EDUCATION : A SURVEY OF KECENT EDUCATIONAL THEORY. 171 



deal is lieard of a subject called Civics, which deals with the 

 purpose of institutions and a citizen's rights and duties. One of 

 our foremost writers on Education goes so far as to say that the 

 enlightenment of the democracy about facts of social import is 

 the most serious business that the school of the future has before 

 it. He holds that it is at least as important as religious in- 

 struction and cannot be separated from it.* The connexion 

 would appear to lie in the fact that a vote should be cast, not 

 only with knowledge but with a lofty motive ; and that the 

 latter belongs to ethics, which should have a religious sanction. 

 The religious side of education in this recent literature appears 

 "to be praised and left out in the cold,'' though it is asserted 

 that the age of attendance at the high school is that wherein 

 the tendency towards religion is strongest, and religious com- 

 munities are most frequently joined. f A wise utterance on this 

 subject is that of Dean Inge : Religion is seldom taught at all : 

 it is caught, by contact with someoite who has it.^ A neighbour 

 of his in the volume cited vehemently repudiates the notion that 

 the antagonism of science to religion is at an end, and insists that 

 agnosticism is the very life and mainspring of the former ;§ whence 

 we find ourselves in the presence of grave difficulties, if we suppose 

 that the views of these experts are all deserving of consideration. 

 How are we to deal with a subject which is of the first importance, 

 for which the pupils have a natural inclination, which, however, 

 cannot be taught, and is in conflict with other subjects which, 

 it is agreed, are indispensable ? To two statements on this 

 matter attention may be directed. One is that of Mr. J. Clarke, || 

 who (as it seems to me) rightly holds that the Sacred is something 

 analogous to, yet not identical with, the Good, the Beautiful and 

 the True, and like those other concepts deeply imbedded in human 

 nature. His idea is that the proper place for religious teaching 

 is the home. Since modern educational theory is apt to forget 

 the parent entirely, and regard the child as wholly the property 

 of the community, this notion is to be welcomed. It brings us, 

 however, to the difficulty of the boarding school, and it is 



* M. W. Keatinge, Studies in Education^ p. 196. 

 t The High School, p. 62. 



% Cambridge Essays on Education, p. 23. Such persons, according to 

 K. Richmond, op. cit., p. 242, " are very few." 

 § W. Bateson, p. 137. 

 j| The School and other Educators, p. 185. 



