Religious Education in the Family
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Title: Religious Education in the Family
Author: Henry Frederick Cope
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RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE FAMILY
by
HENRY F. COPE
General Secretary of the Religious Education Association
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago, Illinois
Copyright 1915 by
The University of Chicago
All Rights Reserved
Published April 1915
Second Impression September 1915
Third Impression March 1916
Fourth Impression June 1917
Fifth Impression August 1920
Sixth Impression July 1922
Seventh Impression September 1922
Composed and Printed By
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago, Illinois
The Baker and Taylor Company
New York
The Cambridge University Press
London
The Maruzen-Kabushiki-Kaisha
Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Sendai
The Mission Book Company
Shanghai
PREFACE
In the work of religious education, with which the present series of
books is concerned, the life of the family rightly occupies a central
place. The church has always realized its duty to exhort parents to
bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, but
very little has ever been done to enable parents to study systematically
and scientifically the problem of religious education in the family.
Today parents' classes are being formed in many churches; Christian
Associations, women's clubs, and institutes are studying the subject;
individual parents are becoming more and more interested in the rational
performance of their high duties. And there is a general desire for
guidance. As the full bibliography at the end of this volume and the
references in connection with each chapter indicate, there is available
a very large literature dealing with the various elements of the
problem. But a guidebook to organize all this material and to stimulate
independent thought and endeavor is desirable.
To afford this guidance the present volume has been prepared. It is
equally adapted for the thoughtful study of the father and mother who
are seeking help in the moral and religious development of their own
family, and for classes in churches, institutes, and neighborhoods,
where the important problems of the family are to be studied and
discussed. It would be well to begin the use of the book by reading the
suggestions for class work at the end of the volume.
With a confident hope that religion in the family is not to be a wistful
memory of the past but a most vital force in the making of the better
day that is coming, this volume is offered as a contribution and a
summons.
The Editors
New Year's Day, 1915
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. An Interpretation of the Family 1
II. The Present Status of Family Life 10
III. The Permanent Elements in Family Life 27
IV. The Religious Place of the Family 37
V. The Meaning Of Religious Education in the Family 46
VI. The Child's Religious Ideas 60
VII. Directed Activity 75
VIII. The Home as a School 87
IX. The Child's Ideal Life 101
X. Stories and Reading 110
XI. The Use of the Bible in the Home 119
XII. Family Worship 126
XIII. Sunday in the Home 145
XIV. The Ministry of the Table 164
XV. The Boy and Girl in the Family 173
XVI. The Needs of Youth 183
XVII. The Family and the Church 198
XVIII. Children and the School 212
XIX. Dealing with Moral Crises 218
XX. Dealing with Moral Crises (_Continued_) 231
XXI. Dealing with Moral Crises (_Continued_) 240
XXII. Dealing with Moral Crises (_Concluded_) 249
XXIII. The Personal Factors in Religious Education 259
XXIV. Looking to the Future 268
Suggestions for Class Work 281
A Book List 290
Index 297
CHAPTER I
AN INTERPRETATION OF THE FAMILY
§ 1. TAKING THE HOME IN RELIGIOUS TERMS
The ills of the modern home are symptomatic. Divorce, childless
families, irreverent children, and the decadence of the old type of
separate home life are signs of forgotten ideals, lost motives, and
insufficient purposes. Where the home is only an opportunity for
self-indulgence, it easily becomes a cheap boarding-house, a
sleeping-shelf, an implement for social advantage. While it is true that
general economic developments have effected marked changes in domestic
economy, the happiness and efficiency of the family do not depend wholly
on the parlor, the kitchen, or the clothes closet. Rather, everything
depends on whether the home and family are considered in worthy and
adequate terms.
Homes are wrecked because families refuse to take home-living in
religious terms, in social terms of sacrifice and service. In such
homes, organized and conducted to satisfy personal desires rather than
to meet social responsibilities, these desires become ends rather than
agencies and opportunities.
They who marry for lust are divorced for further lust. Selfishness, even
in its form of self-preservation, is an unstable foundation for a home.
It costs too much to maintain a home if you measure it by the personal
advantages of parents. What hope is there for useful and happy family
life if the newly wedded youth have both been educated in selfishness,
habituated to frivolous pleasures, and guided by ideals of success in
terms of garish display? Yet what definite program for any other
training does society provide? Do the schools and colleges, Sunday
schools and churches teach youth a better way? How else shall they be
trained to take the home and family in terms that will make for
happiness and usefulness? It is high time to take seriously the task of
educating people to religious efficiency in the home.
§ 2. THE RELIGIOUS MOTIVE
The family needs a religious motive. More potent for happiness than
courses in domestic economy will be training in sufficient domestic
motives. It will take much more than modern conveniences, bigger
apartments, or even better kitchens to make the new home. Essentially
the problem is not one of mechanics but of persons. What we call the
home problem is more truly a _family_ problem. It centers in persons;
the solution awaits a race with new ideals, educated to live as more
than dust, for more than dirt, for personality rather than for
possessions. We need young people who establish homes, not simply
because they feel miserable when separated, nor because one needs a
place in which to board and the other needs a boarder, but because the
largest duty and joy of life is to enrich the world with other lives and
to give themselves in high love to making those other lives of the
greatest possible worth to the world.
The family must come to a recognition of social obligations. We all hope
for the coming ideal day. Everywhere men and women are answering to
higher ideals of life. But the new day waits for a new race. Modern
emphasis on the child is a part of present reaction from materialism.
New social ideals are personal. We seek a better world for the sake of a
higher race. The emphasis on child-welfare has a social rather than a
sentimental basis. The family is our great chance to determine childhood
and so to make the future. The child of today is basic to the social
welfare of tomorrow. He is our chance to pay to tomorrow all that we owe
to yesterday. The family as the child's life-school is thus central to
every social program and problem.
§ 3. WIDER CHILD-WELFARE
This age knows that man does not live by bread alone. Interest in
child-welfare is for the sake of the child himself, not for the sake of
his clothes or his physical condition. Concern about soap and
sanitation, hygiene and the conveniences of life grows because these all
go to make up the soil in which the person grows. There is danger that
our emphasis on child-welfare may be that of the tools instead of the
man; that we may become enmeshed in the mechanism of well-being and lose
sight of the being who should be well. To fail at the point of character
is to fail all along the line. And we fail altogether, no matter how
many bathtubs we give a child, how many playgrounds, medical
inspections, and inoculations, unless that child be in himself strong
and high-minded, loving truth, hating a lie, and habituated to live in
good-will with his fellows and with high ideals for the universe. Modern
interest in the material factors of life is on account of their potency
in making real selfhood; we acknowledge the importance of the physical
as the very soil in which life grows. But the fruits are more than the
soil, and a home exists for higher purposes than physical conveniences;
these are but its tools to its great end. Somehow for purposes of social
well-being we must raise our thinking of the family to the aim of the
development of efficient, rightly minded character. The family must be
seen as making spiritual persons.
§ 4. THE COST OF A FAMILY
Taking the home in religious terms will mean, then, conceiving it as an
institution with a religious purpose, namely, that of giving to the
world children who are adequately trained and sufficiently motived to
live the social life of good-will. The family exists to give society
developed, efficient children. It fails if it does not have a religious,
a spiritual product. It cannot succeed except by the willing
self-devotion of adult lives to this spiritual, personal purpose.
A family is the primary social organization for the elementary purpose
of breeding the species, nurturing and training the young. This is its
physiological basis. But its duties cannot be discharged on the
physiological plane alone. This elementary physiological function is
lifted to a spiritual level by the aim of character and the motive of
love. Families cannot be measured by their size; they must be measured
by the character of their products. If quality counts anywhere it counts
here, though it is well to remember that it takes some reasonable
quantity to make right quality in each.
The family needs a religious motive. It demands sacrifice. To follow
lower impulses is to invite disaster. The home breeds bitterness and
sorrow wherever men and women court for lust, marry for social standing,
and maintain an establishment only as a part of the game of social
competition. To sow the winds of passion, ease, idle luxury, pride, and
greed is to reap the whirlwind. Moreover, it is to miss the great
chance of life, the chance to find that short cut to happiness which
men call pain and suffering.
A family is humanity's great opportunity to walk the way of the cross.
Mothers know that; some fathers know it; some children grow up to learn
it. In homes where this is true, where all other aims are subordinated
to this one of making the home count for high character, to training
lives into right social adjustment and service, the primary emphasis is
not on times and seasons for religion; religion is the life of that
home, and in all its common living every child learns the way of the
great Life of all. In vain do we torture children with adult religious
penances, long prayers, and homilies, thinking thereby to give them
religious training. The good man comes out of the good home, the home
that is good in character, aim, and organization, not sporadically but
permanently, the home where the religious spirit, the spirit of
idealism, and the sense of the infinite and divine are diffused rather
than injected. The inhuman, antisocial vampires, who suck their
brothers' blood, whether they be called magnates or mob-leaders,
grafters or gutter thieves, often learned to take life in terms of graft
by the attitude and atmosphere of their homes.[1]
§ 5. MOTIVES FOR A STUDY OF THE FAMILY
The modern family is worthy of our careful study. It demands painstaking
attention, both because of its immediate importance to human happiness
and because of its potentiality for the future of society. The kind of
home and the character of family life which will best serve the world
and fulfil the will of God cannot be determined by sentiment or
supposition. We are under the highest and sternest obligation to
discover the laws of the family, those social laws which are determined
by its nature and purpose, to find right standards for family life, to
discriminate between the things that are permanent and those that are
passing, between those we must conserve and those we must discard, to be
prepared to fit children for the finer and higher type of family life
that must come in the future.
Methods of securing family efficiency will not be discovered by
accident. If it is worth while to study the minor details, such as
baking cakes and sweeping floors, surely it is even more important to
study the larger problems of organization and discipline. There is a
science of home-direction and an art of family living; both must be
learned with patient study.
It is a costly thing to keep a home where honor, the joy of love, and
high ideals dwell ever. It costs time, pleasures, and so-called social
advantages, as well as money and labor. It must cost thought, study,
and investigation. It demands and deserves sacrifice; it is too sacred
to be cheap. The building of a home is a work that endures to eternity,
and that kind of work never was done with ease or without pain and loss
and the investment of much time. Patient study of the problems of the
family is a part of the price which all may pay.
No nobler social work, no deeper religious work, no higher educational
work is done anywhere than that of the men and women, high or humble,
who set themselves to the fitting of their children for life's business,
equipping them with principles and habits upon which they may fall back
in trying hours, and making of home the sweetest, strongest, holiest,
happiest place on earth.
Heaven only knows the price that must be paid for that; heaven only
knows the worth of that work. But if we are wise we shall each take up
our work for our world where it lies nearest to us, in co-operation with
parents, in service and sacrifice as parents or kin, our work in the
shop where manhood is in the making, where it is being made fit to dwell
long in the land, in the family at home.
I. References for Study
Edward Lyttleton, _The Corner-Stone of Education_, chaps. i, vii.
Putnam, $1.50.
A. Gandier, "Religious Education in the Home," _Religious
Education_, June, 1914, pp. 233-42.
II. Further Reading
_The Family a Religious Agency_
C.F. and C.B. Thwing, _The Family_. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, $1.60.
J.D. Folsom, _Religious Education in the Home_. Eaton & Mains,
$0.75.
G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_. Revell, $1.35.
_The Place of the Family_
A.J. Todd, _The Family as an Educational Agency_. Putnam, $2.00.
W.F. Lofthouse, _Ethics and the Family_. Hodder & Stoughton, $2.50.
J.B. Robins, _The Family a Necessity_. Revell, $1.25.
III. Topics for Discussion
1. Describe the changes within recent times in the conditions of
the home, its work, housing, and supplies. How far have these
changes affected the community of the family, the continuity of its
personal relationships, and its religious service?
2. What are the fundamental causes of family disasters? Admitting
that there are sufficient grounds for divorce in numerous
instances, what other causes enter into the high number of
divorces?
3. State in your own terms the ultimate reasons for the maintenance
of a family.
4. What are the motives which would make people willing to bear the
high cost of founding and conducting a home?
5. What points of emphasis does this study suggest in the matter of
the education of public opinion?
6. State your distinction between the family and the home; which is
the more important and why?
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _The Corner-Stone of Education_, by Edward Lyttleton, headmaster of
Eton, is a striking argument on the determinative influence of parental
habits and attitudes of mind.
CHAPTER II
THE PRESENT STATUS OF FAMILY LIFE
§ 1. CONTRASTED TYPES
In a beautiful village, in one of the farther western states, two men
were discussing the possible future of the home and of family life.
Sitting in the brilliant moonlight, looking through the leafy shades,
watching the lights of a score of homes, each surrounded by lawn and
shade trees, each with its group on the front porch, where vines trailed
and flowers bloomed, listening to the hum of conversation and the
strains of music in one home and another, it seemed, to at least one of
these men, that this type of living could hardly pass away. The separate
home, each family a complete social integer, each with its own circle of
activities and interests, its own group, and its own table and fireside,
seemed too fine and beautiful, too fair and helpful, to perish under
economic pressure. Indeed, one felt that the village home furnished a
setting for life and a soil for character development far higher and
more efficient than could be afforded by any other domestic
arrangement--that it approached the ideal.
But two weeks later two men sat in an upper room, in the second largest
city in America, discussing again the future of the family. Instead of
the quiet music of the village, the clang of street cars filled the
ears, trains rushed by, children shouted from the paved highway,
families were seated by open windows in crowded apartments, seeking cool
air; the total impression was that of being placed in a pigeonhole in a
huge, heated, filing-case, where each separate space was occupied by a
family. One felt the pressure of heated, crowded kitchens, suffocating
little dining-rooms; one knew that the babies lay crying in their beds
at night, gasping their very lives away, and that the young folks were
wandering off to amusement parks and moving-picture shows. Here was an
entirely different picture. How long could family life persist under
these conditions where privacy was almost gone and comfort almost
unknown?
In the village separate home integers appear ideal; in the city they are
possible only to the few. The many, at present, find them a crushing
burden. Desirable as privacy is, it can be purchased at too high a
price. It costs too much to maintain separate kitchens and dining-rooms
under city conditions.
§ 2. COMMUNAL TENDENCIES
Present conditions spell waste, inefficiency, discomfort. The woman
lives all day in stifling rooms, poorly lighted, with the nerve-racking
life of neighbors pouring itself through walls and windows. The men
come from crowded shops and the children from crowded schoolrooms to
crowd themselves into these rooms, to snatch a meal, or to sleep. How
can there be real family life? What joy can there be or what ideals
created in daily discomfort and distress? Little wonder that such homes
are sleeping-places only, that there is no sense of family intercourse
and unity. Little wonder that restaurant life has succeeded family life.
Many hold that we are ready for a movement into community living, that
just as the social life of the separate house porches in the villages
has become communized into the amusement parks in the cities, so all the
activities of the family will move in the same direction. How long could
the family as a unit continue under these conditions?
The village life will persist for a long time; it may be that, when we
apply scientific methods to the transportation of human beings in the
same measure as we have to the moving of pig iron, we can develop large
belts of real village life all around our industrial centers. But more
and more the village tends to become like the city; in other words,
highly organized communal life is the dominant trend today. Just as
business tends to do on a large scale all that can be more economically
done in larger units, so does the home. We must look for the increasing
prevalence of the city type of life for men and women and for families.
§ 3. THE ECONOMICAL DEVELOPMENT
It is worth while to note, in some brief detail, just what changes are
involved in the tendency toward communal living. At the beginning of the
industrial revolution which ushered in the factory period, each family
was a fairly complete unit in itself. The village was little more than a
nucleus of farmhouses, with a few differing types of units, such as
workers in wood, in wearing apparel, and in tools. The home furnished
nearly all its own food, spun and made its clothes, trained its own
children, and knew scarcely any community endeavor or any syndication of
effort except in the church.
The industrial revolution took labor largely out of the home into the
factory. Except for farm life, the husband became an outside worker and
the older boys followed him to the distant shop or factory. Earning a
living ceased to be a family act and became a social act in a larger
sphere. But in this change it ceased to be a part of the family
educational process. Boys who, from childhood up, had gradually learned
their father's trade in the shop or workroom, which was part of the
house, where they played as children in the shavings, or watched the
glowing sparks in the smithy, now missed the process of a father's
discipline and guidance as their hands acquired facility for their
tasks. The home lost the male adults for from nine to twelve hours of
each day, more than two-thirds of the waking period, and thus it lost a
large share of disciplinary guidance. In the rise of the factory system,
to a large extent the family lost the father.
When the workshop left the home its most efficient school was taken from
it. The lessons may have been limited, crude, and deadly practical, but
the method approximated to the ideals which modern pedagogy seeks to
realize. Among the shavings children learned by doing; schooling was
perfectly natural; it involved all the powers; it had the incalculable
value of informality and reality. The father gone and the mother still
fully occupied with her tasks, the children lost that practical training
for life which home industry had afforded. On the one hand, the young
became the victims of idleness and, on the other, the prey of the
voracious factory system.
This condition gave rise to the public-school system. It appealed to
Robert Raikes and others. The school appeared and took over the child.
Of course schools had existed, here and there, long before this, but now
they had an enlarged responsibility; they must act almost in the place
of the parents for the formal training of children. Having lost the
father and older males for the greater portion of the day, the home now
loses the children of from seven to the "'teen" years for five or six
hours of the day. The mother is left at home with the babies. The
family, once living under one roof, now is found scattered; it has
reached out into factory and school. Its hours of unified life have been
markedly reduced.
But the factory system soon had a reflex influence on the home. That
which was made in the factory came back into the home, not only in the
form of the articles formerly made by the men, but in those made by the
women. Clothes, candles, butter, cheese, preserves, and meat--all
formerly home products for the use of the family producing them--now
were prepared in larger quantities, by mechanical processes, and were
brought back into the home. Woman's labor was lightened; the older girls
were liberated from the loom and they began to seek occupation,
education, and diversion according to their opportunities in life.
That last step made it possible for people to think of the communization
of home industry, to think of eating food cooked in other ovens than
their own, to think of one oven large enough for a whole village. Many
interesting experiments in co-operative living immediately sprang up.
But the next step came slowly and, even now, is only firmly established
in the cities, in the actual abandonment of the family kitchen for the
community kitchen in the form of the restaurant. In such families we
have unity only in the hours of sleep and recreation.
Along with abandonment of the separate kitchen there has proceeded
the abandonment of the parlor in the homes of the middle classes.
To lose the old, mournful front room may be no subject for tears,
but the loss of the evening family group, about the fireside or
the reading-lamp, is a real and sad loss. The commercialized amusements
have offered greater attractions to vigorous youth. The theater and
its lesser satellites, amusements, entertainments, lectures, the
lyceum, and recreation-by-proxy in ball games and matches have taken
the place of united family recreation. Of course this has been a
natural development of the older village play-life and has been by
no means an unmixed ill.
