And so with all the principles and conceptions of religion, men's reactions to them are as varied as they are to all the other facts of life. Everywhere the opinions, the capacities, the attainments of men vary. The law of individual differences is one of the most universal in our experience. * * * * * QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS--CHAPTER IX 1. Just what is the meaning of the term Individual Differences? 2. Illustrate such differences in families with which you are familiar. 3. Apply the test to your ward choir. 4. Name and characterize twenty men whom you know. How do they differ? 5. Have a report brought in from your public school on the results of given tests in arithmetic, spelling, etc. 6. Have the members of your class write their opinions relative to some point of doctrine concerning which there may be some uncertainty. 7. Observe the attitude and response of each of the members of a typical Sunday School, Kindergarten, of an advanced M.I.A. class. 8. Illustrate individual differences as expressed in the religious attitudes of men you know. 9. To what extent are boys different from girls in mental capability and attitude? HELPFUL REFERENCES Those listed in Chapter VII. CHAPTER X INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND TEACHING OUTLINE--CHAPTER X The causes of individual differences.--Norsworthy and Whitley on the significance of parentage.--The teacher's obligation to know parents.--The influence of sex.--Environment as a factor.--Thorndike quoted.--B.H. Jacobsen on individual differences. So far we simply have made the point that individuals differ. We are concerned in this chapter in knowing how these differences affect the teaching process. Fully to appreciate their significance we must know not only that they exist, and the degree of their variation, but also the forces that produce them. On the side of heredity, race, family, and sex, are the great modifying factors. Practically, of course, we are concerned very little as Church teachers with problems of race. We are all so nearly one in that regard that a discussion of racial differences would contribute but little to the solution of our teaching problem. The matter of family heritage is a problem of very much more immediate concern. Someone has happily said: "Really to know a boy one must know fully his father and his mother." "Yes," says a commentator, "and he ought to know a deal about the grandfather and grandmother." The significance of parentage is made to stand out with clearness in the following paragraph from Norsworthy and Whitley, _The Psychology of Childhood_: