Religious Education in the Family | Page 4

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,