.THE TEENS 
 
 AND THE 
 
 WRAL SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 \ Edited by JOHN L. ALEXANDER 
 
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 Hate Qfolbge of ^Qtimltxxti 
 
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 ICibrarg 
 
Cornell University Library 
 LC 381.A37t 
 
 The teens and the rural Sunday school, b 
 
 3 1924 013 374 842 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013374842 
 
THE TEENS 
 
 AND THE 
 
 RURAL SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 Bimc THE Second Voluue or the Repoet o; the Coumission oh Adoij:scehcz 
 
 AOTBOEIZED BY THE SaN FILANCISCO CoNVEHTIOH OF THE iHtXK- 
 
 NATioNAi. Sunday Schooi. Association. 
 
 A Stusy of the Adolescent in Relation to the Rxtral Couuunity under 
 
 3,500 F0PI11.ATION AND in the Open Country. 
 
 BY THl COMMISSION FOR THE STUDY OF THE ADOLESCENT 
 IN THE COUNTRY SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 Edited by 
 
 JOHN L. ALEXANDER 
 
 International Sunday School Association 
 Secondary Division Superintendent 
 
 ^smtisLtvon tresis; 
 
 New Yobk: 124 East 28th Sthebt 
 London: 47 Patebnosteb Row, E.C. 
 
 1914 
 
Authorized by the International Sunday School Convention 
 at San Francisco, June, 1911, under the direction of the In- 
 ternational Secondary Division Committee. Edgar H. 
 Nichols, Chairman, Chicago, 111.; Frank L. Brown, Brooklyn, 
 N. Y.; Eugene C. Foster, Detroit, Mich.; Wm. C. Johnston, 
 Denver, Col. ; Wm. H. Danf orth, St. Louis, Mo. ; S. F. Shat- 
 tuck, Neenah, Wis.; R. A. Waite, New York, N. Y.; Mrs. 
 M. S. Lamoreaux, Chicago, 111.; Minnie E. Kennedy, Bir- 
 hiingham, Ala. ; Anna Branch Binf ord, Richmond, Va. ; Helen 
 Gill Lovett, Philadelphia, Pa.; John L. Alexander, Superin- 
 tendent; Marion Lawrance, General Secretary, and Fred A. 
 Wells, Chairman Executive Committee. 
 
 ■/■//',•? / 
 
 COPJUIGBI, igi4, BY 
 The iNTERNATIcfcAL COMMITTEI! 0» 
 
 YocNG Men's Chkisiian Assocutiohb 
 
 <g I 5846 
 
COMMISSION FOR THE STUDY OF THE 
 ADOLESCENT PERIOD 
 
 Edgar H. Nichols, General Chairman, 
 Chairman Secondary Division Committee, 
 International Sunday School Association. 
 
 Frank L. Brown, Secretary, 
 
 Superintendent Bushwick Avenue 
 
 Methodist Episcopal Sunday School, Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
 John L. Alexander, Editor, 
 
 Superintendent Secondary Division 
 
 International Sunday School Association. 
 
 ORGANIZATION OF COMMISSION 
 
 I The Individual. 
 
 II The Home. 
 
 III The Church. 
 
 IV The Sunday School. 
 V The Community. 
 
 VI The Adolescent in Relation to the 
 Country Sunday School. 
 
THE PERSONNEL OF THE COMMISSION 
 
 FOR THE STUDY OF THE ADOLESCENT 
 
 IN THE COUNTRY SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 KiNYON L. BuTTERFiELD, Ph.D., LL.D., Chairman, President 
 Massachusetts Agricultural College, Amherst, Mass.; 
 Vice-Chairman United States Rural Commission. 
 
 Albert K. Roberts, County Work Secretarjr, International 
 Committee Young Men's Christian Associations. 
 
 Pkof. G. Walter Fiske, Junior Dean, Oberlin Theological 
 Seminary. 
 
 Prof. G. A. Hubbell, President Lincoln Memorial University, 
 Cumberland Gap, Tenn. 
 
 Miss Eloise Snell, Teen Age Worker. 
 
 Miss Jessie Field, Rural Work Secretary, National Young 
 Women's Christian Associations. 
 
 Fred Washburn, Field Secretary Berrien County Sunday 
 School Association, Benton Harbor, Mich. 
 
 Paul S. Dietrich, Bible School Pastor, Lincoln, Neb. 
 
 Henry Yeigh, District Agent Colonization Department, Ca- 
 nadian Pacific Railroad Lands. 
 
 Ralph A. Felton, Specialist in Country Church Survey 
 Work. 
 
 Rev. Wileert L. Anderson, D.D., Pastor First Congrega- 
 tional Church, Amherst, Mass.; Author "The Country 
 Town." 
 
 Prof. G. A. Bricker, State University, Colutnbus, Ohio, Pro- 
 fessor of Agricultural Education. 
 
 Rev. Warren H. Wilson, Ph.D., Superintendent Rural Work, 
 
 Presbyterian Church, U. S. A. 
 Prof. T. N. Carver, Professor Department of Economics, 
 
 Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 Rev. E. W. Halpenny, General Secretary Ontario Sunday 
 
 School Association. 
 Rev. N. W. Stroup, District Superintendent M. E. Church and 
 
 Member of Country Church Commission, Cleveland, 
 
 Ohio. 
 
 iv 
 
Members of Commission V 
 
 Dr. William Goodel Frost, LL.D., President Berea College, 
 Berea, Tenn. 
 
 Rev. G. p. Williams, D.D., Secretary of Missions, American 
 Sunday School Union, Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Prof. George Frederick Wells, Research Secretary Federal 
 Council of the Churches of Christ in America. 
 
 Rev. Joseph Clark, D.D., General Secretary New York State 
 Sunday School Association. 
 
 Prof. Wm. A. McKeever, Professor University of Kansas. 
 
 PsoF. Ernest Burnham, Professor Rural Education, Kala- 
 mazoo, Mich. 
 
 Clark W. Hetherington, President Athletic Research So- 
 ciety; Director Physical Training, Wisconsin University. 
 
 Miss Anna Seaburg, Office Secretary National Board, Young 
 Women's Christian Associations, New York City. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I Historical and Explanatory .... i 
 John L. Alexander, Superintendent Second- 
 ary Division, International Sunday School As- 
 sociation, and Editor. 
 
 II The History and Method of the Com- 
 mission 3 
 
 Kenyon L. Butterfield, Ph.D., LL.D., Pres- 
 ident Massachusetts Agricultural College. 
 
 III Conditions Which Affect Adoles- 
 
 cence IN Rural Districts .... 7 
 Rev. Warren H. Wilson, Ph.D., Superin- 
 tendent Department of Church and Country 
 Life Presbyterian Board of Home Missions. 
 
 IV The Individual 23 
 
 Rev. Wilbert L. Anderson, D.D., Author of 
 "The Country Town." 
 
 V Leadership and the Rural Sunday 
 
 School S3 
 
 Rev. N. W. Stroup, District Superintendent 
 Methodist Episcopal Church and Member of 
 the Ohio Country Life Commission. 
 
 VI Teaching in the Rural Sunday 
 
 School 63 
 
 Professor G. Walter _ Fiske, Junior Dean, 
 Oberlin Theological Seminary. 
 
 Vll Teacher Training for the Country 
 
 Sunday School (t'j 
 
 Franklin McElfresh, Ph.D., International 
 Sunday School Association Teacher Training 
 Superintendent. 
 
 vii 
 
viii Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PACE 
 
 VIII Cooperative Activities 75 
 
 Wm. a. McKeever, Professor University of 
 Kansas. 
 
 IX The Rural Sunday School Organized 
 
 FOR Adolescent Development ... 87 
 Rev. Joseph Clark, D.D., General Secretary 
 New York State Sunday School Association. 
 
 X Summary and Conclusions of the 
 Adolescence Commission for the 
 
 Rural Sunday School 109 
 
 Kenyon L. Butteefield, Ph.D., LL.D., Pres- 
 ident Massachusetts Agricultural College. 
 
 XI Squared for Work 143 
 
 John L. Alexander, Editor; Superintend- 
 ent Secondary Division International Sunday 
 School Association. 
 
 XII Bibliographies 149 
 
The Teens and the Rural 
 Sunday School 
 
 Chapter I 
 HISTORICAL AND EXPLANATORY 
 
 In September, nineteen hundred and eleven, the 
 Commission on the Adolescent was organized in 
 Chicago, with E. H. Nichols and Frank L. Brown 
 as Chairman and Secretary. This Commission had 
 been authorized by the International Convention, 
 the source of authority of the International Sunday 
 School Association, in the preceding June at San 
 Francisco. The Commission divided itself into six 
 parts for careful study: The Individual, The Home, 
 The Church, The Sunday School, The Community, 
 and The Country Sunday School. The first five 
 reported in the spring of 1913, and the report was 
 published under the title, "The Sunday School and 
 the Teens." * The report of the sixth sub-commis- 
 sion comprises the present volume, it being deemed 
 best to keep the city and rural problems apart. 
 
 Dr. Kenyon L. Butterfield, President of Massa- 
 chusetts Agricultural College and Vice-Chairman 
 of the United States Rural Life Commission, has 
 
 • Association Press, New York City. 
 
 I 
 
2 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 directed the investigation and findings of this re- 
 port. The personnel of the Commission is given on 
 another page, and it is mere justice to say that the 
 work of this group of men and women has not only 
 been scientific in its approach, but thorough in its 
 method and completion. It is no reflection on the 
 work of the commissions reporting in "The Sunday 
 School and the Teens" to say that the Rural Com- 
 mission, by painstaking effort in repeated meetings, 
 has gone far beyond any similar Sunday school 
 group in the manner and method of their work. 
 This present volume should be both a guide and a 
 challenge to all those who would understand and 
 lead in rural Sunday school work. The Rural Com- 
 mission has had a free hand in its investigation and 
 conclusions, and this book is the exact findings of 
 the Commission. The name of the writer of each 
 chapter — not necessarily the author — may be seen 
 in the Contents. 
 
Chapter II 
 
 THE HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE 
 COMMISSION 
 
 The Commission for the Study of the Adolescent 
 in Relation to the Country Sunday School was or- 
 ganized under the auspices of the International 
 Sunday School Association and under the immedi- 
 ate direction of Frank L. Brown, directly represent- 
 ing the Association. The first meeting was held in 
 New York December 7, 191 1. At that meeting Mr. 
 Brown stated that it was the purpose of the com- 
 mittee to investigate every side of the relationship 
 of young people to the home, the Church, the Sun- 
 day school, and the community, and if possible re- 
 port a plan that would save the waste caused by so 
 many young people, particularly between the ages 
 of fifteen and twenty, leaving the Sunday school. 
 At that meeting letters were sent to members of the 
 commission, asking them to submit questions for 
 discussion. 
 
 The next full meeting of the commission was held 
 in Cleveland, Ohio, January 15 and 16, 1912. The 
 secretary presented a report showing the compila- 
 tion of questions that had been presented by mem- 
 bers of the commission, and it was voted to define 
 the purpose of the commission as follows : 
 
 3 
 
4 The Teens and the Rural Swnday School 
 
 "How may the Sunday school efficiently serve the 
 development of the country boy and girl in the 
 adolescent period?" 
 
 There was a full discussion of methods of work 
 to be undertaken, as well as on the general char- 
 acter of the enterprise. It was voted to confine the 
 work of the commission to communities having a 
 population of 2,500 and less and, so far as possible, 
 to make a division in this field as between villages 
 and the open country. The commission was divided 
 into six sub-commissions and an Executive Commit- 
 tee. The list of members of these sub-commissions 
 is appended. 
 
 I The Individual: 
 
 Dr. W. L. Anderson, Chairman. 
 Dr. George A. Hubbell. 
 Miss Anna Seaburg. 
 
 II Sunday School Organization : 
 Dr. Joseph Clark, 'Chairman. 
 Miss Eloise Snell. 
 Dr. W. G. Frost. 
 Dr. G. P. Williams. 
 Ralph A. Felton. 
 Fred Washburn. 
 
 Ill Cooperative Activities : 
 
 Prof. W. A. McKeever, Chairman. 
 Miss Jessie Field. 
 E. W. Halpenny. 
 
The History and Methods of the Commission 5 
 
 Prof. Ernest Burnham. 
 Prof. Clark W. Hetherington. 
 
 IV Leadership : 
 
 Rev. N. W. Stroup, Chairman. 
 Henry Yeigh. 
 Prof. G. A. Bricker. 
 
 y Teaching : 
 
 Prof. G. Walter Fiske, Chairnum. 
 Dr. Warren H. Wilson. 
 Dr. T. N. Carver. 
 Paul S. Dietrich. 
 
 VI Survey : 
 
 Dr. Warren H. Wilson, Chairman. 
 
 Ralph A. Felton. 
 
 Albert E. Roberts. 
 
 Rev. George Frederick Wells. 
 
 VII Executive Committee: 
 Dr. K. L. Butterfield. 
 Albert E. Roberts. 
 Dr. W. L. Anderson. 
 
 At a full meeting of the commission, held in 
 Cleveland, Ohio, March ii, 1913, each sub-commis- 
 sion reported in writing through its chairman. Each 
 report was gone over by the whole commission, 
 changes suggested, and the report approved. These 
 reports appear in the body of the report, and have 
 also been summarized in order that the reader may 
 have, in brief space, access to the material gathered 
 
6 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 by this commission. The Executive Committee also 
 has made a report based in part upon reports of 
 sub-commissions and designed principally to sum- 
 marize the question from the large, general point 
 of view. 
 
Chapter III 
 
 CONDITIONS WHICH AFFECT ADOLES- 
 CENTS IN RURAL DISTRICTS 
 
 What are the existing conditions in rural districts 
 which affect adolescents? The Department of 
 Church and Country Life of the Presbyterian Board 
 of Home Missions has directed Surveys in rural 
 districts in the States of Illinois, Pennsylvania, Mis- 
 souri, Indiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Maryland, and 
 Ohio. The investigators employed have gathered 
 their facts by a personal study of the field, one man 
 spending two or three months in each county. Over 
 sixty counties have been covered. These studies 
 were intended to deal with the entire country life 
 question without special attention to adolescents. 
 Some of the information collected which has to do 
 with adolescents furnishes the data for this paper. 
 No pretense is made that the results are complete, 
 that is, as affecting the entire country, though they 
 present the facts affecting the communities studied. 
 It seems advisable to have such a survey made 
 dealing exclusively with adolescents. We would 
 recommend it to be made by personal study instead 
 of by the questionnaire method. 
 
 Economic Conditions. — The price of farm prop- 
 
 7 
 
8 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 erty in the United States has increased 100.5 per 
 cent from the years 1900 to 1910 (U. S. Census Re- 
 ports). This has made it more difficult for young 
 people to get land of their own, the result of which 
 has been to accelerate their going to the city. The 
 increase in the urban population from 1900 to 1910 
 was 34.8 per cent, while the rural population has 
 increased only 11.2 per cent. If the villages were 
 deducted from the rural population in the majority 
 of the states there would be a decrease. Young 
 people generally do not leave the farm for the city 
 until they are ready to "settle down," at which time 
 they find from an economic standpoint that it is 
 easier to get started in the city. This is illustrated 
 by the following table from the United States Cen- 
 sus of 1910: 
 
 Age Period Percentage of Total Population 
 
 Urban Rural 
 
 All ages 100.0 100.0 
 
 Under 5 years 9.9 13.0 
 
 5 to 9 years 8.9 12.1 
 
 10 to 14 years 8.5 11.1 
 
 IS to 19 years 9.4 10.3 
 
 20 to 24 years 10.7 9.1 
 
 25 to 29 years 10.2 7.8 
 
 30 to 34 years 8.7 6.6 
 
 35 to 44 years 14.4 11.2 
 
 45 to 54 years 9.8 8.5 
 
 55 to 64 years 5.4 5.6 
 
 65 years and over 4.0 4.6 
 
 Another effect of the sudden increase in the price 
 of farm property has been to increase the propor- 
 tion of tenants. This rapid increase in tenantry has 
 had a deteriorating effect on social institutions in 
 the country, due to the low income and the tempo- 
 
Conditions m Rural Districts 9 
 
 rary residence of the population. For example, in 
 Butler County, Ohio, where 42 per cent of the 
 farmer population were tenants, only 22 per cent of 
 the church members were tenants. In Sullivan 
 County, Missouri, in forty-five families studied it 
 was found that only 10 per cent of the hired men 
 and 28 per cent of the tenants attended church one- 
 half of the time or more, while the proportion of 
 farmers owning sixty acres of land and over who 
 attended half the time or more ranged from 40 to 
 S3 per cent. The same facts were revealed in Ten- 
 nessee. Practically the same conditions regarding 
 church membership and attendance in relation to 
 land ownership was shown in Ohio as in Missouri. 
 The proportion of tenants enrolled in churches was 
 lower than that of the owner's group of the small- 
 est-sized farms. 
 
 It is very encouraging to study the incomes of 
 the sticcessful farmers. Such a study convinces us 
 that farming can be made one of the most paying, 
 as well as one of the most enjoyable, occupations. 
 Not all farmers, unfortunately, are well trained and 
 successful, but we believe it is the duty of country 
 churches and Sunday schools to develop better 
 farmers and thus to strengthen the efficiency of the 
 country church and Sunday school. 
 
 Though the income of farmers is large in some 
 instances, the average is smaller than is generally 
 supposed. This low income is due, among other 
 things, to the necessity of a large investment, owing 
 to the high price of land; to unscientific methods of 
 farming, due, in part, to the influence of the city on 
 
lO The Teens and the Rural Swnday School 
 
 our rural education and religion; and to the profits 
 of a succession of middlemen made possible by in- 
 creased organization in the city and the lack of co- 
 operation in the country, due to the increasing lack 
 of leaders found there and the failure to recognize 
 what leaders there are. 
 
 Regarding the profits of middlemen. President 
 Dabney of the University of Cincinnati is respon- 
 sible for the statement that for every dollar which 
 the consumer pays for the farmer's produce only 35 
 cents gets back to the farmer. 
 
 In view of these economic changes it is evident 
 that there is needed better methods of farming and 
 more cooperation among farmers. A new emphasis 
 by the Sunday school on the teachings of the Bible 
 which deal with farm life and the religion of the 
 farmer will undoubtedly greatly influence country 
 boys to love the life on the farm, and to point them 
 toward educational institutions which will better 
 equip them for successful farm life. 
 
 When the Israelites crossed the Jordan, leaving 
 their nomadic life to become farmers, the only mo- 
 tive which was strong enough to overcome their 
 newly developing individualism and make them co- 
 operate against oppression was the religious motive, 
 and as the leaders in their cooperation came from a 
 threshing floor or a palm tree in their midst so must 
 the leaders of the American farmer be raised up 
 from the farm, not imported. It is generally agreed 
 that nothing is more needed in the country than 
 leaders, and no institution has a greater opportunity 
 for the developing of leaders than the rural Sunday 
 
Conditions in Rural Districts n 
 
 school, for it is the only democratic institution 
 found there in which all the family come together 
 regularly. Its meetings come regularly, while 
 preaching services in the country would not aver- 
 age twice a month. 
 
 In Gibson County, Tenn., in the 82 country 
 churches, none have preaching every Sunday, only 
 two have it half the time, 74 one-fourth of the time, 
 and the remainder less often. The Sunday school 
 gives an opportunity for self-expression to all, and 
 it deals with the members of the family while in 
 their impressionable age. For the rural Sunday 
 school to develop the much needed leadership it 
 must look toward the organization of all classes, 
 beginning with the intermediates, with a definite 
 program and the substitution of open discussion in 
 class for the lecture and moralizing method. 
 
 Educational Conditions. — It is generally under- 
 stood that country people do not have educational 
 advantages equal to the people in the city. From 
 the report of the Commissioner of Education (1909, 
 Chapter XVI, U. S. Bureau of Education) we learn 
 that the average total expenditure on the education 
 of the city pupil for one year is $32.28 ; of the coun- 
 try pupil $16.52. These figures are somewhat mis- 
 leading, as they include interest on investment in 
 land and buildings which are more expensive in the 
 city, the advantages of which may not be so super- 
 ior. Yet this report includes in the country classifi- 
 cation all villages under 4,000 population. Deducting 
 these villages, the facts reveal the true condition of 
 the education of the farmer's children. In Gibson 
 
12 The Teens and the Rural Sumday School 
 
 County, Tenn., the per capita cost of tuition for the 
 country pupil was found to be $5.77 per year; for 
 the pupil in the village $10.00. In Webster County, 
 Kentucky, a rural county, the average annual cost 
 for teaching each white pupil was found to be $5.89. 
 
 This discrimination shows itself in the length of 
 term, in the material equipment, and in the prep- 
 aration of the teachers. The average length of 
 term in the country schools in the three counties in 
 Indiana (Daviess, Boone, and Marshall) which we 
 studied was 6 7/12 months, while in the villages of 
 the same coiinties it was 8 4/7 months. Only five 
 schools in Webster County, Kentucky, have more 
 than a six-months' term. The average salary of 
 country teachers in Gibson County, Tenn., is $45.50 
 per month; of village and city teachers is $52.00. 
 In the three Indiana counties the country teachers 
 average $2.63 per day; the village teachers $3.21. 
 The country schools were similarly lacking in ma- 
 terial equipment. 
 
 If the function of the school is to train pupils for 
 the environment in which they are to live it is gen- 
 erally agreed that country boys should be taught 
 agriculture. In the three Indiana counties there 
 was one country school teaching agriculture and 
 none in the Missouri counties. Ohio and several 
 other states have recently passed a law making 
 provision for agriculture to be taught in all schools. 
 
 The improvement of the country schools rests 
 largely with each community. The greatest im- 
 provement in country schools at the present time is 
 coming through consolidation. This solves the 
 
Conditions in Rural Districts 13 
 
 problem of material equipment and better teachers, 
 and does much toward developing the community 
 spirit. 
 
 In a study made in Tennessee it was found that 
 country girls receive a higher education than the 
 country boys. Fifty-two per cent of the girls went 
 through the eighth grade, or beyond, as against 33.5 
 per cent of the boys. This difference in education 
 seems to make the girls either unwilling or unfit 
 to become wives of the boys with whom they have 
 grown up. Out of two hundred country boys be- 
 tween twenty and thirty years old we find that 
 72.5 per cent of them have become farmers, while 
 of the girls who grew up in the same community 
 and are of the same age only 54.1 per cent of them 
 have become farmers' wives. Thirteen and two- 
 tenths per cent are wives of men in other occupa- 
 tions, 1.9 per cent are students, 1.2 per cent are 
 clerks in stores, 5.7 per cent are teaching, and 23.9 
 per cent are at home. (The average age when girls 
 get married in this community is 20 years.) 
 
 This same intensive study showed that the boys 
 who left the farm were those with the poorest and 
 with the best education, while those with the aver- 
 age education remained. Only 11 per cent of the 
 boys who have stayed on the farm have gone be- 
 yond the eighth grade. On the other hand, 30 per 
 cent of those who left the farm did not go beyond 
 the fifth grade, while only 28 per cent of those who 
 remained did not go beyond this grade. Sixty-one 
 per cent of those who remained on the farm belong 
 in this middle class, that is, those who dropped out 
 
14 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 somewhere between the fifth and eighth grades, 
 while only 30 per cent of those who left fall in this 
 same class. 
 
 From this it appears that the rural districts are 
 losing their best and their poorest, thus developing 
 a dead-level type in which leaders are scarce and 
 with little inclination to follow what leaders there 
 are. The poor leave probably because they cannot 
 get started. The best leave because their education 
 has made them dislike farming. 
 
 Social Conditions. — We leave to the psycholo- 
 gists the question of the isolated country districts 
 developing different characteristics in adolescents 
 than the congested city. We are certain, however, 
 that the opportunities afforded by country institu- 
 tions for meeting those characteristics which are 
 developed dififer greatly from those afforded by the 
 city. Instruction in hygiene, which the physical de- 
 velopment of the early teens demands, is not pro- 
 vided for in the country. In this same period of 
 rapid physical growth and activity, when hero stud- 
 ies taught by young teachers are needed to meet the 
 spiritual demands, we find in most country Sunday 
 schools the young adolescents are taught by an 
 elderly person "who can keep a strong hand on 
 them," and who is using the uniform lessons because 
 they claim the graded lessons, with their present 
 minute divisions, are not adapted to such small 
 schools. The personal religious devotion of many 
 of these teachers to their pupils does much to over- 
 come the defects in the system. 
 
 The sense of independence which comes in the 
 
Conditions in Rural Districts IS 
 
 late teens is more marked in the country than in the 
 city, especially so in boys. The girls work and 
 plan and share each day's experience with their 
 mothers. The boys are alone with a team in the 
 field many working days. This independence is 
 shown by the way they indiscriminately claim 
 things on the farm, such as colts and calves. Some 
 farmers happily meet this desire of their sons by 
 giving them the returns from one of the fields or 
 perhaps a share in the live stock. Unfortunately 
 most country boys meet with continual disappoint- 
 ment in their attempt at ownership, and again and 
 again comes to them the thought, "Father, give me 
 the portion of goods that falleth to me." 
 
