EDITOR'S TABLE. 



555 



this would lead would tend to prepare 

 the way for the introduction of more 

 specific theological teaching, and, little 

 by little, we should have, by the help 

 of the State, a kind of official theology 

 formed, the influence of which on the 

 development of thought, and perhaps 

 also of morals, would be far from favor- 

 able. No better way of stereotyping 

 a civilization could be devised than for a 

 government, through the public schools, 

 to undertake to tell people what they 

 should believe on the most fundamental 

 questions of theology and philosophy. 



We should therefore strongly advise 

 all well-meaning people to pause before 

 they give their support to measures 

 which certainly would not have the 

 beneficial results which we may be 

 sure they have at heart. In what 

 we have said above we have assumed 

 the success of the supposed attempt 

 of the State to control the theo- 

 logical opinions of the people. But 

 there is a possibility that things might 

 take a different turn, and that State 

 patronage of certain forms of opinion 

 might tend to produce skepticism in 

 regard to the very doctrines it was 

 sought to protect and strengthen. "We 

 hold very strongly, for our own part, 

 that in the public schools, controlled as 

 they are by the civil authorities, noth- 

 ing should be taught beyond the broad 

 and demonstrable results of human in- 

 quiry. We may perhaps trust our poli- 

 ticians, through their nominees, to give 

 our children facts ; because, if they de- 

 part from facts when they are purport- 

 ing to give them, it is comparatively 

 easy to bring them to book. It is a 

 different thing, however, to intrust 

 them with the enunciation of theories, 

 particularly in the region of theology. 

 If they go wrong there, who is to 

 check them? What standard is to be 

 applied? If they teach in a dull, for- 

 mal, mechanical way what, if taught 

 at all, should be taught with earnest- 

 ness and conviction, how are we to re- 

 pair the mischief they will certainly 

 do? 



There is, lastly, a point to consider, 

 which our contemporary, above re- 

 ferred to, urges with a great deal of 

 force the question of simple justice. 

 It is known that, whether or not all 

 Christian sects are agreed in accepting 

 the theological propositions set forth, 

 the whole community does not accept 

 them. It may be unfortunate that it 

 should be so we do not discuss that 

 question the fact is that it is so ; and 

 people who want a merely secular edu- 

 cation for their children would have 

 reason to complain if a teaching they 

 did not think best for their children's 

 minds should be forced upon them. 

 The State, be it remembered, has com- 

 pletely dwarfed and starved out private 

 enterprise in education, so that the 

 average parent has no choice but to 

 send his children to the public school. 

 Should, then, anything be taught there 

 which presupposes a uniformity of 

 opinion that does not exist? If the 

 reason why we have no state church 

 in this land is that we could not have 

 one without doing injustice to some ele- 

 ment or elements of the population, the 

 same objection precisely will apply to 

 having an authoritative teaching in the 

 schools of matters that every man 

 claims the right to judge of for him- 

 self, and in regard to which important 

 differences of opinion prevail. The case 

 is very simple and clear too clear to ad- 

 mit of much mystification in the popu- 

 lar mind ; and it is to the good sense of 

 the people at large that we trust for the 

 decisive overthrow of any measures 

 looking to the perversion of our school 

 system by making it an agency for the 

 propagation of an official theology. 



We invite attention to the opening 

 article in the present number of the 

 " Monthly," which is on a subject of 

 great economical importance. The au- 

 thor, Mr. P. H. Dudley, is an engineer 

 who has given much time and attention 

 to special investigations of the decay of 

 wood and its causes, and presents some 



