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YOUTH

TODAY AND TOMORROW

Proceedings

YOUTH INSTITUTE
National Council Catholic Women

Washington, July, 1935

NATIONAL COUNCIL CATHOLIC WOMEN
1312 Massachusetts Avenue NW.

Washington, D.C.



&



THE HOLY FATHER

TO CATHOLIC YOUTH ASSOCIATION

AT JUBILEE CONGRESS

“Young People! You Are Our Co-workers!

We Demand of You:

The Vicar of Christ Demands of You

Your Collaboration!”



Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2016

https://archive.org/details/youthtodaytomorrOOunse



YOUTH

TODAY AND TOMORROW

PAPERS

GIVEN AT THE

YOUTH INSTITUTE

National Council Catholic Women

Washington, July, 1935

NATIONAL COUNCIL CATHOLIC WOMEN

1312 Massachusetts Avenue NW.

Washington, D. C.





TABLE OF CONTENTS

Purpose page

“The Purpose of the Institute” ....— Anne Sarachon Hooley 5

Background

“Our Charter as Catholics” .—Very Rev. Msgr. Michael J. Ready 7

“A Common Point of Contact”—*..Most Rev. Emmet M. Walsh, D.D. 9

“The Council’s Opportunity” .. — Anne Sarachon Hooley 10

Leadership

“Christ as Youth’s Ideal”— — Rev. Vincent Mooney, C.S.'C. 13
“Coordination Means Strength” ... Rev. Daniel A. Lord, S.J. 18

“Training for Leadership”-,.—— J— Alice Conway 19
“Catholic Youth Movements Face the Future”....Rev. Paul H. Furfey 22

Home

“The Home and the Catholic Youth Program” Rose K. Horrigan 25

“Community Planning for Youth” ———Katharine F. Lenroot 30
“Practical Preparation for Homemaking” Clara V. Bradley 31

Guidance

“Vocational Guidance”... — Rev. Edward B. Jordan 35
“Training in Chastity” .—Rev. Felix M. Kirsch, O.M.Cap. 41

“Opportunity for the Dull Child”——..Sister M. Olivia, O.S.B. 46

“The Youth Program of the American Council on Education”

Rev. George Johnson 48

Prevention

“A Prevention of Delinquency Program” . .Louise McGuire 51

Employment

“Young Women at Work as Viewed By the Women’s Bureau”
Mary Anderson 60

“Youth in Industry—a Picture” — Mamie Santora 65
“Helping Youth to Find Employment” ...Sara E. Laughlin 66

“Employment Problems of Young People” ,. .Beatrice McConnell 70

“Putting Women to Work”— Ellen B. Woodward 73

Leisure

“Unemployment, Shorter Hours, Leisure” Rev. Francis J. Haas 76

“The National Youth Administration” with Information Primer

Aubrey Williams 77

Page 3



Handcrafts

“Handcrafts in the Home” - Beatrice L. Harrison 81

Recreation Page

“Recreation for Women and Girls” _ Mary J. Breen 85

“Organizing the Community for Recreation” JElla Gardner 89

“Girls in Rural Communities”—^—^ Rev. W. Howard Bishop 94

“Sports for Girls” Anna Rose Kimpel 97

Culture

“Culture and Catholic Youth” Sister M. Madeleva 99

“Influence of Drama as Illustrated By the Passion Play of Oberam-

mergau” Anton Lang, Jr. 101

“Practical Aspects of the Drama” Rev. William A. Clark, O.P. 104

“A Cultural Program for Youth” Mrs. William C. Hammer 109

“The Cultivation of Joy” * Sister Josephine Rosaire 114

“Libraries and (Catholic Youth” _ Lucille Walsh 118

Study

“Study Clubs and Source Material”—... Rev. Raymond A. McGowan 116

“Intelligent Participators” _ Mrs. Frank O’Hara 119

“The Catholic Evidence Guild” Rev. Joseph B. Collins, S.S. 121

Program

Recommedations for the Catholic Youth Program—National Council
of Catholic Women L „ j - 123

Page 4



PURPOSE

THE PURPOSE

OF THE

YOUTH INSTITUTE

NATIONAL COUNCIL CATHOLIC WOMEN

Anne Sarachon Hooley

President, National Council Catholic Women

1

—

To bring together experienced leaders in young

women’s activities in order that there may be

evolved a flexible program which, if adjusted to local

conditions, will be practical in whole or in part in

any community.

2

—

To afford the small club leader or local worker

the opportunity to meet and discuss with national

leaders her particular problems and difficulties, with

relation to work in the Youth Movement.

This Institute is colored by today’s emergency, but the Na-

tional Council of Catholic Women’s work in this field is one of

long-time planning, undertaken in response to the urge of the Holy

Father, Pope Pius XI, as a particular piece of lay activity.

Factors In United Action:

Already there are many agencies at work in Sodalities, Girls’

Clubs, Settlement Houses, Junior groups of national and State or-

ganizations, but we need more and more of these agencies if we

are to reach all who need our help, whether it be spiritual, intel-

lectual or physical. And the program demands united action.

Just as the National Council of Catholic Women seeks to enroll
all existing organizations of Catholic women in one central Council

with no thought of domination or direction, so, too, the Council

would seek to bring together as many as possible of the groups

working with youth, as well as the representatives of youth, in

order to bring about that united action so essential to success.

Annually, for the past four years, these Catholic youth leaders

have been brought together, under the auspices of the National

Council of Catholic Women, to stimulate interest in youth through-

out the country, resulting in the decision to hold this Institute in

Page 5



order that a program of education, recreation and work for young

women sixteen to twenty-four years of age, may be devised and

may form a working structure for the endeavors of its thousands

of affiliated organizations of Catholic women. Full cooperation

with the Government program is promised, in addition to the ex-

pansion of the work in the Catholic field.

Participating Organizations

:

The Council wishes to acknowledge with gratitude the coopera-

tion and participation of all who took part in the Institute. A

special word of appreciation is extended to the Administration of

the National Catholic School of Social Service for the hospitality

of the school and the contribution of the Faculty; to the follow-

ing national organizations and Governmental bureaus which have

made possible this Institute:

Catholic Daughters of America,

Christ Child Society,

Daughters of Isabella,

Girl Scouts,

International Federation of Catholic Alumnae,

Sodality of Our Lady,

Children’s Bureau, United States Department of Labor,

National Youth Administration,

Women’s Bureau, United States Department of Labor,

Work’s Progress Administration.

Page 6



BACKGROUND:

OUR CHARTER AS CATHOLICS

Very Rev. Msgr. Michael J. Ready

Assistant General Secretary, National Catholic Welfare Conference

“To safeguard youth;

to provide outlets

for those activities

normal youth demands.”

“Go forth and teach all nations,” Christ said, “and behold I

am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.”

That teaching transformed a pagan world, and built up a great

Christian civilization, but at the cost of untold sacrifice on the

part of the builders, who never counted any sacrifice, even life

itself, too great, so long as they labored for and with the Master,

who has shown them the way.

The Apostolate of Catholic Action:

Down through the ages that same message comes to us today,

through the voice of the Vicar of Christ, His Holiness Pius XI,

who calls on the Catholic people throughout the world to unite

in a great Apostolate which he characterizes as Catholic Action.

This Apostolate which Christ entrusted to His Church is universal

and all-embracing. It touches all individuals, all social classes, all

ages.

This Apostolate demands, Our Holy Father tells us, first, per-

sonal holiness on the part of the individual, and then united ac-

tion. As our Holy Father puts it, Catholic Action should be a

universal, a unanimous action of the faithful, without regard to

age, sex, education, social condition or national and political

tendencies. It calls on all to unite in bringing back into a world of

materialism the great spiritual force of Christian teaching; to

bring back the certainty of faith to a world torn with doubt; to act

as a great constructive power in a destructive and disintegrating

world.

The National Catholic Welfare Conference:

The Bishops and Archbishops of the United States, at the

close of the War in 1919, organized what is known as the Na-

tional Catholic Welfare Conference. This conference is the chan-

nel for this great Apostolate here in the United States. This con-

ference provides for the participation of the laity in the great

work of the hierarchy, through the organization of the two great

Councils of Catholic Men and Women.

Page 7



The function of the National Council of Catholic Women is to
channel the power which is in the Catholic womanhood of this

land, and to direct it to the proximate and ultimate accomplish-

ments to be achieved.

Responsibility of Catholic Women:

Catholic women have a tremendous responsibility in the face

of the dangers which threaten not only society, but even civiliza-

tion itself. It is for them to array themselves in the defense of

the family which is the unit upon which the social structure and

the safety of the nation rests, to maintain the sanctity of marriage,

the dignity of motherhood, the safety of the Christian home. To

safeguard youth, not only by protecting it from the social evils

which threaten, but by providing outlets for those activities which

normal youth demands.

It is also the responsibility of Catholic women to lend every

effort in bringing about that social reconstruction which promises

social justice to those who have been deprived of the right to a liv-

ing wage, with all that that term implies. The National Council of

Catholic Women calls upon all Catholic women young and old in

the United States to unite in the great program which is set forth

by the Bishops of the United States, that there shall be in this, our

land, a restoration of Christian standards and Christian ideals in

the life of our nation.

In the National Catholic Welfare Conference we have a pro-

gram and material that will assist and help you. It will be our

pleasure, we who are there through the will of the Bishops, to help

you in every way.

A COMMON POINT OF CONTACT

Most Rev. Emmet M. Walsh, D.D.

Bishop of Charleston

“All Catholic youth organizations

must work together

and have a common point of contact

in the organization

set up by the Bishops of the United States.”

If we take the Holy Father’s definition of Catholic Action, it

is difficult to see how any Catholic organization operating in the

national field can be truly said to be doing the work of Catholic

Action, until it is functioning in affiliation and in full cooperation

with the organization set up by the Bishops of the United States.

For Catholic Action is the participation of the laity in the Apos-

tolate of the Hierarchy. Laymen are participating in that apos-

Page 8



tolate in a diocese, when they work under the direction and in co-

operation with the Bishop and clergy. When the field is a prov-

ince, laymen are truly engaged in Catholic Action only when they

work under the program outlined by the metropolitan and his

suffragans. When the field is national, the program must be that

of the Bishops of the nation.

The National Catholic Welfare Conference:

The Bishops of the United States, with the approval of the

Holy See, have organized into the National Catholic Welfare Con-

ference. In their annual meetings they discuss policies affecting

the interests and activities of the Church in the United States.

And through the departments of the Welfare Conference, they

seek the coordination of all Catholic effort in accordance with

these policies, and the cooperation of all Catholic agencies and

organizations for the realization of these policies. The Depart-

ment of Lay Organizations is especially designed to stimulate and

coordinate lay effort, and the ordinary method of promoting co-

ordination and cooperation among Catholic Women’s groups is to

urge their affiliation with the National Council of Catholic Women.

This affiliation is the effective method of participation of Catholic

women in Catholic Action in the national field.

Accordingly, it is with a good deal of satisfaction that I find

the National Council of Catholic Women bringing together Cath-
olic leaders in the work for the welfare of Youth in an Institute

for the study of youth problems and the exchange of ideas for their

solution.

The Church and Youth:

The care of youth is nothing new in the Church. She has given

material care, devoted and unceasing, for almost two thousand

years. But there is a new emphasis on the care of youth today,

because youth has new and baffling problems to face today. With

enforced idleness facing them at the end of school days, and their

field of opportunity ever narrowing, they are subject to new de-

moralizing influences and they are in need of more understanding

and more zealous care than ever.

To illustrate the need, let me cite to you the surprising condi-

tion reported by priests engaged in C. C. C. Camps—the existence
of large numbers of young men, reporting their religion as Cath-

olic, who have not received their First Holy Communion, and other

large numbers whose reception of the Sacraments has been rare.

These are the Catholic men of the future, and if they are not
reached with effective religious instruction—if our Catholic youth
of both sexes are not reached—then we must not be surprised if

Page 9



what has happened in other countries happens here. Repudiation

of the Church and persecution of her by people once Catholic can

only be understood as a failure of the message of the Church to

reach them. Teachers upon whom the Church depended, failed her.

Beside their need for religious teaching, our idle youth need

recreational activities provided under Catholic auspices and super-

vision. The Catholic worker not only gives them a service they

badly need, but injects the Church into the very core of their life.

A National Clearing House:

The thousands engaged in such fine service, are conscious of a

need for a national clearing house for information on methods,

for national cooperation in meeting the larger problems, and a na-

tional coordinating agency. And this need is emphasized by the

establishment of the Federal Youth Administration. The National

Catholic Welfare Conference is the Bishops’ organization for deal-

ing with such Federal government agencies. The Conference’s

contacts with Catholic youth organizations and agencies will be

facilitated by their affiliation with the Lay Organizations Depart-

ment.

Accordingly, it is the hope of all who have the welfare of Cath-

olic youth at heart, that this Institute will work out a program for

effective cooperation through the Welfare Conference; in the work

for Catholic girls we hope for a program of close cooperation under

the National Council of Catholic Women.

May the Catholic Youth Movement thus go forward and take

its place among the major welfare works of the Church, giving to

the nation its best citizens, and to the Church, loyal sons and

daughters, and to God greater glory.

THE COUNCIL’S OPPORTUNITY

Anne Sarachon Hooley

President, National Council Catholic Women

“What we lament

is not the flame of youth,

but neglect of the flame.”

We have had much talk, much writing and much lamentation
about flaming youth. This flame is so universal a characteristic

of youth, so necessary an item of success in that which youth must

accomplish, so plainly a gift of an All-Wise Creator that it seems

we ought to approach it almost with a sense of reverence, certainly

Page 10



with understanding. And doing this, we find that what we lament

is not the flame of youth, but neglect of the flame.

Fire properly fed and cared for has always been a great aid to

man. Yet if fed with explosives and undirected, it becomes a roar-

ing monster devouring all in its path. So it is with youth and

leisure time. Having it, youth often knows not how to use it.

Youth Not a Problem:

Youth is not a problem! To call it that may be our indolent

way of dismissing the very vital and challenging situations which

arise. After all, it is only a normal stage in the spiritual, mental

and physical development of man. Its characteristic love of ad-

venture, of achievement, of drama, are God-given qualities for the

part which it must play, not only in its own building, but in its

contribution to the enrichment of its neighbor, or if you will, to

society. Before you deplore the excesses, the wanton waste, the

aimlessness of youth, you must deplore the family life and educa-

tion and the banishment from these two of the philosophy of truth

which marks the failure of adult civilization to play its part. Give

to youth, even now, the fundamental standards with which to meas-

ure spiritual values, give it something to create with its hands, point

it toward an appreciation of the wealth of service, and you need

not worry about the “smoothie,” the stag line, and “flaming youth.”

It will, out of its own abundance of life, settle the questions at

hand.

Constructive Use of Leisure:

Because the inherent qualities of youth can be most easily mis-

directed through recreation, we find an institute such as this giv-

ing much time to the constructive means for wise employment of

leisure. We have brought to you authorities in the field of recrea-
tion, both rural and urban, cultural programs for youth with

their art appreciation development and the opportunity for ex-

pression through music, through drama, through handcraft and

through study clubs on every subject of interest. We shall discuss
athletics for girls. We have brought to you thought stimulating
presentations of youth in industry and education with its broader

meaning. There will be presented the need for the education of

youth in homemaking and building an ideal family life. There

is, most important of all, a deliberation on the development of

spiritual integrity that our youth may know the fullness of living.
The National Council of Catholic Women holds itself always

fluid, always ready to receive open-handed the contribution of any

group in order that it may retain that contribution for discussion
and planning, then distribute it to other component members,

Page 11



hoping that each may take from the whole something suited to

its individual needs. For that reason, much time has been left

during these sessions for discussion, for application, for proposing

difficulties and solutions.

Working Under Authority:

The Holy Father has presented to the laity of the Catholic

world the need for thoughtful care of today’s youth. At our an-

nual convention, His Excellency, the Most Rev. Amleto Gio-

vanni Cicognani, Apostolic Delegate to the United States, urged

the National Council of Catholic Women to devote its energy

to the Youth Movement. In response to these, you are meeting

together as experienced leaders, interesting yourselves in long-

time planning for the vast numbers of normal youth who, in them-

selves, constitute not only the Catholic laywomen of tomorrow,

but who are to be an important part of the home building of our

beloved country.

We see for this youth a program which will draw her to the
parish group and color her leisure activities with a spiritual mo-

tive. She may find in this parish program with all its varied

interests, an outlet for the energy and talents which she possesses.

She will develop here leadership and preparation for the woman-

hood of tomorrow. She will come to know recreation as a re-

creation of the spirit of joy, and of beauty, and of service.

We hope for a Youth Movement which will bring to every
girl the simplicity, the respect for work, and the joy of Nazareth.

It may help her to understand the significance of Calvary. Yet,

it must carry also the quickened beauty, the pealing bells, and the

glorious fulfillment of the Resurrection hymn.

Page 12



LEADERSHIP

CHRIST AS YOUTH’S IDEAL

Rev. Vincent Mooney, C.S.C.

Director
,
Youth Bureau, National Catholic Welfare Conference

“The oldest Youth Movement the world has ever known,

is the Youth Movement that recognizes Christ

as youth’s Ideal—the Ideal Leader of youth.

Loyalty to a cause, fidelity to an ideal, love of pageantry and

display, the worship of heroes—these are the striking character-

istics of youth. Fearless, zealous and unselfish, youth has always

been ready and willing to follow a chosen leader. From the earliest

days of Christ’s public life, through the days of the persecution of

the Early Church, down to the present hour, youth has heard

and heeded Christ’s plain and unmistakable statement: “I am the

Way, the Truth and the Life,” and has chosen and accepted His

leadership. Animated by Christlike zeal and courageous self-

denial, young men and women, and mere children have been un-

ashamed to follow in His footsteps wherever they might lead.

Christ in the Gospel:

All are familiar with the story of Christ as narrated in the

Gospels. That fascinating story, unfolding itself in all its radiant

beauty and splendor, never fails to fire the imagination and strike

a responsive chord in the heart of the young man. You remember,

for example, that as the years rolled on, the Babe of Bethlehem

grew in grace and wisdom before God and man; a brief span of

years in His Public Life and the Son of God, scorned and humili-

ated, was treated as a criminal and an impostor. Unjustly ac-

cused, He was unjustly condemned; burdened with His heavy

cross, He was driven through the streets of the deicide city. Re-

jected by those whom He came to save, He climbed the rugged

rocks that led to Calvary’s crest, and there, while the morning

mist was still fresh upon the city, He was crucified on Golgotha.

Christ paid the penalty, and why? Christ made the supreme sacri-

fice, and why? The reason for Golgotha’s tragedy should be en-

graven upon our hearts. Christ died because He loved men; not

only those men who lived with Him, but men of all ages, of all

times, of all nationalities. Christ loved youth. And so striking

Page 13



was this love for youth that it is frequently mentioned in the

Gospel narrative.

On one occasion, for instance, He came to the end of a busy

day. Tired because of His strenuous labors, He sat down to rest.

The children, as was their wont, gathered about Him that He

might lay hands upon them. Anxious to save their Master further

effort, the disciples strove to restrain the children, but rebuking

His disciples, Christ spoke those memorable words: “Suffer the

little children to come unto Me and forbid them not, for of such
is the kingdom of Heaven.”

Christ As Lover:

Surely we realize that these words clearly reflect Christ’s great

love for the children of men. Yet, not satisfied with declaring His

love for youth in such specific language, we know He has given us

many other evidences of His concern for their interests. He per-

formed miracles which directly affected youth. He raised to life

the widow’s son at Naim; and the daughter of Jairus. He cured

the son of the broken-hearted centurion, and to the youthful John

the Apostle, He revealed the depths of His loving heart. Con-

scious of Christ’s love for youth, youth has never been found want-

ing in devotion to Him.

Christ As Victim:

In order to perfect this relationship, to draw youth a little

closer to the Heart of Christ, to inspire youth to make Christ the

King and center of the hearts of men, the Church reminds us that

in the Mass we have the identical Victim of the Sacrifice on Cal-

vary, namely Christ Himself,—the same Christ, who was born in
poverty in Bethlehem, who lived in obscurity at Nazareth, who

died in disgrace on Golgotha. Therefore, in a spirit of humility,

we should look deep within our hearts to see if we fully appre-

ciate the real significance of this great central act of worship which

was established for us by God Himself. In other lands, anti-

Christian governments have denied the followers of Christ the

right to assist at the Holy Sacrifice. No such restrictions have

been placed upon us, in this our own country, which has been and

must always remain for us, a land of sanctuary. Mindful then of

our own happy situation, it is only commonplace to say that we

can offer no more practical evidence of our deep gratitude to God,

than by the cultivation of the habit of assisting at Mass every day

of our lives.

Page. 14



Christ As Spiritual Food:

All men instinctively crave union with the Creator and it is

by means of Holy Communion that we live in close personal con-

tact with God. Spiritual hunger is that intense desire of the soul

to be united with God. We seek to satisfy the higher aspirations

of virtue and love, we long for complete mastery over ourselves

and our bodies. To meet that need, Christ has given us a spiritual

food—it is “the corn and wheat of the elect.” “I am the Bread of
Life,” Christ says, “He that cometh to Me, he shall not hunger.”

“I am the living Bread—he that eateth Me the same shall live for-
ever.”

Assuredly we need this spiritual food. Our lives are so beset

with dangers that unless we become stronger each day with the

bread of the Eucharist we shall be swept away from the haven of

Christ’s love by the very tide of our passions. By receiving Him

in the Eucharist we shall experience a real and spiritual influx of

His whole life into our very being. By receiving Christ as the

daily nourishment of our souls, we shall feel our supernatural life

being strengthened and we shall be able to say truthfully with

Saint Paul: “I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me.”

Christ As Perfect Friend:

Not content to give us His own Flesh and Blood as our spiritual

food, not satisfied with perpetuating the sacrifice of Calvary,

Christ loved us so much that He saw fit to remain present in the

Eucharist upon our altars and in our tabernacles. How do we
show our appreciation for the manifold gifts which come to us from

the Prisoner of Love in the tabernacle? Surely we must admit

that we do not love Christ as He should be loved. We do forget
Him every minute of the day. Even among our friends we love

but a few and those few very little. But Christ, we know, is dif-

ferent. He is the Perfect Friend, and He waits patiently for our

coming. From the depths of His earthly prison He cries out to

each one of us: “Son, give Me thy heart.” Busy men may plead
their work, their cares and their worries as their excuse for neg-

lecting Him, when in reality they ought to go to Him for assist-

ance, since He has said to us: “Come to Me all you who labor and
are burdened and I will refresh you.” Let us resolve here and now

to visit Him often; let us assure Him that we will not forget,
even though He waits there in all His Eucharistic splendor for
thoughtless souls who always pass Him by. Let us pause then
and reflect—let us resolve with all the ardor of our souls to make
amends by visiting Him often in the silence of the Sanctuary, to
learn from Him the means of avoiding sin; to receive from Him

Page 15



the veritable torrent of graces which freely flow from the silence

of the tabernacle into the hearts of men.

Christ As Leader:

From the heart of Christ in the Eucharist you will draw the

strength and courage you need for spiritual leadership in this

storm-tossed world—a world that not only ignores God, but very
frequently denies God. As you come to a full appreciation of the

Sacrifice of the Mass, of Holy Communion, of the Real Presence,

strive to counteract the subtle influence that would substitute

philanthropy and social service for religion. We know that dis-
integrating forces are at work in society today—forces which con-
stantly manifest themselves, for example, in the false concepts of

physical culture that would make our bright-eyed boys and our

pure, sweet girls unduly familiar with the delicate matters pertain-

ing to sex; a disintegration that would make our Catholic lawyers

disinterested observers as the divorce court destroys the sacred-

ness of the home; a disintegration that would make our reputable

physicians countenance the pernicious and immoral practices now

masquerading under the captious title of 20th Century progress

in science.

Preach by word and by example then those principles of moral-

ity so clearly enunciated, so perfectly exemplified by Christ Him-

self. Recognize and apply in your daily lives that principle which

leverences duly constituted authority. Insist on the application

of the principle which guarantees to others their God-given rights.

Too frequently is this basic principle ignored, particularly in

the realm of government, economics, education, and what is even

more important, in the realm of religion itself. Hold fast to the

morality norms as embodied in the Commandments, particularly

that fundamental norm which enables men to repress and destroy

the social sins—those sins which grip the souls of men, especially of
young men; those sins which substitute licentiousness for purity,

which dull the senses, which weaken the will and thereby destroy

the fine fibre of American manhood and womanhood.

Preach to the world the doctrine of social and economic justice

whereby men are guaranteed a living wage in return for reasonable

hours of labor, the right to collective bargaining, the elimination

of child labor. It is through the application of these principles

that the reconstruction of the social order will be accomplished

and it is only by means of your special efforts and example that a

muddled society will find the answer to the riddle which now con-

fronts it.

Catholic youth constitutes an unusual cross-section of the na-

Page 16



tion’s human resources—young, active, energetic—it may become
a powerful force for good or evil. Youth is being organized today

and too frequently youth finds it impossible to resist the call of an

unprincipled, irresponsible, leadership.

Youth Movements Without Christ:

A series of youth movements are in the process of development.

Men imbued with a philosophy of life that is thoroughly inimical to

Christianity and the Church, are making appeals and very success-

ful ones, to the youth of America. Political parties are catering

to youth’s interests and needless to say, in many instances they

are dissipating youth’s talents and misdirecting youth’s energies.

Communism and socialism continue to make inroads into the social

and political life of this nation. Subversive political doctrines are

being advocated which in the end can only mean the destruction of

a form of government unequalled in the history of the world.

Young men and women are being inoculated with a spirit of inde-

pendence which is absolutely hostile to all law and order. A
premium is placed on unrestrained initiative. Anti-religious and

anti-morality groups are meeting with some success in making

youth anti-religious, anti-moral, and anti-social.

The Church Needs Youth Leaders:

The Church needs your help, your participation in her aposto-

late to stop this rapidly developing movement. She wants you to

utilize your God-given energies and talents in such a way that

youth organizations may be stabilizing, rather than a destructive

influence, in your lives. And as you assume your proper place in

approved youth organizations, which make for Christian charac-

ter, do not forget that the oldest youth movement that the world

has ever known is the youth movement which recognizes Christ

as Youth’s Ideal and the Ideal Leader of Youth. That Leader

calls you to Himself. He invites you to serve under His banner,

to walk with Him, to talk with Him, to labor with Him in the

delicate task of turning sinners into saints.

May you respond then to this invitation to serve Christ. May

you continue to find inspiration and guidance in this Eucharistic

Leader of God’s own army. May you follow in His footsteps, re-
flecting in your daily life the tried and tested teachings of Christ

the King. With His strength flowing in your veins, with the mel-

ody of His divine love throbbing in your hearts, you can advance

with unfailing steps—feeling assured in the words of Saint Paul:
“I can do all things in Him who strengthened me.”

