That the Sunday-school has no relation whatever to vast numbers of
girls in their teens is a fact apparent to any one interested in the
girlhood of that period. And it is a fact of tremendous significance.
It means that at the time when the religious sense is keenly
responsive, when the mental faculties are alert, when the physical is
asserting itself with all its power for good or evil, the girl in
large numbers is not getting definite, systematic instruction from the
best book of ethics, morals and religion that the world has known. She
is not being brought face to face each week with questions that have
to do with her own welfare, and that of the world, nor is she being
led to think definitely of her personal relation to the church and its
work for mankind. Unless she is in some way led to think along these
lines all the myriad little interests that call to her from the
outside world slowly crowd out the more real and uplifting thoughts
and influences.
Every one, even in mature life, needs to come regularly into contact
with influences that tend to lift him up and woo him away from the
domination of the petty and material, and even more is it needed
during the years when character is taking definite form.
No girl can afford to lower her ideals or even to allow them to become
tarnished. Life apart from contact with religion in some form seems to
do that. Men in later years seem often to recover the ideals lost
during their teens; women seldom do.
So even a glance at the problem shows one that the first thing for the
Sunday-school to do is to establish a relationship between itself and
the multitudes of girls in their teens.
The best way to do this, as any teacher knows, is to keep a strong
hold on the girls who have been regular in attendance up to twelve
years of age. With these girls as a nucleus, it is easier to make
definite effort to gain new members and to make the class so
attractive that they will stay.
When the teacher has resolved to make the effort to reach out for the
girl who is leaving the Sunday-school in large numbers, the clear and
challenging question, "What makes a class attractive to the girl in
her teens?" immediately presents itself.
In the first place, the Sunday-school as a whole makes a great
difference to the girl in her teens. She likes enthusiasm, the
impression that the school is popular with its students, that
indefinite atmosphere which makes her know that pupils and teachers
alike enjoy the hour and come because they want to. A superintendent
who is popular with young people, who is thoroughly likable, is almost
indispensable in the teen age. The Sunday-school choir with
fortnightly rehearsals, if impossible to meet oftener, is a great
help, and after a year or two of training will do splendid work. I
have in mind a school where the organized choir meets only once a
month. The music for the next few Sundays is practised; those who are
to be soloists or those to sing the duets are chosen; light
refreshments are served by the committee from the choir, and a most
enjoyable evening spent. The regular attendance of the choir at
Sunday-school has been remarkable, and a number of new members gained.
The same methods can be used with a Sunday-school orchestra when there
are enough members who play the various instruments.
The girl in her teens enjoys and responds to the well-arranged program
when the prayers, the responses and the whole order of service are
dignified and impressive. Just watch the college girl and her younger
sister in the preparatory school at chapel and you can read her
response in her face. She enjoys variety, too, and the program which
remains in use so long that after three years' absence she can come
back and go through it exactly as it was when she left, is not the
kind likely to appeal to her.
We have seen in our previous studies that the girl in her teens is in
love with real life. She likes people, and the Sunday-school lesson
must discuss real people and present problems if it is to deeply
interest her.
I was present recently in a class of twelve girls about sixteen years
old. Nine members of the class were supposed to be "heathen" and three
girls were to tell any one of the parables as if for the first time to
these people, anxious and curious to learn of the Christian faith. The
interest was very real. After the telling of each parable the class
discussed it and what it would mean to a people hearing it for the
first time. "The Sowing of the Seed," "The Good Samaritan," and "The
Ten Talents" were told. At the close the teacher told very vividly of
an experience of a dear friend of hers who sat one day in the great
plaza of a Mexican city, and told the story of the lost coin to a
Mexican woman who wore a bracelet of old and curious coins. The
account of the response of this Mexican who heard the story for the
first time made a great impression upon me, as upon every member of
the class. The teacher then appointed three girls for the next week to
tell any one of the experiences of Jesus on his preaching tours as
they would tell it to a group of factory girls who had neglected
church for years and almost forgotten how to pray. Several protested
that such girls would not listen, and the discussion as to their
needs, what they had to help them live pure, true lives, what had made
them careless and indifferent, was brought to a close by the quiet
question of the teacher, "Do these girls need Christ or his teaching?"
They said, "yes," with conviction, and in answer she said, "Then there
must be a way to tell what he said and thought so that they will
listen; perhaps next Sunday one of our girls will find the way, and I
have a most interesting story to tell of a splendid factory girl who
herself found a way."
That lesson did so many things for that class of girls. It made them
think. First they had to be able to tell the stories Christ told. The
class in discussion had to think of the adaptability of the story to
the people who needed to hear it, and of all it could mean to them.
They felt the joy of the one who had the privilege of telling it to
the Mexican for the first time. They said themselves that the great
army of girls in our factories need Christ. They were to think for a
week on how his words might be brought to them. The lesson was left
with anticipation for next week's story. It was a type of what every
lesson should be. It connected the past and present; it touched life
in their immediate surroundings and in the uttermost parts of the
world; it gave opportunity for original expression and it led to
discussion. It reached some conclusions. It appealed to the
imagination and emotions and closed with a desire on the part of the
pupils to talk more, and know more, and think more.
