even future work as a gardener in varied situations. In this case, his past experience being organized was of distinct advantage, whereas in the case of golf-playing the particular forms of organization were an actual hindrance.

It is evident that in the purposive mode of learning it is necessary at times both to break up undesirable and to form desirable connections between our various mental processes according as a given situation is interfered with by the undesirable connections or is too complex for the connections already made between our mental processes.

The elderly man had to break up the established ways of raising his arms above his head and to find freer and more effective ways which had to be co-ordinated into one vigorous swing. The boy had almost no basis in his experience which would help him in hiring a gardener. The situation was too complex. The elderly man could however teach him in part at least how to meet such a situation.

The truths above illustrated may be stated in physiological terms as follows: It may be necessary in forming a new path of nervous discharge (1) to inhibit certain established pathways or (2) to complicate in new combinations brain elements previously functioning with comparatively little relation to each other. Either or both of these principles may operate in any given instance of religious or of moral training; but so much emphasis has been put upon the "thou shalt not" and so little on the positive development of good feeling, good traits, good disposition, and helpful mental attitudes in general that it is little to be wondered that our precepts are not more attractive.

What then is the function of the teacher with relation to these two ways of organizing experience? The teacher is an element thrust into the environment of the child which not only changes it but is there expressly so to manipulate the environment that the child may learn the essentials agreed upon or left to the teacher's discretion. The teacher might (as indeed he too often has done) neglect all the automatic (both natural and acquired) ways of learning which the child has, and insist that he get everything by direction and his own thinking. This would be to handicap the child both seriously and unnecessarily. Far better would it be so to manipulate the child's environment, that he would be incited and stimulated to learn and to do things automatically and at the same time so led and directed that he will discover truths and acquire dexterity which would be absolutely impossible for him without that new and helpful factor in his environment.

All this applies to that which should be called positive teaching. In teaching negatively (i. e., what the child should not do), it is the

function of the teacher so to manipulate the child's environment that he may be protected from temptations that are greater than he is prepared to resist and are serious in their results, and at the same time to guard him from inevitable temptation by appeals to his fear of danger, and by depicting to his imagination the evils and sorrows that weak courses of action are likely to bring in their train. But in no case should effort be wasted in that direction unless there is a real danger which calls for preventive action.

The teacher's error often consists in a disdain of the automatic ways of learning. If he can't ding it into the boy's head and make him say it parrot-like, he seems to take it for granted the child won't learn anything. This disregard of the instinctive and acquired aids in learning has led to serious errors in our practice and is perhaps nowhere better illustrated than in our religious teaching, where we still insist on preaching, revival meetings, Bible study, all good enough, but purposive, formal, and often wearisome to those whom we fain would teach, while little or no account is taken both of the natural and acquired ways of learning even the essentials of Christian living. We throw the limelight on a man's belief and fail to emphasize how he lives. Provide places where people may spend their leisure amid uplifting influences, where ideals are built up and lofty motives enkindled; give them literature and encouragement which will aid them in and perhaps even lift them to a higher plane of work (i. e., one in which man is less of a machine); establish more "People's Palaces" and the like and there will be an impetus given to Christian living through the automatic ways of learning not afforded by thousands of sermons and a million recitals of religious experience. Nor am I underestimating the value of these last in teaching ideals, moral principles, or religious belief.

The tendency of the teacher is elsewhere, as in religious teaching, to dwell on the purposive way of learning, to let the child see what is to be thought out or done and then to help him do it formally and pedantically, forgetting that the child's automatic ways of learning must permeate even the purposive ways and are going to give him much knowledge and many kinds of skill not dreamed of even by the thoughtful teacher.

Any child who had learned only that which he had set out to learn, and only what his teacher had definitely intended to teach, would be a rival of Frankenstein's monster.

In conclusion, nature has provided abundant ways of learning. The instinctive ways are the basis. Out of those grow the more complicated habitual but still automatic ways. The teacher must use the instinctive and develop and use the habitual to be successful. They are not to be

regarded as helps in time of need, but as the life-giving principle of all teaching. Hence in moral, religious, or other teaching never teach formally what will be learned automatically. (2) In any teaching connect as soon as possible with the automatic ways of learning. (3) Base all future accomplishment on past achievement. (4) In purposive learning let the child not merely realize that a worthy and definite end is sought, but (5) let that aim be nourished on concrete experience with full appreciation of its practical utility in possible or probable future contingencies.

