TEACHING OF RELIGION AND MORALITY 291 



to generate emotion. Purely intellectual aims and methods have 

 no place in the teaching of religion. 



(5) But sentiment, like every other emotion, is catching. Let the 

 teacher himself have seen the noble vision and have been thrilled 

 by it. The laws of suggestion will take care of the class. Nothing 

 in all the panoply of education can take the place of the teacher's 

 sentiments. 



(6) And, finally, perhaps the most powerful of all means for mold- 

 ing sentiment in the individual, is the sentiment-generating power 

 which resides in institutions. I treat this more in detail under my 

 next and last head. 



The third of the special ways in which religion can serve morality 

 (the first and the second being, as we have seen, to develop obedience 

 and fidelity and to create* the sentiment of reverence) is (to use Pro- 

 fessor Palmer's words once more) to inculcate " in the child and the 

 youth a responsive respect for institutions." This is not a different 

 point from the other two I have given, but it beautifully sums them 

 up and shows how they may be realized. To inculcate a responsive 

 respect for institutions, that means authority, belief, obedience, 

 reverence; it means the creation of sentiment; it implies recognition 

 of the transcendent relations of personality; and it denotes these 

 raised to their highest efficiency. 



Institutions have been called " organizations of conduct in which 

 is exerted the unnoticed pressure of a moral world." From another 

 point of view they are viewed as " the organs that conserve what is 

 best in the past of the human race, while to the individual they offer 

 fields of ever widening activity." Both of these views mean the 

 same thing. 



A youth who becomes a member of an institution finds himself 

 placed in relation to certain organized lines of activity; he finds that 

 he is played upon by motives impelling him to follow those lines ; he 

 is given tools with which to do his work; and he finds the light of 

 the experience of past generations thrown upon his path. 



We saw in sentiment a valuable combination of idea and motive. 

 Here in institutions we have a like combination, only one of vastly 

 multiplied efficiency. The institution perfectly satisfies the seeker 

 after an efficient moralizing agency. An institution is like a highly 

 organized machine: in both, that which enters as raw material comes 

 out as finished product; in both, the work is not done chiefly by 

 the individual volition of the subject undergoing treatment; what 

 is required of him is simply a responsive respect for the machine. 

 " You do your part, and I '11 do mine," the machine seems to say. 

 The individual " joins; " and straightway potent forces begin to play 

 upon him of which he is not the source, and of which he but dimly 

 understands the nature. It is a false psychology that exalts the 



