BY THE REV. D. BEATON, WICK.
WHEN the Munro Act was passing through Parliament, it was discovered that, while religious instruction in Roman Catholic and Episcopalian (Voluntary) Schools was made mandatory, no provision was made for religious instruction in the national schools. The Scottish Secretary, Mr. Munro, of whom, from the training he had in the Free Church Manse of Alness, better things had been expected, seemed unaccountably reluctant to gratify the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the people of Scotland. At length, owing to the agitation for the amendment of the Bill in this respect, Mr. Munro so far yielded, and inserted a clause enacting “that Education Authorities shall be at liberty to continue the said custom” of giving instruction in religion to children whose parents did not object to the instruction so given. This clause is anything but satisfactory, but it is not so much with the defects of the Munro Act in its provision in the one case, and in its want of provision in the other, of religious instruction in the national schools we presently take to do, but with the attempt recently made by the larger Churches—Established and United Free—of inoculating the minds of teachers and scholars with the so-called assured results of German scholarship. We say “German scholarship,” for, though the compilers of the bibliography appended to the Syllabus of Religious Instruction in Schools* have not mentioned many of the works by German scholars in their list, yet no one conversant with the methods and theories of advanced British scholars have any doubt as to the masters they follow.
In a prefatory note the reader is informed that “the syllabus has been authorised by the General Assemblies of the two Churches and by the Educational Institute.” The syllabus is an attempt to provide a scheme for religious instruction in the national schools. It is arranged on the concentric system; the whole scheme falls into four stages or cycles, and each cycle extends over three years. On a careful examination of the plan, we feel it is ill suited for helping the teachers in giving religious instruction, which to many of them is not a labour of love; its very cumber-someness is fitted to destroy any usefulness it might otherwise have. But this forms a very small count in our objection to this syllabus. In Appendix III. the compilers give an “Annotated Bibliography,” and the works of leading British and American Higher Critics are given as if these represented the last word on the subject dealt with. Among these are Dods, Driver (“the recognised English authority for a full study of the subject”)—O. T. Introduction, we are told), Buchanan, Gray, Moffatt, George Adam Smith, Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible (a first-rate guide “to the carefully weighed judgments of the best modern scholars on all Biblical questions” we are told), W. Robertson Smith, etc., etc. We have no hesitation in saying that, if teachers and pupils imbibe the teaching of these scholars, any faith they once had in the Bible as the infallible Word of God will get a rude shock. It is not a hopeful sign for the religious instruction of our children when the Assemblies of the Established and United Free Churches recommend such authors as guides, though, from the recent history of these Churches, one might not have looked for anything better.
The Syllabus is also seriously defective in its Shorter Catechism scheme. It recommends the omission of the following questions:—(7) What are the decrees of God? (8) How doth God execute His decrees? (15) What was the sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created? (16) Did all mankind fall in Adam’s first transgression? (17) Into what estate did the fall bring mankind? (18) Wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell? (19) What is the misery of that estate whereinto man fell? (20) Did God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery? (21) Who is the Redeemer of God’s elect? (22) How did Christ, being the Son of God, become man? (47) What is forbidden in the first commandment? (51) What is forbidden in the second commandment? (52) What are the reasons annexed to the second commandment? (55) What is forbidden in the third commandment? (56) What is the reason annexed to the third commandment? (61) What is forbidden in the fourth commandment? (62) What are the reasons annexed to the fourth commandment? (65) What is forbidden in the fifth commandment? (66) What is the reason annexed to the fifth commandment? (69) What is forbidden in the sixth commandment? (72) What is forbidden in the seventh commandment? (75) What is forbidden in the eighth commandment? (78) What is forbidden in the ninth commandment?
The reader, in looking over the questions omitted, will have no difficulty in coming to a conclusion as to the reasons why our children are not to be taught the truths set forth in them in the public schools. The controversy is long-standing, and deplorable days have come upon us, when men in responsible positions in the Church and the educational world can boldly set aside without compunction such fundamental truths. It may be well seen from the views of their leading men how far the larger Presbyterian bodies have drifted from “the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints.”
There are some other defects in this Syllabus that are far from satisfactory, but these must be passed over in the meantime. Sufficient has been written to show that all who love the good old doctrines of the Bible will from their hearts wish this Syllabus a speedy and inglorious end. It is to be hoped that Education Authorities throughout the country will leave it severely alone. Notwithstanding that it goes forth with the imprimatur of the General Assemblies of the Established and United Free Churches and the Educational Institute of Scotland, no Education Authority is under the slightest obligation to adopt it.
* A Syllabus of Religious Instruction for Schools compiled by a Joint-Committee representing the Church of Scotland, the United Free Church of Scotland, and the Educational Institute of Scotland.