EDUCATION AND CHRISTIANITY.

Evening Star, Issue 19518, 28 March 1927, Page 1

EDUCATION AND CHRISTIANITY.

TO THE EDITOB, Sir, —Statements which are utterly false and opposed to fact should not bo allowed to appear in your columns without challenge. A paragraph of this nature appears in your issue of Saturday evening, and it emphasises an entirely fictitious affinity between Christianity and education, it states that education has been the special result and care of the Christian religion through the centuries. No statement could bo more incorrect. The writer of the objectionable paragraph has either a very limited knowledge of history or a very accommodating memory. Has he lorgotten the destruction by the earliest Christians of every work of art and literature in ancient Greece and Romo upon which they could lay their hands i The preservation of the superb Grecian and Latin epistles which wo enjoy today was more the result of accident than design. Is there anyone with , a good knowledge of ancient history who forgets the destruction of the gigantic libraries of Alexandria by the Christians? True, the Mohammedans were good pupils of this persecution of learning, and in the first fury of their rise and conquest, were equally ruthless in the destruction of literature, but subsequently they made amends to a great degree by instituting the most liberal and comprehensive branches of learning. To the followers of the Prophet we arc indebted formany scientific inventions, but the Christian religion can claim no such'credit. Unlike the Mohammedans, the Christian destroyers of learning and science did not repent and repair by a laudable diligence their former intolerance. On the contrary, their hatred of anything secular in learning and of science continued unabated. Proof of this is to found in any reliable history of Europe. Pruno'and Galileo, to mention only two pioneers in education and science, paid the penality for their presumptuous opposition to the Christian authorities and teachings, and the Inquisition supplied any deficiency which tho first system of persecution may have lacked. Here, again, the preservation of anything of literary * merit opposed to Christian beliefs of the time wax tho result of fortunate accident, since the fanaticism of the monks and clergy suffered nothing contrary to their peculiar beliefs to survicc if they could secure its destruction. But, without going into detail one has only to take a broad view of European history from the establishment of Christianity and its domination of Europe to the time when secular forces gained a lead and painfully established their right to bo heard and respected. The period of Christian domination, either Catholic or Protesant, was a period of darkness, persecution, and ignorant credulity in marked contrast to the age ot learning and research which _ it had forcibly superseded. Christianity found tho civilised portion of the world progressive, inquiring, having a keen appreciation of tho value of research in .scientific facts. That splendid spirit was destroyed and buried under a mass of theological theory and clerical quarrelling. Education, as education, did not and could not raise its head until the power and domination of the Christian church. was broken. The comparatively recent events in France which culminated in the Revolution 1 are further proof (if (hat were necessary) of the entire absence of education and learning among the .people of that country, while adjacent countries and Europe generally \vere in-like or worse condition. Protestants may and do claim that this oppression of learning (other than theology) was more the work of the. Catholic than of the Reformed Church, and, while this may be true-to a certain degree, it was only because of tho greater breadth and freedom allowed hi Protestant, churches that the spirit of education and secular learning was.able.to struggle precariously along! In short, we find the greatest progress-in scientific and general education just in proportion as we find the several countries free from or dominated by the religious spirit. Those countries which to-day display

a knowledge of and desire for scculaf and scientific truth arc those which are most free from theological authority, and those which aro conspicuous by their backwardness and ignorance arc those in which the hold of the Christian religion is strongest. Compare Spain, Portugal, and Ireland to England, America, or any of the British colonies. It is, indeed, a specious, but entirely false, assumption on the part of religious writers that Christianity and education go hand in hand. Education stopped abruptly when Christianity became dominant, and the dark ages of ignorance were ouly dispelled by the rise and influence of secular thought. Lecky’s 1 Rise of Rationalism in Europe ’ shows clearly how little wo owe to Christianity for learning, and the statement of the writer in the ‘ Star ’ is seen to be the exact reverse of tho truth.—l am, etc., E.W.F. ' March 2S.