Brown, have rendered me in the practical working out of many of the
methods contained in this volume. Two articles written for the "Boys'
Work" volume of the Men and Religion Messages, and one for "Making
Religion Efficient" have been modified somewhat for this present work.
The aim has been to set forth as completely as possible the relationship
of the Sunday school and the boy of the teen years in the light of the
genius of the Sunday school.

No attempt has been made in this volume to discuss the boy
psychologically or otherwise. This has been done so often that the
subject has become matter-of-fact. My little volume on "Boy Training,"
so generously shared in by other writers who are authorities on their
subjects, may be referred to for information of this sort. "The Sunday
School and the Teens" will, likewise, afford valuable technical
information about the Sunday school, it being the report of the
International Commission on Adolescence.

This book is largely a volume of method and suggestion for leaders and
teachers in the Sunday school, to promote the better handling of the
so-called boy problem; for the Sunday school must solve the problem of
getting and holding the teen age boy, if growth and development are to
mark its future progress. Of the approximately ten million teen age boys
in the field of the International Sunday School Association, ninety per
cent are not now reached by the Sunday school. Of the five per cent
enrolled (less than 1,500,000) seventy-five per cent are dropping from
its membership. Every village, town and city contributes its share
toward this unwarranted leakage. The problem is a universal one.

The teen age represents the most important period of life. Ideals and
standards are set up, habits formed and decisions made that will make or