{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_13069/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_13069","id":"gutenberg_13069","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13069","summary":null,"tags":["Boys","Category: How To ...","Category: Parenthood & Family Relations","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Teaching & Education","Church work with children"],"text":"Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this\n      file which includes the original illustrations.\n      See 13069-h.htm or 13069-h.zip:\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/0/6/13069/13069-h/13069-h.htm)\n      or\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/0/6/13069/13069-h.zip)\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE MINISTER AND THE BOY\n\nA Handbook for Churchmen Engaged in Boys' Work\n\nby\n\nALLAN HOBEN, PH.D.\nAssociate Professor of Practical Theology, The University of Chicago\nField Secretary of the Chicago Juvenile Protective Association\n\n1912\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThe aim of this book is to call the attention of ministers to the\nimportant place which boys' work may have in furthering the Kingdom of\nGod. To this end an endeavor is made to quicken the minister's\nappreciation of boys, to stimulate his study of them, and to suggest a\nfew practical ways in which church work with boys may be conducted.\n\nThe author is indebted to the Union Church of Waupun, Wis., and to the\nFirst Baptist Church of Detroit, Mich., for the opportunity of working\nout in actual practice most of the suggestions incorporated in this\nbook. He is also indebted to many authors, especially to President G.\nStanley Hall, for a point of view which throws considerable light upon\nboy nature. The Boy-Scout pictures have been provided by Mr. H.H.\nSimmons, the others by Mr. D.B. Stewart, Mrs. Joseph T. Bowen, and the\nauthor. The greatest contribution is from the boys of both village and\ncity with whom the author has had the privilege of comradeship and from\nwhom he has learned most of what is here recorded.\n\nThe material has been used in talks to teachers and clubs of various\nsorts, and in the Men and Religion Forward Movement. The requests\nfollowing upon such talks and arising also from publication of most of\nthe material in the _Biblical World_ have encouraged this attempt to\npresent a brief handbook for ministers and laymen who engage in church\nwork for boys.\n\nALLAN HOBEN\n\nCHICAGO, August 19, 1912\n\n\n\n\nTABLE OF CONTENTS\n\n\n    I. THE CALL OF BOYHOOD\n   II. AN APPROACH TO BOYHOOD\n  III. THE BOY IN VILLAGE AND COUNTRY\n   IV. THE MODERN CITY AND THE NORMAL BOY\n    V. THE ETHICAL VALUE OF ORGANIZED PLAY\n   VI. THE BOY'S CHOICE OF A VOCATION\n  VII. TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP\n VIII. THE BOY'S RELIGIOUS LIFE\n   IX. THE CHURCH BOYS' CLUB\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE CALL OF BOYHOOD\n\n\nThe Christian apologetic for today depends less upon the arguments of\nspeculative theology and the findings of biblical science than upon\nsociological considerations. The church is dealing with a pragmatic\npublic which insists upon knowing what this or that institution\naccomplishes for the common good. The deep and growing interest in\nsocial science, the crying needs that it lays bare, together with\nsocialistic dreams of human welfare, compel Christian workers to pay\nmore heed to the life that now is, since individualistic views of\nsalvation in the world to come do not fully satisfy the modern\nconsciousness.\n\nHence the ministry is compelled more and more to address itself to the\nsalvation of the community and the nation after the fashion of the\nHebrew prophets. Lines of distinction also between what is religious and\nwhat is secular in education and in all human intercourse have become\nirregular or dim; and the task of bringing mankind to fullness and\nperfection of life has become the task alike of the educator,  the\nminister, the legislator, and the social worker. In fact, all who in any\ncapacity put their hands to this noble undertaking are co-workers with\nHim whose divine ideal was to be consummated in the Kingdom of God on\nearth.\n\nThe ministry, therefore, is taking on a great variety of forms of\nservice, and the pastor is overtaxed. The church, moreover, is slow to\nrecognize the principle of the division of labor and to employ a\nsufficient number of paid officers. Only the pressing importance of work\nfor boys can excuse one for suggesting another duty to the conscientious\nand overworked pastor. Already too much has been delegated to him alone.\nEvery day his acknowledged obligations outrun his time and strength, and\nhe must choose but a few of the many duties ever pressing to be done.\nYet there is no phase of that larger social and educational conception\nof the pastor's work that has in it more of promise than his ministry to\nboys. Whatever must be neglected, the boy should not be overlooked.\n\nTo answer this complex demand and the call of boyhood in particular the\npastor must be a leader and an organizer. Otherwise, troubles and\nvicissitudes await him. In every field unused possibilities hasten the\nday of his departure. Idle persons who should have been led into worthy\nachievement for Christ and the church fall into critical gossip, and\nthere soon follows another siege perilous for the minister's\nfreight-wracked furniture, another flitting experience for his homeless\nchildren, another proof of his wife's heroic love, and another scar on\nhis own bewildered heart.\n\nIt is, indeed, difficult for the pastor to adopt a policy commensurate\nwith modern demands. He should lead, but on the other hand a very\nlegitimate fear of being discredited through failure deters him;\ntraditional methods hold the field; peace at any price and pleasurable\nsatisfaction play a large part in church affairs; the adult, whose\ncharacter is already formed, receives disproportionate attention; money\nfor purposes of experimentation in church work is hard to get;\neverything points to moderation and the beaten path; and the way of the\nchurch is too often the way of least resistance. Small wonder if the\nminister sometimes capitulates to things as they are and resigns himself\nto the ecclesiastical treadmill.\n\nIt requires no small amount of courage to be governed by the facts as\nthey confront the intelligent pastor, to direct one's effort where it is\nmost needed and where it will,  in the long run, produce the greatest\nand best results. To be sure, the adult needs the ministry of teaching,\ninspiration, correction, and comfort to fit him for daily living; but,\nas matters now stand, the chief significance of the adult lies in the\nuse that can be made of him in winning the next generation for Christ.\nIn so far as the adult membership may contribute to this it may lay\nclaim to the best that the minister has. In so far as it regards his\nministry as a means of personal pleasure, gratification, and religious\nluxury, it is both an insult to him and an offense to his Master.\n\nA successful ministry to boys, whether by the pastor himself or by those\nwhom he shall inspire and guide, is fundamental in good pastoral work.\nBoys now at the age of twelve or fifteen will, in a score of years,\nmanage the affairs of the world. All that has been accomplished--the\ninventions, the wealth, the experience in education and government, the\nvast industrial and commercial systems, the administration of justice,\nthe concerns of religion--all will pass into their control; and they\nwho, with the help of the girls of today, must administer the world's\naffairs, are, or may be, in our hands now when their ideals are nascent\nand their whole natures in flux.\n\nBoys' work, then, is not providing harmless amusement for a few\ntroublesome youngsters; it is the natural way of capturing the modern\nworld for Jesus Christ. It lays hold of life in the making, it creates\nthe masters of tomorrow; and may pre-empt for the Kingdom of God the\nvaried activities and startling conquests of our titanic age. Think of\nthe great relay of untamed and unharnessed vigor, a new nation exultant\nin hope, undaunted as yet by the experiences that have halted the\npassing generation: what may they not accomplish? As significant as the\nawakening of China should the awakening of this new nation be to us. In\neach case the call for leadership is imperative, and the best ability is\nnone too good. Dabblers and incompetent persons will work only havoc,\nwhether in the Celestial Empire or in the equally potent Kingdom of\nBoyhood. The bookworm, of course, is unfit even if he could hear the\ncall, and the nervous wreck is doomed even if he should hear it; but the\nfit man who hears and heeds may prevent no small amount of delinquency\nand misery, and may deliver many from moral and social insolvency.\n\nIf a minister can do this work even indirectly he is happy, but if he\ncan do it directly by virtue of his wholesome character, his genuine\nknowledge and love of boys, his athletic skill, and his unabated zest\nfor life, his lot is above that of kings and his reward above all\nearthly riches.\n\nThen, too, it is not alone the potential value of boys for the Kingdom\nof God, and what the minister may do for them; but what may they not do\nfor him? How fatal is the boy collective to all artificiality,\nsanctimony, weakness, make-believe, and jointless dignity; and how prone\nis the ministry to these psychological and semi-physical pests! For,\nowing to the demands of the pulpit and of private and social\nintercourse, the minister finds it necessary to talk more than most men.\nHe must also theorize extensively because of the very nature of\ntheological discipline. Moreover, he is occupied particularly with those\naffairs of the inner life which are as intangible as they are important.\nHis relation with people is largely a Sunday relation, or at any rate a\nreligious one, and he meets them on the pacific side. Very naturally\nthey reveal to him their best selves, and, true to Christian charity and\ntraining, he sees the best in everyone. If the women of his parish\nreceive more than their proper share of attention the situation is\nproportionately worse. It follows that the minister needs the most\nwholesome contact with stern reality in order to offset the subtle drift\ntoward a remote, theoretical, or sentimental world. In this respect\ncommercial life is more favorable to naturalness and virility; while a\nfair amount of manual labor is conducive to sanity, mental poise, and\nsound judgment as to the facts of life. The minister must have an\nelemental knowledge of and respect for objective reality; and he must\nknow human nature.\n\nNow among all the broad and rich human contacts that can put the\nminister in touch with vital realities there is none so electric, so\nnear to revelation as the boy. Collectively he is frank to the point of\ncruelty and as elemental as a savage. Confronted alone and by the\nminister, who is not as yet his chum, he reveals chiefly the minister's\nhelplessness. Taken in company with his companions and in his play he is\na veritable searchlight laying bare those manly and ante-professional\nqualities which must underlie an efficient ministry. Later life, indeed,\nwears the mask, praises dry sermons, smiles when bored, and takes\ncareful precautions against spontaneity and the indiscretions of\nunvarnished truth; but the boy among his fellows and on his own ground\nrepresents the normal and unfettered reaction of the human heart to a\ngiven personality. The minister may be profoundly benefited by knowing\nand heeding the frank estimate of a \"bunch\" of boys. They are the\nadvance agents of the final judgment; they will find the essential man.\nMay it not be with him as with Kipling's Tomlinson, who, under the\nexamination of both \"Peter\" and the \"little devils,\" was unable to\nqualify for admission either to heaven or hell:\n\n    And back they came with the tattered Thing, as\n       children after play,\n    And they said: \"The soul that he got from God he has\n       bartered clean away.\n    We have threshed a stook of print and book, and\n       winnowed a chattering wind\n    And many a soul wherefrom he stole, but his we\n       cannot find:\n    We have handled him, we have dandled him, we have\n       seared him to the bone,\n    And sure if tooth and nail show truth he has no soul\n       of his own.\"\n\nFortunately, however, ministerial professionalism is on the wane.\nProtestantism, in its more democratic forms, rates the man more and the\noffice less, and present-day tests of practical efficiency are adverse\nto empty titles and pious assumption. To be \"Reverend\" means such\ncharacter and deeds as compel  _reverence_ and not the mere \"laying on\nof hands.\" Work with boys discovers this basis, for there is no place\nfor the holy tone in such work, nor for the strained and vapid quotation\nof Scripture, no place for excessively feminine virtues, nor for the\nprofessional hand-shake and the habitual inquiry after the family's\nhealth. In a very real sense many a minister can be saved by the boys;\nhe can be saved from that invidious classification of adult society into\n\"men, women, and ministers,\" which is credited to the sharp insight of\nGeorge Eliot.\n\nThe minister is also in need of a touch of humor in his work. The\nsadness of human failure and loss, the insuperable difficulties of his\ntask, the combined woes of his parish, the decorum and seriousness of\npulpit work--all operate to dry up the healthy spring of humor that\nbubbled up and overran in his boyhood days. What health there is in a\nlaugh, what good-natured endurance in the man whose humor enables him to\n\"side-step\" disastrous and unnecessary encounters and to love people\nnone the less, even when they provoke inward merriment. The boys' pastor\nwill certainly take life seriously, but he cannot take it somberly.\nSomewhere in his kind, honest eye there is a glimmer, a blessed survival\nof his own boyhood.\n\nSo, being ministered to by the comradeship of boys, he retains his\nsense of fun, fights on in good humor, detects and saves himself on the\nverge of pious caricature and solemn bathos; knows how to meet important\ncommittees on microscopic reforms as well as self-appointed theological\ninquisitors and all the insistent cranks that waylay a busy pastor. Life\ncannot grow stale; and by letting the boys lead him forth by the streams\nof living water and into the whispering woods he catches again the wild\ncharm of that all-possible past: the smell of the campfire, the joyous\nfreedom and good health of God's great out-of-doors. Genius and success\nin life depend largely upon retaining the boyish quality of enthusiastic\nabandon to one's cause, the hearty release of one's entire energy in a\ngiven pursuit, and the conviction that the world is ever new and all\nthings possible. The thing in men that defies failure is the original\nboy, and \"no man is really a man who has lost out of him all the boy.\"\n\nThe boy may also be a very practical helper in the pastor's work. In\nevery community there are some homes in which the pastor finds it almost\nimpossible to create a welcome for himself. Misconceptions of long\nstanding, anti-church sentiments, old grievances block the way. But if\nin such a home there is a boy whose loyalty the pastor has won through\nassociation in the boys' club, at play, in camp--anywhere and\nanyhow--his eager hand will open both home and parental hearts to the\nwholesome friendship and kindly counsel of the minister of Christ. When\nthe boy's welfare is at stake how many prejudices fade away! The\nreliable sentiment of fathers and mothers dictates that he who takes\ntime to know and help their boy is of all persons a guest to be welcomed\nand honored, and withal, a practical interpreter of Christianity. The\npastor whose advance agent is a boy has gracious passport into the homes\nwhere he is most needed. He has a friend at court. His cause is almost\nwon before he has uttered one syllable of a formal plea.\n\nFurther, it must be apparent to all intelligent observers that the\nchurches in most communities are in need of a more visible social\nsanction for their existence. In the thought of many they are expensive\nand over-numerous institutions detached from the actual community life\nand needs. Boys' work constitutes one visible strand of connection with\nthe live needs of the neighborhood; and, human nature being what it is,\nthis tangible service is essential to the formation of a just, popular\nestimate of the church and the ministry. Talk is easy and the market is\nalways overstocked. The shortage is in deeds, and the doubtful community\nis saying to the minister, \"What do you do?\" It is well if among other\nthings of almost equal importance he can reply, \"We are saving your boys\nfrom vice and low ideals, from broken health and ruined or useless\nlives, by providing for wholesome self-expression under clean and\ninspiring auspices. The Corban of false sanctity has been removed; our\nplant and our men are here to promote human welfare in every legitimate\nway.\" Boys' work affords a concrete social sanction that has in it a\nwealth of sentiment and far-reaching implications.\n\nClosely allied with this is the help that the boy renders as an\nadvertiser. The boy is a tremendous promoter of his uppermost interest;\nand, while boys' work must not be exploited for cheap and unworthy\nadvertising purposes but solely for the good of the boy himself, the\nfact remains that the boy is an enterprising publicity bureau. The\nminister who gives the boy his due of love, service, and friendship will\nunwittingly secure more and better publicity than his more scholastic\nand less human brother. In the home and at school, here, there, and\neverywhere, these unrivaled enthusiasts sound the praises of the\ninstitution and the man. Others of their own kind are interested, and\nreluctant adults are finally drawn into the current. The man or church\nthat is doing a real work for boys is as a city set on a hill.\n\nThe pastor needs the boys because his task is to enlist and train the\nChristians and churchmen of the future. These should be more efficient\nand devoted than those of the present, and should reckon among their\ndearest memories the early joyous associations formed within the church.\nMany thoughtful ministers are perplexed by the alienation of\nwage-earners from the church; but what could not be accomplished in the\nbetterment of this condition if for one generation the churches would\nbend their utmost devotion and wisdom to maintaining institutions that\nwould be worth while for all the boys of the community? A boy genuinely\ninterested and properly treated is not going to turn his back upon the\ninstitution or the man that has given him the most wholesome enjoyment\nand the deepest impressions of his life. The reason why the church does\nnot get and hold the boy of the wage-earner, or any other boy, is\nbecause it stupidly ignores him, his primary interests, and his\nessential nature; or goes to the extreme bother of making itself an\ninsufferable bore.\n\nThe reflex influence of boys' work upon the church herself should not be\nignored. Here is a great plant moldering away in silence. Not to mention\nthe auditorium, even the Sunday-school quarters and lecture-room are\nvery little used, and this in communities trained to sharp economic\ninsight and insisting already that the public-school buildings be made\nto serve the people both day and night and in social as well as\neducational lines.\n\nThe basement is perhaps the most vulnerable point in the armor of\nexclusive sanctity that encases the church. Here, if anywhere, organized\nchurch work for boys may be tolerated. Whenever it is, lights begin to\nshine from the basement windows several evenings a week, a noisy\nenthusiasm echoes through the ghostly spaces above, in a literal and\nfigurative sense cobwebs are brushed away. The stir is soon felt by the\nwhole church. A sense of usefulness and self-confidence begins to\npossess the minds of the members. Things are doing; and the dignity and\ndesirability of having some part in an institution where things are\ndoing inspires the members and attracts non-members.\n\nIt will be a sad day for the pastor and the church when they agree to\ndelegate to any other institution all organized work for boys and\nespecially those features which the boys themselves most enjoy. The\nideal ministry to boyhood must not be centralized away from the church\nnor taken altogether out of the hands of the pastor. There is no place\nwhere the work can be done in a more personal way, and with less danger\nof subordinating the interests of the individual boy to mammoth\ninstitutional machinery and ambition, than in the church. The numerous\nsmall groups in the multitude of churches afford unequaled opportunity\nfor intimate friendship, which was pre-eminently the method of Jesus,\nand for the full play of a man's influence upon boy character.\n\nThe pastor who abdicates, and whose church is but a foraging ground for\nother institutions which present a magnificent exhibit of social\nservice, may, indeed, be a good man, but he is canceling the charter of\nthe church of tomorrow. It is at best a close question as to how the\nchurch will emerge from her present probation, and the pastor should be\nwise enough to reckon with the estimate in which the community and the\nboy hold him and the organization that he serves. And if he wants\nbusiness men of the future who will respect and support the church,\nlaboring men who will love and attend the church, professional men who\nwill believe in and serve an efficient church, he must get the boys who\nare to be business men, wage-earners, and professional men, and he must\nhold them.\n\nIf he is concerned that there should be strong, capable men to take up\nthe burden of church leadership in the future let him create such\nleadership in his own spiritual image from the plastic idealism of\nboyhood. Let the hero-worship age, without a word of compulsion or\nadvice, make its choice with him present as a sample of what the\nminister can be, and tomorrow there will be no lack of virile high-class\nmen in pulpit and parish. As a rule the ideals that carry men into the\nministry are born, not in later youth nor in maturity, but in the period\ncovered by the early high-school years; and the future leadership of the\nchurch is secure if the right kind of ministers mingle with boys of that\nage on terms of unaffected friendship and wholesome community of\ninterest.\n\nThen too there are the riches of memory and gratitude that bulk so large\nin a true pastor's reward. If in the years to come the minister wishes\nto warm his heart in the glow of happy memories and undying gratitude,\nlet him invest his present energy in the service of boys. If the\nminister could but realize the vast significance of such work, if he\ncould feel the lure of those untold values lying like continents on the\nedge of the future awaiting discovery and development, if he could but\nknow that he is swinging incipient forces of commanding personality into\ntheir orbits, directing destiny for the individual, predetermining for\nrighteousness great decisions of the future, laying hold of the very\nkingdoms of this world for Christ, he surely would never again bemean\nhimself in his own thought nor discount his peerless calling.\n\nTo be sure, there are certain satisfactions that a minister may lose all\ntoo quickly in these days. The spell of his eloquence may soon pass; the\nundivided love of all the people is no permanent tenure of him who\nspeaks the truth even in love; speedy dissatisfaction and unbridled\ncriticism are, alas, too often the practice of church democracy; but\nthat man who has won the love of boys has thrown about himself a\nbodyguard whose loyalty will outmatch every foe.\n\nIn the hour of reaction from intense and unrewarded toil the empty\nchambers of the preacher's soul may echo in bitterness the harsh\nmisanthropy of a scheming world. Then it is that he needs the boys, the\nundismayed defenders of his faith. Let him name their names until the\nague goes out of his heart and the warm compassion of the Man of Galilee\nreturns. To be a hero and an ideal in the estimate of anyone is indeed a\ngreat call to the best that is in us; and when the minister, in the dark\nday or the bright, hears the acclaim of his bodyguard let him believe\nthat it is the call of God to manhood that has the triple strength of\nfaith, hope, and love.\n\nAll of this and much more they surely can and will do for him, and if\nthe pastor who thinks that he has no field or who is getting a bit weary\nor professional in the routine ministry to unromantic middle life could\nbut behold within his parish, however small, this very essence of vital\nreality, this allurement of unbounded possibility, this challenge of a\nlively paganism, and this greatest single opportunity to bring in the\nKingdom of God, he would, in the very discovery of the boy and his\nsignificance, re-create himself into a more useful, happy, and genuine\nman. Is it not better to find new values in the old field than to pursue\nsuperficial values in a succession of new fields?\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nAN APPROACH TO BOYHOOD[1]\n\n\nIf the minister is to do intelligent work with boys he must have some\nknowledge of the ground plan of boyhood and he must believe that the boy\nboth demands and merits actual study. Specific acquaintance with each\none severally, alert recognition of individuality, variety, and even\nsport, and an ample allowance for exceptions to every rule will greatly\naid in giving fitness to one's endeavor; but beneath all of these\narchitectural peculiarities lies the common biological foundation. To\nknow the human organism genetically, to have some knowledge of the\nprocesses by which it reaches its normal organization, to appreciate the\ncrude and elemental struggle that has left its history in man's bodily\nstructure, to think in large biological terms that include, besides \"the\nphysics and chemistry of living matter,\" considerations ethnological,\nhereditary, and psychological, is to make fundamental preparation for\nthe understanding of boyhood.\n\nFor the family to which the boy belongs is the human family. His parents\nalone and their characteristics do not explain him, nor does\ncontemporary environment, important as that is. His ancestry is the\nhuman race, his history is their history, his impulses and his bodily\nequipment from which they spring are the result of eons of strife,\nsurvival, and habit. Four generations back he has not two but sixteen\nparents. Thus he comes to us out of the great physical democracy of\nmankind and doubtless with a tendency to re-live its ancient and\ndeep-seated experiences.