True, we may state our aim in religious teaching in more general terms
than these, but the meaning will be the same. We may say that we would
lead the child to a knowledge of God as Friend and Father; that we seek
to bring him into a full, rich experience of spiritual union with the
divine; that we desire to ground his life in personal purity and free it
from sin; that we would spur him to a life crowned with deeds of
self-sacrifice and Christlike service; that we would make out of him a
true Christian. This is well and is a high ideal, but in the end it sums
up the results of the religious _knowledge, attitudes_, and _acts_ we
have already set forth as our aim. These are the parts of which the
other is the whole; they are the immediate and specific ends which lead
to the more distant and general. Let us, therefore, conceive our aim in
_both_ ways--the ideal Christian life as the final goal toward which we
are leading, and the knowledge, attitudes, and acts that make up
to-day's life as so many steps taken toward the goal.


SELECTING THE SUBJECT MATTER

After the aim the subject matter. When we would build some structure we
first get plan and purpose in mind; then we select the material that
shall go into it. It is so with education. Once we have set before us
the aim we would reach, our next question is, What shall be the means of
its attainment? When we have fixed upon the fruitful knowledge, the
right attitudes, and the lines of conduct and action which must result
from our teaching, we must then ask, What _means_ shall we select to
achieve these ends? What _material or subject matter_ shall we teach in
the church school?

The subject matter he presents is the instrumentality by which the