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The Essential Place of Religion
in Education

Monograph Published by
National Education Association

Ann Arbor, Michigan
January, 1916

INTRODUCTION

When the Executive Committee of the National Education Association met
for its October meeting in 1914, a communication was received from a resident
of California offering a prize of one thousand dollars for the best essay on
"The Essential Place of Religion in Education with an Outline of a Plan for
Introducing Religious Teaching into the Public Schools," provided the Asso-
ciation was willing to carry on a prize-essay contest on that subject. The
interest that the donor had in the general subject coupled with the fact that
the 1915 meeting of the Association was to be held in connection with the
Panama-Pacific International Exposition and was to be in the nature of an
International Congress on Education were the reasons stated for the offer.

Religion was to be defined in a way not to run counter to the creeds of
Protestant, Roman Catholic, or Jew. The essential points to be observed were:
A Heavenly Father who holds nature and man alike in the hollow of his
hand; the commandment of Hillel and Jesus of Nazareth, "Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
mind, and thy neighbor as thyself"; the high ethical teachings and spirit of
service and sacrifice indicated in the Sermon on the Mount.

The Executive Committee authorized the contest and announcements con-
cerning the same were printed in the N. E. A. Bulletin for December and
sent to the various educational and religious papers.

A nation-wide interest was awakened, as shown by the fact that 1,381 per-
sons, representing every state in the Union save one, entered the contest.
The essays were limited to ten thousand words. June 1 was set as the date
when essays were to be presented, and 432 essays were filed by that time. The
essays were read and sorted by five preliminary sets of judges. The final
Board of Judges, which had been selected with a view of representing every
section or the country, every phase of education, and the various religious
■n.>]ipfs, was as follows: "

Adelaide Steele Baylor, State Department of Education, Indian-
apolis, Ind.
William T. Foster, President, Reed College, Portland, Ore.
Louis Grossmann, Principal, Teachers Institute, Hebrew Union
College, ^ U'cinnati, Ohio.
.iiiU. Phillips, Superintendent of Schools, Birmingham, Ala.
iiomas E. Shields, Editor. Catholic Educational Review, Profes-
sor of Education, Catholic University of America Wash-
. ington, D. C.

4 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

The decision of the judges was announced in connection with the Friday
afternoon meeting of the Association, August 27. The prize was awarded to
Charles E. Rugh, Professor of Education, University of California, Berkeley,
Cal., and special mention was made of the essays presented by

Laura H. Wild, Professor of Biblical History and Literature,
Lake Erie College, Painesville, Ohio.

Frances Virginia Frisbie, Teacher, Wilkes-Barre High School, '
Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

- Clarence Reed, Minister, Unitarian Church, Palo Alto, Cal.
.^Anna B. West, Lecturer and Writer, Newburyport, Mass.

It will be noted that the writers selected by the judges represent different
relationships to the educational system.

The Association decided to print a monograph which should contain not
only these five essays, but also a synopsis of the points brought out by the
other writers. We asked Mr. Rugh to amplify his paper somewhat in order
that some of the points might be enlarged upon to a greater extent than was
possible under the original limitation. Sara Whedon, formerly head of the
English Department, Ann Arbor High School, Ann Arbor, Mich., was asked to
prepare the synopsis of the other essays.

Of course it has been impossible to present in detail all the various points
brought out by the over four hundred writers, but the six papers which follow
do present all the general suggestions made in any of the arguments or the out-
lines.

We trust that the monograph will play a part in the final settlement of
a question which has been much discussed and for which a solution must
ultimately be found.

COMPILER'S NOTE

The work of the compiler in preparing the synopsis has been that of the
gleaner who follows upon the reaping of a rich harvest and gathers a still
abundant store. Altho the five papers which are given in full discur? the sub-
ject of religion in the public schools with a wide variety of range, therta still
remained in the other four hundred and twenty-seven essays offered for the
contest a wealth of suggestive and informative material. To put this into con-
densed and systematized forni was the wish of the Association. Thiij synopsis
is in no sense exhaustive, either of the subject as a whole, since tlie 'ground
already covered in the preceding essays has been omitted except In so far
as proved necessary for the sake of connection; or even of the remaining
papers, as limits of space compelled keeping closely to what seemed likely to
prove most directly suggestive, without lengthy discussion or description.

Two bibliographies have been appended of works quoted or ciced, when
the author's name was stated: the first, of books and periodicals mentioned in
the general discussion of the subject; the second, of those referred to as likely
to be helpful to the teacher either for private study or in the cJ ass-room.
Well-known fiction and poetry have not been included, as much of both in. con-
tained in the books of selections to which reference is made, and teacher*
usually have abundance of such material at hand.

It has been impossible to verify all the large number of reference;! from so
many sources, but it is hoped that there will prove to be no serious errors.

THE ESSEJfTIAL PLACE OF KELIGIOIV O EDUCATION

AND

AN OUTLINE OF A PLAN TO INTRODUCE RELIGIOUS TEACHING INTO THE

PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Charles E. Hugh, Professor of Education, Uniiersity of California
Berkeley, CaL

ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Introductixan ,

a. Ejlenients in the Problem.

I I. "Only the best is good enough for the child."

2. A developing democracy demands unity of public opinion. "^

3. Churches are based upon principles of differentiation.

b. Origin of Problem.

I. The new social order has removed the child from the fellowship of the parents
during the hours of labor, and in many cases during the hours of leisure.

-'. The differentiation of church and state places the responsibility for a general
education upon the state.

43. The public school has become a fundamental social institution and must provide
for the stimulation, guidance, and control . of all the fundamental impulses of
child life.

c. Method of Approach.

1. The method of solution can be neither historical nor scientific: it cannot be

solved by observation.

2. The relation between religion and education is a problem of genetic psychology.

3. The introduction of "religious teaching" into the public schools is a problem of

practical pedagogy and educational statesmanship.

;. Nature of Kd'Jcntion

a. Kducation is a life, and a life-long process.

1. A unique characteristic of the child is the ability and disposition to take an inter-

est in its own development, even to the making of a new environment.

2. Pluman environment of the child is also unique in that the adults take a special

interest in the development of the children.

3. Society is developing special means and methods of favoring the development ot

the different phases of human life.

b. IJimian life is the achievement of a perpetual triumph thru adjustment.

r. Law of life responses^a germinant principle is sensitive and responsive to the
"order" that gave it birth and being.

2. Life formulas stated in terms of the law of responser,.

3. The relation between the phases of life axe hierarchial or "Super-Organic," to use

Spencer's terms, and their unity or harmony is secured thru the right develop-
nt of every phase of human consciousness.
is a conscious evolution.

i from the standpoint of the child,— cdacatif Icvelopment

•ild's Kative impulses.

• :d fronr the standpoint of society, education is the process of grafting .
■ ■:'''!"ti,u -oc'al fo.-r,;s p,rd ach^oven.ent.s ^n<,^.^ >h--^n ,,-,:;,... ;.-.,,'..i.-^..

0 THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION

,?. Nature of Religion \ .'>.;.

a. Difficiil'ties met iti tfyin^ to" express the nature of religion. ^

^ I. "AlfJJid.of raental bKndhe&s" due to focal nature of consciousness:
••2- "I'tie* -limitattona of terfgua^e.
^ ■3" Personal and sectarian prejudices.
. WRat religion is not.

1. Religion is not something objective.

2. Religion is not a subject to study.

3. Religion is not a system of doctrines, — not a philosophy.
c. Positive description of religion.

r. Religion is a phase of human life at its best.

2. Religion is the indiYidual's struggle for existence.

(a) Seekii^ a system of permanent values.

(b) Conversion from use of inadequate or wrong standards.

3. Religion as a social factor.

(a) Fellowship "of saints.

(b) Joint reaction against sin and suIWyig.

Religious Teaching

Good teaching must be religious in spirit as well as in content.
, I. Secured by religious teachers.

(a) All-round training in normal schools and educational departments.

(b) Insisting upon character as a prime qualification.

2. Development of intelligent public opinion that will support and demand "best"

teaching.

3. Development of religious pedagogy. ■

(a) Religious motive in education.

1. Identification of best impulses with highest ends.

2. Impulses having religious implication.

(a) Fear.

(b) Respect.

(d) Play.

(e) Work.

3. "Ends."

(a) "Fear of the lyord."

(b) Reverence.

(d) Creative, whole-hearted production.

(e) Worship.

(b) Means for Religious Education.

1. Pupil.

2. Teacher.

3. Subjects of instruction.

(a) World of things.

(b) World of persons and achievement of persons.

1. Method in instruction.

2. Method in discipline.

3. Method in school government.

OUTLINE OF PLAN
Introduction

1. A working plan of instruction must conform to the stages of development.

2. Three sets of persons are specifically intecested in the life of the child.

(a) The home.

(b) The school.

3. Each institution must assume its own specific duty and all must identify ''i

interests.

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 7 ^

Plan

I. School.

1. Subjects.

(a) Making teachers, patrons, pastors, and pupils conscious of the religious
^ ^ nature of the school and of the religious implications in much of the

subject matter.

(b) The addition of material of religious nature and value. \

2. Discipline.

(a) School government made democratic, — developing institutional loyalty.

(b) Employment of moral and religious motives for work and behavior.

(i) Repentance.

(2) ^Confession.

(3) Consecration to the right.

3. Philanthropic enterprises. — Social service.

II. Correlations and coordinations with the home.

1. Bringing home experiences into the school work.

2. Sending vital school work into the home.

(a) Subject matter.

(b) Discipline.

3. Fellowship. ^ *

(a) In the schools thru parfSJi^?' days, exhibits, etc. . *

(b) In the home.

III. Correlations and coordinations with the church.

1. Use of school materials in church.

2. Bringing of church materials and activities into the school.

3. Joint projects in the community.

4. Church supplements school work by religious examples and interpretation in com-

munity standards and the fine arts.

IV. Plan by grades.

1. Kindergarten.

2. Primary grades.

3. Grammar grades.

4. Intermediate high school. ^

5. High school.
V^. Conclusion.

INTKODUCTION

"Only the best is good enough for a child," said Goethe. Only the best is good
enough for a developing democracy. The public schools have been established
and are maintained in the interests of the individual child and of the nation. No
good citizen would deny to any child the best and all of the best that the state
can provide for the general welfare. If the fundamental needs of child life and
development demand any good thing not now provided, those needs become educa-
tional problems. Any general change in the aims, means, or methods in the
public schools can only be brought about by convincing the general public that
such change favors child development and the national life.

Many of the best and most intellectual persons interested and active in pro-
moting child welfare are continually insisting upon the need and importance of
religious development in youth. If religion is an essential in the development of A
T ' 'mi's life, itien it is an essential in education. If it is an essential in education. **'
C( mes a public bchool problem because as society is now organized neither
iiome nor- the church does or can provide a general education of any kln^Lj
vlazzini defined democracy as "the progress of all thru all, under the leader- .
Miiy of the wisest and the best." Burke had the same conception in mind when
he described the ideal state as a "partnership of the dead, the living, and the yet

8 THE PliACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

to be born in all virtue, all science, and all art." The people of a democracy .'nust
I be united in the solution of their fundamental national problems, and this unity
^ can be secured only thru schools supported and controlled by the state.

The home is not the social center at present in America. In the olden time
the family physician came to the home. The preacher or pastor did the same.
The assessor and tax collector visited the home. Births, marriages, and deaths
occurred in the home. Now most of these important functions are less social and
more individual and private. Institutions and offices are provided for such needs.
When children labored with their parents at home and jointly enjoyed the fruits
of their labor, or suffered together in want and sorrow then the roots and trunks
of a child's education grew up in the home. The public school needed only to
j)rovide some branches, — reading, writing, and arithmetic, as the instruments of
an enlarging social intercourse. The industrial revolution has removed the pro-
ductive industries from the home, so that those who labor, or even those who seek
the social service of the pTiysician, or pastor, or official must leave home. So,
even if parents were qualified by training and disposition to give the instruction
and training necessary for economic and social efficiency, and for good citizenship,
they would be unable to do so because of this separation and lack of time.
^ The Church, as institutionalize*] into sectarian denominations, cannot be an
instrument of general education in a democracy. From the standpoint of the indi-
vidual, the church represents and expresses a personal preference. It must needs
be so in the nature of the case in order to offer the stimulation and scope for an
inspiring and vital fellowship, and in order to induce whole-hearted devotion and
consecration. "With tastes there can be no argument." If a person likes the
Episcopal Church, or the Methodist Episcopal Church, or the Roman Catholic
Church, or the Jewish Church, that person likes that Church This choice is based
upon a private, personal right.

In matters of race, politics, and religion, the individual is prone to treat
differences as fundamentals. The likenesses between a good specimen of the
white race and a good specimen of the negro race are many more and much more
fundamental than the differences; the same is true of the likenesses and differences
between a good democrat and a good republican; between a good Roman Catholic
and a good Protestant: but in fellowship and in behavior, most persons feel and
emphasize the differences rather than the likenesses. In matters national, these
differences are more or less incidental and negligible. From the standpoint of the
general public, church preferences are principles of differentiation and not of
unity. The separation, or rather differentiation, of the church and state is there-
fore an absolute necessity in a democracy, but this differentiation doee not relieve
either the church or the state of its functions and responsibilities.
/ The public schools must be public. They dare not admit those persona
preferences that are made the differentiating principles of parties and sects. S(
that if there are no religious impulses, principles, and practices other than thosi
expressed thru denominational preferences and practices, then there is -no plac«
for religious teaching in the schools of this democracy.

On the other hand, if every normal child is essentially, or as Sabatier saic
^ "incurably" religious, if a child is hum.an by virtue of certain impulses to war
better life, toward the more abundant life, then these essential, fundamental
impulses must be recognized, employed, and developed in the child's educa^
A person who makes the sectarian or denominational differences fundaments ^
religion might admit the necessity of religious education but still logically cent
that it is no function of the public school. There are still two solutions,— pi
school teachers or special teachers of religion. The thesis set forth in the foU

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 9

Ing argument is that, at its best, public school teaching must be and is inspiredr
and guided by the religious motive, because of the nature of education, and that^
the general recognition of the religious implications of all good school work is
the first step toward a more adequate religious development of all of the boys and
girls of the nation.

Method of Ai)i)roacli. — No citing of authorities or traditions can offer any
solution of the problem. History can furnish no examples of how to introduce
"religiotis teaching" into the schools of a modern democracy. Morals and religion
cannot t\e introduced into education by legislation.

The relation of religion and education is a problend of genetic psychology, to
be solved by a careful study of human consciousness and the nature of human
developmefit. The problem of improving the religious development of boys and
girls by means of the public schools is "a problem of practical pedagogy to be
solved by a careful analysis of the motives, means, and methods of teaching,
instructing, and training.

NATUKE OF EDUCATION

Education is a life and a life-long process. "Life is the response to the order
of nature." Life processes involve an agent and a situation, an organ and an
environment. The development of the organ and the environment go hand in
hand and are due to the responses or interactions of the two sets of forces.

In the case of human beings the agent takes an interesting part in these
responses. The unique thing about a person is that he does not accept passively
the situation, but actively and deliberately sets about to perfect an idealized
environment. This power to choose and execute a choice is the distinctive char-
acteristic of intelligence. The power to make and execute a supreme choice by
which to evaluate the world and thereby to direct behavior is the distinctively
religious aspect of human consciousness. "■

Human environment is also unique. It also takes an interest in the develop-
ment of the undeveloped. The older, wiser, better members of the species take
pains to have the younger, developing members appropriate the achievements of
the whole race.

Genetically, education is the development of native, inherent germ principles
or impulses. Socially, education is the process of grafting or budding social
achievements and social forms upon these native impulses.

Phases rf Human Life and Education. — Human life is so complex that it must

be ai yzed into different a^ects or ph|ases in order to make the social process

of touching economic and effective. These phases are, (a) Physical, (b) Mental,

'-■ Moral, (d) Spiritual, (e) Religious. There are germinant principles of life

USPS for all these phases. They are organically related, but no one can be

i luted for any other. Physical development is of great importance to a '

lil i.uman development; but no amount of mere physical development develops

a child s laQguage, or his manners, or his mc^rals. No amount of mere mental

development will make a child religious. The normal development of a child

irequi^'.s the unfolding of each set of germ principles. This is accomplished by

social stimulus, guidance, and control of each set of specific impiTlses. For

,^xample, the development of the child's language power depends not alone upon

Cie development of his eyes, ears, voice, and hands. These are mere tools, mere

^conveniences, not necessities. The child's language development requires the

unfcidi./?-. "^ the native language impulses. Naturally, the child expresses inner

Stat" (:' bciousness by hands and voice. Upon these native impulses may be

grr. mguage form : English, French, vulgar, or pure.

lO THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

Not all forces in the environment are equally powerful or equally valuable
in stimulating the native impulses. Teaching consists essentially in selecting and
employing the appropriate and effective ones. This must be done according to
the law of life responses.

Law of Life Responses.— A living organism is sensitive and responsive to the
the kind or order of nature that gave it its birth and being; the fish is adapted
to water, the bird to air, the eye to light, the lungs to air. A child is born by and
into a social order". If a human child has a divine heredity, then it can be sensitive
and responsive to this divine order. If there is no response of religious impulses
to a religious order there can be no religious development.

Life Formulas —

1. Physical life — response of the body to physical things. Examples — lyungs to air;'

alimentary canal to food ; ear to sound ; eye to light.

2. Mental life — response of mind to mental things. Examples — Language impulses

to language ; art impulses to music, painting, and literature.

3. Moral life — response of person to social order. Examples — Personal response to

manners, customs, fashions, standards of conduct and behavior.

4. Spiritual life— response of the will to an ideal order. Example — A person trying

to realize ideals. Planning to be, rather than to have.

5. Religious life — response of the soul to God. Example — The response of the whole

being to the universal order. The attempt to find and found the life on eternal
and universal personal principles.

These phases are not isolated or separate. They may be arranged in an
hierarchy as Browning so arranges them in the "Death in the Desert."

"How divers persons witness in each man
Three souls, which make up one soul ; first to wit,
A soul of each and all the bodily parts.
Seated therein, which works, and is what Does,
And has the use of earth, and ends the man
Downward ; but tending upward for advice,
Grows into and again is grown into
By the next soul, which, seated in the brain,
Useth the first with its collected use.
And feeleth, thinketh, is what Knows ;
Which, duly tending upward in its turn.
Grows into and again is grown into
By the last soul, that useth both the first.
Subsisting whether they assist or no.
And, constituting man's self, is what Is.
And leans upon the former, makes it play.
As that played off the first ; and tending up.
Holds, is upheld by, God, and ends the man
Upward in the dread point of intercourse
Nor needs a place, for it returns to Him,
What Does, what Knows, what Is ; three souls, one man."

What then, is the problem of education with respect to each of these aspects o:
life? From the standpoint of the individual, education means the development (
each set of impulses in their right relation to each other. From the standpoi;
of society, education means the selection and employment of the appropriat
means of stimulation and nourishment for each phase of life in each stage o
development from infancy to maturity. The teacher is the person who profestt
the set purpose to represent society in the selection and employment of tl-
appropriate means and method of education. The public school is society's attemp
to make this educative process economic and efficient for all.

The immediate agent of this individual and social process through the fellow
ship of the teacher and the pupil is human consciousness. Education may then b^
described as the development and organization of personal consciousness, or sel^

THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION II

consciousness thru fellowship. Human consciousness is not organized finally- until
it grows into the sense of being a cause, of being creative. Human consciousness
cannot be effectively productive or creative until it deliberately wills to be in
active harmony with the whole universe. A human consciousness is never finally
organized until dominated by eternal principles. Such a life is religious. Nature
will bring hunger and the impulse to action above the threshold of consciousness.
The child naturally seeks food and exercise. The parent, or some one in the
parent's place, must select food and direct exercise if a normal physical develop-
ment is secured. This is the problem of physical education.

Similarly, curiosity, wonder, and the sense of logical agreement, will send the
child for knowledge, but his search must be guided if the mind is to be normally
developed.

The social impulses will drive the child to select companions and comrades,
but here also he must be guided.

The normal child will have ideals and want to be. What and how to be is a
problem of education.

The Problem of Religious Education. — Are there in a normal child native
impulses that are essentially religious, or that may be associated or identified
with religious principles? Has society produced religious achievements and forms
that ought to be grafted upon the religious impulses in order to favor the individual
development and social progress? How is this teaching process to be accom- '
plished? Should it be done in the public schools?

Phras<fd in terms of the "essential points to be observed" in introducing
religious teaching into the public schools, the pedagogical problems are these:

1. (a) What are the native impulses in a normal child that impel him to recognize his

kinship with all nature, and with all other human beings?

(b) Has the race thru social processes, thru science and art, achieved anything that

demonstrates this kinship and common fatherhood?

rituals that stimulate and nourish these impulses?

2. (a) Are there native, normal impulses in a child that induce whole-hearted affection

and love?

(b) Are these love impulses most stimulated by impersonal 'or personal objects?

and loyalties? •

(d) Have the institutions developed forms and rituals favoring such development?

3. (a) Are there normal child impulses toward service and sacrifice?

(b) Has society achievements and forms helpful in developing these impulses?

NATURE OF RELIGION

What is religion? This question brings us to the heart of the whole problem.'
The place religion ought to have in the public schools must ultimately be
determined by the place it ought to have in education. Its place in the education*
of children ought to be determined by what it is at its best^ for "only the best is
good enough for the child." The place religion in education does have and
always will have, is determined by what the teacher thinks and believes religion
really is.

Much of the confusion and most of the difficulty associated with ti.... problem

arises from what James calls a "kind of mental blindness." James as'^ribes this

blindness to our "feelings toward creatures and people different from ourelves."

It comes also from the focal nature of consciousness^ We can see only one side

1 a person or thing at a time. If a thing is developmental and complex like

cation, religion, and human life, it is very difficult, even impossible, to see it as

really is. Again, for each of us, the value of things and persons is determined

12 THE PI^CE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION

by personal purposes. Personal consciousness is personal or self-consciousness
chiefly because of the choices one makes. These choices are' vital and important
to the person who makes them, and because d€ this "mental blindness" many
persons think of these choices as fundamental and universally valid. All processes
involving human consciousness have two sets of factors,— the subjective and the
objective. The objective factors are matters of observation, experimentation,
legislation. The subjective factors are personal. In the problem of choosing a
particular vocation, a particular church, or a mate, both sets of factors are
involved. With the objective factors, science, the state, and the public school may
deal. Not so with the subjective factors. For example, in the matter of choosing
a husband or a wife, the objective characteristics, such as heredity, bodily and
mental health, are matters for observation and legislation. The state may take
account of these objective limitations and prohibit a personal choice. With the
subjective factors, personal choice must deal, based upon personal preferences.
These are essentially matters of faitli and the choice is a venture, — a willing to
make the possibilities realities. With these subjective matters only the persons
immediately involved can deal. The same principles are involved in the personal
selection of a particular vocation, or the particular form of religious ritual or
fellowship.

Another difficulty comes from the nature of religion itself, and more especially
in trying to express this nature by means of language. Words mean, — just what
they mean to each person. This meaning is due to personal experience. "Words
are pegs on which hang experience," said Beecher. Where this experience is
limited and one-sided, and where different persons have seen different sides, there
can be no essential agreement thru language. Both education and religion are
peculiarly subject to this difficulty. Neither can be defined in strict conformity
to the old formal, or static logic. Both are life and creative processes, in which,
as Schleiermacher has shown, "the categories, true and false, are out of place,"
and are as "irrelevant as blue and yellow."

This focal nature of consciousness, this mental blindness, this limited per-
sonal experience leads in many cases to racial and religious prejudices which
greatly interfere with the development of an intelligent and united public opinion.

Religion is not%a thing that can be made an object of sense observation.
Persons and groups of persons denominated religious employ objects and perform
acts in the pursuit of religious ends which can be observed and can be treated
historically and scientifically. But intelligent people do not think of religion as
consisting essentially of these objects and practices.

Religion is not something that can be made an object of study, as is spelling,
or algebra, or history. There could be a subject of instruction and a worthy one,
too, worked up concerning religion, just as there has been such a subject worked
up concerning the civil war; but the school subject about the war is not the war.
has very little relation to it, and indeed may be of questionable value. Religion
is not something mysteriously hidden away in language to be gotten into the
child's memory or mind thru the eye or the ear by verbal instruction. Religious
education is not instruction in the Bible. The Bible is the greatest set of books in
the world concerning the fundamental problems of life and religion. No complete
system of education can ignore it; but religious education is something other and
something more than instruction in the Bible. There can be and there has been
much instruction in the Bible and about the Bible that has little relation to life.

Religion is not a body of doctrine. It is not a philosophy, not even a theology.
What is religion? If religion is not a body of objects and practices, if it is not
a body of doctrines and dogmas, what is it? Here again it must be pointed out

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

nd {
in I

that religion cannot be defined. The best that can be done by means or language
is to set forth some descriptive characteristics, and these descriptive words and
" ":sos are subject to all the limitations and criticisms urged against all proposed

iitions.

Rr'igion is a life. — "The life of God in the soul of man," This description is
somevvi;at objectionable because the terms "God" and "soul" arouse certain pre-
judices in some minds. This formula is suggestive and helpful to those who use
"soul'' to stand for the personal or self-conscious essence in human life, and the
term "God" to symbolize or signify the power that makes for order, harmony, and
righteousness. The development of all life is based upon the kinship between the
organisni and its environment.

\ What is the^ relig'ious life? — What makes a religious life possible? The I
religious life is the response the soul or heart of man makes to God as the heartf
of the universe. This kind of a life is possible because of their kinship^ because
God is the Father of all. If God is the Father of all, then what is the difference
between the life of a person that is religious and the 'life of a person that is not?
This supreme question brings us to the point where the unique and significant
place of religion in education emerges. It was pointed out above that the nature
of education is determined by the nature of human consciousness. Now the
determining factor in human consciousness is this power to be conscious of the
self, — conscious of our divinity because of our kinship with the universe thru
God as Father. The religious person is one who is conscious of this kinship, and
who because of this consciousness seeks fellowship with God and the godly
order to make better adjustments of the self to the universe. The person who ig
not consciously religious is an orphan, trying to "go it alone." Such a person does
not know who his Heavenly Father is, or where his eternal home is.

Since the religious life emerges from self-consciousness, it was to be expected
that reflective consciousness would give partial views or accounts of itself at
different stages of its development. It was to be expected that religion would be
described in terms of the intellectual aspect of human consciousness; that other
persons and other times would emphasize the emotional element, and still others
find in the will the dominant and distinctive factor. The doctrine of the unity of
personal consciousness, wonderfully supported by the doctrine of biological in-
tegrity, brings us face tO' face with the problem of recognizing the functions and
values of every aspect of consciousness, and presents to the state the problem, not ,
of a state religion, but of securing to every child the right to an all-round human J
development by the best and all of the best that society can provide.

These partial views of the religious life appear in the attempts of thinkers
to define religion. Jevons emphasized the intellectual aspect when he said that,
"Religion as a form of thought is the perception of the invisible things of Him
thru the things that are made." It ought to be said in passing that this description
can be made the basis of a vitalized religious education by developing in a child.
this conviction that when he is making any worth while thing he is cooperating!
with the maker of all things, and that the more nearly he obeys the laws of the>
universe, the more successful he will be.

The emotional point of view is illustrated in the statement from McTaggart,
where he says, "Religion is an emotion resting upon a conviction of a harmony
between ourselves and the universe at large." Again, Stratton suggests that
religion is best described as, "Man's whole bearing toward what seemg to him
'fst and greatest.' "

The volitional or active aspect of the religious life is suggested by James

. K nv:. H,af, 'Ti, . 'ajigioug: life consists in the belief that there is an unseen

14 THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION

order and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves

thereto."

Each of these supposed definitions is subject to serious criticism. Any person
who has tried to be religious feels and knows that these verbal expressions do
not represent the life dominated by the religious motive. It is somewhat like an
observer giving a description of a loved wife, or husband, or mother. Such a
description might serve as a basis of identification, but would not express the
vital and real qualities upon which the love was based. Or again, it is somewhat
like trying to express the experience of an electric current passing thru the body.
Such experiences cannot be gotten second hand thru language.

l>iot one of these definitions, or all of them combined, adequately expresses
the unique power of a godly man or a saintly mother whose presence is a blessing
and whose life spreads the contagion of kindness and goodness.

It is not a definition or a description of religion that is needed in order to

find and give it its rightful place in education. If religion is a life, rather than a

belief or thoughts about life, then it must be propagated according 'to the laws of

,-«(j life. Nothing short of a life inspired and guided by the best and greatest motives,

/that is, by religious motives, can introduce religious teaching into the education
of children. This does not mean that the religious element in teaching is incidental

t or unconscious, or even sub-conscious, it means that the religious element must
be vital rather than formal. There can be no controversy over the proposal to put
teachers whose lives are dominated by the "best and greatest" motives in charge
of the children of the nation. The difficulties and dissensions arise when we
undertake to evaluate the means and methods by which the best in child life and
in society can be developed. This is a problem of psychology, pedagogy, and
educational statesmanship. The final tests which must be applied are: (a) Do
the«means and methods proposed obey the laws of human consciousness? (b) Are
they practical in the present social situation? (c) Are they democratic?

^ Keligion is a phase of Iiumau life at its best. — Every normal person is poten-

tially religious. At its best, consciousnes seeks the best. At its best human life
is the achievement of a perpetual triumph. This is just the human phase of the
struggle for existence. The individual religious struggle is a striving after per-
sonal and perpetual peace. The psychology of the religious life discovers three
phases of this struggle in the individual.

First, this struggle manifests itself as a development of the ability and
dispositionto seek and employ a permanent system of values. This gives rise to
the problem o^ religious~nurture. An attempt has been made to divide truth into
two classes, sacred and secular; if this foolish and erroneous attempt had not
been made, the religious implication and si-gnificance of much of the school work
would be perfectly evident. The laws of nature are permanent. The multiplica-
tion table is as sacred as the ten commandments. No man can break either of
these laws. He may break himself against them, but they remain permanent.
Teaching that inculcates only the knowledge of these eternal laws of God and
does not develop the disposition to employ and obey them, can hardly be called
education. If a teacher by examples and precept presents permanent values and
induces joyous obedience and loyalty, the teaching is religious both potentiallj
and actually. Potentially because it is developing that psychic machinery b\
which the learner may employ permanent standards for evaluating things, peiTson;-
and the self. The teaching is actually religious because the learner is sucf^ess-
fully adjusting himself to ttie universe.

The religious development of human consciousness manifests itself in 'ts
second phase in the disposition and ability to recover from failure. In a wc UJ

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 1 5

like this where both the child and its environment are developing, there are many
failures of adjustment, many failures in measuring things, persons, and self by
eternal s|;andards. When behavior reveals the fact that one's standards were
Inadequate or wrong, then the religious person repents, confesses, and conse-
crates the will to what is believed to be higher and better standards of life. In
religious circles this is called conversion. Psychologically, the process is not con-
lined to seeking spiritually perfect standards of life, but may be employed in any
fundamental interest, for example, in diet or medicine, in politics, or family life.

As the ability to seek and employ a permanent system of values is the supreme
principle in instruction, so the development of the ability and disposition to be
converted from wrong ways of behaving is the supreme principle, especially in
cases of punishment.

But even if religious nurture has done all it can do and if we have been
converted from our wrong ways, and if we have experienced forgiveness, still
there will be sorrowful experiences of life, still there will be mysteries. The
religious life must develop the ability and disposition to suffer the sorrows of
accidents and storms and eatthquake and death without bitterness, without the
feelingjof rebellion and anarchy, without the feeling of utter defeat. The promise
of all ethnic religions is the triumph over the sorrows of life, even unto the last
enemy, death. This aspect of life gives rise to the doctrine of religion as a war-
fare, a struggle against the forces of evil.

This brings us to the statement of religion from a social point of view.

Social Iuteii>retation of Keligious Life. — Of course, in all evolution, the indi-
vidual organism is the immediate means of variation and selection. Self-preserva-
tion is pronounced the first law of life. This formula may be used as the supreme
and sufficient principle of progress, if we interpret the self psychologically. Th^
people who believe they have souls seek individual salvation; the people who
believe they are souls, like Wilberforce for example, are so busy helping other
persons that they are forgetful of themselves. Some have suggested that religious
organizations are exemplifications of the fact that misery likes company. If we
interpret religious life as Dr. Stratton does, — "an aspect of the struggle for
existence," — this gives a partial explanation of religious fellowship, but there is
a deeper and more general aspect of the problem. Human beings love company
and the principle of association is selective. A group of religious persons are
drawn together by the law of human fellowship technically known in religious
circles as the "communion of saints."

This fellowship is not only a means of individual satisfaction, but it is a
recognized means of multiplying one's power, defensive and offensive; a means of
promoting one's kind. The most obvious and probably the most objectionable
form of this social phase of the religious life is denominational or sectarian zeal.

The highest form and use of the religious life as a manifestation of social \
consciousness and social conscience, is -the identification of interests in promoting iv
human welfare by try-ing to make it possible for every child to come into his i;
Inheritance.

EELIGIOUS TEACHING

Teaching, simply defined, is causing to learn. If children are to learn to live
the religious life thru the contagion and fellow^ship of the teacher, then every act
of the teacher must show forth a life dominated by an intelligent religious motive, >*.
a consciousness of the divine possibilities of human life because of kinship with
the world of things and persons thru the Fatherhood of God. This conscious-
ness of the ultimate ground of experience and unity vitalizes the means the
^-^-^r^her uses and reveals the religious nature and implications of the essential

1 6 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

subjects of instruction. This vital religious motive moving thru the works of
nature and the achievements of men will discover and employ the religious
method, — the vicarious appropriation of the means of life thru purposeful effort.

To be religious, teaching must be vital, whole-hearted. This demands that
the teacher's life and heart must be in his work. The first requirement for
introducing "religious teaching" into the public schools is the securing of trained
religious teachers. This means first that normal schools and departments of
education must emphasize the ethical and religious nature of education. Second,
that character, as well as scholarship and training must be a prerequisite for
certification and employment. Third, the immediately pressing problem is the
further development of the religious life of the teachers now in the service. This
is not so difficult a problem as it may seem. The person who chooses teaching as
a life work is moved by a social motive. He desires the welfare of the coming
generation. The whole world of Science, Art, and Religion is within his reach as
means. What can be done, and done comparatively easily, is to raise the religious
motive of "the abundant life" into the foreground of the teacher's consciousness
so that he may help make learning a life process rather than merely memorizing
language.

If we conceive religion in vital and psychological terms, the good school
appears at once essentially, to be potentially religious. No other single movement
can further the progress of religious education so much as to make^eachers
aware of the religious nature of a good school and of the religious possibilities of
their work when it is well done.

First, the pupil wills to put himself into the presence and under the authority
of the teacher. If this is done joyously and the fellowship results in a more
abundant life, the learner is developing the psychic means for knowing and
obediently submitting his will to the will of the Heavenly Father.

Another religious aspect of the school is found in the fact that the pupil
discovers that the good teacher wills the good of the pupil. No teacher would lay
claim to being a good example of the Heavenly Father, but every good teacher is,
as Froebel described him, a 'spiritual parent,' and this parentage develops the
psychic means for appreciating the spiritual nature of the universe and the 'good
will' of the All Father.

The most obvious religious aspect of the school is found in the fact that the
good school is a continuous 'judgment day.' In the good school the pupil tries to
act, and 'to be perfect.' He spells and adds and judges and behaves and his acts
are judged 'right' or 'wrong.' He takes his place in the grades in the school and

among his fellows, not by race or wealth or heredity, but by what he is. In

School, there are Japanese, Chinese, Negroes, Jews, Italians, Portuguese, Ameri-
cans, and mixtures. They play in the same yard, recite in the same classes. One
never hears a hint of race hatred. Brotherhood is everywhere in evidence. Here
children are judged, graded, and graduated on individual merit. By this proceF?
these boys and girls are developing the ability and disposition to submit their
acts and life to the judgment of the world, and may be led to will to submit the
whole life to the perfect standards of the Heavenly Father.

In addition to these fundamental and vital processes the good school takes on
the religious form in opening exercises, in assemblies, in music, in special days,
and in many ritualistic performances. Many good schools deliberately and syste-
matically take even the form of a church service. When the content of the subject
matter is religious as it may v;ell. be, then a school exercise may be as religious
as a church exercise. However, this can, in no way, be substituted for the special
denominational church fellowship. ^

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

A second coudition that must be secured before "religious teaching" can be
generally effective in the public schools is a public opinion that will -not only
tolerate, but will demand and support such teaching. A general awakening to the
religious nature and possibilities of a good school on the part of the intelligent
citizens of a community will do much to inspire and encourage the good teachers
to aim consciously and continuously at character building. The American people
believe in education. In general, they believe in the public schools and will support
any plan that will improve them. There is no use in stating a plan for "religious
teaching" in the public schools in ecclesiastical or theological terms. However
historic or logical a plan may be, it could not be practical in the hands of the
present teaching force. Any such proposals merely arouse sectarian opposition
and controversy. Any immediate plan for the improvement of the public school
must be worked out in terms of the current teaching practice.

The religious teacher must know what he is doing and how he is doing it.
A kind of religious life can be lived without being fully aware of the ways and
means by which it is lived, but a religious teacher, if he is to be more than merely
a good example, must be fully conscious of the aims, means, and methods for
insuring religious development. Any intelligent person knows that running
ecclesiastical or theological formulae thru the child's language machinery is not
religious teaching nor is it the teaching of religion. Neither is the study of the
Bible or the committing of Bible texts necessarily religious teaching. Teaching,
to be religious, 'must reach the springs of life and conduct. "The letter killeth^
but the spirit maketh alive."

The three questions the religious teacher as well as the teacher of religion
must ask and answer are: (1) What is the religious motive in teaching? (2)
What are the economic and efficient means for a complete realization of this end
or aim? (3) What method must be employed?

Thanks to modern psychology, theology, and pedagogy for fairly definite
answers to these important questions; answers concrete and definite enough to be ■
a beginning of a religious pedagogy. Teaching is a trinity involving the pupil,
the teacher, and the subject thru which they have communion and fellowship.
This triangular process might be diagramed thus:

Teacher •

Subject Pupil

These three factors are to be brought into vital unity thru the process of
"identification." What moves the teacher and pupil to undertake this identifica-
tion? How can this motive be made consciously and effectively religious?

The Rjeligious Motive in Teaohiiiff, -A motive is the "identification of an a
[iulse with an end." The roots of actir-j and behavior are found in the impulses
> L life. A conscious, intelligent person 3<;lects, directs, and controls these impulses

l8 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

by choosing ends to be attained. The impulses rest back upon heredity, upon
native God-given endowment. The ends or aims in human behavior are personally
chosen. The teaching process consists essentially in setting up and realizing
aims and systems of aims.
f What is the aim of religious teaching? The religious teacher aims to develop

in each child the consciousness of God as a personal Heavenly Father, to the end,
that the individual life may realize all the truth, beauty, and goodness of whiciy
it is capable. Note that this aim says " consciousness of God," not a conceptiori
of God or a god. This eliminates most of the necessity of indulging in theological
definitions and discussions. Every normal person is conscious of some kinships
w^ith other aspects of the universe, and this kinship implies some consciousness of
a common origin or fatherhood. This sense of kinship and possible fellowship with
the universe involves every aspect of consciousness. God is not an object about
which a subject of instruction is to be developed. He is all the power and life
of which the child at its best, can be conscious. This consciousness of the life of
Godi, that is, of the life of the universe, in his own soul and being, is the child's
religion.. It must be remembered that this childish sense of kinship and fellow-
ship differs from the intellectual, emotional, and volitional processes of the adult
that would be denominated religious;! but this difference is no sufficient ground
for denying that the child has a religious lifeA A normal child is sensitive and
responsive to the life of God as revealed in the things of nature and the lives and
loves of persons. The ultimate ground of this consciousness rests back in the
fact of kinship, in the fact of common characteristics and in subjection to the
common forces and laws of the universe. TJie aim of the religious teacher is to
raise this sense of kinship with nature, with humanity, and with God into that
personal form that becomes the inspiration and guide to behavior. This consists
essentially of leading the learner to will and to act in accordance with the best
he knows about nature, about persons, about himself, and about God. Those who
conceive religion as a matter of adult life and define it in ecclesiastical term.s,
might contend that the life of the child above described is not distinctively
religious; but no intelligent person will deny that the normal development of the
child's consciousness is a necessary condition of that stage of religious life
ascribed to adults. |The normal development of a child must be viewed as having
a very definite and necessary relation to the religious life, even for that form of
che religious life that is conceived and defined in theological rather than in
psychological terms. \

The supreme question with the teacher who would realize this religious aim
is: — What are the impulses in the child and what are the aims in life that can be
identified with these impulses in order to develop this consciousness of kinship
with the very life and heart of the universe?

Religious teaching cannot be inspired and guided by just a general desire for
the learner's w^elfare. The child's best development is not secured in the way
Charles Dudley Warner shot the bear, i. e., "by just aiming at it generally."
Child life is organic and complex and for purposes of instruction and training
must be analyzed sufficiently to make it possible to make a definite and concrete
attack upon fundamental problems. Merely the outline of the analysis can be
given here.

The Transformation of Impulses.— The following five sets of impulses may l^
taken as examples of the native stock into which may. be grafted religious aims,—
fear, respect, affection, play, and work. A complete analysis and treatment would
trace out their instinctive roots and work out their organic and "super-organic"
relations as a guide in teaching. These impulses are egoistic, but they are also

Tl E PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 1 9

social ill tiie sense that they are specifically stimulated by persons. A child is
often afraid of things that are not persons, but he ascribes personal qualities, even
intentions, to tLe things that frighten him. In short, the child is naturally animis-
tic. It is well he is so. McDougal and Shand have pointed out that these egoistic
impulses may be transformed into altruistic sentiments by intelligent attempts at
accomplishing social ends.

1. Fear in its instinctive form is stimulated by special objects and situations
and has as its affective tone an actual or imaginary pain. This reaction develops
the consciousness of how it feels to be afraid. This consciousness becomes the
means of inhibiting action when the agent becomes aware that his act may cause
fear or pain in another. This is most likely to occur towards persons for whom
the agent has respect or affection. A child may be afraid of causing its mother
pain or fear either by acting or failing to act. This is the transformed or altruistic \
form of fear. J Psychologically it is the "fearof the. Lord" which is the beginning
of wisdom. The developed form of filial fear, or the fear of the Lord, is not a
selfish fear that the Lord will cause the agent pain so much as that the agent
will not conform to the requirements or will of the Lord. Similarly, each of th
impulses named above may be transformed into ^n altruistic or religious form.
It is the distinctive mission of religious teaching to aid and insure this trans-
formation.

2. The respect the child has for those who care for him and serve him in
desired ways, must be transformed into reverence as the basis of the religious
attitude toward God, the bountiful benefactor and Father.

3. The affection the child has for its parents or its pets or any person must
be transformed or developed into devotion as the basis of religious loyalty to the
cause of humanity.

4. To those who have not kept themselves familiar with the development of
genetic psychology, it will no doubt seem peculiar to make play the native stock
on which to graft religious education. The play life repeats in a spontaneous and
whole-hearted way the essential, serious social processes. By this free, joyous
activity the child develops the physiological and psychic means for taking his
rightful place in the social world. Gross has shown th^t play is the primary
form of the fine arts. Especially is this true of the finest art, joyous and whole-
hearted living. In play the child exercises the creative imagination and develops
the creative impulses. This is necessary in order that the child shall be able to
appreciate the meaning of God as Creator in order that he may co-operate with
his Heavenly Father in bringing the world to its consummation. The greatest
inspiration and guide to the human soul is the abiding consciousness that it is
cooperating with God in continuing the creation of the world. The pov/er of
imagination and production developed by play is to be transformed in the ideals
and process of realization operative in improving the world as a place of
joyous living.

5. Work is usually conceived as the objective phase of play, but there is a
distinct work impulse, a tendency to aim at results objective and external to the
workmen, "to get, to have, and to hold." This egoistic form of work must be
transformed into the altruistic form of service. The distinctive religious form is
worship which seeks approval, assistance, and fellowship of the Father in the
work of life.

Fear, respect, affection, play, and work are native impulses manifest in the
life of every normal child. They are all operative in school. Fear of the Lord,
reverence, devotion, creation, and worship are religious processes that may be

20 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

developed thru religious teaching. All these are desirable and possible in the
public schools.

The Means for Religious Teachinar. — The motive for religious teaching has
been set forth. Some of the impulses have been described and the ends suggested
by which these impulses may be transformed into their religious possibilities.
The next question is, what are the appropriate means by which to realize these
ends? .

It is perfectly evident that the active exercise of the child's God-given powers,
is the first means, especially the exercise of choice and self-consciousness. The
secon_d_means is the life contagion of the example of a religious teacher. Teaching,
however, implies a directed, controlled form of fellowship and communion thru
some subject as an object of joint attention. These objects of attention as
developed into subjects of instruction are usually thought of as the means of
teaching. The concrete problem of means may then be put in this form, — to 'what
shall the teacher direct the learner's attention, and what action and reaction shall
he try to stimulate, guide, and control in order to develop the religious life? Put
more concretely, what objects of attention and what kind of actions will induce
or rather, "educe," "fear of the Lord," reverence, devotion, creative living, and
worshipful work?