Now, behold, what has become of the old-time home life! The family that
spent nearly twenty-four hours together now spends a scarce seven or
eight, and these are occupied in sleeping! Little wonder that the next
step is taken--the abandonment of this remainder, the sleep period,
under a domestic roof, as the family moves into a hotel!
Along with the tendency toward communal working and eating we see the
tendency to communal living by the development of the apartment
building. Since roof-trees are so expensive, and since in a practical
age, few of us can afford to pay for sentiment, why not put a dozen
families under one roof-tree? True we sacrifice lawns, gardens, natural
places for children to play; we lose birds and flowers and the charm of
evening hours on porches, or galleries, but think of what we gain in
bricks and mortar, in labor saved from splitting wood and shoveling
coal, in janitor service! The transition is now complete; the home is
simply that item in the economic machinery which will best furnish us
storage for our sleeping bodies and our clothes!
We are undoubtedly in a period of great changes in family life, and no
family can count on escaping the influence of the change. The one single
outstanding and most potent change, so far as the character of family
life is concerned, is, in the United States, the rapid polarization of
population in the cities. The United States Census Bureau counts all
residents in cities of over 8,000 population as "urban." In 1800 the
"urban" population was 4 per cent of the total population; in 1850 it
was 12.5 per cent; in 1870, 20.9 per cent; in 1890, 29.2 per cent; in
1900, 33.1 per cent; in 1910 it was estimated at 40 per cent.[2] Here
is a trend so clearly marked that we cannot deny its reality, while its
significance is familiar to everyone today.
However, the village type remains; there are still many homes where a
measure of family unity persists, where at least in one meal daily and,
for purposes of sleeping and, occasionally, for the evening hours of
recreation, there is a consciousness of home life. Yet the most remote
village feels the pressure of change. The few homes conforming to the
older ideals are recognized as exceptional. The city draws the village
and rural family to itself, and the contagion of its customs and ideals
spreads through the villages and affects the forms of living there.
Youths become city dwellers and do not cease to scoff at the village
unless later years give them wisdom to appreciate its higher values. The
standard of domestic organization is established by the city; that type
of living is the ideal toward which nearly all are striving.
The important question for all persons is whether the changes now taking
place in family life are good or ill. It is impossible to say whether
the whole trend is for the better; the many elements are too diverse and
often apparently conflicting. Faith in the orderly development of
society gives ground for belief that these changes ultimately work for a
higher type of family life. The city may be regarded as only a
transition stage in social evolution--the compacting of masses of
persons together that out of the new fusing and welding may arise new
methods of social living. The larger numbers point to more highly
developed forms of social organization. When these larger units discover
their greater purposes, above factory and mill and store, and realize
them in personal values, the city life will be a more highly developed
mechanism for the higher life of man. The home life will develop along
with that city life.
§ 4. PURPOSEFUL ORGANIZATION
At present the home is suffering, just as the city is suffering, from a
lack of that purposeful organization which will order the parts aright
and subject the processes to the most important and ultimate purposes.
The city is simply an aggregation of persons, scarcely having any
conscious organization, thrown together for purposes of industry. It
will before very long organize itself for purposes of personal welfare
and education. The family is usually a group bound in ties of struggle
for shelter, food, and pleasure. Such consciousness as it possesses is
that of being helplessly at the mercy of conflicting economic forces.
The adjustment of those forces, their subjection to man's higher
interests, must come in the future and will help the family to freedom
to discover its true purpose.
It is easy to insist on the responsibility of parents for the
character-training of their children, but it is difficult to see how
that responsibility can be properly discharged under industrial
conditions that take both father and mother out of the home the whole
day and leave them too weary to stay awake in the evening, too poor to
furnish decent conditions of living, and too apathetic under the dull
monotony of labor to care for life's finer interests. The welfare of the
family is tied up with the welfare of the race; if progress can be
secured in one part progress in the whole ensues.
There are those who raise the question whether family life is a
permanent form of social organization for which we may wisely contend,
or is but a phase from which the race is now emerging. Some see signs
that the ties of marriage will be but temporary, that children will be
born, not into families but into the life of the state, bearing only
their mothers' names and knowing no brothers and sisters save in the
brotherhood of the state. Whether the permanent elements in family life
furnish a sufficiently worthy basis for its preservation is a subject
for careful consideration.
§ 5. THE HOME AND THE FAMILY
The family is more important than the home, just as the man is more than
his clothing. The form of the home changes; the life of the family
continues unchanged in its essential characteristics. The family causes
the home to be. Professor Arthur J. Todd insists that the family is the
basis of marriage, rather than marriage the cause of the family.[3]
Small groups for protection and social living would precede formal
arrangements of monogamy. Westermarck concludes that it was "for the
benefit of the young that male and female continued to live
together."[4] The importance of this consideration for us lies in the
thought of the overshadowing importance of this social group which we
now call the family. The family is the primary cell of society, the
first unit in social organization. Our thought must balance itself
between the importance of this social group, to be preserved in its
integrity, and the value of the home, with its varied forms of activity
and ministry, as a means of preserving and developing this group, the
family.
One hears today many pessimistic utterances regarding the modern home.
Some even tell us that it is doomed to become extinct. Without doubt
great economic changes in society are producing profound changes in the
organization and character of the home. But the home has always been
subject to such changes; the factor which we need to watch with greater
care is the family; the former is but the shell of the latter.
The character of each home will depend largely on the economic condition
of those who dwell in it. The homes of every age will reflect the social
conditions of that age. The picture in historical romances of the home
of the mediaeval period, where the factory, or shop, joined the
dining-room, where the apprentices ate and roomed in the home, where one
might be compelled to furnish and provision his home literally as his
castle for defense, presents a marked difference to the home of this
century tending to syndicate all its labors with all the other homes of
the community. Since the home is simply the organization and mechanism
of the family life, it is most susceptible to material and social
changes. It varies as do the fashions of men.
Much that we assume to be detrimental to the life of the home is simply
due to the fact that in the evolution of society the family, as it were,
puts on a new suit of clothes, adopts new forms of organization to meet
the changing external conditions.
§ 6. THE HOME CHANGING; THE FAMILY ABIDING
The home is of importance only as a tool, a means to the final ends of
the family life; the test of its efficiency is not whether it maintains
traditional forms but whether it best serves the highest aims of family
life. We may abandon all the older customs; our regret for them, as we
look back on the days of home cooking, cannot be any greater than the
regrets of our parents or grandparents looking back on the
spinning-wheel and the hand loom that cumbered the kitchen of their
childhood. Surely no one contends that family life has deteriorated,
that human character is one whit the poorer, because we have discarded
the family spinning-wheel. Through the changes of a developing
civilization, as man has moved from the time when each one built his own
house, worked with his own tools to make all his supplies, to these days
of specialized service in community living, the home has changed with
each step of industrial progress, but the family has remained
practically unchanged.
The family stands a practically unchanging factor of personal qualities
at the center of our civilization; the family rather than the home
determines the character of the coming days. In its social relationships
are rooted the things that are best in all our lives. In its social
training lie the solutions of more problems in social adjustment and
development than we are willing to admit. The family is the soil of
society, central to all its problems and possibilities.
Before church or school the family stands potent for character. We are
what we are, not by the ideals held before us for thirty minutes a week
or once a month in a church, nor by the instructions given in the
classroom; we are what parents, kin, and all the circumstances that have
touched us daily and hourly for years have determined we should be.
The sweetest memories of our lives cluster about the scenes of family
life. The rose-embowered cottage of the poet is not the only spot that
claims affectionate gratitude; many look back to a city house wedged
into its monotonous row. But, wherever it might be, if it sheltered love
and held a shrine where the altar fires of family sacrifice burned,
earth has no fairer or more sacred spot. The people rather than the
place made it potent.
Stronger even than the memories that remain are the marks of habits,
tendencies, tastes, and dispositions there acquired. Many a man who has
left no fortune worth recording to his sons has left them something
better, the aptitude for things good and honorable, the memory of a good
name, and the heritage of a life that was worthy of honor. The personal
life has been always the enduring thing. Our concern for the future
should be not whether we can pass on intact the forms of home
organization, but whether we can give to the next day the force of ideal
family life. Perhaps like Mary we would do well to turn our eyes from
the much serving, the mechanisms of the home, to set our minds on the
better part, the personal values in the association of lives in the
family.
I. References for Study
W.F. Lofthouse, _Ethics and the Family_, chaps. ii, xi, xii. Hodder
& Stoughton, $2.50.
Charles R. Henderson, _Social Duties from the Christian Point of
View_, chaps. ii, iii. The University of Chicago Press, $1.25.
C.W. Votaw, _Progress of Moral and Religious Education in the
American Home_. Religious Education Association, $0.25.
II. Further Reading
Jacob A. Riis, _Peril and Preservation of the Home_. Jacobs,
Philadelphia, Pa., $1.00.
Charles R. Henderson, _Social Elements_. Scribner, $1.50.
Charles F. Thwing, _The Recovery of the Home_. American Baptist
Publication Society, $0.15.
III. Topics for Discussion
1. The tendency toward community life illustrated in the schools,
amusement parks, and hotel life. Remembering the ultimate purpose
of the family, how far is communal life desirable?
2. Does the apartment or tenement building furnish a suitable
condition for the higher purposes of the family?
3. Is it possible to restore to the home some of the benefits lost
by present factory consolidation of industry?
4. What can take the place of the old household arts and of those
which are now passing?
5. What steps should be taken to secure to the family a larger
measure of the time in terms of occupation of the parents?
6. What are the important things to contend for in this
institution? Why should we expect change in the form of the home
and what are the features which should not be changed?
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Figures taken from C.W. Votaw, _Progress of Moral and Religious
Education in the American Home_, 1911.
[3] A.J. Todd, _Primitive Family and Education_, p. 21. A most valuable
and suggestive book.
[4] Cited by Todd, p. 21.
CHAPTER III
THE PERMANENT ELEMENTS IN FAMILY LIFE
§ 1. THE DOMINANT MOTIVE
The chief end of society is to improve the race, to develop the higher
and steadily improving type of human beings. We can test the life of the
family and determine the values of its elements by asking whether and in
what degree they minister to this end, the growth of better persons.
This is more than a theoretical aim or one conceived in a search for
ideals. It is written plain in our passions and strongest inclinations.
That which parents supremely desire for their children is that they may
become strong in body, capable and alert in mind, and animated by worthy
principles and ideals. The parent desires a good man, fit to take his
place, do his work, make his contribution to the social well-being, able
to live to the fulness of his powers, to take life in all its reaches of
meaning and heights of vision and beauty. In true parenthood all hopes
of success, of riches, fame, and ease, are seen but as avenues to this
end, as means of making the finer character, of growing the ideal
person. If we were compelled to choose for our children we should elect
poverty, pain, disgrace, toil, and suffering if we knew this was the
only highway to full manhood and womanhood, to completeness of
character. Indeed, we do constantly so choose, knowing that they must
endure hardness, bear the yoke in their youth, and learn that
Love and joy are torches lit
At altar fires of sacrifice.
With this dominating purpose clearly in mind we are prepared to ask,
What are the elements of family life which among the changes of today we
need most carefully to preserve in order to maintain efficiency in
character development? In days when the outer shell of domestic
arrangements changes, when readjustments are being made in the
organization of the family, what is there too precious to lose, so
worthy and essential that we waste no time when seeking to maintain it?
§ 2. POTENCIES TO BE PRESERVED--SOCIAL QUALITIES
The first great element to be preserved in all family life is that of
the power of the small group for purposes of character development. The
infant's earliest world is the mother's arms. In order to grow into a
man fitted for the wider world of social living, he must learn to live
in a world within his comprehension. A child's life moves through the
widening circles of mother-care, family group, neighborhood, school,
city, state, and nation into world-living. He must take the first steps
before he is able to take the next ones. He must learn to live with the
few as preparation for living with the many. In earliest infancy he
takes his first unconscious lessons in the fine art of living with other
folks as he relates himself to parents and to brothers and sisters.
Secondly, the family life affords the best agency for social training.
The family is the ideal democracy into which the child-life is born.
Here habits are formed, ideals are pictured, and life itself is
interpreted. It is an ideal democracy, first, because it is a social
organization existing for the sake of persons. The family comes nearer
to fulfilling the true ideal of a democratic social order than does any
other institution. It is founded to bring lives into this world; it is
maintained for the sake of those lives; all its life, its methods, and
standards are determined, ideally, by the needs of persons. It is an
ideal democracy, secondly, because its guiding principle is that the
greater lives must be devoted to the good of the lesser, the parent for
the little child, the older members for the younger, in an attempt to
extend to the very least the greatest good enjoyed by all. Thirdly,
ideally it is a true democracy in that it gives to each member a share
in its own affairs and develops the power to bear responsibilities and
to carry each his own load in life. Thus the family group is the best
possible training for the life and work of the larger group, the state,
and for world-living.[5] The maintenance of the ideals of the state, as
a democracy, depends on the continuance of this institution with its
peculiar power to train life in infancy and childhood for the life of
manhood in the state. Such training can be given only in the smaller
group that is governed by the motives peculiar to home and family life.
The power to impress these principles depends on the size of the group.
The small social organization, the family circle of from three members
to even a dozen, bound by ties of affection, is the one great, efficient
school, training youth to live in social terms.
Thirdly, the family sets spiritual values first. Our age especially
needs men and women who think in terms of spiritual values, who rise
above the measures of pounds and dollars and weigh life by personal
qualities and worth. That is precisely what the home does. It prizes
most highly the helpless, economically worthless infant; it measures
every member by his personal character, his affectional worth. Its
riches do not depend on that which money can buy, but on the personal
qualities of love, goodness, kindness; on memories, associations,
affection. The true home gives to every child-life the power to choose
the things of the world on the basis of their worth in personality. Only
the mistaken judgments of later years, the short-minded wisdom of the
world, make youth gradually lose the habit of preferring the home's
spiritual benefits to the material rewards of the world of business. No
life can be furnished for the strain of our modern materialism that
lacks the basis of idealism furnished in the true family.
§ 3. POTENCIES TO BE PRESERVED--THE MORAL LIFE
Fourthly, the power of family living to develop love as loyalty is to be
noted. In this small group is laid the foundation of the moral life.
"The family is the primer in the moral education of the race."[6] Here
the new-born life begins to relate itself to other lives. Here it begins
life in an atmosphere saturated by love, the central principle of all
virtue, eventually loyalty to ideals in persons and devotion to them,
"the greatest of these," because it is the parent of all virtue. The
moral life, that life which is adjusted, capable, and adequately motived
for helpful, efficient, enriching living with all other lives, is not a
matter of rules, regulations, and restrictions. Neither is it a matter
of separate habits as to this or the other kind of behavior, though this
comes nearer to it than do rules and prescriptions. The character-life
which parents desire for their children is not that which will do the
right thing when it has discovered that right thing in some book of
rules, nor that life which will do the right thing because society
points that way, nor even that life which automatically does the right
thing, but it is the life which, constantly moved by some high inner
compulsion, some imperative of vision and ideal, moves to the highest
possible plane of action in every situation. This is the life of
loyalty. It begins with loyalty to persons, with that devotion which
begins with affection. In no other place is this so well developed as in
the relations of the family. This is the child's first and most
potential school. Here the lessons are wholly unconscious; here they are
strengthened by the pleasurable emotions. It is a joy to be loyal to
those we love. Indeed, who can tell which comes first, the joy, the
loyalty, or the love?
The power of this small social group of the family to develop the
fundamental principle of loyalty, the root of all virtues, gives a
position of great importance to the affections in the family. We do well
to contend for the maintenance of conditions of family living which will
strengthen the ties of affection. If children could be thrust into the
care of the state, in large groups, separated from parental care and
oversight, it is difficult to see what emotional stimulus toward
affection would remain. The personal devotion to intimate adults would
in only the smallest degree compensate for the loss of father and
mother. We know nothing of such devotion arising to any large degree in
orphan asylums, still less in institutions under the cold and impersonal
care of the state. It has been urged that the affections of parents
stand in the way of a scientific regimen and education for small
children. The cold, passionless, automatic parent, then, would be the
ideal--a Mr. Dombey or a Mr. Feverel. Parents make many mistakes, but
these mistakes are not due to too much affection, but to untrained minds
and uneducated affections. It were better to save the values of their
affections and on them to build a wise discipline for childhood by
providing adequate training of parents for their duties.
Fifthly, there are some elements of the cost of family life, even its
apparently unnecessary sacrifice and pain, that we do well to seek to
keep. Character grows in paying the high price of maintaining a family.
It is the most expensive form of living for adults. Marriages are now
delayed because of the fear of the actual monetary cost; but far more
serious is the cost in care, in nerves, in patience, in all the great
elements of self-denial. No child ever knows what he has cost until he
has children of his own. But this discipline of self-denial is that
which saves us from selfishness. It is necessary to have some personal
objects for which to give our lives if they are to be saved from
centrifugation, from death through ingrowing affection. True, many
bachelors and spinsters have learned the way of self-denying,
fellow-serving love. But how can a true parent escape that lesson? Nor
does it stop with parents; as children grow up together they, too, must
learn mutual forbearance, conciliation, and, soon, the joy of service.
One sees selfishness in the little child gradually fading in the
practice of family service, helpfulness, consideration for others. The
single child in a family misses something more important than playmates;
he misses all the education of play and service. But who cannot remember
many families that have grown to beauty of character under the
discipline of home life, and especially when this has involved real
sacrifices? The stories in the Pepper books illustrate the spirit that
blossoms under the trials and hardships of the struggle of a family for
a livelihood and for the maintenance of a home.
A clear function becomes evident for this social group called the
family. It is that of dealing with young lives, in groups bound by ties
of blood and similarity, for purposes of the development of personal
character. The family has an essentially educational function. Bearing
in mind that "educational" means the orderly development of the powers
of the life, we can think of our families as existing for this purpose
and to be tested by their ability to do this work, especially by their
ability to develop persons, young lives, that have the power, the
vision, the acquired habits and experience to live as more than animals.
The family is an educational institution dealing with child-life for its
full growth and its self-realization, especially on character levels.
The educational function suggests the features of family life which we
do well to seek to preserve. Many incidental forms may pass, but the
essential human relations and experiences that go to develop life and
character must be maintained at any cost.
I. References for Study
C.F. and C.B. Thwing, _The Family_, chap. vii. Lothrop, Lee &
Shepard, $1.60.
W.F. Lofthouse, _Ethics and the Family_, chaps. iv, v. Hodder &
Stoughton, $2.50.
II. Further Reading
"The Improvement of Religious Education," _Proceedings of the
Religious Education Association_, I, 119-23. $0.50.
_Religious Education_, April, 1911, VI, 1-48.
S.P. Breckinridge and E. Abbott, _The Delinquent Child and the
Home_. Russell Sage Foundation, $2.00.
III. Topics for Discussion
1. What is the chief end of all forms of social organization?
2. What is in the last analysis the aim of every parent?
3. What advantage has the family over the school and larger groups
for educational purposes?
