BIBLIOGRAPHY ON BOYS' CRUSADE
High School Student Christian Movement Series:
Bulletin No. 1. The Local Organization (.05).
Bulletin No. 2. Typical Constitution (.05).
Bulletin No. 3. The Inner Circle (.05).
International Secondary Division Leaflet, No. 5 (Free).
There can be no adequate comprehension of the physical side of boyhood if the sex element be left out. In fact, we have discovered for ourselves that this is the very element that constitutes the real problem of boyhood; for until the idea of sex enters into the boy's consciousness we are only dealing with an infant. It is the gift and power of self-reproduction that changes the selfish, individual existence into the larger, altruistic life. It is this that compels gangs and team-work and the instinctive desire to negate self in service for others. It is this that forms the basis for the tribal or community desire; and on it, understood or not, is built all further achievement. The real value of a brave to his tribe begins with the support of his squaw, and the modern boy gets his importance among us, when, because of bodily function, he awakens to the consciousness of the meaning of the home. This comes gradually at puberty or adolescence with the knowledge of the sex purpose. And it is the quality of this knowledge, its purity and fear and regard, that makes the lad a worthy member of the larger whole, or a peril.
Knowing this as we do, is it not a matter of some wonder that we have never really made any systematic effort to instruct the boy concerning his wonderful power? Very few fathers give their sons any guidance along this line, although they do so quite freely on every other subject. Of course, it is a sacred, delicate subject from which we naturally shrink, but it is overmodesty to allow a lad to fall into the abuse of his manhood, either alone or in twos, when a wise word, spoken in time, would save the smirch on two lives or more. In fact, we are beginning really to understand that it is just as imperative for us to teach a boy how to live his life with the utmost happiness as to show him how to procure the wherewithal to feed his body. For this reason it is being advocated today that the boy should be given explicit instruction as to the care of the organs of reproduction and detailed information as to the functions of these organs, and many are doing this.
Our boys today are eating freely of "the knowledge of good and evil," and they are not as innocent as we could wish them to be. They are not ignorant of the processes of life because we have said nothing concerning them, but their knowledge is partial and faulty and clouded with misinformation.
A few years ago a body of men were discussing this very thing in New York City, and one of them suggested that every one present write on a piece of paper the age at which he had his first sex knowledge and pass it to the head of the table. The average age named by this group of interested men was six and a half years. Not one of these men, either, had ever had a single word spoken to him on this all-important subject by any adult. Their knowledge was of the street. Is it any wonder, then, that boys stray, mar their own lives, betray confidences and innocence and become moral lepers, feeding like parasites on the fairest of our communities?
Instruction in the processes of the function of reproduction would help many a boy to a clean participation in and a happy understanding of the home. The divorce evil and the necessity of a large number of surgical operations among women, to say nothing of the so-called social evil, would be greatly lessened by such instruction. The father, of course, is the proper person to deal with this question.
Parents and the Sex Problem
When parents understand sex influence they will more than half meet the problems of the teen age. To rightly instruct along sex lines and so prepare boys and girls to meet the teen period is almost completely to meet the teen problem.
Social and economic changes have moved this generation a full hundred years ahead of our fathers. The change, however, has a moral menace in it, for the slow but sure ways of the old-fashioned home with its genuinely moral atmosphere have nearly slipped us. Today boys and girls are herded together by the compulsion of the times and moral ideas are in danger of being warped and twisted. Everything about us today is more complex than formerly, and the more complex things become the more we herd together. Mass life is common and growing—in education, in the schools and in play life, in the big public playgrounds. Religious activity, in spite of the group tendency toward the small group, is still in the mass—Christian Endeavor, Sunday school groupings, etc. With the growing assumption of week-day activities on the part of the church, the moral peril increases.
To offset this increasing social danger sex instruction is an insistent necessity. Boys and girls must be taught to see themselves as members of society with all that that implies. To do so means a knowledge of self and sex and their functions and responsibilities. The sources and processes of life must be intelligently understood and thus respected. Ignorance of life does not beget purity, respect and honor. A boy's regard for a girl cannot proceed from lack of knowledge, although this lack may be termed innocence. A girl's love for the best for self and others is impossible unless she has knowledge tinged with the awe of God's purposes. Too often have our boys and girls been merely innocent, such innocence causing their fall. The tree of knowledge sometimes demands a high price for its fruit. To safeguard lives unblighted, the purity and processes of life's mystery must be imparted through instruction to our growing youth.
