Silver Bay, for the first time the official representatives of the Sunday-school societies of the denominations went on recordand unanimously-in favor of an important principle which has not always been recognized, namely, that the purpose of the Sunday school is broader than merely to teach the Bible, that it is to make efficient Christians, and, therefore, that the Sunday-school curriculum must be correspondingly broadened.

The statement, issued unanimously by the conference, is as follows:

I. Missionary instruction is an essential part of religious education and should be included in the curriculum of every Sunday school.

1. By the missionary treatment of such lessons of the International or other series as are clearly missionary in spirit or content.

2. By the frequent use of missionary illustrations in Sundayschool instruction.

3. By the use of supplemental graded or ungraded lessons. 4. By the regular or occasional use of carefully planned missionary programs as closing exercises for the school.

5. By the organization of mission study classes to meet special needs in the various departments of the school.

II. A missionary atmosphere should be created in the Sunday school through its worship.

1. By the occasional selection for the opening exercises of passages of Scripture bearing directly upon missions.

2. By missionary petitions in public prayer.

3. By the use of missionary psalms and hymns.

4. By the cultivation among the pupils of habits of systematic, proportionate and individual giving to missionary objects. III. The agencies directly or indirectly affecting the Sunday school should co-operate to develop the missionary spirit.

(Here are mentioned the International Lesson Committee, denominational boards, State Sunday-school Associations, theological seminaries, the press, summer conferences and institutes and Young People's Missionary Movement.)

It had been hoped by some that the whole matter of introducing the study of missions into the Sunday school might be taken care of quickly and effectively by asking the International Lesson Committee to assign twelve missionary lessons each year,

"which might be used in the twelve consecutive Sundays of a quarter, or if that be deemed impracticable, to be used once in each month in the year." A memorial to that effect was addressed to the lesson committee by one of the conferences at Nashville at the time of the Student Volunteer convention. But the problem cannot be solved in any such easy way as that. In the first place, the International Lesson committee are not the ones to outline the mission study for all denominations. They are not familiar with the missionary work of all denominations. All they could do would be to assign Biblical lessons on missions in general, the theory of mission, missions in New Testament times, and so on. A little of this is essential but it is certainly true that the missionary lessons that will do for everybody are not quite the best for anybody. It is not so important to study Biblical missions as to study our own missions. Just this definiteness, this personalness, makes the difference, in the child's estimate of the study, between interest and insufferable dulness. Then, too, lessons based on the ten or twelve printed verses from the Bible cannot be effective missionary lessons. Habit is too strong. Most of the teachers would spend all their time directly upon those ten or twelve verses just as usual. Witness the common handling of the quarterly temperance lessons. When we study missions and really mean business, it will be missions outright.

There is one great difficulty about the whole thing, and that is that Sunday-school teachers cannot teach missions without knowing missions. The fact that they do not know the Bible does not seem so serious to them. They are willing to attempt to teach that anyway, for they can extemporize a lesson on the American Board's Missions in the Micronesian Islands or the work of Booker T. Washington. One must know missions to teach them at all. A very complete missionary literature will therefore have to be prepared for the teacher before he will dare to make the venture. He will not then unless he is ready to put a good deal of hard work into the preparation of the lessons. But the study of Missions in the Sunday school is coming. It must come, for it is not right, as Charles Cuthbert Hall has said, "to condemn the children to a life of provincialism in an age of catholicity,"— and it is worse than provincialism, for the young Christian who grows up without the missionary spirit has a Christianity which lacks one of the essential elements of the religion of Christ.

Moral Instruction in the Public Schools

Under the system of instruction in the public schools of France, the work of each day begins with a lesson in morals, usually the elaboration of some specific moral duty. Later the children are required to commit the precept so given to writing. This plan suggested to Mr. Geo. H. Martin, secretary of the Board of Education of the city of Boston, the plan of testing the moral instruction given in the grammar schools of the city by requiring the pupils to compose, without previous preparation, papers on the topics: Our Duties to Our Families, and, Our Duties to Our City.

The following were amongst the papers prepared by these pupils of the grammar grades:

The first duty of any boy or girl is to obey their parents. We may think at the time that we know best, but doubtless they know better or else they would not refuse to grant our wishes.

The second duty of a boy or girl to their family is to help them all that is possible. No boy should ever, unless he is sick, let his mother cut the wood or carry up the coal. He should do these things without being told. He should be willing to take care of the baby, if he has no sister to do it, and if mother has a headache and is not feeling very well, he should sweep the floor and tidy up the room a little, so that it will be looking fairly nice when father comes home tired from his day's work.

No boy or girl should ever get into any kind of disgrace, for disgrace for one is a disgrace for the whole family. We do not realize that when we get into trouble that mother and father are blamed for not teaching us better.

