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Froebel presents a child in his threefold relationship: he is a child, of nature by his physical inheritances, a child of humanity by his social inheritances, a child of God by his religious inheritances. The child has relations by virtue of his inheritances of body, soul, and spirit with these three worlds. The education of a child consists in bringing him to understand this threefold relationship. Our experience as Christian teachers has been meager, or our eyes blinded, if we have not seen the souls of children expand, as well as the souls of those who taught them, as they have walked these plain paths into the larger truths of the divine revelation.

In what is distinctly known as secular education, formal instruction, or what might be called the library method, is being displaced by what might be called the laboratory method, for in the light of modern psychology it is seen that the soul makes its larger acquisitions by indirections. 'If you will do, ye shall know." This is the Christian law of mind. Activity opens all the channels of approach for truth to the soul.

How can one know God? By formal instruction in Biblical literature and history, by a mastery of the manuscripts or a memorizing of the catechism? Does a child know God when he can recite the books of the Bible or tell the Ten Commandments? The knowledge of God must come by experience and activity. Even formal instruction in the Scriptures will not induce a religious life. The Bible is not religion, nor does it contain religion. It is a description of religion.

Formal instruction has a small place in religious experience, if that experience consists in the knowledge and love of God and the consequent joy. There must be a larger method. The culture of soul results from or consists in its reactions. No impression without expression can ever be healthy or helpful. An impression which simply flows in at the pupil's eyes and ears and in no way modifies his active life is an impression really lost. It is psychologically incomplete. As a mere impression, an impression is a failure. It must produce some motor consequence to be of worth; the only durable impressions are those in the light of which we speak or act.

Learning must be transformed into life. One would not expect to find the yeast if he made a cross-section of a loaf of bread. A cow eats grass all day, but we do not expect the cow to give grass. She is expected to give milk. A boy may study arithmetic and learn to do a few examples correctly. He can tell if each shoe is to have five nails, how many it will take to shoe a horse. But suppose the horse's shoes needed six nails? He is baffled because he has found a case which was not met by his example; but when he masters the principle of which

his sum is but an illustration, he can address himself to the problems of life as they come.

The larger method is satisfied with no education unless it organize in the resources of the human soul those powers of conduct which shall fit him to live in the world of men and things. This, too, ought to the the ultimate aim of the teaching in the Sunday school, to organize capacities for conduct, and what he learns on the Lord's Day to be so related to what he learns every day that he will see that his every-day life affords a laboratory for conduct; the activities and relations of the home, the school, and the play-ground become a part of the one great life which he is to live in the application of religious principle to

action.

Religion is a life to be lived, and the world demands of the educational work of the Church that those who are instructed in its Sunday schools shall be equipped for living the life of God in His large world. The world demands that the science of psychology shall claim its whole field and no longer consider the knowledge of religious truth as the one exception to the great laws of mind.

The Bible is the great text-book for the Sunday school, but does not the Bible adjust itself to these larger demands of modern education? It may well form the curriculum of study, may well be made the basis of the religious education. We go to botany to learn what men have proved to be the laws which govern the flowers; we go to grammar to learn what men have proved to be the laws of expression; we go to nature to learn what the ages have proved to be the great laws of life; we go to the Bible for the principles of religion, for the Bible is a record of religious experience, an expression of the religious life.

The adaptability of the Scripture to the varied needs of the growing life is apparent. In early childhood the prevailing mental life is through sense-perceptions. The world of things is first, and the Bible meets the child at the threshold of his temple of learning with a revelation of God in His works. The heavens and the earth are the first elements which appeal to him. Through these he gets the first glimpses of the glory of God. The sense of God's power, His wisdom and His law will induce reverence, trust, love, and obedience in the child soul. The interests of the growing boy are largely personal. He loves people and is interested in what they do. Just here the Bible offers the attractive narrative, the movements and achievements of heroes, and one by one the boy may become familiar with the great characters, the great movements, the great epochs, and the great Life, and through these gain a knowledge of God's care, His providence, His

protection, and, as by a revelation, find it easy thinking from spelling father with a little "f" to spelling it with a big "F."

In like manner, as the abilities, the interests, and needs of the distinct stages of development of soul-life appear, the Bible seems to melt and pour itself into the waiting matrix, making possible a selection of lesson material adapted to the mental powers, the fundamental interests, and the spiritual needs of the expanding soul. At every point of his progress in the knowledge of religious truth, the Bible will command the intellectual respect of the student and awaken his enthusiastic interest; his religious and moral needs will be supplied by truth suitable to them, even as these needs widen and become more complex, and his expanding life will steadily acquire strength, breadth, and symmetry. By such a method no truth will be unassimilated, for each will enter into the character, the new will be related to the old, and his religious education in the knowledge of God will be co-ordinated with his culture in other fields.

How pitiably inadequate our present Sunday-school methods seem when the greatness of the text-book and the sacredness of the human soul are considered. The farther from the shore, the deeper the sea; the higher the hill, the wider the prospect; the deeper the shaft, the more precious the metal. For the larger culture of mind let there be the profounder and more scientific study of the Bible.

Through the training in the Scripture one may gain the sensitive conscience. The full sensitizing of conscience cannot be realized without an intelligent mastery of the great ethical principles underlying the institutions of Israel. The Old Testament writers seem to have planted their feet immovably upon the one great fact, viz.; that this world was built on righteousness and administered on principles of justice. The Prophecy of Habakkuk is the ægis of municipal reform; the Prophecy of Amos the hand-book of social ethics; the prophet Isaiah, the ideal statesman.

Why do our young men leave the Sunday school? Because we have not been wise enough to present to them opportunities for the study of such rich lives as Isaiah, Josiah, and Samuel. Young men with studious minds crave sharp distinctions; they draw rigid lines of demarkation. They accept no compromise. Conscience is dominant in youth and needs the splendid girding which such a training in the great moral struggles of the leading characters in the Bible can alone afford.

Again to the training in the Scripture must one look for the power of a well-girded will. The kingdom of heaven is a kingdom of divine

intention. The sublime secret of the greatest life is that He came

to

do the will of God." The most dramatic picture in all the revealed word of God is the waiting Deity looking with silent scrutiny upon the sons of men to see if there was one who did His will, when the silence is broken by the voice of the eternal Son of God dedicating Himself to obedience in the words," Lo, I come to do thy will, in the volume of the book it is written of me."

Again, training in the Scripture alone can give a pure heart. “I have hid thy word in my heart, that I shall not sin agaist thee"; "Already ye are clean, through the word which I have spoken unto you." Here, then, is the man of God perfect, thoroughly furnished unto every good work. To make such a man is the supreme function of the Sunday school. To the realization of this purpose the Church of God in the world to-day is summoned by a clarion note from the skies, and to this she is urged by the enthusiasm for education which is thrilling the thoughtful world; to this she must be drawn by the pathetic appeal of lives imperfect, imprisoned, and imperiled, lives stunted and starved, lives ignorant and indolent, lives prejudiced and palsied, lives that might have been strong, brave, hopeful, tolerant, symmetrical, and useful if the Church had done her duty by them.

Let the Church school in the new century be the center of her power. As she has commanded the service of the best architects in building her houses of worship and demands the trained and equipped musicians to lead in her service of song, let her command, for the instruction of the youth, the trained teachers who, believing their work to be the highest on earth, will bring to their tasks intelligence and devotion, science and consecration, and make full use of the Book of God in building the noble structure of the man of God who shall be perfect and thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

IN THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS

GEORGE ALBERT COE, PH.D.

JOHN EVANS PROFESSOR OF MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY IN NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

1. The Associations have Become Teaching Bodies. The Young Men's Christian Associations constitute a movement in practical religion. They have endowed no chairs for investigating religious theories; they have formulated no confession of faith; they entertain no purpose of taking the place of the churches as teachers of doctrine. The evangelical formula contained in the definition of active member

ship is not applied to individuals, but to churches. It is not a creed or a program of teaching, but rather a means of securing and holding a definite constituency. In the future, as in the past, the chief work of the associations will consist in supplying to young men and boys certain incentives and privileges that the churches, as a rule, do not provide. Nevertheless, the teaching function is growing. First, the coming of the student association brings in the idea of spiritual growth or education through study. Second, the establishment of boys' departments means essentially the religious education of boys. Third, the growth of association Bible-study directly involves formal instruction.

Within the last seven or eight years the associations, federated under the International Committee, have become a great teaching body. In their classes are enrolled 11,000 boys, 26,000 students, and 25,000 other men over 60,000 in all. Nearly 1,200 employed officers, and nearly 700 other men, besides some thousands of student leaders, have charge of classes. More than twoscore different courses are provided; written examinations are now offered, and a beginning has been made in the gradation of pupils and of courses. The educational idea is so fully adopted by association leaders that psychology, the study of adolescence, and the principles of teaching have a place in the curriculum of training for secretaries.

II. The Theory of Association Teaching. What is formally taught to these 60,000 pupils? An answer is not easy, for there is no absolute dividing line between formal and informal instruction. Any belief that is constantly assumed by a teacher, though it be never formally stated, acquires the force of positive instruction. Theoretically, however, the associations have a definite policy. If we divide Biblical material into theories (including doctrine, philosophy, and hypotheses of criticism), facts (including ascertained knowledge of the Biblical history and literature), and duties (including all insight into the universal laws of spiritual life), then we may say that all Association study is intended to focus upon duties rather than facts or theories. The aim is to bring out the truths that are vital for the pupil's character and growth, and for society's well-being. This is called devotional and practical study.

The courses vary with the pupils. For boys, stories are provided that enrich the imagination and purify the ideals; for working-men, railroad men, soldiers, sailors, salesmen, and accountants, more or less detached topics that bear directly upon personal religion; for collegians, courses more detailed and more systematic.

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