RELIGIOUS ATTITUDES TO BE CULTIVATED
Life never stands still; especially does the life of the child never
stand still. It is always advancing, changing, reconstructing. Starting
with an unripe brain, and with no fund of knowledge or expression, the
child in the first few years of his life makes astonishing progress. By
the time he is three years old he has learned to understand and speak a
difficult language. He knows the names and uses of hundreds of objects
about him. He has acquaintance with a considerable number of people, and
has learned to adapt himself to their ways. He has gained much
information about every phase of his environment which directly touches
his life--his mastery of knowledge has grown apace, without rest or
pause.
Nor does the development of what we have called _attitudes_ lag behind.
Parallel with growth in the child's knowledge, his interests are taking
root; his ideals are shaping; his standards are developing; his
enthusiasms are kindling; his loyalties are being grounded. These
changes go on whether we will or not--just because life and growth can
not be stopped. The great question that confronts teacher and parent is
whether through guidance, that is through education, we shall be able to
say _what_ attitudes shall arise and _what_ motives shall come to rule,
rather than to leave this all-important matter to chance or to influence
hostile to the child's welfare.
The teacher of religion, like all other teachers, must meet two
distinct though related problems in the cultivating of attitudes. These
are:
1. _The creation of an immediate or direct set of attitudes toward
the school and its work._ This is needed to motivate effort and
insure right impressions.
2. _The development of a far-reaching set of attitudes that will
carry out from the classroom into the present and future life of
the pupil._ This is needed as a guide and stimulus to spiritual
growth, and as a foundation for character.
ATTITUDES TOWARD THE SCHOOL AND ITS WORK
The older view of education sought to drive the child to effort and
secure results through pain and compulsion. It was believed that the
pathway to learning must of necessity be dreary and strewn with
hardships, if, indeed, not freely watered with the tears of childhood.
Now we know better. A knowledge of child psychology and a more
sympathetic insight into child nature have shown us that instead of
external compulsion we must get hold of the inner springs of action. No
mind can exert its full power unless the driving force comes from
_within_. The capacities implanted in the child at his birth do not
reach full fruition except when freely and gladly used because their use
is a pleasure and satisfaction. If worthy results are to be secured, the
_whole self_ must be called into action under the stimulus of
willingness, desire, and complete assent of the inner self to the tasks
imposed. There must be no lagging, nor holding back, nor partial use of
powers.
Religious education is, therefore, not simply a question of getting our
children into the church schools. That is easy. Parents who themselves
do not attend feel that they have more fully done their duty by their
children if they send them to the Sunday school. After securing the
attendance of the children the great question still remains--that of the
_response_, their attitude toward the activities of the school, the
completeness with which they give themselves to its work.
A friend who is a State inspector of public schools tells me that the
first thing he looks for when he visits a school is the _school spirit_,
the attitude of the pupils toward their teachers and the work of the
school. If this is good, there is a foundation upon which to build
fruitful work; if the spirit is bad, there is no possibility that the
work of the school can be up to standard. For it is out of the
schoolroom spirit, the classroom attitudes, that the effort necessary to
growth and achievement must come.
The spirit of the classroom.--_Do the children enjoy the lesson hour?_
The first of the motivating conditions to seek for our classroom is a
prevailing attitude of happiness, good cheer, enjoyment. These are the
natural attributes and attitudes of childhood. Unhappiness is an
abnormal state for the child. The child's nature unfolds and his mind
expands normally only when in an atmosphere of sympathy, kindness, and
good feeling. Our pupils must enjoy what they are doing, if they are to
give themselves whole-heartedly to it. If loyalty to the school and the
church is to result, they must not feel that the Sunday school hour is a
drag and a bore. If such is the case, they cannot be expected to carry
away lasting impressions for good. They must not look upon attendance as
an imposition, nor wait with eager impatience for the closing gong.
While loyalty should be permeated by a sense of duty and obligation, and
even of self-sacrifice, it cannot rest on this alone. Most children and
youth are loyal to their homes; but this loyalty rests chiefly on a
sentiment formed from day to day and year to year out of the satisfying
experiences connected with the love, care, protection, and associations
of the home. Let these happy, satisfying home experiences be lacking,
and loyalty to the home fails or loses its fine quality.