\n\nThis theory of race recapitulation as applied to the succeeding stages\nof boyhood may be somewhat more poetic than scientific. Genetically he\ndoes those things for which at the time he has the requisite muscular\nand nervous equipment, but the growth of this equipment gives him a\nseries of interests and expressions that run in striking parallel to\nprimitive life. If the enveloping society is highly civilized and\nartificial, much of his primitive desire may be cruelly smothered or too\nhastily refined or forced into a criminal course. But memory,\nexperience, observation, and experiment force one to note that the\nparallel does exist and that it is vigorously and copiously attested by\nthe boy's likes and deeds. At the same time the theory is to be used\nsuggestively rather than dogmatically, and the leader of boys will not\nimagine that to reproduce the primitive life is the goal of his\nendeavor. It is by the recognition of primitive traits and by connecting\nwith them as they emerge that the guide of boyhood may secure an\nintelligent and well-supported advance.\n\nSuch an approach favors a sympathetic understanding of the boy. To\nbehold in him a rough summary of the past, and to be able to capitalize\nfor good the successive instincts as they appear, is to accomplish a\nfine piece of missionary work without leaving home. Africa and Borneo\nand Alaska come to you. The fire-worshiper of ancient times, the fierce\ntribesman, the savage hunter and fisher, the religion-making nomad, the\ndaring pirate, the bedecked barbarian, the elemental fighter with nature\nand fellow and rival of every kind, the master of the world in\nmaking--comes before you in dramatic and often pathetic array in the\nunfolding life of the ordinary boy.\n\nOur topmost civilization, although sustained and repleted by this\noriginal stuff, takes all too little account of these elemental traits.\nIn the growing boy the ascending races are piled one on top of another.\nIn him you get a longitudinal section of human nature since its\nbeginning. He is an abridged volume on ethnology; and because he is on\nthe way up and elected to rule, it is more of a mistake to neglect him\nthan it is to neglect any of those races that have suffered a\nlong-continued arrest at some point along the way. Of course anyone\nexpecting to note by day and hour the initial emergence of this or that\nparticular trait of primitive man will be disappointed. The thing for\nthe friend of the boy to know is that in him the deep-set habits which\nmade the human body the instrument it is, the old propensities of savage\nlife are voices of the past, muffled, perhaps, but very deep and\ninsistent, calling him to do the things which for ages were done and to\nmake full trial of the physique which modern civilization threatens with\ndisuse or perversion.\n\n[Illustration: MIGHTY HUNTERS]\n\n[Illustration: THE LURE OF THE WATER]\n\nLet a number of the common traits of boyhood testify. There is the gang\ninstinct which is noticeably dominant during the years from twelve to\nfifteen. Probably 80 per cent of all boys of this age belong to some\ngroup answering dimly to ancient tribal association and forming the\nfirst social circle outside the home. A canvass of the conditions of boy\nlife in the Hyde Park district of Chicago revealed the existence of such\ngangs on an average of one to every two blocks, and the situation is not\nmaterially different in other parts of the city or in the smaller towns.\nThe gang is thus the initial civic experiment for better or for worse,\nthe outreach after government, co-operative power, and the larger self\nwhich can be found only in association. During this age and within his\ngroup the boy does not act as one possessing clear and independent moral\nresponsibility. He acts as part of the gang, subject to its ideals, and\npractically helpless against its codes of conduct and its standards of\nloyalty.\n\nOne hot afternoon I ran across a group \"in swimming\" at a forbidden spot\non the shore of Lake Michigan. As we talked and tended the fire, which\ntheir sun-blistered bodies did not need, one of the lads suddenly fired\nat me point-blank the all-important question, \"What do you belong to?\"\nBeing unable to give an answer immediately favorable to our growing\nfriendship, I countered with \"What do _you_ belong to?\" \"Oh,\" said he,\n\"I belong to de gang.\" \"What gang?\" \"De gang on de corner of Fitty Fit\nand Cottage Grove.\" \"And what do you do?\" \"Ah, in de ev'nin' we go out\nand ketch guys and tie 'em up.\" Allowing for nickel-show and Wild-West\nsuggestions, there remains a touch of a somewhat primitive exploit.\n\nAnother interesting gang was found occupying a cave in the saloon\ndistrict of Lake Avenue. The cave takes precedence over the shack as a\nrendezvous because it demands no building material and affords more\nsecrecy. Beneath the cave was a carefully concealed seven-foot\nsub-cellar which they had also excavated. This served as a guardhouse\nfor unruly members and as a hiding-place for loot. When in conclave,\neach boy occupied his space on a bench built against the sides of the\ncave, his place being indicated by his particular number on the mud\nwall. This gang had forty-eight members and was led by a dissolute\nfellow somewhat older than the others, one of those dangerous boys\nbeyond the age of compulsory education and unfitted for regular work.\nThey played cards, \"rushed the can,\" and all hands smoked cigarettes.\n_Facilis descensus Averno._ The love of adventure and hunting was\nillustrated in the case of two other boys of this neighborhood who were\nbut ten and eleven years of age. Having stolen eleven dollars and a\nuseless revolver, they ran away to Milwaukee. When taken in hand by the\npolice of that city they solemnly declared that they had \"come to\nWisconsin to shoot Injuns.\"\n\nMuch could be said of the love of fire which has not yet surrendered all\nof its charm for even the most unromantic adult. The mystic thrill that\nwent through the unspoiled nerves of pre-historic man and filled his\nmind with awe is with us still. The boy above all others yields to its\nspell. Further, by means of a fire he becomes, almost without effort, a\nwonderworking cause, a manipulator of nature, a miracle worker. Hence\nthe vacant lots are often lighted up; barrels, boxes, and fences\ndisappear; and one almost believes that part of the charm of smoking is\nin the very making of the smoke and seeing it unwind into greater\nmystery as did incense from thousands of altars in the long-ago.\n\nThis elemental desire to be a cause and to advertise by visible,\naudible, and often painful proofs the fact of one's presence in the\nworld is also basal. It is the compliment which noisy childhood and\nindustrious boyhood insistently demand from the world about. Even the\ninfant revels in this testimony,  preferring crude and noisy playthings\nof proportion to the innocent nerve-sparing devices which the adult\ntries to foist upon him. The coal scuttle is made to proclaim causal\nrelation between the self in effort and the not-self in response more\nsatisfactorily than the rag doll; and the manifest glee over the\ncontortions of the playful father whose hand is slapped is not innate\ncruelty but the delight of successful experiment in causation.\n\nSo of the noise and bluster, the building and destruction, the teasing\nand torture so often perpetrated by the boy. He is saying that he is\nhere and must be reckoned with, and he wishes to make his presence as\nsignificant as possible. If home, school, and community conditions are\nsuch as to give healthful direction to both his constructive and\ndestructive experimentation, all is well, but if society cannot so\nprovide he will still exploit his causal relation although it must be in\nviolation of law and order. The result is delinquency, but even in this\nhe glories. It often gives a more pungent and romantic testimony than\ncould otherwise be secured. It is the flaring yellow advertisement of\nmisdirected effectiveness. Probably there mingles with this impulse the\nlove of adventure as developed in the chase.  \"Flipping cars,\"\ntantalizing policemen, pilfering from fruit stands are frequently the\ndegenerate, urban forms of the old quest of, and encounter with, the\ngame of forest and jungle.\n\nThen there is the lure of the water, which explains more than half his\nschool truancy during the open season. It is a fine spring or summer\nday. The _Wanderlust_ of his ancestry is upon the boy. The periodic\nmigration for game or with the herds, the free range of wood and stream,\nor the excitement of the chase pulsates in his blood. Voices of the far\npast call to something native in him. The shimmer of the water just as\nthey of old saw it, the joyous chance of taking game from its unseen\ndepths, or of getting the full flush of bodily sensation by plunging\ninto it, the unbridled pursuit of one's own sweet will under the free\nair of heaven--these are the attractions over against which we place the\nschool with its books, its restraint, and its feminine control; and the\nchurch with its hush and its Sunday-school lesson: and, too often, we\noffer nothing else. It is like giving a hungry woodchopper a doily, a\nNabisco wafer, and a finger-bowl.\n\nIf we could but appreciate the great crude past whose conflicts still\npersist in the boy's gruesome and tragic dreams, filling him with a\nfear of the dark, which fear in time past was the wholesome and\nnecessary monitor of self-preservation; if we could only realize how\nstrenuous must be those experiences which guarantee a strong body, a\nfirm will, and an appetite for objective facts, we would not make our\neducation so insipidly nice, so intellectual, so bookish, and so much\nunder the roof. A school and a school building are not synonymous, a\nchurch and a church building are not synonymous; schooling is not\nidentical with education, nor church attendance with religion. It is\nunfortunate if the boy beholds in these two essential institutions\nmerely an emasculated police.\n\nIf either the church or the school is to reach the boy it will have to\nrecognize and perform its task very largely beyond the traditional\nlimits of the institution as such, and with a heartiness and masculinity\nwhich are now often absent. In this field the indirect and\nextra-ecclesiastical work of the minister will be his best work, and the\ntime that the teacher spends with his pupils outside the schoolhouse may\nhave more educational value than that spent within. In due time society\nwill be ready to appreciate and support the educator who is bigger than\nany building; and outdoor schools are bound to grow in favor.\n\n[Illustration: GETTING THE SPARK]\n\n[Illustration: GETTING THE FLAME]\n\n[Illustration: FIRE!]\n\nConsider also the boy's love of paraphernalia and all the tokens of\nachievement or of oneness with his group. The pre-adolescent boy\nglorying in full Indian regalia, the early-adolescent proud in the suit\nof his team or in his accouterments as a Scout, and a little later, with\nquieter taste, the persistent fraternity pin--all of these tell the same\nstory of the love of insignia and the power of the emblem in the social\ncontrol and development of youth. Think also of the collecting mania,\nwhich among primitives was less strong than is ordinarily supposed, but\nwhich in early boyhood reaches forth its hands, industriously, if not\nalways wisely, after concrete, tactual knowledge and proprietorship. So\nalso with the impulse to tussle and to revel in the excitement of a\ncontest; inhibited, it explodes; neglected, it degenerates; but directed\nit goes far toward the making of a man. Evidence of this intensity,\nzest, and pressure of young life is never wanting. Disorder\n\"rough-house,\" and even serious accidents, testify to the reckless\nabandon which tries to compensate in brief space for a thousand hours of\nrepression. Such occurrences are unfortunate but worse things may happen\nif the discharge of energy becomes anti-social, immoral, and vicious.\n\"The evils of lust and drink are the evils that devour playless and\ninhibited youth.\"\n\nRight conceptions of religion and education must therefore attach an\nadded sanctity to the growth of the body, since in and through it alone\nis the soul, so far as we know it, achieved. To accept the biological\norder as of God and to turn to their right use all of life's unfolding\npowers constitutes a religious program. For even those primitive\ninstincts which pass and perish often stir into consciousness and\noperation other more noble functions or are transmuted into recognized\nvirtues. Popularly speaking, the tadpole's tail becomes his legs.\nSuccess in suppressing the precivilized qualities of the boy results in\na \"zestless automaton\" that is something less than a man. Everything\nthat characterizes the boy, however bothersome and unpromising it may\nseem, is to be considered with reference to a developing organism which\nholds the story of the past and the prophecy of the future. To the\napostle of the largest vision and the greatest hope, these native\npropensities will be the call of the man of Macedonia, saying, \"Come\nover and help us.\"\n\nThe most striking biological change that comes to the boy on his way to\nmanhood is that of puberty. The church and the state have attested the\nvast importance of this experience for political and religious ends by\ntheir ceremonials of induction into the responsibilities of citizenship\nand the obligations of formal religion. Among the least civilized\npeoples these ceremonies were often cruel, superstitious, and long drawn\nout in their exaction of self-control, sacrifice, and subordination to\nthe tribal will. The sagacity of the elders of the tribe in preserving\ntheir own control and in perpetuating totemic lore must compel the\nunfeigned admiration of the modern ethnologist.\n\nThe Athenians with their magnificent civilization exalted citizenship\nand the service of the state far beyond any modern attainment. The way\nof the youth today is tame, empty, and selfish as compared with the\nSpartan road to manhood and the Roman ceremonies attendant upon the\nassumption of the _toga virilis_. As a rule modern churches have too\nlightly regarded the profound significance of ancient confirmation\nservices--Jewish, Greek, and Catholic. Knowledge of what transpires in\nthe body and mind of adolescence proves the wisdom of the ancients and\nat the same time attracts both the educator and the evangelist to study\nand use the crises of this fertile and plastic period.\n\nThe process of transformation from childhood into manhood begins in the\ntwelfth or thirteenth year, passes its most acute stage at about\nfifteen, and may not complete itself until the twenty-fifth year. It is\npreceded by a period of mobilization of vitality as if nature were\npreparing for this wonderful re-birth whereby the individualistic boy\nbecomes the socialized progenitor of his kind.\n\nThe normal physiological changes, quite apart from their psychological\naccompaniments, are such as to elicit the sympathy of intelligent\nadults. Early in pubescent growth the heart increases by leaps and\nbounds, often doubling its size in the course of two years or even one\nyear. There is a rise of about one degree in the temperature of the\nblood and the blood pressure is increased in all parts of the body. The\nentire body is unduly sensitized, and the boy is besieged by an army of\nnew and vivid sense impressions that overstimulate, confuse, and baffle\nhim. He is under stress and like all persons under tension he reacts\nextremely and hence inconsistently in different directions. He cannot\ncorrelate and organize his experiences. They are too vivid, varied, and\nrapid for that. This over-intensity begets in turn excessive languor and\nhe cannot hold himself in _via media_.\n\nHis physical condition explains his marked moods: his sudden changes of\nfront, his ascent of rare heights of impulsive idealism, and his equally\nsudden descent into the bogs of materialism; his unsurpassed though\ntemporary altruism and his intermittent abandon to gross selfishness. He\nhas range. He is a little more than himself in every direction. The wine\nof life is in his blood and brain. It is no wonder that somewhere about\nthe middle of the adolescent period both conversions and misdemeanors\nare at their maximum.\n\nTo make matters worse these vivid and unorganized experiences, simply\nbecause they lie along the shore of the infinite and have no single\nclue, no governing philosophy of life, are overswept by the dense and\nchilling fogs of unreality that roll in from the great deep. Life is\nswallowed up in awful mystery. External facts are less real than dreams.\nOne stamps the very ground beneath his feet to know if it exists. The\nego which must gauge itself by external bearings is temporarily adrift\nand lost. Suicidal thoughts are easily evoked; and at such times the\nluxury of being odd and hopelessly misunderstood constitutes a\nchameleon-like morbidity that, with a slight change of light and color,\nbecomes an obsession of conceit. The odd one, the mystery to self and\nothers, is he not the great one that shall occupy the center of the\nstage in some stupendous drama? A man now prominent in educational\ncircles testifies how that on a drizzly night on the streets of old\nLondon the lad, then but sixteen years of age, came to a full stop, set\nhis foot down with dramatic pose, and exclaimed with soul-wracking\nseriousness:\n\n    The time is out of joint;--O cursed spite,\n    That ever I was born to set it right!\n\nSo is it ever with the adolescent soul unless society curses the desire\nfor significance and makes it criminal.\n\nThese bare cliffs of primal personality have not yet undergone the\nabrasion of the glacial drift nor of the frost and the heat, the wind\nand the rain of long years. They are angular, bold, defiant, and\nunsuited to the pastoral and agricultural scenes of middle life. The\ngrind of life with its slow accomplishment and failure has not as yet\nimparted caution and discretion. Shrewd calculation and niggardliness\ntoo are normally absent. Generous estimates prevail. Idealism is\npassionate and turns its eye to summits that a life-time of devotion\ncannot scale. Honor is held in high regard and select friendships may\nhave the intensity of religion. Judgments are without qualification.\nValor, laughter and fun, excess and the love of victory mingle in hot\nprofusion. Except in the case of the precocious boy of the street, the\ncold vices of cynicism, misanthropy, and avarice--the reptilians of\nsociety--are found almost exclusively among adults. The _younger_\nbrother is the prodigal. Experience has not taught him how to value\nproperty and the main chance.\n\nThe failure of self-knowledge and self-control to keep pace with the\nrapid changes of bodily structure, sense-impressions, and mental\norganization is nowhere more marked and significant than in sex\ndevelopment; and the common experience of adolescent boys is to the\neffect that no other temptations equal in persistence and intensity\nthose that attend and follow this awakening. It is highly important,\nthen, that, as preparation for dealing with the individual, the minister\nshall both see the generic boy upon the background of the past and that\nhe shall also understand in some measure the physical basis and\npsychological ferment of the boy's inevitable re-birth, not for the\npurpose of cheaply exploiting adolescence but in order that he may bring\nevery life to its best in terms of personal character and of worth to\nthe world.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE BOY IN VILLAGE AND COUNTRY[2]\n\n\nFrom the consideration of bodily health the village boy is better off\nthan his city cousin. He also enjoys to a far greater degree the\nprotective and educative attention of real neighborhood life. The\nopinions and customs which help to mold him are more personal. He\nprobably holds himself more accountable, for he can more readily trace\nthe results of any course of action in terms of the welfare and\ngood-will of well-known persons. His relation to nature is also more\nnearly ideal. Artificial restrictions, territorial and otherwise, are\nnot so strictly imposed. His lot favors a sane and normal view of life.\nThere are more chores to be done, more inviting occupations in the open,\nand altogether there may be a more wholesome participation in the work\nof maintaining the home than is possible for the city boy.\n\nOn the other hand, the static character of village life leaves the boy\nwith little inspiration in his primary interests of play and his serious\nideals of the noblest manhood. Idle hours work demoralization and the\never-present example of the village loafer is not good. A\ndisproportionate number of village people lack public spirit and social\nideals. The masculine element most in evidence is not of the strongest\nand most inspiring kind, and the village is all too often the paradise\nof the loafer and the male gossip. This, however, cannot be said of the\nsmall frontier town where the spirit of progress is grappling with crude\nconditions.\n\nFurthermore, the village is sadly incompetent in the organization of its\nwelfare and community work. As a matter of fact, social supervision is\noften so lax that obscene moving pictures and cards that are driven out\nof the large cities are exhibited without protest in the small towns.\nUsually the village is overchurched, and consequently divided into\npitiably weak factions whose controlling aim is self-preservation.\nSeldom can a religious, philanthropic, or social organization be\ndeveloped with sufficient strength to serve the community as such.\n\nThe sectarian divisions which in the vast needs and resources of great\ncities do not so acutely menace church efficiency prove serious in the\nsmall town. The saloon, poolroom, livery stable, and other haunts of the\nidle are open for boys; but the Christian people, because of their\ndenominational differences, maintain no social headquarters and no\ninstitution in which boys may find healthy expression for their normal\ninterests. The Y.M.C.A. is impracticable, because the church people are\nalready overtaxed in keeping up their denominational competition and so\ncannot contribute enough to run an association properly. Wherever an\nassociation cannot be conducted by trained and paid officers it will\nresult in disappointment.\n\nThe caricature of essential Christianity which is afforded by the\ndenominational exhibit in the village works great harm to boys. It is\nnot only that they are deprived of that guidance which true Christianity\nwould give them, but they are confronted from the first with a spectacle\nof pettiness, jealousy, and incompetency which they will probably\nforever associate with Christianity, at least in its ecclesiastical\nforms. Villages are at best sufficiently susceptible to those\nunfortunate human traits that make for clique and cleavage in society,\nand when the Christian church, instead of unifying and exalting the\ncommunity life, adds several other divisive interests with all the\nauthority of religion, the hope of intelligent, united, and effective\nservice for the community, on a scale that would arouse the imagination\nand enlist the good-will of all right-minded people, is made sadly\nremote.\n\nSo far as church work is concerned, the village boy is likely to be\noverlooked, as promising little toward the immediate financial support\nof the church and the increase of membership. In the brief interval of\ntwo years--the average duration of the village pastorate--it does not\nseem practicable for the minister to go about a work which will require\na much longer time to produce those \"satisfactory results\" for which\nchurches and missionary boards clamor. A revival effort which inflates\nthe membership-roll, strenuous and ingenious endeavors to increase the\nofferings, are the barren makeshifts of a policy which does not see the\ndistinct advantage and security in building Christian manhood from the\nfoundation up.\n\nIt must not be thought that the minister is largely to blame for the\nsituation as it now is. Perpetuating institutions beyond the time of\ntheir usefulness is one of society's worst habits, and it is not to be\nexpected that religious organizations,  which in a given stage of the\ndevelopment of Christian truths were vital and necessary, can easily be\npersuaded to surrender their identity, even after the cause that called\nthem into being has been won.\n\n    Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade\n    Of that which once was great has passed away.\n\nBut the real religious leader who loves boys will not be balked by the\npettiness and inability of denominationalism. His hope lies not solely\nin the church or the churches, but largely in the intelligence,\nsympathy, and generosity of the unchurched citizens, whose number and\nimportance in the small town is probably in the inverse ratio of the\nnumber of churches. Business men of whatever creed, or of none, are\nremarkably responsive to any sane endeavor to create a wholesome outlet\nfor juvenile activity, and, whether right or wrong, count such efforts\nas being more valuable than much of the traditional church endeavor.\n\nThe minister will first try to organize boys' work for the whole\ncommunity, but if co-operation on the part of all or of a group of the\nchurches proves impossible, let him go ahead with such assistance as his\nown church and other voluntary supporters will afford, and let him still\nwork in entire freedom from sectarian aim. As a minister of Christ and\nhis kingdom he must give to Christianity an interpretation which will\noffset provincial and narrow impressions. He must free it from cant and\nfrom the other-worldly emphasis and bring it into the realm where boys\nand business men will respect it as a social factor of primary\nimportance.\n\nAll the problems of early adolescence belong to the village boy as to\nevery other. He also gropes about for his vocational discovery. How\nshall he gain self-control, how can he find himself? How can he relate\nhis life to the great perplexing world and to the God of all? How can he\nwin his immediate battles with temptation? The public school throws\nlittle light upon his possible occupation, trade, or profession, nor\ndoes it deal with his moral struggle.\n\nThe Sunday school, if it touches him at all, is often regarded as a\nnuisance to be endured out of respect for others. It addresses itself\ntoo much to tradition and too little to modern life. It gets the\nIsraelites from Egypt into possession of Canaan by various miraculous\ninterventions, stops the sea and the sun, knocks down the walls of\nJericho by the most uncommon tactics, and reveals the umpire as on the\nIsraelites' side.\n\nThe boy knows that if this be intended as sober history things have\nchanged somewhat. For these are the very things that do not and should\nnot happen in the conquest of his promised land. Under Christian\nguidance he must learn the ethical value of an orderly world, the\nmorality that inheres in cause and effect, the divine help which is not\npartiality; and if it should turn out that he could master these lessons\nbetter through work and play and friendship than through being formally\ninstructed in misapprehended lore, then such work and play and\nfellowship will prove of greater value than the Sunday-school hour\nalone.\n\nAs for the country boy, perhaps his chief lack is association with his\nfellows. To meet this and to satisfy the gregarious instinct, which will\nbe found in him as in all boys, the minister's organizing ability must\nbe directed. The gymnasium, in so far as it is a makeshift for lack of\nproper exercise in the life of the city boy, is not in great demand in\nthe country. The farm boy has in his work plenty of exercise of a\ngeneral and sufficiently exhausting character, and he has the benefit of\ntaking it out of doors. He, of course, is not a gymnast in fineness and\ngrace of development, and he may need corrective exercises, but the big\nmuscles whose development tells for health and against nervousness are\nalways well used.\n\nIn so far, however, as the gymnasium affords a place for organized\nindoor play through the winter months there is more to be said of its\nnecessity. For it is not exercise but group play that the country boy\nmost needs. The fun and excitement, the contest and the co-ordination of\nhis ability with that of others, all serve to reduce his awkwardness and\nto supplant a rather painful self-consciousness with a more just idea of\nhis relative rating among his fellows. He finds himself, learns what it\nis to pull together, and gets some idea of the problems of getting along\nwell with colleagues and opponents.\n\nWherever the country pastor can secure a room that will do for\nbasket-ball, indoor baseball, and the like, he may, if it is\nsufficiently central and accessible, perform a useful service for the\nboys and establish a point of contact. It is highly desirable that\nshower-baths and conveniences for a complete change of clothing be\nprovided. If Saturday afternoon is a slack time and the farmers are\nlikely to come to the village, he should make arrangements to care for\nthe boys then, reserving Saturday evening for the young men. Such an\narrangement secures economy in heating the building and may overcome for\nsome of the youth the Saturday evening attractions of the saloon and\npublic dance.\n\nFor the distinctly country church, situated at the cross-roads, a\nbuilding that may serve as a gymnasium will be practically impossible\nunless a very remarkable enthusiasm is awakened among the boys and young\nmen. But in many a country village such an equipment is both necessary\nand well within the reach of a good organizer. The country people have\nmeans and know how to work for what they really desire. What they most\nlack is inspiration and leadership.\n\nDuring that part of the open season when school is in session the\ncountry minister has an excellent opportunity to meet the boys, organize\ntheir play, and become a real factor in their lives. In the country\none-room school there will be found but few boys over fourteen years of\nage, but a great deal can be done with the younger boys in some such way\nas follows: As school \"lets out\" in the afternoon the minister is on\nhand. The boys have been under a woman teacher all day and are glad to\nmeet a man who will lead them in vigorous play. It may be baseball,\nfootball, trackwork with relay races, military drill, or the like--all\nthey need is one who knows how, who is a recognized leader, and who\nserves as an immediate court of appeal. If they do not get more moral\nbenefit and real equipment for life's struggle in this hour and a half\nthan they are likely to get from a day's bookwork in the average\none-room, all-grades, girl-directed country school, it must be because\nthe minister is a sorry specimen.\n\nThe city minister takes his boys on outings to the country. The country\nminister will bring his boys on \"innings\" to the city. As they see him\nhe is pre-eminently the apostle of that stirring, larger world. What\nabilities may not be awakened, what horizons that now settle about the\nneighboring farm or village may not be gloriously lifted and broadened,\nwhat riches that printed page cannot convey may not be planted in the\nyoung mind by the pastor who introduces country boys to their first\nglimpse of great universities, gigantic industries, famous libraries,\ninspiring churches, and stately buildings of government?\n\nOne need not mention such possibilities as taking a group to the fair or\nthe circus, or on expeditions for fishing, swimming, and hunting--all\nof them easy roads to immortality in a boy's affection.\n\nFurther, the minister is not only the apostle of that greater world but\nthe exemplar of the highest culture. He is to bring that culture to the\ncountry not only through his own person but by lectures on art and\nliterature, so that the young may participate in the world's refined and\nimperishable wealth. This may mean illustrated lectures on art and the\ndistribution of good prints which will gradually supplant the chromos\nand gaudy advertisements which often hold undisputed sway on the walls\nof the farmhouse.\n\nIt might also be helpful to our partly foreign rural population to have\nlectures on history such as will acquaint boys and others with the real\nheroes of various nations, preserve pride in the best national\ntraditions, and ultimately develop a sane and sound patriotism among all\nour citizens. The church building is not too sacred a place for an\nendeavor of this kind. The ordinary stereopticon and the moving picture\nshould not be disdained in so good a cause. Boys are hero-worshipers,\nand history is full of heroes of first-rate religious significance.\n\nAs a further factor in elevating and enriching the life of the country\nboy, the minister may endeavor to create a taste for good reading. The\ntendency is that all the serious reading shall be along agricultural\nrather than cultural lines and that the lighter reading shall be only\nthe newspaper and the trashy story. The minister should enlarge the\nboy's life by acquainting him with the great classics. A taste for good\nthings should be formed early. With the older boys, from the years of\nsixteen or eighteen upward, organization for literary development and\ndebating should be tried. A good deal in a cultural way is necessary to\noffset the danger which now besets the successful farmer of becoming a\nslave to money-making, after the fashion of the great magnates whom he\ncondemns but with rather less of their general perspective of life.\n\nThe minister might help organize a mock trial, county council, school\nboard, state legislature, or something of that sort, as a social and\neducative device for the older boys. Under certain conditions music\ncould well form the fundamental bond of association, and groups gathered\nabout such interests as these could meet from house to house, thus\npromoting the social life of the parish in no small degree. Young women\nmight well share in the organizations that are literary and musical. The\ngreat vogue of the country singing-school a generation ago was no mere\naccident.\n\nCould not the minister enter into the campaign for the improvement of\nthe conditions of farm life and stimulate the beautifying of the\ndooryards by giving a prize to the boy who, in the judgment of an\nimpartial committee, had excelled in this good work? Could he not\ninterest his boys' organization in beautifying the church grounds and so\nenlist them in a practical altruistic endeavor? Might he not find a very\nvital point of contact with the country boy by conducting institutes for\nfarmers' boys, perhaps once a month, in which by the generous use of\ngovernment bulletins and by illustration and actual experiment he might\nawaken a scientific interest in farming and impart valuable information?\nIn connection with this the boys could be induced to conduct experiments\non plots of ground on their fathers' farms. Exhibits could be made at\nthe church and prizes awarded. It would be a good thing too if the\nprofits, or part of the profits, from such experimental plots could be\nvoluntarily devoted to some philanthropic or religious cause. This would\nhave the double value of performing an altruistic act and of\nintelligently canvassing the claim of some recognized philanthropy. So\nalso the raising of chickens and stock might be tried in a limited way\nwith the scientific method and the philanthropic purpose combined.\n\n[Illustration: BOY SCOUTS STUDYING THE TREES]\n\nIn some places botanical collections can be made of great interest; or\nthe gathering and polishing of all the kinds of wood in the vicinity,\nwith an exhibition in due time, may appeal to the boys. In addition to\nforestry there is ornithology, geology, and, for the early age of twelve\nto fifteen, bows and arrows, crossbows, scouting, and various\nexpeditions answering to the adventure instinct.\n\nThe wise country minister will certainly keep in touch with the public\nschool, will be seen there frequently, and will give his genuine support\nto the teacher in all of her endeavor to do a really noble work with a\nvery limited outfit. He will help her to withstand the gross\nutilitarianism of the average farmer, who is slow to believe in anything\nfor today that cannot be turned into dollars tomorrow. What with the\nconsolidation of township schools, improved communication by rural\ndelivery and telephone, better roads, the increasing use of automobiles,\nand the rising interest in rural life generally, together with a broad\nview of pastoral leadership and the \"cure of souls\" for the whole\ncountryside, the minister may be a vital factor in shaping the social\nand religious life of the country boy; and he will, because of his\ncharacter and office, illumine common needs and homely interests with an\never-refined and spiritual ideal. His ministry, however, cannot be all\ntop, a cloudland impalpable and fleeting. It was with common footing and\nvital ties that Goldsmith's village preacher\n\n     Allured to brighter worlds and led the way.\n\nAfter such fashion and with thorough rootage in country life must the\nminister of today turn to spiritual account the wealth-producing methods\nof farming. Out of soil cultivation he must guarantee soul culture by\nsetting forth in person, word, and institution those ideals which have\nalways claimed some of the best boyhood of the country for the world's\ngreat tasks.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE MODERN CITY AND THE NORMAL BOY[3]\n\n\nModern cities have been built to concentrate industrial opportunity.\nThey have taken their rise and form subsequent to the industrial\nrevolution wrought by steam and as a result of that revolution. So far\nthey have paid only minor attention to the conservation or improvement\nof human life. Justice, not to mention mercy, toward the family and the\nindividual has not been the guiding star. The human element has been\nleft to fit as best it could into a system of maximum production at\nminimum cost, rapid and profitable transportation, distribution\ncalculated to emphasize and exploit need, and satisfactory dividends on\nwhat was often supposititious stock; and because these have been the\nmain considerations the latent and priceless wealth of boyhood has been\nlargely sacrificed.\n\nThe amazing and as yet unchecked movement of population toward the city\nmeans usually a curtailment of living area for all concerned.  The more\npeople per acre the greater the limitation of individual action and the\ngreater the need of self-control and social supervision. Restrictions of\nall sorts are necessary for the peace of a community wherein the\nphysical conditions almost force people to jostle and irritate one\nanother. In such a situation the more spontaneous and unconventional the\nexpression of life the greater the danger of bothering one's neighbors\nand of conflicting with necessary but artificial restrictions. Even\ninnocent failure to comprehend the situation may constitute one\nanti-social or delinquent, and the foreigner as well as the boy is often\nmisjudged in this way.\n\nBut on the score of the city's inevitable \"Thou shalt not,\" it is the\nboy who suffers more than any other member of the community. His\nintensely motor propensities, love of adventure, dim idea of modern\nproperty rights, and the readiness with which he merges into the\nstimulating and mischief-loving \"gang\" operate to constitute him the\npeerless nuisance of the congested district, the scourge of an\nexasperated and neurasthenic public, the enemy of good order and private\nrights.\n\nHence juvenile delinquency and crime increase proportionately with the\ncrowding of the modern city, the boy offending five times to the girl's\nonce, and directing 80 per cent of his misdemeanors against property\nrights. In the city of Chicago alone the 1909 records show that in one\nyear there passed through the courts 3,870 children under seventeen\nyears of age, 10,449 under twenty years, and 25,580 under twenty-five\nyears of age. But it is not the actual delinquency of which the law\ntakes account that most impresses one; it is rather the weight of\nfailure and mediocrity, the host of \"seconds\" and \"culls\" that the city\ntreatment of childhood produces.\n\nThe constrictions, vicissitudes, and instability of city life often make\nsuch havoc of the home that the boy is practically adrift at an early\nage. He has no abiding-place of sufficient permanency to create a wealth\nof association or to develop those loyalties that enrich the years and\nserve as anchorage in the storms of life. He moves from one flat to\nanother every year, and in many cases every six months. In such a\nkaleidoscopic experience the true old-fashioned neighbor, whose\ncharitable judgment formerly robbed the law of its victims, is sadly\nmissed. Formerly allowance was made out of neighborly regard for the\nparents of bothersome boys, but among the flat-dwellers of today\nproximity means alienation, familiarity breeds contempt, and far from\nbeing neighbors, those who live across the hall or above or below are\naggrieved persons who have to put up with the noise of an unknown rascal\nwhose parents, like themselves, occupy temporarily these restricted\nquarters--these homes attenuated beyond recognition.\n\nA garden plot, small live stock, pets, woodpile, and workshop are all\nout of the question, for the city has deprived the average boy not only\nof fit living quarters but of the opportunity to enact a fair part of\nhis glorious life-drama within the friendly atmosphere of home. He\ncannot collect things with a view to proprietorship and construction and\nhave them under his own roof. The noise and litter incident to building\noperations of such proportions as please boys will not be tolerated.\nMoreover, this home, which has reached the vanishing point, makes almost\nno demand for his co-operation in its maintenance. There are no chores\nfor the flat boy wherein he may be busy and dignified as a partner in\nthe family life. To make the flat a little more sumptuous and call it an\napartment does not solve the problem, and with the rapid decrease of\ndetached houses and the occupation of the territory with flat buildings\nthe city is providing for itself a much more serious juvenile problem\nthan it now has.\n\nBut the industrial usurpation takes toll of the family in other ways.\nThe intense economic struggle and the long distance \"to work\" rob the\nboy of the father's presence and throw upon the mother an unjust burden.\nTo return home late and exhausted, to be hardly equal to the economic\ndemand, to see the prenuptial ideals fade, to pass from disappointment\nto discouragement and from chronic irritability to a broken home is not\nuncommon. The boy is unfortunate if the \"incompatibility\" end in\ndesertion or divorce, and equally unfortunate if it does not.\n\nOwing to the fact that the male usually stands from under when the home\nis about to collapse, and to the further fact that industrial accidents,\ndiseases, and fatalities in the city claim many fathers, there\nfrequently falls upon the mother the undivided burden of a considerable\nfamily. If she goes out to work the children are neglected; if she takes\nroomers family life of the kind that nurtures health and morality is at\nan end. And just as the apparently fortunate boy of the apartment is\nforced upon the street, so the boy from the overcrowded old-fashioned\nhouse is pushed out by the roomers who must have first attention because\nof bread-and-butter considerations. Much more could be said of all the\nvarious kinds of neglect, misfortune, and avarice that commit boys to\nthe doubtful influences of the city street, but the main object is to\npoint out the trend of home life in the modern city without denying that\nthere are indeed many adequate homes still to be found, especially in\nsuburban districts.\n\nA survey of the street and its allied institutions will throw light upon\nthe precocious ways of the typical city boy. The street is the\nplayground, especially of the small boy who must remain within sight and\ncall of home. Numerous fatalities, vigorous police, and big recreation\nparks will not prevent the instinctive use of the nearest available open\narea. If congestion is to be permitted and numerous small parks cannot\nbe had, then the street must have such care and its play zones must be\nso guarded and supervised that the children will be both safe from\ndanger and healthfully and vigorously employed.\n\n[Illustration: FIND THE PLAYGROUND]\n\nIn the busier parts of the city the constant street noise puts a nervous\ntax upon the children; the proximity of so many bright and moving\nobjects taxes the eyes; the splash of gaudy and gross advertisements\ncreates a fevered imagination; slang, profanity, and vulgarity lend a\nsmart effect; the merchant's tempting display often leads to theft, and\nthe immodest dress of women produces an evil effect upon the mind of the\noverstimulated adolescent boy; opportunities to elude observation and to\ndeceive one's parents abound; social control weakens; ideals become\nneurotic, flashy, distorted; the light and allurement of the street\nencourage late hours; the posters and \"barkers\" of cheap shows often\nappeal to illicit curiosity, and the galaxy of apparent fun and\nadventure is such as to tax to the full the wholesome and restraining\ninfluence of even the best home.\n\nThe cheap show is an adjunct of the street and a potent educational\nfactor in the training of the city lad. These motion-picture shows have\nan estimated daily patronage in the United States of two and a quarter\nmillions, and in Chicago 32,000 children will be found in them daily.\nMany of these children are helplessly open to suggestion, owing to\nmalnutrition and the nervous strain which the city imposes; and harmful\nimpressions received in this vivid way late at night cannot be resisted.\nAt one time, after a set of pictures had been given on the West Side\nwhich depicted the hero as a burglar, thirteen boys were brought into\ncourt, all of whom had in their possession housebreakers' tools, and all\nstated they had invested in these tools because they had seen these\npictures and they were anxious to become gentlemanly burglars.[4]\nThrough censorship bureaus, national and municipal, the character of the\nfilms put on exhibition is being greatly improved, and the moving\npicture is destined to a large use by educational and religious\nagencies.\n\nMany instances of valuable moving-picture exhibits come to mind,\nincluding those on travel, nature-study, the passion play, athletic\nsports, sanitation (especially the exhibits showing the breeding and\nhabits of the house-fly), and various others having to do with the\nhealth, happiness, and morality of the people; and from the study of\nhundreds of nickel shows one is forced in justice to say that although\nthere are dangers from the children's being out late at night and going\nto such places unattended, and although the recreation is passive and\nadministered rather than secured by wholesome muscular exercise, yet\nthere has been brought within the reach of the entire family of moderate\nmeans an evening of innocent enjoyment which may be had together and at\nsmall expense. Properly regulated, it is an offset to the saloon and a\npositive medium of good influence.\n\nSuch a commendation, however, can safely be made for those communities\nonly which take the pains to censor all films before exhibition is\npermitted. In less than two years the censorship bureau of Chicago has\nexcluded one hundred and thirteen miles of objectionable films. It\nshould be said also that the vaudeville, which now often accompanies the\nnickel and dime shows, is usually coarse and sometimes immoral. The\nmusic, alas, speaks for itself and constitutes a sorry sort of education\nexcept in the foreign quarters of our great cities where, in conformity\nto a better taste, it becomes classic and valuable.\n\nBut to describe a typical film of the better sort and to indicate its\npractical use may have some suggestive value for wide-awake ministers\nwho wish to turn to good account every legitimate social agency. During\nthe Christmas season of 1911 the following film story was set forth to\nvast audiences of people with telling effect: In a wretched hovel you\nsee a lame mother with three pale children. The rich young landlord\ncomes to collect rent and is implored to improve the place. This he\nrefuses to do because of his small returns on the property. He departs.\nThe father of the family returns from work. They eat the bread of the\ndesolate.\n\nThe landlord marries and sets out on an ocean voyage with his bride. On\nthe same ship the father of the tubercular family, working as stoker or\ndeck hand, reaches the last stages of the disease and in his dying hours\nis mercifully attended by the bride. She contracts the disease and later\nappears weak and fading. The husband, ascertaining the real nature of\nher malady, brings her home with the purpose of placing her in the\nprivate sanitarium. There is no room in this institution, but good\naccommodations are found in the public sanitarium to which she goes and\nwhere she finds the children from their tenement.\n\nThe facts have now been put in such juxtaposition that the husband has a\nchange of heart. The patients recover and the landlord endows a great\nsanitarium for the tuberculous. One may easily criticize the crudeness\nof the plot and the improbabilities with which it bristles. But it sets\nforth love and death and conversion and an appeal to rescue those who\nsuffer from the great white plague: and this was sufficient for the\ncrowd, for all are children when beholding the elemental things of life.\nAt any rate the women who stood at the exits of the theater selling the\nChristmas stamps of the anti-tuberculosis society will tell you that the\npurse strings as well as the heart strings of the crowd relaxed to the\ncrude but deep melody of mercy.\n\nThe social hunger also, turning its back upon the meager home and\nheightened by the monotony and semi-independence of early toil, takes to\nthe street. The quest is quickly commercialized and debauched by the\npublic dance halls which are controlled by the liquor interests. A\nrecent thorough investigation of 328 of these halls in Chicago showed a\nnightly attendance of some 86,000 young people, the average age of the\nboys being sixteen to eighteen years and of the girls fourteen to\nsixteen years. Liquor was sold in 240 halls, 190 had saloons opening\ninto them, in 178 immoral dancing went on unhindered. The worst halls\nhad the least dancing and the longest intermissions. Everything was\nconducted so as to increase the sale of liquor, and between the hours of\none and three A.M. the toughest element from the saloons, which close\nat one o'clock, poured into the halls to complete the debauch and to\nmake full use of the special liquor license which is good until the\nlater hour.[5]\n\nThe quest of fun and social adventure can be traced also through other\ncommercialized channels, in public poolrooms where minors waste time and\nmoney--gamble, smoke, tell unclean stories and plan mischief; in great\namusement parks where the boy and girl on pleasure bent meet as\nstrangers to each other and without social sponsor, where the deluded\ngirl not only accepts but often invites a generosity which will tend to\ncompromise if not break down the morality of both; on excursion boats\nwhich, if neglected, tend to become floating palaces of shame; and in\nmany ways that lead from the inadequate home to sorrow and disaster.\n\nIt is to be doubted whether the average pastor or parent has an adequate\nconception of the tremendous odds against which the moral forces contend\nfor the conservation of the city's childhood and youth, and whether we\nhave as yet begun to solve the problems that arise from the city's\nsinister treatment of the home. Public parks, field-houses, libraries,\nand social settlements graciously mitigate the evil, but are far from\ncuring it.\n\nTo turn to the public schools with the expectation that they can\nimmediately, or at length, make good the injury done the home by\nindustrial usurpation is to expect more than is fair or possible. They\nare doing valiantly and well, they are becoming social centers and in\ndue time they will have more adequately in hand both the vocational and\nrecreational interests of youth. With this accession of educational\nterritory will come a proportionate increase in the number of male\nteachers, and a further diminution of the fallacy that the only kind of\norder is silence and the prime condition of mental concentration\ninaction. The system will become less and the boy more important.\n\nBut the whole community is the master educator; the best home is not\nexempt from its influence nor the best school greatly superior to its\nmorality. In fact the school, even as the place of amusement and all\nplaces of congregation, serves to diffuse the moral problems of boyhood\nthroughout the whole mass. Moral sanitation is more difficult than\nphysical sanitation, and the spoiled boy is a good conductor of various\nforms of moral virus. The moral training involved in the ordinary\nworking of the public school is considerable and is none the less\nvaluable because it is indirect. With more attention to physical\ncondition, corrective exercise, and organized play, and with the\nmotivating of a larger area of school work, the moral value of the\ninstitution will be still further enhanced.\n\nThe church addresses itself to the problem in ways both general and\nspecific, positive and negative. In its stimulation of public\nconscience, in its inspiration of those who work directly for improved\nconditions, and in Sunday schools and young people's societies, a\ncontribution of no small value is continually made. A rather negative,\nor at best, concessive attitude toward recreation and a disposition to\nrest satisfied with the denunciation of harmful institutions and\nactivities militates against her greatest usefulness. She must rather\ncompensate for home shortages and compete with the doubtful allurements\nof the city. This she may do in part within her own plant and in part by\nencouraging and supporting all wholesome outlets for the athletic zest,\nsocial adventure, worthy ambition, and vocational quest of youth. Those\nsegments of the church which believe in bringing every legitimate human\ninterest within the scope and sanction of religion will in the nature of\nthings offer a more immediate and telling competition to the harmful\ndevices of the city.\n\nBut with the exception of a few boys' clubs and scout patrols, for whose\ndirection there is always a shameful shortage of willing and able lay\nleadership, the church has not as yet grasped the problem; and this\nremains true when one grants further the value of organized boys'\nclasses in the Sunday school and of the \"socials\" and parties of young\npeople's societies. To be sure, the Protestant church, expressing itself\nthrough the Young Men's Christian Association, has laid hold of the more\nrespectable edge of the problem. But with few exceptions this work is\nnot as yet missionary, militant, or diffused to the communities of\ngreatest need. A few experiments are now being made, but probably the\nY.M.C.A., more than the individual church, is under the necessity of\ntreating the underlying economic evils with a very safe degree of\ncaution; and in both there is the ever-recurrent need of an unsparing\nanalysis of motive for the purpose of ascertaining which, after all, is\nparamount--human welfare or institutional glory.\n\nThe tendency ever is to cultivate profitable and self-supporting fields\nand sound business policies. But the case of thousands upon thousands of\nboys living in localities that are socially impoverished, unfortunate,\nand debasing constitutes a call to the missionary spirit and method. If\nthe impulse which is so ready and generous in the exportation of\nreligion and so wise in adaptation to the interests and abilities of the\nforeign group could but lay hold of our most difficult communities with\nlike devotion and with scientific care there would be developed in due\ntime advanced and adequate methods, which in turn would take their\nrightful place as a part of civic or educational administration.\n\nAs is illustrated in both education and philanthropy, the function of\nthe church in social development has been of this order, and the mistake\nof short-sighted religious leaders has been to desert these children\nwhen once they have found an abode within the civil structure. The\npastoral spirit of the new era claims again the entire parish, however\norganized, and guards its children still. The pioneer is needed at home\njust as he is needed abroad, and the pioneering agency must have the\nsame zeal and freedom in order to mark out the way of salvation for\nhordes of wild city boys who are the menacing product of blind economic\nhaste.\n\n[Illustration: WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH ME?]\n\nThe church should see this big problem and accept the challenge. Society\nshould awaken to the fact that in our large cities there is growing up a\ngeneration of boys who morally \"cannot discern between their right hand\nand their left hand\"--this through no fault of theirs, for they are but\na product. If they are unlovely, \"smart,\" sophisticated, ungrateful, and\npredatory, what has made them so? Who has inverted the prophetic promise\nand given them ashes for beauty and the spirit of heaviness for the\ngarment of praise? As matters now stand it is not the ninety and nine\nwho are safe and the one in peril. That ratio tends to be reversed, and\nwill be unless right-minded people accept individually and in their\norganized relations a just responsibility for the new life that is\ncommitted for shaping and destiny to the evolving modern city.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE ETHICAL VALUE OF ORGANIZED PLAY[6]\n\n\nThe value of work as a prime factor in character building must not be\noverlooked. In the revival of play that is sweeping over our American\ncities and in the tendency to eliminate effort from modern education\nthere is danger of erecting a superficial and mere pleasure-seeking\nideal of life. It is upon the background of the sacred value of work\nthat the equally legitimate moral factor of play is here considered.\nFurther, the value of _undirected_ play in cultivating initiative,\nresourcefulness, and imagination, especially in young children, is worth\nbearing in mind. One must grant also that play is not always enlisted in\nthe service of morality. But neither is religion. Both may be. At any\nrate it is evident that when boy nature is subjected to city conditions\nwe must either provide proper outlet and guidance for the boy's play\ninstincts or be guilty of forcing him into the position of a law-breaker\nand a nuisance.\n\nReduced to its lowest terms, organized play is thus recognized as a\nconvenient substitute for misconduct. Even the property owner and\npeace-loving citizen, if moved by no higher motive, will agree to the\nadage that \"Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do,\" and\nwill welcome the endeavor to safeguard property rights and promote the\npeace of the community by drawing off the adventurous and\nmischief-making energies of the boys into the less expensive channels of\nplay. Practical men are quite agreed that it is better for \"gangs\" to\nrelease their energy and ingenuity against one another in a series of\nathletic games than to seek similar adventure and satisfaction in\nconflict with established property rights and the recognized agencies of\npeace and order.\n\nNevertheless there persists in the church, however unconsciously, a sort\nof piety that disregards the body, and the conventional Christian ideal\nhas certainly been anemic and negative in the matter of recreation. The\nYoung Men's Christian Associations with their reproduction of the Greek\nideal of physical well-being have served to temper the other-worldly\ntype of Christianity with the idea of a well-rounded and physically\ncompetent life as being consonant with the will of God.\n\nAt the beginning of the eighteenth century Francke of Halle, an\neducational organizer and philanthropist of no mean proportion, said,\n\"Play must be forbidden in any and all of its forms. The children shall\nbe instructed in this matter in such a way as to show them, through the\npresentation of religious principles, the wastefulness and folly of all\nplay. They shall be led to see that play will distract their hearts and\nminds from God, the Eternal Good, and will work nothing but harm to\ntheir spiritual lives.\"\n\nOnly gradually does \"the-world-as-a-vale-of tears\" and\n\"the-remnant-that-shall-be-saved\" idea give place to a faith that claims\nfor God the entire world with its present life as well as individual\nimmortality in future felicity. Miracle and cataclysm and postmortem\nglory--the ever-ready recourse of baffled hope and persecuted\nChristianity--are giving place more and more to a Christian conquest\nthat is orderly and inclusive of the whole sweep of human life. The\nchurch is but dimly conscious, as yet, that through the aid of science\nshe has attained this magnificent optimism; much less does she realize\nits full implication for social service and the saving of the\nindividual, both body and soul.\n\nThe minister as the herald and exemplar of such an imperial salvation\ncannot ignore the exceptional opportunities which the play interests of\nboyhood offer. He whose task has been to reconcile men to God, to bring\nthem into harmony with the universe in its ultimate content, cannot\nneglect those activities which more than anything else in the life of\nthe boy secure the happy co-ordination of his powers, the placing of\nhimself in right relation with others and in obedience to law. These are\nthe moral and religious accomplishments aimed at in the teaching of\nreconciliation which bulks so large in Christian doctrine; and by\nwhatever means this right adjustment to self, to others, and to the will\nof God is brought about, it always produces the sure harvest of service\nand joy.\n\nTo some undoubtedly it will seem sacrilegious to suggest that play can\nhave anything to do in a transaction so deeply moral and so\nfundamentally religious. Yet a psychological analysis of both play and\nworship at their best will reveal marked similarities in spontaneity, in\nself-expression for its own sake and free from ulterior ends, in\nsymbolism, semi-intoxication and rhythm, in extension and enrichment of\nthe self, and in preparation for the largest and most effective living.\nThat such a claim is not altogether extravagant may be demonstrated in\npart by canvassing the moral reactions of a well-organized group engaged\nin some specific game. For in merely discussing the play attitude, which\nis applicable to every interest of life, there is the danger of so\nsublimating the value of play that its importance, while readily\ngranted, will not affect pastoral or educational methods. This mistake\nis only comparable with another which dwells upon the religious life of\nthe boy as dependent upon the use of some inherent religious faculty\nthat is quite detached from the normal physical and mental processes.\nSuch an attitude favors an easy escape from both the labor of character\nbuilding and the obligations of environmental salvation. Recognizing\nthese dangers and remembering that morality and religion are most valid\nwhen acquired and incorporated in actual conduct, one may analyze a\nstandard game in search of its ethical worth.\n\nBaseball, our most popular and distinctively national game, constitutes\na fair field for this inquiry. In order to evaluate this form of play\nas an agency in moral training it is necessary to presume that one has a\ncompany of nine or more boys grouped together on the basis of loyalty to\na common neighborhood, school, club, church, or the like. They elect a\nmanager who acts for the team in arranging a schedule of games with\ntheir various rivals and who serves in general as their business agent;\nalso a captain, usually chosen because of his ability to play the game\nand his quality of natural leadership. He directs his players in their\ncontests and in case of dispute speaks for his team.\n\nThe boys should also have in every case a trainer older than themselves,\na player of well-known ability and exemplary character. It is usually\nthrough neglect of supervision of this sort that the ethical value of\nbaseball for boys of from twelve to fifteen years of age is forfeited.\nWithout the trainer to direct their practice games, and as a recognized\nexpert to try out the players for the various positions, the\npossibilities of forming a team are few and those of unjust and harmful\nconduct many.\n\nIf at the outset, the group, coming together in park or vacant lot,\ncannot speedily agree upon a _modus operandi_, their energy is turned\ninto profane disputing about the chief positions, and usually a game\ncannot be organized, or, if it is, lack of agreement as to put-outs,\nruns, fouls, and debatable points soon ruins the attempt, with little\nleft to most of the boys except resentment of the might-makes-right\npolicy. On the other hand, whether one has in mind a team or a chance\ngroup of players, the presence of a capable adult as an immediate and\nfinal court of appeal guarantees fair play for all, prevents personal\nanimosities, and inspires each one to do his best in the presence of a\ncompetent judge.\n\nWherever the team with proper supervision is a possibility the moral\nvalue of the game will be at its maximum. Uniforms are not to be\ndespised. Loyalty to the school represented is but boyhood's form of\nwhat in later life becomes ability to espouse a cause and to assume a\ndegree of social responsibility in keeping with that attitude.\n\nBecause of this loyalty the boy who expected to play in the prominent\nposition of pitcher takes his less conspicuous place in right field, if\nby fair trials under the trainer another boy has demonstrated his\nsuperior fitness to fill the much-coveted position. For the credit of\nthe community or school which he has the honor to represent, the match\ngame must be won; hence he surrenders his personal glory to the common\ngood. He does more. Under the excitement of the contest and with the\nconsequent strengthening of the team spirit, he encourages the very boy,\nwho would otherwise have been only his personal rival, to do his level\nbest, forgetting utterly any mean individual comparisons and all\nanti-social self-consciousness, in what he has enthusiastically accepted\nas the greater common good.\n\nHe goes to bat at a critical juncture in the game. The score is close.\nHe as much as anyone would like to have runs to his credit. But for the\nsake of the team his chief concern must be to advance the base runner.\nSo he plays carefully rather than spectacularly, and makes a bunt or a\nsacrifice hit, with the practical certainty that he will be put out at\nfirst base, but with a good probability that he will thus have advanced\nhis fellow one base and so have contributed to the team's success.\n\nThe religious value of the principle here involved receives no little\nattention in sermon and Sunday-school class, but how tame and formal is\nits verbal presentation as compared with its registration in the very\nwill and muscles of a boy at play! Wherever a state has become great or\na cause victorious, wherever a hero--a Socrates or a Christ--has\nappeared among men, there has been the willingness, when necessary, to\nmake the \"sacrifice hit.\" The loyalty that has held itself ready so to\nserve on moral demand has to its credit all the higher attainments of\nhumanity.\n\nIn the great American experiment of democracy, where the welfare of the\npeople is so often bartered for gold, and where public office is\nfrequently prostituted to private gain, there is a proportionately great\nneed of teaching in every possible way this fundamental virtue of\nloyalty. Our future will be secure only in the degree in which\nintelligent and strong men are devoted to the welfare of city and state\nafter the fashion of the boy to his team. It is because war, with all\nits horrors, has stimulated and exhibited this virtue that its glory\npersists far into our industrial age; and the hope of a lofty\npatriotism, that shall be equal to the enervating influences of peace,\nlies in an educated and self-denying type of loyalty.\n\nThe use of this loyalty in the reformation of boy criminals has been\nremarkably demonstrated in the well-known work of Judge Ben B. Lindsey,\nof Denver. In a particularly difficult case he says:\n\n     I decided to put my influence over him to the\n     test. I told him of the fight I was making for him,\n     showed him how I had been spending all my spare\n     time \"trying to straighten things out\" for him and\n     Heimel, and warned him that the police did not believe\n     I could succeed. \"Now, Lee,\" I said, \"you can run\n     away if you want to, and prove me a liar to the cops.\n     But I want to help you and I want you to stand by\n     me. I want you to trust me, and I want you to go\n     back to the jail there, and let me do the best I can.\"\n     He went, and he went alone--unguarded.\n\nHere is a striking example of the team work of two with the play upon\nloyalty and the spirit of contest.\n\n     Another lesson about boys I learned from little\n     \"Mickey\" when I was investigating his charge that\n     the jailer had beaten him. The jailer said: \"Some\n     o' those kids broke a window in there, and when I\n     asked Mickey who it was, he said he didn't know. Of\n     course he knew. D'yu think I'm goin' to have kids\n     lie to me?\" A police commissioner who was present\n     turned to Mickey. \"Mickey,\" he said, \"why did you\n     lie?\" Mickey faced us in his rags. \"Say,\" he asked,\n     \"Do yoh t'ink a fullah ought to snitch on a kid?\"\n     And the way he asked made me ashamed of myself.\n     Here was a quality of loyalty that we should be fostering\n     in him instead of trying to crush out of him. It was\n     the beginning in the boy of that feeling of responsibility\n     to his fellows on which society is founded. Thereafter,\n\n     no child brought before our court was ever urged\n     to turn state's evidence against his partners in crime--much\n     less rewarded for doing so or punished for refusing.\n     Each was encouraged to \"snitch\" on himself,\n     and himself only.\n\nAnother interview with a boy under sentence to the industrial school\nemphasizes the same point:\n\n     \"I can _help_ you, Harry,\" I said. \"But you've\n     got to carry yourself. If I let boys go when they do\n     bad things, I'll lose my job. The people 'll get another\n     judge in my place to punish boys, if _I_ don't do it. I\n     can't let you go.\" We went over it and over it; and\n     at last I thought I had him feeling more resigned and\n     cheerful, and I got up to leave him. But when I\n     turned to the door he fell on his knees before me\n     and, stretching out his little arms to me, his face distorted\n     with tears, he cried: \"Judge! Judge! If you let\n     me go, _I'll never get you into trouble again_!\"\n\n     I had him! It was the voice of loyalty.... This\n     time he \"stuck.\" \"Judge,\" the mother told me\n     long afterward, \"I asked Harry the other day, how it\n     was he was so good for _you_, when he wouldn't do it for\n     me or the policeman. And he says: 'Well, Maw, you\n     see if I gets bad ag'in the Judge he'll lose his job. I've\n     got to stay with him, 'cause he stayed with me.'\"\n     I have used that appeal to loyalty hundreds of times\n     since in our work with the boys, and it is almost\n     infallibly successful.\n\nIn eight years, out of 507 cases of boys put upon their honor to take\nthemselves from Denver to the Industrial School at Golden, to which the\ncourt had sentenced them, Judge Lindsey had but five failures. In view\nof such facts, who will think for a moment that we have so much as begun\nto turn the latent loyalty of boyhood to its highest ethical use?\n\nNo doubt much can be said against football, which ranks second in\npopularity among American athletic games. For some years the elements of\nhazard and rough treatment have been unhappily too prominent, so that\nthe suspicion is warranted that players have been sacrificed to the\nbloodthirsty demands of the vast throng of spectators. The tension of\nplaying in the presence of thousands of partisan enthusiasts shows\nitself in a reckless disregard of physical injury. Furthermore, for boys\nin early adolescence the tax upon the heart constitutes a common danger\nwhich is often rendered more serious by the untrained condition of the\nplayers. It is to be hoped that in the further modification of the rules\nfrom year to year, the players and their welfare will be kept more in\nmind and the sensation-loving public, whose gate-fees have been too big\na consideration, will be measurably overlooked.\n\nBut with this concession, all of the virtue that attaches to baseball\nwill be found in football,  only in accentuated form. Physical bravery\nis, of course, more emphasized; while team loyalty, with all that it\nimplies, is more intense. The relation of the members to one another in\na well-organized team amounts to an affection which is never forgotten.\nThe words of cheer when the team is hard pushed and has to take a\n\"brace\"; the fighting spirit that plays the game to a finish, no matter\nwhat the odds; the hand extended to help to his feet the man who has\njust advanced the ball; the pat on the back; the impulsive embrace; the\nvery tears shed in common after a lost game--all of this is a social and\nmoral experience of no small value. Basketball also offers a good field\nfor the subordination of personal glory to team success and, in point of\nintensity, stands midway between baseball and football with the\nelimination of the dangerous qualities of the latter.\n\n[Illustration: THE NORMAL BOY IN THE ABNORMAL PLAYGROUND]\n\nGames of this sort are also the most effective means of developing,\nthrough expression, the boy's sense of justice or fair play. And this\nsentiment will always be found strong and operative in him unless it has\nbeen overcome by the passion to win or by imitation of the bad example\nof certain debased athletes, popularly known as \"muckers.\" Under proper\nleadership, the boy soon learns that the true spirit of manly sport is\nthe farthest removed from that of the footpad and the blackguard.\nAppreciation of successful opponents and consideration for the\nvanquished can be made effectually to supplant the cheap, blatant spirit\nwhich seeks to attribute one's defeat to trickery and chance and uses\none's victory as an occasion for bemeaning the vanquished. The presence\nof a capable director of play is sure to eliminate this evil which has\ncrept in under the sanction of vicious ideals and through gross neglect\nof boys' play on the part of adults in general and educators in\nparticular. The Decalogue itself cannot compete with a properly directed\ngame in enforcing the fair-play principle among boys. It is worth\nsomething to read about fair play, but it is worth much more to practice\nit in what is, for the time being, a primary and absorbing interest.\n\nA large part of the morality which is most obviously desirable for human\nwelfare consists in bringing the body into habitual obedience to the\nwill. The amount of individual suffering and of loss and expense to\nsociety due to failure in this struggle is nothing less than appalling.\nThe victims of emotional hurricanes, \"brainstorms,\" neurotic excess, and\nintemperate desire are legion. A nation that is overfed,\nunder-exercised, and notably neurasthenic should neglect nothing that\nmakes for prompt and reliable self-control. Lycurgus said, \"The citizens\nof Sparta must be her walls,\" and in building up a defense for the\nmodern state against forces more disastrous than Persian armies we must\nturn to the ancient device of the playground and athletic games.\n\nThe moral value of play in this respect arises from the instant muscular\nresponse to volition. Delay, half-hearted response, inattention,\npreoccupation, whimsicalness, carelessness, and every sluggish\nperformance of the order of the will, disqualifies the player so that\nwhen we take into account the adolescent passion to excel, and the fact\nthat 80 per cent of the games of this period are characterized by\nintense physical activity, we are forced to place the highest valuation\non play as a moral educator; for this enthronement of the will over the\nbody, although having to do with affairs of no permanent importance, has\ngreat and abiding value for every future transaction in life.\n\nIndeed, the physical competency attained in athletic games has its\nreaction upon every mental condition. Many boys who are hampered by\nunreasonable diffidence, a lack of normal self-confidence and\nself-assertion, find unexpected ability and positiveness through this\navenue alone and, on the other hand, the physical test and encounter of\nthe game serves to bring a proper self-rating to the overconfident.\n\nDr. George J. Fisher, international secretary of the Physical Department\nof the Young Men's Christian Association, says, \"An unfortunately large\nnumber of our population haven't the physical basis for being good.\" No\none with even the slightest knowledge of sociology and criminology will\nbe disposed to deny such a statement. One might as well expect a\none-legged man to win the international Marathon as to expect certain\nphysical delinquents to \"go right.\" Thousands of boys and girls sit in\nour public schools today who are the unhappy candidates for this\ndelinquency, and we are monotonously striving to get something into\ntheir minds, which would largely take care of their own development, if\nonly we had the wisdom to address ourselves to their bodies.\n\nThere is indeed not only a physical basis of _being_ good, but, what is\nnot less important, a physical basis of _doing_ good. Many people avoid\nblame and disgrace who fail utterly in making a positive contribution to\nthe welfare of the community. They do not market their mental goods.\nThousands of men remain in mediocrity, to the great loss of society,\nsimply because they have not the requisite physical outfit to force\ntheir good ideas, impulses, and visions into the current of the world's\nlife. For the most part they lack the great play qualities, \"enthusiasm,\nspontaneity, creative ability, and the ability to co-operate.\" Whenever\nwe build up a strong human organism we lay the physical foundations of\nefficiency, and one is inclined to go farther and think with Dr. Fisher,\nthat muscular energy itself is capable of transformation into energy of\nmind and will. That is to say that play not only helps greatly in\nbuilding the necessary vehicle, but that it creates a fund upon which\nthe owner may draw for the accomplishment of every task.\n\nThere is ground also for the contention that grace of physical\ndevelopment easily passes over into manner and mind. The proper\ndevelopment of the instrument, the right adjustment and co-ordination of\nthe muscular outfit through which the emotions assemble and diffuse\nthemselves, is, when other things are equal, a guaranty of inner beauty\nand the grace of true gentility. A poor instrument is always vexatious,\na good instrument is an abiding joy. The good body helps to make the\ngracious self. Other things being equal the strong body obeys, but the\nweak body rules.\n\nOne should not overlook the heartiness that is engendered in games, the\ntotal engagement of mind and body that insures for the future the\nability \"to be a whole man to one thing at a time.