Religious Education in the FamilyCope, Henry Frederick
Religion
Religious Education in the Family
Cope, Henry Frederick
Families -- Religious life; Religious education
We must expect our children to go out into their larger world. The
beginning of adolescence is the normal time of their social awakening,
their conversion from a nature that turns in upon itself to one that
moves out into a world of persons. For them, now, the home group ought
to be seen as a society as well as a family, as the social group
gathering about a definite ideal and mission into which they should
delight to project themselves. The appeal of religion is peculiarly
vivid just now, for it involves a recognition of one's self as a person
with the power of personal choices and with the opportunity to find
association with other persons. The family must aid its young people to
see the opportunity which the church offers for ideal social
relationships which direct themselves to high and attractive service.
§ 6. AMUSEMENTS
What should the family do about the question of the amusements of young
people?
Healthy young persons must have recreation. They will seek it on its
highest level first and find their way down the facile descent of
commercialized amusements only as the higher opportunities are denied
them. They would always rather play than be played to; they would
rather, where early labor has not sapped vitality, play outdoors than
sit in a fetid atmosphere watching tawdry spectacles. But play, the
idealization of life's experiences, they will find somewhere. To this
need the home must minister by the provision of space, time,
opportunity, and the means of play. If through either sloth,
selfishness, preoccupation, or a mistaken idea of an empty innocence of
life you make recreation and social intercourse impossible in the
family, the young people will find it on the street or in the crowd. In
the family that plans for recreation and provides facilities and time
for young people to play the problem is a minor one.
But young people will naturally desire to project themselves into the
social amusements of the larger groups. Then we ought to know what those
amusements are; we must be able to advise, from actual knowledge, not
from hearsay or prejudice, as to the healthful and worth while. The home
must insist on the provision in the community for the safe socialization
of amusements. The thousands of young girls in the cities, who tramp the
pavements down to dance halls, primarily are only seeking the
satisfaction of a normal craving; and they, on their way to the dance
halls, pass the splendid plants of the schools and the churches,
standing dark and idle. Families must develop a public opinion that will
demand, for the sake of their young people, a provision for amusement
and recreation that, instead of poisoning the life, shall strengthen,
dignify, and elevate it. If the demand for clean drinking-water is a
proper one, is the demand for healthful food for the life of ideals less
so?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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