The week day church school; a historical sketch, brief analysis, and attempted evaluation of the organized efforts to furnish week day religious instruction to pupils of elementary and high school age in the United States

Front matter

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88888?

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Introduction

nPHIS is a handbook of recent experience in the field of week-day religious instruction. Mr. Squires recites the historic causes which are the inspiration of the present movement. He gathers the experience gained in various experiments, analyzes it, and makes it available for the guidance of the Church. But while this is specifically a handbook of experience, a theory underlies it whose essential nature ought to be briefly developed in this introduction.

The end sought in religious education determines the means. This handbook rests upon the theory that religious education, when filled with a Christian content, seeks a spiritual end. The end is primarily spiritual and personal, and only secondarily, though necessarily, moral and social. This is not to say that religious education has no moral and social objectives, but that the attainment of these moral and social objectives is dependent upon and consequent to the achievement of the great spiritual and personal end — the establishment of communion between the individual and God. It does not deny, but strongly insists upon the active contribution which God himself makes to the achievement of this communion. Indeed, it delimits, on the human side, the contribution which education may make to the end sought, in terms of the Pauline phrase, "I planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase." It does not admit an otiose deity, but fully depends upon the Christian God whose saving grace is active and effectual. Concretely defined in terms of Christian history, the end sought in religious education is

10 INTRODUCTION

the cultivation of an informed and personal faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord and the dedication of a trained and obedient life to his service.

This theory conserves the fruits of the Protestant Reformation which are largely in peril in our day. It takes the ancient ground that Christianity is a religion of a faith which is creative of a moral and social disposition, and not a religion of moral and social dispositions mechanically acquired. To speak a theological language, salvation is not by character but in order to it. This theory will not insist less upon character, but rather more. It will not deny the widest moral and social implications of Christianity, but will rather furnish them with adequate ground and motivation. It will deepen the sources of the Christian life while it widens its scope.

This theory, moreover, will conserve the independence of Christianity. Christianity will not be construed as either the equivalent or the servant of democracy, even when democracy is defined as a social spirit. The concepts of Christianity and democracy will not be allowed to fall together. The end of religious education is not the training of citizens for a democracy. The end of religious education lies beyond the historic State and beyond society as at present organized. The end of religious education is the making of Christians, not citizens. Of course, Christians will continue to be citizens, and their civic and social responsibilities will be fully insisted upon. The unfolding of a Christian's duty to society and the training of the individual to the full discharge of that duty will be no inconsiderable part of the process of religious education, but social service, thus broadly understood, will be kept in its place as the fruit and not the root of Christianity. In other words, this handbook proceeds on the assumption that the Christian is a citizen of two worlds, but that his naturalization into the citizenship of heaven alone qualifies

INTRODUCTION 11

him for the full discharge of his moral and social duties in this present society.

Not only laborious and sacrifical effort is necessary if the Church is to take advantage of the rising tide of interest in the religious education of the helpless childhood and stormy youth of the nation, but careful thinking that will preserve for that generation our Christian heritage, undiminished and undefiled and enriched by our own experience. It would be sad if when the Church was summoned to new and gigantic tasks, it should undertake them cut off from the deep and eternal sources of power.

Harold McA. Robinson.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Table Of Contents

Introduction

Chapter I

The Place of Religious Education in the Program of the Church. Its importance shown by:

1. Church Statistics 18

2. Statistics Concerning Juvenile Delinquency and Adolescent

Crime 27

3. The Development of a Psychology of Religion 29

4. A Better Understanding of the Laws of Heredity 31

5. Developments in Secular Educational Science 33

G. More Extensive Knowledge Concerning the Great Religions of

the World 34

7. Experiences in Great Reforms 35

8. Recent Demonstrations of the Power of Education to Trans-

form National Life 38

9. A Changed Conception as to the Scope and Function of Re-

ligion 40

10. The Cessation of Theological Controversies and the Turning of the Religious Mind of the Times Back to the Teachings and Example of Jesus 41

Chapter II

Inadequacy of the Customary Educational Agencies of the Church. The customary educational agencies of the Church are inadequate:

1 . As to Time Provided for Religious Instruction 46

2. As to Teaching Force 48

3. As to Supervision of Teachers and Instruction 49

4. As to Financial Support 50

5. As to Housing and Equipment 51

6. As to Courses of Study 53

7. As to Expressional Activity 53

8. As to Correlation 54

9. As to Distribution of Agencies 55

10. As to Spiritual Dynamic 58

CHAPTER III Various Attempts to Supplement the Educational Agencies of the Church

1. Vacation Bible Schools 70

2. Summer Schools of Religion 72

14 TABLE OF CONTENTS

3. Community Training Schools 74

4. Occasional Classes 75

5. Parochial Schools 76

6. Pastor's Communicant Classes 76

7. Pre-School Chapel Services 78

8. Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. Classes 78

9. Public-School Credits for Outside Bible Studv 80

10. Week-Day Church Schools 81

Chapter IV

1. The Denominational or Individual Church Type 87

2. The Denominational Community Type 94

3. The Interdenominational Community Type 99

Chapter V

Some Contributions of the Week-Day Church-School Movement Toward the Solution of Religious Educational Problems

1. More Adequate Time for Religious Instruction 112

2. More Regular Attendance 114

3. Better Trained Teachers 116

4. More Complete Correlation 116

5. More Adequate Courses of Study 117

0. Better Equipment and Housing 118

7. More Expressional Work 119

8. Contribution to the General Pedogogical Science 119

9. Reaching the Children Spiritually Untaught 119

10. Better Distribution of Agencies 126

Chapter VI

Problems Involved in the Organization and Administration of Week- Day Church Schools

1. The Securing of Teachers 131

2. Rooms and Equipment 135

3. Time for the Meeting of Classes 137

4. Courses of Study 140

5. Governing Boards 142

6. Financing the Schools 145

7. Books and Materials 147

8. Records and Reports 149

9. Grading 150

10. Recruiting Pupils 151

CHAPTER VII Sources of Information Concerning Week-Day Church Schools 159

Index 166

CHAPTER I The Place of Religious Education in the Program of the Church

CHAPTER I

The Place of Religious Education in the Program of the Church

A LITTLE more than seventy years ago, Horace Bush- ■^ nell published his book entitled "Christian Nurture." It has been maintained that no literary production is ever rightly called "epoch making." However, Dr. BushnelFs book comes near being entitled to this much used phrase. If the publication of "Christian Nurture" did not cause a new era of religious education to begin, it certainly marked the beginning of one. These seventy years have been eventful for the growth of appreciation of the teaching function of the Church. When this seventy-year period began, education was hardly considered to be a means of grace for the spiritual regeneration of individuals and the evangelization of the world. At the end of the period we are coming to realize that it is a primary factor in both.

The twenty years following the publication of Dr. Bushnell's book were marked by the multiplication and development of Sunday-school associations. This phase of the religious education revival reached its climax with the organization of the World's Sunday School Association in 1886. Then came years when the improvement of Sunday schools was the primary educational interest of the Church. Organized classes, teacher training, graded lessons, departmental organization; these were the subjects on which Sunday-school literature dwelt — the improvements for which progressive schools made effort. Sunday-school buildings began to be added to the church plant with increasing frequency. The Akron style of Sunday-school architecture, with classrooms spread in a wide arc about the superintendent's platform, was evolved.

At about the time the twentieth century began, a growing conviction that the Sunday-school could never be made an adequate agency for the whole educational task of the Church, was manifesting itself. Religious educational agencies for the successful supplementing of the Sunday-school instruction became the goal of thoughtful church leaders. Out of this quest for more adequate agencies for the teaching function of the Church have grown the Vacation Bible School movement, the attempt to secure public-school credit for outside Bible study, and the week-day church-school movement.

Many causes have contributed to this growing interest in religious education. A listing and analyzing of these contributing causes ought to be of use in giving us an understanding of the historical development of this phase of religious interest. Such an attempt may also be useful in helping us to a more adequate conception of the importance of the teaching function of the Church. For we must not fall into the error of believing that this seventy-year period of growing interest in religious education and of more or less persistent efforts to improve the educational agencies of the Church has accomplished all that is necessary. An intelligent interest in religious education and an enthusiastic devotion to the teaching ministry of the Church are characteristics, not of many church members, but of comparatively few. The place assigned in the economy of the Church to the religious educational agencies is far from satisfactory. The causes here named are given without any attempt to arrange them according either to their relative importance, or their historical sequence.

1. Church statistics. Church statistics have long been thought of as necessarily uninteresting and well-nigh valueless. This ought not to be. Church statistics constitute the bookkeeping of the Church and good hookkeeping is quite as essential to a successful organization and administration of the Kingdom interest as it is to our great business enterprises. No important commercial firm would think of getting along with poorly kept, unreliable, and imanalyzed records. During the past few years, churches have improved much in this matter. Statistics have been gathered more extensively, and more carefully. They have been subjected to close scrutiny and analysis. The results of such study of statistics have been tabulated, charted, and rendered fit for use in a larger way than they have ever been before. Something of the trained skill and the scientific accuracy of the professional statistician has been devoted to the study of data concerning the Church. The more we know about the sources from which the Church recruits its membership, the more we come to see the importance of the educational activities of the Church as recruiting agencies. The more we know about the leakages through which those who are the Church's own go out to join the army of the unchurched, the more we come to appreciate the educational activities of the Church as conservation agencies. In general, the most enduring successes of the Church can be traced back to some efficient educational activity; its most glaring failures are quite as often due to educational inefficiency and neglect. Occasionally people fear that the emphasizing of religious education will lead to spiritual coldness and lifeless formality. Such fears are certainly quite groundless. Coldness and formality exist in the Church, not because of educational activity, but because of the lack of it. Does a live and efficient Sunday school put a spiritual damper on the church with which it is connected? Does the Sunday-school teacher whose heart is burning with love for her pupils and zeal for their spiritual welfare, go inevitably to the overburdened "suspended roll" of the church?

Spiritual emotion, sane and enduring, is best attained under the careful and patient nurture of the child by godly parents and wise ? consecrated teachers, rather than in some sudden revival experience of maturity. The best religious emotional life is an educational product. This is not to say that there is no divine element in it. Education is the instrumentality used of the Spirit for a divine work of grace in the heart. The spiritual growth that is developmental and gradual is just as wonderful, just as supernatural as any. Jesus "grew and waxed strong, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him." True Christian nurture is a divine process of regeneration, in which God uses a human instrumentality for the salvation of souls. The Holy Spirit is quite as truly in the educative process as he is in methods more sudden, spectacular, and mysterious.

Statistics show that at least sixty per cent of all additions to the Church are brought about primarily through the Sunday school. This one educational agency of the Church is worth more, as an evangelizing power, than all the other agencies of the Church put together. This cannot be due to any superiority of the Sunday school over the other agencies of the Church in matters of organization, equipment, and financial support. The Sunday school is notably weak and neglected in the matters named. It is due to the marked responsiveness of childhood and youth to religious influences of the educational type. The fact that the Sunday school, handicapped by such grave limitations, is yet the primary recruiting agency of the Christian Church, is an indication of what might be accomplished if the religious educational agencies of Protestantism were adequately organized and efficiently administered.

Chart No. 1 represents the people brought into church membership through the Sunday-school activities in a typical small church compared with the number that are brought into the Church through all other sources.

ADDITIONS to the: CHURCH r o.

4%\

PER CENT 8 3 17 ^J>

Chart No. 2 is based on a study in a church of two hundred members. It is typical of a large number of the smaller churches. In many churches the Sunday school is the primary point of contact with the community.

Not only the largest number of recruits for the Church, but the most valuable recruits are secured through the educational activities of the Sunday school. It is generally true that the people of the church's membership who are the best workers and most generous givers are those who have been brought up from childhood under the tutelage of the Church. There are occasional exceptions, but only enough to demonstrate that the rule is all but universal in its application.

