A real danger lies in boys' groups which are seemingly organized, yet which really have no organization. A few Bible classes have officers, such as president, secretary, and treasurer, and a few standing committees, all of whom take no real part in the class life, the teacher doing everything himself and attempting to deceive the boys by giving them a show of organization. Such classes are detrimental to the spirit of boys' work, and should not be tolerated.
The teacher who cannot retire his leadership to the rear of the class, instead of posing at the front, is another serious damper to organized work with boys in the Sunday school. A leader should have a strong Christian character, have the quality of commanding the respect of boys, have the ability to direct boys in doing things, be keen in his sympathy, have patience and persistence, and be absolutely natural in his bearing. He encourages freedom of thought on the part of the boys, believes that a boy has brains enough of his own to think on any point that may be discussed, is open and above-board in his teaching, has a strong grip upon the practical truths of life, and tries to lead his boys out of doubt and difficulty by the path of service.
If dangers such as these be eliminated from boys' work in connection with the Sunday school, and if the spirit of sincerity and earnestness pervades the work of the leaders, there should be little difficulty in raising the boy through the physical, social and mental to the larger spiritual expression for which the church stands. Every week hundreds of boys of the adolescent years are lining up for Christian service all over our land, and if the ideas and directions given these boys are of the right sort, within one generation there will be no boy problem, for the boy problem of this generation is not the problem of the boys, but the problem of the men who are leading boys.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON DANGER POINTS
The Older Boy Sunday School Superintendent (American Youth, October, 1912). (.20).
Robinson.—The Adolescent Boy in the Sunday School (American Youth, April, 1911). Single copies out of print but bound volume for 1911 may be obtained for $1.50.
Statten.—Danger Lines in Using Boys (American Youth, June, 1912) (.20).
XXI
THE RURAL SUNDAY SCHOOL
The problem of the rural Sunday school is its size and equipment. The average number in the school is around eighty, and the building is nearly always a single room. Some very small villages, near great cities, and even some struggling mission Sunday schools in these cities have to contend with the same problem. Some of this volume will apply to the rural Sunday school, and some will not. It is the province of this chapter to point out the parts that apply.
Everything that has to deal with the Organized Class or group is applicable. The Organized Class is the unit and beginning of all organization. The boy gang, or group, is common to both city and rural district. There is no problem in either place, if there is no group of boys. The Departmental groupings may not be feasible. Usually they are not. There may not be enough groups of boys to form a club or Boy Scout Troop or a chapter of a boy order. Generally this is true. And, after all, it is a distinct gain to the Sunday school, as the grouping that is made by force of compulsion is the Organized Class or group. The chapter on the Organized Sunday School Bible Class will apply itself to the rural school, wherever there is a half dozen boys and it is given a chance.
The chapter on Bible Study will likewise fit into the rural situation. No matter whether the boys be urban or rural, they demand Bible Study that will fit into their religious, developing needs. Perhaps Bible Study courses with rural application need to be arranged, and I am led to believe that the illustrative material should be vastly different from that used for city boys, and of a rural character. However, there has been too much written and spoken of the difference between rural and urban boys. The differences discovered by the writer seem to be all in favor of the country boy—more wholesome surroundings, more quiet and less nerve-destroying interests, and more time, because of fewer commercial amusements to really discover things for themselves. The average rural boy has read more and knows more about current events than the city-bred lad. The country boy should not be provincialized by his Bible Study, or anything else. He should be given as large a touch with the world of men and letters as any one else. The illustrations used in Lesson Helps, etc., should have some bearing on the life he leads, that the application of the study may germinate in his daily life, else the study will have little meaning, but he needs no separate, distinct courses. It is not a different selection of material, but a different treatment that is needed. The Denominational Leaders will sooner or later be forced to heed this cry from the largest section of the Sunday school field. Until they do Graded Lessons will not gain materially in the open country.
On the other hand, where there is only one group of adolescent boys in the Sunday school, Graded Lessons are practicable, as well as necessary to the best religious development of boyhood. The grading is cut down to a minimum, and it merely means fewer classes studying the same lesson. It would mean just the one group, with a new course each year. The difficulty is not with the lessons, but with the school officials and the teacher.
The chapter on Through-the-Week Activities is very applicable. The gang will get together some time, on Saturday night, if not at another time. The Young Men's Christian Association County Work Secretaries are getting the boys of the open country together for week-night meetings without trouble. "Get something doing" and see how quickly the rural boys will get together. These activities again will differ greatly from those of city boys. There will be great emphasis on the Social and Mental as against the Out-of-Door doings of the urban adolescents. The principle already laid down, to let the boys themselves decide the activity, will settle this difficulty at the start.
