"A little three-year-old boy running rapidly stumbled and bumped his head severely against the trunk of a tree. Loud cries of pain at once arose, but his little brother took him by the arm and pushed him with all his might towards his mother, saying in the most reassuring tone imaginable, 'Run to mama, Ned, run to mama, she'll kiss it and make it well. Please run to her quick.' 'Perfect love casteth out all fear.' Surely the wise mother can devise a thousand ways by which to kindle the flame of love in her child until her fond dreams for the little ones are transformed into living realities. But the doubter may remark, 'What if I ask my child to do something for me and he refuses or begins to make excuses or asks why his brother can't do it?' You have simply mistaken the time for stretching the young soul's wings. Begin the training when the child is in the loving mood and you will rarely fail to get the desired response; yet, if need be, command the performance of the deed, so that by repeated doing the selfish heart may at length learn the pleasure of unselfishness and thus enter into the joy of true living."

Let parents take this motto to heart: Trust not the physical love of your child, but seek to transform it into that higher love which manifests itself in service. The real love of your child is measured by the extent to which he will sacrifice his own comfort and pleasure to serve you.



LESSON XVI

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Why has the delicate sentiment of love such a power in shaping the lives of men?

2. What may be said of selfishness?

3. How may the desire for praise be expressed?

4. Contrast physical and spiritual love.

5. How may love help to develop a strong will?

6. How must the child be taught obedience?

7. Illustrate how loving service may be secured.

8. How may the real love of the child for the parent be measured?



MORAL TRAINING

There Is No Escape from Wrong-Doing. Mercy Cannot Rob Justice

"Somehow I'll escape," is the fatal thought which blinds the poor fool who, for the first time, treads the path of self-indulgence or wrong-doing. But he ought to know that escape is impossible. No cave is dark enough, no ocean deep enough to hide the transgressor from the consequences of his misdeeds. A kind heaven may forgive him, and the one he injures may overlook the offence; but his own body and mind cannot forget; they have registered the deed once for all and it can never be atoned for or forgotten. The doing of a bad deed changes the individual in some particular, slight or great as the case may be, and, pathetic though it seems, he cannot go back and try it over again; the scar remains, as if seared by a hot iron, and, if the hurt is serious enough, heredity may pass it down the ages.

How easily a bad habit is formed. "It won't hurt me" is whispered by the siren voice of temptation, because the consequences of the transgression are not felt or seen immediately, a second offence seems less serious than the first. Soon habit steps in and stamps the process on mind and body and before the author is conscious of it, a serious appetite or a degrading vice is fastened upon him from which neither time nor effort, prayers nor tears, may ever shake him free.

"Vice is a monster of such frightful mien, That to be hated needs but to be seen, But seen too oft, familiar with its face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace."

—Pope.

The child must be trained early to know: "The way of the transgressor is hard," and "He that sows the wind must reap the whirlwind." It is a great mistake for the parent to step in and free the child from the consequences of his first wrong acts. Let the consequences fall on his own head, and perchance they will teach him wisdom. The true purpose of punishment is to teach the necessity of obedience to law. Everything that is good and desirable will come to him who obeys the law upon which the blessing is predicated; every evil falls on the head of him who constantly violates law. In the final analysis, the punishments which nature inflicts are kind, because they are warnings which, if heeded, will prevent serious injury. The purpose of all discipline is to produce a self-governing individual, not one who needs to be governed by someone else. Until a person learns to govern himself he counts for little in this world.

Two serious mistakes are made in child government. One is the indulgence of a soft, vacillating policy by the parent which permits a child to shirk his duties and to escape from the natural results of his misdeeds. Through the parent's taking upon his own shoulders the consequences of the child's wrong-doing, the child is lured into the false belief that duty may be shirked, responsibility set aside, and life be made to yield one sweet round of pleasure. How will a child so trained be prepared to endure the disappointments and heartaches of a world which compels each of us to drink his portion of the bitter hemlock?

The other mistake is to employ unnatural or arbitrary punishments. Even the smallest child has an instinctive idea of justice and resents anything which he regards as unjust. On the other hand, he learns quickly the inevitableness with which pain follows the violation of law, and how certain is the working out of cause and effect.

Mrs. Harrison gives this admirable illustration: "The little one puts his hand upon the hot stove; no whirlwind from without rushes in and pushes the hand away from the stove, then with loud and vengeful blasts scolds him for his heedlessness or wrong-doing. He simply is burned—the natural consequences of his own deed; and the fire quietly glows on, regardless of the pain which he is suffering. If again he transgresses the law, again he is burned as quietly as before, with no expostulation, threat, or warning. He quickly learns the lesson and avoids the fire thereafter, bearing no grudge against it."

When the child scatters her toys and playthings all over the room, the natural penalty is to require that they be gathered up and the room made tidy; when the boy scampers across the newly-cleaned floor with his muddy boots, he should be made to mop up the floor carefully; thus in a thousand similar ways, the parent may train the child to observe care and order in everything done.

Nothing is more beautiful than a large family where each child is taught to care for and to rely upon himself, and to give a little willing service to others. But the tired mother will remark, "Oh, yes, that all sounds very nice, but mothers have no time to spare to eternally watch and train their children." Hold a moment, there is a fallacy here; she ought to say, "I have no time to spare because I failed to train the children in the manner mentioned." In no other way can the mother save so much time as by taking a little time at first to train the child to be neat, tidy and orderly, or later to feel the inevitable consequences of violating law.

Instead of saving time in this sensible way, too often the mother loses both time and the love of her child through becoming irritable and scolding the little one for every offence committed. Nothing is worse than scolding, a sound thrashing administered now and then is far less cruel. Nearly every evil instinct in the child is aroused through fault-finding and scolding. How long will it take to teach the parent, once for all, that scolding, nagging, shutting up in the dark closets, and every other form of arbitrary punishment arouse in the child a sense of injustice and resentment, which, if not corrected later, will result in estrangement and loss of love between parent and child? The child has a right to expect justice from his parent. Only where this is found will the child develop that sense of freedom and independence of thought and action which produce the highest type of individual—one who is able to govern himself.

"But what shall be done when more serious offences are committed?" The parent may well ask. In all likelihood there will be no serious offences if the slight ones are treated properly. A mother came to me with her face full of suppressed suffering. "What shall I do?" she remarked, "I have discovered that my boy steals money from his father's purse." "Give him a purse of his own," I answered, "and give him ways of earning money of his own." It is asserted that more than half the boys sent to reform schools go there because of theft. How many of them might have been saved if they had been taught how to earn and to know the value of an honest dollar?

But so long as human nature is imperfect, and frailty so common, we must expect in every family some occasion to arise that will tax the patience and the love of the parent to the uttermost. No rule can be given that will meet every crisis; common sense, justice, forbearance, faith and love may be used in vain; and reproof, censure, and corporal punishment may also fail in some supreme emergency, the only recourse that remains after all these are exhausted is to permit the natural consequences of the deed to fall upon the head of the transgressor.

Rule: Parents should rarely punish the child, but should permit the consequences of carelessness and wrong-doing to fall upon his own head. Wisdom results from suffering pains and taking pains.



LESSON XVII

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Why do evil consequences follow bad deeds?

2. In what sense are nature's punishments kind?

3. What two mistakes are common in child government?

4. Illustrate how natural punishment may be employed by parents.

5. What may be resorted to in serious cases? For further discussion and study of this subject the following references will be found helpful:

1. Chapter on Moral Education, from Spencer's "Education."

2. "Dealing with Moral Crises," by Cope, from "Religious Education in the Family."

3. "Misunderstood Children," by Harrison.



ADOLESCENCE

The Adolescent Period Is a Time of "Storm and Stress," When the Chief Crises of Life Arise

Most writers on psychology recognize in the life history of the child several more or less distinct periods of development. The child is almost a different being at different levels of his growth. Each period is marked by peculiar physical, mental and moral characteristics which demand specific treatment. So great and sudden are some of these changes that they are sometimes likened to a metamorphosis, indicating an analogy with certain insects as a change from the larvae and pupae stages to that of butterflies.

Space will not permit more than a brief account of the most critical of these periods, namely, the adolescent. This period begins at about the age of thirteen in girls and fourteen in boys, and continues until about eighteen. Physically, this stage starts with a very rapid growth which is frequently doubled in rate within a single year. The girl may, in a few months, change from a tall, angular, romping tomboy into a blooming, dimpled young woman, bashful and afraid.

So much energy is required for physical growth that in the early stages of this period difficult mental tasks cannot be well done. In a young man especially, this period is marked by awkward, uncouth movements that indicate uncertain adjustment. Frequently at this time the boy's voice varies unsteadily from a high falsetto to a low pitch, which is most mortifying to the youth, who is now bashful probably for the first time in his life. The girl is suddenly very particular about her appearance, and her clothes, and the youth for the first time delights in a starched shirt, patent leather shoes and bright neck-ties.