The five impulses named do not exist separately. They are named separately
for the purposes of special attention and study. These impulses have vital rela-
tions to each other, and each .is involved in the rest so that the right use of one
carries with it by implication some phase of each of the others. For example,
devotion to a cause implies fear of its failure, reverence for its most profound
leader, and creative and worshipful work. All this is true because of the unity of
personal consciousness, but this unity does not justify trying to substitute any one
of these aspects of life for the whole; neither does it justify the use of a single
means or method of instruction. Each of these impulses must have its special
stimulation. Each of the ends must be raised definitely above the threshold of
personal consciousness.
.^^ The specific means for developing the child's consciousness of kinship with
all things, all persons, and ultimately making him conscious that he is a child of
the "All Father," may be classified under three heads: (a) The world of_ things or
nature, sometimes called the 'works of God,' (b) the wojrld of jQierspns, the part of
God's work described as distinctly made in His image, and (c) His express and
distinctive revelations worked out by seers and prophets who express their
experiences with God for the benefit of humanity. The first group is the basis of
the natural sciences and of man's conquest of nature. The second group is the
basis of the subjects of the "social sciences" as means of fellowship and vicarious
learning how to live. The third group is the sacred literature and rituals as
distinctive means of ecclesiastical instruction. All of these are necessary as
means of an all-round human development. /

Metliod of Religious Teaching'. — Method is the strategic element in any educa-
tional motive. Teachers can be moved by the religious motive. The whole universe
is available for material. How to help growing children find their rightful place
{ in this universe is the highest and most difficult art.

Method is the mind movement by which the learner identifies the self with
the thought and spirit of flie thing studied. This is the definition of educational
method in general; but it has special and enlightening significance for the
religious teacher.

The meaning of method ac thus defined appears easy in the case 61 formal
subjects such as language. To learn to make the letter 'a' the pupil niust make

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 21

toodily and mind movements identified with the movements of the teacher. To
spell perfectly or to add the learner must do the same. To think a plant or an
animal, the learner must repeat in consciousness the essential process in the thing.

The ultimate ground for learning anytliing is the fact tliat the learner and the I
thing studied are both parts of an orderly universe and both subject to the essential
laws of being. Learning is ess*-tially becoming aware of this identity. When this
process of identification is raised into self^consciousness and the learner wills
to have harmony of action between the self and the will of the whole and the ruler
of the whole, the person is religious. This can be done only by the religious
method. This is most easily done by imitation. Ex^a^le of a religious person is
the primary means of religious teaching. The next simplest means of identifica-
tion is thru language. This brings us to the unique significance of literature.
The great exanfples of the religious persons and nations of all time may be pre-
sented for a kind of imitation. This brings us to the special significance of the
Bible.

The identification of wills as prayed in the Lord's Prayer is the supreme
religious process. The complete identification of the individual life with the will
of God requires knowledge of the nature of men, of art, of the joint problems of
human beings. All learning, therefore, may be inspired by the religipjis^-^pirit

The second problem of teaching is discipline. Here the same law holds. The
individual pupil must identify his will and his acts wath the will of the schoo,l,
with the thought and spirit of the institution. Whatever breaks the spiritual
unity of the school is a wrong act. Punishment, to be spiritual and religious,
must bring the wrong-doer back into unity with the spirit of the institution. In
form, at least, this is a religious process! Tt may be religious in spirit as well. In
the hands of the teacher who understands the psychology of repentance, confession,
and consecration to the will to a new ideal. The greatest opportunity of the
religious teacher is not in instruction about objects, or in language, or even in
the Bible. The supreme problem of religious teaching is how to teach children to
"cease to do evil, and learn to do well." This process is, of course, used in the
common school tasks, but has its deepest significance and greatest religious power
in the cases where behavior is the topic of discussion and fellowship.

The religious teacher welcomes ca^es ot punishment in order to come into
the most vital touch with^the spirit and. will of'the pupil, that he may teach him
what real loyalty and devotion means,

DIAGRAM OF RELIGIOUS PUNISHMENT

Wrong-doer Teacher

r. Facing, teacher privately. i. Kind request for explanation or conduct.

2. Confession. 2. Approval or disapproval of the confession.

3. Repentance. Expression of sorrow for act. 3. Forgiveness. Assurance of a new start.

4. Consecration to the right, mcluamg resti- 4. Restitution and an assurance of restored

tution as far as possible. fellowship.

The teacher untrained in this religious form of punishment will succeed best
by having the pupil write out the whole case. For the lower grades, it may be
done thru answers to these questions: (1) What was done? (2) Why was it
wrong? (3) What are you going to do about it? For upper grades the pupil may
be left to his own way of facing and meeting this personal problem. Teachers and
pupils may study the parable of the Prodigal Son with profit.

For purposes of securing economy, efficiency, and completeness of develop-
ment of all normal children, a third problem of teaching^may be stated, that of
'ool_goyernment. School government is the attempt to unify and make effective
the factors the teachers can control that favor the improvement of the learner's

2 2 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

behavior. There can be no unity ofjej^ort on the part of teachers, and no develop
ment of integrity of character on the part of the pupil unless the ideals of behavior
and standards of action are consistent with the laws of nature, of man, and. of
God. School government must be democratic and religious. This means that it
must be based upon respect for personality. /Every pupil and every teacher has
personal rights and corresponding duties. /'Good school government makes every
person connected with the school consciotis of responsibilities. Consciousness of
personal responsibility comes from identifying one's self with the best, and all of
the best one knows. This is the attempt to be religious.

OUTLINE OF PLAIV.

This plan is merely suggestive. That is, indeed, all a plan for religious
teaching ought to be. "Truth must be reborn to be schoolroom wisdom." The
content and method of vital teaching is an expression of the teacher's life and
experience and never a mere mechanical repetition of language formulated by
another.

For purposes of adapting the plan to the public schools as now constituted,
the materials and methods are blocked out according to the following school
divisions: (1) Kindergarten, ages 3-7; (2) Primary grades, 6-9; (3) Grammar
grades, 9-12; (4) Intermediate high school, 12-15; (5) High school, 15-18. Life,
education, and religion cannot be chopped up into blocks of uniform size and
length in time. The divisions are somewhat arbitrary JDut in general the changes
in materials and methods conform to some such sequence.

Three sets of persons are interested in the life of the children: (1) The home,
(2) The school, and (3) The church. Each of these institutions has definite
responsibilities in the problem of the child's religious development. These three
institutions must cooperate in the solution of this joint problem. Three plans
of work are suggested under each division. (1) School plan, (2) Correlation and
cooperation with the Jipme, (3) Correlation and cooperation^jvith^ the church.
This last plan applies specifically only to those children -wfeo-hav'e church affilia-
tions; but the plan contemplates attractions and associations for all children.

School Plan. — The work in the schools is divided into three parts. (1) The
problem of making the teacher fully conscious of ethe religious implications and
possibilities of the public schools as now constituted, so that the largest possible
religious results may be secured by the means and methods already employed in
the good schools. The spirit and atmosphere of a good school is dominated by
sympathy, humility, and love. All the essential subjects have religious materiiil
in them. Public opinion already supports the schools. By pointing out the
religious material already in the schools, the teacher will be inspired and guided
in doing distinctively character building work. The public school is now a funda-
mental social institution. The religious impulses are fundamental. In the un-
developed pupil these religious impulses, as all other essential impulses, are
implicit. It is the business of the school to develop these fundamental impuls-s
into definite ideals and principles of action.

When the religious nature of the school as a soqial institution is recognized,
and the religious nature of much of the material is seen, then it will be coia-
paratively easy to add other material of a distinctively religious character to keep
up with changing social demands.

(2) The second problem is the further vitalizing of the public schools by
reorganizing the curricula so as to make the schools more nearly conform to the
new demands of the present social order. This reorganization is well under wa>
and if the religious motives and ideals can be shown to be effective in the school^

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 23

as now constituted, it will be comparatively easy to spiritualize the reorganized
schools. This will be especially true in the social service aspect of vocational
education.

(3) The third part of the plan opens up a way of laying out specific and
definite attempts at religious instruction and training. When religious teachers
become inspired by the religious ideal and develop some intelligent enthusiasm
for the religious development of boys and girls, some of these teachers will want
to try definitely and consciously planned religious instruction in the Bible and
will want to try some definite experiments in religious training, thru the definite
development of religious impulses and the practical application of the religious
precepts. Fortunately the possibility of such pioneer and experimental work is
opening up very rapidly. This is going to be one of the quickest and most effective
ways to develop public opinion that will support and demand capable religious
educational teachers and insure permanent progress. When popular and efficient
teachers try out such plans, they are much more likely to succeed because their
very popularity and eflSciency will create the necessary conditions for success in
religious instruction.

This plan exhausts the possibilities in the public schools (1) by realizing the
religious possibilities of the present situation; (2) by vitalizing the public schools
by reorganization and additions in the interests of child life and social service;
(3) by definite and specific religious instruction as the public and the teaching
force are prepared for it.

The single principle that must rule in all these plans is this: the religious
life of the child can be nourished only by the inner religious vitality of the social
life in which the child lives. Religious teaching cannot be thrust into the schools
by an instruction program. The program will come when the development of the
social life prepares the way and demands it.

DIAGRAM OF OUTLINE

General Scheme for any Grade
I. School Plan

1. Subjects.

A' Religious material in present curriculum.
B' Additional material of religious nature.
C Specific religious instruction and training.

2. Discipline.

D' School government — democratic — developing institutional loyalty.
E^' Punishment religious — restoring broken spiritual unity by inducing
(i) repentance,

(2) confession,

(3) consecration to the right. (Example: Prodigal Son.)
F' Philanthropic enterprises.

II. Correlation and Coordination with the Home.

A" Bringing home experiences into the school.

B" Sending vital school work into home, both subject matter and discipline.

C" Fellowship thru parents' days, exhibits, and other social gatherings.

III. Correlations and Coordinations with Church.

For the present mostly a church problem. The Sunday School and young peoples' so^
cieties can use some of the material of school for their work. Some essays, de-
bates, music. Church schools may come to conform in plan and organization to
the best public school. Pastors must come to know more about the schools.

24 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

KINDERGARTEN. AGES 3 OR 4. 6 OR 7.

The kindergarten is religious in both theory and practice. Froebel, the
founder, was very religious. He said, "Education consists in leading man as a
thinking, intelligent being, growing into self-consciousness, to a pure and un-
sullied, conscious, and free representation of the inner law of Divine Unity and
in teaching him ways and means thereto."— Educating Man, p. 2.

A. The kindergartners consciously aim "to consider the whole nature
of the child." The school atmosphere is distinctly religious. Attitudes of
prayer and devotion are taken. Religious songs are sung. The instruction,
occupations, and games even as modernized are symbolical enough for the
deepest mystic.

B. The games and occupations need to be adapted to modern life, but
they are certain to retain religious tone and meaning.

C. The best achievements of church kindergartens are freely used by
any kindergartner that cares to use them.

Coordinations and Correlations with tlie Home. No other educational project
so closely knits the home and the school as the kindergarten. Birthdays are
observed. Gifts for parents and other members of the family are made. Home
experiences are related in the kindergarten. School experiences and plans are
taken into the home.

Churcli Correlations. The live churches today provide kindergarten classes
for the children of the church. Where these classes are presided over by a real
kindergartner, it would take a trained observer to note any essential differences
between the good kindergarten in a public school and in a good church organiza-
tion. There is no place in the whole scheme of the religious education of the
child where the correlations of the home and the public schools and the church
are so easy and so well worked out. It is well it is so and this can be made the
point of departure for further cooperation of these institutions so vitally inter-
ested in the life and welfare of the children. One of the essential steps in intro-
ducing religious education into the public school is the more general intro-
tion of good kindergartens in both schools and churches. The very fact that they
are called by the same name is a distinct advantage.

The kindergarten discipline is religious in purpose and method. Punishment
is done in love. The disciplined child is restored to spiritual unity with the teache
and the rest of the pupils by expressions of forgiveness. The details of kinder
garten materials and methods need not be presented here, because kindergartnert.
are specifically trained- This much has been presented because this first form of
teaching illustrates the different aspects of a complete scheme for religious
education.

PRIMARY GRADES. AGES 6-9.

The advent into the public schools is an important event in the child's life.
First systematic adjustment to institutional life. Development of consciousness
of authority and obedience. Education must conform to the dominant character-
istics of the learner.

Characteristics: Active, animistic, highly suggestible and imitative.

1. Fear. "The fears of children tend to increase during the years from six
to ten; the increase being of .fears having their source in the imagination; which
at this time is rapidly developing." Pease.

2. Respect. Well-trained children come to school in an expectant attitude
and are generally respectful to the "new teacher."

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 25

3. Affection. Most primary children learn to love a good teacher and also
develop love and hate towards individual pupils.

4. Play. This is the time for learning to play with larger groups.

5. Work. The beginning of the spirit of "working for" teacher, mother, et
al. Sense of ownership is developing. Children come to enjoy the "products of
their hands" and are sensitive and responsive to approval. The beginning of the
sense of worship.

If the children have had kindergarten training, their religious attitude must be
conserved; if not then the primary must develop it by the religious spirit so
evident in a good kindergarten.

A. Keligious Implications in the Primary Scliool,

The child voluntarily submits to the law of the school. The teacher wills their
welfare. If the teacher is religious and affectionate she loves the children and
manifests this love in attitude and voice. Many schools have "opening exercises."
In man,y cases these are distinctively religious in character. Biblical material and
inspiring literature is used. Religious songs are often sung. Many primary
schools are opened with prayer.

The teachers talk (preach) to the pupils (congregation). Thru these pro-
cesses the egoistic fear the teacher may punish develops in "the fear of the Lord"
form in which the children are not so much afraid of receiving pain as they are
afraid they will not please the teacher, — afraid they will do what she does not
want them to do (sin of omission). By these processes the children are developing
the psychological machinery and power to employ and enjoy the ecclesiastical
forms of religion. Similarly in a good school the impulses of respect, affection,
play, and work, are developed and transformed into their altruistic moral and
religious forms as Paul says "by the renewing of the mind." So much for the
school as a general social process. It is religious in form and no doubt more
religious in content than most people imagine.

B. The Reorganization and Vitalizing of Primary Education.

It is recognized by all practical educators that very much of the school work
of the primary grades is the development of the child's powers by means of what
are called the "tools of learning." These three years have in the past been much
given to training the language powers of the child. It is becoming perfectly clear
that these years may be rich in content with advantages to the formal training.
Children may learn language more efficiently by good nature study, good lively
work with the hands and by means of heautiful stories and songs than by dry
formal drill. This recognition of the richness of the normal child'^s life in imagery
and feeling opens the door for the introduction of distinctly religious piaterial
and processes into the primary school. The efficient religious teacher has perfect
freedom to present the beautiful process of nature and do it in the spirit of rever-
■ence and devotion. This is the time and here is the place and occasion for
developing the primary feeling and sentiments towards the "Heavenly Fath^ that
holds all nature in the hollow of His hand." *^

The language development has religious significance in both form and content.
Many of the stories and poems are distinctly religious. The music may be
religious. The nature may be only formal, informational but here is an oppor^
tunity realized by many teachers of leading children "thru Nature up to Nature's
God." The best pictures are religious.

Some of the national songs are to be committed by the end of this period; but
not until af4er they have been treated as alL poems deserve to be treated. They
should be committed to memory after they haVe been made to arouse the senti-
ments they are supposed to represent. Then when repeated or sung they help

26 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

develop these sentiments. The words of "America" may be only so many sounds.
They may represent grammatical examples. These inspiring words may also be
used to arouse real religious and patriotic sentiments; but this can only be done
by an efficient artistic teacher treating the poem as a piece of fine art. "Our
Fathers' God, to Thee, Author of Liberty," affords an appropriate means for the
most vital teaching of both social and divine inheritance, and also summarizes
some of the most interesting and most important facts of our history.

C. The Introduction of Distinctly Religious Material and Relig-ious Instruction
into These Grades,

Aside from the very general suggestion that Bible stories be told and the
Bible be read there has been no plan for direct religious instruction in these
primary grades except the Gary Plan. This plan can hardly be understood with-
out understanding the Gary plan of utilizing the whole school plant all the time.
This plan can hardly be employed in schools of the old type of organization.
"The clergy — Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic take turns in visiting the schools.
They spend a whole day in a building, speaking to the children at the four
assembly hours, and spending the rest of the day in visiting the various classes
and shops. During the four hours they speak to all the children in the building.
Each rabbi, priest, and minister devotes a day every other week to this work so
that he makes the entire round in eight weeks."

For the principles and processes by which the home and church may co-
operate with the school in religious education of primary children see the outline
for the kindergarten.

GRAMMAR GRADES. AGES 9-12.

There is no essential difference in either spirit or content between the first
three grades and the next three in the public schools so the problem of religious
teaching is practically the same. The extended time affords the possibility of
multiplying the religious material and developing the religious impulses and
practices.

THE INTERMEDIATE HIGH SCHOOL. AGES 12 OR 13, 15 OR 16.

The battle ground in public schools. Second period of retardation and
elimination, not only in public school but also in Sunday School. Time of rapid
physical and psychic growth. Time of social and sex awakening. Time of first
sympathies and antipathies manifest in gangs and clubs.

In the normal cases the three supreme choices of life come above the threshold
of consciousness. (1) Choice of a vocation by which to make a living. (2) Choice
of a mate with which to satisfy social and sex impulses and reproduce the race.
(3) Choice of a religion — a system of permanent values by which some harmony
and unity is introduced in the explanation of life and the world.

A'. There is less uniformity in content of curriculum in these grades than in
any other. The very confusion may be the opportunity to introduce the richer
and more vital material into the school.

1. Beginning of science proper — general science. The religious teacher will
"help the learner think God's thoughts after Him." First introduction to imma-
nent and pervasive forces — gravity, light, electricity, life, evolution, birth, growth,
death.

2. General history, more general literature.

3. Music and art may be distinctly religious.

4. Pre-vocational studies training future workmen in the process of working
raw material into the forms of service.

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 27

B'. The vitalizing of the curriculum for this period offers a challenge to those
interested in the welfare of adolescent boys and girls thru religious education.
The situation is "dead ripe" for the harvest. There is need and a demand for
some constructive work. The science work must be more practical, must carry
over into life. Biology, physiology, and hygiene aid. In addition to Roman and
Greek history there must be history of the Hebrews. This is the heroic age for
the pupil, and the heroes studied must include the religious heroes because they
have been the greatest. The wanderings of Ulysses may be matched and compared
with those of Abraham. The study of heroes opens the way for the great and
religious lives of men and women of all ages.

In literature there is the same possibility of enrichment by the best religious
literature suited to the age of the pupils. There is no lack of material. Its
abundance is embarrassing. All that is needed is the religious motive.

This is the period for pre-vocational studies, — the time for boys and girls to
try their heads and hands in some of the fundamental occupations. It is the time
for the beginnings of vocational guidance for the study of a life work.

HIGH SCHOOL. AGES 14 OR 15—18 OR 19.

The strategic ages, both because of the social development and because the
leaders of the next generation begin their leading.

Special Characteristics. — Period of rapid growth, physical and psychical.
Normally the period of complete sex awakening; the period of social cleavage and
affiliations manifest in gang spirit and the spirit of organization, — clubs, fraterni-
ties; the period of most intense religious awakening. "Stress and strain." The
three supreme choices, vocation, mate, and religion, come to the front and are
likely to be "settled (?)" several times during the period. This is the period for
the development of ideals. The period for spiritual leadership thru heroes and
hero worship and thru fine fellowships. Of special significance is the fact that it
is the period of doubt and of development of the power of generalization, the
period in which formulas can be developed, understood,- and employed.

School Plan

I. Subjects.

A. Present curriculum.

1. Science and mathematics. Study and measurement of great forces of na-

ture and physical life. Great lessons in sense of proportion and values.
With the devout teacher the science pupils "think God's thou}?lits after
Him," as Agassiz said. "God geometrizes from all eternity." Mathe-
matics deal with eternal, universal principles.
"Physical science leads to a knowledge of God and an admiration of His
power." — Karl E. Guthe, Professor of Physics, University of Mich-
igan.

"Biology and religion have a common mission in the regeneration of man,
* * * both are needed to achieve highest possible expression of human
power." — John M. Coulter, Professor of Botany, University of Chicago.

"In spirit and aspiration, in motive and aim, science and theology, philos-
ophy, religion, and art are one with mathematics ; all of them consciously
or unconsciously aim at congenial goods that shall be everlasting; » * ♦
All of them seek to vindicate the world as a world of abiding worth." —
Cassius J. Keyser, Professor of Mathematics, Columbia University.

2. History and literature. I;very good teacher uses these as means of cul-

ture and character.

3. Music and drawing. These are also means of culture in the hands of the

religious teacher.

28 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

4. Vocational subjects. These subjects are sometimes dubbed "materialistic,"
but not so by those who have seen them as taught in good schools. The
social service aspect of a life work dominates much of the vocational
education. Making an honest living is part of living a religious life.

B. Vitalizing Present High School Curriculum,

The greatest possibility for religious education is involved in this prublem.
First the High School must offer work into which the youth may throw
his whole soul. This is necessary for integrity of life. The science
work must couple up with life. The supreme problems of life must be
faced and studied, — struggle for existenbe ; survival of the fittest; selec-
tion ^nd reproduction ; the eternal principles of right and character.
_ Science must develop the fixed disposition to try to adapt the self to
one's total environment. This will always include the religious and
divine aspect. Mathematics must be practical and help solve vital and
social problems. '

Both science and mathematics will be vitalized by being made to include biog-
raphies of the great souls who gave their lives to these problems. They
were devout men.

History must include the life and contributions of the Hebrews as well as the
Greeks and Romans. History will be made vital and religious for the
high school age when made to explain the development of the five
historical institutions: (i) The home. (2) The industries. (3) The
church. (4) The state. (5) The school. The high school literature may
be made to include the best religious literature of the world. Already
schools offer the Psalms, Job, etc., without objection.

Music offers a distinct opportunity because the best music is religious.

So with architecture and painting.

Study of civics and community problems.

C. Elective courses in the Pible. Gary plan. North Dakota plan.

II. Discipline and Government.

D. The development of school spirit and institutional loyalty thru individual and

group responsibility for the good name of the school and community.
> Democratic school government.

K. Reformation of wrong-doers. Study of Prodigal Son. The development of the
method of restoring one's self to unity with the right after wrong doing:
I. Repentance. 2. Confession. 3. Consecration to the right and the
good of the school. This is distinctively a religious process. If the
youth does not learn this process when it involves human beings, how
can he do it with his Heavenly Father?

F. Philanthropic -enterprises. The modern high school is condng to develop many
forms of social service. The poor and needy are alwaj^s with a school.
Thanksgiving and Christmas may oflfer occasions. Sickness, suffering,
sorrow, and death offer occasions for delicate and religious training. Com-
munity problems may be discussed. The high school may become the
social and civic center of the community, and when the principal and
teachers are religious they spread not only religious contagion but have
opportunity to give individual religious help to adolescent boys and girls.

Correlations and Coordinations of School and Home in the High School Period

This is the age in which the finer forms of personal fellow.ship between parent
and child are developed or are broken. As in former grades the experiences of th*'
home life and things of the home may be brought into the school. Homes mo
loan or contribute objects of historical interest. Pictures may be borrowetl.
Music machines or music records. Talented parents may be brought into school.

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 29

School problems may be carried into the home. Project work on the part of
pupils as now being worked out especially in Massachusetts will bring the school
and the home together. Pupils should be encouraged to develop the habit of
entertaining parents and home people with the interesting and important events
of the school.

Correlations and Coordinations of Church and School During
the High School Period

This is a distinct challenge to the modern church. This is the period in which
the religious life in its church form normally gets its setting. Adolescent boVs
and girls either break away from the parents and church or become definitely
identified with them. If they break, it is probable that nothing but some personal
shock or sorrow or emergency will induce conscious religious efforts again.

It is of supreme importance then that the churches make a new and especial
appeal to the adolescent boy and girl. The church must support and encourage
every emotional prompting to religious thought and action stimulated in either the
home or the school. This can be done only by the church people becoming intelli-
gently familiar with what the high school boys and girls are doing. Second, the
church must supplement the high school work by distinctly religious work. For
example, the school is giving a fine course to girls in domestic science and home
making. The wise church is offering a fine course in "Motherhood" or the
"Mothers of the Bible" or "Women of the Bible." At least a few "lectures" or
"talks" or "socials" can be made to couple up the church and school interests.

Suppose the high school is giving a course in economic history or on some
phase of the labor problem The wise Sunday School is correlating its work with
the high school work by a course on the labor problem as presented in the Book
of Exodus or "Moses as a Labor Leader."

Religion in Art, or Art in Religion are suitable topics for correlation between
church and school. The church and school may cooperate in joint art exhibits,
joint musical programs, joint dramatic events. Churches may invite high school
orchestras or clubs or library societies to present programs. Churches and schools
may cooperate in philanthropic enterprises and in athletic events.

The possibilities of correlation are limited practically only by the kinds of
legitimate activities in the interests of adolescent boys and girls. If the boys and
girls of this generation are to be good citizens and socially efficient in the next,
the home, school, and church must identify their common interests.

CONCLUSION

The plan herein outlined is practical and immediately possible. It proposes
to utilize the available material now employed in the schools. It makes it possible
for the present force to vitalize their teaching by the religious motive. For the
first phases it requires no new legislation, no new method of school administra-
tion. The one thing it requires is a teaching body conscious of the divine dignity
of child life. This is already present, often only latent no doubt, but this plan
suggests the ways and means of making the religious motive operative and
effective.

The plan is psychologically sound. It assumes no unknown elements or
processes. Fear, respect, affection, play, and work are realities. The transforma-
tion of these into their altruistic, that is social and religious forms is well under-
stood. This plan demands no esoteric or special privileges, principles, or practices.

30 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

The plan is based upon the nature of human consciousness and the laws of its
development as now known.

This plan is democratic, even in the high and ideal sense as defined by Mazzini.
It means the progress of all. It requires the identification of all interests. It
proposes the leadership of the wisest and the best. The plan is also democratic
in proposing a plan whereby each person can elect and freely employ any special
or denominational practice. Indeed, the plan contemplates this as a completion
of religious education. So that the universal and unifying aspect of religion will
be developed in the nation's public school while the private, personal, and denom-
inational forms will be developed without breaking the school children into
groups.

The plan is religious. It is based primarily upon the principle that religious
development consists essentially in the development of the religious impulses into
the full consciousness of the personal kinship with a Heavenly Father; second,
that this sense of kinship will give to life integrity and whole-hearted love of God
and service of man. In the third place it sets up as the end of education and life
a progressive idealism that is to lead to perfect adjustment to the universe, and
thus achieve immortality.

The glory of such a plan is that it dignifies and glorifies teaching, so that the
religious teacher is inspired and guided by the consciousness that he is co-
operating with his Heavenly Father in bringing to perfection the finest fruits of
creation, — a true, beautiful, and good human life.

THE ESSENTIAL PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION, WITH AN OUTLINE

OF A PLAN FOE INTRODUCING RELIGIOUS TRAINING INTO

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Laura H. Wild, Professor of Biblical History and Literature, Lake Erie Colk-gt,

Author, Geographic Influences in Old Testament Masteri>ieces,

Painesville, Ohio

" An eager interest is stirring among thoughtful people today concerning
the religious education of our youth. They seem to discern certain unde-
sirable results of our present educational policy. Boys and girls are taking
their places as citizens with an apparently increasing indifference towards the
established forms of religious expression; an increasing dislike of restraint seems
to prevail among them, partly due, perhaps, to lack of the habit of reverence;
unquestionably there is an increasing and quite shocking ignorance of the
Bible. Some attribute these evils to the elimination of religious instruction from
our schools. An attempt to analyze the situation reveals much confusior
regarding the meaning of the terms religion and religious education.

A Brief Historical Survey of Religion in Education

The coupling together of the two ideas, religion and education, is no nov.'
thought; religious instruction in our schools is not a recent invention. The
student of history knows that early peoples regarded religion as a part of
nationa;l life and therefore an essential in education. It would have been
inconceivable to an Egyptian, a Babylonian, a Greek, or a Roman, to sevef

•rolio-ir»r> ciifTiQT' fvrim nQfinnijl ofFciira nv frnm tVlP tmininp- nf thfi VOlinsr. Tht

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 3 1

•
priests were the teachers in Egypt and Babylonia, and the effectiveness of
the government was due to their educational system. In early Hebrew history
the prophet was the national teacher. Later when regular schools were
established famous rabbis instructed the youth of the land. Among the early
Greeks and Romans priest and seer guarded the secrets of national welfare
and education involved religious instruction. In later Greek history we find
in the greatest teachers, Socrates and Plato, religious teachers. Aristotle
upheld, from what would be called the modern psychological standpoint, the use
of sacred songs in school, praising their solemnizing effect upon emotional
boys.^ In Roman days Quintilian, the model schoolmaster, urged young men
to exercise themselves in religious subjects.^

When Christianity became the dominant factor in Europe, education passed
completely into the hands of the church, for with the fall of the Roman Empire
and the rise of the Roman Church the tradition that the priests were the profes-
sional pedagogs was revived. Charlemagne, wishing to do something effective
for the welfare of the people, called the monk Alcuin to become what would
be considered today National Commissioner of Education. Village schools were
then started, taught by priests. During the Renaissance university teachers
were given privileges which the clergy enjoyed. With the Protestant Reformation
the responsibility for education carried by the Roman Church for a thousand
years was assumed by various sects. Luther, however, insisted strenuously
upon public education. He wanted all the people to be taught to read the
Bible for themselves. Doubtless he had no conception that ultimately his -move
for common schools would mean the divorce of religion and education. Yet
the question we have to settle today is whether that very divorce is not an
unnatural procedure. It seems unlikely that we shall ever again place all
of education under ecclesiastical jurisdiction, for the question of the relation of
education and religion is not identical with the question of the relation of
education and the church. If it is conceded that to a well-rounded education
some religious instruction is an essential, it may be the duty of the public
schools to introduce it, but entirely apart from ecclesiastical authority. This
is a modern view. For centuries the church was behind every great effort
for the instruction of youth. Our own oldest colleges were founded with the
definite object of training young men for the ministry. The high educational
standards of our early colonial history were the direct result of religious fos-
tering. The modern idea of primary schools, for poor as well as rich, started
in England in 1780 with Robert Raikes' "ragged schools," the beginning of the
Sunday School movement. We sometimes forget thj\t only in comparatively-
recent years have religion and education been separated.

With the increase of sects and the break between church and state, however,,
the state gradually assumed responsibility for education, in the United States
even insisting that there be no favored classes in education and that neither
poverty ^or church affiliations stand in its way. Originally this public educa-
tion included religious teaching and to this no objection arose until about 1840.
In England similar objection to sectarian instruction came in 1870 when the
"School Board" system was inaugurated, but even now most of the School Board
schools teach the Bible. In France a law was passed in 1882 secularizing the
schools and eliminating the Bible, but one day in the week children may be
sent to denominational institutions for religious instruction. In Germany, on

* Aristotle's Works, Pol. viii, 5, 1339, 1345.

2 Quintilian's Institutes. Bk. xii. ch. ii. 21. 27. 28.

32 THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION

•

the other hand, there is the Prussian decree of 1872 enforcing religious in-
struction, and a similar regulation is in Saxony. The entire history of the
world gives an overwhelming balance to the opinion that religion and education
belong together. It may be. however, that in the progress, of civilization and
enlightenment we have now arrived at the place where we can see distinctions
more clearly. It will be well for us, therefore, to investigate the grounds of
objection to including religious teaching in our schools.

Grounds for Objection to Offering Religions Instrnction in the Pnblic Scliools

Our state constitutions generally debar sectarian instruction from the public
school. Some provide also that no person be compelled to attend a place of
worship. To be fair to persons of different denominational beliefs, or of none
whatever, we must forbid any particular sect the right of way in our public
schools. The fundamental objection is fear of sectarian propaganda, but in
some states the law concerns itself with a two-fold prohibition, against sectarian
instruction, and against compulsory worship. Just here arises one of the dif-
ficult tangles in the argument. Most thoughtful people would grant that
religion could be entirely separated from sectarianism but there are those who
hold that worship, which is the expression of the religious feeling, is dependent
upon certain forms. They claim that churches have monopolized these modes
of expression and that to have any worship whatever in the schools means the
adoption of a form peculiar to some sect and consequent propagation of sec-
tarian ideas.

This argument was used in the Illinois case in 1910, one of the last to come
up before our courts.^ The Roman Catholic constituents of a certain district
protested against religious exercises in the public schools. The court decided
that the exercises were conducted according to Protestant forms of worship
and that compulsory sectarian worship is illegal, that "the free enjoyment of
religious worship includes freedom not to worship." This is as far as the
argument can possibly be taken. To some it would seem that it would be
quite parallel to say that the free enjoyment of education includes the freedom
not to be educated at all. But evidently these judges regarded worship net
as a necessity but as a pastime, like swimming for example; with that under-
standing, every one would agree that the free enjoyment of a good swim includes
the freedom not to swim. *The justness of the decision depends upon whether
worship is an essential in religious education, and, more fundamentally, whether
religious education is necessary to any well-rounded educational scheme. If
some form of worship differing entirely from that of every individual sect
were devised, the argument against the sectarianism of worship would be
overthrown.

In opposition to this decision in Illinois we have the decree of the Wisconsin
court of 1890. It is as follows:

The term sectarian instruction in the constitution manifestly refers exclusively to
instruction in religious doctrines which are believed in by some religious sects and rejected by
others. Hence, to teach the existence of a Supreme Being of infinite wisdom, power, and
goodness and that it is the highest dutuy of all men to adore, obey, and love Him, is not
sectarian, because all religious sects so believe and teach. The instruction becomes sectarian
when it goes further and inculcates doctrines or dogmas concerning which the religious sects
are in conflict. This we understand to be the meaning of the constitutional prohibition.
Furthermore there is much in the Bible which cannot be characterized as sectarian. There
can be no valid objection to the use of such matter in the secular instruction of pupils.
Much of" it has great historical and literary value which may be thus utilized without

The decision of the Louisiana Supreme Court in the Caddo Parish case, lois, is the last.

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

violating the constitutional prohibition. It may also be used to inculcate good morals —
that is, our duties to each other — which may and ought to be inculcated by the district
schools. No more complete code of morals exists than is contained in the New Testament
which affirms and emphasizes the moral obligations laid down in the Ten Commandments.
Concerning the fundamental principles of moral ethics, the religious sects do not disagree.

In rendering this decision the judges evidently felt that whatever is common
ground among all sects is not sectarian, but belongs to persons of any or
of no denomination, that such generally accepted religious and mora,! teaching
is essential to a well-rounded education, and that the Bible, both the Old and
the New Testament, contains such valuable religious and moral teaching that
it should be used as a text-book.

Kentucky decided in 1905 that prayer and reading the Bible without com-
ment is not sectarian instruction. Such reading is generally permitted thruout
the country. In Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia it
is required. Michigan, while deciding to allow this, handed down a minority
dissenting opinion declaring that religious instruction "belongs to the home,
the Sunday School, the mission, and the church."

In reviewing these decisions of our law courts it would seem that the dis-
cussion lies along five lines. First, Is religious education an essential part of
education as a whole? Second, If this is the case, can it be divorced from sec-
tarian teaching? Third, Is the expression of religious feeling in worship a
necessary part of religious instruction tind can the forms of worship be divorced
from sectarianism? Fourth, Is the Bible essential as the text-book of religious
and moral precepts? And fifth, If religious instruction is not within the province
of the public school but belongs to the home and the church, where is such
instruction to come from for the children whose homes are neglectful and who
have no church affiliations?

But before beginning our examination of these issues we should review
several recent sporadic attempts in this country and elsewhere to bring religious
instruction more definitely into our schools.

Recent Tentative Plans

1. North Dakota Plan: High school credits granted for out-of-school study
of the Bible as literature.

2. Lakewood (Ohio) Plan: An elective in biblical literature and history;/^
for high school juniors and seniors, as part of the regular curriculum.

/ 3. Colorado Plan: High school and grammar school credits granted for out-
of-school Bible study.

i/4. Gary (Ind.) Plan: Credited study of the Bible in churches and synagogues
in school hours, supplemented by non-sectarian addresses in the schools by pastors
of all faiths.

5. New York City Plan: Religious teaching without charge out of school
hours, in school buildings. Regular school teachers to instruct pupils of their
own faiths, thus supplementing required Bible readings.

6. Pennsylvania Plan: A state law requires the daily reading of not less
than ten verses of the Bible in all public schools.

7. Pittsburgh Plan: Bible readings selected according to principles of
child psychology, treating one topic each week.

8. Australian Plan: Bible readings in schools, with non-sectarian explana-
tion, the selections sanctioned by popular vote, pastors supplementing the teach-
ing during one period of the day.

34 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

9. Saskatchewan Plan: Use of hymns, prayers, and Bible readings, selected
by a union denominational committee.

10. Ontario Plan: A law proposed in 1914 providing for high schools an
optional entrance examination upon the Bible, alternating with one in supple-
mentary English literature, the examiner to be appointed by the Minister of
Education but the questions to be sanctioned by a joint denominational committee
and to be sufficient in number to permit the student to confine himself to the
Old Testament.^

It is clear that the minds of the people are not at rest concerning the
present policy of ignoring the religious side of education in our public schools.
And it is equally evident that such omission in the general scheme of a nation's
education is wholly modern. These two facts invite further inquiry into the
real meaning of religion. But first let us consider reasons behind these ten-
tative efforts toward bringing back religious teaching into public education.

Grounds for Bringing Back Religions Instruction into the Public Schools

To those who think they have reasonable grounds for objecting to re-
ligious training in the public schools others reply that there are equally strong
reasons against its omission. They say that the few who object to their children
^ receiving a certain type of religious instruction should not debar the many from
\ religious training altogether./ If it is granted that some sort of religious
j instruction is an essential, objection to such instruction in public schools
/ is like objecting to having children taught to read because some persons prefer
/ the Aldine method and some the Ward method and some perhaps the old-
fashioned method in use fifty years ago. All agree, however, that it is neces-
sary for a child to learn to read, whatever the method, and that any method
is better than none. ( Advocates of religious instruction say that it is also a
necessary part of a child's training to learn spiritual fundamentals, for we
live in a world of spirit as much as in a world of matter, and the basic principles
' of religion are the basic principles of life and character. Many people today
regard religion and life as inseparable, and the lack of some sort of religious
^ feeling as the sure sign of deficiency in character. These critics are not een-
\ timentalists but scientists.^ In their study of child life we find the term "unstables"
applied to defective children whose mental development will never reach beyond
that of twelve years. Such children are dangerous to community life. But
there is a vast difference between such mentally defective children and the
deaf or blind who, because of physical handicap, are cut off from ideas which
their minds are perfectly capable of receiving, and who are thus hindered from
the development which comes from the assimilation of ideas. Brains are there,
but ideas and the means of expression have not penetrated. , A scientific view
of society reveals many moral*as well as mental "unstables". ; Moral unstabilit.y
is due partly to mental deficiency, but a large proportion is unquestionably
traceable to the lack of right ideas concerning reverence for the Creator, respect
for parents, regard for the sacredness of life, and the necessity of exerting
oneself to lay hold of influences which build up character rather than tear it
down. No society can be stable without such a solid foundation in the character
of its youth. ■ If our young people are taking their places as citizens with
vague conceptions and lax principles concerning these elementary truths, is it
not perfectly legitimate for the school to undertake what the, church has

4 See the Twentieth Century Quarterly, Sept. 1914, and Religious Education, Aug. 1914.
The Ontario law has not yet been passed.

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION ^

failed to do in sufficient measure? Are the majority to be allowed to suffer be-
cause of the few? For it remains a fact which we must face that of our
22,000,000 school children not more than two-thirds are receiving religious in-
struction of any sort in any church school, Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish.

It may be answered that we endeavor to attend to these matters by em-
ploying teachers of such high moral character that they are object lessons to
the pupils and encourage high standards of conduct. But this seems scarcely
enough. A good farmer does not sow seed, however choice, without preparing
the ground. The fact that we avoid the direct approach, which we use towards
other subjects of importance, throws a cloud of suspicion upon our sincerity.
Moreover, results seem unsatisfactory. This indirect method seems to need
supplementing by a more open and direct attack, unmistakable to the dullest
mind.

Assuming, then, that our children start with normal brains and normal
moral inheritance, even so they remain deaf and blind to their great spiritual-
inheritance if the first primer of spiritual understanding has not been put into
their hands, a primer so simple and definite that they may know that the
world of spiritual realities is being entered. This is the argument of the
advocates. It rests entirely upon the hypothesis that the fundamentals of
religious training are essential to education. Let us examine this hypothesis
and see whether a reasonable view of religion involves the whole or living in
the most practical sense.

An Examination into the Real Meaning of Iteligion

The candid student of history cannot fail to perceive that the conception
of religion and its relation to life has appreciably changed within the last
hundred years. During the apostolic era it seemed so impossible to swing the
secular power into line with Christian principles that naturally the early Chris-
tians thought of the kingdom of God as a blissful state after death. This
life was looked upon only as a discipline for the next, without particular en-
joyment in itself except the rather stoical pleasure of resisting the world for
the sole reward of a future spiritual good. This idea was carried still further
in the Middle Ages. Not a heaven on earth but a heaven in the skies was the
objective of all Christian endeavor. Most saintly members of the church had no
other thought of the meaning of a redeemed society. But this was unques-
tionably not the Old Testament idea. The great Hebrew prophets never separated
national and religious loyalties. To be religious meant to be devoted to the
best welfare of the nation, to be patriotic meant to be religious. The prophets
indignantly protested against lax morals and low standards of right and wrong
in the community because Jehovah could not approve of such a state of society
on earth. Telling epithets were hurled ai?ainst real estate sharks, merchants who
used false weights, greedy employers who crushed out the life of women and
children, and political bosses who lay awake nights plotting their schemes.
The picture of the ideal future was of a nation on earth where swords would
be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks and each- man would
sit under his own vine and fig tree. No more modern message could be con-
ceived than that of the prophetic vision of a regenerated society on earth.
Jesus returned to the vision of the prophets and built upon it his idea of a
kingdom of brotherly love. When he picked out from the ancient Hebrew laws
those which he considered greatest, to love God" with all one's heart and soul
and strength and mind and to love one's neighbor as oneself, it was to re-em-

36 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

phasize by the parable of the Good Samaritan the idea of a /better state of
society to begin here and now. In its new conception of life the world is
today returning to the prophetic vision of a regenerated society to begin on
earth. "Otherworldliness" does not now appeal to us as the true type of
religion so much as a brotherly love finding expression in practical ways on
earth. The love of God which seeks personal salvation apart from social
regeneration is relegated to a past era. Those holding to such a conception
do not represent the modern trend.

Now the moment religion is looked upon as a matter pertaining to the
whole of life, to buying and selling, to hiring labor and working for our daily
bread, to looking out for our neighbor's interests as well as our own, that
moment we have tied it up with true patriotism and citizenship. Religion need
not stop with these mundane affairs, but if it begins there we cannot very
well separate education for good citizenship from religious principles. And
the very pertinent question arises, if some people still cling to a partial idea
of what religion really means, an idea which may have fitted another era but
does not fit into present day progress, are we to allow our educational system
to be thrown out of gear by a misunderstanding of terms? ^

f Scholars tell us that no normal person is without the religious instinct, that
even the primitive races reveal it, crudely but unmistakably. This hunger for
spiritual satisfaction, for some close relation of our human spirits to the
Great Spirit above us, around us, within us, seems as natural an instinct as
hunger for food. iVTen have come by slow and painful processes to know the value
of food materials; now we place in the hands of our children the accumulated
intelligence of the ages. Shall we debar them from the first principles of
religious intelligence? By first principles we do not mean ideas emerging
first historically, for in looking back to earliest history we find the crudest
conceptions concerning the great Invisible Power to which mankind is rela'ted.
Those conceptions crystallized finally into doctrines concerning the Deity and
his demands. Religion was long animated by the spirit of fear lest dire punish-
ment follow disobedience. But in later generations fear has been displaced by
love, because man's experience has taught him that his greatest possible good
has come thru harmonious adjustment of his own soul to the Power which he
recognizes outside himself. Consequently rebellion against spiritual law is
suicidal and man brings punishment upon himself if he does not respond to
spiritual demands. We have therefore such modern definitions as Kant's
famous one: "Religion is the recognition of the moral laws as the commands
of God"; and William James': "In broadest and most general terms possible,
one might say that religious life consists in the belief that there is an unseen
order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves
thereto" ;° or in Borden P. Bowne's words: "True religion is nothing but religious
living in the love of man and God";" or as Bishop. Spalding puts it:

Religion is necessary not because it is useful or consoling, but because it is involved
in the nature of man and in the nature of things. It is more than a doctrine and a cult —
it is life, life manifesting itself not in worship alone, but in science, art, morality, and
civilization also. It is deep as God and wide as the sphere of human activity.''

