lass Book. \10 CiJFXRIGRT DEPOSm RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL By EMIL CARL WILM Professor of Philosophy in Boston University Lecturer in Philosophy, Wellesley College THE ABINGDON PRESS NEW YORK CINCINNATI \ ^-i "^ ' ficy"^ Copyright, 1918, by EMIL CARL WILM V MAR 25 1918 ©CI.A494230 CONTENTS PAGE Preface 5 I Alleged Difficulties of the Religious Education Problem 7 ^ II The Materials of Religious Training 14 III Moral Contents of the Studies. , . . . 18 Two Types of Studies 19 The Sciences 20 The Humanities 27 Professor James on Book Learning. . 28 The Greek View 33 The Theories of Schiller 35 Physical and Manual Training 37 Specifically Religious Materials.. . . 39 The Systematic Teaching of Ethics . 43 The Discipline of the School 44 The Personality of the Teacher 46 How THE School Can Cooperate with THE Church 49 Bibliography 53 PREFACE The following essay contains the gist of a view of religious education which has become increasingly clear to me in several years of consideration of the subject. I do not claim for this view any special novelty or originality, but I think it a true view, and one which the progress of time and tolerance will vin- dicate. I have expressed the same mat- ters in other connections, especially in two recent books of mine, The Problem of Religion, and The Culture of Reli- gion, where the reader will find a deeper justification of my position, in a larger context of philosophical and educational theory, if he should care for it. I have prepared this brief ex- cerpt and summary in the hope of pre- senting the matter to a larger audience than the above-mentioned books would be likely to reach. E. C. WiLM. Boston, August, 1917. 5 ^^tLEGED Difficulties of the Reli- gious Education Problem The problem of religion in public education, altbough doubtless of first- rate- importance, is frequently felt to be one of considerable difficulty. While it seems clear, on the one hand, that religious ideas and institutions have been of too great significance in the cul- tural history of the race for the school wholly to absolve itself of the duty of introducing the child to this part of his social inheritance, grave and insur- mountable difficulties are often believed to exist in the way of introducing the subject of religion into the public school. These difficulties seem to me to be largely gratuitous and avoidable. They are created, on the one hand, by a somewhat stiff and one-sided concep- tion of religion itself, and, on the other. RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL by an obsolete view of the proper methods of reHgious instruction and training. With the disposition of these initial difficulties, the problem of reli- gion in education will largely solve it- self. Let us make these points somewhat clearer. By religion was formerly and ^ still is frequently meant a system of special theological dogmas, and by reli- gious education the inculcation of these dogmas by more or less didactic methods of instruction. The older- fashioned methods of "confessional" and catechetical instruction, such as has obtained for many generations in Eu- rope, for example, illustrates both the matter and the manner of traditional religious instruction in its most typical (and one is tempted to say, virulent) form. Now, from the point of view of the state, which recognizes and protects equally all religious sects, with their dif- fering theologies, the prohibition by the state of public instruction in any given RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL system of theology or sectarian doctrine is evidently the only possible course. Even if this legal difficulty did not exist, it is highly questionable whether any agreement would be possible as to what the doctrinal basis of a common religious curriculum should be. Each of the numberless divisions of organized reli- gion possesses a more or less unique sys- tem of religious beliefs which it regards as valid, other systems being held or assumed to represent deviations from this norm.^ In addition, moreover, to * Constitutional provisions forbidding sectarian in- struction in the public schools, or the appropriation of public funds for the purposes of sectarian religious instruction, exist in forty-six states in the United States, while additional legal enactments to the same effect exist in twenty-six. State supreme court de- cisions have been handed down on thirty cases, and while there exists considerable dissent among these opinions, thirteen of the thirty favoring in a general way the religious ideal in education, the trend of judicial opinion seems clearly and overwhelmingly to support the exclusion of dogmatic sectarian instruction from the public school system, the particular decisions favoring religion in the schools turning on points not involving direct religious instruction, but the right to conduct general religious exercises including the reading of the Bible, to enforce decorum during such exercises and the like. See, for a typical illustration of this type of decision, Billard vs. Board of Educa- tion, Supreme Court of Kansas (76 Pacific Reporter, d RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL the different sectarian bodies, there is a large and increasing body of thought- ful men and women who have ceased to regard any of the traditional formu- lations of rehgious belief, as they stand, as any longer expressive, and who feel considerable hesitation in having their children indoctrinated with ideas and beliefs which they will in their maturity be almost certain radically to recast, or even entirely to discard. Religions and religious sects, in other words, teach beliefs which are of wide-reaching meta- physical import, and carry numberless theoretical implications, which are from the point of view of modern scholarship often of a doubtful or controversial character. From the point of view of the educa- tor, however, the principal reason against the teaching of dogmas, in the p. 422). Compare for a general summary of the legal status of religious education in the United States, S. W. Brown, The Secularization of American Educa- tion, Teachers College, Columbia University Con- tributions to Education, No. 49. 