends must be +few, their world narrow and confined. + +If the books are not in your home the children will find them elsewhere. +Unless the school kills the taste for reading, as it sometimes does, the +young folks will open ways somehow into the ideal realm of books. As +they grow up, the book takes the place of the story. The printed page is +the child's key to all routes of travel, routes that lead to other times +and lands, routes that lead to other people and into their hearts and +minds. The child sees conduct and feels it as it is in action in lives +before him, but he begins to discriminate and to analyze it only through +reading; souls are revealed where the purpose of the writer is that the +reader may see the springs of action in the character portrayed. +Fiction, biography, travel, and adventure soon pass from the merely +exterior happenings to the discovery of meanings in character. + + +Sec. 3. DANGERS OF READING + +Since the book needs only one for its enjoyment, while the story +requires two, there is less control over reading. There is only one way +to be sure that children are not devouring vicious books and that is to +make sure that they have an ample supply of healthful, helpful ones. +This is especially necessary in a day that caters to sloth in reading. +The tendency is for reading to take the facile decline from book to +cheap magazine, from magazine to newspaper, and from the newspaper to +skimming the headlines and the "funnies." The cheaper papers appeal to +the lowest intelligence and strike at the line of least moral and mental +resistance. Reading enriches the life but little and may impoverish it +greatly unless there is developed the habit of drawing on the world's +great treasures of thought and feeling. Open windows in your children's +souls by giving them books; keep them open by encouraging the reading +habit. Great souls wait for them, willing to converse and become their +friends and teachers if they will but take down these books from the +shelves and open them with an eager mind. + + +Sec. 4. DEVELOPING GOOD TASTE + +_What can be done to quicken a love of good reading in children?_ +Recognize that not all children develop this appetite at the same age, +that girls read more than boys, that boys usually have a period of +decline in reading interest from seventeen to twenty-one or even later. +But everything really depends on whether we ourselves love good books +and keep them on hand. One of the life-centers of a family should be the +bookshelf, while the picture of the evening lamp and the reading group +will constitute one of its best memories. Where books are at hand and +where they are used daily, the children need little urging to read. Now +this does not mean that yards of choice editions make a book-loving +family. There is a difference between bindings and books. It means books +known and loved, familiar friends for daily converse, books on handy +shelves and fit to be used as common food. + +_Do you know what your children read?_ Do you watch as carefully the +food of mind and spirit as you do that of the body? Do you show an +interest in the books they plan to draw from the public library? Can you +guide them intelligently when they ask for suggestions of interesting +books? Do you know the healthful, suitable ones? + + +Sec. 5. PROMOTION OF THE READING INTEREST + +The Sunday school might aid greatly in promoting the habit of selecting +and reading good books. Children often come home from day school +clamoring for some book which the teacher has recommended as interesting +and valuable. The Sunday-school teacher's recommendation would also +carry weight. In every church, whether there exists a Sunday-school +library or not, there ought to be a library or book committee which +would watch for the right reading for the different grades and would +cause the titles of good books to be placed on a bulletin board. +Further, such a committee might very well place a copy of the book +selected in the teacher's hand in order that the teacher might call the +attention of the class directly to it. Of course the range of selection +should be as wide as the world of books and should include fiction, +romance, song, and story.[20] Parents could do the same sort of thing. +Why not talk up the best books we remember? As to those old-time books, +we need to realize that tastes change. Perhaps they owed much of their +interest to their vivid descriptions of contemporary life. Therefore we +must commend the new books, those that belong to the children's own +days, too. This can be done, provided we really know the books, not by +saying, "We should like you to read _Sandford and Merton_," but rather, +"There is a capital story in _Captains Courageous_; have any of you read +it?" Leave the matter there, or, at most, go only far enough to +stimulate interest. + + + I. References for Study + + St. John, _Stories and Story Telling_, chaps. i-v. Eaton & Mains, + $0.50. + + Forbush, _The Coming Generation_, chap. viii. Appleton, $1.50 + + Winchester, "Good and Bad Books in the Home," in _The Bible in + Practical Life_, p. 38. Religious Education Association, $2.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + Partridge, _Story Telling in School and Home_. Sturgis & Walton, + $1.25. + + H.W. Mabie, _Books and Culture_. Dodd, Mead & Co., $1.25. + + + III. Methods and Materials + + ON STORY-TELLING + + E.P. St. John, _Stories and Story Telling_. Eaton & Mains, $0.50. + + Wyche, _Some Great Stories and How to Tell Them_. Newson & Co., + $1.00. + + L.S. Houghton, _Telling Bible Stories_. Scribner, $1.25. + + Bryant, _How to Tell Stories for Children_. Houghton Mifflin Co., + $1.00. + + E.M. and G.E. Partridge, _Story Telling in School and Home_. + Sturgis & Walton, $1.25. + + DIRECTING CHILDREN'S READING IN THE HOME + + Macy, _A Children's Guide to Reading_. Baker & Taylor Co., $1.25. + + Field, _Finger Posts to Children's Reading_. McClurg, $1.00. + + Arnold, _A Mother's List of Books for Children_. McClurg, $1.00. + + For a short practical list see the different lists classified under + Sunday-School Departments in W.S. Athearn, _The Church School_, + particularly pp. 54, 83, 118, 169. Pilgrim Press, $1.00. + + + IV. Topics for Discussion + + 1. Do you remember any stories which especially impressed you as a + child? What were their qualities? What were the qualities of their + narration? + + 2. What are your difficulties in story-telling to children? + + 3. Is the habit of reading books passing among children? If so, + what are the reasons? + + 4. What responsibility has the public library toward the child's + selection of books? toward promoting book reading? + + 5. How many families co-operate with the library? + + 6. How might the church co-operate? + + 7. Does the reading of newspapers by children affect their general + habits of reading? In what ways? + + 8. What personal difference is there, if any, between the effect of + a borrowed book and of one the child owns? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[17] Laura E. Cragin, _Kindergarten Bible Stories_. Fifty-six of the Old +Testament stories. There is also a companion volume of New Testament +stories. + +James Baldwin, _Old Stories of the East_. Fresh and interesting versions +of the familiar Old Testament stories. + +Kate Douglas Wiggin, _The Story Hour_. Good stories and a suggestive +introduction on story-telling. + +_Half a Hundred Stories for the Little People_, by various authors. + +[18] _A List of Good Stories to Tell to Children under Twelve Years of +Age_, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, $0.05. There are references to +books in which the stories may be found, including 25 Bible stories, 16 +fables, 14 myths, 14 Christmas stories, 7 Thanksgiving stories, etc. + +[19] Such as O'Shea, _Old World Wonder Stories_; George Hodges, _The +Garden of Eden_; Cragin, _Old Testament Stories_; Mary Stewart, _Tell Me +a True Story_. + +[20] The H.W. Wilson Co., White Plains, New York, publishes a list of +_Children's Books for Sunday-School Libraries_. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE USE OF THE BIBLE IN THE HOME + + +If we keep clearly in mind the aim of religious education in the family +as that of the development of the lives of religious persons, the place +and value of the Bible will be evident. It will be used as a means of +developing and directing lives. This will be quite different from a +perfunctory use because our fathers used it or a use under the +compulsion of the fear lest some strange evil should befall us, some +visitation of an offended deity. + + +Sec. 1. THE CHILD'S NEED + +Children need the Bible as a part of their social heritage. Just as they +get a larger life, inspired and stimulated by the realization of their +connection with the past of their family and their country, so the Bible +brings them into connection with the religious history of the race. +General history brings heroic forefathers into the stream of +consciousness; we feel the push of their lives. So the Bible reveals the +stream farther back and makes us part of the process of life in unity +with great characters and great movements. + +The child has a right to the Bible as his literary heritage. Here in the +Bible is the precipitation of the ideals of a people unique in the +place which religion held in their lives. Here is a literature which is +the source of much of the best in the language and reading of the +child's life. Its phrases are beautiful and convenient embodiments of +religious ideals; they will have a steadily developing richness of +meaning as life opens out to the child.[21] + + +Sec. 2. DIFFICULTIES + +The difficulties in the way of the use of the Bible in the home are: the +crowded programs, or a lack of time due to the absence of any program +for the days; a feeling of unnaturalness in the special reading of this +book; the decay of the custom of reading aloud; parental ignorance of +the Bible and especially of its beauties for the young; and the +excessive amount of task-reading frequently required by the schools. The +Sunday school also sometimes offends in this respect by overemphasis on +academic tasks for home work. + + +Sec. 3. METHODS + +First, let parents use the Bible themselves. Use the books as you wish +children to use them. This will be the longest step you can take toward +the solution of the problem. + +Secondly, use the Bible naturally. When children have an aversion to the +Bible it is due usually to two causes: the peculiar place and use of +the book which makes it a thing apart from life, and often an object of +dread; and the practice of using it as a task-book, to be opened only in +order to prepare Sunday-school lessons. Just as it takes years to +overcome the aversion set up against English literature by its +analytical study in the schools, so that the child becomes a man before +he voluntarily reads Dickens, Thackeray, the poets, and essayists, in +the same manner we have succeeded in making the Bible undesirable to +youth. If you read passages aloud, use the tone of voice which would be +appropriate if this was a new book not bound in leather. Read it for +pleasure as one would read a literary masterpiece--not because opinion +might frown on you if you had not read the classic. Does someone object +that that would be to degrade the Bible to the level of secular +writings? You cannot degrade a literature; it makes its own level and +our labels do not affect it. Certain it is that a pious tone of voice +will not protect the Bible from the secular level. But to use it +unnaturally will degrade it in the opinion of those who hear us. + +Thirdly, make its use a pleasure. All children enjoy story-telling and +listening to reading. Many parents practice the children's hour, some +period in the day when they will, alone with the children, read and talk +with them. Let the Bible story be the reward of a good day, something +promised as an incentive to good behavior. Children delight, not alone +in the story itself, but in rhythmic passages, in the poetic flights of +Isaiah and the beautiful imagery of the Psalms. To them it is natural +and pleasant to think of the hills that skipped and the stars that sang +and the trees that gave forth praise. They know the song of nature and +are happy to find it put into words. + +Fourthly, use the Bible as a book of life. How many times a day do +questions of conduct arise in the family! How often do children ask what +is right, and freely discuss the question! Here is a book rich in +precept and example on at least many of the questions. There are +pictures of actual lives meeting real temptations; there are the +epigrammatic precepts of Proverbs and of the teachings of Jesus. Call +attention to them, not as settling the question out of hand, but as +testimony to the point. Accustom children to getting the light of the +Bible on their lives, remembering that this book is a light and not a +fence nor a code of laws. + +Fifthly, use the Bible in worship. This does not conflict with the plea +for its use naturally, for worship should be as natural as any of the +social pleasures of the family. Here select those passages for reading +which count most for the spirit of worship. It is a good plan to read a +short passage, suitable for memorizing, so frequently that children +learn it and are able to repeat it in concert. Be sure that all the +passages read or recited are short. It will often be wise to preface the +reading with a brief account of its original circumstances, so that all +may hear the words as the actual utterances of a real man living in real +life. + +Sixthly, provide material which helps to make the Bible interesting, and +which helps children to see its pictures through the eyes of geography +and history.[22] + +Seventhly, make the use of the Bible possible at all times for all. See +that as soon as the child can read he has his own Bible, that it is in +large, readable type, as much like any other book as possible. It is no +evidence of grace to ruin the eyes over diamond-text Bibles. If +possible, also provide separate books of the Bible, in modern literary +form and some in the idiom of our day.[23] + + +Sec. 4. DOUBTFUL METHODS + +It is doubtful whether good comes from the use of the Bible as a +riddle-book, nor do the "Bible games" tend to develop a natural +appreciation of the book. There is no new light but rather a confusing +shadow thrown on the character of Joseph by the foolish conundrum +concerning Pharaoh making a ruler out of him. Sending a child to the +Bible to discover the shortest verse, the longest, the middle one, etc., +trains him to regard it as an odd kind of book, to think of it as a +dictionary, and to use it less. + +We assume too readily that a knowledge of the separate details of +biblical information, such as the date of the Flood, the age of +Methuselah, the names of the twelve tribes, the twelve apostles, the +books of the two Testaments, is the desired end. But one might know all +these things and many more and be not one whit the better. For the child +surely the desirable end is that he may feel deeply the attractiveness +of the character of Joseph or of Jesus, may say within himself, "What a +fine man; I want to be like him." Be sure the persons are real, that you +see them living their lives in their times, just as you live your life +now. + + + I. References for Study + + T.G. Soares, "Making the Bible Real to Boys," in _Boy Training_, + pp. 117-40. Association Press, $0.75. + + W.T. Lhamon, "Bible in the Home," _Religious Education_, December, + 1912, p. 486. + + G. Hodges, _Training of Children in Religion_, chap. x. Appleton, + $1.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + _The Bible in Practical Life._ Religious Education Association. + Numerous references to the use of the Bible in the home in this + volume. + + Patterson Dubois, _The Natural Way_, sec. iv. Revell, $1.25. + + + III. Methods and Materials + + "Passages of Bible for Memorization," _Religious Education_, + August, 1906. + + Louise S. Houghton, _Telling Bible Stories_. Scribner, $1.25. + + Johnson, _The Narrative Bible_. Baker & Taylor Co., $1.50. + + Hall and Wood, _The Bible Story_, 5 vols. King, $2.00 by + subscription. + + Courtney, _The Literary Man's Bible_. Crowell, $1.25. + + The above are but a few of the many collections of biblical + material. + + + IV. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What are the conditions which seem to make the reading of the + Bible different from other reading? Is there a sense of unreality + about it as a book? What are the causes? + + 2. Try the experiment of reading the story of Joseph at one + sitting. Try to retell this to children. + + 3. What biblical material stands out in your memory of childhood? + In what degree is this due to the art of the story-teller or the + reader? to the character of the material? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[21] See M.J.C. Foster, _The Mother the Child's First Bible Teacher_. + +[22] Mackie, _Bible Manners and Customs_. + +Chamberlin, _Introduction to the Bible for Teachers of Children_. + +Worcester, _On Holy Ground_, 2 vols. + +[23] For example, Moulton, _Modern Reader's Bible_. The new Jewish +renderings of Old Testament books are good, especially the Psalms. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +FAMILY WORSHIP + + +Family worship has declined until, at least in the United States, the +percentage of families practicing daily worship in the home is so small +as to be negligible. If this meant that a general institution of +religion had passed out of existence the fact would be highly +significant. But it is well to remember that family worship has never +been a general institution. We have generalized the picture of the +"Cotter's Saturday Night" so eloquently drawn by Burns; it has been +applied to every night and to every fireside. Daily family worship was +observed in practically all the Puritan homes of New England; but there +is no evidence for it as a uniform custom, either in other parts of this +country or in other parts of the world, save perhaps in sections of +Scotland. True, there were many families which observed the custom; but +there were also many families of church members and doubtless of truly +religious people in which family worship as a regular institution was +unknown. This has been especially true in the type of family life which +has developed under modern social conditions. Further, even so simple an +exercise as grace at meals has not always been a general custom. + + +Sec. 1. PAST CUSTOMS + +But the fact today is that family worship is so rare as to be counted +phenomenal wherever found. The instances, though not general, were +common a generation ago. Many are living to whom family worship afforded +the largest part of their conscious and formal religious education. +Following the morning meal, or, occasionally, the evening meal, the +family waited while the father, or the mother in his absence, read a +portion of the Scriptures and offered prayer. In other families the act +of worship would be the closing one of the day, perhaps participated in +by the older members only, the younger children having repeated their +prayers at bedside on retiring. A thousand happy and sacred associations +gather about the memories of these occasions: the sense of reverence, +the feeling that the home was a sacred place, the impression of noble +words and elevating thoughts, the reflex influence of the prayer that +committed all to the keeping and guidance of God.[24] + + +Sec. 2. WHY FAMILY WORSHIP? + +Parents need to see the values in family worship. We have been insisting +on the primary importance of the religious interpretation of the family +as an institution, on the power of the religious motive, and the +atmosphere of religion. But wherever there is a truly religious motive +and a permanent religious atmosphere these will find definite expression +in acts easily recognized as religious. Love is the motive and +atmosphere of the true home, but love blossoms into words and bears +fruit in a thousand deeds. The life of love dies without reality in act. +Ideals are precipitated in expressive acts. So is it with religion in +the home; it must not only be real in its sincerity, it must be +realized, must pass over into conduct and action, as suggested above in +chaps. vii and viii. And it must do this in ways so sharply defined and +readily recognized as to leave no doubt as to their meaning. True, all +acts may be religious and thus full of worship--this is most important +of all--but worship expressly unites all such acts in a spirit of +loyalty and aspiration. + +Worship is a necessity for the sake of the ideal unity of the family +life. Just as the individual must not only feel the religious emotion +but must also do the thing called for, so must this united personality +of the family give expression to its faith and aspiration, its motives +and emotions, in such a manner that, acting as a social unit, all can +together put the inner life into the outer form. The social value of +family worship is the strongest reason for its maintenance. It is the +united act of the family group, the one in which group consciousness is +expressly directed to the highest possible aims. Every period of worship +brings the family into unity at an ideal level. + +The expression of religion in definite forms is necessary for children, +too, as furnishing a means by which they can manifest their feeling of +the higher meaning of family life. The reality of that feeling is +stimulated in the daily, common life of the right family; the hour of +worship is one out of many definite forms of its concrete expression. It +is the form which gathers up the totality of feeling and aspiration into +an act of worship and praise toward God, the Father of all families. It +is evident there cannot be true worship in the family that is +irreligious in its essential qualities, in its character, in its ideals +and atmosphere. + + +Sec. 3. ADVANTAGES + +The period of worship is a necessity in interpreting to all the spirit +and meaning of a religious family. It objectifies the inner life. It +makes definite, tangible, and easily remembered the general impressions +of religion. It precipitates the atmosphere of religion into +definiteness. In the chemical laboratory of a university there is +usually a decided atmosphere of chemistry, but no one expects to become +a chemical engineer by absorbing that atmosphere, nor even to attain a +simple working knowledge by merely general impressions. Definiteness +aids in gathering up our knowledge, our impressions. + +The reading of the Bible in the home will give, when the passages are +wisely chosen, forms of language into which the often chaotic but +nevertheless valuable and potential emotions of youth fall as into a +beautiful mold; they become remembered forms of beauty thereafter. + +Family worship furnishes opportunity for direct religious instruction. +When the home life has its regular institution, as regular as meals and +play, the formality, the apparent abnormality of conversation about +religion, is absent. Children expect and look forward to the period when +the family will lay other things aside to think on the eternal values. +Their questions in the breathing-space that always ought to follow +worship become perfectly natural and sincere. + +Family worship lifts the whole level of family life. Ideally conceived, +it simply means the family unity consciously coming into its highest +place. Children may not understand all the reading nor enter into the +motives for all parts of the petition, but they do feel that this moment +is the one in which the family enters a holy place. They feel that God +is real and that their family life is a part of his whole care and of +his life. One short period of natural reverence sends light and calm +all through the day. Where the home is the place where true prayer is +offered, the family is the group which meets in an act of worship; here +and into this group there cannot easily enter strife, bickerings, or +baseness. One short period, five minutes or even less, of quietness, of +united turning toward the eternal, gives tone to the day and finer +atmosphere to the home. + +What our community life might be like without the churches, faulty or +incompetent as we may know some of them to be, what that life would lose +and miss without them is precisely, and perhaps in larger degree, what +the family life misses without its own institution of regular devotion +and worship. + + +Sec. 4. THE DIFFICULTIES + +We can always afford to do that which is most worth while doing; our +essential difficulty is to shake off the delusion of the lesser values, +the lower prizes, to realize that, of all the good of life, the +characters of our children, the gain we can all make in the eternal +values of the spirit, in love and joy and truth and goodness, is the +gain most worth while. We tend to set the making of a living before the +making of lives. We need to see the development of the powers of +personality, the riches of character, as the ultimate, dominant purpose +of all being. Once grasp that, and hold to it, and we shall not allow +lesser considerations, such as the pressure of business, the desire for +gain, for ease, for pleasure, for social life, to come before this first +and highest good; we shall make time for definite conscious religion in +the life of the family.[25] + + +Sec. 5. TYPES OF WORSHIP + +There are three simple forms which worship takes in the family: first, +grace offered at the meals; secondly, the prayers of children on +retiring and, occasionally, on rising; thirdly, the daily gathering of +the family for an act of the spirit. The statement of the three forms +reads so as to give them a formal character, but the most important +point to remember is that wherever they are true acts of worship they +are formal only in that they occur at definite, determined times and +places. The acts have no merit in themselves. Merely to institute their +observance will not secure religious feeling and life in the home. These +three observances have arisen because at these times there is the best +and most natural opportunity for the expression of aspiration, desire, +and feeling. + + +Sec. 6. METHODS OF FAMILY WORSHIP + +1. _Grace at meals._--Shall we say grace at meals? To assent because it +is the custom, or because it was so done in our childhood's home, may +make an irreligious mockery of the act. Perhaps, too, there are some who +even hesitate to omit the grace from an unspoken fear that the food +might harm them without it. All have heard grace so muttered, or +hurriedly and carelessly spoken, void of all feeling and thought, that +the act was almost unconscious, a species of "vain repetition." + +There are two outstanding aspects of the asking of a blessing--the +desire to express gratitude for the common benefits of life, and the +expression of a wish, with the recognition of its realization, that at +each meal the family group might include the Unseen Guest, the Infinite +Spirit of God. That wish lifts the meal above the dull level of +satisfying appetites. Just as, in good society, we seek to make the meal +much more than an eating of food, "a feast of reason and a flow of +soul," so does this act make each meal a social occasion lifted toward +the spiritual. The one thought at the beginning, the thought of the +reality of the presence of God, and of the nearness of the divine to us +in our daily pleasures, gives a new level to all our thinking. + +How shall we say grace, or "ask a blessing"? First, with simplicity and +sincerity. Avoid long, elaborate, ornate phrases. It is better to err +in rhetoric than in feeling and reality. The sonorous grace may soon +become stilted and offensive. It is better to say in your own words just +what you mean, for that will help all, even to the youngest, to mean +what they say with you. + +Vary the form of petition. Sometimes let it be the silent grace of the +Quakers; sometimes children will enjoy singing one of the old four-line +stanzas, as + + Be present at our table, Lord, + Be here and everywhere adored; + These mercies bless and grant that we + May feast in Paradise with thee. + +One might use the first three of the following lines for breakfast and +the last three at another meal: + + For the new morning with its light, + For rest and shelter of the night, + We thank the heavenly Father. + + For rest and food, for love and friends, + For everything his goodness sends, + We thank the heavenly Father.[26] + +or + + When early in the morning the birds lift up their songs, + We bring our praise to Jesus to whom all praise belongs. + +One especially needs to guard against the purely dietetic grace, the one +that only asks that the deity will aid digestion, as that form so often +heard, "Bless these mercies to our use."[27] + +Should we say grace on all occasions of meals? What shall we do at the +social dinner in the home? The answer depends on the purpose of the +grace. Is it not that in our own group we may have the consciousness of +the presence of God? When the meal is that of our own group with a +friend or two, we bring the friends into the group and the act of family +worship is maintained. Usually this is the case. So it will be when the +group is entirely at one in this desire: the asking of grace will be +perfectly natural. But when the group is a large one, when the sense of +family unity is lost, or when the observance would seem unnatural, it is +better to omit it. Grace in large gatherings often seems an uncovering +of the sacred aspects of the home life. + +2. _Bedtime prayers._--What of children's bedtime prayers? Many can +remember them. To many the most natural, helpful time for formal periods +of prayer is in the quiet of the bedroom just before retiring. But there +is a grave danger in establishing a regular custom of bedside prayers +for children, a danger manifest in the very form of certain of these +prayers, as + + Now I lay me down to sleep, + I pray the Lord my soul to keep. + +It is as though the child were saying, "The day is ended during which I +have been able to take care of myself, the hours of helpless sleep +begin, and I ask God to take care of me through the terrors of the +night." For some children, at least, the night has been made terrible by +that thought; they have been led to feel that the day was safe and +beautiful, but that the night was so dangerous and fearful that only the +great God could keep them through it, and it was an open question +whether their prayer for that keeping would be heard. + +One must avoid also the notion that such prayers are part of a price +paid, a system of daily taxation in return for which heaven furnishes us +police protection. + +The best plan seems to be to encourage children to pray, to establish in +them the habit of closing the day with quiet, grateful thoughts, to +watch especially that the prayers learned in early life do not distort +the child's thoughts of God, and to make the evening prayer an +opportunity for the child to express his desires to God his Father and +Friend. Having done this, as the children grow up it is best to leave +them free to pray when and where they will. One may properly encourage +the evening, private prayer; but the child ought to have the feeling +that it is not obligatory, that it must grow out of his desire to talk +with God, and, above all, that it has no special connection with the +hour and act of retiring for sleep but rather, so far as time is +concerned, with the closing of the day. Mothers must see far beyond the +charm of the picture formed by the little white-robed figure at her +knee. There is no hour so rich in possibilities for this growing life. +It is one of the great opportunities to guide its consciousness of +God.