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diff --git a/13069-0.txt b/13069-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..54e8bdd --- /dev/null +++ b/13069-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3705 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13069 *** + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 13069-h.htm or 13069-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/0/6/13069/13069-h/13069-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/0/6/13069/13069-h.zip) + + + + + +THE MINISTER AND THE BOY + +A Handbook for Churchmen Engaged in Boys' Work + +by + +ALLAN HOBEN, PH.D. +Associate Professor of Practical Theology, The University of Chicago +Field Secretary of the Chicago Juvenile Protective Association + +1912 + + + + + + + +PREFACE + + +The aim of this book is to call the attention of ministers to the +important place which boys' work may have in furthering the Kingdom of +God. To this end an endeavor is made to quicken the minister's +appreciation of boys, to stimulate his study of them, and to suggest a +few practical ways in which church work with boys may be conducted. + +The author is indebted to the Union Church of Waupun, Wis., and to the +First Baptist Church of Detroit, Mich., for the opportunity of working +out in actual practice most of the suggestions incorporated in this +book. He is also indebted to many authors, especially to President G. +Stanley Hall, for a point of view which throws considerable light upon +boy nature. The Boy-Scout pictures have been provided by Mr. H.H. +Simmons, the others by Mr. D.B. Stewart, Mrs. Joseph T. Bowen, and the +author. The greatest contribution is from the boys of both village and +city with whom the author has had the privilege of comradeship and from +whom he has learned most of what is here recorded. + +The material has been used in talks to teachers and clubs of various +sorts, and in the Men and Religion Forward Movement. The requests +following upon such talks and arising also from publication of most of +the material in the _Biblical World_ have encouraged this attempt to +present a brief handbook for ministers and laymen who engage in church +work for boys. + +ALLAN HOBEN + +CHICAGO, August 19, 1912 + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + + I. THE CALL OF BOYHOOD + II. AN APPROACH TO BOYHOOD + III. THE BOY IN VILLAGE AND COUNTRY + IV. THE MODERN CITY AND THE NORMAL BOY + V. THE ETHICAL VALUE OF ORGANIZED PLAY + VI. THE BOY'S CHOICE OF A VOCATION + VII. TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP + VIII. THE BOY'S RELIGIOUS LIFE + IX. THE CHURCH BOYS' CLUB + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE CALL OF BOYHOOD + + +The Christian apologetic for today depends less upon the arguments of +speculative theology and the findings of biblical science than upon +sociological considerations. The church is dealing with a pragmatic +public which insists upon knowing what this or that institution +accomplishes for the common good. The deep and growing interest in +social science, the crying needs that it lays bare, together with +socialistic dreams of human welfare, compel Christian workers to pay +more heed to the life that now is, since individualistic views of +salvation in the world to come do not fully satisfy the modern +consciousness. + +Hence the ministry is compelled more and more to address itself to the +salvation of the community and the nation after the fashion of the +Hebrew prophets. Lines of distinction also between what is religious and +what is secular in education and in all human intercourse have become +irregular or dim; and the task of bringing mankind to fullness and +perfection of life has become the task alike of the educator, the +minister, the legislator, and the social worker. In fact, all who in any +capacity put their hands to this noble undertaking are co-workers with +Him whose divine ideal was to be consummated in the Kingdom of God on +earth. + +The ministry, therefore, is taking on a great variety of forms of +service, and the pastor is overtaxed. The church, moreover, is slow to +recognize the principle of the division of labor and to employ a +sufficient number of paid officers. Only the pressing importance of work +for boys can excuse one for suggesting another duty to the conscientious +and overworked pastor. Already too much has been delegated to him alone. +Every day his acknowledged obligations outrun his time and strength, and +he must choose but a few of the many duties ever pressing to be done. +Yet there is no phase of that larger social and educational conception +of the pastor's work that has in it more of promise than his ministry to +boys. Whatever must be neglected, the boy should not be overlooked. + +To answer this complex demand and the call of boyhood in particular the +pastor must be a leader and an organizer. Otherwise, troubles and +vicissitudes await him. In every field unused possibilities hasten the +day of his departure. Idle persons who should have been led into worthy +achievement for Christ and the church fall into critical gossip, and +there soon follows another siege perilous for the minister's +freight-wracked furniture, another flitting experience for his homeless +children, another proof of his wife's heroic love, and another scar on +his own bewildered heart. + +It is, indeed, difficult for the pastor to adopt a policy commensurate +with modern demands. He should lead, but on the other hand a very +legitimate fear of being discredited through failure deters him; +traditional methods hold the field; peace at any price and pleasurable +satisfaction play a large part in church affairs; the adult, whose +character is already formed, receives disproportionate attention; money +for purposes of experimentation in church work is hard to get; +everything points to moderation and the beaten path; and the way of the +church is too often the way of least resistance. Small wonder if the +minister sometimes capitulates to things as they are and resigns himself +to the ecclesiastical treadmill. + +It requires no small amount of courage to be governed by the facts as +they confront the intelligent pastor, to direct one's effort where it is +most needed and where it will, in the long run, produce the greatest +and best results. To be sure, the adult needs the ministry of teaching, +inspiration, correction, and comfort to fit him for daily living; but, +as matters now stand, the chief significance of the adult lies in the +use that can be made of him in winning the next generation for Christ. +In so far as the adult membership may contribute to this it may lay +claim to the best that the minister has. In so far as it regards his +ministry as a means of personal pleasure, gratification, and religious +luxury, it is both an insult to him and an offense to his Master. + +A successful ministry to boys, whether by the pastor himself or by those +whom he shall inspire and guide, is fundamental in good pastoral work. +Boys now at the age of twelve or fifteen will, in a score of years, +manage the affairs of the world. All that has been accomplished--the +inventions, the wealth, the experience in education and government, the +vast industrial and commercial systems, the administration of justice, +the concerns of religion--all will pass into their control; and they +who, with the help of the girls of today, must administer the world's +affairs, are, or may be, in our hands now when their ideals are nascent +and their whole natures in flux. + +Boys' work, then, is not providing harmless amusement for a few +troublesome youngsters; it is the natural way of capturing the modern +world for Jesus Christ. It lays hold of life in the making, it creates +the masters of tomorrow; and may pre-empt for the Kingdom of God the +varied activities and startling conquests of our titanic age. Think of +the great relay of untamed and unharnessed vigor, a new nation exultant +in hope, undaunted as yet by the experiences that have halted the +passing generation: what may they not accomplish? As significant as the +awakening of China should the awakening of this new nation be to us. In +each case the call for leadership is imperative, and the best ability is +none too good. Dabblers and incompetent persons will work only havoc, +whether in the Celestial Empire or in the equally potent Kingdom of +Boyhood. The bookworm, of course, is unfit even if he could hear the +call, and the nervous wreck is doomed even if he should hear it; but the +fit man who hears and heeds may prevent no small amount of delinquency +and misery, and may deliver many from moral and social insolvency. + +If a minister can do this work even indirectly he is happy, but if he +can do it directly by virtue of his wholesome character, his genuine +knowledge and love of boys, his athletic skill, and his unabated zest +for life, his lot is above that of kings and his reward above all +earthly riches. + +Then, too, it is not alone the potential value of boys for the Kingdom +of God, and what the minister may do for them; but what may they not do +for him? How fatal is the boy collective to all artificiality, +sanctimony, weakness, make-believe, and jointless dignity; and how prone +is the ministry to these psychological and semi-physical pests! For, +owing to the demands of the pulpit and of private and social +intercourse, the minister finds it necessary to talk more than most men. +He must also theorize extensively because of the very nature of +theological discipline. Moreover, he is occupied particularly with those +affairs of the inner life which are as intangible as they are important. +His relation with people is largely a Sunday relation, or at any rate a +religious one, and he meets them on the pacific side. Very naturally +they reveal to him their best selves, and, true to Christian charity and +training, he sees the best in everyone. If the women of his parish +receive more than their proper share of attention the situation is +proportionately worse. It follows that the minister needs the most +wholesome contact with stern reality in order to offset the subtle drift +toward a remote, theoretical, or sentimental world. In this respect +commercial life is more favorable to naturalness and virility; while a +fair amount of manual labor is conducive to sanity, mental poise, and +sound judgment as to the facts of life. The minister must have an +elemental knowledge of and respect for objective reality; and he must +know human nature. + +Now among all the broad and rich human contacts that can put the +minister in touch with vital realities there is none so electric, so +near to revelation as the boy. Collectively he is frank to the point of +cruelty and as elemental as a savage. Confronted alone and by the +minister, who is not as yet his chum, he reveals chiefly the minister's +helplessness. Taken in company with his companions and in his play he is +a veritable searchlight laying bare those manly and ante-professional +qualities which must underlie an efficient ministry. Later life, indeed, +wears the mask, praises dry sermons, smiles when bored, and takes +careful precautions against spontaneity and the indiscretions of +unvarnished truth; but the boy among his fellows and on his own ground +represents the normal and unfettered reaction of the human heart to a +given personality. The minister may be profoundly benefited by knowing +and heeding the frank estimate of a "bunch" of boys. They are the +advance agents of the final judgment; they will find the essential man. +May it not be with him as with Kipling's Tomlinson, who, under the +examination of both "Peter" and the "little devils," was unable to +qualify for admission either to heaven or hell: + + And back they came with the tattered Thing, as + children after play, + And they said: "The soul that he got from God he has + bartered clean away. + We have threshed a stook of print and book, and + winnowed a chattering wind + And many a soul wherefrom he stole, but his we + cannot find: + We have handled him, we have dandled him, we have + seared him to the bone, + And sure if tooth and nail show truth he has no soul + of his own." + +Fortunately, however, ministerial professionalism is on the wane. +Protestantism, in its more democratic forms, rates the man more and the +office less, and present-day tests of practical efficiency are adverse +to empty titles and pious assumption. To be "Reverend" means such +character and deeds as compel _reverence_ and not the mere "laying on +of hands." Work with boys discovers this basis, for there is no place +for the holy tone in such work, nor for the strained and vapid quotation +of Scripture, no place for excessively feminine virtues, nor for the +professional hand-shake and the habitual inquiry after the family's +health. In a very real sense many a minister can be saved by the boys; +he can be saved from that invidious classification of adult society into +"men, women, and ministers," which is credited to the sharp insight of +George Eliot. + +The minister is also in need of a touch of humor in his work. The +sadness of human failure and loss, the insuperable difficulties of his +task, the combined woes of his parish, the decorum and seriousness of +pulpit work--all operate to dry up the healthy spring of humor that +bubbled up and overran in his boyhood days. What health there is in a +laugh, what good-natured endurance in the man whose humor enables him to +"side-step" disastrous and unnecessary encounters and to love people +none the less, even when they provoke inward merriment. The boys' pastor +will certainly take life seriously, but he cannot take it somberly. +Somewhere in his kind, honest eye there is a glimmer, a blessed survival +of his own boyhood. + +So, being ministered to by the comradeship of boys, he retains his +sense of fun, fights on in good humor, detects and saves himself on the +verge of pious caricature and solemn bathos; knows how to meet important +committees on microscopic reforms as well as self-appointed theological +inquisitors and all the insistent cranks that waylay a busy pastor. Life +cannot grow stale; and by letting the boys lead him forth by the streams +of living water and into the whispering woods he catches again the wild +charm of that all-possible past: the smell of the campfire, the joyous +freedom and good health of God's great out-of-doors. Genius and success +in life depend largely upon retaining the boyish quality of enthusiastic +abandon to one's cause, the hearty release of one's entire energy in a +given pursuit, and the conviction that the world is ever new and all +things possible. The thing in men that defies failure is the original +boy, and "no man is really a man who has lost out of him all the boy." + +The boy may also be a very practical helper in the pastor's work. In +every community there are some homes in which the pastor finds it almost +impossible to create a welcome for himself. Misconceptions of long +standing, anti-church sentiments, old grievances block the way. But if +in such a home there is a boy whose loyalty the pastor has won through +association in the boys' club, at play, in camp--anywhere and +anyhow--his eager hand will open both home and parental hearts to the +wholesome friendship and kindly counsel of the minister of Christ. When +the boy's welfare is at stake how many prejudices fade away! The +reliable sentiment of fathers and mothers dictates that he who takes +time to know and help their boy is of all persons a guest to be welcomed +and honored, and withal, a practical interpreter of Christianity. The +pastor whose advance agent is a boy has gracious passport into the homes +where he is most needed. He has a friend at court. His cause is almost +won before he has uttered one syllable of a formal plea. + +Further, it must be apparent to all intelligent observers that the +churches in most communities are in need of a more visible social +sanction for their existence. In the thought of many they are expensive +and over-numerous institutions detached from the actual community life +and needs. Boys' work constitutes one visible strand of connection with +the live needs of the neighborhood; and, human nature being what it is, +this tangible service is essential to the formation of a just, popular +estimate of the church and the ministry. Talk is easy and the market is +always overstocked. The shortage is in deeds, and the doubtful community +is saying to the minister, "What do you do?" It is well if among other +things of almost equal importance he can reply, "We are saving your boys +from vice and low ideals, from broken health and ruined or useless +lives, by providing for wholesome self-expression under clean and +inspiring auspices. The Corban of false sanctity has been removed; our +plant and our men are here to promote human welfare in every legitimate +way." Boys' work affords a concrete social sanction that has in it a +wealth of sentiment and far-reaching implications. + +Closely allied with this is the help that the boy renders as an +advertiser. The boy is a tremendous promoter of his uppermost interest; +and, while boys' work must not be exploited for cheap and unworthy +advertising purposes but solely for the good of the boy himself, the +fact remains that the boy is an enterprising publicity bureau. The +minister who gives the boy his due of love, service, and friendship will +unwittingly secure more and better publicity than his more scholastic +and less human brother. In the home and at school, here, there, and +everywhere, these unrivaled enthusiasts sound the praises of the +institution and the man. Others of their own kind are interested, and +reluctant adults are finally drawn into the current. The man or church +that is doing a real work for boys is as a city set on a hill. + +The pastor needs the boys because his task is to enlist and train the +Christians and churchmen of the future. These should be more efficient +and devoted than those of the present, and should reckon among their +dearest memories the early joyous associations formed within the church. +Many thoughtful ministers are perplexed by the alienation of +wage-earners from the church; but what could not be accomplished in the +betterment of this condition if for one generation the churches would +bend their utmost devotion and wisdom to maintaining institutions that +would be worth while for all the boys of the community? A boy genuinely +interested and properly treated is not going to turn his back upon the +institution or the man that has given him the most wholesome enjoyment +and the deepest impressions of his life. The reason why the church does +not get and hold the boy of the wage-earner, or any other boy, is +because it stupidly ignores him, his primary interests, and his +essential nature; or goes to the extreme bother of making itself an +insufferable bore. + +The reflex influence of boys' work upon the church herself should not be +ignored. Here is a great plant moldering away in silence. Not to mention +the auditorium, even the Sunday-school quarters and lecture-room are +very little used, and this in communities trained to sharp economic +insight and insisting already that the public-school buildings be made +to serve the people both day and night and in social as well as +educational lines. + +The basement is perhaps the most vulnerable point in the armor of +exclusive sanctity that encases the church. Here, if anywhere, organized +church work for boys may be tolerated. Whenever it is, lights begin to +shine from the basement windows several evenings a week, a noisy +enthusiasm echoes through the ghostly spaces above, in a literal and +figurative sense cobwebs are brushed away. The stir is soon felt by the +whole church. A sense of usefulness and self-confidence begins to +possess the minds of the members. Things are doing; and the dignity and +desirability of having some part in an institution where things are +doing inspires the members and attracts non-members. + +It will be a sad day for the pastor and the church when they agree to +delegate to any other institution all organized work for boys and +especially those features which the boys themselves most enjoy. The +ideal ministry to boyhood must not be centralized away from the church +nor taken altogether out of the hands of the pastor. There is no place +where the work can be done in a more personal way, and with less danger +of subordinating the interests of the individual boy to mammoth +institutional machinery and ambition, than in the church. The numerous +small groups in the multitude of churches afford unequaled opportunity +for intimate friendship, which was pre-eminently the method of Jesus, +and for the full play of a man's influence upon boy character. + +The pastor who abdicates, and whose church is but a foraging ground for +other institutions which present a magnificent exhibit of social +service, may, indeed, be a good man, but he is canceling the charter of +the church of tomorrow. It is at best a close question as to how the +church will emerge from her present probation, and the pastor should be +wise enough to reckon with the estimate in which the community and the +boy hold him and the organization that he serves. And if he wants +business men of the future who will respect and support the church, +laboring men who will love and attend the church, professional men who +will believe in and serve an efficient church, he must get the boys who +are to be business men, wage-earners, and professional men, and he must +hold them. + +If he is concerned that there should be strong, capable men to take up +the burden of church leadership in the future let him create such +leadership in his own spiritual image from the plastic idealism of +boyhood. Let the hero-worship age, without a word of compulsion or +advice, make its choice with him present as a sample of what the +minister can be, and tomorrow there will be no lack of virile high-class +men in pulpit and parish. As a rule the ideals that carry men into the +ministry are born, not in later youth nor in maturity, but in the period +covered by the early high-school years; and the future leadership of the +church is secure if the right kind of ministers mingle with boys of that +age on terms of unaffected friendship and wholesome community of +interest. + +Then too there are the riches of memory and gratitude that bulk so large +in a true pastor's reward. If in the years to come the minister wishes +to warm his heart in the glow of happy memories and undying gratitude, +let him invest his present energy in the service of boys. If the +minister could but realize the vast significance of such work, if he +could feel the lure of those untold values lying like continents on the +edge of the future awaiting discovery and development, if he could but +know that he is swinging incipient forces of commanding personality into +their orbits, directing destiny for the individual, predetermining for +righteousness great decisions of the future, laying hold of the very +kingdoms of this world for Christ, he surely would never again bemean +himself in his own thought nor discount his peerless calling. + +To be sure, there are certain satisfactions that a minister may lose all +too quickly in these days. The spell of his eloquence may soon pass; the +undivided love of all the people is no permanent tenure of him who +speaks the truth even in love; speedy dissatisfaction and unbridled +criticism are, alas, too often the practice of church democracy; but +that man who has won the love of boys has thrown about himself a +bodyguard whose loyalty will outmatch every foe. + +In the hour of reaction from intense and unrewarded toil the empty +chambers of the preacher's soul may echo in bitterness the harsh +misanthropy of a scheming world. Then it is that he needs the boys, the +undismayed defenders of his faith. Let him name their names until the +ague goes out of his heart and the warm compassion of the Man of Galilee +returns. To be a hero and an ideal in the estimate of anyone is indeed a +great call to the best that is in us; and when the minister, in the dark +day or the bright, hears the acclaim of his bodyguard let him believe +that it is the call of God to manhood that has the triple strength of +faith, hope, and love. + +All of this and much more they surely can and will do for him, and if +the pastor who thinks that he has no field or who is getting a bit weary +or professional in the routine ministry to unromantic middle life could +but behold within his parish, however small, this very essence of vital +reality, this allurement of unbounded possibility, this challenge of a +lively paganism, and this greatest single opportunity to bring in the +Kingdom of God, he would, in the very discovery of the boy and his +significance, re-create himself into a more useful, happy, and genuine +man. Is it not better to find new values in the old field than to pursue +superficial values in a succession of new fields? + + + + + +CHAPTER II + +AN APPROACH TO BOYHOOD[1] + + +If the minister is to do intelligent work with boys he must have some +knowledge of the ground plan of boyhood and he must believe that the boy +both demands and merits actual study. Specific acquaintance with each +one severally, alert recognition of individuality, variety, and even +sport, and an ample allowance for exceptions to every rule will greatly +aid in giving fitness to one's endeavor; but beneath all of these +architectural peculiarities lies the common biological foundation. To +know the human organism genetically, to have some knowledge of the +processes by which it reaches its normal organization, to appreciate the +crude and elemental struggle that has left its history in man's bodily +structure, to think in large biological terms that include, besides "the +physics and chemistry of living matter," considerations ethnological, +hereditary, and psychological, is to make fundamental preparation for +the understanding of boyhood. + +For the family to which the boy belongs is the human family. His parents +alone and their characteristics do not explain him, nor does +contemporary environment, important as that is. His ancestry is the +human race, his history is their history, his impulses and his bodily +equipment from which they spring are the result of eons of strife, +survival, and habit. Four generations back he has not two but sixteen +parents. Thus he comes to us out of the great physical democracy of +mankind and doubtless with a tendency to re-live its ancient and +deep-seated experiences. + +This theory of race recapitulation as applied to the succeeding stages +of boyhood may be somewhat