Chapter III: Part 3

So much energy is required for physical growth that in the early stages of this period difficult mental tasks cannot be well done. In a young man especially, this period is marked by awkward, uncouth movements that indicate uncertain adjustment. Frequently at this time the boy's voice varies unsteadily from a high falsetto to a low pitch, which is most mortifying to the youth, who is now bashful probably for the first time in his life. The girl is suddenly very particular about her appearance, and her clothes, and the youth for the first time delights in a starched shirt, patent leather shoes and bright neck-ties.

The health of the individual at this time is usually good; susceptibility to the diseases peculiar to childhood is slight, but there is increased danger of acquiring adult diseases, and some writers claim that it is during this time, when there are great physical disturbances, that the germ of many adult diseases, such as tuberculosis, are apt to be implanted. During the early part of this period it is unwise and dangerous for girls to take part in such strenuous athletic games as basketball, or for boys to indulge in football. Later when strength and equilibrium have been restored, these games may be practiced without danger.

But the greatest of all changes, the one fundamental to adolescent life, is the development of the sex instincts. Fortunate is the youth or maiden whose parents are sensible and wise enough to instruct them concerning the nature and purpose of these functions. Good books, such as "What a Boy Should Know," and "What a Girl Should Know," are invaluable during this critical time. This sudden ripening of the sex instinct is the cause of the metamorphosis from childhood to early manhood and womanhood, and is the key which explains the changes that characterize adolescence.

Emotionally, there is a tremendous awakening. The individual begins to feel for the first time that he is actually alive and living; heretofore, life has been a self-centered, matter-of-fact existence; now it enlarges and becomes charged with intense feeling and significance. "Fear, anger, love, pity, jealousy, emulation and ambition are either new-born or spring into intense life."--James. All of these may be termed social instincts and they imply a widening of the youth's horizon and include a "consciousness of kind" that has heretofore been lacking.

Now, the youth or maiden truly falls in love; up to this time, regard for the opposite sex has been merely a light fancy, barely skin deep; but now it takes hold of the heart strings and plays upon them with an agony that is truly heart rending. Who is there with red blood in his veins that does not look back upon his first heart conflict with almost pathetic reverence? Parents should be more concerned than they usually are over the conquest of the heart of youth. Such affairs may carry with them consequences which are more serious than could be anticipated.

At this time the youth or maiden is exceedingly resentful of arbitrary restraint or punishment. There is a super-sensitiveness and a keen self-consciousness which cannot brook harshness and coercion. Sympathy and reasonableness must take the place of censure and punishment. Years ago I remember seeing a father start to whip his boy who was just emerging into the adolescent stage, a heavy stick was raised to strike, but the boy looked his father in the eye without flinching and quietly remarked: "You may whip one devil out, Father, but I promise you that you'll whip seven devils in." The stick dropped from the astonished parent's hand; the boy was never again punished by whipping.

The runaway curve for boys reaches its highest point at this time, and the girl is likely to be insolent and unmanageable probably for the first and only time in her life. The greatest crises of life arise at this time because of the almost criminal ignorance of parents respecting these revolutionary changes and also because children who may never before have caused the parents the least trouble or heartache are now as unruly and unmanageable as a volcano in eruption. This is the time when the youth is driven from home by the irate father, the time when the rebellious daughter is condemned without mercy, the critical period when most vices are begun and most juvenile crimes committed. The parent is apt to exclaim here: "In Heaven's name, what can be done?" Not even the wisdom of a Solomon could answer completely; a few suggestions, however, may be offered which will help to bridge over this critical period.

If the child has had positive training up to this time, the period of "storm and stress" will be briefer and less severe than it would be otherwise; but if the negative training has prevailed, there is less hope that the storm will be weathered. The youth may be caught in the stream of dissipation and whirled to destruction. At the very least, the parent must expect fitful and obstinate behavior, and unreasonable action. In boys, the beginning of the use of tobacco and liquor usually comes at this time. This is the time, too, of sexual temptation, if not actual indulgence. The temptation to do something startling is almost irresistible; robberies will be planned, hold-ups thought of, abductions contemplated; the life of a desperado entertained. The moral character seems to be in a state of eruption.

On the other hand, his sympathies and affections may be appealed to as never before. The parent who has made a confident of his boy or girl, who has infinite patience and affection, and who fully senses what to except, may, if other factors are favorable, help tide over this danger zone without serious results. A steady chum, a little older than the boy, and a companion more stable than the girl are a most fortunate aid to the parent. There seems to be a brief time in the career of every youth or maiden when the influence of his chum or companion is more potent for good or evil than is the combined influence of parents and relatives.

