“EVOLUTION IN SCHOOLS.”

Otago Witness, Issue 3912, 5 March 1929, Page 7

“EVOLUTION IN SCHOOLS.”

NEW SYLLABUS CHALLENGED.

The Rev. P. B. Fraser has forwarded the following letter to the Minister of Education: —

May I request your attention to an important matter which may not have come under your notice, as possibly the new • syllabus of instruction for public schools was completed before, by change of Government, you took office. This document of 222 pages is remarkable in that it bears no signature and fails to indicate any person as responsible for its contents. It is loaded with countless details, from making pot-hooks to a reconstruction of the universe, and impresses one as the product of amateurs rather than of thoughtful educationalists at their best.

Without the knowledge, concurrence, or authority of the people of this Dominion, it constitutes a distinct revolution in principles of education hitherto recognised, and issues a challenge to parents, teachers, and pupils as to what it means. Under the heading “ Nature Study and Elementary Science ” (p. 42 at top) there is found the following:— “The scheme should provide for progressive treatment of the subject as the pupils advance in school life, and in the higher classes the pupils should be given some definite ideas of the principle of evolution.”

There is, it will be owned, a marked distinction between theory and principle, between view arid fact. The word evolution, like the word Christianity, may be made to mean anything until it is further defined. The thing meant will be discovered from the text books prescribed. As Aristotle reminds us, the nature of a thing may also be known from its tendency; and the probable effect in immature minds of the books prescribed may be thoughtfully considered by our people. I do not review all the books prescribed to teach “the principle of evolution ” in Nature and human history. For brevity and point I shall refer only to Hendrik Willem Van Loon, a Dutch-American agnostic, a brilliant propagandist and populariser of evolutionism at its worst. Right at the head of text books for history is placed this author’s “ The Liberation of Mankind—The Story of Man’s Struggle for the Right to Think,” an astonishing book truly for training colleges and elementary schools of New Zealand. There follows in the list his leged “ Story of Mankind,” -which is an expansion of his lesser volume “ Ancient Man.” A glance at this smaller volume would soon inform parents of the new dogmatism in State schools. On the first page we have the confident if chilling assurance:—

“ In one respect, however, we are quite as ignorant as the most primitive of men —we do not know where we came from. We do not know how or why or when the human race began its career upon this earth.” It is not surprising, therefore, after the storm we come through in his “ Liberation of Mankind,” to find the oracular declaration at its close (p. 303). “ The human race is possessed of almost incredible vitality. It has survived theology.” If it has survived ... Christianity, it may even survive Hendrik Willem Van Loon. I should think that no one could be more surprised than Mr Van Loon to discover himself “down under ” a prophet in New Zealand public schools. Certainly it will surprise Americans to say nothing of our countrymen throughout the British Commonwealth who lovingly

regard us as a courageous little people ■who inis sanity with progress. To show that I do not stand alone in my estimate of Mr Van Loon, I shall ask you to read a competent American review of his “ Story of Mankind ” text book prescribed for New Zealand training colleges and public schools.

“ It is to be regretted,” says the Presbyterian (Philadelphia) that in his hands history is an instrument in the service of a naturalistic interpretation of human development. It would not be so bad if the book was intended primarily for adults, but, in our judgment, it is nothing short of criminal to seek to convince children that this book gives a measurably true picture of human development. The child who gets its ideas from this alleged history will suppose that it took our ancestors almost 1,000,000 years to learn how to walk on their hind legs, that other centuries had to go before their animallike grunts developed into an understandable language, that writing—the art of preserving our ideas for the benefit of future generations—was invented only 4000 years ago. What is more, it will have a .purely., pagan view of life and destiny, with

