BV 1 UC-NRLF B 3 12b 42^ 1 EXCHANGE il i II! ii; i; iiiilf rXCTI ii'.inlj; 111 i! !hi' ' ill I i;i i il UL XTbe tlniverstt^ of Cbtcaao SOCIAL SERVICE IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (the GRADtTATE DIVINITY SCHOOL: KELIGIOUS EDUCATION) BY WILLIAM NORMAN HUTCHINS Reprinted with additions from The Biblical World, Vol. XLIV, No. 2 Chicago, 1 91 4 Copyrighted 1914 by the University 0/ Chicago ! ^be xanlversit^) ot Cbtcaoo SOCIAL SERVICE IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (the graduate divinity school: religious education) BY WILLIAM NORMAN HUTCHINS Reprinted with additions from The Biblical World, Vol. XLIV, No. 2 Chicago, 1 91 4 Copyrighted 1914 by the University oj Chicago Hs- Composed and Printed By The University of Clilcaifo Press ChicuKO. UlUiols, U.S.A. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. The Essential Quality of Social Service 65 II. Dangers in Social Service 73 III. Types of Social Service 79 § I. Seasonal 79 § 2. Casual 79 § 3. Organized 81 §4. Affiliated 84 § 5. Personal 85 § 6. Gifts 87 IV. Significant Programs of Social Service 89 § I. Christ Church, Chicago 89 § 2. Hyde Park Baptist Church, Chicago 93 § 3. Church of the Disciples, Boston 96 § 4. First Presbyterian Church, Buffalo 97 § 5. Winnetka Congregational Church 99 § 6. The Protestant Episcopal Program ^ . . 102 § 7. Summary 103 V. Education in Money-Giving 105 §1. Educational Principles in Benevolence 105 § 2. Current Methods of Sunday-School Benevolence .... 108 §3. Missionary Leaflets 113 VI. Values in Social Service 118 §1. Testimony of Sunday-School Workers ....... 118 § 2. A Study of Personal Reactions 121 § 3. The Popularity of Social Service 122 §4. Motives in Social Service 125 § 5. Reflex Influence of Social Service 127 § 6. Social Service and the Emotions 130 VII. A Suggested Curriculum of Social Service 133 §1. Objects of Social Service i33 § 2. Social Service and Special Occasions i35 § 3. The Kindergarten Department 138 § 4. The Primary Department 138 § 5. The Junior Department 14° § 6. The High-School Department I43 § 7. The Young People's Department 146 iii BIBLIOGRAPHY Addams, Jane. Democracy and Social Ethics. New York: Macmillan, 1902. . Newer Ideals of Peace. New York: Macmillan, 1907. Ames, Edward Scribner. The Psychology of Religious Experience. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1910. . "Social Consciousness and Its Object," Psychological Bulletin, VIII, No. 12 (December 15, 191 1). Cooley, Charles Horton. Human Nature and the Social Order. New York: Scribner, 1902. . Social Organization: A Study of the Larger Mind. New York: Scribner, 1909. Elwood, Charles A. Sociology in Its Psychological Aspects. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 191 2. Hammond, Juliet. A Problem in the Psychology of Social Work. (Master's Dissertation, University of Chicago, 1911.) Mead, George H. "Social Psychology as Counterpart to Physiological Psy- chology," Psychological Bulletin, VI (December, 1909), 401-8. ■ . "Social Consciousness and the Consciousness of Meaning," Psy- chological Bulletin, VII (December, 1910), 397-405. ■ . "The Social Self," Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Method, X, No. 14 (July 3, 1913). IV CHAPTER I THE ESSENTI.\L QUALITY OF SOCIAL SERVICE The purpose of this study is to present data concerning social service in the Sunday school. Moved ahke by the pervasive social spirit of the times and the long-recognized need of providing some expressive activities for their young people, religious leaders here and there throughout the country have been gradually introducing social service into the Sunday school as material for religious educa- tion. While the movement has awakened wide interest and kindled much enthusiasm, no one seems to know how far it has progressed, what it has accomplished, or what assured solutions it offers to the problem of religious education. As there has been no canvass of the situation, and consequently no assembling of experience, it has been necessary for each leader to work out his own program and develop his own technique, and while these good people have often felt that there were other forms of significant service in which their young people ought to engage, they have not known where to find them or to whom to turn for information. With the hope not only of secur- ing and presenting this desired information, but of accomplishing also the larger task of working out a curriculum of social service that might be experimentally tried out, this study was undertaken. Its specific aim was to ascertain what forms of service are in use, what technique is employed in carrying out a program of social service, what opportunity the average Sunday school has to engage in wel- fare efforts, what values have been discovered, what attitude the young people assume toward this new form of religious education, what motives are at work, what the reflex influence is, what means are taken to make benevolent offerings vital and significant, and how far it is possible to project a graded program of social service. The sources of this study, the technique employed, and the results obtained will be given in connection with each separate study. It is fairly well accepted that education is a social process, and needs to be interpreted by established facts regarding the inter- actions of mind with mind. Whenever this is recognized we see at once the significance of those units of society called primary groups. 6s 0(i THE BIBLICAL WORLD In primary' groups, like the family, the play group of children, and the neighborhood group, with their intimate association and co-operation, every member enters more or less completely into the life of every other member. Through constant intercourse in the various activities of life they acquire the imagery which enables them to assume each other's roles. This makes possible com- munion, insight, the sharing of the mental state of others. This does not mean that all the members of a primar}' group are just alike. In fact, the opposite seems to be nearer the truth. Were all the individuals precisely alike, the distinction between ego and alteri would never come to consciousness. The primar}-- group, as Professor Cooley says, "is always a differentiated and usually a competitive unity admitting of self-assertion, and various appro- priative passions, but these passions are socialized by synnpathy, and come, or tend to come, under the discipline of a common spirit."^ In the primary group differentiation is based on function. The various members of the group have different tasks to perform, but there is no definite conflict, for all the instincts, including those of hostility, are so organized that rivalry or competition is of value to the group. Now the socializing process is essentially the process of enlarging these primary groups so that we come into full human relations with a larger and larger number of persons. In his Human Nature and the Social Order, Professor Cooley has shown how the personal idea is the real person: The personality of a friend, as it lives in my mind and forms there a part of the society in which I live, is simply a group or system of thoughts associated with the symbols that stand for him. To think of him is to revive some part of the system — to have the old feeling along with the familiar symbol, though perhaps in a new connection with other ideas. The real and intimate thing in him is the thought to which he gives life, the feeling his presence or memory has the power to suggest. Thus the face of a friend has power over us in much the same way as the sight of a favorite book, of the Hag of one's country, or the refrain of an old song; it starts a train of thought, lifts the curtain from an intimate experience.^ The socializing process is, therefore, no mere matter of physical contacts, or the multiplying of acquaintances. It calls for social ' C. H. Cooley, Social Organizalion, p. 23. ' C. H. Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order, p. 81. GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 67 imagination. It is mediated by the insight which enables us to understand other persons, to enter into their systems of thought, to take up and share their sentiments and symbols. It involves appreciation, effective interpretation of other minds, and, not by any means the least, co-operation for a common end. Every agency, then, that facihtates s>Tnpathy, gives vividness to the imagination, and fosters co-operative endeavor, performs a socializing function. It is the unifying, fusing character of the family, with its fine insight and common purposes, that makes it an outstanding socializing force. A congenial family is the immemorial type of moral unity, and source of many terms — such as brotherhood, kindness, and the like — which describe it. The members become merged by intimate association into a whole wherein each age and sex participates in its own way. Each lives in imaginative contacts with the minds of the others, and finds in them the dwelling-place of the social self, of his affections, ambitions, resentments, and standards of right and wrong. Without uniformity, there is yet unity, a free, pleasant, wholesome, fruitful common life.^ So the school may be spoken of as a socializing agency, because it not only transmits to each succeeding generation the spiritual pos- sessions of the race, but through this heritage tends to enlist the sympathy and co-operation of people in worthy social ends. Geography, histor}% biography, literature, art, and science all help us to a fuller understanding and a more appreciative interpretation of other persons, and whenever the social values of the curriculum have been given efficient recognition the school has been a socializ- ing force. But the socializing process comes to its best, in the school, not through formal instruction, but through the develop- ment of a genuine community life, through the correlation of the didactic elements with vocational interests, the organization of play, and the establishment of self-government. The warm, inti- mate, vital association which develops in a neighborhood group has many illustrations, but no finer or more impressive one than is furnished by the immigrants in the poorer quarters of a cosmo- politan city. Reduced to the universal necessities and fundamental equalities of human life, hedged in by a life that is new, strange, perplexing in so many of its expressions, they draw the closer to ' C. H. Cooley, Social Organization, p. 34. 68 THE BIBLICAL WORLD each other and fonn associations which call for the finest and high- est qualities of character. Knowing these groups as few others do and interpreting their significance as few others are able, Jane Addams has said: In the midst of the modern city which, at moments, seems to stand only for the triumph of the strongest, the successful exploitation of the weak, the ruthlessness and hidden crime which follow in the wake of the struggle for existence on its lowest terms, there come daily — at least to American cities — accretions of simple people, who carry in their hearts a desire for mere goodness. They regularly deplete their scanty livelihood in response to a primitive pity, and, independent of the religions thej^ have professed, of the wrongs they have sufTered, and of the fixed morality they have been taught, have an unquenchable desire that charity and simple justice shall regulate men's relations. It seems sometimes, to one who knows them, as if they continually sought for an outlet for more kindliness, and that they are not only willing and eager to do a favor for a friend, but that their kind-heartedness lies in ambush, as it were, for a chance to incorporate itself in our larger relations, that they persistently expect that it shall be given some form of governmental expression.' So ever}^ institution is a sociahzing institution that helps us to pass into the life of other persons, to regard them as full human beings, to, merge our energies and efforts for some commanding purpose. Now in this sense, and as one among many other institutions, the Sunday school has always promoted the socialization of its members. It has always been a place in which face-to-face asso- ciations have been cultivated and more or less definite social ends have been set before the group. Through its hymns, its stories, its great biographies, and its dramatization of significant events in the history of another people, it has fed the social imagination and made for breadth of vision and a fine enrichment of sentiments and ideals. While it may not be clearly apprehended by all who undertake its tasks, rehgious education is essentially a socializing process and therefore as an institution for furthering the process of religious education the Sunday school of necessity has exerted a socializing influence. The introduction of social service into the Sunday school must, therefore, be regarded as an extension of a function which it has always performed. The aim of social service in the Sunday school is to socialize the young people, to de\Tlop their powers of sympa- thetic imagination and friendly co-operation, and this it does by ' Jane Addams, New Ideals oj Peace, \)\^. 12, 13. GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 69 promoting, enriching, vitalizing personal relations with other groups. The belief in the value of social service, therefore, rests upon a thoroughgoing belief in the social character of mind, and since the recognition of this fact is of the greatest importance we shall attempt to set it forth somewhat at length. The field of social psychology is "human conduct," conduct representing the reaction of a human being. Modern psychology starts with both the individual and his environment. It is regarded as necessary to determine what the environment is, in order to use that knowledge for interpreting the conduct of the individual. The physical environment is revealed to us through the senses; the immediate through contact, in part, and the distant through vision, hearing, smell, and the sensation of temperature. In all of an indi- vidual's movements reference to distant objects is implied. To aid his movements he makes use of the environment with which he is in contact. All movements of approach or withdrawal are made in anticipation of new contacts. The distant object always repre- sents a peculiar sort of contact, that of manipulation, and as a general abstract statement all physical conduct may be said to have as its goal manipulation. It is the social, not the physical, environment, however, which is of most significance. The objects of prime importance to the human animal are other animals of the same species. Some of these have a special attraction for him which is as marked as is the aversion with which lower animals view those forms which prey upon them. We are familiar with the conduct of the child with reference to the parent form. We know how it expresses itself in the cuddling response to the warmth of the parent's body. The attitude taken by one form is responded to immediately, instinc- tively, by the other form, and this is true whether the attitude be of a protective or of a v/arning nature. Here, then, we have a different set of stimuli and a different set of responses from those found in the field of "physical conduct," conduct with reference to "physical environment." The fact that they are animals of the same species gives peculiar value to these stimuli and responses. They mean more than mere physical stimuli or mere physical responses. They are attitudes. It is important to get this distinction between " physi- cal conduct" and "social conduct" clearly in mind. Physical 70 THE BIBLICAL WORLD stimuli are relatively stable, and so far as physical objects are concerned we usually act without awareness of the act. A reaction once set up can become habitual and sink below the threshold of consciousness just because the physical object is relatively stable. But the social object is continually changing and therefore stimula- tion and response are continually changing in social acts. It is in the field of "social conduct" that gesture plays its part. Gesture reveals what the other is going to do. When two animals or per- sons approach each other each controls his own conduct of offense or defense by the attitude of the other. A picturesque illustration of this "conversation of gestures," the parrying that goes on, is given by two men boxing or fencing. The same thing takes place in vocal conversation. By the expression of the face we know what the other person is going to say and our own response is immediate and instinctive. These gestures, whether facial or vocal, are the beginnings of social acts. Social conduct, as we have described it, does not of necessity involve consciousness of self. It is quite possible for the atten- tion to be centered upon the incipient acts of the other, without our being aware of their significance. Consciousness of meaning comes only from awareness of our response. But such gestures as are involved in bodily attitudes or expressions of the countenance we are not ordinarily aware of in ourselves. We are, however, aware of pantomimic and vocal gesture. When we shake our heads or double up our fists we see ourselves do it; when we shout we hear ourselves. Thus we become aware of what we are doing, and of ourselves. But this consciousness of self is first of all a con- sciousness of others as over against ourselves. In using social ges- tures, in the highly developed form of language, and in being aware of them we in a sense respond to them. We are aware of what we say and of what it means, and thus we are in the position of the other listening to ourselves. We are taking the role of the other. We are aware of the effect of our act upon him, and see ourselves from his point of view. In thus standing off and looking at our- selves the subjectivity has been transferred to the other. This possibility of taking the part of another has its basis pri- marily in the presence of simikir, if not identical, impulses in both the ego and the alteri. There is no innate tendenc}' to do what GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 71 another person is doing, but there is a tendency for the individual to respond to his own stimuH as others do. Two men, for instance, have impulses to produce certain sounds. These sounds contain certain phonetic elements that are identical. In the conversation of vocal gestures those elements in A's response to B's stimulation which are like the phonetic elements in the latter are given promi- nence, emphasized, and gradually selected to, at least, the partial exclusion of non-identical elements. A similar process goes on with the pantomimic gestures and even with the bodily attitudes and expressions of countenance. In these processes an imagery is built up which enables us to assume the roles which others have taken in the past. The process, however, does not cease with recalling the past. On the basis of present stimuli we endeavor to imagine how the other person would act or what he would say under the given conditions. We indulge in an inner conversation, taking now the part associated with the self, and now the part of the alter, assuming his attitude and speaking for him. It is by some such process as this that we get acquainted with people, and also get acquainted with ourselves; that is, we become self-conscious. Only in taking the role of another do we set ourselves up as an object and only by this process do we enter into the life of our community. What does all this mean to our problem ? Much, indeed, which one hopes may be fully recognized. For if '^ our minds are fashioned in a social medium and our intellectual operations are conversations from first to last,"' then social service will take its place in the Sunday school as a socializing agency only as it is accompanied by an interplay of life that issues in establishing full human relations with other groups. Let it be said with all stress that social service in- volves infinitely more than merely engaging in desirable philanthropic endeavors. Worthy of our effort as they may be, serving the poor, taking flowers to the sick, making games for little children, are not the heart of social service. All such activities are only means to an end and only as they are directed to and realize that end, which is the socialization of those participating in them, may they be regarded as social service. The value of such activities is found in the fulness and wealth of experience which they mediate, in the intimate associations which they beget, in the clearer vision of the ' E. S. Ames, Psychological Bulletin, VIII, No. 12 (December 15, 1911), 415. 72 THE BIBLICAL WORLD common needs and hopes and purposes and tasks which belong to our common human Hfe. Where these values are sought and in a measure, at least, attained, we have participation in social service, be the program of activities ever so meager, but where they do not enter into consideration and no provision is made for their realiza- tion there is no participation in social service, no matter how elabo- rate the round of worthy endeavor may be. To set young people at philanthropic tasks is not, by any means, the same as engaging them in social service, and this cannot be too strongly emphasized, for they are engaged in social service only when their social activities mediate the process of their own socialization. But has the task of religious education, as thus described, sufficient significance to make it a matter of vital importance whether its end is ever realized or not ? Suppose we put the ques- tion in another form. Is it worth while to nurture sympathy, to develop ability to assume the role of others, to deepen the desire to ally one's self with his fellows in a spirit of human comradeship, to make youth sensitive and responsive to the call for enlistment in the significant movements of the ever-enlarging social group? Throughout this discussion we have used the term sympathy, not for mere sensation or crude emotion, but for the understanding of, and the sharing in, the lives of others, and using the term in this sense Professor Cooley has shown that sympathy is the measure of one's personality, a requisite to social power, and underhes the moral rank of a man and goes to fix our estimate of his justice and goodness. What is it [he asks] to do good, in the ordinary sense? Is it not to help people to enjoy and to work, to fulfil the healthy and happy tendencies of human nature; to give play to children, education to youth, a career to men, a household to women, and peace to old age ? And it is sympathy that makes a man wish and need to do these things. One who is large enough to live the life of the race will feel the inifuilses of each class as his own, and do what he can to gratify them as naturally as he eats his dinner.' In making the complete socialization of the individual its end, religious education has set itself no light or easy task, for when that end is realized and every individual is living in reciprocal relations of sympathy with every other individual we shall no longer need to wait for that ideal kingdom which Jesus called the kingdom of God. ' C. H. Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order, p. loo- CHAPTER II DANGERS IN SOCIAL SERVICE The best way to help another is to help that other to be his best. To assist anyone to realize his ideal self is not, however, an easy matter. To establish one's self in full social relations with an ever-enlarging group is likewise far from a simple process. But even more complicated and more difficult is the task of socializing the young people of the Sunday school so that while seeking to regard and carry themselves as children of the eternal Father they also make it their purpose to respect every other person as his child. Social service in the Sunday school is not be to entered into lightly. It is attended by serious problems. It is beset with difficulties and dangers that menace its success. As knowledge is power, it will be well to give some consideration to this phase of our problem. A prime danger in social service springs from its popularity. This is distinctively the social age, the age of the social problem and the social program. Humanity has heard the call of humanity. Men have suddenly become interested in men. In place of the old individualism there has developed a social idealism, inspiring men with the vision of a new democracy, and a social conscience, im- pressing them with the claims of a social obligation. Says Dr. Peabody: The most remarkable discovery of the present generation — more character- istic of the present age than the telephone or the automobile or aerial naviga- tion — is the discovery of the social conscience; the unprecedented activity of social responsibility and social service, the new definition of duty in terms of social obUgation and social redemption. Never in human history were so many people, learned and ignorant, employers and employed, rich and poor, wdse and otherwise, so seriously concerned with the question of social justice, the ansv/er- ing of social problems, the realizing of social dreams Nowhere is this call of the social conscience more clearly heard than in organizations dedi- cated to religion. No church can justify its existence in the age of the social question without adding to its equipment for worship a further equipment for work. Behind the house of prayer rises the parish house, with its clubs and classes, its deaconesses and visitors, its gymnasiums and kindergartens, its social settlement and personal relief.' ' F. G. Peabody, The Social Conscience and the Religious Life, pp. 1,2. 73 74 THE BIBLICAL WORLD And just because so many religious people are becoming sensitive to the claims of social obligation and are organizing their interest and effort for the promotion of the common welfare, these newer expressions of the social spirit are exposed to hasty adoption and crude imitation. Charity work has become the fashion if not a fad. To be interested in philanthropic endeavor is quite the proper thing. To go about doing good is to be up to date and progressive. In religious organizations as elsewhere there are always those whose sole and sufficient ideal is to be abreast of the times; and even a little observation is sufficient to convince one that some Sunday schools in their social activities are simply following the crowd without thinking of where the crowd is going. A campaign of social service has been introduced without knowing why it was undertaken, or what form it ought to assume, or what vital qualities were essential to the realization of its function. The issue of social service by such Sunday schools is not doubtful. Enthusiasm is not a substitute for knowledge. The desire to be modern will not take the place of trained intelligence. A religious attitude and skilful pedagogy are as necessary to the efficiency of a program of social service as they are to the didactic curriculum ; and until the officers and teachers of a Sunday school have thought their problem through and made themselves acquainted with the forms and methods and essential quahty of social service it would be better for them to hold in check the desire to be up to date. We face another danger in social service in the fact that the activities incident to it can so easily become an end in themselves. When this occurs social service degenerates into a form of social enjoyment and the fine enthusiasm enkindled for altruistic endeavor spends itself in the lust of pleasure. A strong plea for bringing social service into the Sunday school is based on the attraction which it has for all ages. It meets the call for expressive activities, supplies every department with a unifying interest, and furnishes the week-day gatherings of the class with a program of vital attractive quality. But this source of its strength is also a source of weakness, and unless wise care is exercised the interest of the young people will be quite absorbed by the pleasure which their work affords. A young ladies' class in a city Sunday school became interested in GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 75 a home for dependent children and resolved to make a contribution to its funds. In order to raise the money they decided to give a little play, and many happy winter evenings were spent in rehearsals at the home of the teacher. In a conversation with an interested mem- ber of the class, after the season was over, I discovered that while she abounded in exclamations over the good times they had enjoyed, she could not recall the name of the institution for which her class was working, knew next to nothing of its work, its necessity, its char- acter, and had no personal relations whatever with the children who were the recipients of the beneficence of the class. Another active organization of this class was its sewing circle. Once a fortnight its meetings were held and while the rest sewed one read aloud, refreshments were served by the teacher before they parted, and a most delightful evening was spent. All this is very good. But what shall we say when it is learned that some of the class never knew the destination of the layettes which they cut out and made ? Given a leader of attractive personality and the making of scrapbooks, jelly, games, fireless cookers, and baby clothes may become a most delightful pastime, but the pleasure is dearly pur- chased when it dulls the sense of social obligation and reduces social service to common charity with its lack of human relationship to those who are served. Yet another danger in social service is the peril to which all philanthropy is exposed — the pauperization of the poor, the develop- ment of social parasites, the capitalization of fraud and deception. While social service is more than a synonym for philanthropy, it quite generally involves philanthropy and it is sure to issue in unde- sirable results unless it is safeguarded by a practical recognition of the established principles of human rehabilitation. As long as a Sunday school does its work through institutions and societies, its task is comparatively simple, but when it gives itself to the more personal ministry of assisting individuals and families, immediately the problem becomes more compKcated. The lazy, the designing, the unscrupulous, the vicious, as well as the poor, are always with us and an institution that enjoys the reputation of being a generous ''good fellow" can easily become their prey. Social service in the Sunday school must, therefore, be scientific 76 THE BIBLICAL WORLD in its methods as well as religious in its attitude. Indiscriminate giving should be avoided. Investigations should be made and records kept. Friendly \'isiting should constitute an integral part of the system and close relations should be maintained with the local charity organization. It is precisely in its neglect of scientific method that unregulated and undirected philanthropic impulse fails most grievously. It is supremely important, therefore, for social service in the Sunday school to be organized on the most approved basis and to avail itself of the enlightened, accumulated experience of social workers. Again, social service in the Sunday school may fail of its highest efficiency through ignoring its expressive character. Whenever this happens no relation is set up between what is taught and what is done. Instead of reinforcing and supplementing each other the truth is isolated from its expression and the expression remains ignorant of the truth that gave it birth. A certain teacher said to her class, "You have been learning long enough. It is time now for you to put in practice what you have been taught." Then she introduced a varied program of social activities and turned loose upon her class a series of speakers who talked upon a multiplicity of unconnected subjects. Only unsatisfactory results can issue from such a procedure. The educational justification and value of social service is found in its expressive character, but what does it express if it sustains no relation to the truths to which the attention of the children is being directed ? As truths become vital when they are embodied in significant expressions, so expressions become signifi- cant when they are made the embodiment of vital truths. A successful program of social service cannot be dropped down upon a school. It must grow out of the teaching which is given and be followed by more teaching, which in turn issues in more service, and so religious education becomes a real process of learning by doing. Undoubtedly the most insidious danger attendant on social serv- ice is the patronizing spirit. Everyone who considers the problem recognizes this danger and it constitutes the chief reason for hesi- tancy among those of deep and genuine interest in programs of social amelioration. Snobbishness is detestable. To turn children GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 77 into prigs is unpardonable. To cause young people to regard themselves as the generous dispensers of bounty to inferiors and unfortunates is to make their last state worse than the first. Yet the danger is a real one and certainly the most threatening one that confronts the Sunday school in its attempt at social service. Several facts conspire to produce this peril. It is more or less dijS&cult for children to understand the principles which preserve the purity of the social impulse. Moreover, the entire atmosphere of our social life is pervaded by class-consciousness. At the present stage of our social development very few adults are altogether free from the patronizing attitude. Often, too, the appeal for giving is so phrased as to suggest superiority. Why, then, should we wonder that it is so fatally easy for young people to play the role of Lady Bountiful ? No one will deny that welfare work exposes young people to the danger of developing a patronizing attitude, but in so far as this is true it argues for, instead of against, a definite program of social service. The philanthropic activities which spring from impulse are more Hable to produce priggishness than those which take place as the natural and culminating issue of a well-arranged system of instruction. Impulse is impulsive. It acts on the spur of the moment. It does not wait to establish personal relationships. Consequently it is more likely to treat those whom it serves as members of a class rather than full human beings. But in a well- arranged and carefully correlated program of service impulse is controlled, enlightened, and directed, and the service which follows is pervaded by fine human qualities. Patronizing is a child of charity work, not of social service. Organized social service wherever done is far less patronizing than charity work, and the reason for this is that while charity work is the response of impulse, social service is the reaction of a broad, intelligence, insight, expe- rience, and sympathy, and sets up genuine human relations. A kindergarten teacher of ripe experience, fine culture, and spiritual insight, whose little folks have been given many happy times in social service, was asked what results she had secured. She stated that in her own work she had seen no patronizing. She attributed patronizing to clumsy methods and a failure to give the children 78 THE BIBLICAL WORLD concrete objects for which to work. It should be remarked that this teacher precedes the social service of her class with prolonged preparatory measures and carefully correlates it with her instruc- tion. She never uses such terms as "orphans," "the poor." She has no classes in her vocabulary and hence her little folks have none in their spirit. It is classifying other folks that leads to the patronizing attitude and the best way to avoid classifying them is to make an intelligent and definite effort to establish personal relations with them. So we come back to our original proposition that the danger of developing little prigs through social effort furnishes an argument for, instead of against, a program of social service. The dangers which attend social service in the Sunday school arise from a failure to use a technique adequate to the task. If social service meant nothing more than relieving need and enter- taining young people it would call for little beyond routine and commonplace methods. The difficulties which are encountered are due to the loftiness of the ideal which social service sets itself and their solution lies in a full recognition of the essential nature of that end and in the employment of scientific methods by leaders who have been seized by the spirit of Jesus Christ. CHAPTER III TYPES OF SOCIAL SERVICE Social service, as we have seen, has one dominating end, the furtherance of the socializing process or the bringing-in of that ideal social order in which every person will treat every other person as a full human being. It does not follow, however, that social service will assume a single form or confine itself to one method of pro- cedure. Ideal personal relations may be brought about in various ways and while social service has one essential purpose and under wise leadership adopts the scientific principles of philanthropy and pedagogy, already the Sunday school has given rise to several types of social service. § I. SEASONAL The seasonal type is a common one. In Sunday schools where this type prevails social service is practically confined to Thanks- giving and Christmas, when dinners are provided for the needy, Christmas trees are hung with gifts, festive gatherings are arranged, and worthy institutions are remembered. Even here there are wide variations, both in method and in spirit. While some schools are inspired by these seasons to service of a real socializing character, beautifully human and thoroughly expressive of the spirit of the occasion, others seem to miss the significance of their opportunity, and are satisfied if the conventions of the season are not externally ignored. When sufiicient care is taken to prevent the idea of charity from creeping in and every effort is made to bring about a genuine human feeling, Thanksgiving and Christmas readily lend themselves to fine forms of social service and afford an excellent opportunity for introducing it into schools which have not yet given themselves to this ministry. § 2. CASUAL Another type is best described as casual. It is represented by those Sunday schools which do more or less social service through- out the year, but have no systematized program. Quantitatively 79 80 THE BIBLICAL WORLD and qualitatively there is a \\'ide variation in the work of these schools. Their common denominator is their lack of organization. Much of the social service of these schools is of a high order and with a little organization could be extended through the whole school and be made an integral feature of the program. A tabulation of all the social service done in quite a number of schools belonging to this group may be worth while : 1. Every year the whole school unites to establish a new Sunday school in some part of the country. The denominational Sunday-school society is the agency through which this task is carried on. 2. A kindergarten supports another kindergarten for Italian children in another part of the city. 3. Boys and girls, six to nine years of age, send gifts to a home for crippled children. 4. Girls of twelve to sixteen years, (a) sing at Old Folks' Home; (b) meet twice a month to make kimonos and scrapbooks for a children's isolation hospital. 5. Boys, thirteen to eighteen years of age, (a) distribute church literature and printed matter; (b) boys' choir sings at various institutions; (c) boys have assumed responsibihty for raising $1,000 to pay a church mortgage; they solicit subscriptions and collect them under the direction of the superintendent of the Junior Brotherhood; (d) boys have assumed responsibility for expenses of a gymnasium. 6. Young women, eighteen to twenty-one years of age, (a) friendly visiting; {b) furnish helpers for church nursery on Sunday morning during public worship; (c) entertain juniors on Sunday afternoon; (d) have assumed responsibility for the maintenance of a gild where young women meet once a week in educational classes and for recreation. This class has supplied the teachers. 7. Young men, eighteen to twenty-one years of age, furnish helpers who assist in the gymnasium classes and with the games at a social center. 8. Annual offering to the National Child Labor Committee by the school. 9. Annual offering to the Red Cross Society by the school. GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 81 The serious weakness in the work of this group of schools is their failure to organize their efforts into a graded program that would take in the whole school and cover the entire year. As our schedule shows, fine work is being done by these schools, but in every one of them the loss in efiiciency is so evident that one is amazed that they do not immediately abandon their chaotic method and grade their expressive as they do their didactic work. Without a graded program of social service there is, (i) no strong probability that all the classes will be enlisted in some form of worthy endeavor; (2) no assurance that each class or grade will be given the service best adapted to the age and capacity of the pupils; (3) no provision for arranging social service in respect both to objects and to form so as to provide an orderly and progressive course of endeavor; (4) no likehhood that social service will be correlated with the instructional and devotional elements so as to constitute an ade- quate expressive outlet for rehgious behef and feehng. § 3. ORGANIZED The organized type of social service is not of uniform character. Indeed, at least three distinct forms of organization or stages of development may be discovered. First of all there are those Sunday schools which fully recognize the value of social service in religious education and are pro- gressively giving it a place in the regime of the school. Their programs are in course of evolution. The work of three schools will furnish an illustration. The first school has a regular calendar of worthy causes, in which the main school is interested as a unit. The classes are interested in all working together. Some of the organizations are local, others denominational. Speakers come once a month and address the school as a whole or the separate classes, just as seems best. Twice a year there is a united endeavor. At Christmas the school entertains poor children, everybody having his share to do, even the smallest, and about May i it gives a fair, in which all co-operate for a specific object. In November, various poor famihes are furnished with goodies. This is done entirely by classes, a family being found for each class, whose circumstances render it 82 THE BIBLICAL WORLD particularly appropriate for that group. Then the class has entire charge of collecting, arranging, and distributing its basket. During October, February, March, April, and May the following objects are assisted by the main school as a whole: October, East End Christian Union; January, Cambridge Hospital; February, Visiting Nurses' Association; March, Avon Home; April (Easter), children's missions; May, Floating Hospital. The pupils of the Primary Department buy the Christmas tree for the poor children's party at Christmas, otherwise their money always goes to the children's missions. The technique of another school may be outlined as follows: 1. The entire school unites once a year, on the Sunday just before Christmas, in a "gift service," when each person brings a gift or gifts of food, clothing, books, games, etc., which are turned over to the District Nurses' Association and Salvation Army for distribution. 2. The school as a whole gives all the offerings for one month to a near-by home for crippled children. 3. The members of primary class (a) give a little play and Christ- mas tree for the entertainment of the Day Nursery; (b) keep a bank for their birthday money, which they call their "give-away money," all of which goes to the comfort of some needy person. 4. During last summer a great many of the primary and junior children came to the church daily and prepared scrapbooks and convenient-sized cardboards by pasting pictures, stories, poems, Bible and other devotional thoughts upon them, and cut up puzzles for use in the hospitals. They also, under the direction of the director of religious education, made jelHes, fruit juices, and canned small jars of fruit, the children bringing the fruit and sugar to the church and doing most of the work themselves. These canned fruits and juices are given to the District Nurses' Associa- tion for distribution. This same group furnishes flowers for the pulpit on the last Sun- day of each month. After the service they carry them to sick and shut-in people. 5. Various classes engage in the following activities: (a) provide Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners for poor people; (b) make GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 83 garments for the Day Nursery; (c) send garments, books, and games to the southern mountaineers and negro schools in the South. Just before the vacation period, the weekly church calendar con- tained suggestions to the members of the school of "Things to Do" during the summer vacation of seventy days. These were the suggestions made: Things We Can Do for Others 1. Carry flowers to sick and old people. 2. Send postcards and letters to people who are kept at home. 3. Provide a day's pleasure for a group of children, going with them and playing with them. 4. Read, sing, and tell stories to children, sick people, and old people. 5. Make a glass of jelly, put up a jar of fruit or a bottle of grape juice for use for sick next winter. 6. Save pennies and nickels for paper drinking-cups for poor immigrants on trains. 