Page 17



COORDINATION MEANS STRENGTH

Rev. Daniel A. Lord, S.J.

Director
,
“Sodality of Our Lady”

“In the heart of those responsible

for these individual organizations,

there was the keenest desire to see their work coordinated

under the leadership of the Bishops.”

When at Washington and again in South Bend outstanding

leaders in the field of youth work met under the leadership of the

N. C. W. C. two facts were outstanding:

First, there are actually working in the field, organizations

dealing with practically every type of Catholic young people from

the most underprivileged to the university graduate.

Secondly, these organizations are keenly anxious for an oppor-

tunity to coordinate their efforts under the approval and leader-

ship of the Bishops in cooperation with the N. C. W. C.

Probably no one was more astonished than the men and women

at the meeting to find out how far-reaching youth organization

was. Of course the organizations, as now in actual operation do

not pretend to reach all of American Catholic young people; but

they have within themselves, it is evident, all the possibilities,

the programs, the actual organization and service, which await

only the permission to advance. Once this is given there need

be no type of young people who are not reached.

Present Organization:

There are organizations for youth in the parish and organiza-

tions for youth in the school; there are organizations connected

with fraternal societies; there are specialized organizations and

specialized groups. When all of these organizations had been char-

tered out, they presented a most impressive and inspiring picture.

Then the second discovery was pushed far to the foreground.

In the heart of those responsible for these individual organizations,

there was nothing of selfishness or self-seeking. On the contrary

there was the keenest desire to see their work coordinated and ar-

ranged in such a fashion that, under the leadership of the Bishops,

it would give the highest service to the Church.

Almost literally on the table the leaders flung their programs,

their well organized services, their man and woman power and the

staffs of their central offices and collaborating branches. They

said, with a sincere gesture: “Here we are; be good enough to use

us.”

Page 18



A Coordinated Program:

Those responsible for the calling together of these groups of

men and women leaders, leaders in the National Councils, seemed

to see in the chart of the organizations precisely what they were

needing. It would not be necessary to call into existence new soci-

eties. The agonies and throes accompanying the birth of new

youth groups was not to be faced. There were around the table

the men and women who were experts in their lines and sincerely

desirous of putting their best efforts at the service of the Bishops

and the National Councils. There on the table were the plans and

programs, the resources and human power that could be coordi-

nated into a magnificent national program for youth—if the word
were only given.

So it is our sincere desire and our hope, we who played some

small part in these meetings in Washington and South Bend, that

the word to coordinate and advance be given. We see our own
societies ready and willing to serve the broader cause which is the

Councils’ and beyond that we see a Youth organization which is

wide enough to employ all existing organizations to the top of their

capacity.

We wait the command and the opportunity for action.

TRAINING FOR LEADERSHIP

Alice Conway

Community Organizer, Girl Scouts, Inc.

“A good heart is a good beginning,

but a trained mind helps.”

The saying is: “Leaders are born—not made.”

They may be cultivated

—

Some should be given freedom.

Others supplemented.

Some should be diverted.

Others discouraged.

Object in Leading Club

:

What shall we do in the club ?

Girls wish to be their own boss.

Indirect leadership preferable.

Remember your psychology.

Allow those you are leading to choose their adventure.

Page 19



Leader may spur them on
;
own ideas may be dropped to them

for discussion.

Do not try to supply too much ready-made planning.

Self-governing—using committees to plan and report to larger
one.

Only when suggestions involve moral or physical hazards to

life, should they be stopped; may be diverted or suggestions

for substitute offered.

Leader,should be interested in individual girls and in the girl’s

relation to the group.

The club members expect:—inspiration,
information,

recreation.

Aim for good social integration:

—

Give girls opportunity to learn something.

To give community service.

Opportunity to meet young men.

Keep activities suitable to age interests.

Treat them like grown-ups.

Have their confidence.

No preaching.

Create situations where best interests follow.

Characteristics of Good Leaders:

Have: Native intelligence.

Innate fineness.

Be

:

—sympathetic,
. sensitive,

imaginative,

generous in spirit toward young people willing to

give definite time, and take training.

Education desirable.

Kind of young woman rich in living.

One whose social adjustment to her own environment is sound

in her work, her family, her men and women friends; not the

sole way out for ego expression.

Such a woman may draw herself from possible ruts or from

selfish interests.

Enrich her environment.

Improve her life situation.

Give back to society her share.

Give back to her Creator her gratitude for the gifts she has

been given.

Don’t plead with women to be leaders.

Page 20



Open the door and show them the opportunity.

“What’s in this for me?”—it is selfish, but it is asked.
Have your answer!

You are offering her an opportunity to lead—not begging her
to help you out of a situation.

Where Is She ? •

Greatest care should be taken in selection.

There are Catholic women ready to help—we have not shown
them enough of the joy or opportunity, we have not caught

their imagination.

We held them back once, we demand their service now. Are
they coming? No, not as many as we would wish.

What will appeal to them?

By seeking the finest, most gifted girls, make it the thing to

do—the fashion.
How develop interest?
Training in college, training in high school, training in their

sodalities.

Publicize in Catholic magazines, papers, etc.

All this creates an interest in leading, but does not give leaders.

Individual selection necessary, seek and discuss situation with

possible leaders.

Alumnae Associations.

Church Associations.

Parent Teacher Groups.

Young Matrons.

No age limit, except too young. Beautiful, peppy girl not al-
ways best, she needs limelight.

Older person better, who will not dominate, but sees her girls

as equal souls, each worthy of chance to develop.

A leader should know the background and understand the girls.
Should have intelligent understanding of needs and desire of

particular group.

Seek a leader from environment of group, one who has achieved

and is respected by group.

Training:

Any piece of social work needs some one who is trained in meth-

ods of leading groups. Schools, colleges, organizations are mak-

ing this possible.

Community planners are arranging such courses in commu-

nities. Do the Catholic girls go? No, very few.
Take advantage of what your community offers, adapt it to

your group.

Page 21



Volunteer and professional alike are useless untrained.

Demand it, put it up as your standard, through literature. A

good heart is a good beginning, but a trained mind helps.

Cultivate Her:

After she is selected, trained, the club under way, what then?

Has she anyone to turn to for advice, ’encouragement, under-

standing. A committee to advise, but not intrude.
To be all giving you must have a source to tap to be recharged.

Committee might make further training possible for leader, or

help her with equipment, secure literature and provide a good

meeting place.

They might help Pastor to realize what leader is doing for his

girls in the parish. Leader won’t, if she is a good one, blow

her own horn.

If there are many leaders in a community, have them come to-

gether and exchange ideas.

We have an annual retreat for our leaders that they may keep
before them a spiritual motive in their work.

We have volunteer leaders among our Catholic women, but we
must seek them, open the doors of opportunity in this line, train

them and encourage them.

CATHOLIC YOUTH MOVEMENTS FACE THE FUTURE

Rev. Paul H. Furfey, Ph.D., LL.D.

Department of Sociology, Catholic University

“What will the future hold

for Catholic Youth organizations?

Will they accept the challenge?

or will they remain asleep?”

Introduction:

There are two ways of organizing a Youth Movement. They

may be called the “American Plan” and the “European Plan.”

The American Plan is that which exists in the United States and in

England. The European Plan is that which prevails on the Con-

tinent. The essential difference between the two is that the Amer-

ican Plan stresses recreation and the European Plan stresses

propaganda on religious, social, political, and economic questions.

Of course the American Plan does not provide for recreation ex-

clusively. Such organizations as the Boy Scouts for example

Page 22



emphasize character building through recreation. And the Euro-

pean Plan does not eliminate recreation from its program entirely.

But nevertheless the generalization remains that the American

Plan puts its chief emphasis on recreation while in the European,

recreational features are only incidental.

Main Thesisi:

We should re-mould our American Plan and make it something
much more serious.

Examination of European Movements:

Soviet Russia: The Communist youth gives attention to phys-

ical education. Why? Not because he gets pleasure from it, but

because he wants to strengthen his body so that he may be an asset

to the Communist Party.

Fascist Italy: Here we find that the Youth Movement is equally

earnest about a diametrically opposed political philosophy. I once

visited a Youth Camp of a Fascist organization, the Ballila. There

I found small boys, 10, 12, 13 years of age who felt with an en-

thusiastic, serious spirit that it was their duty to build a strong

Fascist Party, and to recapture the glory that was Rome.

National Socialist Germany: Here we find too that an impor-

tant part is being played by Youth Organization.

Criticism of these European Movements: Their political ideals

are unworthy
;

they are circumscribed by selfish nationalism
;
their

philosophy is false. But this much we can learn from them: that

the power and enthusiasm of youth has a remarkable force.

A Catholic Youth Movement has arisen in Europe in opposi-
tion to Socialism, Communism, Naturalism, which it regards as a

menace to Catholic ideals. It too shows a spirit of deadly earnest-

ness. It is not concerned with promoting play. It has enrolled

the youth, boys and girls, of almost every country in “Militant

Catholic Action.”

Our Catholic Youth Movement:

While 20,000,000 people are on relief; while 10,000,000 or

12,000,000 people are unemployed; WE—are busy organizing
basketball teams. There is today a crying need for aggressive

Catholic Action among Catholic Youth—and they are concerned
chiefly with recreation. In a time of national crisis it seems that

we can find nothing more important to do. If Catholics cannot

accept this challenge, then other groups will step in and take the

lead.

Page 23



The Indictment:

Some of the most important questions of the day requiring

our attention are these:

War:

Christ, in the New Testament, our Popes and Bishops, our
Theologians, Saint Thomas, Vitoria, and Suarez, have all told us

that war is a tremendous evil. Today, under modern conditions,

there is no possibility that a just war could exist. Why then do not
we throw ourselves in all earnestness into the movement to prevent

war? Why do we not teach our Catholic Youth that war is hideous,
hateful, and that it must be ousted from our civilized world?

The Negro:

Our Blessed Lord gave His life to teach us the beautiful doc-

trine of the brotherhood of man. He died for all men regardless

of their race, color, or condition of life. Yet today in this country

we have let the poison of race prejudice lead us to the persecution

of many thousands of our fellow citizens. We exclude our Negro
brothers from our colleges, we shove them off into the corners of

our churches, and we insult them in our personal contact with them.

Is it any wonder that we are failing to convert them to the true

Faith? Can we not take time away from recreation, in order to

throw ourselves whole-heartedly into the struggle for racial justice?

Economic Issues:

Today, many thousands of people are being submerged because

of economic injustice. Organized labor is going through a life and

death struggle. The Encyclicals “Rerum Novarum” and “Quadra-

gesimo Anno

”

have set forth clearly and forcibly the rights of the

working man, and our duty toward the poor. Why do we not
heed them and spread their teachings far and wide? I am afraid we

are too busy playing basketball.

The Future:

What will the future hold for Catholic Youth Organizations?

Will they accept the challenge, or will they remain asleep? Christ

has given us the answers to all the hard questions of the day.

Will we apply them, or will we leave the field to those who hold

all sorts of false doctrines, to those who propose all sorts of queer

panaceas? How tragic it will be if we, the intellectual inheritors of

the true tradition, are found wanting. The present generation has

already failed to solve these problems. How tragic it will be if

Youth, the coming generation, is too indifferent to even try!

Page 24



HOME

THE HOME AND THE CATHOLIC YOUTH PROGRAM

Rose K. Horrigan

National Chairman
,
N. C. C. W. Committee on the Family

and Parent Education

“If we would save the home

and have it the dearest place on earth,

we must help our young fathers and mothers

to place it on a foundation of Faith.”

From its inception the National Council of Catholic Women

has had as its objective the preservation and protection of the

family and family life.

My work on the National Girl Welfare program has made me
realize the close tie-up between Girl Welfare and the work of the

Family-Parent Committee.

Preparation for Parenthood:

Our young mothers of today were the girls of five or ten years

ago. What was done to prepare them for the responsibilities of

parenthood, homemaking and child training? And what can we

do now for the young fathers and mothers to prevent the disrup-

tion of the home by the many influences of modern life? Many

of our young people in the past had little or no preparation for

this biggest job in the world. Parenthood is probably the only

profession entered into without a long period of study and prepa-

ration. Is it any wonder that mistakes are made in early child

guidance by these young parents? If we would save the home

and have it the dearest place on earth we must help our young

fathers and mothers to place it on a joundation of Faith.

The Foundation of Faith:

Every child represents a soul entrusted to the care of father

and mother. What an immense treasure is a soul! A child’s rela-
tionships with his parents are the factors which must consistently

influence his moral growth, his emotional development and his

juture conduct. The feelings and attitudes which usually result

from these contacts will hardly develop in later years if they have

been absent from the child’s early life. Naturally only the father

and mother can supply the sentiments that make a home a true

home. Fortunate indeed is the family where both parents share

this responsibility.

Page 25



The Force of Example

:

Personal example is probably the most important element in

all teaching. Constant good example set by parents will tend to a

well ordered Christian family. What more satisfying picture can

one have than a father showing interest in his boys’ hobbies and

participating in their recreational activities. An intelligent under-

standing of the sport then in season or in fashion contributes to

family conversation and builds common interests. It helps to bind

the family circle. It promotes unity of thought, feeling and pur-

pose. One author has said: “Read books on psychiatry, attend

lectures and study clubs, but nothing will prove so valuable as the

companionship you give your children.”

The Power of Sympathy:

Boys and girls need sympathetic confidants, not only in child-

hood but in those years of the late teens when the open frankness

of the gang age so often gives place to the silence and secretiveness

of the adolescent. A lack of understanding and confidence at this
time may prove most unfortunate, particularly in the case of boys

who so need their father’s guidance. The sense of security that a

Christian home gives and the love of parents are two essentials in

a child’s life. Sympathy and understanding of childish frailties

and fancies will become the keener if parents strive to remember

they, too, were once little children.

Value of Right Habits:

To the young, parents are wonderful—so wise, so strong, so
skilled in doing the many things they cannot do. How careful

parents should be therefore, to practice right habits and to build

up right habits in their children. The young members of the fam-

ily will endeavor to imitate them for they love to please and will

do what father and mother advise and approve. And, just here,

we might note the need to be appreciative and to give praise,

where praise is due. It means so much to a child.

Religion and Cultural Harmony

:

Many people of little means stress the importance of money

and underestimate the value of everything else. Let us emphasize

rather the richness of health and intelligence, of harmony and love

in the home.

Boys and girls who spend their early years in an atmosphere of

religion and cultural harmony within the family circle will pass the

trying adolescent period with less worry to the parents, for they

will have the spiritual and moral qualities required to keep pure

Page 26



of heart. Training in prayer and frequent reception of the Blessed

Sacrament will prove the best arms against the attractions of vice.

Family Communion is growing in practice. It is an inspiring

sight to see father and mother and children going regularly to the

altar rail together. A true mother, however solicitous she may be

for the worldly success of her children, gives them to understand

that it must never be attained at the cost of virtue. By her own

high ideals she teaches her family truthfulness, purity and consid-

eration.

The Needs Young Mothers Feel:

It has been my privilege to work with a group of twenty-five

young mothers for the past two years. I speak from experience

when I tell you how wholly unprepared they felt for their profes-

sion of motherhood; how eager and sincere they are in seeking to

know the requirements for their career as homemaker and edu-

cator of their children. Before I came to this Institute I called up

some of this group and asked them what homemaking problem

which a bride faces, might be helped by instruction in advance.

The majority of them stressed the importance of preparation for

the relationship of husband and wife. One young mother said:

“After our study of the Holy Father’s Encyclical on Christian

Marriage, I decided to talk it over, in a sensible way, with my
daughters before they marry.”

Preparation for motherhood is another problem to many.

“Doctors take things for granted—they seem to think we know
more than we do—I am going to be a frank mother and I am going
to give my boys and girls good practical Catholic literature when
they are old enough to think of marriage.”

Some training in finances and budgeting was stressed from two

angles. One mother had much money before marrying and now

had trouble in making ends meet. Another had the opposite—her
husband gave her more than she ever had before

—“How can I
use it wisely?” she asks.

One mother answered immediately: “I never thought seriously

of good example and good habits until I had my little boy. I put
off correcting his behavior problems, thinking: ‘when he is older

he will outgrow them’—Since joining the Mothers’ Circle I am so
much more careful of my tone of voice, my habits, my language.
I wish I had known how important good example is in training

children, when my children were babies.”
If young mothers (girls as far as years are concerned) were

prepared to meet the problems of early child training, many of the

so-called youth problems would be eliminated.

I would like to give you now an account of the program of this

Page 27



group of young mothers as it was presented at a recent Conference

in Connecticut.

Program of the Mothers’ Circle:

The Mothers’ Circle of the Meridan Council of Catholic

Women meets every two weeks from late October until late in

June. (Even then we hate to have it discontinued). The ses-

sion is opened with prayer by the leader and followed by the read-

ing of a qoncise record of the previous meeting. This record, we

feel, is important. It reviews and emphasizes the principal points

brought out in the discussion and it is helpful to the members who

missed the previous meeting.

The group study is directed toward building normal family

life and assists us, as parents, to fulfill more intelligently in a Cath-

olic manner our God-given role of educators.

Usually three papers or reviews are presented at each meeting.

The discussion which follows is open and sincere. Personal ex-

periences are frankly told, even though that experience may sound

ridiculous or gravely wrong. The members forget self in their con-

fessions and seem to think only for the good of all.

Varied Subject Matter:

The subject matter is varied to meet the needs and hold the at-

tention of every member. Some of the mothers have tiny babies,

others have families ranging from pre-school to High School age.

We number in our group college graduates, normal school gradu-
ates who were former teachers, and others who were in the business

world. We have had converts and wives of non-Catholics, some
lax in Catholic duties while others were conscientious and strict, but

all filled with one purpose—the desire to learn how to be better
mothers by applying Christian standards in child training.

Material for Study

:

The leader arranges for the development of the group, the pub-

licity and the presentation of the study program at the regular

sessions. “The Church and the Dignity of Woman” was the first

paper written. The Encyclicals on “Christian Marriage” and

“Christian Education,” along with the discourses of the Apostolic

Delegate on the “Christian Home” furnished the basis of our early

study.

From National headquarters we secured many extremely in-

teresting and helpful outlines and pamphlets on the “Christian

Family” and “Guiding Thoughts for Parents.” Articles from

Catholic Action and the Monthly Message outlines provided other

subjects for study. Syndicated articles from secular papers on

Page 28



various problems in Parent-Child relationships afford excellent

material, particularly those of the type of Dr. Garry Myers, Olive

Roberts Barton, Angelo Patri, and others. The Catholic Tran-

script carries splendid material for study groups of this nature.

The pamphlets issued by Father Schmeideler have been our spirit-

ual guides. This year, his new book, “Parent and Child,” written

in collaboration with Sister Rosa, has been used as our textbook.

“Parent and Child” presents the Catholic point of view on the

problems of child training, and we recommend it to any group of

mothers who organize similar classes for moral and religious edu-

cation.

A Community Influence:

I might say here that we have done some concrete work besides

the study period. We sent representatives to five other groups,
outside our own city, to explain the program of the Family-Parent

study. We are represented on the Council of Entertainment, which
aims for better motion pictures and better entertainment for all

ages—particularly for children. We protested the showing of in-
decent films and were successful in banning them from our the-

atres. We protested, as a group, the Federal and State Birth Con-
trol legislation. At one meeting, for variety, we presented a part

of our program as a dialogue, and at another gathering we had a

Birth Control debate. One member presented Mrs. Hepburn’s

views and another mother refuted the erroneous statements by

quoting from Dr. John Cooper. Clippings, poems and stories are

brought to the meetings and read. One mother typed Father

Schmeideler ’s “specific suggestions” for every member to hang in a

convenient place as a daily reminder. We have a circulating
library of books, pamphlets and magazines to keep us posted

through the summer vacation. Some of the members are work-

ing on a one-act play, to be presented in public in the fall. It is

based on our study club and will, no doubt, prove fruitful and

enjoyable.

We close our meetings with the prayer of a similar group in
Belgium:

“Dear Lord, give me the strength today to bring up my chil-
dren well.”

If These Why Not Others:

I confidently feel that these young mothers are planting seeds

that will bear fruit far in excess of the labor expended. The young

mothers in our Circle realize that they are learning now many
truths they should have learned before they were married or at

least before they entered upon motherhood.

Page 29



What, then, can we do to prepare girls for marriage and par-

enthood, as homemakers and girl wives? It is all very necessary.

To this end I would urge you who are social workers, directors of

Girl Clubs and Study Clubs to make some provision in your pro-

grams for training in wifehood, motherhood, and the Christian

career of homemakers.

COMMUNITY PLANNING FOR YOUTH

Katharine F. Lenroot

Chief, Children’s Bureau, United States Department of Labor

“Keep the child

as close to the home

as possible.”

In community planning for youth, we must have ever in mind

the necessity of keeping the child as close to the home as possible

and of minimizing, as far as we are able, the emotional maladjust-

ments which break up home life. These maladjustments may only

be increased when the child is placed in a corrective institution and

then returned to the home.

Work in the Home:

It is impossible for us to hope for succesful elimination of de-

linquency among our children, or among young men and young

women, by segregation alone, though institutional care is neces-

sary, of course, in certain cases. Juveniles and youthful delin-

quents must be dealt with primarily through social work in the

home rather than by correctional measures behind prison bars and

reformatory walls. We cannot expect to make good citizens of
these young people if we sacrifice the emotional ties of home life.

To deprive our wayward youth of the advantages and natural

discipline of family bonds, is to kill a fundamental, essential to

good citizenship.

More and more emphasis is being placed upon social case work

for the solution of the juvenile delinquent’s problem. Efforts to

reestablish the delinquent within his home environment rather

than away from it, are more apt to give permanent results than

institutional care which is not accompanied by continuing social

service with both the youthful offender and his family.

Constructive Interests:

Social case work with the youthful offender must be accom-

panied by community planning that will offer to youth construc-

Page 30



tive interests in the home neighborhood. This is a very essential

part of an adequate social program for youth. Constructive in-

terests engage energy, replace evil with good, and are, therefore,

highly corrective. Constructive interests are, moreover, excellent

as prophylactic measures.

Cooperation Necessary:

It is very necessary that group work and case work agencies

be brought into close cooperation, linking the home with super-

vised group activities, seeking and finding constructive outlets in

work opportunities, school opportunities and recreational oppor-

tunities.

In our social work we must evidence a cooperative spirit and

imbue youth with this spirit. The day when the individual could

succeed alone is certainly past, if ever it truly existed. Our personal

success, indeed our actual existence, depends upon the cooperation

of many others. Public enterprises should provide the framework

for a wide variety of group associations and individual effort in

health, education and welfare of many types. The material basis

of society must afford enlarging opportunities for individual

achievement and individual expression.

PROBLEMS OF HOMEMAKING IN THE MODERN
AMERICAN HOME

Clara Bradley

Department of Home Economics, National Catholic School
of Social Service

“The Modern Goal in Homemaking

is fullness of life

for each individual.”

The American home is a living, dynamic thing that is adjusting

itself to life as it is. It is undergoing constant epoch-making

changes,—sometimes fast and sometimes slow, because it is a part
of the whole economic and social system which is itself experi-

encing continual change. In this process the home is being modi-

fied, developed, enriched, impoverished, moulded, distorted,

strengthened and weakend by the forces which operate on it. It is

not declining, but its functions are being transformed. New types
of family life with new values and new functions are in the pro-

cess of formation.

Page 31



Effects of Industrial Revolution:

The Industrial Revolution has resulted in a new era of family

life which presents to the modern American home two big prob-

lems of adjustment, First, it must adjust to a new environment

consisting of a huge material culture, and second, it must adapt

itself to the varying rates of change between the material and the

social culture. There is always a lag after the material culture

has changed. As an illustration, many thousands of industrial

accidents occurred before adjustments were made in the form of

safety devices and workmen’s compensation.

The new environment offers possibilities for a higher standard

of living. Advances in the fields of education and medicine make

a fuller life possible. Many new goods, as bath tubs, automobiles,

rayon, new pots, pans, equipment, books and foods are provided.

Many of the older economic goods are of better quality and avail-

able in greater quantity at a lower price.

The pattern of the home in this new environment is changing:

new functions are being developed or new problems are being pre-

sented by the older functions.

The outstanding characteristics of this new environment are:

Changed Economic Security:

( 1 )
A change in economic security. The worker has lost con-

trol of his job. He is now dependent upon money income as the

only means to a livelihood. He is faced with earning a living

whereas in frontier days the members of a family made a living.

Earning a living means working for a wage or salary under condi-

tions over which the worker has little or no control. No matter

what his skill or capacity, his employment is subject to abrupt

termination or curtailment with the consequent loss of income. In

the older pattern each homestead was a manufacturing center, the

members of a family worked and planned together to make goods

needed for their own consumption. While crude utility was often

a quality of these products, good workmanship was a matter of

pride and gave the worker prestige. He had strength, and skill,

and a body of lore which was passed from generation to generation.

Money income and expenditure played a very small part. As the

home production lessened, factories turned out goods which had

to be paid for by money so workers were forced to work for wages.

Production

:

(2) Production has been passing from the home to the work-

shop for nearly a century. The major economic functions, like

the making of tools, metals, furniture and textiles went first. The

Page 32



activities more directly related to the business of living as bread
making, canning, making of clothing, laundering, care of the sick,

recreation, and education are gradually passing to outside agencies.

However, production is still an important activity in many
families. This varies in different regions of the country. A cross-
section of the country at any time would show wide variations in
the degree to which families have given up productive activities.
It would depend upon income, industrialization of the community,
the degree of urbanization, the extent of transportation facilities,

and the development of power resources. In some regions the
home is still as important a productive unit as it was in frontier
days.

Two studies have recently been made on household produc-
tion. One was done by the Bureau of Home Economics and the
other was done by Maude Wilson of the Oregon State Agricultural
College. A total of 2,500 rural and urban homemakers were
covered in the two surveys. The results showed that five-sixths
of the women spent more than forty-two hours per week, one-half
of them spent more than forty-eight hours per week, one-third
spent more than fifty-six hours per week in household production.
Meal preparation required forty per cent of the time, care of house
twenty per cent, laundry ten per cent, sewing eight per cent, care
of children ten per cent, and household management five per cent
of the time.

The Home as a Consumptive Unit:

(3) The home has increased in importance as a consumptive
unit in direct ratio to its decline as a productive unit. Consump-
tion involves choice making, buying and assembling goods and
services. Invention is providing a growing diversity of consumable
goods and the range of choice is very wide and often confusing.
Through discovery there has been a growth and dissemination of
scientific knowledge whether in the field of medicine, psychology,
art, or finance which is essential in directing rational choices in the
vast offerings of the new culture.

The Physical Basis of the Home:

(4) The physical basis of the home is shrinking. The mode
of life changed from rural to urban during the Industrial Revolu-
tion. This growth of cities resulted in increase of land values
which means a shrinkage in the physical area of the home. With
the increase in land values have come increases in rentals. This
has forced people to live in small nondescript row houses, apart-
ments, or boarding houses or hotels. In any case the family dwell-
ing has been getting smaller. The Recent Social Trends, page 681,

Page 33



gives the average number of rooms per apartment in New York
City in 1928, as 3.3.