But of all definitions ever given perhaps that of the Hebrew prophet Micah
is the best: "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the

oWilliam James: Varieties of Religious "Experience.

^ Borden P. Bowne : The Essence of Religion.

'^ J. ly. Spalding, Bishop of Peoria : Religion, Agnosticism and Education.

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 37

Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly
with thy God?" Micah's definition has been called "the Magna Charta of
spiritual religion." It might also be named the Magna Charta of good citizenship.
Whatever individual conceptions we may have of God — and each person neces-
sarily conceives of God in his own way — it is the universal judgment that there
is a divine life in the world and most people would agree that "no man has
really learned to live until he has his life filled with enthusiasms to work to-
gether with the Working Spirit of the universe toward the attainment of the
ultimate ends."

In a recent illuminating discussion of the nature of religion we are told
that "religion is the Mother of the Arts"*"; that all creative energy is due to
religious inspiration, and that any art cut off from vital connection with the
source of inspiration decreases in creative power. Religion is moreover an
attempt to realize immediately some ideal which it takes art a long time to
attain. For example, our desire for human brotherhood is an idea even today
far from attainment. "Men have to be made brothers." But religion conceives
of the end as already realized, for "in religion men are already brothers and
experience their brotherhood in the moment of common worship." If this is
true, that religion is the mother of our arts, of all great achievements of genius,
of all advanced movements towards social regeneration, if religion is indeed
"anticipated attainment," cherishing in her bosom the creative ideas which
lead the world onward, what are we doing to future generations and the
civiligation we are helping to make if we eliminate from the consciousness of
our youth any definite dependence upon religion or recognition of its obligations?
Must we not agree with the child psychologist that, given a religious nature, to
cultivate or neglect it is not an educational option?

But some may say this sounds too simple, that they supposed religion was
a more elaborate affair, dealing with creeds, churches, and ceremonies. A clear
distinction must be made here. Creeds and ceremonies have to do' with eccle-
siasticism, not with . religion per se. Creeds are a development of theology;
dogma is an outgrowth of religion, not religion itself. Forms of worship developed
into rites and ceremonies are ecclesiastical means of fostering the religious
spirit. No set form is essential to religion itself. Ecclesiasticism, including
creeds and rites, may be necessary to the intensive culture of spiritual life,
but for a groundwork such complexities are unnecessary. The simplest kind
of belief, as embodied in the above definitions of religion, could hardly he re-,
garded as a creed. Obviously theology, the science of creeds, has no placei
in our public schools. '

Another fact to be kept clearly in mind is that sectarianism is not religion.
Loyalty to a sect is not by any means the same thing as loyalty to God. Dif-
ferent sects may be necessary for the most effective propagation of certain
useful ideas about religion, and while sectarianism may contain religion, it is
not itself religion. Sectarian enthusiasm is by no means the same as religious
fervor.

A third erroneous idea concerning religion is that it is a feeling to be
induced by certain processes applied from without; not a natural unfolding of
life belonging rightfully to everyone, but a state of mind some people choose
to enjoy and others are free to let alone, as if religion were something one
may put on like a suit of clothes. Religion may more truly be likened to the
atmosphere we breathe. We must breathe or die, but we may choose to

^ W. E. Hocking : The Meaning of God in Human Experience.

THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION

breathe air that is invigorating or debilitating. An irreligious person breathes
air spiritually impure; a religious person takes into his system pure, wholesome
invigorating air. We are nowadays enjoined to sleep with open windows.
Religious education means simply to open the windows of our souls to God's
pure air. We have open-air rooms for anemic children who thus win physical
health. Professor Eucken's phrase, "winning a soul for life," signifies much
the same thing for our spiritual selves. Moreover children do not of them-
selves know how to keep in good sanitary condition. Why, then, should we
not see to it that they are taught also to keep their spirits in wholesome con-
dition?- For the physical welfare of the child we prescribe a few moments of
gymnastics, when all in the schoolroom engage in exercises for deep breathing
and relaxation. Why should we not have a few moments for deep spiritual
breathing and resting our human energies upon the divine? We also teach
our children hygiene, believing that he who knows the reasons for healthful
practices will later be more likely to keep his own person, his home, and his
office in wholesome condition. Why should not a child be taught that the
religious attitude towards life needs cultivation? Pestalozzi and Froebel em-
phasized this truth and would agree with the modern assertion that "funda-
mentally religion is a spiritual comradeship, the sharing of life between the spirit
of a child, the spirit of man, and the spirit that pervades the universe." If
these definitions of religion are true, how can we legitimately v/ithhold religious
training from our children? Churches are providing it to a certain extent, but
we must remember the great number not availing themselve| of such privileges.

Iteligioiis Instruction in Public Schools Should Be Confined to Fundamentals

It is quite apparent, however, that religious instruction in our public schools
must be confined to fundamentals. As we study the history of religious ex-
pression we find that after the first simple utterances of faith are passed men
become involved in more complex declarations. This is the realm of theology
with its many phases of belief. In a school for all the people denominational
prejudices arising from varied beliefs is obviously out of place. These differences
involve not only different doctrines but also different tastes concerning forms
of worship. Some enjoy a liturgical service, others a prayer-meeting. This
belongs to the more specific and intensive religious culture and should be left
to the churches. They are the nurseries for the development of special varia-
tions in religious flora. It is only the tested seed of the common varieties of
^religious belief and expression with which the public schools should deal. To
go further would be to assume too elaborate and difficult a task, involving
complications so great as to defeat its very purpose. This does not mean
that the child shall not receive specialized spiritual culture during his school
years. These impressionable years are the very time for it. Wide-awake
churches accept this responsibility. But that part of religious instruction which
the public schools should- undertake falls distinctly within the limits of funda-
mentals. If the child's attention can be held upon these until he cannot forget
them something will be done for our forthcoming citizens which is not now
done with universal success. Can we then determine these fundamentals?

An Endeavor to J)eterniine the Fundamentals of Religious Education

There are two scientific ways of getting at fundamentals, of finding the primary
characteristics in a species. We may collect as many specimens of the form
as possible and discover the common characteristics, or we may find out the

THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION 39

characters always present in the most perfect types, that is, those having the
greatest working power. If we apply these two tests, universality and efficiency,
to religious life, what do we find? First, it would seem that every normal person
believes in a spiritual world; that the belief in spiritual as well as material
forces is universal. The few dissenters are considered abnormal; even the
so-called materialist reckons with the unseen forces of personality and life.
The effectiveness of the belief shows in the universal agreement both from ob-
servation and bitter experience, that unless we lay hold of some spiritual meaning
for life, existence becomes sooner or later petty, wearisome, and scarcely worth
while. Second, reverence in the presence of the great spiritual forces seems
an essential. "There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about an
attitude which we denominate religious," William James said, defining the
divine as "only such a primal reality as the individual feels impelled to respond
to solemnly and gravely and neither by a curse nor a jest." The attitude of
reverence, varying from awe to love, is a universal element of religious feeling.
We all know too well the unwholesome effect of one who does nothing but
curse or jest. That person is fit only for the jail or the insane asylum. And
we recall Aristotle's remark that the solemnizing effect of hymns is good for
emotional boys.

What are these great spiritual forces, then, in whose presence we should
feel solemn and reverential? First, a Universal Spiritual Power greater than
we yet comprehend, whom we call God, There are many ideas of God, but
common elements in all conceptions seem to be God's universality, spirituality,
and power as "the Working Spirit" of the universe. Here we must remember
that children cannot think of God in the same language that mature minds
employ. A child is always anthropomorphic in his conceptions. If God to
him is a great man we do wrong if we try to force upon him a more ethereal
idea. If he thinks of Him as he thinks of his father, only as more powerful
and the Father of everyone, we wrong the child by using terms less real
to his imagination. The Hebrew prophets and poets were wise in calling God
Shepherd, Rock, Refuge, Prince of Peace — names concrete and vivid, each con-
taining some characteristic uppermost in their minds as they thought of God.
There is a time when we realize the figurative value of such expressions and
recognize their symbolism and poetry. To children, however, all life is concrete
and we must speak to them in the language of childhood, the figurative picture
becoming later a symbol of something greater. Even to the child God is
something greater than he knows and in this respect we are all children. The
essential thing is to recognize Him as the Working Spirit of the universe. When
men have felt that the life-spirit in their own breast, struggling for expression
thru their own personality, when they have felt that this dynamic life-energy in
them* is akin to the Great Life-Power of the universe, they have been quickened
into the most effective personalities the world has known. To teach a child,
therefore, to pray in all reverence "Our Father who art in heaven," is to
put him into vital touch with the great source of dynamic personal energy, which
the world so sorely needs.

The second great spiritual fact which a child should be taught to reverence
is the sacredness of personality. The very moment one recognizes that- the
life power within him and his brothers is a part of the divine, he must regard
every personality as sacred. Here our test of effectiveness is clearer than that
of universality. In lands where human life has been held sacred community
welfare has progressed, for this involves community good as well as individual
rights. A good citizen respects not only his own personality but that of others.

40 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

He learns not only to keep his own soul with all diligence, but also to love
his neighbor as himself and thus to make a community worth living in. To
teach a child such reverence is essential according to modern standards of
efficient living.

The third spiritual fact demanding reverent recognition is that the individual
personality must exert himself to lay hold of the currents of spiritual influence
constructive of character rather than destructive. Everyday experience shows
how necessary this is in order to hold the individual to his very best and to pre-
vent communities from sinking into immorality and decay. If children are
taught the sacredness of this truth there will be less fatalism and less humsm
wreckage thrown up on the shores of life.

We have mentioned two fundamental conceptions in religious education,
belief in a spiritual world and reverence in the presence of at least three great
spiritual facts. There must also be regard for the highest and noblest ethical
teachings, the outcome of these two attitudes of mind. We cannot truly love our
neighbor without loving God, for the basic reason for loving our neighbor
is the brotherly bond established in our common relation to God. Regard for
the ethical code of any community depends upon regard for high ideals of
character, ideals which should continually be held before children. The great
precepts of ethical conduct upheld in moral, civilized communities should be
learned and respected because they represent the conduct expected of worthy
citizens. But ethics cannot be divorced from religion, the fruit cannot sever
its connection with the seed; they are a part of the same life-process. Some
maintain that ethics may be taught apart from spiritual religion, that it is all
the religion we need. But history and philosophy demonstrate that ethics
depends for vitality upon the inspiration the human soul receives from the
consciousness of working together with the Larger Spiritual Power.

How Can These Fundamentals Be Taught 2

Having determined our fundamentals, we must next inquire how they can
best be taught. There are two methods of teaching any subject, the direct and
the indirect. In the one case we assign a certain time for the consideration of
that subject. Concentration of attention upon the theme in hand is the great
desideratum and at the close of the period the pupils know that they have
been considering science or language or history. Should not the school have
a similar place for direct approach to the fundamentals of religion, an oppor-
tunity to face spiritual realities?

Of course the approved modern method of teaching is the laboratory method,
demanding a room well equipped for experimentation. In teaching magnetism,
for example, there is no such rapid and convincing way of making clear the
fact of magnetic attraction as to have a large magnet and a score of little
compasses each with its steel needle and to watch the needles swinging at
random until the magnet approaches closely enough to bring them all into
line with itself. There is no such effective way of teaching French or German
as to require the student to use the language. What logical reason can there
be, then, for not saving a short period daily or several times a week when
under the leadership of the head of the school all shall hear carefully selected
religious and ethical precepts and engage in the simplest spiritual prayers and
hymns of reverence and service?

The crucial question is, from what source shall such selections be drawn?
We are accustomed in religious exercises to take them from^the Bible and from
the prayers and hymns of the church. Because of different ways of interpreting

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

the Bible and different beliefs embodied in prayers and hymns, objection has
been raised to their use in school. But surely no good citizen objects to the
commandment "Thou shalt not steal," in spite of certain modern interpretations
of "high finance." Nor would good citizens object to such maxims as the follow-
ing:

lyCt not kindness and truth forsake thee :
Write them upon the table of thy heart.

The rich and the poor meet together:
The lyord is the maker of them all.

As we have opportunity, let uus work that which is good
toward all men.

These precepts are from the Bible. The following from the Koran are similar:

Give full measure when you measure aught ; and weigh
with a just balance. *

Woe unto every slanderer and backbiter.

Some of George Washington's "Rules of Behavior" might well be learned:

When you speak of God or his attributes, let it be ,

seriously in reverence.

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark
of celestial fire called conscience.

If we discover more of such truly fundamental thoughts in the Bible than else-
where it would certainly be pardonable to use it extensively. The last two
groups of selections sound indeed very much like the Bible, and naturally, since
Mohammed recognized the Old Testament as a prophetical book and George
Washington's training in behavior was based upon the Bible. Unquestionably
we should find that most of the noble precepts uttered by good men the world over
sound remarkably like Bible passages, and can be matched in the Bible, if not
in phraseology, at least in sentiment.

Hymns have usually been written as 'the direct expression of the devotion
of some individual and afterwards adopted by the church. Some express
peculiar doctrines, but the best are simple, straightforward expressions of
reverence before God and desire to serve one's fellowmen. There should be
careful selection of hymns containing only such religious sentiments as all would
assent to.

The same is true of prayers. In repeating together "Our Father who art in
heaven" we are on common ground, however widely our individual ideas of
God and heaven may vary. This has been called the Universal Prayer; it
was engaged in at the Parliament of Religions by Protestants, Catholics, Jews,
and Asiatic priests. All faiths can unite too in the ancient Hebrew prayers:

Teach me Thy way, O L,ord ;
I will walk in Thy truth.

O sefid out Thy light and Thy truth;
r,et them lead me.

Create in me a clean heart, O God;
And renew a right spirit within me.

There are enough beautiful prayers both ancient and modern from which a choice
collection could be made without offending any one's beliefs. Or if the leader
preferred to voice such thoughts spontaneously, could exception be taken? A
service book, expressing our common faith but free from every trace of eccles-

42 THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION

iasticalbias, could be compiled; againsttliis there would be no reasonable objec-
tion. A union denominational committee might be chosen as a court of appeal
including educational and biblical experts, the plan adopted in Australia and
recently in Pittsburgh. As the demand increases our best publishing houses will
doubtless secure experts to prepare such books. Some think, however, that any
opening exercises of a religious character must be merely perfunctory. But if
the Twenty-third Psalm, for example, were read as it should be, even without
comment, it could not fail to bring home its religious lesson. A literature teacher
who would regard with dislike the opportunity to read to his class a choice
selectioh from some great author and would do it perfunctorily is not worthy
to be a teacher. Would not this be a just test to apply to a principal leading
his school in opening exercises?

This is the direct way of teaching religion. Pupils would leave the
religious exercise fully aware that they had been facing common spiritual
facts of life.

This direct method, however, is perhaps not the most important method
after all. We have spoken already of the indirect way teachers testify to
religious values thru character and conduct. But this deals with living rather
than with methods of teaching. There is also a large field of teaching per se>
based upon the strictest pedagogical principles, which should include religious
values.

Let us define this field. We will visit the third grade just before Thanks-
giving. The class is reading about the first Thanksgiving Day. Immediately
following this selection is the One-hundredth Psalm, truly expressing the thanks-
giving spirit. This is read as a matter of course, just as on May-Day older
children would read Tennyson's "May Queen." In this reader we find Alice
Gary's "Three Bugs in a Basket." In the fourth grade these children read the
parable of "The Good Samaritan" and the teacher recalls the story of the
three bugs who pushed each other out into the cold, adding the new idea of the
duty of helping the fellow out in the cold. The seventh grade is studying
Tennyson's "Flower in the Crannied Wall" with its deeply spiritual message.
The eighth grade reader has Kipling's "Recessional." To explain this the
teacher must tell about the Old Testament idea of the Lord God of Hosts, the
Judge of the Nations, and the heathen pomp of Nineveh and Tyre. There is
also Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty." If the pupils really sense the fact that duty
is the "stern daughter of the voice of God" they have gained a religious lesson.
Primarily these children are supposed to be learning to read and acquainting
themselves with our best literature. Indirectly they also learn much of history,
geography, scientific observation, and morals. In the same natural way they
should also learn the fundamentals of religion. Even with present methods they
do this to some extent, for many of our best readers include selections distinctly
religious in tone. On account of the anti-religious agitation, however, editors
fight shy of such selections. Entire grades in some of our best series have no
Bible selections. This is an unnatural omission, for the Bible is not only
great literature but also the mother of our English language. Professors of
English urge their students to go to the Bible for models of style in speaking
and writing and advocate reading it aloud. Story-tellers say that from the
standpoint of story-telling there are no stories surpassing Bible stories.

As a mere literary monument the English version of the Bible remains the noblest
example of the English tongue. Its perpetual use made it from the instant of its appear-
ance the standard of our language.®

8 Green's Short History of England.

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

To discontinue its use now is a most marked neglect of our literary inherit-
ance just when our language needs to be kept pure and true while we amalgamate
so many races and tongues. It seems unnatural that our children should spend
years of school life without becoming acquainted with even fragments of this
classic, and the more unnatural since to understand our best authors we must
understand their frequent biblical allusions. Should high school graduates
enter college without having heard, for example, of the story of Abraham and
Isaac or without knowing what the burning bush stands for, or the Pentateuch?^**
Such ignorance on the part of our public school children seems to be rapidly
increasing. That this is due to the unnatural elimination of the Bible from the
public school study of literature seems evident from the fact that pupils of
private schools where such is not the case show much more normal intelligence."
If we are attempting to give our children a well-rounded education the Bible
should certainly take its place with other great classics, quite apart from any
religious value.

Distinction Between the Study of the Bible and the Study of Religion

It must be distinctly understood, however, that teaching religion is not
the same as teaching the Bible, for altho the Bible reveals religion it is in
itself a literature. If that literature receives a worthy presentation it will
necessarily carry with it the great religious lessons woven into its fabric. For
example it would be quite impossible to present the Thunderstorm Psalm" or
the poetical translation of Isaiah's Vineyard Song" in their true literary setting
without letting those beautiful poems carry with them the lessons of reverence
for the Creator and of social responsibility. These lessons may of course 15e
taught apart from the Bible, with other books as aids, but they unquestionably
receive reinforcement from the Bible. The practical appeal of opening exercises
would gain in effect if the Bible took rank with other great classics in the
minds of the students. If the vivid outlines and intense coloring of the Old
Testament masterpieces were realistically reproduced from close sympathy with
an old-world setting like that of Palestine and oriental imagery like that of
Isaiah, our teachers would gain a great pedagogical ally. They would broaden
their own vision of literature and make themselves better teachers. They would
broaden the horizon of American-born pupils and create in them a more lively
sympathy with the races of the East pouring in upon us from the old world.
And they could make the foreigner with his oriental background and manner
feel more truly the unity of the human race, even tho he is in a new
country and a strange environment. This would be a most reasonable point
of contact in our rather crude and blundering occidental endeavor to assimilate
oriental peoples into our national life.

Moreover the Bible may be used legitimately not simply as literature but
in the history and geography classes also. Ancient history has of late been
pushed somewhat into the background by the stress laid upon studies that
prepare the student for his immediate environment. But even educators who
emphasize this attitude see the necessity of using ancient history as the back-

^° This is the actual case of a young woman graduated from one of the first grade high
schools of Ohio.

^^ See, The Biblical Knowledge of High School Students. Religious Education, Aug. i, 1914,
^- Psalm 29.
" Isaiah 5.

44 • THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION

ground for the understanding of later developments." Hebrew history is so
intimately interwoven with the history of the ancient civilizations of Egypt and
Babylonia as well as with that of Persia, Greece, and Rome, that an intensely
interesting way of presenting the importance and national spirit of all five of
these races is to study Bible history. This no longer stands simply for a
recitation of lists of the kings of Israel and Judah, but implies the entire back-
ground of ancient civilization. It presents ideas quite as worthy of consideration
as those of Greece and Rome. It stands for even more than this. The modern
method of teaching history shows how one stage of development grew out
of a preceding stage, as for example how nomadic life developed into agricultural
and agricultural into city life with class distinctions but also growing conceptions
of social justice. Nowhere in the range of historical study do we find a better
epitome of such development than in Biblical history.

The geography teacher also will find in the little land of Palestine an epitome
of what he must otherwise search the entire globe to gather together for
lessons on geologic formations and physiography, on variety in climatic condi-
tions and flora and fauna. No other country begins to compare with it except
the state of California and that is many times as large." Simply from the
standpoint of good teaching a geography teacher cannot afford to ignore this
fascinating land.

This presupposes that during their training teachers of literature and history
and geography shall have had their minds opened to the riches of biblical
material thru some illuminating courses upon it. So many colleges and uni-
versities now offer such courses that this is entirely within the range of possi-
bility.^® The practicability of such high school teaching under a well equipped
teacher has been demonstrated.^^ This is indeed the indirect method of
teaching religion, but there is no method that so manifestly increases the student's
regard for the book that we hold as a sacred trust.

Unreadiness of the Public For New Methods

The nSoment we come to the practical question of ways and means in intro-
ducing any theoretical good, we must consider the soil with which we deal.
In one sense we always have virgin soil in children's minds, but in another
sense we have not. Their minds are the reflection of their parents' minds,
offshoots from the old stock. The efliciency of new ideas usually needs demon-
stration before parents approve. In no realm of knowledge are people so
conservative as in the religious realm. "The good old ways are good enough
for me," is an adage clinging more tenaciously to religious teaching than to
any other. It is therefore not surprising that in many quarters the thought.
of studying the Bible as history and literature seems either sacrilegious or alto-
gether inadequate, and that the idea of eliminating hymns which touch upon
the pet doctrines of certain large branches of the church seems to cut out
the very core of religious teaching. There will doubtless be loud objections
of this nature, but they should not be allowed to hinder the whole movement.
The public is not yet fully aware of the rapid strides that have been made in

" One of our most recent standard text-books on European history, Robinson and Breasted's
Outlines of European History, 19 14, devotes nearly half of the first of its two volumes to
ancient history.

"See Huntington: Palestine and Its Transformation, and Bulletin No. 180, U. S. Dept. of
Agriculture: Agricultural and Botanical Explorations in Palestine.
1" At least 170 according to a census taken in 1912.

" See the Lakewood Plan, I,akewood, Ohio ; report published by Scribn^ers.

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 45

the presentation of biblical material, but they are learning that the great reser-
voir of modern biblical^cholarship is being drawn upon to place at everyone's
disposal"lhe~riches'^of the knowledge of the Bible. If religious education is
judiciously managed, opposition will disappear with the demonstration of the
practical efficiency of the new method.

It would not be wise, of course, to push the matter in any locality to the
point of open antagonism. But wherever opportunity appears, the experiment
can be tried. Its success depends altogether upon the good judgment, earnest-
ness, and equipment of the superintendents and teachers. Obviously no teacher
ought to attempt to handle a high school elective in biblical literature unless
he himself has first had an awakening to its interest and importance. Cer-
tainly there can then be no legitimate objection, if such work is offered for those
whose parents approve.

#
Church and School Complementary

To allay the fears of those who think that such treatment of religion and
the Bible is entirely inadequate, it should be -reiterated that religious education
in the public schools is to be in no wise a substitute for the church Bible school.
It is simply for the purpose of laying foundations, and such foundations as shall
in no way interfere with the solid superstructure of enlightened religious in-
telligence. That such public school instruction would react beneficially upon
church organizations is to be anticipated. The testimony of increased interest
in the Bible and in Sunday School on the part of high school students receiving
instruction in the Bible as history and literature has already given evidence of
the reasonableness of such expectation.^^ It would doubtless force upon our
Bible schools a higher standard of teaching, precisely the demand of earnest,
.farseeing churchmen today. This would be a movement in the right direction
since lack of respect for Sunday-school teaching has resulted from the evident
difference between preparation for it and for that offered at the public school.
It might induce some of the millions of school children at present not enrolled
in any Bible school to seek further instruction beyond the point where the public
school must lay down the work.

Result to Be Looked For in the Home

To the objection that the transfer of religious instruction from the home to
the school means the removal of another of the bulwarks of home life the
reply may be made that it is only the exceptional home which now undertakes
such instruction. If the home were at present assuming this responsibility
instead of shifting it upon the church and the school, the argument would have
more effect. There must come a change of heart before we can expect any
remedy in the home for the religious ignorance of our children. While we
are waiting for such a conversion a whole generation of school children is
growing up. Many conscientious parents acknowledge that they are unequal
to the task of instructing their children even in first principles. Moreover the
Bible, as a book that can speak for itself without theological interpretation, is
as yet hardly known by the masses. It would seem, then, that it is left to the
school to fulfill the legitimate academic function of restoring to their rightful
place the fundamental principles of one great branch of knowledge and the
appreciation of one of the greatest classics of the world's literature. This

^* Sec the report of the first year's trial of the Lakewood Plan, Scribners.

46 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

will react more quickly upon the home and society than any other method, for
the school is the place above all others from whence seed that is sown is carried
back to the home, the church, and society.

The Five Questions Answered

It is now time to recall the five questions which arose from the decisions of
our law courts concerning the introduction of religious instruction into our
public schools. Let us see if the foregoing discussion with the plan suggested
answer these questions.

First, Is religious education an essential part of education as a whole? The
answer would seem to be in the affirmative, if we grant the testimony of the
majority of scientists that all men are born with a religious nature, and the
testimony of centuries of experience that good citizenship is the outgrowth of
a normally developed religious attitude towards one's self, one's fellowman, and
one's God.

Second, If this is the case, can it be divorced from sectarian teaching? The
answer is very plainly Yes, if it is kept upon the plane of the fundamentals
common to all, namely, belief in the fact that this is a spiritual as well as a
material world, that reverence is the only proper attitude in the presence of
the great spirituah forces surrounding us, and that ethical conduct is the out-
growth of such a religious attitude.

Third, Is the expression of religious feeling in worship a necessary part
of religious instruction and can the forms of worship be divorced from sectarian-
ism? The first part of this question must be answered in the affirmative, if by
necessary is meant most effective; the second part also demands an affirmative
if we remember that the simplest forms have been born out of the spontaneous
expression of individual feeling, and have afterwards been adopted and elaborated
by the church. They are therefore forms of common inheritance to which no
particular sect may lay especial claim.

Fourth, Is the Bible essential as the great text-book of religious and moral
precepts? It is conceivable that the fundamentals of religion might be taught
without the Bible actually being used as a text-book, but it would hardly be
possible for a Christian nation to teach such truths without drawing upon the
Bible to a great extent. Since the Old Testament is the background for the
religious life of half the people of the globe" and of practically all of the
people of our own country, it would be quite improbable that religious teach-
ings, however expressed, would not revert to Bible teaching. Therefore to
fight shy of using the Bible as a text-book would seem quite unnatural, and
especially so when we consider that it is one of the greatest classics in all
literature with such a fund of literary, historical, and geographical wealth that
its use would greatly enhance the value of instruction in general. It must be
borne in mind, however, that much that has been called Bible teaching has
not allowed the biblical documents to speak for themselves as literature and
history but has been a sectarian interpretation of these documents, an inter-
pretation which has no place in the common schools. This is quite easy to
avoid when the Bible is appreciated from the standpoint of modern scholarship.
Fifth, If religious instruction is not within the province of the public school
but belongs to. the home and the church, where is such instruction to come

Including Mohammedans.

THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION 47

from for the children whose homes are neglectful and who have no church
affiliations? The only logical answer to this question is that millions of our
children will pass from childhood to maturity, taking their places as citizens
of our various states, without any clear religious conceptions except what the
keenest of them have gleaned by the wayside. That such conceptions are bound
to be of the crudest nature and often mingled with unreasoning and even harmful
superstitution, is the danger that confronts us as a nation.

It would therefore seem that there is a very distinct place for religion in
the education of our children, and that our public schools must undertake the
rudiments of such education unless we are to remain satisfied with turning aut
a large proportion of our youth quite uninstructed in those principles which
make for the best citizenship.

Outline of a Plan For Religious Education in the Public Schools

I. Opening Exercises. For the grades and high school. Ethical readings,
simple prayers, hymns of reverence and service. Occasional speakers upon
phases of ethical conduct.

II. In the grades.

A. Bible stories and parables introduced among other stories. For example:
The Joseph Stories, David and Goliath, The Good Samaritan, The House
Built upon a Rock.

(Many New Testament stories must at present be omitted, because
it is hard to tell the story of Jesus' birth without doctrinal bias, and
we must stick to common ground.)

B. The geography of Palestine should be better taught. No school geography
deals adequately with Palestine. If only two or three pages are given
to an elective in biblical history, namely, the place of the great races
This will afford a point of contact with the Bible.

III. In high school.

A. Use of Palestinian material in studying physical geography.

B. In the study of ancient history facts should be introduced preparatory
to an elective in biblical history, namely, the place of the great races
in the world's history and their distinctive contributions to the world's
advancement.

C. An elective for juniors and seniors.

First semester. Literary study of Great Masterpieces of the Old Testa-
ment.

Second semester. Biblical History in its World Relations. For
example, a study of races, contrasting especially the Semites and Aryans;
a study of stages of civilization and religious development, illustrated
by Bible readings, giving a working knowledge of the Bible and enlarging
the student's grasp of the development of history.

D. For the entire school, especially the classes mentioned, in alternate
years. An Illustrated Lecture upon the Physical Geography of Pales-
tine and An Interpretative Lecture upon the Bible as Literature.

THE ESSENTIAL PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION, WITH AN OUTLINE

OF A PLAN FOR INTRODUCING RELIGION TEACHING

INTO THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Frances Yirginia Frisbie, Teacher, High School, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

At every commencement season thousands of young men and women go
forth from our colleges and universities, many thousands more from our sec-
ondary schools — each one of all these thousands conscious of developed power,
physical and mental. Probably never before have such multitudes been so keenly
alive to individual power and so eager to exercise it in some direction. The
result of this consciousness is sure to be forceful action, which will lead to good
or to ill. Whether the athlete becomes a prize-fighter or a Hercules, following
the path of Virtue; whether the scholar becomes an iconoclast or a Socrates, giv-
ing his life for Truth, depends on how his energies have been directed. It is no
mistake to bring forth all the latent powers of man; the emphasis on physical
and vocational as well as mental development has been a step forward; but edu-
cation is not complete unless it leads to the right use of such powers. Human
energy is like electrical energy: controlled it works miracles for God; uncon-
trolled it brings havoc and ruin. The fate of future generations depends on
whether or not some mighty force may work its way thru the world directing
the energies of mankind.

Religion must be this force. In order to be an active force, it must be more
than a mere ethical system, altho a definite line between ethics and religion can
not be drawn. The test of efficiency must be made in this branch as in all other
branches of education. To be an efficient force, religion must involve for every
individual who comes under its sway, a belief in the existence of God; a recogni-
tion of divine standards higher than the natural standards that man sets for
himself; a desire to live up to these standards, and a belief in his power so to do;
and the application of these principles to life — application so persistent that they
ultimately mould the character.

The study of religion, as it must be defined for recognition in our public
school system, does not include a study of special, so-called supernatural, means
to attain the ends that have been enumerated. Definite creed, distinctive forms
of worship (except very general forms, like prayer, which is approved by all
believers) must be left to the various church organizations to work out with the
individual. With the exception of hymn-singing, religious expression, called wor-
ship, cannot be taught in public schools. The school ought not to usurp the work
of the church; but to aid the church by leading every child to a consciousness of
his spiritual nature. This consciousness will lead many to the church. Each
individual, if he is to develop to the full extent that phase of his mental activity
called spiritual life, must adhere to some religious system or to some definite re-
ligious tenets.

In attempting to introduce religious instruction into the public school, cer-
tain difficulties must be faced. Probably there would be little opposition from
without, if the public understood the extent of the aims of the school. But, if the
word religion be used, it will be difficult to make these aims clear to the masses.
The word has different meanings which are sure to be confused in the public
mind. With all people one use of the word religion is to denote a system of
worship; with many people this is its only use. The latter class will be slow in

THE PLACE OP 'RELIGION IN EDUCATION

grasping its meaning as defined; they will fear an attempt of the school or of
the teacher to direct children to some particular sect. Then, too, the word re-
ligion has so many and so vivid associations: it connotes a struggle against
other belligerent systems — a struggle in which, in the past, our fathers cheerfully
gave their lives, and which, in the present, tho no blood is shed, is nevertheless
a very real struggle. Perhaps it is wisest to avoid the use of the ambiguous
•word. Call the proposed course spiritual culture, as correlative with manual
training, physical culture, and mental discipline; call it character-building; or
call it by no name. A new and imposing name of a course added to the curri-
culum for publication in our annual reports, is not what we need; what we really
need is a genuine, active force guiding our boys and girls in the way they
should go.

Tho we may wisely avoid the word religion in this connection, let us not
avoid the name of God. If we are afraid to use God's name seriously to our
children, they will not be afraid to use it lightly. If we try to teach divine law
without giving God as our authority our- teaching is not religious, but purely
ethical, and will be no more effective than other pui<ely ethical systems. -

If those who present the subject are careful not to antagonize the public by
the use of terms that may be misunderstood, the objection that teaching of re-
ligion in the public school is opposed to the principle of religious liberty, is not
likely to be raised. However, if it is raised, we may answer that no one's liberty
of free choice — even regarding the fundamental principles recognized by all
sects — will be interfered with. No teacher will try to force acceptance of re-
ligious teachings, but will try to guide the child, if he will, to accept what, ac-
cording to the world's great thinkers, will make him a happier man and a more
efficient citizen. We may further answer the one who feels that religious instruc-
tion in the public school imperils the religious liberty of the individual, by ex-
plaining that greater liberty of choice is enjoyed by the one who has knowledge
of that for or against which he is choosing. Can the father who voluntarily
withholds from his child the knowledge of the advantages of a certain vocation
be said to give that child true freedom in choosing a calling? Just as it is the
duty of the state to give to every child an opportunity to develop his physical,
and lower mental powers, so it is the duty of the state to give each one an op-
portunity to gain an insight into the highest realm of mental activity ,* the spiritual
realm. The right of such education belongs not merely to the favored few who
are surrounded by religious atm.osphere at home or who come under the influence
of the church, but the right belongs to every child. The duty of affording every
child an opportunity for religious development may best be performed by the
state thru its public schools.

The previously mentioned difficulties in the way of the state's using its public
schools as a medium of religious instruction, are not the most serious ones. The
greatest difficulty is that of securing teachers fitted to give such instruction. The
spiritual side of our nature, tho so real, is so difficult of analysis that psycholo-
gists evidently fear to enter this domain. For the teacher, an understanding of
how to produce the desired results is just as difficult. Sometimes she finds that
the very thing which she intended to bring the pupil to the right attitude, only
antagonizes him.

In dealing with divine truths the teacher ought to exhibit tact and good judg-
ment by employing fitting language. Study is required to gain command of lang-
uage which, tho definite and suited to the comprehension of the hearer, is, never-
theless, beautiful. Commonplace speech robs the subject of its charm; rough

50 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

speech seems to add the element of vulgarity. There is evident, in present-day
evangelism, a tendency towards breaking away from the beautiful expression of
religious thought that has for millenniums produced the world's martyrs, and
towards the substitution of what is, to say the least, common. Perhaps this
method with the hardened sinner is helpful, and, sometimes, even needful; but
with children it is entirely harmful. The one from whose mouth the child learns
the great truths of life must prune her words, lopping off all that are not alive
with the beautiful and lofty spirit of God.

Not only does tactlessness result from lack of understanding of the religious
sentiment and of how to develop it, but it often results from ignorance of, or
lack of respect for, what people of other religious affiliations believe. The classes
who, because of the definiteness of their doctrines, are most likely to be offended
are Jews and Catholics.

A Jewish parent has a right to object to the teaching that God and Christ are
one. If God is spoken of by His various Old Testament appellations no difficulty
will arise. To the child who, out of school, has come under Jewish influence, the
name God denotes one person; to the one who has been influenced by so-called
orthodox Christian teachings, God denotes three persons. The problem appears
less difficult when we consider that, altho Jews and some Christian sects do not
acknowledge Christ as divine, they regard Him as a great moral teacher, worthy
of respect because of the influence that His teachings have exerted on the world.
No objection will be made to the mention of Christ, if no attempt is made to in-
fluence the child to accept Him as God. In the grades, it is best, for fear of mis-
understanding, to choose most biblical literature from the Old Testament, which,
by the way, is well adapted, with its nature allusions, stirring narrative, and its
biography of heroes, to influence childhood.

It requires study on the part of the non-Catholic teacher to recognize what
distinctively Catholic doctrines she must not interfere with. The best books to
consult are Cardinal Gibbons' "The Faith of Our Fathers," which was written to
explain, from the Catholic standpoint, the difference between Roman Catholic and
Protestant teaching, and "Our Christian Heritage," which deals with the beliefs
that Catholics and Protestants hold in common. If the teacher wishes the support
of Catholics, Greek or Roman, in regard to religious instruction in public schools
*there are two subjects on which, in her capacity as teacher, she must remain
silent. In the first place, she must make no statement that can be interpreted,
"One church is as good as another." A Catholic mother teaches her child that
the Roman Catholic church is the church founded by Christ. Discussion of the
relative claims of denominations for precedence must be avoided. Also, the
teacher must not lead the child to believe that, after the Roman Catholic Church
has interpreted a certain passage of the Bible, any member of that church has
the liberty to change the interpretation. As a matter of fact, no part of the
Bible which presents difficulties of interpretation is likely to be chosen for read-
ing in school. The question as to the "right of individual interpretation" need
never arise. If, however, a teacher attempts to influence Catholic pupils against
these teachings or against any other definite Catholic teachings, she will realize,
as never before, the power of the mighty organization of the Catholic Church. Its
leaders will stand firm against any such influence; which, however, will never
be exerted by the tolerant and tactful teacher.

Another necessary qualification for the teacher is consistency of life to the
religious principles which she presents. Just as the child has little respect for
the instructions of a manual-training teacher who cannot drive a nail straight,
so he fails to respect the instruction of one who preaches forgiveness, but who

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 5 1

manifests an unforgiving spirit. May it be tliat the teacher's recognition of the
fact that she must become a consistent follower of her precepts and the teacher's
constant attention to religious truths, will react, not only upon the pupil's, but
upon the teacher's life? The study of the way to lead others to noble action will
doubtless lead her to life of greater nobility. Thru teacher and class, the force
■of religion will exert itself in the schoolroom more mightily than ever before.

In deciding how religious instruction may be effectively introduced, one must
bear in mind three facts. In the first place, instruction must be systematic. The
system, as in all other branches of teaching, should be based on a recognition of
the fundamental truths to be emphasized, and on the child's natural development.
Instruction must also be continuous. It should begin the first day of the child's
school career and continue without interruption. Better a few minutes spent
every day in an attempt to encourage immediate, though comparatively trivial,
action than a longer period at less frequent intervals. Above all, instruction must
be attractive. In religious teaching, attractiveness is perhaps more essential than
in any other. Unless the child experiences a certain degree of pleasure when high
Ideals are presented to him, all our plans for him are frustrated, because in him
there is not awakened a desire to attain the ideals. To make the study attractive
is easier than may be supposed. Activity of mind is pleasurable to the normal
child, provided he is not prejudiced against the subject of thought. The, teacher,
then, must aim to avoid his developing an antipathy to religious instructions and
to keep him thinking.

In planning a course of instruction the first step is, as has been suggested,
the recognition of the fundamental truths that should be taught. The principles
that may be considered fundamental are those that are acknowledged by thinkers
of all our influential creeds, Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish, and that tend to
make the life of the individual and citizen, in the highest sense of the word, effi-
cient. The classification and summary of such truths may best be shown, in out-
line form, as teachings dealing with:

I. A God of

(a) Love.

(b) Power.

II. God's standards for an individual's conduct in respect to his
(n) Attitude toward God

(a) Recognition of God's power — ^humility.

(b) Gratitude.

(d) Communion with Him — prayer.

(2) Attitude toward himself

(a) Purity in thought, language, and deed.

(b) Truthfulness.

(d) Self-control.

(e) Observance of a day of devotion.

(f) Temperance.

(3) Attitude toward others

(a) Obedience to parents.

(b) Kindness to animals.

(d) Mercy.

(e) Self-sacrificing generosity.

(f) Helpfulness in preserving peace.
Til. Immortality of the soul.

IV. Place of suflfering in the world.

V. Importance of spiritual development.
VI. Necessity of applying principles of religion to all phases of life, private and public.

52 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

After we have clearly in mind the principles to be emphasized, we must con-
sider the mfilhod of presenting them. Altho the teacher's aim ought to be very-
definite in her own mind, the work itself should not be, to the child, too evidently
didactic. If he realizes that he is in a certain class being "taught to be good," he
is not likely to respond eagerly in action. Close correlation with other subjects
of the curriculum is perhaps the best method of presentation. In all cultural
subjects opportunities arise for a discussion of religious questions. The curri-
culum must of course be natural; morals need not be "tacked on" every geo-
graphy and singing lesson. To the child, however, as to primitive man, the thoughts
of God that arise from the study of the clouds, for instance, seem very natural.
We grown-ups have the notion that to be scientific we must leave thoughts of
God out; children have no such prejudice. This method of correlation is good
because it is likely to be attractive, and also because it gives the child the de-
sirable impression that religious activity is not separate but connected with all
other phases of activity.

The subjects that most naturally lead to religious instruction are: nature
study and physiology; biography, history, and civics; and the arts — painting,
music, and literature. An attempt will be made to illustrate how,' thru each of
these branches, effective religious instruction may be given. Of course no one
will infer that the writer holds that the teacher's only aim in presenting any of
the subjects mentioned should be to bring out religious truth. The teacher may
imitate Shakespeare in having at least six reasons for everything that she pre-
sents to the minds of her audience.

For the young child, as for the young races, nature study is a source of
thought concerning God. Let the teacher connect every new wonder, as it draws
upon the child's consciousness, with the idea of God. At the end of a lesson on
flowers, it will not blunt but it will heighten interest for the teacher to repeat,
and lead the children to memorize the biblical passage beginning, "Consider the
lilies how they grow," In connection with the study of trees the teacher may
call attenion to the kind of man who, according to the First Psalm, is like a
healthy tree — "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly
— and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water." After a summary
of the many phases of nature, the One Hundred and Fourth Psalm may be read.
This psalm is a great song praising the God who shows Himself iit so many
ways; the central thought is expressed in, "O Lord, how manifold are thy works!
Praise ye the Lord." The Psalms are particularly adapted for study in connec-
tion with natural science because they are so rich in figures of nature.

Thru the study of physiology and hygiene^ God is recognized not only as a
God of power but as a God of law. His power is manifested in the wonderful
mechanism of the human body. His laws of habit and of retribution prove the
truth of, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Let the teacher
aim to lead from a discussion of physical and mental habits to a discussion of
spiritual habits, emphasizing the importance of care as to the formation of habits-
of truthfulness, honesty, generosity, self-control, and purity of language and
thought. Those who feel that sex-instruction is necessary, can give it in no
better way than thru the combination of physiology and religion. Without sug-
gesting evil, the exceptionally tactful teacher may make the laws of God respect-
ing purity seem very sacred. But the best way is to keep the growing mind
busy with the good and the pure things that God has given His children to
think about.

THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION 53

- The study of the lives of heroic men and women is a wonderful aid to the
teacher who aims to bring forth "doers of the word and not hearers only." Al-
most without exception a truly great man is a believer in a divine spirit and a
follower of what he considers the demands of that spirit. Every great man, from
mythical Perseus to our own President Wilson, is a concrete example of the effect-
ive combination of belief and action; and each example may be a source of in-
spiration to our boys and girls. In addition to the lives commonly studied in
school, we should include Old Testament heroes and heroines. During the study
of David's life bring up such questions as, "Why did David grow to be such a
great m.an?" To determine the answer, analyze his great prayer (Psalm 25).
"Why was he, despite his troubles, so happy that he wrote some of the sweetest
songs ever written?" Read his words beginning, "Thou hast put gladness in my
heart" (Ps. 4:7-8). After studying Solomon's life, ask how he showed his wis-
dom. Let each one learn, every day for a month, one of his wise sayings. The
story of Hannah presents a picture of a patient, trustful woman, whose heart,
when God blessed her, overflowed with gratitude, expressed in her song-prayer
of thanksgiving, "My heart rejoiceth in the Lord."

History should be presented with greater emphasis on the victories of peace
than on the victories of war. The teaching of history as one great military cam-
paign is obsolete; yet we cling to the method of making the rise and fall of gov-
ernments the chief subject of study. Such study is necessary as a sort of frame-
work around which to group other and greater facts; but in tracing the develop-
ment of nations emphasis should be laid on the enduring elements. The teacher
should aim to point to world-wide peace as ideal; and to show the transitory
character of all governments that have been built up in opposition to the eternal
laws of God.

