WHEN our forefathers grappled with theological problems and made
dogmatic statements as to their faith, such as we find in some of our
catechisms, they had in mind the church and theological controversies,
and not the child and his needs. The truth that they had suffered and
died for was contained in the catechisms, their articles of faith,
therefore he who committed to memory the catechism had the truth. But in
that reasoning they made a fatal mistake. To make children memorize
these dogmatic statements expecting them to grow religiously or morally
thereby, would be like feeding them on bone meal, expecting therefrom an
increase in the bony tissue of the body. The lime that the body needs is
there, but not in an assimilative form. Nor is there truth for the child
in dry-bone statements of religion. If the child asks for bread will you
give him a stone? That is what we do when we make him memorize
theological statements, the language and thought both of which are
beyond him.
The writer recalls two teachers and two methods of religious instruction
in his childhood. One who taught him the catechism and one who told him
Bible stories. The catechism bored and wearied him, and so far as he can
see today was time wasted, while the stories charmed and uplifted, and
remain even today a pleasant memory. This is not arguing that the child
should not memorize some things. There are many selections from
Scripture and other sources that he can memorize both with great
pleasure and profit to himself.
“The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want,
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,
He leadeth me beside the still waters,”
is full of beautiful imagery that appeals to the child. But theological
definitions of sin, justification and the like, have neither feeling nor
imagery and make no appeal to the child. The child is interested in the
deeds of man and not in his doctrines. Tell him connectedly the
life-story of Moses, Buddha, Jesus, St. Augustine, Luther or Wesley, and
you have given him the spirit and life of the great religious leaders
and the institutions which grew out of their work. No catechism could do
that. Gladly he would hear the life story of a great religious hero and
teacher, but his doctrines do not interest him now. Give him the
life-story now, and when he has reached later the philosophic period he
will himself raise the theological and philosophical questions, and
knowing the lives of the great religious leaders he will have the
historical background whereon to build his faith. Anyone can take a
catechism and have a class memorize and repeat the answers, but it takes
a teacher to so read the Bible that he can tell in a creative way the
story of its great heroes. That is what we must do if we base our
methods on true psychology. And the story should be studied connectedly
to the close and not by piecemeal, beginning as some do with one
character and before the life-story is done dropping him and skipping to
another, in order to conform to a certain doctrinal theme which may
interest the adult but not the child. That method may account for the
fact that Bible heroes have not always been as popular with children as
some others. If the story of Ulysses and Hiawatha were taught in a
similar way they would lose much of their charm and interest for the
child.
The day school in its literature courses is incidentally giving the
child a comparative course in religion, greatly to the advantage of the
Sunday School worker. In Hiawatha we have an Indian Messiah who
worshipped the Great Spirit, and prayed and fasted for his people. In
the Norse we have the worship of Odin, and Balder, the God of Light,
Gladsheim and the Life Beyond the Grave. In the Greek we have the gods
in their relations to man, the upper and lower world, immortality,
rewards and punishments. Saint George was a protector of the faith,
while King Arthur had heaped upon him the attributes of a divinity,
until his life-story reminds one of the Christ story.
The heroism and prowess in these stories is the main point of interest
to the child, but none the less does the religious life of the race come
out; and to have religion associated with physical strength as well as
moral heroism is an advantage. And none the less are we giving him the
great truths that are common to all religions, making him tolerant and
charitable, and teaching him that religion is as broad as life itself
and that it is natural for every human heart to go in quest of the
Eternal. With this broad outlook we can then better help our young
people interpret the old truths in terms of modern thought and
contribute much toward that larger religious life and thought which must
inevitably come.
The work of story-telling covers a much larger field than the school. It
does not matter whether we are kindergartners, teachers or preachers,
every adult owes to the rising generation of children something of the
culture that has been given to him. The “Tell me a story” on the part of
the child is his cry for spiritual food, and to hear stories from the
great story-books of the world is, as Dr. G. Stanley Hall says, “one of
the most inalienable rights of children.” There is no better place in
all the world for telling a story than in the home, that institution
which is greater and more important than all other institutions
combined.
It is in the home that we come into the sweetest and divinest relations
with children and with one another. It is here that we find the best
conditions for a play of those subtle and delicate psychic influences
which enter into the story, making it both a perfect art and an
inspiration to a noble and beautiful character. There are many homes
that cannot afford libraries and the rich adornments of art, but no home
is so humble that parents cannot gather the children around the fireside
on a winter’s evening or about the doorsteps in the twilight of a
summer’s day and tell them stories. A simple fireside is a greater
stimulant to the creative imagination than the wealth of a palace.
To enter thus into the child’s world and into the joyous companionship
of children is one of the highest privileges of parent and teacher. He
who fails in this does not form the deepest and most lasting ties with
the child, and he also robs himself of one of the greatest sources of
perennial youth.
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