The shrinkage in size of the home is partly due to the loss of

some of the former functions of the household. Activities formerly

carried on have been transferred to other agencies. The prepara-

tion of food has gone to bakeries, canneries, and restaurants;

the care of the sick to hospitals; recreation to commercial and

community associations, such as movies, clubs. In the modern

small home, there is no extra room for the care of the sick, for

family recreation, or even for privacy. Home ownership is ceas-
ing to be a goal. The home is no longer a symbol of achievement

but is merely a dwelling for which rent is paid.

The size of the household has decreased steadily. The propor-

tion of decrease is smaller in rural than in urban households. The

Bureau of Census reports show that the average size of the private

household in 1790 was 5.7 persons; in 1900, 4.6 persons, and in

1930, 4 persons. The great majority of households have fewer

than five members.

A Period of Transformation:

The American home is being transformed. New types of home
life with new values and new functions are in the process of forma-

tion. New problems are growing out of the older functions. These

new functions are (1) the use of knowledge and newer methods

in carrying on the productive activities which have remained in the

home; (2) the purchasing of goods, commodities and services for

a good standard of living; (3) the development of family unity

and cooperation; (4) the use of leisure.

There is a large accumulation of scientific information on these

various functions of homemaking. Material is available on the

feeding of the family, the care of the child, psychology, human

relationships, personality development, asthetic appreciation, and

other phases of homemaking.

There is a need for intelligent and creative homemaking, based

on knowledge. Traditions, customs, and conventions of the past

are not useful in helping the modern home to adjust to its environ-

ment. The modern goal in homemaking is fullness of life for

each individual. Each member of the family should have the op-

portunity for optional development of the best that is in him,

spiritually, morally, intellectually, emotionally, and physically.

Page 34



GUIDANCE:

VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE

Rev. Dr. Edward B. Jordan, S.T.D.

Associate Professor of Education, Catholic University

“Our task as educators

is not the training of technicians,

but the formation of men.”

“Preparation for life,” the universally recognized task of edu-

cation, a larger and larger share of which the school is forced to
assume, has taken on a much wider significance than it had in the
days of our colonial forbears or even in the days of our own par-
ents. Life as whole is growing more complex and adjustment
thereto correspondingly more difficult. If the school is to prepare
its pupils for a wholesome and satisfying life in the world today,
it cannot rest content with imparting those items of knowledge

and those skills that are considered essential for all citizens of a
modern state, nor even with developing those interests, ideals,
appreciations, and attitudes which, in the opinion of educational
theorists, should form part of the equipment of every member of
society.

The Tasks of Society:

For it is evident that the tasks of society are manifold and that
the qualifications required for their successful performance cannot
be the same in all cases. They demand different degrees of in-
tellectual ability ranging from genius to mediocrity and even lower,
different kinds of aptitudes, different emotional constitutions, dif-
ferent social capacities, different types of skill, different stores of

knowledge.

Not everyone is qualified to be a statesman, or a lawyer, or a
clergyman, or a teacher, or an engineer. By the same token, not
everyone is qualified to be a salesman, or a stenographer, or an
accountant, or a machinist.

To use the proverbial expression, we have untold numbers of
square pegs in round holes. The results are not satisfactory
whether looked at from the standpoint of the individuals them-
selves or from that of society. Hence a new demand is made upon
the schools. They are asked not only to provide special training
for the various occupations that require it but also to provide
guidance and direction which will enable the students to make a
wise choice in the selection of their life work.

Page 35



Necessity for Guidance:

Is guidance necessary? The categorical answer is yes, whether

we refer to the educational or to the vocational aspect of the mat-

ter. As a matter of fact, some sort of guidance, more or less em-

pirical perhaps, has always been given. But we are referring to

guidance in the modern sense of the term and a little reflection will

show how essential it is.

When the American youngster finishes the elementary school

and enters upon the secondary period of his education, he is con-

fronted with an amazing array of courses and subjects to select

from. Neither he nor his parents can have more than a vague idea

of the relation of these several offerings to the activities he will be

called upon to exercise in later life.

He knows nothing of the knowledge or the skill that is neces-

sary to secure a particular job or to make a success of a particu-

lar profession; he gives no thought to the fact that a certain de-

gree of talent is necessary in every occupation and that what

suffices for one, will not suffice for another; he is totally ignorant

of the social obligations of the various professions; he is unaware

of the overcrowding that exists in the trades and professions or,

if he adverts to it, he adopts as his slogan the old saying, “There is

always room at the top,” which is, after all, only partly true. Yet

he confidently assures us that he knows just what he wants in the

line of studies and makes his plans accordingly.

This example illustrates the process by which thousands of

people have drifted into the positions in the world which they now

occupy. And without advocating a surrender to the modern wor-

ship of the fetish of efficiency, we may acknowledge that there is

a lot of wasted effort in the performance of the world’s work and

that society would profit maximally if we could always have the

right man in the right place. To be sure, such a state of affairs

will never be realized completely; but it is certain that we can do

much to improve the situation and this is the main reason for

advocating a policy of educational and vocational guidance.

Guidance in the School:

Granted that some sort of guidance is necessary, the next ques-

tion is: Does it pertain to the school? Again, the answer is yes.

Without questioning the right of parents to have something to say

in the direction of their children, it may be maintained that very

few of them are in a position to give anything more than general

advice in the choice of an occupation or in the selection of studies.

The school should give guidance to the extent that it is needed

by the pupils. Whenever a choice is to be made, whether in the

Page 36



selection of a vocation or of a course of study designed to prepare,

directly or indirectly, for the pursuit of an occupation, the school

should endeavor to help the boy or girl to arrive at an intelligent

decision. It is not, however, the task of the school to make deci-

sions for its pupils; this they must do for themselves. Guidance is

not prescription, a point we shall have occasion to emphasize in an-

other connection. For the present, let it suffice to say that one test

of a good guidance program is the extent to which it aids pupils to

stand on their own feet, in other words, to elect their work, in

school and in life, in the light of such knowledge, both of them-

selves and of conditions in the world outside, as the school is able

to give them.

Period When Guidance Is Needed:

It is generally held, that guidance properly so-called belongs to

the secondary school period. This includes the years embraced by

the Junior High School, the Senior High School, and the Junior

College. These three divisions are designed to take care of the

training of the boy and girl during the period of adolescence; and

as this is the period when youths are expected to, and frequently

do, make a choice of their future careers, it is precisely the time

when they stand most in need of wise direction and counsel. Par-

ticularly at the beginning and at the close of this stage in the in-

dividual’s life is he called upon to make decisions that may be of

far-reaching importance.

Organization of Guidance:

The real value of this service, however, depends upon the way

in which the guidance program is organized
;
and so we come to a

consideration of the further questions raised above, viz., to whom
shall the task of guidance be entrusted? and how shall the work

be carried on? In answer to the first of these questions, let it be

said that, while every teacher shares to some extent in the task of

directing the pupil aright in the choice of his work, guidance as it

is understood today is a specialized function for which the ordinary

training of the classroom teacher does not provide. Hence, if the

school is to do anything more than it has done in the past, its first

concern should be to secure the services of an individual or a staff,

depending upon the size of the school, that has been properly

trained for the work of guidance. Such training is now available in
most of our universities and teachers’ colleges. If these specialists

know their business, they will organize a personnel bureau whose
task it will be to secure all available information with regard to

each and every pupil in the school and prepare a cumulative record

for each one. This record will include a pupil’s school marks in

Page 37



every subject taken up to date, his scores on such intelligence and

aptitude tests as he may have taken, the opinions of his previous

teachers, his extracurricular activities, and brief summaries of im-

pressions gained from conferences with the pupil and his parents.

Such data will enable the adviser to form a fair judgment of the

character and ability of the pupil.

In addition, the bureau should have in readily accessible form

all the available information with regard to various occupations, in-

cluding such items as preliminary training required, number of va-

vancies open annually, chances for advancement, social obliga-

tions, etc. Accurate data along these lines may be collected for

the trades and perhaps also for the semi-professions, particularly

as regards the local community.

Moreover, inasmuch as guidance is also educational, the High

School should have at hand for ready reference the catalogues and

other publications of various colleges and universities so that stu-

dents may become familiar with admission requirements, tuition,

and other charges, courses of study, scholarships available, oppor-

tunities for part time employment, and so on. These vary, from

institution to institution; and no general statements regarding the

cost of college education, living conditions, courses offered, etc.,

will suffice for the guidance of a prospective student. He should

have accurate information about these matters if he is not to run

into difficulties later on.

The guidance officer’s files, then, should have three sets of data,

one personal, one vocational, and one educational. Only when he

can bring this data together and compare the pupil’s profile, as it

may be called, with the frame into which he wishes to fit it, is he in

a position to suggest with any degree of assurance, whether a par-

ticular individual should continue with his plan or change to an-

other.

Dangers to be Avoided:

Yet, even when the school is equipped to provide educational

and vocational guidance, according to the approved technique,

there are dangers in its use, unless those who employ it, trained

and all as they may be, are themselves guided by a sound philoso-

phy of education. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.

Many persons occupying the position of student adviser are

followers of the doctrine of determinism so roundly condemned by

Doctor Bagley. They accept without question the constancy of

the I. Q. They look upon intelligence as something that depends

almost exclusively, if not entirely so, upon inheritance. They

naively assume that our present tests of intelligence, aptitude, and

achievement are practically infallible and that, if properly ad-

Page 38



ministered, they will indicate to a nicety just what are the capaci-

ties of an individual and just what occupation he is fitted for.

There is a rather widespread opinion that abilities are highly

specialized and that the range of occupations in which a particular

individual, considering his native endowment, may hope to succeed

is rather narrow. There may be some psychologists who hold to

this theory but the majority incline to the opposite view, viz.,

the nonspecialized character of abilities. It is true that abilities

tend to be positively correlated and as a rule those who are highly

endowed tend to be such in all respects while meagre endowment

in one line is usually accompanied by meagre endowment in all.

Nevertheless we must proceed on the assumption that, given a cer-

tain degree of native capacity, the individual with proper training

and guidance, may make a success in anyone of a number of oc-

cupations. This is not to deny the existence of special abilities.

On the contrary, the teacher and the guidance officer must be con-

stantly on the lookout for signs of talent and encourage their de-

velopment. But we must never take the attitude that there is one

particular niche that an individual can fill and that he cannot be

fitted for another. At this point we may recall what was said

above about the function of guidance being to direct and counsel,

not to prescribe.

A special word of warning is necessary in connection with the
program of vocational guidance at the Junior High School level.

As at present operating, it takes for granted that the practice, now

quite general, of offering vocational training during the secondary

school period, whether in special schools or in differentiated

courses, is a sound one. This presumption is now being seriously

questioned.

The Present Situation:

If present economic conditions continue, it will be practically

impossible for a youth under eighteen years of age to secure em-

ployment in industry or business. Hence we may look forward to

a large increase in the enrollment of the secondary school. In-

deed, there is every indication that the period of compulsory edu-

cation will be extended, since we cannot have any large number

of unemployed youths loafing around town or wandering aimlessly

about the country as so many of them are doing today. It will be

useless to devote this extended period to vocational training for

the simple reason, already mentioned, that when it is finished the

young people will not be able to find work. There are too many
adults, skilled and unskilled, seeking employment as it is.

In the interests of social welfare, it will be advisable to employ

these added years of formal education in the task of fitting all

Page 39



clasess of young people, the humbly as well as the richly endowed,

for the civic and social duties that are the common responsibility

of all. This does not mean that all shall be given the same educa-

tion. There will be provided of necessity differentiated curricula

to meet the needs of different types of students, but none of these

curricula will be specifically vocational. If there is to be any

vocational training properly so-called, it will be provided in spe-

cial schools which will admit only such students as have already

completed their secondary education.

The Philosophy of Guidance:

The philosophy of the subject is, briefly, this: The task of the

school is the education of the whole man. It is a unitary process

aiming at a unitary result. It cannot be divided into parts for

each of which a particular division of the school system is solely

responsible. For that matter, it cannot be portioned out among

the various agencies of education. The Home cannot say to the

School: “You take care of the child’s intellectual development and

I’ll provide for his physical welfare.” The State cannot say to the

Church: “I have no responsibility for the moral training of citi-

zens; that is your job.” The School cannot say to Business or

Industry: “I am sending you a youth vocationally trained but I

can tell you nothing of his moral character, his physical condi-

tion, or his social philosophy.”

When the matter is put this way, everyone sees the absurdity

of it. But it is to be feared that at times this is precisely the at-

titude taken by many educational specialists. Many of them, for

example, insist on limiting guidance to its vocational and educa-

tional aspects and neglect or ignore its civic and moral aspects. If

they do advert to these phases of guidance at all, they assume that

they are taken care of by the school as part of its ordinary routine

and that the guidance officers who are supposed to be making use

of scientific methods cannot deal with matters which pertain rather

to the field of educational philosophy. This attitude contributes,

in part at least, to perpetuate the cultural aim and the economic

aim of education, between “living” and “earning a living,” of

which we have heard so much in recent years.

Whatever be the final outcome of this controversy, the Chris-

tian educator can take only one attitude and that is the one formu-

lated in the words of Christ: “The life is more than the meat and

the body is more than the raiment” (Luke xii, 25). Economic effi-

ciency is a recognized objective of education but it can never be

the ultimate aim of the process. Hence vocational guidance can-

not be the main concern of the school; and while, as we have seen,

modern conditions make it imperative that we give our pupils all

Page 40



the assistance we can in the selection of their life work, we must

keep ever before our minds the fact that our task as educators is

not the training of technicians, but the formation of men.

Seen in this light, guidance takes its place as a useful instru-

ment, which is still in need of much refinement, in the process of

education. To consider it in any other light is to mistake its pur-

pose entirely.

TRAINING IN CHASTITY

Felix M. Kirsch, O.M.Cap., Ph.D.

Department of Education, Catholic University of America

“We are the children of the saints!

Let us be different!

Let us be distinguished
!”

Ideals of Chastity:

To withstand the allurements of present-day paganism, our

young people must be given the challenge to idealism. This pre-

cisely is the objective of the Holy Father and of our Bishops in

their crusade for decency. In this crusade they are following the

example of the Fathers of the Early Church who in the face of a

decadent civilization pleaded for the miracles of Christian chas-

tity. While pagan Rome reveled in debauchery, Christian Rome

gave us the Agneses and the Cecilias and the Sebastians. These

Christian heroes did their part to save the world from ruin be-

cause, amid the debauchery of pagan Rome, they dared to be

different. For instance, when Agnes was tempted to sin by the

son of the Prefect of Rome, she had the courage to say, “No,” and

thus proved herself different from the average girl of her time.

And because she was different, 300 millions of Catholics revere

her today as a Saint and as a glory of womanhood. For sixteen

hundred years she has inspired girls the world over to remain pure,

and the very dungeon where she was tempted to sin, a place of

shame in ancient Rome, is now a shrine and a house of prayer,

with the miracles wrought by her fortitude depicted on the walls.

Had Agnes been common like other Roman girls, no one would

today even know the name of the Roman maiden. But because

she dared to be different, she is still an inspiration to all our girls

to be different today and by being different to save their own souls

and at the same time show to our distracted world the only way

out of the misery of sin.

When France was growing decadent in the eighteenth cen-
tury, one French nobleman remarked to his companion: “Let us be

different; let us be distinguished.” That was true nobility:

Page 41



noblesse oblige. They were true noblemen for not doing what

everybody else was doing. Similarly, our Catholic boys and girls

must say to one another, and often whisper to themselves alone:

“Let us be different; let us be distinguished; we are the children

of the saints
;
we must keep the tradition of the saints in a world

that has lost its head and that is threatened with the ruin that is

always the wages of sin.”

The Root of the Evil:

The sex mania of our day is but an indication of a general

weakening of character. It is futile to treat the symptoms if we do

not attack the root of the evil. To safeguard our young people

against the allurements of sex, we must give them the protection of

a strong Christian character. Adequate training in chastity can be

accomplished only in union with complete Christian education.

While training in chastity is an important part of education, it is

nevertheless but one part and perhaps not even the most important

part. Training in chastity must form an integral part of moral

education from the earliest years and cannot be postponed until

sex reveals itself plainly to the growing child. The sum and sub-

stance of Catholic training in chastity is this: give a solid religious

training in general, especially in the use of the Sacraments; begin

early to instruct the mind as to self-control in general, with simple

applications to the sex instinct, while replying frankly to sincere

questions in private; and try fully to instruct the child individually

whenever the occasion requires.

Indirect methods of character education will accomplish a great

deal. Parents and teachers must make skillful use of substitution

and sublimation in the control and direction of the sex instinct.

Our boys and girls must be shown that they can do what they are

determined to do, that the spirit can control the flesh, and that

they need never despair of attaining the high destiny of man.

Their sense of shame, innate in fallen humanity, must be trans-

formed into the protective power of genuine Christian modesty.

Control of the imagination, manual labor and active sports are

valuable helps. I agree with Agnes Repplier: “The children to be

pitied, the children whose minds become infected with unwhole-

some curiosity, are those who lack cheerful recreation, religious

teaching, and the fine corrective of work. A playground or a
swimming pool will do more to keep them mentally and morally

sound than scores of lectures on sex hygiene.”

Ignorance Is Not Innocence:

While the protection of youth from the allurements of sex is a

question of power rather than of knowledge, we cannot accept the

Page 42



view that ignorance is innocence. On the contrary, ignorance may

be blamed for many a tragedy. A certain amount of sex instruc-

tion is needed, and the Holy Father in his Encyclical on the “Chris-

tian Education of Youth” insists that it be given cautiously and

sensibly, at the opportune time and according to the needs of the

child, by those who have the right and duty of imparting the in-

formation.

The Sublime Plan of God:

There is no question of ever giving sex information without

at the same time stressing the incentives to chastity. What should

be stressed is the sublime plan of God in all that pertains to re-

production, the reasonableness of God’s law, also that there can

be no question of calling certain parts of the body “bad” when, in

fact, no parts of the human body are “bad.” The young people

must be made to understand that the knowledge of the mysteries

of sex is not wrong, but only the abuse of the knowledge is evil.

They should be told of the answer of the Immaculate Mother of

God to the Angel: “How shall this be since I know not man?”

Mary was instructed in these matters, and the knowledge cast no

shadow upon her immaculate virtue. Reference may also be made

to the words of the Hail Mary: “Blessed is the fruit of thy

womb.”

The boy or girl should be told that when the angels fell, God

might have immediately created innumerable beings to fill their

places in Heaven. He chose rather to associate man in that won-

derful work
;
He would, as it were, confer His divine creative power

upon fathers and mothers. Just as He governs the entire world

through Love, so these new inhabitants of Heaven would be the

result of the love of father and mother, of husband and wife.

The adolescent has, as a rule, heard disgusting remarks about

the act whereby a new being is conceived, that it is disgraceful,

and so forth. But the act is, on the contrary, truly sublime. God

Himself cooperates most intimately, the parents creating the body

while He immediately creates the soul. How could we have the
saints or even the Blessed Virgin without this act? Parents should,

however, explain clearly why the act is permitted only in the mar-

ried state.

• Safe Rule

:

The only safe rule that can be given as to the time for giving

the instruction is to say that the instruction must be given as soon

as necessary. It is better to give the instruction a year too soon

than one hour too late. The interest in sex probably begins earlier

in life now than formerly. Remember the child’s curiosity in sex

Page 43



matters is legitimate and he has a right to have his questions an-

swered frankly and sincerely. Secondly, give the information in

accordance with the child’s physical development. Here watchful

parents may have to anticipate questions on the part of the child.

Another wise rule tells us to give all information needed so that

the child will not be helpless when the changes, either physical

or psychical, of adolescence, come into his life.

How the thing is said is more important than what is said.
The information should be given naturally and spontaneously.

The Rev. Dr. John,M. Cooper reminds us in his booklet, “Sex Edu-

cation in the Home,” that children are perhaps even more sensitive

to tone-impressions than are adults. Hence he rightly recom-

mends that the tone of voice be serious, kindly, sympathetic, rever-

ent. The language should border on the matter-of-fact, but be

tempered with the sense of the sacred. The tone should not betray

nervousness, embarrassment, or tense and suppressed emotion.

Nor should it be colored with the hush of mystery.

Growing in Moral Strength:

If a child is taught to deny himself things that he likes to eat

and drink, he will be training himself in moral independence. It is

not difficult to arouse the enthusiasm of young people for such

little acts of self-denial—or shall we call them, for the sake of the
young idealists, “acts of heroism”? Let the recreational leader

try, say, on a hike, to put a little will-gymnatstics into practice by

encouraging the boys to resist thirst and fatigue. He will be sur-

prised at the interest which such acts of self-conquest will arouse.

Parents must ally themselves with the higher self of the child.

Children are growing creatures, and instinctively resist all mere

repression. Self-control should therefore be represented as an act

of growth
,
of strength, of freedom; it must be made evident that

the apparent repression is only a step towards a higher life and a

more concentrated energy. Through the conflict of the higher self

with the bodily desires, a man’s higher self attains freedom

—

otherwise it remains captive. These sugestions are merely first

steps. Parents must proceed to what Professor Foerster calls “the

science of self-control”; they must show how will-power is built

up by a gradual process of practice on the smallest things, and how

every act of self-conquest in one sphere of life makes the battle

easier in other spheres.

If we represent this struggle for self-conquest, in the proper

way, to boys and girls, we shall find their hearts glowing with en-

thusiasm. This is offering them temptations to right-doing. It is

sport of the highest order that will appeal to them. They will dis-

cover that aggressive fighting for the right is the noblest sport that

Page 44



the world affords. In the war for the control of our emotional

nature, the offensive is the best defense of the higher nature. To

take the offensive is the best defense—that is the simple principle
underlying the work of self-discipline. He who passively waits for

the temptations to come from his lower nature is sure to fall. The

sensuous nature should, from the very beginning, be severely disci-

plined and trained to obedience. To encourage the voluntary prac-

tice of self-conquest before the age of puberty is practical and

thorough-going training in chastity.

By training our young people along these lines, we shall make

them truly free. We shall give them a conception of that true

liberty which is the enjoyment of our privileges without trespassing

on the rights of one’s soul, of our neighbors, or of God. Obedience

to law is liberty. “All creative liberty,” says Mr. Chesterton, “is

the liberty to limit ourselves.” We must train the young people

to obey, not their impulse, but the principle. The instincts are

there before we begin our training, and will remain after the

young people leave our hands. Our instruction cannot change

the instinct, for instinct exists prior to experience and independent

of instruction.

An Important Difference:

Many sins committed by adolescents could probably be pre-

vented by giving both girls and boys proper instruction about the

sex instinct. Young people are generally ignorant, with harmful

results in consequence to both boys and girls, of the essential dif-

ference of the sex instinct as found in man and woman. The com-

mon notion has it that the sex instinct is the same with all people,

and that it differs only in intensity. Biologists and psychologists

have done well in exposing this wrong notion and in distinguishing

two factors in the sex urge: (1) the psychic factor—the craving of
the soul for companionship, understanding and response; (2) the

physical factor, which is inherent in the body and which craves the

sensuous phase of sex.

It is important for our young people to know that it is one of

these two factors that predominates in each of the two sexes. It is

in keeping with the function that God has assigned to man in

marriage that the physical factor should be developed most

strongly in him, while the same factor lies dormant or latent in the

majority of girls during their teens or early twenties and often for

life.

If this difference of the sex instinct in men and women is

brought home clearly to adolescent boys and girls, they should be

able for themselves to answer any questions that will come up

about kissing, petting, and flirtations of all kinds. They will have

Page 45



at least the knowledge of what is proper. The knowledge, of

course, will not necessarily give them the strength to do what is

proper.

Religion the Chief Factor:

For the strength to do what is proper we must fall back upon

religion as representing the chief factor in building a strong char-

acter. Moral codes or ideals pass in the individual life through

four stages: they must, first, be known; next, admitted; then, ac-

cepted; and lastly, lived. Throughout all these stages, religion

has much to say and much to do. It makes right ideals known.

Through Faith it gets them admitted. Through the doctrines of

Faith it supplies the motives for accepting ideals. Through grace

it provides the supernatural means for living the ideals.

Among the religious aids, Confession and Communion are most

important. Cardinal Newman wrote: “It is the boast of the Cath-

olic Church that it has the gift of making the young heart chaste;

and why is this, but that it gives us Jesus Christ for our Food, and

Mary for our nursing Mother?” A special fruit of Holy Com-

munion is the aid It gives in fighting off the temptations of im-

purity. Holy Communion is indeed “the bread of the elect, and

the wine springing forth virgins” (Zach. ix, 17). Young people

who receive into their hearts the Virgin Christ in Holy Com-

munion day after day can be pure. Thousands of them are re-

maining pure.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sex Education and Training in Chastity. Rev. Felix M. Kirsch, O.M.Cap.,

Ph.D., Litt.D. (Benziger Brothers, New York. $2.25.)
The Sex Problem. Rev. Felix M. Kirsch, O.M.Cap., Ph.D., Litt.D. (The

Paulist Press, New York, 5 cents.)

OPPORTUNITY FOR THE DULL CHILD

Sister M. Olivia, O.S.B.

Director of Nursing Education, Catholic University

“Each child must feel

she is capable

of some work

of which she may well be proud.”

The child of dull or borderline intelligence is often capable of

a good deal of educational training, but anyone who has ever had

any experience with this type, knows that these children do not

do well in the ordinary classroom. Standing at the foot of the

Page 46



class, day after day, and seeing their little classmates surpass them

causes them to become discouraged and in consequence to do even

less well than they are capable of doing. Thereby they give the

impression of being duller than they really are. Such children

need a special type of training which, unfortunately, is not given

in the ordinary school.

When Dr. Thomas Verner Moore, O.S.B., discovered this weak

link in the great Catholic school system, he determined to devote

his life to ameliorating, as far as possible, the lives of these back-

ward children by providing schools in which they would receive,

without humiliation or discouragement, the mental and manual

training necessary to enable them to carry on in life’s battles.

The Needs of the Retarded Child:

Just what are the needs of the dull and retarded child? What

kind of teaching should he receive to meet his needs?

When we consider the dull and retarded as of all degrees of

intelligence above that of the imbecile and up to that of the normal

child, we realize the powerful possibilities of failure, discontent

and crime latent in his group. There are two things that can save

this class of children from becoming failures, according to Annis

Inskeep, Ph.D., in “Teaching Dull and Retarded Children,” name-

ly, “the will to control themselves and the consciousness that they

can succeed when they have used their best efforts.”

This is the aim set for Saint Gertrude’s School of Arts and

Crafts by Doctor Moore. It is our work to make it possible for

these children to succeed in their school work, although it be suc-

cess in a limited field. For, “there is a vast difference between fail-

ure and the confidence in self that comes from a modicum of suc-

cess. A mind filled with the spirit of success is not a stagnant pool
breeding noxious thoughts.”

