The Boy and the Sunday School by John L. Alexander

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THE BOY
AND THE
SUNDAY SCHOOL

A Manual of Principle and Method for
the Work of the Sunday School
with Teen Age Boys

JOHN L. ALEXANDER

_Superintendent Secondary Division
International Sunday School Association
Author and Editor "Boy Training," "The Sunday
School and the Teens," "Boys' Hand
Book, Boy Scouts of America"
"Sex Instruction for Boys," etc_.

=Introduction by=
MARION LAWRANCE

_General Secretary, World's and
International Sunday School Associations_

ASSOCIATION PRESS
NEW YORK: 347 MADISON AVENUE
1920

COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF
YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS

THIS LITTLE BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE MEN WHO MUST FACE ALL THE PROBLEMS
OF THE SUNDAY SCHOOL--TO THE MEN WHO HOLD THE KEY TO ALL THE LIFE AND
PROGRESS OF THE SCHOOL--THE SUPERINTENDENTS OF NORTH AMERICA.

INTRODUCTION

The Sunday school chapter of Church history is now being written. It
comes late in the volume, but those who are writing it and those who are
reading it realize--as never before--that the Sunday school is rapidly
coming to its rightful place. In the Sunday school, as elsewhere, it is
the little child who has led the way to improvement. The commanding
appeal of the little ones opened the door of advance, and, as a result,
the Elementary Division of the school has outstripped the rest in its
efficiency.

Where children go adults will follow, and so we discover that the Adult
Division was the next to receive attention, until today its manly
strength and power are the admiration of the Church.

Strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless true, that the middle
division, called the Secondary, and covering the "Teen Age," has been
sadly neglected--the joint in the harness of our Sunday school fabric.
Here we have met with many a signal defeat, for the doors of our Sunday
schools have seemed to swing outward and the boys and girls have gone
from us, many of them never to return. We have busied ourselves to such
an extent in studying the problem of the boy and the girl that the real
problem--the problem of leadership--has been overlooked.

The Secondary Division is the challenge of the Sunday school and of the
Church today. It is during the "Teen Age" that more decisions are made
_for_ Christ and _against_ him than in any other period of life. It is
here that Sunday school workers have found their greatest difficulty in
meeting the issue, largely because they have not understood the material
with which they have to deal.

We are rejoiced, however, to know that the Secondary Division is now
coming to be better understood and recognized as the firing line of the
Sunday school.

What has been needed and is now being supplied is authoritative
literature concerning this critical period. Indeed, the Sunday school
literature for the Secondary Division is probably appearing more rapidly
now than that for any other division of the school.

This book is a choice contribution to that literature. It comes from a
man who has devoted his life to the boys and girls, and who is probably
the highest authority in our country in this Department. The largest
contribution he is making to the advancement of the whole Sunday school
work is in showing the fascination, as well as the possibilities, of the
Secondary Division. We are sure this little book will bring rich returns
to the Sunday schools, because of the large number who will be
influenced, through reading its pages, to devote their lives to the
bright boys and fair girls in whom is the hope, not only of the Church,
but of the World.

