USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > The Religious Education Association : proceedings of the first annual convention, Chicago, February 10-12, 1903 > Part 2
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To quote again the psychologist. He puts thrilling emphasis upon this when he reminds us of the old but ever-startling fact that, if conversions occur at all, they occur, with few exceptions, in childhood and youth. Professor Starbuck, after exhaustive inquiries, confirmed by the experience of every one of us, says: "Conver- sion does not occur with the same frequency at all periods in life. It belongs almost exclusively to the years between ten and twenty-five. The number of instances outside that range appear few and scattered.
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That is, conversion is a distinctly adolescent phenome- non. In the rough we may say, conversions begin to occur at seven or eight, to increase in numbers gradually to ten or eleven, and then rapidly to sixteen ; rapidly decline to twenty, and gradually fall away after that and become rare after thirty. One may say that, if conver- sion has not occurred before twenty, the chances are small that it will ever be experienced." His words sound almost like a knell. "One may say that, if con- version has not occurred before twenty, the chances are small that it will ever be experienced."
What then is the conclusion of the whole matter ? Is it not that the Lord's reiterated command, "Feed my lambs," comes to us with redoubled power ? Here among the children and youth is the choicest garden spot in all the Lord's domain. Is there any excuse for not entering the field ?
Is it sufficient for the pastor to say: "I am too busy for the Sunday school, too preoccupied for young peo- ple's work ; I cannot bother myself about the children " ? "The young people's society is a very small part of a minister's concern," said a pastor the other day with an impatient shrug, when urged to go occasionally to his young people's meeting ; and many a minister and Chris- tian worker who does not own his belief so frankly, prac- tices the same indifference.
But what is more important ? let me ask, with all the earnestness I may command. Is study more necessary ? Is the Greek Testament as imperative as the spotless page of the child's soul ? Is the morning discourse the matter of supreme importance ? Is it more important to preach to the sermon-steeped saints who little need sermons, or to sermon-hardened sinners who will not hear them, and from whose well-fortified consciences the truth will rebound like the cannon balls from the steel skin of a monitor? Is the mid-week meeting of the
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church to be elaborately prepared for and never missed, while the young people's meeting is neglected ? Shall we spend all our time appealing to the minds, wills, and emotions of the aged and the middle-aged, and for- get the virgin gold-mine of youthful love and enthusiasm, which will so richly reward one's toil ? ,
The minister or Christian worker who is too busy or too preoccupied to care for the youth in the Sunday school and young people's society is too busy to build up his church. The true servant of God will find time and make opportunity. He will adapt himself to his work, however few his gifts originally in this direction. He will gain for himself the young heart that he may win the young, so that at the last, when his account is demanded, he may say: "Here am I, Lord, and the children whom thou hast given me."
WALTER L. HERVEY, PH.D.,
EXAMINER BOARD OF EDUCATION, NEW YORK CITY
The three social institutions directly charged with religious education are the state, the church, and the home. Each of these has its specific function; neither can do the other's work. All are interdependent ; neither can do its work without help from the others. That the public schools in this country are performing, or indeed can perform, this function, is not always recog- nized. I believe that the work of those schools when well done is essentially and deeply religious-deeply, but not explicitly; dealing with fundamental religious verities, but keeping these in the background; feeling, but not talking much about them. It often happens that the more religious such work tries to be, the less religious it really is. Whenever the work of the public schools is made more effective, that is a forward step in religious education. But it is not and should not be, I think, the aim of the present movement to reform secular
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education as the next step. What then of the home? Religious education doubtless begins at home. So does irreligious education. And there is a sense in which the reform of religious education must begin at home. But in these matters the home gets its impulse and its guid- ance largely from the church. And it is this one phase of the work of the church that I wish to dwell on.
In the church there exist side by side pressing need, large opportunity, and distinct strategic advantage. What is the point in the church on which to focus efforts at reform ? Shall it be the Sunday-school budget, the curriculum, the superintendent, the building, or the teacher ? "The teacher," you say, " let us begin with him ; for without good teachers there certainly can- not be good teaching." When I think of the Sunday- school teacher I am reminded of Thomas Carlyle's kindly remark about the British soldier: "He fought without knowledge of war and without fear of death." Not that the remark applies fully; not that the religious teacher teaches without knowledge of whom, what, or how he teaches-that would be perhaps partly true ; but that the Sunday-school teacher, like the British soldier, has boundless fidelity combined with limited knowledge of his art. The Sunday-school teacher is like the British soldier in another respect. He sometimes has to fight against odds needlessly heavy. The next forward step in religious education, whatever it proves to be, must give help to the teacher in these two ways: first, it must give him ammunition and teach him how to use it; and, secondly, it must not leave him to fight single-handed against odds heavier than odds need be.