7. Make scrapbooks, give toys, knives, and dolls for immigrant children detained at Ellis Island with nothing to amuse them. The letter of a director of rehgious education gives such a vivid presentation of the constructive process in another school that we shall quote from it at length: The immediate ideal was to get every pupil interested in some concrete piece of social service, the satisfaction of some human need. This was accom- plished at first by the presentation of needs, which, after discussion, were satisfied by the voting of money from the school treasury. A threatening mort- gage of a home mission church opened the way to vital giving to home missions. A child in China without education was the concrete object which gathered many dollars from the Junior Department. Little children in the neighboring orphan asylum furnished occasion for an avalanche of toys, picture books, and eatables from the Primary Department. At Christmas giving to definite needy famiUes instead of to charity or charitable organizations was suggested. The Director obtained the names, addresses, with age, sex, and other informa- tion, of nearly a hundred needy individuals in the slums. These twenty or more families were given a good dinner and individual presents by the classes and members of the church school. These presents were given personally by individuals and class representatives. A class of young men as a result began to study social problems, using Dr. Henderson's book. A class of young ladies began to sew for the orphans. This class has organized a charity "shower," early in December of each year. This year they were " Santa " to scores of poor children. All of these, and many more, concrete problems aroused an interest in an organized work of some type. 84 THE BIBLICAL WORLD This letter is interesting because it indicates how social service in the Sunday school grows and calls for organization, and because it shows a program in course of evolution. Thus the common characteristic of these schools is the pro- gressive commitment of themselves to social service, growing out of their increasing vision of its vital qualities. A second form of organization is represented by those schools which have no graded program but in which all the grades do definite social service. Various methods of administration for this form of organization are possible and are in operation. Some schools commit its oversight to the superintendent; others hold the teachers responsible; while still others appoint a social service committee which seeks to direct every class in the selection of some suitable form of endeavor. The technique of one school was described as follows : Our social ideals begin and go out from the home. We are a large home group together; the importance of home is emphasized as a place for loving works of service. The city is a larger home, the nation, and the world, all growing out of the thought that we are at home best of all in the heart of God. We strive to avoid testing too pointedly for the "daily good turn," in order not to give the idea of acquiring merit and praise merely from such acts. Our school flag bears a seal representing the character of Christ as founded on relationships suggested in his confession, '"I must be about my Father's busi- ness." We build on this as the best social-service motto. It represents the duty, reason, love, and opportunity of life. A third form of organization is the completely graded program of social service. This is the ideal, and must ultimately become the universal, form of organization. It places the expressive activities on the same plane as the other educational factors. It recognizes the necessity of making sure that all the classes are enlisted in some form of worthy endeavor, adapted to their age and capacity, arranged in orderly and progressive sequence, and correlated with the instructional and devotional elements so as to present a vital and essential unity. A subsequent chapter will be devoted to such programs. § 4. AFFILIATED To the fourth general type belong the Sunday schools whose social service is carried on through societies affiliated witli their GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 85 respective departments. Each department has its corresponding society and all the social activities of the department, recreational or philanthropic, are under the direction of the society. The organization of one school will illustrate the method: Wee Folks' Band, kindergarten and primary. Lend-A-Hand Society, boys and girls, eight to fourteen years of age. Boys Scouts, twelve to fifteen years of age. Camp Fire Girls, twelve to sixteen years of age. Messenger Cadets, fourteen to eighteen years of age. Young People's Alliance, eighteen to twenty-four years of age. The advantages of this method are obvious. It secures a simple and effective organization for the expressive activities. It defines the specific function of the young people's societies and indicates their relation to the Sunday school. It provides more adequate time for discussing and planning social service than the regular sessions of the class allow. It fosters the inspiration and enthusiasm which belong to larger groups. There are, however, objections to this plan. In a small school to duplicate each department with a corresponding society would crush the school with the weight of its machinery. Teachers place a large emphasis on the unifying power which social service exerts over the class. With a society, which is not an integral part of the school, and which may not include all the class as the rally- ing center, this value is largely lost and the development of a class esprit de corps is made more difficult. The necessity of correlating social service with instruction also declares against the trans- ference of its welfare efforts from the immediate control of the class. Social service is an expressive activity. That is its function and therein is its value. But to perform that function and carry that value it must be so presented and given such a setting that those who engage in its activities regard them as the natural and fitting expression of the truths which they have made their own. § 5. PERSONAL Some Sunday schools confine themselves to personal service and eliminate social service in the form of gifts. Where this distinction obtains gifts are made by the school only at Thanks- 86 THE BIBLICAL WORLD giving and Christmas. Two forms of personal service, performed by a school of this type, seem significant enough to mention : A Craft Gild The program of this gild is set forth in the following announcement: Cooking. — Excellent and practical recipes taught by an experienced domestic-science teacher. All materials provided. Dressmaking. — You can bring materials for a dress or waist, cut it out, make and fit it yourself with the help of an expert dressmaker. Plain sewing. — Undergarments, aprons, and children's clothing are being made in this class. Machines are ready for your use. Mending is also taught. Embroidery. — French embroidery, eyelet work, punch work, cross-stitch, knitting, and Irish crocheting are taught. Art. — An interesting class in sketching, designing, and lettering. Millinery. — The teacher of this class will help you make and trim a hat for yourself or trim over an old one. Music. — The choral club is studying two-part songs. They have made one public appearance and expect to appear again soon. A limited number of private twenty-minute lessons on the piano are given. Story-telling. — This course teaches how to tell stories, what stories to tell, and to whom. English literature. — A study of a few of our English classics, as well as some practice in letter-writing. Gymnastics. — Various forms of Delsarte, breathing work, Indian clubs, etc., are being taken up in this class. Come Next Monday Night We have a branch of the Public Library, magazines, and games, a pleasant place to spend the evening if you don't want class work. Every Monday night at 9:00 there is a short program of music or an interesting talk and then a good social time over a cup of hot chocolate. This is all free, but 5 cents is charged for lessons in classes. All young women will receive a hearty welcome. The craft gild is for you. Every week three hundred and fifty young women take advan- tage of the privileges which the gild aftords. Responsibility for the management of this gild has been assumed by a young women's class with a membership of forty. Only two paid workers are employed by the gild, the others are supplied from or by the class. The program which follows the classes is also furnished by them. The members of the class attend the gild, cultivate the friend- ship of the young women present, invite them to their class, and GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 87 find opportunity for the kindly personal relationships which such intimacy always affords. A second piece of personal service worthy of mention is that rendered by the mass club of this same church. The distinguishing characteristic of a mass club is well stated by Professor Fiske: "The mass club is wholesale work with boys, the group is retail work. The former is inclusive, democratic, free from castes or creedal tests. The latter is exclusive, reflective, homogeneous, and includes boys of the same age." The boys of this church were organized into a mass club. "Work for boys by boys" was their slogan, and they were scouring the community and bringing into their club boys of all nationalities and every social position. Great differ- ence of opinion prevails respecting the relative value of the mass club and the group club. Into this discussion we need not enter. All will agree that the boy who is trained to work for other boys, whether in a mass club or in a group club, will know better how to live with them and will more readily find and fill his useful place in life. § 6. GIFTS The sixth type appears in those schools which restrict them- selves to gifts, mostly money, and refrain from personal service. Excellent service is being done by some schools which have adopted this type. Their work is well organized, and their classes are mak- ing regular contributions to a wide range of institutions with which they are intelKgently in touch. Their social spirit is marked, the young people are well informed regarding the philanthropic agencies and institutions of the city, and their offerings are generous. The giving of money, however, is a difficult form of effort by which to mediate the socializing process. With most children a gift of money is not their gift at all, and represents no socializing values. Giving money requires no immediate contact between the givers and the recipients. Such contact, of course, is not necessary, for social experience is a product of social imagination, and where there is social imagination there will be imaginative if not physical contact. Giving money, however, does not lend itself so readily to producing social imagination as other forms of effort, and where it alone obtains there is danger lest the group fail to realize the values of social 88 THE BIBLICAL WORLD service. Probably one of the best ways by which to mediate the socializing process through money-giving is to engender and direct discussion and then commit the givers to a selection of the objects of their gifts. The feature of primary importance in social service is not the system by which it is carried on, but the assertion of the social spirit, with its quick appreciation of the distinction between social service and charity work. Yet even if the attitude and spirit of the workers leave nothing to be desired, a better service will be rendered if the method of procedure be worthy the spiritual end of the task. CHAPTER IV SIGNIFICANT PROGRAMS OF SOCIAL SERVICE The purpose of this chapter is to give a few completely graded programs of social service. As far as possible the technique is included with the program. As these programs are actually in use, they indicate what can be done, and may be useful as a guide to other schools in the formation of a program suitable to their opportunity. § I. CHRIST CHURCH, CHICAGO Training Children to Serve Class Working For Form of Work Bible class (Young Visiting Nurses' Associa- Visiting shut-ins men) tion Young ladies Visiting Nurses' Associa- tion Visiting Nurses' Associa- tion Visiting Nurses' Associa- Tearing bandages Postgraduate Tearing bandages Teacher training Visiting shut-ins; tearing bandages class tion HighschoolIII... Juvenile Protective Asso- Giving a play to raise money to help ciation a girl or boy in school High school III . . . Juvenile Protective Asso- Giving a play to raise money to help ciation a girl or boy in school High school II ... . Junior Auxiliary- Organizing the society in the church and carrying on its work High school II ... . Junior Auxiliary Organizing the society in the church and carrying on its work High school II ... . Junior Auxiliary- Organizing the society in the church and carr>ing on its work High school II ... . United Charities of Various kindnesses suggested by the Chicago Charities workers; sharing boys' magazines, etc. High school I United Charities of Various kindnesses suggested by the Chicago Charities workers; sharing boys' magazines, etc. Grade 8 Chicago Home for the Making garments according to Friendless samples furnished Grade 8 Chicago Home for the Home-made games; home-made Friendless candy Grade 7 St. Mary's Home for [Making scrapbooks; sewing simple Children articles Grade 7 St. Mary's Home for Making scrapbooks; sewing simple ChUdren articles Grade 7 Chicago Home for Boys Home-made games; home-made candy Grade 6 Chicago Home for Boys Home-made games; home-made candy 89 90 THE BIBLICAL WORLD Training Children to Serve — Continued Class Working For Form of Work Grade 6 Children's Hospital work, St. Luke's, Cook Co. Children's Hospital work, St. Luke's, Cook Co. Woman's Auxiliary (ele- mentary, Sunshine Workers) home and foreign missions Assist. Sunshine Workers Assist. Sunshine Workers Assist. Sunshine Workers Parish, diocesan, and for- eign missions Parish, diocesan, and for- eign missions Woman's Auxiliary, Sun- shine Workers, foreign and home missions Woman's Auxiliary, Sun- shine Workers, foreign and home missions Alaska, Japanese, and Home missions Boys' Home, Girls' Home, St. Mary's Orphanage of Holy Child Boys' Home, (iirls' Home, St. Mary's Orphanage of Holy Child Parish missions; Sunday school Home; St. David's Parish missions; Sunday school Home; St. David's Parish missions; Sunday school Home, St. David's Making surprise bags, dressing dolls. Grade 6 bedroom slippers Making surprise bags, dressing dolls, Grade 5 bedroom slippers Sewing; housekeepers; quilting for Grade "C Providence Nurser}-; screens Carpenter work; screens, quilting Grade 5 frames; raising money Carpenter work; screens, quilting Grade 4 frames; raising money Sewing; housekeepers; quilting; Grade 4. scrapbooksfor contagious patients; Alaska missions Raising money to buy materials, etc. ; Grade 4 selling magazines, etc.; caring for prayer-books and hymnals Raising monev to buv materials, etc.; Grade 3 selling magazines, etc.; caring for prayer-books and hymnals Sewing; housekeepers; scrapbooks Grade 3 for shut-ins to send to Alaska Sewing; housekeepers; scrapbooks Grade ^ for shut-ins to send to Alaska Helping some child in each place; Grade 2 parish activities — errands, circu- lating petitions Raise money, or bring things to help Grade 2 some individual child in the home Raise money, or bring things to help Grade i some individual child in the home Ministering to sick; flowers, etc.; Grade i mail lessons to shut-ins; corre- spondence school Ministering to sick; flowers, etc.; Kindergarten mail lessons to shut-ins; corre- spondence school Ministering to sick; flowers, etc.; mail lessons to shut-ins; corre- spondence school The regular work of visiting sick classmates and looking up absentees is not included in this outline, for that is a part of the work of the entire school. For the same reason no mention is made of the Thanksgiving and Christmas baskets and gifts. The purpose of the plan is thus stated: GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 91 I. To systematize the activities of the school and to assist each class in selecting definite work adapted to the capacity of its members. 2. To make an impression strong, definite, and lasting of at least one of the good social agencies each year. 3. To arouse a genuine social spirit in our young people based upon the desire to put into daily operation the fruit of their Christian knowledge. 4. To assist busy teachers in securing a worthy and interesting purpose for their outside class meetings and to develop in the pupils a wholesome class spirit while they work together for the good of others. The work is in charge of a secretary of activities who meets, from time to time, the groups and grades doing the same work, to stimulate their interest and to discover the problems which have arisen. A special effort is made to obtain representatives of the various organizations and societies to visit the school and present their work. Short talks are given, circulars of information espe- cially prepared are distributed, and interesting pictures illustrating philanthropic enterprises and cut from annual reports are mounted on large cards and circulated among the classes. As a concrete illustration of one feature of their educational method we insert one of the circulars of information. The United Charities 1. What it is: Society for organizing the charities of Chicago, and relief society. 2. When founded: In March, 1908, the Relief and Aid Society, organized and chartered in 1851, amalgamated with the Bureau of Charities, founded in 1893, and took the new name " United Charities of Chicago." 3. Purpose: To provide for dependent families, in their homes, such personal service and relief service as will help them toward permanent self-support. 4. How supported: By private subscription. 5. Number of workers in Chicago and general methods of work: One hundred and fifty workers, nine district ofiicers, one general office. Personal investigation and supervision of all applications for help. Regis- tration Bureau a clearing-center for all social agencies in Chicago. 6. Number of inmates, or estimate of number of people reached annually: Last year, October, 1911-October, 191 2, the Society helped 80,000 persons, in 18,889 families. 7. Does it exist in other cities than Chicago? Yes. 92 THE BIBLICAL WORLD 8. Greatest need of the organization at the present time: Informed and thinking friends willing to serve the society and the poor in lines of personal service and money service. 9. How young people of Chicago can help the work: a) Personal service: Friendly visiting, clerical work in district office, accom- pany patients to clinics and friends of patients to visit them at Hospital, House of Correction, etc., tutor backward children, find proper work for fourteen- or fifteen-year-old child, take children to park or for regular fresh-air walk. b) Relief: Material or money. Supply milk for underfed and tubercular children, clothing for children, especially shoes, stockings, underclothing, night clothing, etc. Assist visiting housekeeper by making fireless cookers, furnishing kitchen utensils, extra bedding, face towels, tea towels, brooms, closet and cupboard fixtures, etc. An essential part of the plan is the report which must be made to the secretary of activities. This report makes it possible to keep a permanent record of all the endeavors of the school and to pre- vent any work being neglected through omission or oversight. Some four months after the program was inaugurated the following report appeared in the church calendar : Training the Children to Serve Some weeks ago we published our schedule of activities, by means of which we are training our boys and girls of the school of religious education to put into practical operation the good principles they learn from their books and teachers. A good deal of real work has been done. A definite work is assigned to each grade in the school. Some things accomplished are these: The third-year high-school pupils gave a play by which they earned money to help the Juvenile Protective Asso- ciation. The first- and second-year high-school grades have sent a box of gifts to an orphanage and are at work preparing a "Quarter Bazaar" for the benefit of a girls' school in the South. The boys of these grades have assisted the United Charities, and some of them are mailing their books and magazines to other boys. They have also made some fireless cookers for some of the pen- sioned families of the district. The eighth-grade boys have made popcorn balls and candy and have taken it to the Home for the Friendless. The seventh- grade girls have made scrapbooks and dressed dolls for the children at St. Mary's Home. The sixth- and sevenlh-grade boys have taken bundles of clothing to the Home for Boys. The sixth-grade girls have made little surprise bags, bedroom slippers, and paper dolls for the children of Cook County and St. Luke's hospitals. Throughout the entire school, and particularly in the junior and primary departments, special works of kindness are being done for GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 93 absent members of the classes, such as visiting them when sick, carrying flowers, etc. At Thanksgiving and Christmas the boys and girls co-operated actively in providing baskets of provisions, games, books, etc., for needy people. A jolly Christmas party of children brought in by the United Charities workers was entertained by the Girls' Club during the holidays. This very brief report will show how directly the children are learning to take an active interest in others, and to share gladly with them as well as to do personal acts of kindness for them. They are learning the meaning of the words, "Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, you have done it unto me." While little more than a summary, this is an exceedingly valuable report, for it shows how completely the program of the school was carried out and estabHshes the feasibihty of making social service a regular feature in the program of a school. § 2. HYDE PARK BAPTIST CHURCH, CHICAGO The technique of this school is quite different. With a graded program as its ideal and a full desire for its realization, instead of assigning special tasks it has encouraged each class to discover its own work and develop its own program. Suggestion and direction are not excluded. But no definite hne of endeavor is laid down and the work of one class is not specifically related to the others. A detailed description of the social service of this school is hardly necessary, as it is largely made up of the usual forms of work for famihes and institutions. As the work of the kindergarten, how- ever, is of a high order, and as many find it difficult to select tasks for the httle folks, it may be well to describe this work somewhat fully. One of the impressive features in this kindergarten is the effort which is made to relate the activities of the children with the instruction which is given, and behind all the gifts they make for others and the Httle services which they do for one another there is a carefully thought out course of teaching which leads gradually and yet decidedly to the tasks which they undertake. We shall begin with the seasons, and the first is: Thanksgiving. — About six weeks are required to lead up nicely to Thanksgiving, and so for the six Sundays preceding Thanks- giving all the talks are planned in harmony with the ultimate end. 94 THE BIBLICAL WORLD The aim is to develop a spirit of gratitude which will express itself in giving. Much is made of Thanksgiving as the close of the harvest season. Then from this general thought of the harvest time a skilful transition is made to our individual and family preparations for the coming winter. The children are asked/' What is mother making and putting away for the winter?" Then the suggestion is made, "Suppose each of us brings something that we have stored away for the winter so that we may see what a lot of things we have." Then a specific article is named and each child is given a note to take home which explains the plan. When the articles are brought together still another efi"ort is made to deepen the sense of gratitude. Then comes the suggestion, ''Suppose we give these to some other people who have not as much as we have." It is always put in this comparative way and great care is exercised in the choice of words and in avoidance of class terms. In this description we have only the bare bones of a plan that a skilful teacher requires six weeks to develop. Christmas. — At Christmas the emphasis is on the side of giving and all the lessons are intended to bring out with increasing clear- ness that Christmas means giving. Last Christmas the suggestion of their giving was made in this form: "I know a place where they are going to have a Christmas tree for a great many children — let us help." Any questions that arise are answered ^ith great care and the need of help is explained in terms of their own expe- rience. Easter. — The interest of children in Easter is small. It is too far away from children for them to celebrate and it is not possible to make a climax here with little children as at Thanksgiving and Christmas. This year bulbs were given to the little folks at the appropriate time and they were asked to plant them and care for them. Then on Palm Sunday reference was made to these bulbs, the coming Easter Sunday was spoken of, the children were told that all the churches were to be decorated with flowers, and they were asked to bring their flowering bulbs. Children's Day. — Children's Day was preceded by a number of talks about the church. The first talk was about the room itself; its largeness — there was room for all the people. Then they talked GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 95 about the beautiful things they found there — the windows, the organ, the desk. Then the talk passed to making the church beautiful for a special day. Then all agreed to bring flowers- cut flowers prove most successful — on Children's Day. The flowers were afterward sent to a hospital for children. In addition to these seasonal gifts the children are interested in regular forms of benevolence and drop their pennies in four boxes of different colors and designated by terms which the children understand. General expenses. — Their Sunday-school box: Whenever any- thing is brought in the teacher calls the children's attention to it and the question is raised, "Who is going to pay for it ? " Missions. — The teacher talks about the children's own Sunday school and how they come every Sunday and what they do. Then they are told that some children have no Sunday school and no stories. "What can we do?" the teacher asks them. Then she suggests making scrapbooks with pictures of stories which they have heard and can recall, and little books are made with such pictures as Moses, Joseph, Rebekah, and Samuel from the Old Testament and similar ones from the New Testament. Benevolence. — A little talk is given on hospitals — just enough to bring out the fact that sometimes when children are sick their mothers do not know how to take care of them. What will happen to them when the nurse is not with them ? What will they have to play with ? So arises the suggestion that they make scrapbooks. Special offerings. — These come occasionally, when something happens which people are talking about. Just recently the chil- dren gave money for the flood sufferers. One summer they gave to Jackson Park Sanitarium. Another time they bought chairs and tables for a kindergarten in the South. In addition to all this the children do much occasional social work. Last winter they folded papers and inclosed them in envelopes to be sent to their sick classmates, cut out pictures and made tiny scrapbooks for them, and sent out a number of valentines which they had made themselves. To one who is looking for something spectacular this statement of facts may not be very impressive. But in the lives of the little 96 THE BIBLICAL WORLD folks the work itself is most impressive, for it constitutes their own reaction to the lesson they are being taught and carries the full value of a free, expressive activity. § 3. CHURCH OF THE DISCIPLES, BOSTON The plan in use in this school has borne the test of several years of experience. It is described by Mrs, Clara Bancroft Beatley in Bulletin No. 21 of the "Social Service Series" issued by the Ameri- can Unitarian Association. Disciples' Plan for Social Service of Class Groups Kindergarten Department Ages four to five years Primary Department Ages five to seven years Grades i, 2 Upper Primary Department Ages seven to nine years Grades 3, 4 Junior Department Ages nine to eleven years Grades 5, 6 Upper Junior Department Ages eleven to thirteen years Grades 7, 8 Senior Department Ages thirteen to fifteen years Grades 9, 10 Upper Senior Department Ages fifteen to seventeen years Grades 11, 12 Advanced Department Ages seventeen to twenty-one and upward Adult Bible Class Ages twenty-one years and up- ward Gifts to Kindergarten for the Blind Gifts to homes for crippled chil- dren Visits and gifts to home libraries established by the Children's Aid Society The Animal Rescue League, visits, membership, and con- tributions The South End Industrial School, gifts and visits Visits and gifts to fraternity chapels Elizabeth Peabody House; the Young Men's Christian Union, including Country Week; homes for the aged, visits to entertain, and gifts Gifts and visits to the grade schools for the adult blind ° to c a, o H e Z2 « Opt; T3 C K I I C o Mrs. Beatley gives the following detailed account of the work: The Upper Primary and the Junior departments (Grades 3, 4, 5, 6) unite in a Ten Times One Club which meets at the church monthly, at five o'clock, for social purposes. This club may plan for a lecture to which parents GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 97 and friends are invited; it may make scrapbooks for the "home libraries," or prepare bandages for suffering animals. The hour may be spent in reading a new book, especially one that is intimately associated with the work at hand. A visit is planned to a home library, with its need of collecting books for chil- dren. A notice is arranged for the Church Calendar which states that the Ten Times One Club will welcome the gift of children's books to distribute in the home Hbraries of the Children's Aid Society. An out-of-door day is plaimed in June when all are to visit the retreat in the country for aged horses to learn something of the humane care given to these dumb animals; gift books on animals are chosen for schools; a prize is offered for an essay upon kindness to animals, to be written by boys from twelve to fourteen. Is a fair in progress for the benefit of the Animal Rescue League ? Here is the oppor- tunity to» plan, in Ten Times One, what can be done. Shall the parents be asked to contribute to a table, or to visit the fair and purchase an article, or will someone make a cake for the food table ? The treasury of the club is made up of the class contributions taken on successive Sundays throughout the year. The Upper Junior grades are interested in the South End Industrial School, which it visits in groups and assists occasionally by giving time on Saturdays This class group of twelve members was able to con- tribute in two years thirty-four dollars to the work. "Fraternity chapels" claim the interest of the first and second years of the Senior Department, a part of the work being to understand something of the Benevolent Fraternity in Boston, and to help especially the work of the North End Union and the kindergarten of the Parker Memorial. Visits are made to the classes of the North End Union, books are given to its Hbrary, and such other aid rendered as the superintendent of the Union suggests. Other details are given by Mrs. Beatley, but we have quoted enough to show the working methods of this interesting program, § 4. FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, BUFFALO Equally suggestive is the technique of this school, which issues a dainty and interesting brochure of twenty-one pages descriptive of its work as a church school. Four excerpts taken from the intro- ductory statement of this brochure will give a good idea of the ideals and methods of this school. Aim. — The aim of the Church School, as a whole, may be defined thus: To develop instructed and trained Christian lives consecrated to the realization of God's kingdom on earth. The kingdom of God is the comprehensive biblical term for all the good God desires for man. Organization. — The Church School is the name of the institution which is created to carry into effect the educational ministry of the church. It includes a school of worship (church service), a school of instruction (the Sunday school), 98 THE BIBLICAL WORLD and a school of training for service (the young people's societies). These should be properly correlated as integral factors in a unitary educational plan. It has a young people's division and an adult division. Method. — The method is the method of wise nurture. The Church School seeks the same general end as all the other major agencies of the church, but it seeks that end by an educational method, i.e., by instruction in Christian knowledge and by training for Christian' service. Both instruction and training should be carried on in the spirit of Christian worship. Instruction and training for service. — Training for service can best be given by actual service, but by service which awakens the interest and is within the power of the young people. Every relation in life opens up opportunities of Christian service, but these are sometimes not seen and therefore not seized. The characteristic environment of the primary child is the home; of the junior child, the play circle and the school; of the intermediate youth, entering upon a larger world, the church as a parish and the city; of the senior, the country and the world. Each of these should be studied with a view to discovering what each environment oflfers in the way of opportunity for service. With this interpretative word of introduction we shall find it easy to understand and to appreciate the following outline : Sunday School The Kindergarten Ages four, five years Primary Department Ages six, seven, eight years Junior Department Ages nine, ten, eleven, twelve years Plan of Organization the young people's division Young People's Societies Mission Band Methods: Work for others under direc- tion. The home as a field of service Primary Society Ages six, seven, eight years Methods: Work for others under direc- tion; preparation of annual Christmas box for a colored school in the South; purchase and decoration of Christmas tree for some worthy and needy family in the city; the gift of one or more Thanksgiving dinners Junior Societies Ages nine, ten, eleven, twelve years Methods: The school and play circles as ik'lds of service. One chief duty of the four adult leaders will be to find work for the children to do that is on the plane of their interest and capacity GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 99 Intermediate Department Ages thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years Senior Department Ages seventeen, eighteen, nine- ■ teen, twenty years ' Intermediate societies Ages thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years Methods: I. Intermediate Boys' Club. The Boy Scouts. Useful service to be sought and done II. Intermediate Girls' Club. The parish and city as fields of service. Sewing once a month Senior Society Ages seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty years Methods: Seminar, sociables, practical service, the country (home missions) , and the world (foreign missions) as fields of service. One feature of meetings presentation of plans of work and reports of work § 5- WINNETKA CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH This church has a unique feature in its Sunday-school benevo- lence. The social service of the school consists largely in the giving of money, but a regulation of the school requires that all the money which is given either be earned or come out of the allowance of the giver. The first effect of this requirement was a decrease in the offerings, but recovery was rapid and the permanent result was increased generosity. We shall present this program in two distinct forms. Kindergarten Object Our home church Our home city Instruction About church, Bible school, community house Stories of child life in Chi- cago through use of pictures of Gad's Hill Settlement, Chicago Commons, Children's Memorial Hospital Gift A picture to Bible school Apples for Gad's Hill chil- dren Thanksgiving Day. Toys for Chicago Com- mons at Christmas. Toys and clothing — Margaret G. Scrapbooks for Chil- dren's Hospital as Christ- mas presents 100 THE BIBLICAL WORLD Children of other Stories of Chinese child life. Money to support a school schools (Chinese) Pictures of the same for Chinese children for one year Object October, Novem- ber: Our home church December, Janu- ary: City mis- sions February, March: Home missions April, May: For- eign missions Primary Department missionary work Instruction About our pastors, choirs, clubs, through pictures of the church Stories of Chicago Com- mons. Pictures of Chi- cago Commons Story of Dr. Grenfell and his work. Pictures used to illustrate the work Stories of China's children. Pictures of Chinese child life Gift Money given to the church Christmas gifts and money sent to Chicago Com- mons Money for Dr. Grenfell 's work Money sent to China for children's work Fourth Grade missionary work Object 1. The home church: services and activities 2. The city: its needs 3. Work among negroes: Booker T. Washington 4. Work among Indians: Santee Mis- Seven weeks to Santee Indian Mis- Gift Six weeks to home church Seven weeks to city work Seven weeks to Tuskegee Institute sion sion Eleven weeks to foreign work 5. Foreign missions: J. G. Paton; Alexander Mackay The weeks refer to the length of time during which offerings were made for the respective interests. Fifth Grade One aim of this grade is to stimulate an interest in Christian work both at home and abroad. With this in view the grade studies about: 1. Joseph Hardy Ncesima. 2. David Livingstone. 3. Industrial School at Albuquerque, New Mexico. The offerings for the year were $23.50 and were apportioned as follows: 1 . Home church $450 2. Work in Japan 5 . 00 GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 101 3. Industrial School at Albuquerque $6 . 00 4. Work in Africa 5 ■ 00 5. Community House 3 . 00 Sixth Grade The offerings for the year were allotted to the following objects: 1. Tuskegee Institute. 2. Girls' school in Turkey. 3. Home church. 4. Dr. Grenfell Association. Seventh Grade Gifts from this grade were sent to : 1. The little children of Bulgaria. 2. Gad's HiU. Eighth Grade Gifts Girls 1. Little children of Bulgaria $10. 00 2. Daily News Fresh Air Fund 12 . 10 Gifts Boys Religious Education Association $10. 00 High School The classes of the high-school grade adopt the benevolent scheme of the church and are supplied with envelopes on which all of the benevolent objects are named, together with the percentage which they receive. The program of this school has also been tabulated in the following interesting form: What We Do for Others Giving Money: 1. To city needs: Pay rent of family; Da^Vy iVew5 Fresh Air Fund. 2. To home missions: Indians; Santee; Dr. Grenfell. 3. To foreign missions: Bulgarian and Chinese children; Japan; Africa. 4. To flood sufferers. 5. Educational: Tuskegee Institute; Industrial School, Albuquerque; Religious Education Association. Personal Service: 1. Leadership of club. 2. Teaching classes. 3. Entertaining groups from the city: a) Neighborhood Club. This club entertains 100 girls from Association Club. 102 THE BIBLICAL WORLD b) Camp Fire Girls. They entertain six little girls one day every week during the summer. 4. Dress babies. A baby is chosen for whom the group becomes responsible. 5. Dress dolls. 6. Make scrapbooks. 7. Make candy. Materials: 1. Thanksgiving baskets and Christmas gifts. 2. Summer — flowers. 3. Lake Bluff Orphan Asylum — Dolls. 4. Scrapbooks for hospital. 5. Gifts— Children's Ward, City Hospital. 6. Apples— Gad's HiU. 7. Toys and clothing to Margaret G. § 6. THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL PROGRAM This program is taken from the standard curriculum prepared by the General Board of Religious Education of the Protestant Episco- pal church. It designates *'the activities of the pupils in the parochial and social life of which they are a part, both as members of the congregation of a particular parish and as members of the city or town in which they hve." Training for these activities is correlated with ''church knowledge and the devotional." Primary Department kindergarten: ages four, five primary grades: ages six to eight 1. Acts of loving kindness to people and animals, helpfulness to parents and teachers, and pleasantness in home life. 2. Ministry to sick and needy. 3. Interest in the font roll. Junior Department ages nine to thirteen 1. Personal and social duties to God and our neighbors based upon Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catechism. 2. Share in the corporate life of the parish, through the various parochial activities and gilds, e.g.. Junior auxiliary candidates for the Girls' Friendly Society, Boy Scouts, Knights of King Arthur, etc. 3. Efforts to bring others to church and Sunday school. 4. Gifts to missions based upon concrete information. GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 103 5. Taking part in mission plays and making articles to be sold for the Lenten oflfering. 6. Collecting magazines for homes and hospitals. 7. Giving to specific local needs. 8. Making friends and being friendly to new boys and girls in the schools, playgrounds, and other social centers. 9. Visiting the sick and needy and institutions as far as suitable. Senior Department ages fotjrteen to seventeen 1. Encourage the pupils to fulfil their responsibility to other scholars as leaders, helpers, and examples, especially in bringing others to Church, confirmation, and holy communion; and to continue their share in the parochial and general activities of the church, such as membership in missionary societies and missionary study classes. 2. Older scholars should be interested in matters pertaining to public welfare as expressions of their Christian faith and life. Graduate Department AGES eighteen AND OVER All members should be engaged in some definite active service in the church, and should prepare themselves to become teachers in the Sunday school. § 7. SUMMARY The formulation of a graded program of social service is not a forbidding task if we refuse to be carried away by the prevalent desire for something elaborate and imposing. A curriculum of social service may be very simple and yet very effective, for while it is simple it recognizes that everybody can do something and finds that something for everybody to do. But is a graded program feasible in all Sunday schools irrespec- tive of the economic character of the environing community? It is a prevalent idea, especially where there is a tendency to stress the idea of charity, that social service belongs to the institutional church whose neighborhood makes a large demand for assistance. A review of the situation, however, shows that the Sunday schools in which social service is highly organized are by no means restricted to downtown districts or areas contiguous to the slums. Nearly all of the schools whose programs we have given are located in good residential districts. A moment's reflection is sufficient to 104 THE BIBLICAL WORLD explain this fact. If a Sunday school is encompassed by human need it will, out of its own good impulses, spontaneously do much social ser\ace. The strong and repeated stimulus of its surround- ings will evoke an immediate response. The demand knocks at all hearts. The summons is insistent. No time is spent in waiting to organize. Things are done at once, and, often without much definite thought, social service comes to fill a large place in the hfe of the school. But when a Sunday school is more remote from human misery and its members do not assemble struggle, misfortune, or defeat into their own experience, any significant participation in social service is conditioned on an effective relating of the school to distant social conditions. Social service in such a school must be planned for and organized if it is to be done at all. The weak and fitful stimulus of unfamiliar and unappreciated social conditions, about which the glowing hght of the imagination does not play, cannot be relied upon to produce a worthy and substantial response. Interest in welfare work under such conditions is assured only when social service is given a definite and vital place in the formulated program of the school. So it comes to pass that the Sunday schools in residential districts which are doing significant social service are schools whose programs are more or less thoroughly organized, for the very fact that a school is situated in the midst of prosperity and happiness makes organization the more imperative. CHAPTER V EDUCATION IN MONEY-GIVING A foremost task of religious education is the culture of the benevolent spirit so as to insure a fine subjective effect as well as a worthy form of expression. As the term is used by the church, benevolence should certainly be benevolent in its reflex influence. Its educational returns should be unmistakable and of significant moral quaHty. Giving should be a training in giving, developing a generous, unselfish spirit, increasing the power of discriminating choice, adding to the wealth of life a wide range of superb human interests. It may be objected that this is to reduce benevolence to a refined form of selfishness. But to recognize the educational sig- nificance of benevolence is neither to deny it an ulterior purpose nor to depreciate the value of the same. Along with its objective aspects benevolence has its subjective phases and it certainly seems like a self-evident truth that the benevolent offerings of an educa- tional institution ought to carry educational values. It is a matter of prime importance to religious education to recognize that the development of benevolence is fundamentally an educational problem. This may sound exceedingly elementary, but it is not too elementary to be frequently overlooked. How often are the ways and means of giving determined in accordance with well-established principles of education and how often are they nothing more than mere devices ? Even the best devices are but poor substitutes for more effective principles, and their popu- larity and frequent use are convincing proof of a general failure to appreciate the educational principles which underlie the culture of a generous life. All education must be conducted in accordance with the general principles of education, and if the benevolence of young people is to fulfil its educational function it must be invested with the dignity of an educational problem. § I. EDUCATIONAL PRINCIPLES IN BENEVOLENCE Education in benevolence must give proper recognition to the spontaneous interests of childhood and youth. "Interest," it has 105 106 THE BIBLICAL WORLD been said, "is the greatest word in education." Subjectively, inter- est is a feeling of the significance which an object has for the indi- vidual concerned. It represents the worth which it has for him. It is an expression of values and indicates the point of entry into his Hfe. When education aligns itself with the interests of child- hood and youth it has a clear path of approach, it can appeal to them on the plane of experience, and it is dehvered from the miser- able necessity of groping in the dark for a point of contact. Their interests reveal their point of contact, and when we discover this we know where to begin, whatever our specific educational problem may be. In applying this principle it will not be necessary for us to