more poetic than scientific. Genetically he +does those things for which at the time he has the requisite muscular +and nervous equipment, but the growth of this equipment gives him a +series of interests and expressions that run in striking parallel to +primitive life. If the enveloping society is highly civilized and +artificial, much of his primitive desire may be cruelly smothered or too +hastily refined or forced into a criminal course. But memory, +experience, observation, and experiment force one to note that the +parallel does exist and that it is vigorously and copiously attested by +the boy's likes and deeds. At the same time the theory is to be used +suggestively rather than dogmatically, and the leader of boys will not +imagine that to reproduce the primitive life is the goal of his +endeavor. It is by the recognition of primitive traits and by connecting +with them as they emerge that the guide of boyhood may secure an +intelligent and well-supported advance. + +Such an approach favors a sympathetic understanding of the boy. To +behold in him a rough summary of the past, and to be able to capitalize +for good the successive instincts as they appear, is to accomplish a +fine piece of missionary work without leaving home. Africa and Borneo +and Alaska come to you. The fire-worshiper of ancient times, the fierce +tribesman, the savage hunter and fisher, the religion-making nomad, the +daring pirate, the bedecked barbarian, the elemental fighter with nature +and fellow and rival of every kind, the master of the world in +making--comes before you in dramatic and often pathetic array in the +unfolding life of the ordinary boy. + +Our topmost civilization, although sustained and repleted by this +original stuff, takes all too little account of these elemental traits. +In the growing boy the ascending races are piled one on top of another. +In him you get a longitudinal section of human nature since its +beginning. He is an abridged volume on ethnology; and because he is on +the way up and elected to rule, it is more of a mistake to neglect him +than it is to neglect any of those races that have suffered a +long-continued arrest at some point along the way. Of course anyone +expecting to note by day and hour the initial emergence of this or that +particular trait of primitive man will be disappointed. The thing for +the friend of the boy to know is that in him the deep-set habits which +made the human body the instrument it is, the old propensities of savage +life are voices of the past, muffled, perhaps, but very deep and +insistent, calling him to do the things which for ages were done and to +make full trial of the physique which modern civilization threatens with +disuse or perversion. + +[Illustration: MIGHTY HUNTERS] + +[Illustration: THE LURE OF THE WATER] + +Let a number of the common traits of boyhood testify. There is the gang +instinct which is noticeably dominant during the years from twelve to +fifteen. Probably 80 per cent of all boys of this age belong to some +group answering dimly to ancient tribal association and forming the +first social circle outside the home. A canvass of the conditions of boy +life in the Hyde Park district of Chicago revealed the existence of such +gangs on an average of one to every two blocks, and the situation is not +materially different in other parts of the city or in the smaller towns. +The gang is thus the initial civic experiment for better or for worse, +the outreach after government, co-operative power, and the larger self +which can be found only in association. During this age and within his +group the boy does not act as one possessing clear and independent moral +responsibility. He acts as part of the gang, subject to its ideals, and +practically helpless against its codes of conduct and its standards of +loyalty. + +One hot afternoon I ran across a group "in swimming" at a forbidden spot +on the shore of Lake Michigan. As we talked and tended the fire, which +their sun-blistered bodies did not need, one of the lads suddenly fired +at me point-blank the all-important question, "What do you belong to?" +Being unable to give an answer immediately favorable to our growing +friendship, I countered with "What do _you_ belong to?" "Oh," said he, +"I belong to de gang." "What gang?" "De gang on de corner of Fitty Fit +and Cottage Grove." "And what do you do?" "Ah, in de ev'nin' we go out +and ketch guys and tie 'em up." Allowing for nickel-show and Wild-West +suggestions, there remains a touch of a somewhat primitive exploit. + +Another interesting gang was found occupying a cave in the saloon +district of Lake Avenue. The cave takes precedence over the shack as a +rendezvous because it demands no building material and affords more +secrecy. Beneath the cave was a carefully concealed seven-foot +sub-cellar which they had also excavated. This served as a guardhouse +for unruly members and as a hiding-place for loot. When in conclave, +each boy occupied his space on a bench built against the sides of the +cave, his place being indicated by his particular number on the mud +wall. This gang had forty-eight members and was led by a dissolute +fellow somewhat older than the others, one of those dangerous boys +beyond the age of compulsory education and unfitted for regular work. +They played cards, "rushed the can," and all hands smoked cigarettes. +_Facilis descensus Averno._ The love of adventure and hunting was +illustrated in the case of two other boys of this neighborhood who were +but ten and eleven years of age. Having stolen eleven dollars and a +useless revolver, they ran away to Milwaukee. When taken in hand by the +police of that city they solemnly declared that they had "come to +Wisconsin to shoot Injuns." + +Much could be said of the love of fire which has not yet surrendered all +of its charm for even the most unromantic adult. The mystic thrill that +went through the unspoiled nerves of pre-historic man and filled his +mind with awe is with us still. The boy above all others yields to its +spell. Further, by means of a fire he becomes, almost without effort, a +wonderworking cause, a manipulator of nature, a miracle worker. Hence +the vacant lots are often lighted up; barrels, boxes, and fences +disappear; and one almost believes that part of the charm of smoking is +in the very making of the smoke and seeing it unwind into greater +mystery as did incense from thousands of altars in the long-ago. + +This elemental desire to be a cause and to advertise by visible, +audible, and often painful proofs the fact of one's presence in the +world is also basal. It is the compliment which noisy childhood and +industrious boyhood insistently demand from the world about. Even the +infant revels in this testimony, preferring crude and noisy playthings +of proportion to the innocent nerve-sparing devices which the adult +tries to foist upon him. The coal scuttle is made to proclaim causal +relation between the self in effort and the not-self in response more +satisfactorily than the rag doll; and the manifest glee over the +contortions of the playful father whose hand is slapped is not innate +cruelty but the delight of successful experiment in causation. + +So of the noise and bluster, the building and destruction, the teasing +and torture so often perpetrated by the boy. He is saying that he is +here and must be reckoned with, and he wishes to make his presence as +significant as possible. If home, school, and community conditions are +such as to give healthful direction to both his constructive and +destructive experimentation, all is well, but if society cannot so +provide he will still exploit his causal relation although it must be in +violation of law and order. The result is delinquency, but even in this +he glories. It often gives a more pungent and romantic testimony than +could otherwise be secured. It is the flaring yellow advertisement of +misdirected effectiveness. Probably there mingles with this impulse the +love of adventure as developed in the chase. "Flipping cars," +tantalizing policemen, pilfering from fruit stands are frequently the +degenerate, urban forms of the old quest of, and encounter with, the +game of forest and jungle. + +Then there is the lure of the water, which explains more than half his +school truancy during the open season. It is a fine spring or summer +day. The _Wanderlust_ of his ancestry is upon the boy. The periodic +migration for game or with the herds, the free range of wood and stream, +or the excitement of the chase pulsates in his blood. Voices of the far +past call to something native in him. The shimmer of the water just as +they of old saw it, the joyous chance of taking game from its unseen +depths, or of getting the full flush of bodily sensation by plunging +into it, the unbridled pursuit of one's own sweet will under the free +air of heaven--these are the attractions over against which we place the +school with its books, its restraint, and its feminine control; and the +church with its hush and its Sunday-school lesson: and, too often, we +offer nothing else. It is like giving a hungry woodchopper a doily, a +Nabisco wafer, and a finger-bowl. + +If we could but appreciate the great crude past whose conflicts still +persist in the boy's gruesome and tragic dreams, filling him with a +fear of the dark, which fear in time past was the wholesome and +necessary monitor of self-preservation; if we could only realize how +strenuous must be those experiences which guarantee a strong body, a +firm will, and an appetite for objective facts, we would not make our +education so insipidly nice, so intellectual, so bookish, and so much +under the roof. A school and a school building are not synonymous, a +church and a church building are not synonymous; schooling is not +identical with education, nor church attendance with religion. It is +unfortunate if the boy beholds in these two essential institutions +merely an emasculated police. + +If either the church or the school is to reach the boy it will have to +recognize and perform its task very largely beyond the traditional +limits of the institution as such, and with a heartiness and masculinity +which are now often absent. In this field the indirect and +extra-ecclesiastical work of the minister will be his best work, and the +time that the teacher spends with his pupils outside the schoolhouse may +have more educational value than that spent within. In due time society +will be ready to appreciate and support the educator who is bigger than +any building; and outdoor schools are bound to grow in favor. + +[Illustration: GETTING THE SPARK] + +[Illustration: GETTING THE FLAME] + +[Illustration: FIRE!] + +Consider also the boy's love of paraphernalia and all the tokens of +achievement or of oneness with his group. The pre-adolescent boy +glorying in full Indian regalia, the early-adolescent proud in the suit +of his team or in his accouterments as a Scout, and a little later, with +quieter taste, the persistent fraternity pin--all of these tell the same +story of the love of insignia and the power of the emblem in the social +control and development of youth. Think also of the collecting mania, +which among primitives was less strong than is ordinarily supposed, but +which in early boyhood reaches forth its hands, industriously, if not +always wisely, after concrete, tactual knowledge and proprietorship. So +also with the impulse to tussle and to revel in the excitement of a +contest; inhibited, it explodes; neglected, it degenerates; but directed +it goes far toward the making of a man. Evidence of this intensity, +zest, and pressure of young life is never wanting. Disorder +"rough-house," and even serious accidents, testify to the reckless +abandon which tries to compensate in brief space for a thousand hours of +repression. Such occurrences are unfortunate but worse things may happen +if the discharge of energy becomes anti-social, immoral, and vicious. +"The evils of lust and drink are the evils that devour playless and +inhibited youth." + +Right conceptions of religion and education must therefore attach an +added sanctity to the growth of the body, since in and through it alone +is the soul, so far as we know it, achieved. To accept the biological +order as of God and to turn to their right use all of life's unfolding +powers constitutes a religious program. For even those primitive +instincts which pass and perish often stir into consciousness and +operation other more noble functions or are transmuted into recognized +virtues. Popularly speaking, the tadpole's tail becomes his legs. +Success in suppressing the precivilized qualities of the boy results in +a "zestless automaton" that is something less than a man. Everything +that characterizes the boy, however bothersome and unpromising it may +seem, is to be considered with reference to a developing organism which +holds the story of the past and the prophecy of the future. To the +apostle of the largest vision and the greatest hope, these native +propensities will be the call of the man of Macedonia, saying, "Come +over and help us." + +The most striking biological change that comes to the boy on his way to +manhood is that of puberty. The church and the state have attested the +vast importance of this experience for political and religious ends by +their ceremonials of induction into the responsibilities of citizenship +and the obligations of formal religion. Among the least civilized +peoples these ceremonies were often cruel, superstitious, and long drawn +out in their exaction of self-control, sacrifice, and subordination to +the tribal will. The sagacity of the elders of the tribe in preserving +their own control and in perpetuating totemic lore must compel the +unfeigned admiration of the modern ethnologist. + +The Athenians with their magnificent civilization exalted citizenship +and the service of the state far beyond any modern attainment. The way +of the youth today is tame, empty, and selfish as compared with the +Spartan road to manhood and the Roman ceremonies attendant upon the +assumption of the _toga virilis_. As a rule modern churches have too +lightly regarded the profound significance of ancient confirmation +services--Jewish, Greek, and Catholic. Knowledge of what transpires in +the body and mind of adolescence proves the wisdom of the ancients and +at the same time attracts both the educator and the evangelist to study +and use the crises of this fertile and plastic period. + +The process of transformation from childhood into manhood begins in the +twelfth or thirteenth year, passes its most acute stage at about +fifteen, and may not complete itself until the twenty-fifth year. It is +preceded by a period of mobilization of vitality as if nature were +preparing for this wonderful re-birth whereby the individualistic boy +becomes the socialized progenitor of his kind. + +The normal physiological changes, quite apart from their psychological +accompaniments, are such as to elicit the sympathy of intelligent +adults. Early in pubescent growth the heart increases by leaps and +bounds, often doubling its size in the course of two years or even one +year. There is a rise of about one degree in the temperature of the +blood and the blood pressure is increased in all parts of the body. The +entire body is unduly sensitized, and the boy is besieged by an army of +new and vivid sense impressions that overstimulate, confuse, and baffle +him. He is under stress and like all persons under tension he reacts +extremely and hence inconsistently in different directions. He cannot +correlate and organize his experiences. They are too vivid, varied, and +rapid for that. This over-intensity begets in turn excessive languor and +he cannot hold himself in _via media_. + +His physical condition explains his marked moods: his sudden changes of +front, his ascent of rare heights of impulsive idealism, and his equally +sudden descent into the bogs of materialism; his unsurpassed though +temporary altruism and his intermittent abandon to gross selfishness. He +has range. He is a little more than himself in every direction. The wine +of life is in his blood and brain. It is no wonder that somewhere about +the middle of the adolescent period both conversions and misdemeanors +are at their maximum. + +To make matters worse these vivid and unorganized experiences, simply +because they lie along the shore of the infinite and have no single +clue, no governing philosophy of life, are overswept by the dense and +chilling fogs of unreality that roll in from the great deep. Life is +swallowed up in awful mystery. External facts are less real than dreams. +One stamps the very ground beneath his feet to know if it exists. The +ego which must gauge itself by external bearings is temporarily adrift +and lost. Suicidal thoughts are easily evoked; and at such times the +luxury of being odd and hopelessly misunderstood constitutes a +chameleon-like morbidity that, with a slight change of light and color, +becomes an obsession of conceit. The odd one, the mystery to self and +others, is he not the great one that shall occupy the center of the +stage in some stupendous drama? A man now prominent in educational +circles testifies how that on a drizzly night on the streets of old +London the lad, then but sixteen years of age, came to a full stop, set +his foot down with dramatic pose, and exclaimed with soul-wracking +seriousness: + + The time is out of joint;--O cursed spite, + That ever I was born to set it right! + +So is it ever with the adolescent soul unless society curses the desire +for significance and makes it criminal. + +These bare cliffs of primal personality have not yet undergone the +abrasion of the glacial drift nor of the frost and the heat, the wind +and the rain of long years. They are angular, bold, defiant, and +unsuited to the pastoral and agricultural scenes of middle life. The +grind of life with its slow accomplishment and failure has not as yet +imparted caution and discretion. Shrewd calculation and niggardliness +too are normally absent. Generous estimates prevail. Idealism is +passionate and turns its eye to summits that a life-time of devotion +cannot scale. Honor is held in high regard and select friendships may +have the intensity of religion. Judgments are without qualification. +Valor, laughter and fun, excess and the love of victory mingle in hot +profusion. Except in the case of the precocious boy of the street, the +cold vices of cynicism, misanthropy, and avarice--the reptilians of +society--are found almost exclusively among adults. The _younger_ +brother is the prodigal. Experience has not taught him how to value +property and the main chance. + +The failure of self-knowledge and self-control to keep pace with the +rapid changes of bodily structure, sense-impressions, and mental +organization is nowhere more marked and significant than in sex +development; and the common experience of adolescent boys is to the +effect that no other temptations equal in persistence and intensity +those that attend and follow this awakening. It is highly important, +then, that, as preparation for dealing with the individual, the minister +shall both see the generic boy upon the background of the past and that +he shall also understand in some measure the physical basis and +psychological ferment of the boy's inevitable re-birth, not for the +purpose of cheaply exploiting adolescence but in order that he may bring +every life to its best in terms of personal character and of worth to +the world. + + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE BOY IN VILLAGE AND COUNTRY[2] + + +From the consideration of bodily health the village boy is better off +than his city cousin. He also enjoys to a far greater degree the +protective and educative attention of real neighborhood life. The +opinions and customs which help to mold him are more personal. He +probably holds himself more accountable, for he can more readily trace +the results of any course of action in terms of the welfare and +good-will of well-known persons. His relation to nature is also more +nearly ideal. Artificial restrictions, territorial and otherwise, are +not so strictly imposed. His lot favors a sane and normal view of life. +There are more chores to be done, more inviting occupations in the open, +and altogether there may be a more wholesome participation in the work +of maintaining the home than is possible for the city boy. + +On the other hand, the static character of village life leaves the boy +with little inspiration in his primary interests of play and his serious +ideals of the noblest manhood. Idle hours work demoralization and the +ever-present example of the village loafer is not good. A +disproportionate number of village people lack public spirit and social +ideals. The masculine element most in evidence is not of the strongest +and most inspiring kind, and the village is all too often the paradise +of the loafer and the male gossip. This, however, cannot be said of the +small frontier town where the spirit of progress is grappling with crude +conditions. + +Furthermore, the village is sadly incompetent in the organization of its +welfare and community work. As a matter of fact, social supervision is +often so lax that obscene moving pictures and cards that are driven out +of the large cities are exhibited without protest in the small towns. +Usually the village is overchurched, and consequently divided into +pitiably weak factions whose controlling aim is self-preservation. +Seldom can a religious, philanthropic, or social organization be +developed with sufficient strength to serve the community as such. + +The sectarian divisions which in the vast needs and resources of great +cities do not so acutely menace church efficiency prove serious in the +small town. The saloon, poolroom, livery stable, and other haunts of the +idle are open for boys; but the Christian people, because of their +denominational differences, maintain no social headquarters and no +institution in which boys may find healthy expression for their normal +interests. The Y.M.C.A. is impracticable, because the church people are +already overtaxed in keeping up their denominational competition and so +cannot contribute enough to run an association properly. Wherever an +association cannot be conducted by trained and paid officers it will +result in disappointment. + +The caricature of essential Christianity which is afforded by the +denominational exhibit in the village works great harm to boys. It is +not only that they are deprived of that guidance which true Christianity +would give them, but they are confronted from the first with a spectacle +of pettiness, jealousy, and incompetency which they will probably +forever associate with Christianity, at least in its ecclesiastical +forms. Villages are at best sufficiently susceptible to those +unfortunate human traits that make for clique and cleavage in society, +and when the Christian church, instead of unifying and exalting the +community life, adds several other divisive interests with all the +authority of religion, the hope of intelligent, united, and effective +service for the community, on a scale that would arouse the imagination +and enlist the good-will of all right-minded people, is made sadly +remote. + +So far as church work is concerned, the village boy is likely to be +overlooked, as promising little toward the immediate financial support +of the church and the increase of membership. In the brief interval of +two years--the average duration of the village pastorate--it does not +seem practicable for the minister to go about a work which will require +a much longer time to produce those "satisfactory results" for which +churches and missionary boards clamor. A revival effort which inflates +the membership-roll, strenuous and ingenious endeavors to increase the +offerings, are the barren makeshifts of a policy which does not see the +distinct advantage and security in building Christian manhood from the +foundation up. + +It must not be thought that the minister is largely to blame for the +situation as it now is. Perpetuating institutions beyond the time of +their usefulness is one of society's worst habits, and it is not to be +expected that religious organizations, which in a given stage of the +development of Christian truths were vital and necessary, can easily be +persuaded to surrender their identity, even after the cause that called +them into being has been won. + + Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade + Of that which once was great has passed away. + +But the real religious leader who loves boys will not be balked by the +pettiness and inability of denominationalism. His hope lies not solely +in the church or the churches, but largely in the intelligence, +sympathy, and generosity of the unchurched citizens, whose number and +importance in the small town is probably in the inverse ratio of the +number of churches. Business men of whatever creed, or of none, are +remarkably responsive to any sane endeavor to create a wholesome outlet +for juvenile activity, and, whether right or wrong, count such efforts +as being more valuable than much of the traditional church endeavor. + +The minister will first try to organize boys' work for the whole +community, but if co-operation on the part of all or of a group of the +churches proves impossible, let him go ahead with such assistance as his +own church and other voluntary supporters will afford, and let him still +work in entire freedom from sectarian aim. As a minister of Christ and +his kingdom he must give to Christianity an interpretation which will +offset provincial and narrow impressions. He must free it from cant and +from the other-worldly emphasis and bring it into the realm where boys +and business men will respect it as a social factor of primary +importance. + +All the problems of early adolescence belong to the village boy as to +every other. He also gropes about for his vocational discovery. How +shall he gain self-control, how can he find himself? How can he relate +his life to the great perplexing world and to the God of all? How can he +win his immediate battles with temptation? The public school throws +little light upon his possible occupation, trade, or profession, nor +does it deal with his moral struggle. + +The Sunday school, if it touches him at all, is often regarded as a +nuisance to be endured out of respect for others. It addresses itself +too much to tradition and too little to modern life. It gets the +Israelites from Egypt into possession of Canaan by various miraculous +interventions, stops the sea and the sun, knocks down the walls of +Jericho by the most uncommon tactics, and