The health of the individual at this time is usually good; susceptibility to the diseases peculiar to childhood is slight, but there is increased danger of acquiring adult diseases, and some writers claim that it is during this time, when there are great physical disturbances, that the germ of many adult diseases, such as tuberculosis, are apt to be implanted. During the early part of this period it is unwise and dangerous for girls to take part in such strenuous athletic games as basketball, or for boys to indulge in football. Later when strength and equilibrium have been restored, these games may be practiced without danger.

But the greatest of all changes, the one fundamental to adolescent life, is the development of the sex instincts. Fortunate is the youth or maiden whose parents are sensible and wise enough to instruct them concerning the nature and purpose of these functions. Good books, such as "What a Boy Should Know," and "What a Girl Should Know," are invaluable during this critical time. This sudden ripening of the sex instinct is the cause of the metamorphosis from childhood to early manhood and womanhood, and is the key which explains the changes that characterize adolescence.

Emotionally, there is a tremendous awakening. The individual begins to feel for the first time that he is actually alive and living; heretofore, life has been a self-centered, matter-of-fact existence; now it enlarges and becomes charged with intense feeling and significance. "Fear, anger, love, pity, jealousy, emulation and ambition are either new-born or spring into intense life."—James. All of these may be termed social instincts and they imply a widening of the youth's horizon and include a "consciousness of kind" that has heretofore been lacking.

Now, the youth or maiden truly falls in love; up to this time, regard for the opposite sex has been merely a light fancy, barely skin deep; but now it takes hold of the heart strings and plays upon them with an agony that is truly heart rending. Who is there with red blood in his veins that does not look back upon his first heart conflict with almost pathetic reverence? Parents should be more concerned than they usually are over the conquest of the heart of youth. Such affairs may carry with them consequences which are more serious than could be anticipated.

At this time the youth or maiden is exceedingly resentful of arbitrary restraint or punishment. There is a super-sensitiveness and a keen self-consciousness which cannot brook harshness and coercion. Sympathy and reasonableness must take the place of censure and punishment. Years ago I remember seeing a father start to whip his boy who was just emerging into the adolescent stage, a heavy stick was raised to strike, but the boy looked his father in the eye without flinching and quietly remarked: "You may whip one devil out, Father, but I promise you that you'll whip seven devils in." The stick dropped from the astonished parent's hand; the boy was never again punished by whipping.

The runaway curve for boys reaches its highest point at this time, and the girl is likely to be insolent and unmanageable probably for the first and only time in her life. The greatest crises of life arise at this time because of the almost criminal ignorance of parents respecting these revolutionary changes and also because children who may never before have caused the parents the least trouble or heartache are now as unruly and unmanageable as a volcano in eruption. This is the time when the youth is driven from home by the irate father, the time when the rebellious daughter is condemned without mercy, the critical period when most vices are begun and most juvenile crimes committed. The parent is apt to exclaim here: "In Heaven's name, what can be done?" Not even the wisdom of a Solomon could answer completely; a few suggestions, however, may be offered which will help to bridge over this critical period.

If the child has had positive training up to this time, the period of "storm and stress" will be briefer and less severe than it would be otherwise; but if the negative training has prevailed, there is less hope that the storm will be weathered. The youth may be caught in the stream of dissipation and whirled to destruction. At the very least, the parent must expect fitful and obstinate behavior, and unreasonable action. In boys, the beginning of the use of tobacco and liquor usually comes at this time. This is the time, too, of sexual temptation, if not actual indulgence. The temptation to do something startling is almost irresistible; robberies will be planned, hold-ups thought of, abductions contemplated; the life of a desperado entertained. The moral character seems to be in a state of eruption.

On the other hand, his sympathies and affections may be appealed to as never before. The parent who has made a confident of his boy or girl, who has infinite patience and affection, and who fully senses what to except, may, if other factors are favorable, help tide over this danger zone without serious results. A steady chum, a little older than the boy, and a companion more stable than the girl are a most fortunate aid to the parent. There seems to be a brief time in the career of every youth or maiden when the influence of his chum or companion is more potent for good or evil than is the combined influence of parents and relatives.

The common practice of permitting the, adolescent to sleep away from home is exceedingly dangerous. Many a youth may trace the beginning of his degeneracy to the downward, push received when he slept away from home. Care must be exercised also as to the kind of group he associates with; it is too much to expect a youth to be better than the gang with whom he consorts. During the most critical part of this critical, epoch neither youth nor maiden should, attend parties, picnics, or social entertainments, without a chaperon. This advice may seem radical, but if it is carried out, perhaps for just one year, until equilibrium is restored, it may prevent that one act to which so many unfortunates attribute their downfall.

Fortunate, too, is the adolescent who is permitted to attend a first-class high school taught by sympathetic teachers who understand the needs of adolescent nature. The imagination is now more vivid than it ever will be again, the logical reason is beginning to evolve and this period is preeminently "the breeding ground of ideas." The school more than any other agency can keep the imagination, reason, and emotions so fully employed that little time is left in which to indulge morbid feelings and immoral thoughts. The school affords a moral atmosphere and gives a choice of good associates which make it invaluable during this critical epoch. It also disciplines the feelings and emotions and offers opportunity for emulation, industry, and the display of both physical and mental power. In truth, the school so occupies the attention and directs the interest that many a young man and woman passes through this period unscathed, without ever sensing the dangers which are escaped.

Finally, a "profound religious awakening" characterizes the early adolescent stage. It may be doubted that a genuine religious conviction can exist before this time; at least most writers hold that religious conversion takes place, if at all, during this period. Previous to this time, however, religious observance and ceremony should have become habitual in order that conversion may be most profound. Nothing else is more powerful than religious conviction and sentiment to reinforce good conduct and to inhibit wrong action. Religious conviction, together with the growth of ideals and the employment by the school of the physical and intellectual capacities, all supplemented by parental counsel and guidance, should insure the safe passage of the adolescent over this critical crisis of his life.



LESSON XVIII

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. What are the physical changes that occur during the adolescent period?

2. What dangers to health are common at this time? What safeguards should be thrown about the youth to keep him strong in body?

3. Discuss the mental, moral, and emotional characteristics of the adolescent.

4. What is the fundamental cause of the changes that take place?

5. What may be said about religious emotions and conversions during this time?

6. What practical suggestions would you give to help the parents guide the adolescent safely over this dangerous period of life?

Supplemental Studies: At this point it will be well to take the supplemental lessons in this book, page 133 to end of volume. These studies are based on the lectures given by Dr. John M. Tyler. They will blend beautifully with Professor Hall's discussion and will reinforce strongly the study of this adolescent age.



TRAINING IN THE HOME

Certain Phases of Training and Education Can Be Best Accomplished by the Home

There are four great agencies or factors concerned in the training and education of the child: these are, the home, the school, the church, and the state, or society. Of these, the home ought to be the most helpful since it is the most important. The child is a part of the flesh and blood of the parents; he belongs to them in a vital way that transcends his relationship to everything else in the world.

The parent, then, is the natural trainer and educator of the child, particularly during the dependent period before the age of accountability is reached. The parent ought not to shirk this duty or attempt to transfer it to some other agency. But at the present time there is a strong tendency to shift more and more responsibility to other agencies, especially to the school. Many habits which the home once developed are now left largely to the school; religious training is turned over more and more to the Sunday School and the church, and much more of the time of children is now spent in social amusements away from home than ever before.

Then, too, it is certain that the old-time home is passing. It seemed to have higher ideals and more definite purposes in life than homes now possess; moreover, it occupied most of the time of the child and taught him to be industrious and proficient, and to regard life with much more seriousness than does the home of to-day. The home or the family, therefore, is not the great superlative factor that it ought to be in the training and education of the child.

From the first chapter of Cope in "Religious Education in the Family," the following is quoted: "The ills of the modern home are symptomatic. Divorce, childless families, irreverent children, and a decadence of the old type of separate home life are signs of forgotten ideals, lost motives, and insufficient purposes. When the home is only an opportunity for self-indulgence, it easily becomes a cheap boarding house, a sleeping shelf, an implement for social advantage. While it is true that general economic development has effected marked changes in domestic economy, the happiness and efficiency of the family do not depend wholly on the parlor, the kitchen, or the clothes closet. Rather, everything depends on whether the home and family are considered in worthy and adequate terms.

"Homes are wrecked because families refuse to take home life in religious terms, in social terms of sacrifice and service. In such homes, organized and conducted to satisfy personal desires rather than to meet social responsibility, these desires become aims rather than agencies and opportunities. What hope is there for useful and happy family life if the newly-wedded youths have both been educated in selfishness, habituated to frivolous pleasures and guided by ideals of success in terms of garish display?

"It is a costly thing to keep a home where honor, the joy of love, and high ideals dwell ever. It costs time, pleasure, and so-called social advantages, as well as money and labor. It must cost thought, study and investigation. It demands and deserves sacrifice; it is too sacred to be cheap. The building of a home is a work that endures to eternity, and that kind of work never was done with ease or without pain and loss and investment of much time. Patient study of the problems of the family is a part of the price which all may pay.

