There can be no doubt of the attitude of any home with the least conscience for character toward all forms of public amusements in which young people are herded promiscuously for the mere purpose of killing time in trivialities.  The “white cities” with their glittering lights and baubles are often moral plague colonies.  The amusements debase the intellect, blunt the moral sensibilities, and appeal to the baser passions.  They are the low-water mark, we may hope, of commercialized amusement.  But they remind us that young people demand company and change from the monotony of the day’s toil.  They ask us as to the provision we are making for young people and challenge us to use their inclinations for good.

But besides these “shows” there are many dignified forms of social recreation.  Good music is to be heard and good plays are to be seen.

The theater, whether of the regular drama or of the motion-picture type, offers a perplexing problem, principally because, in the first place, American people have been too busy conquering a new soil and making a living to give careful thought to the social side of aesthetics and recreation, and, secondly, because the ministry of social recreation has fallen almost entirely under the dominance of the same trend; it has been thoroughly commercialized.  We cannot cut the puzzling knot by simply prohibiting all forms of public theatrical entertainment.  For one reason, these forms shade off imperceptibly from the church service to the extremes of the vaudeville.  But the simple fact is that we no longer indiscriminately class all theaters as baneful and immoral; we are coming to see their potentialities for good.  If the young will go, as they will—­and ought—­to the theater, and if the theater can lift their ideals, parents would do well to guide their children in this matter and to enlist the aid of the theater.

It is worth while to come to a sympathetic understanding of the place of the drama and the opera, to see what they have meant in the education of the race and what is the significance, to us, of the fact of the strong dramatic instinct in childhood.  Naturally the subject can only be mentioned here and the suggestion be offered that parents take time to cultivate an appreciation of good orchestral and concert music and of the drama.

The social life will find outlet in other directions.  Young people need our aid to find social groups which will inspire and develop them, especially groups that are serviceful.

Sec. 7.  THE CALL TO SERVICE

This is the period when ideals begin to give direction to the hitherto undirected activity of childhood and youth.  Young people are idealists.  They see no height too giddy, no task too hard, no dream too roseate, and no hope unattainable.  If the times are out of joint they believe they were “born to set them right.”  Whatever is wrong or imperfect they would take a hand in setting it right.