Chapter 13

(3) _The opportunity to establish right habits of life._ The pathways of service through which the Christian life ought to express itself must be definitely and painstakingly traced in this period and the next. Motives for the action may not be the highest, and must often be supplied by another. For example, the daily Bible reading that ought to be prompted by real love for the Word later may now be done for love of the teacher--or because the promise was given, but in any event it is leaving its indelible impress--and making the "Quiet Hour" more assured in the future.

(4) _The opportunity to build Bible knowledge into character._ Impressions are necessary and effective in their place, but something more definite is needed for stability of character. The opportunity of supplementing impressions with facts is the one offered by this Golden Memory period. Two points should be noted:

/# (_a_) The mind is growing in its power to associate facts. The association of events around a person or a place is easily made now, and toward the end of the period sequences of time and cause and effect are grasped.

(_b_) The Holy Spirit can bring to the remembrance only that which has been in the mind. Therefore the teacher who stores the memory at this time with Scripture passages makes it possible for God to speak to the heart in later years. #/

(5) _The opportunity to lead to open confession of Jesus Christ._ This is not to force, it is not to play upon the child's emotions, and lead him to do that which has no foundation in a consciousness of his own relation to Christ, but something is radically wrong in the home and something lacking in the teacher's work, if the boys and girls do not really love the Lord Jesus in this period. They do not understand it all, but the essentials of a Christian life they may have,--love, faith, penitence for wrongdoing, and the desire to serve Christ. Their experience cannot be that of an adult, for they have not his insight. But just as surely as the love and caress of the child is precious and acceptable to a mother even before there can be any comprehension on his part of the sacrificial character of mother-love, so is child-love precious and accepted with the Master even before the child grasps the great spiritual contents.

#20. Needs of the Junior Age.#

(1) _The presentation of Christianity as something to do rather than to be._ The boys and girls do not live in inner experiences in these years, but in outward, energetic action; therefore, what they may do for Jesus Christ and others needs emphasis. This presentation also includes a Christ who appeals to boyhood and girlhood, the wonder-worker of Mark, the God-Man of Matthew and Luke, and the victorious King of Revelation.

(2) _Opportunities for service._ These must be carefully devised by the teacher, with the twofold purpose of giving immediate expression to the desire to do something and leading to the formation of habits of Christian activity.

(3) _Christian heroes._ The teacher ought to be a Christian hero himself. Out of missionary literature, out of the lives of great men who have lived, out of Bible characters, heroes must be multiplied. The Sunday-school lessons ought to be hero studies, not sermons. Heroic literature ought to be put into the hands of the children--either directly or through indirect suggestion in some curiosity-arousing reference to the story. This means the most effective type of instruction during all the week as well as Sunday.

(4) _A lesson requiring work on the part of the pupil._ Telling a Junior class primary stories will deplete it in numbers and weaken it in strength. Assigned work to be prepared at home, questions, note-books, map-making, anything to stimulate and utilize the activity of mind and body through interest, not compulsion, is the great necessity of the lesson hour.

#21. Difficulties of the Junior Age.#--Three difficulties may be encountered.

(1) _A misdirected energy._ Energy means finest growth and development if it is under direction and control, but devastation otherwise. The key to the situation is in the teacher's personality, plus a plan for the hour's work, appealing to interest and calling for constant activity, either mental or physical, on the part of the pupil.

(2) _Evil associates._ The teacher cannot guard the child through the seven days of a week; often the home does not, and in this new social interest there is a danger from evil associates. Better pastoral work by the teacher, a closer co-operation with the home, and substitutive--not prohibitive--measures avail much in meeting this difficulty.

(3) _The enticement of bad literature._ This period and the next are the time of greatest hunger for reading and there is a real danger from the temptations of pernicious books. Satan has emissaries on the school-grounds and in the candy store, and boys and girls are his shining marks. The substitutive measures here again are the only wise and effective ones.

#22. Results to be Expected in the Junior Age.#--The results of work in this period ought to appear in an increase in Bible knowledge, the strengthening of right habits and manly ideals of life, and back of it all the warm love of boyhood and girlhood for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Test Questions

1. How may spiritual ends best be gained?

2. How may the pupil's efforts in right doing be aroused?

3. What is needed in this period in addition to impressions?

4. What essentials of the Christian life may the pupils readily have at this period?

5. What aspect of Christianity appeals most to pupils of this age?

6. What method of teaching should be substituted for story telling?

7. What three difficulties may be encountered in the Junior Age?

8. What results may be expected?

Lesson 7

The Intermediate Age--Twelve to Sixteen

#23. General Character of the Period of Adolescence.#--The Intermediate age ushers in a time known as adolescence, including the years approximately from twelve to twenty-four, during which life passes from childhood to maturity. The period is marked by the development of new physical powers, new emotions, new ideals and conceptions of life, and a new spiritual consciousness. The change from the old life to the new, from the narrow to the broad, from interests selfish and small to interests as far-reaching as the world and eternity, is often accompanied by more or less upheaval in the soul and this period of re-adjustment may be a time of "storm and stress."

Two facts out of the many suggest the critical nature of adolescence:

(1) During these years the pupil is most susceptible to the power of influence. It does not touch his life simply as an impression, but as an impelling, determining force inciting him to action.

(2) Life rarely changes in its tendencies and character after full maturity has come. There is a physical reason for this in the hardening of the brain which fixes the pathways of habit and renders new lines of thought and action difficult. Therefore, in all probability as life emerges from adolescence will it enter eternity.

#24. General Characteristics of the Intermediate Age.#--Many of the characteristics of the Junior age are still evident, though modified by fuller development. Physical energy has increased and the mind has greater power, especially in its ability to reason. No disillusioning has come to destroy the old hero-worship, but with even more intensity each life clings to that one who embodies its aspirations. The hunger for general reading reaches its climax in this period, to be succeeded by specialized interest in lines determined by the taste of the individual.

Lacking still the self-control of manhood, breaking from the old life and dimly apprehending as yet the meaning of the new, under the domination of impulse and influence as well as of dawning conviction, the Intermediate age offers particularly trying problems with its great opportunities.

#25. Special Characteristics of the Intermediate Age.#

(1) _The functioning of new physical powers._ This is one of the most significant changes in the Intermediate period, because of its physical effects and its reflex influence upon the mental and emotional life. Severe temptations often have to be met, questioning and unwise introspection, and the teacher ought to be a confidential friend as well as instructor.

(2) _A condition of instability and easy excitation._ The nervous system is abnormally sensitive and quickly disturbed. The mind is keyed to vigorous, intense, and often unbalanced thought, but it is in the feelings that the lack of poise is most manifest. Whether the teacher can assign causes or not, he is conscious that the emotions are a veritable tinder-box, easily kindled into a great fire by a very little matter. Superlatives, slang, and the highest pitches of enthusiasm are common experience, and because action and reaction are equal and opposite, periods of depression corresponding to those of exhilaration are almost inevitable.

(3) _A new personal consciousness._ There are several marked evidences of its existence.

(a) Care for appearance. In the beginning of this period, what others think is a matter of supreme indifference, but it is not long before a desire to appear well manifests itself. Solicitude as to one's personal looks is supplemented by anxiety over the condition of the home, the standing of the family, the social position and dress of the companions. Naturally, judgment of others is based on outward appearance rather than on real worth of character.

(b) Desire for appreciation. An intense longing is experienced to have talents, accomplishments, wits, efforts--everything which pertains to self valued at par or above. For this cause there is frequent public parade of wares, as in the case of the smart youth or the girl who draws attention to herself by loud talking and laughter. The same longing works self-consciousness, embarrassment, and awkwardness in others who feel themselves deficient, neither class as yet apprehending the truth that character, not external show, wins the truest meed of praise from the world.

(c) A sense of approaching manhood and womanhood. This makes the life sensitive beyond expression to reproof or criticism, particularly in public. It also explains the restlessness and desire to enter at once upon the life-work.

(4) _Increasing Social Appetite._ The boy who said in answer to a remonstrance over his presence in the billiard hall and bowling alley, "A fellow has got to have fun somewhere," voiced the sentiment of all his confreres in the Intermediate period. The desire for good times is paramount, and its right indisputable in the conception of the young people. The delight in healthy outdoor sports continues with the athletically inclined, and ought to be fostered as a safety valve for surplus energy, a diverter of self-centered thought, and a tonic for excitable nerves. In the latter part of this period, however, the love of fun gives place to a love of functions, either the helpful sort of social commingling or the danger-filled type, marked by late hours, excitement, and overwrought imagination. This transition comes from a growing mutual attraction between the sexes which has succeeded the repulsion evident in the early part of the period.

(5) _The Development of the Altruistic Feelings._ Though these feelings are not unknown to childhood, their vigorous development does not begin until the Intermediate period. The pupil now experiences an impulse from within to sacrifice for others and make his life a source of blessing. The new sense of God and his claims intensifies and vitalizes the desires. Unselfishness appears, interest in the welfare of others as well as self, and willingness to do for them even at personal cost. These are the feelings that make it possible to say "Brother," and to love the neighbor as one's self. They can come only as the meaning of life is better understood. They can remain only as they are given constant expression in action.

(6) _A Spiritual Awakening._ Even though the pupil may be a genuine Christian, there comes to him at this time a larger consciousness of God and the soul's relation to him, and with it a call to full surrender. Whereas the childhood relation to God was based on feeling, there is now the element of will-power which must ratify by deliberate choice that which love has prompted. If the pupil is not a Christian, this awakening comes as God's call to accept Jesus Christ as Saviour and crown him Lord of the life as well. If the call is not heeded now, its tones grow less and less distinct, until, in the strident cries of the world, they may be silenced forever.

Test Questions

1. What is meant by adolescence?

2. What is the general character of the period?

3. What two facts indicate the critical nature of this period?

4. What six special characteristics mark this period?

5. What two signs of personal consciousness?

6. What desire is paramount at this time?

7. What is meant by altruistic feelings? Describe their development.

8. What new element now enters in to affect the relation to God?

Lesson 8

The Intermediate Age (Concluded)

#26. Opportunities of the Intermediate Age.#--There is a significant difference in the purpose of the opportunities presented during childhood and during adolescence. If they were to be summed up in key-words, that for childhood would be absorption; for adolescence, adjustment.

The opportunities of childhood converge toward supplying the soul with material needful for growth--influences, impressions, and a mass of facts more or less unconnected in the beginning. But this is only the first step in character building. These materials must be arranged, facts must be related to one another, and the life must be related to other lives in real interest, sympathy, and service. This process of relating fact to fact, life to life, and each soul anew to God is the paramount task of adolescence, even though absorption continues with almost unabated strength.

Analyzing the opportunities which are presented to the Intermediate teacher in this new adjustment of life, three stand out prominently:

(1) _The opportunity to foster high ideals._ Whether it be consciously defined or not, every one has that toward which ambitions and effort go forth, and this ideal determines what character shall be. No one can give an ideal to another, as a book is handed over, for it is a personal thing, to be fashioned by each soul for itself out of that which it has absorbed through the years.

It is in the transition from childhood to maturity that every life decides what (for it) seems most worth while, and to this ideal makes surrender of thought, desire, and effort. Is not God's gracious purpose evident, in that this is the time when life is most easily influenced?

(2) _Opportunity to develop self-reliance._ A life cannot count for God and for others unless it can make decisions and meet tests by itself. The power to do this comes only through effort to do it. During the Intermediate age, the young people may be more and more thrown upon their own resources, permitted to decide matters for themselves, learning wiser judgment through mistakes as well as successes. One of the most serious errors on the part of the teacher lies at this very point, dictating instead of suggesting, choosing for the pupil instead of allowing him to choose, thinking for him instead of stimulating every power of his soul to rise to a personal solution of the problem in hand. If strength and independence of character do not come in these years of adjustment, the probabilities are that life will always be weak and vacillating.

(3) _The opportunity to strengthen the altruistic feeling or "love for the other."_--In the broadening and deepening experience of adolescence such conceptions as love, suffering, sacrifice, and surrender reveal a new meaning and strange force of attraction. No opportunity comparable to the one presented in this awakening ever returns, as the soul, with life before it, stands at the divergence of the paths, one leading toward God and service, the other away from him into self, and deliberate, decisive choice to be made.

If through the influence of the Holy Spirit the pathway of service be chosen, two laws of God tend to make it permanent; (a) The law of growth and development. If the feelings have proper nourishment, _i. e._, something to arouse them, and are given expression in action, they will just as surely grow strong as a well-nourished, vigorous body, and obviously, the stronger the feelings of loving interest, the more assured is the life of service. (b) The law of habit. A feeling will become habitual if continually indulged and expressed, and it is during adolescence that habits are permanently fixed.

#27. Needs of the Intermediate Age.#--The needs of this period are of two sorts--important and imperative. It is exceedingly important that the pupil be treated with consideration, respect, and appreciation, that he be given good literature, that he be guarded and guided in his social life. It is imperative, however, that he be established in the right relation to God and to his neighbor at this time of new consciousness of these relationships. Four things will definitely further this supreme end:

(1) _The teacher with the vision of what may be done._ If he is not disobedient to the vision, it will lead him to close fellowship with God and the pupil, for two things are evident,--he cannot lead the pupil unless he is in sympathetic touch with him, nor can he lead him to any higher place than he himself occupies. If he be in vital relation with God and live with the pupil in his ambitions, discouragements, successes, temptations, the most dynamic external force that can operate in this period will be his to wield, namely, a spiritual personal influence.

