An Objectionable 'Text-Book'

New Zealand Tablet, 7 October 1909, Page 1569

An Objectionable ' Text-Book '

Last Friday's Sydney cables intimated that at ' the Catholic Congress on that day Archbishop Kelly entered a Btrong protest against the N.S.W. Education Department

axithorising the use m-the Training College of Carlyle's Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History' as a text-book -because of a passage in which Knox contemptuously refused to worship the image of the- Virgin Mother: ■ -and we were further informed, that, the Hon. Mr.~Mahon a member of the Federal Parliament, vigorously supported and endorsed the Archbishop's- protest. We do not know for how. long nor to what extent the book has been in use as a text-book in New South Wales, but those who are -tamihar with the portion of these lectures dealing with Luther, the Reformation, Knox, and Puritanism, if there is any sort of 'sweet reasonableness '" or sense of fairness in their, composition at all, must readily, acknowledge that" so- long as the book is used as a text-book at all there » ample ground for Catholic protest .and complaint. It is one of the loudest boasts of the- so-called national education systems that so far as their official syllabus is concerned they are absolutely unsectarian ; yet here is an Education Department prescribing as a text-book, a vol- ; ume, a portion of which is an express, deliberate, and coarsely-violent attack on the religious faith professed by the largest Christian body in .the world.' Carlyle, we may admit was a genius— a rugged, eccentric, lop-sided genius, but still a genius— and a great man of letters; and it may be urged that a teacher's knowledge of literature could hardly be considered complete without at least some slight knowledge of his style and 'gospel.' -Even' granting this there are other works of Carlyle^ that are incomparably better suited f or"" this purpose than his admittedly inferior lectures on ' Heroes and Hero- Worship.' Sartor Besartus, for example, is an infinitely greater work, contains the core of his teaching, abounds- in his characteristic eccentricities of style, and is free from the offensive liarrowness which makes the book now complained of so objectionable Out of all Carlyle's works., to select that one which contains an elaborated glorification of Protestantism and a set denunciation of Catholicism is certainly treating the Catholic taxpayers with contempt, and goes far -to justify even the very strong language used by Hon. Mr. Mahon. * Even the warmest admirers of Carlyle admit the -defects, inaccuracy, and general inferiority of the work which the young teachers of New South Wales are compelled to study as a ' text-book.' We have before us a volume containing Sartor Besartus, Heroes and Hero-Worship, and Past and Present, brought out in tne ' Minerva Library of Books,' and edited by G. T. Bettany, M.A., B.Sc. In a 'Critical Introduction,' the editor says: 'Carlyle's six lectures on "Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in Histo/y " (delivered in 1840) are the least valuable of the three books here reprinted. In the lectures which deal with religion there is imperfection, r due to the imperfect knowledge of his time; and comparative religion demands more knowledge of anthropology, more understanding of the primitive mind of man and its slow growth, than Carlyle possessed. His support of the use of the sword in promoting religion, his assurance that it will, in the long run conquer nothing that does not deserve to be conquered, seem to be dangerous and ill-advised. To call Mahomet's creed * a kind of Christianity is rather a travesty. The last four lectures contain much strong matter worthy of" consideration, but by no means the whole truth, on any of tho questions dealt with. Carlyle has great sympathy with stern gloomy geniuses, somewhat of his own mould. We must qualify our acceptance of his encomiums on great men and heroes by remembering that it is the great man as defined by him..' . . The very best the editor can find to say is : 'If read with discernment and with correction of his views by reading full lives of the men named, much food for thought may be gathered from Carlyle on " Heroes." '

* Hoav inane, as well as offensive, tl^e story is which la referred to in the cable as furnishing one of the grounds of Archbishop Kelly's protest our .readers shall judge for themselves. Here is the passage : 'In the Galleys of the River Loire, whither Knox and the others, after their Castle of St. Andrew's was taken, had been sent as Galleyslaves, some officer or priest one' day presented them with an Image of the Virgin Mother, requiring that they, the blasphemous heretics, shoiild do it reverence. Mother? Mother of God? said Knox,- when the turn came to- him: This is no Mother of God: this is a " pented bredd" — a piece of wood, I toll you, with paint on it ! She is fitter, for swimming, I think, than for being worshipped, added Knox, and flung the thing into the river. It was not very cheap jesting there ; but, come" of it what might,, this tKing to Knox was and must continue nothing other than the real truth; it was a pented bredd: worship it he would not.' It is, at best, a stupid story, and shows -how very hard Carlyle was put to it to find matter for the canonisation of his ' hero.' ' And that is only one out of many objectionable, passages — objectionable either because they are untrue, or because they are abusive and virulent. Here are

a few other specimens taken almost at random : ' Protestautism is the grand root from which our whole subsequent' European History branches out ' ; ' Leo Tenth, who merely wanted to raise a little money, and for the. rest seems to have been a Pagan rather than a Christian ' ; ' the elegant Pagan Pope'; ' Luther said to the Pope, " I stand solitary, friendless, but on God's Truth; you with your tiaras, triple-hats, . . . stand on the Devil's Lie " ' ; ' your Popehood is untrue, . . . away with it ' ; ' Popery cannot come back any^more than Paganism can,' etc., etc. An edifying text-book, truly, for budding school-ma'ams and young fellows on the threshold of manhood, whose views of history and of life are just being formed !

The truth is that though Carlyle's own personal religious beliefs were misty and vague, there was no sort of indefiniteness in his chronic attitude towards ' Popery,' which was always one of whole-souled, cordial dislike ami contempt. Everi for a ' reformed ' Romanist he could summon up but little respect, and concerning one of these — a ' converted ' priest, one Father Gavazzi — he once delivered himself in the following characteristic fashion : ' Father Gavazzi (he says in a letter of September 10) is going to harangue them (at Dumfries) to-morrow in Italian, which one would think must be an extremely unprofitable operation for all but the Padre himself. This blockhead, nevertheless, is actually making quite a furore at Glasgow and all over the Avest country, such is the anti-Popish humor of the people. They take him for a kind of Italian ■Knox (God help them !), and one ass, whom I heard the bray of \n some Glasgow newspaper, says, "He strikingly reminds you .of our grand hater of shams ,T. Carlyle." Certainly a very striking resemblance, indeed ! Oh, lam sick of the stupidity of mankind — a saevum pec us (a vile beast).' In addition to contempt for the ' ex-Papist,' there is probably a touch of wounded vanity in this little outburst. It was "hard on the great philosox>her that even his own countrymen should have placed him on the same plane as that on which they placed an apostate Italian priest.