CHAPTER XI SKEDADDLING FROM SUNDAY SCHOOL “Man am I grown, a man's work must I do. Follow the deer? follow the Christ, the King. Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the KingElse, wherefore born?" -TENNYSON. Thus spake Gareth of old. The twentieth century youth, however, seldom gets beyond the first four words "Man am I grown," for the ideals of life have somewhat changed, and he is inclined to follow the crowd in its mad search for pleasure and financial success. Gareth's ideals are still the ideals of the Sunday school and they clash with worldly ideals, so he "skedaddles." Skedaddle means to run away. It is taken from the Greek word "skedannumi” meaning to retire tumultuously. In Scotland "skedaddle" is used in the sense of spilling. If we are to take seriously the reports which come from what are considered reliable sources, older boys are literally retiring from Sunday school-if not tumultuously, they are at least "spilling" out. One of the largest Protestant denominations recently reported a loss of thirty-one thousand children from the Sunday school in one year. This startling statement raised the query-Why? According to the findings of the Commission for the Adolescent Period appointed by the International Sunday School Association the proportion of boys between 13 and 16 years of age, and that of girls of the same age who dropped out of Sunday school was 62 per cent, from 17 to 19 years of age, 77 per cent. In other words, 62 out of every 100 younger boys-13 to 16-and 77 out of every 100 older boys-17 to 19-"skedaddle" from the Sunday school at the time when they need this anchorage most. Since the banishment of definite moral and religious training from our public schools and higher schools of education, particularly those supported by state funds, the only remaining institution for definite religious instruction is the Sunday school. Pres. W. H. P. Faunce makes this significant statement: "In the exclusion of religious instruction from the public schools and the failure of the church to meet the consequent demand upon it for religious education, I see a problem, the gravity of which it is impossible to exaggerate. Our National peril is that the supremely important task of our generation will fall between the church and the state and will be ignored by both. Millions are for this reason growing up in America today without any genuine religious training. If the home and the church shirk their responsibility, our people will be in fifty years, a nation without religion, i. e., a nation disintegrating and dying." It is therefore important that the cause of this "spilling" should be located. To get first-hand information the following question was put to several thousand boys in conferences of older boys, held in connection with the Men and Religion Movement: "Why don't boys between 15 and 20 years attend Sunday school?" Their answers, in the order of the largest number of replies, were as follows: "Too big and too old to go." "Sunday school too 'kiddish.'” "Other attractions like 'moving pictures." " "Not interested." "Nothing to do." "Only for girls. "Other boys make fun of them." "Indifference." "Feel it unnecessary." "Don't like women leaders." "Too lazy to go." "Not required by parents." "No older boy classes." "Not invited to go." "Too tired." "Parents don't go." 1 Faunce, "Religious Education Association" address. "Don't want to go." "Good enough now." "Know it all." "Teacher too strict." "Old-fashioned ideas taught." "Church service enough." "Teachers don't understand older boys." "The 'rest of the bunch' don't go." The majority of boys seemed to think that they were too old and too big to attend Sunday school. An elder in a Presbyterian church once said, "We have lost a generation of men from our church." "How do you account for it?" "Years ago we let the boys that are now men slip out of our Sunday schools." The big boy is a problem and for that reason is all the more interesting. Sunday schools which have tackled the problem intelligently and in a statesmanlike manner have found that, like all problems, it has a solution. No "big" boy wants to be classified with the "kids." It is not because of a lack of interest in religion that he drops out, but largely because of misclassification. Childish songs do not appeal to him, and there are opening exercises which cause irritation, so he usually waits on the outside until the agony, as he terms it, is over. This waiting outside usually makes his real exodus from the school easy. "The average boy is short on long prayers, long sermons, and long faces," and he tires, as well as retires, quickly when these "virtues" are prominent in services and worshipers. Another "Why" is, that the "gang" or the rest of the "bunch" don't go. If Sunday school attendance is unpopular with his gang, his loyalty to the standards of the gang is stronger than his loyalty to the school. The gang, as a rule, are hedonic; that is, they regard enjoyment as the chief good in life. They are not passive but active during this period of "hedonhood"; the motto "Have a Good Time" governs their actions. This is the reason why trouble is always brewing in the older boys' class. Their interpretation of a good time is different from that of the teacher and superintendent. "Hedonists" are made up of two parts impulse to one part reason, and therefore go in the direction of the strongest pull. If the gang says, "Let's go fishing," why fishing they go. To capture the gang and line them up for active service is the solution. Inefficient teachers is another "Why." A teacher who is irregular in attendance soon discovers he has no class to teach. A boy quickly |