10 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL sense of ready-made truths, is not legal, nor philosophical, but pedagogical. The most serious blunder of all religious education in the past has been that it has sought to convey to the pupil for- mally and didactically certain abstract theological ideas for which there was nothing whatever corresponding in his own personal experience. The profes- sions of faith we have often exacted of children have been professions not of their own faith, but of the faith of some theologian long since dead. It is, of course, the same blunder that we have committed in all other branches. Teach- ing everywhere has been too formal, too didactic, too direct; everywhere has it furnished the child too exclusively with words, and too little with experiences; everywhere has it sought too much to convey information, and made too little use of the child's own activities in obser- vation and inference. Good teaching, especially in the elementary branches, must proceed from the known to the H RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL unknown, from the concrete to the ab- stract, from the empirical to the ra- tional, from facts to principles.^ Reli- gion, ever conservative, has notoriously reversed this order. Is it not high time we were applying to the most important and difficult of educational activities those principles and methods which have borne such rich fruit in other branches? We must above all see to it that the child is furnished the concrete data out of which he will, with proper assistance, construct a religious view of the world which shall be in some genuine sense his own, instead of requiring him to learn by rote abstract formulas which his ex- perience has not enabled him to assimi- late. Religion not only should be, but to a large extent must be, the normal outgrowth of the various experiences, scientific or otherwise, of life as a whole. 2 For a classical presentation of the "natural" method of instruction, see Herbert Spencer's Education, a work which is still as convincing and sound, on many points of educational principle and method, as when it was written. 12 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL A religious view of the world, if it is to be more than an external accretion, to be sloughed off at the first rude touch at the hands of science or of philo- sophical reflection, must be in some genuine sense the result, not of dog- matic teaching or authoritative pre- scription, but of the ideas and experi- ences gained from the observation of nature and of men, from the study of literature and of science, and of the in- telligent assimilation of these inevitable materials of our spiritual culture. We must not only modernize our methods of religious instruction, but carry the spirit of religion also into secular educa- tion, and seek to ehcit from the teaching materials pecuhar to it their unique spiritual and ethical possibilities and significance. If we do not, we must be prepared to expect that religion will re- main a mere department of the child's life, a mere addition, destined to drop away as soon as the child passes out from under the immediate influence of 13 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL his religious guardians. If, on the other hand, the religious life is based on the solid rock of the child's experience, as gained in life and through his studies, nothing will be able to shake it from its secure foundations. It will have be- come an organic part of life itself, and it can never be disengaged from the other genuine elements of the child's culture so long as life itself remains. II The Materials of Religious Training We have arrived at an interesting point of view from which to regard the whole problem of the relation of the public school to rehgion, and to religious education. If the question is asked. What is the Lernstof^, what are the proper materials and instruments of religious culture? the answer is, Every- thing! History, nature study, litera- 14 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL ture, the fine arts, mathematics, manual and industrial training, as well as the more strictly religious materials, the history of reHgions, religious art and literature, anything, in short, which will help the boy to find himself, which will fashion and reenforce his ideals and raise the tone and efiiciency of his life. It is a mischievous view, a part of our mediaeval tradition, that the more we know about the universe the more god- less we become. If God is anywhere, he is in his world, and if we are to find him anywhere, we must seek him in the world which he has made, as this is re- vealed to us in our experience. As a recent writer has forcefully said, we must comprehend the fact "that the spiritual life is not apart from the natural life and in antagonism to it, but that the spirit interpenetrates all life and that all life is of the spirit."^ Our 3 Nicholas Murray Butler, in Principles of Religious Education, p. 18. See also, for a masterly presentation of the general idea of immanence. Professor Bowne's little work. The Immanence of God, which seems to 15 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL whole system of education is likely to be a comparative failure unless we recognize this principle. If, on the other hand, we fully adopt it and act upon it, we can, I believe, prove to the world that the public educational sys- tem, with its wide and varied curricu- lum, is an instrument of surpassing promise for our whole social and re- ligious life. It is gratifying to beheve that the view suggested here regarding the rela- tion of the school to morality and reli- gion is one which is thoroughly ap- proved by public opinion, as well as by the judgment of the best educational experts. Whatever the desire of par- ticular individuals may be, it is certain that the mass of people do not want a system of public schools which will leave out of account the development of character, or which will be actively, or me to remain one of the classical expressions of the fundamental idea presented here, in a form intelligible even to the nonphilosophical reader. 