BV 1549 .L4 1910 Lewis, Edward Samuel, 1855- The senior worker and his work 1S15 The Worker and His Work Series A Correspondence Study Course for Sunday School Workers THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK EDWARD S. LEWIS Authorized and Issued by the Board of Sunday Schools of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Fifty-Seven Washington Street, Chicago, Illinois, David G. Downey, Corresponding Secretary, IN CO-OPERATION WITH JOHN T. McFaRLAND, EdITOR OF Sunday School Publications, and with his approval. Printed for the Board by JENNINGS AND GRAHAM Copyright, 1910, by The Board of Sunday Schools OF THE Methodist Episcopal Church CONTENTS Page Introductory Chapter. — The Graded Sunday-School, - 9 I. From Babe to Man, 23 II. Middle Youth, 39 III. The Wistful Years, 53 IV. The Teacher's First Pupil, 63 V. Consecration Plus Preparation, - - - 75 VI. How to Plan the Work, 87 VII. How TO Analyze a Lesson, .... ^g VIII. The Teacher's Use of Questions, - . - 113 IX. Illustrations — Their Value and Use, - - 127 X. A Study of the Senior Problem, - . -141 XI. Morning-Glory Blossoms, i^^ XII. How to Teach Religion to Seniors, - - - 167 XIII. How to Teach Morals and Manners, - - 179 XIV. The Social Instincts and Their Training, - - 173 XV. The Senior's World, 207 XVI. Benevolence and Service, 219 XVII. Class Organization, 233 XVIII. Ways of Working, 245 XIX. Joining the Brotherhood; - - - . 259 XX. The Call of the World, 273 Bibliography, 284 3 PREFACE The present Sunday-school awakening is the brightest and most hopeful sign in the religious world. All the Churches are showing a new appreciation of the value of the child and an unwonted confidence in the Bible and its teachings. This has come none too soon. The Church can not hope to prosper as we long to have it unless it succeeds in holding more of her young people than she is holding or has ever held. This is distinctly the pressing problem of all the Churches. The religious interests of our own children are incomparably the Church's first responsibility and greatest work. We shall be discredited both at home and in the mission fields if we prove powerless to recruit our member- ship in larger numbers from our own homes. The Senior Department of the Sunday-school exists mainly on paper. Even our best organized schools seldom have a Senior Department separately organized and worked. And yet it is important — indispensable — to successful work. To what purpose do we win the younger scholars if we lose them in the senior years? This manual is an attempt to help the Senior teacher solve his perplexing and momentous problem. It has been freed as much as possible from technical forms, yet it has been held to accepted educational principles. The author hopes that it may be found interesting, as well as didactic, 5 •6 PREFACE and that some may read it who may not work through it. He has endeavored to avoid undue attention to mechanical details of method and to trust mainly in larger inspirations. He has encountered the usual embarrassment in writing for both men and women without an outfit of appropriate personal pronouns. So he has used the masculine series uni- formly, and hereby asks that these be freely appropriated by the women who teach and those who learn. When the Sunday-school shall have solved its adolescent problem, the Church will enter its brightest era since Pente- cost. Edward S. Lewis. New York, March 15, 1910. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER THE GRADED SUNDAY-SCHOOL INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER THE GRADED SUNDAY-SCHOOL By Wade Crawford Barclay, Educational Director of the Board of Sunday-schools I. Standard of Organization 1. The purpose of organization. Organization is simply a means to an end. Given a certain situation, the Sunday-school should adopt such form of organization as Conditions ^^^^ ^^^^ enable it to adapt itself to that situ- Determine ation and to accomplish the ends for which it Details of exists. If the school meets in a little country Organization schoolhouse, has one teacher, one class, and an enrollment of fifteen persons, it will not be aided in doing its work by adopting the complicated organization demanded by the city school of a thousand members. But even the smallest and weakest frontier school may, in a simple or- ganization suited to its situation and its needs, recognize the fundamental principles which make its big brother of the highest educational and religious efficiency. Conditions vary so widely in different schools that it is impossible to sug- gest a form of organization suited to all. Each school will do best by acquainting itself thoroughly with the highest ideals in Sunday-school work ; then, having adopted a work- ing plan suited to its situation, it may gradually advance toward the ideal. 2. The ideal standard. So far as possible, every Sunday- 9 3 10 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK school should attain to the following ideal of organi- zation : (i) The Sunday-school fully graded. (For complete statement on graded organization, see pp. I3-I4-) (2) A Cradle Roll. (3) A Home Department. (4) A Teacher Training Department. (5) Organized Adult Classes. (6) A Sunday-school Missionary Organization. (7) A Sunday-school Temperance Organization. (8) Regular Meeting of the Sunday-school Board. 3. Officers necessary to realize this ideal. We suggest as advisable, in order to realize this ideal of organization and all that it implies, to have at least the following officers : Superintendent ; an Assistant Superintendent, who shall be Director of Graded Instruction ; a second Assistant Super- intendent, who shall be Director of Teacher Training; in large schools superintendents of various departments, as Su- perintendent of the Primary Department, Superintendent of the Junior Department, etc. ; Superintendent of the Home De- partment; Superintendent of the Cradle Roll; Secretary; an Assistant Secretary, who shall be Secretary of Enrollment and Classification; Treasurer; Organist; Chorister; one or more Librarians; Ushers, and various committees, of which one should be the Quarterly Conference Committee on Sunday- schools required by the Discipline, and another a Committee on Sunday-school Evangelism. 4. The relation of the pastor to the Sunday-school. Since the Sunday-school is integrally a part of the Church, the pastor is as truly pastor of the Sunday-school as of the Church itself. Methodist Episcopal Church polity recognizes this and makes the pastor the executive head of the Sunday- school, and clearly defines his prerogatives as such. This re- lation should be cordially recognized by officers and school^ and every facility afiforded the pastor to exercise a helpful and fruitful ministry in that department of the Church which offers him his largest spiritual opportunity. ^ THE GRADED SUNDAY-SCHOOL ii II. The Graded School I. What is a Graded School? There are few schools but what have from the beginning made some approach to grading. Seldom, indeed, is a school found which does not All Schools separate the gray heads from the curly locks. Not are to some Only are classes formed, as a rule, with more or Extent less successful attempt to group together those Graded q£ approximately the same age, but the lesson helps commonly furnished bear titles such as Intermediate Quarterly, Senior Quarterly, which thus recognize the dif- ferent departments from beginners to adults. Thus it would seem at first glance that the average school has been graded, both as to pupils and as to lesson materials. But as a matter of fact, this is only a seeming gradation. Age alone is not a proper basis for grading pupils. As for the cur- riculum, since all lesson helps of the uniform series use the same lesson material for all ages, and presuppose almost entirely the same teaching methods for all, they can be said to be graded only in name. In order that a school may be properly and successfully graded there must be, in both theory and practice, full recog- nition of the following principles : (a) The members of the school must be separated into general divisions suggested by the natural periods of human ^ life; and, secondly, into classes upon the basis of Completely age, physical development, and mental capacity. Graded (b) The curriculum must be so planned as School ^Q g^j^ ^■^^ lessons to the mental powers, the interests, and the spiritual needs of the pupils. (c) The teaching methods used must likewise be deter- mined by and suited to the mental development and spiritual needs of the learners. (d) Promotions from class to class and from department to department must be upon the basis of a standard which has regard both to proficiency in the curriculum and to age and physical, mental, and spiritual development. 12 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 2. The necessity of grading. If the Sunday-school is to realize its highest possibilities, grading is not a matter of opinion or choice, but a necessity. This by no means declares other methods a failure; "it recognizes the good already at- tained, while it seeks a higher good." Grading rests upon these established principles: (a) Human life is by nature marked off into certain clearly de-fined periods. A human being is a developing creature with needs different in different periods of his developing qq^ life. Grading is the recognition of this fact. First Graded No Sunday-school consists of pupils all of one Human age; rather, it is made up of people of all ages ^*^" and in all stages of physical, mental, and spir- itual growth. Grading is the means of adaptation to these existing facts. It is a commonplace of child study to-day that at one period play is a dominating interest; at another, memory power reaches its culmination; at another, biography makes its strongest appeal; at still another, "the chivalric ideals and great altruistic principles of Christianity appeal with almost irresistible force." The aptitudes, the needs, the interests of the different periods can only be met and taken advantage of by a graded system. (b) In all teaching the mind of the learner is now the point of departure. Teaching has to do with two principals, the learner and the truth to be taught. In the Sunday-school Teaching '^^ ^^^ P^^^ almost all emphasis has been placed Has Regard Upon the body of material to be taught. The First to the lesson System has been planned almost entirely Being who is ^j^j^ regard to the Bible. But the science of to be Taught a u u • j pedagogy has been commg more and more to hold that effective teaching must regard first the mind of the learner, and consider the teaching material as a means of reaching desired ends. As soon as this point of view is adopted, grading of the lesson material becomes necessary. Only this secures the presentation of the different parts of the Bible at the time at which they severally make their strongest and most effective appeal. The application of this 3 THE GRADED SUNDAY-SCHOOL 13 principle would make forever impossible the presentation to the minds of little children of lesson material which is fitted to test the intellectual acumen of college graduates. (c) The Bible itself is best studied in the order of its development. The uniform lesson system ignores both the fact that the Bible is a body of sacred literature which de- Different veloped slowly through long centuries, and that Parts of Bible it is a gradual and progressive revelation of the Represent purpose and will of God concerning men.i The Periods of graded system is fitted to give due emphasis to pmen ^^^^^ these facts. A graded course of study pre- senting the Bible practically in the order in which it came into existence, which order is singularly fitted to the periods of mental growth, will give to the person who takes the course complete and connected knowledge of the Scriptures and their teaching quite impossible of impartation by means of the fragmentary, patchwork method of the uniform system. 3. Objections to grading. It may be well to consider briefly the most common objections made to grading the Sunday-school. It is objected that: (a) Grading will do away with uniformity, that is, the use of the same lesson by the whole school and by all schools throughout the world. There can be no doubt that the uniform lesson system was at the time of its inaur^u- ration a great improvement over the previous lack of sys- tem, and that it has been attended by many benefits and advantages. It marked a distinct stage of advance in Sunday- school development, but it has served its day and must now give way in order that the Sunday-school may become still more efhcient. We can afiford to discard a good for a still greater good. The uniform lesson idea appeals to sentiment, but it is easily discernible that the strongest influence in its 1 " If the Bible is the history of a progressive revelation, and if, for this reason, it yields its best results alike intellectually and religiously when it is studied with due reference to the relation of part to part, and to the unfolding of the great divine truth and revelation that runs through it, then we shall give our suffrages to the graded curriculum in preference to the system of nniformity." —Burton and Mathews, Principles and Ideals for the Sunday-school, p. 130. 14 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK favor at present is that growing out of the fact that it has been financially remunerative. Surely all will concede that neither mere sentiment nor financial gain should be allowed to stand in the way of the Sunday-school becoming a greater power for religion and morals. (h) Grading requires specialists. This objection, frequently made, is not valid. The untrained teacher has at least as much chance of doing good work in a graded as in an un- graded school. The lesson material making a stronger appeal to the interests of the pupils is easier to handle. Moreover, the assignment of the teacher to a certain grade makes it possible for him to become a specialist by attaining mastery in that particular field.^ (c) It is too difficult to effect a change. The difficulties are likely to be unduly magnified. A graded system may be introduced so gradually as to occasion little notice or diffi- culty. When the advantages of a graded school are fully realized, ways may be found to overcome what difficulties really exist. It is only necessary that the plan be clearly understood by those intimately concerned in necessary changes, and that they be brought to realize the force of the reasons demanding the changes. ^ 4. Plan of graded organization. (a) The natural divisions of human life. The great primary divisions of human life have always been recognized — childhood, the period of subjection, imitation, receptivity; youth, the period of awakening powers; manhood, the period of developed powers. Psychology, and especially child-study, has made equally clear secondary natural periods, which, ex- pressed in terms of age, are from one to three, three to seven, l*'See how the primary teachers grow; they are head and shoulders above the rest in organization, in printed helps, in sheer pedagogic efficiency, — why? Because they have accepted a narrow location, an age limit of pupils, and maintained it through the years. They have done the same kind of work over and over again ; of course, they have grown efficient." — E. M. Fergusson. 2" Failures have come only when the attempt has been made to force on the school some mechanical contrivance in a mechanical manner. Let the principle and plan be fully understood by all workers."—//'. F. Cope. THE GRADED SUNDAY-SCHOOL 15 seven to nine, nine to twelve or thirteen, thirteen to sixteen or seventeen. The age division differs with the sexes, the ^ ^. . male sex developing more slowly. Even within Grading IS r <^ • j- -j i Working in sex limits the periods vary with individuals, de- Harmony pendent upon the rapidity or tardiness of the with God physical, mental, and spiritual development. This fact makes the age standard alone an unsatisfactory one. These natural divisions or periods of human life form the basis of the organization of the graded Sunday-school. (b) The Divisions of the Sunday-school. On the foregoing basis the graded Sunday-school has the following divisions: Age Public School Grade Cradle Roll f 3 Beginner's Department -' 4 1 5 f 6 Primary Department <| 7 2 [ 8 3 9 4 10 5 II 6 12 7 [.... 13 8 Intermediate Department -j .... 14 9 [....15 10 r 16 II Senior Department ^ 17 12 1 18 Adult Department Over 18. a. Organized Adult Bible Classes. b. Teacher Training Department. Home Department. [Note: Some authorities would include pupils 16 3^ears old in the Intermediate Department ; make the Senior Depart- ment to consist of those 17, 18, 19, and 20, and the Adult Department to include those over 20.] 3 Junior Department i6 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK III. Administration of the Graded School In administration, again, to a certain extent, each school must work out its own problems. Often the inadequate facihties for school work afforded by the church building „ . . , ^ forces a modification or entire change of plans Principles to . Be Regarded which Under more favorable conditions would in Admin- be of the highest standard. Only general prin- istration ciples may be enunciated. These should be regarded in practice to the largest extent which local con- ditions allow. I. Each department of the school should have its own room. This arrangement promotes an ideal organization and administration of the graded curriculum and is greatly to g . be desired wherever it is possible, although in Rooms for most schools, as at present situated, it is of Departments course impracticable. These departmental rooms and Classes should be SO planned as to allow the placing of the various grades in separate rooms. For example, the Primary room should be so planned as to be easily sub- divided into three smaller rooms, one for each grade. The division of departments may well be into grades only up to the Intermediate Department, in which the three grades should be subdivided into classes. That is, in the Beginners', Primary, and Junior Departments, the grade may constitute the unit, but in the Intermediate Department the grade should be sub-divided into classes, thus placing a smaller number of pupils under the care of a teacher and allowing an oppor- tunity for that close personal association which is so es- sential during the crucial years of adolescence. The inter- mediate room should therefore be large enough to allow a separate class room to each class. It is quite impossible for the grade or class to do its best work without a room to itself. When this can not be, each class should be shut off by screens or other tempo- THE GRADED SUNDAY-SCHOOL 17 rary partitions. In some cases heavy curtains may be used to advantage. 2. The school should meet together for brief open- ing exercises. An assembly room, which in actual practice will most often be the church auditorium, should be used An o ening ^° assemble the "entire school at the opening or Service for closing of the school session. An exception may the Entire well be made of the Beginners' Department and School ^jgQ q£ ^j^g Primary Department. There is not unanimity of opinion on this subject, some advocating that each department hold its own opening and closing exercises. We hold to the former plan. This gives a sense of unity and binds the various departments and organized classes to the school and to the Church in a manner highly desirable. These exercises should be very brief, much more so than they usually are at present — as a rule not more than fifteen minutes should be used in this way, in order that the all too brief teaching period may be lengthened as much as possible. The first essential of these exercises is promptness in beginning; the superin- tendent and chorister should be in their places exactly on time to open the school ; better five minutes early than one minute late. A primary purpose of these exercises is worship, hence reverence must be cultivated. The manner of con- ducting the exercises, the hymns used, the words of the leader, — all should combine to induce the spirit of reverence and worship. 3. In general, teachers should remain in charge of the same grade. The question as to whether the teacher should remain in one grade or advance from grade to Teachers grade with the class has been sharply debated for in literature and convention. In general, there Certain can be little question as to the advisability of Grades ^j^g teacher remaining stationary. As stated above, it enables the teacher to become a specialist in some one particular field. Sunday-school teachers are busy people 2 3 i8 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK and can neither be required nor expected to thoroughly ac- quaint themselves with the entire field of Sunday-school in- struction and life. They may, however, reasonably be ex- pected in time to become adept in the field of some one department or grade. The objection is made that under the old system the class became attached to the teacher and thus by the bond of personal affection M^ere held to the Sunday- school. But did it always work out so happily? As a recent writer puts it : "Suppose the teacher goes into heaven, into matrimony, or elsewhere. Where will the class go? They will go — be very sure of that." Whatever weight this argu- ment has is counterbalanced by the fact that passing from one teacher to another aids in giving to the pupils a distinct sense of advance and by so doing promotes interest and effort. An exception to this general rule may be made in the Intermediate and Senior Departments. Here a teacher who has shown himself capable of interesting and influencing the boys or girls should be allowed to continue with the same class through the three grades of the department. Confidence of the pupils in their teacher, personal friendship, and in- timate acquaintanceship of the teacher with the pupils are at this period indispensable. These can only exist as teacher and class may be together for more than one year. But this continuance of the same teacher with the class should not extend beyond the limits of the department. How important, in view of the light shed in recent years upon the period of adolescence, that the teacher who is to be entrusted with the moral and religious guidance of young people of this age have an intimate acquaintanceship with the most important literature on the subject — such an ac- quaintanceship as can only be attained by giving exclusive attention to this one department ! The age is by common consent difficult to deal with. How important, again, that a man who has come through experience to understand and sympathize with adolescent boys, and has attained power to lead and mold them, be allowed the opportunity to exercise continuously this much needed ministry ! 3 THE GRADED SUNDAY-SCHOOL 19 4. The best possible facilities and equipment should be provided. Altogether too little attention has been paid in the past to adequate facilities for the work of the Sunday- school. In plans of architects and committees, the require- ments of the Sunday-school have been ignored or given, at the best, slight consideration. Along with increased interest in the Sunday-school and improved methods must Building go better facilities and more complete equipment, and Equip- Sunday-school workers themselves have a right menttobe ^q ^^ heard upon this subject, and should insist on the Sunday-school being provided for in ac- cord with its importance to the Church and the kingdom. Some large Sunday-schools now have a building all their own, especially designed for Sunday-school work and elaborately equipped. This is as it should be. No longer should any Sunday-school be compelled to carry on its work in one room of a large church, and that a dark, damp, illy furnished basement. Careful consideration should be paid to securing graded equipment, proper text-books in sufficient number, and teach- ers who have been prepared for their work. It would be unwise for any school to endeavor to introduce a graded curriculum without attention being paid to these essentials. Lesson Outline: I. Standard of Organization. II. The Graded School. 1. What is a graded school? 2. The necessity of grading. 3. Objections to grading. 4. Plan of graded organization, III. Administration of the Graded School. Topics for Special Study: 1. Sunday-school architecture. 2. Some successful graded schools. s 20 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK Topics for Class Discussion: 1. To what extent can a standard of organization be fixed for all schools ? 2. State the ideal standard. 3. What officers are essential? 4. What is the relation of the pastor to the Sunday- school? 5. What principles must be given recognition in the fully graded school? 6. What reasons make grading necessary to the best work? 7. State and answer the common objections to grading. 8. Name the divisions or departments of a graded school. CHAPTER I FROM BABE TO MAN CHAPTER I FROM BABE TO MAN I. The Fact of Growth "Who made you?" is the first question of the old Cate- chism; and the old answer was, "God." But this does not express our thought of the individual of to-day. Of course, Growth the ^^^^ origin of life is all with the Creator. So Most Signifi- are the substances of body and mind and all cant Fact the laws and processes of their ongoing. Their of Life growth itself is ordained of God. He might have made us mature men and women at once, but this was not His way. All men and women have come up through the gates of birth and have been carried along by growth through infancy and childhood and youth to maturity. A little girl was asked, "Who made you?" Her answer was, "God made me so long (extending her hands), and I grew the rest." She had a glimpse of the great truth. Over a bridge in Scotland is written, "God and we." A young girl was impressed with the great need of a bridge over a moun- tain torrent at this point, and pleaded and toiled for it so earnestly and piously that, when at last her prayers were answered, she asked to have that legend placed upon it. The same with propriety might be written upon every successful human life. God has bidden us to labor with Him in our own creation. He has made fathers and mothers and teach- ers and neighbors partners with Him in the making of men and women. It is not His will that we should become mature at once, nor that all the responsibility for our adult char- acters should rest upon Him. Growth underlies all theories and practices of education, all possibilities of character and usefulness, all appeals of 23 ^ 24 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK morals and religion, and all inspirations of duty and destiny. If it were not for the universal law of growth there would be no teacher-training, nor any teachers or pupils or schools. It challenges our ambition as it introduces us to our great work. Luther Burbank says : ''Growth is a vital process — an evolution — a marshalling of vagrant, unorganized forces into definite forms of beauty, harmony, and utility. Growth in some form is about all that we ever take any interest in ; it expresses about everything of value to us. Growth in its more simple or most marvelously complicated forms is the architect of beauty, the inspiration of poetry, the builder and sustainer of life, for life itself is only growth, an ever- changing movement toward some object or ideal. Wherever life is found, there also is growth in some direction. The end of growth is the beginning of decay." II. The Wonders of Growth The world is full of wonders, but growth monopolizes the most and the strangest of them. As far above the clod and the stone and the river as are the flower, the bird, and the Growth Re- "^^^ ^^^ ^^^ fascinations of growth over the veals God's statics of the dead earth. The teacher's grand Process of inspiration is this principle that rides upon the Creation ^^p q£ ^^^ world. The marvelous transformations of nature are divine. They are made by the power of God according to the plans of God. As we gaze upon any child that we meet on the street we may behold the divine creation in process ; we may see man being made in the image of God. And every living thing in nature adds to this wonder. The brown sward changing into the turf of the velvet lawn; the tiny green shoot coming by and by to the tall stalk and the full corn in the ear; the tgg, the nestling, and the lark soaring into the sky with its matchless song; the trees of myriad forests ; the cattle upon a thousand hills ; and, above all, the supreme wonder of the human babe passing invisibly FROM BABE TO MAN 25 and resistlessly into the boy and the man, are all living tokens to us of the present God working busily in His world. And by all these He calls us to His aid. The teacher is admitted into the most sacred recesses of the divine laboratory. III. The Periods of Growth It has long been noted that human life seems to run somewhat in sevens. Growth is far from uniform — and this is another wonder. We might have expected it to move us Growth along like the clock-hand over the dial or the Proceeds stars about the earth. But there are "three through speeds" to the car of life, and more. There are Fixed stages ^^^j-ry times and there are slack times. There are crises, delicate and deep and fraught with momentous consequences. These come at the sevens of the years. When the child is seven years old he begins to lose his first teeth and to get his second set. There are other marked physio- logical changes. Among them is the frequent disappearance of infantile diseases. Perhaps a child has suffered from some ailment that no treatment or nursing had any effect upon. It is a baby-disease, and at about six or seven years of age the child outgrows it and it permanently disappears. The doctor may say of sundry humors and symptoms and pains, "Wait until his milk teeth go and these troubles will go with them." At fourteen years of age come on the capital changes of adolescence, with which we shall be mainly occu- pied throughout these lessons. At twenty-one, the third seven, the physical growth is about accomplished. At forty-nine, the seventh seven, comes the prime; and ten sevens compose the threescore years and ten, the conventional measure of a life- time. This division, however, is not followed in the educational scheme. The period of growth is more closely analyzed and divided here. The first three years may be called infancy. They are sometimes referred to as the nursery age. From three to five years is early childhood. These are also called 26 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK the kindergarten years. In our present Sunday-school grad- ing, children of this age are called beginners. From six to eight years we may call the period of middle childhood. They are the primary years of our grading. Later child- hood, the junior grade, covers the years from nine to twelve. The intermediates are those from thirteen to fifteen, the period of early adolescence. Middle adolescence may be reckoned from sixteen to eighteen, or as we prefer to twenty, which thus practically corresponds with the senior grade. Later ado- lescence extends from this to maturity, say twenty-four or twenty-five years. All the years from twenty-one on are classed as adult in the grading. IV. Changes After Maturity Nor does the body settle down into a groove even after growth has been accomplished. There are incessant changes of all kinds. Organs and members grow, and pause, and Each Part grow again, and decline. They do not keep on Runs together, but each seems to run a course peculiar its Own to itself. Dr. G. Stanley Hall tells us that the Course arteries continue to grow in size till at least the age of sixty. "At birth the relation of the heart to the arteries is as twenty-five to twenty. At the dawn of puberty it is as one hundred and forty to fifty, and in full maturity it is as two hundred and ninety to sixty-one." Another authority concludes "that the kidneys are at their largest in the third decade; the muscles, skeleton, intestines, and liver, in the fifth ; the heart and lungs in the eighth. From which it seems that almost each organ has its youth, maturity, and old age, and that these do not coincide with each other or with the stages of the body growth as a whole. The motor organs, as the heaviest, give to growth its chief character. So that what we call maturity is the period of their greatest develop- ment." The most striking illustration of this independent development of the organs is in the most important of them — the brain. Dr. Hall tells us that this master organ is nearly FROM BABE TO MAN 27 done growing (in weight and size) at six years of age. During the fourth year alone it increases more than it will during all the rest of life. It reaches its maximum at from twelve to fourteen years. This early maturing of the brain is one of the most significant facts in physiology, and therefore in education. V. The Seven Ages of the Child Thus we may paraphrase Shakespeare's famous theme. For, taking "child" in its large sense, from birth to full maturity, we count seven periods. These are by no means artificial. The very foundations of grading rest, Descdbld ^ °^ should rest, upon reality. If at any time they are found off reality they should be replaced by a change of the grading. But we believe that there are real and natural variations upon which these grades are based. A difference calls for a grade, and if there is no difference there should be no grade. To prolong a grade after the things that called for that grade have passed away is to invite failure in the teaching pi;ocess ; and to make a new grade when the present things are unchanged is also to bid for failure. Grading thus becomes as universal as childhood and its moods; for they present substantially the same phases always and everywhere. I. Infancy. This is the beginning. The child lies, a little, breathing, pulsating body, in its mother's arms. It has little mentality at first, and probably no consciousness of self. It has everything to learn, and it has the nascent faculties wherewith to learn the wonders of the new world into which it has been born. We see little that is positive or individual yet. Its traits are passive ones. It is dependent, open, re- ceptive. A half-dozen of its most prominent dispositions may be restlessness, curiosity, imitation, fun, yearning, and appe- tite. These and all the rest are important in their possi- bilities. They are not transient and unrelated traits to be obliterated by and by. They are germinal traits that develop 28 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK into all that follow. He who knows how to read an infant sees far more than restlessness in the little animated mass that "has ten thousand springs in him to make him wiggle and not one to make him hold still." He sees a nascent principle that under the mysterious push of life will develop into the intelligent activities of childhood, the well-directed energy and power of adolescence, and the honorable achieve- ments of manhood. These characteristics are noticeable in all babies. They are few, but they may serve to give us a mental picture of the first stage of the child. 2. Early childhood. From four to five years a great change has taken place. The child has learned a whole language and feels quite at home in the world. He has begun to reveal his nature and to gain his individuality. He is now talking a good deal, and watching everybody and everything with wide-open eyes. He is working his imi- tative faculties hard, for this is the way he learns to do things. His imagination is vivid and his simple remarks often call for profound interpretation. He has a compre- hensive creed, for it includes almost every person and thing. He is very social and can not bear to be alone. His home is getting small, and he begins to look forward to the larger social life of the school. 3. Middle childhood. It is an epoch in the life of the child when he first leaves his home for the school. And there are often tears in the mother's eyes, and new petitions enter into her prayers as she sees her "baby" go out into the world. But the child is a babe no longer. All the traits of infancy have been transformed. They have no more perished than the seed which reappears in the tiny plant. The infantile restlessness has become activity, more or less purposeful and effective. The curiosity of the infant has become inquiry. The number of questions that the six- year-old can ask is amazing and often distracting. The baby's imitation has taken on observation and is guided and amplified by this, the results of which are startling at times. FROM BABE TO MAN 29 This propensity of imitation has led many such a child to poison himself with tobacco, to the horror of his parents. This shows the power of the pull of influence. The native humor that dimples the cheeks and laughs in the eyes of the babe has developed into well-defined play. The yearning of the infant for caresses and for company has become manifest in the marked social tendencies of the boy; and the appetite, both bodily and mental, now shows itself in a disposition to accept in unquestioning acquiescence every- thing that he is told. This trustful spirit of the young child is one of the most beautiful things in the world. There are few fascinations in nature like it. There is no compli- ment that a man or woman can receive like the upturned face of the child speaking wonder and confidence. This is a marvelous age for sowing the good seed — and particu- larly for impressing reHgious truth. He who is not touched by the fascinations of these children is callous indeed. Says Professor Pattee: "The child is indeed a bit of the king- dom of heaven. He is artless and unaffected; he is will- ingly dependent; he thinketh no evil; he has faith in all things; he loves as the sun shines and tells his love with perfect unconsciousness; he is spontaneous and enthusias- tically optimistic. It is the child alone that keeps the world sweet and hopeful. Without childhood the race would drift into pessimism and hatred and despair." 4. Later childhood. From nine to twelve are the clos- ing years of childhood. This period is also strongly marked, and it foreshadows the coming of youth. The boy is rough and thoughtless. He becomes absorbed in his play. He looks askance at refinement and has to be persuaded variously to wash his face and comb his hair. He has no prejudice against mud, as a general thing, nor against water, pro- vided it is not in the bath. He is loud and boisterous, and likes to scuffle and push, and counts a day without a fight as a lost opportunity. The girl is a good deal like him, although less aggressive. She is about through with her so THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK dolls, and, like her brother, shows preference for group games. There seems to be a repulsion of sex in this period. She "just hates boys," and the boys taunt and tease her. Both boys and girls are reading much now. It is said that the reading age begins at about the eighth year. It is long enough since they have learned to read for them to read fluently, and their thoughts are beginning to take hold upon real life, which makes stories of great men and great events fascinating to them. Their minds run to heroes who draw heavily upon their admiration and furnish them with ma- terials for their new ideals. 5. Early adolescence. From thirteen to fifteen is the age of the greatest crisis of growth. There is usually a rapid bodily growth, with the accompanying sex-differentia- tions. The mind also undergoes radical transformations. New emotions are born as childhood disappears in the by- gone years, and strange hopes and fears engage the soul. It is a period of great energy and independence. The de- pendent child is becoming self-centered and self-reliant. He is beginning to study his own problems and come to his own conclusions concerning them. And he comes to very positive conclusions. He is impatient of disagreements and wants to fight about them. In boys the fighting spirit comes to its climax here. But strong friendships are as marked as strong antagonisms. We hear much of the "gang" and the *'bunch" at this time. There are clinging intimacies and deathless loyalties and profound confidences between the chums of early youth. These things are probably en- hanced by the incipient alienation of the youth from his parents, who too often fail to understand him in his new character. The young folks enter very deeply into each others' hearts — to find the sympathy that they so keenly desire and fail to find elsewhere. We must not omit mention of the most important feature of early adolescence — its religious character. With all the seemingly untoward phases of the youth, there is neverthe- 8 FROM BABE TO MAN 31 less a strong current which draws him toward truth and worship and God. It is never to be forgotten that most conversions of individuals occur within this period. With all the self-assertion and large denials of youth there is also a profound response in his soul to the appeals of faith and truth and the winsomeness of Jesus Christ. Though it be a period of doubt, it is more a period of faith. 6. Middle adolescence. The years from seventeen to twenty are the fateful years. In these the decisions for life and for destiny are made and sealed. The sexes turn toward each other in sweet and pure affection, and as maturity approaches the young people tend toward their permanent places in the home, in the Church, in business, and in society. It is this period that we shall occupy ourselves with in the following lessons. 7. Later adolescence. The youth comes of age at twenty- one, but he is not yet mature. He requires three or four years more in which to settle into his permanent positions. During these years his doubts find their solution in a sane and permanent faith, and his earlier faith ripens into potent convictions. At least, this is the ideal and the natural process. Longings and hopes and opinions and tendencies become fixed principles that rule the life and form the char- acter. The period of growth comes to its close. The child puts away childish things, for he has become a man. VI. The Inner Transformations We have, then, something different from a simple case to deal with in education. It is more than complicated. For the child seems to be not one, but many, through his ^jjg changing years. "We have a different animal Complex to learn in every period," says one; and that Task of means a whole string of animals in all. Pattee Education p^^g j^ ^^^s . <^itnessing and plead- ing for his Lord, the King of righteousness, and love, and glory, with whose Spirit he was filled, and with whose power he spoke." "What was it, after all, that seized and held these three hundred boys, dragging them out of themselves, willing or unwilling, for twenty minutes on Sunday afternoons? . . . We couldn't enter into that we heard . . . But we listened as all boys in their better moods will listen, to a man whom we felt to be, with all his heart and soul and strength, striving against whatever was mean and unmanly and unrighteous in our little world. It was not the cold, clear voice of one giving advice and warning from the serene heights to those who were struggling and sinning below, but the warm, living voice of one who was fighting for us by our sides, and calling us to help him and ourselves and one an- other. And so, wearily and little by little, but surely and steadily, on the whole, it was brought home to the young boy for the first time the meaning of his life — that it was no fools' nor sluggards' paradise into which he had wandered by chance, but a battle-field, ordained from of old, where there ^2 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK are no spectators, but the youngest must take his side, and the stakes are life and death." Rarely has the senior teacher's triumph been as clearly dis- cerned and as truly described as this. Lesson Outline: I. The First Word. II. The Teacher Teaches by What He Is. 1. The new emphasis upon personality. 2. Lessons from life. III. The Intellectual Qualification. IV. A Special Inducement. Topics for Special Study: 1. Great teachers of religion. 2. The enrichment of personality. Topics for Class Discussion: 1. Can everybody teach successfully? 2. Are the requirements of a teacher set too high? 3. The teaching value of influence. 4. The lifting power of ideals. 5. The new emphasis upon personality. 6. What are your personal estimates of your teachers? 7. Can one teach at all without knowing? 