The Boy and the Sunday School Part 22

The echo or shadow type is a serious problem. He it is who generally hinders the good things in life and helps the bad. He can swear by the ward boss in party politics, or he can prove himself an obstacle in the way of civic and national righteousness. The Teacher's task in his case is to somehow or other strike the cord of independence, teach him to do things by himself, think for himself and stand on his own feet. Along the coasts of the North Sea, they teach boys to swim by throwing them out beyond their depth. It may be necessary to awaken manhood and independence in the echo by swamping him when he is alone.

THE BULLY

The bully will be the worst type for the Teacher until the right boy comes along; there is no use in the Teacher worrying himself until he does, because of the bully's bl.u.s.ter and bluff. Usually the normal boy will accept him at his face value, and it is only when a lad with self-a.s.sertion comes along that the sparks will fly. Then the bully will have to back down or take his medicine. A fight between boys is usually not a good thing, but when it comes to putting the bully in his place it is one of the greatest inst.i.tutions that the savage man has invented.

Once a bully has lost his place, he may bl.u.s.ter, but his bluff is over.

THE QUIET OR RETICENT BOY

The quiet or reticent fellow is like the mighty sweeping river. He has depths which have been unsounded, and his life has promise of great possibilities. Just the opposite of the bully, he never bl.u.s.ters but thinks out everything as it comes to him. Every impression is stored away and out of the countless impressions which are made upon him there emerges a man of real and wide interests. The task of the Teacher in his case will be to discover his interests and help him to discover himself.

THE GIRL-STRUCK BOY

The girl-struck fellow somewhat discourages the worker with boys, and yet it is natural that the boy should look with favorable eyes upon the girl, just as the robin hears and answers to the call of his mate. Let no Teacher or any worker with boys of any organization that has ever been founded dream for one moment that either he or his inst.i.tutions can ever block out the lure of the girl. The girl-struck boy will have numerous cases of puppy love, and it will be the task of the Teacher to lead the boy into the kind of social relations that will enable him to be a real value to those of the opposite s.e.x whom he may meet. The boy will prove a much better husband and father because of his experience.

THE SELF-CONSCIOUS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS BOY

The self-conscious and the unconscious boys are merely victims of their surroundings. The self-conscious fellow has no confidence in himself. He is continuously measuring himself by others and is possibly the victim of parental teaching. The constant injunction to act like "Little Willie" next door may have gotten on the boy's nerves, and if the lad has a chance without undue embarra.s.sment he will soon reach the normal stage, and be always a little more courteous and respectful and thoughtful than the fellow without this experience. The unconscious fellow on the other hand will plug along doing all sorts of absurd things, because of his lack of knowledge of the fitness of things. He is generally the boy who grows up without any sense of consistency, and who has had very much his own way of doing things. He will need to be helped to adjust himself to his environment and to the way that other fellows live. He also will develop as a good man if the Teacher is a good worker.

THE FORGETFUL BOY

The same may be said about the forgetful boy and, in fact, about all boys. The forgetful boy has merely not been interested enough to give his attention to the things that the Teacher wants him to do. Once a boy has his interest aroused, the Teacher will have no need of complaint of forgetfulness or of any lack of interest in the boy.

THE UNFORTUNATE BOYS

The types which have been discussed will generally work out all right and find their places in the various social strata in the community in which they live. The unfortunate boys, however, are handicapped tremendously by their environment and surroundings, and it will often become a part of the Teacher's work to help secure a change in these environments. Boys of very wealthy parents and boys from homes of poverty are usually sinned against by their parents. The parents of both are either so busy making money and spending it in the social whirl, or so pushed by the pangs of hunger and the fight for life, that the children who are brought into the world are left either very much to themselves or to underlings who have very little interest in the boy's welfare. It is these neglected boys that oftenest produce our great criminals. All boys of this type somehow or other are tied together. The neglected boy generally becomes the delinquent and the delinquent boy the criminal, so that what might be said about one might also be said about all. This cla.s.s const.i.tutes our national deficit when we come to consider our a.s.sets in manhood, and the Teacher can do a tremendous thing here by helping to form the undeveloped wills of these unfortunate fellows.

THE DEFICIENT AND THE DEPENDENT

The deficient boy and the dependent are really out of the scope of the Teacher. The dependent cla.s.s will have to be taken care of by the charitable inst.i.tutions of the State, and the deficient boy because of his lack of mental development will always be a ward of the community.

