Religious Education in the FamilyCope, Henry Frederick
Religion
Religious Education in the Family
Cope, Henry Frederick
Families -- Religious life; Religious education
5. Enjoy an evening hour of song and praise.
2. _"The Family Book."_--To start _The Family Book_, mother or father
raises the question at dinner: "What was the best Sunday of all last
year, and why was it the best?" Everyone, from the oldest down to the
least, should have a chance to tell. The statements of the older ones
will encourage the younger.
That question will start another: What is the very best thing we can
remember about the year past? Let everyone take a pencil and paper and
in just ten minutes decide on and write down the one thing best worth
remembering. Perhaps the baby cannot write yet, but he or she will want
paper and pencil, too. Now, instead of making our answers known to one
another, we fold the papers and keep them till the evening meal. We will
open them then and talk it all over. Afterward we are going to copy the
answers into a new book we are going to make.
This new book is to be called _The Family Book_, and we expect to put
into it all the pleasant things we wish to record about our home and
family. Any blank book with ruled lines will do. Some time today we will
elect a keeper of the book, and before we go to bed we will see the
first entry in that book under the title, "Happy Memories of 1915." That
will make a good beginning for _The Family Book_. Next Sunday we will
discuss and set down in the book the happy memories of the intervening
week.
3. _The festival name._--Now, we have been sitting, talking, and writing
as long as the children will care to be still. Suppose we all go
outdoors together, every one of us. What if the weather is bad? It is
seldom truly bad, and there is so much real happiness in going out in
all weathers together.
But where shall we go? There is no fun in walking simply for exercise or
health. Well, says father, we can decide where to go by naming the day.
How? We will find the most interesting birthday or anniversary that
falls today or during the next week. If one of the family has a birthday
then, that one shall choose our walk for us. If not, then when we have
chosen the national hero or heroine whose birthday falls near this time,
or the event the anniversary of which comes nearest, we will go, if
possible, where something will remind us of that person or event.
So we fall to discussing the possibilities. We search through almanacs
until we find the anniversary that suits us all. Perhaps one of the
parents has anticipated all this by looking up the matter, and has a
good name to suggest. Or the older ones may consult a dictionary of
dates. It may turn out to be the birthday of a national hero. In the
city he may have a statue; in the country may be found the kinds of
woods, flowers, or animals he loved.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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