The Boy and the Sunday School | Page 5

logical result, the ultimate break between the boy and the home, and the departure of the boy at the first real opportunity to strike out for himself, thus sundering all the home relationships.
Perhaps one of the saddest things in the home life today is the neglect of the father to see that his boy receives the necessary knowledge concerning sex, that his life may be safeguarded from the moral perils of the community. This is not always a willful breach of duty on the part of the father, but usually comes from ignorance as to how to broach this subject to the boy. A great many growing lives would be saved from moral taint and become a blessing instead of a curse if the father discharged his whole duty to his growing son, by putting at his disposal the knowledge which is necessary to an understanding of the functions of the sex life.
To recapitulate, several things are necessary to bring about real relationships in the home life between the parents and the boy. These are: a place for the boy in the family councils as a partner in the home life, the boy's right to companionship with his parents, the privilege and responsibility of private ownership, the right a boy has to his personality and privacy, and tactful and timely instruction in matters of sex. This might be enlarged by the parents' privilege of caring for and developing social life for the boy in the home, a carefully planned participation in its working life, instructions in thrift and saving, and a general cooperation with the school and the church, as well as the auxiliary organizations with which the boy may be connected, so that the physical, social, mental and spiritual life of the boy may become well balanced and symmetrical. Add to this the Christian example of the father and mother, as expressed in the everyday life of the home, and especially through family worship and a recognition of the Divine Being at meal time, and without any cant or undue pressure there will be produced such a wholesome home environment as to assure the boy of an intelligent appreciation of not only his father and mother, but of his home privileges in general, and of the value of real religion.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON THE HOME
Allen.--Making the Best of Our Children. Two vols. ($1.00 each).
Field.--Finger-posts to Children's Reading ($1.00).
Fiske.--Boy Life and Self-Government ($1.00).
Kirkpatrick.--Fundamentals of Child Study ($1.25).
Putnam.--Education for Parenthood (.65).

II
THE PUBLIC SCHOOL AND THE BOY
Of the primary institutions that are cooperating in the life of the boy today, without a doubt the public school is the most efficient and most serviceable. Today the school offers and compels a boy to get certain related courses of study which will make him a better citizen by fitting him in a measure for the procuring of an intelligent and adequate livelihood. The school by no means is perfect in this matter, and as long as over fifty per cent. of the boys fail to graduate even from the eighth grade in the grammar school, and but one per cent. go to college, there will be great need of a reconstruction of its methods of work. Without question, the curricula of the public school should be modified so as to meet the needs of all the boys in the community and vocational and industrial training should have larger place in our educational plans. The boy who is to earn his livelihood by his hands and head should receive as much attention and intelligent instruction as the boy who aims at a professional career. However, with all its limitations, the public school is the only institution which has a definite policy in the education of the boy. The leaders of the public school system know whither they are going and the road they must travel to reach the goal.
Perhaps the greatest weakness of our public school system today is the inability, because of our division between church and state, to give the boy any religious instruction in connection with what is styled "secular education." For the first time in the history of the world has religious instruction been barred from the public school, and that in our free America. Most intelligent Christian men now realize that, because of the division between church and state in our country, religious instruction in the public school is impossible, as the school is the instrument of the state in the production of wealth-producing citizenship. The men who with clear vision see these things also see this limitation of the public school system and recognize that the church has a larger mission to fulfill in America than in any other country, it the education of the boy is to be symmetrical and well balanced.
Perhaps the problem of our public school system of