[28] + +3. _General family prayers._--It is true that, in many homes, under +modern conditions of business, it is almost impossible for the family to +be united at the hour when worship used to be customary, following +breakfast. However, that is not the only hour available. In many +respects it is a poor one for the purpose of social worship; it lacks +the sense of leisure. But there are few families where the members do +not all gather for the evening meal. It is not difficult to plan at its +close for ten minutes in which all shall remain. Without leaving the +table it is possible to spend a short time in united, social worship. +Or, by establishing the custom and steadily following it, it is possible +to leave the table and in less than ten minutes find ample time for +worship in another room. + +Really everything depends at first on how much we desire to have family +worship, whether we see its beauty and value in the knitting of home +ties, in the elevation of the family spirit, and in the quickening of +the religious ideas. We find time to eat simply because we must; when +the necessity of the spirit is upon us we shall find time also to +worship and to pray. + +Next to the will to make time comes the question of method. First, +determine to be simple, natural, and informal. A stilted exercise soon +becomes a burden and a source of pain to all. In whatever you do, seek +to make it possible for all to have a share by seeing that every thought +is expressed within the intelligence of even the younger members, that +is, of those who desire to have a share. This does not mean descending +to "baby-talk." Just read the Twenty-third Psalm; that is not baby talk, +but a child of seven can understand what is meant up to the measure of +his experience; the language is essentially simple though the ideas are +sublime. + +Secondly, insure brevity. For that part of worship in which all are +expected regularly to unite, ten minutes should be ample. Some excellent +programs will not take more than half this time. Family worship is not a +diminutive facsimile of church worship. Doubtless the experiment has +failed in many families because the father has attempted to preach to a +congregation which could not escape. Keep in mind the thought that this +is to be a high moment in each day in which every member will have an +equal share. + +Thirdly, plan for the largest possible amount of common participation. +This is to be the expression of the unity of the family life. Children +enjoy doing things co-operatively and in concert. + +Fourthly, treat the occasion naturally in relation to other affairs. +Proceed to the worship without formal notice, without change of voice, +and without apology to visitors. Take this for granted. At the close +move on into other duties without the sense of coming back into the +world. You have not been out of it; you have only recognized the eternal +life and love everywhere in it. + +4. _Suggestions of plans._--There are given below seven outlines of +plans of worship. They are plans which have been in use and have been +tried for years. Their only merit is simplicity and practicability; but +they are at least worthy of trial. There is no special significance in +the arrangement of the days and this may be changed in any way +desirable. Further, all plans should be elastic; there will come special +days, such as festivals and birthdays, when the program should be +varied. For example, on a birthday the child whose anniversary then +occurs should have the privilege of making the choice of recitation or +reading or of determining the order of all the parts of this brief +period of worship. + + + MONDAY + + 1. A short psalm repeated in concert. + + 2. A brief, informal petition by father or mother. + + 3. The Lord's Prayer, in which all join. + + Before attempting even this simple plan, prepare for it by first + selecting several suitable psalms. The following should be + included: the 1st, 19th, 23d, 24th, 100th, 117th, 121st, and a part + of the 103d. You would do well to memorize one of these yourself, + so as to be able to lead without reading from the book. Next, think + over with some care the things for which you may pray, the + aspirations which your children can share with you. Few things are + more difficult than this, so to pray that all can make the prayer + their own. Let it also be a prayer of love and joy, not a craven + begging off from punishments, nor a cowardly plea for protection + and provision. We can pray over all these things with gratitude and + with confidence toward the God of love. Do not try to preach in + your prayers. Many prayers have been ruined by preaching, just as + some preaching has been spoiled by praying to the people. Usually + four or five sentences will do for the one day. Better a single + thought simply expressed than the most brilliant attempt to inform + the Almighty on all the events of the world that day. + + A prayer in which all can join is always desirable. The Lord's + Prayer never wearies us nor grows old. Children enter into it with + some new meaning every day; it covers all our great, common, daily + needs. + + + TUESDAY + + 1. A few favorite memory verses repeated by all (from either the + Bible or other literature). + + 2. Read a very brief passage from the Bible. + + 3. Prayer, ending with the Lord's Prayer. + + Many excellent selections will be found in Dr. Dole's book + mentioned at the end of this chapter. Encourage children, however, + to make their selections from the poems and passages they already + know. + + The passage of the Bible selected to be read should be one which + first of all incites to worship, and should be chosen for its + inspiration and literary beauty. A few lines from the great + chapters of Isaiah (e.g., chaps. 35 and 55), from the Psalms (e.g., + Pss. 61, 65, 145), from the Sermon on the Mount, from 1 Cor., chap. + 13, from the parables of Jesus, will be suitable. + + The closing prayer may be extemporaneous or may be read from one of + the books of prayers. Many of the prayers in the Episcopal Prayer + Book are especially beautiful and quite suitable. Of course in + families of the Episcopal church the collect for the day would be + the right prayer to use. It is sometimes necessary to use prayers + prepared beforehand; some persons never acquire the ability to pray + aloud, even in their own families. But halting sentences that are + your own, that your children recognize as yours, may mean more to + them than the finest flowing phrases from a book. Use the prayers + from the book, not as a substitute, but as an addition. + + + WEDNESDAY + + 1. A good poem from general literature. + + 2. Prayer. + + There are so many good collections of the great and inspiring poems + that one hesitates to recommend any collection. Remember that a + poem may be religious and imbued with the spirit of worship, + helpful to the purpose of this occasion, even though it contains no + allusions to Scripture and makes no direct references to religious + belief. "A House by the Side of the Road"[29] is thoroughly human, + popular, and could not even be accused of being a classic; but it + has a helpful motive and is likely to lead the will toward the life + of service and brotherhood. Some would prefer to read a part of one + of the great hymns. + + + THURSDAY + + 1. A brief reading or recitation from the New Testament. + + 2. A few moments' conversation on the reading. + + 3. A very brief prayer followed by a song. + + The only apparent difficulty here is in starting the conversation. + Do not ask formal questions; rather put them something like this: + "I wonder whether people would do just the same on our street + today." Make the conversation as general as possible; do not + slight, nor scoff at, the contribution of even the least in the + group. + + + FRIDAY + + 1. A few verses in concert. + + 2. Read a parable or very brief narrative. + + 3. The Lord's Prayer. + + The reading had better be from one of the paraphrases if it is a + narrative from the Old Testament.[30] Even in reading the New + Testament one can at times use with advantage the + _Twentieth-Century Bible_ or the _Modern Reader's Bible_. + + + SATURDAY + + 1. A period of song. + + 2. Closing prayer, with the Lord's Prayer. + + Perhaps only one song can be sung. It need not be a hymn; that + should depend on the choice of the children. Help them to put + together all the good songs, including the hymns, in one category + in their minds. + + + SUNDAY + + 1. Ask: "What has been the best we have read or repeated in our + worship this week?" + + 2. Ask: "What shall we learn for memory repetition this week, what + psalm or other passage for our concerted worship?" + + 3. Read the psalm selected. + + 4. Closing prayer. + + 5. Period of song, lasting as long as desired. + + This exercise evidently permits of extension in time and should be + arranged in accordance with the program for the day. + + + I. References for Study + + George Hodges, _The Training of Children in Religion_, chaps. viii, + ix. Appleton, $1.50. + + _The Improvement of Religious Education_, pp. 108 to 123. Religious + Education Association, $0.50. + + Mrs. B.S. Winchester, "Methods and Materials Available," _Religious + Education_, October, 1911. $0.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + Koons, _The Child's Religious Life_. Eaton & Mains, $1.00. + + Hartshorne, _Worship in the Sunday School_. Columbia University, + $1.25. + + + III. Methods and Materials + + A.R. Wells, _Grace before Meat_. U.S.C.E., $0.25. + + C.F. Dole, _Choice Verses_. Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts. + Privately printed. + + F.A. Hinckley (ed.), _Readings for Sunday School and Home_. + American Unitarian Association, $0.35. + + J. Martin, _Prayers for Little Men and Women_. Harper, $1.25. + + S. Hart (ed.), _Short Daily Prayers for Families_. Longmans, $0.60. + + G.A. Miller, _Some Out-Door Prayers_. Crowell, $0.35. + + Oxenden, _Family Prayers_. Longmans, $1.50. + + George Skene, _Morning Prayers for Home Worship_. Methodist Book + Concern, $1.50. + + W.E. Barton, _Four Weeks of Family Prayer_. Puritan Press, Oak + Park, Ill. + + Abbott, _Family Prayers_. Dodd, Mead & Co., $0.50. + + _Prayers for Parents and Children._ Young Churchman Co., Milwaukee, + Wisconsin, $0.15. + + + IV. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What are the causes for the decay of the custom of family + worship? + + 2. What influences us most: public opinion, popular custom, + economic pressure? + + 3. How have the changes affected the religious influence of the + home? + + 4. What features of the older customs are most worth preserving? + + 5. Recall any of childhood's prayers which you remember. How many + maintain the custom of bedtime prayers in mature life? + + 6. What should be the central motive of "grace" at meals? + + 7. Would there be advantage in occasionally omitting the "grace"? + + 8. Give reasons for and against "grace." + + 9. Criticize the proposed plan of evening family prayers. + + 10. Describe any plans which have been tried. + + 11. Why is it desirable to maintain family worship? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[24] For a study of children's worship see H.H. Hartshorne, _Worship in +the Sunday School_; "Report of Commission on Graded Worship," _Religious +Education_, October, 1914. + +[25] "Parents who give up such a practice as family prayers mainly +because they know of many other people who have done the same are +just as much the slaves of public opinion and ignorant cant as the +narrowest Lowlander who forbids his children secular history on +Sunday."--Lyttleton, _Corner-Stone of Education_, pp. 207-8. + +[26] Quoted by W.S. Athearn, _The Church School_. + +[27] A number of good poems are given in A.R. Wells, _Grace before +Meat_. + +[28] W.B. Forbush gives a number of poetic forms of prayer for children +in _The Religious Nurture of a Little Child_, pp. 12, 13. + +[29] By Samuel Walter Foss. + +[30] One handy form is _The Heart of the Bible_, prepared by E.A. +Broadus; another, _The Children's Bible_. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +SUNDAY IN THE HOME + + +Almost every family finds Sunday a problem. Other days are well occupied +with full programs; this one has a program for only part of its time. +Other days are rich with the liberty of happy action, but this one is +frequently marked by inaction, repression, and limitations. As soon as +the evanescent pleasure of Sunday clothes has passed, for those for whom +it existed at all, the children settle down to endure the day. + + +Sec. 1. THE MEANING OF THE DAY + +Fathers and mothers who vent a sigh of relief when Sunday is over must +marvel at the strains of "O day of joy and gladness." Yet this day +defeats its purpose when it is of any other character. We have no right +to rob it of its joy and its healing balm. On the day made for man, +sacred to his highest good, whatever hinders the real happiness of the +child ought to be set aside. + +Instead of accepting traditions regarding the method of observing the +Sunday, would it not be worth while to ask ourselves, For what use of +the day can we properly be held responsible? Here are so many--fifty-two +a year--days of special opportunity. To us who complain that business +interferes with the personal education of our children through the week, +what ought this day to mean? To us who lament the little time we can +spend with our families, what ought this day to mean? And what ought we +to try to make it mean to children? + +We call this God's day; what must some children think of a God who robs +his day of all pleasure? If this is the kind of day he makes, then how +unattractive would be his years and eternity! It is the day when we have +our best opportunity to show them what God is like, to interpret his +world and his works in terms of beauty, kindness, riches of thought, and +love. + +It ought to be the day reserved for the best in life, for the treasures +of affection, for the uses of the spirit. Whatever is done this day must +come to this test, Is this a ministry to the life of goodness, truth, +and loving service? Does this enrich lives? In other words, we may put +the broad educational test to the day and its program and determine all +by ministry to growing lives. + + +Sec. 2. CONSERVING THE VALUES + +The family faces the problem of the opposition between the rights of man +on this day and the greed of commerce, the fight between a day of rest +and a day of work. Man's right to rest is assured, legally, but +commerce in the name of amusement and in the guise of petty and +unnecessary trading constantly maintains its fight to invade the day of +rest, to turn it from ministry to man as a person to the dull level of +the week of ministry to things. The home has much at stake in this +struggle. It needs one day free from the life that tears its members +apart, free from the toil that engrosses thought, free for its members +to live together as spiritual beings. + +In the need for one day, free from the things that hinder and devoted to +the life of the spirit, the home finds the guiding principle for the use +of the day; all members are to be trained to use it as a glorious +opportunity, a welcome period, a day of the best things of life. It is +devoted to personality, to man's rights as a religious being. + +Surely one of the best things of life will be that we shall meet one +another, shall look into faces of friends and companions! And this +opportunity of social mingling is lifted to a high level when it is an +act of the larger family life, the life that brings God and man into one +family. That is what the church meeting and service ought to be: our +Father's larger family getting together on the day of the life that +makes them one. For the child the church school and the children's +service of worship are their immediate points of vital touch with the +church family. If we think of the day as affording us the pleasure of +social mingling with friends and members of that family, Sunday morning +will cease to be a period of unwilling observance of empty duties. Of +course that will depend, too, on the measure in which the church and +school grasp their opportunity to make this the best of days.[31] + +Further, let the home keep this day as the one of personal values all +the way through, sacred to that life of love, friendship, and joy in the +presence of one another which is the essential life of the family. It +has always been a good custom for friends to visit on this day, for +families grown up and established around their own hearths to gather +again for a few hours. It is the day when we have time to discover how +much greater are the riches of friendship than aught besides, when, +looking into the eyes of those we love, we see "the light that never was +on sea or land," the ultimate good! + +The hours of being together are the hours of real education. Children +cannot be with good and great people and remain the same. Their lives +need other lives. Above all, they need us. This should be the day for +real mothering and fathering. Nothing ought to be permitted to interfere +with this, neither our social pleasures nor the demands of the church. + + +Sec. 3. THE PROBLEM OF PLAY + +What shall we do with the child who wants to play on Sunday? Is there +any other kind of child? They all want to. It is as natural for a child +to play as it is for a man to rest; it is as necessary. A child is a +growing person learning life by play. Because play seems trivial to us +we assume it is so to them; we would banish the trivial from the day +devoted to the higher life. In some families play is forbidden because +children find pleasure in it, and adults find it impossible to associate +piety and pleasure. + +Shall we then throw down all barriers and make this day the same as all +others? No, rather make the day different by throwing down barriers that +stand on other days. Let this be the day when the barriers between +father and sons, parents and children, are let down and all can enter +into the joy of living. + +Play is to a child the idealization of life's experiences and the +realization of its ideals. That is why he plays at school, idealizing +the everyday life; that is why he plays at housekeeping, at being in +church, at being a railway engineer, even a highwayman or an outlaw. The +traditional games are the game of life itself in terms of childhood. +Play as idealized experience and realized ideals is to the child what +the church, worship, and the reading of fiction and essays are to the +adult. Play is the child's method of reaching forward into life's +meaning. Some games as old as history carry a weight of human tradition +and experience as rich for a child as the adult obtains from historical +review and from association with the past. There is a sense in which the +child playing these games opens the Bible of the race.[32] + +We cannot make children over into our pattern; we have to learn from +them. Indeed, we come to life through their ways. We must become as +little children. Before we settle the question of play on Sunday we do +well to be sure that we know what play means to children, that we really +grasp something of its educational value and its religious potency. Then +we can proceed to a family policy in Sunday play. + + +Sec. 4. A POLICY ON PLAY + +_Keep the day as one of family unity._ Help the child to think of it as +a day protected for the sake of family togetherness. You can play that +for this day the ideal is already realized of a family life +uninterrupted by the demands of labor and business. + +_Maintain the unity by doing the ideal things together._ Go to the place +of worship together, provided it is the place where the child can find +expression for spiritual ideals. If the Sunday school does not really +lift the child-life and really teach the child, if it is not honest with +him and makes no suitable provision for his developing nature, he will +be better off in a quiet hour of family conversation and reading at +home. That means the application of parents to this hour.[33] It +banishes the monstrous Sunday supplement with its hideous, debasing +pictures. It substitutes conversation in the whole group, reading aloud +of stories and poems, biblical and otherwise, and songs, hymns, or at +times the walk in the fields or parks. Fortunately the better type of +Sunday school is more and more to be found; children are more and more +receiving a ministry actually determined by their needs. So far as the +church service is concerned the ideal situation is found when a parallel +service is provided for children, based on their needs and capacities. +As to attendance, under other circumstances, in the family pew, that +depends on whether the child is gaining an aversion to the church by the +torture and tedium often involved. Without doubt many adults acquired +the settled habit of sleeping in church because that was the only +possible relief in childhood.[34] + +_Maintain the family unity by stepping into the child's ideal life. +Expect activity and use it._ Why should we assume that because the adult +finds a Sunday nap enjoyable the child will be blessed by enforced +silence? I would rather see a father playing catch with his boys on +Sunday than see the boys cowed into silence while he slept a Sabbath +sleep. Children will play. Their play is innocent; more, it may be +helpful and educative; we can insure these values in it by our +participation. That is the parent's opportunity for a closer sympathy +with his children. Playing together is the closest living, thinking, and +feeling together. Where games are shared, confidences, secrets, and +aspirations are shared, too. Besides, the participation of the adult may +tend to tone up the game and to moderate boisterousness. + +_Seek the beautiful._ Speaking as one who has been under both the +puritanical regulation and the so-called "continental" freedom of Sunday +observance, nothing seems much more beautiful than the sight of an +entire family playing at home, in the park, or off in the woods or the +fields of the country. Life is strengthened, ideals are lifted, family +ties knit closer, gratitude is quickened, and courage stimulated by play +of this kind. + + +Sec. 5. POINTS OF DIFFERENCE + +But because it is evidently most important that this day should be +different from other days, it is well to mark that difference in our +plays and pleasures and to follow some simple principles for Sunday +play. + +First, make it the day of the _best_ plays. The participation of parents +will tend to have this effect. Sometimes some forms of play may be +reserved for this day. + +Secondly, our play should never interfere with the rights of those who +desire to be quiet or to observe the day in ways differing from ours. We +must respect the rights of all. + +Thirdly, our play must not cause additional or unnecessary labor. + +Fourthly, our play must not interfere with the pleasures of others. For +instance, in the city children who can use the public tennis courts +every day should keep off them on Sunday in order to give opportunity to +those who can use them only on that day. + +Having said so much on play on Sundays, we must not leave the impression +that play is the principal thing. It would be the principal thing for +children compelled to work or confined in crowded tenements on all other +days. This is a day of rest. Play should not be carried beyond the rest +and refreshment stage. + +Nor must we assume that a recognition of play involves neglect of +worship and instruction. Both should be cherished among the delights of +the day. Every attempt to make the day a happy one, by normal play, +associates the emphasis on worship with increased happiness in the +child's mind. + + +Sec. 6. THE SUNDAY AFTERNOON PROBLEM + +"What shall we do?" the children ask restlessly on Sunday afternoons, +and it is by no means a strange question. All the week they have their +school work, on Saturdays their play. No wonder Sunday afternoon seems +dull. Yet if we older ones use it aright this is our opportunity to give +them the best time of all the week. We can make this part of the day +really a holiday if we just take time to plan it right. There is +something wrong in the home in which the child, as he grows up, does not +look forward happily to his Sunday afternoons. + +Sunday afternoon should be a family festival time. Keep it sacred to the +family. Business and social life claim us all the week, and the church +claims its share of this day; but these afternoon hours we can, if we +will, reserve for our own home life, for the closer drawing together of +children and parents. To hold this time sacred for the children and +their interests will help to solve "the Sunday afternoon problem." + +1. _The child's question, "What shall I do next?"_--Children are +dynamic, perpetually active. They grow in the direction toward which +their activities are turned. Repression is impossible. We must either +find the best things for them to do, or let them chance on things good +or bad. The following outline for Sunday afternoon is given in the hope +that it may help to answer the "what next." + + + 1. Begin to make _The Family Book_. + + 2. Give "festival name" to the day, and take an excursion in honor + of the one for whom the day is named. + + 3. Organize an exploring party to discover peoples and scenes of + long, long ago. + + 4. Get acquainted with some beautiful home thoughts. + + 5. Enjoy an evening hour of song and praise. + + +2. _"The Family Book."_--To start _The Family Book_, mother or father +raises the question at dinner: "What was the best Sunday of all last +year, and why was it the best?" Everyone, from the oldest down to the +least, should have a chance to tell. The statements of the older ones +will encourage the younger. + +That question will start another: What is the very best thing we can +remember about the year past? Let everyone take a pencil and paper and +in just ten minutes decide on and write down the one thing best worth +remembering. Perhaps the baby cannot write yet, but he or she will want +paper and pencil, too. Now, instead of making our answers known to one +another, we fold the papers and keep them till the evening meal. We will +open them then and talk it all over. Afterward we are going to copy the +answers into a new book we are going to make. + +This new book is to be called _The Family Book_, and we expect to put +into it all the pleasant things we wish to record about our home and +family. Any blank book with ruled lines will do. Some time today we will +elect a keeper of the book, and before we go to bed we will see the +first entry in that book under the title, "Happy Memories of 1915." That +will make a good beginning for _The Family Book_. Next Sunday we will +discuss and set down in the book the happy memories of the intervening +week. + +3. _The festival name._--Now, we have been sitting, talking, and writing +as long as the children will care to be still. Suppose we all go +outdoors together, every one of us. What if the weather is bad? It is +seldom truly bad, and there is so much real happiness in going out in +all weathers together. + +But where shall we go? There is no fun in walking simply for exercise or +health. Well, says father, we can decide where to go by naming the day. +How? We will find the most interesting birthday or anniversary that +falls today or during the next week. If one of the family has a birthday +then, that one shall choose our walk for us. If not, then when we have +chosen the national hero or heroine whose birthday falls near this time, +or the event the anniversary of which comes nearest, we will go, if +possible, where something will remind us of that person or event. + +So we fall to discussing the possibilities. We search through almanacs +until we find the anniversary that suits us all. Perhaps one of the +parents has anticipated all this by looking up the matter, and has a +good name to suggest. Or the older ones may consult a dictionary of +dates. It may turn out to be the birthday of a national hero. In the +city he may have a statue; in the country may be found the kinds of +woods, flowers, or animals he loved. + +4. _The exploring party._--But even after the walk it will not be long +before the little ones are asking, "What can we do next?" So we organize +the exploring party. Our object is to discover the countries, scenes, +strange peoples, and most interesting persons we have heard of in the +Bible. We are to find them in the advertising sections of old magazines. +Let each one take a magazine and go through it, looking for oriental +scenes, for pictures of incidents and of men and women that will remind +him of Bible scenes and characters. These are to be cut out, explained, +and arranged in the order of time, as they happened, every member of the +family helping. The same plan may be applied to scenes of missionary +work, using blank books for stories of heroism which children will +illustrate with the magazine pictures. + +5. _Home thoughts._--"Home, sweet home," is just a corner of the +afternoon saved for the discovery and reading of selections that are +worth keeping in our memories and are also likely to help us hold our +homes in some measure of the love and reverence they deserve. There are +songs of home that ought never to be forgotten. + +6. _Religious reading and songs close the day happily._--Children love +religious reading and songs, provided they are offered for their worth +and not as an exercise, or to be learned as an empty duty. Take down +your Bible and read Psalm 100, "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all +ye lands"; see whether they do not all enjoy the music and majesty of +those lines. You will not find it difficult to secure their co-operation +in learning that by heart. + +Then close the day with an hour of song. The children will remember +songs learned thus all their lives; therefore those worth remembering +should be chosen. For one, there is that dear old song many of us +learned at mother's knee, "Jesus loves me, this I know." That and others +that are appropriate can be found in almost every hymnbook. Many books +of school songs also have a few hymns and Sunday songs that children +like. + +Parents are puzzled, perhaps most of all, to choose appropriate stories +to read to the children on Sunday. Youngsters prefer, of course, the +told story to the read one, but if you wish to read you will make no +mistake in selecting _Christie's Old Organ_; _Aunt Abbey's Neighbors_, +by Annie T. Slosson; _The Book of Golden Deeds_, by Charlotte M. Yonge; +and _Telling Bible Stories_, by Louise S. Houghton. _Some Great Stories +and How to Tell Them_, by Richard Wyche, and _Story Telling_, by Edna +Lyman, will serve as good guides to what to tell, and how to tell it. + +7. _Naming the day._--From week to week variety should enter into the +Sunday program. On the Sunday following the one described above we can +begin at the dinner table the happy task of "naming the day." We can +decide whether it shall be called after one of our own number, whose +birthday falls near this date, or after one of the anniversaries of the +week following. + +Perhaps someone suggests calling it after the feast day of the church +year observed by certain churches. That should lead to discussion and +investigation of the meaning of the day. + +When all are agreed on a name, write it under its date on your wall +calendar. It will be a convenient suggestion for next year, unless the +decision is for a different name when the day again comes round. It will +also call to mind some of the interesting discussions which it aroused. + +After this we might call for _The Family Book_, which now contains, you +will recall, the family's decision as to the best Sunday and the +happiest occurrences of the year before. The keeper, appointed last +week, must bring it out. We can read what we wrote a week ago and decide +on the things worth entering this week. Records of birthdays, special +happenings to each of the family, the bright sayings of little ones, and +the visits of friends and relatives all should go in. + +8. _"I remember" stories._--While _The Family Book_ is open is the +psychological moment for father and mother to tell stories of their +childhood. Every child likes to hear the story that begins, "I +remember," and feels a thrill of pride in belonging to something that +goes back and has a history. The old family album is a never-failing +source of delight, not so much because of the pictures as because of +what they suggest of family traditions. + +Now is a good time to select some certain thing which shall be used only +on this day, such as a festival lamp or candlestick, some festival +plates or dishes--just one thing or set of things toward the use of +which we can look forward during the week. This helps to make Sunday +what we used to call "a treat." + +9. _Golden deeds._--Last week we started _The Family Book_ in which to +keep a record of all the happy experiences that belong to our family. +This week we begin another book. In it we expect to place every week +just one splendid story, the account of a golden deed, some piece of +everyday kindness or heroism of which we have read or heard or which we +have witnessed. Everyone is to have a chance to contribute to this book, +all the family deciding by vote each week as to which story should be +placed on its pages. + +Did you read in the paper this week of some brave or kindly deed done by +a boy or a girl, a man or a woman? Did you see someone do an act of +kindness? Cut out the account or write out the story and have it ready +for your own _Golden Deed Book_. Everyone must watch all the week for +the right kind of stories. It is wonderful how much good you will find +in the world when you are looking for it. + +Sunday afternoons all the family can hear each story and talk over its +fine points of virtue and goodness. Thus may be developed an +appreciation of the human qualities that are really admirable. We can +discuss also the probability of certain of the stories and the +righteousness of the deeds. + +Any blank book will do, or even a composition book. It will help to keep +hands happily occupied if you make your own covers and cut out gilt +letters for the title. Often you can find pictures to illustrate the +stories chosen; sometimes you may prefer to draw the illustrations. Keep +_The Golden Deed Book_ in a safe and convenient place, because there +ought to be something to go into it every week. For instance, did you +read the other day of the young man who jumped in front of a train to +save a young girl? He lost his life, but he saved hers. Can you find +that story and put it in the book? Perhaps you have found one that seems +even more fitting. + +10. _Various plans._--Giving happiness creates it. Plan something every +Sunday for the happiness of others. Occasionally go in a body to call on +someone who will be made happy by the visit. + +If you walk in the park or elsewhere, see how many things you can +discover that you have read about in the Bible or know to be mentioned +there. + +Try the game of "guessing hymns." While someone plays the familiar +tunes, each takes a turn at identifying them and the hymns to which they +belong. + +Set aside twenty minutes for each one to write a letter to send to the +brother or sister, relative or friend, at a distance. Even the baby can +scratch something which he thinks is a "real enough" letter in penciled +scribbles. + +Close the day with quiet reading and song, or with the memory exercise +in which all endeavor to repeat some simple psalm or a few verses, like +the Beatitudes. All children like to repeat the Lord's Prayer in family +concert. + + + I. References for Study + + Emilie Poulsson, _Love and Law in Child Training_, chaps. i-iv. + Milton Bradley, $1.00. + + _Happy Sundays for Children_ and _Sunday in the Home_. Pamphlets. + American Institute of Child Life, Philadelphia, Pa. + + + II. Further Reading + + _Sunday Play._ Pamphlet. American Institute of Child Life, + Philadelphia, Pa. + + Hodges, _Training of Children in Religion_, chap. xiii. Appleton, + $1.50. + + + III. Methods and Materials + + _A Year of Good Sundays._ Pamphlet. American Institute of Child + Life, Philadelphia, Pa. + + + IV. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What is the real problem of Sunday in the family? Is it that of + securing quiet or of wisely directing the action of the young? + + 2. Recall your childhood's Sundays. Were they for good or ill? + + 3. What are the arguments against children playing on Sunday? Is + there any essential relation between the play of children and the + wide-open Sunday of commercialized amusements? + + 4. Can you describe forms of play in which practically all the + family might unite? + + 5. What characteristics should distinguish play on Sundays from + other days? Is it wise to attempt thus to distinguish this day? + + 6. Criticize the suggestions on occupations for Sunday afternoons. + + 7. Recall any especially helpful forms of the use of this day in + your childhood, or coming under your observation. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[31] See chap. xvii, "The Family and the Church." + +[32] See chap. vii on "Directed Activity," and the references for study +at its end. + +[33] Much may be learned by a study of Primary plans in a modern Sunday +school. See Athearn, _The Church School_, chap. vi. + +[34] Since we are dealing here especially with religious education in +the family, the author refers to his more extended treatment of the +question of children in church services in _Efficiency in the Sunday +School_, chap. xv. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE MINISTRY OF THE TABLE + + +Shall the periods for meals be for the body only or shall we see in them +happy occasions for the enriching of the higher life? Upon the answer +depends whether the table shall be little more than a feeding-trough or +the scene of constant mental and character development. In some memories +the meals stand out only in terms of food, while pictures of dishes and +fragments of food fill the mind; in others there are borne through all +life pictures of happy faces and thoughts of cheer, of knowledge gained +and ideals created in the glow of conversation. + + +Sec. 1. THE OPPORTUNITY + +The family is together as a united group at the table more than anywhere +besides. Table-talk, by its informality and by the aid of the pleasures +of social eating, is one of the most influential means of education. +Depend upon it, children are more impressed by table-talk than by +teacher-talk or by pulpit-talk. They expect moralizing on the other +occasions, but here the moral lessons throw out no warning; they meet no +opposition; they are--or ought to be, if they would be effective--a +natural part of ordinary conversation and, by being part and parcel of +everyday affairs, they become normally related to life. The table is the +best opportunity for informal, indirect teaching, and this is for +children the natural and only really effective form of moral +instruction. + +The child comes to these social occasions with a hungry mind as well as +with an empty stomach. His mind is always receptive--even more so than +his stomach; at the table he is absorbing that which will stay with him +much longer than his food. Even if we were thinking of his food alone, +we should still do well to see that the table is graced by happy and +helpful conversation; nothing will aid digestion more than good cheer of +the spirit; it stimulates the organs and, by diverting attention from +the mere mechanics of eating, it tends to that most desirable end, a +leisurely consumption of food. + +The general conversation of the family group has more to do with +character development in children than we are likely to realize, and the +table is peculiarly the opportunity for general conversation. Here, most +of all, we need to watch its character and consider its teaching +effects. Where father scolds or mother complains the children grow +fretful and quarrelsome. Where father spends the time in reciting the +sharp dealing of the market or the political ring, where mother +delights in dilating on the tinsel splendors of her social rivalries, +they teach the children that life's object is either gain at any cost or +social glory. But it is just as easy to do precisely the opposite, to +speak of the pleasures found in simpler ways, to glory in goodness and +kindness, and to teach, by relating the worthy things of the day, the +worth of love and truth and high ideals. The news of the day may be +discussed so as to make this world a game of grab, inviting youth to +cast conscience and honor to the winds and to plunge into the greedy +struggle, or so as to make each day a book of beautiful pictures of +life's best pleasures and enduring prizes. + + +Sec. 2. DIRECTING TABLE-TALK + +But table-talk, helpful, cheerful, and educative, does not occur by +accident. It comes, first, from our own constant and habitual thought of +the meals in social and spiritual, as well as in physical, terms. And it +reaches its possibilities as we endeavor to create and direct the kind +of conversation that is desired. "Let all your speech be seasoned with +salt," wrote the apostle, and we might add, let your salt be seasoned +with good speech. That is the quality we must seek, the seasoning of +healthful, saving, and not insipid, speech. + +One of the great advantages of "grace before meat" lies in this: it +gives a tone to the occasion. Its chief meaning is surely that we +remind ourselves of the ever-present guest who is also the giver of all +good. Where the grace is not a perfunctory act, but rather the welcoming +of such a guest, the meal has started on a high level. We cannot do +better than so to act and speak as those who take the divine presence +for granted. We need not preach about it; we need only to assume it and +move on the level of that friendship. Children will feel it; they will +seek to answer to it, and will find pleasure in the very thought which +they have perhaps never expressed in words. + +The central idea of the grace suggests another means of helpful +influences at the table, by bringing into our homes, for the meals, the +friends whose lives will lift these younger ones. It is worth everything +to live even for an hour with good and broadening lives. There are +obligations to our guests to be considered, and their wishes should be +consulted, but one always feels that children are being cheated when +they are sent to eat at another table and deprived of the peculiar +intimate touch with lives that bring the benefits of travel and +experience. Ask your own memory what some persons who ate at the table +with you in childhood meant to you. + +The wise hostess knows that even when she brings together the group of +mature folks, and even when they are wise and witty, she must be +prepared adroitly to inspire the conversation or it may flag at times. +How much more does the conversation need direction where we have the +same group every day composed largely of immature persons! When you have +thought of all the portions and all the plates, have you thought of the +food for the spirit? + +Before suggesting methods of selection and direction, let a word of +explanation be said: food for the spirit is not confined to theology, to +hymns and the Bible; it is whatever will help us to feel and think of +life as an affair of the spirit. And this must come in very simple +terms, by the elementary steps, for young folks. It will be whatever +will in any way help us to live more kindly, more cheerfully, more as +though this really were God's world and all folks his family. Whatever +does this is truly religious. + + +Sec. 3. METHODS + +Plan for the food of the spirit as seriously at least as for the food of +the body. Learn to recognize poisons and also indigestibles. The first +are subjects of scandal, bitterness of spirit, malice, impatience, +tale-bearing, unkindly criticism, and discontent. The second are +subjects too heavy for children: your formal theology would be one of +them, your judgments on some intricate subjects may be among them. It is +seldom wise to announce negative injunctions, but we can make up our +own minds to avoid the conversational poisons and, when they appear, it +is always easy to push them out. Even when the unpleasant subject is so +common to all and has been so impressive in the day's experience that it +threatens to become the sole, absorbing topic, we can say, "We won't +talk of it at table! Let's find something better." But we must then have +ready the something better; that will be possible only by forethought. + +First, save up during the day, or between the meals, the best thoughts, +the cheering, kind, ideal, and amusing incidents. Cultivate the habit of +saying to yourself, "This is something for us all to enjoy tonight at +the table." + +Secondly, expect the other members to bring their best. Ask for "the +best news of the day" from one and another. Encourage them to tell of +good things seen and done and of pleasant and ideal things heard and +spoken. + +Thirdly, use the incidents as the basis of discussion. Let children tell +what they think of moral situations. Often they will quote the opinions +of teachers and others. Always you will secure under these circumstances +the unreserved expression of what they actually think. A free, informal +conversation of this sort where opinions are kindly examined and +compared is the finest kind of teaching. + +Fourthly, do not forget the grace of humor. To see the odd, whimsical, +startling side of the incident or experience trains one to see the +interplay of life, to catch a ray of light from all things, and to +moderate our tendency to permit our tragedies to pull the heavens down. + +Fifthly, use this period to strengthen the consciousness of family unity +by recounting past happy experiences and discussing plans of family +life. In one family there are few meals from October to Christmas that +do not include reminiscences of the summer in the woods and by the +water, or from Christmas to June without plans for the next summer in +the same place. Then, too, if you are contemplating something new, a +piano, a chair, an automobile, talk it all over here. Let each one have +his share in the planning. The effect is most important for character; +the children acquire the sense of a share in the family community life. +They get their first lessons in citizenship in this group, and they thus +learn social living. Then when the chair, or what not, is bought, it is +not alone the parents' possession; it belongs to all and all treat it as +the property of all. + +Sixthly, introduce great guests who cannot come in person. It is fine +fun to say, "We have with us tonight a man who loved bees and wrote +books." Let them guess who it was; help, if necessary, by an allusion +to _The Life of the Bee_ and _The Blue Bird_. They will want to know +more about Maeterlinck and they will joyously imagine what they would +say to him and how he would answer, what he would eat and how he would +behave. In this way we may enjoy knowing better Lincoln, Whittier, +Florence Nightingale, and an innumerable company. + +Seventhly, this is the place to remind ourselves that table-manners are +no small part of the moral life. By the habituation of custom we can +establish lives in attitudes of everyday thoughtfulness for others, in +the underlying consideration of others which is the basis of all +courtesy. Children's questions on table-etiquette must be met, not only +by the formal rules, but also by their explanation in the intent of +every gentle life to give pleasure and not pain to others, so to live in +all things as to find helpful harmony with other lives and to help them +to find and be the best. It is not only impolite to grab and guzzle, it +is unsocial and so unmoral, because it is both a bad example and a +distressing sight to others. It is irreligious, because whatever tends +to make this life less beautiful must be offensive to the God who made +all things good. + +If we ourselves seek to maintain beauty, order, and kindliness in the +conduct of the table, our children acquire a love of all that makes for +beauty and order and kindliness, for righteousness in the little things +of life. A clean tablecloth may be a means of grace. You have to try to +live up to it. Order and quietness in eating are not separable from the +rest of the life. To lift up life at any point is to raise the whole +level. To let it down at any point is to let all down. But to lift up +the level of conversation at the table is to raise the level of the +entire occasion and to make it more than a period of eating, to convert +it into a festival, a joyous occasion of the spirit. The meal should be +in all things worthy of the unseen guest. + +How near we all come together at the table! In its freedom how clearly +are we seen by our children! Here they know us for what we are and so +learn to interpret life. + + + I. Reference for Study + + _Table Talk._ Pamphlet. American Institute of Child Life, + Philadelphia, Pa. + + + II. Topics Tor Discussion + + 1. The relation of mental conditions to digestion. + + 2. The relation of table-etiquette to life-habits. + + 3. The table as an opportunity for the grace of courtesy, and the + relation of this grace to Christian character. + + 4. Training children in listening as well as in talking at table. + + 5. Do you regard table-talk and table-manners as having any + directly religious values? Why? + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE BOY AND GIRL IN THE FAMILY + + +Much that has been said so far has had in mind only the problems of +dealing with younger children in the life of the home. Indeed, almost +all literature on education in the family is devoted to the years prior +to adolescence. But older boys and girls need the family and the family +needs them. Many of the more serious problems of youth with which +society is attempting to deal are due to the fact that from the age of +thirteen on boys have no home life and girls, especially in the cities, +are deprived of the home influences. + + +Sec. 1. THE GROWING BOY + +The life of the family must have a place for the growing boy. It must +make provision for his physical needs; these are food, activity, rest, +and shelter. Youth is a period of physical crisis. Health is the basis +of a sound moral life. Many of the lad's apparently strange propensities +are due to the physical changes taking place in his body and, often, to +the fact that it is assumed that his rugged frame needs no care or +attention.[35] + +It will take more than tearful pleading to hold him to his home; he can +be held only by its ministry to him; he will be there if it is the most +attractive place for him. Some parents who are praying for wandering +boys would know why they wandered if they looked calmly at the crowded +quarters given to the boy, the comfortless room, the makeshift bed, and +the general home organization which long ago assumed that a boy could be +left out of the reckoning. + +The boy needs a part in the family activities. He can belong only to +that to which he can give himself. It will be his home in the degree +that he has a share in its business. Begin early to confer with him +about your plans; make him feel that he is a partner. See that he has a +chance to do part of the work, not only its "chores," but also its forms +of service. But even a boy's attitude to the "chores" will depend on +whether they are a responsibility with a degree of dignity or a form of +unpaid drudgery. His room should be his own room, and he should be +responsible for its neatness and its adorning. Services which he does +regularly for all should receive regular compensation. In all services +which the home renders for others he should have a share; this is his +training for the larger citizenship and society of service.[36] + +The boy is a playing animal. Not all homes can be fully equipped with +play apparatus. But no parents have a right to choose family quarters as +though children needed nothing but meals and beds. The shame of the +modern apartment building is that its conveniences are all for passive +adults. To attempt to train an active, growing, vigorous, playing human +creature in one of these immense filing-cases, where all persons are +shot up elevators and filed away in pigeonholes called rooms, is to +force him out to the life of the streets. The thoughtless +self-indulgence of modern parents, seeking only to live without physical +effort, is the cause of much juvenile delinquency.[37] + +But play for the boy is more than shouting and running in the grass and +among trees; he needs books and opportunities for indoor recreation. For +the sake of the lad we had better sacrifice the guest-room if necessary, +and make way for the punching-bag and the home billiard-table or +pool-table; here is a magnet of innocent skilful play to draw him off +the street and to bring the boy and his friends under his own roof. If +possible his room ought to be the place that is his own, where his +friends may come, where he may taste the beginnings of the joys of +home-living in receiving them and entertaining them.[38] + +A workbench in the attic or basement has saved many a boy from the +street. Such apparatus truly interferes with the symmetrical plan of a +home that is designed for the entertainment of the neighbors; but +families must some time choose between chairs and children, between the +home for the purpose of the lives in it and the household for the +purpose of a salon.[39] + + +Sec. 2. RELIGIOUS SERVICE + +In the religious family there is valuable opportunity to train youth to +one form of participation in the religious life. Whatever the family +gives or does for social service, for philanthropic enterprises, for the +support of the church or religious work, ought to be, not the gift of +one member or of the heads alone, but of the whole family, extending +itself in service through the community, the nation, and the world. The +form and the amount of the gifts ought to be a matter of family +conference and each member ought early to have the opportunity and the +means of determining his share in such extension. The child's gifts to +the church should not be pennies thrust into his hand as he crosses the +threshold of home for the Sunday school, but his own money, from his own +account--partly his own direct earnings--appropriated for this or for +other purposes by himself and with the advice of his parents. Family +councils on forms of participation in ideal activities, by gifts and by +service, bind the whole life together and form occasions in which the +child is learning life in terms of loving, self-giving service.[40] + +The boy needs friendship. Not all his needs can be met by the schoolboys +whom he may bring into his room, nor can they all be met by his mother's +affection. He needs a father. The most serious obstacle to the religious +education of boys is that most of them are half-orphans; intellectually +and spiritually they have no fathers. The American ideal seems to be +that the man shall be the money-maker, the woman the social organizer, +and the children shall be committed to hired shepherds or left to shift +for themselves. + + +Sec. 3. THE FATHER AND THE BOY + +No one else can be quite the teacher for the boy that his father ought +to be. No man can ever commit to another, still less to some tract or +book, the duty of guiding his boy to sanity and consecration in the +matter of the sex problems. + +The first word that needs to be said on this subject is that such +problems receive safe and sufficient guidance only in the atmosphere of +affection and reverence. Do not attempt to teach this boy of yours as +though you were dealing with a class in physiology. The largest thing +you can do for him is to quicken a reverence for the body and for the +functions of life. By your own attitude, by your own expressions and +opinions, lead him to a hatred and abhorrence of the base, filthy, and +bestial, to a healthy fear and detestation of all that despoils and +degrades manhood, and to a reverence for purity, beauty, and life.[41] + +Be prepared to give him, on the basis of reverence, the clean, clear +facts. Be sure you have the facts. Do not think he is ignorant; he is in +a world seething with conversation, stories, pictures, and experiences +of evil. The trouble is that his facts are partial, distorted, and +unbalanced by positive errors; his knowledge is gained from the street +and the school-yard. Only a personal teacher can help him unravel the +good from the bad, the true from the false. Do not trust to your own +general knowledge; take time to read one of the simple and sane books on +this subject.[42] Be ready to lead him aright. Remember this subject has +provoked a large number of books, many of which are foolish and others +unwholesome. Do not try to deputize your duty to some doubtful book. + + +Sec. 4. FATHERING THE BOY + +But the boy needs more than instruction on a special subject; he needs +personality, he needs the time and thought of, and _personal contact_ +with, his father. Men who do not live with boys never know what they +lose. And alas, see what the boy misses! He has been his mother's boy up +to school age when school takes him and gives him a woman's guidance, +while the Sunday school is likely to keep him--for a while only--under +the eye of some dear sister who "just loves boys." The system is a +vicious one. The lad needs developed masculinity. If he gets it neither +in school nor in the home he will find it on the street corner, through +the vicious boy-leader of the degrading poolroom or the alleys. + +The boy who finds his father eager to talk over the game, to discuss the +merits of peg-tops, to walk, row, play, and work with him, finds it as +simple and natural to talk with him over his moral and religious +questionings as it is to talk over the daily happenings. To live with +the boy is to find the youth with you. But it is hard work discovering +your young men if you lost your boys.[43] + + +Sec. 5. THE GROWING GIRL + +Almost all that has been said about the boy applies to the girl of the +same years. Let _a special plea_ be entered here against the notion that +girls are favored when sheltered from a share in the activities of the +home. They desire to express their ideals as much as do boys. Much of +the so-called craze for amusements is due to the fact that the family is +so organized that there is no vent to the ideals there, no chance to +have a share in the business of life. Young folks with the sense that +"this is our home," not "our parents', but _ours_" bend their energies +to its adorning, and find in it the chance to realize some of their +passion for beauty and for service.[44] + +Mothers usually do better than do fathers in the matter of sex +instruction. Yet they usually begin too late, long after the little girl +has acquired much misleading information in the school. Here, too, the +first aim must be to quicken reverence for life, to set up the +conception of the beauty and dignity of sex functions before the baser +mind of the street has had an opportunity to interpret them in terms of +the dirt.[45] + +Above all, with boys and girls, the whole subject, including marriage +and the founding of a family, must ever be treated with dignity and +reverence. Foolish parents jest with their girls about their beaux and +boast that their little ones are playing at courtship. If they could +realize the wonder awakened, followed by pain and then by hardened +sensibilities and coarsened ideals, they would sacrifice their jests for +the sake of the child's soul. We wonder that youth treats lightly the +matter of social purity when we have treated the sacred relations of +life as a jest. If this family in which they now live is to be a place +of sacred associations, of real religious life, the whole matter of +marriage and the family must be treated with reverence. Their practice +will not rise above our everyday ideals as expressed in casual +conversation and in our own practice. + + + I. References for Study + + THE BOY + + W.A. McKeever, _Training the Boy_, Part III. Macmillan, $1.50. + + _Boy Training_, Part IV. A Symposium. Associated Press. + + Johnson, _The Problems of Boyhood_. The University of Chicago + Press, $1.00. + + THE GIRL + + Margaret Slattery, _The Girl in Her Teens_, chaps. iv, vii. Sunday + School Times Co., $0.50. + + Wayne, _Building Your Girl_. McClurg, $0.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + W.B. Forbush, _The Coming Generation_. Appleton, $1.50. + + Puffer, _The Boy and His Gang_. Houghton Mifflin Co., $1.00. + + Irving King, _The High School Age_. Bobbs-Merrill, $1.00. + + _Building Childhood_, A Symposium. Sunday School Times Co., $1.00. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What are the special needs of the growing boy? + + 2. What are the things that a boy enjoys in his home? + + 3. In what way does city life interfere with the natural + development of the child? + + 4. What are some of the natural expressions of religion for a boy? + + 5. How early should the sex instruction begin? + + 6. What does a father owe to the boy, and what are the best methods + of meeting the duty? + + 7. What are the normal activities for girls in the home? + + 8. What are their especial needs? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[35] A good brief book on the problem of the adolescent is E.T. Swift, +_Youth and the Race_; another, from the school point of view, is Irving +King, _The High-School Age_, which has much material of great value to +parents. + +[36] On the various activities of boys see W.A. McKeever, _Training the +Boy_. + +[37] See the notable report by Breckinridge and Abbott, _The Delinquent +Child and the Home_. + +[38] On the gregarious instincts see J.A. Puffer, _The Boy and His +Gang_. + +[39] See the books on manual work given in chap. vii, "Directed +Activity." + +[40] On the religious life of the boy in relation to society and the +church see Allan Hoben, _The Minister and the Boy_, and the author's +treatment of boys and the Sunday school in _Efficiency in the Sunday +School_, chap. xiv; also J. Alexander _et al._, _Training the Boy_, a +symposium. + +[41] On the attitude of reverence in this question read Dr. Cabot's fine +essay, _The Christian Approach to Social Morality_. + +[42] The works of Dr. W.S. Hall, _From Boyhood to Manhood_, for parents' +guidance with boys of thirteen to eighteen; E. Lyttleton, _Training of +the Young in Laws of Sex_, is excellent for fathers; _Reproduction and +Sexual Hygiene_ is a text for older youth to be recommended; also, for +reading, N.E. Richardson, _Sex Culture Talks_, D.S. Jordan, _The +Strength of Being Clean_. + +[43] For further studies of the problem of the boy parents would do well +to read: _Building Boyhood_, a symposium; W.A. McKeever, _Training the +Boy;_ W.B. Forbush, _The Coming Generation;_ W.D. Hyde, _The Quest of +the Best_. + +[44] On activities see W.A. McKeever, _Training the Girl_. + +[45] On the problem with young children see M. Morley, _The Renewal of +Life_; in connection with older girls see K.H. Wayne, _Building Your +Girl_. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE NEEDS OF YOUTH + + +Families are for the spiritual development of youth as well as of +childhood. The home is for the young people as well as for the younger +ones. But the very period when they slip from church school is also the +period when they are often lost to the real life of the family. In some +measure this is due to the natural development of the social life. The +youths go out to work, move forward into enlarging social groups which +demand more of their free time. They are learning the life of the larger +world of which they are now a part. + + +Sec. 1. THE SCHOOL OF YOUTH + +But the family is still the home of these young people; normally it is +still the most vital educational influence for them. Yet there is no +problem more baffling than that of family ministry for, and leadership +of, the higher life of youth. + +It is a short-measure interpretation of the home which thinks of it as +only for young children and old folks. The young men and women from +sixteen to twenty and over still need training and direction; they need +close touch with other lives in affection and in an ideal atmosphere. In +a few years they, too, will be home-makers, and here in the home they +are very directly learning the art of family life. + +For youth there are few effective schools, outside the home, other than +the streets and the places of commercialized amusement. Even where the +other agencies of training are used, such as college, classes, and +associations (such as the Y.M.C.A. and the Y.W.C.A.), life, at that +period, needs the restraints on selfishness that come from family life, +the refining and socializing power of the family group. + + +Sec. 2. SPECIAL NEEDS OF YOUTH + +What are the special needs of youth upon which the family may base a +reasonable program for their higher needs? + +First, the need of sound physical health. This is a period of physical +adjustment. Rapid bodily growth is nearly or quite at an end; new +functions are asserting themselves. The new demands for directed +activity may, under the ambitious impulses of youth, make undue drafts +on the energies. The apparent moodiness that at times characterizes this +period may be due to poor health. The moral strain of the period will +need sound muscles and good health. Parents who would sit up all +night--perhaps involuntarily--when the baby has the colic treat with +indifference sickness in youth and too readily assume that the young +man or the young woman will outgrow these physical ills. But bodily +maladjustment or incapacity has most serious character effects. To live +the right life and render high service one needs to be a whole person, +with opportunity to give undivided attention and undiminished powers to +the struggle of life. + +Secondly, this is peculiarly the period of the joy of friendships. The +social nature must have its food. This young man has discovered that the +world consists of something besides things; it is full of people. He is +just learning that they are all persons like himself. He enters the era +of conscious personal relationships. He would explore the realm of +personality. He touches great heights of happiness as other lives are +opened to him. It is all new and wonderful, this realm of personality, +with its aspects of feeling, thinking, willing, and longing. + + +Sec. 3. MAINTAINING FRIENDSHIP WITH YOUTH + +Do parents know how hungry their older children are for their +friendship? They will never tell us, for this world is too new and +strange for facile description; they are always bashful about their +hunger for persons until they find the same hunger and joy in us. We +imagine that they are indifferent to us; the trouble is we are hidden +from them. We seldom give them a chance to talk as friend to friend, +not about trifling things, but about life itself and what it means. +Perhaps at no point do parents exhibit less ability for sympathetic +reconstruction and interpretation of their own lives than here. They +recall the pleasures of childhood and provide those pleasures for the +children. Why not recall the hunger of eighteen years of age and give +these youths the very bread of our own inner selves? Or do we, when they +ask this bread, give them the stone of mere provision for their physical +needs or the scorpion of careless indulgence in things that debase the +tastes? + +One perplexing phenomenon must not be overlooked: it will often happen +that young people pass through a period of what appears to be parental +aversion. There will sometimes seem to be suspicion, violent opposition, +and even hatred of parents. This is no occasion for despair. It is a +stage of development. It is due to the attempt of a will now realizing +its freedom under social conditions to adapt itself to the will that has +hitherto directed it. To some degree the sex consciousness, which leads +to viewing the parents in a new light, may enter in. It may be easily +made permanent, however, if parents do not do two things: first, adjust +themselves and their methods to the new social freedom of the youth, +and, secondly, fling open the doors into their true selves now fully +understandable by these men and women. + +But the family life must make provision for the wider friendships of +youth. Somewhere this insatiable appetite for the reality of lives will +feed. Groups of friends your young man and woman will find somewhere. If +they cannot bring them into your home they will go elsewhere. You can +scarce pay any price too high for the opportunity that comes when they +are perfectly free to have their friends with them and with you, when +home becomes the natural place of the social meetings of youth. If you +are afraid of the wear on the furniture you may keep your furniture, but +you will lose a life or lives. Here is the opportunity of the home to +enter a wider ministry, to be a place of the joy of friendships to many +lives. + + +Sec. 4. AT THE DOOR OF A NEW WORLD + +As through friendships the youth enters and explores this wonderful +realm of personality he will find some persons more wonderful than +others. Those instincts of which he is largely unconscious will impel +him to make a selection. The same law is operative with the young woman. +Mating is normally always first on the higher levels of personalities; +it first calls itself friendship, nor does it think farther. But father +and mother, if they have the least spiritual vision, stand in awe as +they see their children taking their first evident steps toward +home-making. What an opportunity is theirs! + +Yet here, as the home faces its duty toward a family yet to be, is just +where some of the most serious mistakes are made. This is no time for +teasing and jesting, still less for mocking ridicule. If you treat this +essentially sacred step as a joke it will not be strange if the young +people follow suit and take marriage as a yet larger joke. The home is +the place where the home is treated most irreverently. Of course one +must not take too seriously those "calf" courtships, prematurely +fostered by boys and girls, under the pressure of the high-school +tendency to anticipate all of life's riper experiences. But even here +jesting and teasing will only tend to confirm and make permanent what +would be but a temporary aberration. In that case either silence or +kindly, simple advice will help most of all. + +To young people who think at all courtship has its times of vision, when +they stand trembling before the unknown future, when they, with youth's +idealism, make high vows and stand on high places. Give them at least +the opportunity to enter your inmost self, to find there all the light +you can give them and all the memory of your own joys and hopes. Make +them feel, though you need not say it, that they are at the threshold of +a temple. If to you this is an affair of the spirit it will be a matter +of religion to them. + +Approached in such a temper, many of the practical problems of courtship +settle themselves. Take the case of the young man at home. If he knows +that you think with him of the high meaning of this experience he will +not hesitate to bring the young woman to the home. She will feel your +attitude. Upon this level questions of times and seasons, hours in the +parlor, and all the matters of their relations will settle themselves. +If you treat courtship as a matter of the spirit he will do just what he +most of all wants to do, treat this woman who is to be his mate as a +person, a spirit, with reverence and love that lifts itself above lust. +This is the only ground upon which you can appeal to either in matters +of conduct at this time. The conventions of society they will despise; +but the inner law speaks to them when the outer letter has no meaning. + + +Sec. 5. THE SOCIAL LIFE + +We must expect our children to go out into their larger world. The +beginning of adolescence is the normal time of their social awakening, +their conversion from a nature that turns in upon itself to one that +moves out into a world of persons. For them, now, the home group ought +to be seen as a society as well as a family, as the social group +gathering about a definite ideal and mission into which they should +delight to project themselves. The appeal of religion is peculiarly +vivid just now, for it involves a recognition of one's self as a person +with the power of personal choices and with the opportunity to find +association with other persons. The family must aid its young people to +see the opportunity which the church offers for ideal social +relationships which direct themselves to high and attractive service. + + +Sec. 6. AMUSEMENTS + +What should the family do about the question of the amusements of young +people? + +Healthy young persons must have recreation. They will seek it on its +highest level first and find their way down the facile descent of +commercialized amusements only as the higher opportunities are denied +them. They would always rather play than be played to; they would +rather, where early labor has not sapped vitality, play outdoors than +sit in a fetid atmosphere watching tawdry spectacles. But play, the +idealization of life's experiences, they will find somewhere. To this +need the home must minister by the provision of space, time, +opportunity, and the means of play. If through either sloth, +selfishness, preoccupation, or a mistaken idea of an empty innocence of +life you make recreation and social intercourse impossible in the +family, the young people will find it on the street or in the crowd. In +the family that plans for recreation and provides facilities and time +for young people to play the problem is a minor one. + +But young people will naturally desire to project themselves into the +social amusements of the larger groups. Then we ought to know what those +amusements are; we must be able to advise, from actual knowledge, not +from hearsay or prejudice, as to the healthful and worth while. The home +must insist on the provision in the community for the safe socialization +of amusements. The thousands of young girls in the cities, who tramp the +pavements down to dance halls, primarily are only seeking the +satisfaction of a normal craving; and they, on their way to the dance +halls, pass the splendid plants of the schools and the churches, +standing dark and idle. Families must develop a public opinion that will +demand, for the sake of their young people, a provision for amusement +and recreation that, instead of poisoning the life, shall strengthen, +dignify, and elevate it. If the demand for clean drinking-water is a +proper one, is the demand for healthful food for the life of ideals less +so? + +There can be no doubt of the attitude of any home with the least +conscience for character toward all forms of public amusements in which +young people are herded promiscuously for the mere purpose of killing +time in trivialities. The "white cities" with their glittering lights +and baubles are often moral plague colonies. The amusements debase the +intellect, blunt the moral sensibilities, and appeal to the baser +passions. They are the low-water mark, we may hope, of commercialized +amusement. But they remind us that young people demand company and +change from the monotony of the day's toil. They ask us as to the +provision we are making for young people and challenge us to use their +inclinations for good. + +But besides these "shows" there are many dignified forms of social +recreation. Good music is to be heard and good plays are to be seen. + +The theater, whether of the regular drama or of the motion-picture type, +offers a perplexing problem, principally because, in the first place, +American people have been too busy conquering a new soil and making a +living to give careful thought to the social side of aesthetics and +recreation, and, secondly, because the ministry of social recreation has +fallen almost entirely under the dominance of the same trend; it has +been thoroughly commercialized. We cannot cut the puzzling knot by +simply prohibiting all forms of public theatrical entertainment. For one +reason, these forms shade off imperceptibly from the church service to +the extremes of the vaudeville. But the simple fact is that we no longer +indiscriminately class all theaters as baneful and immoral; we are +coming to see their potentialities for good. If the young will go, as +they will--and ought--to the theater, and if the theater can lift their +ideals, parents would do well to guide their children in this matter and +to enlist the aid of the theater. + +It is worth while to come to a sympathetic understanding of the place of +the drama and the opera, to see what they have meant in the education of +the race and what is the significance, to us, of the fact of the strong +dramatic instinct in childhood. Naturally the subject can only be +mentioned here and the suggestion be offered that parents take time to +cultivate an appreciation of good orchestral and concert music and of +the drama. + +The social life will find outlet in other directions. Young people need +our aid to find social groups which will inspire and develop them, +especially groups that are serviceful. + + +Sec. 7. THE CALL TO SERVICE + +This is the period when ideals begin to give direction to the hitherto +undirected activity of childhood and youth. Young people are idealists. +They see no height too giddy, no task too hard, no dream too roseate, +and no hope unattainable. If the times are out of joint they believe +they were "born to set them right." Whatever is wrong or imperfect they +would take a hand in setting it right. We know we felt that way, but we +are loath to believe our children also cherish their high hopes. And so +the tendency of the adult is to treat with cynicism the dreams of youth. +Often we sedulously endeavor to pervert him to our blase view of the +world; we would have him believe it is a fated heap of cinders instead +of an almost new thing to be formed and made perfect. In the home those +ideals must be nourished and guided. See that at hand there are the +songs and essays of the idealists. Give them Emerson and forget your +Nietzsche. Renew your own youth. Get some of Isaiah's passion and let it +breathe its fervor on them. Feed by poem, song, story, essay, and +conversation the life of ideals. + +Stop long enough to see the life that like an engine with steam up is +surely going somewhere and help it to find an engineer. We call this the +period of sowing wild oats. Wild oats are simply energies invested in +the wrong places. The dynamic of youth must go somewhere and do +something. Fundamentally it would rather go to the good than the bad. We +know that this was true of us at that time; why should we assume less of +others? Hold to your faith in youth. Fathers who with open eyes and +active minds--not with sleepy fatalism--believe in their boys, have boys +who believe in them. + +They wait for leadership. If you have dropped into the easy slippers of +indifference to social reform and other types of ideal service, get +back into the fight again beside this new man of yours. + +They wait for friendship in this matter of their ideals and their +service. At any cost keep open house of the heart. + +They wait for a life-task. This is the period of vocational choice. It +will make a tremendous difference to this life whether his work shall be +merely a matter of making a living or shall be his chance to invest life +in accordance with his new ideals. Shall he go out to be merely one of +the many wage-earners or salary-winners to whom life is a great orange +from which he will get all the juice if he can, regardless of who else +goes thirsty? Or shall he see an occupation as his chance to pay back to +today and tomorrow that which he owes to yesterday? as his chance to +give the world himself? He need not be a minister or a missionary to +make his life a ministry; he will find life, he will be a religious +person in no other way than as his dominating motive shall be to find +the fulness of life in order to have a full life to give to God's world. +The answer will depend on what life means to you, how you are +interpreting it, and how you aid him in thinking of it and making his +high choice. You will have abundant opportunity to show what it is to +you--as you have been doing all along--by your daily attitude; you will +have abundant opportunity to talk it all over, for he will certainly +discuss his trade or profession with you. The family must give to the +life of the new day makers of families to whom life means a chance to +realize the God-vision of the world. + + + I. References for Study + + H.C. King, _Personal and Ideal Elements in Education_, pp. 105-27. + Macmillan, $1.50. + + E.D. Starbuck, _The Psychology of Religion_, chaps., xvi-xxi. + Scribner, $1.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + 1. ON YOUTH + + C.R. Brown, _The Young Man's Affairs_. Crowell, $1.00. + + Wayne, _Building the Young Man_. McClurg, $0.50. + + Swift, _Youth and the Race_. Scribner, $1.50. + + Wilson, _Making the Most of Ourselves_. McClurg, $1.00. + + 2. ON RECREATIONS + + L.C. Lillie, _The Story of Music and the Musicians_. Harper, $0.60. + + Gustav Kobbe, _How to Appreciate Music_. Moffat, $1.50. + + P. Chubb, _Festivals and Plays_. Harper, $2.00. + + _Dramatics in the Home, Children in the Theater, Problems of + Dramatic Plays_, monographs published by the American Institute of + Child Life. Philadelphia, Pa. + + L.H. Gulick, _Popular Recreation and Public Morality_. American + Unitarian Association. Free. + + M. Fowler, _Morality of Social Pleasures_. Longmans, $1.00. + + Addams, _The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets_. Macmillan, + $1.25. + + The moving-picture or cinema presents a problem to parents; see + Herbert A. Jump, _The Religious Possibilities of the Motion + Picture_ (a pamphlet) and _Vaudeville and Moving Pictures_, a + report of an investigation in Portland, Ore. _Reed College Record, + No. 16._ + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What are the reasons why young people leave home? + + 2. Where do the young men and young women whom you know spend their + evenings? Why is this the case? + + 3. Mention the special needs of young people in the family. + + 4. What are the difficulties in maintaining the friendship of our + young people? + + 5. Have you ever seen evidences of the phase mentioned as aversion + to parents? + + 6. What are some common mistakes of treating the subject of + courtship? + + 7. What are the special social needs of young people? + + 8. What is the religious significance of the period of social + awakening? + + 9. What are the special dangerous tendencies in public amusements? + + 10. How does the social instinct express itself in social service? + + 11. What of the relation of "wild oats" to directed work? + + 12. What may be done for vocational direction in the family? + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE FAMILY AND THE CHURCH + + +If the family is engaged in the development of religious character +through its life and organization, it ought somehow to find very close +relations with the other great social institution engaged in precisely +the same work, the church. Both churches and homes are agencies of +religious education. In a state which separates the ecclesiastical and +the civil functions, where freedom of conscience is fully maintained, +these two are the only religious agencies engaged in education. + +As the family is the child's first society, so the local church should +be the child's second, larger, wider society. The home constitutes the +first social organization for life, the one in which growing lives +prepare for the wider social living. Then should come the next forms of +social organization, the school and the church, each grouping lives +together and preparing them, by actual living, for wider circles of +life. + + +Sec. 1. RELATIONS OF CHURCH AND HOME + +Many of the perplexing problems which arise in the family, as an +institution, in respect to its relations to the church, and as to the +developing relations of children to the church, would be largely solved +if we could get an understanding of the fundamental relations of these +two institutions. The institutional difficulties occur because these +relations appear to be competitive. Here is the family with its +interests in bread-winning, comforts, recreations, and pleasures, and on +the opposite side, making apparently competing claims for money, time, +interest, and service, stands the church. That is the picture +unconsciously forming in many minds. There is more or less feeling that +money given to the church is taken from the family and impoverishes it +to that degree, that time given to the church is grudgingly spared from +the pleasures of the home, that it is always a moot question which of +the two institutions shall win in the conflict of interests. + +But the family must take for granted the church as its next of kin. The +home must not by its attitude and conversation assume that the problems +of the relationship of children to the church arise largely from the +opposite concept, as though these were rival institutions. We carelessly +think of the children as those who, now belonging to us, are to be +persuaded to give their allegiance to another institution, the interests +of which are in a different sphere. We think of the church as an +independent thing and therefore feel quite free to discuss its merits or +shortcomings and to criticize it if it fails to meet our standards, +just as we would criticize the baker for soggy or short-weight bread; to +our minds, the church is something set off in society, separate from the +homes, as much so as the schools or the library or a fraternal lodge. + +This thought of the church as a separate something, having an existence +independent of ourselves and our families, leads us farther astray and +makes yet more difficult the development of right relations between the +church and the children. If the church is a thing apart we can analyze +its imperfections as we might stand and ridicule a regiment of raw +recruits. It marches by while we stand on the curb. But here, surely, is +one of the simplest and most easily forgotten truisms: the church is no +more than our own selves associated for certain purposes. If the church +fails in an adequate ministry for children, shall we condemn it as we +would a bridge that failed to carry a reasonable load? We do but condemn +ourselves. If my church is not fit to send my children to, then I must +help to make it fit. Before falling back on the lazy man's salve of +caustic ridicule, before taking the seat of the scornful, before setting +in the child's mind an aversion to this institution, based on my +opinion, let me be sure I have done all that lies in my power to better +it. True, I am only one; but surely, where so many family tables are +each Sunday devoted to finding fault with the church and its services, +I can find many others who will aid in at least stimulating a sense of +personal responsibility for any incompleteness in the church. + +The family cannot afford to take the attitude of hostile criticism, for +it is thus fighting its first and most natural ally, the one other +institution engaged in its own special work. If the forces for spiritual +character be divided, how easily do the opposing forces enter in and +occupy! The family needs the support of the wider public opinion of the +church, insisting on the supremacy of righteousness. The family needs +the co-operation of the church in its task of developing religious +lives. The family needs the power of this larger social body controlling +social conditions and making them contributory to character purposes. +The family needs the stimulus which a larger group can give to children +and young people. + +This does not mean that we must never criticize the church. It is not +set off in a niche protected from the acid of secular tongues and minds. +Ministers of the gospel are unduly resentful of criticism, perhaps +because, after they leave the seminary, no one has a fair opportunity to +controvert their publicly stated opinions. But the church needs the +cleansing powers of kindly, wise, creative criticism. Anyone can find +fault, but he is wise who can show us a better way. This church is the +family's ally; it is our business to aid her to greater effectiveness. +The new church for our own day awaits the services of the men of today. + +The purpose of the family is the basis of alliance with the church. As +in every other relation and purpose of the home, so here: the dominant +factor is the conscious function of the home and family. If the home is +really a religious institution it will seek natural alliance with all +other truly religious institutions. Ideally, what is a church but a +group of families associated for religious purposes? Is not the church +simply a number of families co-operating in the ideal purposes of each +family, the development of the lives of religious persons and the +control of social conditions for the sake of that purpose? Without +entering into disputation as to the relationship of little children to +the church, is there not just this relation to the human society called +the church, that it is a grouping of families for the purpose of the +divine family? + + +Sec. 2. THE FAMILY IDEAL IN THE CHURCH + +Would there be any question as to the naturalness of the relation of our +children to the church if the family ideal so controlled our thinking as +to saturate theirs? Is not this the present need, that both family and +church shall conceive the latter in family terms? By this is meant, not +simply that we shall think of what is called "a family church," a church +into which we succeed in projecting our families in a fair degree of +integrity, but that we shall think of the organization and mission of +the church in terms of family life and of the ideal of the divine +family. Keeping in mind the general definition already given of a family +as persons associated for the development of spiritual persons, let us +hold the church to that same ideal; the lives of persons associated in +the broadest fellowship that includes both God and man for the purposes +of spiritual personality. The church then should be the expression of +that family of which Jesus often spoke, the family that calls God Father +and man brother. + +Closer and more helpful relations between family and church follow where +the principles of the family prevail in the latter. The family is an +ideal democracy because it exists primarily for persons. It places the +value of persons first of all. So with the true church; it will exist to +grow lives to spiritual fulness, and to this end all buildings, +adornments, exercises, teachings, and organizations will be but as +tools, as means serving that purpose. As the family sees its house, +table, and activities designed to personal ends, so will the church. In +an institution existing to grow lives, the great principle of democracy +and of the family will prevail, viz., that to the least we owe the most. +Just as the home gives its best to the little child, so will the church +place the child in the midst. Just as the home exists for the child and +thus holds to itself all other lives, so will the church some day exist +for the little ones and so hold and use all other lives. + +The prime difficulty of relating the children in our families to the +average church lies in the fact that they are children, while the church +is an adult institution. Its buildings are designed for adults--save in +rare and happy exceptions;[46] its services are designed for adults; it +has a more or less extraneous institution called a school for the +children. The church spends its money for adults; it compasses sea and +land to make one proselyte and coerce him back in old age, and allows +the many that already as children are its own to drift away. It often +fails to see that if it is to grow lives it must grow them in the +growing period. There still remain many churches that must be converted +from the selfishness of adult ministry and entertainment to self-giving +service for the development of spiritual lives and, especially, for the +development of such lives through childhood and youth. They must hear +again the Master's voice regarding "these little ones," regarding the +significance of the child. And all must be loyal to his picture of his +Kingdom as a family and must, therefore, do what all true families do, +become child-centric. A church in which children occupy the same place +that they hold in an ideal family will have no difficulty in finding a +place for the children. It will be a natural and unnoticed transition +from the family life in the home to the family life in the church. + + +Sec. 3. A PLACE FOR ALL IN THE CHURCH + +The family may help directly toward the realization of this ideal by an +insistence on the family conception and the family program in the +church. Bring the children with you to the church and seek to find there +a place for each as natural as the place he occupies in the home. If the +church makes no such provision, if it has no place for children, in the +name of our wider spiritual family relationships we must demand it. Let +the voice of the family be heard insisting on suitable buildings and +specially designed worship for child-life--suitable forms of service and +activity. Let the thought that goes to furnish these in the home be +carried over to provide them in the church. + +Parents may help their children to find right relations with the church +by their attitude toward it as the larger family group. To think and act +toward this institution as our home, the wider home of the families, is +to establish similar habits of thought in children. Such a concept is +not always easy to maintain; the church includes many of different +habits of thought from ourselves, divergent tastes and habits of general +life. Here one must exercise the family principle of responsibility +toward the weaker and immature. This family, the church, just like our +own family, exists, not to minister to our tastes, but that we may all +minister to others. + +The principal service which the family may render to the church is, +then, to foster an interpretation and view of the latter which will +relate it more closely to the home and will make it evidently natural +for child-life to move out into this wider social organization for +religious culture and service. Surely this should be the attitude toward +membership in the church, whether that membership begins theoretically +in infancy or in maturer years; the child is trained to see the church +as his normal society, the group into which he naturally moves and in +which he finds his opportunity for fellowship and service. The family +may well hold that relationship steadily before its members. In +childhood the child is in the church in the fellowship of those who +learn. The Sunday school is the spiritual family in groups discovering +the way of the religious life and the art of its service. The fellowship +grows closer and the sense of unity deepens as the child's relationship +passes over from the passive to the active, from the involuntary to the +voluntary--just as it does in the home--and develops, as the child comes +into social consciousness, into a recognition of himself as belonging to +a social organization for specific purposes. + + +Sec. 4. CHILD UNITY WITH THE CHURCH + +At some time every child of church-attending parents will want to know +whether he "belongs to the church." One must be very careful here, +regardless of the ecclesiastical practice, to show the child that he is +essentially one with this body, this religious family. He may be too +young to subscribe his name to its roll, but he belongs at least to the +full measure of unity appreciable by his mind. He must not be permitted +to think of himself as an outsider. Indeed, no matter what our theology +may hold, every religious parent believes that his children belong to +God. Do they not also belong to the church in at least the sense that +the church is responsible for their spiritual welfare? + +The sense of unity must be developed. Writing the child's name on the +"Cradle Roll" of the church school may help. Assuming, as he develops, +that he is a part of this spiritual family, naturally expecting that he +will have an increasing share in its life, will help more. Parents who +dedicate their children to God pass on to them the stimulus of that +dedication. A church service of dedication is likely to impress them +with a feeling of unity with the church; seeing other children so +dedicated they know that a similar occasion occurred in their own early +lives. + +The forms of relationship must develop with the nature of the child. The +church needs not only a graded curriculum of instruction but a graded +series of relationships by which children, step by step, come into +closer conscious social unity, each step determined by their developing +needs and capacities. + +It is easy to say that the responsibility lies with the church to +provide these methods of attachment. But the church we have been +sketching is a congeries of families, after all, and it will do just +what these families, particularly the parents in them, stimulate it to +do. + + +Sec. 5. INCIDENTAL DIFFICULTIES + +But what of those instances in which parents are convinced that the +church does not furnish a normal and healthy atmosphere for the child's +spiritual life? There are churches where the Sunday school is simply a +training school in insubordination, confusion, and irreverence, or where +religion is so taught as to cultivate superstition and to lead +eventually either to a painful intellectual reconstruction or to a +barren denial of all faith. There are churches of one type so devoted +to the entertainment of adults, to the ministry to the pride of the +flesh and the lust of things, that a child is likely to be trained to +pious pride and greed, or of another type, in which religion is a matter +of verbiage, tradition, and unethical subterfuge. + +Parents must be true to their responsibilities. The family is the +child's first religious institution. Fathers and mothers are not only +the first and most potent quickeners and guides in the religious life, +but they are primarily responsible for the selection of all other +stimuli to that life. Under the drag of our own indifference we must not +withhold from the child the good he would get even from the church we do +not particularly enjoy; neither dare we, for fear of criticism or +ostracism, force the child under influences which, in the name of +religion, would chill and prevent his spiritual development, would +twist, dwarf, or distort it. Responsibility to the spiritual purpose of +the family is far higher than any responsibility to a church. The +churches are ordered for the souls of men. + +What shall we do in the family when the sermon is always tediously dull? +Don't try to force children to go to sleep in church; they will never +get over the habit. Insist that there shall be a service suitable for +them parallel to the adult service of worship.