ORGANIZATION OF THE CURRICULUM AS A WHOLE

The material offered in the curriculum of our church schools is not, taking it in all its parts, as well organized as that in our public day schools.  This is in part because the material of religion is somewhat more difficult to grade and arrange for the child than the material of arithmetic, geography, and other school subjects.  But it is also because the church school has not fully kept pace with the progress in education of recent times.

A century or two ago the day-school texts were not well graded and adapted to children; now, we have carefully graded systems of texts in all school subjects.  While the logical and the chronological method of organization still holds a place in many of the public school texts, the psychological point of view, which considers the needs of the child first, is characteristic of all the better schoolbooks of the present.  Just because religion is more difficult to teach than grammar or history or arithmetic, we should plan with all the insight and skill at our command to prepare the religious material for our children so that its arrangement will not suffer by comparison with day-school material.

Three types of lesson material.—­Material representing three different types of organization and content of curriculum material is now available and being used in our church schools: 

1.  The Uniform Lessons, which are ungraded, and which give (with few minor exceptions) the same topics and material to all ages of pupils from the youngest children to adults.

2.  The Graded Lessons, which seek to adapt the topics and subject matter to the age and needs of the child, and which therefore present different material for the various grades or divisions of the school.  These are usually printed in leaflet or pamphlet form.

3.  Real textbooks of religion which are based on the principles used in making day-school texts.  The material is divided into chapters, each dealing with some theme or topic adapted to the age of the child, the lessons not being dated nor arranged to cover a certain cycle of subject matter as in the case of the regular lesson series.  The books are printed and bound much the same as day-school texts.

The uniform lessons.—­Although many churches still employ the Uniform Lessons, we shall not hesitate to say that no church school is justified in this day of educational enlightenment in using a system of ungraded lessons.  Such lessons are planned for adults.  They ignore the needs of the child, and force upon him material for which he is in no sense ready, while at the same time omitting matter that he needs and is capable of understanding and using.  For example, some of the topics which primary children, juniors, and all alike find in their ungraded lessons of current date are, man’s fall, the atonement, regeneration, the city of God, faith—­splendid topics all, but too strong meat for babes.