16 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL even negatively, irreligious. If the pub- lic schools are "godless," "pagan," and "madly perverted," as some have as- serted, it is certainly not the wish of the public that they should be. The resolutions passed by the National Edu- cation Association in 1905 are indicative of the opinion of professional educators upon this important topic. "The As- sociation regrets the revival in some quarters of the idea that the conmion school is a place for teaching nothing but reading, spelling, writing, and ciphering ; and takes this occasion to de- clare that the ultimate object of popu- lar education is to teach children to live righteously, healthily, and happily, and that to accomplish this object it is essen- tial that every school inculcate the love of truth, justice, purity, and beauty through the study of biography, history, ethics, natural history, music, drawing, and the manual arts. . . . The build- ing of character is the real aim of the schools, and the ultimate reason for the 17 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL expenditure of millions for their main- tenance."^ Ill The moral and religious influences of the school may be classified as having their origin (1) in the studies them- selves, (2) in the discipline of the school, and (3) in the personality of the teacher. I shall discuss these in the order mentioned. Moral Contents of the Studies It is, of course, wholly impossible, with the space at our disposal, to treat in any adequate manner the large and important subject of the ethical and rehgious implications of the various branches of the school curriculum. To trace out completely the full effect upon the mind and character of the various school studies would require a volume * Compare Reports R. E. A., Education and National Character, p. 168. 18 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL by itself. No treatment of the subject of the relation of the public school to rehgious education would be complete, however, which did not contain some reference to this subject. Two Types of Studies The various branches of the school curriculum, regarded from a moral point ^f view, fall naturally into two great classes. They either primarily de- fine and develop the pupil's purposes and ideals, or they primarily equip him with the physical ability, the knowledge and the mechanical skill necessary to carry these purposes into execution. Their aim is either ethical idealism or ethical efficiency. Now, the public school furnishes both these important elements of human culture, and when rightly used has abundant power to make men both more noble and more efficient. What we mainly need is teachers who have a true conception of 19 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL their mission, and of the vast possibih- ties of the studies they are called upon to teach. The Sciences The three leading branches of natural science, namely, physics, chemistry, and biology, perhaps occupy the first place in the whole list of studies making for social efficiency. It is through these that men learn how to contribute in various ways to human progress and betterment. The vast advances in all lines of social and economic activity, which the present generation has wit- nessed, and the thousands of inventions which have contributed so largely to make life more comfortable and effec- tive, have in a large measure been due to the applications of one kind or an- other of the laws and principles of natural science. The factory, the steam- boat, the railway, the stearri plow, the reaper, the sewing machine, the electric motor and electric light, the telegraph 20 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL and the telephone, the airship, the gaso- hne engine, anihne dyes, the enrichment of exhausted soils, the discovery of valu- able drugs, the marvelous improvement of species of plants and animals, the discovery of the laws of health and dis- ease, of the influences of heredity and environment — ^these are only a few of the contributions to civilization which the three sciences named above have made. Nor is the contribution of science to the education of youth merely instru- mental and technical. It is often specu- lative and spiritual as well. Through his study of science the youth often gets his first glimpses of the unity of nature, and of the existence everywhere in nature of beauty and order. In the never-failing constancy of her processes he will per- haps receive his first confirmation of the truth which has often met his ear, but which has so far received little inward response, that God is indeed "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever." 21 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL In the third place, there is perhaps no school discipline, unless it is mathe- matics, which, if earnestly pursued, is so conducive to the fundamental traits of truthfulness and perseverance; to truthfulness, because the lack of cor- respondence between word and fact, which constitutes untruth, is here too obvious to escape detection ; to persever- ance, because the results to be attained in science are specific and definite, ren- dering it difficult to rest satisfied with a wrong or even a partial result. The view of the moral and religious possibilities of scientific studies pre- sented here is, of course, a compara- tively modern one. It was not until the middle, or even the latter part, of the nineteenth century that the mediasval distrust of science gave way to a more natural and hopeful view of its cultural possibilities.^ And there are not want- 5 Compare Monroe, A Text-Book in the History of Education, chapter XII. For the history and progress of modern science, see also Buckley, A Short History of Natural Science; Smith, History of Science 22 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL ing men to-day who retain a lingering fear that the study of science will neces- sarily have a hurtful influence upon reli- gion. The objections to science usually as- sume one or the other of two forms. It is often said that the study of science tends to impress the student with the importance of the material and mechan- ical aspects of nature, so that he will come to regard its purposive and spirit- ual aspects as subordinate, or even quite neghgible. This result does sometimes doubtless occur, particularly in the more advanced branches of physical science. My own opinion is that this view of the world is one-sided and inadequate, and that the enlarging conceptions of nature due to the labors of science have not been of such a character as to invalidate the interpretation of nature as a funda- mentally purposive and spiritual sys- in the Nineteenth Century. For the application of science, Beckman, History of Inventions. For the relation of science to conservatism, A. D. White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology. 