The common practice of permitting the, adolescent to sleep away from home is exceedingly dangerous. Many a youth may trace the beginning of his degeneracy to the downward, push received when he slept away from home. Care must be exercised also as to the kind of group he associates with; it is too much to expect a youth to be better than the gang with whom he consorts. During the most critical part of this critical, epoch neither youth nor maiden should, attend parties, picnics, or social entertainments, without a chaperon. This advice may seem radical, but if it is carried out, perhaps for just one year, until equilibrium is restored, it may prevent that _one act_ to which so many unfortunates attribute their downfall.

Fortunate, too, is the adolescent who is permitted to attend a first-class high school taught by sympathetic teachers who understand the needs of adolescent nature. The imagination is now more vivid than it ever will be again, the logical reason is beginning to evolve and this period is preeminently "the breeding ground of ideas." The school more than any other agency can keep the imagination, reason, and emotions so fully employed that little time is left in which to indulge morbid feelings and immoral thoughts. The school affords a moral atmosphere and gives a choice of good associates which make it invaluable during this critical epoch. It also disciplines the feelings and emotions and offers opportunity for emulation, industry, and the display of both physical and mental power. In truth, the school so occupies the attention and directs the interest that many a young man and woman passes through this period unscathed, without ever sensing the dangers which are escaped.

Finally, a "profound religious awakening" characterizes the early adolescent stage. It may be doubted that a genuine religious conviction can exist before this time; at least most writers hold that religious conversion takes place, if at all, during this period. Previous to this time, however, religious observance and ceremony should have become habitual in order that conversion may be most profound. Nothing else is more powerful than religious conviction and sentiment to reinforce good conduct and to inhibit wrong action. Religious conviction, together with the growth of ideals and the employment by the school of the physical and intellectual capacities, all supplemented by parental counsel and guidance, should insure the safe passage of the adolescent over this critical crisis of his life.

LESSON XVIII

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. What are the physical changes that occur during the adolescent period?

2. What dangers to health are common at this time? What safeguards should be thrown about the youth to keep him strong in body?

3. Discuss the mental, moral, and emotional characteristics of the adolescent.

4. What is the fundamental cause of the changes that take place?

5. What may be said about religious emotions and conversions during this time?

6. What practical suggestions would you give to help the parents guide the adolescent safely over this dangerous period of life?

_Supplemental Studies_: At this point it will be well to take the supplemental lessons in this book, page 133 to end of volume. These studies are based on the lectures given by Dr. John M. Tyler. They will blend beautifully with Professor Hall's discussion and will reinforce strongly the study of this adolescent age.

TRAINING IN THE HOME

_Certain Phases of Training and Education Can Be Best Accomplished by the Home_

There are four great agencies or factors concerned in the training and education of the child: these are, the home, the school, the church, and the state, or society. Of these, the home ought to be the most helpful since it is the most important. The child is a part of the flesh and blood of the parents; he belongs to them in a vital way that transcends his relationship to everything else in the world.

The parent, then, is the natural trainer and educator of the child, particularly during the dependent period before the age of accountability is reached. The parent ought not to shirk this duty or attempt to transfer it to some other agency. But at the present time there is a strong tendency to shift more and more responsibility to other agencies, especially to the school. Many habits which the home once developed are now left largely to the school; religious training is turned over more and more to the Sunday School and the church, and much more of the time of children is now spent in social amusements away from home than ever before.

Then, too, it is certain that the old-time home is passing. It seemed to have higher ideals and more definite purposes in life than homes now possess; moreover, it occupied most of the time of the child and taught him to be industrious and proficient, and to regard life with much more seriousness than does the home of to-day. The home or the family, therefore, is not the great superlative factor that it ought to be in the training and education of the child.

From the first chapter of Cope in "Religious Education in the Family," the following is quoted: "The ills of the modern home are symptomatic. Divorce, childless families, irreverent children, and a decadence of the old type of separate home life are signs of forgotten ideals, lost motives, and insufficient purposes. When 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 development has 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 life 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 responsibility, these desires become aims rather than agencies and opportunities. What hope is there for useful and happy family life if the newly-wedded youths have both been educated in selfishness, habituated to frivolous pleasures and guided by ideals of success in terms of garish display?

"It is a costly thing to keep a home where honor, the joy of love, and high ideals dwell ever. It costs time, pleasure, 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 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."

The home or family is, or ought to be, the supreme institution, not only for propagating the race, but also for the preservation and rearing of children.