The most enduring additions to the Church are gained through educational activity. It has been demonstrated

CONTACT with COMMUNITY

SUNDAY SCHOOL

WITH

OTHER

AGENCIES |SUNDAY

"SCHOOL

ALONE

I

OTHER AGENCIES

PER CENT

that of the converts brought into the fellowship of believers through the customary revival methods, eighty-seven per cent fall away in five years. Of the converts brought into the Church through the Sunday school and the pastor's communicant class, forty per cent fall away in five years. In one case thirteen out of a hundred converts are to be found in the Church after five years; in the other case sixty out of every hundred are still found faithful after a like period of time. In the matter of securing an enduring attachment to the Christian faith, the educational method is more than four times as efficient as the revivalistic method.

Xo reflection on revivals is intended. They have been

AGE" CONVERSION

AGES

6-23

IG e 2

8G3I PERSONS

SO

SI

!23 124

I2S w .

■ B H B < B B W ■ ■ B B ■ B I I K H ■ greatly used of God in the evangelization of the world, and ought to have a place in the economy of the Church ; but careful analysis of their results would indicate that they have either been unwisely managed, or that their relative importance is not so great as has been supposed. The evanescent character of the customary tabernacle revival may be due to both of the causes suggested. A satisfactory method of planning, conducting, conserving, and financing revivals has not yet been evolved. The product has been defective because the methods were faulty. It is also doubtless true that many groups of Christian believers have come to rely too exclusively upon the revival for the extension of the Kingdom.

Chart No. 3 on page 23 is an illustration of how church statistics carefully gathered, thoroughly analyzed, rightly interpreted, and properly charted contribute to an understanding of the importance of religious education. Statistics were gathered as to the age at which each of these 8631 persons were converted. The numbers along the tops of the vertical lines indicate the ages, those along the bottoms of the lines the actual number of cases at each age. That is at six years of age forty-three persons out of the 8631 were converted; eighty-seven persons were converted at seven years of age; 146 at eight years of age, and so on. It will be noted that the number of conversions rises steadily with advancing age until the age of sixteen is reached; with the exception of slight declensions at thirteen and fifteen. Later studies of conversion tend to show modifications of the results here tabulated. It is probably true that conversions at the present time occur most frequently at an age younger than sixteen. The figures here given were obtained from questions to adult people as to the age at which they were converted, hence are based on what was true a generation or so ago. Studies of actual conversions at the present time seem to give results differing as I have indicated. However, these minor differences do not concern us in the present discussion. The results here tabulated proclaim in unmistakable terms that the period of life reaching from the age of eight to the age of twenty-five is God's and nature's time for the grounding of the individual in religion.

In this study of over eight thousand conversions, not one occurred after the age of twenty-nine years. A thoughtful consideration of the facts pictured in this chart raises more questions than we can well consider here. Seven times as many conversions take place at the age of sixteen as at the age of twenty-six. Does this mean that the adult is seven times as hard to win for the Church as the youth of sixteen? Does it mean that while we were winning one person twenty-six years of age we might have won seven boys and girls sixteen years of age? The curve of conversion, beginning at the age of six, sw r eeps upward to the age of sixteen, then downward, disappearing at twenty-nine. If we count the conversion curve as extending from six to twenty-six, the maximum occurs exactly in the middle of the curve at sixteen. For which side of this curve are the hymns, the worship, the sermon planned? For the service of which side of this curve does theological education fit young men? These questions are not suggested in a spirit of destructive criticism, but in a spirit of constructive criticism. The writer is not pleading for less earnest and less extensive efforts to reach adults, but for more earnest and more extensive effort to reach children and youth. Some conversions do occur in middle life, some even in old age, and we should never cease our efforts to turn the lives of the unregenerate Godward; but we ought not to neglect that part of life when the soul is most responsive to religious influences,

It is well to note here that conversion in the case of a child or youth reared in a Christian home, taught by Christian parents, nurtured in a Christian church, is not the same kind of experience as that of an adult who has lived long in willful rebellion against God. The conversion experience of the former is developmental; that of the latter is apt to be cataclysmic. Conversion in the former case is the responsive unfolding of a soul to the influence of God as a flower blossoms through the nurture derived from the soil, moisture, and sunshine which have ministered to it from the beginning. Conversion in the latter case is the turning again homeward of a prodigal soul long absent from the Father's house. Why anyone should be suspicious of the developmental type of conversion is hard to understand. If the finding and reading of a fragment