"No nobler social work, no deeper religious work, no higher educational work is done anywhere than that of the men and women, high or humble, who set themselves to the fitting of their children for life's business, equipping them with principles and habits upon which they may fall back in trying hours and making of home the sweetest, strongest, holiest, happiest place on earth."

The home or family is, or ought to be, the supreme institution, not only for propagating the race, but also for the preservation and rearing of children.

There are certain things which only the home can do, which if not accomplished by it, will likely remain undone. The acquisition of correct physical habits by the child is one of them. It is preeminently the duty and privilege of the parent in the early years of the child's life to impress habits that will make for health and strength. The first six years are more important physically to the child than all the remainder of his life. During this time the natural tendency to over-indulgence of the appetite should be inhibited, and temperance should be reduced to a habit. The other desirable physical habits already referred to should also be acquired. Furthermore, it is the sacred duty of the parent to see to it that the child is not handicapped through physical defects of eye or ear, enlarged tonsils, adenoids, decayed teeth, or by any other common imperfection which may be easily and permanently remedied if taken in time, but which, if neglected, may cause untold suffering and contribute to failure in life.

The home is responsible directly for training the child to be neat, tidy and clean in person; it should also train him in good manners, courtesy, and regard for the rights of others. It also decides whether or not the boy shall be a brave, manly little fellow or a timid cry-baby; whether or not the girl shall be sweet, helpful and trustworthy, or shallow, idle and vain.

The giving of knowledge and instruction in sex hygiene at the proper time is also a peculiar duty of parents which they must not shirk.

The chief moral virtues are also the result of home training. An obedient, honest, truthful disposition is characteristic of a good home; a sly, deceitful, quarrelsome nature is the outcome of improper home influence, Moreover, the first lessons in respect for law, order and justice are implanted by the home; improper training in these virtues leads to disorder and license.

The home, too, must teach the first lessons in industry and impress the child with the fact that life is made up of work as well as play. Too often the mother, especially, makes a slave of herself for the children, waits on them night and day, allows them to sleep late in the morning, stay up late at night and keep up an incessant round of pleasure while she herself stays at home and shoulders the entire responsibility of the household. How much happier the home where each child is trained to do some particular share of work and to take some responsibility upon himself.

The boy should be permitted to help the father whenever possible. He should be required to do things promptly and regularly and to learn through actual experience the amount of toil and sweat required to earn an honest dollar.

A taste for music and reading must be fostered in the home. Every family should have some kind of musical instrument and at least a few choice books for children. The influence of music and good literature on the tastes and ideals of the future man and woman is so great that it can scarcely be over-estimated. The use of correct and fluent language is largely a product of the home. Children imitate the speech heard at home; if this is incorrect, meagre, or coarse, the child is apt to have the same imperfection follow him through life.

The family constitutes a most sacred and important social unit, and because of its intrinsic nature, it can best develop in the child the highest personal sentiment and social virtue. Among these are affection, sympathy, love, generosity and good will. If these are not awakened and nurtured by the home, then there is little hope that they will be acquired elsewhere, and the child will likely grow into a stony-hearted, selfish pessimist.

Certain religious habits and sentiments also can be impressed naturally and well only by the family. Among these are trust in God, the beginning of faith, regard for ceremony, love of Bible stories, respect for authority, and above all, prayer. The individual who has not been taught at his mother's knee to pray is likely never to develop into a prayerful man or woman.

The home is the child's earliest school, his first temple of worship, his first social center. It is the place where everything in this life begins. Most fortunate is the child that is guided to take his first steps aright through the loving influence of a good home.



LESSON XIV

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. What four great agencies are concerned in training and education?

2. Which is most important and why?

3. What is the indictment of the home?

4. What change has taken place respecting the relative importance of these developing agencies?

5. The home is responsible for what physical habits?

6. What moral habits and virtues?

7. What mental habits and virtues?

8. What religious habits and sentiments?

9. What is the future outlook for the home and family?

It will be well at this point to review briefly the three beginning chapters from "Religious Education in the Family," by Cope. The "Peril and Preservation of the Home," by Jacob Riis, will also be found helpful reading here.



TRAINING BY THE CHURCH

The Influence of the Church Is Essential to Aid the Home in Developing the Religious Instincts and Emotions of the Child

Religious emotions and belief are among the most deeply imbedded instincts of the race. They are also some of the earliest manifestations of childhood. They accompany the individual throughout his entire life, exercising a profound influence over his thoughts and conduct, and they become the chief anchor of the soul when sorrow or old age comes. It would be a great calamity, therefore, if religious instincts and sentiment should suffer eclipse or disappear.

Rightly cultivated and trained, these natural feelings of religion grow to spiritual power within us. Without such power, man is of little consequence.

Upon the home naturally falls the duty of fostering the first feelings of reverence towards God. The child who learns to lisp his prayers at his mother's knee is started aright. The home must give the first lessons in the love of God and goodness. If it fails, they are likely never to be learned.

But the home needs the influence of the church here. It must have it to round out the child's religious development. The church can do many things for the child that the home cannot accomplish. It introduces him to religious ceremonies and observances that satisfy his soul, and it helps greatly to train him in religious habits.

One cannot estimate the value of all this upon the character of the child. As a restraint from wrong conduct and an encouragement to right action, the work of the church is most salutary. The solemn ceremonies, the sacred music, the exhortations pointing heavenward, the general spirit of the group at humble worship—all exercise upon the child an influence for good, mysterious yet profound.

Clean, beautiful surroundings and orderly behavior are also very impressive. The work of our Sabbath Schools is most beneficial. They offer to parents a strong reinforcement in cultivating right religious habits and emotions in the child. To go into one of our well-conducted Sunday Schools, where order prevails, where the spirit of peace and prayer is uppermost, to join in the singing, to listen to the uplifting instruction, or, better still, to be given opportunity to take active part in this religious service—all these make a deep and lasting impression upon the youthful soul. Parents can do nothing better for their children and themselves than to support loyally their Sunday Schools and other religious organizations.

The habit of attending church should also be impressed during the habit-forming period. But the supreme opportunity of the church lies in its ability actually to convert the youth or maiden during the adolescent period. This is a privilege which neither the church nor the home has adequately comprehended. When the emotional nature of the individual is at white heat, as it then is, impressions made are lasting, and conversion, if made then, will be so deeply impressed that it is likely to last forever.

Churches in general fail to make the most of their opportunity here. They too often stuff the heads of children with religious facts and formulae, feeding them with the husks of theology, instead of giving them the upbuilding food they need. Children, too, often are starving for real spiritual food, hungering for the bread and thirsting for the water of life.

Parents and teachers generally need to correct their methods of presenting the gospel to children, especially to the adolescent, if they would get the results desired. It is their failure to meet the child on his own religious ground, not his indifference to religion that makes the boy and girl leave Sabbath School during the time he most needs such an influence. Let them study and master these problems: Are boys and girls being given ample opportunity for spiritual self-expression? Are the beautiful lessons of the gospel being translated into terms that appeal to their lives?

Our own church, we feel sure, is answering these questions in positive, practical ways better and better every day; but there is still much left to do even among us.

We have in our own church a working system that ministers to the daily moral and spiritual needs of humanity—a constructive Christianity that comes close to our lives. Our church is our opportunity to develop our own spiritual powers and to cultivate those of our children. The church needs our help to carry forward its ministry to mankind; but we need even more the help of the church to enspirit and to comfort our lives and to give to us and to our children the guidance and the training that will keep us all in the paths of safety and peace:



LESSON XX

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. What have you observed in children to prove that religious emotions are instinctive?

2. In what ways can the home best foster the natural religious instincts of childhood?

3. What religious habits should the home cultivate?

4. What can the church best develop in children?

5. Why should the parents support loyally the Sunday Schools and other organizations of the church?

6. What is the supreme opportunity of the church during the adolescent age?

7. What means have you used successfully to develop the religious instincts of your own children?

8. What opportunities for spiritual self-expression and service does our own church offer?

9. In what ways are we richly rewarded by our free-will service in behalf of our church?

"The Child and His Religion," by Dawson, will be a helpful book to study in connection with this lesson.



TRAINING IN THE SCHOOL

Certain Phases of Training and Education Can Be Accomplished Better by the School Than by Any Other Agency. A National System of Industrial and Vocational Education Should Be Established

The school is a social institution whose functions are becoming daily more widely understood and more clearly defined. In the history of civilization, the school, as we know it, is a very recent institution. Nation after nation has arisen, reached its zenith, declined, and passed away without dreaming of such a thing as universal education. With the growth of democracy, particularly during the Reformation, the ideal of education as the birthright of every child became well defined and during the years that have intervened, this ideal has become a living reality.

