The Sun.
London, England, 1870-11-28 00:00:00

PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON RELIGIOUS
INSTRUC I'ION.

The editor of the Contemporary Review has sent to the
Pall Mall Gazette an extract from an article by Professor
Huxley, which is to appear in the next number of the
Review. He says he wishes it published in the hope of
hindering the object of ,those misrepresentations °f
Professor Huxley's views which he himself is
no; likely to care to contradict, and which
are industriously made by bigoted persons
who would leave no stone unturned to discredit London
by omitting him from the Board. The • extract is 59
follows :—" We are divided into two parties—the advo,-
cates of so-called ' religious' teaching on the one baud,
and those of so-called ' secular ' teaching on the other-
And both parties seem to me to be not only hopelesslY,
wrong, but in such a position that if either succeeded
completely, it would discover before many years were over
that it had made a great mistake and done serious evil to
the cause of education. For, leaving- aside the more fa,r;
'seeing minority on each side, what the ' religious party
is crying for is mere theology, under the name of relig,10„11;
while the ' Secularists ' have unwisely and wrongfully
admitted the assumption of their opponents, and demand
the "abolition. of all `religious' teaching, when they
only want to be free of theology.—Burninge
your ship -to get rid of the cockroaches ! Now, my belie',
is, that no human being, and no society composed c'l
human beings, ever did, or ever will, come to much
unless their conduct was governed and guided hY
the love of some ethical ideal. Undoubtedly your gutter
child may be converted by mere intellectual drill int°
' the subtlest of all the beasts of the field ;" but we los,l
what has become of the original of that description, 311
there is no need to increase the number of those W
imitate him successfully without being aided by We
rates. And if I was compelled to choose for one of
children between a school in which real religious instruc-
tion is given, and one without it, I should prefer the
former, even though the child might have t°
take a good deal of theology with it. Nine-tenths of 5
dose of bark is mere half-rotten wood ; but one swallow!
it for the sake of the particles of quinine, the beneficial
effect of which may be weakened, but not destroyed, ex-
cept in a few cases of exceptionally tender stomachs-
Hence, when the great mass of the English people
declare that they want to have the children In
the elementary schools taught the Bible, and when it is
plain from the terms of the Act, the debates in and out or
Parliament, and especially the emphatic declaration °f
the Vice-President of the Council, that it was intended
that such Bible reading should be permitted unless good
cause for prohibiting it could be shewn, I do not see
what reason there is for opposing that wish'
Certainly, I, individually, could with no shadow'
of consistency oppose the teaching of the children °I
other people to do that which my own children are taught
to do. And if the reading the Bible were not, as I think
it is, consonant with political reason and justice, and with
a desire to act in the spirit of the education measure, lanl
disposed to think that it might be well still to read that Book
in the elementary school, I have always been strongly
favour of secular education, in the sense of education
without theology ;_ but I must confess I have been no less
strongly perplexed to know by what practical measures
the religious feeling, which is the essential basis of con•
duct, was to be kept up, in the present utterly chaotic
state of opinion on these matters, without the use of the
Bible.'?

REPORTED ILLNESS OF SIR R.
MURCHISON.

It will be a source of regret to many naval officers 30
others when we inform them that the respected President
of the Royal Geographical Society, Sir Roderick Murchi-
son, Bart., is at present lying hopelessly ill. —Army ana
Navy Gazette.