The Influence of Atmosphere:

Saint Gertrude’s School is intended for the child who presents

an educational problem but whose mentality is not too low to

profit by its method of instruction. It seeks to educate the child

and stabilize its emotional life by the soothing influence of the

religious regime, the intellectual appeal of its special methods of

instruction and its invigorating play activities in healthy country

surroundings. Physically and educationally, it is a pronounced de-

parture from the standard State conducted establishments for the

young maladjusted of society. Its exterior resembles a modern

home. Its craft room seems like an ordinary schoolroom. Here

the children are taught weaving, pottery, metal work, embroidery

and practical sewing. In this large sunlit room, the children

Page 47



weave intricate designs, fashion toy animals, book-ends and candle-

sticks from wood, or master the more difficult task of metal-work

artistry and cut designs from hammered copper or silver and

shape book-ends, paper cutters and similar objects.

Consciousness of Accomplishment:

Proud little cooks result from classes in the domestic arts.

Vocal training enables them to sing many English and Latin hymns

and so assist in the services of Benediction. Daily instruction in

gymnastics and folk dances provides a joyous physical develop-

ment. There are three departments in the school: the Montessori

for the younger children, the academic and the arts and crafts and,

as the children advance, high school subjects are added.

The shyness and awkwardness so characteristic of the abnormal

child in the normal group, immediately disappears in the friendly

group life at Saint Gertrude’s. This family spirit is greatly re-

sponsible for the development and strengthening of the abnormal

child. The theory worked out and believed in at Saint Gertrude’s

is that the child must not be permitted to feel inferior or con-

spicuous.

This theory is the keynote for all successful work with the dull

or retarded child.

THE YOUTH PROGRAM OF THE AMERICAN

COUNCIL ON EDUCATION

Rev. George Johnson, Ph.D.

Secretary American Council on Education

“Get youth to think more and more

of the making of themselves.”

For a number of years the General Education Board has felt

that some great study of youth should be undertaken. It looked

for an agency that should do it and felt that the American Council

would do it.

American Council on Education:

This is an organization of educational institutions. Its mem-

bership is made up of large organizations and American universi-

ties. The institutional membership are colleges and universities

who are on active lists of such institutions. It is more or less a

clearing house in the United States. It is recognized as the best

institution that we have. So the General Education Board asked

it to undertake the work. The Education Board has appropri-

Page 48



ated $1,500,000 as overhead of the work. More money will be

given and it is generally felt that the Board will go into this work

to the tune of $5,000,000. Appointments will be made by the

Executive Committee of the American Council and will consist of

laymen and educators. These laymen will be persons like Baker,

Dorothy Canfield Fisher, and other outstanding labor leaders.

There will be an outstanding Catholic on the Board. There will

be appointed as Director, a man of educational standing.

The essence of the whole thing is study. Many things are be-

ing done. Everyone is conscious that there is a problem. Are

many of the things being done wise? Are they done by good will

only? Is it good to have a wide program? What kind of pro-

gram? The answer can only be given on the basis of more de-

tailed knowledge. There is much study going on in the country on

the youth problem, but there is much overlapping. Now, if a

study—nationwide—could be made, lasting five years, it might be
possible to get enough particulars for a plan that could be under-

taken on youth.

Fields of Study:

The study will cover the following fields:

I. Conferences and study on farm youth and influences that are

working on them right now. What is needed by our young

people twelve years and over.

II. A study of the commonly accepted goals that both educa-
tional and normal agencies are studying at the present time.

Criticism of these goals.

III. An investigation of the agencies of the Council with regard to
the education of youth in order that young people may be
more effectively guided.

The Problem:

It is not necessary for me to go into any details as to the extent

of the problem. I will merely give a few figures. There are ten

million young people in the United States between the ages of

fifteen and eighteen; seven million are in schools. Enrollment has

increased because there is no place else for them to go. The

schools are not prepared for so many.

In the college age there is quite an increase in enrollment.

Through FERA, many have been given the opportunity of going
to college. Many need a type of education which schools cannot
give. There have been new things introduced, but are they the

right courses? Are they achieving the ends for which they were

designed?

Page 49



Points to be Kept in Mind:

Here are some of the points that must be kept in mind:

I. Increase in the leisure time of adults is something that young

people must look forward to. They need to be prepared to

use that leisure time.

II. The growing specialization in industry, which means less room

for young people in industry. They just can’t get a job. Is

that just the depression?

III. The increasing development in communication and transpor-

tation which means world development. We are all closer to-
gether and little has been done to enlighten young people.

IV. Radio and movies have affected young people.

V. The declining influence of the home and the Church. This is

particularly true outside the Catholic Church. The Church

is not the influence it was in the past. How much influence is
the Catholic Church? Groups here and there seem greatly

interested but is that general? The home is not the center of

influence it used to be in the lives of young people.

Another thing is the increase of crime. The change of

standards—the lack of standards of morality. These are some
points in the building of a youth program.

Problems Beyond the School:

Now, outside of the school phase of the thing, there are prob-

lems that no single agency is solving, e. g .—employment among
young people in rural life. There are three million young people

in rural areas. The Catholic rural crowd is disappointed that in

general meetings it seems to be taken for granted that every Cath-

olic lives in the city. Some sort of extra school should be pro-

vided.

There is no adequate supervision for young people who get into

trouble. This study should try to discover what the influences are

that are brought to bear on youth. It should gather a number of

worthwhile facts that would consider the goals, the aims that edu-

cational and other agencies have before them. What design has

been made of a good life in society and what help would this give?

Do we really know to what extent designs which have been formu-

lated already are having an effect?

What responsibility do various sections of the country develop

in the youth towards the public?

All agencies would study and then, when the study was com-

pleted, the findings could be made known generally. This study

will be conducted with scientific care. Important consideration

Page SO



will be given by the organization that sponsored it. This will be a

study—not a program.
In the course of five years we will have many facts that will

be useful. One thing may be overlooked—the religious element.
Religion means much to youth if given in the right way. If the

Church has declined, it is simply because youth has not been

brought close to the Church. In the Catholic faith young people

love the Church if they are kept close to it.

Religion Interprets and Correlates:

Everything can be interpreted and correlated with religion.

No matter what your faith, you are thinking of strengthening

these youngsters. We must do away with the strange idea that re-

ligion is outmoded and need not be considered. And we will find

out that many failures and wrecks among the young people of to-

day might have been avoided if religion has been considered more.

I believe that many a human being becomes better if he has an op-

portunity to do something constructive. I wonder if really the

only people who do something worthwhile are those who make

something.

There is some of God’s Power in us and we are supposed to go

on creating and making the world over and over again. Get youth

to think more and more of the making of themselves. We usually

drift along, letting most of our work and everything else be done

by some one else. Most of us do not create. Everything has been

made too easy. As a consequence something goes out of life.

Page 51



PREVENTION:

A PREVENTION OF DELINQUENCY PROGRAM

By Louise McGuire

Director, Social Work, Juvenile Court, District of Columbia

“These boys and girls were not born criminals.

' In the majority of instances they are no different

from those who do not get into the Juvenile Court.”

The sixteen-year-old boy who has been and is poorly adjusted

in school, and who on his sixteenth birthday passes beyond the

compulsory school attendance age, is one of the most challenging

problems of the day.

The “Why” of Poor School Adjustment:

The “why” of his poor school adjustment is many-sided and

complex. It may be economic, social, physical or psychological,

or any combination of these. Poor home conditions, lack of ordi-

nary material things such as a sufficient amount of nourishing

food, a clean bed to himself, or at least to not more than one other

than himself, simple privacy, a place to study, suitable clothing

—

indeed sufficient clothing to protect him from the elements—and so
on through the whole category of the ills of substandard living,

including crowded and inadequate housing, may account for his

poor school performance.

On the other hand his parents may be the lackadaisical kind

who see no use in making reasonable effort for education, and talk

in terms of “when Johnny gets to be sixteeen and the truant officer

quits coming.”

Again the youngster may have uncorrected physical defects

—

impaired eyesight, poor physique, frail lungs—or the trouble may
be lack of mental capacity to keep pace with the average boy or

girl. One factor which bulks unduly large is the school system it-

self with its rigidities, its stereotyped academic regularization and

traditionalism, its lack of specialized schools to meet problems and

needs of youngsters who do not fall into step.

What Happens When They Drop Out:

Whatever the causes, the fact remains that for these youngsters,

the pull outside the school is vastly stronger than the pull inside the

school, and as soon as they can legally do so, they drop out. To

what? Mainly, in these days, to loaf around street corners, in

cheap pool rooms, learning sharp practices. Their conduct de-

Page 52



teriorates from playful pranks to the committing of acts detrimen-

tal to their own welfare and to that of others. Their leisure time

activities, unchecked and undirected, too often lead to more and

more serious antisocial behavior and the youngsters find themselves

in conflict with the law, which eventually leads them into the

Juvenile Court.

These boys and girls were not born criminals. In truth, in the

majority of instances they are no different from the hundreds of

boys and girls who do not get into the Juvenile Court. They are

the apprehended delinquents whose parents, in most cases and for a

variety of reasons, are not equal to the task of guiding the lives of

their youngsters.

Indeed, they possess in varying degrees the very attributes

which go to make up successful business men and women—energy,
curiosity, ingenuity, initiative and similar characteristics. Prop-

erly channeled, these attributes are assets; improperly channeled

or neglected, more often than not they are destructive. The net re-

sult of the latter is increased juvenile and adult delinquency and

the community foots the bill in the form of police and juvenile

officers, correctional institutions and custodial care. The bill

mounts yearly.

Need for Constructive Alternatives:

At the present time there is practically nothing for these chil-

dren to do. They cannot find work Indeed, with work at a pre-

mium, it would be a pity if the few jobs available should be filled

with these adolescents at very small wages, while their fathers and

older brothers remain unemployed.

A considerable sum of money has already been expended for
tuition for promising students. More is being planned. It is urged

that some share of the funds available for the proposed youth pro-

gram will be expended directly toward making life more meaning-

ful and rich for the group which drops out of school.

Suggested Program:

The attached is a suggested program for this latter group.

This program calls for eight activity centers—four for white
and an equal number for Negro children. These centers might be

located with school buildings, but preferably outside of them.

Arguments for the latter procedure rest on the facts that: (1) The

youngsters to be reached are already conditioned against school;

(2) The school buildings are in use during the daytime and it is

then that these centers should be running to capacity. The cen-

ters might be run in connection with existing settlements, pro-

Page S3



vided the regular programs of the settlements were not in any way

interfered with or curtailed.

The main arguments against not using the schools are: (1) the

added expense of rent, heat and certain personnel; (2) the dearth

of equipment.

A possible solution is the use of the settlements during school
hours and the use of school buildings and equipment after school

hours.

The Need for a Varied Program:

The activity centers suggested are not designed to be recrea-

tional centers. Nor are the activities outlined for the primary pur-

pose of amusing or entertaining the child. On the other hand, it is

not the writer’s purpose that these centers would be in any strict

sense vocational training locales, with apprenticeship methods and

aims. Rather the aim is to enrich the child’s own life through

making him a more adequate and useful future citizen.

By means of a varied program whatever latent abilities he had

could be discovered and developed. The developing in many cases

would undoubtedly lead to vocational training. Certainly the pur-

suance of such a plan should make the participants more useful

citizens, better husbands and fathers. Such training should be a

means of their supplementing their incomes through being handy

about the house, and in the training of their own children.

The program as outlined is wide in scope and is both intra-

mural and extramural. It is designed to attract the attention of

all types of youngster. It is to be hoped that hand tools would be

employed, first, because these are less expensive and could be

within the reach of many, and secondly, because the aim is growth

and power of the individual boy or girl that comes from the

knowledge of how to do things one’s self.

Recapitulation

:

In summing up, I should like to make the following observa-

tions:

1. The attached program is largely outlined to meet the needs

of the youngsters from sixteen to twenty, who are over the com-

pulsory school age and cannot be forced to attend school.

2. Most of the above cannot find employment and many of

them at this time probably should not do so.

3. They have all their time on their hands and many are using

it to destructive purposes, which use, in turn, is extremely costly

for the community, much more costly than these suggested centers

would be.

Page 54



4. These youngsters in many cases are conditioned against

school as such, but are interested in doing things for themselves.

5. They will never go any further in school. They should not

be deprived of informal education.

6. The problem of these youngsters is a community one and

must be solved by the community.

7. It is vital to the welfare of the community that we get away

from the old traditionalism of “School vs. Work” for those who

drop school at an early age.

8. The need is not a recreational one. It is a matter of making

better citizens, husbands and fathers. The philosophy back of

subsistence farms is the opportunity through these farms to supple-

ment comparatively small wages. The attached program parallels

the idea in making the husband and wife handy about the house,

thus conserving small incomes.

9. Vocational aptitudes may develop, but primarily the plan is

(a) to develop latent interest and latent abilities to the end that

life becomes more meaningful, and (b) to give constructive outlets

for enforced present leisure.

We all have three aims in life: making a living; making a life;
and making a social life. The first is economic and involves earn-

ing sufficient to cover one’s needs and leave a margin for emer-

gencies. The second is essentially personal and spiritual and im-

plies some leisure and facilities at hand to enrich one’s own life—

a

developing of a sense of power and a peace of mind within. The

third impinges upon the other two, and allows one time and oppor-

tunity to contribute all that is in one to the general welfare of

the community, be that contribution big or little.

The writer asks this same opportunity for those who cannot

ask for themselves.

PROGRAM

I. Structure:

Eight Activity Centers, four for white, four for colored

children.

These centers could be allocated in vacant stores at low

rental, or they could be allocated in school buildings for

afternoon and evening activities. Possibly, they could be

housed in settlements, provided this arrangement did not

interfere with the regular regime of the settlement.

Page 55



II. Equipment:

In so far as it is possible, hand tools, simple weaving

machines, etc., should be used. The value is diminished if

power machinery such as that used frequently in manual

training schools is used. Hand tools are less expensive

and later will be within the reach of many of the young-

sters in their own homes.

Three or four good microscopes, such as are used in col-

leges, would be desirable, along with such equipment as is

found in an efficient department of occupational therapy

in any hospital for crippled or for mentally ill. The Na-

tional Association of Occupational Therapists can give

complete information.

III. Suggested Activities:

1. All forms of woodwork, including cabinet making,

furniture repairing, and hand carving.

2. Handcraft work:

Pottery making.

Metal, brass and silver work.

Rug weaving, and also the interweaving of material

for mending clothes—trousers, etc.
Basketry.

Leather work.

Soldering.

Mending and riveting of china.

Shoe repair work (with simple outfits).

3. Electrical repairing, such as the wiring of lamps, re-

pairing of cords, etc. The teaching of the dangers of

such work should also be included.

4. Building Radios.

5. Simple Mechanics. The mechanical operation and

construction of automobiles.

6. Making simple musical instruments, such as cigar-box

violins, etc.

7. Agriculture and Horticulture. Gardening, soils, plant

culture, etc. Every year there has been an effort to get

garden plots for certain groups of children. Much in-

terest could be aroused and intelligent planning could

be accomplished if these youngsters were better in-

formed on the simple rudiments of agriculture and

horticulture. The products from the gardens would

help their families materially.

Lessons in the mathematics of buying and selling could

Page 56



be introduced unobnoxiously and easy doses given in

connection with this work.

8. Cooking classes which might be really practical could

be given.

Housekeeping clubs, homemaking, care of babies, sim-

ple setting of the table, etc., might be made most in-

teresting and helpful for girls.

9. Nature Study Classes:

These classes could be both intramural and extra-

mural. The laboratory work (only not called by such

a pretentious title) would be possible through having

a few microscopes in each center, or by having a larger

number in two centers and having the groups come to

these centers at stated times. The former method is

preferable, and the microscopes should be available at

numerous hours, if possible.

Simple botany trips through nearby parks and pre-

serves should be part of this project and should give

the youngster first-hand knowledge of the flora around

Washington.

10. Natural History Classes:

The general explanations could be augmented by trips

to the Zoo, the museums, etc.

1 1 . The study of birds and of butterflies and other insects

would be both intra and extra mural.

12. Sketch Clubs. Many youngsters have been found to

have latent artistic ability. Others who do not have

innate ability can at least develop a sense of apprecia-

tion of art. The sketch clubs have been highly suc-

cessful in other places and present endless possibilities

for enriching the lives of people. Our museums, art

galleries and public buildings give rich material for

such a project and we have a wealth of leadership for

this work in the PWA artists.

13. The Study of Government in Action:

Civics is taught in the high schools and colleges, but

many of the youngsters served by the proposed cen-

ters would never go further than the Eighth Grade, yet

upon their majority they become potential voters, or

at least petitioners to Congress upon occasion. Ques-

tions of the day, including political organization and

structure, could be made vital to these future citizens.

Page 57



14. Folklore. Historical Settings. The “Whyness” of

things.

15. First Aid Courses:

The Red Cross has for years offered these courses to

their volunteers. Because of their very practical na-

ture these courses have been popular. These courses

would appeal to youngsters of late adolescent age and

of both sexes.

16. Practical Home Nursing Classes:

As in the case of first aid, the Red Cross has given these

courses for their volunteers. Such courses would be

most valuable to every young woman.

17. Civil Service Courses:

These courses might comprise largely simple statis-

tics; study of Civil Service examinations for Postal

Clerk, Fireman’s Manual, Park Attendants, Municipal

Playgrounds that come under Civil Service. Such

courses might lead to vocational placements. This

would give purpose and aim to the student. Such

courses have been widely attended in some cities.

18. Course in Sports:

Such courses would include the studying of rules gov-

erning baseball, football, basketball, swimming meets.

There might be some laboratory work in the actual

playing of the games. A great many high schools and

sand lot leagues want good umpires. Such courses

might lead to young men earning a few dollars um-

piring basketball games and similar sports.

19. Wall Papering:

This would be a very practical way of teaching both

young men and young women the rudiments of wall

papering so that they may beautify their own homes

from time to time at very little expense. Low rent

neighborhood landlords are not in the habit of re-

papering and redecorating rooms for tenants. The

wages of the tenants are insufficient to have the paper-

ing done. If the tenant or his son or daughter knew

how to paper and redecorate the place, the homes might

be made much more attractive for a very small ex-

penditure. We are trying to build up home life through
interest in the home, and surely this is one way of do-

ing it.



IV. Staff and Methods:

The carrying out of the above would not require a large out-

lay of money.

It would be necessary to employ one thoroughly trained

occupational therapist in each center. The major part of

the balance of the staff could be recruited from the ranks of

the WPA workers, i. e., there are many college students who
are receiving benefits under the Youth Program and who

are sufficiently advanced along certain lines to teach these

youngsters.

There are, no doubt, good carpenters, woodworkers, elec-

tricians, etc., out of employment and on the WPA rolls.
The services of these could be enlisted. The PWA artist
group under the direction of Rowan or one of his assistants

could undertake the sketch club project—and so on through
the entire program.

A general planning committee of, say, fifteen persons, could

serve gratis under the general direction of the local execu-

tive, director of the Youth Program (Commissioner Allen

and his staff).

Page 59



EMPLOYMENT

YOUNG WOMEN AT WORK AS VIEWED BY THE
WOMEN’S BUREAU

Mary Anderson

Chief, Women’s Bureau, United States Department of Labor

“The livelihood, health, safety,

morale, welfare, happiness

of millions of young girls,

the future mothers and homemakers

of our Nation,

are involved.”

I believe that the most useful contribution I can make to the

general Conference program is to confine my discussion largely to
the findings of the Women’s Bureau, as they pertain to the studies

and analyses it has made of the problems of young women in the

major occupations where they are at work.

Number of Young Workers:

In 1930 there were nearly 4,000,000 young women from the

ages of 16 to 24 in gainful employment. Clerical work claimed

the services of nearly one million of these girls, or more than one-

fourth of the entire age group. The second largest group of these

girls, around 815,000 were in domestic and personal service, over

half a million being employed in the single occupation
—

“serv-

ants,” and another 100,000 working as waitresses. Manufactur-

ing and mechanical industries accounted for some 780,000 girl

workers, the largest group, around 214,000, finding employment

in some branch of the textile industry. Clothing plants employed

some 137,000 of these girls and food and allied industries 53,000.

Around one-quarter of a million girls from 16 to 24 years of age

were engaged in agricultural pursuits in 1930 and around half a

million were professional workers.

In the discussion of data from the 1930 Census we must re-

mind ourselves that this is 1935 and that five black years of a

serious depression have intervened since the last census date.

Just what influence these years have had upon the occupational

status of women, it is impossible to determine accurately at present.

However, the following statements from the State summary of a

survey of unemployment in Pennsylvania, made by the State

Emergency Relief Administration and released the middle of last

month, reemphasize the current situation with regard to boys and

girls, which requires grave consideration.

Page 60



“Of all the unemployed, 21.7 per cent were new workers (un-

employed seeking work not previously employed) . One of the most

distressing aspects of unemployment is the inability of the younger

workers to obtain jobs. A larger proportion of the female un-

employed (34.6 per cent) than of the male unemployed (16.6 per

cent) were among the new worker group.”

Clerical Work:

It would be of great interest, I believe, to know how many girls

between 16 and 25 years of age are employed as clerical workers

or are seeking work in this important vocational field today. In

this connection, data from a census of unemployment in Massa-

chusetts as of January, 1934, shows that of about 9,300 women

who had never worked, and who reported on the kind of vocation

for which they had been preparing, as many as 7,700 had had

clerical training.

The largest numbers of the 43,000 women office workers in

any group in the seven cities covered by the Women’s Bureau study

(1931-1932) were found to be working as general clerks. For

such work, however, the pay is low, general clerks showing a

median monthly salary of $90—which means half received more,
half less than this amount. The median monthly salary for all the

women was $99.

Contrasted to the more routine jobs, however, were the posi-

tions of secretary and supervisor, which offer the best pay and

probably the most interesting work to women in office employment.

While only a small proportion—less than one-tenth of all the
women office workers surveyed—held such positions, in both these
lines of work the median monthly salary was over $150.

Youth is a decided advantage to the woman looking for office

employment. The majority of managers said that in hiring they

preferred young women under 25, and some offices made it a defi-

nite policy not to employ women of over 30 or 35 except for special

work.

Domestic and Personal Service

:

Even in the early part of the depression the second largest num-

ber of gainfully employed girls in 1930 found work in some branch

of domestic and personal service, the majority of them being em-

ployed as household employees or “servants,” as the census still

labels them—a term that should be discarded in view of its un-
fortunate connotation. Even at best household employment is un-

standardized and unsure. Excluded as they were from the legal

jurisdiction of the NRA, outside the pale of hour legislation in all

Page 61



of the States and of accident compensation in all but a few, stand-

ards for the hundreds of thousands of household employees in the

United States, both white and Negro, are left to the determination

of individual employers. It is only necessary to read through a

score of the letters that have come to the Women’s Bureau, many

forwarded from the White House, to understand the plight of thou-

sands of household workers, so many of whom are young girls.

These complaints form an arresting story, particularly in view

of the fact that so many girls in need of employment are forced to

fall back on household work and to accept even in this field, because

they are untrained for it, any available job under almost any con-

ditions. Certain other types of employment, classified by the

Census under domestic and personal service have not suffered so

drastic a change in employment conditions since the depression.

Beauty Shops:

A case in point is the beauty shop trade. A recent Women’s
Bureau study of this occupation covered about 1,700 persons in

four cities. Relatively adequate hour and wage standards for

white women were shown to be prevalent. In the white shops half

the women worked a week of under 48 hours and the median of a

week’s earnings of white women in the four cities, half of the wom-

en earning more and half less, was $14.25. However, long hours

at rush periods were found to be characteristic of the trade.

Young women were generally preferred to older ones, according

to the report, the median age reported being between 25 and 26

years. When asked how they received their training, the majority

—three out of five—of both the white and Negro women in the
Women’s Bureau study, said they had attended schools of beauty

culture. A relatively short period—six months—was the length
of the usual course for white women; Negro women had devoted

longer periods to training than had white women. Although no

unemployed persons were interviewed, only 10 per cent of those on

the job reported that they had been unemployed at any time during

the year before the survey.

Textile Industry:

According to the 1930 Census, more than one-fourth of all girls

from the ages 16 to 24 employed in manufacturing and mechanical

industries found work in some branch of the textile industry. A

Women’s Bureau study on the hours, earnings, and employment of

workers in cotton mills in 1932 may serve to show something of

working conditions met by a large number of young women at that

time. In South Carolina, about half the women workers were

Page 62



under 25 years of age, in Maine about one-third were under 25,

and in Texas nearly two-fifths had not reached their twenty-fifth

birthday.

The regular daily schedule of hours was much the same in

South Carolina and Texas and only slightly less in Maine. All

but one mill of the 128 reporting in South Carolina and 11 of the

13 in Texas were on a 10-hour day. In Maine 10 of the 14 mills

worked a day of hours.

Full-time women workers in Maine had the highest median of

a week’s earnings on the day shift—$13; in Texas the median was
$11.10; and in South Carolina it was $9.65. Women who worked

full time on the night shift had lower earnings in South Carolina

and higher earnings in Texas than those of the full-time day

workers. The NRA brought a 40-hour week to the textile industry
along with a minimum weekly wage for women of at least $13 in

the North and $12 in the South. What is happening to these

standards now the NRA is gone we do not have any reliable and
comprehensive way at present of ascertaining.

Sewing Trades:

A study of the employment of women in the sewing trades of
Connecticut was made by the Women’s Bureau in the fall of 1931.

More than half of the 4,800 women covered by the study and re-

porting on age were not yet 25 and more than one-third were less

than 20. The median of the week’s earnings for all the women

(some 7,600) was $12.35, the same as that for the girls 18 and

under 20 years of age. That this figure was so high was due no

doubt, to the fact that certain better types of garment factories

were paying more adequate wages that offset the pitiful amounts

paid in the runaway contract shops. In three such plants for

which detailed figures were secured, only two of the 105 employees

reporting age were as much as 20 years old; one-sixth were not yet

16 and the majority were 16 and under 18, altogether a very

youthful group of wage earners, to say the least. More than three-

fourths of the 102 for whom the hours worked were reported had

worked at least 40 hours, half had worked as long as 50 hours.

The majority were operating power-sewing machines, by no means

a child’s job. The median of the week’s earnings fell between $4

and $5 for the total group for whom hours worked were reported,

and for those who had worked more than 48 hours it fell between

$5 and $6, shockingly low wages even when allowance is made for

the youth and inexperience of the worker.

Largely as the result of public indignation roused by the find-

ings of our Women’s Bureau preliminary report, published in 1932,

on conditions in the Connecticut sewing plants, two State laws were



enacted in the first half of 1933 to remedy the worst of such condi-

tions. One law provided for minimum wages to be set for women

in sweatshop industries and the second provided for the registra-

tion of all factories or mechanical establishments employing three

or more persons, in order to curb the fly-by-night firms moving

in from New York City to take advantage of a cheaper labor sup-

ply and less rigorous labor laws. Connecticut workers are thus

fortunate to have as much legislative protection at the termination

of the NRA.

