C.—PERVERSION.
The Christian church has constantly perverted the purpose of education, but has never yet deserved the [[187]]reproach of having neglected its means. From the very beginning the sect of the apostle-training Galilean has been a sect of assiduous educators. They were not satisfied with founding schools and opening their doors to all comers, but went forth in quest of new converts, and pursued their aim with a persistence of zeal and a versatility of skill that could not fail to accomplish its purpose. As soon as a sufficient increase of power enabled them to control the institutes of primary instruction they turned their chief attention to the dogmatical education of the young. They derived no aid from the attractiveness and still less from the plausibility of their doctrine, but they realized Schopenhauer’s remark that “there is in childhood a period measured by six, or at most by ten years, when any well-inculcated dogma, no matter how extravagantly absurd, is sure to retain its hold for life.” And though the propagation of an unnatural creed is not favored by natural fertility, the naturally barren doctrine of renunciation was thus successfully propagated by a system of incessant grafting. By the skilful application of that process the most dissimilar plants were made subservient to its purpose. The “Worship of Sorrow” with its whining renunciation of worldly enjoyments, and its indifference to health and physical education, was grafted on the manful naturalism of the Hebrew law-giver. Saint-worship, the veneration of self-torturing fanatics, was grafted on a stem of pagan mythology, and dozens of Christian martyrs have thus usurped the honor and the sacrifices of pagan temples. Christian holidays were grafted on the festivals of [[188]]the nature-loving Saxons. But persuasion failing, the missionaries of the cross did not hesitate to resort to more conclusive measures. Like refractory children cudgeled along the path of knowledge, the obstinate skeptics of northern Europe were harassed with fire and sword till they could not help admitting the dangers of unbelief. The garden-lands of the Albigenses were wasted till they found no difficulty in yearning for the peace of a better world. Philosophers were tortured in the prisons of the Holy Inquisition till the sorrows of life favored the renunciation of its hopes.
For thirteen centuries the sunshine of millions of human hearts was ruthlessly sacrificed to promote the task of luring mankind from life to ghost-land, and during all those ages education was systematically turned from a blessing into an earth-blighting curse.