Full text: Proceedings of the International Congress of Education of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, July 25-28, 1893

RELIGION IN THE SCHOOL. 297 
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and civil relations, and this involves moral character. Hence character is 
the end of school training ; religion only a means to this end. 
This distinction between religion as an end and as a means of the school 
is not only important but fundamental. If religion be not the end of the 
school, it follows that the teaching of religion for religious ends is not its 
function. The school may use religion to enforce and strengthen moral 
obligation, just as the state uses it in administering the civil oath. The 
state does not recognize religion as its end, but it uses religion to secure 
:he ends of civilization and freedom. ¢¢ With the individual,” says Dr. 
Seelye, ““ religion is primary as an end ; with the state it is only secondary 
and a means.” It follows that neither the state nor the school is an 
agency for the advancement of religion as an end, but each may use reli- 
sion for its own ends. In other words, while religion is not the end or 
function of the school, it may use those religious means which are neces- 
sary fo secure effective moral training—the highest end and central duty 
of the school. To avoid this conclusion, those who take the extreme view 
that all religion must be excluded from the public school, consistently deny 
shat moral training is its end or function ; but no objection can be urged 
against moral training in school that does not hold against the school vself. 
On the contrary, the assumption that religion is the end of the school 
involves the making of religion its chief concern and function—the 
Franckean claim of the seventeenth century. Moreover, the duty to teach 
religion as an end nvolves the teaching of all religious truth essential to 
the welfare of the child’s soul. No one who has any true conception of 
the importance of religion to the individual can be satisfied with anything 
less. Tt is obvious that such a test as this would condemn nearly all 
schools, even those under the immediate direction and supervision of the 
church. The religious instruction and exercises in these schools fall far 
short if religion be the end and duty of the school. There is an increas- 
ing recognition of the fact that the family, the church, the Sunday-school, 
and other voluntary agencies must be depended upon to give our youth a 
saving knowledge of religion. 
Whatever may be true of schools under private management, the public 
school cannot make religion its end, or religious instruction and worship 
‘ts necessary function. It must leave to other agencies that religious 
instruction and training that looks to the salvation of the soul. 
We are now brought face to face with the practical question, What reli- 
gious means are needed to make moral training vn the school efficient. and 
how may they be used? 
It has already been shown that the ethical motives need to be quickened 
and supported by religious influence, and this fact suggests that in some 
practical way the school must use those religious sanctions and motives 
which quicken the conscience, strengthen moral obligation, and influence 
the will. But these religious sanctions and motives flow from certain
	        
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