Professional Pursuits:

Of the approximately half a million girls from 16 to 25 years

of age in professional pursuits, around four-fifths were either teach-

ers or trained nurses in 1930. In 1932 alone there were 80,000 new

entrants in the teaching profession and a year ago the Office of

Education stated that new teachers graduating in the class of 1934

would find themselves competing with 200,000 unemployed cer-

tificated teachers, many of whom could add the advantage of expe-

rience to equal educational equipment. We know further that more
thousands of teachers are teaching for short terms. However,

there is no limit to our present need for teachers, and thousands of

young women with adequate training will be in all likelihood ab-

sorbed into varied types of teaching activity. In 1930 the illiter-

ates in our country numbered about 15,000,000, and the enthusi-

asm with which the program for the elimination of illiteracy by

adult education, launched by the Federal Emergency Relief Ad-

ministration, has been received is evidence of the potential employ-

ment of hundreds of teachers in this field. With short working

hours adults will have time to go to school.

To return definitely to the matter of the professions, we find

that the lower rungs of the nursing profession are also overcrowded

although it has been authoritatively stated that, while there are too

many poorly prepared nurses in the field, there are not enough

good nurses. However, the wide range of health activities in

which the CWA and the FERA have participated to such good
effect point to recognized needs for many workers in these fields in

the time ahead. Nutrition and dieting services, nursing service

in the public schools, child health, prenatal and school dental clin-

ics are still far too rare to begin to care for existing needs.

It is true that women, many of them young women, have been

employed in the administration of the President’s program for Na-

tional Recovery, both in the old-line and the new agencies. This

is very natural because of the interest of women in sound programs

affecting family and community welfare.

Page 64



Special Problems:

I wish to discuss briefly two of the special problems that the

Women’s Bureau has found affecting young employed women in
particular.

The first of these is the disproportionate liability of young

women under 21 years to industrial accidents. The proportion of
injuries to these young women is greater than can be accounted
for by their number among all gainfully occupied women. Studies

made by the Women’s Bureau contain evidence that youth and

its characteristic inexperience are factors in accident frequency.

The practice utilized by various types of industries and com-

mercial establishments, particularly department and other retail

stores, of employing only those girls who live at home with parents
or other relatives, where their living expenses can be minimized or

often subsidized by other members of the family, is another em-

ployment hazard that many girls and their families must face.
This situation is discussed at length in the Women’s Bureau report
on women in 5-and-lG-cent stores where 92 per cent of the hun-
dreds of women workers reporting on living conditions made their
homes with relatives.

In conclusion I wish to stress the need of much greater atten-
tion on the part of many forces in the varied and complicated prob-
lems pertaining to the employment of young women. Involved in

such problems are the vital matters of the livelihood, health, safety,

morale, welfare, and happiness of millions of young girls, who are
the future homemakers and mothers of our nation.

YOUTH IN INDUSTRY—A PICTURE

Mamie Santora

Organizer, Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America

“Youth in industry is very unhappy,

disgusted and worried

about their future.”

Since the collapse of the NRA, youth in industry has to face a
situation not to their liking. In many industries employers have
made them sign agreements which oblige them to work longer
hours, and accept a reduction in wages. Thus the $13 minimum
in the North and the $12 minimum in the South is abolished.
Where piece work exists, there is no bottom to the reductions pos-
sible.

Page 65



Cold Facts:

In Connecticut, a non-union employer, the day after the Supreme

Court decision, called in a group of boys and girls who were collar

starchers on shirts and cut their wages from $13 to $8. He further

asked for a forty-four hour week, although he has, at the present

time, a shortage of work.

Another employer, in the South, has placed children at work in

his factory at two and a half cents per hour for a forty-eight hour

week. And this when millions of adults are still out of work in this

country.

I am told that one employer in the South has served notice on

his employees that one dollar per week will be deducted from their

pay envelope in order to refund to him the salary paid under the

NRA which the Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional.
Unorganized youth in industry fear to lose their jobs as the

bosses hold over them the threat that they can be replaced, with

the greatest ease, for less money.

A Remedy Must Be Found:

Workers in non-union shops have to submit to all sorts of de-

grading methods used by their employers. Youth in industry is

very unhappy, disgusted and worried about the future. They can

only hope that some remedy may be found to secure justice and

place the cut-throat employer in a class with the decent manu-

facturers who are willing and anxious to do justice to workers and

to improve conditions in our country.

There is a real situation confronting us all. It will be up to us

who understand the present economic system to solve it.

HELPING YOUTH TO FIND EMPLOYMENT

Sara E. Laughlin

Parish School Counselor, The White-Williams Foundation,

Philadelphia, Pa.

“The altruism of these youngsters

gives some understanding

of the quality

of the young persons

who are asking the world for a chance

to live normally and independently.”

During the school year just closed, four hundred boys and girls

between the ages of 1 6 and 2 1 have come to my office seeking edu-
cational, occupational or personal guidance. All were eager to

Page 66



properly prepare for and then secure the means of self-support.

All were aware of the general economic situation and of some of

the difficulties it would present to them.

We will agree that of first importance in the preparation of

youth is the development of a wholesome attitude toward life, an

appreciation of its joys, opportunity and responsibilities. Next in

importance comes the establishment of good health and work habits

and realization of the legitimate satisfaction of achievement. Due

to the cooperation of home, school and church, this preparation is

afforded the youth of Philadelphia. It is being assimilated by them

with a very considerable measure of success.

School Programs:

In addition to the usual academic studies and (in the system

of Parish schools of Philadelphia, to which I happen to be at-

tached), of religious instruction, the development of finer and

more self-directed individuals is being promoted by special activities

which, largely under student direction, have gone forward in recent

years, encouraged by the school systems. I refer to training in

public speaking and in amicable discussion offered by current

events clubs and classes. A resulting growth in poise, in knowl-

edge of the world in which they live, in ability to think independ-

ently is noticeable. The courses in home management, elective

not required, promote the pupil’s capacity to contribute new in-

terest to the home. Self-respect increases as they feel themselves

able to add to the home something of utility and beauty.

As a result of sanely directed athletics, I have noted not only

improved physical condition, better spirit of teamwork and good

sportsmanship, but a desire to help others to achieve along the line

of special ability. As a spontaneous activity, a group of girls who

were leaders undertook to give additional instruction in their spe-

cialty to girls who were less apt.

The high school orchestras have not only enriched the lives of

the talented but have spread an appreciation of good music through-

out the student body. You would see this for yourselves if you

could come with me any evening to the Philadelphia Orchestra Con-

cert in Robin Hood Dell and count the girls attending. The Youth

Conference arranged by Temple University offered still another

opportunity for youth to orient itself. Our pupils have grasped

this eagerly.

The school stresses physical fitness and provides a registered

nurse to teach personal hygiene. A woman physician is provided
for each high school. They make periodic examinations and rec-

ommend corrections where indicated. Whenever the recommenda-

tions are beyond the financial ability of the parents to meet, the

Page 67



doctors refer the pupil to the counselor whose duty it then becomes

to see that the treatment is made available. Psychological and

psychiatric problems are referred in the same manner.

Catholic Action Guild:

For the past three years there has been a Catholic Action Guild

with a five-point program in each of the girls’ high schools. It

has made a wide appeal. One bit of evidence of its effectiveness

is the fact that this year every girl to whom I had had the privi-
lege of rendering service, came to my office during the vacation
period to volunteer her services. The inspiration to help came

from the Guild. I was selected as the beneficiary because, through

observation, they knew of the habitual pressure of work in my
office.

The altruism of these youngsters gives some understanding of

the quality of the young persons who are asking the world for a

chance to live normally and independently.

Junior Employment Service:

I am happy to report the existence in Philadelphia of a splen-

did Junior Employment Service under the Board of Public Edu-

cation. Since 1916 it has functioned for the service of all boys and

girls of working age under twenty-one. May I refer you to an
article, by its able Special Assistant, Miss Edith Duff Gwinn, in

the May, 1935, issue of Employment Service News, Volume 2, No.

5—Publication of the United States Department of Labor, for de-
tails of this service.

The staff of the Junior Employment Service stands in the rela-

tionship of a capable, well informed friend to the fifty thousand

youths registered. They know each applicant’s ability in school,

his or her work habits, occupational interest and social back-

ground. From the Division of Medical Inspection of the Board of

Education they have a report on physical conditions. From the

Division of Research they have the results of standard stenographic

and typing tests and rating on group intelligence tests. Where an

individual psychological test would be helpful, these may be made

in the Department of Special Education or can be secured through

the Psychologist of the Junior Employment Service.

After a worker has been placed on a job, employers are usually

willing to report their rating on personal appearance, ability to

learn, speed, accuracy and dependability. Where specialized train-

ing to improve skill is indicated as a result of test or work experi-

ence this is made available through the Division of School Exten-

sion classes organized especially to meet this need.

Since employers meet youth with a demand for experience and

Page 68



since there can be no experience without a job, the Junior Employ-

ment Service has worked out an arrangement whereby some of the

70 per cent on file who have had no work experience may acquire

it. They work as volunteers from two to four weeks for non-

profit making agencies.

For the youth, who is unwillingly idle, the counsel and guid-

ance of the Junior Employment Service staff is an inestimable

benefit. By means of individual conferences they help each youth

to make an adjustment to a changing world, stimulate each to self-

improvement, to wider education, to further development of spe-

cial abilities; in other words, to preparation for the better oppor-

tunity we still hope the future will afford.

Practical Suggestions:

I would suggest that we, who touch the lives of young people

at many points, suggest the following practical helps

:

1. Adequate preparation for the job sought.

2. Self-confidence, based on the knowledge of adequate prep-

aration.

3. Accurate knowledge of one’s own ability for the job sought.

4. Attractive personal appearance, as it often determines first

chance.

5. Good physical condition—physical examinations are now
almost universal requirements.

6. Familiarity with application blanks in actual use in indus-

trial and commercial establishments (mimeographed copies

without firm’s name may be used for practice work).

7. Study of “How You Can Get a Job,” by Glenn L. Gardner,
Executive of the Forstman Woolen Company—Publisher, Har-
per and Brothers.

8. The right amount of sympathy on the score of the difficulty

of the job-finding task.

In determining how much sympathy should be given and when,

I can only say, in all reverence, we must count on Divine guidance.

It is a hard duty at best. To sidestep it entirely, however, would
seem to disregard cruelly a very real human need.

Reconstruction:

In my judgment there are a number of fundamental things in
our present society we need to consider and re-consider in the light

of the needs of youth and of our Nation’s future. We must have
the courage to ask many questions. We must dare to question
many special privileges now enjoyed by some. We must be willing
to work patiently for the development of a public opinion which

Page 69



will demand certain legislative changes. For instance, it seems to

me to be perfectly clear now that if we are ever to have employ-

ment for the now unemployed but employable, hours of work must

be reduced very considerably. If the goods we can now produce

are to be consumed, wages must be kept up to supply buying

power, or we must as a nation look forward to an increasing num-

ber of millions idle and on relief.

We Catholics, with our training to regard the family as the so-
cial unit, have a great chance here to make a real contribution, by

urging our married women, now employed, to return to their

homes. At a time when there were 70,000 families on relief in

Philadelphia there were 70,000 married women (not widows) em-

ployed in Philadelphia. I am not suggesting that return to the

home would have been possible or desirable in every case or that

their places could have been filled by heads of families on relief,

necessarily. It is one factor which has grown to such proportion

that it needs to be examined as to its effect on juvenile delinquency;

the breakdown of homes and the increase in divorce with resultant

deprivations for children, and limitations of opportunity for youth.

The time has come, in my judgment, when employers whether

in governmental agencies or private enterprise should consider

need for work as an important factor in employing persons and

be willing to train, on the job, those who have capabilities and

capacities, wherever this is possible.

The Heroism of Peace:

We know it is right that we should have hope in the future and

have confidence that somehow, some time, Providence will lead us

out of our present perplexities. New ideals of patriotism may be

evolved. If, and when, they are, peace time may offer opportu-

nity for self-sacrifice of such gigantic and intense proportion as to

make our war time heroes sink into comparative insignificance.

EMPLOYMENT PROBLEMS OF YOUNG PEOPLE

Beatrice McConnell

Director, Industrial Division, Children’s Bureau, United States

Department of Labor

“Actual conditions of employment

are most important.

Upon these the health and effectiveness

of the worker depend.”

Our concern for the unemployed in the past few years has

tended to distract our attention somewhat from the problems which

young workers must face when they actually enter employment.

Page 70



Now that we are slowly recovering from the effects of the depres-

sion and again thinking in terms of jobs for young people, it is im-

portant that we consider what this employment involves.

We have seen rapid changes in employment conditions in the

past five years—in the early years of the depression the swift
breakdown of labor standards with long hours, low pay, and gen-

erally poor working conditions. Then came the period of the NRA
with its five hundred odd codes setting minimum wage levels and

maximum hours of work. Now we are in the third era—after the
NRA—and what do we have?

Labor Standards and Conditions:

As employment opportunities offer themselves what are the

labor standards that young people face? State legislation has pro-

ceeded slowly and most unevenly, so that a map of legislative

standards for working women and children presents a gamut rang-

ing from practically no regulation to standards approximating

those established by the NRA.

You are interested to know not only what the situation is in

abstract but also concretely what it is that young people face to-

day in entering employment. One of the fundamental issues, of

course, for the young potential worker is vocational guidance and

effective training. The happiness and effectiveness of a person on

any job depends largely on whether she is qualified to do the work;

whether she is interested in it. The development of counseling

and vocational guidance services in the schools is highly impor-

tant if the young worker is to enter employment in which her apti-

tudes and interests are considered.

But the actual conditions of employment are most important

for it is upon these that the health and effectiveness of the worker

depend. Long hours of work, continued standing or sitting in one

position, poor ventilation, bad lighting, all contribute to the extra

fatigue of the worker and, in the long run, cut production as well as

break down the health of the worker.

Accident Hazards:

It has been shown over and over that young workers are more

prone to accidents than are those of more mature years. With the

mechanization of industry which has gone on apace during the last

decade this becomes a matter for serious consideration. Swift-

moving, complicated machinery and the irresponsibility and care-

lessness which is an inherent characteristic of youth, is a formula

which produces many industrial accidents. One of the effects of

the depressed business conditions of the past few years has been a

Page 71



slackening in the upkeep of mechanical equipment. In other

words, expenditures for safety have been cut and the danger to the

young worker is therefore correspondingly greater. More study

in the field of occupations for young people is needed that their

employment may be more adequately safeguarded. Research

which may be used as a basis for legislative action or adminis-

trative action by the State departments of labor in providing for

safer working conditions is most essential.

Health Hazards:

Nor are accidents the only hazards which the young industrial

worker faces. The health hazard of the job is perhaps even greater.

There is the question of fatigue which I have already mentioned.

This may be brought about or accentuated by poor working con-

ditions.

Then there is the exposure of the worker to noxious materials

used in the course of the work, a hazard which has increased tre-

mendously in the last decade. We have long been accustomed to
hear of the hazards of lead poisoning, and of the silicosis which re-

sults from the constant exposure of the worker to sharp particles

which are breathed in from the air in which they are suspended,

but we have heard less of the new chemicals which have come into

use during the past few years.

The dictates of fashion, which call for slender, trim patent

leather heels and fresh white gardenias for our coat lapels, take

their toll in the health of the worker. Scientific research has dem-

onstrated that young workers are more susceptible to such occu-

pational disease hazards than are adults,—to a somewhat lesser
degree it has been shown that women are more susceptible than

men. If our young workers are to be protected from these hazards

we must have legislation. Fifteen States have some occupational

disease coverage in compensation laws, but only seven have any-

thing approaching a complete coverage.

The Challenge:

The responsibility for the future of these young people who go

out from their homes to enter gainful employment, in the final

analysis, rests on every citizen of every State. Let us meet this

challenge squarely and put forth our best efforts to the end that

harmful child labor shall be abolished and conditions of employ-

ment for our workers shall offer an opportunity for a job which

gives not only self-support but self-respect and self-expression.

Page 72



PUTTING WOMEN TO WORK

Ellen B. Woodward

Assistant Administrator
,
Works Program Administration

“We can give thousands of women

an opportunity

to use their hands and brains

for the common good

—

to be once more vital and contributing members

of society.”

It is my task as Assistant Works Program Administrator in

charge of the Women’s Division to furnish employment to able-

bodied women on relief. Thousands of women, now on the morale

destroying dole, must be given jobs for which they are fitted and

jobs which will allow them to maintain their self-respect and dig-

nity. Instead of being a debit to their communities, they are going

to become self-maintaining productive citizens.

Who They Are:

Who are these women who look to us for employment? They

are married women who are economic heads of families; they are

widows left without resources; they are single women with rela-

tives dependent on them; they are unattached women who have to

make their own way. They are the 15% of all the 3,500,000 able-

bodied unemployed on relief today who are women between the

ages of 16 and 65. Statistically this is the problem. Knowing

the problem, we have to develop projects and programs which will

provide work opportunities for all of them or as many as our funds

will allow. It is a task which requires not only knowledge of the

facts, but the greatest imagination and ingenuity.

What They Can Do:

There are more than 250 occupational classifications repre-

sented by the women on relief rolls. That means that we must

design projects which will meet the needs of women whose train-

ing, skills and other qualifications for work range from one end of

the ability scale to the other. We must find projects that will pro-
vide jobs for the professional worker highly trained in some partic-

ular field, for the woman who can do only unskilled manual work

and for all the many types in between. We want these projects to
be of the highest social value. This is an emergency program

but we would like to develop projects which prove of such real use-

fulness to the community that they will be continued on a perma-

nent basis with local funds after the emergency has passed and

Federal support is no longer necessary.

Page 73



Proportionate Employment:

One part of our job now, as in the past, will be to maintain a

constant watchfulness to see that women receive equal considera-

tion with men in assignment of work. We will see to it that the
projects planned under the Works Progress Administration have a

fair number of jobs for women and that women’s projects are given

equal consideration in the matter of materials and supplies. The

fact that in February of this year, 53 per cent of the men on the

relief rolls certified for work were at work and 53 per cent of the

women certified were also working shows that we have already

made a record in this respect. The new Works Progress Program

will afford opportunity to expand projects and to develop new

ones which will employ the many women who have been certified

for work but who, because of limited funds, have not yet had a

chance at a job.

Possible Spheres of Action:

Women can and will be employed on almost all types of proj-

ects that are to be conducted by the Works Progress Administra-

tion and the possible sphere of action for women is far more ex-

tensive today than any such program would have been twenty

years ago. There is no question but that a large number of jobs

will necessarily be of the traditional variety such as: sewing, food

preparation and conservation, child care, general homemaking

and care of the sick simply because so many women are fitted to

carry these on. But we also recognize that large numbers of women

today are capable of playing an important part in the art, music

and drama projects, in library work, in skilled laboratory research,

in statistical surveys and in many other specialized activities once

considered the exclusive domain of men. In fact, the plans for

women’s work will be as many and as varied as our skill and inven-

tiveness will permit, within the boundaries of social usefulness

and the limitations inherent in the Works Relief Act itself.

Many valuable suggestions for women’s work come to us from

every part of the country. It is interesting to note that in some

cases these are for projects which have already been conducted on

a limited scale but which we intend to amplify under the new pro-

gram. One of these which came to my attention very recently was

a program for transcribing books into Braille, for the use of the

blind. Several such projects have already been successfully oper-

ated under the FERA Work Relief program. We have found it
possible to employ the blind themselves to do a great deal of this

work. This instance is cited only to show the extent of our plan-

ning in fitting the job to the person and in making it a thoroughly

worth while job as well.

Page 74



Community Services:

It is hardly necessary to enumerate the 101
useful and desirable

services that every community needs, that can be
developed under

the Works Progress Program and that would not
ordinarily be

undertaken by private initiative. Think of your own
community.

Are there adequate recreational facilities for
children and adults?

Do you need more day nurseries? Could your community
use a

well trained staff of visiting housekeepers?
Undoubtedly your li-

brary facilities have been curtailed to a greater
or less extent dur-

ing the depression. Books need repair, records
and catalogues

need to be brought up to date, rural sections deprived
of adequate

reading material need book lending facilities brought
to them

through library extension services, Your laboratories and
research

centers, also hard hit by the depression, could use trained
workers

on many essential surveys. Health services in your
neighborhood

have been reduced considerably, in some cases to a
dangerous

minimum, while capable nurses and public health workers
remain

idle and on relief. The solution is obvious. We can and must put

them to work.

I could go on for an unlimited time outlining
further com-

munity needs which we all recognize and which can be met
with

suitably designed work relief projects. There is hardly a limit to

the amount of useful work that needs to be done. And we can

give thousands of women—at present despondent, feeling that life

has cast them aside and society has no need for them,—an oppor-
tunity once more to use their hands and brains for the common

good, to be once more vital and contributing members of society.

This is our fundamental aim.

Page 75



LEISURE:

UNEMPLOYMENT, SHORTER HOURS, LEISURE

Rev. Francis
J. Haas, Ph.D.

Director, National Catholic School of Social Service

“You who are engaged in leisure time activities,
are going to have the biggest industry
of the future.”

The Legacy of the Past:

i

The past has bequeathed to us many of our present day prob-
lems. There are 11,000,000 persons unemployed and 20,000 000
persons living on public and private charity today. This situation
is an outgrowth of the fact that between 1899 and 1929 the hours
of labor were not shortened in proportion to the increase in pro-
duction per man. In that time, hours of labor decreased only 13
per cent while production per man increased 90 per cent If dur-
ing the period of 1899 to 1929, hours had been shortened in pro-
portion to increased output, we would have now about a thirtv-
hour week.

J

The Present Situation:

The tragedy of this moment is the fact that, instead of being
shortened, in very many establishments hours of labor are now
being increased.

To meet the situation with which we are confronted, there are
two alternatives:

1. To maintain wages and share the work among the available
workers.

2. To have a permanent army of several millions supported
year in and year out on doles.

If we are so short-sighted as to choose the second, we must face the
tact of greatly increased taxes and, perhaps, currency inflation.

Realism Necessary:

A high degree of realism is necessary to meet a tragically real
problem To give work to the employable unemployed, it is neces-
sary to limit hours to less than thirty per week. Recent research
ot the amount of work necessary to dispense with unemployment
has convinced me that the ideal median of the work-week lies
somewhere between twenty-two and twenty-seven hours.

Page 76



Under a properly arranged economy, with hours of labor limited

to less than thirty hours a week, there will be plenty of goods avail-

able. There will be a huge surplus to spend and it should be spent

for more and more facilities for spiritual, cultural and recreational

advancement. You who are engaged in leisure time activities are

going to have the biggest industry in the future.

THE NATIONAL YOUTH ADMINISTRATION

Aubrey Williams

Executive Director, National Youth Administration

“We must provide opportunity and assistance

and give some sense of direction,

but much depends upon the individual. . . .

Each must take his own place and

contribute that final something

that will make for his economic and social security.”

I am very happy to have this opportunity to address the Cath-

olic youth leaders, for I have a very deep respect for the work of

Catholic groups in dealing with the problems incident to the

lensure side of life. Catholic groups are usually pretty wise and

pretty intelligent in meeting these problems. I well remember

when this sort of thing was first taken up by the church groups

(in America). Catholic groups were among the leaders, if not the

leaders in the movement.

I do not know how sweeping your work has become. You,

probably, have a great many fine arrangements which I hope we

can coordinate and assist by some of the things we may be able to

do, through the National Youth Administration.

The Problems of Youth Overlooked:

The great powers of the Government have been concentrated in

such a manner that the problems of youth have fallen in between.

We have said that the family comes first. That means that the

very young and the parents get help. In between there is a large

number of young people, unattached, for whom, in spite of sympa-

thies, very little has been done. The United States has main-

tained, almost to an unbelievable degree, the integrity of the

family. The family has been maintained in America, but this par-

ticular part of it has probably suffered most. I refer to the boy

between sixteen and twenty years of age. The girl has not suffered

so calamitously. She has been able to stay in the confines of the

home.

Page 77



The erroneous impression is prevalent that there are hundreds

of thousands of roaming youth. This condition simply does not

exist. There are some fifty-six thousand who come to us for shelter

and care throughout the United States. Of this number twelve

or fourteen hundred are girls. That is too many.

But it is well for us to understand our problem of 7,000,000

unemployed youth. It is unfair to assume that all of these should

be employed. A considerable number should not be employed.
There never was a time when all young women of that age were

employed. I seriously doubt the wisdom of even advocating such

a thing. Indeed, I have a very strong conviction that we have

bridges to cross with regard to the age and conditions under

which people should begin to work. I do not propose to seek to

enforce arrangements, wholesale, whereby these unemployed young

people would get into industry. For some young people a job is

the thing that should be found.

Features of the N. Y. A. Program:

Among the features of the N. Y. A. program which we might

stress are:

Apprenticeship: Much has been done through the National

Committe on Apprenticeship through the Code. I hope it

can be maintained. The N. Y. A. is interested in maintain-

ing that particular arrangement and in carrying on the job

it has begun.

Work Projects: These are to be paid for by the Government

and will be designed particularly for youth in order that

they may secure full benefit from them.

Youth Centers: Adequate Centers that will include athletic

facilities, clubrooms, etc., are to be developed.

Education—Retraining: Last year about 100,000 were kept in
colleges and institutions of learning. This year about 125,-

000 will be taken care of.

Something for the high school students will be operated

on much the same plan as in the colleges. It will include

all institutions of an accepted character. We hope shortly
to announce a plan of procedure.

Aid to Post-Graduate Students: A small number of post-gradu-

ate students will receive about $30 a month.

Vocational Guidance: Wb hope to have something in the way
of a broader and slightly more inclusive adjustment service.

It should be tremendously helpful. Miss Mary Hayes of

New York will head, nationally, vocational guidance for the
N.Y. A.

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Apprenticeship

:

We shall never be able to do much in the way of apprenticeship
until we can have an industrial order that places employment

above profit. We shall have to have a resumption and wider dis-
tribution of business and we shall have to have a considerable

amount of re-adjustment and changing viewpoints if we are going

to do much for this generation and the next generation. We have
no false ideas o.f what we can do. I hope it will be sound, socially

and economically, but I have no illusions.

Education and Re-training:

The problem of education and re-training has in view the 760,-

000 boys and girls who are forced to leave high school because

of lack of funds. A small sum of money will be provided in order
that they may remain in school but the N. Y. A. will not go into

their curricular activities. These will be under the direction of

the school.

Vocational Guidance:

If we are going to do things worth while in the way of vocational

guidance for people, it is going to be because we are able to bring

together people who have something to contribute and who have

the capacity to contribute and who come into the lives of these

youngsters at the crucial point.

I have no idea what we are going to be able to do for these

young people to get them into positions of security—economically
and socially. We must provide opportunity and assistance and
give some sense of direction but I think that much depends on the

individual. We should not labor under the delusion that anyone
can lift another. Each must take his own place and contribute

that final something that will make for his economic and social

security.

The Future of the N. Y. A.:

There is no assurance that the National Youth Administration

will be a permanent part of the Government. It is expected rather

that, through the Federal Government and the arousing of interest

in individuals, there will be established a service that will be fine

and of a permanent nature.

I wish you success in your study. I know we can expect and

will receive from you every possible assistance. We hope that we
may be able to join our forces with yours. That will not be easy

to do but I am confident that we can do it.

Page 79



INFORMATION PRIMER

National Youth Administration

Washington Auditorium, Washington, D. C.

Its Origin:

The National Youth Administration was established by Presi-

dent Roosevelt on June 26, 1935. “I have determined,” said the

President Upon establishing this administration, “that we shall do

something for the Nation’s unemployed youth because we can

ill afford to lose the skill and energy of these young men and

women.”

Authority:

The National Youth Administration was established by execu-

tive order of the President within the Works Progress Administra-

tion under the authority of the Emergency Relief Appropriation

Act of 1935.

Administrators:

Miss Josephine Roche, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, is

Chairman of the Executive Committee. The members of the

Executive Committee are: Arthur J. Altmeyer, Second Assistant

Secretary of Labor; John Studebaker, Commissioner, Office of

Education; M. L. Wilson, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture; Lee

Pressman, General Counsel, Resettlement Administration; Chester

H. McCall, Assistant to the Secretary of Commerce.

Charles H. Taussig is Chairman of the National Advisory

Committee.

Aubrey Williams, Assistant Administrator of the Federal Emer-

gency Relief Administration, is Executive Director of the N. Y. A.;

John J. Corson is Assistant Director.

Objectives:

The major objectives of the N. Y. A. are: (1) To find employ-

ment in private industry for unemployed youths, (2) to provide

employment for youth of certified relief families, at work relief

projects suited to their abilities and needs, (3) to provide voca-

tional training or retraining for youths without specific skills, (4)

to extend part-time employment to needy college students and

small cash assistance to needy high school students.

Scope:

All persons between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five years

of age who are no longer in attendance upon full-time school and

Page 80



are not regularly engaged in remunerative employment, come
within the general eligibility scope of the youth program. Youth
work relief employment will be open to young members of relief
families. Aid will be extended students desirous of pursuing their
college education who are financially unable to do so. This aid is
offered in the form of part-time employment. Financial aid, too,
will be made available in small amounts—not to exceed $6 per
month—to high school students requiring such aid for food, cloth-
ing, textbooks, carfare and other essentials if they are to continue
in school.

Children of families on rural resettlement projects, which in-
clude families of Subsistence Homesteads, Rural Rehabilitation
and Rural Resettlement are considered as having relief status for
purposes of high school aid.

All institutions of less than college grade, both publicly and
privately controlled (including parochial schools), are eligible to
participate in the program provided they are non-profit making
in character.

Local Relationship:

State Youth Divisions now being set up throughout the country
will administer the youth program in the several States. These
divisions are to be headed by Advisory Boards composed of repre-
sentatives of industry, labor, education and youth. Similar Boards
may be organized in cities and counties.

For Further Information:

Persons desiring further information as to eligibility require-
ments and local Youth Administration Activities should communi-
cate with the State Youth Division. (Watch the newspapers for
news regarding the establishment of these Divisions.) High
school and college aid information may be obtained through the
head of the institution to be attended.

Page 81



HANDCRAFTS:

HANDCRAFTS IN THE HOME

Beatrice L. Harrison

Director of Art Work

“The art of self-expression

by means of man’s most accomplished tool—his hands,
has become a recognized need

in our power-driven world.”

Handcrafts have served the call of social needs all through the

ages. In the earliest period they assisted man in controlling his

environmental needs—in the Middle Ages they answered the social
demands of economic security through home industries—while
today they serve to fulfil the demands of leisure time.

The Art of Self-Expression:

The art of self-expression by means of man’s most accom-

plished tool—his hands, has become a recognized need in our
power-driven world. Energy, released through utilization of

highly developed machines that ease the former burdens of manual

labor, gives to man the opportunity to yield to that atavistic urge

to do things with his hands, while the shorter working week gives

the time. This atavistic urge concurrent down the ages we had

almost lost in our highly developed industrial civilization. This

urge has power to stimulate man’s imagination and stir his crea-

tive ability, leads him to realize and experience a contentment, a

surety for which there was neither time, energy nor room during

our madly driven twenties. This urge, when developed, promises

a solution to that widespread groping toward an economic and

spiritual equilibrium which man so greatly craves.

From every side come requests for handcrafts that will not

only stimulate the imagination and develop the creative ability,

but will suggest adventures with all kinds and types of discarded

materials. . . . Out of old inner tubes, daily and Sunday news-

papers, empty tin cans, pieces of linoleum and oil cloth, bits of

gingham and calico, copper kettles and plumbing fixtures, burned

or useless aluminum pans and other such trappings can be evolved

a world of adventure and happiness. . . . Materials that at one

time went hastily, into the waste heap, today grow into interest-

ing favors, humorous entertainment or useful furnishings as hand-

crafters develop:

Page 82



Making Something Out of Nothing:

1 . Out of that old newspaper pile—papier-mache bowls, trays,
dishes, animal toys, puppet and marionette heads. The

printed advertisement section makes excellent drawing paper

for chalk, paint or crayon ideas, leaves for books and clipping

cases.

2. From that salvaged brass kettle, aluminum pan or wornout

tinware—card and ash trays, flower holders, fruit bowls, early
American bronze, as well as cookie cutters, table decorations

and party favors.

3. Out of that sheet or pillowcase no longer practical for its

initial purpose—a decorative wall hanging, picture map, foun-
dation for bodies of dolls and marionettes—rags for hooked
rugs.

4. After washing the gunny sack—a foundation for a hooked
rug, table mat, chair seat, a decorative school or knitting

bag; an attractive purse.

5. After scouring those empty tin cans—intriguing little ani-
mals, lights for the play theatre, brilliant ornaments for the

Christmas tree.

6. From your worn-out silk or cotton hose—puggy, fat little
dolls and animals, soft round balls, braided rugs and mats,

foundations for wigs.

7. From those bleached flour and sugar sacks—tye-dye
luncheon sets and scarfs, stenciled bean bags and colorful hot

pad holders.

8. From those piled-up empty corrugated boxes—a unique
modern bookcase or storage space for other craft materials;

handy file cases for pictures and articles of interest, amusing

doll houses; farm and city dwellings for the child’s play

period.

9. From those empty ice cream, salt and oatmeal boxes

—

round animal toys, doll cradles, as well as containers for but-

tons, paper fasteners, pins, thumb tacks, tacks and nails.

10. From those empty spools of used thread,—a spool doll,
teething rings, amusing spinning tops, curtain pulls, rollers

for the miniature shadow play theatre.

11. After breaking apart those wooden boxes, orange crates

or barrels—boats, toy trains, wooden pull toys, book ends, bird
houses, totem poles, markers for vegetable or flower gardens,

door stops, corner what-not shelves, puppet or marionette

theatres and other fascinating things.

Because of the absence of the cost of these raw materials, such

avenues of adventure are open to all. Were we to utilize this

Page 83



great wealth of usually discarded material, what an amazing quan-

tity of useful handcrafts could be given to the world of today and

tomorrow. Fascinating in conception, unique in design, rich in

color, and appealing in variety and texture, these handcrafts would

be most satisfying. Coupled with metal-craft, leather-craft,

photography, modeling, sewing and cooking, every need or desire

would be within the reach of man’s urge to be gratified by doing.

The Home Hobby Corner:

Through recreational and leisure time activities of church pro-

grams, educational curricula and social center services, hand-

craft problems have been developed to lead the individual, young

or old, to use spare time wisely. The greatest share of this spare

time is spent in the home. Only as the home is willing to de-

velop a place and attitude for the growth of any craft, can these

larger social agencies expect full development, full growth. With

that nook or corner in attic, basement, sun porch or back hallway

developed into a workable hobby-corner where the individual may

carry out his activities, these centers can begin to realize a fully

rounded measure of success.

Built of materials usually discarded these hobby-corners

would:

1. Hold as many crafts as there are individuals in the family,

for interests and capabilities are as variable as numbers them-

selves.

2. Develop a philosophy of cooperative living hardly possible

in the family life of today.

3. Allow a variety of choice that individual differences might

have opportunity to exert themselves.

4. Encourage development of more than one craft for not al-

ways is the first or second choice a true avocation.

5. Eliminate criticism—creativeness can only develop in a
place where it is neither cramped through unthinking criticism

nor hampered by overindulgent praise. Those who create have

a feeling for the product created and are the most severe critics

of their work.

6. Allow skill and technique to be an outcome, not a drive

or urge.

7. Develop, if possible, a plan for the marketing of worthy

products.

The day when America sees its homes assuming the responsi-

bility for the development of family handcrafts under its many

and varied roofs, is the day when all might expect to enjoy a real

American folk art.

Page 84



RECREATION:

RECREATION FOR WOMEN AND GIRLS

Mary J. Breen

National Recreation Association

“Recreation is interest—motivated activity.
—what we choose to do when we don’t have to.”

From the beginning of time, girls as well as boys, have had

their play ways, women as well as men their recreations, although

the leisure of women has been largely individual, self-initiated,

and in the main connected with home duties. Recently, however,

there have been many radical changes which have seriously af-

fected the lives of women and made it imperative that there be

some organized attempt to provide girls with the opportunity for

learning how to play and women with satisfying and wholesome

ways of using their free time.

Fifty years ago, America was predominantly a nation of small

towns and rural communities. Most homes were surrounded by

large front and back yards and were situated in the midst of open

country or were at least close enough so that woods, streams and

vacant lots were easily accessible. Streets were safe for play;

there were barns, sheds and animals; cellars, attics and porches

for playrooms and equipment. People were acquainted with their

neighbors, there was friendliness and social life readily available.

Young people lived at home with their families in stable neigh-

borhoods.

A GirPs Program:

But much of this has changed for reasons with which we are

all familiar. Girls have suffered from these changes as well as

boys. Play space for girls today is limited, as it is for boys.

Streets are equally dangerous for both. Mothers and daughters,

as well as fathers and sons, find themselves separated by the de-

mands of industry. Young women find it less possible to enter-

tain men friends in the home and are forced more and more to ac-

cept offerings of commercial recreation. Both girls and boys are

freer from parental authority than they were formerly, but for

the girl the change has been more violent and the effects more far-

reaching. The girl is taking part in activities which would have

been unthinkable for her grandmother, and she does not have

time-honored standards nor the wisdom of years of experience to

Page 85



guide her. The effects of this inexperience are not always easily

discernible, but the developments in the field of athletics indicate

what they might be in other fields. Having no example of their

own to follow, girls have taken the path played by men. In the

games they organized themselves under men instructors, to whom

they turned for assistance. There quickly developed too great an

emphasis on winning and on championships—neglect of the many
in training for the few—professionalism, excess publicity, lack of
regard for differences in the sexes

;
exploitation of star athletes

!

Leaders throughout the country have become increasingly con-

cerned that the mistakes and dangers, which developed in athletics

for boys and men, should not be repeated for girls and women, and

that emphasis should be placed on the joy of playing rather than

on the winning of championships.

This one illustration alone shows how important it is that

girls have a program based on their own needs—which takes into
account their physical structure, interest and experiences, not only

a girl’s personal experience, but the racial experience of women as

homemakers and mothers, which helps define the activities in

which a girl can participate without danger today.

Immediacy Not Emergency:

The problem of increased leisure is one of the most important

of the present day—for girls and women as well as boys and men.
It is fairly well agreed that even when the period of unemploy-

ment passes, the amount of leisure will not decrease greatly. In

our concern for the present day problems, we are apt to think in

terms of emergency programs. But if leisure has become chronic,

does the present situation create an emergency? I am inclined

to think it does not. It creates an immediacy. Something must

be done and done at once. But our objectives should be defined

in terms of a permanent and not an emergency program. In the

past we have been apt to think of recreation pretty much as a

time passer. A great many people still think of play in terms of
trapezes on the playground. To realize its fullest opportunities,

a recreation program must be designed so that it will not just drag

people through another year, but hold out to them the promise of

a richer life than they are now leading.

Does that mean that the would-be heavyweight champion of

the town who has built himself up from skin and bones during

his leisure hours is any less admirable than the man who makes

telescopes from old automobile parts and saves his money to buy

lenses, or even learns to grind one, and elects mathematics in order

to study the movement of planets? It does not. We must re-
member, as Clinch Caulkins says in the book, “Youth Never

Page 86



Comes Again,” “what is romance and power to one person is

cold mutton to another.” What is a rich and a full life to us is not

necessarily a rich and full life to another. In our recreation pro-

grams we must try to discover what most interests the individuals

whom we are trying to reach, and in planning a program for them,

we must endeavor to help them to realize their own individual po-

tentialities, through activities in which they can experience success

and find personal achievement and the satisfaction of doing some-

thing well. Sometimes we may feel a person’s motives for choos-

ing a certain activity are specious, that it has no permanent value

for himself or anyone else, that what we would choose for him is

more worthy. But though we may hope to raise tastes and

standards, and let us pray we can, we must keep in mind that we

shall have to start where we now stand.

Recreation Is Interest:

Recreation is interest—motivated activity. Someone has de-
fined it as what we choose to do when we don’t have to. If the

interest and free choice are not there, the activity is not recreation.

If a man plays golf only because his doctor tells him to, golf is not

recreation. If he plays golf only because he has nothing else to

do, neither is that recreation. But what then should a recreation

program include? If we remember the definition just given, we

will find that the whole world of work and learning offer them-

selves to the person who would put upon the counter an assortment

of leisure-time activities. It may be playing ball, or building ship

models, or giving one’s time and energy in the interest of charity

and social service. If it is done freely and without compulsion. If

it is done with joy, it is a worth while leisure time act.

Suppose we do accept these principles, what steps can we take

to provide opportunities for a richer and fuller leisure to the girl

from 16 to 25. First of all, we must discover, as best we can, her

needs and interests. We can generalize to some extent, and find
direction in this generalization, but in doing so, let us not forget

we are working with individuals, and that human beings defy

classification. If we do plan a program based on general princi-

ples, it must always be flexible enough so that it can be modified

for the girls who do not fit in.

The Business and Industrial Girl:

In general, the girls of this age with whom we come in contact
are either industrial girls or business girls. The business girl is

apt to be better educated, to have more social grace and playing

skill, to be more interested in creative and intellectual activities

than the industrial girl. Programs must take these differences into

Page 87



account. Industrial girls are interested in intellectual discussions,

music, dramatics, and in making beautiful things with their hands,

but because they have had less schooling, and usually a more

limited background, the leader’s approach must be more personal,

and the activities must be conducted on a less formal and more

intimate basis.

Both groups, however, are interested in sports, usually, how-

ever, the activities which are social as well as athletic—tennis,
swimming, canoeing, hiking, camping, ice-skating, appeal to both.

Both are interested in men—because this is the mating age—and
both should have many opportunities to take part in mixed group

activities—in a varied program that is not limited to social danc-
ing and bridge parties. Both should have the opportunity of giv-

ing service to others. The need is so great today, and an altruistic

interest developed early will stand young people in good stead in

later years when there is no longer the ability or opportunity to

take part in active recreation.

Future Skills:

Programs for girls of this age should give the opportunity

for immediate enjoyment, but should also develop interests and

skills for the future. Music, drama, crafts, an interest in reading

and conversation, an absorbing hobby, a love of the out-of-doors,

an articulate and intelligent interest in doing something for others

will endure when youth has passed and help make life richer and

more satisfying, and the middle years and old age a continuously

vital experience and not a time for mourning unfulfilled dreams.

Besides a consideration of the interests and abilities of the

people to be served, a recreational program requires facilities and

leadership. What are the facilities and leadership resources?

Facilities and Leadership:

First, let us take up the question of facilities. Schools, parish

houses, and local service clubs may have space or facilities avail-

able which could be utilized for recreational purposes. Then, too,

vacant stores might be used for this purpose. When planning a

program, a survey of facilities available in the community in

which you live, is the very first step.

The next is leadership. Funds may not be available to secure

the services of a good trained leader, so, naturally, we will have

to turn to volunteers. Here, too, a survey might be used to secure

leaders. The Girl and Boy Scout organization, Church groups,

probably school teachers, or young people just out of college and

unemployed, all are sources for leadership.

Page 88



In almost every community there are lay people interested in

the different sports, dramatics, music or crafts, who would prob-

ably be willing to devote some of their time to a program.

It is not necessary to spend a great deal of money, but it is

essential that a great deal of thought and time be given to ferret out

the local resources available. After this is completed, we can go

ahead and, under a competent person, set up a program to reach

the needs of our girls and women.

Training:

Training institutes, of course, are very much needed when con-

sidering the use of volunteer leaders. In this connection the

National Recreation Association would be very glad, if it can be

arranged, to help in this training work. Most communities have

local departments of Recreation with competent people in charge,

who would also be glad to help out in such training.

As leaders our problem, then, is not so much to find more

and more things to do. There are plenty of things to do, and

always have been right in our own communities. We must dis-
cover, however, novel ways of making them accessible, of doing

things with little or no money, of extending their range and in-

ducting our girls and women into their mysteries.

ORGANIZING THE COMMUNITY FOR RECREATION

Ella Gardner

Recreational Specialist, Children’s Bureau,

United States Department of Labor

“Parents and ever-watchful taxpayers

are beginning to acknowledge that play

is a part of education,

a necessity to a child’s growing up.”

We talk of recreation, play, and leisure, using the words inter-
changeably much of the time. They are not synonyms. Leisure

is time—unoccupied time. Recreation is diversion, refreshment of
body or mind. Play in the broadest sense of the word is an atti-

tude. Leisure cannot be pronounced as play nor yet as recreation.

Play may fill leisure for an adult but I doubt that a child can

be said to have leisure. Certainly his play differs vastly in its

meaning to him and to his parents. It is serious business to him

and unfortunately seldom seems of much importance to the adults

about him.

Page 89



The Use of Leisure:

Many years ago I read somewhere a statement that not until

man found leisure did any of the arts appear. Not until the voice

was not needed in hunting and battle cries could there have been

any singing. Not until there was time to look at the bowls and

baskets used every day was there an interest in beauty of line and

decoration. Not until man lay about in his cave did he begin to

decorate its walls. I am afraid we have no proof of these state-

ments though they sound reasonable. Certainly it has been true

with modern man that living has increasingly been recognized as

an art as there has been time for reflection upon the why and how

of his actions.

Leisure has crept upon us by degrees and not until very re-

cently has it been widely recognized and discussed. With the de-

pression has come the term, “New Leisure,” one of the few features

of the present social and economic situation that can be discussed

quite generally without violent disagreement.

The developments in recreation that have come in this century

have touched many sides of man’s education, social and spiritual

existence. Volumes have been written in recent years on various

phases of this subject. We shall briefly survey the changes that
have affected the schools, the municipal recreation agencies, the

church, and commercial amusements.

Schools:

First of all let us see how the play programs in the schools

have grown and changed. We found sports in the colleges at
the beginning of the century. There was also an attempt in some

places to supply an equipped play yard for use in elementary

schools at recess time. As might be expected, the justification

for increased attention in a play program was that outdoor sports

are healthful. But for the most part, it has been agreed today

that the social and mental values in play equal the physical ones.

The traveler sees playgrounds dotted with children and teachers,

gymnasium classes outdoors participating in team and simple

games, physical feats performed joyously for the delight to be

found in one’s ability and skill.

Increasingly we are discovering less emphasis on the develop-

ment of the star athlete and championship team and more on intra-

mural sports participated in by all who are interested. Of course

there are health values in all of this but play is not sold in this

fashion so much as it once was. The parents and ever watchful

taxpayers are beginning to acknowledge that play is a part of edu-

cation, a necessity to a child’s growing up.

Page 90



Courses With Carry-Over Value:

Not only are sports and recess play a part of the school’s pro-

gram. In 1918 the National Education Association accepted

training for the worthy use of leisure as one of the seven objectives

of secondary education. The educators realized that more than

physical education goes into training for living broadly and well.

Throughout the past twenty years there has been an increasing

tendency to enrich the school curriculum by adding courses with

carry-over value and to present work in the standard courses in

such a way that it would present avocational as well as vocational

possibilities. You are doubtlessly as familiar as I am with the

many clubs and extra curricular groups that cover art, music,

sketching, dancing, dramatics; crafts, wood-carving, weaving, shop

work, stenciling; sciences, minor sports,—hobbies and avocations
too numerous to try to list. They are given not simply that boys

and girls may find absorbing interests for their immediate free

time but that the hobby habit and the skills for following it may

be well established as a part of the child’s education.

Not only has the curriculum changed to permit education for

leisure but the school plants are being built for community use.

Early in the century experiments began with community center

programs housed in school buildings. It has grown slowly be-

cause of the difficulties in securing for it the whole-hearted sup-

port of school officials, but the depression has made the use of all

public facilities easier to attain and it is not likely that the schools

will go backward when the emergency is past. The wider use of

the school plant will continue and I believe that the time will

come when all school buildings will be equipped with facilities for

games, sports, dancing, and social activities as well as with labora-

tories, studios, and shops to be used by the community after

school hours.

Playgrounds and Recreation Centers:

As early as 1893 sand gardens were established in Boston and

a few other New England cities. These were especially planned
for small children in poor neighborhoods and were manned by

trained kindergartners. Very shortly afterward, outdoor gym-

nasiums were established for the older children who were attracted

to the gardens and from this beginning the interest in outdoor

play spaces grew quickly. Schools equipped their yards and cor-

ners of parks were laid out for playgrounds. The aim for some

time was to reach under-privileged children, but by 1915 the idea

had spread so that playgrounds were established for children of all

neighborhoods. Programs had developed to cover quite an exten-

Page 91



sive sports program and also one that included folk dances, simple

handcraft, story-telling, and games. While it remained in many

places a summer-time program yet the larger cities began to de-

velop year-round sport schedules and placed them in the hands of

trained workers. The work was still planned for children though

older boys and girls, especially older boys, were drawn in by the

team games, track meets, swimming, and other sports.

Community Recreation:

Just as baseball seemed to come out of the Civil War, so with

the World War came a tremendous development of interest in

community recreation. The State and Federal Government began

to appropriate funds for the purchase of lands and the develop-

ment of recreation programs. Private agencies became inter-

ested in providing opportunities for the recreation of the poor and

handicapped. Some of the large industries experimented with

supplying recreation activities for their employees. Although

some of all of this has continued, much of the early enthusiasm

for complicated equipment, elaborate facilities, and muscle build-

ing activities has given way to a minimum of equipment, a maxi-

mum of trained leadership, and a varied program. The play areas
are located in the home neighborhood for there is a feeling that

the neighborhood, rather than the house itself, is the family’s

home. Therefore, tax supported playground and recreation centers

are demanded by those citizens who are interested in community

affairs.

It is not merely facilities that are expected but also a well-

trained staff. Play leaders with physical education and special

recreation training, man the playground, which is likely to be

supervised by a person with some social work training and a broad

background of cultural and social experience. Sports still hold

an important place but the leaders endeavor to help individuals

to discover and develop cultural interests and hobbies that will last

throughout their lifetime. Adults and whole families as well as

children are cared for. There is a definite attempt to develop in

the community, a feeling of responsibility for the play program

and playground.

Cooperating Committees:

A development that has come with the depression is that of co-

operating committees. Representatives of all leisure-time agen-

cies in a community have been called together by an interested

individual or agency to consult upon the best use to make of the

emergency relief work. These groups have endeavored to examine

objectively the recreation program of their communities, to decide

Page 92



the most urgent needs in the light of the whole situation, and to

decide what agencies can best meet those needs. The privately

supported organizations, interested in the various phases of leisure-

time activities, have joined such committees. For the most part

the public agencies have continued to handle mass activities and

large group programs while the private agencies have gone on with

projects for individuals and small groups but in many places the

quality of the leisure-time program has improved considerably un-

der this plan and there is little doubt that it will continue.

Los Angeles Coordinating Council:

The Los Angeles Coordinating Council is a type of cooper-

ative program that has received considerable attention. The

object of the council is to conduct studies, surveys, and confer-

ences, in order to discover the individual children or groups of

children that need attention by either public or private agencies.

It aims also to stimulate the local community through representa-

tives of city and community organizations to face their responsi-

bility for community conditions and to work with the officials and

social workers in the community. Round tables are held for the

community leaders and considerable advance has been made in

their understanding and appreciation of each other’s program,

needs, and problems. This idea has spread to many cities in

California and in other sections of the country. The Coordinating

Council Bulletin published by the Los Angeles group is available

monthly and prints news of the councils wherever they exist.

It would be fascinating to attempt to peer into the future, to

try to foretell how radio, motion pictures, airplanes, motors, and

inventions yet unmade will affect the amount and use of leisure

time, but it is futile. So many and varied are man’s capabilities

and interests that the best we can do is to educate him from youth

to live fully and well, and then to supply him with facilities that

he may make use of his training.

REFERENCES

Challenge of Leisure. Arthur Newton Pack. Macmillan Co., New York.
1934.

Outline of Town and City Planning. Thomas Adams. Russell Sage Foun-
dation, New York. 1935.

Americans at Play. Jesse F. Steiner. McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York.
1933.

The Arts in American Life. F. P. Kippel and R. L. Duffus. McGraw-
Hill Book Co. 1933.

We Move in New Directions. H. A. Overstreet. W. W. Norton & Co., New
York. 1933.

Page 93



GIRLS IN RURAL COMMUNITIES

Rev. W. Howard Bishop

Past President, Catholic Rural Life Conference

“The home cannot stand the strain

of having its women

leave it.”

The tendency today is to educate our young people away from

the home. Young women leave the farm to go out and seek em-

ployment in business and industry. They do so, in many if not

most cases, in order to get something interesting to do. This

is little short of a calamity for it is a great loss to the home upon

which all 'our social structure rests. The home cannot stand the

strain of having its women leave it.

The Price of Independence:

The migration of rural youth to the city is likewise a great loss

to themselves. They seek independence. They may gain inde-

pendence from wholesome parental control and direction but they

pay for it in slavery to fixed hours and routine jobs. Only after

hours are they masters of their time. They seek interesting oc-

cupation. They find jobs with a pay envelope: they become cogs

in the great industrial or commercial machine and for this they

forfeit association with growing things, the interesting constructive

pursuit of making things grow.

The Present Opportunity:

Diminishing jobs, the paralysis of business and industry due

to the depression, are forcing rural youth to remain at home or to

wander. The girl has little choice but to remain at home. The

opportunity is ours to turn to account this situation and convince

the girl in the rural community that of all our population, the

people on the farms are the most independent: that in all the

gamut of human occupations, the home and the farm provide the

most constructive, the most interesting. If we succeed in this,

we will save our homes by educating home women.

