Chapter 3

can write your own Eleventh Chapter of Hebrews, if you will, for that chapter never was intended to be finished; and if you cannot add to it with your pioneer history of those who fought their way across the plains here fifty or more years ago, then you are teaching history to mighty little effect to this generation here in Utah. The whole story is just this, if you can saturate your pupils with the character of just such men and women as that, then you have trained a generation of heroes and nobody can spoil them.

That is what, it seems to me, Mr. Martineau means in that dark passage, "We shall never have a proper system of education until we have a proper religion." We are a good deal lacking in the study of the Bible nowadays. We go to it to prove the text, to "break the scales" of our adversaries, and for other purposes. I do not use it for that purpose myself. If you will read that old book until you can walk the street arm in arm with Gideon and David and Jepthah and old Samson, too, yes, heaven bless him, and Moses and Samuel, the prophets, then we are reading it to some purpose. Until you know them all as your best friends, you have not begun to read that book; for that is what it was intended for. The Bible is an advanced text book of biology, the science of life. If you will train your boys and girls to walk the streets and live with the heroes of the world, make them form an intimate friendship with them, then you have trained those boys and girls to be heroes themselves.

Did you ever try reading to them the defense which old Socrates makes, which Plato wrote down for us? I do not know whether Socrates ever said it, but it was worthy of him. Read it to your boys and girls some day. See what they say about the Apology. And read the Crito. Let them sit with Socrates in his prison there on the hillside and listen to his discussion, until, as he says, he hears the voice of the law ringing in his ears and he cannot hear anything else, and stays on to die. When the prison door is opened for him to walk out, provided he would walk out with dishonor, he will not go. Let them see the old hero die in Athens as the sun goes down. You have not only awakened a new interest, you have evoked a higher life, and that is what we are after, that is what you and I are here for, that is the only way in the end to beat the record. That is the essential power of great leaders, of great prophets, and of great teachers, and the seat of it is in their personality.

I don't know what I am talking about there either, for personality defies analysis and it defies resistance. It leaps from soul to soul just like an infection. We hear a great deal about the infectiousness of bad things and people are always talking about infectious disease and of corrupting influences in the world and all that sort of thing. Do you suppose the Lord has made this world so that everything that is bad is contagious and everything that is good is not contagious? Are you going to slander the Lord like that? It is about time that we wake up to the fact that the real genuine article of goodness is a good deal more contagious than smallpox.

Heroism and hero-worship is the central thought of history from the time of Gideon to the time of Sheridan, and down to our present time. Virtue, we must remember, should strike just like electricity from a dynamo. You remember that was the continual word of that Great Master of ours. Someone in the crowd has touched me, Virtue has gone over into somebody else. Virtue has gone out of me; strength has gone out of me and gone over into somebody else. I am talking about something that I do not understand; but something that you will know. Have you never, at the close of the day, when you were tired, discouraged, wondered whether it is worth while to keep up the fight? When you had been knocked flat and were pretty sure you were out, and then you sat down for a little time by some strong man or strong woman, and probably they did not say a great deal to you. They were men and women of few words, and you did not say a great deal to them, but after a little it began to come upon you that come what would you would fight again? Courage had come into you. You do not know where it came from, or how it came in, but you borrowed it and you go on your way the stronger because of the infection from that strong man.

We must be healthy and strong and sympathetic. We must be a child with the child and a boy with the boy, and yet we must lead and not follow. We must be firm and patient and hopeful and courageous, and we must infect these boys and girls with the very best that we have in us and something that is a little better yet, and how are we going to get it? Why, we must be continually infected from others; that is the only way. I don't care how big your reservoir is, your irrigation reservoir, if there isn't a stream going into it, it is going to be empty sometime. Look out for the streams which come in from the hills and the heights of glory into your lives.

This is the glory of our life and our work. You are making the youth of the twentieth century, as I said to you, and you are doing something grander; for every bit of good that you give here in Utah will spread back to us in Massachusetts and you are moulding the race into conformity with that which is deepest and most permanent and most eternal in environment, and hence all the powers of Nature are on your side.

