A survey of religious education in the local church

Front matter

rvey of

eligious Education in the Local Church

WILLIAM CLA YTON BOWER

Author's Preface

With the introduction of the scientific method into the theory and practice of religious education the time has arrived for the definite measurement of results. While religious education was yet in the empirical stage of its development, churches, supervisors, and teachers might be content with the consciousness that they were " doing good," without any very precise definition of what the "good" was, so long as their efforts were in the right general direction and they could see the more or less tangible results of their labors.

Recently, however, the entire theory and practice of religion has been subjected to criticism, specific aims are being formulated on the basis of a sound philosophy of education, experiments have been made in the construction of suitable courses of study, a search has been made into the psychology of child development and the laws that govern the formation of character, and method is in a way to be standardized on a scientific basis. The church is becoming profoundly awakened to its responsibility and opportunity. The workers in religious education can no longer be content with xii Author's Preface

a vague satisfaction that they are doing good. The actual results of the theories upon which religious education is proceeding, the process itself, and the present agencies of religious education must be subjected to thorough analysis and criticism with reference to carefully formulated standards and tests.

It is with a view to aiding groups of students in religious education, local churches that have become awakened to their educational responsibility, and groups of administrators and teachers in the Sunday school in making a careful survey of the work of religious education in the local church that this study is given to the public. It is largely the result of the use of the method of the survey among a group of students in the department of religious education in the college in which the author is at work. It is, in a measure, a witness to the increasing penetration of the scientific method into this new and promising field and a prophecy of a still more thoroughgoing use in the future of the scientific method in religious education.

In order to make the work of the largest value it has been thought advisable to present a somewhat full treatment of the survey method. Many students will come to a consideration of this subject

Author's Preface xiii

without previous study of the social or educational survey. It would be undesirable, however, to endeavor to use the method in religious education without an adequate recognition of what has already been accomplished in the other fields.

Lexington, Kentucky June 15, 1918

Part I. The Survey Chapter Page

I. The Scientific Method 3

II. The Survey 14

III. The Social Survey 30

IV. The Educational Survey 43

V. The Survey in Religious Education . . 62

Part II. The Schedule

VI. The Use of the Schedule 81

VII. A General Schedule for the Survey of

VIII. Departmental Schedules 147

A. The Elementary Division 147

B. The Secondary Division ../... 154

C. The Adult Division 160

IX. Schedule for Observing a Class Recitation 164

Bibliography 169

PART I THE SURVEY

Chapter I The Scientific Method

Only within recent years has the scientific method begun to make itself felt in religious education.

The Sunday school had its rise as an aspect of the philanthropic movement in education on the Continent and in England in the eighteenth century. Consequently its initial motive was humanitarian, and this motive found expression in the attempt of Robert Raikes to improve the intellectual and moral conditions of the ragged waifs of Gloucester. In America, from the * beginning, the motivation of the Sunday-school movement was slightly different from that in Europe, in that it placed greater emphasis upon the religious than upon the philanthropic aspects of its work. But even so, during the expansive period that falls within the nineteenth century the impulse that led to the organization of schools throughout the Mississippi Valley and on the western frontier was primarily missionary. The earliest Sunday-school secretaries were evangelists and missionaries. Even yet the urgency of the movement arises from a real but more or less indefinite desire to do good and to extend the Kingdom of God.

In the earlier period of the development of the Sunday school the teaching conditions were anything but favorable to a scientific procedure. The buildings of liturgical churches were constructed primarily for the maintenance of ritualistic worship; those of the non-liturgical Protestant church were constructed primarily for the purpose of hearing sermons. Consequently, until recently the work of religious education in the local church had to be carried on in sections of auditoriums shared by many classes or in corners of buildings devoid of equipment and wholly unsuitable for teaching. The supervision of the educational work of the church was intrusted to well-meaning but untrained superintendents who were not directly responsible to the church, and who devoted their time and energies chiefly to the promotion of an institution rather than to the administration of a course of study, the management of a corps of teachers, the supervision of the teaching process, and the setting up of educational standards. The teaching body was recruited from among those persons in the church who possessed deep piety, an intense devotion to the work of the Kingdom, and the spirit of service, but little or no educational training or experience. The materials of instruction consisted of uniform lessons for the whole

