THE FOURTH R IN MERTHYR.
In an article which appeared the other day our orthodox contemporary, the Western Mail, criticised certain late proceedings of the Merthyr School Board relative to the Fourth R difficulty in Education. Those proceedings, says that respectable journal, "were saved from being utterly ludicrous only by the gravity of the subjects which were under discussion." But for that consideration, the Western Mail is of opinion that it would have been good fun "to watch the efforts that were being made to realise that most delusive of all theoretical ideas—unsectarian as opposed to secular education." Perhaps most persons will think that those efforts were, as far as they went, not altogether unsuccessful, seeing that, after some discussion bearing on theology, the Board concluded, on the motion of one of its principal Members—a lady interested in the welfare of her species, Mrs. Crawshay of Cyfartha—that the sole form of devotion, public or private, dictated by the Founder of Christianity, "should be the sole form of public devotion employed in the schools." The Rev. John Griffiths, the Rector, "intimated that he would be quite contented with the proposed limitation of the form of prayer, provided that a doxology were added, recognising" a doctrine which Unitarians do not recognise. The suggestion certainly was creditable to a clergyman of the Church of England who keeps a conscience. It was professional; but the doxology is one of those special matters in the Fourth R on which professors, and doctors too, differ. The orthodoxology of one denomination is the heterodoxology of another.
There are forms of public devotion in common use as the prologue to public dinners. They are invocations in which all present can join, whatever their belief may be as to the Fourth R—if they have any belief at all—and if they have none, what then? It would be conscientious of a Church of England Clergyman to propose the superaddition of a Doxology to a Grace; but would it be wise? Would it not probably set a company of mixed denominations quarrelling over their soup?
In relation to food for the mind, Mrs. Crawshay proposed to deal with the Fourth R in a way analogous to that which experience has proved the most convenient method of adjoining it to food for the body. Herein she has acted on principles which many persons, besides a writer in the Western Mail, may call "illogical and unsafe," but no thinking man, or woman either, would call those persons philosophers. If every School Board were to legislate as to the Fourth R simply on the principle of teaching just so much of it as children can be expected to understand, would not their practical arrangement be of necessity about the same as that recommended by Mrs. Crawshay?