The Boy and the Sunday School: A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday School with Teen Age BoysAlexander, John L.
Religion
The Boy and the Sunday School: A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday School with Teen Age Boys
Alexander, John L.
Sunday schools
1. _The first of these is the Fourfold Life_. A boy lives physically,
socially, and mentally, as well as spiritually. He lives seven days a
week, twenty-four hours a day, not merely an hour or an hour and a half
on Sunday. His spiritual impulses are received and find their expression
in the physical, social and mental activities in which he is engaged
during the week. Any work that is attempted with a group of boys which
ignores this fourfold life of the boy cannot be a success. The man,
then, who plans to work with boys must plan to touch the various phases
of the boys' lives as he works with them, and he must also do this work
in proportion, not putting too much emphasis on any one phase, but
allowing equal emphasis on all. The ideal for a perfect work with boys
is that which is gleaned from a study of the boyhood of Christ, for the
boy Jesus, "grew in wisdom" (mentally), "and in stature" (physically),
"and in favor with God" (spiritually), "and with man" (socially). The
secret of the life of the Christ as a boy lies in his symmetrical and
well-balanced growth.
2. _The second principle is Progression._ In a successful church work
with boys the activities must be graded and progressive. The public
school could not command the presence of a boy if the work which it gave
him today was the same as that of last week, and that of last week the
same as that of a year ago. The inherent interest of the public school
to a boy is that he is discovering new things for himself, or being
taught new things all the while. This principle must be incorporated in
church and Sunday school work to keep the continued interest of the boy.
It must be observed, not only in Bible study (and this should be
graded), but also in the physical, social, mental and service activities
in which the boy finds himself engaged.
3. _The third principle is Service_. Too long has the church bribed her
boys and expected them to remain with her and in her service after
offering them wages for doing the thing which they ought to have done
for sheer love of it. Socials and clubs and athletic organizations and
other devices have been used as a bid to hold the boy, instead of being
used because the church owed these things to the boy as part of his
all-round development. "Where the treasure is, there will the heart be
also"; and it stands to reason that the heart of the boy will be where
he is giving most of himself. If he is investing himself heavily in the
interest and service of the church, that is where his interest will be.
4. _The fourth principle is Organisation_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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