EVOLUTION IN SCHOOLS.

Evening Star, Issue 20136, 28 March 1929, Page 5

EVOLUTION IN SCHOOLS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,---I am indeed pleased to see that Air F. G. A. Stuckey, our chief inspector o! schools, has entered the lists to draw public attention to the teaching ol evolution authorised and enjoined In the new syllabus, and at the same time unwittingly to emphasise the accuracy ol my statements regarding the same. I fear, however, lie writes in a hurry, lor he says that only one ol Van Loon’s hooks is proscribed. A chdd can correct him, and I pass that as mere blunder ol oversight. I have already quoted from both hooks. Flared where they are, both are outrageous.

Then Air Stuckey vehemently denies tliat an "irreligious test” is now and will be increasingly applied to students in training, and to teachers and pupils. I anticipated this vehement denial from the amateur thinkers responsible for this part ol the syllabus, it is ([into in their usual mode of controversy. There is, indeed, no "irreligious test” to them, for evolutionism is the basis ol their thinking, scientific and religious. ft is the well-grounded Christian thinker who instantly feels the assault, on his laith by evolutionism. In Van Loon's books, however, the whole religious .sentiments ol the community are assaulted. In Ibis respect I can understand the syllabus and the hooks prescribed jiisi as well ag JR- Stuckey can iiilorm me. And I find my understanding ol the syllabus and hooks prescribed coincides with (hat ol educationists who arc using tlic syllabus and have examined the same. Mr Stuckey vehoments asserts that Van Loon is not on the list of text books prescribed tor children, but only in the list ‘‘suggested” for use of teachers. There is, however, a false antithesis here, so common in evolutionary controversy, where two things that arc true arc sot over against each other. The books prescribed in the list referred to are both for teachers and pupils, and plainly are recommended for school libraries. On tlic main issue it is a, quibble to make the distinction, since teachers are to instruct pupils and training colleges are given their standards out of these hooks. As f said in my letter lo the Minister, the meaning of ‘‘the principle of evolution ” enjoined lo he taught can only he learned from the hooks prescribed. The outstanding hooks proscribed under the heading of history- - (he history of mankimV-are those of Van Loon. Why should not hooks controverting evolutionism he also prescribed ? Why .should these not he in school and college libraries? Why should the dogma of Christianity ho excluded and that of evolutionism be projected into the .schools? To fail to treat evolutionism as other .subjects of

conti oversy arc treated is to make our •system oi education vehemently sectarian in the narrowest sense. Van Loon s sectarianism is distinctively biological and philosophic atheism/ The deliberate aim ol his books is to uproot reverence for human life. A better thinker than Van Loon or the distinguished experts: who constructed the syllabus, in this respect, said: Let genuine science or knowledge grow Irom more to more, hot more of Reverence in us dwell; (lint mind and soul, according well, may make one music as before, buy vaster. Hold thou the good; define it well: for fear divine philosophy should push beyond her mark, and he Procuress to the Lords of Hell. \\ o all know who wrote that. It was not Van Loon.—l am, etc.. March 27. P. 8.. Fraser.