The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1901-10-23

which, from the instructural point Of
view, is peculiarly trying. Our present
difficulty is that people feel In q neg
ative way that the Bible Is new, at
least that 1t is not just as they once
thought 1t to be in it's structure and
origin.
We have a home in which there is
neither wood to saw nor chores to do.
home where it is matter Of ut
most difficulty to find even errands the
child can do to make 1t feel the solid
arity of the home life which is perpet-
uated only by the necessary and united
labor of all. We have a home where
the love Of business and the love of
luxury and the opportunities for the
qualification of both are surprisingly
large. The point must be distinctly
borne in mind that we not only are
crowded into business but we prefer to
be so crowded Not only do we love
luxury but we groan under the very
burden of our delights. We wear our
selves out with whist clubs and con-
vert our parlors into bric-a-brac shops.
In the home which Congregationalism
once held to be the ideal place for the
religious training of the child, the
pressure. of business or luxury curtails
or abrogates the grace before meals,
eliminates the family worship, vitiates
the atmosphere of domestic piety, abb
serbs the time that might be spent in
preparation for the instruction of the
child on the Lords Day, and turns over
to the girl Of IS who lives next door the
duty of asking the boy in Sunday
school the questions in the lesson quar-
terly. And not unlikely the girl of Is
gives in this way as efficient instruc-
ton as either parent would provide.
There is also in this home new
child. The problem of the new child
is similar to that of the new Bible
The boy of today still wears trousers,
cap and Shoes He still has flesh
blood and voice. He has always had
these. But the mother of today has
read books and heard lectures telling
how mistaken old conceptions of the
child were; how the proverbs of Solo
mon are Oriental anachronisms; how
the old doctors and the old grand
mothers were both old fogies; while
at the motherhood clubs benevolent
spinsters of faultless theory explain
how children should be loved into
obedience and tickled into spontaneous
virtue. In the meantime the new child
learns to say the fifth commandment
backward and the parents cultivate
daily the graces of meekness and
docility.
"And, last of all, we have the new
pedagogy. 1 know you feel that have
been caricaturing the new home and
the new child, I feel that you will
think that l do the same by the new
pedagogy. Still, am 1 altogether wrong
when I say that to many parents 1t
seems to supply the elaborated scienti-
! fic statement of certain principles
which parents seem to know by in
sight-that beyond these there is a
more or less radiant penumbra Of truth
lit up by the sacred halo of modernity,
but the total effect of which is to
make the parent feel that the educa-
ton of the child is some sort of a
mystic cult into which the child and
the teacher alone are being initiated
and with the rites of which the every
day father and mother will do well not
to interfere either by word or pres
ence.
You say this is exaggerated nom
sense. 1t is hardly that: l am trying
to bring out certain suggestions that
seem to make 1t perfectly obvious that
We have reached the point where it is
fatuous to leave to the uncertainties
of home training the religious instruc
ton of the child so long as the condi-
lions surrounding childhood are those
which at present exist.
II am convinced that new Bible
Will NC OPCllCQ " Jul 6SllSioIiOAA "aAiSA
will reveal a beauty, a richness, an
assurance of support for fruitful
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ not in
ferior to anything that the old Bible
supplied to our fathers.
IT am convinced that a new home
will adjust itself to changed social
conditions in such a way that 1t will
be the gracious and fructifying en-
vironment for the growth of study and
devout Christian youth.
II am convinced that the new child
when we come to know him a little
! better will manifest the power of an
| earnest and consecrated manhood.
II am convinced that the new
pedagogy will show by its results
royal fruitage of ennobled character.
"Still the present conditions point to
what the program has not inaptly called
the "greatestneed of ourchurches"-
need of ministry of teaching, min
istry of teaching which in dignity and
Significance shall take its place side by
side with the ministry of preaching, so
that it may well be mans pride ever
to remain the teacher of a church. This
much is evident beyond possible queS-
ton that if the church of Christ as rep
resented by the Congregational fellow
ship is to see to it that the church per-
forms with efficiency one of the most
SdCTeu uulleS GILL W ttiC II oAiA7
ing of the young-the work cannot be
left to the timorous and ill-equiped
training of the home. nor to the made
auate, often anticipated, and sometimes
vicious methods of the ordinary Sun
day school but that it must be entrust-
ed to those who through careful study,
of the problems of the Bible, of social
conditions, Of the child mind of
methods Of instruction are competent
to bring to the task of leadership in re-
ligious instruction a skill at least COM
parable to that which he brings who
teaches his pupils about rocks, or bugs,
or numbers. l believe that beyond all
question the time is coming when there
will be a return to dual ministry in
our larger churches. believe further
that in the training of every minister
instruction in teaching should take its
place side by side with training in the
art of preaching.