2 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
Rassr Livons: I must differ from Professor Barnes when he states that this matter 
an be reduced to some scientific status. I do not think that there exists among chil- 
dren in regard to their theology anything that is capable of such reduction, for there is 
nothing original to children in this direction. What we find in the mind of the child 
is but the voicing of a sentiment that has been implanted in its mind by the lips of the 
parent, and the more speedy way to reduce this fo a scientific basis would be to direct 
our attention immediately to theology as it exists in more mature minds. I believe 
very firmly that in theology all of us are the children of one another. We improve on 
the thoughts of the children in giving to their infantile thoughts a greater polish and 
rendering them more poetic. 
Proressor Brooks, of Philadelphia : It occurs to me that if the significance of 
Professor Barnes’ paper could be impressed upon the minds of the parents of the chil- 
dren of our country, the most practical and excellent lesson could be drawn from it, 
because the probabilities are, taking our organization of schools and society as they 
are, that this theological thought, theological doctrine, could better be taught by the 
parents in the family than in the public schools, especially, too, from the fact of the 
great variety of theological thought in the different families of our country. Is it better 
to impress vivid imagery, concrete ideas of theology, on the minds of Christian children, 
or is it better to deal in more general conceptions? 
Pro¥essor SincrAir, of Hamiiton: 1 would like to ask whether Professor Barnes 
observed any tendency on the part of the child to grow toward the perfection of an 
ideal in matter and doing, and whether these children have observed, or are learning to 
observe as they are growing older, that by concentrating their attention upon that form 
or motive, if you will, which will lead them toward that which they conceive to be the 
nighest ideal, they will be enabled to forget those things which drag them down, and 
will be drawn up toward a conception of the good, beautiful, true, and to the perfection 
of that end. The reason I ask that question is because in a weak way we were endeavor- 
ing to carry on this subject of child study for some years, and in the supervision of 
some three hundred children, between five and seven vears of age, and their teachers, 
[ have noticed this, that as the teacher has studied psychology and has investigated 
along the lines of which Professor Barnes has spoken, we have found invariably that 
the maximum of child study has resulted in the minimum of child punishment, and I 
;hink it is because this point has been emphasized and that children have grown into 
‘he way of trying to forget the bad, and are interested in the good. 
PROFESSOR BArNEs: Our study would not lead me to make any general judgment 
on the subject. I wish Dr. Winship would relate a little incident that I know bears 
on this subject. 
Dr. WinsHIP: I happened to receive a letter this morning from home in which our 
ittle boy, three years and five months, last Sunday evening declined to say, ¢‘ Now I 
ay me down to sleep,” because he didn’t want God to take care of him over night : 
1e wanted his mother to. 
ProFEssOR Barnes: I should like to observe that if my paper shows anything it is 
‘his: that you can’t put into a child’s mind a general conception, a general vague term, 
an abstract definition, a large abstract idea or notion of some kind, and ask him to hold 
shis in its abstract form until he gets old enough to clothe it in its proper image. If he 
10lds it at all, he holds it because it is an image. 
Miss LLoyD, of Pennsylvania : I can only speak from personal experience when I differ 
from you in regard to the conception that a child can have of God. I am a Quaker. 
{ received my theological instruction from a Quaker mother. I can never remember a 
ime when I bad anything but an abstract conception of God. As a little child I 
shought of Him as something like clouds and shadows and air and light, that was every- 
where and might easily be everywhere, and afterward these thoughts took more 
definite shape. I should be very sorry, if teaching Christian theology in our schools 
means teaching little children the demonology of Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost,” that it 
should ever find a place in our schools.