The Evening Star. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1872

Evening Star, Issue 2817, 28 February 1872, Page 2

The Evening Star. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1872

Thebe is at last some chance of an organised opposition to denominational education. The resolutions passed at the meeting yesterday were mild enough to satisfy the most rigid stickler for Bible reading as a schoolbook. Perhaps this was necessary, for we live in a sort of transition period, in which, although old superstitions are examined upon their merits, their demerits are not fairly canvassed and exposed, The resolutions seem to have been framed so as to enable those who imagine something is gained by the continuance of the practice to enrol themselves members of the Association.

We do not think there are many who hold to the doctrine, that it is essential the Bible should continue to be used as a class book. The discussions that have taken place should convince the most rigid advocate for it, that other and more effective methods are desirable, to give a thorough Knowledge of its truths. So essential is advanced education to a full comprehension of its verities, that a number of men are specially trained in a knowledge of languages and in mental science, that they may be able intelligently to explain it. It would be too much to expect of such a book, that they should agree in their interpretation. But if such an intellectual training is necessary to enable them to read its pages with understanding, surely it cannot be expected that a child should learn all that is necessary by reading a verse or two in a class, without comment by its teacher; and if comment is allowed, education becomes denominational. We do not think sufficient force is attached to this consideration. Grown up people are apt to forget the difficulties of their childhood, if they are educated ; and never pass beyond them if they are ignorant. The consequences are that the learned overlook the fact that religious truth must be presented to a child in a very different form from that in which they themselves can receive it, and that to comprehend the abstract and unseen requires a trained imagination and reason. They too often forget that children can only attach clear ideas to words in common use, and that, consequently, the doctrines contained in the passages they read in the lesson, although clear and easy to be comprehended by the scholar, are to them wholly unintelligible ; or, what is worse, convey wrong impres- ; sions- There is not a thinking man living who has not felt the difficulty of rooting out of his mind some mistaken notion of his childhood or youth. Mr Gladstone’s mature years have been spent in undoing what he advocated the retention of when he was young. The late Sir Robert Peel’s last efforts were to reverse a policy he had supported when lie first went to Parliament ; and many eminent men besides them have had the courage to acknowledge error and i*etrace their steps. Or if it be objected that these men were only politicians, and therefore not examples in point, we will give to the religious objector one with which he cannot cavil; Paul the Apostle verily thought he did God service when he persecuted those Christians with whom a few years after he associated, and by whom he was regarded as a leading man. Each of these men had every advantage of position and education. Their fortunes were ample, their associates intellectual, their mental training thorough. But they started life with a wrong bias, and had to begin afresh. Men less able to examine truth would have continued in error. They would not have dared to doubt. Ignorant men would have kept onward without suspicion that they could err. Their fathers held the opinion before them, and therefore they could not be wrong. These instances should lead every thinker to reflect on the danger to which children arc exposed of receiving wrong impressions from cursory Bible reading in a school. But there is another very weighty consideration. If religious knowledge is worth anything, it should be just as available at a moment’s notice as grammar or geography to a scholar. There should be no necessity to go to the record to satisfy the conscience when it is required to decide promptly and at the instant what is right and what is wrong. The rule should be ever present, capable of application to any emergency. A trained logician at once refers syllogisms to barbara, camestres, borardo, or otherwise, according to their forms; a thorough grammarian at once decides upon what is correct and what is faulty in forms of expression ; a geometrician demonstrates his propositions in accordance with certain rigid definitions ever present in his memory : but in practical religion, children are left to grope their way through volumes of misconception, the consequence of being left to their own unaided reading, or to the guidance of those scarcely better tutored than themselves. The fact is

plain enough—the system is a failure’ and requires mending. It is a part of education with which the State has nothing to do, and therefore compromise should be altogether out of the question. We know that there are very worthy men, clergy, who are satistied with this stale and meagre sop. We class them amongst those timid spirits, who cannot do right for fear of doing wrong. The resolution passed yesterday should unite all classes in a common effort for a common good, and we trust the movement will not be allowed to die out, but be pressed onward so as to secure victory.