Favorite Fairy Tales. Illustrated by Peter Newell. Harper & Brothers. $1.50. Every page of this artistic book is a work of art. The stories are the best known fairy tales, and each is here presented as the favorite of eminent men and women who in childhood felt the special charm of the story. It has therefore a more than ordinary human element. It is a book of 355 pages, and will be a most welcome gift to any child old enough to read. Child Problems. By George B. Mangold, Ph. D., Assoc. Director St. Louis School of Social Economy. The Macmillan Company. $1.25. This book belongs to "The Citizen's Library " Series. Its purpose is to present to thoughtful readers the leading social child problems of the day, Such subjects as Infant and Child Mortality; Recent Aspects of Educational Reform, such as the playground movement, the medical inspection of schools etc.; Child Labor; The Delinquent Child, and many other subjects, are intelligently discussed. The book is a convenient summary of educational progress and a real contribution to pedagogical literature. A Texas Blue Bonnet. By Emilia Elliott, Illustrated by John Goss. L. C. Page & Company. $1.50. some. The books for boys and girls published by L. C. Page and Company are always good. They are full of human interest and always clean and wholeThis volume is no exception. It is a capital story for girls, reproducing the school and home and social life of a typical school girl. The characters are all lifel-ike, and a vein of humor runs through the story, which is never dull or common place. The illustrations are excellent. By The Renewal of Life, How and When to tell the Story to the Young. Margaret Warner Morley, author of "A Song of Life," "Life and Love," etc. Illustrated, second edition. A. C. McClurg & Co. $1.25. Periodical Notes. The Century for January contains many fine articles, but we note particularly the contribution of John Burroughs on "The Grand Canon of the Colorado." Mr. Burroughs' enthusiasm as a nature lover is contagious, and by his vivid word pictures he brings his readers face to face with the remarkable creation of this most marvelous ravine.-An important paper in the January Forum is Dr. Albert Pecorini's "The Italians in the United States." Dr. Pecorini says, "The problem of making a citizen of the Italian is not an insoluble one." and his able article goes far to convince us that the Italian may indeed be made a necessity instead of a burden to the nation.-The January American Review of Reviews has an exceptionally readable and interesting article by Mabel Smith on "ForeignBorn American Trees." With the subject of forestry so widely discussed as it now is Miss Smith's article is withal most timely.-Willard D. Eakins, the private secretary of one of our Representatives, writes in the January number of Lippincotts Magazine about the troubles of a Congressman. This "special article" is called "The Temple of Trouble," and is an amusing, pithy and enlightening sketch of the life of a Congressman at the Capitol-The January Atlantic Monthly is packed full of interesting matter. One can hardly afford to pass over even a single article, but if choice must be made attention should centre on the opening paper which is the first installment of John Muir's " Journal of the Sierras." Devoted to the Science, Art, Philosophy and Literature of Education VOL. XXXI. MARCH, 1911 No. 7 Historical Significance of the Religious A ........................÷FTER several centuries of modern statecraft, almost every cabinet of Europe is still confronted by the religious question in one form or another. Each in its own way, the Latin states are seeking to mediate between religious tradition and the spirit of modern progress; in the Germanic lands, so predominantly Protestant, the problems arising out of the very nature of Protestantism have by no means found a fixed solution. And everywhere the religious question is fundamentally a school question. For Germany, at least, the most vital issue in education at the present moment is the religious question. During the last years there has arisen in different parts of the Empire an intensely earnest and significant debate about the place of religious instruction in the public schools. From the free cities of the north, first Bremen, then Hamburg, the debate has passed into practically all Protestant states, culminating in the last two years in an extremely bitter struggle between conservatives and reformers in the Kingdom of Saxony. Through a series of resolutions adopted at their annual meeting in 1908, since known as "die Zwickauer Thesen," the teachers of Saxony urgently demanded *A paper read before the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, Berkeley, California. certain radical reforms in the existing system of Religionsunterricht-a material reduction of the amount of memory work, less insistence on confessional standards and tests, more harmony of religious instruction with modern science and learning, and above all else, the full abolition of clerical supervision of the schools,1 To the Lutheran Church, strong in its material resources, its favored position under the law, and its sense of historic right, the reform program has been a challenge calling forth the most vigorous reactions. In consequence, the debate during the last two years, still continuing in unabated vigor, has been deeply serious, often acrimonious, and like a keen-edged sword has divided asunder the educational and religious forces of the Saxon people. In many respects Saxony is the most Protestant state of Protestant Germany. For historic reasons the ruling house adheres to the Roman Church, but ninety-five per cent. of the people are Protestants, nearly all of them Lutherans. The Lutheran Church is conservative in the last degree, and the clergy stand chiefly in opposition to the reform movement of the teachers. In itself this struggle for the secular control of the schools is highly significant; but it gets deeper meaning from a study of the historical conditions out of which the present situation has arisen. Such a study it is the purpose of the present paper to supply, tracing in outline the historical development of religious instruction in its relations with the church, the state, and the school, and thus to account for the present embittered feud in the Fatherland.1 The subject is fully discussed in the writer's monograph, "The Movement for Reform in the Teaching of Religion in the Public Schools of Saxony," U. S. Bureau of Education, Bulletin No. 1, 1910. Among the authorities consulted are the following: Hodgson, Primitive Christian Education. Edinb. 1906.; Lexis, Das Unterrichtswesen im deutschen Reich. 4 Bde. Berlin, 1904; Loos, Encyklopädisches Handbuch der Erziehungskunde. 2 Bde. Wien u. Leipz, 1906, 1908; Monroe, A TextBook in the History of Education, N. Y., 1906; Paulsen, German Education, Past and Present. Transl. by Lorenz. N. Y. 1908; Pinloche, La réforme de l'education en Allemagne au dix-huième siècle. Paris, 1889; Rein. Encyklopädisches Handbuck der Pädagogik. 9 Bde. Lanfensalza, 19031909; Rendtorff, Die schleswig-holsteinischen Schulordnungen vom 16. bis zum Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts. Kiel, 1902; Ritschl, Geschichte des Pietismus. 3 Bde. Halle, 1880-1886; Sachsse, Urspung und Wesen des Pietismus. Wiesbaden, 1884; Schaff, History of the Christian Church. 7 vols. 1882-1907; Schumann und Sperber, Geschichte des Religionsunterrichts in der evangelischen Volksschule. Gotha, 1890. Of these works the book of Schumann and Sperber alone deals directly with the subject of this paper, and it is written from the narrowly confessional point of view without much insight into the larger aspects. II. In the primitive church the instruction of novitiates in the elements of the faith filled a large place. Before their admission to baptism and communion, converts must be prepared through a long course of teaching and religious exercise, and must meet exacting tests as to faith and morals. Gradually there grew up a regular system of preparation for membership in the church, to which Tertullian first applied the name of "Catechumenate," which has since adhered to the system. In time there came to be several well-defined grades or stages in the Catechumenate, culminating in a personal confession of faith and full reception into the church. Among the early Fathers, Justin, Tertullian, Cyril, and most of all Augustine, gave attention to religious instruction and prepared manuals and formalaries for use in the work. In form this early Christian instruction was mostly narration and exposition; the learner was the listener; the method of question and answer came in later. Most important of all, the Catechumenate had to do with adults, not with children. In the ancient church the religious teaching of children was left to the home. But the church had become conscious of its teaching function, and the rest would follow. III. Until late in the period, mediaeval education was, of course, completely dominated by the church. The cloister schools and cathedral schools existed to train the clergy and to fit men for the monastic vocation. Such schools in no sense discharged the function of religious education for the people. After the sporadic attempt of Charles the Great to create a system of popular education, the ideal disappeared from view, to emerge again in the Latin schools and German schools of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Along with the marvellous expansion of German university education in the period, the new life of the age expressed itself in these Latin schools founded in many German cities under municipal authority. They mark the first positive step in the direction of secular control over education, a fact made evident by the general opposition of the clergy to them. In the same time and from the same conditions sprang up the so-called "German schools," which more nearly than the Latin schools furnish the prototype of the modern Volksschule. By the end of the Middle Ages, therefore, in most German cities there were to be found, alongside of the traditional cloister and cathedral schools, these Latin schools for secondary education and German schools providing in some degree for elementary instruction in common subjects. These schools represent some measure of emancipation from the church and some approach toward the secular ideal in education. Until the rise of the city schools, mediaeval religious instruction of the young lay wholly in the hands of the family or the church. From the eighth and ninth centuries infant baptism became common, and in connection with baptism the godparents were charged with the duty of teaching to the child the Credo and the Paternoster. Most of all, however, religious instruction was an adjunct of the confessional. In the confessional the suppliant was required to recite the Credo and Paternoster, and was instructed as to the ten commandments and the seven deadly sins. For children the habit of confession could begin as early as seven years, although the first communion, and after 1439 confirmation, did not occur till fourteen. From the age of Charles the Great on, many manuals and catechisms were prepared for use in teaching the young. Early in the eleventh century Bruno, bishop of Würzburg, wrote the first book in the question-andanswer form. Through such means the confessional instruction was made more or less effective. But the confessional tended to fall into disuse or to reduce instruction to mere forms of words. There is evident in such heretical sects as the Waldenses and the Hussites the purpose to put more vitality into religious teaching through larger use of the Bible, better catechisms, and the like. |