THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY IN EDUCATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14465, 6 March 1909, Page 4

THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY IN EDUCATION

VT.-TIIR BAN OX THK BIBI.E THE BLACK SPOT ON OUR NATIONAL SYSTEM. Bv 1?. W. What His Bible-lover fays:—"Tho Prolosiaut Bible lives on the ear like- music that can never bo forgotten. ... It is part of |ho national mind and the anchor of national seriousness."—J. H. Newman. What the seorner of Bible-reading savs: — " -Mere Bible-reading hits failed to do' any good m America, and anvwhere else it has been tried."—Editor N.Z.' Tablet, 7th .Mav IS3O. In the Oiago Daily Times of February lo there appeared a cablegram which, in a forceful way, reminded us of tho black spot oil our national system of education. ills cablegram is as follows:_ London, February 11. Speaking at Dewsbury, and referring especially { 0 education, Mr Himciniaii (President of the Board cf Kcriiontion) said that Australia had obliterate.; tin, m i„ P 0 f the neity from the works of Shakespeare unl -Milton. Such action would not he tolerated "I Knglmd. Any British Government attempting to exclude the Bible from the Public schools of the land deserved to b 3 well thrashed at the polls

11m black spot on our system is Iho con'lition o.t Ihmg.s reprobated by M.r Buncillianvi/,, tho Jhblo banned in our schook Iho ban, however, was not ths work of tho Zealand Government in 1877, as tho professional advocates of clerical control of schools affirm, but the work of ;l u ""holy alliance of wiccrdolalisls and seeiilariats, who worried a weak Government to do what the Popes of Homo have delighted in (loing-lha.; is, prohibit tic reading of Mio Uihlo in our schools. It. was not the cl«m hand of Mr Bowen that barred the school door against the Bible in 1877; it was tho hand of tho cleric, and the siain of this crime is on that lined to-day. We know that England, educationally, to-day is hltlc Letter, than a pandemonium, and wo know that I'lio advocates of clerical control aro i:i tho bottom of tho trouble. Here and fhcVc a. patriot, weary of clerical soinil-mcss and intolerance, would seek to solve tho problem by making the schools secular; and Mr Bunciman, who, more than any man in England 10-day, has been made a tayeet for the prkbts to fire at, lifts bis voice above tho storm and warns tho nalion against seeking a solution of tho religious difficulty in education by putting the ban on the Bible, and ho points So Hid .scandal of a secularism rim mad in Victoria that sought to banish tho name of Christ from its school literature.

There is a secularism that is as narrow and bigoted as thai of sacerdotalism. Victoria i knows what thi s means to her cost. When Dr Pearson, as Min.i-tcr of Eduration, ri'i';i!",i at a kind of .secular Pone, Nelson's school wrim of hooks wove mutilated. In one of the. children's primers, for oxaiunle, there was ;t paso filled with children's payors. This wa s altered to suit secularism, and a nur.senv rhyme took the place of lbs prayers os follows:— There war, an old woman who lived in a. shoe, Sho had so many children she did not knew what, to do; She «.-jvc them some butter without any broad; Sho whipped thent all soundly and sent (hem 10 bed! This inspiring rhyme was illustrated by a picture of a shoo and an ancient dame vigorously chastising ;i numerous family. Was tin's Dr Pearson's way of letting the children understand thai goodness was the •product of the slick?

Now, MKimly of this kind has never been pcrpolrated by the. Education Department in New Zealand. Our schools never practically bore, the character that the editor of the Tablet says they hear. They never were atheistic. They never were " sred-plcis of immorality," us his clerical supervisors say they arc". But the system is not perfect, and an urgentamsndinent needed is the opening of the school door to the Bible, so that our greatest English classic and the best book in the world should, as Cardinal Newman said, " become, part of the national mind and the anchor of our national seriousness." I beg to urge the following reasons for endnig ilio iniquity of prohibiting the use of iko Bible in our public schools:—

