Mr. Haldane, in the address to the students of Edinburgh University, has described the character of the higher teaching as a gospel of the wide outlook, as a means of giving a deeper sympathy and a keener insight, as offering a vision of the eternal which is here and now showing its students what is true in present realities, and inspiring them with a loyalty to the truth as devoted as that of tribesmen to their chief. This sort of teaching, he says, brings down from the present realities, or from a Sinai ever accompanying mankind, “the Higher command,” with its eternal offer of life and blessing—that is to say, it opens men’s eyes to see in the present the form of the Most High. Higher education is thus a part of religious activity.
I am glad to know that my conclusion is shared by Dr. Fairbairn, who, speaking of the worker in our great cities, and of his alienation from religion, says, “The first thing to be done is to enrich and ennoble his soul, to beget in him purer tastes and evoke higher capacities”.
I will conclude by calling notice to the much or the little which is being done to open the people’s eyes by means of higher education. I fear it is “the little”. There are many classes and many teachers for spreading skill, there are some which increase interest in nature; there are few—very few—which bring students into touch with the great minds and thoughts of all countries and all ages—very few, that is, classes for the humanities. For want of this the souls of the people are poor, and their capacities dwarfed; they cannot see that modern knowledge has made the Bible a modern book, or how the bells of a new age have rung in the “Christ that is to be”.
For thirty-four years my wife and I have been engaged in social experiments. Many ways have been tried, and always the recognized object has been the religion of the people—religion, that is, in the sense which I have defined as that faith in the Highest which is the impulse of human progress, man’s spur to loving action, man’s rest in the midst of sorrow, man’s hope in death.
With the object of preparing the way to this religion, schools have been improved, houses have been built and open spaces secured. Holidays have been made more healthy, and the best in art has been made more common. But, viewing all these efforts of many reformers, I am prepared to say that the most pressing need is for higher education. Where such education is to begin, what is the meaning of religious education in elementary schools, and how it is to be extended, is part of another subject. It is enough now if, having as my subject the religion of the people, I state my opinion that there is no activity which more surely advances religion than the teaching which gives insight, far sight, and wide sight. The people, for want of religion, are unstable in their policy, joyless in their amusements, and uninspired by any sure and certain hope. They have not the sense of sin—in modern language, none of that consciousness of unreached ideals which makes men humble and earnest. They have not the grace of humility nor the force of a faith stronger than death. It may seem a far cry from a teacher’s class-room to the peace and power of a Psalmist or of a St. Paul; but, as Archbishop Benson said, “Christ is a present Christ, and all of us are His contemporaries”. And my own belief is that the eye opened by higher education is on the way to find in the present the form of the Christ who will satisfy the human longing for the Higher-than-self.
Samuel A. Barnett.
CATHEDRAL REFORM.[[1]]
By Canon Barnett.
December, 1898.