Perhaps in years to come we shall have good courses of lessons, six or
eight weeks in length, which will help the teacher to do just these
things. Courses which shall deal with church history for six or eight
weeks, then with missions, with charities, with the history of the
Bible, with the definite teachings of the New Testament and their
relation to society to-day, dealing always with _life_ and always with
Christ as the great helper and redeemer of man in his struggles to
live aright. While we wait for such courses the individual teacher
must attempt, with the material she has, to make real and vital
connections with life, broaden the pupil's horizon and increase her
desire for knowledge. New courses and better lesson material, either
in public school or Sunday-school, never come through folding one's
arms and spending one's time criticizing the material at hand, but by
using it, changing it, adapting and experimenting with it until
something is found which more nearly meets the need. Any teacher now
reading this chapter may be the one to discover through her own
experience just the material for which teachers of the girl in her
teens are waiting. That is the reason every one may teach with courage
and joy.
It makes little difference where one starts in the discussion of
public-school or Sunday-school problems, he always comes back to the
teacher. After all has been said, the teacher is the greatest force in
establishing and maintaining a close relationship between the girl in
her teens and the Sunday-school. "Ways and means" are necessary and to
critics of the so-called "machinery" of the Sunday-school, I have only
one answer--unless I can get a pupil to come, I can't teach him. Absent
and irregular pupils receive no benefit even from the finest of
teachers, and any legitimate "means" by which a pupil may be induced
to come, and a regularity of attendance be established, we have a
right to welcome and use. But after the pupil has entered and become
regularly enrolled it is the teacher who is the stimulating, guiding
and holding power. To analyze the charm of personality which attracts
and holds the girl in her teens is impossible, but there are certain
things which the teacher must do that we may discuss.
She must remember that the girl in her teens has "grown up," and that
she is very conscious of it. One must be more her friend than teacher.
In the earlier years every Sunday-school teacher really interested in
her pupils calls freely in the home. When the girl reaches the teen
age, the teacher must ask permission to call. "May I call on your
mother?" often opens the way for a special invitation, or at least
gives the girl an opportunity to make the invitation cordial or to let
it be known that for some reason she prefers not to have her teacher
call. I remember one girl of seventeen who never gave me any
encouragement when I suggested calling, and I respected her wishes.
One day when she was very ill, the mother asked me to come. The girl
had always dressed well, was intelligent and refined, and would have
been supposed to come from a family of comfortable means. I found it
to be a home of real poverty, where the father, a nervous wreck
struggling with diabetes, was unable to work regularly, and the mother
was obliged to assist. Even with the seventeen-year-old girl giving
every cent she could spare, it was a hard struggle. The girl was proud
and reticent; she had not wanted me to know, and I was glad I had not
come until she was willing. That day when she was ill and discouraged
she was willing--she really needed me.
There are many times when for reasons akin to this or others entirely
different but equally good, a girl prefers to have her teacher see and
know her apart from her home. Every woman who understands girlhood in
the later teens respects such a wish.
The teacher's home should, if possible, be always open to the girls
and they should feel free to come. Sometimes it is not possible and
then the cosiest corner in the smallest church parlor should be
available.
As the girl approaches the later teens the Sunday-school class should
become more and more a place of training for service. It has been my
experience that after seventeen many girls prefer to work in
Sunday-school rather than to remain as pupils. If the girls express
such a desire, or show particular willingness to act as substitutes,
to help in the music of the elementary departments, or to tell stories
to the beginners, such a desire should be recognized and an
opportunity given a girl to test herself under supervision. The
Sunday-school should be constantly preparing assistant
superintendents, directors of music, secretaries and teachers.
Material for the teachers' training-class is found in classes in the
later teens.
Some of the most loyal, responsive and successful teachers of pupils
from nine to twelve, I have found in the boys and girls of the later
teens. While they lack mature judgment and discretion, they have
enthusiasm and desire to succeed in any undertaking. If the
Sunday-school is constantly training such helpers as assistants, and
testing them as substitutes, then the changes that are bound to come
in the teaching force of any Sunday-school are not so disastrous, for
some one will be ready to supply the need.
As has been hinted in previous studies, the Sunday-school should lend
valuable assistance in making the church a social center for the young
people who need it. To be of real vital interest to the girl, the
Sunday-school must touch her everyday life. It does that through the
social side of its work. The organized class giving socials,
entertainments, enjoying lectures and music, picnics, trolley parties,
skating or camping has a decided influence for good on all the
members. I know of one such organized class of girls eighteen and
nineteen years old which met three times a month for an entire year.
They met one week "for fun," the next to "go somewhere," or "to hear a
talk," or "to sew and read, and talk if we want to," and the third for
a "sing" to which they invited members of the boys' classes. All these
meetings were popular, well attended, and have meant a strong united
class with a splendid spirit.
The girl in her teens needs the Sunday-school because of the help and
uplift which its teachings are bound to bring to her. Even if she
belongs to a class in its early teens which is given over to the
giggles, to wandering thoughts, to all sorts of asides in more or less
noticeable whispers, to the continual admixtures of the Bible lessons
and the events of the week just passed or to come,--even though as is
often the case with the American girl, she is thoughtless enough to
forget to be either reverent or courteous, still it pays for her to
come. She gets something,--often more than we think.
And the Sunday-school needs the girl in her teens. It needs her
devotion, her enthusiasm and eagerness, her close touch with both the
real and ideal in life, that it may keep its balance, stay in the real
world of need, and not walk far afield by paths of theory. The
Sunday-school has awakened to its need of the girl, and now at its
door lies the task of making her feel more and more her need of it.