ling minds with
theological data rather than training young, trainable lives to become
religious schoolboys, religious voters, religious parents. How many have
been at all influenced by Sunday-school teaching when they stepped into
a polling-booth, when they chose a life-mate, when they guided or
disciplined their children? If religious education does not at all
influence us in the great events of life, of what value is it to us?
Must it not be counted a sheer waste of time?

If we would conserve the human values of the family we must train youth
to a religious interpretation of the home. If we cannot do that in the
church we might as well confess that the church cannot touch the sources
of human affairs.

Sec. 3. IDEALS AND METHODS

No matter what the breadth of the interests of the public school, youth
will still need training for family living given under religious
auspices and with the religious aim. The day school may give courses in
domestic economy, but family living demands more than ability to sweep a
room or cook an egg. In fact, no one can be competent to meet its higher
demands unless at least two things are accomplished, first, that he, or
she, is led to see the family as essentially a religious, spiritual
institution because it is an association of persons for the purpose of
developing other persons to spiritual fulness; secondly, that he, or
she, is moved to willingness to count the work of the family, its
purpose and aim, as the highest in life and that for which one is
willing to pay any price of time, treasure, thought, and endeavor.

This means that the fundamental need is that our young people shall grow
up with a new vision and a new passion for the home and family. That
passion is needed to give value to any training in the economics or
mechanics of the home; and that training is precisely the contribution
which the church should make to all departments of life today. It is the
prophet, the interpreter, revealing the spiritual meanings of all daily
affairs and quickening us to right feeling, to highly directed passion
for worthy ideals.

From the general teaching, the high message of the church, directed to
this special problem, there must be formed in the mind of the coming
generation a new picture of the family, a new ethics of its life, a new
evaluation of its worth. That can come in part by the prophetic message
from the pulpit, but it will come more naturally and readily by regular
tea