English Secularism Part 6

* 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 pa.s.ses, 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 subst.i.tuting 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 hara.s.sed, 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 'G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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.

CHAPTER XIII. SELF-DEFENSIVE FOR THE PEOPLE

"What suits the G.o.ds above Only the G.o.ds can know; What we want is This World's sense How to live below."

BY its nature, Secularism is tolerant with regard to religions. I once drew up a code of rules for an atheistic school. One rule was that the children should be taught the tenets of the Christian, Catholic, Moslem, Jewish, and the leading theological systems of the world, as well as Secularistic and atheistic forms of thought; so that when the pupil came to years of discretion he might be able, intelligently, to choose a faith for himself. Less than this would be a fraud upon the understanding of a man. In matters which concern himself alone, he must be free to choose for himself, and know what he is choosing from.

That form of belief which has misgivings as to whether it can stand by itself, is to be distrusted.

It is the scandal of Christianity that, for twenty-five years, it has paralysed School Board instruction by its discord of opinion as to the religious tenets to be imparted; while in Secularity there is no disunity. Everybody is agreed upon the rules of arithmetic. The laws of grammar command general a.s.sent. There are no rival schools upon the interpretation of geometrical problems. It is only in divinity that irreconcilable diversity exists. When Secular instruction is conceded, denominational differences will be respected, as aspects of the integrity of conscience, which no longer obstruct the intellectual progress of the people.

But there are graver issues than the pride and preference of the preacher; namely, the welfare of the children of the people. What the working cla.s.ses want is an industrial education. Poverty is a battle, and the poor are always in a conflict--a conflict in which the most ignorant ever go to the wall. The accepted policy of the State leaves the increase of population to chance. It suffers none to be killed; it compels people to be kept alive, and abandons their subsistence to the accident of capitalists requiring to hire their services. Thus our great towns are crowded with families, impelled there by the wild forces of hunger and of pa.s.sion. From the workingman thus situated, the governing cla.s.s exacts four duties:

1. That he shall give the parish no disquietude by asking it to maintain his family.

2. That he shall pay whatever taxes are levied upon him.

3. That he shall give no trouble to the police.

4. That he shall fight generally whomsoever the Government may see fit to involve the nation in war with.

Whatever knowledge is necessary to enable the future workman to do these things, is his right, and should be given to him in his youth in the speediest manner; and any other inculcation which shall delay this knowledge on its way, or confuse the learner in acquiring it, is a cruelty to him and a peril to the community which permits it; and the State, were it discerning and just, would forbid it.

In April, 1870, in a letter which appeared in the _Spectator_; I wrote as follows:

"In the speech of the Bishop of Peterborough, delivered at the Educational Conference at Leicester, and published in a separate form by the National Education Union, his Lordship quotes from a recent letter of mine to the _Daily News_ some words in which I explained that 'unsectarian education amounts to a new species of parliamentary piety.'

It is a satisfaction to find that the Bishop of Peterborough is able to 'entirely endorse these words.' The Bishop asks: 'Whose words do you suppose they are? They are the words of that reactionary maintainer of creeds and dogmas--Mr. Holyoake.' So far from being a 'reactionary'

in this matter, I have always maintained that every form of sincere opinion, religious or secular, should have free play and fair play. I have never varied in advocating the right of free utterance and free action of all earnest conviction. The State requires a self-supporting and tax-paying population. But the State cannot insure this, except by imparting _productive_ knowledge to the people. It is necessary for the people to receive, it is the interest of the State to give, _productive_ instruction in national schools."

If people realised how much extended secular instruction is needed, they would be impatient with the obstruction of it by contending sects. Children want industrial education to fit them for emigrants. A knowledge of soils, of cattle, of climate, and crops, and how to nail up a wigwam and grow pork and corn, is what they need. For want of such knowledge Clerkenwell watchmakers, Northampton shoemakers, Lancashire weavers, and Durham miners perish as emigrants, and their bones bleach the prairies. Yet all orthodox teaching turns out its pupils uninstructed, for, as Tillottson has said, "He that does not know those things which are of use and necessity for him to know, is but an ignorant man, whatever he may know beside." To know this world, and the Secular conditions of prosperity in it, is indispensable to the people.