enumerate all the interests of the child. It will be sufl&cient for our purpose to emphasize the fact that they gather about activities and concrete objects. The child lives in the world of realities close at hand and therein finds the objects of worth to him. And this is the field in which reUgious education must work in its effort to deepen and enlarge the generous impulses of the child. "Foreign missions," "the salvation of the lost," "the evangehzation of the world," are abstract terms which carry no significance for childhood. But every child is interested in other children, their plays, their pets, their toys, the stories their mothers tell them, their food and clothing, the hardships they have to endure, the festivals and hoU- days which they enjoy, their life at home, in school, at work — all these never waver in their attractive power. The world of children is the children's world and when we estabhsh associations here we enlist their co-operation and their native interests stimulate and strengthen the appeal to their social and sympathetic instincts. Ideal educational material for developing benevolence in cliil- dren consists of all material which deals with children abroad or amid unfamiliar social conditions at home. Childhood speaks with a voice which childhood understands and can appreciate and there is no more natural or more effective way to create a genuine spirit of benevolence in children than to establish them in sympathetic relations with other children whose needs are obvious and within their comprehension. The child's plane of experience is in the simple, the concrete, the immediate, and direct. "Jesus," says GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 107 Patterson du Bois, "went to the people at their point of contact with life, and, though a carpenter, he never drew a figure from his own calling, but from theirs."' In developing the religious im- pulses of childhood can we do better than to follow the example of our Master ? With the passage from childhood the character of interest changes. Life comes to have a broader outlook, the altruistic spirit emerges and the idealism of adolescence asserts itself. Great enter- prises, heroic endeavors, significant movements, these captivate the imagination of young people, and it is through these that the benevo- lence of youth is most readily reached and raised to worthy expres- sion. The commanding attraction which social service offers adolescents is the sense which it gives them of doing something. Nothing is too big, too daring, too idealistic for them to venture on. The call of the heroic is an appeal that stirs their hearts with irre- sistible force. Youth resents the suggestion of the paltry task and scorns to respond to the petty appeal. But present to it a task of heroic proportions, unfold before it the program of a religion which proposes to open kindergartens in Japan, schools in India, hospitals in China, neighborhood centers along the bleak coasts of Labrador, which aims to establish institutions of learning, of healing, of com- radeship and hope in all the dark places of the earth, and yours will never be a forlorn cause. No doubt there are prosaic causes which need help and humble movements for which religious education should develop an interest. But we must start with youth where we find it and lead it out as best we can, and finding our point of contact in its idealism and altruistic spirit seek to inspire it with a vision of the magnificent movements of the kingdom of heaven which will kindle its imagina- tion and set it on fire with a passion for great service and significant giving. But there is another educational principle which is pertinent to our problem. We mean the principle of self-activity. Education is not a mere assimilative process. It is far more an expressive process, in which the child discovers and expresses himself. The application of this principle is obvious. As the child must be more ' Patterson du Bois, The Point of Contact, p. 104. 108 THE BIBLICAL WORLD than a passive recipient of instruction if he is to enter upon the social inheritance of the race, so he must be more than a silent partner in generosity if he is to become a generous contributor to its future progress. Education in benevolence demands a real participation in the full ministry of giving, and the full ministry of giving includes the choice of an object as well as the bestowment of one's money. A Sunday school that merely collects the offerings of its pupils is not educating them in benevolence. Benevolence must be discriminat- ing as well as la\dsh, an expression of the judgment, not a mere out- burst of impulse, and religious education must make provision for the cultivation of a selective discrimination as well as of the habit of giving. Efficiency in choosing comes through practice in choos- ing, and to secure such practice it is necessary to arrange a series of concrete situations which call upon the children to decide upon the disposal of their gifts. In the primary department this may be accomplished by pro- viding three or four differently colored boxes into which the chil- dren put their offerings for objects designated by terms within the scope of their experience and with which they are made famiHar by frequent talks. Above the primary department each pupil should have his own envelope and each class its own treasurer. Once a month or at some other stated period the teacher should stimulate discussion concerning specific objects of benevolence and so guide the class in the disbursement of their offerings. As the pupils advance in maturity more and more freedom should be granted, but even the very youngest ought to be protected from exploitation and be given some opportunity for self-expression and choice. In the field of benevolence the task of religious education is to develop a generous spirit and the habit of selective choice in connection with a wide range of enriching human interests. The fundamental con- dition to the fulfdment of this function is the practical recognition of the two educational principles of self-activity and interest. § 2. CURRENT METHODS OF SUNDAY-SCHOOL BENEVOLENCE A practical examination of the actual methods in use by Sunday schools will further illustrate these principles. The writer has made GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 109 a canvass of seventy-five pastors or Sunday-school leaders with a view to securing representative testimony. About 25 per cent of those interviewed stated that nothing was done to make their benevolent offerings vital and significant. Two more might truth- fully have said the same. One method was described as follows: "Missionary offerings are taken once a month. An address is sup- posed to precede the offering but this is not regularly given. The discipline of the church calls for the distribution of literature but this requirement is not observed." Is it any wonder that this pastor pessimistically observed that it was impossible to approach men on the missionary question ? And what provision is he making for the dawning of a better day ? Another method was stated thus: "Ten per cent is given to benevolence from the offerings of the Sunday school. No regular instruction is given, but the school is always open to appeals. We wait the action of the boards." It is probably true, as was said, "our benevolence is not reduced to the level of a ritual or the mechanics of a program," but is it worth while to pay for such freedom the heavy price of dependence upon unregulated impulse ? Others gave the following accounts of their methods: "Representatives address the school on behalf of specific objects." "Speakers from various organizations; visits by older classes; letters of appreciation read." "Weekly talks are given on missionary subjects." "Instruction is given concerning the objects for which the offering is made." "Children are told of the projects to aid which their offerings go." "Letters from the field help." "We give information about the cause to which they are giving." "Keeping before the pupils the objects." "We get reports, pictures, letters, addresses, dramatic presentations of the work in which we are interested." "We keep in touch with objects and people helped." "Imparting of missionary intelligence." "The children are asked to give to concrete objects and these are intelli- gently set before them." "Special, specific, definite instruction is given in all departments (except beginners) before offering is taken." "They are made for specific objects each month and reports are made." "The grades give to special concrete objects in which an interest is created." 110 THE BIBLICAL WORLD "All offerings go to the support of our own Sunday-school missionary in Wisconsin." "We give to concrete objects." "By making the contact between the giver and the one in need as close and vital as possible." "Twenty -five dollars is contributed monthly to specific causes and for that month that cause is made prominent." "Once a month the entire offering goes to missionary work. There is a Sunday-school missionary society and the president arranges for giving mis- sionary instruction on that day." "Twenty-five per cent of the offerings go to mission work. Very frequent ten-minute talks are given by competent people. The kindergarten of the school uses four boxes of different colors, each of which is set apart for a spe- cific object. The little folks drop their money in these boxes." "Pledge envelopes for offerings are supplied to the children and the total Sunday-school offering for the second Sunday of each month is given to some missionary or benevolent object." "We take up missionary offerings and have someone talk to the children so that they will give with more interest and intelligence." "Courses in senior classes; attractive general program; literature." "We seek to relate them to Christ and his religion in the individual life." "Our adult Bible classes have each a missionary committee which takes care of the benevolence work of the class." "All of the offerings raised by the school are used for benevolent purposes. The executive committee of the Sunday school decides upon their disposal. Freedom is allowed with regard to special gifts for philanthropic purposes. Speakers occasionally address the school. The birthday offerings always go to Jackson Park Sanitarium for Children." "The boys and girls do the work themselves under guidance, earn their own money, and deliver their gift in person if that is wise." "We have a philanthropic committee that seeks to direct every class in the choice of some benevolence, local or more remote. The class is directed to secure money for the help of the object or cause chosen, and is encouraged to study the character, work, and needs of the institution concerned." "Every child is given a package of fifty-two dated and numbered envelopes. A record is kept of each child's offering and a regular report is made to him. The beginners have a missionary society called the Busy Bees which meets two or three times a year. At these meetings the missionary pigs are broken and appropriate stories are told. A similar method is followed in the primary department. The entire offering of the Sunday school is given to missionary work, its distribution being decided by the Sunday-school management. The Sunday school has its own mission in Lahore. Incidental missionary instruc- tion is given every Sunday." GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 111 "The denominational offering for foreign missions is taken at Easter. Beginning about Christmas time, a five-minute talk, accompanied by illustra- tions and curios, is given every Sunday. The chairman of the missionary committee is responsible for these talks and goes to each department. Mis- sionary leaflets are also distributed every week and envelopes are given to the children some time before their offering is to be made. The offering at Thanks- giving for home missions is preceded by the same systematic effort to awaken intelHgent interest. As a result of these efforts a large number in the school have given evidence of really getting to have a sympathetic interest in home and foreign missions." "Last summer the summer school had a special study — a tour around the world with the stereopticon. Two lectures were given on each country. The teachers were given the lectures several months before so that they could make themselves thoroughly familiar with them. The slides were put into their hands two or three weeks before they were needed. The immediate result of this venture was a better attendance at the Sunday school than ever before." "Each class from the primary up has its own envelopes for the individual members, elects its own treasurer, and disburses its own money. All funds are handed over to the general treasurer of the school and he in turn honors the checks of the class treasurers. The aim is to engender discussion under the guidance of the teacher with a view to securing the educational reaction. Once a month objects of benevolence are discussed, but the class is not restricted to any selected list. One Sunday the pastor happened to mention that the church had recently paid out an unusually large amount for postage. That day one class made an appropriation for church postage. A feature of the system is the addresses of representatives of institutions and boards who frequently visit the school." The infant class of one school with an average attendance of sixty has had a remarkable record in benevolence. For the last year its receipts were $2,440. II. The only explanation of this achievement which we could obtain, aside from the personality of the teacher, who has been at the head of the class for twenty-five years, is afforded by the treasurer's report, and we give it in full with respect to the receipts: Treasurer's Report MAY I, 1911, to APRIL 30, 1912 Amount on hand May i, 1911 $ 63.94 Pa3Tnents on loans 900 . 00 From three friends 25 . 00 Sunday offerings through the year 205 . 1 8 Offerings in Christmas barrels 54 • 20 By interest on farm mortgages 487 . 61 From proceeds of Harvest Home play, Noah's Flood 253 . 54 Proceeds of Easter eggs and play, David and Goliath 450.64 Total receipts $2,440.11 112 THE BIBLICAL WORLD This class owns securities valued at $7,472.00, the result of the accumu- lated balances of a number of years. These securities are yielding the class good returns, but it is open to serious question whether a Sunday-school class should have large annual balances. "We are just adopting the system of having the classes keep their collec- tions in a class treasury; once a month or thereabout a cause is presented to them from the platform, that of a missionary or other benevolence, such as a New York settlement; they are told how much the apportionment of the school would be for that cause, on a basis arranged by the financial committee, and the classes are asked to vote from their treasuries such sums as they think their share of that apportionment demands." "First let me say that we talk far less about money than about the right attitude of the heart. We seek also to educate in every way that all action shall be intelligent. There are in the west end of the city nine schools, all of them being the output of our church. We are planning to start another. These schools are banded together for some definite work each year. This year it is to put up some buildings in India. Each class in our own school takes a collection for this every Sunday and this is placed in a separate bag or box where it remains until the end of the year, when the amount is counted and brought to the platform at the annual festival of that part of the school and the sum reported. The interest then is intense. Last year the children alone gave about $900 in our school. As to keeping up the interest and educating the children, we have three sets of lantern slides and two of our men are out every Sunday with lanterns giving addresses. We try to have at least one address a month at each Sunday school. We try to get as many schools as we can to take up the work themselves and we provide them with the slides if they have a machine, and if not, we have a lantern that we lend them as far as it will go. We have no difficulty in getting schools to join us. The superintendent of our school doubles whatever amount is raised. However, as I said, our children alone gave nearly a thousand dollars last year. We give our offerings to a different mission each year." What, then, are the findings of our study ? We shall summarize them under four heads: 1 . In about 25 per cent of these schools no effort is made to make the offerings vital and significant. 2. In most schools a more or less systematic effort is made to inform the children concerning the objects to which their offerings go. In some schools this instruction is extensive in scope and sys- tematic in character, but in too many it is scanty in its range and occasional in its impartation. GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 113 3. A fair proportion of the schools give definite recognition to the value of concrete objects in stimulating benevolence, and some discriminating care is given to their selection. 4. Only three, possibly four, schools give the pupils any respon- sibility in the disbursement of their gifts that calls for selective judgment. This analysis suggests the probable direction of advance and the ideals for which we ought immediately to work. It is not at all likely that any large number of schools will recognize, in the near future, their responsibility for training their young people in wise habits of choice and allow them to select the objects to which they will devote their offerings. But already many schools are giving systematic instruction in order to make their pupils intelligent givers and almost as many are recognizing the necessity of appeal- ing to the prime interest of children by giving them concrete objects of benevolence. Emphasizing these two elements, however, will almost inevitably result in a realization of the need of making the benevolence of young people still more vital by giving it the stand- ing and insuring for it the essential characteristics of an expressive activity. § 3. MISSIONARY LEAFLETS The canvass of the methods of Sunday-school benevolence was supplemented by an examination of missionary leaflets. Leaflets were chosen because the specific function for which they are designed and the prevailing use to which they are put is to stimulate benevolence. One hundred and twenty-five of these leaflets were examined, obtained from five denominations and issued by eight boards. It was encouraging to find that just about one hundred of these were admirably suited to their purpose and possessed real educative qualities. Most of them are graphic stories of child life, a few of them sound the heroic note, while a large number, especially the leaflets of the home-mission boards, contain picturesque descriptions of events and movements which arouse enthusiasm and enlist co- operation. 114 THE BIBLICAL WORLD As many of them suggest their content by their title it may not be amiss to give the names of a few: When Father Is a Missionary, reproduced in the handwriting of a Httle nine-year-old girl and full of human interest for children; Homes of the Mountain Children; Children of the Hoga?t; Snow Children; Cuban Village Children; One Little Injun; America's Welcome; In Chicago^ s Ghetto; A Day with a Missionary Doctor; Kei San, the Child with No Hands; Igorrote Boys in the Philippines; The Children of Turkey; A Tokio Lily; Pak-Si-Mi-Do, or From Shadow to Sunshine; Ten Chinese Robbers. These leave no doubt as to the persons for whom they are intended. Livingstone Hero Stories; Our Call from Liberia; Heroes of the Island World, belong to the heroic type. The Outposts of the People; Creating a Frontier; The Puzzled Ranchfnan; Foreign Missions at Home; Foreign Missions under the Stars and Stripes; In the Land of Adobe; The Story of Pah-Ah-Wat; In the Detention Room; Is Alaska Part of Us ? The Empire of the East; and The Empire of the Pacific Northwest, are vivid stories of national prob- lems, events, and movements which easily capture the imagination and the interest. More stories of boy life, more leaflets which strike the heroic note, and more of the picturesque material which sets forth in a vivid and striking way the bigness of the foreign-missionar}^ enter- prise ought to be added to this leaflet literature, and instead of being sold the leaflets ought to be distributed without cost, so that every Sunday school could use them freely for their educational effects. Pictures, postal cards, posters, and curios are also supplied by the missionary boards and some societies indicate in their cata- logue the grade for which their material is suitable. Of the other twenty-five leaflets we cannot speak so favorably. Three mistakes are committed by their writers. The first mistake consists in making the needs of the society central instead of the needs of the children. In these leaflets procuring the children's money is the primary, and promoting the moral education of the children the subordinate, end. Invidious comparisons are made between what the children spend on themselves and what they give to missions. A boy, for instance, is told by his uncle: "Now, my young man, you know very well that a quarter for peanuts GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 115 doesn't look any larger to you than a pin's head, and that a quarter for giving looks as big as a cart wheel — but that's got to stop." Instead of being given educative, constructive, and interesting stories the children are given a scolding. Instead of being inspired with a sense of the privilege of participating in a great human movement they are coaxed or cajoled or shamed into giving. Sup- plying neither information nor inspiration, these leaflets are an attempt to get something for nothing, and the children whom they dupe yield up their pennies and receive no enrichment of life in return. Of course there is bound to be a reaction, and the last state of these children is worse than the first. A second mistake consists in making too heavy demands on the social sympathy an'd unselfishness of children. The material pos- sessions of children are necessarily limited and they are not easily increased or replenished. It is almost impossible for the adult to realize how dearly the toys and keepsakes of a child are treasured. To stimulate the sacrifice of these is to assume a grave responsibility, and any impoverishment of the child is certainly immoral and the ultimate effects are sure to be unfortunate. It must further be borne in mind that the social experience of the child is naturally confined to a relatively small compass. Outside of its own encirc- ling group it has little knowledge and consequently small interest. Parents and teachers are often tempted to enlarge this circle by force, but the precocious development of any natural capacity or faculty is always unwise and hazardous, and in the end the best results are attained by assisting and directing, not by hastening, the natural processes of the developing organism. With the ripening of the sex impulse the social nature blossoms into fuller beauty and one may ask and expect an increasing recognition of social obhga- tions, but the social impulses of childhood lack both intensity and range and any strong and stirring call to sacrifice does violence to its undeveloped social nature. But the meagerness of the child's possessions and the