 While the city boy demands many organizations 
 and many writers advocate the same for the coun- 
 try, the studies which we have made so far do not 
 indicate the need of many separate organizations. 
 Unless the leaders are exceptional most of these 
 separate organizations are not successful. This lack 
 of success may be due to the fact that most or- 
 ganizations come from the city. It may be due to 
 the unsocializing influence of country life. We are 
 led to believe after studying the organizations of 
 several hundred churches that there are far too 
 many separate church organizations in the country 
 now. It is difficult for separate organizations to 
 succeed in the country churches. The people feel 
 they should have them, yet most of these organiza- 
 tions are in a temporary state of existence. While 
 the Survey was being made in the 211 Indiana 
 churches 4' per cent of the country churches had 
 
l6 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 men's Brotherhoods, 25 per cent had Ladies' Aid 
 Societies, 8 per cent had Ladies' Missionary Soci- 
 eties, and 12 per cent had other young people's or- 
 ganizations. 
 
 What the young people in the late teens need in- 
 stead is a publicly recognized and independent share 
 in the ordinary work. We need fewer separate or- 
 ganizations, but a share for the young people in 
 existing organizations. Young men would much 
 prefer to be given a chance to take care of the 
 church property or repair the church building, build 
 the hitch racks, plant the trees and mow the weeds 
 on the church grounds than to work at home while 
 their fathers do it. Their much developed spirit of 
 independence makes them prefer a share in the 
 church's work to its prayers and solicitations for 
 their soul's welfare. 
 
 If there is a successful Grange or other agricul- 
 tural organization in the community, why not have 
 a young people's branch or special nights for the 
 young, instead of making so many new clubs which 
 die with the seasons? Instead of having half a dozen 
 missionary and temperance organizations, why not 
 have a missionary and temperance committee in the 
 organized Sunday school class? Instead of leaving 
 the athletic and social interests of the young people 
 to the sporadic efforts of some envied "leader," why 
 not have an athletic and social committee a part of 
 some already existing institution, which institution 
 is permanently located in the country? 
 
 In the late teens the anti-girl idea gives way to 
 courting. In asking the reason for the discontinu- 
 
Conditions in Rural Districts I7 
 
 ance of some young people's organizations in coun- 
 try churches we are often told that "it got to be 
 nothing but a courtin' institution, so we stopped it." 
 Dancing is the most successful "courtin' institution" 
 yet invented for rural young people. It brings them 
 together entirely apart from the old folks, and it 
 furnishes an activity which makes them forget their 
 feeling of clumsiness when they are together. 
 
 Country churches universally condemn dancing, 
 yet in many communities it is the only popular in- 
 stitution found among rural country folk. In many 
 cases it is the only typical young people's institu- 
 tion. Our limited study indicates that the control 
 of the social life of the people in the late teens rests 
 with the church, the Sunday school, or any other 
 institution which will provide for the healthy com- 
 mingling of the young men and the young women, 
 and will treat domestic life problems from a natural 
 standpoint. 
 
 In one county in Indiana where we made a special 
 study of the relation of the church to social life we 
 found that of those churches furnishing social life 
 59 per cent were not only maintaining themselves, 
 but were growing, while only 20 per cent of the 
 churches not furnishing it were growing. But in 
 two of the Indiana counties only one-fifth of the 
 country churches had more than one social event 
 per year. In the three Indiana counties, Boone 
 County ranks first, Daviess second, and Marshall 
 third, in the proportion of population enrolled as 
 church members. The order is the same for the 
 proportion of social life furnished by the church. 
 
1 8 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 The order is reversed for the proportion of social 
 life furnished by commercial agencies. In totaling 
 the results in the three counties we calculated that 
 only 29 per cent of the social life found in the com- 
 munity is furnished by the church. Forty-six per 
 cent of the social life provided by the church (except 
 Sunday school picnics) is furnished for pay. The 
 church has not conceived the notion of spending 
 money for social affairs. Only one-third of a cent 
 in every dollar of the church's money is spent in 
 providing social life. 
 
 With regard to the church and social life the 
 country churches are on the defensive. They gen- 
 erally do little more than condemn it, yet only 8 
 per cent were found to be opposed to all kinds of 
 social life. Instead of being told to "provide social 
 life" they need a program as to '!hgHLiQ_B rovide i t." 
 This is easily arranged if there is a resident min- 
 ister, but in nineteen counties in Ohio only 6 per 
 cent of the country churches had resident ministers. 
 Until this situation is changed the Sunday school 
 must do much in this line. In a study of over a 
 thousand Sunday schools we have been convinced 
 that the local Sunday school officers are as thor- 
 oughly agreed that there is a dearth of social life 
 in their community, and that they are as badly in 
 need of it, as are the "rural experts" who compose 
 church and Sunday school commissions. The ques- 
 tion the Sunday school people continually ask is, 
 "How shall we do it?" If a little pamphlet were 
 furnished the Sunday school officers telling them 
 just how to conduct a Field Meet for the boys, de- 
 
Conditions m Rural Districts 19 
 
 scribing each event and giving simplified rules for 
 the same, it would meet a real need. If a suggestive 
 social program could be worked out for these com- 
 munities they would welcome it. Such a program 
 would need to smack of the soil, however. The 
 words of a young Indiana farmer illustrate a gen- 
 eral condition, "The last dance we had in this com- 
 munity was seventeen years ago, the last church 
 social two years ago, the last Sunday school social 
 a year ago, but what can we do about it ?" If recre- 
 ation offers an opportunity for developing self-ex- 
 pression, for teaching morals, and for training the 
 young for their place in the Kingdom of God on the 
 earth, surely a great chance has now come for re- 
 ligious people in the rural districts. 
 
 Religious Conditions. — Having used the word 
 church to designate the congregation, both worship- 
 ing and studying, we now must limit our discussion 
 of religious conditions to the relationship which the 
 Sunday school bears to them. The best country 
 Sunday schools are those which report at county 
 conventions, and the best counties are represented 
 at state gatherings. From such we are apt to get 
 our impressions. No one ever goes to a convention 
 or a committee meeting to make a report for the 
 boys and girls not in the Sunday school. 
 
 In Gibson County, Tenn., we found that 60 per 
 cent of the children of school age were not in the 
 Sunday school. The country Stmday schools were 
 much weaker than those in the villages. More than 
 five-sevenths of the children in the villages are in 
 the Sunday school; in the country less than one- 
 
20 The Teem avd the Rural Sunday School 
 
 fourth. In Boone and Marshall Counties, Indiana, 
 where the Sunday schools are far above the average, 
 two out of every five of all the children in the teen 
 ages are not enrolled in the Sunday school. 
 
 There are 7,250,000 people in the rural districts of 
 the United States in these ages. If the Sunday 
 schools throughout the country could suddenly be- 
 come as efficient as these Indiana schools there 
 would still be nearly three million adolescents in 
 the rural districts who are not enrolled in any Sun- 
 day school. 
 
 Important as the adolescent problem is to these 
 country churches, we find that in Indiana only 3 
 cents out of every dollar of the church's money is 
 spent on the religious education of the young people 
 in the teen ages. Only 9 per cent of the country 
 churches have more than one room, yet denomina- 
 tionalism has built many extra buildings. If, in-, 
 stead of building thirty-three new church buildings \ 
 in Gibson County, Tenn., in the next ten years, as ' 
 they have done in the last ten, with little increase in 
 the population, they should spend this amount in 
 building extra rooms on the churches now standing, 
 which rooms could be used for the religious educa- 
 tion of the adolescent pupils in the Sunday schools, 
 the results would be interesting. 
 
 The importance of the work with adolescents is 
 shown in a study of those who joined the churches 
 in the three Indiana counties during one year by 
 profession of faith. Out of the 551 people half were 
 under 16 years of age and 75 per cent were under 
 24. Not only is the question of joining the church 
 
Conditions m Rural Districts 21 
 
 settled in the adolescent years, but the so-called 
 "Men and Religion" problem is largely accounted 
 for during these years. In 211 Indiana churches we 
 found that 40 1-3 per cent of all church members 
 were males, and 39.2 per cent of all church members 
 under the age of 21 were males. The proportion of 
 males in the churches is settled before the members 
 reach the age of 21. In 173 churches in Marshall 
 and Boone counties 46 have no young men in them 
 under 21 years of age. This losing of the young 
 men on the part of the church seems a somewhat 
 recent development in Tennessee. Here 72 per cent 
 of the heads of families were church members, 75 
 per cent of the females between the ages of 20 and 
 30, while only 45 per cent of the males between 
 those ages are church members. These cold figures 
 certainly call loudly for active interest and sympa- 
 thetic prayers. 
 
Chapter IV 
 THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 The Committee on the Individual appointed by 
 the Commission for the Study of the Adolescent 
 Period as Related to the Country Sunday School 
 was asked to answer two questions : How do coun- 
 try boys and girls differ from city boys and girls? 
 What are the causes of such differences? We are 
 charged with an investigation to discover facts 
 rather than the construction of a program, but our 
 conclusions cannot be separated from practical sug- 
 gestions, which we submit to the Executive Com- 
 mittee for final action. 
 
 It will be convenient to begin with a survey of 
 the possible causes of peculiar characteristics in 
 country boys and girls. 
 
 Formative Rural Influences 
 
 Any study of character must make large use of 
 heredity. Country boys and girls are what they 
 are because they are the children of country fathers 
 and mothers. The rural line is rarely broken. In 
 the city there is a double ancestry; some of the 
 children having an urban ancestry for many genera- 
 tions, others being born of parents recently trans- 
 
 23 
 
24 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 planted to the city, and others still combining the 
 two strains. In the country heredity tends to ac- 
 centuate the rural type. If a rural peculiarity is 
 developed it will be perpetuated and intensified ; it 
 will not be leveled and dissipated as in the city. 
 Urban character, so far as it results from inherited 
 qualities, will be more fully standardized; rural 
 character will be peculiar, inelastic, tough-fibered — 
 in a word, rustic. 
 
 It should not be forgotten that country children 
 have an unbroken line of descent through countless 
 generations of rural folk reaching back to the Gar- 
 den of Eden. Country people are the typical human 
 species, urban folk being a late and local variation. 
 Cities are exceptional, and, in their present magni- 
 tude, modern. The urban type, therefore, is less 
 deeply rooted; it is more plastic. Human nature, 
 as a product of ages, is found in the country. We 
 cannot follow out the implications of this evident 
 fact; suffice it to say that we may look for a rural 
 character of some definiteness, showing consider- 
 able tenacity, and retaining a kind of consistency in 
 many locations and periods. Here, at least, is a 
 foundation for rural conservatism. 
 
 The city has received great accessions from the 
 country ; the people who have removed from city to 
 country are negligible. What is known as the rural 
 exodus is a most striking social phenomenon. It 
 has wrought serious changes in the rural population. 
 More than a process of subtraction is involved. If 
 three hundred people in a community of one thou- 
 sand go elsewhere they take with them their char- 
 
The Individual 25 
 
 acters, and they leave behind their old neighbors 
 with their peculiarities. The average rural com- 
 munity has lost its people in about this proportion, 
 exceptional communities being reported whose 
 losses aggregate six hundred, or even eight hundred 
 in one thousand. Mere subtraction of qualities 
 would be alarming, for it is probable that the vigor- 
 ous, the ambitious, the daring are chosen for re- 
 moval ; but the change in rural character is really to 
 be figured out as a complex problem in biology. 
 This is a case of selective breeding. Had the pop- 
 ulation remained intact marriage would have unified 
 its strata and heredity would have carried the whole 
 mass of qualities to new generations. To perpetu- 
 ate a species from a part must change its type. 
 How far the present generation of boys and girls is 
 modified by this selective process it is impossible to 
 say. Assuming that those approximating the urban 
 type go to the city, those who remain tend to de- 
 velop a more distinct rural type. It is fair to sup- 
 pose that this selection tends to make the country 
 boys and girls, as we find them to-day, as a whole 
 somewhat lacking in energy, alertness, initiative, 
 and vivacity. 
 
 This conclusion is modified by at least four con- 
 siderations. Economic pressure has forced out of 
 the rural community great numbers of inferior per- 
 sons, as well as many of the superior sort. The 
 invasion of the foreigner adds new blood, and, it 
 must be acknowledged, ordinarily new habits of in- 
 dustry, frugality, and primitive efficiency. Frontier 
 communities assemble aggressive, restless, and com- 
 
26 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 petent settlers, being established from seed sifted 
 out of the older rural sections. Selection itself may- 
 be overborne by influences of the times which lift 
 otherwise sinking populations. 
 
 The degree of isolation is important in the devel- 
 opment of rural character. Isolation in itself is not 
 an influence ; it is only the description of conditions 
 which exert positive influence, or of conditions that 
 bar out positive influences. An isolated community 
 or family is subjected to the forces of the local en- 
 vironment, and is cut off from the influences of a 
 larger world. The result of isolation is an accentua- 
 tion of the rural type as contrasted with the stand- 
 ardizes type of the city. There is also a tendency 
 in isolated persons to diversify the rural type by 
 response to a great variety of local conditions. 
 There seems to be a possibility of preserving, per- 
 haps of originating, more human variants, filling the 
 whole range between queerness and genius, where 
 individuals are protected by isolation. In modern 
 conditions isolation need not be harmful, although 
 it is still a serious disadvantage in many localities. 
 It protects some good qualities, but on the whole it 
 tends to arrest progress. 
 
 Of a different sort from the contribution of hered- 
 ity and selection and isolation to rural character is 
 the influence of nature. This is positive and im- 
 mediate. It acts to the end of life, but it affects 
 the development of adolescence. The country has 
 an environment of nature ; the city is artificial, con- 
 ventional, human. To be born and bred in the coun- 
 try gives a closeness of contact with nature which 
 
The Individual 2y 
 
 must have large results. Nature is a stubborn op- 
 ponent, and she teaches by harsh lessons. She 
 meets man with rock and soil that resist the 
 plough. She is pitiless with her exactions, ruthless 
 in hurling her predatory hosts upon the farmer's 
 crops, inexorable when she decrees frost or 
 drought or storm. Whoever will conquer her must 
 be resourceful, alert, active. The arbitrariness of 
 nature excites resentment at times, but on the whole 
 it is a most effective discipline. 
 
 Incalculable as nature is in her combinations and 
 caprices, she is orderly in her own intricate way, 
 and all her performances are accordant with law. 
 She challenges to find out her laws, and she prom- 
 ises rich rewards to such as will submissively obey. 
 She trains to a perception of cause and effect, and 
 she compels the payment of a fixed price. She will 
 allow no cheating; she gives no encouragement to 
 smartness. It is not easy to strike the balance be- 
 tween country and city. In the city the contriv- 
 ances and institutions of men are easily comprehen- 
 sible, so that there is less of baffling mystery; but, 
 on the other hand, what men contrive and establish 
 allows rich profits to dishonesty and gives to the 
 tricky rare opportunity. We shall not err if we at- 
 tribute to nature a powerful influence for the vir- 
 tues that make men solid, trustworthy, and effective. 
 And then we must add that many of her laws are so 
 secret that only highly trained men can make head- 
 way against her seeming caprices. All this makes 
 character, and country boys and girls are devel- 
 oped by this experience. This influence of nature 
 
28 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 goes far to explain that inexhaustible procession of 
 youth from the country, emerging from obscurity 
 in the old-time vigor and advancing to the leader- 
 ship of cities with familiar mastery. 
 
 Nature is beautiful. Some sense of wonder and 
 joy is awakened in country children, who feel what 
 they do not understand and cannot express. Boys 
 and girls might observe more, appreciate more. 
 Nature waits for a generation of lovers who will 
 frankly confess their devotion. The coming age will 
 break the stolidity of the rural habit and drive out 
 shame for honest emotion. Here is opportunity 
 for boundless improvement, but can any one affirm 
 that nature has offered her charm to those who live 
 nearest her without effect? 
 
 Nature inspires reverence. She makes the appeal 
 of authority, but she does it worthily. Those who 
 have richest experience come to feel that nature is 
 divine, being the manifestation of a personal pres- 
 ence and the expression of a real providence. De- 
 pendent for daily and hourly favor, country people 
 are deeply religious. God is near and accessible for 
 the trusting heart. 
 
 The influence of nature is, perhaps, the strongest 
 of the many forces of the rural environment. Per- 
 sonal forces in the country are very effective. The 
 imitative boy or girl has closest contact with a few 
 older persons. The character of these is vividly 
 conceived, and distinct and sharp individuality cuts 
 into plastic adolescence like a die. And there are 
 also evil characters that spread sin like a contagion 
 in the country. These may be massed in groups or 
 
The Individual 29 
 
 gangs, which are less counteracted than in the city, 
 offering, it may be, the only jolly fellowship. So- 
 cial institutions work differently in the country; 
 they are less highly organized and less command- 
 ing. They are at once feebler and stronger — feebler 
 because of slender resources, stronger because of 
 closeness of personal contact. At least the impact 
 of social forces is different in city and country. The 
 total influence tends to differentiate the rural and 
 urban type. 
 
 Heredity, selection, the degree of isolation, the 
 influence of nature, the personal and social forces of 
 the environment conspire to prodvice a rural type of 
 character that is clearly distinguishable from the 
 urban type, and this difference must inevitably ap- 
 pear in the adolescent period. Add the fact that in 
 the country a single vocation molds the whole popu- 
 lation, yielding development, exciting discontent, in- 
 spiring attitudes and interests by its own character 
 and fortune. In the general pursuit of agriculture 
 there is a ruling condition such as the city does not 
 possess. Whether they love it or hate it the farm 
 is a portentous fact in the experience of country 
 boys and girls. 
 
 We are convinced by such facts as this survey 
 inadequately summarizes that the individual with 
 which the Sunday school deals has traits and ten- 
 dencies that compel a wise pedagogy to take note 
 of them. It is not expedient to standardize methods 
 for all schools. A commission for the special study 
 of the rural field is justifiable, not only because or- 
 
30 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 ganization and procedure are determined by the 
 smallness of the Sunday school, but also because 
 the material out of which the Sunday school is 
 built differs in country and city. 
 
 We accept the statement of one of our corre- 
 spondents: "There are so many phases of rural life 
 which have determined the peculiar trend of the 
 rural mind that the psychology of the country boy 
 and girl is a study by itself." And we approve also 
 the limitation urged by another correspondent: 
 "There is more difference between different indi- 
 viduals than can be assumed to exist between the 
 city children as a whole, on one hand, and country 
 children as a whole, on the other." We do not be- 
 lieve that country boys and girls are so deeply 
 stamped with rural characters that if they remove 
 to the city they cannot ordinarily take on the urban 
 traits. We do not suggest any finality nor fatality, 
 but only the practical wisdom of adapting instruc- 
 tion to existing tendencies and of attempting to 
 supplement where the rural training has left the 
 character one-sided or defective. 
 
 We pass now from theory to fact. In order to 
 determine what differences distinguish country boys 
 and girls from city boys and girls we sent a ques- 
 tionnaire to experts of various sorts who were pre- 
 sumed to know the subject at first hand. This was 
 somewhat widely distributed, but comparatively few 
 replies were received, probably because of the nov- 
 elty and difficulty of the questions. We have re- 
 ceived replies from forty-four persons, of whom 
 
The Individual 3^ 
 
 thirteen are educators; eleven State or County- 
 Young Men's Christian Association secretaries; 
 five ministers ; and the other persons related to the 
 problem in various ways. We disclaim any au- 
 thority for the testimony of these men except what 
 belongs to their opinion. We think that their judg- 
 ment, sitting as a jury, may be a safe guide in the 
 shaping of policy and method. It was not our pur- 
 pose to test boys and girls, but to ascertain the 
 views of careful observers who have had oppor- 
 tunity to know in what way adolescence develops in 
 country and city. We record here a caution from 
 Prof. Edwin D. Starbuck, and we concede the pe- 
 culiar value of material gathered as he suggests. 
 For our purpose, nevertheless, we consider the ma- 
 ture judgment of workers and scholars concerning 
 boys and girls of more significance than the results 
 of any self-analysis of immature minds, that could 
 not possibly comprehend either their own distinc- 
 tion or the multifarious influences and relations in 
 the mesh of which they have been fashioned. Pro- 
 fessor Starbuck writes: 
 
 "If you will allow a confession, it is that the more 
 I have worked at the questionnaire business myself, 
 the more I am convinced that questions which ask 
 for opinions about things can never catch up gen- 
 uine psychological stuff. If, on the contrary, you 
 could get among the country boys and girls, gain 
 their confidence, and secure from a hundred of them 
 their personal confessions, supplemented by careful 
 observations of the same number of city boys and 
 girls, you would be obtaining real psychological 
 data." 
 
32 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 We make no claim that we have collected psycho- 
 logical data. Our observation being limited and our 
 judgment fallible, we have tried to check error by 
 consulting as many observers as could be easily 
 reached. 
 
 Digest of Replies to Questionnaire 
 
 I. What differences have you observed between 
 country boys and girls and city boys and girls in 
 the adolescent period? 
 
 The replies are chiefly significant from their di- 
 versity. About half of our correspondents passed 
 over the question, thinking it sufficiently covered 
 by their answers to the second question. It was 
 intended that under this head free range should be 
 given for original comment. It is as if in confer- 
 ence one and another had spoken with but little 
 repetition. The composite picture may be sketched 
 thus : Country boys and girls mature slowly ; they 
 are physically strong; they are thoughtful and 
 stable in character; they are less restless and ner- 
 vous. But they may be timid ; moody, through iso- 
 lation; awkward physically and socially. They are 
 self-reliant, resourceful, and individualistic, but rev- 
 erent, religious, and easily guided. They are more 
 romantic, more idealistic, more conscientious. They 
 are defective in culture, but superior in things fun- 
 damental. City adolescents have more self-assertion 
 and more conceit. In this complex characterization 
 the agreement seems to be that the material, raw 
 and crude as it is, possesses virility and stability. 
 
The Individual 33 
 
 and that rural adolescence is specially promising by 
 reason of the open mind and the idealistic spirit. 
 II. Add your opinion on the following points : 
 
 (a) Are country boys and girls more inclined to 
 industry ? 
 
 Yes, 27; no, 3; doubtful, 6; more industrious by 
 necessity, but not more inclined, 7 ; more industrious 
 except in villages, i. 
 
 The agreement is that boys and girls on farms are 
 more habituated to industry, and the preponderant 
 opinion is that this results normally in a real inter- 
 est in work and a genuine love for it. To this is 
 added the caution that the village must be consid- 
 ered by itself. 
 
 (b) Are country boys and girls more serious 
 and ambitious? 
 
 Yes, 27 ; no, 3 ; doubtful, 7 ; more serious but not 
 more ambitious, 6; more ambitious for the unusual, 
 I. 
 
 The agreement is that they are more serious and 
 more ambitious, with the reservation that a few 
 think otherwise, and that some others recognize 
 the peculiar vigor of ambition in city adolescents 
 of the superior sort. With this comes the sugges- 
 tion that seriousness may be mere introspection 
 and self-pity. 
 
 (c) Are country boys and girls more silent and 
 disinclined to talk? 
 
 Yes, 28 ; no, 3 ; doubtful, 5 ; to strangers only, 6 ; 
 in presence of adults, i ; in hill countries, i. 
 
34 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 There is general recognition of the habit of 
 silence, with the discovery on the part of some ob- 
 servers that country boys and girls talk freely upon 
 acquaintance and by themselves. This means that 
 there is failure to talk in consequence of shyness 
 or lack of convention or the absence of encourage- 
 ment from older persons. One suspects an undue 
 estimate of the virtue of silence on the part of young 
 people in the country home, especially on the farms. 
 
 (d) Are country boys and girls more interested 
 in play? 
 
 Yes, 4; no, 15; doubtful, 9; yes, but no chance, 2; 
 yes, but ignorant of organized play, 10; country 
 play more complicated, i ; different in expression, 
 I ; more inventive, i ; more natural, i. 
 
 The agreement plainly is that there is no lack of 
 the play instinct in the country, but a serious in- 
 feriority in the interest that develops by cultivation 
 and practice. 
 
 (e) Are country boys and girls more observant? 
 Yes, 16; no, 12; doubtful, 10; yes, of nature, 2; 
 
 yes, of natural objects, not social forms, i ; not of 
 special things, i ; not of details and things outside 
 of work, I ; different in expression, i. 
 
 There is a slight preponderance of opinion in 
 favor of the more exact observation of country boys 
 and girls, with the suggestion that this is partly 
 a discipline of the environment and of rural activi- 
 ties. 
 
 (f) Are country boys and girls slower in mental 
 action ? 
 
The Individual 35 
 
 Yes, 25 ; no, 7 ; doubtful, 4 ; in unfamiliar lines, 2 ; 
 in early years only, 2 ; except when excited, i ; more 
 deliberate, not slower in comprehension, i ; not in 
 practical things, i; differ in expression, i. 
 
 A minority makes a discriminating protest against 
 the common view that rural adolescents are slower 
 in mental action. 
 
 (g) Are country boys and girls more deferential 
 to authority? 
 
 Yes, 33; no, 4; doubtful, 4; yes, with crude re- 
 bellion, I ; no, except when it is policy, i ; differ 
 in expression, i. 
 
 There is only a faint protest against the general 
 verdict that they are more deferential. 
 
 (h) Are country boys and girls more self-cen- 
 tered and self-willed? 
 
 Yes, 19; no, 16; doubtful, 5; more self-centered 
 but not more self-willed, 3 ; no, but more self-reliant, 
 I. 
 
 The replies are entirely indecisive. 
 
 (i) Are country boys and girls more easily in- 
 fluenced ? 
 
 Yes, 13; no, 15; doubtful, 9; yes, by right per- 
 sons, 3 ; yes, by special appeals, i ; not at first, 3. 
 