A SURVEY OF THE WORK OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS DURING THE YEAR 1906

S. WERT WILEY

GENERAL SECRETARY, THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION, MINNEAPOLIS,

MINN.

In preparing this review, outside of his general acquaintance with the work being done throughout the country, and personal interviews with a large number of men who are actively engaged in this work, the writer has gathered the data upon which the following conclusions are based from the reports, statistical and general, of the International Year Book, the Religious Work Report of the International Committee, the news columns of Association Men, a large number of local Association papers that come to his desk, and from a questionnaire sent out to 46 representative city secretaries, 25 state secretaries, 54 college Association secretaries, and 26 railroad secretaries, besides to about a dozen secretaries of the International Committee and others who are in peculiarly close touch with the religious education situation. Of these 88 replied in a full and intelligent manner. These replies, coming from representative Associations, north, east, south, and west were exceedingly valuable.

Something of the proportions of the scheduled work of direct religious education conducted by the Young Men's Christian Associations during the Association year 1905-06 are indicated by the following figures: In round numbers 81,000 men and boys were enrolled in its Bible classes. Approximately 2000 men's meetings other than Bible classes were held every week with an average weekly attendance of 128,000. Results of religious work can never be properly reported statistically, but it is at least indicative of the character of this work that under these influences 18,600 determined to lead a Christian life. These figures, with the exception of the last, are largely in excess of those of any former year, and indicate a percentage of growth in the directly religious activities even larger than that of the membership of the Associations or of the other departments of their work.

In surveying the work of religious education in our Associations during the past year, I have been impressed with the following facts, that are significant from the standpoint of this convention.

I. The crystallization of a larger conception of the field of our religious work and of our responsibility to our communities.

It has been several years now since our Associations first burst from their shells and began to prosecute a religious work at points outside their buildings. In the season of 1903-04, 121 Associations conducted 5086 shop meetings. But in the season of 1905-06 this work had grown until 217 out of 656 city, railroad, and colored associations reporting were conducting shop meetings which aggregated 11,160. During this time Bible classes in homes, offices, schools, boarding-houses, and various places where established groups of men are to be found, have

increased greatly. The significant thing in all this is not so much the volume of work as the fact that these things are not now undertaken as isolated opportunities, but as a part of a comprehensive program for reaching all the men of the community. The past year has seen in a marked degree the crystallization throughout the country of the conception that the Association's responsibility is no less than to see to it that the spiritual needs of all the men of the community are met. This is leading in an ever-increasing number of Associations to a careful and systematic study of the needs of the community, and a charting out of the field according to the natural grouping of the men, socially, industrially, and territorially, in a way that accounts for the entire male population. Old standards of the amount of work that the Associations should accomplish measured in numbers of men to be reached equal to certain percentages of the membership, or in comparison with work done by other Associations, are rapidly passing and each Association is determinedly setting before itself the problem of reaching all the men of its community and is measuring its successes according to that standard.

This enlarged conception has no doubt largely arisen from the growing belief that all normal men are religious; that is, that all such men have aspirations for self-realization, and that a religion which, presented in a clear and practical way, offers the means of the realization of these aspirations will be enthusiastically received. This belief has been thoroughly borne out by the reception that our workers have received from the men of the industrial class.

In attempting to realize this larger conception of the Association's responsibility, it is becoming evident to an ever increasing number that this work cannot all be accomplished through the Association's direct agencies. The narrow and usually unwise policy of excluding other agencies of religious education from work among shop men, etc., which has found expression during past years, is rapidly disappearing. The Associations are realizing that it is their duty, not necessarily to care for the spiritual needs of all the men of the community themselves but to see to it that they are cared for. This has led to a policy of co-operation with other agencies. There has been a decided effort to co-operate with the churches in such a way as to enlist the masculine part of their membership in service for men and to inject more of masculinity into the work of the churches that they may appeal more strongly to the masculine mind.

The first attempt of this kind was the holding of meetings for men in church buildings. During the past year, both the number of Associations following this plan and the number of meetings held have de