106 PERILS. — RELIGION" AKD THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 



it. Our youth have little reverence for their elders, for 

 authority, for law, for rulers. Our irreverence as a 

 people is noted by our critics. Says Matthew Arnold in 

 his famous study of American civilization which 

 appeared just before his death, in the Nineteenth 

 Century : "If there be a discipline in which the Ameri- 

 cans are wanting, it is the discipline of awe and respect. 

 An austere and intense religion imposed on the Puritan 

 founders the discipline of respect; .... but this relig- 

 ion is dying out." An eminent English clergyman, the 

 Rev. Dr. Dale, who visited this country some years ago, 

 wrote on his return a little sketch of his impressions of 

 America, in which, after referring to the fact that the 

 children of Jonathan Edwards always rose from their 

 seats Avhen their father or mother came into the room, he 

 gravely informs the British public that this custom does 

 not exist in any of the families that showed him hospi- 

 tality! There is little reverence, and therefore little 

 authority, in many American homes, except that which 

 is exercised by children over their parents. The spirit 

 of self-assertion, which is characteristically American, 

 easily becomes impatient of restraint and often grows 

 lawless. There are no children in all Christendom who 

 stand in so great need, civil need, of a sense of divine 

 authority as American children. Many teachers and 

 school officials w^hose positions afford exceptional oppor- 

 tunities of observation might be quoted to show how 

 widespread among the young is the spirit of irreverence 

 and lawlessness. A word from the school commissioner 

 of Rhode Island must suffice. He says, "The spirit of 

 self-assertion, of insubordination, of dislike to all re- 

 straint, of oi^en antagonism to law,— all this is far more 

 prevalent to-day than ever before. " 



All this most vitally concerns the State. Here is an 

 evil which is great and prophetic of evil greater. How 

 shaU the State apply a remedy ? The school is the place 

 where she may touch the young with molding hand. 

 Shall she inspire them with a spirit of reverence by 

 secularizing the schools ? by purging text-books of every 