DOMINANT ACTIVITY

ACQUISITION EXPRESSION MEDITATION

EARLY LIFE- MIDDLE LIFE-LATER LIFE

(This chart represents the general psychic activities in their comparative prominence at various periods of life. Our religious educational program should be brought into harmony with these underlying facts of the psychic life of the individual.)

of the gospel by a man of pagan faith in central Japan was used of the Spirit to turn the soul of the finder from darkness to light; is it unsafe to believe that the Word taught to a child, from its earliest years by godly parents and teachers, can be used in the same manner?

This span of years from the age of six to the age of twenty-six is the educational period of life. Here is a significant parallelism. The opening of the life to educational influences and its responsiveness to influences leading to conversion keep pace with one another. They w r ax and wane together. As the life of an individual begins to take on its fixed habits, begins to be less responsive to educative agencies, the probability of conversion begins to grow less. These facts are an indication of the primary importance of the educative agencies in the spiritual processes leading to conversion.

2. Statistics concerning juvenile delinquency and adolescent crime. Prevention is better than cure in spiritual matters quite as truly as in physical matters. Preservation is better than rescue as a working goal for the Christian Church. It has just been seen that religious education holds an important place among the agencies influential in securing a vital religious experience. Now the author wishes to consider religious education as an agency of spiritual conservation. The spiritual waste of our civilization is appalling, for there is no loss so deplorable as the waste of misspent lives. How to turn the footsteps of childhood and youth away from danger paths, is the problem of problems. Secular education will not accomplish the desired end. Formal instruction in morals will not suffice. There must be the culture of the deepest and most controlling faculties of the soul, the religious instincts and capacities. There has been a distinct turning of public-school teachers, truancy officers, social settlement workers, of all who have been interested in the spiritual welfare of childhood and youth, and who have tried to stem the tide which carries young life so strongly toward that which is evil — there has been a turning of all these to the Church. They have said, "We must have your help; the task is yours, as well as ours." The more we find out about the causes of juvenile delinquency and adolescent crime, the more apparent is the need for a religious educational program which will conserve the precious young life of the race.

Chart No. 5 on page 29 is based on a study of 17,453 cases of juvenile delinquency and adolescent crime. The numbers along the base indicate the ages at which a first crime was committed. The numbers at the right show the number of cases of first crime occurring at each age. The upper curve indicates the crime tendency in boys, the lower curve the tendency in girls. At eight years of age 160 boys and 150 girls out of this total of 17,453 committed their first crime. The number of boys increases rapidly with advancing age and reaches its maximum at sixteen. The number of girls increases slowly, reaching its maximum at fourteen, but totaling hardly one fourth that of the boys. This chart has many lessons for the parent and the religious teacher. It shows the greater peril which surrounds the growing boy compared with that which menaces the growing girl. It is a significant fact that of these 17,453 cases not one boy committed his first crime after twenty, and not one girl after twenty-one. The boy or the girl who has been brought through the adolescent period without serious stumbling is comparatively safe. Here is the period of life where the Church, the home, and the State ought to unite in a far-reaching and potent program of protective preservation.

Here is another striking parallelism. The period of life most open to educative influences and the period of life subject to greatest spiritual perils are conterminous. The opening of the life to evil influences and the responsiveness of the life to educative agencies keep step with one another. The decline of the responsiveness to educational stimuli is also the time of lessening spiritual peril. Can you see why young lives go astray? Not chiefly from a perverseness that deliberately refuses good and chooses evil ; not chiefly because of the "old Adam" within; but because the educational influences about the life are not good but bad.