At first the universal education was advocated for the sake of the church. Martin Luther believed that every child should have schooling so that he might be able to read the Bible and study the catechism. For some time the church had charge of and controlled education, but gradually, as democracy developed, the influence of the state began to overshadow that of the church, and education came to be recognized more and more as a function of the state, and its control was gradually taken over by the latter institution.

The chief function of education, therefore, may be seen clearly from the foregoing. In a democracy it is necessary for every child to be educated because the existence of free institutions is based upon the intelligence of the masses. Jefferson once remarked: "If anyone believes that free government and an ignorant people can exist at one and the same time, he believes that which never was or never can be." Universal education is, therefore, a social necessity; its chief purpose is to train and instruct the child in the duties and ideals of citizenship. He must be instructed in the history of his country and learn what the ideals are for which his country stands; he must learn the real meaning of the words: equality, justice and freedom; he must be taught that obedience to law is the highest form of freedom, and that license is destructive both of self and country. Furthermore, he must learn that in a free country every individual must be taught to be self-dependent, that no one owes him a living, that he ought to produce a little more than he consumes for the sake of the unfortunate.

The school, therefore, may teach better than any other agency the habits and ideals of duty, social service, justice and patriotism. It also teaches frequently better than does the home, the habits of obedience, punctuality, regularity and industry.

A secondary purpose of the school is to assist the home to develop in the child the physical, mental, moral and social habits and ideals to which we have referred in previous lessons. To the shame of the home, it must be said that the school is accomplishing its particular function far better than is the home. The school rarely fails to exact obedience, regularity, punctuality, and industry from the pupil; the home, on the other hand, frequently fails to train children in these habits because of the softness and vacillation of the parents. The school trains to proper habits of hygiene and sanitation, and is often under the necessity of acquainting parents with physical defects in their children which too often they have overlooked.

Moreover, the school, as a larger social unit than the home, has some distinct advantages over the latter: It can teach the obstinate, quarrelsome child better than can the home the necessity of adjusting his conduct to the requirements of the social group with which he associates. In school, frequently for the first time, a child learns what is meant by the ideals of duty and justice; furthermore, he is usually trained to habits of industry, perseverance and self-control which the home too often is not well prepared to teach.

The home, however, is far more important than is the school; the latter might be abolished and some other form of education adopted by society without calamitous results; but if the home were suddenly abolished, it is probable that civilization itself would be shaken to its center, if not destroyed. The home, therefore, ought to be better prepared and equipped to fulfill its function than is the school; but not one parent in a thousand is specially prepared for the duties of parenthood. The teacher, on the other hand, is required to spend years in preparation for his work. He is expected, moreover, to set a worthy example for children to follow. "As the teacher so the school," is a maxim that has stood the test.

The school was never before so practical in its instruction as it is to-day. In most of the junior and senior high schools, industrial work and agriculture are taught. In the best schools girls are learning to sew, mend, darn and cook. Many of them make their own dresses and trim their own hats. In a few schools, uniform dress and shoes are adopted by the girl students for the sake of economy and to prevent the silly mode of dressing and the style of some girls. Much more could be done in this direction if all mothers were sensible, but now and again word comes to the teacher: "I can dress my girl well and I don't care to have her wear your cheap uniform and your low-priced, low-heeled shoes." And again: "It's none of your business how my girl dresses." Now, it must be conceded that the parent has this right to object, but we surely question the wisdom of her so doing. Many young girls on graduating from the eighth grade make their own graduation dresses and confine the cost of the entire costume, including shoes, to $5.00. Women graduating from the senior school often make their dresses and confine the cost to within $10.00.

Most young men are taught manual art of some kind and agriculture. It is seldom that any father objects to his son taking carpenter work, but once in a while a farmer smiles at the thought of a "professor" teaching farming. The results, however, of the good work in teaching better farming is already seen throughout our country, and the time is not far distant when "scientific agriculture" will return many fold the price of its investment. The agricultural department at Washington reports that the Burbank potato is adding $17,000,000 yearly to the wealth of the U.S.

The people, too, are well satisfied with this new type of school. They are beginning to see that education is a very practical and vital matter and is not merely for ornament. It is a rare thing now to hear the once common remark that education is too expensive.

Statistics show that the average wages paid to unskilled laborers in the U. S. is about $500 per annum; careful reports indicate that the average yearly earnings of high school graduates is $1000. In a lifetime of 40 years the high school man will earn $20,000 more than the unlearned laborer.

From a financial standpoint it is very evident that education pays, yet five and one-half years is the average length of time the children of the U.S. attend school. The nation ought to enrich itself through putting more money into education.

The natural resources of the country are largely taken up and the free land is practically all occupied. What then is to be the future of the great mass of laborers unless a thorough-going system of industrial and vocational training is made possible? The Industrial Commission appointed recently by Congress found that three-fourths of the male laborers in the U.S. earn less than $600 per annum, yet the U.S. Government has found "that the point of adequate subsistence is not reached until the family income is about $800 a year. Less than half the wage-earners' families in the U.S. have an annual income of that size."

Now the rich can take care of themselves and the very poor and unfortunate cannot be permanently helped, but this great middle class, upon whom the nation must depend in every crisis, can and must be assisted to the extent, at least, that conditions be made possible through which they may raise their efficiency and so increase their earning capacity to a point commensurate with their needs. A thorough-going, national system of industrial and vocational "preparedness" would solve this problem.

The marvelous efficiency of Germany is due in large part to the fact that her great middle classes have been made efficient through a national system of trade schools.

The prosperity and perpetuity of a nation rests largely upon its ability to provide an adequate number of highly trained experts to be leaders, inventors and executives. In a democracy, these skilled leaders are especially important. Among the problems to be solved are questions of government, education, finance, economics, business, industry, health, manufacturing, engineering and mining. Any nation that lacks guidance in these particulars is indeed weak and pitiful. The universities, colleges, and higher technical schools supply nine-tenths of these experts, yet in the U.S. to-day there are only 250,000 students enrolled in all the colleges and universities of the country; this is about one to 500 of the population, a number entirely inadequate to perform the tremendous service that will be expected of this nation in the near future.



LESSON XXI

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. State the nature of the school.

2. How did the ideal of universal education arise?

3. State the chief function of the school.

4. Name the habits and ideals peculiar to the school.

5. What is the secondary purpose of the school?

6. Contrast the efficiency of the home and the school.

7. What high compliment may be paid to teachers?

8. Is the comparison made between the home and the school overdrawn?

9. Compare the practical school of to-day with the school of the past.

10. Do you favor uniform dress for high school girls?

11. What is your opinion of modern style which so many mothers foster?

12. Have you any boys taking industrial work in school?

13. Prove that high school education pays.

14. What is the duty of a nation towards its great middle class?

15. Do you believe in a national system of industrial and vocational schools?

16. Why are experts needed particularly in a democracy?



THE DUTY OF THE STATE

The Social and Civic Institutions of the State (Society) Exert a Powerful Influence over the Lives of Children. The Citizen Must See to It that this Great Educative Influence of His Community Is Uplifting in Nature

The vital relationship existing between parent and child is easy to understand, but the close interdependence of the individual and the state is much more difficult to comprehend. Yet in a very real sense the individual and the state are reciprocally related. But just as the body is more than an aggregate of all of its cells, so is society (the state) something more than the sum total of its individual units. That a group of people, or even one individual, may exert an influence over the thoughts and actions of others is a reality of profound significance; that there is a social conscience as well as an individual conscience is a fact that cannot be refuted, and the part played by custom and tradition in shaping the history of the world can hardly be estimated.

In view of the close relationship between the individual and society, it is passing strange that while the individual is expected to possess a high standard of character, society itself may indulge in all sorts of questionable practices without so much as a challenge. Many a person winks at the frivolity and immorality of society, while at the same time he expects the most circumspect behavior on the part of his neighbor. The existence of these two standards which ought to coincide but which in reality are far apart is responsible for many failures in the training of children.

As soon as the infant begins to observe and imitate the actions of members of the household, its social training begins; play with the neighbor's child extends the process, and the social group or "gang" with which the child associated, impresses permanently its thought and action. Frequently, too, the chum or companion chosen by the child has more real influence over its life than has the combined instruction of parents and teacher. As already shown, the school is a social institution and the same is largely true of the Sunday School. The example of adults also makes a profound impression upon the conduct of children. The home and the school may teach convincingly the injurious effects of tobacco and alcohol, but so long as society sanctions the sale of these poisons and respected adults indulge in them, just so long will the efforts of home and school, be, to a large extent, counteracted. The same is true with respect to any other virtue or excellence, the home, school, and church may unite in emphasizing the most wholesome discipline, but so long as society is a living, seething contradiction of this teaching, the instruction will fall upon deaf ears and be but as "sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal."