This can best be done by the parents—father or mother—for since children (boys or girls) ripen and come to puberty, individually and independently, the parent is God's choice for this task. To group boys and girls together for this instruction is terribly wrong, as the group must contain those whose need for information varies. To talk on these matters in mixed groups of boys and girls is to incite wrong impulses and is criminal. The parent is God's instructor in these things—a father to the son and a mother to the daughter. Anything else is second or third best and only to be done under great necessity. Under unusual conditions a Christian physician may instruct small groups of like physiological age, but the parental way is best, because it is both natural and permanent and we seek both.
Sunday School and Sex
Parents must be trained for this high duty. To this end Fathers' and Mothers' Meetings should be promoted separately by the Sunday school. Not one merely but a series, so that every father and mother may be able to attend. It would be well to promote these in small groups by invitation and acceptance until every father and mother was reached. A regular course of education might be arranged, viz.:
First Lecture—How to meet the questions of children.
Second Lecture—How to prepare the boy and girl for the understanding of puberty.
Third Lecture—Adolescence: The Physiology and Anatomy of the Sex Organs and Methods of Sex Instruction.
Fourth Lecture—Hygiene: Personal, Public, Home, School and Church.
These might be preceded by an address on the conditions that today make the above necessary; such might be a Sunday evening sermon or week-night address by the pastor of the church.
The lectures should be delivered and instruction given by a Christian Physician.
Meetings should be held for fathers by themselves and for mothers likewise; however, in either or both meetings the whole field—boys and girls—should be discussed.
The whole campaign should be carried out quietly without fuss, feathers or publicity. Shun the spectacular and remember it is the morality of the boy and girl that is in question. Keep away from muck-raking, be constructive and pure and business-like in the whole matter.
The need is great, for the sources of our life must be kept clean if we desire social health among our boys and girls. The land is full of the plague, of open moral sewers and unholy cesspools. The street reeks with the smut and filth of wrong sex knowledge, and our boys and girls are getting experience in the laboratory of the immoral. The Sunday school can help our common, public health by helping the parent. It should major on parental instruction and keep it up until the parents have been helped to the adequate fulfillment of their task.
Sex Instruction for Boys
Great care should be exercised in the giving of sex instruction to boys of any age. In the first place, no one without expert knowledge has a right to approach the boy on the subject. Even a father should make it his business to master the problem by extensive and wise reading before he becomes his boy's teacher. In the second place, books or pamphlets on the subject are poor mediums for instruction on the sex functions. Nearly every one that I have seen so far is either too technical or too sentimental. There are a great many books on the market which had been better left unpublished as far as their helpful influence is concerned. The treatment of this problem should be oral instead of in written form, and should be a straight, business-like talk, such as a father would have with his son about his studies or work. The gush of sentiment plays havoc with the emotions of the boy and lures him to the edge of the precipice, just to look over. First, there should be the spoken word concerning the function of the sex organs; and then, if the need is urgent, a choice book to guide him a little farther on the way. The less a boy thinks about these things the better. The instruction should be for the purpose of teaching him the knowledge of himself in order that he may see these things in their proper light and live purely, and not for the purpose of giving him expert advice.
Another thing is necessary for good sex instruction. Up till a little while ago it was the custom of workers with boys to caution the lads against self-abuse. They used all kinds of colored slides and fearful examples to impress on the boy the horror of the act, and very often inflamed the boy to exactly the thing they were shooing him from. But today we are learning the fact that the positive is of more force than the negative, and that the "thou shalt" is better than the "thou shalt not." There is a real reason why the later adolescent boy should give no attention to the "thou shalt not," and so fall into the snare of the negative; for it is the law of his being to "prove all things." It is far better to lay emphasis on the legitimate purposes of the boy's sex life, the glory it gives him and the beauty of the self-sacrifice it begets, than to say a single word on the other side.
