SrR, — The article in the Spectator of October 15th under the
above heading would be amusing reading were it not that the subject it deals with is too serious for mirth. Surely it is hardly logical, because certain laudatores temporis acti in the past have expressed fears for the rising generation which possibly were not immediately fulfilled, to ignore the evidence of experts at the present day. What is more, is it not at least conceivable that it was the efforts of these so-called alarmists to call attention to certain tendencies which helped to hinder their progress ? After an experience of upwards of eighteen years as a master at a public school, I am prepared to say that Canon Lyttelton and the other speakers at the Church Congress, if anything, understated the facts,—certainly with regard to the growing ignorance of the Bible among boys of the upper middle class. The story in your article is alone sufficient evidence to show how little cognisant the writer is with the facts of the case. I could give him many instances within the last two or three years when boys of fifteen and sixteen have not only shown themselves absolutely ignorant of the meaning of Easter, but have been unable to relate even in the barest outlines a single story from the Old Testament. They come to us, for the most part, absolute heathen. What is the explanation ? Surely it is to be found in the changed attitude towards religion in the home. How many parents now give their children Bible lessons on Sunday ? How many even take them to church regularly ? The tired business or professional man is far too exhausted to spend an hour and a half of the day in recognising the existence of his Maker. He must be
all day on the golf-links or in the motor-car. His wife may possibly take the children to one short service, after which she considers that she has done more than enough to mark the significance of the day, and the rest of it may well be given up to amusements. It is time that we realised that Englishmen are no longer taught religion at their mother's knee. The heroes of the Bible no longer form a child's ideal of conduct, and no influence that we can bring to bear upon lads later can make up for what they are now losing in their earliest and most impressionable years. As if to add to the irony of the situation, the same parents who are so absolutely careless about the moulding of their children's characters are nearly beside themselves with anxiety that their physical training and welfare should be as perfect as possible. All kinds of luxuries and bits of self-indulgence, ingeniously introduced under the score of hygiene, are insisted upon, and the school- master who tries to teach self-denial and simplicity of life soon finds himself without pupils.—Trusting you will believe that it gives me no pleasure to make these statements, I am, Sir, &c.,
ONE WHO WOULD FAIN THINK OTHERWISE.
[No doubt there are far too many parents who are entirely careless as to the moral and spiritual welfare of their children, but we cannot believe that the proportion of careless parents is higher now than among the parents of former generations. To take only one class, were the hard-drinking, hard-living squires of the past better parents than the country gentlemen of to-day P The astonishing boys of sixteen who were abso- lutely ignorant of the meaning of Easter must presumably have been at school for two or three years, as boys never begin school life at so late an age. Some of the blame for their ignorance must rest, therefore, on their schoolmasters. —ED. Spectator.] [To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.1
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