556 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



these and all other sections of the Chris- 

 tian community would have to be very- 

 vague and non-committal indeed. The 

 whole merit and force of a religious 

 system consist in its teaching authori- 

 tatively that which would not other- 

 wise be conveyed to the mind at all ; 

 while the essential character of any re- 

 ligious instruction which the state could 

 give would be found in its vagueness 

 and conventionality. 



Well, therefore, did the Rev. Dr. W. 

 H. Ward declare that " we may con- 

 sider it as settled that religion is not to 

 be taught in the public schools that 

 the American people will not trust the 

 state to teach religion." Manifestly, to 

 give a thing in a weak and diluted form 

 which, to have any virtue, must be given 

 in a strong and concentrated form, is to 

 do more harm than good ; and it may 

 safely be said that, if through unwise 

 legislation the formal teaching of re- 

 ligion were begun in the schools by such 

 agencies as the state can command, the 

 result would be disastrous to the cause 

 of religion itself. Dr. Ward took what 

 probably most of his hearers must have 

 regarded as an extreme and dangerous 

 position when he said that " morals do 

 not depend on God " ; but, as he meant 

 it, we do not doubt that he expressed a 

 truth. His meaning we take to be that 

 the principles of morality are as capable 

 of formulation without the help even 

 of the tbeistic hypothesis as t^hose of 

 any other subject of human study. 

 What, after all, are our ideas of God 

 but the highest ideas which our human 

 experience has enabled us to frame? 

 There is no difficulty, then, in teaching 

 morals in the schools without theology 

 no difficulty, that is to say, in laying 

 down the rules of right conduct as a 

 thing to be practiced here and now for 

 reasons of present validity. But, as 

 Dr. Ward judiciously observed, the best 

 moral teaching will result from the ob- 

 servance of order and discipline, honor 

 and justice, in the management of the 

 school itself. Direct preaching is of 



doubtful utility ; but example tells, and 

 facts are powerful persuaders. 



It is possible the late conference 

 may lead some to perceive, as they 

 never did before, the disadvantages con- 

 nected with making education a branch 

 of politics. In discussing education we 

 should not have to canvass a political 

 situation, but at present that is just 

 what we have to do. And when we 

 engage teachers for our public schools 

 we engage them to follow a prescribed 

 routine, not to throw all their original 

 force and all their deepest convictions 

 into their work. That the highest type 

 of education is not to be had on this 

 plan is evident ; and whether the wider 

 diffusion of education, due to state 

 agency, is sufficient to make up for the 

 deterioration in the quality of the arti- 

 cle is a most serious question, which we 

 believe the experience of each succeed- 

 ing year will force more and more on 

 the attention of the community. 



INTERNA TIONAL COP YRI6UT. 



Eveey day is adding to the number 

 of those who believe that ethical stand- 

 ards are the safest guides in the conduct 

 of men's affairs. All such will find good 

 reason to rejoice at the evidence of a 

 dawning conscience in political circles 

 afforded by the recent passage of the 

 copyright bill in the House of Repre- 

 sentatives. For nearly a century those 

 citizens of the United States who be- 

 lieved in honest government have been 

 more or less actively striving to obtain 

 for the foreign author some sort of 

 effective recognition of the principle 

 embodied in this measure. Property in 

 ideas, when these have been material- 

 ized in the form of books, has long been 

 practically recognized, as well in the 

 copyright laws of our own as in those 

 of other countries. Yet for years, and 

 in the face of this fact, we have suffered 

 the disgrace of being about the only 

 civilized nation on earth mean enough 

 to refuse to make the principle interna- 



