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 amus.e.m.e.nts away from home than ever before.
Then, too, it is certain that the old-time home is pa.s.sing. 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 n.o.bler 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 inst.i.tution, 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 appet.i.te 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 s.e.x 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 coa.r.s.e, the child is apt to have the same imperfection follow him through life.
The family const.i.tutes 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 G.o.d, 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_