First, then, as to the religious teacher, and how he is to be helped.
1. Modern pedagogy is founded upon the principle that in the spiritual world things go, not by luck, but by law. The successful teacher, like Emerson's " successful
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man," is a causationist. He believes that "there is not one weak or cracked link in the chain that joins the first and last of things." As you can twist cannons like wisps of straw, just by taking the proper steps in their order, so you can train the human will by processes of growth.
The great trouble with the unskilled teacher is that he expects adequate results from inadequate causes, and too quickly. For example, he sometimes expects to secure a desired result merely by asking for it or talking about it, forgetting that "whatever the subject-mat- ter may be, the work of the teacher is in nine cases out of ten not done by directly enforcing the ideas he has in mind." Direct enforcement was the way of old Eli, with his impotent "Why do ye so?" Direct enforcement is the way of those lesson-makers who (by actual count) draw from lessons averaging twelve verses each an average of five and one-half moral truths. Five whole truths and one half-truth each Sunday for a year makes upward of two hundred whole truths, and for ten years two thousand. And yet we are not satisfied with the fruits of religious education! No, for we want not more truths drawn, but more truth taught. When once the living truth is set to work in a mind, the truths will take care of themselves. What the teacher was fain to tell outright, the child will then say to himself. This was the way of the prophet Nathan, prince among peda- gogues, who, instead of preaching a sermon to King David, presented a picture of life, and the picture preached the sermon. The religious teacher must learn to plant and to wait.
But scientific teaching demands scientific teachers - trained teachers. I do not mean by this that all those Sunday-school teachers within the sound of my voice who feel themselves ill equipped for the work should forthwith resign. I do not believe in an idealism of the impossible. The next forward step must be a practicable
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step. And to be practicable, it must provide the means of making present teachers better, and future teachers better still.
There are always two possible ways to work reform : to work from the bottom upward, and to work from the top downward. The French Revolution was a bad example of the first way; and a good example of the second way is the reform of the New York police depart- ment, by putting down in Mulberry street one who is every inch a man, giving him the power and holding him responsible. It is this second type of reform that I now advocate. The minister should exalt the teaching func- tion of the ministry. It may be a new thought to many in America, but it has the sanction both of history and of common-sense, that the minister should hold himself responsible, and should be held responsible, for the reli- gious education of those committed to his charge. It is his privilege, and it is his duty, to teach as well as to preach, to be a leader in study as well as a leader in prayer. It used to be said that the prayer-meeting is the test of the church's life. If that be true, attendance at prayer-meeting should be the test of the individual's spiritual condition, and who of us believes that it is? How many conscientious men and women are there who, in this busy world full of vital interests and of Christian service, have long had pressing engagements that keep them regularly away from prayer-meeting? The time will come when a test of the vitality of a church will be eagerness to teach and to be taught; when the minister shall be a religious educationist. And then those who on the night of the mid-week meeting used to have imperative engagements will find that they have time for that which is worth while, even when it comes in the middle of the week.
But, you ask, is the minister also to be a pedagogue ? Is he to occupy a chair as well as a pulpit ? Permit me
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to answer this question by asking another. If the minister is not responsible for this, what is he responsible for? Which one of his multitudinous responsibilities is more vital than that for the religious development of the souls in his church? And again, if the responsibility for religious education is not the minister's, whose respon- sibility is it ? For somebody's responsibility it must be ; and his is the central position. What he fixedly deter- mines to have shall come to pass, whether it be a new church building, or a zeal for Bible study. Consider the effect of the deep resolve of a minister, himself on fire with the spirit of study and of teaching, to make every man, woman, and child in his congregation eagerly inter- ested in the study of the Bible. We get in this world what with singleness of purpose we determine to have.
But not without means. The minister must be taught as well as the teacher. And it is one feature of his prepa- ration that I wish now to emphasize. It is a feature which I regard as essential to the success of any forward movement in religious education. It is a feature for which the time is fully ripe. I refer to the training of intending ministers, while in the theological seminary, in the art of teaching and in the study of the child. The minister must know what good teaching is; he must be a judge of teaching and of teachers. In the seminary he should try his hand at preparing lesson-helps, that he may distinguish good and evil in Sunday-school lessons. He should join the army of those who are trying to adapt the Sunday-school curriculum to the interests, capacities, and needs of the child. He should learn to talk to children without talking down to them or talking over their heads. He should learn to ask educative questions. He should learn the basal laws of Sunday- school organization. Above all, he should learn the meaning of that profoundest of pedagogic maxims: "We learn by doing."
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This is not an academic suggestion; it is a real demand-a demand which the men and women now in theological seminaries are actually making. Where the demand is met, the class-rooms are full. I know of one man, an intending missionary, who at the suggestion of his official adviser took pedagogy instead of homiletics.
