To young people who think at all courtship has its times of vision, when they stand trembling before the unknown future, when they, with youth's idealism, make high vows and stand on high places. Give them at least the opportunity to enter your inmost self, to find there all the light you can give them and all the memory of your own joys and hopes. Make them feel, though you need not say it, that they are at the threshold of a temple. If to you this is an affair of the spirit it will be a matter of religion to them.
Approached in such a temper, many of the practical problems of courtship settle themselves. Take the case of the young man at home. If he knows that you think with him of the high meaning of this experience he will not hesitate to bring the young woman to the home. She will feel your attitude. Upon this level questions of times and seasons, hours in the parlor, and all the matters of their relations will settle themselves. If you treat courtship as a matter of the spirit he will do just what he most of all wants to do, treat this woman who is to be his mate as a person, a spirit, with reverence and love that lifts itself above lust. This is the only ground upon which you can appeal to either in matters of conduct at this time. The conventions of society they will despise; but the inner law speaks to them when the outer letter has no meaning.
§ 5. THE SOCIAL LIFE
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?
There can be no doubt of the attitude of any home with the least conscience for character toward all forms of public amusements in which young people are herded promiscuously for the mere purpose of killing time in trivialities. The "white cities" with their glittering lights and baubles are often moral plague colonies. The amusements debase the intellect, blunt the moral sensibilities, and appeal to the baser passions. They are the low-water mark, we may hope, of commercialized amusement. But they remind us that young people demand company and change from the monotony of the day's toil. They ask us as to the provision we are making for young people and challenge us to use their inclinations for good.
But besides these "shows" there are many dignified forms of social recreation. Good music is to be heard and good plays are to be seen.