8. The importance of truth in our work. 9. Can one be a teacher and a learner at the same time? 10. How much is the senior's teacher likely to be appre- ciated ? CHAPTER V CONSECRATION PLUS PREPARATION CHAPTER V CONSECRATION PLUS PREPARATION I. The Teacher's Consecration This is not a consecration of talk only, nor even of prayer. It is real. It means something — and much. It does not ex- haust itself in feverish exhortations, or in passionate vows. More than Very likely it was not born in a "consecration Words and service" at all. It is not an end in itself, and was Emotion ^^^ g^^ ^p ^q ^^ worshiped. It looks beyond it- self to real service and fruitfulness. It is a pity that this beautiful word has been used so much to designate an emo- tional exercise that does not pass over into deeds. This lat- ter is not consecration at all. With the earnest soul there is a work out yonder to be done, and that is the end. The vow of consecration has no meaning but in the faithful pursuit of that end. The teacher's consecration means just this. It is fulfilled in the nurture of souls. It is born of the love of souls, which is a flame kindled in the heart by the Divine Lover himself. It can not rest in any selfish state — even in a selfish ecstasy. It belongs to a religion which can live only in the service of others. I, An Intelligent Consecration. Many a man commits himself to an enterprise that he has not studied and does not know much about. Consequently, when he encounters diffi- Takes culties he hesitates, and when opposition arises Account of he quits. An intelligent consecration is made in Obstacles f^jj ^j^^ ^f possible difficukies and toils. Such was the devotion of Him who said, "For their sakes I sanc- tify myself." The Savior made His vow for others, and He knew that it meant the cross. When the Sunday-school teacher encounters heedlessness, misunderstandings, volatile 75 'je THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK minds, and hard hearts, he has no thought of surrender, because he has forecast all these things. He has stocked up in advance with patience and good-will and inflexible de- termination. This is the only way the work can be done. It is work — not a Sabbath pastime. Burbank says: "But remember that just as there must be in plant cultivation great patience, unswerving devotion to the truth, the highest motive, absolute honesty, unchanging love, so must it be in the cultivation of a child. If it be worth while to spend ten years upon the ennoblement of a plant, be it fruit, tree, or flower, is it not worth while to spend ten years upon a child in this precious formative period, fitting it for the place it is to occupy in the world? Is not a child's life vastly more precious than the life of a plant? Under the old order of things plants kept on their course largely uninfluenced in any new direction. The plant- breeder changes their lives to make them better than they ever were before. Here in America, in the midst of this vast crossing of species, we have an unparalleled opportunity to work upon these sensitive human natures. We may surround them with right influences. We may steady them in right ways of living. We may bring to bear upon them, just as we do upon plants, the influence of light and air, of sunshine and abundant, well-balanced food. We may give them music and laughter. We may teach them as we teach the plants to be sturdy and self-reliant. We may be honest with them, as we are obliged to be honest with plants." Is it asking too much to require as much of the teachers of souls as the plant-breeders find it necessary to give, and are glad to give? 2. Two Illustrations. The Sunday-school work is the grandest expression of consecration in the world: real con- secration, we mean — the kind that the Master loves and re- wards. Think of the million and a half of faithful workers in this country who go out every Sunday without pay to train their neighbors' children in the all-important truths of 3 CONSECRATION PLUS PREPARATION T? religion. The Sunday-school was born in consecration, and without this it never could have lived. Dr. Trumbull tells us that nearly a hundred years ago, in the First Congregational Church of Norwichtown, Conn., a girl was converted and joined the Church, Learning some- thing of Sunday-school work being done else- Examples where, she became interested in it and gathered Real Thing ^ little school in the galleries of her home church. But the church authorities deemed this a desecration of God's day and of God's house, and for- bade her the use of the church galleries. She withdrew her little charge to a schoolhouse. But public sentiment, includ- ing the expressed opinion of her pastor, secured her ex- pulsion from that building also. It is reliably stated that her pastor, passing the schoolhouse while her school was in session, shook his ivory-headed cane toward the building and exclaimed with indignation, "You imps of Satan, doing the devil's work!" What would this girl have done with- out that spirit of devotion that makes martyrs? She was no sooner put out of the schoolhouse than she brought her school to the church steps, where she maintained her work until at last the church was again opened to her, and her Sunday-school had won its right to live. This heroic girl afterward married a young minister who, by and by, took her with him to Ceylon as a missionary's wnfe. The place of consecration in the work of to-day is illus- trated by another young girl whose heart was touched by the spiritual needs of ten boys in her village. She was very young and had never taught, but the boys wanted her, and this she considered her call. They were not good boys, and the little town in which they lived, with not over four or five thousand inhabitants, had forty saloons. She was a wise little woman, for she set to work at once to make herself the trusted personal friend of each one of those boys. She knew instinctively that the storms of adolescence would rise and the floods would beat upon the precious human 78 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK houses intrusted to her care, and so she dug deep into the soHd confidence and affection of those boys. And then came the terrible ordeal. The boys grew tall and mingled with other young men. They learned to smoke, and began to taste beer, and many were the seductions that wooed them from the Sunday-school. "I had a dreadful time with those boys for four years," said the little teacher, "but I could not and would not let them go." Asked how she could possibly hold them against the evil influences that beset them, she said : "Well, I followed them. As soon as a boy absented himself from the Sunday-school, I went after him. I had their confidence, and they would tell me, even when they did pretty bad things, which of course was a great help. They were wide-awake, active boys, and wanted to try about every new thing, and they did; but I tried to keep along with them. At one time they formed themselves into a club, rented a room, and grew old very fast. I used to tremble in those days, and had reason to ! But I did not give them up. It took a good deal of time to follow them up. There have been weeks in succession when I was out every evening looking after my boys. But I thought it would pay." And it did. All but two became Christians by the time this story was told, and these two were men of excellent principles. The beloved teacher Tholuck, who won great numbers of students to Christ, was once asked the secret of his success. He replied, "By seeking and follow- ing." We can think of no better rule for the consecrated teacher than this. Is it not the Master's own? II. The Firstfruits of Consecration These are not teaching. President Warren used tc say that a call to preach is a call to prepare to preach. And so the first thing that consecration impels to is getting ready for the work. There is no denying that the work is hard. It is only flippant to say that anybody can teach children without any trouble. A cynical French physician once ac- CONSECRATION PLUS PREPARATION 79 cused his brethren of putting drugs that they knew little about into bodies that they knew less about to cure diseases about which they knew nothing at all. The Sunday-school teacher must know the Bible and the youth and l!^"ets to**°" be familiar with the laws of teaching and the Preparation methods of work. Not one of these is easy, and yet all are charming to him who keeps the fire burning in his heart. It is a soul-satisfying pursuit to strive to master the great principles that will make one wise and strong and successful. Here is a lust for power that is entirely laudable. A physician was driving through a South Jersey village one morning and saw a man amusing a crowd of spectators with the antics of a trick dog. The doctor pulled up and watched the fun a while, and then said: "My dear man, how do you manage to train your dog that way? I can't teach mine a single trick." The man addressed looked up, and with that simple, rustic look, replied, "Well, you see it 's this way — you have to know more 'n the dog or you can't learn him nuthin'." There are several streaks of wis- dom in this homely reply. The teacher must deal with knowledge, and he must have a larger stock in trade to do business with than those with whom he deals. As the dog trainer must not only know the tricks, but also the dog and the way to get the tricks into him and out of him, so must the teacher's knowledge cover much more than the mere facts that he would communicate. III. The Book We Teach Our religion is a revelation, and the record of this reve- lation is given in a Book. Doubtless God might have re- vealed Himself in many another way, but doubtless He did give us His will in the Holy Scriptures. Every Sunday- school is a Bible school, whether it is so called or not. If it does not deal primarily and constantly with the Bible, it can not prosper in the thing whereto God ordained it. There 8o THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK are many who have misgivings about this, and are inwardly opposed to the thought of our rehgion as a system of truth that must be known by study. They tend continually to a The Bible religion of the emotions, and are impatient of Must be the exaltation of knowledge — even the knowledge Known by of God and the soul. It is only recently that Study ^j^g Bible has been translated into the common tongue so that it is possible for everybody to read it. One huge Church still grudges its members the Bible and tries to keep it from them, under the operation of the maxim, "Ignorance is the mother of devotion." Even among Prot- estants there has been too much of this feeling. The Bible teacher's preparation must still fight for recognition, just as the preacher had to contend for his special preparation in the seminaries. "Open thy mouth and I will fill it," is a text that has been quoted times without number to dissuade the young preacher from the study of God's Word. A "spiritual" religion is held by many to be able to dispense with the knowledge that comes by study, because "spiritual" means "emotional" to them. The result has been such a neglect of the Bible that it sometimes seems a wonder that the Church has made progress. Not that the Book has been ignored. It has been held in reverential awe as a talisman or an idol : a thing to be worshiped and defended at any cost, provided it should not be studied ! An old legend will help show this. There was once a saint, a holy man of God, who taught and preached and worked among his little flock of human beings day by day, and tried to lead them in the paths of usefulness and duty. And perhaps they did not always understand him; yet they loved and reverenced him. And it came to pass that one night as he lay asleep the very innermost truth of God, hidden from him before, came to him in a dream written on three bars of sunlight ; and when he awoke he began to write the precious message on a scroll of parchment, and he wrote for many days. Then it came to pass that he was CONSECRATION PLUS PREPARATION 8i bidden by the Spirit to journey into a far country, and he said to his people : "I will not leave you helpless, nor lack- ing teaching; for the very truth of God has been revealed to me, and I have transcribed it on this roll of parchment. Live by it, I beseech you, and it will make you free," After many years, when he returned to the place of his former labors, he saw the people prostrated before the high altar, and he was glad in his heart, and said, "Truly, my people are worshiping the Most High God." As he neared the altar he saw the roll of parchment in the most holy place ; but alas ! the seals were unbroken. The people had been worshiping the parchment all these many years, and had never broken the seals to read the innermost truth that was written therein. He who would teach must break squarely with this tend- ency to idolize the Scriptures, rather than to use them. He must pore over the sacred volume as the merchant does over his ledger, in a lifetime habit. He must gather all available helps to interpretation, and help to withstand those who oppose revisions of the text and the giving of the Word to the people. He will welcome the broader opportunities of Bible and cognate study afforded to-day, and will rejoice in the new movement toward Bible study in teacher-training classes. President Grant's message to Dr. Trumbull is an utterance of comprehensive importance : "Hold on to the Bible as the sheet-anchor of your liberties: write its pre- cepts on your hearts, and practice them in your lives. To that Book are we indebted for all our progress in civilization ; to it we must look as the guide for our future." IV. The Science of Souls There is need also of a careful and patient study of those The Study whom we would teach. This is comparatively a of the new branch of study, but it has already come to Pupil ^YiQ rank of a science. Every human soul is a mystery that does not give up its secrets as the maple scat- ters its seeds. Hamlet's reproof of Guildenstern is a classic 6 3 82 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK illustration of this. He asks Guildenstern to play upon a pipe. The dialogue runs thus : Guil. — My lord, I can not. Hani. — I pray you. Guil. — Believe me, I can not. Ham. — I do beseech you. Guil. — I know no touch of it, my lord. Ham. — It is as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most excellent music. Look you, these are the stops. Gtiil. — But these I can not command to any utterance of harmony. I have not the skill. Ham. — Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me ! You would play upon me ; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from the lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, ex- cellent voice, in this little organ; yet you can not make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you can not play upon me. Neither the parent nor the teacher can play, untaught, upon the soul of the child. In the special studies of one grade alone there will be found an abundance of things to be learned. V. The Art of Teaching This is a third great field for the teacher's study. Beyond all the native aptitudes, whatever they may be, there are many things concerning teaching that come by study. The experiences of many generations of teachers have Pedagogy ^^^" gathered, compared, and used for the deduc- tion of great principles that are full of help to the teacher of to-day. We may greatly enrich our own ability to teach by appropriating the things that others have learned. CONSECRATION PLUS PREPARATION 83 Both their successes and their faikires may be found in- structive. For pursuing this work there are now available such facilities as are furnished by text-books, conventions, and institutes. A great efflorescence of these for the Sunday- school teacher marks our day, and they are increasing in number and value. We have almost come to the time when any teacher, however isolated or limited in resources, may enjoy the advantage of a real training. VI. Incentives to Preparation Almost any field will repay in its harvest whatever was expended upon it in the way of fertilization and tillage. The richest harvests in the world come from human souls. The Inasmuch as the Sunday-school teacher deals with Teacher's the best Book in the world and the grandest Reward revelations that heaven ever gave, with the high- est and purest virtues as their end, and the presence and the aid of the Master in the work, it is to be expected that he, if successful, will attain to the largest rewards for his toil. The Bertillion experts tell us that the imprint of a baby's thumb will serve to identify the grown man years after, when his imprint is placed beside the former one. It is given to the teacher of spiritual truth to trace lines upon the growing soul that will never be obliterated. Agassiz was one of the most industrious of scientists and he achieved a great work in his life. But when he was asked what he considered his greatest work in America, he replied, "The training of three men." Says Holland, "We can raise more Christians by juvenile Christian culture than by adult conversion a thousand to one." The teacher's work is pure, delightful, of certain fruition, and of permanent results in soul culture. It is the hope of the Church and the Nation as well. Without it both religion and patriotism perish. It does the work of all reforms and missions and philanthropies. And 84 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK it reacts in unnumbered blessings upon the teacher's own soul. Lesson Outline: I. The Teacher's Consecration. 11. The FiRSTFRUiTs of Consecration. III. The Book We Teach. IV. The Science of Souls. V. The Art of Teaching. VI. Incentives to Preparation. Topics for Special Study: 1. Lessons for the teacher from the plant breeder. 2. The contributions of psychology to the teaching art. Topics for Class Discussion: 1. What makes consecration real and effective? 2. What is the source of consecration? 3. The Sunday-school as an example of consecration. 4. What is the first great task that consecration urges? 5. The content of spirituality. 6. The importance of knowing the Bible. 7. What can we do to stimulate Bible study by teachers ? 8. Why is the Bible often idolized rather than studied? 9. The value to the teacher of the study of human nature. 10. The value of a study of the teaching art. II. The faithful teacher's rewards. CHAPTER VI HOW TO PLAN THE WORK CHAPTER VI HOW TO PLAN THE WORK I. Taking Aim Many years ago Dr. Buckley gave the following advice to students : 1. Acquire thoroughly. This puts the knowledge in. 2. Review frequently. This keeps the knowledge in. 3. Plan your work. This begins well. 4. Work your plan. This finishes well. 5. Never think of self. Selfishness spoils all. 6. Never look back. Waste no time over failures. 7. Earn, save, give all you can for Jesus. Happiness. Several of these valuable rules are right in our line. All that we have said and shall say in this book presupposes a plan for the teacher's work. The plan not only enables us to begin well, but there is no good beginning Essential without it, and there is no good ending without the right beginning. A fine rifle, a good eye, and a well-set target would all go for naught unless the marksman should take aim. We take our aim by the aid of a plan. The teacher needs this as much as the builder needs his blueprints. Without these he would hardly begin the building with the roof, but teachers sometimes do just this kind of a thing. II. The Law of the Grade Perhaps this is the first thing to heed in laying out the work : the lesson must be adapted to the learner. This is only one statement of a principle of grading, which is even yet contending with custom, prejudice, sloth, and sundry other 87 3 88 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK enemies in the Sunday-school, though it has long been vic- torious in all other schools. But the law of the grade is God's law, not ours, and it will finally compel the obedience The Lesson ^^ ^^^ "^^^ would do God's work. It is the same Must be principle that compels him who would open a Adapted to locked box, not merely to get a key, but to get the Learner ^j^^ j^^y . ^^^^ jg^ ^^^ ^^^ j^^y ^f ^ thousand that was made for that lock. If a man should have a library with different locks on the bookcases and drawers and closets, and should order the keys all alike, "because keys of the same size look so much nicer on the ring," we should think that he cared more for a trifle than for getting into his closets and cases. This passion for uniformity is sometimes strong enough to become an idolatry in the Church, but it must be resolutely antagonized by the living teacher. He is not working for outward show or for mechanical effects of any kind. His aim is teaching, and he must insist upon the real requisites for teaching. The very beginning of his success is the choice of a subject and a method of treatment fitted to his pupil. I. Nascent periods. We have learned that the indi- vidual varies surprisingly as he passes from one stage of growth to another. At least two cardinal principles compel us to order our work in grades : God has graded Fitting the i-ruth, and He has graded the child. Nothing the^Age ^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^ *^ ^^ ^^^ *^ ^"^ ^^^ ^^ *^^ ^^^^^ truth to the right age. This right age is called the nascent period for that truth. Great principles and proc- esses can not be taught just as well at one time of life as at another, but there is a right time for each. If this is improved, all goes well; but if the nascent period is passed by, the soul will be at a disadvantage as to that knowledge permanently. These periods of special aptitudes are never out of the live teacher's sight. By regarding them he is able to do with comparative ease things that vex and baffle the heedless teacher. Pattee says; "There is one period, for 3 HOW TO PLAN THE WORK 89 instance, when play must be a dominating element in all studies, another when memory is strongest, another when biography is best taught, and still another when chivalric ideals and the great altruistic principles of Christianity ap- peal with almost resistless force. Secular education has recog- nized this fact and has arranged with care the sequence and the grouping of studies in its curriculum." 2. Middle adolescence has its aptitudes. There is no period more strongly marked than that of our present study. There is not one that needs more careful study to know and more patience to handle. There are not Our Period ^j-^jy j^^^ ^j^^ Startling manifestations of the emo- ciai Demands ^^onal and the volitional life, but also of the intellect. It is easier to teach the wrong things and in the wrong way now than at any other period. Bad teaching commonly means the loss of the youth from the class and the school. The effect of this teaching failure is seen in the alarming defection of our young people from the Church. In the awakened attention of teachers to the needs of the young lies the best hope the Church has for the future. 3. Some traits of middle adolescence. (a) There is a new self-consciousness in this period. The youth is more highly individualized, and he recognizes this. He knows that his soul is enlarging more rapidly than ever before, and it brings to him new visions, new Its Special sensations, new exhilarations. He sometimes ap- teristics pears a stranger to himself, and can stand off and make observations of this strange new crea- ture that stands in his place and carries his memories. But he never repels the new elements of manhood. He welcomes them with all his heart. He puts them on like a garment, and they are soon an unnoticed portion of his enlarging per- sonality. (b) There is a new independence. A man is not made perfect in leading-strings : he is brought on by being cut loose from these. The young man's freedom makes a deep 90 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK impression upon himself — probably an exaggerated one, for most things tend to extremes in this period. The adolescent is starting out to establish a new center, and he locates it within himself. He wishes to decide all things, and when he has decided he is utterly impatient of control. There is no time when the evils of self-will are more perilous than now, for the youth lacks the restraints of authority on the one hand and of experience on the other. (c) The sense of freedom gives rise to skepticism. "Why should one believe anything that he has not investigated him- self? Why should a man be told what to believe? Suppose things have been believed a long time : does the passing of years make false things true? Suppose many wise and good men have accepted these things: they are welcome to them!" Criticism goes with doubt. The youth is not to blame for this. Every brain-cell in him cries out for inquiring and probing and testing. He knows that whatsoever makes mani- fest is light, and so he turns on the fiercest kind of lights at any and all times. There is something admirable about this disposition — its devotion to the truth. There is some- times danger that the later years may dim the luster of perfect loyalty to the truth under pressure of other in- terests. (d) It is the age of expression. The youth has acquired quite a stock of words and ideas, and he is beginning to be both broad and fluent. He is generalizing now, and he makes use of the concepts and principles that he has formed. This reacts upon him and stimulates him still farther, until he is eager for broad views of things and delights in far- reaching generalizations. He likes to burrow along under- neath the surface and trace effects to their causes and fore- cast coming effects also. (e) He is especially active in his spiritual life. Though this may not be superficially evident, it is certain. The heart of the youth is tender and as quick as the apple of an eye. His conscience is awake and speaks loud. His sense of de- HOW TO PLAN THE WORK 91 pendence is often painfully acute. His prayers are more frequent and more plaintive than any one knows. III. Suitable Subjects for Study A question may be raised here as to the right of the teacher to choose the work for his class. But it is clear that it is both his right and his duty to accept only those The Teacher ^T^^terials and methods that he knows are right Should Pro- for his purpose. No idol of uniformity ought vide Proper to be set up in the holy temple of truth, v/hich Lesson every Sunday-school ought to be. There is no ^ ^"^ special virtue in ''falling in line," though this may help the looks of things somewhat. There is no danger that the wise teacher will needlessly introduce variations into a school, but there is danger that an earnest worker may be forced to struggle with lessons that he knows are not the best. In such cases he should insist upon the substitution of the best lessons. There is no reason why any single class in a school should not use, for instance, the Graded Lessons, if the other classes prefer the Uniform. The great thing to remember is that the Sunday-school does not exist to maintain anybody's lessons, and that the souls of the pupils are that to which all things should be subordinated. At any rate, in the council, or whatever the meetings of officers and teachers may be called, the teachers form the majority and can usually procure the adoption of the right things. There is a wide and rich variety of subject-matter in the Scriptures suited to all the grades and all the years. It is easy to see that the adolescent has passed beyond the period of fables and stories and catechisms. It is also unprofitable to ask him to interest himself in detached and fragmentary Scriptures. He will take most kindly to subjects that may be studied in their entirety, and he will naturally take an interest in what he can analyze and classify. Any of the single books of the Bible can be taken up in this way. No time need be set for finishing it, but the teacher and the 92 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK class may work their easy way along until they have to- gether accomplished a satisfactory result. Questions of the origin of these books and the circumstances under which they were written, also of the manifest aim of the writer, are appropriate and interesting. It is just such work as this that engrosses these same young people in their high schools and colleges. They are familiar with such inquiries and methods in other literatures, and consequently they value them in Bible study. These books may be taken up as they stand In our Bible, or, better, they may be taken up in logical or chronological order. They may be grouped together as they naturally belong, and such groups as the Pentateuch, the prophets, the wisdom lit- erature, the Gospels, or the Epistles may be studied sepa- rately as possessing common and attractive qualities. The histories of the Bible may be taken up in a connected way: the history of Israel and that of each of its periods; the history of the patriarchs, of the prophets, of the priests, of the ministry of Jesus, and of the Early Church are examples. There will be abundant opportunity here to correlate and compare events in other nations that bear upon the career of Israel. Many of our youth are busy with these studies in their other work, and delight to draw upon them for the elucidation of this. Then, there is the rare company of Bible personages whose biographies teem with the most fas- cinating and fruitful lessons. Of course our young people have had these before, in an elementary way. But they can now take up these characters with a deeper insight into their motives and achievements. They will wish to analyze their characters and estimate the measure of the influences that fell upon them from all sides. Their historic value also will be sought in what they succeeded in accomplishing in per- manent influence upon Israel and the world. Growing out of this will naturally come the study of personal duties and obligations. They are always best taught from living persons, and there are none to be found in any 3 HOW TO PLAN THE WORK 93 literature like those of the Bible. The piety of Abraham, the recklessness of Esau, the craftiness of Jacob, the gen- erosity of Joseph, the majesty of Moses, the kingcraft of David are Old Testament illustrations of ethical value that can never be touched without the highest degree of profit. And the personal qualities of the men and women of the New Testament are of matchless teaching power. Let it never be forgotten in the preparation of work for adolescents that piety and the moralities, should be amply provided for. It is a mistake to suppose that the youth will be averse to these. If they are wisely handled they will be taken by him with keener appetite than any other lessons. IV. Methods of Class Work These also must accord with the age that we are dealing with. They will regard the independence and the sensitive- ness to control that we have noted, and will show consider- able relaxation from earlier strictness. There Special ^jjj ^g jggg distinction between teacher and pupils. Demanded '^^^ teacher will identify himself as much as possible with his pupils, and they will be students together. What is necessary in the way of guidance will be unobtrusive, and if there is a strong tendency to wander, under pressure of an adolescent impulse, the teacher will very likely wander, too, for a while. Anything like co- ercion or dictation he will sedulously avoid, trusting mainly to suggestion and information to guide his pupils aright. The preaching method will be out of the question, and the lecture method used only in exceptional instances. Though he may vary his program from time to time, he will usually follow the conversational style, and place great dependence upon questions and illustrations. It will be quite practicable to get home work done by exciting an interest in the work in hand. Such work should be assigned as a voluntary task, and it should be carefully aided by hints as to sources and selections. 3 94 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK When these are presented to the class they should receive good attention, with class discussion and a meed of praise. The adolescent is a great admirer of intelligence and is keen to recognize it in his teacher. The leader will make the follower. Some of the teacher's best work will be the preparation of work for the pupils, individually considered, according to their abilities and circumstances. A little in- genuity here, mixed with the ever-necessary sympathy, will go a long way toward waking up the pupil's mind and causing him to like his work. The devices that may thus be employed are so various and so particular in their appli- cation that it would be impracticable to attempt to detail any here. As a general thing the teacher may be confident that they will be suggested to him by the necessities of the time. And the teacher who would succeed with a method is generally the one who has an eye to discover it. The range is wide, and the restrictions only such as grow out of due concessions to the impulsiveness, the independence, and the frank criticisms of the adolescent. V. The Lesson Plan It may be said briefly concerning the lesson that this should have its special arrangement for every class exercise. The main line of teaching appropriate to the class should ^^ be first determined; then the subordinate teach- Appropriate ings and applications. If the lesson is a specified Plan for passage of Scripture, it should be analyzed care- Every Lesson f^^y f^j. presentation to the class. Suitable illus- trations should be sought and selected with special reference to their moral and spiritual effects. The point of contact and the approach should be regarded, as in the earlier grades. Discussion is almost sure to arise in any class of interested youth, and therefore this is to be welcomed. The best way to control it and keep it within agreeable bounds is for the teacher to select one or more topics for discussion in advance, and have them ready at the proper time. HOW TO PLAN THE WORK 95 VI. The Giver's Blessing There is no better illustration than the teacher of the greater blessing that comes to the giver than to the receiver. The faithful preparatory work that the teacher does will bring him more unadulterated satisfaction than The Faithful ^^ ^^ learned the best day he ever enjoyed as Gatn ^' ^ ^ pupil. It is true that the work required of him is hard, but it brings its own abundant re- ward. A young man in Philadelphia was persuaded to take a class with the promise that he should be released if he found, after faithful effort, that he was not succeeding. He agreed to begin on every lesson as soon as he had taught the preceding. This is the experience he had: "When I looked over the next lesson on Sunday afternoon, I saw to my chagrin that there was nothing in it. My Monday's study was little better, and I was glum enough. On Tuesday I usually saw some little thing that I could use in it. On Wednesday I got interested in it. On Thursday I found all I wanted in it. On Friday I got that lesson. On Satur- day it got me, and on Sunday I had to teach it or die!" Every teacher knows something of this joy that is his alone : the exultation of wielding victoriously the Sword of the Spirit, with the inward sense that he has the approbation of the Master. Lesson Outline: I. Taking Aim. H. The Law of the Grade. HL Suitable Subjects for Study. IV. Methods of Class Work. V. The Lesson Plan. VI. The Giver's Blessing. Topics for Special Study: 1. Intellectual traits of middle adolescence. 2. Religious significance of middle adolescence. 96 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK Topics for Class Discussion: 1. The general value of a plan of teaching. 2. What is the law of the grade? 3. What are nascent periods? 4. What two grand principles underlie grading? 5. What are the aptitudes of middle adolescence? 6. The traits of middle youth. 7. The courses of study — what and by whom fixed; 8. How control young people in the class? 9. Personal experiences in class methods. 10. What about class discussion? 11. The teacher's personal gains from his lesson prepa- ration. CHAPTER VII HOW TO ANALYZE A LESSON CHAPTER VII HOW TO ANALYZE A LESSON I. Knowing the Lesson 1. Importance. Much has been said about the value of knowledge to the teacher, but it is scarcely possible to over- estimate it. As a general thing the teacher who does not know the work and know it thoroughly will No Possible faii^ ^^^ fail at the start. He must know it in Study ^^^ ways : what it means, and how to teach it. With all that sympathy and good-will may do for him, and with all the aids of the best facilities and methods, there is no escape from the simple, old-fashionecj necessity of study. The first virtue of the teacher is knowl- edge, and he has to get his knowledge by hard and patient work. So much depends upon analysis that we must take a lesson for its study. 2. Knowledge is deep. This does not mean difficult exactly, but it does involve patience. He who skims the surface does not know. He who works a v/hile and gets a fair idea of the subject does not know as the fort Required teacher must know. His knowledge must be thorough, and he must take time to make it so. It is always surprising to find how deep the truth is. One may keep on going down and down. The deeper we go the more easy it will be for us to win our pupils, for there is nothing that catches a young mind as quickly as the light of knowledge shining in the teacher's face. Learners are usually thirsty enough to know it very quickly if the springs 99 ^ 100 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK are running low. Professor Lounsberry, of Yale University, said that his experience in the class-room had taught him "the infinite capacity of the human mind to withstand the intro- duction of knowledge." This suggests another need: the teacher must be able to dislodge the native resistance of many minds to the truth, to fight it in through prejudice and error and sloth. He is like a dentist: for every little obstacle he must have just the rightly crooked tool to work around it. He must be fully equipped for all emergencies. 3. The first aim. A master rhetorician has told us that the first quality of style is clearness. This is against the ideas of some, who might name originality or brilliancy or word-painting. But the homely quality of clear- Clearness j^ggg outranks everything else. The very object Essential '^^ language is to communicate thought, and thus an open channel must first be sought. The win- dow that illustrates this is not made of glass gayly colored by cunning men, but of the clear glass that lets in the light of heaven in its unstained purity. The word "understanding" implies this first : a clearing away of the mists of ignorance and half-knowledge. There are all stages in this process. A teacher may go before his class with but a slight clearing away of these mists, or they may be largely or almost wholly dissipated. Here is where the element of time comes in. Patience can do wonders for a student. While he waits and gazes the slowly developing thought-pictures form and clear and finally stand forth in enticing beauty. When President Garfield was a teacher in Hiram College, a learner asked him the secret of the art of arousing and holding the at- tention of pupils. His answer was : "See to it that you do not feed your pupils on cold victuals. Take the lesson into your own mind anew, rethink it, and then serve it hot and steaming, and your pupils will have an appetite for your instruction and you will have their attention." Accord- ing to this master, it is necessary to maintain the studious habit in order to keep the pictures clear. HOW TO ANALYZE A LESSON loi II. A Bit of Psychology 1. The formation of concepts. Our minds are given to make thoughts for us. Thought has been defined as "the power of the soul to form and rationally apply general con- ceptions." Now, this forming of a "general con- The First ception," or idea, or notion, is the simplest act TmnkTng °^ thinking. For example, "book" is such a con- cept. When we say "book" we do not think of any particular book, such as a small book, a thick book, a red book, or a spelling book; but we do raise in our mind something that carries all the essentials of a book with it. It is not a particular book, but a general book, and it makes no difference that it has no real existence. We call it the general concept of a book, and such concepts as these are the things that continually fill our minds. This formation of concepts, familiar as it is, is by no means a simple process. There are at least six elements in it: (i) comparison, (2) discrimination, (3) analysis, (4) abstraction, (5) synthesis, and (6) generaHzation. If we may borrow "analysis" we may perhaps make this process plain. Take our book again. When a certain book is presented to us, we see it ; that is, we form an image of it which is called a sense-concept. Then comes another book, and many more, each forming its sense-concept. Somewhere along here the mind compares these and sees wherein they are alike and wherein they are different. It then analyzes the images, noting their common elements, and abstracts each : that is, thinks it apart from the rest of the elements, and notices it as a separate thing. Then it goes back and gathers up the elements that are common to all books by synthesis, and thinks this as the general concept, "book," by what we call generalization. It is no wonder that we have to go to psy- chology to learn what we are doing all the time and have become so expert in doing. We do this kind of work so much that we do it unconsciously. 2. How to clear up our thought. The answer can 102 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK be readily given now. The secret of clearness is analysis, taking a thing apart so that we can study and understand it in its simples. This process of analysis is one of the elemen- tary acts of the mind, and has not to be learned. of^Ana^sis What we have to do is to apply it to the subject that we are studying. For just as one book may be analyzed, so may all things that are complex be separated into their component parts : as a lesson, a sermon, a poem, a picture, a parable, a chapter of the Bible, or a book of the Bible. Indeed, it would be hard to find anything that is not complex enough to be analyzed. When a passage of Scripture, therefore, is presented to us for our study, we must analyze it, if we wish to understand it; that is, if we would have it clear before our minds; also, if we would find out the best way to teach it. These lessons vary greatly. Some are easy to analyze, and some are hard. Some are a unit, and others give us what are really two or even three or four separate topics. Some have one strongly marked head, with several sub-heads. Others may have a number of heads of equal rank, with sub-heads under each. It is the work of the analyst not by any means to make divi- sions, but to find them. Any artificial taint ruins such an out- line, for it should do nothing but mirror the form rigidly. It is well to beware of personal peculiarities in this kind of work. There is danger of projecting into it the imperfec- tions of our own minds, for they tend to work in the same way, while the varieties of lessons are many. There was once a Sunday-school paper that regularly divided the lesson, week by week, into three chief parts, and these into three each, and these again into three others. It is easy to see that no series of lessons could run that way. Professor Phelps tells us that it was an ancient conceit of the pulpit to assign to divisions some one of the "sacred" numbers — five, seven, twelve, or even forty ! The most common of these artificial divisions was that in honor of the Trinity. The mediaeval mind saw trinity in everything, from the Mosaic record of HOW TO ANALYZE A LESSON 103 creation down to a three-leaved clover. The paper referred to above showed this tendency. One of the developments of this forced reverence was the trinitarian division of sermons. No matter what the subject or its mode of treatment, the sermon must be cropped or stretched in Procrustean fashion to just three parts; no more, no less. There is an old sermon of this kind approved by an association of clergymen for consisting of three general divisions, each of which had three subdivisions, each of these developed with three lead- ing thoughts, all followed by three inferences in the conclu- sion, and ending with the trinitarian doxology. The preacher should have delivered it the third Sunday of the third month, on a triangular platform, and in a three-cornered hat. All this is ridiculous — and worse. To have clear thoughts we must lug nothing into the complexity of the lesson, but simply disentangle the threads that we find. If this is hard, remember that practice will increase skill rapidly. Some minds are apt in analysis. An analytical mind is one of God's best gifts. But let no one neglect this gift which every mind possesses in some measure. It is one of the most fruitful and satisfying modes of mental exercise. We have before noted the correspondence between the truth without and the mind within. God has made each for the other. The mind takes up easiest the simple things, and God has made the truth divisible into elements. ^'"i? ^?