Excerpt from A Social Theory of Religious Education What consequences for religious education follow from the now widely accepted social interpretation of the Christian mes sage? The present work is an attempt to answer this question. The answer is not simple. For the social message does not require us merely to insert this or that new duty into our present scheme of living, but also to judge every detail of conduct from a higher point of view. We are required to organize the whole of life upon a different level. It would be strange indeed if the new meaning that this gives to every-day affairs did not change our outlook upon child life. If we are to be logical and practical in our social Christianity, we must revise our policies with respect to children at least as much as our policies with respect to adults. The chapters that follow undertake to show the directions that this revision will need to take. As we proceed, it will appear that the whole perspective of religious education undergoes a change. The central purpose, to begin with, grows more specific because the nature of good ness is seen to be as concrete as the neighbor who lives next door. Christian experience comes out of the clouds, because in our dealings with our brother whom we have seen we are deal ing with the Father whom we have not seen - yes, we here come into relation with what is deepest in his character and purposes. To Christian ears these statements do not sound strange, per haps, yet when they are applied to the religious life of the young they do sing a new melody. A profounder significance attaches to the will of a child, and especially to his relations with persons, whether children or adults. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XII THE RELIGIOUS LIMITATIONS OF CHILDREN The respective educational consequences of a theory of moral continuity in child growth and a theory of moral discontinuity. The view of child nature that has now been sketched is different from certain opinions that are widely held at the present moment. The last two chapters have shown that, though antisocial instincts are active in the early years, socially constructive ones also are present, and that even the particular instinct out of which spring the finest and most difficult things in social progress begins its functions in infancy. Here we found natural capacity for entering into the great and fundamental motives of the Christian religion, fatherhood and brotherhood, and therefore a natural basis for Christian education. If this view is well founded, there is no necessary break, in moral quality, between the life of an adult Christian and that of a child who receives Christian nurture. The necessary difference between them concerns their respective range of experience, firmness of habit, and extent of foresight. An adult who is already well trained knows better how to be kind to a dog, a baby, a tuberculous family, a foreigner, a laboring man, a capitalist, a wife. With this wider knowledge of human relations there goes, of course, the possibility of profounder emotional appreciation of the character of God. Moreover, the welltrained adult Christian has so many times resisted his unsocial instincts, and indulged his social ones, and he has so often experienced the joy of Christian fellowship, that habit forming has borne its fruit in the weakened power of some temptations, the actual extinction of others, and relative ease in carrying high impulses into effect. This difference...

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Excerpt from Religious Education and Child Psychology, an Annotated Bibliography of the Literature, Supplementary to How to Teach in Sunday School The Twentieth Century feels the overemphasis in this theory and realizes that no child liveth unto himself, but it su'bstitutes the centrality of society for the centrality of childhood. The child lives in, through, and for its social relationships. Even the religion, and particularly the morality Of the child is inter preter from a social point of view. Not the child in the King dom of God - Oi such is the kingdom of heaven - but the destiny of the child in the coming social democracy, has become the interpretative key to the educational goal. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.