Two Constructive Movements:

There are two movements that contribute to this result and

are well worth incorporating in all plans and programing that in-

clude rural youth. These are handcrafts or home industries and

the work of the 4-H Clubs. We may treat the latter first, since the

Page 94



program of the 4-H Clubs may have the double appeal of being

lucrative as well as interesting. Moreover, it answers the universal

desire of youth for association. Comparing notes, cooperation is

an essential of its program. They are in a true sense a club.

The 4-H Clubs:

For, the 4-H Clubs are groups of boys and girls who pledge

themselves to develop four phases of life, each of which phase may

be designated by the letter H, namely Head, Heart, Hands and

Health. The pledge of the 4-H Clubs runs as follows:

“I pledge

my head to clear thinking,

my heart to greater loyalty;

my hands to larger service, and

my health to better living

for my club, my community and my Country.”

I would strongly urge the inclusion of another H, to stand for

Home, since home is the nursery of life, the basic unit of the

community, the State, the Nation. Home is, in truth, even more

than this. It is the training ground for human beings for this

world and for their ultimate destiny—another great H, Heaven.
And, indeed, one might urge that the fundamental pledge of the

4-H Club member be directed to God as well as club, community

and Country. Youth is idealistic. Its aspirations will rise to the

goal suggested. The 4-H program is worthy to be, “For God and

Country.”

Working Out a Principle:

There is a scientific principle underlying the 4-H Club move-

ment. This principle is that the science of agriculture and the

science of homemaking are its foundations. To carry out this

principle, the organized groups of boys and girls undertake cer-

tain forms of project work, not merely to occupy leisure time with

constructive interest but to train themselves definitely for their

life work. The very genius of the 4-H Clubs is their constant

demonstration of the fact that in all project work results may be

controlled by the application of scientific method. “The whole

system of farm and home enterprises is set up under the principle

that an invariable chain of facts precedes good results and an

invariable chain, bad results; and that it is within the power of

the boys and girls to bring to pass with certainty that chain of

facts preceding good results and break the chain preceding bad

results.”

Page 95



Expert Guidance Available:

Since the 4-H Clubs are a part of the national agricultural ex-

tension system their work is developed under the guidance of

county agents who usually represent the State agricultural colleges

and are experts in the fields of agriculture and home economics.

Any parish priest or local rural group that may wish to organize

a club in a special rural district, may have at will the expert

guidance thus provided. The educational value of the 4-H Club is

insured through this expert guidance. The individual member

takes up some specific problem, the adult leader gives him the best

available information on his project which he must then apply.

Among the more popular activity units are, corn, calf, poultry,

garden, clothing, and house furnishing clubs. Some groups expect

their members to read several books a year or to learn a number

of songs, or games. Others stress nature study and require mem-

bers to distinguish native birds, trees and flowers of their own vi-

cinity. Attendance at meetings and active participation in pro-

grams help in the training of leaders. Some clubs stipulate that

each member shall take part in debate or make a report at a

regular meeting concerning one of his activities. Through or-

ganized club work these young people learn to work together and

develop the cooperation so greatly needed in rural life.

Handcrafts and Home Industries:

The revival of home industries and the cultivation of hand-

crafts has a direct bearing upon the integration of the rural girl in

her home environment. The training in handiwork must not be

conceived or undertaken so much as a means of producing revenue.

It should satisfy rather the natural feminine desire for beauty.

It satisfies, moreover, the creative instinct. It is a means of pro-

viding for the home things of comfort and beauty which otherwise

would have to be bought. It is a wholesome and satisfying

recreation which leaves substantial results. We may learn here
from the occupational therapist. If crafts can be used as a

curative force in hospitals and rehabilitation centers, why cannot

they be used in the home as a preventive measure? Why not
bring back into the home the industries and handcrafts that can

be carried on there? They will beautify the home and brighten

the lives of the young women with creative interest and satisfying

accomplishment. Surely the girl who is the master of her own de-

signing and production will achieve the highest independence in

her own home.

This should be the high aim in programing for the girl in the

rural community.

Page 96



SPORTS FOR GIRLS

Anna Rose Kimpel, M.A.

N. C. C. W. Field Representative for Youth

“We recognize our bodies
as temples of the Holy Spirit

and tabernacles of the race.”

“Conscientious men and women recognize their bodies as tem-

ples of the Holy Spirit and tabernacles of the race. With this in

mind, it follows that proper physical care and development of the

body for:

1. The preservation of health.

2. The use and increase of physical power.

3. The exercise of mental and moral power.

4. Emotional control in social relationships.

is a duty 'as well as a legitimate pleasure. Rational and well con-

ducted programs of physical education and athletics for girls have

these four purposes as a basic part of their platform and incorpo-

rate regulations looking toward their accomplishment. Athletics

have, therefore, a constructive purpose: they are not an end in

themselves.

“Whatever tends to re-create and increase power is constructive

and good.

Whatever tends to destroy and diminish power is destructive and

bad.”

Sports for Leisure and Health:

Since Physical Education is to build health and character, not

to destroy it, the first requisite for participation should be a strict

physical examination by a reputable physician. His recommenda-

tions should be carefully followed so that the girl may develop
a healthy, happy womanhood. Regular examinations should fol-

low to ascertain the value of the program to the girl.

Since Physical Education, like all education, should train for

life, sports of “carry over” value should be fostered—sports that
can be enjoyed anywhere with any group and not be limited to a

“team” set-up. With education for leisure in view, the following

program is suggested:

Page 97



Small Group Sports (to receive major attention)

:

Tennis

Golf

Archery

Badminton

Deck Tennis

Ping-pong

Shuffleboard

Dart ball

Swimming

Rowing

Canoeing

Sail boating

Skating

Bicycling

Hiking

Camping

Large Group Sports for Recreation and Friendship

:

(easily taught and easily played).

Volley ball Folk Dancing

Hit-pin

Newcomb

Dodge ball

Games of like nature

Team Games for Selective Group:

Basketball

Indoor or Soft-ball

Since our aim is the good of “the many” rather than the de-

velopment of “the few,” attention should be focused on individual

sports that will carry a lifelong interest and can be played with

friends everywhere; on play days and intramural games for the

fun and the joy of playing and, lastly, on the development of teams

of six or nine girls.

Page 98



CULTURE:

CULTURE AND CATHOLIC YOUTH

Sister M. Madeleva, Ph.D.

President, St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Ind.

“Catholic youth has not yet expressed itself

in America spiritually.*

It has it in its power

to remake the world.”

In his very significant book “The Bow in the Clouds,” E. I.
Watkins has said that progress consists in one-sided movements in
various directions. The present great and world-wide impulse by
which civilization advances is the Youth Movement. Patently, it
looks to the future, but quite as evidently it draws from the past.

Its terminology, its idealism are taken out of the world of chivalry

and the ages of the Crusades.

It is interesting to observe that the history of the Crusading

movement has been epitomized in our past quarter of a century,
and is culminating in our present organization of youth. The
eleventh century went out to reclaim the Holy Places of Christian-
ity, first, through the flower of its chivalry, then, through its

crowned heads, then, through the great hosts of its middle classes,

and finally, through its children. Whatever the Crusades did not
do, they made and kept Europe militantly Christian, they saved the
world from materialism, and transfigured it for youth even to this
day.

The Catholic Youth Movement:

Something analogous has been happening within our memory.
We, too, sent out the flower of our chivalry, of our legislators, and
our citizens “to save the world for democracy.” Today, we are
organizing our youth. The Catholic Youth Movement is not mere-
ly another one of the multiplied youth movements of the world.
It is different essentially, while sharing all the accidents of a uni-

versal system. Catholic youth is a baptized youth free from orig-
inal sin, and, for the most part, in the state of sanctifying grace.
These two facts lift the whole situation from the natural to the
supernatural plane. The culture possible upon such a level should
be a distinctive and a beautiful thing. By culture let us under-
stand the bringing to flower and fruit of the finest possibilities of
the Christian soul and mind in the sound and healthful Christian
body—the culture of the heart, the refinement of the soul.

Page 99



We Are the Sons of God:

The need for this culture arises from the fact that we are the

sons of God. If nobility obliges, then indeed the culture of Cath-

olic youth should be deific. The lack of culture, the effect of

crudeness among Catholics is often more devastating than a lack of

knowledge of our Faith, or carelessness in its practice. We find no
difficulty in stimulating missionary zeal for the poor and the igno-

rant, but the spiritual needs of the educated are peculiarly over-

looked arid ignored. Christ in the house of Simon the Leper

brought salvation through culture to a group of educated sinners

who became educated saints. We are peculiarly afraid of educa-
tion and culture as means or instruments of Christianity. We talk
so much of people reading themselves out of the Church. We
might advert to the Saint Pauls, and the Saint Augustines, and the

Newmans and the Bensons who have read themselves into the

Church, to say nothing of our great contemporary converts. But

where in our own ranks are they to find companionship of mind as

well as salvation of soul, if our Catholicity does not match its spir-

itual gifts with congruous culture.

Our Youth Movement is our peculiar opportunity. Newman’s

gentleman was a pagan, a perfect natural man. Grace builds on

nature. Catholic youth is definitely, infinitely different from all

other youth, baptized, sanctified. Catholic youth has a heavenly

duty to be refined, beautiful, cultured. Catholic youth, whatever

else it may be, should be the lady, the gentleman, the scholar, the

saint. The grace of God is in courtesy. That is manifest in per-

fect manners no less than in perfect morals. A chalice is not only

clean, but polished. We are not working for publicity but for per-
fection and may well learn from the children of this generation,

from the salesman, the athlete, the pilot to take pains literally, to

be perfect exponents of a Christian culture.

Education for God’s Sake:

Catholic youth should aim at a superlative education for a

superlative end. If education for its own sake stimulates a world

of students and motivates a myriad of universities, education for

God’s sake ought surely to be a comparable impulse. It should,

moreover, be intolerant alike of back-slapping, slovenliness and

arrogance, with no quarter at all for mediocrity or indifference.

The culture of Catholic Youth should be a holy culture; aimed at

the most sky-scraping ambition in the world. Catholic youth

should be bent upon divine aviation, spiritual broadcasting, and

listening in to the word of God, possessed of such beauty as Holly-

wood dreams not of, absolute in grace, and such heavenly loveliness

as are worthy of God.

Page 100



America has expressed itself in architecture, in locomotion for

the world to admire. America has not yet expressed itself in sanc-

tity. What the American boy and girl can do in the beauty and

culture of holiness has not yet appeared. The opportunity is ours,

the means are infinite. Material resources are not the sine qua non.

Efficiency is the devil’s perfect tool. We have grace. Have we

exhausted its power?

Positive Catholic Culture:

Granted that the Catholic youth program should include the

making of the lady and the gentleman, the scholar and the saint,

there are these suggestions of a possible program

:

(a) As much fair and fearless education as we can achieve;

(b) Divine discontent as against smug complacency;

(c) Accurate knowledge and information about some signifi-

cant periods or persons in Catholic history;

(d) A tolerance for others;
(e) An acquaintance with good art, music, architecture.

We may not like the statues of Chartres, but did we always like
artichokes or golf? Let us give ourselves a chance to like what is

good rather than what is gaudy. We are responsible for more mis-
representation and rejection of truth and faith through our atro-

cious pictures, statues, music, and literature than we will know

until the day of judgment. Dante’s most subtle circle of hell was

created for sins against art; that is, sins against Catholic culture.

In conclusion let us say that Catholic youth has not yet ex-

pressed itself in America spiritually. It has it in its power to re-

make our world. Let it be guided, let it be humble, let it be brave

to martyrdom. Let it make to America the contribution of the

gentleman, the woman, the scholar, the saint. This can be and

should be the perfect quest, the happiest, as it is the worthiest, ex-

perience on earth.

INFLUENCE OF DRAMA AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE
PASSION PLAY OF OBERAMMERGAU

Anton Lang, Jr., Ph.D.

Professor, Georgetown University

“We do not play to live:
We live to play.”

Only one who has lived in close contact with the people of

Oberammergau, can truly appreciate their life, habits and customs

and fully understand the idea that dominates the production of the

Page 101



Passion Play by the villagers every ten years. The number partici-

pating, two thousand six hundred, the evident oneness of spirit and

of purpose point to a community of need and a unity of mind and

soul as the essential soil from which this unique performance has

sprung and flowered.

Origin of the Passion Play

:

During the Thirty Years’ War, the Black Plague was ravaging

Europe, and mowing down thousands of people. The villagers of

Oberammergau turned their eyes to the Heavenly Father, asking

protection from this devastating evil of Him Who had “so loved
the world as to send His Only-begotten Son” for its redemption.

And they pledged themselves, by solemn vow, to enact every ten

years the scenes of the great drama of the Redemption in a Pas-

sion Play that would force men to their knees in repentance and

thanksgiving.

Conceived in a spirit of apostolate, rooted in a tradition of

prayer, the Passion Play developed, as a great act of worship under

the guidance of the Benedictine Fathers of Ettal. Through cen-

turies of hardship and difficulties, its mission endured and tri-

umphed, to celebrate, in 1934, the Tercentenary of its solemn en-

gagement with Heaven.

The Spirit of the Times:

The new age has brought new difficulties to Oberammergau.

The danger that threatens today is the spirit of modernization, of

commercialism which seeks to invade our village and to deflect our

people from their spiritual purpose, their high consecration, so little

understood by the world outside. Outsiders have an utterly erro-

neous impression of the basic thought in our lives, of our concept

of the Passion Play. They see only the crowds attracted to each

performance; in the consecrated impersonation of the hallowed

figures in the Sacred Drama, they see only an artistry that can

command a price. They fail to understand that we do not play to

live, we live to play. Today presents the most bitter fight of the

centuries for the preservation of our tradition. Temptation assails

us from within and without. The true Oberammergauer realizes

^that to corrupt our purpose is to destroy our production. The offer

of a million dollars for permission to take motion pictures of the

Passion Play, has been resolutely refused.

The Play Is Life

:

From earliest childhood the Play influences and shapes our

lives: to walk worthy of participation is the goal of every child.

As years advance, desire grows and, with it, a sense of the great

Page 102



responsibility of the players. From childhood to old age, all who

may play even the smallest part, all who are actually chosen as the

players, take the Play very seriously and prepare for it from the

very outset of life. This preparation is not a duty imposed by the

village authority, it is an essential factor in family life. There is

a distinct effort to make life conform to the Gospel which is read

and re-read in the family circle. During Easter Week, the text

of the Play absorbs the attention of each member of the family

unit.

Choosing the Players:

Integrity of character figures as a primary essential in the se-

lection of the players. This work is in the hands of a committee

over which the Burgomaster and the parish priest preside. All

are given opportunity to demonstrate their histrionic ability each

summer when the community puts on so-called practice plays.

These may be biblical plays or even secular plays.

Six months are devoted to the rehearsals of the Passion Play

once the choice of players is made. The Play season is from May

to September. It is estimated that 400,000 witnessed the perform-

ances in 1934, the Tercentenary year. Among them was the new

Leader of the Reich, Adolf Hitler, who expressed himself as deeply

impressed and desirous that the Play may never cease to be given

in the way in which it has been presented these three hundred years.

The costumes and scenery are made according to the designs of

Georg Lang, an Oberammergau sculptor, who also serves as Di-

rector of the Play. From his designs the stage has been set since

1930.

Prayer and the Play:

The Play season is opened by a Solemn High Mass and pil-

grimage. The Mass and Holy Communion are the great formative

influences in the lives of all the players. Before each perform-

ance, the players unite in public prayers behind the curtain. To

each and every player, every word, every gesture, every action of

the Play is in truth a prayer—a lifting of the mind and heart to
God in such a mighty surge of Faith and Love on the part of the

players as will sweep with it the minds and hearts of their audience.

To this end they are consecrated. And, when the season ends,

Oberammergau unites in prayers of thanksgiving with the one ear-

nest petition, that to all those who have witnessed the Passion

Play, it may have been and ever will be a means of grace.
Then, their mission ended for the time, the men and children

cut their hair, which had been allowed to grow for the Play, and

return to an everyday life upon which the Passion Play that has

Page 103



been, and the Passion Play that will be, exercises a directing influ-

ence. Life for them is an interlude that should be lived logically,

as an epilogue and a prologue to participation in the Drama of

Christ’s Passion.

Preserving Their Tradition :

The influence of drama has been recognized by the Church

through the ages. In its pristine days, drama was conceived as the

handmaid of religion. Its power to influence was mobilized for

good as truly as today, alas! it is so generally mobilized for evil or

is rendered negative for lack of thought to give it worth and spirit.

Through their persistent consecration of the power of drama to

the Divine theme of Redemption: through the evident influence of

this consecration on the lives of the people and the atmosphere of

the village, Oberammergau has given a striking example of what

the influence of drama may be. This influence may not be neg-

lected in any program for the formation of youth. But to render

it effective, drama must be thoughtful, it must be true, it must

have an ideal.

The people of Oberammergau are as human as anybody else.

To walk worthy of the ideal they have set for themselves, they

must pray and continue to pray that their Play may never fall

short of its Ideal. They can never for a moment forget that noth-

ing short of this Ideal can give to the world that which it so sorely

needs : that this Ideal alone can help mankind in its quest for good,

for GOD.

PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF THE DRAMA

Rev. William A. Clark, O.P.

Past Director of the Blackfriars’ Guild, of Washington , D. C.

“Efficient dramatic organizations are possible.

Efficient dramatic organizations with high ideals are possible.

Efficient dramatic organizations with high Catholic ideals

must become more than a possibility.”

Out of my experience with the production end of drama, as Di-

rector of the Blackfriars’ Guild, I shall endeavor to outline a plan

of practical measures that have worked and are working for the

successful presentation of good plays.

The Power of Drama:

We will all agree, no doubt, that the drama is a tremendous
power in this, the heyday of propaganda. Its influence is being

noticed and capitalized by every organization that wishes to put

Page 104



over an idea. Just call to mind the many commercial radio pro-

grams as witness of this truth. Almost all advertisement capi-

talizes on the dramatic. A mere glance at the theatre page in a

New York paper will reveal any number of plays that are cer-

tainly “being talked about,” and “being talked about” because

they are propaganda plays. “Waiting for Lefty,” “Till the
Day

I die,” “Tobacco Road,” “Black Pit” are four plays that do not

deny their propaganda content. They played to packed houses.

But where are our Catholic plays that teach Catholic Social doc-

trine?—Do not call them propaganda plays, if you dislike that

word because it has come to be associated almost entirely with un-

wholesome activities. Yet the word comes from the name of that

body of the hierarchy and clergy in the Catholic Church which

has as its purpose the propagation of the Faith.

The fact that there are not enough of these good plays is one

of the reasons for the existence of the Blackfriars’ Guild. We hope

some day to have sufficient endowment to finance the writing of

plays that will interpret the teachings of the Catholic
Church,

plays that will not need apology either for content or for author.

But let us turn now to the practical working of the Guild as it

chooses a play and let us follow it step by step until the curtain has

been lowered on the last scene.

The Play-Reading Committee:

A Blackfriars’ play comes to life as far as the Guild is con-

cerned in the meetings of the play-reading Committee. This Com-

mittee is composed of persons, who in the judgment of the presi-

dent and his executive council, are thought to interpret best the

purpose of the Guild and to choose plays that will fit positively into

the program of the Legion of Decency. The personnel includes

a lawyer, two school teachers, a man and a woman of playwright

ability and a man who at one time was on the drama staff of a local

newspaper. These persons meet and discuss suggestions that have

come from other members of the Guild and from outsiders as well

as suggestions that they themselves wish to make. Their plays

are selected for consideration and are assigned to individuals who

are to prepare written reviews for study by the Committee.

One of the more important things, other than the intrinsic merit

of a play, to be considered by the Play-reading Committee is the

question of finances. Here the problem of royalties looms largest.

If the play is a Broadway success, or even if it isn’t, but has been

copyrighted, there is generally a royalty of at least twenty-five

dollars for each performance at which admissions are charged. A

solution to this difficulty of royalties, is to produce original plays.

Perhaps the original plays are not so desirable from an artistic

Page 105



point of view, but they help make possible the production of more

plays, by reducing the drain on the finances.

Casting the Play:

After the play has been chosen by the Committee, a report is

made at a business meeting of the entire organization, sufficient

copies of the play are obtained, and the business of casting is

planned. A definite time and place are selected for casting the
play. The director is sometimes the sole judge of whom shall be

chosen to act each role and sometimes the job is assigned to a spe-

cial committee.

The Publicity Committee:

During all of this time the Publicity Committee is functioning,

keeping the public informed of the various stages in the develop-

ment of the play. If the program has been arranged for the whole

season, the first announcement is made as soon as the cast has been

chosen for a particular play, including notes of past performances

by individuals in former plays, and always a brief reminder of

some outstanding production of the group and a tentative schedule

for the future. Articles, to be accepted for publication in the dra-

matic column of the local newspapers are to be sent to the papers.

They must be as neat as possible, and of course, typed. Photo-

graphs are good “copy,” especially those of attractive ingenues. A
short article with photographic illustration is worth more than a

long article of just plain cold type. The Publicity Committee

must be alert for opportunities to keep the public well-informed

of the progress of rehearsals. Their activities increase in direct

proportion as the play progresses.

If the play is outstanding in any way and the players have per-

formed acceptably in the past, newspaper reporters usually witness

the play on the first night. If, however, reporters are not present,

the Publicity Committee must have reviews on the dramatic edi-

tor’s desk before midnight for publication in the morning papers.

Another method of advertising is to send postal cards with the

name of the play, dates of performance, and cast to prospective

patrons. The acquisition of a mailing list, however, is a long

process of trial and error, and it is so elusive of check-up as to

merit the term uncertain.

Rehearsals

:

The play is now in the hands of the newly chosen cast and the

director. Time and Place are to be chosen for rehearsals. For

some plays the rehearsals must be longer and more frequent than

for others, as is easily understood. For an amateur group, how-

Page 106



ever, the absolute minimum might be set at three rehearsals
per

week for four weeks for each full-length play. An important point

in the maintenance of discipline and efficiency is to have
the re-

hearsals begin on time and stop on time. Two hours of solid work,

or two and a half hours with a brief recess is most conducive to
fa-

vorable progress at each rehearsal. This supposes, however,
that

each individual in each role is doing his or her share of
the work.

When a time limit for the use of manuscripts is set and maintained,

better results are obtained than when the use of scripts is tolerated

even up to the time of the dress rehearsal.

The Dress Rehearsal:

The play should be technically ready for the public before the

dress rehearsal. Much benefit, however, can be derived from this

performance. The first, and most obvious benefit to be derived from

the dress rehearsal is that of enabling the members of the cast to

familiarize themselves with the costumes. When some very odd

costume is necessary, a good procedure is to have that person wear

it at several rehearsals, and when properties are involved, they too

should be used at rehearsals. If the stage is fully set several re-

hearsals in advance of the dress rehearsal it will be of very great

value to the cast and the director, and this especially where there

are a number of persons on the stage at one time.

The dress rehearsal should always, if possible, be before an

audience because the reactions of the audience help the cast and

director in interpretation. Proper timing for “laugh-lines” are

best determined in actual experiment in just this situation. Many

good lines following “laugh-lines” are completely obliterated be-

cause the director subjectively misinterpreted the audience re-

action. Some actors have said that they can feel the interest of the

audience, and that they received confidence in their parts.

The Prompter:

The prompter should be chosen almost as carefully as a mem-

ber of the cast, and should have nothing else to do. He should be

on hand for rehearsals where books are not being used, and should

rehearse his part as carefully as the actors do their parts. By that

is meant that the prompter should practice a whisper that can be

heard by the cast, yet not heard by the audience.

The Stage:

Now that we have the play through the dress rehearsal, a few

words about the stage will not be out of place. There are three

possible ways of preparing the stage adequately for a play; three

Page 107



accepted ways, depending upon the standard of artistic merit

aimed at. The most simple and most practical for small places

where there are neither curtain nor wings, is the use of ordinary

folding screens. These can be arranged on the side of the place

or platform to be used as the stage, and from behind them the

actors and actreses make their entrances. They might be used too

as backdrops, to cover a window or door that would distract from

the action. This expedient is often resorted to where short one-act

plays are part of a longer program of entertainment.

The second way is the use of regular sets, with windows and

doors and stairways. This, of course, is more expensive, and sup-

poses a stage is to be used. It requires labor, a great deal of labor

when the group is to make its own sets, and to make them so that

they will form the proper illusion of reality.

A third way, the use of a simple curtain drop, is much less
troublesome though a greater strain on the imaginative powers of

the audience. It is popular even on Broadway.

The First Night:

Finally, after several weeks of rehearsal, the cast is ready for

the premiere showing of the drama. Then many small but im-

portant duties must be assigned to workmen. The hall committee

must see that the auditorium is properly heated, lighted, and venti-

lated. Clothes racks or checking stands must be provided. Ughers

with programs, ticket takers and cashiers with convenient change

must serve the patrons with courtesy and celerity. The show

should begin on time, and the intermissions should be properly

spaced, not too long, not too short. If the play is interesting, the

audience does not mind a short intermission; but it does object

to a long intermission regardless of how meritorious the per-

formance is. The intermission affords an excellent opportunity for

the sponsor to address the audience. Instrumental music during

the intermission is highly desirable if the music can be made to fit

the theme of the play; but if it is to be a distraction rather than

a further entertainment or liaison between acts it were better

omitted.

The Social Element:

Thus far we have considered simply the activity of a purely

dramatic group and how it functions in the actual production of a

play—real spade work. But where there are many young people,
too great a concentration on this serious work dampens the ardor.

The purely dramatic group may to its advantage utilize the so-

cial idea to further its aims and to help introduce its organization

to interested and interesting people. Where dramatics is closely



combined with a social organization, the two activities can well

be intertwined.

Social games and extemporaneous entertainment often be-

come occasions of discovering new talent among club members.

The now popular “amateur night” often encourages otherwise

backward performers and serves as a testing ground for histrionic

ability.

We have taken as our model an organization of sufficient mem-
bers to make committee work possible. But in all of these activi-

ties the numbers can be reduced to a minimum. It is, however, de-

sirable that each member of the organization be active on some

committee or engaged in some activity that adds to the efficiency

of the organization.

Efficient dramatic organizations are possible. Efficient dra-

matic organizations with high ideals are possible. Efficient dra-

matic organizations with high Catholic ideals must become more

than a possibility if we are to construct an efficient, active, positive

program to go hand-in-hand with the program of the Legion of

Decency.

A CULTURAL PROGRAM FOR YOUTH

Mrs. William C. Hammer

Former Artistic Director and General Manager,

Philadelphia Grand Opera Company

“An appreciation of

not only the highest forms of art

but the finer things of life

is essential

to the development of youth.”

