Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-12-07 00:00:00

EDUCATION AND SECTARIANISM.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NORTHERN TIMES.

Sir,—Year report of the proceedirgs which took place at
the Collegiate Institution, on Thursday night, informs the
20we, that we are about to have another education and reliion
agitation. The Rev. Dr. M•Neile is to appeal to the public
ofLiverpool on the question of the Middle Class Examina-
tion Scheme, sanctioned ant suggested by the University of
Oxford. We are invited to desire, not whether that scheme
is to be tried—for I presume it will be tried whether we
like it or not—but whether the public of Liverpool wit
formally approve of a scheme for educational examinations
in which religious examination does not form an indis-
pensable portion. I hope the town will accept the
challenge in the fullest sense. If we gain nothing else
by such a discussion, we shall at least have a landmark
set up by which we can tall what extent, since the last
struggle of the kind in Liverpool, intellect and free thought
hare redeemed and conquered from sectarianism and
darkness.
Th 3 scheme, as it stands, has some deficiencies, which
will easily occur to most minds. It has, to my mind, the
one great defect pointed out by Mr. Denson, at the
Collegiate meeting, that it introduces the religious element
at all. Bat, such as it is, it is a positive good of some
degree—soother stimulus to exertion, a new opening for
intellectual ambition. The question, then, is, are we to
reject this scheme altogether, because religious education
forms no necessary qualification for a share in its advan-
tages. There is no question before us of whether we will
have this scheme or one in which religious education
is a principal element. The question is, whether we will
have this scheme or none at all. Any one who endeavours
to present the issue in any other shape is utterly mislead-
ing the mind of the public. How, then, is it possible that any
general system of examination could be adopted in which
a test of the candidate's Scriptural knowledge should form
•an inevitable element ? Are the candidates merely to
•be examined as to their power of repeating by
rote pages and chapters of the Bible, and the etude+ to
gain honours who can tell off the greatest number of
sentences ? This is a test of the candidates' memory,
not their Scripture knowledge, of which I presume no one
would dream of making the Bible an instrument. Is the
enquiry to be as to the knowledge candidates have of the
historical facts detailed in the Bible, with no reference to
their meaning, or the deductions to be drawn from them ?
At the very best, this would nut differ from an ordinary
historical examination in the most inferior kind of diy
school, where the scholar parrots a certain number of
answers to " Mangnall's Questions," and gets " good
marks " for his history, of which, when all is done, he really
knows no more than does his printel task-book on whose
pages the names, dates, and events are stereotyped. if
then, we are to have anything at all, we must have a full
and genuine enquiry into each candidate's real knowledge
of the Bihla, his comprehension cl its teachings, his per-
ception of its truths. And then, what becomes of our
general examination for all classes ? What single
chapter of the Bible is there whose meaning
will be explained with the same interpretation
by the Estatlished Church scholar, the Quaker, the
Bapt a , the Unitarian, and the Roman Catholic ? We
cannot assent to the foolery of an examination with no
reference to meaning. The moment we come to test a can-
didate's comprehension of the meaning. we must set up
some fixed standard of doctrine by whieh to decide ; and
the moment we set up this standard we exclude all sects
but that which is dominant in the State.
Either, then, we must have the scheme without making
the religious examination necessary, or we must have none
at ail.
But Dr. M'Neile goes b ddly in for the full meaning of
his opposition. Ile prefers n ) e 'ucation whatever to
edue Won without religion. What education without
religion might be, we need not discuss, since happily it is
not possible that any such thing could exist. We may,
however, consent to accept the words fer the present, in
Dr. MeNeile's sense. By education without religion, ha
means education without the doctrines of the English Pro-
testant church—by the English Protestant church he means
that section to which he himself belongs. Am in educated
without re:igion is a man edugated with any other interpre-
tatien of religious doctrines but that which Dr. M'Neile him-
self insists upon. By an infidel is meant any one who does
not believe in Dr. M'Neilo. This, therefore, is the plain
meaning of the opposition to the present scheme Dr.
M‘Neilis will oppose every scheme of education which
does not run in the grooves of hit own doctrine. " A bad
man with education is more dangerous than a bad man
pith none." This sentiment, enusciated by Dr. M'Neile,
is echoed approvingly by the Rev. Mr. Howson, who, indeed,
seems to have been so much alarmed at the loud-voiced
opposition he had raised that he was only too happy t
catch at any point of agreement with his antagonist.
What is an abstract " bad man ?" What man, good or
bad, has 720 education ? Have we, who are all of course
the good men, any power whatever of preventing our bad
brothers from gettiog education, or of limities the deuceOs, I, 101.1 r lid r,ccoi.
good rnen alike can and will have education whether we
like it or not, we should do better by endeavouring to mane
that which they will have valuable and useful, than by a
futile endeavour to force on them something which half-a.
dozen of us happen to think better. A bad man with
physical health is more dangerous than a bad man
without it. Shall we then keep all sanatory improvement
from those who will not receive our sectarian dogmas along
with our well water ? A bad man acquainted with the
Bible is more dangerous, in the same sense, than a bad
man who has never opened the volume. Dr. M'Neile, who
warns his audiences so frequently against the use made of
Scripture texts by Roman Catholic priests and subtle
infidel writera might have remembered this view of the
subject. We must then first ascertain, whether a man
its prepared to receive our interpretation of the Bible,
before wo help him to read it at all. We must, in point
of fact, be clearly convince! that our scholar is as perfect
a master of the whole subject as ourselves, before wo proceed
to make him dangerous by imparting to hall the slightest
elementary knowledge of it.
If, however, any man now living has any doubt that
education has a general tendency to improve and exalt the
minds of men, bad or good, thee such a roan has no busi-
ness in educational meetings at all. He has no common
ground on which to work with others. He is a mere
obstruction—all the more dangerous, to uso'Dr. M'Neile's
style of argument,—if he possess anything which sounds
like eloquence, and startles the ignorant into submission.
Christianity, Dr. M'Neile declares, is treated with con-
tempt .when it is omitted from a scholastic examination.
Would we not he asks, think geometry unjustly treated if
it were omitted ? How people are to be examined in "Chris-
tianity," it i s not easy to understand, There are some
attributes of Christianity in which it is possible 50M0 very
eloquent controversial divines might scarcely come out of
an examination with much honour. But we will again
swum; this to mean the leading doctrines on which Chris-
tian sects agree or differ ; and that the same meaning is
conveyed by a very singular and somewhat ludicrous
phrase used by Dr. M'Neile, when he talks of examin-
ing into a student's " religious proficiency I" If there
could possibly be any parallel between geometry and
Christianity, the adoption of a similar course would be
right and wise. If it were possible that all sects of
men should utterly differ as to the leading principles of
geometry ; if wherever two or three were gathered
-together, there were two or three conflicting
opinions ; if men from the same page and line deduced
endlessly different meanings ; if no standard to judge of
proficiency could be agreed on, then unquestionably it
would be wise and well that geometry should be left to
each man to study for himself, and the definite advantages
of a general scheme of examinaticn should not be utterly
destroyed by its forced in,roduction. We should do this,
not because we desired to treat geometry with contempt,
but because we desired to obtain certain positive advan-
tages in other branches of study which we could not have
if we insisted on introducing into a general scheme a sub-
ject on which no two classes could work in harmony, or
eompete on equal ground, We should omit geometry
because by its iranduction we should not be advancing
the study of geometry, while we should be absolutely
impeding the common advancement of every other branch
of knowledge. We are for omitting examination in
Christian doctrine from this scheme, because, in the fi st