reveals the umpire as on the +Israelites' side. + +The boy knows that if this be intended as sober history things have +changed somewhat. For these are the very things that do not and should +not happen in the conquest of his promised land. Under Christian +guidance he must learn the ethical value of an orderly world, the +morality that inheres in cause and effect, the divine help which is not +partiality; and if it should turn out that he could master these lessons +better through work and play and friendship than through being formally +instructed in misapprehended lore, then such work and play and +fellowship will prove of greater value than the Sunday-school hour +alone. + +As for the country boy, perhaps his chief lack is association with his +fellows. To meet this and to satisfy the gregarious instinct, which will +be found in him as in all boys, the minister's organizing ability must +be directed. The gymnasium, in so far as it is a makeshift for lack of +proper exercise in the life of the city boy, is not in great demand in +the country. The farm boy has in his work plenty of exercise of a +general and sufficiently exhausting character, and he has the benefit of +taking it out of doors. He, of course, is not a gymnast in fineness and +grace of development, and he may need corrective exercises, but the big +muscles whose development tells for health and against nervousness are +always well used. + +In so far, however, as the gymnasium affords a place for organized +indoor play through the winter months there is more to be said of its +necessity. For it is not exercise but group play that the country boy +most needs. The fun and excitement, the contest and the co-ordination of +his ability with that of others, all serve to reduce his awkwardness and +to supplant a rather painful self-consciousness with a more just idea of +his relative rating among his fellows. He finds himself, learns what it +is to pull together, and gets some idea of the problems of getting along +well with colleagues and opponents. + +Wherever the country pastor can secure a room that will do for +basket-ball, indoor baseball, and the like, he may, if it is +sufficiently central and accessible, perform a useful service for the +boys and establish a point of contact. It is highly desirable that +shower-baths and conveniences for a complete change of clothing be +provided. If Saturday afternoon is a slack time and the farmers are +likely to come to the village, he should make arrangements to care for +the boys then, reserving Saturday evening for the young men. Such an +arrangement secures economy in heating the building and may overcome for +some of the youth the Saturday evening attractions of the saloon and +public dance. + +For the distinctly country church, situated at the cross-roads, a +building that may serve as a gymnasium will be practically impossible +unless a very remarkable enthusiasm is awakened among the boys and young +men. But in many a country village such an equipment is both necessary +and well within the reach of a good organizer. The country people have +means and know how to work for what they really desire. What they most +lack is inspiration and leadership. + +During that part of the open season when school is in session the +country minister has an excellent opportunity to meet the boys, organize +their play, and become a real factor in their lives. In the country +one-room school there will be found but few boys over fourteen years of +age, but a great deal can be done with the younger boys in some such way +as follows: As school "lets out" in the afternoon the minister is on +hand. The boys have been under a woman teacher all day and are glad to +meet a man who will lead them in vigorous play. It may be baseball, +football, trackwork with relay races, military drill, or the like--all +they need is one who knows how, who is a recognized leader, and who +serves as an immediate court of appeal. If they do not get more moral +benefit and real equipment for life's struggle in this hour and a half +than they are likely to get from a day's bookwork in the average +one-room, all-grades, girl-directed country school, it must be because +the minister is a sorry specimen. + +The city minister takes his boys on outings to the country. The country +minister will bring his boys on "innings" to the city. As they see him +he is pre-eminently the apostle of that stirring, larger world. What +abilities may not be awakened, what horizons that now settle about the +neighboring farm or village may not be gloriously lifted and broadened, +what riches that printed page cannot convey may not be planted in the +young mind by the pastor who introduces country boys to their first +glimpse of great universities, gigantic industries, famous libraries, +inspiring churches, and stately buildings of government? + +One need not mention such possibilities as taking a group to the fair or +the circus, or on expeditions for fishing, swimming, and hunting--all +of them easy roads to immortality in a boy's affection. + +Further, the minister is not only the apostle of that greater world but +the exemplar of the highest culture. He is to bring that culture to the +country not only through his own person but by lectures on art and +literature, so that the young may participate in the world's refined and +imperishable wealth. This may mean illustrated lectures on art and the +distribution of good prints which will gradually supplant the chromos +and gaudy advertisements which often hold undisputed sway on the walls +of the farmhouse. + +It might also be helpful to our partly foreign rural population to have +lectures on history such as will acquaint boys and others with the real +heroes of various nations, preserve pride in the best national +traditions, and ultimately develop a sane and sound patriotism among all +our citizens. The church building is not too sacred a place for an +endeavor of this kind. The ordinary stereopticon and the moving picture +should not be disdained in so good a cause. Boys are hero-worshipers, +and history is full of heroes of first-rate religious significance. + +As a further factor in elevating and enriching the life of the country +boy, the minister may endeavor to create a taste for good reading. The +tendency is that all the serious reading shall be along agricultural +rather than cultural lines and that the lighter reading shall be only +the newspaper and the trashy story. The minister should enlarge the +boy's life by acquainting him with the great classics. A taste for good +things should be formed early. With the older boys, from the years of +sixteen or eighteen upward, organization for literary development and +debating should be tried. A good deal in a cultural way is necessary to +offset the danger which now besets the successful farmer of becoming a +slave to money-making, after the fashion of the great magnates whom he +condemns but with rather less of their general perspective of life. + +The minister might help organize a mock trial, county council, school +board, state legislature, or something of that sort, as a social and +educative device for the older boys. Under certain conditions music +could well form the fundamental bond of association, and groups gathered +about such interests as these could meet from house to house, thus +promoting the social life of the parish in no small degree. Young women +might well share in the organizations that are literary and musical. The +great vogue of the country singing-school a generation ago was no mere +accident. + +Could not the minister enter into the campaign for the improvement of +the conditions of farm life and stimulate the beautifying of the +dooryards by giving a prize to the boy who, in the judgment of an +impartial committee, had excelled in this good work? Could he not +interest his boys' organization in beautifying the church grounds and so +enlist them in a practical altruistic endeavor? Might he not find a very +vital point of contact with the country boy by conducting institutes for +farmers' boys, perhaps once a month, in which by the generous use of +government bulletins and by illustration and actual experiment he might +awaken a scientific interest in farming and impart valuable information? +In connection with this the boys could be induced to conduct experiments +on plots of ground on their fathers' farms. Exhibits could be made at +the church and prizes awarded. It would be a good thing too if the +profits, or part of the profits, from such experimental plots could be +voluntarily devoted to some philanthropic or religious cause. This would +have the double value of performing an altruistic act and of +intelligently canvassing the claim of some recognized philanthropy. So +also the raising of chickens and stock might be tried in a limited way +with the scientific method and the philanthropic purpose combined. + +[Illustration: BOY SCOUTS STUDYING THE TREES] + +In some places botanical collections can be made of great interest; or +the gathering and polishing of all the kinds of wood in the vicinity, +with an exhibition in due time, may appeal to the boys. In addition to +forestry there is ornithology, geology, and, for the early age of twelve +to fifteen, bows and arrows, crossbows, scouting, and various +expeditions answering to the adventure instinct. + +The wise country minister will certainly keep in touch with the public +school, will be seen there frequently, and will give his genuine support +to the teacher in all of her endeavor to do a really noble work with a +very limited outfit. He will help her to withstand the gross +utilitarianism of the average farmer, who is slow to believe in anything +for today that cannot be turned into dollars tomorrow. What with the +consolidation of township schools, improved communication by rural +delivery and telephone, better roads, the increasing use of automobiles, +and the rising interest in rural life generally, together with a broad +view of pastoral leadership and the "cure of souls" for the whole +countryside, the minister may be a vital factor in shaping the social +and religious life of the country boy; and he will, because of his +character and office, illumine common needs and homely interests with an +ever-refined and spiritual ideal. His ministry, however, cannot be all +top, a cloudland impalpable and fleeting. It was with common footing and +vital ties that Goldsmith's village preacher + + Allured to brighter worlds and led the way. + +After such fashion and with thorough rootage in country life must the +minister of today turn to spiritual account the wealth-producing methods +of farming. Out of soil cultivation he must guarantee soul culture by +setting forth in person, word, and institution those ideals which have +always claimed some of the best boyhood of the country for the world's +great tasks. + + + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE MODERN CITY AND THE NORMAL BOY[3] + + +Modern cities have been built to concentrate industrial opportunity. +They have taken their rise and form subsequent to the industrial +revolution wrought by steam and as a result of that revolution. So far +they have paid only minor attention to the conservation or improvement +of human life. Justice, not to mention mercy, toward the family and the +individual has not been the guiding star. The human element has been +left to fit as best it could into a system of maximum production at +minimum cost, rapid and profitable transportation, distribution +calculated to emphasize and exploit need, and satisfactory dividends on +what was often supposititious stock; and because these have been the +main considerations the latent and priceless wealth of boyhood has been +largely sacrificed. + +The amazing and as yet unchecked movement of population toward the city +means usually a curtailment of living area for all concerned. The more +people per acre the greater the limitation of individual action and the +greater the need of self-control and social supervision. Restrictions of +all sorts are necessary for the peace of a community wherein the +physical conditions almost force people to jostle and irritate one +another. In such a situation the more spontaneous and unconventional the +expression of life the greater the danger of bothering one's neighbors +and of conflicting with necessary but artificial restrictions. Even +innocent failure to comprehend the situation may constitute one +anti-social or delinquent, and the foreigner as well as the boy is often +misjudged in this way. + +But on the score of the city's inevitable "Thou shalt not," it is the +boy who suffers more than any other member of the community. His +intensely motor propensities, love of adventure, dim idea of modern +property rights, and the readiness with which he merges into the +stimulating and mischief-loving "gang" operate to constitute him the +peerless nuisance of the congested district, the scourge of an +exasperated and neurasthenic public, the enemy of good order and private +rights. + +Hence juvenile delinquency and crime increase proportionately with the +crowding of the modern city, the boy offending five times to the girl's +once, and directing 80 per cent of his misdemeanors against property +rights. In the city of Chicago alone the 1909 records show that in one +year there passed through the courts 3,870 children under seventeen +years of age, 10,449 under twenty years, and 25,580 under twenty-five +years of age. But it is not the actual delinquency of which the law +takes account that most impresses one; it is rather the weight of +failure and mediocrity, the host of "seconds" and "culls" that the city +treatment of childhood produces. + +The constrictions, vicissitudes, and instability of city life often make +such havoc of the home that the boy is practically adrift at an early +age. He has no abiding-place of sufficient permanency to create a wealth +of association or to develop those loyalties that enrich the years and +serve as anchorage in the storms of life. He moves from one flat to +another every year, and in many cases every six months. In such a +kaleidoscopic experience the true old-fashioned neighbor, whose +charitable judgment formerly robbed the law of its victims, is sadly +missed. Formerly allowance was made out of neighborly regard for the +parents of bothersome boys, but among the flat-dwellers of today +proximity means alienation, familiarity breeds contempt, and far from +being neighbors, those who live across the hall or above or below are +aggrieved persons who have to put up with the noise of an unknown rascal +whose parents, like themselves, occupy temporarily these restricted +quarters--these homes attenuated beyond recognition. + +A garden plot, small live stock, pets, woodpile, and workshop are all +out of the question, for the city has deprived the average boy not only +of fit living quarters but of the opportunity to enact a fair part of +his glorious life-drama within the friendly atmosphere of home. He +cannot collect things with a view to proprietorship and construction and +have them under his own roof. The noise and litter incident to building +operations of such proportions as please boys will not be tolerated. +Moreover, this home, which has reached the vanishing point, makes almost +no demand for his co-operation in its maintenance. There are no chores +for the flat boy wherein he may be busy and dignified as a partner in +the family life. To make the flat a little more sumptuous and call it an +apartment does not solve the problem, and with the rapid decrease of +detached houses and the occupation of the territory with flat buildings +the city is providing for itself a much more serious juvenile problem +than it now has. + +But the industrial usurpation takes toll of the family in other ways. +The intense economic struggle and the long distance "to work" rob the +boy of the father's presence and throw upon the mother an unjust burden. +To return home late and exhausted, to be hardly equal to the economic +demand, to see the prenuptial ideals fade, to pass from disappointment +to discouragement and from chronic irritability to a broken home is not +uncommon. The boy is unfortunate if the "incompatibility" end in +desertion or divorce, and equally unfortunate if it does not. + +Owing to the fact that the male usually stands from under when the home +is about to collapse, and to the further fact that industrial accidents, +diseases, and fatalities in the city claim many fathers, there +frequently falls upon the mother the undivided burden of a considerable +family. If she goes out to work the children are neglected; if she takes +roomers family life of the kind that nurtures health and morality is at +an end. And just as the apparently fortunate boy of the apartment is +forced upon the street, so the boy from the overcrowded old-fashioned +house is pushed out by the roomers who must have first attention because +of bread-and-butter considerations. Much more could be said of all the +various kinds of neglect, misfortune, and avarice that commit boys to +the doubtful influences of the city street, but the main object is to +point out the trend of home life in the modern city without denying that +there are indeed many adequate homes still to be found, especially in +suburban districts. + +A survey of the street and its allied institutions will throw light upon +the precocious ways of the typical city boy. The street is the +playground, especially of the small boy who must remain within sight and +call of home. Numerous fatalities, vigorous police, and big recreation +parks will not prevent the instinctive use of the nearest available open +area. If congestion is to be permitted and numerous small parks cannot +be had, then the street must have such care and its play zones must be +so guarded and supervised that the children will be both safe from +danger and healthfully and vigorously employed. + +[Illustration: FIND THE PLAYGROUND] + +In the busier parts of the city the constant street noise puts a nervous +tax upon the children; the proximity of so many bright and moving +objects taxes the eyes; the splash of gaudy and gross advertisements +creates a fevered imagination; slang, profanity, and vulgarity lend a +smart effect; the merchant's tempting display often leads to theft, and +the immodest dress of women produces an evil effect upon the mind of the +overstimulated adolescent boy; opportunities to elude observation and to +deceive one's parents abound; social control weakens; ideals become +neurotic, flashy, distorted; the light and allurement of the street +encourage late hours; the posters and "barkers" of cheap shows often +appeal to illicit curiosity, and the galaxy of apparent fun and +adventure is such as to tax to the full the wholesome and restraining +influence of even the best home. + +The cheap show is an adjunct of the street and a potent educational +factor in the training of the city lad. These motion-picture shows have +an estimated daily patronage in the United States of two and a quarter +millions, and in Chicago 32,000 children will be found in them daily. +Many of these children are helplessly open to suggestion, owing to +malnutrition and the nervous strain which the city imposes; and harmful +impressions received in this vivid way late at night cannot be resisted. +At one time, after a set of pictures had been given on the West Side +which depicted the hero as a burglar, thirteen boys were brought into +court, all of whom had in their possession housebreakers' tools, and all +stated they had invested in these tools because they had seen these +pictures and they were anxious to become gentlemanly burglars.[4] +Through censorship bureaus, national and municipal, the character of the +films put on exhibition is being greatly improved, and the moving +picture is destined to a large use by educational and religious +agencies. + +Many instances of valuable moving-picture exhibits come to mind, +including those on travel, nature-study, the passion play, athletic +sports, sanitation (especially the exhibits showing the breeding and +habits of the house-fly), and various others having to do with the +health, happiness, and morality of the people; and from the study of +hundreds of nickel shows one is forced in justice to say that although +there are dangers from the children's being out late at night and going +to such places unattended, and although the recreation is passive and +administered rather than secured by wholesome muscular exercise, yet +there has been brought within the reach of the entire family of moderate +means an evening of innocent enjoyment which may be had together and at +small expense. Properly regulated, it is an offset to the saloon and a +positive medium of good influence. + +Such a commendation, however, can safely be made for those communities +only which take the pains to censor all films before exhibition is +permitted. In less than two years the censorship bureau of Chicago has +excluded one hundred and thirteen miles of objectionable films. It +should be said also that the vaudeville, which now often accompanies the +nickel and dime shows, is usually coarse and sometimes immoral. The +music, alas, speaks for itself and constitutes a sorry sort of education +except in the foreign quarters of our great cities where, in conformity +to a better taste, it becomes classic and valuable. + +But to describe a typical film of the better sort and to indicate its +practical use may have some suggestive value for wide-awake ministers +who wish to turn to good account every legitimate social agency. During +the Christmas season of 1911 the following film story was set forth to +vast audiences of people with telling effect: In a wretched hovel you +see a lame mother with three pale children. The rich young landlord +comes to collect rent and is implored to improve the place. This he +refuses to do because of his small returns on the property. He departs. +The father of the family returns from work. They eat the bread of the +desolate. + +The landlord marries and sets out on an ocean voyage with his bride. On +the same ship the father of the tubercular family, working as stoker or +deck hand, reaches the last stages of the disease and in his dying hours +is mercifully attended by the bride. She contracts the disease and later +appears weak and fading. The husband, ascertaining the real nature of +her malady, brings her home with the purpose of placing her in the +private sanitarium. There is no room in this institution, but good +accommodations are found in the public sanitarium to which she goes and +where she finds the children from their tenement. + +The facts have now been put in such juxtaposition that the husband has a +change of heart. The patients recover and the landlord endows a great +sanitarium for the tuberculous. One may easily criticize the crudeness +of the plot and the improbabilities with which it bristles. But it sets +forth love and death and conversion and an appeal to rescue those who +suffer from the great white plague: and this was sufficient for the +crowd, for all are children when beholding the elemental things of life. +At any rate the women who stood at the exits of the theater selling the +Christmas stamps of the anti-tuberculosis society will tell you that the +purse strings as well as the heart strings of the crowd relaxed to the +crude but deep melody of mercy. + +The social hunger also, turning its back upon the meager home and +heightened by the monotony and semi-independence of early toil, takes to +the street. The quest is quickly commercialized and debauched by the +public dance halls which are controlled by the liquor interests. A +recent thorough investigation of 328 of these halls in Chicago showed a +nightly attendance of some 86,000 young people, the average age of the +boys being sixteen to eighteen years and of the girls fourteen to +sixteen years. Liquor was sold in 240 halls, 190 had saloons opening +into them, in 178 immoral dancing went on unhindered. The worst halls +had the least dancing and the longest intermissions. Everything was +conducted so as to increase the sale of liquor, and between the hours of +one and three A.M. the toughest element from the saloons, which close +at one o'clock, poured into the halls to complete the debauch and to +make full use of the special liquor license which is good until the +later hour.