The Minister and the Boy: A Handbook for Churchmen Engaged in Boys' WorkHoben, Allan
Religion
The Minister and the Boy: A Handbook for Churchmen Engaged in Boys' Work
Hoben, Allan
Boys; Church work with children
Those who know the boy best can hardly be persuaded that the Sunday
school can be made to satisfy his intense demand for action. Yet action
is an important factor in religious education. Commendable efforts are
being made to introduce more of handicraft and artistic expression into
the work of the Sunday-school class; but from the boy's point of view,
the making of maps, illuminated texts, and temple models does not fully
meet his desire for doing. The character of the Sunday school, its place
of meeting, and the proper observance of the day preclude the more
noisy, varied, and spontaneous activities which may be made to carry
moral and religious value.
Another agency is needed in the church that can be more venturesome and
free than the Sunday school, an agency that can act on the parallel of
the boy's natural interests and adapt its methods to his unfolding life
in terms of action. The Sunday school can stick to its task of
elucidating the history and theory of religion; but the boys' club is a
better place for securing the expression of religious principles and so
confirming them in character. When the Sunday school shall have reached
its highest point of efficiency it will still have failed to cover the
most vital element in the moral and religious training of the boy simply
because it will still be a _Sunday_ school and, presumably, a _Bible_
school. That is, it will have not only the benefits but also the
limitations of the sacred day and of the book method of instruction. The
boy needs something more than "a society for sitting still."
But some will say, "Why take the boy out of the home at all? The good
home, the public school, and the established agencies of religion are
enough. A club is not needed." It might be replied that all boys do not
have good homes and that relatively few attend church or Sunday school;
but if that were not the case the desirability of the boys' club would
still be apparent. The fact is that the boy gets out of the home anyway
and seeks his group. There is a process of socialization and
self-discovery for which the best home-circle cannot provide; and the
club only recognizes and uses this "gang" instinct. It capitalizes for
good the normal social desires of the boy. In so doing it does not
necessarily conflict with a single good element in the home, but is
rather the first formal token of citizenship and the guarantor of proper
deportment in the midst of one's peers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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