The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-04-27


 of the safeguards against thembrutal- ity that exists in all of us. We know that abstinence from theft means la Dor and that labor means healthy ex- ercise for body and mind. We know that Thou shalt not kilP' has count less sanitary applications We know that Thou shalt not commit ad1l- tery, if obeyed, would make Ehr-A 1ichs serum altogether unnecessary.
 But these are ideals of individual and social duty which Socialism pro- poses to change, and what does it pro- pose to substitute for them In the first place it proposes to take from them the educational system of our country whatever is left in it of san itary value. We have now driven re- ligion out of pur public schools. So- ciaIism proposes to go further. John Spargo, the Socialist author in his book called "Socfalisra.' on page 2s8, says.
 Whether the Socialist regime could tolerate the existence of elementary schools other than it's own. such as schools, religious schools, and so on, is Questionable Probably not. It would probably not content itself with Refusing to permit religious doctrines of ideas to be taught in it's schools, but would go further, and, as the nat lzfSl PTOGScCOT or the ch11Q, guard us independence Of thought in later life as far as possible by forbidding relig- ious teaching of any kind in schools for children up to a certain age. Be- yond that age, religious education, in all other than the public schools, would be freely permitted. This re- striction of religious education to the years of judgment and discretion fn1- plies no hostility to religion on the part Of the state. but neutrality. Not the least important of the rights of the child is the right to be protected from influences which bias the mind and destroy the possibilities of inde- pendent Judgment in later life. or make it attainabIy only as result of bitter. needless. tragic experience.
 SOCIALISM BAD TEACHER.
 This means that not only are the public schools to be made the teach CTS of nnateriaIistfc philosoph hy. but that authoritative moral teaching is to be prohibited in any school You can conceive of what the result will be. We haven't enough gunnlen now we haven't enough vicious youths at the present time But So- cia1isrn is going to teach abstract nlor- als. This has been tried and is be- ing tried. Well meaning men have tried by the organization of the eth teal culture society to build moral E}character without religious fnspira- ton. Perhaps Frederick William Fsos- ter has the best right to speak on this phase of the subject. Dr. Foster was son of a rationa1ist father and was himself brought up to regard religion as an osatworrl institution which shack led rather than stimulated thought. This education made him Socialist in his early life, and permitted him to ally himself enthusiastically with
 
 this country in 1a76 by Prof. Felix Adler He was so earnest and en- thusiastic and so brilliant men Der of the society that as the type of the ethical culture moveEnent at it's best. he was selcted as the first interna- ffonai secretary of the society and for several years was thea editor Of it's newspaper organ in Berlin. Since 1896 pr. Fostor has lived in Zurich. where he has been teaching ethics in the public schools of that city and serv- ing as professor at the University of Zurich. After a long experiences in ethical culture work. this is his con sci11sion:
 ONCE A FREETE1INKEzS- My one-fime persuasions were the result, not merely of my consistently irreligieus education, but likewise of the bookworrn enlightenment that our universities offer to the young man Of today enlightenment that keeps him a stranger to real life. that allows no deep insight into the shadows of modern society At one time was very earnest free-t thinker, and endeav- ored to follow the system to its deep est conciusfoTis But just the earnest ness Of my endeavors led me to bid adieu to free thought. The in- sight thus gained into real life, in- to the concrete problems of the Hv- T, ner ra.nsformation- began to see Christianity with other eyes. Chris tianity, until then, had seemed to be 1 q foreign, antiquated element of life now saw that had been a stranger to life, a. dead man. When the dead rieei s,ss sssS4.
 T know very we'll how far purely human inspiration wifi lead the world Of youth ss understand what a severe blow it must be to those who would replace religion by ethics when l my convictions force me to oppose them with all my energy, when I as sert that just my thorough-going ef- forts in purely ethical instruction is 1 fficient yes, that the ethical ap1 peal. in order to become deeper, is forced by it's own inner psychology te l become religious; that the natural dis position to good must be irnpregnated IcIarified. fortified by superhurnan Eideals before it can cope successfuily with the inborn tendencies to evil. And on, yes,. there is another educa- tional plan in which Socialists gen eral1y are quite interested. It is the | teaching of sex hygiene to children
 Hitherto this idea has not occurred tc any human being no matter how de prayed. Hitherto no age has been SC lost to all sense Of sanity and decency as to try to force considerations, be fore which the mature mind and will | stagger, into the innocent conscious ness of childhood. Hitherto in none Of those old pagan cults based upor adoration of the generative princip1t
 has the obsession gone so far as to l thrust into the minds of children the secrets of sex. All living things have l their periods of adolescence and ma