(2) _Definite decisions._ The danger-point in this crisis lies in permitting these newly awakened feelings to be dissipated without decision and action. If this occurs they weaken, the impulse to take the right stand lessens, and irresolution finally becomes the tacit choice of the self-seeking life.

(3) _Definite responsibilities._ A life of service is made up of definite servings. The beauty and duty of loving sacrifice appeal to the emotions, but a concrete thing to be done calls the will into action. To every pupil should be given definite tasks both in the class itself and in the church, in order to arouse effort and make the thought of service habitual.

(4) _Definite objects of benevolence._ The teachers of the Intermediate age can almost determine when the world shall be given to Jesus Christ. At no time can a permanent interest in missionary enterprises and philanthropies at home be so easily launched as now if the subjects considered be concrete, enthusiastically presented on a basis of facts, and followed by definite response in gift, prayer, or service.

#28. Difficulties in the Intermediate Age.#

(1) Lack of mental balance and consequent instability of conduct.

(2) The fascination of the social world and the growing interest of each sex in the other.

(3) The half-way position between childhood and maturity which retains the immaturity of childhood, but feels the selfhood of the man.

(4) The attraction of the external rather than of intrinsic worth. In this is the key to many of the problems. What appears to advantage allures, even if it be not the best. This gives superficial standards of measuring people and things and easily opens the way to harmful influences at the critical time when ideals and life purposes are forming. The teacher himself is the most important factor in the solution of these problems, not by any attempt to force, but by a patient, suggestive, and inspiring touch upon the pupil's life.

#29. Results to be Expected.#--The pupil ought to leave this period in the right attitude toward God and toward his neighbor. To render this attitude strong and unchangeable is the work of the next period.

Test Questions

1. What is a keyword for the opportunities of the Intermediate Age? Explain its application.

2. Name three important opportunities of this age.

3. What serious error may the teacher commit in this period in impairing the pupil's self-reliance?

4. Name four needs of the Intermediate age.

5. What is the danger-point in bringing a pupil to definite decisions?

6. What great responsibility as to benevolences rests upon the teacher?

7. Name four difficulties of the Intermediate Age.

8. What results may be expected?

Lesson 9

The Senior Age--Sixteen to Maturity

#30. General Characteristics of the Senior Age.#--The Senior age includes the two periods technically known as middle adolescence, from about sixteen to eighteen, and later adolescence, from eighteen to full maturity, about twenty-four. Of these, the earlier period is the climax of the "tempest-tossed" years. The later period witnesses the final adjustment of the pupil to life and its problems. These years are marked by uncertainty because the pupil does not understand himself, by emotional upheaval connected with the development of the deeper feelings of the soul, and by a struggle between the old ideal of selfishness and the new ideal of service.

#31. Special Characteristics of the Senior Age.#

(1) _Continued development of the higher feelings._ The power of the soul to feel for others, appearing in the Intermediate age, has grown stronger if properly nurtured. In addition there comes a new love for the beauties of Nature and a reverence for her laws, a love of the arts and the great causes that men espouse. There is the thrill of awakening love between man and woman. Highest of all, the soul is now able to give response to the right simply because it is the right. Duty has real meaning and conviction becomes a motive power.

As the large vision of what life may be dawns upon the soul, unbounded enthusiasm and courage possess it. There are no heights too dizzy to be reached, no obstacles too difficult to overcome. But enthusiasm often alternates with depression and self-distrust, leading to indifference, apathy, or recklessness. This is the explanation of the vacillating conduct almost universal during the early part of this period.

A critical spirit toward others is common, as merciless scrutiny reveals how far the majority come from the high standards of life so newly appreciated. The frank openness of childhood has been succeeded by a tendency to shut the deeper thoughts and feelings away from others, and while there is an unspeakable longing to share problems and perplexities, the veil is not easily drawn aside.

(2) _The rapid development of the reasoning power of the mind._ This crowning expression of the intellectual power of the mind has not been wanting before, but it comes to full flower in this period. In the first delight of being able to see inner relationships, to argue, to relate cause and effect, reason is given the place of honor and everything must pass in review before it. This very often precipitates a conflict between reason and faith through failure to see that a thing is not necessarily opposed to reason even if it cannot be understood by reason; and a period of doubt in religious matters may ensue.