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diff --git a/13069-h/13069-h.htm b/13069-h/13069-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..46bff64 --- /dev/null +++ b/13069-h/13069-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3919 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Minister and the Boy, by Allan Hoben</title> + <style type="text/css"> + + body + {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + + p + {text-align: justify;} + + blockquote + {text-align: justify;} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 + {text-align: center;} + + hr + {text-align: center; width: 50%;} + + html>body hr + {margin-right: 25%; margin-left: 25%; width: 50%;} + + hr.full + {width: 100%;} + html>body hr.full + {margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 0%; width: 100%;} + + pre + {font-size: 0.7em; color: #000; background-color: #FFF;} + + .poetry + {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 0%; + text-align: left;} + + .footnote + {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; + font-size: 0.9em;} + + .index + {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; + text-align: center;} + + .figure + {margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; + text-align: center; font-size: 0.8em;} + .figure img + {border: none;} + + .date + {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; + text-align: right;} + + span.rightnote + {position: absolute; left: 92%; right: 1%; + font-size: 0.7em; border-bottom: solid 1px;} + + span.leftnote + {position: absolute; left: 1%; right: 92%; + font-size: 0.7em; border-bottom: solid 1px;} + + span.linenum + {float:right; + text-align: right; font-size: 0.7em;} + a:link {color:#0000ff; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:#0000ff; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:#0000ff; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:#ff0000} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13069 ***</div> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Minister and the Boy, by Allan Hoben</h1> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr class="full" /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h1>THE MINISTER AND<br /> +THE BOY</h1><br /> +<br /> +<h2>A HANDBOOK FOR CHURCHMEN<br /> +ENGAGED IN BOYS' WORK</h2><br /> +<br /> +<h4>By</h4> +<h3>ALLAN HOBEN, PH.D.</h3><br /> +<h4>Associate Professor of Practical Theology, The University of Chicago +Field Secretary of the Chicago Juvenile Protective Association</h4> +<br /> +<br /> +<h4>1912</h4> +<br /> + +<hr /> + + + + +<h2>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Biblical World</i> have encouraged this attempt to present a +brief handbook for ministers and laymen who engage in church work for +boys.</p> + +<p>ALLAN HOBEN</p> + +<p>CHICAGO August 19, 1912</p> + +<hr /> + + + + +<h2>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h2> + + +<blockquote> +<a href='#CHAPTER_I'>I. THE CALL OF BOYHOOD</a><br /> +<a href='#CHAPTER_II'>II. AN APPROACH TO BOYHOOD</a><br /> +<a href='#CHAPTER_III'>III. THE BOY IN VILLAGE AND COUNTRY</a><br /> +<a href='#CHAPTER_IV'>IV. THE MODERN CITY AND THE NORMAL BOY</a><br /> +<a href='#CHAPTER_V'>V. THE ETHICAL VALUE OF ORGANIZED PLAY</a><br /> +<a href='#CHAPTER_VI'>VI. THE BOY'S CHOICE OF A VOCATION</a><br /> +<a href='#CHAPTER_VII'>VII. TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP</a><br /> +<a href='#CHAPTER_VIII'>VIII. THE BOY'S RELIGIOUS LIFE</a><br /> +<a href='#CHAPTER_IX'>IX. THE CHURCH BOYS' CLUB</a><br /> +</blockquote> + + +<hr /> +<a name="pg001"></a> + + + + +<h2><a name='CHAPTER_I'></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>THE CALL OF BOYHOOD</h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <a name="pg002"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg003"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <a name="pg004"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a name="pg005"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a name="pg006"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a name="pg007"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg008"> +</a> 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:</p> + +<blockquote> +And back they came with the tattered Thing, as<br /> + children after play,<br /> +And they said: "The soul that he got from God he has<br /> + bartered clean away.<br /> +We have threshed a stook of print and book, and<br /> + winnowed a chattering wind<br /> +And many a soul wherefrom he stole, but his we<br /> + cannot find:<br /> +We have handled him, we have dandled him, we have<br /> + seared him to the bone,<br /> +And sure if tooth and nail show truth he has no soul<br /> + of his own."<br /> +</blockquote> + +<p>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 <a name="pg009"> +</a> <i>reverence</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a name="pg010"></a> 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."</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg011"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg012"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg013"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg014"> +</a> ignores him, his +primary interests, and his essential nature; or goes to the extreme bother +of making itself an insufferable bore.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a name="pg015"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a name="pg016"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg017"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>In the hour of reaction from intense and unrewarded toil the empty +chambers of the <a name="pg018"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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? <a name="pg019"></a></p> + +<hr /> + + + +<h2><a name='CHAPTER_II'></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>AN APPROACH TO BOYHOOD<sup><a href="#fn1" name="rfn1">[1]</a></sup></h3> + + +<p>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 +<a name="pg020"></a> +psychological, is to make fundamental preparation for the understanding of +boyhood.