3. The development of a psychology of religion. A scientific study of religious phenomena has been de-

YOUTH *™ CRIME —boys

17453 CASES """"GIRLS

2000„

12 13 14 15 16

YEARS veloping for about twenty years. The results of a validly scientific investigation of the religious consciousness have been of no small importance in the creating of a wider and deeper interest in religious education. I speak of a "validly scientific" investigation of the religious consciousness, because a certain school of religious psychologists do not seem to be entitled to the standing of scientific investigators. Yet this is the school which makes the largest claims to scientific method. I am persuaded that a psychology of religion based on a materialistic conception of life and consciousness can never produce any results of much value. It maintains an agnostic attitude toward too many of the facts of religion. I believe a true psychology of religion must begin with the fact of a self-revealing prayer-answering God. It must recognize that man can personally experience God as a forgiving, guiding, helping Reality. It must recognize the belief in a future life as based on psychic fact and not make it a dim and uncertain hypothesis. However, there have been all along religious psychologists who recognized spiritual realities, and the movement is certainly in their direction to-day. The significant thing for us is this, that the more we know about the origin and development of the religious consciousness, the more important the educational agency is seen to be. Psychology has shown the momentous importance of the religious impressions of early childhood. The child soul fs iw wax to receive and marble to retain." What goes into the first impressions of life goes into all of life. In times of great spiritual stress men speak the tongue learned on their mother's knee. The early impressions of life enter into all our daily acts, deeds, and thoughts in a way we can hardly comprehend. Like the tracks in the cement walk, made when the mortar was soft, these early impressions are not erased by the passing feet of the after years. It is the task of the home and the Church to see that religious impressions are engraved deeply and abundantly on the child soul. Genetic psychology has taught that the religious consciousness can be initiated under proper stimuli long before the child can read the family Bible or understand the preacher's sermon.

The term "adolescent" does not appear in any encyclopedia published over twenty-five years ago. Psycholo-

THE PLACE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION ,<u

gists have not only named this important period of life, they have helped us to understand it better than our forefathers did. As we have come into a better understanding of this somewhat tumultuous period of life, we have come to appreciate the importance of careful educational preparation for its physical and psychic changes, and for patient educational guidance through them out into the broader fields of adulthood.

4. A better understanding of the nature and laws of heredity. Our knowledge concerning the way in which the achievements of humanity are handed on from generation to generation has been extended and clarified by the discovery that there are two distinct channels through which one generation transmits its accomplishments and its characteristics to the next succeeding generation. One of these channels has been named racial heredity . Through it any people transmit to their descendants their physical characteristics and psychic capacities. The color of the hair, the shape of the face, the brain capacity of the cranium, these are all transmitted from one generation to another through physical parenthood.

The other channel is called social heredity. Through it any people transmit to their descendants their language, social customs, religious ideals, and ceremonials. Social heredity transmits the heritage of one generation to another through the educative agencies, the teaching processes. The teachers of any generation are the spiritual parents of the generation following. Education is the golden chain which binds in unity and gives permanence to the achievements of the race, a primary factor used of God for the progress of humanity onward to that

"Far off divine event,

Toward which the whole creation moves."

Part of the social heritage of the race is unconsciously taught by each generation to the succeeding one. Children learn to speak the language of their parents with little or no intentional help from adults. As they grow to maturity, they absorb much of the thought and many of the general attitudes of the community in which they are reared. There is then, an intentional and an unintentional instruction given by each generation to the succeeding generation. Much that might profitably be omitted from the heritage of the race is carried from one generation to the other by more or less unintentional teaching. The best elements of the racial heritage are either imperfectly transmitted by unintentional teaching, or are entirely incapable of being so transmitted. The child will not learn to speak properly, or to be an eloquent master of his mother tongue without careful and purposeful instruction. He will master barely enough of the technique of speech to meet his more primitive needs. He will not become an accomplished musician or artisan without long and patient educational guidance. Religion is the highest attainment of the race and of all the constituents of our social heritage, it is most poorly transmitted by the accidental and unintentional mode of education. The religious instinct is deeply planted in man's nature, but unguided it quickly assumes grotesque forms. Communities characterized by neglect of religious educational activity soon show unmistakable signs of reversion toward paganism. If the religion of Jesus is to conquer the earth, it must be efficiently taught by each generation of Christians to the succeeding generation. This teaching task is worthy of the best of our time, the best of our effort, the best of our prayers. Our generation must not squander its religious heritage, neither ought it to lay it away in a napkin. It must transmit the spiritual treasures of the centuries undiminished and enriched to the coming generation if it would perform its part in the eternal plan of God.