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Table of Contents

Children can be brought to a religious character and experience through right nurture and training in religion. This is the fundamental assumption on which the present volume rests, and it makes the religious education of children the most strategic opportunity and greatest responsibility of the church, standing out above all other obligations whatever.

Further, the successful teaching of religion is based on the same laws that apply to other forms of teaching; hence teachers in church schools need and have a right to all the help that a scientific pedagogy permeated by an evangelistic spirit can give them. They also have the obligation to avail themselves of this help for the meeting of their great task.

This book undertakes to deal in a concrete and practical way with the underlying principles of religious instruction. The plan of the text is simple. First comes the part the teacher must play in training the child in religion. Then the spiritual changes and growth to be effected in the child are set forth as the chief objective of instruction. Next is a statement of the great aims, or goals, to be striven for in the child's expanding religious experience. These goals are: (1) fruitful religious knowledge; (2) right religious attitudes—interests, ideals, feelings, loyalties; (3) the application of this knowledge and these attitudes to daily life and conduct.

Following the discussion of aims is the question of just what subject matter to choose in order to accomplish these ends, and how best to organize the chosen material for instruction. And finally, how most effectively to present the subject matter selected to make it serve its purpose in stimulating and guiding the spiritual growth and development of children.

The volume is intended as a textbook for teacher-training classes, students of religious education, and for private study by church-school teachers. It is also hoped that ministers may find some help in its pages toward meeting their educational problems.

Northwestern University,

Evanston, Illinois.