1. The ban on Ihe Bible should be removed because iy banned liilke has failed to pacify the malcontents who objected lo it. I pointed out in my first, article that the KcUior of the Tablet, notwithstanding lii? brilliant abilities which found recognition by the Pope, had his limitations. The Tablet records his triumphs over his foes. Uid. ho not vat.qnish Dr James Gibb? Did lie not annihilate Mr Allan, of the South American Mission? "R. \V." is to be the next victim. My scalp, along with others, will adorn the walls "of the Tablet office. Dr Cloary's knowledge, however, of history is his weak .point. The Tablet Editor did not knoiv till I told him the discreditable part played by his clerical superiors in firing down the "flag of Christ" in the schools. I wish now lo toll him the part played by his pupils in Parliament in tiampling on the "flag" that was fired down by his superiors. Let us go to Han»ird and find tin illustration. On June 16, 1886, the Hon. Dr Menzics, in the legislative Council, moved the second reading of a bill that would permit the reading of Iho Bible in our schools, guarded by a conscience clause. The most vigorous opponent of this pioposal was the most outstanding Rcuiiin Catholic layman in Now Zealand— tin, Hon. Dr Grace. Like Dr Cleary, Dr (trace was specially honoured by the Pope, for he was created a " count" of the " Holy Church." Dr Grace took up the position that if the 'Bible should be read in the schools, even with a cciKcicnc? clause, the lloman Catholics, especially in Auckland province, wmkl feel that, failh has been broken wiih them as a class, and that T.tay have been outraged in their finest feelin.fifs"! Ho was good enough to say that his boycott on the Bible would not be for ever, for he added that when the Roman Catholics had their own schools all over the land then—''we may even, in the cause of Christianiiy, assist you lo pass Ibis measure, lest the knowledge of God —the very foundation of our civilisation—should die out amongst you. and you should bring on yourselves Iho eurso all history shows to bo the heritage of an infidel people"! Thus the men who wero largely the means of shutting the Bible nut of the schools in 1877 have done their best since then to keep it out and Iho Tablet in former years cordially supported this "dog in tho' manger" policy. _ But the Tablet to-day says the system gives (hem no satisfaction ami hold it up lo execration. The banned Bible is 0 blunder because the malcontents of 1877 are not satisfied to-day.

2. The ban on Ike Bible should bo'removed because it robs our public school of a. truly national character. The school should bo like tho nation, should express the nation, but the banning of the Bible gives our schools an alien chancier. Anlidenominatiomil schools tiro not necossa l ' 1 national schools. The system, in so far as it bans tho Bible, represents "no living stream of opinion, no national interests, no large section of the people." The ban on the Bible gives our system an ugly soelarian look. Again, a national syslem should sook to_ foster Ihe moral life of our nation. Our schools aim at making good citizens, and a banned Bible frustrates that, end. Dr. Mcnzies, who had the. wide vision of a statesman, in addressing- the Legislative Council, said:—"The State has a paramount right to see that the rising generation tire educated in such a way and grounded in such principles that they shall grow up to bo good citizens; and I say that the State cannot, find any more effective way of doing thai than grounding them in a knowledge of Scriptures. The State Ims no interesl in any particular denomination; but it desires, for the sake of peaceful government, that the rising generation shah have a knowledge of religion, and thereby gain a sense of moral responsibility." 3. The ban on the" Bible should be removed because it is against the wish of the people and docs violence to their consciences. It ought, to bo more generally known that: in 1876 the. people as a whole expected the Bible to have its. old place in the schools. But it was banned bv an illconsidered vote of (lie House. From that day to this the pain and irritation have been (loop and widespread. Wherever the people have been consulted I hey have by large majorities protested against the ban and voted for the Bible. In''l9o2 (here was no uncertain sound given by the plebiscites then tuken. In Dunedin City, for example, 6269 voted for I ha Bible and 930 against; in Southland 6001 for and 1052 against. And a large number who voted against the proposal did so not because thoy objected to the Bible, but for fear that our system should be destroyed. The Presbyterians of Otago have" a special grievance, They gave their educational birthright to the Otago University because they wore satisfied with tho common school system with its Bible. And then the Bible was put under the ban! Mr Maeandrow, the o'd supiri.-itondent cf Otago. said the excluded Bible was the greatest blot on our Statute Boos" (Juno 28,1832), Sjr William

