EDUCATION AND RELIGION
SIR,—Miss or Mrs. Evelyn Munro is shocked in your issue of January toth that " many of the Council school children do not even know of the existence of God Almighty." Here is an example of that loose and lazy thinking which I believe to be largely a cause of our present conditions. This lady wants an Act of Parliament to compel children to " know of the existence of God Almighty." An Act passed by M.P.s who show by their every act and speech that they do not know of it or believe in it themselves! Nor does your correspondent herself, for, if she did, it is impossible to suppose she could think of Almighty God requiring an Act of Parliament to make His existence known.
Please do not imagine I am treating this matter flippantly. I am in dead earnest, because I am sure it is of the utmost importance. What we ought, it seems to me, to teach children is that we live in a mysterious world about the origin of which we know nothing. We are equally without knowledge as to the future. All sorts of theories have been put forward and accepted by large numbers of people (though never acted upon), and it is open to any of us to embrace one or more of these, if we will. Otherwise we can suspend judgement, having no facts to go on.
That would induce children to reflect and question and so strengthen their intellects. Absence of questioning and reflection have brought the world to its present pass. Children are taught in a vague, fluid way that there is a God, but as soon as they are able to observe and use their intelligence they discover that nobody who is grown up behaves as if there were. They tell God His arm is sufficient to defend them surely, and then expend thousands of millions on arms of another kind.
Children perceive, therefore, that the teaching they have been given is perfunctory, yet they do not discard it, because it is somehow mixed up with decency and kindliness and good feeling. Thus their thinking is crooked, their judgements warped, their minds pulped. So, at any
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