There are certain things which only the home can do, which if not accomplished by it, will likely remain undone. The acquisition of correct physical habits by the child is one of them. It is preeminently the duty and privilege of the parent in the early years of the child's life to impress habits that will make for health and strength. The first six years are more important physically to the child than all the remainder of his life. During this time the natural tendency to over-indulgence of the appetite should be inhibited, and temperance should be reduced to a habit. The other desirable physical habits already referred to should also be acquired. Furthermore, it is the sacred duty of the parent to see to it that the child is not handicapped through physical defects of eye or ear, enlarged tonsils, adenoids, decayed teeth, or by any other common imperfection which may be easily and permanently remedied if taken in time, but which, if neglected, may cause untold suffering and contribute to failure in life.

The home is responsible directly for training the child to be neat, tidy and clean in person; it should also train him in good manners, courtesy, and regard for the rights of others. It also decides whether or not the boy shall be a brave, manly little fellow or a timid cry-baby; whether or not the girl shall be sweet, helpful and trustworthy, or shallow, idle and vain.

The giving of knowledge and instruction in sex hygiene at the proper time is also a peculiar duty of parents which they must not shirk.

The chief moral virtues are also the result of home training. An obedient, honest, truthful disposition is characteristic of a good home; a sly, deceitful, quarrelsome nature is the outcome of improper home influence, Moreover, the first lessons in respect for law, order and justice are implanted by the home; improper training in these virtues leads to disorder and license.

The home, too, must teach the first lessons in industry and impress the child with the fact that life is made up of work as well as play. Too often the mother, especially, makes a slave of herself for the children, waits on them night and day, allows them to sleep late in the morning, stay up late at night and keep up an incessant round of pleasure while she herself stays at home and shoulders the entire responsibility of the household. How much happier the home where each child is trained to do some particular share of work and to take some responsibility upon himself.

The boy should be permitted to help the father whenever possible. He should be required to do things promptly and regularly and to learn through actual experience the amount of toil and sweat required to earn an honest dollar.

A taste for music and reading must be fostered in the home. Every family should have some kind of musical instrument and at least a few choice books for children. The influence of music and good literature on the tastes and ideals of the future man and woman is so great that it can scarcely be over-estimated. The use of correct and fluent language is largely a product of the home. Children imitate the speech heard at home; if this is incorrect, meagre, or coarse, the child is apt to have the same imperfection follow him through life.

The family constitutes a most sacred and important social unit, and because of its intrinsic nature, it can best develop in the child the highest personal sentiment and social virtue. Among these are affection, sympathy, love, generosity and good will. If these are not awakened and nurtured by the home, then there is little hope that they will be acquired elsewhere, and the child will likely grow into a stony-hearted, selfish pessimist.

Certain religious habits and sentiments also can be impressed naturally and well only by the family. Among these are trust in God, the beginning of faith, regard for ceremony, love of Bible stories, respect for authority, and above all, prayer. The individual who has not been taught at his mother's knee to pray is likely never to develop into a prayerful man or woman.

The home is the child's earliest school, his first temple of worship, his first social center. It is the place where everything in this life begins. Most fortunate is the child that is guided to take his first steps aright through the loving influence of a good home.

LESSON XIV

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. What four great agencies are concerned in training and education?

2. Which is most important and why?

3. What is the indictment of the home?

4. What change has taken place respecting the relative importance of these developing agencies?

5. The home is responsible for what physical habits?

6. What moral habits and virtues?

7. What mental habits and virtues?

8. What religious habits and sentiments?

9. What is the future outlook for the home and family?

It will be well at this point to review briefly the three beginning chapters from "Religious Education in the Family," by Cope. The "Peril and Preservation of the Home," by Jacob Riis, will also be found helpful reading here.

TRAINING BY THE CHURCH

_The Influence of the Church Is Essential to Aid the Home in Developing the Religious Instincts and Emotions of the Child_

Religious emotions and belief are among the most deeply imbedded instincts of the race. They are also some of the earliest manifestations of childhood. They accompany the individual throughout his entire life, exercising a profound influence over his thoughts and conduct, and they become the chief anchor of the soul when sorrow or old age comes. It would be a great calamity, therefore, if religious instincts and sentiment should suffer eclipse or disappear.

Rightly cultivated and trained, these natural feelings of religion grow to spiritual power within us. Without such power, man is of little consequence.

Upon the home naturally falls the duty of fostering the first feelings of reverence towards God. The child who learns to lisp his prayers at his mother's knee is started aright. The home must give the first lessons in the love of God and goodness. If it fails, they are likely never to be learned.

But the home needs the influence of the church here. It must have it to round out the child's religious development. The church can do many things for the child that the home cannot accomplish. It introduces him to religious ceremonies and observances that satisfy his soul, and it helps greatly to train him in religious habits.

One cannot estimate the value of all this upon the character of the child. As a restraint from wrong conduct and an encouragement to right action, the work of the church is most salutary. The solemn ceremonies, the sacred music, the exhortations pointing heavenward, the general spirit of the group at humble worship--all exercise upon the child an influence for good, mysterious yet profound.

