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"Anys},st^m 0/ school trainin,j which sharpens and slnw,lhi'.ns the intellectiuil power., without at the same time afordin,j a source of restraint und countercheck to their tendency to evil, is a curse rather than a bhssing.^'-V wtor Cousin. ^otoxxto PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR. 18&1. LC 4-21 w Note. — Having reason to believe that large numbers of thoughtful men, whose opinions seldom find expression through the Press of the country, are in substantial accord with the views expressed in this Tract, the Author invites correspondence from such on the general question, and the best means of securing the desired end. Correspondents will oblige by intimating whether their letters are to be regarded as private, or otherwise. . JS" Copies of the Tract wiil be supplied at cost to any who may think it worthy of general circulation. m ♦ -■'■- EDUCATIONAL TRACTS FOR THE TIMES. IVo. I. SHALL OUE HIGHEK EDUCATION BE CHEISTIAN OR INFIDEL? BY THE R?:V. ALEXANDER SUTIIEULAND, D.D. AT intervals for more than fifty years the question of Higher Education has agitated the thought of this country, and passing events seem to indicate that once more it must be the subject of careful enquiry. Within the next decade — perhaps half that time — important questions affecting the educational policy of the country, especially of Ontario, will have to be settled, and a direction will be given to the currents of scholarship that in after years will be very hard to turn. It is important, tharefore, that the currents now set in motion be guided in safe directions, and that the policy adopted be such as will conserve the best interests of the State. The real facts must be brought to light ; the prejudice that has enshrouded the question must be dis- persed ; the principles which are to underlie and guide our edu- cational policy must be discussed, and a safe path marked out, if possible, for the future. In a word, the all-important question of Higher Education must be settled in such wise as shall meet the just demands of the people at large, and bring the advantages of liberal culture, under the best and safest auspices, within reach of the largest number of the young men — and young women too — of the nation. • Waiving subordinate points and side-issues, the great questions to be settled are these : — -^ f^ ■ ■'-'.': * Higher Education. 1. Sliall Higher Education be entirely secular, or shall the religious element, in the form of Christian evidences and Chris- tian ethics, be incorporated with the educational system of the country ? 2. Can the work of Higher Education be done most ef^.ciently by several independent universities, each with its own athliated schools, or by a single university with confederated colleges ? 3. Is it the duty of Government to provide entirely for the Higher Education of the country, or merely to aid and encourage independent universities in providing for it ? Each of the preceding questions is important ; each is worthy of discussion ; but I shall confine myself, in the present paper, to the first of the three. So far as this aspect of the problem is concerned, we live in perilous, times. In some quarters there is not merely a disposition to undervalue the religious element in education, there is a disposition to ignore it altogether, — to separate it utterly from our educational system,— to cast it out as unworthy a place in the curricula of our universities. Men sometimes speak of " Science and Religion," or " Culture and Religion," as though they were things entirely separate and distinct; while some speak of the " conflict" of science and re- ligion, and others try to " reconcile " science and religion, as if they were positively antagonistic. The thought is misleading; the divorce is unnatural. Culture and religion are not antagon- istic ; the one is the completion, or, rather let me say, the one is the soul of the other. I do not propose to defend the religious element in education. With those who' understand the question it needs no defence, but at once commends itself by its adaptation to the needs of the human mind. A non-Christian system of education needs defence, and^in the near future will require all the arguments that can be mustered in its support. It has been too much the fashion to treat what has been justly called a godless education with great deference, as though it were master of the situation, and could dictate its own terms. I repudiate the concession. A national system of education which excludes the religious ele- ment is a national wrong, and I do not hesitate to impench it as a standing menace to {national freedom and national stability, dangerous alike to the individual and to the State. Christian or Infidel — which ? T. A NoN-CiiHisTiAN Education is Defective, In the nature of things it must be so, because it omits a vast amount of important truth. Considering the wide range of sub- jects open lor investigation, human life is far too short to master them all ; but while we may be compelled to omit some — perhaps many — subjects from the curricula of our universities, we should see to it that the most important are included, and if character is to count for anything, there is no subject in the whole range of human studies that compares, in point of importance, with the great truths of God, and duty, and destiny. If life were limited to the few years we spend here, a subject more or less in a course of study might be of little moment ; but those who plan for a purely secular education, leave out the tremendous fact of man's immortality, and thus make a huge mistake at the very start. If man were only a superior animal, something might be said in favour of purely secular education ; but with an immortal nature to be trained and developed, what can be said for a system which expends' its efiforts upon one part of man's complex nature, leaving the higher and more important part untouched and un- cared for ? It \\\ a trite saying that " knowledge is power," but it is a power for good only as it is controlled by religious truth, which tills the raind with the noblest conceptions of God, of per- sonal responsibility, and of a future state. The most serious defect in a non-Christian education is that it supplies no adequate force for the development of moral character. If it be said that intellectual culture is sufficient for this purpose, I need only reply in the words of Herbert Spencer — a by no means partial witness — that " the belief in the moralizing effects of intellectual culture, flatly contradicted by facts, is absurd." If it be said that aisthetic culture is a sufficient substitute, I call upon John Ruskin — no mean authority — to reply, and this is his answer : " The period of perfect art is the period of decline. At ihe moment when a perfect picture appeared in Venice, a perfect statue m Florence, a perfect fresco in Rome, from that hour for- ward, probity, indu. ay, and courage were exiled from their walls." And if it be said that our colleges and universities should confine themselves strictly to secular topics, leaving religious truth to the Church and the Sunday-school, I cite Victor Cousin to the 6 Higher Education. stand, and I hear him testify that " any system of school train- ing which sharpens and strenj^thens Die intellectual powers, with- out