4. In what sense is the family an ideal democracy?
5. Show how the family sets spiritual values first.
6. What in your judgment are the first evidences of character
development? In what way do these come to the surface in the
family? What is the factor of love in the development of character?
7. Is that an ideal family in which none of the members bear pain
or are called upon for self-denial? Can you see any especial
advantage to character in the very difficulties and apparent
disadvantages in the life of the family?
FOOTNOTES:
[5] See "Democracy in the Home," _American Journal of Sociology_,
January, 1912.
[6] Francis G. Peabody, _The Approach to the Social Question_, p. 94.
CHAPTER IV
THE RELIGIOUS PLACE OF THE FAMILY
§ 1. DEVELOPMENT AS A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION
The family is the most important religious institution in the life of
today. It ranks in influence before the church. It has always held this
place. Even among primitive peoples, where family life was an uncertain
quantity, the relations of parents, or of one of the parents, to the
children afforded the opportunity most frequently used for their
instruction in tribal religious ideals and customs. We cannot generalize
as to the practices of savage man in regard to family life, for those
practices range from common promiscuous relationships, without apparent
care for offspring, to a family unity and purity approaching the best we
know; but this much is certain, that there was a common sense of
responsibility for the training of young children in moral and religious
ideas and customs, and that, in the degree that the family approached to
separateness and unity, it accepted the primary responsibility for this
task. The higher the type of family life the more fully does it
discharge its function in the education of the child.[7]
It might be safe to say that among primitive peoples there were three
stages, or types, of relationship based on the breeding of children, or
three stages of development toward family life. The first is a loose and
indefinite relationship existing principally between the adults, or the
males and females, under which children born when not desired are
neglected or strangled and, when acceptable, may be in the care of
either parent, or of neither. Since the group, associated through
infancy with at least one parent, is as yet undeveloped, any instruction
will be individual and usually incidental.
The second form is that of a kind of family unity, either about the
mother or the father, or both, or about a group of parents, in which the
children live together and are sheltered and nurtured for their earlier
years. Here, however, the real relationship of the child is to the
tribe, the family is but his temporary guardian, and, at least by the
age of puberty, he will be initiated into the tribal secrets. If he is a
boy, he will cease to be a member of the family group and will go to
live in the "men's house," becoming a part of the larger life of the
tribe.[8] Such moral and religious instruction as he may acquire will
come from the songs, traditions, and conversation which he hears as a
child.
The third type approaches the modern ideal, with a greater or less
degree of permanent unity between the two parents and with permanence in
the group of the offspring. The parental responsibility continues for a
greater length of time and, since the tribe makes smaller claims, and
the parents live in the common domestic group, much more instruction is
possible and is given. The tribal ideals, the traditions, observances,
and religious rites are imparted to children gradually in their homes.
The last type brings us to the Hebrew conception of family life. It
developed toward the Christian ideal. At first, polygamy was permitted;
woman was the chattel of man and excluded from any part in the religious
rites. But it included the ideal of monogamy in its tradition of the
origin of the world, it denounced and punished adultery (Deut. 22: 22),
and it gave especial attention to the training of the offspring. "And
these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart; and
thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of
them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way,
and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up ... and thou shalt
write them upon the door-posts of thy house and upon thy gates" (Deut.
6: 6, 7, 9).
Much later, the messianic hope, the belief that in some Jewish family
there should be born one divinely commissioned and endowed to liberate
Israel and to give the Jews world-sovereignty, operated to elevate the
conception of motherhood and, through that, of the family. It made
marriage desirable and children a blessing; it rendered motherhood
sacred. It tended to center national hopes and religious ideals about
the family.[9]
There are a few glimpses of ideal family life in the Old Testament. They
are all summed up in the eloquent tribute to motherhood in the words of
King Lemuel in the last chapter of the Book of Proverbs. It must be
remembered, however, that such ideals did not belong to the Jews alone,
that Plutarch shows many pictures of maternal fidelity and wifely
devotion, that Greek and Roman history have their Cornelia, Iphigenia,
and Mallonia.[10]
The Jews are an excellent example of the power of the family life to
maintain distinct characteristics and to secure marked development.
Practically throughout all the Christian era they have been a people
without a land, a constitution, or a government, and yet never without
race consciousness, national unity, and separateness. Their unity has
continued in spite of dispersion, persecution, and losses; they have
remained a race in the face of political storms that have swept other
peoples away. Their unity has continued about two great centers, the
customs of religion and the life of the family.
The results of Jewish respect for family life can also be seen in
the health of their own children. In 1910, for instance, among poor
Jews in Manchester the mortality of infants under one year of age
was found to be 118 per thousand; among poor Gentiles, 300 per
thousand; and comparisons made some six years ago between Jewish
and Gentile children in schools in the poorer parts of Manchester
and Leeds (England) have shown that the Jewish children are
uniformly taller, they weigh more, and their bones and teeth are
superior.[11]
§ 2. THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY
The Christian family is a type peculiar to itself, not as a new
institution, for it has developed out of earlier race experience, but as
controlled by a new interpretation, the spirit and conception of the
home and family given in the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. He did not
give formal rules for the regulation of homes; rather he made a
spiritual ideal of family life the basic thought of all his teaching. He
said more about the family than concerning any other human institution,
yet he established no family life of his own. He is called the founder
of the church, yet he scarcely mentions that institution, while he
frequently teaches concerning home duties and family relations. He
glorifies the relations of the family by making them the figure by which
men may understand the highest relations of life. He speaks more of
fatherhood and sonship than of any other relations. He gives direction
for living, using the family terms of brotherhood. He points forward to
ideal living in a home beyond this life. He teaches men when they think
of God and when they address him to take the family attitude and call
him Father.
If we sum up all the teachings of Jesus and separate them from our
preconceptions of their theological content, we cannot but be impressed
with the facts that he seized upon the family life as the best
expression of the highest relationships; that he pointed to a purified
family life, in which spiritual aims would dominate, as the best
expression of ideal relationships among his followers; and that he
glorified marriage and really made the family the great, divine,
sacramental institution of human society.
We can hardly overestimate the importance of such teaching to the
character of the family. The early Christians not only accepted Jesus as
their teacher and savior; they took their family life as the opportunity
to show what the Kingdom of God, the ideal society, was like. Family
life was consecrated. Men and women belonged to the new order with
their whole households. Religion became largely a family matter. The
worship that had been confined to the temple now made an altar in every
home and a holy of holies in the midst of every family. The scriptures
that belonged to the synagogue now belonged in the home. Above all, this
family existed for the purposes taught by Jesus, that men might grow in
brotherhood toward the likeness of the divine Fatherhood. It was an
institution, not for economic purpose of food and shelter, not for
personal ends of passion or pride, but for spiritual purpose, for the
growth of persons, especially the young in the home, in character, into
"the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."
Christianity is essentially a religion of ideal family life. It
conceives of human society, not in terms of a monarchy with a king and
subjects, but in terms of a family with a great all-Father and his
children, who live in brotherhood, who take life as their opportunity
for those family joys of service and sacrifice. It hopes to solve the
world's ills, not by external regulations, but by bringing all men into
a new family life, a birth into this new family life with God, so
securing a new personal environment, a new personality as the center and
root of all social betterment. He who would come into this new social
order must come into the divine family, must humble himself and become
as a little child, must know his Father and love his brothers.
Christianity, then, not only seeks an ideal family; it makes the family
the ideal social institution and order. It makes family life holy,
sacramental, religious in its very nature. This fact gives added
importance to the preservation and development of the ideals of family
life for the sake of their religious significance and influence. It not
only makes religion a part of the life of the home but makes a religious
purpose the very reason for the existence of the Christian type of home.
It makes our homes essentially religious institutions, to be judged by
religious products.
I. References for Study
G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_, chap. xvi. Revell,
$1.35.
Article on "The Family," in Hastings, _Encyclopaedia of Religion
and Ethics_.
II. Further Reading
On the educational function of the family: A.J. Todd, _The
Primitive Family as an Educational Agency_. Putnam, $2.00.
On the religious place of the family: C.F. and C.B. Thwing, _The
Family_. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, $1.60.
I.J. Peritz, "Biblical Ideal of the Home," _Religious Education_,
VI, 322.
H. Hanson, _The Function of the Family_. American Baptist
Publication Society, $0.15.
W. Becker, _Christian Education, or the Duties of Parents_. Herder,
$1.00. A striking presentation of the Roman Catholic view; could be
read to advantage by all parents.
III. Topics for Discussion
1. What place did religion hold in the primitive family? What
reference or allusion do we find in the Old Testament to the place
of religion in the family (Deut. 6:7-9, 20-25)? What in the New
Testament?
2. What has been the effect of purity of family life on the Jewish
race?
3. What place did the family hold in the teachings of Jesus?
4. What shall we think of the relations of the church and family as
to their comparative rights and our duty to them?
5. Do you agree that the family is the most important religious
institution?
FOOTNOTES:
[7] For a brief statement see Brinton, _Religions of Primitive Peoples_,
Lecture 4, § 7; also Todd, _The Family as an Educational Agency_.
[8] See Webster, _Primitive Secret Societies_, chaps. i, ii.
[9] On the place of the family in different religious systems see the
fine article under "Family" in Hastings, _Encyclopaedia of Religion and
Ethics_.
[10] See Lecky, _History of European Morals_, chap. ii.
[11] Quoted by Lofthouse in _Ethics and the Family_, p. 8, from W. Hall,
in _Progress_ (London), April, 1907.
CHAPTER V
THE MEANING OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE FAMILY
§ 1. THE FUNCTION OF THE FAMILY
With the brief statement of the history of the family and of its
function in society which has already been given we are prepared to put
together the two conclusions: first, that the family has an educational
function, in that it exists as a social institution for the protection,
nurture, development, and training of young lives, and, secondly, that
it is a religious institution, the most influential and important of all
religious institutions, whenever it realizes in any adequate degree its
possibilities, because it is rooted in love and loyalty. It exists for
personal and spiritual ideals and, in Christianity, it is inseparably
connected with the teachings and the ideals of Jesus. It is educational
in function and religious in character, so that it is essentially an
institution for religious education. Religious education is not an
occasional incident in its life; it is the very aim and dominating
purpose of a high-minded family.
§ 2. WHAT IS RELIGIOUS EDUCATION?
To make this the more clear we may need to clarify our minds as to
certain popular conceptions of education. Education means much more
than instruction; religious education means much more than instruction
in religion. Many habitually think of an educational institution as
necessarily a place where pupils sit at desks and teachers preside over
classes, the teachers imparting information which is to be memorized by
the pupils, so that, from this point of view, a Sunday school would be
almost the only institution for the religious education of children in
existence, because it is the only one exclusively devoted to imparting
instruction to children in specifically religious subjects. Such a view
would limit religious education in the home to the formal teaching of
the Bible and religious dogma by parents. The memorizing of scriptural
passages and of the different catechisms once constituted a regular duty
in almost all well-ordered homes. Today it is rarely attempted. Does
that mean that religious education has ceased in the home?
But education means much more than instruction. Education is the whole
process, of which instruction is only a part. Education is the orderly
development of lives, according to scientific principles, into the
fulness of their powers, the realization of all their possibilities, the
joy of their world, the utmost rendering in efficiency of their service.
It includes the training of powers of thought, feeling, willing, and
doing; it includes the development of abilities to discern,
discriminate, choose, determine, feel, and do. It prepares the life for
living with other lives; it prepares the whole of the life, developing
the higher nature, the life of the spirit, for living in a spiritual
universe.
Religious education, then, means much more than instruction in the
literature, history, and philosophy of religion. It means the kind of
directed development which regards the one who is developing as a
religious person, which seeks to develop that one to fulness of
religious powers and personality, and which uses, as means to that end,
material of religious inspiration and significance and, indeed, regards
all material in that light. Religious education seeks to direct a
religious process of growth with a religious purpose for religious
persons. Religious education is the spirit which characterizes the work
of every educator who looks on the child as a spiritual nature, a
religious person; it is the work of every educator who sees his aim as
that of training this spiritual person to fulness of living in a society
essentially spiritual.
In simplest possible terms, religious education means the training of
persons to live the religious life and to do their work in the world as
religious persons. It must mean, then, the development of character; it
includes the aim, in the parents' minds, to bring their children up to
the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. It is evident that
this is a much greater task, and yet more natural and beautiful, than
mere instruction in formal ideas or words in the Bible or in a
catechism; that it is not and cannot be accomplished in some single
period, some set hour, but is continuous, through all the days; that it
pervades not only the spoken words, but the actions, organization, and
the very atmosphere of the home.
§ 3. THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS
Normal persons never stop growing. Just as children grow all the time in
their bodies, so do adults and all others grow all the time in mind and
will and powers of the higher life whenever they live normally. We grow
spiritually, not only in church and under the stimulus of song and
prayer, but we grow when the beauty of the woods appeals to us, when the
face lightens at the face of a friend, when we meet and master a
temptation, when we brace up under a load, when we do faithfully the
dreary, daily task, when we adjust our thoughts in sympathy to others,
when we move in the crowd, when we think by ourselves. The educational
process is continuous. The children in the home are being moved,
stimulated, every instant, and they are being changed in minute but
nevertheless real and important degrees by each impression. There is
never a moment in which their character is not being developed either
for good or for ill. Religious education--that is, the development of
their lives as religious persons--goes on all the time in the home, and
it is either for good or for ill.
Next to the idea of the continuous and all-pervasive character of this
process of religious development the most important thought for us is
that religious education in the home may be determined by ourselves.
This continuous, fateful process is not a blind, resistless one. It is
our duty to direct it. It is possible for wise parents to determine the
characters of their children. We must not forget this. It cannot be too
strongly insisted on. The development of life is under law. This is an
orderly world. Things do not just happen in it. We believe in a law that
determines the type of a cabbage, the character of a weed. Do we believe
that this universe is so ordered that there is a law for weeds and none
for the higher life of man? Do we hold that cabbages grow by law but
character comes by chance? If there is a law we may find it and must
obey it. If we may know how to develop character, with as great
certainty as we know how to do our daily work, will not this be our
highest task, our greatest joy, the supreme thing to do in life?
§ 4. THE CONSEQUENT OBLIGATION
This is the first great obligation of parents and of those who are
willing to accept the joys and responsibilities of parenthood. We have
no right to bring into this world lives with all the possibilities that
a religious nature involves unless we know how to develop those lives
for the best and from the worst. When we picture what a little child may
become, from the vile, depraved, despoiling beast or the despicable,
sneaking hypocrite on one extreme, to the upright, God-loving,
man-serving man or woman with the love of purity, honor, truth, and
goodness speaking through the life, we may well pause, realizing we need
more than a sentimental desire that the child may reach the heights of
goodness: we must know the way there and the methods of leading the life
in that way. True devotion to God and to childhood will mean more than
petitions for the salvation of children; it will mean the prayer that is
labor and the labor that is prayer to know how they may attain fulness
of spiritual life; it will mean reverent searching into the divine ways
of growth in grace. The study of the means and methods of religious
education, especially of children, in the home and family, is one of the
most evident and important religious duties resting on parents and all
who contemplate marriage and family life.
§ 5. WHAT IS MEANT BY THE RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD?
In discussing the development of character in children one hears often
the question, "Which is the earliest virtue to appear in a child?"
People will debate whether it is truthfulness, reverence, kindness, or
some other virtue. All this implies a picture of the child as a tree
that sends forth shoots of separate virtues one after another. But the
character desired is not a series of branches, it is rather like a
symmetrical tree; it is not certain parts, but it is the whole of a
personality. The development of religious character is not a matter of
consciously separable virtues, but is the determination of the trend and
quality of the whole life. Moral training is not a matter of cultivating
honesty today, purity tomorrow, and kindness the day after. Virtues have
no separate value. Character cannot be disintegrated into a list of
independent qualities. We seek a life that, as a whole life, loves and
follows truth, goodness, and service.
§ 6. EARLY TENDENCIES
But it is wise to inquire as to those manifestations of a pure and
spiritual life which will earliest appear. One does not need to look far
for the answer. Children are always affectionate; they manifest the
possibilities of love. True, this affection is rooted in physiological
experience, based on relations to the mother and on daily propinquity to
the rest of the family, but it is that which may be colored by devotion,
elevated by unselfish service, and may become the first great, ideal
loyalty of the child's life. Little boys will fight and girls will
quarrel more readily over the question of the merits of their respective
parents than over any other issue. Almost as soon as a child can talk he
boasts of the valor of his father, the beauty of his mother. Here is
loyalty at work. He stands for them; he resents the least doubt as to
their superiority, not because they give him food and shelter, but
because they are his, because to him they are worthy; in all things they
have the worth, the highest good; they are, in person, the virtue of
life. Therefore in fighting for the reputation of his parents he is
practicing loyalty to an ideal.
The principle of loyalty is the life-force of virtue; it is like the
power that sends the tree toward the heavens, the upthrust of life. It
may be cultivated in a thousand ways. Provided there is the outreach and
upreach of loyalty within and that there is furnished without the worthy
object, ideal, and aim, the life will grow upward and increase in
character, beauty, and strength.
Next to the affectionate idealization of parents and home-folk one of
the earliest manifestations of the spirit of loyalty in the child is
his desire to have a share in the activities of the home. He would not
only look like those he admires; he would do what they do. This is more
than mere imitation; it is loyalty at work again. The direction of this
tendency is one of the largest opportunities before parents and can make
the most important contribution to character.
The religious life of the child is essentially a matter of loyalty. His
faith, affections, aspirations, and endeavors turn toward persons,
institutions, and concepts which are to him ideal. He does not analyze,
he cannot describe, or even narrate, his religious experiences, but he
affectionately moves, with a sense of pleasure, toward those things
which seem to him ideal, toward parents, customs of the home or school,
the church, his class, his teacher, toward characters in story-books. He
is likely to think of Jesus in just that way, as the one person whom he
would most of all like to know and be with. The life of virtue and the
religious life then will be weak or strong in the measure that the child
has the stimulating ideals which call forth his loyalty and in the
measure that he has opportunity to express that loyalty. His religious
life will consist, not so much in external forms perhaps, still less in
intellectual statements about theology or even about his own
experiences, as in a growing realization of the great ideals, an
increasing sense of their meaning and reality within, and, on the
objective side, a steady moving of his life toward them in action and
habits and therefore in character and quality.
§ 7. IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS
It is worth while to insist upon two important considerations. Parents
who stand as gardeners watching the growth of the tender plant of
child-character may be looking for developments that never ought to come
and will be disappointed because they were looking for the wrong thing.
First, in watching for the beginnings of the religious life of the child
in the family we are not expecting some new addition to the life, but
rather the development of this whole life as a unity in a definite
direction which we call religious. It is the first and most important
consideration that religious education is not something added to the
life as an extra subject of interest, but the development of the whole
life into religious character and usefulness. Secondly, this growth of
religious character is going on all the time. It is not separable into
pious periods; it is a part of the very life of the family. Perhaps this
increases the difficulty of our task, for it removes it from the realm
of the mechanical, from that which is easily apprehended and estimated.
