P. [337], lines 5–6.—It is the quality, not the quantity, of our children that we have to keep to the forefront.
“This is the great problem in a nutshell: to improve the quality and diminish the quantity of mankind—that is, in proportion to the means of securing for each a truly human life.” “Is not the quality rather than the quantity of children the thing to be aimed at?” (Mona Caird and Lady Grove on “The Position of Women,” see pp. 118 and 128 of the Fortnightly Review for July, 1905). Besides, “if we continued to maintain the high birth-rate of the mid-Victorian epoch, it is certain that, in the course of a few generations, there would be no elbow-room left in our little islands. Already, indeed, Great Britain is, from many points of view, over-populated. If all the people who are now crowded together in the slums of our great towns were scattered over the country, there would be practically no country left. England would have become a vast suburb. That is not an ideal to which any patriotic Englishman would care to look forward. Space and quiet are essential for the development of some of the best qualities of human beings, and those persons who too hastily regret a decline in the birth-rate must explain how they propose to reconcile these essentials with an unlimited increase of our present population” (The Daily Graphic, August 7th, 1905, art. “A Declining Birth-rate”).
Over-population spells strife, squalor, vice, crime—misery. Dr. Barnardos and “General” Booths may get over the “unemployed” difficulty by schemes for emigration to Canada and elsewhere; but this is, at best, only a very temporary remedy. As it is, thousands of white men are living and dying in climates for which they are unadapted; while in some cases—in certain portions of Africa, for example—they are ousting and making life a burthen to the races that are adapted. We have only to look far enough ahead to discover that the time must come when the world would so teem with human-kind that even a Bishop of London or a President Roosevelt would have to cry “Hold! Enough!”
At the present moment this problem presses for a very early solution in India. For many months in the year, as I have again and again seen with my own eyes, masses of the agricultural population are entirely without employment. Hence the constantly recurring famines, or partial famines, in years of bad or indifferent rainfall. The population problem, being intimately connected with many another problem, is one of the utmost gravity; but, so long as men hold that to increase and multiply is the command of God and a duty we owe to the State, it will never be rightly, never be sensibly, solved. P.S.—Millions are starving in China now (February, 1907).
P. [345], line 3.—The Moral Instruction League.
The object of the Moral Instruction League (19, Buckingham Street, Strand, London, W.C.) is to introduce systematic non-theological moral instruction into all schools, and to make the formation of character the chief aim of school life. Their contention is—and it seems a wise one—that ethical principles on which we all agree should not be associated in the schools of the State with theological principles on which we all differ. Already certain education authorities are providing for systematic moral instruction of a purely secular nature. In the West Riding scheme it is expressly stated that it is to be “part of the secular instruction,” while the Cheshire scheme emphatically lays down that the moral instruction must be non-theological. The authorities of Groton, Blackpool, Norwich, York, and elsewhere, have supplied all the teachers of their schools with copies of the Moral Instruction League’s Graduated Syllabus of Moral Instruction for Elementary Schools. The West Riding Education Authority has adopted the Syllabus, and it is now in use in the 1,270 schools, Provided and Non-Provided, of that authority. In addition to these, numerous education authorities have decided to make provision for moral instruction a part of the secular instruction in their schools.
So much that is untrue has been said about the results of a purely secular education by its strenuous opponents that it is high time for the real truth to be known. This my readers will find in Mr. Joseph McCabe’s tractate, The Truth About Secular Education: Its History and Results (Watts & Co., 1906, paper covers, 6d.).
Among some excellent works intended to assist parents and teachers in the non-theological character-training of children, I may mention F. J. Gould’s The Children’s Book of Moral Lessons, in three series (Watts & Co.), Hackwood’s Notes of Lessons on Moral Subjects, Alice Chesterton’s The Garden of Childhood (Sonnenschein), Dr. Felix Adler’s The Moral Instruction of Children (Edward Arnold), the Moral Instruction League and also the Leicester Syllabus, and A. J. Waldegrave’s A Teacher’s Handbook of Moral Lessons (Sonnenschein). Dr. F. H. Hayward’s Secret of Herbart, a powerful appeal to the teacher on the scope and urgency of his moral mission, is now re-issued at 6d. (Watts). The translation of Dr. F. W. Förster’s Lebenskunde, a book replete with illustrative matter for the teacher, has been undertaken by the Moral Instruction League. Mr. W. M. Salter’s essay, “Why Live a Moral Life?” is of exceptional merit. This and other ethical essays may be obtained from the Secretary of the Union of Ethical Societies, 19, Buckingham Street, Strand, W.C.; price one penny each. One of the most important contributions to ethical sociology that has appeared for many years is a work in two vols. entitled Morals in Evolution (Chapman & Hall; 1906), by Mr. L. T. Hobhouse. I venture to predict that it will ere long be recognised as the standard work on the subject. Mr. Hobhouse, it should be noted, never wavers in his assertion of the supremacy of ethics over all phases of religion.
P. [350], line 15.—The practices of the Latin and Greek Churches.
Diaries recounting the sights seen by a lord of high degree in 1465 were published in 1851 by the Literary Society of Stuttgart. They include an interesting account of all the shrines and relics seen during his travels through Western Europe. The account of the relics which he saw in our own Canterbury Cathedral admits of no curtailment: “First we saw the head-band of the Blessed Virgin, a piece of Christ’s garment, and three thorns from His Crown; then we saw the bedstead of St. Thomas and his brain, and the blood of St. Thomas and of St. John the Apostles. We saw also the sword with which St. Thomas of Canterbury was beheaded; the hair of the Mother of God, and a part of the Sepulchre. There was also shown to us a part of the shoulder of the Blessed Simeon, who bore Christ in his arms; the head of the blessed Lustrabena; one leg of St. George; a piece of the body and the bones of St. Lawrence; a leg of the Bishop of St. Romanus; a cup of St. Thomas, which he had been accustomed to use in administering the Sacrament at Canterbury; a leg of the Virgin Milda; a leg of the Virgin Eduarda. We also saw a tooth and a finger of St. Stephen the Martyr; bones of the Virgin Catherine, and oil from her sepulchre, which is said to flow to this day; hair of the blessed Virgin [sic!] Magdalene; a tooth of St. Benedict; a finger of St. Urban; the lips of one of the infants slain by Herod; bones of the blessed Clement; bones of St. Vincent. Very many other things were also shown to us, which are not set down by me in this place.” Very many other things have also been shown to me during my travels abroad (from St. Anne de Beaupré in Quebec to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem) which are not set down by me in this place, and I may say that the grotesqueness of the frauds that are perpetrated is only equalled by the gross ignorance and credulity of the worshippers. The number of these “relics” scattered over Christendom must amount to thousands upon thousands. To stop the traffic in them, there is now a regulation that if you buy a relic you commit mortal sin. The relics are still sold, however; only the price is said to be for the frame or for the trouble, or something to that effect. For a description of La Bottega del Papa (the Pope’s shop) or La Santa Bottega (the Holy Shop) see Dr. Robertson’s book, The Roman Catholic Church in Italy. Regarding the early Church, see Bible Myths, pp. 434–40.