narrowness of its social interests are frequently forgotten by the writers of mis- sionary leaflets and every effort is made to stimulate sacrifice which would be heroic enough in their fathers and mothers. Stories are told of little children set forth as ideals, who, after great struggle 116 THE BIBLICAL WORLD and triumphant effort, take their best-prized treasures and heroic- ally give them for the salvation of the heathen. • One little girl gives her cherished silk mitts, which her father was too poor to buy, but which her aunt had given her at Christmas; another gives her "darling dollie," "dearest one I ever loved"; while yet another, to obtain money for the missionary offering, sells her great shaggy Newfoundland dog, the pet of her life, who saved her from drown- ing when she was only three years old. Such productions are nothing short of a deliberate attempt at the exploitation of unprotected childhood. Deep and urgent social feeling issuing in costly sacrifice is not natural in a child, and the more one considers the child's highest welfare and greatest useful- ness the more one deprecates its premature development. Benevo- lence of a fine type and enduring character is a result of careful nurture and cannot be promoted by impoverishing the child or by violating the laws of his unfolding personality. A third mistake consists in the creation of little "improbables," whose amazing missionary zeal is expected to provoke a similar interest in others. The psychological blunder of this method of appeal is obvious. As is the case with all devices, these idealized children concentrate the attention upon themselves and absorb the interest while the real object of importance is forgotten. The more impressive these stories are the more deplorable is their eft'ect, for their very success signifies that these pious improbables have become focal, while the children abroad or in other social conditions, for whom an interest should have been aroused, have become merely marginal in consciousness. If these stories have any pur- pose it is to create a worthy interest in the missionary' enterprise; but instead of doing that they create an interest of no real worth in fictitious children and the missionary enterprise is side-tracked and forgotten. The moral blunder is also obvious. Sooner or later young people discover that they do not meet such children among their playmates, on the street, or in the schoolyard. The fiction is too palpable to deceive them long and the discovery of the deception is sure to react upon the missionary enterprise. Instead of looming up as a great human interest it becomes associated in Ihcir minds with GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 117 pious fictions and sentimental unrealities, and a bias is created which in later life it is difficult to overcome. Fiction, when true to life, is almost invaluable and has proved its worth in more than one humanitarian cause, but when it descends to the grotesque and disregards the universal laws of human nature its effect is pernicious and the most worthy cause will suffer through its use. The missionary societies should eliminate these three t}^es of leaflets. They carry no educational values and it is only through education that any permanent and vital interest in missionary effort will be aroused. Concrete presentations of child life, stories of heroic endeavor, picturesque descriptions of vital and significant movements, these are rich material for the religious education of childhood and adolescence and the missionary enterprise has this material in abundance. CHAPTER VI VALUES IN SOCIAL SERVICE The pragmatic spirit of our age is indisputable. The only standard it knows for estimating any institution or movement is its contribution to the common good. What credentials, then, can social service present ? What are its values ? In seeking an answer to that question it should be borne in mind that social service in the Sunday school is only in its infancy and most of the graded programs in use have been developed only within recent months. So far social service by young people is in its purely experimental stage, and, while good results have been obtained, a much more substantial body of objective, concrete evidence is needed before it can be claimed that social service has demon- strated its value in religious education. It is not the purpose of this chapter to present a theoretical dis- cussion of the value of social service for religious education. The pedagogical, psychological, and religious arguments are more or less familiar and need not be repeated. If we "learn by doing" and self-activity is essential to education, if conduct engenders emotion and emotion follows in the line of conduct, if religion is an affair of life and expresses itself in concrete forms of social experience, the significance of social service for religious education is beyond dispute. There are two sources, however, from which we may obtain definite, concrete evidence of the value of social service — the leaders who direct its activities and the young people who are engaged in its tasks. It is to these sources we shall look for the contents of this chapter. § I. TESTIMONY OF SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORKERS In seeking information from Sunday-school workers we are confronted by two difficulties. In the first place, with too many, personal opinion clothed in pedagogical phraseology or expressed in sociological terms is made to do duty for concrete facts. Familiar with the educational basis on which social service is admitted, n8 GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 119 these people take it for granted that the educational values will realize themselves. The second and more fundamental difl&culty grows out of the impossibility of tabulating spiritual results or showing moral growth by a schedule. Character is a product of slow develop- ment and it is not, easy to measure its progress or to indicate it in diagrammatic form. Yet notwithstanding these difficulties, and they are accentuated by the brief history which social service has behind it, a body of data has been accumulating. Sunday-school workers refer to such objective, concrete values as increased offerings, enlarged attend- ance, gratified parents, interested pupils, improved church workers, greater democracy of spirit, a more social attitude, and better knowl- edge of social conditions. From a large number of testimonies which have been secured it might be well to present those of half a dozen workers whose experience in social service makes their evidence significant. 1. a) "It assists young people to apply the religious impulse to the prob- lems of their own life and to those of the community. b) "It promotes their recognition of the fact that each individual is per- sonally responsible for the social welfare of the community. The importance of this emerges when we realize that the individual conscience is the field of social control. c) "It improves the whole situation of the school. It increases the attendance, improves the quality of the work, and strengthens the hold of the school upon the pupils." 2. a) "It is absolutely essential to the correct interpretation of the Chris- tian life. b) "It teaches the pupils to expect that impulse should bear fruit in action. c) "It trains the children in the habit of looking to religion as the source of motive for living. d) "It gives an immediate test of the reality and worth of religious expe- rience. e) "It gives the sound ethical habit of putting all our love and testing all our impulse in the furnace of actual human conditions." 3. "It provides definite, concrete, human ways of expressing the religious impulses. When free from the patronizing, Lady Bountiful spirit it generates the Christian spirit and carries its own inherent stimulus and motive. It often enables Sunday-school scholars to realize what religion is all about and 120 THE BIBLICAL WORLD to transfer it from the mysterious, sad-faced unreality in which it often lan- guishes to the living world of actual human relations." 4. "I beUeve this work to be of the greatest value in teaching people to live happily and usefully together. It is an excellent cure for snobbishness, and for the teaching of some of the most valuable lessons of life it is unequaled." 5. "The two most notable results of social service in the Sunday school, so far as I have seen it, have been the eager interest of the children and the pro- found gratitude of parents. Children bring to this a concentration of attention, an intensity of anticipation, a joy of sacrifice, and a persistence of human purpose that I have seen nowhere else in their life. If one may interpret the evident satisfaction that follows, from one's own experience, one would say that they have really learned that it is more blessed to give than to receive. "The thankfulness with which parents, in church relations and outside of church relations, see their children really interested in something that seems to them vital and at the same time connected with the church, and the interest which the parents themselves acquire or renew in these same things, is most significant." 6. "I was much pleased with one young girl's behavior last summer. For several weeks previous to the time when our Sunday-school closes for the summer I emphasized to the whole school the idea of doing for others while they were enjoying their seashore and mountain vacations. I learned at the end of the summer that a fifteen-year-old girl who had never known a hardship or deprivation herself nor, at that time, scarcely ever a disappointment or sorrow, chose as her regular deed of kindness to go every evening to see an old lady, tiresome and complaining, and listen to all her complainings and talk in a cheerful way to her." The testimonies of these workers are worthy of consideration. They indicate results which have already appeared and they sug- gest the direction from which others may be expected. Undoubt- edly some are getting more values out of social service than others, but then some are putting higher values into it. As in all education , so in social service used as material for religious education, the personaUty of the teacher is of supreme importance. A leader who does not distinguish between social service and charity work, who is indifferent to the necessity of establishing his young people in reciprocal relations with other persons, and who takes it for granted that the educational values of social service will realize themselves, has failed at the very outset. The letter killeth, the spirit maketh aHve, and for the attainment of the high values that belong to social service it is essential for the leader to be thoroughly possessed by the social spirit. GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 121 § 2. A STUDY OF PERSONAL REACTIONS An intensive study was made by the writer in order to obtain the reactions of young people who were participating in some form of social endeavor. Twenty-two young people contributed to the study, their ages ranging from six and a half years to twenty-one, with the number of males and females equal. The nature of the social service in which they participated varied somewhat, though most of them were interested in needy famiHes and nearly all were continuously engaged in activities for others. Except in one or two instances, where two pupils together described the work of the class, each pupil was seen alone, and as there was no opportunity for conference any similarity or agreement of expression cannot be ascribed to imitation or suggestion, but must be found in more fundamental causes. Every precaution was taken to guard the results from unreality. Embarrassment and awkwardness were carefully avoided. Definite information was sought in accordance with a formulated technique, but this technique was never exposed to the subject and he was never made to feel that he was being studied. The approach was always objective and attention was centered upon the concrete. The pupil was asked and encouraged to describe the social work the class was doing. Now and then, at opportune moments, questions were injected into the narrative, but these interrogations never induced self-consciousness and were never prolonged. Ques- tions introduced in this casual way brought unstudied answers and at the same time stimulated the interest of the subjects in the description and enabled them to continue their story. The objective approach had yet another value. For this de- scriptive method not only kept the pupils in close contact with the concrete, furnishing facts and preventing self -consciousness, but the rehearsal of their class activities in a measure repro- duced and disclosed their own emotional attitude to the work they were describing. The personal element could not be eliminated. The activities of the class were a part of themselves and the sig- nificance which they had for them was spontaneously revealed. What is set down in this study is based, therefore, not only on the direct response to questions, but also upon the emotional attitude which came out in the rehearsal of their activities. 122 THE BIBLICAL WORLD §3. THE POPULARITY OF SOCIAL SERVICE The popularity of social service in the Sunday school cannot be questioned. Without exception all the pupils, from the youngest to the oldest, talked of the work of their class with unconcealed delight. It lit up their faces, colored the tone of their voices, and gave vivacity and freedom to their manner. It was not necessary to ask the question, "Is social service popular in the class?" For the sake of making the evidence as clear and convincing as possible, however, the question was asked, and in every instance an affirma- tive answer was given with unhesitating decision. A little girl six and a half years old not only showed intense delight in filling a stocking for a kindergarten Christmas tree, but on her own initiative and entirely without suggestion she took money out of her own purse to pay for a present on another kinder- garten tree. The act was the more significant with her as she is not in the habit of using her own money except by the suggestion and under the direction of her parents. Some weeks later when a little friend became ill and was quarantined she took great pleasure in cutting out scrap pictures for him and in sending him picture post- cards and Sunday-school papers which she had saved. A boy (age of class eleven to thirteen) said of his class, "We would rather do it than not." A girl (age of class eleven to thir- teen) remarked, "It makes the class more interesting." A girl (age of class thirteen to fifteen) expressed her feeling somewhat decisively when she said, "We would not like to have it cut out." Another girl in the same class said, "Everybody responds to it." A boy (age of class fourteen to sixteen) put it this way: "It takes fine with the boys." A second boy of the same class said, "The boys are much interested in their work. Every Sunday school should do something of this kind. It is only right that they should." A third boy remarked, "Social work is very popular with the boys," and the tone was more significant than the words. He also added, "Every Sunday school should do it." A fourth boy of the same age declared, " The boys like to do social work. Every Sunday-school class should do more of it than they do." A young man (age of class seventeen to twenty) said with much spirit, "All the boys enjoy it and they are hustling. We feel like doing more of it." GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 123 In the case of two young women, the members of a popular class, the enthusiasm for social service was especially suggestive. This class was taught by a teacher of good ability, unusual training, and ripe experience. Her methods were the best and the materials of her course had large values for the class. Yet when these two young women were asked if the class would not have been equally as popular without its social activities they immediately repHed, "It was the social service more than the lessons which made the class popular." The meaning of this for religious pedagogy Hes upon the surface. In social service we have discovered a real interest of youth and childhood and so a new clue to the educative process in its rehgious aspects. The history of education shows that wherever the child has been regarded and respected all forms of external stimulus were unnecessary'. The use of the rod, with its appeal to fear, and of prizes, with their appeal to rivalrj^, is the surest e\'idence that education has lost its way and is devoting its energies to an arti- ficial rather than a natural process. An intelligent recognition of the spontaneous interests of the pupils makes punishments and rewards unnecessary. The discovery of the interest which social service holds for the young people in the Sunday school is therefore of large significance. In the history of religious education hundreds of devices have been suggested and used to make the Sunday school more attractive and to increase its attendance. Giving no sympathetic or intelli- gent consideration to the natural interests of those most immediately concerned, the inventors of these devices have gone upon the assumption that the problem at hand was to make the Sunday school interesting; and, ignoring the interests already present — those of the pupils — their solution has uniformly taken the form of a pleasing novelty. But why resort to artificial interests when the natural are so much more effective and carry such large values ? A Sunday school with a program of social service is not only an interesting Sunday school, but, better by far, it is a Sunday school of interested pupils and teachers. Whenever the pupils were asked if they preferred a Sunday school with or without social service they promptly and decisively replied in favor of social service. 124 THE BIBLICAL WORLD Young people usually know what they want, and when given an opportunity to express their preference they seldom fail in frank- ness. The attraction, then, which social service possesses for them cannot easily be denied. There is good reason, too, for social service seizing young people as it does. It links itself with the elemental social instinct. It furnishes an attractive, expressive activity and deals decidedly with the concrete. The child's interest is primarily in activities and in concrete objects or experiences, and when religion is presented to him in a concrete and objective form it is not only more easily comprehended and more warmly appreciated, but its institutions become more real and its expressions more attractive to him. Then social service gives significance and strength to the group life of the class. Many in the Sunday school are under the domi- nance of the "gang impulse" and readily yield to any attractive unifying force. By making the class significant as a group, social service becomes such a force and pre-empts this social impulse for the larger socializing process of religion. With adolescence comes the larger social interest and the altruistic spirit. The appeal of social service to this period of idealism is irresistible. Compositions written by thousands of children in New York with reference to the vocations they desired to follow when they were grown up were collated by Dr. Thurber. The replies show that the desire for character increased somewhat throughout, but rapidly after twelve, and the impulse to do good in the world, which had risen slowly from nine, mounted sharply after thirteen.' With reference to the choice of ideals during childhood and youth. Dr. Hall summarizes his investigations with the conclusions: Civic virtues certainly rise; material and utilitarian considerations do not seem to much, if at all, at adolescence, and in some data decline. Position, fame, honor, and general greatness increase rapidly, but moral qualities rise highest and also fastest just before and near puberty, and continue to increase later yet. By these choices both sexes, but girls far most, show increasing admiration of ethical and social quahties.^ With adolescence comes the instinctive awakening of the larger social interests and to the idealism of )'outh the altruism of social service speaks with inherent strength. 'G. S. Hall, Adolescence, II, 389. ^Ibid., II, 390. GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 125 § 4. MOTIVES IN SOCIAL SERVICE "Children act morally," says Edgar James Swift, "long before they know why they do so. The discussion of principles of conduct comes later. Indeed, it is a mistake to make boys and girls over- conscious of ethical motives."^ After endeavoring to make one's way into the secret recesses in the moral life of young people, one finds it easy to indorse this statement. No feature in this intensive study presented more difficulty than the problem of obtain- ing a clue to the motives behind social service. The young people who furnished information were not strongly conscious of their motives. No doubt if a direct approach had been made and the question had been bluntly asked, "What is your motive in doing this work?" quite definite repHes would have been given. But the value in such answers would have been very slight, and it was felt, moreover, that we had no right to impair their moral Kfe by making them overconscious of their motives. Accordingly we were restricted to flank movements in our endeavor to bring out state- ments which would unconsciously expose their real motives, and all their statements must be estimated in the light of this method. With one exception all of the motives were entirely objective. A young man of twenty-one referred to the strong incentive to social service which he found in the comradeship with an older man which a certain work afforded him. Yet after emphasizing this subjective element he added, "I can remember of feeling that it seemed worth while doing it all just to see and to know of the joyful surprise and joy and happiness that this effort was bringing to others who except for that might not have a good time." As the motives were prevailingly objective, so they were uni- formly humanitarian and altruistic. A little girl six and a half years old showed great interest in the Christmas activities of her kindergarten. At home very little purposely was said about the work the class was doing. But some weeks later, when sufficient time had elapsed for the novelty to wear off and any excitement to subside, she was carefully drawn into a description of what they did. In the midst of the conversation, when she expressed a liking for ' E. J. Swift, Youth and the Race, p. 234. 