EDUCATION RIGHT AND WRONG
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] Sra,—Your article deals usefully with vocational training, i.e., after 15. But as to general education we are in chaos. For some hundreds of years nothing was aimed at except preparation for Church services. That meant Latin vocabu- lary. With the Renascence came " secular " learning ; and since then nobody knows which subjects are the most important.
For about 1,400 years after A.D. 30 teaching meant instruction in the Church's interpretation of the Gospel story. From 1400 to 1800, roughly, there was a blend of sacred and secular ; the latter tending always to oust the former as if it were only one out of several subjects more or less suitable for intellectual training. But that is exactly what it is not. Without a religious background " secular " teaching is a waste of time.
Note, however, that a religious background means a con- viction that human life and the Universe are being governed by a God who acts. That is Theism. Belief in a God who does not act is called Deism, but is virtually Atheism. What I have said is especially true of History and Science. Why should we read History unless we assume that in the long run it is good for a nation to obey the moral law, because that law transcends temporal interests and materialistic aims ? Discard that conviction if you can—we are always trying to—and History becomes a meaningless catalogue of the blind blunderings of mankind : a welter of infamy, bloodshed and hate. Again, Science. What is Science without Evolution ? What is Evolution but a theory that things are marching onward and upward to a glorious goal, though we men constantly do our best to thwart the process ? That, I maintain, is the belief in a God who not only acts but is always acting for our good ; that is, our salvation from ourselves. It is so deeply rooted that as regards the Universe it persists and will persist, though the astronomers tell us that the evidence points to the glorious pageant- of the earth and sky as shrivelling up into cold, desolation and death. - But though the conviction persists it is easily choked by lies and illusions ; and that is what happens when we teach the Bible as dead narrative or let it be extruded from the curriculum altogether.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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