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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 74
The Bible in Schools
The Bible in Schools.
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The Duty of the State.
| 1. | Is the State better fitted than other agencies to do the work suggested ? |
| 2. | Will the assumption by the State of this particular work jeopardise the success of its work in fields of equal or greater importance ? |
In either of these cases State interference is inadvisable, simply because it will not ultimately tend towards that good life which is the State's ultimate aim. Applying these two tests to the proposed undertaking of
Religious Education by the State,
we have first to observe that those who raise the cry that the education given in our public schools is "godless" are the very persons and organisations most to blame for the defect. The same clause in the Education Act which says that "the teaching shall be entirely of a secular character" also provides that "the school buildings may be used on days and at hours other than those used for public school purposes upon such terms as the committee may from time to time prescribe." There is nothing to prevent the Christian churches from availing themselves of this provision; and in Napier, Masterton, Taranaki, Nelson, and no doubt in many other places Christian ministers and lay helpers have obtained the sanction of the school committees and used the school buildings on week days for instructing the children in religion. I can see nothing, except the
Apathy of the Churches,
| 1. | That it is impossible to detain some of the children and keep their attention after school hours, when their companions are let loose to play. To which the answer is that it is not a law of nature nor even statute law that the attempt should be made after hours. In Nelson a morning hour has been allowed and made use of for years. It is surely a smaller thing to follow this example than to turn the whole educational system upside down in the effort to get other people to do your work. |
| 2. | It is also said that not all ministers are qualified to teach children. No; nor are all schoolmasters qualified to teach religion—which is the alternative proposal. But if the clergy would really work as they should work for the children whom their Master loved, instead of looking round for excuses for putting their own special work on to other people, there are few of them who could not soon show themselves as efficient in teaching children as they now are in preaching to adults. Excluding the Roman Catholics, who stand aloof altogether, there are about 700 Christian ministers in the colony
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as against 1,330 public schools, so that 50 per cent. of the schools could each be provided with a clerical teacher of religion; and if in every case the minister was doing ill he could, his congregation would surely see that the work did not fail for lack of helpers. When we think of the baptism of fire and blood which the church underwent in the early days of the Gospel, is it not a melancholy ad shameful spectacle to see it in these days deliberately rejecting the opportunities which are given it of taking charge of its own children, and appealing to a secular power to undertake the sacred work for that by that very appeal it confesses well unworthy ? Assuming however that, whether from apathy or whether from necessity, the church continues to neglect its trust, what is to be done ? |
The Bible in Itself no Panacea.
The remedy usually prescribed is that the Bible shall be read or taught in the schools by the ordinary staff as part of the regular work, and to this we are to look for the cure the hardness, irreverence, and other anamiable failings of colonial children. If the proper parts of the Bible could be properly taught I grant that great results might reasonably be expected, but to suppose that promiscuous teaching of the Bible unqualified teachers is going to do good and not harm seems to me a great delusion. The notion that the mere presence of the Book in our schools is going to drive away immorality and irreverence, is camphor drives moths from a wardrobe, arises from that fetish-worship of the Book which has done incalculable harm in the past, and has not yet run its course. To teach the Bible is not necessarily to teach religion. Carlyle has finely said that
the Mind grows not like a vegetable (by having its roots Uttered with etymological compost), but like a spirit, by mysterious contact of Spirit: Thought kindling itself at the fire of living thought.
As for the Bible, which children are usually employed in to exercise and improve their talent in reading, I think the promiscuous reading of it, though by chapters as they lie in order, is so far from being of advantage to children, either for the perfecting their reading or principling their religion, that perhaps a worse could not be found. For what pleasure or encouragement can it be to a child to exercise himself in reading those parts of a book where he understands nothing ? . . . . . . And what an odd jumble of thoughts must a child have in his head—if he have any at all, such as he should have—concerning religion, who in his tender age reads all the parts of the Bible indifferently, as the Word of God, without any other distinction ! I am apt to think that this, in some men, has been the reason why they never had clear and distinct thoughts of it all their lifetime.
Who Shall Teach, and what be Taught?
There are, then, two requisites for the success of this undertaking: first, that the teachers shall be well qualified, in creed and in spirit as well as in mind, for the work; and second, that only appropriate parts of the Book shall be taught. The first can only be attained by a system of religious tests, under which the teacher must come up to a prescribed standard, not of mere learning, but of faith and dogma. As we recognise this to be an impossibility I need not discuss it; but I must consider the alternative which is suggested—viz., that the ordinary teachers, appointed in the ordinary way, by the ordinary tests, shall do the teaching, but, subject to a double conscience clause—i.e., that any teacher who objects to giving these lessons need not do so, and any parent who objects may withdraw his child. This concession in the first place seriously mars the completeness of the proposed scheme, and at the same time admits the raison d'être of our secular system—namely, that religion stands on a totally different footing from all other subjects of education, and must receive a different treatment. If the present system is "godless," how are our reformers to justify the individual option in godlessness on the part of parent and teacher which their scheme allows? They are really not so thoroughly on the side of the angels as we are asked to believe.
But the individual option on the part of the teacher to decline to teach is a very small part of the difficulty. The element of local option will constitute
The Real Crux.
We will suppose that in a particular school district the householders are unanimously in favour of the Bible, or a particular part or view of the Bible being taught, but the master of the school declines to teach it. Do our clerical friends seriously suppose that the matter will rest there ? Why, if there is anything in this cry of theirs about the godlessness of our system—and I have conceded that there is a good deal—if the omission of religious teaching from a public school is the omission of the most vital part of education, then surely they will be entitled—nay, they will be bound—to do their best to turn "that man out; and his life, which is already sufficiently harassed by his school committee, will be made a burden till he goes. The fighting will be fairer and better worth watching where the householders are not unanimous. Suppose a school committee on which the religious and the irreligious, or the religious
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Tweedledums and the religious Tweedledees, are pretty evenly divided; and imagine their adjudicating upon some nice and subtle heresy with which a teacher stands charged by an indignant parent! Do you suppose the hypothesis fantastical ? It is absolutely inevitable if religious teaching is to be subject to the discretion of the teacher, and he is to be subject to the discretion of an elective committee. The State will impose no religious test, but the committees will, and would not be human if they did not. I put this question to anybody who dissents: If you had children attending a school where the master refused to teach the Bible or taught it improperly, and you could not remove your children elsewhere, would you not endeavour to remove the master? If not, why all this clamour about a "godless" education, to which it seems you would rather subject your children than exert yourself to remove the cause of it ?
It seems to me that our secular educational systemand our sacred religion must both suffer grievously by the change—the educational system because conscientious teachers will often lose their places or be engaged in exhausting squabbles with their committees, and pliant teachers will enjoy a preference; religion, because it will be made the subject of constant controversy in utterly unqualified tribunals, which will afford a certain amount of pleasure to all who enjoy a good fight, but unmixed pleasure only to religion's worst enemies.
The State must not Interfere.
Although, therefore, I cannot accept the general proposition that religious teaching is outside the province of the State, I am, nevertheless, of opinion that for the State to undertake the duty in the manner proposed would only injure the interests which it exists to promote.