Religious Education in the Family Part 16

1. Begin to make _The Family Book_.

2. Give "festival name" to the day, and take an excursion in honor of the one for whom the day is named.

3. Organize an exploring party to discover peoples and scenes of long, long ago.

4. Get acquainted with some beautiful home thoughts.

5. Enjoy an evening hour of song and praise.

2. _"The Family Book."_--To start _The Family Book_, mother or father raises the question at dinner: "What was the best Sunday of all last year, and why was it the best?" Everyone, from the oldest down to the least, should have a chance to tell. The statements of the older ones will encourage the younger.

That question will start another: What is the very best thing we can remember about the year past? Let everyone take a pencil and paper and in just ten minutes decide on and write down the one thing best worth remembering. Perhaps the baby cannot write yet, but he or she will want paper and pencil, too. Now, instead of making our answers known to one another, we fold the papers and keep them till the evening meal. We will open them then and talk it all over. Afterward we are going to copy the answers into a new book we are going to make.

This new book is to be called _The Family Book_, and we expect to put into it all the pleasant things we wish to record about our home and family. Any blank book with ruled lines will do. Some time today we will elect a keeper of the book, and before we go to bed we will see the first entry in that book under the t.i.tle, "Happy Memories of 1915." That will make a good beginning for _The Family Book_. Next Sunday we will discuss and set down in the book the happy memories of the intervening week.

3. _The festival name._--Now, we have been sitting, talking, and writing as long as the children will care to be still. Suppose we all go outdoors together, every one of us. What if the weather is bad? It is seldom truly bad, and there is so much real happiness in going out in all weathers together.

But where shall we go? There is no fun in walking simply for exercise or health. Well, says father, we can decide where to go by naming the day.

How? We will find the most interesting birthday or anniversary that falls today or during the next week. If one of the family has a birthday then, that one shall choose our walk for us. If not, then when we have chosen the national hero or heroine whose birthday falls near this time, or the event the anniversary of which comes nearest, we will go, if possible, where something will remind us of that person or event.

So we fall to discussing the possibilities. We search through almanacs until we find the anniversary that suits us all. Perhaps one of the parents has antic.i.p.ated all this by looking up the matter, and has a good name to suggest. Or the older ones may consult a dictionary of dates. It may turn out to be the birthday of a national hero. In the city he may have a statue; in the country may be found the kinds of woods, flowers, or animals he loved.

4. _The exploring party._--But even after the walk it will not be long before the little ones are asking, "What can we do next?" So we organize the exploring party. Our object is to discover the countries, scenes, strange peoples, and most interesting persons we have heard of in the Bible. We are to find them in the advertising sections of old magazines.

Let each one take a magazine and go through it, looking for oriental scenes, for pictures of incidents and of men and women that will remind him of Bible scenes and characters. These are to be cut out, explained, and arranged in the order of time, as they happened, every member of the family helping. The same plan may be applied to scenes of missionary work, using blank books for stories of heroism which children will ill.u.s.trate with the magazine pictures.

5. _Home thoughts._--"Home, sweet home," is just a corner of the afternoon saved for the discovery and reading of selections that are worth keeping in our memories and are also likely to help us hold our homes in some measure of the love and reverence they deserve. There are songs of home that ought never to be forgotten.

6. _Religious reading and songs close the day happily._--Children love religious reading and songs, provided they are offered for their worth and not as an exercise, or to be learned as an empty duty. Take down your Bible and read Psalm 100, "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands"; see whether they do not all enjoy the music and majesty of those lines. You will not find it difficult to secure their co-operation in learning that by heart.

Then close the day with an hour of song. The children will remember songs learned thus all their lives; therefore those worth remembering should be chosen. For one, there is that dear old song many of us learned at mother's knee, "Jesus loves me, this I know." That and others that are appropriate can be found in almost every hymnbook. Many books of school songs also have a few hymns and Sunday songs that children like.

Parents are puzzled, perhaps most of all, to choose appropriate stories to read to the children on Sunday. Youngsters prefer, of course, the told story to the read one, but if you wish to read you will make no mistake in selecting _Christie's Old Organ_; _Aunt Abbey's Neighbors_, by Annie T. Slosson; _The Book of Golden Deeds_, by Charlotte M. Yonge; and _Telling Bible Stories_, by Louise S. Houghton. _Some Great Stories and How to Tell Them_, by Richard Wyche, and _Story Telling_, by Edna Lyman, will serve as good guides to what to tell, and how to tell it.

7. _Naming the day._--From week to week variety should enter into the Sunday program. On the Sunday following the one described above we can begin at the dinner table the happy task of "naming the day." We can decide whether it shall be called after one of our own number, whose birthday falls near this date, or after one of the anniversaries of the week following.

