Suppose that to groups of boys beyond middle adolescence competent and high-minded representatives of various trades and professions present in series the reasons for their choice, the possible good, individual and social, which they see in their life-work, the qualifications which they deem necessary, and the obstacles to be met; and suppose further that the ethical code of a trade, profession, or business is presented for honest canvass by the class, must there not result a stimulus and aid to vocational selection and also a more lively interest in the study of specific moral problems?  In this way teaching clusters about an inevitable field of interest, about live and often urgent problems, and there is nothing to prevent the use of all the light which may be adduced from the Bible and religious experience.

To describe the method more specifically, the lawyer presents his profession and subsequently the class discusses the code of the bar association; or the physician presents his work and then follows the canvass of the ethical problems of medical practice, and so of the trade-union artisan, the merchant or teacher, the minister, or the captain of industry.  All of this is diffused with religion, it has its setting and sanction within the church, it supplements for a few, at any rate, the present lack in public education, and it is real and immediate rather than theoretical and remote.

Let this be complemented with visits to institutions, offices, plants, courts, and the marts and centers of commercial, industrial, and agricultural life; and, best of all, cemented in the personal friendship, practical interest and sponsorship of an adult and wise counselor who helps the boy both to the place and in the place; and, within the limits of the rather small constituency of church boys at least, there is guaranteed a piece of religious work that is bound to tell.  For surely every legitimate interest of life is religious when handled by religious persons, and the right moral adjustment of the whole self to the whole world, with the emotion and idealism inhering in the process, is the task and content of religion.

CHAPTER VII

TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP[8]

The altruism of America is philanthropic rather than civic and in deliberate disregard of government, the average citizen of the United States has no equal.  However intelligent or capable he may be, he is in the main a poor citizen.  This habit of having no care for the ship of state and of seeking comfort and self-advantage, regardless of her future, is exactly the reverse of what one would expect.  For by the manner of her birth and her natural genius the republic would seem to guarantee forever a high type of efficient public service.