INTERCHURCH WORLD MOVEMENT OF NORTH AMERICA WORLD SURVEY CONFERENCE ATLANTIC CITY JANUARY '7 to 10, 1920 PRELIMINARY Statement and Budget for American Religious Education PREPARED BY SURVEY DEPARTMENT AMERICAN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION DIVISION T his Survey statement should be read in the light of the fact that it is preliminary only, and will be revised and enlarged as a result of the dis¬ cussions and recommendations of the World Survey Conference. The entire Survey as revised will early be brought together in two volumes, American and Foreign, to form the basis of the financial campaign to follow. The “Statistical Mirror*'will make a third volume dealing with general church, missionary and s stewardship data. INTERCHURCH WORLD MOVEMENT OF NORTH AMERICA WORLD SURVEY CONFERENCE ATLANTIC CITY JANUARY 7 to 10, 1920 PRELIMINARY Statement and Budget for American Religious Education PREPARED BY SURVEY DEPARTMENT AMERICAN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION DIVISION 1 . Digitized by the Internet Archive ^ in 2019 with funding from Columbia University Libraries m https://archive.org/details/worldsurveyconfe00inte_1 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 3 A Call to the Colors T he United States of America has been invaded by three enemy armies which threaten our national existence. First, there is within our borders an army of five and one-half million illiterates above ten years of age; second, there is an army of fifty-eight million people who are not identified with any church, Jewish, Catholic or Protestant; third, there is an army of twenty-seven million Protestant children and youth, under twenty-five years of age, who are not enrolled in any Sunday school or other institution for religious training. If these three armies should form in double column, three feet apart they would reach one and one-third times round the globe at the equator. If they should march in review before the president of the United States, starting on the day of his inauguration, moving double column at the rate of twenty-five miles a day, it would take the three armies three years and eight months to pass the president. These three armies constitute a triple alliance which threatens the life of our democracy. Patriotism demands that every loyal American should rush to arms and wage three great campaigns—a campaign of Americanization, a campaign of adult evangelism, and a campaign for the spiritual nurture of childhood. The pages which follow are a call to the colors. 4 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION Intelligence and Righteousness Universal Education is the Only T he fundamental elements of a nation’s strength are the intelligence and moral insight of its people. The machinery with which a democracy sets each new generation on the shoulders of the race is the public school system. Through the public schools the state secures an effective, socially- minded, homogeneous citizenship. Its curriculum, besides providing for indi¬ vidual needs, contains common elements which become the basis of the like- mindedness of the people and insure united and collective activity. It is thus that social solidarity is secured in a democracy. The world war revealed many defects in our educational system. It has clearly shown the importance of rural education, the necessity for a complete program of physical and health education, the need of radical measures to reduce adult illiteracy, the necessity for the preparation and supply of competent teachers and the equalizing of educational opportunities. The Smith-Towner Bill, now pending before Congress, is the nation’s educational program for the recon¬ struction period. This bill creates a depart¬ ment of education in our national government and places a secretary of education in the President’s cabinet. For the first time in our nation’s life it provides a national educational policy. This is done without limiting the initiative and self-government of states and cities. We have set out to build the most effective system of public schools which the world has ever seen. These schools will give us a people physically and mentally capable of sustaining a socialized-industrial-democracy. 'XT® child should be JL^ damned to illiteracy because he chanced to be born in one of the waste places of the nation.” RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 5 Must Be Co'Extensive Guarantee of Democratic Government B ut the democratic state has not yet established the machinery which will conserve and perpetuate the moral and spiritual achievements of the race ‘and guarantee that the citizenship of the future will be dominated by the highest of moral and spiritual ideals. Democracy must learn how to make intelligence and righteousness co-exten- sive. A new piece of machinery must be created and made a vital, integral part of the life of every community. This new piece of machinery must spiritual¬ ize our citizenship just as the public school makes it wise and efficient. The nation that can build this new machinery will write a new page in the history of democratic government. The task of religious education is to motivate conduct in terms of a religious ideal of life. In a democracy the common facts, attitudes and ideals which constitute the basis of collective activity must be surcharged with religious interpretation. Spiritual significance and God- consciousness must permeate the entire content of the secular curriculum. The national public school system must be supple¬ mented by a unified program of religious edu¬ cation which will guarantee the spiritual homogeneity of our democracy. Unless such a program of religious education can be created there is great danger that a system of public schools will become nationalistic and material¬ istic in theory and practise and the direction of social development will be determined by the secular state rather than by the spiritual forces represented by the church. 