THE BIBLE IN OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

Temuka Leader, Volume I, Issue 101, 4 December 1878, Page 3

THE BI BLE IN OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

[t OA’J* 0 N ‘X .VjV.O. ] The minds of your renders were o ■ <q>led a short time ago with the docu.sio'i of die advisability or otherwj ;p <>■ sc uh-.r education. The disco :toul that lias of late been expressed as to the morals of t!r.> rising veneration induces me In express my views on the subject. The Bole has been banished from our schools, and its famVar time-honoured precepts are no longer instilled into young ears. S -cidar education his received a fair trial, the seed has been sown, time has been given for thefmit to maiair-, and now we look for the harvest. Has the experiment been successful, and is it found to be an improvement on the o’d method of training the young in ways of probity and uprightness? The outcry against (he conduct of our boys and girls within and without the playground when, the fear of the cans "s removed wou'd seem to answe*' No. 11 is evident, that ag dust (lie force of er/l example and inclinations children cannot be direct'd aright by their Ovvn innate snise of rectitude. Something, then, is wanting in Tie present method of secular education. It provides for erudition, but fails to support or fortify morality. The child that blushes when the first oath escapes his lips would find in the Bible at least an assurance that be had erred, and the moral sense of sin that the flushed cheek bespeaks would be corroborated. Under the present system I fail to see how’ he would l>e checked, except by the rebuke of Ids teacher, a rebuke founded on no other standard than an assumed common moral feeling. I do not wish to decry the moral sense of our youth, or take any misanthropical views, but according to the adage, Fcvilis r’escens-us Averni —the road to ruin is easy. If we have no systematic teaching of what is right and what is wrong, the allurement of the latter will soon outweigh the moral sense of tiie former. The principle on winch secular education was established is based on the avoidance of religious tenets. The duty of the school to society was not so much thought of, an inmate moral feel ing was presumed, and to it was left the task of leading children in ways rf integrity. Conscience is very plastic and accommodating, and under the allurement of a bad example it is not diflu ult to lead. It is hard that in the young this element of their education and kernel of their well-being should be neglected. It has been suggested that ethics should find a place in the training of the young, and fill in sccu'ar education the place that the Bible used to occupy in re-

ligious instruction. The difficulties of 'finch a system are very considerable. Our would feel themselves *unequ d ' task oF imparting, however superficially. a science with which many of them are unfamiliar, and the minds of children are more prepared for aesthetic, than ethical training. The former is oh **** jective,-the - latter subjective, and .the child, choosing as it does. to seek; everything with the eye, and from extraneous

sources,* naturally clings to what is obJ'- 'Live. This distinction at once explains wby little ones prefer a picture-book to tli- nos! enterlniuiig story, and different‘i i'. s • e 'i i.-ui from the man of C'.vi ■!.’ ‘‘in. .bis the rationale of

“ The poor le ian, whose untutored xnin'l “Sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind.” It is evident, then, than an aesthetic, not an ethical, training is suitable for a child. Your contemporary, the ‘Timaru Herald, ’ in .aa able article has recently pointed out the unsatisfactory nature of morals based on aesthetics. Such moiality would be as flimsy and affected as the literary work of Les Precieuses in France, a society which criticised by purely aesthetic cations. The Bible makes a h.-ppy combination of the two, and the experience of centuries has pronounced it a fit text-book for the instruction of the young. The only serious objection to ils use is that it apt to involve denominational polemics. However, if taught on a liberal-minded plan, and by men who can divest their minds of all theological bigoTy there seems no reason why any sect should corapk. r. The only grumbler would 1 e the atheist, and in a colony of English rnh there can hardly be any intolerance in teaching in the public schools the existence of a God. Let the dogmas of no sect be taught (although we would not object to the doctrines of all being impartially explained) and perhaps it would be found that religious instruction in our schools, combined with perfect toleration, is no chimera. To close the Bible and interdictits use because itsincidentsare not in harmony with the rigorous facts of science is narrow-minded in the extreme. Granting the infidel’s premises that i Jonah’s incarceration in (he whale’s belly, i the metamorphosis of Lot’s wife, and j other Scriptural stories are Actions, we [ deny that the inspiration of the Bible is i therefore necessarily impugned, < liber ; literature has used allegory quite as freely, ! and it would be quite as rational to call j Banyan a liar as to discard the Scrip- ( t.ires because they seem to contain imagery or fiction. I don’t say that the Bilile narrative is at all fictitous, but granting that it is tinged with Oriental colouring, it has served the purpose of impressing the young, and has conveyed truths which never would have reached the heart through the barren channels of didaticism. This very allegory, to call it such, has made the Bib'e the best of books wherefrom to teach the child on its mother’s knee; it has really pointed a moral, though it may appear merely to adorn a tale. The plain narrative of the Creation' given in the first chapter of Genesis is far more suited to a child’s understanding than any that science can offer, and we would like to see our children taught that they have a divine not a physical, origin. Wilh this peculiar fitness for the young, an 1 convoying as it the most perfect moral teaching, it is a pity (hat the Bib'e is banished from our schools I look for the time when it will be seen in the desks and w-llets of schoolboys once more, and tlu n I expect to see i's. wholesome influence pervading their actions.