23 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL tern. And if the teacher knows his business, there is Kttle occasion to fear that the result upon the student's mind above referred to will actually occur .^ A second possible danger is that the very complete explanation of the phe- ^ The idea that the reign of natural law is incom- patible with the existence in nature of purpose is a very curious one, and it is nothing short of amazing how it has ever gained the wide currency which it appears to enjoy among intelligent people. It is about as if one should maintain that because hats are made by machinery (the illustration, I think, is Professor James's), they cannot on that account fit human heads, or that because railway engines are propelled by steam power they cannot get anywhere! A very little reflection, however, will make it sufficiently evident that the only condition under which it would become impossible to make hats fit heads, and to make trains arrive at their intended destinations, is for natural law to become inoperative, so that steel would cease to be rigid, water cease to turn into steam when heated, etc. Then all interests alike would remain unrealized, all purposes unfulfilled, and life itself become a sheer impossibility. Indeed, the more one reflects on the matter, the more clearly one feels that the one most important argument for theism which can be produced is the . uniformity of nature, the existence throughout it of rationality and order. That the ground is firm under our feet, that water slakes and fire burns, that bodies gravitate, that the sun rises and sets, and the seasons return — that nature, in short, is without shadow or turning — this is the prime condition on which the universe can be either rational or good. For an elaboration of this view, see A. C. Fraser, The Philosophy of Theism, and my own book. The Problem of Religion, especially chapters 4, 5, and 8. 24 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL nomena of nature which science offers will obliterate the sense of wonder in the presence of the universe, and thus tend to destroy the sense of reverence which is so central to the emotional re- sponses of rehgion. Aside, however, from the inadequacy of the mechanical type of explanation which science ex- clusively employs, and to which I have already referred, complete mechanical explanation, even, is surely nothing more than a scientific ideal, from whose reaHzation science is to-day, and always will be, infinitely removed. Whether the student fully comprehends the im- portant distinction between mechanical and teleological or purposive explana- tion, he surely can, and usually does, understand the greatly restricted scope of even mechanical explanation. He will hourly have occasion to notice that what science understands is but an in- finitesimally small part of the vast areas of nature which remain unexplored and ununderstood. As the late Professor 25 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL Paulsen has said, "forsooth we must confess that, remarkable though the progress of science has been during the last few centuries, it has utterly failed to solve the great riddle of existence. Indeed, the mystery seems to have deepened and to have grown more won- derful. The more we study the uni- verse, the more immeasurable seem its depths, the more inexhaustible the var- iety and wealth of its forms. How simple and intelligible was the world of Aristotle and St. Thomas ; into what in- conceivable abysses astronomy and physics have since led us! The billions of miles, years and vibrations with which these sciences reckon carry the imagina- tion to the dizzy edge of infinity. With what profound secrets of organization, development, and existence biology sees herself confronted, now that she has learned to manipulate the microscope and has called evolutionary science to her aid! Back to what infinite begin- nings historical research stretches the 26 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL life of man, which a few centuries ago seemed so clearly and distinctly bounded by the creation on one side, and the judgment day on the other! So far is science from having transformed the world into a simple problem of arith- metic. Science does not carry the think- ing man to the end of things, she merely gives him an inkling of the illimitable- ness of the universe. She arouses in those who serve her with a pure heart, not pride, but feelings of deep humility and insignificance. These are the feel- ings which inspired Kant and Newton, Goethe, too, is full of this thought: the greatest blessing that can befall a think- ing man is to fathom what can be fathomed, and silently to adore the un- fathomable."^ The Humanities The ethical and religious value of his- tory and literature lies in their fitness ' A System of Ethics, p. 431. 27 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL to define ideals and purposes, and thus to give direction to the will. Without attention to this side of personality, the school may easily degenerate into an in- stitution for the training of charlatans. The good will which Kant lauded so ex- travagantly is not, 'indeed, sufficient when it is divorced from efficiency, but it is perhaps preferable to efficiency when this is divorced from the good will. What is needed is the union of ethical disposition and ethical efficiency, of the moral will and the intellectual and physical ability to carry out the pur- poses of the moral will. The training of the intellect is indeed an important thing. But if intellectual training is aimed at to the exclusion of the molding of the moral character, the result may easily be disastrous. Professor James on Book Learning No one has recognized this more frankly and expressed it more pun- 28 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL gently than the late Professor James. "The