** Order comes in here, also. Heaven's ''first law" the Mina . , , - is the mind's first law, as it is also the first con- dition of morals, and almost everything else that is good. The beauty of order appeals to the studious mind, and re- acts upon it in pleasing stimulus. Then the order of beauty dawns upon the freshening thought, and we begin to per- ceive that order makes beauty, and both wait upon the truth. 104 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK III. To Analyze a Lesson I. Study the structure. It has a structure. It is not a mass or a mess. It is made up in a certain way for a certain purpose. We get no story from a dictionary — and yet there is order there. Think how useless a dictionary would be without arrangement. Think of all the words of a parable thrown helter-skelter on the printed page. Some HasTpfan^" ^^^^ seemed to disparage elaborate structure, but none has ventured to preach or write without it. Robert Hall was theoretically opposed to divisions, but he almost always used them. It is said that only two or three of his published sermons appeared without them. The an- cient orators used them carefully in the work of composi- tion, though they concealed them in public delivery, being afraid of being accused of deceiving the people, if they were not taken to be spontaneous in their harangues. The gravity of even a slight lapse of the structure is seen in the old story of a preacher who was so absorbed in infant baptism that he had to preach about it, no matter what the text was. A friend of his accepted a wager from a man that he could not preach a sermon from any text without getting onto the darling theme, and the preacher agreed to try it. The text selected was, "And the Lord said unto Adam, Where art thou?" The preacher started in bravely, with this division: "Firstly, Adam was n't there. Secondly, Adam was some- where. Thirdly, Adam was n't where he ought to be. Fourthly, God wanted him to get into the right place. Fifthly, Infant baptism!" Many a Sunday-school class has suffered from this ailment. Our Scriptures are full of well-ordered passages. Some of them, like the Psalms, are of the rarest literary beauty. We are always rewarded by our study of Biblical rhetoric. Bad composition shows more plainly nowhere than in its disorder. Good composition makes you think of a geomet- rical figure. Pascal speaks of "the geometrical spirit," con- HOW TO ANALYZE A LESSON 105 tending that profound thinking tends to geometrize. That is, it comes from a mind that proceeds by defining, stating, proving, to the positive affirmation in the end. Plato's well- known saying of the Infinite Mind is like this: "He con- stantly geometrizes." In this kind of composition we shall find the subjects in a logical and intelligible sequence. The ideas will be carefully articulated, so that one proceeds from another, and all form a proper progress. 2. Mark the transitions. When one topic has been fin- ished another comes in. Some are of major importance, and others of minor. Some intervals are short, and others are long. Tokens of this are the comma, the semi-colon, the colon, the period, the paragraph, the section, the chapter, and sometimes the part. Find these natural divisions of the sub- ject, regarding the paragraphs and sections. This in analysis proper. 3. Select the salient items. This is for teaching, and what items are salient may be set in order. But age, and circumstances, and many other conditions may determine this selection. They should be reduced to their lowest terms, in a verbal statement, for brevity and force. We often find persons, places, precepts, principles, and events prominent in a lesson, but the selection of teaching points should be made strictly according to the task which is to be performed. 4. Frame a logical unity. Every good lesson is one thing. Its heads are in harmony with each other, and they run in a line of definite progress. The movement is toward the most important thing which appears in the climax. There is no piling up, and there are no gaps. Like things are grouped together, and smaller groups run into larger. Take Professor Phelps's description of a Gothic window: It is made of wood, and glass, and lead, and oak, and paint. Some of its panes are red, and some are circular, and some are blue, and some are larger than others, and some are square, and some are green. Some are diamond-shaped, some are opaque, some are crescent, some are concave, some 8 io6 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK are ground, some are painted, some are yellow, some are cracked, some are transparent, some are patched, and some are missing. It was modeled by Michael Angelo. It is a memorial window, and a venerable relic of Italian art. It is in the Church of Santa Maria, in Florence, with a picture of a dove in the center, which has lost one wing. He gives this as a horrible example, asking, "Is it a good description of a Gothic window?" We sadly admit that it is a fair picture of a good deal of Sunday-school teaching. A thorough-going study and practice of analysis is the only thing that will cure a disease of this kind. Symmetry is as much demanded in a lesson plan as in the hull of a yacht, or the wings of a bird. Simplicity is always to be aimed at, the maxim being to make the analysis as simple as the subject matter will allow. There should be no whittling away of any of the elements of strength. The literary force that makes an impression should always be kept in mind. Finally — truth. That which is must be made to appear, and just as it is. Neither sentiment nor fear should ever be allowed to twist reality. Ian Maclaren said of the plunging of Posty into the wa- ter to rescue little Elsie, that he saw this coming long before he got to it in the story, and shrank from hurling Posty into the torrent, and strove against it. But he could not help himself; he had no power to prevent it. Charles Dickens said that when he was issuing the chapters of "The Old Curiosity Shop" as a serial story, he received letters from friends and strangers on both side of the Atlantic, begging him not to allow Little Nell to die. But those very letters showed him that it was the natural thing for the story to become a tragedy, and therefore it was the necessary thing. The forebodings of his readers were instinctive and authori- tative. They saw that Little Nell must die, and their fear cried out against it. As we regard truth and naturalness in our teaching-plan, we shall probably find both force and beauty. 9 HOW TO ANALYZE A LESSON 107 5. Arrange the subordinate details. These must also be taken care of. They need not all be used ; indeed, we can generally use but a few of them. All the superfluous should be freely omitted. But the principle of order for which we have stood thus far should rule all things, great and small, to the end. IV. Advantages of Analysis 1. The senior grade is composed of scholars who are just of the age to take naturally to this logical division and study of subjects. It suits their bent. They are fond of tear- ing things open, and passing judgment upon everything for themselves. No other grade can compare with this in its analytical and critical tendencies. 2. The study of wholes is increasingly advocated for all grades, and it is to be hoped that the day of fragments and mutilations in Bible study is nearly done. But the older pupils demand the unities, and for this study of things as wholes an outline is indispensable. The best thing for a stranger in a strange city to do is to get upon some elevation and note the landmarks. Wherever he may subsequently be in that city, he will profit by his first panoramic view. If the visitor to Paris ascends the Arch of Triumph, he can dis- tinguish the Eiffel Tower, the Trocadero, the Hotel des In- valides, the Pantheon, the Louvre, the Madeleine, and Alont- martre. Thereafter the city is pictured as a whole in his mind. Imagine how the battlefield of Waterloo looks from the top of the mound of the Belgian Lion. There is a sim- ilar advantage in climbing upon the height of a subject, and gathering its few outstanding features into a single view. For instance, the Book of the Acts has been summed up into A, the Jewish Church ; B, the Transitional Church, and C, the Gentile Church. Dr. Whedon analyzes Paul's immortal argument in the Epistle to the Romans as A, the Ruin; B, the Remedy, and C, the Defense. Burton & Mathews treat the life of Christ in nine parts, which gives us a general im- io8 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK pression that no amount of study of the details could ever furnish. 3. Dignity and scope. Most lessons appear larger, and more important, when they are ordered under their leading concepts. This not only shows what these are, but it often reveals the importance that arises out of their relation to cognate themes. Take a simple outline of the Lord's Prayer, for instance : 1. "Our Father who art in heaven." This teaches Fatherhood, which is the foundation of the gospel. 2. "Hallowed by Thy name." Here is reverence, the foundation of religion. 3. "Thy kingdom come," The Kingdom, which is the foundation of civilization in its broadest sense. 4. "Thy will be done." Consecration, the foundation of holiness. 5. "Give us this day our daily bread." Providence, the foundation of temporal blessings. 6. "Forgive us our debts." Pardon, the foundation of spiritual blessings. 7. "Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." Guidance, the foundation of per- sonal prosperity. 4. Illumination and emphasis. The separation of the groups of like things, and the placing of them over against each other, is a first aid to the intelligence. Many a subject is seen clearly for the first time in an outline. It always helps to clearness. Supppose we say of the nineteenth Psalm, for instance, that its topic is The Song of the Two Revela- tions, and that it contains three parts: (a) God Revealed in Nature, (b) God Revealed in the Scriptures, and (c) A Three- fold Prayer ; does it not place the writer's aim in a clear light? The emphasis upon proper subjects always does this when it enables them to be isolated for particular notice and study. 5. Skill and confidence. We are not attempting to ex- HOW TO ANALYZE A LESSON 109 haust the benefits of analysis, but must mention these, which apply especially to the teacher. If he sees the end from the beginning, if he knows just what the next step is always to be, and if he knows just what he is going to do in any emer- gency, he is master of the situation. He knows it, and has confidence in himself ; and his pupils discover it, and are glad. Lesson Outline: L Knowing the Lesson. H. A Bit of Psychology. HL To Analyze a Lesson. IV. Advantages of Analysis. Topics for Special Study: 1. The formation of concepts. 2. The cultivation of the logical faculty. Topics for Class Discussion: 1. Ways in which the teacher must know the lesson. 2. What is the first quality of style? 3. What is thought? 4. What are general concepts? 5. The importance of analysis. 6. Name five steps in the analysis of a lesson. 7. Can you teach without a plan? 8. What are the advantages of outlining? CHAPTER VIII THE TEACHER'S USE OF QUESTIONS CHAPTER VIII THE TEACHER'S USE OF QUESTIONS I. The Interrogation Point Alexander Pope was a little, misshapen man, and he was inordinately given to quizzing. A young officer, who had endured much from him, was one day asked by him what an interrogation point is. He saw his chance, and replied, "A little crooked thing that asks questions." But this little ask- ing-point, like many another humble entity, is far greater than it looks. Few things stand for more in education than just this. Bacon's "A shrewd question is the half of knowl- edge," is an old maxim, the only question about which is whether it is not two-thirds or even more. There is no teaching, in the ordinary course of things, without questions, and there is nothing that more truly measures the value of teaching than the questions that the teacher asks. It is safe to say that no teacher regrets the expenditure of what time he has put upon the study of questions and questioning. He would almost certainly testify that nothing has brought him more from the investment than this. The teacher of seniors is especially interested in this, for adolescents are natural questioners themselves, and they can not be taught without questioning. The more nearly a fine art that the teacher makes of this, the surer he is to win and to hold his class. The question is the historic weapon which all the mas- ters of pedagogy have used victoriously. It is like Arthur's Excalibur, or the mighty brand of the Lion- Weapon Heart; even more like Saladin's scimitar and the light and flexible rapier that more than make up in keenness and facility what they lack in weight. Pestalozzi, Herbart, Spencer, Comenius, Bain, and Agassiz 8 113 ' 114 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK are names that suggest themselves at once among those of the master-questioners and expounders of the theory of teach- ing that involves these. At the head of all secular teachers, perhaps, stands the Sage of Athens, who was the most skillful and penetrating questioner that ever taught. It might almost be said that Socrates did nothing but question. He relied wholly upon the magic of the question to develop, and to draw out what he supposed was nascent in the pupil's mind. He also used a good deal of irony, because he had to deal with the Athenians, who were filled with conceit for their imag- ined knowledge. But this is not an essential part of his marvelous art. We can, perhaps, learn nothing better about asking questions than to study a sample of the Socratic method given by Professor John Adams: Suppose Socrates could rise out of his twenty-three-hun- dred-year-old grave (and could speak English) ; he might The Socratic come along to the playground, and finding John Method Thompson, the pupil-teacher, standing there do- Illustrated jj^g. nothing in particular, might enter into con- versation with him. By and by he might ask quite casually: "By the way, Thompson, what is an insect? I often hear people talking about insects, and I'd like to be quite sure what they mean." Then Thompson would feel very big at being asked in that way by such an old man, and would answer in an offhand style: "0, an insect? Why, I thought everybody knew that. An insect's — let me see — yes, an insect's a little animal with wings." Then Socrates might look beyond the school railings at a hen pecking among the stones in the road, and say: "Well, well, now. So that 's an insect. D' ye know, I would n't have thought that, now." And Thompson would be angry, and think that Socrates was not just such a nice old man as he had supposed, and would go on to explain that a hen was far too big for an insect. 8 THE TEACHER'S USE OF QUESTIONS nS Socrates, on the other hand, would be quite nice about it, and say: "So an insect is a very small animal with wings?" Thompson (relieved) : "Yes." Socrates: "Is a humming bird small enough?" Thompson (shortly) : "No: an insect isn't a bird at all." Socrates: "Then an insect is a very small animal with wings that isn't a bird?" Thompson (again relieved) : "Yes," Socrates: "In a shop, yesterday, I saw a little package marked 'Keating's Powder,' which was said to kill all insects. There were some pictures of very small animals that were n't birds, but they had n't wings, so I suppose it was a mistake putting them there, for they could n't be insects without wings, could they?" (Thompson is now sure that Socrates is a very disagree- able old man, and wonders that he has not noticed before what an ugly pug nose the old man has.) Thompson (bitterly) : "Yes, they 're insects right enough. Everybody knows them. You do n't mean to say you do n't know them?" (But Socrates never answers side questions like this last. He always keeps to the main point.) Socrates: "Dear me! Dear me! What are we to say now? An insect is a very small animal with wings, that is n't a bird, and sometimes has n't wings. Really, I do n't think I quite know yet what an insect is." Thompson (with a happy inspiration, and the memory of a reading lesson) : "O, an insect is an animal that begins as a grub, goes on to be a chrysalis, and ends by being a perfect butterfly." Socrates: "How interesting! Now, how long would you say Keating's insects — the ones without wings, you know — would take to become perfect butterflies ?" Thompson: "O, bother! You do nothing but find fault. Tell me what an insect is — you." Socrates: "But you forget, my dear Thompson, that ii6 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK do n't know. I 'm only asking for information. Let 's examine three or four animals that we know to be insects, and see wherein they resemble each other. Which animals shall we take?" Thompson: **0, let's take the butterfly, the bee, the spider, and — and, say, the beetle?" Socrates: "Good; but, by the way, my friend, the pro- fessor happened to say the other day that the spider is n't an insect, though like you I thought it was, and so do most people. Let 's examine it along with those we are sure about, and see how it differs from them: that will help us find out what an insect really is." And so the conversation goes on. They find that the spider has eight legs, while all the genuine insects have only six; that all the insects are made up of a series of rings; that these rings are grouped into three sets; that all have either wings or traces of wings, and so forth. No one can study Socrates, and wonder why he was great. His piercing questions seemed to stimulate mens minds more than did all the eloquence of Demosthenes and Aeschines, or the artistic creations of Phidias and Apelles. How large a share of the achievements of Plato and Xeno- phon is to be credited to this wonderful teacher may be a matter of dispute, but all agree that it is large. His insight, his keenness, his simplicity, and his astonishing ingenuity and mind-mastery remain the standing wonder of the edu- cational world. "As long as the name of Socrates survives, the world can hardly forget the challenging function, the insinuating and awakening force, and the resistless influence which are involved in shrewdly put questions." II. The Use of Questions I. They make history. In the history of nations there is many an example of the power of a question, in a crisis, to turn the scale. The sharp question forces the issue ; it thrusts up a dilemma, and he who dodges nimbly to escape one horn 3 THE TEACHER'S USE OF QUESTIONS n; often finds himself impaled on the other before he knows it. Great statesmen, like great lawyers, are always masters of the question-mark. The speeches of Abraham Lincoln dur- ing the fateful period immediately preceding the Civil War The Lincoln- abound in searching, incisive questions. In his Douglas memorable debate with Douglas the latter made Debate ^^ attack upon Lincoln with a series of seven questions upon which he relied to pierce him to his political death. But he was dealing with a master. Lincoln evaded nothing, but answered all the seven with his characteristic frankness and vigor. And he still lived. But then it was his turn. His acute mind discerned the antagonistic elements in Douglas's political creed, and he selected the question as the means of showing these up, and overwhelming his oppo- nent. These four questions were simple in their phrasing, yet most subtle, and they went to the heart of the whole anti-slavery controversy. He showed them to some of his friends, who took alarm at once, and begged him not to pre- sent them. One question in particular seemed so dangerous to them that they came to him in his room at midnight, and begged him to withhold it. *Tf you put it," said one, "yo^ can never be senator." "Gentlemen," he answered, as he drew his lips together between the words, "I am killing larger game; if Douglas answers, he can never be President, and the battle of i860 is worth a hundred of this." The next day he fearlessly put his questions to Douglas. It is easily remembered that his answers, shrewd as they were, made possible the re-election of Douglas to the Senate of the United States; but it also aroused the anger of the South against him, and in all probability kept him from the Presidency later. Moreover, it raised an excitement that spread over the Na- tion. Of this Lincoln was the natural center, and the day came at last when he went to Washington on his immortal mission. Does it not look as if our country's career turned upon his question? 8 ii8 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 2. They are powerful in exhortation. All the writers on preaching make much of the direct, personal question. The great preachers are adepts in the art of questioning. They get it from the Scriptures themselves. Note the tre- mendous effect of the form of God's address to the guilty- pair in Eden: "Where art thouf" "Who told thee that thou wast naked?" "Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shoitldcst not eatf" "What is this that thou hast done?" Question-marks abound in the Scriptures, and he who studies them can not fail to be influenced by this notable pe- culiarity of their address. John Wesley was a QuestlonTr^ remarkable questioner. Says Dr. J. B. Young: "No man of his day surpassed him in the ser- monic arts whereby attention is gained, the conscience is reached, the judgment is arrested, and the soul is brought to consider its way, and repent. It is significant, therefore, that this master of English speech was fond of this method of dividing up a discourse." "One whose calling involves public speaking of any sort, and who has thus far failed to note the extraordinary impressiveness and searching func- tion of well-ordered interrogatives, can find no more striking specimens of it than John Wesley's sermons afford." 3. The method of Jesus. Jesus Christ was the most wonderful questioner that ever taught. In the simplicity, the depth, the searching quality, and the far-reaching effects of His questions, He stands pre-eminent through the ages. Dr. Young notes that "the only incident of His boy- Questions ° "^ood portrays Him in the Temple at Jerusalem among the teachers of the Law, 'both hearing them and asking them questions.' " This one fact is doubt- less typical of His life. "With questions He encouraged the timid, instructed the docile, rebuked the stubborn and un- discerning, warned the imperiled, silenced the carping and THE TEACHER'S USE OF QUESTIONS 119 the captious, refuted the contentious, and denounced the hypocritical," There is no study that would probably help the teacher more than that of the questions of the Great Teacher. They will be found more numerous, doubtless, than one would think. Take just a few, to show their force and reach: "Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment?" "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or Hgs of thistles?" "What shall a man he profited if he shall gain the whole world- and forfeit his life?" "What shall a man give in exchange for his life?" "Can the blind guide the blind?" "Why call ye Me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" "Wouldest thou be made whole?" "Loves t thou Me?" There are no more helpful suggestions anywhere, either as to the value of the question-method or as to models for efficient questioning, than in the record of the sayings of the Master. III. The Question Method in Sunday-school Teach- ing An epoch was made by the introduction of the question- method. Dr. Trumbull tells us that this was first introduced by James Gall, of Scotland, at the beginning of the last cen- tury. At that time the practice of teaching was very poor, Gall's Work both there and here. There was a vast deal of for the Sun- crude memorizing and rote work, without much day-School ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ pupils the meaning of what they were learning. This was the bane of the Catechism as it was taught. Gall introduced the present plan of a "limited les- son." This consisted of a few verses of Scripture, which were to be made intelligible by simple questioning. "From this beginning our entire modern system of Sunday-school 120 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK teaching, including all our question-books and lesson-helps, took its start." Thomas K. Beecher was a famous teacher in his day, and his skill was that of a questioner, according to Gall's method. Dr. Trumbull used his "word-questions" to illustrate the enthusiasm engendered by this simplest form of the question art : ''Will, say the first sentence of the les- son !" "Behold, a sower went forth to sow." "A what?" (pointing to a pupil, as a quicker way, and withal more mag- netic, than stopping to call a name.) "A sower." "What did he do?" "He went forth." *'What for?" "To sow." And of this method, simple and even frivolous as some teachers might consider it, Mr. Beecher says : "As the result of years of experience, I find that even in our teachers' meet- ings this class of questions arrest attention, and amuse, and fascinate even grown-up people; for when asked rapidly, and with spirit, they require the parties engaged in the exercises to keep their wits about them, and to be perfect masters of the words of the lesson." This honored teacher is but one of many who have helped to develop the question method, and to make it prominent in the work of the modern Sunday-school. 4. The question in the new education. Many of the old-time teachers seemed to deal with facts and formulas as a sort of filling for minds which were regarded as somewhat like jugs, to be poured full without any effort on their own part. Dickens describes such teachers in Gradgrind and M'Choakumchild, who were "a kind of cannon, loaded to the muzzle with facts, and prepared to blow the boys and girls clean out of the regions of childhood at one discharge." They The New Ed- know little of any other faculty but memory, and ucation Ex- their theory is that this is best stimulated by cites Inquiry ^ough Sticks. But all this is outlawed. The new education regards first the activity of the mind. Mill gives as the first principle in education, "The discipline which does good to the mind is that in which the mind is active, not passive; the secret of developing the faculties is to give them THE TEACHER'S USE OF QUESTIONS 121 much to do, and much inducement to do it." Tyndall says, "The exercise of the mind, Hke that of the body, depends for its value upon the spirit in which it is accompHshed." Spencer says that the pupil "should be told as little as pos- sible, and induced to discover as much as possible." Agas- siz said that the worst service a teacher could render a pupil was to give him a ready-made answer. The new education aims to draw out, to train, to discipline; and it does this by awakening curiosity, exciting inquiry, and developing dis- crimination. Its axiom is that it is what the student does for himself and by himself, under wise guidance, that educates him. For this supreme task of awakening and guiding the mental powers there is nothing as valuable as the expert question. Its place in the new education is large and neces- sary. IV. Our Use of Questions I. Faulty questions. We have not attempted to treat the topic of this lesson narrowly or mechanically. It is hoped that our somewhat broad treatment has sufficed to afford some instruction as to the use of questions by the senior teacher. It may be unnecessary to specify faults, but we will name a few, for samples. First, there is the aimless question, that leads nowhere, and affords no clue to the pupil as to what the teacher wishes to evoke. Then there is the leading question, which carries the answer with it. There is the irrelevant ques- Questions . , . , . r • • • i .1 ,i • • • j to Avoid ^^^^' which IS out of jomt with the thing in mind. The misleading question is still worse, for it leads the learner away from the right road. There are wordy questions that confuse, and stilted questions that confound. There are technical questions that baffle, and silly questions that insult. There are also questions that are annoying, pro- voking, impudent, sarcastic, and malicious. 122 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 2. Practical directions. From what has preceded we may deduce these practical directions in the use of questions : Questions may be asked merely for attention, before the lesson begins. Such may be of the subject of the lesson, or they may not. The "point of contact" is to be first found, and it may lie at some distance off the present path. Some Important questions may be asked for encouragement, the Uses in our teacher knowing well that the pupil can easily Teaching answer them. Some review questions may come in to pave the way. But the first great use of the question will be to develop the lesson; to gather up and present the material for working over. The next large use of it will be to correlate this material with other already known, that will aid in the handling of it. There will also be questions for the expansion of the subject, for the correction of errors, for the deduction of other truths, and of precepts. A whole depart- ment of question work is that of testing the pupil's knowledge, and another is that of stimulating the mind to greater ac- tivity. One important use of the question remains to be noticed, and this is of special significance to the religious teacher. It is that of inspiration. Let us tell this in a story. One of the most devoted and useful men of our day is Dr. Grenfell, the apostle of the North. Mr. Norman Duncan thus de- scribes his work : *Tn the little hospital ship, 'Strathcona,' the doctor darts here and there and everywhere, all summer long, responding to calls, searching out the sick, gathering the patients for the various hospitals. The ship is known to every harbor on the coast ; and she is often overcrowded with the sick. Winter travel is a matter of much danger and hardship. The mission doctor finds greater delight, if any- thing, in the wild, swift race over rotten or heaving ice, or in a night in the driving snow, than in running the Strath- cona through a northeast gale. The journey northward is made in midwinter alone with the dogs. Many a night the doctor must get into his sleeping-bag, and make himself as THE TEACHER'S USE OF QUESTIONS 123 comfortable as possible in the snow, snuggling close to the dogs for the sake of the warmth of their bodies. Six hundred miles north in the dead of winter, six hundred miles back again : it takes a man of unchangeable devotion to under- take it!" Where is the source of this extraordinary heroism? In a question. Dr. Grenfell once heard a sermon by Mr. Moody, and shortly before the latter's death he took occasion to thank him for it. The intensely practical Moody answered pointedly with this: "And what have you been doing since?" Grenfell could neither answer this question nor get away from it, and soon he set about to try to do things. "He has become the promoter of industry, the physician, missionary, magistrate, and helpful friend of every fisherman on the Labrador coast." Lesson Outline: I. The Interrogation Point. II. The Use of Questions. III. The Question Method in Sunday-school Teaching. IV. The Senior Teacher's Use of Questions. Topics for Special Study: 1. The Socratic method. 2. Jesus' use of questions. Topics for Class Discussion: 1. The dynamic of the question. 2. Socrates' use of questions. 3. What historic questions do you know about? 4. How are you affected by the questions of public speakers ? 5. Name as many of the questions of Jesus as you can recall. 6. What is the place of the question in the new edu- cation? 7. Name certain kinds of faulty questions. 8. What are the particular uses of questions? CHAPTER IX ILLUSTRATIONS— THEIR VALUE AND USE CHAPTER IX ILLUSTRATIONS— THEIR VALUE AND USE I. The Windows of Speech "There can be no doubt that, for the purpose of teaching, one illustration is worth a thousand abstractions. They are the windows of speech ; through them truth shines ; and ordi- lUustrations nary minds fail to perceive truth clearly unless Light up it is presented to them through this medium." Teaching g^ wrote Edwin Paxton Hood, many years ago, and in similar strain a general chorus of wise men praise the things that light up teaching. It is a common-place to say that every good teacher illustrates, and must illustrate. We need not stop in one place to enforce a truth : we may reflect light upon it from a thousand other sources. A tomb has one door to it, but no windows : the houses we live in must have more windows than doors. It is a cheering thought that the thing that we would gladly get into the minds of our class lies in no isolated beam, but is illumined from all sides, if we open up the view. II. Popularity of Illustrations The amazing popularity of illustrations is a phenomenon of the first magnitude. The story reigns from the cradle to the grave. Savages and sages alike give attention to them; Many in philosophers and fools are not beyond their Kind and reach. There are many kinds of illustrations : Number there are object-lessons, pictures, diagrams, maps, statuary, plays, novels, poems, tales, fables, and the myriad processes of the world of nature and life. Consider the multi- tude of the works of fiction and their enormous circulation. 127 ^ 128 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK Consider the stories and sketches that fill our popular maga- zines, and note the copious pictures that adorn everything now- adays, from the daily newspaper and the standing billboard to the highest treatises on the sciences. Consider the money value of a story as such. There are few things, if any, that are equal to stories in the market. If you have one, you can cash it at the nearest newspaper office. Note the extraordi- nary sums paid for, and made by, the novels that "get a run;" also, tho-3 paid to returned explorers for "lecturing," or to any popular hero for telling the tale of his prowess. One apt illustration may sell a patent or lift a mortgage or win a sweetheart or a soul. They are found on the street, in the corner grocery, the factory, the office, the home, and the club. In the school and the church, in lyceums, and in- stitutes, and political campaigns they have the front seats. And there is no sign, as the race grows old, that they are losing any of their charm. III. Masters of Illustration The great teachers of the race have all been masters of this rich art. Robert Hall once criticised the sermon of a brother minister thus: "You have no 'likes' in your ser- TheirUse mon.' Christ taught that the kingdom of heaven by Great was 'like' to leaven, 'like' to a grain of mustard Teachers ^^^^^ ^^^ You tell US what things are, but never what they are 'like.' " He touched here one of the most con- spicuous traits of our Lord as a Teacher. Jesus opened wide the windows. He was always telling stories: "without a parable spake He not unto them." He garnished His the- ological discourse with a thousand lights from the sheep, the birds, the flowers, the grain, the storm, the sky, the wedding feast, the lost coin, the man outraged by robbers, and the wandering son. The prophets and the psalmist were rich in imagery. So were the Hebrew poets, and all the poets are. The great preachers also have drawn powerfully upon this. John Wesley's style was calm, and he was always orderly, ILLUSTRATIONS— THEIR VALUE AND USE 129 usually logical to severity. Yet he was a master illustrator. A philosopher of Wesley's time declared that he came nearer to the ideal of this than any one whose writings he had read. He wrote to Hannah More: "When you 'advise, instruct to be communicated, in a way that shall interest the feelings by lively images;' and when you observe that 'there seems to be no good reason why religion must be dry and uninter- esting, while every other thing is to be made amusing;' and ask, 'Why should not the most entertaining powers of the human mind be supremely consecrated to that subject which is most worthy of their full exercise?' I read that of which I must say, John Wesley gives me the most entire exemplifi- cation I have ever met with, except in the Bible." All the evangelists, from Whitefield down, have made illustration the bulk of their exhortations. This extraordinary exhorter kept the volume of nature ever open before him, and he delighted to unfold its magnificent contents. From the rainbow, and the ocean, and the thunder-storm, to the glow-worm, and the flower, and the fish, nothing was too grand or too insig- nificant to serve the needs of his impassioned oratory. White- field is said to have "ransacked creation for figures, heaven for motives, hell for warnings, and eternity for arguments.' These things furnish appeals for all minds, and no popular speaker can afford to dispense with them. Dr. Cuyler was an interesting preacher, and he accounted for his practice by telling what Judge McLean, of the Su- preme Court of the United States, once said to him : "I was glad to hear you give that solemn personal incident in your discourse last night. Ministers nowadays are getting above telling a story in their sermons, but I like it." The widely- circulated sermons of Dr. Talmage were composed almost wholly of incidents. Dr. Trumbull's writings abound in them, and are powerfully enforced by them. Abraham Lin- coln was so convinced of the power of stories that he made larger use of them than was agreeable to everybody; for he was often criticised for it. But he made it evident that he 9 130 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK was far from frivolous in this: it was deliberate and pro- foundly philosophical. The senior teacher has only to fall into line with the masters in this. He will find his pupils eager to listen to anything which enlarges their view and introduces them to new facts of nature or life, and to the men and the women that are moving the world along. IV. Utility of Illustrations This goes almost without saying, for the masters have in- variably held a utilitarian aim: they have discarded every- thing but what could help their case. If any- ical Help ^ ' thing has been established in the experience of teaching, this has been. And teachers find this out in their personal experience before they get very far along. Dr. Guthrie, when he was a young man, was not content with shooting his arrows at his chosen target. When he would meet the children of his parish he would talk with them, and try to find out what they remembered of his ser- mons. He says, *T found that they remembered best the parts that had illustrations; so I resolved never to shoot off an arrow without winging it." Any one may make this test for himself, and upon himself. This is not a matter of disposi- tion or personal peculiarity; it is practically a universal trait. V. The Philosophy of Illustration There is a kind of philosophy of illustrations. That is, there are underlying principles that support them. This world is full of resemblances and contrasts. Nothing stands What alone. "Nature is one vast parable." It is a Makes them diamond cut into myriad facets. Each gleams in Necessary j^^ proper turning. The things that are in our lives are mirrored in Mother Nature. And the things of na- ture are not separate, but all related. We call the whole ILLUSTRATIONS— THEIR VALUE AND USE 131 mass of things the "universe," which name certifies to the oneness of the worlds. If a thing does not shine fully in its own light, we may set up other things by its side. In the light of all it becomes clear, because all have something in common. Then there are the emotions to consider. We do not think with our intellect alone. The feelings dwell in the same house with them, if not even nearer than this. To stir the feelings helps the thought. It is better to have two or six horses to harness to a heavy load than to be limited to one ; in which case the load would usually stay where it is. The story brings in the reinforcements : it calls the allies. There is a strong pull when you can get the whole mind to pull to- gether; and this is really the grand problem of the teacher. It is no wonder that Dr. Gregory calls the power to use illus- trations well "the chief and central power in the teacher's art." Life loves life. We are interested in other people because they are people — endowed with the same senses, and impulses, and potencies as we are, and moving to the same destinies. There are stoics, but none are without human sympathy. There are cynics, but none escape their kind on every path. When you put another life by the side of mine, I am mag- netized by it. When you take an experience from my broth- er's years, and hold it up in front of one that I am now passing through, I can not help looking at it, and listening to its prophecy. VI. Offices of Illustration I. It attracts attention. Dr. Trumbull tells about a class of lively boys that he encountered once in a mission school, to whom he was to teach the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. But they were a wriggling mass whom it seemed hopeless to try to impress with Isaiah. But he thought of an illustration — and he won. "Boys! did any of you ever see a sheep-shearing?" he called sharply. Yes, one of them 132 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK had, though this was a city school. "Boys! just listen, all of you. Billy is going to tell about a sheep-shearing that he saw once out in the country," was the magic phrase that did it. "Now, how was it, Billy?" and Billy rose to the op- portunity: "Why, one old fellow just caught hold of the sheep and sat down on its head, and another cut his wool off." "How much noise did the sheep make?" "Not any: he didn't bleat a bit." It was not far from here to an ex- planation of the prophecy in the seventh verse that found listening ears. One can easily see the value of a device like this : An old preacher leaned over the pulpit and said: "My friends, I am going to ask you a plain question; but it is a question that not one of you can answer. In fact, it is a question that I can not answer myself. If an angel from heaven should come down here right now, and I should ask him this ques- tion, he couldn't answer it. It is a question, my friends, that not even God Himself could answer." Then came the solemn inquiry, "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" 2. It aids interpretation. The understanding needs aid, and it needs this more than we are apt to think. One reason for this is the poverty that belongs to words, and another is the paucity of words in an ordinary person's vocabulary. The dictionary contains over four hundred thousand words, and all these are but a drop in the bucket. But Muller tells us that a well-educated person seldom uses more than three or four thousand words in actual conversation. Accurate speakers and close thinkers may use more. He is an eloquent man who uses ten thousand. Shakespeare stands at the head of all who have used language, and yet he built up his won- derful plays with about fifteen thousand words. In Milton's prose works we find eight thousand words, and the Old Tes- tament employs 5,642. Whatever enhances the effects of words, or conveys ideas beyond their reach, is of the greatest value. ILLUSTRATIONS— THEIR VALUE AND USE 133 Then there is the omnipresent danger of misunderstand- ing. How much there is of this, even when carefully guarded agaiiist, is sad to think of. An English bishop preached a strong sermon against atheism from the text, "The fool hath said in his heart there is no God." Some time afterward he asked a poor woman whether she had enjoyed the sermon, and she replied : "O ! it was all very fine ; but, my lord, I believe there's a God, for all that." All teachers know what this is, and most of them will consider it worse to be mis- understood than perchance to over-illustrate now and then. 3. It illumines the understanding. There is much be- yond a bare understanding of the meaning of a thing. Stories and other forms of illustration have the power to raise the primary comprehension to a high degree. The imag- ination is brought to the aid of the intellect, and with its marvelous play the thought becomes radiant. 4. It deepens impressions. Illustration enables the teacher to make his appeal to the whole soul : the intellect is informed, the imagination and the memory are kindled, and the emotions are stirred. The amount of emphasis desired upon any principle or precept is almost unlimited, with the wealth of diverse things to draw upon for new impulses to the soul. 5. It strengthens persuasion. This follows from the preceding. When all the faculties but the will are going in one rushing stream, the volitions are most likely to come in. Foster tells of an English youth who was wild and disso- lute, yet brilliant. He was a bar-tender. Nearby there was a dissenting chapel, where a story-telling cobbler was hav- ing a wide hearing by the power of his illustrations. One night he said to his companions, "Come on, let us go down and hear old Cole tell his stories." They went, but the young bar-tender was enthralled by the stories that he heard. His name was George Whitefield, and the beginning of his won- derful ministry was made that night. Strange as it may seem, the highest power of conviction s 134 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK does not belong to logic. Dr. John McClintock was a pro- found theologian, but he told Moncure D. Conway once that no theological argument for the resurrection had ever satis- fied him like the voice of Jenny Lind singing, "I know that my Redeemer liveth." It may be hard to explain, but we easily recognize the fact of this persuasive power. Why did Jesus tell the story of the Prodigal Son? Why did He not utter a series of com- mandments and warnings to the wanderers? Even a tyro in human nature knows that it is because of the greater power of the story. Many a wayward sinner who has resisted sermons without number has broken into tears and surren- dered upon the mere recital of this divine parable. There is a deep lesson for teachers here. 6. It molds character. Through its peculiar appeal to the memory illustration constantly tends to render the results of teaching permanent. A story, a leaf from the page of another's life that fits our own, will generally stay with us when all other elements of the lesson have faded in the dis- tance. Sometimes a single bright picture has remained the bulwark and the inspiration of a life. We can not protract this enumeration, inadequate as it is. Dr. W. L. Hervey indorses as true and profound the statement of G. Stanley Hall, that "of all the things that a teacher should know how to do, the most important, without exception, is to be able to tell a story." He tells of a student pursuing a university course in education, who had been studying the sources and methods of illustration. He said, "It gradually dawned upon me that, if I knew how to tell a story, I had mastered the main part of the art of teaching." Dr. Hervey's analysis of this is : "For to know a good story is to have literary and pedagogic taste; to adapt or make a good story for children is both to know the secret of the mind of a child and to have creative power ; to tell a good story is to be master of a noble art." ILLUSTRATIONS— THEIR VALUE AND USE 13S VII. Sources and Rules We are inclined to make these brief. A live teacher's in- tuition will do much for him, and his work will usually do the rest. Wide and constant reading is necessary, of course. Conversations and lectures will always yield something. Works of art and the panorama of nature are continual reve- lations. The first secret is an eager mind, and the next is the habit of reflection. Another is an absorbing interest in our pupils. With our eyes fixed upon their Secure°them ^^^^^> the things to gratify these will not be al- lowed to sweep unnoticed past us. It is doubt- less true that the mind that can use a story can be trusted to note it, and to capture it when it comes along. Nor is it necessary to formulate detailed rules for the use of stories. If the one end of the pupil's advantage is kept clearly in the view, and all things are regulated accordingly, there is little danger of misusing illustrations. The teacher who is con- stantly watchful of effects is not likely to misjudge these many times. VIII. An Illustration of Illustration We condense the following from Elizabeth- Harrison, in the Sunday-School Times: A teacher was asked to take a class of young toughs in a mission school who had worn out four teachers. The superintendent had threat- A Skillful J ^ • . .1, J ft, • 1 J Illustrator ened to eject them, and their only answer was de- risive laughter. There was a succession of out- rageous antics before the time for the lesson. Then one boy raised his blacking-box and scraped it across the face of another boy. In a moment the usual fight was imminent. But the teacher was quicker than the blow. She seized the blacking-box and cried out, "I can tell you something about this box that you do not know." The boys were astonished, and there was silence for a moment. "Bah !" said one, "you 're tryin' to guy us now." "Give us a rest," said an- 136 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK other skeptic, tauntingly. But others cried, "What is it?" "Go ahead." The teacher began : "Of what is this box made?" "Wood, of course," said two or three of the disap- pointed group, the look of contempt returning to their faces. "O, yes, of course. But where did the wood come from?" said the teacher. She pursued the inquiry until the best posted of them had come to the end of his knowledge. Then she began and described for them the long, slow growth of the forest trees. Then the long years of waiting, until the woodman came with his ax; the busy, picturesque life of the logging camp; the dangerous voyage of the logs, tied to- gether in a rift, floating down the broad river, and the won- derful processes of the lumber mill. The boys were quiet to the end, and their deep-drawn sighs were eloquent. The teacher continued, "I think that I know something more about this box that you do n't know." She took up the story of the nails, including the work of the miners, and brought in many other things that boys like to know. Gradually the ringleader of the boys projected his head to the limit of his neck, and then exclaimed in tones of the deepest reverence : "I know what you are. You 're a fortune- teller, that 's what you are." This was the highest tribute he could pay her. This teacher knew everything, apparently. And she had gained her point. It was no slight task to transfigure idle curiosity into reverence, but she had succeeded in doing this thing. Slowly but surely she built up an altar in them to the unknown God, which altar was necessary before the God of righteousness and mercy and love could be preached unto them. Illustration is not for its own sake, but for the sake of the highest and holiest things. It is often the only way to these, and its success then saves the entire structure of teaching. If rightly used, it may reveal a shining pathway from the common things in the dusty road to the throne of God Himself. ILLUSTRATIONS— THEIR VALUE AND USE 137 Lesson Outline: I. The Windows of Speech. II. Popularity of Illustrations. III. Masters of Illustration. IV. Utility of Illustrations. V. The Philosophy of Illustration. VI. Offices of Illustration. VII. Sources and Rules. VIII. An Illustration of Illustration. Topics for Special Study: 1. The parables of Jesus. 2. The principles underlying the use of illustrations. Topics for Class Discussion: 1. Why do we illustrate? 2. The popularity of illustrations. 3. What has been your personal experience in the hear- ing of illustrations? 4. Your experience in the use of illustrations? 5. What principles underlie the use of illustrations? 6. State the six offices of illustration named. 7. What others can you add? 8. Sources of illustrations. 9. Learning to illustrate by practice. 10. The investment of time and study in illustration. CHAPTER X A STUDY OF THE SENIOR PROBLEM CHAPTER X A STUDY OF THE SENIOR PROBLEM I. The Gravest of Problems We are accustomed to hear much of the pressing prob- lems of the Church. There is finance, and there is worldli- ness, and there are small congregations and prayer-meetings n»i- c -1 and revivals and missions and education ; there Tne r ailure , . to Hold are backslidings and apostasies, and there is the Our Young paucity of young ministers. But it should be People g^gy fQj. ^11 ^Q ggg ^jj^^ j^Qj^g Qf these problems — and they are real — compare v^ith that of young people — our own, born into our homes and our Churches and subject to our chosen modes of culture from their infancy. If we do not win from the world outside it is deplorable; but if we do not hold our own it is fatal. Secretary Randall wrote: "The Church must be built up from the young people. Sta- tistics and experience show that a church that depends upon conversions from mature people must die. If we despair of our young people we must despair of everything. The Church that fails with the young people fails utterly and at the very foundation." And it is evident that our prosperity is not a question of young people in general, but of our own first. For if we can not win and hold these, what hope or what need of winning those outside? II. Conditions of the Problem I. Few young people in our schools. We sat on the platform, not long ago, during a Sunday-school celebration in one of our finest churches in a great city. The pastor pointed to a room with a handful of pupils in it, and said, "There is the darkest problem of our whole work — right in 141 142 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK that room." It was the young people's class. Most of our pastors and other workers know something about this. A common observation in a Sunday-school shows a bright and Few Senior blessed company of beginners. They are crowd- Pupils ing their room and calling for larger quarters. in Our It is mucli the same with the primaries. There Schools jg usually inspiration here. But the juniors show a little falling off, and the intermediates more. There are adult classes pretty well maintained, especially of late, under the stimulus of the new movement for adults ; but the seniors are few and far between. The Senior Department is the smallest in the school. Most likely there is no such depart- ment. Even though the school calls itself organized and graded, it probably has no place marked off for the youth whom we are studying. One of the hardest things to find, even in an up-to-date Sunday-school, is just this Senior De- partment. It lives on paper only in most schools, if indeed it does there. Nature has marked off this group distinctly, and secular education recognizes it everywhere, but in die Sunday-school it goes unnoticed and uncared for in any spe- cific way. What few adolescents of this age are to be found at all will be found either scattered among the adults or graded with them. 2. It is a distinct loss. It is not as if we never had these individuals and had not succeeded in winning them from without: we have had them all, and have lost them We Had from our schools. It is far worse than an Them Dur- ordinary disappointment. More than this, we ing Earlier expected to keep them. We have had the care Years ^£ them and have selected and used the best methods of training them, supposedly, with the express pur- pose of holding them to the school and the Church. Their loss discredits our methods. More than this, it discourages us, for it nullifies all our previous toil. What is the use of the lovely and promising primary work if its influence evaporates? What is the use of bringing the children through A STUDY OF THE SENIOR PROBLEM 143 the four prior departments if they are to be lost to the school in this ? These depressing conditions are not superficial : they go deep down. 3. The fateful years. These young people are also lost to the Church (speaking now without reference to future possibilities). The problem is much wider than the school. Not a We have labored with these children all their New life. We have prayed for them and yearned over Problem. them with the supreme desire of seeing them dis- ciples of Christ and members of His Church, but many of them have wandered away. This has been a patent and a grievous fact for many years. Long ago Bishop Simpson was the guest of a friend of his in Gainesville, Georgia, who says: "We had a long and earnest talk on this subject, and he asked, sadly: 'What must be done? . Despite our Sunday-schools and protracted services and professed devo- tion to children, we lose every year more Methodist children in the older Conferences than v/e save of adult sinners from the world !' " At this time revival work was at its high tide in our Church, bringing in probably as many converts as at any period in our history. And the older Conferences were the places where we should naturally hope for our best results, if our gospel is a growing thing. It is probable that we are losing more of our youth now than in Bishop Simpson's day, although it is difficult to obtain reliable figures upon this. Principal Ritchie and Dr. Swinnerton, of Eng- land, however, have made a somewhat thorough investigation of conditions in the Wesleyan Church, with this result : "We have found that the Church has retained in active member- ship ten per cent of Sunday-school scholars. Another ten per cent have hung to the skirts of the Church, while eighty per cent have been lost. Yet that twenty per cent constitutes seventy-eight per cent of the total Church membership; only twenty-two per cent coming in as a result of a vast expendi- ture of money in mission hall and other work." This is a dark picture, especially when we consider the diminishing 144 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK enrollment of the Sunday-schools of that and most of the other Free Churches of Great Britain. It is hoped that we are doing a little better than this in our own Churches on this side of the Atlantic, but we have much to lament at best. 4. Not the Churches alone. The problem broadens, for we find much the same conditions in general education. There are over 17,000,000 of elementary pupils in the schools of The Public America, and only 790,912 in the high schools School and academies, and 162,918 in the colleges. Natu- Faiis to rally we should expect fewer young people pur- Hold Them s^ijng their studies as they grow older and the demand for their industrial service increases, but this dis- parity is alarming. It points to some dismal and perilous influences that are manifestly at work within the vitals of cur young life. Where education is as much valued as it is throughout the civilized world, and where it is so excellent and so easily obtainable as in this favored land, we ought to expect much larger numbers of our youth to seek these high privileges. 5. The lure of vice. It is distinctly the darkest stain upon the pages of our modern society that so many of our youth are yielding to the baleful enticements of vice. If only the neglected children grew up to practice Many ^^jj^ j^ would be less strange. If only the poor Immoral ^"^ ^^^ ignorant were ensnared, we could endure it better, for then we might have hope in pros- perity and intelligence. But it is an open secret that vast numbers of the young people of "the best families" are in- subordinate and become finally uncontrollable. They "sow their wild oats," and they reap the harvest that never fails. Our highest hopes and our fairest confidence are mocked by the saloons that abound in our land, and all haunts of vice fatten on victims that they have captured from the Churches. Satan is no respecter of persons. 6. The spiritual poverty of adolescence. There are some flowers of youthful piety and nobility most fair. There A STUDY OF THE SENIOR PROBLEM 145 are many who walk in wisdom's ways like angels, a delight to their parents and teachers and a benediction to the world. But there is a spiritual poverty that so widely prevails as . to be almost general. By this we do not mean Profound a scarcity of emotional experiences, of course; Lack of but a profound lack of the real elements of the High Ideals spiritual life. The many-sided allurements of a refined materialism seem to be the capital charm for too many of the young. They are fond of dress and convivial parties and dancing and sporting and flirtation. There is a conspicuous lack of devotion to high ideals, and even of the perception of these. There are frivolous views of life and its serious duties, unbecoming to the capable years of later youth. There is an ignorance of the Bible that as- tonishes college professors and others who try to converse seriously with young people; and not only of this, but ig- norance of the poets and of the kings and queens of litera- ture and art in general. Our young people are thronging the theaters and the dance-halls and the ballgrounds, and they are expert in the fashions almost before these arrive; but multitudes mind not the things that are true and good and beautiful. They are content to live in the world below these. III. A Handicap on the Church These conditions are more than a reflection upon our ability and methods : they constitute a real handicap upon the Church in its work generally. Take the matter of evan- Crippiesthe gelism, for instance. The "sinner" is saying, Evangelism "Why should I enter a household of faith whose of the children are leaving it?'* Take the matter of Church denominational education. Men of means are asking why they should give money to our colleges when so many of our children go elsewhere. Take the case of our mission work. The "heathen" are asking why we should seek to Christianize them when we can not Christianize our 146 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK own sons and daughters ; and why should they espouse a religion that shows the most disheartening conditions where it has lived longest and had the opportunity to show through a series of years what it really is, and where it has spent most of its toil and treasure? The senior problem is not a little affair of the Sunday- schools : it is a prime interest of the whole Church and all the Churches; it belongs to the entire body that we call society. The condition of the young men of this country is a standing challenge to the strength of our civilization; and that of our young women is the same. IV. Locating the Causes Of course we have not mentioned these depressing things to leave them. It is our chief business to ascertain their causes, that we may remove them if possible. The most "Where natural reply to these presentations, perhaps, is Does the that it is the fault of the young people them- Responsi- selves. They have the opportunities, and they bihtyLie have been abundantly taught and preached at and warned : now if they go wrong or fail to rise to high manly and womanly levels, they need blame nobody but themselves. But this is not at all in the temper of the true teacher. We confess to a degree of impatience when we hear parents and others talking in this strain. For present purposes at least, it is necessary for us to set entirely aside any re- sponsibility that the young persons may have. The real be- liever in education can not get away from the fundamental principle that the child that is fairly and rightly trained will grow up into a normal manhood or womanhood. The human plant is at no disadvantage compared with a cactus or an orange tree. This is not saying that training is all of the two parents, for there are many other agencies to be con- sidered. At any rate, we are bound to examine our own work and to make sure that we have done our part before we blame the young people. s A STUDY OF THE SENIOR PROBLEM 147 Nor are we going to lay the responsibilty upon our re- ligion. To be sure, there are those who say that Chris- tianity is not suited to young people, and that they do not find much in it. We must proceed upon the conviction that the gospel is for all men and for all the years of men : there is no time of life to which Jesus Christ does not make His simple and adequate appeal, and there can be no time when He is willing to lose His hold upon a soul to the advantage of Satan. I. Is our theology responsible? It is less easy to negative this, for though the basis of theology is the divine revelation, there is a large human element in the super- Our structure; and it is possible that this may be Theology at fault, SO far as our work with adolescents at is concerned. For many generations harsh doc- Fault trines of God have been preached. They are being rapidly abandoned in our day, it is true, but they have produced their effects. Extravagant theories of the inspi- ration of the Bible have been urged upon young people. It does not change their results to say that we do not now accept these. Offensive doctrines of prayer have been put forth. This is but an example: "The famous John Eliot, missionary to the Indians, was informed that Mr. Foster, a godly man, had been taken prisoner and made a slave by a prince who had declared that no captive should be re- leased in his lifetime. The following Sunday, before a large congregation, Mr. Eliot prayed: 'Heavenly Father, work for the redemption of thy poor servant, Foster. If the prince who detains him will not dismiss him so long as he lives, kill him and glorify Thyself.' Mr. Foster quickly returned from captivity. The prince had come to an untimely death, and he had been set at liberty." Not long ago the late Dr. Joseph Parker, of London, called upon God in plain terms to damn the Sultan of Turkey, and the multitudes, no doubt, think that this prayer was answered. Lecky states that the leaders of the Wesleyan revival in 148 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK the eighteenth century "were never tired of urging that all men are in a state of damnation who have not experienced a sudden, violent, and supernatural change, accompanied or followed by an absolute assurance of salvation and by a complete dominion over sin." John Wesley disavowed his belief in this drastic theory of salvation late in life, but there is no doubt of the substantial truthfulness of Lecky's testimony. Gloomy precepts concerning the Sabbath have been over-abundant, also terrible portrayals concerning hell. Even heaven has been painted in repellent colors. Dr. Etter cites the case of a little girl who was talking to her mother about heaven. She said, "Mamma, are there any picture- books in heaven?" "No," replied the parent. "No Noah's arks?" (a toy that she especially liked). "No," came the response. "No dolls?" "No," emphatically answered the mother. The little child dropped her head, evidently reflect- ing, and after a long pause she closed her meditation with a long-drawn sigh : "Well, then, I believe that I '11 take doUie and go to hell." The painful fact is, that what this child said in her childishness multitudes of young men and women have said in sober earnest. That is, they have seen nothing desirable in the orthodox heaven that has been preached to them and have discarded it as not worth while, taking their chances on the possible alternative. 2. Have we lacked sympathy? Something more im- portant than theology must also be considered: sympathy. Have we manifested the true Spirit of Christ in our work A Lack ^^^^ young people ? Is it true, as Stevenson of the affirms, that the trouble with moral men is that Spirit of they are lacking in gentleness and kindness ? Christ Have we remembered that the youth are imma- ture and inexperienced, and often fevered with longings that we have outgrown? Have we never made our teaching a harsh infliction? Have we not been too free with our scold- ings and threatenings ? Dr. Keats, an old Eton master, is said to have really A STUDY OF THE SENIOR PROBLEM 149 flogged his boys, innocent and guilty, with indiscriminating dehght. He once said to his class, with stern and com- manding manner : "Blessed are the pure in heart. Mind that. It 's your duty to be pure in heart, and if you are not pure in heart I '11 flog you." Once, on entering his ofiice, he found a company of boys awaiting him. Dragging the first boy to the ever-present flogging-block, on which the writhing victim knelt, he proceeded vigorously to use his cruel birch. He proceeded down the line until half the class had received visible marks of his scholarship, when one of the trembling lads stammered out, "Please, sir, we 're the confirmation class." This is an extreme case, but we have seen teachers and preachers who believed in Keats' prin- ciple. It makes shrieking discord with the winsomeness of Jesus, and the young folks know it. 3. Has the Church done her best? We fear not. With all her consecration and efifort and glory, she has not been perfect — and her failure seems to have hurt her youth most. ^ She has not always been enterprising, ready to Distrust move out upon new lines, and she has sometimes of Knowl- shown fear of the truth. Concerning this latter ^**^® James Russell Lowell said, "Theology will find out in good time that there is no atheism at once so stupid and so harmful as the fancying God to be afraid of any knowledge with which He has enabled man to equip him- self." The harm of this form of atheism falls cruelly upon studious and frank young people. As to the over-conservatism of the Church, take but a few citations. Thomas Davidson says : "From the days of Alcuin to the rise of Protestantism education was almost entirely in the hands of the clergy. Since that event, but particularly since the French Revolution, there has been an increasing tendency to withdraw it from the Church alto- gether and hand it over to the State. . . . Likewise we find public bequests diverted more and more from the Church to the college, the library, and the hospital or asylum. Mani- 150 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK festly there is a feeling that the school in one form or another is the progressive, investigating, developing element in our civilization; that the Church is the conservative, apologetic, self-complacent, propagandic, and fossilized. This sounds hard, and yet the Bishop of Coventry says baldly, "While the school is being modernized the Church is being fossilized." Phillips Brooks declared that every man must own that his theology is harder than the New Testament, and that it is the New Testament and not our theology that we ought to teach our children. Dr. Shauffler says of min- isters that though they are among the first to lament the incompetence of Sunday-school workers they are "among the last to remedy the evil. Why? Because they have not been taught how to do it." "The parable of the tadpole's tail" is one of G. Stanley Hall's pithy illustrations. He uses it to enforce a truth that we must take at least a glance at : lower faculties have to be developed, or else the higher which should supersede them will never grow. He tells us that there is a function for the tadpole's tail. If this is cut off the legs will not grow quicker — they will not grow at all. The tail never falls off, as according to the popular notion. Never a tadpole lost his tail thus. It is absorbed, and in some way it makes the legs possible after a while. It is not enough to begin right with the seniors : their proper development depends upon things done right in the past, and if these have been neglected there is no doing them over or doing without them. If the Church has failed anywhere along the growing line, it must accept the responsibility for the resulting failures of youth. 4. Other complications. Our problem may seem com- The plicated enough without anything more, but in Home is fact, it involves the home as well as the Church. Involved 'pj^^ distracting competitions of society and busi- ness come in also, and the countless fascinations of our swift modern life. 3 A STUDY OF THE SENIOR PROBLEM 151 We do not refer to any of these things lightly, and cer- tainly not for discouragement. On the contrary, they contain a basis for a solid encouragement. The huge problem of how- to hold and to train rightly our young people is one to be solved — and it can be solved. Lesson Ouiline: • I. The Gravest of Problems. II. Conditions of the Problem. III. A Handicap on the Church. IV. Locating the Causes. Topics for Special Study: 1. Why do not more young people go to college? 2. At what period does the Church lose its hold on young life? Topics for Class Discussion: 1. The recruiting ground of the Church. . 2. Why are there so few Senior Departments? 3. What proportion of our youth may we expect to save? 4. Why do so few young people go beyond the gram- mar grades in school? 5. Why do not young people come to Church? 6. The Church's share of the general responsibility. 7. The over-conservatism of the Church. 8. Dependence of the mission fields on the Church at home. 9. What has been your experience with teachers as to their sympathy? 10. Our duty to set forth the gospel in its simplicity and purity. CHAPTER XI MORNING-GLORY BLOSSOMS CHAPTER XI MORNING-GLORY BLOSSOMS I. The Coming of the Young In the new daj^ that is even now dawning on the Church there will be young people within her fold: not a lonesome and exceptional few here and there, but great hosts of them. Youth will They will "crowd her gates with thankful joy." Find Satis- They will not be driven in, but will come gladly faction in and with enthusiasm to serve the Bride of Christ, Religion ^j^^ jj^ ^j^jg ^Q j^^ip ^Q gj^^g ^^^ world. They will come then as they throng the broad road of pleasure now. They will seek the same satisfactions, but of different and deeper needs. They will show an exuberant self-expression, but from changed impulses and aims. They will not be radically changed: that is, they are not to skip the period of youth and become prematurely old; but they will find religious ideals that are attractive to them. They will re- act to these because of their truth and their adaptation to themselves. The young people of the future will be more nearly normal in their youth than they are now. Youth will be rectified and intensified, rather than obliterated. The morbid craving of the young for excitement and dissipation is curbed in their interest, for as it is gratified it tends to darken youth and to hurry on the infirmities of age. To cut out the excesses and the extravagances of youth is to purify it and perfect it. Religion can do this, and some day the young people of our land will learn this capital lesson. They will turn from the things that have mocked them so long to the fountains of living waters. They will sur- render the carnal and the material in the interest of the spir- 155 ^ 156 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK itual. They will no longer deprive their noblest powers of due nourishment or exercise. They will seek the develop- ment of the whole nature harmoniously. II. The Religiousness of Youth Does the foregoing sound like a rosy prophecy? Is it too good to be true? We can easily see how much it would mean to the Church and the kingdom if it should come The Basis ^^ pass. If it should happen all at once it would for this be a revolution more tremendous than any the Vitaiization Church has ever known. Of course, this will of Youth j^Q^ gQ happen ; but whenever and however it does happen, the results will be grand in the same degree. The question is, whether this glorious vitaiization (it should scarcely be called a revival) of our youth is a reasonable hope. We think that it can be shown to be such. In the first place, there is the religious nature of man. This is essential and universal. "Man is incurably religious." All men show its signs, and these appear at all times of the life. They do not wait to manifest themselves until maturity, or even youth. In early childhood unmistakable expressions of piety are noted, and this in striking forms. There is no doubt that we are born with a capacity for religion, just as we are born with a capacity for intelligence. The ancients perceived this in their way. Among the Romans the custom prevailed of holding the face of every new-born infant toward the heavens, signifying by thus presenting his forehead to the stars that he was to look above the world into celestial glories. Quite recently the correspondence column of the British Weekly contained this question from a boy eight years old: "Did Jesus, while a Babe in the manger at Bethlehem, know or was He conscious of the details of His future life in the world?" Of this one of our editors says: "At first we are inclined to marvel at this boy's bent of mind, and wonder that one so young should propound so mystical a question. But any one who has been accustomed to children MORNING-GLORY BLOSSOMS 157 of that age knows that such questions are common with them. Who has not been asked the most difficult questions by his boy or girl, questions dealing with the sublime phases of religion, questions that could not be answered, yet they are such that the father himself has asked his own soul time and again?" III. Early Consecration No facts are any more marked in our Church life than the consecration of little children. Multitudes of these have come to Jesus in simple faith and have been blessed by a Religious glowing experience of conscious spiritual life. Experiences When Henry Drummond was in this country a of few years ago he told the students of Amherst Children College that it was in a children's meeting at Stirling that he came to spiritual consciousness and began purposefully to live the new life "which is by the faith of the Son of God, who loved us and gave Himself for us." Judged even by the usual tests for adult conversions, such childhood experiences are genuine, nothing being wanting to assure us of their reality. There is not the slightest doubt that there are thousands of real religious experiences in child life that bring the child to Jesus and unite him to the Savior which are not rightly interpreted. For instance, the conversion of John Wesley has been a mooted question. It has been something of a quiet wonder that such an evangelist as he should have left us so little in the way of definite data concerning "the day and the hour and the minute" of his conscious deliverance from sin. In the absence of a better, many have taken the date of his experience in Aldersgate Chapel when he said that his "heart was strangely warmed" as that of his conversion. But the account of this experience lacks elements that we are accus- tomed to make much of in the crisis of conversion, and the tendency now is to believe that Wesley came into a vital spir- itual experience as a child in Epworth Rectory, under the direct religious tutelage of his incomparable mother, and that 158 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK the precise moment of change he never knew, if indeed there was any critical moment. His heart was warmed, doubtless, by many a conscious contact with the Spirit of God in later years, but it is impossible to read the life of John Wesley and count him as a lost sinner at any period of it. It is surprising to some to look into the matter of early religion and find how many Christians date their religious life from childhood, and how many can no more remember when they began to love God than when they began to love their parents. Several years ago a prominent religious weekly sent a questionnaire on this point to a large number of the most eminent and useful ministers of the gospel. Two-thirds of them answered that they had grown up in religion and did not know when they were converted. Polycarp was con- verted at nine years of age, Matthew Henry at eleven, Presi- dent Edv/ards at seven. Dr. Watts at nine, Bishop Hall at eleven, and Robert Hall at twelve. We are aware that childhood is not the senior age, but have dwelt upon early religion at some length because of its bearing upon the religion of youth. For it is impossible The Religion ^^^^ ^^ *^^ normal ongoing of God's religious of Youth plan for us religion should be introduced into a Devei- childhood to be withdrawn during the years of opment youth, or during any later years. It is not strange that it should begin with the life. Anything else would require explanation. But it would be impossible to under- stand why God should abandon the growng child just in the years when the divine care is most needed, and leave him to be the prey of all the aggressive temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Nor can we assume any relaxation of the fatherly care of God or the diminution of any of the spiritual forces that hold the soul to righteousness and faith- fulness. This is also unthinkable. We must assume the normal temper of youth to be spiritual and may therefore hope for the coming of the time when the spiritual shall come to its own with the young. s MORNING-GLORY BLOSSOMS 159 IV. Christian Young People We are not shut up to theory here, for there are great numbers of youth who have the experience and live the life of the Christian. There is nothing more beautiful in the rich life of the Church than these bright trophies of her work. They are found in every local church and Sunday-school — clean, active, faithful, and charming. None are more de- voted than they, when they are devoted; and none are more efficient in the various forms of Church work. They can show indisputable evidences of religion, pure and undefiled. It is hard to see how the Church could live without them. It begins to look as if they were to be the nucleus of a new movement that will carry the Church into a larger life than she has ever known. Note the organization of the young people's societies of the various Churches in recent years. This movement has reached an astonishing magnitude, and it was not put upon the youth by their elders ; it was a spontaneous demand for larger service and the experience that grows out of this by the young people themselves. Notice also the entry of the young people into the various lines of churchly activities in larger numbers than ever be- fore. They are not only active in their own organizations, but they are doing a vast deal of Sunday-school work, in- cluding that of Home Department and Cradle Roll visitation, and other work as well. They have turned their attention to missions, and as a result there are large numbers of our girls organized into auxiliaries of the women's missionary societies. There are mission study classes also, where both young women and young men are busy gathering the data of mission work in all lands. The Student Volunteer Move- ment and the Young People's Missionary Movement are two remarkable manifestations of the religious life of the young people of our day. A Student Volunteer convention has just been held at which 3,007 delegates were present from 722 colleges and schools in forty-nine States and provinces. Within the last four years 1,275 Volunteers have i6o THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK gone to the mission fields. At the closing session of this convention the names of sixty-one Volunteers were read, and it was stated that these had died in service within three years. Following this, ninety-one Volunteers arose and declared their intention to sail soon for the fields to which they have already been appointed. Such consecration do we find in young Christians. V. Religious Endowments of Youth There are other things that must also be regarded in any fair estimate of the future of the Church : the peculiar re- ligious endowments of adolescents. For it is certain that in some important respects it has pleased God to show re- ligious favors in an unusual degree to youth. The young man has an ethical vision that is essentially new, and therefore bright. He possesses a keenness of moral insight that he never had before, and that he will never . have again if he is unappreciative of it. Right is mightily right, and wrong is tremendously wrong. He does not temporize or falter, as possibly his elders do. He recks less of personal advantage in settling a line of conduct than do they. His clear vision is conducive to pure motives and right actions. It is a misfortune to see too many things sometimes, for they prevent us from seeing the best things clearly and deeply. The moral vision of youth is a divine gift and essentially a religious advantage. The young man loves the truth. He loves Christianity because it makes its powerful appeal to truth, and is drawn to Jesus Christ because He was so outspoken against hypoc- risy and Pharisaism and so bold in proclaiming the truth and defying a world that would not allow the truth to interfere with its selfish interests. There is no mistaking the tendency of Mammon to blind the eyes of truth and to stifle her inspiration. As men grow older it becomes harder for them to judge things with candor, free from the solicitation of their vested interests. The young MORNING-GLORY BLOSSOMS i6i have few vested interests. They are charmed by the fair face of Truth and wish only to dwell in her holy company. Hope is a divine gift to the young. They have felt less of the harshness of the world and the disappointments of human life, and are inclined to believe in God and man. They are not occupied in mourning over the past. °^^ They do not believe that the old days were the best days. They believe in progress and in the God of progress, and therefore look forward for the best days. This makes them cheerful and keeps them companionable. They can easily illustrate the social principle, which is not only Christian, but most profoundly Christian. Human sympathy and affection come in here. With the efflorescence of youth there comes a baptism of love for all the world. The affection that springs into the lives of two mating souls transfigures the world to them and beams upon all who have hearts. Youth loves naturally and easily. There is not space here to do justice to this master passion. Suffice it to say that it is essentially religious and a real religious asset of youth. "He that loveth is born of God." Loyalty is a characteristic of normal youth. Whom the young man chooses he consecrates himself to. If the youth chooses Christ at all, he is likely to give Him his whole heart in a service that is uncalculating and unre- ^ served. He likes to act in this way. He does not enjoy separating and dividing his allegiance. He has no patience with those who try to serve two masters. This outrages his sense of reason and of right. A single glance at the army of the Lord or at any other army is sufficient to illustrate this. A great-hearted general can do anything with a brigade of young soldiers. This is why he prefers young soldiers to older and less spontaneous men. The most loyal body in the Great Captain's army to-day is His young people. Out of loyalty springs zeal. Not without purpose is the II s i62 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK blood of youth a degree warmer than that of the adult. He likes to work hard and fast, and to see things accompHshed. The disposition of the older person to sit in the chair and oppose innovations and reformations is unnatural ^^ to youths, who wish to arise and move out and march on and work with all their might, for resuUs as speedy as may be. These dispositions of youth are clearly marked and con- stitute a sort of special endowment. We can not think of them as meaningless. The Creator evidently intended young people to be religious and to manifest a distinctly motor type of religion. Judging from these qualities, we should expect to find their piety as pure and fair as their faces. Nor should we ever forget that as a matter of fact most of those who begin the Christian life begin it before the close of the period that we are studying. Of all the Christians now living in the world, but a comparatively few were converted after they were twenty years of age. VI. The Infirmities of Youthful Christians We are often pointed to sundry things in the religious life of children and youth that are inconsistent with a Christly spirit. There are sometimes outbursts of temper and hasty Their Short- words and unlovely actions, it is true. But are comings adult Christians free from these and all other Common to sins ? Are they never slothful or selfish or angry Christians ^j. worldly? If such things are not to be con- sidered sure proof of an unregenerate heart in the case of an adult, how can they be so considered in young people? Is it not true that these slight lapses are fewer and milder and shorter in the young than those of mature years? What did the apostle mean by saying to the Corinthians, "Yet in malice be ye babes?" Did he not recognize in this the brevity of an anger that does not go deep, and that soon gives place to the smiles of love? It is not hard to trace the stumbling of young people to obstacles that they are not MORNING-GLORY BLOSSOMS 163 fully familiar with, while the stumbling of older Christians occurs in spite of many sad experiences and multiplied warn- ings. Candidly, we find in the practical working of their religious life nothing that warrants us in making a special plea for them or placing them below the standards eetabhshed by their elders. VII. Natural Blossoms Our conclusion is that young people ought to be religious and can be religious and are religious ; that religion is native to youth; that the Creator wills that all, including young Religion "^^" ^"^ women, should be holy ; and that the Is Na- fairest blossoms in the flowering of adolescence tive to are those of religion. It is as natural for them Vouth ^Q l^g Christians as it is for the morning-glory to open its lovely blossoms in the dawn of the day. And these dainty flowers of finely varied hues, penciled as by an angel's hand, are no unreal symbols of early piety. In a large view of things, we can see something of the transformation which slowly operates to bring all things to the ideals of nature. What is natural, in the true sen«e, is God's design, and to this all things in the changing world are tending. All the phenomena of the spiritual life of the young indicate that the ideal of Christ's kingdom is early conversion, and that all souls are called of God as soon as they are created. In the ongoings and unfoldings of God's providence we may well expect to see, by and by, all our young people taught of God and rejoicing to bear the yoke of Christ in the beauty of their youth. Lesson Outline: I. The Coming of the Young. II. The Religiousness of Youth. III. Early Consecration. IV. Christian Young People. i64 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK V. Religious Endowments of Youth. VI. The Infirmities of Youthful Christians. VII. Natural Blossoms. Topics for Special Study: 1. The essential requirements of the religious life. 2. Which is superior, the adolescent or the adult type of piety? Topics for Class Discussion: 1. Can young people be happy in the Church? 