The first three parts are learned by heart,- Bible, Creed, Luther, and all,— and what it means to know by heart, one can hardly imagine until one has heard a Prussian boy recite his catechism. Of the fourth and fifth parts, only the Biblical passages are usually learned by heart. This makes the total amount of the catechism memorized about eight pages. This is, as we shall see, only a small part of the total memory-work of the religious instruction, and yet the present requirement is far less than that of thirty years ago. The place of the catechism in the school amounts to this: that a work written chiefly for illiterate peasants of the sixteenth century forms the text book of morals for boys and girls of all grades of culture in modern Germany. It is not surprising that the loudest complaints against the religious instruction are directed against the catechism. It is surprising that there seems, for the present, no hope of its ejection. 3. Hymns and Prayers. The study of hymns extends over the whole eight years. In the early years, single verses are learned; later, whole hymns. Here, as in all German school-work, everything is explained and analyzed with great care before the pupil is required to learn it, and the pupil must be able to explain and analyze it himself. I trust that no one will think that I mean to imply that the children really understand all this religious material which is so patiently and thoroughly explained to them. 26 In Berlin, a total of one hundred twenty-four verses are learned, including fifteen whole hymns and some single stanzas. The favorite authors are Paul Gerhardt and Luther. The hymns are mostly of the type best described as pietistic. Two favorites, well known in English translation, are Luther's "Eine feste Burg" and Gerhardt's "O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden!" "A Mighty Fortress is our God" (tr. F. H. Hedge); "O Sacred Head now Wounded" (tr. J. W. Alexander). It need hardly be added that the pupils learn to sing these hymns as well as many others, and they sing them with inspiring power and perfection. Some of the hymns are wonderfully fine, but most contain a sentiment entirely foreign to the child's range of ideas. Prayers are learned in the first three or four years, and are used in opening and closing school at all times. Nearly all the children know two or three prayers when they first come to school, - a morning prayer, a bedtime prayer, a "grace before meat," and a "grace after meat." A few more are learned in school. All are extremely simple, and, like the hymns, of a distinctly pietistic tone. 4. Church Knowledge. The material which I include under this heading is as follows: In the sixth year, instruction in the Church year, and the liturgy of the Evangelical Church. In the seventh year, the last religion lesson of each week is usually given in part to an explanation of the Church lessons for the following Sunday. In the eighth year, a very brief and simple outline of Church history is given, treating mainly of Luther and the Reformation, with a view to arming the good Protestant against the wiles of Catholicism, but also including such topics as: The Persecutions, Constantine the Great, Augustine, Contemporary Activities of the Church, and the like. III. SPIRIT AND METHODS. Under this head I can touch only lightly the general treatment and atmosphere of the religious instruction. Some teachers treat the religion lesson in exactly the same way as they would a lesson in geography or arithmetic, making it purely a matter of so much knowledge; others give it the air almost of a prayer-meeting. Between these extremes there are all intermediate varieties. The intellectual tone is prevalent in the higher schools in general, and in Prussia in particular. In the great majority of these schools the religion lesson has no more emotion than any other lesson, and of no other kind. The intellectual treatment is by no means confined to the higher schools, nor to Prussia. It is common, also, in the Volksschulen, especially among the younger teachers. There is much reason to believe that it is on the increase. I met the devotional method in Prussia only among the older teachers and some women teachers. The current of public feeling and the new scientific thought that is gaining so rapidly among the common school teachers are against it, and seem likely to drive it out in the end. On the other hand, much as we may disapprove the purely intellectual treatment, there is a devotional type which is hardly less objectionable, a sort of prayer-meeting tone and phraseology, which are quite out of place in school, and with children of school age. This brings us to the vital point of the German and all other religious instruction-that is, the teacher himself. Whenever I have heard. good reports from a German youth about his Religionsunterricht, it has always been with some such words as "We had a fine teacher in this or that class, and I enjoyed religion, and got good from it." There are two fatal faults in the teacher of religion, indifference and insincerity, and two vital necessities, love and wise candor. The Prussian system, unfortunately, makes these two virtues difficult; the stringent methods and discipline discourage affection between teacher and pupil, and the rigid orthodoxy required in the religious instruction destroys candor by compelling the teacher to present as sacredly true, statements and ideas which his conscience and judgment reject. IV. RESULTS. What is the actual outcome of this great religious instruction? Without some sort of answer to this question, we cannot make any final estimate of its value or significance, nor any inferences as to our own problem. The Germans themselves are far from agreed on the point. Some think the religious instruction is the source of great and almost unmixed benefit; others condemn it, root and branch. And while its bitterest enemies may be the enemies of religion, there are not wanting earnest churchmen who declare that it works