The Scientific Method 5

school covering the entire Bible superficially in repeated cycles. The method was empirical, unsupervised, and uncriticized in the light of technique or definitely formulated standards. There were no definite measures by which such results as were obtained could be evaluated. Quite naturally the results were unpredicted and uncontrolled.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, however, the scientific method, which had previously so thoroughly taken possession of secular education, has begun to modify religious education. Educationists of the highest rank have become interested in the introduction of the educational ideal into religion as well as in the introduction of the religious ideal into education. The field and subject-matter of the psychology of religion have been marked off from the other types of the race's reaction to its total environment. The psychology of the religious development of persons has been differentiated from the general field of genetic psychology. A special method for teaching the materials of religion, as distinguished from general method or from special method in dealing with other bodies of subject-matter, is being worked out on a psychological basis. A beginning has been made in the selection and arrangement of the materials of instruction in graded lesson courses covering the developmental period of life.

Churches, in increasing numbers, are erecting modern plants designed to meet their educational needs. An increasing number of specially trained directors of religious education are being employed to set up and administer programs of religious education in the local churches. The agencies for the preparation of educational leaders of the church, including departments of religious education in colleges and seminaries, have greatly increased. A slight beginning has been made in the working out of standards and tests in religious education. These are indications of the penetration of the scientific method into religious education and a prophecy of the working out of a theory and practice upon a sound educational basis. ~-The scientific method rests upon four fundamental concepts. The first of these concepts is objectivity. Science seeks to know the facts. It is outward-looking rather than inward-looking. It seeks to eliminate the sources of error that arise from the inward mental states of the observers — the " idols" of the " tribe," the "cave," and the "theater," which Bacon perceived to be the enemies of sound judgment. It seeks to base its conclusions and its procedures upon things as they exist in fact.

The second concept is induction. Facts, merely as facts, have no value for science. Only when they come to have significance in purposive think-

The Scientific Method 7

ing do they contribute to real knowledge. Science seeks the widest acquaintance with the facts; it notes their relations of sequence and of grouping; it arranges them in series and classes; and when it has done this it proceeds to form generalizations, which it calls laws. It follows that the spirit of science is that of open-mindedness ; its conclusions are tentative, awaiting the appearance of undiscovered facts. It does not hesitate to modify or to reject a previously formed conclusion when that conclusion is seen to be at variance with growing experience.

Still another concept is verification. The scientific spirit is not content with unverified opinions. Its methods are those of precision, quantitative measurement, and criticism. To the scientifically trained mind the justification of any educational procedure, body of materials, or method is to be found, not in a theory, but in measurable results. It is not enough for the scientific educator to feel that his efforts are in the main being exerted in the right general direction and that they are producing, on the whole, good results. He must know precisely what his objective is, what the specific means for its attainment are, and precisely in what degree he has or has not attained his end. This involves the setting up of aims on the one hand and of standards and tests on the other, in the light of which the entire process may be judged.

A final concept of the scientific method is prediction. As the scientific worker accumulates data and grows surer of his conclusions therefrom, he is no longer content simply with observing facts. He is filled with a confidence that he can predict results from given causes, and that in so far as he can control the causes he can control the results. The spirit of science is therefore not passive but active. It is not content to be a witness of processes in which it has no part; it becomes creative and forward-looking and lays its hands upon the forces that shape the future.

The method of science, therefore, may be said to be that of observation, classification, generalization, and verification. This method is employed in a restless tugging at the forces of life in an effort to control a predictable future. This accounts for the steady extension of man's power over the forces of nature through his inventions. Nor are we able to perceive as yet the limits of the extension of his control. This also accounts for the fact that more recently, as the result of the findings of the social sciences, man is growing more and* more confident of his power to control the future direction of human progress. Society itself is becoming self-conscious and self-directing. — The history of every positive science passes through two well-defined stages. The first of these stages is the curious observation of phenom-

The Scientific Method 9

ena as they occur in the undisturbed processes of nature or of society. Sequences and groupings of phenomena are noted as they occur in experience under both similar and varying circumstances. In this manner relations and causes are discovered, such as the expansive power of steam, the law of gravitation, or the distribution of population according to food supply, climate, and elevation. In this stage the scientist remains a curious but passive observer. In the second stage, however, passive observation passes over into active experimentation. Situations are deliberately created, conditions are modified at will, new factors are introduced or previous ones withdrawn, and the results are observed. In the first of these stages science becomes self-conscious; in the second it has become self-directive. In the first stage it is appreciative and critical; in the second it is dynamic and creative. With the entrance of science upon the second stage of development progress becomes positive, certain, and rapid.