 Opinions about equally divided. 
 
 (j) Are country boys and girls more emotional? 
 
 Yes, 5 ; no, 26 ; doubtful, 9 ; more elemental, i ; 
 of finer sensibility, i ; do not show emotion, i ; not 
 keyed to so high nervous pitch, i. 
 
 The common view that rural adolescents are more 
 
36 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 stolid is confirmed with recognition by some ob- 
 servers of a peculiar richness in depths beyond cus- 
 tomary expression. 
 
 (k) Are country boys and girls more conscien- 
 tious? 
 
 Yes, 28; no, 5; doubtful, 10; by local code only, 
 I. 
 
 The preponderating opinion is clear in favor of 
 their greater conscientiousness. 
 
 III. Does the series of adolescent changes as 
 traced by modern psychology apply to country boys 
 and girls in the same manner as to city boys and 
 girls ? 
 
 Yes, 17; no, 5 ; doubtful, 5 ; according to responses 
 called for, 5 ; less marked, 3 ; later, i ; later and less 
 marked, 2 ; periods differ, i ; stronger restraints in 
 the country, i ; less stimulated by social environ- 
 ment, I ; more exceptional cases, i ; expression dif- 
 fers, I ; sentimental tendency is earlier, i. 
 
 On the whole the verdict is that the series of 
 changes is the same in country and city so far as it 
 depends upon a natural order of development, but 
 that it is modified by the rural environment as it is 
 altered in other ways by the urban environment. 
 
 IV. Is this course of development retarded in 
 country boys and girls in comparison with city boys 
 and girls? 
 
 Yes, 21 ; no, 5 ; doubtful, 10 ; to some extent, 2 ; 
 in some particulars, i ; nearer the normal, i ; re- 
 tarded in pre-adolescence, hastened in post-adoles- 
 cence, I ; begins earlier, lasts longer, i ; manifesta- 
 
The Individual 37 
 
 tion is different, i ; social and play phases are late, i. 
 A large majority believes that adolescent changes 
 are retarded in the country, but this varies accord- 
 ing to the conditions that act as causes. 
 
 V. Is the religious life marked by the crisis of 
 conversion in the country to a greater extent than 
 in the city? 
 
 Yes, 17; no, 10; doubtful, 14; no, because the 
 stimuli are weak, but there is more latent religion ; 
 yes, because of revival traditions, but no difference 
 when Decision Day is used; in some places. Each 
 of last three replies, i. 
 
 The answers are indecisive. Evidently the expe- 
 rience of conversion depends upon environment and 
 teaching, so that location in city or country of itself 
 has little influence. Probably the religious revival 
 is more general in the country. 
 
 VI. Does the gang spirit prevail in country boys 
 and girls so as to be considered and used as is the 
 case with city boys and girls? 
 
 Yes, 10; no, 23; doubtful, i; yes, in boys, but 
 groups vary according to age, i ; yes, in small towns 
 and villages, 2; yes, but conditions are unfavor- 
 able, 7. 
 
 As a matter under observation the gang spirit 
 seems to be less; as a tendency manifest according 
 to opportunity for association the gang spirit may 
 be assumed in the country. 
 
 VII. Is discontent with the farm and desire for 
 the city a phase of adolescent ferment, confusion, 
 and expansion in such a sense that adolescent rest- 
 
38 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 lessness is a significant contributing cause of the 
 rural exodus? 
 
 Yes, 14; no, 8; doubtful, 4; only in later adoles- 
 cence, I ; hard conditions in country main factor, 9 ; 
 attraction of city chief influence, 4; desire for change 
 and ambition fundamental, 3; lack of play in the 
 country important, i. 
 
 A considerable minority recognize the contribu- 
 tion of adolescent changes to the restless spirit. 
 These alone would have little or no effect. Com- 
 bining with rural repulsions and urban attractions 
 they tend to increase the movement cityward. 
 
 VIII. Treat in your own way any distinctive 
 traits of country boys and girls, or any peculiar 
 conditions in their lives that call for special methods 
 in the Sunday school. 
 
 We should take note of (a) smallness of schools ; 
 (b) insufficient social opportunities ; (c) conversa- 
 tional slowness ; (d) the rural opportunity for unin- 
 terrupted thought and intimate knowledge of human 
 nature. Special suggestions are (a) magnify phases 
 of life in the larger world, such as heroism, patriot- 
 ism, citizenship ; (b) make larger and more inclusive 
 plans; (c) exalt distinctly religious training; (d) 
 give more attention to youngest children ; (e) stim- 
 ulate discussion; (f) repress crudities. 
 
 IX. What modifications of the Sunday school 
 are required by the rural environment in so far as 
 it tends to develop boys and girls of a distinctive 
 type? 
 
 (a) The rural Sunday school needs a new cur- 
 riculum of study. 
 
The Individual 39 
 
 ~~- Truths of religion must be interpreted in terms 
 of rural life. 
 
 Problems arising from life and surroundings in 
 the country. 
 
 Literature and teaching with rural illustrations. 
 
 Contentment with rural life. 
 
 Less of the abstract, formal, and mystical. 
 
 Biblical treatment of economic and social life. 
 
 Lessons in cooperation. 
 
 Appreciation of nature. 
 
 (b) There is reiterated demand for better pro- 
 visions for social life: 
 
 By the organized class with social opportunities. 
 By athletics and community games. 
 By training for social service. 
 By sociological instruction. 
 By personal efiforts to meet individual reticence. 
 By encouraging sociability and organizing social 
 life. 
 
 (c) Many suggestions recognize the special 
 needs in the country of standard improvements. 
 
 Better pedagogy and better teaching. 
 
 The graded Sunday school. Avoidance of hetero- 
 genous groups. 
 
 Making programs for the year. 
 
 A missionary department. 
 
 Monthly councils and committee methods. 
 
 The training class for teachers. 
 
 Recognition of patriotic days and great events. 
 
 Use of pictures. 
 
 A broader hospitality for varied types of char- 
 acter. 
 
4° The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 More appreciation and use of the resident pas- 
 torate. 
 
 More preparation of lessons at home. 
 Male teachers for adolescent boys. 
 Christian personal leadership. 
 
 Opinions Worth Preserving 
 
 "It is well to have a high standard and place it 
 before all our schools. When the country child be- 
 comes aroused, there is no limit to its attainment." 
 
 "Old folks are so humdrum in the country that 
 youth finds it hard to put up with them." 
 
 "I suggest an effort to get bigger areas cen- 
 tralized, with one big church, a parish house, an 
 athletic field, and some supervision besides that of 
 the minister." 
 
 "The farm must give up some portion of the time 
 to recreation, and the cravings of youth for a larger 
 life must be met." 
 
 "I believe that the same lessons, the same class 
 organization that succeed in the city will succeed in 
 the country. The untrained leaders and the small 
 numbers in many country Sunday schools make up- 
 to-date methods difficult or impossible to apply, but 
 fundamentally the boy is not different." 
 
 "The Sunday school calls too much attention to 
 subjective conditions and makes country boys too 
 conscious of their own souls. A healthy boy should 
 know no more about his soul than about his liver. 
 He should be taught a religion of action, of achieve- 
 ment, of production." 
 
 "If proper recognition were given the desire to 
 reach out into the new, we should not have the de- 
 sire for new things culminating in so many of the 
 boys leaving the farm." 
 
The Individual A^ 
 
 "It is an amazing spectacle to see how discon- 
 tented country boys are. Long days, monotony, 
 etc., drive boys out." 
 
 "There is great need of a country teacher and 
 social worker combined in one person." 
 
 "I believe very strongly that in day school and in 
 Sunday school it is of absolute importance to make 
 our boys and girls feel that they are part of a great 
 world-movement, and that their life and their char- 
 acter affect life everywhere." 
 
 "I should like to see a fifteen-minute intermission 
 between the church and Sunday school sessions, 
 that ample opportunity may be given for social in- 
 tercourse." 
 
 "The finer feelings of the country youth need 
 finer treatment." 
 
 "The Sunday school needs an appeal along nor- 
 mal and spiritual lines to the independent convic- 
 tions and untrammeled ideals of the boys and girls 
 of the country, who need not restraining, but un- 
 loosing and developing." 
 
 "The Sunday school needs to use its outdoor op- 
 portunities in study and social life. The sweep of 
 God in the big life of the country adolescent is an 
 immense advantage over the commercialized and 
 hemmed-in life of the city adolescent." 
 
 "A country boy thrives under the advantages of 
 his disadvantages, and the city boy suffers under 
 the disadvantages of his advantages. In the devel- 
 opment of the boy, I feel that he should be natu- 
 ralized, then humanized. Association with nature 
 makes one frank, open, honest. After the boy has 
 acquired some of these elementary virtues, then he 
 is fitted to go to the city to become humanized. I 
 think this contrast to a certain extent is true — that 
 religion is of the country; Christianity of the city. 
 Naturalization is of the country; humanization of 
 the city. The home life is of the country; society 
 
42 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 life of the city. The raw material is of the coun- 
 try ; the manufactured product of the city." 
 
 "Taken out of his habitat, the city boy is quite 
 apt to be helpless. He knows a good deal, but has 
 learned to do so little that he is handicapped when 
 thrown on his own resources. The country boy has 
 little done for him, and is left so much to his own 
 initiative in field and forest that he becomes a man 
 in judgment somewhat earlier than his city cousin." 
 
 "In the case of the city boy the plethora of 
 sights, sounds and human stimuli check the work of 
 the imagination ; the reverse is largely true of the 
 country boy." 
 
 "The movement cityward is almost wholly an 
 economic movement. As economic conditions in 
 the country are improved, the exodus is checked. 
 To-day there is a large drift of country boys to the 
 agricultural colleges and back to the farms." 
 
 "The adolescent development begins earlier with 
 country boys and girls, but it lasts longer, and each 
 phase of the development is prolonged. For ex- 
 ample, one can keep together boys and girls of 
 widely varying ages in the country better than in 
 the city." 
 
 "Individual prowess, individual success, yes, and 
 individual failure, are elements of life that the coun- 
 tryman understands. The country needs to develop 
 a social consciousness, and at no time can this be 
 done so well as in the period of adolescence when 
 conditions are psychologically right for such devel- 
 opment. The rural Sunday school should more and 
 more emphasize the social gospel. The Sunday 
 school should be a cooperative social body, and each 
 class should place special emphasis upon socializing 
 influences. The spirit of cooperation should take 
 the place of the old spirit of individual competi- 
 tion. Efforts should be made to develop a group 
 
The Individual 43 
 
 consciousness to replace the old individual con- 
 sciousness." 
 
 "The boys in the country are better developed 
 physically than the boys in the city; boys in the 
 city are, perhaps, a little more agile, a little more 
 graceful, but not so strong, not so self-dependent, 
 not so independent. A well-trained and well-edu- 
 cated boy in the city is usually far in advance at 
 eighteen of the country boy who has had fair 
 chances at education. But in general the country 
 boy knows more than the city boy, is acquainted 
 with more things, has much more valuable general 
 knowledge, not upon society, nor politics, nor his- 
 tory, but upon the doings of life in the world of na- 
 ture. He is less graceful than the city boy, and is, 
 therefore, likely in his presence to seem a little awk- 
 ward and to appear somewhat shy. It is not shy- 
 ness, but only a disinclination to make a fool of 
 himself. To him the ordinary city boy is enough 
 of a fool, and he has no desire to make a fool of 
 himself. The boy in the city is better developed 
 socially, but the boy in the country has developed 
 more selfhood than the boy in the town. He has 
 been thrown back upon himself at every turn, has 
 studied himself, and, though perhaps he has had no 
 guide in that study, he has an unconscious knowl- 
 edge of himself which the city boy seldom pos- 
 sesses. He is usually more sober, more steady, 
 more reliable, less quick and active." 
 
 "Before the age of fourteen the business of the 
 country Sunday school teacher is to keep the boys 
 interested in the Bible, the story of Jesus Christ, 
 and in the songs and hymns that tell the story. 
 From fourteen to eighteen what the country boy 
 and girl need is to be 'personally conducted' to 
 themselves and God by some one a little older than 
 themselves who understands them and is interested 
 in them and will give portions of his lime to them, 
 
44 The Teens and the Rural Swnday School 
 
 who will meet them individually and socially and 
 will see to it, before they get through, that they 
 have laid hold upon God. There are thousands of 
 things that can be done by a bright young pastor, 
 by some teacher, or by some devoted man of 
 younger years who will live with the boys, play 
 with them, meet with them socially. The ideal sit- 
 uation is when a young married man and his wife 
 give themselves socially to that group of young 
 folks until they have won them." 
 
 "The type of inducements offered by the average 
 rural Sunday school, considering the school as a 
 whole, or the work of the teachers, is, in my judg- 
 ment, absolutely divorced from the real interests of 
 the rural youth. There is nothing there which these 
 boys and girls really care about. It is my firm be- 
 lief that, if vital connection can be made in any 
 Sunday school between the things for which the 
 Sunday school stands and the real interests of the 
 young men and women, there will be no difficulty 
 in holding them in the school." 
 
 The Personnel of the Opinions 
 
 The names of our correspondents will indicate the 
 representative value of their replies. 
 
 Edward P. St. John, Professor, School of Relig- 
 ious Pedagogy, Hartford, Conn. 
 
 E. E. Reed, President, Lenox College, Hopkinton, 
 Iowa. 
 
 E. N. Davenport, Dean and Director, College of 
 Agriculture, University of Illinois, Urbana, 111. 
 
 C. B. Robertson, Professor, School of Education, 
 Pittsburgh University. 
 
The Individual 45 
 
 R. D. Emerson, Professor of Rural Education, 
 University of Missouri. 
 
 C. C. Kohl, Professor of Education, Mount Hol- 
 yoke College, South Hadley, Mass. 
 
 George E. Vincent, President, University of Min- 
 nesota. 
 
 Mason E. Stone, Superintendent of Education of 
 Vermont. 
 
 R. Watson Cooper, President, Upper Iowa Uni- 
 versity. 
 
 Rovillus R. Rogers, Superintendent of Schools, 
 Jamestown, N. Y. 
 
 Henry F. Cope, General Secretary, Religious Ed- 
 ucation Association. 
 
 E. E. Balcomb, Professor, State Normal and In- 
 dustrial College, Greensboro, N. C. 
 
 Rev. C. K. Powell, Field Representative, Presby- 
 terian Home Missions in Northern Colorado. 
 
 Rev. Margaret B. Barnard, Rowe, Mass. 
 
 Rev. J. O. Ashenhurst, Author of "The Day of 
 the Country Church." 
 
 Rev. J. N. Pardee, Bolton, Mass. 
 
 Rev. Joseph J. Erstine, Redwood Falls, Minn. 
 
 E. W. Halpenny, General Secretary, Ontario Sun- 
 day School Association. 
 
 Mrs. George O. Pratt, Rural Secretary, Wayne 
 Co., Mich. 
 
 Miss Carrie B. Wasson, Rural Social Worker, 
 Sanborn, N. Y. 
 
 Howard Hubbell, State Secretary Y. M. C. A., 
 Wisconsin, County Work. 
 
46 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 William D. McRae, State Secretary Y. M. C. A., 
 New Jersey, County Work. 
 
 Fred M. Hill, State Secretary Y. M. C. A., New 
 York, County Work. 
 
 J. H. Engle, General Secretary, Kansas Sunday 
 School Association. 
 
 George A. Joplin, General Secretary, Kentucky 
 Sunday School Association. 
 
 T. N. Carver, Professor of Economics, Harvard 
 University. 
 
 John C. Carman, General Secretary, South Caro- 
 lina Sunday School Association. 
 
 D. W. Wallace, Alliance, Neb. 
 
 Edwin D. Starbuck, Professor of Philosophy and 
 Psychology, State University of Iowa. 
 
 Summary of Digest 
 
 The digest of the replies to our questions is an 
 attempt to condense the entire expression of our 
 correspondents without coloration from the views of 
 the committee. After careful study of the replies 
 and the digest of them, Dr. Hubbell expressed his 
 personal judgment in the following statement, with 
 which the other members of the committee agree 
 substantially : 
 
 I. Country boys are, as a rule, more reserved 
 than those in the city. They are slower of devel- 
 opment and more likely to prefer solitude. In some 
 fields they are more conscientious, but that is 
 largely a matter of education. 
 
 II. Country boys are: 
 
The Individual 47 
 
 (a) More inclined to industry from force of cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 (b) More serious, more ambitious, only when 
 they have been specially kindled. The city boy will 
 more quickly decide upon his life work and take 
 steps to begin it. 
 
 (c) The country boy is more silent and disin- 
 clined to talk except when he is well acquainted. 
 
 (d) The native interest in play is about the same 
 in both cases. 
 
 (e) The city boy is much more observant; the 
 country boy more thoughtful. There is a great need 
 to train the country boy in observation. He must 
 be taught to do many things consciously, which he 
 certainly can do well when his attention is called 
 to them. 
 
 (f) The country boy is slower in mental action, 
 but more likely to obtain satisfactory results when 
 he applies his mind. 
 
 (g) The best class of boys in country or city are 
 deferential to authority, but the city boy knows bet- 
 ter how far he may go in opposition to it. 
 
 (h) The country boy may be more self-centered, 
 but is not more self-willed. 
 
 (i) The ease with which either may be influ- 
 enced is a matter of temperament. At certain ages 
 the country boy because of his narrow range of 
 knowledge may be more easily influenced. 
 
 (j) The country boy is more intense in feeling, 
 due to his quieter and more thoughtful life, but 
 probably shows emotion a little less. 
 
 (k) Conscientiousness is perhaps a little strong- 
 er as a feeling with a country boy, but he is often 
 untaught in its use. 
 
 III. Adolescent changes apply to country boys 
 in much the same manner as to city boys as the 
 period is somewhat prolonged with the country boy. 
 
 IV. The course of the development of adoles- 
 
48 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 cence is certainly retarded in country boys as com- 
 pared with city boys. 
 
 V. The religious life is marked by the crisis of 
 conversion quite often in the country and the small 
 town. Perhaps this is frequently due to the tradi- 
 tion of conversion which still obtains in the coun- 
 
 VI. The gang spirit, or spirit of the crowd, pre- 
 vails less among country boys because there is less 
 opportunity for it. It is much seen among city boys 
 and in the larger towns and villages. 
 
 VII. The discontent for the farm and desire for 
 the city are due almost entirely to the economic 
 stress, to the monotony, and to the smaller oppor- 
 tunities afforded by rural life under present condi- 
 tions. 
 
 VIII. In all Sunday schools the children in the 
 adolescent period should receive much more definite 
 attention in the way of training the moral judg- 
 ment. The Sunday school exercises should often 
 give to the student an opportunity for conference 
 on the questions of right doing. The development 
 of the social consciousness is one of the distinct 
 obligations of the Sunday schools, and there should 
 be opportunities provided for the development of 
 the social nature. 
 
 IX. No modification of the Sunday school 
 should be made with the purpose of developing a 
 distinctive rural type. Country boys should be 
 trained to become good men, versatile, useful, and 
 effective. Many of them may find their future 
 homes in the city. On this point President Cooper 
 rightly says : 
 
 "What we chiefly need in our country schools is 
 better teachers; and what we chiefly need in our 
 country Sunday schools is better Sunday school 
 teachers. This is especially true for the ages before 
 fourteen. Before the age of fourteen the business 
 
The Individual 49 
 
 of the country Sunday school is to keep the boys in- 
 terested in the Bible, the story of Jesus Christ, in 
 song, hymn, etc., etc. From fourteen to eighteen what 
 the country boy and girl both need is to be 'per- 
 sonally conducted' to themselves and God by some 
 one a little older than themselves, who understands 
 them and is interested in them and will give a por- 
 tion of his time to them." 
 
 In a word, the necessary condition for country 
 Sunday schools is a teacher who is a friend a little 
 further on in the way of life and will give to the 
 boys his time, thought and personal inspiration; 
 such a man can do them untold good and will bind 
 them to himself in a most helpful and successful 
 way. 
 
 From the standpoint of the religious life. Deci- 
 sion Day is one of the most important features to 
 be regularly included in the plans for conducting 
 the rural Sunday school. 
 
 There could be great teaching advantages, and 
 particularly the development of the right type of 
 social consciousness by the wise use of games, 
 pageants, play festivals, and historic celebrations. 
 
 Several of our friends are opposed to the mystical 
 element in religion for country life. This seems a 
 mistake. It is well that the fundamental princi- 
 ples of moral life should be carefully set forth and 
 that the moral judgment should be carefully trained, 
 but the country lends itself with special readiness 
 to the development of the spiritual, and the mystical 
 element in religion should find here a great field of 
 practical service, making life rich, hopeful, and 
 happy. 
 
 Final Recommendations 
 
 From the mass of suggestions we have gathered, 
 and from our own observation and reflection, we 
 
5° The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 single out for final emphasis the following recom- 
 mendations : 
 
 1. On the ground of distinctive qualities of char- 
 acter and modes of mental action in country boys 
 and girls, we advise an adaptation of pedagogical 
 method that shall take note especially of the deeper 
 thoughtfulness, the slower mental movement, the 
 habit of silence, and the spirit of independence. 
 
 2. Because of the retardation of the chief adol- 
 escence crises, and the traditional power of the 
 revival in the country, we advise a patient but force- 
 ful use of a wise and careful evangelism, to the end 
 that the latent spirituality may be awakened and 
 moral and religious decision secured. 
 
 3. The less prevalent gang spirit and the conse- 
 quent individualism suggest the utmost use of per- 
 sonal association and personal influence through 
 every kind of contact of teacher and pupils. 
 
 4. There is special need of fostering the social 
 spirit and training in social facility, and therefore 
 there should be much additional provision for social 
 life outside of the Sunday school itself. We call 
 special attention to the social opportunity in the 
 organized class or group of classes, and we siiggest 
 that a small Sunday school may foster and super- 
 vise the social life of its boys and girls through its 
 own organization, rather than surrender this re- 
 sponsibility to independent clubs and societies that 
 needlessly complicate and burden the social struc- 
 ture. 
 
 5. The urgent need of more ample instruction in 
 social service and the problems of society is nowhere 
 
The Individual 5 1 
 
 more evident than in the country, where the sim- 
 plicity of social relations makes their recognition 
 critical. The country Sunday school may use bibli- 
 cal material with peculiar profit, especially in the 
 Mosaic laws, the prophetic program, and the social 
 teachings of Jesus, since the historical background 
 is everywhere distinctly rural. 
 
 6. The discontent and restlessness of country 
 boys and girls in their life on the farm call for a 
 new policy in the Sunday school, definitely con- 
 ceived, prosecuted through an adapted literature, 
 by which there may be a more fruitful teaching of 
 the love of nature, the opportunities of the farm, the 
 higher ideals for home and neighborhood, the ap- 
 preciation of local institutions, and the happy way 
 of living. 
 
 7. We protest against all systems and methods 
 that recognize or perpetuate provincialism. We 
 would train country boys and girls for citizenship 
 of the world according to universal standards, adapt- 
 ing the common Christianity to local conditions 
 without injury to normal character. 
 
 8. We dissent from the view that would neglect 
 the momentous relationships of the human spirit in 
 order to emphasize instruction. We would not im- 
 poverish country children by taking away their 
 birthright of a positive religious experience. 
 
 9. We would make free and confident use of the 
 idealism of unsophisticated youth, of rural vigor, 
 earnestness, resourcefulness, and industry, of nat- 
 ural tendencies to morality and piety in the country, 
 in full hope that the future will find the boys and 
 
52 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 girls, trained in the country Sunday schools, compe- 
 tent for service and for leadership in country or in 
 city, as opportunity may invite. 
 
 10. The larger attendance of adults in country 
 Sunday schools makes it possible to present to ma- 
 ture minds those conceptions and ideals by which 
 country life and the country home may be trans- 
 formed, and the environment of country boys and 
 girls so altered that discontent with rural life will 
 be greatly diminished, the rural exodus checked, and 
 the open country reinstated in its basic rights in the 
 loyalty and affection of the generation rising to 
 influence. 
 
 11. In view of these critical and measureless 
 interests, and in consideration of the greatly pre- 
 ponderant numbers enrolled in country Sunday 
 schools, we favor graded instruction when the ma- 
 terial will be treated from the rural point of view. 
 
Chapter V 
 
 LEADERSHIP AND THE RURAL SUNDAY 
 SCHOOL 
 
 The task assigned to your Committee on Leader- 
 ship is of such a character that it has been difficult 
 to place limitations upon the question in hand, ow- 
 ing to the fact that it has to do with the success or 
 failure of almost every phase of the Country Life 
 problem. There can be no difference of opinion as 
 to the importance of trained leadership if we are to 
 do efficient service in church and Sunday school. 
 Equipment is valuable; a carefully graded curricu- 
 lum is very essential; devotion to the work is very 
 helpful; but, lacking good leadership, all these to- 
 gether cannot bring success. We find that in the 
 church and in the educational work, and in the 
 economic and social life of the community, every- 
 where there is the clear call for leaders. 
 
 The great majority of people in every rural sec- 
 tion are willing and eager to be led, if we can but 
 furnish those who possess those elements of char- 
 acter that will inspire confidence and cooperation. 
 There are some who would have us think that the 
 rural community is antagonistic to the very prin- 
 ciple of leadership. They say the farmer is ex- 
 tremely democratic and will have nothing to do 
 
 53 
 
54 The Teens and the Rural Stmday School 
 
 with "bosses." That may be true if the leader 
 assumes to be a boss, but the fault is with that 
 type of leadership, and not with the people to whom 
 they make reference. In the true meaning of the 
 word a leader is never a mere boss, but a man 
 among men, and a brother with his brethren, con- 
 straining them to follow the manlier motives of 
 ministry to mankind. 
 