Clean, beautiful surroundings and orderly behavior are also very impressive. The work of our Sabbath Schools is most beneficial. They offer to parents a strong reinforcement in cultivating right religious habits and emotions in the child. To go into one of our well-conducted Sunday Schools, where order prevails, where the spirit of peace and prayer is uppermost, to join in the singing, to listen to the uplifting instruction, or, better still, to be given opportunity to take active part in this religious service--all these make a deep and lasting impression upon the youthful soul. Parents can do nothing better for their children and themselves than to support loyally their Sunday Schools and other religious organizations.

The habit of attending church should also be impressed during the habit-forming period. But the supreme opportunity of the church lies in its ability actually to convert the youth or maiden during the adolescent period. This is a privilege which neither the church nor the home has adequately comprehended. When the emotional nature of the individual is at white heat, as it then is, impressions made are lasting, and conversion, if made then, will be so deeply impressed that it is likely to last forever.

Churches in general fail to make the most of their opportunity here. They too often stuff the heads of children with religious facts and formulae, feeding them with the husks of theology, instead of giving them the upbuilding food they need. Children, too, often are starving for real spiritual food, hungering for the bread and thirsting for the water of life.

Parents and teachers generally need to correct their methods of presenting the gospel to children, especially to the adolescent, if they would get the results desired. It is their failure to meet the child on his own religious ground, not his indifference to religion that makes the boy and girl leave Sabbath School during the time he most needs such an influence. Let them study and master these problems: Are boys and girls being given ample opportunity for spiritual self-expression? Are the beautiful lessons of the gospel being translated into terms that appeal to their lives?

Our own church, we feel sure, is answering these questions in positive, practical ways better and better every day; but there is still much left to do even among us.

We have in our own church a working system that ministers to the daily moral and spiritual needs of humanity--a constructive Christianity that comes close to our lives. Our church is our opportunity to develop our own spiritual powers and to cultivate those of our children. The church needs our help to carry forward its ministry to mankind; but we need even more the help of the church to enspirit and to comfort our lives and to give to us and to our children the guidance and the training that will keep us all in the paths of safety and peace:

LESSON XX

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. What have you observed in children to prove that religious emotions are instinctive?

2. In what ways can the home best foster the natural religious instincts of childhood?

3. What religious habits should the home cultivate?

4. What can the church best develop in children?

5. Why should the parents support loyally the Sunday Schools and other organizations of the church?

6. What is the supreme opportunity of the church during the adolescent age?

7. What means have you used successfully to develop the religious instincts of your own children?

8. What opportunities for spiritual self-expression and service does our own church offer?

9. In what ways are we richly rewarded by our free-will service in behalf of our church?

"The Child and His Religion," by Dawson, will be a helpful book to study in connection with this lesson.

TRAINING IN THE SCHOOL

_Certain Phases of Training and Education Can Be Accomplished Better by the School Than by Any Other Agency. A National System of Industrial and Vocational Education Should Be Established_

The school is a social institution whose functions are becoming daily more widely understood and more clearly defined. In the history of civilization, the school, as we know it, is a very recent institution. Nation after nation has arisen, reached its zenith, declined, and passed away without dreaming of such a thing as universal education. With the growth of democracy, particularly during the Reformation, the ideal of education as the birthright of every child became well defined and during the years that have intervened, this ideal has become a living reality.

At first the universal education was advocated for the sake of the church. Martin Luther believed that every child should have schooling so that he might be able to read the Bible and study the catechism. For some time the church had charge of and controlled education, but gradually, as democracy developed, the influence of the state began to overshadow that of the church, and education came to be recognized more and more as a function of the state, and its control was gradually taken over by the latter institution.

The chief function of education, therefore, may be seen clearly from the foregoing. In a democracy it is necessary for every child to be educated because the existence of free institutions is based upon the intelligence of the masses. Jefferson once remarked: "If anyone believes that free government and an ignorant people can exist at one and the same time, he believes that which never was or never can be." Universal education is, therefore, a social necessity; its chief purpose is to train and instruct the child in the duties and ideals of citizenship. He must be instructed in the history of his country and learn what the ideals are for which his country stands; he must learn the real meaning of the words: equality, justice and freedom; he must be taught that obedience to law is the highest form of freedom, and that license is destructive both of self and country. Furthermore, he must learn that in a free country every individual must be taught to be self-dependent, that no one owes him a living, that he ought to produce a little more than he consumes for the sake of the unfortunate.

The school, therefore, may teach better than any other agency the habits and ideals of duty, social service, justice and patriotism. It also teaches frequently better than does the home, the habits of obedience, punctuality, regularity and industry.

A secondary purpose of the school is to assist the home to develop in the child the physical, mental, moral and social habits and ideals to which we have referred in previous lessons. To the shame of the home, it must be said that the school is accomplishing its particular function far better than is the home. The school rarely fails to exact obedience, regularity, punctuality, and industry from the pupil; the home, on the other hand, frequently fails to train children in these habits because of the softness and vacillation of the parents. The school trains to proper habits of hygiene and sanitation, and is often under the necessity of acquainting parents with physical defects in their children which too often they have overlooked.

Moreover, the school, as a larger social unit than the home, has some distinct advantages over the latter: It can teach the obstinate, quarrelsome child better than can the home the necessity of adjusting his conduct to the requirements of the social group with which he associates. In school, frequently for the first time, a child learns what is meant by the ideals of duty and justice; furthermore, he is usually trained to habits of industry, perseverance and self-control which the home too often is not well prepared to teach.

The home, however, is far more important than is the school; the latter might be abolished and some other form of education adopted by society without calamitous results; but if the home were suddenly abolished, it is probable that civilization itself would be shaken to its center, if not destroyed. The home, therefore, ought to be better prepared and equipped to fulfill its function than is the school; but not one parent in a thousand is specially prepared for the duties of parenthood. The teacher, on the other hand, is required to spend years in preparation for his work. He is expected, moreover, to set a worthy example for children to follow. "As the teacher so the school," is a maxim that has stood the test.

The school was never before so practical in its instruction as it is to-day. In most of the junior and senior high schools, industrial work and agriculture are taught. In the best schools girls are learning to sew, mend, darn and cook. Many of them make their own dresses and trim their own hats. In a few schools, uniform dress and shoes are adopted by the girl students for the sake of economy and to prevent the silly mode of dressing and the style of some girls. Much more could be done in this direction if all mothers were sensible, but now and again word comes to the teacher: "I can dress my girl well and I don't care to have her wear your cheap uniform and your low-priced, low-heeled shoes." And again: "It's none of your business how my girl dresses." Now, it must be conceded that the parent has this right to object, but we surely question the wisdom of her so doing. Many young girls on graduating from the eighth grade make their own graduation dresses and confine the cost of the entire costume, including shoes, to $5.00. Women graduating from the senior school often make their dresses and confine the cost to within $10.00.

Most young men are taught manual art of some kind and agriculture. It is seldom that any father objects to his son taking carpenter work, but once in a while a farmer smiles at the thought of a "professor" teaching farming. The results, however, of the good work in teaching better farming is already seen throughout our country, and the time is not far distant when "scientific agriculture" will return many fold the price of its investment. The agricultural department at Washington reports that the Burbank potato is adding $17,000,000 yearly to the wealth of the U.S.

The people, too, are well satisfied with this new type of school. They are beginning to see that education is a very practical and vital matter and is not merely for ornament. It is a rare thing now to hear the once common remark that education is too expensive.

Statistics show that the average wages paid to unskilled laborers in the U. S. is about $500 per annum; careful reports indicate that the average yearly earnings of high school graduates is $1000. In a lifetime of 40 years the high school man will earn $20,000 more than the unlearned laborer.

From a financial standpoint it is very evident that education pays, yet five and one-half years is the average length of time the children of the U.S. attend school. The nation ought to enrich itself through putting more money into education.

The natural resources of the country are largely taken up and the free land is practically all occupied. What then is to be the future of the great mass of laborers unless a thorough-going system of industrial and vocational training is made possible? The Industrial Commission appointed recently by Congress found that three-fourths of the male laborers in the U.S. earn less than $600 per annum, yet the U.S. Government has found "that the point of adequate subsistence is not reached until the family income is about $800 a year. Less than half the wage-earners' families in the U.S. have an annual income of that size."

Now the rich can take care of themselves and the very poor and unfortunate cannot be permanently helped, but this great middle class, upon whom the nation must depend in every crisis, can and must be assisted to the extent, at least, that conditions be made possible through which they may raise their efficiency and so increase their earning capacity to a point commensurate with their needs. A thorough-going, national system of industrial and vocational "preparedness" would solve this problem.

The marvelous efficiency of Germany is due in large part to the fact that her great middle classes have been made efficient through a national system of trade schools.

The prosperity and perpetuity of a nation rests largely upon its ability to provide an adequate number of highly trained experts to be leaders, inventors and executives. In a democracy, these skilled leaders are especially important. Among the problems to be solved are questions of government, education, finance, economics, business, industry, health, manufacturing, engineering and mining. Any nation that lacks guidance in these particulars is indeed weak and pitiful. The universities, colleges, and higher technical schools supply nine-tenths of these experts, yet in the U.S. to-day there are only 250,000 students enrolled in all the colleges and universities of the country; this is about one to 500 of the population, a number entirely inadequate to perform the tremendous service that will be expected of this nation in the near future.