I have found it a good thing to refer to the practice of self-abuse of any kind as a sure sign of weak mentality, and this has produced a greater impression than anything else that I have formerly said. Boys, it should be remembered, have brains and are really able to think. When they act wrongly it is so often from lack of knowledge or because of wrong knowledge. If I were to teach a boy my business I should tell him everything that would make the business better, and say nothing of how to put it "to the bad." Now what would we all do if our business was to help boys to live clean lives, speak truth, bless the community with unimpaired manhood and honor God with their united physical powers?
Methods of Instruction
It is necessary to keep in mind the stage of development of the boy. It certainly would be foolish to tell a lad of eight years the facts that should be given to a sixteen-year-old. Great tact and intelligence, coupled with a knowledge of the stages of physical growth that a boy is passing through, are necessary.
A boy of under twelve years should be approached biologically: the sex element in nature study should be gradually disclosed to him. In this period, when the spirit of curiosity is strong in the boy and he is continually asking questions on the mystery of life—for instance, how the stork or the doctor can bring the little brother or sister—it is the best thing to answer the question with just enough truthful information to satisfy. Great harm may be done by piling the mind of the child with facts that cannot but be misunderstood. In the enthusiasm for doing things right, there must be a guard against going too far.
The second stage of a boy's physical development, the early adolescent stage—twelve to fifteen years—is the physiological. Puberty marks its advent, although the exact sign of its arrival is hard to determine. It has been easy to discover it in a girl's life, but it still remains a matter of some guessing in a boy. A recent work of Dr. Crompton states that the kinking of the hair upon the pubic bone is a sure sign of the beginning of the period. Some physical directors have found this a satisfactory sign, and have made this the basis of a graded work with boys. It is in this period, then, that the boy should learn something of the anatomy and physiology of the male sexual organs.
The third stage of sex instruction for boys is during the later adolescent period—at least over fifteen years—and this should be pathological. A free discussion of the so-called social evil and the forms of venereal disease would certainly educate the boys to a proper conception of the entire subject. All questions should be discussed in ordinary language and business-like style.
Sources of Knowledge for Sex Instruction
1. THE BIOLOGICAL PERIOD (UNDER TWELVE YEARS).
—A Frank Talk with Boys and Girls About Their Birth (Free).
—A Straight Talk with Boys About Their Birth and Early Boyhood (Free).
Chapman.—How Shall I Tell My Child? (.25).
Muncie.—Four Epochs of Life (Chapters 7-12) ($1.50).
Thresher.—Story of Life for Little Children (Free).
—When and How to Tell Children. (Oregon State Board of Health.)
2. THE PHYSIOLOGICAL PERIOD (TWELVE TO FIFTEEN YEARS).
Hall.—From Youth Into Manhood (.50).
How My Uncle, the Doctor, Instructed Me in Matters of Sex (.10).
Lowry.—Truths (.50).
—The Secret of Strength (Social Hygiene Society of Portland, Oregon) (Free).
—Virility and Physical Development (Social Hygiene Society of Portland, Oregon) (Free).
—Address the Secretary of the Social Hygiene Society, 311 Young Men's Christian Association Building, Portland, Oregon.
3. THE PATHOLOGICAL PERIOD (OVER FIFTEEN YEARS).
Educational Pamphlets, Nos. 1 and 6 (American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis) (.10 each).
—Four Sex Lies (Oregon State Board of Health) (Free).
Hall.—From Youth Into Manhood (Chapter on Sexual Hygiene) (.50).
Health and the Hygiene of Sex (.10).
The Young Man's Problem (.10).
A Word of Caution
Let it be repeated that sex instruction should be undertaken with great tact and thoughtfulness. The one who gives the instruction—whether parent or teacher—should post himself thoroughly and he should be practical, go slow, not forcing the lad's development by unnecessary knowledge, avoiding gush and sentiment. He should not seek confession or allow the boy to confess to him, for confession will raise a barrier between the two later on; he should help the boy without invading the lad's innermost life, his soul; he should learn that there are recesses in the boy's self that are his own and that bear no invasion, and he should respect this right of privacy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON SEX
Alexander, Editor.—Sunday School and the Teens. (Chapter 14.) This is the official utterance of the Commission on Adolescence, authorized by the International Sunday School Association in convention at San Francisco, and contains a complete, classified bibliography. ($1.00.)
American Youth (April, 1913. This entire magazine number deals with Sex Education) (.20).