 The question of leadership presents a double op- 
 portunity to the rural Sunday school: 
 
 First. The discovery of young people who, at an 
 early age, give prophecy of strength of mind and will, 
 and yet require careful direction in right moral 
 channels. It is easy to recognize leadership when 
 it has been fully developed, but the genius of Chris- 
 tianity is in making an appeal to the best in each 
 one, and thus calling forth the latent talents that 
 are the test of each individual. We believe that 
 there is a rich field for pastors, teachers, and super- 
 intendents, as well as for Christian parents and day 
 school teachers who are well qualified to do this 
 kind of service. 
 
 Second. The Sunday school, if efficient, is one 
 of the best institutions in the community for the 
 development and disciplining of leaders. The les- 
 sons they teach and the spirit of the Great Teacher 
 whom they set forth as the- ideal and exemplar are 
 calculated to call forth those characteristics that 
 always insure leadership. Jesus possesses the gen- 
 tleness that makes men great. He was meek and 
 lowly and yet the mighty Master of men. To know 
 
Leadership and the Rural Sunday School 55 
 
 him is to be like him, and to be like him is to be a 
 leader in the best things of life. 
 
 Leadership is another word for genius. Efficiency 
 stands for business in religion as well as religion in 
 business. The few lead and the many follow. Men 
 go astray like sheep, and come back very much in 
 the same way, i. e., they follow a leader. The 
 descent of vice is easier and more rapid than the 
 ascent of virtue. We may drift into disease and sin, 
 but we must will our way back into moral health 
 and rightness. The latter calls for personal convic- 
 tion and conquest in preparing the way and walking 
 therein. Emerson's "Representative Men," and 
 Carlyle's "Heroes" have attracted the attention of 
 the world, because they were preeminently the lead- 
 ers of their eras. The world has had its adventurers, 
 its leaders in colonization, its philosophers, and its 
 great generals. But this new century is to be the 
 time of bloodless battles, and our leaders are to be 
 moral and spiritual heroes. The Prince of Peace is 
 to be our Great Captain, and men are to catch his 
 spirit of courage and self-denial. "The demand for 
 a few strong men," says John R. Mott, "is even more 
 imperative than more men." The times demand in- 
 dividuals who not only have the prophet's vision, but 
 who possess the power to inspire and lead others to 
 do the task. 
 
 The prophet of God is the moral general who 
 commands the latent forces of his audience or com- 
 munity. His message is a call to ministry and, in 
 that sense, each leader may be a Grant or a Sherman 
 in the war against sin. The response to the call 
 
S6 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 will depend upon the authority of the messenger. 
 It was said of Jesus that he spoke with authority 
 and not as the Scribes and Pharisees. Luther re- 
 ceived his commission direct from God, and then 
 went forth to command the men of Germany to 
 fight for religious freedom and personal purity. It 
 could have been said of John Knox, as it was of 
 Napoleon, that his presence was equal to ten thou- 
 sand men on the field of battle. His word was a 
 command to all Scotland, and it even compelled the 
 attention of Kings and Queens. John Wesley, like 
 John the Baptist, was sent to prepare the way of 
 the Lord, and to call England out of her spiritual 
 sleep and moral lethargy, to take up again the re- 
 demption of a race. 
 
 The leaders of the present hour are not only the 
 watchmen on the walls of our modern Zions, but 
 they are divinely commissioned commanders of the 
 economic, political, social, and moral forces of our 
 twentieth century civilization. Then we should not 
 forget that in the very forefront of the advancing 
 armies must be found the spiritual leaders. It is 
 our privilege to call men to battle for virtue and 
 against vice ; for knowledge and against ignorance ; 
 for temperance and against drunkenness; for faith 
 and against doubt ; and for love as against hate. 
 
 "The word of command," says Mr. Roosevelt, "is 
 useless in the fight unless a reasonable number of 
 those to whom it is uttered, not only listen, but act 
 upon it. Talk — mere oratory — is worse than use- 
 less if it has not a worthy object and does not cause 
 
Leadership and the Rural Sunday School 57 
 
 men to actually put in practice the message re- 
 ceived." 
 
 The new patriotism must be interpreted in the 
 terms of Christian conquest. The call for volun- 
 teers must be recognized as the call of the Christ. 
 The Church, in city and country, will be the insti- 
 tution through which the modern patriot will find 
 the expression of the higher sacrifice of victorious 
 conquest. "The moral substitute for war," that 
 Professor James declared was the need of the hour, 
 will be realized in the army of Christian soldiers to 
 be found in every community. The number of 
 private soldiers who fight in the ranks may vary 
 from year to year, but there must ever be a suffi- 
 cient number of valiant leaders to command the 
 regiments and to organize new recruits. 
 
 The rural communities call for a special type of 
 leadership. We need men who appreciate the great- 
 ness of the field, and who will be able to discover 
 and train those who are waiting for some one to 
 command them. An institute lecturer declared re- 
 cently that in a certain community where it was 
 commonly thought that no young people remained 
 the right call brought forth forty young men, all 
 ready for service, and only waiting for the right 
 one to redirect their restless energy. We must not 
 fail to utilize this latent leadership, since, as Mr. 
 Mott says, "The cities themselves need help, and 
 cannot be relied upon to furnish the Christian lead- 
 ers of the future." It is a common statement in 
 rural communities that "There are no leaders." 
 Some explain by saying that the best young people 
 
58 The Teem and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 have for many years been moving into the cities. 
 Others assert that the people in that section do not 
 tolerate any boss. Democracy is made synonymous 
 with leadership and an equally false notion of co- 
 operation. Doctor Hale stated a few years ago that 
 "Together is the twentieth century word." This is 
 one essential of efficient leadership. There must 
 be more federation and less competition; more 
 brotherhood and less hate. In the interest of econ- 
 omy, as well as comity, we must stand together. 
 The strength of an army is accounted for, not by the 
 character of the individual soldier, but by the united 
 loyalty to the Commander-in-Chief. 
 
 We have based our deduction of principles on a 
 careful study of rural communities. The larger part 
 of our recommendations are taken from contact with 
 conditions as they now exist in various parts of 
 Ohio and other states. We were privileged to be 
 associated with the Advisory Council of the Ohio 
 Rural Life Survey that made a very careful study 
 of about one-fourth of the counties of the state. 
 We were also in conference with other Commissions 
 on Rural Life that afforded a very sympathetic 
 touch with the adolescent boy in the rural com- 
 munity. Several hundred letters have been written 
 to the clergy and laity of our churches containing 
 various questions as to their personal experience in 
 dealing with adolescent boys and girls. We briefly 
 set forth some of our findings. 
 
 There is a very decided need of a better type of 
 trained leadership in the churches of all denomina- 
 tions. The rural communities have suffered very 
 
Leadership and the Rural Simday School 59 
 
 serious losses in the removal of the older settlers 
 and in the increasing number of foreigners and 
 tenants who are now occupying the farms. This 
 has affected, not only the churches, but the schools 
 and other rural institutions that must depend upon 
 a settled population for support. Denominations 
 have not been able to readjust themselves to the 
 changed conditions, and the result has been that the 
 supply of leaders has deteriorated with the decrease 
 of the salary below a living wage. The former 
 members are gone and the newcomers have not been 
 reached or won to the Church. 
 
 The coming of the suburban electric railway has 
 brought the country people in close contact with the 
 vices of the city without affording any knowledge of 
 its deeper Christian virtues. The daily newspaper 
 now visits almost every farmer's home and carries 
 its highly colored and sensational story of the 
 world's crime. 
 
 These modern conveniences of country life, while 
 rich in a commercial way, are not without their 
 perils to the moral and religious life of these here- 
 tofore secluded sections. We would not condemn 
 these aids to progress, but rather point out the perils 
 of an era of transition to those who misuse these 
 material blessings of our rapidly advancing civiliza- 
 tion. A superficial knowledge of the city, such as 
 is gained by the transient visitor, is apt to be very 
 misleading, while a deeper study of the unseen 
 Christian forces is just as certain to be beneficial. 
 For these reasons it would be well for those who 
 have to do with young life during those formative 
 
6o The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 and impressionable years to provide instruction that 
 will not only point out the evil, but illustrate the 
 better side of urban life. 
 
 We find that the. social evil which a few years 
 ago was confined almost wholly to our large cities 
 has spread its dire contagion even into the villages 
 and rural communities, and calls for careful instruc- 
 tion and warning on the part of every friend of the 
 purity and perpetuity of the home and the nation. 
 Along with this we find a marked increase in Sab- 
 bath desecration. This peril is tied up with the 
 play and recreation life of the youth. The Church 
 having lost contact with the young people, great 
 numbers are left without Christian leadership and 
 are at the mercy of the godless gang. 
 
 The out-of-city population at present depends to 
 a very large degree on the professional leadership 
 that is brought in from the outside. The teacher in 
 the school, the preacher in the church, the County 
 Young Men's Christian Association secretary, and 
 the institute lecturer are usually too transient in 
 character. Though their services are good, their 
 term of service is like that of the tenant — too short 
 and uncertain. The country not only needs, but 
 must have, a leadership that is native and as per- 
 manent as the institutions they serve. We are con- 
 vinced also that the tendency of having female 
 teachers in day schools and Sunday schools is not 
 in harmony with the modern thought of securing 
 the training best adapted to the adolescent boy. It 
 stands to reason we ought to have a fair percentage 
 of male teachers if we are to intelligently under- 
 
Leadership and the Rural Sunday School 6z 
 
 stand the boy and efficiently minister to his deeper 
 needs. 
 
 We are led to make the following recommenda- 
 tions to the Commission: 
 
 1. A careful study of the new era in country life 
 with its attendant new conditions, demands, and 
 opportunities. 
 
 2. A closer cooperation and federation of all 
 Christian organizations in developing and training 
 leaders. 
 
 3. A sympathetic interest and assistance from 
 State and National institutions and individuals that 
 are awake to the importance of rural civilization. 
 
 4. That classes be organized in each community 
 for the study of the economic, social, and religious 
 phases of country life with reference to local com- 
 munity needs. 
 
 5. That added emphasis be given to discovery 
 and training of community leaders who possess the 
 rural mind and are in accord with the highest ideals 
 of rural well-being. 
 
 6. That the rural Sunday school be made the 
 efficient agency for the religious education of the 
 entire community. In some places this will call for 
 the cooperation of denominations for real Christian 
 conquest. 
 
 7. We believe the present problem of securing 
 competent leadership and the development of native 
 leaders will be greatly aided by the new appeal to 
 build up the -community, rather than by the com- 
 petitive effort to conserve denominational organiza- 
 tions. 
 
62 The Teens and the Rural Svmday School 
 
 8. We would recommend that adolescent boys 
 and girls be supplied with trained teachers of their 
 own sex. The modern ideals and problems of Chris- 
 tian manhood and womanhood demand this change 
 of method in Christian pedagogy. 
 
Chapter VI 
 
 TEACHING IN THE RURAL SUNDAY 
 SCHOOL 
 
 It is our opinion that the Sunday school is the 
 great popular agency for the training of rural Chris- 
 tian citizenship and leadership, and should there- 
 fore be recognized as a vitally important part of 
 the educational system, as well as of the social and 
 religious equipment of the nation. 
 
 We therefore bespeak for the rural Sunday 
 schools a more effective cooperation from all classes, 
 adults as well as children and youth, and a worthy 
 recognition of the Sunday school teacher's oppor- 
 tunity, as a strategic chance for personal influence 
 and community service. In view of the facts as we 
 find them, and of what we conceive to be the pos- 
 sible function of the Sunday school in the country, 
 We venture to offer the following suggestions as to 
 the teaching in these schools: 
 
 I, That Sunday school officers be encouraged 
 to enlist none but the most capable men, women, 
 and young people of the community as teachers, 
 and tactfully to eliminate the ineffectives whose 
 sole reason for teaching is their willingness to 
 teach; even reducing the number of classes if cap- 
 able teachers are scarce. 
 
 63 
 
64 The Teens and the Rural Sunday 'School 
 
 2. That men of virile Christian character, com- 
 munity leaders when possible, be intrusted with the 
 classes of adolescent boys. 
 
 3. That, as far as practicable, teachers, instead of 
 continuing year after year with the same class, re- 
 main in the same department, teaching a succession 
 of classes, thus specializing in some one period of 
 boy life or girlhood. 
 
 4. That the efforts of the International Sunday 
 School Association to develop teacher training in 
 rural Sunday schools be heartily commended, and 
 that the standard be persistently raised until teach- 
 ing in Sunday school shall become a skilled work- 
 er's privilege. 
 
 5. That Teachers' Conferences or Councils be 
 encouraged, both on the township and county basis, 
 to foster higher ideals of teaching, to be a medium 
 of social fellowship and an agency for enlisting and 
 developing better trained teachers. 
 
 6. That practical grading of Sunday schools be 
 encouraged, along lines consistent with the limita- 
 tions of rural schools, guarding against loss of en- 
 thusiasm from over-division and loss of unity from 
 diverse teaching material. 
 
 7. That the rural Sunday schools select with 
 greater care their teaching material and lesson helps. 
 Too frequently the cheapest available is the most 
 popular, regardless of quality. Most lesson helps 
 now are city made for city use. We urge the prep- 
 aration and publication of a Sunday school litera- 
 ture indigenous to country life and adapted to its 
 needs, which shall utilize the vast body of rural 
 
Teaching in the Rural Sunday School 65 
 
 material in the Bible for the making of country- 
 character, a literature prepared by writers who un- 
 derstand rural life and the viewpoints and needs of 
 country people. 
 
 8. That objective methods of teaching be more 
 generally adopted, using such plans as outdoor 
 teaching, clay and pulp modeling, and stereographs 
 to make real the scenes in Palestine which seem 
 hopelessly remote from our modern life. 
 
 9. That the work of the Sunday school teacher 
 be not limited to the single hour on Sunday, but 
 be related to the social, recreative, and industrial 
 life of the boys and girls. The fact must be frankly 
 faced that no rural community can reach its highest 
 plane until its play life and its work life are re- 
 deemed, and the wholesome recreation provided 
 upon which rural work and morality depend. 
 
 ID. Not only should the men of the community 
 find in connection with the Sunday school a con- 
 venient forum for discussing local needs, but we 
 suggest that the older boys and the young men 
 may well be trained more thoroughly in Christian 
 civics in a citizenship class in the Sunday school. 
 In this way, or some other, the rural Sunday school 
 should be made to serve vitally the broader needs 
 of its community and to develop a consecrated and 
 intelligent leadership in line with the best ideals of 
 the country life movement for rural redirection. 
 
 The above suggestions make it sufficiently clear 
 that your committee interpret the function of the 
 Sunday school teacher as something more than an 
 instructor in biblical facts, or an evangelist to secure 
 
66 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 the personal devotion of the pupil to Jesus Christ. 
 Both of these functions are exceedingly important; 
 but enlistment is only a soldier's first duty, and 
 knowledge is but the beginning of wisdom. We be- 
 lieve the teacher of adolescent boys and girls in the 
 country Sunday school should be satisfied with noth- 
 ing less than the developing, through teaching, 
 training, and life-sharing, of an efficient, useful cit- 
 izenship and a symmetrical Christian manhood and 
 womanhood in its boys and girls. For this thor- 
 oughgoing service no preparation can be too com- 
 plete and no devotion too costly or exacting. 
 
Chapter VII 
 
 TEACHER TRAINING FOR THE COUNTRY 
 SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 No movement of the last ten years has developed 
 so rapidly in connection with the Church as the 
 growth of the Sunday school. It is no longer a 
 school for the little children alone, though its in- 
 struction is far superior to that of other years in its 
 kindergarten and primary work. It is now a school 
 for the teen years and for Bible study among men 
 and women. The country church has oftentimes 
 failed to fall in line with this inspiring educational 
 movement. Its leaders have believed that their dif- 
 ficulties were special ones: that the graded school 
 and graded lessons, and better instruction, and more 
 complete organization belonged to the city and 
 could be used there alone. There are indeed grave 
 difficulties before the country church. Its Sunday 
 school usually meets in one room. It has no fold- 
 ing doors, rolling partitions, or adequate equipment. 
 The rough roads and bad weather, the distance of 
 the people from the church, all seem to hinder the 
 adoption of modern methods; but this is a mistake. 
 The best things can be adapted, not all adopted. It 
 is a question of spirit, intention, and intelligence, 
 and thousands of country Sunday schools have 
 
 67 
 
68 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 gained new life and increasing interest by taking 
 the new methods and adapting them to their own 
 circumstances. 
 
 The Training Class. The question of all ques- 
 tions is — the teacher; for everywhere the teacher is 
 the school, and wherever a superintendent and body 
 of earnest well-equipped teachers can be found there 
 the Sunday school flourishes in city or in country. 
 The training class is a necessity for the efficient 
 Sunday school. How can it be carried forward suc- 
 cessfully under the conditions of country life? 
 There are several types of training classes : 
 
 (a) The class of pupils meeting at the Sunday 
 school hour is now the popular type of class. They 
 are the teachers of to-morrow in preparation. They 
 are chosen at from fifteen to eighteen or nineteen 
 years of age — carefully chosen, one by one, accord- 
 ing to their fitness and willingness, and especially 
 their conviction and earnestness regarding Chris- 
 tian truth. The superintendent, pastor, and teach- 
 ers must make the choice, but it should be done 
 with great care and with prayerful personal atten- 
 tion. The young people are then pledged to a year 
 of work. A training course means at least one hour 
 a week of class work with two hours for prepara- 
 tion. The subjects are: the study of the Old and 
 New Testaments, child nature, methods of teaching, 
 and management and organization of the Sunday 
 school. It is customary to begin with the Bible 
 study. Some classes, however, succeed best by be- 
 ginning with the study of child nature, or the study 
 of the Sunday school. Two years should be given 
 
Teacher Training for Cowntry Sunday School 69 
 
 to this work, with some practice teaching, observa- 
 tion work, reference reading, and opportunity for 
 discussion in the class. Theme writing and practice 
 teaching under the guidance of an experienced 
 teacher belong especially to the second year. Young 
 people really want to work. Many of them desire 
 leadership and activity in the church if they can 
 only be properly directed. 
 
 (b) The second type of class is the class of 
 teachers meeting at the week-day hour or at some 
 hour on Sunday, as frequently the preaching service 
 in the country church is only on alternate Sabbaths. 
 These teachers follow much the same course as in- 
 dicated in Bible study, the study of child nature and 
 methods of teaching, but they should be prepared 
 to take more advanced books, give more time to dis- 
 cussion, and especially to reports of their own teach- 
 ing and to discussion regarding methods and effi- 
 ciency in the school. They should also be expected 
 to take up the question of the school in its wider 
 relation to the community, and to discuss the prob- 
 lems of community life in a very broad way, because 
 oftentimes this class is the only class with definite 
 hours of study connected with the church, and they 
 should study the means by which the church can 
 promote the welfare of the community. 
 
 (c) A third type of class is the union class, 
 where the teachers, officers, and older students from 
 a number of schools meet together. This is often 
 the most successful class, because the willing and 
 studious spirits from a number of churches form 
 a strong group, and oftentimes such a class can 
 
70 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 secure teachers for the different subjects rather 
 than give the whole work to one teacher. Then, 
 too, they have a wider community interest and can 
 discuss more of its problems and have a far wider 
 influence than the class from a single church. There 
 is only a very limited amount of the instruction in 
 the teacher training courses that is essentially doc- 
 trinal. There is found little difficulty in bringing 
 several churches together, in fact, this hindrance 
 seldom appears. 
 
 The Teacher of the Class. The teacher of the 
 training class is often a minister, sometimes a pub- 
 lic school teacher or Sunday school teacher of 
 studious habits. Some fitting teacher can be found 
 in nearly every community, and very often where 
 a group of young people have organized for 
 study they have chosen one of their own number 
 as teacher and have carried their work on with suc- 
 cess, the teacher studying with the class. The ex- 
 aminations and credits are given by the denomina- 
 tional boards or the State Associations of the 
 International Association. The examination ques- 
 tions are sent to the teacher, so that there is some- 
 thing of supervision and guidance offered to the 
 teacher through these strong outside influences. 
 
 The Social Life of the Class. The class in the 
 country can frequently be nourished and its interest 
 sustained by some attention to the social life. An 
 instance has been brought to light recently in which 
 a minister's wife in a village church called a group 
 of young people together by giving them a luncheon 
 and pleasant hour in her home, and found them 
 
Teacher Training for Country Sunday School 71 
 
 willing to do some study later. They were indif- 
 ferent to it at first, and only her persuasion and 
 social tact secured any interest, but as she invited 
 them week by week they soon became absorbed in 
 the work itself, and study which they would 
 not have pursued without the social induce- 
 ment was carried on later for its own sake. Fre- 
 quently these classes meet at the homes of the mem- 
 bers, going from place to place, and enjoying a 
 social hour before or after the period of study. The 
 work must usually be discontinued during the sum- 
 mer, but seven or eight months of work are entirely 
 practicable. 
 
 The Small Class. Much of the best work is done 
 in small classes. Classes of five or six in number 
 have freqiiently worked with success; where nine 
 or ten can be secured the class may be made more 
 interesting. Where the number is larger than this 
 the class should be organized, with a president, vice- 
 president, secretary, treasurer, and committees. In 
 this way very much more of social life and class 
 spirit can be maintained. Buttons, ribbons, badges, 
 and the like are often delightful means of develop- 
 ing a class spirit and binding its members together. 
 When the Bible is really studied in a fresh and 
 earnest way it is found to be the most interesting 
 book in the world, and the new light on child na- 
 ture makes it so fascinating that it has proved a 
 subject of wonderful interest to many groups of 
 workers; so that no small group need be discour- 
 aged or afraid to undertake a definite course of 
 study, as it is not the size of the class, but its sense 
 
72 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 of responsibility and willingness to work that de- 
 termine its success. 
 
 Fitting for Special Work. While the course of 
 study follows general lines, the students must begin 
 early to give their attention to preparation for spe- 
 cial work. The teacher of the little child should 
 study the Bible and study the child with the Httle 
 beginner or primary child in mind, and the one who 
 is being fitted to teach boys or girls in the teen 
 years should make a different preparation, for the 
 problems of that work will demand some special 
 knowledge and training very different from that 
 needed by the teacher of the little child. Now these 
 special tasks can only be taken up by reference read- 
 ing and by discussion in the class. The teacher 
 must choose and guide the members of the class in 
 regard to their future work. 
 
 Conventions, Institutes, and the Like. No school 
 can live to itself: it must be part of the big world. 
 The urgent demand for Christian unity and a fine 
 spirit of brotherhood in the country life reaches the 
 Sunday school. There must be keen work among 
 the Sunday schools if they are to give really relig- 
 ious instruction and make a real contribution to the 
 social life and truly assume moral leadership. 
 
 The township convention is one of the most effec- 
 tive agencies within the reach of the country Sun- 
 day school. It brings officers and teachers together, 
 it offers some outside help — some inspiring leaders 
 from county or city, it offers a program which is 
 now usually fairly practical, educational, and in- 
 spiring. After the township convention comes the 
 
Teacher Traming for Coimtry Sunday School 73 
 
 meeting of the workers for the county, which is 
 held once a year. This brings a larger group into 
 discussion, and in it are frequently heard men and 
 women of fine training who are giving their lives to 
 the Sunday school as a field of service. 
 
 There is now an increasing number of schools 
 of methods, lasting five or six days, holding meet- 
 ings in the country, or sometimes at some lake-side 
 or like pleasant resort in summer time, sometimes 
 in town or city in winter. This school is to the 
 Sunday school what the county institute has always 
 been to the public school. Its instruction, its lead- 
 ers, its conferences, and discussion have inspired 
 and guided many teachers and officers who are lead- 
 ers in the most successful schools in America to-day. 
 
 The township and county conventions are now 
 taking far wider range in their programs and invit- 
 ing agricultural experts and social workers, success- 
 ful country leaders, and the whole problem of 
 country welfare is discussed in a broad Christian 
 spirit. The value of the church in the country is 
 clearly recognized and the Sunday school is found 
 to be the very heart of the church ; and so the prob- 
 lems of the Sunday school are the problems of Sun- 
 day and of week-day, of sport and recreation, of 
 reading and good roads, of well-equipped homes and 
 a united community. 
 
 The Workers' Lribrary. Each church should be- 
 gin to acquire a small workers' library. This should 
 contain books for each department of the Sunday 
 school. They should be chosen very carefully and 
 a few at a time. The training class should have a 
 
74 The Teens and the Rural Swnday School 
 
 Bible Dictionary, a few maps, and then begin to 
 acquire books for the younger and older child, books 
 regarding boy life and girl life, class organization, 
 story telling, Bible study, country-life problems, the 
 organization and efficiency of Sunday school man- 
 agement. These books should be in the care of 
 some one chosen as librarian, who should keep a 
 record of the reading done, and be competent to 
 suggest to the different members, officers, and teach- 
 ers of the school the chapters of special value to 
 them, and also to suggest the books that are the 
 most helpful in regard to country-life questions. 
 