It takes the task of the religious education of children out of the
statistical into the vital, and reminds us that we are growing life
every second, that there is never a moment when religious education is
not in operation. This demands a consideration, not alone of lessons, of
periods of worship and instruction, but of every influence, activity,
and agency in all the family life that in any way affects the thinking,
feeling, and action of the child. We are thinking of something more
important than organizing instruction and exercises in religion in the
home; we are thinking of organizing the family life for religious
purposes, for the purpose of growing lives into their spiritual fulness.
Perhaps the capital mistake in the religious education of the family is
that we overemphasize this or the other method and mechanism instead of
bending every effort to secure a real religious atmosphere and soil in
which young souls can really grow while we leave the process of growth
more largely to the great husbandman. And the second great mistake is
that we are looking for mechanical evidence of a religious life instead
of for the development of a whole person. We must reinterpret the family
to ourselves and see it as the one great opportunity life affords us to
grow other lives and to bring them to spiritual fulness by providing a
social atmosphere of the spirit and a constant, normal presentation of
social living in spiritual terms.
§ 8. THE ORGANIZATION OF LOYALTY
When parents conceive the family in these terms and so organize the life
of the home, the child becomes conscious of the fact, and at once the
life of the family furnishes him with his first, his nearest, and most
satisfactory appeal to loyalty. He feels that which he cannot analyze or
express, the spiritual beauty and loyalty of family life. That life
furnishes a soil and atmosphere for his soul. It is an atmosphere made
of many elements: the primary and dominating purpose of parents and
older persons, the habitual life of service and love, the consciousness
of the reality of the Divine Presence, the fragrance of chastened
character and experience, the customs of worship and affections. These
things are not easily created, they cannot be readily defined, nor can
directions be given in a facile manner for their cultivation. They are
the elements most difficult to describe, hardest of all to secure when
lacking, least easily labeled, not to be purchased ready-made, and yet
without them religious education is wholly impossible in the family.
Without this immediate appeal to loyalty the loyalties of the child
toward higher and divine aims do not develop early; they are retarded
and often remain dormant. For us all scarcely any more important
question can be presented than this: What appeals to spiritual idealism
and loyalty does our family life present to the child? What quickening
of love for goodness and purity, truth and service, is there in the home
and its conduct?
I. References for Study
G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_, chaps. i, ii, xii,
xiii. Revell, $1.35.
George Hodges, _Training of Children in Religion_, chaps. i, ii.
Appleton, $1.50.
J.T. McFarland, _Preservation versus Resurrection_. Eaton & Mains,
$0.07.
II. Further Reading
C.W. Votaw, _Progress of Moral and Religious Education in the
American Home_. Religious Education Association, $0.25.
George Hodges, _Training of Children_, chaps. i, ii, xv. Appleton,
$1.50.
G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_, chaps. i, iv, xvi.
Revell, $1.35.
E.C. Wilm, _Culture of Religion_, chaps. i, ii. Pilgrim Press,
$0.75.
C.W. Rischell, _The Child as God's Child_. Methodist Book Concern,
$0.75.
E.E. Read Mumford, _The Dawn of Character_. Longmans, Green & Co.,
$1.20. See especially chap. xii on "The Dawn of Religion."
III. Topics for Discussion
1. How would you define education?
2. What is the difference between education and religious
education?
3. What makes the home especially effective in education?
4. Is it true that it is possible to discover the laws of growth
and so determine the development of character?
5. Recall any very early manifestations of religious character in
small children. What would you regard as the best kind of
manifestation?
6. What is the essential principle of the right life? How may we
develop this in childhood?
7. What are the things which most of all impress children?
8. Would you think it wise to bring a child under the influence of
a religious revival?
CHAPTER VI
THE CHILD'S RELIGIOUS IDEAS
How shall I begin to talk with my child about religion? Even the most
religious parents feel hesitancy here. It may not be at all due to the
unfamiliarity of the subject, though that is often the case; hesitation
is due principally to a conscious artificiality in the action. It seems
unnatural to say, "My child, I want to talk with you about your
religious life." And so it is. There is something wrong when that
appears to be the only way. That situation indicates a lack of freedom
of thought and intercourse with the child and a lack of naturalness in
religion.
§ 1. THE FUNDAMENTAL DIFFICULTY
The instinct is correct that tells us that we should be trespassing on a
child's rights, or breaking down his proper reticence, in abruptly and
formally questioning him about his religious life. The reserve of
children in this matter must be respected. The inner life of aspiration,
of conscious relationship to the divine, is too sacred for display, even
to those who are near to us. He violates the child's reverence who tears
away his reticence. Even though the child may not consciously object,
the process leads him toward the irreverent, facile self-exposure of
the soul that characterizes some prayer meetings. But we may, also, as
easily err in the other direction and, by failing to invite the
confidences of our children, lead them to suppose we have no interest in
their higher life.
§ 2. CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS
First, we must be content to wait for the child to open his heart. We
must not force the door. But we can invite him to open, and the one form
of invitation that scarcely ever fails is for you to give him your
confidence. Talk honestly, simply to him of the aspects of your
religious life that he can understand. If he knows that you confide in
him, he will confide in you. Here beware of sentimentality. Religion to
the child will find expression in everyday experiences. Your philosophy
of religion he cannot comprehend, and with your mature emotions he has
no point of contact. Perhaps the best method of approach is to relate
your memories of those experiences which you _now see_ to have had
religious significance to you. At the time they may have had no such
special meaning. You did not then analyze them. Your child will not and
must not analyze them, either; he must simply feel them.
Secondly, rid your mind of the "times and seasons" notion. There is no
more reason why you should talk religion on Sunday than on Monday,
unless the day's interests have quickened the child's questioning. There
can be no set period; no times when you say, "This is the forty-five
minutes of spiritual instruction and conversation." The time available
may be very short, only a sentence may be possible, or it may be
lengthened; everything will depend on the interest. It must be natural,
a real part of the everyday thought and talk, lifted by its character
and subject to its own level. Its value depends on its natural reality.
§ 3. RELIGIOUS REALITY
Thirdly, avoid the mistake of confounding conversation on "religion"
with religious conversation, of thinking that the desired end has been
attained when you have discussed the terminology of theology. To
illustrate, in the family one hardly ever hears the word hygiene, but
well-trained children learn much about the care of their bodies in
health, and the family economy is directed consciously to that end. A
good, nourishing meal always contributes more to health than many
lectures on dietetics. Yet back, hidden away in the manager's mind, is
the science of dietetics. So is it with quickening the child's power and
thought in the spiritual life. We must avoid the abstract, the
intellectually analytical. Religion should present itself concretely,
practically, and as an atmosphere and ideal in the family. We parents
must not look for theological interest in the child. A Timothy Dwight at
ten or twelve, though once found in Sunday-school library books, is a
monstrosity. The child's aspiration, his religious devotion, his love
for God will find expression in almost every other way before it will be
formulated into questions of a serious theological character. Nor ought
we to force upon him the phrases of religion to which we are accustomed.
He will live in another day and must speak its tongue. His faith must
find itself in consciousness and then be permitted to clothe itself in
appropriate garments of words. Those garments must be woven out of the
realities of actual experiences in the child's life. We cannot prepare
or make them for him. The expression of religion will be consonant with
the stage of development. If his faith is to be real he must never be
allowed or tempted to imagine that if only he can use the words, the
verbal symbol, he has the fact, the life-experience. Try then to use
words which are simple and meaningful to him and be content to wait for
life to lead him to formulate vital verbal forms for himself.
§ 4. PATIENCE AND COMMON-SENSE
Fourthly, we must have faith in God's laws of growth. If we be but
faithful, furnishing the soil, the seed, the nurture, we must wait for
the increase. Many factors which we cannot control will determine
whether it shall be early or late and what form it shall take. We must
wait. It is high folly that pulls up the sprouting grain to see whether
it is growing properly.
Fifthly, manifestations of the religious life will vary in children and
in families. The commonest error is to expect some one popular form
alone, to imagine that all children must pass through some standardized
experiences. Mrs. Brown's Willy may rise in prayer meeting. Do not be
downhearted. Willy is only doing that which he has seen his parents do,
and, usually, only because they do it. Your boy, or girl, is seeking
health of life, of thought, of action; is growing in character. Let them
grow, help them to grow. You know they love you even when they say
little about it; you do not expect them to climb to the housetop and
declare their affection. A flower does not sing about the sun, it grows
toward it. That is the test of the child's religion: Is he growing
Godward in life, action, character?
§ 5. THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD
Sixthly, deal most carefully with the child's consciousness of God. The
truth is that the child in the average home has a consciousness of God.
It grows out of formal references in social rites and customs, informal
allusions in conversation, and direct statements and instruction. But
frequently the resultant mental picture is a misleading one, sometimes
even vicious in its moral effect. Where superstitious servants take more
interest in the child's religious ideas than do his parents, we have the
child whose life is darkened by the fear of an omnipotent ogre.
Nursemaids will slothfully scare small children into silence by threats
of the awful presence of a bogey god. The life of the spirit cannot be
trusted to the hireling. Parents must be sure of the character as well
as the superficial competency of those who come closest to childhood. A
child's ideas are formed before he goes to school. The family cannot
delegate the formation of dominant ideas to persons trained only for
nursery tasks.
But frequently the mother is a misleading teacher. To her the child goes
with all the big questions outside the immediate world of things. Is she
prepared to answer the questions? Few dilemmas of our life today are
more pathetic than this: the mother has outgrown the theology of her
childhood; she remembers keenly the suffering and superstition, the
struggle that followed the darkened pictures she received as a little
one, but she has nothing better to offer the child. No one has taught
her how to put the later, more spiritual concepts into language for the
child of our day. Weakly she falls back on the forms of words she once
abhorred.
There are certainly two approaches of reality for the child-mind to the
idea of God. Two immediate experiences are rich in meaning; they are the
life of the family and the wonder of the everyday world, the life and
variety of nature and human activities. The first is a very simple and
rich approach. By every possible means help children in the family to
think of God as the great and good Father of us all. Do this in the
phrasing of prayers and graces, in the answers to their questions, in
the casual word. Why should we assume that the Fatherhood of God is for
the adult alone? And why should it be that this rich concept dawns on us
like a new day of freedom in truth in later years instead of becoming
ours in childhood and so determining the habit and attitude of our
lives? The finest, the ideal person is, to the child, the father. God in
terms of fatherhood is the sum and source of all that is ideal in
personality.
The child's keen interest in the world of nature is our opportunity to
lead him to love the gracious source of all beauty and goodness. How
keen is the child's enjoyment of the beauty of the world! Can we forever
fix the general concept of all this beauty as the thought of God in the
words of flower and leaf, mountain and stream? And might we not also
connect the idea of God with the affairs of daily life? That depends on
the parent's attitude of mind; if we think of the universal life that is
behind all battles and business and affairs, there will be a difference
in our answers to the thousand curious inquiries that rise in the
child's mind.
Nor must we leave the child to think of God as a separate, far-off
person, on a throne somewhere in the skies. The child is finding his way
into a universe. The God who is a minute fraction of that universe makes
possible the religion that is no more than a negligible fraction of
life. The child asks concerning clouds, the sea, the trees, the birds,
and all the world about him; he tends to interpret it causally and
ideally. Childhood affords the great opportunity for giving the color,
the beauty and glory, the life of the divine to all this universe, to
instil the feeling that God is everywhere, in all and through all, and
that in him we live and move and have our being. The child's joy in this
world can thus be given a religious meaning. He sings
My God, I thank thee thou hast made
This earth so bright....,
and so beauty and joy become part of his religion. His faith becomes a
gladsome thing; he knows that the trees of the forest clap their hands,
the mountains and the hills sing, and the morning stars chant together
in the gladness of the divine life.
Such a view of the world comes not by prearranged and indoor interviews.
One must walk out into the good outdoor world for the opportunity and
the inspiration. The garden plot, the park, and, best of all, the open
fields and woods speak to a child and furnish us an open book from which
we may teach him to read. Recalling religious impressions, the writer
would testify to feeling nothing deeper, as a result of church
attendance in childhood, than the shapes of seats and the colors of
walls; but there remain deep impressions of wonder, beauty, and the
meaning of God from Sunday mornings spent with his father under the
great beeches in Epping Forest, listening to the reading and singing of
the old hymns, or joining in conversation on the woods and the flowers,
and even on the legends of Robin Hood in the forest.
§ 6. THE EVERYDAY OPPORTUNITIES
Seventhly, natural conversation affords the best opportunity for direct
instruction. A child is a peripatetic interrogation. His questions cover
the universe; there are no doors which you desire to see opened that he
will not approach at some time. There is great advantage when the
religious question rises normally; when the child begins it and when the
interest continues with the same naturalness as in conversation on any
other subject. Then questions usually take one of three forms: mere
childish, curious questions, questions on conduct, and questions on
religion in its organized form.
The child's curiosity is the basis of even those questions which have
usually been credited to preternatural piety. The tiny youngster who
asks strange questions about God asks equally startling ones about
fairies or about his grandmother. But his questions give us the chance
to direct him to right thoughts of God. Here we need to be sure of our
own thoughts and to keep in mind our principal purpose, to quicken in
this child loyalty to the highest and best. He must be shown a God whom
he can love and, at the same time, one who will call for his growing
loyalty, his courage, and devotion. Everything for the child's future
depends on the pictures he now forms. We all carry to a large degree our
childhood's view of God.
Some of the child's questions probe deep; how shall we answer them? When
you know the truth tell him the truth, being sure that it is told in
language that really conveys truth to his mind. The danger is that
parents will attempt to tell more than they know, to answer questions
that cannot be answered, or that they will, in sloth or cowardice or
ignorance, tell children untrue things. If a child asks, "Did God make
the world?" the answer that will be true to the child may be a simple
affirmative. If the child asks or his query implies, "Did God make the
leaves, or the birds, with his fingers?" we had better take time to
show the difference between man's making of things and the working of
the divine energy through all the process of the development of the
world. When the child asks, "Mother, if God made all things, why did he
make the devil?" it would surely be wise and opportune to correct the
child's mental picture of a personal anti-God and to take from him his
bogey of a "devil." But the question of the relation of God to the
existence of evil would remain, and the best a parent could do would be
to illustrate the necessities of freedom of choice and will in life by
similar freedom in the family.
It must be remembered that children's curious questions are only their
attempt to discover their world, that they have no peculiar religious
significance, but that they afford the parent a vital opportunity for
direct religious instruction. These questions must be treated seriously;
something is missing in parental consciousness when the child's
questions furnish only material for jesting relation to the family
friends.
§ 7. MORAL TEACHING
_Questions on conduct_: Scores of times in the day the children come in
from play or from school and tell of what has happened. Their more or
less breathless recitals very often include vigorous accounts of
"cheating," "naughtiness," unfair play, unkind words, discourtesies,
all dependent as to their character on the age of the children and all
opening doors for free conversation on duties and conduct. Here lies one
of the large opportunities for moral instruction. There is no need to
attempt to make formal occasions for this; so long as children play and
live with others they are under the experience of learning the art of
living with one another; this is the simple essence of morality. The
parent's answers to their questions on conduct, the comments on their
criticisms, and the conversation that may easily be directed on these
subjects count tremendously with the child in establishing his ideals
and modes of conduct. Returning to his play, there is no mightier
authority he can quote than to say, "My mother says--," or "My father
says--."
Let no one say that instruction in moral living is not religious, for
there can be no adequate guidance in morals without religion, nor can
the religious quality of the life find expression adequately except
through conduct in social living. Children need more than the rules for
living; they must feel motives and see ideals. They do not live by rules
any more than we do. Besides the rule that is known there must be a
reason for following it and a strong desire to do so. All ethical
teaching needs this imperative and motivation of religion, the
quickening of loyalty to high ideals, the doing of the right for
reasons of love as well as of duty and profit.
The father's opportunity comes especially with the boys. They are sure
to bring to him their ethical questions on games and sport; he knows
more about boys' fights and struggles than does the mother. When the
boys begin to discuss their games the father cannot afford to lack
interest. Trivial as the question may seem to be, it is the most
important one of the day to the boy and, for the interests of his
character, it may be the most important for many a day to the father. If
he answers with sympathy and interest this question on a "foul ball" or
on marbles or peg-tops, he has opened a door that will always stay open
so long as he approaches it with sincerity; if he slights it, if he is
too busy with those lesser things that seem great to him, he has closed
a door into the boy's life; it may never be opened again. Children learn
life through the life they are now living. Real preparation for the
world of business and larger responsibilities comes by the child's
experiences of his present world of play and schooling and family
living. To help him to live this present life aright is the best
training that can be given for the right living of all life.
_Questions on organized religion_: As children grow up, the church comes
into their range of interests. Just as they often make the day school
focal for conversation, as they recount their day's work there, so they
retain impressions of the church school, of the services of the church,
and will always ask many questions about this institution and its
observances. Here is the opportunity, in free conversation, to tell the
child the meaning of the church, the significance of membership therein,
and to lead him to conscious relationship to the society of the
followers of Jesus. (See chap. xvii, "The Family and the Church.")
I. References for Study
Alice E. Fitts, "Consciousness of God in Children," _The Aims of
Religious Education_, pp. 330-38. Religious Education Association,
$1.00.
W.G. Koons, _Child's Religious Life_, sec. II. Eaton & Mains,
$1.00.
J. Sully, _Children's Ways_, chap. vi. Appleton, $1.25.
II. Further Reading
George Hodges, _The Training of Children in Religion_, chaps. i-vi.
Appleton, $1.50.
George E. Dawson, _The Child and His Religion_, chap. ii. The
University of Chicago Press, $0.75.
Edward Lyttleton, _The Corner-Stone of Education_, chap. viii.
Putnam, $1.50.
T. Stephens (ed.), _The Child and Religion_. Putnam, $1.50.
C.W. Richell, _The Child as God's Child_. Eaton & Mains, $0.75.
W.G. Koons, _The Child's Religious Nature_. Eaton & Mains, $1.00.
III. Topics for Discussion
1. What are the special difficulties which you feel about
introducing the topic of religion to children? Describe any methods
or modes of approach which have seemed successful?
2. Would you regard it as a fault if a child seems unwilling to
talk about religion? What do you think "religion" means to the
child-mind?
3. In what ways do children's aptitudes differ and what factors
probably determine the difference? What was your own childish
conception of God? Did you love God or fear him? Why?
4. Is it ever right to teach the child those conceptions which we
have outgrown? What about Santa Claus and fairies? How can you use
childish figures of speech as an avenue to more exact truth?
5. Does the child learn more through ears or eyes? Through which
agency do we seek to convey religious ideas?
6. Is it possible to make the child see the intimate relation
between conduct and religion? How would you do this?