No more difficult subject faces the Sunday school today than that of really vitally interesting the teen age boy in the missionary enterprises of the church. Missionary enthusiasts, here and there, have doubtless had success in interesting numbers of boys, but, in spite of this, the average, red-blooded, everyday, wide-awake fellow that inhabits our homes, fills our streets, and honors our Sunday schools, has little or no conception of missions, or even cares enough to make any effort to discover what missions really signify. To the average boy missions spell heathen and a collection and little more. There is no real life interest, or even contact enough to develop an interest in the subject. This is a Hunt, harsh analysis of the situation, but it is both honest and true.
Giving money is not a genuine criterion of interest. I have known lots of boys who contributed two cents a week to help the other fellow, not because it was a conviction, but because it was a necessary thing to keep in good standing on the posted bulletin, and thus to maintain the regard and esteem of leader and comrades.
Business men and social leaders have been known to hesitate in subscribing to funds until the subscription list had been perused by them, when the list of names already secured has caused them to make generous additions to the fund. The Sunday school offering is a poor index of Sunday school enthusiasm. Giving money—even more than one can afford to give—is not always real self-sacrifice. Sometimes it is self-saving. At any rate, it is not the reliable guide of a boy's interest.
Maybe we shall never get boys to understand the word Missions. Perhaps it is hopelessly confused with heathen—a poor, unfortunate, know-nothing, worth-little crowd of black or yellow people—who can never amount to anything, unless money be given to put grit enough into them to get them to try to live right—a pretty doubtful investment, after all. Yes, this is the logic of the average boy, due to the information of the non-christian's degradation, lack of initiative, low ideals, and poor morals, as set forth by the returned missionary. Even the fact that one or two folks, by reason of the missionary's work, have been raised to better things, affords no promise of rejoicing on the part of the boy. The American teen age boy shuns "kids," "dagoes," "hunkies," and everything that seems to him to be inferior. He may occasionally give them a little pity, but he associates himself in thought and interest and conduct only with his peers. His gang is as exclusive as the traditions of Sons of the Revolution. The non-christians of other lands, like the non-christians of North America, somehow or other, have got to get as good as he is—not in morals, but in genuine worth-whileness. If they can "pull off a couple of stunts" that are beyond him, watch his real admiration and interest grow. Maybe, after a while, we will drop the word Missions and substitute another word—Extension. Perhaps! Then the fellow whom he teaches to "throw a curve" in the vacant lot, or the foreign-speaking boy, who can "shoot a basket," to whom he gives a half-hour lesson in English, or the Hindoo lad, who easily swims the Ganges, and who is being sent to school by his gang, will all command his interest, because they are partners with him in the common things of his everyday life. The boy grows by ever-widening circles of interest; first, the self, then the gang, then the school life, then his city, then the state, then the nation, and so on—out to humanity. And all of it must be on a par with his highest ideals. That which falls below meets his contempt. Interest, then, in non-christian folks in foreign lands, will become the boy's interest only when it reaches his admiration and the level of the worth-while. The pity and love that burns to help another is a mature passion, and is only in germ in boyhood. It is capable, however, of great development.
The interest of the early adolescent is primarily physical. Most of his life centers in his play and games. Wise educators are using the play instinct as a medium for his education. Manual training is increasing, the formal work of the class-room is taking on the nature of competition and music, even music with its old-time monotony and routine of running scales in the practice period under parental persuasion, has ceased to be a thing of dread, and has become a delightful thing of play—a building of houses, a planting of seeds, etc.
The heart of missions is a genuine regard for the highest welfare of the non-christian, a real interest in the lives of others. Now interest is the act of being caught and held by something. It is also temporary, as well as permanent. This depends wholly on how much one is caught and held. This fact is as true in boyhood as in manhood. Further, interests are matters of association—one interest is the path to another. Perhaps, then, the boy's play may widen to embrace China.