In similar way, if the experiences in the Sunday school and the church
continuously yield satisfaction, enjoyment, and good feeling, the
child's loyalty and devotion are assured; if, on the other hand, these
experiences come to be associated with dislike, reluctance, and
aversion, loyalty is in danger of breaking under the strain.
The response of interest.--_Are the children interested?_ While, as we
have seen, the atmosphere or spirit of the classroom supplies the
condition necessary to successful work, interest supplies the motive
force. For interest is the mainspring of action. A child may politely
listen, or from a sense of courtesy or good will sit quietly passive and
not disturb others, but this does not meet the requirement. His thought,
interest, and enthusiasm must be centered on the matter in hand. He must
withdraw his attention from all wandering thoughts, passing fancies,
distracting surroundings, and concentrate upon the lesson itself. There
is no substitute for this. There is no possibility of making lasting
impressions on a mind with its energies dispersed through lack of
attention. And there is no possibility of securing fruitful attention
without interest.
Interest therefore becomes a primary consideration in our teaching of
religion. The teacher must constantly ask himself: "What is the state
of my pupils' interest? How completely am I commanding their enthusiasm?
Suppose I were to grade them on a scale with _complete-indifference_ as
the interest zero, and with the _'exploding-point'-of-enthusiasm_ as the
highest interest mark, where would the score mark of my class stand? And
if I cannot reasonably hope to keep my class at the high-water mark of
interest at all times, what shall I call an attainable standard? If one
hundred per cent is to represent the supreme achievement of interest,
shall I be satisfied with fifty per cent, with twenty-five per cent, or
with complete indifference? If the minds of my pupils can receive and
retain lasting impressions only under the stimulus of the higher range
of interest, in how far am I now making lasting impressions on my class?
In short, _is the interest attitude of my class as good as I can make
it?_"
The sense of victory.--_Is there a feeling of confidence and mastery?_
Do the children _understand_ what they are asked to learn? Without this
the attitude toward the class hour cannot be good, for the mind is
always ill at ease when forced to work upon matter it cannot grasp nor
assimilate. Nor is it possible to secure full effort without a
reasonable degree of mastery. The feeling of confidence and assurance
that comes from successful achievement increases the amount of power
available. The victorious army or the winning football team is always
more formidable than the same organization when oppressed and
disheartened by continued defeat.
If the task is interesting, children do not ask that it shall be easy.
Once catch their enthusiasm and they will exert their powers to the
full, and take joy in the effort. But the effort must be accompanied by
a sense of victory and achievement. There must always be immediately
ahead the possibility of winning over the difficulties of their lessons.
Except in rare moments of emotional exaltation the most heroic of us are
not capable of hurling our best strength against obstacles upon whose
resistance we make no impression. And the child possesses almost none of
this quality. Without a measurable degree of success in what he attempts
to learn his _morale_ suffers, enthusiasm fails, and discouragement
creeps in to sap his powers.
Kept in the presence of mental tasks he cannot master nor understand,
the child will soon lose interest and anticipation in his work. Without
mastery intellectual defeat comes to be accepted and expected, and the
child forms the fatal habit of submission and giving up. Because he
expects defeat from the lesson before him, the learner is already
defeated; because he has not learned to look for victory in his study,
he will never find it.
Preventing the habit of defeat.--This is all to say that in teaching
the child religion we must not constantly confront him with matter that
is beyond his grasp and understanding. That we are doing this in some of
our lesson systems there can be no doubt. The result is seen in the
child's hazy and indefinite ideas about religion; in a later astonishing
lack of interest in the problems of religion on the part of adults; in
the child's unwillingness to undertake the study of his lessons for the
Sunday school; in the fact that to many children the Sunday school
lesson hour is a task and a bore; and in the fact that the Sunday school
does not in a large degree continue to hold the loyalty of its members
after they have reached the age of deciding for themselves whether they
will attend. _Fundamental to all successful classroom results with
children are enjoyment, interest, and mastery._ How these are to be
secured will be developed further as the text proceeds.