=Marion Lawrance.=

Chicago, June 1, 1913.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

Foreword 13

I The Home and the Boy 23

II The Public School and the Boy 32

III The Church and the Boy 37

IV The Sunday School or Church School 41

V The Boy and the Sunday School 48

VI Fundamental Principles in Sunday School Work with Boys 57

VII Method and Organization 62

VIII The Organized Sunday School Bible Class 74

IX Bible Study for Boys 93

X Through-the-Week Activities for Boys' Organized Classes 104

XI The Boys' Department in the Sunday School 120

XII Inter-Sunday School Effort for Boys 135

XIII The Older Boys' Conference or Congress 138

XIV The Secondary Division or Teen Age Boys' Crusade 158

XV Sex Education for Boys and the Sunday School 176

XVI The Teen Boy and Missions 193

XVII Temperance and the Teen Age 202

XVIII Building up the Boy's Spiritual Life 208

XIX The Teen Age Teacher 215

XX Danger Points 265

XXI The Rural Sunday School 268

XXII The Relation of the Sunday
School to Community Organizations 277

FOREWORD

A great deal of material has come from the pens of various writers on
boy life in the last few years. Quite a little, also, has been written
about the Sunday school, and a few attempts have been made to hitch the
boy of the teen years and the Sunday school together. Most of these
attempts, however, have been far from successful; due, in part, to lack
of knowledge of the boy on the one hand, or of the Sunday school on the
other. Generous criticism of the Sunday school has been made by experts
on boy life, but this generally has been nullified by the fact that the
critics have had no adequate touch with the Sunday school or its
problems--their bread-and-butter experience lay in another field.

"The Men and Religion Forward Movement," in its continent-wide work,
discovered not a few of the problems of the Sunday school, and
attempted a partial solution in the volume on boys' work in the
"Messages" of the Movement. It was but partial, however, first, because
the volume tried to deal with the boy, the church and the community all
together, and second, because it failed to take into account the fact
that there are two sexes in the church school and that the boy, however
important, constitutes but a section of the Sunday school and its
problems.

In view of this, it may not be amiss to set forth in a new volume a more
or less thorough study of the Sunday school and the adolescent or teen
age boy, the one in relationship to the other, and at the same time to
set forth as clearly as possible the present plans, methods and attitude
of the Sunday school, denominationally and interdenominationally.

In the preparation of this little book I have utilized considerable
material written by me for other purposes. Generous use has also been
made of the Secondary Division Leaflets of the International Sunday
School Association. A deep debt of gratitude is mine to the members of
the International Secondary Committee: Messrs. E.H. Nichols, Frank L.
Brown, Eugene C. Foster, William C. Johnston, William H. Danforth, S.F.
Shattuck, R.A. Waite, Mrs. M.S. Lamoreaux, and the Misses Minnie E.
Kennedy, Anna Branch Binford and Helen Gill Lovett, for their great help
and counsel in preparing the above leaflets. Grateful acknowledgment is
also made to Miss Margaret Slattery, Mrs. J.W. Barnes, Rev. Charles D.
Bulla, D.D., Rev. William E. Chalmers, B.D., Rev. C.H. Hubbell, D.D.,
Rev. A.L. Phillips, D.D., Rev. J.C. Robertson, B.D., and the Rev. R.P.
Shepherd, Ph.D., for their advice and suggestions as members of the
Committee on Young People's Work of the Sunday School Council of
Evangelical Denominations. The plans and methods of these leaflets have
the approval of the denominational and interdenominational leaders of
North America. I wish, also, to make public mention of the great
assistance that Mr. Preston G. Orwig and my colleague, Rev. William A.
Brown, have rendered me in the practical working out of many of the
methods contained in this volume. Two articles written for the "Boys'
Work" volume of the Men and Religion Messages, and one for "Making
Religion Efficient" have been modified somewhat for this present work.
The aim has been to set forth as completely as possible the relationship
of the Sunday school and the boy of the teen years in the light of the
genius of the Sunday school.

No attempt has been made in this volume to discuss the boy
psychologically or otherwise. This has been done so often that the
subject has become matter-of-fact. My little volume on "Boy Training,"
so generously shared in by other writers who are authorities on their
subjects, may be referred to for information of this sort. "The Sunday
School and the Teens" will, likewise, afford valuable technical
information about the Sunday school, it being the report of the
International Commission on Adolescence.

This book is largely a volume of method and suggestion for leaders and
teachers in the Sunday school, to promote the better handling of the
so-called boy problem; for the Sunday school must solve the problem of
getting and holding the teen age boy, if growth and development are to
mark its future progress. Of the approximately ten million teen age boys
in the field of the International Sunday School Association, ninety per
cent are not now reached by the Sunday school. Of the five per cent
enrolled (less than 1,500,000) seventy-five per cent are dropping from
its membership. Every village, town and city contributes its share
toward this unwarranted leakage. The problem is a universal one.