\" Much of the moral\nconfusion of life arises from divided personality, and the miserable\napplication of something less than the entire self to the problem in\nhand. Do not the great religious leaders of the world agree with the men\nof practical efficiency in demonstrating and requiring this hearty\nrelease of the total self in the proposed line of action? The demand of\nJesus, touching love of God and neighbor, or regarding enlistment in His\ncause, is a demand for prompt action of the total self. Possibly no\nother single virtue has a more varied field of application than the\nability for decisive and whole-souled action, which is constantly\ncultivated in all physical training, and especially in competitive\nathletic games.\n\nIt should be noted also that the hearty release of energy is, in every\ngood game, required to keep within the rules. This is particularly true\nin basket-ball, which takes high rank as an indoor game for boys. While\nthe game is intense and fatiguing, anything like a muscular rampage\nbrings certain penalty to the player and loss to his team. So that,\nwhile the boy who does not play \"snappy\" and hard cannot rank high,\nneither can the boy who plays \"rough-house.\" Forcefulness under control\nis the desideratum.\n\nBesides this there is always the development of that good-natured\nappreciation of every hard task, that refinement of the true sporting\nspirit, by which all the serious work of life becomes a contest worthy\nof never-ending interest and buoyant persistency. In the midst of all\nthe sublime responsibilities of his remarkable ministry we hear Phillips\nBrooks exclaim, \"It's great fun to be a minister.\" An epoch-making\npresident of the United States telegraphs his colleague and successor,\nwith all the zest of a boy at play, \"We've beaten them to a frazzle\";\nand the greatest of all apostles, triumphing over bonds and\nimprisonment, calls out to his followers, \"I have fought a good fight.\"\n\"It is doubtful if a great man ever accomplished his life work without\nhaving reached a play interest in it.\"\n\nThe saving power of organized play, in the prevention and cure of that\nmorbidity which especially besets youth, can hardly be overestimated.\nThis diseased self-consciousness is intimately connected with nervous\ntensions and reflexes from sex conditions and not infrequently passes\nover into sex abuse or excess of some sort. So that the diversion of\nstrenuous athletic games, and the consequent use of energy up to a point\njust below exhaustion, is everywhere recognized as an indispensable\nmoral prophylactic. Solitariness, overwrought nervous states, the\nintense and suggestive stimuli of city life, call for a large measure of\nthis wholesome treatment for the preservation of the moral integrity of\nthe boy, his proper self-respect, and those ideals of physical\ndevelopment which will surely make all forms of self-abuse or indulgence\nfar less likely.\n\nThe normal exhilaration of athletic games, which cannot be described to\nthose without experience, is often what is blindly and injuriously\nsought by the young cigarette smoker in the realm of nervous excitation\nwithout the proper motor accompaniments. Possibly if we had not so\nrestricted our school-yards and overlooked the necessity for a physical\ntrainer and organized play, we would not have schools in which as many\nas 80 per cent of the boys between ten and seventeen years of age are\naddicted to cigarettes. In trying to fool Nature in this way the boy\npays a heavy penalty in the loss of that very decisiveness, force, and\nability in mind and body which properly accompany athletic recreation.\nThe increased circulation and oxidization of the blood is in itself a\ngreat tonic and when one reflects that, with a running pace of six miles\nan hour the inhalation of air increases from four hundred and eighty\ncubic inches per minute to three thousand three hundred and sixty cubic\ninches, the tonic effect of the athletic game will be better\nappreciated. This increased use of oxygen means healthy stimulation,\ngrowth of lung capacity, and exaltation of spirit without enervation.\n\"Health comes in through the muscles but flies out through the nerves.\"\n\n     It was well thought and arranged by the ancients\n     [says Martin Luther] that young people should exercise\n     themselves and have something creditable and useful\n     to do. Therefore I like these two exercises and\n     amusements best, namely, music and chivalrous games\n     or bodily exercises, as fencing, wrestling, running,\n     leaping, and others..... With such bodily exercises\n     one does not fall into carousing, gambling, and hard\n     drinking, and other kinds of lawlessness, as are unfortunately\n     seen now in the towns and at the courts.\n     This evil comes to pass if such honest exercises and\n     chivalrous games are despised and neglected.\n\n[Illustration: WHAT SHALL WE PLAY?]\n\nThe feeling of harmony and _bien-etre_ resulting from play is, in\nitself, a rare form of wealth for the individual and a blessing to all\nwith whom one has to do. Every social contact tends to become wholesome.\nAnd who will say that the virtue of cheerfulness is not one of the most\ndelightful and welcome forms of philanthropy? Play, rightly directed,\nalways has this result.\n\nPossibly no social work in America is more sanely constructive than that\nof the playground movement. In the few years of its existence it has\nmade ample proof of its worth in humane and beneficent results; and our\ncity governments are hastening to acknowledge--what has been too long\nignored--the right of every child to play. It is only to be regretted\nthat the play movement has not centered about our public schools for it\nconstitutes a legitimate part of education. The survivors who reach high\nschool and college receive relatively a good deal of attention in\nphysical training and organized play, but the little fellows of the\nelementary grades who have curvatures, retardation, adenoids, and small\ndefects which cause loss of grade, truancy, and delinquency receive as\nyet very meager attention.\n\nIn dearth of opportunity and in cruel oversight of the normal play-needs\nof boyhood,  there probably has never been anything equal to our modern\nAmerican city. But the cost of industrial usurpation in restricting the\ntime and area of play is beginning to be realized; and the relation of\nthe play-time and of the playground to health, happiness, morality, and\nlater to industrial efficiency, begins to dawn upon our civic leaders.\nIf \"recreation is stronger than vice,\" it becomes the duty of religious\nand educational institutions to contribute directly and indirectly to\nnormal recreative needs.\n\nBut what can the minister do? He can help educate the church out of a\nnegative or indifferent attitude toward the absorbing play-interests of\nchildhood and youth. He can publicly endorse and encourage movements to\nprovide for this interest of young life and may often co-operate in the\norganization and management of such movements. Every church should\nstrive through intelligent representatives to impart religious value and\npower to such work and should receive through the same channels\nfirst-hand information of this form of constructive and preventive\nphilanthropy. He can partly meet the demand through clubs and societies\norganized in connection with his own church. He can plead for a real and\nlonger childhood in behalf of Christ's little ones who are often\nsacrificed through commercial greed, un-Christian business ambition,\neducational blindness, and ignorance. He can preach a gospel that does\nnot set the body over against the soul, science over against the Bible,\nand the church over against normal life; but embraces every child of man\nin an imperial redemption which is environmental and social as well as\nindividual, physical as well as spiritual. In short, he can study and\nserve his community, not as one who must keep an organization alive at\nwhatever cost, but as one who must inspire and lead others to obey the\nMaster whose only reply to our repeated protestations of love is, \"Feed\nmy lambs.\"\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE BOY'S CHOICE OF A VOCATION[7]\n\n\nIt is practically impossible to overemphasize the importance of the\nboy's vocational choice. Next to his attitude toward his Maker and his\nsubsequent choice of a life partner this decision controls his worth and\ndestiny. For it is not to be supposed that play with all its virtue, its\nnourish and exercise of nascent powers, and its happy emancipation into\nbroader and richer living can adequately motivate and permanently\nennoble the energies of youth. Until some vocational interest dawns,\neducation is received rather than sought and will-power is latent or but\nintermittently exercised. Play has a great orbit, but every true parent\nand educator seeks to know the axis of a given life.\n\nFor some boys presumably of high-school age and over, this problem\nbecomes real and engrossing, but for the vast majority there is little\nintelligent choice, no wise counsel, no conscious fronting of the\nprofoundly religious question of how to invest one's life. The children\nof ease graduate but slowly, if at all, from the \"good-time\" ideal,\nwhile the children of want are ordinarily without option in the choice\nof work. But for all who, being permitted and helped, both seek and find\nthen-proper places in the ranks of labor, life becomes constructively\nsocial and therefore self-respecting. To be able to do some bit of the\nworld's work well and to dedicate one's self to the task is the\nindividual right of every normal youth and the sure pledge of social\nsolvency. Ideally an art interest in work for its own sake should cover\nthe whole field of human labor, and in proportion as each person finds a\ntask suited to his natural ability and is well trained for that task\ndoes he lift himself from the grade of a menial or a pauper and enter\ninto conscious and worthy citizenship.\n\nHere then, as in the case of the mating instinct, the vocational quest\nrightly handled forces the ego by its very inclination and success into\nthe altruism of a social order. For it is the misfits, the vocationally\ndormant, the defeated, and those who, however successful, have not\nconsidered such choice as an ethical concern of religion that make up\nthe anti-social classes of the present time.\n\nHence this problem of vocational guidance which is so agitating the\neducational world comes home to the minister in his work with youth. It\nmay be that he shall find new and practical use for the maligned\ndoctrine of election and that he shall place under intelligent, and\nheavenly commission the ideals and hopes of later adolescence. At any\nrate where the life career hinges, there the religious expert should be\non hand. For what profit is there in society's vast investment in early\nand compulsory education if at the crucial time of initial experiment in\nthe world's work there be neither high resolve nor intelligent direction\nnor sympathetic coaching into efficiency?\n\nBut the importance of vocational choice does not turn upon the doubtful\nsupposition that there is one and only one suitable task for a given\nyouth. Probably there are groups or families of activities within which\nthe constructive endeavor may have happy and progressive expression.\nNor, from the minister's point of view, is the economic aspect of the\nproblem paramount. It is true that an investment of $50,000 worth of\nworking ability deserves study and wise placing and it is true that the\nsanction of public education is to return to the state a socially\nsolvent citizen who will contribute to the common welfare and will more\nthan pay his way; but the immediately religious importance of this\ncommanding interest consists in the honest and voluntary request for\ncounsel on the part of the youth himself.\n\nFortunately in the very midst of a reticent and often skeptical period\nthere comes, through the awakened vocational interest, an inlet into the\nsoul of youth. No religious inquisitor or evangelistic brigand could\nhave forced an entrance, but lo, all at once the doors are opened from\nwithin and examination is invited. It is invited because the boy wishes\nto know what manner of person he is and for what pursuit he is or may be\nfitted. When once this issue is on and one is honored as counselor and\nfriend, the moral honesty and eagerness of youth, the thoroughgoing\nconfession on all the personal and moral phases of the problem in hand\nare enough to move and humble the heart of any pastor. Such conference\nsolemnizes and reassures the worker with boys, while to have spent no\ntime as an invited and reverent guest within this sacred precinct is to\nfail of a priesthood that is profoundly beautiful.\n\nSeveral experiences with both individuals and groups are fresh in mind\nat this writing. On one occasion a guild of working boys in later\nadolescence were living together in a church fraternity house, and it\nwas their custom on one evening of each week to have some prominent man\nas guest at dinner and to hear an informal address from him after the\nmeal. It chanced that on the list of guests there was, in addition to\nthe mayor of their city and a well-known bishop of the Episcopal church,\nthe manager of one of the greatest automobile factories in America. On\nthe occasion on which this captain of industry spoke, he told in simple\nfashion his own experience in search of a vocation.\n\nIt was of a kind very common in our country: early privation, put to\nwork at thirteen, an attempt to keep him in an office when he longed to\nhave hold of the tools in the shop. In time his request was granted.\nWhile he worked he observed and studied the organization of the shop and\nthe progression of the raw material to the finished product. Having\nmastered the method he left this shop and hired in another, and then in\ndue time in still another shop, much to the disgust of his friends. But\nin reply to their warning that \"a rolling stone gathers no moss\" he said\nthat that was not his aim. As a result of faithfully following his bent\nhe was ready to respond to the great demand for men to organize and run\nbicycle factories, and when that demand was followed by the much\ngreater need of doing a similar work in the manufacture of automobiles\nhe was chosen for the very responsible position which he now holds.\n\n[Illustration: THE GUILD, First Baptist Church, Detroit, Mich.]\n\nThere was, to be sure, nothing distinctly spiritual in his story, but\nafter he had finished the young men kept him for two hours answering\ntheir questions and there was there revealed to the pastor more of their\nfine hopes and purposes and possibilities--their deep-buried yet vital\ndreams--than he had ever heard unfolded in any religious meeting. Many\nof these youths were taken in hand in a personal way and are now \"making\ngood.\" Their subsequent use of leisure, their patronage of evening\nschools, Y.M.C.A. courses, and many other helps to their ambitions\ntestified to the depth and tenacity of good purposes which were timidly\nvoiced but heroically executed. On the other hand, the writer has\nknowledge of many cases of delinquency in which apparently the deciding\ncause was the vocational misfit foisted upon the young would-be laborer\nin the trying years between fourteen and sixteen.\n\nThere comes to mind the instance of a lad of seventeen found in the Cook\nCounty jail. He had left his Michigan home with fifty dollars of\nsavings and had come to Chicago to make his fortune. His mother's story,\nwhich was secured after he got into trouble, narrated how that as a boy\nhe had taken to pieces the sewing-machine and the clocks and, unlike\nmany boys, had put them together again without damage. Reaching Chicago\nhe hired in a garage and conceived the idea of building an automobile.\nAfter the fashion of a boy he became totally absorbed in this project.\nHis ingenuity and thrift and the help of his employers enabled him to\nget well along with his enterprise. But at last he was balked because of\nlack of a particular part which he knew to be essential, but as to the\nnature of which he was not informed.\n\nGoing along the street one day in profound concern over this matter an\nimpulse seized him to learn at once the nature of the needed part. He\njumped into an automobile standing by the curb, drove it to the nearest\nalley, and crawled under it to make the necessary disconnections, when\nthe police caught him in the act. The case was a clear one and he was\nthrown into jail. The mother in her letter to the Juvenile Protective\nAssociation which was working for his release said that now, since he\nhad been so unfortunate as to fall into the hands of the authorities,\nshe wondered whether they might not perform an operation for his\nbenefit, for she had heard that there was an operation by which the\nskull could be opened and a certain part of the brain removed, and she\nthought that possibly they might do this for her boy and take out that\npart of his brain which made him so \"wild about machinery\"!\n\nPublic education in America is only beginning to respond to the need of\nintelligently connecting our educational product with the world's work.\nTrade schools for boys and girls, half-time schools, continuation\nschools, night schools, and in a few cities vocational bureaus are at\nwork, but so are poverty and the helpless ignorance of the hard-pressed\nhome. The children who must in tender years be offered to our rapacious\nindustries are the very children who are without hope of parental\ncounsel and direction.\n\nIn New York City 42,000 children between fourteen and sixteen years of\nage take out their \"working papers\" every year, and out of 12,000 to\n13,000 taking out working papers in Chicago annually about 9,000 are\nonly fourteen years of age and 1,500 have not yet reached the fifth\ngrade. Many of these walk the streets and degenerate while in search of\nwork or because of such fitful employment as only serves to balk the\ndepartment of compulsory education, which has the power to insist upon\nschool attendance for children of this age if not employed.\n\nIt is not that work is uniformly bad for these children. Indeed,\nidleness would be worse. And it is not that all these children are\nforced to turn out bad. But as a matter of fact children under sixteen\nare not generally wanted save in positions of monotonous and unpromising\nemployment, and their early experience, which is quite without reference\nto taste and native ability, is likely to turn them against all work as\nbeing an imposition rather than an opportunity. In the long run this\ncheap labor is the most expensive in the world, and society cannot\nafford to fully release children from school control and training prior\nto sixteen years of age. Much less can it permit them at any time to\napproach the employment problem blindly and unaided. Nor should it fail\nto reduce the hours of labor for such children as fall into permanently\nunprogressive toil and to organize their leisure as well as to provide\nopportunities whereby some may extricate themselves.\n\nWhat is this industrial haste which cuts so much of our corn while it is\nonly in tassel,  that drives square pegs into round holes, that\nharnesses trotting stock to heavy drays and draughting stock to gigs,\nthat breaks up the violin to kindle a fire quickly, thoughtless of the\nmusic, that takes telescopes for drain pipes and gets commerce--but not\ncommerce with the stars? It is the delirium in which strong men seek the\nstandard American testimonial of genius and ability, namely the\naccumulation of great wealth; and in this delirium they see labor as a\ncommodity and childhood as a commercial factor. They do not think of\npeople like themselves and of children like their own.\n\nBut the minister is the very champion of those higher rights, the\ndefender of idealism, and as such the best friend of an industrial order\nwhich is perversely making this expensive blunder and reaping the blight\nof sullen citizenship and cynical and heartless toil. How can these\nthousands who, because of \"blind-alley\" occupations, come to their\nmajority tradeless and often depleted, having no ability to build and\nown a home--how can these who have no stake in the country aid in making\nthe republic what it ought to be? Partly they become a public care,\nexpense, or nuisance, and largely they constitute the material for\nbossism and dynamite for the demagogue if he shall come.  The economic\nbreakdown, because of vocational misfit and the exploitation of\nchildhood, usually results in a corresponding moral breakdown. To be\ndoomed to inadequacy is almost to be elected to crime.\n\nNow the pastor certainly cannot right all this wrong, neither\nwill he be so brash as to charge it all up to malicious employers,\nignoring the process through which our vaunted individualism, our\nfree-field-and-no-favor policy, our doctrine for the strong has\ndisported itself. But is it not reasonable that the minister inform\nhimself of this problem in all its fundamental phases and that he both\nfollow and ardently encourage a public-school policy which aims\nincreasingly to fit the growing generation for productive and stable\ncitizenship? Our schools are fundamentally religious if we will have\nthem so in terms of character building, elemental self-respect, social\nservice, and accountability to the God of all.\n\nThe \"godless schools\" exist only in the minds of those who for purposes\nof dispute and sectarianism decree them so. Furthermore, in every effort\ntoward vocational training and sorting, the employer will be found\ninterested and ready to help.\n\nBut to come more closely to the place of this problem in church work it\nmust be recognized that the Sunday schools, clubs, and young people's\nsocieties offer wider opportunity for vocational direction than is now\nbeing used. The curricula in these institutions can be greatly vitalized\nand enlarged by the inclusion of this very interest, and life can be\nmade to seem more broadly, sanely, and specifically religious than is\nnow the case.\n\nSuppose that to groups of boys beyond middle adolescence competent and\nhigh-minded representatives of various trades and professions present in\nseries the reasons for their choice, the possible good, individual and\nsocial, which they see in their life-work, the qualifications which they\ndeem necessary, and the obstacles to be met; and suppose further that\nthe ethical code of a trade, profession, or business is presented for\nhonest canvass by the class, must there not result a stimulus and aid to\nvocational selection and also a more lively interest in the study of\nspecific moral problems? In this way teaching clusters about an\ninevitable field of interest, about live and often urgent problems, and\nthere is nothing to prevent the use of all the light which may be\nadduced from the Bible and religious experience.\n\nTo describe the method more specifically, the lawyer presents his\nprofession and subsequently the class discusses the code of the bar\nassociation; or the physician presents his work and then follows the\ncanvass of the ethical problems of medical practice, and so of the\ntrade-union artisan, the merchant or teacher, the minister, or the\ncaptain of industry. All of this is diffused with religion, it has its\nsetting and sanction within the church, it supplements for a few, at any\nrate, the present lack in public education, and it is real and immediate\nrather than theoretical and remote.\n\nLet this be complemented with visits to institutions, offices, plants,\ncourts, and the marts and centers of commercial, industrial, and\nagricultural life; and, best of all, cemented in the personal\nfriendship, practical interest and sponsorship of an adult and wise\ncounselor who helps the boy both to the place and in the place; and,\nwithin the limits of the rather small constituency of church boys at\nleast, there is guaranteed a piece of religious work that is bound to\ntell. For surely every legitimate interest of life is religious when\nhandled by religious persons, and the right moral adjustment of the\nwhole self to the whole world, with the emotion and idealism inhering in\nthe process, is the task and content of religion.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP[8]\n\n\nThe altruism of America is philanthropic rather than civic and in\ndeliberate disregard of government, the average citizen of the United\nStates has no equal. However intelligent or capable he may be, he is in\nthe main a poor citizen. This habit of having no care for the ship of\nstate and of seeking comfort and self-advantage, regardless of her\nfuture, is exactly the reverse of what one would expect. For by the\nmanner of her birth and her natural genius the republic would seem to\nguarantee forever a high type of efficient public service.\n\nBut the capable and typical man of the church, and presumptively the man\nof conscience, studiously avoids the hazards of political life. It is\nnot necessary to rehearse the well-known and deplorable results of this\npolicy whereby the best men have generally avoided public office,\nespecially in municipal government. Intelligence of the ills of the body\npolitic or of the fact that it lies bruised and violated among thieves\nserves chiefly to divert the disgusted churchman to the other side of\nthe road as he hastens to his destination of personal gain. Indeed it is\nnot an uncommon thing for him to be a past master in circumventing or\ndebauching government and in thus spreading the virus of political\ncynicism throughout the mass of the people.\n\nSuch a separation of church and state is hardly to be desired, and the\ncall to political service is quite as urgent, quite as moral, and far\nmore exacting than the perfectly just calls to foreign mission support\nand to the support of the great philanthropies of the day. Because of\nthe influx of foreign peoples, the unsolved race problem, tardy economic\nreforms, uncertain justice, political corruption, and official\nmediocrity, America stands more in need of good citizenship than of\ngenerosity, more in need of statesmen than of clergymen.\n\nNo subsequent philanthropy can atone for misgovernment, and furthermore\nall social injustice, whether by positive act or simple neglect, tends\nto take toll from the defenseless classes. The more efficient extricate\nthemselves, while the ignorant, the weak, the aged, and chiefly the\nlittle children bear the brunt of governmental folly. It is for this\nreason,  together with the passing of materialistic standards of pomp\nand circumstance and the growing insistence upon human values, that the\nwomen are demanding full citizenship. And this new citizenship,\nincluding both women and men enfranchised upon the same basis, will not\nbe without the ardor and heroism of those who in former days bore arms\nfor the honor of their native land. For just behind the ranks are the\nunprotected children, the new generation whose opportunity and treatment\nconstitutes the true measure of statesmanship.