§ 1. THE FUNCTION OF THE FAMILY

With the brief statement of the history of the family and of its
function in society which has already been given we are prepared to put
together the two conclusions: first, that the family has an educational
function, in that it exists as a social institution for the protection,
nurture, development, and training of young lives, and, secondly, that
it is a religious institution, the most influential and important of all
religious institutions, whenever it realizes in any adequate degree its
possibilities, because it is rooted in love and loyalty. It exists for
personal and spiritual ideals and, in Christianity, it is inseparably
connected with the teachings and the ideals of Jesus. It is educational
in function and religious in character, so that it is essentially an
institution for religious education. Religious education is not an
occasional incident in its life; it is the very aim and dominating
purpose of a high-minded family.


§ 2. WHAT IS RELIGIOUS EDUCATION?

To make this the more clear we may need to clarify our minds as to
certain popular conceptions of education. Education means much more
than instruction; religious education means much more than instruction
in religion. Many habitually think of an educational institution as
necessarily a place where pupils sit at desks and teachers preside over
classes, the teachers imparting information which is to be memorized by
the pupils, so that, from this point of view, a Sunday school would be
almost the only institution for the religious education of children in
existence, because it is the only one exclusively devoted to imparting
instruction to children in specifically religious subjects. Such a view