Youth_ Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene - G. Stanley Hall

utilization of these lessons is the most important task of the religious teacher
during the kindergarten stage of childhood. Still more than the undevout
astronomer, the undevout child under such influences is abnormal. In these
directions the mind of the child is as open and plastic as that of the ancient
prophet to the promptings of the inspiring Spirit. The child can recognize no
essential difference between nature and the supernatural, and the products of
mythopoeic fancy which have been spun about natural objects, and which have
lain so long and so warm about the hearts of generations and races of men, are
now the best of all nutriments for the soul. To teach scientific rudiments only
about nature, on the shallow principle that nothing should be taught which must
be unlearned, or to encourage the child to assume the critical attitude of mind, is
dwarfing the heart and prematurely forcing the head. It has been said that
country life is religion for children at this stage. However this may be, it is clear
that natural religion is rooted in such experiences, and precedes revealed religion
in the order of growth and education, whatever its logical order in systems of
thought may be. A little later, habits of truthfulness[3] are best cultivated by the
use of the senses in exact observation. To see a simple phenomenon in nature
and report it fully and correctly is no easy matter, but the habit of trying to do so
teaches what truthfulness is and leaves the impress of truth upon the whole life
and character. I do not hesitate to say, therefore, that elements of science should
be taught to children for the moral effects of its influences. At the same time all
truth is not sensuous, and this training alone at this age tends to make the mind
pragmatic, dry, and insensitive or unresponsive to that other kind of truth the
value of which is not measured by its certainty so much as by its effect upon us.
We must learn to interpret the heart and our native instincts as truthfully as we
do external nature, for our happiness in life depends quite as largely upon
bringing our beliefs into harmony with the deeper feelings of our nature as it
does upon the ability to adapt ourselves to our physical environment. Thus not
only all religious beliefs and moral acts will strengthen if they truly express the
character instead of cultivating affectation and insincerity in opinion, word, and
deed, as with mistaken pedagogic methods they may do. This latter can be
avoided only by leaving all to naturalism and spontaneity at first, and feeding the
soul only according to its appetites and stage of growth. No religious truth must
be taught as fundamental—especially as fundamental to morality—which can be
seriously doubted or even misunderstood. Yet it must be expected that
convictions will be transformed and worked over and over again, and only late,
if at all, will an equilibrium between the heart and the truth it clings to as finally
satisfying be attained. Hence most positive religious instruction, or public piety,
if taught at all, should be taught briefly as most serious but too high for the child