Directed Activity : Part 3

Religious Education in the Family
by Henry F. Cope

(Page 9 of 23)

All the moral and religious problems of the family find a focus in the purpose of preparing persons for social living. The family justifies its cost to society in the contribution which it makes in trained and motived lives. As a religious family its first duty is to prepare the coming generation to live in a religious society, in one which will steadily move toward the divine ideal of perfect family relations through brotherhood and fatherhood. Its business is not to get children ready for heaven, but to train them to make all life heavenly. Its aim is not alone children who will not tear down the parents' reputation, but men and women who will build up the actual worth and beauty of all lives.

The realization, in the family, of the purpose of training youth to social living and service in the religious spirit depends on two things: a spirit and passion in the family for social justice and order, and the direction of the activities of the family toward training in social usefulness.

Only the social spirit can give birth to the social spirit. True lovers of men, who set the values of life and of the spirit first, who give their lives that all men may have freedom and means to find more abundant life, come out of the families where the passion of human love burns high. The selfish family, self-centered, caring not at all in any deep sense for the well-being of others, existing to extract the juice of life and let who will be nourished on the rind, becomes effective to make the social highwayman, the oppressor. From such a family comes he who breaks laws for his pocketbook and impedes the enactment of laws lest human rights should prevent his acquisition of wealth; he who hates his brother man - unless that brother has more than he has; the foe of the kingdom of goodness and peace and brotherhood.

And goodness is as contagious as badness. Children catch the spirit of social love and idealism in the family. Where men and women are deeply concerned with all that makes the world better for lives, better for babies and mothers, for workers, and, above all, for the values of the spirit gained through leisure, opportunities, and higher incentives; where the family is more concerned with folks than with furniture; where habitually it thinks of people as Jesus did, as the objects most of all worth seeking, worth investing in, there children receive direction, habituation, and motivation for the life of religion, the life that binds them in glad love to the service of their fellows, and makes them think of all their life as the one great chance to serve, to make a better world, and to bring God's great family closer together here.

I. References for Study

G. A. Coe, Education in Religion and Morals, pp. 142-50. Revell, $1.35.

W. S. Athearn, The Church School, pp. 85-102. Pilgrim Press, $1.00.

G. Johnson, Education by Plays and Games, Part I. Ginn & Co., $0.90.

II. Further Reading

E. D. Angell, Play. Little, Brown & Co., $1.50.

Fisher, Gulick, et al., "Ethical Significance of Play,"

Materials for Religious Education, pp. 197-215. Religious Education Association, $0.50.

Publications of the Play Ground Association.

III. Methods and Materials

PLAY

Forbush, Manual of Play. Jacobs, $1.00.

A. Newton, Graded Games. Barnes, $1.25.

Von Palm, Rainy Day Pastimes. Dana Estes, $1.00.

Johnson, When Mother Lets Us Help. Moffat, Yard & Co., $0.75.

WORK

Canfield, What Shall We Do Now? Stokes, $1.50.

Beard, Jack of All Trades. Scribner, $2.00.

Beard, Things Worth Doing. Scribner, $2.00.

Bailey, Garden Making. Macmillan, $1.50.

Bailey (ed.), Something to Do (magazine). School Arts Publishing Co.

IV. Topics for Discussion

1. Is the quiet child an ideal child? How far should we go in restraining activity?

2. The relative advantages of work and leisure for children. What of the value of chores to you; did you do them? Describe any forms of children's service in the home which have come under your observation.

3. What forms of community service can be done by children and by young people?

4. Recall any lessons learned by activity in your early home life.

5. Give in their order, according to your judgment, the potencies for religious character in the home.

Copyright 1915 by The University of Chicago