The Religious Education Association stands for no school of biblical interpretation, no denomination and no institution. Its members are found in all groups of Bible students, in all the religious communions and in many different institutions whose purpose is the promotion of Christian intelligence and activity. In one thing alone do all friends of the association agree. That is, that the best principles and methods of instruction should be applied in the teaching of biblical truth; that religious education has remained too long hesitant and unscientific in an age which is devoted to pedagogical studies, and that no further time should be lost in applying the USEFUL PRINCIPLES of instruction to this most important branch of education.

There is, to be sure, a theory abroad in certain quarters, to the effect that religion suffers in proportion to the amount of attention bestowed upon principles and methods of teaching, that all time devoted to the science of education in relation to religious instruction is wasted, and tends only to obscure the truth to be taught. In the words of an advocate of this view, "The head must be emptied before the heart can be filled."

It is hardly supposable that any large number of conscientious and informed friends of religious education will take this extreme view of the matter. Certainly a people which has devoted so much attention to the perfecting of educational plans as has the American public will be little likely to abandon such ideals when the most important of all disciplines is under consideration.

No doubt there is a type of intellectualism which acts as a barrier to the personal attainment of vital religious truth. Religion becomes a theory rather than an experience. It is possible to subordinate the content of religious instruction to pedagogical

rules and class-room methods. Against this error none would protest more earnestly than the members of the Religious Education Association. Their purpose is not the exploitation of any one plan, but the obtaining of much-needed results.

But the present condition reveals little danger in the direction of over-elaborate theories or undue refinement of method. Rather is there too little attention given to such principles of teaching as have emerged from profound and painstaking study of the subject during the past decade. It is the application of these results to religious teaching that the Association seeks. It aims to bring the army of public school, college and university teachers who are experts in the art of instruction, but to whom the question of the content and nature of the proper religious training is somewhat perplexing, into vital relationship with the active promoters of the religious life, such as ministers and Sunday-school workers who have a normal and satisfying knowledge of the Christian life for themselves, but are perplexed in their efforts to impart its nature and significance to others.

It is evident that each of these groups needs something which the other possesses. Without the knowledge which the trained. teacher has acquired the Sunday-school instructor becomes merely hortatory and emotional, lacking both accuracy of biblical information and the ability to present biblical truth. Without the interest in the ethical and religious which the minister and Christian worker possesses, the trained teacher is in danger of becoming academic, secular and indifferent to the highest ends. of education. The function of the Religious Education Association is the mingling of these two interests. The work of the Association provides opportunities for such acquaintance and common effort as shall assist in solving the problems of both groups.

No religious instruction will ever be competent that is not provided by a teacher in whose life the truths of ethics and religion have vital and controlling place. This much may be accepted as fundamental. But to these essential qualities there need to be added such studies in the nature, history and message of the Bible, the mind of the child and the science of teaching as shall make the work of religious instruction definite, not random, informing, not hortatory, and fruitful, not wasted.

The Child's Self-expression and

Religious Education

GEORGE E. DAWSON, Ph. D.

Professor, The Hartford School of Religious Pedagogy, Hartford, Connecticut

According to biology, life may be described as a series of interactions between the individual and its environment. The environment supplies the stimuli called air, light, heat, food, other living creatures, and, among men, social manners, customs, institutions, knowledge, etc. The individual responds to these stimuli, appropriates or rejects them, uses or misuses them. The result is, life, complete or incomplete, progressive or retrogressive, as the case may be. It is this individual response to environment, this reaction of living creatures to stimuli in ways that determine their character, that I mean to describe by the term "self-expression."

Self-expression thus understood, is the vitalizing principle of life and mind. The material world is not food, shelter, clothing, protection, for animal or man, until it is appropriated through the particular forms of self-expression suitable to its uses. A hungry animal or man must seek food, and every cell of the organism must actively assimilate it, before the body can be nourished and the hunger satisfied. The spiritual world is not actualized as love, faith, hope, truth, until the soul of man has expressed itself somehow in terms of these great realities. Life, in brief, as we are told in Holy Writ, does not consist of the things a creature possesses. It consists rather of the quantity and quality of selfhood that are called forth by these possessions. Life is a thing dynamic, active, responsive, self-determining and hence creative. Biologically speaking, it is not our surroundings but what we do with them, that is the important thing, fundamentally. Two individuals may eat the same kind of food, but they will assimilate it differently, and the results, estimated in organic energy, will not be the same. They may read the same book, but what they get out of it will depend upon the kind of reaction they individually make to it.

Neurology adds emphasis to this biological conception of selfexpression. The brain has been developed largely through the motor responses to sensation; that is, through the self-expression

of the neurones that have to do with physical action. There is not only a sensory mechanism to receive the in-coming stimuli, but also a motor mechanism, to provide for the outgoing discharge of energy. Stimulus, response, sensation, movementthis sums up the primary functions of the brain. The relatively large motor areas of the latter prove how great has been the influence of expression in developing the organ of the mind, and how important must be this expression, daily and hourly, in determining its blood-supply and the resultant nourishment and elimination of waste. The conclusion is irresistible that the nervous system is fashioned, racially and individually, according to the types and degrees of self-expression. Man is unique among living creatures not only because he was made so at the beginning, but because he has become so thorough doing the things peculiar to his manhood. In a very vital and practical sense, he has created himself. So, too, the individual is not only born a man; he becomes a man by fashioning for himself a brain that can feel the feelings and think the thoughts that are human. This he does, in a large measure, according as he lives or is allowed to live, on the level of most complete self-expression.

Fræbel was the first to make extensive application of the principle of self-expression to the instruction of children. He regarded self-activity as the creative factor in the child's life. Through it, the child shares the divine nature itself, and becomes a co-operator with God in creating an ever new world. Froebel emphasized self-activity under two aspects: First, education should see to it that the child does things for himself-appropriates the world of knowledge through his own eyes, ears and hands; creates the world of his own soul through activities selfinitiated-parents and teachers merely providing a favorable environment and supplying the proper stimulus. Second, education should see to it that the child's whole self is active,-not a part of his being merely, as the intellect, or some particular faculty, but the entire being, as expressed in feeling, intellect and will. Thus, according to Fræbel, education should help the child to express his whole self, realize in objective achievements the best powers of his nature, and so co-operate with God in the creation of his own soul, through activities suited to a self-conscious and self-determining being.