THE OLD TESTAMENT IN EDUCATION CHAPTER I HINTS ON TEACHING HE proper utilization of the Old Testa THE ment in teaching is a problem of considerable difficulty, made none the easier by religious controversies and disputes; and I perceive that it is still partially overshrouded by a darkness due to superficial methods of interpretation-methods which are foreign to all canons of literary criticism-methods which, though they used to be called orthodox, are hopelessly unscientific and fundamentally mistaken. Our whole outlook on the Universe has been so enlarged, and in some respects changed, during the recent century,- it is no wonder that many adults feel a difficulty in understanding ancient documents, written under very dif ferent conditions, and adapted to a much earlier period in the history of the human race. The difficulty, from the controversial point of view, may be considerable, but I think it is quite possible to exaggerate the difficulty so far as the immediate dealing with children is concerned. I suggest that the early parts of the Bible are better adapted to children than to adults, and have a better chance of being effectively understood by children. For it is well known that in youth an organism passes in rapid and partial fashion through the stages of its ancestry - each individual rapidly retracing the history of its Race,- hence a child may be sympathetic and appreciative concerning the literature and history of early people, and whatever was suited to the childhood of the world may be appropriate to an individual child at a certain stage of development. For instance, you have not to argue a child into a belief in God, the belief is natural and is there. So likewise the Old Testament seems to consider it quite unnecessary to prove or argue that God exists: it feels on familiar terms with him, as a child does. And when we speak of childish views of the Deity, we need not be |