"We are two," said Abbe Bacha to Mahomet, as they were plodding from Mecca to Medina. "No," answered Mahomet, "We are three. God is with us." We cast in our efforts with this grand tide of events which is sweeping on toward a better age and better race, and we cannot fail. Therefore, let us gird up our loins, be strong and of a very good courage; for, as I have said to you once before, you shall lead these little people into the land of hope and promise which the Lord swore unto their ancestors, their fathers, that He would surely give them.

GENERAL SUBJECT

_The Adolescent, or High School Age_

Read carefully the foregoing lecture on "Growth During the High School Age," by Dr. Tyler, for all these succeeding lessons.

LESSON VI

ATHLETIC NEEDS OF BOYS AND GIRLS

1. What steps have ever been taken in your community to provide for proper athletic sports for the young? What success came of these efforts?

2. Give two reasons why wholesome physical recreation is necessary for growing children.

3. What games and sports do you consider best for boys? For girls? Why?

4. What dangers come from uncontrolled athletics?

5. What do you think about the value of school athletics that develop only a team?

6. What can be done, (1) by the parents, (2) by communities,

(a) To provide for wholesome games and sports for all the children?

(b) To provide proper leadership and supervision of these things?

(c) To regulate the excesses and check evils of the athletic spirit?

(d) To provide proper places in which to play?

LESSON VII

SOCIAL NEEDS

1. During what years does the desire to be with "the crowd" manifest itself most strongly in boys and girls?

2. What difficulties come to the parents in the management of boys and girls during this time?

3. In what ways can parents best exercise control over the companionships of their children during this vital period?

4. In what ways can the social needs of boys and girls be provided for in the home?

5. How far can and should parents go in participating in the pastimes of their children? What can be done to keep up the spirit of companionship between parents and children?

6. What can communities do to put down the "street corner" habits and the "hoodlumism" that comes of the boy gangs?

7. What pastimes and practices can be fostered to bring about a higher-minded companionship among young people?

LESSON VIII

KEEPING OUR BOYS AND GIRLS AT HOME

1. What are the first indications that our home is losing its hold upon our boy? Our girl?

2. What influences are at work in each instance?

3. Is it because conditions outside the home offer more, or is the home offering less of that which the boy or girl desires?

4. When you find your boy going to the pool room do you throw his deck of cards into the fire and advise him as to what will happen if he attempts to use such things in or about the house?

5. When your girl shows a preference for taking her leisure at Smith's or Brown's rather than at home, do you at once adopt a code of rules and proceed to make emphatic statements as to your intention to enforce those rules and also to impose certain penalties?

6. Did it ever occur to you that "desire" may be diverted, but that it cannot be destroyed?

7. Is it not best to divert by substitution rather than by prohibition? Also to substitute in kind as near as may be?

8. What are you doing in your home to satisfy the desire which takes your boy or girl to the neighbors or the public places?

9. What share are you taking in the interests of the growing boy or girl?

10. Parents, are you companionable? Do you get into the boy or girl's field of discussion? Do you talk _with them_ rather than _to them_? Do you get into their games, their troubles, their pleasures, their life?

LESSON IX

1. What certain acts or omissions entitle a boy to be classified as "wayward?"

2. The first sign of waywardness is the breaking of what commandment, if any?

3. Under any condition would you let your boy know that you considered him wayward?

4. Should your regard for, as shown by your treatment of the wayward boy, differ in the slightest degree from your regard for your treatment of the circumspect, dutiful, and obliging boy?

5. Does the worst tendency of the boy call for any more from us than mere direction?

6. Is not the boy's worst offence a bad form of satisfying a good desire?

7. What is your method of dealing with your boy? Is it "Never do that" or "Better to do this?"

8. Do you ever undertake to show the boy how much more of the thing he is after he can get out of a method that is all around helpful than one that is all around harmful.

9. How would it do to substitute jointly planned "Do's" for unqualified "Don'ts"?

10. In almost every instance can you not justly ascribe the boy's waywardness to an unnatural companionship on your part or to no companionship at all?

LESSON X

SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT IN BOYS AND GIRLS

"_Training the Child in the Way He Should Go_"

1. Quote from the Doctrine and Covenants a passage wherein parents are admonished as to their duty in teaching the Gospel to their children.

2. Give three first steps in religious training in children.

3. What difficulties and successes have you, as parents, met with in cultivating your little ones? proper habits in prayer, in attendance to Sunday School and in other religious duties? To what do you ascribe your success or failure?

