The Boy and the Sunday School | Page 6

in our free
America. Most intelligent Christian men now realize that, because of
the division between church and state in our country, religious
instruction in the public school is impossible, as the school is the
instrument of the state in the production of wealth-producing
citizenship. The men who with clear vision see these things also see
this limitation of the public school system and recognize that the
church has a larger mission to fulfill in America than in any other
country, it the education of the boy is to be symmetrical and well
balanced.
Perhaps the problem of our public school system of education which
has not yet been solved is the vast possibility of the directed play life of
our boys. It is well known by students of boy life that the character of
the boy is very largely determined by the informal education which
comes from his part in sports and play. In some cities the public school

has sought to give partial direction to the play life of the boy through
public school athletic leagues, but even these leagues touch but a small
part of the boy life of any community. Besides the injection of
industrial and vocational training in large quantity in public school
curricula, more thought and place will have to be given to the
expression of the boy life in play than is now provided for.
In addition to this, the home and the church must render a united
cooperation to make the school life of the boy what it ought to be. The
Parents' and Teachers' Association in the public school is doing much
to bring this about between the home and the school, and it may be that
a Teachers' Association, consisting of officials and teachers of the
public school and the officials and teachers of the Sunday school, might
bring about a closer cooperation in the secular and religious education
of the boyhood of the community. Both these associations, if fostered,
would certainly tend to create a wholesome school atmosphere, which
would render a tremendous service in safeguarding the moral life of the
boy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY ON PUBLIC SCHOOL
Baldwin.--Industrial-social Education ($1.50).
Bloomfield.--Vocational Guidance of Youth (.60).
Brown.--The American High School ($1.40).
Crocker,--Religious Freedom in American Education ($1.00).
--Religious Education (.65).

III
THE CHURCH AND THE BOY
If the foregoing facts considering the home and school life are
absolutely true, and the consensus of opinion of the students of boy life
would have it so, it means that the church has a larger opportunity than
formerly supposed to influence the boy life of the community.
The investigator into the life of boyhood has revealed to us the fact that
a boy's life is not only fourfold--physical, social, mental and
spiritual--but is also unified in its process of development. If this be so,
there must be a common center for the boy's life, and neither the home
nor the school can, because of social or economic or political
conditions, become this center. The only remaining place where the
boy's life can be unified is the church.

The life of the church, generally speaking, is largely manipulated in the
services of worship, the Sunday school, and such auxiliary
organizations as the Brotherhood, Christian Endeavor, Missionary
societies, and other like organizations. At the present time the church
organization itself is but little adapted to the needs of the growing boy,
the church being a splendidly organized body for mature life. On the
other hand, until lately, the Sunday school has been recognized as a
place for children under twelve years of age. With the Adult Bible
Class movement of the past few years, there has come a revival in the
Sunday school in adult life, so that the place of adults and children in
the Sunday school has been magnified. There still remains, however,
the need of a modification of Sunday school organization to meet the
need of the adolescent boy.
The opportunity that faces the church and the Sunday school in this
adaptation is tremendous. Investigations of the past few years have
demonstrated beyond a doubt that the time to let loose impulses in the
life for the development of character is between the ages of fourteen
and twenty, or the plastic years of early and middle adolescence.
Recent studies have shown that the break in school life occurs at about
fourteen and a half or fifteen years, and that the majority of cases in the
juvenile courts fall in the same period. More souls are born into the
Kingdom of God in the early years of adolescence than at all other ages
of life put together, and the vantage ground of the church lies at these
ages, the effort necessary being the minimum and the results being the
maximum that can be attained.
The