7. Give some of the characteristics of a religious child of seven
years, of ten.
CHAPTER VII
DIRECTED ACTIVITY
Probably all parents find themselves at some time thinking that the
real, fundamental problem of training their children lies in dealing
with their superabundant energy. "He is such an active child!" mothers
complain. Were he otherwise a physician might properly be consulted. But
the child's activity does seriously interfere with parental peace. It
takes us all a long time to learn that we are not, after all, in our
homes in order to enjoy peaceful rest, but in order to train children
into fulness of life. That does not mean that the home should be without
quiet and rest, but that we must not hope to repress the energy of
childhood. One might as well hope to plug up a spring in the hillside.
Our work is to direct that activity into glad, useful service.
§ 1. VALUE OF ACTIVITY
The things we do not only indicate character, they determine it. Our
thoughts have value and power as they get into action. To bend our
energies toward an ideal is to make it more real, to make it a part of
ourselves. Children learn by doing--learn not only that which they are
doing but life itself.
It may be doubted whether a child ever grew who did not plead to have a
share in the work he saw going on about him. That desire to help is part
of that fundamental virtue of loyalty of which we have spoken above; it
is his desire to be true to the tendency of the home, to give himself to
the realization of its purposes. Of course he does not think this out at
all. But this desire on the part of the child to have a hand in the
day's work is the parent's fine opportunity for a most valuable and
influential form of character direction.
One of the tests of a worthy character is whether the life is
contributory or parasitic, whether one carries his load, does his work,
makes his contribution, or simply waits on the world for what he can
get. A religious interpretation of and attitude toward life is
essentially that of self-giving in service. "My Father worketh hitherto
and I work." "I must be about my Father's business." How noticeable is
the child's interest in the vivid word-picture of One who "went about
doing good"!
§ 2. THE BLESSING OF LABOR
The home is the first place for life's habituation to service. The child
is greatly to be pitied who has no duties, no share in the work. Where
the hands are unsoiled the heart is the easier sullied. It is the height
of mistaken kindness, one of the common errors of an unthinking,
superficial affection, to protect our children from work. This is a
world of the moral order and of the glory of work.
When the child is very small it must learn this by having committed to
it very simple duties. As soon as it is able to handle things it may
learn to do that which is most helpful with those things, to care for
its toys, to put them away neatly. A child can learn while very young to
take care of its spoon, of certain clothes, of chair, and pencil and
paper. True, it is much easier to "pick up" after the child; but to do
so is to yield to our own sloth. The more tedious way is the one we must
follow if we would train the child.
Besides the care of his possessions the child will gladly take a share
in the general work of the home. Let some daily duty be assigned to each
one; such simple responsibilities as picking up all papers and magazines
and seeing that they are properly stacked or disposed of may be given to
one; another may sweep the stairs every day with a whisk broom (in one
instance a boy of eight did this daily); another may be "librarian,"
caring for all books; each one, after eight years of age, should make
her own bed; each one should be entirely responsible for his own table
in his room. Many homes permit of many other "chores," such as keeping
up the supply of small kindling, caring for a pet or even a larger
animal, keeping a little personal garden or vegetable plot. Under those
normal conditions of living, which some day we may reach, where each
family, or all families, have trees and flowers and ample space, the
opportunities are increased for joyous child activities which
consciously contribute to social well-being as a whole.
§ 3. RELIGION IN ACTION
Perhaps some will say, this is not religious education, it is everyday
training. Yes, it is "everyday training," but it is the training of a
religious person with the religious purpose of habituating the child to
give his life in service to his world. That is precisely what we
need--_religion in everyday action_. The atmosphere and habitual
attitude and conversation of the family must be depended on to give a
really religious meaning to these everyday acts, to make them as
religious as going to church, perhaps more so, and so to make them a
training for the life that is religious, not in word only, but in deed
and in truth.
Whatever we may say to children on the subject of religion, whether
directly or in teaching by indirection through songs and worship, must
pass over somehow into action in order to have meaning and reality. It
must be realized in order to be real. The difficulty that appears is
that of connecting the daily act with its spiritual significance. Yet
that is not as difficult as it seems. If the act has religious
significance to us, if we form the habit of really worshiping God with
our work, seeking in it to do his will, the child will know it. We
cannot keep that hidden. The spiritual life will never be more real to
the child than it is to us, and no amount of moralizing or
spiritualizing about our acts or his will give them religious
significance.
At least one person will testify that, after being brought up in a
really religious home, the most strikingly religious memory of that home
is an occasion when he delightedly carried a tray of food to a sick
neighbor. It was doing the very thing that he longed to do, realizing
the aspiration that had been unable to find words or form before. So the
life of action can be steadily trained by acts of kindness. Habits are
acts repeated until they pass from the volitional to the involuntary.
The only process we can follow is steadily to train the children in the
willing and doing of the right, the good, and the kindly deed, until it
becomes habitual. Let the child prepare the tray of delicacies, pack the
flowers we are sending, carry them over if possible, at least have a
share in all our ministries.[12]
The modern Sunday school recognizes the importance of activity in
forming religious character; therefore it plans and organizes social
activities for students to carry out.[13] The parents ought to know what
is designed for each child in his respective grade and to plan to
co-operate with the school. Where the family unites in the forms of
service suggested for the children, these activities lose all
perfunctoriness and take on a new reality. Social usefulness becomes a
normal part of life.
Do we remember the best times of our childhood? Were they not when we
were doing things? And were not the best of these best times when we
were doing the best things, those that seemed ideal, that gave us a
sense of helping someone or of putting into action the best of our
thoughts? That is the chance and the joy our children are longing for,
and that joy will be their strength.
§ 4. RELIGION IN SERVICE
The family has excellent opportunities for developing through its own
activities and duties the habits of the religious life. Children may
acquire through daily acts the habit of thinking of life as just the
chance to love and serve. Service may become perfectly normal to life.
Our modern paupers, whether they tramp the highways or ride in private
cars, came usually out of homes where the moral standard interpreted
life as just the chance of graft, to gain without giving, to have
without earning. Parental indulgence educates in pauperism. Let a boy
remain the passive beneficiary of all the advantages of a home until he
is sixteen or eighteen, and it will be exceedingly difficult to convert
him from the pauper habit.
The hard task before parents is to save their children from the snare of
passive luxury. Perhaps, remembering our toilsome youth, we seek to
shield them. It is a serious unkindness. It is a wrong to our world. The
religious mind is the one that takes life in terms of service, sees the
days as doors to ways of usefulness, girds itself with the towel, and
finds honor in bending to do the little things for the least of men.
Vain is all family worship, all prayer and praise and catechism, unless
we train the feet to walk this way so that they may visit the
imprisoned, clothe the naked, comfort the sad, and cheer the broken in
heart. The family may make this the normal way to live.
If the family would train boys and girls who shall be true followers of
the great Servant, it must stand among men as a servant, it must see
itself as set in the community to serve, and by habits of service and
helpfulness, by its whole social tone, it must quicken in its own people
the sense of social obligation and a realization of the delight in
self-giving. A home that is selfish in relation to other homes, in
relation to its community, can have no other than selfish, antisocial,
and therefore irreligious children. The first step in the welfare of a
child is to see that the home which constitutes his personal atmosphere
is steeped in the spirit of good-will toward men.
The whole attitude of life is determined by the thought-atmosphere of
the family. The greedy family makes the grafting citizen. The grasping
home makes the pugnacious disturber of the public peace. Greater than
the question whether you are a good citizen in your relation to the
ballot box is the one whether you are a cultivator of good citizenship
in your home. No amount of Sunday-school teaching on the Beatitudes or
week-day teaching on civics is going to overcome the down-drag of
envious, antisocial thought and feeling and conversation in the home.
Home action and attitude count for more than all besides.
It is equally true that no other influence can offset the salutary power
of a truly social home, that the easiest, most natural, and effective
method of teaching social duty and unselfishness is to do our whole
social duty unselfishly.
§ 5. FAMILY TRAINING FOR SOCIAL LIVING
The supreme test of the religious life here is ability to live among men
as brothers and to cause the conditions of the divine family to be
realized on earth. If we can realize that the purpose of Jesus was to
bring men into the family of God, that the aim of all religious endeavor
is the family character in men and women and the conditions of that
family in all society, we must surely appreciate the possibility of the
human family as a training school for this larger family of humanity.
The infant approaches social living by the pathway of the society of the
family. We all go out into life through widening circles, first the
mother's arms, then the family, the neighborhood, the city, the state,
the nation, the world-life. Each circle prepares for the next. The
family is the child's social order; its life is his training for the
larger life of nation and human brotherhood.
Just how men and women will live in society is determined principally by
the bent of their characters in the social order of the family. Their
attitude to the world follows the attitude of the family, especially of
the parents. They interpret the larger world by the lesser. The home is
the great school of citizenship and social living.
All the moral and religious problems of the family find a focus in the
purpose of preparing persons for social living. The family justifies its
cost to society in the contribution which it makes in trained and
motived lives. As a religious family its first duty is to prepare the
coming generation to live in a religious society, in one which will
steadily move toward the divine ideal of perfect family relations
through brotherhood and fatherhood. Its business is not to get children
ready for heaven, but to train them to make all life heavenly. Its aim
is not alone children who will not tear down the parents' reputation,
but men and women who will build up the actual worth and beauty of all
lives.
The realization, in the family, of the purpose of training youth to
social living and service in the religious spirit depends on two things:
a spirit and passion in the family for social justice and order, and the
direction of the activities of the family toward training in social
usefulness.
Only the social spirit can give birth to the social spirit. True lovers
of men, who set the values of life and of the spirit first, who give
their lives that all men may have freedom and means to find more
abundant life, come out of the families where the passion of human love
burns high. The selfish family, self-centered, caring not at all in any
deep sense for the well-being of others, existing to extract the juice
of life and let who will be nourished on the rind, becomes effective to
make the social highwayman, the oppressor. From such a family comes he
who breaks laws for his pocketbook and impedes the enactment of laws
lest human rights should prevent his acquisition of wealth; he who
hates his brother man--unless that brother has more than he has; the foe
of the kingdom of goodness and peace and brotherhood.
And goodness is as contagious as badness. Children catch the spirit of
social love and idealism in the family. Where men and women are deeply
concerned with all that makes the world better for lives, better for
babies and mothers, for workers, and, above all, for the values of the
spirit gained through leisure, opportunities, and higher incentives;
where the family is more concerned with folks than with furniture; where
habitually it thinks of people as Jesus did, as the objects most of all
worth seeking, worth investing in, there children receive direction,
habituation, and motivation for the life of religion, the life that
binds them in glad love to the service of their fellows, and makes them
think of all their life as the one great chance to serve, to make a
better world, and to bring God's great family closer together here.
I. References for Study
G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_, pp. 142-50. Revell,
$1.35.
W.S. Athearn, _The Church School_, pp. 85-102. Pilgrim Press,
$1.00.
G. Johnson, _Education by Plays and Games_, Part I. Ginn & Co.,
$0.90.
II. Further Reading
E.D. Angell, _Play_. Little, Brown & Co., $1.50.
Fisher, Gulick, _et al._, "Ethical Significance of Play,"
_Materials for Religious Education_, pp. 197-215. Religious
Education Association, $0.50.
Publications of the Play Ground Association.
III. Methods and Materials
PLAY
Forbush, _Manual of Play_. Jacobs, $1.00.
A. Newton, _Graded Games_. Barnes, $1.25.
Von Palm, _Rainy Day Pastimes_. Dana Estes, $1.00.
Johnson, _When Mother Lets Us Help_. Moffat, Yard & Co., $0.75.
WORK
Canfield, _What Shall We Do Now?_ Stokes, $1.50.
Beard, _Jack of All Trades_. Scribner, $2.00.
Beard, _Things Worth Doing_. Scribner, $2.00.
Bailey, _Garden Making_. Macmillan, $1.50.
Bailey (ed.), _Something to Do_ (magazine). School Arts Publishing
Co.
IV. Topics for Discussion
1. Is the quiet child an ideal child? How far should we go in
restraining activity?
2. The relative advantages of work and leisure for children. What
of the value of chores to you; did you do them? Describe any forms
of children's service in the home which have come under your
observation.
3. What forms of community service can be done by children and by
young people?
4. Recall any lessons learned by activity in your early home life.
5. Give in their order, according to your judgment, the potencies
for religious character in the home.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] A short list of books on child activity in the home is appended at
the end of this chapter; a fairly complete list, long enough for any
family, will be found on p. 117 of _The Church School_, by W.S. Athearn.
[13] See W.N. Hutchins, _Graded Social Service for the Sunday School_.
CHAPTER VIII
THE HOME AS A SCHOOL[14]
The home is so mighty as a school because, requiring little time for
formal instruction, it enlists its scholars so largely in informal
activities. It trains for life by living; it trains as an institution,
by a group of activities, a series of duties, a set of habits. If the
home is to prepare for social living it will be most of all and best of
all by its organization and conduct as a social institution.
§ 1. AN IDEAL COMMUNITY
For the purposes of society homes must be social-training centers; they
must be conducted as communities if their members are to be fitted for
communal living. No boy is likely to be ready for the responsibilities
of free citizenship who has spent his years in a home under an absolute
monarchy; or, as is today perhaps more frequently the case, in a
condition of unmitigated anarchy. A free society cannot consist of units
not free. The problems of parental discipline arise and appear as
persistently irritating and perplexing stumbling-blocks in many a home
simply because that home is organized altogether out of harmony and
relation with the normal life in which it is set. Society environing the
home gives its members the habits of twentieth-century autonomy,
individual initiative and responsibility, together with collective
living and working, while the home often seeks to perpetuate
thirteenth-century absolutism, serfdom, and subjection. In social living
outside the home we learn to do the will of all; in the home we attempt
to compel children to do the will of one.
§ 2. COMMUNITY INTERESTS
The home organized as a social community will give to every member,
according to his ability, a share in its guidance and will expect from
every member the free contribution of his powers. Its rules will be made
by the will of all, and its affairs governed, not by an executive board
composed of the parents, but by the free participation and choice of
all. The young will learn to choose by choosing; will learn both how to
rule and to be ruled by a share in ruling.
To be explicit, suppose a piece of furniture is desired for the home.
Two plans at least are possible: first, the "head of the home" may go
forth and purchase it without consulting anyone, or after advising with
the other "head"; or, second, before a purchase is made, the wisdom of
such an addition to the furniture may be suggested in the open council
of the whole family and the purchase discussed and determined by all.
Such councils, usually coming at or after the principal meal, freely
participated in by all, give even to the youngest a sense of the cost of
a home, of the care that goes into it, with, what is more important, a
sense of a share in these cares and costs; they cultivate habits of
prudence, of consideration of a matter, of steady judgments, of
deference to the wishes and wisdom of others. Of still greater
importance is another practical issue of such a plan--that every member
of the household has a new sense of proprietorship with deepened
responsibility. Instead of thinking of any household possession as
father's or mother's, or even mine, it becomes _ours_. The parents no
longer need to say, "Children, do not mar the furniture; it costs money
to replace it." The children know that already, and they have the same
pride in the home possessions and the same desire to preserve them as
they have in that which is peculiarly their own. A habit of mind results
from such a course so that, by thinking in terms of common possession of
the best things of life, there is cultivated that respect for the rights
of others which is simply right social thinking.
The same plan could be pursued in relation to almost every interest of
the family--as the planning of the annual vacation and outing, the
holidays, picnics, and birthday celebrations, the church and religious
exercises. Above all, in the last mentioned, this social spirit may be
cultivated. The father may cease to be the "high priest" for his family
and become a worshiper along with the other members. The effect will be
that his children are more likely to stay as worshipers with him than if
they gazed on him as on some lonely elevation, unrelated to them in his
religious exercises. The reading, the song, the prayers, the comment and
discussion, the story-telling, and all that may make up the regular
specific religious activities of the family should be such that all may
have a share in them. Nothing could be finer, diviner, and bring larger
helpfulness for social living than the attempt of the least little
lisping child to throw herself into the unified family act of prayer, as
when one little tot, unable to say the Lord's Prayer, united in worship
at the time of that act by saying, as reverently as possible, "One, two,
three, four, five," etc., up to ten. The ability to count was her latest
accomplishment; counting to ten was bringing the very best thing she
then had and, in the act of family worship, offering her part to the
Most High. A fine sense of worship and a desire to be one with the
others in this united, communal service prompted the participation.
§ 3. COMMUNITY SERVICE
Community service may be cultivated in the home. Here is the ideal
social community, where there are neither parasites nor paupers, where
all give of their best for the best of all. No one doubts that the baby
gives its full share of happiness and cheer, and the aged their offering
of consolation and experience; but the difficulty is supposed to be with
the lad and the girl who would rather play than work. Usually this is
because the habits of co-operation in the life of this community have
been too long neglected. The small boy or girl had no share in its work.
Parents are too busy to think through the matter of finding suitable
duties for all. It is so much easier to do things one's self, even
though the child misses the benefits of participation. More frequently
the blame lies in the fact that parents desire to shield children from
labor. Some would have them grow up without knowing what they count as
the degradation of toil. But a boy who knows nothing of the "chores" has
missed half the joys of boyhood, and has a terribly hard lesson ahead of
him when he goes out to relate himself to life. No matter what one's
station may be, there is a part to be played, and one's piece of work to
be done. The greatest unkindness we can do our children is to train them
to lives that do not play their part. The home is our chance to train a
man to harmonious usefulness in his world. Not only should the family
train to social co-operation and service, but it should train to
efficiency therein. Do not let your child's duties become a farce; let
them exact as much of him as the world will exact also; that is,
efficiency, accuracy, thoroughness, and fidelity.
§ 4. A SCHOOL OF SOCIAL MINISTRY
The family trains lives for social ministry. The unsocial lives come out
of unsocial homes. The home that exists for itself alone trains lives
that exist only for themselves; these are the homes that throw the sand
of selfishness into the wheels of society; they ultimately effect social
suicide through selfishness. The attitude and atmosphere of the home are
of first importance here. As we think, so will our children act. If the
home is to us a place without responsibilities for the neighborhood,
without duties to neighbors, without social roots, then it is a school
for industrial, commercial, and social greed and warfare. As we think in
our hearts and talk at our table, so are we educating those who sit
thereat.
If we would have our homes really efficient and worthy agencies for
education in social living, the first thing to do is to seek the social
atmosphere, to cultivate all those influences which young lives
unconsciously absorb. We all know that character comes through
environment in large measure, and that the mental and spiritual
environment is by far the most potent. Here is something that affects us
more than the finest or poorest furniture and that gives the real zest
and flavor to any meal. The choice of our own reading enters here, not
only the matter of reading in sociology, but of all reading, as to
whether it blinds with class prejudices, intensifies caste feeling, or
atrophies social sympathy by pandering to selfishness and sensuousness.
