man. Otherwise, not. It is probably safe to say that every sort of deviation from right may be traced to a lack of this conception and feeling of obligation. Until lately we have been reluctant to talk about the religious element in education lest we should mingle conventional phrases and pious cant with our intellectual discussion. But we have at last come to see that it is utterly unscientific to talk of training for "complete living" a being who is primarily a spiritual being and at the same time to ignore his spiritual nature. We understand now that religion and morals are just as truly, and "scientifically" a part of life as are digestion and sleep, and that we can no more ignore that fact in education than we can ignore the facts of physiology and hygiene. Religion and morals form a part of education because they are a part of "life".

Now in the accomplishment of the end proposed, religious education has before it two entirely distinct, though closely related, ends to accomplish. Failure to distinguish between these two and the assumption that in gaining the first we ought to expect to gain also the second, is likely to cause, unless we are on our guard, a good deal of confusion and to involve us in the danger of partial, if not total, failure. These two ends. attempted in religious education are, first, the mastery of what may be called the materials of religious knowledge, second, the setting up in the individual of right habits of feeling, thought, and conduct. Or, to put the same thing in different words, first, the securing of religious knowledge and intelligence, and second, the development of the religious spirit and character. Obviously the former can be gained without the latter, and it is in the attempt to secure the latter by means that lead to the former that a good deal of disappointment has been encountered and skepticism in respect to the effectiveness of the religious education occasioned.

Consider the first of these two immediate ends, namely, training in the materials of religious knowledge. In what does it consist? Chiefly in a knowledge of the names and general content of the books of the Bible with special stress upon the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, the Parables, the stories of Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, and Daniel, the stories of Ruth and Esther, the outline of the life of Christ, and the

Along with this many teachers

travels and experience of Paul. require their pupils to learn the Apostles' Creed and certain of the forms of the Prayer Book. Training of this sort has formed a large and distinct portion of the education of children in the German schools as well as in those of other nations in Europe. Probably on this side of religious education the children of many of these countries could put American children to shame. One should not in the least discount the value of this sort of thing. It should, however, be borne in mind that it is by no means always accompanied by the development of the religious character and attitude and spirit toward life. One may know the Ten Commandments by memory and systematically break every one of them. Nevertheless it may be repeated, this training has a good deal of value and very often is closely related to the second of the aims named above. For it is clear enough that effective character must have a basis in intelligence.

The second aim to place before us distinctly in religious education is to establish in the individual the actual disposition and power to do righteousness at all times in the simple, firsthand relations and in all the relations of life. In terms more strictly pedagogical this means the setting up of such ideals and the establishment of such habits as will enable us to rely upon the individual for right reactions-righteous conduct.

If the movement for religious education fails here, it fails in all. And if the movement for religious education relies only upon "Bible Study", lectures, and "methods of teaching" it will obviously fail here. The intellectual apprehension of ethics and religion never by itself made a man moral or religious. Morals and religion are terms that denote primarily not an intellectual scheme or a body of knowledge that can be "taught", but a mode of life. How is an inclination to this mode of life to be fixed? Elementary psychology has the answer in what it reveals as to the law of habit. The statement of that law is familiar enough: When you have done a thing you are likely to do it again. When you have done it again, you are likely to do it yet again, and when you have done it a few times more, it will do itself without your will. This is because a thing done leaves its trace in us in a distinct tendency to

repeat it. This is undoubtedly so as a brain and nerve phenomenon, and correlatively, it is true as a psychic phenomenon. But not only is it true that a thing done leaves with us a tendency to do it again, but it is also true that we never do get a tendency to do a thing until we have done it. The moral and religious life is therefore precisely on the same plane as everything else that pertains to practice. You learn to swim by swimming, not by studying books and charts. You learn a musical instrument by actually playing it, not by studying its theory and hearing lectures upon it. You learn the ten commandments, not by committing them to memory, but by keeping them. Progress in the moral and religious life comes only by doing things in a moral and religious way-by living the moral and religious life. If then, we are to gain the real end of religious education, it must be by getting boys and girls to do righteousness. To speak pedagogically, we must preclude abnormal (immoral) reactions by setting up normal reactions. And we are to do this in the faith that a good habit is just as easy to establish as a bad habit, and that a good habit is just as hard to break as a bad habit.

