The Moral and Religious Training of Children [pp. 26-48]

THE PRIN'CE TON RE VIE W.
mind pragmatic, dry, and insensitive or unresponsive to that
other kind of truth the value of which is not measured by its
certainty so much as by its effect upon us. Renan has remarked
in substance that all higher truth consists in nuances, which
play over that realm of conscience and the humanities where
open questions will always excite hope and fear. We must
learn to interpret the heart and our native instincts as truthfully
as we do external nature, for our happiness in life depends quite
as largely upon bringing our beliefs into harmony with the
deeper feelings of our nature as it does upon the ability to adapt
ourselves to our physical environment. Thus not only all re ligious beliefs and moral acts will strengthen if they truly ex press the character instead of cultivating affectation and insin cerity in opinion, word, and deed, as with mistaken pedagogic
methods they so commonly do. This latter can be avoided only
by leaving all to naturalism and spontaneity at first, and feeding
the soul only according to its appetites and stage of growth.
No religious truth must be taught as fundamental-especially
as fundamental to morality-which can be seriously doubted or
even misunderstood. Yet it must be expected that convictions
will be transformed and worked over and over again, and only
late, if at all, will an equilibrium between the heart and the
truth it clings to as finally satisfying be attained. Hence most
positive instruction in Christian truth should be delayed at the
very least to the first school year. Many things must come of
course incidentally. These should be taught only when demanded and in the briefest possible way, and with the feeling
impressed upon the child that these are most serious things, but
too high for it yet. This will stimulate curiosity for them later.
Up to this age, at the very least, the child should not be encouraged in church-going or public piety of any sort. If permitted
at all it should be only as a reward, but is dangerous lest
sacred things become familiar and conventionalized before they
are felt or understood.
So long as the child's parents supply the place of Providence
to it, and before its wishes and desires expand beyond the
domestic circle, it is only a pretty affectation to cultivate a sense
of very great intimacy with the Heavenly Father. To feel its
inmost thought watched by a divine eye will only tend to foster
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