4. At what age do boys and girls grow most careless as regards religion? (Study the statistics of your Sabbath School on this point.)

5. Is it true that our religious training fails most just at the point where the boy and girl are in greatest need of it? What are the causes of this failure?

6. What can and must parents do to reinforce the Sunday School and our other organizations in their efforts to guide the boy and girl safely during their teens? during the critical periods of life?

LESSON XI

LIFE LESSONS DURING THE WAYWARD AGE

1. Show, by citing examples from history, that youth is a period of strong religious tendencies. What can be done to keep the "dreams of youth" on high ideals?

2. What stories? what lessons? to boys and girls at this time? What books appeal most impressively to boys and girls at this time?

3. Recalling the things that left deepest impress on you for good or ill during the period of "the teens," what advice would you give as to cultivating in a child right feelings for religion?

4. Wherein do we as religious teachers most fail to get the boy or girl?

5. In what way should the Bible be taught during this age?

6. What individual work with boys and girls can and should be done by parents and teachers to guide the children past the dangerous places?

LESSON XII

TEMPTATIONS OF BOYS AND GIRLS

1. What are the commandments children are likely to break first?

2. In what ways are homes often responsible for habits of lying, stealing, profaning the name of God, and other sins?

3. How are the seeds of impurity often sown by thoughtless parents in the home? Discuss here the vulgar story, and other evil suggestions.

4. What loose habits in companionship and courtship are being permitted by parents to lead their children into evil?

5. By what effective means can parents co-operate to check the looseness and rudeness and sinful practice that blight our homes and communities?

REFERENCE BOOKS FOR PARENTS' CLASSES

The following list of books will be found very helpful in this Study of Children. The Public Library should provide these books for the parents, or the class may be able gradually to build up such a library for class use. These can be bought at the Deseret Sunday School Union, Salt Lake City, Utah.

1. A Study of Child Nature, Elizabeth Harrison, National Kindergarten College, Chicago, Ill. $1.25

2. Religious Education in the Family, H.F. Cope, University of Chicago Press. $1.25

3. The Right of the Child to be Well Born, Dawson, Funk & Wagnalls, New York. $.75.

4. The Jukes Edwards Family, Winship. $1.20.

5. The Meaning of Infancy, Fiske, Houghton, Mifffin Co., Boston. $.35.

6. Education, Herbert Spencer. $.75

7. Fundamentals of Child Study, Kirkpatrick, Macmillan Co. $1.25.

8. Elementary Psychology, Phillips, Ginn & Co., Chicago. $1.25.

9. The Care of the Child in Health, Oppenheim, Macmillan Co. $1.00

10. The Healthy Baby, Dennett, The Macmillan Co. $1.00.

11. The Care of the Baby, Holt. $.75.

12. The Child and His Religion, Dawson, University of Chicago Press. $.75.

13. Child Nature and Child Nurture, St. John, Pilgrim Press. $.50.

14. The Problem of Boyhood, Johnson, University of Chicago Press. $1.00.

15. The Function of the Family and the Recovery of the Home, American Baptist Pub. Soc. Each, $.15.

16. The Dawn of Character, Mumford, Longsman, Green & Co. $1.20.

17. Peril and Preservation of the Home, Jacob Riis, Jacobs Co., Philadelphia. $1.00.

18. Training of the Girl and Training of the Boy, McKeever, Macmillan. Each, $1.50.

19. The Moral Conditions and Development of the Child, Wright, Jennings & Graham. $.75.

20. Marriage and Genetics, Reed, Galton Press, Cincinnati, Ohio. $1.00.

21. The Coming Generation, Forbush, D. Appleton & Co., New York. $1.50.

22. Stories and Story Telling, St. John Eaton and Main. $.35.

23. Our Child Today and Tomorrow, Grunenburg, Lippincott. $1.25.

24. Misunderstood Children, Harrison. $1.23.

25. Town and City, Jewett, Ginn & Co. $.50.

26. After Twenty Years, Middleton. $1.25.

27. Training of the Human Plant, Burbank. $.60.

28. Education, Resources of Rural and Village Communities, J.K. Mart $1.00.

29. Being Well Born, Guyer. $1.00.

30. Growth in Education, Dr. John M. Tyler, Houghton, Mifflin Co. $1.50.