The teen age represents the most important period of life. Ideals and
standards are set up, habits formed and decisions made that will make or
mar a life. The high-water mark of conversion is reached at fifteen, and
between the ages of thirteen and eighteen more definite stands are made
for the Christian life than in all the other combined years of a
lifetime.

It marks the period of adolescence, when the powers and passions of
manhood enter into the life of the boy, and when the will is not strong
enough to control these great forces. Powers must be unfolded before
ability to use them can develop, and instincts must be controlled while
these are in the process of development. The importance of systematic
adult leadership during this period of storm and stress cannot be too
strongly emphasized.

The teen age boy is naturally religious. Opportunity, however, must be
given him to express his religion in forms that appeal to and are
understood by him. In other words, his religion, like his nature, is a
positive quantity, and will be carried by him throughout the day, to
dominate all of the activities in which he engages.

The problem also reaches through the entire teen years and must be
regarded as a whole, rather than as a series of successive stages, each
stage being separate and complete in itself.

The great problem, then, which confronts us is to keep the boys in the
church and Sunday school during the critical years of adolescence and
to bring to their support the strength which comes from God's Word and
true Christian friendship, to the end that they may be related to the
Son of God as Saviour and Lord through personal faith and loyal service.

GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alexander, Editor.--Boy Training (.75). The Sunday School and the Teens.
(The Report of the International Commission on Adolescence) ($1.00).

Alexander, Editor.--The Teens and the Rural Sunday School. (The Report
of the International Commission on Rural Adolescence.) _In preparation_.

Boys' Work Message (Men and Religion Movement) ($1.00).

Fiske.--Boy Life and Self-Government ($1.00).

Hall.--Developing into Manhood (Sex Education Series) (.25)

Hall.--Life's Beginnings (Sex Education Series) (.25)

Secondary Division Leaflets, International Sunday School Association
(Free).

1. Secondary Division Organization.

2. The Organized Class.

3. State and County Work.

4. Through-the-week Activities.

5. The Secondary Division Crusade.

Swift--Youth and the Race ($1.50).

THE BOY AND HIS EDUCATION

Three institutions are responsible for the education of the adolescent
boy. By "education" is meant not merely the acquisition of certain forms
of related knowledge, but the symmetrical adaptation of the life to the
community in which it lives. The three institutions that cooperate in
the community for this purpose are: the _home_, the _school_, and the
_church_. There are many organizations and orders that have a large
place in the life of the growing boy, but these must be viewed solely in
the light of auxiliaries to the home, school and church in the
production of efficient boyhood and trained manhood.

BIBLIOGRAPHY ON EDUCATION

Draper.--American Education ($2.00).

Payot.--Education of the Will ($1.50).

I

THE HOME AND THE BOY

The greatest of the three institutions affecting boy life, from the very
fact that it is the primary one, is the home. The home is the basis of
the community, the community merely being the aggregation of a large
number of well-organized or ill-organized homes. The first impressions
the boy receives are through his home life, and the bent of his whole
career is often determined by the home relationships.

The large majority of homes today are merely places in which a boy may
eat and sleep. The original prerogatives of the father and mother, so
far as they pertain to the physical, social, mental and moral
development of boyhood, have been farmed out to other organizations in
the community. The home life of today greatly differs from that of
previous generations. This is very largely due to social and economic
conditions. Our social and economic revolution has made vast inroads
upon our normal home life, with the result that the home has been
seriously weakened and the boy has been deprived of his normal home
heritage.