The fact is that our nation is yet too young to be fully conscious of its opportunities and responsibilities. A democratic form of government from its very nature must develop slowly towards its ideals. It must expect at first to be much less certain and efficient in its action than is a highly centralized government. This inability on the part of popular government to attain its ideals is reflected also in its subordinate civic units; neither state nor city governments have yet solved the problem of efficient and economical administration, although it is a pleasure to note that some cities are making real progress in this direction. In many communities, however, the weakness of decentralized government is most apparent. This is particularly true in many towns; here is seen too frequently a lack of civic pride, inefficient officers and failure to enforce the law.

The humiliating fact obtains that frequently a few lawless individuals often not more than from 3 to 5 per cent of the population, are permitted to set the moral pace, while the 95 per cent, of law-abiding citizens are either asleep to their duties or else fail to see that the remedy is in their own hands. In many instances a few persons are allowed to undermine the morals of the community. In one town of our state a single individual was permitted for 25 years to corrupt the morals of many young men of the community through illegal traffic in liquor.

Parents should realize that next to heredity the social factors in a community are likely to be the chief influence at work moulding and shaping the lives of their children, and in the long run they must not expect the average child to be better than the community in which he lives.

But the remedy for inefficient, free government is not far to seek; universal education will solve the problem provided it includes, as it should, instruction and training in civic and social duties. There is no need to argue the superiority of democratic government over that of all other forms; the freedom which we possess is worth all the suffering and bloodshed of all the patriots that have ever lived. But nothing will run itself; perpetual motion is a myth, and even a small town to be well governed, must receive conscious, expert attention.

Unquestionably, a free government is the most complex and difficult of all forms of government to administer, but the problem can be solved, and the secret of success will be found in the individual himself. He must become educated to realize his full duties and responsibilities as a free citizen, in other words, he must become socialized. He must get over the notion that the school is the only educational agency and must understand that every influence that modifies conduct is educative in nature. Especially must he learn that the community itself is the chief civic and social educator of children, and as such it should be consciously organized to perform well this responsibility.

Already communities are awakening to the need of perfect sanitary and hygienic conditions, and clean town contests are the order of the day; this is one of the most hopeful signs of better times, but there ought to be a moral and mental awakening and contests for civic righteousness should be inaugurated. Any community that can say: "In this town no influence is permitted that could in any way corrupt the morals or ideals of children," should receive the highest award in the gift of the people and its praises should be commemorated in song and story.

In ancient Greece every citizen regarded himself as a parent or guardian of every child, and if any youth was seen in public to violate any of the customs or ideals of the nation, it was the duty of the citizen to chastise the boy and to otherwise instruct him in the duties of citizenship. At the same time the citizen was careful himself to set an example worthy of emulation. The result was the most perfect and harmonious education that the world has ever seen—at once the inspiration and the despair of all succeeding civilizations. Why should we not adopt some of the Grecian methods suited to our needs? In Greece no citizen would think of doing in public, or permitting to be done, anything which was not desirable for the child to do either in public or private. Why should any man who walks upright, with his head pointing to the stars, be permitted to profane the name of Deity, to stagger under the influence of liquor, to puff at a cigar, to gamble, to run a disorderly resort or show, to enrich himself through the manufacture and sale of poisons, or to do anything else that corrupts the community and destroys her children? Surely in our feeble attempts at free government, the right hand knows not what the left is doing.

But the remedy, as I have said, is in the hands of the citizens. While it is true that certain reforms to be most effective must be national rather than local, such, for example, as prohibiting the manufacture and sale of poisonous drugs, tobacco and alcohol, it is, nevertheless, evident that the initiative must be taken by the individual. His first duty is to convert himself and then his neighbors before any nation-wide reform can be undertaken.

It is one of the chief glories of a democracy that any desired good may be obtained through conversion and co-operation. But since in most communities 90 per cent, or more of the citizens are law-abiding and would not consciously do anything to destroy the children of the commonwealth, it ought to be a simple matter to restrain the few that are lawless and unsocial. There can be no possible doubt that any community that is fully alive to its needs and responsibilities can bring about just such civic and social conditions as it may desire. To help accomplish these purposes, it is necessary that efficient officers are elected who will enforce the laws and that public sentiment be aroused in support of these officials; in some communities sympathy for law-breakers is so easily awakened that justice cannot be enforced and law and order are placed in contempt.

The citizen in a democracy should realize that his training and education are never completed, that life itself is the great school-master and that one of the chief pleasures of existence is continued study and investigation. His occupation, no matter what it is, will offer him some opportunity for study and improvement, and a portion of his leisure time ought to be devoted to books and magazines. He may, also, if he desires, take an extension course or correspondence work offered by a higher institution of learning, some of which are making earnest efforts to take the college to the people. Every citizen should at least be identified with some civic, social, or industrial organization in his town, such as a debating and literary club, an agricultural society, or a commercial club. If each community would seek out and utilize the talent within its precinct, it might develop an intellectual and civic consciousness that would rival the spirit of ancient Greece.

An old-time prophet uttered the inspiring thought: "The Glory of God is intelligence," and the great latter-day Prophet added the supplement: "No man can be saved in ignorance." It is the duty of the individual, therefore, to be an eternal seeker after knowledge and perfection. In this blessed age when the sun of education shines so brilliantly, none need to slumber under the clouds of ignorance. May the sun shine until under its regenerating influence the home, school, church and state may each awaken to the full measure of its power and so prepare the way for the coming of that mightier Son of Righteousness, who promises to reign for a thousand years over a redeemed world.



LESSON XXII

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Show the close relationship between the individual and the state.

2. Account for the two different standards of conduct.

3. Indicate how social influences modify the character of children.

4. How do examples of the use of tobacco and liquor affect children?

5. Compare example and precept.

6. Why must a democratic form of government develop its ideals slowly?

7. Why is community government frequently inefficient?

8. What per cent, of the population usually "sets the moral pace?"

9. What is the remedy for inefficient free government?

10. Why is the community the chief civic and social educator of children?

11. What should receive the highest award in the gift of a people?

12. How did Greece train her children?

13. What evil practices should be prohibited in a community?

14. What reforms should be national rather than local?

15. How may the few lawless individuals be restrained?

16. What is the duty of the citizen towards self-improvement and education?



PART II



SUPPLEMENTAL STUDIES



MAN'S PARTNERSHIP WITH NATURE[1]

Dr. John M. Tyler

Nature will bear our burdens for us, if we will obey her laws and heed her suggestions.

[Footnote 1: These supplemental studies are based on lectures by Dr. John M. Tyler, given before the Utah Educational Association, by whose permission they are used. Parents will find Dr. Tyler's book on Growth in Education of great interest. It is listed with other books at the close of this volume.]

How has all the material progress of the nineteenth century come about? I think we shall find that it was due to man's intelligently and carefully and scrupulously going into partnership with Nature by obeying her laws. Not so very many years ago messages were sent across this continent by pony-riders; it was a slow process and a very expensive one. Now I step into an office here and I say, "I wish to send a message to my wife way out yonder in Massachusetts." The man touches a button and says, "Your message is in Massachusetts, sir." It is a miracle. The lightning has run with my message. Electricity not only carries our messages, it lights our houses; it turns many a wheel of machinery; it serves us beneficiently just as long as we obey the laws of electricity; but when we offend against these laws, it thwarts us or very likely destroys us. "Obey, and I will do anything for you in the world," says Nature, "disobey and you cannot move me one single inch." Coal hurries our great locomotives and long trains of merchandise and carries men and women across this continent without any great amount of human labor. The engineer and the brakeman do not get behind and push those great palace cars of ours; it is Nature which drives the train as if it were sport. Man guides and directs the water pouring down our hillsides, turning wheels of countless factories. A few ounces of gasoline send the automobile down the street, polluting the air and endangering our lives. The power of Nature is absolutely irresistible and unlimited; and furthermore, she is always working towards some great and good end.

When I was a child I used to hear that Nature was bad, and we used to have sermons to the natural man. They were excellent sermons, too, but they ought to have been preached to the unnatural man. The natural child was considered a child of wrath, and, having that reputation, he quite frequently lived up to it; but Nature is beneficient, as long as we let her be so, and she is always working toward great and grand ends. She has been working towards a higher and nobler and a better race of men than you and I are to-day. She is working for a race of men and women who shall tower above us as the sages and prophets in Athens and Jerusalem towered above their slaves. Can we not trust her just a little?

Did you ever think that it is the most marvelous thing in the world that such a thing as a chicken ever comes out of such a thing as an egg? If only one chicken were hatched in a century, we would go from here to the Himalaya mountains to see the miracle of that chicken coming out of that egg. You put an egg under a very stupid old hen, and all the hen does is to keep that egg warm, and leave it alone; after twenty days there comes out a chicken. How in the world did that chicken ever frame that body? How did it build the skeleton and string the muscles, and spin the nerves? If every nerve in that body did not make just the right connection, that chicken would be paralyzed. If you could watch the development of that chicken in the egg, your hair would stand on end. Isn't it Nature that makes those chickens? You and I can't make them. Nature puts a shell around the egg with the express purpose that we are to keep our fingers out and let her alone. She says: "I am on very important business now and I am going to do some strange things; if you could watch me you would interfere with me, and if you interfere with me, you will ruin me or ruin the chicken, so I want you to stand to one side and leave me entirely alone; and while I might do a good many things that you don't like, I shall bring a chicken out of that egg;" and she does; she has been making them for thousands of years in that same old stupid way, but she brings the chicken out all right.

