Life itself sets the aim.—­This much at least is certain.  We know where to look for the aims that must guide us.  We shall not try to formulate an aim for our teaching out of our own thought or reasoning upon the subject.  We shall rather look out upon life, the life the child is now living and the later life he is to live, and ask:  “What are the demands that life makes on the individual? What is the equipment this child will need as he meets the problems and tests of experience in the daily round of living?  What qualities and powers will he require that he may the most fully realize his own potentialities and at the same time most fruitfully serve his generation?  What abilities must he have trained in order that he may the most completely express God’s plan for his life?” When we can answer such questions as these we shall have defined the aim of religious education and of our teaching.

The knowledge aim.—­First of all, life demands knowledge.  There are things that we must know if we are to avoid dangers and pitfalls.  Knowledge shows the way, while ignorance shrouds the path in darkness.  To be without knowledge is to be as a ship without a rudder, left to drift on the rocks and shoals.  The religious life is intelligent; it must grasp, understand, and know how to use many great truths.  To supply our children with religious knowledge is, therefore, one of the chief aims of our teaching.

Yet not all knowledge is of equal worth.  Even religious knowledge is of all degrees of fruitfulness.  Some knowledge, once acquired, fails to function.  It has no point of contact with our lives.  It does not deal with matters we are meeting in the day’s round of experience.  It therefore lies in the mind unused, or, because it is not used, it quickly passes from the memory and is gone.  Such knowledge as this is of no real value.  It is not worth the time and effort put upon its mastery; and it crowds out other and more fruitful knowledge that might take its place.

To be a true end of education, knowledge must be of such nature that it can be put at work.  It must relate to actual needs and problems.  It must have immediate and vital points of contact with the child’s common experiences.  The child must be able to see the relation of the truths he learns to his own interests and activities.  He must feel their value and see their use in his work and in his play.  This is as true of religious knowledge as of knowledge of other kinds.  The religious knowledge the child needs, therefore, is a knowledge that can at once be incorporated in his life.  To supply the child with knowledge of this vital, fruitful sort becomes, then, one great aim in the teaching of religion.

But knowledge alone is not enough.  Indeed, knowledge is but the beginning of religious education, whereas we have been in danger of considering it the end.  Many there are who know the ways of life but do not follow them.  Many know the paths of duty, but choose an easier way.  Many know the road to service and achievement, but do not enter thereon.  If to do were as easy as to know what to do, then all of us would mount to greater heights.