The Omaha guide., 1935-11-30
KELLY MILLER
SAYS
EDUCATION FOR
= CHARACTER

w.
history of the human race which
is being educated without religion.
The world awaits the results. I'm
til now the world relied upon re-
ligous dogma as the chief means
of imparting morality. i once
heard President Patton, of How
ard University, say that laxity in
theology is always followed by
laxity in morality. Our educa-
tionalists have all but perfected
an intellectual pedagogy without
religious incentive, at the ex-
pense of a moral pedagogy based
upon the promptings of the soul.
We educate the head and hands
but leave to haphazzard and
chance the education of the heart.
Some wag of a wit once S a
that Charles Darwin had
knocked hell out of religion. This
is but a blunt and profane way of
expressing a significant and
serious truth. William Jennings
Bryan, the peerless apostle of the
common man, devoted his last
days to combating the doctrine
of evolution because it cut the
nerve of religion. He could not
bring himself to the reconcilia-
ton of the ages of rocks and the
Rock of Ages. No Einstein has
yet arisen in the ~philosophis
world who can simplify and rec
oncile science and religion and
fuse them into a pedagogical
formula which would grip the
mind and imagination of the av-
erage youth of our day and gen
GRAFTON.
L once wrote an essay for one
of u educational journals en-
titled Moral Pedagogy in which
deplored the fact that we were
unable to find a secular substi-
for sacred lore as a means of
imparting morality building
up character in youth.
The gap between education and
character is growing deeper and
wider as the doctrine of evolution
has made all but universal head
way. 1t is needless to attempt
combat the doctrine of evolu-
ton which forced itself upon us
with all but automatic conviction.
But the chief task devolves upon
our educationalists-to find a
moral pedagogy which can be
maintained in harmony with the
teachings of Darwin.
Educational discussion TODAY
is concerned chiefly with curric-
lla with the sacred element either
left out entirely or handled only
the little finger of the left
hand. And yet the age-old ad-
m%oniions contains an everlasting
fact and present truth: "keep
thy heart with all diligence for
out of it are the issues of life"
We are appalled, at the plain
facts of observation. Education
and crime grow apace. Theft,
graft, racketeering, lynching,
burglarly, kidnapping and gang
sterdom outrun our boosted edu-
,ational statistics. We have lost
value of religious discipline
cut have gained nothing to take
It's place. Our schools are not on
y secular, but Pagan and Goddess.
The Roman Catholic Church. with
oglcal consistency, cries aloud
against our Goddess schools which
threaten the foundation of civil
.ation. The Mother Church still
RES to safeguard the educational
development of her own adhoronts
" throwing around them the pro-
'er religious influence. But this
S almost impossible in the midst
If a nonreligious-minded age.
Without further developing this !
meme along general lines, let me
hasten to apply the i'll effects of a
iodless education upon the mind
II Negro youth. The Negro is
'asically a religious folk, motivat-
ID chiefly by a ~deep-seated spirit
emotion. The Northern mis-
'ionaries, who founded u schools
colleges, hypothecated the de-
'elopment of the Negro upon this
oasis. They relied upon the spir-
tual dynamic as the chief agency
Negro uplift. With this end in
new, they brought to him the BIZ
Die in their right hand and the
book in their left. They
to make education the
handmade of religion. In the earl
days of Howard, Fisk, Atlanta
anJ snooI- TT.