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg021"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Our topmost civilization, although sustained <a name="pg022"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p class="figure"> <a name="minboy001"><img width="80%" +alt="Illustration: MIGHTY HUNTERS" src="images/minboy001.jpg" /></a><br /> MIGHTY +HUNTERS</p> +<p class="figure"> <a name="minboy002"><img width="80%" +alt="Illustration: THE LURE OF THE WATER" src="images/minboy002.jpg" /></a><br /> +THE LURE OF THE WATER</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg023"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>you</i> belong to?" "Oh," said he, "I belong to +de gang." "What gang?" "De gang on de <a name="pg024"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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. <i>Facilis descensus Averno.</i> The +love of adventure and hunting was illustrated in the case of two other boys +of this neighborhood who were but ten and eleven <a name="pg025"> +</a> 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <a name="pg026"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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. <a name="pg027"> +</a> "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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Wanderlust</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 name="pg028"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="figure"> <a name="minboy003"><img width="80%" +alt="Illustration: GETTING THE SPARK" src="images/minboy003.jpg" /></a><br /> +GETTING THE SPARK</p> +<p class="figure"> <a name="minboy004"><img +width="80%" alt="Illustration: GETTING THE FLAME" src="images/minboy004.jpg" +/></a><br /> GETTING THE FLAME</p> +<p class="figure"> <a +name="minboy005"><img width="80%" alt="Illustration: FIRE!" +src="images/minboy005.jpg" /></a><br /> FIRE!</p> + +<p><a name="pg029"></a> +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."</p> + +<p><a name="pg030"></a> 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."</p> + +<p>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 +<a name="pg031"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>toga virilis</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>The process of transformation from childhood <a name="pg032"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>via media</i>.</p> + +<p>His physical condition explains his marked <a name="pg033"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg034"> +</a> 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:</p> + +<blockquote> +The time is out of joint;--O cursed spite,<br /> +That ever I was born to set it right!<br /> +</blockquote> + +<p>So is it ever with the adolescent soul unless society curses the desire +for significance and makes it criminal.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg035"> +</a> 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 <i>younger</i> brother is the prodigal. Experience has not +taught him how to value property and the main chance.</p> + +<p>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. <a name="pg036"></a></p> + +<hr /> + + + +<h2><a name='CHAPTER_III'></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>THE BOY IN VILLAGE AND COUNTRY<sup><a href="#fn2" +name="rfn2">[2]</a></sup></h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, the static character of <a name="pg037"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The sectarian divisions which in the vast needs and resources of great +cities do not so <a name="pg038"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg039"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <a name="pg040"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<blockquote>Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade<br /> +Of that which once was great has passed away.</blockquote> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg041"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a name="pg042"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg043"> +</a> need corrective exercises, but the big muscles whose +development tells for health and against nervousness are always well +used.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg044"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg045"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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 +<a name="pg046"></a> of them +easy roads to immortality in a boy's affection.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>As a further factor in elevating and enriching the life of the country +boy, the minister may <a name="pg047"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg048"> +</a> great vogue of the +country singing-school a generation ago was no mere accident.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg049"></a> +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.