\n\nBut here as everywhere the only highway leading to that better tomorrow\nis thronged with little children upon whose training the issue hangs.\nWhat do the home, school, church, and community tell them as to\ncitizenship, and, of more importance, what civic attitudes and actions\nare evoked?\n\nThe home, by picture and story and celebration, by the observance of\nbirthdays, national and presidential, by the intelligent discussion of\npublic interests, by respect for constituted authorities, by honest\ndealing, and by a constant exercise of public spirit as over against a\nselfish and detached aim, may do much to mold the boy's early civic\nattitude.\n\nBut most homes will do little of this, and both home and school fall\nshort in pledging the new life to the common good and in guaranteeing to\nthe state her just due. Frequently the home provides lavishly and at\nsacrifice for the comfort and even luxury of the children and exacts\nnothing in return. Mothers slave for sons and neglect, until it is too\nlate, those just returns of service which make for honor and\nself-respect. Graft begins in the home, and it is amazing what pains we\ntake to produce an ingrate and perforce a poor citizen.\n\nSimilarly, the boy attends the \"free\" schools. Here is further advantage\nwithout the thought of service in return, something for nothing--the\nopen end of the public crib. But the public schools are not exactly free\nschools. Everything, whether at home or school, costs, and someone pays\nthe bills. The prospective citizen should be made to realize this, and\nit would do him no harm actually to compute the cost. Through home and\nschool, society is making an investment in him. Let him estimate in\ndollars and cents his indebtedness for food and clothing and shelter,\ntravel, medical care, education and recreation, and all the other items\nof expense which have entered into his care and training for the\nfourteen or seventeen years of his dependency.\n\nSuch an exercise, which cannot include those invaluable offices of\nparental love and personal interest, may have a sobering effect, as will\nalso a conscious appreciation of the social institutions and utilities\nwhich are the gift of former and contemporary generations of toilers.\n\nBut how can the schoolboy come into the self-respect of partnership?\nProbably by building up the consciousness of \"our school\" and by being\nsent from home with the idea of helping teacher and school in every way\nto accomplish the most and best for all concerned. Ordinarily the home\nsupplies the child with no such suggestion and in some cases works even\ncounter to the school and against good citizenship. The teacher is added\nto the ranks of the child's natural enemies, where unfortunately the\npoliceman has long since been consigned; and the school?--that is\nsomething for which he carries no responsibility. Actual experiment of\nthe opposite kind has proved most gratifying, and this immediate\nattitude toward his first public institution sets the child's will\ntoward the practice of good citizenship in the years that lie ahead.\n\nThe curriculum of the elementary schools of Chicago makes a very\nthorough attempt to train the child in good citizenship, an attempt\nbeginning with the anniversary days of the kindergarten and proceeding\nthroughout the eight grades. In addition to history, civics of the most\nconcrete and immediate kind is so presented that the child should be\nbrought to an appreciation of the city's institutions and organized\nforces and of the common responsibility for the health and security of\nall the people. The same policy is pursued, unfortunately with\ndiminishing attention, throughout the high-school course, and yet the\nsuperintendent of schools testifies that public education is failing to\nsecure civic virtue. The children have not come into partnership with\nthe school and other agencies of the common life, they have not achieved\na nice sense of the rights of others, they have not been lifted to the\nideal of service as being more noble than that of efficiency alone.\n\nOf course there are many reasons for this: the quizzical temper of the\ncommunity at large, the constant revelation of graft, the distorted\nschool discipline which makes tardiness a more serious offense than\nlying or theft; the neglect to organize athletics and play for ethical\nends; the criminal's code with regard to examinations--a code very\nprevalent in secondary schools, both public and private--that cheating\nis in order if one is not caught; the bitter and damaging personalities\nof party politics and the very transient honors of American public life;\nand, perhaps chief of all, the very elaborate provision for every child\nwith the implication that he does the school a favor to use what is\nprovided rather than the imposition of an obligation upon him both to\nhelp in securing the efficiency and beauty of the school and to\ndischarge his just debt to society in the measure of his ability as boy\nand man.\n\nAnother productive cause of poor citizenship is the general contempt in\nwhich immigrants are held, and especially the treatment accorded them by\nthe police and by most of the minor officials with whom they come in\ncontact. This primitive disdain of \"barbarians\" is common among the\nschool children and tends to make the foreign children more delinquent\nand anti-social than they would otherwise be. A very recent case sums up\nthe situation. A gang of five Polish boys \"beat up\" a messenger boy,\napparently without provocation. A Juvenile Protective officer visited\nthe home of one of these young thugs for the purpose of talking with the\nmother and getting such information as would aid in keeping the boy from\ngetting into further trouble.\n\nThe mother was found to be a very intelligent woman and explained to\nthe officer that her boy had been constantly angered and practically\nspoiled at school; that it had been ground into him that he was nothing\nbut a \"Polack,\" and that no good thing was to be expected of him. The\nschool boys had taken a hand in his education; and by reflecting in\ntheir own merciless way the uncharitable judgment of their elders had\nhelped to produce this young pariah.\n\nIf one will but travel on the street cars in the crowded districts of\nour great cities and note the churlish discourtesy and sarcastic\ncontempt with which \"the foreigners\" are generally treated, or will take\nthe pains to ascertain how cruelly they are deceived and fleeced at\nalmost every turn, one will soon conclude that we are making it very\nhard for these people and their children to become grateful and ardent\ncitizens of the republic.\n\nLooking to the improvement of this condition, while vocational training\npromises something by way of an economic basis for good citizenship, too\nmuch must not be expected of it alone. For if vocational efficiency be\ncreated and released in an environment devoid of civic idealism it will\nnever pass beyond the grub stage. It will merely fatten a low order of\nlife, and this at the expense of much that would otherwise lend verdure\nand freshness, shade, flower, and fruit to the garden of our common\nlife. The able man or the rich man is not necessarily a good citizen.\n\nThat the state, like the home and school, should incessantly give its\nbenefactions without binding youth to service in return is an egregious\nblunder. There should be some formal entrance into full citizenship, not\nonly for those of us who, coming from other nations, must needs be\n\"naturalized,\" but for all whom the years bring from the fair land of\nboyhood into the great and sober responsibilities of citizenship.\n\n     When a Greek youth took the oath of citizenship,\n     he stood in the temple of Aglauros overlooking the\n     city of Athens and the country beyond and said:\n     \"I will never disgrace these sacred arms nor desert\n     my companions in the ranks. I will fight for temples\n     and public property, both alone and with many. I\n     will transmit my fatherland not only not less but\n     greater and better than it was transmitted to me. I\n     will obey the magistrates who may at any time be in\n     power. I will observe both the existing laws and\n     those which the people may unanimously hereafter\n     make. And if any person seek to annul the laws or\n     set them at naught, I will do my best to prevent him\n     and will defend them both alone and with many. I\n     will honor the religion of my fathers, and I call to\n     witness Aglauros, Enyalios, Ares, Zeus, Thallo, Auxo,\n     and Hegemone.\"\n\nNow, the minister may think that no great part of the improved training\nfor citizenship falls to him. He may be content to instill motives of\nindividual piety, but upon reflection he must know that on nearly every\nhand there exist today great and insuperable barriers to his personal\ngospel. Behind the walls which imprison them are millions who cannot\nhear his message and those walls will not go down except by the creation\nof public sentiment which organizes itself and functions as law and\ngovernment. The minister's exercise of citizenship should not be\nreserved for heaven, where it will not be needed, but should rather get\ninto action here and now.\n\nThis means a pulpit policy which recognizes the great dimensions of the\nKingdom of God, and seeks a moral alignment of church and state that\nwill draw out the religious energy to vital and immediate issues, and\nwill necessitate within the church herself clean-cut moral reactions to\nexisting vital conditions. When the pulpit becomes sufficiently\nintelligent and bold to lay bare such issues the youth and manhood of\nthe country will not in so large measure neglect the pew. Wherever real\nissues are drawn men and boys tend to assemble.\n\n[Illustration: IMPORTED CIVIC TIMBER]\n\nIn the intricate social life of today a ministry devoted exclusively to\nplucking a few brands from the burning is somewhat archaic. The\nindividual soul in its majestic value is not discounted, but it cannot\nbe disentangled from the mass as easily as was once the case, or as\neasily as was once supposed. It was not so necessary to preach civic\nrighteousness when \"the gospel\" was deemed sufficient so to transform\nthe individual that all external limitations, ungodly conditions, and\nsocial injustices would yield to the regal ability of the child of God.\n\nTo recognize the environmental phase of salvation and to undertake this\nbroader task in addition to the \"cure of souls\" may be to expose the\nminister to the cross-fire of economic sharp-shooters and a fusillade of\nsociological field guns. Besides, some of the supporters of the church\nwill object and many will assert that the minister cannot qualify to\nspeak with first-rate intelligence and authority upon the complex social\nproblems of the day. Indeed, by endeavoring to utter a message of\nimmediate significance in this field, he will discredit his more\nimportant mission as a \"spiritual\"  leader. Again, if he should speak to\nthe point on social issues no heed would be paid to his deliverances,\nand he has plenty to do in routine pastoral work.\n\nThe strength of these objections must be granted, and more especially so\nin the case of weak men, men of unripe judgment, of hasty and\nextravagant utterance, and of inferior training. For undoubtedly\npresent-day problems of social welfare and such as affect religious\nliving do lead back, not only into economic considerations, but also\ninto questions of legislation and government.\n\nBut even so, will the minister consent to be without voice or program in\nthe shaping of social ethics? Will he follow meekly and at a safe\ndistance in the wake of the modern movement for economic justice and\nhumane living conditions? Will he allow people to think for a moment\nthat his job is to coddle a few of the elect and to solace a few of the\nvictims of preventable hardship and injustice?\n\nSuppose that, with the exception of denouncing the saloon and praising\ncharity, he omits from his pulpit policy the creation of civic ideals\nand the drawing of moral issues in behalf of the higher life of all the\npeople, will not the male population consider him rather too much\nengrossed with the little comforts, sentiments, and futilities of a\nreligious club?\n\nThe entire precedent of the pulpit, both in biblical days and since, is\nwholly against such silence. If it is not the minister's business to\nknow the problems of social ethics, so as to speak confidently to the\nsituation from the standpoint of Jesus, whose province is it? Must he\ndodge the greatest moral problems of the day, all of which are\ncollective? Has he not time and training so to master his own field that\nhe will be second to none of his hearers in the possession of the\nrelevant facts; and does he not presumably know the mind of Christ?\n\nIt is idle to say that his hearers will pay no heed, and it is idle to\nthink that as a champion of justice and a better day he may not get a\nscar or so. But the man who has the mind of Christ toward the multitude\nand who thinks as highly of little children and their rights as did the\nMan of Galilee is going to be significant in making states and cities\nwhat they ought to be; and whatever disturbances may arise in the placid\nseparatism of the church, the Kingdom itself will go marching on. The\nchief ingredient needed by the pulpit of today in order to inspire men\nand boys to noble citizenship is courage--moral courage.\n\nBut the new citizenship is in training for peace rather than for war,\nfor world-wide justice rather than for national aggrandizement; and to\nthis the Christian message lends itself with full force. The rehearsal\nof war and strife, the superficial view of history which sees only the\nsmoke of battles and the monuments of military heroes, give place to an\ninsight which traces the advancing welfare of the common people. The\nminister will inspire his formative citizens with good portrayals of\nstatesmen, educators, inventors, reformers, discoverers, pioneers, and\nphilanthropists. He will charm them into greatness at the very time when\na boy's ideals overtop the mountains.\n\nConducive to the same end will be the rugged and humane ideals and\nactivities of the Boy Scouts under his control; and all that is well\ndone in the boys' clubs--the athletics, debates, trials, councils,\nliterary and historical programs, addresses by respected public\nofficials, visits to public institutions, the study of social\nconditions, especially in the young men's classes of the Sunday\nschool--will make for the same good citizenship.\n\nIf the Men's Brotherhood is of significance in the community it is quite\npossible to bring political candidates before it for the statement of\ntheir claims and of the issues involved in any given campaign, and boys\nof fifteen years and over might well be invited to such meetings.\n\nThen, too, such activities for community betterment as are outlined in\nthe closing chapter of this book should be of some benefit, since the\nboy is to become a good citizen, not by hearing only but by doing; and\nthe great success attending \"Boy-City\" organizations should inspire the\npastor to attempt by this and other means the training of a new\ncitizenship.\n\nIn fact, the matter is of sufficient importance to have a definite place\nin the Sunday-school curriculum and a boy might far better be informed\non the plan of government, the civic dangers, and the line of action for\na good man in his own city than to fail of that in an attempt to master\nthe topography of Palestine or to recite perfectly the succession of the\nIsraelitish kings.\n\nIf the minister has faith in a living God, if he believes that people\nare not less valuable now than they were four thousand years ago, if his\nGolden Age comprises the perfect will of God entempled in the whole\ncreation, if he believes that this nation has some responsible part in\nthe divine plan for the world, if he believes that righteousness is\nmore desirable than pity and justice than philanthropy, and that the\nunrest of our times is but opportunity, he will in every way gird his\nboys for the battle and deliver constantly to the state trained recruits\nfor the cause of human welfare which is ever the cause of God.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE BOY'S RELIGIOUS LIFE[9]\n\n\nComparative religion is unable to make a satisfactory investigation of\nthe successive stages in the religious life of the individual. For the\npurpose of religious education it is highly desirable to add to the\nhistorical survey and the ethnological cross-sections of comparative\nreligion a longitudinal section of the religion of the individual. This,\nhowever, is impossible because the important data at the bottom of the\nseries are unattainable. In the study of childhood, as in the study of a\nprimitive race, the individual is so securely hidden away in the group\nthat the most penetrating scientific method cannot find him, and the\ntendencies which are to integrate into religious experience are so taken\nin hand by the society which produces and envelops the new life that the\nstudent of religion must deal with a social product from the outset. The\nisolated religion of an individual does not exist, although in the more\nmature stages of prophetism and philosophy pronounced individual\nfeatures always assert themselves.\n\nThe potential individuality in every child forbids, however, the\nassertion that he is only a mirror in which the religion of his\nimmediate society and nothing more is reflected. There is from a very\nearly time an active principle of personality, a growing selective\npower, a plus that comes out of the unmapped laboratory of creation,\nthat may so arrange, transmute, and enrich the commonplace elements of\nthe socio-religious matrix as to amount to genius. But, nevertheless,\nthe newcomer can scarcely do more than select the given quarter which\nfrom day to day proves least unpleasant, while the fact of being on the\ngreat ship and in one cabin or another--or in the steerage--has been\nsettled beforehand.\n\nHence the religious life of the boy depends largely upon family and\ncommunity conditions which in turn rest upon economic considerations.\nWhatever demoralizes the home, degrades the community, and crushes out\nidealism also damns the souls of little children. It requires no deep\ninvestigation of modern society to prove that this is being done, and\nthe guilt of economic injustice and rapacity is measured ultimately in\nthe cost to the human spirit which in every child pleads for life and\nopportunity, and, alas, too often pleads in vain.\n\nThe pre-adolescent and imitative religious life of the boy is fairly\ncommunicative, but as soon as the actual struggle of achieving a\npersonal religion sets in under the pubertal stress the sphinx itself is\nnot more reticent. The normal boy is indisposed to talk about the\naffairs of his inner life. Probably they are too chaotic to formulate\neven to himself. If he is unspoiled he clothes his soul with a spiritual\nmodesty which some of his sentimental elders might well cultivate. If he\ndoes break silence it will probably be in terms of the religious cult\nthat has given him nurture. For all of these reasons it is exceedingly\ndifficult to trace with certainty the development of his personal\nreligion.\n\nThe indubitable and hopeful fact is that in every normal boy the potent\ngerm of religion is present. Usually in early adolescence it bursts its\ncasings and shoots into consciousness, powerfully affecting the emotions\nand the will. Certain stages of this process will be in the nature of\ncrisis according to the strength of the opposition encountered in the\npersonal moral struggle, and in opposing social conditions. Nothing but\ncalamity can forestall this progressive moral adjustment to the whole\nworld. To believe otherwise is to indict God for the purpose of covering\nour own blunders. In proportion as society prevents or perverts this\nmoral outreach after God, it pollutes and endangers itself. The\natmosphere that kills the lily creates the stench.\n\nIn the passage of the boy's religious life from the imitative type to\nthe personal and energized form, or, as he experiences conversion, the\nbattle is usually waged about some _concrete moral problem._ His\nconscience has become sensitive with regard to profanity, lying,\nimpurity, or some particular moral weakness or maladjustment and his\nstruggle centers on that. Being often defeated under the adolescent\nsense--pressure and confusion, he naturally seeks help, and help from\nthe highest source of virtue. He has secreted somewhere in his heart\nulterior ideals of service, but for the time being his chief concern is\nvery properly himself; for if he \"loses out\" with himself he knows that\nall other worthy ambitions are annulled.\n\nBut a religious culture that keeps him in this self-centered feverish\nstate is pathetically morbid and harmful. It short-circuits the\nreligious life. This is the chief criticism of the devotional type of\nChristian culture. It seeks to prolong a crisis and often begets\ninsincerity or disgust. The real priest of boyhood will certainly stand\nnear by at this all-important time, but he will always manifest a\nrefined respect for the birth-chamber of the soul. In patient and\nhopeful sympathy, in friendship that is personal and not professional,\nknowing that the door of the heart is opened only from within, the true\nminister, like his Master, waits. He knows, too, that a few words\nsuffice in the great decisions of life, and that the handclasp of manly\nlove speaks volumes. The prime qualification is a friendship that\ninvites and respects confidence and a life that is above criticism.\n\nAnother important aid in bringing the boy over the threshold of vital\nand purposeful religion is the favorable influence of his group or\n\"gang.\" The disposition to move together which is so pronounced in every\nother field must not be ignored here. The ideal club will be bringing\nthe boy toward the altar of the church and at the right point along the\nway the minister who is properly intimate with each boy will be assured\nin private conference of the good faith and earnest purpose of his\nprospective church member.\n\nBefore receiving boys into active church membership it is well that they\nbe given a course of instruction in a preparatory class. Only so can\nthe fundamentals of religion and the duties of church membership be\nintelligently grasped. The value to the boy is also enhanced when the\nceremony of induction is made _formal and impressive_ to a degree that\nshall not be surpassed in his entrance into any other organization. By\nall means the boy should not be neglected after he has been received\ninto the church. Mistakes of this sort are common wherever undue\nimportance attaches to the conversion experience, and the numerical\nideal of church success prevails. If the task becomes too great for the\npastor let him find a responsible \"big brother\" for every boy received\ninto the church.\n\nAs the critical or skeptical traits of youth develop in later\nadolescence the intellectual formulas and supports of religion will be\noverhauled. What the boy has brought over out of the early imitative and\nmemorizing period of life will probably come up for review in later\nadolescence. If his inherited theology corresponds to experience and\nverifies itself in the light of the scientific methods of school and\ncollege no great difficulty will be experienced. But if it does not\nsquare with the youth's set of verifiable facts then there is added to\nhis necessary moral struggle for self-possession and spiritual control\nthe unnecessary and dangerous quest for a new faith, so that he is\nforced to swap horses in midstream and when the spring freshet is on.\n\nPossibly this reorganization involved in the adolescent flux and\nreflection cannot be altogether avoided, but with proper care much could\nbe done to lessen its dangers and to preserve a substantial continuity\nof religious experience from childhood through youth and to the end of\nlife. It is a help not to have to be introduced to an altogether new God\nin these succeeding stages. To preserve his identity enriches and\nsafeguards the life.\n\nThe imagination and wonder instinct of the child, his use of \"natural\nreligion,\" his confirmation in habits of prayer, reverence, and worship,\nhis acquisition of choice religious literature by memorizing--can these\ninterests be properly cared for without putting upon him a theological\nyoke which will subsequently involve pain and perhaps apostasy?\n\nIt is undoubtedly easier to point out the desirability of furnishing\nchildhood with the materials of a time-proof religion than to provide\nsuch an instrument. And it is less difficult to criticize the\nindiscriminate use of the Bible in instructing the young than to set\nforth the type of education in religion which will satisfy alike the\nmental requirements of childhood and youth. What course should be\nfollowed with the pre-adolescent boy in order that the youth may be not\nless but more religious?\n\nIn offering any suggestion in this direction it should be borne in mind\nthat natural religion or the religion of nature makes a strong appeal to\nthe child. He readily believes in the presence of God in animate nature\nwith all its wonder and beauty. Creatorship and the expression of the\ndivine will in the normal processes are taken for granted. The orderly\nworld is to him proof of mind and method; and perhaps the first mistake\nin the average religious teaching is the departure from this broad basis\nof faith to what is termed \"revealed religion\" and is at the same time\nthe religion of miracle. The introduction of miracle as a basis of faith\namounts to sowing the seeds of adolescent skepticism.\n\nThe child should be taught to deal with Jewish folk-lore as with that of\nany other people. While the incomparable religious value of the biblical\nliterature should be used to the full, the Bible as a book should not be\ngiven artificial ranking. Nor should any belief contrary to his reason\nbe imposed as an obligation. But the ever-open possibility of things\nthat surpass present human comprehension should be preserved, and the\nsense of wonder which the scientist may ever have should be carefully\nnurtured. If the teacher violates the child's right to absolute honesty\nhere let him not bemoan nor condemn the skepticism of later years.