126 THE BIBLICAL WORLD doing such things, her father said to her, "What do you hke about it?" Instantly she replied, "I like to think they will be happ)'." Six weeks later she was artfully engaged in a similar conversation. This time when she referred to the children to whom the presents went she tarried longer over their personal condition— they were orphans — and she accordingly gave as her reason for liking to make them presents, "Because they cannot have their fathers and mothers." A girl (age of class eleven to thirteen) used the one word "sym- pathy" to indicate her motive. A girl (age of class thirteen to fifteen) said, "We like to make others happy," while another member of the same class said, "The circumstances of the family make us feel like doing something." A boy (age of class fourteen to sixteen) was very earnest in declaring, "We like to do good." A boy (age of class fourteen to sixteen) gave expression to his views by saying, "It is just the Christian spirit." He added the further statement, "It makes the class feel as if they were doing some- thing." A boy (age of class fourteen to sixteen) ver)' suggestively remarked, "It gives one something to think of besides himself." With two boys (age of class fourteen to sixteen) there was much in common in their thought. One was interested in the social work of the class because, "It gives us a chance to help others and we have not had much experience in that"; while the other found himself attracted to it because, "It is something out of the ordinary and it helps us to get into the spirit of giving." A boy (age of class fourteen to sixteen) who seemed very wise for his years observed, "If we help others they will see there is something in Christianity. They can see the brotherhood of man. It helps to make better citizens." A girl (age of class fifteen to seventeen) showed the weak spot in her heart when she expressed a preference for a family with children and referred to the children as the strong attraction for her class. A young woman (age of class sixteen to eighteen) made a prac- tical point when she said, "All classes should do some social service. It is an expression of what they are taught." She also added, "In social service one is doing something. You are making your- self felt." GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 127 A young woman (age of class seventeen to twenty) whose class did continuous and significant service, made use of just a passing phrase, ''helping others," that revealed her motive; while another member of the same class substantiated her testimony by declaring, "We were interested in the families we were helping and wanted to do good." A young man (age of class seventeen to twenty), with a world of significance for religious education, gave as a reason for the activities of his class, "We like to help other people. We have been brought up in that way." This is certainly a very creditable exhibition of motives. The rehgion of these young people is one of vigor, healthy-mindedness, and human interest. It finds expression, not in pious platitudes nor sanctimonious reflections nor unnatural exhortations, but in activities which embody and reveal the living spirit of rehgion. Jesus proclaimed not merely a rule of his own faith, but a law of hfe itself, when he said, "He that would be greatest among you, let him be the servant of all." It is certainly very gratifying, therefore, to find a company of young people who are learning to identify religion with kindness, sympathy, and service, and who are doing religious work without ostentation and with no consciousness of merit. These young people, too, were not on dress parade. They were caught unawares, and what we are able to present is a snapshot of their motives actually at work. If a program of social service in the Sunday school will promote the development of such a t3pe of religious life it cannot too quickly be given a place. § 5. REFLEX INFLUENCE OF SOCL\.L SERVICE One of the first eft'ects of social service of which we shall take notice is its socializing character. The whole tendency of social service is to establish the participants in personal human relations with a wider and wider range of people— in other words, to socialize them. The contrast between living in full personal relations with other people and sustaining merely abstract relations with them is fundamental. When personal relations prevail all the members of the enlarging group are regarded as full human beings, whereas if abstract relations alone exist the various members of the group are 128 THE BIBLICAL WORLD arranged, labeled, and treated as belonging to a class. Reference has already been made to the essential difference between social service and charity work. The difference is due to the fact that each represents a distinctively different attitude toward the objects of its attention. The attitude of social service grows out of the perfectly definite human feehng which is cherished toward those whom it serves, while the attitude of charity work has its origin in the aristocratic caste spirit which thinks of those whom it helps as members of a class. The relations in social service are personal; the relations in charity work are abstract, and while charity work hinders, social service promotes the socializing process. The socializing character of social service came out clearly in our intensive study. Several of the older pupils made definite reference to the larger social vision which came to them through participation in social endeavors. A girl of thirteen beHeved that social work ''made them more appreciative of conditions in life." A boy of fourteen thought it was good to do social service because "we see conditions." A boy of fifteen was on the same trail when he remarked, "It helps one to realize conditions." With the mem- ory of a familiar saying in his mind a boy of sixteen pointed out as a chief effect of doing social service, "We realize what half of the people are doing and get a broader conception of life." A young woman of eighteen expressed satisfaction over the work her class did in a settlement because, "It brought us face to face with needs"; while another member of the same class gave as the source of her satisfaction, "It made us realize what was going on. It brought us in closer touch with other people and broadened us. We saw there was a lot to be done." A young man of twenty-one, who gave a somewhat fuller statement of the effect of social service on himself, very definitely declared its socializing value by saying, " I was led to think upon the unusual conditions of these people who were strangers to the common, matter-of-course joys that I had." Taken by themselves, isolated and fragmentary', these state- ments may not carry much value. But they cannot be taken by themselves, for what we see as a mere suggestion in these statements was a vital reality of large value in experience. With many of these twenty-two young people social service took the form of helping families, and in every instance they had a precise and intimate GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 129 knowledge of the f amity. As often as a family was mentioned the pupil was asked to describe it, and not one ever failed to do so. They knew who was head of the household, they could give the relative ages of the children, and they were fully acquainted with the occasions for help. What does this signify ? Nothing or everything. Nothing as a collection of statistics; everything when the basis of this knowledge is, as it was with these young people, personal friendship for those whom they served. The spirit of these young people abounded in kindly human qualities, and with this attitude of personal interest it is no wonder that they came to know the families for whom they worked and to regard and treat them as friends. A young woman of eighteen described the work of her class as friendly visiting and referred to the visits which they frequently made as the most valuable service which they did for their family. Yet this class went a long way toward supporting this family during the illness of the husband and father, and when he died they rendered them much invaluable help. Through their counsel and assistance the mother made application for a widow's pension, a good position was obtained for one of the daughters, and the family was kept together and set on its feet. In describing their work for this family this young woman remarked, "We came to have a real friendship for these people and they were always so pleased to see us." Later when she was asked, "Was any feature of your work unsatisfactory?" she replied, "Yes; we should have followed up the family longer, but the class was broken up and we were not able to do so." We were told, however, by another member of the class that some of them were keeping in touch with the family; and as the need of help no longer existed, the relations, it is evident, were purely friendly. A boy of sixteen described a crippled lad whom his class visited. They took him books and papers, "told him what was going on out- side and tried to cheer him up." Could one ask from boys a more beautiful expression of the social spirit ? The crippled boy did not belong to their natural group. There were no common interests between their parents and his. But he was a boy, lonely and unfortunate, and that was enough to make these boys give him their friendship. 130 THE BIBLICAL WORLD A girl of fourteen afforded an opportunity for an interesting experiment. With the family her class was assisting the need for help was not so evident as in the other families described. There was no sickness in the family, the mother was able to be at home, and the father was working. A number of questions were therefore asked, which would bring this fact consciously before her, to see if she would criticize or blame them in any way. It was all in vain, and when she was asked outright, "Why do the family need help ? " "Well," she said, " the family is large, there are seven children, and the father is not able to earn enough." Her explanation was the real one, and she hit upon it when others would have missed it, because along with other members of the class she was a frequent visitor at the home and had entered into intimate relations with the family. So the closer one came to these young people the more he was convinced of the socializing character of social service. They themselves were conscious of it. It gave them a better knowledge of life, a fuller understanding of its struggles, and a truer apprecia- tion of the conditions in which many people are forced to live. Their spirit hkewise revealed its broadening influence. They were human, sjTnpathetic, kindly, free from all priggishness, and above harsh judgment. Beyond all, their attitude of personal interest and real friendliness showed how far they had traveled from the region of abstract relations and how completely they had come into full realization of the people of another group as full human beings. If participation in social service would do as much for all young people as it has evidently done for these, certainly its value in religious education is placed beyond all question. § 6. SOCIAL SERVICE AND THE EMOTIONS When we come to the emotional effects of participating in social service we find ourselves in possession of an equally decisive body of evidence. Doing for others enriches the emotional life. It stimulates and develops the higher feelings and worthier sentiments. It favors emotional attitudes of a social character and of the most desirable type. The testimony of the young people themselves is most con- vincing. A girl of twelve stated the case for social service with the GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 131 remark, "It makes one more sympathetic. It adds more pleasure to life." A girl of fourteen added another item when she said, " We feel happier after doing such work. I think it makes girls more self-denying." Another girl of fourteen brought out still other ele- ments when she declared with some emphasis, "It makes one more thankful. One would like to do more. We do mighty little." A boy of fourteen thought the chief effect of working for others was the fact that, "It makes one feel as if he had done something." Another boy of fourteen who was enthusiastic over social service, remarked, "It stirs the heart to do more. It fills one with sympathy." A boy of fifteen in describing his visit to a family said, " I felt awful happy. I wished I could give a bunch of coal." When he was asked, "Was any feature of your work unsatisfactory?" he replied, "Yes; we could not do enough." Another boy of fifteen, with his eye on the future, said, "Work of this kind is just the beginning of a greater work," while yet another of the same age expressed a similar feeling by saying, "It makes one want to get more into it." A young man of eighteen gave as his testimony, "One feels better after- ward. He feels like doing more of it." A young woman of eighteen, whose class had done very significant work and at some financial outlay, when asked how they financed their work, answered, "We took the money from our allowance, but we did not feel it." We learned, however, from another source that this young woman's giving was of such extent that most people in her position would have felt it. Another member of the same class said, "It gives happiness to one's self to do for others. It tends to develop the self-sacrificing spirit." Speaking of his own experience, a young man of twenty-one confessed, "It developed a sympathy for those less fortunate or less favored than myself. It caused me to have more of a willingness to help them." These statements speak for themselves and any analysis of them is unnecessary. Sympathy, gratitude, benevolence, the joy of service, appreciation, contentment, all are here, and some qualities which it would be difficult to describe in a single word. We do not mean to say that these emotions or sentiments had ripened into their full, mellow beauty. Their development no doubt varied with the individual and varied greatly. But the fact that these 132 THE BIBLICAL WORLD feelings were aroused in these young people shows that we are on the right track when we adopt social service as material for rehgious education. The thesis of modern psycholog}^ that feehng is generated by conduct is true. Emotion accompanies conduct and conduct conditions emotion. What we feel depends upon what we do. To initiate and promote the higher forms of conduct is to induce emotional attitudes and dispositions equally commendable and worthy, and the value for rehgious education of a program of social service is that it provides selected forms of behavior wliich carry high emotional values. An impressive illustration of the rehgious value of social service was furnished by the experience of one young woman, a university student, whose story was told by her Sunday-school teacher. This young woman was brought up in a decidedly non-rehgious home. While her parents were respectable and cultured people they were utterly indififerent to religion in any of its forms or expressions and their daughter received no religious instruction and never attended church or Sunday school. When about seventeen she was invited by a teacher in a Baptist Sunday school, a friend of the family, to unite with her class and she received the proposal with favor. This class was known for its zeal in social work and she was ver}- quickly seized with its enthusiasm and became one of its foremost workers. Before uniting with this class she was self-centered and had no sense of responsibihty. It never occurred to her that she had any duties in life and she was quite regardless of the needs of others. But under the influence of her associations in this class and her participation in its social service a decided change came over her that was most evident to those who knew her. Her mother remarked repeatedly, "What a change has come over M . She is getting to have a sense of responsibihty Her work in that class has done more to develop her than any other factor that has come into her hfe." In a year or so she united with the church and she is now one of its valued Sunday-school teachers, a generous giver to all good causes, a devoted follower of Jesus Christ. She has learned that the joy and meaning of life arc found in service, and the appeal that reached and won her was the appeal that comes through personal participation in social service. CHAPTER VII A SUGGESTED CURRICULUM OF SOCIAL SERVICE The aim of this chapter is to suggest a program of social en- deavor which will exhibit forms of service suited to the developing capacities of young people. These forms of service, it must be said, are merely typical and are not presented as an exhaustive list of the activities which religious education may employ for its purposes. To formulate a program of social activities which would be adapted to all Sunday schools or to any single Sunday school all the time is not possible. Every community furnishes its own tasks and every Sunday school must largely construct its own program. One of the first duties of a Sunday school is to discover its oppor- tunities for service. It will facilitate this attainment to make a list of the organizations, in the immediate neighborhood or more remote, with which it can most naturally work, and then to ascer- tain what forms of service by young people these institutions and societies would most appreciate. When this is done any school can formulate a graded program of social service if it will recognize the gradations in interest and capacity in young people and if it will select forms of service in which all departments of the school can more or less constantly participate. § I. OBJECTS OF SOCIAL SERVICE The objects of social service suitable for young people may be arranged in five classes: 1. Animals. — All children should be taught to enter into sym- pathetic relationship with all forms of life about them. They should study these manifestations of life from the artistic, economic, and sympathetic sides and should be vigilant in preventing, as far as they are able, suffering and wrong treatment to others. Such sym- pathy and interest can best be developed through kindly efforts for the welfare of animals. 2. Babies and older children. — These may be either orphans or half-orphans, sick, dependent, or neglected. 133 134 THE BIBLICAL WORLD 3. Unfortunate families. — Families overtaken by misfortune and in need of sympathy and friendliness appeal strongly to young people and call for forms of assistance quite within their powers. The more complex problems of relief which arise in connection with intemperance, vice, and habitual shiftlessness should not be intro- duced before the college years. Caring for needy families affords a fine opportunity to correlate the social service of children and parents and as far as possible advantage should be taken of this opportunity. When the parents and children co-operate in this way the social ministries of the family are unified, and through this unification the great end of social service is facihtated and it becomes possible for the family as a whole to ally itself with another family in reciprocal social relations. 4. The aged.— In private homes, almshouses, old people's homes, and homes for incurables there are many old persons who need the light and cheer and good spirits which belong to the buoyancy of youth. 5. The local and missionary work of the church. — There is no bet- ter way to heighten their appreciation of the church as a social institution than to engage the young people, especially in their adolescent years, in appropriate efforts to promote its purposes. Through such participation in the life of the church there will come to them an enlarging sense of the multiplicity and variety of endeav- ors which make up the content of ordinary church work. Possibly many churches may experience more difficulty in discovering tasks which their young people can perform for them than in finding services with a philanthropic intention, but the problem is one to be vigorously and persistently attacked. It is likewise exceedingly important to enlist the young people in the missionary enterprises of the church, for this will constitute their affiliation with the dis- tinctively religious advance of the kingdom of God. The value of this analysis is that it sets forth in a systematized form the comprehensive field which solicits the energy and enthu- siasm of childhood and youth. It is not proposed that any group will be occupied with all of these interests at any one time. Great care must be taken not unduly to burden young people nor to make demands of them to which their developing natures are not ready GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 135 to respond. A main purpose in formulating a program of social service is to secure an arrangement and distribution of activities which will assign appropriate tasks to each department and give the young people, as they pass through the successive grades of the school, a progressive knowledge of social needs. An effective program of social service demands both skilful peda- gogy and a reHgious attitude. No program will work itself. A program is a dead thing. If ever it throbs with life, it is with the life of a vitally contagious human spirit. To instal a program of social service and expect it to work automatically and produce religious results is a vain hope. The religious results of social service will be in direct proportion to the reHgious spirit of the directing forces. One of the first prerequisites to a satisfactory pro- gram of social service in the Sunday school is a church pervaded with the social spirit. The church and the Sunday school cannot be divorced. The relation between them is vital and inseparable. A church with an aristocratic temper cannot maintain a Sunday school with a democratic spirit and it is useless for a church to expect religious results from a program of social service if it assumes an irreligious attitude to the entire social situation. It is further essential to the effectiveness of social service in religious education that it should not be isolated from the didactic material of instruction. To generate religious emotion, to afford an adequate expressive outlet for reUgious beUef, to develop gen- uine human comradeship, it must be correlated with the instruc- tional and devotional elements with such intimacy and warmth of relationship that it becomes an integral, vital, and inevitable feature in the life of the school. § 2. SOCIAL SERVICE AND SPECIAL OCCASIONS Every Sunday school should provide some form of service for the four special occasions of the year — Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and Children's Day. Indeed, a history of social service in the Sunday school would probably show that it was largely through an effort to make these occasions vital that social service first found its way into the Sunday school. Certainly these occasions afford an excellent opportunity for the introduction of social service into 136 THE BIBLICAL WORLD a school, and when it becomes fully organized around these days its expansion into a full program of graded endeavor will be a mere question of development. A brief reference to suitable forms of service for these occasions will be sufficient here. At Thanksgiving nothing better can be done than to provide good dinners for needy families. A whole department should act as a group, assuming responsibility for as many families as they can manage. As kindergarten children can hardly be asked to provide everything required for a complete dinner, it is wiser to ask them to bring one thing — apples, nuts, squash, pumpkins, etc., and then distribute these over the general offering. Let it be said again with all emphasis that no effort should be spared to bring the young people into some reciprocal social relation with the families. Christmas permits and calls for more personal forms of giving than Thanksgiving. So the Christmas gift should be a group gift to another group. Whether one or more classes compose this group circumstances must determine. Nothing is more interesting to kindergarten children than to provide and trim a Christmas tree for other httle folks. In order to secure uniformity in the character of the gifts and avoid unpleasant comparisons among those who receive them, it is well to ask each child to bring a stocking of mosquito netting, the size and contents of which have been some- what definitely specified. One year a class of boys spent the whole of Christmas afternoon playing with the boys to whom they had taken gifts. Tliis was a fine expression of the Christmas spirit, and the good time they had in making it a Merry Christmas for others has never been forgotten by those boys. Another class of boys gave vent to their love of adventure as well as their good will by going out beyond the city limits and gathering Christmas trees which they donated to a settlement. The beautiful appropriateness of this bit of social serv- ice makes one wonder that more boys' classes have not discovered and appropriated this form of Christmas giving. Easter suggests flowers and any special service ver}-^ naturally will take advantage of this suggestion. If plans are made in the fall, at the time for planting bulbs to blossom at Easter, this service GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 137 may assume quite extensive proportions and be made a very beauti- ful expressive activity. The planting should be done by the chil- dren themselves and if the basement of the church is available, so much the better. Let the bulbs open in the spring in the kindergarten room, so as to be ready for Easter Sunday, and then be carried by the children to the Easter service and left on the pulpit, to be taken later to the aged or sick or to some appropriate institution. The possibilities of this service are really very l^rge. Children's Day should be devoted to some form of significant service for children. In one school the birthday money of all the members of the Sunday school is brought on this day and is used to give outings to children from the congested districts of the city. Whether this method be adopted or not, this is social service of the highest value, and might very fittingly be made a regular feature of Children's Day. Thus all the festival occasions should be given a touch of service, so that all the good times at the church are associated with giving happiness to others. As far as possible, too, the ministries of these special occasions should be made to fit into the regular program of social service. In the same way the money -giving should be cor- related with this program. Where each pupil has his own envelope and each class its own treasurer it will be an easy matter for the teacher to promote discussion concerning suitable objects of benevo- lence and so guide the class to an intelligent disbursement of its funds. For our purposes we shall divide the school into the following five departments: Kindergarten, from three to five years. Primary, from six to nine years; Grades 1-4. Junior, from ten to thirteen years; Grades 5-8. High school, from fourteen to seventeen years; Grades 9-12. Young People, from eighteen to twenty-one years or farther. Inasmuch as the program is only suggestive, it would be very easy to adapt it to the six departments of the International system. 