The study of government should include a study of the principles (which are
essentially religious) upon which an enduring government rests. Emphasize the
principles that government should be carried on according to the divine standard
of justice; and that in government, as in religion, self-sacrifice is often necessary
for the common good. Above all, lead the young man and the young woman, also,
to realize that, before God, one's responsibility does not end with private service,
but extends to public service.

In connection with singing there is not a sufficiently general study of the
thought expressed in hymns. Hymns are lyrics setting forth the emotions that
great souls have experienced in the contemplation of God. Interest in hymn-
fiinging increases as a child sees, even vaguely, that a hymn gives to a dominant
feeling toward God a beautiful two-fold expression — expression thru words
and expression thru music. The first step is to study the words to discover
the feeling of the author. In preparing to sing "Lead, Kindly Light," for instance,
explain that Newman was ill on board a sailing vessel, that was forced to remain
quiet for a week because there was no wind, when he wrote the word part, ex-
pressing his prayer that God should lead him and his faith that God would do so;
then explain that the musician expressed these feelings thru the music, and that
the music and the words were combined; and finally, suggest that each one of
us who sings the hymn may make it, for himself, a prayer to God, in whom he
has faith. This method is a help towards our ultimate aim of leading the child
to express his religious feelings in action. One act of praise, the singing of the
hymn, may be performed immediately. A book of hymns, classified according to
the dominant emotions and arranged to accord with the development of the
emotional side of the child's nature (and, also, including only the hymns or parts

54 THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION

of hymns that would be approved by the leaders of all creeds) would be useful
in the schoolroom.

One of our aims in teaching drawing and painting is to develop an appreci-
ative observation of the world in which we live. After a lesson on the clouds, for
instance, can a more effective ending be given than the words of Scott:

"We often praise the evening clouds,
And tints so gay and bold,
But seldom think upon our God
Who tinged those clouds with gold."

Literature and story-telling are especially adapted to lead to religious in-
struction. God directed us to this method of teaching thru literature when He
gave us His truths, not in a catechism, but in a library of spirited history, poetry,
and story. There is an almost limitless supply of literary material in which
ethical and religious standards are applied to life. Even that which seems to be
lacking in religious thought is often helpful in enforcing divine truth. Shakes-
peare's plays are illustrative of this; altho they may not, at first, impress the
reader as being spiritual, they picture the working-out of the laws of God in
human life. A high-school class can be brought to see that "As You Like It," for
example, teaches that human loyalty brings happiness: every character is either,
from the beginning, faithful to his brother, master, friend, or sweetheart, or, be-
fore the end, redeems himself by repenting of his lack of fidelity; and all are
happy, too — they truly enjoy merry songs and practical jokes — just because they
have been loyal one to another. Is it not natural for the suggested discussion of
loyalty to lead to thought that is essentially religious? Another reason why lit-
erature should be employed for religious instruction is that much lit-
erature has an emotional element that helps to create the desired atmosphere for
the presentation of truth, and to produce the right, attitude toward truth. The
emotional effect, may be used to lead not only to knowledge but also to action.
After any pleasurable effect has been experienced by the pupil thru an artistic
presentation of high ideals, the teacher should try to lead him to see that it is
his privilege to take a step for himself — to follow, in his life, the same ideals.

Biblical literature is admirably adapted to help in attaining the ordinary
recognized aims of instruction in reading. One of the problems that an English
teacher has to solve is how to lead her pupils to get a definite impression and
understanding of a work as a whole. They must see that every artistic produc-
tion develops some central idea or some central thought. In numerous biblical
writings, the thfeme is recognized with comparative ease. The story of Daniel,
for instance, may very early be told so that the child understands that it illus-
trates loyalty to one's faith and to one's God.

Biblical literature may be employed, too, in developing the power of grasping
the force of language. The study of figures is important because, when a reader
loses the meaning of the figurative language, he loses so much that is essential
to complete enjoyment. The wise teacher in English, long before she mentions
the name of a figure of speech, leads her pupils to see how clear, or forceful, or
beautiful, an idea may be made by speaking of things by other names than their
real names. No better material for this training can be found than the Psalms,
because they abound in figures that a child can appreciate — figures of nature and
of warfare. The teacher may'explain figures in some such way as: "In the Psalms,
names that are not exactly meant are sometimes given to things; these inexact
names help us to understand better the things that are meant. Why is 'shade,'
for instance, a good name for God?"

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 55

Discuss why the following names are appropriate for

God — shepherd, shield, fortress, rock, light, shade.
• Evil forces — lion, net.

The life of a human being — grass, flower.

A soul longing for God — a hart panting after the water brooks.

A righteous man — a tree planted by the rivers of water.

An ungodly man — chaff.

A place to commune with God — the nest of a bird.
While the necessary aims of the study of literature are being attained thru
the use of the Bible, the child is gradually storing up impressions that will influ-
ence his whole future life.

Besides the suggestions as to how children may be brought to a knowledge of
divine truths thru a correlation of religious instruction and other branches
of study, two important questions should be discussed — the first, how to lead the
individual to apply divine standards to public life; the second, how to direct
children to immediate action in accordance with religious knowledge.

Nearly all the great present day problems — political, social, and industrial —
may best be solved thru the education of our citizens in applying divine
standards to groups or classes of people, thru the education that results not
only in love of a neighbor but also in love of a group of neighbors. The first
day of the child's school life should be made to count in attaining such an atti-
tude toward his neighbors, and every day thereafter until the end of his school
career. At first, a sense of social responsibility may be encouraged by giving
the children something that as a body they may own and take pride in — a pic-
ture-book, a plant, or anything that requires care. Speak of the school as the
home of the class; when anyone mars a desk, he is injuring what belongs, not
to himself, but to thirty or forty others. If he looks longer than his share of
time at the class's book, he is more selfish than when he keeps one friend's book,
because he forgets the right of thirty or foFty friends. Later on, each one will
be fair to the class by singing his best, because the whole class enjoys good sing-
ing. Still later, each one will show loyalty to his school by making one member
— himself — what all will be proud of, and by influencing others to act for the
common good. The writer knows of a class that persisted in whispering during
chapel exercises. One day the teacher presented the following line of thought
to the class:

Not one of us is willing to have anyone say that S School is better than ours.

People judge whether S School is better or not by /what the members of each school

do — in the school-room, on the street, on the athletic field, in chapel. Even tho
we may not be able to honor .our school on the foot-ball field, there are plenty of ways
in which we can help to make our school one of the best, — among others, self-control
in chapel.

After this talk the teacher sometimes had to say, "I'm sorry that in chapel
today somebody forgot to show his school-spirit," but there was a remarkable
difference in the conduct. A tactful instructor can lead children continually to
ask such questions as, "How can I show my love to God by the way I treat my
family; my gang; my town?" and, "What difference does my education make to
my country?"

The second problem — as to how to direct children to immediate action in ac-
cordance with religious knowledge — is most difficult. Everybody knows that it
is easier to show people what they ought to do than to lead them to do it. Let
tho teacher not become discouraged if many attempts seem to fail. A great part

56 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

of her work necessarily consists in giving the child knowledge of God and of the
responsibility God has placed upon him. She may, in her zeal, do more harm than
good by too much talking: the Great Teacher often left His parables unexplained.
Sometimes a seed fails to grow because it is over-watered: there comes a time
when all the wise laborer can do is to rest, trusting in "God that giveth the in-
crease." But there are ways in which the teacher can at least point toward defi-
nite action. All teachers should combine their efforts to form in children the
habit of looking for opportunities to act nobly. Composition work is helpful, when
it requires concrete thought that may result in aclion. For instance, after the
study of Daniel, compositions may be prepared on "A Twentieth Century Daniel,"
or "Daniel's Twentieth Century Sister." Dramatization is often effective in that it
involves action: the actors, at least, feel and then, according to their feelings, do.
Sometimes the class may talk over, in not too personal a way, the cases where
its members have lived up to what they know is right. Let us to whom is given
the privilege of planting and watering the good seed, do it^ with might, and with
wisdom: "And let us not be weary in well doing; for in due season we shall
reap, if we faint not."

Before a possible course of instruction is outlined, the question arises as to
w^hether the boys and girls should have separate courses, dealing with different
predominant ideals according to sex. The writer holds that it is wiser not to
divide the class: girls need guidance in forming ideals of true manhood; boys
in forming ideals of true womanhood. The teacher should aim thruout not to
make instruction one-sided.

No course in religion can be mapped out except to correlate with a definite
curriculum. The one who plans the course should classify and connect Old Testa-
ment literature, so that at the end of the course the child would have a knowl-
edge of Jewish history: he should classify hymns according to their adaptability
for use in the classroom; he should also insist on memory work thruout, for
that which means little to the child, may, if memorized, mean much to the man.
A few suggestions as to what truths and standards of conduct may be empha-
sized at the various periods of the child's development; illustrative examples of
studies that naturally lead to instruction in religion, and illustrations of methods
of developing the principles, may prove helpful to one who is planning a definite
course. These suggestions will be given in the following outline form:

FIRST GRADE

Correlate with study of flowers, trees, birds, snow, etc.

I. God our Loving Father, shown by

(a) Beautiful things — flowers, etc.

(b) Things that bring happiness

1. Learn

(a) The world is so full of a number of things,

I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings. — Stevenson
Name things to make us "happy as kings"

(b) The Year's at the Spring — Browning

2. Learn and sing — No Farthly Father Loves Like Thee — Faber

II. How other people have shown that they are loving children of God

1. By doing what God wished

(a) Joseph forgave and helped his brothers

(b) Hannah gave up her little boy to God, who gave him to her

2. By talking to God as their Father

Read part of Hannah's song thanking God for her baby boy

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 57

III. Each one of us can show our Heavenly Father that we love Him by

1. Being kind to the rest of His children

(a) Obeying and loving parents and teachers
» Ivcarn 4th Commandment

(b) Being unselfish— playing games that our playmates like, rather than the

ones that we like best

2. Talking with Him

Sing several stanzas of the song-prayer — Now- the Day is Over

3. Talk over and learn

(a) Little Things — Mrs. Brewer

(b) Kind Hearts are Gardens

(d) Matt. 22:37-39 on love of God and neighbor

A little child may have a loving heart

Most dear and sweet.

And willing feet.
A little child may have a happy hand.

Full of kind deeds

For many needs.
A little child may have a gentle voice,

And pleasant tongue,

For everyone.

In the first year the teacher may have truly "heart-to-heart" talks with her
children: they accept her word as law; they look upon prayer as natural.

The work should begin at the earliest opportunity, that the children may
come to look upon it as the proper thing for teacher and pupil to talk over the
great things of life.

SECOND GRADE

Correlate with study of seed development

I. God of power, shown by

(a) Wonderful objects of nature

(b) Growth in nature

1. Learn

(a) The Wonderful World— W. B. Rands

(b) A Fairy Seed I Planted

(d) Only a Grain of Wheat

2. Sing

(a) God Moves in a Mysterious Way

(b) My God, How Wonderful Thou Art

II. Deeds grow like seeds. Learn

(a) A Kindly Act is a Kernel Sown— J. B. O'Reilly

(b) Oh, a Wonderful Thing is a Seed

(d) Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap

III. People who have planted good seeds

1. Tell or read

(a) Kind acts of Lincoln

(b) St. Francis' Kindness to the Wolf

(d) Somebody Did a Golden Deed

2. Ask for original stories

IV. Good seeds that we can plant

(a) Kindness toward animals; poor, weak people; the class

(b) Giving what we ourselves would like, to people who would like it

(d) Talks with God — these talks may grow to golden deeds

58 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

THIRD GRADE

Correlate with study of animal life

I. Watchful care of God

1. God the Shepherd

(a) Learn Ps. 23

(b) Read: The Song of Our Syrian Guest— W. A. Knight

2. Names for God that show His care — shield, rock, light, shade, fortress

3. God's care for the Israelites in Egypt and in the wilderness

4. Read : The Captain's Daughter — Jas. T. Fields

5. Sing: There Were Ninety and Nine

II. Other people have shown their gratitude to God

1. By care for animals

(a) Explain Mr. Angell's work in the protection of animals

(b) Read: Black Beauty

2. By care for other people

(a) Lincoln's care for the negroes

(b) Jonathan's care for David

(i) Which Loved Best? — Joy Allison
(2) Story of Cain and Abel

3. By prayers of thanksgiving

Read songs of thanksgiving in Ps. 95 : 1-7 ; 96 ; 97 ; 100 ; 103

III. We can show gratitude by

(a) Joining a society for animal protection. Interest in this organized move-

ment will lead to interest in other such movements

(b) Being fair to brother, sister, mate, class — discuss teasing

(e) Courtesy to older people ; to the class

(f) Praying for others

(g) Thanking God in prayer

IV. Learn

1. Hurt No Living Thing — C. Rossetti

2. If any little love -of mine

May make a life the sweeter, etc.

3. Politeness is to do and say

The kindest thing in the kindest way

FOURTH GRADE

Correlate with study of stars and seasons; and with stories of heroes

I. God of order in the universe

1. Read.

(a) Songs praising God for His works

1. When I consider thy heavens, etc. (Ps. 8)

2. The heavens declare the glory of God, etc. (Ps. 19)

(b) A Child's Thought of (k)d — Mrs. Browning

2. Sing — Before Jehovah's Awful Throne
II. Heroism

1. Heroes of history and literature

(a) George Washington

(b) Samuel — heroic in telling the truth to EH

(d) Greek Heroes — Kingsley ,

(e) The Banyan Deer— Mrs. C. A. Lane

2. Heroism of

(a) Being just

(b) Truthfulness

people to have an undisturbed Sunday

THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION

(d) Honesty

(e) Forgiveness

(f) Standing for pure language, kindness, etc. — read — Somebody's Mother

(g) Joining a temperance society

III. lycarn

I. So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, "Thou must,"
The youth replies, "1 can." — Kmerson

2. Our Heroes — Phoebe Gary

3. Speak the truth and bear the blame

4. He who fears man will do nothing

5. Gowards are cruel, but the brave
lyove mercy, and delight to save. — Gay

FIFTH GRADE
Emphasize hymn-singing

I. Spirit of praising and petitioning God

1. Study many hymns of praise and petition, like

(a) All People That on Earth Do Dwell

(b) A Mighty Fortress is Our God

(d) Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah

(e) Lead, Kindly Light

(f) Lord, We Come before Thee Now

2. Study many psalms as songs

II. Loyalty to God, shown in

1. Praise and prayer —

2. .Gratitude

3. Self-sacrifice for others, especially for groups of people

4. Doing good, not for yourself, but for God

III. Literature and story-telling

1. Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac

2. How the Israelites, at various times, failed in loyalty _
:3. Ruth

4. Daniel

5. Loyalty — Madeline Bridges

6. The Village Blacksmith — Longfellow

7. King of the Golden River — Ruskin

8. King Robert of Sicily — Longfellow

9. To a Waterfowl — Bryant

10. Excelsior — Longfellow

11. Unseen Yet Seen — Eleanor Donnelly

12. The Mansion — Van Dyke

SIXTH GRADE
Correlate with physiology; and with stories of struggle and retribution

I. God of law — emphasize God's laws respecting

1. Habit

2. Retribution

3. Necessity of struggle

II. Care as to habits of

1. Good, kind thought and action

2. Truthfulness

3. Temperance

4. Self-control

5. Using reverent language

Discuss how habits aflfect the groups to which one belongs — family, gang, school,
church, city

6o THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

III. Importance of struggle against

1. Anger

2. Lying

3. Envy

4. Revenge

5. Thought that may lead to evil action

IV. Literature and story-telling

1. Stories showing various punishments that the children of Israel suffered for
disobeying God's laws

2. Stories of men who have struggled for success — Lincoln, IJdison, etc.

3. Franklin's Autobiography

4. The Builders — Longfellow

5. A Builder's Lesson — J. B. O'Reilly

6. The Great Stone Face — Hawthorne

7. You Never Can Tell What Your Thoughts Will Do— Longfellow

8. Prune Thou Thy Words — Newman

9. The Ladder of St. Augustine — Longfellow
ID. Gradatim — Holland

11. What Have We Done Today? — Waterman

12. One by One— Proctor

13. The teacher may tell parts of the story of Edith Wharton's "The Sanctuary" to
bring out the moral struggle. The hero meets no person who works against
him ; but he undergoes a struggle with himself in deciding whether he shall dis-
honestly use his deceased friend's drawings for his own advantage.

V. Compositions on subjects like "A Boy Who Had a Battle with Himself."

SEVENTH GRADE
Correlate with biography and history

I. Natural belief of all races in a divine spirit or spirits

1. Review epics and "Greek Heroes" to bring out proofs of such belief

2. Read

(a) Sohrab and Rustum

(b) As the hart panteth after the water brooks, etc. (Ps. 42)

3. Sing hymns expressing longing for God

(a) As Pants the Hart for Cooling Streams

(b) Nearer, My God. to The'e

(d) Again as Evening's Shadow Falls
II. Heroism

I. What a hero is — one who does something hard because he believes he has a good
reason for doing it ,

(a) Physical and military heroes

Study various lives to decide what reason led each hero to act.
Some men have considered it a sufficient reason to sacrifice their lives
that their country might be larger and more powerful. Is this a
good reason? What laws of God are disregarded when this is con-
sidered sufficient cause for warfare? What reasons led our heroes in
the Revolutionary, Civil, and Spanish- American wars? Would revenge
for sinking the Maine have justified, before God, the Spanish-Ameri-
can War?

Taking of human life is heroic only when it is necessary for some
good cause or principle. Let the child decide why we include in our
list of heroes such men as Beowulf, King Arthur, Joshua, Washington,
General Warren, Pickett, Hobson — despite the fact that they took
human life.

(b) Spiritual heroes

(i) Father Damien
(2) Enoch Arden

Study Lincoln's — Gettysburg Address

(i) Study the lives of Esther; Frances E. Willard ; Florence Nightingale;
Carol in "The Birds' Christmas' Carol"

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 6 1

» (2) Discuss the prominent part taken by women in the world's great
movements
(3) Learn

The rights of women, what are they?
The right to labor and to pray,
The right to comfort in distress.
The right, when others blame, to bless. — Whittier
2. The individual's responsibility in deciding what cause he will uphold
Great men have prayed for guidance

III. Heroes are needed in movements for

(a) Prevention of cruelty to animals

(b) Universal temperance

■^ (d) Making Sunday a happy day of devotion ; not a noisy day

All these movements are (i) for the protection of God's weaker crea-
tures and (2) often involve sacrifice of the individual's rights for the sake
of the general good. For instance, I have a right to drink what I
want to, and possibly strong drink may not seriously injure me; but
it will help many weak people if I heroically give up my right.

IV. Compositions on subjects like

(a) The Heroine of the Dish-pan

(b) The Hero Who Thought He Failed

V. We may be heroes and heroines in standing for

(a) Honesty in the classroom

(b) Purity everywhere

(d) Helping to make the world better by joining other people who want to
make it better

(e) Spirit of humility

I have done a braver thing

Than all the worthies did ;

And yet a braver thence doth spring,

Which is, to keep that hid. — Kipling.

EIGHTH GRADE
Correlate with literature; civics; and lives of painters, sculptors, musicians, and authors

I. God's law of choice

1. Read

(a) The Merchant of Venice

This play shows us more than a dozen persons, each of whom makes a
choice — wise or unwise — according to the kind of person that he is. Dis-
cuss the choice of : each of the three suitors ; Antonio ; Jessica ;
Portia ; Nerissa ; Gratiano ; Launcelot ; Shylock, etc. Shakespeare em-
phasizes the fact that a person shows what he is by his choice of friends.

(b) The Gift of Tritemius — Whittier

Choose you this day whom ye will serve ; * « * but as for me and
my house, we will serve the Lord.

2. Tlie duty of studying the possible results of choice

Read: Julius Caesar

In joining the conspiracy Brutus made an unwise choice. He did not
foresee the civil war that resulted from his choice. He loved his country ;
he was brave ; but he did not study the question as to what would follow
the killing of Caesar.

3. Our responsibility in choosing

(a) Our intimate friends

(b) Whether or not we will stand for justice and brotherly love in private
and public life

Discuss the effect of educated, upright citizens upon a city and upon
a nation.

62 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

(d) Our life-work

Discuss the opportunities for doing good in various callings. Be care-
ful not to overestimate the opportunities in professions compared to
opportunities in other lines of work. Suggest that God's guidance be
sought.
II. The place of suffering in the world

1. Read

(a) Job

(b) The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The crime of the Mariner was so great because it was committed in
the spirit of hatred. Thru suffering he came to a spirit of love ; thru
^ love he came to God.

2. The beauty and reward of patience

(a) Stories showing the patience of great painters, sculptors, musicians, and
authors — Millet, Michelangelo, Beethoven, Mozart, Goldsmith, Milton, Lamb,
Longfellow, etc.

(b) Original stories of patience

(i) Milton's sonnet— On His Blindness

(2) Genius is eternal patience. — Michelangelo

High School

The force of religion ought to exert itself in developing our high-school boys
and girls into efficient citizens. College-bred teachers in secondary schools are
too likely to feel that training in leadership must be left to the college. This is
true to a certain extent; but we must not forget that education is needed not only
to produce strong, unselfish leaders, but also to produce intelligent, unselfish fol-
lowers. In order that training may continue without interruption, the teachers
in every high school should clearly understand what courses in the various
years are to assume the responsibility of giving definite religious instruction.

Many of the works of literature that are commonly read in high school be-
cause they meet the college entrance requirements afford suggestive material for
religious teaching. Old Testam^ent narrative, which, according to the present
college entrance requirements, may count as one unit of literature, is especially
fitting in a course that includes instruction in religion. Instead of this study
of Old Testament narrative, or better, supplementary to such study, the course
should include various other selections from the Bible. The aim in teaching these
selections should be to develop in the pupil the ability to read the Bible with
understanding, with profit, and with enjoyment. Altho the New Testament, as
suggested earlier in this discussion, is not suited to instruction in the grades, it
may safely be included in the high-school course.

At the high-school age there is little danger of any pupil's failing to recognize
that, even if he may not accept it as the record of the teaching of a divine savior,
the New Testament is, nevertheless, worthy of his respect because it is an artistic
presentation of lofty thought; thought that has been accepted by many great
thinkers and by many great peoples. There is, then, no reason for omitting the
study of the New Testament. The following outline suggests portions of the
Bible that are suitable for high-school study :

I. Description of

1. Heavenly hosts praising God — Rev. 19:1-6

2. Heavenly City — Rev. 21:16-22:5
II. Exposition of

1. Moses — Ex. 20

2. Solomon — from Proverbs ,^^^m

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 63

3. John the Baptist — Luke 3:3-14

4. Christ — Sermon on the Mount

5. Paul, concerning

(a) Charity and gratitude — I Cor. 13; Col. 3:14, 15

(b) Spiritual warfare — Kph, 6:13-18; I Tim. 6:12; II Tim. 5:6-8

(d) Social and political questions — Col. 3:18; 4:2: 4:5-6; I Thess, 4:3-13;
5:4-18; Titus 3:1-3; Heb. 13; Rom, 15:1

III. Narrative to illustrate truths concerning

1. Duty of forgiveness — Matt. 18:23-35

2. Use of advantages — Matt. 25:14-30

3. Active charity — lyuke 10:29-37

4. Joy of God over a repentant sinner — Luke 15

IV. Arguments of Paul

1. To Romans, on

(a) Obeying magistrates — Rom. 13:1-6

(b) Love is the fulfilling of the law — Rom. 13:8-10

2. To Athenians, on

The nature of God — Acts 17:16-33; analyze arguments in 22-31

V. Poetry

1. Epic — from Genesis and Exodus

2. Lyric

(a) Psalms — classified in cyclopedic concordance

(b) Lament of David for Saul and Jonathan — II Sam. 1:17-27

(i) Hannah — I Sam. 2:1-10
(2) Mary — Luke i :46-55

3. Compare biblical lyrics with other religious lyrics, like

(a) Soul and Body — Shakespeare

(b) Lead, Kindly Light — Newman

(d) My Heart Leaps Up — Wordsworth

4. Dramatic — in spirit, but not in form

(a) Downfall of Samson — Judges 16:4-31

Request the class to dramatize the story ; ask such questions as : What
central thought should be developed? What information concerning Sam-
son's former life should be given in an introduction? How many incidents
are given in Judges 16:4-31? Where are the climax and the catastrophe?

(b) Read: Samson Agonistes

What part of Samson's story did Milton dramatize?

Besides the literature courses planned to give high-school students religious
instruction, a course in general biology and a course in general history may be
given to further such instruction. In each course the teacher, in connection with
the work ordinarily required in biology and history, should aim to develop re-
ligious truth. Such correlation with biology will remove the danger — so fre-
quently present in scientific study — that the student may be led away from a
belief in God. Not only will it remove the danger, but it may, by unfolding God's
wonderful plan, in which the tiniest spark of life is an inherent part of the per-
fect whole, strengthen his belief in a divine intelligence. Such correlation with
history will lead the student to a realization, helpful even if it be a vague re-
alization, of God's guidance in the world's greatest crises. In the following
topical lists, the writer attempts to suggest lines of religious thought which, in
the hands of a skillful teacher, may naturally and easily develop from the study
of biology and of history:

64 THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION

BIOLOGY

Suitable for first year high school
Evidences of the existence of a Divine Creator

I. The wonderful plan realized in life-forms necessitates a recognition of divine creative
power. This plan is wonderful because it

1. Includes every form of life — from lowest to highest ; every form shows definite plan

2. Shows care as to infinitely minute details

In astronomical research, the student is overwhelmed in the attempt to imagine
the harmonious, infinitely vast works and systems of the Creator's plan ; in bio-
logical research, the student is perplexed in the attempt to imagine the har-
monious and infinitely minute details of the same Creator's plan.

3. Gives power to life-forms to adapt themselves to changing circumstances and
surroundings

4. Provides for natural punishment of the life-forms that do not obey the natural laws

5. Tends to preservation of life under varying circumstances

6. Encourages development from lower forms of life to higher forms

7. Makes the various forms interdependent

Discuss how this divine plan compares, in each respect, with mere human
plans. Also, what each fact concerning these known life-forms leads us to
believe concerning the future life of the spirit.
II. There are definite limits to the knowledge that can be obtained thru science

Science discovers the divine laws that govern life ; science has not taught
us to create life.

HISTORY

Suitable for second year high school

1. Natural belief of mankind in

(a) Divine power or powers

(b) Immortality of the soul

2. Ethical principles common to several religious systems

3. Immorality and corruption preceding downfall of nations

(a)' Intemperance

(b) Lack of ideal home life

4. Important part played by the church in the civilization of the world

5. Development of high ideals respecting

(a) Religious tolerance

The cause of religious persecution is not religion : but the failure of men
to apply divine standards to social and political life. Self-control of
races needs to be developed to conquer barbarous instincts.

(b) Warfare

Classify wars as: (i) unjustifiable; (2) justifiable; (3) ones which have
• led to scandal because people have forgotten the great cause.

6. What we may hope for in the future — religion carried into every phase of life

7. What we can do to make the future greater than the past

Besides the instruction connected with biology and history, there may be
offered, in a high-school curriculum, special courses designed to summarize
previous religious teachings. The two following lists suggest appropriate sub-
jects for discussion in such special courses.

SPECIAL COURSE

Suitable for third year high school

1. Evidences of the existence of God

2. Summary of principles of conduct accepted by Protestants, Catholics, and Jews

3. The attitude of our influential religious systems towards questions as to

(a) The power of an individual to determine his own destiny

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 65

(b) The good that may spring from existing evil

The attitude of religious intolerance and of ridicule — which frequently
is the result, not of malicious spirit, but of ignorance as to what other
people believe — will be discouraged and intelligent religious tolerance pro-
moted, if a teacher finds it possible, without offending anyone, to outline,
for use in this special course, the beliefs of the three great religious sects —
Roman Catholic, Protestant, Jewish. Perhaps the creed of the Roman
Catholic Church is less clearly understood than that of any other; there-
fore, the following outline of Catholic belief is given — as an example
of the various outlines that should be prepared to increase the pupil's knowl-
edge of, and tolerance for, the beliefs of others.

Catholics '(in addition to the Christian teachings accepted by Prot-
estants) believe in

1. Submission to authority in doubtful matters concerning religion and
morals. Chief authorities ar« (i) the Pope; (2) the Church Council

2. Seven special ways (called sacraments) by which God's spirit is be-
lieved to be given to man

3. Power of the holy departed spirits to intercede to God for the living.
(The Virgin Mary is looked upon, not as a god, but as an intercesnor
especially powerful because of her holy life and close relationship to
Christ.)

4. A state (called purgatory) in which those souls not completely puri-.
fied at death are believed to attain purification thru suffering

SPECIAL COURSE

Suitable for fourth year high school

Aim: — to strengthen the sense of responsibility as to the application of religious principles
to various important phases of modern life.
Discuss

1. How religious principles may be applied to

(a) Political life — local, national, international

(b) Social life — thru protection of those who suffer from
( I )* Industrial conditions

(2) Sale of intoxicants

(3) Unsanitary conditions

(4) Ignorance of laws of health and purity

2. Importance of

(a) Guarding the home as sacred

(b) Observing, generally, a day of rest

3. Responsibility of the individual with respect to

(a) Giving, in accordance with his means, to the support of great causes

(b) Allying himself to a church organization — in order that he may render
more effective service

(c) Striving persistently to uphold, in private and public life, the standards
that he has thoughtfully recognized as divine standards

If the public and the public's teaching force work together — at fiijst, to intro-
duce into the public school some such course as is here suggested; and if they
work together, after its introduction, to carry out the spirit of this course, the
force of religion will begin to exert itself more actively and more effectively than
ever before; religion, the mighty force directing the energies, not of all mankind,
perhaps, but directing the energies of an ever-expanding group of mankind.
Some, in visions, see this mighty force working its way thru the world — con-
verting waste places into the domain of the "Heavenly King" — until, in final tri-
umph, the "Kingdom of God" is established on the earth. But this divine king-
dom is revealed only in visions. At present, the world is but a mighty vineyard.
Let us, who are toiling to bring forth good fruit, believe that it is "God that
giveth the increase" and trust Him for His richest blessing on our labor.

THE ESSENTIAL PLACE OF KELIOION IN EDUCATION, WITH AN OUTLINE

OF A PLAN FOR INTRODUCING RELIGIOUS TEACHING

INTO THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Clarence Reed, Minister, Unitarian Cliurch, Palo Alto, Cal.

CONTENTS

PART I

The relation between religion and education.
Religion is essential to education in three ways. '

1. Emphasis upon the worth of the individual.

2. The belief in the universal brotherhood of man.

3. The teaching in regard to the permanence of values.
The place of religion in education.

The purpose of religious training.

What virtues should be taught?

When should the religious element be introduced?

Working principles in religious training.

1. A child should be permitted to do his own moralizing.

2. Inculcation of love for ideals.

3. Begin with the immediate, simple, and concrete.

4. Begin with an interest that already exists.

5. It should be associated with the joy of discovery.

6. Creation of the right kind of an atmosphere.

Wrong methods of teaching religion. '

Reasons for failures in inculcating ideals.

Fundamental elements in the development of the character of the child.

1. To see clearly.

2. To feel rightly.

3. To spontaneously act nobly.

PART II
Experiments in the use of the indirect method of inculcating ideals.

1. The observance of holidays and anniversai-ies.

2. Problem studies.

3. Informal talks and discussions on current subjects.

4. Memorizing selections from the sacred scriptures of mankind and the masterpieces of

literature.

5. Proverbs.

6. Organized play and athletics.

7. Dramatic performances.

8. Pictures of paintings and sculptures.

9. Development of the spirit of philanthropy.

10. Stories.

11. Nature study.
Conclusions.

The Place

Representatives of all the churches are agreed that it is not right nor wise
for denominational interpretations of religion to be taught in the public schools.
Many schoolmen are, however, conscious of the need of the interpretation of the
life of the child in terms of an ideal goal, and unconsciously the public school
teachers are inculating to a greater or less extent a positive religion of devotion
to moral ideals, an appreciation of the beautiful, and a love for truth.

There is a -close relationship between religion and education. One of the best
definitions of the goal of education is that of Thomas Davidson — "to develop
man's ideal nature." Education has value in proportion as it inspires pupils to

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 67

carefully observe facts and their relationship to life, form judgments of worth,
and think for themselves: or as Froebel says, its purpose is "to build up a life
which should be everywhere in touch with God, with physical nature, and human-
ity at large." Its aim should be to inspire boys and girls to attain unto self-
realization, and to help universalize virtue and happiness in society. J

The highest form of religion is affirmed by the reason, appeals to the con-
science, and takes possession of the emotions. It is an ideal attitude toward the
problems of life and a persistent effort to live a moral life. Religion is an inward
life having to do with the aspirations of the individual, and it is an outward life
in which man strives to realize his social ideals. It causes an ideal self to rise
before the actual self. Religion is not a blind belief in a creed, nor literal obedi-
«ence to an external code of commandments, but the cheerful acceptance of the
highest duties as the expression of man's inner nature.

There are three ways in which religion is essential to the realization of the
goal of education:

1. The teachings of the great prophets of religion in regard to the worth
of the individual is the foundation for the modern emphasis in education in re-
gard to the highest possible development of every child. The greatness of the
individual depends upon the training of his intellect, emotions, and will. Thru
the intellect he discovers the problems of life, thru the emotions he fathoms the
abysses of mystery and climbs the heights of joy, and thru the will he expresses
in life his ideals. This phase of religion has been defined by Francis E. Abbott —
"Religion is man's effort to perfect himself."

2. The universal brotherhood of man has been _ taught by all the great
prophets of religion. Emphasis upon this idea tends to make of the pupils in the
public schools what Wordsworth calls "patriots of the world."

It is possible to prove the economic wastefulness of war, and the moral and
physical degeneration that results from it, but wars will continue until the mem-
bers of the different races think of each other as brothers. In place of emphasiz-
ing in the teaching of history the glories of war, save wars for liberty and self-
defense, students should be taught that militarism based on national and racial
prejudices is the worst enemy of mankind.

One of the greatest missions of our public schools is to eliminate racial preju-
dices and universalize a belief in the Italian proverb: "All the world is one
country," and the words of the Apostle Paul: "God made of one every nation ,
of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." There will ever be radical differ-
ences between races due to environment, heredity, and social ideals, but the dif-
ferences need be no greater than those which exist between brothers in the same
family, where one is self-assertive, practical, and a man of affairs, while another
is a dreamer, an idealist, and a poet.

It is possible to find a basis for the solution of the conflict between capital
and labor only in a vital belief in the universal brotherhood of man. Boycotts,
lockouts, and strikes are manifestations of the anti-social spirit, while coopera-
tion, profit-sharing, and just industrial relations are expressions of brotherhood.

If a belief in brotherhood takes a strong hold upon boys and girls, they will
feel a sense of sympathy and be possessed with love for mankind. Then they
will wish to do what they can to help other people live healthier, happier, and
more virtuous lives. Markham expresses this idea in the words:

"The crest and crowning of all good,
Ivife's final star, is brotherhood."

68 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

3. Another way in which religion is essential to education has been clearly
stated by Professor Hoffding, who has given one of the best working definitions of
religion as, "Faith in the permanence of values." What are the values that give
life its highest meaning? Babies define value in terms of bright colors and things
that taste good. Young boys see value in tops, marbles, kites, slingshots, and
organized play. Older boys discover that many of the things they most desire
are to be obtained by money, and thus money seems to them to have a new value.
Then may come the greatest discovery that the highest values in life, such as
love, friendship, courage, truth, justice, and beauty, are ethical and spiritual in
character.

Joseph Conrad has clearly expressed the place of religion in education in
the sentence: "Give me the right word and the right accent and I will move the
world." When a teacher is endeavoring to persuade a pupil to love a certain
ideal or to follow a certain course of action, the arguments which he uses have
only a slight influence. Success comes to the teacher thru the discovery and
expression of the right word. The use of the right accent is also important, for
language to have supreme power m.ust be dramatized.

There is more in every ideal than can be expressed, in words. The teachings
of the dilferent religions are generally sought in their sacred scriptures and
creeds, while another way to discover the vital ideals of any religion is in thet
spontaneous expressions of its spiritual teachings in the fine arts. In this form
religion may be taught in the public schools without running counter to the
creeds of Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Jews. "The Shepherdess" of Millet
has an atmosphere so palpitating with religion that it enables the observer to
look into the souls of devout French peasants. Such a play as Forbes-Robertson
in "The Passing of the Third Floor Back" inspires people to express their highest
ideals in the common relations and work of life. Thru vivid descriptions of the
Pyramids of Egypt, the Parthenon,, the Alhambra, the Daibutsu of Kamakura, and
the Cathedral of Milan, the universal messages of the religions of mankind may be
made real.

The indirect value of the spiritual messages of the fine arts is difficult to
over-emphasize. A symphony by Beethoven fills the soul with rapture in the
consciousness of perfect harmony; a Wagnerian opera portrays the age-long
struggle between liberty and tyranny, right and wrong, truth and error-;, a com-
position by Tschaikowsky causes the listener to hear the sighs of the exiles in
Siberia and the shouts of the people of free Russia; a picture by Israels of Dutch
fishermen expresses the kinship of mankind; and David Warfield in "The Music
Master" reveals the imperishableness of love.

In order for religious training to appeal to the imagination of the pupil and
interest him, it must be related to life. ' The reason students do not care for
Greek is that it seems to pertain to people who have been dead two thousand
years. Relate the study of Greek to life as it was at the time of the Italian
Renaissance, and mature people as well as young people will study the Greek
language. Students are fascinated with the study of bacteriology because thru
their investigations they hope to discover means to eliminate tuberculosis, pneu-
monia, and cancer. Others are planning to become electrical and civil engineers,
not simply because of the money they may make, but especially on account of the
opportunities to do creative work.

The highest forms of religion have as a common aim the realization of a
harmony between religion and life. All education that has supreme value is also
related to life. The failure to relate religion to life has been one weakness in

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 69

the moral and religious instruction of children. They have been taught to repeat
the Ten Commandments but not inspired to keep them, or to recite the Apostles'
Creed instead of practicing the self-sacrificing spirit of the early Christians.
Pupils are taught to solve certain problems in an arithmetic book but they often
fail to solve correctly problems in arithmetic in business life. They may learn
the rules of grammar and yet not speak correctly.

The word religion needs to be defined so as to include all that is best in
human life. Religion is not something separate and apart from life, but is an
effort to interpret life in its highest terms. A poet writes a simple song beginning
with the words: "The year's at the spring," and mankind is enraptured by its
beauty and religious message; Millet paints a wheelbarrow, a spade, some po-
tatoes, a church spire, two peasants in prayer, and the world bows in reverence;
and Rodin carves a Belgian soldier and reveals to mankind the development of
the race from the bronze age.

The purpose of religious training is to cause the pupil to realize what ought
to be done and to execute it in the most efficient manner. The whole nature of
the child enters into the problem of religious training, — the body thru physical
exercises, organized play, and work; the emotions thru the appreciation of the
beautiful in nature and the fine arts; and the intellect by careful observations ana
accurate conclusions.

The spiritual nature of the child should be developed as naturally as his in-
tellectual and physical natures. Many children are suffering from arrested moral
development, which is even more pitiable than arrested mental or physical de-
velopment.

Childhood has worth in and of itself and not simply as a stage in the de-
velopment of mature life. Froebel says: "Adult man has not become adult man
by reaching a certain age, but only by faithfully satisfying the requirements of his
childhood, boyhood, and youth." Religious instruction that has value is not some-
thing to be stored away for use in adult years, but has to do with the duties of
the present moment.

One diflacult problem in religious training is to discover means for the de-
velopment of the virtues as they naturally appear at the different stages of the
growth of the child. Certain virtues and vices are manifested in the lives of
children with almost the same regularity as at different seasons of the year ap-
pear sling-shots, tops, marbles, skates, kites, jacks, baseball, and football.

There is generally a dominant virtue or vice to which a child is susceptible at
each stage of his development. The performance of the duties that belong to an
early period serve as the best preparation for the duties of later years. The vir-
tues of the earlier years receive higher interpretation in later life.

The desire for property arises at a certain period and a child at that time
prizes a bank. Then should begin instruction in thrift, and emphasis should be
laid upon the property rights of others. The self-assertive age comes, and then
it is easy to teach self-reliance, personal initiative, courage, and endurance. The
self-assertive virtues generally arise before the altruistic ones.

The effort to impress the moral ideas of adults on children, or the discussion
of the problems of boys and girls from the point of view of adults, or the en-
deavor to inculate in their lives virtues that are not appropriate to their stage of
development, tends to make them hypocritical or self-righteous.

What virtues should be taught and at what ages? Until a child is ten years
-of age the main virtues to be inculated are obedience, truthfulness, honesty, and
the practice of happiness. These are the foundation stones of a moral and re-

yo THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

ligious character. Then comes an increase of physical activity and for two or
three years the emphasis should be upon courage, kindness, skill, and strength
in boys, and grace in girls in place of strength. From twelve to fifteen the
needed virtues are loyalty, knowledge, mutual helpfulness, perseverance, purity,,
and reverence. After fifteen years of age there should be an increasing emphasis
on a sense of personal responsibility, the development of a civic conscience, and
a desire to fit one's self to become a useful citizen.

The question has been asked: "When should the religious element be intro-
duced in the education of the child?" It is not something to be introduced for it
already exists. It needs to be developed by proper methods of self-expression. A
child may be taught the catechism and any number of moral rules, and yet be a
prig, a formalist, or a hypocrite. It is fundamental to express religion to a child
in ways that will develop right motives, noble aspirations, refined tastes, and
heroic enthusiasms. This may be done in many ways, but as a rule it is best
done indirectly.

It is not possible to formulate fixed rules for the moral and religious in-
struction of children in the public schools. There are certain general working^
principles that have worth in the interpretation of the meaning of life, and in
the teaching of ideals to children:

1. A child should be permitted to form his own belief and do his own
moralizing. The higher nature of the child should be regularly nourished, for
ideals are as necessary in the development of a moral character as three meals a.
day are necessary to a growing boy. In many ways desirable moral reactions
may be produced, but the child should have the right to draw his own conclusions.

2. The inculcation of love for higher ideals. In order to improve the char-
acter of a pupil it is not wise to spend much time in condemning his faults. Mrs.
Humphrey Ward says that the way to improve conduct is "by the substitution of
one mental picture for another. An idea cannot be killed from without — it can
only be supplanted, transformed by another idea, and that, one of equal virtue
and magic."

3. Efficient moral training of children begins with the . immediate, simple,
and concrete. The training should be given not with the idea constantly in mind
as to what the child is going to do when he becomes a man, but what he ought
to do and be at the present moment. He is swayed by moods and impulses, some
of which are good and others are evil. A storm of anger is succeeded by an act
of affection or generosity. Children possess vivid imaginations, a large amount
of spontaneity, and crave means of self-expression.

4. It is desirable to begin with an interest that already exists. Wonder,
love, and curiosity are common to all children. A fine play in a baseball or
football game, the making of a cave, kite, or canoe, an Indian story, or a dog^
story furnishes the point of contact by means of which to relate religion to life.
The great problem is to keep in mind the virtues which naturally belong to th&
child, and discover means to present them so that they appeal to his interest

Ideals should be presented so that students will care for them as a boy likes
a tale of adventure, and not hate them as medicine with a bitter taste. In place of
condemning cigarette smoking and drinking it is much better to read aloud the
article by Connie Mack in McClure's Magazine for May, 1914, in which he says
that the reason for the success of the Athletics was "clean living and quick think-
ing." He adds: "Not a man on our 'one hundred thousand infield' as it is called^
has ever known the taste of liquor."

5. There should be the joy of discovery in the process of developing a moral

THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION 7 1

character. The teaching of religion should have the fascinating interest of a
thrilling work of fiction. Let religion be defined so as to include John Muir's
love of the mountains and glaciers, and there is no trouble to interest pupils in
the subject.

6. The most important element in religious training is the creation of the
right kind of an atmosphere. As a person can live only a few minutes without
air; so ideals are often smothered by a harmful atmosphere. A child is con-
stantly influenced by the social atmosphere of the home, school, and playground.
Certain persons change the moral atmosphere of the schoolroom as soon as
they enter it. One pupil with base ideas will corrupt the tone of a whole school,
as one decayed apple will injure an entire barrel of apples, and one case of
measles will infect an entire neighborhood. Religion should be expressed so that
it will constantly pervade the atmosphere breathed by the children, and cause
them to instinctively love that which is best and want to do right.

The use of wrong methods in teaching religion has the same effect as the im-
perfect teaching of any subject. It is possible to teach children in a way that
will do harm in place of good. Pupils may be taught Shakespeare so that they
come to really love his works or to hate them. Religion should not be presented to
boys and girls as if it were like a flower-bed arranged in geometrical design, nor
as trees arranged in rows a certain number of feet apart, nor as a well kept lawn
with the sign: "Keep off the grass." There has been a tendency in the past to
express religion to children in terms of bookkeeping or jurisprudence. It is not
something about which to bargain, or commandments to be obeyed, but it is like
the pearl of great price to be sought with joy.

Much of religious training has been like a crazy patchwork quilt, like the
different pieces in a kaleidoscope. Religious training in the public schools to
be effective should not be limited to a few minutes each day, but it must be re-
lated to all the activities of school life. The expression of certain religious
ideals should be as natural to the child as it is for a healthy rose bush to bear
roses.

Negative commandments have had value in the moral education of the race,
and to the extent that children express in their lives certain primitive traits, they
are needed today. Boys and girls often do wrong because they do not realize
that certain deeds are harmful.

It is best by means of suggestion to turn the mind of a child from unsocial
and harmful deeds, but if he persists in doing them, then the "Thou shalt not"
must be clearly expressed. Reproof should be used sparingly, as a physician
uses poisonous drugs.

The worth of the "Thou shalt not" is to prepare the pupil for the "Do this,"
and finally for spontaneous morality as an unconscious attitude of mind. The
"No! No!" spoken to the baby when near a stove, or as he starts to pull the
cloth from the table, is of value in laying the foundation for the inculcation of
obedience. Constant condemnation of ordinary vices, such as untruthfulness,
dishonesty, cruelty, selfishness, injustice, and jealousy may do more harm than
good. Positive virtues arise and grow, not so much thru the condemnation
of misdeeds, as by the inculcation of love for a person or object, and thru loyalty
to a cause that has great worth.

There need be no more failures in the inculcation of moral and religious
ideals than in any other subject of instruction. It is almost impossible to teach
certain pupils to sing and others to draw. Some never seem to really understand
arithmetic, and to others grammar is always a mystery. Honesty, truthfulness,
courage, loyalty, reverence, and brotherliness may be taught as efficiently as

72 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

arithmetic, grammar, or history, if as much care is taken in the inculcation of
these virtues as in teaching other subjects in the curriculum.

Failure in inculcating moral ideals is often due to the teacher failing to
find the point of contact between the ideal and the thought of the child, or his in-
terest is not aroused in the subject. A teacher who was coaching a boy that
had failed to pass in arithmetic tells of working almost an hour in trying to
help him understand a lesson in fractions, and when at last an encouraging look

of understanding appeared on his face, he said: "Miss A , do you think the

Giants or the Athletics are going to win today?"

Many of the failures in religious training are due to hereditary waywardness.
It is difficult to overcome certain forms of hereditary waywardness without an
understanding of man's evolutional development. Almost every domesticated ani-
mal has some hereditary instincts that are of little or no use to it at the present
time. A cat, even tho she has plenty of food, will kill a pet canary, or sit for
hours by the side of a gopher hole waiting for a chance to seize her prey. A
well-fed dog will run after a rabbit because his ancestors obtained their food
in that way.

Some of the vices of children are survivals of primitve customs and heredi-
tary instincts. Laziness, lying, dishonesty, cruelty, revenge, cheating, and sus-
picion may all be traced to hereditary waywardness. It is easier for a child to
yield to some left-over instinct from barbarism than to rise to a higher ethi-
cal life.

If a child one year of age is given a stick he will use it as a club, because
his forefather was a savage who clubbed his enemies. A window-pane, a chair,
a bouquet of flowers, or a cat serves the same purpose to a child as a head to
his forefather. The fear that the average child has for darkness is an inheri-
tance from the time when the darkness of night was filled with human or animal
enemies ready to destroy primitive man. The tendency among boys to barter is
another manifestation of primitive life. The pockets of the average boy are
storehouses of marbles, a knife, a top, and various articles which he is ready
to trade.

The gang spirit that appears among boys about the twelfth year and lasts
several years is an expression of the tribal life of primitive man. At the head
of the gang is a large and strong boy who stands in the same relation to the
other boys as once the chief stood to the members of the tribe. At this age boys
are apt to be indifferent to property rights, are often rude, lawless, and cruel.
They steal apples not because- they are hungry, but for the sake of adventure.
They will suffer punishment without complaint, rather thah be disloyal lo a
member of the gang.

Another reason for the apparent failures in moral training is that the ex-
perience of the child is at times contrary to the instructions of parents or teach-
ers. A man who is deeply interested in boys took a number of them on a tramp
to the top of a mountain where there is a hotel. While he was talking to a
friend when they reached the s.ummit, the boys went into the hotel and proceeded
to amuse themselves by playing the nickel-in-the-slot machine that stood in the
lounging room of the hotel. When the gentleman who was in charge of the boys
entered the room he was provoked and said: "Do not throw away your money
on that machine." Just then the wheel stopped and cut came a five dollar gold
piece.

There are three fundamental elements in the development of the ideal na-
ture of the childi — to see clearly, to feel rightly, and to spontaneously act nobly.
The foundation stone is clarity of vision. If all the virtues and their conse-

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 73

quences could be exhibited in one show window, and all the vices and their con-
sequences in another, every person would desire to do right. Jacob A. Riis truly
says: "Young people do not deliberately choose evil." It is generally the lack
of clarity of vision that causes boys and girls to lie, steal, cherish impure thoughts,
and act cowardly. If they could see the results of such actions and thoughts,
they would no more yield to them than they would think of cutting off a hand
or foot, or putting out their eyes.

The teacher must see clearly the value of lofty ideals in order to inspire his
pupils to appreciate moral values. If his moral ideas are confused, his teaching
will be vague and mechanical.

In the development of the character of a child, it is of more importance to
educate his feelings than to fill his mind with a knowledge of facts. An idea is
not real to a child until he feels from it an emotional response. The reason
many boys are indifferent or rebellious toward certain moral restraints is that
they are not expressed in terms of their experiences. Feeling is especially strong
in childhood, and the appeal to the religious nature of the child should be related
to his affections, desires, and appetites. As a Chinese money-changer does not
allow his apprentice to touch any counterfeit money for ten years in order that
he may instinctively know the feel of good money, so it is of importance that
a child be rooted and grounded in a love for heroic deeds, the value of truth, and
the appreciation of the beautiful in nature and life, until he loves the good, true,
and beautiful.

A religious faith is of value to a child not in proportion to the amount be-
lieved, but to the extent that the faith believed is spontaneously expressed in
good conduct, on account of its having become a dominating attitude of mind.
Therefore the best method to teach religion to children is not by means of a text-
book, or listening to talks, or encouraging them to devote personal thought to the
d problems of life, but by discovering opportunities for them to express in deeds
what they really love and believe. Thus they come to understand their rela-
tions and obligations to others, as well as the duties they owe to themselves. As
\ boys learn to play baseball by playing the game, and girls learn to dance by
dancing; so children learn to do right by doing right.

A child craves action. He says: "Let's do something." He ties a tin can
to the tail of a cat not to be cruel, but to see the cat run. The love of children
for motion pictures is due to this desire for action. The problem of discipline is
always solved so long as pupils are engaged in work that interests them. As
studies in child psychology have shown that practically all the drawings of child-
ren express action; so in order to make religion real to them it must be ex-
pressed in terms of action.

In order for religion to seem real it must constantly be expressed in deeds.
It means very little to the pupil to tell him that he should help the poor, or to
read stories teaching sympathy for the unfortunate, unless in some concrete ways
he is inspired to help the poor and unfortunate. It is positively harmful to de-
velop feelings in a child and then neglect to provide means for their expression.
A theatrical performance that strongly appeals to syn^pathy, love of justice, or
courage, tends to harden the sympathies of the observer, unless after seeing the
play he is kinder, more just, and braver in his daily life. Imagination and feel-
ing to have the highest religious value must constantly be transmuted into action.

An Outline

This outline of a course of study in religious and moral training by indirect
methods is in the main the outgrowth of a series of experiments extending over

74 THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION

six years with children from five to sixteen years of age. Beginning with sucli
virtues as obedience to parents and teachers, the purpose constantly in mind has
been the development of the character of the child toward the goal of absolute
devotion to the highest.

It is extremely difficult to work out in detail a course of study in religious
training that is adapted for use in the public schools. Routine may be defended
in the rest of the curriculum, but in religious and ethical instruction there should
be great freedom in the choice of methods and subjects. One day it may be de-
sirable to have a problem study, and perhaps the next day discuss an incident
from current events.

The best way to teach religion in the public schools is not by text-books that
define and explain the different virtues and duties, nor by commandments to be
committed, but indirectly thru stories, pictures, problem studies, dramatic per-
formances, nature study, proverbs, observance of holidays, organized play, and
the performance of charitable deeds. The training of boys and girls in the dif-
ferent virtues should be as indirect and natural as the inculcation of love for
parents, devotion to friends, and loyalty to country.

Obsenance of Holidays and Aniihersaries

The proper recognition and observance of holidays and anniversaries has
great religious and educational value, on account of the fact that at such times
certain national and social ideals are in the atmosphere.

New Year's Day may be observed the first session of school after vacation
by discussing the achievements of our age, — such as the construction of the
Panama Canal, the invention of the aeroplane, the submarine, the automobile,
the conquest of yellow fever, and the discovery of the North and South Poles.
Speak of one of the greatest books, plays, or events of the past year. The op-
portunity is present to impress the fact that the great problems of mankind are
not settled, that history is not finished, that the best is yet to be, and that the
heroic age of our country is to be found not only in the Revolutionary period or
at the time of the Civil War, but also here and now. Thus unconsciously the
pupils come to feel that they are getting ready to take part in the greatest drama
of history.

A teacher told his pupils a week before Washington's Birthday that if they
would look up stories of St. Bernard dogs, he would in a few days bring a St.
Bernard puppy to school. The day before Washington's Birthday the teacher
placed a St. Bernard puppy on the desk, and nearly a dozen stories of heroic
rescues by such dogs were related by the pupils. The boys and girls were so in-
terested in the puppy and in the telling of the stories that the teacher became
ioubtful in this instance of the success of the indirect method, and hb as-'i^d the
question: "Why do you think I brought this puppy to school today?" Quick as
a flash came the answer: "Because St. Bernard dogs save people, and George
Washington was the savior of his country,"

Just before Easter the teacher placed on his desk a small cactus with very
sharp thorns. The talk began with the question: "What do you know about the
work of Burbank?" Questions were asked in regard to the cactus: "Why has
it thorns?" "Where does it grow?" "Is it good to eat?" The teacher supple-
mented the knowledge that the pupils had in regard to Mr. Burbank's experi-
ments with the cactus. All were interested in the story of the transformation
of the cactus with thorns, like the one on the desk which will kill cattle if eaten
by them, into a valuable food product for man and beast.

In speaking of the work of Mr. Burbank reference was made without com-

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 75

ment to a sign that may be seen on his ranch which reads as follows: "No work-
man may use tobacco or liquor in any form, or any manner of stimulant that will
befog the brain or benumb a nerve."

The morning before Decoration Day the announcement was made: "Tomor-
row we will have a holiday." After the expressions of joy had subsided, the ques-
tion was asked: "Why do we love our country?" Among the answers were: "Be-
cause we were born here." "It is a large country." "It is a free country." "Be-
cause soldiers have fought and died for it."

The history of our country should be taught in such a way as to inspire
American boys and girls to consecrate their lives to the realization of liberty
and justice. American history and ideals should be reverenced as part of our
religion, the same as the traditions in the books of Genesis and Joshua inspired
for ages the Hebrew people. The words of Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, and
John Hancock, which aroused the American people to a consciousness of their
rights, should be considered an expression of religion in its highest form. The
Mayflower Covenant of 1620, the Declaration of Rights of 1765, the Declaration
of Independence of 1776, the Ordinance for the Government of the Northwest
Territory of 1787, the Constitution of the United States, and Lincoln's Gettys-
burg Address are not only historic and state documents, but should also be con-
sidered as part of the scriptures of mankind.

Labor Day can be made one of the great events in the school calendar. It
furnishes an opportunity to emphasize the unity of the human race and the no-
bility of work. A larger outlook on the labor problem may be obtained by showing
the high school pupils a set of slides on the sculptures of Constantin Meunier,
which represent workingmen as self-reliant and their daily work as touched
with grandeur. Work is represented by him as holy as prayer. He links the
workers of today with the men of past ages and glorifies the work that they do
as essential to the progress of mankind. The Dock Hand, the Hammer Man, the
Puddler, the Mower, the Fisherman, the Mineit, Industry, Coming Out of a Mine,
The Old Mine Horse, Watering a Colliery Horse, Work, and his masterpiece en-
entitled — Monument to Labor, are as works of art among the greatest sculptures
of modern tim.es, and their value in teaching the sacredness of work is in-
estimable.

The same idea may be carried out by means of a series of pictures or me
great modern artists of the working people of different countries and occupa-
tions. The following list is suggested: Menzel's "Iron Mill," Courbet's "Stone-
breaker," Herkomer's "Hard Times," Breton's "The Gleaner," Zorn's "Our Daily
Bread," Krogh's "Old Fisherman," Adler's "The Towers," Lieberman's "The
Spinners," Jungsted's "Quarry in Switzerland," Jorgensen's "Out of Work," Rosa
Bonheur's "Oxen Plowing," Troyon's "The Guardian of the Geese."

Problem Studies

Pupils are always interested in problem studies if they have to do with their
experiences. The remark of a pupil, "I am- going to tell the teacher on you,"
furnished the subject for a study on the question, "Is it right to tell tales on other
people?" Almost all the boys agreed that it was wrong, while a number of the
girls believed it was right. The following questions were asked: "If a pupil
cheats in an examiration, should you tell on him?" "If in the absence of the
teacher most of the pupils misbehave, should the good pupils tell on the others?"
"If some boys disobey a rule on the playground, should they be reported?"

"If a large boy picks a fight with a small boy, should not some pupil tell the
teacher?" was asked: One of the boys replied: "No, let two or three boys whip

76 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

the big fellow who picks on the little boy." The teacher asked: "Why are some
pupils anxious to tell on the others? Is it because they are very good?" The
answer was: "They want to be the teacher's pets."

During the talk the fact that almost every rule has its exception was em-
phasized, but there was general agreement that pupils should not tell on each
other, and that they should try to settle their own disputes. The custom at
West Point among the cadets to never report on each other, but if asked if they
took part in any deed, to either tell the truth or refuse to answer the question,
seemed to appeal to all the pupils.

Informal Talks and Discussions

Informal talks and discussions on current subjects are of value. The re-
markable feats of some trained dogs led to the discussion of the subject, "The
Education of a Dog." What is education? Can a dog be educated? What does
a dog have to learn? were among the questions asked by the teacher, which
brought out many answers. The pupils told of the performances of trained dogs
and of stories they had read of the intelligence of dogs. It was finally agreed
that the purpose of education is to develop the best in the nature of an animal
or person.

One day the teacher asked the question: "How much is a poem worth?" The
boys did not think that a poem had any worth in terms of dollars and cents. The
girls seemed to think that a poem had some monetary value, but they hesitated
to name any definite amount. Then a summary was given of the experiences of
Nicholas Vachel Lindsay in preaching "The Gospel of Beauty." The boys as well
as the girls were fascinated with his adventures on his journey through eight of
the Eastern and Southern states offering to exchange copies of his poems for
meals or lodging.

As a teacher was on his way to school, he heard an older boy say to a boy
about eight years of age who had fallen on the ground when at play and had
begun to cry: 'TDon't be a cry-baby." That remark furnished the subject for the
opening exercises of the pupils of the primary grade. The characteristics of
babies were brought out by questions and answers. The children agreed that
babies are very attractive and interesting, even tho they cannot talk, walk, or
understand words. They do not know that fire burns or that a knife will cut.
They have to be watched or they will pull things olf the table. They interrupt
grown people when they are talking. They throw things on the floor and ol'.en
break dishes. They do these things because they do not know any better. They
cry when they are not allowed to have what they want, or when anything hurts
them. The teacher told of the Japanese children, who, when they are even badly
hurt, rarely cry, for they think that for them to cry is like a baby.

The average boy hates to be likened to a baby and he can be cured of any
fault if he is made to feel that it is babyish to yield to it. When older girls are
possessed with the desire to act like young ladies, it is only necessary to inci-
dentally speak of some action as girlish in order to cause them to stop it.

A girl in speaking to a friend said to another girl: "She is stuck up." This
remark overhead by the teacher caused him to use as the opening exercise the
story of the play, "Peg 'o My Heart."

Another day a boy was heard to say to one in a crowd of boys: "Don't be a
cowardly calf." The next day the teacher spoke of this remark and added: "How
many of you have ever seen a young calf run back to its mother when it saw a
dog or something strange?" Some boys and girls are afraid to enter a dark room

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

or walk thru a dark street, altho darkness never hurt anybody. Why are they
afraid of the darkness? George Kennan as a boy was inclined to be a coward,
but he made up his mind that he would be brave. If a street in the city where
he lived looked dark and he felt afraid to go on that street, he made himself go
that way. Thus he developed himself in courage. His books of travel that tell
of his experiences among the exiles of Siberia, and his letters as a correspondent
in the Russo-Japanese war are full of instances that reveal his bravery.

Certain modern plays may be used as subjects for talks and discussions.
Pupils like to tell the story of a play they have seen, and questions may be asked
as to the content of the play, and the manner in which the different characters
were represented. The following plays have been used in this way to inculcate
ideals: "The Passing of the Third Floor Back," 'The Light That Failed," "The
Things That Count," "The Dawn of a Tomorrow," "The Music Master," "Chanti-
cleer," "The Blue Bird," "Brand," "The Road to Happiness," "The Servant in the
House," "Daddy Long-Legs."

Subjects for talks and discussions have been found in the following recent
books: "Adventures while Preaching the Gospel of Beauty," by Nicholas Vachel
Lindsay; "The Promised Land," by Mary Antin; "The Making of an American,"
by Jacob A. Riis; "Last Expedition," by Scott; "The Soul of an Indian," by East-
man; "Up from Slavery," by Booker T. Washington; "Story of My Boyhood and
Youth," by John Muir; "The Life of Rabindranath Tagore," by Ernest Rhys; "The
Story of My Life," by Helen Keller; "The Discovery of the North Pole," by Peary;
"Autobiographical Notes," by Jane Addams; "America," by Wu Ting Fang; "Beauty
for Ashes," by Albion Fellows Bacon.

Memorizing Selections

Thru memorizing selections from the masterpieces of literature and the
sacred scriptures of mankind religious ideals are unconsciously inculcated. Many
people of India, altho they cannot read or write, are able to repeat long selections
from the works of their great prophets and sages, for they learned them as child-
ren from the lips of their mothers. There is no worth in memorizing selections
simply as feats of memory, no more than there is worth in the accumulation of
money for its own sake. Whatever memory work is done should be for the sake,
of feeding the spiritual nature, which requires nourishment the same as the
physical body. As much care should be exercised in the selection and prepara-
tion of food for the development of ideals within the soul as with food for
tlie body.

Proyerbs

Certain proverbs have value on account of embodying the accumulated wis-
dom of the ages. They should not be given as tasks to learn, but used to clinch
a thought in a talk. The following proverbs have been used: "By the street of
Ey-and-By one arrives at the house of Never." "Stay but awhile and you lose a
mile." "One today is worth ten tomorrows." "Trust not another for what you
can do for yourself." "Even if you straighten out a dog's tail a hundred times
it will curl up again." "The waters flow but the stones remain." "If you think
of a hyena you are sure to see one." "The true friend appears- in hard times, not
at big dinners." "Who sleeps in silver beds never has golden dreams." "Be slow
in choosing, a friend, slower in changing." "None preaches better than the ant,
and she says nothing." "Don't blame the mirror if your mouth is crooked." "Let
all thy words have the accent of heroic truth." "As a man thinketh in his heart,
so is he." "Those who know the truth are not equal to those who love it."

78 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

Organized Play and Athletics

Religion is essential to education in the realm of organized play. Many of
the best opportunities for the development of the moral characters of boys are
to be found thru physical training and on the athletic field. It is harmful for. the
teacher to countenance the idea, "Anything to win the game for our team." The
lowering of the standard of scholarship in order to allow a "crack" player to re-
main on the team has an immoral effect.

The development of muscular strength has a vital relationship to moral char-
acter. The breakdown of many men is due to the lack of sufficient physical
strength to satisfy the demands of the intellect and the emotions. Play is educa-
tion in quickness of judgment, precision of action, self-contrcl, poise, and co-
operation. The direct results in the number of games won over other schools or
clubs, is of insignificant importance in comparison to the physical and moral de-
velopment of those engaged in the sport.

Every playground should be a practical school of religion and morality, tend-
ing to overcome certain vicious tendencies that are often manifested in boys, and
unconsciously developing in them certain desirable virtues. Among the virtues
that may be developed in games are courage, truthfulness, perseverance, justice,
loyalty, and a feeling of comradeship. Athletics help to overcome the tendency
to hoodlumism and cruelty which comes from unused physical activity that craves
expression. Supervision should not overshadow the individuality of the child,
nor repress his natural joyousness. Within certain limits the pupil must be al-
lowed to act freely, for his spontaneity ought not to be sacrificed.

Dramatic Terformances

The possible moral uplift of the race thru the use of the power of sug-
gestion by means of the drama is impossible to estimate. Herbert Spencer says:
"Behavior is not determined by knowledge but by emotion."

The easiest way to influence the conduct of children is to give them oppor-
tunities to express their highest personal and social ideals in dramatic form.
Most of the vices of young people are the children of imagination, and on the
other hand courage, truth, and justice must be expressed in terms of imagina-
tion in order for these virtues to become real to them. Thru dramatic perform-
ances it is possible to indirectly develop the ideal within the soul, which is of
greater value than any external law or commandment. Children see on the stage
representations of the liar, thief, spendthrift, drunkard, gambler, hero, martyr,
and patriot. Thus they come to realize the relation of cause and effect in hu-
man conduct.

The love of children for the drama is a primitive instinct. A small child
lives in a world of make-believe. A chair may become an engine and two other
chairs a train of cars. A cane is transformed into a horse, the corner of a room
into a church, and a stool becomes a pulpit. He uses both natural and accidental
symbols. Other children will work all day in order to earn money to attend the
theater in the evening, so great is their love for "the house of dreams." Every
educator and sociologist is aware that children are passionately fond of the
theater, as it makes concrete the images of the imagination.

The development of the dramatic instinct in children ought not to be left to the
commercialized theater or motion picture shows. One great need of today is
the establishment of civic theaters and the introduction of dramatic perform-
ances as a fundamental element in the curriculum of the public schools.

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 79

In order for the drama to have the highest educational value the children
must do the acting. The aim should not be to train a few fine actors, but to use
the dramatic instinct as a means to develop the ideal nature of the child. The
element of personal triumph should be eliminated as far as possible, and all the
actors subordinate themselves to the success of the play. The round table metRod
has value, by means of which all the players know the entire play or at least
thoroly understand every part of it. Thru trying to interpret different characters
on the stage, young people sympathize with them and understand the larger prob-
lems of life.

The dramatic instinct is especially in evidence at the adolescent period when
curiosity is strong, mental acquisition is rapid, experiences are most real, and
imitation is natural. Boys at that age often do criminal deeds on account of a
desire to act out an impulse. If these impulses are given expression in athletics
and dramatics they are satisfied. Boys must be provided with something that
now and then thrills them, and if they do not find it in athletics, dramatics, or
fiction, they will find excitement in the vicious deeds of the gang.

Thru the drama children unconsciously absorb ideals of life and conduct. The
drama appeals to their reason and conscience, arouses the deepest emotions and
highest aspiration, awakens wonder, and inculcates love of the heroic. For a
time they are no longer limited to their ordinary environment. A larger horizon
is created thru the endeavor to put themselves in the place of other people.
Virtue is represented not simply as refraining from evil, but also as doing right
actions and loving that which has value.

Pictures of Paintings and Sculptures

The silent influence of the best paintings and sculptures as a means to in-
culcate ideals is of great value. Many parents and teachers are careful in regard
to the books read by their children and pupils, but they give little thought to the
pictures that are seen by children from day to day, unless they are positively
harmful. Now that penny pictures may be purchased of nearly all the master-
pieces of art, there is little excuse if a child does not become familiar with the
best of paintings and sculptures.

A small child prefers pictures of subjects with which he is familiar. He is
primarily concerned with the subject and finds great pleasure in recognition.
From pictures of cats and dogs that are his pets he passes to lions and elephants,
for there seems to the child to be two worlds, — the known and the unknown. As
he grows a little older he is interested in pictures that appeal to his curiosity,
for he desires to know the why of things. Next he likes the pictures that appeal
to his imagination. Nature pictures may then be of interest, beginning not with
copies of Corot, but by using photographs of Niagara Falls or Yosemite.

The showing of pictures to children should not become formal lessons on the
technique of art. It does not increase the enjoyment that a boy receives in eat-
ing a piece of pie, to know its ingredients and the manner in which they were
put together. He likes the pie because it taste good and he wishes a second
piece. It is only necessary to find the pictures appropriate to the different ages
of children and they will really love the best of pictures.

It must also be kept in mind that the prime purpose of painting and sculp-
ture is not to teach moral and religious ideals. A picture is not great in propor-
tion as it may be used to teach moral lessons. A great work of art is a trans-
cript of some phase of human life or nature in the form of the beautiful. What-
ever ethical message may be in a great work of art is in its inmost nature, and
is generally unconsciously expressed by the artist. As a rule modern paintings

8o THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION

are better than those of the old masters as a means to inculcate Ideals, because
there are more points of contact between them and the life of a child.

Pictures have been grouped under the following subjects, which seem to
appeal to children at different ages and teach the virtues that are natural to
them, — home life, animal pets, companions, school life, play and recreation, work,
heroism, patriotism, the appreciation of the beautiful, biography, social better-
ment, international peace, universal brotherhood, and symbolism.

The most successful way to show pictures is by means of a stereopticon. Ten
to fifteen pictures are enough for an opening exercise of twenty minutes. It is
best with young children to ask them what they see in the pictures, and then for
the teacher to supplement their observations. The life and ideals of the great
artists may be discussed with the older pupils in connection with the pictures.

Deielopmeiit of the Spirit of Pliil«antliropy

It is rather difficult to work out practical ways to develop the spirit of phil-
anthropy in public schools. The different grades may join the American Red
Cross, which is our great national philanthropic society, and has been "founded
to aid "In the prevention and alleviation of human suffering in times of war and
peace." Thru reading aloud articles from the magazine published by this so-
ciety, the pupils may become familiar with the great work accomplished by it,
and cause them to be anxious to contribute in the time of need.

A set of slides of children at work in different industries showing boys and
girls in workshops, glass factories, cotton mills, canneries, street trades, and coal
mines, may be secured for a nominal rental from the National Child Labor
Committee.

A remarkably fine set of slides of animals may be borrowed from the Ameri-"
can Humane Education Society. In a book compiled by Sarah J. Eddy entitled
"Friends and Helpers," may be found many interesting stories of dogs, cats,
horses, birda. and butterflies, that indirectly teach children to care for "our
brothers, the dumb brutes."

The pupils may be asked to bring food the day before Thanksgiving in order
to help make it possible for every family to have a good dinner on that day. A
Christmas entertainment may be arranged by the pupils of the school, with the
charge for admission something that may be given to the poor. A talk by a
social settlement worker before a school in a suburban town, caused a number of
girls to meet weekly in order to make clothes for little babies.

Stories

Children never tire of stories if they are well told. There is a wealth of
story material for the inculcation of ideals in The Golden Rule Series of Readers
that have been arranged by Sneath, Hodges, and Stevens for the different grades.
The following stories have been found of special interest to high school pupils:
"Thrond," by Bjornson; "The Bishop's Candlestick," by Victor Hugo; "Two Old
Men," "What Men Live By," and "Where Love Is There God Is Also," by Tolstoi;
"The Dog," by Maeterlinck; "Stickeen," by John Muir; "Adrift on an Ice Floe," by
Grenfell; "Youth," "Typhoon," and "Lord Jim," by Joseph Conrad.

Nature Study

Nature study also has valud, as many birds and animals have moral and
psychic traits that may be found in human life, only in people they are not so
clearly defined a-s in the exaggerated forms in which they may be seen in animals.

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 8 1

Purity, cruelty, pride, loyalty, greed, and cunning are graphically illustrated in
the dove, hawk, peacock, dog, wolf, and fox.

Glass observation houses were made by the. pupils of one school; so they
were able to study at first hand the habits of ants and spiders. The industry of
tliG ants and the perg"everance of the spiders were carefully observed. The boys
made bird houses and there was a rivalry to see whose house would have the
first nest in it. Thus they learned to care for birds in place of thinking it sport
to kill them. Several boys helped to construct a fish pond in the school garden;
so it became possibly to study fish.

Conclusions ^^"^

In its true sense education Includes every constructive influence that may
be used^or the development of personality. Manual training, domestic science,

an appreciation of the beautiful, religious, moral, and physical training are needed
as much as those studies especially designed for the training of the intellect. The
most perfect educational system ever given to the world was that of the Greeks,
and their schools were mainly held outdoors, the instruction consisting in games,
conversations between pupils and teachers, drills, contests on the athletic field,
theatrical performances, visits to the temples, recitations, and songs. The aim
was to develop all the inherent powers of the child.

V Every child should receive an education that will develop his higher apti-
tudes and fit him to become a good citizen, and a useful member of society. The
value of education is not in proportion to the number of facts acquired, but ac-

/ cording to the development of crent^'^'^ ^ff'^rt, pthlrai fl«pirations^_and a ..amise-of
nj£raJ_Qliligation. Socrates expressed the aim of a true teacher: "I do nothing
but go about persuading old and young alike, to care first and chiefly for the
greatest improvement of the soul." That which is of greatest importance is not
teaching children to read, write, count, draw, and sing, but to think, feel, and
act right as individuals and as members of society.

A child is an explorer, travelling over what is to him an unknown land. One
of his strongest desires is to steer his own craft, and in this his instinct is right,
for thus he develops his natural aptitudes and evolves his personality. He should
be free to explore the environment where he finds himself, and encouraged to
develop his inner resources by creative effort.

If the religious beliefs of adults are forced on a child, in after years he may
experience a violent reaction against the church. The perfection of manhood de-
pends upon the adaptation of education to all the previous stages of growth. The
power to acquire different kinds of knowledge unfolds in a child as naturally as
the use of speech.

It is not only desirable to develop the ideal personal characteristics of the
child, but also to cause him to love the best that has been inherited from the
past, in order that he may live for the betterment of mankind. Giuseppe Sergi
says of the new education: "In the social life of today an urgent need has arisen,
a renovation of our methods of education and instruction; and whoever enrolls
himse'.f under this standard is fighting for the regeneration of man."

It is impossible to place any limits to the progress of mankind thru education,
when the laws of heredity, environment, and growth are seriously considered,
if persons alone are regarded sacred and money is valued only as it ministers to
the enrichment of life, and when nations no longer strive to excel each other
in size and efficiency of their armies and navies, but their rivalry is in the edu-
cation and care of their citizens, the development of the arts, sciences, and the
discovery of the values that abide.

THE ESSENTIAL PLACE OF RELIGION IX EDUCATION, WITH AN OUTLINE

OF A PLAN FOR INTRODUCING RELIGIOUS TEACHING

INTO THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Anna B. West, Lecturer and Writer, Newbnryport, Mass.

Before we attempt to decide whether any given subject has an essential place
in public school education, we must first see clearly the aim of such education.

All will agree that ideally at least the aim of public school education is to
so train future men and women that they shall be fit to protect and perpetuate
our free democratic form of government and that they shall be citizens*loyal to
the ideals and traditions* of the United States.

But what do we as a people hold to be essential elements of our ideals and
traditions, and is religion such an element? There can of course be but one
answei*.

Religion is both root and sap of our ideals and traditions — the source of our
belief that justice, equality before the law, and free opportunity for development
and happiness are human rights, therefore to be secured to every individual.
Since, then, religion is an essential constituent element of our ideals and traditions
to the end that our citizens be fit and loyal it must have an essential place in
their education.

But our attempt to maintain a government under which all shall share justly
Its protection and privileges, rests on a recognition that we are all human, human:
not because we are sharers in a common social and physical existence but be-
cause we spring from the same supernatural source and so are bound together
by an indissoluble tie — all children of God. To be human and not merely an
animal is not a passing phase of existence but an indestructible quality of life,
because our relation to God is an unending and an indestructible relation. It is
this rel\^n of children to Father that makes us human. The brotherhood of
man is a mere form of words unless men have a common parentage.

Is it not obvious then that to be fit and loyal our citizens must be in accord
with this underlying conviction on which our constitution rests — in other words,
bo religious. *

We have to recognize the fact that our government does not secure to all its
citizens equal justice and equal opportunities for development and happiness,
because the achievement of such results rests upon those who exercise govern-
mental functions — upon legislators and upon those appointed to execute the law,
and legislators and executive officials are often venal, dishonest, self-seeking, and
out of harmony with the root ideas of the constitution — they are irreligious. Many
shameful and humiliating national experiences have been the consequences of the
low standards of our public men. Men whose public acts are brazenly immoral
may have a church connection; they may unhesitatingly avow a belief in God
and confess their duty to obey His law. But such lip confession is not religion
because it does not issue in character.

To know about religion and to be religious are not the same thing. No re-
ligion that is not a moulding force of character is vital. Today it is the ques-
tion of the man and of the woman. What fruit does the life bear? This is the
test question. Those who live in harmony with God always reveal companionship
with Him in personal character and in human service. These are the fruits.

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 83

That there is pressing need to raise the plane of our citizenship, if as a people
we shall continue to revere our traditions and hope for the realization of our
ideals, is evident. How shall we accomplish it? The only possible way is to begin
the process early in the impressionable period of childhood, while the plastic
mind is yet unpoisoned and unwarped.

Obviously the essential place of religion in education is both in its foundation
and in its superstructure. There is no period in education that religion should
not illumine. We have in our public schools at the present time ethical instruc-
tion, honest attempts to train children in right conduct; plenty of rules — precept
upon precept — rewards for good conduct, discipline for bad conduct, — still the
men and women into which the children grow form a body of citizens whose char-
acter as a whole reveals no deep source of spiritual life; on the contrary flagrant
violations of the decencies of life — graft, lies, theft, drunkenness, over-reaching,
oppression of the defenseless, malice, slander — are offensively conspicuous.

These dangerous symptoms of social disease are not on the decrease but
rather on the increase, altho laws requiring school attendance are enforced with
Increasing vigor. We are disappointed, nay, see danger ahead. We have tried
putting on the proprieties and graces of ethics. Now let us try to make the soul
of the child a well-spring of love toward God and toward his neighbor, to lead
him to have a different "mind." A child whose happy soul is full of love vv^ill
radiate love, and as he grows in years and stature will grow in nobility of
character.

Now if our aim be to infuse into our public school education such an influence
a,s shall lead the children to be genuinely religious, and to mature into noble
men and women — fit and loyal citizens — we may restate the second half of our
subject in this way: An Outline of a Plan to Lead the Children of our Public
Schools to be Religious. With this aim in view I proceed.

Before we take up the attempt to lead the child we must have a clear con-
ception of the height and depth and breadth of what we mean by religion. I should
like to make the word religion exactly equivalent to the word life in this saying
by Jesus of Nazareth — "That they may have life and have it more abundantly."

Since God's will is the law of life, only as the child develops in harmony with
his Creator's plan for him, he would be thru and thru a genuinely religious hu-
man being having the fullness of life. He would be co-worker with God — his
Father. We may think of God, the Life-giver, first, as the Creator, but since we
continue to live only because He continuously creates, we may think of Him,
second, as the Sustainer, and because His will for us is that we shall grow to be
like Him, we may think of Him, third, as the Perfecter. We should think of Him
as always upholding, always developing.

Now if it bo our purpose to lead a child to be genuinely religious, that is, to
possess the fullness of life, it is obvious that while we must begin this leading
at the earliest possible moment, we must never cease to lead so long as the child
is under the teacher's care.

Is it not now evident that every subject of the course of study should lead
into more abundant life? That "there ought to be no secular department. In
other words, in teaching any branch of literature or science, a spiritually-minded
man must see it so taught as not only to prove subservient to a general design,
but to be more or less saturated with religious sentiment, or reflection, or de-
duction, or application." (Duff. Quoted by Spalding.)

Indeed "we meet God on every height of truth, whether a truth of mathe-
matics, or of physics, or of art, or of the spirit of man." Altho we meet Him,

84 THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION

He is often hid from us by a cloud emanating from ourselves. But if we ap-
prehend all truths as God's truths, then we consciously enter His presence. So
all thru the school years, whatever be the subject, the teacher must always be try-
ing to reveal truths so the child shall find them visions of God, the Life-giver. If
in the movements of history, the researches of the laboratory, the. demonstrations
of mathematics, the harmonies of music, the child sees always the ways of God,
then all his thoughts will be turned Godward as they should be, no matter what
the subject in hand.

Now since in nature, all truths are realities only because they are thoughts
of God, it follows that God is the supreme reality; therefore that all right think-
ing finds its perfect satisfaction in the thought of God, and only such thoughts
as find their explanation and confirmation in the thought of God are right thoughts.
Now to have the mind supply an area thru which a certain train of ideas may
sweep is not to think. A presupposition of religious life — a law of its existence —
is that the mind shall will to think. Therefore the first power to be developed
by any sort of education is the power to think.

This Godward trend of the mind furnishes the strongest stimulus which the
child can receive toward independent thinking. And beyond question the teacher's
first duty is to think rightly himself in order to lead a child to think rightly. It
follows also that only such acts as are in conformity with Godward thoughts
are moral acts.

We are now prepared to define teaching as a profession and for the purposes
of this paper. Teaching is giving such moral training to a thinking being as will
enable him to live in harmonious relations with God and in unselfish cooperation
with his fellowmen. Harmonious relations with God and unselfish cooperation
with fellowmen is abundant life, that is religion.

If the spiritual life of a child be religious what graces of character inevitably
result? First, spontaneous, natural, overflowing love toward God and toward
people; but love full of awe, reverence, and gratitude, without the least trace of
fear or shrinking; a love full of peace and utter confidence. Truth, purity,
justice, industry, and like characteristics are natural flowers of such spiritual
soil.

Only a teacher knows how many children fail to realize the promise of their
earliest years. A little indifference, wandering attention, distaste for regular
application, failure to conquer any really hard work, then a slow but steady fall-
ing behind — the tragedy of youth — but it could hardly be possible for the re-
ligious child.

As the child grows and individual responsibilities must be assumed, as in-
herited tendencies must be reckoned with, he does not feel alone in his hours
of struggle; he needs no one near to point him to the source of unfailing help,
for as naturally as he would go to his mother with a physical injury or for com-
fort for hurt feelings, his soul opens to the inexhaustible source of all healing. He
tells it all to God, naturally, and as he waits peace and happiness and confidence
return. And in such a time as this, when men's hearts almost fail them, the soul
whose habit is Godward — since God is the source of all spiritual progress — looks
thru the suffering, beyond the war, accepting the limitations of his understanding,
confident that God reigns.

The interior life of the religious child that we have tried to trace so far has
been that of harmonious relation to God, but this harmonious relation or fullness
of life must be manifested in unselfish cooperation with his fellows. The school-
room and the pl^'ground afford abundant opportunity for training in cooperation,
and in unselfish service. When such cooperation and such service come to be

THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION 85

rendered by the child whose inner life is Godward, play and work will be con-
tinually tested by the religious habit of mind.

As biography spreads before him heroic characters, and history unfolds to
him great movements that tremendously affect a large part of the world, as he
ponders on what shall be his life work, as he considers the drama, the literature
of the era, diplomacy, the manners and refinements of society — every kind of
work or enterprise that feeds the body or mind of the social organism — all must
stand the same test, — are they in harmony with God's will that man should grow
toward him? Unless they do tend Godward they tend toward human undoing.

And finally, thru normal spiritual development and life experience, the child
as he grows to manhood realizes that all God's methods of dealing with His child-
ren are laws and that His laws are universal, automatic, and immutable. And
because they are universal, automatic, and immutable the life that is in perfect
accord with them is a life of absolute freedom.

The selfish man who seeks his own pleasure at the expense of his neighbor
is always colliding with God's law because it is the same lav/ for all and no man's
good can be separated from his neighbor's good, but the unselfish man finds his
life in losing it, that is, in subordinating it to human service.

When the religious child becomes a man he is a man fit for service, whose
every impulse is toward justice, who is generously devoted to fair and ev^n di-
vision of opportunity, and who reverences the law as the shield and safeguard
equally for all. He is a loyal citizen because he is loyal to humanity, and he is an
heir worthy of his national heritage.

So far we have endeavored to get a conception of what it means to lead a
child to grow naturally into a genuinely religious human being during the years
he is studying in the free public schools, and a conception of the sort of man
that will be added to society when his public school education is completed.

But as the benefits of legislation to the people for whom the laws are made
depend upon the sort of men who enforce them, in even a greater degree does the
interior life of the child depend upon the nobility of character and the sympathy
of the teachers who must do the leading. The writer would gladly say a word of
hearty appreciation of the fine teaching force of the United States. Still we must
consider quite frankly their probable efficiency in relation to the serious subject
under consideration.

How will the>^ as a whole, view the attempt to do all their work with a para-
mount controlling purpose that subordinates examinations and promotions to the
hidden blossom of character? Can they be genuinely sympathetic unless they
are genuinely religious themselves in the sense in which we are using the word?
Is is possible, even, to judge the body of teachers as a whole in respect of their
ability to foster a particular kind of spiritual growth?

If some particular essay among those submitted on this subject be found
satisfactory in development of thought and outline plans, does it seem possible
that it could be put into the hands of the teaching force for general introduction
without preliminary training of the teachers?

When the kindergarten was first introduced into America it was by a few
choice women who studied Proebel's philosophy of childhood of their own in-
itiative, impelled by high motives and by devotion to children, yet we know the
Boards of Education would not introduce it into the public schools until it was
a demonstrated success under the private patronage.

The American kindergarten was begun fifty years ago, but despite its wond-
erful results it is still a method in question by some good teachers. Now, how do

86 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

the difficulties attending the introduction of religious teaching in our public
schools compare in magnitude with those attending the introduction of the
kindergarten? No argument is needed to prove that an organized endeavor to
lead the children of our public schools to be religious children is an educational
enterprise only a little less difficult than it is profoundly important.

Our thoughts run out into the complications that attend the initiation of a
sort of education that cannot be purveyed by any school book agent nor dissected
by any Board of Education as it might dissect the merits of different systems of
penmanship.

The tendency even in the best universities is toward preparation for earning
a livelihood, toward elective and shorter courses, an attempt to get men and
women into the business world at a still younger -age, and while this seems to
have nothing to <io with our subject, certainly not to be an antagonistic tendency,
it is most emphatically an indication of a spirit in educational affairs not likely
to give sympathetic consideration or pause to give helpful advice and aid to what
in no way fits into the trend of what we call practical or business education —
something that has no evident connection with earning money, not even for the
astute manager of a publishing house for text-books. Into the swift current of
educational sentiment for a business — a practical — education, if we pour this
little rill — since God's law is immutable the human being who serves his breth-
ren in harmony with God's law, cannot lack any good thing, not even food, since
the service itself is food, is evolution in unselfishness and in all gracious char-
acteristics, and this is the greatest good — how much will the current be changed?

Besides the difficulties just mentioned, objectors will be legion to whom the
new sort of education is incomprehensible; many communities will consider it a
waste of time, not understanding, and of course a powerful irreligious element
will be actively hostile.

The writer indicates some of the lions in the way because the sort of religious
teaching developed in this essay is peculiarly at the mercy of the lions and the
writer is not blind to the fact.

Religious development has three stages: First, it is an attitude of the mind;
second, the attitude of the mind is manifested in unselfish cooperation; and
third, in contribution or service. These three stages are not like grades in school
depending on mental development but follow each other so quickly in the mind
of the child that they seem to be simultaneous in their beginning. But the order
of progression is important for the teacher to have clearly in mind.

Kinderg-arten

All mental and moral growth has its roots in life experience. Up to the
time the child enters the kindergarten, his life experience centers In his father
and mother; it is modified and enriched if he has a brother or sister, but his
dominating experience has been the love, protection, and providing care of his
parents. The emotions of love and trust have grown strong. He probably has
been directed to think of God as Father before he enters the kindergarten, and
under no other method is it so perfectly natural to speak to the child of God
and His love. Gifts, play, games are all full of opportunities to saturate the
mind of the child with the thought of God. Love and trust are already strongly
aroused toward his father and mother and love and trust toward God will grow
allnost spontaneously, out of the heart experience he has had. They only need
directing toward God, who is the loving Father of all the members of the home
group. Next, direct the thoughts in the revers'e order. Since God is Father, all
are His children, and children of the sam.e father are brothers and sisters.

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 87

These three ideas— (1) God is my Father, (2) I am God's child, (3) All God's
other children are my brothers — are those that the teacher should aim to so im-
press upon the heart, imagination, and intellect of the child that they would in-
evitably interpenetrate and illumine every separate portion of acquired knowl-
edge. (See Outline Plan for Kindergarten) In the' conduct of her class, in her
supervision of the children's behavior to each other, the kindergartner will natur-
ally make the three ideas which it is her aim to thoroly inculcate the source and
basis of every admonition.