no place in its philosophy of life for God ’as the personal ruler of the universe or for Jesus Christ as the Lord and Saviour of mankind. Moreover, they will hold, not only religion in general but Christianity in particular in very low repute, no opportunity being lost by Mr Van Loon to cast discredit on Christianity. “We are told by Mr Van Loon that about 1,000,000 years elapsed between the time when ‘ what had been dead gave birth to life,’ and when the first ‘ true man ’ appeared. The great-great-grand-father of the human race, we are told, vas a very ugly and unattractive mammal. He was quite small; his head and most of his body, his arms and his legs, too, were covered with long, coarse hair. He had hands like those of a monkey. His forehead was low and his jaw was like the jaw of a wild animal which uses his teeth both as fork and knife. He wore no clothes. He ate his food raw. He had no tools and built himself no houses. He jabbered like the animals in the zoo, producing unintelligible gibberish. He died more than 500,000 years ago. Air Van Loon has the grace to say that he lived and died and left no trace of his existence except a few collar bones and a few pieces of his skull, and that ‘ in describing him we must guess many things. This representation, it is unnecessary to toll any informed person, rests on no solid knowledge, is, in fact, purely imaginary: in reality, he never existed, and is nothing but a poetical creation of monistic imagination.

“Especially objectionable in what claims to be an historical book is the brief chapter of five pages devoted to ‘The Story of Joshua of Nazareth whom the Greeks call Jesus.’ It consists wholly of an alleged letter writeen in 62 a.d., by Aesculapius Cultellus, a Roman physician, to his nephew, Gladius Ensa. a captain with the army in Syria, together with the letter which the nephew wrote in reply. Not only do these letters give a misrepresentation of Jesus different from that of the New Testament, but no intimation is given that these letters are purely fictitious. The ordinary reader, certainly the ordinary child, can scarcely fail to get the impression that these are genuine and authenie letters, and since no mention is made of the New Testament, they are quite apt to get the impression that these alleged letters are our most reliable source of information We do not see how it is possible to characterise Mr Van Loon’s procedure in this connection as other than dishonest. “ If we were atheistic evolutionists, we should doubtless be loud in our praises of this book. We are, however, Christians, not atheistic evolutionists, and the attractive manner in which the subject matter of this book is presented does not blind us to the fact that it inculcates a life and world-view flatly contradictory to the Christian life and world view. Hence in proportion as that picture of human history presented in this book is accepted as the true one, in that proportion will Christianity cease to function in human life; and in this connection, let us not forget,, as even Mr Van Loon points out, that ‘in practice it does not matter what is true, but everything depends on W'hat people believe to be true.’ ”

I could swell this letter beyond useful proportions by giving extracts from Van Loon’s books prescribed which would both startle and create deep concern and feeling among our people. I cannot but believe that when this is examined by representatives of the people, they will for themselves, and for the people of this Dominion, refuse to- give permission to make our public education the sphere of evolutionary propaganda and the cause of intense controversy.

It is known to all interested in education that already a conflict is being wagvd in some American States on this question. American papers to hand record the result in another State, that of Arkansas, in November last, where after a referendum of the Bill, an Anti-Evolution Act was passed by a large majority, prohibiting the teaching “ that man ascended or descended from a lower order of animals ” in State schools, including the State University. I am far from desiring a State referendum on evolutionism in the schools, in this Dominion, regarding it as the worst form in which to present complicated religious and quasi-scientific issues for settlement by the people. May we not expect some common sense from those ir charge of our public education system, that in some reasonable way they will keep this highly-controversial subject from being fought out amongst the children of our public schools? Certainly if there should be no other remedy to remove evolutionism from public compulsory edu-

cation, our people, when they awake to the meaning of it, will fight the issue in their own way with all their heart to a satisfactory settlement.

May I respectfully suggest for your consideration that the words “ and in the higher classes the pupils should gain some definite ideas of the principle of volution,’’ be eliminated from the syllabus as not being sufficiently defined and unsuitable and unnecesary for instruction for public schools. I am not writing to you an essay on evolutionism good, bad, or harmless. As I have said, it is like the word Christianity, capable of meaning anything. When placed as a compulsory subject of instruction it must be carefully defined. It is defined in the books prescrihed. Why should not books controverting those prescribed have a place also on the list? Why should the dogma of evolutionism be projected into the schools and the dogma of Christianity be excluded? Christianity as a subject is not distinctively taught in the schools, why should evolutionism be? To fail to treat it as other subjects of controversy are treated is to make our system of education distinctly and vehemently sectarian in the narrowest sense. Van Loon’s sectarianism is distinctively atheistic. With him man lives like a pagan, and dies like an oyster.

I purpo... to send copies of this letter for acceptance of his Excellency the Governor-General, to members of Legislature, >and to educational and religious authorities throughout the Dominion.