Guide to the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Board of Christian Education Division of Curriculum Development Records

That the development of the curriculum was a cooperative enterprise is reflected in the comprehensive nature of the materials included in Record Group 24. Most of these records were accumulated in the Department of Children's Curriculum by Dorothy B. Fritz, Secretary of the Department and Editor for Children's Publications.

The collection is arranged as follows:

SERIES 1: MINUTES, NOTES, AND CORRESPONDENCE, 1938-1949
Notes are from conferences such as the Conference in Regard to Redesigning the Curriculum, Conference on the Educational Program of the Board of Christian Education, Conference on Format, and Conference to Outline the Curriculum. There are minutes of the Curriculum Committee and the Secretarial Council's Committee on New Curriculum Servicing Plan. Correspondence consists primarily of memoranda exchanged among members of the staff engaged in developing the new curriculum.

SERIES 2: CONFERENCES, 1937-1944; 1950
The most important conference and the one forming the largest body of materials in the series is the conference held at Wagner College, Staten Island, June 8 to July18, 1942. Participants in the discussions were pastors, parents, professors, scholars, religious educators, staff members from the two mission boards, and a few representatives of other denominations. Of the forty persons who made definitive decisions as to curriculum content and outlines for a new course of study, only ten were from the Board of Christian Education. Included in this series is a report of a survey conducted by the Publication Department of the Board of Christian Education in preparation for the conference. The survey was designed to present a picture of the constituency which the Presbyterian materials were to serve.

SERIES 3: OUTLINES, 1944-1947, nd
This series consists of lesson outlines for all the departments--nursery through adult. These outlines, which were circulated among an established list of critics and which were discussed with writers, consisted of a topic, statement of purpose, basic Scripture references and brief descriptive suggestions. Writers often assisted in the creation of the outlines.

SERIES 4: BOOKS, 1938-1958
The series includes correspondence with writers, staff members and Curriculum Committee members. There are also some revise manuscripts.

SERIES 5: CURRICULUM SERVICING PROGRAM, 1949-1962
A servicing plan was developed for each year, which included helpful printed materials, films and filmstrips, and a plan for use by trained lay leaders. The purpose of the servicing program was to stimulate better use of the curriculum. Servicing was recognized as a long-term necessity of regularly developing new plans and related materials which would be "promotionally advantageous and yet educationally sound".

SERIES 6: RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTATION, 1947-1960
This series includes reports of surveys, correspondence containing comments and suggestions, and data gathered from the numerous research projects which were carried on throughout development of the curriculum.

Constructive criticism was invited. Materials were tested in a variety of situations--rural and urban, large and small churches, and in some national missions centers. Teachers included both inexperienced and thoroughly trained and experienced groups.

SERIES 7: SUBJECT FILES, 1948-1957
Among the subjects covered are the "Junior-Hi Kit" and the "Youth Fellowship Kit," which were prepared for junior high, senior high and young people and offered suggestions for an entire year's activities and programs. There is also a report of the Westminster Fellowship--the youth program of the PCUSA. A speakers' manual, together with a sample presentation of the curriculum, is among the materials in this series.