Christianity is entirely futile in industry. If a workman cannot pay his taxes, the most devout Chancellor of the Exchequer will not abate sixpence in consideration of the defaulter's piety. The poor man may believe in the Thirty-nine Articles, be able to recite all the Collects; he may spend his Sundays at church, and his evenings at prayer-meeting; but the reverend magistrate, who has confirmed him and preached to him, will send him to gaol if he does not pay. The sooner workmen understand that Christianity has no commercial value, the better for them.

Why should purely Secular instruction be regarded with distrust, when purely religious education does not answer? It does not appear in human experience that purely religious teaching, even when dispensed in a clergyman's family, is a security for good conduct. It is matter of common remark that the sons of clergymen turn out worse than the sons of parents in other professions.

We want no whining or puling population. The elements of science and morality will give children the use of their minds, and minds to use, and teach justice and kindness, self-direction, self-reliance, fort.i.tude, and truth. There is piety in this instruction,--piety to mankind,--exactly that sort of piety for the want of which society suffers.

The principles for which during two centuries Nonconformity in England has contended are, that the State should forbid no religion, impose no religion, teach no religion, pay no religion. In 1870, the year in which Mr. Forster's Act came into operation, I was the only person who issued a public address to the "School Board Electors" in favor of free compulsory, and Secular instruction. Two of the proposals, the least likely to be favorably received, have since been adopted. The turn of the third must be near, unless fools are always at the polls.

CHAPTER XIV. REJECTED TENETS REPLACED BY BETTER

"False ideas can be confuted by argument, but it is only by true ideas they can be expelled."

--Cardinal Newman.

ERROR will live wherever vermin of the mind may burrow; and error, if expelled, will return to its accustomed haunt, unless its place be otherwise occupied by some tenant of truth. Suppose that criticism has established:

1. That G.o.d is unknown.

2. That a future life is unprovable.

3. That the Bible is not a practical guide.

4. That Providence sleeps.

5. That prayer is futile.

6. That original sin is untrue.

7. That eternal perdition is unreal.

What is free thought going to do? All these theological ideas, however untrue, are forces of opinion on the side of error. After taking these doctrines out of the minds of men, as far as reasoning criticism may do it, what is proposed to be put in their place? When we call out to men that they are going down a wrong road, we are more likely to arrest their attention if we can point out the right road to take.

No mind is ever entirely empty. The objection to ignorance is not that it has no ideas, but that it has wrong ones. Its ideas are narrow, cramped, vicious. It likes without reason, hates without cause, and is suspicious of what it might trust. It is not enough to tell a man who is eating injurious food that it will harm him. If he has no other aliment, he must go on feeding upon what he has. If you cannot supply better, you cannot reproach him who takes the bad. But if you have true principles, they should be offered as subst.i.tutes for the false. Secularist truth should tread close upon the heels of theological error.

1. For the study of the origin of the universe Secularism subst.i.tutes the study of the laws and uses of the universe, which, Cardinal Newman admitted, might be regarded as consonant to the will of its author.

2. For a future state Secularism proposes the wise use of this, as he who fails in this "duty nearest hand" has no moral fitness for any other.

3. For revelation it offers the guidance of observation, investigation, and experience. Instead of taking authority for truth, it takes truth for authority.

4. For the providence of Scripture, Secularism directs men to the providence of science, which provides against peril, or brings deliverance when peril comes.

5. For prayer it proposes self-help and the employment of all the resources of manliness and industry. Jupiter himself rebuked the waggoner who cried for aid, instead of putting his own shoulder to the wheel.