A group of boys, some time ago, were playing games in a church basement, and the time began to lag just a little. A young man, who happened to be present, was appealed to for a new game, and he taught them to "skin the snake." It "caught on" immediately, and the group of boys grew hilarious in their enjoyment. After a while, however, they stopped to rest, and one of the boys turned to the man who had taught the game, and said, "Where did you get that dandy stunt?" The reply was, "Oh, that's one of the games that the fellows play over in China." There was silence for a moment or two, and then one of the older fellows said, "Gee, do the Chinks over there know enough to play a game like that?" Questions followed thick and fast for a little while about the boys of China, and the admiration of the boys increased with their knowledge. The boys of China are a little closer, too, to the American boys of this particular group whenever "skin the snake" is played. It is altogether too bad that the play-life of the adolescent in non-christian lands is so meager, for here in physical prowess is a real contact for the American boy. The bigness of life is the sum of its contacts.
A boy between sixteen and twenty years is essentially social in his interests. It is then that the call of the community, business life, vocation, etc., to say nothing of the sex and the home voice—make their big appeal. It is his own personal relation to these that makes them real, and the closer his relation the deeper is his interest. The social appeal stirs his thought and leads him to investigation. The similarity of problems at home and abroad gives him contact with other lands, and makes for him "all the world akin." The best approach to China's need is the need of the homeland. Good government here is a link of Manchuria and Mongolia. The underpaid woman in the shop, store and factory of America is the introduction to the limitations of the womanhood of India and the Orient. The problem of Africa is real only through the economic, social and moral demands of Pennsylvania, Illinois, or California. The value of all of these in his thought is the relation which he holds individually to any one. The circle of his interests grows by the widening of his knowledge. The law of his being is to accept nothing on hearsay. He must prove all things and cleave only to that which he finds true. This, however, is the path to missionary and all other interests.
How, then, shall all this be worked out in Bible class and through-the-week activity? The missionary lesson must not be just fact, but related fact. The through-the-week meeting that contemplates the deepening of interest in other lands must be recreational and social. The contacts must be real, vital, and individual—expressed in the concrete interests of the now. This is the principle. The method must be the work of the lesson writer and the missionary expert, and, until this is achieved, missions must still be but two uninteresting facts for the teen age boy—Heathen and Collection.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE TEEN BOY AND MISSIONS
Fahs.—Uganda's White Man of Work (.50).
Hall.—Children at Play in Many Lands (.75).
Johnston.—Famine and the Bread ($1.00).
Matthews.—Livingstone, the Pathfinder (.50).
Speer.—Servants of the King (.50).
Steiner.—On the Trail of the Immigrant ($1.50).
Temperance embraces the abstaining from everything that challenges self-control. The two deadliest foes of young life today are admittedly alcoholic drinks and the cigarette, and any crusade against these for the conservation of the boy in his teens should be welcomed. It is well, however, to keep in mind that profane language, the suggestive story, undue sex familiarity, athletic overindulgence, excessive attendance at the moving picture shows, or entertainment places, the public dance, and other things of like ilk in the community, exert a doubtful influence on boy life.
Liquor is the greatest plague in a community, and does more to curse the community than any other one thing. It breaks up homes, causes divorces, deprives children of their legitimate sustenance, ruins the life of the drinker, increases taxation, lowers the tone and morals of the community, and is a detriment to our American life. Cigarette smoking is bad for anybody. It harms the growing tissue, dulls the conscience, stunts the growth, and steals the brainpower of growing boys. In dealing with these facts in the Sunday school let us recognize then, that they exist, that they are true; and then let us cease merely to rehearse them from time to time.
The day of exhortation is past. Temperance education today consists in the presentation of absolute, scientific fact. Sentimentality and the multiplication of words no longer mean anything. In dealing with the teen age boy, spare your words, but pile up the scientific, concrete, "seeing-is-believing" data. By proved experiment let him discover through the investigation of himself and others—through books, pictures, slides, etc.—that everything we take for granted is scientific truth. You do not need today to prove to a boy that liquor is bad. Physiology in the public school and the everyday occurrences about him have already furnished him with that knowledge. Furnish him now with the actual facts of the effects of alcohol on the heart centers, lung centers, locomotion centers, knowledge centers, and inhibitory or control centers. Make no statement that is not absolutely scientific. You cannot afford to lie, even to keep the boy from the drink habit. Show concretely—better yet through the investigation of the boy himself—the economic and moral waste of the liquor habit, but, in everything, let the hard, cold facts speak for themselves. Let the boy discover for himself that liquor not only would rob him of his best development, if he should become a victim of the habit, but is lowering the tone of his community and country now.
