FUNCTIONS OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 273 



neutral ground like the purely secular. Our progress here has been 

 like that of a mountain-climber who goes forward now and then by 

 stepping momentarily upon stones or sands that move under his feet ; 

 or that of a skater who glides over ice that is too thin to bear his 

 weight. Such movement is not only possible but also safe provided 

 one move fast enough. Just so the secularization of education may 

 be wholesome, provided we proceed promptly beyond it without try- 

 ing to rest in it. 



That it offers no resting place is certain alike from the religious 

 and the educational point of view. If we approach the matter from 

 the standpoint of religion, our fundamental consideration will have 

 to be the idea of God that has been achieved through reflection upon 

 our human experiences and through the study of external nature. 

 The old separation of the sacred from the secular reflected the then 

 current notion of the Divine Being. There are two worlds, it was 

 thought, the world of nature, and the world of the divine presence 

 or supernature. Two educations logically followed, one conducted by 

 the natural man organized as the state, the other by the Church as 

 the representative of God. But the religious as well as the scientific 

 thought of our day recognizes only one world. Religion is proclaim- 

 ing that we have not to ascend into the heavens or descend into the 

 depths to reach God. His dwelling-place is all reality, all experience. 

 He comes to the soul, as an American writer has said, " without 

 bell." He is in immediate and essential relation to the whole of 

 nature, the whole of history, the whole of each personality. This 

 conception justifies the remark that " religion is life, and life is 

 religion, or neither is anything." 



The bearing of this conception upon education is perfectly direct. 

 If in all that we see and handle, all that we do and think, all that we 

 hope and aspire toward, we are dealing with God, then any education 

 that is vital must involve in its inmost essence a growing realization 

 of the divine side of life. This conception renders possible, too, a 

 reconciliation between democracy and the principle of authority in 

 religion. For now that which springs up from within man as an 

 expression of his deepest desire and will can no longer be regarded 

 as having its sole source in his merely individual impulses or arbi- 

 trary choices. In all the aspiring and choosing that express what we 

 most really are, a divine principle, deeper than our merely particular 

 selves, is at work. Democracy, therefore, cannot truly express the 

 will of the people, unless it submits itself to the inbreathing of this 

 Over-Soul, the authority of this Over-Will; and democratic educa- 

 tion will surely defeat itself if it ignores this deeper and most real 

 aspect of life. 



The demand for religious education, therefore, is a demand for 

 education as such; it is not a proposal to superimpose one kind of 



