Religious Education in the Family

by Henry Frederick Cope

But play for the boy is more than shouting and running in the grass and among trees; he needs books and opportunities for indoor recreation. For the sake of the lad we had better sacrifice the guest-room if necessary, and make way for the punching-bag and the home billiard-table or pool-table; here is a magnet of innocent skilful play to draw him off the street and to bring the boy and his friends under his own roof. If possible his room ought to be the place that is his own, where his friends may come, where he may taste the beginnings of the joys of home-living in receiving them and entertaining them.[38]

A workbench in the attic or basement has saved many a boy from the street. Such apparatus truly interferes with the symmetrical plan of a home that is designed for the entertainment of the neighbors; but families must some time choose between chairs and children, between the home for the purpose of the lives in it and the household for the purpose of a salon.[39]

§ 2. RELIGIOUS SERVICE

In the religious family there is valuable opportunity to train youth to one form of participation in the religious life. Whatever the family gives or does for social service, for philanthropic enterprises, for the support of the church or religious work, ought to be, not the gift of one member or of the heads alone, but of the whole family, extending itself in service through the community, the nation, and the world. The form and the amount of the gifts ought to be a matter of family conference and each member ought early to have the opportunity and the means of determining his share in such extension. The child's gifts to the church should not be pennies thrust into his hand as he crosses the threshold of home for the Sunday school, but his own money, from his own account—partly his own direct earnings—appropriated for this or for other purposes by himself and with the advice of his parents. Family councils on forms of participation in ideal activities, by gifts and by service, bind the whole life together and form occasions in which the child is learning life in terms of loving, self-giving service.[40]

The boy needs friendship. Not all his needs can be met by the schoolboys whom he may bring into his room, nor can they all be met by his mother's affection. He needs a father. The most serious obstacle to the religious education of boys is that most of them are half-orphans; intellectually and spiritually they have no fathers. The American ideal seems to be that the man shall be the money-maker, the woman the social organizer, and the children shall be committed to hired shepherds or left to shift for themselves.

§ 3. THE FATHER AND THE BOY

No one else can be quite the teacher for the boy that his father ought to be. No man can ever commit to another, still less to some tract or book, the duty of guiding his boy to sanity and consecration in the matter of the sex problems.

The first word that needs to be said on this subject is that such problems receive safe and sufficient guidance only in the atmosphere of affection and reverence. Do not attempt to teach this boy of yours as though you were dealing with a class in physiology. The largest thing you can do for him is to quicken a reverence for the body and for the functions of life. By your own attitude, by your own expressions and opinions, lead him to a hatred and abhorrence of the base, filthy, and bestial, to a healthy fear and detestation of all that despoils and degrades manhood, and to a reverence for purity, beauty, and life.[41]

Be prepared to give him, on the basis of reverence, the clean, clear facts. Be sure you have the facts. Do not think he is ignorant; he is in a world seething with conversation, stories, pictures, and experiences of evil. The trouble is that his facts are partial, distorted, and unbalanced by positive errors; his knowledge is gained from the street and the school-yard. Only a personal teacher can help him unravel the good from the bad, the true from the false. Do not trust to your own general knowledge; take time to read one of the simple and sane books on this subject.[42] Be ready to lead him aright. Remember this subject has provoked a large number of books, many of which are foolish and others unwholesome. Do not try to deputize your duty to some doubtful book.