THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1905. CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 51, 21 December 1905, Page 21

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1905. CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS

fDMUND BURKES speeches remain. They are part of the literary treasures of the language. Yet it is said that when he rose he generally emptied the House. The explanation is, perhaps, supplied by a dictum of Fox, that a speech that leads well is not a good speech— he meant, presumably, from 4he view-point of the audience. We do not know whether the Anglican Bishop of Auckland (Dr. Neligan)' adorns his public utterances with those oratorical arts and graces that cast a glamor of interest around even a barren subject— it is said that Modjeska once drew tears from unaccustomed drawing-room eyes in Paris by singing the Polish numerals to the air of ' Home, Sweet Home.' But good wine is said to need no bush, and a sound and practical presentation of an important practical subject deserves a permanent place in the sum of human knowledge, apart altogether from the grace or barrenness of style in which it may be enshrined. For this reason we give a welcome greeting to sundry thoughts that appear in a pronouncement made (according to the Dunedin ' Evening Star ') on December 18 by the Right Rev. Dr. Neligan on the subject of religious education. ' The only way,' said he, 'in which unity could be given in life was through a perfectly clear, grasp of 'God's purposes in human life by adopting religion as the normal element of life, and particularly of education. ± a No child could learn morality from an abstraction, and those who said that, to teach dogma, involved perplexity for a chifd, failed to realise the only thing a child could grasp was whether of religion or arithmetic it Would be perplexed by vague indefiniteness, and that its constant demand was for clear definition. It was absurd to say that a child should be allowed to get its religious ideas when it grew up. Would

they leave a child to learn its arithmetic in the same way ? A foundation had to be laid on 'which the child could build his religion. It was said that they should teach a child only what people were not prepared to contradict. Was there anything that somebody^ was not prepared to contradict ? Religious education was something greater than religious knowledge. It was not learning whether this or that Gospel was authentic or not, but it was the application of a certain point of view. It was not only a definite religious lesson in a class room, but the permeating and moulding of the child's chaiaeler Uiiough the influence of the teacher and the religious code under which the latter worked.' ■ Most of the ideas to which expression has been given above, have been for ages among the commonplaces of Catholic educational theory and practice. But, in these countries, at least, they are so rarely heard from the Protestant pulpit or platform as to excite and deserve more than passing note. There is, however, one circumstance in connection with this published utterance of the Right Rev. Dr. Neligan that puzzles us somewhat. It seems to us passing strange that, with auch ideals, he could ever have coquetted with the Biblc-in-schools League. May we venture the hope that he may take steps— as the local Catholic Bishops have so thoroughly done— to put his ideals of religious education into immediate and daily practice among the children ot his faith within the boundaries of his jurisdiction ? ■ | ' Every chapter of human history,' says a co-re-ligionist of Dr. Noligan, 'is full of warning as to the inevitable effects which purely material studies and material absorption have upon a nation's life.' The ignoring of religious instincts, and the cessation of the cultivation of religious feelings have ever led to national decay and death. But the ughteousness which exalte'th a nation is not to be acquired by a mere mental attitude towards religion. It does not consist merely in a study of the Sacred Narrative— although this, too, is a matter of the utmost importance. It is to know God, to have a living faith in Him, to hold communion with Him, to obey and serve Him. This is life. And the chief business of the school is to equip the child for the duties of life— to tram the mind, to mould the heart, to form the character. To succeed in this, sacred subjects must be dealt with by competent persons, of high character, in a thorough and definite and intelligent manner, and in a suitable religious atmosphere. But this forms no part of the scheme or series of schemes advocated liom time to time by Dr. Noligan's friends of the Bible-in-schools League. They would reduce the ' Christianity ' of the schools to a niece lifeless philosophy. They wrap up their minimum doses of perfunctory ' religion ' (if we may so call it) in an atmosphere of studied vagueness and fogginess and unreality. In the realm of religion, explanation and guidance are absolutely indispensable. In the programme of the new public-school Unitarianism, inquiry is neither courted nor allowed. Secular subjects are treated in our schools as tangible realities. In the teaching of geography, grammar, and arithmetic intelligent methods are adopted. In religion alone— in the highest and deepest things that can engage the human mind— folly is to sit at the desk in cap and bells, there is to be no training of the intellectual faculties, rational i curiosity ior thirst for; knowledge is to be suppressed as an impertinence, and the whole subject is to be handled as a vague and dangerous unreality. Such superficial 'and despicably taught religious vacuities would leave no permanent impiession on the minds of children, and their effect— if any— upon their lives would be as transient as ' the froth of penny beer.'