 It will be seen that the problem of teacher train- 
 ing is really a problem of training leaders, of de- 
 veloping special talents, and of meeting the live 
 problems in regard to Christian service. 
 
 A training course for a class of younger students 
 should contain at least fifteen lesson hours of Old 
 Testament study, at least fifteen lesson hours of 
 New Testament study, at least ten lesson hours on 
 the study of child nature with the reading of at 
 least two books on the study of childhood or adol- 
 escence, ten hours on the methods of teaching, and 
 from eight to ten hours on the study of the Sunday 
 school and organization. 
 
Chapter VIII 
 
 COOPERATIVE ACTIVITIES 
 
 Your Committee appointed to make a study of 
 
 the Cooperative Activities that might be used in 
 
 relation to the rural Sunday school beg leave to 
 offer the report given below. 
 
 Home Activities 
 
 We believe that the rural home can contribute 
 much toward the successful maintenance of the 
 Sunday school. In fact, without parental coopera- 
 tion it is practically impossible to conduct a Sun- 
 day school that is anything more than a hit-or-miss 
 juvenile gathering. We believe, however, that rural 
 parents possess far- more willingness than ability to 
 give adequate support to the Sunday school work. 
 Two particular lines of parent instruction and guid- 
 ance seem to us well-nigh imperative. First, there 
 should be placed in the hands of every rural parent 
 an inexpensive leaflet treating with full care and 
 detail the following topic : "How to assist the chil- 
 dren in their Sunday school work." This pamphlet 
 should take up item by item the small home affairs 
 that need a readjustment in the interest of the Sun- 
 day school. This printed document should begin 
 
 75 
 
7^ The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 with a clear and forceful enunciation of the mean- 
 ings and principle of Sunday school work. It should 
 attempt to make clear to the reader the idea that 
 Sunday school training is an essential part of the 
 whole course of discipline in any good life. It 
 should point out and explain the fact that a well 
 regulated, well attended Sunday school will bring 
 in as big returns in every way as any other insti- 
 tution. This pamphlet should explain that the Sun- 
 day school is worthy of support because of its mak- 
 ing for better contentment among the boys and girls 
 of the neighborhood, and because it will furnish the 
 parents much assistance in their efforts to instil 
 lessons of moral reliance and social purity. 
 
 After the best purposes of the country Sunday 
 school have been adequately set forth the pamphlet 
 should take up and consider the best means of in- 
 ducting country youth into Sunday school work and 
 the most reliable methods of securing their regular 
 attendance. It should urge parents to relieve their 
 children as far as possible from the Sunday per- 
 formance of the week-day tasks. 
 
 School Cooperation 
 
 We believe that the rural school can do very little 
 of a direct nature and very much of an indirect 
 nature to foster the Sunday school. What we espe- 
 cially urge in this connection is that everything 
 possible be done to unify all the agencies which 
 contribute to the better development of the country 
 
Cooperative Activities 77 
 
 boys and girls. That is, we wish to have all the 
 rural dwellers to regard the Sunday school in the 
 same serious light as they do the day school. As a 
 means of showing the right neighborhood apprecia- 
 tion of the Sunday school the board of public school 
 trustees should aim to elect a teacher who will con- 
 tribute something toward the Sunday work. While 
 no contract to this effect could be drawn, a board 
 could show their appreciation of the Sunday service 
 rendered by the teacher by allowing her a liberal 
 salary for her regular school services. 
 
 The pviblic school is not permitted to teach re- 
 ligion ; nevertheless, a full respect for religious 
 teaching and practice can be indirectly inculcated in 
 the day school. We therefore believe that it would 
 be most helpful in building up a substantial relig- 
 ious sentiment in the rural neighborhood if there 
 could be furnished every country teacher a well- 
 thought-out, well prepared leaflet, written under the 
 title: "How the teacher may aid and encourage 
 the rural Sunday school." This pamphlet would pre- 
 sent clearly and suggestively the following points: 
 (i) How the teacher may allude to the work of the 
 local church and Sunday school during the course 
 of the lesson recitations, with a thought of showing 
 their worth to the community. Let her be shown 
 how the lessons in reading, history, civics, and other 
 subjects may frequently lead to sentiments and con- 
 clusions favorable to the religious work. (2) How 
 the teacher may defend the religious work against 
 slurs and slighting remarks, and also how she may 
 defend and call favorable attention to the characters 
 
78 The Teens and the Rural Simday School 
 
 of those who are putting their voluntary efforts into 
 the maintenance of the Sunday school. (3) This 
 pamphlet should aim especially to explain to the 
 rural teacher precisely how and why a well man- 
 aged local church and Sunday school contribute to 
 the economic worth of the community. 
 
 We feel certain that the ordinary district school 
 teacher has given this important matter little or no 
 thought, and that she is greatly in need of a clear 
 and stimulating exhortation in regard to the matter. 
 We also believe that when once the teacher has ac- 
 quired the right appreciation of the religious work 
 she will willingly and effectively lend her heart and 
 her hand to its support. 
 
 Were there means for doing so, we should also be 
 inclined to have some descriptive, argumentative, 
 and stimulating literature treating the value of the 
 Sunday school to the community placed in the 
 hands of every member of the rural school boards. 
 And what we especially recommend at this point is 
 suggestive of one of the main threads of our entire 
 report, namely, that everything possible be done 
 by way of uniting the thought and the sentiment of 
 all of the members of the country community in 
 such a way that those who have special aptitude as 
 Sunday school leaders may have sufficient backing 
 and encouragement to enable them to go on and 
 establish their good purposes permanently. 
 
Cooperative Activities 79 
 
 Recreation 
 
 We believe that the possibilities of linking up the 
 rural Sunday school work with various recreative 
 activities are very numerous and important. There 
 is no need of argument to support the contention 
 that country life nearly everywhere is very much 
 lacking in facilities for helpful recreation. Not only 
 are the working days on the farm as a rule too long, 
 but the working seasons are too little interspersed 
 with rest periods and recreative activities. 
 
 The old-fashioned Sunday school picnic in the 
 woods, if rightly managed, furnishes an excellent 
 summer outing. Its chief fault hitherto has been 
 its infrequency. Once a year is not often enough 
 for such an affair. The boys and girls of the Sun- 
 day school and the community have something en- 
 ticing to look forward to and to think back about. 
 Of course much will depend upon the ability of the 
 leader and organizer. He or she must be a person 
 who can make a typical rural dweller regard the 
 half holiday spent in recreation in the light of an 
 economic investment — which it really is. The busy 
 farm father needs to be shown, for example, that 
 his boys will accomplish more work and do it better 
 in eleven days and a half of each fortnight spent in 
 the field, and one half day spent at the recreation 
 center, than they will in twelve days all consumed 
 in the heavy farm occupations. 
 
 Conditions are so varying that it is difficult to 
 offer a detailed plan for the Sunday school picnic, 
 but as a rule the country people should not be taken 
 
8o The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 to town for their recreation, enticing as that may be 
 to some. Rather, they should go together to the 
 woodland for purposes of camping, fishing, and the 
 like; or to the mountainside, if such be available; 
 or to the open meadow land, if neither of the places 
 just named are accessible, where temporary shades 
 may be set up, and where baseball, tennis, and other 
 athletic sports may be engaged in. 
 
 We believe that baseball may be made an espe- 
 cially helpful agency in relation to the Sunday 
 school. We recommend that definite suggestions 
 be given the rural Sunday school leaders for or- 
 ganizing baseball clubs and for bringing the ball 
 team into active contests with neighboring Sunday 
 school teams. We believe that it would be prac- 
 ticable to organize a county league of rural Sunday 
 school baseball clubs; that a series of games could 
 be arranged for, say, either every Thursday after- 
 noon or every alternate Thursday afternoon, with 
 two to five Sunday school groups in attendance. 
 While this county league suggestion has not been 
 carried out to our knowledge, w^e know personally 
 of rural baseball clubs which have developed such 
 a sentiment in their favor that practically everybody 
 in the community ceases work on a mid-week after- 
 noon to witness and applaud the games. 
 
 We find that in many rural communities there is 
 maintained a Sunday afternoon baseball game which 
 is antagonistic to the well-being of the community. 
 The most common method of procedure in overcom- 
 ing this evil is that of direct attack, the law fre- 
 quently being sought as a vehicle of reform. We 
 
Cooperative Activities 8i 
 
 do not find that this method of force and direct op- 
 position is successful or desirable, and we earnestly 
 recommend a radically different method as follows : 
 Have the local church and Sunday school organiza- 
 tion unite in an effort to make peaceful terms with 
 the Sunday baseball players. Let the commit- 
 tee representing the religious element remind the 
 players that they wish to participate in the ball 
 game, but cannot do so on Sunday for obvious 
 reasons. Let the committee agree that if the Sun- 
 day game be permanently discontinued and some 
 week-day substituted they and the members of the 
 church and Sunday school will make an effort to 
 attend and support the games. It is our belief that 
 the Sunday baseball game is quite as much a reflec- 
 tion on the local churches and Sunday schools as 
 upon any other element of a community; and we 
 further believe that the Sunday game may not only 
 be discontinued as a result of the method just de- 
 scribed, but also that an active participation in the 
 game by the church and Sunday school members 
 will put a new kind of religious zeal into such mem- 
 bers and likewise prove a means of increasing the 
 attendance at the religious services. 
 
 We do not see any good reason why the Sunday 
 school might not organize general field meets for 
 the community on one or more occasions during the 
 year. 
 
 The attitude of the Sunday school toward all the 
 foregoing athletic and recreative practices is largely 
 a matter of the education of public sentiment. In 
 many instances where opposition to such sports 
 
82 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 was once very great, such opposition has been grad- 
 ually broken down and in its stead there is a united 
 enthusiasm. We therefore urge the necessity and 
 the practicability of placing in the hands of rural 
 Sunday school leaders well selected literature on 
 this subject. 
 
 Local Improvement and Civics 
 
 We find that in a few notable instances the youth- 
 ful members of the rural Sunday school have done 
 effective public improvement work as follows: (i) 
 The young men of the Sunday school were orga- 
 nized into a good roads association, the first stated 
 purpose being that of improving the roads over 
 which the various members had to pass in reaching 
 the local church. Roads were dragged through vol- 
 untary effort, crossings were made through muddy 
 streams during the summer seasons, and passage- 
 ways were opened through the snow during the 
 winter seasons. The second purpose of one of these 
 clubs was that of bringing about the construction 
 of hitch racks and wind sheds at the church to serve 
 the needs of the horses during the religious services. 
 A third purpose of the club was that of beautifying 
 the grounds surrounding the local church, by clear- 
 ing debris, planting out trees, laying walks, and the 
 like. 
 
 Associated with such a club of young men as 
 described above there has been reported in at least 
 one instance a Sunday school organization of young 
 women, which, operating under a euphonious name, 
 
Cooperative Activities 83 
 
 furnished the bulbs and flowers for adding to the 
 beauty of the local grounds, and also looked after 
 the internal decorations of the church building. 
 
 A third local improvement club, constituted of 
 the young men of the Sunday school, acting with 
 the older men of the community, is reported to have 
 done efifective work in opposition to desecration of 
 the Sabbath. They worked for a better enforcement 
 of the law prohibiting Sabbath desecration, and also 
 labored with their representatives in the interest of 
 the enactment of better laws. They also sought 
 out the persons and places where young men were 
 enticed into evil practices, and did what they could 
 to correct such abuses. 
 
 In a few localities it is reported that there exist 
 bands of purity as an adjunct of the rural Sunday 
 school. The purpose of these youthful bands is 
 usually that of insuring temperance and purity on 
 the part of boys, and also of inculcating a better 
 sentiment in behalf of the practice of purity of 
 speech, thought, and action. 
 
 In some instances economic clubs have had a help- 
 ful relation to the Sunday school. The local min- 
 ister in a few instances has given the boys' corn 
 club much prominence by means of a so-called Corn- 
 Sunday. On this occasion the church has been 
 decorated with farm products, corn predominating. 
 The sermon has been applied to farm-produce prob- 
 lems, and the Sunday school likewise considered a 
 scriptural lesson related to this important subject. 
 Many of the states are now calling urgently through 
 the medium of their agricultural colleges for volun- 
 
84 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 teer economic clubs of rural boys and girls. We do 
 not have in mind any reasons that wovild prevent 
 the rural Sunday school from organizing such clubs 
 within its own membership. 
 
 Along with the boys' corn club there may be con- 
 ducted a girls' bread-making club. While we do 
 not believe that these organizations will succeed 
 well if organized with a purely local interest, we 
 can see how they might contribute much indirect 
 life to the Sunday school which encourages them as 
 a means of carrying on the work directed by the 
 extension department of the college. 
 
 We commend all the foregoing forms of civic and 
 local improvement activities among rural Sunday 
 school youths, and we recommend that there be 
 formulated for the rural Sunday school workers a 
 specific plan for organizing and rendering effective 
 the types of activity included in the list. 
 
 Social Affairs 
 
 If the various forms of activity described above 
 have any merit it is probably because of their hav- 
 ing a strong social element. Indeed, we must rec- 
 ognize that the adolescent boy and girl, no matter 
 where their lot be cast, are above all things else in- 
 terested in social affairs. It is therefore altogether 
 practical for the Sunday school worker to arrange 
 for a series of reigular social events for the adoles- 
 cent members of the Sunday school. We believe 
 that the adolescent boys and girls of the ordinary 
 country community need to be brought together in 
 
Cooperative Activities 85 
 
 a social way more than they are to-day. The asso- 
 ciation of the sexes during this period of life, under 
 guidance and supervision, proves to be the means 
 of enhancing personal purity rather than the op- 
 posite, as many have seemed to believe. 
 
 The rural leader may therefore frequently plan 
 for an evening party of the young people within 
 the church and Sunday school. It would be well to 
 designate this organization in some such way as the 
 
 following: "The Social Union of the 
 
 Sunday School." Such a name would tend to keep 
 out undesirable practices and undesirable guests. 
 It would also suggest the generous spirit of the re- 
 ligious leaders of the community, and would con- 
 stitute an indirect invitation to the hesitating young 
 people to ally themselves with the Sunday school 
 organization. 
 
 In a few instances the social union has been fos- 
 tered under the guise of a literary society with a 
 literary program. There is every reason to com- 
 mend this literary form of adjunct to the rural Sun- 
 day school. In respect to the management of such 
 an organization we would note the necessity of al- 
 lowing much time during the evening of the per- 
 formance for the social intercourse of the young 
 people. Again, the name of the society may, and 
 doubtless should, suggest the Sunday school organ- 
 ization which is backing it. The success of a liter- 
 ary organization is dependent very largely upon the 
 tact and insight of the leader. 
 
 We also wish to call attention to the necessity of 
 conducting an active campaign looking toward the 
 
86 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 education of public sentiment. In not a few of the 
 rural communities where the church and Sunday 
 school are well attended there is poverty of social 
 life for the young, and this most certainly means a 
 scattering of the growing generation in the near 
 future. Indeed, the prejudice among many religious 
 parents of the country communities against any 
 form of social life for their children is most aston- 
 ishing. And yet we believe that this prejudice will 
 soon yield to the force of new ideals. 
 
 In many of the rural neighborhoods there is al- 
 ready in existence some form of dancing club, the 
 conduct of which is often open to the most serious 
 criticism. In such case we recommend that no di- 
 rect attack be made upon the dancing society or its 
 members. Indeed, we would caution against arous- 
 ing antagonism under such circumstances, and 
 would recommend that the leaders of the new social 
 life already suggested make their organization and 
 activities more attractive and more appealing to the 
 old and young members of the community than the 
 less worthy forms of social practice. 
 
 Editor's Note: All or nearly all of the activities men- 
 tioned in this chapter are being conducted by the organized 
 teen age Sunday school classes and departments. The Inter- 
 national Sunday School Association's Bulletin of Information 
 can be secured, giving nearly a thousand such activities cen- 
 tering around the Bible in the Sunday school class. 
 
 The creation of extra organizations for secretarial, civic 
 and social activity is deplored in recommendation 4 in the 
 chapter on "The Individual" and under Social Conditions in 
 the chapter on "Conditions Affecting Adolescence in Rural 
 Districts." All agree as regards the need of cooperative ac- 
 tivities. 
 
Chapter IX 
 
 THE RURAL SUNDAY SCHOOL ORGANIZED 
 FOR ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT 
 
 Other Committees appointed by the Commission 
 for the Study of the Adolescent Period as Related 
 to the Country Sunday School have devoted their 
 attention to the conditions which surround the Sun- 
 day school and which contribute to its success or 
 failure. It remains for this paper to deal definitely 
 with "The Rural Sunday School Organized for 
 Largest Service in the Development of the Adoles- 
 cent in the Rural Community." This is the crux of 
 the whole matter, for to the country Sunday school, 
 more than to any other organization, the world is 
 turning, and must turn, for the development of the 
 rural youth in moral and religious character. 
 
 The Rural Cormnunity. In defining a country 
 Sunday school it is essential that one should have a 
 clear understanding as to what constitutes a rural 
 community. As commonly understood, a rural com- 
 munity is a group of people living in the open coun- 
 try ; but to residents of large cities or populous cen- 
 ters the rural community includes the suburban 
 population and residents of surrounding smaller 
 towns. There are, however, many purely industrial 
 centers of less than 2,000 which possess marked 
 
 87 
 
88 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 urban characteristics which have been transmitted 
 to them through trolley line connection with large 
 industrial cities. On the other hand, many com- 
 munities of more than 2,000 population, shipping 
 points or trading centers for farmers, or residential 
 towns for retired farmers, possess decided rural 
 tendencies. 
 
 The United States Government, in the last report 
 issued from its Educational Department, fixes all 
 people living in communities of less than 2,500 in 
 the rural class. Taking the United States as a 
 whole, these figures are doubtless correct. In this 
 article, however, the term "rural community" is con- 
 strued to mean a group of people living either in the 
 open country or in villages of less than 2,000 popu- 
 lation. 
 
 A Paramount Factor. Viewed from many stand- 
 points, the rural Sunday school is the most impor- 
 tant factor in the whole Sunday school scheme. The 
 reasons are obvious. First, rural Sunday schools 
 make up at least two-thirds of the Sunday school 
 family. Second, they are found everywhere. Third, 
 they reach proportionately more boys and girls in 
 the early years than do urban schools. For these 
 reasons the rural Sunday school is to-day being 
 stressed as never before in the interest of the solu- 
 tion of the country problem in its moral and relig- 
 ious aspects. 
 
 The Rural School of the Past. The rural school 
 of yesterday, loose-jointed and imperfect as it was, 
 was the forerunner of the school of to-day. It 
 began as a children's school in which, before the 
 
Organization for Adolescent Development 89 
 
 day of the public school, children, and occasionally 
 adults, studied the "Sunday School Spelling and 
 Reading Book," recited the Catechism, and memo- 
 rized Scripture for rewards. In time came the ques- 
 tion book, then the lesson leaves, then the lesson 
 quarterlies. Along with these were introduced song 
 rolls, leaf clusters, the blackboard, and other equip- 
 ment through which the school was assisted to do 
 better work. The Bible became more generally used 
 in the school-room, and the Sunday school entered 
 upon an era of great improvement. The children 
 and the boys and girls were large in the eyes of the 
 school, and special attention was given to them^-to 
 their comfort and to their instruction; but the adol- 
 escent was overlooked. Somehow he was aban- 
 doned as a hopeless proposition. In fact, he was 
 regarded as an "impossible," and was occasionally 
 "fired," as shown in Hymn 61 in the "Sunday School 
 Hymnal," published early in the last century, which 
 is announced as a hymn to be sung on the occasion 
 of "The Dismission of an Incorrigible Scholar." The 
 first verse is as follows : 
 
 "How dreadful to be turned away 
 In anger from our place. 
 May we be careful every day 
 For fear of such disgrace." 
 
 Few men in those days attended the school ses- 
 sions, and the youth, imitating the adults, con- 
 ceived that the manly thing for a big boy to do 
 was to "quit." The Sunday school seemingly didn't 
 care. 
 
90 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 In the matter of teacher training there was a little 
 sporadic Normal Class work in those days, but most 
 teachers were not specially fitted, either by selection 
 or training, for masterful work. A few trained and 
 educated public school teachers were skilled in Sun- 
 day school work, but the average teacher had little 
 knowledge of the pupil, the Bible, or the principles 
 of education which govern in all teaching. How- 
 ever, the intense earnestness of many of the early 
 teachers not otherwise qualified, and the evangelis- 
 tic emphasis given the teaching, was remarkably 
 blessed of God ; for out of the Sunday school teach- 
 ing of the past have come the leaders of to-day, who 
 are now zealously correcting past Sunday school 
 errors. 
 
 The city has largely been the beneficiary of the 
 country Sunday school of yesterday. With the ex- 
 odus of youth from the country toward the city the 
 country-bred Christian men and women, products 
 of the rural Sunday school, have become and are 
 to-day officers of the city churches, superintendents 
 and teachers in city schools, and Christian "stal- 
 warts" in the commercial and professional life of 
 the city. The rural Sunday school of yesterday has 
 largely conserved the spiritual life of the city 
 church. One dares not conjecture what Christianity 
 in the city would have become were it not for the 
 leaven of Christianity which the rural Sunday 
 schools have poured into urban communities 
 through the lives of men whose early Christian 
 teaching and whose conversion are due to the rural 
 Sunday school of yesterday. 
 
Organization for Adolescent Development 91 
 
 Notwithstanding the truth of the above, the aver- 
 age rural Sunday school has not kept pace with the 
 times. While it has furnished many noble and 
 strong men for the cities, it has largely failed to 
 liberally provide for the local community its own 
 Christian citizenship. Many boys who left the rural 
 Sunday school with a Christian bias have been 
 gripped in the city by the Young Men's Christian 
 Association, the Organized Adult Class, or the 
 strong and attractive city churches ; whereas, the 
 average rural adolescent who left the Sunday school 
 at fourteen and remained at home has not been won 
 back to the rural school nor to the rural church, 
 because of the failure of the rural school to make a 
 place for him. 
 
 The Rural School of To-day. The rural Sunday 
 school of to-day finds itself in a new era. It faces 
 new conditions. The extension of public school 
 education into rural communities, the emphasis 
 given scientific farming, the science of soil analysis, 
 soil feeding, seed selection, germ destruction, cement 
 construction, the use of gasoline as a propelling 
 power for farm machinery, the advent of the auto- 
 mobile, the extension of trolley lines, and the em- 
 phasis upon college education as an essential for 
 successful farming, have in a measure checked the 
 emigration from the open country to the city. The 
 rural adolescent in increasing numbers is remaining 
 at home or on the farm, and is available as a Sun- 
 day school asset. The rural Sunday school is now 
 facing as never before the responsibility of shaping 
 the lives of rural youth. The moral and religious 
 
92 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 salvation of the rural community is to-day depen- 
 dent upon the rural Sunday school reorganized and 
 vitalized to meet the situation — a school so charged 
 with magnetic power that it will draw to it the rural 
 adolescent. 
 
 Essential Qualities of the Rural School. If the 
 country Sunday school of to-day is to command the 
 respect and interest of the rural adolescent and win 
 him to its sessions and its activities it must possess 
 an attractive individuality and a wholesome inspir- 
 ing atmosphere. To him it must be more than a 
 "joke" or an apology. It must be a well-organized 
 school, with a practical program. Be the Sunday 
 school well officered and prompt in its introductory 
 worship period, be its teachers well equipped and 
 punctual in their attendance, be the courses of study 
 fitted to the unfolding adolescent years, be its Sec- 
 ondary and Adult Classes organized for real busi- 
 ness, if it has strong music, a good Superintendent 
 of few words, worshipful opening exercises, a busi- 
 ness-like dispatch of the school program, and real 
 zeal in winning and culturing youth, it will grip the 
 adolescent. 
 
 The rural school which is attractive to the adol- 
 escent must therefore speedily become an efficient 
 school, carefully organized, with its several classes 
 or departments graded and well developed. The 
 school must be more than an aimless meeting, more 
 than a perfunctory service. It must be a real s'chool, 
 with elements of dignity, purpose, and strength. 
 These qualities are possible to the small school, and 
 are to-day found in many of the best small rural 
 
Organization for Adolescent Development 93 
 
 schools. Be not deceived with the will-o'-the-wisp 
 of "size," for youth is captured, not so much by 
 numbers in the school as by the strength of the 
 school, its real educational and spiritual value, and 
 the place it provides for youth in its Sabbath and 
 week-day program. 
 
 The reason why the rural school has not better 
 held its adolescent pupil is because he has never 
 been seriously considered in the school plans, and 
 has not been regarded as a "worth-while" factor in 
 the school life. 
 
 The School Organizatioiu. The modern efficient 
 rural Sunday school should be organized into the 
 following Divisions, and when the school is suffi- 
 ciently large the Divisions should be subdivided into 
 departments or classes : 
 
 I. Elementary Division (birth to 12 years), 4 De- 
 partments or Classes ; (a) Cradle Roll Department 
 (o to 3) ; (b) Beginners' Department (3, 4, 5) ; (c) 
 Primary Department (6, 7, 8) 3 grades ; (d) Junior 
 Department (9, 10, 11, 12) 4 grades. 
 
 II. Secondary Division (13 to 19 inclusive), 2 De- 
 partments or Classes : (a) Intermediate Department 
 (13, 14, 15, 16) 4 grades; (b) Senior Department 
 (17, 18, 19) 3 grades. 
 