[47] Next, try to +overcome the present popular obsession regarding the sermon. The church +is more than an oratory station. The sermon is only one incident. Many +criticisms of the sermon indicate that the critic measures the preacher +by ability to entertain, that he attends church to be entertained. If +that is essentially your attitude, you cannot complain if your children +are dissatisfied unless they too are entertained according to their +childish appetites. When the sermon is poor, put it where it belongs +proportionately and enlarge on the many good features of church +fellowship and service. + +In a word, let the church be to the family that larger home where +families live together their life of fellowship and service in the +spirit and purpose of religion and where there is a natural place for +everyone. + + + I. References for Study + + H.W. Hulbert, _The Church and Her Children_, chaps. i-v. Revell, + $1.00. + + H.F. Cope, _Efficiency in the Sunday School_, chaps. xiv-xvi. + Doran, $1.00. + + George Hodges, _Training of Children in Religion_, chap. xiv. + Appleton, $1.50. + + + II. Further Reading + + A. Hoben, _The Minister and the Boy_. The University of Chicago + Press, $1.00. + + E.C. Foster, _The Boy and the Church_. Sunday School Times Co., + $0.75. + + G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_, Part II. Revell, + $1.35. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What are the special common interests of church and family? + + 2. What are the fundamental relationships of the two? + + 3. What conception of the church ought to be fostered in the + children's minds? + + 4. When is criticism of the church unwise? + + 5. What changes might be made in church life for the sake of the + children? + + 6. What changes would bring the church and the home closer + together? + + 7. What should be the children's conception of unity with the + church? + + 8. Should children attend, in family groups, the church service of + worship? + + 9. Does the plan of a short service for children meet the need? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[46] See a pamphlet on _Church School Buildings_ (free) published by the +Religious Education Association; also H.F. Evans, _The Sunday-School +Building and Its Equipment_. + +[47] See the author's suggestion for the Sunday school in _Efficiency in +the Sunday School_, chap. xv. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +CHILDREN AND THE SCHOOL + + +Wise parents will know the character of the influences affecting their +children at all times. At no time can their responsibility be delegated +to others. There is a tendency to think that when children go to school +the family has a release from responsibility. But the school is simply +the community--the group of families--syndicating its efforts for the +formal training of the young. Every family ought to know what the +community is doing with its children. The school belongs to all; it is +not the property of a board, nor a private machine belonging to the +teaching force; it belongs to us and we owe a social duty as well as a +family obligation to understand its work and its influence on the +children. + +Parents ought to visit the school. Wise principals and teachers will +welcome them, setting times when visits can best be made. The visitors +come, not as critics, but as citizens and parents. The principal +benefits will be an acquaintance with the teachers of our children and a +better understanding of the conditions under which the children work for +the greater part of the day. By far the larger number of teachers most +earnestly desire character results from their work. It will help them +to know that we are interested in what they are doing. + + +Sec. 1. HOME AND SCHOOL CO-OPERATION + +Parents and teachers, both desiring spiritual results, can find means of +co-operation. Parent-teacher clubs and associations have done much to +bring the home and the school together. Meeting regularly in the +evening, so that fathers, too, can attend, gives opportunity to work out +a common understanding to raise the spiritual aims of the school, and to +discover means by which the families may aid in securing better +conditions for school work. + +One of the most important considerations relates to the moral effect of +the school life and environment. We are committed in this country to the +principle that the public school cannot teach religion, but this by no +means relieves it of responsibility for moral character. The family +needs this ally. Children expect instruction in the school and they feel +keenly the power of its ideals and the standards established by its +methods and requirements. The family and the school greatly need to +co-ordinate their efforts here to the end that there may be under way in +both an orderly program for the moral training of children. + + +Sec. 2. THE SCHOOL TEACHING PARENTS + +The school may help the home if arrangements are made for parents to +meet regularly and receive instruction in those forms of moral training +which can best be given at home. This is one method of solving the vexed +question of sex instruction. Many hesitate as to the wisdom of such +instruction in schools; but no one doubts that it ought to be and could +be given in families but for the fact that parents are both ignorant of +what to tell and indifferent to the matter. It may be that some day the +state will not only say that the child must go to school, but also that +every parent intrusted with children must either prove ability to train +and instruct in these and other matters or go to school to obtain the +necessary training. The state would not go beyond its province if it +required ignorant parents--and that means most of us in matters of moral +training--to go to school and learn our business. And without waiting +for such compulsion the school may now offer opportunity for all parents +to obtain the desired information. Teachers are especially trained to an +understanding of child-nature and to methods of pedagogy; they are +prepared to teach many things we ought to know; why should not the +family obtain the advantage of such expert knowledge? + +The school would also be within its province if it undertook to +stimulate the indifferent parents, both rich and poor, to an +appreciation of the educational task and opportunity of the home. Each +institution greatly needs the other. The school reaches all the children +of all the people; might it not be made a larger means of helping all +the parents of all the children to quickened moral responsibility and to +greater educational efficiency? + + +Sec. 3. CONTROLLING SCHOOL CONDITIONS + +The family ought to know the conditions at the school outside the +recitation or working hours. Few parents have any conception of the +power of the playground over moral character. Perhaps a smaller number +realize how dangerous are some of the elements at work there. Play of +itself is immensely valuable, but play means playfellows, and some of +these are simply purveyors of indecency and moral contagion in +conversation and act. We are required to send our children to school; we +have a right to demand freedom from moral contagion. Do you know what +goes on in secret places on the grounds? Do you know that the vilest +ideas and phrases are current in pictures, cards, on scraps of paper, +and in handwriting on walls, not only in the high schools, but often +among children of from six to twelve years of age? This is too large a +subject to be developed properly here. It is one familiar to all +wide-awake school men and women and ought to be equally so to the +parents of children. Where the school combats this evil the home should +intelligently aid; where the school is indifferent the family dare not +rest until either the indifference is quite dispelled or the indifferent +dismissed. + +Do not expect to get the facts concerning these suggested conditions by +inquiry among your children. They are reticent, naturally, on such +matters when talking with adults; besides, the sense of school honor +holds them to silence. If they tell you voluntarily, you are happy in +their free confidence. Do not betray it; simply let it lead you to make +further inquiry at the school from the authorities and stimulate you to +insist that, for the sake of the spiritual good of the young, the school +must furnish conditions of moral health. + + + I. References for Study + + Ella Lyman Cabot, _Voluntary Help to the Schools_, chaps. vii, + viii. Houghton Mifflin Co., $0.60. + + W.A. Baldwin, "The Home and the Public Schools," _Religious + Education_, February, 1912. $0.65. + + + II. Further Reading + + M. Sadler, _Moral Instruction and Training in Schools_. 2 vols. + Longmans. + + John Dewey, _The School and Society_. The University of Chicago + Press, $1.00. + + Smith, _All the Children of All the People_. Macmillan, $1.50. + + G.A. Coe, "Virtue and the Virtues," _Religious Education_, + February, 1912. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What ought parents to know about public-school life? + + 2. In visiting a school what may the parent do to acquire + information in the proper way? + + 3. How may the home co-operate with the school? + + 4. What degree of instruction in morals ought the school to give? + + 5. In what way does the school best help in moral training? + + 6. What do you know about the conditions on the playgrounds of your + own school? + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES + + +Moral crises arise in every family. Deeply as we may desire to maintain +an even tenor of character-development, in harmony and quietness, +occasions will bring either our own imperfections or those of our +children--or of our neighbors' children--to a focus and throw them in +high relief on the screen. Progress comes not alone in perpetual +placidity. When temper slips from control, when angry passions rule, +when the spirit under discipline rebels, when a course of petty +wrongdoing comes to a head, when secret sins are discovered, and when we +suddenly find ourselves confronted with a tragic problem in the higher +life, it is still important to remember that the crisis is just as truly +a part of the educational process as is the orderly, gradual method of +development. + +A moral crisis is an experience in which our acts are such, or have such +results, that they are thrown out in a white light that reveals their +inner meaning, so that they are sharply discerned for their spiritual +and character values. Then in that light courses of conduct have to be +valued anew, reconsidered, and determined. + +Two courses are open in times of moral crisis in the family. One is to +bend our efforts to settle the situation, to proceed on the policy of +getting through with the crisis as quickly as possible, to seek to +remove the pain rather than to cure the ill. The other is to regard the +crisis as a revealer of truth, to use it as a valuable opportunity, one +in which moral qualities of acts are so easily evident, so keenly felt, +as to make it a time of spiritual quickening, a chance for the best sort +of training. + + +Sec. 1. THE PROMISE OF IMPERFECTION + +The perfect child is the one unborn; shortly after his birth he begins +to take after his father. The perfect character does not exist in a +child. It is as unreasonable to expect it as it would be to look for the +perfect tree in the sapling. _Character comes by development_; it is not +born full-blown. Childhood implies promise, development. Therefore +parents must not be surprised at evidences that their children are +pretty much like their neighbors' children. Outside of the old-time +Sunday-school-library book the child who never lied, lost his temper, +sulked, or made a disturbance never existed and never will, except in a +psychopathic ward in some hospital. Could anything be sadder than the +picture of the anemic, pulseless automaton who is always "good"? + +When parents speak of the "natural depravity" of their children, they +are commonly using terms they do not understand. What they mean is the +natural immaturity of their children, a condition of imperfection in +which they may rejoice, as it shows the possibility of development. The +child is in the world to grow to the fulness of all his powers. The +powers of the higher life are to develop as truly as those which we call +physical and mental. The family is the great human culture-bed for the +development of those powers, their training-field and school. + +Does someone say, concerning a little child, "But we thought he had the +grace of God in his heart, that he had been born again and would no more +do wrong"? True, he may be born again, but there is a world of +difference between being born and being grown up. From one to the other, +in the realm of character, is a long and tedious process, with many a +stumble, many a fall, many a hard knock, and many a lesson to be +learned. Every moral crisis is part of the struggle, the experience and +training that may make toward the matured life. You have no more right +to expect your child to be a mature Christian than you had to expect him +to be born six feet tall. + +A moral crisis is a lesson. The important consideration for the parent, +then, is to see the wrongdoing of the child as an experience in his +moral upward climb; not as a fall alone, but as part of the acquisition +of the art of standing upright and walking forward. Dealing with such an +occasion one may well say to himself or herself, "This is my chance to +guide, to make this experience a light that shines forward on the way +for the child's weak feet and to strengthen him to walk in it." For is +it not true with us that practically all we really know has come by the +organizing of our different experiences? Think whether it is so or not. +And is it not to be the same with the child? + +We can study here only a few typical moral crises, perhaps those that +give greatest perplexity to parents. They cannot be successfully met as +isolated instances, but must be seen as a part of the whole educational +process. Those to whom the development of character is a reality will +watch tendencies and train them before they focalize in crises. + + +Sec. 2. THE COLLISION OF WILLS + +Parenthood presents tremendous moral strains; it is rife with +temptations. It offers a little world for autocracy to vaunt itself. The +martinets command, often totally blind to the changing nature of the +subjects as they pass from the submissive to the rebellious. One day the +parents wake up to realize that they are not the only ones possessed of +will. + +When to your Yes the child says No, while you may not applaud, you ought +to rejoice; you have discovered a will, you have found developing in +your child the central and essential quality of character. Forgiveness +will be hard to find and recovery still more difficult if you make the +mistake of attempting to crush that will. The child needs it and you +will need its co-operation. The power to see the possibility of choice +of action, to know one's self as a choosing, willing entity, able to +elect and follow one among many courses of action, is a distinctive, +Godlike quality. The opposition of wills is like the birth of a new +personality, a new force thrown out into the world to meet and struggle +and adjust itself with all other persons. + +When the collision comes, take a few long breaths before you move; take +time to think what it means. _Keep your temper._ Do not break before the +other will by an exhibition of chagrin that your authority is defied. +From now on the basis of any real authority is being transformed from +force and tradition to a moral plane. + +Therefore, first, be sure you are right in your direction or request. +You cannot afford to make the child think that authority is more +important than justice, that might makes right in the social order of +the home. If you do he will accept the lesson and practice it all his +life. + +Remember the right has many elements. There is the child's side to +consider. As soon as he can decide on courses of action his ideas of +justice are developing. To do him an injustice is to help make him an +unjust man. + +Secondly, help him to see the right. This will involve sympathetic +explanations of your reasons which you may have to give in the form of +simple arguments or of a story, perhaps from your own experience, or by +an appeal or reference to the wider knowledge of the older children. It +may be necessary to let him learn in the effective school of experience. +Other means failing, allow him to discover the pain and folly of his own +way when it is wrong. Of course this does not apply if he is minded, for +instance, to imbibe carbolic acid. But even in such circumstances it +would be better to prove his unwisdom by demonstration--as a drop of +acid on a finger tip--than to let the issue rest on blind authority. One +such demonstration gives a new, intelligible basis to your authority in +other cases. + +Thirdly, help him to will the right. Help him to feel that he must +choose for himself, to recognize the power of the will and the grave +responsibilities of its use. He is entering the realm of the freedom of +the will. Every act of deliberate choice, with your aid, in a sense of +the seriousness of choice, goes to establish the character that does not +drift, is not dragged, and will not go save with its whole selfhood of +feeling, knowing, choosing, and willing. + + +Sec. 3. ANGER + +An angry child is a child in rebellion. Rebellion is sometimes +justifiable. Anger may be a virtue. You would not take this force out of +your child any more than you would take the temper out of a knife or a +spring. Anger manifested vocally or muscularly is the child's form of +protest. But, established as a habit of the life, it is altogether +unlovely. Who does not know grown-up people who seem to be inflexibly +angry; either they are in perpetual eruption or the fires smoulder so +near the surface that a pin-prick sets them loose. Usually a study of +their cases will show either that the attitude of angry opposition to +everything in life has been established and fostered from infancy or +that it was acquired in the adolescent period. + +The angry, antisocial person is most emphatically an irreligious person; +there can be no love of his brother man where that spirit is. The home +is the place where this ill can best be met and cured, for it deals most +directly with the infant, and for the adolescent it is the best school +of normal social living. + +Let no one think the angry demonstrations of little children are +negligible or that they have nothing to do with the religious character +of the child or the adult. They are important for at least two reasons, +first, as furnishing the angry one opportunity to acquire self-control, +to master his own spirit, and, secondly, because they disturb the peace +and interfere with the well-being of others. + +It is possible to set up habits of anger in the cradle. In the first +instance the infant encountered opposition in the cradle and proceeded +to conquer it by yelling, and so, day after day, he found anger the only +route to the satisfaction of his desires. He grew to take all life in +terms of a bitter struggle and every person became his natural enemy. + +In the case of the adolescent it sometimes happens that a boy or a girl +will make a very tardy passage through the normal experience of social +aversion, the time when they seem to suspect all other people, to flee +from social intercourse and to sulk, to want to be off in a corner +alone. This is a normal phase of adolescent adjustment, coming at +thirteen or fourteen, but it ought to pass quickly. A few allow this +period to become lengthened; they fail to regain social pleasure and +soon drift into habits of social enmity. This may be due to scolding at +this period, or to a lack of healthful friendships. + + +Sec. 4. METHODS OF DEALING WITH ANGER + +It is evident that talking, lecturing, or arguing with the angry infant +will not help the case. He may feel the emotion of your anger but +misses any shreds of your logic. Parents ought first to ask, Why is an +infant angry? With the infant, with whom there are no pretensions or +affections, there is commonly a simple cause of his rebellion. The baby +yelling like an Indian and looking like a boiled lobster is neither +possessed of an evil spirit nor giving an exhibition of natural +depravity; he is lying on a pin, wearing the shackles of faddish infant +fashions, or he is trying to tell you of disturbances in the department +of the interior. Furnish physical relief at once and you put a period to +the display of what you call temper; try to subdue him by threats and +you only discover that his lungs are stronger than your patience; you +yield at last and he has learned that temper properly displayed has its +reward, that the way to get what he wants is to upset the world with +anger. That is one of life's early lessons; it is one of the first +exercises in training character. + +_Consider the future._ Each family is a social unit, a little world. +Within this world are in miniature nearly all the struggles and +experiences of the larger world of later life. It is a world which +prepares children for living by actually living. The qualities that are +needed in a world of men and women and affairs are developed here. When +young children exhibit anger parents must ask, How would this quality, +under similar circumstances, serve in the business of mature life? +Anger is an essential quality of the good and forceful character. +Somehow we have to learn to be angry and not sin. Anger is the emotional +effect of extreme discontent and opposition. For the stern fight against +evil and wrong, life needs this emotional reinforcement. But it must be +purified, it must be controlled. Like the dynamic of steam, it must be +confined and guided. Love must free it from hatred; self-control must +guide it. + +When children are angry, help them to think out the causes for the +feeling. Instead of denouncing or deriding them, stop to analyze the +situation for yourself. It may be that they are entirely justified, that +not to be angry would be an evidence of weakness, of base standards of +conduct or conditions, or of weak reactions to life's stimuli. Always +help the child to see why he is angry. Perhaps the situation is one he +may remedy himself. Is he angry because the top-string is tangled? Stay +with him until he has learned that he can remove the cause of his own +temper. + +Step by step, dealing with each excitement of anger, _train him in +self-control_. Self-mastery is a matter of learning to direct and apply +our own powers at will. It is developed by habitual practice. It is the +largest general element in character. The temper that smashes a toy is +the temper that kills a human being when it opposes our will, but it is +the same temper that, being controlled, patiently sets the great ills of +society right, fights and works to remove gigantic wrongs and to build a +better social order. That patience which is self-control saves the +immensely valuable dynamic of the emotions and harnesses them to Godlike +service. And that patience is not learned at a single lesson, not +acquired in a miraculous moment; it is learned in one little lesson +after another, in every act and all the daily discipline of home and +school and street. + +Children must learn to qualify and govern temper by love in order to +save it from hatred. When the irritating object is a personal one the +rights, the well-being, of that one must gain some consideration. There +will be but little feeling of altruism in children under thirteen; we +must not expect it; but egoism is one way to an understanding of the +rights, the feelings, and needs of others. The child can put himself in +the other's place. He is capable of affection; he loves and is willing +to sacrifice for those he loves, and when he is angry with them, or with +strangers, he must be helped to think of them as persons, as those he +loves or may love. He also can be aided to see the pain of hatred, the +misery of the life without friends, the joy of friendships. + +Anger against persons is the opportunity for learning the joy of +forgiveness and, if the occasion warrants, the dignity and courage of +the apology. The self-control, consideration, and social adjustment +involved must be learned early in life. It is part of that great lesson +of the fine art of living with others. Little children must be +habituated to acknowledging errors and acts of rudeness or temper with +suitable forms of apology. Above all, they must, by habit, learn how +great is the victory of forgiveness.[48] + + + I. References for Study + + _The Problem of Temper._ Pamphlet. American Institute of Child + Life, Philadelphia, Pa. + + E.P. St. John, _Child Nature and Child Nurture_, chap. v. Pilgrim + Press, $0.50. + + J. Sully, _Children's Ways_, chap. x. Appleton, $1.25. + + + II. Further Reading + + Patterson Du Bois, _The Culture of Justice_, chaps. i-v. Dodd, Mead + & Co., $0.75. + + E.H. Abbott, _The Training of Parents_. Houghton Mifflin Co., + $1.00. + + M. Wood-Allen, _Making the Best of Our Children_. 2 vols. McClurg, + $1.00 each. + + H.Y. Campbell, _Practical Motherhood_. Longmans, $2.50. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. What special opportunities are offered in the rise of moral + crises? + + 2. Do we tend to expect too high a development of character in + children? + + 3. How early in life do we have manifestations of a conscious will? + + 4. What constitutes the importance of early crises of the will? + + 5. What are probably the causes when children habitually defy + authority? + + 6. Is anger always a purely mental condition? + + 7. What importance have the angry demonstrations of infants? + + 8. What is the relation of the control of temper to the rightly + developed life? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[48] See Gow, _Good Morals and Gentle Manners_, chap. viii. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES (_Continued_) + + +Sec. 1. QUARRELS + +A child who never quarrels probably needs to be examined by a physician; +a child who is always quarreling equally needs the physician. In the +first there is a lack of sufficient energy so to move as to meet and +realize some of life's oppositions; in the other there is probably some +underlying cause for nervous irritability. + +It is perfectly natural for healthy people to differ; in childhood's +realm, where the values and proportions of life are not clearly seen, +where social adjustments have not been acquired, the differences in +opinions, as in possessions, lead to the expression of feeling in sharp +and emphatic terms. Rivalry and conflict are natural to the young +animal. Children do not wilfully enter into conflicts any more than +adults; they are only less diplomatic in their language, more direct, +and more likely to follow the word with attempts at force. + +In few things do parents need more patience than in dealing with +children's quarrels. First, seek to determine quietly the merits of the +cause; but do not attempt to pronounce a verdict. It is seldom wise to +act as judge unless you allow the children to act as a jury. But +ascertain whether the quarrel is an expression somewhere of anger +against injustice, wrong, or evil in some form. Sometimes their quarrels +have as much virtue as our crusades. It is a sad mistake to quench the +feeling of indignation against wrong or of hatred against evil. A boy +will need that emotional backing in his fights against the base and the +foes of his kind. While rejoicing in his feeling, show him how to direct +it, train him to discriminate between hatred of wrong and bitterness +toward the wrongdoer. Help him to see the good that comes from loving +people, no matter what they do. + +Our methods of dealing with a quarrel will do more to develop their +sense of justice than all our decisions can. Be sure to get each one to +state all the facts; insist on some measure of calmness in the recital. +Keep on sifting down the facts until by their own statements the quarrel +is seen stripped of passion and standing clear in its own light. Usually +that course, when kindly pursued and followed with sympathy for the +group, with a saving sense of humor, will result in the voluntary +acknowledgment of wrong. The boys--or girls--have for the first time +seen their acts, their words, their course, in a light without +prejudice. They are more ready to confess to being mistaken than are we +when convinced against our wishes. + +When no acknowledgment of wrong is proffered voluntarily, we must still +not offer a verdict. Put the case to the contestants and let them settle +it. Listen, as a bystander, coming in only when absolutely necessary to +insist on exact statements of fact. That course should be excellent +training in clear thinking, in the duty of seeing the other man's side, +in the deliberation that saves from unwise accusations and the serious +quarrels of later life. Teach children to think through their +differences. + +The perpetually petulant child, bickering with all others, should be +taken to a physician. Get him right nervously, physically, first. He is +out of harmony with himself and so cannot find harmony with others. When +the condition of habitual bickering seems to afflict all the children in +the family, it cannot be settled by attributing it to a mysterious +dispensation of natural depravity. The probability is that the home life +is without harmony and full of discord, that the parents are themselves +petulant and more anxious to assert their separate opinions than to find +unity of action. Nothing is more effective to teach children peaceful +living than to see it constantly before them in their parents. A +harmonious home seldom has quarrelsome children. Such harmony is a +matter of organization and management of affairs as much as of our own +attitude. + +Some children are educated to a life of quarrels by being trained in the +family that spoils them. The single child is at a great disadvantage; he +occupies the throne alone. His home life becomes a mere series of spokes +radiating from himself. When he finds the world ordered otherwise, he +quarrels with it and tries to rearrange the spokes into a new, +self-centric social order. Whatever the number of children may be, each +one must learn to live with other lives, to adjust himself to them. +Neighboring social play and activities are the chance for this. Do not +try to keep Algernon in a glass case; he needs the world in which he +will have to live some day. + + +Sec. 2. FIGHTING + +The best of men are likely to have a secret satisfaction in their boys' +fights, and the bravest of mothers will deplore them. The fathers know +how hard are the knocks that life is going to give; the mothers hope +that the boys can be saved from blows. A man's life is often pretty much +of a fight, every day struggling in competition and rivalry; we have not +yet learned the lesson of co-operation, and we still tend to think of +business as a battlefield. Something in us calls for fighting; we have +to use the utmost strength at our command to fight the evil tendencies +of our own hearts; often we rejoice in life as a conflict. It feels good +to find causes worth fighting for. If all this is true of the man, it +is not strange that the small boy, scarce more than a young savage, will +find opportunities for conflict. He is more dependent on the weapons of +force than is his father. He cannot cast out the enemy with a ballot, +nor with a sneer or biting sarcasm, nor by some device or strategy of +business or affairs. He can only hit back. Taken altogether, boys settle +their differences as honestly at least as do men. + +Moreover, children's fights are not as cruel as they seem to be; even +the bloodshed means little either of pain or of injury. A boy may be +badly banged up today and in full trim tomorrow; it is quite different +with the wounds bloodlessly inflicted by men in their conflicts. + +Does all this mean that boys should be encouraged to fight? No; but it +does mean that when Billy comes home with one eye apparently retired +from business, we must not scold him as though he were the first +wanderer from Eden. That fight may have been precisely the same thing as +a croquet game to his sister, or any test of skill to his big brother, +or a business transaction to his father; it was a mere contest of two +healthy bodies at a time when the body was the outstanding fact of life. +The fight may give us our chance, however, to aid him to a sense of the +greatness of life's conflict, to a sense of the qualities that make the +true fighter. It may leave him open to the appeal of true heroism. We +must make light of the victory of brute strength, just as we may make +light of his wounds and scars, and glorify the victory of the mind and +will. + +The boy who fights because he lacks control of temper needs careful +training. He gets a good deal of discipline on the playground and +street, but it is not always effective; the beatings may only further +undermine control. But the lack of self-control will manifest itself in +many ways and must be remedied at all points. The discipline of daily +living in the family must come into play here. + + +Sec. 3. SELF-CONTROL + +The matter of self-control is not separable into special features; one +cannot learn control under one set of moral circumstances without +learning it for all. The boy who strikes without thinking is simply one +who acts without thinking. He tends to throw away the brakes of the +will. The regain of control comes only through training at every point +in deliberation of action. + +Probably there is no other point at which children so frequently and +readily learn control as in the matter of speech. The family where all +speak at once, where a babel of sounds leads to a rivalry of vocal +organs, is not only a nuisance to the neighbors, it is a school of +uncontrolled action to the children. Just to learn to wait, even after +the thought is formed into words, until it shall be my turn or my +opportunity to speak is a fine discipline of control. To do that every +day, year after year, tends to break up the hair-trigger process of +action. + +Control is gained also by the acquisition of the habit of thought +regarding general courses of action. We can hardly expect meditation on +the part of little children. But those who are older, those entering +their teens, may and should be able to think things out, to plan out the +day's actions, to determine their own ways of conduct. Children who have +the custom of quiet, private prayer often develop ability to see their +conduct in the calm of those moments. They get a mental elevation over +the day and its deeds. + + +Sec. 4. GOOD FIGHTS + +The evident danger of undue deliberation of action must be met by +another cure of the personal-conflict spirit; that is, the substitution +of games of rivalry and skill for the unorganized rivalry and "game" of +fighting. The transition from the bloody arena to the excitement of a +game is very easy and natural. But the game is the boy's great chance to +learn life as a game to be played according to the rules. All that the +fight calls for--courage, endurance, skill, quickness of action, and +grim persistence--comes out in a good game. Here is a suitable youthful +realization of the fight that is worth waging. Our participation in the +youths' games, our appreciation of their points, our joy in honestly won +success, is the best possible way to lead up to their taking life in +terms of a good fight, a grand game, a real chance to call out the +heroic qualities. Turn every fighting instinct into the good fight that +will clarify and elevate them all. + + + I. References for Study + + W.L. Sheldon, _Ethics in the Home_, chaps. xi, xii, xiii. Welch & + Co., $1.25. + + E.A. Abbott, _Training of Parents_, chap. v. Houghton Mifflin Co., + $1.00. + + + II. Further Reading + + Ella Lyman Cabot, _Every Day Ethics_. Holt, $1.25. + + M. Wood-Allen, _Making the Best of Our Children_. 2 vols. McClurg, + $1.00 each. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. Do all children quarrel? Should one punish for small quarrels? + + 2. What are the facts which ought to be ascertained regarding any + quarrel? + + 3. What special opportunities do children's differences offer? + + 4. What are the causes of habitual petulance? What are the dangers + of this habit of mind? + + 5. Is fighting necessarily wrong? What part does it play in the + lives of men? + + 6. What are the dangerous elements in boys' fights? + + 7. What special quality of character needs development in this + connection? + + 8. What are the valuable possibilities in the fighting tendency? + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES (_Continued_) + + +Sec. 1. LYING + +Parents are likely to be wilfully blind to the faults of their children. +But some faults cannot be ignored; they must surely quicken the most +indifferent parent to thought. We suffer a shock when our own child +appears as a wilful liar. + +"What shall I do when I catch the child in an outright lie? Surely he +knows that is wrong and that he is wilfully doing the wrong!" + +First, be sure whether he is "lying." Lying means a purposeful intent to +deceive by word of mouth or written word. When Charles Dickens wrote +_Oliver Twist_ he described a burglary that never happened, so far as he +knew. He intended the reader to feel that it was true. Was he lying? No; +because he simply used his imagination to paint a scene which was part +of a great lesson he desired to teach the English public. Even had he +had no great moral purpose, it would still not have been a lie, just as +we do not accuse the writer of even the most frivolous novel of lying. +He is simply creating, or imitating, in the field of imagination. + +Imagination is the child's native world. When the little girl says, "My +dolly is sick," she is saying that which is not so, but instead of +reproving her for lying, you prepare an imaginary pill for the doll. +Many children's lies are simply elaborations of their doll- and +plaything-imaginings. When my little daughter told me, and insisted upon +it, that she had seen seven bears, of varied colors, on the avenue, +should I have reproved her for lying? Was it not better to humor her +fancy, to draw it out, to give it free play, being careful gradually to +let her know that I knew it was fancy? I entered into the game with her +and enjoyed it so long as we all understood it was only fancy. It is a +crime to crush a child's power of creating a world by imagination, a +fair world, set in the midst of this world where things are imperfect, +jarring, and disappointing, a world in which everything is always "just +so." + +But one must also carefully aid the child in distinguishing between the +world of fancy and the world of fact. This takes time and patience. We +must not rob the life of fancy nor must we allow the habits of freedom +with ideas to pass over into habits of carelessly handling realities. +Along with the development of fancy we must train the powers of exact +observation and statement of facts. The child who saw seven bears, red, +green, yellow, etc., must go to see real bears and must tell me exactly +their colors and forms. Daily training in exactitude of statements of +real facts is the best antidote for a fancy that has run out of its +bounds. It establishes a habit of precision in thinking which is the +essence of truth-telling. + + +Sec. 2. PROTECTIVE LYING + +But there is another form of lying which is frequently met in some form. +It may be called protective lying. Ask the little fellow with the +jam-smeared face, "Have you been in the pantry?" and he is likely to do +the same thing that nature does for the birds when she gives them a coat +that makes it easier to hide from their enemies. He valiantly answers +"No, Mother." He would protect himself from your reproof. There has been +awakened before this the desire to seem good in your eyes and he desires +your approbation most of all. The moral struggle with him is very brief; +he does not yet distinguish between being good and seeming good; if his +negative answer will help him to seem good he will give it. + +What shall we do? First, stop long enough to remember that appetites for +jam speak louder than your verbal prohibitions. The jam was there and +you were not. It can hardly be said that he deliberately chose to do a +wrong; he is still in the process of learning how to do things +deliberately, just as you still are, for that matter. Consider whether +your training of the anti-jam habit has been really conscientious and +sufficient to establish the habit in any degree. It were wiser to ask +these things of yourself before putting the fateful question to him. It +would be better not to ask a small child that question. It demands too +much of him. Besides, you are losing a chance to establish a valuable +idea in his mind, namely, that acts usually carry evidences along with +them. Better say, "I see you've been in the pantry." That will help to +establish the habit of expecting our acts to be known. Then would follow +with the little child the careful endeavor to train him to recognize the +acts that are wrong because harmful, greedy, against the good of others, +and against his own good. + +Just here parents, especially many religious parents, meet the +temptation thoughtlessly to use God as their ally by reminding the child +that, though they could not see him in the pantry, God was there +watching him. In the vivid memory of a childhood clouded by the thought +of a police-detective Deity, may one protest against this act of +irreverence and blasphemy? True, God was there; but not as a spy, a +reporter of all that is bad, anxious to detect, but cowardly and cruel +in silence at all other times! Let the child grow up with the happy +feeling that God is always with him, rejoicing in his play, his +well-aimed ball, his successes in school, his constant friend, helper, +and confidant. I like better the God to whom a little fellow in Montana +prayed the other day, "O God, I thank you for helping me to lick Billy +Johnson!" The child of the pantry needs to know the God who will help +him to do and know the right. + + +Sec. 3. OLDER CHILDREN + +But protective lying presents a more serious problem with older +children. The school-teacher and parent meet it, just as the judge and +the employer meet it in adults. The cure lies early in life. +Truth-telling is as much a habit as lying is. Perhaps it is more easily +practiced; its drafts are on the powers of observation and memory rather +than on those of imagination. Along with the child's imaginative powers +there must be developed the powers of exact observation and description. +Exact observation and description or relation are but parts of the +larger general virtue of precision. Help children at every turn of life +to be right--right in doing things, right in thinking, in saying, and in +execution. Precision at any point in life helps lift the life's whole +level. Truth-telling is not a separable virtue. You cannot make a boy +truthful in word if you let him lie in deed. You cannot expect he will +speak the truth if you do not train him to do the truth, in his play, in +ordering his room, in thinking through his school problems, and in +thinking through his religious difficulties. Truth-telling is the verbal +reaction of the life which habitually holds that nothing is right until +it is just right. + +Two things would, ordinarily, make sure of a truthful statement, instead +of a protective lie, in answer to your question: first, that the young +person has been trained to the habit of seeing and stating things as +they are--and that you really give him a chance so to state them, and, +secondly, that to some degree there has been developed a recognition of +considerations or values that are higher than either escape from +punishment or the winning of your approbation. He will choose the course +that offers what seems to him to be the greater good; he will choose +between punishment, with rectitude, a good conscience, a sense of unity +with the higher good, of peace with God his friend, a greater +approximation to your ideal, on the one side, and, on the other, escape +from punishment. + +Everything in that crisis will depend on how real you have made the good +to be, how much the sense of the reality of God and his companionship +has brought of joy and friendship, and how high are his values of the +actual, the real, the true. + + +Sec. 4. AT THE CRISIS + +But what shall we do as we meet the lie on the lips of the child? First, +as already suggested, do not wait until you meet it. Train the child to +the truthful life. Second, be sure you do not make too heavy moral +demands. Remember the instinct to protect himself from immediate +punishment or disapprobation is stronger than any other just then. Do +not ask him to do what the law says the prisoner may not do, incriminate +himself. We have no right to put on our children tests harder than they +can bear. Often we put those which are harder than we could face. What +you will do just then depends on what you have been doing for the +training of the child or youth. Do not expect him to solve problems in +moral geometry if you have neglected simple addition in that realm. + +Punishment by the blow or the immediate sentence will be futile. The +offender must know he has trespassed in a realm beyond your +administration and rule; he has done more than commit an offense against +you. Whatever consequences follow--such as your hesitation to accept his +word--must evidently be a part of the operation of the entire moral law. +Help him to see that lying strikes at the root of all social relations +and would make all happy and prosperous living, all friendship, and all +business impossible by destroying social confidence. + +Facing the crisis, do not demand more than your training gives you a +right to expect. Often, instead of the direct categorical question as to +guilt, we must gradually draw out a narrative of the events in question; +we must patiently help the child to state the facts and to see the +values of exactitudes. Without preaching or posing we must bring the +events into the light of larger areas of time and circles of life, help +him to see them related to all his life and to all mankind and to the +very fringes of existence, to God and the eternal. That cannot be done +in a moment; it is part of a habit of our own minds or it is not really +done at all. At the moment we can, however, make the deepest impression +by insistence on the importance of the actual, the real, the exactly +true. + + + I. References for Study + + E.L. Cabot, _Every Day Ethics_, chaps. xix, xx. Holt, $1.25. + + W.B. Forbush, _On Truth Telling_. Pamphlet. American Institute of + Child Life, Philadelphia, Pa. + + J. Sully, _Children's Ways_, pp. 124-33. Appleton, $1.25. + + + II. Further Reading + + G.S. Hall, "A Study of Children's Lies," _Educational Problems_, I, + chap. vi. Appleton, $2.50. + + E.P. St. John, _A Genetic Study of Veracity_. Pamphlet. + + J. Sully, _Studies in Childhood_. + + E.H. Griggs, _Moral Education_. Huebsch, $1.60. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. Are there degrees of lying? + + 2. When is a lie not a lie? + + 3. How can we discriminate among the statements of children? + + 4. How can we help them to recognize the qualities of truth? + + 5. In what ways are parents to blame for forcing children to + protective lying? + + 6. What of the relation of the thought of God to the demands for + truth? + + 7. Would you punish a child for lying and, if so, in what way? + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES (_Concluded_) + + +Sec. 1. DISHONESTY + +Many parents appear to think that the child's concepts of property +rights and of fair dealing are without importance. Habits of pilfering +are permitted to develop and success in cheating wins admiration. Low +standards are accepted and religion is divorced from moral questions. +The family attitude practically assumes that all persons cheat more or +less and that it is necessary only to use wisdom to insure freedom from +conviction. + +Responsibility lies at home. We shall never have an honest generation +until we have honest men and women to breed and train it. It is folly to +think we can lay on the public schools the burden of the moral education +of the young. Much is already being attempted there; yet little seems to +be accomplished because the home, having the child before and after +school and for a longer period each day, furnishes no adequate basis in +habits, ideals, and instruction for the moral work of the school. If +parents assume that one cannot succeed with absolute integrity, that +dishonesty in some degree is necessary to prosperity, then children will +learn that lesson despite all that may be said elsewhere. Honest +children grow where, in answer to the false statement, "You will starve +if you do business honestly," parents say, "Then we will starve." + +But the very home life itself can be a teacher of dishonesty. Is it +largely a matter of sham and pretense for the sake of social glory? Does +it prefer a cheap veneer to a slowly acquired genuine article? Is the +front appearance that of a dandy while the backyard looks like a +slattern? Is the home striving for more than it deserves? Is it trying +to get more out of life than it puts in? Evading taxes, avoiding duties, +a community parasite, does it commend to children the arts of social +cheating and lying? Such homes teach so loudly that no voice could be +heard in them. + +Given the atmosphere, ideals, and practices of the honest life in the +home itself, the problems of conduct, in the realm of these rights, are +more than half solved. Here in the home the real training for the life +of business takes place. Not for an instant can we afford to lower +standards here, nor to lose sight of the life-long power of our ideals, +our habits, and our attitudes on the conduct of the next generation. Do +parents know that the problems of lying, cheating, quarreling are the +great, vital questions for their children, much more important than +industrial or professional success in life; that on these all success is +predicated? If they do, surely they cannot regard the problems which +arise as mere incidents; surely they will provide for the culture of the +moral life as definitely as for the culture of the physical or the +intellectual! + + +Sec. 2. LESSONS IN HONESTY + +But children also acquire habits from their playmates. Whenever the act +of pilfering appears, the wrong must be made clear. Some sense of +property rights is necessary; not the right, as some assume, to do what +you will with a thing because you have it, but the right to enjoy and +usefully employ it. Help children to see the difference between mine and +thine. Slovenly moral thinking often comes from too great freedom in +forgetful borrowing within the family. In this little social group the +members must first acquire the habits of respect for the rights of +others. Through toys, tools, and books the lesson may be learned so +early that it becomes a part of the normal order of things. + +Children can learn that the game of life has its rules and that the +breach of these rules spoils the game and prevents our own happiness. +They can learn, too, that these are not arbitrary rules; they are like +the laws of nature; they are the conditions under which alone it is +possible for people to live together and to make life worth while. +Gambling is wrong because it is unsocial; it is the attempt to gain +without an equivalent giving. Cheating is wrong, no matter how many +practice it, just as surely as cheating is wrong in the game on the +playground. + +Children are really peculiarly sensitive to the social consciousness. In +school under no circumstances will they do that which the school custom +forbids or the older boys condemn. In the home, despite contrary +appearances, the opinion of elders, brothers, sisters, and parents is +the recognized law. Every small boy wants to be like his big brother. +Children's conduct may be guided by an understanding of the social will +outside the school and home. Help them to know that all people +everywhere in organized society condemn cheating and dishonesty.[49] + +Sentiment and emotional feeling must back up all teaching of conduct. +Your stories and readings should be selected with this in mind. The +approbation of parents and of the great Father of all enters as an +effectual motive. + +But parents seldom understand these problems; they attempt to deal with +each one as it arises until they are weary of the seemingly endless +procession and abandon the task. Their endeavors are based on faint +memories of such problems in their own youth or on rule-of-thumb +proverbial philosophy about morals and children. Does not the +development of moral ability and culture deserve at least as much +attention as any other phase of the child's life? After all, what do we +most of all desire for all our children--position, fame, ease? or is it +not rather simply this, that, no matter what else they do, they may be +good and useful men and women? Then what are we doing to make them good +and useful? + +A clear view of the need for moral training, a belief that is possible, +will surely lead to serious attempts to learn the art of moral training. +In this they need not be without guidance. There is a number of good +books on character development in the child.[50] The foundation for all +such training of parents ought to be laid in an understanding of what +the moral nature is, and then of the laws of its development. Later the +specific problems may be separately considered. + + +Sec. 3. TEASING AND BULLYING + +Teasing is the child's crude method of experimentation in psychological +reactions; the teaser desires to discover just how the teased will +respond. It degenerates, by easy steps, into a thoughtless infliction of +pain in sheer enjoyment of another's misery, and then into brutal +bullying. When only two children are together mere teasing will not +last long; either the teaser will tire of his task or his teasing will +turn to that lowest of all brutalities, delight in inflicting pain on +weaker ones. + +But teasing is a serious problem in many families; the whole group +sometimes lives in an atmosphere of ridicule, derision, and annoyance. +Teasing is likely to appear at its worst wherever a group is gathered, +for the guilty ones are under the stimulus of the praise of others; they +inflict mental pain for the sake of winning approbation. + +Teasing has a pedagogical basis. A certain amount of ridicule acts +healthfully on most persons. Even children need sometimes to see their +weaknesses, and especially their faults of temper, in the light of other +eyes, in the aspect of the ridiculous. But children are seldom to be +trusted to discipline one another; freedom to do so is likely to develop +hardness, indifference to the sufferings of others, and arrogance from +the sense of lordship. The corrective of ridicule is safe only as it is +a kindly expression of the sense of humor. The ability to see and to +show just how foolish or funny some situations are will turn many a +tragedy of childhood into a comedy. Whenever children laugh at the +distresses or faults of others, help them to laugh at their own. +Cultivate the habit of seeing the odd, the whimsical, the humorous side +of things. A sound sense of kindly humor often will save us all from +unkind teasing. + + +Sec. 4. SOME CURES FOR TEASING + +Help the habitual and unkind teaser to see how cowardly the act is, to +see how it is against the spirit of fair play. Call on him to help the +weaker one. If he is teasing for some fault of temper or some habit, +show him the chance that is afforded to do the nobler deed of helping +another to overcome that fault. + +Let the cowardly teaser reap the consequences of his own act; he must +bear the burden of the critic, the expectation of perfection. Teasing +him for his own shortcomings will sometimes cure him, but usually he +loses his temper quickly. Make him feel the injustice of the teaser's +method. If he is a bully he needs bullying. If ever corporal punishment +is wise it is in such a case. He who inflicts pain simply because he can +deserves to endure pain inflicted by someone stronger. But one must be +careful not to confirm him in the coward's code. The injustice of it he +must see, see by smarting under it. If ever punishment before others is +wise it is in this case; for surely he who delights in humiliating +others must be humiliated. But though justice suggests this course, +experience shows that it does not always work; the bully only bides his +time, and, cherishing resentment, he wreaks it on the weaker ones. + +The best cure for brutal teasing will take a longer time than is +involved in a thrashing. Besides, the teaser will get his thrashings +very soon from other boys. It requires time to change the habits that +make bullying possible. Try gradually helping him to see the beauty and +pleasure of helpfulness. Give him a chance to give pleasure instead of +pain. Help him to taste the joy of praise, the praise that helps more +than all teasing criticism. Help him to see that it is more truly a mark +of superiority to help, to cheer, to do good, than to oppress and tease. +Take time to habituate him in helpfulness. + +In dealing with teasing in the family, two other things are worth +remembering: First, the teased must be taught the protective power of +indifference. Teasers stop as soon as their barbs fail to wound; the fun +ends there. Laugh at those who laugh at you, and they will soon cease. +Secondly, the atmosphere and habit of the family determine the course of +teasing. Where carping criticism and unkindly ridicule abound, children +cannot be blamed for like habits. Where the sense of humor lightens +tense situations, where we sacrifice the pleasure of stinging criticism +for the sake of encouraging those who most need it, children are quick +to catch those habits too. The teasing child usually comes out of a +family of similar habits. On seeing our children engaged in teasing +others, our first thought ought to be as to the extent to which we may +have been their example in this respect. Constant watchfulness on our +part against the temptations to tease will have an effect far more +potent than all attempts to talk them out of the habit; it will lead +them out. + + + I. References for Study + + 1. HONESTY + + P. Du Bois, _The Culture of Justice_, chaps. iii, x. Dodd, Mead & + Co., $0.75. + + E.P. St. John, _Child Nature and Child Nurture_, chap. viii. + Pilgrim Press, $0.50. + + 2. TEASING + + W.L. Sheldon, _A Study of Habits_, chap. xvii. Welch & Co., + Chicago, $1.25. + + + II. Further Reading + + ON GENERAL MORAL TRAINING + + Sneath & Hodges, _Moral Training in School and Home_. Macmillan, + $0.80. + + E.O. Sisson, _The Essentials of Character_. Macmillan, $1.00. + + H. Thisleton Mark, _The Unfolding of Personality_. The University + of Chicago Press, $1.00. + + Paul Carus, _Our Children_. Open Court Publishing Co., $1.00. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. Of what importance is the child's sense of possession? + + 2. What are the first evidences of a consciousness of property + rights? + + 3. How do homes train in dishonesty? + + 4. What is the relation between cheating and dishonesty? + + 5. What is a child seeking to do when he teases another? + + 6. What are the unfortunate features of teasing? + + 7. What is the relation of teasing to bullying? + + 8. What cures would you suggest for either? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[49] Parents will be helped by the practical discussions of cheating, +cribbing, and other boy problems in Johnson, _Problems of Boyhood_. + +[50] See "Book List" in Appendix. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE PERSONAL FACTORS IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION + + +Whoever will stop to review his early educational experience will be +impressed with the instantaneous and vivid manner in which certain +teachers spring into memory. They are seen as though actually living +again. We have difficulty in recalling even the subjects they taught, +while of the particulars of their teaching we have absolutely no +recollection. But they continue to influence us; they are like so many +silent forces leading our lives to this day. The teacher is always +greater than his lesson, and what he is, is greater than what he says. +The religious education of the young depends more on the gift of +persons, on contact with lives, than on anything else. + +There are instructors and there are teachers; the former impart +information, the latter convey personality; the former deal with +subjects, the latter teach people. The greatest factor in education as a +process of developing persons is the power of stimulating personality. +The power of the family as an educational agency is in the fact that it +is an organization of persons for personal purposes. When you take the +persons away you remove all educational potencies. + +The depersonalized home is the modern menace. We have come to think that +provided you throw furniture and food together in proper proportions you +can produce a capable life. So we depend on the home as a piece of +machinery to do its work automatically, forgetting that the working +activity is not the home but the family, not the furniture but people. +Life can only come from life, and lives can only come from lives. +Personality alone can develop personality. By so much as you rob the +family life of your personal presence, as mother or as father, you take +away from its reality as a family, from its force as an educational +agency, from its religious reality. + + +Sec. 1. ORPHANED FAMILIES + +All that is said here about fathers might well be applied to mothers, +save that they are not as flagrant sinners in this respect, and, +besides, it comes with better grace for a father to speak on the sins of +fathers. + +There are too many fathers who are financial and physiological fathers +only. A good father easily grows as crooked as a dollar sign when he is +nurtured only on money. Many, both fathers and mothers, take parenthood +wholly in physiological terms, imagining--if they think about it at +all--that they have fully discharged all possible obligations if only +they know how to bear, feed, and clothe children properly. True, such +duties are fundamental, but no father can be rightly called "a good +provider" who provides only _things_ for his family, no matter with what +generosity he provides these things. Our homes need more of ourselves +first of all. + +He makes a capital error of setting first things in secondary places who +willingly permits business to interfere with the pleasure of being with +his children. Our social order fights its own welfare as long as any +father is chained to the wheels of industry through the hours that +belong to his home. But there are just as many who are not chained, but +who enslave themselves to business, and so miss the largest and best +business in the world, the development of children's characters. + +Many a good father goes wrong here. Love and ambition prompt him to +provide abundantly for his children; he enslaves himself to give them +those social advantages which he missed in youth. + +But it is a short-measure love that gives only gifts and never gives +itself. The heart hungers, not for what you have in your hand, but for +what you are. "The gift without the giver is bare." No amount of +bountiful providing can atone for the loss of the father's personality. +It is easy for the hands to be so engrossed in providing that the home +is left headless and soon heartless. If we at all desire the fruits of +character in the home we must give ourselves personally. + +It is not alone the habitue of the saloon or the idler in clubs and +fraternities who is guilty of stealing from the home its rightful share +of his presence. He who gives so much of himself to any object as not to +give the best of himself to his family comes under the apostolic ban of +being worse than an infidel. _A father belongs to his home more than he +belongs to his church._ There have been men, though probably their +number is not legion, who have allowed church duties, meetings, and +obligations so to absorb their time and energy that they have given only +a worn-out, burned-out, and useless fragment of themselves to their +children. Some have found it more attractive to talk of the heavenly +home in prayer-meeting or to be gracious to the stranger and to win the +smile of the neighbor at the church than to take up the by-no-means-easy +task of being godly, sympathetic and cheerful, courteous and kind among +their children and in their homes. No matter what it may be, church or +club, politics or reform organization, we are working at the wrong end +if we are allowing them to take precedence of the home. + + +Sec. 2. THE FATHER'S CHANCE + +The father owes it to his family _to give himself at his best_, that is, +as far as possible, when his vitality is freshest and his powers +keenest to answer to the young life about him. He owes it to his family +to conserve for it the time to think of its needs, time to listen to the +wife's story of its problems, time to sit and sympathize with children, +time to hear their seemingly idle prattle, time to play with them. Have +you ever noticed this great difference between the father and the +mother, that while the latter always has time to bind up cut fingers and +to hear to its end the story of what the little neighbor, Johnny Smith, +did and said, somehow father's ear seems deaf to such stories and he is +often too busy to sympathize? It might work a vast change in some +families if the "children's hour" had a call to the father as well as to +the mother. Of course we are crowded with social engagements and life is +at high pressure under the enticing obligation of uplifting and +reforming everybody else, yet one hour of every evening held sacred for +the firelight conversation, one in which the children could really get +at our hearts, might be worth more to tomorrow than all our public +propaganda. + +Fathers owe their brains as well as their hands to their families. +Competent and efficient fatherhood does not come by accident. We are +learning that children cannot be understood merely by loving them, that +two things must be held in balance: the scientific and the sympathetic +study of childhood. Is there any good reason why, while so readily +granting that mothers should belong to mothers' clubs, study child +psychology, the hygiene of infancy, domestic science, and eugenics, we +should assume that fathers may safely dispense with all such knowledge? +There are men who sit up nights studying how to grow the biggest +radishes in the block, there are men who toil through technical +handbooks on the game of golf, who would look at you in open-eyed wonder +if you should suggest the duty of studying their children with equal +scientific patience. They of course desire to have ideal children but +they are not willing to learn how to grow them. + + +Sec. 3. FATHERING AS A MAN'S TASK + +It takes intelligence and burns up brain power to keep the confidence of +your boy so that he will freely talk of his own life and needs to you. +Those much-to-be-desired open doors are kept open, not by accident, nor +by our sentiments or wishes alone. A boy changes so fast that a man has +to be alert, thinking and trying to understand and sympathize all the +time. The boy sees through all sleepy pretenses of understanding. We +keep the open door of confidence only as by steady endeavor we keep in +real touch with the boy's world. + +Fathers are ignorant of the problems of family training; they oscillate +between the wishy-washy sentimentality that permits anarchy in the home +and the harsh, unthinking despotism that breeds hatred and rebellion. +Fathers criticize the public schools but never take the time to go and +look inside one. They laugh at women's clubs because they are too lazy +to make a like investment in the patient study of some of their +problems. They affect indifference to the parent-teacher clubs while +remaining ignorant of the significant things they have already +accomplished for the schools. If we were to make an inventory of what +the women, the mothers, have accomplished by study, agitation, and +legislation for social, civic, ethical, and religious betterment, we +proud lords of creation would, or ought to, hang our heads in shame. + +Fatherhood is our chance to become. It is our chance to grow into our +finest selves. The measure of its gains to us depends upon the measure +of our gifts to its opportunities and duties. It is our chance to be +what we should like our children to be, our chance to find ourselves. +All that it costs, all the self-denial, labor, and often pain it must +mean, is just the process of developing a fine, rich life. Now, that +life is just the greatest gift that any man can make to his home and his +world. We can never give any more than ourselves or any other than +ourselves, and this pathway of sacrifice, this costly way of +home-making, is a man's chance to become Godlike. The race has come +upward in this way. It needs the masculine in its ideal self as well as +the feminine. There is no race salvation without constant individual +self-giving. That self-giving must be balanced equally on the part of +the man and the woman. Fatherhood, like motherhood, is just our chance +to learn life's best lesson, that there is a certain short path to +happiness which men have called the way of pain and God calls the way of +peace. + +Motherhood is a sacred portion, but so is fatherhood. Its calls are just +as high, its service just as holy, its opportunities just as large, its +meaning just as divine. How worse than empty are all our pratings about +divine fatherhood if we illustrate its meaning only degradingly or +misleadingly! And just as the life of the spirit is the gift of that +divine fatherhood, so for us the gift of our lives, ourselves, is the +largest and richest contribution we can make to the religious lives of +our children. + +The father as a teacher teaches by what he is. The classes in the home +have no set lessons, for the text is written in lives and the word is +spoken and taught in personality. You effect the religious education of +your children in the degree that you give yourself as a simple religious +person to them. + + + I. References for Study + + Hodges, _Training of Children in Religion_, chap. vii. Appleton, + $1.50. + + K.G. Busby, _Home Life in America_, chaps. i, ii. Macmillan, + $2.00. + + + II. Further Reading + + E.A. Abbott, _On the Training of Parents_. Houghton Mifflin Co., + $1.00. + + Allen, _Making the Most of Our Children_. 2 vols. McClurg, $1.00 + each. + + Wilm, _The Culture of Religion_, chap. ii. Pilgrim Press, $0.75 + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. Which do you remember best, your teachers or your lessons? Why? + + 2. Describe, from your memory, some of the influences of + personality? + + 3. Are these influences greater or less with parents on children? + + 4. What are the causes that separate parents and children? + + 5. How shall we define duties to business, to society, and to the + family? + + 6. Under what circumstances is one justified in refusing time to + the church for the sake of the family? + + 7. What are the best times and opportunities for the strengthening + of the personal bonds between children and parents? + + 8. How shall we overcome the apparent difficulty of maintaining the + confidence of children? + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +LOOKING TO THE FUTURE + + +Whether we can remedy the ills of family living today or not, we can +determine the character of the family life of the future. The homes of +tomorrow are being determined today. The children who swing their feet +in schoolrooms and play in our gardens will control family living very +soon. We can do little to reconstruct the old order; we can do +everything to determine the new. When the mountain sides have been made +bare, forest conservation cannot save the old trees, but it can prepare +for new growths. Ours is the larger opportunity because we can determine +the ideals of our children. Today we can determine that they shall not +suffer from false conceptions, shall not bruise themselves in the blind +ignorance that compelled us to find our own way. We shall see that, +first, in the education of our children we can save the homes of +tomorrow by training the children of today to set first things first. If +family life has been neglected in America, it has been because we have +submerged its real values of character and affection in a flood of +things, of materialism. + + +Sec. 1. A CONSTRUCTIVE POLICY FOR CHARACTER + +The future higher efficiency of the family depends on an extension of a +conscience for character through all our thinking on the family. We are +really half-ashamed to talk of character. We blush for ideals but we +have no shame in boasting of commerce and factories; we are ashamed of +the things of beauty and we love only the useful. So we have become +ashamed of the ideals of the home. Not only do we passively acquiesce in +the popular attitude of indifference or derision, but we voice it +ourselves. We join in the jest at marriage; we joke over marital +infelicities. We would be ashamed to be caught singing "Home, Sweet +Home." What is more important, we show that, as a people, we have less +and less the habit of regarding the home as any other than a commercial +affair. The tendency is to determine domestic living wholly by economic +factors. The literature on the "home" is overwhelmingly economic; its +heart is in the kitchen. High efficiency on the physiological, sanitary, +culinary, and mechanical sides makes the modern home so convenient that +you can lie on a folding bed, press a button to light the grate fire, +turn on the lights, start the toaster, and wake the children. Homes are +places to hide in at night, to feed the body, arrange the clothes, and +start out from for real living. They are private hotels. + +If we would save the family we must save the child from losing sight of +the primacy of human values; we must strengthen his natural faith that +people are worth more than all besides, leading him into the faith that +moral integrity, truth, honor, righteousness, are the glory of a life. +More, these young lives must be trained to habitual and efficient +right-doing. In a word, the conservation of the home is simply a program +of beginning today ourselves to set first things first, to conserve the +human factors that will make homes, to make education everywhere in +school and church and home count first of all for character. And that +broader education we ourselves must test first of all by this, whether +it makes youth competent to live aright, cultivates the love of worthy +ideals, and makes him willing and able to pay the price of a trained +life consecrated to the service of his world, to the love of his +fellows, and to the making of a new world. + +We shall need, first, to safeguard the primary motives that enter into +the founding of families. Those motives begin to develop early. They are +in the making in childhood. Somehow we must plan the education of youths +so that they will think of homes and of marriage in new terms. Possibly +the public school will not only teach the physiology of marriage and the +bare physical facts of sexual purity, but will teach new ideals of +family life; it will count it at least as much a duty to cultivate a +love of home as it is to cultivate a love of country. It can set so +clearly the final objective of character that even children shall see +that life has higher ends than money-making and the family greater +purposes than garish social display. + + +Sec. 2. THE CHURCH AIDING + +Certainly the church must seek to quicken and develop new ideals of +family life; it must bring religion to our hearths and homes; it must +worry less about a "home over there," and show how truly heavenly homes +may be made here. It must not only get youth ready to die, it must +prepare them to live; to live together on religious terms. It will do +this, not only by general discussions in the pulpit, but by special +instruction in classes. No church has a clear conscience in regard to +any young person contemplating the duties of a family whom it has not +directly instructed in the duties of that life. + +It is a strange spectacle, if we would stop long enough to look at it, +of the church proclaiming a way of life but scarcely ever teaching it. +In any church there is a large number of young people under instruction; +what are they learning? Usually a theological interpretation of an +ancient religious literature. Some still are learning to hate all other +persons whose religion differs from the brand carried in that +institution. In a few years these youths will be bearing social burdens, +facing temptations, taking up duties; does their teaching relate at all +to these things? No, indeed, that would be "worldly"; it would seem to +be sacrilegious to teach them how actually to be religious. The business +of the church school is still largely that of filling minds with +theological data rather than training young, trainable lives to become +religious schoolboys, religious voters, religious parents. How many have +been at all influenced by Sunday-school teaching when they stepped into +a polling-booth, when they chose a life-mate, when they guided or +disciplined their children? If religious education does not at all +influence us in the great events of life, of what value is it to us? +Must it not be counted a sheer waste of time? + +If we would conserve the human values of the family we must train youth +to a religious interpretation of the home. If we cannot do that in the +church we might as well confess that the church cannot touch the sources +of human affairs. + + +Sec. 3. IDEALS AND METHODS + +No matter what the breadth of the interests of the public school, youth +will still need training for family living given under religious +auspices and with the religious aim. The day school may give courses in +domestic economy, but family living demands more than ability to sweep a +room or cook an egg. In fact, no one can be competent to meet its higher +demands unless at least two things are accomplished, first, that he, or +she, is led to see the family as essentially a religious, spiritual +institution because it is an association of persons for the purpose of +developing other persons to spiritual fulness; secondly, that he, or +she, is moved to willingness to count the work of the family, its +purpose and aim, as the highest in life and that for which one is +willing to pay any price of time, treasure, thought, and endeavor. + +This means that the fundamental need is that our young people shall grow +up with a new vision and a new passion for the home and family. That +passion is needed to give value to any training in the economics or +mechanics of the home; and that training is precisely the contribution +which the church should make to all departments of life today. It is the +prophet, the interpreter, revealing the spiritual meanings of all daily +affairs and quickening us to right feeling, to highly directed passion +for worthy ideals. + +From the general teaching, the high message of the church, directed to +this special problem, there must be formed in the mind of the coming +generation a new picture of the family, a new ethics of its life, a new +evaluation of its worth. That can come in part by the prophetic message +from the pulpit, but it will come more naturally and readily by regular +teaching directed to the actual experiences and the coming needs of the +young people who are to be home-makers. The soaring ideals pass over +their heads, but when you teach the practice, the details of the life of +the family in the spirit of these ideals, as interpreted and determined +by the higher conception, then they catch the vision through the +details. + +We need two types of classes in church schools in relation to the life +of the family: First, classes for young people in which their social +duties as religious persons are carefully taught and discussed. Perhaps +such courses should not be specifically on "The Family," but this +institution ought, in the course, to occupy a place proportionate to +that which belongs to it in life. The instruction should be specific and +detailed, not simply a series of homilies on "The Christian Family," +"Love of Home," etc., but taking up the great problems of the economic +place of the family today, its spiritual function, questions of choice +of life-partners, types of dwelling, finances and money relations in the +family, children and their training, and the actual duties and problems +which arise in family living. + +All topics should be treated from the dominant viewpoint of the family +as a religious institution for the development of the lives of +religious persons. The courses should be so arranged as to be given to +young people of about twenty years of age, or of twenty to twenty-five. +They should be among the electives offered in the church school. + +The second type of class would be for those who are already parents and +who desire help on their special problems. Many schools now conduct such +classes, meeting either on Sunday or during the week.[51] Work on +"Parents' Problems," "Family Religious Education," and similar topics is +also being given in the city institutes for religious workers. No church +can be satisfied with its service to the community unless it provides +opportunity for parents to study their work of character development +through the family and to secure greater efficiency therein. Such +classes need only three conditions: a clear understanding of the purpose +of meeting the actual problems of religious training in the family, a +leader or instructor who is really qualified to lead and to instruct in +this subject, and an invitation to parents to avail themselves of this +opportunity. + +The value of such a class would be greatly enhanced if it should be held +in close co-ordination with similar classes or clubs conducted by the +public schools.[52] Here all the parents of the community meet in the +school building, not to discuss how the teachers may satisfy parental +criticism, but to learn what the school has to teach on modern +educational methods applied to the life of the child, especially in the +family, and mutually to find ways of co-operation between the home and +the school for the betterment of the child. + + + I. References for Study + + Articles in _Religious Education_, April, 1911, VI, 1-77. + + Helen C. Putnam in _Religious Education_, June, 1911, VI, 159-66. + + George W. Dawson in _Religious Education_, June, 1911, VI, 167-74. + + Cabot, _Volunteer Help in the Schools_, chap. vii. Houghton Mifflin + Co., $0.60. + + + II. Further Reading + + Forsyth, _Marriage, Its Ethics and Religion_. Hodder & Stoughton, + $1.25. + + Lovejoy, _Self-Training for Motherhood_. American Unitarian + Association, $1.00. + + Pomeroy, _Ethics of Marriage_. Funk & Wagnalls, $1.50. + + + III. Topics for Discussion + + 1. In how far are home problems due to the ignorance of parents? + + 2. What do you regard as the essentials in the training of parents? + + 3. Where can the necessary subjects best be taught? + + 4. What are the difficulties in the way of teaching these subjects + to young people? + + 5. In how far can we direct the reading of young people toward sane + and helpful knowledge of family life and duties? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[51] Pamphlets on plans for parents' classes: _The Home and the Sunday +School_, Pilgrim Press; _Plans for Mothers' and Parents' Meetings_, +Sunday School Times Co.; _How to Start a Mothers' Department_, David C. +Cook Co.; _The Parents' Department of the Sunday School_, Connecticut +Sunday School Association, Hartford, Conn. + +[52] See pamphlet published by the National Congress of Mothers: _How to +Organize Parents' Associations and Mothers' Circles in Public Schools_. + + + + +APPENDIXES + + + + +APPENDIX I + +SUGGESTIONS FOR CLASS WORK + + +This book is designed for individual reading or for use in classes. It +is not a textbook of the same character as a textbook in mathematics or +history, but the material is arranged so as to be both easily readable +and of ready analysis for classes. There are two methods of following +the course: one by work conducted under a regular teacher in a class, +and the other by private or correspondence study. + + +Sec. 1. THE CLASS + +The class should be composed of parents and other adults, inasmuch as +the work is designed for them. It may be a class in connection with the +Sunday school in a church, a class conducted by a mothers' club or +congress or by a parent-teacher association, or it may be organized +under other auspices. Or it might be organized by a group of parents in +any community. The class need not consist of either fathers or mothers +alone, as the work is planned for both. In any case the work of teaching +will be facilitated if, in addition to the customary officers of the +class, the teacher will appoint a librarian, whose duties would be to +ascertain for the members of the class where the books for study and +for reference may be obtained, that is, whether they are in the public +library, church library, or in private collections, and also, whenever +it is desired to purchase books, where they may best be secured. + + +Sec. 2. THE TEACHER + +The primary requisite for the teacher will be an eagerness to learn, a +sufficiently deep interest in the subject to lead to thorough study. No +one can teach this class who already knows all about the subject. A +spirit sympathetic with the child and the life of the family and a mind +willing to study the subject will accomplish much more than facile +rhetorical familiarity with it. The best teacher will not often be "an +easy talker" on the family; class time is too precious to be occupied +with a lecture. While, naturally, one who is a parent will speak with +greater experience than another, the ability to teach this subject +cannot be limited to fathers and mothers; physiological parenthood is +less important than spiritual parenthood. The teacher must have, then, +willingness to study the subject, ability to teach as contrasted with +mere talking, sympathy with parenthood, and a passion for the religious +personal values in life. + + +Sec. 3. GENERAL METHOD + +The teacher's aim will be to make this course definitely practical. The +book is not concerned so much with theories of the family as with the +present problems of the family, and especially with those that relate to +moral and religious education. There must be a sense of definite +problems to be concretely treated in all lessons. The teacher will +therefore encourage discussion, but will also avoid the tendency to +drift into desultory conversation. Direct the discussion to avoid +tedious detours on side issues. Direct the discussion to avoid the +tendency to treat superficially all the subject at one session. It will +be necessary frequently to insist that attention be focused upon the +immediate problems suggested by the lesson for the day, and to ask the +class to wait until the subjects which they in their eagerness suggest +shall come in their due order. + +Encourage personal experiences as sidelights and criticisms on the text, +but remember that no single experience is conclusive. Beware of the +over-elaboration and detailed narration of experiences. + +_Insist on a thorough study of the text._ Students should be so prepared +as to make a lecture superfluous and to allow discussion to take the +place of review and explanation. The greatest danger in parents' classes +is that the members do not study; class work becomes indefinite and soon +loses value. Again, the members of the class often are unwilling to be +governed by the schedule of lessons, and the class drifts into aimless +conversation. Adult students especially need to be turned from the +tendency to regard educational experience as having come to an end with +their school days. The members of this class will need encouragement; +they must be stimulated patiently until they have re-formed some habits +of study and rediscovered the pleasures of systematic thinking. The best +stimulus will be a teacher so convinced of the supreme importance of the +subject to be studied as to lead the members to recognize its importance +and the insignificance of any price they may pay for efficient spiritual +parenthood. + + +Sec. 4. CLASS WORK + +At the first session teach chap. i, which is introductory. Draw out +discussion on the points suggested therein, and assign this chapter and +the one following for the next session. The first lesson will give the +teacher opportunity to explain and illustrate the method of study, +presentation, and discussion. + +Assign the work carefully each week, calling especial attention to the +"References for Study." Secure promises from as many as possible to read +at least one of these references and to prepare a written report, on one +sheet of paper, for presentation at the next session. Ask others to look +into the special points which will be found in the references given +under the heading "Further Reading." + +In beginning a lesson it will be wise to call to mind first the +principle running through the book, that the great work of the family is +the development of religious persons in the home; then call to mind the +application of this principle in the last lesson. Make your review very +brief. + +Next, bring out the leading topic of the lesson for the day. This should +be done so as to present a vital issue and a live topic to the class. +Very often the best way of doing this is to state a concrete case +involving the issue discussed. The presentation of a definite set of +circumstances or a fairly complete experience involving the fundamental +principles under discussion is an instance of teaching by the "case +method." If the teacher will consider how the law student is trained by +the study of _particular cases_, the advantage of the method will be +clear. Be sure that the "case" selected will include the principles to +be taught. Prepare the statement of the case beforehand. This should be +done in a very brief narrative, so giving the instance as to enable the +class to see the reality of the question. Be sure that your instance is +itself vital and probable. A class of adults will especially need such +points of vital contact. By announcing the topic in advance the teacher +will often be able to obtain definite cases in point from the members. + +With the case thus presented take the points in the text and apply them, +first to the special case alone, but with the purpose of developing the +principles involved in that and similar cases. Beware of the special +danger of the case method, namely, that the class may discuss the +specific instances rather than the principles. + +_Teaching is more than telling_; it is stimulating other minds to see +and comprehend and state for themselves. Therefore the teacher must +first comprehend and be able to state for himself. Avoid repeating the +phrases of the text. Get them over into your own language and see that +the class does the same. Do not fail to call for the brief reports on +reading, and to make them a real part of the subject of discussion. + +_Questioning_ is the natural method of stimulating minds. Use the +question method, but do not confine yourself to "What does the author +say on this?" Direct your questions to the points stated and the issues +raised so as to compel students to think on the topics and so as to draw +out the results of their thinking. Form your own judgments and help the +class to form theirs too. Remember that the purpose of the class is to +get people thinking on the great subjects discussed. The text is not +written in order that groups of students may learn the author's +statements, but that they may be led to think seriously on all these +matters and stimulated to do something about them. + +Use the "discussion topics" given at the end of each lesson. They are +not designed to furnish a syllabus of the lesson, but to suggest +important questions for discussion, some of which may barely be +mentioned in the text. They may be used in assigning the advance work, +giving topics to different students, and they may be used in your review +of the previous lesson. + +A syllabus of each lesson will be helpful, provided it be prepared by +the students themselves. Encourage the careful reading of the lesson by +every member of the class, letting the syllabus grow out of this. + +Notebooks will have their largest value if used at home for two +purposes: first, to set down the student's analysis of the book as he +reads, secondly, to record the student's observations on definite +problems and on practice in the home. Note-taking in the class will have +very little value unless it is backed up by study at home. + +_Generalization._ Have clearly in your own mind a definite concept of +the general principle underlying each section. Read through each section +until you can state the principle for yourself. Bring your teaching into +a focus at the point of that principle before the lesson ends. Try to +get the members of the class to state the principle in their own words. + +_In action:_ The principles will have little value unless translated +into practical methods; direct your teaching to their actual use in +families. Your generalization is for guidance into application. Urge +that the plans described be actually tried. Expect this and call for +reports on plans tested in the daily experience of families. If a number +of students would try, for example, the plan of worship suggested for +two or three weeks and report their experiences in writing, together +with the accounts of any other plans tried, a valuable budget of helpful +knowledge could thus be gathered.