THE CLERGY AND THE EDUCATION QUESTION.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 265, 14 August 1872, Page 3

THE CLERGY AND THE EDUCATION QUESTION.

[From the Melbourne Leader.'] In legislating on the question of education the Government have undertaken a task of serious difficulty. The principles of State Education are simple enough, and if acquiesced might readily be reduced to a practical form. But the state is embarrassed by the cant of ecclesiasticism, and unless Ministers are prepared vigorously to strike a blow at the pretensions of sects and their representatives, there is no possibility of the question being satisfactorily dealt with. Elsewhere in this issue appears a letter from Mr Higinbotham, addressed to the Free Education League at Ballarat, in which he deals with the difficulties raised by sectarian bigotry. He begs the advocates of education to extricate the subject Jrom ecclesiastical interference, and rightly contends that no sound conclusion can be arrived at until that is done. He says : “ The discussions upon the question are raised, not by the laity, but by the clergy of religious denominations. The natural and just instinct of parents is all in favor of a religious training for their children ; but this feeling on the part of the laity is used as a cover, behind which unfounded ecclesiastical pretensions, and a lust for influence and material wealth on the part of the sects, conceal themselves I do not doubt that when the state shall be free from the influence of ecclesiastical corporations, all the difficulties of the question will disappear.” Mr Higinbotliam has hit the real obstruction to a satisfactory system of State Education ; and uuless the Government have the courage to completely ignore the efforts of ecclesiastical obstructionists on behalf of ignorance and crime, they will suffer shipwreck. The State has just freed itself from the obligation of assisting by pecuniary aid in the maintenance of contending religious sects. The clergy now demaud that it shall, to save them trouble, undertake the religious education of the people. And while hopelessly disagreed as to the meaning of religious education, and as to what they would have taught, they nevertheless interfere for the perpetuation of ignorance. Fully aware of the appalling dangers which threaten our society through the absence of an adequate system of national instruction, they are doing the best,in the supposed intertsts of religion, to prevent the dissemin.itiou of knowledge as a remedial agent against ignorance and crime. That the clergy have no clear ideas on the subject may be gathered from the report of a conference on the question of education which took place the other day at the Assembly Hall. It will be seen that noue of the sects represented had the honeßty and moral caudour to disentangle

themselves from the snares of denominationahsin. The Anglican bishop goes the length of denying the right of the State to arrogate to itself the education of the people, and. expressed his belief in the views of Professor Hearn, who insisted that the State should endow, by means of payment by results, all schools no matter wh t their system of management. Even

Dr Cairns, who advoc ted secul ir education, could not altogether divest himself of the impression that there exis s some natural connection between the teaching of reading, writing, and arithmetic and of religious instruction. He thought the “ State must not interfere in any way with religious instruction, only it must not forbid the teachers or any other persons from giving religious instructions as the parents might desire.” We take leave to differ altogether from the opinion of the representative of the Presbyterians as to the duty of the State. In our opinion, whilst on the one hand it ought not to iufere with religious instructions, on the other hand it ought not to recognise its necessity, or give any facilities for its inculcation any way. Let it not be supposed that we contend that the State ought to assume that religious iusl'Uction is not necessary as a part of the education of youth. But it is a point with which the State can have nothing to do. The State ought to remove the stumblingblocks in the way of receiving religious instruction, by teaching children to read and write ; having done that let the denominations undertake their legitimate task, and inculcate religious knowledge. After all, what is this religious instruction which ecclesiastics would have taught in schools ? Are they agreed upon what they would have? We need scarcely remind them that, under the present system, facilities are given for imparting during certain hours religious ininstruction in the Common Schools. How many of them have availed themselves of the privilege ? So few that the denominations have deprived themselves of all claim to consideration in the settlement of the question. Religious instruction, not to be positively hateful to the recipients, must be so blended with other teaching as not to assume the form of a task. In State schools this would be impossible ; in the skeleton education which it is proposed to impart, religious teaching could not be introduced. There is no religion to be extracted from the rule of three, nor can a youth’s creed be endangered by learning to write or to spell. Tin) clergy might as reasonably insist that because the State undertakes the drilling of volunteers, that it should order the proceedings to he opened with priver. For a sample of confusion of ideas, and the impracticability of clergymen, we may refer to the resolutions proposed by the Rev. Mr Symons at the conference. He will have it that the moral laws of God in relation to men are inseparably mixed up with reading, writing, and arithmetic. He insists that the school teacher is the proper person to give religious instruction, assisted by ministers of religion. He would have four hours a day for secular education, and a fifth set apart for religious instruction. In the name of common sense we ask the rev. gentleman what he would teach that itour iu five days of the? He might drill them, dose them, and disgust them, but lie could not profitably instruct them. Th-se clergymen would make us believe that the acquirement of sufficient religious knowledge to be a rule of life in this world, and a guide to the next,/is a matter of difficult attainment. But Mr Symons’s method instead of making children religions, would go far towards making religion hateful to them. It would gorge them with catechisms and hymns and texts until the whole was regarded with the contempt which familiarity breeds. The tasks would be punishments, and, being repulsive, would unpleasantly tincture everything in afterlife relating to religion. It sceinsio us that the evils likely to arise from making religion obnoxious to children are greater than from withholding religious instruction altogether, and that the clergy in the effort to shift their obligations on the shoulders of the State are doing very much mischief. We hope the Government will have the courage to disregard ecclesiastical interference. The clergy have their Sunday schools, their bible classes; they have influence, more or less, in every household—let them use these agencies, and when they have faithfully used them, and find that secular education distinctly interferes with teligion let them cry out. But they know well enough that such a catastrophe can never occur. They are merely desiring to assert their influence, even though it he mischievous and with a tendeuuyt to increase ignorance and crime.