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New Forces in Religious Education
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2011
Extract
In 1866 a certain clergyman in New York wrote a discourse to which he gave this characteristic title: “Christian Education the Remedy for the Growing Ungodliness of the Times.” The production won in its day sufficient fame to be preserved as a pamphlet in the Harvard Library; but there it has long remained unsought, its presumptions of finality dependent at last, for even a bare reading, on some whim of historical curiosity. One need not so much as glance at the discourse to know why it lies, with many a like effort, quite forgotten. The title tells the story of its dogmatic temper, its easy ignorance of ends and means, its lack of insight into childhood. The point of view is naïvely, comfortably, loftily external: it recognizes no great problem in its subject, no need for new data, new thought, new purposes. Discourses of that sort are not written now—or, if written, not preserved.
With every year, to be sure, far more is printed on the same general topic than was ever printed in the sixties. Even the inattentive lay reader cannot escape contemporary discussion of religious education; but the modern discourses are of a new kind. The Poole's Index list of magazine articles under Religious Education shows this growth and change with striking concreteness. Beginning in 1802, the Index for eighty years includes only fifteen references to the subject, all of which are serenely general in character. “Religious Education for the Masses”; “The Religious Education of a Family”; “The Religious Education of Children,” these titles fairly represent the kind of treatment which this topic inspired during the nineteenth century. The record in the Index for the four years beginning in 1902 offers a sharp contrast. There are thirty references under Religious Education, and of these a large majority bear titles which show that they are scientific in temper. They are intensive studies in the history or the principles of religious education, or formulations of definite problems in its theory or practice. These titles are characteristic: “Religious Education before the Reformation”; “The History of Religious Education in the Public Schools of Massachusetts”; “The Need of a Professional Consciousness in Religious Education”; “The Philosophy of the New Movement for Religious Education”; “The Place of Action in Religious Education;” “Scientific Aspects of Religious Education”; “The Relation of Religious Education to Science.”
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1910
References
1 See vol. i, no. 2; vol. ii, no. 3; vol. iii, no. 3; vol. vi, nos. 2, 3; vol. vii, no. 2; vol. viii, no. 4; vol. xv, no. 2.
2 The Improvement of Religious Education; The Bible in Practical Life; The Aims of Religious Education; The Materials of Religious Education; Education and National Character. (The Religious Education Association, 72 East Madison St., Chicago.)
3 Cf. Hall, G. Stanley, “Relation of the Church to Education,” Pedagogical Seminary, vol. xv, no. 2,Google Scholar and Parkinson, William D., “School and Church,” School Review, September, 1905Google Scholar.
4 Cf. Hughes, P., “Types of Religious Attitude,” American Journal of Religious Psychology and Education, vol. ii, no. 2.Google Scholar
5 Cf. Gulick, L. H., “Religious Aspect of Group Games,” Pedagogical Seminary, vol. vi, no. 2.Google Scholar
6 Cf. W. B. Forbush, The Boy Problem.
7 Cf. the numbers of Religious Education for 1909–10.
8 See the address by Professor Peabody, F. G. in Religious Education for April, 1909Google Scholar.
9 See the survey by Professor Moore, E. C. in Religious Education for October, 1909Google Scholar.
10 See chapter i of The School and Society, by John Dewey, University of Chicago Press, 1900.
11 The Proceedings of the Religious Education Association continually emphasize this need. In May, 1908, the Council of the Association issued a call to colleges and universities to provide in their departments of education special training in religious pedagogy.
12 Coe, , Education in Religion and Morals, p. 282 ff.;Google Scholar Proceedings of the Religious Education Association, vol. i, pp. 108, 117, 122 ff.; vol. ii, pp. 21, 46, 51 ff.; vol. iii, pp. 67, 333 ff. Also, on the general question of home responsibility, Lee, Joseph, “The Integrity of the Home a Vital Issue,” The Survey, December 4, 1909Google Scholar.
13 See almost any number of Religious Education, but especially the issue for April. 1909.
14 Pro: The California Prize Essays on Moral Education, Ginn, 1908. Contra: Crooker, Religious Freedom in American Education. The German system is frequently reported and discussed in educational magazines.
15 Witness such recent titles as Henry Suzallo, The School as a Social Institution; Colin A. Scott, Social Education; Paul Natorp, Sozialpädagogik.
16 For a survey of progress from this point of view see the “Report of Educational Progress,” Proceedings of the Harvard Teachers' Association for 1909, School Review, May, 1909.
17 McGiffert, A. C., How may Christianity be Defended Today? Hibbert Journal, October, 1908.Google Scholar
18 Coe, G. A., Religion as a Factor in Individual and Social Development, reviewed in the American Journal of Religious Psychology and Education, vol. i, no. 3;Google Scholar also in Proceedings of Religious Education Association, vol. i, p. 45.
19 See Fairchild, E. M., “The Function of the Church,” American Journal of Sociology, vol. ii, no. 2.Google Scholar
20 I mean such writers as Coe, Starbuck, and Oosterheedt. They do not form a school in any literal sense.
21 There is an admirable discussion of this point in Blow's Educational Issues (1909), chap. iii.