Perhaps someone suggests calling it after the feast day of the church year observed by certain churches. That should lead to discussion and investigation of the meaning of the day.

When all are agreed on a name, write it under its date on your wall calendar. It will be a convenient suggestion for next year, unless the decision is for a different name when the day again comes round. It will also call to mind some of the interesting discussions which it aroused.

After this we might call for _The Family Book_, which now contains, you will recall, the family's decision as to the best Sunday and the happiest occurrences of the year before. The keeper, appointed last week, must bring it out. We can read what we wrote a week ago and decide on the things worth entering this week. Records of birthdays, special happenings to each of the family, the bright sayings of little ones, and the visits of friends and relatives all should go in.

8. _"I remember" stories._--While _The Family Book_ is open is the psychological moment for father and mother to tell stories of their childhood. Every child likes to hear the story that begins, "I remember," and feels a thrill of pride in belonging to something that goes back and has a history. The old family alb.u.m is a never-failing source of delight, not so much because of the pictures as because of what they suggest of family traditions.

Now is a good time to select some certain thing which shall be used only on this day, such as a festival lamp or candlestick, some festival plates or dishes--just one thing or set of things toward the use of which we can look forward during the week. This helps to make Sunday what we used to call "a treat."

9. _Golden deeds._--Last week we started _The Family Book_ in which to keep a record of all the happy experiences that belong to our family.

This week we begin another book. In it we expect to place every week just one splendid story, the account of a golden deed, some piece of everyday kindness or heroism of which we have read or heard or which we have witnessed. Everyone is to have a chance to contribute to this book, all the family deciding by vote each week as to which story should be placed on its pages.

Did you read in the paper this week of some brave or kindly deed done by a boy or a girl, a man or a woman? Did you see someone do an act of kindness? Cut out the account or write out the story and have it ready for your own _Golden Deed Book_. Everyone must watch all the week for the right kind of stories. It is wonderful how much good you will find in the world when you are looking for it.

Sunday afternoons all the family can hear each story and talk over its fine points of virtue and goodness. Thus may be developed an appreciation of the human qualities that are really admirable. We can discuss also the probability of certain of the stories and the righteousness of the deeds.

Any blank book will do, or even a composition book. It will help to keep hands happily occupied if you make your own covers and cut out gilt letters for the t.i.tle. Often you can find pictures to ill.u.s.trate the stories chosen; sometimes you may prefer to draw the ill.u.s.trations. Keep _The Golden Deed Book_ in a safe and convenient place, because there ought to be something to go into it every week. For instance, did you read the other day of the young man who jumped in front of a train to save a young girl? He lost his life, but he saved hers. Can you find that story and put it in the book? Perhaps you have found one that seems even more fitting.

10. _Various plans._--Giving happiness creates it. Plan something every Sunday for the happiness of others. Occasionally go in a body to call on someone who will be made happy by the visit.

If you walk in the park or elsewhere, see how many things you can discover that you have read about in the Bible or know to be mentioned there.

Try the game of "guessing hymns." While someone plays the familiar tunes, each takes a turn at identifying them and the hymns to which they belong.

Set aside twenty minutes for each one to write a letter to send to the brother or sister, relative or friend, at a distance. Even the baby can scratch something which he thinks is a "real enough" letter in penciled scribbles.

Close the day with quiet reading and song, or with the memory exercise in which all endeavor to repeat some simple psalm or a few verses, like the Beat.i.tudes. All children like to repeat the Lord's Prayer in family concert.

I. References for Study

Emilie Poulsson, _Love and Law in Child Training_, chaps. i-iv.

Milton Bradley, $1.00.

_Happy Sundays for Children_ and _Sunday in the Home_. Pamphlets.

American Inst.i.tute of Child Life, Philadelphia, Pa.

II. Further Reading

_Sunday Play._ Pamphlet. American Inst.i.tute of Child Life, Philadelphia, Pa.

Hodges, _Training of Children in Religion_, chap. xiii. Appleton, $1.50.

III. Methods and Materials

_A Year of Good Sundays._ Pamphlet. American Inst.i.tute of Child Life, Philadelphia, Pa.

IV. Topics for Discussion

1. What is the real problem of Sunday in the family? Is it that of securing quiet or of wisely directing the action of the young?

2. Recall your childhood's Sundays. Were they for good or ill?

3. What are the arguments against children playing on Sunday? Is there any essential relation between the play of children and the wide-open Sunday of commercialized amus.e.m.e.nts?

4. Can you describe forms of play in which practically all the family might unite?