Many children outside of the Sunday-school will learn the
Bible from Christian parents or will study it for themselves;
but there is no way, so far as I can conceive, of learning
the industrial work of the church except in some such
training-school as the young people’s society furnishes. For
this work can be learned only by doing it. It can not be taught
by text-books, or imparted by instruction. Like every other
kind of industrial training, it must be gained by practise. The
carpenter learns to build a house with saw and hammer and nails
in hand, not by reading an elaborate treatise on housebuilding.
The painter takes his easel and brush, and practises long
and patiently, if he would be an artist; there is no other
way. It is exactly the same with the necessary activities of
church life. If the church is worth sustaining, if its work is
to be done in the future, if we are to have prayer-meetings
and missionary activities and an earnest religious life,
if the Church is to be a power for good citizenship and
righteous living, it must have some such industrial
training-school.--FRANCIS E. CLARK, “Proceedings of the
Religious Education Association,” 1903.
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