To give the home at least some of the old power that it used to have
over the boy life, there must needs be recognized the very definite
place a boy must have in the family councils. The general tendency
today, as far as the boy is concerned, is an utter disregard on the part
of the father and mother of the importance of the boy as a partner in
the family. He is merely the son of his father and mother, and their
obligations to him seemingly end in providing him with wholesome food,
warm clothing, a place to sleep and a room in which to study and play in
common with other members of the household. Very little thought is given
on the part of the father and mother to the real part the boy should
play in the direction of the family life. Family matters are never
determined with the help of his judgment. They are even rarely discussed
in his presence. Instead of being a partner in the family life, doing
his share of the family work and being recognized as a necessary part of
its welfare, he is only recognized as a dependent member, to be cared
for until he is old enough to strike out and make a place for himself.
This sometimes is modified when the boy comes to the wage-earning age,
when he is required to assist in the support of the family, but even
then his place in the family councils to determine the policy of the
family is usually a very small one.

In the home of today few fathers and mothers seem to realize the claim
that the boy has upon them in the matter of comradeship. The parent
looks upon himself very largely in the light of the provider, and but
very little attention is paid to the companionship call that is coming
from the life of his boy. After a strenuous day's work the father is
often physically incapacitated for such comradeship and only the
strongest effort of will on his part can force him to recognize this
fundamental need of his boy's life. It is just as necessary that the
father should play with and be the companion of his boy as it is for him
to see that he has good food, warm clothing, and a comfortable bed to
sleep in. The father generally is the boy's hero up to a certain age.
This seems to be an unwritten, natural law of the boy's life, and the
father often forfeits this worship and respect of his boy by failing to
afford him the natural companionship necessary to keep it alive. In
addition to a place and a voice in the councils of the family, it is
necessary that the boy should have steady parental companionship to
bring out the best that is in him.

The ownership of personal property and its recognition by the parent in
the life of the boy is fundamental to the boy's later understanding of
the home and community life. Comparatively few fathers and mothers ever
recognize the deep call of the boy life to own things, and frequently
the boy's property is taken from him and he is deprived of its use as a
means of punishment for some breach of home discipline. In many families
the boy grows up altogether without any adequate idea of what the right
of private property really is, with the result that when he reaches the
adolescent years and is swayed by the gang spirit, whatever comes in his
way, as one of the gang, is appropriated by him to the gang use. This
means that the boy, because of his ignorance, becomes a ward of the
Juvenile Court and a breaker of community laws. The tendency, however,
today in legal procedure is to hold the parents of such a boy liable for
the offenses which may be committed. Instead of talking about juvenile
delinquency today we are beginning to comprehend the larger meaning of
parental and community delinquency. Out of nearly six hundred cases
which came before the Juvenile Court in San Francisco last year only
nineteen, by the testimony of the judge, were due to delinquency on the
part of the offender himself. The majority of the remaining cases were
due to parental delinquency, or neglect of the father and mother. A
real part in the home life may be given to the boy by recognizing his
individual and sole claim to certain things in the home life.

Failure on the part of the father and mother to recognize the growth of
the boy likewise tends to interfere with normal relationships in the
home. Many a father and mother fail to see and appreciate the fact that
their boy really ceases to be a child. Because of this, parents very
often fail to show the proper respect for the personality of the boy,
riding rough-shod over his feelings and will. There follows in matters
of this kind a natural resentment on the part of the boy which sometimes
makes him moody and reticent. This, in its turn, causes the parents to
try to curb what they consider a disagreeable disposition on the part of
the boy. Sometimes this takes the form of resentment at the fact that
the boy wishes at times to be alone, and so fathers and mothers are
continually on the watch to prevent the boy from really having any time
of his own. All of these things put together have but one logical
result, the ultimate break between the boy and the home, and the
departure of the boy at the first real opportunity to strike out for
himself, thus sundering all the home relationships.

Perhaps one of the saddest things in the home life today is the neglect
of the father to see that his boy receives the necessary knowledge
concerning sex, that his life may be safeguarded from the moral perils
of the community. This is not always a willful breach of duty on the
part of the father, but usually comes from ignorance as to how to broach
this subject to the boy. A great many growing lives would be saved from
moral taint and become a blessing instead of a curse if the father
discharged his whole duty to his growing son, by putting at his disposal
the knowledge which is necessary to an understanding of the functions of
the sex life.