[5] + +The quest of fun and social adventure can be traced also through other +commercialized channels, in public poolrooms where minors waste time and +money--gamble, smoke, tell unclean stories and plan mischief; in great +amusement parks where the boy and girl on pleasure bent meet as +strangers to each other and without social sponsor, where the deluded +girl not only accepts but often invites a generosity which will tend to +compromise if not break down the morality of both; on excursion boats +which, if neglected, tend to become floating palaces of shame; and in +many ways that lead from the inadequate home to sorrow and disaster. + +It is to be doubted whether the average pastor or parent has an adequate +conception of the tremendous odds against which the moral forces contend +for the conservation of the city's childhood and youth, and whether we +have as yet begun to solve the problems that arise from the city's +sinister treatment of the home. Public parks, field-houses, libraries, +and social settlements graciously mitigate the evil, but are far from +curing it. + +To turn to the public schools with the expectation that they can +immediately, or at length, make good the injury done the home by +industrial usurpation is to expect more than is fair or possible. They +are doing valiantly and well, they are becoming social centers and in +due time they will have more adequately in hand both the vocational and +recreational interests of youth. With this accession of educational +territory will come a proportionate increase in the number of male +teachers, and a further diminution of the fallacy that the only kind of +order is silence and the prime condition of mental concentration +inaction. The system will become less and the boy more important. + +But the whole community is the master educator; the best home is not +exempt from its influence nor the best school greatly superior to its +morality. In fact the school, even as the place of amusement and all +places of congregation, serves to diffuse the moral problems of boyhood +throughout the whole mass. Moral sanitation is more difficult than +physical sanitation, and the spoiled boy is a good conductor of various +forms of moral virus. The moral training involved in the ordinary +working of the public school is considerable and is none the less +valuable because it is indirect. With more attention to physical +condition, corrective exercise, and organized play, and with the +motivating of a larger area of school work, the moral value of the +institution will be still further enhanced. + +The church addresses itself to the problem in ways both general and +specific, positive and negative. In its stimulation of public +conscience, in its inspiration of those who work directly for improved +conditions, and in Sunday schools and young people's societies, a +contribution of no small value is continually made. A rather negative, +or at best, concessive attitude toward recreation and a disposition to +rest satisfied with the denunciation of harmful institutions and +activities militates against her greatest usefulness. She must rather +compensate for home shortages and compete with the doubtful allurements +of the city. This she may do in part within her own plant and in part by +encouraging and supporting all wholesome outlets for the athletic zest, +social adventure, worthy ambition, and vocational quest of youth. Those +segments of the church which believe in bringing every legitimate human +interest within the scope and sanction of religion will in the nature of +things offer a more immediate and telling competition to the harmful +devices of the city. + +But with the exception of a few boys' clubs and scout patrols, for whose +direction there is always a shameful shortage of willing and able lay +leadership, the church has not as yet grasped the problem; and this +remains true when one grants further the value of organized boys' +classes in the Sunday school and of the "socials" and parties of young +people's societies. To be sure, the Protestant church, expressing itself +through the Young Men's Christian Association, has laid hold of the more +respectable edge of the problem. But with few exceptions this work is +not as yet missionary, militant, or diffused to the communities of +greatest need. A few experiments are now being made, but probably the +Y.M.C.A., more than the individual church, is under the necessity of +treating the underlying economic evils with a very safe degree of +caution; and in both there is the ever-recurrent need of an unsparing +analysis of motive for the purpose of ascertaining which, after all, is +paramount--human welfare or institutional glory. + +The tendency ever is to cultivate profitable and self-supporting fields +and sound business policies. But the case of thousands upon thousands of +boys living in localities that are socially impoverished, unfortunate, +and debasing constitutes a call to the missionary spirit and method. If +the impulse which is so ready and generous in the exportation of +religion and so wise in adaptation to the interests and abilities of the +foreign group could but lay hold of our most difficult communities with +like devotion and with scientific care there would be developed in due +time advanced and adequate methods, which in turn would take their +rightful place as a part of civic or educational administration. + +As is illustrated in both education and philanthropy, the function of +the church in social development has been of this order, and the mistake +of short-sighted religious leaders has been to desert these children +when once they have found an abode within the civil structure. The +pastoral spirit of the new era claims again the entire parish, however +organized, and guards its children still. The pioneer is needed at home +just as he is needed abroad, and the pioneering agency must have the +same zeal and freedom in order to mark out the way of salvation for +hordes of wild city boys who are the menacing product of blind economic +haste. + +[Illustration: WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH ME?] + +The church should see this big problem and accept the challenge. Society +should awaken to the fact that in our large cities there is growing up a +generation of boys who morally "cannot discern between their right hand +and their left hand"--this through no fault of theirs, for they are but +a product. If they are unlovely, "smart," sophisticated, ungrateful, and +predatory, what has made them so? Who has inverted the prophetic promise +and given them ashes for beauty and the spirit of heaviness for the +garment of praise? As matters now stand it is not the ninety and nine +who are safe and the one in peril. That ratio tends to be reversed, and +will be unless right-minded people accept individually and in their +organized relations a just responsibility for the new life that is +committed for shaping and destiny to the evolving modern city. + + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE ETHICAL VALUE OF ORGANIZED PLAY[6] + + +The value of work as a prime factor in character building must not be +overlooked. In the revival of play that is sweeping over our American +cities and in the tendency to eliminate effort from modern education +there is danger of erecting a superficial and mere pleasure-seeking +ideal of life. It is upon the background of the sacred value of work +that the equally legitimate moral factor of play is here considered. +Further, the value of _undirected_ play in cultivating initiative, +resourcefulness, and imagination, especially in young children, is worth +bearing in mind. One must grant also that play is not always enlisted in +the service of morality. But neither is religion. Both may be. At any +rate it is evident that when boy nature is subjected to city conditions +we must either provide proper outlet and guidance for the boy's play +instincts or be guilty of forcing him into the position of a law-breaker +and a nuisance. + +Reduced to its lowest terms, organized play is thus recognized as a +convenient substitute for misconduct. Even the property owner and +peace-loving citizen, if moved by no higher motive, will agree to the +adage that "Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do," and +will welcome the endeavor to safeguard property rights and promote the +peace of the community by drawing off the adventurous and +mischief-making energies of the boys into the less expensive channels of +play. Practical men are quite agreed that it is better for "gangs" to +release their energy and ingenuity against one another in a series of +athletic games than to seek similar adventure and satisfaction in +conflict with established property rights and the recognized agencies of +peace and order. + +Nevertheless there persists in the church, however unconsciously, a sort +of piety that disregards the body, and the conventional Christian ideal +has certainly been anemic and negative in the matter of recreation. The +Young Men's Christian Associations with their reproduction of the Greek +ideal of physical well-being have served to temper the other-worldly +type of Christianity with the idea of a well-rounded and physically +competent life as being consonant with the will of God. + +At the beginning of the eighteenth century Francke of Halle, an +educational organizer and philanthropist of no mean proportion, said, +"Play must be forbidden in any and all of its forms. The children shall +be instructed in this matter in such a way as to show them, through the +presentation of religious principles, the wastefulness and folly of all +play. They shall be led to see that play will distract their hearts and +minds from God, the Eternal Good, and will work nothing but harm to +their spiritual lives." + +Only gradually does "the-world-as-a-vale-of tears" and +"the-remnant-that-shall-be-saved" idea give place to a faith that claims +for God the entire world with its present life as well as individual +immortality in future felicity. Miracle and cataclysm and postmortem +glory--the ever-ready recourse of baffled hope and persecuted +Christianity--are giving place more and more to a Christian conquest +that is orderly and inclusive of the whole sweep of human life. The +church is but dimly conscious, as yet, that through the aid of science +she has attained this magnificent optimism; much less does she realize +its full implication for social service and the saving of the +individual, both body and soul. + +The minister as the herald and exemplar of such an imperial salvation +cannot ignore the exceptional opportunities which the play interests of +boyhood offer. He whose task has been to reconcile men to God, to bring +them into harmony with the universe in its ultimate content, cannot +neglect those activities which more than anything else in the life of +the boy secure the happy co-ordination of his powers, the placing of +himself in right relation with others and in obedience to law. These are +the moral and religious accomplishments aimed at in the teaching of +reconciliation which bulks so large in Christian doctrine; and by +whatever means this right adjustment to self, to others, and to the will +of God is brought about, it always produces the sure harvest of service +and joy. + +To some undoubtedly it will seem sacrilegious to suggest that play can +have anything to do in a transaction so deeply moral and so +fundamentally religious. Yet a psychological analysis of both play and +worship at their best will reveal marked similarities in spontaneity, in +self-expression for its own sake and free from ulterior ends, in +symbolism, semi-intoxication and rhythm, in extension and enrichment of +the self, and in preparation for the largest and most effective living. +That such a claim is not altogether extravagant may be demonstrated in +part by canvassing the moral reactions of a well-organized group engaged +in some specific game. For in merely discussing the play attitude, which +is applicable to every interest of life, there is the danger of so +sublimating the value of play that its importance, while readily +granted, will not affect pastoral or educational methods. This mistake +is only comparable with another which dwells upon the religious life of +the boy as dependent upon the use of some inherent religious faculty +that is quite detached from the normal physical and mental processes. +Such an attitude favors an easy escape from both the labor of character +building and the obligations of environmental salvation. Recognizing +these dangers and remembering that morality and religion are most valid +when acquired and incorporated in actual conduct, one may analyze a +standard game in search of its ethical worth. + +Baseball, our most popular and distinctively national game, constitutes +a fair field for this inquiry. In order to evaluate this form of play +as an agency in moral training it is necessary to presume that one has a +company of nine or more boys grouped together on the basis of loyalty to +a common neighborhood, school, club, church, or the like. They elect a +manager who acts for the team in arranging a schedule of games with +their various rivals and who serves in general as their business agent; +also a captain, usually chosen because of his ability to play the game +and his quality of natural leadership. He directs his players in their +contests and in case of dispute speaks for his team. + +The boys should also have in every case a trainer older than themselves, +a player of well-known ability and exemplary character. It is usually +through neglect of supervision of this sort that the ethical value of +baseball for boys of from twelve to fifteen years of age is forfeited. +Without the trainer to direct their practice games, and as a recognized +expert to try out the players for the various positions, the +possibilities of forming a team are few and those of unjust and harmful +conduct many. + +If at the outset, the group, coming together in park or vacant lot, +cannot speedily agree upon a _modus operandi_, their energy is turned +into profane disputing about the chief positions, and usually a game +cannot be organized, or, if it is, lack of agreement as to put-outs, +runs, fouls, and debatable points soon ruins the attempt, with little +left to most of the boys except resentment of the might-makes-right +policy. On the other hand, whether one has in mind a team or a chance +group of players, the presence of a capable adult as an immediate and +final court of appeal guarantees fair play for all, prevents personal +animosities, and inspires each one to do his best in the presence of a +competent judge. + +Wherever the team with proper supervision is a possibility the moral +value of the game will be at its maximum. Uniforms are not to be +despised. Loyalty to the school represented is but boyhood's form of +what in later life becomes ability to espouse a cause and to assume a +degree of social responsibility in keeping with that attitude. + +Because of this loyalty the boy who expected to play in the prominent +position of pitcher takes his less conspicuous place in right field, if +by fair trials under the trainer another boy has demonstrated his +superior fitness to fill the much-coveted position. For the credit of +the community or school which he has the honor to represent, the match +game must be won; hence he surrenders his personal glory to the common +good. He does more. Under the excitement of the contest and with the +consequent strengthening of the team spirit, he encourages the very boy, +who would otherwise have been only his personal rival, to do his level +best, forgetting utterly any mean individual comparisons and all +anti-social self-consciousness, in what he has enthusiastically accepted +as the greater common good. + +He goes to bat at a critical juncture in the game. The score is close. +He as much as anyone would like to have runs to his credit. But for the +sake of the team his chief concern must be to advance the base runner. +So he plays carefully rather than spectacularly, and makes a bunt or a +sacrifice hit, with the practical certainty that he will be put out at +first base, but with a good probability that he will thus have advanced +his fellow one base and so have contributed to the team's success. + +The religious value of the principle here involved receives no little +attention in sermon and Sunday-school class, but how tame and formal is +its verbal presentation as compared with its registration in the very +will and muscles of a boy at play! Wherever a state has become great or +a cause victorious, wherever a hero--a Socrates or a Christ--has +appeared among men, there has been the willingness, when necessary, to +make the "sacrifice hit." The loyalty that has held itself ready so to +serve on moral demand has to its credit all the higher attainments of +humanity. + +In the great American experiment of democracy, where the welfare of the +people is so often bartered for gold, and where public office is +frequently prostituted to private gain, there is a proportionately great +need of teaching in every possible way this fundamental virtue of +loyalty. Our future will be secure only in the degree in which +intelligent and strong men are devoted to the welfare of city and state +after the fashion of the boy to his team. It is because war, with all +its horrors, has stimulated and exhibited this virtue that its glory +persists far into our industrial age; and the hope of a lofty +patriotism, that shall be equal to the enervating influences of peace, +lies in an educated and self-denying type of loyalty. + +The use of this loyalty in the reformation of boy criminals has been +remarkably demonstrated in the well-known work of Judge Ben B. Lindsey, +of Denver. In a particularly difficult case he says: + + I decided to put my influence over him to the + test. I told him of the fight I was making for him, + showed him how I had been spending all my spare + time "trying to straighten things out" for him and + Heimel, and warned him that the police did not believe + I could succeed. "Now, Lee," I said, "you can run + away if you want to, and prove me a liar to the cops. + But I want to help you and I want you to stand by + me. I want you to trust me, and I want you to go + back to the jail there, and let me do the best I can." + He went, and he went alone--unguarded. + +Here is a striking example of the team work of two with the play upon +loyalty and the spirit of contest. + + Another lesson about boys I learned from little + "Mickey" when I was investigating his charge that + the jailer had beaten him. The jailer said: "Some + o' those kids broke a window in there, and when I + asked Mickey who it was, he said he didn't know. Of + course he knew. D'yu think I'm goin' to have kids + lie to me?" A police commissioner who was present + turned to Mickey. "Mickey," he said, "why did you + lie?" Mickey faced us in his rags. "Say," he asked, + "Do yoh t'ink a fullah ought to snitch on a kid?" + And the way he asked made me ashamed of myself. + Here was a quality of loyalty that we should be fostering + in him instead of trying to crush out of him. It was + the beginning in the boy of that feeling of responsibility + to his fellows on which society is founded. Thereafter, + + no child brought before our court was ever urged + to turn state's evidence against his partners in crime--much + less rewarded for doing so or punished for refusing. + Each was encouraged to "snitch" on himself, + and himself only. + +Another interview with a boy under sentence to the industrial school +emphasizes the same point: + + "I can _help_ you, Harry," I said. "But you've + got to carry yourself. If I let boys go when they do + bad things, I'll lose my job. The people 'll get another + judge in my place to punish boys, if _I_ don't do it. I + can't let you go." We went over it and over it; and + at last I thought I had him feeling more resigned and + cheerful, and I got up to leave him. But when I + turned to the door he fell on his knees before me + and, stretching out his little arms to me, his face distorted + with tears, he cried: "Judge! Judge! If you let + me go, _I'll never get you into trouble again_!" + + I had him! It was the voice of loyalty.... This + time he "stuck." "Judge," the mother told me + long afterward, "I asked Harry the other day, how it + was he was so good for _you_, when he wouldn't do it for + me or the policeman. And he says: 'Well, Maw, you + see if I gets bad ag'in the Judge he'll lose his job. I've + got to stay with him, 'cause he stayed with me.'" + I have used that appeal to loyalty hundreds of times + since in our work with the boys, and it is almost + infallibly successful. + +In eight years, out of 507 cases of boys put upon their honor to take +themselves from Denver to the Industrial School at Golden, to which the +court had sentenced them, Judge Lindsey had but five failures. In view +of such facts, who will think for a moment that we have so much as begun +to turn the latent loyalty of boyhood to its highest ethical use? + +No doubt much can be said against football, which ranks second in +popularity among American athletic games. For some years the elements of +hazard and rough treatment have been unhappily too prominent, so that +the suspicion is warranted that players have been sacrificed to the +bloodthirsty demands of the vast throng of spectators. The tension of +playing in the presence of thousands of partisan enthusiasts shows +itself in a reckless disregard of physical injury. Furthermore, for boys +in early adolescence the tax upon the heart constitutes a common danger +which is often rendered more serious by the untrained condition of the +players. It is to be hoped that in the further modification of the rules +from year to year, the players and their welfare will be kept more in +mind and the sensation-loving public, whose gate-fees have been too big +a consideration, will be measurably overlooked. + +But with this concession, all of the virtue that attaches to baseball +will be found in football, only in accentuated form. Physical bravery +is, of course, more emphasized; while team loyalty, with all that it +implies, is more intense. The relation of the members to one another in +a well-organized team amounts to an affection which is never forgotten. +The words of cheer when the team is hard pushed and has to take a +"brace"; the fighting spirit that plays the game to a finish, no matter +what the odds; the hand extended to help to his feet the man who has +just advanced the ball; the pat on the back; the impulsive embrace; the +very tears shed in common after a lost game--all of this is a social and +moral experience of no small value. Basketball also offers a good field +for the subordination of personal glory to team success and, in point of +intensity, stands midway between baseball and football with the +elimination of the dangerous qualities of the latter. + +[Illustration: THE NORMAL BOY IN THE ABNORMAL PLAYGROUND] + +Games of this sort are also the most effective means of developing, +through expression, the boy's sense of justice or fair play. And this +sentiment will always be found strong and operative in him unless it has +been overcome by the passion to win or by imitation of the bad example +of certain debased athletes, popularly known as "muckers." Under proper +leadership, the boy soon learns that the true spirit of manly sport is +the farthest removed from that of the footpad and the blackguard. +Appreciation of successful opponents and consideration for the +vanquished can be made effectually to supplant the cheap, blatant spirit +which seeks to attribute one's defeat to trickery and chance and uses +one's victory as an occasion for bemeaning the vanquished. The presence +of a capable director of play is sure to eliminate this evil which has +crept in under the sanction of vicious ideals and through gross neglect +of boys' play on the part of adults in general and educators in +particular. The Decalogue itself cannot compete with a properly directed +game in enforcing the fair-play principle among boys. It is worth +something to read about fair play, but it is worth much more to practice +it in what is, for the time being, a primary and absorbing interest. + +A large part of the morality which is most obviously desirable for human +welfare consists in bringing the body into habitual obedience to the +will. The amount of individual suffering and of loss and expense to +society due to failure in this struggle is nothing less than appalling. +The victims of emotional hurricanes, "brainstorms," neurotic excess, and +intemperate desire are legion. A nation that is overfed, +under-exercised, and notably neurasthenic should neglect nothing that +makes for prompt and reliable self-control. Lycurgus said, "The citizens +of Sparta must be her walls," and in building up a defense for the +modern state against forces more disastrous than Persian armies we must +turn to the ancient device of the playground and athletic games. + +The moral value of play in this respect arises from the instant muscular +response to volition. Delay, half-hearted response, inattention, +preoccupation, whimsicalness, carelessness, and every sluggish +performance of the order of the will, disqualifies the player so that +when we take into account the adolescent passion to excel, and the fact +that 80 per cent of the games of this period are characterized by +intense physical activity, we are forced to place the highest valuation +on play as a moral educator; for this enthronement of the will over the +body, although having to do with affairs of no permanent importance, has +great and abiding value for every future transaction in life. + +Indeed, the physical competency attained in athletic games has its +reaction upon every mental condition. Many boys who are hampered by +unreasonable diffidence, a lack of normal self-confidence and +self-assertion, find unexpected ability and positiveness through this +avenue alone and, on the other hand, the physical test and encounter of +the game serves to bring a proper self-rating to the overconfident. + +Dr. George J. Fisher, international secretary of the Physical Department +of the Young Men's Christian Association, says, "An unfortunately large +number of our population haven't the physical basis for being good." No +one with even the slightest knowledge of sociology and criminology will +be disposed to deny such a statement. One might as well expect a +one-legged man to win the international Marathon as to expect certain +physical delinquents to "go right." Thousands of boys and girls sit in +our public schools today who are the unhappy candidates for this +delinquency, and we are monotonously striving to get something into +their minds, which would largely take care of their own development, if +only we had the wisdom to address ourselves to their bodies. + +There is indeed not only a physical basis of _being_ good, but, what is +not less important, a physical basis of _doing_ good. Many people avoid +blame and disgrace who fail utterly in making a positive contribution to +the welfare of the community. They do not market their mental goods. +Thousands of men remain in mediocrity, to the great loss of society, +simply because they have not the requisite physical outfit to force +their good ideas, impulses, and visions into the current of the world's +life. For the most part they lack the great play qualities, "enthusiasm, +spontaneity, creative ability, and the ability to co-operate." Whenever +we build up a strong human organism we lay the physical foundations of +efficiency, and one is inclined to go farther and think with Dr. Fisher, +that muscular energy itself is capable of transformation into energy of +mind and will. That is to say that play not only helps greatly in +building the necessary vehicle, but that it creates a fund upon which +the owner may draw for the accomplishment of every task. + +There is ground also for the contention that grace of physical +development easily passes over into manner and mind. The proper +development of the instrument, the right adjustment and co-ordination of +the muscular outfit through which the emotions assemble and diffuse +themselves, is, when other things are equal, a guaranty of inner beauty +and the grace of true gentility. A poor instrument is always vexatious, +a good instrument is an abiding joy. The good body helps to make the +gracious self. Other things being equal the strong body obeys, but the +weak body rules. + +One should not overlook the heartiness that is engendered in games, the +total engagement of mind and body that insures for the future the +ability "to be a whole man to one thing at a time." Much of the moral +confusion of life arises from divided personality, and the miserable +application of something less than the entire self to the problem in +hand. Do not the great religious leaders of the