In the matter of pledge-signing be sure the boy knows what he is doing. A written pledge may mean a different thing to you than to the boy. It is better to discuss the subject minutely with the boy, then let him write his promise in his own language, without any written guide. Do not let the boy be anything but true to himself. Be scientific and educational in all your methods.
When you approach tobacco and cigarettes, do not assume that the boy regards these as bad. He will readily admit that liquor is harmful, but will likely to refuse to recognize that the pipe, cigar, or cigarette are immoral. Your education along this line must be absolutely scientific. The appeal must be to the self and self-interest. They are not good for an athlete; the best scholarship is threatened by them; growing tissue is harmed by indulgence. The appeal must be accurate and must apply now. Do not quote what will happen forty years hence. Boys do not fear old age and its frailties. Present enjoyment is too keen. Do not say that the habit is filthy, etc. Lay the emphasis on health, physical fitness, the joy of present living. The appeal must be one of best development. Economic opportunity also may play a part. If business opportunity is lessened by the habit, prove it. Do not, however, say anything that cannot be supported with incontrovertible evidence. Stick to the scientific facts and the appeal to self-interest.
One thing more! Little good comes from denouncing tobacco in general. A lot of good men, influential men, strong Christian men, use it. If you have facts concerning the bad effects of smoking on mature men that are reliable, make use of them, but be sure you are right about it. Ignorance multiplied by forty or one hundred does not mean wisdom. It is still ignorance. Keep yourself out of the crank army. Do not be so intemperate yourself in thought, speech, and action as to lessen your influence. Temporizing will not do the work, but let us be wise in our approach to the subject before boys, whose viewpoint cannot be expected to be that of adults.
Liquor and the cigarette are national perils, and both of them, for the sake of the teen age boy, must be banished from the land.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON TEMPERANCE AND THE TEEN AGE
Chappel.—Evils of Alcohol (.60).
Horsely.—Alcohol and the Human Body ($1.00).
Jewett.—Control of Body and Mind (Concerning Cigarettes) (.60).
Scientific Temperance Journal (Monthly) (.60 per year).
Towns.—Injury of Tobacco (Pamphlet, $1.50 per hundred).
The business of the Sunday school is the letting loose of moral and religious impulses for life—the raising of the life, by information, inspiration and opportunity, to its highest possible attainment. The very highest reach that any boy's life can attain is the ideal of life that Jesus has set forth. Nothing less than this can be the aim of the Sunday school. Analyzing this ideal, we find that this means that the boy must physically, socially, mentally, and religiously find the best, build it into his life, and attain unto the "measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." Anything that does not contribute to this end, in the principle or method of the Sunday school, is wrong. Likewise, anything, tradition or prejudice, that keeps the school from reaching the boy for the Christ-ideal is a positive affront to the Lord of the Church. The Sunday school deals with a living, breathing boy—not a theory, but a real combination of flesh, bone, muscle, nerve and blood. It must minister to the needs of this combination in a generous way, with physical, through-the-week activities, not to induce it to attend Sunday school for worship and Bible study, but because the highest good of the combination demands these things. The school also should see that this living, breathing boy, who, by God's law of life, thinks and moves by his thought, should receive the best opportunity to develop his mind by supporting the state institutions in the community for that purpose, and also in providing culture, recreation-education within the confines of its own particular sphere. In addition to this, recognizing that the boy belongs to the social life of the community, and "that no man liveth unto himself or dieth unto himself," the Sunday school must recognize its obligation to the community, as well as to the boy, and furnish him an opportunity for the best social adjustment. The Kingdom of God is a saved community of saved lives. It is best represented in the Scriptures as a city, a golden city, without death, crying, or sorrow, all of them intensely social things, as are their opposites, also. Every lesson the school gives the boy socially, every chance it affords him to learn by contact with his fellows of either sex, means just one more effort for the Kingdom. Moreover, the Kingdom is a community of saved bodies, saved minds, saved social relations and saved spirits, or a place or group where the best dominates—the will of God rules over all lesser things, changing and making them over into the best. Thus the Kingdom is where life appreciates, enjoys, respects, and honors all of God's gifts, whether it be body, mind, social relations, or material or spiritual things. The task of the Sunday school, then, is to reach out unswervingly, enthusiastically after these ends for the adolescent boy. Like the commandments, he that transgresseth in one fails in all, in the largest, truest sense.