[53] + +_Conference plan:_ Some classes will be able to meet twice a week, +taking the lesson at one session and at another spending the time in +conference. At the conference period the program might provide for (1) +brief papers by members of the class on topics personally assigned, (2) +abstracts or summaries of assigned readings, (3) discussion on the +particular points raised in the papers, and (4) conference on unsettled +questions from the lesson for the class period preceding. + +_Club work:_ A parents' club might be organized, either in a church or +in connection with a school, which would use this textbook, follow the +study work with conferences, and would secure for its own use a library +of the books listed after each chapter. Such a club would be able to put +into practice some of the plans advocated and could encourage their +application in groups of families. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[53] The teachers are especially invited to secure records of actual +experiments of this character. Accounts of tried methods of family +worship, especially those with new features, which should be given in +some detail as to the exact plan, the circumstances, the material used, +and the results, should be sent to the author in care of the publishers. +Perhaps in this way material which may be valuable to large numbers may +be gathered. + + + + +APPENDIX II + +A BOOK LIST + + +The following books would be found useful for the working library of a +class or club following the study of this text or for a section of the +church library on the home and family. The books marked with an asterisk +are the ones which may be regarded as of first practical value to +parents and others studying the development of character in the life of +the family. + +In addition to the titles mentioned below, the the references at the end +of each chapter in this book will furnish a list of other sources of +valuable material. + + + I. the Institution of the Family + + C.F. and C.B. Thwing, _The Family_. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, $1.60. + A historical survey of the family with a special study of its + modern dangers and needs. + + P.T. Forsyth, _Marriage, Its Ethics and Religion_. Hodder & + Stoughton, $1.25. An important, popular statement of the ethics of + marriage as the foundation of family life. + + *W.F. Lofthouse, _Ethics and the Family_. Hodder & Stoughton, $2.50 + net. The most important recent book on the family; traces its + historical development, the ethical ideals involved in the + institution, and discusses its present problems and perplexities. + + Katherine G. Busby, _Home Life in America_. Macmillan, $2.00 net. A + popular statement of the outstanding characteristics of life in + American homes; entertaining and informing. + + *Clyde W. Votaw, _Progress of Moral and Religious Education in the + American Home_. Religious Education Association, $0.25. A careful + and comprehensive survey, of great value. + + Charles A.L. Reed, _Marriage and Genetics_. Galton Press, + Cincinnati, Ohio, $1.00. A surgeon's message on eugenics, + especially on the aspects indicated in the title. A study of the + laws of human breeding. + + + II. Child Nature + + *E.P. St. John, _Child Nature and Child Nurture_. Pilgrim Press, + $0.50. A textbook dealing with the nature of the child and with + problems of his training in the home. + + *Irving King, _The High School Age_. Bobbs-Merrill & Co., $1.00 + net. A study of the nature and needs of boys and girls in the first + period of adolescence. Written for all who are alive to the + problems of this period as well as for school people; gives + constructive suggestions for educational problems. + + Elizabeth Harrison, _A Study of the Child Nature_. Chicago + Kindergarten College, $1.00. Long recognized as a standard for + parents in the study of the development and functions of the + child-life. + + George E. Dawson, _The Right of the Child to Be Well Born_. Funk & + Wagnalls, $0.75. A plain study of eugenics, non-technical and + helpful; includes a chapter on eugenics and religion. To be + commended to parents. + + George E. Dawson, _The Child and His Religion_. The University of + Chicago Press, $0.75. The religious nature and needs of the child + with some suggestions as to method. + + *W. Arter Wright, _The Moral Conditions and Development of the + Child_. Jennings & Graham, $0.75. An important and valuable book on + the newer views of the religious development of the child-life. + + Frederick Tracy and J. Stempfl, _The Psychology of Childhood_. D.C. + Heath & Co., $1.20. Gathers up the general results in the field of + child psychology. + + *W.G. Koons, _The Child's Religious Life_. Jennings & Graham, + $1.00. From the modern point of view, dealing with some of the + interesting problems of the relation of the child to religious life + and the development of his religious ideas. + + Thomas Stephens, _The Child and Religion_. Putnam, $1.50. A series + of short papers by English writers, particularly on the question of + child conversion. + + George A. Hubbell, _Up through Childhood_. Putnam, $1.25. A good + general review with special reference to religious problems and + religious institutions. + + Edith E.R. Mumford, _The Dawn of Character_. Longmans, Green & Co., + $1.20. A very important book, dealing especially with the moral + development of young children. + + + III. Training in the Home + + William B. Forbush (ed.), _Guide Book to Childhood_. American + Institute of Child Life, Philadelphia, Pa. Very valuable as a guide + to reading on the many problems of child-training. + + LeGrand Kerr, _The Care and Training of the Child_. Funk & + Wagnalls, $0.75. A good, general, brief study of the nature of the + child and the method of education. + + William J. Shearer, _The Management and Training of the Child_. + Richardson, Smith & Co. A popular and practical statement of many + problems and their treatment in the home and school. + + John Wirt Dinsmore, _The Training of Children_. American Book Co. + While written for school-teachers, this is one of the best studies + which parents could possibly read. + + A.A. Berle, _The School in the Home_. Moffat, Yard & Co., $1.00. + Contains much valuable suggestion to parents who really desire to + take advantage of the educational opportunities of the home. + + John Locke, _How to Train Up Your Children_. Sampson, Low, Marston + & Co., London. Written over two hundred years ago, and yet of very + great value in many parts to day. + + *William B. Forbush, _The Coming Generation_. D. Appleton & Co., + $1.50. Discusses the various aspects of child-training in the light + of the social consciousness of today. Many of the public agencies + for child betterment are carefully discussed. + + *William A. McKeever, _Training the Girl_. Macmillan, $1.50. + + *----, _Training the Boy_. Macmillan, $1.50. These two books + constitute one of the best collections of material, most practical + and helpful. They view girls and boys as active factors and all the + phases of home and community life are studied with reference to + their needs. + + + IV. Special Religious Training in the Home + + *George Hodges, _The Training of the Child in Religion_. D. + Appleton & Co., $1.50. One of the few books dealing in any modern + manner with the special problems of the religious life of the + family. + + Rev. William Becker, _Christian Education or The Duties of + Parents_. B. Herder, St. Louis, $1.00. Recent and interesting + sermons on the duties of parents in the religious education of the + Catholic child; a striking example of messages that ought to be + heard from every pulpit. + + John T. Faris, _Pleasant Sunday Afternoons for the Children_. + Sunday School Times Co., $0.50. A number of practical plans are + suggested. + + *George A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_. Fleming H. + Revell Co., $1.35. A book which all parents ought to read for its + valuable guidance on the general principles of religious education. + + Elizabeth Grinnell, _How John and I Brought Up the Children_. + American Sunday School Union, $0.70. A popular statement in a + simple form of methods of dealing with many of the problems of + religious training. + + + V. Moral Training + + Edward H. Griggs, _Moral Education_. B.W. Huebsch, $1.60. One of + the best-known books on this question, readable and helpful at many + points. + + Ennis Richmond, _The Mind of the Child_. Longmans, Green & Co., + $1.00. One of the most helpful books because of its new and + refreshing point of view. + + *Edward O. Sisson, _The Essentials of Character_. Macmillan, $1.00. + A book on the broad principles and ideals; one dealing with the + outstanding elements of character. + + Ernest H. Abbott, _On the Training of Parents_. Houghton Mifflin + Co., $1.00. A bright statement of some of the most perplexing + problems of family life. + + *Mary Wood-Allen, _Making the Best of Our Children_. First and + Second Series. A.C. McClurg & Co., $1.00 each. Takes one after + another of the different situations in child-training. + + *Patterson DuBois, _The Culture of Justice_. Dodd, Mead & Co., + $0.75. An important contribution, as it calls attention to some + frequently neglected aspects of moral training especially + applicable to the home. + + Walter L. Sheldon, _Duties in the Home_. W.M. Welch & Co. A + textbook, the thirty sections of which would furnish an excellent + basis for parents' discussions of home discipline. + + + VI. General Reading in the Home + + John Macy, _Child's Guide to Reading_. Baker & Taylor Co., $1.25. A + discussion of reading and the education of children thereby, with + suggestions and criticisms of suitable books in different + departments of reading. + + W.T. Taylor, _Finger Posts to Children's Reading_. A.C. McClurg & + Co., $1.00. A practical discussion of suitable reading for + children, with a list of books. + + *G.W. Arnold, _A Mothers' List of Books for Children_. A.C. McClurg + & Co., $1.00. The books are arranged by ages and topics, making + this one of the most useful collections available. + + Edward P. St. John, _Stories and Story Telling_. Eaton & Mains, + $0.35. A textbook, for parents' classes. It contains much valuable + material. + + E.M. Partridge, _Story Telling in School and Home_. Sturgis & + Walton, $1.35. One of the best discussions of the principles and + methods of story-telling, with a number of good stories. + + + + +INDEX + + +Activity in relation to character, 75 + +Amusement of young people, 190 + +Anger, Dealing with, 224 + + +Bible, Methods of using the, 121 + +Bible, The, in the home, 119 + +Blessing at table, 133 + +Book list on the family, 290 + +Books and reading, 113 + +Boy, The, in the family, 173 + +Boys' play, 175 + +Bullying, 253 + + +Character, A constructive policy for, 269 + +Child nature, Books on, 291 + +Child unity with the church, 207 + +Child welfare, Religious meanings of, 3 + +Childhood characteristics, 53 + +Christian family, The, as a type, 41 + +Church, The, and the children, 204 + +Church, The, and the family, 198 + +Church, The, and the program of the home, 271 + +Citizenship, Training for, 96 + +Class work, Plans of, 281 + +Community, The, in relation to the home, 88 + +Community service, 91 + +Conversation, Religious, 62 + +Courtship, 188 + + +Dishonesty, 249 + + +Economic development of the home, 13 + +Educational function, The, of the family, 46 + +Educational process, The, 49 + + +Factory system, The, and the home, 14 + +Family as an institution, Books on the, 290 + +"Family Book," 155 + +Family defined, 5 + +Family ideal in the church, 202 + +Family life, Dominating motive of, 27 + +Family worship, 126 + +Family worship, Methods of, 133 + +Father, The, and the boy, 177 + +Father, The, and the family, 263 + +Fighting among children, 234 + +Function of the family, 46 + +Future of the family, 268 + + +Girl, The, in the family, 180 + +God, The consciousness of, 64 + +Grace at table, 133 + + +Hebrew family life, 39 + +Home and school co-operation, 213 + +Home, is it passing? 10 + +Home, Religious interpretation of, 1 + +Home versus family, 18, 22 + +Honesty, Training in, 249 + +Hymns for children, 102 + + +Jesus' teaching on the family, 42 + + +Loyalty as the basic principle, 31, 54 + +Loyalty, The organization of, 57 + +Lying and the moral problem, 240 + + +Meals, Conversation at, 165 + +Moral crises, Dealing with, 218 + +Moral life, religious roots in the family, 31 + +Moral teaching, 70 + +Moral training, Books on, 294 + +Motive, Religious, in the family, 2 + +Music in the family, 105 + + +Organization of home, Purpose of, 19 + + +Parental aversion, 186 + +Parenthood and religious training, 260 + +Parents' classes, 274 + +Parents trained in schools, 214 + +Petulancy in children, 233 + +Play activity, 107 + +Play, A policy of, 150 + +Play on Sunday, 149 + +Prayers, Children's, 135 + +Prayers, Family, 137 + + +Quarrels of children, 231 + +Questions, Children's, 69 + + +Reading, Developing taste for, 115 + +Religious character of the family, 46 + +Religious development of the child, 52 + +Religious education in the family, Books on, 293 + +Religious education, Meaning of, 47 + +Religious growth of the child, 55 + +Religious history of the family, 37 + +Religious ideas of children, 60 + +Religious service, 78, 80 + + +School, The home as a, 87 + +Schools, Public, and the home, 212 + +Self-control, Developing, 227, 236 + +Social life of youth, 189 + +Social qualities to be developed, 28 + +Social training, 29, 82, 92 + +Socialization of the home, 16 + +Song and story, 101 + +Spiritual values, Place of, 30 + +Stories and reading, 110 + +Story-telling, 110 + +Sunday afternoon problem, 154 + +Sunday in the home, 145 + +Sunday play, 149 + + +Table, Ministry of the, 164 + +Table-talk, 169 + +Teasing and bullying, 253 + + +Will, Training the, 221 + +Work and character, 76 + +Worship in the family, 126 + +Worship, Outlines of, 139 + + +Youth in the home, 183 + + +PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. + + + + +THE CONSTRUCTIVE STUDIES + + +The Constructive Studies comprise volumes suitable for all grades, from +kindergarten to adult years, in schools or churches. In the production +of these studies the editors and authors have sought to embody not only +their own ideals but the best product of the thought of all who are +contributing to the theory and practice of modern religious education. +They have had due regard for fundamental principles of pedagogical +method, for the results of the best modern biblical scholarship, and for +those contributions to religious education which may be made by the use +of a religious interpretation of all life-processes, whether in the +field of science, literature, or social phenomena. + +Their task is not regarded as complete because of having produced one or +more books suitable for each grade. There will be a constant process of +renewal and change, and the possible setting aside of books which, +because of changing conditions in the religious world or further advance +in the science of religious education, no longer perform their function, +and the continual enrichment of the series by new volumes so that it may +always be adapted to those who are taking initial steps in modern +religious education, as well as to those who have accepted and are ready +to put into practice the most recent theories. + +As teachers profoundly interested in the problems of religious +education, the editors have invited to co-operate with them authors +chosen from a wide territory and in several instances already well known +through practical experiments in the field in which they are asked to +write. + +The editors are well aware that those who are most deeply interested in +religious education hold that churches and schools should be accorded +perfect independence in their choice of literature regardless of +publishing-house interests and they heartily sympathize with this +standard. They realize that many schools will select from the +Constructive Studies such volumes as they prefer, but at the same time +they hope that the Constructive Studies will be most widely serviceable +as a series. The following analysis of the series will help the reader +to get the point of view of the editors and authors. + + +KINDERGARTEN, 4-6 YEARS + +The kindergarten child needs most of all to gain those simple ideals of +life which will keep him in harmony with his surroundings in the home, +at play, and in the out-of-doors. He is most susceptible to a religious +interpretation of all these, which can best be fostered through a +program of story, play, handwork, and other activities as outlined in + + _The Sunday Kindergarten_ (Ferris). A teachers' manual giving + directions for the use of a one- or two-hour period with story, + song, play, and handwork. Permanent and temporary material for the + children's table work, and story leaflets to be taken home. + + +PRIMARY, 6-8 YEARS, GRADES I-III + +At the age of six years when children enter upon a new era because of +their recognition by the first grade in the public schools the +opportunity for the cultivation of right social reactions is +considerably increased. Their world still, however, comprises chiefly +the home, the school, the playground, and the phenomena of nature. A +normal religion at this time is one which will enable the child to +develop the best sort of life in all these relationships, which now +present more complicated moral problems than in the earlier stage. +Religious impressions may be made through interpretations of nature, +stories of life, song, prayer, simple scripture texts, and handwork. All +of these are embodied in + + _Child Religion in Song and Story_ (Chamberlin and Kern). Three + interchangeable volumes; only one of which is used at one time in + all three grades. Each lesson presents a complete service, song, + prayers, responses, texts, story, and handwork. Constructive and + beautiful handwork books are provided for the pupil. + + +JUNIOR, 9 YEARS, GRADE IV + +When the children have reached the fourth grade they are able to read +comfortably and have developed an interest in books, having a "reading +book" in school and an accumulating group of story-books at home. One +book in the household is as yet a mystery, the Bible, of which the +parents speak reverently as God's Book. It contains many interesting +stories and presents inspiring characters which are, however, buried in +the midst of much that would not interest the children. To help them to +find these stories and to show them the living men who are their heroes +or who were the writers of the stories, the poems, or the letters, makes +the Bible to them a living book which they will enjoy more and more as +the years pass. This service is performed by + + _An Introduction to the Bible for Teachers of Children_ + (Chamberlin). Story-reading from the Bible for the school and home, + designed to utilize the growing interest in books and reading found + in children of this age, in cultivating an attitude of intelligent + interest in the Bible and enjoyment of suitable portions of it. + Full instructions with regard to picturesque, historical, and + social introductions are given the teacher. A pupil's homework + book, designed to help him to think of the story as a whole and to + express his thinking, is provided for the pupil. + + +JUNIOR, 10-12 YEARS, GRADES V-VII + +Children in the fifth, sixth, and seventh grades are hero-worshipers. In +the preceding grade they have had a brief introduction to the life of +Jesus through their childish explorations of the gospels. His character +has impressed them already as heroic and they are eager to know more +about him, therefore the year is spent in the study of + + _The Life of Jesus_ (Gates). The story of Jesus graphically + presented from the standpoint of a hero. A teacher's manual + contains full instructions for preparation of material and + presentation to the class. A partially completed story of Jesus + prepared for the introduction of illustrations, maps, and original + work, together with all materials required, is provided for the + pupil. + +In the sixth grade a new point of approach to some of the heroes with +whom the children are already slightly acquainted seems desirable. The +Old Testament furnishes examples of men who were brave warriors, +magnanimous citizens, loyal patriots, great statesmen, and champions of +democratic justice. To make the discovery of these traits in ancient +characters and to interpret them in the terms of modern boyhood and +girlhood is the task of two volumes in the list. The choice between them +will be made on the basis of preference for handwork or textbook work +for the children. + + _Heroes of Israel_ (Soares). Stories selected from the Old + Testament which are calculated to inspire the imagination of boys + and girls of the early adolescent period. The most complete + instructions for preparation and presentation of the lesson are + given the teacher in his manual. The pupil's book provides the full + text of each story and many questions which will lead to the + consideration of problems arising in the life of boys and girls of + this age. + + _Old Testament Stories_ (Corbett). Also a series of stories + selected from the Old Testament. Complete instructions for vivid + presentation are given the teacher in his manual. The pupil's + material consists of a notebook containing a great variety of + opportunities for constructive handwork. + +Paul was a great hero. Most people know him only as a theologian. His +life presents miracles of courage, struggle, loyalty, and +self-abnegation. The next book in the series is intended to help the +pupil to see such a man. The student is assisted by a wealth of local +color. + + _Paul of Tarsus_ (Atkinson). The story of Paul which is partially + presented to the pupil and partially the result of his own + exploration in the Bible and in the library. Much attention is + given to story of Paul's boyhood and his adventurous travels, + inspiring courage and loyalty to a cause. The pupil's notebook is + similar in form to the one used in the study of Gates's "Life of + Jesus," but more advanced in thought. + + +HIGH SCHOOL, 13-17 YEARS + +In the secular school the work of the eighth grade is tending toward +elimination. It is, therefore, considered here as one of the high-school +grades. In the high-school years new needs arise. There is necessary a +group of books which will dignify the study of the Bible and give it as +history and literature a place in education, at least equivalent to that +of other histories and literatures which have contributed to the +progress of the world. This series is rich in biblical studies which +will enable young people to gain a historical appreciation of the +religion which they profess. Such books are + + _The Gospel According to Mark_ (Burton). A study of the life of + Jesus from this gospel. The full text is printed in the book, which + is provided with a good dictionary and many interesting notes and + questions of very great value to both teacher and pupil. + + _The First Book of Samuel_ (Willett). Textbook for teacher and + pupil in which the fascinating stories of Samuel, Saul, and David + are graphically presented. The complete text of the first book of + Samuel is given, many interesting explanatory notes, and questions + which will stir the interest of the pupil, not only in the present + volume but in the future study of the Old Testament. + + _The Life of Christ_ (Burgess). A careful historical study of the + life of Christ from the four gospels. A manual for teacher and + pupil presents a somewhat exhaustive treatment, but full + instructions for the selection of material for classes in which but + one recitation a week occurs are given the teacher in a separate + outline. + + _The Hebrew Prophets_ (Chamberlin). An inspiring presentation of + the lives of some of the greatest of the prophets from the point of + view of their work as citizens and patriots. In the manual for + teachers and pupils the biblical text in a good modern translation + is included. + + _Christianity in the Apostolic Age_ (Gilbert). A story of early + Christianity chronologically presented, full of interest in the + hands of a teacher who enjoys the historical point of view. + +In the high-school years also young people find it necessary to face the +problem of living the Christian life in a modern world, both as a +personal experience and as a basis on which to build an ideal society. +To meet this need a number of books intended to inspire boys and girls +to look forward to taking their places as home-builders and responsible +citizens of a great Christian democracy and to intelligently choose +their task in it are prepared or in preparation. The following are now +ready: + + _Problems of Boyhood_ (Johnson). A series of chapters discussing + matters of supreme interest to boys and girls, but presented from + the point of view of the boy. A splendid preparation for efficiency + in all life's relationships. + + _Lives Worth Living_ (Peabody). A series of studies of important + women, biblical and modern, representing different phases of life + and introducing the opportunity to discuss the possibilities of + effective womanhood in the modern world. + + _The Third and Fourth Generation_ (Downing). A series of studies in + heredity based upon studies of phenomena in the natural world and + leading up to important historical facts and inferences in the + human world. + + +ADULT GROUP + +The Biblical studies assigned to the high-school period are in most +cases adaptable to adult class work. There are other volumes, however, +intended only for the adult group, which also includes the young people +beyond the high-school age. They are as follows: + + _The Life of Christ_ (Burton and Mathews). A careful historical + study of the life of Christ from the four gospels, with copious + notes, reading references, maps, etc. + + _What Jesus Taught_ (Slaten). This book develops an unusual but + stimulating method of teaching groups of students in colleges, + Christian associations, and churches. After a swift survey of the + material and spiritual environment of Jesus this book suggests + outlines for _discussions_ of his teaching on such topics as + civilization, hate, war and non-resistance, democracy, religion, + and similar topics. Can be effectively used by laymen as well as + professional leaders. + + _Great Men of the Christian Church_ (Walker). A series of + delightful biographies of men who have been influential in great + crises in the history of the church. + + _Christian Faith for Men of Today_ (Cook). A re-interpretation of + old doctrines in the light of modern attitudes. + + _Social Duties from the Christian Point of View_ (Henderson). + Practical studies in the fundamental social relationships which + make up life in the family, the city, and the state. + + _Religious Education in the Family_ (Cope). An illuminating study + of the possibilities of a normal religious development in the + family life. Invaluable to parents. + + _Christianity and Its Bible_ (Waring). A remarkably comprehensive + sketch of the Old and the New Testament religion, the Christian + church, and the present status of Christianity. + +It is needless to say that the Constructive Studies present no sectarian +dogmas and are used by churches and schools of all denominational +affiliations. In the grammar-and high-school years more books are +provided than there are years in which to study them, each book +representing a school year's work. Local conditions, and the preference +of the Director of Education or the teacher of the class will be the +guide in choosing the courses desired, remembering that in the preceding +list the approximate place given to the book is the one which the +editors and authors consider most appropriate. + +For prices consult the latest price list. Address + +The University of Chicago Press +Chicago Illinois + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE FAMILY*** + + +******* This file should be named 17570.txt or 17570.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/5/7/17570 + + + +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. 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