2. Does Christianity give scope for the lively activities of youth? 3. What is your personal judgment of the piety of youth ? 4. What traits can you name in addition to those enumerated in the lesson? 5. How can a young child be a Christian? 6. Is it necessary to know just when we are converted? 7. Why are so few older persons converted? 8. Do young people stumble more than older Chris- tians ? 9. Why do people get harder and colder as they grow older ? CHAPTER XII HOW TO TEACH RELIGION TO SENIORS CHAPTER XII HOW TO TEACH RELIGION TO SENIORS I. Examining Ourselves In our study of the senior problem (Chapter X) we found the conditions dark, but hopeful. The light of this hope shines from two directions : the pupils and the teachers. The Im- ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ chapter we found a hopeful condition provement of the first magnitude in the religious nature of the of the adolescent. If he were irreligious there Teacher would be nothing for us to work upon, and there consequently would be no hope. But he is strongly religious, and our opportunity therefore is great. Then, there is the question of the teachers — ourselves : have we done our best, according to the best methods, to preserve the souls of our boys and girls unsullied and loyal through the dangerous straits of adolescence? The encouraging answer to this ques- tion is not yes, but no. For if we have done our best, there is nothing to hope for in any attempted improvement of our methods. And the correct answer is no: we have not exhausted the possibilities of scientific spiritual culture with our young people. It becomes another consideration of the first magnitude how we shall so work in the future as to succeed where we have failed in the past. II. The Shortcomings of the Past There is no straighter way to what we seek than via the consideration of our past shortcomings or failures or mis- takes, whatever they may be. They are not hard to find. The scientific study of youth is a new thing in the world. Man busied himself for many thousands of years before he turned his attention to this immensely important matter. Of 167 8 i68 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK the fruitful results of this study we have hitherto been de- prived, of course. All our work thus far has been done without the aid of this new science. We have been under The the unspeakable disadvantage of working upon Reason of souls that we did not understand, and as an Failure inevitable consequence our judgments have some- times been erroneous, our sympathies stifled, and, sometimes, our anger roused. The things that separate souls have acted in their invariable way and our pupils have been pushed out of our reach. Then we have failed to understand our own religion and its Founder. We have narrowed and sometimes embittered it in offering it to our youth. We have taken the bread of life from the hands of Jesus and have pounded and peppered it before handing it to those we loved best. Some day the why of this will be the wonder of the religious world. Again, we have given the eager minds and the out- stretched hands of our young people nothing to do in the Church. We seem to have expected them to grow up in spiritual health without spiritual exercise. We have made the Church a prison and shut them up in it. In recent years these conditions have begun to be improved, but in general they remain about as they have been through the centuries III. How to Improve Our Work The question before us now is, how to improve our work so as to win our pupils. A few major principles we may study: I. Establish confidence. The demand for absolute con> fidence between teacher and pupils is nowhere greater than here. We should believe in them: their nature and desires and possibilities ; and they should believe in us : Fellowship ^^ °"^ knowledge, our wisdom, and our sympathy. We should meet them on their own level. They are no longer children, and they feel older and wiser than they are. They are not disposed to look up, and we must be disposed to look down. It is now time for schoolmasterish airs to evaporate. They are usually offensive, anyway. The HOW TO TEACH RELIGION TO SENIORS 169 teacher may now be more of a companion to the pupil than a master. He should so absorb and assimilate this principle that it will color him through and through. Even his tones and accents and modulations will reveal him as a helper rather than as a driver. Every cheerful word and every bright glance will be his testimony to his pupils that he recognizes them as members of our Father's family, waiting and willing in the presence of the Bread of Life. Let it not be thought that this is a slight advantage. One of the best teachers that ever taught — Arnold, of Rugby — in his recent day, said this in a letter written after his ap- pointment : "My object will be, if possible, to form Christian men; for Christian boys I can scarcely hope to make. I mean that from the naturally imperfect state of boyhood they are not susceptible of Christian principles in their full development upon their practice, and I suspect that a low standard of morality in many respects must be tolerated amongst them, as it was on a larger scale in what I con- sider the boyhood of the race." Yet it should be said that this illustrious schoolmaster lived to change his views. This recognition of genuine spiritual values will make it easy for us to converse freely with our pupils, to become intimately acquainted with them, and to be promoted by them to the high place of a friend. Thus the teacher's influence will be extended beyond Sunday. The pupil will have a teacher and a friend every day in the week. Let us hear Bishop Vincent on this : "The sharp line drawn between educational processes and ordinary every-day life is most un- fortunate. The limiting of intellectual activity and its best fruits to institutions and libraries and formal curricula and class drills leaves out the larger field of opportunity, worth as much as these, and without which these lose a large share of their value. It is like that other perversion which limits religion to the Church." Only through such channels of intimacy does the warm stream of religious influence flow from teacher to pupil. ? 170 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 2. Avoid the use of force. It is of no use in this grade. Anything like an attempt at coercion is usually fatal. One of the first traits of the adolescent we have learned to be independence. He may overwork this, but Abjure Q^^ g^y^ -^^ ^.q ^[^^ Whatever force may have Authority done in earlier years, it can do nothing but mis- chief now. It is true that human nature lusts for power, and that most oi us know what it is to long to lord it over somebody. But this is one of the things the Christian has subdued and crucified, for it can not stay where Christ is. In order to teach a young man you must get him to your side, and a club is not a good invitation. A long time ago a student went to his pastor with a question upon a scientific point which he thought to be in conflict with the Bible. Instead of a kindly explanation, he received this answer : "You need to have a piece of tan- bark broken over your head." It is not surprising that this minister was not asked again to instruct this inquisitive young mind, nor that the young man concluded at once that the minister did not really believe in the truth of the Bible himself. He went on through the university, and then settled down in the same city where he was a Church member when he sought his pastor's help. But he turned away from the Church, of course, and he used his influence- against the Church. Further, he opposed Christian ministers and held them up to derision. He devoted years to leading young men into infidelity in the same town where he received that insulting blow. We may blame him, but can we wonder at him? There is an authority to which all, young and old, are subject. But it is not in our hands, nor in anybody's hands. When Peter got the keys of the kingdom, he received no authority to turn them over to anybody else. We believe in the universal priesthood of believers, by which every soul may go directly to God, and with this goes the "freedom for which Christ set us free." We call no man master, for HOW TO TEACH RELIGION TO SENIORS 171 One is our Master, even Christ. All authority over souls belongs to Him, in spite of the pretensions of Churches and popes and priests and all others. Therefore this authority- lies within His truth. It is an internal authority which compels by moral force. In the words of Dr. W. L. Hervey : "Let us here distinguish between two things radically dif- ferent. For there is an authority that works from without and there is an authority that works from within; and the working of these is vitally different, each from the other. External authority says, 'You must believe because I say so, or because the Book says so.' Its attitude is one of com- pulsion from without. The voice of authority that speaks from within says, T must believe because I can not do other- wise — because this is the truth, and I know it.' External authority says. This is true because it is the Bible.' Internal authority says. This is the Bible because it is true.'" If the teacher abjures all divine prerogatives himself and brings the power of the truth to bear upon his pupils, he will see what real authority is. He will realize that he possesses no coercive power, and that he needs none. 3. Avoid dogmatism. There is a new birth of intellect within the adolescent, and he delights to try everything by intellectual processes. He will be glad to learn our system Trust in the °^ t^^th. because all truth fascinates him. But Inherent we must do more than call our religion true: Power we must treat it like truth and show it to be of Truth truth. It is said of Martin Luther that he once hurled a dogma at his congregation with the words, "I shall prove this doctrine so unanswerably that any one of you who does not believe it will be damned." The entire "believe- or-be-damned" system is discredited, as it ought to be. Its natural expression is the torture of the Inquisition, not the beautiful beatitudes of the Master. It is as needless as is force. To show the truth is sufficient. It does not have to be pounded into an eager mind with a club, and when the club is brought out that same mind quickly infers that 172 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK what Is offered is not the truth. With dogmatism goes the dogmatic style. This is not helpful to the teacher of young people. It may be questioned whether it has any value any- where nowadays. The "bow-wow" style of teaching has given place to something quieter and more courteous and more convincing among intelligent people. 4. Avoid gush and cant. These are subtle foes which may influence us though we are unaware of them. Young people are peculiarly susceptible to frankness. They respond gg readily to the candid approach. It is a specifica- Absolutely tion of their endowment of transparent sincerity. Honest and There is a lying element in gush and cant that Sincere outrages their sense of honesty. Their warmth of heart may impel them to social exchanges that perhaps sound to us like gush, but religious gush is a totally dif- ferent thing. Simpering saints and tearful teachers do not get on well with matter-of-fact youth. A prominent evan- gelist has a posed picture in a Church paper, with a sermon which contains this: "If all the mathematicians of the past agreed that two times two always make four, and I found where the Savior said they made five, I would say in my heart that some day it would be found that Jesus was right." The average young man would say in his heart that this evangelist does not know what truth is. The cant that is really responsible for a good deal of the ridicule that young folks indulge in at the expense of the Bible and the Church is illustrated in the story of the boy who read in his Testament that Peter went up on the housetop to pray. This boy was familiar with steep roofs, and no others. So he went to his teacher v/ith a skeptical question of how Peter could climb up a steep roof or why he would sit astride the ridgepole to say his prayers. The teacher sternly said, "You should not cavil at the Holy Scrip- tures." He went to the superintendent with the matter, and that worthy brother, who also was unfamiliar with Oriental house-roofs, said : "You did not answer him right. You 3 HOW TO TEACH RELIGION TO SENIORS 173 should have told him that with men this would indeed be impossible, but with God all things are possible." It is never safe to pretend to understand the Bible when we do not, nor to demand belief without an intelligent basis for belief; nor to take refuge from an inquiring mind in pious platitudes or any other insincerity. You can not make a healthy young rflind believe that "the harder a text is to beheve the more merit there is in believing it," or that "faith is beHeving something that you know is not so." IV. Some Fundamental Matters 1, Religion and truth. One of the first things for us to do is to establish the proposition tkat our religion is true and that it fears no truth in any domain. It is true in the ordinary sense of truth. There is no special °"^ kind of truth for religious uses. What we ask is^True" °^^ young people to believe is really so, just as the mathematics and physics that they learn in school are really so. There is no merit in calling a false thing or a false man true because he or it belongs to the Church. There is no bridge of sighs leading to the portals of the Church inscribed, "Abandon truth, all ye who enter here." Rather let the young man see that He who says, "I am the Door" declares also, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." 2. Religion and character. No summing up of religion that excludes character, or allows character in any way to be excluded, will prove valuable with young people. No real necessity ever arises or can arise for disparaging to°be Valued righteousness or morality (which is the same thing). No Christian profession or ecclesiastical honors can exempt any man from the operation of the moral law. "Salvation by faith" does not imply the dis- regard of goodness in men, and no man need feel any fear of getting into bad company in heaven. This topic and the following will receive additional atten- tion later. 3 174 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 3. The one consecration. This is to the service of men. It is comprehensive, being the reflection of that of the Master. It is this that is saving the world, and it is this that is saving those who are doing it. Why do Service^ ^° many Christians backslide? Because they do not work for God. Salvation is not by any means a momentary thing. Forgiveness of sin is not salva- tion, any more than birth is the whole lifetime. Our salva- tion is something that must be worked out through years of faithful service. The doctrine, "Once in grace, always in grace," is abhorrent. Never allow the young to believe that the divine forgiveness of their sins is a fire insurance for their souls. They should be taught the reality and the neces- sity of the religious life, and inspired to live it. 4. The one truth. In studying the teachings of Jesus Christ, we find that they circle around one great, compre- hensive truth — that God is our Father. All other truths of theology live by this and are in harmony with Our Father ^^* ^^"' forgiveness, punishment, suffering, sanc- tification, providence, prayer, eternal life, and all the rest are to be interpreted in the light of the Fatherhood of God. In our work with seniors we should declare this, and return to it, and illuminate it, and explain by it. It meets the highest and most mysterious longings of youth. It is precisely the food that his soul most hungers for. The first great aim of the teacher should be to win the pupils to God, if they have not already given their hearts to Him. It will be easy to do this if he declares Christ's gospel of a living and loving Father, waiting to be gracious and longing for His straying children to return to Him. A thoughtful girl of sixteen years, living in the country at a distance from the church, which made her attendance irreg- ular, read one Sunday the memoir of a Christian woman. On closing the volume she said, "That was a beautiful life." And after a little thought, she added, "And I should like to live such a life." A few minutes later she kneeled down and HOW TO TEACH RELIGION TO SENIORS 175 said, "Lord, I will try from this time." The decision was made. She went on steadily, and is now a useful and influ- ential Christian woman, honored and beloved, and widely known for her beautiful and devoted character. This inci- dent, related by Dr. Hallock, shows how near God is and how easily the young may find Him. But conversion is not the only aim. The new-born Chris- tian life must be nourished and directed. The teacher's ceaseless work is right here. The teaching of religion is essential to the spiritual growth of our pupils. 5. The dual principle. Certain of our great teachers, such as Bushnell and Gladden and King, have told us that the Christian faith is well summed up in a single word, "Friendship," which they interpret as love to God "^^^ and love to man. Dr. Trumbull calls friendship of^Frlwidship "^^^ master passion," and love is its vital prin- ciple. Jesus tells us that love to God and to man are the two great commandments upon which all the law and the prophets hang. Dr. King says : "The New Testament everywhere conceives the relation in which the disciple stands to God as an individual, intimate, constant, and unobtrusive personal relation of the Spirit of God to man's spirit. Others figures of speech are used in setting forth this relation; but the dominant conception throughout the New Testament is personal. We have a clear right, therefore, to affirm that from the point of view of Christ's own teaching and of the New Testament generally, the Chris- tian life is to be conceived as a personal relation of friendship, with God on the one hand and our fellow-men on the other. When, then, you are trying to bring your pupils into the Christian life, you are seeking to introduce them into a life even so simple as this. You are only trying to persuade them to be good friends of the Heavenly Father, true brothers one of another." The greatest of the Hebrew patriarchs was called "the friend of God." Jesus said to His disciples, "I have called 176 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK you friends." In the clear light of this familiar human rela- tion the teacher may effectually display at once the simplicity and the depth of the religion of Jesus Christ to his pupils. He may exhibit the Almighty to them as One interested in all their pleasures, attentive to all their needs, patient with their ignorance, tender in his treatment of their doubts, com- forting them in their troubles, inspiring them with holy ideals and guiding them ever in their pursuit. He stands revealed in Jesus Christ, from whose hand they may take the bread of life, and who will reveal to them continually new wonders of the Divine friendship. Lesson Outline: I. Examining Ourselves. II. The Shortcomings of the Past. TIL How TO Improve Our Work. IV. Some Fundamental Matters. Topics for Special Study: 1. Religion as a subject for instruction. 2. The problem of authority. Topics for Class Discussion: 1. Have we always taught religion in the best way? 2. The value of the new knowledge of childhood and youth. 3. The basis of confidential relations between teacher and pupil. 4. The use of authority in teaching. 5. What is there wrong in the dogmatic style of teach- ing? 6. The mischief of cant. 7. Is there any truth that the youth needs to be warned against? 8. The need of emphasis upon morality. 9. Growth through service. 10. The fundamental truth of the Fatherhood of God. II. Religion in the light of friendship. 8 CHAPTER XIII THE TEACHINCx OF MORALS AND MANNERS 12 CHAPTER XIII THE TEACHING OF MORALS AND MANNERS I. The Same Subject Continued The title of this chapter does not displace religion. If "conduct is three-fourths of life," religion must either em- brace conduct or be shut out of the most of life. Where The ^^^ °"^ draw the line between morals and re- Relation ligion? For our purposes the two are one. The Between teacher aims at both in his work, and often Religion teaches both with the same word. Nor can morals be sharply separated from manners. Re- ligion as we understand it is so broad as to include the moral and social life, with all their normal expression. There are other conceptions of religion. There is the ritualistic, for instance. Among the Jews the rabbis taught that at the close of the Feast of Tabernacles a procession, led by the priests, should move from the Pool of Siloam to the Temple, and there pour water from the Pool upon the altar. It was a long dispute between the schools whether the water should be poured in a funnel at the top of the altar or at the base. One high priest ventured to pour it in at the base, and had by this act brought on a riot in which six thousand people perished. If this is religion, morals are certainly another thing. There are certain emphases that alter the real content of religion. Dr. Dillon Bronson writes: "I wish we realized that death is not to be eternally preached about. At revivals and camp-meetings we hear quite too much of it. What is the use? Let the dead rest. Phillips Brooks used to say, 'We have no more to do with dying than being born.' Living 179 s i8o THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK is the great responsibility. Death is only an incident, and there are multitudes of heathen who do not fear to die. During the war with Russia thousands of aged Japanese wept immoderately because they were not allowed to shed their blood for Nippon. I am sure that thousands of Chinese would commit suicide for $5 each. This is timely. If we live well we shall die well. The religion that makes a man's life a success may be trusted with his death without a word. The Master looked at it in this way. He was always preach- ing the rehgion of a pure life and of good deeds. Religion with Him was neither a ritual nor a prospect of death. He said, "If ye love Me keep My commandments," which de- notes a religion of moral activities. Then, we should give morals due attention because the overwhelming problems of our day are moral problems. Not long ago President David Starr Jordan declared that "the energy of one-third of the young men of this country is wasted and the benefit they might be to the nation is lost because of their habits. I am perfectly sincere," said he, "and do not believe that my statement is in any danger of being contradicted when I say that, roughly approximated, one- third of the young men of this country are wasting them- selves through intemperate habits and the accompanying vices. They are not only rendering themselves valueless during their life, but they are shortening that life." This is but a single reference to the most serious problem that the Sunday-school teacher has to solve. II. The Moral Life Morals and manners are the blossoms and the fruitage of the tree of religion. That is, religion is the vital principle which, like the sap of the tree, exists not for itself, but to grow the foliage and the fruits of character. Religion is naught without consecration, and this impels to the moral life. Without consecration there is only selfishness, which is stark immorality. Ruskin describes these two lives thus : TEACHING OF MORALS AND MANNERS i8i "Men's proper business in this world falls properly into three divisions : First, to know themselves and the existing state Religion °^ things they have to do with. Secondly, to be Bears Fruit happy in themselves and the existing state of in Moral things. Thirdly, to mend themselves and the Character existing state of things, as far as either is marred cr mendable. These, I say, are the three plain divisions of proper human business on this earth. For these three the fol- lowing are usually substituted and adopted by human crea- tures : First, to be ignorant of themselves and the existing state of things. Secondly, to be miserable in themselves and in the existing state of things. Thirdly, to let themselves and the existing state of things alone (at least in the way of correction)." It is highly erroneous and dangerous to slur morality in any interest. "Mere morality" is one of those mischievous expressions which mistaken men have used to exalt religion. This is always unnecessary. Some one said : "Mere morality ! You might as well say, mere God." Morality is righteous- ness ; it is purity, holiness, activity, consecration. It is good- ness, for it is the keeping of God's commandments. It makes character — the character that renders us fit for heaven. So far from being a rival of religion, it is religion's nearest kin, so near as to be a part of herself. It is the evidence, the flowering, the beauty of religion. There can be no char- acter without the moral life; which is only saying that a man must be good to have goodness. It is a relic of pagan theology that a sinner's repentance and faith can avail to blot out the past and change facts and memories and furnish him instantaneously with a complete outfit of the moral virtues. The divine forgiveness never promises that. The virtues grow out of the personal will, exercised through a long series of human experiences. He only is moral who chooses the right in the conflict with wrong, religion aiding him by pouring upon his fire the oil of the grace of God. 3 i82 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK III. Manners We talk of kindliness, of courtesy, of the personal charm, and call this rare quality manners, or something else; but as has been intimated, it is not to be strongly distinguished ^j^g from morals. The gentleman is the opposite of Christian the rascal, yet he is named from gentleness, which is God's is a manners' word. We all admire manners Gentleman ^^^ yield to their charm. Emerson says that "a beautiful form is better than a beautiful face; a beautiful behavior is better than a beautiful form; it gives higher pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts. A man is but a little thing in the midst of the objects of nature ; yet, by the moral quality radiating from his counte- nance, he may abolish all considerations of magnitude, and in his manners equal the majesty of the world." Literature is full of this charm: without it there could scarcely be any literature except the mechanical and the prosy. Recall Hawthorne's "Phoebe." She was like a ray of sun- light in the forlorn lives of Clifford and Hepzibah. She came where she was not wanted, was told to go away, but stayed because she was indispensable. She transfigured the lives of the two old sufferers and fascinated everybody. "She shocked no canon of taste ; she was admirably in keeping with herself, and never jarred against surrounding circumstances. There was both luster and depth in her eyes. She was very pretty, as graceful as a bird, and graceful in much the same way; as pleasant about the house as a gleam of sunshine falling on the floor through a shadow of twinkling leaves, or as a ray of firelight that dances on the wall while evening is drawing near." "Now Phoebe's presence made a home about her — that very sphere which the outcast, the prisoner, the potentate — the wretch beneath mankind, the wretch aside from it, or the wretch above it — instinctively pines after — a home! She was real ! Holding her hand, you felt something; a tender something ; a substance, and a warm one ; and so long as you feel its grasp, soft as it was, you might be 3 TEACHING OF MORALS AND MANNERS 183 certain that your place was good in the whole sympathetic chain of human nature. The world was no longer a delu- sion." Hawthorne here makes "manners" not only religious, but evangelistic and sacramental. Phoebe is an ideal imper- sonation of the Christlike soul. IV. Can These Things Be Taught? There are those who regard good morals and winsome manners as a rare personal endowment, but no more to be had by any other means than complexion or stature. But the germs of these qualities exist in all. They are a part of the universal endowment, and the right kind of culture will enable them to develop. The right kind is not the violent kind, of course. Bud, four years old, and his older sister, Ethel, were play- ing together. When a plaything was needed, Ethel said, "Bud, you go down-stairs and get it." The young man hesi- tated and looked as if he were thinking, "You might have said please." "But Bud, you must. I am the mother, and I am the oldest." The little chap straightened himself up, stamped his small foot, and said, "Well, Ethel, if I must, / won't." This principle of our common nature the teacher of morals will never lose sight of. More can be done here by indirection than by direct and avowed methods. We might say to a lively group of seniors, "Come here and we will teach you to behave yourselves," but can we imagine them coming on such a call? As to the possi- bilities, in general, of overcoming the disadvantages of birth and early neglect by appealing to this latent goodness, we may notice the successful work being done in settlements and mis- sions everywhere. An instance would be a report of the free kindergarten of San Francisco, where, of nine thousand chil- dren taken from the criminal and poverty-stricken quarters of the city and cared for by the Golden Gate Association, "but one was found to have been arrested, after careful inquiry and years of watchfulness over police court, prison, 3 i84 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK and house of refuge records." We are not to expect as much plasticity in seniors as they found in httle children, but neither are we expecting to begin this work with the seniors. What we are to note is, that the senior is still in the plastic stage, and hence a proper subject of cur skill. I. Use the Bible. This is common, but not common- place. The Bible is the great text-book of morals and man- ners, apart from all considerations of its origin and religious uses. Its precepts shine down the ages with the Value of steady light of stars. They have not been dis- to the End ttirbed a jot in the midst of the ongoings of all things else. They are pure, lofty, serene, and compelling. The men and women of the Bible are unique as teaching subjects because of their clearness, their repre- sentative characters, and the moral coloring of their por- traiture. The songs and exhortations and prayers of the Bible are precious for the building and refinement of per- sonal character. Charles A. Dana, the distinguished editor of the New York Sun, was addressing the students of Union College a few years ago on the profession of journalism. He said : "Al- most all books are useful, a few are indispensable; of all these the Bible is the most useful, the most effective, the most indispensable. And I am considering it now, not as a religious Book, but as a manual of utility or professional preparation and professional use for a journalist." At an- other time he was asked what single book he would recom- mend for study to a young man who was just starting out ki a business life. He answered that he knew of no single book as good for such use as the Book of Proverbs. There are some people left who do not like the idea of using the Bible as a text-book: it is too high and holy for this, and should not be handled as familiarly as this use implies. It should not be kept on the shelf with other books. It should be read on Sundays and religious occasions, and in a holy tone. It should be expounded by the clergy, ac- TEACHING OF MORALS AND MANNERS 185 cording to rules of interpretation made exclusively for itself, "This mode of isolation," says Dr. W. L. Hervey, "has borne its proper fruit. Led or forced to simulate emotions they had not time to come by honestly, the children brought up on that theory developed an attitude toward the Bible which was partly aversion, partly apathy, and which was wholly unreal. I know of one girl reared in a Christian home who did not lack intelligence in other lines, who reached the ripe age of thirteen before she realized that the doings re- corded in the Bible occurred on this earth, she having all along thought that they had transpired in heaven." What we lose in thus isolating the sacred Scriptures may be inferred from this, by G. Stanley Hall: "It does seem to me that the Bible, certainly the most consummate text- book in psychology that the world has ever seen, not only knows and touches the human heart at more points than any other, but that the order of the books, in the main, is the most pedagogic." 2. Study the disposition and the teachings of Jesus. His was the indescribable, the matchless charm that once for all glorified humanity. It would be easy to imagine the principal trait of the King of kings as majesty The Moral qj. gplendor ; but it was neither of these. It was Jesus ^ ° ^ purely moral trait, a personal charm that won all beholders and melted all hearts. This made it possible for men to know that gentleness is stronger than strength, and that mercy "becomes the throned monarch better than his crown." Shakespeare's poetry is the Master's prose. It is an elementary part of the divine revelation. His prin- ciple was the bringing of the life of God into human hearts. This worked out in all religious exercises and in those moral virtues and charms of disposition which are their normal expression. Jesus made so much of "good works" that they seem to fill His whole thought. He constantly interpreted religion in terms of character and good deeds. "This do and thou i86 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK shalt live," He said to the lawyer. He told us that when He should come again in the glory of His Father with His angels He would "render unto every man according to his deeds." "Depart, ye cursed, into the eternal fire," will be said to those who have failed to act as Christians should, while those who will hear the "Come, ye blessed of My Father," will be those who have done the deeds that He taught by precept and example. The immortal Beatitudes are but specifications of the things that delight and win and control in human souls. The "white robes" that characterize the saved, in Revelation, are "the righteous acts of the saints," which is according to the Master. Here also we read that books are opened at the judgment, and that we are to be "judged out of the things which are written in the books," according to our works. The white robes are "washed in the blood of the Lamb," but the washing is done by the saints themselves : "Blessed are they that wash their robes, that they may have the right to come to the tree of life." 3. Biographical examples. Here is a field so rich, so interesting, and so effective that we do not know how to do it justice in a paragraph. But fortunately we have all been familiar with the stories of men and women. Other Lines great and small, good and bad, high and low, and Power Selfish and devoted. The Bible characters, as well as the great commanding figures of history, we have known intimately from childhood, and we have carried their influence with us. An interesting experiment in this method was once tried in a school in New York which was composed of about a hundred boys, most of whom had been expelled from Sun- day-schools as incorrigible. A friend of the teacher had offered prizes for those boys who could report a certain number of good or kind or noble deeds which they had themselves witnessed or heard or read about, either at the present time or in past history. The object was, first, to see 3 TEACHING OF MORALS AND MANNERS 187 what constituted a truly brave and noble action in the minds of the boys, and, second, to "train them not to find it in warlike or showy deeds, but in acts of loving self-sacrifice often never known or recognized, in little ways of kindness or self-denial." The Century Magazine, which told the story, reported the success of the method to be extraordinary. The teacher said, *T gained a valuable knowledge of boy life and boys' needs that I never dreamed of before." When the time for the reading of these records came the interest was intense. To the surprise of the teacher the first prize, a good watch, fell to a boy who the previous year was taken by the sexton by the scruff of the neck — a ragged, barefooted boy — and landed off the church grounds, and told never to come back. It was found that the collection and narration of these deeds had aroused into activity the better nature of the boys, as v/as made evident by tkeir quaint moral reflections and exhorta- tions interspersed and appended. 4. The use of ideals. In these ways there will grow up in the mind of the pupil a number of moral ideals : honesty, purity, sympathy, generosity, tenderness, usefulness, and the rest. The skillful teacher may place these, and foster and en- rich them, and see to it that they have their normal exercise upon the growing soul. These operate upon the intellect, but most upon the feelings, and the feelings are basal in charac- ter building. Dr. W. H. Payne says : "At least the half, and perhaps the better half, of education consists in the formation of right feelings. He who teaches us to look out upon the world through eyes of affection, sympathy, charity, and good will has done more for us and for society than he who may have taught us the seven arts." Thomas Davidson defines education, in the widest sense, "as the upbuilding of a world in feeling or in consciousness," 5. The teacher himself. We are quite familiar with the maxim that the teacher teaches mostly by what he is, whether he will or no. This is often referred to as a respon- sibility and a burden, but it is also a privilege and a joy. i88 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK Daniel Webster said that he could answer the arguments of all the theologians he had ever known, but he could not an- swer the argument of the Christian living of an The Influence , , , <• i • • ^i -nt tt i • i -n of Godliness ^^^" *-* ^P ^^ New Hampshire hills. The saintly Fenelon had an atheist as a guest, to whom he addressed no word of solicitation ; but when the guest went away he said, "If I stay here much longer I shall become a Christian in spite of myself." Dr. Chalmers de- clared that "there is an energy of moral suasion in a good man's life surpassing the highest efforts of the orator's genius. The seen beauty of holiness speaks more eloquently of God and duty than the tongues of men and of angels." Thomas C. Clark tells of a bar of steel, eight feet l«ng and weighing five hundred pounds, in a certain gun factory, which was suspended vertically by a delicate chain. Near by it was a common cork, suspended by a silk thread. It was done to show that the cork could set the heavy bar in motion. This seemed impossible. The cork was swung gently against the bar, but it remained motionless. But the swinging was kept up for ten minutes, and lo, at the end of that time the bar gave evidence of being uncomfortable; a sort of nervous chill ran over it. Ten minutes later, and the chill was followed by a vibration. At the end of half an hour the great bar was swinging like the pendulum of a clock. The teacher has a point of vantage with the pupil, by vir- tue of his nearness to him. However hard and refractory the latter's nature may seem, it can not resist very long the gentle influences that fall upon him from a loving soul. The larg- est and brightest and strongest lesson in morals and manners is the teacher himself. Lesson Outline: I. The Same Subject Continued. II. The Moral Life. III. Manners. TEACHING OF MORALS AND MANNERS 189 IV. Can These Things be Taught? 1. Use the Bible. 2. Study the Master. 3. Biographical examples. 4. The use of ideals. 5. The teacher himself. Topics for Special Study: 1. The Bible as an ethical text-book. 2. The power of ideals in moral education. Topics for Class Discussion: 1. What is the difference between religion and morals? 2. What is the evil of separating morals and religion? 3. What place has morals in the Word of God? 4. Is personal charm for everybody? 5. What use is to be made of ideals? 