How to Teach Religion Part 4

To be a true end of education, knowledge must be of such nature that it _can be put at work_. It must relate to actual needs and problems. It must have immediate and vital points of contact with the child's common experiences. The child must be able to see the relation of the truths he learns to his own interests and activities. He must feel their value and see their use in his work and in his play. This is as true of religious knowledge as of knowledge of other kinds. The religious knowledge the child needs, therefore, is a knowledge that _can at once be incorporated in his life_. To supply the child with knowledge of this vital, fruitful sort becomes, then, one great aim in the teaching of religion.

But knowledge alone is not enough. Indeed, knowledge is but the beginning of religious education, whereas we have been in danger of considering it the end. Many there are who _know_ the ways of life but do not follow them. Many _know_ the paths of duty, but choose an easier way. Many _know_ the road to service and achievement, but do not enter thereon. If _to do_ were as easy as to know what to do, then all of us would mount to greater heights.

The att.i.tudes aim.--Life demands _goals_ set ahead for achievement. It must have clearly defined the "worth whiles" which lead to endeavor.

Along with the knowledge that guides our steps must be the impulses that drive to right action. Besides knowing what to do there must be inner compelling forces that _get things done_. The chief source of our goals and of the driving power within us is what, for want of a better term, we may call our _att.i.tudes_.

Prominent among our att.i.tudes are the _interests, enthusiasms, affections, ambitions, ideals, appreciations, loyalties, standards, and attachments_ which predominate. These all have their roots set deep in our emotions; they are the measure of life's values. They are the "worth whiles" which give life its quality, and which define the goal for effort.

Chesterton tells us that the most important thing about any man is the _kind of philosophy he keeps_--that is to say, his _att.i.tudes_. For it is out of one's att.i.tudes that his philosophy of life develops, and that he settles upon the great aims to which he devotes himself. It is in one's att.i.tudes that we find the springs of action and the incentives to endeavor. It is in att.i.tudes that we find the forces that direct conduct and lead to character.

To train the intellect and store the mind with knowledge without developing a fund of right att.i.tudes to shape the course of action is therefore even fraught with danger. The men in positions of political power who often misgovern cities or use public office as a means to private gain do not act from lack of knowledge or in ignorance of civic duty; their failure is one of ideals and loyalties; their att.i.tude toward social trust and service to their fellow men is wrong. The men who use their power of wealth to oppress the poor and helpless, or unfairly exploit the labor of others to their own selfish advantage do not sin from lack of knowledge; their weakness lies in false standards and unsocial att.i.tudes. Men and women everywhere who depart from paths of honor and rect.i.tude fall more often from the lack of high ideals than because they do not know the better way.

The goal and the motive power in all such cases comes from a false philosophy of life; it is grounded in wrong att.i.tudes. The education of those who thus misconceive life has failed of one of its chief aims--_to develop right att.i.tudes_. Hence character is wanting.

The conduct, or application, aim.--The third and ultimate aim of education has been implied in the first two; it is _conduct, right living_. This is the final and sure test of the value of what we teach--how does it find _expression in action_? Do our pupils think differently, speak differently, act differently here and now because of what we teach them? Are they stronger when they meet temptation from day to day? Are they more sure to rise to the occasion when they confront duty or opportunity? Are their lives more pure and free from sin? Do the lessons we teach find expression in the home, in the school, and on the playground? Is there a real outcome _in terms of daily living_?

These are all fair questions, for knowledge is without meaning except as it becomes a guide to action. High ideals and beautiful enthusiasms attain their end only when they have eventuated in worthy deeds. What we _do_ because of our training is the final test of its value. Conduct, performance, achievement are the ultimate measures of what our education has been worth to us. By this test we must measure the effects of our teaching.

Summary of the threefold aim.--The _aim_ in teaching the child religion is therefore definite, even if it is difficult to attain. This aim may be stated in three great requirements which life itself puts upon the child and every individual:

1. _Fruitful knowledge_; knowledge of religious truths that can be set at work in the daily life of the child now and in the years that lie ahead.

2. _Right att.i.tudes_; the religious warmth, responsiveness, interests, ideals, loyalties, and enthusiasms which lead to action and to a true sense of what is most worth while.

3. _Skill in living_; the power and will to use the religious knowledge and enthusiasms supplied by education in shaping the acts and conduct of the daily life.