Sometimes she seems to blunder still worse. She takes an egg which we suppose is going to turn into a frog, and she brings out of it a tadpole—neither fish, flesh nor fowl nor anything else. After a while the tadpole gets legs and has a long tail; it must lose that tail in order to become a frog. A benevolent zoologist one day started in to help the tadpole by snipping off the tadpole's tail; he made a frog of him in a hurry, but the strange thing was that that frog never was able to leap properly. Nature had been relying on the material that was in the tail. She was going to shift it forward and put it in the hind legs, but when the zoologist cut it off, she couldn't build the hind legs right after that.

A good deal of our education seems to me like trying to make frogs in a hurry by cutting off their tails. Nature can make chickens; she can make frogs. She can make bugs that will eat up everything which human ingenuity ever tried to raise. She will make weeds which you and I can't possibly kill even though we fight against them all summer long. We can trust Nature to form these things; isn't it fair to trust her with the children for a little while at least? Wouldn't it be well—I never heard of this experiment being tried, but I should like to see it tried very much indeed—I do wish that sometime somebody would leave a baby alone for twenty minutes and see what it would do if it were left to itself.

What is the great characteristic of all living things? It is that they grow; we cannot make them grow, but they grow of themselves. The farmer plants his crop of corn. He doesn't get a jackscrew and put under every hill of corn, and go around every morning and give the screw a turn and a twist and hoist the hill up in the air. He prepares the soil as best he can. He puts in the seed; he keeps down the weeds; he keeps out things and living beings which will injure the crop as far as he can; then he leaves it alone to God and Nature to make that corn grow, and in time he gets a bountiful harvest.

I believe that education some day will be somewhat like raising a crop of corn. We shall learn to keep the child under the best condition possible. We shall learn to keep down harmful and injurious surroundings or forces so far as they can interfere with him. We shall stimulate growth in every possible way; that I grant you; and when we have done that, we shall leave the rest calmly to Nature and to the good Lord who made that child for some good purpose.

It is a grand thing to have the child learn to see for himself the glories of this magnificent world. I verily believe that when you and I go home, while the good Lord will be very merciful with us because of our sins, I don't see how he can forgive many of us for not having had a great deal better time in this glorious world in which He has put us. When you open the child's eyes to the beauties and the glories of Nature you have done a great thing for it. But, after all, that is not the grandest thing to my mind. The grandest part is that every wave of vibration that goes in through the eyes as the child looks at Nature, and pours into the brain, stimulates that brain to a larger growth than it would otherwise possibly have attained, and the child is a larger and a grander child for that Nature study.

We believe in manual training because it gives us skilled fingers and enables us to do deftly and well a great many things which we otherwise could not do at all, and which most of us men have to go to our wives and ask them to do for us. But that is not the grandest part of manual training; the grandest part is the reaction from the finger upon the brain, stimulating the brain to realize all its ideals, and stimulating it so that whenever it sees good work of any kind in this world it shall appreciate it heartily and enjoy it with the joy of the artist.

We speak of physical training and physical training is brain training in the end, it is training in growth. It is very evident, however, that the growth and development of a baby is something different from the growth and development of a child; and the growth in the child is very different from that in the youth and that of the youth from that of the adult. In the baby the vital organs are growing faster. In the young child the muscular system is coming to the front, and he runs and plays and through the stimulus of that muscular exercise he brings out every organ in the body and gains that magnificent health which he so much needs.

Then, after a time, the brain comes to the front and grows and develops more rapidly than any other part of the body. Our business as teachers is always so to stimulate, by proper exercise, the growing organs that they shall grow faster and further than they ever could without our aid. We are not to always hasten it. This is one thing we must bear in mind: precocity is the worst foe of a sound education. It is the boy and the girl who mature slowly but mature surely that in the end possess the earth. We must not hasten the process, but when we find the organ is ready to grow and develop, then we must give it adequate stimulus. In other words, the stimulus must be of the right kind, and there must be just enough of it, just enough blood to stimulate the muscles, just as much study as will best stimulate the growing and very immature intellectual centers in the brain. Then we will increase the stimulus as the power increases and demands the stronger exercise, and so stimulating the growing parts by adequate exercise, we bring one part after another up to such development that we have one harmonious whole of perfect health.

You remember that when the old deacon in Oliver Wendell Holmes' poem started in to build the one-horse shay, he said, "Every shay that has ever been made has broken down, because there was always a weakest spot in it; now I am going to make a shay that never will break down, because I am going to make the weakest part just as strong as the rest." We cannot always do that, but if we can make that part somewhere near as strong as the rest, we are past masters in education.

If we obey Nature's laws, all of her powers will be on our side; and with all her powers on our side and the very stars in their courses fighting for us, we cannot possibly fail, there is absolutely nothing which is impossible to us. We must be strong and of good courage, if we are to guide these little people into the land sworn unto their fathers before them.



LESSON I

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. What is meant by the expression, "Man's partnership with Nature?" Illustrate how man makes Nature serve him.

2. In what way can man enter into a partnership with Nature regarding his own body?

3. What can man do best when it comes to making things grow?

4. What do you think of the "hurry" methods in education?

5. What is the most we can do in providing for the education of the child?

6. How does Nature help us in the training process?

7. What does Nature try to make sure of first in the child?

8. When does the brain of the child begin to develop rapidly?

9. What advice would you give about precocity in children? Why?

10. What should we study in our children to give them a strong and even development?



CONSERVATION OF THE CHILD

By Dr. J.M. Tyler

When the good Lord sets out to develop a child, the first organ with which He starts is the stomach. The stomach is the foundation of all greatness. It is a matter of daily observation if not of experience that a man can get along very well with very few brains, but a man can't get along at all without a good digestive system. The digestive system furnishes all the material for growth and the fuel which is continually burned or consumed in our nerves and muscles. Now, any furnace requires besides fuel, a good draught. When we burn the fuel, by uniting it with the oxygen thus brought in, we get the energy which draws our locomotives and our great ships. Similarly in our bodies, our lungs bring in the oxygen and the heart and blood-vessels carry the fuel and the oxygen to every part of the body. But every furnace requires a smoke-stack to carry off the waste, and, similarly, we must have in our bodies an excretory system to remove the waste of the burned-up material and of the used-up tissue of the heart, muscles and nerves. This constitutes the digestive system; the lungs, the excretory system and the circulatory system are absolutely necessary to support the combustion which is going on in nerve and muscle and without which energy is impossible.

All productive labor manifests itself through the muscles. Our muscles directly write the book, speak the word, build the railroads, do the deeds. Our muscles are of very different ages. In the child the trunk muscles are developed first; the shoulder muscles next; the arm muscles next; the finger muscles last of all. The heavy muscles of trunk, shoulder and thigh require but a small amount of nervous impulse or control, and they react strongly on all the vital organs, as is shown every time that we take a walk. The finest and youngest muscles of the fingers require a very large amount of nervous control for a very small output of muscular energy and their exercise stimulates the very highest centers in the brain, and this is the great argument for physical training, that through one muscle or another you can stimulate and develop as you choose either any vital organ or the highest center in the brain.

Never forget the maxim of the old German physiologist that "Health comes in through the muscles and flows out through the nerves." The nervous system was created for good and wise ends, but in many people it has become a nuisance. Its use is to insure that every stimulus from the external world shall call forth a response suited to the emergency. A fly lights upon my face; I wave my hand and drive him away. The fly has tickled my face; there is the external stimulus. A sensory impulse travels to the brain or to some other center and a motor impulse goes from there to a certain muscle in my arm which moves my hand and drives away the fly. The impulse has called out a response suited to that emergency. You watch a cat walk across the lawn; you will think that fool cat is going to fall down, it is going so slowly and it can hardly raise one foot above the other, but watch it when it sees its prey; every muscle seems to turn to steel; it is ready for the spring. When that spring is made there is no energy wasted. After that the cat does not move for two hours; no wasting energy there. Wasting of energy is a sin.

I awaken in the morning, and the first horrible emergency of the day confronts me at once, I have to get up. How I get up I have no idea. Professor James once said that when a man thinks about it he never does get up, and that's right; but I find myself in the middle of the floor and that is all I know, and then the cold air or the sight of my clothes or something reminds me to start dressing, and the putting on of one garment leads to the putting on of another. The pangs of hunger call me to the breakfast table; the bell calls me to work; and so all day long response follows stimulus; the day's work is a success or a failure according to the response which I make to the stimuli which I receive.