\n\nThe child can also believe in the presence of God in his own moral\ndiscernment. He can be taught to obey his sense of \"ought\" and to enjoy\nthereby, from very early years, a rich measure of harmony. Through such\nexperience he discovers to himself the joy of being at one with God. He\nhas proof of the constructive power of righteousness, and conversely he\nlearns the destructive power of sin. He finds that the constituted order\nis essentially moral and that the duty of all alike is to conform to\nthat fact.\n\nHe can easily comprehend also the struggle of the better self to rule\nover the worse self. The battle of the rational and spiritual to gain\nsupremacy over the instinctive and animalistic is known to him. To be\nmaster of himself and to exercise a control that is more and more\nspiritual, to get the better of things and circumstances, to reduce his\nworld to obedience to his gradually enlightened will--that is his task.\nIn this he proves, under right guidance, the supremacy of the spiritual\nand may be encouraged to project it into a hope of personal immortality.\n\nVery early, too, he gets some proof of the fact of human solidarity;\nespecially so if he has brothers and sisters. The social character of\ngood and the anti-social character of bad conduct is demonstrated day in\nand day out in the family. And enlargement of the concentric circles\nthat bound his life only demonstrates over and over again the social\nnature of goodness. On this basis sufficient inspiration for personal\nrighteousness and altruism is afforded by the world's need of just these\nthings. Every normal child responds to the appeal of living to make the\nworld better. Children always \"want to help.\"\n\nApart from every speculative question the child accepts the ethical\nleadership of Jesus. And he should understand that discipleship consists\nin conduct that conforms to His spirit. To make the test creedal is not\nonly contrary to the intensely pragmatic character of childhood but\ninimical to the resistless spirit of inquiry and speculation which\nbreaks out in reflective youth. Childhood needs a religion of deeds. If\na religion of dogma and detached sentiment is substituted the youth may\nsome day awake to the fact that he can throw the whole thing overboard\nand experience a relief rather than a loss. If from his earliest\nexperience in the home he has lived under the wholesome influence of\napplied rather than speculative Christianity, he will be spared much of\nthe danger incident to theological reconstruction.\n\nIn emphasizing this point of applied Christianity, and as illustrating\nthe fact that the boy's initial religious struggle, which necessitates a\nquest for God, centers about concrete temptations, it may be in place to\nmake mention of a problem which lies very close to personal religion and\nsocial welfare. On the one hand the very altruism which is exalted and\nglorified in religion has its physical basis in the sex life, and on the\nother hand the sex life, unless it be guarded by religious control, ever\nthreatens to devastate all the higher values of the soul. Hence the\nproblem of the boy's personal purity has profound religious\nsignificance.\n\nAs yet there is little consensus of opinion as to the best way of\nkeeping him pure. Parents, educators, and religious leaders, however,\nare showing increased concern over this difficult problem, and there is\ngood ground to believe that prudery and indifference must gradually give\nplace to frank and intelligent consideration of this vital and difficult\nsubject.\n\nIt must be granted, however, that it is as impossible as it is\nundesirable to keep the boy ignorant. His own natural curiosity,\ntogether with his school and street experience, are fatal to such a\nFool's Paradise. Moreover, the general attitude of suppression and\nsecrecy rather stimulates curiosity, and often amounts to the plain\nimplication that everything that has to do with the perpetuation of our\nspecies is of necessity evil and shameful. This \"conspiracy of silence\"\nmakes against true virtue. Religious instruction, based upon the\nconfession of the repentant David, \"Behold, I was begotten in iniquity\nand in sin did my mother conceive me,\" has helped to perpetuate a\nsinister attitude toward this whole question--an attitude not without\nsome foundation in the moral history of man.\n\nIt has also been convenient and consistent, in support of the doctrine\nof man's depravity, to exploit this dark view so as to make him a fit\nsubject for redemption. Somehow, the traditional \"Fall\" and procreation\nhave been so associated in religious thinking that it has been\npractically impossible for the religious mind to entertain any favorable\nconsideration of the physical conditions of human genesis. Very\nnaturally that which is under the ban, being the seat of human sin, the\nbond that binds each generation to fallen Adamic nature, must take its\nplace as surreptitious and evil--and never positively within the\nsanctioned and ordained agencies of God.\n\nDoes such an attitude contribute to man's highest good and to the\nstrength and scope of religious control? Is it better to alienate and\noutlaw so important a phase of human existence or to bring it into\nintelligent accord with the divine will? Is it not conceivable that in\nthis field, as in every other that is normal to human life, there will\nbe a gain to humanity, and to the value of religion as a helper of\nmankind, by a frank attempt to bring the whole life to the dignifying\nconception of a reasonable service to one's Maker?\n\nGranting that such an attempt is desirable, we come face to face with\nthe necessity of imparting such information as will make the boy's way\nof duty plain, and will elevate the subject to a place of purity and\nreligious worth. In this process of instruction, which is nothing less\nthan a sacred responsibility, the most common fault of the parent,\nphysician, teacher, and pastor is that of delay. By the time a boy is\neight years of age, he should have been informed as to his residence\nwithin and his birth from his mother, and this in such a way as\nwonderfully to deepen his love for her, and to beget in him a respect\nfor all women to the end of his life.\n\nIt is well that the mother should first inform him in that spirit of\nutmost confidence which shall preclude his indiscriminate talk with\nother people upon this subject. He should know, too, that further\ninformation will be given as he needs it, and that he can trust his\nparents to be frank and true with him in this as in everything else. By\nall means let the mother tell the story and not some unfortunately\nvicious or polluted companion. There are three reasons at least for\ninforming him thus early in life. One is that sufficient curiosity has\nusually developed by this time, another is that the first information\nshould come from a pure source, and a third is that this instruction\nshould anticipate sex consciousness and the indecent language and\nsuggestions of school and street.\n\nIn the same spirit will the father impart to the boy a little later the\nfact of the original residence within himself of the seed from which the\nboy grew. By the father's reverent treatment of the subject in the hour\nof a boy's confidence, and in response to his just curiosity, he may\nhallow forever the boy's conception of the marriage relation and\nemphasize the vast amount of tenderness and regard that is due every\nmother. For the boy to feel sure that he has been told the truth by his\nfather, and to realize that his father regards these facts in an\nhonorable and clean way, will rob a thousand indecent stories of their\ndamage.\n\nIt belongs to the father to redeem the boy's idea of human procreation\nfrom obscenity, and, under right conditions, to have this process\nregarded by his boy as the most wonderful responsibility that falls to\nman. Sometime before the boy has reached thirteen, the father will have\nexplained to him the facts and temptations of the pubescent period. The\ncrime of allowing boys in middle and later adolescence to worry\nthemselves sick over normal nocturnal emissions, and often to fall into\nthe hands of the quack, or of the advocate of illicit intercourse, lies\nat the door of the negligent father.\n\nThe enervating results of self-abuse, the loss of manliness and\nself-respect, and the possible damage to future offspring will have\nweight in safeguarding the boy who has already been fortified by a high\nand just conception of the procreative power which is to be his.\nMoreover, in the severe battle that is waged for self-control, the boy\nshould be given every aid of proper hygiene in clothing, sleeping\nconditions, baths, exercise, diet, and social intercourse. Plenty of\nexercise but not thorough exhaustion, good athletic ideals, a spare diet\nat night, good hours, and freedom from evil suggestion, entertainments,\nor reading; his time and attention healthfully occupied--these\nprecautions, in addition to enlightenment as above indicated, will, if\nthere are no conditions calling for minor surgery, go a long way toward\npreserving the boy's integrity under the temptations incident to sex\nlife. It is to be feared that many boys have been wronged by the failure\nof parents and physicians to have some slight operation--either\ncircumcision or its equivalent--performed in the early days of infancy.\n\nBooks on the subject are not best for the boy. They tend to make him\nmorbid and often stimulate the evil which they seek to cure. Nor is it\nwise, prior to the age of fifteen, to open up the loathsome side of the\nsubject, concerning the diseases that are the outcome of the social\nevil. After that age, talks by a reputable physician, pointing out the\nterrible results to oneself, his wife, and his descendants, may be\nfitting and helpful. The minister should make frequent use of the\nphysician in having him address on different occasions the fathers and\nthe mothers of the boys. To hold such meetings in the church building is\nan altogether worthy use of the institution.\n\nIn cases where parent and physician have failed to do their duty, and\nthe pastor is on proper terms of friendship with the boy, it becomes his\nduty to tell the boy plainly and purely a few of the important things\nwhich he ought to know in order to avoid moral shipwreck.\n\nIf credence is to be given to the startling reports of immorality in\nhigh schools, based, as is commonly claimed, upon ignorance, then the\ntime has certainly come for plain speech, and the boys and girls should\nbe gathered together in separate companies for instruction in sex\nhygiene and morality. Any education which makes no deliberate attempt to\nconserve human happiness and social welfare in this important respect is\ninadequate and culpable. The testimony that comes from juvenile courts,\ngirls' rescue homes, and boys' reformatories constitutes a grave\nindictment of society for its neglect to impart proper information.\n\nIt is part of the minister's task to work for a better day in this as in\nevery phase of moral achievement. Next to the physician he best knows\nthe mental and physical suffering, the moral defeat, and the awful\ninjustice to women and children whom the libertine pollutes with\nincurable diseases. If he is a true pastor, he will strive to keep the\nboys pure through expert instruction to parents, through personal\nadvice, through wholesome activity and recreation, through courses on\nsexual hygiene in the public schools, through war on indecency in\nbillboard, dance, and theater, through absolute chastity of speech, and,\nin general, through an ideal of life and service which shall lift the\nboys' ambitions out of the low and unhealthy levels of sense\ngratification. To put the spiritual nature in control is his high and\nsacred opportunity.\n\nThe importance of the minister's part in this struggle for the body and\nsoul of youth is based upon the fact that in this critical encounter\nthere is no aid that is comparable with religion. Thousands of honest,\nserious-minded men frankly confess that in modern conditions they see\nlittle hope of this battle being won without religion as a sanction of\nright conduct. The boy needs God, a God to whom he can pray in the hour\nof temptation. He needs to regard his life with all its powers as God's\ninvestment, which he must not squander or pervert.\n\nHere, as everywhere else in boy-life, the loyalty appeal, which, as\nnothing else, will keep him true to mother and father, to society, and\nto God, stands the religious leader in good stead. Upon honor he will\nnot violate the confidence of his parents, and the trust imposed in him\nby his Maker. Upon honor he will deport himself toward the opposite sex\nas he would wish other boys to regard his own sister; and the religious\nteacher has it within his power, if he will keep in touch with boys, to\ncreate and preserve an ideal of manly chivalry that will effectively\nwithstand both the insidious temptations of secret sin and the bolder\ninducements of social vice.\n\nThis can never be done by the formal work of the pulpit alone. Nothing\nbut the influence of a pure, strong man, mediated in part through the\nparents of the boy, supported by scientific facts, and operating\ndirectly on the boy's life, through the mighty medium of a personal\nfriendship, can perform this saving ministry.  If there were nothing\nmore to be gained through intimate acquaintance with boys than thus\nfortifying them in this one inevitable and prolonged struggle, it would\nwarrant all the energy and time consumed in the minister's attempt to\nenter into the hallowed friendship and frank admiration of the boys of\nhis parish.\n\nFor such reasons it is important that the implications of discipleship\nbe made very plain to the boy, and this in terms of specific conduct in\nthe home, at school, on the playground, at work, and in all the usual\nsocial relations. Without this, there may be fatal inconsistencies in\nthe boy's conduct, not because he is essentially vicious, but because he\nhas been unable to interpret high-sounding sermons and biblical ideals\nin terms of commonplace duty. If the evangelical message encourages,\ncondones, or permits this divorce, it becomes an instrument of\nincalculable harm. Boys must be held to a high and reasonable standard\nof personal duty and group endeavor.\n\nFrom this point of view the weakest feature of the church boys' club is\nits tendency to overlook specific work for others. The serious-minded\nleader will not be altogether satisfied in merely holding boys together\nfor a \"good time,\" wholesome as that may be. The service ideal must be\nincorporated in the activities of the club. The nascent altruism of the\nboy should receive impetus and direction and the members should engage\nin united and intelligent social service. Give the boy a worthy job;\ngive him a hard job; give him a job that calls for team work; and give\nhim help and appreciation in the doing of it.\n\nIt is sometimes difficult to devise and execute a program of this kind\nbecause of the limited opportunities of the particular town in which the\nclub exists and the narrow ideals of the church with which the club is\naffiliated. Yet it is always preferable to enlist the boys in some\naltruistic enterprise which lies close enough at hand to give it the\nfull weight of reality. Only so can we satisfy the concrete\nvalue-judgment of the young matriculant in the great school of applied\nreligion.\n\nThis, however, should not be to the exclusion of those vast idealistic\nmovements for human good embodied in world-wide missionary propaganda of\na medical, educational, and evangelistic type. Only, taking the boy as\nhe is, it is not best to begin with these, because of their lack of\nreality to him and because of his inability to participate except by\nproxy. It is well that he should extend himself to some faraway need by\ncontributing of his means, but these gifts will get their proper\nsignificance and his philanthropic life will preserve its integrity by\nperforming the particular service which to his own immediate knowledge\nneeds to be done.\n\nThe proper care and beautifying of the streets and public places in his\nown community, the collection of literature for prisoners or the inmates\nof asylums or hospitals near at hand, supplying play equipment,\nclothing, or any useful thing for unfortunate boys in congested city\ndistricts, helping the minister and church in the distribution of\nprinted matter and alms, aiding smaller boys in the organization of\ntheir games, helping some indigent widow, giving an entertainment,\nselling tickets, souvenirs, or any merchantable article which they may\nproperly handle for the purpose of devoting the profits to some\nimmediate charity; making for sale articles in wood, metal, or leather\nfor the same purpose; winning other boys from bad associations to the\nbetter influences of their own group, helping in the conduct of public\nworship by song or otherwise, acting as messengers and minute-men for\nthe pastor--something of this sort should engage part of their time and\nattention in order that they may be drawn into harmony with the spirit\nof the church.\n\n[Illustration: A CASE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SALVATION]\n\nOrdinarily the general administration of the church could be made more\neffective and the standard activities more attractive if the preacher\nwould keep the boy in mind in constructing and illustrating his sermons\nand would make appeal to the known interests of boyhood; and if music\ncommittees would adopt a policy for the development and use of his\nmusical ability instead of stifling and ignoring this valuable religious\nasset and rendering the boy, so far forth, useless to and estranged from\nthe purposes and activities of the church. In church music the paid\nquartette alone means the way of least resistance and of least benefit,\nand it is a harmful device if it means the failure of the church to\nenlist boys in the rare religious development to be achieved in sacred\nsong and in participation in public worship. It is to be regretted that\nhymns suited to boyhood experience are very rare and that so little\neffort is made to interest and use the boy in the stated worship of the\nchurch.\n\nBut if these evils were remedied there would still be the problem of the\nSunday school which, although generally a worthy institution, usually\nsucceeds at the cost of the church-going habit which might otherwise be\ncultivated in the boy. To make a Sunday-school boy instead of a church\nboy is a net loss, and with the present Sunday congestion there is\nlittle likelihood of securing both of these ends. Probably it will\nbecome necessary to transfer what is now Sunday-school work to week-day\nperiods as well as to renovate public worship before a new generation of\nchurchmen can be guaranteed.\n\nIn the meantime, loyalty cultivated by a variety of wholesome contacts\nlargely outside of traditional church work must serve to win and retain\nthe boys of today. For loyalty to the minister who serves them readily\npasses over into loyalty to the church which he likewise serves.\nWherever the club is made up predominantly of boys from the church\nfamilies, it will be well to have an occasional service planned\nespecially for the boys themselves--one which they will attend in a\nbody. Such a Sunday-evening service for boys and young men may be held\nregularly once a month with good success, and the value of such meetings\nis often enhanced by short talks from representative Christian laymen.\nDemands for service as well as the important questions of personal\nreligion should be dealt with in a manly,  straightforward way. Beating\nabout the bush forfeits the boy's respect.\n\nIn preaching to boys the minister will appeal frankly to manly and\nheroic qualities. He will advance no dark premise of their natural\nestrangement from God, but will postulate for all a sonship which is at\nonce a divine challenge to the best that is in them and the guaranty\nthat the best is the normal and the God-intended life. They must qualify\nfor a great campaign under the greatest soul that ever lived. They\nengage to stand with Him against sin in self and in all the world about,\nand in proportion as they take on His mission will they realize the\nnecessity of high personal standards and of that help which God gives to\nall who are dedicated to the realization of the Kingdom.\n\nThe normal boy will not deliberately choose to sponge upon the world. He\nintends to do the fair thing and to amount to something. He dreams of\nmaking his life an actual contribution to the welfare and glory of\nhumanity. When it is put before him rightly he will scorn a selfish\nmisappropriation of his life, and will enter the crusade for the city\nthat hath foundations whose builder and maker is God. Happy is the\nminister who has boys that bring their chums to see him for the purpose\nof enlistment. Happy is the minister whose hand often clasps the\noutstretched hand of the boy pledging himself to the greatest of all\nprojects--the Kingdom of God in the earth; to the greatest of all\ncompanies--the company of those who in all time have had part in that\ntask; and to the greatest of all captains--Jesus of Nazareth.\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nTHE CHURCH BOYS' CLUB[10]\n\n\nThose who know the boy best can hardly be persuaded that the Sunday\nschool can be made to satisfy his intense demand for action. Yet action\nis an important factor in religious education. Commendable efforts are\nbeing made to introduce more of handicraft and artistic expression into\nthe work of the Sunday-school class; but from the boy's point of view,\nthe making of maps, illuminated texts, and temple models does not fully\nmeet his desire for doing. The character of the Sunday school, its place\nof meeting, and the proper observance of the day preclude the more\nnoisy, varied, and spontaneous activities which may be made to carry\nmoral and religious value.\n\nAnother agency is needed in the church that can be more venturesome and\nfree than the Sunday school, an agency that can act on the parallel of\nthe boy's natural interests and adapt its methods to his unfolding life\nin terms of action. The Sunday school can stick to its task of\nelucidating the history and theory of religion; but the boys' club is a\nbetter place for securing the expression of religious principles and so\nconfirming them in character. When the Sunday school shall have reached\nits highest point of efficiency it will still have failed to cover the\nmost vital element in the moral and religious training of the boy simply\nbecause it will still be a _Sunday_ school and, presumably, a _Bible_\nschool. That is, it will have not only the benefits but also the\nlimitations of the sacred day and of the book method of instruction. The\nboy needs something more than \"a society for sitting still.\"\n\nBut some will say, \"Why take the boy out of the home at all? The good\nhome, the public school, and the established agencies of religion are\nenough. A club is not needed.\" It might be replied that all boys do not\nhave good homes and that relatively few attend church or Sunday school;\nbut if that were not the case the desirability of the boys' club would\nstill be apparent. The fact is that the boy gets out of the home anyway\nand seeks his group. There is a process of socialization and\nself-discovery for which the best home-circle cannot provide; and the\nclub only recognizes and uses this \"gang\" instinct. It capitalizes for\ngood the normal social desires of the boy. In so doing it does not\nnecessarily conflict with a single good element in the home, but is\nrather the first formal token of citizenship and the guarantor of proper\ndeportment in the midst of one's peers.\n\nIn a well-directed club the consensus of opinion will usually be more\neffective in securing good conduct than the father's neglected or fitful\ndiscipline or the mother's endless forbearance. The boy has profound\nrespect for the judgment of his equals; and wherever the leader can make\nthe group ideals right he can be practically assured of the conformity\nof all who come within the group influence. \"The way we do here,\" \"the\nthing we stand for,\" constitutes a moral leverage that removes\nmountains. The boy that has been too much sheltered needs it, the boy\nthat has been neglected and is whimsical or non-social needs it, the\nonly son often needs it, and the boy who is distinguished by misconduct\nin the Sunday-school class needs it.\n\nThe club is never justified, then, in offending against the home.\nKeeping young boys out late at night, interfering with home duties or\nwith the implicit confidence between a boy and his parents, or dragging\nhim off into some sectarian camp away from his family is not to be\ntolerated. This is never necessary, and the wise leader can always\nco-operate harmoniously with the home if he takes thought so to do.\n\nBut the leader who fails to recognize the sanctity and priority of the\nhome, who permits his interest in boys to be blind to home conditions\nand influence, or who does not approach the home problems as a reverent\nand intelligent helper is very far from an ideal workman. One great\nadvantage of the small club in the church consists in this personalized\nand teachable interest which gets in close by the side of perplexed,\nignorant, weak, or neglectful parents and seeks to raise the home as an\ninstitution so that all its members, including the boy, may be richly\nbenefited. To be a pastor rather than a mere herdsman of boys one must\nknow their fold. It is well enough to be proud of the boys' club but it\nis good \"boys' work\" to develop home industry and to encourage habits of\nthrift and of systematic work that shall bless and please the home\ncircle. The boy may far better work too hard for the communal welfare of\nthe home than to grow up an idle pleasure-seeking parasite.\n\nIt is taken for granted that the wise pastor will think twice before\norganizing a boys'  club. It were better for him to leave the whole\nenterprise in the innocent realm of his castles in Spain than to add\nanother failure to the many that have been made in this attractive and\ndifficult field. Enthusiasm is essential, but taken alone it is an\nembarrassing qualification. Therefore he should make a careful inventory\nof his available assets. If he contemplates personal leadership he would\ndo well to list his own qualifications. In any event he will need to be\nfamiliar with the boy-life of his community, with all that endangers it\nand with all that is being done to safeguard and develop it in accord\nwith Christian ideals. If the boys of his parish are already adequately\ncared for he will not feel called upon to bring coals to Newcastle.