at the same time affording a source of restraint and counter- check to their tendency to evil, is a curse rather than u blessing." II. A Non-Christian Education is Untrue. The primary object of all true education is to teach the indi- vidual mind to ilvmk ; and this ability to think should be made to pervade universal society. If we have labourers, their pickaxes and shovels should think ; if we have artizans, their spindles and shuttles should think ; if we have mechanics, their saws and planes, their anvils and hammers, their mallets and chisels, should think ; and, more important still, if we have voters their ballots should think. But while it is important that men should think, it is far more important that they should think true thoughts ; and our colleges and universities must largely decide whether the thought of the future shall be false or true. Now, I maintain that no man can think truly on any important subject who has not learned to think as a Christian, because without this qualification he is as one who omits the chief facts from his data, and the major premise from his argument. Does a man think truly in natural science who sees in all the pheno- mena of matter only the play of natural forces, and in its com- binations only a fortuitous concourse of atoms ? Does he think truly in history who never sees God's finger in the destinies of nations, nor hears His footfall in the march of the centuries ? Does he think truly in anatomy or physiology, -a ho sees no evi- dence of Divine wisdom in the human frame, so " fearfully and wonderfully made ?" I trow not. And as he does not think truly who excludes God from his thinking, so neither does he teach truly. He teaches only half-truths at best, and a half-truth is often as pernicious as a positive lie. III. A Non-Christian Education Tends toward Infidelity AND Atheism. This must be its tendency in the nature of things ; this is its, tendency as matter of fact. We must remember that education is carried on by a two-fold process, — the knowledge communi- \ Christian or Infidel — which? 7 cated and the impressions produced. Tlie one largely determines what the student shall know ; the other determines what he shall become. Now what are the impressions that will inevitably be left upon the mind of a youth by an education that is purely secular ? As a rule, the impressions will be that religion is a very secondary matter ; that it has no le<,'itiniate connection with mental development ; that it is out of place in the spheres of philosophy and science, and is antagonistic to the advanced thought of the age. If, under these circumstances, a student retains his belief in the Bible, and his reverence for God and religion, it is not because of his education, but in spite of it. Some, I am aware, maintain a contrary opinion; but they over- look most important facts. They seem to take for granted that a human mind is but like a glass vessel in A^hich a certain quantity of something we call " knowledge " is stored, which can be drawn upon at pleasure, but which has no effect upon the texture of the vessel ; that whether the contents are health- ful food, corrosive acids, or deadly poison, the glass remains uninjured. This is a terrible mistake. Knowledge introduced into, and impressions made upon, the mind do not remain dis- tinct from it. They are woven into the very texture, so to speak, of the mind itself, giving new directions to thought, new colourings to our perceptions of truth, and a new bias to the moral nature. Moreover the years usuallj' spent in college are the very years when the human mind receives its most decisive bent ; when teaching, combined with surrounding in- fluences, will do most to determine what the future character shall be, — the years, in a word, when thought crystallizes into lasting conviction ; when a permanent direction is given to moral tendencies ; when habits both of thinking and acting receive a bias which is not easily changed. As a rule, the influence of purely secular colleges has been dis- astrous upon the thought of those who liave been educated in them. I say as a rule, because there are exceptions to this rule as to every other. But the exceptions have been where colleges, entirely secular as regards the curriculum, have been manned by Christian professors whose character and influence compensated, to some extent at least, for the absence of religious truth from 8 Higher Education. the course of study. But where this compensating element is not found, the effects are always disastrous. If some reader suggests that my theory is contradicted by facts, I sadly answer, Not so; the facts prove my theory, as they who have given careful attention to the subject know right well. Tliis is the case in the United States, where some prominent State universities have become so notoriously anti-Christian in their influence lihat I am told, on good authority, it is almost an exception for a student to go through the course without having his religious faith undermined, or at least greatly shaken. In India similar results have happened on a large scale. In that country colleges and a university were established, from which all Christian teaching was rigorously excluded. Western philosophy and science soon upheaved the foundations of Eastern superstition, and heathenism among the students tottered to its fall. But alas! the education which was digging, really though uninten- tionally, at the foundations of heathenism, put nothing better in its place, and so disastrous have been the results that, within a few years, leaders of thought in India, including persons high in office, have been discussing the advisableness of handing over the State colleges to the Churches, as the only means of saving the country from the leadership of a generation of educated atheists. IV. A Non-Christian Education is Fraught with Peril to THE State. The foundation of national safety is national virtue, the moral sentiments of the people, rectitude in the private life of the citizen. But moral sentiments and moral rectitude must be sustained by adequate moral forces, and ibese Christianity alone supplies. To quote the emphatic language of Washington, — " Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles." All history testifies that intellectual culture is no safeguard from moral vileness, ending in national degeneration and decay. Egypt, once in tb ^ van of civilization and learning, is to- day "the basest oi nations," and the once mighty empires of Greece and Rome tell the same sad story. Where shall we find such philosophy, such oratory, such art, f,s in the land that gave to the world a Homer, a Pericles, a Demosthenes, an Aristotle ? X. N "V. N Christian or Infidel — "which ? 9 Where slmll we find such jmisprndenco, such statesniansliip, such eloquence, as in the empije thatcouhl boast of a Justinian, a C^'sar, a Cicero, and a Tully ? But wliere are Greece and Ivome to-day? They have fallen. Their civilization lacked the conservino; element: the salt was without savour, and was cast out to be trodden under feet of men. Such examples are full of warning. The causes which led to national downfall then, are in operation to-day, and history may repeat herself nearer home than we a])preheud. If our civiliza- tion is to be proj^ressive and permanent ; if our institutions are to rest upon solid foun