But change there must be if we are to reach
and hold the boy over twelve or fourteen in
the so-called mission districts of our cities.
If the day stands in the way of changing the
program of the school and introducing fea-
tures that seem out of harmony with the
« Sabbath, it might not be a bad plan to change
the day for the meetings for this particular



68 Boys of the Street

class of boys : possibly operating through the
boys* club.
I would not have it understood that I see
no mission for the average church Sunday-
school in a home church. I am now plead-
ing for the street boy. No Sunday-school
worker of any experience will claim that the
average Sunday-school of to-day is making
much progress in this kind of work. In-
deed, our church Sunday-schools are barely
holding their own, and it is becoming a seri-
ous question as to what will become of that
institution, great as are its possibilities if
rightly appreciated.
The Presbyterian Church has made prac-
tically no progress in the number of attend-
ants in its Sunday-schools during the past
five years. The twentieth century move-
ment for the ingathering of a million new
scholars brought in about five hundred thou-
sand children, but it required that number
to take the places of those who had mean-
time dropped out of the ranks. The same
thing is practically true of every denomina-
tion in this country and abroad. During
a recent year in a western city, 20,000
children were lost to the Sunday-schools
of that city. In the same year, London



Religion in the Club 69

lost over 30,000, according to a printed
report.