ATTITUDES THAT CARRY INTO LIFE BEYOND THE SCHOOL
The great problem of every teacher is to make sure that the effects of
his instruction reach beyond the classroom. While the immediate
attitudes of the classroom are the first great care, they are but the
beginning. Growing out of the work of the church school must be a more
permanent set of attitudes that underlie life itself, give foundation to
character, and in large degree determine the trend and outcome of
achievement. _The cultivation of moral and religious attitudes is
probably the most important aim for the Sunday school._ As already
explained, the word "attitudes" is used to cover a considerable number
of qualities and attributes.
A continuing interest in the Bible and religion.--On the whole, people
do not concern themselves about what they are not interested in. They do
not read the books, study the pictures, go to hear the speakers, or busy
themselves with problems to which their interest does not directly and
immediately lead them. A fine sense of duty and obligation is all very
well, but it never can take the place of interest as a dynamic force in
life.
The number of Bibles sold every year would lead one to suppose that our
people are great students of the Scriptures. Yet the almost universal
ignorance of the Bible proves that it is one thing to own a Bible, and
quite another thing to read it. We may buy the Bible because other
people own Bibles, because we believe in its principles, and because it
seems altogether desirable to have the Bible among our collection of
books. But the extent to which we _read_ the Bible depends on our
interest in it and the truths with which it deals.
Nor should we forget that, while the United States is rightly counted as
one of the great Christian nations, only about two out of five of our
people are members of Christian churches. It is true that this
proportion would be considerably increased if all churches admitted the
younger children to membership; but even making allowance for this fact,
it is evident that a great task still confronts the church in
interesting our own millions in religion in such a way that they shall
take part in its organized activities.
Let each teacher of religion therefore ask himself: "To what extent am I
grounding in my pupils a _permanent and continuing interest_ in the
Bible and in the Christian religion? Growing out of lessons I teach
these children are they coming to _like_ the Bible? will they want to
know more about it? will they turn to it naturally as a matter of course
because they have found it interesting and helpful? will they care
enough for it through the years to search for its deeper meanings and
for its hidden beauties? and because of this will they build the
strength and inspiration of the Bible increasingly into their lives?"
And, further: "Are my pupils developing a _growing_ interest in
religion? Do they increasingly find it attractive and inspiring, or is
religion to them chiefly a set of restraints and prohibitions? Do they
look upon religion as a means to a happier and fuller life, or as a
limitation and check upon life. Is religion being revealed to them as
the pearl of great price, or does it possess but little value in their
standard of what is worth while?" These questions are of supreme
significance, for in their right answers are the very issues of
spiritual life for those we teach.
Spiritual responsiveness.--The teacher must accept responsibility for
the spiritual growth as well as the intellectual training of his pupils.
There is no escape from this. We must be satisfied with nothing less
than a constantly increasing consciousness of God's presence and reality
in the lives of those we teach.
As the child's knowledge grows and his concept of God, develops, this
should naturally and inevitably lead to an increasing warmth of attitude
toward God and a tendency to turn to him constantly for guidance,
strength, comradeship, and forgiveness. Indeed, the cultivation of this
trend of the life toward God is the supreme aim in our religious
leadership of children. Without this result, whatever may have been the
facts learned or the knowledge gleaned, there has been no worthy
progress made in spiritual growth and development.
The evolution of spiritual responsiveness.--The realization of this
new spiritual consciousness in the child's life may not involve any
special nor abrupt upheaval. If the child is wisely led, and if he
develops normally in his religion, it almost certainly will not.
Countless thousands of those who are living lives very full of spiritual
values have come into the rich consciousness of divine relationship so
gradually that the separate steps cannot be distinguished. "First the
blade, then the ear, and then the full grain in the ear" is the natural
law of spiritual growth.
The bearing of this truth upon our teaching is that we must seek for the
unfolding of the child's spiritual nature and for the turning of his
thought and affections toward God from the first. We must not point to
some distant day ahead when the child will "accept Jesus" or become "a
child of God." We must ourselves think of the child, and lead the child
to think of himself, as a member of God's family.
