The Meaning of Religious Education in the Family : Part 3

Religious Education in the Family
by Henry F. Cope

(Page 7 of 23)

7. Important Considerations

It is worth while to insist upon two important considerations. Parents who stand as gardeners watching the growth of the tender plant of child-character may be looking for developments that never ought to come and will be disappointed because they were looking for the wrong thing. First, in watching for the beginnings of the religious life of the child in the family we are not expecting some new addition to the life, but rather the development of this whole life as a unity in a definite direction which we call religious. It is the first and most important consideration that religious education is not something added to the life as an extra subject of interest, but the development of the whole life into religious character and usefulness. Secondly, this growth of religious character is going on all the time. It is not separable into pious periods; it is a part of the very life of the family. Perhaps this increases the difficulty of our task, for it removes it from the realm of the mechanical, from that which is easily apprehended and estimated. It takes the task of the religious education of children out of the statistical into the vital, and reminds us that we are growing life every second, that there is never a moment when religious education is not in operation. This demands a consideration, not alone of lessons, of periods of worship and instruction, but of every influence, activity, and agency in all the family life that in any way affects the thinking, feeling, and action of the child. We are thinking of something more important than organizing instruction and exercises in religion in the home; we are thinking of organizing the family life for religious purposes, for the purpose of growing lives into their spiritual fulness.

Perhaps the capital mistake in the religious education of the family is that we overemphasize this or the other method and mechanism instead of bending every effort to secure a real religious atmosphere and soil in which young souls can really grow while we leave the process of growth more largely to the great husbandman. And the second great mistake is that we are looking for mechanical evidence of a religious life instead of for the development of a whole person. We must reinterpret the family to ourselves and see it as the one great opportunity life affords us to grow other lives and to bring them to spiritual fulness by providing a social atmosphere of the spirit and a constant, normal presentation of social living in spiritual terms.

8. The Organization of Loyalty

When parents conceive the family in these terms and so organize the life of the home, the child becomes conscious of the fact, and at once the life of the family furnishes him with his first, his nearest, and most satisfactory appeal to loyalty. He feels that which he cannot analyze or express, the spiritual beauty and loyalty of family life. That life furnishes a soil and atmosphere for his soul. It is an atmosphere made of many elements: the primary and dominating purpose of parents and older persons, the habitual life of service and love, the consciousness of the reality of the Divine Presence, the fragrance of chastened character and experience, the customs of worship and affections. These things are not easily created, they cannot be readily defined, nor can directions be given in a facile manner for their cultivation. They are the elements most difficult to describe, hardest of all to secure when lacking, least easily labeled, not to be purchased ready-made, and yet without them religious education is wholly impossible in the family. Without this immediate appeal to loyalty the loyalties of the child toward higher and divine aims do not develop early; they are retarded and often remain dormant. For us all scarcely any more important question can be presented than this: What appeals to spiritual idealism and loyalty does our family life present to the child? What quickening of love for goodness and purity, truth and service, is there in the home and its conduct?

I. References for Study

G. A. Coe, Education in Religion and Morals, chaps. i, ii, xii, xiii. Revell, $1.35.

George Hodges, Training of Children in Religion, chaps. i, ii. Appleton, $1.50.

J. T. McFarland, Preservation versus Resurrection. Eaton & Mains, $0.07.

II. Further Reading

C. W. Votaw, Progress of Moral and Religious Education in the American Home. Religious Education Association, $0.25.

George Hodges, Training of Children, chaps. i, ii, xv. Appleton, $1.50.

G. A. Coe, Education in Religion and Morals, chaps. i, iv, xvi. Revell, $1.35.

E. C. Wilm, Culture of Religion, chaps. i, ii. Pilgrim Press, $0.75.

C. W. Rischell, The Child as God's Child. Methodist Book Concern, $0.75.

E. E. Read Mumford, The Dawn of Character. Longmans, Green & Co., $1.20. See especially chap. xii on "The Dawn of Religion."

III. Topics for Discussion

1. How would you define education?

2. What is the difference between education and religious education?

3. What makes the home especially effective in education?

4. Is it true that it is possible to discover the laws of growth and so determine the development of character?

5. Recall any very early manifestations of religious character in small children. What would you regard as the best kind of manifestation?

6. What is the essential principle of the right life? How may we develop this in childhood?

7. What are the things which most of all impress children?

8. Would you think it wise to bring a child under the influence of a religious revival?

Copyright 1915 by The University of Chicago