The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1874-07-08

UNgvERsEgy OF VERMONT
.se,. a. nras,o,v,~ aadres.

The anniversary celebration Of the so
ciety for religious inquiry Of the University
Of Vermont was crowded to listen to the
annual address, on "The religions element
in education" The following is an alb
stract Of
REV. MIR. BRAsTow's Discourse
In introducing his subject, the speaker
alluded to the tendency to schsm and con-
iict between religion and science, which is
phase of the old strife between the heart
and intellect The intellect severed from
religion curses humanity, and the severance
of religion from the processes OF learning Is
equally fatal. Each has suffered for lack
OF the other Learning. II more tolerant
than religion has had less moral earnest
ness. The men of learning and the men
OF religion have learned to distrust each
other. Religion does not occupy the place
it once did in our schemes Of learning
Our forcfathers went to school to Palestine
The scholars of our day look rather to
Greece. We are thus secularizing our
learning. In our Helenism we forget their
liberalism. But wholly to secularize learn
ing is to profane it. II there is no reasona-
bic religion without learning, so there is
nv iSdsOHdDlI NilllOhl Itil-lbus
These and similar suggestions brought the
speaker to his subject" The religious
element in education"
Education is evolution. 1t must reach
about all the contents of our humanity and
include the religious and moral sense and
faculty within us-t the sense by which we
touch God. Mr.. Darwin would call con-
science only form of intelligence; but, if
so, it is a fact, and one that demands re-
cognition. 1t has always been the dominant
power. Men feel the invisible before the
visible. All early attempts at science and
art were religious. Man is forever ming
ling the realms of the movable and the
ideal. AS child, man walks with the in
visible divinity, and throughout his career
to the final contamination, the religious
element is prominent. Nothing can super
cede it. We begin with the simplicity of
faith we end with faith built up into
knowledge. Religion cannot be cultured
dozen or out of existence. 1t must ever
lift and be lifted with ennobling culture,
and we must give it supremacy. Its forces
are the regulating forces, and through it
alone can education be completed. The
best modern educators recognize this.
Germany, with all its skepticism, is COM
PEELED to recognize religion as the central
fact in its systems.
Religion furnishes the material Of
thought and culture. If we were to under
take to expurgate religion from our litera-
ture, we should see this.
So the various departments of culture
must recognize the religious element in
man. Philosophy cannot ignore the ques-
tons of law, conscience, intuition, and the
like, or take step without hitting religion.
IL, ;,,tD epiori
of government the source of authority, the
question of punishment, and is thus brought
at once into the domain of morals and re-
ligion. That science is most rational
which takes account of the theories of re-
ligion. Art cannot be divorced from the
realm of spirit for beauty is divine, and so
when art has ceased to be religious it has
Income degraded. The highest poetry is
religious, and the truest poet has also been
prophet and seer.
Religion furnishes the best ideals Of man
hood. Purely secular education has never
constructed perfect man. Mans .ltellect
without religion has never been able to
construct the golden age Of perfect man
hood. Science, as Bryant says, has good
evidence of the apes deterioration from
man, as Of mans emergencc from ape-hood.
The ideal man comes from Palestine, not
from Greece, from religious, not from gcCu-
lar culture
Religion, again, furnishes the choicest in.
spration of education, the inspiration Of
faith, Faith in the spiritual and the ideal
alone saves our modern religion from the
grossest materialism The fath-faculty
and the religious faculty are one. The
great patriarchs, reformers, martyrs and
educators, have been great because of their
faith in an ideal. It is this which distin-
cuisines the statesman from the politician
the orator from the declaner, the doctor
from the charlatan, the scholar from tn,
pedant, the preacher from the ranter. Tha
only is right education which leads thC
man to consider his calling mission from
God; and when all thus recognize their re
ligous duty, we shall have better scholars
and more thorough .workmen
Finally, religion furnishes right princi
pies of education. What we seek is to de
velop full manhood There are too many
half-men, too many sick men, too many
cripples Our llelenistic education, which
makes intellect supreme, cannot help this
The Hebraic scheme, which makes charac
ter dominant, alone can give us men. Re
ligion has solved the problems that Devil
der science. 1t recognizes the evil in maj
and the need of higher power to restore
the perfect manhood. 1t recognizes thu
principle of self-sacrifce. 1t bases culture
on philanthropy. 1t is good philosophy, n
well as religious truth, that to save life W
must lose it,
In closing the speaker commended TO hi
young hearers, now about to go forth int
the conflicts of distracted age, the exam
pie of the Apostle Paul, as of one who lai