Youth must be guided, encouraged and appreciated. It must

be given something to do worth doing and the opportunity to ex-

press itself through cultural channels. In the large opportunity

which my former position gave me for meeting and appraising
youth, I became convinced that, given an opportunity, youth never

fails. Lack of proper guidance and encouragement, of satisfying

opportunity is responsible for the position in which youth finds it-

self today.

The New Freedom:

Young women have been stampeded by the onrush of oppor-

tunities and avocations of which their grandmothers never

dreamed. They have been intoxicated by the freedom to appro-

Page 109



priate habits hitherto supposed to be the sole privilege of their

brothers. Have their elders so kept their heads and ruled their

hearts in this woman’s era as to impress youth with the high honor

and fine art of being a woman? In their struggle for “rights,”

have they counted the cost or remembered that men have always

wanted to protect women, not because they thought them inferior

but because they wanted to look up to them for inspiration? No,

we elders can ill afford to criticize currents we have not stemmed,

indeed which we have, in many cases precipitated. What we can

and must do is to help youth to build constructively out of the rich

experience of our own failures.

The Womanly Woman:

First of desirable accomplishments, perhaps, in an age when

women have an unparalleled chance to prove that they can work

with men, not against them, is to master the great art of being

feminine. We women contribute our best to the world by develop-
ing those distinctive qualities every womanly woman is supposed

to possess—kindness, gentleness, modesty, thoughtfulness. By do-
ing this, we prove our worth as women; we prove an inspiration

to men. Every program for young women, today, must find a

place and a way to cultivate the fine art of being a woman. With-

out this foundation, culture, for the girl, is mere veneer.

The Finer Things of Life:

In this age, when so much emphasis is placed on material

things, appreciation of the finer things of life is essential for the

development of youth. Balance, orientation depend upon a sense

of the empire of the spiritual. There can be no culture without

God. Upon the wings of spiritual culture, youth may soar, surely

and happily, into the realms of appreciation of the highest forms

of art. It is well for us in our Catholic programs to recall and re-

construct the relations between art and religion. Of all people we

may build our youth program on a firm and satisfactory basis.

The Place of Music:

Out of my experience, I would suggest and plead for the in-

tegration of music in every program for youth.

Music is a plane upon which minds meet and speak, one to the

other. Music is the most potent agent for inducing men to

forget their differences. Music can be shown to have a direct

influence upon business. Music has a direct influence upon

listener and performer.

Page no



A survey of this country shows that 679 Industries maintain

in part or in full 911 musical organizations in which there are

50,000 participants. Reports show, as a consequence, improve-

ment in work, happier workers and a higher standard of living.

Musical opportunity is a potent magnet for drawing and hold-

ing the interest of many, young and old, who come from countries

where music was the very atmosphere they breathed : who pine for

it in the drive of American business life and are like to be dulled

and hardened for the lack of it.

Each Community, each Parish could easily organize any one

or more of the following groups: Community Chorus
,
Mixed

Chorus, Women’s Chorus, Men’s Chorus, Opera, Orchestra, de-

pending on the taste and talent to be drawn upon.

How to Organize:

Of course a Music Director must be carefully chosen as a first

step in organization and the music selected must be that suited to

the taste of the group. The work is apt to fall flat after the first

enthusiasm wanes unless it is fanned by a definite incentive. The

best incentive and reward is the opportunity held out for a public

performance. The performance should be first for friends or a

limited group, the size of the audience and its importance grow-

ing with the development of the Music Club, or whatever it may

be called.

Opera:

If opera is the aim of the group, a simple opera, preferably in

English, should be selected and a date for its public performance

set, at least, one year ahead. Weekly rehearsals should be

planned. They may be sectional, especially at first, but they must

always be with the Director, else errors and carelessnesses, diffi-

cult and painful to correct, creep in. Perhaps one of the greatest

advantages of putting on an opera is that it affords so many inter-

esting posts to be filled by such a great variety of people. This

gives it a group or community value hard to excel.

Chorus Work:

But, perhaps, your group may prefer chorus work. For a
Mixed Chorus it would be wise to select one of Handel’s great

works—The Messiah, for instance, and plan the .public per-
formance for Christmas Week. For a Men’s Chorus nothing could

be more constructive or delightful than liturgical music. A strik-
ing first public appearance might be at the Christmas or Easter

Mass. There is an almost infinite amount of Catholic culture that

can be? developed in association with liturgical music. It is par-

Page 111



ticularly appropriate for men and boys, yet today women’s voices

are being used and so liturgical music for congregational singing

is a practical program for girls and young women, also. The

Community Chorus is very inviting inasmuch as it may include all

ages. There is an immense repertoire from which selection can be

made. Perhaps the best time for scheduling a performance would

be National Music Week.

Orchestra:

Orchestra presents a much more difficult problem. It demands

more work and also the cost of instruments is involved. But if

players are available with some training, the assembling of an

orchestra does not present impossible obstacles. There is a wealth

of program material and, naturally, many opportunities for per-

formances. A Parish or Community orchestra is much in demand
and lends delight to many occasions. It is fruitful, as are most of

these suggestions on musical possibilities, in bringing together,

uniting in a common interest and so welding elements which,

otherwise, might never get together in that bond of unity which

should be distinctively Catholic and most desirably American.

In addition to the practical programs suggested, music appre-

ciation may be developed, with consequent enrichment, through

reading and discussing books on music and musicians. Radio pro-

grams, local opera or concerts might form the basis of a discussion

or study group with great profit. These suggestions are practical

because they have been tried out with marked success.

A Cultural Program:

A cultural program for youth need not impose standards. It
must have them. It must present the best and so present it as to

please and to win to the love of the best. Given the opportunity

to know the best, youth will respond beyond all expectation.

Youth craves beauty with an intensity often dimmed in age. To

satisfy this craving, it often seizes upon what is tawdry and flimsy,

upon experiences that cannot satisfy. The duty of those who love

youth and sense its quality, is to offer beauty worthy of the name,

a reflection of the Divine Beauty for Wihom, without the know-

ing, it craves.

Page 112



LIBRARIES AND CATHOLIC YOUTH

Lucille Walsh

Assistant Readers’ Adviser in Sociology,

Public Library
,
Washington, D. C.

“It is the Library’s job

to get the book

to the reader.”

In this day of curtailed budgets it is encouraging to dwell on

that word which usually precedes public library—namely, “free.”
The Free Public Library because it is tax supported can make no
charge for any of its many and varied services. I often think
that the public at large and individual groups in particular do not

take full advantage of these services, usually through lack of in-

formation—they do not know about them and it never occurs to
them to ask.

Cooperation:

As to cooperation between a public library and a youth move-

ment, I think there should be a very close one. Books will

naturally play a large part in the recreation and leisure time activi-

ties and. adult education sections of the program, and it is the li-

brary’s job to get the book to the reader. One library with which
I am familiar operates a small library once a week in a settlement
house and thus gets books to a group of people who would never
get them otherwise.

Advice and Assistance:

Adult education is carried on in every library through readers’

advisers who are specialists in different subjects, anxious to help
the individual with his reading problems and map out reading
courses for him.

The reference assistants in public libraries will furnish bibli-
ographies and aid in the planning of club programs for the indi-

vidual or group.

If your job is trying to get books for the youth who from lack
of interest or interrupted education is yet awkward in the me-
chanics of reading, the library once more comes to your aid. Re-
cently a list of books called “The Hoit List” (to be found in any
public library) has been published, which lists easy books on many
subjects. A committee has read all these books and chosen only
those with the shortest words and most simply expressed ideas.

In the field of vocational guidance, or the development of the

individual personality, music or the fine arts, political science or

Page 113



international relations, gold fish culture or mechanical engineering,

the Public Library stands ready to help youth and those agencies

which are helping youth.

Libraries Open to Suggestion:

These are only a few of the many services which are part of the

daily routine of every librarian. Others will occur, daily, to the

worker in the field of recreation and educational activities for

youth. The public libraries will be only too glad to render any

possible service.

The National Youth Administration has already announced its

intention of utilizing public libraries to the fullest. It is to be

hoped that the Catholic Movement will not be less progressive.

THE CULTIVATION OF JOY

Sister Josephine Rosaire

Dean Mount Saint Vincent’s College

“The world needs more joy

!

The Divine Model of all model teachers

made people happy

and then they wanted to be good.”

,1
We are gathered here in the interests of the Youth of our land,

in cooperation with the Federal Government in its desire to come

to their relief. Our President’s plan as to organization, scope

and its various phases is well known to you all.

We have seen that Holy Mother Church has not been behind

—

She never is. The outlines of the various fields of endeavor in

Catholic Action for her children young and old, have proved to

us that she is not only abreast of the times, but in advance.

Directing Leisure:

Although Holy Church has covered so well the fields of ac-

tivity: religious, educational, intellectual and cultural, there is a

special field in which She now needs Catholic leaders. Today

there are fewer hours given to work, more hours allowed for

leisure. Recreation needs to be organized. Leisure time needs

to be directed happily.

The Strategic Point of Youth:

The period of youth or adolescence is a period of change and

readjustment. The youth is filled with desires before he or she

Page 114



has developed the corresponding inhibitions. This period is one

of the strategic points in the life of the individual. The adult saint

or sinner is likely to be such because he or she was a saintly or a

sinful adolescent. Hence we need leaders in this special field

—

volunteers to direct the free time of the adolescent. The qualifica-

tions for such leadership are willing hearts and hands, love for the

work and confidence in God. Their compensation is the joy which

comes from service—a spiritual joy of which selfish individuals
know nothing.

The World Needs More Joy:

The world needs more joy and needs it in abundance. As with

child, so with the adolescent and with the adult. Some one has

said, “Make children good and you’ll make them happy.” The

Divine Model of all model teachers, “made people happy and then

they wanted to be good.” Was not this His method of making

them His followers? With all reverence let us recall His play-

fulness in giving sweet surprises to others: the miracle at Cana;

the breakfast prepared by Him on the shore of the lake for the

weary fishermen; the disciples at Emmaus. A noted writer has
said that the sweetest joy he ever experienced was to plan a pleas-

ant surprise for some one else and have him find it out by acci-

dent. How true are the poet’s words, “He who joy would win
must share it, for happiness was born a twin.” One can be glad.

It takes two to be happy. Happiness is communicated joy.

The Spirit of Leadership:

A response to the call for volunteers in the work of expanding
and cultivating the field of leisure-time activities for the boys and

girls of the adolescent period should be forthcoming from such

a group as this. Under competent leadership, direct their leisure

into safe channels; watch over their friendships; oversee their

reading; foster self-reliance; train them to give up the present de-

sire for a future good. Inculcate in them, by your own example,

a love for what is “true, pure, beautiful and of good report,” as

Saint Paul tells us.

We have but one life to live. If there be any good that we can
do, let us do it now; for we shall not pass this way again. Be

the sweet odor of a good diffiused. Then “men at your side will

grow nobler, girls purer; and through the whole town, the young

will be happy to pluck at your gown.”

Page 115



STUDY

STUDY CLUBS AND SOURCE MATERIAL

Rev. Raymond A. McGowan

Assistant Director, Social Action Department,

National Catholic Welfare Conference

“Get as good a leader as possible,

and let the whole group study

and learn together.”

In family life, in business life, in civic life, each individual

Catholic meets a constant challenge to know accurately, to think

correctly, to act intelligently and conscientiously. To meet this

challenge, he must read, he must study. And the best way to study

is to study together with others. This is the origin of all Study

Clubs. For the formation of Catholic Study Clubs, there are two

very specific reasons.

Why the Study Club?

First of all, Catholics ought to tie up their reading and study

with their religion. If religion has no part in their reading and

their study, they may divorce religion from their intellectual life

and come to think it so unimportant that even Faith may suffer

loss.

In the second place, if Catholics are to know Catholic social

teaching so as to apply it to their lives and to their modes of thought,

it is necessary to study and to study hard, Catholic texts. These

texts with outlines and explanatory notes can be secured and as-

sistance may always be had from the N. C. W. C. Department of

Social Action.

But just what is a Study Club and how does it work?

What Is a Study Club?

A Study Club is not a group of persons who sit down and listen

to some one talk. We have had enough of that. It is a group of
people who sit together and talk together and work the subject

under consideration out together themselves. It is an informal or-

ganization, where ten or twelve or fifteen persons, at most, come

together once or twice a week or every two weeks or once a month,

if they cannot meet oftener. Then together, they follow in a regu-

lar order some one topic that interests them particularly. They

select the topic themselves; the topic is not foisted upon them.

Whatever they are interested in, let them take that up and follow

it through, with the assistance of a leader, who is not expected,

Page 116



necessarily, to have a great deal of information. The leader is

more a mentor who holds the Club to a consecutive order in the

chosen topic or group of topics, chosen because interesting and

important to its membership.

In winning youth to participation in the study club, it might

be suggested how much more interested they would be in school

or in college were they able to select their own subjects; how much

more interested they would be, could they select their own teachers.

Now this is exactly what is done in a study club. It is a club in

which the students pick their subjects and pick their own teachers.

You start out in that informal way, with a right to choose both

topic and teacher, and, after all, the teacher not being a teacher

at all, each one is equally responsible for arousing interest and ab-

sorbing information.

The Obligations of Leisure:

If many have more leisure time today than ever before, that

means they have more obligations than ever before because leisure

time is not something one is free to waste. It is a talent that is to

be used and not to be wrapped in a napkin and buried in the earth.

The Study Club is a method of using that leisure time and using

it well.

Although it is interesting, the Study Club is difficult. It is in-

teresting because it is informal. It is difficult because it takes up a

study and takes it up consecutively and logically and it forces its

members to think. And few people like to think.

But that brings us back to where we started. If we are going

to live and take an intelligent part in any phase of life, especially

in a time when society is in the re-making, we must know and we

must think. If we are going to make an intelligent contribution to

the re-making of society and a conscientious one as Catholics, we

must know what the Church has to say on every subject
;
we must

think it through and we must be able to stand on our feet and ex-

press the mind of the Church. To do this we must study to know

it
;
we must think to make it our own

;
we must apply it in our own

lives to win others to apply it also.

Leadership and Materials:

Today source materials abound. The National Council of

Catholic Women will act as your channel to tap the resources of all
the Departments of the National Catholic Welfare Conference for

material, outlines, suggestions along the lines of the study of your

choice.

Get as good a leader as possible and let the whole, group study

and learn together.

Page 117



SOURCE MATERIAL

Industrial Problems

:

Pope Leo XIII—Encyclical: “Rerum Novarum.”

Pope Pius XI—‘Encyclical: “Forty Years After.”
“Some Timely Commentaries on a Great Encyclical,” by N. C. W. C.

“Towards Social Justice,” Rev. R. A. McGowan.

“The Economic Organization of Society and the Encyclical,” Roy A.

Brownson.

“A Study of Unemployment,” Rev. R. A. McGowan.

“A Statement of the Present Crisis,” Bishops of the Administrative Com-

mittee, N. C. W. C.

“Permanent Preventives of Unemployment,” John A. Ryan, D.D., Ph.D.

“Unemployment: What Can Be Done About It?”, John A. Ryan,

D.D., Ph.D.

“Bishops’ Program of Social Reconstruction.”

“Industrial Question and the Bishops’ Pastoral Letter.”

“The Catholic Teaching on Our Industrial System.”

“The Christian Doctrine of Property,” John A. Ryan, D.D.

“Property—Organization—^Government Action,” Rev. R. A. McGowan.
“Capital and Labor,” John A. Ryan, D.D.

“Rights and Wrongs in Industry,” Francis J. Haas, Ph.D.

“The Labor Problem—What It Is—How to Solve It,”— John A. Ryan,
D.D., Rev. R. A. McGowan.

Marriage

:

“N. C. W. C. Outline on Encyclical on Christian Marriage,” Analysis by

Patrick J. Ward.

“Outline on Pius XI’s Latest Word (Christian Marriage),” Rev. Otto

Oohauz, S.J.

“Outline Study—'Marriage,” Bakewell Morrison, S.J.
“N. C. W. C. Outline on Encyclical on Christian Education of Youth.”

The Family:

“An Introductory Study of the Family,” Edgar Schmiedeler, O.S.B., Ph.D.

“Conserving the Family,” Rev. Edgar Schmiedeler, O.S.B., Ph.D.

International Question and Relations:

“International Ethics.”

“Causes of War—Security Old and New.”
“Latin America and the United States.”

“Syllabus on International Relations for Schools.”

The Mass in Four Groups:

The first group follows the symbolic procedure of the priest vesting for

Mass.

The second group focuses immediately on the Sacrifice

—

the Action of

the Mass.

The third group develops the history and meaning of sacrifice—the
Liturgical Life.

In the fourth group we place a general study of the liturgy, beginning
with the Mass and capable of endless and fascinating development

—

the ritual for the administration of the Sacraments, the various bless-

ings, consecrations, etc.

Page 118



INTELLIGENT PARTICIPATORS

Mrs. Frank O’Hara

Washington, D. C.

“If we are to be intelligent participators,

we must learn what the Church is

as the Mystical Body of Christ,

and what our part in it is.”

The Church Militant is going forward on another of its gallant

crusades—the Youth Movement. The Church, of course, never
relaxes her vigilance, but circumstances often make it necessary to

hold in abeyance activity along certain fronts. It seems to me that

within the last few decades conditions have been shaping them-

selves in such a way that at this time we may say with added em-

phasis, “Now is the acceptable time” to open activity along some

of these hitherto quiet fronts. This is the glorious privilege of our

Catholic youth of today.

Laying Aside “Siege Mentality”:

There is a point that I should like to put before those inter-

ested in study clubs, especially religious study clubs. It is related

to the attitude our youth should have toward the part they are to

play in the furthering of the Kingdom of Christ. This is the

thought. The time is ripe when we may lay down our “siege

mentality,” engendered by the necessities for defense laid upon us

by the so-called reformers of the sixteenth century and hindering

us, unduly, ever since in our God-given business of offensive war-

fare in the cause of Christ. We are no longer in a state of siege,
which at best is only a negative state; we are armed with Truth,

and that fact lays upon us the obligation to go forward in a defi-

nite, positive way.

This does not mean that we are in any way to presume to take

upon ourselves leadership that belongs to the clergy. Far from

that. The clergy are our divinely appointed leaders and it is only

when they are in the forefront of the battle that our organization

is right. But it means this, that it is now the time to wake from

sleep, to rise from fear, or from whatever sort of lethargy that has

been holding us in thrall and to throw all our activities, under the

leadership of the clergy, into the offensive warfare that the Church

must ever wage.

Lay Lethargy:

I think we have all seen, in story books of pioneer life, pictures

of the attacks of Indians upon the dwellings of the pioneer families.

The father of the family, its natural defender, is seen going for-

ward to meet the onset, armed with axe or gun, in an attempt to

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save the lives of his dear ones, while they crouch in abject terror

behind the simple furniture of the cabin. Such a picture comes to

my mind when I think of our status.
At the time of the Reformation, there was opened upon the

Church of Christ an attack analogous to that launched by the In-

dians against the pioneer home. The natural defenders of the

Church, her duly ordained ministers, went forward to meet the at-

tack, while the helpless and defenseless ones remained in the rear.

Now that the savageness of that attack has abated the clergy are
still in the front ranks alone, to far too great a degree, while the laity

are permitting them to remain there, to clear away, as best they

may, the debris and wreckage of that warfare. We all know the re-
sult. With the passing of the centuries the laity have lapsed into a

quiet, lazy state, forgetting the very important part they have to

play in the Church.

These are not meant to be words of censure for the laity. Our

status is a natural consequence of conditions. They are meant

rather to remind us of the fact that that particular warfare is over,

and that we should cast off the habits of sleep, or fear, or lethargy

that have been upon us through the last four centuries, and become

a wide awake, courageous, active part of the army that Christ Our

Lord organized to do His work on earth.

The Call to Action:

Everything seems heading up for our brave assumption of this

new attitude. Our Holy Father is calling us to Catholic Action

and is explaining to us very clearly what he means by Catholic

Action. The first element in it is strife for spiritual perfection.

Without this foundation there can be no such thing as Catholic

Action. With this foundation laid, it is participation in the apos-

tolate of the hierarchy, cooperation with the hierarchy in their

divinely appointed task of spreading the Kingdom of Christ, but

participation and cooperation always, be it remembered, under

the direction of the hierarchy,—never on any other basis.
Now to make our participation a help rather than a hindrance

to the hierarchy we must be intelligent. Perhaps it is daring to say

it, but after a good deal of experience I do say it, namely, that few

of us know sufficiently well what the Church is. I think that too

much of what passes for knowledge among us is little more than

parrot power,—a glibness in reciting catechism answers learned
in our youth and neglected ever since.

Intelligent Participators

:

If we are to be intelligent participators, this state of things

must pass. We must learn what the Church is as the Mystical

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Body of Christ, and what our part in it is. It is an important

part, a role not just subject to choice, but incumbent upon us.

It is a role that involves duties and not just privileges, for we

learn bit by bit that we are not only cells in the Mystical Body,

but as we are cells in that Body, so also are we participators in

Christ’s Priesthood through the sacraments of Baptism and Con-

firmation. This is not merely a glorious dignity bestowed upon us

as a badge; it is a glorious dignity, to be sure, but it means obli-

gation to be active in what that Priesthood stands for,—the spread
of the Kingdom of Christ.

This then is my idea of what we should learn from our religious

study clubs,—what the Church is and what Qur role in it is. When
we know these two things well, we shall be worthy participators in

the apostolate of the hierarchy, for then we shall know that it is

high time to drop our defensive attitude of the last four hundred

years and go forward under the banner of our leaders on the offen-

sive indicated by our Great Leader when He said, “Go forth and

teach all nations.”

THE CATHOLIC EVIDENCE GUILD

Rev. Joseph B. Collins, S.S., Ph.D., S.T.D.

Professor Sulpician Seminary

“Youth will be fired to follow

in the footsteps of Saint Paul,

carrying the knowledge of the ‘Unknown God’

to all sorts and conditions of men.”

The AIM of the Catholic Evidence Guild is to teach the doc-

trines of the Catholic Church to “the man in the street”: to carry

the Church to the people who will not come to the Church.

It is an important phase of youth work, since it reaches its aim

through the voluntary services mostly of young laymen and lay-

women who take seriously their duty as confirmed Catholics and

“accept,” as Saint Thomas puts it, “the power or office of openly

acknowledging in words their faith in Christ, as it were ex officio.”

The PURPOSE of the Catholic Evidence Guild is to dissipate
prejudice, to invite confidence, to answer objections and difficul-

ties and otherwise prepare the soil of men’s hearts and minds for

the grace of conversion.

For the accomplishment of this ultimate purpose, the Guild

has as its proximate purpose the training of laypeople as teachers

of the Truths of the Faith and the offering of opportunity to teach.

The initial ACTIVITY, therefore, are training classes and

practice work. These are divided into two groups, junior and

senior. The classes follow in general the Catholic Evidence Train-

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ing Outlines, by Maisie Ward Sheed, which sum up the experience

of the parent Evidence Guild in England. Thus the doctrinal sub-

jects are grouped as junior and senior subjects. The first must be

mastered before the senior class is entered. The Guild Director

or Moderator, a theologian, exposes the subject in lecture form.

This is followed by questions and original practice ‘talks.

As every Guild functions by authority of the Ordinary of the

Diocese, an Examining Board is named by the Bishop. Before it

each member of the Guild must appear and submit to examination.

If the test is passed satisfactorily, a “license” is given to talk pub-

licly on that specific subject and to answer questions pertaining to

it which may be put by the audience. No speaker may treat a sub-
ject not included among those on which he or she is licensed.

Such of the senior class as pass a general examination on Cath-

olic doctrine satisfactorily, receive a Chairman’s license which per-

mits them to conduct the open air meetings in the public parks and

reply to any questions which may be asked.

The initial ACTIVITY leads necessarily to the essential AC-
TIVITY of the Guild, the explanation of the doctrine of the

Church in public parks or other public places where permission for

open-air meetings can be obtained. They “pitch” their stand where

a crowd may gather and plan a program which usually allows for a

doctrinal talk, in colloquial or popular style, lasting about twenty

minutes, after which the speaker invites questions and answers

them. The Guild apostolate demands of its speakers in handling

questions “the charity of God and the patience of Christ.” De-

bate, controversy are not permitted.

Subsidiary to the essential ACTIVITY are the distribution of
literature, radio talks and such other means of spreading the knowl-

edge of the Truth as may be possible and opportune at any special

time or place.

The Catholic Evidence Guild movement in this country is ac-

tive in Baltimore, Washington, Detroit, Oklahoma, Texas, New
York, Philadelphia, Chicago as a group movement. Antedating its

establishment was the work of the convert, David Goldstein, who

forsaking Judaism and Socialism for the Faith of Jesus Christ has

thrown all the energy of his race and the propaganda technique of

Socialism into the cause of Truth as a “Campaigner for Christ.”

While membership in the Guild and in similar apostolate is not

confined to young people necessarily, it is essentially a movement

that is replete with the energy and enthusiasm of youth, and

should, more and more, direct its appeal to the young. More and

more youth will be fired to follow, humbly yet enthusiastically, in

the footsteps of Saint Paul, carrying the knowledge of the “Un-

known God” to all sorts and conditions of men.

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RECOMMENDATION

FOR THE

CATHOLIC YOUTH PROGRAM

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CATHOLIC WOMEN

The Catholic Youth Program should be:

National in scope;

Diocesan in authority;

Parochial in function.

A National program definite enough to aid;

Flexible enough to serve local communities.

A program varied enough for all interests,

Allowing selection to suit need.

A program fitted for:

Juniors,

High school groups,

Out-of-school groups.

A program with a standard framework of organization (that of the

N. C. C. W.)

:

Same officers with corresponding duties;

Same committees with duties corresponding to age and ability;

With definite arrangement for mutual representation on junior and

senior boards.

A program of “oneness” so that the girl will, with ease, pass from the

junior program through the high school group, through the post-

high school group into the adult program of Catholic Action.

A suggested program that may he essentially the same for all age groups, but

graded according to needs of groups, as for example:

Spiritual Cultural Vocational

Prayers Dramatics

Glee club

Vocational guidance

Vocational training

Study clubs

Employment

Corporate Communion

Communion breakfasts

Days of recollection

Music and art

Orchestra

Study clubs

Personality development

Retreats

Pageants

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Recreational: Hobby Clubs:

Crafts

Nature

Sewing

Sports

Hiking

Camping

Dancing

Trips

Homemaking

Study

Marionettes

Photography

Social

Folk

Interpretive

The National Council of Catholic Women has a National Committee for

Youth
,
with national, diocesan and parish chairmen whose function will be

to sponsor the program of activities approved by the Ordinary. The

National Council of Catholic Women has on its staff a field representative

for Youth who will be a member of the National Catholic Welfare Confer-

ence Youth Bureau, and who will be available, on request, to assist in

launching youth organization.

Note: Suggestions for further reading in connection with the subjects

presented in these papers, may be secured by addressing the

National Council of Catholic Women, 1312 Massachusetts Ave-

nue NW., Washington, D. C.

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