'A RELIGIOUS education should be the heritage of every child. Spiritual illit¬ eracy is the greatest peril of organized society.” RELIGIOUS EDUCATION: The Nation*s Light 7 A Statesmanlike Program of Religious Education I F THE millions of unchurched people re¬ vealed by the chart on the opposite page are to be adequately trained in the principles of the Christian religion, and if in addition to this responsibility this nation is to furnish a leader¬ ship which will carry Christianity to the utter¬ most parts of the earth, steps must be taken at once to build a statesmanlike program of relig¬ ious education for the American people. Such a program would involve the following items: 1. The securing and training of an army of religious teachers, both professional and volun¬ teer. This would mean: a. The establishment of research and graduate schools in religious education. b. The creation of departments of religious education in church colleges. c. The founding of a system of teacher-training schools and institutes for the training of the volunteer workers. d. The creation of associations for the self¬ development of both volunteer and professional workers. 2. The creation of a curriculum for all grades of church schools. 3. The establishment of week-day and vaca¬ tion schools of religion. 4. The strengthening and vitalizing of the educational program of each local church. 5. The establishment of parent-training courses in the interest of religious education in the home. 6. The creation of community programs of religious education through which the church will use music, art, drama and recreation as agencies for the spiritualizing of the ideals of the whole community. 7. The creation of a system of organization and support which will be adequate to sustain a school system involving thousands of teach¬ ers and millions of students and costing billions of dollars. 8. The creation of a system of supervision and control which will preserve denominational and local autonomy and still secure essential unity of program and policy for the entire nation. WHERE 58 MILLIONS UNCHURCHED PROTESTANT AMERICANS RESIDE ALABAMA ARIZONA ARKANSAS CALIFORNIA COLORADO CONNECTICUT DELAWARE D. C. FLORIDA GEORGIA IDAHO ILLINOIS INDIANA w/mmmmasmmimmsrA rJi^////////////^///////////A V//M w/Aosm IOWA KANSAS KENTUCKY LOUISIANA MAINE MARYLAND MASSACHUSETTS MICHIGAN MINNESOTA MISSISSIPPI MISSOURI MONTANA NEBRASKA NEVADA NEW HAMPSHIRE NEW JERSEY NEW MEXICO NEW YORK N. CAROLINA N. DAKOTA OHIO OKLAHOMA OREGON PENNSYLVANIA RHODE ISLAND S. CAROLINA S. DAKOTA TENNESSEE TEXAS UTAH VERMONT VIRGINIA WASHINGTON W. VIRGINIA WISCONSIN WYOMING Totals; Catholics 16,788,214 Jews 3,388,951 Other Non-Prot, 739,709 Protestants 24,354,216 Not members of any church 58,368,241 CATHOLIC JEWISH hisrchurch World Movement of North America OTHER NON PROTESTANT PROTESTANT mzm NOT MEMBERS OF ANY CHURCH G 0 167 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION: The Nation^s Light 9 Vital Spots in the Educational Program of the Church TWENTY-SIX MILLION CHILDREN WENTY-SIX million children and youth growing up without any definite, syste¬ matic training in religion constitutes the great¬ est peril in our national life. For the secular education of the childhood of America the nation proposes an annual budget of $1,241,000,000. For the spiritual nurture of this same army of future American citizens the church should provide a budget which will guarantee that intelligence and godliness shall be universal and coextensive. INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTING HE church cannot teach the people unless it reaches them. Fifty-eight million unreached people means fifty-eight million untaught people. Twenty-six million children and youth not in Sunday school, as shown on the map on the opposite page, means twenty-six million potential spiritual illiterates. The church must find a way to reach the chil¬ dren and to account for them systematically from infancy to maturity. LEADERSHIP NTRAINED, voluntary leadership has been both the strength and the weak¬ ness of our Sunday schools. Untrained leader¬ ship is apt to be inefficient and dangerous. Good intentions cannot justify bad practise. We must retain our army of consecrated volun¬ teer teachers and officers but we must provide for them two essential things: 1. Training. —A system of training that will reach and actually help the average voluntary worker is absolutely basic in any program for the improvement of religious education. 2. Supervision. —Trained teachers need careful supervision. Untrained teachers must be much more carefully supervised. It is a sound prin¬ ciple that the less training the worker has, the more direction he needs. Here is the weakest spot in the educational program of the church. The church has not provided trained supervisors for its army of untrained, volunteer workers. The public school has one supervisor to every 82 teachers; the church school has one super¬ visor to every 2,716 teachers. The program of the future should provide for highly trained directors of religious education in the local church and city, district, state and national superintendents and inspectors who will supervise, direct and train the army of volunteer workers. The budget of the church must make ample provision for expert super¬ vision. CURRICULUM HE child, the teacher and the curriculum are the three most important factors in the school. That which goes into the curriculum eventually finds expression in conduct. The building of the body of common matter that shall constitute the curriculum of our religious schools is one of the two or three most pressing problems before the church today. Trained experts with ample facilities for re¬ search and experimentation must be provided for this purpose in large numbers. TIME AND PARENTAL COOPERATION HE church school must be given adequate time to do its work. Our survey shows that the average Protestant child has only 24 hours of time provided annually for his religious instruction, while the Jewish child has 335 hours and the Catholic child has 200 hours. More time on Sunday and during the week-days 10 The Nation^s Light: RELIGIOUS EDUCATION should be provided as rapidly as curricula and teachers can be prepared. Vacation and week-day schools of religion are absolutely necessary for the adequate religious training of the American people. The training of parents and the cooperation of the home and the church school constitute one of the next important steps in the educational program of the church. CHURCH RESPONSIBILITY T he budget of the church school should become a part of the budget of the church and the church should feel itself actually respon¬ sible for the educational program offered to its children. Adequate building, equipment, teach¬ ing staff and parental support and cooperation will not be secured until the church regards its school as one of the chief agencies of spirit¬ ualizing the life of the community. AMERICA’S GREATEST PERIL THE SPIRITUAL NEGLECT OF CHILDHOOD IN THE UNITED STATES (UNDER 25 YRS) Children m the U S - - - -53162,000 Roman Catholic—including Ruthenian Cathol<. 8.676.000 Jewish - .... 1,630,000 AU other non Protestant Faiths - 376,000 Protestant. 11 682.0(X) Children whose Parents are not reported as helongtng to any faith | nominally Protestant) ..... Protestant arvJ Nominally Protestant Children not u) anv r»iigious school htdfxturch Utrff cf North America SPIRITUAL ILLITERACY IS THE FORERUNNER OF MORAL BANKRUPTCY AND natio'nal decay Qam RELIGIOUS EDUCATION: The Nation’s Light 11 How Christian Education Builds the New Social Order T he world is in the midst of a social unrest seldom if ever equaled in the history of the human race. Man has failed to preserve the peace of the world. Organized governments are being overthrown and untried social theories are demanding a hearing and a trial. In the early days of our republic we borrowed European educational institutions. We are now in danger of bor¬ rowing European and Oriental theories of society which will overthrow our democratic institutions. The crying need of the hour is for social sta¬ bility. *‘Education is the introduction of control into experience.” “Religious Education is the introduction of control into experience in terms of a great religious ideal.” “Christian Education is the introduction of control into experience in terms of Jesus Christ. It is the task of Christian HOURS OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION PROVIDED ANNUALLY BY PROTESTANT, JEWISH AND CATHOLIC CHURCHES THE PROTESTANT CHURCH MUST PROVIDE MORE TIME FOR RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION Inferchurch HbrJc/ Movemenf (f North Amencs _ GQ 08 education to secure individual and social con¬ trol in terms of the universal mind of Christ, which is the only standard of conduct ‘safe for democracy.’ ” In undertaking the task of building a program of religious education which will undergird society with those moral and religious sanctions which guarantee the stability of the social order, the religious educator will make a com¬ prehensive study of present conditions; he will analyze and evaluate existing methods and processes. It is such a searching diagnosis which the American Religious Education Division of the Survey Department has undertaken. The sur¬ vey is remedial not merely diagnostic. Upon its results it will be possible to build a com¬ prehensive program of religious education. Never before in American history have so many educational experts collaborated on a single educational task. The scope of the survey will be shown by the following classification of schedules which have been prepared by this division. I. RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE LOCAL CHURCH 1. General information 2. Buildings and equipment 3. Individual accounting 4. Curriculum 5. Organization and a,dministration 6. Teachers and officers 7. Supervision of teachers and officers 8. Finance 9. Religious education in the home. 10. Cooperation of the Sunday school in the religious education of the community 11. Educational organizations for young people II. RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE COMMUNITY 1. Community organization for religious education 12 The Nation's Light: RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 2. Community schools of religious educa¬ tion 3. Week-day religious schools 4. Vacation Bible schools 5. Young Men’s Christian Association— city work 6. Young Men’s Christian Association— rural work 7. Young Women’s Christian Association —city work 8. Young Women’s Christian Association —rural work 9. Boy Scouts 10. Girl Scouts 11. Camp Fire Girls 12. Woodcraft League 13. Religious education in the public schools 14. Community census 15. Community music 16. Community art 17. Community drama and pageantry 18. Playgrounds and recreation 19. Community amusements 20. Juvenile delinquency III. RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE HOME 1. General schedule for church families 2. Special schedule for non-church families 3. Special schedule for selected families IV. RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN SPECIAL FIELDS 1. Alaska 2. Hawaii 3. West Indies V. RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF SPECIAL GROUPS 1. Indian schools 2. Juvenile delinquents 3. State and federal prisons and peniten¬ tiaries 4. Schools for blind and deaf RELIGIOUS DISTRIBUTION OF CHILDREN UNDER 25 YEARS OF AGE IN THE UNITED STATES THE AMERICA OF TOMORROW S JEW OR GENTILE? CATHOLIC OR PROTESTANT 7 ATHEISTIC OR RELIGIOUS? Irt/erc/KTCh Mw&jienr