The Irish Lesson Books.

Observer, Volume XIV, Issue 794, 17 March 1894, Page 2

The Irish Lesson Books.

The controversy on the subject of the suitableness of the Irish Scripture Lesson Book for use in our public schools haß praotioally come to an untimely end. The Herald has virtually snuffed it oat. This is very muoh to be regretted, beoause the issues involved are of great moment to the community and also because the community waß taking a very keen interest in the discussion. But things were not turning out exactly as the Herald wished. The Canon was being worsted. That was qb plain as the proverbial pike-staff. The Doctor was showing unmistakably the weakness of the Canon's logic and the lameness of the Canon's cause.

« • • __ And bo the Herald shut down by publishing the Doctor's reply in an emasculated form in its condensed correspondence column. Which says muoh more for the Herald's partizanship than for its sense of fair play. The pubHe would have been glad to read that reply as it was written before the stupid pen of the merciless « condenser ' converted it into an obscure and loosely-jointed paragraph. But this was not to be. The Herald found it neceßsary to come to the rescue of the diatressed Canon, and the means of doing so were afforded the editor when Dr. Laishley's last letter was sent in for publication. The editor suppressed what he chose of the letter and published what he pleased, and the ashes of the misguided Canon were preserved for future usefulness.

The controversy has, however, made it clear to the minds of all sensible people that the Irish Scripture LeßSon Book is unworthy of a place in our public schools. It is as unfit to be put in the hands of young children as the reports of criminal cases in our courts of law or the more suggestive of the French novels of the age. It is all very well for Canon Mac Murray to tell us that to the pure all things are pure, but he would scarcely consider himself justified in taking the young men of his church on thiß principle to immoral resorts in order to point out the iniquities of such places. And how much less should we be disposed to familiarize the minds of very young boys and girls with these things. They will become acquainted with them soon enough.

Canon MacMarray has been scarcely more fortunate in the authorities he has brought to his aid than in his defence of the objectionable passages in these books. For instance, he quotes Lady Cook as follows : ' Prudishness is not modesty ; for has not someone rightly said " The overnice are thoße of nasty ideas. The immodesty that alarmed them was not in the (nude) statues but in their own impure minds." ' The sentiment does not in any way apply to the principle of reading or expounding indecent passages to young boys and girls in order to warn them against the vice of immorality, and yet many people will ask who is this Lady Cook whose writings are admired and quoted by Canon Mac Murray. Well, she acquired fame some years ago by assisting her sister Victoria Woodhull in a series of nasty lectures which the latter was delivering in New York on the subject of free love and the relationship of the sexes. A very modest authority, truly. But why should her sentiments guide us in filling the minds of our young boys and girls with impurity and inJes ency