Boys and girls should get all the education possible, and there is no reason why a person cannot get an education nowadays. If he or she has to go to work as soon as they leave the grammar school, there are evening schools to which they can go. Education will help a person to be good as well as wise, if used in the right way. An educated person can do a great deal of good to other people also.

I am a girl of fourteen and am very anxious to do something to help my mother along. My parents both came from northern Italy. My father was in America twenty years before he died, but my mother has only been here seventeen years. All of us five children were born here two of whom died when young. I am the oldest.

When I was five years old I was sent to school which I loved dearly, and I have kept going up to the present time, and I expect to keep on until I graduate from the grammar school in June.

But all this has nothing to do with my "duties to my family." The question is what shall I do for my mother who is striving so hard to have her children educated? Ah! this is indeed a hard thing to answer. Love, of course, is the first thing, but that is not enough, and then my brother and sweet little, little sister, what can I do for them? I shall certainly never forget them. After I graduate I shall work and help my mother.

When I am older I shall make home very comfortable for my aged mother-if God spares her-and my sister and brother whom I love. I shall work hard to give them everything that will make them happy.

OUR DUTIES TO OUR FAMILIES. III.

Time having given me a few spare minutes of leisure, I thought I would use up those precious gems in writing a little account entitled by the above name.

I am a girl of Portuguese parents and am the second oldest daughter in the family and have two sisters younger than myself and have found it my duty many times to assist my mother in household work as she is a very nervous woman. My father came from Portugal forty years ago at the time that the Civil War broke out. They have, I know, suffered and endured many a hardship for my sake, and I hope that the time is not very distant when I feel that it is my obligation and right to repay them back. A father enjoys nothing better than to see his son or daughter well prospered in this world. I have often heard my mother remark, while at her daily toil, that she hopes that when she closes her eyes that I will be left fitted for the world's lessons.

I have been to school nine years and during all those nine years I have been clothed, fed and sheltered by the sweat of my parents' brows and now it is my turn and pleasure to support them. They are already gray-haired and somewhat disabled to work.

Sweet is a mother's name, for, as we pronounce that sacred word, our lips seem to connect both love and affection. Our mother is the greatest friend that we possess or ever will possess in this world, and though far we may roam and have many things we desire yet nothing can fill her place, for it must be remembered it is her who loves you and brought you to the place where she expects our tribute.

What is my greatest duty to my parents then? In response to this interrogation I say, that as for me love and affection for them shall always dwell in my soul, and if I have love for them, that will prompt me to do for them all that they need.

OUR DUTIES TO OUR CITY.

As residents of the city of Boston, we should try our utmost to preserve and protect it. The city has organized several departments which look after the protection of its people, two of which are the police and fire departments. It gives us right to vote and make our laws and has done in a word almost everything to make it comfortable for the resiIdents of the city.

To help keep these various departments running, the city says we shall pay taxes, and this is a very important business. We should be as prompt in paying our taxes as possible and should not keep putting them off from day to day.

Boston has a great system of public schools and it costs a great deal of money to keep this system in good condition. The schools supply us with paper, books, teachers and all that is necessary to get a good education, and we in turn should do our best to use the means given us with great care. We should see that no injustice is done to the city property and if there should be we should report it at once. We should not destroy any parks or playgrounds and should help to keep them in good condition.

In all we should not abuse in any way the great and prosperous city of Boston, which does so much for us, and we can justly say that there is no city in the country that does any more for the welfare of its people than Boston.

The Rochester Convention

Preliminary Announcement of the

NEXT GENERAL CONVENTION

As announced in the last number of RELIGIOUS EDUCATION, the next general convention will be held in Rochester, New York, the date finally selected being Tuesday to Thursday, Feb. 5 to 7.

The plan of the Rochester convention contemplates a general session each morning and evening, while the different departments of the Association will hold their meetings in the afternoons. The theme for the whole convention will be "THE MATERIALS OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION." On the first evening "The Biblical Materials in Religious Education" will be discussed under the following heads:

"The Value of the Old Testament in Training for Citizenship."

"The Application of New Testament Ethics to Modern Life." "How Shall Biblical Ideals be Made Dominant in a Commercial Era?"

In addition there will be, on the first evening, an address of welcome and the president's annual address.

On Wednesday morning there will be a consideration of Nonreligious Aids in Religious Education, including:

"The Moral Value of Physical Training."

"The Ethical Results of Scientific Study."
"The Christian Element in English Literature."

"The Education of the Street."

"The Religious Value of Amusements and Recreations." These addresses are to be followed by discussion, each speaker being limited to three minutes.

The Wednesday evening General Session will be in the charge of the Department of Churches and Pastors. The general theme being "Education Through Church Activity," with topics: "The Place of Individuality in Church Life."

"Materials Discovered in Pastoral Work."

"The Influence of Philanthropy on Christian Thought." "The Effect of Missions on Christian Consciousness."