If the kindergartner is a disciple of Froebel at heart and not simply a pro-
fessional kindergartner this work will be a continual delight and the greatest
possible bond between teacher and child, for she will see day by day that she is
making "an active contribution to conscious evolution." (Spalding.)

During the kindergarten period emphasize only one rule of conduct as a part
of religious development:

Rule: Since God gives us all we have, parents, brethren, friends, school, the beautiful
world, we should, like Him, be always seeking to give to others, particularly to those
less happy than ourselves.

Parents are greatly to blame for teaching their children always to expect to
receive. It is an unlovely, greedy, ill-mannered habit of mind that deprives
children of the greatest, truest happiness in life. On holidays and birthdays sug-
gest to the children that they give, and make no reference to their receiving.
When they receive gifts speak of how happy it made the one who gave. The
children will give a joyous and eager response. Get the cooperation of the
parents in this. Giving of gifts to help others gratifies a natural impulse of
childhood. Everyone who has lived with a child knows how a child loves to
"help." Always accept the "help," no matter if it hinders. It is service in embryo.
If the children come directly into Grade I, then the three ideas and the rule just
considered must be begun in Grade I.

The leader of religious teaching should never think of any of the work as
finished or dropped. It begins at various periods but it never ends, it grows.
For the purposes of this essay I divide the nine grades into three groups:

1st Group: Grades I, II, III.
2d Group: Grades IV, V, VI.
3d Group: Grades VII, VIII, IX.

Work will not be recapitulated. It is cumulative, as is all school work.

Grades I, U, HI

Unfortunately the classes in most of our public schools are so large that it
is impossible for the teacher to give to each student the careful observation that
is desirable. But one thing should always be secured, and until it is, lessons iare
of little consequence, and that is the happiness of the child.

Each child should be made happy at school. An unhappy child cannot be
either good or studious and he is contracting the pernicious habit of thinking
about himself.

Language work should be the guide in these three grades in selecting liter-
ature from any source as a medium for broadening and strengthening the re-
ligious life.

The topics in nature study, physiology, and hygiene may be saturated with
the beauty and reverence of religious thought and so naturally that the class will

88 THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION

not realize the effort of the teacher. The children's upward growth will flourish
as well-watered flowers in the sun.

A class of happy children with hearts full of love, in the habit of giving
pleasure to others, may now be introduced to a new name for the manifestation
of love. The new name is obedience. To be obedient the child must be punctual,
truthful, industrious, persevering, and patient. .

Does it sound fantastic tc call obedience a new word -to a child of six? It is
not. It may be so introduced as to be a perfectly new word because of its con-
tent, even if the child has heard it innumerable times during life. The content
of obedience may be expressed: obedience is an expression of love to God, the
Creator. Punctuality, politeness, etc., as elements of obedience are manifestations
of love.

Since the school deals with children who have already taken a moral mould,
tho happily it is still malleable, the ideal results cannot be actual ones except
in a few cases. So there mtist of course be rules for school conduct. The un-
avoidable application of these rules and their effect upon stubborn students
should, so far as possible, be kept from the knowledge of the class.

Do not destroy a child's self-respect nor crush him with the contempt of his
mates, nor suggest thoughts of rebellion and disobedience to the whole class. Do
not tempt children thru suggestion; some will not withstand; words — terms —
are of vital importance. In this group of grades do not speak of disobedience nor
use any destructive term before a class. Let every term mean growth, strength,
love, generosity, all the beauty of holiness. Let all else be in private. (See Out-
line for Grades I, II, III.)

Grades IV, V, VI

The writer assumes that the study of history begins in Grade IV. Students
now consciously analyze and reason. Stories may be simply stories as long as
the children love them, but gradually in Grade V let them take biographical form,
or at such period as the biographical method is used in teaching history.

- The members of the class have not always been obedient or loving, and now
it is time to lead them to reason with themselves on disobedience. It is an unlov-
ing, selfish attitude toward the loving Father and Sustainer; it shuts them off from
spiritual sunshine and starves their lives; it makes teachers and fellow students
unhappy; it is selfishness — perverted love of self. The disobedient child inevitably
suffers, for although his Father is always the Sustainer and the sun of His love
always shines, just as an inflamed eye suffers in the sunshine so an unloving
child with a soul inflamed by evil thoughts and selfish passions suffers when in
opposition to the operation of God's law, which is the obedient child's light and
warmth. Disobedience leads to hatred, lies, anger, neglect of lessons, and bad
manners.

Logically the next step for the teacher is an appeal to the sense of personal
responsibility, not only for his own acts but for influence over others. He is a
keeper of the honor of the class. Develop the idea that school government and
town government derive their authority from their harmony with God's law. If
they are not in harmony with God's law they have no just claim to obedience.

In this connection teach the students that they are responsible for their
thoughts. If they allow bad thoughts to remain in their minds, they are in danger
of doing the bad acts.

This is a time when great tact and sympathy are needed. To be able to so
attract a child's confidence as to have him free and unafraid in his relations with
his teacher may assure to him his soul's health.

» THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION 89

God has made all His children capable of obedience. To grow into abundant
life they must exercise all their capabilities. Obedience is an opportunity to show
that they do love God, their Father, and His other children. Keep the idea of
brotherhood always in natural sequence.

Test historical characters by their value to their fellow men. (See Outline.)

Grades YII, VIII, IX

Imagination is often so vivid in young children that they seem to be living
two lives. Other young children show but little imagination. At this period in
their education an active imagination is like a second set of eyes — it is really
the eyes of the mind, and .imitation is its outward manifestation. Imitation of its
activity is the language in which the imagination writes. It is the period in which
to form taste.

Good taste is in the instinctive selection of what leads Godward; all that is
true and fine in character, in books, in music, in art, in act. It is the aesthetic
quality but of religious fibre. It is the educated, heaven-taught faculty of choice
when it is rooted in religion. It is the shield and safeguard for life. It is sensitive
to impressions and must be carefully formed.

Brotherhood as exercised in schoolroom and on the playground begins prepa-
ration for citizenship. If possible, develop a simple students' government. Show
that it holds all the essentials of all life. Giving and unselfishly trying to make
other individuals happy may now develop into the idea of contribution to society
as represented by the class as a whole.

Contribution — human service — grows naturally out of the beginnings of re-
sponsibility in school government and in the activities of the playground. En-
courage the students to take an interest in the town, render some service, always
of course that they may offer an act of love to God, the Father. Suggest citizenship.

The High School

The student has, by this time, climbed to the heights from which he has a
widening outlook into life -life as the writer uses the term, not merely this
■present existence. The teacher should now state for him that which he has
gradually discovered for himself, that the life of the soul unfolds as does the
life of everything in the physical world and in the domain of pure intellect, ac-
cording to discoverable laws. These discoverable laws are simply statements of
the results of human experience. Nothing can be forced on the soul from out-
side against its will. It selects and appropriates out of the experiences of life,
and character inevitably reveals the food it lives upon. For example — the fifth
commandment has been styled "a commandment with promise." Such a char-
acterization violates every law of right thinking. It is simply the statement of a
result of human experience.

"The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children, etc." (second com-
mandment) is another statement of common human experience that has been
greatly abused. God should never be pictured to children as a great outside force
that is ready to hit his children with an omnipotent bludgeon. Such a mental
conception is only too common. It is false, and fatal to the free unfolding of.
religious thought and feeling.

Just and right discipline never really comes from an outside source, not even
when the state shuts a thief in prison or puts an end to a murderer's existence,
but is always what the free spirit inflicts upon itself in its spiritual choices and
refusals. All history, every biography, may be an illustration.

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

Freedom is perfect obedience to God's law. Freedom then lies in the will.
This philosophic truth may be easily suggested in the study of history and of lit-
erature, and to classes in Latin and Greek. The philosophy is for the teacher,
the illumination for the student.

A word of caution, — avoid phrases in common use that are inaccurate. Never,
for instance, speak of a "stubborn will." The child may will to be a stubborn
child but there is no such thing as a stubborn will. There may be, however, an
educated will, one which exercises in harmony with unselfish aims and brotherly
purposes, pleasing to God, the Perfecter.

Without observation and without crises, the religious life should grow day
by day under favoring conditions. Not by multiplying admonitions, but by en-
veloping it Avith the right atmosphere. The quality of the life of a student which
unfolds within such influences as the writer has endeavored to suggest would be
as evident as a light on a hill or the result of leaven on dough.

The following incident illustrates how character gives evidence of its quality:
It was the day of the School Cadets' parade in Boston. The companies of lads
poured out of every incoming suburban train. The writer was caught in a crowd
at the station, which quickly gathered at sound of the fife and drum. As the
march out of the station began, and the national flag passed, just two men within
the writer's vision saluted. One man tipped perfunctorily; the other removed his
hat and laid it on his left shoulder in formal salute, while his whole face was
radiant with patriotic emotion. Unmistakably, convincingly, the whole man
thrilled with patriotism. To see him was a revelation of the deep meaning of
loyal devotion to country. As I met him, involuntary I expressed my pleasure.
His brief reply revealed him a German Jew and his strong accent foreign-born.
But nativity and race were not more certain than that the man was an ardent
American to whom the flag and all it symbolizes is an object of unbounded af-
fection and on whose character it is a moulding force.

The Sanctificatioii of Life

All social experiences so far as they are shared by our bodies are in kind
tho not in degree, shared by the rest of the animal creation. It is only as they
are lifted into relation to God that they are sanctified and become imperishable
possessions.

The use of Bible selections in no sense constitutes what is called "Bible
teaching," but is rather an attempt to crystalize in the consciousness of the
students their religious experiences and aspirations. They are selected because
so incomparably noble as to be the best possible expression in words.

And finally the aim of the writer has been to show how religious teaching
may suffuse every subject in the course of study.

Outline of Plan For Introducing Keligious Teaching Into the Public Schools

KINDERGARTEN OR GRADE I

Three ideas :

1. God as Father.

2. God's creatures are His children.

3. God's children are brothers.

I^ead the child to direct the love, trust, confidence of the home experience with parents
and brothers and sisters Godward. Saturate the mind with the thought of God by connecting
it in every possible way with the play, the work, the gifts, the games, until it is the child
habit to think of God and to be happy in such thought.

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 9 1

Four Bible stories:

1. Joseph, son and brother.

2. Moses, leader of hie people.

3. Samuel, hearing his Father's voice.

4. David, and the victory God gave him over the giant.

Use the Modern Reader's Bible.

(The Nativity stories are loved by children but I fear they cannot be told in a
public school.)

Prepare story telling carefully . It i.<5 veil to write the four stories and commit them
to memory. Always tell stories in the same language, or the children will be disappointed.
Make them simple and vivid. If the children like one story much better than another, work
over the second story until the children are won to it. Satisfy your critics. You will be repaid.

1. ^he lord's Prayer, Modern Reader's Bible, p. 31.

2. The Great Commandmenrt, M.R.B., p. 32.

3. Little children and the Kingdom of Heaven, M.R.B., p. 33.

4. Psalm cm. Lines 1-4, 15-16, 21-22, and "Bless the Lord, O my soul."

5. Psalm CIV, Lines 51, 52, 85, 86.

6. Psalm XXIII, Lines i, 2, 3, 15, 16.

The above are but suggestions. The teacher should not be denied the privilege of
choice. There is a wealth of lines in the Psalms suitable for young children. But only
those that express beauty in nature, beauty in human acts, joy in the thought of God, trust,
confidence, and the worship of praise should be selected for the kindergarten.

The four stories, the three portions of the New Testament, and the lines from the Psalms
are to be interwoven to reinforce the underlying idea in each one of the various stages . of
the kindergarten period of education. The order in this outline is no indication of order
in use. Only the teacher can choose and combine.

One rule of conduct— Give.

GRADES I, II, III

Happiness.

Obedience, an expression of love.

1. Punctuality.

2. Industry. —

3. Patience.

4. Truthfulness.

5. Perseverance.

Bible stories:

1. Complete the four kindergarten stories to illustrate obedience as holiness, that is,

as wholly loving God, but do not call them illustrations; simply stories,

2. Abraham and the offering of Isaac.

3. Siege of Jericho.

4. Daniel.

5. Jonathan and David.

The delight of the children to be the test of success.
The first four commandments, M.R.B., p. 57, the coarse print only.

Teachers will find "The Code of the Spirit" by Hoopes invaluable.
The Canticle known as the Benedicite, Omnia Opera.

Repeat in concert, adding a few lines from time to time.

Do not call it memory work. Sing it if possible.
Psalm XXLII, Lines 4, 5, 6. Modern Reader's Bible, p. 43.
Psalm XXIX, Lines i-io and 20-24, Modern Reader's Bible, p. 56.

Psalm cm, Lines i-io, 37-46, concluding ascription. Modern Reader's Bible, pp. 68-70.
Psalm CIV, Modern Reader's Bible, pp. 70, 71, yz, y^.

The lines of the Psalm CIV need not be learned in order but should be completed and
arranged in order by the end of Grade III.

As some children find it difficult to memorize, let them repeat in unison after the
teacher, or read in concert from the blackboard. The majority will soon know it and delight
in rehearsing it.

Beatitudes— Matt. 5 '•6, 8, 9.

God's omnipotent love — Matt. 6:25-29, 31-34-

92 THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION

GRADES IV, V, VI
Bible stories :

1. Give historical setting of stories told in lower grades — just a frame for the picture.

2. Saul and David,

3. Elijah.

4. Elisha.

A Bible Reader would now be invaluable. Failing such a help, let the teacher gradually
substitute the language of the American Revised Version, 1901. *

No plan should hamper a sympathetic teacher. It should be considered merely an aid. For
what she is, and what she can be to her students, is a constant revelation of a life that
looks Godward, and that is by far the most helpful influence.

1. Disobedience.

1. Hatred.

2. Lies.

3. Anger. *

4. Neglect.

5. Bad manners.

2. Personal responsibility.

3. Divine origin of just government.

4. Fullest life requires development of all capabilities.

5. Discussion by students of moral value of historical characters.

In Grade VI invite the students to express their ideas in their own way and let them
have their own opinions. Later study will enable them to correct their own mistakes.
Finish the Decalog, Modern Reader's Bible, p. 58, coarse print only.
Psalm XXVII, Modern Reader's Bible, pp. 52, 53, 54.
Psalm VIII, Modern Reader's Bible, p. 15.

Psalm V, Lines 1-14, 25-29, Modern Reader's Bible, pp. 10, 11, 12.
Finish the Beatitudes. •
The Parable of the Prodigal Son.
The Good Samaritan.

GRADES VII. VIII, IX
Inner Life.

I, Imagination.
•2. Taste.
Social Relations.

1. Imitation.

2. Brotherhood on the playground.

a. Cooperation.

b. Consideration.

c. Fairness. ,

3. Student government.

Contribution, not simply to the happiness of an indiviv'ual, but to the good of

a group.
The town.
Citizenship.
Biblical biography.

1. Solomon.

2. Isaiah.

3. King Josiah.

Psalm CXXXIX, Modern Reader's Bible, pp. 155, 156, 157-
Psalm XLII, Modern Reader's Bible, pp.
Psalm XLVI, Modern Reader's Bible, pp.

HIGH SCHOOL

The discoverable laws of life are disclosed thru human experience.

Freedom exists only under just law.

Freedom lies in the will. "^

An educated will.

The sanctification of life.

An outline biography of Jesus, "The Great Humanitarian," as given by Mark.

Psa'lm LXIII, Modern Reader's BiWe, pp. 127, 128.

Psalm XCI, ]\Iodcrn Reader's Bible, pp. 49, 50.

Psalm XCVI, Modern Reader's Bible, pp. 57, 58, 59.

Psalm cm, Modern Reader's Bible, pp. 68, 69, 70.

pp.

155,

91,

92.

99,

100

THE ESSENTIAL PLACE OF RELIGrOX IN EDUCATION

Synopsis of Essays Presented in Contest

Compiled by Sara Whedon, Formerly Head of English Department, High School,

Ann Arbor, Mich.

I, OUTLINE OF DISCUSSION

4-Vesent- sentwnent for restoration
Historical foundation in America ^

Religious education in foreign countries '''^^
Need in the United States — ^growth in crime
Exclusion not an intentional slight
Weakness of home and church \

Religious teaching needed

Two theories of school support *

Secular education not enough '--■ ^

Morals not enough

Place of religion

Eflfect of exclusion on the child's mind

Need of the Bible •''' ^

Youth the proper time i^
Objections answered

Impossibility of making a child religious

Separation of church and state

Sectarianism

Lack of teachers

Relations of school to government

Taxation ;

Religious freedom
Constitutional provisions
Present legal aspects

, II. HOW TO INTRODUCE

Differences of opinion

Four "pre-requisites"-

Necessity of conforming to democratic ideals

Nation-wide problem

National Education Association to lead a campaign -^

State organization

III. THE PLANS

Decision local rather than national
Instruction by churches or schools
Plans now in operation '' ,
Suggestions for modifications
Good and bad points ^
Competent teachers

IV. WHAT TO TEACH

The scope of this section
Agreement of interests
The use of the Bible .
^Lessons in morals and conduct
Text'books
Arrangement of courses

The grade program

High-school courses
Activities beyond the classroom

V. BIBLIOGRAPHY

General references
Reports and periodicals
Helps for teachers

94 THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION •

Present Sentiment for Restoration

The things that destroy us are injustice, insoleiace, and foolish thoughts; and the
things that save us are justice, self-command, and true thoughts, which things dwell in
the living powers of God. — Plato

That there is an increasing sentiment for the restoration of religious teach-
j ing in the public schools of the United States is a fact that is receiving v/ide at-
tention among educators. Nor is it the work of one organization, nor confined to
one section, for altho comparatively a new movement it has already spread far.
As late as 1895 the National Council of Education expressed the opinion that the
place for religious instruction is in the home and the church, tho morality might
be taught incidentally in school. In 1901 a paper on "The Moral Factor in Edu-
cation" shows the progress of opinion in asserting that the teaching of practical
ethics is not impossible in the public as well as the private schools. . "That right-
eousness tendeth to life and that the wages of sin is death, is not and never can be
sectarian instruction. It is simply a statement of moral gravitation as universal,
as pitiless, and quite as important for us to appreciate as the law of physi-
cal gravity."

In 1906, however, a number of people met in private conference in London
"to consider whether more might not be done by means of moral instruction and
training in the schools to impart higher ideals of conduct, to strengthen char-
acter, and to promote readiness to work together for social ends." The result was
an International Committee, which has investigated conditions in most of the
civilized countries and which in 1908 submitted an elaborate report. Partly as
an outgrowth of this movement, the National Education Association appointed a
committee to report on a system of teaching morals in the public schools of the
United States. In 1909 they presented a preliminary report, which with the vigor-
ous discussion following and the six other papers during the session bearing on
the same topic, confirmed the view that "the teaching of morals must be not only
permitted but required * * * and the course must be marked out and followed
the same as any other course of study."

In 1911 the final report appeared with the statement that in order that moral
instruction should not be left to chance, a tentative course was submitted as
part of the report, to be modified to suit localities. It further declared that in
order to make the instruction vital, opportunities ought to be provided in every
school for practice of what was taught, thru the orgauization of the school, the
methods of discipline, the conduct of recitations, the sports, and the social life.

And now within the last year has come the further step: to recognize that
morality reysts for its sanction and its motive power upon religion; that, as Kant
said, "Only the conception of the Supreme Good and of God as the author of that
Good can make human duty seem worth while."

Meanwhile the National Education Association is only one of the many agen-
cies that are urging this forward step. The Religious Education Association is
a national organization which has for one of its aims the improvement of moral
instruction in the public schools. The Character Development League furnishes
a series of lessons on character for school use. The Bible in Schools movement
shows its object in its name. The International Reform Bureau has instituted a
crusade to introduce laws in all states requiring the reading of the Bible in
schools. Last year it circulated thirty thousand documents devoted to that end.
The Council of Church Boards of Education of all denominations has undertaken
the task of getting Bible studies credited in all grades of schools, including univer-
sities, while at the same time pledging itself to raise the standard of Sunday-

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 95

school teaching. The Inter-Church Federation Conference, the Federal Council
of Churches of Christ in America, the National Religious Association, along with
secular boards of education, Sunday School associations and college conferences
have joined hands in the cause; and state federations of clubs and educational
societies are including it in their programs for discussion and enlightenment.

Historical Foundation in America

As one looks over that array of forces, one can but feel that the situation
must be deemed grave indeed to call for such a marshalling of hosts. And the
surprising thing about the matter to the outside world must be that it is America,
which, like the early kings of Spain, claims the proud title of "most Christian,"
America, the child of Puritanism, that today is taunted with her "godless schools."
Is it not, truly, a thing to wonder at, considering her history and the attitude of
her other institutions. Thousands of children's voices chorusing,

"My country, 'tis of thee.
Of thee I sing;"

and,

"Our fathers' God, to thee.
Author of liberty.

To thee we sing;"

and that country ignoring or even forbidding the word of God in her schools where
those children might hear it daily!. Or is it that the God of our fathers is not to
be the God of our children? The spirit of religion prevailed in the colonies,
sometimes, as it seems to us, almost to a fanatical degree. Witness the mistaken
sincerity of Salem and the famous Blue Laws. Our great state documents, the
Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, the constitutions of
most of the states, and our coinage acknowledge the ruling hand of God. During
the troubled times of our early history Franklin proposed that Congress be
opened with prayer, and in the midst of war, along with the war supplies was
voted an appropriation for twenty thousand bibles. The Act of 1787 organizing the
Northwest Territory under the Articles of Confederation declared, "Religion,
morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness
of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."
A day of national thanksgiving is set apart annually, and Christmas and the Sab-
bath are given legal recognition. Our magistrates enter upon office and witnesses
in our courts give testimony, hand upraised to heaven, with a solemn oath. We
provide chaplains for our legislatures, our armies and navy, and our prisons.
Only in our schools the power and the mercy of God is unrecognized. The Supreme
Court by a unanimous decision arguing from the forms of language used in the
government bodies and legal papers, the observance of the Sabbath, the prevalence
of churches with the charitable and missionary enterprises under their auspices,
has declared that "This is a Christian nation." Yet there are those who have in-
voked our federal constitution itself as the chief authority for forbidding the
teaching to our future citizens and law-makers of those principles of religion and
the moral law upon which government must rest if it is to uphold justice and
righteousness, jftow shall these successors to us know, if we do not teach them?
On the other hand, for one hundred and fifty years the common text in Ameri-
can schools was the Mew England Primer, of whicli nine-tenths of the contents was
religious. Many of our leading colleges and universities, as Yale and Harvard,
started wholly or partially on religious foundations, and for two hundred years
from those New England schools came the majority of the leaders — that splendid

96 THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION

line of scholars, teachers, ministers, and statesmen— that guided the destiny of
the -young nation. In one class of schools the government does indeed recognize
religion today: the Indian Bureau by an order of thirty years' standing, requires
that any man or woman appointed trt teach in an Indian school m.ust be a member
in good standing of some Christian church. If such a qualification is desirable in
one class of schools, why not in all? Or is it so much more important that an
Indian — or for that matter a senator, or a convict — should be rooted and grounded
in the knowledge of God than our growing boys and girls? It is not an exploded
theory that "Righteousness exalteth a nation." History contains for no people
more inspiring memories than that of Washington bidding farewell to the public
duties which he had administered in so high a spirit with these words:

]■ "Of all the dispositions which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are

! indispensible supports. * » * And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality
can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of re-
fined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both 'forbid us to
expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." '

No less emphatic are the testimonies of I^ncoln in his Gettysburg Address and
elsewhere; "of Webster, commemorating in his matchless group of historical ora-
tions the spiritual power, side by side with the political acumen, of the forefathers.

Religious Education in Foreign Countries

But two of the Christian nations today fail to provide for the teaching of re-
ligion in the state schools. For centuries in Europe the church was the deposi-
tory of learning, and schools and libraries were in its hands. With the rise of
modern states, education has been provided for by the secular powers, and re-
ligious training still retained as part of the course. Where there is a state
church, as in Germany, the question has proved an easy one. There religious
teaching is a part of the work of every grade, and when a sect has numbers
enough to claim it, a teacher is provided. Luther laid the foundation of the
present German educational system, as he organized the first city schools, with
the design of making good citizens of the youth by teaching them to read the
Bible. When in 1905 a proposition was made to abolish the work, the attempt
resulted only in the strengthening of its hold, but with a movement to reorganize
it by freeing it from church domination and by eliminating dogmatism. In Aus-
tria the prevailing faith of each locality is taught by a clergyman of that sect.
Spain has regularly established religious instruction and the clergy are members
of the school boards. In Sweden the clergy inspect the schools and are prominent
in control of education, while both Norway and Denmark give religious training
under supervision of the clergy. In England state-aided schools keep up re-
ligious teaching. France and the United States alone — the two republics — out
of the Christian powers have failed to give religion an authorized position in the
school course. France does, however, provide for a weekly lesson in morals, but
investigators say that the work is frequently given small space or ignored en-
tirely. If carried out faithfully, it seems to exemplify Washington's warning
that morality alone can not build up good citizenship. In 1901 France passed the
law abolishing church schools. Within the next seven years, statistics show that
criminality had increased eighty per cent. Sanborn says of the situation: "The
withdrawal of religious instruction from the public schools and the closing of the
religious orders has been followed by an appalling increase in crime, particularly
juvenile crime." It must have been a dramatic scene in a Paris court-room when

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 97

Mons. Appert, attorney for a self-confessed murderer, said in his final address to
the jury:

There on the wall I see the picture of the Crucified — and I pay homage to it. * * *
But why do we not hear anything of Him in our schools to which you send your
children? Why does Sandat, the murderer, for the first time in his life, see -the /
Crucified here in this hall where the law will punish him? If the attention of my client |
had been directed to the Crucified when he still sat on the benches of the school, he '
would not now sit here on the bench of disgrace and infamy.

Need in the United States

In the United States it has been about fifty or sixt3(_^>;^s since religion began c
to be dropped from our schools. Statistics assert that in fifty years crime has in-
creased 400 per cent, with a crime rate in New York far above London, Paris, or
Berlin. Judge Thomas O'Sullivan, of the New York Court of General Sessions,
declares: "One of the most remarkable features of the criminal classes of today
in the city of New York is the youthfulness of a large proportion of the offenders."
The testimony of Municipal Judge W. M. Gremmill of Chicago runs to the same
effect: "The most dangerous person in any city is the_boy between the ages of
fifteen and eighteen. The average 'hold-up man' is seventeen years old."

And how account for this state of affairs? Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis in an
address before an inter-denominational meeting said:

Judges and courts are beginning to say that something must be done to train our
youth in morals. Unless the Catholic, Protestant, and Hebrew teachers get together and
agree that the Commandments, the Golden Rule, the laws of the family, the laws of
social sympathy and social service are taught in the school, then the common people
had better turn away from all religious teachers, and ask the judges of our courts to
agree upon the few great principles that are fundamental to the Republic and should
be taught in our schools. For judges are coming to say that they have no right to
choke a boy to death with hemp rope after he is twenty-one years of age, when society
has permitted him to grow up as ignorant as a beast before he was twenty-one. It will
not cost the state one-tenth as much to teach the boys morals in childhood as it does to
build prisons for them during their manhood.

Rabbi Hirsch speaks with equal positiveness:

The greatest failure of the nineteenth century has been the failure of religious
education. The eighteenth century closed with a belief in the efficiency of education,
and the best minds of the day seemed to have dreams of universal education, and called
it the universal panacea for all the social ills. We have largely realized those dreams
and have discovered that the education of the head alone has not kept the promises
which the philosophers of the eighteenth century believed it would keep. Education has
not decreased the criminal classes, but it has made them more dangerous. Our public
schools may give an idiot a mind, but they do not give him character. They give
him the power to do harm without the moral force and will to restrain him from
using that power. In educating the head and not the heart and soul, the public
schools are failing at a crucial point.

We add the words of one within the ranks, President G. Stanley Hall: "I can
not find a single criminologist who is satisfied with the modern school, while most
bring the severest indictments against it for the blind and ignorant assumption
that the three R's or any merely intellectual training can moralize."

Are these statements too strong? The facts remain. Since 1850, school •
facilities have developed enormously in methods, time, and attendance. The per-
centage of pupils going into the high school from the grades increased from one
per cent to 80 per cent in 1906; from high schools into universities from nine
per cent in 1875 to 37 per cent in 1908. Yet criminals increased 5 to 1. Evidently
the cause is not mental. Scientists declare that human life has been prolonged

98 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

on the average two years. The trouble, then, is not physical. Neither can we
lay it to a change in standards consequent upon immigration. 'The United States
^ensus Bulletin, 1904, on "Prisoners and Juvenile Delinquents in Institutions"
says that the percentage of Americans among prisoners is one in 6,404; of those
from northern Europe, one in 13,139; from southern and eastern Europe, one in
6,500. The native rate is thus higher than either of the foreign.

It may seem that our improved methods of dealing with youthful criminals
is a hopeful sign. Juvenile courts and probation officers do indeed stand for
progressive ideas, but the pity is that they should be so sorely and so increasingly
needed.

Exclusion Not an Intentional Slight

That conditions should ever reach so disastrous a stage could never have
entered the minds of our fathers. Those founders of our commonwealth who in-
troduced the First Amendment into our Constitution had no idea of encouraging
irreligion. The example of the Old World had led some of them to dread any in-
terdependency of church and state, and accordingly they provided that "Congress
shall make no provision regarding an establishment of religion" — having in mind
by "establishment" a state-supported church, as today the Church of England
is the "established church." They intended to forestall a possible attempt of
any denomination to obtain political authority, and to prevent sectarian dissen-
tion or domination. The design was wholly in the interest of religious freedom,
that all might stand on an equal footing. (Justice Story) No doubt the same
construction should be placed on the measures of the various states as embodied
in their constitutions and laws. The declarations against religion in the public
schools will bear other interpretations than an antagonism to moral truth. Rather
they show that the tendency of the past generation was to set religion apart as a
superior matter, too high to be placed on a level with secular studies of every day.

One writer has said: "When the Constitution was passed, religion was still
taught in the home, and it was not respectable not to go to church." A good many
ideals have changed with the generations, some for the better, some not so well.
One of the strongest arguments for religious teaching in the public schools is the
modern belief that religion should not be, allowed to stand in the child's mind as
a thing to be kept apart from daily life. If a man's soul is not merely the most
vital thing about him, but the man himself, his religion, which is his soul's life
and breath, is the man's life, and so it must be made to the child: else his soul
— his real and highest self — can no more escape being dwarfe^l and twisted than
could a body half-fed and bound like a Chinese woman's feet in an earlier day.

' Weakness of Home and Cliurch

Let it be heartily granted that the ideal agency for the. child's spiritual nurture
is his own home; and that the church has no nobler mission than training the
rising generation to comprehend their right relation to the God that made and
cherishes them, and to their fellows, children of the same Heavenly Father. But
does the home do it? and can the church?

The conflict of modern interests distracts the thoughts and absorbs the time
of all ages from the grandparent to the baby in the kindergarten. The murk of
materialism befogs the aspirations, the smoke of commercialism dims the light
of conscience. Business calls the elders, amusements entice the youngsters, and
in the attempt to solve the problem of living "on twenty-four hours a day" many
households find no place for church, to say nothing of studying a Sunday-school
lesson. "The Cotter's Saturday Night" is more admired than imitated in the

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 99

twentieth century. Moreover, how many parents have the knowledge either of
the subject or of pedagogy to teach the Bible^ properly? Child psychology is a
new science, and as applicable to the teaching of religion as of music or numbers.
So greatly also, have men's minds changed as to religious beliefs, so much have
archaeology and history and ethnology done to alter the understanding of biblical
statements, that many parents would confess themselves hopelessly behind the
times if put before an ordinary Sunday-school class.

Exactly the same argument has been gone over for a good many subjects in
these days. No one doubts that personal hygiene should ideally be learned in
the home: that mothers should be the ones to teach their daughters to hem and
to bake, to set the table and to care for baby sister. But when with changed con-
ditions even conscientious mothers find themselves unequal to the standards de-
manded by modern progress, or too engulfed in the rush of caring for the ma-
terial needs of their children to attend to the mental and spiritual claims; when,
more's the pity, thousands of mothers are too ignorant or too careless or too
absorbed in outside concerns to make the home the central force in the young
lives; then time and again the school has stepped in. To name only a few of
the former parental responsibilities that it has assumed, a moment's reflection
will enumerate dental and medical inspection, physical training, handicrafts, do-
mestic science, savings banks, gardens, and even supervision of sports, both in-
door and outdoor. Why should it seem strange if it should undertake the moraJ
welfare as it has the mental and the physical of these our embryo citizens? It
can not be, can it, that the former is of less importance, either for personal cul-
ture or for citizenship, than the other two?

As for the church, the other alternative. To the Catholic church belongs the
credit of first being alert to the propriety and the urgency of making moral and
spiritual training a part of the regular school curriculum. The Lutherans do
the same in their schools, and other denominations have followed their example,
largely, however, in institutions of advanced grade rather than in primary or
secondary schools. The first objection to this is from the economic standpoint:
that this system involves a duplication of the equipment already provided at
public cost and a consequent doubling of expense. There are estimated to be
about three hundred and twenty sects in the United States. Few of them are
wealthy enough to maintain schools for the general education of their children;
so that we can not look to the private school system to give our young people
their knowledge of morality.

But what is the Sunday School for if not for this very purpose, it is often
said. With all due credit to the Sunday School* for the burden that it has so
long and so faithfully carried, it labors under the fundamental handicap of
trying to teach in one hour a week, or more probably half an hour, a subject so
vast that it occupies more space on library shelves than any other. "Children,"
it has been said, "are born as unmoral as they are unmathematical" — and which
is the more concerned with the vital welfare of the man to be? Yet no one
grudges five days a week for years to mathematics.

In the next place, the Sunday School conveys to the child no sense of au-
thority which he is bound to respect or whiMi can compel him (which is about
the same thing) as to attendance, attention in the class, or preparation of the
lesson. Sunday-school teachers are generally volunteers, w^ith undoubted zeal,
but often so slight training for effective teaching that even in the child's mind it
compares very unfavorably with the expert work of his week-day classes. How
many Sunday Schools can be counted that "get down to business" and make an

lOO THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

hour or a half hour count as.it does in the day school? Yet surely it is important
to be in earnest when we are "about our Father's business" if ever.

One other disadvantage we may believe is fast disappearing, thanks to the
attractive methods of the up-to-date modern Sunday Schools (and their "number
is growing) : that it would cast a certain odium of sanctimoniousness over a boy —
even over a girl, sometimes— to admit an acquaintance with the inside of that
institution. That Sunday School is not frequented exclusively by "goody-goodies"
is a fact which is happily gaining credence. But the full appreciation of it will
come only when the spirit which the Sunday School aims to impart is brought
into the life of every day, and the week-day school and the Sabbath-day school
join hands in the common object of showing our young people what a complete,
well-rounded life is; that as physiology merely teaches him the facts about a
physical body that is his, whether he knows its structure or not, so religious
teaching aims to acquaint him with those laws of the higher life whicb one may
ignore, but the observance of which brings him to his truest self-development.
The religious day schools and vacation schools that have been taking on popu-
larity in the last two or three years show how much can be accomplished by
putting the work on the basis of the public schools as to methods, texts, trained
supervisors, and regular attendance. The brevity of the course, however, makes
them rather a palliative than a remedy for the situation.

Religions Teaching Needed

The most serious side of the problem is to take care of the children who never
attend church or Sunday School. "Approximately 12,000,000 children of scholastic
age are given some instruction in the Protestant Sunday Schools. * * * The
Roman Catholics train each year about 1.310,000 in 20,000 parochial schools. * * *
The Lutheran body supports 6,085 parochial schools in which they instructed last
year (1914) 295,581 pupils of elementary rank." But all these praiseworthy efforts
leave an enormous work undone. To continue the quotation from the same author:

There are at the present time more than 15,000,000 children of school age in
this country* who are receiving no religious training or guidance whatever, and they
are growing up in a most pathetic state of agnosticism, with no moral basis for citizen-
ship. There are approximately 35,000,000 people over ten years of age outside the
membership of any church. There are ten thousand small towns west of the Missouri river
in which Christian preaching is rarely, or never, heard.

Such figures as these may well daunt the most optimistic. What will be the
state of this country in the next half-century, if Christian educators do not bestir
themselves to find some way of turning the course of the current? In spite of all
the heroic devotion of the church, it is evident that not much more can be ex-
pected than it has been able to undertake hitherto. The figures show how inade-
quate that is to cope with the situation. It casts no discredit on the church but
rather emphasizes her broad spirit of cooperation with all agencies for good, to
say that she has many times turned over to other organizations various depart-
ments of work that in earlier ages no institution but the church had the willing-
ness and the machinery to handle.. As in the case of the home, demands have
so multiplied that it has necessitated a division of tasks. Society for that reason
today performs many of the functions formerly belonging to the church — hospitals,
asylums, orphanages, indeed a long list of philanthropic enterprises.

The churches, it should be noted further, have for their domain of education
a special field. They are denominational institutions, and rightfully may infuse
into their teaching something of the doctrines of their sects. But religion means

THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDLGATiON :oi

quite another thing than church adherence or church doctrine. To be "born of
the S'pirit" has nothing to do with dogmas or creeds. It is as free of sectarian
bounds as the wind that "bloweth where it listeth," with no law of man to say
whence it shall come. Is it not better for the child and for society that the es-
sential and fundamental ideals of religion — the simple foundation principles of
"What doth the Lord require of thee?" — shall be taught him quite apart from any
special interpretations of Scriptural truth that his church will instruct him in as
its proper field and at the proper time. Such work, coming .from an impartial
source, would join with complete sympathy and cooperation in the efforts of
the churches, by inculcating a receptive habit of mind and by laying a broad
foundation. It would also leave the church at liberty to use its time and equip-
ment for teaching more extensively along its own lines and for developing its
organizations for missions and other causes.

The question has in fact been raised whether it is either wise in itself or
fair to a child to place him under denominational teaching at so early an age as
to prejudice his judgment. "There are rights of the child as well as of the
parent."' Certainly no influence should be permitted to keep from our youth an
unbiased knowledge of the fundamental truths of religion in the broadest sense.
To that end the home, the church, and the state may reasonably be asked to unite,
since it involves not only the welfare of the child but the interest of the nation
that he shall be shaped for good "Citizenship. The state assumes the power to for-
bid child labor — citizens must be physically sound. It prescribes compulsory
education — citizens must be intelligent. Is it not logical that the state should in-
sist that citizens must be taught to be moral and law-abiding, and ready to serve
their fellows and their country? What sort of citizens do we want? Irreligious,
contemptuous of the Bible and of the laws of morality? If not, the state must see
to it that children grow up with reverence for God and His word and a sense of
their own responsibilities in the world. Says President MacKenzie, of the Hart-
ford Theological Seminary, "No prospect awakens greater dread than to suggest
the possibility of a generation of children arising for whom religion is a super-
stition and the knowledge of the Bible a needless irritation." But how shall the
rising tide of irreverence and irresponsibility be stemmed? Secular learning
cultivates the intellectual and social faculties, but there it stops. It does not
appeal to man's spiritual nature, it has no reformatory force. It makes him no
happier and no 'better. And while a moral man, if ignorant, may be of little posiT
tive service in the community, an educated rascal is doubly dangerous. Other
states have depended on secular knowledge and have either gone to ruin or, recog-
nizing destruction ahead, have changed their course, as France did at the close
of the eighteenth century, and restored their former ideals. ^ In the present world
crisis, as always at such times, the hearts of men in the warring lands of Europe
are turning with a fresh sense of dependence to God. America has its own prob-
lems to meet that can. be solved only as the spirit of Christian fellowship and
eternal righteousness becomes its guide in the adoption and administration of
its laws. The far-reaching antagonism of capital and labor, corruption m the
use of the ballot and in the power of corporations, the exploitation of women and
children in industries, aggressiveness in war sentiment — all are the product of
greed and self-aggrandizement: all are contrary to those principles of justice
between men and equality of rights that make the foundation of democracy.
One contributor writes pertinently:

In the rapid increase of temptation resulting from city life and immoral conditions,
the multiplication of wealth and material prosperity, the tremendous immigration problem,
the high birth-rate among foreigners, and the growing number of children of all national-

I02 -h;-: pi^ace of religion in education

ities who are to become American citizens and yet know nothing of American government
and morality — in the face of this dare we continue to measure our welfare in tons of
steel and yards of cotton, while we ignore the only safe standard of character based
upon religion and morals? These are the conditions that led prominent business men
of one of our large cities to petition for a return to religious teaching ; that led Arch-
bishop Ireland to say that "the evil today in America is the decay of religion" ; that
led Henry Churchill to say that "fundamentally our national need is a religious need."^
We are even more convinced of this religious need when we consider the divine mission
of America to the world. In more than one sense all the world has come to us, to abide
here, or to stud^ our laws and customs as a pattern. Bishop Oldham, of the Methodist
Episcopal church, impressed a large audience with the significant statement that "in this tini»
of warfare and uncertainty, the United States stands as the moral leader of the world."
Ex-Senator Albert J. Beveridge, speaking on "The Mission of America" said: "Of all our
race God has marked the American people as His chosen nation to lead in the regeneration
of the world — this is the divine mission of America."

These warnings voice the deliberate and earnest convictions of scores of
eminent men, students of the trend of present-day affairs. The state must safe-
guard its own existence by upholding the highest standards of morality; it has
the right and therefore the duty to demand righteousness in the nation, in pri-
vate life, in business affairs, in government and international transactions. "What,"
says De Tocqueville, "can be done with a people who are their own masters, if
they be not submissive to Deity? Despotism may govern without faith, but lib-
erty cannot." To instill these high ideals what agency can serve but the public
schools?

Dependence on the Schools

There have been two theories advanced to justify the government in taxing^
the whole body of the people for the support of general education. One is the al-
truistic one of the welfare of the child. In order that each son and daughter of the
nation may have the opportunity to develop the best that is in him, his fellow-
citizens voluntarily contribute to his education by taxing themselves. The other
theory asserts that the state must for self-protection have intelligent citizens,
since there is no greater menace than ignorance, which leads surely to idleness
and crime. The interest, therefore, of the public as a whole and of every in-
dividual authorizes the maintenance of the school system by general taxation.
Whichever theory we choose to adopt, the Inference is the same: the school is the
prime training-ground for public and private virtues — for personal character and
for patriotic service. It is the nursery where the noblest ideals of the nation can
be nurtured or ingrafted. If, in the well-worn phrase, America is the melting-pot
of the nations, the school is the melting-pot of our multifarious population. The
problems of fusing a homogeneous state from our mixed materials; of doing away
with racial and social prejudice, and laying the foundation for not only high ideals
but uniform ideals; of raising our immense foreign element to our own concep-
tion of right and wrong, lest we sink to theirs; of providing trained leaders to
guide the nation thru what perils may threaten: who or v/hat can solve them
except organized education?

The education that can reach these needs, however, is not the training solely
of brain and body that these decades have called education. If that were satis-
factory, the present agitation would not have been aroused. There would be no
such charges as those of Mons. Appert, quoted above; or of Judge O'Sullivan, who
offered as one of the causes of crime among sons of respectable parents, "a lack
of religious or moral training in the schools." Governor Charles S. Whitman, in
his inaugural address, spoke most emphatically of the results of an education not
infused with moral responsibility:

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION {q;^

No material prosperity, no abounding wealth, no progress in the sciences, can save
us from moral decadence and ultimate decay if this spirit of lawlessness and contempt
for legal authority shall continue. The growing impatience of restraint, moral and legal,
to be observed everywhere in America, the indifference, sordidness, and complacency of
many of the educated well-to-do, the unchecked and unregulated propaganda of those
things calculated to prejvtdice and poison the mind of the ignorant and undermine confidence
in our institutions, the public opinion that tolerates lawlessness, whether it be the
lynching of a negro or the murder of the obscure, or the violence attending nearly all
disputes between labor and capital, will inevitably engender a fatal malady unless the
quickened conscience of the American people shall call a halt.

Professor Alexander Johnstone, of Princeton University, is even more frank
in laying the cause of social unrest at the door of the schools. The following^
passage appeared in the Century Magazine:

Even among the warmest friends of the public school system there is an increasing
number who are disposed to think that the American common-school system is mis-
chievously one-sided in its neglect of the religious element in man's nature, and that
a purely secularized education is worse than no education at all. * * ♦ It is of little
use to deplore the growing alienation of the body of the people from all forms of religious
effort, so long as a vast machine, supported at public charge, is busily engaged in edu-
cating the children of the nation to ignore religion.

Less vigorous in language but no less assured is the statement of Thomas
Huxley, during a debate as to the desirability of introducing the Bible into the
London schools:

I always was in favor of a secular education in our public schools ; I mean an
education without theology. * * * But if for my own children I had to choose between
a school in which true religion was taught and one without religion, I would prefer the
former, even if my child had to take a good dose of theology.