world agree with the men +of practical efficiency in demonstrating and requiring this hearty +release of the total self in the proposed line of action? The demand of +Jesus, touching love of God and neighbor, or regarding enlistment in His +cause, is a demand for prompt action of the total self. Possibly no +other single virtue has a more varied field of application than the +ability for decisive and whole-souled action, which is constantly +cultivated in all physical training, and especially in competitive +athletic games. + +It should be noted also that the hearty release of energy is, in every +good game, required to keep within the rules. This is particularly true +in basket-ball, which takes high rank as an indoor game for boys. While +the game is intense and fatiguing, anything like a muscular rampage +brings certain penalty to the player and loss to his team. So that, +while the boy who does not play "snappy" and hard cannot rank high, +neither can the boy who plays "rough-house." Forcefulness under control +is the desideratum. + +Besides this there is always the development of that good-natured +appreciation of every hard task, that refinement of the true sporting +spirit, by which all the serious work of life becomes a contest worthy +of never-ending interest and buoyant persistency. In the midst of all +the sublime responsibilities of his remarkable ministry we hear Phillips +Brooks exclaim, "It's great fun to be a minister." An epoch-making +president of the United States telegraphs his colleague and successor, +with all the zest of a boy at play, "We've beaten them to a frazzle"; +and the greatest of all apostles, triumphing over bonds and +imprisonment, calls out to his followers, "I have fought a good fight." +"It is doubtful if a great man ever accomplished his life work without +having reached a play interest in it." + +The saving power of organized play, in the prevention and cure of that +morbidity which especially besets youth, can hardly be overestimated. +This diseased self-consciousness is intimately connected with nervous +tensions and reflexes from sex conditions and not infrequently passes +over into sex abuse or excess of some sort. So that the diversion of +strenuous athletic games, and the consequent use of energy up to a point +just below exhaustion, is everywhere recognized as an indispensable +moral prophylactic. Solitariness, overwrought nervous states, the +intense and suggestive stimuli of city life, call for a large measure of +this wholesome treatment for the preservation of the moral integrity of +the boy, his proper self-respect, and those ideals of physical +development which will surely make all forms of self-abuse or indulgence +far less likely. + +The normal exhilaration of athletic games, which cannot be described to +those without experience, is often what is blindly and injuriously +sought by the young cigarette smoker in the realm of nervous excitation +without the proper motor accompaniments. Possibly if we had not so +restricted our school-yards and overlooked the necessity for a physical +trainer and organized play, we would not have schools in which as many +as 80 per cent of the boys between ten and seventeen years of age are +addicted to cigarettes. In trying to fool Nature in this way the boy +pays a heavy penalty in the loss of that very decisiveness, force, and +ability in mind and body which properly accompany athletic recreation. +The increased circulation and oxidization of the blood is in itself a +great tonic and when one reflects that, with a running pace of six miles +an hour the inhalation of air increases from four hundred and eighty +cubic inches per minute to three thousand three hundred and sixty cubic +inches, the tonic effect of the athletic game will be better +appreciated. This increased use of oxygen means healthy stimulation, +growth of lung capacity, and exaltation of spirit without enervation. +"Health comes in through the muscles but flies out through the nerves." + + It was well thought and arranged by the ancients + [says Martin Luther] that young people should exercise + themselves and have something creditable and useful + to do. Therefore I like these two exercises and + amusements best, namely, music and chivalrous games + or bodily exercises, as fencing, wrestling, running, + leaping, and others..... With such bodily exercises + one does not fall into carousing, gambling, and hard + drinking, and other kinds of lawlessness, as are unfortunately + seen now in the towns and at the courts. + This evil comes to pass if such honest exercises and + chivalrous games are despised and neglected. + +[Illustration: WHAT SHALL WE PLAY?] + +The feeling of harmony and _bien-etre_ resulting from play is, in +itself, a rare form of wealth for the individual and a blessing to all +with whom one has to do. Every social contact tends to become wholesome. +And who will say that the virtue of cheerfulness is not one of the most +delightful and welcome forms of philanthropy? Play, rightly directed, +always has this result. + +Possibly no social work in America is more sanely constructive than that +of the playground movement. In the few years of its existence it has +made ample proof of its worth in humane and beneficent results; and our +city governments are hastening to acknowledge--what has been too long +ignored--the right of every child to play. It is only to be regretted +that the play movement has not centered about our public schools for it +constitutes a legitimate part of education. The survivors who reach high +school and college receive relatively a good deal of attention in +physical training and organized play, but the little fellows of the +elementary grades who have curvatures, retardation, adenoids, and small +defects which cause loss of grade, truancy, and delinquency receive as +yet very meager attention. + +In dearth of opportunity and in cruel oversight of the normal play-needs +of boyhood, there probably has never been anything equal to our modern +American city. But the cost of industrial usurpation in restricting the +time and area of play is beginning to be realized; and the relation of +the play-time and of the playground to health, happiness, morality, and +later to industrial efficiency, begins to dawn upon our civic leaders. +If "recreation is stronger than vice," it becomes the duty of religious +and educational institutions to contribute directly and indirectly to +normal recreative needs. + +But what can the minister do? He can help educate the church out of a +negative or indifferent attitude toward the absorbing play-interests of +childhood and youth. He can publicly endorse and encourage movements to +provide for this interest of young life and may often co-operate in the +organization and management of such movements. Every church should +strive through intelligent representatives to impart religious value and +power to such work and should receive through the same channels +first-hand information of this form of constructive and preventive +philanthropy. He can partly meet the demand through clubs and societies +organized in connection with his own church. He can plead for a real and +longer childhood in behalf of Christ's little ones who are often +sacrificed through commercial greed, un-Christian business ambition, +educational blindness, and ignorance. He can preach a gospel that does +not set the body over against the soul, science over against the Bible, +and the church over against normal life; but embraces every child of man +in an imperial redemption which is environmental and social as well as +individual, physical as well as spiritual. In short, he can study and +serve his community, not as one who must keep an organization alive at +whatever cost, but as one who must inspire and lead others to obey the +Master whose only reply to our repeated protestations of love is, "Feed +my lambs." + + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE BOY'S CHOICE OF A VOCATION[7] + + +It is practically impossible to overemphasize the importance of the +boy's vocational choice. Next to his attitude toward his Maker and his +subsequent choice of a life partner this decision controls his worth and +destiny. For it is not to be supposed that play with all its virtue, its +nourish and exercise of nascent powers, and its happy emancipation into +broader and richer living can adequately motivate and permanently +ennoble the energies of youth. Until some vocational interest dawns, +education is received rather than sought and will-power is latent or but +intermittently exercised. Play has a great orbit, but every true parent +and educator seeks to know the axis of a given life. + +For some boys presumably of high-school age and over, this problem +becomes real and engrossing, but for the vast majority there is little +intelligent choice, no wise counsel, no conscious fronting of the +profoundly religious question of how to invest one's life. The children +of ease graduate but slowly, if at all, from the "good-time" ideal, +while the children of want are ordinarily without option in the choice +of work. But for all who, being permitted and helped, both seek and find +then-proper places in the ranks of labor, life becomes constructively +social and therefore self-respecting. To be able to do some bit of the +world's work well and to dedicate one's self to the task is the +individual right of every normal youth and the sure pledge of social +solvency. Ideally an art interest in work for its own sake should cover +the whole field of human labor, and in proportion as each person finds a +task suited to his natural ability and is well trained for that task +does he lift himself from the grade of a menial or a pauper and enter +into conscious and worthy citizenship. + +Here then, as in the case of the mating instinct, the vocational quest +rightly handled forces the ego by its very inclination and success into +the altruism of a social order. For it is the misfits, the vocationally +dormant, the defeated, and those who, however successful, have not +considered such choice as an ethical concern of religion that make up +the anti-social classes of the present time. + +Hence this problem of vocational guidance which is so agitating the +educational world comes home to the minister in his work with youth. It +may be that he shall find new and practical use for the maligned +doctrine of election and that he shall place under intelligent, and +heavenly commission the ideals and hopes of later adolescence. At any +rate where the life career hinges, there the religious expert should be +on hand. For what profit is there in society's vast investment in early +and compulsory education if at the crucial time of initial experiment in +the world's work there be neither high resolve nor intelligent direction +nor sympathetic coaching into efficiency? + +But the importance of vocational choice does not turn upon the doubtful +supposition that there is one and only one suitable task for a given +youth. Probably there are groups or families of activities within which +the constructive endeavor may have happy and progressive expression. +Nor, from the minister's point of view, is the economic aspect of the +problem paramount. It is true that an investment of $50,000 worth of +working ability deserves study and wise placing and it is true that the +sanction of public education is to return to the state a socially +solvent citizen who will contribute to the common welfare and will more +than pay his way; but the immediately religious importance of this +commanding interest consists in the honest and voluntary request for +counsel on the part of the youth himself. + +Fortunately in the very midst of a reticent and often skeptical period +there comes, through the awakened vocational interest, an inlet into the +soul of youth. No religious inquisitor or evangelistic brigand could +have forced an entrance, but lo, all at once the doors are opened from +within and examination is invited. It is invited because the boy wishes +to know what manner of person he is and for what pursuit he is or may be +fitted. When once this issue is on and one is honored as counselor and +friend, the moral honesty and eagerness of youth, the thoroughgoing +confession on all the personal and moral phases of the problem in hand +are enough to move and humble the heart of any pastor. Such conference +solemnizes and reassures the worker with boys, while to have spent no +time as an invited and reverent guest within this sacred precinct is to +fail of a priesthood that is profoundly beautiful. + +Several experiences with both individuals and groups are fresh in mind +at this writing. On one occasion a guild of working boys in later +adolescence were living together in a church fraternity house, and it +was their custom on one evening of each week to have some prominent man +as guest at dinner and to hear an informal address from him after the +meal. It chanced that on the list of guests there was, in addition to +the mayor of their city and a well-known bishop of the Episcopal church, +the manager of one of the greatest automobile factories in America. On +the occasion on which this captain of industry spoke, he told in simple +fashion his own experience in search of a vocation. + +It was of a kind very common in our country: early privation, put to +work at thirteen, an attempt to keep him in an office when he longed to +have hold of the tools in the shop. In time his request was granted. +While he worked he observed and studied the organization of the shop and +the progression of the raw material to the finished product. Having +mastered the method he left this shop and hired in another, and then in +due time in still another shop, much to the disgust of his friends. But +in reply to their warning that "a rolling stone gathers no moss" he said +that that was not his aim. As a result of faithfully following his bent +he was ready to respond to the great demand for men to organize and run +bicycle factories, and when that demand was followed by the much +greater need of doing a similar work in the manufacture of automobiles +he was chosen for the very responsible position which he now holds. + +[Illustration: THE GUILD, First Baptist Church, Detroit, Mich.] + +There was, to be sure, nothing distinctly spiritual in his story, but +after he had finished the young men kept him for two hours answering +their questions and there was there revealed to the pastor more of their +fine hopes and purposes and possibilities--their deep-buried yet vital +dreams--than he had ever heard unfolded in any religious meeting. Many +of these youths were taken in hand in a personal way and are now "making +good." Their subsequent use of leisure, their patronage of evening +schools, Y.M.C.A. courses, and many other helps to their ambitions +testified to the depth and tenacity of good purposes which were timidly +voiced but heroically executed. On the other hand, the writer has +knowledge of many cases of delinquency in which apparently the deciding +cause was the vocational misfit foisted upon the young would-be laborer +in the trying years between fourteen and sixteen. + +There comes to mind the instance of a lad of seventeen found in the Cook +County jail. He had left his Michigan home with fifty dollars of +savings and had come to Chicago to make his fortune. His mother's story, +which was secured after he got into trouble, narrated how that as a boy +he had taken to pieces the sewing-machine and the clocks and, unlike +many boys, had put them together again without damage. Reaching Chicago +he hired in a garage and conceived the idea of building an automobile. +After the fashion of a boy he became totally absorbed in this project. +His ingenuity and thrift and the help of his employers enabled him to +get well along with his enterprise. But at last he was balked because of +lack of a particular part which he knew to be essential, but as to the +nature of which he was not informed. + +Going along the street one day in profound concern over this matter an +impulse seized him to learn at once the nature of the needed part. He +jumped into an automobile standing by the curb, drove it to the nearest +alley, and crawled under it to make the necessary disconnections, when +the police caught him in the act. The case was a clear one and he was +thrown into jail. The mother in her letter to the Juvenile Protective +Association which was working for his release said that now, since he +had been so unfortunate as to fall into the hands of the authorities, +she wondered whether they might not perform an operation for his +benefit, for she had heard that there was an operation by which the +skull could be opened and a certain part of the brain removed, and she +thought that possibly they might do this for her boy and take out that +part of his brain which made him so "wild about machinery"! + +Public education in America is only beginning to respond to the need of +intelligently connecting our educational product with the world's work. +Trade schools for boys and girls, half-time schools, continuation +schools, night schools, and in a few cities vocational bureaus are at +work, but so are poverty and the helpless ignorance of the hard-pressed +home. The children who must in tender years be offered to our rapacious +industries are the very children who are without hope of parental +counsel and direction. + +In New York City 42,000 children between fourteen and sixteen years of +age take out their "working papers" every year, and out of 12,000 to +13,000 taking out working papers in Chicago annually about 9,000 are +only fourteen years of age and 1,500 have not yet reached the fifth +grade. Many of these walk the streets and degenerate while in search of +work or because of such fitful employment as only serves to balk the +department of compulsory education, which has the power to insist upon +school attendance for children of this age if not employed. + +It is not that work is uniformly bad for these children. Indeed, +idleness would be worse. And it is not that all these children are +forced to turn out bad. But as a matter of fact children under sixteen +are not generally wanted save in positions of monotonous and unpromising +employment, and their early experience, which is quite without reference +to taste and native ability, is likely to turn them against all work as +being an imposition rather than an opportunity. In the long run this +cheap labor is the most expensive in the world, and society cannot +afford to fully release children from school control and training prior +to sixteen years of age. Much less can it permit them at any time to +approach the employment problem blindly and unaided. Nor should it fail +to reduce the hours of labor for such children as fall into permanently +unprogressive toil and to organize their leisure as well as to provide +opportunities whereby some may extricate themselves. + +What is this industrial haste which cuts so much of our corn while it is +only in tassel, that drives square pegs into round holes, that +harnesses trotting stock to heavy drays and draughting stock to gigs, +that breaks up the violin to kindle a fire quickly, thoughtless of the +music, that takes telescopes for drain pipes and gets commerce--but not +commerce with the stars? It is the delirium in which strong men seek the +standard American testimonial of genius and ability, namely the +accumulation of great wealth; and in this delirium they see labor as a +commodity and childhood as a commercial factor. They do not think of +people like themselves and of children like their own. + +But the minister is the very champion of those higher rights, the +defender of idealism, and as such the best friend of an industrial order +which is perversely making this expensive blunder and reaping the blight +of sullen citizenship and cynical and heartless toil. How can these +thousands who, because of "blind-alley" occupations, come to their +majority tradeless and often depleted, having no ability to build and +own a home--how can these who have no stake in the country aid in making +the republic what it ought to be? Partly they become a public care, +expense, or nuisance, and largely they constitute the material for +bossism and dynamite for the demagogue if he shall come. The economic +breakdown, because of vocational misfit and the exploitation of +childhood, usually results in a corresponding moral breakdown. To be +doomed to inadequacy is almost to be elected to crime. + +Now the pastor certainly cannot right all this wrong, neither +will he be so brash as to charge it all up to malicious employers, +ignoring the process through which our vaunted individualism, our +free-field-and-no-favor policy, our doctrine for the strong has +disported itself. But is it not reasonable that the minister inform +himself of this problem in all its fundamental phases and that he both +follow and ardently encourage a public-school policy which aims +increasingly to fit the growing generation for productive and stable +citizenship? Our schools are fundamentally religious if we will have +them so in terms of character building, elemental self-respect, social +service, and accountability to the God of all. + +The "godless schools" exist only in the minds of those who for purposes +of dispute and sectarianism decree them so. Furthermore, in every effort +toward vocational training and sorting, the employer will be found +interested and ready to help. + +But to come more closely to the place of this problem in church work it +must be recognized that the Sunday schools, clubs, and young people's +societies offer wider opportunity for vocational direction than is now +being used. The curricula in these institutions can be greatly vitalized +and enlarged by the inclusion of this very interest, and life can be +made to seem more broadly, sanely, and specifically religious than is +now the case. + +Suppose that to groups of boys beyond middle adolescence competent and +high-minded representatives of various trades and professions present in +series the reasons for their choice, the possible good, individual and +social, which they see in their life-work, the qualifications which they +deem necessary, and the obstacles to be met; and suppose further that +the ethical code of a trade, profession, or business is presented for +honest canvass by the class, must there not result a stimulus and aid to +vocational selection and also a more lively interest in the study of +specific moral problems? In this way teaching clusters about an +inevitable field of interest, about live and often urgent problems, and +there is nothing to prevent the use of all the light which may be +adduced from the Bible and religious experience. + +To describe the method more specifically, the lawyer presents his +profession and subsequently the class discusses the code of the bar +association; or the physician presents his work and then follows the +canvass of the ethical problems of medical practice, and so of the +trade-union artisan, the merchant or teacher, the minister, or the +captain of industry. All of this is diffused with religion, it has its +setting and sanction within the church, it supplements for a few, at any +rate, the present lack in public education, and it is real and immediate +rather than theoretical and remote. + +Let this be complemented with visits to institutions, offices, plants, +courts, and the marts and centers of commercial, industrial, and +agricultural life; and, best of all, cemented in the personal +friendship, practical interest and sponsorship of an adult and wise +counselor who helps the boy both to the place and in the place; and, +within the limits of the rather small constituency of church boys at +least, there is guaranteed a piece of religious work that is bound to +tell. For surely every legitimate interest of life is religious when +handled by religious persons, and the right moral adjustment of the +whole self to the whole world, with the emotion and idealism inhering in +the process, is the task and content of religion. + + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP[8] + + +The altruism of America is philanthropic rather than civic and in +deliberate disregard of government, the average citizen of the United +States has no equal. However intelligent or capable he may be, he is in +the main a poor citizen. This habit of having no care for the ship of +state and of seeking comfort and self-advantage, regardless of her +future, is exactly the reverse of what one would expect. For by the +manner of her birth and her natural genius the republic would seem to +guarantee forever a high type of efficient public service. + +But the capable and typical man of the church, and presumptively the man +of conscience, studiously avoids the hazards of political life. It is +not necessary to rehearse the well-known and deplorable results of this +policy whereby the best men have generally avoided public office, +especially in municipal government. Intelligence of the ills of the body +politic or of the fact that it lies bruised and violated among thieves +serves chiefly to divert the disgusted churchman to the other side of +the road as he hastens to his destination of personal gain. Indeed it is +not an uncommon thing for him to be a past master in circumventing or +debauching government and in thus spreading the virus of political +cynicism throughout the mass of the people. + +Such a separation of church and state is hardly to be desired, and the +call to political service is quite as urgent, quite as moral, and far +more exacting than the perfectly just calls to foreign mission support +and to the support of the great philanthropies of the day. Because of +the influx of foreign peoples, the unsolved race problem, tardy economic +reforms, uncertain justice, political corruption, and official +mediocrity, America stands more in need of good citizenship than of +generosity, more in need of statesmen than of clergymen. + +No subsequent philanthropy can atone for misgovernment, and furthermore +all social injustice, whether by positive act or simple neglect, tends +to take toll from the defenseless classes. The more efficient extricate +themselves, while the ignorant, the weak, the aged, and chiefly the +little children bear the brunt of governmental folly. It is for this +reason, together with the passing of materialistic standards of pomp +and circumstance and the growing insistence upon human values, that the +women are demanding full citizenship. And this new citizenship, +including both women and men enfranchised upon the same basis, will not +be without the ardor and heroism of those who in former days bore arms +for the honor of their native land. For just behind the ranks are the +unprotected children, the new generation whose opportunity and treatment +constitutes the true measure of statesmanship. + +But here as everywhere the only highway leading to that better tomorrow +is thronged with little children upon whose training the issue hangs. +What do the home, school, church, and community tell them as to +citizenship, and, of more importance, what civic attitudes and actions +are evoked? + +The home, by picture and story and celebration, by the observance of +birthdays, national and presidential, by the intelligent discussion of +public interests, by respect for constituted authorities, by honest +dealing, and by a constant exercise of public spirit as over against a +selfish and detached aim, may do much to mold the boy's early civic +attitude. + +But most homes will do little of this, and both home and school fall +short in pledging the new life to the common good and in guaranteeing to +the state her just due. Frequently the home provides lavishly and at +sacrifice for the comfort and even luxury of the children and exacts +nothing in return. Mothers slave for sons and neglect, until it is too +late, those just returns of service which make for honor and +self-respect. Graft begins in the home, and it is amazing what pains we +take to produce an ingrate and perforce a poor citizen. + +Similarly, the boy attends the "free" schools. Here is further advantage +without the thought of service in return, something for nothing--the +open end of the public crib. But the public schools are not exactly free +schools. Everything, whether at home or school, costs, and someone pays +the bills. The prospective citizen should be made to realize this, and +it would do him no harm actually to compute the cost. Through home and +school, society is making an investment in him. Let him estimate in +dollars and cents his indebtedness for food and clothing and shelter, +travel, medical care, education and recreation, and all the other items +of expense which have entered into his care and training for the +fourteen or seventeen years of his dependency. + +Such an exercise, which cannot include those invaluable offices of +parental love and personal interest, may have a sobering effect, as will +also a conscious appreciation of the social institutions and utilities +which are the gift of former and contemporary generations of toilers. + +But how can the schoolboy come into the self-respect of partnership? +Probably by building up the consciousness of "our school" and by being +sent from home with the idea of helping teacher and school in every way +to accomplish the most and best for all concerned. Ordinarily the home +supplies the child with no such suggestion and in some cases works even +counter to the school and against good citizenship. The teacher is added +to the ranks of the child's natural enemies, where unfortunately the +policeman has long since been consigned; and the school?