The question of religious instruction for children is always before the public mind, and it would seem that the majority who has any views on the subject incline to one of two camps.
On one hand, secularists feel the harm done by religion throughout history so far outweighs the good that we best disown it completely. Leaving our children entirely without religious instruction, they are free to live out their lives untouched by religion or to evolve a faith for themselves when they reach the age to do so.
On the other hand are those who believe that their primary duty in life is to proselytize for the faith to which they happen to belong and who consequently make the most of every opportunity that comes their way for influencing the unformed and pliable minds of children and young people.
If a tree is to be judged by its fruits (and how else can it be judged?), it would appear that both of these attitudes are tragically wrong. Surely, the absence of religion is one of the
root causes of the materialism, selfishness, and restlessness that prevail throughout the world at the present day, whereas communal conflict, intolerance, and bigotry are some of the fruits of the dogmatic, proselytizing attitude.
Let us look a little more closely at both of these. The secularist argument is plausible and cogent. It is difficult to deny that religion has been either the cause or the pretext of many black chapters in human history and will continue to be a very dangerous rallying-cry so long as the masses remain either ignorant and superstitious or bigoted and fanatical. Therefore, say the secularists, let us be rid of it once and for all; and if, as the religious people claim, religion has any intrinsic value or importance, it will rise again from the ashes of the old faiths in the hearts and minds of people who have been left free and unprejudiced in childhood.
Such a theory rests on the assumption that religion is in a class by itself and differs radically from all other activities of the human mind. And it is in conflict with educational theory in all other branches of knowledge. We do not say that if Mathematics and Science have any intrinsic value, people will discover them for themselves in adult life without any teaching when young.
Doubtless, in the future as in the past, if these subjects were left untaught, an occasional rare mind, a Euclid, a Galileo, a Newton, would arise to make the discoveries all over again. But because the average human being is not a gifted creature like these, does that mean that Mathematics and Science have no value for him? How much of the knowledge that is put to daily use in the healing of the sick by the average practitioner would ever
have been acquired by him without guidance, teaching, and the knowledge of the findings of his predecessors? And even in the less specifically rational and more imaginative activities such as Art and Music, surely it is only the very greatest who can achieve anything without instruction and in utter independence of all that has gone before, if indeed anybody ever can.
And in religion, though it is true that saints and mystics cannot be made by teaching any more than musicians and artists can, it is true that the lives of ordinary, average people can be enriched and ennobled by contact with religious genius. This is done in just the same way, by contact with the world's great works of art and music and literature. It would seem, therefore, that the secularists are insisting upon an unwarranted impoverishment of the educational environment when they press for complete secularization.
The people in the other camp, on the contrary, believing that religion is the most important thing in life, leave no stone unturned in their endeavor to persuade or compel everyone to join their particular organization and profess their creed. Also by them, though in a different way, the accepted canons of educational theory are discarded. In all other subjects, education teaches children to think for themselves and to understand the things that they study, tracing the development of a subject systematically. But in religion, what matters is the acceptance of truths miraculously revealed in a book that under no circumstances is to be submitted to the ordinary processes of rational criticism but is to be venerated blindly as being entirely different from all other books, the ipsissima verba of God.
Surely, it is possible to find a middle path between these two extremes, one that shall neither disregard nor contradict the findings of enlightened educational theory.
The secularists are right in demanding that children's minds be left free and unprejudiced. But is it not possible to introduce the study of religion, as to Natural Science and geography, without either fettering their minds or filling them with prejudices?
The other camp is right in asserting the tremendous importance of religion and the harm that is done by leaving it out of a child's education. But that does not mean that religion should be presented to the child mind as something wholly different from all the other things he learns, something which he must just accept blindly and on no account question or seek to understand. It is true that no amount of teaching can give religious experience to either child or adult, any more than it can create a poet, artist, or musician. But it is also true that even the least gifted can derive great inspiration from the achievements
and example of the great. It is also true that children are by nature hero-worshippers, and if encouraged in their early years, can grow up to revere those who are great in spirit above those who are merely great in martial prowess -- the warriors and conquerors of history's sorry tale. And people taught to know and love, not one only but also all of the world's great
spiritual leaders, will have a far better foundation on which to build their own religious life than those brought up in either the secularists' or the dogmatists' camp.
In approaching the question of religious instruction for children, keep in mind certain basic principles.
First, that t he capacity for clear, honest thinking is one of man's greatest and rarest capacities, and that no matter what the subject of their study, children should be encouraged to develop this capacity to the utmost and to be as honest in their doubts and questionings as in their beliefs and acceptances. Such honesty will not lead them astray but will help them to sift the gold from the dross and to distinguish between superstition and
faith.
Second, that, great though thought is ("the light of the world and the chief glory of man," as Bertrand Russell has called it), it is not man's only gift, and in the study of religion, as of
other subjects, imagination, idealism, and reverence should be allowed full play. Encourage children to think and reason and ask questions about the tenets and teachings that have come down from past ages, but let them be encouraged also to love and revere the great souls who have set examples of unselfishness and tolerance and devotion and courage, of love for God and their fellows. For it is only such love and reverence that can awaken
in them the desire to explore for themselves the path which those great ones trod and to test for themselves the truth of their religious message.
What then is the answer to our question, "What religion shall we teach our children?" Far be it from the present writer to attempt any final or dogmatic answer. And before attempting even a tentative one, let me first reiterate and stress some negative points that must never be lost sight of. First, that we should not confine our teaching to any one of the religious and theological systems of the world. Second, that when teaching children, we should avoid everything controversial. And third, that the teacher should remember always that, strictly speaking, he cannot teach religion at all. What he is will always speak more loudly than what he says. The utmost he can hope to do is, by his own example and by the inspiration that he can put into his teaching, is to make his pupils want to embark upon the quest for themselves.
Having made these points clear, the writer's own answer as to what the content of the teaching should be can be summarized shortly. Teach young children, suitable stories, both scriptural and traditional, from all the world's religions. At the next stage, teach outlines of the lives and teachings of the founders of the living religions, and perhaps even of the founders of some religions no longer living, such as Akhnaton of Egypt. At the next stage, teach studies of outstanding passages in the world's sacred books. Like trees, religions must be judged by their fruits, and since no one of the world's faiths can claim a monopoly of good fruits, children should be taught the facts about them all, in order that
they may grow up free from the bigotry and superiority complex that cripple the minds of those whose early instruction is narrow and dogmatic. In other words, they should be taught, not just this or that particular religion, but the perennial, universal truths that are
at the root of all. And since it is useless to expect that teaching such as this will be given in the home, it would seem that all religious instruction given in schools should be along
these lines. So long as school instruction also remains in the hands of people whose chief concern is to proselytize for one particular faith, just so long will children continue to grow up either with narrow, exclusive notions about religion or with no interest in it at all as at present. It is unfortunately true that now there are almost as few teachers as parents with the necessary interest and knowledge to teach in this way. That can be remedied if the matter is taken in hand by training centers and colleges and insisted upon in all State and State-aided schools. We teach citizenship as a matter of course these days, but who can be said to have had an adequate course in that subject if he has been brought up in ignorance of or with distorted ideas about the religion and customs of his fellow-citizens? When the State takes the matter up and insists on teaching religion as impartially and thoroughly as it teaches other subjects, there will at last be some hope of doing away with the rivalry, bitterness, and misunderstanding that at present rend India in pieces and cast such a dark cloud over a future otherwise bright with hope and promise.
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