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of as a thing by itself, which it is not. If it were a thing by itself, then the other interests would also be things by themselves. On the mistaken assumption that every interest is a thing by itself, people have gone after the things which happened to please them, and neglected the rest. other interests won the preference over religion. wonder that it has held its own as well as it has. assumption is false. No human interest is a thing by itself. Religion is not separate from other interests, and the other interests can have only a temporary prosperity apart from religion. Especially is this true of religion and education. The two are not identical, but each needs the other. The religion of our times is particularly in need of an educational basis for the spiritual life.

There is a demand rapidly taking form and expression for a new modern program of Christian nurture. The de.mand arises from those who confess to more or less defeat and failure in trying to get results by following the old program. They are aware of their failure, which is not the case with all. They are forced to admit that new conditions, customs and ideals, have made the old program ineffective and impracticable. The home, the school, and the church once dealt with the problem of Christian nurture, but now they do not. The present function of the church school scarcely needs to be named as an exception, for there are not many schools which really deal with this problem; and there are fewer still which succeed with it. The working out of the problem of Christian nurture has no doubt been greatly retarded by insistent demands for standardization and uniformity. Too often those who have set up the standards have not apprehended the problem. Great labor, expenditure and organization have been conspicuously in evidence, without producing the results of a true Christian nurture. Not only so, they have stood in the way and prevented other attempts to solve the problem.

Let us try to set up, first, the larger problem of Chritsian nurture, and second, the smaller problem of Bible teaching.

THE PROBLEM OF BIBLE TEACHING

(1) The new program of Christian nurture must call into action the home, church and school. It is not so necessary that they should all do the work, as that they should all be imbued with the ideals, and that they should furnish the children, the moral backing and enthusiasm, and the organization of resources necessary for a systematic Christian nurture. The importance of the enterprise can never be apprehended by the world, until these institutions are found devoting their best energies to it.

(2) The new program must be scientific. It cannot ignore the ascertained facts of human nature, its constitution and growth, its forces and factors. It must proceed in the light of modern Philosophy and Psychology, Biology and Sociology. It cannot have a method or a science peculiar to itself, for the reason that religion is an aspect of human life, and not a thing by itself.

(3) The new program of Christian nurture must be religious. It must provide for the inauguration and adequate culture of religious motives and ideals in the individual and institutions of society. It must reveal and evaluate the religious aspect of all human life, choosing its materials and methods with these aims in view.

(4) The program must be practically universal in its reach and application. It cannot accomplish its results by touching a scattering few, or if confined to provincial limitations. But like the common school arts it must become the heritage of the whole race, and be perfected and enriched by successive generations. There are various methods of teaching people to read, but everybody is taught to read. So it is not the method of Christian nurture but the result which must be universal.

The subject matter used in providing an educational basis for the spiritual life ought to be of several varieties. But the Bible is universally regarded as the chief subject. Without pausing here even to outline or name other good materials, let us try to name the factors in the problem of Bible teaching.

(1) It is necessary to take the measure of the children. Those mental differences which are more or less characteristic of each successive year, and which form the basis of grading, must be ascertained.

(2) The interests of children must be understood and consulted. These natural interests change with advancing growth; and the teaching which ignores them is foreordained to failure.

(3) The aim to be accomplished must be well judged, clearly defined, and discriminatingly adapted to the changing conditions of age, interest and education.

(4) There must be a choice of biblical material based on all the varying conditions already named. The choice requires both scientific skill and spiritual insight, such as ordinary teachers do not always possess.

(5) The ground must be covered. There is so much material that it must be carefully and consistently organized on a single progressive plan, so as to economize the time of the children, not duplicating or omitting unnecessarily.

(6) A manner of teaching must be worked out, which will not be based on pedagogical fallacy. It must be simple enough to be used by untrained teachers. It must not bury the lesson in devices of methodology; but it must secure well defined and permanent mental images and moral values.

These are the main parts of the problem of Bible teaching, which is a major portion of the larger problem of Christian nurture. It is to the solution of this problem of Bible teaching that this work addresses itself. It will take only a few sentences to explain how this series of Graded Bible Stories attempts to solve each part of the problem of Bible teaching, as that problem has just now been stated.

(1) First, as to taking the measure of the children. During the last generation, a system of rating or grading has been evolved in nearly all countries where educational systems exist. The eight grades or school years beginning at the age of six are now pretty well defined and generally recognized. They furnish a convenient basis for classifying

THE PROBLEM OF BIBLE TEACHING

children in respect to their mental powers; and that scheme is adopted here.

(2) The problem of children's interests is not an easy one to solve. Every one thinks he knows what children are interested in, or at least what they ought to be interested in, which is assumed by many to be the same thing. But inquiries after facts have shown that there is no recognized test or standard of what they ought to be interested in. Yet there are classes of things which in general are found to be more interesting to minds of one school year, while other classes of things predominate in other years. No one has a right to say that this ought not so to be. The judg ment on this point has to be based on experience, and on published investigations by experts. Guesswork and general impressions are not reliable guides to a knowledge of children's interests.

(3) The general aim in this form of Bible teaching is twofold. First, a mastery of the biblical knowledge suited to each grade, and second, to make the scripture an effective agent in molding Christian character. This aim dominates everything done in this connection. Elements which do not in some way contribute to one side or the other of this aim are rigidly excluded. The knowledge of the concrete material of the Bible is not hard to gain, if it is properly graded and gone about in the right way. But knowledge is a very poor result, if there is nothing else. There are general conclusions and principles which the Bible stories illustrate; there are religious concepts which they help to build; there are emotional attitudes which they correct and strengthen; there are ideals which they help to form. It is for the sake of such things as these that the materials are to be mastered; and these things are briefly indicated in connection with the stories. It is at this point that the personality of a living and respected teacher is most needed to vitalize incidents, and make them live again in the hearts of the pupils. There is a specific aim of this kind growing out of every lesson. Sometimes it is so obvious that it scarcely

needs to be stated; sometimes it is stated for the guidance of the teacher; sometimes the teacher states it to the class and re-enforces it.

(4) These Bible stories offer a graded selection of Bible material for the use of parents and teachers, for whom the task of making their own selection would be too great. The selection corresponds to the usual interests and mental aptitudes of the several school years. Story units have been taken; and much matter has been omitted, either to reduce the unit to the right size, or to eliminate things not well related. Words and ideas that are out of grade have generally been omitted, or some simple restatement has been attempted, so as to fit the unit to the use which is made of it. The grouping of the stories is based on the mental states of the children in the successive grades. It is not necessary here to go into a technical discussion of the grounds of the selection, and the numerous difficulties encountered. But considerable pains has been taken to make use of the light of research for the improvement of the selection.

(5) By a systematic arrangement of the stories upon a progressive and unified plan, it is possible to cover over three hundred distinct stories; and in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades to furnish a chronological outline of the whole Bible, which will never need to be done again. Into this outline will be placed every incident of the preceding grades, and every piece of intensive work done afterward. The detailed acquaintance with the narrative and concrete contents of the Bible furnished in the grades makes an excellent preparation for a more thorough kind of work afterward than pupils are usually able to do. There is a great advantage in having a definite program, which can be surveyed from beginning to end, with a portion for each year, and a sense of achievement as one completes each successive stage.

(6) The lessons consist for the most part in stories. For the purpose of better teaching they have been arranged in well defined story units. The child mind is so constituted that concrete matter of this kind can be easily mastered,