As early as 1924, when Edward A. Fitzpatrick came to Marquette University as a professor of education, he began preparing to build an entirely new curriculum in elementary-level religious education, based on the best pedagogical methods. He and his collaborators, many of whom were religious school sisters, eventually formed the Catechetical Institute of Marquette University. Together they collected the best available resources for both teacher and student, and began laying out the grade school curriculum in its entirety. Then, over the course of the next 8 years, they tested their ideas in the classroom and continued to improve them until they were ready to publish.

The final result of this monumental effort was the Highway to Heaven Series of religion textbooks, and the accompanying Religion in Life Curriculum Teacher Manuals. But along the way, in 1931, they published the objectives and planned resources for each of the grades in this book, A Curriculum in Religion. These objectives, along with an overview of the unified scope for all 8 grades, are helpful to the teacher who wishes to implement the Religion in Life Curriculum in the classroom, especially at the 6th grade level, for which a Teacher's Manual was never published.