Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1923-10-19
S. S. Convention
Continued from Page 81

and religion, and it has tended to
throw large bodies of intelligent peo-
pie into one or the other hostile
camp We have been told with great
earnestness, both by natural sci
entists and by church members, that
faith in a spiritual God and accept
ance of the present theories of nat
ural science were utterly incompati-
BILE. This seems to me unsound.
I believe that we can very easily
and very we'll accept whatever
hypothesis men of science may agree
to offer us regarding the explanation
of material life, whether they
analyze matter into terms of energy
or carry our conception of the uni
verse out to the infinitudeS of space.
Neither of these journeys takes away
from lis our conception of God or
His relation to the universe. nor do
I think that the full acceptance of
any of these material hypothesis is
at all inconsistent with the teach
ings of the Bible regarding our re-
lation to God and His government of
the spiritual universe.
The modern world has become so
engrosscd with the teachings of
natural science and so prone to az
cept these theories as final and all
other concepts of God or man as
very illusory or unreal, that we have
tended to lose ourselves in the field
of education and in almost every 9TH
err department of life in a material
wilderness from which there seems
no escape.
With all religious teaching neccs
sarily and properly shut out of our
public school system and with ma
4
intellectual life of the last genera
ton, there has been n pronounced
tendency to neglect the things of
the spirit in all the activities of our
life and to emphasize materialistic
teachings in our schools.
This tendency has shown itself in
the increasing amount of time de-
voted to natural science in the school
curriculum as contrasted with the
disciplinary and humanistic studies
of former days and moro recently 1t
has appeared in the introduction of
physical education in our schools.
Confidently with the despiritualiz-
ing our our public school system has
come the development of a parochial
school system outside the public
schools and illustrated in Maine by
the Roman Catholic ParCchial
Schools attended by 1851 children,
according to the last Catholic dircc-
tory. Bishop Louis S. Walsh, the
Roman Catholic Bishop of Main.
has definitely stated during this past
winter at a public hearing in Au-
gusta on the resolution to amend the
Constitution of Maine ~ prohibiting
the appropriation of public funds for
sectarian schools, that he would not
permit his children to attend the
public schools because they would
not receive a Christian character and
civilization.
j. I think this conclusion is too
sweeping as the Christian character
of the teachers in our public schools
cannot help impressng itself upon
the minds of their pupils. On the
other hand. there is no question that
. it is extremely difficult to develop
spiritual characteristics in our chill
dren, when the religious teaching is
and must necessarily be confined to
the reading of the Bible. 1t is eX-
actIy as though we undertook to
teach geometry or history simply by
reading a book on the subject to the
children for few minutes each day.
To this extent. the criticism by
Bishop Walsh is just and his keen
appreciation of the importance of
religious education is shown by the
very great sacrifices which the
Roman Catholics in the State of
Maine are willing to make under his
leadership for the sake of maintain
ing a parochial school system, largely
at their own expense. Bishop Walsh
has estimated that for the public
school system to educate according to