Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-05-29

to all modern civilized ideas The Altru-
ism of the New Testament is doctrine
wholly incompatible with the cohesion and
survival of society. A community which
took the Sermon on the Mount for its code
of ethics would unquestionably thereby
bring itself to speedy ruin. A nation doing
the same thing would quickly reduce itself
to barbarism. A race so acting would ar
rest its upward movement and destroy its
prospects. In fact, this code of morals is
not only altogether impracticable, but the
world has always recognized its impractical
bility, and ignored it completely. 1t is not
upon this that the existing code of morals
rests. It is upon the experience of
mankind. The theologians who desire
to introduce religion into the public
schools as a basis for morals, have
no other wish than to teach the impossi-
BILE ethics we have been speaking of =;
knowing all the time that they cannot be
put in practice, but that every man who
enters the world will have to follow the
moral code he finds in operation there, and
which has no connection with the religious
CODE The truth is that morality is no.
where question of religion, but every
where one of experience and habit. Virtues
pie. The child brought up among edu-
Gated people will learn to be pure and re-
fined. The child brought up among uned-
ucated people will learn to be coarse and
rough. To the one abstinence from merely
sensual indulgences is made natural by its
education. To the other brutal gratifica-
tions are made equally natural. But it is
not religion that determines this difference,
for the people among whom the first child
is brought up may be land probably would
be) irreligious worldlings, while the people
among whom the second child is brought
up may be devout Catholics or Methodists
or Calyinists The morality that is taught
apart from religion, however, has one very
great advantage over the other kind. 1t
is taught at no sacrifice of the sense
of consistency, the sense of truth, or
the instinct of inquiry. The theological
methods of education require surren-
der of the judgment and stimulation
of the Imagination highly prejudicial both
to true morality and to intellectual indie
pendence and force. Children who learn
to be moral without learning religious dog
mas at the same time, retain unimpaired
their capacity to analyze and to weigh
all propositions. Children who learn
their ethics through the theological me-
dunn sustain an injury to their intellectual
integrity which may never be repaired,
and go forth into the world bewildered or
deluded concerning those high and grave
questions which it is the duty of every
conscientious parent to let his children
wrestle with independently. Concern
ing those questions there may be no final
answer attainable, but the discipline of
free and fearless inquiry is the best that
can be applied to the growing mind, and it
can only render the judgment and the
morals more clear and firm. The ethics of
the people stand in no danger from the
rigid separation between Church and State.
Education must be, as it has hitherto been
the care of the secular Government The
priest must be barred out of the school
room, and given no authority over the i'm
mature intelligences of our children. This
is the conclusion to which experience con-
ducts us, and it is a safe and a sound