Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-05-22
LETTER FROM DR.. PLATT-FEE QUEs
TON OF GODDESS SCHOOLS.

EDS. RECORD UNION: In your recent no.
ton to religion, having no authorized report
of nay speech before you, my utterances are
not given. Reporters give their own inter-
probation of speech, not the speech itself
They may catch the speakers points and ex-
pressions, OF they may not. You say
s. Surely it is a serious admission of weakness
for any church TO have to make, that it can
not get people to accept its dogmas unless it
is permitted to engraft them upon the mind
before it is capable of forming any Judgment
concerning their credibility or value. No
such position has ever been taken with regard
to scientific instruction. This would ex-
cIude religion from the minds of children and
the unenlightened. Religion does its best
for the young and all ii can for the old and
mature. But if religious impressions are not
made upon the young mind, it will scarcely
be upon the old. Science pertains to material
phenomena, and the older the mind the bet
ter religion pertains to feelings aud sentI-
ments, and the younger the mind the better.
Science has its notifications in observation
and experiment; religion has its strength in
faith and experience. Religion received fy
the faith of the child will not, as rule, be
denied by its reason when man. Manners,
affections, sentiments and that which Is best
in man result from early and continuous
training. The lessons learned at good
mothers knees give US more comfort in life
and more affect character than the dry con-
illusions of logic or science.
You ask again How is it, then, that it
should be thought so Indispensable to fix re-
ligious beliefs in the growing mind before it
has acquired the force Of judgment requisite
to weigh their merits?" You do not wait
for such force of judgment to impress upon
the young mind the duty to be honest, truth
full and pure. The true mother does not wait
for child to be old enough to judge for it
self before she seeks to lead it to love what is
good, beautiful and true-to love father and
mother. brothers and sisters. Religion in
the young is love, trust and awe, apart from
any judgment Of the reason, but which Is
afterwards submitted to the reason. Newton
believed in religion before he reasoned about
its logical foundation. Science appeals only
to the reason; religion, first to the feelings.
1t is obvious, then, that the education
IF the feelings must be at an age
when the feelings can be rightly educated
Religion appoints discipline of conduct
that reason may approve, but which is dis
tasteful TO man preferring his own ways.
Therefore the disciplines of life must begin
in the youth, that they may be well-fixed
habits to the man. You must distinguish be
tween educating the intellect and training
the moral habits. And while training the
heart and the conscience, why not make
education complete and Include that of the
intellect also? | am sure that you desire to
get at the true forces of sociological science,
but you fail, it seems to me, to accept the re
ligious emotions as the most tremendous fac
tors in the solution of the complex problem
H. u.
head, it need not neglect the heart. If it
does, as too many, if not a majority of par
ents do, they will have an educated but not a
moralized citizen to deal with. The churches
did in the past, and will in the future d.
this educational work for the children of the
world, if the State will surrender it. Let
the churches in addition to the arts and sci
ences, teach sectarian worship. Better that
than atheism and communism. You may
have smart citizens, but unless you have the
good in majority, your government mus!
break down as others have broken down be-
fore. There need be no conflict between re-
ligion aud science or the State. As the mat
ter OF education now stands, there is practi-
cal discrimination against reigion-it Is ex-
cluded from a work in which it was once
taught. No one can see the way clear to an
adjustment satisfactory TO all but cannot
I those who approve secular schools be content
with mere primary schools, leaving higher
education TO private enterprise and the re-
spective churches. This is not altogether as
would have it, for the church ought to have
access to children in their earliest school days,
and keep it, and in most cases would have 1t.
The secular primary schools would be open to
those who would have no other. Let no tax
be levied for any school higher than primary,
and take even these out of all political
manipulation. w. III. PLATT