SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. 387 



delity must be the result of a purely secular education, and this 

 statement has been supported by persons the most competent to 

 form a judgment in the matter, viz., by the clergy and by men 

 eminent for their piety. The fact is, that the system of purely 

 secular education involves, on the part of the State, complete 

 indifference in matters of religion a principle which, I dare affirm, 

 is antagonistic to the very spirit of Christianity ; and I contend 

 that this indifference proclaimed by the State, contrasted with its 

 zeal for the propagation of secular education, must necessarily tend 

 to create a correspondent feeling in the population. Objection- 

 able as the principle is, it becomes particularly so under certain 

 circumstances, viz., when no dependence can be placed as is the 

 case in Trinidad on ignorant and indifferent parents, or an inade- 

 quate clergy. Now, the question arises, ought the Government to as- 

 sume the charge of bestowing religious instruction on the children 

 of public schools ? Evidently not, except, however, where the 

 entirety, or at least, an immense majority of the people should 

 prove to be of the same creed ; but such a pretension would be- 

 come the most cruel tyranny, where there exists, as in this island, 

 a marked diversity of persuasions. I consider it, however, to be 

 the right, as well as the duty of the Government, to make provi- 

 sion for the religious instruction of youth, without interfering, 

 nevertheless, with the religious tenets in which pupils may have 

 been reared. Various plans may be devised for carrying out this 

 active neutrality : first, by setting apart a day in the week, on 

 which the pupils would be taught by the ministers of their respec- 

 tive denominations; secondly, by appointing certain hours or 

 class-days, in or on which those belonging to the same persuasion 

 would be assembled in some convenient room within the school- 

 premises, there to be privately instructed by their ministers ; 

 thirdly, by selecting a day in the week when, after school hours, 

 the pupils of each denomination could be drafted off, under the 

 conduct of their monitors, to the place of meeting designated by 

 the minister for religious instruction ; fourthly, by granting to 

 each denomination, in proportion to the number of its members, a 

 certain sum for educational purposes, it being imperative on each 

 to bestow a secular as well as a religious education, The first 

 plan is that which is followed here, and I am bound to confess it 

 has not answered; for the following obvious reasons : indifference 

 in the minds of parents, reluctance on the part of children, and 



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