The Problem Of Religious Education Classic Reprint

Author : Henry Frederick Cope
Publisher : Forgotten Books
ISBN 13 : 9781330766767
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (667 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Week-Day Religious Education, 1922 written by Henry Frederick Cope and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2015-07-05 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Week-Day Religious Education, 1922: A Survey and Discussion of Activities and Problems This book contains a survey and a series of studies of a special type of activity in religious education. It treats of week-day religious education and, in doing so, it is purposely confined to the special types which have had a notable development and extension in the past few years. No one should be blind, however, to the fact that week-day religious instruction is by no means a modern innovation, nor should they lose sight of the fact that, in recent times, we have had other noteworthy adventures in this field beside those described in this book. We are so accustomed to regard the Sunday school as the sole provision for religious instruction that it comes to many as a surprise to be told that in early Christianity and in Judaism week-day instruction was a normal method of training youth. What is now going forward may be regarded as restoration rather than innovation, restoration with new purposes and with adaptations to new conditions. The synagog schools were not confined to the first day of the week; very early in the third century Origen gathered children in Alexandria and taught them in classes; the catecethical schools met during the week, itinerant missionaries established classes; the monastic schools were every-day schools. But with the rise of popular education, the elementary schools supplanted the religious schools and soon it came to pass that, not only were the ragged and enslaved child-laborers of Gloucester and other English towns without religious training, but in the United States, since the public schools more and more completely found themselves separated from religion, there were millions of children without religious instruction. In the development of popular week-day schooling this particular field of instruction had been crowded out. And now appears the movement to restore it to its place, not a place in the school but a place in the life of childhood. It might be very interesting to trace the many efforts to re-integrate religion in elementary education. Much could be learned by a study of different plans and of the difficulties they have met. That would take us far afield, into the parochial school history with its controversial aspects, into the long and involved struggle of the religion-in-the-schools question in England, into the notable experiments, under special conditions, in Australia, in pre-war Germany, in Queensland and in Ireland. But it will be much more profitable to study what is taking place under current conditions in the United States, growing out of our own civil life and meeting our special needs, and here to concentrate on a particular type, and to attempt a rather complete and exhaustive study of a single, recent enterprise. In the United States, practically within a decade, there has been developed a new and distinct form of social activity, marked by a religious purpose and conducted on educational principles. It is distinguished not only by the fact that its time schedules run through the week days, but also by definite relationships particularly to children's school-experience, and, incidentally, by coordinations to the programs of public schools. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com