The control of our own feelings and judgment enters here. Do we
sedulously cultivate charity for others? Do we stifle impatience,
bitterness, class feeling? Do we guide the conversation of visitors and
the family group so that antisocial passions are subdued and a spirit of
brotherly love and compassion for all is cultivated? Here men and women
have opportunity to give evidence of a change of heart; here they need
that awakening to social consciousness which is a new birth, a
regeneration into the life of the Son of Man who came to give his life.
By its active ministry the family is training for social living. When a
child carries a bowl of soup to some sick or needy one, he learns a
lesson never to be forgotten. The memories of hours of planning and
preparation for some neighborly service--the making of bread, the
packing of a box, the preserves for the sick--shine out like sunshine
spots along childhood's ways; they direct manhood's steps.
We are gradually learning that social duties are not learned save
through social deeds; that even the most carefully prepared and
perfectly pedagogical systems of instruction fail, standing alone. The
college student uses the laboratory method in his sociology--though we
know that sociology may be as far from social living as the poles are
apart. The Social Service Association of the Young Men's Christian
Association has given up attempts to teach social duty in favor of the
plan of undertaking specific pieces of social activity. The home must
adopt the laboratory method. The important thing is, not what the father
or mother may systematically teach about the social duties of the
children, but what kinds of service, of ministry and normal activity
they may lead the children to; that is, in what ways they may all
together discharge their functions in society.
§ 5. FAMILIES AS COMMUNITY FACTORS
Each family must clearly see its normal relations to its community, to
the social whole; first, as an association of social beings having
social duties, obligations, and privileges; then, to see that the
ordering of the daily life is the largest single factor in determining
the value of the family to the development of the community, fitting
harmoniously into the larger community, and rendering its share of
service.
The disorderly home spreads its immoral contagion beyond its walls, out
into the front yard, out and up and down the street, and all through the
village and city. The City Beautiful cannot come until we have the Home
Beautiful. Training each one to play his part in keeping the house in
order, picking up and setting in place his own tools and playthings,
preventing and removing litter, scraps, and elements of disorder and
discomfort, acquiring habits of neatness based on social motives--these
things make more for the city of beauty and health than all our lectures
on clean cities.
No family lives to itself. Young people need to see clearly how their
homes and their habits in the home impinge on other homes and lives.
This is impressed upon us in an accentuated and acute degree in city
living. One can hardly imagine a finer discipline of grace than
apartment living, though one may well question whether it is not morally
and hygienically flying in the face of the natural order. We may not
have for a long time municipal ordinances forbidding boiled dinners,
limburger, and phonographs in city apartments; but if, unfortunately, we
are compelled to live in these modern abominations, we ought to
cultivate a conscience that will not inflict our idiosyncrasies, either
in culinary aromas or in musical taste, on our neighbors. But there are
matters greater than these by which the home trains for social
thoughtfulness. No man has a right to grow weeds at home, because the
seeds never stay there. A howling dog, a disease-breeding sty, a
fly-harboring stable, must be viewed, not from the point of the family's
convenience, but from that of others' welfare.
§ 6. TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP
The family has a duty to train children for Christian citizenship. No
other institution can take its place even here. Courses of lectures in
churches and settlements effect excellent results, and the study of
civics from the moral and ideal viewpoint should be encouraged in the
schools; but the home is the place where, after all, citizens are
trained and the value or menace of their citizenship determined. If we
stop long enough to get a clear understanding of what we mean by
citizenship this will be the more evident.
Citizenship is the condition of full communal, social living in a
democracy. It is not a special department or activity of a man's life
which he exercises once in a while, as at the primary or at the polls or
through the political campaign; it is a permanent condition, the
condition of his social living in a democracy. It seems to be worth
while to think of this enough to be quite sure of it, for we have
thought too long of citizenship as a special aspect of one's life or as
an occasional duty; we have called for good citizenship at times of
election and have been content with dormant citizenship at other times;
we have said that one was exercising his citizenship when he voted, and
have forgotten that he was exercising it or abusing or neglecting it as
he walked the streets, talked with his neighbors, or in any way lived
the life that has relations to other lives.
Matters of citizenship are simply matters of social living, as social
living expresses itself through what we call government; that is,
through communal, civic, national administration and regulation.
Citizenship is social control in action, not through political activity
alone, but through all that concerns civic and communal life. In view of
this it may be worth while to look a little more closely into the
relations of family life to this matter of the determination of the
character of our citizenship.
The family is an agency for religious training in citizenship. The
family is the first, smallest, and still the most common and potent
social group. It is the community in which we nearly all learn communal
living. At first it is a child's world, then comes his city, and then
his nation, but ere long again the family is his own kingdom. Its
ideals, constantly interpreted in action, determine our ideals. Where
the father is greedy, self-centered, regarding the home as solely for
his convenience as his private boarding-house, where he is a despotic
boss, why should not the son at least tolerate bossism in his city if he
does not himself pattern after his father on a wider scale and regard
the city or the state as his private boarding-house and the treasury as
his private manger? Where the mother is a petty parasite, what wonder
the children regard with indifference, if not even with admiration, the
whole system of civic and social barnacles, leeches, and other
parasites?
The very organization of the home must prepare for civic duty by laying
upon all appropriate duties and activities. It ought to be an ideal type
of community. But that can never be until we take the training of
parents seriously in hand; until we cease to delegate the pedagogy of
courtship, marriage, and home-founding to the comic supplements of the
Sunday papers and to the joke columns. Parents must themselves be
trained for the business of the organization of homes as educational
agencies.
The life and work of the home ought to train religiously for
citizenship, by causing each to bear his due share of the burdens of
all. Where the child has been forced to do the indolent parent's share,
to support the slothful father, he can only look forward to the time
when he will be free to support only himself, and have no other than
purely egoistic obligations; this is an utterly immoral conception, and
one squarely opposed to good citizenship. Where the boy or the girl has
been trained to regard all toil as dishonorable, where each has been
taught scrupulously to avoid every burden, they come into social living
with habits set against bearing their share and toward making others
carry them. The indolent parent makes the tax-dodging citizen, as the
indulgent parent often makes the place-hunting citizen who becomes a tax
on the public.
The ideals of the family determine the needs of citizens. Its
conversation, its reading, its customs, set the standard of social
needs. Where the father laughs at the smartness of the artful dodge in
politics, where the mother sighs after the tinsel and toys that she
knows others have bought with corrupt cash, where the conversation at
the meal-table steadily, though often unconsciously, lifts up and lauds
those who are out after the "real thing," the eager ears about that
board drink it in and childish hearts resolve what they will do when
they have a chance. Where no voice speaks for high things, where no tide
of indignation against wrong sweeps into language, where the children
never feel that the parents have great moral convictions--where no
vision is, the people perish.
Yet to realize this civic responsibility of the home would be, in the
greater number of instances, to remedy it. In those other instances
where there are no civic ideals, where the domestic conscience is dead,
there rests upon the state, upon society, for its own sake, the
responsibility to train those children so that, at any rate, they will
not perpetuate homes of this type. We may do very much by the
stimulation and direction of parents. Men need but to be reminded of
their duty to make it a part of their business to train their children
in social duty.
I. References for Study
Taylor, _Religion in Social Action_, chaps. vii, viii. Dodd, Mead &
Co., $1.25.
E.J. Ward, _The Social Center_, chap. v. Appleton, $1.50.
II. Further Reading
Lofthouse, _Ethics in the Family_. Hodder & Stoughton, $1.50.
III. Topics for Discussion
1. What is the special social importance of the family?
2. How do children acquire their social ideals from the home?
3. What are the advantages which the home has as a school?
4. How do homes train for the responsibilities of citizenship?
5. Can you describe any plans of community councils in the home?
6. How would you promote community service in the family?
7. What are the dangers of unsocial and selfish lives growing in
the home?
FOOTNOTES:
[14] This chapter is, with the publisher's kind permission, taken, with
sundry minor changes, from the author's pamphlet, _The Home as a School
for Social Living_, published by the American Baptist Publication
Society in the "Social Service Series."
CHAPTER IX
THE CHILD'S IDEAL LIFE
The modern child is likely to miss one of the great character enrichings
which his parents had, in that he is in danger of growing up entirely
ignorant of the poetic setting of religious thought in historic and
dignified hymns. The great hymns have done more for religious thought
and character than all the sermons that have ever been preached. Even in
the adult of the purely intellectual cast the hymn, aided by rhythm,
music, repetition, and emotion, is likely to become a more permanent
part of the mental substratum than any formal logical presentation of
ideas. How much more will this be the case with the child who feels more
than he reasons, who delights in cadence and rhythm, and who loves a
world of imagery!
§ 1. SONG AND STORY
Very early life's ideals are presented in poetic form; plays,
school-life, love of country, friendships, all take or are given metric
expression. So, for children, hymns have a perfectly natural place. The
child sings as he plays, sings as he works, sings in school, and, as
long as life and memory hold, these words of song will be his
possession; in declining years, when eyes are failing and other
interests may wane, fragments of childhood's songs and youth's poems
will sing themselves over in his memory; while in the years between how
often will some stanza or line spring into the focus of thought just at
the moment when it can give brave and helpful direction!
Those years of facile memorization should be like the ant's summer, a
period of steady storing in mind of the world's treasures of thought. No
man ever had too many good and beautiful thoughts in his memory. Few
have failed to recall with gratitude some apparently long-forgotten word
of cheer, light, and inspiration stored in childhood. The special virtue
of the hymn, among all poetic forms of great thoughts, is that memory is
strengthened by the music and the thought further idealized by it, while
frequent repetition fixes it the more firmly and repetition in
congregational song adds the high value of emotional association.
But what kinds of memory treasures are being given to the modern child
in the realm of religion? In by far the greater number of instances in
the United States neither church nor Sunday school nor home brings to
him any knowledge of the great hymns of religion.[15] In the churches
that use these hymns the child is frequently not in the Sunday
services; he is in the children's service or the school, while in the
majority of churches a weak-minded endeavor for amusement has
substituted meaningless rag-time trivialities for rich and dignified
hymns. Perhaps the custom of encouraging congregations to jig, dance,
cavort, or drone through the frivolities of "popular" gospel songs is
only a passing craze, but it is a most unfortunate one; it tends to
divorce worship and thought, to make worship a matter of purely
superficial emotions, and to form the habit of expressing religion, the
highest experience of life, in language, often irreverent and almost
always trivial, slangy, or ridiculous. It is an insult to the
intelligence of children to ask them to sing
We're pilgrims o'er the sands of time,
We have not long to stay,
The lifeboat soon is coming,
To carry the pilgrims away.
It is the duty of parents to know what their children are learning in
the Sunday school. Not only are they often missing the opportunity to
lay up the treasure of elevating, inspiring thoughts; they are acquiring
crude, mistaken, misleading theological concepts in the hideous,
revolting figures of "evangelistic songs"; they are storing their minds
with atrocities in English and in figures of speech; they are acquiring
the habits of sentimentality in religion and inhibiting the finer,
higher feelings. They are blunting their higher feelings by repeating
incongruous and nauseating figures of being "washed in blood," or they
are carelessly singing sentiments they do not understand.
What can the family do about this? It ought to assert its rights in the
church. It ought to protest and rebel against the debauching of mind and
the degrading of religion (all for the sake of selling trashy books at
$25 per hundred). A parent would do better to keep his child from church
and Sunday school than to permit his mind to be filled with the
sanguinary pictures of God, the mediaeval theology of the modern
songbook, and its offenses against truth in thought and form. But the
family can work positively and more effectively by providing good hymns
for children in the home.
§ 2. TRAINING IN SONG
Almost without exception all children will sing if encouraged early in
life. In the family group one has only to start a familiar song and soon
all will be singing. It is just as natural to sing "Abide with Me" when
the family sits together in the evening as it is to start "My Alabama
Choo-choo." Children like the swing of "Onward, Christian Soldiers" just
as much as in the northern states they like "Marching through Georgia."
If they do not know the hymns the home is the best of all places in
which to learn them.
A large section of real family life is missing in families that do not
sing together. A home without song lacks one of the strongest bonds of
family unity, and the after-years will be deprived of a memory dear
indeed to many others. Days often come when the wheels of family life
seem to develop friction, when little rifts seem to throw the members
far apart, but the evening song brings them together. The unity of
action, of feeling, the development of emotions above the day's
irritation and strife, all help to new joys in family living.
We may well think of the fine songs and the great hymns together. There
is no fixed wall between "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory," and "The Son
of God Goes Forth," nor between "My Old Kentucky Home" and "Jerusalem
the Golden." The modern home has the musical instruments to lead in
song--though they are not always essential--and lacks only the planning
and forethought to develop the joys of song. It must provide the thought
that applies the simpler forms of musical expression to the sweetening
and enriching of life.
Let no one say, "My family is not musical." That simply means that your
family does not take time for music and song. Build on the training in
patriotic and folk-songs given in the schools; sing these same songs
over in the home and then associate with the best of them the best of
the hymns. Cultivate the habit of binding the whole realm of feeling in
music together, the hymns and the songs, to make religion mean beauty
and devotion and to make the finer sentiments of life truly religious.
This costs time and thought. Someone must plan that the books of songs
and hymns are provided, that the opportunity is given, and that wise,
unobtrusive leadership is there. Have ready several copies of the book
containing the best hymns. Think out your plan of procedure in advance,
selecting the songs, or at least the first one. Then at the right time
simply begin to play that song and you will scarcely need to invite the
children to sing with you.
Should anyone doubt whether children will enjoy singing good hymns, he
may purchase a few records for the phonograph, for example, "O Come All
Ye Faithful," "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," "O Zion Haste," "Holy,
Holy, Holy," "Abide with Me." These will suit those of from ten upward;
younger children will enjoy "Can a Little Child Like Me," "Brightly
Gleams Our Banner," "Jesus Loves Me." "I Think When I Read That Sweet
Story," and "For the Beauty of the Earth," though they will join gladly
in the other hymns. Or, instead of using the phonograph, sit down
quietly at the piano and play these hymns, with just enough emphasis for
the children to catch the rhythm, and they will soon be standing at the
piano singing with you.[16]
§ 3. PLAY ACTIVITY
The child is a playing animal. Play is not an invention of the devil,
designed to plague parents and to lead children to waste their time. It
is nature's best method of education, for when a child plays he is
simply reaching forward in his activities to the realization of his
ideals. Play is idealized experiences. There is always a significance of
wider and maturer experience in children's play. Therefore the family
must find space and time and adaptation of organization to the child's
need of spontaneous, free activity in play.
The special religious value of play lies in the fact that the child in
his games is experimenting with life, learning its lessons; especially
is he learning the art of living with other lives. It is our religious
duty to see to it that our children become used to living in society by
playing in social groups. Scarcely anyone is more to be pitied than the
lonely child standing in the corner of the playground, able only to
watch the games, because parental prohibition has already made him a
solitary and unsocial creature.
The educational potencies of play are so great that we dare not leave
its activities to chance. Parents must study the power of play, its
psychological and educational values, in order to direct its activity to
the highest good.
The adequate care of a child's play-life will involve, in addition to
the trained intelligence of the parents, provision for space in the
house and also outdoors, willingness to subordinate our peace and our
pleasure to the child's play at times, a reasonable though not
necessarily expensive provision of play materials, attention to the
character of the plays and playmates. The home will not lose its harmony
and beauty if it is filled with playing children. Its function has to do
with their development rather than with the preservation of chairs.
I. References for Study
H.F. Cope, _Hymns You Ought to Know_, Introduction. Revell, $1.50.
W.F. Pratt, _Musical Ministries_. Revell, $1.00.
H.W. Hulbert, _The Church and Her Children_, chap. x. Revell,
$1.00.
II. Further Reading
For a list of great hymns see _Hymns You Ought to Know_, edited by
Henry F. Cope, and mentioned above. It contains one hundred
standard hymns with a brief account of each hymn and of each
author.
E.D. Eaton, "Hymns for Youth," _Religious Education_, December,
1912, VII, 509.
See report of the Commission on Worship in the Sunday School, in
_Religious Education_, October, 1914.
Read especially the chapter on this subject in H.H. Hartshorne,
_Worship in the Sunday School_. Columbia University, $1.25.
III. Topics for Discussion
1. What special advantages do songs and hymns have in their
pedagogical power?
2. What hymns do you remember from childhood? In what way are these
hymns valuable to you?
3. What changes would you like to see in the hymns the children
learn today?
4. What difficulties do you find in training children to sing in
the home?
5. Is it worth while to teach children to play? What games have
special educational value? What games have religious significance
or value? Give reasons for your opinions.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] One of the best collections of suitable religious songs is _Worship
and Song_. Pilgrim Press, $0.40.
[16] An excellent plan is worked out in _The Children's Hour of Story
and Song_ by Moffat and Hidden, Unitarian Sunday School Society, in
which children's stories are given and following them suitable songs and
hymns with the music for each.
CHAPTER X
STORIES AND READING
If we would teach religion to our children we must adopt the method of
Jesus; that of telling stories. The story has the advantage, first, of
its natural interest, and, then, of the indirect manner of its
presentation of the truth, together with the fact that that truth is
embodied in a statement of life and experience. Besides, story-telling
to any person of active interests is one of the easiest and most
stimulating methods of teaching.
§ 1. STORY-TELLING
So much has already been written on the art of telling stories that only
a few suggestions are needed here. First, understand why you tell the
story. Normally a double motive enters in, namely, the conveyance of
truth in life, at the same time affording real pleasure to the
listeners. Either motive alone will be inadequate. You cannot convey the
truth without the desire to give pleasure; you cannot make the pleasure
worth while without the truth. But this is the place to insist that the
truth which you desire to convey must find its way to the conviction of
the child through the story and not through any moral or preface or
particular statement which you may make. The moral or lesson must be
clear to you but carefully held in reserve to direct the matter and
manner of the story.
Secondly, be prepared to pay the price of this most effective method of
instruction. It will cost the reservation of a certain amount of time
both for acquiring the story and for relating it. It will require
careful thought and planning, especially to be sure that the story is
told in sympathy with the child's world. People who are too busy to tell
their children stories are, perhaps fortunately, coming to realize that
they are too busy to have children. If it looks like a waste of time to
turn off the lights and sit by the firelight for from twenty to thirty
minutes, we shall need to revise our estimates of the value of
child-character. Nor must we shrink from the investment of time in
preparation for the narration of the story; if it is worth telling, it
is worth telling well.
Thirdly, keep a record of sources of stories. This may be preserved in a
notebook. One parent used a card-index for this purpose. There are a few
books published containing good collections.[17] You will find most
valuable your own little book in which you have noted down the fugitive
stories and short selections which are to be found in general
literature.[18]
Fourthly, do not tell a story so as to close the child's interest in the
narrative. Stories ought to lead to inquiry and further reading in the
book or other source from which they have been drawn; indeed,
story-telling is one excellent method of quickening an interest in
reading.
Fifthly, allow the children to retell the stories to one another. Often
the whole family will be entertained and helped by the explanation which
a small child will give of the story he has learned by hearing it
repeated a few times from his mother's lips.
Sixthly, telling Bible stories to children in the quiet hour is the best
of all methods to stimulate their interest in the Bible itself. It is
much better to tell the story in your own language than to read it
either in the Bible or in a paraphrase. For one reason, you will never
tell it twice the same way, and children will watch with interest
changes in the narration. As soon as they can read, secure some of the
simple Bible narratives and put these in their hands.[19]
§ 2. BOOKS AND READING
A home without books is like a house with only one window; it can look
out in only one direction, in that of the present. It knows only a
limited world; its children have a short measure of the joy of life,
they can know here only those whom they see today, their friends must be
few, their world narrow and confined.
If the books are not in your home the children will find them elsewhere.
Unless the school kills the taste for reading, as it sometimes does, the
young folks will open ways somehow into the ideal realm of books. As
they grow up, the book takes the place of the story. The printed page is
the child's key to all routes of travel, routes that lead to other times
and lands, routes that lead to other people and into their hearts and
minds. The child sees conduct and feels it as it is in action in lives
before him, but he begins to discriminate and to analyze it only through
reading; souls are revealed where the purpose of the writer is that the
reader may see the springs of action in the character portrayed.
Fiction, biography, travel, and adventure soon pass from the merely
exterior happenings to the discovery of meanings in character.
§ 3. DANGERS OF READING
Since the book needs only one for its enjoyment, while the story
requires two, there is less control over reading. There is only one way
to be sure that children are not devouring vicious books and that is to
make sure that they have an ample supply of healthful, helpful ones.
This is especially necessary in a day that caters to sloth in reading.
The tendency is for reading to take the facile decline from book to
cheap magazine, from magazine to newspaper, and from the newspaper to
skimming the headlines and the "funnies." The cheaper papers appeal to
the lowest intelligence and strike at the line of least moral and mental
resistance. Reading enriches the life but little and may impoverish it
greatly unless there is developed the habit of drawing on the world's
great treasures of thought and feeling. Open windows in your children's
souls by giving them books; keep them open by encouraging the reading
habit. Great souls wait for them, willing to converse and become their
friends and teachers if they will but take down these books from the
shelves and open them with an eager mind.
§ 4. DEVELOPING GOOD TASTE
_What can be done to quicken a love of good reading in children?_
Recognize that not all children develop this appetite at the same age,
that girls read more than boys, that boys usually have a period of
decline in reading interest from seventeen to twenty-one or even later.
But everything really depends on whether we ourselves love good books
and keep them on hand. One of the life-centers of a family should be the
bookshelf, while the picture of the evening lamp and the reading group
will constitute one of its best memories. Where books are at hand and
where they are used daily, the children need little urging to read. Now
this does not mean that yards of choice editions make a book-loving
family. There is a difference between bindings and books. It means books
known and loved, familiar friends for daily converse, books on handy
shelves and fit to be used as common food.
_Do you know what your children read?_ Do you watch as carefully the
food of mind and spirit as you do that of the body? Do you show an
interest in the books they plan to draw from the public library? Can you
guide them intelligently when they ask for suggestions of interesting
books? Do you know the healthful, suitable ones?
§ 5. PROMOTION OF THE READING INTEREST
The Sunday school might aid greatly in promoting the habit of selecting
and reading good books. Children often come home from day school
clamoring for some book which the teacher has recommended as interesting
and valuable. The Sunday-school teacher's recommendation would also
carry weight. In every church, whether there exists a Sunday-school
library or not, there ought to be a library or book committee which
would watch for the right reading for the different grades and would
cause the titles of good books to be placed on a bulletin board.
Further, such a committee might very well place a copy of the book
selected in the teacher's hand in order that the teacher might call the
attention of the class directly to it. Of course the range of selection
should be as wide as the world of books and should include fiction,
romance, song, and story.[20] Parents could do the same sort of thing.
Why not talk up the best books we remember? As to those old-time books,
we need to realize that tastes change. Perhaps they owed much of their
interest to their vivid descriptions of contemporary life. Therefore we
must commend the new books, those that belong to the children's own
days, too. This can be done, provided we really know the books, not by
saying, "We should like you to read _Sandford and Merton_," but rather,
"There is a capital story in _Captains Courageous_; have any of you read
it?" Leave the matter there, or, at most, go only far enough to
stimulate interest.
I. References for Study
St. John, _Stories and Story Telling_, chaps. i-v. Eaton & Mains,
$0.50.
Forbush, _The Coming Generation_, chap. viii. Appleton, $1.50
Winchester, "Good and Bad Books in the Home," in _The Bible in
Practical Life_, p. 38. Religious Education Association, $2.50.
II. Further Reading
Partridge, _Story Telling in School and Home_. Sturgis & Walton,
$1.25.
H.W. Mabie, _Books and Culture_. Dodd, Mead & Co., $1.25.
III. Methods and Materials
ON STORY-TELLING
E.P. St. John, _Stories and Story Telling_. Eaton & Mains, $0.50.
Wyche, _Some Great Stories and How to Tell Them_. Newson & Co.,
$1.00.
L.S. Houghton, _Telling Bible Stories_. Scribner, $1.25.
Bryant, _How to Tell Stories for Children_. Houghton Mifflin Co.,
$1.00.
E.M. and G.E. Partridge, _Story Telling in School and Home_.
Sturgis & Walton, $1.25.
DIRECTING CHILDREN'S READING IN THE HOME
Macy, _A Children's Guide to Reading_. Baker & Taylor Co., $1.25.
Field, _Finger Posts to Children's Reading_. McClurg, $1.00.
Arnold, _A Mother's List of Books for Children_. McClurg, $1.00.
For a short practical list see the different lists classified under
Sunday-School Departments in W.S. Athearn, _The Church School_,
particularly pp. 54, 83, 118, 169. Pilgrim Press, $1.00.
IV. Topics for Discussion
1. Do you remember any stories which especially impressed you as a
child? What were their qualities? What were the qualities of their
narration?
2. What are your difficulties in story-telling to children?
3. Is the habit of reading books passing among children? If so,
what are the reasons?
4. What responsibility has the public library toward the child's
selection of books? toward promoting book reading?
5. How many families co-operate with the library?
6. How might the church co-operate?
7. Does the reading of newspapers by children affect their general
habits of reading? In what ways?
8. What personal difference is there, if any, between the effect of
a borrowed book and of one the child owns?
FOOTNOTES:
[17] Laura E. Cragin, _Kindergarten Bible Stories_. Fifty-six of the Old
Testament stories. There is also a companion volume of New Testament
stories.
James Baldwin, _Old Stories of the East_. Fresh and interesting versions
of the familiar Old Testament stories.
Kate Douglas Wiggin, _The Story Hour_. Good stories and a suggestive
introduction on story-telling.
_Half a Hundred Stories for the Little People_, by various authors.
[18] _A List of Good Stories to Tell to Children under Twelve Years of
Age_, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, $0.05. There are references to
books in which the stories may be found, including 25 Bible stories, 16
fables, 14 myths, 14 Christmas stories, 7 Thanksgiving stories, etc.
[19] Such as O'Shea, _Old World Wonder Stories_; George Hodges, _The
Garden of Eden_; Cragin, _Old Testament Stories_; Mary Stewart, _Tell Me
a True Story_.
[20] The H.W. Wilson Co., White Plains, New York, publishes a list of
_Children's Books for Sunday-School Libraries_.
CHAPTER XI
THE USE OF THE BIBLE IN THE HOME
If we keep clearly in mind the aim of religious education in the family
as that of the development of the lives of religious persons, the place
and value of the Bible will be evident. It will be used as a means of
developing and directing lives. This will be quite different from a
perfunctory use because our fathers used it or a use under the
compulsion of the fear lest some strange evil should befall us, some
visitation of an offended deity.
§ 1. THE CHILD'S NEED
Children need the Bible as a part of their social heritage. Just as they
get a larger life, inspired and stimulated by the realization of their
connection with the past of their family and their country, so the Bible
brings them into connection with the religious history of the race.
General history brings heroic forefathers into the stream of
consciousness; we feel the push of their lives. So the Bible reveals the
stream farther back and makes us part of the process of life in unity
with great characters and great movements.
The child has a right to the Bible as his literary heritage. Here in the
Bible is the precipitation of the ideals of a people unique in the
place which religion held in their lives. Here is a literature which is
the source of much of the best in the language and reading of the
child's life. Its phrases are beautiful and convenient embodiments of
religious ideals; they will have a steadily developing richness of
meaning as life opens out to the child.[21]
§ 2. DIFFICULTIES
The difficulties in the way of the use of the Bible in the home are: the
crowded programs, or a lack of time due to the absence of any program
for the days; a feeling of unnaturalness in the special reading of this
book; the decay of the custom of reading aloud; parental ignorance of
the Bible and especially of its beauties for the young; and the
excessive amount of task-reading frequently required by the schools. The
Sunday school also sometimes offends in this respect by overemphasis on
academic tasks for home work.
§ 3. METHODS
First, let parents use the Bible themselves. Use the books as you wish
children to use them. This will be the longest step you can take toward
the solution of the problem.
Secondly, use the Bible naturally. When children have an aversion to the
Bible it is due usually to two causes: the peculiar place and use of
the book which makes it a thing apart from life, and often an object of
dread; and the practice of using it as a task-book, to be opened only in
order to prepare Sunday-school lessons. Just as it takes years to
overcome the aversion set up against English literature by its
analytical study in the schools, so that the child becomes a man before
he voluntarily reads Dickens, Thackeray, the poets, and essayists, in
the same manner we have succeeded in making the Bible undesirable to
youth. If you read passages aloud, use the tone of voice which would be
appropriate if this was a new book not bound in leather. Read it for
pleasure as one would read a literary masterpiece--not because opinion
might frown on you if you had not read the classic. Does someone object
that that would be to degrade the Bible to the level of secular
writings? You cannot degrade a literature; it makes its own level and
our labels do not affect it. Certain it is that a pious tone of voice
will not protect the Bible from the secular level. But to use it
unnaturally will degrade it in the opinion of those who hear us.
Thirdly, make its use a pleasure. All children enjoy story-telling and
listening to reading. Many parents practice the children's hour, some
period in the day when they will, alone with the children, read and talk
with them. Let the Bible story be the reward of a good day, something
promised as an incentive to good behavior. Children delight, not alone
in the story itself, but in rhythmic passages, in the poetic flights of
Isaiah and the beautiful imagery of the Psalms. To them it is natural
and pleasant to think of the hills that skipped and the stars that sang
and the trees that gave forth praise. They know the song of nature and
are happy to find it put into words.
Fourthly, use the Bible as a book of life. How many times a day do
questions of conduct arise in the family! How often do children ask what
is right, and freely discuss the question! Here is a book rich in
precept and example on at least many of the questions. There are
pictures of actual lives meeting real temptations; there are the
epigrammatic precepts of Proverbs and of the teachings of Jesus. Call
attention to them, not as settling the question out of hand, but as
testimony to the point. Accustom children to getting the light of the
Bible on their lives, remembering that this book is a light and not a
fence nor a code of laws.
Fifthly, use the Bible in worship. This does not conflict with the plea
for its use naturally, for worship should be as natural as any of the
social pleasures of the family. Here select those passages for reading
which count most for the spirit of worship. It is a good plan to read a
short passage, suitable for memorizing, so frequently that children
learn it and are able to repeat it in concert. Be sure that all the
passages read or recited are short. It will often be wise to preface the
reading with a brief account of its original circumstances, so that all
may hear the words as the actual utterances of a real man living in real
life.
Sixthly, provide material which helps to make the Bible interesting, and
which helps children to see its pictures through the eyes of geography
and history.[22]
Seventhly, make the use of the Bible possible at all times for all. See
that as soon as the child can read he has his own Bible, that it is in
large, readable type, as much like any other book as possible. It is no
evidence of grace to ruin the eyes over diamond-text Bibles. If
possible, also provide separate books of the Bible, in modern literary
form and some in the idiom of our day.[23]
§ 4. DOUBTFUL METHODS
It is doubtful whether good comes from the use of the Bible as a
riddle-book, nor do the "Bible games" tend to develop a natural
appreciation of the book. There is no new light but rather a confusing
shadow thrown on the character of Joseph by the foolish conundrum
concerning Pharaoh making a ruler out of him. Sending a child to the
Bible to discover the shortest verse, the longest, the middle one, etc.,
trains him to regard it as an odd kind of book, to think of it as a
dictionary, and to use it less.
We assume too readily that a knowledge of the separate details of
biblical information, such as the date of the Flood, the age of
Methuselah, the names of the twelve tribes, the twelve apostles, the
books of the two Testaments, is the desired end. But one might know all
these things and many more and be not one whit the better. For the child
surely the desirable end is that he may feel deeply the attractiveness
of the character of Joseph or of Jesus, may say within himself, "What a
fine man; I want to be like him." Be sure the persons are real, that you
see them living their lives in their times, just as you live your life
now.
I. References for Study
T.G. Soares, "Making the Bible Real to Boys," in _Boy Training_,
pp. 117-40. Association Press, $0.75.
W.T. Lhamon, "Bible in the Home," _Religious Education_, December,
1912, p. 486.
G. Hodges, _Training of Children in Religion_, chap. x. Appleton,
$1.50.
II. Further Reading
_The Bible in Practical Life._ Religious Education Association.
Numerous references to the use of the Bible in the home in this
volume.
Patterson Dubois, _The Natural Way_, sec. iv. Revell, $1.25.
III. Methods and Materials
"Passages of Bible for Memorization," _Religious Education_,
August, 1906.
Louise S. Houghton, _Telling Bible Stories_. Scribner, $1.25.
Johnson, _The Narrative Bible_. Baker & Taylor Co., $1.50.
Hall and Wood, _The Bible Story_, 5 vols. King, $2.00 by
subscription.
Courtney, _The Literary Man's Bible_. Crowell, $1.25.
The above are but a few of the many collections of biblical
material.
IV. Topics for Discussion
1. What are the conditions which seem to make the reading of the
Bible different from other reading? Is there a sense of unreality
about it as a book? What are the causes?
2. Try the experiment of reading the story of Joseph at one
sitting. Try to retell this to children.
3. What biblical material stands out in your memory of childhood?
In what degree is this due to the art of the story-teller or the
reader? to the character of the material?
FOOTNOTES:
[21] See M.J.C. Foster, _The Mother the Child's First Bible Teacher_.
[22] Mackie, _Bible Manners and Customs_.
Chamberlin, _Introduction to the Bible for Teachers of Children_.
Worcester, _On Holy Ground_, 2 vols.
[23] For example, Moulton, _Modern Reader's Bible_. The new Jewish
renderings of Old Testament books are good, especially the Psalms.
CHAPTER XII
FAMILY WORSHIP
Family worship has declined until, at least in the United States, the
percentage of families practicing daily worship in the home is so small
as to be negligible. If this meant that a general institution of
religion had passed out of existence the fact would be highly
significant. But it is well to remember that family worship has never
been a general institution. We have generalized the picture of the
"Cotter's Saturday Night" so eloquently drawn by Burns; it has been
applied to every night and to every fireside. Daily family worship was
observed in practically all the Puritan homes of New England; but there
is no evidence for it as a uniform custom, either in other parts of this
country or in other parts of the world, save perhaps in sections of
Scotland. True, there were many families which observed the custom; but
there were also many families of church members and doubtless of truly
religious people in which family worship as a regular institution was
unknown. This has been especially true in the type of family life which
has developed under modern social conditions. Further, even so simple an
exercise as grace at meals has not always been a general custom.
§ 1. PAST CUSTOMS
But the fact today is that family worship is so rare as to be counted
phenomenal wherever found. The instances, though not general, were
common a generation ago. Many are living to whom family worship afforded
the largest part of their conscious and formal religious education.
Following the morning meal, or, occasionally, the evening meal, the
family waited while the father, or the mother in his absence, read a
portion of the Scriptures and offered prayer. In other families the act
of worship would be the closing one of the day, perhaps participated in
by the older members only, the younger children having repeated their
prayers at bedside on retiring. A thousand happy and sacred associations
gather about the memories of these occasions: the sense of reverence,
the feeling that the home was a sacred place, the impression of noble
words and elevating thoughts, the reflex influence of the prayer that
committed all to the keeping and guidance of God.[24]
§ 2. WHY FAMILY WORSHIP?
Parents need to see the values in family worship. We have been insisting
on the primary importance of the religious interpretation of the family
as an institution, on the power of the religious motive, and the
atmosphere of religion. But wherever there is a truly religious motive
and a permanent religious atmosphere these will find definite expression
in acts easily recognized as religious. Love is the motive and
atmosphere of the true home, but love blossoms into words and bears
fruit in a thousand deeds. The life of love dies without reality in act.
Ideals are precipitated in expressive acts. So is it with religion in
the home; it must not only be real in its sincerity, it must be
realized, must pass over into conduct and action, as suggested above in
chaps. vii and viii. And it must do this in ways so sharply defined and
readily recognized as to leave no doubt as to their meaning. True, all
acts may be religious and thus full of worship--this is most important
of all--but worship expressly unites all such acts in a spirit of
loyalty and aspiration.
Worship is a necessity for the sake of the ideal unity of the family
life. Just as the individual must not only feel the religious emotion
but must also do the thing called for, so must this united personality
of the family give expression to its faith and aspiration, its motives
and emotions, in such a manner that, acting as a social unit, all can
together put the inner life into the outer form. The social value of
family worship is the strongest reason for its maintenance. It is the
united act of the family group, the one in which group consciousness is
expressly directed to the highest possible aims. Every period of worship
brings the family into unity at an ideal level.
The expression of religion in definite forms is necessary for children,
too, as furnishing a means by which they can manifest their feeling of
the higher meaning of family life. The reality of that feeling is
stimulated in the daily, common life of the right family; the hour of
worship is one out of many definite forms of its concrete expression. It
is the form which gathers up the totality of feeling and aspiration into
an act of worship and praise toward God, the Father of all families. It
is evident there cannot be true worship in the family that is
irreligious in its essential qualities, in its character, in its ideals
and atmosphere.
§ 3. ADVANTAGES
The period of worship is a necessity in interpreting to all the spirit
and meaning of a religious family. It objectifies the inner life. It
makes definite, tangible, and easily remembered the general impressions
of religion. It precipitates the atmosphere of religion into
definiteness. In the chemical laboratory of a university there is
usually a decided atmosphere of chemistry, but no one expects to become
a chemical engineer by absorbing that atmosphere, nor even to attain a
simple working knowledge by merely general impressions. Definiteness
aids in gathering up our knowledge, our impressions.
The reading of the Bible in the home will give, when the passages are
wisely chosen, forms of language into which the often chaotic but
nevertheless valuable and potential emotions of youth fall as into a
beautiful mold; they become remembered forms of beauty thereafter.
Family worship furnishes opportunity for direct religious instruction.
When the home life has its regular institution, as regular as meals and
play, the formality, the apparent abnormality of conversation about
religion, is absent. Children expect and look forward to the period when
the family will lay other things aside to think on the eternal values.
Their questions in the breathing-space that always ought to follow
worship become perfectly natural and sincere.
Family worship lifts the whole level of family life. Ideally conceived,
it simply means the family unity consciously coming into its highest
place. Children may not understand all the reading nor enter into the
motives for all parts of the petition, but they do feel that this moment
is the one in which the family enters a holy place. They feel that God
is real and that their family life is a part of his whole care and of
his life. One short period of natural reverence sends light and calm
all through the day. Where the home is the place where true prayer is
offered, the family is the group which meets in an act of worship; here
and into this group there cannot easily enter strife, bickerings, or
baseness. One short period, five minutes or even less, of quietness, of
united turning toward the eternal, gives tone to the day and finer
atmosphere to the home.
What our community life might be like without the churches, faulty or
incompetent as we may know some of them to be, what that life would lose
and miss without them is precisely, and perhaps in larger degree, what
the family life misses without its own institution of regular devotion
and worship.
§ 4. THE DIFFICULTIES
We can always afford to do that which is most worth while doing; our
essential difficulty is to shake off the delusion of the lesser values,
the lower prizes, to realize that, of all the good of life, the
characters of our children, the gain we can all make in the eternal
values of the spirit, in love and joy and truth and goodness, is the
gain most worth while. We tend to set the making of a living before the
making of lives. We need to see the development of the powers of
personality, the riches of character, as the ultimate, dominant purpose
of all being. Once grasp that, and hold to it, and we shall not allow
lesser considerations, such as the pressure of business, the desire for
gain, for ease, for pleasure, for social life, to come before this first
and highest good; we shall make time for definite conscious religion in
the life of the family.[25]
§ 5. TYPES OF WORSHIP
There are three simple forms which worship takes in the family: first,
grace offered at the meals; secondly, the prayers of children on
retiring and, occasionally, on rising; thirdly, the daily gathering of
the family for an act of the spirit. The statement of the three forms
reads so as to give them a formal character, but the most important
point to remember is that wherever they are true acts of worship they
are formal only in that they occur at definite, determined times and
places. The acts have no merit in themselves. Merely to institute their
observance will not secure religious feeling and life in the home. These
three observances have arisen because at these times there is the best
and most natural opportunity for the expression of aspiration, desire,
and feeling.
§ 6. METHODS OF FAMILY WORSHIP
1. _Grace at meals._--Shall we say grace at meals? To assent because it
is the custom, or because it was so done in our childhood's home, may
make an irreligious mockery of the act. Perhaps, too, there are some who
even hesitate to omit the grace from an unspoken fear that the food
might harm them without it. All have heard grace so muttered, or
hurriedly and carelessly spoken, void of all feeling and thought, that
the act was almost unconscious, a species of "vain repetition."
There are two outstanding aspects of the asking of a blessing--the
desire to express gratitude for the common benefits of life, and the
expression of a wish, with the recognition of its realization, that at
each meal the family group might include the Unseen Guest, the Infinite
Spirit of God. That wish lifts the meal above the dull level of
satisfying appetites. Just as, in good society, we seek to make the meal
much more than an eating of food, "a feast of reason and a flow of
soul," so does this act make each meal a social occasion lifted toward
the spiritual. The one thought at the beginning, the thought of the
reality of the presence of God, and of the nearness of the divine to us
in our daily pleasures, gives a new level to all our thinking.
How shall we say grace, or "ask a blessing"? First, with simplicity and
sincerity. Avoid long, elaborate, ornate phrases. It is better to err
in rhetoric than in feeling and reality. The sonorous grace may soon
become stilted and offensive. It is better to say in your own words just
what you mean, for that will help all, even to the youngest, to mean
what they say with you.
Vary the form of petition. Sometimes let it be the silent grace of the
Quakers; sometimes children will enjoy singing one of the old four-line
stanzas, as
Be present at our table, Lord,
Be here and everywhere adored;
These mercies bless and grant that we
May feast in Paradise with thee.
One might use the first three of the following lines for breakfast and
the last three at another meal:
For the new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
We thank the heavenly Father.
For rest and food, for love and friends,
For everything his goodness sends,
We thank the heavenly Father.[26]
or
When early in the morning the birds lift up their songs,
We bring our praise to Jesus to whom all praise belongs.
One especially needs to guard against the purely dietetic grace, the one
that only asks that the deity will aid digestion, as that form so often
heard, "Bless these mercies to our use."[27]
Should we say grace on all occasions of meals? What shall we do at the
social dinner in the home? The answer depends on the purpose of the
grace. Is it not that in our own group we may have the consciousness of
the presence of God? When the meal is that of our own group with a
friend or two, we bring the friends into the group and the act of family
worship is maintained. Usually this is the case. So it will be when the
group is entirely at one in this desire: the asking of grace will be
perfectly natural. But when the group is a large one, when the sense of
family unity is lost, or when the observance would seem unnatural, it is
better to omit it. Grace in large gatherings often seems an uncovering
of the sacred aspects of the home life.
2. _Bedtime prayers._--What of children's bedtime prayers? Many can
remember them. To many the most natural, helpful time for formal periods
of prayer is in the quiet of the bedroom just before retiring. But there
is a grave danger in establishing a regular custom of bedside prayers
for children, a danger manifest in the very form of certain of these
prayers, as
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
It is as though the child were saying, "The day is ended during which I
have been able to take care of myself, the hours of helpless sleep
begin, and I ask God to take care of me through the terrors of the
night." For some children, at least, the night has been made terrible by
that thought; they have been led to feel that the day was safe and
beautiful, but that the night was so dangerous and fearful that only the
great God could keep them through it, and it was an open question
whether their prayer for that keeping would be heard.
One must avoid also the notion that such prayers are part of a price
paid, a system of daily taxation in return for which heaven furnishes us
police protection.
The best plan seems to be to encourage children to pray, to establish in
them the habit of closing the day with quiet, grateful thoughts, to
watch especially that the prayers learned in early life do not distort
the child's thoughts of God, and to make the evening prayer an
opportunity for the child to express his desires to God his Father and
Friend. Having done this, as the children grow up it is best to leave
them free to pray when and where they will. One may properly encourage
the evening, private prayer; but the child ought to have the feeling
that it is not obligatory, that it must grow out of his desire to talk
with God, and, above all, that it has no special connection with the
hour and act of retiring for sleep but rather, so far as time is
concerned, with the closing of the day. Mothers must see far beyond the
charm of the picture formed by the little white-robed figure at her
knee. There is no hour so rich in possibilities for this growing life.
It is one of the great opportunities to guide its consciousness of
God.[28]
3. _General family prayers._--It is true that, in many homes, under
modern conditions of business, it is almost impossible for the family to
be united at the hour when worship used to be customary, following
breakfast. However, that is not the only hour available. In many
respects it is a poor one for the purpose of social worship; it lacks
the sense of leisure. But there are few families where the members do
not all gather for the evening meal. It is not difficult to plan at its
close for ten minutes in which all shall remain. Without leaving the
table it is possible to spend a short time in united, social worship.
Or, by establishing the custom and steadily following it, it is possible
to leave the table and in less than ten minutes find ample time for
worship in another room.
Really everything depends at first on how much we desire to have family
worship, whether we see its beauty and value in the knitting of home
ties, in the elevation of the family spirit, and in the quickening of
the religious ideas. We find time to eat simply because we must; when
the necessity of the spirit is upon us we shall find time also to
worship and to pray.
Next to the will to make time comes the question of method. First,
determine to be simple, natural, and informal. A stilted exercise soon
becomes a burden and a source of pain to all. In whatever you do, seek
to make it possible for all to have a share by seeing that every thought
is expressed within the intelligence of even the younger members, that
is, of those who desire to have a share. This does not mean descending
to "baby-talk." Just read the Twenty-third Psalm; that is not baby talk,
but a child of seven can understand what is meant up to the measure of
his experience; the language is essentially simple though the ideas are
sublime.
Secondly, insure brevity. For that part of worship in which all are
expected regularly to unite, ten minutes should be ample. Some excellent
programs will not take more than half this time. Family worship is not a
diminutive facsimile of church worship. Doubtless the experiment has
failed in many families because the father has attempted to preach to a
congregation which could not escape. Keep in mind the thought that this
is to be a high moment in each day in which every member will have an
equal share.
Thirdly, plan for the largest possible amount of common participation.
This is to be the expression of the unity of the family life. Children
enjoy doing things co-operatively and in concert.
Fourthly, treat the occasion naturally in relation to other affairs.
Proceed to the worship without formal notice, without change of voice,
and without apology to visitors. Take this for granted. At the close
move on into other duties without the sense of coming back into the
world. You have not been out of it; you have only recognized the eternal
life and love everywhere in it.
4. _Suggestions of plans._--There are given below seven outlines of
plans of worship. They are plans which have been in use and have been
tried for years. Their only merit is simplicity and practicability; but
they are at least worthy of trial. There is no special significance in
the arrangement of the days and this may be changed in any way
desirable. Further, all plans should be elastic; there will come special
days, such as festivals and birthdays, when the program should be
varied. For example, on a birthday the child whose anniversary then
occurs should have the privilege of making the choice of recitation or
reading or of determining the order of all the parts of this brief
period of worship.
MONDAY
1. A short psalm repeated in concert.
2. A brief, informal petition by father or mother.
3. The Lord's Prayer, in which all join.
Before attempting even this simple plan, prepare for it by first
selecting several suitable psalms. The following should be
included: the 1st, 19th, 23d, 24th, 100th, 117th, 121st, and a part
of the 103d. You would do well to memorize one of these yourself,
so as to be able to lead without reading from the book. Next, think
over with some care the things for which you may pray, the
aspirations which your children can share with you. Few things are
more difficult than this, so to pray that all can make the prayer
their own. Let it also be a prayer of love and joy, not a craven
begging off from punishments, nor a cowardly plea for protection
and provision. We can pray over all these things with gratitude and
with confidence toward the God of love. Do not try to preach in
your prayers. Many prayers have been ruined by preaching, just as
some preaching has been spoiled by praying to the people. Usually
four or five sentences will do for the one day. Better a single
thought simply expressed than the most brilliant attempt to inform
the Almighty on all the events of the world that day.
A prayer in which all can join is always desirable. The Lord's
Prayer never wearies us nor grows old. Children enter into it with
some new meaning every day; it covers all our great, common, daily
needs.
TUESDAY
1. A few favorite memory verses repeated by all (from either the
Bible or other literature).
2. Read a very brief passage from the Bible.
3. Prayer, ending with the Lord's Prayer.
Many excellent selections will be found in Dr. Dole's book
mentioned at the end of this chapter. Encourage children, however,
to make their selections from the poems and passages they already
know.
The passage of the Bible selected to be read should be one which
first of all incites to worship, and should be chosen for its
inspiration and literary beauty. A few lines from the great
chapters of Isaiah (e.g., chaps. 35 and 55), from the Psalms (e.g.,
Pss. 61, 65, 145), from the Sermon on the Mount, from 1 Cor., chap.
13, from the parables of Jesus, will be suitable.
The closing prayer may be extemporaneous or may be read from one of
the books of prayers. Many of the prayers in the Episcopal Prayer
Book are especially beautiful and quite suitable. Of course in
families of the Episcopal church the collect for the day would be
the right prayer to use. It is sometimes necessary to use prayers
prepared beforehand; some persons never acquire the ability to pray
aloud, even in their own families. But halting sentences that are
your own, that your children recognize as yours, may mean more to
them than the finest flowing phrases from a book. Use the prayers
from the book, not as a substitute, but as an addition.
WEDNESDAY
1. A good poem from general literature.
2. Prayer.
There are so many good collections of the great and inspiring poems
that one hesitates to recommend any collection. Remember that a
poem may be religious and imbued with the spirit of worship,
helpful to the purpose of this occasion, even though it contains no
allusions to Scripture and makes no direct references to religious
belief. "A House by the Side of the Road"[29] is thoroughly human,
popular, and could not even be accused of being a classic; but it
has a helpful motive and is likely to lead the will toward the life
of service and brotherhood. Some would prefer to read a part of one
of the great hymns.
THURSDAY
1. A brief reading or recitation from the New Testament.
2. A few moments' conversation on the reading.
3. A very brief prayer followed by a song.
The only apparent difficulty here is in starting the conversation.
Do not ask formal questions; rather put them something like this:
"I wonder whether people would do just the same on our street
today." Make the conversation as general as possible; do not
slight, nor scoff at, the contribution of even the least in the
group.
FRIDAY
1. A few verses in concert.
2. Read a parable or very brief narrative.
3. The Lord's Prayer.
The reading had better be from one of the paraphrases if it is a
narrative from the Old Testament.[30] Even in reading the New
Testament one can at times use with advantage the
_Twentieth-Century Bible_ or the _Modern Reader's Bible_.
SATURDAY
1. A period of song.
2. Closing prayer, with the Lord's Prayer.
Perhaps only one song can be sung. It need not be a hymn; that
should depend on the choice of the children. Help them to put
together all the good songs, including the hymns, in one category
in their minds.
SUNDAY
1. Ask: "What has been the best we have read or repeated in our
worship this week?"
2. Ask: "What shall we learn for memory repetition this week, what
psalm or other passage for our concerted worship?"
3. Read the psalm selected.
4. Closing prayer.
5. Period of song, lasting as long as desired.
This exercise evidently permits of extension in time and should be
arranged in accordance with the program for the day.
I. References for Study
George Hodges, _The Training of Children in Religion_, chaps. viii,
ix. Appleton, $1.50.
_The Improvement of Religious Education_, pp. 108 to 123. Religious
Education Association, $0.50.
Mrs. B.S. Winchester, "Methods and Materials Available," _Religious
Education_, October, 1911. $0.50.
II. Further Reading
Koons, _The Child's Religious Life_. Eaton & Mains, $1.00.
Hartshorne, _Worship in the Sunday School_. Columbia University,
$1.25.
III. Methods and Materials
A.R. Wells, _Grace before Meat_. U.S.C.E., $0.25.
C.F. Dole, _Choice Verses_. Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts.
Privately printed.
F.A. Hinckley (ed.), _Readings for Sunday School and Home_.
American Unitarian Association, $0.35.
J. Martin, _Prayers for Little Men and Women_. Harper, $1.25.
S. Hart (ed.), _Short Daily Prayers for Families_. Longmans, $0.60.
G.A. Miller, _Some Out-Door Prayers_. Crowell, $0.35.
Oxenden, _Family Prayers_. Longmans, $1.50.
George Skene, _Morning Prayers for Home Worship_. Methodist Book
Concern, $1.50.
W.E. Barton, _Four Weeks of Family Prayer_. Puritan Press, Oak
Park, Ill.
Abbott, _Family Prayers_. Dodd, Mead & Co., $0.50.
_Prayers for Parents and Children._ Young Churchman Co., Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, $0.15.
IV. Topics for Discussion
1. What are the causes for the decay of the custom of family
worship?
2. What influences us most: public opinion, popular custom,
economic pressure?
3. How have the changes affected the religious influence of the
home?
4. What features of the older customs are most worth preserving?
5. Recall any of childhood's prayers which you remember. How many
maintain the custom of bedtime prayers in mature life?
6. What should be the central motive of "grace" at meals?
7. Would there be advantage in occasionally omitting the "grace"?
8. Give reasons for and against "grace."
9. Criticize the proposed plan of evening family prayers.
10. Describe any plans which have been tried.
11. Why is it desirable to maintain family worship?
FOOTNOTES:
[24] For a study of children's worship see H.H. Hartshorne, _Worship in
the Sunday School_; "Report of Commission on Graded Worship," _Religious
Education_, October, 1914.
[25] "Parents who give up such a practice as family prayers mainly
because they know of many other people who have done the same are
just as much the slaves of public opinion and ignorant cant as the
narrowest Lowlander who forbids his children secular history on
Sunday."--Lyttleton, _Corner-Stone of Education_, pp. 207-8.
[26] Quoted by W.S. Athearn, _The Church School_.
[27] A number of good poems are given in A.R. Wells, _Grace before
Meat_.
[28] W.B. Forbush gives a number of poetic forms of prayer for children
in _The Religious Nurture of a Little Child_, pp. 12, 13.
[29] By Samuel Walter Foss.
[30] One handy form is _The Heart of the Bible_, prepared by E.A.
Broadus; another, _The Children's Bible_.
CHAPTER XIII
SUNDAY IN THE HOME
Almost every family finds Sunday a problem. Other days are well occupied
with full programs; this one has a program for only part of its time.
Other days are rich with the liberty of happy action, but this one is
frequently marked by inaction, repression, and limitations. As soon as
the evanescent pleasure of Sunday clothes has passed, for those for whom
it existed at all, the children settle down to endure the day.
§ 1. THE MEANING OF THE DAY
Fathers and mothers who vent a sigh of relief when Sunday is over must
marvel at the strains of "O day of joy and gladness." Yet this day
defeats its purpose when it is of any other character. We have no right
to rob it of its joy and its healing balm. On the day made for man,
sacred to his highest good, whatever hinders the real happiness of the
child ought to be set aside.
Instead of accepting traditions regarding the method of observing the
Sunday, would it not be worth while to ask ourselves, For what use of
the day can we properly be held responsible? Here are so many--fifty-two
a year--days of special opportunity. To us who complain that business
interferes with the personal education of our children through the week,
what ought this day to mean? To us who lament the little time we can
spend with our families, what ought this day to mean? And what ought we
to try to make it mean to children?
We call this God's day; what must some children think of a God who robs
his day of all pleasure? If this is the kind of day he makes, then how
unattractive would be his years and eternity! It is the day when we have
our best opportunity to show them what God is like, to interpret his
world and his works in terms of beauty, kindness, riches of thought, and
love.
It ought to be the day reserved for the best in life, for the treasures
of affection, for the uses of the spirit. Whatever is done this day must
come to this test, Is this a ministry to the life of goodness, truth,
and loving service? Does this enrich lives? In other words, we may put
the broad educational test to the day and its program and determine all
by ministry to growing lives.
§ 2. CONSERVING THE VALUES
The family faces the problem of the opposition between the rights of man
on this day and the greed of commerce, the fight between a day of rest
and a day of work. Man's right to rest is assured, legally, but
commerce in the name of amusement and in the guise of petty and
unnecessary trading constantly maintains its fight to invade the day of
rest, to turn it from ministry to man as a person to the dull level of
the week of ministry to things. The home has much at stake in this
struggle. It needs one day free from the life that tears its members
apart, free from the toil that engrosses thought, free for its members
to live together as spiritual beings.
In the need for one day, free from the things that hinder and devoted to
the life of the spirit, the home finds the guiding principle for the use
of the day; all members are to be trained to use it as a glorious
opportunity, a welcome period, a day of the best things of life. It is
devoted to personality, to man's rights as a religious being.
Surely one of the
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