The teen age represents the most important period of life.  Ideals and standards are set up, habits formed and decisions made that will make or mar a life.  The high-water mark of conversion is reached at fifteen, and between the ages of thirteen and eighteen more definite stands are made for the Christian life than in all the other combined years of a lifetime.

It marks the period of adolescence, when the powers and passions of manhood enter into the life of the boy, and when the will is not strong enough to control these great forces.  Powers must be unfolded before ability to use them can develop, and instincts must be controlled while these are in the process of development.  The importance of systematic adult leadership during this period of storm and stress cannot be too strongly emphasized.

The teen age boy is naturally religious.  Opportunity, however, must be given him to express his religion in forms that appeal to and are understood by him.  In other words, his religion, like his nature, is a positive quantity, and will be carried by him throughout the day, to dominate all of the activities in which he engages.

The problem also reaches through the entire teen years and must be regarded as a whole, rather than as a series of successive stages, each stage being separate and complete in itself.

The great problem, then, which confronts us is to keep the boys in the church and Sunday school during the critical years of adolescence and to bring to their support the strength which comes from God’s Word and true Christian friendship, to the end that they may be related to the Son of God as Saviour and Lord through personal faith and loyal service.

GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alexander, Editor.—­Boy Training (.75).  The Sunday School and the Teens.  (The Report of the International Commission on Adolescence) ($1.00).

Alexander, Editor.—­The Teens and the Rural Sunday School. (The Report of the International Commission on Rural Adolescence.) In preparation.

Boys’ Work Message (Men and Religion Movement) ($1.00).

Fiske.—­Boy Life and Self-Government ($1.00).

Hall.—­Developing into Manhood (Sex Education Series) (.25)

Hall.—­Life’s Beginnings (Sex Education Series) (.25)

Secondary Division Leaflets, International Sunday School Association
(Free).

1.  Secondary Division Organization.

2.  The Organized Class.

3.  State and County Work.

4.  Through-the-week Activities.

5.  The Secondary Division Crusade.

Swift—­Youth and the Race ($1.50).

THE BOY AND HIS EDUCATION