There is a marvelous picture given in the scripture in the parable of the poor man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and getting wounded and left by the road-side. Three men pass that way. They all see the same thing. The light is reflected from the poor sufferer into the eyes of these passers-by; a flood of vibration passes on to the brain and then the motor impulses go out to the muscles. In the case of the good Samaritan, the impulse went from the brain or the spinal nerve to the arms and he stooped down and picked the poor fellow up and carried him off; while in the priest and the Levite the impulses all went down into the legs and the cowards hustled off for Jericho.

A healthy nervous system is the rarest thing in this wide world. I have one illustration in mind, which I always like to think of, which I am going to give you of a perfectly healthy and normal nervous system. It was possessed by a good old negro minister. He had been preaching to his congregation for a long time on the subject of meekness and it had not produced the desired effect; so he said to them one morning: "Brethren, I'se gwine to give you the illustration of meekness for a week now and show you what it is," and the old man did. His congregation naturally rose to the occasion: They insulted his wife; they abused his children; they stoned his dog; they stole his chickens; they did everything under the heaven to break down the meekness of that man; but he went on through the week and came into church the next Sunday and began to preach. The congregation recognized that their time was short and they redoubled their efforts, but all in vain. Finally, about five minutes before the closing of the service, he turned to the congregation and said: "Brethren, I think I ought to denounce to this congregation that my week of meekness is just about up, and when the clock in yonder steeple strikes twelve, I'se gwine to quit preachin', close this blessed Bible, go down from this pulpit, and then, Brethren, Judgment day and hell is gwine to break loose on some of you." Now, that old colored minister had an ideal nervous system. There had not been one single response all that week long, and not one single stimulus which had come in from the outside had been lost either, but it was all waiting to leap into that good right arm when the emergency was to be met, in the fullness of time, and I commend you to go and do likewise.

It is only a step, thank fortune, from the ridiculous to the sublime, just as it is only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous. Another illustration of a perfect nervous system: You remember how our Lord spent a whole day in preaching, in healing, working deeds of kindness, in pouring out sympathy and comfort, the strain of which on a man's nervous energy is worse than anything else in the world, and how at the close of the day He went into the little boat, took the hard cushion on which the steersman sat, threw it down in the bottom of the boat, and laid Himself down with His head on that hard cushion and slept like a child through the rocking of the boat and the roaring of the storm, until His disciples came to Him saying, "Lord, save us: we perish." There is not one man in a thousand who could do that work or could put out one-tenth part of that nervous energy and then sleep like that. Anybody who thinks that the Prophet of Nazareth was a weak or a feeble man has made the mistake of his life. He was perfect physically or He never could have done His work.

All this work of developing a steady nerve, of developing the vital organs for the use of the muscles, has been going on until the child is nine or ten years old. It has been going on very rapidly, and in as much as the exercise has been suitable, as his digestion has been good, his growth has been very rapid. During the first three years of its life the child increases its weight more than three-fold. During the next three years it adds over forty per cent. to this amount and between six and nine adds over thirty per cent. more; and when the boy is about eleven years old, or the girl is about ten, then the growth almost stops that year. It drops to a minimum. I call your attention to this thought: the minimum growth is more in a girl than in a boy. A girl is always more precocious than a boy. She is a year older than he at nine or ten, and when she is fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, she is two years older than the boy. When the girl is ten and the boy eleven, growth drops to the minimum. Why is that? Nature is economizing her material and husbanding her resources against the trying years which are to come.

You remember the story of the time when Pharoah in his dream saw the seven fat kine followed and devoured by the seven lean kine; he was told that his dream signified seven years of plenty, to be followed by seven years of famine, and was advised to store up the harvests of the good years against the hard times to follow. This is a picture of the child's life. The first seven years of the child's life are years of plenty, when it is storing up material for the years of hard trial, the years of famine, which are close at hand.

I am going to talk most of the girl because she needs more attention than the boy. Growth is a very expensive process. It begins in the bone. When the bones lengthen out, then every muscle, every nerve has to be lengthened out to suit that extra length, and that means a great deal of waste for that rebuilding, but it is something worse than that. You know perfectly well that out of the butterfly egg there comes the caterpillar, and that caterpillar goes into a cocoon, and during the life of the cocoon every organ is changed there and it comes out a butterfly. That is what we call a metamorphosis.

The girl between ten and sixteen is undergoing a metamorphosis just as sure as that caterpillar is undergoing a metamorphosis. If you leave town for a few years and come back, you know all the old men and women haven't changed any, except to die off. The babies have grown some; but the boy and the girl seem to be grown all over again. That is, the girl whom you left at nine years old and on coming back find her sixteen, has dropped down her skirts, has drawn up her hair, and that is the butterfly cocoon, and it is a mighty pretty butterfly cocoon. That is waste again. It is waste, waste, on all sides and all of that waste is going into the blood, no other place to put it; it ought to be got out at once. But there is another thing about it; all the food must be digested, and so oxygen must be gained and waste must be eliminated. All the organs in the trunk between those ages of ten and fourteen are relatively both larger and smaller in girls than at any other period of life.

It looks as though Nature was making a bad blunder, but she is really making the best of a very bad bargain, doing the best she can under hard circumstances. With these small vital organs and this tremendous draught on the body for new material and the large amount of waste to be eliminated, you are sure to have trouble. That trouble is going to manifest itself first of all in the blood. The blood is going to be poor blood during those years, unless you remedy it. Poor blood, first of all, depresses the nervous system, and the girl feels gloomy and good for nothing; she hates to go out into the cold air because she chills; yet that cold air is what she needs more than anything else in the world. She hates to make an effort and won't take the exercise she needs if she can possibly help it. The exercise she must have. Her appetite has gone all wrong. She likes to live on caramels, pickles, and all such things as that. Now, my friends, I want to tell you, when anything goes wrong with the appetite, then the whole system goes wrong, remember that. Observations were made some years ago in Sweden of a number of the bodily disorders that occur between the ages of thirteen and nineteen. These examiners found that there was one disorder which attacked, put in general numbers, sixty per cent. of the girls in the Swedish schools between the ages of thirteen and nineteen, and, indeed, it never fell below sixty per cent. and was usually a great deal more. In Denmark, the examination was made in the field where the children are healthier, and then the figures gave forty per cent. The troubles usually show themselves in the form of pallor; the girl is pale. They frequently break out in the form of headache, loss of appetite, resistance to marked effort and sometimes with a cold. Now, if the seat of the cold is in the blood, because it is loaded with waste and ought to be removed, there is one thing sure, that waste never will be removed until it is thoroughly oxidized. That is the first thing to do, oxidize it. The only way to oxidize the blood is to get the lungs full of good, pure air.

The girl wants just as much lung capacity as she can possibly get. We find that the girl during those years is a little taller and a little heavier than the boy, and she needs more oxygen to every pound of waste in the body than the boy does, because the waste is going on faster. The average girl has about three-fourths as much lung capacity for every pound of the waste in the body, as has the average boy. What the girl needs is more lung capacity to get in more oxygen. How is she going to get the lung capacity sitting in the house? How is she going to get it when she is tied down in the grammar school room with a book before her eyes?

The worst of it all is that the girl leaves off playing games in the open air just about the time when she needs them the most, and not having the open air play and the open air games, she can't get the lung capacity and the oxygen. Another thing that hinders the girl is this: there is no place for her to play where she can do all she wants to and not have people looking over the fence and finding fault with her for having a good time. Every girl ought to have a place where she can play in the open air and not be bothered and we ought to get more and more games for girls of that age. Another thing, the exercise should not be too severe. Don't kill a girl with physical training; because you can kill her that way just as you can kill her with books. Some of our physical training is too severe for a girl of that age. She must have plenty of the right kinds of games and they should be in the open air, and they should be such as she will enjoy and love; if they are not of that kind it won't help a great deal. If you can build up lung capacity in that way then you are drawing in the oxygen; then you are getting out the waste, and you will find the girl will come out all right in nine cases out of ten.

It is a fact, proved by physical examination, that all during this period the better scholars have the larger lung capacity. Those of you who have taught in the grammar schools year after year will know that a bright girl, one that has been very bright, will have a year when she will come to you and will be absolutely stupid and can't learn. "What ails the girl?" you wonder. She will tell you, "I don't know what ails me; I can't learn anything. I have become a fool and I was not always one." The trouble is with the lung capacity; it isn't with the brain; the brain is all right. If you tell that girl to wake up in order to make up that lack of mental ability by studying harder, you are doing the unpardonable sin. I am telling it to you straight. That is not the remedy. The remedy is more play in the open air, then you will find that that girl's brain will clear up. Many a poor girl has been put in poor condition by being urged to study hard, when the fault was that nobody knew enough to turn her out into the fresh air which the Lord intended she should have.

We ought to have in every school five minutes, it would be better to have ten minutes, between school exercises, when the girls can walk up and down, chat with one another and get the blood out of the overloaded head and down into the cold feet. Better still, turn them out in the open air and let them run; that would be another blessing. Don't keep the girls sitting too long at that period. Don't let them sit with wet feet or skirts. That is just about as bad as getting smallpox. Teach them some of the sense which you ought to have if you haven't.