So as to the chapter on the Teen Age Teacher! Boys and men are the same pretty much, wherever they live. They may be more deliberate, less showy, and steadier in some places than others, but we cannot admit inferiority or lack of interest on the part of the splendid rural boy. He is filling the big jobs in our cities today, and will as long as the cities last. The teen age teacher in the rural school needs to master himself for his task. He is doing a bigger piece of work than his brother of the city school. He is preparing men for urban leadership.
To make a long story short, the parts of this book that deal with the small group are applicable to the rural Sunday school. The teen age teacher in the rural school should begin with these, and maybe after a while he will see opportunities for larger groupings. The Young Men's Christian Association County Work Secretary certainly is. Inter-Sunday school work is possible by the Sunday school forces themselves.
A fitting close to this chapter is the challenge to the teen age teachers of the rural schools, which Mr. Preston G. Orwig has hurled at North America:
"Every rural school has its quota of workers who are, perhaps unconsciously, limiting their own usefulness, as well as retarding the progress of the school, by meeting every new plan of work proposed with the statement that, 'That plan is all right for the city, but it won't work here because we have so few members and our people live so far apart.' With the exception of the man who constantly reminds us that 'we did not do it this way thirty years ago,' and who, in some cases, is really a menace to the work, there is no greater obstacle confronting workers in rural schools.
"In a recent conference of Secondary Division workers in rural Sunday schools, a speaker was advocating the necessity of recognizing the fourfold—physical, mental, social and spiritual—life of the scholars, in planning for the work of the class. The tremendous opportunity of teachers for reaching adolescent boys for Jesus Christ, through their physical and social instincts, was emphasized. Luke 2:52 was quoted to clinch the argument. In the discussion that followed everybody seemed satisfied that a broader policy of work should be pursued. At this juncture a man in the audience arose, and, in a most uncompromising manner, attempted to show that it was useless to promote such methods for rural schools, as the scattered population and limited membership made it impossible to develop the work along the lines proposed.
"Later in the day, two of the members in this man's own class were interviewed, and, in answer to direct questions concerning the above two points, stated that during the winter months older boys and girls, many of whom attended that very school, went as often as three nights a week to a small pond in the community to skate, some of them traveling from three to four miles to get there. Other sports were indulged in, according to the season, and, according to these boys, they seldom experienced great difficulty in getting 'a crowd' together. Frequently their games wound up in a grand free-for-all fight.
"Now, had this teacher recognized the educative value of supervised play and planned to meet his fellows on the ice, as a class, he would have formed contacts there which he could never hope to form by simply meeting them in the Sunday afternoon session. In addition to that he would have an opportunity to help the class to apply practically the truths of the Sunday lesson in the activities of everyday life.
"It would be well for such workers to remember that in some of our larger cities one must oftentimes travel from one to two hours on crowded trolley cars, in distance, perhaps, eight or ten miles, in order to meet with his class. Again, in some sections of the city, populated mostly by foreigners, the Sunday schools are often smaller, in point of membership, than many of the rural schools.
"It matters not whether the boy or girl lives in the city or country, the needs are the same. What is needed is 'Visioned Leadership.'
"It is, in a sense, pathetic, to note that these objections are always of adult origin and are not the verdict of the boys. They, however, must suffer in a handicapped development, through the shortsightedness of their leaders. Where there's a will, there's a way."
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE RURAL SUNDAY SCHOOL
Cope.—Efficiency in the Sunday School ($1.00).
Fiske.—The Challenge of the Country (.75).
The Rural Church Message—Men and Religion Movement ($1.00).
XXII
THE RELATION OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL TO COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS
The church school is not, by any means, the only force in the community, as far as the boy is concerned, but it is destined to be the biggest force. The church, itself, is the most permanent institution of the community, and will always be so, as long as humanity remains religious. In the church are all the conserving elements of the community—slow to change, it stands for the best. Having adopted anything after approved worth commends it, it tenaciously holds it in trust. Communities may have homes and schools, but, without the church, they are not good places in which to live. The church, then, because it is most permanent, should tie the loyalty of the boy to herself. This she best does through her school—the Sunday school.
There are, however, other church forces in the community—organizations fostered and supported by the material and moral enthusiasm of the members of the church. Some of these organizations have been frankly formed for the purpose of assisting the church in some special field of religious education. This is essentially true of such boy organizations as the Knights of King Arthur, Knights of St. Paul, Knights of the Holy Grail, and the Boys' Brigade. It is essentially true, also, of the Young Men's Christian Association. The first of these—the boy organizations—constitutes a method which is at the disposal of the church. The second—the Christian Association—has grown to be a mighty operating force, with hundreds of employed officers and millions of dollars of property. Save for the fact that church members compose the directorates, it is independent of the church. With this and other organizations what can the church's relationship be? The seeming answer would be cooperation—a glad working together for the general betterment of the community itself by tried and approved plans. However, a new condition has arisen, which offers more than general cooperation between the Church and these organizations for the teen age boy. Until recently the church school had no clear-cut method for working with the teen age lad, while the boy organizations referred to had such a method, and the Young Men's Christian Association, after years of work, has a force of more or less experienced experts in boy life in its employ. The methods of these boy organizations and the boy experts of the Young Men's Christian Association must have a field of operation, and the best field, of course, is that of the church school, where boys should be found. The Young Men's Christian Association, in its own building, touches but a minute fraction of the boy life of the city in which it operates, and, to touch the city boy life, must get out of its building. It then has a choice of fields, Public Playground, Public School, or Community Betterment. If, however, it is true to the principle of its founding—to be an arm of the Church among young men—that which it attempts to do should be tied up to the Church, or, in the case of teen age boys, to the church school. To accomplish the latter, what shall the procedure be? Shall the Young Men's Christian Association win the boy, and then deliver him, saved for service, to the Church, or shall the Young Men's Christian Association work with the Church as part of the Church inside the church school? Common sense would say both ways, and all other ways possible, just so the boy stands saved and in the Church for service. And this is as it should be, and the employed experts of the Young Men's Christian Association should render service to the Church, both within and without the Church—and this service may be through method, or organization, or both. At all times the weakness of the Church should be the Association's opportunity to help the Church realize herself, and this can best be accomplished by the constructive suggestion that works its way out on the inside of the organization. Little help comes from battering a wall on the outside. At least it does not help the house inside any. Cooperation, then, must be understood as the internal assistance given the Church herself to realize the need and the plan to meet it.
In this regard every organization must clearly understand the church it seeks to aid. Most organizations have singular aims and motives. The Church is a complex organization, with many needs. The church school has many divisions and departments, has two sexes to minister to, embraces all ages, from the cradle to the grave, and usually has no paid officers. Through it all proportion has to be maintained—balance of organization, fair opportunity for all, young or old, male and female. A plan for the education of the teen age boy will no more solve the problem of the Sunday school than it would the educational, physical employment, or social difficulties of the Young Men's Christian Association. In proper relationship to the other factors of the problem in church school, or Young Men's Christian Association, it would help the whole organization. It surely takes more than plaster to make a house, important as is plaster.
The Sunday school has its own problems of organization, sexes, ages, equipment, equality, fair-play, opportunity, leadership, etc. No organization can help these problems from the outside, or by emphasis on any one phase. Gain in one department may be loss in another. The Sunday school needs proportionate gain.
The Sunday school, therefore, should welcome any organization or method that bids fair to help in the solution of its problems. It should eagerly avail itself, especially, of the aid that the Boy Life Expert of the Young Men's Christian Association can give, thus reducing religious, economic duplication, and achieving united conservation of boy life. On the other hand, the Boy Life Expert of the Young Men's Christian Association should thoroughly acquaint himself with the genius of the Sunday school, the plan of its organization, and the pith of all its problems of sex and age, leadership and training, aims and objectives. He should also know thoroughly the policies of denominational and interdenominational Sunday school bodies, and, where there are denominations in plural quantity, this may mean a task worth while. Sometimes it is a slow process. Surely, so! The Kingdom, with all the wisdom of Heaven, has been twenty centuries in the building, and it has been wrought out in the Church. The contribution that each man or woman makes must be small, but likewise great in its possibilities, if wisely, patiently given.
An organization cannot be permanently helped by introducing into its life the methods of another without the process of assimilation; neither can strength be given merely a part of the body to cure the whole. Organic tone is needed. Intelligent, Sunday school-wide cooperation! This is the invitation of the church school to all existing organizations. The conditions of the challenge are not easy, but the task is interesting and worth while, and the promise of increased efficiency is great indeed.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON SUNDAY SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS
Lawrance.—The Cooperation Sunday Schools Desire (American Youth, April, 1911) (.20).
Flood.—A Federation of Sunday School Clubs (American Youth, April, 1911) (.20).
Alexander.—Sunday School Use of Association Equipment (American Youth, April, 1911) (.20).
FOOTNOTES: