LETTERS ON BIBLE TEACHING 



369 



school children, circumstanced as they were, is sometimes 

 misunderstood to be an endorsement of the vulgar idea of it. 

 But it always remained his belief " that the principle of strict 

 secularity in State education is sound, and must eventually 

 prevail." * 



His views on dogmatic teaching in State schools, may 

 be gathered further from two letters at the period when an 

 attempt was being made to upset the so-called compromise. 



The first appeared in the Times of April 29, 1893 : — 



Sir — In a leading article of your issue of to-day you state, 

 with perfect accuracy, that I supported the arrangement respect- 

 ing religious instruction agreed to by the London School Board 

 in 1871, and hitherto undisturbed. But you go on to say that 

 " the persons who framed the rule " intended it to include 

 definite teaching of such theological dogmas as the Incarnation. 



I cannot say what may have been in the minds of the 

 framers of the rule ; but, assuredly, if I had dreamed that any 

 such interpretation could fairly be put upon it, I should have 

 opposed the arrangement to the best of my ability. 



In fact, a year before the rule was framed I wrote an article 

 in the Contemporary Review, entitled " The School Boards — • 

 what they can do and what they may do," in which I argued 

 that the terms of the Education Act excluded such teaching as 

 it is now proposed to include. And I support my contention by 

 the following citation from a speech delivered by Mr. Forster 

 at the Birkbeck Institution in 1870: — 



I have the fullest confidence that in the reading and explain- 

 ing of the Bible what the children will be taught will be the 

 great truths of Christian life and conduct, which all of us desire 

 they should know, and that no efforts will be made to cram into 

 their poor little minds theological dogmas which their tender 

 age prevents them from understanding. — I am. Sir, your 

 obedient servant, T. H. Huxley. 



HoDESLEA, Eastbourne, April 28. 



* As a result of some remarks of Mr. Clodd's on the matter in Pio- 

 neers of Evolution, a correspondent, some time after, wrote to him as 

 follows ; 



"In the report upon State Education in New Zealand, 1895, drawn 

 up by R. Laishly, the following occurs, p. 13 : — ' Professor Huxley 

 gives me leave to state his opinion to be that the principle of strict 

 secularity in State education is sound, and must eventually prevail.'" 



