F. Ernest Johnson

Religion and Public Education

formal evalution of our progress. We believe that the individual child’s development in such matters as working with groups, expressing himself orally, getting along with others, appreciating the contributions of other cultures, using leisure time wisely, etc., is the real measure of the program’s success. These are the kinds of development with which we are vitally concerned in the junior high school, and there are encouraging evidences that constructive growth along these lines is taking place. We anticipate rich dividends in the way of decreased school dropouts, improved school citizenship, increased skill development, and improved work and study habits as tangible results of the developing core. With a sympathetic administration and intelligent supervision, with a principal who actually correlates the many phases of the program in his school, with teachers who accept and practice the core philosophy, and with adequate materials for core instruction, we feel confident this program will accomplish its fundamental objective of helping boys and girls develop those habits, skills, attitudes, and appreciations which they need in order to live

Spiritual Values in the Secondary School Program

may properly be given to religion in the secondary-school program. First, I understand by spiritual values those qualities of life that are associated with excellence. They are qualities that exalt the human spirit. As such, they are self-validating, like the basic &dquo;truths&dquo; and &dquo;inalienable rights&dquo; with the Declaration of Independence puts forward as &dquo;self-evident.&dquo; They have behind them the authority of cumulative human experience. I doubt if any more adequate or impressive statement of these qualities of life has been given than that written by Saint Paul in one of his immortal Epistles. I quote now from what is called the Revised Standard Version the famous exhorta-

WHAT THE DEPRESSION IS DOING TO THE CAUSE OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

∗Letters were sent to several professors and heads of departments of religious education and to leaders in professional organizations, asking them to tell us how the depression is affecting the cause of religious education, as seen from their vantage points. Their replies appear here.