--that is +something for which he carries no responsibility. Actual experiment of +the opposite kind has proved most gratifying, and this immediate +attitude toward his first public institution sets the child's will +toward the practice of good citizenship in the years that lie ahead. + +The curriculum of the elementary schools of Chicago makes a very +thorough attempt to train the child in good citizenship, an attempt +beginning with the anniversary days of the kindergarten and proceeding +throughout the eight grades. In addition to history, civics of the most +concrete and immediate kind is so presented that the child should be +brought to an appreciation of the city's institutions and organized +forces and of the common responsibility for the health and security of +all the people. The same policy is pursued, unfortunately with +diminishing attention, throughout the high-school course, and yet the +superintendent of schools testifies that public education is failing to +secure civic virtue. The children have not come into partnership with +the school and other agencies of the common life, they have not achieved +a nice sense of the rights of others, they have not been lifted to the +ideal of service as being more noble than that of efficiency alone. + +Of course there are many reasons for this: the quizzical temper of the +community at large, the constant revelation of graft, the distorted +school discipline which makes tardiness a more serious offense than +lying or theft; the neglect to organize athletics and play for ethical +ends; the criminal's code with regard to examinations--a code very +prevalent in secondary schools, both public and private--that cheating +is in order if one is not caught; the bitter and damaging personalities +of party politics and the very transient honors of American public life; +and, perhaps chief of all, the very elaborate provision for every child +with the implication that he does the school a favor to use what is +provided rather than the imposition of an obligation upon him both to +help in securing the efficiency and beauty of the school and to +discharge his just debt to society in the measure of his ability as boy +and man. + +Another productive cause of poor citizenship is the general contempt in +which immigrants are held, and especially the treatment accorded them by +the police and by most of the minor officials with whom they come in +contact. This primitive disdain of "barbarians" is common among the +school children and tends to make the foreign children more delinquent +and anti-social than they would otherwise be. A very recent case sums up +the situation. A gang of five Polish boys "beat up" a messenger boy, +apparently without provocation. A Juvenile Protective officer visited +the home of one of these young thugs for the purpose of talking with the +mother and getting such information as would aid in keeping the boy from +getting into further trouble. + +The mother was found to be a very intelligent woman and explained to +the officer that her boy had been constantly angered and practically +spoiled at school; that it had been ground into him that he was nothing +but a "Polack," and that no good thing was to be expected of him. The +school boys had taken a hand in his education; and by reflecting in +their own merciless way the uncharitable judgment of their elders had +helped to produce this young pariah. + +If one will but travel on the street cars in the crowded districts of +our great cities and note the churlish discourtesy and sarcastic +contempt with which "the foreigners" are generally treated, or will take +the pains to ascertain how cruelly they are deceived and fleeced at +almost every turn, one will soon conclude that we are making it very +hard for these people and their children to become grateful and ardent +citizens of the republic. + +Looking to the improvement of this condition, while vocational training +promises something by way of an economic basis for good citizenship, too +much must not be expected of it alone. For if vocational efficiency be +created and released in an environment devoid of civic idealism it will +never pass beyond the grub stage. It will merely fatten a low order of +life, and this at the expense of much that would otherwise lend verdure +and freshness, shade, flower, and fruit to the garden of our common +life. The able man or the rich man is not necessarily a good citizen. + +That the state, like the home and school, should incessantly give its +benefactions without binding youth to service in return is an egregious +blunder. There should be some formal entrance into full citizenship, not +only for those of us who, coming from other nations, must needs be +"naturalized," but for all whom the years bring from the fair land of +boyhood into the great and sober responsibilities of citizenship. + + When a Greek youth took the oath of citizenship, + he stood in the temple of Aglauros overlooking the + city of Athens and the country beyond and said: + "I will never disgrace these sacred arms nor desert + my companions in the ranks. I will fight for temples + and public property, both alone and with many. I + will transmit my fatherland not only not less but + greater and better than it was transmitted to me. I + will obey the magistrates who may at any time be in + power. I will observe both the existing laws and + those which the people may unanimously hereafter + make. And if any person seek to annul the laws or + set them at naught, I will do my best to prevent him + and will defend them both alone and with many. I + will honor the religion of my fathers, and I call to + witness Aglauros, Enyalios, Ares, Zeus, Thallo, Auxo, + and Hegemone." + +Now, the minister may think that no great part of the improved training +for citizenship falls to him. He may be content to instill motives of +individual piety, but upon reflection he must know that on nearly every +hand there exist today great and insuperable barriers to his personal +gospel. Behind the walls which imprison them are millions who cannot +hear his message and those walls will not go down except by the creation +of public sentiment which organizes itself and functions as law and +government. The minister's exercise of citizenship should not be +reserved for heaven, where it will not be needed, but should rather get +into action here and now. + +This means a pulpit policy which recognizes the great dimensions of the +Kingdom of God, and seeks a moral alignment of church and state that +will draw out the religious energy to vital and immediate issues, and +will necessitate within the church herself clean-cut moral reactions to +existing vital conditions. When the pulpit becomes sufficiently +intelligent and bold to lay bare such issues the youth and manhood of +the country will not in so large measure neglect the pew. Wherever real +issues are drawn men and boys tend to assemble. + +[Illustration: IMPORTED CIVIC TIMBER] + +In the intricate social life of today a ministry devoted exclusively to +plucking a few brands from the burning is somewhat archaic. The +individual soul in its majestic value is not discounted, but it cannot +be disentangled from the mass as easily as was once the case, or as +easily as was once supposed. It was not so necessary to preach civic +righteousness when "the gospel" was deemed sufficient so to transform +the individual that all external limitations, ungodly conditions, and +social injustices would yield to the regal ability of the child of God. + +To recognize the environmental phase of salvation and to undertake this +broader task in addition to the "cure of souls" may be to expose the +minister to the cross-fire of economic sharp-shooters and a fusillade of +sociological field guns. Besides, some of the supporters of the church +will object and many will assert that the minister cannot qualify to +speak with first-rate intelligence and authority upon the complex social +problems of the day. Indeed, by endeavoring to utter a message of +immediate significance in this field, he will discredit his more +important mission as a "spiritual" leader. Again, if he should speak to +the point on social issues no heed would be paid to his deliverances, +and he has plenty to do in routine pastoral work. + +The strength of these objections must be granted, and more especially so +in the case of weak men, men of unripe judgment, of hasty and +extravagant utterance, and of inferior training. For undoubtedly +present-day problems of social welfare and such as affect religious +living do lead back, not only into economic considerations, but also +into questions of legislation and government. + +But even so, will the minister consent to be without voice or program in +the shaping of social ethics? Will he follow meekly and at a safe +distance in the wake of the modern movement for economic justice and +humane living conditions? Will he allow people to think for a moment +that his job is to coddle a few of the elect and to solace a few of the +victims of preventable hardship and injustice? + +Suppose that, with the exception of denouncing the saloon and praising +charity, he omits from his pulpit policy the creation of civic ideals +and the drawing of moral issues in behalf of the higher life of all the +people, will not the male population consider him rather too much +engrossed with the little comforts, sentiments, and futilities of a +religious club? + +The entire precedent of the pulpit, both in biblical days and since, is +wholly against such silence. If it is not the minister's business to +know the problems of social ethics, so as to speak confidently to the +situation from the standpoint of Jesus, whose province is it? Must he +dodge the greatest moral problems of the day, all of which are +collective? Has he not time and training so to master his own field that +he will be second to none of his hearers in the possession of the +relevant facts; and does he not presumably know the mind of Christ? + +It is idle to say that his hearers will pay no heed, and it is idle to +think that as a champion of justice and a better day he may not get a +scar or so. But the man who has the mind of Christ toward the multitude +and who thinks as highly of little children and their rights as did the +Man of Galilee is going to be significant in making states and cities +what they ought to be; and whatever disturbances may arise in the placid +separatism of the church, the Kingdom itself will go marching on. The +chief ingredient needed by the pulpit of today in order to inspire men +and boys to noble citizenship is courage--moral courage. + +But the new citizenship is in training for peace rather than for war, +for world-wide justice rather than for national aggrandizement; and to +this the Christian message lends itself with full force. The rehearsal +of war and strife, the superficial view of history which sees only the +smoke of battles and the monuments of military heroes, give place to an +insight which traces the advancing welfare of the common people. The +minister will inspire his formative citizens with good portrayals of +statesmen, educators, inventors, reformers, discoverers, pioneers, and +philanthropists. He will charm them into greatness at the very time when +a boy's ideals overtop the mountains. + +Conducive to the same end will be the rugged and humane ideals and +activities of the Boy Scouts under his control; and all that is well +done in the boys' clubs--the athletics, debates, trials, councils, +literary and historical programs, addresses by respected public +officials, visits to public institutions, the study of social +conditions, especially in the young men's classes of the Sunday +school--will make for the same good citizenship. + +If the Men's Brotherhood is of significance in the community it is quite +possible to bring political candidates before it for the statement of +their claims and of the issues involved in any given campaign, and boys +of fifteen years and over might well be invited to such meetings. + +Then, too, such activities for community betterment as are outlined in +the closing chapter of this book should be of some benefit, since the +boy is to become a good citizen, not by hearing only but by doing; and +the great success attending "Boy-City" organizations should inspire the +pastor to attempt by this and other means the training of a new +citizenship. + +In fact, the matter is of sufficient importance to have a definite place +in the Sunday-school curriculum and a boy might far better be informed +on the plan of government, the civic dangers, and the line of action for +a good man in his own city than to fail of that in an attempt to master +the topography of Palestine or to recite perfectly the succession of the +Israelitish kings. + +If the minister has faith in a living God, if he believes that people +are not less valuable now than they were four thousand years ago, if his +Golden Age comprises the perfect will of God entempled in the whole +creation, if he believes that this nation has some responsible part in +the divine plan for the world, if he believes that righteousness is +more desirable than pity and justice than philanthropy, and that the +unrest of our times is but opportunity, he will in every way gird his +boys for the battle and deliver constantly to the state trained recruits +for the cause of human welfare which is ever the cause of God. + + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE BOY'S RELIGIOUS LIFE[9] + + +Comparative religion is unable to make a satisfactory investigation of +the successive stages in the religious life of the individual. For the +purpose of religious education it is highly desirable to add to the +historical survey and the ethnological cross-sections of comparative +religion a longitudinal section of the religion of the individual. This, +however, is impossible because the important data at the bottom of the +series are unattainable. In the study of childhood, as in the study of a +primitive race, the individual is so securely hidden away in the group +that the most penetrating scientific method cannot find him, and the +tendencies which are to integrate into religious experience are so taken +in hand by the society which produces and envelops the new life that the +student of religion must deal with a social product from the outset. The +isolated religion of an individual does not exist, although in the more +mature stages of prophetism and philosophy pronounced individual +features always assert themselves. + +The potential individuality in every child forbids, however, the +assertion that he is only a mirror in which the religion of his +immediate society and nothing more is reflected. There is from a very +early time an active principle of personality, a growing selective +power, a plus that comes out of the unmapped laboratory of creation, +that may so arrange, transmute, and enrich the commonplace elements of +the socio-religious matrix as to amount to genius. But, nevertheless, +the newcomer can scarcely do more than select the given quarter which +from day to day proves least unpleasant, while the fact of being on the +great ship and in one cabin or another--or in the steerage--has been +settled beforehand. + +Hence the religious life of the boy depends largely upon family and +community conditions which in turn rest upon economic considerations. +Whatever demoralizes the home, degrades the community, and crushes out +idealism also damns the souls of little children. It requires no deep +investigation of modern society to prove that this is being done, and +the guilt of economic injustice and rapacity is measured ultimately in +the cost to the human spirit which in every child pleads for life and +opportunity, and, alas, too often pleads in vain. + +The pre-adolescent and imitative religious life of the boy is fairly +communicative, but as soon as the actual struggle of achieving a +personal religion sets in under the pubertal stress the sphinx itself is +not more reticent. The normal boy is indisposed to talk about the +affairs of his inner life. Probably they are too chaotic to formulate +even to himself. If he is unspoiled he clothes his soul with a spiritual +modesty which some of his sentimental elders might well cultivate. If he +does break silence it will probably be in terms of the religious cult +that has given him nurture. For all of these reasons it is exceedingly +difficult to trace with certainty the development of his personal +religion. + +The indubitable and hopeful fact is that in every normal boy the potent +germ of religion is present. Usually in early adolescence it bursts its +casings and shoots into consciousness, powerfully affecting the emotions +and the will. Certain stages of this process will be in the nature of +crisis according to the strength of the opposition encountered in the +personal moral struggle, and in opposing social conditions. Nothing but +calamity can forestall this progressive moral adjustment to the whole +world. To believe otherwise is to indict God for the purpose of covering +our own blunders. In proportion as society prevents or perverts this +moral outreach after God, it pollutes and endangers itself. The +atmosphere that kills the lily creates the stench. + +In the passage of the boy's religious life from the imitative type to +the personal and energized form, or, as he experiences conversion, the +battle is usually waged about some _concrete moral problem._ His +conscience has become sensitive with regard to profanity, lying, +impurity, or some particular moral weakness or maladjustment and his +struggle centers on that. Being often defeated under the adolescent +sense--pressure and confusion, he naturally seeks help, and help from +the highest source of virtue. He has secreted somewhere in his heart +ulterior ideals of service, but for the time being his chief concern is +very properly himself; for if he "loses out" with himself he knows that +all other worthy ambitions are annulled. + +But a religious culture that keeps him in this self-centered feverish +state is pathetically morbid and harmful. It short-circuits the +religious life. This is the chief criticism of the devotional type of +Christian culture. It seeks to prolong a crisis and often begets +insincerity or disgust. The real priest of boyhood will certainly stand +near by at this all-important time, but he will always manifest a +refined respect for the birth-chamber of the soul. In patient and +hopeful sympathy, in friendship that is personal and not professional, +knowing that the door of the heart is opened only from within, the true +minister, like his Master, waits. He knows, too, that a few words +suffice in the great decisions of life, and that the handclasp of manly +love speaks volumes. The prime qualification is a friendship that +invites and respects confidence and a life that is above criticism. + +Another important aid in bringing the boy over the threshold of vital +and purposeful religion is the favorable influence of his group or +"gang." The disposition to move together which is so pronounced in every +other field must not be ignored here. The ideal club will be bringing +the boy toward the altar of the church and at the right point along the +way the minister who is properly intimate with each boy will be assured +in private conference of the good faith and earnest purpose of his +prospective church member. + +Before receiving boys into active church membership it is well that they +be given a course of instruction in a preparatory class. Only so can +the fundamentals of religion and the duties of church membership be +intelligently grasped. The value to the boy is also enhanced when the +ceremony of induction is made _formal and impressive_ to a degree that +shall not be surpassed in his entrance into any other organization. By +all means the boy should not be neglected after he has been received +into the church. Mistakes of this sort are common wherever undue +importance attaches to the conversion experience, and the numerical +ideal of church success prevails. If the task becomes too great for the +pastor let him find a responsible "big brother" for every boy received +into the church. + +As the critical or skeptical traits of youth develop in later +adolescence the intellectual formulas and supports of religion will be +overhauled. What the boy has brought over out of the early imitative and +memorizing period of life will probably come up for review in later +adolescence. If his inherited theology corresponds to experience and +verifies itself in the light of the scientific methods of school and +college no great difficulty will be experienced. But if it does not +square with the youth's set of verifiable facts then there is added to +his necessary moral struggle for self-possession and spiritual control +the unnecessary and dangerous quest for a new faith, so that he is +forced to swap horses in midstream and when the spring freshet is on. + +Possibly this reorganization involved in the adolescent flux and +reflection cannot be altogether avoided, but with proper care much could +be done to lessen its dangers and to preserve a substantial continuity +of religious experience from childhood through youth and to the end of +life. It is a help not to have to be introduced to an altogether new God +in these succeeding stages. To preserve his identity enriches and +safeguards the life. + +The imagination and wonder instinct of the child, his use of "natural +religion," his confirmation in habits of prayer, reverence, and worship, +his acquisition of choice religious literature by memorizing--can these +interests be properly cared for without putting upon him a theological +yoke which will subsequently involve pain and perhaps apostasy? + +It is undoubtedly easier to point out the desirability of furnishing +childhood with the materials of a time-proof religion than to provide +such an instrument. And it is less difficult to criticize the +indiscriminate use of the Bible in instructing the young than to set +forth the type of education in religion which will satisfy alike the +mental requirements of childhood and youth. What course should be +followed with the pre-adolescent boy in order that the youth may be not +less but more religious? + +In offering any suggestion in this direction it should be borne in mind +that natural religion or the religion of nature makes a strong appeal to +the child. He readily believes in the presence of God in animate nature +with all its wonder and beauty. Creatorship and the expression of the +divine will in the normal processes are taken for granted. The orderly +world is to him proof of mind and method; and perhaps the first mistake +in the average religious teaching is the departure from this broad basis +of faith to what is termed "revealed religion" and is at the same time +the religion of miracle. The introduction of miracle as a basis of faith +amounts to sowing the seeds of adolescent skepticism. + +The child should be taught to deal with Jewish folk-lore as with that of +any other people. While the incomparable religious value of the biblical +literature should be used to the full, the Bible as a book should not be +given artificial ranking. Nor should any belief contrary to his reason +be imposed as an obligation. But the ever-open possibility of things +that surpass present human comprehension should be preserved, and the +sense of wonder which the scientist may ever have should be carefully +nurtured. If the teacher violates the child's right to absolute honesty +here let him not bemoan nor condemn the skepticism of later years. + +The child can also believe in the presence of God in his