6. The organization of public education; units of administration and methods of control.

7. A knowledge of the relation of subject matter to the needs of the child and the needs of society; the relating of subject matter to the aims and functions of education.

8. The various ways of presenting subject matter, the various types of classroom procedure; inductive and deductive, object, socialized, appreciation, drill, review, etc.

9. A knowledge of the problem of the control of the behavior and conduct of pupils in school; understanding of proper standards of conduct according to the age of pupils and school conditions; understanding of rational measures of discipline that are adequate to maintain the standards set up.

10. A knowledge of the physical defects prevalent among school children and methods of preventing and detecting them. These ten minimum essentials cannot be satisfactorily mastered in less than four years of preparation in a teacher-training institution which requires four years of high school for entrance. To expect anything less is to expect the impossible.

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Religious Education-A New Start

JOSEPH V. COLLINS, STEVENS POINT, WISCONSIN. ◆HIRAVACHANANAK◆T is said on good authority that twenty-seven millions in this country are today receiving no religious instruction. With this statement may be coupled an equally shocking one, namely that those who are in Sunday School are getting religious education of a most superficial and unsatisfactory character. Probably one of the principal reasons why the twenty-seven millions are not seeking this education is because of its inferiority. Now the weakness in present-day religious instruction is not found in the Helps provided by our various Boards; it is not found in a lack of the spirit of service on the part of the workers, or of indifference on the part of pastors and church authorities; the trouble does not lie in the unwillingness of the church to provide the funds needed to procure religious instruction for both old and young; neither does it lie in the fact that we do not have workers enough; finally the trouble with religious education is not due to the worldiness of the masses, but the worldiness of the masses is largely due to the present form of religious instruction!

Look at present nation-wide condition. Bandits, kidnapers, profiteers of all sorts, lawbreakers of many species, and proletarian radicals are on every hand. Society, almost wholly bent on pleasure, soon becomes sated with each new interest and is constantly demanding something more outrageous. All this shows just one thing. Secular education even with its thousands of facets reflecting our Christian civilization is failing on the moral side. The fact is that the hope of the nation lies in effective religious education. But our religious education stands today where it stood sixty years ago as regards two main features-organization and time given to Bible study. The nation's house is on fire and we are using the bucket brigade to put the fire out!

The state gives the church one day in seven for religion and the church takes about twenty minutes of this time (allowing for losses) for study of Bible truths, the teaching being mostly of the weak didactic form at that. These study periods are separated by 167 2/3 hours intervals. No wonder there is lack of continuity in the work and a dearth of results. What is needed, what is essential, is a half day (3 hour) session conducted along the lines of the secular school, with a relatively small number of far better trained teachers in charge. The evangelistic side of the instruction by this plan can be looked after by the ablest workers in the church reaching all of the members of schools. In such Sunday Schools the studying necessary would be done in school and with the powerful incentive that all the other pupils were studying at the same time. Thus the present difficulty of getting the children to study their lessons would be done away with, to the great relief of all concerned. Sundays so spent would no longer be the bug-bear they often have been in the past.

If the Sunday School were organized and conducted as it should be the state might easily be induced to make attendance on it compulsory for all children except those whose parents reported themselves as "conscientious objectors.' The nation's leaders see the dire need of this education and could persuade the country of the absolute necessity of securing it. But we may be sure the state will never make compulsory attendance on so inferior an institution as the present-day Sunday School.

The obligation to improve religious education should weigh very heavily on the consciences of leaders of the Protestant churches. Both the future of the country and the future of the church itself depend on prompt and wise action. People who have not been trained in a knowledge of religious truth and the Bible will not attend church. They cannot understand and appreciate its services nor will they see the need of sending their children to Sunday School. There is another and highly suggestive side of this question. If the Protestant church could show the Catholics that a satisfactory solution of the problem of religious education can be secured by using

half of Sunday to acquire it, then the Catholic Church might see its way clear to giving up its parochial system. It must be apparent to all that taxing Catholics for the support of the public schools when they send their children to their own self-supported parochial system works a great injustice. Two wrongs do not make a right. By logic's law of the excluded middle there should be a third right thing which could be substituted for the two wrongs.

It looks very much as though the teachers of America would have to use their knowledge and influence to convince the church that education is self-activity and that any education of whatever kind to be worth while must be paid for in time and effort by the learners. Not a few clergymen fatuously believe the mere reading of the Bible in the public schools would solve the problem of religious education. Such people are hopeless; but there must be tens of thousands of forwardlooking and sensible religious leaders in this land who could be persuaded that a whole new start in religious education is essential, and who if they could be convinced of this need would have the initiative to take the steps necessary to remedy the present impossible situation. Reader, will you not try to lay the case before your friends interested in religious education and appeal to them to make this new start.

Curricula-Making in State Teachers Colleges

WALLACE R. CLARK, HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC, WEST TEXAS STATE TEACHERS COLLEGE, CANYON, TEXAS. Shall the curricula of the State Teachers Colleges be pre-determined by the Graduate Schools of the Liberal Arts Colleges? HIS is by no means a hypothetical question, but

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a very real one, representing the definite trend in curricula-making in our State Teachers Colleges. This course has been and is being made apparently necessary by these colleges doing their very best to become "standard." Now standardization among Teachers Colleges is certainly very desirable, and probably as badly needed as among any class of educational institution. But the standards must of a certainty be true standards of teacher training.

This naturally brings us to the question: Are the standards of teacher training peculiar standards? Or more tersely -is there anything to this teacher training business, anyway? Just as we answer this question, are we prepared to answer the larger previous one? The academic world-and the universities in particular-have never quite accepted the theory of teacher training, evidenced by the fact of the premium placed upon university graduates as teachers. If this point of view is to prevail, then the teachers colleges are an anomaly, and were better abolished; as a matter of fact, will be abolished; for in the war for public support of our institutions, the unnecessary is bound to go. Therefore, the establishing of these teachers colleges, in every detail, upon sound principles becomes a most necessary thing if they are to exist. As this writer sees the matter, for the teachers colleges simply to conform to the standards of the Liberal Arts Colleges, is to hurry to their own destruction. There is already very clear