untold injury to all true piety. There is an oft-quoted saying of an eminent theologian, that the German people must have much religion in their hearts, inasmuch as the Religionsunterricht has not yet rooted it all out! It would not be far wrong to summarize German opinion thus: Instruction in religion is absolutely indispensable, but the existing instruction is completely out of harmony with the best thought of the day and stands in need of radical reform. I venture the following as to results: The pupils certainly get a large stock of knowledge on religious matters, of the Bible, of the great conceptions of Christian doctrine, and of the Evangelical Church. How much this is worth, and how long it is retained, are questions not easily answered. It seems quite undeniable that the religious instruction does not produce devotion to the Church, either in the sense of interest in its work, or of adherence to its tenets. The growing estrangement from the Church, especially among the laboring classes and the cultured, is one of the most conspicuous features of German life. Indeed, it is hard to avoid the conviction, held by many Germans, that the religious instruction, with its rigid inculcation of a body of ideas antagonistic to current thought, is one of the potent factors of this estrangement. It is conservative to say that there is no good proof that the religious instruction is any more effective in creating inward religion and morality than in producing devotion to the visible church. That in the hands of earnest and high-souled teachers, the religious instruction can be and is the means of deep and lasting moral and spiritual good, no one can doubt. In conclusion, a word as to the inferences for our problem. I suggest five: 1. The great fact of the instruction itself, and the almost unanimous opinion among German schoolmen, that religious instruction is an indispensable part of the school, ought to incline us to weigh our own situation, and ask whether we are not robbing our school of an essential organ. 2. There is no hope that we can borrow either wholesale or in detail from the Prussian system, without searching criticism. 3. Any hope of sustaining, by means of religious instruction, any cult or dogma in opposition to the best thought of the day, is an illusion. Knowledge of religious concepts and doctrines may be inculcated, but this by no means insures any particle of genuine religion. 4. Here, as there, the person must be found; the man or woman with warm heart and clear head. His moral teaching must be instructive and persuasive, never dictatorial nor dogmatic; he must work most by being, as a wise man has said, the imitable thing, in morals and religion. 5. Lastly, a word as to the Bible. The wisest German thinkers on education see in the greater prominence of the Bible the salvation of the Religionsunterricht, and are urging with much success that all other matter be made subordinate to it. The exclusion of the Bible from our schools is a staggering fact, when viewed in the light of a great system of public schools with the Bible. In some of the smaller German states and in Switzerland, the Bible is in the schools, and the teacher's conscience is free. If Prussia would learn from this example, her religious instruction might gain new power and stability. And who can estimate the uplift that could come to us from the presence of the Bible in the school? But only with the spirit of freedom. A few of the most available books on the subject are: Russell, James E. German Higher Schools. pp. 213-226. New York, 1899. Secondary School System of Germany. New York, 1900. ORIENTAL CUSTOMS WITH RESPECT TO THE INCULCA TION OF RELIGION AND MORALITY I. IN CHINA HON. CHESTER HOLCOMBE FORMERLY SECRETARY OF LEGATION AND ACTING MINISTER, PEKIN, CHINA Chinese and American systems of education do not have a common purpose. The Oriental teacher does not seek to convey information to his pupil. Hence he needs not the text-books which give the latest discoveries, the most recent researches, the most modern methods, formulæ, and devices in all the wide range of knowledge. Intellectual development even is not the main object of Chinese study. In point of fact, aside from learning to read and write, the cultivation of the memory, the art of versification, style in composition, in which the Chinese surpass the entire Western World, there is nothing in common between the American and Chinese ideas or methods of education. In the Chinese schools no mathematics and no sciences, however rudimentary, are taught, nor any language, aside from the national tongue. Such stray bits of history and geography, often inaccurate, as are found in the various text-books are there quite incidentally, and only because they serve to illustrate or enforce some other point, deemed of far higher importance to the student. The answer to the question which forms the subject of this paper, What are the Chinese Customs of Inculcating Morality? can be given in a single line. The entire system and course of Chinese education is devoted to instruction in civic and social ethics. The governmental examinations are shaped exclusively to that end. Not to communicate knowledge or learning, but to mold character; not to make men smart, but good; to instil right principles of action and conduct; to teach each his relations and duties to his fellow, is the primary and final purpose of the school in China. Hence revised editions of modern text-books are hardly needed. A careful study of the ethical system taught will show that it is sound, pure, and good. It is necessary now to examine very briefly the character of the moral instruction, and in doing so, the accuracy of the assertion just made will be evident. The first book, or primer, invariably used in Chinese schools is called the San Sz Ching, or Trimetrical Classic. It was prepared by a teacher in A. D. 1050, for use in his school, and may be bought in any village in the empire for about two cents. It is in poetry, or doggerel, and |