The work of the Sunday school, summed up briefly, is to round out the boy by all good things that he may see and know and acknowledge Jesus Christ, the Master of Men, as the Master and Lord of his life, too. Any step less than the joyous acceptance of the Son of God as Saviour of his life is to miss the mark entirely. This is the end of all Sunday school principle and method.
Further, Jesus Christ, as Saviour of Life, is not an idea, a theory, a belief, but a practical, everyday, every-minute influence. "For me to live is Christ." From this time forth everything in life is done in the Christ-spirit. The boy does not cease to be a boy in the acceptance. He is now a Christian boy, not a mature, Christian man. He still loves play, but play is not marred now by the tricks that minister to self. Play ministers now both to self and others. It does not nor cannot leave out self, however. It saves self. So, with all things else in life, real life that is lived seven days in the week, twenty-four hours in the day among his fellows—and one week following without break the other. Saviour of Life means saviour of body, of mind, of social contacts, of spirit. It means more than formal religion, the attendance of services, the saying of prayers, the observance of customs—these are all excellent and necessary, but to be saved by the Saviour of Men means new life, or life with a new, saved meaning: "I come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly" (overflowingly). This is the great objective of the Sunday school.
As soon as a life knows Jesus as Saviour, it asks the question, "What wilt thou have me to do, Lord?" Notice, it is not, what shall I believe, or what shall I cast out of my life? Doing regulates both of these, and the "expulsive power of a new affection" settles nearly every problem by displacement. This, after all, is Christianity—to be "In Christ." "Not to be ministered unto, but to minister." "He that would be greatest, let him be the servant of all." The quality of Christianity is Service. The task of the Sunday school is the raising of the life by information, inspiration and opportunity to its highest possible attainment. Christian service is both the highest and the best. To the acknowledgment of Jesus as Saviour and Lord, then, must be added the free, voluntary, loving service for others in His name. This is the Upbuilding of the Spiritual Life of the Boy.
What shall be used, then, for this purpose? Everything that will minister to the result—Organization, Leadership, Bible Study, Through-the-Week Activity, Material Equipment, Teaching, Song, Prayer, Reproof, Inspiration, Guidance, and all else that the Sunday school may know or discover. Two factors in it all are preeminent: Christ and the Boy. All else are but means. The boy a loving, serving follower of his Lord! This is the endless end.
What should the Sunday school do to achieve this? Reach to the utmost, strive to the uttermost, use every resource, redeem every opportunity, create, discover and harness every method, hold the boy to his best, patiently see him develop, give him the material and spiritual elements for his growth, afford him opportunity to find himself, help him to crystalize his thought for life and lovingly aid him to meet, know and acknowledge his Lord.
Thus the boy will be "built up in our most holy faith"—the faith that loves and serves in healthy life for the joy of living.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE BOY'S SPIRITUAL LIFE
Alexander (Editor).—Boy Training (Chapter on "The Goal of Adolescence") (.75).
Sunday School and the Teens (Chapter on "The Church's Provision for Adolescent Spiritual Life") ($1.00).
Boys' Work Message, Men and Religion Movement (Chapters on "The Boy's Religious Needs" and "The Message of Christianity to Boyhood") ($1.00).
The greatest problem that faces the Sunday school and Church as it seeks to meet the needs of the boys and girls of the teen age is leadership. The organized men's and women's Bible classes may meet that need. In fact, the success and ultimate value of these classes lie in their response and ability to face and supply this growing need.
God works best through incarnation. When he wanted to tell men who he was, what he was, and how he wanted men to live, he spoke through prophets, priests, patriarchs, and kings, and the Old Testament writings came to us this way. However, men did not seem to understand the message, and for nearly four hundred years he ceased to speak. Then, "in the fullness of time," he came himself in the person of his own Son—born in the womb after the fashion of a human baby, passed through boyhood in the likeness of a boy and on into manhood as a man—to teach us who he was, what he was, and how he wanted us to live; and Jesus is just God spelling himself out in human history in the language that men understand. This is incarnation, and as he was compelled to pour himself out into man to reveal himself to men, so men and women who have seen him must literally pour themselves out—incarnate themselves—into the lives of growing boys and girls if these boys and girls of the teen age are to know him.
