The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1888-11-15
THE TEACHER AND THE BIBLE.
BY JOHN WINTHROP BALLANr1NE.

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There is an honest difference of posi-
ton about the wisdom of requiring the
Bible read in our public schools, mas
much as it degenerates so often to a per-
functory performance or is done with
hurried irreverance. There can be no
difference of position about the import
ance of knowing the Bible. 1t has been
said by one of our best-informed public
men that the Bible, more than in the
opening exercise, should be IN the
teacher. All school boards should in
sist that teachers be thoroughly &C
Quainted with the contents of the two
or three of the worlds greatest books
The Bible is by the common consent Of
enlightened minds, throughout civlliza-
ton, the honestly acknowledged fdcile
princeps of every sort and kind of book.
Ignorance in regard to it as book OF
literature and life is objectionable,
The ignorance of the Harvard under
graduate, who, as recent Century arti-
Gle tells us, went to the college librarian
and asked for the Book of the Acts, not
knowing that it formed one of the his
torical books of Scripture, could be
matched only by some school teacher
asking who or what Hamlet could be.
Yet men are prepared to smile COM
placently over the lack of acquaintance
that even college-bred men show, as did
the Yale Senior in his, "Who in the
world was Pontius Platter Such ig-
norance DIR. Munger declares, in his
trenchant article, reflects discredit upon
the very cirriculum of an educational
system which can leave student in
What RnItlH
feel but chagrin and contempt for the
educator of any class who should show
similar lack of acquaintance with Fal-
staff or Iago! 1t is well for all teachers
to remember that though third and
fourth-rate politicians might be evolved
from men of such squint-eyed educa-
ton, no statesmen of eminence has
there been, in our own land or in Eng
land, who has not shown thorough
familiarity with the facts or contents of
the Scriptures. Such men have first
hand acquaintance with what the Bible
contains. The disadvantages of unac-
quaintance Herewith would be unques-
tlonahly serious, considered even intel,
lectually.
We are not making plea for any
narrow, certainly not for any sectarian,
way of equippipg our teachers with
such first hand acquaintance.
Let it be remembered that the Bible
can be mastered in certain of its fea-
lures quite as dispassionately, in quite
as bipartisan a way as the science OF
government can be studied or political
economy taught, without making the
students all Democrats or all Republic
cans, all protectionists or all free trade
enthusiasts. That would be lame and
unscientific effect of any studied effort
to secure full knowledge of the Bible
in its history. its sociology, or even its
theology, if its scientific investigators
came out from their several processes
of study all of one special stripe and
hue, as enemies of the Bible so ignor-
antly claim that they would. Even the
specialists IN science and belleslettres
who are tinged with the minimum of
prejudice and possessed of the maxi
mum of discrimination, are declaring in
evcr-increasing numbers. for the last
few years, that the Bible has been an
invaluable textbook of their own pri-
vate study, and to its striking prnci-
pies and representative Municipalities
their better equipment is due in history,
or political science, in the departments
OF literature and biography, of legisla'
tive and ethical learning, Truly, no
sonndly educated person free from big
otry or inane skeptical indifference, can
regard himself literally educated with
out a thorough familiarity with the lit
erature, the history, and the ruling
ideas of the Bible.
1t is Enthusiastically deplorable for a
scholarly man not to recognize instantly
as an old friend, any one of the ten
thousand illusions to Scripture which
constantly occur in books, magazines,
reviews, and the daily papers.
The Bible is prominently the Book
of Life, and of life as biography; and
we cannot over-estimate the importance
of familiarity with the essential ele-
ments of that life. Let it be studied,
then, among teachers especially, with
thoroughness, with system more than
mere method, as an organism, and not a
dissertation, with distinctively scientific
accuracy, as well as profound rever
ence,-Journdl of Education.