LESSON XXI

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. State the nature of the school.

2. How did the ideal of universal education arise?

3. State the chief function of the school.

4. Name the habits and ideals peculiar to the school.

5. What is the secondary purpose of the school?

6. Contrast the efficiency of the home and the school.

7. What high compliment may be paid to teachers?

8. Is the comparison made between the home and the school overdrawn?

9. Compare the practical school of to-day with the school of the past.

10. Do you favor uniform dress for high school girls?

11. What is your opinion of modern style which so many mothers foster?

12. Have you any boys taking industrial work in school?

13. Prove that high school education pays.

14. What is the duty of a nation towards its great middle class?

15. Do you believe in a national system of industrial and vocational schools?

16. Why are experts needed particularly in a democracy?

THE DUTY OF THE STATE

_The Social and Civic Institutions of the State (Society) Exert a Powerful Influence over the Lives of Children. The Citizen Must See to It that this Great Educative Influence of His Community Is Uplifting in Nature_

The vital relationship existing between parent and child is easy to understand, but the close interdependence of the individual and the state is much more difficult to comprehend. Yet in a very real sense the individual and the state are reciprocally related. But just as the body is more than an aggregate of all of its cells, so is society (the state) something more than the sum total of its individual units. That a group of people, or even one individual, may exert an influence over the thoughts and actions of others is a reality of profound significance; that there is a social conscience as well as an individual conscience is a fact that cannot be refuted, and the part played by custom and tradition in shaping the history of the world can hardly be estimated.

In view of the close relationship between the individual and society, it is passing strange that while the individual is expected to possess a high standard of character, society itself may indulge in all sorts of questionable practices without so much as a challenge. Many a person winks at the frivolity and immorality of society, while at the same time he expects the most circumspect behavior on the part of his neighbor. The existence of these two standards which ought to coincide but which in reality are far apart is responsible for many failures in the training of children.

As soon as the infant begins to observe and imitate the actions of members of the household, its social training begins; play with the neighbor's child extends the process, and the social group or "gang" with which the child associated, impresses permanently its thought and action. Frequently, too, the chum or companion chosen by the child has more real influence over its life than has the combined instruction of parents and teacher. As already shown, the school is a social institution and the same is largely true of the Sunday School. The example of adults also makes a profound impression upon the conduct of children. The home and the school may teach convincingly the injurious effects of tobacco and alcohol, but so long as society sanctions the sale of these poisons and respected adults indulge in them, just so long will the efforts of home and school, be, to a large extent, counteracted. The same is true with respect to any other virtue or excellence, the home, school, and church may unite in emphasizing the most wholesome discipline, but so long as society is a living, seething contradiction of this teaching, the instruction will fall upon deaf ears and be but as "sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal."

The fact is that our nation is yet too young to be fully conscious of its opportunities and responsibilities. A democratic form of government from its very nature must develop slowly towards its ideals. It must expect at first to be much less certain and efficient in its action than is a highly centralized government. This inability on the part of popular government to attain its ideals is reflected also in its subordinate civic units; neither state nor city governments have yet solved the problem of efficient and economical administration, although it is a pleasure to note that some cities are making real progress in this direction. In many communities, however, the weakness of decentralized government is most apparent. This is particularly true in many towns; here is seen too frequently a lack of civic pride, inefficient officers and failure to enforce the law.

The humiliating fact obtains that frequently a few lawless individuals often not more than from 3 to 5 per cent of the population, are permitted to set the moral pace, while the 95 per cent, of law-abiding citizens are either asleep to their duties or else fail to see that the remedy is in their own hands. In many instances a few persons are allowed to undermine the morals of the community. In one town of our state a single individual was permitted for 25 years to corrupt the morals of many young men of the community through illegal traffic in liquor.

Parents should realize that next to heredity the social factors in a community are likely to be the chief influence at work moulding and shaping the lives of their children, and in the long run they must not expect the average child to be better than the community in which he lives.

But the remedy for inefficient, free government is not far to seek; universal education will solve the problem provided it includes, as it should, instruction and training in civic and social duties. There is no need to argue the superiority of democratic government over that of all other forms; the freedom which we possess is worth all the suffering and bloodshed of all the patriots that have ever lived. But nothing will run itself; perpetual motion is a myth, and even a small town to be well governed, must receive conscious, expert attention.

Unquestionably, a free government is the most complex and difficult of all forms of government to administer, but the problem can be solved, and the secret of success will be found in the individual himself. He must become educated to realize his full duties and responsibilities as a free citizen, in other words, he must become socialized. He must get over the notion that the school is the only educational agency and must understand that every influence that modifies conduct is educative in nature. Especially must he learn that the community itself is the chief civic and social educator of children, and as such it should be consciously organized to perform well this responsibility.

Already communities are awakening to the need of perfect sanitary and hygienic conditions, and clean town contests are the order of the day; this is one of the most hopeful signs of better times, but there ought to be a moral and mental awakening and contests for civic righteousness should be inaugurated. Any community that can say: "In this town no influence is permitted that could in any way corrupt the morals or ideals of children," should receive the highest award in the gift of the people and its praises should be commemorated in song and story.

In ancient Greece every citizen regarded himself as a parent or guardian of every child, and if any youth was seen in public to violate any of the customs or ideals of the nation, it was the duty of the citizen to chastise the boy and to otherwise instruct him in the duties of citizenship. At the same time the citizen was careful himself to set an example worthy of emulation. The result was the most perfect and harmonious education that the world has ever seen--at once the inspiration and the despair of all succeeding civilizations. Why should we not adopt some of the Grecian methods suited to our needs? In Greece no citizen would think of doing in public, or permitting to be done, anything which was not desirable for the child to do either in public or private. Why should any man who walks upright, with his head pointing to the stars, be permitted to profane the name of Deity, to stagger under the influence of liquor, to puff at a cigar, to gamble, to run a disorderly resort or show, to enrich himself through the manufacture and sale of poisons, or to do anything else that corrupts the community and destroys her children? Surely in our feeble attempts at free government, the right hand knows not what the left is doing.

But the remedy, as I have said, is in the hands of the citizens. While it is true that certain reforms to be most effective must be national rather than local, such, for example, as prohibiting the manufacture and sale of poisonous drugs, tobacco and alcohol, it is, nevertheless, evident that the initiative must be taken by the individual. His first duty is to convert himself and then his neighbors before any nation-wide reform can be undertaken.

It is one of the chief glories of a democracy that any desired good may be obtained through conversion and co-operation. But since in most communities 90 per cent, or more of the citizens are law-abiding and would not consciously do anything to destroy the children of the commonwealth, it ought to be a simple matter to restrain the few that are lawless and unsocial. There can be no possible doubt that any community that is fully alive to its needs and responsibilities can bring about just such civic and social conditions as it may desire. To help accomplish these purposes, it is necessary that efficient officers are elected who will enforce the laws and that public sentiment be aroused in support of these officials; in some communities sympathy for law-breakers is so easily awakened that justice cannot be enforced and law and order are placed in contempt.

The citizen in a democracy should realize that his training and education are never completed, that life itself is the great school-master and that one of the chief pleasures of existence is continued study and investigation. His occupation, no matter what it is, will offer him some opportunity for study and improvement, and a portion of his leisure time ought to be devoted to books and magazines. He may, also, if he desires, take an extension course or correspondence work offered by a higher institution of learning, some of which are making earnest efforts to take the college to the people. Every citizen should at least be identified with some civic, social, or industrial organization in his town, such as a debating and literary club, an agricultural society, or a commercial club. If each community would seek out and utilize the talent within its precinct, it might develop an intellectual and civic consciousness that would rival the spirit of ancient Greece.

An old-time prophet uttered the inspiring thought: "The Glory of God is intelligence," and the great latter-day Prophet added the supplement: "No man can be saved in ignorance." It is the duty of the individual, therefore, to be an eternal seeker after knowledge and perfection. In this blessed age when the sun of education shines so brilliantly, none need to slumber under the clouds of ignorance. May the sun shine until under its regenerating influence the home, school, church and state may each awaken to the full measure of its power and so prepare the way for the coming of that mightier Son of Righteousness, who promises to reign for a thousand years over a redeemed world.

LESSON XXII

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Show the close relationship between the individual and the state.

2. Account for the two different standards of conduct.

3. Indicate how social influences modify the character of children.

4. How do examples of the use of tobacco and liquor affect children?

5. Compare example and precept.

6. Why must a democratic form of government develop its ideals slowly?

7. Why is community government frequently inefficient?

8. What per cent, of the population usually "sets the moral pace?"

9. What is the remedy for inefficient free government?

10. Why is the community the chief civic and social educator of children?

11. What should receive the highest award in the gift of a people?

12. How did Greece train her children?

13. What evil practices should be prohibited in a community?

14. What reforms should be national rather than local?

15. How may the few lawless individuals be restrained?

16. What is the duty of the citizen towards self-improvement and education?

PART II

SUPPLEMENTAL STUDIES

MAN'S PARTNERSHIP WITH NATURE[1]

_Dr. John M. Tyler_

_Nature will bear our burdens for us, if we will obey her laws and heed her suggestions_.

[Footnote 1: These supplemental studies are based on lectures by Dr. John M. Tyler, given before the Utah Educational Association, by whose permission they are used. Parents will find Dr. Tyler's book on Growth in Education of great interest. It is listed with other books at the close of this volume.]

How has all the material progress of the nineteenth century come about? I think we shall find that it was due to man's intelligently and carefully and scrupulously going into partnership with Nature by obeying her laws. Not so very many years ago messages were sent across this continent by pony-riders; it was a slow process and a very expensive one. Now I step into an office here and I say, "I wish to send a message to my wife way out yonder in Massachusetts." The man touches a button and says, "Your message is in Massachusetts, sir." It is a miracle. The lightning has run with my message. Electricity not only carries our messages, it lights our houses; it turns many a wheel of machinery; it serves us beneficiently just as long as we obey the laws of electricity; but when we offend against these laws, it thwarts us or very likely destroys us. "Obey, and I will do anything for you in the world," says Nature, "disobey and you cannot move me one single inch." Coal hurries our great locomotives and long trains of merchandise and carries men and women across this continent without any great amount of human labor. The engineer and the brakeman do not get behind and push those great palace cars of ours; it is Nature which drives the train as if it were sport. Man guides and directs the water pouring down our hillsides, turning wheels of countless factories. A few ounces of gasoline send the automobile down the street, polluting the air and endangering our lives. The power of Nature is absolutely irresistible and unlimited; and furthermore, she is always working towards some great and good end.

When I was a child I used to hear that Nature was bad, and we used to have sermons to the natural man. They were excellent sermons, too, but they ought to have been preached to the unnatural man. The natural child was considered a child of wrath, and, having that reputation, he quite frequently lived up to it; but Nature is beneficient, as long as we let her be so, and she is always working toward great and grand ends. She has been working towards a higher and nobler and a better race of men than you and I are to-day. She is working for a race of men and women who shall tower above us as the sages and prophets in Athens and Jerusalem towered above their slaves. Can we not trust her just a little?

Did you ever think that it is the most marvelous thing in the world that such a thing as a chicken ever comes out of such a thing as an egg? If only one chicken were hatched in a century, we would go from here to the Himalaya mountains to see the miracle of that chicken coming out of that egg. You put an egg under a very stupid old hen, and all the hen does is to keep that egg warm, and leave it alone; after twenty days there comes out a chicken. How in the world did that chicken ever frame that body? How did it build the skeleton and string the muscles, and spin the nerves? If every nerve in that body did not make just the right connection, that chicken would be paralyzed. If you could watch the development of that chicken in the egg, your hair would stand on end. Isn't it Nature that makes those chickens? You and I can't make them. Nature puts a shell around the egg with the express purpose that we are to keep our fingers out and let her alone. She says: "I am on very important business now and I am going to do some strange things; if you could watch me you would interfere with me, and if you interfere with me, you will ruin me or ruin the chicken, so I want you to stand to one side and leave me entirely alone; and while I might do a good many things that you don't like, I shall bring a chicken out of that egg;" and she does; she has been making them for thousands of years in that same old stupid way, but she brings the chicken out all right.

Sometimes she seems to blunder still worse. She takes an egg which we suppose is going to turn into a frog, and she brings out of it a tadpole--neither fish, flesh nor fowl nor anything else. After a while the tadpole gets legs and has a long tail; it must lose that tail in order to become a frog. A benevolent zoologist one day started in to help the tadpole by snipping off the tadpole's tail; he made a frog of him in a hurry, but the strange thing was that that frog never was able to leap properly. Nature had been relying on the material that was in the tail. She was going to shift it forward and put it in the hind legs, but when the zoologist cut it off, she couldn't build the hind legs right after that.

A good deal of our education seems to me like trying to make frogs in a hurry by cutting off their tails. Nature can make chickens; she can make frogs. She can make bugs that will eat up everything which human ingenuity ever tried to raise. She will make weeds which you and I can't possibly kill even though we fight against them all summer long. We can trust Nature to form these things; isn't it fair to trust her with the children for a little while at least? Wouldn't it be well--I never heard of this experiment being tried, but I should like to see it tried very much indeed--I do wish that sometime somebody would leave a baby alone for twenty minutes and see what it would do if it were left to itself.

What is the great characteristic of all living things? It is that they grow; we cannot make them grow, but they grow of themselves. The farmer plants his crop of corn. He doesn't get a jackscrew and put under every hill of corn, and go around every morning and give the screw a turn and a twist and hoist the hill up in the air. He prepares the soil as best he can. He puts in the seed; he keeps down the weeds; he keeps out things and living beings which will injure the crop as far as he can; then he leaves it alone to God and Nature to make that corn grow, and in time he gets a bountiful harvest.