THE WAGE-EARNER AND THE OVERAMBITIOUS BOYS

The wage-earning boys and the boys of overambitious parents or those who are overambitious themselves need all the help and sympathy that they can get from a Teacher. The father who is pushing his boy because of his own ambition will very often need to be talked to by the Teacher or his friends, and given an understanding of the crime he is committing against his own child. The overambitious fellow who is pushing everything aside for a definite thing in life will often have to be talked to in the plainest language by the Teacher to get him to see his other responsibilities and duties in life. The wage-earning boy who works from early in the morning until late at night to keep bread in his mouth and breath in his body will compel the Teacher, if he is really thoughtful, to give up some of the things which he has already held dearest and possibly lead his wage-earning boy into outdoor activities, even on the half holidays which he would naturally spend in the circle of his own family.

THE STREET, FOREIGN-BORN AND NEGRO BOYS

The street, foreign-born and negro boys will furnish very much the same kind of problem; because of a general rule, they may be all grouped under the wage-earning cla.s.s. Some may be more shiftless than others and may need more attention, while others may be merely awaiting the touch of sympathy and the helping hand to make strong men out of them. A goodly percentage of our greatest Americans have been foreign-born boys, and, if there is any cla.s.s that the Teacher should be more patient with than others, it is the immigrant and the son of the immigrant.

=Grouping Standards=

The Teacher will find it greatly to his advantage to group his boys according to some standard. Unfortunately, all standards, so far, are more or less artificial, but approximate success may be secured by using the experience of boy workers in various parts of the country. The standard which is most generally used is that of age. It is also the most unsatisfactory. Boys mature physically rather than chronologically.

This makes the age standard a poor guess, because a boy may be physically fourteen when he is chronologically eleven, and vice versa.

If the age standard be used, it would be preferable to group all the boys of twelve years together, then the thirteen-year-old boys in another group, and the same with the fourteen, the fifteen, the sixteen, and the seventeen-year-old boys. This would be rather hard to do in small places, although perfectly feasible in a larger town or city.

Because of its impossibility, as far as the rural districts are concerned, it might be well to divide the years from twelve to eighteen into three standards--twelve to fourteen, fourteen to sixteen, and sixteen to eighteen. The age grouping, however, will never be reliable in achieving results, as the individual physical development varies so much.

The height and weight standard is more scientifically correct than the age standard, although it has not been tested out enough to warrant any authoritative declaration in its favor. If this method is used for grouping, the standards for athletic compet.i.tion among the boys might be used; that is, all the boys of ninety pounds and under might be put together, the same being true for those under one hundred and ten, one hundred and twenty-five, and one hundred and forty pounds. If height is used, boys of fifty-six and a half inches in height and cla.s.sifying under ninety pounds in weight might be grouped together. Also boys of sixty-three inches in height and coming within the one hundred and ten pound weight. This standard will doubtless become the real basis of all groupings in the future, but as yet it needs more demonstration in order that the various cla.s.sifications may be made accurately.

A simple and rather satisfactory way of grouping is by the school boy or wage-earning boy standard. If the boy happens to be in the grammar school he may be grouped with boys of his own educational advancement; so with the boys who are in the secondary or high schools, and the same may be said of working boys who are forced to earn their own livelihood.

Possibly the best and most satisfactory way of grouping boys is by their interest. Some boys will be mutually interested in collecting stamps, riding a bicycle, forming a mounted patrol, working with wireless, in music and orchestra work, etc., and boys grouping together according to such kindred interests as they manifest has proven most satisfactory in general boys' work.

=Problems of Boy-handling Simplified by Natural Standard Grouping=

Grouping the boys according to natural standards makes the problem of handling them much simpler. Boys between twelve and fourteen are in the age of authority, and the word of the Teacher will settle most difficulties that arise. Boys between fourteen and sixteen are in the age of experience, and an opportunity must be given them to check up what they are told by what they are experiencing. Between twelve and fourteen authority may be rigid. Between fourteen and sixteen it must be giving way to reason. Authority will still continue to settle the boys'

disputes, but it will be the authority that gives reasons for its action. Boys between the ages of sixteen and eighteen years can only be handled on the basis of cooperation. They have pa.s.sed from the stage of blindly following what they are told. They have experience enough to know that they are able to do things themselves, and they have discovered enough things to give them a basis of doing things on their own account. The way to handle boys rightly in this group will be by tactful suggestion and cooperation on the part of the teacher. There will be very little difficulty with the groupings if the Sunday school superintendent or teacher respects the natural, group "ganging" of the boys. The boys themselves group, not according to mental efficiency tests, but according to physiological development. Thus we find boys of various chronological ages in the same gang. A little common sense will prevent many blunders.

=Securing Teen Age Teachers=

As soon as Sunday school teaching becomes a dignified, worth-while job, men will be attracted to the task and privilege. The unemployed male members of the church will then be led to see that there is something real to be achieved. The vision of a symmetrically developed boy is all that is needed to get most men. Of course, they demand a plan, and the organized Sunday school cla.s.s with through-the-week activities will supply that.

Sometimes it is a good thing to send the boys themselves after the teachers. This has been found to be of great profit in several places.

The request coming from the boys means a lot more than coming from the superintendent. The following extracts from two letters of a teen age superintendent give point to this idea.

"On Sunday a bunch of the younger boys came to Mr. Ball, and said, 'We have no teacher; will you get one for us?' Mr. Ball looked at them, and said, 'Who do you want, fellows?' They looked at each other--this was something new. 'Who do we want?' and the leader turned around and said to the fellows, 'Say, fellows, who _do_ we want?' A hurried consultation revealed the fact that they wanted, of course, one of the prominent men of the church. Mr. Ball said, 'All right; get hold of my coat-tail'; and the crew got hold, and formed a snake line, and out of the school they went, upstairs to one of the cla.s.s-rooms, in search of Mr. B. They found that he had left for home, and the boys looked at Mr. Ball and said, 'Now, what shall we do?' Mr. Ball said, 'Well, fellows, you know where he lives. I can't go with you, but you fellows go to his home and camp there until he says yes.' Off they started. Several men were telling me this story, and one is a neighbor of Mr. B's. He said that when he got home from Sunday school last Sunday--a bitter cold day--he went out into his back yard, and, glancing over the fences, he saw a bunch of twelve boys lined up on Mr. B's back porch, stamping their feet. He called across to them, 'Say, fellows, what's the matter?' 'We're looking for a Sunday school teacher,' they yelled back. He said he thought he'd drop.

"The next morning Mr. Ball met Mr. B. in the street car, and he grinned across at him and said, 'Did a group of boys call on you yesterday, Mr.

B.?' 'They certainly did,' he replied, with a broad grin. 'Well, did they get you?' 'Did they get me? Yes, they sure got me, and from now on I'm going to teach their cla.s.s; there was nothing else for me to do.'"

The story of another teacher acquired in this way reads as follows:

"Before the boys got to his house the man was getting ready for bed. He had fixed the furnace, and had his bath robe on when the door-bell rang.

He had just said to his wife that he did not think any one would call that night, and it was then about nine-thirty. When the bell rang his wife snickered,' as he put it. He went down stairs, turned the gas on low, and opened the door. Three older fellows stood on the porch. He looked at them and they at him and then he asked them in. They filed in--fellows 17 and 18 years of age. He led the way into the library, like a monk in flowing robes, and the three fellows followed. Seating themselves solemnly they stated the cause of their visit, and he started to remonstrate, etc. They settled themselves comfortably in their chairs, and said they had come to camp there until he 'saw it.' This is the man's own story. He said that when he saw they were in earnest he told them he would like to teach a cla.s.s of fellows such as they, and that he would take the cla.s.s if they would get on the job."

=The Teen Age Older Boy as Teacher=

Increasing attention is being given in some places to the training of older boys for the teaching of younger groups in the Sunday school. On "Decision Day" volunteers are being asked to enter a Training Cla.s.s, and choice Christian boys are in this way being interested in the teaching work of the school. In other places older boys are being put in charge of younger boys' cla.s.ses, and are meeting, either on Sunday or on a week-night, for training. This latter plan affords real laboratory work, without which teacher-training courses are pure theory. We learn by doing.

The teen age boy as teacher will ultimately solve the problem of the teen age teaching force. As j.a.pan, Corea, India and China must eventually be Christianized by native Christian forces, so the teen age in the Sunday school will, of necessity, in principle and practice, be led by the teen age. The duty of the missionary in non-christian lands is to train the native forces for the task of Christianizing these lands; likewise, the men of this Sunday school generation must lead and train the older adolescent in the Secondary Division of the school for the leading of the teen age into the service of the church.

PREPARATION FOR TEACHING

The really great task of the Christian adult and older boy in the Sunday school is a real training for service. Stopping the leak from the teen age in the Sunday school will never be accomplished until workers are willing to prepare and equip themselves to a point where their wisdom, ability and consecration will attract the active minds of the teen boys.

Every teacher should be an International Standard Teacher Training graduate. Information concerning this course can be obtained from any Sunday School a.s.sociation.