The Evening Star MONDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1872.

Evening Star, Issue 2810, 19 February 1872, Page 2

The Evening Star MONDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1872.

Taking into consideration the long and bitter sectarian controversies in Great Britain, it is not surprising that difficulties are experienced in devising an educational system that shall please all classes. The subject is quite as warmlydiscussed there as it is here ; and as Home opinions are, by many colonists, presumed to be the conclusions of men who have enjoyed professional udvan-

tages not open to literary men in the Colonies, we present our readers with two extracts —one from the Times, in which the editor arrives at a very lame conclusion from his own premises (the latter of which only we copy), and the second from an address by Dr. Goss, a Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. Both extracts confirm in a remarkable degree the soundness of the opinion that a secular system of education is the only practicable national one consistent with civil and religious liberty. The Times says ;

Eilncation may be more or loss sectarian, but if it be religious in any degree it mas' be at variance with the teaching of some sect ofjreligions believers, and, therefore, must be so far sectarian. It would seem inevitable that if any one would honestly and thoroughly—which is, perhaps, only another word for honestly—think it out, he must come to this conclusion. Mr Peter Taylor has done this, and retires from the Birmingham League because he will have nothing to do with an organisation whose primary bond of union is an unintentional deception. But we must do something to make it clear to those who have not Mr Taylor’s courage. Suppose it be assumed, as is assumed by the Birmingham League, that the Bible may be used as a class-book without making a school sectarian. A Roman Catholic at once objects that the Authorised Version favors doctrines which he rejects ; a Protestant declares that the Douay Version supports doctrines he denounces. The mere s doction of a version is enough to place the school in a position offending the conscience of some sect, and t > make it sectarian. Let us pass over this difficulty, and suppose some version adopted. But how is the Bible to be read? Is it to be treated as literally infallible ? Are its earlier books to be respected as strictly historical ? The answer that glibly comes when these questions are put is, that it is unnecessary to raise them, and no one would attempt to discuss them with children seven years old; but the consciences of some ratepayers must be offended if children even of that tender age are silently encouraged to imbibe what they consider wholly erroneous views. Dr Colenso ■would decline to have his children brought up in one belief; Dr Gumming would refuse to allow his to be brought up in another. We need not go through the difficulties of Unitarians, of Quakers, and of other sects, for we have said enough to show that the supposition of there being some form of Christian teaching which may be inculcated without touching the conscience of any Christian is a mere dream; and we are afraid the truth is that when men go about the country talking of unsectarian teaching, they mean something on which they and the sects nearest them agree, while the rest may go to the wall.

The report of Dr Guss’s observations on education we republish from the J fail, a bi-weekly compilation from the Times :—

The Right Rev. tbe Bishop of Liverpool (Dr Goss) has been making bis triennial visitation, and in bis various addresses hiiefly referred to the topics of tbe day. At St. Nicholas’s pro-Cathcdral, Copperas-hill, the Bishop, after remarking that a local paper had charged him with saying “ that he would rather see Liverpool a second Chicago than that tbe poor ignorant Irish Arabs should receive education unless accompanied by religious teaching in the Roman Catholic faith,” said ho had repeatedly in sermons expressed his willingness, and his desire and preference, for education without religion rather than education with the reading of the Bible and the singing of hymns, which he considered no education at ail, because it belonged to that general kind of religion which ended usually in infidelity, and oftentimes in downright atheism. Hence he had said, and said repeatedly, that if the School Board could not adjust matters so as to preserve peace apd unanimity in the town, which was at all time# desirable, he would prefer the establishment of schools purely secular; but he had a great objection to what they termed unsectarian schools. He was in favor of denominational schools, but if they could not have denominational schools, then, he said, let them have schools from which religion was altogether eliminated. He looked upon such an education as an abomination ; hut yet it taught the children reading and writing, and if it did not teach them religion, then the clergy must seek them out at their residences, and bring them at other time to the Church for education. He Avas sure they xvere all sick of the School Board, and ho would say no more on the subject except to refer to the unintelligibility of Lord Russell’s proposition. That veteran statesman had suggested that the Bible, Avheu read, should be read without note or comment, there being a danger if there Avere any note or comment of the tea hers slipping into sectarian comment, and he (Lord Russell) was nctlsurprised that the Birmingham League should insist upon the reading of the Bible without it. “ But,” added Lord Russell,! “my object is that the yo&th of England may be taught to adopt, not the Church of Rome, or the Church of England, but the Church of Christ. The teaching of Christ, whether dogmatic or not, is to be found in the Bible, and those who n their infancy road the Bible may, at their oavu _ choice, when they reach the age of 15 op Jfi, follow the teaching of the Church of Horne, or of any Protestant community they may prefer.” This Avas literally unintelligible. Since this aged statesman had allied himself with the family of Minto, he seemed to have slipped aAvay from his attachment to the Protestant Church, and to have imbibed a sort of eclectic doctrine which he called neither the Church of England nor the Church of Romo, hut the Church of Christ. But j.t Avas a strange thing that up to 15 a lad Avae exhorted to .be a member of the Church of Christ by reading the Word of God for himself, and that after 15 hs might abandon it, and might adopt either the Church of England or the Church of Rome; so that Earl Russell must either think that the Church Church of England and the Church of Pome Avei’c the Church of Christ, or he must be expressing a Avish that a lad after having in early early life been attached to the Church of Christ, should abandon it and take refuge in the Church of Rome or the Church of Euglaud.