To recapitulate, several things are necessary to bring about real
relationships in the home life between the parents and the boy. These
are: a place for the boy in the family councils as a partner in the
home life, the boy's right to companionship with his parents, the
privilege and responsibility of private ownership, the right a boy has
to his personality and privacy, and tactful and timely instruction in
matters of sex. This might be enlarged by the parents' privilege of
caring for and developing social life for the boy in the home, a
carefully planned participation in its working life, instructions in
thrift and saving, and a general cooperation with the school and the
church, as well as the auxiliary organizations with which the boy may be
connected, so that the physical, social, mental and spiritual life of
the boy may become well balanced and symmetrical. Add to this the
Christian example of the father and mother, as expressed in the everyday
life of the home, and especially through family worship and a
recognition of the Divine Being at meal time, and without any cant or
undue pressure there will be produced such a wholesome home environment
as to assure the boy of an intelligent appreciation of not only his
father and mother, but of his home privileges in general, and of the
value of real religion.

BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE HOME

Allen.--Making the Best of Our Children. Two vols. ($1.00 each).

Field.--Finger-posts to Children's Reading ($1.00).

Fiske.--Boy Life and Self-Government ($1.00).

Kirkpatrick.--Fundamentals of Child Study ($1.25).

Putnam.--Education for Parenthood (.65).

II

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL AND THE BOY

Of the primary institutions that are cooperating in the life of the boy
today, without a doubt the public school is the most efficient and most
serviceable. Today the school offers and compels a boy to get certain
related courses of study which will make him a better citizen by fitting
him in a measure for the procuring of an intelligent and adequate
livelihood. The school by no means is perfect in this matter, and as
long as over fifty per cent. of the boys fail to graduate even from the
eighth grade in the grammar school, and but one per cent. go to college,
there will be great need of a reconstruction of its methods of work.
Without question, the curricula of the public school should be modified
so as to meet the needs of all the boys in the community and vocational
and industrial training should have larger place in our educational
plans. The boy who is to earn his livelihood by his hands and head
should receive as much attention and intelligent instruction as the boy
who aims at a professional career. However, with all its limitations,
the public school is the only institution which has a definite policy in
the education of the boy. The leaders of the public school system know
whither they are going and the road they must travel to reach the goal.

Perhaps the greatest weakness of our public school system today is the
inability, because of our division between church and state, to give the
boy any religious instruction in connection with what is styled "secular
education." For the first time in the history of the world has religious
instruction been barred from the public school, and that in our free
America. Most intelligent Christian men now realize that, because of the
division between church and state in our country, religious instruction
in the public school is impossible, as the school is the instrument of
the state in the production of wealth-producing citizenship. The men who
with clear vision see these things also see this limitation of the
public school system and recognize that the church has a larger mission
to fulfill in America than in any other country, it the education of the
boy is to be symmetrical and well balanced.

Perhaps the problem of our public school system of education which has
not yet been solved is the vast possibility of the directed play life of
our boys. It is well known by students of boy life that the character of
the boy is very largely determined by the informal education which comes
from his part in sports and play. In some cities the public school has
sought to give partial direction to the play life of the boy through
public school athletic leagues, but even these leagues touch but a small
part of the boy life of any community. Besides the injection of
industrial and vocational training in large quantity in public school
curricula, more thought and place will have to be given to the
expression of the boy life in play than is now provided for.

In addition to this, the home and the church must render a united
cooperation to make the school life of the boy what it ought to be. The
Parents' and Teachers' Association in the public school is doing much to
bring this about between the home and the school, and it may be that a
Teachers' Association, consisting of officials and teachers of the
public school and the officials and teachers of the Sunday school, might
bring about a closer cooperation in the secular and religious education
of the boyhood of the community. Both these associations, if fostered,
would certainly tend to create a wholesome school atmosphere, which
would render a tremendous service in safeguarding the moral life of the
boy.

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