Scientific method begins by observing things as they are and noting the results which are being secured. But if progress is the end in view, then these results are scrutinized in the light of things as they ought to be. The actual is held up in the light of the ideal. Certain results are judged to be desirable, while others are judged to be undesirable. Such judgments are formed on the basis of certain io Religious Education in the Local Church

scales of values which represent the things that are most and least worth while, and between these extremes the relative worthfulness of every intervening degree of value.

With the evaluation of results the attention is shifted from the results to the process that has produced them. The process is analyzed for its factors and its conditions with a view to discovering the specific causes of particular results. Analysis, in turn, is followed by the crowning act of science — the reconstruction of the process itself. Experimental science rearranges conditions, withdraws undesirable causes, and introduces desirable factors, and then proceeds again to measure results; and so on indefinitely and patiently until it has at last secured the results for which it seeks. It is in this ability to reconstruct the process that the efficiency of scientific method lies as an instrument of progress.

The physicist, the chemist, and the biologist have long used the method of reconstructive science in the discovery of truth and in the control of the processes of nature. The social engineer has adopted this method as the instrument for improving the social environment in which men live their lives. The educationist has come to feel that by the employment of this method education has become the fundamental method of progress. Have not the workers in the field of religious educa-

The Scientific Method ii

tion a method at hand for creating a type of mind that will make its adjustment to the world a distinctly religious adjustment ?

The present study is based upon the assumption that there is now a sufficient basis for the introduction of the scientific method into religious education. The institutions contemplated in this study are the agencies for religious education in the local church, and in particular the Sunday school, the church school, or the department of religious education, as it is variously designated. The Sunday school has been in operation for more than a century and a third. It has developed an elaborate, world-wide organization. It has arranged materials of instruction, the most advanced of which have been in use since 1908. It has developed a technique of instruction. Manifestly it should be possible to evaluate the results that have thus far been obtained. And it is now time, in the light of these results, to scrutinize the organization, the materials, and the procedure of this agency with a view to judging its adequacy to meet the increasing demands for a sound religious education which the church and democracy are making upon it.

Shall not churchmen feel, as educationists and social statesmen have come to feel in their respective fields of endeavor, that upon a forward-looking and creative religious education is to be placed their chief dependence in seeking to forward the interests of the Kingdom of God ? If so, they can no longer be content with accepting uncriticized results in the formation of the spiritual character of the coming generation. Society has no more responsible task than this which it has committed to the church of the twentieth century. The educational agencies of the church must be reconstructed and again reconstructed until they are adequate for producing the results in the spiritual life of the young which the church and society have a right to expect of them. In this process of \/ reconstruction it is the privilege of the timehonored and historic Sunday school to take the lead. Under the influence of sound, reverent, and constructive scientific method it is capable of increasing usefulness to the Kingdom of God.

In its earliest development the primary motive in the work of the Sunday school was philanthropic, with the emphasis in America upon the religious aspects of its work. Its earliest methods were not scientific. But with the beginning of the twentieth century the scientific method began to affect the work of the Sunday school with evident results. The scientific method rests upon the concepts of objectivity, induction, verification, and prediction. It seeks to control the future by a knowledge of

■ The Scientific Method 13

the laws and forces that govern nature and human life. The positive sciences pass through the observational and experimental stages. The scientific method, beginning with the results, attempts the reconstruction of the process and so becomes the chief instrument of progress. The scientific method, which has been employed with such satisfactory results in the natural, social, and educational sciences, may well be employed as the fundamental method in religious education. Religious education thus becomes the means by which the church may exercise social control over the future of its own life.

Chapter II

The instrument upon which social and educational workers are coming to place their chief dependence in measuring the effectiveness of institutions and processes is the survey, as embodying the practical aspects of the scientific method. The survey is a very modern device. The method itself was first used privately by Charles Booth, who made a careful study of the conditions of living and labor among the people of London, an investigation that extended over a number of years and consumed a considerable part of his fortune. The results of this study were published in his Life and Labors of the People in London in 1902. The first use of the term " survey," however, and the first conscious organization of the method of the survey date from the Pittsburgh Survey in 1907.

i Tne earliest field in which the survey was employed was that of applied social science, in which field, up to the present time, it has been used most extensively. The first social survey undertook the study of a great American industrial community where many of the social problems were most acute. The Pittsburgh Survey was undertaken by the Russell Sage Foundation in 1907, under the personal supervision of Mr. Paul U. Kellogg. The report of this survey was published in six elaborate volumes. 1