 III. Adult Division (20 and over), as many classes 
 as desired, men, women, or mixed. 
 
 It should also have a Home Department, Organ- 
 ized Classes, a Missionary Committee, a Temper- 
 ance Committee, and such other features as are in- 
 cluded in the goal for Standard Schools (inquire 
 
94 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 for same of the State Sunday School Association or 
 your own denominational Sunday School Board). 
 
 In addition to the teachers the school should have 
 the following officers, which, combined, constitute 
 the Sunday school cabinet : Pastor, Superintendent, 
 Associate Superintendent, Secretary, Treasurer, 
 Superintendent of Classification, Cradle Roll Super- 
 intendent, Beginners' Superintendent or Teacher, 
 Primary Superintendent or Teacher, Junior Super- 
 intendent or Teacher, Intermediate Superintendent 
 or Teacher, Senior Superintendent or Teacher, Adult 
 Superintendent or Teacher, Home Department 
 Superintendent, Librarian, Organist, Chorister. 
 
 Small schools may look upon such a required list 
 of officers as super-organization. However, if the 
 school is to be converted into an efficient working 
 machine these officers should be recognized. Many 
 of the superintendencies may be assigned as teach- 
 ers in the respective departments. Their duties are 
 so well understood that none but those of the Super- 
 intendent, Associate, and the Classification Superin- 
 tendent are here considered. 
 
 The Superintendent. The rural Sunday school 
 should have an efficient man for superintendent, 
 for it is he who makes or breaks the school. The 
 superintendent largely limits the work. The school 
 can scarcely rise higher than are his ideals as to 
 what a Sunday school should be. The work of the 
 superintendent is a "man's job" ; that is to say, it is 
 a big job ; and it should command the time, thought, 
 and devotion of a man who in a marked degree pos- 
 sesses qualities of organization and leadership. 
 
Organization for Adolescent Development 95 
 
 Where such a man is not available the next best 
 man should be secured, while the school diligently 
 seeks to find or train a man fitted to the task. The 
 best schools in these days are training their super- 
 intendents. Select a promising, bright, developing 
 young man who consents to prepare himself for the 
 work. Make him temporarily the Associate Super- 
 intendent. At the expense of the school provide 
 him with books on "The Sunday School at Work" 
 and kindred text-books for Sunday school superin- 
 tendents. Send him to State Conventions and Sum- 
 mer Training Schools where he can study at the 
 feet of masters in Sunday school work. Send him 
 away to visit several successful schools as an ob- 
 server. Superintendents should be retained as long 
 as the school prospers and is kept abreast of the 
 times in Sunday school efficiency, and no longer. 
 
 If the Sunday school is not gaining it is losing. 
 If it is not improving it is deteriorating ; if it is slug- 
 gish and sleepy and slow the superintendent needs 
 to be quickened or excused. 
 
 The Associate Superintendent. This officer 
 should share the duties and responsibilities of the 
 superintendent, and each Sunday be given some 
 work from the platform. He should, if possible, be 
 a young man, selected to become the superinten- 
 dent's understudy — a man in training for the posi- 
 tion in the event of change. He should be encour- 
 aged to fit himself by study and observation for his 
 prospective position, and should be given oppor- 
 tunity occasionally to superintend the school. 
 Every superintendent owes it to himself and to the 
 
96 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 school to welcome such an associate, and should 
 take pride in insuring for the school a trained super- 
 intendent in the event of death or removal. 
 
 The Classification Superintendent. To this offi- 
 cer should be committed the assignment of all new 
 pupils to their proper classes. The more thoroughly 
 graded the school, the more the need of such an 
 officer. He or she should, if possible, be a public 
 school teacher, or one who knows the grading of 
 the public schools. It is important that pupils 
 under twenty should be placed in classes where 
 they are grouped with their kind in mental or edu- 
 cational standing. The superintendent will often 
 be saved embarrassment by having such an officer 
 whose decisions are authoritative. The Classifica- 
 tion Superintendent may be one of the teachers or 
 possibly one of the adult pupils. 
 
 The Physical Conditions. If the rural Sunday 
 school is to be organized for largest service in the 
 development of the adolescent the physical condi- 
 tions as to building, equipment, etc., should be 
 studied. 
 
 I. The Building. Scarcely too much stress can be 
 placed upon the utility of the building in which the 
 rural school meets. The churches now in use are 
 not to stand forever. When the new building comes 
 it should be built for to-morrow, not for to-day. 
 New village and open-country churches are going 
 up everywhere. Some are planned to better house 
 the Sunday school. Most of them, however, are 
 planned and constructed by building committees 
 which have little conception of the modern educa- 
 
Organization for Adolescent Development 97 
 
 tional demands upon the Sunday school, be it big or 
 little. Their notion is to have, at least once on 
 Sunday, the "dear little children" and everybody 
 else thrown together in one room. The whole archi- 
 tectural plan of the building is surrendered to this 
 bit of "sentimentalism." When on rare and special 
 occasions it is desirable to assemble the whole 
 school in one place the church auditorium may be 
 used. It should be remembered that the Sunday 
 school must more and more become "a school," and 
 it will increasingly need separate rooms in which, 
 without interfering with or disturbing each other, 
 the several departments can work out their depart- 
 mental problems. Church and Sunday school archi- 
 ■tects who fail to appreciate this are handicapping 
 for years to come the eiificiency and usefulness of 
 the school. 
 
 Multiplied thousands of Sunday schools, however, 
 meet in one-room churches. Many of these, with 
 comparatively little expense, can build an annex or 
 wing, and thus provide, at least for the Elementary 
 Division of the school, a bright cheery room, sub- 
 divided into three, for the use of the Beginners and 
 Primary Departments or Classes, and the nine, ten, 
 and eleven-year old boys and girls in the Junior 
 Department. Where these changes cannot be made 
 a proper use of curtains hung on wires, or the use 
 of portable screens, will provide separate places for 
 departmental or class instruction. Superintendents 
 of even the smallest schools should study the build- 
 ing, and organize the floor space with a view to giv- 
 ing each group of pupils, by departments or classes, 
 
98 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 a definite "spot" which belongs to them, and from 
 which they pass on promotion to some other "spot" 
 of higher grade or rating. 
 
 2. Seating. Inasmuch as one-half of the Sunday 
 schools in America are held in one room and are 
 seated with stationary pews, how can the seating in, 
 such churches be utilized ? Certainly the two "Amen 
 Corners" can be cleared of the pews and small 
 chairs of three sizes can be substituted for the use 
 of the children under six and between six and nine. 
 Curtains or portable screens can shut olif these cor- 
 ners and convert them into separate places or rooms 
 for the Beginners or Primaries. The gallery, if 
 there be one, can be likewise seated for an adult or 
 secondary class. Where the space between the pews 
 is generous every other pew with little cost can be 
 made convertible. This change will make it pos- 
 sible for the members of the class to be seated op- 
 posite each other, and at the same time be grouped 
 about the teacher. 
 
 In churches where, in addition to the church audi- 
 torium, one or more extra rooms are used for the 
 Beginners and Primary Departments the seating 
 should consist of three sizes of chairs. In churches 
 where separate rooms are available for Sunday 
 school purposes the most desirable seat is a chair, 
 rendered noiseless in handling by the use of rubber 
 tips. Chairs yield to departmental and grade di- 
 visions and uses. They are far more comfortable 
 than pew or settee. 
 
 3. Bibles. Plenty of them. Encourage each mem- 
 ber of the school to purchase and use his own Bible, 
 
Orgamzation for Adolescent Development 99 
 
 but have enough Bibles on hand, the property of 
 the school, to provide, if necessary, one to each 
 pupil. A school equipped with Bibles has taken a 
 long step toward making the school a real Bible 
 school. 
 
 4. Maps. A set of good clear outline maps of 
 Bible lands. He who teaches Bible history without 
 maps is as lame as would be a teacher of ancient or 
 medieval or modern history without a geography. 
 A missionary map of the world should frequently be 
 displayed. 
 
 5. Singing Books. Select books which contain the 
 strong, inspiring, dignified, worshipful, and deeply 
 religious hymns of the Church ; such hymns should 
 be memorized. They will live forever. Avoid the 
 light, rag-time, popular, trashy music with nothing 
 in it but jingle. The Sunday school attractive to 
 the adolescent is one in which are often sung the 
 hymns that have stood the test of years and have 
 an established place in the hymnology of the 
 Church. These will create in the school an atmos- 
 phere of reverence and worship secured in no other 
 way. 
 
 6. Mottoes. Neat illuminated texts, mottoes, or 
 striking expressions of great missionaries and Chris- 
 tian statesmen should be hung on the wall and often 
 read by the school in concert. They should be fre- 
 quently changed to freshen the attractiveness of 
 the school-room. 
 
 7. Pictures. Decorate the room with reproduc- 
 tions of Bible scenes and characters painted by the 
 great masters, portraits of noted missionaries, noble 
 
lOO The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 churchmen, great exemplary characters of history, 
 and the martyrs. 
 
 8. Flags. Display before the school at each ses- 
 sion at least two flags : "Old Glory" and the "Flag 
 of the Church," or the "Conquest Flag." 
 
 9. Attendance Bulletin Board through which the 
 record of attendance and offering both present and 
 past are displayed each week in contrast. 
 
 10. A Workers' Library containing books on mod- 
 ern Sunday school work, books written to help the 
 teachers who wish to specialize in their several 
 grades ; a good Bible Dictionary and reference books 
 for Bible study. In other words, give the officers 
 and teachers literature, through a study of which 
 they may become better equipped for their work. 
 
 11. A Blackboard and other equipment required 
 in an up-to-date Sunday school. 
 
 Lesson Material. In considering the organization 
 of the rural school for largest service in the devel- 
 opment of the adolescent it must be remembered 
 that the Intermediate and Senior Departments and 
 the Adult Division cannot be made what they should 
 be unless the whole school is improved. The adol- 
 escent of to-morrow is to-day in the Elementary 
 Grades. The improvement must begin there and be 
 carried through all departments of the school. The 
 adolescent must be captured as a child, and the at- 
 tractions of school environment and educational 
 material must be so carried up into the teen years 
 that in adolescence the school is as attractive as in 
 childhood. This compels a square look at the ques- 
 
Organization for Adolescent Development loi 
 
 tion of lesson material in all departments of the 
 school. 
 
 A large number of the small schools in the open 
 country use the International Uniform Lessons 
 throughout the entire school. An increasing num- 
 ber of schools, however, both in the open country 
 and in villages, are using Graded Courses in the 
 Beginners and Primary Grades, and continuing 
 through the Junior Grade, while some have ex- 
 tended their use through the Intermediate and into 
 the Senior Grades with varying degrees of success. 
 
 Inquiries from country schools are, however, in- 
 creasingly numerous as to how to use or adapt the 
 Graded Lessons to the small rural school. To all 
 such schools it should be said that in the larger 
 rural schools the present courses of Graded Lessons 
 are usable. In the very small school it is impos- 
 sible to establish as many grades as are required to 
 use the lesson courses just as they are planned. 
 
 Beginners and Primary. In these grades the pres- 
 ent Graded Lesson Course can, by teaching the 
 course consecutively year after year to all of the 
 children in each department, be used in any school. 
 Should there be only two or three pupils in the Be- 
 ginners' Class or Department, they should have 
 their lesson quite apart from the Primary. 
 
 Junior. Fitting the course to the Junior is some- 
 what of a problem. As the lessons are at present 
 arranged it is impossible to use the books prepared 
 for the fourth year Junior lessons in a class in 
 which are all of the boys or girls or both from nine 
 to twelve years of age. The lesson text might, how- 
 
I02 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 ever, be used, the scrap-books being made by the 
 children, the teacher carefully guiding. She should 
 need to prepare her own book in advance. This, 
 however, will mean more original work on the part 
 of the teachers. 
 
 Intermediate. Where Intermediate lessons are in- 
 troduced into a small school the problem is to find 
 enough teachers to follow a plan of lessons adequate 
 to the needs of the various ages taught. One of the 
 mistakes made in many schools, large and small, ur- 
 ban and rural, is that teachers believe that classes, 
 to do effective work, must be large. Indeed, quite 
 the opposite is true. Large groups should be used 
 for social work, etc., but for the lesson teaching 
 much better results will be obtained in the class of 
 four or five. Even here there is always the difficulty 
 of securing a sufficient number of efficient teachers. 
 
 It is generally agreed that the greatest force in 
 the life of the ideal-forming early adolescent is per- 
 sonality. "Personality is the vernacular in which 
 ideals speak to youth." It is well, therefore, to put 
 the boys and girls of 13, 14, and 15 into one class 
 and use the biographical lessons of the First and 
 Second Year of the Graded Intermediate Series, 
 with an outline study of the life of Jesus prepared 
 similarly to the Fourth Year Junior work. This 
 method will preclude the advantage of building 
 upon the work of the previous year, but it will have 
 the advantage of acquainting the pupil with the 
 great heroes of the Church, and, best of all, with the 
 one Great Hero. 
 
 Senior. In a small school pupils in the later adoles- 
 
Organization for Adolescent Development 103 
 
 cent years would also necessarily be grouped in one 
 class. In such a class careful study should be made 
 of the teachings of Jesus, and of the great Church 
 of Jesus Christ: its organization, ordinances, rela- 
 tion to kindred organizations, etc. Upon this kind 
 of teaching, with pupils in later adolescence, depends 
 much of the future of the rural church. If they can 
 be given a vision of the Universal Church of God 
 with its mighty possibilities they will not be con- 
 tent, as have been their fathers, to see the good of 
 the whole community handicapped because of de- 
 nominational differences and because of a mistaken 
 "loyalty" to a particular branch of the Christian 
 church. The church — undivided — in the rural com- 
 munity will more and more become a community 
 center — not only of religion, but of the whole life. 
 
 With 16 to 20-year pupils there should be also the 
 study of the Bible by books. A wealth of material 
 is available for this work. It may be obtained from 
 the various Graded Lesson Courses, from Teacher 
 Training Books, and many other sources. A senior 
 class may elect to take up a Teacher Training 
 Course of study, the entire class taking the biblical 
 part of the course, with each member specializing 
 (outside the Sunday school hour) in the department 
 of Sunday school work in which he or she is spe- 
 cially interested. Thus the Senior Class will be 
 training the teachers and officers of the school for 
 the early future. 
 
 Extended into the Week-day. No Sunday 
 school, rural or urban, is at its best if it confines its 
 activities to the Sabbath. Efficient schools are more 
 
104 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 and more interested in the week-day life of their 
 pupils, and are providing means to meet the social, 
 mental, and physical hunger of the adolescent. And 
 this is being done in the village and open country. 
 The Organized Class provides a means for working 
 out many practical plans for week-day activity. 
 Many pastors and teachers are gripping the Inter- 
 mediates through tramps and hikes in connection 
 with which, for a whole season, groups study bird 
 life, insects, forestry, botany, rock formation, pho- 
 tography, and other subjects of fascinating interest 
 to all boys and girls. Baseball clubs and tennis 
 teams, under Sunday school leadership, capture boys 
 through the play life. A Sunday school camp, in 
 which groups of boys and girls in turn, each with 
 proper chaperonage, enjoy a week in the woods, 
 with all the accompanying sports of fishing, swim- 
 ming, boating, camp fires, etc. Basket ball, micro- 
 scope parties, stereopticon entertainments, musicals, 
 sleigh-ride parties, etc., are provided for winter 
 evenings. Skating and coasting invite to outdoor 
 life in winter. All these are utilized by many vil- 
 lage and open country schools with success, and 
 hold to the school the interest of the adolescent. 
 
 Community School Cooperation 
 
 I. For School Improvement. In the matter of 
 school improvement, Sunday schools can do to- 
 gether that which they cannot do separately. In 
 every community there are problems common to all 
 schools, which cannot be solved by any one of them. 
 
Organization for Adolescent Development 105 
 
 Separated as they have always been by denomina- 
 tional lines, each school working for itself, the 
 problem of the Sunday school as an efficient moral 
 and religious educational institution in the commun- 
 ity remains unsolved until the schools unite, on 
 common ground, without the discussion of doctrine 
 or polity, to reach the last boy and girl, the last 
 youth, the last man and woman, and the last home 
 in the community. This Sunday school team-work 
 in the interest of improved schools is provided for 
 by the Interdenominational Organized Sunday 
 School Work through the Town or District Sunday 
 School Association, under whose auspices are held 
 conventions and institutes, served by Sunday school 
 experts. These conventions are clearing houses for 
 the exchange of Sunday school plans, methods of 
 teaching, etc. It is there the strong school helps 
 and inspires the weak one, and the strong school 
 also learns where it is weak and discovers a remedy. 
 
 Under the leadership of the Town or District As- 
 sociations local school conventions should be held, 
 perhaps consisting of an evening session only, in 
 which certain county departmental specialists deal 
 alone with the local school problems, and, in coun- 
 sel with the pastor, superintendent, and teachers, 
 impart to the school the help which that particular 
 school needs to reach the "Standard" or "Efficiency" 
 goal of ten points of excellence. In course of a 
 year each Sunday school in the town or district 
 should be the beneficiary of such specific and prac- 
 tical help brought to its very doors. 
 
 Rural schools which keep in vital touch with 
 
io6 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 county and town or district conventions, and are 
 regularly represented by the superintendent and 
 pastor and teachers in such conventions, are invari- 
 ably the most efficient schools. 
 
 2. For Community Improvement. Aside from the 
 affiliation of the rural schools in the Town Associa- 
 tion in the interest of general Sunday school im- 
 provement, there is another school-cooperative- 
 movement in the interest of community welfare. 
 This is due to the new vision of community uplift, 
 through which many schools are ministering to 
 community welfare along every line related to moral 
 and religious community betterment. This they are 
 doing through the self-same Town and District As- 
 sociations in which they unite for Sunday school 
 improvement. 
 
 This is a far broader objective than Bible teach- 
 ing. The Bible teaching school steps out into the 
 week-days, and through the Rural Department of 
 the Town or District Sunday School Association 
 seeks to cooperate with the County Young Men's 
 Christian Association, the Young Women's Chris- 
 tian Association, the Grange, the Day Schools, and 
 other organizations which have as their objective 
 the vitalizing of community life. 
 
 The Rural Department usually introduces its 
 work with a survey of community life which is more 
 than a house-to-house visitation in the interest of 
 the church or school. It is a survey in the interest 
 of the discovery of the special needs of the com- 
 munity and includes a definite knowledge of every 
 phase of the community life, including its popula- 
 
Organization for Adolescent Development 107 
 
 tion, industries, civic, educational, social, recreative, 
 and federated interests. 
 
 The work of the Rural Department is under the 
 care and supervision of the Township Rural Super- 
 intendent, who is in close contact with the County 
 and State Rural Department Superintendents. The 
 Township Rural Superintendent should be the rec- 
 ognized representative of all the schools in their 
 cooperative community welfare work. He is to 
 gather the surplus or waste material, or literature, 
 books, etc., from the schools and distribute the 
 same; organize Sunday schools in neglected com- 
 munities; provide, in connection with the state 
 (where states furnish them) traveling libraries to 
 schools or for the community; arrange for educa- 
 tional lectures with lantern slides covering Tem- 
 perance, Hygiene, Social Problems, Travel, Indus- 
 tries, Community Betterment, and foster and super- 
 vise the social and athletic life of the town, union 
 Sunday school picnics, and field days. 
 
 In this article the writer has not aimed to make 
 the rural Sunday school satisfied with its present 
 achievements. He has rather sought to create a 
 wholesome discontent with the old order of rural 
 Sunday school work and to set before schools pres- 
 ent-day ideals as to what the rural Sunday school 
 of to-day should be, and what it should do for itself, 
 its neighboring Sunday schools, and the community 
 life. 
 
 The suggestions given are born of experience and 
 observation. Only such plans have been suggested 
 as have been successfully worked out in many rural 
 
io8 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 schools, schools which are conspicuous because of 
 success in holding their youth and in contributing 
 to the moral and religious development of the adol- 
 escent in the rural community. 
 
Chapter X 
 
 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS OF THE 
 
 ADOLESCENT COMMISSION FOR THE 
 
 RURAL SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 The reports of the various Committees of the 
 Rural Sunday School Commission, appearing in the 
 foregoing chapters, have covered the main lines of 
 investigation and also the larger problems of the 
 rural Sunday school. This chapter is a summary 
 of the material offered in the preceding chapters, 
 together with such other material and opinions as 
 the Executive Committee of the Commission could 
 secure, as a brief, general statement of the whole 
 problem. There may appear to be some duplication 
 or even difference in recommendation in this sum- 
 mary, nevertheless it seems best to the Commission 
 to present its findings in this manner. 
 
 The Importance of the Rural Sunday School 
 
 The Importance of Rural Life. We must learn 
 to approach the problem that lies in front of every 
 social institution by endeavoring to discover the 
 real reason for its continued existence; in other 
 words, by trying to learn its function. We ought 
 
 109 
 
no The Teens and the Rural Swnday School 
 
 to be willing to discard outworn social institutions, 
 as well as to adapt efficient institutions to human 
 need as it develops under different and changing 
 conditions of society. 
 
 We cannot, therefore, understand the importance 
 of the rural Sunday school, and if necessary reshape 
 it, unless we understand its place in rural life; and 
 its place in rural life is determined in part by the 
 significance of rural life itself. If we think of the 
 rural people as simply so many human beings choos- 
 ing to earn their living by tilling the soil, and of the 
 farm problem as chiefly the problem of assisting 
 those people to grow a larger food supply for the 
 rest of the world, we can find little need for the 
 Sunday school or for any other institution which 
 interests itself in the higher life of the countryman. 
 The real importance of rural life lies in the fact 
 that we have in America over fifty millions of peo- 
 ple living under rural conditions. The growth of 
 great cities ; the concentration of wealth in a few 
 hands, largely in the cities; the development of 
 modern facilities of communication and transporta- 
 tion; the amazing array of means of entertainment 
 or enjoyment which the cities present; the steady 
 drift of a large share of the best brain and virility 
 of the country communities to the city ; the increas- 
 ing cost of land, thus making it more difficult to 
 gain access to the soil ; the influx of foreign-speak- 
 ing peoples who are willing temporarily to sacrifice 
 standards of comfort, to which the American farmer 
 has become accustomed, for the sake of securing a 
 foothold on the land; the introduction of habits of 
 
Summary and Conclusions of the Commission 1 1 1 
 
 life and modes of thinking alien to our country com- 
 munities — all of these things bring us face to face 
 with a problem of national welfare which can no 
 longer be ignored or disregarded. What shall be 
 the type of life among these fifty millions of rural 
 people? What shall be the character of coming 
 generations whose number is sure to be greater? 
 What shall be their modes of thinking, their stand- 
 ards of morals ? How are they to fulfil the complete 
 obligations of citizenship? Are they to be inferior 
 to the people of the cities? Is the rustic to take the 
 place of the independent American farmer — the 
 peasant to supersede the yeoman? 
 
 The Importance of the Spiritual or Religious Ele- 
 ment in Rural Life. To the man who interprets 
 success in terms of economic gain, or who believes 
 that the foundations of morality lie in knowledge 
 rather than in motive, institutions similar to the 
 Sunday school make little appeal. Economic effi- 
 ciency is unquestionably the foundation for a per- 
 manent rural life. But we believe with all our 
 hearts that the most significant phase of the rural 
 question is how this economic prosperity may ulti- 
 mately be put to the highest spiritual uses. To 
 Christian men and women the idea of higher spir- 
 itual uses signifies immediately that type of life 
 which is motived and molded by religion. They 
 hold a firm belief that God rules the world, and that 
 the work of man is a partnership with God in a 
 service for men as individuals and as a race. To 
 those who believe thus the institutions which foster 
 the religious spirit are, therefore, the institutions 
 
1 12 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 of greatest moment in any movement on behalf of 
 rural progress. 
 
 The Importance of the Country ChurcH. Conse- 
 quently we do not hesitate to affirm that the coun- 
 try church is the most important rural institution, 
 and its work the most significant and far-reaching 
 of all the many phases of the rural life movement. 
 If we desire a rural civilization based on other foun- 
 dations than those of material prosperity, if we 
 cherish the hope of maintaining upon the land a 
 fertile seed-bed of great men and women, if we de- 
 sire to retain as soil-workers the highest type of 
 American citizenship, we believe it imperative that 
 the Church, as the great foster-mother of the re- 
 ligious motive, shall have real leadership in any 
 movement intended to usher in the new day. 
 
 The Importance of the Rural Sunday School. The 
 extent to which the Sunday school, as distinguished 
 from the Church, is to be a factor in rural life de- 
 pends upon the conception of the work of the Sun- 
 day school as an institution. If we think of it as a 
 school of religious education, embracing adults as 
 well as youth and children, we see at once that it 
 must have a prime place in our rural institutional 
 life. Even if its function be limited to the religious 
 training of the young, it must still play a most im- 
 portant part. Its greatest value, however, in our 
 judgment, will be shown by this test: Can it hold 
 to itself the youth of both sexes? Can the boys and 
 girls of the ages from twelve to twenty be kept in 
 the rural Sunday school? Here is the whole prob- 
 lem in a nutshell. Under modern conditions, if an 
 
Summary and Conclusions of the Commission II3 
 
 institution for the study of the Bible, either as a 
 religious book or as a guide to a practical life, or 
 both, can succeed in retaining the interest of a 
 great majority of boys and girls until they have 
 reached the age of eighteen or nineteen years, that 
 institution will have a more powerful molding in- 
 fluence upon the life and character of our American 
 nation than any other single influence within its 
 borders. 
 
 This broad statement is made without any quali- 
 fication and is based on two or three simple prin- 
 ciples : 
 
 'I. That the ages from twelve to twenty are the 
 most impressionable in the life of the individual. 
 It is in this period of life that dynamic and guiding 
 ideas are likely to root themselves in the heart. 
 
 2. If the religious motive can at this time of life 
 be made the dominant motive it will be the greatest 
 single factor in the development of the best life of 
 the individual and of the community. 
 
 3. That the fact that the Sunday school can re- 
 tain the interest of its pupils during this period is 
 of itself evidence of its influence and of the molding 
 power that it exerts. 
 
 The Sunday School the Key to the Country Church 
 Situation. So keenly do we feel the possibilities of 
 the country Sunday school that we do not hesitate 
 to say that one of the most powerful agencies in 
 bringing the country church to its normal leader- 
 ship in the country life movement is the revivified 
 Sunday school. Within ten years boys and girls at 
 present in the teen age will be the men and 
 
1 14 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 women most completely alive to the new demands 
 upon the country church — if they are in the church ; 
 and if they are not in the church the country church 
 will be in worse condition than it is to-day. The 
 rural Sunday school, then, in large measure, holds 
 the key to the country church situation, and the 
 country church, in our philosophy of country life, 
 holds the key to the highest type of rural develop- 
 ment. And the question whether we are to have the 
 very highest type of intellectual and social and 
 moral life out in the open country is indisputably 
 one of the prime problems of the twentieth century 
 in America. 
 
 We are quite aware that by somewhat similar 
 logic the indispensable character of other institu- 
 tions for the training of youth might also be estab- 
 lished, and we are ready to admit the logic and to 
 join with those who plead for a better rural school, 
 for larger recreative facilities for boys and girls in 
 the country, or for any other institutions or agencies 
 that bring zest to life in the country or that enlarge 
 its opportunities. But we assert that inasmuch as 
 the religious motive is the only sufficient motive in 
 the life of men, the institution most completely re- 
 sponsible for the development of the religious mo- 
 tive at the time of life when the motive must take 
 root, is the most important institution connected 
 with the solution of the problem of human life. 
 
Summary and Conclusions of the Commission 115 
 
 The Present Situation in the Rural Sunday 
 School 
 
 We must face squarely the actual situation that 
 confronts the rural Sunday school of to-day. If it 
 is possible for us to find out the facts we must 
 know them, no matter how discouraging a condition 
 they may reveal. From the statistical point of view 
 the situation seems to be somewhat as follow^s : 
 
 The Deficiencies in the Rural Sunday School. A 
 canvass of the entire commission on the question, 
 What are the main defects in the present rural 
 Sunday school situation? brought varying answers, 
 but, at the same time, a surprising unanimity on 
 certain main points. These agreements may, there- 
 fore, be summarized somewhat as follows : 
 
 1. A Lack of Competent Leadership. This has 
 reference largely to the lack of trained teachers and 
 supervisors — the difficulty of finding persons who 
 know how to make the rural Sunday school at- 
 tractive to young people, and who can build up a 
 permanent institution that abides the frequent 
 change of personnel that every Sunday school must 
 undergo. This also recognizes the lack of super- 
 vision by the denominational bodies particularly 
 charged with the work of Sunday school develop- 
 ment. 
 
 2. Inadequacy of Teaching Material. There is a 
 firmly rooted c'onviction on the part of our commis- 
 sion that in the country Sunday school we should 
 interpret the Bible in terms of the every-day life- 
 experience of the boys and girls, and that whenever 
 
Il6 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 those experiences are developed in a rural environ- 
 ment that environment must serve as the back- 
 ground for effective teaching. This implies an ex- 
 isting failure to provide just the right sort of helps, 
 as well as an adequate supply of teachers who can 
 teach in this way. 
 
 3. The Inadequacy of Equipment. A very large 
 proportion of the small covmtry churches have but 
 one room. Many of them have no maps, nothing 
 with which to work, in fact, very little to indicate 
 that the institution is really a school. 
 
 4. Failure to Understand the Real Task. A funda- 
 mental defect is a failure to understand the real 
 work of the Sunday school, its place in the com- 
 munity, the actual task it has in hand, and hence 
 to organize the right sort of program to make the 
 Sunday school effective. 
 
 Other deficiencies are suggested, but these seem 
 to be the main criticisms of the present situation. 
 The extent to which they are valid depends in a 
 large measure upon our belief in the possibilities 
 of such an institution as the Sunday school. Of 
 course, if we have in mind an ideal Sunday school, 
 it is easy to point out most glaring defects, but we 
 believe that, judged even by practical and reason- 
 able standards of achievement, on the whole the 
 rural Sunday school of the period is in a bad way. 
 It is not retaining the youth, and consequently it is 
 not doing its work. The Church is dependent upon 
 the Sunday school to bring its own children even- 
 tually into the Church. And if the children do not 
 
Summary and Conclusions of the Commission 117 
 
 stay in the Sunday school how can they cross the 
 bridge into the Church? 
 
 The Advantages of the Rural Sunday School. 
 But it must not be supposed that the rural Sunday 
 school situation is wholly disheartening. As a mat- 
 ter of fact, in many of the better farming regions 
 the country Sunday schools are in as good condition 
 as they are in large sections of our cities, when 
 judged by their success in retaining the young peo- 
 ple. It is difficult to analyze a situation of this sort 
 without seeming to forget the magnificent work that 
 is being done, the large number of devoted and in- 
 telligent helpers who are rendering a significant 
 service. For the fact, after all, remains that human 
 institutions fall short of our ideals for them. The 
 rural Svinday school is not a dead institution. 
 
 Economic Conditions as Affecting the Sunday 
 School. Studies by the Sub-commission on Survey 
 bring out pretty clearly the fact that in a great 
 many rural communities the proportion of the peo- 
 ple near the ragged edge industrially is so great that 
 resources for the adequate support of the institu- 
 tions of religion are quite lacking. Consequently 
 the statesmen of the Sunday school — and this ap- 
 plies equally to the Church — must join hands with 
 those who are endeavoring to build up more effi- 
 cient farming, because only on the foundation of 
 greater economic prosperity can permanent rural 
 institutions be reared. 
 
 Tenant Farming as Affecting Religion. Reports 
 also indicate that wherever tenant farming has be- 
 come dominant interest in Sunday school is at a low 
 
Ii8 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 ebb. This seems to be due, not merely to the fact 
 that in some sections the new people are of a differ- 
 ent class, and perhaps bring their own religious 
 institutions with them, but also to the fact that, 
 being tenants, and often temporary tenants, they 
 have less interest in the institutions of the com- 
 munity. 
 
 The Influence of Foreign-Speaking People. To 
 an increasing degree the Protestant Sunday school 
 situation in country districts is being complicated 
 by an influx of foreign-speaking peoples. These 
 people, though usually with large families, are in a 
 sense not "material" for the rural Sunday school 
 which we are now discussing. As a rule they bring 
 their own language as well as religious institutions 
 with them, and do not amalgamate ecclesiastically 
 with the older American types with whom they cast 
 their lot. 
 
 The Place of the Sunday School in Rural Life 
 
 We must cease to regard institutions as ends in 
 themselves. Their aim and methods should be 
 tested and retested in terms of the human needs 
 which they serve and for which it is believed they 
 are indispensable, or at least highly important. 
 Doubtless a statement of the real work of the rural 
 Sunday school would be phrased by different indi- 
 viduals in diverse ways. It is necessary, however, 
 as a prerequisite to a large development of rural 
 Sunday school work that the leaders may agree in 
 substance, if not in phraseology, upon the main 
 
Summary and Conclusions of the Commission 119 
 
 task which the Sunday school is set to perform. We 
 have endeavored to formulate this task, not in pre- 
 cise scientific thought, but by simply and in general 
 terms indicating what we believe to be the function 
 of the rural Sunday school as an organ of service 
 on behalf of the higher interests of our rural people. 
 
 The Fundamental Function of the Sunday School. 
 The Sunday school is the Church at work in a par- 
 ticular manner. The Sunday school is not a sepa- 
 rate institution. It should always be regarded as 
 a means by which the Church seeks to accomplish 
 a definite end. Broadly speaking, the Sunday school 
 is a school of character building, in which the em- 
 phasis is laid upon religion as the governing motive 
 of life. Its mission is more particularly, though not 
 exclusively, to the younger children and youth. It 
 is an educational institution, but it has a very defi- 
 nite objective. That objective is the development 
 of Christian character. 
 
 Its Aim and Purpose. The immediate aim and 
 purpose of the Sunday school is to utilize the Bible 
 as the supreme religious literature of the race, and 
 the chief means of developing Christian character. 
 Bible study, therefore, is the core of the Sunday 
 school. But in order to make the study effective the 
 Sunday school must teach in the terms of life and 
 experience which the pupils appreciate and under- 
 stand. The inculcation of religious principles ap- 
 plied to the whole range of human life as it is 
 actually lived by the pupils is the important aim and 
 purpose of the Sunday school. The teaching, there- 
 fore, must not be academic, but practical, and all the 
 
I20 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 processes to attain their full value must be in har- 
 mony with the laws of character development. 
 
 Program for the Rural Sunday School. If the 
 Sunday school clearly understands its task it will 
 naturally develop a definite program consisting of a 
 few main lines of effort, a program which can be 
 adapted to use under varying conditions, the details 
 of which must be applied by each Sunday school 
 for itself. Such a program would be illustrated by 
 the following outline: 
 
 1. The rural Sunday school should have definite 
 courses of instruction, with the Bible as the basis, 
 although not the exclusive material of teaching, sup- 
 plemented by such helps as will explain religious 
 principles and their application to affairs of indi- 
 viduals and to society. 
 
 2. It should seek to include as many individuals 
 as possible, not only the children and the youth, but 
 also the adults; not only the people in the Church, 
 but all in the community who can be induced to 
 come. While the Sunday school is the Church at 
 work in a particular way, it should be considered 
 not merely an appendage of the Church, but a 
 unique means and opportunity for religious educa- 
 tion that is otherwise not likely to be provided. 
 
 3. It should seek to impress its spirit upon the 
 daily activities of its pupils, and to that end it 
 should develop activities that make it in the minds 
 of its pupils a continuing and pervasive influence 
 and not a separate, single hour of the week with no 
 relationships to daily living and thinking. 
 
Summary and Conclunons of the Commssion 121 
 
 The Relationships of the Rural Sunday School 
 
 1. To the Home. The tendency of the modem 
 home is to shift its responsibilities in a considerable 
 degree to the day school, to the Church, and to vari- 
 ous associations and organizations. In a measure 
 this tendency is inevitable, but it is accompanied by 
 serious losses. The Sunday school should con- 
 sciously seek to enlist the home as its ally ; or to put 
 the matter even more strongly, it should consider 
 itself as an ally of the home, and should endeavor 
 to bring the parents of children who are pupils in 
 the Sunday school to aid definitely in tlie task of 
 training the children in Christian character. A 
 well-regulated home life can perhaps dispense with 
 the Sunday school, although that is doubtful. It is 
 possible that the ideal Sunday school can make up 
 for serious deficiencies in the home life, although 
 that also is doubtful. But it is only when the more 
 formal and definite teachings of the Sunday school 
 can be supplemented by both the teachings and ex- 
 ample of the home that we can expect the results 
 we desire. 
 
 2. To the Church, The most natural outcome of 
 the work of the Sunday school should be cherished 
 — ^the participation in the work of the Church. The 
 Sunday school should be considered the vestibule to 
 the Church. The transition from prime interest in 
 the Sunday school to prime interest in the Church 
 should be as natural as the growth from youth to 
 manhood and womanhood. This is the ideal rela- 
 tionship. 
 
122 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 3. To Young People's Societies. There are 
 those who believe that the day of the young people's 
 society has passed and that ^, well-regulated Sunday 
 school would make such ''societies unnecessary. 
 However this may be, there ought to be here, too, 
 a close relationship. If the young people's society 
 can be dispensed with, let us not retain it. If it is 
 a reflection on the efficiency of the Sunday school, 
 let us make the Sunday school what it ought to be. 
 If the two institutions really serve useful ends, 
 neither of which can be accomplished by the other, 
 let us keep them both, and let us so weld them to- 
 gether that they may not only not conflict, but may 
 supplement each other. 
 
 4. To the Day School. There can be no organic 
 connection between the Sunday school and publicly 
 supported day schools, but there ought to be the 
 most intimate spiritual connection between the two. 
 The teaching of the day school cannot be formally 
 directed toward inculcating the Christian motive 
 through study of religious literature, but it should 
 be a means of character building. It should be per- 
 meated by the Christian spirit. Its atmosphere 
 should be the atmosphere of love and of devotion 
 to the truth. There should be no hiatus between 
 the teaching of the Sunday school and the daily life 
 of the school. 
 
 5. To Recreative and Social Life/. Of course the 
 Christian spirit should pervade recreation and so- 
 ciability. To this extent the Sunday school relates 
 itself intimately to these phases of the life of youth. 
 The question is at once raised, however, whether 
 
Summary and Concluiiona of the Commission 123 
 
 the Sunday school as an institution shall take over, 
 in part or wholly, the recreative and social activities 
 of youth which are numerous, and which should be 
 carried out in some organized fashion. We believe 
 firmly and enthusiastically that the Sunday school 
 may well take to itself recreative and social func- 
 tions ; that is, it may, through various devices, min- 
 ister to the normal desires and needs of youth on 
 the recreative and social side. We believe, how- 
 ever, that it is unwise to insist that the Sunday 
 school shall be the only, or even the chief, center of 
 the interest of youth along these lines. 
 
 It is easy to magnify the work of a single institu- 
 tion like the Sunday school by arguing that because 
 its motive is the highest possible motive — the de- 
 velopment of Christian character — and that because 
 Christian character is made, not by teaching alone, 
 but by the formation of habits amidst the normal 
 activities of life, therefore, the logical outcome of 
 Sunday school work is to take over all the activities 
 of youth in order that youth may have a consistent 
 Christian training. We must recognize the prin- 
 ciple of division of labor among institutions. In 
 our opinion organized social and recreative life can 
 best be fostered by organizations framed for that 
 purpose, either through the schools or through pub- 
 lic playgrounds, or through specially organized 
 groups. 
 
 We recognize that it is possible and desirable to 
 vastly enlarge the function of the Sunday school in 
 ministering to the play instincts of the boys and 
 girls. Our counsel concerning this situation may 
 
124 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 be put in a sentence: Make the Sunday school, so 
 far as possible, a natural center around which may 
 gather the recreative and social activities of its 
 members, but do not assume that it can be or should 
 be the only organized institution which is to lead 
 in the recreative life of the community. 
 
 Adults in the Sunday School, The rural Sunday 
 school probably contains a larger proportion of 
 adults than does the urban Sunday school. The 
 traditional Sunday school is for children. The prob- 
 lem that this commission has set for itself is to de- 
 termine whether there are not means of keeping 
 youth in the Sunday school. In order to do this it 
 may not be amiss to suggest that the presence of 
 a fair proportion of adults in constant attendance 
 at the Sunday school, not in a perfunctory way or 
 simply as a matter of conscience, but as interested 
 learners in common with the children and youth, 
 is one of the most effective means of maintaining 
 the prestige of the Sunday school. It is just be- 
 cause the elders have relegated the Sunday school 
 to the children that the youth on the verge of man- 
 hood and womanhood come to despise the Sunday 
 school. 
 
 The Organization of the Rural Sunday School 
 
 This question is so thoroughly treated as a spe- 
 cific topic in the report of the sub-commission on 
 this subject that your executive committee desires 
 to make only a few observations of a general char- 
 acter. 
 
Summary and Conclusions of the Commission 125 
 
 1. Grading. The rural Sunday school can be 
 less easily graded than the urban Sunday school, 
 and it is a fundamental principle that grading should 
 not be imposed upon the rural Sunday school. The 
 fact that a graded Sunday school works well in the 
 city is no reason why it will work well in the coun- 
 try. The time to grade a rural Sunday school and 
 the method of grading it must be determined by the 
 needs of the school, and not by any official edict, 
 or by any hard and fast plan laid down by outside 
 agencies. Unquestionably some measure of grad- 
 ing should be introduced even in the smaller Sun- 
 day schools. There should be an intelligent pro- 
 gression in the work. Hit-or-miss methods should 
 be discarded, simply because they are ineffective. 
 Grading is merely a device based on the funda- 
 mental principle that teaching must be adapted to 
 the growing mind of the pupil. 
 
 2. Supervision. The smaller the school the 
 less the need of machinery, and consequently, the 
 less the need of supervision. On the other hand, 
 the smaller the school, the greater the need of con- 
 stant, enthusiastic leadership. Possibly the small 
 rural Sunday school can learn more from the advice 
 of experts and the experience of other Sunday 
 schools than is the case in the large urban Sunday 
 school, because the latter is likely to have larger 
 resources of initiative and leadership within its own 
 ranks. Supervision is essential, but supervision 
 may be carried to the extreme of creating depen- 
 dence. Wise supervision consists in suggestion and 
 stimulus rather than dictation or responsibility. 
 
126 The Teens and the Rural Simday School 
 
 3. Committees. The rural Sunday school is a 
 distinct problem, and on this account, as well as be- 
 cause of the need of the right sort of supervision, we 
 believe that there should be formed as soon as prac- 
 ticable in every state a well-organized Rural Sun- 
 day School Committee. Such a Committee, under 
 wise leadership, will not only develop methods spe- 
 cially adapted to the rural Sunday school, but will 
 also create enthusiasm and esprit de corps among 
 rural Sunday school workers. 
 
 4. A National Board of Experts. It is probably 
 impracticable to have in each state a group of ex- 
 perts in rural Sunday school work who can give all 
 their time to rural Sunday schools. But it is not 
 too much to expect that a National Board of Ex- 
 perts (or a Committee of the International Sunday 
 School Association) in Rural Sunday School Work 
 can be maintained who can give their service to the 
 rural Sunday school departments in the several 
 states. In this way there may be developed a 
 closely knit, and yet an elastic, form of supervision 
 and organization of the whole rural Sunday school 
 movement. 
 
 Some Specific Problems of the Rural Sunday 
 School 
 
 Religious Teaching, the Primary Work. We 
 
 must keep in mind that the building of Christian 
 character is the objective of the Sunday school, and 
 that to a very large degree the use of the Bible is 
 the chief dependence in the Sunday school. There 
 
Summary and Conclusions of the Commission ^27 
 
 are certain aspects of the work of the Sunday school 
 growing out of this prime purpose that call for sup- 
 plementary work. Some of these we now mention. 
 
 Special Rural Sunday School Helps. Several of 
 the sub-commissions have emphasized — some of 
 them very strongly indeed — that we need specially 
 constructed lesson helps. The principle on which 
 these suggestions are made is the sound pedagogic 
 notion that the most effective teaching is in terms of 
 the environment of the individual learner. The ap- 
 plication of this principle to the rural Sunday school 
 means that the teaching will become much more ef- 
 fective and abiding if the illustrative material and 
 the applications of the teaching consist in those 
 things that surround the pupil — that is, rural life. 
 
 The point is also made that the Bible, and espe- 
 cially the teachings of Christ, are full of references 
 to rural life, largely, of course, because a consider- 
 able proportion of the life of the people that is 
 recorded in the Bible was a rural life. Your com- 
 mittee endorses this principle, but with one caution. 
 We must not allow ourselves to be put in the posi- 
 tion of advocating that only that teaching is effec- 
 tive which teaches in terms of the immediate and 
 known environment of the pupil. We desire to 
 swing away from that academic method of teaching 
 which takes the pupil utterly out of relationship to 
 his experience. But there is also a peril in the 
 method of teaching by environment — a narrow hori- 
 zon and a stifled ambition. Teaching by environ- 
 ment should lead naturally to the enlargement of 
 
128 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 "environment," by imagination, to take in the whole 
 range of human experience. 
 
 The Inculcation of Rural Beauty. One of the 
 most rewarding opportunities of the rural Sunday 
 school, which is now almost entirely neglected, 
 though it grows immediately out of the teachings of 
 the Bible, and especially the teachings of Jesus, 
 concerns itself with the beauty and poetry of coun- 
 try life. The most religious experience in the farm- 
 er's life is attained when the farmer becomes con- 
 scious that he is directly in partnership with God 
 himself, and acts upon that consciousness. The 
 farmer's task is nothing less than to serve as the 
 steward of God on behalf of the fundamental work 
 of feeding the human race. 
 
 The farmer ought to be the most religious man in 
 the world, because more intimately than any other 
 man does he work day in and day out with those 
 primary forces of nature that the Christian believes 
 to be simply the expressions of God's will and 
 method. So, too, the farmer lives day by day close 
 to the heart of the Eternal. If there be any beauty 
 in the world he should see it and feel it. The pos- 
 sibilities of personal culture, the development of a 
 genuine religious spirit, the attainment of real con- 
 tent are all based very largely upon the realization 
 on the part of the farmer that he is working with 
 God, and that he is in intimate touch with the pri- 
 mary sources of beauty and of poetic and spiritual 
 feeling. Now there is no better place than the 
 rural Sunday school for inculcating this attitude 
 toward rural life. It is eminently religious, and it 
 
Summary and Conclusions of the Commission 129 
 
 is eminently rewarding both for teacher and for 
 pupil. 
 
 Special Activities of the Sunday School 
 
 We have already referred to this phase of the 
 Sunday school problem. It is brought in here 
 simply because it forms one of the specific problems 
 of the revived rural Sunday school. When we dis- 
 cuss the social and recreative activities possible in 
 the rural Sunday school we must also consider the 
 relationships of the Sunday school to the commun- 
 ity in general. If there are adults in the Sunday 
 school, why should not the Sunday school become 
 the center from which shall radiate movements for 
 the improvement of the moral and spiritual life of 
 the community? If this ideal is carried out then the 
 social and recreative activities fostered by the Sun- 
 day school will soon be supplemented by many 
 community enterprises initiated in behalf of the 
 best life of the community. 
 
 It seems to your committee that two or three 
 principles of action may be laid down as a safe 
 guide for developing the social and community side 
 of the Sunday school, without taking the position 
 that it is the only, or perhaps the chief, community 
 activity for these ends. 
 
 I. We may safely urge that the rural Sunday 
 school develop, so far as it can, its social and rec- 
 reative and community activities. It should do 
 this, however, not for the sake of supplanting some 
 other institution, but simply because it believes that 
 
130 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 more can be accomplished in this way than in any- 
 other for the upbuilding of Christian individuals 
 and a Christian community. 
 
 2. Division of labor between the Sunday school 
 and other institutions and activities should be 
 frankly recognized. 
 
 3. The cooperation of all the Sunday schools in 
 the same community should be considered as abso- 
 lutely essential. So long as we have denominations 
 we shall have separate Sunday schools. But the 
 definite cooperation of all the Sunday schools in 
 many common ends should be regarded as a funda- 
 mental part of the rural Sunday school program. 
 The federation, or cooperation, of rural Sunday 
 schools should be one of the great objectives of our 
 new campaign on behalf of an enlarged rural Sun- 
 day school work. 
 
 Decision Day. One of the devices commended 
 for making the Sunday school work really effective 
 is Decision Day. This has a two-fold aspect: first, 
 appointing a day on which young people are in- 
 vited to decide upon permanent and avowed alli- 
 ance with the Church as an institution, and to estab- 
 lish a personal relationship with God as their Father 
 and with Christ as their Saviour and Leader; 
 second, securing a decision to pursue some definitely 
 religious vocation, such as the ministry, missionary 
 work, or forms of lay religious service. The relig- 
 ious workers of the world must come very largely 
 from the Sunday school, and heretofore a very large 
 proportion of the religious workers of this country 
 
Summary and Conclusions of the Commission 131 
 
 at least have come from the rural Sunday school, 
 which is still an important source of supply. 
 
 The Training of Teachess for thk Rural Sun- 
 day School 
 
 It is universally conceded that one of the great 
 concerns of the Sunday school is the supply of 
 trained teachers. The Sunday school is probably 
 weaker at this point than at any other. It is de- 
 pendent on teachers whose services are given in- 
 termittently, and on faithful teachers who have in- 
 sufficient qualifications for the work. In the rural 
 Sunday school the proportion of available teachers, 
 who are as competent as untrained teachers can be, 
 is probably as large as it is in the city, but the 
 difficulty of getting trained teachers is much 
 greater. This condition is sure to change. We find 
 a rapidly increasing number of young men and 
 young women trained in agricultural schools and 
 colleges who are going back to the land. The qual- 
 ity of the day school teachers in country districts 
 will improve. The rural Young Men's Christian 
 Association is rapidly developing leaders. All of 
 these persons realize as never before their function 
 as community-builders, and as soon as they realize 
 that the rural Sunday school is one of the most 
 significant institutions for community building, they 
 may be counted upon to ally themselves enthusias- 
 tically with the Sunday school, so that we may 
 expect in the course of time the addition of trained 
 leadership to the rural Sunday school forces. There 
 
132 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 are, however, some devices which can be utilized in 
 the country for the development of teachers. 
 
 Conferences. — Conferences for rural Sunday 
 school teachers are best developed under the leader- 
 ship of a State Rural Sunday School Committee 
 and in cooperation with a National Board of Rural 
 Sunday School Experts or International Sunday 
 School Association Committee. 
 
