The solitary study of this kind which has been brought forward in public congresses on psychology was that which was considered during the Premier Congres International de Pedologie, Bruxelles, aout, 1911: _Quelques observations sur le developpement de l'emotion morale et religieuse chez un enfant_, Ghidionescu, Doct. en Philosophie (Bucharest). The child who was the subject of observation had received no religious education whatever. One day he was seen to burst into a sudden fit of weeping, for no apparent reason. When his mother asked why he was crying, the child replied: "Because I remember how I saw a puppy ill-treated two months ago, and at this moment I _feel_ it." A year and a half later a similar crisis took place. He was looking at the moon one evening from the window, when he suddenly burst into tears. "Do not scold me," said the child in great agitation; "while I was looking at the moon I felt how often I had grieved you, and I understood that I had offended God." This interesting study reveals successive phases of a spontaneous phenomenon of moral consciousness: the first was the revelation of the lively feeling which provoked a fit of weeping two months after the event which distressed the child: he _felt_ the sufferings of the cruelly treated puppy. And a long time after this activity of the conscience had been initiated comes the establishment of order: the child distinguishes between good and evil actions, and recognizes the fact that he has incurred the displeasure of his parents; this displeasure was probably not very serious, indeed it was so slight that the child had been unconscious of it at the time; but at the moment when he is purging himself of these trivial impurities he feels God: "I understood that I had offended God," he said, and he knew well that he had not offended his parents. Now, no one had ever talked to him about God, or trained him to examine his conscience. During my experience I have had no opportunity of witnessing a similar cycle of spiritual development. My experiences in religious education have necessarily been limited hitherto; indeed, in the Children's House kept by the Franciscan Sisters of the Via Giusti the religious education was given by the ordinary methods, and it was not possible to make original studies or observations. On the other hand, the dominant political party in the municipalities has abolished religion from the public schools with a sectarian rigor which causes the word "God" to be feared as bigots fear the word "devil." My experience has, therefore, been limited to some of the children I have received privately in my own house, children belonging to non-religious families, who had consequently undergone no religious influence. [9]