SECTION A 

 GENERAL RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 



(Hall 11, September 24, 3 p. m.) 



CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR EDWIN D. STARBUCK, Earlham College, Richmond, 



Indiana. 

 SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR GEORGE A. COE, Northwestern University. 



DR. WALTER L. HERVEY, Examiner, Board of Education, New 



York City. 



THE REASON AND THE FUNCTIONS OF GENERAL 

 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 



BY GEORGE ALBERT COE 



[George Albert Coe, John Evans Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, 

 Northwestern University, b. Mendon, New York, March 26, 1862. A.B. 

 University of Rochester, 1884; A.M. ibid. 1888; S.T.B. Boston University, 

 1887; Graduate student, ibid. 1887-88; Jacob Sleeper Fellow, Boston Uni- 

 versity, studying at Berlin, 1890-91; Ph.D. Boston University, 1891. Pro- 

 fessor of Philosophy, University of Southern California, 1888-90; Lecturer on 

 Religious Education at Harvard University Summer School of Theology. 

 Associate Editor of American Journal of Religious Psychology and Education. 

 Member of American Psychological Association, American Philosophical Asso- 

 ciation. Author of The Spiritual Life; The Religion of a Mature Mind; 

 Education in Religion and Morals.] 



How education in religion can be provided for the whole people in 

 the modern state is undoubtedly a problem of great practical diffi- 

 culty. Yet the more serious and decisive question is whether we 

 really wish to provide such education. That the people will find a 

 way to it whenever they are convinced of its paramount importance 

 cannot be doubted. 



The most disturbing feature of our present situation, accordingly, 

 is not so much practical obstacles like that presented by the separa- 

 tion of the Church from the state as confusion or inconclusiveness in 

 current thinking about both religion and education. Our age has 

 caught glimpses of inspiring religious ideas, but it has not effectually 

 harnessed them to the car of human progress. We have wrought 

 out truths of widest import regarding education and the teaching 

 process; we have taken some pains to study the child, and we have 

 not been wanting in zeal for improving the machinery of the schools ; 

 yet in only a limited and over-cautious way have we tried to unify 

 the aims and processes of the school with our world-view and with 

 the fundamental aims of life. 



We shall not proceed far in the attempt to unify these factors in 



