the constructive endeavor may have happy and progressive expression.
Nor, from the minister's point of view, is the economic aspect of the
problem paramount. It is true that an investment of $50,000 worth of
working ability deserves study and wise placing and it is true that the
sanction of public education is to return to the state a socially
solvent citizen who will contribute to the common welfare and will more
than pay his way; but the immediately religious importance of this
commanding interest consists in the honest and voluntary request for
counsel on the part of the youth himself.

Fortunately in the very midst of a reticent and often skeptical period
there comes, through the awakened vocational interest, an inlet into the
soul of youth. No religious inquisitor or evangelistic brigand could
have forced an entrance, but lo, all at once the doors are opened from
within and examination is invited. It is invited because the boy wishes
to know what manner of person he is and for what pursuit he is or may be
fitted. When once this issue is on and one is honored as counselor and
friend, the moral honesty and eagerness of youth, the thoroughgoing
confession on all the personal and moral phases of the problem in hand
are enough to move and humble the heart of any pastor. Such conference
solemnizes and reassures the worker with boys, while to have spent no
time as an invited and reverent guest within this sacred precinct is to
fail of a priesthood that is profoundly beautiful.

Several experiences with both individuals and groups are fresh in mind
at this writing. On one occasion a guild of working boys in later
adolescence were living together in a church fraternity house, and it
was their custom on one evening of each week to have some prominent man
as guest at dinner and to hear an informal address from him after the
meal. It chanced that on the list of guests there was, in addition to