ms of your teaching?

5. Are your pupils developing through the work you are doing a
growing consciousness of God in their lives? Do they count
themselves as children of God? Just what do you believe is the
status of your children spiritually? Do they need conservation or
conversion? What difference will your answer make in your teaching?

6. To what degree are your pupils loyal to the church school? To
their particular class? To the church? What are the tests of
loyalty? Do they come regularly? Do they seek to promote the
interests of the class and the school? Do they do their part? What
can be done to increase loyalty?

FOR FURTHER READING

Wilber, A Child's Religion.

Bushnell, Christian Nurture (Revised Ed.).

Betts, The Mind and Its Education, chapter on "Interest."

Fisk, Boy Life and Self-Government.

CHAPTER VI

CONNECTING RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION WITH LIFE AND CONDUCT

We have now come to the third of the great trio of aims in religious
education--_right living_. This, of course, is _the_ aim to which the
gathering of religious knowledge and the setting up of religious
attitudes are but secondary; or, rather, fruitful religious knowledge,
and right religious attitudes are the _means_ by which to lead to skill
in right living as the _end_.

In the last analysis the child does not come to us that he may learn
this or that set of facts, nor that he may develop such and such a group
of feelings, but that through these he may live better. The final test
of our teaching, therefore, is just this: Because of our instruction,
does the child _live_ differently here and now, as a child, in all his
multiform relations in the home, the school, the church, the community,
and in his own personal life? Are the lessons we teach translated
continuously into better conduct, finer acts, and stronger character as
shown in the daily run of the learner's experience?

It is true that the full fruits of our teaching and of the child's
learning must wait for time and experience to bring the individual to
fuller development. But it is also true that it is impossible for the
child to lay up a store of unused knowledge and have it remain against a
later time of need in a distant future. The only knowledge that forms a
vital part of our equipment is knowledge that is in active service,
guiding our thought and decisions from day to day. Unused knowledge
quickly vanishes