</p> + +<p class="figure"> <a name="minboy006"><img width="80%" +alt="Illustration: BOY SCOUTS STUDYING THE TREES" src="images/minboy006.jpg" +/></a><br /> BOY SCOUTS STUDYING THE TREES</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg050"> +</a> 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</p> + +<blockquote> +Allured to brighter worlds and led the way. +</blockquote> + +<p>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. <a name="pg051"></a></p> + +<hr /> + + + + +<h2><a name='CHAPTER_IV'></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>THE MODERN CITY AND THE NORMAL BOY<sup><a href="#fn3" +name="rfn3">[3]</a></sup></h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The amazing and as yet unchecked movement of population toward the city +means usually a curtailment of living area for all concerned. +<a name="pg052"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Hence juvenile delinquency and crime increase proportionately with the +crowding of the <a name="pg053"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg054"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg055"> +</a> territory with flat buildings the city is providing for +itself a much more serious juvenile problem than it now has.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg056"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="figure"> <a name="minboy007"><img width="80%" +alt="Illustration: FIND THE PLAYGROUND" src="images/minboy007.jpg" /></a><br /> +FIND THE PLAYGROUND</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg057"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a name="pg058"></a> 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.<sup><a href="#fn4" +name="rfn4">[4]</a></sup> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a name="pg059"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg060"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg061"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg062"> +</a> 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.<sup><a href="#fn5" +name="rfn5">[5]</a></sup></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg063"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg064"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <a +name="pg065"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a name="pg066"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg067"> +</a> out the way of salvation for hordes of wild city boys +who are the menacing product of blind economic haste.</p> + +<p class="figure"> <a name="minboy008"><img width="80%" +alt="Illustration: WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH ME?" src="images/minboy008.jpg" /></a><br +/> WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH ME?</p> + +<p>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. <a name="pg068"></a></p> + +<hr /> + + + +<h2><a name='CHAPTER_V'></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>THE ETHICAL VALUE OF ORGANIZED PLAY<sup><a href="#fn6" +name="rfn6">[6]</a></sup></h3> + + +<p>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 <i>undirected</i> 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 <a name="pg069"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg070"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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 <a +name="pg071"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg072"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>Baseball, our most popular and distinctively national game, constitutes +a fair field for this <a name="pg073"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>If at the outset, the group, coming together in park or vacant lot, +cannot speedily agree upon a <i>modus operandi</i>, their energy is turned +<a name="pg074"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg075"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg076"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The use of this loyalty in the reformation of boy criminals has been +remarkably demonstrated in the well-known work of Judge Ben <a name="pg077"> +</a> B. Lindsey, of Denver. +In a particularly difficult case he says:</p> + +<blockquote> +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. +</blockquote> + +<p>Here is a striking example of the team work of two with the play upon +loyalty and the spirit of contest.</p> + +<blockquote> +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, +<a name="pg078"></a> +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. +</blockquote> + +<p>Another interview with a boy under sentence to the industrial school +emphasizes the same point:</p> + +<blockquote><p> +"I can <i>help</i> 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>I</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>I'll never get you into trouble again</i>!"</p> + +<p>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 <i>you</i>, 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.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>In eight years, out of 507 cases of boys put upon their honor to take +themselves from <a name="pg079"> +</a> 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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But with this concession, all of the virtue that attaches to baseball +will be found in football, <a name="pg080"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p class="figure"> <a name="minboy009"><img width="80%" +alt="Illustration: THE NORMAL BOY IN THE ABNORMAL PLAYGROUND" +src="images/minboy009.jpg" /></a><br /> THE NORMAL BOY IN THE ABNORMAL +PLAYGROUND</p> + +<p>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 <a +name="pg081"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <a +name="pg082"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg083"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>There is indeed not only a physical basis of <i>being</i> good, but, +what is not less important, a physical basis of <i>doing</i> good. Many +people avoid blame and disgrace who fail utterly in making a positive +contribution to the welfare <a name="pg084"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<a name="pg085"></a> +abiding joy. The good body helps to make the gracious self. Other things +being equal the strong body obeys, but the weak body rules.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg086"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>The saving power of organized play, in the prevention and cure of that +morbidity which especially besets youth, can hardly be overestimated. <a +name="pg087"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg088"> +</a> 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."</p> + +<blockquote> +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. +</blockquote> + +<p class="figure"> <a name="minboy010"><img width="80%" +alt="Illustration: WHAT SHALL WE PLAY?" src="images/minboy010.jpg" /></a><br /> +WHAT SHALL WE PLAY?</p> + +<p><a name="pg089"></a> The +feeling of harmony and <i>bien-être</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>In dearth of opportunity and in cruel oversight of the normal play-needs +of boyhood, <a name="pg090"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <a +name="pg091"></a> 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." <a +name="pg092"></a></p> + +<hr /> + + + +<h2><a name='CHAPTER_VI'></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>THE BOY'S CHOICE OF A VOCATION<sup><a href="#fn7" +name="rfn7">[7]</a></sup></h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a +name="pg093"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Hence this problem of vocational guidance <a name="pg094"> +</a> 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?</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg095"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Several experiences with both individuals and groups are fresh in mind +at this writing. On one occasion a guild of working boys in later <a +name="pg096"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <a +name="pg097"></a> +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.</p> + +<p class="figure"> <a name="minboy011"><img width="80%" +alt="Illustration: THE GUILD First Baptist Church, Detroit, Mich." +src="images/minboy011.jpg" /></a><br /> THE GUILD First Baptist Church, Detroit, +Mich.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a +name="pg098"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <a +name="pg099"></a> 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"!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg100"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>What is this industrial haste which cuts so much of our corn while it is +only in tassel, <a name="pg101"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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. <a name="pg102"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But to come more closely to the place of this <a name="pg103"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>To describe the method more specifically, the <a name="pg104"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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. <a name="pg105"></a></p> + +<hr /> + + + +<h2><a name='CHAPTER_VII'></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP<sup><a href="#fn8" +name="rfn8">[8]</a></sup></h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg106"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <a +name="pg107"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But most homes will do little of this, and <a name="pg108"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a name="pg109"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The curriculum of the elementary schools of Chicago makes a very +thorough attempt to train the child in good citizenship, an attempt <a +name="pg110"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <a +name="pg111"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a name="pg112"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg113"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<blockquote> +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 +<a name="pg114"></a> +will honor the religion of my fathers, and I call to witness +Aglauros, Enyalios, Ares, Zeus, Thallo, Auxo, +and Hegemone." +</blockquote> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg115"> +</a> neglect the pew. Wherever real issues are drawn men and +boys tend to assemble.</p> + +<p class="figure"> <a name="minboy012"><img width="80%" +alt="Illustration: IMPORTED CIVIC TIMBER" src="images/minboy012.jpg" /></a><br /> +IMPORTED CIVIC TIMBER</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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" <a name="pg116"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg117"> +</a> engrossed with +the little comforts, sentiments, and futilities of a religious club?</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a name="pg118"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>If the Men's Brotherhood is of significance in the community it is quite +possible to bring political candidates before it for the statement <a +name="pg119"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg120"> +</a> 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. <a name="pg121"></a></p> + +<hr /> + + + +<h2><a name='CHAPTER_VIII'></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>THE BOY'S RELIGIOUS LIFE<sup><a href="#fn9" +name="rfn9">[9]</a></sup></h3> + + +<p>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 <a name="pg122"> +</a> pronounced individual features +always assert themselves.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg123"> +</a> spirit which in every child pleads for life and +opportunity, and, alas, too often pleads in vain.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg124"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>concrete moral problem.</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 name="pg125"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Before receiving boys into active church membership it is well that they +be given a <a name="pg126"> +</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 <i>formal and impressive</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <a +name="pg127"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg128"> +</a> 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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg129"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg130"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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 <a +name="pg131"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>As yet there is little consensus of opinion as to the best way of +keeping him pure. Parents, educators, and religious leaders, however, are +<a name="pg132"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg133"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg134"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>In the same spirit will the father impart to <a name="pg135"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The enervating results of self-abuse, the loss of manliness and +self-respect, and the possible <a name="pg136"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg137"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg138"> +</a> constitutes a grave indictment of +society for its neglect to impart proper information.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg139"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. <a name="pg140"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg141"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg142"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg143"> +</a> drawn into harmony +with the spirit of the church.</p> + +<p class="figure"> <a name="minboy013"><img width="80%" +alt="Illustration: A CASE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SALVATION" src="images/minboy013.jpg" +/></a><br /> A CASE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SALVATION</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg144"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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, +<a name="pg145"></a> +straightforward way. Beating about the bush forfeits the boy's respect.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg146"> +</a> 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. <a name="pg147"></a></p> + +<hr /> + + + +<h2><a name='CHAPTER_IX'></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>THE CHURCH BOYS' CLUB<sup><a href="#fn10" +name="rfn10">[10]</a></sup></h3> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg148"> +</a> 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 <i>Sunday</i> school and, presumably, a <i>Bible</i> +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."</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg149"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg150"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It is taken for granted that the wise pastor will think twice before +organizing a boys' <a name="pg151"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>If he finds within himself a deep love for <a name="pg152"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><a name="pg153"></a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg154"> +</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>When it has become clear that funds and quarters can be provided, the +matter of formal <a name="pg155"> +</a> 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.</p> + + +<h4>CONSTITUTION</h4> + +<p>I. We be known as the Waupun Wigwam.</p> + +<p>II. For to be sound of body, true of heart, unselfish, and Christian we +be joined together.</p> + +<p>III. They that have seen ten to fourteen summers may join our Wigwam one +by one if we want them. <a name="pg156"> +</a> High names have we. These names we use in our +Wigwam.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>VII. Small wampum pay we all alike according to the need of the Wigwam +and the Campfire.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. <a name="pg157"></a></p> + + + + +<h4>RITUAL</h4> + +<h4>THE WIGWAM WAY</h4> + + +<p><i>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.</i></p> + +<p><i>Chief</i>: My trusted and loyal Braves!</p> + +<p><i>All</i>: Hail to our Chief!</p> + +<p><i>C</i>: 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.</p> + +<p><i>Each Brave comes forward in turn, whispers the motto in the Chief's +ear and says</i>, May I, ---- ----, be known as a loyal Brave of the Waupun +Wigwam?</p> + +<p><i>C</i>: As such be thou known.</p> + +<p><i>All</i>: So may it be! <i>(When this is done the Chief +continues.)</i></p> + +<p><i>C</i>: For what are we bound together?</p> + +<p><i>All</i>: For to be sound of body, true of heart, unselfish, and +Christian we be bound together.</p> + +<p><i>C</i>: What virtues are the greatest?</p> + +<p><i>All</i>: Faith, hope, and love.</p> + +<p><i>C</i>: Who is great?</p> + +<p><i>All</i>: He that serves.</p> + +<p><i>C</i>: What is our sign?</p> + +<p><i>All</i>: The sign of the cross.</p> + +<p><i>C</i>: Sing we a song of valor.</p> + +<p><i>All sing</i>: "The Son of God goes forth to war."</p> + +<p><i>C</i>: Let us be seated. (<i>He gives one rap with the tomahawk.</i>) +<a name="pg158"></a></p> + +<p><i>C</i>: Brave ---- ----, admit any who are late and have given you the +motto.</p> + +<p><i>C</i>: Medicine Man will read from the Book and pray. <i>(All kneel +for the prayer</i>.)</p> + +<p><i>C</i>: Brave ---- ---- will read what we did last.