THE THEOLOGICAL LIFE OF A CALIFORNIA CHILD. 769 
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ten years old there are few indications of a questioning or doubting frame 
of mind. From that time on, however, questions arise ; the children try 
to reason things out and to relate their theology to what they have learned 
through experience and through their studies. This critical spirit seems 
to culminate at thirteen or fourteen, and criticisms are far more persist- 
ant and severe at this time than later. Of course, in this work, as in all 
studies on children, we must recognize the fact that some children develop 
much more rapidly than others, so that there are many exceptions; but 
shere is a clearly marked difference between the compositions of children 
of eleven and of thirteen which must strike even the most careless observer. 
One sees this difference even when the children are doing the same grade 
of school work ; age marks differences better than school gradations do. 
Forty papers were selected at random from one thousand to illustrate 
she critical attitude. Ninety per cent. of them were written by children 
setween twelve and fourteen years old. 
The critical spirit first appears in an effort to place the responsibility 
for the doctrines stated in the compositions. Thus at eleven and twelve 
-here begin to appear in the compositions such phrases as, “I think,” 
“I’ve been told,” “my idea was,” ¢“ the Bible says,” “1 was taught in 
Sunday-school,” or ¢ they say.” By thirteen or fourteen these phrases 
pecome, ‘we imagine,” “I used to believe,” “I doubt.” ete. 
A girl of thirteen modifies Lier statements as follows : ¢“ We cannot exactly tell who 
sin heaven, but it is supposed that every one that serves Him probably goes there.” 
And a girl of twelve thus tries to place the responsibility for the statements she offers: 
If heaven is a place where you are said to be always happy, I think it must be very 
seautiful. One of the most lovely things to beautify a place is flowers, and it is my 
opinion that we will find lovely flowers there. It is said that the people that go there, 
who are angels, have wings and dress in white. Of course, I have never seen them. 
So I don’t really know how they do look.” The most common form of criticism is that 
which appears in efforts to harmonize theology with experience. 
Thus one boy says: “I used to believe that the air was full of bad spirits which 
would hurt you, but I don’t believe it now, because they don’t hurt.” A girl of fifteen 
says: ‘‘I don’t see how people can stay in heaven forever, without nothing to do except 
:0 play and sing, but people might be different there from what they are here.” 
The new desire to exercise the critical judgment seems at times the only reason 
one can find for the questions raised. Thus a boy of fourteen says: ‘I thought that 
the devil and all the other things were just as they say they are in the Bible, from which 
- got my impressions, but beyond that all is a mystery. My idea of heaven has changed, 
and now I think that heaven is space. But if that is so, how could the heavens open, as 
it says they did in the Bible ?” And a boy of fourteen says: ** I think it is strange 
‘hat when one dies his soul goes to heaven if he is good, and if he is bad his soul does 
aot go to heaven; and I don’t see what good it does for your soul to get to heaven, 
necause when you are dead you know nothing of it.” 
The children at this age also try to make their theology harmonize with their human- 
tarian feelings and their sense of justice. One boy of fourteen says: “I think when a 
mother sees her son, if such things happen, left among the bad, she will not be very happy 
{or a while.” Frequently the children of this age say they do not believe that savages