Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 74, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1911 — SEEN AS A MENAGE [ARTICLE]

SEEN AS A MENAGE

Sunday Schools as Now Conduct* ed Are Deplored. i ■■■—■— ~-irf Too Many Frivolous and Untrained Qirle as Teachers Know Little of Children end How They Should Se Taught. Atlanta, Oa.—‘The Sunday school as It is conducted today is a national, menace," declared Mrs. Frederick Bchaff of Philadelphia, In addressing the Georgia mother's congress today. Furthermore, she asserted too many of the teachers are frivolous girls who know little of children and how they should be taught. Mrs. Schaff, who is president of the national mother’s congress, urged a world-wide awakening of mothers to the fact that love and tenderness are not sufficient for the proper rearing of children. “It la the mother’s place," she declared, ‘to demand more of the Sunday schools.” "Love,” declared Mrs. Schaff, “cannot make a mother a good mother. It will make her well intentioned, but it will not give her the knowledge of what her children need. It will not give her the ability to train her children as they Bhould be trained. The thing we need is to arouse the mothers and Induce them to study their children, to know them, and not to bring them up simply by chance. "If we can only arouse the mothers to see that they can prevent crime, that in their hands lies the future of the world, we will accomplish the' greatest thing attainable. Mothers must be taught that as they sow, so shall their children reap. "The mother can inculcate in her children lessons that never will be eradfcatetd. She can make them good or she can make them bad. Many mothers leave the spiritual training of their children to the Sunday school and the church. But what can the Sunday school or church accomplish with only a few hours’ training a week, if this training is not continued at home? “If I could only reach all the mothers in this country with the stories that men in prison have told me of how they started wrong I could convince every mother of her responsibility. “A child is not always getting spiritual training at Sunday school or church. That depends on the surroundings there. Some preachers benefit children, others do not. You know the story of the little boy who didn't want to go to Sunday school. “ ’Why don’t you want to go?’ he was asked. “ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘my everyday teacher teaches me something, but my Sunday school teacher Just musses me up.’ ” At this point Mrs. Schaff was asked if the national mothers’ congress cannot take up .the question of Sunday Bchool and the training of Sunday school teachers. “It can and will.” she replied. “I believe that the Sunday school, as it Is, is an absolute menace, with frivolous, untrained girls acting as teachers."