This does not mean that the child, as he grows from childhood into youth
and adulthood, will not need to make a personal and definite decision to
give God and the Christ first place in his life; he will need to do this
not once, but many times. It only means that from his earliest years the
child is to be made to feel that he belongs to God, and should turn to
him as Father and Friend. Day by day and week by week the child should
be growing more vitally conscious of God's place in his life, and more
responsive to this relationship. Only by this steady and continuous
process of growth will the spiritual nature take on the depth and
quality which the Christian ideal sets for its attainment.
Ideals and ambitions.--In order that religion may be a helpful reality
to the child it must extend to his developing ideals and ambitions. For
even children have ideals and ambitions, however crude they may be, or
however much they may lack the serious and practical nature they later
take on. Probably no child reaches his teens without having many times
secretly determined that he would do this or become that, which he has
admired in some hero of his own choosing from actual acquaintance or
from books or stories. There is no normal child but who has his own
notions of greatness and importance, of success and fame, and who wishes
and longs for certain things ahead upon which he has set his heart, and
which he purposes to attain. The things that he thus values are his
ideals, goals to be reached. Ideals are, therefore, guides to action
and effort, something to be striven after and sacrificed for. They are
the things most worth while, for which we can afford to forego other
things of lesser value. It was the force of a great ideal which led Paul
to say, "This one thing I do"; and to the attainment of that ideal he
gave all his purpose and effort.
To form true ideals requires a trained sense of values; one must develop
a power of spiritual perspective, and be able to see things in their
true proportions. He must know what things rightly come first if he is
to "put first things first;" He must have some training in recognizing
the value of "pearls" if he is to see that it is a good exchange to
"sell all that he has" in order to "buy the pearl of great price."
This all suggests that one of the responsibilities resting upon us as
teachers of religion is to guide the child in the forming of his ideals.
We must help him form his notion of what is worthy and admirable in
character. We must see that he develops high standards of truth,
honesty, obedience, and the other moral virtues which lie at the
foundation of all vital religion. We must make certain that his ideals
of success and achievement include a large measure of service to his
fellows. We must ground him in right personal ideals and standards of
purity and clean living. We must make him feel a deep sense of
responsibility for the full development and fruitful use of his own
powers and abilities. In short, we must with all the wisdom and devotion
we possess _bring him to accept the life of Jesus as the ideal and
pattern for his own life_.
Fine appreciations.--What one admires is an index to his character.
More than this, the quality and tone of one's admirations finally build
themselves into his nature and become a part of his very being. Life is
infinitely enriched and refined by responding to the beauty, the
goodness, and the gladness to be found around us. In Hawthorne's story
of The Great Stone Face, the boy Ernest dwelt upon and admired the
character revealed in the benignant lines of the great face outlined by
the hand of the Creator on the mountainside until the fine qualities
which the young boy daily idealized had grown into his own life, and
Ernest himself had become the "wise man" whose coming had long been
awaited by his people.
It is not enough therefore to learn the _facts_ about the lives of the
great men and women of the Bible or of other times. The story of their
lives must be presented in such a way that _admiration_ is compelled
from the learner: for only the qualities the child appreciates and
admires are finally built into his own ideal. It is not enough that the
child shall be taught that God created the world and all that is
therein; he must also be brought to appreciate and admire the wonders
and beauties of nature as an evidence of God's wisdom, power, and
goodness. It is not enough that our pupils shall come to know the chief
events in the life of Jesus and the outline of his teachings; they must
also find themselves lost in admiration of the matchless qualities of
his great personality.
And so also with music, art, architecture, with the fine in human life
and conduct, or with great and noble deeds. Inherent in them all are
spiritual stimulus and food for the young life, manna upon which the
growing soul should feed. But here again the law holds: in order to
assimilate them to his life the child _must appreciate, enjoy, admire_.
To bring this about is one part of our task as teacher.
