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Show RELIGION IN SCHOOLS, A Collection of Non-Catholic Opinions on the Subject. From the Educational Review, February, Feb-ruary, 1898: A little less than 50 per cent of all the children of our country frequent any Sunday school. The meaning of i these figures is simply overwhelming. More than one-half of the children of this land now receive no religious education. edu-cation. . . . Even this feature does not show all the truth. It seems to admit that those who attend Sunday Sun-day school are receiving proper relig-j ious instruction, but every one knows this cannot be granted. Dr. Levi See-ley See-ley of the State Normal school, Trenton, Tren-ton, N. J. Dr. Wallace Radcliffe (Presbyterian) (Presbyter-ian) : In our church life we recognize the Trinity: home, school and church, a triple cord not easily broken. The home is a school, the school is a home. It is an unintelligible Christianity wuicu loses signt or tnis important factor (the school) in our church, j . . It is something that your I children go to school; it is more that they go to a school of your own religious relig-ious belief. Therefore, we summon you to bring up your children in your own faith. Let us establish schools . and teach our religious convictions. con-victions. Washington, D. C, Oct. 7 1900. From the North American Review, January, 1898: I am a Protestant of the firmest kind . . . The Catholic church has insisted in-sisted that it is its duty to educate its children in such a way as to fix religious relig-ious truths in the youthful mind. For this it has been assailed by the non-Catholic non-Catholic population, and Catholics have even been charged with being enemies of the people and of the flag. Any careful observer in the city of New York can see that the only people, peo-ple, as a class, who are teaching the children in the way that will secure the future of the best civilization are' the Catholics; and, although a Protestant Protes-tant of the firmest kind, I believe the time has come to recognize this fact, and for us to lay aside prejudices and patriotically meet this question. The children and youth of today must be given such instructions in the truths of the Bible and Christian precepts as will prevent them In mature years from swinging into the maelstrom of social and religious depravity, which threatens to engulf the religion of the future. . Such instruction can only be given successfully by an almost entire en-tire change of policy and practice on the question of religious teaching in the public schools, and the encouragement encourage-ment of private schools in which sound religious teaching is given. The Methodist writes editorially: In our judgment the denominational schools of the land, as compared with the purely secular or state schools, are on moral grounds incomparably the safer. Our state institutions, as a general thing, are the hotbeds of infidelity in-fidelity not less than of vice . That unbelief should be fostered and fo-Imented fo-Imented therein Is not unnatural. We thoroughly believe that our church should invest at least $10,000,000 in the next ten years in "denominational schools. Why? Because we believe this system is the American one and the only safe one, Literary Digest Vol. vii.. No. 7. Rev. R. C. Moterly, D. D., regius professor of pastoral theology in the "It cannot be too often or too strongly insisted that there is no such thing as purely negative teaching. Every negative contains an affirmation, affirma-tion, and every omission implies a positive precept. You cannot by any possibility, forbid the teaching of what is distinctive .... without thereby necessarily teaching that Insistence In-sistence on these things may be amiable, ami-able, but must be untrue- . . .It is only by a serious revolt against the wnoie principle of their own education educa-tion that pupils will ever escape from its practical influence. The fact is, that undenominational-ism, undenominational-ism, so far from being unsectarian in character, is itself an instance of the sectarian spirit In its most exclusive and aggressive form. It is really itself it-self of the nature of an attempt at a new denomination, more latitudinarian and rationalistic in basis, more illiberal illib-eral and persecuting In method, than any that before exists.. It sins so flagrantly against the first principles of liberalism as actually to attempt the suppression by force of the liberty lib-erty of every denomination other than itself. . . It does direct Injustice, whether more or less, to every one who has serious convictions upon theological the-ological subjects. From pamphlet on Undenominationalism, published 1902 by John Murray, Alemarle street, London. Lon-don. ' . Says an educator in New York Times: "Is a non-sectarian school possible? Let us see. Either the school admits in its teaching that God exists or that r s he does not exist, or that it does not know whether he exists or not. If it admits that he exists, then it is thei3-tic; thei3-tic; if it supposes that he does not exist, then it is atheistic; If it pro-1 pro-1 fesses not to know whether he exist3 or not, then it is agnostic. We will go a step further. The ideas direct-; direct-; ing the school admit either that God has made a revelation, or deny a revelation, rev-elation, or hold that they do not know or that they do not care whether there is a revelation, or that they will have nothing to say on the question, and leave the pupils to think as they please of it. In every one of these cases the school is still "sectarian," and the principles advocated determine deter-mine the school and put it in accord with a particular set or sect which advocates these principles.. There may be no name yet invented for the sect of men who advocate the particular principle Involved, but since there must be a principle at the root of every school svstem that comes allied to the sect advocating -: ; that principle. " Now. are our public schools in-1 in-1 fluenced by the principles of any sect? Most certainly they are. They are influenced by the principles of the sect which wishes to have schools without any religious instruction. You may remember that our great states-1 states-1 man, Daniel Webster, gave his opinion of such schools 'in his famous speech ' in the Girard case. He said: "It is a mockery and an insult to common sense to maintain that a school for the instruction of youth from which Christian instruction by Christian teachers i3 sedulously and religiously shut out is not deistic and infidel both in its purpose and in its tendency. And Mr. J. G. Spencer, superintendent of public instruction in the state of New York about the beginning of the present school system, writing to Governor Gov-ernor Seward in regard to sectarian- in cuuLauuu, acuu: iL is an error to suppose that the absence of all religious re-ligious instruction, if it were practicable, practica-ble, is a mode of avoiding sectarianism sectarian-ism On the contrary, it would be In itself sectarian, because it would be consonant to the views of a particular particu-lar class, and opposed to the opinions of other classes. Those who reject creeds and resist all efforts to Infuse them into the minds of the young would be gratified by a system which so fully accomplishes their purpose." Why should any of our citizens who wish to have children educated according accord-ing to their own particular views not have a right to their own share of 'the money appropriated for education? o : |