"Well, but religion, you will say, does not that often help? Ah! what do you understand by that word? Knowledge of God and of the moral laws is, of course, a most needful knowledge, but it is only when such knowledge influences the conduct that it becomes effective. _It is very rarely_ that it does this. Do not build too much on a faith that may be lost. It is only a minority on whom religious belief has a lasting effect. We do not realise this, because with us religion is almost the only thing which holds its own--outside, that is, of our large towns. Religion appears to us to be powerful, because we have not yet acquired the habit of looking about us, and because most of us are a good deal given to deceiving ourselves. "Children, in matters of this sort, do not really stand on a different level from adults; do not imagine that they do so. They can, it is true, be very easily led, but they can be brought with even more ease and more completely to forget one thing and take up another. It takes very little to make them believe, but it takes still less to make them doubt, so that the ratio between belief and unbelief remains the same. Those whose religious belief forms a lasting restraint on their moral character are, among children as among adults, but few. "There are four clergymen present. I ask them if they can rise and contradict me? I do not believe that they feel any inclination to do so." [A short pause. All eyes were fixed upon such of the clergymen as they could see. The four reverend gentlemen sat as unmovable as graven images.] "Do I hold then, you ask, that religion is of no importance in a school? Much the contrary? But there should be no class of religious instruction which does not partake of the thorough earnestness of a religious lecture. Let it as often as possible be given by the person who will have the preparation of the child for confirmation--that is to say, generally by the clergyman. I would say entirely by him, if that could be arranged. Thus the relation of the clergyman to the teacher would be that of a support to the latter. "I cannot go further into this question: I will only add that this is the arrangement adopted for our school. The friend of my youth, my brother, Pastor Karl Vangen, will take the children between six and sixteen every morning for religions instruction and edification, and the intention is that he shall conduct their whole religious training until their confirmation. But it follows from what I have said that he can only hope to make the relationship of deep and lasting value _for a very few_. It is only right that this fact should be realised in schools."