damental childish qualities, qualities provoked and fostered by all
right family life, with its relation of love to parents, brothers,
sisters and friends; and may gently lead out these two mighty impulses
to a fulfilment which, at maturity, embrace God and the whole world. The
wise teacher, then, must work with the instincts, not against them:
encouraging all kindly social feelings, all vigorous self-expression,
wonder, trustfulness, love. Recognizing the paramount importance of
emotion--for without emotional colour no idea can be actual to us, and
no deed thoroughly and vigorously performed--yet he must always be on
his guard against blocking the natural channels of human feeling, and
giving them the opportunity of exploding under pious disguises in the
religious sphere.

Here it is that the danger of too emotional a type of religious training
comes in. Sentimentalism of all kinds is dangerous and objectionable,
especially in the education of girls, whom it excites and debilitates.
Boys are more often merely alienated by it. In both cases, the method
of presentation which regards the spiritual life simply as a normal
aspect of full human life is best. No artificial barrier should be set
up between the sacred and the profane. The passion for truth and the
passion for God should be treated as one: and that pursuit of knowledge
for its own sake, those adventurous explorations of the mind, in which
the more intelligent type of adolescent loves to try his growing powers,
ought to be encouraged in the spiritual sphere as elsewhere. The results
of research into religious origins should be explained without
reservation, and no intellectual difficulty should be dodged. The
putting-off method of meeting awkward questions, now generally
recognized as dangerous in matters of natural history, is just as
dangerous in the religious sphere. No teacher who is afraid to state his
own position with perfect candour should ever be allowed to undertake
this side of education; nor any in whom there is a marked cleavage
between the standard of conduct and the standard of thought. The healthy
adolescent is prompt to perceive inconsistency and unsparing in its
condemnation.

Moreover, a most careful discrimination is daily becoming more
necessary, in the teaching of traditional religion of a supernatural and
non-empirical type. Many of its elements must no doubt be retained by
us, for the child-mind demands firm outlines and examples and imag