part of its duty to provide properly trained religious teachers for the young? It is marvelous, but it is true. At any rate there is no evidence that it is not true, and in the absence of such effort on the part of the divinity schools one must conclude that they are either ignorant of their duty or neglectful of it. It may be, of course, that divinity schools have not provided training for teachers of religion for the young, because there has been no serious demand that they should.

Now who shall take the initiative in this matter? To this there is but one answer-the clergy. The pastor is or should be the one person charged with the responsibility of securing in every possible way the religious welfare of his people-including suitable instruction in the Bible. If, therefore, pastors and people are in earnest about securing instruction in religion, and especially a knowledge of the Bible, and if the pastors take the lead in pointing out how this may be done, there is little doubt that it will be done. I am not unmindful of the fact that a few churches, here and there, are doing something of importance in providing trained teachers for their Sunday schools, nor do I forget the Hartford School of Religious Pedagogy. These are, however, only faint and isolated lights in the universal darkness.

What I mean by a Bible school, then, is not a "Sunday school." I have already pointed out that we need well-equipped, professionally enlightened teachers to do the work of the Bible school. Such teachers alone would make an unmistakable contrast between the Bible school and the Sunday school. But the differences are more comprehensive. The Bible school would be properly graded; it would imply the attendance of each child in the elementary grades for about an hour a week, and in the upper grades-say after twelve years of age-for two hours a week. Of such a school the pastor should be the general superintendent, sustaining about the same relation to it that a superintendent of a public school system should sustain to the schools of his system-i. e., he should be the professional adviser, general inspector, and leader; should preside over all faculty meetings of the school, and be its chief executive in all administrative affairs. The school should

further have a paid corps of teachers, including a principal, who should be responsible for the administration of all internal details of management and work, and whose equipment and training for their work have been provided in the manner indicated above.

At this point I have no doubt an objection will be urged. It will be said that school children are already overburdened, and hence this proposition of a Bible school is impracticable. To this objection there are two substantial replies: First, that there is no proof that the children of the elementary schools are overworked, with the exception of single cases here and there under the management of a routine teacher of the old school, or of an unwise superintendent who still believes that education is synonymous with drill in book geography, the useless parts of arithmetic, and formal English grammar; and such cases are happily growing fewer every year. If there is proof that elementary school children are overworked I have not seen it. That high school pupils are sometimes overburdened in the attempt to cover a good secondary school education, including good preparation for college, in four years is true; but the remedy is to be found in remodeling our whole program of studies, so that it will be possible for pupils who intend to go on to the high school, and perhaps to college, to begin the work now done in four years two years earlier, so that they may take four, five or six years for it-a process now under way throughout the country. Second, the other reply is that we need not take any time on a school day. The work of the Bible school can be done on Saturday and Sunday.

It may be said, also, that punctuality and regularity of attendance cannot be secured at the proposed Bible school, and hence that the instruction would be ineffective. The reply is we haven't tried it, and I think this reply has much more force than it may seem to have. If we had good Bible schools can anyone doubt that a very large proportion of parents would co-operate with their churches in making the educational provision which they believe in, and which they pay for, really serve its purpose?

It may also be worth while to point out in passing that the

parochial school is not a Bible school, nor is it intended to be. The mistake of the parochial school-for I think it is a mistake is that for the sake of a peculiar form of religious instruction it segregates its pupils for all other instruction. Such segregation based on religious differences tends always to promote undesirable ségregations for political and other purposes, as in Germany and in England. That this tendency has not been as yet equally marked in America is due in part to the good sense of Americans-both Catholic and Protestantand in part to our established principle of the complete separation of church and state.

Bible schools, then, in connection with each denomination,and such schools only, could adequately meet the demand for religious education. It must be apparent that religion cannot be taught without teaching denominational religion. No teacher can teach well anything in which his own interest is lukewarm, and this is a vital truth so far as religious instruction is concerned. The adherent of a denominational religion has chosen his particular form of faith because it, appeals to him; it responds to his needs, is his solace, inspiration, and guidance in his efforts to realize within himself a spiritual ideal. Divest that faith of those peculiarities which make it his faith and you have left what to him is only the form, not the substance of religion, merely a cold and lifeless semblance of what it should be.

Bible schools would cost money. But so does everything worth having. If the people really value suitable and adequate religious education they must, in my opinion, secure it in some such way as I have just indicated, and, of course, they must pay for it.

This discussion has, thus far, touched only incidentally one important aspect of religious education, namely, moral education. Inasmuch as the Christian religion involves a moral code, religious education involves moral education; and just as it is impossible for any child or youth in our public schools to escape an incidental education in the Christian religion, so it is happily impossible for him to escape an incidental education in Christian morals. And, as I have pointed out above, this

education is none the less positive and effective because it is incidental. We must remember that the lessons-and again especially the lessons in history, literature, and art-repeatedly involve specific moral enlightenment and inculcate moral ideals; and, of course, all the discipline of the school, if it is wise, is a `moral discipline.

While no such objections can be urged against moral instruction as against religious instruction, and while provision for moral instruction in public schools is, of course, no new thing, it has hitherto been less effective than it ought to be, chiefly because the teachers have lacked appropriate training. I fancy also that this instruction has not developed as it should because of a supposed necessary connection between instruction in religion and moral instruction. And yet such connection is only apparent, not real.

The aim of such moral instruction as I conceive to be necessary and desirable in every school are:

1. To inculcate respect and a rational solicitude for the physical health and the physical welfare of the individual and the race as the foundation of progressive well-being and happiness.

2. To inculcate the idea of the "virtues of work," i. e., of the necessity of work and the blessings of steady employment as the indispensable means of ministering to the welfare and happiness of the individual and of the race.

3. To inculcate reverence and love for truth and goodness, and the love of beauty, whether of nature or art, and hatred of all vileness.

4. To cultivate the native instinct of sympathy until it becomes a controlling influence in conduct.

To instruction based on such aims no one can object. The education determined by them would make men brethren. It would tend to eliminate private and public misconduct; it would tend to the realization of that millennium on earth which has been so long delayed and is so ardently desired. If, in addition to the education determined by them, religious education is deemed essential, it must be supplied by the church, not by the school. To render such instruction effective-i. e., to develop moral power-it must be accompanied by a discipline that in

sists on the conformity of conduct to the moral insight developed and ideals inculcated; and this must be done by means of incentives and deterrents that, so far as possible, have a permanent value, i. e., that do not lose their influence as the child grows older.

The final result of all this should be moral insight, interest and power, the gradual substitution. of self-control and selfdirection for external restraint and guidance.

I cannot close this discussion without calling attention to what seems to me, after all, the most important evidence of the validity of the views I have endeavored to maintain. One hundred years ago religious instruction in the schools and colleges of this country was, as it had been from the beginning, universal; and in most institutions compulsory utilization of the provisions for religious instruction still prevailed. And yet the outcome of it all had been a disregard for religion, a prevalence of unbelief, and a low moral tone that, so far as the colleges are concerned, are almost incredible. Speaking of this period, Rev. Daniel Dorchester in his Christianity in the United States, p. 324, says: "It was confidently asserted by some that in two generations Christianity would altogether disappear. Such was the skepticism that prevailed at the close of the last century and the beginning of the present (the nineteenth century). The growth of Christianity in this country since these vain predictions has been the most marvellous ever known in any land or any age." And in his interesting book, The Churches and Educated Men, Rev. Edwin N. Hardy says, speaking of the period from 1795 to 1800, which he calls the "Period of Infidelity, or the Period of Rapid Declination": "On the one side, there is nothing to differentiate this period from that which preceded it (17701795). The same influences are at work, but as the stormtossed waves sometimes seem to gather themselves for one supreme effort, and carry the débris farther inland, so the wave of infidelity rose higher in its destructive strength and influence in this period, and then suddenly and somewhat mysteriously disappeared. But the storm cloud of skepticism shadowed the land for a score of years longer before its dark