6. What of the teacher's example? • CHAPTER XIV THE SOCIAL INSTINCTS AND THEIR TRAINING CHAPTER XIV THE SOCIAL INSTINCTS AND THEIR TRAINING I. The Filial Sense The heart of Christian piety is the filial sense. There are many conceptions and definitions of the Christian life, with many varied appeals and testimonies. There is often a sad confusion upon a great question which should be made clear The Sense ^^ ^^^ outset. The youth is urged to "give your of Sonship heart to God," to "seek salvation," to "come to the Heart of Jesus," to "get Under the blood," to "venture out the Christian ^^ ^^^ promises," to "cling to the Cross," to "take hold of Christ by faith," and to do many other things. Of course all these figures of speech have ref- erence to the same act, but they are often cloudy and confus- ing metaphors to the youth inexperienced in spiritual things. After he has received conscious pardon from God he is trou- bled at times to know just where the center of his spiritual life is, and what he should cherish as the fundamental and unchangeable thing in it. This may be described as the sense of sonship with God. To be a Christian is to be consciously a child of God. It is for this that the soul is regenerated, and to this the Spirit bears the inward witness. Our Lord used this as the highest inducement for His disciples to do the hard things of the Christian life, such as loving their enemies. He urged this, "that ye may be sons of your Father who is in heaven." He urged perfection upon them and us for the same reason. II. The Fraternal Sense But to be a son of God is to be a brother of all His other children. We can not have God for our Father and disown 13 193 3 194 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK the rest of the family. The moment we come into the new relation with the Father we come into a new relation with men. This is fundamental and characteristic Christianity. To be a Son ^^ Christians have been slow to accept this it by of God is to no means discredits its truth. If they have be a Brother placed most of the emphasis upon their own of Men "adoption and assurance," it does not undo the bonds that Jesus Christ took infinite pains to secure. The brotherhood of man goes with the Fatherhood of God. A story is told of a tramp who asked food of a good deacon one Sunday morning. "Yes," said the deacon, "I will give you something to eat, if you will offer a prayer." "But I do n't know how to pray," said the tramp. "Well," said the deacon, 'T will teach you. Just repeat after me," and he began the Lord's Prayer, in the first words of which the tramp meekly followed him. But he interrupted with the question, "Whose Father is that?" "Why — I suppose — of all of us," said the deacon. "Yours and mine, too?" asked the aroused tramp. "Why — yes — I suppose so," said the deacon. "Well, then," said the tramp, "if that is so, don't you think for the sake of the family that you could cut that slice of bread a little thicker?" This is bed-rock Christian theology. There is nothing deeper than this. Whatever else may be modified in the changes of time, the brotherhood of man will survive as long as Christianity lives and remembers Christ. III. The Social Sense Here we find the prevailing response of the adolescent na- ture to Christian appeals. The saving faith that the youth exercises finds its expression in fraternal and The Social social modes. The social is only a phase of the of Religion fraternal. The relation of brotherhood is the soil from which friendship grows, and which se- cures its identity and its persistence. Adults are often solicitous about the reality of the religion SOCIAL INSTINCTS AND THEIR TRAINING 195 of youth because it does not express itself like that of older people. Young people are not mournful very long at a time, even for their sins. They do not sigh and groan over their wickedness to any great extent, and they do not shout in ecstasy when God forgives them. They do not interpret their Christian experience either in terms of deep despondency or of high exultation. They are not likely to weep in telling their experience, nor to be very fierce in talk- ing about sin, and inviting sinners to Christ. A large volume of the hymnology of the prayer-meeting is unreal to them, and they do not choose it. They will sing "I want to be an angel," when they are children, because we ask them to do so, but when they are older they do not care to voice such an untruth even in song. Neither do they like to sing, "Can my God His wrath forbear, Me, the chief of sinners, spare?" for the same good reason. They are also disinclined to sing about old age, and infirmities, and afflictions, and death. They are not introspective, and do not dwell upon the rising and falling tides of their own feelings. No wonder that the older people, who have forgotten how it feels to be young and re- gard all people as of one type, fail to recognize religion as it expresses itself in young Christians. But it is there, in its very essence, if it holds the funda- mentals. If the youth loves God with all his heart, and his neighbor as himself, he is a Christian according to Christ. If he knows that God is his Father, and counts his fellow-men as brothers, he is a genuine believer. It may not be his fault if he is not understood. Perhaps the hymn-book ought to be made to fit him, rather than that he should be trimmed to fit the hymn-book. Why is it that there are so many hymns of the self-life and so few of the brother-life? Why do hymns of sentiment abound and hymns of consecration remain scarce? Why do they sing so much of personal joy and so 196 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK little of service? Is it any wonder that the good old hymn, "A Charge to Keep I Have," repels young people by its first verse? They are temperamentally unable to comprehend it as the highest religious aspiration to save their own soul, and to "fit it for the sky." Bishop Janes had the same difficulty, and he changed one word, and sang it : "A charge to keep I have, A God to glorify, A never-dying world to save, And fit it for the sky." This changes the whole horizon, and makes religion a dedica- tion of self to the world's salvation, rather than a selfish ab- sorption in one's own soul's interests. Young people do not live alone, and they do not care to be saved alone. And they have a healthy trust in their Heavenly Father which keeps them from fear of death and hell while they are active in the service of their Elder Brother. IV. The Social Awakening One of the most characteristic and interesting phenomena of adolescence is the awakening, or at least the amplification, of the social instincts. We have met this before, and now recur to it in the study of the religious culture The Youth's q£ yQ^j^g people. In the later teens the youth o/Humanity ^^^^1''^ to realize as never before that he is in a world of people, and this not as a pebble on the beach but as a related person. The world is not a hetero- geneous mass, but a society whose members are "one of an- other." The adolescent thus finds himself; for this new con- ception of humanity transfigures him. It makes a prodigious difference to him if he is no longer an isolated unit but a member of society, linked in with the rest. When he comes to realize this more and more by constant observation and study, he feels himself enlarging to fit the dimensions of his conception. Sometimes he can see himself 3 SOCIAL INSTINCTS AND THEIR TRAINING 197 growing from one day to another. He is almost bewildered by the suddenness of the transition. His juvenility is falling from him like a garment. His old notions are shrinking, and fading, and drifting into the past like fleecy clouds. His standpoint is so changed that an entire new outfit of ideals must be set up. He rises so high and so swiftly that the en- larging panorama of life exhilarates him — and he sees men and women everywhere. His horoscope is no longer cast upon his exclusive personality, for he sees clearly now that his future will be but a function of the lives of all he meets with or knows about. He will stand by his own loom, but others will throw in their shuttles from time to time, and the web will contain hues that will not be of his own weaving. A sun has arisen upon his horizon, and in its golden light his fellow- men stand newly revealed to him. Henceforth he must know them, and walk with them, and love and serve them. The youth has discovered humanity. V. The Social Age of Man Another item of importance to us here is the social awak- ening of humanity itself. If "the recapitulation theory" is true, and the growing human being reproduces in his life all the stages of growth through which the race has The Social passed, it may be true that there is another reflec- of^Humanity ^^°^ ^^ which the race may be read in the light of the individual. According to this the race would now be adolescent, because it is manifesting many of the peculiarities of youth. However this may be, it is certain that there is a social awakening taking place more marked, and more momentous, than the race has ever known. Professor Francis G. Peabody states that "the most char- acteristic and significant discovery of the present age is the discovery of the social conscience." And again, "There is not only given to our age a mission, but there is added a distinct consciousness of that mission. We do not have to wait for the philosophical historian of some remote future to discern 198 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK the characteristic problem of the present time. Behind the extraordinary achievements of modern civilization, its trans- formations of business methods, its miracles of scientific dis- covery, its mighty combinations of political forces, there lies at the heart of the present time a burdening sense of social mal-adjustment which creates what we call the social ques- tion. This is what gives its fundamental character to the present age." In many varied, and often unreasonable and extravagant, ways the characteristic emotion of the time ex- presses itself. It is the age of the social question. Never were so many people, learned and ignorant, rich and poor, philosophers and agitators, men and women, so stirred by this recognition of inequality in social opportunity by the call to social service, by dreams of a better social world. We have seen why we should not expect to find in our youth the religious reactions that are manifested by mature men and women in camp meetings and other "protracted meetings;" also, why we should expect to find their religion a normal expression of their newly evolved social nature. The marvelous social atmosphere of our time adds to this. The young, with their wide-open senses and their quick sensibili- ties, discern the signs of our times, and respond to them. The social promptings of their own hearts are congenial to the life of men. The youth is at home in the young world. VI. Our Social Christianity The more we study the religion of Jesus Christ the plainer its social character becomes. To one who has accustomed himself to regard Christianity as simply a remedial system, the conception of it as a social organization Gospel ^^^^^ constructive aims is startling, and often irri- tating. Yet this is certainly the true conception. Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom of heaven. He aimed at a reconstructed society, a world renewed in right- eousness. He has salvation for the individual sinner, but His main reliance is upon a state of things in society that will 3 SOCIAL INSTINCTS AND THEIR TRAINING 199 prevent sin and obviate the necessity of sinners. He preached a social gospel, and His disciples were social workers. Phil- lips Brooks says: ''Jesus begins with the individual. His first and deepest touches are upon the single soul. In the individual experience man's life always begins. But there are some things of the individual life which the individual can not get save in the company of fellow-men. There are some parts of his own true life always in his brethren's keep- ing, for which he must go to them. That the individual may find and be his own truest and fullest self, Jesus, his Master, leads him to his fellows." The same great teacher contrasts Christianity with pagan- ism by this striking trope : "In one of the most rich and beau- tiful of European galleries hangs Raphael's greatest Madonna, called the Madonna of St. Sixtus. Among the dreary sands at the edge of the Egyptian desert, under the shadow of the pyramids, stands the mighty sphinx, the work of unknown hands, so calm and so eternal in its solitude that it is hard to think of it as the work of human hands at all; as true a part of the great earth, it seems, as any mountain that pierces upward from its bosom. These two suggest comparisons that are certainly not fancies. They are the two great expressions in art of the two religions — the religion of the East and of the West. Fatalism and Providence they seem to mean. Both have tried to express a union of humanity with something which is its superior; but one has joined it only to the supe- rior strength of the animal, while the other has filled it with the superior spirituality of a divine nature. One unites wis- dom and power, and claims man's homage for that conjunc- tion. The other combines wisdom and love, and says, 'Wor- ship this.' The sphinx has life in its human face written into a riddle, a puzzle, a mocking bewilderment. The Virgin's face is full of a mystery we can not fathom, but it unfolds to us a thousand of the mysteries of life. It does not mock, but blesses us. The sphinx oppresses us with colossal size. The Virgin is not a distortion or an exaggeration, but a glori- 200 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK fication of humanity. The Egyptian monster is alone amid its sands, to be worshiped, not loved. The Christian woman has her child clasped in her arms, enters into the societies and sympathies of men, and claims no worship but love. It is in this last difference — the difference between the solitude of one and the companionship of the other — that we feel, I think, most distinctly how different is the Christianity of the picture from the sublime paganism of the statue." VII. Our Social Ethics The virtues unite people : the vices all tend to divide them. The virtues are social : the vices are dissocial. Virtue is con- structive: vice is destructive. Society, then, must cultivate Virtue Serves ^^^ virtues in order to live at all; and it must Society in a fight the vices for its life. The virtues need no Constructive defense, nor any argument beyond this prime fact ^^y of their operation. There is power in this basal contrast to win the devotion of young people to the virtues. There was once a young man just about to graduate from college, to whom this putting of the inherent social quality of the virtues came like a shock. He said: *T never thought of this before. It was a great argument, and one that ex- horted me powerfully for thirty years." VIII. Training to Type After we have before us the type of normal youth there is little to be said as to specific training, for all this should be in the direction of the type. It is not to be assumed that the religion of maturity is the only desirable type of The Piety of piety, nor are the healthy instincts of youth to be High Type thwarted or repressed. The young person is to be encouraged to be social in his Christian life, and he is not to be urged to untimely emotions or testimonies. It is evident that the happy, hopeful, trusting spirit of youth is a part of the Christian ideal that is never to be allowed to wane. The coldness and the pessimism of later life is not SOCIAL INSTINCTS AND THEIR TRAINING 201 a natural following of the warmth of youth. It is rather a degeneration. The little child likes to play alone, and when he grows older he plays for himself, even with others. He has not yet come to the time when he plays not only with oth- ers, but for them. The old man who is living for himself, though under a Christian profession, has sunk back to child- hood. He has reverted to type. The crying need of the Church and the world as well is for such training of the so- cial instincts of youth as will prevent this degeneration and carry them forward into a maturity more, rather than less, social and optimistic. IX. The Senior and His Pleasures The Senior should have his pleasures, for they are a part of his life. He should mingle frequently and freely with his companions. The sexes are not to be kept apart, but they are to be so taught that their association will be Youthful innocent while it is pleasurable and educative. Neces^s^ary^'^^ Thesc social gatherings should not be left to chance. Sympathetic elders may help the young people much by their experience, and they may be sure that this will be welcomed by the young, if it is proffered aright. The Sunday-school teacher will find that there are few things that he can study to more advantage than the social culture of his pupils. He will make a mistake if he attempts to dic- tate to them what they shall do or where they shall go or not go, but he can get so near to them and dwell with them on terms so intimate that he can exert a good influence over them. If the pupil desires a comprehensive test for his pleas- ures, no better can be found than that which Mother Wesley wrote to her son John when a youth in college : "Would you judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of a pleasure, take this rule : Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the ten- derness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things ; whatever increases the authority of your body over your mind — that thing, to you, 202 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK is sin." If he asks for a test for his amusements, the general rule of the Methodist Episcopal Church which directs its mem- bers to avoid "the taking of such diversions as can not be used in the name of the Lord Jesus," is admirable. But the decision in all cases is Mrith the individual. Freedom of con- science is one of the corner-stones of Protestantism, and this is always to be maintained. The individual makes his decision and takes the responsibility. X. The Beginning of Service As the new social life opens in the heart of the youth he finds his teacher ready with the one perfect social religion to instruct and to guide him. It rejoices with him in his inno- The Religion ^^^* pleasures, and offers him a great variety of Christ of classes and societies and companionships in Beckons which he may pass from mere enjoyment to a Him on fruitful social service, wherein he will develop into full self-realization in helping others. The Spirit of Christ inspires him, and his Father's smile is his reward. Lesson Outline: I. The Filial Sense. II. The Fraternal Sense. III. The Social Sense. IV. The Social Awakening. V. The Social Age of Man. VI. Our Social Christianity. VII. Our Social Ethics. VIII. Training to Type. IX. The Senior and His Pleasures, X. The Beginning of Service. Topics for Special Study: 1. Appropriate religious exercises for young people. 2. The social teachings of Jesus. SOCIAL INSTINCTS AND THEIR TRAINING 203 Topics for Class Discussion: 1. What is the essence of a Christian experience? 2. What is involved in being a child of God? 3. Describe the typical young man. 4. Is there such a thing as the selfish seeking of sal- vation ? 5. How is Christianity a social religion? 6. How are the vices anti-social? 7. Should the adult be more social, or less, than the youth ? 8. The social advantages of the Church. CHAPTER XV THE SENIOR'S WORLD CHAPTER XV THE SENIOR'S WORLD I. The Christian Motive It may be that some have missed a note of emphasis upon the joy of pardoned sin as the great inducement offered to the 3^oung for coming to Christ. Frankly, we do not consider this the supreme inducement. It is scarcely the The Supreme Christian motive at all, but rather one of its in- Service cidents. The Christian according to Christ is not engrossed with his emotions, but with higher things. "And can there be any higher things?" Most cer- tainly, there can. It is not hard to ascertain what Jesus was most solicitous for, and when we find that we need look no farther for the highest and worthiest Christian motive. With Him it is consecration, service, sacrifice. "Go ye also into the vineyard," might be taken as His generic command. "Even so let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven," is another characteristic precept. How is the Father glori- fied? "Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; and so shall ye be My disciples." It is a capital task of the teacher to win his pupils to Christ, and so to do this that they will not tire of their re- ligion after a time, but go on to higher levels as long as they live. This is done by inspiring these young people with the noblest ambitions. A valuable aid in this task is the study of the new world into which the Seniors are entering. 207 ^ 2o8 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK II. The Inspiration of Opportunity Tennyson said that fifty years of Europe was better than a cycle of China. This was because of the opportunities that Europe offered and that China lacked. One of the strongest motives to enterprise and achievement in the life of the race has been opportunity; perhaps it has been the strongest of all. What is the difference between being born in a Opportunity Greenland igloo and a Massachusetts home? Achievement Much more than the difference of temperature. What shines before the Greenland boy as he grows toward manhood? Not much more than the aurora borealis. His future must perforce be narrow and lean, with a life of drudgery and suffering all along. But the American youth looks out upon a future filled with the promise of per- sonal comfort and luxury, with ten thousand possibilities of prosperity, and some, perhaps, of greatness. We are too well accustomed to our own privileges to be able to value them adequately, but it is certain that in no nation of all the na- tions, and in no century of all the centuries, has there been so much placed before young people as in our own country and age. Professor Bryce says : "The institutions of the United States are deemed by inhabitants and admitted by strangers to be a matter of more general interest than those of the not less famous nations of the Old World. They represent an experiment in the rule of the multitude, tried on a scale un- precedentedly vast, and the result of which every one is con- cerned to watch. And yet they are something more than an experiment, for they are believed to disclose and display the type of institutions towards which, as by the law of fate, the rest of civilized mankind are forced to move; some with swifter, others with slower, but all with unresting feet." Our young people belong to this favored land, and are to have a share in the outworking of this mighty experiment. They are entitled to the inspiration that comes from a clear view of THE SENIOR'S WORLD 209 this wide and glowing horizon. "Lift up your eyes and look- on the fields." The great seal of the United States is a symbol of this inspiration, with a prophecy. The design on its reverse side is a pyramid, which is unfinished and truncated. Over it is an eye. The pyramid, which is of all geometrical figures the most stable, represents our country, and the eye is the Provi- dence of God. There are two mottoes, which may be thus translated : "God favors our enterprise," and "A new era in the centuries." This seal might well be impressed upon the heart of every young American. It is his unparalleled privi- lege to march into manhood with the conviction that his life's day is allotted him in the beginning of this grand era, and that the favor of God is upon his country and himself. Every field is open to him; every sky bends propitious; every star shines for him ; the birds are singing the harmonies of na- ture; "winds blow and waters roll strength to the brave." III. Our National Birthright Said Emerson: "We live in a new and exceptional age. America is another name for opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of the Divine Providence in behalf of the human race." This is not the mere froth The New ^^ patriotism. Consider the location of the Uni- theWest ^^^ States, in the midst of the north temperate zone, and extending from ocean to ocean. Con- sider its vast and varied products, and its unrivaled resources of every kind. Notice its position in the path of the slow- moving but mighty world movement of populations. Says Dr. Strong: "Since prehistoric times populations have moved steadily westward, as DeTocqueville said, 'as if driven by the mighty hand of God.' And following their migrations the course of empire has taken its way. The world's scepter passed from Persia to Greece, from Greece to Italy, from Italy to Great Britain, and from Great Britain the scepter is to-day departing. It is passing on to 'Greater Britain/ to our 14 » 210 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK mighty West, there to remain, for there is no further West; beyond is the Orient. Like the star in the East which guided the three kings with their treasures Westward until at length it stood still over the cradle of the young Christ, so the star of empire, rising in the East, has ever beckoned the wealth and power of the nations Westward, until to-day it stands still over the cradle of the young empire of the West, to which the nations are bringing their offerings." It is thought that the coming census will show nearly ninety millions of people in this country. In 1790, which was long after the Revolutionary War, there were but 3,929,214, which is less than the population of the city of New York to-day. The world never saw such growth as this, and it bids fair to go on with greater rapidity in the future. The immi- gration in 1909 reached the enormous total of 751,786. Though this is admittedly a source of peril, it is a national advantage of the first magnitude. And there is an untold benejfit to the American race from the admixture of the vari- ous strains of blood from the different races of Europe. Our American blood is a new complex of English, Dutch, Irish, German, Norse, and others, which scientists tell us increases the virility and versatility of the men of the New World. Something has evidently freshened the blood and quickened the life of those who have come to this favored land. Refer- ring to what Americans have accomplished, Sir Henry M. Stanley says : "Treble their number of ordinary Europeans could not have surpassed them in what they have done. The story of their achievements reads like an epic of the heroic age." No other country has a territory comparable to our own. It is hard for us to realize its vastness. It is 1,600 miles long, and 2,720 miles wide. Its area is 3,618,484 Territory square miles. It has high mountains, broad prairies, great rivers, and fine harbors. It has 236,949 miles of railway, and the railroads carried nearly 874,000,000 passengers last year. Its wealth is over $107,000,- THE SENIOR'S WORLD 211 000,000, which allows an average of $1,310.11 to each inhabit- ant. We have over eight billions of dollars deposited in our banks. These figures are too large to convey much meaning. Let us help them out with the candy bill of the country. Per- haps that will give us a better idea of our wealth. This ex- penditure was $500,000,000 last year, which would pay our enormous pension bill in four months, or dig the Panama Canal in nine months, or pay the entire National debt in five years. Our climate is incomparable, and climate is one of the first considerations in national prosperity. An eminent sci- entist says that easterly winds either hug the earth or have an upward component of motion. Gathering the Climate ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ bacteria they become foul winds, under which animal life is enervated and ren- dered susceptible to disease. But the converse is true of the northwest winds, which prevail in the United States. They sweep down from above, coming from the regions where the air is cool and dry, highly electrified, and filled with ozone. They bring physical energy and buoyancy in their mighty breath. He believes that these west winds have much to do with the formation of the American character. The race that is now coming to be known as American has fertility of thought and energy of body. Without doubt the climate has much to do with the genesis of the "indomitable spirit that is reaching out for the hiastery of the earth." A number of years ago Arnold Guyot startled and charmed the educational world by his unique contributions to historical geography. His thesis was that the three conti- nents of the North are organized for the development of man, and therefore have been pre-eminently the historical conti- nents; also, that the entire physical creation corresponds to the moral creation, and is only to be explained by it. "Asia, Europe, and North America are the grand stages of humanity in its march through the ages. Asia is the cradle where man passed his infancy, under the authority of law, and where he 212 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK learned his dependence upon a sovereign master. Europe is the school where his youth was trained, where he waxed in strength and knowledge, grew to manhood, and learned at once his liberty and his moral responsibility. America is the theater of his activity during the period of manhood ; the land where he applies and practices all that he has learned, brings into action all the forces he has acquired, and where he is still to learn that the entire development of his being and his own happiness are possible only by willing obedience to the laws of his Maker. Thus lives and prospers, under the pro- tection of the Divine Husbandman, the great tree of humanity, which is to overshadow the whole earth. It germinates and sends up its strong trunk in the ancient land of Asia. Grafted with a nobler stalk, it shoots out new branches, it blossoms in Europe. In America only it seems destined to bear all its fruits. In these three we behold at once, as in a vast picture, the past, the present, and the future." Our age is a new age in respect to the marvelous growth of the arts and sciences. This alone would make life a privi- lege in any civilized land. It is said that the English Govern- ment issued more patents during the twenty Industries years following 1850 than during the two hundred and fifty years preceding. But the United States issues four times as many patents as the English Government. Before the close of the last century the supremacy of our country in manufactures was recognized. Prior to that it had been first in agriculture, producing one-third of the food supply of the world, with but one-twentieth of the population. We are now selling our products everywhere. The exports of last year were valued at over a billion and a half of dollars, and they are increasing all the time. Our locomotives are found in China, Japan, Russia, all the South American countries, in Spain, Italy, France, and even in England. Dr. Strong tells of an Englishman who had a contract to furnish locomotives for a Chinese railway. He furnished American engines because he could get them in THE SENIOR'S WORLD 213 four and one-half months at $9,250 each, while English en- gines would have cost him $14,000, with a wait of two years for delivery. Our steel rails and our bridges are sold all over the world. A Burmah railway invited six English and two American companies to make bids for a bridge. The best English offer was for nearly $600,000, with three years' time. An American firm contracted to complete the work in one year for about $300,000. The Kimberley diamond mines in South Africa, the largest in the world, use American machin- ery almost exclusively, because, as the managers say, it is cheaper, and it works better. When the city of Glasgow was equipping its municipal street car lines the authorities gave the contracts to American manufacturers. These amounted to $15,000,000. These are but hasty items of a vast aggregate. Dr. Strong, who treats the subject at length in "Expansion," concludes that our manufacturing supremacy is likely to be permanent in the world, for these five considerations : we have the coal, our supply being several times that of all Europe, our coal area being twenty-one times the area of all the coal fields of Great Britain. *Tf all England, Scotland, and Wales were one solid bed of coal, that would not equal one-half of our supplies as yet untouched." Secondly, we have the iron, not only in the Eastern States, but not a State west of the Missis- sippi is without it. As to our production, while in i860 it was only 821,000 tons of pig iron, in 1908 it was over sixteen millions of tons of pig iron, and over fourteen millions of tons of steel, which is about one-third the total amount pro- duced in the whole world. A third condition is low labor cost, due to American ac- tivity and machinery. A few years ago a German expert was sent to Massachusetts to examine the shoe industry. He re- ported that he found the average wages of the workers to be $15 a week, and the average labor cost of a pair of shoes to be forty cents ; while similar workmen in Germany received $4 a week, and the labor cost of shoes was fifty-eight cents. 214 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK The German wage was thus 45% more expensive. Watch- making in Japan is reported to be unprofitable in spite of the fact that Japanese wages are only twenty-five cents a day, as against $3 a day paid to our workmen. The other two conditions are the abundance of raw ma- terials, and the accessibility to the world's markets. Many years ago Gladstone made a prophecy about us which is being fulfilled now : "The United States will probably become what we are now, the head servant in the great household of the world, the employer of all employed, because her serv- ice will be the most and the ablest," IV. The New Life of Knowledge Our age is the age of invention and of general intelligence. Science has developed the arts that furnish our living more than any words can detail. Remember, for instance, the dull monotony of the millenniums through which the primitive methods of making spinning yarn out of wool and flax con- tinued. These were in use in our homes as late as the out- break of the Revolutionary War. The spindle and the distaff used by the daughters of Abraham and Moses were like those in our own homes till lately. Now consider the volume of machine-woven fabrics. It is said that there was not an iron plow in the world ninety years ago. Consider the steam plows of to-day, and with them the seed-drills and the com- bined harvesters. Give but a swift glance at the thousands of other inventions that have revolutionized our outward living; at the electric motors, and automobiles, and aeroplanes, and telephones, and wireless telegraphs. Men now talk from Balti- more to Chicago, and from one side of the Atlantic to the other by wireless telegraph ; and this statement will doubtless be out of date before it is printed. In our homes we have fireless cookers, and electric lights, electrical stoves, brooms, flat-irons, and washing machines. We have long distance telephones, and talking-machines, and automatic music. When we travel we go swiftly and comfortably in steam cars or THE SENIOR'S WORLD 215 trolle5^s or luxurious boats. We soar through the air by great bridges, and burrow through mountains and under waters by tunnels. We write letters everywhere, the whole world being one in the postal union. There are 60,144 post-offices in this coun- try, with two-cent postage everywhere within it, and to Great Britain and Germany without. There are 22,603 newspapers published here, and great numbers of books. One cent buys a wonder of a daily paper, and the best of books are to be had at low prices. The cost of a Bible, with commentary, was from $150 to $250 in the year 1274, though in 1240 two arches of London bridge were built for $125. In 1272 the wages of a laboring man were less than four cents a day. At this time the price of a Bible was about $180. At that rate a laborer must toil for thirteen years to earn enough to possess a copy of the Scriptures. The science of medicine has been revolutionized so that we are now looking forward to the entire abolition of disease. Antisepsis, skin-grafting, and blood transfusion are the com- mon-places of medical practice. We have seen the death rate from tuberculosis reduced 49% since 1880, and millions of money are spent in fighting it. In the same period we have seen typhoid fever lose 44% of its death rate, and diphtheria 80%. The death rate from diphtheria was reduced more than half in the ten years from 1890 to 1900. The triumphs of an- tiseptic surgery are too numerous and marvelous to compre- hend. We have over 17,000,000 of pupils in our common schools, taught by almost half a million teachers. These schools are free to all, and besides these there are high schools, business, normal, music, and many other schools, and hundreds of col- leges. Any one who will may be educated in this great coun- try, and multitudes are securing college education who are without money or moneyed friends. Our scholars and au- thors and statesmen and other leaders are coming freely from the common ranks, and the world wonders. 3 2i6 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK V. Inspiration and Interest All these considerations are but a scattering few of the great number that the teacher may use. Seniors are never indifferent to descriptions of the world that is beckoning them, and their teacher can not afford to be indifferent to it. It furnishes him with one of his most effective appeals, and is as interesting as it is inspiring. The live teacher with Power makes a constant study of current events, and generally gathers and sorts newspaper clippings for class use. They never fail to arouse interest, and they enhance respect for the teacher as well ; for seniors are peculiarly appreciative of men and things that are "up to date." Many a teacher has found the newspaper a valuable commentary on the Bible with his class, and has thereby solved most of his class problems at once. A high destiny held before young people generally charms them. That teacher who knows how to make them under- stand that they are the heirs of all the bygone ages, and that they are standing "in the foremost files of time," can com- mand them. The question that thrilled that princess among adolescents, the Jewish Esther, "Who knoweth whether thou art not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" has thrilled many another adolescent when the glories of the coming kingdom have been unfolded before him. Lesson Outline: I. The Christian Motive. II. The Inspiration of Opportunity. HI. Our National Birthright. IV. The New Life of Knowledge. V. Inspiration and Interest. Topics for Special Study: 1. The Christian motive according to Christ. 2. The awakening of ambition and purpose in the minds of great Americans as shown in their biographies. 3 THE SENIOR'S WORLD 217 Topics for Class Discussion: 1. What is the proper place of the joy of pardon in Christian experience? 2. Is it safe to take Christ's estimates of spiritual things ? 3. Why should a teacher give attention to his pupils' future ? 4. Why do opportunities differ so much in different countries ? 5. What country offers the highest inducement to young people? 6. What use can the teacher make of world facts? 7. What use can the teacher make of current events? 8. How did it happen that science blossomed so fast in our age? 9. What is the highest Christian motive? CHAPTER XVI BENEVOLENCE AND SERVICE CHAPTER XVI BENEVOLENCE AND SERVICE I. Horizons of Thought and Purpose Marvelous as are the material and commercial expansions of our day, the horizons of thought and purpose have widened much more rapidly. The common people have come to think like kings. They are sitting in judgment Our Age ^ upon the deeds of governors and presidents and •J^^A^^ ^" emperors. And these rulers are regarding the people closely, for the ultimate power is with them, and what they will they do. Men still toil, but they are not submerged in their labor. The Russian cathedral at Kiev is of great splendor. Its walls are covered with plaques of gold and silver. Its images are enshrined in richly jeweled frames of gold, and before them hang hundreds of tiny lamps gleaming like multicolored jewels. But deep down beneath this magnificent structure there are miles of subterranean corridors, lined with cells, in which fifteen hundred ascetics perform their daily devotions and duties. They eat, sleep, and live in the midst of the bones of their dead ancestors. For a short time each day they ramble in the beautiful gardens surrounding the cathedral, only to return from the fugitive glimpse of paradise to the dark, damp cellars where they live their death in life. The time was when the lives of us common folks was a good deal like that burial of the monks at Kiev. There was little of opportunity or knowledge or joy for the mass of men. But now all who wish may come up out of the catacombs into the gardens and stay there. They may live in the sun- light and find ennobling work to do for God and man, no 221 ' 222 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK matter how they have to earn their daily bread. The souls of men have been emancipated. Contrast with the underground mummeries of the monks the experience of Ella Wheeler Wilcox, as she gave it in the Cosmopolitan: "To be a part of God's great universe, to be one of His voices, to be a worker and a helper, means to me the fullness of satisfaction. I expected much of Hfe ; it has given in all ways more than I expected. Everything has happened. I have known loneliness, discontent, trouble. I have waited years for what I felt I must obtain imme- diately; yet for each hour of pain I have known three hours of joy, and life has been good, and grows better as I walk forward. Love has been more loyal and lasting, friendship sweeter and more comprehensive, work more enjoyable, and fame, because of its aid to usefulness, more satisfying than early imagination pictured." That for which Jesus taught us to pray, and for which all Christians have prayed ceaselessly from the beginning, the kingdom of God, is surely coming. This The Coming explains the rapid enlargement of every field of Kingdom Usefulness opening before young people, and is at the same time a prophecy of still greater things. Not long ago a Chicago church addressed these two questions to a number of prominent men : "Is the Spirit of Christ more dominant in business, politics, and international affairs than when you entered public life?" and "Is it an advantage or a disadvantage for a public man to-day to be known as a professing Christian?" Letters were received from Vice-President Sherman, Gifford Pinchot, Speaker Can- non, Norman Hapgood, Senator Dolliver, Governor Deneen, Woodrow Wilson, David Starr Jordan, and John G. Shedd. Their opinions were unanimous that the Spirit of Christ is a greater force now than formerly. Part of Vice-President Sherman's reply reads: "I hate to believe, and I do not believe, that it is a disadvantage to any man in any calling to be a professing Christian. My BENEVOLENCE AND SERVICE 223 belief, based on observation and experience, is, that even those who scoff, beneath that exterior have a genuine respect for the man who professes Christianity and leads a Christian life." Speaker Cannon wrote, *'I believe that the world is growing better, and that the Spirit of the Master has more influence in politics and business than ever before." Senator Dolliver calls attention to the fact that there has been great improve- ment in the morals of our public men, and says that many of the habits of the public men of the times of Clay and Webster would not be tolerated now. Secretary Wilson thinks the great progress in the substitution of international arbi- tration for war is a sign of the remarkable advance of the Spirit of Jesus in the world. Lyman Abbott says : "When I entered active life half this nation was in slavery — it is now free; the public school system was confined to about half the states in the Union — it is now carried on in every state, with provision for black and white alike; the Young Men's Christian Association was just coming into being — it is now an organization extending all over the world, and everywhere acting vigorously and efficiently in the promotion of the Christian spirit and in the inculcation of Christian principles; the home missionary work, the foreign missionary work, the social settlements in our great cities and towns have greatly increased within the last fifty years." President Woodrow Wilson writes : "It is my clear con- viction that Christ's teachings are making actual progress in the world. While it is probably true that Christianity in its older dogmatic forms has less hold on the people of our own day than it had upon those of earlier generations, the real Spirit of Christ, translated into terms of service and personal devotion, seems to me to be in our day perhaps more widespread and dominant than ever before, and it is surely that at bottom which is tending to purify our politics and our business and to put international affairs upon a permanent footing of peace. It is unquestionably an ad- 224 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK vantage, and a great advantage, for a public man to be known as a professing Christian. My own feeling in regard to this whole matter is one of great and confident hope." All the elements of a successful appeal to young men and women are furnished by the present conditions of the progress of the kingdom of Christ. The crying needs, the successes of the past, the enthusiasm of humanity, Appeal ^^^ grandeur of the cause, the providence of God, which guides the workers and the work and insures the service of the greatest and the humblest — these are some of the things that the senior teacher may use in engaging the lives of his pupils in the service of Christ. If he studies the progress of the kingdom as he ought, if he knows what is going on in this wonderful world, if he catches the divine vision of service and reward him- self, he can not fail to show it to others and to fire them with a quenchless zeal to make their lives count mightily in the great conflict. Looking over the past, it is not strange that we have won no more of the young people than we have, for we have lived in too small a world ourselves. We have made too many observations upon clothes and feathers and horses and dollars, and too few upon the great things that lie all about us in the world. Augustine discovered at a critical period in his own life that God had made his soul for Himself, and that conse- quently nothing but God could satisfy that soul. The same is true of us all. God has made our hearts for Himself and for the large things of His large world. What wonder that little things fail to win and to satisfy them? We have made the mistake of supposing that religious joy is the highest appeal that can be made to a young person. It is not even a strong appeal, for it is not an end in itself. The inward craving is for the use of God-given powers in service, and nothing else will take the place of this. The teacher's task is to open the world before the pupil, to show him the great movements of consecrated activity, BENEVOLENCE AND SERVICE 225 to arouse his latent enthusiasm, and to help him to find his place in the marching lines. To do this the teacher must be a student himself, of course; but what else should he expect? He must have his own grand conception of the service of Christ ; and what else does he wish ? It is enough that the kingdom is rich in material for study, and that he has the opportunity for learning. II. Much Land to be Possessed Jehovah promised to Israel as much of the land of Canaan as they should conquer for themselves. They must set the soles of their feet upon the ground before it could be theirs, God was not going to fight their battles for them. Has ju^f *"* This is why they never got it all. The spiritual Begun Canaan can be possessed only in the same way. We must conquer all of it that we get. There is another side to the rosy view of the glories of our age. The world is still wicked and dangerous; so distinctly thus that many good people refuse to take even a hopeful view of things. There are woes and sufferings and privations and outrages and crimes and corruptions seething all around us. The conflict of the ages is not over. The call for martyrs is not hushed : many more must shed their blood before the truth can emancipate the world. The cross has not been taken out of the world : it is still presented to him who would deny himself for the following of Christ. The service of the young is as sorely needed to-day as service has ever been needed in all the past. Take the crusade against the liquor traffic, for example. The gains for temperance in recent years have been as en- couraging as they have been surprising. At the The Temper- ... - ,, i- • ^ ^ 1 ji ance Crusade begmnmg of 1909 the liquor mterests loudly pro- claimed the culmination of the "wave" of tem- perance enthusiasm and victory. But in the ensuing year there were substantial gains for prohibition in no less than thirty different States. Four States went for prohibition dur- •5 226 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK ing 1909, making nine in all, with an area of more than a half-million square miles and a total population of more than twelve millions. State prohibition campaigns are in active progress in thirteen other States, which are expected to come to a vote within two years. There are in the United States 375 prohibition cities of 5,000 population and over; ninety of 10,000 and over; while fifty-three leading industrial centers in fourteen different States, of 20,000 population and over, are included. A World's Congress against alcoholism has been held in London, at which representative reformers represent- ing fifteen different nations organized the first International Prohibition Federation. The influential periodicals are taking new interest in the cause. Practically every leading magazine in America has contributed one or more important studies of some phase of the prohibition issue to popular discussion. A great mass of information and statistics has been accumulated, showing the enhanced business prosperity and the decrease of crime under prohibition wherever it has gone into effect. But all this is but a beginning. The magnitude of the evil traffic and its terrible power over politics is realized only as we begin to fight it. The consumption of spirits, malt liquors, and wines in this country in 1908 reached the appalling total of 2,006,233,408 gallons, as against 2,019,690,911 gallons the previous year, up to which time it had been swelling steadily every year. Nearly seven millions of gallons of wines were imported in 1909, which is more than ever before. There was a decrease of 135 drinking places in New York City last year, but 10,675 still remain to debauch our boys and young men, to impoverish families, to corrupt politics, and to poison society generally. We are encouraged at the progress of peace, in which holy cause some of the best men and women of the world are engaged under the banner of the Prince of Peace. They have done wonders against the outbreaking of one of the most inveterate of elemental passions. The barbarities of war BENEVOLENCE AND SERVICE 227 have been mitigated. Women, children, and prisoners of war are no longer put to death or sold into slavery. The Red Cross Convention is accepted by all nations. Much territory has been neutralized, including Switzerland, Bel- Against'War s'^^^> Luxembourg, Norway, Llonduras, the Suez Canal, and the Straits of Magellan. Organized labor has been turned as a unit against militarism, as have the great religious organizations of the world. For peace education an Intercollegiate Peace Society has been organized, in which forty-seven colleges and universities are affiliated. More than sixty arbitration treaties have been concluded, and the Second Hague Conference has laid the foundations of a permanent High Court of Nations. It is proclaimed abroad that one big cannon-shot costs $1,700, which is three and two-thirds of a workingman's yearly wages, and five and one-third years of a female school- teacher's salary, as much as a workingman's house, or a college education at $425 a year; that a big battleship costs $10,000,000, and a million a year to keep it up, and in about ten years goes to the scrap pile; that the armed peace of Europe in the last thirty-seven years has cost at least $111,- 000,000,000, which almost equals the entire wealth of the United States ; that our country spends sixty-seven and a half per cent of her entire revenue (exclusive of postal re- ceipts) for wars past and prospective, which equals the ex- penditures for education of all grades, public and private; that probably 15,000,000,000 lives have been sacrificed in wars since the beginning of authentic history, and more than 14,- 000,000 during the nineteenth century; that like the ancient duel war does not decide moral issues ; and, in the words of John Hay, "War is the most futile and ferocious of human follies." And yet the unspeakable waste goes on. Great Britain will spend about $240,000,000 on war supplies this year. Our country will spend about $220,000,000, besides $162,000,000 for pensions. Germany is spending over $300,000,000, and s 228 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK France over $110,000,000. Never was a case more clear than that these frightful expenditures ought at once to cease, and yet the war fever rages. Tkere is a loud call for help from the new generation here. These are but illustrations of the crying needs that cluster everywhere about us. There are all kinds of service for all kinds of talent. Nothing in the way of human ability need go to waste in our age. No man needs to stand all day idle in the market-place. It is the teacher's privilege to find the facts and show them to his pupils. Great is the power of facts. It is as true to-day as it was in Isaiah's day that "My people are gone into captivity for lack of knowledge." There is nothing more needful nor practical for the Sunday-school teacher than this line of study and work with his class. III. The Teaching of Giving One of the distinctive forms of human service is benevo- lent giving. Some one has called money the greatest of human inventions. It is certainly a marvel, considered in its varied concentrations and powers. We can The Service often send ourselves in sending our earnings, and Benevolence "^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^ means of our money what we could not do otherwise. One great lesson that the teacher of seniors must inculcate is that of Christian giving — conscientious, regular, and intelligent giving. He can do this, first, by appealing to the primary teachings of Christ and of those who have followed Him. He can show what Christian benevolence has done in the world, and how the beneficent spirit is growing with the growth of the other virtues. The teacher will find this an interesting as well as a valuable study. He will find himself able to show his pupils a new birth of benevolence in their age. This is the generation of great givers and great gifts, as well as of smaller and widespread giving. There is not space in this chapter for detailed illustra- BENEVOLENCE AND SERVICE 229 tions, and we will only adduce a few figures as condensed and eloquent expressions of what is going on. The large benefactions of the year just closed (1909) amounted to the enormous total sum of $358,000,000, which was far beyond that of the previous year, and marks a new epoch in the Christian ages. Education came first in the amount received, and the dependent classes next. John Stewart Kennedy gave $30,000,000, and Mr. Rockefeller nearly $14,000,000. The latter's gifts to popular education now aggregate one hun- dred millions, and those of Mr, Carnegie exceed this enormous sum. Daniel K. Pearson has given large sums to small colleges, and announces that he is going to give away his last million this year to educational and philanthropic insti- tutions, leaving himself relatively a poor man when he cele- brates his ninetieth birthday. Andrew Carnegie has given nearly six millions in all to the New York library. Nothing speaks louder as to the importance and the hopefulness of the education of our youth than these princely donations. Edward Ginn has given a million dollars to promote the cause of universal peace. A large and increasing number of lovers of humanity are coming forward with their gifts for all kinds of worthy causes at home and abroad. The Churches are giving more for the support of the gospel at home and in the mission fields than ever before, and they have taken up a long line of philanthropic causes not under their immediate control. There never was a time when a rich man's million or a poor man's dime was worth as much as to-day. Social organizations, charity organizations, benevo- lent societies, educational institutions, missions, and kindred enterprises make it possible for one to place a dollar almost anywhere in the world at little or no expense to do almost any desired kind of work. Benevolence is but another name for the Christ-spirit — that brotherly love which extends to all men and prompts us to service on the basis of a common humanity. The teacher of seniors should reserve a large space for 230 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK developing this incomparable grace. It lies directly in his path and is an essential element in a round Christian char- acter. Lesson Outline: I. Horizons of Thought and Purpose. II. Much Land to be Possessed. III. The Teaching of Giving. Topics for Special Study: 1. The significance of the rise of the common people. 2. Evidences of the Spirit of Christ in modern world life. Topics foi' Class Discussion: 1. What expansions do w^e observe in the world of thought ? 2. What social and moral expansions in our day? 3. The tokens of the coming of Christ's kingdom. 4. What appeals may be made to youth to enlist in the Master's service? 5. What can the ordinary young person do for the world? 6. How does the temperance crusade illustrate present conditions ? 7. How teach systematic giving, 8. What are the motives for benevolence? 9. Modern facilities for utilizing the fruits of benevo- lence. CHAPTER XVII CLASS ORGANIZATION CHAPTER XVII CLASS ORGANIZATION I. The New Sunday-school The subject of class organization takes us back to the underlying conception of the Sunday-school. If we ask what a class is and why it should be organized, the answer will depend upon what a Sunday-school is and what its classes should be if the school is to fulfill its ideal. There may be argument as to what constitutes a school, but when this is settled there can be no argument as to what its classes must be. The greater carries the less with it here as always. It may be that some will insist upon a theory of the school which fairly dispenses with the idea of class organization. Such a theory of the school has widely prevailed in the past and is common to-day. In this case our plea is frankly for a new theory of the school. Our new age demands a new Sunday- school. Indeed, there have been several theories of the Sunday- school. The Raikes school was a charity school for teaching the rudiments of general knowledge. It had more to do with reading and spelling and such things than Theories ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ Bible. This theory of the school is nearly obsolete, though it is a curious fact that it still lives in part. In evidence thereof this writer can say that when he began work in the Sunday-school as a child his "Sunday-school Primer" began with the alpha- bet and went on with writing and spelling and reading and number exercises, which occupied most of the book. There was but very little of religious instruction in it. In fact, he learned to read from this self-same primer. Further- more, he has recently seen the same book on sale with the 233 3 234 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK rich line of modern Sunday-school books in a New York bookstore and is informed that it is selling still. After many years this first theory of the Smiday-school was generally displaced by the theological-school theory. The Sunday-school was used to teach formal theology. The cate- chism was introduced, with its ponderous and sometimes (from the viewpoint of the child) preposterous definitions. The end of the instruction was the memorizing of these formulas and of "proof texts" from the Scriptures, which were more or less applicable to the technical theological terms introduced. There was little or no attempt to cause the child to understand these chilly propositions. A volume might be filled with the laughable blunders which the little victims perpetrated in vain attempts to make them mean something. These have made a distinct contribution to funny- column literature, though they were more lamentable than funny. But with the old idea of the magical potency of the Scriptures it was apparently deemed unnecessary for the child to understand them very much. If he learned their words so as to repeat them they would operate upon him by a sort of spiritual cabalism and he would be duly blessed. But advancing intelligence has discredited this theory of the Sunday-school, except in the remote corners and among re- actionary communions. The too prevalent theory now is that the Sunday- school is the children's Church. We are aware that this is an offensive term to most people, but it fairly describes the school in fact. Most of our schools are pro- gramed after the manner of the standard Church service. They have their opening hymns, perhaps with choir and organ or piano, their responsive Psalm, their Creed recitation, their prayers, their Bible exposition, more hymns, the regular col- lection, the notices, and the benediction in closing. Then, having had their Church, the children go home, as a matter of course, in spite of the misgivings of their parents and the grief of the pastor. It may be said, in justice to this theory CLASS ORGANIZATION 235 of the school, that it makes the service varied and inter- esting, and the Bible is far more profitably taught than in the old days of the theological Sunday-school. There is another theory — that of the Bible school, according to which the primary aim is the teaching of ^, ^, , the Bible, with lessons and home study, and The Church v .• j . . j .- t^i- .t. Bible School recitations, and tests and promotions. This the- ory, greatly to be preferred to any other, obtains in some Churches, and is destined to be in the future the prevailing ideal. It is being recognized that the Church and society at large imperatively need the aid of the Sunday-school in training the young, both to be Christians and to be moral. Under present conditions the home and the State school are unable to accomplish this of themselves. Beyond the learn- ing of the Bible as a Book and as literature, with all its history and philosophy and ethics, there is crying need of consecrated lives. The hearts of the young must be won to God and to goodness, and it is natural for precept and prac- tice to go together. The Sunday-school teacher is a valu- able, an indispensable social factor in this, for he can help himself to teach the truth by helping his pupils put it into active practice in the social world in which they live. Out of this feeling is growing the Sunday-school which seeks to do something while it is learning something and to learn principles by doing the things that they naturally imply. II. Four Leading Principles There are at least four principles which have operated to promote the organization of classes in the Sunday-school : the work to be done, the impulse to do something, the limi- tations of the individual, and the need of training in service. As our eyes are opened we behold the great field of service The Work lying all about us. There is no community nor to be Done any section of a community where people do not need help of some kind. It may be that they have 3 236 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK enough of this world's goods but are among the poorest spiritually. There are always those to be found who are socially neglected or morally untutored, especially among children and young people. It seems wrong to leave this work undone, even though our Sunday-school scholars are still undergraduates. They have time for work and can do it. Then, they have the impulse to do it. We are not made to get for a while and then to give the rest of the time. Though this principle may be acted upon, it is no less ab- normal and wrong. We are made both to receive The Impulse , . n,,- itt i -i to Do It ^^^ ^^ ^"^^ ^^^ ^"^ time. We grow by nourish- ment and by exercise. The lack of exercise is as fatal to health as the lack of food. Teachers need never fear to give their scholars something to do. The disorder in our classes is not due to hard lessons : in most cases it is due to too easy requirements. The teacher must take account of the child's active powers as well as his recep- tivities. Right education gives truth, but it gives tasks also. A recent writer on boys says : **The Church, and even educationists, have not yet realized what the pent-up energy of boy-life means. It means power. Boulton, the partner of James Watt, the inventor of steam engines, was showing Dr. Johnson over their works at Birmingham. He said, 'We sell here what all the world desires — power.' There was as much steam energy latent in the world two hundred years ago as there is to-day. Then nothing moved by steam. Now hundreds of tons of cars are sent hurling along our railroads, Mauretanias and Dreadnoughts go forging across the seas, and dense populations are supported by the mills which steam keeps moving. This has been done by men who understood the force ; they have brought it to a point and used it. Steam may fizz away in a thousand kettles and wash-boilers, but not till man takes it and controls and directs it can it be of use. We can not do much with boys until we can control them. To understand this is the first thing. CLASS ORGANIZATION 237 In controlling boys there is one great principle to be borne in mind— the boy is always hungry. He has a hunger for many things besides food. Here are a number of them: (i) The hunger to know— curiosity ; (2) the hunger for com- panionship—the social instinct; (3) the hunger to follow a leader — loyalty; (4) the hunger for adventure — courage; (5) the hunger to struggle and to win — combativeness ; (6) the hunger to protect and help the weak — chivalry; (7) the hunger to possess — ownership ; (8) the hunger for affection — love; (9) the hunger for God — the religious instinct; (10) the hunger for making things — the constructive instinct; (11) the hunger to test an action by doing it — imitation; (12) the hunger to excel his fellows — emulation; (13) the hunger for fairness — justice. These instincts are strong. From the teacher's point of view they are the most important things in a boy's nature, for it is by his hunger that we may easily control him." We have cited this authority at length because it is an illumination of the question of class organization — as well as of other things. The old conception of a boy as a simple, passive receptacle is entirely discredited. All efforts to con- trol him on this theory, saying nothing about anything further, have naturally failed. Children and young people are in- stinct with life and eager to spend their vital forces upon some worthy objective, even while they are learning to live. Class organization affords a means of enlisting and occupy- ing these valuable powers. In the third place, it has pleased God to make us Im- perfect, in the sense of partial endowment. No one has all the talents, and the world needs all the talents. We can not work to advantage alone. We must supplement The Limita- g^^]^ other. One man has skill, another capital, Individual^ another experience; then the three are made per- fect in one. Each, working alone, would fail; all, working together, succeed. In a Sunday-school class each pupil may contribute his natural part, and the teacher may 238 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK wisely gather all and correlate them and direct them and apply them, so that the whole violates, or rather transcends, the mathematical axiom and is much more than the sum of all the parts. Finally, the young need to be trained in service. It is not safe to trust important things with tyros. Tyros should be drilled and exercised until they cease to be tyros, and then they can essay anything. One cause of the Tiaining failures of men in the official work of the Churcli is their "greenness" in it. They should have been trained for their service in youth. Training comes naturally to youth, but not so to maturity. The young may be taught to do the work that awaits them in the Church with facility and with real zest. III. The Standard Class From the principles above dwelt upon it will not be difficult to deduce the organization, with its details. Of course there may be all degrees of organization, but in practice there is a standard. This has been The Organ- £xed by the International Sunday-school Asso- Bibie Class ciation, in co-operation with denominational au- thorities. This sets forth the minimum of organi- zation which must be reached by the class before it shall be entitled to official recognition. This standard of organization requires three things : (i) The class must be organically connected with the Sunday-school, of which it shall be considered an integral part. (2) The class shall have the following officers at least: teacher, president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer. It shall also have three standing committees, as follows : membership, devotional, and social. It is not required that they bear precisely these names, but the class must have three committees which shall carry on these three forms of work. 3 CLASS ORAGANIZATION 239 (3) The class shall consist of adult members only. Within the last few years the organization of classes has advanced at a remarkable rate, and the International Asso- ciation has been active in promoting and directing this. The thousands of organized Adult Classes in this country are giving a new cast to our whole work and prophesy great things for the future. In carefully going over the various problems presented by this growing interest, the authorities have deemed it wise to fix sixteen years as the minimum age limit for the organization of "Adult Classes." This brings the advantages of the standard organization within the reach of adolescents, though we do not count these as adults at all. The natural and formal distinction between the senior and adult departments of the school is not to be obliterated or disregarded in any way, but this recognition given to or- ganized classes in the senior department makes it possible for them to be enrolled with the others and to pass into the adult organization without a new registration when all the members of the class have reached the age of twenty years. As soon as the organization has been effected, application should be made for a certificate to the Board of Sunday- schools in Chicago, stating these items: name of the class, name of the school, town or city. State, names of the officers, names of the committees provided for, ages of the oldest and youngest members, date of organization, number of members, class motto, name and address of teacher, name and address of president, name and address of person apply- ing for certificate. Blanks for these applications may be had without cost from the Board of Sunday-schools. In response to such an application as this the Board will issue a certificate of recognition bearing the seals of the Board of Sunday- schools of the Methodist Episcopal Church and of the Inter- national Sunday-school Association .together with the signa- tures of the denominational and the International executive secretaries. The Board of Sunday-schools has prepared a very valu- 240 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK able leaflet for general distribution which contains iull direc- tions how to organize a class, also a model form of con- stitution for adoption. It also gives a valuable list of helps for this work. As this leaflet will doubt- less be revised as often as necessary and kept up to date, it will suffice here to refer students to this admirable little compend, whose title is "The Organized Adult Bible Class. "^ IV. The Larger Organization From what has been said it will be inferred that the class organization is neither solitary nor independent. It is a part of a grand group of classes organized on similar lines and for the same kind of work. These are to be The Adult found in nearly all the Churches and in every Movement ^^^^ °^ ^^^ Protestant world. Their number is rapidly growing and their influence is extending beyond the Churches into our communities everywhere. There is a growing literature, both of books and periodicals, de- voted to their interests, and thousands of workers are zealous in this new and prosperous movement. Not all the classes in a school may be organized, but those that are may work together. The young men's classes meet socially with the young women's, and both assemble with similar classes in neighboring Churches. One or more of the organized classes may unite for special service in a local Church. The young men's classes of the town or city may unite for work among young men, the young women's classes may get together for a common purpose, and the entire body of organized classes in a city may federate for some form of public service. There is a strong esprit de corps growing up in this country in the organized class movement. It marks a new interest, not only in class work, but in the Sunday- school, the Church, and the social welfare. If this is cher- 1 Copies of this leaflet may be had free by addressing the Board of Sunday- schools, 57 Washington St., Chicago, 111. CLASS ORGANIZATION 241 ished and developed as it may be, it will prove of incalculable value to the Churches and the kingdom. Lesson Outline: I. The New Sunday-school. II. Four Leading Principles. III. The Standard Class. IV. The Larger Organization. Topics for Special Study: 1. The influence of organization upon class growth. 2. The organized Adult Bible Class movement. Topics for Class Discussion: 1. What is a Sunday-school for? 2. Name some historic forms of the Sunday-school. 3. Why do not more scholars attend Church ? 4. What has led to the organization of classes? 5. The value of class organization for the school. 6. The value of class organization for the pupil. 7. Why do the scholars like to organize? 8. Give the requirements of an organized Adult Bible Class. 16 CHAPTER XVIII WAYS OF WORKING CHAPTER XVIII WAYS OF WORKING I. The Field of Service Having accepted the principle that the teaching of ado- lescents must be accompanied by doing things, and having made the class organization for this, we have now to inquire more particularly into the kind of work that may be done. There may be some question as to this, but we shall pro- ceed upon the supposition that the field for class work is broad, and that any worthy work for the class or its members, or for the school as a whole, or the Church, or the com- munity, or even the world, is fairly within our scope. This may seem to open a wide door, but the fact is that the door is already open. The needs of the world appeal to the class. We are teaching great principles that touch the world's needs, and the quickened sympathies and appetences of our pupils demand large and varied satisfaction. I. The way of the Church. What our classes must do is governed by what the school must do, and this in turn is determined by what the Church is doing. Now, the Church of Jesus Christ was established by Him on the broad- est principles, and His ultimate aim is the salvation or the spiritual renewal of the whole world. This gives us a large view and a wide field. And one of the plamest signs of our times is the recognition of this world-mission by the Church. It is affecting every activity of the Church. The time was when the conversion of souls was about all that preachers preached for and singers sang for and workers worked for : now there are the added agencies and enthusi- 245 ^ 246 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK asms for the setting up of the kingdom of Christ in the earth. Formerly we sought to do temperance work by getting drunkards to sign the pledge : now we are making efforts on a broad scale to prohibit the manufacture and sale of in- toxicants and to educate the young as to the baneful effects of alcohol. The word "prohibition" or "abstinence" has sup- planted the word "temperance," though even this word is a late acquisition by the Churches. Once we opened our protracted meetings and welcomed the sinners of the neigh- borhood to the exhortations and the prayers delivered therein : now we are carrying the gospel to men, and we go to the ends of the earth with our Christian message. In the old days we promoted Christian education by means of the Catechism and a few isolated theological seminaries : now we have a vast system of Sunday-schools, with nearly four millions of scholars and a splendid literature prepared and published for them, besides hundreds of important schools and colleges of the best modern type. The modern Church is doing evan- gelistic work, and besides this, benevolent and educational and charitable and philanthropic and reformatory work under almost every form of social service. If we are to train adolescents for their place in the modern Church we must exercise them in varied tasks. 2. The social function of the Sunday-school. The clear view of the underlying principle is of so much more importance than any details of mechanical method that we must dwell a little longer upon it. The school has a social function ; that is, there is a distinctly social work it must do, after the lessons have been learned within. Dr. Mc- Farland says : "The mission of the Sunday-school is to train men and women to take their places in society and do the work which Christian men and women should do. Chris- tianity is essentially a social religion, requiring the recogni- tion of the obligations growing out of the various relations which men and women sustain to each other. It should be taught, not merely in its abstract principles, but in its prac- WAYS OF WORKING 247 tical applications to life. This kind of teaching should begin in the Sunday-school." "It is high time that we should take notice that a socialism of a very pernicious sort is rapidly developing in modern society. That evil socialism will grow and prevail unless we meet it by a genuine Christian social- ism that will carry the teachings of Jesus Christ into the common life." Take also a citation from Dr. Hallock : "The chief in- terest to-day is in social progress and redemption. It has supplanted among Christians the theological interest of fifty years ago, and in many places the evangelistic interest of twenty-five years ago. Where fifty years ago we were con- cerned in solving the problem of the future state of the impenitent or the inspiration of the Scriptures, now we are concerned with solving the problem of the saloon, the brothel, the disease-breeding tenement, the corrupt government, the defrauding trust, and the always hovering curse of war." All this means, not the departure from the teachings of Jesus Christ, but the bringing them to their natural fru- ition. It is the gospel that has kindled the religious en- thusiasm of Christians for the redemption of an evil world. The master-motive of it all is found in the vow that conse- crates the soul of the disciple to the will of the Master. This is not a displacement of personal experience : it is the realization of it in the true following of the Master. The world can be saved by it, but never without it. "The love of man which lies back of all progress is born of the love of God." II. The Culture of Personal Friendship One of the primary ways of working is to provide class socials for the promotion of personal friendships among the members of the class. As has been previously suggested, this is pure and practical religion. It fulfills the injunction, "Love one another." This can not be done without opportunity, and class socials should afford 248 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK this opportunity. Love for outside people can grow only from the love of inside friends. Dr. C. E. Jefferson says : "The Christian religion reinforces the native instincts and aptitudes of our nature. It makes human beings more social; it brings them closer together. It increases the craving for fellowship and widens the joys of it. Christians, when normal, want to come together; the impulse to do so is spontaneous and irresistible. In the darkest days of persecution the Lord's disciples have met together by night if not by day, and in caves and desert places if not in churches and homes. The fagots of bigots and the swords of kings have never been able to keep Christians apart. They knew instinctively that the life of the heart depends upon fellowship, and that the very existence of Christianity hangs upon meetings. It is in meetings that the sacred fire is kept burning in which the iniquity of the world is to be consumed." This applies as well to social gatherings as to devotional services. Both are religious, and equally so. We are not to pray and sing hymns all the time. There is need of other exercises. Who says that socials are selfish? When a young person attends a social as a Christian, he may seek the good of others as truly as if he were in a prayer-meet- ing. He may do much to cheer some of his fellows who have no homes where they live and are in sore need of the helpful influence of clean companions. He may prove to some young men and women who are disposed to sniff at "Sunday-school doings" that these are far superior to public dances and other low forms of pleasure in the pure and elevating joy that they afford. Lord Byron, who drank of every cup that earth could give him — Lord Byron, with a wealth of intellectual and physical nature equal to almost anything — just before he died, sitting among gay company, was meditative and moody. They said to him, "Byron, what are you thinking about so seri- ously?" "O," he said, "I was thinking of the number of happy days I have had in this world." "How many?" was 3 WAYS OF WORKING 249 asked. "I can count but eleven, and I was just wondering if I could ever make up the dozen in this world of pangs and tears and sorrows." The pleasures of the simple, social life are not only pure, but they are lasting, and they grow with the years. In the delightful circle of a Sunday-school class there are larger opportunities for doing good than any one who has not tried it would think possible. Beyond the evening social, there are many ways in which the companionship of the class may be cultivated. There are excursions to adjacent cities, to points of historic in- terest, to the home of a distant member, to a convention or an institute. There are picnics which the class may attend as a class, or which may be limited to the class and a few invited friends. Or several class organizations may unite in some social event. It is scarcely necessary or pos- sible within our limits to go far into the details of these things. There are entire books written to furnish information and suggestions therefor, such as Dr. Reisner's "Social Plans for Young People." The field has been pretty widely culti- vated by this time, and young people need be at no loss for interesting occupations for all the time they will have for social enjoyments. III. Literary Work Many classes have found certain lines of literary work interesting. There is little time, say thirty minutes, in the Sunday-school session for the studies that the young people like to follow. As the years widen before them Special their interest in the great world widens, and this Study gives them great possibilities for literary work. Indeed, it is not necessary for any class of adolescents to adhere to the line of work followed by other classes in the school. One of the most injurious effects of the old uniform lesson has been the compulsion or the re- pulsion of adolescents to whom the topics and their treatment have been uninteresting or positively obnoxious. The new 250 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK system of graded lessons has the important advantage of giving the yomig people what they v^ish and what they need. When the lessons for seniors are provided they will be made for seniors, and there will doubtless be elective courses which will afford a choice of study-subjects. The Hfe of Christ, for example, prepared for such close and consecutive study as college students are accustomed to give to the great characters of history, may be taken up; and in order to have more time for the work, special meetings of the class may be appointed at other hours, and particular lines of work assigned to individual members for preparation and report. So the life of Paul or Moses or David may be undertaken; or the history of particular periods of Old Testament times, or the history of the early Church or the Mediaeval Church or the Modern Church, or of any other institution or of any great event that has had its pro- found bearing upon subsequent life. Besides historical studies, there may be literary or scientific studies, or social studies, or political investigations. There is no natural limit to the things that a class of live young folks may do if they desire. The more they know of the world and of the Church and Its past and present, the more likely will they be to be stirred to a due sense of their opportunities. IV. Work for the School and Church There is a wider circle of service that a class may render — for the school as a whole. There is always can- vassing for new members to be done, and there is the visi- tation of members sick and absent. There are Definite letters to write and messages to carry. One of Helpfulness *^^ most beautiful forms of work for a class of young girls is the regular visitation of an orphanage or a hospital, with the preparation of little gifts for their shut-in friends between times. A girls' class may be organized as a "Sunshine Band," working with great efficiency in the Home Department of the school. The boys WAYS OF WORKING 251 may be enlisted in some form of Home Department work suited to them. Or a class may take up the musical work of the school, either alone or in conjunction with other classes. A great deal may be done in this way, and every pupil in the school with musical talents should be sought out and his services secured. Then, there is the great athletic interest. If a school has nothing of this kind, it would be quite appropriate for a class of adolescents to take the matter up and see whether something could not be done in the way of providing for this real need. In great cities there is always a demand for proper playgrounds for children. Scores of boys and girls are annually killed in the streets, mainly because they have no other place to play. Some of the older persons may unite in an effort for securing and protecting some vacant lot where the young folks may safely play. Or they may fix up a baseball ground in any town or village, or a tennis court, or a croquet ground, or some similar place of amusement. Or the class may join in a movement for a fully equipped gymnasium adjacent to the church. When it comes to the anniversaries of the school, there are many ways in which a class organization may work helpfully: such as drilling, decorating, advertising, soliciting, and providing. A superintendent is always glad to have a compact little organization, under competent leadership, that he can lay his hand upon for the work that must be done to make the school go. Every pastor knows how good it is to have a number of active and earnest young people to come to his help in the varied work of the parish. As he will always know what is needed and will specify the tasks to be the Church done, it will not be necessary for us to do this here. But the time has come for the utiliza- tion of the young people in the active work of the Church as never before, and their usefulness here is beyond question. 252 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK V. In the Circle of the World We recur to the kind of work to which we gave attention at length in the beginning of the chapter. As the Churches are giving themselves to various forms of social work, some of the finest possible opportunities are afforded our earnest young folks for the kind of service that means so much to them and to the community. In the temper- Definite ance reform, for instance, organized classes of Service adolescents have co-operated with adult classes to canvass for votes and signatures, to watch regis- tration, and help to get out the vote in local option elections. In charity work young people are exceedingly valuable as visitors and investigators and as day-by-day friends and help- ers. In the work for suffering childhood adolescents can do much when they are properly organized. Take a case like this. In an East Side school in New York an insubordinate boy was sent home with a note to his father. But the teacher became a little uneasy lest the boy might be flogged too severely, and she asked him about it. "No," said the lad, "he'll just turn me out, I guess." The next day the boy came to school heavy with sleeplessness and blue with cold. She learned that it was a common form of punishment with the parents in that quarter to turn a refractory child out into the streets for the night! And these are not by any means the worst parents. What is to be done? The remedy is not with the school nor with the parents alone. It has been undertaken by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and they must do it by enlisting as many as possible of the more favored ones in the urgent work. This is home missionary work. It is Christlike work. It is what we all need to have a hand in, and the aid of the youth and of Sunday-schools will be welcomed by those who are directing this society and by the other agencies that are taking pity on the neglected chil- dren of the community. WAYS OF WORKING 253 The elementary lessons of social service are appropriate to class effort. Whatever a Church undertakes may be divided up systematically among its workers, and the classes of the school will be glad to come in for their share. This kind of work will not only aid them in their Biblical studies, but it will make religion real to them. Not long ago a Church took up an independent investi- gation of the problem of the milk supply of its city, in- cluding the charges of extortionate prices charged for this indispensable food. The men of the Church took charge of the inquiry, and went about it systematically. Their findings were a valuable contribution to the great public problem. Another Church is carrying on an industrial school which meets every Saturday morning, with classes in chair-caning, raffia, kitchen-gardening, cooking, dressmaking, millinery, embroidery, knitting, modeling, and kindergarten. The en- rollment of this school is now over two hundred, and it is proving of inestimable value to those who need the in- struction furnished, and who for the most part can not obtain it elsewhere. It may be noted that the Bible school of this Church has grown in three years from 212 to 925 members. One of the officials says concerning their work: 'The Church must adopt practical methods to attract and hold the masses. At the same time it must keep pace with the higher education. The spirit of the age is the spirit of love that seeks to make real the brotherhood of man." Prof. Rauschenbusch has recently said: "If the Church tries to confine itself to theology and the Bible, and refuses its larger mission to humanity, its theology will gradually become mythology and its Bible a closed Book." There is no limit to the forms and kinds of work that organized classes may undertake for social betterment. Not much has yet been done in this direction, but it is coming. The Churches are reaching out into the world as never be- fore, and they will doubtless apply Christianity to social needs in such a way as to accredit their vital relation to him 254 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK who "went about doing good." This work will so illustrate and enforce the gospel that they preach as to win the world at last, and bring the kingdom in. It is plain that Christian individuals ought to do this kind of work. It seems also plain that in whatever an individual needs to do he may have the co-operation of his companions and the guidance of his Sunday-school teacher. VI. The Teacher's Opportunity Space remains only for the suggestion that the teacher is greatly needed here for looking over the whole field and selecting for his pupils the work that he considers best for them to undertake. With his riper experience he can be of inestimable help to them, not only in this, but in guiding and counseling them all along. He can take special cogni- zance of the particular abilities of each pupil, and he can co-ordinate their efforts so that their efforts may be directed effectually as a unit. Lesson Outline: I. The Field of Service. II. The Culture of Personal Friendship. III. Literary Work. IV. Work for the School and Church. V. In the Circle of the World. VI. The Teacher's Opportunity. Topics for Special Study: 1. The need of cultivating friendships. 