These quotations are given at length to show, with compelling force, the un-
challenged testimony of men eminent in different professions. And let it be
noted that they do not stop at the half-way measure of calling for moral teaching.
Four years ago the report of the National Education Association committee pre-
sented an elaborate scheme of that nature, but apparently educators have reason
for believing that morals alone will not suffice. Ethics without religion is ma-
terialistic; it aims to cultivate a right attitude in man toward his fellows, but it
ignores his spiritual nature. It has no court of appeal beyond practical expedi-
ency, while religion points him to the authority of God, who, as his Creator and
his loving Father, claims his willing obedience and service. * Says former Presi-
dent Eliot, of Harvard, "Nobody knows how to teach morality effectually without
religion. Exclude religion from- education and you leave no foundation upon
which to build a moral character." Religion is, as has been said, the "dynamic
of morality." It supplies motive and impulsive power to what otherwise is a
lifeless code of precepts. Daniel Webster understood the truth of this when he
said, "To educate in the arts is important, in religion indispensable." For whether
we look at the matter from the standpoint of the state or the child, the building
of character must be the supreme intent of the school 'i and generations ago the
ideal of the perfect character was described as one who "increased in wisdom
and stature and in favor with God and man." And what is "wisdom"? The same
Book declares that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of it.

What must be the effect on the child's mind when we leave it out of his
school life? The most obvious will be to separate it from his daily thought and
living, as if it were a thing that could be put on and off with his Sunday collar.
How can it fail that to the child, whose whole thoughts and experiences center

I04 THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION

about school, this exclusion from the all-important sphere of his life will give it
a false impression of insignificance? In all probability, another misleadingiio-
tion will take root in his mind, since it is so common today among those that
should know better, that because a person is not a "professor of religion" and
connected with a church, he is at liberty to evade the moral law. Is a foreigner in
our land at liberty to kill and rob and burn because he has not taken the oath of
allegiance to our government? Then how can any one think he can refuse to
acknowledge the authority of God's law while he dwells in His world?

What would be the effect on the school itself if the teaching of religion were
brought into the classroom? How could it be anything but helpful? ilf the spirit
of religion once becomes the law of school life, discipline must be easier, indoors
and on the playground, and the whole atmosphere of the place would partake of
the Christ-spirit of love and service. The studies that we call secular surely
>vould mean more to a child if taught in their relation to the Mind that orders the
universe. We teach botany and geology and physics, and say nothing of the
great Creator; history, without pointing out the guiding hand of God in the af-
fairs of mankind; the lives of Caesar and Napoleon, and omit Moses and Christ.
Would not science mean more to a student if he could say with the great Kepler,
"When I read the secrets of nature I am but thinking the thoughts of God after
Him"? Will not mathematics seem less stereotyped if an axiom is pointed out
to be, as Dr. Joseph Parker, of London, once said, an equivalent for "Thus saith
the Lord"? What will the great orations and the masterpieces of art mean, and
how can the teacher explain Christmas, and inculcate its lesson of love and peace,
or Easter, or Thanksgiving, or even of the Sabbath, if their origin may not be
told? The public would be shocked to hear that a twelve-year-old boy in the
finest school in one of the university centers denied that Christ was ever on
earth — "Christ is up in Heaven," he knew that. But in these days Santa Claus has
stepped into the place of the Christ-child, and eggs and bunnies are the child's
chief association with Easter.

In heathen lands Christianity is making steady progress and the Bible is be-
introduced into their courses of study. Yuan Shi Kai, we are told, sends his
children to a Christian school, and supports Christian work. A year ago all gov-
ernment students were given a half-holiday to attend the evangelistic exercises
held in the Forbidden City, and more than a thousand, including many prominent
officials, enrolled for Bible study. Yet in America the ignorance among college
students concerning Scriptural allusions is a matter of notoriety, and the despair
not only of Bible class teachers, but of professors of literature. College men who
have read of the expeditions of Caesar and Xenophon in the original tongue have
no acquaintance with the journeys of Abraham and Paul. They know about
Carthage and Solon and Charlemagne, but are amused or aggrieved if the in-
structor asks them about Samaria, or Isaiah, or Nehemiah. The professors, of
course, blame the inefficient teaching of English literature in the high schools;
whereas the real cause is the short-sightedness, the bigotry, and the jealousy of
those who refuse the noblest book in any language a place in the classroom.

Do we wish our young people to know and appreciate good literature? These
are the words of Professor Phelps, of Yale, than whom there is no higher au-
thority on the subject in America:

I would refuse to allow any candidate to enter a university vmtil he had satisfactorily
passed an examination in the Bible. Priests, atheists, skeptics, devotees, agnostics, and
evangelists are all agreed that the Bible is the best example of English composition that
the world has ever seen.

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 1 05

Washington Gladden, in the Atlantic Monthly for January, 1915, speaks in
the same vein:

The one book with which a reader needs to have familiar acquaintance is the English
Bible. All our best English literature is shot thru and thru with biblical quotations,
maxims, metaphors, characters, and allusions.

Professor Richard C. Moulton, in "The Literary Study of the Bible," adds
another point:

It seems clear that our schools and colleges will not have shaken off their mediaeval
narrowness and renaissance paganism until Classical and Biblical literatures stand side by-
side as sources of our highest culture. * * * it is surely good that our youth during
the formative period should have displayed to them, in a literary dress as brilliant as that
of Greek literature, — in lyrics that Pindar cannot surpass, in rhetoric as forcible as that
of Demosthenes, or contemplative prose not inferior to Plato's — a people dominated by an
utter passion for righteousness.

Pages of like tributes could be added from such ^en as Taine, John Ruskin,
Nicholas Murray Butler, Roosevelt, Wilson, Lincoln, and Washington. Every
reader of history must be familiar with the splendid tribute that Green, in his
"History of the English People," pays to the influence of the Bible on the minds
of the English people during the Puritan Revolution. The chapter should bo read
to every class in English history and English literature.

But it is not chiefly for its literary merit that the book is called for by edu-
cators today; rather because it is the source of our knowledge of God's will and
of life in harmony with His spirit. It is acknowledged by all creeds to be the^
foundation of morals and of spiritual truth, the supreme book of religion in the
world. As such it is recognized by all classes of thinkers — historians, psycholo-
gists, poets, and philosophers. If once men came to realize that in the Scriptures
is to be found all that modern critics accuse the school of lacking, they would see
how narrow is the prejudice that keeps it out of the classroom. When lives are
in danger, people do not stop to argue about medical creeds and "schools." They
form some agreement for saving measures, and put the best men in charge. So
when the nation's moral health is endangered, as the warning has already gone
forth, and the means of treatment is at hand, sound policy would indicate that
the various interests concerned should find a basis on which they can work In
harmony to the general benefit of all, and to the betterment of the coming gener-
ations. As a business man puts the matter:

It is a political maxim that the welfare of a republic is dependent on the virtue
and the intelligence of its citizens. The Bible has been pronounced the foundation of
both civil and moral law. Conscience, law, and liberty find in it their common basis.
The flag should be upon every school-house and the Book of books upon every teacher's
desk.

A similar expression of the nation's need comes from William Jennings Bryan:

There never was a time when the people needed the inspiration of the Bible more
than they do today ; and there is not a' community which cannot be purified, redeemed, and
improved by a better knowledge and a larger application of the Bible in their daily life.

Another strong argument in favor of the schools as the place for religious
training is that they have the molding of the child's thoughts and habits for so
long a period and during the most impressionable years of his life. From five to
twenty-one, if his course is continuous, he is under school influence. During the
early years he is practically absorbed by it; even when out of the building, his
ambitions and his calculations center on his life there and "Teacher" stands first

Io6 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

as the oracle, if not the goddess herself. The schoolroom more than any other
place is the scene of habit-formation, where self-control and obedience to au-
thority, order, mental discipline, and fair play are learned— all valuable assets in
moral training. It is a truism older than Alexander Pope's famous couplet that
those pliable years should not be neglected for bending the young minds as we
wish the characters to incline in later life. The principles of religion implanted
then will assimilate with the other character-building forces, and help to es-
tablish a stable and conscientious manhood. He was a wise man, that bishop of
the Roman Catholic church, who said, "Give us the children for the first six years,
and we care not who gets them- afterward."

There is plenty of evidence to support him in his statement. In a certain
seminary, out of 620 students, 520 were converted between the years of thirteen
and twenty. Among 4,054 conversions, four out of five occurred before twenty.
The reports of revivalists, such as Moody, give practically the same figures. The
ages of fourteen and sixteen show special susceptibility. Young people begin to
form opinions on religious affairs earlier than many of their elders would imag-
ine. They feel the necessity of standards of conduct, and if no worthy ones have
been presented to them to accept, they shape their own out of such poor material
as their experiences and the confidences of their mates have put in their way.
But who makes allowance for that when some day they act out the impulse of
those misformed judgments, and find themselves under the penalty of society's
law? Is it fair to the boy and the girl to leave them in ignorance of their country's
moral standard to which they are later expected to conform, and by which they
will be judged? Society will have a hard task to defend itself when asked who
is to blame for these unfortunates who would have been saved if the state had
accepted its responsibility and taught them higher ideals of conduct.
f But there are nobler motives for giving the child a foundation of religion
than to guard him from running counter to law. On which plane does his life
promise more of richness, of brotherly kindness, of the consciousness of peace with
God and man? It is unnecessary to repeat the evidence that the study of psy-
chology and the verdict of history give to the inborn tendency to religion in the
human soul. From primitive man to the highest product of twentieth century
civilization, the impulse to worship a Supreme Being persists. Since such is the
case, how important it is that the impulse should be early recognized, and directed
along the path that will make a happy childhood and a manhood such as Horace
praised, "Well-rounded, self-mastered, fearless of what poverty or bonds or death
can bring."

It is easy enough to answer the child's inevitable questions about nature and
the life about him in a way to direct both gratitude and obedience toward his
Heavenly Father-, and so his education begins. Love is the natural expression
of the child. He frankly expresses it for those around him and is happy in the
sense of their love for him. When there is pointed out to him the proofs of God's
love and care for all His children in the good and beautiful things of the world
around, his love turns to God as naturally as to his earthly father. If only this
spirit could be retained! The kindergarten cultivates it, but in the later years the
silence of teachers and the reticence or indifference of the home inspire a corre-
esponding attitude in the child, and the interest in religion dies down. One of
the problems for religious educators to solve is how to keep the sense of God
fresh and vital in the hearts of the children.

We must not expect to see results immediately. Social conditions today in
so many ways contradict the Christian principles that our civilization professes —
honesty lauded but the corruptlj^ rich man courted, legal trickery by which crime

THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION 107

goes unpunished, success won at the price of honor — that it will need time until
a new generation with the courage of its ideals shall set up its standard of right
upon the basis of the two great commandments. That the time will come if we
do our share need not be doubted. A sufficient guarantee is the wave of temper-
ance legislation that has been sweeping so manj' of the states. Those who are
in a position to know attribute it to the teaching on the subject that was intro-
duced into the schools twenty years ago, when the present generation of younger
voters was in the classroom.

Objections Answered "^ ^

But, it is said, you cannot make a child religious. True, neither can you
make him musical or artistic. But it is not impossible to cultivate knowledge and
taste on any of these subjects, by one who is an expert and who understands how
to deal with children. Besides, the advantage is all with religion, for some seem,
to be quite incapable of going beyond the rudiments of the fine arts, but the in-
stinct for religion is universal. It needs only cultivation to develop it properly.
A man's God, it has been said, is what he regards as the highest good, and what
that may be is according as he has been taught — what his* environment during
his formative years has woven into the fabric of his mental and moral constitu-
tion.

While at first it seems strange that the opposition to religion in the schools
persists so strongly, it proves the magnitude of the issue. That it comes to so
great an extent from the churches, whom one would, at first thought, expect to
welcome it in any place, shows how anxiously they endeavor to safeguard the
sacredness of divine truth. Some argue that the church and the school are sep-
arate institutions and should have no connection. That can be answered by point-
ing out that the proposition is to bring together not the church and the school,
but religion and the school. The church is an institution; religion is a psycho-
logical experience. The church has its share in encouraging in the child this
vital element of soul-life, but that does not relieve the school from its responsi-
bility for the rounded development of his fuH powers. Rightly approached,
there should be no conflict between the two, rather an immense helpfulness and
cooperation. Both should benefit mightily, the school by the confirmation of its
teachings at the hands of the recognized organizations, the church by the respect
and sense of authority which every child has for whatever originates in his
school, by the added knowledge that the increased time spent on the subject
would give, and by the opportunity to direct its own work along its special church
lines, since the general foundation would be already laid. The arrangement
ought, also, to broaden immensely its chances of extending its influence among
those now outside the church altogether. Not only the children who at present
hear nothing of the Bible would be more easily drawn in, but religions truth
would thus be carried into thousands of homes, where the church and the Sunday
School might later find a welcome. In that way the two institutions now suffer-
ing under the sense of failure would supplement each other's work, and would be
able together to cover the field.

There are those, however, to whom this very cooperation would bring a
sense of danger lest the church, or some church, should gain control of our public
schools, or should be able to inculcate its doctrines. It was the former of these
fears that brought about the Amendment to the Federal Constitution. The latter
possibility is viewed with jealous eyes by the public at large and to some extent
among the denominations themselves, where sectarian feeling is strong. In one
way this watchfulness has a beneficial effect — it safeguards the teaching of pure

I08 THE Pr.ACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

religionjj All are agreed that whatever religious truth is taught in the public
schoolroom must be presented absolutely free from a sectarian bias. It is not
the place for suggesting doctrines of any nature whatever, but only for -those
fundamentals upon which all are agreed and which every parent, whether he is
an atheist or the most devout of Christians, would* desire his child to know and
practice. Moreover those who consider cooperation between the churches and
the school to be impracticable or dangerous will find, if they look into the experi-
ments that are now being worked out, as in Gary, Indiana, and Australia, and
North Dakota, that, without considering the desirability of one system or another,
at least they prove that the thing can be done, and so far as present evidence
goes to show, with, success and general satisfaction.

But one of the best signs of the times is that sectarian antagonism is losing
ground. In many towns, all denominations unite in services and their charitable
organizations federate for mutual help. Realizing the waste of power and equip-
ment in small towns when several denominations are struggling to support sepa-
rate establishments, the union church has grown popular, and in some states
joint committees of the denominations supervise the system to see that the ar-
rangement is installed where it would be profitable to the various interests. Thirty
denominations are combined in harmonious effort for the evangelization of the
heathen world. If one cause can fuse efforts to such an extent, why not another?
The hopefulness of the outlook is vividly stated in the following quotation:

It is now recognized that our religious life and practice are being modified by the
progressive acts of civilization. There is a community of thought, all the corners of the
earth are becoming cosmopolitan, and the best ideas of humanity are rapidly becoming
a universal possession; science is becoming the spiritual inheritance of the whole race.
It is but natural that all this should find expression in a more truly catholic religion.
* * * Religion, like all other sciences, rests upon universal principles. Like mathe-
matics and physics, it has in it universal truths which are true to all alike. And it is
evident that only such universal truths of religion can properly be included in our systems of
public education. Hence, in order to introduce religious teaching into the public schools,
religion must be viewed, not as fixed tradition nor as narrow sectarian doctrines, but as uni-
versal, scientific, and philosophic truths. * * * There is a disposition now as never before to
magnify the essentials of religion only, the common or universal principles, and to leave
the non-essentials, or at least the debatable tenets to individual preference. Religious
union and federation have become a practical realization.

When the spirit of the Master is thus recognized and distinctions put aside,
differences of understanding become of minor importance. Because scientists
disagree as to the truth of the nebular hypothesis shall we refuse to teach geology?
Do we w^ithdraw our children from the history classes because the politics of the
teacher differ from our own? Suppose all subjects involving difference of re-
ligious opinion were to be excluded f rom ,the curriculums; what would be the
effect? Astronomy, geology, and biology would have to go, since some worthy
Christians hold their present teachings incompatible with Genesis. Psychology
would be thrown out to please Calvinists, and physiology and anatomy to satisfy
Christian Scientists. History would rouse a discussion of the claims of the Pa-
pacy, and almost the whole of English and American literature would have to be
printed in carefully expurgated texts, for fear of some tender susceptibilities. If
one answers that publishers and teachers have judgment to be trusted with these
matters, logic and fairness compel us to admit that the same good sense can be
[relied on in religious teaching. May we not hope that the time will come when.
Instead of rivalry and antagonism, the sects — each with its own individuality,
like brothers in the family — will unite harmoniously in the cause of education,

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 109

establishing thereby a bond of sympathy and understanding that will go far to /
dispel race and class prejudices in our land.

Another class of objectors doubt the ability of the school to succeed in so im-
portant a matter. They fear that the instruction will degenerate into mere
formalism as in so many part of Europe. These people forget that there it is under
double restriction — of a church controlled by « the state; while here the whole
spirit of teaching is freer and more emotional. Our schools, like our politics, are
democratic. They are attended by children of all classes, sects, and races. They
favor none, either group or individual, except, perhaps, that the weakest gets the
most care. The poor boy is as likely to be the hero of the playground as the rich
one, and the son of an alien may very probably stand at the head of his class. It
is just because the school is the community itself in miniature that it is the fittest
place to teach religion. The churches, by the very fact of their organization, have
bounds that are mutually exclusive. Religion has no bounds, no exclusions, of
class or race or age. It lays down the law of service, of equality, of brotherly
love, the laws of essential democracy. Where can these ideals better be brought
home to the young people than in the school, the most democratic of our institu-
tions? The teachings of Christ, whether he is regarded as God or as man, un-
derlie all our social, relationships, and society cannot afford to omit them in the
education of its future leaders.

There are always some, when a new work is proposed for the schools, who
insist that the course is too crowded to ask anything more. That is a matter
to be decided on the basis of relative importance, is it not? Do such persons
really wish to go on record as saying that it is more important that a child should
learn to be a good speller and a fine grammarian than an upright man or a law-
abiding, useful citizen? For that is very much what it amounts to in a good
many cases, according to the testimony that has already been quoted. ,The final
^ te^£t^_the_SiChool, after all, is not what it has informed the child about, but whajt ,
) "Tflias iifade of him; and that teaching is important which will make the kind of
) "nien and women that America needs today.

The complaint has been made that where Bible reading is allowed, it tends
to become perfunctory and lifeless, and encourages disrespect and distaste for the
book. But that is quite what one might expect when the teacher is allowed only
to read the text, unless the passages are chosen, perhaps, from the narratives
Would not the same objection apply to almost any other book? It shows that
what i3 needed is not merely reading the words, but teaching it — not preaching,
cither, but teaching.

That, of course, raises the problem of suitable teachers. In the first place,
different methods will be adopted in different places, the regular teacher being
entrusted with it, where that plan seems best, special teachers appointed in others,
and other ideas applied. The school boards and the teachers A\ill have to be
jiiven time to get the work adjusted. Eyeryone understands that teachers fit
themselves to teach the subjects that the course of study demands. When agri-
culture is intrcducedr text-books and normal courses spring up, and in no time
at all teachers are equipped for the new branch. It will be the same if personal
hygiene is called for, cr morals, or any other topic. There never has been a time
Vy-hen the American teaching body failed to meet a demand made upon it. Nor
would we so discredit the character of that body as to believe that they would
fail to respond to its high appeal. "Christian ethics rests upon reason and ex-
pcrionce ai solidly. as any teaching of hygiene, cr medicine, or any other science
or art having to do with physical or social health." With the normal schools

■\

no THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

doing their share to prepare teachers, with well-planned courses calling for school
credit like any other, there need be no fear of untrained teachers or of perfunc-
tory attention.

We have next to consider a group of objections regarding the relation of the
school to the state. '*We do not pay taxes to have religion taught to the pupils.'*
If this read "to have sectarian doctrine taught," general sentiment would agree.
It is' one of the chief arguments for refusing support from public funds for de-
nominational schools, that society should not be asked to pay for the teaching of
tenets that it does not as a whole believe. But there is no intention of putting
into the school anything of doctrinal nature. On the other hand, no one refuses
to admit that the state has the right and the duty, as a straight business proposi-
tion of self-preservation, to educate for the best citizenship; and even free-think-
ers praise the Bible as the great treasury of morality and ennobling ideals. The
federal courts have decided that the state may under its police power undertake
whatever is "essential to the public safety, health, and morals," and may exercise
its power of taxation to this end.

"But what of our boasted religious freedom with religion in the regular
course of study?" In the first place, if religion were to be a compulsory subject,
that would no more interfere with freedom than does compulsory education itself.
Nobody today protests against having his child educated at state expense on the
ground that it interferes with his freedom of choice. And while no doubt the
ideal and the safe method is that every child should be taught morality, some of
the recent plans of religious instruction provide for excusing the child if his par-
ents object. This is one of the provisions of the Australian plan, but their reports
state that almost nobody avails himself of the permission.

The counter question may well be asked: "Are we having religious freedom
when our children are not allowed lessons in moral and spiritual truth?' The
schools, like other institutions in a democratic state, are based on what the ma-
jority think best for their children.

When a belief which, if true, is of the utmost importance to human welfare, is com-
monly held, silence on it amounts to the same thing as definite influence against that
belief. * * * Silence in the formative years of the school life upon the great spiritual
and moral facts of our being is in its practical effects upon the pupils little different
from definite teaching against religion, and against ethical standards of life.

"But what of the guarantee of religious liberty in our national Constitu-
tion?" Says Bishop Spalding of the First Amendment, used so often as an argu-
ment against religion in the school. "This Amendment was not made for t'ac
destruction of religion, but for the protection of religion, by men who believed in
religion. What true American would not resent as an insult the imputation that
this is a godless nation!" It is to be noted further that the Amendment declares
against any "restriction in the free exercise thereof." If the government not only
does not forbid but actually encourages religious exercises in sessions of Con-
gress, in the navy and the army, how can it be unconstitutional to recognize di-
vine authority in the nation's schools?

The public school system has largely grown up since the Constitution was
framed, and no mention of it appears in that document. The Ordinance of 1787.
enacted while the Constitution was being ratified by the states, does insist on
the necessity of associating religion and education for the good of the state: and
the opinion has been ventured that if the citizens of the states erected out of that
territory chose to invoke the Ordinance for compulsory religious teaching, the
United States Supreme Court would be bound to uphold their claim, since no

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 1 1 1

state constitution could stand against it. As matters rest at present, the regula-
tion of the situation has fallen largely into the hands of the states, and the de-
cisions of the state courts have varied so widely as to indicate that they were
guided chiefly by the pressure of local opinion rather than by any authoritative
interpretation of the Federal Constitution. But in forbidding interference with
the free exercise of religion, the influence of that instrument may be considered
virtually in favor of it.

Many of the state constitutions, for instance that of New York, specifically
recognize the divine sanction by expressions of gratitude or of prayer to God.
The decisions of courts have been in the main friendly. That of the Kentucky
State Court of Appeals is often quoted. Afl[irming a judgment of the circuit
court, it took the occasion to declare that "the Bible is not a sectarian book; that
the reading of it in the common schools, without note or comment by the teacher, |
is not sectarian instruction ; that the use of the Bible does not make the school-
house a house of worship; and that any particular edition of the Bible cannot
be said to be sectarian because it has been adopted by any church."

The attitude of the states toward the use of the Bible in the schools can be
seen from the following table from Wilbur F. Craft's "Bible in Schools Plans."

1 Bible officially banished

IJy state supreme court — 111.

By attorney-general — Cal., Minn., Mo., Wash.

By state superintendent of instruction — Ariz., Mont., N. Y.

2 Sectarian use prohibited — Neb.

3 Extracts only to be read — Wis.

4 Opposed by custom (no law) — Nev., Wyo., New Mex.

5 Bible read (no law)— Conn., Del., Fla., I^a., Md., N. H., Ohio, Tenn., Vt.

6 Favored by state superintendent (no law) — Ark., Idaho, N. C, R. I., Utah, Va.

7 Bible reading without comment (supreme court) — Ky., Me., Mich., Neb., Ohio, Ore.,

Tex., W. Va., Wis.

8 Specific permission by statute — Ala., Ga., Ind., Iowa, Kan., Okla., Miss., N. J.

9 Unsectarian use — S. Dak.

ID Bible study credits given (no law) — Colo.

11 School boards give credit and permit reading without sectarian credit — Ind., N. Dak.

12 States requiring Bible — Mass., Penn.

13 Bible reading and obedience to God to be taught — Washington, D. C.

14 Religious exercises forbidden — Ariz.

In addition it should be said that in many cities regulating their own schools
under special charters the Bible is read. The most noticeable is New York city,
in a state where the laws and the rulings of the state superintendents have prac-
tically driven it out of the surrounding towns. Yet in New York, "the largest
catholic city in the world, and the largest Jewish city in the world," Bible read-
ing is required in all public schools from primary grades to college under the new
charter. There is practically no opposition, officials of all churches cooperating
to help in the success of the work. It has been estimated that in over 84%
of towns of over 4000 inhabitants Bible reading prevails in some form, and
that probably, taking city and rural schools together, it appears in four-fifths
of the whole number — certainly a goodly foundation upon which might be built
the structure of genuine religious education. Another noteworthy point is that
a large number of colleges and universities, both endowed and state, have from
time to time accepted substantial grants and donations on the terms of providing
courses of religious study. According to the most recent figures, 51 out of 58 state
universities offer courses in biblical instruction, and 34 colleges, 11 having prac-
tice schools. At seven institutions, including the University of Chicago, students
may select religion as their major subject. One interesting fact is that four

1 1 2 THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION

years ago, when the subject was investigated, 21% of the students enrolled
were non-professors of religion. More attention is being paid to courses for
the purpose of training expert workers to enter the various fields of Christian
activity. Sunday-school teachers, it is recognized, must be well prepared if their
work is to be accepted for credit in the public schools. Boston University has
been given an endowment of a million dollars for a department to be called
Religious Psychology and Pedagogy, the object of which is to train instructors
for schools and colleges, and speakers who can be sent out to public meetings
and conventions. All these are hopeful signs of what the future may bring.

How to Introduce

On the discussions so far there has been substantial agreement: that human
nature being inherently religious, the state owes the child an education on
the moral side as well as any other; that the state owes it to itself to see that
all citizens'are trained in the principles of religion as a matter of self-preservation;
that from the incapacity of the home and the church and from the conditions in
the public school, the school is the place where this instruction can best be
given. When it comes to the matter of putting these ideas into operation, how-
ever, we find considerable difference of opinion and a great variety of sug-
gestions, which it is the purpose of this section of the paper to present. Some
have been already put into practice, some are untried propositions; but in the
present indeterminate state of the question, all are of value as perhaps helping
toward the final solution.

In opening the subject, certain "pre-requisites" will be agreed to no doubt
without dissent:

Whatever course is adopted, we shall find that :

I. The plan must follow and be governed by our form of government under which
the people decide what they will accept and what they will not. x\nything wliich suggests
a violent departure from the political habits of the people, however good the plan, will be
unwise — the people must be willing and reaiiy to settle the question, else nothing can be done.
- 2. The plan must move along lines of least resistance. Force, applied thru govern-
ment agencies, will not help matters very much, except as it expresses the will of the
absolute majority.

3. Whatever plan is adopted must be rational and, above all, practicable. And
it must not for a moment be forgotten that the plan which covers the subject most
thoroly and in the best manner is not the one most likely to be accepted ; for, as
already indicated, if this were true, a simple and easy plan of religious education would
have long ago been accepted.

4. There must be mutual concessions on the part of each religious sect ; and further
antagonism must not be created by suggestions from either creed that one or the
others are bigoted and intolerant, and that great sacrifices of principle are being made
by some to accommodate the selfishness and narrowness of the others. These questions
are to be kept entirely out of all discussions of the subject. On the other hand, the
attitude of each must be that of respect and reverence for that which each holds as fundamental.

As to the first point above, *in our democratic form of government it is
public opinion that determines action — that makes laws and can equally well
unmake them when they no longer accord with the progress of ideas. That there
are laws against religious education in some sections of the country is no
prohibitive condition. It merely shows one direction in which a change of senti-
ment must move.

Since the problem is a nation-wide one, a nation-wide campaign must be
organized utilizing all agencies that can be enlisted in the cause of education.

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

113

The nation's official representative is the United States Commissioner of Educa-
tion. In a report from his office the following appears:

It cannot be too strongly stated: (i) that public education in the United States is not a
national system but a group of systems, so far as the word sygtem is fitly used; (2) that
each state has its own , peculiarities of social life, constitutional organization, legal enact-
ment, and local administration; (3) that in the ultimate decision of the conduct of a
public school the wishes of the people of the local unit of territory which maintains it
wiil determine what shall be allowed or forbidden, especially as a complainant strange
to the spot would have small interest and less power to interfere, even if something not
rigidly legal were introduced into the exercises by common consent. One community
wiil have no dealings with the sects, another will welcome their aid in public education.
Especially when a whole district, town, or county is populated by people of kindred opin-
ions, their school will take on such form of religious or social opinion as suits the tax-
payers, with no closely drawn line betweeff legal and desirable. So it occurs that even
in states where it is of doubtful legality, there are districts with sectarian exercises,
and there are many others where open contracts are made with religious persons or bodies for
their work in education.
. *

In this quotation the Commissioner points out another qualification that
must be held in mind in attempting to recommend any general scheme — that
it must be broad in its terms ahd elastic in application — and no one can fail to
admit the wisdom of the advice.

One of the primary elements of the problem, as in every campaign, is to
find the "manager," the officer or the organization that will have the qualifica-
tions for leading in the task — will possess the necessary knowledge of present
conditions, eventual aims, and the possible routes between the two; will hold
the confidence of the public for tact, impartiality, judgment, and influence. The
National Education Association has been most frequently suggested as the
agency to undertake the responsibility, since it rnore than any other body pos-
sesses these requisites. A host of other organizations can be called in to assist;
educational boards of religious bodies, the Religious Educational Association, the
National Sunday School Association; the Inter-Church Federation Councils; state
organizations for educational purposes; administrative bodies of college and
normal presidents; state, county, and city superintendents; in a word the whole
series of organized systems which are the separate wheels of our educational
and religious machinery.

The first step proposed is the formation of a commission on religious educa-
tion that shall represent these various elements, to formulate the desired aims
and methods and conduct a general propaganda. Thru the allied bodies behind
it it can investigate the field and lay out a course of action; which must include
the process of converting public opinion, the general methods of initiating the
work in and suiting it to the varied localities, and lastly, as far as possible, out-
lining a course of study adaptable to special conditions. Its reports back to
the National Education Association and to the cooperating societies should bear
comparison to those of the Committee of Ten, or Twelve, or Fifteen in other fields.

While the work of a national commission must be general in its scope, each
state can undertake a more direct campaign thru its own oflficials and organ-
izations. Its great duty is to educate the public to the urgency of the need. To
this end speakers of influence should present the subject at educational and
religious conventions and institutes, before ministerial alliances, state and local
school boards. The two great agencies of discussion today are the press and
the club, and both may aid most effectively. Periodicals and newspapers of all
kinds should be pressed into use— technical educational journals, religious and
literary magazines, reviews; local weeklies and dailies for information as lo

1 14 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

plans that have been tried with success, and quotations from sociologists and
criminologists showing the danger of present-day neglect of religion. The club
is the ever-ready instrument of all good causes, and should be utilized to the
full along the same lines — women's clubs, local and federated — social service —
church brotherhoods — parent-teachers — child-study — humane societies — both
Christian Associations — civic associations — the granges — patriotic societies — any
organization that works for the good of the community and the welfare of one's
fellow-men. Is there any locality where some society can not be found with
the spirit to undertake work for God and country? The churches should be
brought into line, thru their conferences or synods, or whatever the organized
title may be. All this propagandism must be conducted, we repeat, in the
most careful and conciliating way. It must be made clear that the teaching is
to be absolutely non-sectarian, and proved by the approving testimony of prom-
inent men of all faiths where such plans have been operated, that it can be so.
Opponents must be led to see that religion serves to develop strong personal
character and good citizenship, and is as legitimate in the school as any other
branch; and that as the study of civics does not make partisan politicians, so
that of pure religion does not cause sectarianism.

The legislatures have so much to do with the control of the school in the
states that their support is of the greatest importance. To secure the necessary
favorable legislation must be one of the prime aims of the agitation. As it
stands today, most of the laws are negative. As fast as possible these should
give way to positive ones, advancing step by step, if necessary, from mere per-
mission to read the Bible where desired, until, where public sentiment is suffi-
ciently developed, the ideal is reached of compulsory religious instruction in
every school, public and private. For if religious teaching eventually, as part
of the complete education of the child — the whole child — is realized to be the
responsibility and the function of government, the state must maintain that it
may not shift its duties in that or any branch to other hands — parent, church, or
private school — without reserving the rights to know that the standard of attain-
ment shall be kept as high as in the state's own schools. That lies a long way
ahead, it may be said, but Sit least it is the logical goal; whether the practicable
one or not opinions may differ. For a beginning, however, the suggestion has
been offered that the provisions of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania be set as
the minimum: that the reading of the Bible.be required in all public schools.

It is also proposed that state commissions of religious education be selected,
perhaps by the governor with the approval of the legislature, to act as an
adjunct to the state Board of Education; that they be composed of clergy and
laymen, representatives of different denominations and of no denomination, and
act under authority of the state superintendent of public instruction. This
commission should recommend to the legislature a system of religious teaching
and see that work is introduced thruout the state of as high a character as the
laws will permit. It could serve as a means for promoting harmonious co-
operation of the schools and the churches. It should publish informational liter-
ature as to the nature and the desirability of the courses and the texts which
it recommends, and it might, it has been suggested, quite appropriately prepare
an outline pamphlet for parents by means of which they could follow the work
that their children are doing in the schoolroom. Probably enough, it would not
only keep them in touch with their children's lessons but might teach them
considerable about the Bible and Christian truth that would be new and not
unprofitable to them.

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 115

The Plans

Owing to the diversity of conditions in the various states and localities, the
determination of a plan or system for carrying on the work in the schools vrtll
proibably fall to state or local authorities, rather than to a national body. The
latter could, however, aid the local workers greatly if it wt)uld undertake to
publish information as to the methods now in use or under consideration, with
a discussion as to what is favorable or unfavorable to their success, and what
features fit them for special application in different situations. The plans pro-
posed stand at all angles to each other, and at present no one is prepared to
say which is best, absolutely, or relatively to the circumstances into which they
are to fit. That is the work that lies before the future committee to which it
is hoped the problem may be referred. It is not the province of this paper to
favor one or another in the least particular. The object is to state the various
propositions that have been presented, with such arguments as have been offered
by the several contributors for or against any of them, so as to accumulate evi-
dence that will be available for future use.

One line of distinction is as to who shall do the teaching. Shall the church
or the school be directly responsible? If the church, who shall the instructors
be? When and where shall the work be given? Who will pay the expense?
and what provision will be made as to the nature and standard of the work in
order that it may be kept uniform with the rest of the school course? If the
school, the question comes again, who shall the teachers be? These questions
indicate some of the features in which the plans differ, one based on one
method and another on another.

So much has been said in the previous pages about' putting religious train-
ing entirely in the care of the public school that the general argument offered
in favor of letting the church provide the teaching deserves attention in its
turn, especially as it appears in so many plans. Four points have been proposed:
(1) Cooperation is not federation, nor union, nor subjection of one to the other.
Church and state are in America fortunately separate, but their interests lie close
together and they should and can work harmoniously to a common end, such as
the teaching of youth. (2) "Non-institutional religion is not sufficient as a con-
quering and educational force." As a community may prize intellectuality yet
in order to instill it into its children must organize a school, so moral education
must, be institutionalized in order to have its full power, (3) The church has
for its function the work of making religion tangible, effective, and reproductive.
The home does the same to some extent but it is the church's special province.
(4) If religious institutions are to be introduced into public education in a way
to command respect and have the weight of authority, it must be done thru
the church.

In case church instructors give the work in connection with the school,
opinions differ as to whether they should be provided by the churches at their
own expense or should be paid from school funds like any other teacher?
Payment by the state is defended on the ground that necessities of all sorts
are bought by school boards from whatever source they are obtainable, whether
it be building materials, heat and light, or a supervisor of drawing: why should
not the teaching of religion be paid on the same basis? The natural method is to
find for what it needs the best in the market and pay for it accordingly, and in
this case the church might be supposed to offer the best. On the other hand,
say some representatives of the church, the promulgation of religious truth is
one of the fundamental duties of the church, one which religious foundations

Il6 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

exist to undertake. The churches, like the schools, are supported by the people,
tho by voluntary offering instead of taxation. This being the case, the church
can well afford to supply the machinery for training -the youth in moral devel-
opment, which is recognized as its natural province.

The extreme case of the church's providing religious instruction paid with
public money would be in a state subsidized denominational school, regarding
which policy so much argument has occurred for years past. As no suggestion
to that end has appeared among the contributors it may be assumed that it is
considered inadvisable. The opinion seems to be that whatever assistance such
schools might receive fropi the state,, even when they accept the correlative
condition of state -supervision, it should apply only to secular studies; and that
the ultimate teaching should be reserved entirely in the hands of the school itself,
or of the denomination. That would be more properly termed private teaching
of religion in public-controlled schools, and as such its consideration does not
fall within the scope of this paper.

On the ground that the church is at present better prepared than the secular
school can possibly be to provide literature and trained teachers and to com-
mand the regard of the children thru established habit, a proposal has been
offered, somewhat as a temporary expedient until the public schools do find
themselves equipped to undertake the work successfully, that the states pay the
church organizations for conducting classes one day in the week. This would
probably be on Sunday, and the church would guarantee, subject to inspection
from the . school superintendent, an hour's work of undenominational character
along lines agreed on by the various churches and the secular boards. Records
would be kept and reports sent to each child's day-school teacher. If the church
desired to give sectarian instruction it could do so outside the hour guaranteed
to the public authorities. The payment of a fixed sum per pupil from the
public school fund would provide thoroly competent teachers, and the normal
course which ought to be included would prepare those who might later take
up the work in the school themselves, if it became desirable to transfer it. The
burden of heavy expense on the church would thus be lightened and a helpful
spirit established between the two institutions most concerned in the welfare of
our youth. The author of this plan admits that it has weak points, particularly
that one hour a week is distinctly inadequate, but offers it as an emergency
measure.

Several plans are already in successful operation in different parts of this,
country and others, which show what experiments are being tried. To mention
some of the best known, those of North Dakota and Colorado resemble each other
in leaving the actual teaching to the church Bible schools, but with school credit-
Under the Gary plan, also, the teaching is done in the churches but is joined with
the daily work in the school. New York City goes a step further by having
the teaching done in the school itself by regular teachers. Australia adds to that
the provision for non-sectarian actual religious teaching, tho the clergy may
meet children of their own faith at certain periods. The Saskatchewan, Penn-
sylvania, and Pittsburgh plans are entirely non-sectarian.

To take these up somewhat more in detail: A second point of resemblance
between the North Dakota and the Colorado plans is that neither undertakes the
work below high schools; which of course unfits them in many minds for general
adoption. The North Dakota plan originated, following a resolution by the
State Educational Association, with Professor V. P. Squires, Professor of English
in the State University and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, who prepared
the Evllabus now adopted by the state high school board. It provides courses

THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION 1 17

in Bible study, covering two years' work once a week to be taken up outside
of school, but to receive credit, upon the student's passing a state examination,
toward the high-school diploma and entrance to the University.

Bible study thus becomes an elective in North Dakota high scliools. The
state Sunday School Association accepted the syllabus with enthusiasm and it
is being used by all denominations. The course is wholly voluntary and the
Sunday Schools find that it provides a live interest just at the age where boys
and girls — especially boys — are liable to drop Sunday School.

In Colorado the idea started from the State Teachers' College at Greeley,
owing to the lack of religious knowledge among the young men and women.
It was arranged that students of the college might take Bible courses in the
Sunday Schools of the city and be credited for their work oq their college
diplomas. The success of this plan has moved the State, Teachers' and Sunday
School Associations to work out a scheme for giving the high-school students
the same opportunity and a joint committee is now at work on a four years'
course. It will have two advantages over the North Dakota scheme: four
years instead of two, and definitely religious instruction; while, the syllabus for
North Dakota provides only for the literary and historical study of the Bible.

It may be added that Lakewood, Ohio, offers for an elective to high-school
juniors and seniors a course in Bible history and literature as part of the regular
curriculum.

Gary, Indiana, for a comparatively small town has succeeded in focusing con-
siderable attention on itself as a result of its progressive ideas. Their school
plan is said to have the high commendation of educators and the enthusiastic sup-
port of the citizens. It arranges that the children shall be dismissed from the
regular school for a certain time each day to attend religious instruction in
their own churches and synagogues. In addition the clergy of the various de-
nominations give addresses in general assembly on non-denominational subjects,
and on Sunday afternoon joint religious meetings are held for parents and chil-
dren.

The New York City schools by a rule of the Board of Education now included
in the new charter, require daily Bible reading. In addition religious teaching is
provided to children of each denomination by skilled public school teachers of
their own faith. These classes are held after school hours; a provision which
might work badly, as both teacher and students usually find their best energies
exhausted by the time the session closes. The plan has been cordially received
by all faiths, Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant.

The system now known as the Australian started in New South Wales in
1848 when Hon. John Herbert Plunkett, an Irish Roman Catholic, introduced by
law into the school the "Scripture Lessons" used in the public schools, of Ireland.
They are still the approved text in New South Wales. The law as revised in
1866 has been adopted by Tasmania, West Australia, Norfolk Island, Queens-
land, and in 1913 by the Cape Provinces of South Africa. Where once introduced
it has remained undisturbed, and Jews, Catholics, and Non-conformists commend
it as heartily as members of the Church of England, which, however, in Aus-
tralia is not a state church, the opposition there being as strong as here. The
law provides for the teaching of religion by the regular school teachers along
with the use of a book of selections, chosen by general vote. The instruction
must not be sectarian, but otherwise "teachers are unreservedly trusted by the
Parliaments, the parents, and the churches, to give these lessons." In addition
any minister of religion is entitled to visit the school in school hours on days
arranged by the Committee to give to children of his own denomination, separated

Il8 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

from others, an hour's religious instruction. In one year over 42,000 visits were
paid.

Another foreign system is that of Saskatchewan, where a union committee
of all sects selects material consisting of hymns, prayers, moral lessons, and
scriptural readings for use by the schools.

When in comparison with the strong support given by these two foreign
peoples to religious instruction, we observe that Pennsj^lvania by law requires
the daily reading of "not less than ten verses from the Bible," it does not sound
especially creditable. But let it be remembered that Pennsylvania is one of
the only two states in the Union that go as far as that. Most states leave it
optional with local boards whether the Bible shall be read at all or not.

Pittsburgh has advanced on the state law and has adopted a plan pro-
posed by the International Reform Bureau. For a time the Board of Educa-
tion limited Bible reading to the book of Proverbs. But they were persuaded
to introduce a carefully chosen list of Bible readings selected with an expert
knowledge of child psychology and arranged under a separate topic for each
week.

These plans, all now in operation, cover by a series of steps the chief gen-
eral arrangements possible; but they are open to a number of modifications or
recombinations. One suggestion is for compulsory religious educational laws,
with text-books and teachers provided by each denomination for its own children;
the work to be done in school (at home where there is no teacher of a child's
faith) and examinations held under state supervision. Another plan suggests
that in the school the religious element should be represented by a daily de-
votional period; in addition, for one half-day the pupils be allowed to leave the
school for religious instruction — in the parochial school, the religious day school,
young people's societies, or the home — and that examinations be held and credit
given in the school up to a certain per cent.

Another contributor suggests that a national committee appointed by the
National Education Association be asked to prepare a text or series of texts with
suitable selections from scriptural and secular literature, and this text be sub-
mitted for approval to the various sects; that each locality make up a commit-
tee of parents, teachers, and pastors, chosen from different denominations; that a
morning period on certain days of the week be devoted first to a general religious
service of song, prayer, and devotion; and following this period, the school break
up into classes according to ages, not to sects, for religious instruction. ,

Still another proposes a union committee of all denominations that shall
lay out a course of study and provide teachers and a meeting place, preferably
outside the school. Teachers in such cases might well be actual school teachers
if fitted for the work, but it would be no part of their regular school duties. This
plan would satisfy those who fear a secularizing influence in making religion a
day-school study, yet would insure broad fundamental principles, and lastly
it would put the responsibility where that for all education belongs, on the
community itself.

A suggestion is made that instead of the usual school special exercises Friday
afternoon, representatives of the different churches might come to the building
and the children be redistributed into different rooms according to their denom-
inations. In Ontario the provision is that instruction shall be permitted to
the churches for a period immediately upon the close of the regular session.

A less familiar proposal is that the school board should appoint a "chap-
lain," or moral instructor, to serve with pay like other special teachers and

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

119

officers. He need not be a clergyman, but he would conduct the teaching of
religion, not on a sectarian but on an ethical basis.

One well worked out plan is to use the regular teaching staff "to present
the moral and ethical values of life as they act in life itself," in classes in
school; then for the denominational work to let the churches give standardized
courses for an hour a week, and present reports and grades for credit. This
writer takes care of the children with no church home by utilizing the time while
the rest are gone to their churches for a special course of morals in school.