Fox expressed in 1880, anil expresses to-day die opinion of the great mass of the people when lie said:—"l think if is an indignity . that in a country, of- least nine-tenths of the inhabitants of which profess a religion based on the sacred Scriptures, the Scriptures themselves should he interdicted in our schools. . . I say as a citizen of this country, as the member of a community which forms part of a Christian nation, that it. is mi indignity that this Book, the only hook which is the foundation of our national religious faith, should bo (he. onL book in the whole circle of our literature which is excluded from our schools." 4. By Hie banning of Iho Biblo we are casting out the noblest, element in our intellectual programme. The Bible is worked into tire writing of our great English authors. and to <i. man ignorant of th-3 Biblo the full meaning of these authors is iiupcisible. KuskinV hooks are now within Jhe reach of a:!], ami they are saturated with ilia Bible. A school system with a banned Bible deprives the children of a key that unlocks the meaning of our great Knglish claries. And then the Bible widens the mental horizon of the school, Huxley pleaded for the Bible in the school fot its intellectual worth. Ho said: "For three- centuries this Book has been woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in Knglish history; it has become tlie national epic of Britain, and is familiar to noble and simple; it is written in lira noblest and purest Knglish, and abounds i.i exquisite beauties of mere literary form; and finally it forbids Ihe veriest hind who never left his -village to l>o ignorant, of the existence of other coiintiics anil otto (.'ivilisat.ioiis, and of a. groat pas* stretching back to the furthest limits of tho oldest, rations of the ,vor!d. By t'lO study of what other heck could children b3 so harmonised and made to fee! that each figure in that vast procession 1i11, 5 like fhcnvselvci, but a momentary space in the interval between two eternities." 5. But ilio worst evil of a banned Bible is wen in the sad fact that the most powerful moral force, in the world of literature, is shut out of our schools. Education without moral culture is of little value. Huxley realised this, A»notie though li e '.vas, and ho pleaded for the Bible in cehco'3 for its " moral beauty and grandeur," Our Now Zealand Governors from timo to time have shown it. tlcop interest in real education, which always include moral culture. In 1880 Sir Hercules Robinson was our Governor, and l he was unwearied in warning the colony aqainst attempting to give moral training; without the sanation and support of religion. Ho was asked t» open the new Normal Schcols in AYoUingten, and in bis speech on that occasion (May 3, 1830) ho drove home with much power mid eloquence this message. In doing so lie quoted with complete approval tho testimony of Sir John PrJnglc, who bud been nrofessor oi morals in tli-3 Univeieily of I'/Jinburgh. "I have been," said Sir .Tohn Prin.jle, "for many >cars .professor of this pretended science. I have ransacked the libraries of my own brain lo discover the foundation of it; but tho more I sought to persuade ami iciiviuce. my pupils Ilio less confidence I lx-.gan to have myself in what I was teachi'lig tiio.ni; so that at length I gavo up my profession and tmrned to medicine, wltich bad been the first of my studies. I have, nevertheless, continued from timo to tiints to examine everything that appeared upon the subject which, as I have told you, I could never explain or treat so as to produce conviction; but at length I have given ti)i the point, most thoroughly assured that without nn express Divine, sanction attached to tho laws of morality ami without positive laws accompanied b determined and urgent motives, men will never bo convinced that they ought to submit to any such cc<k> nor agree among themselves concerning it. From that time I hare never iea.d any book upon morality but tho Bible, and I return to that always with fresh delight." 6. The Bible should be in tho school, f*t we aro I'onimittitnr a crime against a. child's souHty depriving him of its message and of its guidance. The other year a. youroj man was hanged in Balk rat." He was little better than a hctithen as regards religious knowledge. The Bishop'of Ballarat, commenting on the rare, said:—"H. C. passed from a solvool which denied him the Biblo to tho unwltdesomo atmosphere of a racing stable, and thence to a criminal's cell. The State gavi; him education divorced from religion os a lad, a.nd it, banged him as a criminal when he grow up. Hut it put tho Bibb in his ceil at last, and sent him then a religious teacher. Had it done this in the .Slate school, it' is highly probable the condemned cell and the gallows would have been unnecessary." For these and for a score of other reasons the Bible should be in our schools. "To these who believe in God nnd. Bis Christ," said the late Professor Dunlop, D.D., "foenlar education i? as absurd as a pretended science of the planetary system that takes no account of the sun. '