The first step is thus a chain of steps. Children must be instructed as well as converted; teachers must be helped to instruct them; ministers must be trained so that they may exalt and fulfil the teaching function of the ministry ; the curriculum of the professional schools, which has already broadened to include missions and sociology, must make room for the science and art of teaching and of organization, and for the study of the child.
2. But the problem of religious education, as of all education, is two-faced: it has to do, not merely with the truth, but with the machinery for making the truth effective. Religious education on the side of organiza- tion is undeniably and palpably weak. Generally speak- ing, there exist no effective arrangements for discipline, for grading, for home preparation, for promotion, for graduation. The course of study is chaotic, without beginning or end; what should be a highroad is a cow- path broken by geologic faults. Sunday-school behavior has become a byword; no one respects an institution that does not respect itself, children least of all. But grading and promotion and home study are not doctri- naire desiderata; they are facts, today realized in many schools, small as well as large.
In one school that I know of, graduation is made a means of grace. It is a mission school of two thousand members. Formerly there were in this school no set course, no requirements for completing the work, no arrangements for honorably severing connection with the school. The boys when they got ready dropped
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out. And then when they met the superintendent on the street, relations were somewhat strained. Neither knew just how the other stood. The lad felt that somehow he had done wrong, but wasn't exactly sure; neither was the superintendent. To remedy this evil an arrangement was made whereby upon completion of a certain required course one could gain honorable dismissal from the school. Those thus dismissed might continue for gradu- ate work by making application each year. The result has been, first, that many more stay to complete the course; second, that many stay for graduate work; and, third, that those who are honorably dismissed hold up their heads when they meet the superintendent or their teacher on the street.
Lack of organization leaves the weight of these prob- lems on the shoulders of the individual teachers -which is as unreasonable as it is unfair. Discipline, for exam- ple, is doubtless largely the teacher's business, but back of the teacher there must be the authority of the school interpreted through the organization of the school. A certain boy who was distinctly bad in the Sunday-school class was observed to be one of the best in the industrial class held on Saturday. "How is it," said the teacher, "that you cut up so in Sunday school and behave so well here?" "Well," said the boy, "here I have something to occupy my mind; in Sunday school I don't."
That suggests one solution of the behavior problem. But along with this there must be in the background the clear idea that those who wilfully persist in disorder will be permitted to withdraw, under compulsion. In prac- tice, however, the frequency of this compulsory segre- gation is in inverse ratio to its felt inevitableness, which, being interpreted, simply means that you won't have to do what you said you'd do, if the boy knows you meant it.
It is sometimes felt that a high degree of organiza- tion is incompatible with a due exercise of personality;
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but, rightly understood and applied, organization rein- forces, not replaces, personality. Instead of forcing teachers to stand alone, with organization we strengthen the individual by the authority, the system, and the spirit of the whole. The true function of machinery in education is to give the educative forces a chance to do their work without loss of power.
The training of religious teachers, including minis- ters, and the organization of religious agencies, including the Sunday school, constitute, in my judgment, the next step forward in religious education. For the accom- plishment of this work a central organization is indispen- sable. And it is because of this need of a central organization, to serve as a clearing-house of ideals, as a bureau of information regarding proposed plans and accomplished facts, and as a central source of light and power, that I am hopeful of the permanent success of the project which is tonight so happily inaugurated.
REV. W. C. BITTING, D.D., PASTOR MT. MORRIS BAPTIST CHURCHI, NEW YORK CITY
By "religious education" we understand training in the knowledge and practice of religious truth ; and that the word "religious" in this connection must be so compre- hensive as to include the vast content of aspiration for moral truth and character which lies outside any realms of ecclesiasticism or dogmatism. But, since action and character are vitally underlaid by truth, we may narrow our definition for present purposes to the limits of edu- cation in the knowledge of religious matters. Christian character is Christian truth personalized. Christian service is Christian truth made concrete in deed. Thus, since the supreme source of Christian truth is the Holy Scriptures, our subject "religious education" means, fundamentally, education in the study of the Bible.