</p> + +<p>C: Brave ---- ---- will find who are here. <i>(Each one-present answers +"Ho" when his name is called).</i></p> + +<p><i>C</i>: Brave ---- ---- will tell what wampum we have.</p> + +<p><i>C</i>: Is there any business to come before our Wigwam? <i>(Reports, +unfinished business, and new business</i>.)</p> + +<p><i>C</i>: Is there one fit to join our Wigwam? (<i>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</i>.)</p> + +<p><i>C</i>: Brave Right Hand, what shall we do now? <i>(Right Hand says +how the time shall be spent</i>.)</p> + +<h4>CLOSING</h4> + +<p><i>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</i>.)</p> + +<p><i>Chief gives two raps. All arise</i>.</p> + +<p><i>C</i>: My Braves, we are about to leave the Campfire. Let us join +hands and repeat our covenant. <i>(All join hands and repeat clause by +clause after the Chief</i>.)</p> + +<blockquote> +We covenant with our Chief and one another:<br /> +<br /> +To be true men,<br /> +To protect the weak,<br /> +<a name="pg159"></a><br /> +To honor woman,<br /> +To make the most of life,<br /> +And to endeavor to please God.<br /> +So do we covenant.<br /> +</blockquote> + +<p><i>Then the national anthem is sung and the following yell is +given</i>:</p> + +<blockquote> +Who are we?<br /> +Chee Poo Kaw<br /> +Waupun Wigwam,<br /> +Rah, Rah, Rah!!<br /> +</blockquote> + +<p>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:</p> + +<blockquote>"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."</blockquote> + +<p>Clubs patterned after rangers, yeomen, lifesaving <a name="pg160"></a> 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 +<i>the leader</i>.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>The Boy Problem</i> by William Byron Forbush and <i>The Boy's Round +Table</i> by Forbush and Masseck (Boston and Chicago: Pilgrim Press, 6th +edition, $1.00 each).</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg161"></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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg162"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>If the pastor has limited time and limited help he will do well to +center his attention on <a name="pg163"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg164"></a> classification by age. The best +single test for classification is weight.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg165"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg166"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="figure"> <a name="minboy014"><img width="80%" +alt="Illustration: CITY BOYS HIKING" src="images/minboy014.jpg" /></a><br /> +CITY BOYS "HIKING"</p> +<p class="figure"> <a name="minboy015"><img +width="80%" alt="Illustration: A WEEK-END CAMP" src="images/minboy015.jpg" +/></a><br /> A WEEK-END CAMP</p> + +<p><a name="pg167"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Handbook</i> of the +Boy Scouts of <a name="pg168"></a> America will be found very helpful in this respect, and +<i>Camping for Boys</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg169"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <a +name="pg170"></a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg171"></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.</p> + +<hr /> + + +<h2>Footnotes</h2> + + +<p><a href="#rfn1" name="fn1">1.</a> General reading: W.I. Thomas, +<i>Source Book for Social Origins,</i> The University of Chicago Press; G. +Stanley Hall, <i>Adolescence</i>, D. Appleton & Co.; C.H. Judd, +<i>Genetic Psychology for Teachers</i>, D. Appleton & Co.</p> + +<p><a href="#rfn2" name="fn2">2.</a> Books recommended: <i>Official +Handbook</i>, Boy Scouts of America, 200 Fifth Ave., New York; K.L. +Butterfield, <i>Chapters in Rural Progress</i>, The University of Chicago +Press; K.L. Butterfield, <i>The Country Church and the Rural Problem</i>, +The University of Chicago Press.</p> + +<p><a href="#rfn3" name="fn3">3.</a> Books recommended: Jane Addams, +<i>The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets</i>, Macmillan; D.F. Wilcox, +<i>Great American Cities</i>, Macmillan.</p> + +<p><a href="#rfn4" name="fn4">4.</a> See monograph on <i>Five-and +Ten-Cent Theatres</i> by Louise de Koven Bowen, The Juvenile Protective +Association of Chicago.</p> + +<p><a href="#rfn5" name="fn5">5.</a> See monograph, <i>A Study of Public +Dance Halls</i>, by Louise de Koven Bowen, The Juvenile Protective +Association of Chicago.</p> + +<p><a href="#rfn6" name="fn6">6.</a> Books and articles recommended: E.B. +Mero, <i>The American Playground,</i> Dale Association, Boston; K. Groos, +<i>The Play of Man,</i> D. Appleton & Co.; J.H. Bancroft, <i>Games for +the Playground, Home, School, and Gymnasium</i>, Macmillan; C.E. Seashore, +"The Play Impulse and Attitude in Religion," <i>The American Journal of +Theology</i>, XIV, No. 4; Joseph Lee, "Play as Medicine," <i>The +Survey</i>, XXVII, No. 5.</p> + +<p><a href="#rfn7" name="fn7">7.</a> Books recommended: Frank Parsons, +<i>Choosing a Vocation</i>, Houghton Mifflin Co.; Meyer Bloomfield, <i>The +Vocational Guidance of Youth</i>, Houghton Mifflin Co.</p> + +<p><a href="#rfn8" name="fn8">8.</a> Books recommended: Georg +Kerschensteiner, <i>Education for Citizenship,</i> Rand McNally & Co.; +William R. George, <i>The Junior Republic</i>, D. Appleton & Co.</p> + +<p><a href="#rfn9" name="fn9">9.</a> Books recommended: John L. +Alexander, <i>Boy Training</i>, Y.M.C.A. Press; G. Stanley Hall, <i>Youth, +Its Education, Regimen and Hygiene,</i> D. Appleton & Co.</p> + +<p><a href="#rfn10" name="fn10">10.</a> For bibliography see William B. +Forbush, <i>The Coming Generation</i>, D. Appleton & Co., and the +appendix of <i>Handbook for Boys, The Boy Scouts of America</i>.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13069 ***</div> +</body> +</html> |