True, we may state our aim in religious teaching in more general terms than these, but the meaning will be the same. We may say that we would lead the child to a knowledge of G.o.d as Friend and Father; that we seek to bring him into a full, rich experience of spiritual union with the divine; that we desire to ground his life in personal purity and free it from sin; that we would spur him to a life crowned with deeds of self-sacrifice and Christlike service; that we would make out of him a true Christian. This is well and is a high ideal, but in the end it sums up the results of the religious _knowledge, att.i.tudes_, and _acts_ we have already set forth as our aim. These are the parts of which the other is the whole; they are the immediate and specific ends which lead to the more distant and general. Let us, therefore, conceive our aim in _both_ ways--the ideal Christian life as the final goal toward which we are leading, and the knowledge, att.i.tudes, and acts that make up to-day's life as so many steps taken toward the goal.

SELECTING THE SUBJECT MATTER

After the aim the subject matter. When we would build some structure we first get plan and purpose in mind; then we select the material that shall go into it. It is so with education. Once we have set before us the aim we would reach, our next question is, What shall be the means of its attainment? When we have fixed upon the fruitful knowledge, the right att.i.tudes, and the lines of conduct and action which must result from our teaching, we must then ask, What _means_ shall we select to achieve these ends? What _material or subject matter_ shall we teach in the church school?

The subject matter he presents is the instrumentality by which the teacher must accomplish his aims for his cla.s.s. Through this material he must awaken thought, store the mind with vital truths, arouse new interests, create ideals and lead the life to G.o.d. As the artist works with brush and paint, with tool and clay, so the teacher must work with truths and lesson materials.

Guiding principles.--Two great principles must guide in the selection of subject matter for religious instruction:

1. _The material must be suited to the aims we seek._

2. _The material must be adapted to the child._

The tools and instruments the workman uses must be adapted to the purpose sought. Ask the expert craftsman what kind of plane or chisel you should buy for a piece of work you have in mind, and he will ask you just what ends you seek, what uses you would put them to. Ask the architect what materials you should have for the structure you would build, and he will tell you that depends on the plan and purpose of your building.

The material must fit the aim.--What materials of religious truth should the teacher bring to his cla.s.s? The answer is that truths and lessons must be suited to the aim we seek. Would we lead our children to understand the Fatherhood of G.o.d and to love him for his tender care?

Then the lessons must contain this thought, and not be built on irrelevant material. Would we lead youth to catch the thrill and inspiration of n.o.ble lives, to pattern conduct after worthy deeds? Then our lesson material must deal with the high and fine in character and action, and not with trivial things of lesser value.

So also, if we would capture the interest of childhood for the church school and bind its loyalty to the church, the subject matter we offer and the lessons we teach in the house of G.o.d must contain the glow and throb of life, and not be dry and barren. If we would awaken religious feeling and link the emotions to G.o.d, we must not teach empty lessons, meaningless dates, and musty facts that fail to reach the heart because they have no inner meaning.

Small use to set high aims and then miss them for want of material suited for their attainment. Small use to catalogue the fine qualities of heart and mind we would train in our children and then fail of our aim because we choose wrong tools with which to work. Not all facts found in the Bible are of equal worth to children, nor are all religious truths of equal value. Nothing should be taught _just because it is true_, nor even because it is found in the Bible. The final question is whether this lesson material is the best we can choose for the child himself; whether it will give him the knowledge he can use, train the att.i.tudes he requires, and lead to the acts and conduct that should rule his life.

The material must fit the child.--The subject matter we teach _must also be fitted to the child_. It must be within his grasp and understanding. We do not feed strong meat to babes. What may be the grown person's meat may be to the child poison. It does no good to load the mind with facts it cannot comprehend. There is no virtue in truths, however significant and profound, if they are beyond the reach of the child's experience. Matter which is not a.s.similated to the understanding is soon forgotten; or if retained, but weighs upon the intellect and dulls its edge for further learning.

There can be little doubt that we have quite constantly in most of our Sunday schools forced upon the child no small amount of matter that is beyond his mental grasp, and so far outside his daily experience that it conveys little or no meaning. We have over-intellectualized the child's religion. Jesus was "to the Greeks foolishness" because they had no basis of experience upon which to understand his pure and unselfish life. May not many of the facts, figures, dates, and events from an ancient religion which we give young children likewise be to them but foolishness! May not the lessons upon some of the deepest, finest and most precious concepts in our religion, such as faith, atonement, regeneration, repentance, the Trinity, be lost or worse than lost upon our children because we force them upon unripe minds and hearts at an age when they are not ready for them?

Let us then, _not forget the child_ when we teach religion! Let us not a.s.sume that truths and lessons are an end in themselves. Let us constantly ask, as we prepare our lessons, Will this material work as a true leaven in the life? Will it take root and blossom into character, fine thought, and worthy conduct? While our children dumbly ask for living bread let us not give them dead stones and dry husks, which cannot feed their souls! Let us adapt our subject matter to the child.

The use of stress and neglect.--That the lesson material printed in the Sunday school booklets is not always well adapted to the children every teacher knows. But there it is, and what can we do but teach it, though it may sometimes miss the mark?

There is one remedy the wise and skillful teacher always has at his command. By the use of _stress_ and _neglect_ the matter of the lesson may be made to take quite different forms. The points that are too difficult may be omitted or but little emphasized. The matter that best fits the child may be stressed and its application made. Ill.u.s.trations, stories, and lessons from outside sources may be introduced to suit the aim. Great truths may be restated in terms within childhood's comprehension. The true teacher, like the craftsman, will select now this tool, now that to meet his purpose. Regardless of what the printed lesson offers, he will reject or use, supplement or replace with new material as the needs of his cla.s.s may demand. The true teacher will be the master, and not the servant, of the subject matter he uses.

HOW SHALL WE ORGANIZE AND PLAN THE LESSONS?

When the _content_ of the subject matter has been decided upon then comes its _organization_. How shall we arrange and plan the material we teach so as to give the children the easiest and most natural mode of approach to its learning?

The great law here is that _the arrangement of subject matter must be psychological_. This only means that we must always ask ourselves how will the child most easily and naturally enter upon the learning of this material? How can I organize it for the recitation so that it will most strongly appeal to his interest? How can I arrange it so that it will be most easily grasped and understood? How can I plan the lesson so that its relation to immediate life and conduct will be most clear and its application most surely made?

The psychological mode of approach.--I recently happened into a junior Sunday school cla.s.s where the lesson was on faith. The teacher evidently did not know how to plan for a psychological mode of approach to this difficult concept. He began by defining faith in Paul's phrase as "the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen." He then went to the dictionary definition, which shows the relation of faith to belief. He discussed the relation of faith to works, as presented in the writings of James. But all to no avail. The cla.s.s was uninterested and inattentive. The lesson did not take hold. The time was wasted and the opportunity lost. I excused myself and went to another cla.s.sroom.

Here they had the same topic. But the teacher had sought for and found a starting point from which to explain the meaning of faith in terms that the children could understand. The teacher's eye rested for a moment on John; then: "John, when does your next birthday come?"

"The sixteenth of next month," replied John promptly.

"Going to get any presents, do you think?" asked the teacher.

"Yes, sir," answered John with conviction.

"What makes you think so?" inquired the teacher. "Not everybody does receive birthday presents, you know."

"But I am sure I will," persisted John. "You see, I know my father and mother. They have never yet let one of my birthdays pa.s.s without remembering me, and I am sure they are not going to begin to forget me now. They think too much of me."

"You seem to have a good deal of _faith_ in your father and mother,"

remarked the teacher.

"Well I guess I _have!_" was John's enthusiastic response.

And right at this point the way was wide open to show John and the cla.s.s the meaning of faith in a heavenly Father. The wise teacher had found a _point of contact_ in John's faith in the love and care of his parents, and it was but a step from this to the broader and deeper faith in G.o.d.

It is a law of human nature that we are all interested first of all in what affects our own lives. Our attention turns most easily to what relates to or grows out of our own experience. The _immediate and the concrete_ are the natural and most effective starting points for our thought. The distant and remote exert little appeal to our interest; it is the near that counts. Especially do these rules hold for children.

Making sure of a point of contact.--All these facts point the way for the teacher in the planning and organization of material for his cla.s.s.

The point of departure must always be sought in some _immediate interest or activity in the life of the child_, and not in some abstract truth or far-away lesson, however precious these may be to the adult Christian.

And no lesson is ready for presentation until the way into the child's interest and comprehension has been found. Many a lesson that might have been full of rich spiritual meaning for the child has been lost to our pupils because it was presented out of season, or because the vital connection between the truth and the child's experience was not discovered by the teacher.

This principle suggests that in the main children should not be taught religious truths in terms which they cannot grasp, nor in such a way that the application to their own lives is not clear. For example, the vital truths contained in the church catechisms are not for children; the statement of them is too abstract and difficult, and the meaning too remote from the child's experience. Many of the same truths can be presented to children in the form of stories or ill.u.s.trations; other of the truths may rest until the child becomes older before claiming his attention. Bible verses and sentiments completely outside the child's comprehension are not good material for memorizing. Lessons upon the more difficult concepts and deeper problems of religion belong to the adult age, and should not be forced upon children.

Our guiding principle, therefore, is to _keep close to the mind, heart, and daily life of childhood._ Then _adapt the subject matter we teach to the mind, interests, and needs of those we teach._ Definitions, rules, abstract statements, general truths have little or no value with children. It is the story, the concrete incident, the direct application growing out of their own experiences that takes hold.