in3tanca, wa cannot agree as to whit Christian doctrine
is ; and, in the next, because we do not think a catechetical
examination any test whatever of the influence which the
teachings of Christ exercise over the heart and the lire of a
studen t

" Have we the Rector here ? ' vehemently demands
Dr. M•Neile• " Have we Hiran here ?" ask ancient

Pistol, with a similarly obscure and appalling effect on the
aerve3 of his audience. Do we dare to decide any ques-
tion without the consent of the Rector ? One feels sorry
to hear the name of so toleran,, unasumii,g, and Christian-
like a genileman al the Rev. Mr. Campbell, thus voci-
ferated to Fears timid people out of their right ofjudgment.
Bat, if a Liverpool assembly were to decide no question
without waiting the consent of their Rector, one cannot see
what advantage we obtain by being freed from the control
of a cardinal or a parish priest. Ido not believe any man
in Liverpool wculd less desire to hear his name used for
any such purpose than the Rev. Rector Campbell.
Sir I am not a very enthue.astic admirer of the
Rev. Hugh Algeile ; even his declamation I have heard
somea hat too often. The starts, the pauses, the deep
tragic tones, the balanced alternations of vehemence and
solemn .lowness; rather lose their power when one gate
so used to the arrangement that he can antieip,te all the
suceessive changes of intonation and gesture. But that
he has influence of no common order over many of the

ZtTT CLOTHING MADE WITH G,t EAT T 1 S rE, at LEWIS and
COMPANY'S, Ranelagh-dre3t.