During the first years of the century there was vigorous discussion of the graded curriculum of Bible study, many contending vehemently for a uniform lesson for all ages, insisting that the pedagogy should be graded but not the sacred material. However, in 1908 the International Sunday-School Convention authorized its Lesson Committee to prepare a completely graded series. The findings of genetic psychology were utilized as the basis of this study and the idea of graded lessons became established.

Meantime another scientific interest was having its effect on religious education. Psychology of religion was a very young study at the beginning of the century. Some early essays in this field had appeared in the American Journal of Psychology. Such were Daniels, "The New Life: A Study in Regeneration," VI (1865), 61-103; Leuba, "Studies in the Psychology of Religious Phenomena," VII (1896), 309–85. The first book with the title Psychology of Religion was that of Starbuck in 1899. This was followed by Coe, The Spiritual Life, in 1900. These were largely studies of the phenomena of conversion and of religious feeling. The authors were seeking to discover the nature of the religious experience of converts. They reached some very significant conclusions regarding normal and abnormal religious development in adolescence.1

In 1903 the Religious Education Association was formed. Its volumes of proceedings contained papers from the leading educators and religious workers of the country. There is to be found in these papers a profound dissatisfaction with the current moral and religious training of the young, a sense that the church was lagging behind the school in method and understanding, and an insistence that the responsibility of all

'Other writers in psychology of religion who contributed during this first decade to an understanding of the problems of religious education were Granger, The Soul of a Christian (1900), William James, Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), Davenport, Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals (1905), Pratt, Psychology of Religious Belief (1905), Ames, Psychology of Religious Experience (1910).

social institutions in character training must be seriously faced anew.

The first book to gather up the contributions from all these fields and show their meaning was Coe, Education in Religion and Morals (1904). It was a protest against any mere intellectual conception of education and a presentation of the development of persons as the aim of the educational process. While the recapitulation theory was still employed and a theory of some original "religious impulse" was developed, the main stress of the book was upon growth through enlarging social experience. The social note that had thus come into religious education was characteristic of a considerable literature.2

The first scientific course on religious education was given by Professor Charles R. Henderson at the University of Chicago in 1904. Later Professor Coe gave courses at Northwestern and Professor Starbuck at Leland Stanford. Probably the present writer was the first professor to have this subject as the name of his university chair, 1906. After this, numerous chairs were established in universities, colleges, and theological seminaries, until the subject has now attained a recognized status.

The problem of educational organization became important in the second decade of the century. The Hyde Park Baptist Sunday School had been reorganized by President Harper, who was for many years its superintendent. The plan of this organization and the educational principles which it involved were presented in Burton and Mathews, Principles and Ideals for the Sunday School (1903). The emphasis was still on a school, an institution primarily of instruction. The effort was to secure the proper grading of the pupils, the determination of fitting biblical material for each grade, the

'Hoben, The Minister and the Boy (1912); Puffer, The Boy and His Gang (1912); Margaret Slattery, The Girl and Her Religion (1913), may be mentioned as typical.

fraining of teachers, and in general the development of the Sunday school in the respect of the children, the church, and the community. Henry F. Cope, who had become the secrefary of the Religious Education Association, outlined these organizational neerls in The Modern Sunday School in Principle and Practice (1907). H. H. Meyer followed with The Graded Sunday School in Principle and Practice (1916).

But it soon became evident that the problem of organization concerned more than the Sunday school. A host of other Agencies were carrying on educational work in the church. Young People's Societies, Boy Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, varibus missionary societies, were active and all independent alike of one another and of the church. The Religious EducaHon Association appointed a commission in 1912 on "The Correlation of Educational Agencies in the Local Church." ProTensor Walter S. Athearn was chairman of this commission. He subsequently developed his report and published the first comprehensive book on organization, The Church School Cror) Here was the beginning of the plan for a complete deportmentalization of the church, each department correlatfun all the interests and activities of its members, week-day

The booler on organization had given some significant diswwow of worship Very appropriately the Sunday school had not need this term Opening and closing exercises were the express for more fittingly describing what usually took place But the edin arion of children in religion meant a natubal alexa boyment of those attitudes of reverence, gratitude, box alex winch, with then ayyutate expression, we have bon sensed to call worships How do children worship? How at vises the adult past the ani? What hapPose på tvivX ̧ by Wed obey of papers. Scrip

* yw W Sqrphew, SA, AS expression of PNY MONGA

gir study

for

Hugh Hartshorne was facing these problems. His Worship in the Sunday School (1913) presented his conclusions, while his Manual for Training in Worship (1915, and a second volume 1919), gave his programs. Since then the study of worship has been very vital. We are only in the beginning of an understanding of the worship experience of children. It is a fruitful field for experimentation.3

A new interest developed in the second decade of the century in the relation of religious education to the public schools. Professor Squires, of the University of North Dakota, found that his students in English were unable to understand the simplest references to Scripture story or saying. After forty years of the uniform Sunday-school lesson we had a generation that knew less about the Bible than the people of older days. A scheme was devised for giving high-school credit for church Bible study. At the State Normal School at Greeley, Colorado, it was found that teachers of English were ignorant of the Bible, and a similar plan for credit was devised. The lengthened program of hours at Gary, Indiana, with various free periods, gave opportunity for the churches to hold Bible classes on week days and to secure the attendance of the children. Other cities followed one or other of these examples.

The movement became so important and developed so many interesting problems that the Religious Education Association decided to make it the subject of their conference in 1916. The results were published in Religious Education, April and June, 1916. These results were not very definite. It was clear that some fairly good Bible study was going on and that a considerable number of children were receiving instruction, but the churches had not seen the educational significance of this opportunity. The Sunday-school leaders saw little more than an extra hour each week for the study of the same Sunday lesson, while the school authorities were by no

3

* Religious Education, October, 1925, is devoted entirely to this subject and indicates the present position of studies and experiments.

means clear that the time was being profitably employed. The lack of competent teachers was especially evident.

But this movement was full of interest and promise. The Abingdon Press brought out a set of textbooks. At Malden, Massachusetts, Dean Walter S. Athearn developed a community training school for the preparation of teachers, and subsequently greatly enlarged The School of Religious Education and Social Service of Boston University, where leaders could be prepared for week-day as well as for all other branches of religious education. Whole communities organized for the conduct of this new work. In many cases a director of high educational fitness was chosen and a corps of teachers giving their full time to the various classes was developed. Community budgets often reached ten, twenty, and even thirty thousand dollars.

In 1921 the Religious Education Association decided again to study the problems of this week-day education. The services of Professor Erwin L. Shaver were secured to make a survey of the work over the entire country. Many of the leaders in education and in religion were invited to prepare articles treating the fundamental principles involved. These were published in Religious Education for December, 1921, and February, 1922. The whole subject was considered at the Convention of 1922, and the findings published in the April and June issues of the magazine. These, together with the survey and an analysis of the problems that had appeared, were discussed by Cope in his two volumes, The Week-Day Church School (1921) and Week-Day Religious Education (1922). The most evident result of all this survey was that workers in the field were not clear about their educational aims, and were therefore naturally not very definite in their method. There was a great demand for satisfactory textbooks, but there was no agreement as to what the textbooks should seek to do. Was Bible study to be the main purpose of the week-day school; and if so, was the acquisition of Bible