own moral +discernment. He can be taught to obey his sense of "ought" and to enjoy +thereby, from very early years, a rich measure of harmony. Through such +experience he discovers to himself the joy of being at one with God. He +has proof of the constructive power of righteousness, and conversely he +learns the destructive power of sin. He finds that the constituted order +is essentially moral and that the duty of all alike is to conform to +that fact. + +He can easily comprehend also the struggle of the better self to rule +over the worse self. The battle of the rational and spiritual to gain +supremacy over the instinctive and animalistic is known to him. To be +master of himself and to exercise a control that is more and more +spiritual, to get the better of things and circumstances, to reduce his +world to obedience to his gradually enlightened will--that is his task. +In this he proves, under right guidance, the supremacy of the spiritual +and may be encouraged to project it into a hope of personal immortality. + +Very early, too, he gets some proof of the fact of human solidarity; +especially so if he has brothers and sisters. The social character of +good and the anti-social character of bad conduct is demonstrated day in +and day out in the family. And enlargement of the concentric circles +that bound his life only demonstrates over and over again the social +nature of goodness. On this basis sufficient inspiration for personal +righteousness and altruism is afforded by the world's need of just these +things. Every normal child responds to the appeal of living to make the +world better. Children always "want to help." + +Apart from every speculative question the child accepts the ethical +leadership of Jesus. And he should understand that discipleship consists +in conduct that conforms to His spirit. To make the test creedal is not +only contrary to the intensely pragmatic character of childhood but +inimical to the resistless spirit of inquiry and speculation which +breaks out in reflective youth. Childhood needs a religion of deeds. If +a religion of dogma and detached sentiment is substituted the youth may +some day awake to the fact that he can throw the whole thing overboard +and experience a relief rather than a loss. If from his earliest +experience in the home he has lived under the wholesome influence of +applied rather than speculative Christianity, he will be spared much of +the danger incident to theological reconstruction. + +In emphasizing this point of applied Christianity, and as illustrating +the fact that the boy's initial religious struggle, which necessitates a +quest for God, centers about concrete temptations, it may be in place to +make mention of a problem which lies very close to personal religion and +social welfare. On the one hand the very altruism which is exalted and +glorified in religion has its physical basis in the sex life, and on the +other hand the sex life, unless it be guarded by religious control, ever +threatens to devastate all the higher values of the soul. Hence the +problem of the boy's personal purity has profound religious +significance. + +As yet there is little consensus of opinion as to the best way of +keeping him pure. Parents, educators, and religious leaders, however, +are showing increased concern over this difficult problem, and there is +good ground to believe that prudery and indifference must gradually give +place to frank and intelligent consideration of this vital and difficult +subject. + +It must be granted, however, that it is as impossible as it is +undesirable to keep the boy ignorant. His own natural curiosity, +together with his school and street experience, are fatal to such a +Fool's Paradise. Moreover, the general attitude of suppression and +secrecy rather stimulates curiosity, and often amounts to the plain +implication that everything that has to do with the perpetuation of our +species is of necessity evil and shameful. This "conspiracy of silence" +makes against true virtue. Religious instruction, based upon the +confession of the repentant David, "Behold, I was begotten in iniquity +and in sin did my mother conceive me," has helped to perpetuate a +sinister attitude toward this whole question--an attitude not without +some foundation in the moral history of man. + +It has also been convenient and consistent, in support of the doctrine +of man's depravity, to exploit this dark view so as to make him a fit +subject for redemption. Somehow, the traditional "Fall" and procreation +have been so associated in religious thinking that it has been +practically impossible for the religious mind to entertain any favorable +consideration of the physical conditions of human genesis. Very +naturally that which is under the ban, being the seat of human sin, the +bond that binds each generation to fallen Adamic nature, must take its +place as surreptitious and evil--and never positively within the +sanctioned and ordained agencies of God. + +Does such an attitude contribute to man's highest good and to the +strength and scope of religious control? Is it better to alienate and +outlaw so important a phase of human existence or to bring it into +intelligent accord with the divine will? Is it not conceivable that in +this field, as in every other that is normal to human life, there will +be a gain to humanity, and to the value of religion as a helper of +mankind, by a frank attempt to bring the whole life to the dignifying +conception of a reasonable service to one's Maker? + +Granting that such an attempt is desirable, we come face to face with +the necessity of imparting such information as will make the boy's way +of duty plain, and will elevate the subject to a place of purity and +religious worth. In this process of instruction, which is nothing less +than a sacred responsibility, the most common fault of the parent, +physician, teacher, and pastor is that of delay. By the time a boy is +eight years of age, he should have been informed as to his residence +within and his birth from his mother, and this in such a way as +wonderfully to deepen his love for her, and to beget in him a respect +for all women to the end of his life. + +It is well that the mother should first inform him in that spirit of +utmost confidence which shall preclude his indiscriminate talk with +other people upon this subject. He should know, too, that further +information will be given as he needs it, and that he can trust his +parents to be frank and true with him in this as in everything else. By +all means let the mother tell the story and not some unfortunately +vicious or polluted companion. There are three reasons at least for +informing him thus early in life. One is that sufficient curiosity has +usually developed by this time, another is that the first information +should come from a pure source, and a third is that this instruction +should anticipate sex consciousness and the indecent language and +suggestions of school and street. + +In the same spirit will the father impart to the boy a little later the +fact of the original residence within himself of the seed from which the +boy grew. By the father's reverent treatment of the subject in the hour +of a boy's confidence, and in response to his just curiosity, he may +hallow forever the boy's conception of the marriage relation and +emphasize the vast amount of tenderness and regard that is due every +mother. For the boy to feel sure that he has been told the truth by his +father, and to realize that his father regards these facts in an +honorable and clean way, will rob a thousand indecent stories of their +damage. + +It belongs to the father to redeem the boy's idea of human procreation +from obscenity, and, under right conditions, to have this process +regarded by his boy as the most wonderful responsibility that falls to +man. Sometime before the boy has reached thirteen, the father will have +explained to him the facts and temptations of the pubescent period. The +crime of allowing boys in middle and later adolescence to worry +themselves sick over normal nocturnal emissions, and often to fall into +the hands of the quack, or of the advocate of illicit intercourse, lies +at the door of the negligent father. + +The enervating results of self-abuse, the loss of manliness and +self-respect, and the possible damage to future offspring will have +weight in safeguarding the boy who has already been fortified by a high +and just conception of the procreative power which is to be his. +Moreover, in the severe battle that is waged for self-control, the boy +should be given every aid of proper hygiene in clothing, sleeping +conditions, baths, exercise, diet, and social intercourse. Plenty of +exercise but not thorough exhaustion, good athletic ideals, a spare diet +at night, good hours, and freedom from evil suggestion, entertainments, +or reading; his time and attention healthfully occupied--these +precautions, in addition to enlightenment as above indicated, will, if +there are no conditions calling for minor surgery, go a long way toward +preserving the boy's integrity under the temptations incident to sex +life. It is to be feared that many boys have been wronged by the failure +of parents and physicians to have some slight operation--either +circumcision or its equivalent--performed in the early days of infancy. + +Books on the subject are not best for the boy. They tend to make him +morbid and often stimulate the evil which they seek to cure. Nor is it +wise, prior to the age of fifteen, to open up the loathsome side of the +subject, concerning the diseases that are the outcome of the social +evil. After that age, talks by a reputable physician, pointing out the +terrible results to oneself, his wife, and his descendants, may be +fitting and helpful. The minister should make frequent use of the +physician in having him address on different occasions the fathers and +the mothers of the boys. To hold such meetings in the church building is +an altogether worthy use of the institution. + +In cases where parent and physician have failed to do their duty, and +the pastor is on proper terms of friendship with the boy, it becomes his +duty to tell the boy plainly and purely a few of the important things +which he ought to know in order to avoid moral shipwreck. + +If credence is to be given to the startling reports of immorality in +high schools, based, as is commonly claimed, upon ignorance, then the +time has certainly come for plain speech, and the boys and girls should +be gathered together in separate companies for instruction in sex +hygiene and morality. Any education which makes no deliberate attempt to +conserve human happiness and social welfare in this important respect is +inadequate and culpable. The testimony that comes from juvenile courts, +girls' rescue homes, and boys' reformatories constitutes a grave +indictment of society for its neglect to impart proper information. + +It is part of the minister's task to work for a better day in this as in +every phase of moral achievement. Next to the physician he best knows +the mental and physical suffering, the moral defeat, and the awful +injustice to women and children whom the libertine pollutes with +incurable diseases. If he is a true pastor, he will strive to keep the +boys pure through expert instruction to parents, through personal +advice, through wholesome activity and recreation, through courses on +sexual hygiene in the public schools, through war on indecency in +billboard, dance, and theater, through absolute chastity of speech, and, +in general, through an ideal of life and service which shall lift the +boys' ambitions out of the low and unhealthy levels of sense +gratification. To put the spiritual nature in control is his high and +sacred opportunity. + +The importance of the minister's part in this struggle for the body and +soul of youth is based upon the fact that in this critical encounter +there is no aid that is comparable with religion. Thousands of honest, +serious-minded men frankly confess that in modern conditions they see +little hope of this battle being won without religion as a sanction of +right conduct. The boy needs God, a God to whom he can pray in the hour +of temptation. He needs to regard his life with all its powers as God's +investment, which he must not squander or pervert. + +Here, as everywhere else in boy-life, the loyalty appeal, which, as +nothing else, will keep him true to mother and father, to society, and +to God, stands the religious leader in good stead. Upon honor he will +not violate the confidence of his parents, and the trust imposed in him +by his Maker. Upon honor he will deport himself toward the opposite sex +as he would wish other boys to regard his own sister; and the religious +teacher has it within his power, if he will keep in touch with boys, to +create and preserve an ideal of manly chivalry that will effectively +withstand both the insidious temptations of secret sin and the bolder +inducements of social vice. + +This can never be done by the formal work of the pulpit alone. Nothing +but the influence of a pure, strong man, mediated in part through the +parents of the boy, supported by scientific facts, and operating +directly on the boy's life, through the mighty medium of a personal +friendship, can perform this saving ministry. If there were nothing +more to be gained through intimate acquaintance with boys than thus +fortifying them in this one inevitable and prolonged struggle, it would +warrant all the energy and time consumed in the minister's attempt to +enter into the hallowed friendship and frank admiration of the boys of +his parish. + +For such reasons it is important that the implications of discipleship +be made very plain to the boy, and this in terms of specific conduct in +the home, at school, on the playground, at work, and in all the usual +social relations. Without this, there may be fatal inconsistencies in +the boy's conduct, not because he is essentially vicious, but because he +has been unable to interpret high-sounding sermons and biblical ideals +in terms of commonplace duty. If the evangelical message encourages, +condones, or permits this divorce, it becomes an instrument of +incalculable harm. Boys must be held to a high and reasonable standard +of personal duty and group endeavor. + +From this point of view the weakest feature of the church boys' club is +its tendency to overlook specific work for others. The serious-minded +leader will not be altogether satisfied in merely holding boys together +for a "good time," wholesome as that may be. The service ideal must be +incorporated in the activities of the club. The nascent altruism of the +boy should receive impetus and direction and the members should engage +in united and intelligent social service. Give the boy a worthy job; +give him a hard job; give him a job that calls for team work; and give +him help and appreciation in the doing of it. + +It is sometimes difficult to devise and execute a program of this kind +because of the limited opportunities of the particular town in which the +club exists and the narrow ideals of the church with which the club is +affiliated. Yet it is always preferable to enlist the boys in some +altruistic enterprise which lies close enough at hand to give it the +full weight of reality. Only so can we satisfy the concrete +value-judgment of the young matriculant in the great school of applied +religion. + +This, however, should not be to the exclusion of those vast idealistic +movements for human good embodied in world-wide missionary propaganda of +a medical, educational, and evangelistic type. Only, taking the boy as +he is, it is not best to begin with these, because of their lack of +reality to him and because of his inability to participate except by +proxy. It is well that he should extend himself to some faraway need by +contributing of his means, but these gifts will get their proper +significance and his philanthropic life will preserve its integrity by +performing the particular service which to his own immediate knowledge +needs to be done. + +The proper care and beautifying of the streets and public places in his +own community, the collection of literature for prisoners or the inmates +of asylums or hospitals near at hand, supplying play equipment, +clothing, or any useful thing for unfortunate boys in congested city +districts, helping the minister and church in the distribution of +printed matter and alms, aiding smaller boys in the organization of +their games, helping some indigent widow, giving an entertainment, +selling tickets, souvenirs, or any merchantable article which they may +properly handle for the purpose of devoting the profits to some +immediate charity; making for sale articles in wood, metal, or leather +for the same purpose; winning other boys from bad associations to the +better influences of their own group, helping in the conduct of public +worship by song or otherwise, acting as messengers and minute-men for +the pastor--something of this sort should engage part of their time and +attention in order that they may be drawn into harmony with the spirit +of the church. + +[Illustration: A CASE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SALVATION] + +Ordinarily the general administration of the church could be made more +effective and the standard activities more attractive if the preacher +would keep the boy in mind in constructing and illustrating his sermons +and would make appeal to the known interests of boyhood; and if music +committees would adopt a policy for the development and use of his +musical ability instead of stifling and ignoring this valuable religious +asset and rendering the boy, so far forth, useless to and estranged from +the purposes and activities of the church. In church music the paid +quartette alone means the way of least resistance and of least benefit, +and it is a harmful device if it means the failure of the church to +enlist boys in the rare religious development to be achieved in sacred +song and in participation in public worship. It is to be regretted that +hymns suited to boyhood experience are very rare and that so little +effort is made to interest and use the boy in the stated worship of the +church. + +But if these evils were remedied there would still be the problem of the +Sunday school which, although generally a worthy institution, usually +succeeds at the cost of the church-going habit which might otherwise be +cultivated in the boy. To make a Sunday-school boy instead of a church +boy is a net loss, and with the present Sunday congestion there is +little likelihood of securing both of these ends. Probably it will +become necessary to transfer what is now Sunday-school work to week-day +periods as well as to renovate public worship before a new generation of +churchmen can be guaranteed. + +In the meantime, loyalty cultivated by a variety of wholesome contacts +largely outside of traditional church work must serve to win and retain +the boys of today. For loyalty to the minister who serves them readily +passes over into loyalty to the church which he likewise serves. +Wherever the club is made up predominantly of boys from the church +families, it will be well to have an occasional service planned +especially for the boys themselves--one which they will attend in a +body. Such a Sunday-evening service for boys and young men may be held +regularly once a month with good success, and the value of such meetings +is often enhanced by short talks from representative Christian laymen. +Demands for service as well as the important questions of personal +religion should be dealt with in a manly, straightforward way. Beating +about the bush forfeits the boy's respect. + +In preaching to boys the minister will appeal frankly to manly and +heroic qualities. He will advance no dark premise of their natural +estrangement from God, but will postulate for all a sonship which is at +once a divine challenge to the best that is in them and the guaranty +that the best is the normal and the God-intended life. They must qualify +for a great campaign under the greatest soul that ever lived. They +engage to stand with Him against sin in self and in all the world about, +and in proportion as they take on His mission will they realize the +necessity of high personal standards and of that help which God gives to +all who are dedicated to the realization of the Kingdom. + +The normal boy will not deliberately choose to sponge upon the world. He +intends to do the fair thing and to amount to something. He dreams of +making his life an actual contribution to the welfare and glory of +humanity. When it is put before him rightly he will scorn a selfish +misappropriation of his life, and will enter the crusade for the city +that hath foundations whose builder and maker is God. Happy is the +minister who has boys that bring their chums to see him for the purpose +of enlistment. Happy is the minister whose hand often clasps the +outstretched hand of the boy pledging himself to the greatest of all +projects--the Kingdom of God in the earth; to the greatest of all +companies--the company of those who in all time have had part in that +task; and to the greatest of all captains--Jesus of Nazareth. + + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE CHURCH BOYS' CLUB[10] + + +Those who know the boy best can hardly be persuaded that the Sunday +school can be made to satisfy his intense demand for action. Yet action +is an important factor in religious education. Commendable efforts are +being made to introduce more of handicraft and artistic expression into +the work of the Sunday-school class; but from the boy's point of view, +the making of maps, illuminated texts, and temple models does not fully +meet his desire for doing. The character of the Sunday school, its place +of meeting, and the proper observance of the day preclude the more +noisy, varied, and spontaneous activities which may be made to carry +moral and religious value. + +Another agency is needed in the church that can be more venturesome and +free than the Sunday school, an agency that can act on the parallel of +the boy's natural interests and adapt its methods to his unfolding life +in terms of action. The Sunday school can stick to its task of +elucidating the history and theory of religion; but the boys' club is a +better place for securing the expression of religious principles and so +confirming them in character. When the Sunday school shall have reached +its highest point of efficiency it will still have failed to cover the +most vital element in the moral and religious training of the boy simply +because it will still be a _Sunday_ school and, presumably, a _Bible_ +school. That is, it will have not only the benefits but also the +limitations of the sacred day and of the book method of instruction. The +boy needs something more than "a society for sitting still." + +But some will say, "Why take the boy out of the home at all? The good +home, the public school, and the established agencies of religion are +enough. A club is not needed." It might be replied that all boys do not +have good homes and that relatively few attend church or Sunday school; +but if that were not the case the desirability of the boys' club would +still be apparent. The fact is that the boy gets out of the home anyway +and seeks his group. There is a process of socialization and +self-discovery for which the best home-circle cannot provide; and the +club only recognizes and uses this "gang" instinct. It capitalizes for +good the normal social desires of the boy. In so doing it does not +necessarily conflict with a single good element in the home, but is +rather the first formal token of citizenship and the guarantor of proper +deportment in the midst of one's peers. + +In a well-directed club the consensus of opinion will usually be more +effective in securing good conduct than the father's neglected or fitful +discipline or the mother's endless forbearance. The boy has profound +respect for the judgment of his equals; and wherever the leader can make +the group ideals right he can be practically assured of the conformity +of all who come within the group influence. "The way we do here," "the +thing we stand for," constitutes a moral leverage that removes +mountains. The boy that has been too much sheltered needs it, the boy +that has been neglected and is whimsical or non-social needs it, the +only son often needs it, and the boy who is distinguished by misconduct +in the Sunday-school class needs it. + +The club is never justified, then, in offending against the home. +Keeping young boys out late at night, interfering with home duties or +with the implicit confidence between a boy and his parents, or dragging +him off into some sectarian camp away from his family is not to be +tolerated. This is never necessary, and the wise leader can always +co-operate harmoniously with the home if he takes thought so to do. + +But the leader who fails to recognize the sanctity and priority of the +home, who permits his interest in boys to be blind to home conditions +and influence, or who does not approach the home problems as a reverent +and intelligent helper is very far from an ideal workman. One great +advantage of the small club in the church consists in this personalized +and teachable interest which gets in close by the side of perplexed, +ignorant, weak, or neglectful parents and seeks to raise the home as an +institution so that all its members, including the boy, may be richly +benefited. To be a pastor rather than a mere herdsman of boys one must +know their fold. It is well enough to be proud of the boys' club but it +is good "boys' work" to develop home industry and to encourage habits of +thrift and of systematic work that shall bless and please the home +circle. The boy may far better work too hard for the communal welfare of +the home than to grow up an idle pleasure-seeking parasite. + +It is taken for granted that the wise pastor will think twice before +organizing a boys' club. It were better for him to leave the whole +enterprise in the innocent realm of his castles in Spain than to add +another failure to the many that have been made in this attractive and +difficult field. Enthusiasm is essential, but taken alone it is an +embarrassing qualification. Therefore he should make a careful inventory +of his available assets. If he contemplates personal leadership he would +do well to list his own qualifications. In any event he will need to be +familiar with the boy-life of his community, with all that endangers it +and with all that is being done to safeguard and develop it in accord +with Christian ideals. If the boys of his parish are already adequately +cared for he will not feel called upon to bring coals to Newcastle. + +His personal inventory must needs take into account his tastes and +ability. These will be determined frequently by the mere matter of age; +for undoubtedly the earlier years of one's ministry lie a little nearer +to the interests of boyhood and at this time the knack of the athletic +training received in school or college has not been wholly lost. The +leader may recover or increase his ability in games by taking a course +at the Y.M.C.A. + +If he finds within himself a deep love for boys that gets pleasure +rather than irritation from their obstreperous companionship, if he is +endowed with kindness that is as firm as adamant in resisting every +unfair advantage--which some will surely seek to take--if he is +noise-proof and furnished with an ample fund of humor that is +scrupulously clean and moderately dignified, if he possesses a quiet, +positive manner that becomes more quiet and positive in intense and +stormy situations, if he is withal teachable, alert, resourceful, and an +embodiment of the "square-deal" principle, and if he is prepared to set +aside everything that might interfere with the religious observance of +every single appointment with his boys--then he may consider himself +eligible for the attempt. + +But how will he go about it? Shall he print posters of a great +mass-meeting to organize a boys' club? Shall he besiege his church for +expensive equipment, perhaps for a new building? Shall he ask for an +appropriation for work which most of the people have not seen, and of +whose value they cannot judge except from his enthusiastic prophecies? +Let us hope not. To succeed in such requests might be to die like +Samson; while to fail in them would be a testimony to the sanity of his +responsible parishioners. + +There is a better way--a way that is more quiet, natural, and +effective. Possibly there is already in the Sunday school a class of +eight or ten boys between the ages of twelve and fifteen years. Let the +pastor become well acquainted with them and at first merely suggest--in +their class session or when he has them in his study or home--what other +boys have done in clubs of their own. He need not volunteer to provide +such a club, but merely indicate his willingness to help if they are +interested and prepared to work for it. If the boys respond, as they +undoubtedly will, then the pastor will need to find a few sympathizers +who will give some financial and moral assistance to the endeavor. He +may find some of these outside the church, and often such friends are +the more ready to help, because they are not already taxed to carry on +the established church work. + +The best policy is for the pastor to figure out how boys' work can be +begun without coming before the church for an appropriation. It is well +to begin in a very humble way with such funds as the boys can raise and +the backing of a few interested people, securing from the trustees of +the church the use of some part of the premises subject to recall of the +privilege on sufficient grounds; and--a consideration never to be +slighted although often hard to get--the good-will and co-operation of +the sexton. With the sexton against him, no pastor can make a church +boys' club succeed. The club will make no mistake in paying the church +something for the heat and light consumed. + +If an indoor area sufficient for basket-ball and a room suited to club +meetings can be had, the initial apparatus for winter work need not +exceed a parallel bar, a vaulting-horse, and three floor mats in +addition to the basket-ball equipment. This will involve an outlay of +from $75 to $150. Good parallel bars are as expensive as they are +serviceable; but boys have been known to make their own, and this is +highly desirable. Indian clubs, dumb-bells, and wands may only prove a +nuisance unless they can be carefully put away after the exercises. +Anyway, boys do not care greatly for calisthenics and most drills can be +given without these trappings. Granting that the boys have faithful and +wise supervision, the undertaking should be allowed to rest upon them to +the full measure of their ability. + +When it has become clear that funds and quarters can be provided, the +matter of formal organization should be taken up. The ideal church club +is not a mass club where certain privileges are given to large numbers +of boys who take out memberships; but a group club, or clubs, under +democratic control. Prior to calling the boys together for organization, +the pastor will have blocked out the main articles of a constitution, +and will have formulated some ideas as to the ritual and procedure which +shall have place in the weekly meetings of the club. In order to do this +intelligently, he will need to study such organizations as the Knights +of King Arthur and various independent church clubs that have proven +successful in fields similar to his own. Often there is something in his +own field that will lend definite color and interest to his local +organization. The following sample constitution is offered for purpose +of suggestion only and as a concession to the sentiment attaching to my +first boys' club of a dozen years ago. + + +CONSTITUTION + +I. We be known as the Waupun Wigwam. + +II. For to be sound of body, true of heart, unselfish, and Christian we +be joined together. + +III. They that have seen ten to fourteen summers may join our Wigwam one +by one if we want them. High names have we. These names we use in our +Wigwam. + +IV. At our meetings around the Campfire each Brave is Chief in turn and +chooseth one to guard the entrance. Medicine Man serveth us continually. +He knoweth his Braves. He chooseth Right Hand to serve him. When days +are longest and when days are shortest we choose one to write what we do +in Wigwam, one to collect small wampum and one to keep the same. + +V. They that be older than we, they that be our friends may visit us in +our Wigwam. Woman by us is honored. Chivalry by us is shown. Whatever is +weak is by us protected. + +VI. Measured are we when we join the Wigwam and once a year +thereafter--our height, calf of leg, hip, chest, and arm. This by +Medicine Man who keepeth the writings and adviseth how to improve. He +praiseth what good we do, and alloweth not "what harmeth body, defileth +tongue, or doeth ill to mind." + +VII. Small wampum pay we all alike according to the need of the Wigwam +and the Campfire. + +VIII. Deeds of valor do we read in Wigwam and Indian tales of old. Each +telleth of brave deeds he knows. A motto have we. This Medicine Man +giveth every three moons. We have our war whoop and our battle song. We +loyally help Medicine Man in his work and when he speaketh in the Great +Tent. + +IX. When admitted to the Wigwam we very solemnly vow to be obedient to +all its laws and to try to please our Great High Chief in Heaven who +ruleth every tribe, World without end. Amen. + + + + +RITUAL + +THE WIGWAM WAY + + +_The Braves being seated in a semicircle, the Chief, clad in blanket and +attended by Right Hand, enters. All arise. Chief takes position. Waits +until there is perfect silence._ + +_Chief_: My trusted and loyal Braves! + +_All_: Hail to our Chief! + +_C_: I am about to sit with you around our friendly Campfire. Brave ---- +---- will guard the entrance that none come into the Wigwam at this +time. Let such as be of our Wigwam advance and prove themselves. + +_Each Brave comes forward in turn, whispers the motto in the Chief's ear +and says_, May I, ---- ----, be known as a loyal Brave of the Waupun +Wigwam? + +_C_: As such be thou known. + +_All_: So may it be! _(When this is done the Chief continues.)_ + +_C_: For what are we bound together? + +_All_: For to be sound of body, true of heart, unselfish, and Christian +we be bound together. + +_C_: What virtues are the greatest? + +_All_: Faith, hope, and love. + +_C_: Who is great? + +_All_: He that serves. + +_C_: What is our sign? + +_All_: The sign of the cross. + +_C_: Sing we a song of valor. + +_All sing_: "The Son of God goes forth to war." + +_C_: Let us be seated. (_He gives one rap with the tomahawk._) + +_C_: Brave ---- ----, admit any who are late and have given you the +motto. + +_C_: Medicine Man will read from the Book and pray. _(All kneel for the +prayer_.) + +_C_: Brave ---- ---- will read what we did last. + +C: Brave ---- ---- will find who are here. _(Each one-present answers +"Ho" when his name is called)._ + +_C_: Brave ---- ---- will tell what wampum we have. + +_C_: Is there any business to come before our Wigwam? _(Reports, +unfinished business, and new business_.) + +_C_: Is there one fit to join our Wigwam? (_If there is a candidate who +has secured his parents' consent and who at a previous meeting has been +elected to membership with not more than two ballots against him he can +be initiated at this time_.) + +_C_: Brave Right Hand, what shall we do now? _(Right Hand says how the +time shall be spent_.) + +CLOSING + +_Chief calls to order with a whistle. Each Brave takes his place quickly +and quietly. (Moccasins or gymnasium shoes are worn in all Wigwam +sessions_.) + +_Chief gives two raps. All arise_. + +_C_: My Braves, we are about to leave the Campfire. Let us join hands +and repeat our covenant. _(All join hands and repeat clause by clause +after the Chief_.) + + We covenant with our Chief and one another: + + To be true men, + To protect the weak, + + To honor woman, + To make the most of life, + And to endeavor to please God. + So do we covenant. + +_Then the national anthem is sung and the following yell is given_: + + Who are we? + Chee Poo Kaw + Waupun Wigwam, + Rah, Rah, Rah!! + +This club proved of value in a town of three thousand which had a dozen +saloons and no organized work for boys or young men. It was supplemented +by a brotherhood for the older boys. In the clubroom was a large +fireplace in which a wood fire burned during the sessions. The room +could be partially darkened. The walls were covered with Indian pictures +and handicraft, and the surrounding country abounded in Indian relics. +In the summer the club went camping on the shore of a lake nine miles +distant. From another of the many successful clubs of this type the +following article on "Purpose" as stated in the constitution is worthy +of note: + + "We gather in our Wigwam that we may become strong as our bows, + straight as our arrows, and pure as the lakes of the forest." + +Clubs patterned after rangers, yeomen, lifesaving crews, and what not +have been successfully projected to meet and idealize local interest; +and the novelty and slightly concealed symbolism seem to take with boys +of this age. But the most important factor is never the organization as +such but _the leader_. + +For the period of from fourteen to seventeen years probably no better +organization has been devised than the Knights of King Arthur. Its full +requirements may be too elaborate in some cases but freedom to simplify +is granted, and also to eliminate the requirement of Sunday-school +attendance as a prerequisite to membership and the requirement of church +membership as a prerequisite to knighthood. Leaders dealing with this +age should read _The Boy Problem_ by William Byron Forbush and _The +Boy's Round Table_ by Forbush and Masseck (Boston and Chicago: Pilgrim +Press, 6th edition, $1.00 each). + +Ordinarily a policy of relationship between the club and Sunday school +and church will have to be formulated. It is always best to let the +Sunday school and the church stand on their own merits and not to use +the club as a bait for either. Nor should ranking in the club be +conditioned on church membership. Boys should not be tempted to make the +church a stepping-stone to their ambition in this more attractive +organization. The best policy is that of the "open door." Let the club +do all that it can for boys who are already in the Sunday school and +church, but let it be open to any boy who may be voted in, and then +through example and moral suasion let such boys be won to church and +Sunday school by the wholesome influence of the leader and the group, +quite apart from any conditions, favors, or ranking within the club +itself. + +An unofficial relation between the Sunday school and the club will be +maintained by having club announcements given in the school and by +bringing the Sunday-school superintendent before the club frequently. In +some churches the boys' whole department of the Sunday school is the +boys' club, and this may prove a good method where it can be carried out +with proper divisions and specialization as to age, etc. + +In discussing any proposed constitution, consideration should be given +to suggestions from the boys themselves and every question should be +threshed out in a reasonable, democratic way, strictly after the fashion +of deliberative bodies. The opinion of the leader is sure to have its +full weight, and matters needing further consideration can always be +referred to committees to be reported back. Questions of discipline +should be handled by the club itself, the director interfering only as a +last resort to temper the drastic reactions of a youthful and outraged +democracy. If there is a men's organization in the church tie the club +to that. This will guarantee strength and permanency to the club and +will help the men by giving them a chance to help the boys. + +The form of the constitution and ritual will be governed by the age +which they seek to serve. Boys from ten to fourteen years may not rise +to the splendid formality of the Knights of King Arthur. Possibly the +idealization of the best Indian traits will serve them better. From +fourteen to seventeen or eighteen the knighthood ideals are most +satisfying, while one may question their utility after that when the +youth turns to reflection and debate and is suited by civic and +governmental forms of organization. It must not be assumed that any one +type of organization is good for all ages and does not need to be +supplemented, modified, or superseded as the boy makes his adolescent +ascent. + +If the pastor has limited time and limited help he will do well to +center his attention on the important period of twelve to fifteen +years; and in order to do his work properly in the club meetings and on +the gymnasium floor especially, he should have an adult helper as soon +as the attendance exceeds ten in number. It is far more important to do +the training well than to make a great showing in numbers and at the +same time fail in creating a proper group standard and in developing +individual boys. In the ordinary improvised church gymnasium one man to +every ten boys is a good rule. + +In a church club that grew to have a membership of sixty, the following +grouping for gymnasium privileges was found to work well: boys ten, +eleven, and twelve years old, from 4:15 to 5:30 in the afternoon; boys +thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen years old, from 7:00 to 8:15 the same +evening; and boys sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen years old, from 8:15 +to 9:30. Such a use of the plant secures economy of time, heating, etc., +and with a little help one may give every boy two gymnasium sessions a +week, which is not too much. If possible, showers and lockers should be +provided; and in classification for gymnasium work allowance should be +made for retarded boys and for boys of extraordinary ability, so that +they may play with their equals irrespective of strict classification +by age. The best single test for classification is weight. + +The leader will do well to see that everything is right and clean in +conversation and practice in the locker-room and showers. Also, foolish +prudery and shamefacedness must be wholesomely banished, and it will +benefit rather than harm the boys for their leader, after having taken +them through the exercises, to join them in the pleasure and stimulation +of the shower bath. + +Not only the leader but as many interested church people as possible +should "back" the boys by attending their meets and games with other +teams. Remember that in order to command their full loyalty some loyalty +to them must be shown. The important function of the annual or +semi-annual banquet should not be overlooked. Such an affair is +inexpensive and unquestionably an event in the life of every member. The +mothers will always be glad to provide the food and superintend the +service; and in every town there will be found men of high standing who +will count it an honor to address the club on such an occasion, while +entertainers and musicians will also gladly contribute their talent. +Probably the average minister does not duly appreciate how much +high-grade assistance may be had for the mere asking and how much +benefit comes to those who give of their ability as well as to those who +are the fortunate recipients of such service. + +The clubroom rapidly grows rich in associations as it becomes decorated +with the symbols of the club and the trophies won from time to time. +Things that have happened but a year ago become entrancing lore to a +group of boys, and the striking features of meetings, outings, or +contests lose nothing in sentiment and cohesive worth as the months +pass. The sophisticated adult may not fully appreciate these little +by-products of club activity, but the boy who is growing into his social +and larger self makes every real incident a jewel rich in association +and suggestive of the continuity and oneness of his group life. The use +of an appropriate pin or button, of club colors, yells, whistles, and +secret signals will bear fruit a hundred fold in club consciousness and +solidarity. + +Summer is especially hard on the city boy. If there is no vacation +school, wholesome outdoor job, or satisfactory play, then mischief is +certain. Indoor life is particularly distasteful during the hot weather +and the flat is intolerable. Long hours and late are spent upon the +street or in places of public amusement where immoral suggestions +abound. High temperature always weakens moral resistance and there is no +telling into what trouble the boy may drift. Hence to relinquish boys' +work in the summer is to fail the boy at the very time of his greatest +need. The competent leader does not abandon, he simply modifies his +endeavor. As early in the spring as the boys prefer outdoor play he is +with them for baseball, track work, tennis, swimming, tramping, fishing, +hunting, camping; closing the season with football and remaining out +until the boys are eager to take up indoor work. The lack of formal +meetings in the summer need not concern the leader. It is sufficient +that he give the boys his fellowship and supervision and keep them well +occupied. + +In all of this outdoor work the program and activities of the Boy Scouts +of America are unsurpassed. In cultivating the pioneer virtues and in +promoting health, efficiency, good citizenship, nature-study, and humane +ideals no movement for boys has ever held such promise, and the promise +will be realized if only Scout Masters in proper number and quality can +be secured. Here again the gauntlet is thrown at the door of the church +and the challenge is to her manhood from the manhood of tomorrow. + +[Illustration: CITY BOYS "HIKING"] + +[Illustration: A WEEK-END CAMP] + +The ideal club will have its summer outing. When properly planned and +conducted, a summer camp is of all things to be desired. For several +months it should be enjoyed in anticipation, and if all goes well it +will be a joyous climax of club life, an experience never to be +forgotten. But like all good work with boys, it is difficult and +exacting. Safety and the rights of all cannot be conserved apart from +strict military or civic organization; and no leader will take boys to +camp and assume responsibility for life and limb without a thorough +understanding and acceptance on their part of the discipline and routine +which must be scrupulously enforced. + +Every boy should be provided well in advance with a list of the utensils +and outfit needed, and the organization of the camp should give to each +one his proper share of work. The efficiency and dispatch of a corps of +boys so organized is only equaled by the joy that comes from the +vigorous and systematic program of activities from daylight to dark. + +The best way for the leader to become proficient in conducting a camp is +to take an outing with an experienced manager of a boys' camp; the next +best way is by conference with such a person. The _Handbook_ of the Boy +Scouts of America will be found very helpful in this respect, and +_Camping for Boys_ by H.W. Gibson, Y.M.C.A. Press, is excellent. It is +necessary to emphasize the necessity of strict discipline and +regularity, a just distribution of all duties, full and vigorous use of +the time, extra precaution against accident, some formal religious +exercise at the beginning of the day, with the use of the rare +opportunity for intimate personal and group conference at the close of +the day when the charm of the campfire is upon the lads. When boys are +away from home and in this paradise of fellowship their hearts are +remarkably open and the leader may get an invaluable insight into their +inmost character. + +Whenever possible the minister will bring his boys' club work into +co-operation with the boys' department of the Y.M.C.A. Where the +Y.M.C.A. exists and the church cannot have moderate gymnasium privileges +of its own, arrangements should be made for the regular use of the +association's gymnasium. It is desirable that the stated use of the +gymnasium be secured for the club as such, since the individual use in +the general boys' work of the association is not as favorable to +building up a strong consciousness in the church club. The Y.M.C.A. can +best organize and direct the inter-church athletics and it has performed +a great service for the church clubs in organizing Sunday-school +athletic leagues in the various cities, and in supplying proper +supervision for tournaments and meets in which teams from the different +churches have participated. To direct these contests properly has been +no small tax upon the officials, for the insatiable desire for victory +has in some cases not only introduced unseemly and ugly features into +the contests but has temporarily lowered the moral standard of certain +schools. + +Superintendents and pastors have been known to sign entrance credentials +for boys who were not eligible under the rules. In some instances church +boys have descended to welcome the "ringer" for the purpose of "putting +it over" their competitors. In grappling with these difficulties and in +interpreting sound morality in the field of play the Y.M.C.A. has +already made a successful contribution to the moral life of the +Sunday-school boy. Nothing could be more startling to the religious +leader, who insists upon facing the facts, than the facility with which +the "good" Sunday-school boy turns away from the lofty precepts of his +teacher to the brutal ethics of the "win-at-any-price" mania. The +Sunday-School Athletic League under the guidance of the Y.M.C.A. tends +to overcome this vicious dualism. + +In some districts the leader of the church boys' club may arrange to +make use of the social settlement, civic center, or public playground, +thus holding his group together for their play and supplementing the +church outfit. The object in every case is to maintain and strengthen a +group so possessed of the right ideals that it shall shape for good the +conduct and character of the members severally. To the many ministers +who despair of being able to conduct a club in person it should be said +that young men of sixteen or seventeen years of age make excellent +leaders for boys of twelve to fifteen years, and that they are more +available than older men. + +These leaders, including the teachers of boys' classes, should come +together for conference and study at least once a month. The Y.M.C.A. +will be the most likely meeting-place, and its boys' secretary the +logical supervisor of inter-church activities. Wherever there is no such +clearing-house, the ministers' meeting or the inter-church federation +may bring the boys' leaders together for co-operation on a +community-wide scale. The multiplication of clubs is to be desired, both +for the extension of boys' work throughout all the churches, and for the +development of such inter-church activities among boys as will make for +mutual esteem and for the growing unity of the church of God. + + + + + +Footnotes + +Footnote 1: General reading: W.I. Thomas, _Source Book for Social +Origins,_ The University of Chicago Press; G. Stanley Hall, +_Adolescence_, D. Appleton & Co.; C.H. Judd, _Genetic Psychology for +Teachers_, D. Appleton & Co. + +Footnote 2: Books recommended: _Official Handbook_, Boy Scouts of +America, 200 Fifth Ave., New York; K.L. Butterfield, _Chapters in Rural +Progress_, The University of Chicago Press; K.L. Butterfield, _The +Country Church and the Rural Problem_, The University of Chicago Press. + +Footnote 3: Books recommended: Jane Addams, _The Spirit of Youth and the +City Streets_, Macmillan; D.F. Wilcox, _Great American Cities_, +Macmillan. + +Footnote 4: See monograph on _Five-and Ten-Cent Theatres_ by Louise de +Koven Bowen, The Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago. + +Footnote 5: See monograph, _A Study of Public Dance Halls_, by Louise de +Koven Bowen, The Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago. + +Footnote 6: Books and articles recommended: E.B. Mero, _The American +Playground,_ Dale Association, Boston; K. Groos, _The Play of Man,_ D. +Appleton & Co.; J.H. Bancroft, _Games for the Playground, Home, School, +and Gymnasium_, Macmillan; C.E. Seashore, "The Play Impulse and Attitude +in Religion," _The American Journal of Theology_, XIV, No. 4; Joseph +Lee, "Play as Medicine," _The Survey_, XXVII, No. 5. + +Footnote 7: Books recommended: Frank Parsons, _Choosing a Vocation_, +Houghton Mifflin Co.; Meyer Bloomfield, _The Vocational Guidance of +Youth_, Houghton Mifflin Co. + +Footnote 8: Books recommended: Georg Kerschensteiner, _Education for +Citizenship,_ Rand McNally & Co.; William R. George, _The Junior +Republic_, D. Appleton & Co. + +Footnote 9: Books recommended: John L. Alexander, _Boy Training_, +Y.M.C.A. Press; G. Stanley Hall, _Youth, Its Education, Regimen and +Hygiene,_ D. Appleton & Co. + +Footnote 10: For bibliography see William B. Forbush, _The Coming +Generation_, D. Appleton & Co., and the appendix of _Handbook for Boys, +The Boy Scouts of America_. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13069 *** |