Leadership has always been the cry of the world and the Church, and the history of both is written in biography. The Pharaoh, the Cæsar, Charlemagne, Peter the Great, William the Silent, Henry of Navarre, Queen Elizabeth, Ferdinand and Isabella, Columbus, the Pilgrim Fathers, Washington, Lincoln, and the names of the great on the world's scroll of fame tell the world's story. The Christ, Peter, John, Paul, Augustine, Savonarola, Huss, Wycliffe, Luther, Zwingli, Knox, Roger, Williams, Wesley, Finney, Moody, Booth; and "what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of 'those' of whom the world was not worthy," and whose splendid achievements fill out the glorious history of the Church—these, all of these, in their life and effort constitute the story of the Kingdom.
The story is not yet complete. Still the world writes its progress in the names of its great ones. And yet, as always, the Church must look for its progress to its Christ-kissed men and women. While teen age boys and girls escape us at the rate of one hundred thousand a year, the need for leadership is among us.
There is no boy problem. There is no girl problem. Boys and girls are the same yesterday, today and forever. The processes of their developing life are as the laws of the Medes and Persians, without change, eternal as the hills. Like the poor, they are always with us. There is neither boy nor girl problem; it is a problem of the man and a problem of the woman. Leadership is the key that unlocks the door of the teen age for the Church.
The need of the Sunday school in the teen age today is leadership. The organized classes for men and women can solve the problem of the Church among the teen age boys and girls. The number of teachers an organized adult class produces is the measure of its ultimate usefulness in the Kingdom.
The problem of the Sunday school, then, can be solved by men teachers for boys' classes. The more masculine the Sunday school becomes the deeper will be the boy's interest. A virile, active Christianity will challenge the boy; and all other things being equal, the man teacher can present such a Christianity. In some places this will not be possible because of the dearth of men due to the lack of any sense of Christian obligation on the part of the males of the community to the growing boy. Where real men are missing, we will be forced of necessity to fall back on the big-hearted women that have so long stood in the breach. It may be well, also, to add that merely being a male does not constitute a man or manhood. Some men will need to strengthen themselves to do their duty as the leaders and teachers of boys in the Sunday school.
None but the strongest teachers should be selected. A boy of high school age quickly detects weakness in a teacher. Selection of just "any one" to teach a class is sure failure. The most important element in organization is leadership. The teacher should aim to become more of a leader than teacher. Boys' classes should be taught by men, and women should teach classes of girls. It is impossible for a man to lead girls, and just as impossible for girls to be led by a man.
With the period of adolescence come problems which can be understood and solved only by those who have passed through the same experience. Manly Christian leadership will help boys to grow naturally into Christian manhood, while only the kind, sympathetic touch of the conscientious Christian woman leader can help the girl in developing normally into honored and respected Christian womanhood.
The conscientious Christian leader will keep in mind his obligation to the individual members of the class. By reading and study he will become acquainted with the characteristics of the teen age life, with a view to planning such activities, for both the Sunday and the mid-week session, as will eventually result in the development of stalwart Christian manhood.
The successful teacher of the teen age class—
(a) Always sees and plans things from the viewpoint of the pupil.
(b) Teaches the scholar and not the lesson.
(c) Knows personally every member of the class—the home, school, business, play, social and religious life of every member. This is often accomplished through an invitation to dinner, a walk, a car ride, or some other plan, which will bring the scholar and teacher together naturally. With this knowledge in hand, the teacher can prepare the lesson to fit the individual needs of the pupil.
(d) Visits the parents.
(e) Is always on hand, unless unavoidably prevented, in which case the president of the class is notified.
(f) Has a capable substitute teacher to supply in the event of such absence.
(g) Realizes that the function of his office is that of friend and counselor.
(h) Follows up an absentee (1) through the other members of the class; (2) Membership Committee; (3) telephone; (4) postcard or letter; (5) personal call.
(i) Does not play favorites, nor neglect the less aggressive scholar.
(j) Has a plan and an objective, with special emphasis on the training of older boys for leadership of groups of younger boys.
(k) Always keeps in mind that the supreme task and privilege of the teacher are to win the boy to Christ for service in His church.