RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.

Colonist, Volume XII, Issue 1182, 22 January 1869, Page 3

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.

To the Editor of The Colonist. j Sir, —Your late article on education and religious ! instruction., in schools nday be convincing from one ' point' of view. Perhaps, you will pardon, me, if I say ; that that point of view is an exceedingly limited one./ Surely, sir, we live for something more in this world : than mere trade, science, and riches.. What is termed "secular education,"/pure and simple, appears to be/ directed to the advancement and achievement of those i abne, without regard to what we owe to a future | world. Purely secular education is a godless education. ji Man has something importantly connecting.him with ! immortality, and requires. instruction in the things/ which concern the life to come. Limit the teaching | in school merely to the matters which concern this | life, and the hiiman being, the living soul, is only half | developed.- r .-". ' • |

Jn your opposition to the proposition that the| clergy should exercise a supervision over the educa-;j| tional system, you seem to have forgotten entirely j this view of the case.. How many children would. J never hear the Bible read at all if it were, excluded j from all schools? and in whose hands, and under;! whose auspices could the teaching of the Bible and J its precepts be better committed than to those who f have made ifc their study from their youth up ?'.. | My opinion, sir, based on facts like these, is, that i the clergy are claiming no -mpre than their just due, | in endeavoring to obtain a certain supervision or !i power in the schools; for, if religion is studiously ex? \ eluded, and if the efforts of those who honestly ; desire to introduce ifc in. the teaching of daily life, which ifc,ought to permeate, are to beheld up fco pub- I lie rebuke, then there will eventually arise more of that disregard for religion, already too prominent, and more of that-reckless '•'free' .thinking'," which sneers at Christianity, lives for the mere materialism of the world, and gradually shakes off some of tho finer feelings of our nature. ' r . , I am,. &c, , "' TEtTTH. [The'question that arises is' Pilate % : " What is truth?" It; is because churchmen bave had one reply to this question, and, dissenters hiive had .half-a-dozen other replies, Catholics, -sooth er, and si), on : through manifold'persuasions—that o pmmou. eciuca-; fcion has been so shamefully retawijed: for generations! in England. Ifc is not a question! be tween a " god-i less"' and a "religious" educiAKras, but in -reality! between secular education or how*; at all; for/.the ■: j re.lig.ious.., bone of contention,. 'ami, the' unyielding ( desire of different sects for power ras the direction of '. education has 'resulted, • in-the people remaining so longiniguorance, a state of-things these disputants appear to have preferred rather that ■_ that, their object: should be lost. ,We fail to see how i' bean be godless to instil into young minds tin undiersfe nding of the Value and meaning of alphabetical;:com! .'titrations,, or what* amount of religion is required! to t ieach the ordinary j rulesof Arithmetic, ;or the facts * science. • TheSe^are .strictly/the Ocular <? .epflrfcments of -the. secular teacher. Iffifc'iar demand ed that the teacher; should give religious instruction ; , what,,, ifc may oe asked,' are churches, J' 'and;;Sundtty schobls doing that, such a deniftndf shot tld he made, even if, compliance with-it wwe'Bifactiea'' ble, which it is not?: —■B»j3:-::: v: <■':: •'•-" <.& .',0..y,.,, ,yT: -:':A A: