BIBLICAL EDUCATION IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8363, 25 February 1913, Page 10

BIBLICAL EDUCATION IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS

To the Editor “ N.Z. Times.” Sir, —On first reading the effusion of our very new arrival, your correspondent, Mr E. S. Buchanan, M.A., B.Sc., I was minded to take no notice of it as not calling for any rejoinder. On perusing it again, however X see that it contains such an extraordinary intellectual phenomenon as ought not to be passed by uncriticised. The paradox, then, is this: Here we have a gentleman of undoubted mental ability, as shown in his literary style, to say nothing of his university degrees, yet so steeped in ignorance ot modern history and so entirely out of touch with modern thought that he actually imagines the famous series of events known as the Great Trench He volution to have been a calamity to France and the human race generally. Why, such an opinion should discredit even a boarding school “ Miss ” of the present day either in England or New Zealand. As every modern man (knows now, the French Revolution was not the bogey it has so long been represented to be in Sunday schools, but was, on the contrary, the very salvation of France, and to a lesser extent of Europe generally, from the most crushing despotism, economic, political, and spiritual, to which humanity could be reduced; it was the victory of freedom over tyranny in all departments of human activity, giving an upward impulse to the hu- ' man mind, and originating a beneficent movement certainly not yet exhausted. Even conservative England rejoiced in it in its early stages (including William Pitt himself),' nor has It been without a great quickening influence on the cause of reform and profresa in- that country. Indeed, X don t now that we ourselves should be hero in New Zealand to-day rejoicing in our freedom but for the lethal blow inflicted upon tyranny in general _ by the heroes of the French Revolution. All this is the merest alphabet of modern history, and modern Liberalism, which is every day adding to its triumphs. That there were excesses, and for eleven months terrible excesses, in that great social earthquake, Ido not, of course, deny; but for these the royal despots of Europe were responsible, indirectly if not directly. The reign of terror, however, was a mere episode in the five-years’ Titanic struggle, and only serves to illustrate the proverb that there can be no omelettes without the breaking of eggs. But who would have thought that a University man could have been ignorant of all this in the year 1913 A.D., or could have lived in the centre of the British Empire for seventeen years without having found it out. _ Ho must surely have been living the life of Rip Van Winkle, and, having just woke up as ho left the ship’s side, naturally felt himself perfectly qualified immediately to lecture us colonists on our educational policy. But we are modern men in. New Zealand, and acquainted with modern thought and philosophy, as he will soon find out. History, however, is not the only subject ot whidh your correspondent is ignorant; he is equally culpable in respect to the science and of logic. The whole of His argument, if it may be called.such, is founded on thelongfrince exploded dogma of , the miraculous inspiration or the Bible and its consequent infallibility, a doctrine that would certainly have astonished the writers of the book themselves. He affirms that the ancient Hebrew and Greek literature which forms what wo call the Bible is none other than the word of God Himself, a supernatural revelation from deity to man. Yet if he would only wake up and use his mind on the subject he would know that all this is pure assumption, that the dogma never has been proved, and, from the nature of the case never can be proved; in fact, the very words “supernatural revelation” convey no meaning at all to any modern mind. To deny the errors that appear on every page of the Bible is now simply impossible to every unprejudiced, person, whilst these errors themselves prove that the literature in question could not have proceeded from any omniscent Author. Indeed, as most people know now, the dogma in question is more or less explicitly denied by leading scholars of all churches, aware as they are tljat a similar ! doctrine was held by the ancient Greeks concerning their own Homer’s "Iliad.” No one acquainted with that great literary _ monument of our age, the Encyclopedia Biblica, as Mr Buchanan ought to be, will attempt to deny what I have here said. But as this is not a subject suitable for discussion in a newspaper I will say no more about it here. As to ifr Buchanan’s wretched quibble about the New Testament devilpossession and insanity not being the same thing, such a remark is really unworthy of him. The New Testament certainly speaks of something it calls devil-possession, and Mr B. will hardly deny that whilst this is a phenomenon recognised by the ignorance of past ages it is no longer regarded as a reality by the medical profession of the present day, or indeed by any intelligent person whatsoever. Yet there is no doubt the clerical party would have us teach this phenomenon as a reality to the children of our schools, thus taking advantage of their innocence to deceive and mislead them. Such a proceeding is a crime against childhood. Thus Mr B.’s letter only emphasises my appeal to the electors of New Zealand to maintain the present system of secular education in its integrity, and to keep the priest and his book alike excluded from the schools, so excluding likewise the awful ignorance and superstition by which that party and that book are characterised.—l am, JOHN GAMMELL, B.A. (London TJniv.) Seatoun Heights. February 22nd, 1913.