138 THE BIBLICAL WORLD Objects of Service Home church The community . The larger world Animals . § 3. KINDERGARTEN DEPARTMENT Ages three to five Forms of Service Folding papers and inclosing them in envelopes to be sent to absent and sick classmates. Preparing pictures and small scrapbooks for members suffering from prolonged illness. Gift to a day nursery. Filling envelopes with beads, thread, and needle, and making small scrapbooks for children's hospital. Providing equipment or contributing to the support of a kindergarten. Making small scrapbooks with biblical pictures for chil- dren in a mission field. ' Providing water and food for birds. When the kinder- garten meets through the week as well as on Sunday this can easily be done. Three sheets of manila paper 9X 15 will make scrapbooks large enough for the kindergarten. In some cases the pictures may be sent to be pasted in by the recipients. Objects of Service Home church The community . .< § 4, PRIMARY DEPARTMENT Ages six to nine; Grades 1-4 Forms of Service I. Assisting kindergarten teacher in preparation of material (girls). Sunday-school messenger service (boys). Beautifying their room. Boys' choir. flaking paper houses, furniture, dolls, and doll dresses for a home for foundlings. Making scrapbooks for children's hospital. Utilization of postcards. Pooling toys for orphanage. 5. Making May baskets to be sent to a home for crippled children. 6. Occasional concerts by boys' choir at old people's home. GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 139 Ages six to nine; Grades 1-4 — Continued Objects of Service Forms of Service 1. Supporting a kindergarten in a mission field. 2. Making collapsible paper houses and furniture and cutting out paper dolls and dresses to be sent to chil- dren in some mission field. 3. Making scrapbooks to be sent abroad. 4. Utilization of postcards. [ Preparation of bandages for injured animals, to be used \ by Humane Society. The larger world . Animals A few words of explanation will be sufficient to clear up any obscurities in this program. Assisting kindergarten teacher. — Any kindergarten teacher will suggest to the superintendent of the elementary department plenty of work for her girls, such as folding paper, making collapsible furniture and houses. Sunday-school messenger service. — This service consists in carry- ing a message, signed by the superintendent, together with a copy of the Sunday-school paper, to each absent member of the depart- ment and in bringing back replies, so that the officers may know the cause of the absence and the condition where sickness prevails. Beautifying their room.—TYie gift of a picture chosen under the direction of the teacher would fulfil this suggestion. Boys^ choir. — Boys ranging in age from nine to twelve are the best with which to start. Boys of thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen have stronger voices, read better, have better breath control, but unless trained earlier they are low and coarse in voice, and habits are so firmly fijced that it takes the most strenuous coaching to get a pure head-tone and real singing out of such lads. Boys greatly enjoy chorus work under the right leadership and they can render the church valuable service. Scrapbooks. — The scrapbooks made by "this department should be larger than those made by the kindergarten. Four or five sheets of paper 11X17 inches folded through the center will make a very suitable size. It will be better to devote each book to a single topic, such as "A Day in the City," "Life in the Country," " Summer Pleasures," "Winter Scenes," "Life by the Seaside." Magazines furnish abundance of material. 140 THE BIBLICAL WORLD Utilization of old postcards. — Take a yard of narrow ribbon or wrapping tape and cut it in halves. Use postcards having writing only on the address side. String the cards together by pasting writing-face to writing-face with the ribbon between them width- wise of the cards and about one inch from the outer edge of the cards. One yard of ribbon will hold sLx pairs of cards. The dis- tance between each pair should be about one-sixteenth of an mch. When not in use the cards may be folded together or hung by a loop at the upper end of the top card. These postcards will be equally welcome at a children's hospital or a mission station. May baskets. — In some parts of the country- the pretty custom prevails of children leaving May baskets, made of tissue paper and filled with candy, at the doors of the homes of their Uttle friends. Similar May baskets could be made by the children of the elemen- tary department and be sent to a home for crippled children. Valentine's Day offers a similar opportunity. § 5. JUNIOR DEPARTMENT Ages ten to thirteen; Grades 5-8 Forms of Service Looking after their own classmates. Beautifying their room by a gift. Mass club for boys. Girls' chorus choir. Making and securing illustrative objects for Sunday- school lessons. Assisting at church functions. Collecting and arranging duplicate stamps from their own collections for boys in a home for dependent boys. Making games, puzzles, and reins for boys in orphan- age. Raising popcorn and gathering nuts for home for crippled children. Making candy and popcorn balls for orphanage or settlement. Making kimonos, surprise bags, and bedroom slippers for hospitals. Dressing dolls for orphanage. Crowing Oowers for llovver mission. Occasional concerts by girls' chorus choir. Selling Red Cross Christmas seals. Objects of Service Home church . The community. . 2. 4- 5 Animals GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 141 Ages ten to thirteen; Grades 5-8— Continued Objects of Service Forms of Service 1. Gifts of games and puzzles of own make to Grenfell mission or an Indian mission or southern moun- taineers. 2. Dressing dolls to be used in the same way. 3. Collecting Sunday-school papers and helps to be sent abroad. 4. July Christmas tree. 5. Making workbags and furnishing them with needles, thread, yarn, buttons, and other useful articles for seamen. 6. Gift of money to a school like Tuskegee. / I. Making birds' nests. \ 2. Gift of money to Humane Society. The larger world EXPLANATIONS Classmates. — Pupils of this department should be given a large responsibility in looking up absent members. The sick should be remembered by frequent calls, or where this is impossible on account of the contagious nature of the illness, a systematic arrangement should be made for the regular forwarding of cards, papers, and other small remembrances. Members of the class might even offer to do errands for the mother. While not relaxing his own efforts a wise teacher can apparently give the responsibility of the absentees largely to the class. This is the "gang period" and its spirit should be utilized. Girls' chorus choir. — At this age girls read music very readily, their voices are exceedingly sweet, their articulation never better, and a girls' chorus choir offers a most attractive field of service. Illustrative material. — The value of objective teaching is well understood, but its value will be all the greater if the objects are made or secured by the pupils themselves. Experience proves this is quite within their abiHty. Assisting at church functions. — Almost every church function, such as a church supper or social, will call for work which the older members of this department can perform. Such services as gather- ing flowers, ferns, or evergreens for decorations, arranging chairs and tables, checking coats and hats, serve as illustrations. Care 142 THE BIBLICAL WORLD should be taken to give all such services a setting of dignity, so that the young people will feel that their contribution is worth while. Raising popcorn and gathering nuts. — This is a bit of service which is open to children in the country and which would bring great dehght to the group of children who received the popcorn and nuts. The mention of this opportunity for giving happiness will suggest others of a similar kind. Surprise bags. — These bags are so useful that they are warmly welcomed at a children's hospital. Hung over the bedpost a sur- prise bag provides a convenient receptacle for the child's little belongings for which there is no other place. Two or three httle "surprise" gifts should be placed in each bag. Growing flowers for a flower mission. — This is another piece of social service appropriate for schools in the country or smaller towns. A village Sunday school sent 150 large boxes last summer to the Chicago Flower Mission. The flowers should be gathered and packed on a stated day every week and shipped in cardboard boxes. Boxes shipped to Chicago bearing the label of the Chicago Flower Mission are carried free by the express companies. The seed should be bought by funds from the treasury of the class or depart- ment concerned and each member should be given a packet. Collecting Sunday-school papers and helps. — These are not in demand in all mission fields but there are special stations where they are very welcome. In the Philippines our International Uni- form Lessons are studied some months later than here. On this account undistributed clean quarterlies may be used to advantage. They may be forwarded to the Philippines as "second-class matter," at the rate of one cent for each four ounces. The department for utilizing waste material of the World's Sunday-School Association will gladly furnish information concerning the disposal of such material. July Christmas tree. — A July Christmas tree is a barrel or box packed in the summer with Christmas presents for children in some far-away land. Children always enjoy the preparation of sucli a "tree," and if they pack the barrel or box themselves under direc- tion their enjoyment will ])e all the greater. GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 143 Objects of Service The community . The larger world § 6. HIGH-SCHOOL DEPARTMENT Ages four ken lo seventeen; Grades g-12 Forms of Service 1. Looking after their own classmates. 2. Interesting themselves in younger boys and girls of the school. 3. Messenger cadets. Home church \ 4. Editing Sunday-school department of church paper. 5. Beautifying their own room. 6. Designing posters and place-cards for the church functions. 7. Contributions to current expenses of the church. 1. Providing a scholarship for a boy or girl under the direction of the Juvenile Protective Association. 2. Remailing Youth's Companion and other papers. 3. Helping at social centers in games and gymnasium classes. 4. TeUing stories and directing appropriate games on Sunday at social center. 5. Giving a picnic to a group of children. 6. Providing a week in the country for a boy or girl. 7. ]\Iaking fireless cookers and ice boxes and screens under the direction of the visiting housekeeper of the United Charities. 8. Making jelly or grape juice as a class for District Nurses' Association. 9. Tearing up bandages for District Nurses' Association. ID. Making simple garments according to patterns. 11. Collecting magazines for almshouses or hospitals. 12. Taking out patients from the home for incurables for a ride in a wheel chair. 13. Kindnesses as Boy Scouts or Camp Fire Girls. 14. Participation in civic improvements. 1. Collecting papers to be sent abroad. 2. Making sheets, pillowslips, quilts, and simple gar- ments for Grenfell Mission. 3. Educating a boy or girl in some foreign country. 4. Simple missionary plays. 1. Reporting to Anti-Cruelty Society all stray dogs and Animals < cats. 2. Furnishing a drinking fountain. 144 THE BIBLICAL WORLD EXPLANATIONS Older boys working for younger boys. — "The leverage on ever}' epoch of boy life," says Fiske, "is the age next older; near enough to it to gain confidence and admiration, yet enough older to hold respect." Boys must be won by boys, and as its boys can do no better work for the church than to win the boys a httle younger, so the church can do no better work for its boys than to direct and guide and inspire them in this service. The boys to enlist in this service are third- and fourth-year high-school boys. Messenger cadets. — The function of this organization is the dis- tribution of printed matter of various kinds issued by the church. The value of this service will be realized when it is stated that pastors sometimes have more of this work than their cadets are able to handle. Beautifying their own room. — As the more the members of a class do for their room the more they will prize it, they should be encouraged as much as possible to decorate and beautify it. Recently a class, after prolonged discussion among its members concerning the color scheme of their room, spent a whole evening talking it over with a professor of aesthetic and industrial education in a neighboring university. Aside from the educational value of such an interest and effort, can there be any doubt of the larger attraction which their room will have for them when their deco- rative scheme has been carried into effect ? One valuable bit of service which is possible to young people at this age, who have been properly trained, is the designing of appropriate mottoes for the wall. Their manual training also quaHfies them for making useful and ornamental articles, not only for their own room but for other departments as well. Church functions. — The specific service which we have mentioned here is the designing of posters and place-cards. The interest awakened by a fine poster and the pleasure given by an appro- priate and dainty place-card make this service significant and desirable. To some this may seem too advanced a form of service to expect. But if the young people have been properly trained it is quite within their ability. Young people like to be honored by significant tasks that call for ability and ingenuity and there are GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 145 few mistakes more fatal than a failure to appreciate this desire for recognition. A scholarship. — In the prosecution of its work the Juvenile Pro- tective Association frequently comes across a child who would like to continue his studies throughout the high-school course, but who is compelled to discontinue his work because of the financial con- dition of the family. One method of the association is to say to the parents, ''How much would the earnings of this child amount to in a year?" Then a class either alone or in combination with other classes undertakes to provide this amount of money. The designation of it as a scholarship places it upon a dignified basis. This is a task for boys of the third and fourth years in high school. A week in the country. — Mention of this is made here for the purpose of calling the attention of country Sunday schools to a very valuable and practicable service which lies at their door. It ought to be very easy for a Sunday-school class in the countr}^ to enter- tain one or two children for a week in the summer. Collection of papers. — English is spoken in many of the foreign mission fields. In these places such papers as Christian Endeavor World, Youth's Companion, Classmate, Forward, and illustrated papers are of special value. In the Philippines 600,000 public-school children and their 9,000 teachers are eager for papers in English. Reporting stray animals. — Besides suffering themselves from exposure and hunger stray dogs and cats are a social menace. It is therefore both an act of kindness and of social protection to report them to the Anti-Cruelty Society. Erection of a fountain. — In addition to being very ornamental, a fountain in front of a church constitutes a distinctive contribution to the social welfare. All too frequently watering-troughs are in front of saloons with the result that cartmen feel under obligation to patronize the saloon when watering their horses. A church fountain is, therefore, a fine piece of constructive social endeavor, as well as an act of humanity and thoughtfulness. Participation in civic improvement. — Many a town would be a far more desirable place in which to live if its streets were neater, its alleys cleaner, and its vacant lots more tidy and ornamental. That boys will respond to an appeal of this nature is abundantly demonstrated by the Garden Cities of Worcester. 146 THE BIBLICAL WORLD Objects of Senrice Home church , The community. The larger world , Animals 2. 3- 4- 5- § 7. YOUNG people's DEPARTMENT Ages eighteen to twenty-one Forms of Service 1. Regular contributions to the current expenses of the church. 2. Promotion of class welfare and friendly oversight of class members. 3. Personal interest in boys and girls of the church. 4. Conducting walks and talks on Sunday afternoon. 5. Editing class paper. 6. Ushering. 7. Rallying of the young people to attend church func- tions. I. Entertaining at the home church a group from a settlement. Friendly visiting. Making layettes for District Nurses' Association. Tutoring backward children. Outings and picnics for poor children. 6. Ser\dng at social centers — teaching, conducting games, leading classes. 7. Providing a pleasant Sunday afternoon for young men and women who live in boarding-houses. 8. Reading to the sick, the aged, and the blind. 9. Singing at Old People's Home. Giving entertainments at almshouses and asylums. Auto rides for shut-ins and convalescents. Disposing of work made by inmates of almshouse. Clerical work at district office of United Charities. Accompanying patients to clinics, and friends of patients to visit them at hospital, house of correc- tion, etc. Community survey. 16. Co-operating with the United Charities in assisting family. Assisting in Sunday-evening chapel services at county hospital. Contributing to outgoing patient's wardrobe. 1. Adoption of the church scheme of benevolence. 2. More elaborate missionary plays. Co-operation with humane and anti-cruelty societies. 10. II. 12. 13- 14. IS 17 18 GRADED SOCIAL SERVICE 147 EXPLANATION Walks and talks. — In the modern city Sunday afternoon pre- sents a serious problem in the moral development of young people. What shall they do ? They cannot keep quiet and they will not remain by themselves. To the young man or woman who knows something of botany, ornithology, or geology this problem presents a rare opportunity. For in what better way could young folks spend a Sunday afternoon than in walking out into the country and in learning something of the birds, flowers, and stones they pass, while under the helpful influence of a strong young man or refined young woman ? Editing class papers. — ^A description of a class paper which is now in its third year, and has proved one of the most successful ventures of the class, may be worth while. This paper is issued every week and contains eight pages, 4iX5i- inches in size. The cover, a standard, is printed in quantities with the name and picture of the church on the front and a list of the class officers on the back. The inside pages are typewritten and multiplied by a duplicating process. Every week a new committee is appointed and this committee assumes full responsibihty both for the contents and for the cost of the paper. Disposing of work of almshouse inmates. — A paragraph from Dr. Henderson's Dependents, Defectives, and Delinquents will explain this form of service : A very needy and attractive field for private charity at the poorhouse is the provision of employment for aged women. A life of inactivity and aim- lessness is torture. A society of good women in a county, imitating the example of Lady Brabazon in England, could furnish materials for plain and fancy work, and aid in occasional bazaars for the benefit of the unfortunate and aged people. This would relieve the tedious and depressing monotony of the almshouse life, bring cheerful motives into the dull existence, and awaken sisterly interest for the desolate and friendless in the entire community. Here is a field in which a class of young women could do a fine piece of social service. Missionary plays. — The presentation of such plays as The Pil- grimage, Two Thousand Miles for a Book, Sunlight and Candlelight, 148 THE BIBLICAL WORLD Slave Girl and School Girl, is a field of endeavor that appeals to young people and is sure to issue in a more intelligent and more vital interest in the missionary enterprise. Several classes in a school or classes from several schools might unite their forces and by selecting those most gifted with dramatic powers give a really first-class presentation that would do the missionary cause good service. ^s INITIAL nNE or ^^^f S DAY AND TO $10 __=.= OVERDUE- D31_100m.lU.'43(8790B) YD -^oioin^ F^ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY /^