suggested work for the adult school. It is a very satisfactory outline and meets fairly well the requirements of modern pedagogy. It needs details in order to make it serviceable to many communities.

In chapter XIII of the book entitled The Pedagogical Bible School, Dr. Haslett has presented a fairly complete outline of a graded course of study based on the developing conditions of the child. His intensely minute classification of child life may be somewhat fanciful and extreme, yet the scheme, as a whole, is an honest and faithful and largely successful attempt to adjust the educational material to the needs of the growing soul. He makes provision for early childhood — kindergarten; middle childhood - primary period; advanced childhood - junior period; early youth the intermediate period; youth- the senior period; mature life adult period. A specific aim is formulated for each of these, the quality of mind and heart to be developed is indicated and the material to be employed carefully outlined. This is an excellent scheme and the teacher looking for suggestive plans of organization and matter will find this course exceedingly valuable.

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All students of the field must know of the volume by the late Professor Pease. In the preparation of the book he constantly had in mind the pupil, the subject matter and the end to be attained. He follows the usual six-graded form of school, indicates what should be accomplished in each grade, and points out in detail the material and how to handle it, going even so far as to formulate the questions. It is an excellent piece of work. One, however, cannot but feel that the form of the book and the detailed method smacks too much of the typical Sunday-school helps. His outline is:

Kindergarten Teaching God, the Workman.

Primary Teaching the revelation of God, the Loving Father. Junior - Teaching God, the World Ruler.

Intermediate - Teaching God, the Character Former.

Senior Teaching God, the Source of Truth.

Adult Teaching God, the Eternal King.

There remains to be mentioned a course prepared by the secretary of this association, Mr. Henry F. Cope. This is built up on a slightly different method, though aiming to accomplish the same results as the others. Mr. Cope has carefully detailed the subject matter that should be studied during each year of the child's Sunday-school life and has sought to discover among the multitudinous books of the field a volume covering the material set down for the particular year or period, and which at the same time is suitable for the child to read and study. Thus he follows very closely the practices of the secular school, which first defines

the work of each grade, then puts into the hand of the child a volume adequately presenting such material. Whether he has been happy or not in his topics and texts, this in my judgment is the method by which this vexed problem must be solved. His course in detail is as follows:

KINDERGARTEN

Religious conceptions moulded by stories, games, and exercises.

ELEMENTARY

Grade 1. Religious conceptions in detail, moulded by stories, manual work, memorizing of simple passages.

Grade 2.

Grade 3.

Same work, with greater detail, introduction of biography, memorizing also of longer passages and short hymns. Old Testament narratives; into this may be woven geography; using manual methods.

Grade 4. Life of Jesus, following plan similar to grade 3. Make picture-life of Jesus.

Grade 5. Lives of the Apostles. Use the travel interest, manual methods, collect museum material.

Grade 6. A general introduction to the Bible. A year's survey of the whole, using the Bible freely. Use manual methods freely. Grade 7. (a) Biography in the Old Testament; beginning of hero study.

(b) Christian biography, beginning with Jesus. Have pupils work on the heroes of Christian history as they would on Washington or Lincoln.

Grade 8. Church History, beginning with the "Acts" (first half of year).

Christian Missions (second half of year).

SECONDARY

Grade 1. Preparation for Church Membership.

Ist half: The Christian life; develop, in part by biographical studies.

2d half: Christian service; lead to enthusiasm for service

in the Church.

Keep in mind that these are the "decision years."

Grade 2. (a) Christian Institutions.

(b) Denominational life and polity.

Grade 3.
Grade 4. New Testament Literature.

Old Testament Literature.

Grade 4. (a) Practical Christianity, Social Service. (b) Missions, Comparative Religions.

Grade 3. Sunday-school Organization and Management.
Grade 4. Advanced Biblical Introduction.

Recapitulation:

My study has revealed the following nine courses of study:

I. International Lessons.

II. International with Supplementary Lessons.

III. Bible Study Union Lessons. Bible Study Pub. Co., 250 Devonshire, Boston, Mass.

IV. S. S. Commission Source Method Lessons. New York Sunday School Commission, 29 Lafayette Place, N. Y. City.

V. Friends' First Day School Lessons. Eliza H. Worrell, Y. F. A.

Bldg. 140 N. 15th St., Phila., Pa.

VI. Various Curricula published by the Unitarian Sunday School Society, 25 Beacon St., Boston, Mass.

VII. Manual Method of Sunday School Teaching. Prof. Richard Morse Hodge, Union Theo. Seminary, N. Y.

VIII. Haslett, The Pedagogical Sunday School. Fleming H. Revell Company, New York City.

IX. An Outline of a Bible School Curriculum. Professor Pease. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill.

X. Cope, Suggested Curriculum. "The Modern Sunday School.” Fleming H. Revell Company.

The results of this study have led me to the conclusion that the absolutely satisfactory and practical curriculum has not yet been published.

2d. That the formation of such a curriculum demands the co-operative labor of several specialists and cannot be well wrought out by a single mind.

3d. That this association or some other should devote considerable

time and effort to the accomplishment of such a task. Therefore I recommend that a committee of twenty-one be appointed to whom shall be assigned the task of the organization of a curriculum. Said committee to be composed of sub-committees representing the Kindergarten, Primary, Junior, Intermediate, Senior, Adult and Normal departments of the Sunday school and that said committee report at the next annual meeting of this association.

MATERIAL OF INSTRUCTION FROM THE POINT OF VIEW

OF THE LEARNER

GEORGE E. DAWSON, PH. D.

PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, HARTFORD SCHOOL OF RELIGIOUS PEDAGOGY,

HARTFORD, CONN.

Next in importance to a rationally determined educational aim, is the choice of the material of instruction. The question of what this material shall be, in the different kinds of schools and with different types of pupils, is extremely difficult to answer. Even educational experts do not always agree in their views as to what should constitute the courses of study in our public schools and colleges. In fact, our knowledge of the nature of man, and of the world about him, is being so rapidly modified by science that our resulting conceptions of the fundamental purpose of education are confused and chaotic. We know that we are dissatisfied with the educational programs of the past, because we see clearly that they were based upon very inadequate ideas of human life, and of the universe. But we are far from being sure as to what programs should take their place. Much less are we in agreement. In education, as in other things, we are living in an age, if not of revolution, at least of marvellously radical and rapid change. The only really safe attitude to take in the midst of changing knowledge and points of view is that of open-mindedness and alert, optimistic inquiry for the best that is known.

And yet, in spite of the difficulties of the problem, and the impossibility of its complete solution, there is no teacher who faces a class of boys or girls, with any degree of professional insight and conscience, that can escape raising the question of what material of instruction he shall use. For it is by no means a matter of indifference what kind of intellectual and emotional experiences we provide for the pupils in our class-rooms. What we teach them modifies their lives, permanently, however slightly or profoundly. There is more than an analogy between what we put into a child's mind and what we put into its body. Both processes involve the same fundamental reactions of life to environment. To get the soul adjusted to ideas, and to modes of mental reaction that produce arrests of development is no less an interference with the life-process than to get the body adjusted to food and to forms of physical reaction that produce organic arrests and death. We cannot secure normal conditions of health and growth in the mind unless the