I haven't said a word for the boy, for this good reason: you can't kill him if you try, thank the Lord. You can't kill him if you try, not because he is so very tough; boys are not as tough as girls, physically; but you can't kill them; because they won't let you; but I am sorry to say, some few women teachers are killing off the future women. Again and again I have heard it said by the girls: "We can get along all right with Mr. So and So; we can get on the blind side of him all the time; we can fool him, but when we try to get around Miss So and So she puts it to us awfully, and in the neatest way, to get the work done." Now, why the women can't have a little mercy on the younger people is something I cannot understand at all.

And yet, while I haven't said a word for the boy, ought we not to regard him a little? Now and then there is the ambitious boy, and then again there is your studious boy; there is your bookish boy; there is your shy boy who does not get into the games. He is the boy you should watch all the time. There is the boy who has become delicate and finicky, because he has been doddled at home. I hope you haven't got so many of them here as we have in the East, but he is here and you must watch him, because his parents are doing everything in the world to spoil him. You must stand on the Lord's side of him if you can, for these boys need your help. If you give a little excess of mercy, a little bit more physical vigor gained by this regime of open-air exercise and exercise between the school periods, you simply will be erring on the safe side and doing good to that girl and such boys, because on these years of metamorphosis depend the life and the happiness of the girl and the boy.

Perhaps you are getting ready for examinations. I want to tell you Nature has her examinations just as well as you do. Does not she examine the baby and see that baby can't go on, and many babies do not go on. Then the death rate sinks; at eleven and twelve it is very low, very low, indeed, only perhaps two or three in a thousand, in many countries. Nature is giving them a chance to see whether they will get ready for the second examination. Right after or during puberty the death rate rises. At eighteen, nineteen and twenty, it has gone up. That is Nature's second examination, to see whether that boy or girl is fit to send out into the world to take part in the great drama of life, and if she is conditioned at this time, then it means invalidism for two, three, four, five years, and if she is badly conditioned, it may mean death. When you are preparing those girls for the examination, do not forget your own examination, because it is coming on very fast.

I have talked very plainly this morning and I hope you will forgive me. You may say, "We don't need that talk now." I hope you don't. You will need it in a generation or two; I don't care how strong that pioneer blood was which has come down to your first generation here, we had just as good in Massachusetts a hundred or a hundred and fifty years ago, but we are getting rid of it just as fast as we can, the Lord forgive us; and you will do that here if you don't look out. If you have strong, red blood, hold on to it; because that is the grandest gift of God to man; it is a treasure which must be handed down unimpaired from generation to generation, that our boys and girls may be strong and efficient for the work of life which lies before them.



LESSON II

(General Subject: "Conservation of the Child," read carefully the foregoing lecture by Dr. Tyler.)

The Body as an Instrument of the Soul

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. What are the teachings of the Latter-day Saints regarding the relation of the body to the soul?

2. In the light of these teachings, what is demanded of every Latter-day Saint as to the treatment of his body? How are we living up to these teachings?

3. What are the four essential things we must do to keep the body engine described by Dr. Tyler, in perfect condition?

4. What would you think of an engineer who fed his engine dirt with his coal, or let his draughts and flues clog with soot, or failed to remove the clinkers, or let his engine get dusty and rusty? In what similar ways are people neglecting their bodies?

5. Discuss this as a health maxim: Clean food, clean air, clean water, clean thoughts, and clean consciences.

6. What was the Savior's constant command to the sick?

7. Give one practical suggestion as to training children to take proper care of their God-given bodies—of keeping them clean, both inside and out.



LESSON III

The Foundation of Health

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

Reference: The foregoing lecture by Dr. Tyler.

1. Discuss Dr. Tyler's remark: "The stomach is the foundation of all greatness."

2. Name three home habits which, in your opinion, are doing most to ruin the stomachs, especially of children?

3. Discuss the "piecing habit," the "sweetmeat craze," irregularity of meals, and the "hurrying habit," as applied to disorders of the stomach.

4. Someone said recently that people are paying more to-day to cure their stomachs from ills brought on by bad habits in eating than they are to build churches, schools and all other public improvements put together. Discuss the assertion.

5. How can parents save money now being wasted on stomach troubles, and at the same time lay the foundation for good health in their children and themselves? Give at least one way.



LESSON IV

"Nerve Leaks"

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

Reference: The foregoing lecture by Dr. Tyler.

1. What are two good evidences of a perfectly healthy nervous system?

2. Physicians tell us that nerve diseases are increasing at an alarming rate in our country. What is the greatest cause for this increase?

3. What home habits have you noticed that lead to nervousness? Discuss here the effects of scolding, hurrying, talking, noise, lack of system, as "nerve leaks."

4. What practical suggestion would you offer to parents to help them to bring control, calm and harmony into their daily lives—to make their homes more places of rest and peace?

5. What ways can we take to conserve and strengthen the nerves of our children? Through what habits of life are we helping to wreck their nerves?



LESSON V

Child Growth

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Discuss the varying stages of child growth, their rapidity, the critical periods, etc.

2. Growth means waste. By what means does the body get rid of the waste that comes with growth and change?

3. What are some of the ill effects of keeping this waste in the system? Give your experiences and observations with children.

4. When is the child's blood likely to be most loaded with the waste caused by growth? How can we best help the boy or girl to clear the system of this waste? What mistakes are we making in this vital matter?

5. What practical suggestions would you give to our parents, teachers, and communities to help them safeguard their children during dangerous periods, and keep their pioneer blood clean and pure?



THE ADOLESCENT BOY AND GIRL

GROWTH DURING THE HIGH SCHOOL AGE

Dr. John M. Tyler

The boy and the girl during adolescence have now attained their full height and practically their full weight, although the boy has a little to gain still; they are pretty well grown by this time. If I had to choose between two questions, the first might be, "Have you a good appetite?" but the second question I would ask is, "What is your lung capacity?" The lungs have increased very rapidly at fourteen to sixteen in the boy; in the girl the increase has been smaller and quite irregular. It ought to be more regular than it is, I am convinced. The heart has gained greatly in capacity. The arteries have expanded much less than the heart, and the result is that there is a much higher blood pressure than there has been at any time before. The brain has attained practically full size and weight. The addition now will be mainly in the very highest area, where the addition of fibres might make all the difference between the possibility of genius and the possibility of mediocrity. The sensory and the nervous areas are fully matured. The higher mental area and the higher mental power are now coming on to stay.

The boy, you will notice, at this stage begins to argue a great deal more than he ever did before. He wants to argue nearly every question. He likes the debating society. His idea of heaven, it seems to me, is a place where debating is indulged in. A goodly amount of exercise for those psychological and mental powers will do him no harm.

The mortality, or the death rate, is low, but the morbidity is increasing at this time, in the boy at least. Vigorous physical exercise is now needed. Ordinary play is not enough. Gymnastics also for the development and training of the hand and the wrist, training in quickness and precision of movement are all excellent exercise, all the finer muscles should be trained now, and probably less training should be given to the heavy fundamental muscles which are all important in childhood.

Athletics are exceedingly useful. They should be, however, for all, and not merely for a few who join the teams, who need them the very least of all. I think our modern college athletics will some day be looked upon as one of the most ridiculous habits of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. That twenty-two men should engage in mortal combat, with anywhere from one to twenty thousand on the side lines,—if you can get anything more ridiculous than that, I should like to know where you can find it. Athletics should not be too severe, however, yet, the boy ought not to have century runs and long halves of football, especially if the heart is still weak. The tissues of the body have not yet gained the toughness that they will gain at a later time. Every commander in the field dreads to have boys of eighteen, nineteen, or twenty sent to him, because, as Napoleon said of his young recruits, "they die off like flies." The hard bed, with light covering, the cold room, the cold bath will now aid in toughening the boy, provided he is healthy; but under no circumstances begin that until the pubertal period is fully by.

The danger of over-pressure in the high school, especially after the first year, is to my mind not very great. The boy and the girl now both stand a good deal of work; but the greatest danger for the boy and the girl in the high school is that they will take too much social enjoyment. An evening theatre party, followed by a supper, a late dance, will take more strength out of a boy and girl than three days of study. There is nothing that is so wearing. If you can keep down the social over-pressure, I do not believe the over-pressure from study will do any great harm in high schools.

The larger bodies, the large heart and lungs, well oxygenated blood, and fresh vitality of every artery and tissue, gives a buoyance, a strength and a courage, a source of power and sense of it too, a longing for complete freedom, a revolt against all control, which the boy will never feel later; if he does not feel it now. I am describing, perhaps, rather the college boy than the high school boy; but bear this in mind, that I am describing what your boys in the high school will be a year or two later if they are not that now, and it is for this stage you must prepare them, even, if they have not already entered upon it.