\n\nHis personal inventory must needs take into account his tastes and\nability. These will be determined frequently by the mere matter of age;\nfor undoubtedly the earlier years of one's ministry lie a little nearer\nto the interests of boyhood and at this time the knack of the athletic\ntraining received in school or college has not been wholly lost. The\nleader may recover or increase his ability in games by taking a course\nat the Y.M.C.A.\n\nIf he finds within himself a deep love for boys that gets pleasure\nrather than irritation from their obstreperous companionship, if he is\nendowed with kindness that is as firm as adamant in resisting every\nunfair advantage--which some will surely seek to take--if he is\nnoise-proof and furnished with an ample fund of humor that is\nscrupulously clean and moderately dignified, if he possesses a quiet,\npositive manner that becomes more quiet and positive in intense and\nstormy situations, if he is withal teachable, alert, resourceful, and an\nembodiment of the \"square-deal\" principle, and if he is prepared to set\naside everything that might interfere with the religious observance of\nevery single appointment with his boys--then he may consider himself\neligible for the attempt.\n\nBut how will he go about it? Shall he print posters of a great\nmass-meeting to organize a boys' club? Shall he besiege his church for\nexpensive equipment, perhaps for a new building? Shall he ask for an\nappropriation for work which most of the people have not seen, and of\nwhose value they cannot judge except from his enthusiastic prophecies?\nLet us hope not. To succeed in such requests might be to die like\nSamson; while to fail in them would be a testimony to the sanity of his\nresponsible parishioners.\n\nThere is a better way--a way that is more quiet, natural, and\neffective. Possibly there is already in the Sunday school a class of\neight or ten boys between the ages of twelve and fifteen years. Let the\npastor become well acquainted with them and at first merely suggest--in\ntheir class session or when he has them in his study or home--what other\nboys have done in clubs of their own. He need not volunteer to provide\nsuch a club, but merely indicate his willingness to help if they are\ninterested and prepared to work for it. If the boys respond, as they\nundoubtedly will, then the pastor will need to find a few sympathizers\nwho will give some financial and moral assistance to the endeavor. He\nmay find some of these outside the church, and often such friends are\nthe more ready to help, because they are not already taxed to carry on\nthe established church work.\n\nThe best policy is for the pastor to figure out how boys' work can be\nbegun without coming before the church for an appropriation. It is well\nto begin in a very humble way with such funds as the boys can raise and\nthe backing of a few interested people, securing from the trustees of\nthe church the use of some part of the premises subject to recall of the\nprivilege on sufficient grounds; and--a consideration never to be\nslighted although often hard to get--the good-will and co-operation of\nthe sexton. With the sexton against him, no pastor can make a church\nboys' club succeed. The club will make no mistake in paying the church\nsomething for the heat and light consumed.\n\nIf an indoor area sufficient for basket-ball and a room suited to club\nmeetings can be had, the initial apparatus for winter work need not\nexceed a parallel bar, a vaulting-horse, and three floor mats in\naddition to the basket-ball equipment. This will involve an outlay of\nfrom $75 to $150. Good parallel bars are as expensive as they are\nserviceable; but boys have been known to make their own, and this is\nhighly desirable. Indian clubs, dumb-bells, and wands may only prove a\nnuisance unless they can be carefully put away after the exercises.\nAnyway, boys do not care greatly for calisthenics and most drills can be\ngiven without these trappings. Granting that the boys have faithful and\nwise supervision, the undertaking should be allowed to rest upon them to\nthe full measure of their ability.\n\nWhen it has become clear that funds and quarters can be provided, the\nmatter of formal organization should be taken up. The ideal church club\nis not a mass club where certain privileges are given to large numbers\nof boys who take out memberships; but a group club, or clubs, under\ndemocratic control. Prior to calling the boys together for organization,\nthe pastor will have blocked out the main articles of a constitution,\nand will have formulated some ideas as to the ritual and procedure which\nshall have place in the weekly meetings of the club. In order to do this\nintelligently, he will need to study such organizations as the Knights\nof King Arthur and various independent church clubs that have proven\nsuccessful in fields similar to his own. Often there is something in his\nown field that will lend definite color and interest to his local\norganization. The following sample constitution is offered for purpose\nof suggestion only and as a concession to the sentiment attaching to my\nfirst boys' club of a dozen years ago.\n\n\nCONSTITUTION\n\nI. We be known as the Waupun Wigwam.\n\nII. For to be sound of body, true of heart, unselfish, and Christian we\nbe joined together.\n\nIII. They that have seen ten to fourteen summers may join our Wigwam one\nby one if we want them.  High names have we. These names we use in our\nWigwam.\n\nIV. At our meetings around the Campfire each Brave is Chief in turn and\nchooseth one to guard the entrance. Medicine Man serveth us continually.\nHe knoweth his Braves. He chooseth Right Hand to serve him. When days\nare longest and when days are shortest we choose one to write what we do\nin Wigwam, one to collect small wampum and one to keep the same.\n\nV. They that be older than we, they that be our friends may visit us in\nour Wigwam. Woman by us is honored. Chivalry by us is shown. Whatever is\nweak is by us protected.\n\nVI. Measured are we when we join the Wigwam and once a year\nthereafter--our height, calf of leg, hip, chest, and arm. This by\nMedicine Man who keepeth the writings and adviseth how to improve. He\npraiseth what good we do, and alloweth not \"what harmeth body, defileth\ntongue, or doeth ill to mind.\"\n\nVII. Small wampum pay we all alike according to the need of the Wigwam\nand the Campfire.\n\nVIII. Deeds of valor do we read in Wigwam and Indian tales of old. Each\ntelleth of brave deeds he knows. A motto have we. This Medicine Man\ngiveth every three moons. We have our war whoop and our battle song. We\nloyally help Medicine Man in his work and when he speaketh in the Great\nTent.\n\nIX. When admitted to the Wigwam we very solemnly vow to be obedient to\nall its laws and to try to please our Great High Chief in Heaven who\nruleth every tribe, World without end. Amen.\n\n\n\n\nRITUAL\n\nTHE WIGWAM WAY\n\n\n_The Braves being seated in a semicircle, the Chief, clad in blanket and\nattended by Right Hand, enters. All arise. Chief takes position. Waits\nuntil there is perfect silence._\n\n_Chief_: My trusted and loyal Braves!\n\n_All_: Hail to our Chief!\n\n_C_: I am about to sit with you around our friendly Campfire. Brave ----\n---- will guard the entrance that none come into the Wigwam at this\ntime. Let such as be of our Wigwam advance and prove themselves.\n\n_Each Brave comes forward in turn, whispers the motto in the Chief's ear\nand says_, May I, ---- ----, be known as a loyal Brave of the Waupun\nWigwam?\n\n_C_: As such be thou known.\n\n_All_: So may it be! _(When this is done the Chief continues.)_\n\n_C_: For what are we bound together?\n\n_All_: For to be sound of body, true of heart, unselfish, and Christian\nwe be bound together.\n\n_C_: What virtues are the greatest?\n\n_All_: Faith, hope, and love.\n\n_C_: Who is great?\n\n_All_: He that serves.\n\n_C_: What is our sign?\n\n_All_: The sign of the cross.\n\n_C_: Sing we a song of valor.\n\n_All sing_: \"The Son of God goes forth to war.\"\n\n_C_: Let us be seated. (_He gives one rap with the tomahawk._)\n\n_C_: Brave ---- ----, admit any who are late and have given you the\nmotto.\n\n_C_: Medicine Man will read from the Book and pray. _(All kneel for the\nprayer_.)\n\n_C_: Brave ---- ---- will read what we did last.\n\nC: Brave ---- ---- will find who are here. _(Each one-present answers\n\"Ho\" when his name is called)._\n\n_C_: Brave ---- ---- will tell what wampum we have.\n\n_C_: Is there any business to come before our Wigwam? _(Reports,\nunfinished business, and new business_.)\n\n_C_: Is there one fit to join our Wigwam? (_If there is a candidate who\nhas secured his parents' consent and who at a previous meeting has been\nelected to membership with not more than two ballots against him he can\nbe initiated at this time_.)\n\n_C_: Brave Right Hand, what shall we do now? _(Right Hand says how the\ntime shall be spent_.)\n\nCLOSING\n\n_Chief calls to order with a whistle. Each Brave takes his place quickly\nand quietly. (Moccasins or gymnasium shoes are worn in all Wigwam\nsessions_.)\n\n_Chief gives two raps. All arise_.\n\n_C_: My Braves, we are about to leave the Campfire. Let us join hands\nand repeat our covenant. _(All join hands and repeat clause by clause\nafter the Chief_.)\n\n    We covenant with our Chief and one another:\n\n    To be true men,\n    To protect the weak,\n\n    To honor woman,\n    To make the most of life,\n    And to endeavor to please God.\n    So do we covenant.\n\n_Then the national anthem is sung and the following yell is given_:\n\n    Who are we?\n    Chee Poo Kaw\n    Waupun Wigwam,\n    Rah, Rah, Rah!!\n\nThis club proved of value in a town of three thousand which had a dozen\nsaloons and no organized work for boys or young men. It was supplemented\nby a brotherhood for the older boys. In the clubroom was a large\nfireplace in which a wood fire burned during the sessions. The room\ncould be partially darkened. The walls were covered with Indian pictures\nand handicraft, and the surrounding country abounded in Indian relics.\nIn the summer the club went camping on the shore of a lake nine miles\ndistant. From another of the many successful clubs of this type the\nfollowing article on \"Purpose\" as stated in the constitution is worthy\nof note:\n\n    \"We gather in our Wigwam that we may become strong as our bows,\n    straight as our arrows, and pure as the lakes of the forest.\"\n\nClubs patterned after rangers, yeomen, lifesaving crews, and what not\nhave been successfully projected to meet and idealize local interest;\nand the novelty and slightly concealed symbolism seem to take with boys\nof this age. But the most important factor is never the organization as\nsuch but _the leader_.\n\nFor the period of from fourteen to seventeen years probably no better\norganization has been devised than the Knights of King Arthur. Its full\nrequirements may be too elaborate in some cases but freedom to simplify\nis granted, and also to eliminate the requirement of Sunday-school\nattendance as a prerequisite to membership and the requirement of church\nmembership as a prerequisite to knighthood. Leaders dealing with this\nage should read _The Boy Problem_ by William Byron Forbush and _The\nBoy's Round Table_ by Forbush and Masseck (Boston and Chicago: Pilgrim\nPress, 6th edition, $1.00 each).\n\nOrdinarily a policy of relationship between the club and Sunday school\nand church will have to be formulated. It is always best to let the\nSunday school and the church stand on their own merits and not to use\nthe club as a bait for either. Nor should ranking in the club be\nconditioned on church membership. Boys should not be tempted to make the\nchurch a stepping-stone to their ambition in this more attractive\norganization. The best policy is that of the \"open door.\" Let the club\ndo all that it can for boys who are already in the Sunday school and\nchurch, but let it be open to any boy who may be voted in, and then\nthrough example and moral suasion let such boys be won to church and\nSunday school by the wholesome influence of the leader and the group,\nquite apart from any conditions, favors, or ranking within the club\nitself.\n\nAn unofficial relation between the Sunday school and the club will be\nmaintained by having club announcements given in the school and by\nbringing the Sunday-school superintendent before the club frequently. In\nsome churches the boys' whole department of the Sunday school is the\nboys' club, and this may prove a good method where it can be carried out\nwith proper divisions and specialization as to age, etc.\n\nIn discussing any proposed constitution, consideration should be given\nto suggestions from the boys themselves and every question should be\nthreshed out in a reasonable, democratic way, strictly after the fashion\nof deliberative bodies. The opinion of the leader is sure to have its\nfull weight, and matters needing further consideration can always be\nreferred to committees to be reported back. Questions of discipline\nshould be handled by the club itself, the director interfering only as a\nlast resort to temper the drastic reactions of a youthful and outraged\ndemocracy. If there is a men's organization in the church tie the club\nto that. This will guarantee strength and permanency to the club and\nwill help the men by giving them a chance to help the boys.\n\nThe form of the constitution and ritual will be governed by the age\nwhich they seek to serve. Boys from ten to fourteen years may not rise\nto the splendid formality of the Knights of King Arthur. Possibly the\nidealization of the best Indian traits will serve them better. From\nfourteen to seventeen or eighteen the knighthood ideals are most\nsatisfying, while one may question their utility after that when the\nyouth turns to reflection and debate and is suited by civic and\ngovernmental forms of organization. It must not be assumed that any one\ntype of organization is good for all ages and does not need to be\nsupplemented, modified, or superseded as the boy makes his adolescent\nascent.\n\nIf the pastor has limited time and limited help he will do well to\ncenter his attention on the important period of twelve to fifteen\nyears; and in order to do his work properly in the club meetings and on\nthe gymnasium floor especially, he should have an adult helper as soon\nas the attendance exceeds ten in number. It is far more important to do\nthe training well than to make a great showing in numbers and at the\nsame time fail in creating a proper group standard and in developing\nindividual boys. In the ordinary improvised church gymnasium one man to\nevery ten boys is a good rule.\n\nIn a church club that grew to have a membership of sixty, the following\ngrouping for gymnasium privileges was found to work well: boys ten,\neleven, and twelve years old, from 4:15 to 5:30 in the afternoon; boys\nthirteen, fourteen, and fifteen years old, from 7:00 to 8:15 the same\nevening; and boys sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen years old, from 8:15\nto 9:30. Such a use of the plant secures economy of time, heating, etc.,\nand with a little help one may give every boy two gymnasium sessions a\nweek, which is not too much. If possible, showers and lockers should be\nprovided; and in classification for gymnasium work allowance should be\nmade for retarded boys and for boys of extraordinary ability, so that\nthey may play with their equals irrespective of strict classification\nby age. The best single test for classification is weight.\n\nThe leader will do well to see that everything is right and clean in\nconversation and practice in the locker-room and showers. Also, foolish\nprudery and shamefacedness must be wholesomely banished, and it will\nbenefit rather than harm the boys for their leader, after having taken\nthem through the exercises, to join them in the pleasure and stimulation\nof the shower bath.\n\nNot only the leader but as many interested church people as possible\nshould \"back\" the boys by attending their meets and games with other\nteams. Remember that in order to command their full loyalty some loyalty\nto them must be shown. The important function of the annual or\nsemi-annual banquet should not be overlooked. Such an affair is\ninexpensive and unquestionably an event in the life of every member. The\nmothers will always be glad to provide the food and superintend the\nservice; and in every town there will be found men of high standing who\nwill count it an honor to address the club on such an occasion, while\nentertainers and musicians will also gladly contribute their talent.\nProbably the average minister does not duly appreciate how much\nhigh-grade assistance may be had for the mere asking and how much\nbenefit comes to those who give of their ability as well as to those who\nare the fortunate recipients of such service.\n\nThe clubroom rapidly grows rich in associations as it becomes decorated\nwith the symbols of the club and the trophies won from time to time.\nThings that have happened but a year ago become entrancing lore to a\ngroup of boys, and the striking features of meetings, outings, or\ncontests lose nothing in sentiment and cohesive worth as the months\npass. The sophisticated adult may not fully appreciate these little\nby-products of club activity, but the boy who is growing into his social\nand larger self makes every real incident a jewel rich in association\nand suggestive of the continuity and oneness of his group life. The use\nof an appropriate pin or button, of club colors, yells, whistles, and\nsecret signals will bear fruit a hundred fold in club consciousness and\nsolidarity.\n\nSummer is especially hard on the city boy. If there is no vacation\nschool, wholesome outdoor job, or satisfactory play, then mischief is\ncertain. Indoor life is particularly distasteful during the hot weather\nand the flat is intolerable. Long hours and late are spent upon the\nstreet or in places of public amusement where immoral suggestions\nabound. High temperature always weakens moral resistance and there is no\ntelling into what trouble the boy may drift. Hence to relinquish boys'\nwork in the summer is to fail the boy at the very time of his greatest\nneed. The competent leader does not abandon, he simply modifies his\nendeavor. As early in the spring as the boys prefer outdoor play he is\nwith them for baseball, track work, tennis, swimming, tramping, fishing,\nhunting, camping; closing the season with football and remaining out\nuntil the boys are eager to take up indoor work. The lack of formal\nmeetings in the summer need not concern the leader. It is sufficient\nthat he give the boys his fellowship and supervision and keep them well\noccupied.\n\nIn all of this outdoor work the program and activities of the Boy Scouts\nof America are unsurpassed. In cultivating the pioneer virtues and in\npromoting health, efficiency, good citizenship, nature-study, and humane\nideals no movement for boys has ever held such promise, and the promise\nwill be realized if only Scout Masters in proper number and quality can\nbe secured. Here again the gauntlet is thrown at the door of the church\nand the challenge is to her manhood from the manhood of tomorrow.\n\n[Illustration: CITY BOYS \"HIKING\"]\n\n[Illustration: A WEEK-END CAMP]\n\nThe ideal club will have its summer outing. When properly planned and\nconducted, a summer camp is of all things to be desired. For several\nmonths it should be enjoyed in anticipation, and if all goes well it\nwill be a joyous climax of club life, an experience never to be\nforgotten. But like all good work with boys, it is difficult and\nexacting. Safety and the rights of all cannot be conserved apart from\nstrict military or civic organization; and no leader will take boys to\ncamp and assume responsibility for life and limb without a thorough\nunderstanding and acceptance on their part of the discipline and routine\nwhich must be scrupulously enforced.\n\nEvery boy should be provided well in advance with a list of the utensils\nand outfit needed, and the organization of the camp should give to each\none his proper share of work. The efficiency and dispatch of a corps of\nboys so organized is only equaled by the joy that comes from the\nvigorous and systematic program of activities from daylight to dark.\n\nThe best way for the leader to become proficient in conducting a camp is\nto take an outing with an experienced manager of a boys' camp; the next\nbest way is by conference with such a person. The _Handbook_ of the Boy\nScouts of America will be found very helpful in this respect, and\n_Camping for Boys_ by H.W. Gibson, Y.M.C.A. Press, is excellent. It is\nnecessary to emphasize the necessity of strict discipline and\nregularity, a just distribution of all duties, full and vigorous use of\nthe time, extra precaution against accident, some formal religious\nexercise at the beginning of the day, with the use of the rare\nopportunity for intimate personal and group conference at the close of\nthe day when the charm of the campfire is upon the lads. When boys are\naway from home and in this paradise of fellowship their hearts are\nremarkably open and the leader may get an invaluable insight into their\ninmost character.\n\nWhenever possible the minister will bring his boys' club work into\nco-operation with the boys' department of the Y.M.C.A. Where the\nY.M.C.A. exists and the church cannot have moderate gymnasium privileges\nof its own, arrangements should be made for the regular use of the\nassociation's gymnasium. It is desirable that the stated use of the\ngymnasium be secured for the club as such, since the individual use in\nthe general boys' work of the association is not as favorable to\nbuilding up a strong consciousness in the church club. The Y.M.C.A. can\nbest organize and direct the inter-church athletics and it has performed\na great service for the church clubs in organizing Sunday-school\nathletic leagues in the various cities, and in supplying proper\nsupervision for tournaments and meets in which teams from the different\nchurches have participated. To direct these contests properly has been\nno small tax upon the officials, for the insatiable desire for victory\nhas in some cases not only introduced unseemly and ugly features into\nthe contests but has temporarily lowered the moral standard of certain\nschools.\n\nSuperintendents and pastors have been known to sign entrance credentials\nfor boys who were not eligible under the rules. In some instances church\nboys have descended to welcome the \"ringer\" for the purpose of \"putting\nit over\" their competitors. In grappling with these difficulties and in\ninterpreting sound morality in the field of play the Y.M.C.A. has\nalready made a successful contribution to the moral life of the\nSunday-school boy. Nothing could be more startling to the religious\nleader, who insists upon facing the facts, than the facility with which\nthe \"good\" Sunday-school boy turns away from the lofty precepts of his\nteacher to the brutal ethics of the \"win-at-any-price\" mania. The\nSunday-School Athletic League under the guidance of the Y.M.C.A. tends\nto overcome this vicious dualism.\n\nIn some districts the leader of the church boys' club may arrange to\nmake use of the social settlement, civic center, or public playground,\nthus holding his group together for their play and supplementing the\nchurch outfit. The object in every case is to maintain and strengthen a\ngroup so possessed of the right ideals that it shall shape for good the\nconduct and character of the members severally. To the many ministers\nwho despair of being able to conduct a club in person it should be said\nthat young men of sixteen or seventeen years of age make excellent\nleaders for boys of twelve to fifteen years, and that they are more\navailable than older men.\n\nThese leaders, including the teachers of boys' classes, should come\ntogether for conference and study at least once a month. The Y.M.C.A.\nwill be the most likely meeting-place, and its boys' secretary the\nlogical supervisor of inter-church activities. Wherever there is no such\nclearing-house, the ministers' meeting or the inter-church federation\nmay bring the boys' leaders together for co-operation on a\ncommunity-wide scale. The multiplication of clubs is to be desired, both\nfor the extension of boys' work throughout all the churches, and for the\ndevelopment of such inter-church activities among boys as will make for\nmutual esteem and for the growing unity of the church of God.\n\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes\n\nFootnote 1: General reading: W.I. Thomas, _Source Book for Social\nOrigins,_ The University of Chicago Press; G. Stanley Hall,\n_Adolescence_, D. Appleton & Co.; C.H. Judd, _Genetic Psychology for\nTeachers_, D. Appleton & Co.\n\nFootnote 2: Books recommended: _Official Handbook_, Boy Scouts of\nAmerica, 200 Fifth Ave., New York; K.L. Butterfield, _Chapters in Rural\nProgress_, The University of Chicago Press; K.L. Butterfield, _The\nCountry Church and the Rural Problem_, The University of Chicago Press.\n\nFootnote 3: Books recommended: Jane Addams, _The Spirit of Youth and the\nCity Streets_, Macmillan; D.F. Wilcox, _Great American Cities_,\nMacmillan.\n\nFootnote 4: See monograph on _Five-and Ten-Cent Theatres_ by Louise de\nKoven Bowen, The Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago.\n\nFootnote 5: See monograph, _A Study of Public Dance Halls_, by Louise de\nKoven Bowen, The Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago.\n\nFootnote 6: Books and articles recommended: E.B. Mero, _The American\nPlayground,_ Dale Association, Boston; K. Groos, _The Play of Man,_ D.\nAppleton & Co.; J.H. Bancroft, _Games for the Playground, Home, School,\nand Gymnasium_, Macmillan; C.E. Seashore, \"The Play Impulse and Attitude\nin Religion,\" _The American Journal of Theology_, XIV, No. 4; Joseph\nLee, \"Play as Medicine,\" _The Survey_, XXVII, No. 5.\n\nFootnote 7: Books recommended: Frank Parsons, _Choosing a Vocation_,\nHoughton Mifflin Co.; Meyer Bloomfield, _The Vocational Guidance of\nYouth_, Houghton Mifflin Co.\n\nFootnote 8: Books recommended: Georg Kerschensteiner, _Education for\nCitizenship,_ Rand McNally & Co.; William R. George, _The Junior\nRepublic_, D. Appleton & Co.\n\nFootnote 9: Books recommended: John L. Alexander, _Boy Training_,\nY.M.C.A. Press; G. Stanley Hall, _Youth, Its Education, Regimen and\nHygiene,_ D. Appleton & Co.\n\nFootnote 10: For bibliography see William B. Forbush, _The Coming\nGeneration_, D. Appleton & Co., and the appendix of _Handbook for Boys,\nThe Boy Scouts of America_.","title":"The Minister and the Boy: A Handbook for Churchmen Engaged in Boys' Work","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":35768}