* Henry Drummond gave this definition in the House of
Commons, and it was adopted by W. J. Fox and other leaders
of opinion in that day.
The Rev. Dr. Parker is the first Nonconformist preacher of distinction who has avowed his concurrence with Secular instruction in Board Schools. When Mr. W. E. Forster was framing his Education Act, I besought him to raise English educational policy to the level of the much smoking, much-pondering Dutch. "The system of education in Holland dates from 1857. It is a Secular system, meaning by Secular that the Bible is not allowed to be read in schools, nor is any religious instruction allowed to be given. The use of the school-room is, however, granted to ministers of all denominations for the purpose of teaching religion out of school-hours. The schoolmaster is not allowed to give religious instruction, or even to read the Bible in school at any time."*
* Report from the Hague, by Mr. (now Right Hon.) Jesse
Collings, M. P., May, 1870.
No State rears better citizens or better Christians than the Dutch. Mr. Gladstone, with his customary discernment, has said that "Secular instruction does not involve denial of religious teaching, but merely separation in point of time." It seems incredible that Christian ministers, generally, do not see the advantage of this. I should probably have become a Christian preacher myself, had it not been for the incessantness with which religion was obtruded on me in childhood and youth. Even now my mind aches when I think of it. For myself, I respect the individuality of piety. It is always picturesque. Looking at religion from the outside, I can see that concrete sectarianism is a source of religious strength. A man is only master of his own faith when he sees it clearly, distinctly, and separately. Rather than permit Secular instruction and religious education to be imparted separately, Christian ministers permit the great doctrines they profess to maintain to be whittled down to a School Board average, in which, when done honestly towards all opinions, no man can discern Christianity without the aid of a microscope. And this passes, in these days, for good ecclesiastical policy. In a recent letter (November, 1894) Mr. Gladstone has re-affirmed his objection to "an undenominational system of religion framed by, or under the authority of, the State." He says: "It would, I think, be better for the State to limit itself to giving Secular instruction, which, of course, is no complete education." Mr. Gladstone does not confound Secular instruction with education, but is of the way of thinking of Miltou, who says: "I call a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war." Secular instruction touches no doctrine, menaces no creed, raises no scepticism in the mind. But an average of belief introduces the aggressive hand of heresy into every school, tampering with tenets rooted in the conscience, wantonly alarming religious convictions, and substituting for a clear, frank, and manly issue a disastrous, blind, and timid policy, wriggling along like a serpent instead of walking with self-dependent erectness. This manly erect-ness would be the rule were the formula of the great preacher accepted who has said: "Secular education by the State, and Christian education by the Christian Church is my motto."* Uniformity of truth is desirable, and it will come, not by contrivance, but by conviction.
* The Rev. Joseph Parker, D. D.
Some one quoted lately in the Daily News (September 19, 1895) the following sentences I wrote in 1870:
"With secular instruction only in the day school, religion will acquire freshness and new force. The clergyman and the minister will exercise a new influence, because their ministrations will have dignity and definiteness. They will no longer delegate things declared by them to be sacred to be taught second-hand by the harassed, overworked, and oft-reluctant schoolmaster and schoolmistress, who must contradict the gentleness of religion by the peremptoriness of the pedagogue, and efface the precept that 'God is love' by an incontinent application of the birch.... It is not secular instruction which breeds irreverence, but this ill-timed familiarity with the reputed things of God which robs divinity of its divineness."
The Bible in the school-room will not always be to the advantage of clericalism, as it is thought to be now.
Mr. Forster's Education Act created what Mr. Disraeli contemptuously described as a new "sacerdotal caste,"—a body of second-hand preachers, who are to be paid by the money of the State to do the work which the minister and the clergyman avow they are called by heaven to perform,—namely, to save the souls of the people. According to this Act, the clergy are really no longer necessary; their work can be done by a commoner and cheaper order of artificer. Mr. Forster insisted that the Bible be introduced into the school-room, which gives great advantage to the Freethinker, as it makes a critical agitation against its character and pretensions a matter of self-defence for every family. Another eminent preacher, Mr. C. H. Spurgeon, wrote, not openly in the Times as Dr. Parker did, but in The Sword and Trowel thus: "We should like to see established a system of universal application, which would give a sound Secular education to children, and leave the religious training to the home and the agencies of the Church of Christ." It is worthy of the radiant common sense of the famous orator of the Tabernacle that he should have said this anywhere.