old notion that book learning can be a panacea for the vices of society lies pretty well shattered to-day. ... If we were asked that disagreeable ques- tion. What are the bosom vices of the level of culture which our land and day have reached? we should be forced, I think, to give the still more disagreeable answer, that they are swindling and adroitness, and the indulgence of / swindling and adroitness, and cant, and sympathy with cant — ^natural fruits of that extraordinary idealization of suc- cess in the mere outward sense of *get- ting there,' and getting there on as big a scale as we can, which characterizes our generation. What was reason given man for, some satirist has asked, except to enable him to invent reasons for what he wants to do ! We might say the same of education. We see college graduates on every side of every pubHc question. Some of Tammany's stanchest sup- porters are Harvard men. Harvard 39 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL men defend our treatment of our Fili- pino allies as a masterpiece of policy and morals. Harvard men, as jour- nalists, pride themselves on producing copy for any side that may enlist them. There is not a public abuse for which some Harvard advocate may not be found."« What Professor James says of his own university may be said of every col- lege and university in the land. And this is not an argument against colleges and universities. It is only an argu- ment to show that intellectual training by itself cannot be relied upon to accom- plish single-handed the task of com- pletely fitting a man for his work in the world. The clearer understanding, in- deed, of the materials and means where- with to supplement intellectual train- ing so as to fashion character and to awaken ethical enthusiasm seems to me to be incomparably the most important task which American education has be- 8 Memories and Studies, pp. 350-352. 30 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL fore it. It is often said that the object of an education is to enable a man to earn his living; frequently the aim is said to be social efficiency. But a man needs not so much to be taught how to live, but how to live at his highest. It is evident also that a person may be highly efficient, in the narrow sense of possessing a high degree of executive and productive skill, and yet entirely fail. He realizes, perhaps, what he aims at, but he aims at the wrong objects. He is successful in the nar- row sense of accomplishing what he set out to accomplish; he fails com- pletely if we judge him from the higher point of view of ideal aims and values. History and literature abound in illus- trations of such "failures in success." The failure lies not in the execution but in the aim. Every man who deliberately sets out to accomplish an unworthy end and who reaches it, is a living example of our theme. Education was never more successful than now in rendering 31 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL men efficient in the narrow sense of the word. Its great need is to make men also just. The great sources of our ideals seem to me to be history, and, to an even greater degree, literature and other branches of fine art, using these terms broadly to stand for the whole realm of the imaginative and the ideal, as this has found illustration through human media. Unlike science, literature and art present to us, not what is, but what ought to be. They do not give us a literal transcription of the actual, but an imaginative transformation of the actual into the shapes of the ideal. What never was on land or sea, what existed only in the mind of the prophet and the heart of the seer, that literature and art reveal to us. Science opens to us the wonderful realm of fact ; art the still more wonderful realm of aspira- tion. Literature is too often regarded merely as a sentimental pastime, as reli- gion is too often regarded as a stereo- 32 i RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL typed tradition. But these views do injustice to the true nature and signifi- cance of these great interests. If litera- ture and rehgion were merely a kind of pastime and an outworn tradition, they would not have survived the advances of modern science, and the matter-of- fact mood of our modern time. But they have survived, and are held as pre- cious, because they are the citadels of our spiritual strength ; because they save us from the commonplace of fact, routine, and custom, revealing to us values not yet realized, and experiences of strength and love not yet attained. The Greek Yiew The sure instinct of the ancient Greek served him here, as it did in other de- partments. To secure the symmetrical development of all the human powers he sent the young to two schools, the palaestra, or wrestling school, and the didaskaleion, or music school, to the 33 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL former for the training of the body, to the latter for the training of the mind, and the cultivation of the gesthetic and moral personality. Literature and music were studied with a view directly to their influence on hfe; in order, as Plato says in the Protagoras, "that children may be more gentle and harmo- nious, and rhythmical, and so more fitted for speech and action ; for the life of man at every point has need of har- mony and rhythm." "Music," says Aristotle, in a remarkable passage which might have been taken from the modern Schiller, "brings harmony, first into the human being himself by putting an end to the conflict between his passions and his intelligent will, and then, as a con- sequence, into his relations with his fel- lows." It may not be out of place, although the passage is quite well known, to quote the testimony of one of the most emi- nent of modern scientists on the im- poverishing effect of neglecting the cul- 34 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL ture of the aesthetic side of our nature. After deploring the loss of his early taste for poetry, pictures, and music, Darwin testifies that if he had to live his life over again he would make it a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least every week; "for perhaps," he says, "the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept alive through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intel- lect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature." The Theories of Schiller In modern times the poet Schiller has insisted most forcibly upon the value of the fine arts as a means of moral educa- tion. The aid which Kant sought in religion for the transformation of the natural disposition, Schiller sought in art. It would be impossible here to go 35 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL into a detailed discussion of the subtle views of Schiller as to the precise way in which the transformation of the natural self into the moral self is accom- plished through this instrument ahty. His two main positions may be simply mentioned here. He thought of art as the most effective agency for restoring the soul to a state of inner unity and wholeness after it has been disrupted by the various one-sided employments of life. It is only out of the united and inwardly conciliated self that moral ac- tion of the highest type can spring. In the second place, Schiller thought of art as accomplishing a subtle refinement of the sensibilities which will result in the immoral, which is always sesthetically ugly, being repugnant to us, and in the moral, which is always gesthetically beautiful, attracting us. Whatever the precise process may be by which the child is morally refined in being subjected to the influences of beauty, we are beginning to realize that 36 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL moral refinement and artistic refinement go hand in hand, and we are abeady doing much in schools to attain the artistic development of children through the influences, both conscious and un- conscious, of art. Through physical surroundings, through school furnish- ings and decorations, through literature and music, and in countless other ways are we to-day accomphshing the refine- ment of taste, and thus, incidentally, of the ethical and religious sensibilities of children in the public schools. Nothing promises more, I believe, for the future of our artistic and moral life than this enthusiastic devotion to the beautiful in school life. It is impossible to believe that anyone who has learned genuinely to love the beautiful can ever again be entirely ignoble. Physicai, and Manual Training Physical training, and the various forms of manual and industrial train- 37 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL ing, also exercise a moral influence whose full importance has not always been recognized. To the question, "if you had a free hand, what reforms would you introduce in courses of study in order to increase the ethical efficiency of school training?" William James re- plied, "I should increase enormously the amount of manual and motor train- ing, relatively to book work, and not let the latter preponderate until the age of fifteen or sixteen."^ The reasons for the moral efficacy of motor training are many. (1) It has often been noticed that many forms of vice are the direct result of subnormal physical development, or physical weak- ness. A boy will tell a falsehood during a condition of fatigue when he will not do so in a normal condition. Many per- sons doubtless yield to various forms of temptation owing to a sheer lack of physical ability to withstand them. ^ Quoted in Sadler, Moral Instruction and Training in Schools, p. 94. 38 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL (2) Any form of physical activity is of intrinsic interest to children, and thus furnishes them with a healthful occupa- tion which has often been found to be of first importance to wholesome de- velopment. (3) Industrial and manual training equip the boy for earning his livelihood, and for performing various forms of social service, thus assignijig him his moral place in the community. (4) Not the least of the services ren- dered by these forms of training is the lesson they teach of the dignity of hu- man labor, and of the common man. Specifically Religious Materials The view put forward in the forego- ing that the whole curriculum and con- duct of the school must contribute in a large sense to the ends of ethical and religious culture, and the larger spirit- ual significance attributed to the so- called secular curriculum, is not meant to obscure the value of the more specific- 39 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL ally religious literatures, the history of religious ideas, the poetry and music of devotion, and the other specific means of religious culture which the church and the school have from time imme- morial employed. The artificial exclu- sion of these materials from the schools is not only unpedagogical, revealing a defective sense of historical and psy- chological continuity in educational processes, but it is unjust to the pupil himself, who is thus deprived of one of the most interesting and significant parts of our common social inheritance. ; Nothing, for example, is more strained and unnatural than the exclusion from the schools of instruction in bibhcal lit- erature, a practice in which a surprising- ly large nimiber of people concur and which they appear to accept as an edu- cational and practical necessity. "There is no such textbook," as G. Stanley Hall says, "of both the higher anthropology of races and of genetic psychology showing how the individual expands and 40 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL approximates the dimensions of the ethnic consciousness." And what is true of the Bible appHes to all other rehgious materials whatsoever, which have historical and cultural significance. As an organic part of the race's culture, they are a part of the child's rightful inheritance, and it is only a fanciless religiosity or an equally hard and one- sided scientificism and secularism which is unable to recognize the school's mani- fest opportunity and duty in relation to the normal development of the stu- dent's spiritual culture. As regards the question of separate instruction in the Bible and similar materials in periods specially set aside for the purpose, it seems rather impor- tant that such instruction should be kept in the closest possible connection with the rest of the curriculum, and that the suggestion of the uniqueness of these materials should be as far as possible avoided. The history of rehgions and the great religious literatures of the 41 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL world form an organic part of general history and literature; and the school, if it takes a large view of its function, will treat these objectively and impar- tially, just as it treats any other sub- ject. This has been almost uniformly done in the case of history, and there is less and less bias against the introduc- tion of such selections from the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures as are seen to have literary and general value. In fact, it is difficult to see how such materials are to be kept out of the school. Are we to exclude from the curriculum all literature containing reli- gious teachings? Then we should have to exclude practically the whole of Eng- lish literature. In the case of history it is equally evident that any attempt to exclude rigorously all historical facts which have a religious reference would do irreparable injury to the study of history. The history of religious ideas, movements, and institutions is so inex- tricably interwoven with general history 42 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL that any attempt to separate general and religious history would result in the thorough mutilation of both. The same remarks apply to religious art, religious music, religious rites and usages, etc. These topics should be treated in their concrete cultural connections whenever the general topics of art, music, ritual, etc., come under consideration. I be- lieve they are generally so treated, and that without objection from any quar- ter. The Systematic Teaching or Ethics This is perhaps the place to say some- thing about the systematic teaching of ethics, courses in which have already been widely introduced into common and secondary schools. In spite of high authority to the contrary,^ ^ I am bound to believe that such systematic instruc- tion cannot but be of high value to stu- dents. A vast amount of private and ^° See, for example, G. H. Palmer, Ethical and Moral Instruction in Schools. 43 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL social immorality is clearly due to igno- rance, and would have been rendered impossible by forceful and timely in- struction. The question whether such instruction should be given in set les- sons, or whether the incidental method is preferable, does not seem to me to be capable of a categorical answer. Much depends upon the age of the pupil, but systematic instruction probably has ad- vantages over the incidental method at all ages. Such systematic instruction will, of coiu'se, not preclude the inci- dental enforcement of moral principle or truth whenever the occasion presents itself in the regular lessons or in con- nection with the discipline of the school. The Discipline of the School This brings us to the second great means of moral and religious influence in public education, the discipline of the school. There is perhaps no more effec- tive means of socializing the pupil 44 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL than that intangible and evanescent but very soMd thing called the atmos- phere and tone of the school. By their tone, says WilMam James, are all things hmnan either lost or saved. It is through the corporate life of the school that the child learns discipline, honesty, deference for superiors, consideration for companions, the spirit of coopera- tion and fair play, habits of industry, orderliness, punctuality, and a hundred other traits which together make up the complete character. In fact, there is hardly a virtue in the whole catalogue of virtues for which the school does not afford adequate scope and exercise. We are ever inchned to stress the merits of the unusual, forgetting that life is mainly made up of very commonplace and ordinary happenings and duties. Carlyle tells of an artisan who broke the entire Decalogue with every stroke of his hammer. So it is possible, also, to keep the whole Decalogue in every homely deed, so it is honestly per- 45 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL formed. The school has no more impor- tant duty than to train the young in scrupulousness and honesty in the per- formance of the small and apparently unimportant details of the school's daily task. The Peksonality of the Teacher The presupposition of all effective in- fluence, both through the studies and through the discipline of the school, is, of course, the personality of the teacher. Religion or irreligion will be present in the school just as surely as teachers are present. There are those rare charac- ters among teachers under whose magic touch the most intractable and unprom- ising material is transformed into gold, and, on the other hand, no matter how full of possibilities the studies and the opportunities are, they will fail to be realized if the teacher lacks earnestness, insight, and sympathy. The character of the teacher will reveal itself, first and 46 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL foremost, in the industry, the care, and the enthusiasm with which he performs his own work. It goes without saying, of course, that the true teacher will con- duct all the work of the school in a seri- ous manner, and that ill-considered criticism of anything having either his- torical significance or scientific interest is entirely out of harmony with the pur- pose of the school. Intellectual pride is the most unscholarly of all intellectual attitudes, and no one who has not over- come it can lay claim to being a scholar in the best sense, still less a true teacher. Certainly, no teacher has done his work well who has not imparted to the stu- dent some conception of the vastness and the intricacy of the world in which he hves, and with it a sense of wonder, from which springs all wisdom, and of reverence, from which spring worship and love. The personal character of the teacher will, of course, count elsewhere than in the thoroughness and sincerity of the 47 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL academic work. His personal attitude toward his pupils, his life and activity in the community, his attitude toward the social and moral issues of the school and the community as they arise from time to time, his tastes, his scholarship, his intellectual hospitality, all these will exercise a steady and pervasive influ- ence, an influence which will fre- quently determine career and destiny. The increasing emphasis which is to-day being placed upon the personality in the selection of teachers promises richly for the whole future of our schools. The in- culcation and enforcement of the ideals of right living and the moral regenera- tion of cities and nations does not de- pend primarily upon the church and courts of justice, which have to do with virtue and corruption, whose strength is the strength of years, but upon the home and the school, where life is new and ideals are plastic and where the influ- ences of teaching and example are most vivid and potent. 