Is care taken to give them such hymns as are suited to their age?  Are worthy hymns taught them, or the silly rimes found in many church song books? (This does not mean that children should be taught music beyond their comprehension; there is much good music suited to different ages.) Are your children having an opportunity to know the great religious pictures?  Religious architecture? (Here also the work must be adapted to the age.)

FOR FURTHER READING

Coe, Education in Religion and Morals.

Brown, The Modern Man’s Religion, chapter on “The Use of the Bible.”

Fosdick, The Manhood of the Master.

Weld and Conant, Songs for Little People.

Bailey, The Gospel in Art.

CHAPTER V

RELIGIOUS ATTITUDES TO BE CULTIVATED

Life never stands still; especially does the life of the child never stand still.  It is always advancing, changing, reconstructing.  Starting with an unripe brain, and with no fund of knowledge or expression, the child in the first few years of his life makes astonishing progress.  By the time he is three years old he has learned to understand and speak a difficult language.  He knows the names and uses of hundreds of objects about him.  He has acquaintance with a considerable number of people, and has learned to adapt himself to their ways.  He has gained much information about every phase of his environment which directly touches his life—­his mastery of knowledge has grown apace, without rest or pause.

Nor does the development of what we have called attitudes lag behind.  Parallel with growth in the child’s knowledge, his interests are taking root; his ideals are shaping; his standards are developing; his enthusiasms are kindling; his loyalties are being grounded.  These changes go on whether we will or not—­just because life and growth can not be stopped.  The great question that confronts teacher and parent is whether through guidance, that is through education, we shall be able to say what attitudes shall arise and what motives shall come to rule, rather than to leave this all-important matter to chance or to influence hostile to the child’s welfare.

The teacher of religion, like all other teachers, must meet two distinct though related problems in the cultivating of attitudes.  These are: 

     1. The creation of an immediate or direct set of attitudes toward
     the school and its work. This is needed to motivate effort and
     insure right impressions.

2. The development of a far-reaching set of attitudes that will carry out from the classroom into the present and future life of the pupil. This is needed as a guide and stimulus to spiritual growth, and as a foundation for character.

ATTITUDES TOWARD THE SCHOOL AND ITS WORK