 Correspondence Courses. — ^These conferences 
 should be followed up by correspondence courses, 
 not too difficult, designed to develop the teaching 
 faculty on the part of those who take the courses. 
 
 Special Institutions. — As the institutions for the 
 training of rural leaders multiply, they are sure to 
 call attention to the religious side of country life, 
 and it will not be long before we may expect to find 
 in our country communities a good many persons 
 who have had a considerable amount of special train- 
 ing in religious pedagogy. 
 
 Probably the time has not come when we can 
 expect people to specialize as rural Sunday school 
 teachers and train themselves in special institutions 
 for this purpose. We must rather look to the means 
 of assisting those who are to live in the country 
 and who believe in the Sunday school as a great 
 agency in rural community building, to take advan- 
 tage of such devices as can be offered for coming 
 into touch with the most approved methods of Sun- 
 day school work. 
 
Summary and Conclusions of the Commission 133 
 
 Parents' and Teachers' Associations 
 
 We have already referred to the significance of 
 the home in its relation to the Sunday school. This 
 cannot be emphasized too strongly. The method 
 of bringing about closer cooperation lies, we believe, 
 in the organization of associations of parents and 
 Sunday school teachers. These associations need 
 not be elaborate organizations. They should bring 
 together the teachers and parents of pupils in all 
 the Sunday schools of a given community or in a 
 given group of communities; and the discussion 
 need be not so much of methods and devices, as 
 of the real problems of living that exist in that 
 community and affect the boys and girls. In this 
 way opportunity will be found to place before the 
 parents the real situation and possibly the real 
 dangers that confront their boys and girls, and to 
 secure their intelligent aid in making the Sunday 
 school more effective. 
 
 The Picture of the Ideal Rural Sunday School. — 
 The rural Sunday school faces a great opportunity. 
 The country life movement is growing apace. We 
 have determined to make rural life all it ought to 
 be. We are determined that the business of agri- 
 culture shall flourish. We purpose that it shall be 
 carried on with a high degree of intelligence and in 
 obedience to scientific laws. We purpose also that 
 the life of the countryman shall be a satisfying and 
 full life. We recognize that the hope of the future 
 in the country, as everywhere, lies with its young 
 people. We believe profoundly that we cannot have 
 
134 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 a rural civilization of the type that we desire, un- 
 less it is suffused with the Christian spirit. We 
 believe that the rural Sunday school, more perhaps 
 than any other single institution, has before it the 
 task of spiritualizing the young life of our country 
 neighborhoods, and consequently of laying the foun- 
 dations for a Christian rural civilization. 
 
 Thus we desire to have in every rural commun- 
 ity a Sunday school that, conscious of its oppor- 
 tunity and its task, develops a full program; suc- 
 ceeds in interesting all of the children and youth 
 of the community; makes its teachings so vital and 
 so human that sustained membership is secured; 
 and so connects itself with the lives of the people 
 that its influence permeates all their activities. 
 
 Recapitulation and Recommendations 
 
 The best approach to the problem of the rural 
 Sunday school is through the gates of apprecia- 
 tion of the importance of building in the United 
 States an adequate rural civilization. If we cannot 
 find a great need for the rural Sunday school we are 
 no longer called upon to discuss it as an institution. 
 Hence we must first of all learn the significance to 
 American national life of the agricultural industry, 
 of the agricultural population, and of the problems 
 that the people of the farms have to face both as 
 workers and as human beings. 
 
 We must also appreciate the fact that tremendous 
 forces are at work making for the upbuilding of 
 agriculture on its economic side. We must realize 
 
Summary and Concltisions of the Commission 135 
 
 that in comparison with the activities and efficiency 
 of these forces, those agencies that are designed to 
 emphasize the spiritual or religious element have 
 not yet aroused themselves nor adapted themselves 
 to the new need. Hence we affirm that the country 
 church and its allies is the most important rural 
 institution, and its work the most significant and 
 far-reaching of all the many phases of the rural life 
 movement. 
 
 The immediate importance of the Sunday school 
 is based on two or three simple principles : (i) That 
 the years from twelve to twenty are the most 
 impressionable in the life of the individual; (2) 
 That the religious motive, once it dominates a 
 person of this age, is likely to be the greatest 
 single factor in the development of his best life 
 and of his service to the community; (3) So keenly 
 do we feel the possibility of the country Sunday 
 school that we believe it is one of the most power- 
 ful agencies in bringing the country church to its 
 normal leadership in the country life movement. 
 
 It is questionable whether the rural Sunday school 
 is more deficient than the country church or the 
 rural day school. It is always easy to point out 
 defects, but even the most enthusiastic friend of the 
 Sunday school must admit that it has rather seri- 
 ous defects. These are indicated by a canvass made 
 by the Commission. The lack of leadership; the 
 inadequacy of teaching material and of equipment; 
 sometimes the failure to understand the real work 
 of the Sunday school — these seem to be clearly 
 marked deficiencies in the present rural Sunday 
 
136 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 school. On the other hand, in many of the better 
 farming regions the country Sunday schools are as 
 good as our city Sunday schools, and there is no 
 question but the American Sunday school has per- 
 formed and is to-day performing a work of tre- 
 mendous value in maintaining a right sort of life in 
 our rural regions. 
 
 The Sunday school is the Church at work in a 
 special manner. It is not a separate institution; it 
 is a means by which the Church seeks to accom- 
 plish a definite end. Its immediate aim and pur- 
 pose is to utilize the Bible, which it regards as the 
 supreme religious literature of the race, as the core 
 of the effort to develop Christian character. It 
 would seem obvious that in organizing this work 
 the rural Sunday school must have definite courses 
 of instruction, should seek to include adults as well 
 as children and youth, and, above all, should seek to 
 impress its spirit upon the daily activities of its 
 pupils so that it may become a continuing and per- 
 vasive influence. 
 
 It is possible that the ideal Sunday school can 
 make up for serious deficiences in the home life, 
 but it is only when the teachings of the Sunday 
 school are supplemented by both the teachings and 
 the examples of the home that we can expect the 
 results we desire. The Sunday school too must 
 relate itself naturally and closely to the Church, 
 the young people's society, the day school, and to 
 the recreative and social life of its pupils. 
 
 The question of organizing the rural Sunday 
 school cannot be settled by methods that have 
 
JSvmnnary and Conchitions of the Commitsion ^37 
 
 proved effective in the city. For example, grading 
 is more difficult; and yet some method of grading 
 should be introduced, even in small Sunday schools. 
 Supervision also is essential, but may be carried to 
 an extreme. Wise supervision consists in sugges- 
 tion and stimulus rather than in direction or dic- 
 tation. 
 
 Undoubtedly specially constructed lesson helps 
 may be used with great advantage in the rural Sun- 
 day school, although this should not be carried too 
 far. But certainly the rural pupil should be brought 
 to appreciate the spiritual element in rural beauty, 
 the spiritual meaning of his environment, and the 
 possibilities of his daily life in the country. 
 
 The country Sunday school should develop, so 
 far as it can, social and recreative activities, but 
 should do this in a large degree in cooperation with 
 other agencies. 
 
 One of the devices recommended for making the 
 Sunday school really effective is Decision Day. 
 
 The question of training teachers for the rural 
 Sunday school is a difficult one. We may expect 
 that some time the rural Sunday school will have 
 the benefit of teachers specially trained for this 
 work. For the present such means as conferences, 
 correspondence courses, and self-study must be re- 
 lied upon to a very large degree. Undoubtedly 
 meetings of both the teachers and parents will help 
 not only in training teachers and making them more 
 alert, but also in bringing the home and Sunday 
 school more closely together. 
 
138 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 *RECOMMENDATIONS 
 
 1, We recommend the organization of Rural 
 Sunday School Committees of the International 
 Sunday School Association in all states and prov- 
 inces where it is practicable and where not already 
 organized. It is highly desirable that the rural 
 Sunday school problem be sufficiently differentiated 
 from the urban Sunday school problem so that 
 special attention may be given to it. In order that 
 special attention may be given to it it is almost an 
 imperative condition of efficiency that at least one 
 person in each state, and, if possible, a staff of indi- 
 viduals be constantly employed to study the needs 
 of the rural Sunday school in that state and to take 
 leadership in developing the work along the most 
 effective lines. 
 
 2. We question the advisability of compiling a 
 set of lessons specifically intended for use in the 
 rural Sunday schools and entirely apart from the 
 lessons intended for -other Sunday schools. It is 
 true that the mind of the rural pupil is affected by 
 his environment. It is true that his environment is 
 different. At the same time there is serious danger 
 of overemphasizing in the use of educational ma- 
 terials these differences between rural and urban. 
 We believe it would be advisable, however, to pre- 
 pare lesson helps or readings to be used in connec- 
 tion with the regular lessons and which are filled 
 with illustrative material designed to enable the 
 
 *In reading these recommendations, it would be wise to re-read the 
 nconunendations of Chapter III. — Editor. 
 
Summary and Conclusiom of the Commission I39 
 
 boy and girl in the country Sunday school to under- 
 stand more completely than he might otherwise do 
 the intimate relationships between the human and 
 natural life, between matter and the problems of 
 character and personal growth, that he must solve 
 for himself. 
 
 3. The' task of coordinating the rural Sunday 
 school on the one hand with the other agencies of 
 religion, such as the various young people's socie- 
 ties, the Young Men's and Young Women's Chris- 
 tian Associations, etc., and, on the other hand, cor- 
 relating the Sunday school with those normal 
 recreative and social activities that form so large a 
 part of the education of youth, as one of the most 
 important and one of the most difficult problems 
 which the rural Sunday school has to face. We 
 believe firmly that the Sunday school in both city 
 and country must be essentially a school of religion, 
 but it must be pervaded with reality. Its atmos- 
 phere must be not that of the cloister, but of life. 
 Its teaching must be vital and not academic. 
 
 And in order to be vital the institution itself must 
 not stand apart and separate, but must rather be 
 the nucleus and center about which other agencies 
 and activities may cluster. Moreover, the indi- 
 vidual pupils of the rural Sunday school must be 
 made to feel that in the Sunday school they are 
 learning interesting lessons that are not about 
 things foreign and apart, but are learning how to 
 use the ordinary experiences of everyday life as a 
 means of becoming better and stronger and nobler. 
 The Sunday school suffers from institutionalism ; it 
 
140 The Teem and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 sufifers from separatism. It must be vitalized in 
 terms of country experience and country life. 
 
 This need of correlation raises a tremendously 
 difficult question. On the other hand, if the func- 
 tion of the Sunday school is unduly enlarged, it 
 then takes the place of other agencies. If it is 
 unduly minimized, then other agencies rob it of its 
 rightful share in the religious education of youth. 
 We believe that it is not the function of the Sun- 
 day school to serve as a means by which all activi- 
 ties of the country youth are concentrated under 
 the banner of one institution. On the other hand, 
 it must not stand apart from these activities so that 
 the youth comes to think of it as having no relation- 
 ship with his other interests. We say this not 
 merely because from the standpoint of institutional 
 organizations we regard it unwise, but because fun- 
 damentally it is thoroughly wrong to give the boy 
 or girl the impression that religion is something 
 different and separate from life itself — life as it is 
 lived on Monday and on Friday, life as it manifests 
 itself in play, in work, in community interests. The 
 real test of Sunday school efficiency, the real prob- 
 lem of the Sunday school, lies in its power to inter- 
 pret life in terms of God and to interpret God in 
 terms of plain, common, homely, human life. 
 
 4. The Sunday school cannot attain its maximum 
 efficiency until the parents of pupils cooperate in 
 some measure. Daily home work for the Sunday 
 school pupil would not only assist in bringing the 
 child into new consciousness of the significance of 
 the Sunday school, but it would make the be»t 
 
Summary and Conclusions of the Commission 14^ 
 
 method of approach for the parent's aid. Leaflets 
 intended for pupils could be prepared and dis- 
 tributed among the parents. These leaflets could 
 give the main facts concerning the lessons that the 
 pupil is following, pupil readings and other read- 
 ings, and indicate how the parent could work with 
 the child in the Sunday school preparation. 
 
 5. In some respects the most difficult problem 
 of the rural Sunday school is the problem of the 
 teacher. This, of course, is difficult everywhere, 
 but peculiarly so in the country because of lack 
 of material. It is well enough to suggest the de- 
 velopment of trained teachers, but where shall we 
 get the teachers, and how shall we train them? In 
 the better rural communities there are intelligent 
 men and women, perhaps somewhat old-fashioned 
 in their theology and methods, but nevertheless 
 possessing an effective knowledge of the Bible and 
 considerable experience in teaching it. But we ex- 
 pect that the supply of teachers from this group is 
 rapidly decreasing. Are there any to take their 
 places? It is quite evident that the only material 
 available is the material that exists in the country 
 community. It is impossible to employ specialists. 
 It is impossible to bring in people from outside the 
 parish. The teaching must be done by those among 
 the members of the Sunday school, or at least the 
 people of the community. In some way those who 
 are at all competent to teach must be prevailed 
 upon to do so, and some device must be found by 
 which they can be trained. This training, however, 
 cannot be developed to any extent through special 
 
142 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 schools. Sunday school institutes, pastors' normal 
 training classes, reading and correspondence 
 courses must be relied upon as the main methods 
 for teacher training. 
 
 Of course, we hope the day is dawning when 
 there will come into all our farm communities 
 young men and young women educated in the agri- 
 cultural schools and colleges, desiring to live their 
 lives in the country, ambitious to be of all the 
 service possible, and trained also to take hold of 
 the problems of the Church as well as the problems 
 of the farm. We believe that so important is it 
 that the number of these should be increased and 
 that they should come back thoroughly imbued with 
 the spirit of service, as well as endowed with the 
 ability to teach, that we wish to urge that the Inter- 
 national Sunday School Association, in common 
 with the other agencies of religion, organize a 
 special propaganda among the students of the vari- 
 ous schools and colleges, to the end that those who 
 are going back to the country may go back pre- 
 pared to teach and to lead in church, Sunday school, 
 and in other forms of religious community work. 
 
Chapter XI 
 SQUARED FOR WORK 
 
 To know the boys and girls of the rural districts, 
 their needs and lives and life surroundings, and to 
 fit to these some kind of adapted work for the de- 
 velopment of rural boyhood and girlhood — such is 
 both the warrant and the finding of the Rural Sun- 
 day School Commission. To this end the commis- 
 sion has gathered the evidence and has rendered 
 the verdict. 
 
 The next thing to do is to go to work along the 
 line of the conclusions. 
 
 Three factors must be carefully noted as we meet 
 this task : the individual, rural economic and social 
 conditions, and the rural Sunday school itself. Chap- 
 ters II, III and VIII should be read together. It is 
 good to know that folks everywhere are pretty near- 
 ly the same and that in the rural districts they are 
 at their best; less nervous, slower in thought but 
 steadier in action. We might have known also that 
 folks cannot be understood or helped apart from 
 their surroundings and that all our Sunday school 
 organization must be fitted to rural need just as 
 much as it ever can be graded to the city. 
 
 The rural Sunday school's greatest need is leader- 
 ship, and that, too, is the chief lack in the city. It 
 
 143 
 
144 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 likewise has been the compelling need of the world 
 as long as man has lived. Whatever leadership 
 there is is generally found bound up in some church 
 enterprise, and nothing can please us if we cannot 
 be glad that the commission has declared that the 
 Church and Sunday school form the principal fac- 
 tor in the rural community. The task, then, is 
 through training classes and personal discovery to 
 meet the need. The adolescent boy and girl them- 
 selves afford the solution. Chapters IV, V and VI 
 deal with this problem. 
 
 Life is four-fold in the country as in the city. 
 It is physical, social, mental and religious, wher- 
 ever it exists in human form. Since it is, it is co- 
 operative with individuality and initiative. The 
 Sunday school must organize to meet all needs in 
 the spirit of the Christ. This means a varied activ- 
 ity with rural background and adaptation, not dif- 
 ferent from urban activity in itself but in form. The 
 Sunday school must be organized with superintend- 
 ents, officers, departments, classes and teachers. 
 These must be adapted to the need. Not less or- 
 ganization is needed, only not so much of one kind. 
 Beginners, Primary, Juniors, Boys and Girls (Inter- 
 mediate or Senior), men and women, are just as dis- 
 tinct in the country as in the city — the number only 
 is smaller in any single school or community. 
 Equipment sometimes is lacking, but equipment is 
 man-made and is produced readily at will. I have 
 seen a farmer effectually separate some tiny pigs, 
 for purposes of feeding, from the larger hogs. A 
 couple of boards, a hammer and a few nails effected 
 
Squared for Work 145 
 
 the change. The intelligent grasp of the rural Sun- 
 day school problem is the big need. Life's hungers 
 are the same everywhere, and the adolescent seeks 
 steady employment on all sides of his life. There 
 is no more social, mental or religious hunger in the 
 city than in the country. It is only a trifle more 
 feverish in the city. The soul of the rural adoles- 
 cent needs the universal vision as much as the city 
 life does. Spiritual lessons should be much the 
 same, but the lesson helps and other supplementary 
 material should have rural adaptation. Lessons 
 must be graded as all adolescents progress, and the 
 lesson writer must know the rural life as well as 
 the adolescent and the book. This is a problem of 
 the publishing house, as are most graded lesson diffi- 
 culties. Chapter VIII deserves much study. 
 
 The recommendations of the Commission empha- 
 size the necessity of the rural Sunday school being 
 a steady force in the community instead of a weekly 
 gathering. Its work must be of the seven-day 
 variety and be in constant touch with home and 
 school and community life. Nothing lives unto it- 
 self. It must be the social center as well as the 
 spiritual dynamic of the neighborhood. Through it 
 the leaven of Jesus must raise all the community's 
 activities to their highest. The country Sunday 
 school has more opportunity and hope for life- 
 building than its urban sister. Read Chapter IX 
 several times. 
 
 Supervision is the greatest need. State and 
 County Sunday School Associations must render 
 greater service to the country schools. Because of 
 
146 The Teens and the Rural Sv/nday School 
 
 inexperienced officers, it is clearly a matter of pro- 
 viding programs and of affording visual demonstra- 
 tion to these workers. The rural Sunday school 
 officer needs less theory and principle and more 
 efficient, practical methods. Leadership demonstra- 
 tion at county conventions for community-rural 
 activity would benefit the organization. 
 
 The ideals for the rural Sunday school are not a 
 whit different from those of the urban school. 
 
 Ideals for the Local School 
 
 1. A Teen- Age Superintendent. 
 
 2. Every class organized according to Inter- 
 national Standard. 
 
 3. Two-session classes — Sunday and through- 
 the-week sessions. 
 
 4. Through-the-week activities; physical, so- 
 cial, mental and spiritual. 
 
 5. Trained Teachers — 
 
 (a) Men teachers for boys. 
 
 (b) Women teachers for girls. 
 
 (c) Older boys and girls as teachers for 
 younger boys and girls. 
 
 (d) Teachers, graduates of International 
 Standard Training Course. 
 
 6. Organized Department — 
 
 (a) Intermediate and Senior. 
 
 (b) Teen age for both boys and girls. 
 
 (c) Boys. 
 
 (d) Girls. 
 
 7. Use of Graded Lessons or Instruction. 
 
Squared for Work 147 
 
 8. Standard Equipment — 
 
 (a) Separate rooms. 
 
 (b) Blackboards, maps, etc. 
 
 (c) Reference library for teachers. 
 
 9. Annual promotion and public recognition. 
 
 10. Missionary, temperance and purity instruc- 
 tion. 
 
 11. Definite opportunity afforded every pupil to 
 confess Christ and join His Church. 
 
 12. Definite opportunity for Christian service for 
 every boy and girl. 
 
 As these ideals will take different form in schools 
 of different size and locality in the city, so must 
 they find their own expression in rural life and 
 rural conditions in order to meet the life needs of 
 the country boy and girl. 
 
 To sum up, or, as the preachers say, "Hear the 
 conclusion of the whole matter!" A knowledge of 
 country life is the first essential to adequate rural 
 Sunday school work; the economic and social con- 
 ditions that define, limit and determine rural life. 
 The individual boy or girl must likewise be studied 
 from the point of view of the rural type. The Com- 
 mission finds that the differences between the rural 
 and urban boy or girl are determined by surround- 
 ings or environment. Hence the importance of 
 knowing the latter. The rural church — therefore 
 the school or Sunday school — is the principal fac- 
 tor in the rural community for the development of 
 rural life. Its relation to adolescence, then, is of 
 prime importance. To live up to the demands that 
 the rural community makes on the Church and the 
 
148 The Teens and the Rural Sunday School 
 
 Church school or Sunday school, these must adapt 
 themselves to become the social center of the com- 
 munity — the word "social" being used in the widest 
 sense as the sum of the needs, physical, social, nien- 
 tal and spiritual, of the whole community life. The 
 organization of the rural Sunday school must adapt 
 itself to meet all such needs. Chapter VIII is the 
 particular, practical suggestion of the Commission 
 for this end. The rural Sunday school problem is 
 the same as that of the city — the meeting of adoles- 
 cent need in view of its life and environment. It is 
 more acute in the rural districts because the de- 
 nominational Sunday school boards and publishing 
 houses have been fully occupied with urban prob- 
 lems. Country life leaders now call upon them to 
 give attention to the other part of our Christian 
 heritage. Their adequate solution of this problem 
 offers the best form of conservation-activity and 
 development of denominational-consciousness that 
 has yet appeared on the Sunday school horizon. 
 "Who knoweth whether thou art come to the 
 Kingdom for such a time as this ?" 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHIES 
 
 COUNTRY LIFE 
 
 Anderson. — The Country Town, $i,oo. 
 Bailey. — The Outlook to Nature, $1.25. 
 Bailey. — The Country Life Movement, .60. 
 BuTTERFiELD. — Chapters in Rural Progress, $1.00. 
 FiSKE. — The Challenge of the Country, .75. 
 
 The Report of the Country Life Commission, .75. 
 
 THE COUNTRY CHURCH 
 
 AsHENHURST. — The Day of the Country Church, 
 
 $1.00. 
 BuTTERFiELD. — The Couutry Church and the Rural 
 
 Problem, $1.00. 
 Roads. — Rural Christendom, .90. 
 Wilson. — The Church in the Open Country, .50. 
 
 Rural Church Message (Men and Religion Mov«- 
 ment), $1.00. 
 
 BOYHOOD 
 
 Alexander. — Boy Training, .75. 
 Alexander. — The Boy and the Sunday School, $1.00. 
 Fiske. — Boy Life and Self-Government, $1.00. 
 Hyde.— The Quest of the Best, $1.00. 
 McKeever. — Farm Boys and Girls, $1.50. 
 Raffety. — Brothering the Boy, .75. 
 
 149 
 
ISO The Teens and the Rural Swnday School 
 GIRLHOOD 
 
 Alexander. — The Girl and the Sunday School (in 
 
 preparation). 
 Slattery. — The Girl in Her Teens, .50. 
 Slattery. — ^The Girl and Her Religio-i, $1.00. 
 
 THE ADOLESCENT 
 
 Alexander. — ^The Sunday School and the Teens, 
 
 $1.00. 
 Alexander. — The Teens and the Rural Sunday 
 
 School, .50. 
 
 THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 Alexander. — ^Departmental Organization in the Sun- 
 day School.* 
 The Organized Sunday School Qass for Boys.* 
 The Organized Sunday School Class for Girls.* 
 State and County Teen Age Sunday School Work.* 
 The Teen Age Crusade.* 
 Older Boy and Girl Conferences.* 
 Teen Age Round Table Leaflet.* 
 
 Lawrance. — How to Conduct a Sunday School, $1.25. 
 
 Lawrance. — Housing the Sunday School, $2.00. 
 
 McElfresh. — The Training of Sunday School Teach- 
 ers and Officers, .75. 
 
 EXPRESSIONAL ACTIVITIES 
 
 Alexander. — The Organized Sunday School Class 
 for Boys.* 
 The Organized Sunday School Class for Girls.* 
 
 * Bulletins of information issued by the International Sunday School 
 Association. Sample copy free. 
 
Bibliographies 15^ 
 
 Baker. — Indoor Games and Socials for Boys, .75. 
 Bancroft. — Games for the Playground, Home, School 
 
 and Gymnasium, $1.50. 
 Burr. — Around the Fire, .75. 
 
 Chesley. — Social Activities for Men and Boys, $1.00. 
 Gibson. — Camping for Boys, $1.00. 
 Hasluck. — The Hasluck Books on Bent Iron Work, 
 
 Clay Modeling, Etc., .35 to $1.00. 
 
 Boys' Handbook, Boy Scouts of America, .30. 
 
 GENERAL 
 
 Brumbaugh. — The Making of a Teacher, $1.00. 
 Foster. — Starting to Teach, .40. 
 James. — Talks to Teachers on Psychology, $1.50. 
 Kirkpatrick. — Fundamentals of Child Study, $1.25. 
 St. John. — Stories and Story Telling, .50. 
 
 'American Youth. — A bi-monthly magazine ; the organ 
 of the Boys' Department of the Young Men's 
 Christian Associations, $1.00 year; single copy, 
 
 .20. 
 
 Boy/ Life. — A monthly magazine; the organ of the 
 Boy Scouts of America, $1.00 year; single copy, 
 .10. 
 
 Rural Manhood. — A monthly magazine ; the organ of 
 the County Work Department of the Young 
 Men's Christian Associations, $1.00 year; single 
 copy, .20.