The spread of the survey idea was immediate and rapid. 2 On the basis of the Pittsburgh experience numerous other cities undertook similar surveys, until at the present time there are few large communities that have not made a careful analysis of their social conditions or their municipal administrations. The use of the method was rapidly extended to numerous special subjects, such as public health, housing, charities, delinquency, mental hygiene, recreation, and vice, as well as to a more intensive study of local districts and to rural communities. By June of 191 5 more than three hundred social surveys of one type or another had been completed and the reports of their findings published. 3 Since that time the number has greatly increased. The indications are that the social survey is to undergo even further extension as a means of social self-criticism and intelligent, purposive progress.

1 The Pittsburgh Survey (6 vols.). Russell Sage Foundation.

2 Paul U. Kellogg, "The Spread of the Survey Idea," Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, July, 191 2.

3 Zenos L. Potter, The Social Survey: A Bibliography. Russell Sage Foundation, Department of Surveys and Exhibits, 19 15.

The other field in which the use of the survey has been found most resultful has been education. The term " survey" and the survey method were first used in education in a study of the school systems of Montclair and East Orange, New Jersey, by Professor Hanus, of Harvard University, and Professor Moore, of Yale University, in 191 1. Since then increasing dependence has been placed upon the survey in educational science. Up to June of 1 91 5 thirty surveys of municipal school systems, state systems, and universities had been completed. 1 Since then the number has greatly increased, and there are many in progress. There is every reason to expect that the survey will be relied upon as much in education as it has been in social economy.

During the decade which has witnessed the origin and expansion of the survey method, it has undergone large development through use. The earliest surveys were experimental. Gradually there has been acquired a better command of the procedure, and the time has now come when, out of large experience in its use, a definite formulation of the technique of the method is possible. Early in 191 7 the Russell Sage Foundation collected and systematized this experience in a handbook on method. 2 The literature on the survey, while

1 Zenos L. Potter, The Social Survey: A Bibliography. Russell Sage Foundation, Department of Surveys and Exhibits, 1915.

2 Handbook. Russell Sage Foundation, 191 7; see also M. C. Elmer, Technique of Social Surveys, 191 7.

considerable, is fragmentary and consists of numerous reports of studies, many of which are quite elaborate, and of scattered articles in journals and magazines.

Meanwhile the field of the survey has been defined and its method of procedure quite clearly outlined. It is in no sense to be confused with an investigation which presupposes failure in efficiency or blameworthy neglect of duty on the part of individuals, and the object of which is to bring those guilty of misconduct or neglect to account. The object of the survey is not to discredit a system, an institution, or persons. It is quite as intent upon discovering the strong and commendable features of a situation as it is upon discovering its weak and faulty features. It is wholly impersonal. Its one object is to take ai careful inventory of conditions as they exist, and to analyze them with a view to discovering ways by which improvement can be secured. It takes the workers involved into confidence, seeks their co-operation at every step, and relies upon popular judgment in making known its findings and its recommendations. It proceeds upon the principle that the institutions and processes which it studies are social institutions and functions, that they contribute to the well-being of the group, and that the social group is directly responsible for them. The survey is a democratic institution.

It has been found an effective and dependable instrument for measuring the social efficiency of democratic institutions. It rests upon the fundamental assumption of social responsibility. The >^- method of the survey involves five principles.

i. It makes a careful inventory of existing conditions. In a group where social responsibility is shared by the many, as in a democracy, it is absolutely essential that the people should know the facts about their community and their institutions. And yet, chiefly because the sense of social responsibility is in many cases wanting, there is in most communities and institutions a serious lack of accurate knowledge concerning existing conditions. Often the bringing of wrong conditions to the attention of the public is sufficient guaranty that they will be righted, but the chance of improvement is exceedingly remote as long as the public remains in ignorance of real conditions. Frequently those who are immediately the agents of society themselves do not know. As long as the facts are not brought out into the light and analyzed the administration of public functions must follow a rule-of-thumb procedure, and results may or may not be socially valuable. Contrary to this hit-or-miss method the survey seeks for facts. It attempts to construct an accurate picture of things as they are.

Furthermore the survey studies conditions, not as they exist in general or over large areas, but as they exist in relatively narrow and local situations. It takes into consideration the circumstances under which particular conditions or tendencies have arisen and the whole complex of relations and conditions of which they are a part. It is thoroughly concrete. For this reason it studies the situation as a whole and not as made up of sharply separated and isolated parts, seeing that each part is dependent upon every other part. This is particularly true of the social survey, as will be shown later.

