Arizona republican., 1915-10-02
HUXLEy'S WORDS
 0N THE BIBLE
In the Great Scientist s View It Should Be Pre- scented Without the Aid of Theological Explain CTS" of It's Beauty

I
 afternoon at the Y. NJ C. A Stad- 1 ium in the interest of bringing the
 study of the Bible into the public 1 schools, the following from Professor l Huxley delivered before the London | School board in 1870 will be of in- | tereSt:
 Il have always been in favor of l secular education, in the sense of education without theology; but 1 must confess that I have been less seriously perpleXed to know by what practical measures the religious feel ing which Is the essential basis of conduct, was to be taken up in the present utterly chaotic state of Opin-
 ion on these matters without the
 Bible
 The Pagan moralists lack life and
 color, and even the noble stoic, Mar
 GUS Aurelius, is too high and refined
 for an ordinary child. Take the Bi-
 ble as a whole; make the severest
 deductions which fair criticism can
 dictate for shortcomings and posi-
 tive errors; eliminate, as a sensible
 lay teacher would do, if left to him.
 self, all that is not desirable for children to occupy themselves with; and there still remains in this old literature vast residuum of moral beauty and grandeur. And then con- slider the great historical fact that for three centuries this book has been woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in English his tory; that it has become the na- tional epic of Britian and is as famil- jar to noble and simple. from John O Greats House to Lands End as Dante and Tasso once were to the Italians; that it is written in the noblest and purest English and abOunds in exquisite beauties of mere literary form: and, finally. that it forbidS the veriest hind that never | left his village to be ignorant of the | existence of other countries and | other countries and other civiliza- tions, and of a great past stretching | back to the furthest limits of the | oldest nations in the earth.
 By the study of what other book | could children be so humanized and | made to feel that each figure in that | vast historical procession fills, like i themselves, but a momentary space ! in the interval between the two l etrnities: and earns blessings or the | curses of all time, according to it's l effort to do good and hate evil, even | as they are also earnings their pay i ment for their work.
 "On the whole, tben, I am in favor | of reading the Bible with such gram nautical, geographical and historical l explanations by a ay-teacher as may i be needful. with rigid exclusion of any further theological teaching than | that contained in the Bible itself | And, in stating what this is. the teacher would do well not to go be- yond the precise words of the Bi- ble, >for if he does, ne will in the first place undertake a task beyond his strength, seeing that all the Jew ish and Christian sects have been at work on that subject for more than two thousand years and have not yet arrived, and are not in the least like ly to arrive, at an agreement; and, in the second place, he will certainly begin to- teach something denomina- tional and thereby come into violent collision with the Act of Parliament.
 If Bible reading is not accompan- jed by constraint and solemnity, as if it were a sacramental operation, I do not believe there is anything in which children take more pleasure At least, I know that some of the pleasantest recolections of my child hood are connected with the volun- tary study of an ancient Bible which belonged to my grandmother. There were splendid pictures in it, to be sure; but I recollect little or nothing about them save a portrait of the high priest in his vestmentS. What comes vividly back to my mind are remembrances of my delight in the histories of Joseph and David; and of my keen appreciation of the chiv- alrous kindness of Abraham in his dealings with Lot.
 Like sudden flashes there returns back upon me my utter scorn of the pettifogging meanness of Jacob, and my sympathetic grief over the heart breaking Iamentation of the cheated Esau, Hast thou not a blessing for me also, o, my father?' And I see as cloud, pictures of the grand rhantasmagoria of the Book of Rev elatiOn
 And I rejoice that I was left to deal with the Bible alone for if l had had some theological 'explainer' at my side, he might have tried, as suc1 do, to lessen my indignation against Jacob and thereby have
 warned my moral sense forever"