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the interests of the Sunday school, the church, or the schools - many methods must be adopted which fall far short of the ideal, which are merely practicable; but there is all the greater need for a study of ideal conditions, for the erection of a standard with which all may compare their actual achievment. It is common enough to hear sneers at theorists, yet a sound theory or a wise working standard is the strongest assurance of a rapidly progressing growth in effectiveness.

While we of the Council, therefore, seem to be restricted to the opportunity of talking or writing, rather than of doing things, our work will be of supreme and fundamental importance in the proper development of the Association.

Many obstacles have delayed the proper organization of our own work. The membership was not placed on a working basis until September last. Our history has been as follows: while the Council was clearly projected at the Chicago convention of February, 1903, it was not until nearly a year later that twenty-six men, a little over one third of the contemplated membership of the Council, were elected by the Executive Board. To these, seven were added by the Council at its meeting of March 4, 1904, at Philadelphia. On July 20, 1904, the Executive Board increased the existing membership of thirty-three by adding fourteen others, bringing the total membership to forty-seven, which is the present number.

In connection with the meetings of the International Congress of Arts and Sciences at St. Louis in September, in which so large a proportion of our membership participated, and at the time of the semi-annual meeting of the Board of Directors, it was hoped that a good opportunity would be given to the Council to hold a session for the initiation of its work. Such a session was held, but the attendance was not representative enough to warrant the officers of the Council in inaugurating an active campaign. Many helpful views were interchanged, however, and an impetus given to the work of the Council.

Since September the Executive Committee has come to the conclusion that it would refer to this meeting in Boston the responsibility for the inauguration of our important work. We have taken pains to secure from the membership, by correspondence, an expression of opinion in regard to the problems of religious education, to which we must first of all give our attention. The suggestions we have partly formulated in the list of themes for discussion submitted to the Council at its preceding session, and partly presented in the formal program of this hour. It is for the Council to select from these the problems to which we shall immediately give our attention, or to formulate others which shall be more useful.

Of our membership of forty-seven we may truly say that it represents all sections of the country, all types of scholarly mind, all helpful points of view. It follows neither denominational nor sectarian lines. Its one purpose is the attainment of religious truth and its effective presentation to men.

During the year, the Executive Board has classified the greater part of our membership into six groups, the term of the first group expiring in 1905. When our membership is full, the term of each member elected will be for six years, and ten will be elected each year. In these and other details the proper working of the Council begins with this gathering.

THE FIELD OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN AMERICA

PROFESSOR CLYDE W. VOTAW, PH.D.

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

Education is that process of nurture, instruction, and discipline which seeks to develop the character of the individual, and to fit him for social service. In this larger conception of education, which is becoming standard through the thought and activities of educational leaders, there is no difference between education and religious education. The purpose of religious education is exactly that of education. The phrase "religious education" is in use for the reason that we have tolerated a conception of education which limited it to the area of intellectual furnishing and discipline. The phrase is a protest against this limitation. Education must include the religious and the moral elements which are involved in any true development of character and preparation for social service. When the word "education be commonly understood as thus inclusive, the phrase "religious education" will have served its purpose and become obsolete.

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For education is a unit. The education of the moral nature and the education of the spiritual nature are not separable from the education of the intellectual nature and the education of the physical nature. We have recently come to see that the storing of the mind with useful information should not be isolated from the training of the moral and spiritual nature of the individual, and from the training of the body. It is not only in religious circles, in churches, Sunday schools, and theological seminaries, that this better idea must establish itself; in all the schools of the land it is quite as important that it should prevail.

The fact seems to be that this idea of education has been recently illuminated and pressed by educational rather than by religious leaders. We certainly do not forget that the impulse to education came originally from the church, and that the purpose of this intellectual furnishing and training was to increase the ability of the individual to promote religious thought and life. The schools of America were originally established as auxiliaries to the churches. The separation of the schools from the churches has arisen within the past fifty years, partly because of the divisions and controversies among the ecclesiastical organizations as to how the religious element should be presented in connection with the common school work, and partly because many people

outside the churches were dissatisfied to have the particular theological dogmas of the churches taught to their children.

After a period of fifty years, in which this separation has become more definite and widespread, we are now called upon to consider whether we really approve it. Do we wish to see this separation continue and grow until there is a complete divorce between the churches and the schools? Or has it already gone too far, so that we ought to find a way to restore the original union of the intellectual with moral and religious training? The present situation is easy to describe. The sixteen million children who are attending our public schools, and in them are receiving their intellectual equipment and discipline for life, are, many of them, failing to receive the religious and moral equipment and discipline to which they are quite as much entitled, and without which they will become abnormal men and women. It is true, our Sunday schools have a nominal attendance of some eleven million pupils. If this large attendance were real instead of nominal, if the work of the Sunday school were continued through as many years of the child's life as the work of the day school, if the time given to the religious and moral instruction and discipline in the Sunday school were equal in proportion to the time given to that of intellectual furnishing and discipline, and if the quality of the Sunday-school work were as good as the quality of the day school-work, eleven million children out of sixteen million would be fairly well developed religiously and morally. It is a fact known to all, that there is no such equation in work between the Sunday school and the day school. The eleven million children who are enrolled in the Sunday schools of America attend irregularly, and for a fewer number of years than in the day schools; the instruction which they receive is largely by voluntary and untrained teachers; the period of instruction is not more than an hour each week at best; the methods of instruction often lack pedagogical wisdom and fullness of knowledge; and the studies pursued are often conducted upon a desultory, defective plan. The religious and moral education which the children of America receive is therefore inadequate in quality and amount, entirely inadequate.

The present agencies for religion and morality, even if their ideal were the best, their vision of the opportunity perfectly clear, their energy unlimited, and their methods perfect, could not accomplish the work which now requires to be done.

The question arises, Can any larger part of this essential religious and moral education be accomplished in the day schools? Our public schools are not indifferent to religion and morality. While no pro

vision is made in them for specific religious instruction, and almost no provision is made for specific moral instruction, the spirit and the atmosphere of our schools are generally dominated by true religion and morality. The teachers in the schools are nearly always persons of religious spirit and moral character; their influence upon the children. in the schools is religious and moral to a high degree. In the great majority of schools of our country the Bible is regularly read; in a number of states it is required to be read, and in only a few states by recent legal action has its use in the schoolroom been forbidden.

But the Biblical history and the Biblical literature should find a place in the regular instruction of our public schools, at the proper stages in the elementary, secondary, and college grades, side by side. with the history, literature, and ideas of the Greeks, the Romans, and the English. Competent teachers to give this instruction should be provided. It is now assumed that this knowledge will be gained in the home, in the Sunday school, and in the church. To be sure, children who have homes where the Bible is taught, and who attend Sunday school and church regularly and attentively for years, will acquire some knowledge of the Bible. What proportion of the children grow up under such conditions? The Sunday school strives to give a knowledge of the Biblical history and literature, for this task is specifically assigned to it. But its real work is to develop the religious and moral character of the child. The Sunday school rightly makes use of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures in its teaching of religion and morality. But Sunday-school teachers seldom discriminate between facts of the past and the religious teaching associated in the Bible with them. It is the religious and moral training which the Sunday school seeks, not the exact facts of antiquity.

To have the Bible taught in the public schools as history and literature would be to give the Book its rightful place from an intellectual and academic standpoint. Indirectly, also, it would allow the Bible to exert to some extent its strong religious and moral influence upon the student. But is that enough? Or should we have that strong religious and moral influence brought directly and intentionally to bear upon the children in our schools? They need the assistance of its ideas and its inspiration; are they not entitled to them? Shall we not provide in our schools specific religious and moral training to make our children true, capable men and women? In the schools of Greater New York wise provision has been made for moral training, not by way of textbook instruction, but by way of moral ideal, influence and discipline. In other places, specific moral instruction is made a regular part of the

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