2. Possible forms of social service for the Senior Class. Topics for Class Discussion: 1. What are the limits to the work of the Church? 2. Who shall put into practice the principles the Church preaches ? WAYS OF WORKING 255 3. The Church and reforms. 4. The Church and charities. 5. How far is the Church responsible for the welfare of the community? 6. What is the best antidote for worldly pleasures? 7. What proper subjects for senior study? 8. Is it reasonable for the seniors to study the same lessons as the primaries? 9. Is it practicable to make a success of a class of young people that spends no more than an hour and a half a week together? ID. Is it any of the Sunday-school's business if there is destitution and neglect and wretchedness in the town? CHAPTER XIX JOINING THE BROTHERHOOD 17 CHAPTER XIX JOINING THE BROTHERHOOD I. A Study of Church Membership We once knew a fluttery young man who used to carry a clinical thermometer around with him. At intervals when he experienced some sort of a "goneness," he would hastily thrust the tube into his mouth, take his tempera- Religion is ^yj-g^ record it in his memorandum book, and Feeling heave a sigh. There are some people who seem to take their religion in about this fashion — and there are a few left who go so far as to say that if a healthy and earnest Christian does not feel the need of the ther- mometer, "the root of the matter is not in him." There are, fortunately, not as many such persons now as there used to" be. When they all pass there will be a better pros- pect for our young people. We are blessed in our day with an enlarged and enriched conception of what it means to be a Church member. To join the Church is not to enter a circle of pious selfishness — for it is just as truly selfish to be engrossed with our own piety as with our virtues or our business interests. The original conception of the Church was a brotherhood wherein each lived not for him- self, but for all. To this we are returning as we learn Christ more perfectly. It is not enough for our young people to be converted: they must go on into the brother- hood that Christ established, to be a part of it, and to bear worthily one's share in it. The teacher of adolescents must include this in his plan. He must win his pupils to Christ 259 ^ 26o THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK first, and to the service of Christ in the Church next. He must strive to show them the incomparable advantages of the Church as a field of effort, an agency of achievement, and a brotherhood of co-operation. To this study we devote this lesson. Nothing is more characteristic of modern pedagogy than the importance attributed to the point of view. Without the right angle from which to view facts and principles, they are not seen in the right perspective or propor- of View *^'-*"' -^ distorted or foreshortened truth becomes false, and such a fact becomes fiction. "We are educated by the things we admire and love; and unless young people can be placed at the standpoint from which virtue is seen to be pleasant and all her ways peaceful and beauteous, the real master is the evil given a romance and a glamor by the imagination working without conscience or moral aim." We might have said this before, for the prin- ciple applies to the teaching of anything. But it is of sur- passing importance in the final formative work upon the young mind that the teacher know how to place it just where the rich affections and the quick sympathies of ado- lescents shall fasten upon the right persons and the best things. It is possible to excite a subtle sympathy with evil while one is issuing warnings against it. There is besides the theorems and the formulas and the dates and syllogisms, what some have called "the tone value;" that is, the at- tractive sound that accompanies the lesson like fascinating music and charms the heart along with or away from it. Now, this tone value can not be imprisoned in words : it is the function of personality, and proceeds from an uncon- scious heart. "It can not be secured by legal enactments any more than a perfume can be captured by a net. The letter of a law may be strictly kept, but its spirit may as easily be violated." The tone value of the teacher's work counts for more with the emotions and the volitions of the JOINING THE BROTHERHOOD 261 pupils than all else he does, and it largely depends upon his point of view. Professor John Adams lays much stress upon the importance of this. It applies with great force to the teacher's representation of Church membership and his in- citement to its duties. II. The Youth a Soul- Winner One of the first privileges of Church membership is soul- winning. We are not referring now to the teacher, but to the pupil. If he is rightly taught, he will realize that he has been won to win. This is his work and his The Youth's proper work. He should be shown that it de- Youth °^ pends largely upon himself. The old can not win the young to any great extent : this is for the young to do. Spiritual influence glides along parallels. Those nearest a person can do the most with him. They understand him best. We have often heard a parent who could not understand what the baby said, ask the baby's four or five-year-old brother to interpret, which he readily did. Some high authorities affirm that young teachers are the best for children ; for though they know less than older ones, their point of view is better. It is said that years ago the men of England made a determined effort in behalf of the young men of London and failed. Then they got the women to go after them and, strange to say, they failed, too. They became discouraged, and while they were trying to solve the problem of how to reach the young men, a young man took it up on his own account and went after two or three of his companions. He got them, and they got others. George Williams had thus discovered the much-sought method, and the Young Men's Christian Association was born then and there. This advantage of youth is illustrated in the story of a country boy who came to the city and was invited by a youn^ salesman to go to Church with him. He went. There was a handsome old man of about seventy-five years of age 262 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK who got up and in the gravest way said that he was just waiting for God to take him ; that he had lived his life ; that God had been good to him; and that religion was a good thing to die by. He said: "I sat away back and soliloquized: 'Well, old man, you can't touch me; you have lived your life; you haven't any sympathy with a big boy; it has passed over my head.' Soon after a younger fellow got up. He said: 'I have just begun the Christian life. Two years ago I was converted; I had just begun business, and had a prejudice against religion. I am a great deal happier; I am a better business man.' I listened to him, and I said to myself: There you are; you want to be a business man, and he tells you how you can be a better business man. He tells you that religion is good to live by. 'Now, do you ever intend to be a Christian?' 'Yes.' 'Well, if it is a good thing, why don't you be it right away?' I said, 'Yes, I will.' I waited until everybody went out except the janitor and the old minister; and as the latter came down the aisle he met a country boy coming up, and I was the chap. I simply said to him, 'I have settled to- night to give my heart to God.' And he reached out his hand and said, 'God bless you, you will never regret it.' That was the whole business." This is John Wanamaker's story of how he was won to Christ. Older people frequently say things to young people that repel them instead of attracting them. It is the matter of the point of view again. They have forgotten many of the facts and feelings of youth and say the TactoTyouth wrong thing, or do the wrong thing while say- ing the right. They often address themselves to imaginary problems and fail to discern the real. The re- sult is that the young person is exhorted to accept some- thing that he already possesses, or is left in the dark when he would gladly have the light. Often he is ex- horted by words when he is making careful observations upon deeds. s JOINING THE BROTHERHOOD 263 A prominent lecturer once said : "If the present lecturer has the right to consider himself a real Christian, if he has been of any service to his fellow creatures, and has attained to any usefulness in the Church of Christ, he owes it to the sight of a companion, who slept in the same room with him, bending his knees in prayer every night on retiring to rest. That scene, so unostentatious and yet so uncon- cealed, roused my slumbering conscience and sent an arrow to my heart; for though I had been religiously educated, I had restrained prayer and cast off the fear of God. My conversion followed, and soon after my entrance upon col- lege studies for the work of the ministry. Nearly half a century has rolled away since then, with all its multitudinous events, but that little chamber, that humble couch, that pray- ing youth are still present to my imagination, and will never be forgotten, even amidst the splendors of heaven." When the Church comes to the full realization of the power of the young to win their fellows, and takes this fruitful principle into her systematic Sunday-school work with adolescents, she will enter upon the solution of her gravest problem. We must never forget that this work is as needful to the savior as to the saved. Haslett cites the case of a pastor who was successful in filling his church at its preach- ing services and generally had three hundred The Saving young men in his congregation. But four years Reacts afterward there were not fifty of them there, ex- cept on special occasions. What was the trouble? He had not brought them into the brotherhood. There is a limit to the spectator business, and he found it. The Vine is a living thing, and everything merely tied onto it will wither. The branches that draw their life from the Vine because they are a part of it represent the only Chris- tians that last. A merely formal or ritualistic relation does not suffice. One might think that there could be no adultera- tion of this kind of soul-winning, but there can be. 8 264 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK Coe tells us of a girl who took a vow shortly after her conversion to pray for the unconverted at ten o'clock every forenoon. Believing that kneeling was essential to the com- plete fulfilling of her vow, and being in her school at ten o'clock, she was perplexed to know how to do what she had promised God among the pupils in the schoolroom. But she solved the problem in this way. When the clock struck ten she dropped her pencil on the floor, underneath her desk. Then she got down to pick it up, and in this act managed to touch her knees momentarily to the floor, and her vow was kept ! It should be easy to see that here is a complete absence of the motive that alone can give vitality to soul-winning — the aim of the brotherhood. The genuine soul-winner loves souls, and seeks them intelligently and ceaselessly, devising his own ingenious methods and overcoming his difficulties in the same rational way that he pursues other ends. Contrast with the mechanical piety of the schoolgirl the real zeal of the workingman in Dr. Jowett's Church at Bir- mingham, who toiled for months to reclaim a sin-bruised brother. "I 've got him !" he shouted, with his face radiant with joy, "got him after eighty visits." It was true. Night after night for eighty nights he had gone out after his man, catching him before the drink could entice him, bringing him home to the Church and watching over him ceaselessly. Mr. Hubert Carleton, secretary of the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, has tested this matter pretty thoroughly in his work with boys, and he believes cordially in the efiicacy of a boy's own service in saving him. Make the very highest appeal to the boy by giving him real work to do and plenty of it. He says: "Yes, the boy can be won, but not in the usual way in which the Church is working at the problem to-day. The boy can be won by employing his interests, his energies, his possibilities, and his inspiration in behalf of God and God's cause. The way to win the boy for the Church is to teach him to work for the Church. And by Church JOINING THE BROTHERHOOD 265 work I do not mean what is commonly meant by Church work. I do not mean to give the boy some petty tinkering around the church and allow him to call that Church work or work for God. If you send your boy running messages for the rector, delivering notices, collecting books, and the like, and teach him to do nothing else, you have dwarfed the boy at the very beginning; and if you dwarf the boy you will never develop the man. The Church is in this world to make people Christians who are not Christians to-day, and the boy must be taught by the Church to take up his share in this work. In plain English, then, let me say that no boy can be a real Christian unless he is trying to make it easier for other boys who are not Christians to become Christians, or those who are Christians already to become better Christians. The Church is teaching the boy to-day a maimed religion, an imperfect religion, a religion with the heart left out of it. She is teaching him that it is his duty to live straight, but she is not teaching him that it is his equally necessary duty to help the other fellow to live straight." III. The Use of the Revival It should not be thought that this advocacy of individual soul-winning dispenses with the religious revival. It is natural for springtime to come. Scarcely anything has been so sorely abused in the Church as the revival, and yet it o^Grace"*" has its place and function. The chapter on rhythm in Herbert Spencer's philosophy has been to this writer one of the most illuminating contributions to the whole discussion of revivals. In the logic of this the permanence of these times of refreshing is bound up. Dr. Forbush says that the revival appeals especially to ado- lescence. "It satisfies the emotional nature. It is a simple appeal to the heart. Take away the late hours, the long services, the untrained and fanatic exhorters — features which are incidental — and reduce it to a 'children's crusade,' in 266 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK which the social and emotional element is retained, where the ideal of the heroic and loving Christ and His grand and strenuous service are held up by the pastor or a wise specialist with children, and we have an instrument of his- toric dignity and perpetual value. The danger is the forcing of the nature before it has come to its day of choice, and the neglect to follow up the decision by careful training." This was written with special reference to early adoles- cence, but it applies equally well to our period. IV. The Youth a Sunday-school Teacher Another investment of influence offered by the Church to the adolescent is the work of teaching. This is of the utmost value, both to the school and the young teacher him- self. We are using our young people in this The Power (jgUgi^tful work more and more as their adapta- of Influence =" , . -^ . . • i • i tion to it and their efficiency m it become evident. Some of our inexperienced teachers rank among the best of all teachers. They seem to be able to strike the right tone value by a sort of youthful intuition, and their point of view naturally coincides with that of their pupils. Forbush calls the three curses of humanitarian work utili- tarianism, uniformity, and numbers — "and the greatest of these is numbers. It takes perpetual vigilance to do Church or social work without becoming a slave to the addition table. All work for men that amounts to anything is in the end the influence of personality on personality. We must forget our addition table and stop seeing our boys as flocks. The most important thing any one can do for a boy is to love him." This thing young people seem highly gifted for doing. They are not crusted over with formalism. Their sympathies are fresh and frank and their enthusiasms are clean and contagious. There are classes of young people without teachers that have run along admirably for a long time. They began in accidents, but were continued on their merits. The Young Men's Christian Association has been JOINING THE BROTHERHOOD 267 experimenting with Bible classes with no teachers but boys of the same age as their classmates, and the officers of the association express much satisfaction with the results ob- tained. These pupil-teachers have been carefully drilled by an adult or in a training-class, of course. It is then found that "the absence of sermonizing and the freedom from the dominance of an adult personality make for a healthy and expressive class life." This is valuable testimony for us. It suggests that the Sunday-schoul teacher should have teacher-training in mind for his pupils, and as soon as possible prepare his young people for this kind of service. Every pastor knows the value of the work of the right kind of young girl or young man as a teacher ; and he also knows how many who have seemed to be worldly and frivolous swing around and prove themselves the right sort when they assume the responsi- bility of real work. We are sure that many have been saved by teaching who would never have been saved by teachers. Alice Freeman Palmer was born In poverty, but she be- queathed the world one of the richest legacies of blessing left by any woman anywhere. She joined the brotherhood that we have been describing at fourteen years One Young q£ ^g^^ ^j^^ became a force in it from that day. Secret After her death her husband received nearly two thousand letters from statesmen, schoolgirls, clerks, lawyers, teachers, country wives, outcasts, millionaires, ministers, men of letters — all feeling the marvel of her per- sonality and lamenting their personal loss at her untimely death. At one time her husband urged her to deny the numerous personal interviews that she was according, saying that she could accomplish so much more with her limited strength by writing books of lasting value. Her reply re- veals the secret of her consecration and admirably illustrates the principle that this lesson is presenting to the teachers of adolescents : 'T am trying to make girls wiser and happier. 268 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK Books do n't help much toward that. They are entertaining enough, but they are really dead things. Why should I make more of them. It is people that count. You want to put yourself into people ; they touch other people ; those, others still ; and so you go on working forever." Her husband said that she instinctively adopted the idea of Jesus, that if you would remold the world the wise way is not to write, but to devote your fleeting years to per- sistent talks with individuals, like His with a dozen j^oung fishermen. This opportunity the Church offers to all our young women and young men. Mrs. Palmer wrote this to a friend : "As I lived among these young people day after day I felt a want of something, not intellectual or even re- ligious culture ; not a lack of physical training or that ac- quaintance with social life which can be so charming in a true woman ; but a something I must call heart-culture, in lack of a better name. Every one was kind, but cold. There was no intentional freezing, but an absence of the sunshine which melts its own way. Looking on and into them, I said, I will try to be a friend to them all, and put all that is truest and sweetest and sunniest and strongest that I can gather into their lives. While I teach them solid knowl- edge and give them real school drill as faithfully as I may, I will give, too, all that the years brought to my own soul. God help me to give zvhat He gave — myself — and make that self worth something to somebody ; teach me to love all as He has loved, for the sake of the infinite possibilities locked up in every human soul. Consecrating myself to the future of these girls, to them as women, I have tried in this life among them to make them feel they can always come to me in happy and in sad times, in restless moments, or home- sick or tired hours. Whenever they want help or comfort my door and heart shall be open." These citations from Professor Palmer's biography of his wife illustrate the spirit that makes the ceremony of joining the Church a virtual sacrament. 3 JOINING THE BROTHERHOOD 269 V. The Only Brotherhood It is not within the scope of this lesson to specify all the numerous agencies of the Church that invite the devo- tion of our youth. We have noted some of the more im- portant lines of Church opportunity, the spirit of the true member, with the value of his service both to the Church and to himself. Some one has said that the principal moral task of the child is to grow a conscience, and of the youth to grow a will. The will is nurtured only by exercise, and the atmosphere and the facilities of the Church afford in- comparably the best chance in the world for this. We add this last word : The Brotherhood of Jesus Christ is the only circle wherein we may surely say that the soul may develop uuito the life everlasting. In this sense the Church is divine. He whom Jesus has forgiven must work with him, for "He that gathereth not with Me scattereth;" and he who would do Christ's work must be sanctified by Him, for "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me." Lesson Outline: 1. A Study of Church Membership. II. The Youth a Soul-Winner. III. The Use of the Revival. IV. The Youth a Sunday-school Teacher. V. The Only Brotherhood. Topics for Special Study: 1. Proper revival methods for use with adolescents. 2. Methods of personal work. Topics for Class Discussion: 1. What is "the root of the matter" spiritually? 2. What is meant by ''point of view?" 3. What is there in teaching besides the spoken words? 270 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK 4. What ought to be the goal of the teacher's efforts? 5. Who can work best with young people? 6. The young teacher's advantages. 7. The young teacher's limitations. 8. What difficulties do older people find in working with the young? 9. What are proper times for soul-winning? 10. Is it wise to give young people important work in the Church? 11. What do you think of Mrs. Palmer's method? CHAPTER XX THE CALL OF THE WORLD CHAPTER XX THE CALL OF THE WORLD I. Guiding Principles These cardinal principles we have tried to keep before the senior worker in these studies : the significance and op- portunity of growth, the peculiarities of adolescence, the responsiveness of the adolescent to the right appeals, the importance of the teacher's understanding of his pupils, the value of present-day opportunities to the senior, the supreme need of intelligent spiritual culture, and the teacher's ex- traordinary possibilities of influence. II. The Last Lesson John Trebonius was the old German professor who al- ways appeared before his students with uncovered head, and when asked for an explanation of this reverence, said, "Who •Pl^g can tell what yet may rise up among these Unlimited youths?" And among the youths of that class Possibiiites was Martin Luther, that "solitary monk that of Youth gj^QQj^ the world." Said Paul to Timothy, "Let no man despise thy youth," expressing thereby his sense of appreciation of youth's possibilities. The teacher is that privileged person who is permitted to enter the sanctuary of youth. As he proves himself intelligent and wise and sym- pathetic he is held in the hearts of his pupils, and his in- fluence over them is very great. As maturity draws near the plastic period comes to its natural close. His is the last hand that may touch their life to mold it with facility. At this time also the youth stands upon the threshold of his permanent abode. He has not finally chosen it yet, and this teacher may be the one w^ho 18 273 ' 274 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK shall crown all his labors of love in taking him up into a high mountain — not of temptation, but of outlook — and show- ing him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them. Perhaps he is the only guide who can take the youth safely to Inspiration Point and disclose to him the expansive panorama of mountain and valley, of forest and field and river. It will not do for the teacher to neglect this last and highest opportunity nor to omit it in his own preparations for his holy service. If he would do his full duty by his pupil-friend he must have his own ear out for the call of the world, that he may aid the pupil to hear and to interpret his call aright. For he has his work in this great world, and it will issue its call for him. This may be loud and insistent, and it may be but a still small voice. In any case the teacher-friend can render valuable aid in this crisis of life. It has been well said that a friend is one who shows us what we can do. Many a youth has come to a delightful self-revealing through the insight of a devoted Sunday-school teacher. There would be more gospel preachers to-day if Sunday-school teachers had been more intelligent and faithful. Many a sermon has been preached to the salvation of men that would never have found voice but that some teacher interpreted the Spirit's call to the preacher. Many a missionary has gone to the far-off pagan lands through the vision that has been opened before him by his teacher. Many a successful business man has been started on his prosperous way by this same kind of helpful influence. George William Curtis once told this story at a birthday dinner in Boston. An Oriental prince and his mentor walked abroad one day, the latter carrying in his hand a jar, which he presently uncorked. From the open mouth of the vessel rose a gas, and this the mentor lighted. Thick fumes curled up from the burning gas and gradually took such shape that the prince could not help recognizing traces of his own features, though ennobled and glorified. "Can it be that 3 THE CALL OF THE WORLD 275 this pictures me?" asked the flattered prince. "Yes," smiled the mentor; "not, however, as you are, but as you ought to be." The wise and loving teacher carries this jar and is able to present to his pupil thereby those ideals of future character that he may realize. It is not uncommon for inexperienced young people to place their affections upon the wrong things. Their esti- mates of moral values need to be rectified often. Herbert Spencer is said to have indulged once in a while in a game of billiards for recreation. A young man who knew him asked the philosopher if he would join in a game, and he consented. Mr. Spencer started the balls. He left them in good position, and the young man, who was an expert, finished the game in one break, not allowing his antagonist another shot. Then the young man smilingly looked to Mr. Spencer for the expected compliment. But he looked seriously at the youth, and said, "Sir, moderate proficiency at this sport is a sign of good education ; such mastership, however, as you exhibit is the proof of an ill-spent youth." Then he took his hat and disappeared. III. Enlarged Plans Required We have spent some time in the consideration of the new world in which we live. The day was, and that not so long ago, when every family, almost, was sufficient unto it- self. This is interestingly evident in the Wash- the World ington mansion at Mount Vernon. But now the division of labor has made us all specialists, and this means dependence. Think how many thousands of people serve us in what we eat and wear and use every day. But it also means the enlargement of our lives. At first the individual was made perfect in his family, then in his clan or tribe, then in the State, then in the nation, and now at last he must live in the whole wide world if he lives at all. The world is more htan simply expanded; it is ener- 276 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK gized. It is said that the four great manufacturing nations, the United States, England, France, and Germany, have steam power in excess of the aggregate of all the human male muscular power in the whole world, and this can be increased indefinitely as it may be needed. Machinery has greatly enhanced the power of the common man. He is said to be fifty times as powerful as he was a century ago. He has seized the lever of nature, grasping which he can do as much as could fifty men a hundred years ago — and this power is increasing. The thought-world is growing faster than any other. What wonder that old theological conceptions have been disturbed by the prodigious advancement of learning! When the pope of Rome drew a line in the Atlantic Ocean and declared that there was no land beyond it, that error was so much the worse for the pope — not for geography. Dr. Strong well says that "thinking minds want a religious con- ception large enough to make room for the enlarged ideas, comprehensive enough to embrace every new fact of universal knowledge, secure enough to welcome every new ray of light from whatever source — a religion adapted not only to the individual, but also to the vast life of society; not a re- ligion of rules, but one of principles, applicable to all the possible complexities of human relationships and capable of solving social as well as personal problems." IV. A New Salvation The new point of view gives us a conception of the gospel salvation so much enlarged that it may be called a new salvation. Not that it is new to the gospel. The Gospel q£ course ; but it arises out of a deeper study of Realized ^^^ gospel. Whatever theological theory might have been, the *'life-boat theory" has been gen- erally adopted in Christian practice. The way of salvation has been conceded to be to "leave the poor old stranded wreck and pull for the shore," the said wreck being the world THE CALL OF THE WORLD 2-]-] lying in wickedness, dead in trespasses and sins. Banyan's immortal allegory sets forth this theory. His typical Chris- tian forsakes his home and his city, which is named the city of Destruction, to save his soul by seeking a far-off heaven. He does not even take his wife and children with him, but leaves them to make their own perilous way by themselves. For his neighbors and his town he seems to care nothing and to hope nothing. But we do not so regard our Christian mission to-day. We do not leave the city we live in to destruction, nor do we believe that it is hopelessly depraved. The modern Sun- day-school teacher, in the crisis of his pupils' lives, urges upon them their own community as the place where they ought to work. He has no use for a life-boat. He solemnly warns them against hating the world, and teaches them to love the world as their Master did, or as did the Infinite Father who "so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son" to come and save it. The world as repre- senting the spirit of evil Is quite another thing, and this dis- tinction must always be made. Lord Shaftesbury illustrated the true Christian thought of salvation when he talked to Frances Power Cobbe about the wrongs of the working-girls. With tears in his eyes and with a trembling voice he said to her : "When I think that I am growing old and that I have not long to live, I hope it is not wrong, but I can not bear to die and leave the world with so much wretchedness in it." On this Dr. Strong comments : "The wretchedness from which so many would flee was precisely that which bound him to the earth. He would fain stay so long as he could relieve any measure of the world's woe, and bring heaven a little nearer earth. That to my mind is a far more Christian conception of life and more heroic than that which is represented in the 'Pil- grim's Progress.' Let us not be impatient for heaven. It will keep.'^ Tennyson's swan-song is beautifully appropriate to the 8 278 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK close of a long earthly pilgrimage, but it is not for the earnest youth. Let him rather sing, "Sunrise and morning star, and one clear call for me." Happy is that teacher who is able to make the cry of the world's need a clear call to his pupils. V. The Vocational Awakening Corresponding to the call from without is a cry within. It is the sign of a new life which has been called a voca- tional awakening; that is, the adolescent feels within him the stirrings of new powers and purposes more Guidance in «^ (jgf^j^j^g and more ambitious than he has felt a Life Work before. He is beginning to choose his part in the work of life. Perhaps the choice is made early and eagerly and is never changed. His life is the projection of his adolescent election. Perhaps, however, his mind is less decisive. He inclines in a certain direction, but wavers and oscillates for some time before he knows just v/here he will take his stand. But the important thing for the teacher of adolescents is to recognize the fact of this awakening, along with other peculiarities of youth, and to be ready for it. He will be more likely to underrate it than to overrate it, for the youth may have little to say about what is very much in his thoughts. Haslett reminds us that some of the world's greatest productions have been thought out during this stage of life, which shows its possibilities at least. Eduard Von Hartmann published his "Philosophy of the Unconscious" at the age of twenty-five. Schopenhauer produced his "Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason" at twenty-five. Schel- ling came before the world as a philosophic writer when he was but eighteen, and at twenty-two had established his ability as a thinker. Kant began his literary career at the age of twenty-two. Malebranche began his public life at the age of twenty-one, when he was elected a member of the Congregation de I'oratoire. Descartes became dissatisfied with THE CALL OF THE WORLD 279 the prevailing philosophy before he was twenty-one, and when he reached that age left science awhile for life in the camp. Aristotle at the age of sixteen began the study of philosophy under Plato at Athens. The great majority of students enter college at about the age of eighteen to twenty. Bryant produced "Thanatopsis" at the age of eighteen. He was called precocious, but Whittier and Longfellow and Lowell wrote poetry at an early age, as nearly all the poets seem to have done. It is probable that all who have written literature at all have begun to write in their adolescent years. Preachers have heard the call in their youth, and so have missionaries and deaconesses and Christian workers generally. VI. The Consecration of the Life It may not be the duty of the teacher to take an active part in the choice of a life-work for his pupil. This is mainly the responsibility of the youth himself. No one ought Influence the ^° P"^^^ ^^"^ ^^^^ anything. But there is one Youth to thing which is eminently appropriate for the Consecration teacher's office : to impress upon the young man of Life to a ^j. ^^^ young woman that every life should be devoted to usefulness. No life-work should be laid out with only self in view. The youth should be dili- gently taught the reality and the value of the altruistic prin- ciple which Christianity has put forth as peculiarly its own. He should be told that the life that will bring the most to himself is that which is considerate of others. Not merely for Christian workers, but for all, the true life is the con- secrated life. Not much can be done to influence the youth aright by any who are not admitted to his intimate friend- ship, nor can much be done except at this critical time. But it can be accomplished by a faithful teacher, as is evi- denced by the multitude of lives that teachers have given direction to. Take the single case of Booker T. Washington. While 28o THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK he was trying to settle the momentous question of his life- work he became intensely interested in politics. He says that he came very near yielding to these alluring tempta- tions, but was kept from so doing by the feeling that he would be helping in a more substantial way by assisting in the laying of the foundation of his race through a generous education of the hand, head, and heart. Where did he get this feeling? From his teacher. He declares that the greatest benefits that he got out of his student life were two: "First, was contact with a great man, Gen'l C. S. Armstrong, who, I repeat, was in my opinion the rarest, strongest, and most beautiful character that it has ever been my privilege to meet. Second, at Hampton, for the first time I learned what education was expected to do for an individual. Before going there I had a good deal of the then rather prevalent idea that to secure an education meant to have a good, easy time, free from all necessity for manual labor. At Hampton I not only learned that it was not a disgrace to labor, but learned to love labor, not alone for its financial value, but for labor's own sake and for the independence and self-reliance which the ability to do something the world wants done brings. At that institution I got my first taste of what it meant to live a life of unselfishness, my first knowledge of the fact that the happiest individuals are those who do the most to make others useful and happy." The wise teacher will take a lively interest in all that pertains to the future of his pupils. He will utilize his in- teresting personal knowledge of their individual talents for their help in determining their life-work, never Privilege doing violence to these. He will exclude no career from his regard. But there is one par- ticular interest that the Christian teacher must always hold dear. There is one cause that he will never fail to have duly presented to his young people : that of distinctively Chris- tian service. This is greatly needed at the present time. Never were the harvests of the world so white as now, and THE CALL OF THE WORLD 281 never were laborers so sorely needed in the work of the Church as now. The vantage point of the Sunday-school teacher can be utilized richly here. While he should never seek unduly to influence his pupils to enter the ministry or the deaconess work or to go into the mission field or to take training for the Young Men's Christian Association or other similar work, he should at least see to it that the facts concerning this kind of service should be fairly laid before them. He should never forget that Christian work means self-sacrifice as does no other, and that this operates against it in the minds of many. It is his special privilege to show the young people the great need of workers in the Church and the beauty and honor of a consecration to the special service of Jesus Christ. He will take pains to keep informed con- cerning the progress of the gospel at home and abroad. He will make some kind of a special study of the Christian pastorate, so that if occasion arises he can speak intelli- gently to inquirers concerning it. He should be able to ofi'set the current objections of young men to the minis- terial calling with statements of its advantages, its possi- bilities, and its joys. He should devote attention to the cause of Christian missions, trying to keep pace with their swift progress all abroad. He should know something of the great mission- ary organizations and their plans of work. He should keep posted on the Students' Volunteer Movement, the Young People's Missionary Movement, the women's societies and their minor bodies. He should know of the new books that are being published in the interest of missionary education in the Sunday-school and elsewhere, and should encourage membership in mission study classes. The object of all this is not so much to make special pleas for this service as to give it a fair consideration by young people who are seeking for the best possible invest- ment of their lives. The highest of all forms of service, the 3 282 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK Christian ministry, in the broader sense, should by no means be left in neglect. VII. A Satisfying Portion The Christian ministry (using the term of all kinds of Church work) is a satisfying portion. When the promised land was divided among the tribes of Israel, Levi got none, and it was said, "Levi hath no portion nor in- The Truly heritance with his brethren." This seemed harsh. Portion^ But really the Levites received far more than land, for it was also said, "Jehovah is his in- heritance." It has been said that the most pathetic sight of our day is that of great men doing little things. "Every- where one sees high powers consecrated to common ends, capa- ble enthusiasms expended upon trivial accomplishments, living souls absorbed and engrossed in the vocations and avocations that are commensurate with only the animal part of being." The Church of Jesus Christ offers great tasks for great souls. It can make souls great by uniting them consciously with Almighty God in the re-creation of the world. To all those who will rise above the things that perish and dedicate themselves to spiritual ministries God offers Himself as their inheritance. No one who resigns land to give himself to a holy ministry in the name of Christ goes unrecognized by the Master. There are great tasks, noble missions, lofty enthusiasms, large problems, and sacrifices as pure as ever kindled a martyr's devotion awaiting the self-dedication of heroic young men and women to-day. It is the teacher's precious privilege to bid them listen to the Voice that utters the high call of the world in the last words of the incarnate mission : "All authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and on earth. Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have com- THE CALL OF THE WORLD 283 manded you: and lo ! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world," Lesson Outline: I. Guiding Principles. n. The Last Lesson, HL Enlarged Plans Required. IV. A New Salvation. V. The Vocational Awakening. VL The Consecration of the Life. VH. A Satisfying Portion. Topics for Special Study: 1. The teaching of Jesus concerning salvation. 2. The age of great life choices. Topics for Class Discussion: 1. What are the leading principles underlying these studies? 2. How can the teacher help his pupils choose their life-work? 3. In what respects do the young need help in this? 4; The danger of too narrow plans. 5. Should the Christian love the world or hate it? 6. When are life choices usually made? 7. How far should others be regarded in making this choice? 8. What ought the teacher to do in behalf of the Christian ministry? For missions? 9. How are young people to know the facts of Chris- tian service? 10. What is the noblest work in the world? 284 THE SENIOR WORKER AND HIS WORK BIBLIOGRAPHY. 'The Graded Sunday-school in Principle and Practice," Meyer. "The Psychological Principles of Education," Home. "Adolescence," G. Stanley Hall. "Elements of Religious Pedagogy," Fred Lewis Pattee. •■principles and Ideals for the Sunday-school," Burton and Mathews. "Talks on Psychology and Life's Ideals," William James. "Principles of Religious Education," Nicholas M. Butler and others. "The Development of the Child," Nathan Oppenheim. "The Pedagogical Bible School," Samuel B. Haslett. "Letters to Sunday-school Teachers," Henry Churchill King. "The Training of the Human Plant," Luther Burbank. "The Spiritual Life," George A. Coe. "Education in Religion and Morals," George A. Coe. "The Religion of a Mature Mind," George A. Coe. "Studies in Christianity," Borden P. Bowne. "Educational Evangelism," Charles E. McKinley. "Christian Nurture," Horace Bushnell. "The Religion of Childhood," F. G. Hibbard. "Christianity and Childhood," Richard J. Cooke. "The Psychology of Religion," Edwin D. Starbuck. "The Boy Problem," William B. Forbush. "Studies in Childhood," James Sully. "The Point of Contact in Teaching," Patterson DuBois. "The Natural Way in Moral Training," Patterson DuBois. "The Unfolding Life," Antoinette A. Lamoreaux. "The Meaning of Education," Nicholas Murray Butler. "My Pedagogic Creed," John Dewey. "Primer on Teaching," John Adams. "Education," Herbert Spencer. "The Seven Laws of Teaching," John M. Gregory. BIBLIOGRAPHY 285 "How to Plan a Lesson," Marianna C. Brown. "Education and the Larger Life," C. Hanford Henderson. "Teachers and Teaching," Henry Clay Trumbull. "A New Life in Education," Fletcher Durell "The Times and Young Men," Josiah Strong. "Expansion," Josiah Strong. "The Next Great Awakening," Josiah Strong. "On the Threshold," Theodore T. Hunger. "Entering on Life," Cunningham Geikie. "The School and Society," John Dewey. "The Child's Religious Life," W. G. Koons. "Studies in the Art of Illustration," Amos R. Wells. "Missions in the Sunday-school," Martha B. Hixson. "Servants of the King," Robert E. Speer. "Missionary Methods," George H. Trull. Date Due 'Sta^ii^iii^' f) PRINTED IN U. S. A.