Worthy loyalties and devotions.--Every worthy character must have in
it a certain power of resistance, a quality that makes it able to
withstand hardship for the sake of an ideal or a cause. It is easy
enough to be heroic when it costs nothing of effort or sacrifice. There
is no trouble in securing supporters for a cause that is popular, or
workers when the work called for is interesting and attractive. We are
all willing to stand for the right if to stand is agreeable and
exhilarating, and does not bring us too much of unpleasantness, pain, or
suffering.
But life at its best and noblest does involve some hardship. Much that
is best in human experience has come to us through hardship, toil, and
suffering cheerfully endured by heroic souls who counted their own lives
as naught so that the cause to which they gave themselves might win. The
comforts, freedom, and opportunities we enjoy some one paid for, bought
with endless effort and sacrifice. Our very religion, the symbol of
life, gladness, and salvation, has as its background tragedy, suffering,
death, the cross.
The quality that makes us willing to endure and resist for the sake of a
cause or an ideal we call _loyalty_. The high value set upon it is seen
in the fact that loyalty is the first test of citizenship required; it
is a quality admired and praised among all peoples in all relations of
life; it is the quality we demand and prize in our friends and
associates. On the other hand, disloyalty to country, friends, or trust
is universally looked upon as despicable, and punished with contempt,
scorn, and hatred.
The appeal to the heroic.--One of the ends of religious teaching is to
cultivate in our youth the spirit of loyalty to worthy ideals and
causes. Loyalty rests on a stratum of heroism, which is to be found
deep down in every normal human being. We must stimulate and appeal to
the heroic in the child's nature. We must make him see that the strong
and fine men and women are willing to meet much that is hard and
disagreeable, so that they may be loyal to their task. We must make him
realize that the greatest and most worthy thing one can do is to "endure
hardship" for a cause; that to be willing to suffer for an ideal is a
mark of strength and courage; and that "having done all to _stand_" is
often the best test of character.
Nor must the thought of loyalty be presented to the child only in the
abstract. Concrete examples are worth much general explanation and
laudation. The loyalties of the great characters of biblical and other
times can be made the source of great inspiration; the supreme loyalty
of Jesus to his mission will exert a powerful appeal. But loyalty must
be made immediate, definite and concrete to the child in his own life;
he must not simply admire it afar off. Loyalty must be to him not
something to learn about and praise in others, but something he can make
use of himself each day without waiting to grow up or become famous. So
we will teach the child the loyalties due parents and the home;
loyalties to friends and comrades; loyalties to school, community, and
country; loyalties to Sunday school, church, and the cause of religion;
loyalties to self; loyalties to duty wherever found; and, above all,
_loyalties to the Christ and his ideals_.
1. Do your pupils enjoy the church school, and like to come? Do
they enjoy the lesson hour? By what means do you tell? Is the
spirit of the class good toward the school and toward the class?
How do you judge this?
2. Do your pupils come to the lesson hour full of expectancy? Or
is there an indifference and lack of interest with which you have
to contend? If the class fails in some degree to manifest
expectancy and interest, where do you judge the trouble to lie?
What is the remedy?
3. To what degree do you think your pupils are comprehending and
mastering what you are teaching them? How does their mastery
compare with that secured in the public schools? Have you plans for
making their mastery more complete?
4. Do you judge that your pupils are developing such an attitude
toward the Bible that their interest will carry on beyond the time
they are in your class? Do you think they have an increasing
interest in religion? Are you making these questions one of the
problems of your teaching?
5. Are your pupils developing through the work you are doing a
growing consciousness of God in their lives? Do they count
themselves as children of God? Just what do you believe is the
status of your children spiritually? Do they need conservation or
conversion? What difference will your answer make in your teaching?
6. To what degree are your pupils loyal to the church school? To
their particular class? To the church? What are the tests of
loyalty? Do they come regularly? Do they seek to promote the
interests of the class and the school? Do they do their part? What
can be done to increase loyalty?
FOR FURTHER READING
Wilber, A Child's Religion.
Bushnell, Christian Nurture (Revised Ed.).
Betts, The Mind and Its Education, chapter on "Interest."
Fisk, Boy Life and Self-Government.