In comparing these systems certain general conclusions can be drawn. While
we cannot know what considerations may induce a choice in special localities, if
we test by the ideally best conditions we find some points desirable, som.e not.
Most will agree on some of the admirable features; a complete course thruout the
grades; genuine religious study, not simply reading of Scripture; a foundation
of pure religious truth unbiased by sectarian doctrine; daily work; classes dur-
ing regular school hours; competent teachers; recognition of the work 'as part of
the regular course and credit accordingly.

Looking at it from the other side, objections are oiTered to certain features
of the various plans, such as restriction of the subject to one hour a week; set-
ting the work aside from the regular school curriculum as if religion was not part
of life itself; danger of entrusting it to incompetent teachers in school or out.
Referring to the Gary plan one writer says:

The separation of students into denominational groups and then sending them away
to their respective churches has undoubtedly a tendency to widen and perpetuate sectarian
differences. The teaching of religion in the churches by the clergy^ instead of in the
school by the teacher, is not religion in education, nor religious teaching in the public
school. Such a system must impress the children with the idea that religion has no
place within the schools, and that it is something separate from their everyday lives.
For these same reasons we cannot consider as wise or practical the suggested plan of
sending the children to their respective churches on Wednesday afternoon. We are not
discussing merely religious teachings, but rather religion in education and especially in
the public school. ' The schools are preparing the children for life and for citizenship.
If religion is essential in life and in good citizenship, then it is the duty of the state to
teach religion in her public schools. ^ Sending the children to the churches is a shifting of
that responsibility onto the church, a needless multiplication of effort and time, a
harmful breaking up of the student body, a means of fostering denominational rivalry, a
temptation to formal instruction in church ritual and creed, and an open confession that
religion has no place in the public school.

We may add one more important argument, that in putting religious teach-
ing into the hands of the denominations many children are left out entirely, and
probably they are the ones who need it most, as they evidently come from irre-
ligious homes. Almost all plans provide that parents may withdraw their child-
ren if religious instruction is really objectionable to them, but experience shows
that the number who do this is very small, especially compared with the host that
statistics tell us have no church relations.

On the other hand the churches have their own plea to make. The reason
they now maintain schools at a great expense to themselves is that if they send
their children to the public school they lose not merely instruction in their own
faith but, as things now stand, any sort of moral training. When Cincinnati took
the Bible out of the schools, thinking to gratify sectarian interests, it merely
brought down a fresh denunciation for its irreligious schools. Were the denomin-
ations assured that while sending their young folks to the public school they
could still keep their religious training in their own hands, they would find it
possible to reduce their expensive equipment of buildings and teaching force.

I20 THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION

They could use their funds solely in the direction of religious effort, could pro-
vide much more competent teachers and extend their labors in social service and
mission fields. From the side of the denominations the argument is a strong one, .
but if the aim of this discussion is to find the place of religion in the public
school it is aside from the point.

There is a general agreement that from any point of view one of the greatest
difficulties is the need of competent teachers. To meet that, the system of courses
in religion must be carried on into the normal schools and universities, so that
their graduates going out to teach will be as well prepared to conduct that work
as any other. Whether the teachers are provided by the churches or not, they
should have had training courses in social service, in the history, laws, and geo-
graphy connected with the Bible, as well as in ethics and religious psychology.
Where the work belongs to the regular staff, the departmental system would give
an opportunity of putting the religious work into the hands of the teacher who
is best fitted for it by personality and training. In some places the plan might
be approved of appointing a special teacher — perhaps not so official as a "chap-
lain"— who would stand in the same relation to the general force as do the super-
visors of music and drawing and physical culture. No doubt at first it will all
be experimental — the plan, the course, the adaptability of the teacher, and the re-
ceptivity of the pupils. But once the preliminary work is done, the interest of
the public and the school authorities won, the suitable texts prepared, the teach-
ers and children will work out the way. At first the older grades will be more
difficult to handle, but as the children who have started in with it pass from grade
to grade, the study will be taken as a matter of course. It will not take long to
make the test. Certainly the opinion is abroad that America needs a fresh awak-
ening of the religious spirit; and that it is the schools that she must entrust with
the great work. There could be no more inspiring call upon educators than this
summons to service in the cause of patriotism and truth.

What to Teach

If the heading of this section were to be expanded into a comprehensive title,
it would stand: "What are the essential elements of moral and religious truth
that should be taught, for knowledge and for practice, in the school courses of
America? A symposium." There is a wealth of suggestive material at hand,
adapted to varying conditions. Certain considerations are to be held in mind in
the discussion, — that whatever is taught must be of a nature to offend no sect and
to favor no sect; that what is needed is not merely theory but practical applica-
tion of principles in everyday life; that we are planning for all children of
school age. In private schools it may be desired to add special doctrinal courses,
but they would naturally give at least as much of general religious culture as
public schools. In high schools, both public and private, where elective courses
can be offered, work of a less closely restricted order might be laid out than would
be feasible in the grades, where practically all children are under instruction.

That harmonious agreement can be, and in some places has been, reached
between the different interests— the chief of which are the Jews, the Catholics,
and the Protestants — is already proved. If it has succeeded in some localities,
why not, with time and conciliatory effort, in others, and at last in all? Or why
not thru a national counselling of leaders of the different parties concerned, per-
sons of established authority and breadth of judgment, propose a general course
that shall receive the stamp of approval of the heads of the various sects and so

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 121*

be guaranteed to their separate bodies? The points to be decided on will include
the use of the Bible, the interpretative teaching of it, the amount of ethical instruc-
tion, and the character of devotional exercises. When substantial agreement has
been reached on these points, whether by local or national arrangement, detailed
courses can be laid out and text-books prepared subject to the acceptance of what-
ever supervisory authority may be decided upon. At the start there can not be
too much care to forestall objections and safeguard all rights. There are so many
classes of people to be won over and satisfied — those who don't care to have their
children taught religion; those that think it is not the province of the school;
those that fear the school has not the facilities; those that think it has its hands
full already; those that want their children taught their own faith. The better
the work can be planned to please the diverse elements, the easier the path will
be for the school boards and the teachers. One comforting assurance, however,
is that in this land the majority rules; and if we succeed in getting the assent of
the classes as a whole, we need not wait until all individuals agree. It would
not be the first subject to be introduced with general approval for the welfare
of the children against the protest of certain fond parents. In any case, pro-
visions could be made, as they frequentlj^ are at the present time where morning
devotional exercises prevail, for excusing on reasonable grounds.

It ought not to be an insuperable task to find the common ground on which
the different interests can unite. This should be provided for by a careful com-
parison of their teachings to find what beliefs are held in common, and what dis-
tinctive ones are to be left to the churches for exposition. All sects of sufficient
numbers in this country to influence the decision agree on the large matters of
pure religion and morality. They accept the Old Testament as of divine authority,
and even those that deny the divinity of Christ agree that his teachings and the
rest of the New Testament, the exponent of his ideas, contain the highest stand-
ards of moral observance and social service. The Lord's Prayer was chosen as
the universal petition at the World's Congress of Religions. Like the Sermon on
the Mount, almost every phrase is given sanction by the Old Testament and the
Talmud. Jesus "came not to destroy the law," by his own declaration. The Bible
is properly Hebrew literature — written by Jews chiefly for Jews; and, moreover,
acknowledged to be the greatest book — or rather library of books — in any tongue.
There should be a large share of the New Testament that Jews would agree to
accept for use in schools, as their rabbis of the highest authority have given it
unqualified admiration. Jesus is ranked by them among the greatest of their
prophets, and the apostles, including Paul, were of the same race. There should
be no objection, then, from the Jewish connection to either the Old Testament
or selections made by general consent from the New. To Catholics the whole
Bible is sacred, but they use a different version from those prevailing among
Protestants. There is reason to believe, however, that they are not so unchange-
ably devoted to the Douay text as is often asserted, as it is said that they have a
new English version in process of preparation. For that matter, it would not seem
an impossibility that for school use a totally new translation of the passages
agreed on as desirable might be made when advisable, under the supervision of
a union committee. No consideration is too great in the cause of religious unity.
To omit the Bible entirely when professing to teach religion, which draws its
sanction from that very book, would be the denial of the authority of religion it-
self. Catliclics would be the last to assent to it. Nothine further need be added

•122 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

to the eulogies of the Bible quoted in an earlier section of this paper, but as to
its fitness for teaching to children, several views deserve to be repeated:

The story of Jesus on the side of his humanity, without any of the theological diffi-
culties, has elements of most intrinsic interest and helpfulness for children. Not that
we would group Jesus with Jack the Giant-killer in the appeal that his life makes to
childhood, but if such stories as these have their exceeding value, what incalculable loss
must it not be to the child not to hea^r of the nativity, infancy, and boyhood of Christ.

Teach them that Jesus gave to the earth the highest code of laws that it has ever
known — laws which if obeyed every hour will make the perfect life here. Then teach
his laws : train the children to love and obey them so that they will really learn what
the laws are for. The world has taught Christ's laws for ages, yet the awful European
war is still possible. And until the world trains its children to obey His laws, it will still
be ignorant of their beauty and power.

These ancient writings are not antiquated nor out of date nor of small worth. Their
lessons of love and forgiveness, of loyalty and patriotism, of boldness and daring, of
accuracy and discreetness, of patience and fidelity, of virtue and charity, of honesty and
integrity, of reverence and godly fear, are portrayed in a concrete, picturesque style that
strikes a responsive chord in every youthful mind. * * * Whether Christian, Jew, or
agnostic, what parent will object to a training for his child in honesty, truthfulness, per-
sistence, moral strength, skill, thrift, or in reverential respect for authority?

These three excerpts illustrate three user? that can be made of Biblical mate-
rial,— the study of events, the historical side; the study of characters, the bio-
graphical; and the study of principles, such as are to be found in the Ten Com-
mandments and the Beatitudes. Without drawing strict lines of demarkation,
this might well be the general order in which they could be taken up, working
from the concrete to the abstract. Possibly a course for the grades might be laid
out along this line, giving the emphasis for a time to one type then to another.
They will of course intermingle, since the discussion of an event or a character
involves the principle concerned. In the earlier grades, at least, the stories should
be taken up in the order that fits with the child's intelligence and the nature of
his other studies, rather than in chronological sequence. At all stages the great-
est pains must be taken to make the Bible seem as real and human as any modern
literature, and all the lesson helps that go to the best teaching of any subject
should be at disposal — maps, charts, teachers' guides, pictures, and handwork
material such as is used in church kindergartens.

If the religious spirit is really established as the one by which the school is
conducted — and that must be accomplished if the children are to be made to be-
lieve it the vital principle for their lives— the organization of classroom and play-
ground, the motive in discipline and lessons and play must be made to fit in with
the teachings from the Bible. The other studies should be taught in a way to con-
vince them that all truth is God's truth. It is one of the misfortunes that in our
western civilization it seems a hard thing for grown-up men and women to speak
freely, however much they may feel, of God and our relation to Him. A child
by force of example quickly acquires the same habit, while it might have been as
easy to train him to the other way as a Mohammedan. The reverent, habitual
recognition of God's power and His care of His creatures — those that we call in-
animate as well as animals and human beings — is a thing that the school can
encourage by making it part of all lessons, and there is nothing that young Ameri-
ca needs to be taught today more than recognition of authority over him and
reverence for it. Nature study is the first means of teaching the youngest child
in the kindergarten the wisdom and love of his Heavenly Father, and the wonder
of it will never cease, however deeply he m.ay in after years delve into the mys-

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

123

teries of science. History is the correlative subject of the study of God in His
ways with man. And literature, because it runs thru the whole course from the
first child verses to the masterpieces of Milton and Browning, is the universal
opportunity. It is possible, one may believe, to teach nature and history — teach
the facts — and never mention the Creator. But literature positively cannot be
taught — something must be slighted or ignored — if the thought of God is omitted;
for literature, the most universal of the fine arts, is the expression of the inmost
soul of man, and that soul is inherently religious. In the same way art and
music are character-building subjects. In the communities of Wisconsin whero
so much has been done to promote a popular interest in good music, with frequent
song-fests, the life of whole neighborhoods is said to have been transformed. The
schools of Cincinnati and Salt Lake, we are told, rank far ahead of most in ethical
spirit owing to the familiarity with musical masterpieces in which the children
are trained. To learn to admire is a long step upward. It follows that the high-
est types of literature, music, and art should find their place in the schoolroom
and into its daily life. The teacher's stories from the Bible and other stories
should be re-told by the little folks to fix them in their minds, and older ones
can find material for composition in expressing their idea of the meaning or can
make many of them seem real by putting them into dramatic form. If the school
is so fortunate as to possess or have available for occasional use the means of
reproducing pictures, such as a radiopticon, or a stereopticon, or a moving pic-
ture machine, it will help immensely; and almost every school can buy or .borrow
occasionally a victrola with which to make the pupils familiar with the composi-
tions of the masters. Some state departments of education provide for loaning
to their schools both selected libraries and victrolas with collections of records,
and this is particularly the opportunity of the rural schools. In one way they
have a better ground to work with, because the ta&te of the children is not so
constantly subject to the vitiating influences of cheap shows and cheap literature
and cheap music as that of the town child. When one has heard the "Humoreske"
in a darky cottage in Florida and the "Messiah" on the winter coast of Lake Su-
perior, one can realize what an instrument the schools have at hand, far greater
than is being recognized.

An important part of the Bible lesson should be the memorizing of passages,
until the mind is richly stored with choice selections. Ruskin, as has often been
quoted, attributed his mastery of noble English to the fact that as a child by bis
mother's side be committed to memory chapter after chapter of the Scriptures.
It is the unmatched influence for lofty expression and comforting and inspiring
thought. Beginning with the single text that sums up the meaning of the story
to the littlest ones, the student would flnd himself at the end of his course in
possession of a treasure store of wisdom and truth, to fill his mind in lonely
hours and guide him in doubtful ones.

Lessons in the principles of morality will naturally be drawn from the study
of Bible stories and characters, but should take a wider range as well, in direct
application to the pupils' surroundings. No child is too young, as the kindergar-
tens demonstrate, to be taught the practice of the social virtues— generosity,
fairness in play, honor toward his work, obedience to teachers and parents, good-
humored acceptance of accidents and denials without whining or teasing; and
the courtesies that too often are never learned at home. A little practice with
children in social training, the courtesy of guest and host, manners at table, or-
derliness and cleanliness in personal habits and belongings, attention to the
"thank-you" and "please" and "excuse-me" habit, might react as happily in home
life as domestic science and other school learning have been known to do with

124 '^^^ PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

older children. Courses under the name of "Manners and morals" are proposed
as helpful, some particular virtue or good habit being under discussion and held
before the scholars for practice for a given period, a week or a month.

Two paragraphs are so suggestive for the later years that they should be
read entire:

For the habit-forming ages of ten to twelve, special emphasis should be placed on
moral and social virtues, such as honesty, truthfulness, obedience, temperance, self-control.
Moral and social evils in the community, and the forces of righteousness opposed to
them, should be noted. They should cultivate an appreciation of the good, and a purpose
to do right because it is right. They should now be instructed as to the real mean-
ing of service, self-sacrifice, heroism, citizenship, and patriotism. Children at this age
should be taught that they are already citizens and do not have to wait till the voting
age to become such. At this period they should at least begin to appreciate the truth
that true patriotism is in perfect harmony with universal peace and brotherhood, that the war
spirit is brutal and barbaric, while the spirit of peace is indicative of the highest culture
and truest heroism. Some will no doubt say that there is little if any religion in this.
The answer is that, during the four or five years preceding adolescence, the religious
nature is most easily reached thru the moral and social virtues.

For those in the adolescent period the informal religious teaching should in the main
present high ideals of unselfish service ; awaken the sense of personal responsibility ; em-
phasize loyalty to home, school, church, and country ; and, above all, the importance of
being true to their own bfetter natures now coming to a sort of self-consciousness. Tactful,
sympathetic guidance is very important during this period when many life-decisions are
made, not only with respect to religion but also in regard to other matters, such as the
choice of a life work, or even the choice of a life companion. Whenever possible, it
wo'uld be well to have occasional meetings for boys only, and similar ones for girls only,
when matters of special importance to the adolescent period could be presented by com-
petent persons of their own sex. This is pre-eminently the time of life when the pupils
are susceptible to religious and moral influences ; with many it means the determining of
their eternal destiny. Surely the school can no longer afford to neglect so important a
matter. It is the challenge of coming generations to help them be what they can and
ought to be : a higher type of manhood and womanhood than the world has ever known.

A necessary part of the preliminary work for introducing religious instruc-
tion will be the preparation of text-books. The teacher of the earlier grades es-
pecially, before the children can use a book, needs a guide, certainly until the
work is established on a uniform and effective basis. It should contain stories
from both the Bible and secular literature, with suggestions for telling them so
as to make them appeal to children in the right way: material for blackboard
work such as mottoes and drawings that little people can copy; selections for
memorizing, Bible texts, proverbs, stanzas of poetry, songs, kindergarten plays
and exercises, and short prayers that can be repeated by the children in unison.
It would provide, also, plans for introducing the proposed lessens in conduct and
morality, and for correlating all this work with the regular branches; and last,
but by no means least, for finding practical applications of the lessons in the daily
life of the pupils, inside the school and outside. Prom the start the children
should come to know that religion is not a matter of words but of very homely
living — accurate, honest, painstaking work at lessons and home duties, "doing
all as in the sight of Him who is invisible," "speaking the truth in the heart," "in
honor preferring one another," "swearing to his own hurt and changing not."

The constant aim must be to make religion seem normal and attractive, and
a bond of union between the children, never, because of different sects a matter
for disagreement or rivalry. There are many paths up a mountain, some per-
haps better than others to certain types of minds, but that is a question of choice:
the important thing is to reach the top, and help others to get there too. The
teacher for her part can not be too careful to refrain from an opinion for or
against any sect, and from using expressions or observances that imply sectarian

THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION 125

distinctions. On the other hand, she should not allow a feeling that the religious
work of the school is sufficient in itself, but should encourage the understanding
that school and church are working to the same end, each in its own field, and
that every child should find his place and his work in his church.

The ^child ought further to learn that school discipline and order are for the
good of all, himself included; and to recognize punishment as the natural conse-
quence of infringing on the general community rights. The teacher will ensure
that it is administered in that spirit — not in anger or arbitrarily or out of pro-
portion to the offense — but by treating it as a break in the fellowship of the
room, and fixing a penalty of a corresponding nature. The manual or series of
manuals prepared for the teacher's guidance should place in her hands the best
material that ripe experience has been able to devise for all these uses.'

For the scholars, also, texts will be needed and it has been suggested appro-
priately that they should be put into the most attractive shape that the publishers
can turn out — an example of "whatsoever things are lovely" to make the form
correspond with the spirit. Illustrations should be selected with the finest choice
— either designed by true artists or copied from masterpieces, and worthily re-
produced. Better none than poor or inappropriate ones. The titles, too, should
be carefully chosen. It might give the books a higher value in the children's
eyes if instead of being kept in their desks with other books and miscellany, they
were placed in a case by themselves, with an air of special privilege in their use.

There are various possible arrangements of materials in the texts. What
needs to be in the students' hands, in some shape, is first a reading-book of
scriptural and secular selections, adapted by grades, and at first having the Bible
stories told in twentieth century English, more or less faithfully following the
usual versions. In the later grades the students should be made familiar with
the accepted text, but it should be printed in modern paragraph form, with prose
as prose and poetry as poetry. Footnotes should explain unfamiliar customs,
and maps should be clear and usable — and then used. By putting the Bible side
by side with other classic and modern literature, it might help to make the child-
ren feel that religion is as much alive today as in the day of Moses or of Christ.
Secondly, whether in the same books or in others, there should be arranged a
system of lessons of an ethical character; chapters on the Ten Commandments
and the Sermon on the Mount, and similar passages, with like studies from such
great ethical literature as Bacon's "Essay of Revenge." It should encourage
frank, convincing, practical discussion of everyday demands, — not emotionalism
and especially not cant. If children can actually believe that goodness is manly,
not effeminate, that the mastery of temptation and of evil in the streets of their
own town is "fighting the good fight," that patriotism means not Fourth of July
shouting and waving of flags, but sacrifice of time and comfort and self-interest
for the bettering of the community and establishing just laws and equal rights
In the land for the honor of the flag, the next generation will be in a fair way to
find the solution of the problems that this one is struggling with — and nothing
else can.

The third sort of material that should be provided is for use in general ex-
ercises. If Scripture passages are to be chosen for a separate book of this char-
acter, they might be puf in the form of responsive readings, such as are in use
in many places, but they would be rather too formal for the lower grades. Songs
and hymns, suitable in words and music, and for the older grades, chanting of
the Psalms could be part of the program, and by way of alternating with the
Lord's Prayer, some of the prayers of lofty spiritual power selected both from
religious literature and from the poetry and prose of secular writers could be

126 THE Pl^CE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

included. They could be read by individuals — the teacher or a pupil — or recited or
chanted in unison; and frequently the prayer might come most fitly at the end
of the lesson period, when after the discussion of the topic for the day, the class
would have a definite thought of something to pray about. Just how these dif-
ferent m.aterials are to be grouped into texts adapted for different ages is a
matter to be determined as plans grow more definite. The high schools must
have their own books, and courses in normals and the education departments of
colleges must be provided.

The proposition that seems most favored for classroom work consists of a
daily devotional period, preferably first thing in the morning while the spirits are
fresh and the minds receptive, and the impulse which it gives may have its op-
portunity to inspire the day. It would not be amiss to include the morning flag
salute with this part of the program. If possible, the period should be long
enough for not only the general exercise but for a daily study along one or another
of the proposed lines. If it seems not feasible to introduce the lessons daily, as
many periods as possible should be assigned to them during the week, if it is only
the special program of Friday afternoon.

So many children leave school after the eighth grade that a fairly compre-
hensive survey of the subject should be completed before that time. The work
for the high school offers most interesting possibilities. In almost every high
school a general assembly is part of the daily or weekly program, and permits
somewhat formal religious exercises. On what basis regular study courses can
be given will have to be worked out according to conditions, since they vary much
more widely than those in the grades. It may be possible to give them as part
of the required work, either as a daily subject, for certain semesters if not thru
the entire four years; or as a special course once or twice a week, like music or
physical culture. Or it may be that some schools will have arrangements for
electives, counting toward the diploma and entrance credit to college, or for
students who return after graduating for special work. This would furnish a
particularly good opportunity for training classes for Sunday-school teachers.
The courses that could be offered for students of high-school age are of great
variety and would be intensely interesting. Elective courses would be somewhat
freer in touching on matters connected with church history and the life of Christ
than required work could be, but sectarian views should be kept out. The ad-
vanced knowledge of the students of other subjects, science, history, and es-
pecially literature would afford a foundation for much greater breadth of inter-
est and for valuable correlation. The composition and debating classes would
especially profit. The following is a list of courses that have been suggested.
They would need, of course, to be conducted in a somewhat elementary fashion,
but if properly handled would not exceed the grasp of high-school students. No
one school would attempt to give them all, even changing from year to year.
Some might be quite impracticable in certain communities. Where the work is
on a daily basis the more extensive topics could be* undertaken, and the briefer
ones used in schools that have less time to give. In general they all call for the
use of the Bible itself as the foundation, rather than of selections from it. For
some the Bible is the only text-book required. Others call for specially pre-
pared manuals, or at least outlines for extensive collateral reading.

1 The Bible as a library: types of books, as history, drama, poetry, story, etc.

2 Study of a single group, comparing it with secular literature of the same type.

3 Study of a single book: origin, historical background, literary type, contents, con-

tributions to literature and to religion.

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 1 27

V 4 Origin and history of the English Bible f original sources, authorship and date

of books, history of successive versions.

5 Religion as related to science ; to history ; to sociology ; , to art ; to literature.

6 Elements of the philosophy and psychology of religion: including such topics as

belief in a personal God ; the problem of evil ; immortality ; prayer. These
sound like difficult problems for high-school students, but they are already
encountering them in reading "The Golden Legend" and "Paradise Lost,"
"Crossing the Bar" and "Hamlet," and the "Idylls," works on every high-
school list.

7 ' Modern problems in their relation to religion : prisons, juvenile courts, prohibition,

suffrage, social centers, etc. This would work out admirably in a series of
discussions and debates.

8 Comparative religions : a sympathetic attempt to interpret the spirit and the value

to civilization of Scandinavian, Greek, Mohammedan, Confucian, and other faiths,
with their sacred books. Correlate with ancient history.

9 History of the Jewish nation. Nearly half of the Old Testament is occupied with

this subject.

10 History of the founding and development of the Christian church.

1 1 Biographical studies in the Old and New Testaments.

12 Women of the Bible.

13 Comparative study of the four gospels: sources, likenesses, and differences.

14 Life and teachings of Christ, with a study of the time in which he lived.

15 Life and letters of Paul, and the people for whom he wrote.

16 Lives and characters of the apostles.

16 Study of the parables and miracles of the Bible.

18 Course in the memorizing, locating, and interpreting of verses.

19 Junior citizens: the obligation of the boy or girl educated at public expense with

all modern advantages and in a Christian land, to do his share in return to
maintain the ideals of good citizenship.

So far religious work has been discussed chiefly from the side of its place in
the schoolroom. But the scholastic phase of it is less important than the practical
result that this teaching aims for, to create stable and upright character for life,
and to make the child helpful and thoughtful for those about him. The school
has not finished its task until it has shown him how to become so and has started
him on the actual road of service to society. The holiday seasons and days of
special observance provide one kind of opportunity. At Thanksgiving, to show
their gratitude in some practical way, at Christmas to share the giving spirit by
helping those who are less fortunate than themselves — these are applications that
the children can make individually or jointly under the teacher's advice. Fathers'
Day and Mothers' Day bring their means of offering a return for the unwearied
love and care they have been given. Patriotic holidays can be made the oc-
casion for combining in some improvement for the school neighborhood, or of
lending a hand wherever something worth while can be done for the town.

The school organizations should be put to use in the working out of helpful
and inspiring ideals. The playground and the athletic .field are good places to
begin, if the right spirit has not already been started there. If there is an adult
supervisor and he, or she, is the proper sort of person, his influence will be a
strong one for training the pupils in moral standards, tho he calls it something
else. One writer says:

A good athletic coach in a large high school is of as much moral worth to a com-
munity as is an excellent pastor ; a coach who has fine ideals, who believes in fair play, cour-
tesy always, and losing like a gentleman. He comes in contact with, perhaps, only twenty-
five or thirty people, a small number compared with a pastor's flock. But youth is
inflammable, and the coach's spirit, caught by those members of his team that did not
have it, spreads from boy to boy and girl to girl ; it is evident at the games and
oratorical contests at home and abroad, and, if the other moral influences in the school
are in working order, the average youth, bombarded from all sides as it were, will scarcely
be able to go forth into business life without some glory, at least, clinging to his standards.

128 THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION

If there is no director of sports in the school, it is time to organize a com-
mittee among the boys and girls themselves and develop the sense of responsi-
bility in them. The writer just quoted advocates the organization in the grade
schools as well as the high schools of Councils of Girls and of Boys, to have
general supervisory and advisory powers in regard to school interests. Matters
touching the honor of the school; complaints from neighboring householders:
order and tidiness in the building and oh the grounds; cheating, improprieties of
language or conduct, bullying or quarreling; all these things the boys and giils
will largely take care of themselves if they are trusted with them under a little
guidance: and the sense of responsibility and of self-government develops the
ability for both, and a loyal school spirit to correspond. By changing members
of the councils at intervals so as to pass the honors and the duties around, and
holding occasional general assemblies at which the council officers make reports
and bt-ief talks are given by the principal or a popular teacher, the organizations
can become a decided force for good.

The club idea, which appeals so strongly to young people, can be utilized in
cultivating the spirit of social service. A Junior Humane Society is one of the
suggestions that might carry even further the work that the Bird Clubs and
Audubon societies are attempting to engage the children in. The protection of
animals and birds, as creatures of "the dear God who * * * made and loveth
all," should be set before every child as part of the joint study of religion and
nature; while from the economic side he should be taught the unwisdom of kill-
ing some of our best friends; and from the aesthetic, of destroying objects of
beauty and delight.

A scheme for Good Citizenship Clubs in the grades is well worked out and
appears practicable as well as novel and attractive, and on an enlarged scale
could be applied in high schools as well. The room is divided into committees:
Peace Committee, Temperance Committee, City Beautiful Committee, Good Neigh-
bor Committee, Social Service Committee. The five school days of the week
correspond with the five committees, each of which has its banners and posters.
Chairmen are either elected or appointed on merit, and are held responsible for
appropriate quotations at roll-call of committees, and for reports when points
come up in the lessons bearing on their respective subjects. Each committee
in consultation with the teacher formulates a "platform" or policy and adopts a
motto. Thereafter it assumes the duty of putting its principles into operation
whenever an occasion arises. The homes are asked to cooperate and on holidays
or special days the appropriate committee takes charge of the exercises. The
Peace Committee, for instance, close their declaration: "Therefore, we recom-
mend; that the members of this club live in peace in our schoolroom, on the
school grounds, in our homes, and wherever we are, and that we take for our
motto, 'All thy ways are ways of pleasantness and all thy paths are peace.' " The
International Peace Day or one of the national holidays is celebrated with folk
dances and songs of different nations, under their direction, and so each takes
its turn. The rooms of the school may unite in a Federation, under the auspices
of which a pageant or a community celebration of Memorial Day or Fourth of
July may be held, or an outdoor Christmas tree be set up, to be lighted on Christ-
mas Eve, with carols and hymns.

With so many good suggestions at hand and so many efficient people and or-
ganizations united to stimulate a public sense of the need and the feasibility of
religious instruction for all children, let us hope that the time is near when the
schools will assume their whole duty of education. With that accomplished,
America may confidently expect to attain a higher standard of manhood and
womanhood, and set the world an example of advancement in Christian civilization.

THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION 129

Bibliography

GENERAL REFERENCES

Adler — The Moral Instruction of Children.
Bagley — The Pedagogy of Morality.

Baldwin — Psychology Applied "^ to the Art of Teaching.
Ethical Interpretations.
Story of a Mind.
Barnes — The New Sanctification.
Bolton — Principles of Education.

Secondary Schools of Germany.
Bowne — Ethics.

Theism.

The Essence of Religion.

Theory of Thought and Knowledge.

Personalism.
Bradford — The Age of Faith.
Briggs — Moral Education.

Brooks — Essays and Other Addresses. ,v

Brown — The Secularization of Education.
Brownlee — Character-Building in Schools.
Brumbaugh — The Making of a Teacher.

Bryce — The American Commonwealth. >

Bushnell — Christian Nurture.
Butler — Principles of Religious Education.

The Meaning of Education.
Caird — The Evolution of Religion.
Calderwood — Ethics.
Calkins — A Man and His Money.

Chamberlin — Introduction to the Bible for Teachers of Children.
Chrisman — Religious Periods in Child Growth.
Clark — The Place and Function of the Christian College.
Clarke — Outline of Christian Theology.
Coe— The Spiritual Eife.

Education in Religion and Morals.
Coler — Two and Two Make Four.
Comenius — The Great Didactic.
Conn — Heredity and Social Evolution.
Conway — Catholic Education in the United States.
Cooley — Constitutional Eaw.

Constitutional Eimitations.
Cope — Education and National Character.
Crafts — Bible in Schools, Plans in Many Lands.
Crooker — Religious Freedom in American Education.
Dawson— The Child and His Religion.
De Garmo — Principles of Religious Education.
Dewey — How We Think.

School and Society. *

Moral Principles of Society.
Dewey and Tufts — Ethics.
Dole — The Citizen and the Neighbor.
Dorchester — Problems of Religious Progress.
Draper — American Education.

Holiday Papers : Religion, Morals, and Ethics in the Public Schools.
Durell — A New Eite in Education.
Eby — Christianity and Education.
Elway — The Social Function of Religious Belief.
Eucken — The Meaning and Value of Eife.
Fisher — History of the Christian Church.

Christian Institutions.

Continuity of Christian Thought.
Fiske — Boy Eife and Self-Government.

I30 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN EDUCATION

Fiske— The Idea of God.

Through Nature to God.
Froebel — The Education of Man.
Garland — Religious Instruction in State Schools.
Genet — Philosophy of Education.
George — The Junior Republic.
Gibbons — Our Christian Heritage.

The Faith of Our Fathers.
Gow — Good Morals and Gentle Manners.
Griggs — Moral Education.

Guthrie — Functional Nervous Disorders in Children.

Hall — Religion in the Public Schools of the State and City of New York.
Youth.
Adolescence.
A Study of Fears.
Harnack — Das Wesen des Christentums,
Harris — Moral Evolution.

Hart — A Critical Study of Current Theories of Moral Education.
Henderson — The Cause and Cure of Crime.

What It Is to Re Educated.
Henke — A Study in the Psychology of Ritualism.
Herbart — Outlines of Educational Doctrine.
Hocking — The Meaning of God in Human Experience.
Hodge — Syllabus of Religious Education.
Hodges — The Training of Children in Religion.
Hoffman — Evolution of Religion.
Home — The Philosophy of Education.

Psychological Principles of Education.
Hubbell— Up Through Childhood.
Hughes— The Bible and Eife. •

The Making of Citizens.
Hutchins — Graded Social Service in the Sunday School.
Hyde — Practical Ethics.

The Religion of the Schools.
James — Memories and Studies.

Talks on Psychology.

Psychology.

The Psychology of Religion.

The Will to Believe.

The Varieties of Religious Experience.
Jastrow — A Study of Religion.

Jenks — Moral and Religious Training from the Social Sciences,
Kemp — History of Education.

King — Personal and Ideal Elements in Education.
Kirkpatrick — Fundamentals of Child Study.
Koons — The Child's Religious Life.
Kuhns — The Inner Life.
Eamoreaux — The Unfolding Eife.
Eecky — History of European Morals, Vol, I.
Eodge — The Substance- of Faith.

Science and Immortality.
McCauley— The Bible in the Public School.
MacKenzie — Manual of Ethics.
MacVannel — Outlines of a Course in the Philosophy of Education.

Principles of Religious Education.
Mathews — Educational Addresses.

The Making of Tomorrow.
Monroe — Cyclopedia of Education, "Bible in the Schools."

Shorter. Course in the History of Education.
Moulton — The Literary Study of the Bible.

Biblical Ethics and Philosophy.
Mudge — Heart Religion.

Religious Experience.
Muensterberg — The Eternal Values.

THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION 131

Nash — The Genesis of the Social Conscience. **

Nicholson — The Christian Student.

Oppenheim — The Development of the Child.

Ormond — Baccalaureate Address, 1914.

Palmer — Ethical and Moral Instruction in Schools.

The Ideal Teacher.
Peabody — Lectures to Kindergartners.
Pestalozzi — Leonard and Gertrude.
Pick— The Talmud: What Is It?
Potter — Principles of Religious Education.
Quick — Educational Reformers.
Schools of the Jesuits.
Rauschenbusch — Christianity and the Social Crisis.

The Christianizing of the Social Order. '

Religious Education Association — Education and National Character.
Riley, Sadler and Jackson — The Religious Question in the Public Schools.
Roark — Economy in Education.

Robinson — Why They Fail. ^

Royce — -The Problem of Christianity.
Sabatier — Religions of Authority.
Sabin — Common Sense Didactics.

Sadler — Moral Instruction and Training in Schools.
Salter — The Bible in Schools.
Sanborn — Paris and the Social Revolution.
Savage — The Passing and the Permanent in Religion.
Scott — Social Education.
Search — An Ideal School.

Sheedy — Catholic Citizens and Public Education.

Show — The Movement for Reform in the Teaching of Religion in Saxony.
Sisson — The Spirit and Value of Prussian Religious Education.
Sneath and Hodges — Moral Training in the School and Home.
Spalding — Means and Ends of Education.
Spencer — First Principles.

Spiller — Moral Instruction in Eighteen Countries.
Stanley — The Evolutionary Psychology of Feeling.
Starbuck — Moral and Religious Education.

The Psychology of Religion. »

Stevenson — The Necessity for Moral Training in the Public Schools.
Sully — Studies in Childhood.

Teachers' Handbook of Psychology.
Swift— Mind in the Making.
Taylor — Religion in Social Action.
Tierney — Teacher and Teaching.
Vincent — Without Sound of Hammer.
Walpole — Personality and Power.
Ward — -The Social Creed of the Churches.

Wells — The Connection of Religion with Popular Education. «

Wenner- — Religious Education and the Public Schools.
White — School Management.
Wilson — TTie Culture of Religion.
Wright — The Uncrowned King.
Wundt — The Facts of the Moral Life.

REPORTS AND PERIODICALS

.Atlantic Monthly, Jan., 1915. "Religion and the Schools," Washington Gladden.

Current Literature, Feb., 191 1.

Colorado State Teachers' Association, Bulletin No. i.

Christian Advocate, April 7, 191 5. "The Bible in the Public Schools," H. B. Meyer.

Mar. 25, 1915. W. -A. Sunday.
Christian Student, May, Aug., 1914. Nicholson.
Education, Feb., 1905, Oct., 1907.

Educational Foundations, June, 1913, Apr., 1915. , *

Educational Review, Nov., 1898, 1907, 11908.

132 THE PI.ACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION

International Reform Bureau Leaflet, Kdgar Blake.

Ladies' Home Journal, Sept., 1912. W. A. McAndrew. *

Literary Digest, June 13, .1914, Feb. 27, 1915.
New York Public Schools Syllabus on Ethics.
North American Review, Jan., 191 o.

Official Report Nineteenth International Sunday School Convention.
Ohio Educational Monthly, Dec, 1885, Sept., 1889.
Outlook, March 3, 1915. "Parents and Education."
Pennsylvania School Journal, 1882, 1885, 1888, 1889, 1908.
Proceedings, Congress of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 8, George Albert Coe.

Vol. 8, Walter Hervey.
International Moral Education Congress.

National Education Association, 1903, 1907, 1909, Sharp; 1909, Lindsey.
World's Parliament of Religions, Vol. 2.
Religious Education Association, -^903, 1904, 1905, 1908.
Religious Education Magazine, Vols. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

Feb., 1 91 5, "The Gary Plan."

Apr., 1915, "Religion in Our State Universities."
Report of Council of Churches. W. C. O'Donnell.
Report of the Lakewood, Ohio, Plan.
Sewanee Review, Apr., 1906.
Truth-Seeker, Jan., 1915. '

School Review, Dec, 1906.
Twentieth Century Quarterly, Sept., 1914.

United States Census Bulletin, "Prisoners and Juvenile Delinquents in Institutions."
Commissioner of Education, Reports 1889, 1898, 1903.
Department of Education Bulletins 23, 28, 41.
Supreme Court Reports 143, 152,
Wall Street Journal, Nov. 3, 1906.

HELPS FOR TEACHERS

Addams — Autobiographical Notes.

Twenty Years at Hull House.
Andersen — Tales.

Arnold — History of Ancient Peoples.
Bacon — Beauty for Ashes.

Bailey — Stories and Rhymes for a Child. '

Baldwin — Fifty Famous Stories Retold.

Old Greek Stories.

Fairy Stories and Fables.
Balfour — Life of Stevenson.
Barrie — Margaret Ogilvy.
Beckwith — In Mythland, I and II.
Bell — Religious Teaching in Secondary Schools.
Besant — Text-book of Religion and Morals.
Blaikie — Life of Livingstone.
Bousset — What Is Religion?

Briggs, Toronto, (Pub.) — Scripture Readings for Use in Public and High Schools of Ontario.
Brooks — Life of Lincoln.
Brownlee — Character-Building in Schools.
Bruce — The Parables of Our Lord.
Bryant— How to Tell Stories.
Bunyan — Pilgrim's Progress.
Burt — Poems Every Child Should Know.
Burton and Mathews — Principles and Ideals of the School.
Butterworth — Boyhood of Lincoln.
Cabot — Ethics for Children.

Canevin — Easy Lessons in Christian Doctrine.

Capital Supply Co., Pierre, S. D.— South Dakota Course of Study.
Character Development League — Character Lessons in American Biography.
Church — Stories from Homer.
Coe — Heroes of Everyday.
Colorado State Sunday School Association — State Course of Bible Study, Bulletin No. i.

THE PLACE OP RELIGION IN EDUCATION 1 33

Comegys — Primer of Ethics.

The Rollo Code of Morals.
Commissioners of National Education, Dublin, Ireland — Scripture Lessons, 4 vols.
Crafts — Bible Stories and Poems.
Crowell & Co. — Bible Stories for Young People.
Danielson— Bible Lessons for Little Beginners.
Dewey — Ethics for Home and School.
Draper — Self-Culture.

Driver — Introduction to Old Testament Literature.
Eastman — -The Soul of the Indian.
Eddy — Friends and Helpers.
Everett — Ethics for Young People.
Farrar — Life of Christ.
Faxon — Poems Worth Knowing.
Field — Fingerposts to Children's Reading.
Fielding — Proverbs of All Nations.
Flanagan & Co. — Opening Exercises for Schools.
Francillon — Gods and Heroes.
Frazer— The Golden Bough.
Gaskoin — Children's Treasury of Bible Stories.
Gatty^Outlines of Moral Science.
'Gaynor — Songs of the Child World.
Geikie — Hours with the Bible.
George — Plan Books.
Gordon — Life of Frances Willard.
Gould — Syllabus of Moral and Civic Instruction. (Chautauqua Daily, July 14, 191 1.)

Conduct Stories.
Green — The Gospel in Literature.
Guerber — Yourself.

Myths of Greece and Rome.
Harris — List of Stories Suitable for the Grades.
Harrison — In Story-Land.
Harvard Classics, Vol. 17 — Fables.
Hawthorne — Tanglewood Tales.
A Wonder Book.
LTaygood — The Man of Galilee.

Heath & Co. — Fairy Stories from Maerchen. -^

Hervey — Picture Work.
Hillis — Great Books as Life-Teachers.
Holman — Edition of the Bible.
Houghton — -Telling Bible Stories.
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. — Book of Legends.
Hubbard — Merry Songs and Games.
Hurlbut — Beautiful Bible Stories for Children. ^

Life of Christ for Young People.

The Story of the Bible.
International Sunshine Co. — Sunshine Year Book.
Keller— The Story of My Life.
Kent — l*he Hebrew People.
Kingsley — Greek Heroes.

Kingsley and Palmer — Narrative Episodes from the Old Testament.
Lanier — The Boys' King Arthur.
Larcom — Childhood's Songs.
Lindsay — More Mother Stories.

Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty.
Lodge and Roosevelt — American Heroes.

Lyman^ — The Story-Life of Jesus, with plan for child's record of events.
McClure— Story of My Life.

Miller — Biographical Studies in the Old Testament.
Moulton — Five Literary Bibles. .^

Modern Reader's Bible.

Old Testament Stories. ^ <

New Testament Stories.
Muir — Story of My Boyhood and Youth.

134 ^^^ placp: of religion in education

Neidlinger — Songs for Small Singers.

North Dakota Sunday School Association — High School Syllabus.
Palmer— The Life of Alice Freeman Palmer.
Partridge — Story-Telling in School and Home.
Peary — ^The Discovery of the North Pole.
Pfeiderer — Christianity and Historic Faiths.
Poland — Flamous Men of Greece.
Famous Men of Rome.
Potter — Children's Bible Stories.
Poulsson — Finger Plays and Holiday Songs.

In the Child World.
Ray — The Science of Ethics.
Rutland — Old Testament Stories.
St. John — Stories and Story-Telling.
Salisbury and Beckwith — Index to Short Stories.
Scudder — Life of Washington.
Fables and Folklore.
Sharp — University of Wisconsin Bulletin. Course of character-study based on Success.
Shaw and McDonnell — School Devices.

Shearer — Gems of Wisdom from Bible Literature and Proverbs.
Southey — Life of Nelson.
Smith — Songs for Little Children, Parts i and 2.

Twelve Prophets.
Stearns — A Manual on Hebrew Private Life.
Taylor, et al— Studies in the Life of Christ.
Taylor — The Parables of Our Lord.
Turley-i-Captain Scott's Last Expedition,
Tissot — Life of Christ.

University of Chicago Press — Constructive Bible Stories.
Washington — Up ffom Slavery.
Whitcomb — Heroes of History.

Wiltse — Stories for Kindergarten and Primary Grades.
Wiggin and Smith — The Story Hour.
Wiggin — Kindergarten Chimes.

Wild — Geographic Influences in Old Testament Masterpieces.
Wu Ting Fang — America.
Unknown — Boston Collection of Stories.
Child Life in Song and Story.
Children's Book of Moral Lessons.
Life and Manners.

Our Empire. ^

Our Martyred Presidents.
Song Stories for Kindergartens.
Stories for Moral Instruction.
Stories for Young Hearts and Minds.
The Children's Plutarch.

Universal Text-book of Religion and Morals.
Youth's Noble Path.
Young — Charms of the Bible.

14 DAY USE

RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED

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Ol:c MOWTH mm RECEIPT

LD 21A-60m-3.'65

General Library

UnJversin' of California

Berkeley

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY

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Full text of "The essential place of religion in education"

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