Now all this carries us back to the question, "What is behind the boy's conduct?" The answer is "His ideals." These he will get partly from literature and history. Here we shall use, beside general history and literature, the stories, parables, biographies, and lyrics of the Bible. These organized and taught in the light of modern educational practice should be brought home to boys and girls in a way to delight and to form them. But most of all, we shall always have to look, as the source of the ideals of boys and girls, to the persons. who teach them-parents, pastors, day school teachers, Sundayschool teachers. By far the most potent and effective means for setting up ideals are the persons with whom we associate and to whom we look up with admiration and confidence. The most effective agents in religious education are strong, sweet, wholesome, intelligent, religious men and women, who, associating with the boys and girls day by day, create for them and in them ideals that possess "motor tendency" of irresistible energy. If my boy cannot know both, I would rather he knew a true man or woman in the flesh than the ten commandments in the Book.

The creation of "ideals," the securing of the inclination and power to do righteousness, these are the ultimate end in religious education. Men and women who embody these ideals, who are habitually moved by this inclination are the indispensable agents in securing these ends. We must bear this in mind in organizing religious education. All who believe in this end may work together. It is not a question of creed or denomination. Trinitarians and Unitarians, Protestants and Roman Catholics, Gentiles and Jews, are equally concerned and must alike have at heart the end in view as a preparation for high and true citizenship. The only question that we need to ask and have answered affirmatively in regard to these creators of ideals is, whether they are fundamentally and vitally right in their attitude toward their fellow men and toward God. Children tend to worship and imitate their teachers. A teacher must actually go out of his way in order to shake the instinctive confidence which his pupils feel at first for him. If my boy knows that the teacher whom he loves and admires honors and obeys the law of God, if he believes that that teacher, irrespective of creed, believes that Jesus was right in everything that He said about life, and that He is a faultless example and an infallible teacher, and that to be pervaded by His spirit, to understand His method, to see life as He saw it, and to give ourselves to life as He gave Himself to it, is the highest privilege and the noblest duty-if my boy finds all this in the teacher whom he loves and admires, the boy will, almost inevitably, take the same attitude toward these things.

Let us give our young people the utmost familiarity with Bible story and psalm and parable and prophecy. Let them have trained intelligence in all that intelligence can apprehend of the Christian religion. And let home and day school and Sunday-school see to it that corresponding with this religious intelligence there be set up through habitual conduct such an inclination and power to do righteousness that education shall no longer be chargeable with failure to secure intelligent and moral conduct, without which there can be no good citizen of the republic of men, or of the kingdom of God.

Family Worship

CHARLES RICHMOND HENDERSON, Ph. D., D. D. President, The Department of the Home, Religious Education Association; Professor, The University of Chicago

From many directions come to our knowledge evidences of interest in the awakening of the spirit of domestic religion. Not only do pastors preach on the subject and exhort their hearers to keep alive the flame of devotion at the family altar, but serious thought is given to helps for those who feel the difficulty of giving suitable expression to the deeper thoughts of the spirit.

These difficulties are very great, as may be realized when we consider the complexity of the problem. There is, first of all, the vast distance between the state of adult consciousness and the narrow experiences and undeveloped nature of childhood; and where there are several children the different needs of age and temperament and disposition must be regarded. Yet the very purpose of family worship is to unite all the members in one community of feeling and fellowship and to strengthen in this little society the bond with the universal brotherhood of believers and with the Father of all.

In selecting or composing prayers we must consider the child itself in its own individual devotions; the prayer of a child who may, as at table, lead the thought of all; and the parents themselves when they act as head of the group and seek to voice the needs of all; and the parents when they pray alone.

Among the collections which may be mentioned now by way of illustration is that of Dr. Lyman Abbott, "For Family Worship" (Dodd, Mead and Co., 1883; 455 pages). This volume contains selections of Scriptures arranged under the heads: The Life of Moses, The Life of David, The Life of Christ, The Life of Paul, The Christian Life and Special Occasions. There are prayers for morning, evening, special occasions, short prayers and collects, thanksgiving prayers, children's evening prayers and grace before and after meals. This is a very helpful com