5.  What changes might be made in church life for the sake of the
     children?

     6.  What changes would bring the church and the home closer
     together?

     7.  What should be the children’s conception of unity with the
     church?

     8.  Should children attend, in family groups, the church service of
     worship?

     9.  Does the plan of a short service for children meet the need?

FOOTNOTES: 

[46] See a pamphlet on Church School Buildings (free) published by the Religious Education Association; also H.F.  Evans, The Sunday-School Building and Its Equipment.

[47] See the author’s suggestion for the Sunday school in Efficiency in the Sunday School, chap. xv.

CHAPTER XVIII

CHILDREN AND THE SCHOOL

Wise parents will know the character of the influences affecting their children at all times.  At no time can their responsibility be delegated to others.  There is a tendency to think that when children go to school the family has a release from responsibility.  But the school is simply the community—­the group of families—­syndicating its efforts for the formal training of the young.  Every family ought to know what the community is doing with its children.  The school belongs to all; it is not the property of a board, nor a private machine belonging to the teaching force; it belongs to us and we owe a social duty as well as a family obligation to understand its work and its influence on the children.

Parents ought to visit the school.  Wise principals and teachers will welcome them, setting times when visits can best be made.  The visitors come, not as critics, but as citizens and parents.  The principal benefits will be an acquaintance with the teachers of our children and a better understanding of the conditions under which the children work for the greater part of the day.  By far the larger number of teachers most earnestly desire character results from their work.  It will help them to know that we are interested in what they are doing.

Sec. 1.  HOME AND SCHOOL CO-OPERATION

Parents and teachers, both desiring spiritual results, can find means of co-operation.  Parent-teacher clubs and associations have done much to bring the home and the school together.  Meeting regularly in the evening, so that fathers, too, can attend, gives opportunity to work out a common understanding to raise the spiritual aims of the school, and to discover means by which the families may aid in securing better conditions for school work.

One of the most important considerations relates to the moral effect of the school life and environment.  We are committed in this country to the principle that the public school cannot teach religion, but this by no means relieves it of responsibility for moral character.  The family needs this ally.  Children expect instruction in the school and they feel keenly the power of its ideals and the standards established by its methods and requirements.  The family and the school greatly need to co-ordinate their efforts here to the end that there may be under way in both an orderly program for the moral training of children.