30 The Rice Institute Pamphlet
been fairly criticized for its failure to communicate the full
resources of the religious tradition even to its most carefully
trained pupils.
Randolph Crump Miller’s work The Clue to Christian Edu-
cation represents a return to a more content-centered cur-
riculum.7 Miller is explicit in his refusal to abondon the con-
cern for individual growth and development which has found
expression in so-called progressive educational theory.
None the less, he intends a drastic re-orientation if not a
rejection of its leading ideas. Miller emphasizes the im-
portant contribution of specific religious doctrines to personal
growth and development. He believes that the major in-
sights of a particular historical faith, in his case Christianity,
must be made vital for persons receiving instruction.
A. Victor Murray’s study entitled Education into Religion
treats the problems of religious training more broadly than
much of Americian educational thought and practice.8 Mur-
ray, President of Cheshunt College, Cambridge, and emeritus
professor of education, gives special attention to the con-
tribution of Biblical higher criticism as well as research in
comparative religion to both education and piety. He points
out that theological scholarship before tire modern period
was often encumbered with problems of the literal interpre-
tation of the Bibhcal text. Now, higher criticism has made
possible a new understanding of the growth and develop-
ment of the ideas of the Bible; theology is able to range more
freely. Murray urges that scientific research and sound schol-
arship have in large measure freed the teaching of religion
from sectarian bias. In fact, this has become doubly clear
as traditional exegesis has been reappraised with the new
tools of criticism. He defends the teaching of religion as part
of the general curriculum in schools supported by the Eng-