Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-10-14

Morley Of Christ Church. New Zealand. In tn
course Of his paper Mr.. Fitchett said.
BY the religious training Of the Young Mr.
Fitchett's paper said. do not mean nerei,
that some little fringe of religious phrases
some faint embroidery of religious facts, shall
be tackled on the general training of our chill
dren. The church of Christ stands for THU
conception: That the whole training of tho
child must be religious in its spirit. in it
methods and in its ends. We at least who be-
lieve that the end of life is religion, must be-
lieve that the whole training Of those who are
| entering life ought to be religious.
| he pleaded for fuller recognition Of chill
dren In the regular ministry of the pulpit and
In the ordinary machinery of the church. He
spoke also of the duty of parents. As to the
function of the state he said: II venture to
assert that we are face to face with two swift
coming certainties- First, that within q briefly
measurable time primary education every
where will be in the hands of the state; and
second, that the coming education will be
free, compulsory and secular. Does that
near certainty create no new duty for
the church? For consider the logic of the situ-
alton. 1t is an axiom Of the newer politics
that Ignorance is a menace to good citizenship
ana means loss and peril to the state. Better
to have fields untitled and mines unwrought
than citizens uninstructed. So the state makes
itself responsible for education, enforces it
pays for it, tests it. And when the state enters
.ne neid OF primary education no COM
n
created. Now, state-paid and compulsory
education must. sooner or latter, be secular;
Tor IN process OF time two impossibi,ities come
TO light First, it is impossible that the state
can teach all creeds; second, it is impossible
that it can enforce one creed on all And here
is the great peril, which creates a new duty for
the church-that in ten years the primary state
PAID and state-enforced education of the civil
ized world will be secular; and the peril is that
II may be secular in the sense of being not only
non-Christian but anti-Christian."
The writer referred to experiences in his own
colony of Victoria. 1t undertook, he said,
to Danish from primary education everything
TO which on so-called religious grounds any one
could object So it banished the New Testa-
ment to please the Jew and both testaments to
satisfy the infidel. 1t next banished history to
satisfy the Catholics and religion itself of every
sort to appease the atheist. But the
Bible Is so subtlcy interviewer with English
literature that it was found the very school
books Of the children had an offensive flavor to
secular prelates. As the lesson books were
dissected, not TO say disinfected, and every
trace OF Christianity effaced. Longfellow's
Hesperus and Burns ''Cotters Saturday
Night were mutilated in order to purge them
OF Christian references. But it was soon found
that authoritative morality had disappeared
with the Bible No teacher was able to say
Thou shalt not lie" or Thou shalt not steal
to the children he taught. But the
human conscience. like nature, abhors
vacuum, and 1t was soon found necessary to
I'LL up the moral gulf created by the Danish
ment OF religion from primary education. The
state found that if it taught at all it must teach
morality. and accordingly new moral .ext
book divorced from God and an authoritative
moral law was placed in the school, a code
OF morality with utilitarism for its basis.
boy was taught to be honest because
1t paid best and not to lie lest he should be
found out. Thus extreme secularism resulted
III this amazing paradox, the creation of a
state-taught non-Christian morality. The
Gospel according to Matthew was forbidden,
and the Gospel according to Mill endowed,
and this was the logical conclusion reached by
an extreme secuiarism. Ali this should serve
as a warning.
DANGERS OF THE FUTURE.
That primary education throughout the civil
lized world will become a state function is al
most certain. Compulsory and state-paid edu-
cation must be secular and it may become secu-
lar In the acrid and bitterly anti-Christian
sense. The Christian church in all lands should
stand for one wise policy in education. Edu-
cation must have a moral element. Morality
has no living root apart from an an-
thoritatlve moral law and q personal law
giver. In primary education the Bible must