reports at hand as regards English children, but there is little reason to suppose that the result would be widely different.6 Here and there a specially skilful teacher might bring about a result more favourable to religious teaching, but that could only be done by depriving the subject of its most characteristic elements.
This is, however, not by any means the whole of the mischief which, from the religious point of view, is thus perpetrated. It might, on a priori grounds, be plausibly argued that even if there is among healthy young children a certain amount of indifference or even repugnance to religious instruction, that is of very little consequence: they cannot be too early grounded in the principles of the faith they will later be called on to profess; and however incapable they may now be of understanding the teaching that is being inculcated in the school, they will realize its importance when their knowledge and experience increase.
But however plausible this may seem, practically it is not what usually happens. The usual effect of constantly imparting to children an instruction they are not yet ready to receive is to deaden their sensibilities to the whole subject of religion.
7The premature familiarity with religious influences—putting aside the rare cases where it leads to a morbid pre-occupation with religion—induces a reaction of routine which becomes so habitual that it successfully withstands the later influences which on more virgin soil would have evoked vigorous and living response. So far from preparing the way for a more genuine development of religious impulse later on, this precocious scriptural instruction is just adequate to act as an inoculation against deeper and more serious religious interests. The commonplace child in later life accepts the religion it has been inured to so early as part of the conventional routine of life. The more