48 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL How THE School Can Cooperate WITH THE ChUECH It remains to mention a number of ways in which the school can contribute more directly and specifically to the reli- gious training of the young, either in the school itself, or by practical and helpful cooperation with its sister insti- tution, the church. (1) Recognition of religion can be inoffensively accorded by simple reli- gious exercises in the school, either at the beginning or at some other conven- ient time of the school day. A vital in- terest in these exercises and the good tact and judgment of teachers will pre- vent them from becoming burdensome or perfunctory. When well conducted such exercises are extremely effective in creating an atmosphere friendly to reli- gion, and a spirit of reverence for sacred things. (2) The school can render substan- tial service to religious education 49 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL through the participation of its officers and teachers in the actual work of Sun- day school supervision and instruction. There would be two main advantages in this. In the first place, the teachers would bring with them a natural apti- tude for teaching, classroom experience, and likely some professional training. Second, the plan would go far toward solving the problem of correlation be- tween the work of the public school and the Sunday school, the importance of which has been assumed in our whole treatment of the inseparable nature of secular and religious training. The regular teacher would be presumed to have an acquaintance with the pupil's other school studies and acquirements which the special reUgious teacher would naturally not possess. (3) Whether or not they take part in the actual work of Sunday school in- struction, teachers can do much for reli- gious education by encouraging in their pupils regular attendance upon Sunday 50 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL school instruction, an indispensable con- dition, as every teacher knows, of effec- tive work along any line of school work. This is the more important as atten- dance upon religious instruction offered by churches cannot well be made com- pulsory, and must depend largely upon the conscientious discharge of their duty on the part of parents and teachers. (4) The pressing problem of atten- dance and discipline of the Sunday school can be partly solved through the school by according recognition for work done in the Sunday school through a specified amount of credit for pro- ficiency in religious and biblical sub- jects. An important initial step in this direction has recently been taken by the State Board of Education of North Dakota,^^ which in 1912 published a syllabus outlining a course in biblical " Also by the public schools of Gary, Indiana, and Greeley, Colorado. The States of Indiana, Michigan and Wyoming are reported also as considering similar plans. See for details Religious Education, vol. IX, pp. 306 and 389flf. 51 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL study for the completion of which a half- credit out of the fifteen required for high school graduation was granted. While the teaching of the Bible courses is left to the Sunday school or other outside agency, standardization is se- cured through examinations which are given by the Board of Education. It is unnecessary to say that the official recognition thus given to religious in- struction is bound to dignify and stiffen the work of the Sunday school as noth- ing else could. In these various ways, then, the three problems which are often mentioned as the three main problems of Sunday school instruction — the se- curing of trained teachers, of regular attendance, and of proper standardiza- tion and discipline — ^would, through the generous cooperation of the school, get well under way toward solution. Inci- dentally, the unity of the educational organism, the indispensable condition of the spiritual integrity of the pupil, would be increasingly achieved, 52 RELIGION AND THE SCHOOL Bibliography Adler, The Moral Instruction of Children. Arendt, Ein Beitrag zur Reform des Religionsunter- richts. Bagley, The Pedagogy of Morality and Religion. Bell, Religious Teaching in Secondary Schools. Buisson, La Religion, la Morale et la Science. Burton and Mathews, Principles and Ideals for the Sunday School. Butler, The Meaning of Education. Coe, Moral and Religious Education from the Psy- chological Point of View, R. E., 3. Conway, Catholic Education in the United States, Ed. Rev., Feb., 1905. Doering and others, Konfessionelle oder weltliche Schule? Faguet, L'Anti-Clericalisme. Franke, Der Kampf um den Religionsunterricht. Gansberg, Religionsunterricht? Gruenweller, Nicht Moral — sondern Religionsunter- richt. Home, Psychological Principles of Education. Jenks, Moral and Religious Training from the Social Sciences. Moulton, The Bible as Literature. Potter (ed.). Principles of Religious Education. Sadler, Moral Instruction and Training in Schools. Salter, The Bible in Schools. Show, The Movement for Reform in the Teaching of Religion in Saxony. Sisson, The Spirit and Value of Prussian Religious Instruction. Spalding, Means and Ends of Education. Spiller, Moral Instruction in Eighteen Countries. Starbuck, Moral and Religious Education. Tews, Schulkaempfe der Gegenwart. Proceedings Congress of Arts and Sciences, vol. VIII. Proceedings International Moral Education Con- gress. Proceedings Northern Illinois Teachers' Association. Religious Education. 53 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS • 019 604 071 7