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I. Let us consider some reasons for a forward step in religious education, or Bible study. We set aside all reasons that may arise from purely spiritual considera- tions as being sufficiently recognized, at least in theory, by this audience, and confine ourselves to a statement of arguments that may be drawn from a survey of condi- tions about us. Among these are :
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I. An atmospheric reason. The strides in secular education are immense. The modern giant wearing the seven-league boots is our American educational system. Institutions of learning are expanding not only in endow- ments, but also in facilities for the increase of knowledge. Their graduates rise in the thermometric scale of attainments because of the heat of this educational atmosphere. The public-school system is now so richly developed that in some cases its graduates are better trained than those of many colleges a score of years ago. The organization of the General Education Society for the purpose of stimulating interest in secular education in our entire land, especially in the South ; the endow- ment of a university with $10,000,000 for the express purpose of discovering and helping the unusual man; and the universal advance of our population in general intelligence, are only flashes of forked and sheet lightning that reveal an atmosphere surcharged with educational electricity. Fascinated by this dazzling display of enthu- siasm for culture, the lover of the Bible longs for an equally intense enthusiasm for the knowledge of its truths. But in this increase of culture acquaintance with the Scriptures has an infinitesimal place. The Christian scholar inevitably asks himself why this most precious source of religious truth is not alluringly presented to the otherwise highly educated. It is not strange that this Convention should be an expression of this atmos- pheric influence as it affects sacred learning.
2. The evolutionary reason. Quietly and silently
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there have been at work preparatory energies that have wrought nobly. We must not forget them, nor fail to acknowledge our profound gratitude to God for them. Among them are the International Sunday School Asso- ciation, the Bible Study Union Lessons, the thousands of faithful pastors who have done the best they knew how to do, the scientific spirit of exactness, the passion for fact and the historical method of study that have per- meated the intellectual processes of men, the gravity current of pure fresh air from the higher altitudes of Christian scholarship that has descended upon the plain of common life, and the deep vital yearning to under- stand more thoroughly the contents of the literature whose teachings have done so much for personal and social morality. These and other energies have been noiselessly enlarging our desires, until now myriads feel that the germinal stage has passed and we are to move on in our progress through immaturity one more step toward the full corn in the car.
3. The missionary reason. There are many persons who in one way or another have passed through the dark experience of the conflict between a hunger for reality and the ideas of the Scriptures that fail to satisfy that yearning. They well know the joys of soul that came when they escaped from mechanical bondage to biological freedom, and were ushered into the realm of study, where the divine life once more throbbed through human lives, and they felt for themselves the impact of the holy pulses. This way they have found to shine more and more unto the perfect day. In accordance with the sacred principle of stewardship, what else could one with such an experience crave than that his own joy should be shared by every human being? For one who has had such a taste of truth, to love one's neigh- bor as himself means the everlasting effort to get that neighbor to take some next step forward in his religious
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education. He thinks of millions who are indifferent to the Scriptures ; of other millions who love the Holy Writings, but whose benefits from them are limited by mistaken conceptions of the Book and faulty methods of study. It is the vision of these multitudes that stirs him into a zeal that is none the less missionary because it is educational.
4. The irenic reason. One of our ablest educational leaders, an earnest Christian, and interested in this Con- vention, is reported to have said not long since in a private address to ministers that there is a break between the faculties of religion and learning. The chasm that anywhere yawns between secular learning and theology is due to one of two causes, or both: The misrepresentation of the Scriptures by the theologian, or the prejudice of the secularist. How many scientists have been repelled from religion because the friends of the Bible mistakenly insisted that it was a text-book for students of science ? How many sane men and women have lost all interest in the Holy Writings because their expounders have from these writings deduced errors which they have proclaimed as truths ? Darkness has been arrayed in the garments of the light of revelation. Is the cause of religion so rich in wealth of manhood and womanhood that it can wantonly ignore the personalities and influences of those who are shaping the course of that vast and pervasive educational movement of which we have spoken ? If any next step forward in religious education could be taken with the olive branch of truth as a banner, without compromising the adjective "religious," how desirable that step would be !
5. A preventive reason. Think of the young men and women in our institutions of learning, and the boys and girls in our public and private schools, who six days in the week are taught to study all subjects according to
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processes and canons of investigation dominated by the modern scientific spirit, which is only another name for normality. Is it at all surprising that they soon feel the wide difference between the methods used in secular training and those employed by agencies for religious instruction ? Must it not seem to them very queer that processes so essential in secular education are unused, if not unknown in sacred learning, so far as they can dis- cover ? Ought it to surprise us if these students soon come to believe that a subject is not worth studying at all, which is not worth studying on Sunday according to methods that yield rich fruits in other spheres on week days ? Who can tell how much ignorance of and indif- ference to religious truth is due to the discrepancy and disparity between the intellectual methods employed in the pursuit of secular and sacred truth ? If some "next step forward" can save these multitudes of students from the penalties of ignorance about religious things, or the fogginess of imperfect light, or the death of indiffer- ence, is it not high time that we were taking counsel of wisdom and exerting ourselves to administer the ounce of prevention, rather than wait until the spiritual disease compels us with sweat of soul to attempt the probably vain effort to administer the pound of cure? Preven- tive hygiene is wiser than problematic therapeutics.
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