4.  Suppose you try making a list of all the different lines of participation in religious activities directly opened up to the pupils of your class by the church and the church school.  Is the list as long as it should be?  What further provision could be made for the children to have definite responsibility and activity?

5.  Do you think that your pupils are becoming increasingly inclined to look upon religion as a mode of living? For example, will your children be more agreeable, responsive, obedient, and helpful in the home next week for the lessons you have been teaching them?  Will they have higher standards of conduct in the school and on the playground?

FOR FURTHER READING

Dewey, Moral Principles in Education.

Sharp, Education for Character.

Partridge, Genetic Philosophy of Education, chapters on “Moral and
Religious Education.”

Mumford, The Dawn of Character.

Richardson, The Religious Education of Adolescents.

Alexander, Boy Training.

CHAPTER VII

THE SUBJECT MATTER OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

We have seen in an earlier chapter how the subject matter of religious education must be selected in accordance with the aims we would have it accomplish in the lives of our pupils.  We have also considered in separate chapters the religious knowledge required, the religious attitudes demanded and the practical applications of religious instruction to be made or the expression to be sought in the everyday life.  Let us now examine somewhat more completely the particular phases of subject matter which should be used to attain these ends—­To what sources shall we go for the material for the religious instruction of our children?  What subject matter shall we put into the curriculum of religious education?  This is a question of supreme importance to the individual, to the church, and to civilization.

SOURCES OF MATERIAL

First of all we must realize that the sources of religious material are almost infinitely broad and rich.  They are much broader than the Bible.  I would not be misunderstood on this point.  I conceive the Bible as the matchless textbook of religion, the great repository of spiritual wisdom through the ages.  It is the primary source to which we must go for material for religious instruction, not just because it is the Bible, but because its truths are the surest guide ever formulated for spiritual development.