2. The survey makes use of expert knowledge. Only expert knowledge, in one form or another, knows what to look for, how to distinguish the essential from the nonessential, how to analyze the situation, how to detect its adequacy or its inadequacy. Expert knowledge brings to the particular and the local situation the larger perspective, the deeper insight, the understanding of fundamental principles, that have been abstracted from many particular situations. It capitalizes the whole of experience in dealing with a relatively small fragment of it.

In most of the social and educational surveys an outside group of experts is called in to assemble the data that are material to the study, to diagnose the situation, to point out the problems that are of significance to the local community, and to make recommendations for improvement. There are advantages in this method. The local community may not be fortunate enough to possess any of the outstanding authorities in the particular field to be studied. It is also possible for one outside of the situation to study it more objectively, because he is not a part of it and has no other than a professional interest in it. From experience he will probably understand the technique better. In other cases one or more expert advisers are called in to analyze the problems of the field, to organize and train the local investigators, and to supervise the work of collecting and arranging the data. This throws the burden of the actual work of investigation upon the local workers. This method has the advantage of having immediate expert counsel and of avoiding the errors that are likely to arise through lack of knowledge or through inexperience. It also has the advantage of making the local workers feel that the study is more their own and that measures of improvement must spring from their own initiative.

In still other cases the survey is undertaken wholly by the local staff. It is then necessary for the local leaders and workers to familiarize themselves with the best that has been worked out in their field, as it may be available in the literature of the subject. The dangers of this method are that the work will be superficially done, and that numerous and expensive mistakes will be made. It has, however, the great compensating value that the workers, in preparing themselves for such a survey, will gain a knowledge of their field as they could not otherwise, and that they themselves will derive as much benefit from the study as the community that receives the report. In that case the impulse toward improvement proceeds from within, and the resulting reconstruction of method is selforiginated. There could be no better way of training the workers and giving them insight and motive. Provided that a group is able to do it sufficiently well, no criticism is comparable with self-criticism. Notwithstanding its serious handicaps, without doubt this last method is the ideal one, if the local workers are sufficiently able and well prepared to undertake the study. This is why Superintendent Maxwell, of the New York City schools, maintains that the school survey should be undertaken by the local teaching staff under the direct supervision of the administrative body. 1 One of the most brilliant social surveys that has been undertaken is that of Springfield, Illinois, which was inspired and directed by Dr. George Thomas Parker, a Springfield physician. 2

There are several agencies that supply experts for the different types of survey work. Among them are the Russell Sage Foundation and the Municipal Research Bureau, of New York. There

1 "Address to Principals," Journal of Education, October, 1914.

2 Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, July, 191 2.

are also private investigators, like Mrs. Caroline Bartlett Crane. Educational surveys have drawn upon the departments of education in the universities for specialists, as when Professor Cubberley, of Leland Stanford Junior University, was called upon to direct the Portland (Oregon) Survey, with the assistance of a considerable group of educational specialists.

3. The survey evaluates the results which it discovers. Mere knowledge of the facts as such is valueless. Facts, particularly the facts concerning results, are brought to light in order that they may be scrutinized, criticized, and approved or disapproved.

In order to evaluate results it is necessary to have a scale of values, or standards and tests. There are three possible methods of measuring results. One way is for a group of experts to pass a personal judgment upon them. In that case it should be the concurrent judgment of several experts and not that of one person, in order that the purely personal element may be eliminated as a possible source of error. Another method is to compare the community or the institution with what may be considered a model community or institution, noting the points in which the results fall below, equal, or excel the selected model. A third method is to apply standard tests or measuring scales which have been carefully worked out by experts objectively in many situations. These scales are relatively new and are still in the process of being worked out. There are absolutely none in some fields of investigation. Where such objective scales are accessible they constitute by far the best tests of results at our command. 1 Doubtless in the course of time scales will be worked out in all these fields of objective study.

The method by which standards are obtained involves a highly developed technique which is a part of the science of statistics and is manageable, for the most part, only by specially trained students. The essential thing for the investigator to know is the result, not necessarily the process, of these calculations; for example, what should be considered a normal death-rate for a community living under proper sanitary conditions, what should be the spelling ability of fourth-grade pupils, at what age should one normally be expected to unite with the church, and similar questions.