THE TRAINING OF THE CHILD.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17882, 1 October 1923, Page 6

THE TRAINING OF THE CHILD.

CHURCH SCHOOLS

A "united-meeting of the branches of the Association of the Love of God was held in Mrs W. B. ■ Clarkson's house at Ham road on Saturday afternoon. ..Room, was .found for and tea given to a large number of members in the spacious \ billiard room. Canon Wilford in his address laid stress' upon the grjeat need of letting the child Jcnow what .his baptism meaut' to 'him. The meaning of his church environment ought to be brought home, to him' as scon as •possible. History was full of instances where the lack of, religious training in the young had led to a corruption of morals. The aim of. religious training aught to.be the formation, of Cnrißtian-habits. It was not so much the-teaching of the stones of. old Testament worthies' which was ne-. oessary' as thO guiding of the child to regular habits of prayer and worship. The big number of. non-communicating church-people was-largely due to the fact that so often pareuts allowed the habits of their children to be formed before'they introduced them to the sacramental system of. the Church. The child mind wanted careful attention long • before the • ordinary person thought. Questions' soon came uppermost which went beyond what eye could see or ear hear. These questions religionalonecouldanswer. . Those. who were trying to set up a moral standard apart from Christianity were but beating the air nor could Christianity be taughtirom the Bible alone. The outstanding fact connected with religious education in the olden days in England must always' be the policy of the school" with the parish church. The child had been furnished with all the important facts of the Saviour's life in the sohool and had been taught to seek the • Saviour Himself at the altar. The motto of the Church had always been "Come to Him and be iluminated." Therein lay the fallacy of simple Bible reading in the State schools. The policy of the Association had bene the'close connexion of the Ancient Church. The Bible could not be taught outside the spiritual environment of the Church. Of the two evils it was. better to keep the Bible out of schools than to sever it from the Church. The day would come when the nation would realise more fully the function of the Church. Things were not right and the educational Vorld was in a turmoil. Much was hoped from the new psychology and it was perfectly true that the experiments of the psychologists -were already bearing fruit, but the only.thing which could weld their work together was the Christian faith. At the present time ! our education system was trying to I keep the children out of the stream of the age-long thirst for. God. Reports of work being done at the church schools were then given to the meeting. They showed very satisfactory progress. After the reports had been received Mrs A. J. Merton moved: "That this Association sends its warmest congratulations to the teaching staff of both St. Michael's Day School and ttte Victory Memorial School, and urges churdh people to make it possible for them to en- , large the scope of their work." i This was seconded 'by Mr H. Owen I and carried unanimously . The meeting arranged for a large I garden party to be held at College ' House, during Synod week.