IN an article which appeared the other day our orthodox contemporary,
the _Western Mail_, criticised certain late proceedings of the Merthyr
School Board relative to the Fourth R difficulty in Education. Those
proceedings, says that respectable journal, "were saved from being
utterly ludicrous only by the gravity of the subjects which were under
discussion." But for that consideration, the _Western Mail_ is of
opinion that it would have been good fun "to watch the efforts that were
being made to realise that most delusive of all theoretical
ideas--unsectarian as opposed to secular education." Perhaps most
persons will think that those efforts were, as far as they went, not
altogether unsuccessful, seeing that, after some discussion bearing on
theology, the Board concluded, on the motion of one of its principal
Members--a lady interested in the welfare of her species, MRS. CRAWSHAY
of Cyfartha--that the sole form of devotion, public or private, dictated
by the Founder of Christianity, "should be the sole form of public
devotion employed in the schools." The REV. JOHN GRIFFITHS, the Rector,
"intimated that he would be quite contented with the proposed limitation
of the form of prayer, provided that a doxology were added, recognising"
a doctrine which Unitarians do not recognise. The suggestion certainly
was creditable to a clergyman of the Church of England who keeps a
conscience. It was professional; but the doxology is one of those
special matters in the Fourth R on which professors, and doctors too,
differ. The orthodoxology of one denomination is the heterodoxology of
another.
There are forms of public devotion in common use as the prologue to
public dinners. They are invocations in which all present can join,
whatever their belief may be as to the Fourth R--if they have any belief
at all--and if they have none, what then? It would be conscientious of a
Church of England Clergyman to propose the superaddition of a Doxology
to a Grace; but would it be wise? Would it not probably set a company of
mixed denominations quarrelling over their soup?
In relation to food for the mind, MRS. CRAWSHAY proposed to deal with
the Fourth R in a way analogous to that which experience has proved the
most convenient method of adjoining it to food for the body. Herein she
has acted on principles which many persons, besides a writer in the
_Western Mail_, may call "illogical and unsafe," but no thinking man, or
woman either, would call those persons philosophers. If every School
Board were to legislate as to the Fourth R simply on the principle of
teaching just so much of it as children can be expected to understand,
would not their practical arrangement be of necessity about the same as
that recommended by MRS. CRAWSHAY?
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